Title: Some Devil
Author: Ellie
Pairing: Mentions of past House/Stacy, Gen
Rating: PG13
Summary: "Too drunk and still drinking…" Dave Matthews,
‘Some Devil’

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The glass of Jameson’s glowed in the dim light, cut facets of
glass and rippling liquid refracting every ray available.
Occasionally the glass shuddered a few centimeters along the
closed lid of the reverberating piano, until the roiling blues lost
its bass harmony for a moment, and another swig was knocked
back.

All too soon, the piece finished with an overdramatic flourish,
sending the empty glass skittering nearly to the edge. House
caught in with practiced reflexes, refilling from the nearby bottle,
gulping, and launching into another tune.

Nights like this made him wish that he’d forgone medicine and
made a deal like Robert Johnson’s. His soul was only causing
him pain, the mental exacerbating the physical. He could have
sold it, alleviated half his problems and spent his life happily
pounding away in smoky piano bars.

Hell, it might have solved all his problems. If he’d never been a
doctor, he might never have met Stacy, might never have had an
infarction, might not have cared if he lost the leg. A missing leg
would have only added to the allure of a soulless pianist.

Single handed, he fiddled with the opening bars of "Cross Road
Blues," downing half the whisky in one swallow. He knew that
most of the greats had played under the influence, and a heady
mix of Vicodin, alcohol, and pain never hurt his performance,
either.

Perhaps he should have mixed such a cocktail before his
performance with Stacy, he thought. It might have turned off his
troubled brain enough to allow his instincts to take over, to run
far away from what he knew was a very bad idea. But
he’d—they’d—done wrong, and was smart enough to walk
away before he was hurt worse than before.

Was that even possible? He pondered as he sipped again at the
whisky, slowly, savoring. His world had imploded when she’d
left before; if Cuddy hadn’t been riding him every step of the
way he would have slunk away to be a one-legged pianist in a
dive somewhere, wound up dead in the gutter. Sometimes he
wondered if that wouldn’t have been a better option.

Less painful, certainly. But the pain meant he still felt something,
so he refilled his glass once more, attempting to dull it down to
nothing. The warmth of the alcohol did little to chase away the
chill inside him, the icy shiver of a mortally wounded, closeted
romantic. Gruff exterior and razored sarcasm kept him from
being often wounded, but when a blow penetrated the armor, the
wound did not easily heal. This wound had been festering for
far too long.

Alcohol has antiseptic properties, he thought, and wondered if
there were enough bottles in the world to disinfect this wound.

****
End
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