Author's Note: This is my first story for House, M.D., so I would really like feedback on how I did with it! Please leave your thoughts, comments, criticisms, medical histories, etc.
Disclaimer: House, M.D. is the property of FOX and all that. Not mine.
It is never easy to stand up against Gregory House.
You always feel like you're on the wrong side. You know that you're right, but you still can't help remembering all the times House was right and you didn't want to admit it. You recall the consequences of those moments. You begin to question yourself. You begin to wonder if maybe this is just another one of those times, and start to think that maybe you should give in, quit while you can still back down with a little dignity.
It is especially hard when House is your best friend—at least, he's your best friend and you'd like to think that you're his, too. Sometimes it's hard to tell.
Wilson was pretty damn sure he had gone over this line of thinking far too many times than was good for him. The repetition had begun to get tedious after about the fourth instance, but the questions still stuck. He still had that self-doubt, that hesitance that had once made House call him a coward.
He had meant it, too.
Those were the kind of things that Wilson could not just brush off. For some unknown and probably irrational reason, he valued his friendship with House more than most of his relationships. They argued together, made inappropriate jokes together, had fun together, and God knows how hard it was to make House admit when he was having fun. Wilson had had the privilege of seeing House genuinely smile on more than a few occasions, and there weren't many people who could say that. That's why it hurt all the more when House was sincerely angry at him, whether it was really his fault or not.
Now, though, there was one relationship that Wilson was not prepared to give up.
Even for House's sake, he was not going to tell Samantha to leave.
He had felt guilty about it, at first. He had seen, behind the mockery and the interruptions and the childish pranks, that House was starting to panic at losing control. House liked to manipulate people—he needed to, because that's just who he was—but he could hardly screw with Wilson all the time when Sam was taking center stage in Wilson's life.
Maybe that was it. Maybe House was afraid that he was losing the friendship.
He wasn't, of course. And it would stay that way if he stopped trying to interfere in Wilson's relationships. The problem was, Wilson was pretty sure it wasn't going to work out that way. No matter what, something was going to go wrong—it always did. Actually, things already seemed to be taking a downhill turn. Despite Wilson's attempts to get House to spend time with other people, the guy was still drinking way more than he should, and on a frequently more regular basis. It was like the Vicodin issue all over again, except this time without the pain excuse.
On Wilson's part, guilt didn't really come into the picture anymore. House was not pulling the strings of his life, even if he tried to sometimes, and there was absolutely no reason why Wilson should not be free to pursue a second chance with Sam. If matters were destined to end with a second separation, he could deal with that when the time came.
All he knew was, there was no way in hell he would let House take the credit for it.