Fic - It's Nothing
Wow, I am in the habit of posting nothing but fics for fake cuts lately. Sweet. I'll make this a true-fic-journal one day. Like an online bookstore except with a lot more slash and crack!smut. Or just either one. ANYhow.
Title: It's Nothing
Author: LadyMurha
Pairing: House M.D. - House/Chase
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He already knew with a cold clammy clarity that he wasn’t going to let on the truth, whatever happened.
“It’s nothing.”
A/N: Cross-posted to house_chase. Also, this was my first House-fic ever. Comments and concrit welcome.
Disclaimer: Bah, I wish I owned them. Only Shore does, though. Double-bah.
Dr. Robert Chase doesn’t know when is the first time that he notices House looking at him in that funny way of his. You know, that tilt to the head when he’s thinking. The way he narrows his eyelids around blue irises. Tapping his cane against his leg, chair-arm, board-frame - anything solid enough to make an annoyingly loud consistent sound, really. Except Chase notices that House always taps his cane when he’s looking at him.
Sometimes he wishes he’d worked for another department. That way, he wouldn’t have to deal with House’s constant sarcasm (although he does make a fair point most of the time), his bluntness (does it help a dying patient when doctors verbally walk around their condition?) or his strange metaphors (they make sense once he gets to the actual problem). That way House doesn’t get Foreman on his back disagreeing with him and making a pleading face at Chase to join his side of the argument (not Cameron, definitely not House’s); that way he doesn’t get yelled at so often that he screwed up, even when he doesn’t.
What’s infinitely more disturbing, Chase realises as he unlocks his apartment door at the dark of the evening, is that he is noticing these things in the first place. If someone has no interest in someone else, they won’t notice what that someone else is constantly doing. The way they walk suddenly replaying at odd moments. Playing with that stupid red stress-ball. Gripping the cane- no, that’s way too far. You’ve got to stop that, Chase. You’ve got to stop it. Wanting to see the details of the way your boss is living every moment of his day is not disturbing - it’s just obsessive. And Chase, despite having some routines, doesn’t like obsessive.
After a month or so of strange glances that become even weirder when Chase considers the fact that House turns away the moment he sees Chase looking back at him, Chase becomes a little paranoid. About the fact he might be falling for a person he supposedly has no interest in. He knows that if Cameron gets wind of his emotional state, he won’t hear the end of it for a very long time. Or Foreman. The things they will think… so he just doesn’t talk. To anyone. About- about this. No one needs to know, and it’s all going to be over.
But it’s not, because it’s getting stronger. He knows it’s a cycle: he thinks about it more, and it becomes stronger which forces him to think about it more, making it even stronger. No way out.
Chase tries to define the pivot in time, in the sequence of events. He tries to reason with himself that there really isn’t one central moment which contained everything that changed between them. Yet he sees clearly the moment that House dropped his coffee because he didn’t see Chase’s splayed foot at the right time and it poured in myriad milky drops on the carpet and Chase tried to get up quickly to sort out the mess without letting House fall even though he needn’t have worried because House had his cane for support but Chase didn’t think about it at the time, so he fell instead, looking up at House regaining balance (surprisingly fast) from a very uncomfortable position that (he blushes under the hot water that spray him hard in the shower) was very, very compromising. Not dirty. Compromising. Let’s just say that if one of your colleagues caught you in this position with your boss, in, let’s say, a supply station when they thought the room was empty, you’d be the talk of the ward - not even ward, the whole hospital - in under a day.
Chase’s cheeks turn even rosier under his hands, even though no one can see him, under the dripping water. There was something about that moment that clarified the fact he was crushing, very badly, on his boss. House, of all people! Not a good idea. Just like Andy wasn’t a good idea (he still doesn’t know why he gave in to the wish of a nine-year-old girl). It’s exactly one of those things that are in general Not a Good Idea.
He switches off the water and waits until the last ropes of rapidly cooling liquid finish their fall, before pushing the semi-transparent door of the cubicle open and grabbing the towel, wiping his eyes and blinking, shaking his hair backwards. Saturday sometimes happens to be his day off - just like today, and he doesn’t think he’s been ever more grateful for it. A stressful week is an understatement.
When he glanced up at House - everything but the eyes hazy around him - he saw a petrified, frozen pupil amidst all that blue. It was as if they were sharing an identical brainwave without comprehending the words that it brought. He got up with no help, an eternity later, finding Cameron already brandishing several paper towels and Foreman picking up shards of what used to be a perfectly good red mug. He muttered his apology, helped clean up, unseeing of the state of his clothes, and hurried away somewhere.
He wasn’t aware House didn’t even raise his voice once.
Somewhere else.
He towels his hair until it is in stiff spikes, running fingers through it to unleash the strands. He rubs at his skin until he is certain there is no droplet of water left before pulling the boxers up his legs to rest around his abdomen. Then he hangs the towel back on its stand, leaning his forehead against the cool wall.
He found himself on the rickety bench beside the door to Radiology - a fairly long distance from House’s damn office - with no indication of how he’d got there. House, at this point, would inject the necessary “you walked, duh.” But Chase had no patience for the predictable nature of mockery that House so often carried with him.
