House shook the five dice in the little cup and tossed them onto the sofa table. The roll produced two sixes, and the rest junk. "Why again are we playing Yatzee?"

"Because you didn't want to play Monopoly, neither of us remembers how to play Parcheesi, and I'm too tired to play anything that makes me use my brain." Wilson took his turn with the dice. "And, because the only alternative is watching Numb3rs."

"That's because you only get one channel."

"House." Wilson sighed with exasperation. "No one comes to a ski cabin to watch TV."

"And they do come to play Yatzee?"

Wilson rolled his eyes and then the dice, immediately producing a large straight. House scowled at that and scowled even more when his three rolls produced only a couple of threes. It took only a few more minutes for them to reach silent agreement that playing Yatzee sucked and the better move was a couple of cold beers and a bowl of chips.

"So," House said, dipping his hand into the chips, "tell me about your long lost brother."

"I've already told you all you need to know. He's no longer in my life."

"I get that. But he was in your life at some point and he's not now. So, ergo, something happened in between."

"Your powers of deduction amaze me," Wilson replied.

"Come on. Every Jewish family has at least one doctor – that's you. Mark has a good job, nice wife, kids. Parents are decent, hard-working. Yet other brother ends up on the streets."

"Sometimes bad things happen to good people."

"More often, good people go bad."

Wilson stared at his beer. "He was a good person. Is a good person."

"So, what happened?"

"Did anyone ever tell you that you can be really annoying?"

"It's why people love me," House replied with a smirk.

Wilson sighed. "If you're looking for some cataclysmic event that started all this, there isn't one. David didn't fall on his head as a baby, wasn't whipped when he misbehaved, wasn't sexually abused. Nothing like that. I wish it had been, because maybe all this would make sense."

"So?"

"I guess he fell in with the wrong crowd." Wilson took a long, slow sip of his beer. "In school, David was one of those kids who didn't apply himself. It didn't help that everyone was always comparing him to me. You know – 'why can't you be more like James?'"

House nodded as if he knew, even though he didn't. As an only child, he'd often tried to imagine what it was like to have a brother or sister and – couldn't. The whole concept of siblings was foreign.

"Things started to go bad when I went to college. At first, it was minor stuff –skipping school, smoking, drinking – nothing too serious. Just enough to keep his name in front of the school principal and the local cops."

House grabbed a handful of chips and munched loudly to fill the silence.

Wilson took another sip of his beer, then blew air across the top of the bottle. "My parents didn't know what to do. They weren't exactly disciplinarians. I think they were more embarrassed than anything and hoped he'd eventually grow out of it."

"And then it turned serious."

Wilson stretched his feet onto the sofa table and twisted his back, eyes glazed with the faraway look of someone reliving a moment in time. "It was the day I took the medical licensing exam," he said, voice quiet. "Afterwards, a bunch of us went out to celebrate. When I got home, there was a message on the answering machine from David. From jail. He and some friends got stopped for speeding. They were drunk and underage and the cops found marijuana in the car."

House let out a low whistle.

"So," Wilson continued, "it's three in the morning, I'm ninety minutes away, I've had too much to drink, and I need $5,000 to bail David out of jail."

"You should have let him spend the night."

"Didn't do you any good."

House glared at him – it was the second time today Wilson had mentioned jail. Was this Wilson's not-to-subtle reminder of the fate that had almost befallen them at the hands of Detective Tritter?

Wilson appeared not to notice as he took a final swig of beer, then set the empty bottle on the table. "If I'd been there for him—"

House snorted with annoyance. "Don't tell me you're going to make this your fault?"

Wilson's eyes met his and House saw the pain that only years of unresolved guilt could produce. "I was his brother, House, his big brother. Big brothers are supposed to take care of little brothers; that's how it works."

"Not forever."

"How would you know?"

"I know he was old enough to be responsible for what he did."

"So were you."

"Don't make this about me."

"I'm not making it about anything. All I know is that every time someone I care about gets into trouble, I can't seem to help them."

"It's not your job to help them."

"It's not a job! It's what friends do."

House sat forward on the loveseat, thigh muscle straining in protest. "You're not responsible for what your brother did and you sure as hell aren't responsible for me."

"I prescribed your pills."

House dropped back against the cushion. Not this again.

"I'm still prescribing for you," Wilson added softly. "Even after all that's happened, I'm still writing those damned prescriptions."

Suddenly, it all made sense. "You prescribed for David, didn't you?"

"Of course not," Wilson snapped. He hunched over, forearms on his knees, head in his hands and, for nearly a minute, didn't move. Finally, a heavy sigh escaped. "Yes, I did. Not then. Later." Wilson lifted his head and looked straight at House. "Go ahead, tell me I'm an idiot."

House held Wilson's eyes. It was one of the very few times that he didn't know what to say. No smart comeback. No words of wisdom. He wanted to tell Wilson that it was okay, that it wasn't his fault, tell him the right things to make him feel better, or at least less guilty. But there was nothing to say.

Wilson stood up, picked up the beer bottle and a soiled napkin. "I'm going to bed."