Chapter Text
"You’re sinking, Chase."
Chase stared at House.
Was House messing with him? Was this some joke?
He could hear his heart quickening, could feel his chest tensing.
Chase should have been irritated— instead, he felt like laughing. He didn’t understand anything anymore. His mind was running, and he couldn’t get ahold of it.
He fell asleep on the job, and now House was acting concerned.
Maybe there was a recorder hidden somewhere? Was this some new bet with Wilson? To see how far he would humiliate himself if House dared to show some sort of care? This couldn’t be real.
The other man was still staring at him with his ever-so-observant eyes. Chase stared back, not knowing what else to do. He knew that damn expression all too well, but usually directed at their patients. It always felt uncanny when it was directed at him, even for just a moment.
Eventually it was too much, so he turned his head away. He could feel his body shaking slightly. He was too tired for this crap. Was House going to fire him for his recent mess-ups or not? What was this weird behavior for? He didn’t get it.
He didn’t want to get fired— he liked this job. But if House was going to get rid of him he’d rather have it done quickly. Like a plaster ripped off in one quick motion. Like a sick dog being put out of its misery.
He was still digging his fingers into his thighs, his hands cramping slightly as he did so. For some reason he still felt like laughing.
Maybe his cognitive functions slowly got fried by the everlasting tiredness.
Maybe he was going crazy.
Maybe he was still asleep and this was just a strange dream.
He dug his fingers deeper into his thighs, repressing a whine as he did so. The pain grounded him in an odd way. Not a dream then.
He looked back up again. Confused by the sudden blurriness of his surroundings. He moved one of his hands to his face to rub his eyes, but he halted as they came back wet. He’s confused for a moment. Tears? Why was he crying?
He couldn’t contain his laughter now. He really didn’t understand anything anymore. He looked back at House, who was still looking at him with his penetrating gaze like some damn puzzle to be solved.
House observed the anxious younger man sitting across from him. He looked like he was having some sort of episode right now. He was shaking and crying whilst laughing for God knows what reason.
He knew Chase was sleep deprived, but not to what extent. Chase went from panic to manic within just a few moments.
He had spent some time in the last few weeks going through some of the options before, but this interaction made him certain that Chase was ill. His behavior had been off for too long to just be a bad breakup or streak. He had read his patient file multiple times. His file was mostly clean. No mental illness was mentioned in his family history besides alcoholism in his mother. He has never seen Chase drink alcohol at any events so far, and he most definitely never came into work drunk or hungover. Alcohol abuse has a comorbidity with a multitude of mental illnesses, though. The doctors could have missed an underlying disease in his mother. A disease she might have passed on to her son.
Chase seemed down lately. Being more reserved than usual and sometimes spacing out for longer periods of time. At the same time he seemed more anxious than usual. The neglect of his hygiene and health was also hard to miss.
The most obvious answer was some sort of depressive disorder. He could cross out some of the possibilities, but he was still lacking information to pinpoint it any further.
Chase had stopped laughing by now. In the few moments House was lost in his thoughts, Chase had managed to work himself into the next stage of his breakdown.
He was trembling heavily all over his body now. House noticed how his fingers were digging into his thighs, probably hard enough to bruise. Chase looked like he was trying to contain whatever was going through his head right now.
"Chase? Stop that, you’re turning your legs into mush."
Chase didn’t stop. In fact, he didn’t react to his demand at all. With a sigh, House got up and stood in front of the other, snipping his hand in front of his eyes to get him out of whatever trance he was in right now.
"Chase," he repeated louder this time.
The other flinched rather hard at that but looked up at him.
"Remove your hands."
Chase seemed confused at the sudden command but eventually got the message and lessened the pressure on his thighs. He brought one hand up to his face and chewed at one of his fingers instead.
House let out another exhausted sigh at that.
"Listen, I have no idea what the hell is going through your head. But this has to stop. Whatever this is—" he gestured wildly at him "—you obviously can’t handle it very well by yourself. You need help."
Chase remained quiet for a moment, as if he was contemplating something. He bit his finger a bit harder before speaking.
"…I have this every year. Usually it’s not this bad. It just caught me by surprise. I’ll get it back under control soon. I can handle it," he answered hesitantly, clearly anxious about the reaction he would receive.
He noted how Chase didn’t look like he even believed those words himself, but he decided to ignore that for the moment.
Annually reoccurring depression? His eyes narrowed.
"' this usually happen during winter?"
He nodded hesitantly, looking away like he was embarrassed to admit to it.
"Seasonal affective disorder," House concluded swiftly.
Chase flinched slightly at that, like the word was a slap to the face.
"I— it really wasn’t that bad before— I didn’t even think it was enough to qualify as the disorder, plus I could usually handle it myself. And then suddenly I couldn’t anymore, and then the patient—" Chase rambled almost frantically, trying to justify himself.
"You’re an idiot"
The young doctor looked a bit too devastated at that, so House decided to elaborate.
"You knew you had an issue, and yet you chose to do nothing about it, even after it became obvious that you couldn’t deal with it yourself."
He continued speaking while he sat himself back down on a chair.
"You know you’ve been slacking off— that’s why you’ve been guilt-riddenly working overtime the last few days. You know this won’t work in the long run. I mean, you didn’t even manage to pull it off short-term."
Chase looked like he was going to cry again, so he quickly continued.
"I can’t have you losing your edge like that. Luckily for you, if we’re correct, that is, SAD is highly treatable. Thank god for that— otherwise I’d have to go through a hiring process again…," House added, conveniently ignoring the fact that Chase was a nepo hire.
The younger man still looked like he was about to cry but was visibly more relaxed now.
"You'll get a referral to a psychologist, and you’ll actually go to the appointments. I’ll write you a script for vitamin D supplements, and you’ll take them."
Chase nodded slowly. He looked glad.
And so House got up, wrote him a script, and made him go pick up the supplements at the pharmacy right away.
When Chase came into the office the next day, a sun lamp had been installed next to the window. From that day on House made him sit in front of it every day to fill out his overdue paperwork like a sun-deprived flower.