Fic: Only Human
Title: Only Human
Pairings: pre-slash Foreman/Chase; implied OMC/Chase
Setting: Season 1, after Episode 8 "Poison"
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, blah, blah...
Author's Note: I didn't have internet for about two weeks after moving plus only the first two seasons of House to watch and took a break from writing "Chasing Dreams" to write this after rewatching season 1.
Summary: Chase had never fit in. Maybe he wasn't meant to. And maybe it was enough to get one evening of drunken acceptance and understanding from a colleague instead.
Robert Chase had never fit in.
“Chase. Never thought I’d see you up here.”
From kindergarten to high school the other rich kids hadn’t liked him because when their nannies had picked them up, Chase’s Mom had come, giving him a hug and a kiss. He hadn’t fit in because the other kids had been interested in who was the richest while Chase’s mom had taught him not to care about money, but about niceness, politeness and generally being a good person.
In high school he hadn’t liked, had resented the other kids because their parents had been telling them not to come home late, not to go out the night before exams, not to flush their money down the toilet while Chase’s Dad called once a year to say a Merry Belated Christmas and Chase’s mom drank herself into oblivion about the fact that Chase’s Dad only called once a year.
In seminary the other students hadn’t wanted anything to do with him because he was a rich boy, good looking in a very feminine way who they’d thought would have started to whine and cry about his dead mother as soon as they’d have talked to him. Most of them had also talked behind his back about how he must have been one of those boys who went into seminary because they were gay and didn’t want to be.
In med school you were on your own if you wanted to do more with your life than treat coughs and sniffles. He had liked that there hadn’t been anything to fit into.
When he came to the US to work for Gregory House, he tried to fit in at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. He really tried. The nurses liked him, they mostly adored him because of is looks. Some doctors liked him, but at least almost all were very civil when working with him.
When Dr. Cameron and later Dr. Foreman started working for House, too, he was finally part of a small group who spent a lot of time together.
Sure, it was work related and it wasn’t like there was any other way, but at least he could pretend that they would have wanted to spend time with him even if they hadn’t been forced to. Sometimes he pretended and he felt good then.
However, most of the time, he couldn’t make himself believe. Robert Chase was still so different from Cameron and Foreman.
“This is pretty crazy, don’t you think?”
“I’m not planning on bloody jumping, I’m not stupid.”
“Not talking about jumping. And smoking does make you quite stupid in my book.”
“Good, well, then maybe I am.” He took a drag to prove his point, smirking sarcastically about actually wanting to prove that he was in fact stupid.
When they’d treated Lucy Palermo he had loved the feeling that there was someone else to go through the same things he had had to. Chase had been very sympathetic and he had felt very bad for Luke, but it had still felt amazing to not be alone, to know someone who probably thought all those crazy things he still had to think about ten years after his Mom had died.
Then everything turned out so very differently and he was happy that they’d cured Lucy, that they’d given her back her sanity, her life, but he couldn’t relate to Luke anymore. Because his Mom had loved him enough to protect him, even though she had been nuts just like Chase’s Mom had been.
Also, Luke and Lucy had gotten their happy ending - Robert Chase didn’t believe in happy endings as long as he was concerned.
“I’ve never seen you smoke. You just picked that up?”
“No. That Davis woman reminded me of the fact that I’m a drug addict for people no matter if I did drugs yesterday or when I was a kid. So I’ll be a smoker no matter if I smoke today or if I did it when I was 16.”
“You know that kind of thinking makes me a car thief.”
“Well, look why House hired you. You’re still a car thief.”
People mostly thought Chase and Cameron were alike. Two good looking doctors, young, pale skin, gentle nature. Anybody who knew them also knew that they were incredibly different, for Cameron carried her emotions on her sleeve while Chase looked indifferent no matter what. As soon as people noticed that they smiled at Cameron and frowned upon Chase.
“I do think people can learn from their mistakes, can adapt to new point of views, new lifestyles.”
“I quote the master. People don’t change. Ever.”
The team was very mixed, they were all different from each other, came from different backgrounds, different lives. Today had shown yet again that Foreman and Cameron had more in common still. Their families loved them, they hadn’t taken drugs as kids because they hadn’t been able to stand reality as it was when being clean or sober. Foreman had been in trouble, had stolen a car, but he’d done it together with his brother, for fun, for entertainment, for the thrill of it. Foreman was able to talk about it, could even use it to show how tough he was.
