Title: Dirty, Grey Glass.

Summary: Angst-ridden musings on House's character, written in the second person and set just before S5E19 'Locked in'. No pairings. Please read and review.

Spoilers: S5E19.

Warnings: Mild angst.

Rating: K+


See, when you walked into the detached, grey-walled office of the New York psychiatrist, and for many years previous to that event, you had been under a certain impression. Namely, that all these repressed Issues and Problems and Complexes you had been repeatedly assured that you suffered from were, well, repressed. Merely lying in wait beneath a thick layer of distractions and pills for you to peruse should you ever choose to.

Up until now you most certainly hadn't chosen to. You had allowed this swirling mass of misery to remain undisturbed, except for when Wilson and Cuddy (mostly Wilson) chose to squint at it and construct some half-baked theory about your latest antics. And occasionally you would listen, after a healthy period of deflection of course, and make some tentative change. Have a drink with your fellows. Attempt to help a clinic patient. Small things, to evaluate the effectiveness of that week's hypothesis.

It really was much easier than one might think, ignoring your underlying pathologies (Until you walk into that steely grey office). Distractions were abundant in your life, because that was the way you crafted it. The adrenaline of a case, symptoms and treatments and relapses and misdirections and medications and that one, blissful moment of epiphany where the world ceased to exist except for you and your mind racing to pull together the final pieces of the puzzle. And if that wasn't readily available, there were always bad soap-operas and game boys.

No, it really was best to ignore the memories. You had a suspicion that they would be filled with ice that burned, an empty back yard and sugar-sweet words that did nothing at all. People who clung to their truths with an iron grip and acted accordingly, and those who were helplessly incapable to see the truth and deal with it.

But, how could you really know this, not merely have some feeble belief or faith in the idea, but truly know it unless you considered the alternative. The one the 'healthy' people bleated about. And…it was grating at you. The sharp burn of the pain making every idea of escape more and more attractive was grating at you. And so you went to therapy. And so you discovered that you were wrong.

You listened to the woman's questions, along with her irritating use of your first name, and realised that you knew nothing. She shined a light on the dirty glass surface that enclosed the pain, and it showed you nothing. It just hurt. You could not puzzle it out, or connect its repercussions; you could just feel it hurt, like a helpless child.

And then…and then you fled so fast you totalled your bike.


A/N: I haven't written anything this long in months (even though this isn't all that long). As I write this A/N my hair is practically solid, as the plotbunny struck me mid-shower so I came to write it down before it could run off, and unfortunately before I finished washing my hair. Plus if you got this far then maybe you didn't hate this little story, so I would really love a review. Just a simple sentence, if you're lazy like me. If you are determinedly unmoved by my tale of woe, then go ahead and drop me a review to tell me a more convincing one. Not that I'm desperate for feedback or anything, no…I didn't completely screw this up, did I?