Chasing the High

Chapter 4

*Trigger Warning: Addiction, suicide watch, non-con, emotional

The older doctor was standing outside his best friend turned stranger's room and he was doing so with a hesitancy previously unbeknownst to the elder man.

House didn't do small, insignificant, uncertain child locked behind the outer shell of a middle-aged man, who'd already seen his fair share of horrors for one lifetime.

To be fair, Wilson wasn't a small child locked behind a man's appearance either.

But that was all House felt at this moment: small, unwanted, unsure.

How did they move forwards with this?

What would come of Wilson—both ultimately in his life, his place in the world, his doctoring, his recovery, himself?

House, for the first time, had no idea.

Wilson was a staple to life as House knew it.

For his rock to suddenly need him was a truth too difficult to bear, especially as alone as House felt. Even despite Cuddy's assurances, House knew he couldn't possibly be there for Wilson in the way the oncologist needed—no, required—him to be. If there was ever to be a point where House could make or break the life of his best friend—well, not only in the last five months (how much regret and self-hatred he had for himself was astronomical and still so very untapped and unclear and unprocessed)—it was most certainly now.

Wilson needed him. Required him. Demanded him. No matter how much rage and betrayal in his brown eyes shown. They were like glass, shards of it, broken, revealing a damaged soul that has now seen too much, been given the world only for it to be yanked out from under him.

What horrors, what trauma, what pain—so much pain—Wilson now harbored in his body, in his mind, was enough to bring House gasping to his knees.

He never wanted James Wilson to feel that.

Be in that.

Exist in that.

But now his failures had forced the younger man to do so.

Now he was looking back at someone he cared so much for and seeing a distorted reflection of himself, one he wasn't sure he'd be in time for saving.

If… if he could even save him at all.

House brokenly gazed through the glass at Wilson's darkened room, a staff member seated nearby.

In fact, the staff member was squinting at House in puzzlement from the lights in the hallway that illuminated their face, clearly trying to suss out what he was doing just standing there, frozen in place.

Fuck it. Let him be judged. He didn't care.

House was already judging himself to the eons. What was another person added to the list?

He felt as paralyzed here as he did in Wilson's room. But, if to his own subconscious awareness only, House robotically moved through the last few steps, nodded for the staff to get the fuck out (they didn't quite, just moved to a shadowy corner of the room, but House would take it) and he came to deposit himself by Wilson's beside, hand outstretching before embarrassment took over and he awkwardly set his unsteady and anxious hand to the blankets around his best friend.

How unnatural it was to see him like this.

Foreign.

Unreal.

House glanced towards the chart at the foot of his friend's bed, but he already knew that Chase had started him on benzodiazepines as the good little duckling that he was. The benzos would help counteract the cocaine effects to at least make the transition to treat part of Wilson's cardiomyopathy until further treatment efforts could be enacted.

Wilson was asleep or resting but even with his eyes closed, a grimace of pain was on his features, lines by his eyes, pursed lips, hands fisting the blankets.

He wasn't comfortable, not by a long shot.

He looked like hell.

… For some time, he would be.

House's eyes softened in the way of so much care and worry entering his gaze, a haunted look melting into his face.

He never wanted this for Wilson.

Okay, maybe when he got his infarction and Wilson was a gnat he couldn't fling away or when Wilson would come by to be his conscience or give him the epiphany he so relied on for his cases to be solved—maybe in those times, House had wished for Wilson to experience a bit of hurt, a lick of pain, an ounce of mutual, deep understanding.

But, but not this.

Not in this way. Not with this pain nor with this burden.

House pressed his hands to his eyes, palms open. How much he'd give to take this away. He thinks for a minute he'd give up his leg, and then his own life. Maybe a prized guitar or his favorite records.

But no level of bargaining was up for grabs.

There was nothing really that he could do.

There was no magic word or magic powers or the ability to fast forward this experience for the two men to see how resilient they could be and move ahead safely and in one piece.

House wasn't sure why patterns couldn't predict the future. Hell, most of the time they did, or at least pretty damn close.

But Life is not the exact same puzzle as a medical case—frankly for how random, cruel and indecipherable it can be (there's never a reason given, Life, shit, just happens and you're expected to just handle it).

