Fic: Sinnerman, Prophet, Saint (4/?)
Title: Sinnerman, Prophet, Saint
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Chase/OMC, House/Chase
Summary: The marks of the saints and a past he won’t remember force Chase and House to face religion head on. They won’t get his fellow without a fight!
Spoilers: Up to season 4 Finale.
Genre: Drama, Supernatural
Disclaimer: I don’t own House. I’m not making any money off this story.
Chapter Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!
Chapter 4: Marks of Claim
Chase’s small apartment was a labyrinth of boxes. He’d been packing for a while now; since about the time the tingling in the back of his mind and the reappearance of the spectres could no longer be ignored. Collecting what he wanted to keep, making plans for what he wanted to donate, disposing of what wouldn’t be wanted by anyone. The walls were bare of the few framed black and white images he’d hung on them. His television was boxed ready to go to the shelter which would be taking most of the belongings he’d acquired since his landing in the United States.
He had been careful at first, trying not to buy anything, trying not to settle into his new domicile. His home would have made any minimalist proud back then. Even his bed had been just a mattress on the floor. It was no way to live though. He’d made the mistake of have a friend over at his place, hadn’t been able to avoid it. He also hadn’t been able to avoid the questions and comments about his living style. No couch, no TV, only a small table with two chairs, his mattress and the counters against the wall that came with the apartment.
“Okay, I’ve seen one other guy that lives like this,” his friend said after being assured that Chase hadn’t moved in just a few days ago, “but he’d been paying child support on, like, six kids.”
The comment hadn’t pushed him into buying furnishings. The couch for instance, he’d only accepted it to be polite. Someone was moving out, she claimed to be too old and too lazy to ship it with the rest of her items and had offered it to him. News of his bare apartment had made it around somehow. He couldn’t say no and have her think that her couch wasn’t good enough for him. And this wasn’t just him being asinine, she’d said as much when he’d first refused, then smiled when he reluctantly accepted. The curve of her lips and the brightness in her old eyes stood out from the weathered face, silently telling him: “Yes, that’s right. I know what’s good for you,” as though she was his doting grandmother or something.
He’d known her for all of ten minutes and he’d remember her, and that look for the rest of his life.
After that things just seemed to find their way into his house. A coffee table, a real bed, a television -by far the most expensive and indulgent of his purchases. Flat screen, high definition, it was his marker of officially moving on, of putting his past firmly behind him where it was supposed to be, not lurking two years in the future. He’d lived his delusion for those two years, happy in it, belonging finally. Then it had begun again and he should have known. He should have known.
Now he was packing it all away (donating the TV), slinking out, and running like he’d done the time before, to ride it out on his own. Yes it was time to go. He’d already been here too long. Seven years, like clock work his mysterious nightmare started over.
“Rob?” the call accompanied a knock on the door he was leaning against. He recognized Warren’s voice and reached to lock the door. He wasn’t fast enough. The handle turned and a weight pressed against it. He pushed back but a hard shove propelled him backward and freed the door to swing open.
Warren was inside with the door closed and locked behind him before Chase managed to right himself from the box he’d fallen on.
“Robin-”
“Stop calling me that!”
“It’s what I’ve always called you.” Warren’s calm voice was in sharp contrast to Chase’s frantic one.
“I don’t care! Get out of here!” He tried to back up when Warren approached but the boxes on the floor prevented his escape. A quick glance down showed him a slim route for escape and he took it. With some more distance and a few boxes between them Robert hoped to find a more even emotional footing. He didn’t. Like he always had, Warren left him absolutely helpless, completely weak. Even after all these years.
“Robin…Rob, I’m sorry.” Sorry. What had sorry ever changed?
Chase shook his head. “I don’t bloody care! Get out!”
Warren was still calm. He made his way around the boxes and the island counter in the kitchen. Robert moved to always keep something between them but he was running out of objects.
“You know I can’t leave you. I made that mistake once before. It was the worst one of my life.”
Chase knew he was out of options. The apartment was only so big, the obstacles only so many. He made a dash for the door. He unlocked and opened it faster than one would usually imagine performing such a mundane task. In this instance there was much riding on his escape. Robert knew the moment the large hand slammed the door closed and the warm body shadowed his own that he was trapped.
Warm breath minutely ruffled the bright strands of hair. Warren rested his cheek on the soft bed of hair and murmured, “I am so sorry.” His left hand slipped around to Robert’s front. He slipped his fingers between the spacing of the shirts buttons and touched warm, smooth skin. He felt a shiver and a flutter of tense muscles beneath his touch. “I missed you…every part of me -from the top of my head to darkest part of my soul, I missed you.”
Mayes closed his eyes, unable to keep his tears from falling. He knew it would hard. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy, the words to come so freely. He’d thought he wanted escape. Apparently he’d been wrong. Nothing made him more whole now than to be with his Robin. Nothing made him more repentant than his transgression of yesterdays seven years ago.
Nothing made him happier than Robert’s faint response.
“I missed you too.”
They were trapped together.
They must have stood there for ten minutes. Chase broke away first and Mayes let him go. There were entwined once again. If not for the dangers lurking at that moment, Warren would have let him wander to the ends of the earth because he knew Robert would come back.
Hesitantly Chase reclaimed a small metal tin from one of the boxes in the kitchen. He filled his kettle with water from the tap and plugged it, waiting silently for it to boil. He kept his eyes averted, unable to meet Warren’s until the clink of ceramic on the counter drew his attention.
Warren’s eyes caught his, the mugs he’d retrieved instantly forgotten. “You kept it.”
“Of course I kept it.” Chase scowled and turned his back. He jostled the kettle, mentally cursing it. Why wouldn’t it boil? Behind him, Mayes smiled.
Eventually the kettle whined its job’s completion and two cups of tea were made in the tradition that they’d always been made in -two teabags from the tin with the clowns and the merry-go-round embossed into the side, two teaspoons of sugar, and a touch of milk.
“I remember when I gave this to you,” Warren said, eyes on the metal tin holding the teabags. He took a sip of his beverage and sighed at the rush of memories invoked.
Chase nodded silently. He remembered too. He had just turned seven, Warren was thirteen, and Robert wanted to be like the adults. He wanted tea too but Warren had been the only one who would share with him. Then Warren bought him his own tea and though he wouldn’t actually make any until years later (discovering that even dry leaves have a shelf-life), the gift and the bright image trapped in the metal had won him over again.
He put the lid back on and went to put it back in the box of things he was keeping from the kitchen. Among them was a cook book, his little kitchen radio, some of the fridge magnets and a finely ground spice a friend had bought for him in India.
With his back turned Chase could not have noticed Warren’s worried look or the quick motion that dropped white powder into his tea. It quickly dissolved. By the time Chase was back at his drink, there was no evidence of the tampering. He drank his tea unable to taste the chemical with which it was now laced.
“Finished?” Mayes asked several minutes of mostly silence later.
Chase downed the last bit of the now cool drink and nodded. Mayes took the cups to the sink. He washed them with the sponge and soap that had yet to be packed away or thrown out, and left the two mugs and one spoon to dry in the dish drainer. Not finding a hand towel nearby, Mayes shook as much of the water from his hands as possible and wiped them on his jeans.
“So why now?” Chase asked as Mayes pivoted away from the sink. “What or who tipped you off.” There were always warnings. Small things began to change, people in the background began doing things that caused results on the surface. Chase never saw this. He always kept himself separate from it. He didn’t need those types of warnings. He had his own built in ones, and they couldn’t be ignored, no matter how hard he tried.
“A friend of yours came by me.”
“Which side?”
“Does it matter?”
Chase shrugged. “I suppose not.” Both sides had their plans. He just wanted nothing to do with either of them. His mind went back to memories of close calls years past. When his thoughts returned to the present, Chase found Mayes standing very close to him.
“What?” he asked, irritated. His irritation grew when Warren just smiled. The smile dimmed.
“You seem…lonely,” Mayes commented. Chase gave an ambiguous grunt in response. He left for the bedroom. He needed to change out of his work clothes. The collar and his tie were too restricting, and under Mayes’s gaze he felt out of place in them anyway. The tie, still knotted, was flung onto a rack in his closet. His shirt went into the hamper near the door. He’d already undone his belt and was about to drop his pants when the door to the bedroom opened without so much as a knock.
“Hey!” Chase did up the fly of his pants. “A little privacy!”
Mayes paused at the door, unsure of how much had changed. “You never complained before.” He strode over to the shorter man who didn’t step away or back down.
“You’ve filled out a little,” Mayes commented with a smile. His eyes roved over the body that was familiar but still subtly different than his memories.
“I told you I would,” Chase said frostily, unable to help falling back in to the old argument. Warren could still see the pout in his friend’s expression and like so many times before he found it difficult to take the boy seriously.
“Stop it.”
Warren blinked. What had he done now? “Stop what?”
“That…thing. You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what? Charming the pants off of you?” His hands stroked down the warm slender sides. He hooked his thumbs into the waist to the pants and pushed down. Chase pulled up. The pants didn’t move.
“We can’t do this,” Chase protested softly. He was already in deep enough. He couldn’t risk going further, could he? He’d placed his trust in this man all his life and only once had he ever let him down. Robert had been proud and happy for Warren that day, though he had despaired at facing his future challenges alone. Warren had freed himself, written his own destiny. Chase had endeavoured to do the same and succeeded on some levels. Now, he was being asked to take a huge step back.
A warm hand left his hips to settle on his head. Warren stroked the smooth forehead. He brought his other hand and laid it over Robert’s firm chest. “Is there someone else in here?” the words echoed into their shared pasts where Warren had asked the same thing many times before. It had been his way of asking if little Robbie had a crush on someone. Seven years older and wiser he’d read the little boy pretty well, but there was always a part that was inaccessible, even when Chase was a baby. When asked, Robert had always said that Warren was the only one in there. Earlier on his Mummy had been in their too, his father earlier than that. Eventually it was just Warren.
But seven years had slipped by. More than enough time for a young, attractive man to find someone else.
Chase shook his head in response to the question and sadly asked his own. “How could there be?”
