a hyperintelligent shade of the colour blue (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} phinnia) wrote in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} house_wilson,@ 2007-12-31 23:42:00 |
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| Entry tags: | fic author: phinnia, fic genre: drabbles, fic rating: r |
thirteen not-so-easy pieces
Title: thirteen not-so-easy pieces
Author: phinnia
Prompts: Taken from 'Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher' by Richard P. Feynman. Because Feynman is hot, and because I like a challenge occasionally.
Disclaimer: No one's mine, damnit. Not even Feynman.
Rating: G to R. Warnings for jazz, sex, bralessness, television shows, frying eggs on the sidewalk, oatmeal cookies, stars and dubious puppies.
Author's Note: More drabbles. Happy New Year, folks.
10. The particular crystal pattern of ice shown here has many "holes" in it, as does the true ice structure.
They both had their own sonic triggers, sounds that made the hairs on the back of their necks stand up. Wilson's was the sound of pills slip-sllding along a plastic bottle; House's was ice twinkling against an old-fashioned glass.
The pills meant one step closer to liver failure: that pain, literal or figurative, was slowly tearing them apart.
The ice meant James' heart was a little closer to breaking; that the weight of others' burdens was slowly wearing him down.
20. Therefore, if we look at very tiny particles (colloids) in water through an excellent microscope, we see a perpetual jiggling of the particles, which is the result of the bombardment of the atoms.
"Cuddy's not wearing a bra."
"What? That's impossible. The jiggling alone would create enough friction to light this place like a Roman candle. Not that it's not already hot enough to spontaneously combust anyway ..."
"And people think I'm the crude one. Seriously, she's not. Go ahead and look if you don't believe me: she's out there talking to Brenda."
"... holy shit, you're right."
"Aren't I always? Come on."
"Where are we going, again?"
"Getting popcorn. This is better than General Hospital and the tennis outfit."
30. Atom number eight is called oxygen, etc. because the chemical properties depend on the electrons on the outside, and in fact only upon how many electrons there are.
Wilson's a planner. He's the kind of guy you want to have sitting in the exit row on a plane: in a crash he'd probably be handing out hot coffee and blankets and cuddling the children, guiding everyone down the inflatable slide with the force of his charming smile and his adorably tousled hair. House thinks about this one Saturday afternoon as he mainlines episodes of Lost on DVD: it's an interesting way to pass the time while he waits for the hot Korean chick to come back on screen.
If Wilson were lost on a desert island with a bunch of strangers they'd probably elect him president within a week. He's like that.
If House were lost on a desert island with a bunch of strangers, he'd probably kill and eat the most annoying ones (he's heard human flesh tastes like Spam and is eager to test that theory) and declare himself dictator-for-life, and he'd use his despotic charm to lure hot Korean chicks back to his tent. And no one would want to kill and eat him, because by now he's pretty sure he's too stringy to be edible anyway.
40. We have been seeking a Mendeleev-type chart for the new particles.
House hates charting. It's more annoying than leaving feedback on eBay, which is pretty annoying, mostly because no one else seems to stop at a reasonable number of plus signs and the spelling is bad enough to make his eyes bleed. Charting is more or less like that - you're leaving feedback for some other hack doctor, who won't read it anyway. Unfortunately Cuddy doesn't seem to subscribe to his theory of charting, so he has to do it.
He proved that no one reads the damned things by hiding dirty haiku inside several (he liked to think of it as a medical fortune cookie). So far, no one's said anything. He's ready to move on to limericks, as soon as he comes up with a good number of rhymes for 'Nantucket' that aren't bitterly obvious.
50. After these matters were worked out with a great deal of interest, the biologists went into the machinery inside the living bodies, first from a gross standpoint, naturally, because it takes some effort to get into the finer details.
The first time he fucks Wilson (House refuses to call it 'making love', because expressions like that are for women and Air Supply songs, and he considers himself a manly man that just happens to like fucking other manly men ... or, well, Wilson at the moment anyway - anyone who blow-dried his hair couldn't really be called 'manly' without stretching the limits of the term beyond all recognition) is one of the few times he's actually, literally speechless - because hundreds of thousands of years of monkeys struggling to better themselves all led to this single moment of perfection, where he's surrounded by exquisite tightness and heat, dripping with sweat and half-stupid with lust, digging his fingernails into Wilson's hip - and just for a moment, he feels very small compared to the vastness of the universe - small and human; vulnerable and grateful.
60. When we are listening to several different notes we can tell them apart, but when we look with our eyes at a mixture of colours we cannot tell the parts from which it was made, because the eye is nowhere near as discerning as the ear in this connection.
House almost became a musician. It was a very near thing, actually - more of one than most people know. He'd applied to Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Cornell, and Julliard.
The night before his audition he'd gone out to a smoky little jazz club, intending to have a quick drink so he'd sleep a little better. He ended up staying for three sets, entranced by a woman whose voice dripped like warm honey and whose curves spilled out of her dress and right into his hands.
By the time he'd untangled himself from her fabulous legs the next afternoon, he'd missed his audition. Whether the world has gained a brilliant doctor or lost the next great pianist is a question that remains up for debate.
