Disclaimer: I do now own House, M.D. or anything associated with it.
A/N- I wrote this story for my creative writing class, so it's a little more discriptive than what I would usually do. I had House in mind when I was writing, obviously, so I hope it's alright!
The Piano
It was a small, old-fashioned furnished room tucked out of the way between his long-dead grandfather's old study and his grandmother's parlor where she entertained guests. They were usually old crones that sucked down wine or bloody Marys as though it was water from the Fountain of Youth—except it didn't grant them everlasting youth and vibrancy. Their boobs practically sagged to the floor, wearing over-long pearl necklaces to distract from their over-long breasts; a short necklace would have drawn attention to the fact that they about four feet lower than where they should be. Their raspy voices would drone and cackle on and on about so-and-so and everybody's mother and their inappropriate neighbor and how their family must be just so disappointed.
His parents would bring him to visit his paternal grandmother about twice a month, and he would suffer through five tortuous minutes of poking and prodding and ooh-ing (without fail there was always the dreadful, "His eyes are so blue, Fran! Just so blue! Like skies and oceans! I bet all the girls love them!") from the wrinkly hags before he was allowed to dart from the room like a convict should run if he dropped the soap in the shower. It was then that he would come to this room, because it was so dreadfully gloomy and unused that no one in their right mind would enter if they didn't want to suffer a bout of immediate depression.
But Greg liked the dark brown walls, the tall dark mahogany wardrobe that was scant inches from scraping the slightly crumbling ceiling tile. The bookshelf was stuffed with hundreds of thick, dusty books with pages practically falling from the destroyed, worn binding. There were two ornate side tables beside the fifty-year old flower-patterned sofa that made themselves the home of two antique Tiffany lamps, the only items in the room not coated in a thick layer of dust.
It was Greg's very misfortune that he had been born with a higher IQ than any of his sixteen year old peers, and even some of the adults around him. He found the tedious chatter of the seventy-somethings in the next room more frightening than a kindergartener presented with a Calculus test and told to complete it in less than two minutes or he would be bound to repeat kindergarten forever. Greg needed to be mentally stimulated in other ways. He liked to read the books on the bookshelf whose words hadn't seen the light of day in twenty years. He liked the musty smell the old pages emitted.
But what Greg liked most about the room was the old piano that stood in front of one of the room's two windows. With the off-white curtains drawn back, the sunlight would hit the particles of dust that sparkled like hundreds of tiny diamonds before they retired on the top of the piano, their beauty diminished as they joined together on the wooden surface to resemble ash.
When Greg was around eight years old, he would act up in school, fighting with other students and purposely antagonizing his teachers, his mother had come up with an outlet for his frustration and creativity in the form of music. She had persuaded him to take a few lessons, to see if he would take to it.
He had never turned back.
Although Greg still caused trouble, he did it less often, as he would take his anger and frustration out in the tone of the songs he played.
His long fingers ran over the smooth ivory keys, absentmindedly playing a ditty he knew by heart. He glanced up and looked out the window, spotting his father raking a pile of leaves under the large maple tree in the yard, the frown on his face growing deeper the more he raked. His father would be expecting Greg to help him when he was done with his grandmother and her friends, but as always his son would disappoint him. What use was it to rake the leaves into piles when his father would eventually yank the rake from his grasp, tell him he was doing it wrong, and then proceed to fix the pile himself, muttering about incompetent sons who didn't even try to learn.
His large blue eyes removing their gaze from his father, Greg watched his fingers dance slowly over the keys, before they drifted shut as he let the music drift through him. He could hear the muffled nonsensical ramblings of the women in the next room, the random creaks of the old floorboards. The musty smell of dust and mothballs and old furniture filled his nostrils, but the scent was comforting.
It was maybe an hour later, when a new sound joined in with what had become white noise to Greg. Muffled footsteps against the carpet in the hallway—they were short and staccato, determined and militaristic. The footsteps of a marine. His fingers slowed their movements on the keys, abruptly stopping just as the door opened.
Blue eyes met hazel and stared at one another for a few, tense seconds before his father barked, "What the hell have you been doing, Boy? You're not here to waste time, you're here to pick up the yard before Colonel Hayes comes for dinner. "
"Just wanted to play a little before I raked the leaf you hadn't gotten to yet," Greg snapped back, his tone appropriately snarky, instinctively on guard.
"I didn't survive Korea playing the piano."
"No, you survived playing with guns, so can I have one?" Greg widened his eyes deliberately, jutting his lower lip out in a pleading pout. If his father hadn't been sporting a crew cut, he knew his hair would be rising in a fury. "How do you expect me to survive warzone New England without protection? Don't let the white picket fences fool you! People like Grandma Fran are packing everywhere in the suburbs."