In heart and mind there was only Warren Mayes. Chase had thought that wasn’t true anymore. He was all grown up. A man and a success in his own right. And yet, Warren was still the only one. He’d just forgotten.
Pulling Warren down to his level, Robert kissed him.
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---H/C---
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His phone was ringing. The nasal strains of The Mexican Hat Dance from the small phone speaker turned the heads of both men. Chase had chosen the shrillest ring-tone he could find on his phone for this particular caller. He thought it was well-suited. Warren had always known Robert too well. So it was no surprise when he snatched the phone from the bedside table and answered knowing exactly who it was.
“What do you want, Doctor House?” He asked tersely. His voice was strained with his exertions and below him Robert’s eyes were wide with trepidation. He was going to say something and at the same time was reaching out for the phone to take the phone, but Warren had other plans. He put the phone down briefly and caught both of Chase’s wrists, confined them in one large hand and retook the phone.
“Sorry, you’ll have to repeat that.”
“Warren…uh-” Chase bit down on his words when a hard thrust aimed just right would have pushed a moan from him.
“Where’s Chase?” House’s voice enquired from the speaker.
Warren stared down at the strained face. The light sheen of sweat made the lamp glow a tender kiss on his skin and emphasized the flush of his face and the brightness in his eyes. Warren leaned down and kissed him, not breaking the rhythm of his hips.
“He’s busy,” was the breathy reply a moment before the line cut.
House glared at his phone. That pretty much cinched his decision. Now where the hell did Chase live?
Back in the apartment Warren tried to put the annoying doctor out of his mind. He much preferred the doctor beneath him.
“God, Robin,” Warren moaned into the soft neck.
“Please, please…let go,” Chase begged, trying to pull his hands free of the iron grip.
“Mm-mm,” Warren minutely shook his head and assaulted the supple flesh. “I like you just like this.” He gave another hard thrust and felt his arousal rise with the strangle cry from the rose lips.
“Warren…please…”
A strong arm slipped around his waist and fingers dug into his side a moment before the thrusts into him increased in pace and ferocity. Chase couldn’t hold back. He did what he could to meet the motions. He bit down on his bottom lip trying to suppress the yell that burned at the back of his throat.
Suddenly it stopped. Chase practically whimpered at the loss of sensation. He opened his eyes and found Mayes just looking down at him. Chase moved his hips as much as he could in an attempt to precipitate the motions he needed at that moment almost as much as he needed air.
“Warren?” Chase didn’t know what was wrong. He wasn’t sure it mattered because with no warning, Warren was moving again, sliding slowly out and then completely back in. It was torture. “Warren…please,” Robert whispered.
Mayes watched the flushed face contort with the teasing pleasure he was providing. He knew that once the urgent need to climax wore off Chase would stop shivering only for the slow deep thrusts to build the sensations again to the point of no return. Warren loved having him like this. He loved seeing the look in the fair eyes, knowing that he was the one who put it there. There was trust, love and lust. Warren twisted them up and ensnared Robert with them. He coaxed the embers to a fierce burn and sullied what was pure. He loved that more than he should. It was the darkness in him that thought to use sex as a method to bring them both down to the same level of debasement. He watched Robert’s eyes seeing how much he wanted it too and come hell, they would face it together, equal in their sins.
He crushed his lips to Robert’s, plunged his tongue in deep, pushed in as far as he could go. The moan, the cry, the curse, whatever it was going to be was muffled by Warren’s lips. He continued his assault, letting go and focussing only on the pleasure and the man in his arms.
Chase climaxed first, his head thrown back, their kiss broken but a deeper connection still in tact. Warren bit down on the unguarded neck, just enough sense still in him not to bite too hard. He licked at the hot skin as the sheath around him tightened and pulled, pushing him over the edge as well. He thrust harder still, pushing for as deep as he could go, claiming any of this body and soul he hadn’t touched yet. He felt Robert jerk in his arm, his over sensitized body quaking with each powerful motion until finally they lapsed into stillness.
Warren panted and tried to call back his senses, which he was sure were strewn all over the room. He shifted enough to let Robert put his legs flat on the bed and soothed away the unavoidable ache of the position. A hand through his dark hair urged Warren to look up from the plateau of pectoral where he’d laid his cheek. Robert’s serene gaze touched his troubled mind. He bowed his head and kissed the other man’s chest.
It was always the same. It always ended like this; after his mind’s insistence that he sully this lovely being, he felt cleaner and more loved under that gaze than he knew he deserved. And the conflict would become peace and a touch of shame.
“We need to shower,” Chase said softly. He still had one hand resting in Mayes’s hair and didn’t make any motion to get up. He was quite comfortable except for the sticky semen cooling on his stomach. Sometimes he could feel his partner’s breath flow over it and the chill preceded an intense need to wash.
Mayes sighed. He really didn’t want to move, however, the suggestion did have its merits, particularly if they showered together -which they did. It wasn’t the fun type of shower, though there was a little groping and kissing to be enjoyed. For Mayes it was part business. The powder he’d given Robert was a sedative and its effects would show up any minute now.
“Sleepy?” Mayes asked casually as he donned his shirt after doing up his pants.
Seated at the edge of the bed Chase nodded. His bleary eyes remained on the carpet of his small bedroom. He knew he felt strange. He knew that this sudden, overcoming fatigue wasn’t simply because of earlier activities. This was unnatural.
“Come on, Robbie,” Mayes coaxed gently, pulling Chase to stand. He swayed a little leading Mayes to put Chase’s hand on his shoulders for balance. Mayes helped Chase pull up the sweatpants that he had left halfway up his thighs when he became light-headed.
Once his pants were on Chase moved away from Mayes. Something was wrong, he knew. He needed to get away. He had intended to go to the door but his heavy limbs didn’t stop him in time and he stumbled past, into the back of his couch.
“Careful,” the deep voice said softly, close to his ear. Chase would have pulled away but there were already hands on him, guiding him around to the cushions of the couch. He held on to Mayes’s shirt using the other man’s sturdy body to prevent him from falling to the couch. Chase knew if he sat down, he wouldn’t have the strength to get back up.
At the blond man’s resistance Mayes held back a sigh, though his chest did heave with a deep breath. Avoiding looking at the blue-green eyes Mayes took the choice away from Robert, scooping him up in his arms and then sitting on the couch himself. They fell the last few inches to the soft padding. The springs squeaked a little in protest to the sudden weight. Mayes carefully arranged his lover’s legs on the couch and cradled his upper body with his arms and firm chest.
Chase’s head lolled at the shoulder where it was suddenly resting. His muscles were no long responding to his commands and his brain was foggy. Around him his apartment was nothing more than a swirl of light brown boxes and white ceiling. He thought he might be sick but he felt too weak for that too.
“You’ll be okay.” The assurance floated to him reminding Chase that he wasn’t alone. The warm, somewhat yielding structure he was collapsed against was a person -a person who had drugged him. Barely able to open his eyes and unable to push away all Chase could give was a weak accusing stare.
Mayes looked away. “I had to,” he justified. “It’s better to do this now than later. You know that.”
He did know that. Lessons learnt through experience were hard to forget. But Mayes didn’t have time to debate the pros and cons of this method. What he was doing was to keep both of them safe, buy them as much time as he could. They needed to act, even if it meant that he had to force Robert’s will, or take it away entirely.
Chase couldn’t fight the potent drug any longer. His eyes closed, though he didn’t quite fall asleep. He wouldn’t allow himself to give in all the way. It sapped the rest of his strength but he managed to stay semi-conscious, reality slipping in and out and rippling like a reflection in a pond. He felt Warren move, shifting to get something. He never allowed Chase to slip from his embrace. He murmured to him soothing sentiments and kissed his shoulder and the fingers of one limp hand.
The words changed, in what seemed like a gradual transition, from English to Latin. Chase still understood every word. He’d studied Latin but he’d also heard these particular phrases before.
Mayes held Chase a bit tighter allowing the soft invocation to slip past his lips. Head on Mayes shoulder, left arm trapped between their chests, and legs stretched out along the rest of the couch, Chase didn’t react as Mayes rubbed his hand up and down his bare back. Warren felt the minor increase in the heat of the skin for a moment and knew that his words were taking effect. His words were done now so all he had to do was wait it out.
The lips near his neck moved, creating faint and confused words. Mayes gently hushed him and rocked a little hoping to pacify any lingering unrest the ritual or his subterfuge may have caused.
Gently rocking back and forth his arms full of his Robin, Warren stared blankly ahead hoping for forgiveness and wondering what was to come. A loud, jarring set of knocks from the apartment door had not been one of the things he’d expected. He froze, eyes closed and arms tightening around his precious charge.
Had they found them already? He wasn’t ready. They weren’t ready.
“Chase, open up!”
The familiar voice drained away the tension from Mayes. He released a shaky breath and pressed his cheek to the one near him, thankful that his worry had been for nothing. A weak protest from the relaxed body prompted Mayes to loosen a little the tight hold he’d locked Chase in during his moments of anxiety.
“Sorry,” he apologized softly.
“Chase!”
Mayes glanced at the door. He hoped that without a response Dr. House would leave.
“I know you’re in there! If you don’t open this door I’ll knock it down!”
Empty threat, Warren thought to himself. Even if he had the energy and strength to, with one bum leg the old man wouldn’t be knocking down anything. Mayes gave all of his attention back to Chase. He raised his hand to comb through the gold hair and ignored the muted sounds from the other side of the door. If he had been paying more attention to them, he might not have been so surprised when the door suddenly opened when, Mayes was sure he’d locked it.
House stood in the doorway, the credit card he’d used to undo the lock still in his hand. He shoved the piece of plastic into a pant pocket, switched his cane back to his right hand and entered, uninvited. It had never stopped him before.
“You’ve got ten seconds to leave before I call the cops,” Mayes threatened.
House paused. Mayes thought that perhaps the man would leave. House reached out for the door and pushed it to swing closed, his person still firmly inside the apartment. A quick look around from his spot near the door showed House mostly boxes. Chase was leaving? He hadn’t heard anything about this.
