Title: Days
Fandom: House, M.D.
Characters: House
Prompt: 007. Days
Word Count: 200
Rating: PG-13, for drug use
Summary: Snapshots of his gradual dependency on the Vicodin
Author's Notes: No real spoilers. Read Days, Weeks, Months, and Years together.


Two days after he's released from the hospital, he's managed to settle into a routine with his medication and activity. He can't take too many of the pills, or he sleeps all day, and he can't move too much, because then he wants to take more of the pills to make the pain in his wounded leg go away.

He's a doctor and he knows the risks of addiction, but he promises himself that it's not going to happen to him, because he's better than that. Smarter, wiser. He's seen the strung out junkies on the street corners before, and that's not what he's planning on becoming.

He can't look at her without thinking about how she betrayed him, and she's been sleeping on the couch the past two nights because she can't look at him without crying. He wonders if this is how it is going to end, with him laid up in bed and her curled in a ball and crying on the couch, unable to convey feelings and words.

That hurts him. Almost as much the betrayed trust. So he does what he thinks is right.

Takes another pill, with water, then pulls the blankets up to go back to sleep.



Title: Weeks
Fandom: House, M.D.
Characters: House
Prompt: 008. Weeks
Word Count: 200
Rating: PG-13, for drug use
Summary: Snapshots of his gradual dependency on the Vicodin
Author's Notes: No real spoilers. Read Days, Weeks, Months, and Years together.


The days have blurred into weeks by the time he thinks, for the first time, that he might have a problem. It's a nagging thought at the back of his mind, but he pushes it away to some dark corner to sit next to the phone call from his mother reminding him that he needs to eat.

He pokes his stomach. He's lost a little bit of weight, but that's from not being able to work out. Not being able to go on his morning and evening runs. Not being able to walk more than the distance from the bedroom to the kitchen in a single go. He graduated from the crutches to the cane a week before and while he was incredibly proud of that, he had to watch his therapist and Stacy eyeing him like a hawk for any signs of pain.

He took an extra three Vicodin before the session to hide it from her.

He's abusing the pills. She doesn't know, or if she does, she doesn't mention it, just writes it off as pain from the therapy.

The first time they really fight, she slams the door behind her, and he just takes another. He doesn't need water anymore.



Title: Months
Fandom: House, M.D.
Characters: House
Prompt: 009. Months
Word Count: 200
Rating: PG-13, for drug use
Summary: Snapshots of his gradual dependency on the Vicodin
Author's Notes: No real spoilers. Read Days, Weeks, Months, and Years together.


It's a problem.

He tries to quit two months after she's gone because she's not around to watch him go through the withdrawls. The shakes, the nausea, the screaming when he can't get himself out of the bed to grab the bottle on the dresser. He hadn't been able to flush them or throw them out because something in the back of his head tells him he won't make it.

He's willing to die trying.

It's only fourty-eight hours later when he's on the phone to his best friend, begging him to come over to the apartment, telling him to bring morphine and lots of it. He can't stop shaking and doesn't even try getting up to get the door -- James has a key and knows how to use it.

He ignores the shock and scolding he gets for trying to detox without supervision, and after painkillers and a long nap, he makes his friend swear to never mention this incident again.

House is planning to go back to work soon, and it will do no good for them to know about the addiction. He makes James swear never to tell.

James just nods, then brings the bottle off the dresser, putting it within reach.



Title: Years
Fandom: House, M.D.
Characters: House
Prompt: 010. Years
Word Count: 200
Rating: PG-13, for drug use
Summary: Snapshots of his gradual dependency on the Vicodin
Author's Notes: No real spoilers. Read Days, Weeks, Months, and Years together.


People have noticed. They say things when he walks by in the halls, he ignores them but it doesn't stop the little prickles in the back of his neck when he hears whispers, doesn't stop the nagging in the pit of his stomach that they know.

It's not like he keeps it a secret. He's a drug addict and the world knows it. At least, the world being the hospital. Nobody dares say a word to the hearing board, because he's one of the best doctors on the staff, if not the top one.

Plus, they're the reason for it all.

All the pain. All the suffering. All the Vicodin and years of drug abuse.

One missed diagnosis. One screwed up test. All because they thought he was an addict looking for a score -- the ultimate in fucked up irony.

He ignores the looks. Ignores the whispers and ignores the subtle hints his friend tries to drop. Tries to warn him. Tries to offer him help.

House just denies he has a problem. After all, that's what he's supposed to do, right? When he has a problem, denial is the first stage. Or admitting is -- he's never sure, he hates all that psychobabble bullshit.