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Wilson was House’s best friend (a position both fortunate and unfortunate), and therefore knew far too much about the diagnostics department of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. He’d have assumed- once upon a time, before House had come into his life- that being the head of oncology wouldn’t leave him much free time during the day to spend listening to gossip from House, receiving complaints about House’s antics from the (aptly named) ducklings, and then trying to keep House in check or get Cuddy to do so. Wilson before House however, would’ve been entirely incorrect.
He could barely go a week without someone (be it Cuddy, a duckling, or other hospital staff) coming to complain about House and neither could he go a day without House coming to complain about those other people. And that was when the diagnostics department didn’t have a case. He’d have thought that actually having things to do would keep everybody busy enough that Wilson could do his own work undisturbed but, once again, he’d have thought wrong. Incredibly, Wilson always had to listen to more crap from House and co. when they had a case despite the typically time-sensitive nature of said case.
All in all, Wilson saw far too much of them all, and would bet that he knew more about House’s fellows than anyone else in the hospital excluding House himself. Wilson didn’t want to think about it too long, because that would mean having to think about how much time he spent preoccupied with (or at least hearing about) the antics of the diagnostics team and then he’d start to think about all the better ways he could be spending that time.
House had told him, once, about why he’d hired each of his ducklings. It was all unsurprisingly callous and the typical level of offensive, but Wilson had, over the years, gleaned a little more of what made them good hires.
Cameron, hired because she was pretty. Pretty enough that, according to House, she didn’t need to work hard and push herself to become a doctor. In truth, House had hired her because she did work hard despite her appearance, and because she was sweet and comforting towards patients in a way that none of the others typically managed. She was the moral centre of the group, even if that didn’t mean much to the rest of the team. Cameron was hopeful and optimistic and made the department more lively. Naturally, she had flaws, and those flaws were as crippling as those possessed by the others, but she was nonetheless a key part of keeping them all balanced.
Foreman was hired because he could pick a lock. But also because he had his own convictions. Not quite so much as Cameron did, but Foreman had a few hard limits and was far more harsh in defending those limits. Foreman was the fellow most often responsible for ratting House out because he had both the staunch sense of morality and the backbone to do so. The man was unwavering in his beliefs and while this could (and often did) manifest as stubbornness and arrogance, it also kept House (and sometimes Chase) in check whenever things were finally going too far.
Chase… Wilson couldn’t quite get a good read on Chase, for all that he knew of the Aussie. His flaws and strengths were as apparent as everyone else’s. Cameron, with her oversensitivity and the moral high ground she used to condemn everybody else, while Foreman had his ego and desire for the easiest answer. Chase had his disdain for anyone overweight, his fluctuating sense of care for patients (although that sometimes could be a good thing), and his entire lack of backbone. Wilson knew (because House had told him once, after several drinks) that Chase found the most right diagnoses after House himself, but was probably also the least confident about actually backing his opinions. He’d speak up, sure, and probably chucked out the most ideas according to House, but very rarely would defend his ideas after House’s scrutiny or pursue them further.
It was interesting and impressive, how well House and his ducklings really matched up. House who was so very intelligent and so very bad with other human beings, Cameron who was more emotionally in-tune and sweet to most patients, but had a moral superiority complex, Foreman who could be flexible while knowing when it was time to stop but thought too highly of himself, and Chase who was even more morally flexible than Foreman and who had a mix of sheer talent and an ever-growing skill and in diagnostics but was a pushover. House definitely walked all over Chase and insulted him the most, but also knew when to push him to defend himself and would consider the most haphazard of suggestions.
They all covered the other’s faults, and Wilson couldn’t help but find it endearing.
Distantly he wondered if this was his own sort of Stockholm syndrome, that he actually found himself liking the sheer chaos the four of them brought into his life.
Wilson’s thoughts quickly derailed again though as his mind caught on the problem of Chase for a second time. He’d heard a lot from House, in the time since the blond had been hired.
According to his best friend, before House had interviewed Chase, his father had made a call and so Cuddy had insisted that Chase be hired. Wilson- and, in fact, anyone that had talked to House for more than thirty seconds- knew that that just made House even less likely to hire the man than he already would’ve been otherwise. The thing that was interesting to Wilson though, is House’s vaguely annoyed surety that Chase has (to this day) got no idea about said call. Wilson knows better by know than to question why House happens to be so convinced that their resident Australian didn’t orchestrate it.
