Mind over Matter (7/11)
Mind Over Matter
By: Npkedit
Disclaimer and intro information (read them), can be found at http://npkedit.livejournal.com/74775.html
Part 7
Chase steeled himself before opening the door to Exam 1. If he'd been able to think up any other course of action than the one he'd settled on in the early hours of the morning, he'd have gone with it. House could be as unpredictable as his mother had been, and Chase hadn't felt so nervous since the day he'd gone to Confession after taking Michelle Latting's virginity in the back of his dad's BMW (though he still didn't feel the least bit guilty about swiping the car without permission that fateful evening).
He wasn't surprised to find House alone and communing with his Game Boy, who, when he finally deigned to look up, appeared more peeved than surprised at his entrance.
"I need a consult," Chase announced as he shut the door behind him.
"Interesting, seeing as we have no patients," House observed before returning his attention to his Game Boy. "And that you’re the reason I was exiled to this dungeon."
"Which has a dragon," Chase observed wryly, side-stepping the medical file issue. "You know Brenda's ratting you out to anyone who'll ask and it's only a matter of time before Cuddy figures out you haven't actually seen a patient all morning."
"Time better spent kicking Mario's butt than yours."
Chase sighed, gathering his thoughts. House wasn't going to make this easy. House never made anything easy. And getting angry again might mean another cracked window-or worse. That realization alone put things into perspective.
"I…I have a…problem," he finally confessed, his body language screaming his reluctance to admit even that much.
"Hire the A-Team," House quipped.
"What?"
"No appreciation for the classics," House said with a shake of his head. "You Brits need to get out more. More violence, less Spice Girls."
"I'm Australian. And I'm serious."
"Has Cameron been propositioning you again?" House asked, looking up, seemingly interested. "An approval-seeking people-pleaser who has serious issues with mommy, daddy, and the Holy Spirit is right up her alley."
"She prefers sarcastic egomaniacs with delusions of godhood," Chase shot back, refusing to acknowledge the truths in House's assessment. Chase wondered how a man so brilliant could be such a bloody bastard; there were moments when House reminded him rather uncomfortably of his own father.
"As I recall, I tied the Good Lord when last we went head to head-and I got gypped."
Frustrated but unsurprised by House's sarcasm, Chase decided that beating around the bush was getting him nowhere. It wasn't as if House didn't appreciate bluntness; the man made it an art form. So, as he'd…willed…his teacup not to crash the night before, he similarly summoned the electronic game his boss was playing. The Game Boy shot out of House's grip, across the room, and into his own hands.
For his part, House stared at his empty hands a moment, then let his gaze drift upward -his only immediate reaction a raised eyebrow. Then he followed up with, "Been brushing up on your sleight-of-hand?"
Chase sighed, then sent the Game Boy back to House, suspending it just above his boss's hand.
"It started a couple of weeks after my concussion," Chase admitted as he watched House inspect the hovering toy before it began to wobble in mid-air-his conscious control over his…ability was a little haphazard. House rescued the device before it could fall to the ground. "I think. Stuff I thought was coincidence or plain dumb luck… All I do know is that it's getting worse. I think I blew out your window. And I'm scared I'm going to hurt someone or you can bet your bloody Game Boy that I wouldn't be in here right now."
The subsequent silence threatened to stretch for eternity as House stared at his toy, then moved to pocket it and looked up, his expression smug.
"Okay."
"Okay?" Chase wasn't sure whether to be relieved or afraid.
"You have a problem."
Chase waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. "That's it?"
"Would you prefer I tell you to get a light saber and start quoting pithy aphorisms in Muppet voices?" House inquired wryly. "Young Jedi, you have so many important things to learn. Like how to properly manipulate one's employer-way cooler than endangering my playthings, and less likely to result in harm to that perfect little head of hair."
"I don't want to harm anything," Chase said fervently. He'd gone to House out of desperation, but now wasn't entirely certain what his supervisor could do for him. Even House had his limits-not that the cantankerous doctor would ever admit to such a thing.
"Didn't say you did. The funny thing is, I have this tendency to hire doctors with brains in their heads, your current behavior notwithstanding. And if I were to ask one of these doctors for a differential diagnosis on a patient whose major symptom is his ability to move things around and break them without touching them in this day and age, well what do you think they might say?"
"I've read the journals. Mutants manifest at puberty. I'm almost 30." But his words weren't all that convincing, even to himself.
"Please, you'd get carded if you tried to buy a rum ball," House scoffed. "And didn't dear ol' dad tell you that just because something hasn't happened before doesn't mean it won't? I'm still holding out for Angelina Jolie."
House paused for a moment, then added in a decidedly more civil tone, "Did you run the test?"
Chase shuffled his feet, looking every inch the guilty Catholic schoolboy. "I can't run it here."
"Because we actually have a sequencer and that's throwing you?"
"Because if I come out positive-and don't tell me that'll stay secret for very long-do you really think I'll have a job much longer? And that's if I don't get kicked out of the country." Chase couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I'm not stupid."
House stared at him for a long moment, but Chase refused to look away. He hadn't put up with so much shit just to throw away his career because his parents-or their genetic codes, at the very least-had once more fucked him over.
"You're not entirely stupid."
It was, Chase thought, the closest House would ever get to a compliment.
"But you underestimate my own super powers," House admonished, as he rose from the exam table and began rummaging through a set of drawers. "Making a measly DNA test magically disappear-not even a challenge."
The Chief of Diagnostic Medicine continued with his search before finally withdrawing a DNA kit from a cabinet. Chase watched warily as House advanced upon him, swab in hand.
"Be a good boy and open up, or I'll have to use the same trick I did to get Cameron's HIV test and that will really set all of the nurse's tongues wagging."
Chase couldn't help but open his mouth to protest-Cameron had fumed aloud about House's tactics to get her to cough up a sample-and promptly found it filled with a swab.
"You're less of a challenge than she was," House said, shaking his head in disappointment as he sealed the swab in a specimen bag and dropped it in his pocket. "Learn to play hard to get or people might get the impression you're easy."
Chase dropped his head in his hands and wondered if he'd just made the biggest mistake in his life.
"Cover the rest of my shift-I'll tell Nurse Ratchett that Exam 1 is open for business, which ought to keep the scaly and annoying off my back," House told him, leaning on his cane. "I'll get you your results as soon as I can. In the meantime, I'd stay away from anything breakable-or learn something cool and useful, like how to switch red lights to green on U.S. 1."
"I'm a dead man," Chase muttered under his breath as he lifted his head and watched House leave. He likely would've indulged in some major self pity had the exam door not re-opened 3 minutes later and a very harried-looking mother carrying a distraught toddler been ushered in. The next few hours were loaded with patients and offered no opportunity to think at all.