028. Piano. General Series.
Title: Intermezzo
Characters/Pairing: House, Stacey
Prompt: 028. Piano.
Word Count: Two 100-word drabbles.
Rating: G
Spoilers: Three Stories, one-word nonspecific reference to Need to Know
Author's Notes: Pre-series, set shortly after the infarction. Stacey says goodbye.
Intermezzo I
“I’m sorry, Greg.”
She watches as he stands and gropes behind him for the cane, hefts the wood in his hand. Leaning heavily, he limps to the piano.
The stiffness of his posture, the stilted, graceless movements of his fingers betray his frustration. His choice of music is ridiculously inappropriate - she recognizes the lullaby of a Brahms Intermezzo among the stutters and false starts.
This, she realizes, is music: wrong notes and the conspicuous absence of the sustain pedal. This is emotion, the jarring discords, the shaking of his hands.
This is their life, shattered by distant echoes of arpeggios.
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Intermezzo II(one)
“I’m sorry, Greg.”
Words (something always never changes) are useless. He slumps at the piano (well-oiled processor of emotion) with memories/melodies of his mother:
“Greg,” she’d said and smelled of bread and molasses, “You can’t leave the piano angry. Let it all be consumed in music.”
(all of it falls tumbling down and then we’ll sing a pointless lullaby and see who cries who dies
who lies)
The door closes on the final movement of his hand to the pocket where the Vicodin lives and he knows that this, at least, is better than any music he could ever play.
Characters/Pairing: House, Stacey
Prompt: 028. Piano.
Word Count: Two 100-word drabbles.
Rating: G
Spoilers: Three Stories, one-word nonspecific reference to Need to Know
Author's Notes: Pre-series, set shortly after the infarction. Stacey says goodbye.
Intermezzo I
“I’m sorry, Greg.”
She watches as he stands and gropes behind him for the cane, hefts the wood in his hand. Leaning heavily, he limps to the piano.
The stiffness of his posture, the stilted, graceless movements of his fingers betray his frustration. His choice of music is ridiculously inappropriate - she recognizes the lullaby of a Brahms Intermezzo among the stutters and false starts.
This, she realizes, is music: wrong notes and the conspicuous absence of the sustain pedal. This is emotion, the jarring discords, the shaking of his hands.
This is their life, shattered by distant echoes of arpeggios.
-------------------------------------
Intermezzo II(one)
“I’m sorry, Greg.”
Words (something always never changes) are useless. He slumps at the piano (well-oiled processor of emotion) with memories/melodies of his mother:
“Greg,” she’d said and smelled of bread and molasses, “You can’t leave the piano angry. Let it all be consumed in music.”
(all of it falls tumbling down and then we’ll sing a pointless lullaby and see who cries who dies
who lies)
The door closes on the final movement of his hand to the pocket where the Vicodin lives and he knows that this, at least, is better than any music he could ever play.