He liked that bench because nobody else sat on it. They’d realise it was unsteady when another person would sit on the other end and the already-sat upon side would inexplicably twist to slide them forward, just a fraction, at which they’d stand up, claiming nerves. It was alright to be nervous and anxious in a hospital, because people expected you to behave as such. Sitting here meant Chase could behave fretfully (well, he wasn’t wearing the telltale coat), even for a little while, pretending that this hadn’t shook him up, curled into himself and face in palms, reminding himself just to breathe, mantra-mantra-mantra of breathe.
He grabs the cotton T-shirt, the oversized one he bought when he visited home two years prior. He had no reason to, but it reminded him of the occasional irrationality some people sink into, and the strange things it causes them to do. Like sending their son into a place that would teach him all that he would later renounce, the God he didn’t love anymore, the prayers he had no problem speaking but couldn’t stand hearing because they felt hollow. Administering medicines to target the cause of the illness - that was something he could focus on, automatic pilot. He’s in that mode when it slips over his head, hair dripping chancing leftovers of water on the back, leaving a minuscule trail, wider at the collar.
He’s going to bed and he’s going to sleep and he’s going to wake up in the late hours of the afternoon, refreshed. He doesn’t want to wait for the night. He just wants to sleep.
That’s how House found him on the bench, a sitting foetus. He didn’t say anything, so Chase figured he either didn’t mind about the differential or was going to fill him in later. Either way, Chase was apprehensive about House setting his weight right there beside him, a threat in physicality.
“What’s going on, Chase?” House finally spoke, quietly, unlike his loud bitchy demeanour. “Running out of a differential diagnosis session isn’t like you.” Chase forced back a comment about coffee cups not made like they used to be if they broke so easily. The moment of truth, the day of judgement, the showdown: whatever Chase would call it, it would still mean the same thing, just a different array of sounds to portray that meaning. The hardest thing in that train of thought, the hardest thing in the chain of electric messages in his neural pathways, was to look into House’s eyes - frighteningly close - and try to speak. He already knew with a cold clammy clarity that he wasn’t going to let on the truth, whatever happened.
“It’s nothing.”
Damn doorbell.
Can’t anyone leave him alone? Especially when he’s already tucked into the warm shell of his blanket, a big ball of fabric bunching around him. He groans with the beige covers over his head, ruffling his hair as he pulls it off when the ring repeats.
Yesterday was bad enough. He doesn’t want to recall that lukewarm gush on the floor by him or the person who sat next to him on the rickety bench that was his, right by the door to Radiology.
He glances through the peep-hole, trying to diagnose the face of the intruder. It shouldn’t be a doctor or a colleague because as far as he remembers they weren’t given days off today.
So what the hell does House want now?
The door creaks as it opens a slit. House grins, propelling a finger through and wiggling it in a miniature hello. “You don’t let people in anymore? How rude.”
“I was trying to sleep.”
“And here I was trying to diagnose something it appears you don’t have at all. Shame. That was a good differential gone to waste.”
Chase has no patience. “What do you want, House?”
House is still for a moment, hesitant. “Can I come in?”
Chase thinks, he’s got to have something on his mind. Very well.
“Alright.” He shuts the door carefully, undoing the chain catch on the door, letting him inside. He isn’t uncomfortable because he’s too tired to care, attired in an oversized shirt with a wet collar and plain boxers. “Drink?” he’s trying too hard for the polite host.
“No. thanks.” House limps (why is he noticing it now, more than ever?) through the corridor to the first door on the right, settles on the sofa. “Comfy place.”
“Thanks.”
Now who’s awkward?
After Chase refused to say anymore, House sat a few more moments by his side - maybe the mind will change its thoughts… but this was not the day for it. Chase remained stubbornly quiet, so much so that House finally gave up and leant on his cane, few steps before he came back. Late as it was in the day, not many were milling around Radiology - several nurses if anyone at all. So someone may or may not have seen House’s fingers cheekily ruffling Chase’s hair, may or may not have seen House smirk in jest as Chase stared at him, shocked, may or may not have heard him mutter “I always thought you have great hair” and then the low thump of his cane as he started back towards - well, wherever. Chase could not, at that moment, want to know less.
The silence stretches in the air flowing between them. Chase tries not to pose himself, out of the corner of his eye glimpsing House looking around him, pseudo-interest. It doesn’t fool him. House will say what he wants to say when he is ready to say it, and no button Chase pushes will cause the voice to emit it earlier.
“Why are you so jumpy lately?” House startles him.
“I’m not.”
“Are too.”
“Says who?”
“The expert, also known as me.”
“You think everyone’s jumpy.” Chase yawns.
“If I did, all I’d see would be hopping bunnies. While I don’t generally object to bunnies, they get boring after a while.”
“Humans are hardly bunnies, House.”
“You get my point.” Chase does get the point, stands up and begins a restless pace around the living room, fiddling with whatever he can, twiddling fingers.
“Why are you so edgy?” House coaxes him to let on the answer, again.
“Why do you want to know so much?” Chase gives in exasperatedly, acknowledging, saying, yes, I am agitated.
“I’m a diagnostician. It’s in my nature to want to know things like that. For all I know, you might be coming down with something.” There comes that sarcastic hue.