One minute you're in a romantic relationship with your boss with a stable career and a best friend you can count on for anything and the next your girlfriend has broken up with you after a medical scare, your puzzles don't possess the same elixir as before and your best friend has a drug problem killing him three times faster than your own, (and frankly you had yours for longer, so that's just not fair in terms of the competition; it's not an even playing field). Plus, there's the reality that this drug problem only formed when you were so blind in seeing it happen right in front of you for five fucking months. Five fucking months you didn't pay attention and now you want to play hero? Fuck off, Greg. Just, fuck off.

Yeah, today it really sucked to be House.

At least Cuddy was being kind.

Normally House would balk but Wilson was not being himself, nor quite kind, and certainly not the shining Boy Wonder Oncologist House had always known him to be.

The days ahead with how much Wilson is going to hate him will be sheer agony. And there won't be a pill House can take to make it stop or go away or go by faster. He's doomed to have to sift through it alongside Wilson, until—if—Wilson decides to carry it for himself.

If House's shoulders weren't already buckling under that pressure, they sure were now.

He sighed a little louder than he had intended, his stomach doing back flips as nausea rolled up his throat. This was going to be the shittiest of times.

He was trying to sort his thoughts into what symptoms to look out for in a clear and logical and rational manner (because if he got too caught up in the thought process that this was Wilson he was talking about, Wilson's life at stake, Wilson's mortality, than he only got choked up, terrified and none of that sort of panicking was going to be helpful in any way whatsoever at the moment) when the sound of a soft, guttural chuckle sounded from the bed.

House felt himself flinch and pause; he was not ready for the hellhole to erupt from Wilson at this moment.

Just let it be quick, he thought. This is only the beginning, too, he reminded himself uneasily.

House took a long deep breath, steeled himself, placed up the walls to his fortress and opened the gates, hands relaxing onto the side of the hospital bed, blue eyes meeting Wilson's gaze.

He was sure he wasn't going to say anything helpful, let alone anything witty, but he didn't have to as a flash of pity and melancholy fought in those brown eyes. The younger man's lips pulled down and tears reformed, and House felt guilty knowing the road Wilson was going down would be as overwhelming, uncertain and anxiety provoking as ever; neither of them harboring a clue as to how they'll do it, or manage it, together.

"You come to gloat?" Wilson asked in a soft, hurt voice. When House blinked in confusion he continued with a growl, "Say how much of an idiot I am, how I'm landing myself on a 1:1 for suicide watch or the fact I got addicted and you didn't see it coming—again?" Wilson shook his head, frustration in his stare. "Nothing personal, House."

House knew the lie immediately and it made his limbs go numb.

"Just a part of life." He talked softly. "Can't see everything coming. Like with Kutner. Not everything gives a warning." He paused for a thoughtful moment, then amended, "But it wasn't that this time. Instead, you fucked up." He hummed. "Sometimes that happens. Too bad it was at my expense. Care to pick out my coffin tastefully or—?"

"Shut up." House murmured beneath his breath, surprising even himself.

Wilson's head tilted to the side, but he looked expectant this time, not hurt.

House inhaled sharply, venturing out a little farther from the gate to state, "This is serious, Wilson." He held up a hand, though Wilson didn't seem ready to protest much at that point. "You—. You…"

Emotions bubbled up in Greg's chest and he wasn't sure which avenue to take with them. For once, he chose a sliver of honesty, bringing up his shield by his armor in case things went south and he had to retreat into the fortress for cover; Wilson's dragon's breath releasing orange flames from his gaping mouth.

"You matter. To me. To Cuddy, the hospital, your job. But, even more than that, to the world." House looked down and inspected the quality and pattern of the blankets around Wilson's body. "This isn't you. This doesn't have to be you. You can… you can change things around. You can choose a different path." Tears misted House's blue eyes. "I, I know I wasn't there for you for five agonizing, painful months."

He looked up at his friend, his heart breaking at the emotions swirling in those once so warm brown eyes (now masked with a coldness and a darkness that left House shaking).

"I haven't even begun to process that… but I'm going to do everything I can to be there for you in the next five months. And five months after that, and then years after that. Just…. Just…" House's voice cracked, and he looked down to the floor, trying his best to ignore the shaking in his hands and the heartache in his chest, crumbling like ashes as he fell apart inside.

He looked back into that gaze at the same time that he was grasping Wilson's wrist, "Just hold on. Come back. I still need you."

A shift seemed to occur in that face he's stared into a thousand times before, but House wasn't finished yet.

He was determined for Wilson to realize that he wasn't finished yet, either.

Slowly, House moved his hand from grasping Wilson's wrist to down into his palm, Wilson showing surprise in his features, mixed with suspicion and a bite to come back from his lips, as they curled upwards and his teeth gritted together, but House was still talking, ever talking, the bastard.

