Chapter Text
Chase never liked winter. Colder temperatures, shitty weather, shorter days. It brought him down.
It wasn’t as noticeable back in Australia. And if it was, it was easily blamed on the stress of med school. Winter tended to make him more tired than usual. Everything felt like a chore, and he would just sleep or lie in bed during his free time. He overslept a few times and got into some trouble, but it was nothing dramatic. Sure, his mood was a bit off, but it wasn’t like anyone noticed, so it couldn’t have been that bad. "Winter blues", he learned some called it. But it was nothing Chase couldn’t handle.
Winter in Princeton, however, was a different league altogether.
He had started his fellowship with House just a few months earlier in spring. House was very demanding, but Chase adjusted quickly and House seemed pleased with his performance. He genuinely enjoyed work. It was mentally challenging, but that’s what made a correct diagnosis all the more rewarding. He was happier than he had been for a while, sometimes even catching himself laughing at House's bad jokes.
However, things started faltering in autumn.
At first he thought the colder season was sort of nice. The blaring summer heat finally died down and everything seemed a bit more calm. When he woke up in the morning he was greeted by the colorful maple trees in front of his apartment building.
Sure, autumn was colder here than back at home, but it really wasn’t that bad. He drank more coffee than usual, but that was just because House was making him run endless errands.
At some point the trees had lost their leaves, and all he woke up to were bleak grey branches. Even if it didn’t rain, the sky always seemed flat and grey. Not that it really mattered— after all he spent most of his time inside the hospital anyways.
Over the course of a month, coffee wasn’t enough to combat his tiredness anymore.
Chase had to drag himself to and through work. The days seemed endless, and he was exhausted by the time he got home. Sometimes he skipped showering because he was too drained to get up and into the shower.
House, of course, noticed.
One morning, a few minutes after he had clocked in, House grimaced and shot him a look.
"Did you sleep in a high school locker room or do you enjoy smelling like a summer bus commute?"
Chase felt shame rise in him and flushed, suddenly aware of the tangy smell that clung to him. He tried to get himself to shower more often after that but ultimately failed. He practically bathed himself in deodorant before work from then on.
He didn’t notice the way House watched him more frequently when he was filling out paperwork or getting up to get some more coffee. The way he noted the increasingly darkening circles around his eyes or the dirty shirt he’d been wearing for 3 days in a row. He observed how his movements seemed almost sluggish.
Chase normally put a lot of effort into his appearance, so the most recent developments were definitely out of character for him.
House wasn’t sure yet if this was just some kind of weird phase or something more serious, so he decided to let this play out a while longer and watch.
It was around that time that they lost their first patient together.
And for some reason it hit Chase harder than it should have. He wasn’t some naive med student anymore, and yet he spent restless nights thinking about this case, replaying it until his vision went blurry, even going as far as crying himself to sleep multiple times. What unsettled him the most wasn’t the grief— it was that he couldn’t explain it.
There was nothing particularly special about the patient.
Sure, he basically knew everything about the man, far beyond his medical records. He'd stood in his kitchen, had seen vacation photos of him and his wife on the fridge, guitars hung up on his wall like trophies, stacks of cookbooks stained with use. Childhood pictures and toys he had found stored away in the basement told their own silent stories.
It wasn’t unusual for Chase to learn these things about his patients, and yet they were haunting him.
Chase felt like he had blood sticking on his hands. He told himself over and over again that he wasn’t responsible for the patient’s death. That the man died of a rare combination of genetic diseases and that there was nothing anyone could have done for him. But it didn’t help. He felt himself rotting from the inside out.
He became too used to House's patients walking away alive. This time one didn’t. And it felt personal.
Chase could have kicked himself for his naivety and even more so for the way his emotions kept slipping through his fingers.
He was a grown man— he should be able to handle this. But he didn’t, and worse, he let it happen.
Dinner became optional. Most nights he felt too exhausted to cook something up. Personal hygiene came next – he kept oversleeping, making him short on time. He started arriving to work late, usually just by a few minutes, but enough for House to arrive before him multiple times.
House didn’t say much, dumping his extra clinic hours on him instead like a passive-aggressive post-it.
But Chase felt like that wasn’t enough.
He was messing up after all, and worse, he couldn’t seem to stop. He had to show House that he could be better, that he wasn’t useless yet.
Chase knew that his position was sought after by thousands of people and that he was easily replaceable.
He had to make amends for his mistakes somehow.
So he stayed after work. Chase knew that House didn't like this kind of ass kissing, but he didn’t know how to help himself otherwise. He filled out paperwork that was long overdue and went through books to come up with better ideas to hopefully please House in the next DDX.
Chase was sitting in the conference room with an empty coffee mug in front of him. The sun had set long ago and the lighting of the office was too dim no matter how high he set it. He tried his best to focus on the book in front of him, but he just stared at the pages without comprehending anything he had read. The words turned into meaningless blurs, his eyes dragging over each line like it weighed something.
His limbs felt heavy and his dry eyes fell shut for a few seconds multiple times. His head kept swaying to the side as he tried his best to keep himself from falling asleep.
No— he couldn’t, shouldn’t . He had to do better— had to be better.
But he was weak. And so he eventually rested his head on his arms. Just for a minute. He’d continue reading in a bit.
The humming of the heater lulled him to sleep as the first snow of the year fell outside.
When House walked into the conference room the next morning, he was surprised to see Chase sitting at the table.
For one, because he’d been late more often than not for the last two weeks. For another, because it looked like he never even left the hospital in the first place.
His body was slumped against the table, his chest rising and falling slowly and rhythmically. Scattered around him were books and half filled out paperwork, some of it having fallen on the floor.
It hadn’t escaped House how the death of their most recent patient had affected Chase. He was more quiet than usual. He reacted less and less to House's remarks in an equally sarcastic manner. And his appearance well— he heard the nurses gossip.
But falling asleep on the job was a new low.
House walked up to the other man and poked his side with his cane.
"Morning, sunshine!" he exclaimed in an exaggerated voice.
Chase stirred at that with a low groan. He opened his eyes, blinking irritably a few times before his eyes adjusted to the brightness around him.
"Alright, this is becoming ridiculous. What's going on with you?" House demanded in a stern voice when the other man seemed responsive enough.
Chase sat up straighter at the question.
"I was— I just wanted to catch up on some paperwork. I didn’t mean to— I’m sorry—" he stuttered uselessly.
"I’m not just talking about that."
"…what do you mean?" he asked dumbly. Chase felt panic rise in him. House was going to replace him.
"You’ve been off lately, especially since the last patient died. You come to work like you didn’t shut an eye. You look like crap. The nurses are gossiping about you, you know. Prince Charming has fallen off."
Chase stayed silent— he didn’t know how to answer. How could he possibly save himself from this? He’d been slacking off. Coming late to work, giving worse suggestions than usual during differentials. And now his attempt to make amends backfired completely.
Falling asleep on the job?
Chase felt ashamed.
House took the moment of silence to sit down next to him, hissing slightly as he lowered himself onto the chair.
"You know it wasn’t your fault. There was nothing anyone could have done for him, he was a genetic time bomb," House responded whilst rolling his cane between his hands.
Chase was taken aback by this answer.
Solace? From House? Was this a bad joke? He probably should have felt some sort of relief. Instead, he felt a strange sense of irritation bubble up within him.
"I know, I’m not a med student," he snapped.
Something unreadable flickered across House's face before quickly turning cold again.
They stared at each other in silence. Beneath the table, Chase dug his fingers into his thighs hard enough to hurt.
Eventually House's expression turned solemn.
"You’re sinking, Chase."