“I didn’t know you cared. Now tell me why you stare at me so much.” Out in the open, ready to be hunted.
Calculating look. If Chase didn’t know better, he’d swear House is trying to crack a case and this is all a daydream, he’s really wearing his lab-coat, ready to swing out in some unexpected idea for the troubling symptoms.
“You have great hair.” That is not the answer, Chase knows, and so does House and they both know each other too well to believe that bull.
Chase is bored now. This conversation is rapidly progressing towards what he can only term an abysmal failure, so he does the only thing he can think of that would be outrageous enough to either shut House up and force him to leave or coerce him to talk. He turns to stand behind House, clasping his face and orientating his head backwards, plastering a kiss right on his lips. It’s not a very articulate kiss; none of that softly playing tongue Chase knows how to instil with women. It’s almost… rough. And he’s afraid of what he released, because who knows whether it’s the right medicine? Maybe the symptoms were misleading, after all. He slides away, up, returning to shuffle around, hearing a catch of an inhale. He shouldn’t have done that.
“That explains a lot.” Figure House not to be astounded out of his cool airs.
Chase waits to hear the knocking of soled cane, the third leg, direction: the exit, almost as soon as House says that. He doesn’t know why it’s taking House so long to get up this time, so he turns again to see House still seated, thoughtfully rubbing an index finger across his bottom lip, as if expecting Chase to watch him like some non-stripping sex show. Chase is too tired for House to pull that particular string. He just wants - sleep, House, closure - No. Just closure. He wants the pure knowledge of what happens now, no ambiguity and straying glances. Just tell me.
“Tell you what?” House twists his head around, piercing him with that unreadable gaze. Chase didn’t realise he spoke out loud.
“Why you’re doing the- the weird glancing, and extra tapping and- and all the other- other stuff.” Chase has absolutely no idea what the other stuff is, and House knows that, grinning like a cat about to pounce.
“Y’know, for a doctor on my prestigious team, you’re kinda stupid.”
That’s below the belt. Chase gets yelled at enough because it’s always his fault, whatever happens. So he tries to think the way House wants him to, play his silly little game.
“You’re either on a faulty batch of Vicodin or planning to smack me one. Since I know you’re itching to get me fired, I’m fairly certain it’s the latter.” Let’s see House hiding from that one.
“I don’t know what I was smoking the day I hired you. Think! What kind of a disorder would make someone go nervous next to someone else?”
Chase thinks that House is tired of all these interactions that just go on and on, because he is pondering that thought whilst House’s mouth is enveloping his own. He didn’t notice how he moved closer to House when they conversed, or that House was preparing to make one of his sitting leaps.
It is just… there. There is tongue, lots of it, throbbing and undulating in his mouth, and though he never considered men like that before, he’s liking the concept of it more and more; no pause to warn himself that passing crushes on his boss are not a good incentive to have sex with him and that kissing him should stop right about now before he would regret anything. That strange star of unexplored possibilities lies naked in front of him and he has to see more.
“Bedroom that way,” he mumbles throatily into a pair of swollen lips, gently helping House up - knowing he has to be careful with him - stumbling in his pace backwards into the corridor and banging against another door, before disconnecting their faces and holding House’s arm firmly while letting him limp to the bed, severing contact is too much, kissing over jaw-lines and neck. It takes Chase one second to walk out again, giving himself another ten in which to grab House’s cane from the living room, deciding that if there are consequences he’ll deal with them instead of backing off and wondering where the hell he left the box of condoms and whether spit would be okay for lubricant because he doesn’t use the official brands.
House is breathing harshly when Chase is back, dragging his oversized tee off his body.
“Not just great hair, I see,” House doesn’t miss the cue for a comment with extra cheese, providing the toothy smile and wink to accessorize it. Chase lunges at House, a symphony of mouth on mouth on tongues on clavicles, earlobes wetted and jawbones tickled with frayed breath. It amazes Chase that the awkward-to-craving transition is so fast.
He is straddling House, mindful of the ruined leg when stripping him of jacket and shirt, sliding himself down cautiously to undo a few buttons on stubborn denims. House kicks off one shoe, waits for Chase to get the other one. And the socks. House deadpans to Chase that nobody has sex with socks. Chase actually did hear of a few cases but he’s not going to elaborate when he’s pulling trouser-sleeves away from wiry limbs.
He’s enjoying this, he realises. Honest to god enjoys the feel of body parts that aren’t completely clean of hair and are sharp and angular and hard. He’s not used to this and he likes it.
He sucks on a turgid pink nipple, discovering it causes House to mewl helplessly, so to be really bad he also does it to the other one, simultaneously snaking palms over a hardened groin and to be really, really brave, he pushes his right hand under the tight material to touch, grasp, move back and forth this tunnel he curls his fingers into. House seems to like it, because he’s moaning even louder, shoving fingers roughly into his hair and his back and his ass somehow all at the same time.
House breaks away, panting. This icy spark in his eyes speaks volumes, Chase feels like he’s utterly raw inside those eyes. Clumsily he searches the bedside cabinet, hoping fervently there is a familiar box there - Yes! Score! - tilting himself sideways to clasp at it and bring it all the way to House’s chest. House winces a little with the movement, but quietens.