"You matter, Wilson; you matter to me. You matter more than anything else. I-I'm sorry I'm such an ass and a jerk and a son of a bitch and so self-centered and enveloped in my own world that I didn't see that you were struggling, and I wasn't there to help you pick up the pieces. But, but I'm here now, and we have now, we have this moment, and that's all we ever have. I just need you to know that you matter. To me. To a lot of people. I haven't told you that, not ever, but it's true. And you need to hear it…" He glanced over at Wilson from head to toe, eyes lingering on the track marks on his friend's arms. It was a long while before he looked back up into Wilson's face, shocked for a second that the brown was staring right back at him, exposed, vulnerable, clinging to his every word, his every movement.

Maybe this is what they had missed all this time.

Time. Time together.

Time apart to realize why they needed so desperately to be together.

"Don't take the opportunity away from me now to show you that I can be what you need, that I care about you, because I do. I care. I—" House hiccupped, not having realized he was crying, too wrapped up in the experience to be apologetic or conflicted about his tears. "—I care in the way that I'll eat half your lunch, steal your credit cards and dig through your medical records, but make no mistake, Wilson, I care. You matter to me."

While his gaze hadn't completely lifted from Wilson's face, or his body, or the strange predicament they were in with the rain outside slacking against the windows, he also felt like he hadn't been really seeing Wilson for the entirety of his speech.

He had to stop doing that.

He needed to pay attention to the present to not miss important clues since he'd managed to miss a pretty fucking huge one for five consecutive months. If House were really sorry, he'd be doing a better job of showing that remorse and that guilt by paying more attention.

He closed his eyes for a moment, willing the tears to stop. And after a few minutes, he found that they were calming, even just slightly, and he would take that for what it was: a success.

When he looked back at Wilson… It was like time could have stopped. They could have been frozen like that forever and House wouldn't have minded at all, knowing he was with someone he trusted so wholeheartedly.

Granted, Wilson wasn't trusting him so much right now. How could he? A confessional from House as unexpected as it was, was still far from his realm of understanding and Wilson was still deep in his addiction to be able to hear everything that was said or encode how meaningful and important that it was for House to have opened up and said all of that.

Maybe that was Wilson's version of being appalled, set back, shocked, and, yes, maybe relieved.

But more than anything, he looked tired.

His eyes were heavy, and his lids soon closed, but before he left, he squeezed his friend's hand and whispered softly, "Say it again."

And House obliged. As he always would.

James was sure he'd been dreaming.

That he'd imagined House confessing to him for the first time in twenty years that he actually gives a crap about him and that he had verbalized it in so many words, too.

Greg House?

No. He would never.

Wilson must have been hallucinating.

Sure, he'd seen it conveyed sometimes through body language: in that small knowing smile, a stare too long, a gaze of those blue eyes—but Wilson would have to be dying before House would ever say it to him. Even then, he probably wouldn't.

Wilson must then be imagining things again that felt real but were in truth anything but.

Just more lies.

And frankly, that was far more likely: that House, if he had said anything like that at all, was just lying.

Wilson wouldn't put it past him to stoop that low.

House was only saying it (if he even said it at all) because he thought it would make Wilson not off himself.

But he didn't actually mean it.

He didn't actually care.

Wilson couldn't fall for the ploy, the plot, the lie, so quickly.

He wanted to believe it like he believed in the Ultimate Good (or he once did) but he couldn't get his hopes up so high.

High… How he'd love to be with Geek right about now, blowing up into the sky and feeding his cocaine addiction.

Geek would laugh, make it so that Wilson would see things for how they are and not believe House and his many games. Geek would know what to say: "Let's do another line."

And what a glorious line that would be.

A line he and Geek could cross together, neither man in their right state of mind because, fuck it, when did being "in the right state of mind" ever give Wilson?

Nothing good. Nothing substantial. Nothing worthwhile.

And, what, House just thought he'd give up all the good that Wilson has found in getting high for… recovery?

Dealing with a reality Wilson had no intention of accepting? Or sticking around to deal with?

House must have gone insane again if he believed in any of that Life is Good shit.

If House continued to tell him how worthwhile he was (the lie), Wilson thought he'd spit in the man's face, kick him in the leg and clamber over him for his next dose with Geek in the room next door.

