A Little Farther Yet

by NumberOneRutter

Summary:

Lawrence Kutner has miraculously survived shooting himself point blank. All is not well, though. Obviously. His worst nightmare has come true: everybody knows he’s suicidal. The brain damage isn’t helping either.

Notes:

Special fangz (get it cuz I’m gothic) to MP for helping me with the story. U rock!

Chapter 1: Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Notes:

I did not proofread this so if you see mistakes, no you didn’t!!!!

Also, I apologize if I misrepresent TBI patients. Of course, I will take some liberties for the sake of the story, but I’m of course still trying to not just make shit up. I tried to do my research, but at the end of the day websites cannot mimic what it’s like to actually have a disorder. If you feel a symptom is being poorly represented, please leave a comment!

Kutner awoke with a splitting headache. Like, seriously awful. Not the worst pain he had ever been in, but certainly up there. It felt like a woodpecker was digging through his brain for worms. He also felt a slight sort of pressure around his head, which didn’t hurt but was disconcerting.

He also noticed that his eyes were closed and he was on a bed. He was also really tired and wanted to go back to sleep, but his body decided “Wake up now! The day is young! Seize it!”

He willed himself to sleep anyways. It didn’t work.

Then he promptly realized that there were things poking into him all over and he promptly bolted up. For heaven’s sake, he felt weak.

He was in a hospital bed. The layman might think this wouldn’t be unusual for a doctor, but it actually was. Kutner didn’t make a habit of sleeping at his place of work, much less on a bed a patient could be using.

Then it occurred to Kutner that he, in fact, was the patient. Not good. For a number of reasons, not the least of which being he couldn’t remember what landed him here. Actually, given the probable head trauma, it wasn’t all that crazy. The last thing he remembered was lunch time on what he was like pretty sure was a Tuesday. Then nothing.

He hoped he got injured in a badass way, like skateboarding or defending a dog from getting hit by a truck. In all likelihood, though he just tripped and fell on the sidewalk. Concrete packed a real punch, or in this case… well he guessed punch was a good term.

Kutner should shout “nurse” or something. That would be the right thing to do. Kick up a fuss so they could swarm in like buzzards and make sure he was “okay”.

But like, there was a television. He turned to… one of his sides and saw a nightstand. On it was a remote as well as several condolences. As in, there were several cards on the desk and a teddy bear. It took him a few minutes to process what the front of the cards said. Most of them were “Get Well Soon” two were “Thinking of You” and one said “You’re A Blast”.

It was nice that people cared, thought Kutner. It was probably just social niceties, though. He knew that if someone he didn’t really give a crap about was in hospital, Kutner would probably get them a card too. Besides, he recognized the bear from being from the pediatric ward; it was probably stolen. The person couldn’t even be bothered to spend… to spend… to get a nicer bear.

Ugh, he sounded like such a spoiled brat. He needed to stop whining. He grabbed the remote and pointed it to the outdated TV (seriously, it was still in black and white. How on earth had it not broken down already? The uh… the thingies on the ends of his hands were harder to move around than normal. It took him awhile to process and press all the buttons, he couldn’t make heads or tails of some of them. Eventually he said “forget it” and just started pressing the “go up a channel” button repeatedly.

Anyways, he managed to channel surfuntil he found some rerun of the Twilight Zone. “And When The Sky Was Opened” was the episode title. He couldn’t really… understand what they were saying. Maybe it was in Spanish or something. He looked out the window and saw it was night. The stations were probably airing dubs. He caught a word here and there, probably the year of Spanish he took in middle school kicking in.

Yeah.

After a bit of wondering what on earth was going on in the show, a nurse finally decided to do her job and check in on him. She shouted something (why was everyone speaking Spanish all the sudden? Rude). She turned off the TV and tried to make awkward conversation with him while they waited for the doctors to arrive. To no avail, but he appreciated the gesture. Kind of.

Eventually a doctor came swarming in like a bat out of hell.

Hey, it was Foreman! What are the odds? Kutner *knew* he spoke English so hopefully he’d actually be able to hold a conversation.

Foreman opened his mouth, and out of it fell pure nonsense. Uh oh.

Kutner said “Hey Foreman. Mind speaking a little English? Or at least like… Hebrew? I know some Hebrew.” Maybe Eric was just confused or something. Maybe he should be the one getting a neurological exam! Ha!

Foreman’s face fell at that. He grimaced, then he went back into his tried-and-trusted blank slate expression. He scribbled something on the clipboard he was holding. What on earth could he have already devised?

With that troubling thought, the world’s most frustrating neurological exam took place. Probably. Kutner hadn’t had that many. The ones he did have were pretty painless; this one was more like a game of charades.

Kutner was handed paper after paper with the stupidest instructions as well. Well, maybe they weren’t that stupid since Kutner had no idea if he was getting any right!Damn Foreman and his professionalism. He didn’t even cringe when Kutner got frustrated with his own awful reading skills and crumbled up the paper. Foreman just handed him a new one. It also seemed he could barely read what was actually written. It was like trying to hold water in your palms or brute forcing your way through a sentence in another language.

Then came the drawing and writing part. Draw these shapes, draw a clock, draw the White House with picture perfect precision. Write… something. Foreman’s wild gesturing was not very helpful. Eventually Kutner just gave up and wrote “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” in a weirdly bad script. The sentence looked like it was written by a first grader and childish though he was, Kutner was not an actual child. He furrowed his brow. Guess he’d finally been excepted into the “doctors who can’t write for shit” club. Of course, their writing was a lot loopier. Oh geez, he hoped he wouldn’t be kicked out!

Kutner might be really tired. Not as in tired of being alive, which he was, but he was also sleepy. They still had the poking and prodding and holding a squeezing parts to do, though. It wasn’t all bad, as a doctor he was intimately familiar with a lack of sleep. Part of the grind. No rest for the weary and all the jazz.

So Foreman poked and prodded and made him hold an ice cube and squeeze his hands. Kutner needed very little prodding on that last one, everyone seemed to love that test.

Finally he could sleep- wait no it was flash card time. This was worse than any standardized test. He would never criticize the American school system again. Glory be to the Department of Education.

He was asked to name a bunch of random objects. He thought he did pretty well, but again Foreman’s face betrayed nothing. Then it was the recall test which he knew he did great on. You don’t get through med school without having a killer memory. Or being really good at cheating. Or rich. Or high. Whatever.

Foreman turned to leave (praise the lord, man). But Kutner called out to him.

“Wait!” Eric did, “my head hurts, can I have some pain relief? Not Vicodin. Don’t wanna step on anyone’s toes.” Again, he looked at Kutner with the polite incomprehension of someone listening in on a foreign language.

Kutner exasperatedly rolled his eyes, gestured vaguely towards his head, frowned exaggeratedly and tried to make an exploding motion. Then he mimed taking medicine. Foreman seemed to understand and nodded.

Then he was gone like the green in winter.

Oh yeah, the nurse was still there. She sat at the desk parallel to the door and did whatever was that nurses did. Probably play solitaire or save the world or something. He didn’t know.

All that is to say he was finally done for the day. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep. He hoped he felt better in the morning.

Notes:

I tried to give Kutner Gerstmann Syndrome along with alexia and fluent aphasia (with agnosia related to it), which according to what i read are sometimes comorbid. Technically, GS isn’t caused by TBI, but like idk i think shooting yourself can cause brain lesions. Besides, Vicodin abuse gives you jaundice and we don’t see House with that in the show so… I’m taking some liberties. Also this fic makes Kutner left handed because it’s convient to explain why he has a condition caused by damage to the left hemisphere. Sorry to any righty-Kutner truthers out there.