“Pick one,” Chase whispers hoarsely. He didn’t mean to whisper, but the effect on House is… erotic.
House’s eyes glint mischievously. “Does that mean I get to fuck you?”
Chase didn’t think about that. Consequences, consequences, ticking in his head as the clock’s hands are suddenly more deafening than both of them. No tick-tock will ever make everything go back to the way it was - may as well…
“Pick one,” Chase repeats. He smiles. House grins back - something real. Fingers latch around one square foil and drag it out, split it open, reveal a circular slick ring of, well, rubber. What did he expect?
Chase elevates himself slowly; like a striptease, standing high over House on the bed still springing lightly from his impact, boxers come away - push down one hip, push down the other, down left thigh, down right thigh, bending when he’s at the knees, unashamedly stiff and wanting, underwear spiralling off the bed as his foot throws them away. House doesn’t gasp, but he does wolf-whistle noisily enough for any neighbours to hear. Chase stoops to pull off House’s, just as slowly and jaggedly. Rolls onto him that little safety measure. And then stops as a thought lightning-strikes.
“Spit’s okay, isn’t it?”
“How should I know?” House laughs openly.
“You’ve never done this?” he doesn’t find that hard to believe; it’s the fact that House just rushed into it, no looking back, that throws him off his balance for a moment.
“Few times. Not with your crude spit, though.”
After a moment of dithering he hawks one into his palm (“nice and juicy”, House remarks) and smears it as evenly as he can on House’s erection, which is when the latter chuckles.
“What?” on the defensive.
“You might want to- never mind, on your back and spread your legs.” Chase does so, pulling one knee as high as it would go. “Not that innocent, then, are we?” House smirks and sucks on a finger then two and- oh! That feels strange, fingers invading a secret niche.
“I think maybe we did cover this in med-school,” Chase groans. The stretch of his ass is coarse, scissoring motions and eyes clouded because they’re shut so tight but- oh, that feels nice, right- there! - did he really just squeal?
“Hey Mikey, I think he likes it,” House exclaims melodramatically, leaning on one hand and one knee as his fingers continue their in-out drive. Chase opens one eye and then another, lifts his hips.
“Let me back on top,” he says, pupils already dilated. House just looks at him, fingers questing deeper and deeper. And then he draws them out and rolls back as Chase re-straddles him.
“You know, it might hurt more like this,” House comments.
Chase doesn’t say anything, holding House’s erection and guiding it towards himself, thigh muscles working and screaming as he is rigid on them. This is giving him the last semblance of control in the midst of this lovely insanity. Hits the perineum. Tries again, a little more to the back, feeling something solid and unfamiliar at his hole. And he’s just not afraid anymore.
“Relaxing helps, so I’ve heard,” House murmurs as his palms close around Chase’s midriff, gentle in their warm caress of flesh. Chase just looks at him and it’s searching, questioning, asking for that closure, the permission to cross a line time can never and will never rebuild. House nods, stroking his thighs, and Chase lowers himself unhurriedly - lazily - ouch.
He thinks the discomfort may be scribed on his features because House winks, “told you relaxing helps,” and he’s got one moment to do that before House aids him along, plunging hips up-up-up-
“Uhh!” he never knew he could moan so loudly or starkly raw. “What did-” breath “-you just do?” now leaning forth on his hands, pillars either side of House’s shoulders.
“Judging by that sound, probably hit your prostate. But you never know, maybe I struck a pile of gold. I don’t really know what you keep in that virginal ass of yours.” House doesn’t seem too fazed. Okay. Prostate. He can work with that. Let’s see what House does. Suddenly it’s not just a reckless act of unbound lust, but also a game: whose reaction is the strongest.
House thrusts freely into him, Chase feels muscles he only unconsciously used before contracting most pleasurably, shallow angle aiming into him there, his body clumsily reciprocating movement.
It’s abandoned passion and a teasing match and he’s loving it, sweat in the folds of their skin, shining on arms and torsos and dripping from strands and tresses of hair and this friction; this time around it’s a mantra-mantra-mantra of friction and heat and want.
Chase knows, through the haze of sex, that he’s close because he’s gasping even harder and can’t feel more exposed than he is and his toes are curling, damn it, hands on the wall bracing above the bed frame, and shit, he’s gonna - more cataclysmic than he’s ever before in his life, it seems - House’s fingers doing that infuriating collected dance on his cock - thrust for thrust inside him, sensing and aware of every nerve and muscle - fuck, he’s absolutely alive - he lets out a whining groan and it’s not ‘going to’, he is coming - white viscosity on his stomach and House’s stomach, overloading when he realises House is still like an electric charge, pumping so unfathomably he’s surely lost by now, eyes shut, mouth open and - something spurts inside him, unbelievably scalding to his hypersensitive tissues; House’s body arching into him, this crude prose in motion of a simple wanton, basic and needing.
Wet and spent and tired and satisfied. House falls back with dirge slowness, and Chase slumps on House when he feels like all the bones in his body have finally evaporated, when he’s held on straight-backed for long enough; slumps for a long while, perspiration gluing skin together pleasantly, utterly static.
House being House, which means he always has to comment about everything, looks Chase in the eyes - softly too close in distance - and grins widely.
