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House: Hey, I can be a jerk to people I haven't slept with, I am that good.
*
Day Twenty-Seven
“Sympathy, is a disease,” House intones, pacing back and forth. Twenty-six days are done and he’s stolen his kisses from Chase and there’s nothing left to prove except for a gaping hole where the sex should have been the night before, but they hadn’t really gotten that far. There’d been kissing, Chase had gone down on him, good little lapdog he is with all that enthusiastic licking and my, oh my, but that bark was something. So, kissing, licking, barking…and then, when all looked promising and Chase had been about to ride him, instead, they’d achieved perfect equilibrium.
Exhaustion.
Apparently, it turns out that working around the clock on a patient wears you out. It hadn’t been all bad. Chase still bought him breakfast in the morning, a Danish with frosting and everything.
House crafts the note to Wilson as he speaks to Cameron about the patient. “She’s going home,” he informs her, barely looking up as he scribbles down one last bit about Wilson giving Chase a bit of competition in the chasing department. Just because he’s named ‘Chase’ doesn’t mean there should be cruel irony to it, not all the time. “Send her flowers, make her go away, I don’t care.”
“Why are you so cruel?” she asks half-heartedly, like it’s on her daily schedule.
House shrugs. “I’m a jerk.”
“You’re nice to…”
House stares at her, as though daring her to name someone.
“…Wilson?”
“He tells me to go to hell,” House says warmly, getting up and limping into the conference room, taking the coffee cup that Chase holds out to him in stride as he makes his way to the board. “I’m bored,” he announces. “Differential diagnosis?”
“You need a hobby,” Foreman retorts.
House turns, smirking. “Something to do? And here I thought doctors were lazy men without purpose.” He turns to Chase and winks, sipping at the coffee – just the way he likes it, not bad – and leaning on his cane. “Okay, eenie,” he points to Cameron, “meenie,” Foreman, “miney,” he points to himself. “Ho,” he lands on Chase, earning him a nice narrowed glance and a very firm crossing of the arms. Chase’s body language screams, ‘bad House’, but it’s a promising start. “You, find us someone to work on. Go outside the hospital if you have to, but you better leave a trail of breadcrumbs because then you might lose your way home to Cuddy and all her treats,” he finishes, rather tartly. Chase just glares at him and House glares back, always good for a glaring contest.
“No,” Chase argues.
Foreman and Cameron go quiet. It’s the mythical day. The day Chase talks back.
House simply starts rolling up the newspaper lying on the table until it forms a decent looking funnel before he turns and smacks Chase on the nose with it. “Bad puppy!” he scolds. “You have to beg for treats! Do a trick!” Chase lunges for the newspaper, but House uses his height to lift it above his head. “Say please,” he tells Chase. “Or go.”
Chase scoffs incredulously, leaning forward and snatching the newspaper.
“Well?”
“I was going to read that.” Chase takes the newspaper with him as he storms out.
*
And so it begins.
*
As far as Diagnostics Conferences go, this one sucks. He’s told Chase so at least ten times since they arrived – his suitcases piled on Chase’s back, like he’s good to bear a burden or three, which he is, good Catholic boy – and found one suite, two beds. Foreman had cancelled and Cameron had balked at a few days in a convention center when there was a patient to cure. Cuddy apparently, has a job and Wilson has some wife. So, Chase it is.
Chase and him and a hotel room.
Huh.
“The place sucks. It blows. And sucks, equally,” House remarks, popping a mint from dinner into his mouth. Chase is lying with his gaze tipped to the ceiling and he looks like he’s suffering. “Really sucks,” he adds in Chase’s direction. “I mean, really, rea…”
“I get it,” Chase cuts him off. “You hate it.”
“No,” House argues. “I think it sucks.”
“I thought you liked sucking things,” Chase remarks, sitting up slowly. “And things that suck.”
House points at him. “Oh-ho,” he chortles, shaking his head. “Sly.” He makes it to his feet, grasping for his cane and limping over slowly, managing to make it without having the craving for a Vicodin, though that’s what he’s been craving since they arrived. Maybe it’s time to finish the job, get Chase on top of him, ride him to the end and be done with all of this; really, really done. That way, he doesn’t have those stupid little ‘what-if’s’ and he’ll stop wondering if Chase sucks at sex.
Chase lies back down, sprawled out is the best term for it. “No talking about you-know-who,” he warns. Ah yes, the little girl that gets the both of them out of the mood so fast, you’d think the Pink Elephant in the room had tranquilizer darts that threatened a man’s libido. He gives House a warning glare.