Chapter 2: How else do you tell if something is hot but to touch it?

Notes:

Im gonna try to update on Tuesdays. Also probably here and there but always on Tuesdays as well. I really wanted to use the phrase “look a gift horse in the house” but I couldn’t. I tried to characterize our dear Greg well, I don’t count him being kind as OOC. If you see something that makes you go “he would not fucking say that” please speak up tho. Enjoy! Or else…

House was doing that creepy thing where he stared into patient’s rooms again. He probably thought he was all slick and no one ever noticed. People noticed, they just didn’t say anything. Like how no one ever pointed out he walked with his cane on the wrong side.

Oh well, it was Kutner’s fault for leaving the blinds open. This was a pattern of behavior, after all. He debated just ignoring the other doctor, but Kutner was. So. Bored. The stupid nurses wouldn’t let him watch TV until after two days had passed. He’d literally watched it earlier and been fine. Reading was a total slog as well. He’d managed to borrow a copy of Frankenstein from nurse-something-or-other, but it was, you know, Frankenstein. Not exactly an early reader. The words on the page kept running together and the letters kept jumping around. He had to guess what a lot of the words were, only to read the rest of the sentence and find out his guess was completely wrong. Eventually he gave the poor nurse their book back.

Walking around in a circle also got boring, given that he felt overwhelming weak and tired. And let Kutner tell you, weakness hurt. It felt like his legs were screaming after a few paces. The nurse also gently herded him back into the room whenever he tried to leave. That was okay, Kutner had no particular desire to walk around the hospital. Maybe it would be nice once he got going, but it just sounded like a waste of energy. Besides, what was he going to do? He sure as hell wasn’t going to work right now.

So, lately for entertainment he’d been making up stupid scenarios and thinking about what he’d do in them. Like thinking up the ideal way to kill someone or what he’d do as a magical girl. Probably save the world, the real question was if he’d keep the dress. Maybe.

Anyways, no matter how stimulating the question was, at the end of the day it was still just staring at the wall. And bothering House was much more fun than staring at the wall.

So he raised his- huh that was weird, he meant to raise his other hand, and waved at House to the best of his abilities.

Unsurprisingly, he looked startled at being caught. Kutner just plastered on a smile and sort of jerked his forearm back in what he hoped communicated “come here”.

House looked to be debating it. Eventually he started limping towards the hospital room door.

Score.

Kutner’s fake smile dimmed into a real one, this time much fainter. Kutner hadn’t felt “happy” in a while, but he still liked being around friends. Not that he and House were besties, hell House probably wouldn’t call Kutner a friend, but they at least knew each other. No shade to the nurses, but Kutner couldn’t even tell you their names.

Also, House was the least likely to bullshit him and the most likely to let him watch TV. He felt sort of bad for (intending) to use him. Not sorry enough to not, though.

House hobbled in and sat down on the visitor’s chair. They stared at each other.

“Hey House,” said Kutner after a pause. House, ever the blunt one, frowned at that. He looked a bit sad, annoyed, and strangely guilty. House let out a sarcastic sounding sentence. It was probably very witty and scathing and secretly intellectual.

“Haha yeah,” he responded.

Now, Kutner wasn’t stupid. Well, he was stupid, but not completely stupid. Well, he was completely stupid, but he wasn’t brain dead. He had put together that everyone hadn’t started speaking Spanish to mess with him. Not only did their words not sound like Spanish, but they couldn’t understand him either. Also they weren’t (all) that cruel. House (and Wilson), yes. Literally everyone else, no.

So either he’d been magically transported to another dimension or he had fluent aphasia: a speech disorder characterized mainly by the patient’s words being mostly incomprehensible with a normal cadence and the patient not being able to understand others. Phew, that was a lot of big words. While the dimension theory wasn’t without merit, the latter made more sense and was more likely. Unfortunate.

“Can I have something to write on?” Asked Kutner as he mimed writing. And that was the thing. His words felt normal, natural. They sounded fine to him. It was so weird to think they weren’t, that he was the one talking nonsense.

House, for once in his life, listened. Interpreted. Whatever. He gave him a red crayon and some paper is the thing.

Kutner tapped the crayon to his chin all cutesy to think. He had a myriad of questions, things to say, requests to make.

How is the patient? he finally wrote in his now poor script. If he took his time, it would probably look better, but Kutner didn’t want House to get bored and leave.

Awful it said. How comforting! he’s bleeding out of his ass. Kutner stared at the paper for a moment, thinking it must be wrong. Maybe he missed the “s” in “she’s”?

Our patient was a girl. He handed the paper back to House. He again said something in that witty tone before picking up the crayon.

Oh, her. Yeah, she’s fine. Healthy as can be Well, that was good. Before those words there was something semi-violently scribbled out. Weird. House was always one to be blunt, except when it came to emotions. Then he clammed up faster than you can say “it’s never lupus”. Maybe he’d started to write a declaration of undying love for Wilson or something before remembering that the paper wasn’t his diary. He hadn’t. But he could’ve!

Wait, they had just gotten that patient. Usually it took them a minute to solve a case, not accounting for the time it took to find a new one. He assumed he just had a really bad fall and had only been out for a bit. Everyone looked the same, if a bit more stressed. His muscles hadn’t undergone atrophy either, at least not noticeably, so it couldn’t have been more than a month. But he certainly didn’t think it had been more than a day, at most two.

God, Kutner was so, so stupid. How on earth had he become a doctor? He got brained so hard he couldn’t talk, of course he’d been under for a while. That’s how it worked, dumbass. Maybe he should just end it before he seriously messed up (again) because of his stupidity. That would probably be for the best. The average IQ of everyone on the team would go up significantly and they wouldn’t have to deal with his slowness…

He realized he’d been staring at the paper for a bit. He shook his head to physically stop that train of thought and belatedly hoped that the action hadn’t look weird. Interrogation first, self-hatred later, that’s what he always said!

He still didn’t really want to ask how long he’d been out, but did so anyways.

A few weeks. Kutner gave him a look. That was real helpful, thanks. House probably knew how long he’d been out down to the minute.

Kutner probably shouldn’t bite at the hand that feeds him. But. House shouldn’t be an evasive bastard, so it evened out.

He took his time writing his response. Not because it was particularly long, but because he wanted his writing to be extra-legible. Or, he supposed, just legible. He drew a smiley face after his message. He wanted to annoy House. Not that he didn’t have a long attention span, but anyone would be bored watching someone write.

Kutner handed over the paper with all the confidence of a high-schooler who thought their Twilight ripoff they wrote on Word was the best, most cutting book since To Kill A Mockingbird.

Thank you for the teddy bear. he wrote It’s very nice. I named her Yoshi :). They called Kutner Nancy Drew because he’s so analytical. He had cleverly deduced the bear was from House (probably). It was the kind of “I care but I totally don’t” thing House would do. A mockery and an offering all at once. Also, he liked screwing with the hospital and stealing the bear was an okay way to do that. Besides, even if someone else gave him the bear, the accusation of kindness would be enough to set House off.

House stared at the paper, then at Kutner, then at the paper again. He was probably doing a genius or something. The important thing was that he looked vexed now. Strangely enough, not angry, just… annoyed. Eventually, he gave back the note.

I have no clue what you’re talking about. Sure, Jan. He felt coldly satisfied he succeeded in his mission.

That was fun, but they were running out of room on the paper and Kutner still had one more question to ask. He probably should have led with it, hindsight is 20/20, trust him.

Taking the crimson crayon, he scratched out What happened to me?

