June 2007

"How long have you been seeing the shrink?"

Wilson had wondered how long it would take House to get to that question. This time, House had waited until the end of the day to ambush him, which meant he was intending more than just a strafing run. Wilson didn't even have a board or committee meeting scheduled to use as a convenient escape.

He weighed the pros and cons of telling the truth versus picking a date that would give House no new information, and decided it would be easier just to let House draw his own conclusions from the facts. "January."

It didn't take House long to make the connection. "Interesting," he mused. "I go into rehab and you pick up a drug habit. Were you trying to maintain the balance in the universe?"

"That would have been futile," Wilson pointed out sharply. It still rankled--not that House had faked rehab, but that he had allowed himself to hope that House was willing to get help. He wouldn't make that mistake again. Hope and House always led to disappointment. "Actually, I didn't start with the antidepressants until the beginning of March." He waited for House to connect the next dot.

"Even better. You think I'm depressed, so you go on antidepressants. Is that your way of leading by example?" His eyes suddenly narrowed and he leaned forward, gripping his cane with both hands. "Or were you planning even then to spike my coffee?"

"No," Wilson replied quickly, though he wondered if the idea had always been buried in his subconscious. "But they helped. I felt better than I had for months, so I thought maybe they could help you too." And they had helped, no matter what House said. House had been happier. "So I switched to a prescription that would interact better with Vicodin. That's what caused the yawning." It was karma, he supposed. If he hadn't switched, House might never have noticed that either of them were on antidepressants.

House looked up and Wilson knew he'd made that connection too. "Are you still on them?" he asked.

Wilson nodded. He reached into his jacket pocket and tossed House the pill bottle, trying hard not to think of the consequences. "I've cut back. Maybe I'll go off altogether." He didn't want to believe he was depressed, even if it was true.

House closed his hand around the bottle. "I thought you didn't want me to see your file."

It was a long way from knowing the prescribing physician's name to finding his file, but House travelled fast. "I don't. But I haven't given you a lot of reasons to trust me lately. Maybe I can start by trusting you."

"You didn't trust me enough to admit that you're just as screwed up as the next idiot whining about his problems to someone who gets paid to care. Why start now?"

"It's not as if I could pay you to care," Wilson retorted. The only time House paid attention to Wilson's personal life was when he thought it might affect him. Most of the time, Wilson preferred that--House's interference generally ended up with Wilson drunk, drugged, or dumped--but sometimes he wished for a more sympathetic best friend. "You act all hurt and disapproving when you find out I've kept something from you, but when I try to talk to you about my problems, you just walk away."

"Once. I walked away once, more than a year ago, and you're still bitching about it. Elephants have shorter memories than you." House tossed the pills back without looking. "Maybe you shouldn't go off them," he said. "Not if they're helping." He leaned back again. "You'll tell me if you change your prescription or your dosage."

Wilson nodded and tried not to smile. "You could always prescribe for me," he suggested. "Prove that you know more than the headshrinkers," he added to deflect his embarrassment. Asking House directly for help never worked. It only made them both uncomfortable.

House shook his head. "I might not learn from my own mistakes, but I can learn from yours. What?" he demanded, when Wilson tensed and looked away. "If nothing else, this last year should have taught you that prescribing for me is bad for you. And god knows, I could do without the lectures or the begging."

Wilson started to protest that he'd never made House beg for a prescription, but then he remembered turning down House's first request for Vicodin after the ketamine failed and refusing to prescribe an anti-emetic at Christmas. Both times he'd thought he was doing the right thing, but that didn't mean he hadn't hurt House. "You're right," he said, surprised he hadn't choked on the words. "Maybe it would be better for both of us if you found someone else to write your scrips." He pulled the file back into his sightline. There was always more paperwork to be done, another patient to visit, another diagnosis to deliver. He could avoid talking to House forever.

He heard House stand up and assumed the interrogation had ended for the day, now that House had his latest answers. But House just walked around to the front of Wilson's desk and stood there until Wilson looked up. House was watching him intently. Wilson recognized that expression; House had moved on from one puzzle to the next. The object was the same, but the subject was ever-changing.

"That sounded convincing," House observed. "Why don't you say it like you mean it?"

"It would be better for you if someone else wrote your scrips," Wilson repeated, enunciating each word as if he were humouring a small child.

"But not better for you," House commented, and Wilson recognized his slip. "Why is that? Trying to hang on to a patient who isn't taking a one-way trip down cancer highway? Or do you just like having that kind of control over me, stringing me along, doling out the meds? Does all that power make you feel special?"

"Special?" The word snapped out of Wilson's mouth like a slingshot. "You think it makes me feel special to sign my name to a prescription, knowing this could be the one that pushes your liver to the point of no return? Or having to worry that this time you might take one too many pills, by accident or on purpose?"

"So stop. I'm not holding a gun to your head."

"I can't!" It was suffocating sitting behind the desk while House loomed over him, so Wilson stood up abruptly, shoving his chair back into his bookshelf. He had the fleeting satisfaction of seeing House look surprised and almost concerned, and then he turned away and started righting the books his chair had knocked over.

"Wilson." House's voice was quiet, but it carried easily in the sudden stillness of the room. "Wilson."