“Yeah, all right, okay,” House nods quickly, setting his cane down and shifting to sit on the bed. “So long as you promise not to fall asleep. Cute as your snoring is, you might get throttled. Or your hair chopped off.”
“House!” Chase replies, stricken.
House rolls his eyes. “Relax,” he murmurs, leaning down and tugging Chase up into a sit. He’s not bending down to Chase’s level…literally. He wraps his hand around Chase’s hair and clasps hard -- not hard enough to rip, but hard enough to hold – and he gives Chase a kiss to remember, not so feverish that he’s going to forget it and not too slow to imply that House doesn’t know what he’s doing. In the process, they slowly fall – yes, fall, Chase is apparently not that graceful – to the bed, arms grasping for clothing.
See, he doesn’t start with the feverish, but it’s always a symptom of the process.
“Shirt,” House commands. “Off.” His shirt or Chase’s, he’s not sure. Chase’s fingers bend and crack as he flexes them, snatching the hem of House’s vintage t-shirt and try to yank it over his head, getting it caught in their kiss. Chase pulls away to get the shirt off and is running his splayed palm through House’s pepper-and-grey hair (he’d coined it) when there’s a knock.
Chase sits up and effectively pushes House up with him, nearly falling off the bed if it weren’t for Chase wrapping his arms around House to catch him and pull him back, only for Chase to fall back, House pinning his weight in all the wrong places.
“Oof.”
That’s about the sound Chase makes as House’s elbow pushes hard against his stomach, which isn’t bad considering House would have made a lot more colorful remarks.
“Go away!” House yells at the door. “Or else I’ll sic my wombat on you!”
The glare Chase gives him is pure and priceless gold. “I am not your wombat,” he retorts, throwing House’s shirt back at him.
“Sorry!” House concedes apologetically and Chase lightens, but only briefly. “My kangaroo will sic you!”
*
“When you were a priest…”
House might learn one day that the worst possible way to start a conversation is bringing up a profession that professes chastity and all things pure. But it is not that day. Chase’s sigh is entirely worthy given the topic that House has brought up, considering that Chase is currently straddling House, his jeans loosened and showing just the barest glimpse of hipbone. Two AM and House’s comfy chair is proving to be a lot more comfortable with two.
“No,” Chase protests, burying his face in House’s neck and kissing there, as though there’s an off button. But there isn’t. “No, no, please, no, not tonight.”
“Did you wear vestments? Collar? Kneel for the fa…”
Chase pulls off him so fast, you’d think he’d suggested something as kinky as a five-way with Cameron, Foreman, and Cuddy. He stares down at House, eyes wide as quarters and he points to House before pointing to himself. “When we do this,” he states firmly. “When we do this, you can’t…you can’t talk!” The lady doth protest too much and when Chase protests, his accent does a funny little thing, it gets thicker and his ‘can’t’ sounds more like ‘caaaahn’t’ and it kinda turns House on, a little. “You ruin things when you talk,” Chase accuses. House just peers up at him, waiting for the verdict. Is he guilty of mortal sin, or shall he receive a penance. He can do Hail Mary’s. “House?” Chase ventures. “Are you going to shut up?”
“Doubtful. So, those confession booths. Ever think about taping them and selling them to MTV?”
Chase groans and takes to pacing.
“You’d make a fortune.”
“House!”
“Ever fucked a confessor?”
“House! Please! Shut up!” Chase looks stricken. “It’s…you’re…I…” He shudders and leaves the room without another word. Probably off to the chapel. Ward off the naughty little thoughts House has just put into his head. He chuckles and grabs his television. There’s probably a rerun of Undressed on about now.
*
House exhales with relief when he realizes that Chase is able to handle the most delicate thing in his life, right after his car and his Vicodin. Chase’s fingers descend upon the piano keys, not too stilted, but not too fluid. Probably took piano lessons as a kid. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik drifts from the bench and House has to take a moment to smile in approval. That’s not typically what people go for when there’s a piano in sight.
It’s strange, but people, when mixed with a piano, are always somehow compelled to play Chopsticks. House would love to figure out what that’s about.
House pauses, chopsticks in hand. Damn and fuck irony, anyhow. A box of stir-fried rice and a second set of chopsticks – Chase’s – lies ignored beside the piano.
“What else can you play?” House inquires quietly, trying not to distract him. There’s a pause and Chase’s foot goes for the pedal and his posture straightens, wrists sit up at attention – should have noticed that Chase’s nails were never that long, perfect for a piano player – and he begins Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. It’s stilted and he falters in places, but it’s not half-bad. House approaches slowly, favoring the good leg as he places the food on a table and leans in, hands resting above Chase’s.
