Flashfic: Four Eyes

[namaste]

Title: Four Eyes
Author: Namaste
Summary: Growing older isn't necessarily a bad thing. House and Wilson friendship. Written for the housefic_meta flashfic challenge to write a complete story of less than 1,000 words. This one is 322 words.
Concrit always welcome.
Sample: "You never do anything normal," Wilson pointed out.
House shrugged, tossed the glasses on his desk. "First time for everything," he said.




Wilson stopped halfway through House's office, stared at him.

House leaned back and waited "Go ahead," he said, "get it over with."

"Get what over with?" Wilson finally moved forward toward the pool of light cast by the desk lamp, noticing how the light reflected off the lenses in the glasses that perched on House's nose.

House took off the glasses, held them between his thumb and index finger. "So I got glasses, so what? Presbyopia typically manifests between the ages of 45 and 50. It's a normal part of the aging process."

"You never do anything normal," Wilson pointed out.

House shrugged, tossed the glasses on his desk. "First time for everything," he said.

Wilson stared at the glasses: wire rims, clear lenses, a simple design. They looked normal. Plain. Functional. Boring. Everything that House wasn't. He shook his head as he thought of House picking them out, probably looking for the cheapest pair in the store -- because House hated spending money on anything that couldn't be construed as "fun."

He sat back, looked up at House, noticed the lines around his eyes, wondered how long he'd been squinting at the words on a page or the lines on the computer before he finally gave in.

"Go ahead," House repeated. "Call me 'Four Eyes.' Tell me I'm an old man. I can take it."

"Too easy," Wilson said.

Old man, he thought. He realized he'd never pictured House as an old man, or even growing older -- never really tried. The few times he did, it was too easy to let his imagination go dark, to go down corridors that ended with self-destruction, with liver failure, with overdose, with a life Wilson would be left alone to mourn.

Now Wilson watched as House picked up the glasses, put them on his face. Old man. Maybe -- just maybe -- the future wouldn't be dark after all.

Wilson nodded, smiled. "They look good on you."

Comments

[namasteyoga.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and you know what they say -- getting a year older is better than the alternative.