Author's Note: This is just a short drabble-like thought that came to my mind. It was somehow inspired by the scene where House tells Cuddy she wouldn't be a good mother. And it was supposed to be a House/Cuddy fic, but it turned out differently; something I haven't expected either.
Hope you enjoy it, and feedback is, as always, very welcome.
This was the line
He felt his heart beat in every single pore of his body. This either meant physical strain or remorse, and he hadn't done anything requiring strength for weeks.
He had to admit it, he felt guilty. For being a jerk. For doing what he always did. For hurting her.
He did not understand the guilt, for he had simply been his usual self; the stubbornness, the sarcasm, the dominance, the selfishness, the arrogance. Everything that defined him. All that he was.
So what was different?
He surely had not been harsher this time. He was indeed mean, but he knew where to draw the line, and this was it, this was the line. One step further and he would have drowned in remorse for the rest of his life.
He had never studied psychology, so how was he to know why he felt so guilty? The only thing he knew of it was that everybody lied, and he did not exclude himself from that.
He had lied, oh, how had he lied, ever so often, to convince people he was right or simply and selfishly to get what he wanted. That's what he had learnt already as a child:
Lie. Pretend. People will hate you, but you'll be the best, no matter what you do. And you'll love yourself.
Everything had turned out to be true, everything but the part where he was supposed to like himself. Where this part of his soul was supposed to be, there was a gaping hole, a giant nothingness, and so much hatred, so much pain.
Pain for what he had lost in life: his family, his few friends, his Stacy, his leg. His leg.
And hatred. Wrath against normal people, people who had everything, people with wives and children and the white picket fence, but above all, hatred of himself. For being a jerk. For hurting her.
It had cost him so much to get where he was, and he had been one tiny step short of giving in more times than he could remember, but eventually, he had given up everything and arrived where he always wanted to be. It had made him weak, but it made him stronger.
He did not let his mind contemplate much about 'what if's and 'how might's because he knew for certain that he'd have to take more Vicodin than usual afterwards. To fill the emptiness, to ease the pain of scars that wouldn't heal.
He was not lonely. All he needed was a TV and the usual female attention once in a blue moon. And his job.
But sometimes he wondered, when thinking of Stacy, how it might be, falling in love again.
And he cursed himself for thoughts like those, and for knowing he would never be able to love again. And took another pill.
He stays awake all night long, the guilt still gnawing at him as if he were nothing but an old bone.
And suddenly he realises, and wrath's flame burns alight. The inextinguishable hatred that consumes him and eats him alive.
For hurting her.
FIN