The remorse on House’s face reappeared ten-fold when he read the message. The irritation that had just painted it had been completely erased; nothing but blue remained. Heavy heartedly, he handed him the response.

You shot yourself.

Notes:

Sorry for ending it on a cliff hanger. I accidentally gave Kutner the wrong kind of Alexia. In my defense I’d already commuted to him having it. It would also make for a pretty effing boring story if he couldn’t directly communicate or chapters and chapters. I mean, it would be fine for me cuz I can’t write serious dialogue for shit. I’m much better at funny, absurdist dialogue. I prolly didn’t portray the Alexia well, just imagine he’s taking awhile to parse through what house wrote. I thought about trying to maybe write it as if you the reader could see the alexia, but that sounds really hard to write and annoying for readers. Also, according to this article I read, it’s pretty hard to simulate dyslexia accurately. Ik they aren’t the same thing tho. I’m a chronic yapper and I apologize. I will not work on bettering myself in any way.

Chapter 3: Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay

Notes:

It’s technically still Tuesday in my time zone. When I said “up loads on Tuesdays” I meant very late on Tuesday in EST. This chapter is kind of a mess and I’m sorry

!!!!!!!Huge TW!!!!!!!! (Spoilers for this chapter ahead)

>regular TWs (hospitals, suicidality)
>self harm
>public (ish) self harm
>restraints

A sane man’s reaction to that would be denial. “No!” they’d cry, “There must be some mistake. It had to have been a murder gone wrong or something!”

And Kutner was indeed a little shocked by the info, but his first thought was ‘sounds about right’.

There hadn’t been a day in years when he hadn’t thought about ending it all. Sometimes, a lot of the time, it was a passing thought. An “I’d be better off dead” or a simple “I want to kill myself”. Then he’d get distracted by whatever shiny keys were dangling in front of him and the thought would fade. Other times it would be all-consuming. Occasional attacks that left Kutner staring ahead with dead eyes, thoughts of hanging-shooting-slitting-jumping drowning out whatever else was in his head. They were annoying when they happened. It became harder to focus, but Kutner could multitask. Planning, however, was… fun wasn’t the right word. Less stressful? Relaxing? Casually making plans to die morbidly comforted him. Was that fucked up? Probably. He didn’t care.

Every now and then, though something went wrong one-too-many times and he decided he had truly had enough. Those scenarios he made would go from hypothetical to aspirational. It had been happening a lot more recently. He would usually plan to do it after the workday was over. ‘Why put off tomorrow what you can do today?’ and all. The ploy was usually:

Subtly say goodbye to everyone
Go home
Watch some OG Star Trek
Write a note (maybe)
Blow brains out

The urge had always passed, however. He’d get distracted and feel a little better. Decide to stick around a little longer. Maybe it was because he wanted to check out if the new Clone Wars series would be anything to write home about, maybe the urge would simply vanish. Either way, he’d come home, let out a world-weary sigh, and go on living like nothing ever happened. Functionally, nothing did. It was a never-ending cycle.

Evidently, the cycle had ended and Kutner finally got the balls to do it. Bully for him.

Keeping in mind all that, Kutner looked House dead in the eyes, shook his head and said “No. There must be some mistake. It had to have been a murder gone wrong or something.” He spoke in a monotone voice, the energy to emote having left him. Any idiot could see that wasn’t true. The most obvious sign (second to the gun they found him holding) was the scars littering whatever part of his body covered by clothes. Hell, the hospital gown was short enough at the sleeves you could see some of the scars on his upper arms peaking through. But Kutner wasn’t Mark Hamill either. Try as he might, he definitely had accidentally left clues for House to pick through. He’d probably raised an eyebrow too high or something and now in hindsight House could see he was clinically depressed.

Like hell Kutner would admit to any of that, though. Maybe it was pointless to deny, but what else was he going to do?

House gazed at him with an odd look in his eyes. So… he’d definitely understood Kutner to some extent.

The he got obviously angry. He sneered and his hands started dancing in the air. They made all sorts of fun movements, mostly pointing, sometimes counting and crossing, and at one point even jazz hands! All the while he blathered on, most likely about how Kutner obviously killed himself. (Like a reverse Epstein. No wait, that sounded really bad-)

Even if Kutner could make heads or tails of it, he’d still be tuning it out. Kutner let him get it out of his system, though. It seemed important to him.

All the sudden, House’s shouting petered out. He looked sort of awkward, a very rare expression for him.

Kutner felt something wet fall on his neck. He touched his face. He felt tear drops on his- his…

He was crying, was the point. That was weird, to say the least. He always, always tried to keep positive, or at least neutral, around people. Sometimes it was real, the vast majority of the time it wasn’t. He usually felt nothing. And when he did feel it was dulled. And when it wasn’t dulled it was a rush produced from pain or whatever insane, so-out-of-the-box-it-wasn’t-on-the-same-continent-as-the-box thing House wanted them to do.

So he faked it til he made it. He cracked amazing jokes and did whatever the hell he (and/or whoever else, if it benefited him) wanted.

Those were the parts of Kutner the people wanted to see. Not whatever the hell this was. He didn’t even feel upset, really. So why was he crying?

House still looked ill at ease. Imagine how Kutner felt!

“- - - sorry - - - - - - -“ House eventually grumbled. Kutner finally heard a word he recognized, but the rest was still nonsense.

And damn if that didn’t just make him cry harder. Strangled, bitten down sobs tried to escape his mouth and Kutner wouldn’t let them. Nobody, least of all him, wanted to see this side of himself. He was sure people barely liked him anyways, so what would they think of him as this pathetic mess? A spoiled kid who couldn’t handle life. One who was just overreacting to things. Kutner had a bit of a rocky start, but a good life with a job he loved and people to talk to. What right did he have to complain? None.

He needed to stop crying. He needed to stop crying.

So Kutner had a sane man’s reaction, and bit down hard as he could on the dorsal side of his hand. He tasted blood. Unbidden, a memory he had of sucking on coins as a child came to the forefront of his mind.

He just, he just needed to stop crying. So his lizard brain went “crying means upset, to stop crying we need to stop being upset”. Perfectly valid logic in isolation, this situation, however, was not in isolation. There were a number of variables to consider. For one Kutner felt numb so he needed to run a differential diagnosis on the tears, and another he was in the company of others. Kutner didn’t care much for rules, social ones included, but he could acknowledge that hurting yourself in front of others was very taboo.

But self-harm made him feel better quickly and he needed that.

Anyways, he should get an exemption. It was better this way. It was a win-win since Neither Kutner nor House liked dealing with Kutner’s stupid emotions. Sure, the methodology sucked, but results were results. That was basically the slogan of the diagnostics department.

Evidently, House disagreed with his sound logic, given that he immediately tried to pull his hand out of his mouth. Āī, for what few years she’d raised him, didn’t raise no quitter. As if by instinct, Kutner kept an iron grip on his hand. Maybe it was a left over instinct… from human ancestors hunting with their mouths… which they haven’t done for about 50 million years… Kutner might just be weird.

Then House turned his head over shoulder and shouted something. Kutner abruptly let go, not wanting to be sedated or cuffed.

A wound care nurse came over, and smiling kindly, treated the bite wound. Kutner had a high pain tolerance, but still hissed when she applied the disinfectant. House, who was still holding his wrist in a death grip, rolled his eyes at that. Bitch. Not all of us were zonked out on Vicodin. Speaking of, no one had come to refill the pain meds Foreman prescribed him.

Then she pulled left, came back with another nurse and some restraints. But he’d complied (in the end)! He guessed it wasn’t soon enough.

He turned to House with a pleading look in his eyes. House shrugged.