70. It is a law of this nature.
There were certain fundamental laws in their relationship, similar to basic physical ones like gravity or the sun rising and setting. Wilson would buy the groceries, cook dinner, return telephone calls, and generally do the thousands of detailed things that kept their lives from spinning out of orbit. House would mock, deride and make fun of it all from the sidelines, and occasionally perform big crazy experiments like trying to actually fry an egg on the sidewalk during a summer heat wave or buying hundreds of dollars worth of labour-saving gadgets that proceeded to sit in their boxes and collect dust.
For the most part Wilson's okay with this. Sometimes he gets sick of it and goes on his own crazy spending sprees, and they end up with cases of toothpaste and enough oatmeal cookies to last until the next Martian invasion: he feels ridiculous about it shortly afterward, like he's slipped and revealed some long-secret part of his character, but by then he's torn open the boxes and so he's stuck with the results. House says nothing at all about this, but he does help him eat the oatmeal cookies - and maybe that's enough, in the end. Maybe love is when people see your secret sides and don't run screaming, but just shrug and have more oatmeal cookies with their beer.
80. We use the very small imagined motion to apply the principle of conservation of energy.
He likes to imagine himself as the still point of the turning world: everyone racing around him, running tests, dying, being born, screaming, crying, doing clinic hours - and he's here, with his lacrosse ball and his vicodin, just thinking.
Eventually if he thinks enough, the puzzles fall together, their pieces drawn inexorably toward each other and connecting with a satifying click.
He likes to think that he hasn't cured world hunger because of clinic hours, but Cuddy won't buy it.
90. However, since you are not assumed to be sufficiently talented yet, we shall discuss the consequences in more detail, and not just leave you with only these two bare principles.
According to the Colonel Greg was always a little too much of something for his own good - taller, bolder, faster, smarter. His mouth was too big, his limbs too gawky, growing too fast for the tightwad's liking; he outgrew clothes long before they showed any wear. And for some reason, these things were cause for shame - the nail that stands up gets pounded down. That asinine little phrase still rings in his ears years later, mocking him as he relentlessly scrabbles toward the top.
How sad, Wilson thinks - that he would exchange this brilliant, beautiful man for something average, and think he'd come out on the better end of the deal.
100. When Jupiter is closer to the earth the time is a little less, and when it is farther from the earth, the time is more.
James is too old, really, to be wishing on falling stars: but old habits die hard, and when he's out late and idle enough to see them (waiting for test results; waiting for House; waiting for some bastard cancer to choke the last breaths of life from an innocent child) he does it without thinking as they streak through the blackness, beautiful even in their death. Sometimes the wishes come true, and he likes to think that this proves some existential point about dying and meaning.
He wished for love on a falling star, and it came with bright blue eyes and a twisted smile.
He wished for happiness, and it came in peaceful Saturday mornings with cold cereal and the deconstruction of Saturday morning cartoons.
He wished for peace, and it came as sweet kisses and lazy, sultry afterglow.
110. The ratio is shown in figure 5-14.
"You know, I honestly didn't think anything could be worse than your handwriting, but you just proved me wrong. What in the hell is that supposed to be?"
"It's a puppy. See? Ears? Tail?"
"That's the sorriest looking puppy I've ever seen."
"Excuse me, Picasso, I was bored during a meeting, so I was doodling. It's not supposed to be art."
"Being bored is the single most common side effect of meetings. That's why I don't go."
"Sometimes they discuss important things."
"Like what? Obviously not the finer points of drawing puppies."
"Things like money, departmental budgets, that sort of thing. Things you should be concerned with, being a department head and all."
"'Swhy I keep you around. Sure as hell isn't for your artistic skills."
120. An experiment with waves.
They tried sex in the bathtub once - it seemed like a good idea at the time; House's leg was bothering him and Wilson was horny and there was all of this slippery overwhelming nakedness around, after all.
Trouble was, it was almost too slippery in some places, and not the right kind of slippery in others, and they'd forgotten about displacement, much to the dismay of an imaginary Archimedes: so it just ended up with House being even more cranky than before, and Wilson being frustrated and apologietic (a combination surprisingly difficult to pull off, but if anyone could it was probably Wilson), and a dozen sopping towels all over the floor.
After that they confined their experiments to dry land, except for the shower. Water was nice, after all, but not in large quantities.
130. The electron has gone by without being "seen."
People think James is an open book, and that Greg is a closed one. Just goes to show, House thinks, that people as a mass wouldn't know shit if it fell on them in frozen chunks from an airplane toilet.
He's an open book because he tells the truth: it's just that people don't want to hear it.
James is a closed book, because his inner self is nothing at all like his public face.
He's a closed book because he doesn't bother with inane chit-chat in the name of allowing people to get to "know" him.
James is an open book because his emotions are often on his sleeve, with that expressive face and those talkative hands.
Between them, they're a veritable library, and it's going to take years for them to read through each other - and he's okay with that, and surprisingly enough it appears that James is too.