“I forget, who said it was nothing?”
Chase has just enough energy to emit a low chuckle because really, House is always right.
Title: It's Nothing
Author: LadyMurha
Pairing: House M.D. - House/Chase
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He already knew with a cold clammy clarity that he wasn’t going to let on the truth, whatever happened.
“It’s nothing.”
A/N: Cross-posted to house_chase. Also, this was my first House-fic ever. Comments and concrit welcome.
Disclaimer: Bah, I wish I owned them. Only Shore does, though. Double-bah.
Dr. Robert Chase doesn’t know when is the first time that he notices House looking at him in that funny way of his. You know, that tilt to the head when he’s thinking. The way he narrows his eyelids around blue irises. Tapping his cane against his leg, chair-arm, board-frame - anything solid enough to make an annoyingly loud consistent sound, really. Except Chase notices that House always taps his cane when he’s looking at him.
Sometimes he wishes he’d worked for another department. That way, he wouldn’t have to deal with House’s constant sarcasm (although he does make a fair point most of the time), his bluntness (does it help a dying patient when doctors verbally walk around their condition?) or his strange metaphors (they make sense once he gets to the actual problem). That way House doesn’t get Foreman on his back disagreeing with him and making a pleading face at Chase to join his side of the argument (not Cameron, definitely not House’s); that way he doesn’t get yelled at so often that he screwed up, even when he doesn’t.
What’s infinitely more disturbing, Chase realises as he unlocks his apartment door at the dark of the evening, is that he is noticing these things in the first place. If someone has no interest in someone else, they won’t notice what that someone else is constantly doing. The way they walk suddenly replaying at odd moments. Playing with that stupid red stress-ball. Gripping the cane- no, that’s way too far. You’ve got to stop that, Chase. You’ve got to stop it. Wanting to see the details of the way your boss is living every moment of his day is not disturbing - it’s just obsessive. And Chase, despite having some routines, doesn’t like obsessive.
After a month or so of strange glances that become even weirder when Chase considers the fact that House turns away the moment he sees Chase looking back at him, Chase becomes a little paranoid. About the fact he might be falling for a person he supposedly has no interest in. He knows that if Cameron gets wind of his emotional state, he won’t hear the end of it for a very long time. Or Foreman. The things they will think… so he just doesn’t talk. To anyone. About- about this. No one needs to know, and it’s all going to be over.
But it’s not, because it’s getting stronger. He knows it’s a cycle: he thinks about it more, and it becomes stronger which forces him to think about it more, making it even stronger. No way out.
Chase tries to define the pivot in time, in the sequence of events. He tries to reason with himself that there really isn’t one central moment which contained everything that changed between them. Yet he sees clearly the moment that House dropped his coffee because he didn’t see Chase’s splayed foot at the right time and it poured in myriad milky drops on the carpet and Chase tried to get up quickly to sort out the mess without letting House fall even though he needn’t have worried because House had his cane for support but Chase didn’t think about it at the time, so he fell instead, looking up at House regaining balance (surprisingly fast) from a very uncomfortable position that (he blushes under the hot water that spray him hard in the shower) was very, very compromising. Not dirty. Compromising. Let’s just say that if one of your colleagues caught you in this position with your boss, in, let’s say, a supply station when they thought the room was empty, you’d be the talk of the ward - not even ward, the whole hospital - in under a day.
Chase’s cheeks turn even rosier under his hands, even though no one can see him, under the dripping water. There was something about that moment that clarified the fact he was crushing, very badly, on his boss. House, of all people! Not a good idea. Just like Andy wasn’t a good idea (he still doesn’t know why he gave in to the wish of a nine-year-old girl). It’s exactly one of those things that are in general Not a Good Idea.
He switches off the water and waits until the last ropes of rapidly cooling liquid finish their fall, before pushing the semi-transparent door of the cubicle open and grabbing the towel, wiping his eyes and blinking, shaking his hair backwards. Saturday sometimes happens to be his day off - just like today, and he doesn’t think he’s been ever more grateful for it. A stressful week is an understatement.
When he glanced up at House - everything but the eyes hazy around him - he saw a petrified, frozen pupil amidst all that blue. It was as if they were sharing an identical brainwave without comprehending the words that it brought. He got up with no help, an eternity later, finding Cameron already brandishing several paper towels and Foreman picking up shards of what used to be a perfectly good red mug. He muttered his apology, helped clean up, unseeing of the state of his clothes, and hurried away somewhere.
He wasn’t aware House didn’t even raise his voice once.
Somewhere else.
He towels his hair until it is in stiff spikes, running fingers through it to unleash the strands. He rubs at his skin until he is certain there is no droplet of water left before pulling the boxers up his legs to rest around his abdomen. Then he hangs the towel back on its stand, leaning his forehead against the cool wall.
He found himself on the rickety bench beside the door to Radiology - a fairly long distance from House’s damn office - with no indication of how he’d got there. House, at this point, would inject the necessary “you walked, duh.” But Chase had no patience for the predictable nature of mockery that House so often carried with him.