“Sorry- - - - - - - - - -” he said. Of all the words Kutner’s messed up brain to remember, it had to be that one.

Guessing he could still avoid the sedatives, Kutner didn’t struggle when the nurses put on the four-point restraints. Now he couldn’t move his arms and legs for shit. Bye-bye pacing. Chained up like an animal.

At least the crying had stopped and his hand hurt like hell. And wasn’t that the goal?

Notes:

Who up pro-ing they ject? Srsly tho, do you think Kutner is OOC? I’m worried I mighta put in too much “author flair” don’t ask me wtf the title means, I read it in a poem and don’t completely comprehend it but it goes hard

Also

Days without calling Kutner “Kunter”: 0

Chapter 4: Nothing but your sadness Can really go away

Notes:

My favorite part of writing isn’t writing but coming up with overly dramatic titles from poems

Thank you to everyone for reading this! It’s not done btw just wanted to say. OKAY I haven’t been responding to your comments bc I’m awkward af but just know they make me blush like a school girl and smile so hard my cheeks hurt lol

His parents were here.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhh.

No, that wasn’t fair, Kutner loved his parents. They took him in, gave him a home. He appreciated that. He knew he had a one-in-a-million chance of getting into a good, permanent home after his bio parents’ death, given he was a brown six year old and not a white baby. He was grateful to them, he acknowledged how lucky he’d gotten blah blah blah. And Kutner did love them to pieces, don’t get him wrong! He called every Saturday, sent them gifts when the holidays demanded it, visited when he could etc.

It was just.

Well, they were being kind of annoying? He knew it was a terrible thing to think. Awful, really. There were kids out there getting hurt, really hurt, by their parents and Kutner had the audacity to be annoyed by his? People would kill to have Kutner’s problems, he really needed to shut up. But.

They kept blubbering. Confusion and grief were written all over their faces. Kutner knew they’d be beaten up by his death, but being straight up shown their reaction to just an attempt experience was… harrowing. He’d pictured them crying a little and saying very nice things about him at his funeral. He didn’t picture hysterics. Maybe that was stupid, he’d heard the heart wrenching, description-defying screaming sobs of grieving parents. Kutner wasn’t special, why would his parents react any different?

Still, the only thing he regretted was not aiming the gun right.

They’d gotten tears on his hospital gown. And they kept hugging him. Which would have been nice, Kutner’s a grown man, he can admit he likes hugs, if not for the restraints. Those made things a little awkward. He couldn’t hug them back, for one. For two, it put the hugs at awkward angle. For three, they hugged him for awhile. Like awhile awhile.

Now they’d stopped, for better or worse. His father was squeezing his right hand in a death grip and his mother was petting his hair. His hair was probably gross, he realized belatedly. Ah well.

He almost adored his aphasia right now, as without it things would be even lousier. Such a thing seemed unimaginable, but it was true.

Without it, his parents would want to talk about feelings. Which was not totally tubular (how he missed the 90s). They’d pull on his heartstrings, manipulate him, intentionally or not, and he might just let something spill.

Suffice it to say, he didn’t want that.

Right now, though, his dad was talking in a cadence that meant he was probably telling one of his world famous stories. Most likely, the ones about his time working as a nurse in a mental hospital, but Kutner hope it was one from the war in Vietnam. His histories of the halcyon hippie days were always the best.

Or maybe he was discussing his controversial views on government policy. Kutner knew that he was in a unique position of having a captive audience that would listen to anything. He’d lost that when Kutner got his driver’s license.

“Ma poupette,” his mother said, presumably. He was mostly guessing. But a world-weary sigh and a childhood endearment (his parents were American as apple pie, he didn’t know where the nickname came from) seemed like the type of thing one would say in a moment like this.

She said something else, he was sure it was another exclamation of bafflement that he would do something like this.

It was the wrong response, but Kutner congratulated himself on his acting skills. He’d managed to fool the people who’d known him for 22 years and raised him for 12. Eat your heart out, Robert Downey Junior.

Upon thinking that, he let out a sharp, barking laugh that interrupted his mother. It wasn’t that funny. It wasn’t funny at all. But he kept up the humorless laugh for about 45 seconds. 45 seconds didn’t sound like a lot, but a lot could happen in 45 seconds. You could count to 80 in 45 seconds. You could lose all your money in 45 seconds. You could bleed out in 45 seconds.

Kutner was 95% (always leave in a margin for error) that cackling for 45 seconds in the middle of what was probably a serious, if one-sided, conversation was rude. Mom and Dad just looked worried at his outburst, however.

He belatedly realized he probably looked, he believed the technical term was batshit crazy.

Ah, rats.

Kutner knew he was insane. Just a bit. It was basically required if you worked with House. Sane people didn’t do half the things Kutner did. Sane people didn’t grave rob just because their boss asked them to. Sane people didn’t carve into their arm. Sane people didn’t shoot themselves. Kutner wasn’t entirely sure what sane people did.

His parents stayed for awhile. They only left to get him some lunch, which they kindly fed to him. It was nice to be cared for, to be touched. It felt like eons since someone had, barring strictly professional touches and the occasional medicine run he sent people on when he was sick.

His mom tried to engage him in talk about Star Trek. It honestly was the clearest conversation he had since getting here. He understood some of what Mom said and recognized the world “Vulcan” of all things. His mom nodded politely as he nonsensically explained things she probably already knew. She’d cultivated his love of all things Sci-Fi and they’d had watched Star Trek together. Of course, he took it to the next level, but it was an interest they still shared.

Eventually, they had to leave. They had lives beyond their sickly son.

And Kutner was alone (again, barring the nurse). He didn’t feel his parents’ absence afterwards, so much as the after effects of their presence. The feeling of very mild excitement over Star Trek (and the faint warmth of human connection, he guessed) lingered.

Notes:

I based Mr. and Mrs. Kutner off my own parents, so yeah. Uhhh. They’re not the most developed characters so I figure it’s fine. If Jerry Siegel can do it so can I!

Chapter 5: All the horses broken nags

Notes:

Gamers I researched and I researched and I researched but for the life of me I couldn’t get it through my thick skull how to write speech therapy for fluent aphasia

If Kutner had to watch anymore baby cartoons he would not be held responsible for his actions.

Apparently, he wasn’t banned from watching TV because of his head injury; he was banned because he wasn’t allowed to watch anything that could “trigger him”. That included any TV show that even once tangentially mentioned suicide. Or really just mental illness. Or anything over PG. Which included most shows. And SpongeBob, for some reason.

So he was stuck watching Micky Mouse do whatever it is that he does.

But it was better than staring at the wall, losing himself in his thoughts.

Barely.

At least he felt something. Even if it was murderous rage towards a cartoon rat. He stared at the character’s exaggerated expressions and smooth models. It didn’t even have the eye searing colors typical of kid’s cartoons, because as previously mentioned, the TV was from the prehistoric era. But the lack of eye damage didn’t make up for anything. At least eye damage would be stimulating. After eons of watching the hell-show, he turned to look at the barred up clock on the wall. It had been five minutes.

He was reevaluating his previous statement. But this was still better than nothing, right? Right???

…

Nah. He was going to kill himself if he had to watch another minute of this. He fumbled with the remote and shut down the TV.

And not a moment too soon as a woman Kutner had never seen before came walking into the room. She had dark-brown skin and pulled back straight black hair. She wore jeans and a beige button up. She was quite possibly the most boring-looking woman Kutner had ever seen. He wasn’t going to say that, obviously.

Maybe she rescued puppies in her free time, or was a long-term undercover spy or a famous retired movie actress.

