Title: Words We Could Never Speak
Summary: The desire to know the story behind this desolate domicile is much too powerful. The unheard, untold stories radiating from every object in the room consumes you. Controls you. It has played witness to something incredible. Sad. Heartbreaking. Exciting...
Rating: K+
Time Period: Years into the future…
Pairings: Whatever you want with House in it.
Disclaimer: I do not own House, M.D. or any of its characters nor am I making any money. At all.
A/N: I wrote this entire story on paper. And let me tell you, it was quite the experience. I believe I prefer it to typing. I don't know why. It was actually more relaxing. Review if you want, I won't ask again. Don't if you don't. It's all good. I wrote this for my own pleasure, but if you like it then okay. I just had to write it. It came to me while I was lying in bed. Just a glimpse into how my thoughts keep me awake at night.
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A shaky camera pans out across the vast expanse of a dark room, seemingly empty, desolate, devoid of any touch of personal effects. It stops for a moment, zooming in on the interruption of a beautiful baby grand piano displaying itself proudly, strongly, a miraculously beautiful eyesore among the lesser objects of the room.
A small, worn in couch, a battered and bruised coffee table, a tall, crooked coat rack nestling a long, old, tweed suit jacket.
If one were to believe in the impossible they would stay with this room for restless hours on end. Simply waiting for some unreal phenomenon to occur. That if you concentrated hard enough, the inanimate objects explicitly limited to this one room, this one world, might somehow confide in you and breathe in a new life. And you wouldn't run; you wouldn't fear.
You wouldn't want to.
The desire to know the story behind this desolate domicile is much too powerful. The unheard, untold stories radiating from every object in the room consumes you. Controls you. It has played witness to something incredible. Sad. Heartbreaking. Exciting. You don't know what it knows. And you never will.
But it's best that way.
Each crack in the hard wood, every stain in the carpet has soaked much more than wine or pizza grease. It will tell its story from deep under the floorboards. Stains penetrating so deep it cuts you without your knowledge. The stains of so many blood drops, tear drops, sweat drops. They hold the words of a world of the soul of someone you have never had the pleasure, the displeasure to witness. They hold the pain of only one man. But it is not you.
You will never understand.
The camera shakes again, following the rhythmic ticking being sung passionately from somewhere. The camera stops, finding the offending object.
Another witness.
Another character in this dangerously sadistic game of life. The ever losing game, the un-winnable war…the unattainable cardinal sin…of love. Fear. Regret.
The camera lens focuses its revealing view upon the object in question, a dusty antique clock. The melodic sound speaks volumes out upon the room, occupying every drawn out second with another desperate scream of beautiful silence splicing sound.
You think it is trying to tell you something.
But you only hear a tick…a tock…they are not words. Nothing here can produce the words to explain. And you can't see but you can feel. You feel the pain as every object in the room cries out inaudibly to you. It reaches out to your heart. But doesn't grasp it. It begs in a desperate but futile attempt for someone to listen. To finally hear them. To listen to their story.
To his story.
But will anyone ever hear? Really know? Understand?
Maybe one day.
But for now they will live on for another exciting, reckless, eternity. And collect more stories. None as heartbreaking. But stories nonetheless.
It's what they do.
They are the only ones who play true witness to scenes far worse, horrific than murder. They watch as the delusion of unrequited love is lost.
And they wait.
For the words they can not express…
To be released.
Another sound resonates from across the deafeningly silent room. This one is real though. And it comes from something real.
Someone real.
No more soulless objects dying to express emotion in the form of nothingness. Only images and scars. Stains, dents, and scratches to alleviate the pressure strangling someone else's heart.
Because he is finally here.
The camera once again shakes; it bobs left to right, up and down as it focuses itself upon the man entering the room. He makes his way to the loudest piece of furniture in the room as the camera races to keep up with the man, however slow his pace has been set. And you know it's slowed dramatically throughout the merciless years.
The camera finally reaches its destination and it stops. Once again you feel the un-welcomed pain consume you as you have never felt before. Yet it is only a bi-product, the smallest portion possible of this man's. You have not seen or talked to him in years but you feel his pain inside you. Eating you alive like a disease with no escape.
The camera once again focuses. The man has lowered himself sorrowfully onto the piano chair. He isn't facing you though. You take in the condition of his back as is the only thing you can do. His hair is thin but still there, white as the purest of all snow.
But anything but pure would define him.
Who with a pure essence about them could captivate your heart in the worst possible way so easily?
Your blind eyes travel down his back, hunched over in defeat. The posture of someone who has given up everything and received nothing positive in return.
And finally that cane.
It speaks to you so strongly its breath would dominate that of the deadliest of all monsoons. But you are only capable of hearing its muffled screams. It's been silenced long ago by the white-knuckled grip of the man above it. Cutting off its air and being burdened by the most important task of carrying the man's weight like a crutch.
But crutches come and go, the man might tell you.
Canes are forever.
And sixty years with this man was more than generations, more than all of history spent in every history book ever manufactured, ever thought about combined. Because his story is much darker. Happier. Painful. Breathtaking.
He doesn't dare press a key on the magnificent baby grand and you are grateful. You do not wish to hear the death curling scream capable of that instrument. The very instrument he has no doubt poured his heart to on countless occasions. The energy of his pain being transferred like electricity from the center of his pained heart all the way being released through his fingertips.
The music of a broken man.
Instead he turns, rotating in his seat slowly.
He is in no hurry.
He has lived his life.
His story is sadly ended.
And although the camera has traveled the world, every street in New Jersey, it does not hold enough film to capture as much as the occupants of this room ever have. But it continues anyway, to the man's face.
The lines on his face stand out in the dark as craters, only accentuated by the soft light of the unknowing outside world, peering into the room curiously. The light tickling his face is only swallowed viciously by the stubble lining his jaw and covering his cheeks. His five o'clock shadow that has never failed to keep him company throughout his long journey.
The camera shakes again, this time like a panicked shiver, as it meets the man eye to eye.
The voices of every object in the room meet together in an exaggerated crescendo but are overpowered by the intensity of this man's eyes. The only visible thing to stand the unmerciful test of time. It is burdened by the pain all around him, but seems to have held up strongly against the interference of this pain.
The two powerful blue orbs burn brightly and shed a new light upon the darkness consuming the depths of the room.
The voices hush.
Every unutterable word is lost once again.
Everything breathes a labored breath outward and somehow your pain that was never meant to be your own condenses, and vanishes into these eyes.
You are free.
But you know in your now released heart that he will never be.
You take the first real breath you feel you have taken in this now unfamiliar place but are too stunned to speak. You are lost in this man's eyes.
You are in awe.
As you always have been.
You can only wait for him to finally speak the words that everything else was unable to.
So you wait.
And no matter how long it takes…you couldn't care less.
He's already felt your heart with his piercing eyes.
You've been disconnected from him for so long now, but within these few moments he's penetrated through your skin and into your soul, searching and reaching things untouched for as long as you can remember. He is the only one who was ever able to see these things inside of you.
You couldn't leave now if you wanted.
If his eyes held yours while he asked you, you would gladly give your own life to hear the story of his.
This, you do know.
So you wait.