"Unwritten" post-ep ficlet.
Title: Smokescreen
Author: lit_luminary
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Chase/canon female character.
Summary: Chase is good at showing people only what he wants them to see.
He meets Liz at a club not too far from the hospital: loud music, bright lights and alcohol in candy colors. She likes the sound of his voice, the easy charm in his smile; has just said, “Why don’t we go back to my place?” when his pager vibrates.
House has a case.
“They need me at the hospital,” he says.
“It might not take long,” she says, trailing nicotine-stained fingertips down his forearm.
He doesn’t disabuse her; doesn’t say that any case House deigns sufficiently interesting to take will demand his full attention for the next three or four days. He lets her come with him, because she’ll change her plans for the evening once it’s obvious he’s not rejoining her.
But House notices her outside the glass doors-her short skirt exposing long legs, the jut of her hip and the cigarette held between her fingers-and dismisses him for the night.
He can hear Taub complaining as he goes, holding the wilting red flower House gave him; can hear House tell Taub, “You hate your personal life.”
Chase isn’t thrilled with his, either.
Outside, Liz puts her cigarette out and accepts the flower from him with a grin, pleased, as though it means something. Chase hopes she doesn’t read too much into it: the last thing he wants is for her to get attached.
That’s not what this is about.
-
They go to her apartment, and he lets her lead him to her bedroom and push him down on the mattress; lets her strip off his clothes and hers and guide his hands on her body. Lets her touch his.
It’s escape, and it feels good.
Her aggressiveness reminds him of Cameron (hard, hungry kisses with his back against an apartment wall, the shelf of the office storage closet, that one patient’s bed), but her eyes are dark and her mouth tastes like ashes.
He thinks of the ashtray Rowan used to keep in his study, full of the remnants of the cigars that eventually killed him; of the cross of ashes daubed on his own forehead before Lent; of Karen, so meticulous with the cigarette burns on the inside of her thighs, and how she’d hiss with satisfaction as she branded another small circle into her skin.
He’d been at once fascinated and horrified by her pleasure at the pain.
Perhaps he understands better now.
Liz moves away from him briefly, finds a condom in the drawer of the bedside table, hands it to him. He tears the wrapper and rolls it on, and she moves atop him, her hands pinning his shoulders, holding him down. She gasps and pants when she climaxes, and her yellowed nails bite into his skin, leaving marks. They’ll be gone by morning.
His pleasure is a hot flare, almost sharp.
For a few ecstatic seconds, the world whites out and he doesn’t have to think.
-
He leaves in the morning, dresses again in last night’s clothes and returns Liz’s flirtatious smile with an empty one when she says she’ll call him. And he puts that smile on like armor at the office; when he shades his voice with satisfaction and greets Taub and Foreman, telling them with a laugh, “Well, if it’s any consolation, I didn’t get any sleep either.”
Half-truths are the best lies: he didn’t. Not beside an unknown woman in a strange bed.
They’ll assume a night of passionate sex. Assume he enjoyed himself.
They’ll resent that House gave him the night off, resent that he slept at all.
Most importantly, they won’t ask any questions.
END.
Note: has also written a fic about this encounter, titled Empathy.
Author: lit_luminary
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Chase/canon female character.
Summary: Chase is good at showing people only what he wants them to see.
He meets Liz at a club not too far from the hospital: loud music, bright lights and alcohol in candy colors. She likes the sound of his voice, the easy charm in his smile; has just said, “Why don’t we go back to my place?” when his pager vibrates.
House has a case.
“They need me at the hospital,” he says.
“It might not take long,” she says, trailing nicotine-stained fingertips down his forearm.
He doesn’t disabuse her; doesn’t say that any case House deigns sufficiently interesting to take will demand his full attention for the next three or four days. He lets her come with him, because she’ll change her plans for the evening once it’s obvious he’s not rejoining her.
But House notices her outside the glass doors-her short skirt exposing long legs, the jut of her hip and the cigarette held between her fingers-and dismisses him for the night.
He can hear Taub complaining as he goes, holding the wilting red flower House gave him; can hear House tell Taub, “You hate your personal life.”
Chase isn’t thrilled with his, either.
Outside, Liz puts her cigarette out and accepts the flower from him with a grin, pleased, as though it means something. Chase hopes she doesn’t read too much into it: the last thing he wants is for her to get attached.
That’s not what this is about.
-
They go to her apartment, and he lets her lead him to her bedroom and push him down on the mattress; lets her strip off his clothes and hers and guide his hands on her body. Lets her touch his.
It’s escape, and it feels good.
Her aggressiveness reminds him of Cameron (hard, hungry kisses with his back against an apartment wall, the shelf of the office storage closet, that one patient’s bed), but her eyes are dark and her mouth tastes like ashes.
He thinks of the ashtray Rowan used to keep in his study, full of the remnants of the cigars that eventually killed him; of the cross of ashes daubed on his own forehead before Lent; of Karen, so meticulous with the cigarette burns on the inside of her thighs, and how she’d hiss with satisfaction as she branded another small circle into her skin.
He’d been at once fascinated and horrified by her pleasure at the pain.
Perhaps he understands better now.
Liz moves away from him briefly, finds a condom in the drawer of the bedside table, hands it to him. He tears the wrapper and rolls it on, and she moves atop him, her hands pinning his shoulders, holding him down. She gasps and pants when she climaxes, and her yellowed nails bite into his skin, leaving marks. They’ll be gone by morning.
His pleasure is a hot flare, almost sharp.
For a few ecstatic seconds, the world whites out and he doesn’t have to think.
-
He leaves in the morning, dresses again in last night’s clothes and returns Liz’s flirtatious smile with an empty one when she says she’ll call him. And he puts that smile on like armor at the office; when he shades his voice with satisfaction and greets Taub and Foreman, telling them with a laugh, “Well, if it’s any consolation, I didn’t get any sleep either.”
Half-truths are the best lies: he didn’t. Not beside an unknown woman in a strange bed.
They’ll assume a night of passionate sex. Assume he enjoyed himself.
They’ll resent that House gave him the night off, resent that he slept at all.
Most importantly, they won’t ask any questions.
END.
Note: has also written a fic about this encounter, titled Empathy.