Chase exhales, but doesn’t say anything.
House allows his hands to shape in the exact same splay that Chase has created and they match, finger for finger as House guides Chase’s fingers across the keys. “Fur Elise?” he ventures and Chase adjusts his fingers after a solid moment of thought and a gentle guide from House. House hobbles slightly as he hops on his good leg, but he leans in, lips by Chase’s ear as they play the first three bars and then Chase lifts his fingers away, turning slowly to the side, his lips brushing House’s in the process. He steals a kiss as they rest, they pause, and the melody goes pianissimo until it’s no longer heard.
“Don’t remember the rest,” Chase admits quietly when he eases away from the kiss.
House shifts until he’s sitting on the bench. “I’ll take it from here.” His playing is effortless. He practices. He knows. Chase seems content to let him go and watches, occasionally playing a harmony.
Occasionally, it’s not the right one. House lets it slide.
*
This time, they have it. They have to. Chase is down to his boxers and socks – well, sock, to imply that House hasn’t made quick work of the other would be a lie – and House is just in t-shirt and jeans, no socks on him. They’d opted for Chase’s place because it’s on the ground level and it’s closer and after that whole patient history where the patient started explaining in torrid detail the various positions his fiancée had suggested, crossing the legs just wasn’t gonna do it.
“Leg,” House warns as he guides Chase off his bad leg and Chase settles that issue by neatly guiding himself over to the side, gently nudging one knee in between House’s thighs and applying pressure, yeah…oh, God, yeah, that’s nice.
Chase definitely has a good grasp on that anatomy thing.
Supplies are pressed into Chase’s hand as Chase makes slow work of his boxers, hair falling in his face. He’s slow to do it, hesitant before he stops completely and glances up at House. “Are you…”
House steals the tiny package of lube and the wrapped condom away, tearing it open with his teeth. “Don’t even ask.”
The ‘V’ of Chase’s hipbones and the peek of his treasure trail leading lower and lower is all that House gets to before their pagers go off in synchronicity. They freeze in place, perfect tableau as House reaches for his pager first. He snorts.
“What is it?” Chase asks warily.
House throws the pager to the ground – to the pile of clothes that Chase had started – as he shrugs casually and blithely. “Patient’s dying. Something about needing to save her life.” He crawls off of Chase and goes for his jeans. Life and death and sex. The never-ending cycle.
*
“Open wide.”
House flicks the popcorn into the air, a good trajectory across his desk into Chase’s wide, open, beckoning mouth. Chase catches it between his teeth and chews it quickly before swallowing, which is good, because House really isn’t sure when that First Aid certificate of his had expired. Chase holds up one hand to protest anything more flicked at him.
House plays idly with the popcorn as he glances to the television, noting that GH is still on commercial break. “If I fire you, would you do what Cameron did?”
“Ask you for a date?” Chase wrinkles his nose.
House raises a curious eyebrow. “So you’re fine with the seducing me part, but not with dating me?” He grabs his yo-yo, something to distract him before that precious thirty-seconds of commercial break are over. House isn’t ADD. He’s just…bored. “That’s almost really wrong, Robert,” he remarks, rolling his ‘R’.
“I don’t do dates,” Chase retorts.
“You do women, you do men, you do one-night stands?”
“At this rate, I’m never going to do you.”
“Ouch,” House says plainly, no real inflection. He turns his gaze to Chase. “You will. Don’t worry, you’re just saving it all up, aren’t you? Would it help if I told you I was into that kinky burning thing? We could call the dominatrix for a three-way!”
Chase just glares mildly – those have reduced in their intensity, funny that – and gestures to the television. “Your show’s back.”
“Yeah, because this isn’t drama enough.” House puts the yo-yo away and munches on the popcorn. He throws a quick glance to Chase, finding him mired in paperwork. The next commercial break, he’ll play with his perfect-haired-blonde toy. Unlike the yo-yo, he’s a flexible one.
*
Wilson buys House lunch when he’s hiding from Chase. Maybe he’d gone a little too far, what with the sticking bubblegum in his hair. He figures they’re either going to finally ‘break up’ or have the wild, angry sex in the janitor’s closet, but it really wasn’t that big a deal. It was a little piece and it’d been a lock of hair that in all honesty, Cameron will have no problem cutting off.
“You have really done it this time,” Wilson remarks in awe, stirring his coffee slowly and peering down into it. “Say all you want about me catching up, you’re pushing the boundaries so far, I can’t even see them.”
