Fic-like products of boredom again. Stolen from Aribbonofblack who attributed it to Anamatics.
"Pick a novel (or book), preferably one of more than 100 pages in length, and take the first (full) sentence off of the top of page; 10, 20, 30, 40 & ect. Until you have ten (or thereabouts) quotes. Take said ten (or so) quotes and write drabbles based on them. You can use the whole quote, or just a section, even a word – all that matters is that you stay faithful to the first sentence part of the challenge."
I chose David Sedaris's, Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim
--
If you do not immediately step forward with that candy, you will never again experience freedom, happiness or the possibility of my warm embrace.
"Gimmie." House said, reaching across the table.
"No." Wilson reared back, pulling along his tray. The mini Snickers bar embedded in his icing wobbled a bit as it was moved.
"Give me." House said, slowly and deliberately.
"No. It's mine. Get your own."
House stared him down, slowly raising an eyebrow and licking his lips. Wilson found himself fixated on the route the tongue made across skin, teeth, the roof of House's mouth. He gasped, then sighed and passed the piece of cake across the table.
"You suck," Wilson said.
"And you love it." House replied, taking a victorious bite.
--
There were those who bounced back and forth between one and the other , but most people tended to choose a landscape and stick to it.
"What is that?" House asked as he entered the room.
Wilson froze. "What?"
"That?" House said, pointing with his cane at the framed painting leaning against a wall.
"A gift."
House sneered at the generic mountain and winding country road.
"It's terrible."
"A patient did it."
"It's terrible. It has two seasons."
"Huh?"
House waved his hand along the right side. "It's autumn in the trees but the fields are like spring."
"I'll be sure to tell him."
"He's still alive?"
"In remission actually."
House smiled. "Good."
"Why?"
"Because he won't notice us chucking it."
"Chucking?"
"Off the roof, preferably."
--
This drabble has been moved to Speech Shorts.
--
The others muttered in agreement, and when Walt refused to back down, I gathered the deck and tapped it commandingly upon the tabletop.
After the Wilson fiasco, the guys had grown successively more unruly. Demanding names for instance, starting with Walt (previously Bus Stop Guy) and moving on to more outrageous suggestions.
That they talk while playing for instance.
House poured himself a drink and began discussing his work for the CIA.
In stark, grave details he discussed a certain foreign dignity coming for a visit and leaving the country in a body bag.
Tax Accountant, now Jeff, scoffed. "I don't buy it."
"You'd be surprised how many security guards overlook a cripple," House said.
The game fell silent and stayed that way.
--
For as long as I could remember, he'd been telling us that it didn't matter what other people thought: their judgment was crap, a waste of time, baloney.
"Stop," House said, pushing him back.
"You goddamn hypocrite."
"Stop," House repeated in a low, even voice. His eyes narrowed on a mob of nurses moving together to the cafeteria.
"I don't care," Wilson said, throwing his arms around House's shoulders and kissing him. House tensed, but opened his mouth to the demanding tongue. The nurses flooded around them, a stream of pastel scrubs.
They parted slowly, Wilson hesitant to release House's lower lip.
"I think they like it." Wilson said, nodding his head to the now swinging cafeteria doors.
"I don't care," House said, leaning in for another kiss.
--
So we go for a swim in the ocean and…
"House!" Wilson called. He stood in the shallows, a scratchy beach towel over his wet skin, still radiating heat from a tan that did nothing to warm him in the rapidly cooling night air.
House was out too far, past the breaks. The water was cold now, getting dark and dangerous.
"House! It's late! Come back!"
House's progress stopped and he treaded water steadily, craning his head to hear.
"Come in!"
House looked back at the horizon longingly for a moment, then surged forward, awkward, in poor form, but as long as he was in the water, strong and fast.
--
I think is was her money that sent my sister Gretchen to the Rhode Island School of Design and sent my sister Tiffany to a horrible but very expensive reform school in Maine.
"You told me that part already." House said.
Wilson took another sip of his glass of wine. "I did?"
"Yeah." They sat over dirty plates, House's glares fending off the over-eager waiters. "So what did you do with Great Aunt Whoever's money?"
"I was 19, what do you think I did?"
"Bought a car?"
"Nope, better."
"Bought a boat? Bought a hooker?"
"I lived in New York for three months."
House laughed. "Why?"
"I was going to be an actor."
House smiled kindly but disguised it by throwing another mean look at a busboy. He leaned closer. "Tell me more."
--
"I ought to kick ya'll's asses," he said.
"Wanna try?" House asked, raising his silver handled cane menacingly.
The man lifted his hands in surrender as he backed away. Wilson wasn't sure if he was afraid of the heavy stick or less willing to beat up a man with a handicap.
"You shouldn't do that," he chided softly, watching the man return to his table.
"I touched your back. I wasn't even doing anything."
"You shouldn't antagonize them."
"Fuck them." House didn't cuss often, preferring instead to rely on his wit. Wilson nodded, understanding, and leaned into House's shaking hand as it rubbed the small of his back.
--
Did they see us as just another crying mother and her stoned gay son, sitting in a station wagon and listening to a call-in show about birds, or did they imagine, for just one moment, that we might be special?
"Mom," House said, then stopped.
She was crying still, but slower now, wearily.
"Mom."
"Well, we can't tell your father."
"Yeah, of course not." House looked out the window, wondering if he was doomed eternally to feel, around either parent, like sixteen years old.
"I love you Greg, I do. I just don't understand why you do these things."
House swallowed a comment, saying instead, "Me neither, Mom. Troublemaker I guess."
"Oh no, Gregory." She smiled faintly, laying a hand over the handle of his cane, touching his fingers. "Don't say that. You aren't trouble. You're just …different."
House smiled.
--
Said there was no way he could have the flu in September.
Wilson slowly opened the exam room door.
House was holding his head. "Well, despite your mother's extensive medical training as a…"
"Seamstress." The patient sniffed theatrically, moving a tremendous amount of snot around in his nasal passages.
"…you can indeed get the flu in September. And you do. Go home and eat some soup."
The patient blew his nose loudly in a wad of soggy Kleenex. House winced.
Wilson jerked his head toward the door. "Ready to go home?"
House nodded emphatically and they left the hospital together, getting to the parking lot before even allowing their knuckles to brush.