His father gripped the door frame tightly, the knuckles of his hands turning bone-white. His face was blotching in his attempt to suppress the rage that was overwhelming him. Greg could practically hear the man's teeth grinding from across the room.
"Just don't open your smartass mouth when Colonel Hayes gets here, Boy," his father finally gritted out, "I'll see to your punishment when we get home."
Stiffly, he turned and left, his footsteps fading as he went down the hallway. Greg turned back to face the keys, his eyes drifting to take in every detail of the piano, glancing up once or twice to eye the immaculate yard. Greg knew he would pay dearly for provoking his father; his father's punishments were always more fit for soldiers than for teenagers. There was not much he could do now that Greg was older—he'll probably lock him out of the house again.
Slowly, deliberately, Greg took his finger and set it to the dusty surface of the piano. Dragging it downwards, he wrote,
I HATE YOU.
He stared at the words for a few moments, a heavy weight in the pit of his stomach. There was no release from his shoulders. The words no longer brought any satisfaction to Greg, and he abruptly wiped them clean with his hand.
"Greg?" His mother's voice sounded from the doorway.
"Yeah?" he acknowledged her, not turning around to face her.
"You're father looked angry. Are you two fighting again?" she sounded worried. He turned slightly so that she was in his peripheral vision, but he could not look her in the eye. He couldn't stand lying to his mother.
"Dad's always angry. Don't worry, Mom."
"He is not always angry," her voice was closer, and this time he turned to face her fully. "I don't know why you two can't just get along."
Greg shrugged. His mother wrapped her arms around him. He leaned into her embrace.
"Just don't antagonize him tonight, honey," she murmured by his ear before releasing him and taking a step back, her own blue eyes scanning his unsmiling face. "And don't tell me it's all him. Because you don't help matters, either."
"Yeah, sure, Mom. Okay."
At dinner, it was about thirty seconds before Greg was already annoyed. Three of his grandmother's friends were eating dinner with them and the Colonel and his wife. They were cackling like the three witches from Macbeth.
"Oh, young Gregory, how handsome you've gotten!"
"How tall!"
"How blue your eyes have gotten! Like the sky!"
"Like oceans!"
"I bet the girls just love them!"
"I know I sure do!"
"I have a granddaughter just your age! I should introduce you. She's very pretty."
"Natasha? Lovely girl!"
"Yes, my lovely Natasha."
Thirty seconds in and Greg was just wishing for someone to have a stroke to distract them from focusing on him and his physical attributes. He felt like a piece of meat, and it was all together too disturbing being cooed at by women who were close to death. He had also met Natasha before, and he knew for a fact that she had a parrot-nose and the closest thing a person can get to having a unibrow without crossing the line into actual unibrow territory. But it was toeing a fine line.
Colonel Hayes cleared his throat. "So, Greg, are you doing well in school?"
"I suppose."
"He would be doing better if three of his teachers didn't catch him cheating on tests," his father said, cutting his steak into precise pieces. "He can't play lacrosse for the rest of the year because of it."
"Greg plays the piano," his mother thankfully cut in before a fight could escalate between father and son. "He was playing before you arrived. I always love hearing him play. We were thinking of getting him a guitar, if his grades keep up—they're perfectly good grades."
"You play piano?" Mrs. Hayes leaned forward, gripping her silverware tightly and widening her dull eyes as if nothing was more exciting to her than the prospect of a sixteen year old boy being able to hit a few notes on an instrument. "Would you play for us after we eat?"
Greg shrugged. "I guess. Sure. Okay."
It was twenty minutes later and everybody was gathered in the dusty old room, watching Greg as he adjusted himself on the piano bench. He could feel the stares boring into his shoulder blades as he took in a few deep breaths, lightly resting his fingers on the keys. He decided to play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata—it was his mother's favorite.
His fingers knew where to go by heart, he didn't even have to think of what came next. It was because of this that the song seemed to end quickly, and the claps of the guests interrupted the musical flow he felt within.
"Lovely, lovely!"
"How beautiful!"
Greg saw that his mother's eyes were bright with unshed tears, her hands clasped under her chin as a smile played on her mouth. Colonel Hayes was nodding approvingly, clapping Greg roughly on the shoulder.
Blue eyes met hazel, and Greg saw that his father's face was stiff. The marine nodded once, before looking away from his son. Greg turned back to face the piano, his hands poised over the keys once more as the guests begged him to play another.
It wasn't quite gone, but a small weight had lifted from his shoulders.
Thanks for reading! Please R&R and tell me what you think!