Like Touching a Ghost
Author's note: This is my first foray into House fanfic, so I'd really appreciate any feedback you have in order to see whether or not I'm good enough for this fandom. I don't own House, et al.; I'm only using them in this story.
House adjusts his iPod with the weakness of hand that always comes at night when the drugs and the booze kick in and leave him in state half way between being conscious and being knocked out. The timing has gotten so precise over the years that he can, in fact, judge how much time he has left by the songs on the Playlist. Right now, it's on The Who, so House figures that gives him another 10 minutes or so.
He listens to the cords with the expected familiarity of someone who's heard the same the song 200 times before. As the chorus hits its defining climax, House unconsciously taps his hand in a slightly off rhythm. The question of Who are you? repeatedly blasts in his heavily fogged head.
House thinks that's a stupid question; everyone knows who they are. They may lie about it, but they know. Even he knows who he is: a Vicodin-addicted UMich grad with a brilliant mind, a useless leg, and absolutely no social graces. No, the question that haunts House isn't Who are you?; it's Who were you?
Different people have given him a lot of different answers over the years. Stacey said he never did, Wilson said he totally did, and Cameron, well, Cameron just said he changed enough to damage him but not enough that she couldn't fix him. House suspects they're all right and all wrong because everyone lies but no one lies all the way. He just wishes he could remember for himself. He's tried before, a lot, as a matter of fact. He's tried remembering when drunk and when sober, but nothing ever quite works. It is like he trying to touch a ghost. House tells himself he doesn't believe in ghosts, but even as he saying it, he knows he's saying it in the way people say thing they know are BS. But, hey, everyone lies, and he falls under "everyone," doesn't he?
He remembers that he was never exactly nice, but he's not sure when "not nice" turned into "misanthropic." He had friends when he was a kid, not many, but some. Heck, he even had a girlfriend in 3rd grade, some girl whose name had long since washed by the pain and the drugs. He had fewer friends in college as he became rapidly intolerant of the stupidity of the masses, and fewer still in medical school when he became well known for being a furious nutcase who boldly proclaimed his professors idiots. (He smiles slightly as he thinks of that, remembering all the professors who threatened to full him, only relinquishing when he aced all their exams.)
Now, House is down to one friend, an oncologist who likes him for some unknown reason. He has his ducklings, of course, but they are more highly paid lab techs than anything. He has Cuddy, more of a pretty roadblock than a friend, and Stacy, someone who either hates him or loves him enough to betray him and screw his leg over like she did.
House would like to blame Stacey for all of this; he really would, but the truth is, he can't figure out what to blame her for. He can't envision himself any differently, can't see himself wearing a Volger-prescribed lab coat, or willing going to clinic duty. Hell, he can't even see himself with a golf club or lacrosse stick anymore. Yet he curses her nevertheless for all things in his screwed up world, those he knows and those he does not.
And when the toxic cocktail finally kicks in, House imagines he sees himself 5 years younger and ten times happier, and then he tells himself to shut up because it is stupid to ask questions anyway, especially when you don't know the answers.