"Just leave it, House," Wilson replied. He pressed his hands down on the shelf, trying to ground himself to something. When House nudged him between the shoulders with the tip of his cane, there was almost no give.

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid of anything," Wilson protested, ignoring the tight band of panic constricting his chest.

"I don't have to smell fear. I can see it from a hundred yards, and you're barely one yard away. I bet your heart is racing faster than it was on speed."

That was another thing Wilson didn't need to remember. He flinched when House's hand curled around his wrist. It was the second time House had touched him in less than a week. He didn't know whether to be worried or comforted.

"One-twenty and rising," House observed. "You're either freaking out or your resting pulse rate is really messed up." He let go, but didn't move away. "Calm down before you give yourself a heart attack."

Wilson spun to face him, his hands drifting to his hips unconsciously. "Why? A heart attack isn't going to kill me--I'm in a hospital."

House snorted. "Remembering everything I say to you is kind of creepy, you know."

"Not as creepy as saying it in the first place," Wilson retorted. "You didn't give a damn how I reacted to the amphetamines, as long as it answered your question. All the better if I'd had a heart attack or stroke, because it would have narrowed down what kind I was on." He knew that wasn't really true, but he didn't care. It was nice not to care for once.

"And you were walking the path of righteousness, slipping me your prescription in secret while pretending to be a good friend?"

Wilson took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down and think through his next words. "Is that what you're pissed off about? That I wasn't buying you coffee just to do something nice for you?" House never hesitated to borrow or steal what he wanted from Wilson, whether it was half his sandwich, his last ten dollars, or his car. It had never occurred to Wilson that he might make a distinction between receiving and taking. "I'll buy you a coffee right now, if it'll make you happy. You can watch to make sure I don't put anything in it." The anger faded away, leaving him exhausted. "I wasn't trying to be a good friend. I thought I was being a good friend." He held up a hand to stop House's next retort. "I was wrong. Just like you were wrong to dose me. But at least I was trying to help you."

"Implying that I wasn't."

"The last time I checked, amphetamines weren't a valid treatment for depression."

"Just trying to put the manic back into manic-depressive." House retreated to the couch. "How could I treat you if I didn't know what was wrong?"

"And that's ever stopped you before?" He sat back down in the chair and swivelled it to face House. "And there wasn't anything for you to treat. I had a problem, I got help. End of story." It wasn't that simple, of course, but it was the kind of pragmatic approach to diagnosis that House appreciated.

"And if I had a problem, I'd get help."

Wilson wished he could believe that. "You don't get help, you get high." The brain tumour ruse had been a little of both, though. It had been wildly inappropriate and unethical, in typical House fashion, but it had been a start.

"God, you're a hypocrite," House exclaimed. "Tell me again that drugs aren't the answer, while you're throwing down your own happy pills. At least I'm upfront about my drug use."

"Right. Stashing away hundreds of pills, stealing prescriptions, forging signatures is really upfront. Snorting antihistamines and shooting morphine is responsible drug use." Wilson could feel his blood pressure rising again, so he took another deep breath and slouched lower in his chair.

"Again. Stop prescribing for me if you think I'm an addict."

This time, Wilson managed to push back the wave of panic before it engulfed him. "I know you need the pills, House," he said, avoiding the question of whether or not he thought House was an addict. It was no longer relevant.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing he could just wipe the last year from his memory. "If I stop, I can't keep track of how much you're taking. Despite what you think, I don't actually like lecturing you, or pestering you to cut down, but if it makes you hesitate before you take that one pill too many, then at least I've done something." He stared at his hands, knowing House would only mock him for thinking he had any power to alter his behaviour. "It's the only way I can help you," he admitted. He couldn't stop House's pain, he couldn't magically regenerate what was missing. All he could do was try to manage the unmanageable. Even if he did as much damage as good, it was better than standing on the sidelines watching helplessly as House slowly spiralled out of control.

He thought about Michael, who had been gone for 11 years now, though he had been lost to them for twice that. There hadn't been a break point, not really. Just a series of small fissures that had widened and cracked under the pressure until there was a crevasse too deep and wide to be bridged. He hadn't recognized what was happening at the time--he'd been too young to understand how easy it was for someone just to drift out of your life--but he'd be damned if he let that happen with House.

"Okay."

Wilson glanced up and saw House watching him, no sign of mocking in his expression. "Okay, what?" he asked.

"You may as well keep prescribing for me. No point in breaking in another drug mule." He leaned back and stared at the ceiling, feigning indifference. "You can even keep lecturing, though I reserve the right to ignore everything you say."

"You do anyway," Wilson pointed out. That wasn't entirely true. Every once in a while he managed to stop House from doing something completely insane, just often enough to keep him trying. He wondered sometimes if House calibrated his compliance to ensure Wilson never entirely gave up on him.

"You're wrong, by the way." It wasn't said with the usual scorn House attached to those words. "You help me just by being here. And I do know what that costs you."

It wasn't an apology, but Wilson had never asked for House to apologize to him. It wasn't even a promise, though Wilson knew it was as good as one. House wouldn't change, but he wouldn't leave either, and that was all Wilson had ever needed.