Not dwelling on his confusion, but not ignoring it either, House approached the couch. He nearly asked for Chase’s whereabouts when he saw the mop of blond hair. Rounding to the front House took a good look at the pair. Mayes’s distrustful and angry glare didn’t bother him in the least. What did bother him and add to his confusion was the marking on Chase’s back. A tattoo -that would be the subject of taunts and questions later. For now he wanted to know who exactly this dark-haired Australian was and what precisely he was to Chase.
“Chase-”
“Shut up. You’ll wake him.”
House glared. “Chase! Get up! That’s enough cuddling with your boyfriend!” The yell was met with a fiery glare from Mayes but from Chase, only slurred, unclear words. Mayes was immediately trying to calm him. House was immediately diagnosing.
“What did you give him?” His question was quick and his eyes were narrowed in suspicion.
“It’s nothing…just something to relax him.”
“Is that what they’re calling Ruffies in Australia these days?”
The slang term for the too common date rape drug wasn’t lost on Warren and he had to hold back his anger at the accusation. “Lorazepam -just a few milligrams,” he bit out his dark eyes darkened further with his ire.
“I should be the one calling the cops. You may not know this but you’re not allowed to drug people in America.”
Mayes wasn’t scared. “I don’t think breaking and entering is allowed either. We can go to jail together.”
They stared at each other for several drawn out seconds. Each of them sized the other up, trying to determine his motives and his weakness. The only weakness that House could find in Mayes was Chase. He would have kept looking, kept trying to visually pick him apart, but something moving caught his eyes. At first he thought it was just a trick of the shadows but he blinked and it was still moving. Slowly, House moved closer.
The tattoo was moving. He was pretty sure most of them don’t do that.
The mark was an inverted, five-pointed star enclosed by a ring. Within the pentagram there was a drawing of a goats head, its chin, ears and two horns each filling one angle of the star. In the ring bordering the pentagram words written in cursive script rotated around, Latin symbols and phrases which meant nothing to House. He moved closer wanting a better look at the black ink-work. Near enough to touch the smooth back littered with a few freckles, House could see the ring around the star was actually made of two lines of chains. And not only did the words and symbols within the ring slide around in the closed loop they also changed, fading in an out as though sending a message or telling s story with the limited space.
House had never seen anything like this on a person’s skin before. He glanced up at Chase when he heard the man make a slight snuffling sound. Mayes quickly eased him and House shifted his gaze to the symbol again and was startled into a slight jerk when the beady eyes in the goat’s head suddenly slid to look directly at him.
Unable to swallow, even breath House held the image’s gaze. After several seconds the goat head opened its mouth and began to speak. Its words weren’t heard but rather they were felt. Through the bodies of the three men rumbles of unrest skewed their balance, confused their senses, muddied their thoughts. A sharp cry filled the room and suddenly the episode ended.
House blinked several times, his eyes still wide with the alarm of what had just happened. It took both House and Mayes a second to break out of their shock and notice that Chase was still in distress, his cry having broken the disturbing spell. It was only Mayes’s arms, which had remained around Chase throughout the strange encounter, that kept him from lashing out. His cries were pain-filled and though he tried to hold them back, even the faint ones cut through the other two men like sharp blades.
The previously limp hand, the one not trapped, reached up in an impossibly fast motion to grab at Mayes’s shirt. The way Chase jerked in the taller Australian’s arms was disturbingly abnormal -his head twisting one way, then jerking to the other, the motion an almost nonexistent blur.
Over Warren Mayes’s face his rising distress was frozen over with an eerie, brittle calm. He reached to he hold the blond head in place and laid the side of his face against the one contorted with anguish. His lips moved, again speaking Latin, faintly at the beginning and growing more forceful with each word.
“…sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.”
It was a prayer. The Lord’s Prayer and it was the only defence Mayes’s had for the moment. House had nothing (though he lumped praying in with nothing) and could only watch as Mayes continued with the prayer until eventually Chase’s strained and weak voice joined in and they finished the prayer together.
Even then the torment didn’t end. Chase was still in pain, his body still quaking while Mayes tightly restrained him. Mayes began the prayer over again.
Chase had hand enough and made his demand.
“Vade…retro me…Satana…”
Four foreign words uttered from a near breathless throat and in a frail voice, yet their bodies shivered and they were suddenly alone. The echo of the weak cry permeated them, made the edge of their sight hazy as though the world was resonating on an unknown note. A brief ache coursed through House and Mayes head before it vanished, leaving them with a lightness that, though normal, they could only appreciate when the oppression was gone.
“Robbie?” Mayes worried voice cut through House daze.
With his eyes tightly closed and body still tense, Chase shivered through the last vestiges of whatever had just happened. His pained moans were interrupted by his hitching breath. Nothing Mayes did seemed enough to bring him any calm, though he tried desperately. His thin veneer of peace began to fracture and splinter as Chase’s distress continued. Mayes continued to hold on.
House, still kneeling facing Chase’s back had a near unobstructed view as the sinister symbol on Chase’s back began to fade. House wasn’t sure where his mind was but it appeared to be telling his left hand to raise and rest against the shivering back. The sensitive palm and underside of his fingers fell softly over the feverish skin. A second later Chase’s shivers began to subside and his muffled sounds of distress quieted until there was on his laboured breathing.
Mayes stared at House not sure if the timing of House’s touch and the cessation of Robert’s discomfort was a coincidence or a true effect. Had this wretched man been able to provide comfort where Warren couldn’t? Mayes didn’t like the thought of that at all. Robert was his to protect, his to care for, his to love.
“That thing is gone,” House said. His voice was unusually soft, so much so that Chase in his daze nearly didn’t recognize it. “How much of that sedative did you give him again?” That question held more of House’s familiar bite and mistrust.
“Ten milligrams of Lorazepam,” Mayes told him. He had one hand lightly combing through Chase’s hair still waiting for the lingering discomfort to subside.
House stared and thought silently. Ten milligrams was a fairly large dose of a fairly potent sedative. They used it in the hospital to counter seizures. House knew that Chase was familiar with the drug with intensive care as his specialty. House was also knowledgeable about the drug and though it might have been a while since he’d administered it first hand, he still knew what it was supposed to do.
“He shouldn’t have been able to move.” House’s eyes narrowed and took in the length of Chase’s body as though the clue to solve this mystery was on him somewhere.
“I knew it was going to be bad,” Mayes mumbled to himself. “I should have used more.” He gazed apologetically at Chase who was now a fair bit more relaxed than he was a minute ago.
“You load him up on more of than and he just might stop breathing. You don’t want him that relaxed.” House delivered his comment with a glare up at the large man ensconcing his intensivist. “What the hell is going on?” He couldn’t deduce the answer to this mystery out from the evidence before him. He wasn’t even sure if what he’d seen was real or a hallucination caused by his pills, though they’d never done that to him before.
“You won’t believe me. Why should I bother?” House also wasn’t a part of this so why should Mayes explain?
“Try me?”
Mayes laughed. “You’re a sceptic if I’ve ever seen one. I’m not going to waste by breath on you.”
House was frustrated, worried, willing to a at least listen and hold his scathing and ridiculing comments to the end. “Something way that side of weird just happened, and right now I’ll even consider whatever your absurd explanation happens to be.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You can start with the thing on his back,” House encouraged nastily.
Mayes turned his attention back to the young man in his arms, already giving up on the possibility of the older man understanding. “It’s time for you to go now, Doctor House.”
House’s face pulled into a scowl that went to waste. Mayes only had eyes for Chase. And Chase, well, he wasn’t anywhere near lucid. House pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open saying, “You know who you should try explaining this to? The cops. In fact there’s this one, real bastard of a detective who’s really passionate about drug control. I think he’ll be very interested in what’s going on here.” He blinked innocently up at Mayes who was now eyeing him. “Unless you have a prescription for the sedative?” Mayes didn’t say anything. House hit ‘send’ on his cell and brought it to his ear. “Yeah -didn’t think so.”
Standing after being on one knee for so long was a trial without mention of his injured right leg. When he did eventually get to his feet House exited the apartment while he spoke to the person who had answered his call.
Mayes, furious at the meddling doctor, watched him go. If the cops came he would be in a great deal of trouble. Even if they couldn’t find any evidence of what he’d done this would still cause problems for him. He didn’t need more complications. Doctor Gregory House was enough.
With his lips pressed into a thin regretful line and eyes torn over his decision, Mayes gently got up and laid Chase along the couch. He gave him a brief kiss and touched his face once before he stood. House was standing there and had witnessed the tender, though one-sided exchange. Mayes wasn’t embarrassed or remorseful at all, not for being spied on by this wretch of a man.
“You take good care of him,” Mayes ordered. The threat of what he would do if his words weren’t followed was delivered in the tone of his voice.
House wasn’t intimidated. He rarely was even if he had good reason to be. When he responded his tone carried the message that he didn’t take orders from Mayes, and he liked to think not from anyone. “You might want to leave before you hear the sirens. It would be really awkward if you passed them in the lobby.”
The sirens began to be heard coming from a distance and Mayes wisely chose not to delay his departure any longer. He brushed past the unshaven older man and disappeared to somewhere House didn’t care about, as long as it was far from him and Chase. He rested his gaze on the still form and thought silently, trying to sift through what he knew, what he knew he didn’t know and what he’d just seen. He couldn’t find anything that remotely made sense.
“Why did we have to keep the sirens on all the way?” the man in uniform asked when he arrived, his partner quickly following him into the open apartment.
“Because Cuddy said so. That’s why,” House replied shortly and wondered why he replied at all. “Him,” he said looking down at Chase. “I want him in a private room on the third floor. He was administered a high dose of Ativan and is displaying unusual symptoms.”
“What symptoms?” the paramedic asked as he checked over the sleeping man.
“None that you’d be able to make any sense of. Just get him to the hospital.” He exited without a look back. He waited by his car and watched as the two men brought Chase out on the stretcher and loaded him into the back of the ambulance. House glanced around into the darkness, suspecting that Mayes was near by fuming over being duped. The siren that Mayes had mistaken for police was just the paramedics. House smirked at the dark surroundings and hopped into his car to follow the ambulance back to the hospital.