Or maybe she was just boring. Who knew? Either way, he was glad he hadn’t been perceived watching Micky Mouse Club House. Think of his reputation! Ha.

Her name tag read “Dr. Bristol”. Very British.

She held out her hand to Kutner’s, and he tried his best to shake it. His grip was lacking, though.

She said something, presumably a greeting and introduction. She emphasized the first word she said and spoke slowly. Kutner nodded at her.

She smiled at him, took out some paper and babbled some more. He tried to listen to her tone and interpret her body language. From this he deduced she was asking him something. How helpful.

She wrote like Star Wars? on the paper. Why had this random woman come in and asked him that? But regardless he nodded and started to write his response when the paper was (quite rudely) snatched away.

She shook her head sharply and said “no”. Then she pointed at him, moved her mouth and wrote, you talk on the paper.

Ah, a speech therapist. They were going to be here for a while.

- This is a line break. A what? A line break? A what? A line break. Oh! A line break! -

They were, in fact, there for a while. By the end of the session, Kutner had managed these words: circle, beautiful, fast, care, and hello. Yeah, that last one was kind of important. How could he forget good old “hello”?

He felt like such an idiot. He knew it wasn’t his fault, it was the brain damage making him not be able to speak right. But who had caused the brain damage? And did it matter? The results were still the same. He couldn’t string two sentences together.

Looks like his dreams of one day winning the spelling bee was truly trashed now. Little Kutner would be so disappointed. Little Kutner was dead, he died with his parents. And Big Kutner realized he didn’t care about the validation of a dead child.

“Fall down seven times, get up eight” he muttered to himself. It did not help, but it’s the thought that counts.

He looked at his arm. He didn’t want to be put back in restraints, but he wanted to hurt himself. Again. He deserved it for being so dumb. Can’t do anything right, good-for-nothing, waste of space. The thoughts sprialled around dizzyingly.

He looked at the mostly healed scars on his right arm and brought his blunted nails to them-

Nurse Bendy, a blonde haired (just what this hospital needed, more blondies) white woman, shouted a “cut it out” (or something like that) at him. He thought she’d been preoccupied with her magazine. But evidently not. At least she’d given him a warning. That was why he kept his friends close and enemies closer. Well, the “enemies” thing had just been a happy accident with Nurse Bendy. They had chatted now and again about her son and theology and lo’ and behold now she was favoring him. Or maybe it was just hospital policy to give people a warning about these things. He hadn’t really been… paying attention at the seminar on conduct. Just be nice to people, right?

All that was nice, he was still pretty prissy at being caught, though. He turned on the TV. Enough time had passed that Micky Mouse Club House had ended and now Phineas and Ferb was showing. Distracting enough that if he focused he wouldn’t have to listen to his thoughts.

Woo.

Notes:

Hehe. Nurse Bendy is from Moral Orel, one of my favorite shows.

Chapter 6: I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there

Notes:

Only I get to know where I get the chapter titles from mwahahaha

Despite the PPTH only having been built in the 90s, that place got old. The maddening white walls, lack of communication with the outside world, not being able to leave, having to leave the door open when he pissed, he could go on. It was enough to drive a man, well, mad. That last one really sucked. Sure the nurses turned their backs, but they will still there.

There was no privacy. Kutner was a people person, but that was pushing it. It simply was not his vibe.

So he decided that since he knew the hospital like the back of his hand he could probably maybe just sneak out. So he waited for nurse number five (he really should learn their names) to fall asleep at her desk. It happened pretty quickly since she was a college student. Kutner also took great care to be quiet as a mouse and subtly hum lullabies. Eat your heart out, Perry the Platypus, there was a new escape artist on the loose.

Those cartoons had addled his brain. Oh how he missed poorly written slashers.

Anyways, as Kutner learned in his youth, confidence was the key to everything. He walked with purpose and swindled some scrubs and boom! Nurse Totally-Not-Kutner (Futner, if you will) was on the loose. The lack of shoes made him look odd, but shoes were expensive and he didn’t want to swipe some poor guy’s Jordon’s. And on top of that then he’d have to find some in his size and it just wasn’t worth it. He had grippy socks, that’s all he needed. He did, however, steal someone’s shirt to put under the scrubs. Those were less expensive and it was just a plain navy so Kutner figured it didn’t hold sentimental value.

Besides, the brain was lazy and filled in gaps (of which there were a lot) with guesses. That coupled with the tiredness of working in the middle of the night meant that unless someone took care to actually look at his feet directly they’d just think he was wearing shoes.

He checked over his “disguise” in the bathroom mirror. It looked fine. But Kutner mainly wanted to look at himself. The pitiful bathroom attached to his room had a plastic mirror that was so shitty it only showed shoddy shapes of whatever was in front of it.

Kutner hadn’t seen what he looked like in forever.

He looked different.

He was paler than he’d ever been, probably due to the lack of sunlight. He had eye bags from hours and hours spent awake staring at either the wall or TV. Since he didn’t do much, he didn’t use up energy so he wasn’t tired when night came and he barely slept. The ugly scars marring him head to toe were covered up now. He finally felt hidden again. His hair had been chopped off when he’d been admitted and Kutner was now sporting a buzz cut. It wasn’t terrible in all honesty. In another life, he might’ve gone with it. He’d also grown a, well “beard” wasn’t the right word. Random patches of hair decorated his chin area in an unattractive manner. There was a reason he was clean shaven!

Kutner almost didn’t recognize himself.

Aside from all that, the most noticeable difference was the goddamn dent in his head. It wasn’t too-too bad, but it was definitely there. If his hair were to grow out, it would be less noticeable but nothing short of an Afro could completely hide it. Woof.

He turned away from the mirror. That was enough of that. He started down the hallway. And after much clever sneaking he found what he was looking for.

Kutner stared at the random beat up back door that would lead to freedom and opened it. He took a nice long breath of fresh air, the first he’d had in over a month.

It tasted wonderful. The hypoallergenic snapdragons were in bloom and smelled strongly of candy. There was a small scent of smog, but it only served the sensation. Like how a touch of salt in batter made a cake sweeter.

Turned out liberation smelled like air pollution and bubblegum.

The light breeze against him contrasted heavily to the warm spring air. It felt nice. There was no such feeling in the hospital, the temperature was usually “a little too cold”.

The concrete beneath his feet was not as pleasant as the other qualia. It was hard and unyielding and soon to make his feet hurt, undoubtedly. Kutner was a doctor, he knew these things.

All those ruminations faded away when he looked up and saw the stars and moon, though. Of course, it was a city, he wasn’t getting Hubble Telescope level detail. But it was a clear night which was more than enough.

He’d forgotten how pretty the night sky was. He hadn’t given enough of a shit to try and crane his head at the hospital window to see it.

Kutner knew all the stars and galaxies he observed were long dead balls of gas. He didn’t care. They were beautiful long dead balls of gas. The moon was a beautiful hallow-defunct-alien-prison as well.

All that was to say: Kutner thought nature was cool.

It was shame he wasn’t going to be around to experience it much longer. Not shameful enough to motivate him to stick around, but still shameful.

Okay, admittedly his intention to escape the hospital wasn’t purely motivated by stir-craziness. That was a big part of it, but Kutner could’ve been staying in Buckingham Palace and still would’ve flown the coop.

The urge to die had hit him like a truck hit an anime protagonist earlier in the night. Before he probably would’ve been more hesitant, tried harder to convince himself to live. But now he had nothing. Just a fucked up brain and a teddy bear. All he had to lose was his life.

So he started walking to the aptly named Princeton-Plainsbrough Bridge. It was a bit of a long walk and would be hell on his legs…

That was alright. He had nowhere to be.