Chase didn’t really think that admitting you spent three years cleaning up your mother’s blood, piss and vomit would make him look tough.
“Since when have you become bitter like this?”
“It’s late. I’m tired, I’m off duty, I don’t have to smile to make people feel better.”
He pressed the cigarette butt onto the ledge after taking one last drag and flicked it away. With a sigh he pushed himself away from the concrete banister to return to the spot he’d been sitting leaning against the wall of the staircase. Foreman gasped when he saw Chase pick up a bottle of beer from besides him, obviously not having noticed it before.
“What? I’m off duty, I can’t stand going home or to a pub right now and I can’t very well drink somewhere public.”
“Do you do this often?”
“When I need to. Sometimes. Yeah, pretty often.”
He liked to think that he had a lot in common with House. Both of them were sarcastic by heart, both of them didn’t like to show off their emotions, both of them were pretty miserable, both of them didn’t care about poor, sick patients, but about their diseases. Sure, it was weird to feel so similar to a guy probably a good 15 years his elder, but it was still better than nothing.
After the last days he felt like he had even lost that. House had plotted with him to fool Mrs. Davis, but Foreman was the one everyone thought was becoming very similar to House. House himself probably thought about that more than he thought about Chase and Mrs. Davis had called House and Foreman “the arrogant jerks”, not “two of the arrogant jerks”.
Chase didn’t fit in there either.
“I didn’t know you’re the drinking type. Wouldn’t have thought beer would be your drink if you were.”
“You’d think I’d be the 30 year old whiskey guy, wouldn’t you?”
“Something like that. Maybe even whine or that mixed stuff teenagers drink these days.”
Chase laughed wholeheartedly receiving another frown from his colleague, since he normally snorted in an amused way at best, but never really laughed.
“Because I’m still a 16 year old, aren’t I?”
Maybe he just wasn’t meant to fit in anywhere. Maybe he just wasn’t.
“You sure as hell look like one on the first glance.”
“Why thank you, Dr. Foreman. I didn’t know you were that keen on complimenting me on my stunningly handsome, young looks.”
Now the older man seemed to choke on his own spit or maybe the breath he’d been taking.
“Are you already pissed or what?”
“Well, it’s not my first beer so I may be. You want one, too? We can get pissed together, then I don’t have to worry about you making me look like an idiot in front of House for being drunk and stupid, because I could always get revenge.”
Foreman considered his offer and then put on a “Who the fuck cares?” expression and sat next to Chase, taking the bottle the blonde had opened actually using his teeth with a thanking nod and a surprised look.
Robert Chase had felt like he fit in when he spent a weekend with three other guys from his med school dorm, renting a small beach house together because none of them had had the money for a real holiday over Christmas on their own. Chase’s Dad would have cut him off or killed him for spending his precious money on something like a vacation.
It hadn’t been like they’d actually been friends, none of them, but they’d still spent the time there together and on Saturday night they’d drank enough to almost drown themselves while foolishly swimming in the ocean. Chase had ended up lying on the deck with one of the guys, completely exhausted. The other two had already been passed out on the living room sofas. The guy had slurred that he’d been glad that all of them had gotten drunk like that, because otherwise whoever would have stayed sober would have noticed that he’d been hard while wrestling the oldest of them for the volleyball they’d brought.
Sobering up only a tiny little bit he and Chase had talked about how both of them were gay, but so deeply hidden in their respective closets that neither of them had any experience with other guys.
He had felt like this boy had actually understood him and they had kissed, incredibly shy and awkward about it considering their blood alcohol level.
Chase had enjoyed kissing him and when he’d threatened him the next day, forcing him to never ever tell anybody or he’d skin him alive, he hadn’t been hurt because of the threats but because he had liked being kissed like that enough to consider coming out. The other guy hadn’t felt the same and once again the feeling of having someone who got him had vanished like smoke in the wind.
Barely there and already gone.
“Did you know I’m gay?”
He was slurring now and his backpack was almost empty. Half an hour of discussing all kinds of hospital gossip mixed with half an hour of comfortable silence and Foreman was on his fifth beer, Chase didn’t remember how much he’d had.
“I figured. That gay-dar thing and all.”
“That works for you? Never does for me.”
Robert Chase felt like Eric Foreman understood him when both of them confessed to being closet-gays while they got drunk on the hospital roof.
FIN.
© 2009 rainbow_romeo