“You’re not even in the race anymore,” House remarks with disgust. “You aren’t trying, Jimmy.” House sips at his coffee. “Can’t respect a man who won’t try.”
“You put bubblegum in his hair!” Wilson remarks with clearly surprised shock. “And you think that’ll make him want to jump in the sack with you!”
“Isn’t that how you met your first wife?”
Wilson glares at him – hey, those have gone up in their intensity – and steals a few fries from his plate, which is fair game since he paid for them in the first place. “Would you just sleep with him already so you can either fire him or get over this obsession of yours? Contrary to popular belief, Chase is not Mount Everest, and you are not trying to…” Wilson sighs, like it’s actually causing him physical pain to speak the words, “…you are not trying to…mount…him.”
The smirk of a grin on House’s face has been growing the whole time Wilson had been struggling to get words out.
“Now compare him to a horse I fell off,” House taunts, his grin growing ever the wider, if such a thing could be possible.
“Incorrigible.”
*
The hospital doesn’t have a gym, but there’s one close-by. House had stopped in because they’d toted and pitched an “old-fashioned lacrosse game” for those members who were interested and he hasn’t learned when it comes to nostalgia. He’s a masochist for it. The cane does a lot of helpful things for him, but it’s not the same. He’ll never be the same. He leaves after fifteen minutes of watching able-bodied men do things House will never be able to, and he walks straight into Chase, sweating and in a pair of shorts and a tee.
“Whoa.” House nearly falters, losing his balance. Chase lightly rests a hand on his elbow and holds firmly to steady him. “You know, in the olden days, people gave cripples their room.”
“Guess it’s not the olden days,” Chase remarks. “You leaving?”
House throws one last glance over his shoulder to see the lacrosse game, wide grins on young guy’s faces. He turns to find Chase looking at him expectantly. There’s probably a changeroom around here somewhere, House could probably get some of this frustration out – like a low-grade burn that won’t go away, slowly driving him crazy – and suddenly, he realizes that’s pity on Chase’s face.
“Yeah,” he acknowledges. “Go back to your workout. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
House doesn’t do pity and he certainly doesn’t get done because of it.
*
Chase is, all too often, a little boy in grown-up’s clothes and trying to play the part. Ties that burn corneas, shirts that don’t fit, pants that are too tight, it’s like he’s never been taught how to dress properly. Chances are, that’s exactly what happened. Mommy was too busy sampling the finer side of life while Chasey was given the bum’s rush in ‘how to be a man’.
There’s a mother of a child dying of alcoholism – well, the liver’s all wrecked and ruined, that’d be the medical cause – and she’s got a kid. The kid’s no more than thirteen and House often finds Chase sitting with him, even though it’s Wilson’s patient. House hasn’t interrupted them yet, but every day he lurks at the nurse’s station and watches Chase with the kid, sharing coffee, or talking quietly – the hands move a lot, sometimes in anger; once, the kid had spilled Chase’s coffee all over the floor before collapsing into Chase’s arms for a hug that he hadn’t been prepared to give at first, but slowly came around to.
Today’s the day she died and House knows where he’ll find Chase. He watches as Chase hugs the kid, it’s awkward, but it’s real, and House inches up this time until he’s close enough to hear.
“I…I d-don’t…I don’t know what to d-d-do.”
“Yes, you do. You know. You’ve got your lists, you’ve got your plans. Time to grow up a little.”
And there’s the very malady that had afflicted Chase the Younger. He’d grown up far too fast because of a mother who couldn’t raise him and a father that didn’t want to. Sometimes, House wonders if Robert Chase’s parents should have just bought a puppy and be done with it. Certainly would have prevented all the bubbling issues in Chase, and since that’s how his parents treated him, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
“Will you help me?” comes the quiet request. “Just until I can plan her funeral.”
House shouldn’t be surprised, but he can’t help but be a little amazed when Chase says, “yes.”
He’d been planning on asking Chase around that night, but instead, he leaves him a note that gives him a week off of work; signed, sealed, and delivered.
*
Ergonomically, Chase’s hair just does not work. It keeps falling in his face, keeps getting in House’s way. Each kiss has the potential to be accompanied by a golden lock of Chase-hair and it’s really, pretty disgusting. He’d suggest cutting it, but that’s the quickest way to get Chase pissed at you – insult the hair. His solution comes when he realizes that by cupping Chase’s face with every kiss, it does two things:
1. Gets that goddamn hair out of his way.
2. Gives House control of an already precarious situation.
Chase can’t control what he does with House holding his face with both hands, guiding the kiss, making every choice and movement because he has the upper hand. They’ve advanced to a point where there isn’t the awkwardness of where limbs go, and who takes control and how to get that squeaky moaning noise from Chase. House knows Chase like he knows the plot summaries of General Hospital – thoroughly and with obsessively scary detail. The kisses are reflecting that as they go at it, House’s new control gambit in play.