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---H/C---
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The rest of the night was tense. Even in his state of drug induced slumber Chase seemed to find no rest. Nearing the early morning when the drug left more of his muscles free to flex, he moved more, head turning from one side to the other in agitation. House watched each motion and wondered what was playing out in the dreams Chase couldn’t escape.
When sunrise finally reared it pink and orange head House was too tired and tense to do more than glare at the bright, cheerful colours. He’d spent the whole night next to Chase. He told himself it was because the night shift security refused to call in another guard to act as a sentry to Chase’s hospital room. House was still worried about that Mayes fellow coming back. He didn’t think Mayes would actually hurt Chase, but sweeping him off to the ends of the earth where House wouldn’t ever see him again seemed within the realm of possibility. So he stayed the night. There were too many questions he needed answered for Chase to disappear now.
“House?” Foreman’s voice startled the older doctor out of his daze. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong with Chase?” Foreman glanced around but didn’t see a patient chart. Neither was there any equipment monitoring or giving Chase anything. “Is there something wrong with his place that he needed to stay here?” House sometimes wished he could pull-off that Foreman brand of both mockery and concern merged into one unsuspecting question.
“Other than the asshole that drugged him? Nope.”
“…What?”
“I’m going to shower. You stay here and keep an eye on him. He should be waking up soon. If that guy, the one who broke your shoulder comes back, yell loud and let some real men take care of him.”
Foreman didn’t even watch House leave. House didn’t miss the sour expression on Foreman’s face as he left but its appearance made him feel marginally better. Sighing silently Foreman checked Chase’s pulse and breathing, just to be sure, before he sat down in House’s abandoned chair to wait.
The ceiling had ceased to be interesting some time ago but the position allowed him to be completely boneless in the not-quite-comfortable chair. He only made the effort to move out of the position when sudden gasping and motion form the bed alerted him that Chase was awake.
“Chase, calm down.”
Eyes wide and breathing heavy Chase couldn’t pull enough air in to calm his panic. He’d been trapped and he couldn’t even remember were. All he knew was that he’d felt himself dying and he’d found an escape. Eventually his fright ebbed away but Foreman was still looking at him with concern.
“I’m okay.”
Eric didn’t even bother to say that he didn’t believe the Australian. He thought that was plain in his expression.
“What happened?” Chase asked still somewhat drowsy. He rubbed at his eyes.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me. I arrive and nobody is around. I hear that House is hanging out with a patient, which I thought was a sure indication that his Vicodin finally fried his brain, only to find you here, out cold from what House tells me is a drugging.”
Chase took a moment to digest the information. “I have to go,” he said flipping away the covers that were still over his legs and stepping down to the floor. His shoes were nearby and the clothing that he’d worn last night had been augmented to include a T-shirt. Noticing for the first time that it wasn’t his -it was at least a size too big -Chase plucked it from his chest to get a better look at the faded image on the front.
“Yeah…” Foreman drawled coming to the side of the bed so that he was facing Chase. “Something you want to tell me about you and House?”
Chase glanced up at him eyes and expression confused.
He was wearing one of House’s shirts.
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---H/C---
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House stormed into the diagnostics conference room.
“I told you to watch him!” The anger and panic in the voice froze the two occupants. Cameron looked perplexed at the show of emotion. She took in both men’s expression and waited silently.
“He woke up, he was fine. What, did you want me to do? Tie him to the bed to keep him there?”
“I thought that was implied,” House said leaning forward and leaning heavily on his cane.
Foreman crossed his arms and cocked his head back in that arrogant self-assured way that House couldn’t believe still existed in his fellow. Working for him should have wiped Foreman clean of all that by now. “I had no reason to keep him there. He didn’t want to stay there. He said he didn’t need protection from Mayes, only from you. Seems you’ve been sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, again.” Foreman gave him a smile. “Chase said his next stop was to see Cuddy. You’ve gone too far this time.”
House didn’t comment. He always went too far but when all was said and done, it was his tenacity and his actions that saved the day (or the patient) in most cases. Foreman shouldn’t really be complaining about him going too far as he’d benefited from it once, not too long ago. There would have been more benefit if Cameron hadn’t jumped the gun but no permanent harm no foul, he supposed.
“What was that about?” Cameron asked when House departed without a word.
Foreman shook his head. He wasn’t entirely sure himself.
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---H/C---
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House managed to catch Chase not far from Cuddy’s office; looked like he had just left her presence.
“Chase!” House called and though he was sure Chase heard him the young man didn’t pause or slow his stride. House scowled. He was tall though, so when Chase had to pause at a busy doorway House had enough time to catch up. “What did you talk to Cuddy about.”
“I quit,” Chase both declared and informed.
House didn’t say anything at first. Chase strode quickly away once he could. House followed. “If this is about last night…” he saw from the corner of his eye a nurse and some other guy look at him curiously.
Chase stopped and faced House suddenly, leaving House barely enough time to come to a stop. He managed too, barely an inch from Chase. “This isn’t about you,” Chase informed, bursting the vain little bubble that had been allowed to grow for too long in House’s mind. When weren’t thing about him? He always played an important role in the hospital and in the people around him. People were always trying to change him, trying to fit themselves into his life, change his mind. At some point Chase had fallen out of that category and House wanted him back.
“This has never been about you. Believe it or not, I have my own life outside of this hospital and I’m perfectly happy without you in it.”
House tilted his head at that. “But wouldn’t it be more fun with me?”
Chase clenched his teeth in aggravation. House could see it in the flex of his jaw. “Leave me alone.”
“No.”
“…fucking bastard,” Chase said, not quite under his breath. Becoming aware of their proximity and that they were standing in the middle of a busy hallway Chase stepped back. After a silent moment he continued towards the stairs. House knew where Chase was going and use the elevators to beat him there.
Chase was ambushed the moment he got back to the Diagnostics conference room. How did such a tall, awkward man move so silently? Chase wondered when House appeared from thin air behind him.
“Forgot something here when you escaped yesterday,” House said nodding to the coat rack where Chase’s brown jacket was hanging. Chase was going to get it and leave. He didn’t make it a foot closer to it. House’s left hand was holding on to him digging into his bicep. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what I want to know.”
“And if I don’t what are you going to do? Beat it out of me with your cane?”
“I bet you’d like that.”
“Fuck you!” Chase tired to pull away. House held on tighter.
“House, stop it!” Cameron exclaimed when she saw Chase’s expression pinch in pain. She didn’t know what House’s angle was and didn’t know why Chase was being so defiant, but this was only going to escalate if someone didn’t intervene.
“Not until he explains his weird behaviour, the bruises from nowhere, the vanishing tattoo, and the sudden appearance of an old flame that he’s clearly so tormented about.”
Foreman had at first thought that Chase was the one who was in some sort of trouble and House was trying to help in his characteristically brash and insensitive way. After hearing what he’d just heard, he thought perhaps it was House who needed help.
“It’s none of your concern!” Chase continued to try and twist his arm out of House’s grip. He was hesitant to pull to hard, lest he bring House, with his bad leg, crashing down. His concern was dwindling however and didn’t notice when House’s brows drew together.
“What is that?” House asked glancing around. He didn’t relinquish his hold on Chase’s arm as he did. “Are you wearing perfume?” he asked Cameron.
She shook her head. She didn’t wear perfume in the hospital knowing that some people were sensitive to the odours. So if the faint, sweet, flowery scent wasn’t coming from her, then where?
Finally, Chase wrenched his arm free of the strong hold. The momentum of his efforts and the sudden release threw him off-balance. Before he could get his feet under him, he’d fallen to the carpet. He came to rest on his side. They knew something was wrong when he didn’t immediately get up.
“Chase?” Foreman was the first one to him. He went to one knee , flipping his lab-coat out of the way, and gently rolled Chase to his back. His worry increased when he saw that the fair-skinned man’s face was pinched in pain. Chase’s held his hands close to his chest. They were balled into tight shaking fists and it didn’t take a doctor to figure out that was the location of the sudden pain.
A strangled scream was held back by Chase’s clenched jaw, only a dull keening sound being allowed out through his nose. His breathing hitched and though he fought to hold it back the next scream made it out. It was blood curdling and painful to listen to, as though the pain he felt was passed to those who heard. Eyes closed tightly against the tearing discomfort, face strained in a frozen relief of agony, he missed the sight of wounds spontaneously forming at his wrists.
Cameron, and Foreman didn’t notice at first, too alarmed by Chase’s cries. It was the smell of blood and the red smears that alerted them. Foreman pried Chase’s hands away from his chest and held him down just beyond his elbows. With his arms spread out and the blood flowing out of the two raw and painful-looking wounds at Chases’ wrists, House recognized the similarity to another image. He felt Cameron dart by him as she went for help and supplies.
Going to one knee once reaching the side of his agonized fellow, House simply stared, eyes taking in everything. He didn’t pay heed to the alarm in Foreman’s eyes. He only saw Chase’s eyes open suddenly and stare upwards. He should have been seeing a view of Foreman over his head, but the slightly blank, slightly awed expression was evidence that Chase’s mind and sight were elsewhere.
And that scent persisted. In fact it was stronger now. Carrying his weight heavily on one hand down on the carpet to make up for his bad leg, House leaned over to sniff at Chase. Foreman’s brows furrowed further. Trust House to be weird and unhelpful in an already weird situation.
The flowery scent was near Chase but not quite on him. House moved to the wrist nearest him and smelt near the wound. The scent was stronger and mixed heavily with the scent of blood. It was as though Chase’s wounds were the source of the pleasant odour.
The arrival of Cameron and two nurses displaced House from Chase’s side. They efficiently dressed the wounds, which went all the way through one side of Chase’s wrists to the other. In mere moments Chase was on a stretcher and wheeled away. Cameron went with them leaving Foreman and House in the conference room where the carpet was now stained with both House’s and Chase’s blood.
After several seconds of charged, uncomfortable silence and with the smell of flowers still softly teasing their olfactory senses, House moved to the white board. Foreman assumed it was for a differential diagnosis session with just the two of them about what had just happened.
“What the hell causes wounds like that to suddenly appear on someone?” His voice was tight and too loud in the silent room. House was already writing the answer on the board. He finished, capped the marker and walked out.
Foreman read the one word written there.