He liked that bench because nobody else sat on it. They’d realise it was unsteady when another person would sit on the other end and the already-sat upon side would inexplicably twist to slide them forward, just a fraction, at which they’d stand up, claiming nerves. It was alright to be nervous and anxious in a hospital, because people expected you to behave as such. Sitting here meant Chase could behave fretfully (well, he wasn’t wearing the telltale coat), even for a little while, pretending that this hadn’t shook him up, curled into himself and face in palms, reminding himself just to breathe, mantra-mantra-mantra of breathe.
He grabs the cotton T-shirt, the oversized one he bought when he visited home two years prior. He had no reason to, but it reminded him of the occasional irrationality some people sink into, and the strange things it causes them to do. Like sending their son into a place that would teach him all that he would later renounce, the God he didn’t love anymore, the prayers he had no problem speaking but couldn’t stand hearing because they felt hollow. Administering medicines to target the cause of the illness - that was something he could focus on, automatic pilot. He’s in that mode when it slips over his head, hair dripping chancing leftovers of water on the back, leaving a minuscule trail, wider at the collar.
He’s going to bed and he’s going to sleep and he’s going to wake up in the late hours of the afternoon, refreshed. He doesn’t want to wait for the night. He just wants to sleep.
That’s how House found him on the bench, a sitting foetus. He didn’t say anything, so Chase figured he either didn’t mind about the differential or was going to fill him in later. Either way, Chase was apprehensive about House setting his weight right there beside him, a threat in physicality.
“What’s going on, Chase?” House finally spoke, quietly, unlike his loud bitchy demeanour. “Running out of a differential diagnosis session isn’t like you.” Chase forced back a comment about coffee cups not made like they used to be if they broke so easily. The moment of truth, the day of judgement, the showdown: whatever Chase would call it, it would still mean the same thing, just a different array of sounds to portray that meaning. The hardest thing in that train of thought, the hardest thing in the chain of electric messages in his neural pathways, was to look into House’s eyes - frighteningly close - and try to speak. He already knew with a cold clammy clarity that he wasn’t going to let on the truth, whatever happened.
“It’s nothing.”
Damn doorbell.
Can’t anyone leave him alone? Especially when he’s already tucked into the warm shell of his blanket, a big ball of fabric bunching around him. He groans with the beige covers over his head, ruffling his hair as he pulls it off when the ring repeats.
Yesterday was bad enough. He doesn’t want to recall that lukewarm gush on the floor by him or the person who sat next to him on the rickety bench that was his, right by the door to Radiology.
He glances through the peep-hole, trying to diagnose the face of the intruder. It shouldn’t be a doctor or a colleague because as far as he remembers they weren’t given days off today.
So what the hell does House want now?
The door creaks as it opens a slit. House grins, propelling a finger through and wiggling it in a miniature hello. “You don’t let people in anymore? How rude.”
“I was trying to sleep.”
“And here I was trying to diagnose something it appears you don’t have at all. Shame. That was a good differential gone to waste.”
Chase has no patience. “What do you want, House?”
House is still for a moment, hesitant. “Can I come in?”
Chase thinks, he’s got to have something on his mind. Very well.
“Alright.” He shuts the door carefully, undoing the chain catch on the door, letting him inside. He isn’t uncomfortable because he’s too tired to care, attired in an oversized shirt with a wet collar and plain boxers. “Drink?” he’s trying too hard for the polite host.
“No. thanks.” House limps (why is he noticing it now, more than ever?) through the corridor to the first door on the right, settles on the sofa. “Comfy place.”
“Thanks.”
Now who’s awkward?
After Chase refused to say anymore, House sat a few more moments by his side - maybe the mind will change its thoughts… but this was not the day for it. Chase remained stubbornly quiet, so much so that House finally gave up and leant on his cane, few steps before he came back. Late as it was in the day, not many were milling around Radiology - several nurses if anyone at all. So someone may or may not have seen House’s fingers cheekily ruffling Chase’s hair, may or may not have seen House smirk in jest as Chase stared at him, shocked, may or may not have heard him mutter “I always thought you have great hair” and then the low thump of his cane as he started back towards - well, wherever. Chase could not, at that moment, want to know less.
The silence stretches in the air flowing between them. Chase tries not to pose himself, out of the corner of his eye glimpsing House looking around him, pseudo-interest. It doesn’t fool him. House will say what he wants to say when he is ready to say it, and no button Chase pushes will cause the voice to emit it earlier.
“Why are you so jumpy lately?” House startles him.
“I’m not.”
“Are too.”
“Says who?”
“The expert, also known as me.”
“You think everyone’s jumpy.” Chase yawns.
“If I did, all I’d see would be hopping bunnies. While I don’t generally object to bunnies, they get boring after a while.”
“Humans are hardly bunnies, House.”
“You get my point.” Chase does get the point, stands up and begins a restless pace around the living room, fiddling with whatever he can, twiddling fingers.
“Why are you so edgy?” House coaxes him to let on the answer, again.
“Why do you want to know so much?” Chase gives in exasperatedly, acknowledging, saying, yes, I am agitated.
“I’m a diagnostician. It’s in my nature to want to know things like that. For all I know, you might be coming down with something.” There comes that sarcastic hue.
“I didn’t know you cared. Now tell me why you stare at me so much.” Out in the open, ready to be hunted.