Wilson sighed, he was no closer to another dose, his mind having to remind his heart that none of what House had said was true or accurate or honest, that he was only trying to manipulate him and get him back to a place and a life that James both no longer recognized and no longer gave a fuck about.

Recovery? Hah, House was losing it if he thought that was going to set up a candle in Wilson's soul and remind him of every shitty reason he had to live for (but didn't).

He could find another job. He could find another best friend. He didn't have family, not where it counted, and he had so much rage, so much anger and no desire to feel that and feel his depression when he could just go and get high.

He wouldn't have to feel like a dead body still moving somehow.

Coke let him… get loose. Get wild. Feel alive.

Why would he trade that for anything else? Especially when he knew that's what had driven him to the drug in the first place?

Wilson had known what it was to feel and be in emotional pain back when he was with Sam and clean and sober. Why the fuck would he want, or be willing, to go back to that shitty life?

Especially in the reality where he didn't have House, and he didn't have Sam, and he wouldn't be able to also have Geek?

It was too much. Too much loss. Too much change.

House didn't mean what he said.

House didn't mean what he said, he reminded himself.

There was no point in treating his CIC when he was just going to die anyways. It was a facet of this entire Life gig.

You live, you breathe, you die.

But Wilson didn't want to die when there was the other option of feeling so alive under the influence.

His swollen heart craved the beat. Sure, it was sluggish and malfunctioning, but he craved that roar of his heartbeat, the feeling of it quickening, going from mute to yelling, screaming, trying to explode. If nothing else, he'd grown addicted to that.

Maybe it was bad for him—but wasn't that just how Life was, too? A bit bad for you?

Unpredictable. Unfounded. Random. Unknown.

Wilson was tired of playing it safe when it meant no life for him left to live.

He'd done that for forty years.

Five months of fun and invigoration and living, with Geek at his side, felt enthralling, needed, catapulting.

He'd choose what he knows over the unknown any day.

Brown eyes glared up at the soft white ceiling.

It was still dark so he couldn't inspect every crevice and detail as much as he would like but the fact of the matter is that he's bored out of his fucking craving mind and there wasn't a chance he'd open his mouth to speak nonsense to either of the other room's occupants.

He didn't want to talk to House when there was a chaperone in the room.

Hell, he didn't want to talk to House at all, full stop. Wilson didn't care what House had to say. The older man had given up—but not fled—when Wilson had continued to ignore him on his third rendition of the nacho cheese story. Now, the diagnostician sat back in his chair with a hat over his face, pretending to be asleep.

Wilson would take what he could get.

Some amount of peace in a chaotic time.

Some further dodging of the reality Wilson was living in.

He suppressed a loud, long exhale.

He'd be moving up to psych by the middle of the day… probably. Once this god damn night was over.

His gaze flicked to the spotty window with a whole world outside of it.

He shifted back to House.

He knew House had found his burner phone.

He was desperate to whine to Geek who would give him ideas on how to fake his "recovery."

Wilson had no intention of being sober.

Not anymore. Not when becoming a psychiatric patient himself was now looming on the horizon.

… House had been a psych patient once. Twice, if he considered his first rehab during the Tritter debacle.

Wilson almost wanted to ask what he could expect (he could vaguely recall his medical training, but years had gone by since then so maybe it wasn't all the same) but that would mean talking to House, which he also held no interest in doing.

Back to the ceiling stare it was.

He pointedly ignored his vitals machine.

He tested the flexion of his restraints.

Still there.

His mind wandered to Geek. Their forbidden relationship. How close they had gotten.

…. Sometimes he had wished instead of those green eyes he was staring into it would be House's blue.

Except House was with Cuddy and House was Off Limits and not gay so Wilson couldn't have him.

Geek was new, though. Shiny. Different.

There weren't expectations with Geek. Wilson was whomever he was in that moment, presented as whole and intact; whereas with House, with how much House knew, he'd always be seen and compared to years ago or days ago versions of himself.

But with Geek, he was accepted for who he was now. Only now. There was no dance to contend with, to be challenged by, multiplied, calculated against.

Geek was something else. And he gave Wilson the opportunity to be someone else.

A freedom the oncologist hadn't realized he'd so desperately needed.

No strings attached.

No lies to be upheld, no stories left to tell. Just present. Existing. As is.

Wilson craved that, too, as much as being high. If he closed his eyes for long enough, it was those green ones and the square rimmed glasses that he saw. That he took comfort in. That understood him.

More than that.

Knew him.

Wilson decided he wanted to dream about that for a little while longer.