Notes:

Ooooh what happens next I’m on the edge of my seat

Chapter 7: So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread

Notes:

This chapter is kinda weird I’ve been planning it since the beginning though, I just really like the visual.

If anyone doesn’t know, Alice’s Restaurant is a song played on the radio on Thanksgiving (American holiday at the end of November) about a guy dumping garbage, getting arrested for littering, get interviewed for going to the Vietnam war and then being deemed unfit for burning villages and killing women and children because of his criminal record (littering) and ends with a call to action against the war.

“You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk on in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant”

Had been repeating for a while over the tinny Waffle House speakers. Technically the famous ballad had been running normally, but the chorus was all Kutner could seem to hear. He didn’t know any of the other words and the chords looped each verse. So his brain just filled in those five lines. At least they were a good five lines.

He didn’t know why the Thanksgiving song was playing in the early morning during spring, but he didn’t care.

He bit into his shitty waffle and marveled at being able to use the non-spork variety of utensils. These were stickier than the hospital sporks, though. This whole place was sticky. The tables, the floor, the food. Still better than the hospital, though. Kind of.

“How’s the - — —-?“ said Thirteen, who was here too.

He shrugged. “Good,”he replied. It was not, in fact, good. Thirteen could use a taste of her own medicine, though. They continued eating in aggressively awkward silence.

Kutner thought about how he should be at the bottom of a river as he bit into the soft-ish cardboard.

That had been the plan. Then Kutner found some money on the ground. He would’ve been content to just leave it, maybe a homeless man would find it and use it to invest in some up-and-coming company and make millions.

But, Kutner realized he was hungry. And he didn’t want to shuffle off this mortal coil on an empty stomach. He wanted to experience just a bit more of humanity before ending it too.

As such, he picked up the dollar and scrutinized it and for the life of him could not figure out its value. He was re-learning the whole “numbers” thing after the incident and it was slow going, to say the least.

He eventually decided to just go to Waffle House. Stuff was cheap there. He could probably buy something, even with a one.

So he walked and waited for the light, and went without shoes and cursed the soles.

Which is to say his feet hurt, like he knew they would, and he wanted to get everything over with.

He made it there. It was early in the morning and the place was empty, save for the stoned-looking employee at the counter. The florescent lights buzzed quietly and it took Kutner a minute to adjust from the dark of night to the bright of Waffle House.

“Hi,” said Kutner, “can I get a… waffle? A soft brown square thing? To eat?” Maybe speech therapy was good for something. He knew like most of those words. The teenager behind the desk looked like they understood and rung Kutner up. He gave them the dollar and to his delight he got change.

“Thanks,” he said.

Then he realized he forgot to order a drink. Eh. It was America. They had water fountains. Besides, he could just drink the syrup if push came to shove.

He looked out the window, thinking very deep thoughts like:

It smells in here
Sailor Moon Crystal was a disappointment
I want to die
Why is House Like That

And more!

Then he heard the surprising sound of the door opening. The thought it was just a drunk person or something and didn’t look up. Wasn’t the instinct to look important? He wouldn’t’ve last a day as a caveman.

All the more reason to-

“Kutner!” He heard. Aw, rats, they’d caught him. He was gone for like… not that long! Just what he’d got for not being able to read a clock, the nurse’s shift must have been ending sooner than he thought.

He did look up this time; it was Thirteen, obviously.

So here they both were.

“Kutner, we need — - you —- - - hospital!” She said and grabbed his arm.

“Woah, woah woah!” He exclaimed and moved his hands in a placating gesture. “I already paid for my food! It would be a waste of money.”

Thirteen raised her eyebrow.

“Come on, have a seat,” he persuaded and gestured to the chair across from him.

Kutner eventually got his waffle. And there they both were.

“—“ said Thirteen, after Kutner had finished and was now drinking the syrup“why did you do it?”

Notes:

The prodigal daughter is here finally! I have no idea how to write her!!!!

Late update is bc my mental health is in the gutter and this chapter gave me trouble

Chapter 8: Stella’s image see

Notes:

This is where graphic depictions of violence comes in <3 chapter’s a bit clunky

That was the million dollar question, wasn’t it?

Why had he done it?

Most every conscious thing people did could be traced back to fear. You go to work because you fear not having things, you form relationships because you fear being alone, you entertain yourself because you fear boredom. Maybe that last one was a bit of a stretch, but it was true. And every one of those fears could be traced back to a feeling billions of years old: the fear of death.

God, he sounded like House.

Either way, suicide sort of went against all that. Billions of years of progress, of living and dying in the name of evolution and Kutner spat in its face. But the whole “doctor” thing also spat in Mother Nature’s face so…

Right. So fear hadn’t done it, fear would’ve steered him in the opposite direction. Though, Mother Nature made a bit of an oopsy with the whole “pain” thing. It was supposed to deter death, but if someone feared pain more than death, then, well.

But you’d have to be very, very hurt and very, very scared to do something like that. And Kutner didn’t feel that way, per se. His life wasn’t awful, he had no right to be upset. Though, he did feel hurt, but seemingly over nothing.

He felt fine. He should feel fine. He didn’t know why he wasn’t. He just was.

He thought back to everything, trying to look for a reason.

He could sort of remember the exact events of what happened now, since his brain had more time to rewire itself.

Kutner had a small gun collection, someone had probably cleaned it out by now. He hadn’t wanted to use one of his cool ones for something so messy. He changed his mind, however, thinking it was best to go out in style. He ended up using an authentic Colt Single Action Army he found at a yard sale. That’s how he knew it was authentic, people sold stupidly valuable historic stuff at yard sales. He remembered the gun was cold when he picked it up, but he held it in his hands long enough for it to go warm. He remembered staring at it, looking at his reflection in the barrel, like some sort of movie star.

He looked dead.

He remembered holding the gun to his temple and not hesitating to pull the trigger. If he hesitated, who knew how long it would take him to work up the nerve.

The bullet dug through his skin, skull and brain like a tunneling rabbit.

It hurt, but not as much as much as one would think. The inside of the brain didn’t have nerves, since if there was something in there you were probably completely fucked anyways so it wasn’t worth the hassle. That’s what he figured, at any rate.

The shot was loud, deafening even. It made him flinch harshly, which surely saved his life.

He held his hand up to the bullet wound (ow) and it came away covered in crimson. The blood was very warm and slick and stuck to his hand like glue. The stench was putrid and metallic, though not overwhelming. There were also small chunks of viscera in his palm, weirdly they reminded him of Nerd candies.

The blood quickly gushed down the side of his skull and neck and chest as he waited for death. The gun only had had one bullet, so he couldn’t fire again.

He sat there in limbo until his body decided enough was enough and he passed out. He had no last conscious thought, just a feeling of fear.

There was that emotion again, fear.

But he hadn’t been feeling fear when he did it. He hadn’t felt fear when he was planning it. He felt nothing but an urge to get on with it. He didn’t even feel excited, or calm, just apathetic.

He thought back further and further. To internships and college and school and even beforehand.

The first time he wanted to kill himself, he was five. It was summer out and very hot. He remembered learning about death, but not really comprehending it. He just knew it was like sleeping for forever (or, in time a four year old can comprehend, years) and it was cold.

That sounded nice at the time, but he decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and just went back inside.

Story of his life. Up until now, obviously.

He looked at Thirteen and shrugged.

“Because I wanted to,” he said.