Calculating look. If Chase didn’t know better, he’d swear House is trying to crack a case and this is all a daydream, he’s really wearing his lab-coat, ready to swing out in some unexpected idea for the troubling symptoms.
“You have great hair.” That is not the answer, Chase knows, and so does House and they both know each other too well to believe that bull.
Chase is bored now. This conversation is rapidly progressing towards what he can only term an abysmal failure, so he does the only thing he can think of that would be outrageous enough to either shut House up and force him to leave or coerce him to talk. He turns to stand behind House, clasping his face and orientating his head backwards, plastering a kiss right on his lips. It’s not a very articulate kiss; none of that softly playing tongue Chase knows how to instil with women. It’s almost… rough. And he’s afraid of what he released, because who knows whether it’s the right medicine? Maybe the symptoms were misleading, after all. He slides away, up, returning to shuffle around, hearing a catch of an inhale. He shouldn’t have done that.
“That explains a lot.” Figure House not to be astounded out of his cool airs.
Chase waits to hear the knocking of soled cane, the third leg, direction: the exit, almost as soon as House says that. He doesn’t know why it’s taking House so long to get up this time, so he turns again to see House still seated, thoughtfully rubbing an index finger across his bottom lip, as if expecting Chase to watch him like some non-stripping sex show. Chase is too tired for House to pull that particular string. He just wants - sleep, House, closure - No. Just closure. He wants the pure knowledge of what happens now, no ambiguity and straying glances. Just tell me.
“Tell you what?” House twists his head around, piercing him with that unreadable gaze. Chase didn’t realise he spoke out loud.
“Why you’re doing the- the weird glancing, and extra tapping and- and all the other- other stuff.” Chase has absolutely no idea what the other stuff is, and House knows that, grinning like a cat about to pounce.
“Y’know, for a doctor on my prestigious team, you’re kinda stupid.”
That’s below the belt. Chase gets yelled at enough because it’s always his fault, whatever happens. So he tries to think the way House wants him to, play his silly little game.
“You’re either on a faulty batch of Vicodin or planning to smack me one. Since I know you’re itching to get me fired, I’m fairly certain it’s the latter.” Let’s see House hiding from that one.
“I don’t know what I was smoking the day I hired you. Think! What kind of a disorder would make someone go nervous next to someone else?”
Chase thinks that House is tired of all these interactions that just go on and on, because he is pondering that thought whilst House’s mouth is enveloping his own. He didn’t notice how he moved closer to House when they conversed, or that House was preparing to make one of his sitting leaps.
It is just… there. There is tongue, lots of it, throbbing and undulating in his mouth, and though he never considered men like that before, he’s liking the concept of it more and more; no pause to warn himself that passing crushes on his boss are not a good incentive to have sex with him and that kissing him should stop right about now before he would regret anything. That strange star of unexplored possibilities lies naked in front of him and he has to see more.
“Bedroom that way,” he mumbles throatily into a pair of swollen lips, gently helping House up - knowing he has to be careful with him - stumbling in his pace backwards into the corridor and banging against another door, before disconnecting their faces and holding House’s arm firmly while letting him limp to the bed, severing contact is too much, kissing over jaw-lines and neck. It takes Chase one second to walk out again, giving himself another ten in which to grab House’s cane from the living room, deciding that if there are consequences he’ll deal with them instead of backing off and wondering where the hell he left the box of condoms and whether spit would be okay for lubricant because he doesn’t use the official brands.
House is breathing harshly when Chase is back, dragging his oversized tee off his body.
“Not just great hair, I see,” House doesn’t miss the cue for a comment with extra cheese, providing the toothy smile and wink to accessorize it. Chase lunges at House, a symphony of mouth on mouth on tongues on clavicles, earlobes wetted and jawbones tickled with frayed breath. It amazes Chase that the awkward-to-craving transition is so fast.
He is straddling House, mindful of the ruined leg when stripping him of jacket and shirt, sliding himself down cautiously to undo a few buttons on stubborn denims. House kicks off one shoe, waits for Chase to get the other one. And the socks. House deadpans to Chase that nobody has sex with socks. Chase actually did hear of a few cases but he’s not going to elaborate when he’s pulling trouser-sleeves away from wiry limbs.
He’s enjoying this, he realises. Honest to god enjoys the feel of body parts that aren’t completely clean of hair and are sharp and angular and hard. He’s not used to this and he likes it.
He sucks on a turgid pink nipple, discovering it causes House to mewl helplessly, so to be really bad he also does it to the other one, simultaneously snaking palms over a hardened groin and to be really, really brave, he pushes his right hand under the tight material to touch, grasp, move back and forth this tunnel he curls his fingers into. House seems to like it, because he’s moaning even louder, shoving fingers roughly into his hair and his back and his ass somehow all at the same time.
House breaks away, panting. This icy spark in his eyes speaks volumes, Chase feels like he’s utterly raw inside those eyes. Clumsily he searches the bedside cabinet, hoping fervently there is a familiar box there - Yes! Score! - tilting himself sideways to clasp at it and bring it all the way to House’s chest. House winces a little with the movement, but quietens.
“Pick one,” Chase whispers hoarsely. He didn’t mean to whisper, but the effect on House is… erotic.