Soft, warm hands shifting like shadows on the boardwalk through his brown hair.

Green eyes held that same smile and shine, like Wilson was the only one in the world that mattered.

He noticed his breath more when he felt alive.

His heart rate accelerated, and he could feel the organ in his chest beating, the erratic nature as much a comfort as the man in the bed beside him.

They stayed in quick little hotels when they'd get high and intimate together. If it was just to get high, they'd stay local: Geek's place more often or around the bar or at the back of the park or in Geek or Wilson's car.

But if intimacy was called upon, they'd go to a high-end hotel, sometimes a shifty motel, and spend the night together, existing in each other's embrace, minds racing, sex drive in high gear.

Surprisingly, it was always Wilson who broke out into physical contact first. The man would place his hands against Geek's cheeks, bringing his mouth to his own, kissing long and passionately as Geek worked beneath the covers around Wilson's thighs.

Wilson always gave a little jolt of his hips, like he was shocked every time Geek would, like clockwork, play with his penis, and Wilson never gave it much thought, convincing himself it was out of pleasure and lust, diminishing any concept or idea that it could be anything else. Geek wasn't rough, per se, just… persistent. But Wilson told himself that he liked it, that Geek was just taking initiative, in tune to what Wilson needed most.

Geek's hands would transition from rubbing his dick to inserting it through, Wilson bucking with his hips as they moved into a more tolerable fuckable position.

… Sometimes Wilson wouldn't remember how they got from one position to the next, from having sex to then panting beside each other. As if he'd blacked out the experience.

Wilson only felt pleasure from it.

Whether that was the work of his drug-addicted mind where it banished any other thought to the contrary, allowing him to exist in a reality maybe so different than the truest one, he didn't give it much further thought.

One minute they were starting to fuck and in the next, he'd blink, and they'd be side by side, eyes imploring the other's, talking fast about next steps, next hits, next shipments, where they'd like to be in the future.

A baring of the soul where it was okay to have different thoughts and ideas while including the other man.

"You'd come away with me?" Geek would ask, his soft skin trailing down Wilson's bare back.

"Of course," Wilson would say—and why the hell not? There wasn't anything tethering him to Princeton anymore. He could go wherever and do whatever. They'd make it work.

A place where people wouldn't ask questions and boundaries would be respected.

"Jake's gotta cut the cost down, though," Geek would sometimes complain. "He makes 'em fast but fast ain't always good in quality." He'd scrunch up his nose and purse his lips and Wilson would laugh.

"You'll figure it out, babe," he'd say, wanting Geek to look back at him, see him.

"You wanna do another line?"

And Wilson could feel that sparkle in his own eyes, now, too.

Because, yes, of course. Of course he did.

To feel closer to another person.

Closer to another soul.

Closer to being alive.

Wilson just wanted to be alive.

A/N: Ohhhh, what a time! I think this is the fastest I've gotten another chapter together for a story in the lonnnnngest time, and that is exciting and interesting!

I have many thoughts and ideas for the relationships within this story; how House and Wilson will be, how House will invite himself back into the condo, the codependency and abuse with Geek and Wilson, how Wilson will fake recovery for a bit and then go back down the rabbit hole. Gosh, so interesting. Lots of gears are shifting and churning. Especially once Wilson finds out that House is actually going to be down for a romantic relationship, that will be such an interesting twist! Maybe, maybe it'll make all the difference!

Also, yes, this was a bit more emotional than even I realized it would be, thanks to a difficult time trying to sleep one night and listening to the song "Hold On" by Chord Overstreet on loop. It just got the Muse going and House and Wilson have been staying rent free in my head for days, wishing their story to be told. Contented Writer's Sigh.

Also also, let me know if I should bump up the rating for this work. I could put it to M, and maybe with more time I will, as more is written.

I'm trying to convey that Wilson is both here, there and everywhere all at the same time. (Similar to how he's encoding his trauma from Geek!) I'm not sure if he'd be this aware and not aware of his own addiction but I'll keep making it up as I go haha The medical side of things will be especially interesting to explore!

Any who, thanks so much for reading! Leave any thoughts and comments down below and I'll respond as soon as I'm able! Stay safe!

Written: 1.7 – 1.10.2025, 1.12 – 1.13.2025

Typed: 1.10, 1.12 – 1.13.2025

Edited: 1.10, 1.12 – 1.13.2025

Background music: "Hold On" by Chord Overstreet and "11 Blocks" by Wrabel