Notes:

Mmmmmm I love eating raw chicken

Chapter 9: Murder Clues, I Lost Both Shoes

Notes:

No chapter last week cuz my ADHD was being a bitch and then my designated writing time was interrupted by sobbing

Thirteen raised her eyebrow in a distinctly Foreman-like manner. He guessed what they said about lovers coming to look like another was true, but didn’t that happen over decades? Anyways, her expression read “that’s bullshit”.

And yeah, it was kind of a bullshit answer. But it was true, and it was the most he’d ever told someone about the inner machinations of his mind. They were dark, dank workings, ugly and shameful. At first his quiet came from a place of fear, then from shame, then a belief no one would care, then not wanting help.

At least Thirteen cared. Everyone cared, he supposed. Even Taub, probably. Maybe. He knew Taub came into his room in the dead of night and creepily stared at him when he thought Kutner was sleeping. Taub never said anything, the only reason he knew it was Taub was the sound of his footsteps (and Nurse Bendy telling him).

He was pretty sure he heard him crying once. But that might have been a dream.

At least Taub visited him of his own free will. Foreman only saw him to do checkups and treated him like any other patient.

But of the ones that cared, did they care because they cared about him, or because it was a mystery? Even if they cared about Kutner, they cared about the illusion of Kutner, not he himself. Or he supposed he was himself, excluding the fake parts. A trace of the true self existed in the false self-

“Why did you “want to” do it?” Thirteen asked after an undetermined amount of time. He’d been so lost in thought. It was probably awkward for Thirteen, given to her it just looked like he was staring at her in silence.

This time he actually stared at her. Her eyes looked grey in the cheap florescent lighting. He had never noticed the color before. The only person whose eyes he’d noticed was House, given their otherworldly (re: terrifying) appearance. Her makeup was smudged, but it wasn’t noticeable from a distance. Her eyebrow had gone down and her face was resting, though it looked a bit more tired than the last time he’d seen it. Or maybe he was just imagining that.

“What do you want me to say?” He demanded, not truly angry, but still annoyed. He kept still kept careful track of his words, though.

“My life is great. I have a steady job, a bright future, enough money and food, a roof over my head, and a thriving social life. The worst thing that ever happened to me was I got orphaned like forever ago. I tried to kill myself because I wanted to. There was no driving factor. There were no financial troubles, no broken hearts. It is, and always has been, me.”

Thirteen… didn’t know what to say to that, judging by the look on her face. Or maybe she just hadn’t understood him.

“Ok, Kutner.” She eventually sighed. “- — go.”

He thought about ditching her. He really didn’t want to go back to the hospital. They’d probably put him in restraints again. Any progress towards personal freedom he might’ve made would be razed. Also, this awkward, emotional conversation was making him want to kill himself even more. He thought about booking it. He was more athletic than her, unless she was hiding a secret track career. They’d gone to an amusement park together before, and she got tired before he did.

Evidently, she saw what he was planning.

“Please, don’t make me - — you again.”

And damn, what was he supposed to say to that?

He was counting on one of his hapless neighbors to find his body after hearing the gun shot. He had not intended his friends to find him. He had not intended to make them desperately try to keep him alive until the ambulance came. He had not intended them to cover themselves in his blood. He had intended for them to find out from a call, probably from his parents, hours after the fact. He had intended to just give them a little trauma, not a lot.

It sounded bad now that he thought about it, but he did what he had to do. And he didn’t regret it.

So he sighed and stood up, as did Thirteen. She smiled and took out her pager to alert everyone he was going back into the belly of the beast.

It was alright. He could try again later. There’s always tomorrow, unfortunately.

They walked out to Thirteen’s car and got in. Turning to her, he said:

“So, were you named after the rat?”

Notes:

I really like the 🧌 emoji

Chapter 10: My Labor and My Leisure Too, For His Civility

Notes:

*throws chapter and scampers back into the dark*

“——-,” said Dr. Nosek, head of being a total dick at Princeton Plainsbrough Teaching Hospital, “—— Prozac isn’t a good fit for you”.

“Yeah” said Kutner from where he was bound to the bed for the second time in as many weeks.

“We’ll be upping your dose, and if that proves to not work, we can try different medicines or combine them.”

“Dude,” drawled Kutner, “you know I’m a doctor too, right? I know how medications work.”

“Excuse me for trying to help. We still don’t know the extent of your brain damage.” Who was “we”? Kutner had demonstrated what he knew pretty well, he thought.

“You’re excused.” Dr. Nosek sighed upon hearing this.

“——,” he began. Oh, Kutner did NOT like that tone. “You’re friends” or maybe he’d said colleagues? “have pulled a lot of strings” re: House had thrown a tantrum “to stop you from being committed. But if you don’t play along, I’ll be forced to and you there anyways.” good luck with that.

Unless, of course, his friends decided he was better off in the madhouse…

He’d cross that bridge when he got to it. He was planning on crossing a lot of bridges when he got to it. Like how he was going to keep being a doctor, assuming that was even an option. Or what he was going to do once he got out of the hospital. Or how he would explain to his non-doctor friends where he’d been. Or if he’d bother repairing his Animal Crossing town. Or or or.

Kutner was trying not to think about it.

Dr. Nosek sighed again. “How did you feel leading up to leaving the hospital?”

“Bad” replied Kutner.

“Ok,” he said, “can you expand on that?”

“No,” he replied curtly. The doctor gave him a look. This was good news for Kutner, though, because he didn’t have to rely on guesswork to interpret his words. Because he’d said nothing.

The world: a lot
Kutner: like 5

Normally, he’d say he could catch up, but honestly? That ship sailed long ago. He wasn’t attractive enough to be an underdog beating the odds. Or maybe he’d already beaten them, and still had lost. Maybe he was never supposed to win.

“What’s going through your head right now?” Inquired Nosek. No more doctor title for him.

“Sports statistics.” He answered. Kutner was a nerd through and through, he didn’t care about sports. Except the Puppy Bowl. “The Devils are having a good year.” He continued. The Devils were the only team he knew. And he didn’t follow them. He was a disgrace to the nation of New Jersey.

“You ———- hockey?” Said Nosek, sounding excited for the first time since Kutner met him. Oh. Oh God oh no. He proceeded to talk about hockey for 20 minutes, Kutner occasionally going “mhm” and “uh-huh”. He’d completely zoned out and was trying to rewatch an episode of Sailor Moon in his head to mild success.

It was still better than talking about mental health.

Eventually the bad doctor left. Consumed by self-pity and boredom he began to sing:

“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Nobody knows my sorrow
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Glory hallelujah

I can’t remember the rest
Oooh”

“Interesting rendition,” deadpanned a voice. A familiar voice.

He looked over and saw little baby (or big baby?) Rachel. She had grown since the last time he’d seen her, as babies wont. She was wearing little green overalls (no pockets, what would a baby put in a pocket?) complimented by an orange shirt with tiny flowers on it. A proper farmer.

And Cuddy was there too, he guessed.

“What’s up?” He said, raising a hand.

“Same old, same old. House put a ——- implant on someone without their permission, the patient ripped it out, nobody knows what’s going on. —- the hospital ——- fire Dr. Cramer since ———- he’s been purposefully botching surgeries.”

“House does that all the time, and he’s still employed” Kutner felt the need to point out.

“House isn’t a sadist.” Kutner raised his eyebrow “House isn’t that sadistic compared to what this guy’s been doing.” Cuddy corrected. After a pause, Kutner turned to the baby.

“And how have you been doing, Ms. Rachel?” He inquired to the baby.

“‘Utner!” She exclaimed. So she hadn’t forgotten him, that was nice. She would though, eventually. Everyone would forget him eventually.

Instead of verbalizing that thought, he laughed and said “close enough!”

