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fandomweekly2025-12-06 07:24 pm
ecto_one_spengler) wrote in fandomweekly2025-12-06 07:24 pm
Entry tags:
[#282] lines in the sand, language of eye contact (House M.D.)
Theme Prompt: #282 - Catharsis
Title: lines in the sand, language of eye contact
Fandom: House M.D.
Rating/Warnings: PG. Makes reference to somewhat outdated terms regarding the autism spectrum, but other than that, decently wholesome.
Word Count: 533 words
Author's Note: Another one of the times my brain has a sudden burst of motivation for something, this time regarding a curious episode of House in which there's one of the few times he manages to truly connect to a patient. Kind of a magical moment for me (an autistic doofus of a man with too many interests). Also yes this means I am kinda leaning towards a "House is actually somewhat in the spectrum someplace" headcanon, I do what I want.
Summary: The best approximation of how Dr. House is feeling during the events of the main case of "Lines in the Sand".
--
It’s rare for House to see patients too much younger than ten. It’s even rarer that he meets someone he doesn’t get to communicate with often, those who speak how he speaks. His fellow doctors don’t get him or how his mind does its thing that much, but a part of him feels like listening in to a conversation after the latest case, his eyes merely glancing anywhere but at Cuddy.
– House doesn’t have Asberger’s. The diagnosis is much simpler – he’s a jerk.
That’s a normal, expected response from Cuddy, but.. Oddly enough, some of the pieces do fit. Just in ways he doesn’t like to admit to himself.. The difficulty in making friends, how he fidgets with anything and everything in some manner if it’s interesting enough. For once, he could actually communicate his way, back in the hospital room. The pictures, both drawn by the kid and then the one he grasped shakily with the sandbox pictured in laminate.
That’s a first.
Another first is the tail end of Foreman’s reply to Cuddy, one of the few times he maybe thinks Foreman has ever been right about him.
– he sees himself in this kid, and he’s trying to help himself. He doesn’t want this. He needs it.
—
So House sits alone and stews on the eavesdropped information, avoiding the contact of people but watching Adam carefully and, indeed, recognizing elements of his own stumbles and silences. It’s just less jaded, more earnest. His jadedness is his mask, while the kid has no mask at all at the moment.
But House still feels weird that he relates more to an autistic kid with loving parents right now, instead of the usual few patients he still thinks back on. Foreman notwithstanding, he’s focused right now, trying to gauge what happiness looks like when expressed in actions and not words or sound.
– first tongue kiss, an eight on the happiness scale. A child being snatched back from the brink of death, that’s a ten. They’re locking in on a tepid 6.5, ‘cuz they know what they have to go back to.
He almost means Adam, because he knows from past and current experience that communication is difficult and painful enough with being a verbal person. Creativity to get around verbality can only go so far when one is just ten and still under the thumb of overprotective parents..
House has to pause in place, mentally and verbally, when after Adam’s parents say their thanks, Adam changes his path. House reads nervousness for a second, but revises it in stunned silence when Adam’s hands very confidently present the PSP, still active with its game in progress. A glance down to the PSP, and a glance back up rewards House with his first proper look of Adam’s wormless eyes for the very first time.
Gregory doesn’t speak. Nor does Adam. But the amendment comes back as the following:
Gratitude, warmth, and joy.
Then Adam and his parents go on their merry way, and he blinks. He’s not Gregory, but House again, and Foreman says something with the tone that House can guess is a few moments away from a genuine smile.
“That was a ten.”
Title: lines in the sand, language of eye contact
Fandom: House M.D.
Rating/Warnings: PG. Makes reference to somewhat outdated terms regarding the autism spectrum, but other than that, decently wholesome.
Word Count: 533 words
Author's Note: Another one of the times my brain has a sudden burst of motivation for something, this time regarding a curious episode of House in which there's one of the few times he manages to truly connect to a patient. Kind of a magical moment for me (an autistic doofus of a man with too many interests). Also yes this means I am kinda leaning towards a "House is actually somewhat in the spectrum someplace" headcanon, I do what I want.
Summary: The best approximation of how Dr. House is feeling during the events of the main case of "Lines in the Sand".
--
It’s rare for House to see patients too much younger than ten. It’s even rarer that he meets someone he doesn’t get to communicate with often, those who speak how he speaks. His fellow doctors don’t get him or how his mind does its thing that much, but a part of him feels like listening in to a conversation after the latest case, his eyes merely glancing anywhere but at Cuddy.
– House doesn’t have Asberger’s. The diagnosis is much simpler – he’s a jerk.
That’s a normal, expected response from Cuddy, but.. Oddly enough, some of the pieces do fit. Just in ways he doesn’t like to admit to himself.. The difficulty in making friends, how he fidgets with anything and everything in some manner if it’s interesting enough. For once, he could actually communicate his way, back in the hospital room. The pictures, both drawn by the kid and then the one he grasped shakily with the sandbox pictured in laminate.
That’s a first.
Another first is the tail end of Foreman’s reply to Cuddy, one of the few times he maybe thinks Foreman has ever been right about him.
– he sees himself in this kid, and he’s trying to help himself. He doesn’t want this. He needs it.
—
So House sits alone and stews on the eavesdropped information, avoiding the contact of people but watching Adam carefully and, indeed, recognizing elements of his own stumbles and silences. It’s just less jaded, more earnest. His jadedness is his mask, while the kid has no mask at all at the moment.
But House still feels weird that he relates more to an autistic kid with loving parents right now, instead of the usual few patients he still thinks back on. Foreman notwithstanding, he’s focused right now, trying to gauge what happiness looks like when expressed in actions and not words or sound.
– first tongue kiss, an eight on the happiness scale. A child being snatched back from the brink of death, that’s a ten. They’re locking in on a tepid 6.5, ‘cuz they know what they have to go back to.
He almost means Adam, because he knows from past and current experience that communication is difficult and painful enough with being a verbal person. Creativity to get around verbality can only go so far when one is just ten and still under the thumb of overprotective parents..
House has to pause in place, mentally and verbally, when after Adam’s parents say their thanks, Adam changes his path. House reads nervousness for a second, but revises it in stunned silence when Adam’s hands very confidently present the PSP, still active with its game in progress. A glance down to the PSP, and a glance back up rewards House with his first proper look of Adam’s wormless eyes for the very first time.
Gregory doesn’t speak. Nor does Adam. But the amendment comes back as the following:
Gratitude, warmth, and joy.
Then Adam and his parents go on their merry way, and he blinks. He’s not Gregory, but House again, and Foreman says something with the tone that House can guess is a few moments away from a genuine smile.
“That was a ten.”
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