This also makes it so that Chase does all the dirty work, the economics of undressing in his hands.
Zippers are slid down and buttons pop out of their holes, shirts rustle against skin and slide upwards as Chase pulls away to try take House’s shirt off before leaning back into his hands and a kiss that guides him back, House’s shirt still left on. Chase’s own shirt is unbuttoned with great slowness, a small triangle of skin becoming bigger and bigger.
“What time is it?” Chase exhales quietly, as House tries to draw him into another kiss. This is leading somewhere, this is leading to the end, they just need to finish. “House. Greg, stop, I need…Christian, his mother’s…”
The kid. The one he’d given Chase time off work for.
Chase eases away, smiling regretfully. “Her funeral.” He grasps a white shirt and begins to replicate the undressing process in reverse, dressing in front of House’s eyes.
And the only right thing to say at a time like this, according to Dr. Greg House:
“Cocktease.”
Apparently, that’s the wrong thing, as Chase slams the door behind him. Hey, you live, you learn.
*
House takes Chase out to a bar and they drown their sorrows in shots with interesting names. Polar Bears and Dr. Pepper’s, Rocky Mountain Bear Fuckers and Liquid Cocaine. It’s all on House’s tab tonight and he’s just trying to loosen Chase up a bit, see if he can’t unknot that tie with one hand as Chase rambles on about mortgages or something, escrow? God, he doesn’t know, but the tie comes off.
Chase isn’t drunk. House believes that Chase has never been shitfaced drunk in his entire life, he’d put money on that. Buzzed, yes. Tipsy, by God, of course. But he doubts the kid’s ever touched a gin and tonic, doubts Chase has ever drank so much that he can’t recall the events of the night before. The affliction of being the son of an alcoholic is that alcohol becomes your enemy, one so steadfast and eternal that it’s like House vs. the Clinic. Is there ever a winner?
“Chase, stop talking,” House orders and Chase shuts up, mid-sentence. Oh, okay, he was talking about his childhood house. Makes sense. House leans in until their noses are almost touching in an Eskimo kiss and he stares as intensely as he can – which isn’t so intense, considering he’s swaying with the effects of the alcohol.
Chase blinks and House’s vision goes fuzzy.
“Tell me the truth,” House begins quietly.
Chase just smiles serenely and before House can get any more of his question out in the air, Chase leans the little bit forward and presses his lips behind House’s ear, brushing there so lightly that it might as well be the AC on the fritz, specifically aimed for his skin. It evokes goosebumps nonetheless, as Chase whispers, “I want to get out of here,” he says.
That’s truth enough for House.
*
Chase isn’t a screamer. That had been a surprise.
House has finally done it. Days and hours and minutes after he’d gone twenty-six days and he’s done it. The sex had been somewhat slow to begin with as Chase tried to figure out the dynamics of riding a man – snorting that he’d always been on the other side – but he’s a fast learner, has to be in his field. He’d set a slow pace and no matter House had demanded for faster, Chase had ignored him, resting one hand firmly on House’s chest as he thrust and tipped his gaze to the ceiling.
And as he came, he’d said House’s name with such reverence, such honest belief that House is beginning to wonder if maybe Chase has abandoned faith in God for the worship of false deities. Or maybe he’s just gone agnostic.
Chase eases away, collapsing on the duvet cover for what seems like an age as they catch their breath and House reaches for his jeans. He doesn’t take his shirt off for sex, there’s only so much he can bear to give up of himself and the full view isn’t part of that. “So does this mean you’re going to start being nicer to me?” Chase asks, lazily reaching for his boxers, slipping back into them with a wiggle and a thrust of his hips.
“No.” House peers up, too lazy and sated to really do anything but smirk. “I’m a jerk to the people I have slept with too.” His grin widens at the look of abject confusion on Chase’s face, like he’ll never put together the pieces of House’s puzzle.
And chances are, he never will solve the puzzle.
There’s always been one Rubix cube in the bunch that’s been defective all along.
“But if you’re good about it, I might be less of one.” Like Wilson, the anomaly to them all. He studies Chase as he finishes dressing and holds his keys like they’re his escape. “See you tomorrow.”
And nothing will have changed.
THE END