STIGMATA.
End Chapter 4
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- - - H/C - - -
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Cast and Characters
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Chase/OMC, House/Chase
Summary: The marks of the saints and a past he won’t remember force Chase and House to face religion head on. They won’t get his fellow without a fight!
Spoilers: Up to season 4 Finale.
Genre: Drama, Supernatural
Disclaimer: I don’t own House. I’m not making any money off this story.
Chapter Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!
Chapter 4: Marks of Claim
Chase’s small apartment was a labyrinth of boxes. He’d been packing for a while now; since about the time the tingling in the back of his mind and the reappearance of the spectres could no longer be ignored. Collecting what he wanted to keep, making plans for what he wanted to donate, disposing of what wouldn’t be wanted by anyone. The walls were bare of the few framed black and white images he’d hung on them. His television was boxed ready to go to the shelter which would be taking most of the belongings he’d acquired since his landing in the United States.
He had been careful at first, trying not to buy anything, trying not to settle into his new domicile. His home would have made any minimalist proud back then. Even his bed had been just a mattress on the floor. It was no way to live though. He’d made the mistake of have a friend over at his place, hadn’t been able to avoid it. He also hadn’t been able to avoid the questions and comments about his living style. No couch, no TV, only a small table with two chairs, his mattress and the counters against the wall that came with the apartment.
“Okay, I’ve seen one other guy that lives like this,” his friend said after being assured that Chase hadn’t moved in just a few days ago, “but he’d been paying child support on, like, six kids.”
The comment hadn’t pushed him into buying furnishings. The couch for instance, he’d only accepted it to be polite. Someone was moving out, she claimed to be too old and too lazy to ship it with the rest of her items and had offered it to him. News of his bare apartment had made it around somehow. He couldn’t say no and have her think that her couch wasn’t good enough for him. And this wasn’t just him being asinine, she’d said as much when he’d first refused, then smiled when he reluctantly accepted. The curve of her lips and the brightness in her old eyes stood out from the weathered face, silently telling him: “Yes, that’s right. I know what’s good for you,” as though she was his doting grandmother or something.
He’d known her for all of ten minutes and he’d remember her, and that look for the rest of his life.
After that things just seemed to find their way into his house. A coffee table, a real bed, a television -by far the most expensive and indulgent of his purchases. Flat screen, high definition, it was his marker of officially moving on, of putting his past firmly behind him where it was supposed to be, not lurking two years in the future. He’d lived his delusion for those two years, happy in it, belonging finally. Then it had begun again and he should have known. He should have known.
Now he was packing it all away (donating the TV), slinking out, and running like he’d done the time before, to ride it out on his own. Yes it was time to go. He’d already been here too long. Seven years, like clock work his mysterious nightmare started over.
“Rob?” the call accompanied a knock on the door he was leaning against. He recognized Warren’s voice and reached to lock the door. He wasn’t fast enough. The handle turned and a weight pressed against it. He pushed back but a hard shove propelled him backward and freed the door to swing open.
Warren was inside with the door closed and locked behind him before Chase managed to right himself from the box he’d fallen on.
“Robin-”
“Stop calling me that!”
“It’s what I’ve always called you.” Warren’s calm voice was in sharp contrast to Chase’s frantic one.
“I don’t care! Get out of here!” He tried to back up when Warren approached but the boxes on the floor prevented his escape. A quick glance down showed him a slim route for escape and he took it. With some more distance and a few boxes between them Robert hoped to find a more even emotional footing. He didn’t. Like he always had, Warren left him absolutely helpless, completely weak. Even after all these years.
“Robin…Rob, I’m sorry.” Sorry. What had sorry ever changed?
Chase shook his head. “I don’t bloody care! Get out!”
Warren was still calm. He made his way around the boxes and the island counter in the kitchen. Robert moved to always keep something between them but he was running out of objects.
“You know I can’t leave you. I made that mistake once before. It was the worst one of my life.”
Chase knew he was out of options. The apartment was only so big, the obstacles only so many. He made a dash for the door. He unlocked and opened it faster than one would usually imagine performing such a mundane task. In this instance there was much riding on his escape. Robert knew the moment the large hand slammed the door closed and the warm body shadowed his own that he was trapped.
Warm breath minutely ruffled the bright strands of hair. Warren rested his cheek on the soft bed of hair and murmured, “I am so sorry.” His left hand slipped around to Robert’s front. He slipped his fingers between the spacing of the shirts buttons and touched warm, smooth skin. He felt a shiver and a flutter of tense muscles beneath his touch. “I missed you…every part of me -from the top of my head to darkest part of my soul, I missed you.”
Mayes closed his eyes, unable to keep his tears from falling. He knew it would hard. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy, the words to come so freely. He’d thought he wanted escape. Apparently he’d been wrong. Nothing made him more whole now than to be with his Robin. Nothing made him more repentant than his transgression of yesterdays seven years ago.
Nothing made him happier than Robert’s faint response.
“I missed you too.”
They were trapped together.
They must have stood there for ten minutes. Chase broke away first and Mayes let him go. There were entwined once again. If not for the dangers lurking at that moment, Warren would have let him wander to the ends of the earth because he knew Robert would come back.
Hesitantly Chase reclaimed a small metal tin from one of the boxes in the kitchen. He filled his kettle with water from the tap and plugged it, waiting silently for it to boil. He kept his eyes averted, unable to meet Warren’s until the clink of ceramic on the counter drew his attention.
Warren’s eyes caught his, the mugs he’d retrieved instantly forgotten. “You kept it.”
“Of course I kept it.” Chase scowled and turned his back. He jostled the kettle, mentally cursing it. Why wouldn’t it boil? Behind him, Mayes smiled.
Eventually the kettle whined its job’s completion and two cups of tea were made in the tradition that they’d always been made in -two teabags from the tin with the clowns and the merry-go-round embossed into the side, two teaspoons of sugar, and a touch of milk.
“I remember when I gave this to you,” Warren said, eyes on the metal tin holding the teabags. He took a sip of his beverage and sighed at the rush of memories invoked.
Chase nodded silently. He remembered too. He had just turned seven, Warren was thirteen, and Robert wanted to be like the adults. He wanted tea too but Warren had been the only one who would share with him. Then Warren bought him his own tea and though he wouldn’t actually make any until years later (discovering that even dry leaves have a shelf-life), the gift and the bright image trapped in the metal had won him over again.
He put the lid back on and went to put it back in the box of things he was keeping from the kitchen. Among them was a cook book, his little kitchen radio, some of the fridge magnets and a finely ground spice a friend had bought for him in India.
With his back turned Chase could not have noticed Warren’s worried look or the quick motion that dropped white powder into his tea. It quickly dissolved. By the time Chase was back at his drink, there was no evidence of the tampering. He drank his tea unable to taste the chemical with which it was now laced.
“Finished?” Mayes asked several minutes of mostly silence later.
Chase downed the last bit of the now cool drink and nodded. Mayes took the cups to the sink. He washed them with the sponge and soap that had yet to be packed away or thrown out, and left the two mugs and one spoon to dry in the dish drainer. Not finding a hand towel nearby, Mayes shook as much of the water from his hands as possible and wiped them on his jeans.
“So why now?” Chase asked as Mayes pivoted away from the sink. “What or who tipped you off.” There were always warnings. Small things began to change, people in the background began doing things that caused results on the surface. Chase never saw this. He always kept himself separate from it. He didn’t need those types of warnings. He had his own built in ones, and they couldn’t be ignored, no matter how hard he tried.
“A friend of yours came by me.”
“Which side?”
“Does it matter?”
Chase shrugged. “I suppose not.” Both sides had their plans. He just wanted nothing to do with either of them. His mind went back to memories of close calls years past. When his thoughts returned to the present, Chase found Mayes standing very close to him.
“What?” he asked, irritated. His irritation grew when Warren just smiled. The smile dimmed.
“You seem…lonely,” Mayes commented. Chase gave an ambiguous grunt in response. He left for the bedroom. He needed to change out of his work clothes. The collar and his tie were too restricting, and under Mayes’s gaze he felt out of place in them anyway. The tie, still knotted, was flung onto a rack in his closet. His shirt went into the hamper near the door. He’d already undone his belt and was about to drop his pants when the door to the bedroom opened without so much as a knock.
“Hey!” Chase did up the fly of his pants. “A little privacy!”
Mayes paused at the door, unsure of how much had changed. “You never complained before.” He strode over to the shorter man who didn’t step away or back down.
“You’ve filled out a little,” Mayes commented with a smile. His eyes roved over the body that was familiar but still subtly different than his memories.
“I told you I would,” Chase said frostily, unable to help falling back in to the old argument. Warren could still see the pout in his friend’s expression and like so many times before he found it difficult to take the boy seriously.
“Stop it.”
Warren blinked. What had he done now? “Stop what?”
“That…thing. You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what? Charming the pants off of you?” His hands stroked down the warm slender sides. He hooked his thumbs into the waist to the pants and pushed down. Chase pulled up. The pants didn’t move.
“We can’t do this,” Chase protested softly. He was already in deep enough. He couldn’t risk going further, could he? He’d placed his trust in this man all his life and only once had he ever let him down. Robert had been proud and happy for Warren that day, though he had despaired at facing his future challenges alone. Warren had freed himself, written his own destiny. Chase had endeavoured to do the same and succeeded on some levels. Now, he was being asked to take a huge step back.
A warm hand left his hips to settle on his head. Warren stroked the smooth forehead. He brought his other hand and laid it over Robert’s firm chest. “Is there someone else in here?” the words echoed into their shared pasts where Warren had asked the same thing many times before. It had been his way of asking if little Robbie had a crush on someone. Seven years older and wiser he’d read the little boy pretty well, but there was always a part that was inaccessible, even when Chase was a baby. When asked, Robert had always said that Warren was the only one in there. Earlier on his Mummy had been in their too, his father earlier than that. Eventually it was just Warren.
But seven years had slipped by. More than enough time for a young, attractive man to find someone else.
Chase shook his head in response to the question and sadly asked his own. “How could there be?”
In heart and mind there was only Warren Mayes. Chase had thought that wasn’t true anymore. He was all grown up. A man and a success in his own right. And yet, Warren was still the only one. He’d just forgotten.