His specialty as an intensivist was also unglamourous, dedicated to keeping the patient alive instead of grand surgeries and research. It was a helpful specialty for a diagnostician to have but, of course, he also somehow managed to be the best surgeon in the diagnostics department despite that (Wilson had also heard this from House.) Not to mention that Wilson suspected he was also one of the better surgeons at the hospital as a whole. As a baseline, his morals were only slightly less flexible than House’s own and with each passing day Chase was having fewer hard limits.
Wilson was truly baffled by Chase, because he seemed so deceptively simple on a surface level- relaxed, a bit lazy, starting to show hints of the same brilliance House has- but the more he learns the more the puzzle that is the blond man just doesn’t seem to click together.
Rowan Chase coming to PPTH had been an experience, to put it one way. Chase subsequently making a mistake that killed a patient after his death being another fascinating moment of insight. The viciousness Chase showed in keeping his job during the Vogler era, then his refusal to betray House a second time during the whole Tritter fiasco (Wilson feels his skin crawling even thinking about that point in time.) Wilson is genuinely, truly astounded that Chase didn’t quit or protest or file some kind of complaint after getting punched by House, or that House hadn’t fired Chase after Vogler left. He’s been running on the theory that the pair have some kind of special bond the other two fellows don’t have with their boss, and Wilson, as with many things concerning House, is eventually proven right.
When House fakes cancer, Wilson is so caught up in the lie of oh god House has cancer that he doesn’t even notice the turmoil of the diagnostics department until a few weeks after, once he and House have gotten back onto good terms.
House rants about how absurd his ducklings are and irritably tells Wilson about what Cameron and Foreman did. Not… fully. Not enough that Wilson could fully articulate to someone else what happened. He knows House though, and he gets the gist of what is being said. According to House, Cameron was stubbornly trying to get blood to do tests even if that meant being a bit manipulative (House gets a certain look in his eyes when he talks about Cameron, and Wilson feels a certain reluctance in trying to decipher it.) Foreman, by his boss’s interpretation, was just saying stuff to erase any of his own guilt and ensure he had a clear conscience. Wilson isn’t dreadfully surprised.
He doesn’t end up getting the story about Chase though, and it feels like a conspicuous omission enough that one day Wilson outright asks House about it. He sure as hell isn’t close enough to Chase to ask him about it, and so House is, unfortunately, the most likely person to give him the truth.
Wilson asks on one of their nights sitting in House’s apartment eating shitty take out. Those nights are like a sacred, uninterrupted space and House looks remarkably betrayed when Wilson voices his question after a few beers each.
--
“Y’know when you uh… faked cancer.”
Wilson suppresses a wince at the blunt and completely unsubtle segue even as he knows he’s the one who said the words.
House looks predictably annoyed but perhaps the rest of the night has put him in a good mood because he still replies, “yeah.”
“Well…” Wilson wonders about how likely it is that House will genuinely be pissed about him being nosey enough to ask about this, but his slightly drunken and very curious brain doesn’t quite care enough to override his question, “what did Chase do? Because you said all three of them came to talk to you about it but you never said what happened with Chase.”
He receives a surprised blink.
“Oh,” House says after a moment, and his eyes are sharp even as they are focused hazily on some unseen horizon. Wilson thinks he isn’t going to answer, and has half a mind to apologize for asking and interrupting their evening but then House, perhaps drunk enough to not care, speaks.
“He hugged me,” House says, his face unreadable, “and he said he was sorry I was dying.”
Wilson blinks too.
“Huh,” is all he can muster up after several moments of silence.
“Yeah,” House echoes, then straightens up in his seat so quickly that Wilson can see the change in atmosphere, “but did you hear about that monster truck convention in June-“
--
It’s still interesting now, the more that he thinks about it. That Chase’s reaction to the news of House having cancer wasn’t to push him for tests like Cameron, or to try and clear the air like Foreman, but simply to say sorry and hug him. Wilson is fascinated, in a way he often only is fascinated by House or by a particularly confusing argument with one of his wives.
Wilson doesn’t think he’ll ever entirely understand what on earth is going on with Chase, he’s not sure that anyone will. He also doesn’t think anyone is going to be able to decipher the relationship between House and his longest standing (and, Wilson suspects, favourite) fellow. What Wilson does know for sure however, is that he is going to continue observing the blond man.
Because really, his life would be boring without House and the diagnostics department to bring him some chaos. If Chase insists on being an enigma, then all the power to him.
It’s just more entertainment for Wilson in the end.