“Have you been good for your mommy?”

“Yes!”

Kutner turned to Cuddy with a questioning look. “Has she?”

“Ehhhhh” replied Cuddy, making a so-so gesture. “She’s a baby. She has baby problems. ——- has been helping out, which is a weight off my shoulders.”

“Loo-us, loh-us, loh-pus?” He said, trying to mimic the unfamiliar word. Normally he didn’t care, but he wanted to know who this mystery person was. He wanted gossip to turn over in his head. Also, he was curious.

“——-“ she corrected. Ok.

“Who?”

“The ———-“ Kutner stared at her, uncomprehendingly.

She looked mildly upset at his confusion, snatched up some paper and wrote Lucas, the detective.

“Oh, him!” He exclaimed. “…why?” Lucas and he were kindred spirits. Kutner could appreciate that, but he didn’t see why Cuddy would. He always thought ‘opposites attract’ was a myth. Honestly, he felt stupid now that he was thinking about it. He’d seen little hints of Lucas around the apartment: a paper on cigarette smoke, some deactivated bugs, a bee plush. In all fairness, he’d figured the bee plush had been Rachel’s.

The world: a lot + one
Kutner: like 5

“You know,” she said “you’re the —— person to ask me that.”

Notes:

It’s been a minute. Don’t be worried, though! I didn’t off myself. Anyways the fanfic curse is REAL.

Chapter 11: At Once Before and After

Notes:

So like tw for a mention of racism. It’s not like detailed or anything and it’s pretty brief. I didn’t want to like brush it under the rug that Kutner probably experienced it at some point, but I’m paler than winter sun and don’t really feel qualified to discuss it or the trauma around it in any sort of detail.

The only time I’ve ever been ““victimized”” (in heavy air quotes) for my race was in the eighth grade when someone called me a “white f***ot” which I found more funny than anything.

Also tw for child abuse. A little more detailed and again only mentioned but worth pointing out.

Hours turned to days as Kutner continued the chore that was living. He passed the time by sighing dramatically and contemplating existence. And therapy. Lots of therapy. Mad boring therapy. Because apparently sessions with the psychiatrist weren’t enough.

The therapist, Heather Bonner, liked to poke and prod a lot more than Nosek and could not be distracted with shiny keys. Unfortunate.

Either way, he wasn’t letting some half-wit therapist get the full Kutner experience. She could get the default package.

She was not content with the default package.

You see, Kutner did not like talking about himself. Kutner liked talking about Sci-Fi and whatever video games. Kutner’s therapist did not like talking about Sci-Fi and video games. Kutner’s therapist liked talking about Kutner and what made him the way he was so they could deconstruct it and make him a better Kutner. Kutner did not particularly want to become a better Kutner via deconstruction. He had constructed himself very nicely, thank you very much. Maybe he wasn’t the best Kutner he could be, but he made peace with that back in college. Well, peace was a strong word. It was more like he had accepted he was and always would be a bad person. He still tried to be better, but he knew at the end of the day it would be a fruitless endeavor.

He wished he didn’t have to answer Ms. Bonner’s (bah, she wasn’t even a doctor) stupid questions about his “tragic” backstory or how he felt. It never seemed to matter what Kutner wanted, though. No, that wasn’t fair, he got what he wanted a lot of the time. He was being dramatic and stupid. He tried not to be too too much of drama queen, and when he was it was usually intentional. Now he was just being whiny.

Oh well.

He figured he could give them both what they wanted. Hopefully it would go better than the biting incident. He felt more sane this time around, if such a thing can be measured. When the therapist asked him questions about his totes tragic backstory, he spun a tail about being briefly horribly abused in foster care and how it definitely affected him. He’d spiced it up a little. A few more punches and shitty foster care siblings. And oh wow they’ve deconstructed Kutner can he go home now?

In reality, his foster homes before meeting the Kutners had been a little tumultuous. He’d been harshly stereotyped and insulted, but they never hit him or anything. Except for that one time. (He was a child a hurt child he couldn’t imagine someone hurting a child like that, how someone could have so much hate in their heart for a child.) He didn’t care though. He was over it, he was. But he didn’t include those anecdotes in his therapy-approved reasons.

After hearing Kutner’s fairytales, she sighed and looked at him like he was the biggest disappointment since Superman 64. Kutner’s parents dying. That had been quite disappointing for him, he knew such things were subjective though. Superman 64 was not. It had revived negative reviews from across the board.

Kutner looked away.

“I think we both know that’s not true. We also both know that if you don’t try to get better, you won’t get better.”

“WELL, WHAT IF I DON’T WANT TO GET BETTER-“

“DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO BREATHE!” Shouted House as he flung the door open. Ms. Bonner, reasonably, looked incredibly annoyed. Kutner’s fellow ducklings shuffled in behind House.

“Excuse me, Dr. House, we’re in the middle of a session,” she stated with finality, trying to get him to leave.

Ha. Once House got an idea in his head, there was no stopping him. Kutner was banking on it.

“UGH,” began House, “therapy’s ———. Before my infraction, I went to therapy. For ——— I got my therapist a fresh, ——- loaf of bread. And instead of being thankful for my thoughtful gift, the bastard put it on his desk and asked me why I gave it to him. It started to mold and he still kept it. Sitting there. Stinking up the room session after session as it rotted away as we talked about the bread instead of my harrowing experiences as a child soldier.”

“…——” said Taub, “But House, I ——- think we should go.”

“ANYWAYS,” House bulldozed “START TALKING, PEOPLE!”

“Pneumonia,” Kutner said immediately.

“Patient has no fever,” shot back House.

Kutner: “Pneumonia doesn’t always present with a fever,”

House: “For that to happen she would have to ————————, which she isn’t.” He probably said immunocompromised. Kutner really hoped he did or he would look like an idiot.

Kutner: “It could’ve just been missed. Frequent doctor visits can indicate it, doctors could’ve just brushed it off. Besides, not everyone goes to the doctor when they’re sick.”

House: “Maybe, but everyone goes to the doctor when they’re immunocompromised and, you know, have a worse immune system, which causes, you know, worse illnesses.”

Thirteen: “It’s not like ——— make a ———. Combined with gender bias she could easily just be avoiding the doctor.”

Kutner: “It could also be late onset, either triggered by an environmental factor or just getting older.”

House: “Okay, let’s consider it, Thirteen, go ——- the patient, Taub and Foreman, test her blood for ——-.” Taub scurried away like a bat out of hell, with Thirteen and Foreman less frantically following.

“We’re not breaking into anyone’s house?” Kutner questioned with a frown on his face.

“Wow Kutner. Wow, I would never break the law. Besides, why would we commit a ——- to find information on a disease we can easily test for?” House pointed out. “We can’t have you escaping again. We don’t want to risk you getting out and taking lethal amounts of ———-. You need to get back to therapy, anyways.”

Then House walked out as he had walked in. With gusto.

This was so much better than therapy. He was back in his element. He felt like he hadn’t been able to stretch his brain in forever, drilling himself on slowly-being-forgotten medical jargon was only so stimulating. He felt better, just a little better. Kutner smiled a small smile, turned to his therapist and snapped in the air.

“Still got it!” He declared.

“That’s nice, Kutner,” Heather replied with a saccharine grin. Hey! That rhymed. “Now, can we go back to what you said about not wanting to ‘get better’?”

“You’re not asking, are you?”

“No.”

Notes:

The bread story is true btw. Presumably anyways. I heard it third hand. This chapter’s a bit all over the place. This fic isn’t over, but it’s taught me a lot about writing tbh. Mainly: plan your story before you write it.