Pulling Warren down to his level, Robert kissed him.
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---H/C---
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His phone was ringing. The nasal strains of The Mexican Hat Dance from the small phone speaker turned the heads of both men. Chase had chosen the shrillest ring-tone he could find on his phone for this particular caller. He thought it was well-suited. Warren had always known Robert too well. So it was no surprise when he snatched the phone from the bedside table and answered knowing exactly who it was.
“What do you want, Doctor House?” He asked tersely. His voice was strained with his exertions and below him Robert’s eyes were wide with trepidation. He was going to say something and at the same time was reaching out for the phone to take the phone, but Warren had other plans. He put the phone down briefly and caught both of Chase’s wrists, confined them in one large hand and retook the phone.
“Sorry, you’ll have to repeat that.”
“Warren…uh-” Chase bit down on his words when a hard thrust aimed just right would have pushed a moan from him.
“Where’s Chase?” House’s voice enquired from the speaker.
Warren stared down at the strained face. The light sheen of sweat made the lamp glow a tender kiss on his skin and emphasized the flush of his face and the brightness in his eyes. Warren leaned down and kissed him, not breaking the rhythm of his hips.
“He’s busy,” was the breathy reply a moment before the line cut.
House glared at his phone. That pretty much cinched his decision. Now where the hell did Chase live?
Back in the apartment Warren tried to put the annoying doctor out of his mind. He much preferred the doctor beneath him.
“God, Robin,” Warren moaned into the soft neck.
“Please, please…let go,” Chase begged, trying to pull his hands free of the iron grip.
“Mm-mm,” Warren minutely shook his head and assaulted the supple flesh. “I like you just like this.” He gave another hard thrust and felt his arousal rise with the strangle cry from the rose lips.
“Warren…please…”
A strong arm slipped around his waist and fingers dug into his side a moment before the thrusts into him increased in pace and ferocity. Chase couldn’t hold back. He did what he could to meet the motions. He bit down on his bottom lip trying to suppress the yell that burned at the back of his throat.
Suddenly it stopped. Chase practically whimpered at the loss of sensation. He opened his eyes and found Mayes just looking down at him. Chase moved his hips as much as he could in an attempt to precipitate the motions he needed at that moment almost as much as he needed air.
“Warren?” Chase didn’t know what was wrong. He wasn’t sure it mattered because with no warning, Warren was moving again, sliding slowly out and then completely back in. It was torture. “Warren…please,” Robert whispered.
Mayes watched the flushed face contort with the teasing pleasure he was providing. He knew that once the urgent need to climax wore off Chase would stop shivering only for the slow deep thrusts to build the sensations again to the point of no return. Warren loved having him like this. He loved seeing the look in the fair eyes, knowing that he was the one who put it there. There was trust, love and lust. Warren twisted them up and ensnared Robert with them. He coaxed the embers to a fierce burn and sullied what was pure. He loved that more than he should. It was the darkness in him that thought to use sex as a method to bring them both down to the same level of debasement. He watched Robert’s eyes seeing how much he wanted it too and come hell, they would face it together, equal in their sins.
He crushed his lips to Robert’s, plunged his tongue in deep, pushed in as far as he could go. The moan, the cry, the curse, whatever it was going to be was muffled by Warren’s lips. He continued his assault, letting go and focussing only on the pleasure and the man in his arms.
Chase climaxed first, his head thrown back, their kiss broken but a deeper connection still in tact. Warren bit down on the unguarded neck, just enough sense still in him not to bite too hard. He licked at the hot skin as the sheath around him tightened and pulled, pushing him over the edge as well. He thrust harder still, pushing for as deep as he could go, claiming any of this body and soul he hadn’t touched yet. He felt Robert jerk in his arm, his over sensitized body quaking with each powerful motion until finally they lapsed into stillness.
Warren panted and tried to call back his senses, which he was sure were strewn all over the room. He shifted enough to let Robert put his legs flat on the bed and soothed away the unavoidable ache of the position. A hand through his dark hair urged Warren to look up from the plateau of pectoral where he’d laid his cheek. Robert’s serene gaze touched his troubled mind. He bowed his head and kissed the other man’s chest.
It was always the same. It always ended like this; after his mind’s insistence that he sully this lovely being, he felt cleaner and more loved under that gaze than he knew he deserved. And the conflict would become peace and a touch of shame.
“We need to shower,” Chase said softly. He still had one hand resting in Mayes’s hair and didn’t make any motion to get up. He was quite comfortable except for the sticky semen cooling on his stomach. Sometimes he could feel his partner’s breath flow over it and the chill preceded an intense need to wash.
Mayes sighed. He really didn’t want to move, however, the suggestion did have its merits, particularly if they showered together -which they did. It wasn’t the fun type of shower, though there was a little groping and kissing to be enjoyed. For Mayes it was part business. The powder he’d given Robert was a sedative and its effects would show up any minute now.
“Sleepy?” Mayes asked casually as he donned his shirt after doing up his pants.
Seated at the edge of the bed Chase nodded. His bleary eyes remained on the carpet of his small bedroom. He knew he felt strange. He knew that this sudden, overcoming fatigue wasn’t simply because of earlier activities. This was unnatural.
“Come on, Robbie,” Mayes coaxed gently, pulling Chase to stand. He swayed a little leading Mayes to put Chase’s hand on his shoulders for balance. Mayes helped Chase pull up the sweatpants that he had left halfway up his thighs when he became light-headed.
Once his pants were on Chase moved away from Mayes. Something was wrong, he knew. He needed to get away. He had intended to go to the door but his heavy limbs didn’t stop him in time and he stumbled past, into the back of his couch.
“Careful,” the deep voice said softly, close to his ear. Chase would have pulled away but there were already hands on him, guiding him around to the cushions of the couch. He held on to Mayes’s shirt using the other man’s sturdy body to prevent him from falling to the couch. Chase knew if he sat down, he wouldn’t have the strength to get back up.
At the blond man’s resistance Mayes held back a sigh, though his chest did heave with a deep breath. Avoiding looking at the blue-green eyes Mayes took the choice away from Robert, scooping him up in his arms and then sitting on the couch himself. They fell the last few inches to the soft padding. The springs squeaked a little in protest to the sudden weight. Mayes carefully arranged his lover’s legs on the couch and cradled his upper body with his arms and firm chest.
Chase’s head lolled at the shoulder where it was suddenly resting. His muscles were no long responding to his commands and his brain was foggy. Around him his apartment was nothing more than a swirl of light brown boxes and white ceiling. He thought he might be sick but he felt too weak for that too.
“You’ll be okay.” The assurance floated to him reminding Chase that he wasn’t alone. The warm, somewhat yielding structure he was collapsed against was a person -a person who had drugged him. Barely able to open his eyes and unable to push away all Chase could give was a weak accusing stare.
Mayes looked away. “I had to,” he justified. “It’s better to do this now than later. You know that.”
He did know that. Lessons learnt through experience were hard to forget. But Mayes didn’t have time to debate the pros and cons of this method. What he was doing was to keep both of them safe, buy them as much time as he could. They needed to act, even if it meant that he had to force Robert’s will, or take it away entirely.
Chase couldn’t fight the potent drug any longer. His eyes closed, though he didn’t quite fall asleep. He wouldn’t allow himself to give in all the way. It sapped the rest of his strength but he managed to stay semi-conscious, reality slipping in and out and rippling like a reflection in a pond. He felt Warren move, shifting to get something. He never allowed Chase to slip from his embrace. He murmured to him soothing sentiments and kissed his shoulder and the fingers of one limp hand.
The words changed, in what seemed like a gradual transition, from English to Latin. Chase still understood every word. He’d studied Latin but he’d also heard these particular phrases before.
Mayes held Chase a bit tighter allowing the soft invocation to slip past his lips. Head on Mayes shoulder, left arm trapped between their chests, and legs stretched out along the rest of the couch, Chase didn’t react as Mayes rubbed his hand up and down his bare back. Warren felt the minor increase in the heat of the skin for a moment and knew that his words were taking effect. His words were done now so all he had to do was wait it out.
The lips near his neck moved, creating faint and confused words. Mayes gently hushed him and rocked a little hoping to pacify any lingering unrest the ritual or his subterfuge may have caused.
Gently rocking back and forth his arms full of his Robin, Warren stared blankly ahead hoping for forgiveness and wondering what was to come. A loud, jarring set of knocks from the apartment door had not been one of the things he’d expected. He froze, eyes closed and arms tightening around his precious charge.
Had they found them already? He wasn’t ready. They weren’t ready.
“Chase, open up!”
The familiar voice drained away the tension from Mayes. He released a shaky breath and pressed his cheek to the one near him, thankful that his worry had been for nothing. A weak protest from the relaxed body prompted Mayes to loosen a little the tight hold he’d locked Chase in during his moments of anxiety.
“Sorry,” he apologized softly.
“Chase!”
Mayes glanced at the door. He hoped that without a response Dr. House would leave.
“I know you’re in there! If you don’t open this door I’ll knock it down!”
Empty threat, Warren thought to himself. Even if he had the energy and strength to, with one bum leg the old man wouldn’t be knocking down anything. Mayes gave all of his attention back to Chase. He raised his hand to comb through the gold hair and ignored the muted sounds from the other side of the door. If he had been paying more attention to them, he might not have been so surprised when the door suddenly opened when, Mayes was sure he’d locked it.
House stood in the doorway, the credit card he’d used to undo the lock still in his hand. He shoved the piece of plastic into a pant pocket, switched his cane back to his right hand and entered, uninvited. It had never stopped him before.
“You’ve got ten seconds to leave before I call the cops,” Mayes threatened.
House paused. Mayes thought that perhaps the man would leave. House reached out for the door and pushed it to swing closed, his person still firmly inside the apartment. A quick look around from his spot near the door showed House mostly boxes. Chase was leaving? He hadn’t heard anything about this.
