Disclaimer: House isn't mine, and neither is the quote at the end (in italics). It's taken from Paul Auster's "Oracle Night"
Just a short piece, but it does at least mean that my writers block is over! (So Solace should have an update pretty soon)
The day had begun late, after a tumultuous night of insomnia relenting into smattered dreams. At precisely 11AM House had awoken, never really making it past the point where the real world is blurred and softened, but sleep is nothing more than one's mind being given over completely to imaginative musings, with a vivid memory in the forefront of his thoughts. So clear and defined it could have been real but for the absence of preceding and consequential events, House remembered the kiss.
If dreams were an expression of a person's deepest desires, hopes and fears then House had just had a revelation forced upon him by his subconscious. The kiss, the moment, the bright lights along with the soft lips and the barest second of a warm tongue did not leave his mind as he ate a sparse breakfast and, nor as he set about making the day numb.
House read the opening pages of the book he had purchased the previous day and was instantly drawn into the narrative flow. When he closed the book he found himself satisfactorily compelled to re-open it. House stood in front of his stereo, placed neatly in one of the mahogany bookcases set into his wall and contemplated which disc to play. He rejected the idea of playing music using his iPod-dock, instead wanting media that had a tangible quality.
He pressed open. The player's door slid back and waited, forcing him to choose. Opening the third drawer, House's thoughts took on the prose style of the book he had been reading and he talked himself through making a selection.
Sitting on the couch, book in hand, he saw two empty glasses on his coffee table, faint rings on the wood where coasters had been neglected, and questioned the reality of his dream. Bright lights, sharp colours, soft lips and a warm tongue. A delicious shiver ran down his spine.
It had been tipping point. More-than-friendly verbal sparring and less-than-innocent contact became more-than-friendly-and-less-than-innocent kissing. Or it House's mind it had. In House's mind, in the half-world, he had said goodbye at the door with a brush of fingers across an arm, and a short kiss. In the real world he had done what he'd always done and always would do: said goodbye at the door with a brush of fingers across an arm and nothing more, except perhaps an odd feeling of dissatisfaction.
House paused. He had dreamt of kissing his best friend. He had dreamt of kissing Wilson. He had dreamt of kissing Wilson, and in the dream he had been happy. It was just one more of those dreams that were as impossible as all those in which his cane had stayed in the store. House continued reading. He must lure himself away from the false memories of a life that no longer belongs to him, and because the manuscript demands total surrender in order to be read , an unremitting attentiveness of both body and mind, he can forget who he was when he is lost in the pages of the novel.