Oxygen Debt

By Atia of the Julii

Disclaimer: You know the drill.

Author’s notes: This was written before the third season. For those of you who are curious about what oxygen debt is, you can look it up in Wikipedia.

There’s the din of the crowd in the background. Anticipation hangs in the air.

His hands are touching the white line.

Come on, come on.

The gun fires and he immediately starts running at lightning speed.

The ground is at first soft and mushy beneath his feet. The lack of friction makes him think that maybe he’s going to slip, not to mention the fact that he fears that he may be swallowed by the whole ground.

It’s so soft and slippery and it’s dim ...

But he keeps running and this time the ground is green, hard and brown beneath his Keds.

Limbs stretch and muscles flex.

Wind sweeps around his face and strands of his hair blur his vision but oh he can see it, he can see it ...

He keeps on running, his eyes are fixed on that red rope.

He can hear his heart pound in his chest and his blood pump through his arteries and yet he can still hear the distant chorus of the crowd in the stadium, the thud of his rivals’ footfalls simultaneously ringing in his ears.

But he has to run faster, he has to keep looking forward, his arms swing forward and oh no, oh no, there is a man who has almost come up to him but yes! He is once again ahead of everyone else!

Slow and steady, he thinks but it hardly applies to this situation. He thinks it’s the cool sweat on his forehead and the scorching, orange sun above his head but he can’t be sure.

Even his breathing seems to stop.

The ground stops being slippery and there’s easy friction but if only his legs would cooperate.

His legs feels heavy (but the red line is so, so close) and he thinks he might slip into something.

And suddenly the world which seems to be a shade of bright yellow, white, and green altogether, is now fading into black, a dark shade ...

But oh God, no, no, it’s so close.

He keeps running, the crowd continues yelling and his feet ache; but oh he’s ahead of them all, he’s ahead of them and all!

And he, and he ... the red sash touches his abdomen, and he tears through, rushing in, crossing the finish line.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

He sighs and pants and breathes heavily and suddenly nothing matters but that cool breeze, that lightness in his feet and, that uplifting feeling in his heart as he hears the crowd yell.

He tries to adjust his breathing but the oxygen debt persists.

The crowd shouts and cheers for him and as he takes the cup (his prize), he turns around to the smile at the crowd.

And it’s sweet and lovely and nice and it’s ...

He opens his eyes suddenly, confused. He’s still breathing heavily and his legs ache.

His eyes are focused on the ceiling and it seems as though that he doesn’t even know this place in which he’s slept in for the past decade.

He places his hand on his bed, just to be sure.

He rubs his eyes and a voice at the back of his head (it’ll fade like everything else) mocks him. It tells him that this is far too clichéd.

He can feel himself breathe and ah, this is one of the reasons why he doesn’t want to wake up.

He closes his blue eyes and looks up to the whiteness of the ceiling, almost pleading for something.

He can swear that there’s lactic acid in his legs because he thinks they hurt.

He adjusts his breathing.

He stretches body and he feels tight and taut all over like a string stretched thin.

He manages to crawl to the bedside to get his dose of Vicodin. He wishes he were like a cat right now, and his body was flexible like a string.

Old age. It happens to us all.

He keeps looking at the ceiling for time, he lets the sweat on his forehead slide away and he lets himself believe that maybe the whiteness of the (seemingly) high ceiling might grant him clarity.

He licks him dry lips and he wants to brush his teeth.

He breathes in the air, it’s sweet, but it’s not light.

He drags himself up.

This is what he is, and this what he always will be.

But that doesn’t mean that he cannot dream.

He’s always loved running, and if he can’t run now, well ... he can run in his dreams.

He can run somewhere where everything is like a pleasant assault on his senses.

He knows that even if his leg was fine now, he wouldn’t be able to run very fast like he does in his dreams.

And maybe he’s okay with it.

He drags himself to the bathroom, and there’s a soft smile on his face.

And this is who he is.

The gentle optimist who tries to be the ideal cynic.

The oxygen debt has been paid.

He gently brushes his teeth with his brand new (and he does like to indulge himself) Oral-B toothbrush.

And this is who he will be and ought to be.

There are plenty of things that people don’t know about Gregory House and you can’t blame them one bit.

But the thing is- he’s a dreamer, who doesn’t want to leave his dreams behind but he has to.

And he dreams of the simplest things because it’s all he has sometimes and it’s what makes him smile.

Acknowledgements: Many, many thanks to my patient and awesome beta Sara who inspired me to finish this fic and gave me her help and thoughts.

Readers’ thoughts are always appreciated so go ahead, tell me what you thought.