Not dwelling on his confusion, but not ignoring it either, House approached the couch. He nearly asked for Chase’s whereabouts when he saw the mop of blond hair. Rounding to the front House took a good look at the pair. Mayes’s distrustful and angry glare didn’t bother him in the least. What did bother him and add to his confusion was the marking on Chase’s back. A tattoo -that would be the subject of taunts and questions later. For now he wanted to know who exactly this dark-haired Australian was and what precisely he was to Chase.
“Chase-”
“Shut up. You’ll wake him.”
House glared. “Chase! Get up! That’s enough cuddling with your boyfriend!” The yell was met with a fiery glare from Mayes but from Chase, only slurred, unclear words. Mayes was immediately trying to calm him. House was immediately diagnosing.
“What did you give him?” His question was quick and his eyes were narrowed in suspicion.
“It’s nothing…just something to relax him.”
“Is that what they’re calling Ruffies in Australia these days?”
The slang term for the too common date rape drug wasn’t lost on Warren and he had to hold back his anger at the accusation. “Lorazepam -just a few milligrams,” he bit out his dark eyes darkened further with his ire.
“I should be the one calling the cops. You may not know this but you’re not allowed to drug people in America.”
Mayes wasn’t scared. “I don’t think breaking and entering is allowed either. We can go to jail together.”
They stared at each other for several drawn out seconds. Each of them sized the other up, trying to determine his motives and his weakness. The only weakness that House could find in Mayes was Chase. He would have kept looking, kept trying to visually pick him apart, but something moving caught his eyes. At first he thought it was just a trick of the shadows but he blinked and it was still moving. Slowly, House moved closer.
The tattoo was moving. He was pretty sure most of them don’t do that.
The mark was an inverted, five-pointed star enclosed by a ring. Within the pentagram there was a drawing of a goats head, its chin, ears and two horns each filling one angle of the star. In the ring bordering the pentagram words written in cursive script rotated around, Latin symbols and phrases which meant nothing to House. He moved closer wanting a better look at the black ink-work. Near enough to touch the smooth back littered with a few freckles, House could see the ring around the star was actually made of two lines of chains. And not only did the words and symbols within the ring slide around in the closed loop they also changed, fading in an out as though sending a message or telling s story with the limited space.
House had never seen anything like this on a person’s skin before. He glanced up at Chase when he heard the man make a slight snuffling sound. Mayes quickly eased him and House shifted his gaze to the symbol again and was startled into a slight jerk when the beady eyes in the goat’s head suddenly slid to look directly at him.
Unable to swallow, even breath House held the image’s gaze. After several seconds the goat head opened its mouth and began to speak. Its words weren’t heard but rather they were felt. Through the bodies of the three men rumbles of unrest skewed their balance, confused their senses, muddied their thoughts. A sharp cry filled the room and suddenly the episode ended.
House blinked several times, his eyes still wide with the alarm of what had just happened. It took both House and Mayes a second to break out of their shock and notice that Chase was still in distress, his cry having broken the disturbing spell. It was only Mayes’s arms, which had remained around Chase throughout the strange encounter, that kept him from lashing out. His cries were pain-filled and though he tried to hold them back, even the faint ones cut through the other two men like sharp blades.
The previously limp hand, the one not trapped, reached up in an impossibly fast motion to grab at Mayes’s shirt. The way Chase jerked in the taller Australian’s arms was disturbingly abnormal -his head twisting one way, then jerking to the other, the motion an almost nonexistent blur.
Over Warren Mayes’s face his rising distress was frozen over with an eerie, brittle calm. He reached to he hold the blond head in place and laid the side of his face against the one contorted with anguish. His lips moved, again speaking Latin, faintly at the beginning and growing more forceful with each word.
“…sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.”
It was a prayer. The Lord’s Prayer and it was the only defence Mayes’s had for the moment. House had nothing (though he lumped praying in with nothing) and could only watch as Mayes continued with the prayer until eventually Chase’s strained and weak voice joined in and they finished the prayer together.
Even then the torment didn’t end. Chase was still in pain, his body still quaking while Mayes tightly restrained him. Mayes began the prayer over again.
Chase had hand enough and made his demand.
“Vade…retro me…Satana…”
Four foreign words uttered from a near breathless throat and in a frail voice, yet their bodies shivered and they were suddenly alone. The echo of the weak cry permeated them, made the edge of their sight hazy as though the world was resonating on an unknown note. A brief ache coursed through House and Mayes head before it vanished, leaving them with a lightness that, though normal, they could only appreciate when the oppression was gone.
“Robbie?” Mayes worried voice cut through House daze.
With his eyes tightly closed and body still tense, Chase shivered through the last vestiges of whatever had just happened. His pained moans were interrupted by his hitching breath. Nothing Mayes did seemed enough to bring him any calm, though he tried desperately. His thin veneer of peace began to fracture and splinter as Chase’s distress continued. Mayes continued to hold on.
House, still kneeling facing Chase’s back had a near unobstructed view as the sinister symbol on Chase’s back began to fade. House wasn’t sure where his mind was but it appeared to be telling his left hand to raise and rest against the shivering back. The sensitive palm and underside of his fingers fell softly over the feverish skin. A second later Chase’s shivers began to subside and his muffled sounds of distress quieted until there was on his laboured breathing.
Mayes stared at House not sure if the timing of House’s touch and the cessation of Robert’s discomfort was a coincidence or a true effect. Had this wretched man been able to provide comfort where Warren couldn’t? Mayes didn’t like the thought of that at all. Robert was his to protect, his to care for, his to love.
“That thing is gone,” House said. His voice was unusually soft, so much so that Chase in his daze nearly didn’t recognize it. “How much of that sedative did you give him again?” That question held more of House’s familiar bite and mistrust.
“Ten milligrams of Lorazepam,” Mayes told him. He had one hand lightly combing through Chase’s hair still waiting for the lingering discomfort to subside.
House stared and thought silently. Ten milligrams was a fairly large dose of a fairly potent sedative. They used it in the hospital to counter seizures. House knew that Chase was familiar with the drug with intensive care as his specialty. House was also knowledgeable about the drug and though it might have been a while since he’d administered it first hand, he still knew what it was supposed to do.
“He shouldn’t have been able to move.” House’s eyes narrowed and took in the length of Chase’s body as though the clue to solve this mystery was on him somewhere.
“I knew it was going to be bad,” Mayes mumbled to himself. “I should have used more.” He gazed apologetically at Chase who was now a fair bit more relaxed than he was a minute ago.
“You load him up on more of than and he just might stop breathing. You don’t want him that relaxed.” House delivered his comment with a glare up at the large man ensconcing his intensivist. “What the hell is going on?” He couldn’t deduce the answer to this mystery out from the evidence before him. He wasn’t even sure if what he’d seen was real or a hallucination caused by his pills, though they’d never done that to him before.
“You won’t believe me. Why should I bother?” House also wasn’t a part of this so why should Mayes explain?
“Try me?”
Mayes laughed. “You’re a sceptic if I’ve ever seen one. I’m not going to waste by breath on you.”
House was frustrated, worried, willing to a at least listen and hold his scathing and ridiculing comments to the end. “Something way that side of weird just happened, and right now I’ll even consider whatever your absurd explanation happens to be.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You can start with the thing on his back,” House encouraged nastily.
Mayes turned his attention back to the young man in his arms, already giving up on the possibility of the older man understanding. “It’s time for you to go now, Doctor House.”
House’s face pulled into a scowl that went to waste. Mayes only had eyes for Chase. And Chase, well, he wasn’t anywhere near lucid. House pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open saying, “You know who you should try explaining this to? The cops. In fact there’s this one, real bastard of a detective who’s really passionate about drug control. I think he’ll be very interested in what’s going on here.” He blinked innocently up at Mayes who was now eyeing him. “Unless you have a prescription for the sedative?” Mayes didn’t say anything. House hit ‘send’ on his cell and brought it to his ear. “Yeah -didn’t think so.”
Standing after being on one knee for so long was a trial without mention of his injured right leg. When he did eventually get to his feet House exited the apartment while he spoke to the person who had answered his call.
Mayes, furious at the meddling doctor, watched him go. If the cops came he would be in a great deal of trouble. Even if they couldn’t find any evidence of what he’d done this would still cause problems for him. He didn’t need more complications. Doctor Gregory House was enough.
With his lips pressed into a thin regretful line and eyes torn over his decision, Mayes gently got up and laid Chase along the couch. He gave him a brief kiss and touched his face once before he stood. House was standing there and had witnessed the tender, though one-sided exchange. Mayes wasn’t embarrassed or remorseful at all, not for being spied on by this wretch of a man.
“You take good care of him,” Mayes ordered. The threat of what he would do if his words weren’t followed was delivered in the tone of his voice.
House wasn’t intimidated. He rarely was even if he had good reason to be. When he responded his tone carried the message that he didn’t take orders from Mayes, and he liked to think not from anyone. “You might want to leave before you hear the sirens. It would be really awkward if you passed them in the lobby.”
The sirens began to be heard coming from a distance and Mayes wisely chose not to delay his departure any longer. He brushed past the unshaven older man and disappeared to somewhere House didn’t care about, as long as it was far from him and Chase. He rested his gaze on the still form and thought silently, trying to sift through what he knew, what he knew he didn’t know and what he’d just seen. He couldn’t find anything that remotely made sense.
“Why did we have to keep the sirens on all the way?” the man in uniform asked when he arrived, his partner quickly following him into the open apartment.
“Because Cuddy said so. That’s why,” House replied shortly and wondered why he replied at all. “Him,” he said looking down at Chase. “I want him in a private room on the third floor. He was administered a high dose of Ativan and is displaying unusual symptoms.”
“What symptoms?” the paramedic asked as he checked over the sleeping man.
“None that you’d be able to make any sense of. Just get him to the hospital.” He exited without a look back. He waited by his car and watched as the two men brought Chase out on the stretcher and loaded him into the back of the ambulance. House glanced around into the darkness, suspecting that Mayes was near by fuming over being duped. The siren that Mayes had mistaken for police was just the paramedics. House smirked at the dark surroundings and hopped into his car to follow the ambulance back to the hospital.
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The rest of the night was tense. Even in his state of drug induced slumber Chase seemed to find no rest. Nearing the early morning when the drug left more of his muscles free to flex, he moved more, head turning from one side to the other in agitation. House watched each motion and wondered what was playing out in the dreams Chase couldn’t escape.