House’s eyes glint mischievously. “Does that mean I get to fuck you?”
Chase didn’t think about that. Consequences, consequences, ticking in his head as the clock’s hands are suddenly more deafening than both of them. No tick-tock will ever make everything go back to the way it was - may as well…
“Pick one,” Chase repeats. He smiles. House grins back - something real. Fingers latch around one square foil and drag it out, split it open, reveal a circular slick ring of, well, rubber. What did he expect?
Chase elevates himself slowly; like a striptease, standing high over House on the bed still springing lightly from his impact, boxers come away - push down one hip, push down the other, down left thigh, down right thigh, bending when he’s at the knees, unashamedly stiff and wanting, underwear spiralling off the bed as his foot throws them away. House doesn’t gasp, but he does wolf-whistle noisily enough for any neighbours to hear. Chase stoops to pull off House’s, just as slowly and jaggedly. Rolls onto him that little safety measure. And then stops as a thought lightning-strikes.
“Spit’s okay, isn’t it?”
“How should I know?” House laughs openly.
“You’ve never done this?” he doesn’t find that hard to believe; it’s the fact that House just rushed into it, no looking back, that throws him off his balance for a moment.
“Few times. Not with your crude spit, though.”
After a moment of dithering he hawks one into his palm (“nice and juicy”, House remarks) and smears it as evenly as he can on House’s erection, which is when the latter chuckles.
“What?” on the defensive.
“You might want to- never mind, on your back and spread your legs.” Chase does so, pulling one knee as high as it would go. “Not that innocent, then, are we?” House smirks and sucks on a finger then two and- oh! That feels strange, fingers invading a secret niche.
“I think maybe we did cover this in med-school,” Chase groans. The stretch of his ass is coarse, scissoring motions and eyes clouded because they’re shut so tight but- oh, that feels nice, right- there! - did he really just squeal?
“Hey Mikey, I think he likes it,” House exclaims melodramatically, leaning on one hand and one knee as his fingers continue their in-out drive. Chase opens one eye and then another, lifts his hips.
“Let me back on top,” he says, pupils already dilated. House just looks at him, fingers questing deeper and deeper. And then he draws them out and rolls back as Chase re-straddles him.
“You know, it might hurt more like this,” House comments.
Chase doesn’t say anything, holding House’s erection and guiding it towards himself, thigh muscles working and screaming as he is rigid on them. This is giving him the last semblance of control in the midst of this lovely insanity. Hits the perineum. Tries again, a little more to the back, feeling something solid and unfamiliar at his hole. And he’s just not afraid anymore.
“Relaxing helps, so I’ve heard,” House murmurs as his palms close around Chase’s midriff, gentle in their warm caress of flesh. Chase just looks at him and it’s searching, questioning, asking for that closure, the permission to cross a line time can never and will never rebuild. House nods, stroking his thighs, and Chase lowers himself unhurriedly - lazily - ouch.
He thinks the discomfort may be scribed on his features because House winks, “told you relaxing helps,” and he’s got one moment to do that before House aids him along, plunging hips up-up-up-
“Uhh!” he never knew he could moan so loudly or starkly raw. “What did-” breath “-you just do?” now leaning forth on his hands, pillars either side of House’s shoulders.
“Judging by that sound, probably hit your prostate. But you never know, maybe I struck a pile of gold. I don’t really know what you keep in that virginal ass of yours.” House doesn’t seem too fazed. Okay. Prostate. He can work with that. Let’s see what House does. Suddenly it’s not just a reckless act of unbound lust, but also a game: whose reaction is the strongest.
House thrusts freely into him, Chase feels muscles he only unconsciously used before contracting most pleasurably, shallow angle aiming into him there, his body clumsily reciprocating movement.
It’s abandoned passion and a teasing match and he’s loving it, sweat in the folds of their skin, shining on arms and torsos and dripping from strands and tresses of hair and this friction; this time around it’s a mantra-mantra-mantra of friction and heat and want.
Chase knows, through the haze of sex, that he’s close because he’s gasping even harder and can’t feel more exposed than he is and his toes are curling, damn it, hands on the wall bracing above the bed frame, and shit, he’s gonna - more cataclysmic than he’s ever before in his life, it seems - House’s fingers doing that infuriating collected dance on his cock - thrust for thrust inside him, sensing and aware of every nerve and muscle - fuck, he’s absolutely alive - he lets out a whining groan and it’s not ‘going to’, he is coming - white viscosity on his stomach and House’s stomach, overloading when he realises House is still like an electric charge, pumping so unfathomably he’s surely lost by now, eyes shut, mouth open and - something spurts inside him, unbelievably scalding to his hypersensitive tissues; House’s body arching into him, this crude prose in motion of a simple wanton, basic and needing.
Wet and spent and tired and satisfied. House falls back with dirge slowness, and Chase slumps on House when he feels like all the bones in his body have finally evaporated, when he’s held on straight-backed for long enough; slumps for a long while, perspiration gluing skin together pleasantly, utterly static.
House being House, which means he always has to comment about everything, looks Chase in the eyes - softly too close in distance - and grins widely.
“I forget, who said it was nothing?”
Chase has just enough energy to emit a low chuckle because really, House is always right.