When sunrise finally reared it pink and orange head House was too tired and tense to do more than glare at the bright, cheerful colours. He’d spent the whole night next to Chase. He told himself it was because the night shift security refused to call in another guard to act as a sentry to Chase’s hospital room. House was still worried about that Mayes fellow coming back. He didn’t think Mayes would actually hurt Chase, but sweeping him off to the ends of the earth where House wouldn’t ever see him again seemed within the realm of possibility. So he stayed the night. There were too many questions he needed answered for Chase to disappear now.
“House?” Foreman’s voice startled the older doctor out of his daze. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong with Chase?” Foreman glanced around but didn’t see a patient chart. Neither was there any equipment monitoring or giving Chase anything. “Is there something wrong with his place that he needed to stay here?” House sometimes wished he could pull-off that Foreman brand of both mockery and concern merged into one unsuspecting question.
“Other than the asshole that drugged him? Nope.”
“…What?”
“I’m going to shower. You stay here and keep an eye on him. He should be waking up soon. If that guy, the one who broke your shoulder comes back, yell loud and let some real men take care of him.”
Foreman didn’t even watch House leave. House didn’t miss the sour expression on Foreman’s face as he left but its appearance made him feel marginally better. Sighing silently Foreman checked Chase’s pulse and breathing, just to be sure, before he sat down in House’s abandoned chair to wait.
The ceiling had ceased to be interesting some time ago but the position allowed him to be completely boneless in the not-quite-comfortable chair. He only made the effort to move out of the position when sudden gasping and motion form the bed alerted him that Chase was awake.
“Chase, calm down.”
Eyes wide and breathing heavy Chase couldn’t pull enough air in to calm his panic. He’d been trapped and he couldn’t even remember were. All he knew was that he’d felt himself dying and he’d found an escape. Eventually his fright ebbed away but Foreman was still looking at him with concern.
“I’m okay.”
Eric didn’t even bother to say that he didn’t believe the Australian. He thought that was plain in his expression.
“What happened?” Chase asked still somewhat drowsy. He rubbed at his eyes.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me. I arrive and nobody is around. I hear that House is hanging out with a patient, which I thought was a sure indication that his Vicodin finally fried his brain, only to find you here, out cold from what House tells me is a drugging.”
Chase took a moment to digest the information. “I have to go,” he said flipping away the covers that were still over his legs and stepping down to the floor. His shoes were nearby and the clothing that he’d worn last night had been augmented to include a T-shirt. Noticing for the first time that it wasn’t his -it was at least a size too big -Chase plucked it from his chest to get a better look at the faded image on the front.
“Yeah…” Foreman drawled coming to the side of the bed so that he was facing Chase. “Something you want to tell me about you and House?”
Chase glanced up at him eyes and expression confused.
He was wearing one of House’s shirts.
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House stormed into the diagnostics conference room.
“I told you to watch him!” The anger and panic in the voice froze the two occupants. Cameron looked perplexed at the show of emotion. She took in both men’s expression and waited silently.
“He woke up, he was fine. What, did you want me to do? Tie him to the bed to keep him there?”
“I thought that was implied,” House said leaning forward and leaning heavily on his cane.
Foreman crossed his arms and cocked his head back in that arrogant self-assured way that House couldn’t believe still existed in his fellow. Working for him should have wiped Foreman clean of all that by now. “I had no reason to keep him there. He didn’t want to stay there. He said he didn’t need protection from Mayes, only from you. Seems you’ve been sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, again.” Foreman gave him a smile. “Chase said his next stop was to see Cuddy. You’ve gone too far this time.”
House didn’t comment. He always went too far but when all was said and done, it was his tenacity and his actions that saved the day (or the patient) in most cases. Foreman shouldn’t really be complaining about him going too far as he’d benefited from it once, not too long ago. There would have been more benefit if Cameron hadn’t jumped the gun but no permanent harm no foul, he supposed.
“What was that about?” Cameron asked when House departed without a word.
Foreman shook his head. He wasn’t entirely sure himself.
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House managed to catch Chase not far from Cuddy’s office; looked like he had just left her presence.
“Chase!” House called and though he was sure Chase heard him the young man didn’t pause or slow his stride. House scowled. He was tall though, so when Chase had to pause at a busy doorway House had enough time to catch up. “What did you talk to Cuddy about.”
“I quit,” Chase both declared and informed.
House didn’t say anything at first. Chase strode quickly away once he could. House followed. “If this is about last night…” he saw from the corner of his eye a nurse and some other guy look at him curiously.
Chase stopped and faced House suddenly, leaving House barely enough time to come to a stop. He managed too, barely an inch from Chase. “This isn’t about you,” Chase informed, bursting the vain little bubble that had been allowed to grow for too long in House’s mind. When weren’t thing about him? He always played an important role in the hospital and in the people around him. People were always trying to change him, trying to fit themselves into his life, change his mind. At some point Chase had fallen out of that category and House wanted him back.
“This has never been about you. Believe it or not, I have my own life outside of this hospital and I’m perfectly happy without you in it.”
House tilted his head at that. “But wouldn’t it be more fun with me?”
Chase clenched his teeth in aggravation. House could see it in the flex of his jaw. “Leave me alone.”
“No.”
“…fucking bastard,” Chase said, not quite under his breath. Becoming aware of their proximity and that they were standing in the middle of a busy hallway Chase stepped back. After a silent moment he continued towards the stairs. House knew where Chase was going and use the elevators to beat him there.
Chase was ambushed the moment he got back to the Diagnostics conference room. How did such a tall, awkward man move so silently? Chase wondered when House appeared from thin air behind him.
“Forgot something here when you escaped yesterday,” House said nodding to the coat rack where Chase’s brown jacket was hanging. Chase was going to get it and leave. He didn’t make it a foot closer to it. House’s left hand was holding on to him digging into his bicep. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what I want to know.”
“And if I don’t what are you going to do? Beat it out of me with your cane?”
“I bet you’d like that.”
“Fuck you!” Chase tired to pull away. House held on tighter.
“House, stop it!” Cameron exclaimed when she saw Chase’s expression pinch in pain. She didn’t know what House’s angle was and didn’t know why Chase was being so defiant, but this was only going to escalate if someone didn’t intervene.
“Not until he explains his weird behaviour, the bruises from nowhere, the vanishing tattoo, and the sudden appearance of an old flame that he’s clearly so tormented about.”
Foreman had at first thought that Chase was the one who was in some sort of trouble and House was trying to help in his characteristically brash and insensitive way. After hearing what he’d just heard, he thought perhaps it was House who needed help.
“It’s none of your concern!” Chase continued to try and twist his arm out of House’s grip. He was hesitant to pull to hard, lest he bring House, with his bad leg, crashing down. His concern was dwindling however and didn’t notice when House’s brows drew together.
“What is that?” House asked glancing around. He didn’t relinquish his hold on Chase’s arm as he did. “Are you wearing perfume?” he asked Cameron.
She shook her head. She didn’t wear perfume in the hospital knowing that some people were sensitive to the odours. So if the faint, sweet, flowery scent wasn’t coming from her, then where?
Finally, Chase wrenched his arm free of the strong hold. The momentum of his efforts and the sudden release threw him off-balance. Before he could get his feet under him, he’d fallen to the carpet. He came to rest on his side. They knew something was wrong when he didn’t immediately get up.
“Chase?” Foreman was the first one to him. He went to one knee , flipping his lab-coat out of the way, and gently rolled Chase to his back. His worry increased when he saw that the fair-skinned man’s face was pinched in pain. Chase’s held his hands close to his chest. They were balled into tight shaking fists and it didn’t take a doctor to figure out that was the location of the sudden pain.
A strangled scream was held back by Chase’s clenched jaw, only a dull keening sound being allowed out through his nose. His breathing hitched and though he fought to hold it back the next scream made it out. It was blood curdling and painful to listen to, as though the pain he felt was passed to those who heard. Eyes closed tightly against the tearing discomfort, face strained in a frozen relief of agony, he missed the sight of wounds spontaneously forming at his wrists.
Cameron, and Foreman didn’t notice at first, too alarmed by Chase’s cries. It was the smell of blood and the red smears that alerted them. Foreman pried Chase’s hands away from his chest and held him down just beyond his elbows. With his arms spread out and the blood flowing out of the two raw and painful-looking wounds at Chases’ wrists, House recognized the similarity to another image. He felt Cameron dart by him as she went for help and supplies.
Going to one knee once reaching the side of his agonized fellow, House simply stared, eyes taking in everything. He didn’t pay heed to the alarm in Foreman’s eyes. He only saw Chase’s eyes open suddenly and stare upwards. He should have been seeing a view of Foreman over his head, but the slightly blank, slightly awed expression was evidence that Chase’s mind and sight were elsewhere.
And that scent persisted. In fact it was stronger now. Carrying his weight heavily on one hand down on the carpet to make up for his bad leg, House leaned over to sniff at Chase. Foreman’s brows furrowed further. Trust House to be weird and unhelpful in an already weird situation.
The flowery scent was near Chase but not quite on him. House moved to the wrist nearest him and smelt near the wound. The scent was stronger and mixed heavily with the scent of blood. It was as though Chase’s wounds were the source of the pleasant odour.
The arrival of Cameron and two nurses displaced House from Chase’s side. They efficiently dressed the wounds, which went all the way through one side of Chase’s wrists to the other. In mere moments Chase was on a stretcher and wheeled away. Cameron went with them leaving Foreman and House in the conference room where the carpet was now stained with both House’s and Chase’s blood.
After several seconds of charged, uncomfortable silence and with the smell of flowers still softly teasing their olfactory senses, House moved to the white board. Foreman assumed it was for a differential diagnosis session with just the two of them about what had just happened.
“What the hell causes wounds like that to suddenly appear on someone?” His voice was tight and too loud in the silent room. House was already writing the answer on the board. He finished, capped the marker and walked out.
Foreman read the one word written there.
STIGMATA.
End Chapter 4
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- - - H/C - - -
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Cast and Characters