Fic: Sinnerman, Prophet, Saint (6/?)
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.
A/N: My apologies for not posting sooner. Life was very hectic this past month and I wasn’t able to get any editing done. Hopefully, interest hasn’t been completely lost, and hopefully things will settle down enough to allow me to finish posting the rest of the story in good time. All your questions should be answered as the story continues. Thanks for all the great responses! ^^
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!
Chapter 6: The Unknown Self
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He was walking with someone. They were at his left side but he couldn’t turn left to look at them and when he turned right he couldn’t go far enough around. Whoever was there remained faceless and constant. It was the waves of the ocean at his feet that drew most of his attention. It was peaceful here, though he knew that at all its other shores there were masterpieces of unhappiness.
“Robin, what are you looking at?” From his right, his tall friend came up next to him and followed his gaze out the window. “You’re father’s not here yet, is he?”
Robbie shook his head and stared up at this best-friend his other constant companion.
“Well, he’ll miss a great game.” Warm brown eyes looked down at him and the much loved face brightened with a grin. “But I’ll be there.” He handed the black and white football in his hands to the little boy. “I’ll always be there.”
“No you won’t,” Robert corrected. He took the ball, small hands fumbling with it for a second before getting a good grip.
Warren still grinned, not hearing or not taking him seriously. “Come on. You don’t want to be late.” He ruffled the bright blond hair and turned from the room. Robert didn’t follow immediately. He looked back at the painting and wished that he could spend another day at the beach with his parents. In this painting there was a storm on the horizon and it was those days on the beach he liked the best. The impending arrival of the distant and, at the time, quiet tempest had always churned an excitement within him. As the day wore on the sun would become paler, the smell of the air blowing onto shore from the ocean would changed. The atmosphere was charged and ready to erupt in a maelstrom of wind, rain and lightning and thunder. And though he’d never seen the release -they always went home before the storm made landfall -he’d always wondered about the destruction it caused. Especially since when they went back on another day the beach looked very much the same as it had. He liked that something so beautiful and fragile in appearance could withstand the fearsome onslaught he imagined it took.
The stairs were misshapen as he went down them, too steep in some respect, yet he didn’t fall. He knew that if he ignored it he would get through it unharmed. He reached the main floor and the world became upright as it was meant to be. His limbs became heavy though, and though he tried to walk quickly he seemed to barely take each step. Getting to the living room was a long and difficult trek and when he arrived he found strangers seated and standing.
“What do you want?”
Their leader stood. “We’re looking for Robert.”
“He’s not here,” a voice that sounded like Robert’s said but it wasn’t him.
“Lying is a sin, you know,” the man said. A woman stepped forward as well. A woman who was supposed to be his friend. Her presence evoked a sting of betrayal from a memory he couldn’t recall. “You can’t choose what you are,” the man went on, “or who.”
A resounding clap of thunder echoed within the room. Its power and sudden emergence knocked them all to the ground, except for the goat in the corner of the room. It approached. First on all fours, then it stood and walked on its hind legs. Robert wanted to run but his legs were stuck. And try as he might, he couldn’t escape.
A burst of light from behind him warmed his back. He turned and could barely hold his eyes against the blinding white light. He couldn’t escape that either. His feet were still stuck.
He worried that the clash of these two forces would tear his home apart, when he probably should have been more concerned with the astral ramifications of the conflict. But he was just a man, just one man among many and all he knew was this life, this one struggle. It was his and it was simple, and he would find his way through it if they would just leave him alone.
In a flash of all things, left and right, duty and freedom, the clash was brought to a tense simmer with the appearance of two beings, one facing side each, holding back the wrath and uproar to leave a small patch of peace where he was safe for now. They were androgynous, indistinct and familiar those two spectres. He would have approached, touched them, but they turned their heads in unison to him and asked in absolute and overwhelming silence a question that he could not repeat and could not answer. He turned away and grabbed the book, the one he’d been looking for. It felt heavy and old in his hand. He clutched it to his chest as he ran as fast and as far as he could. The conflict was left behind.
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House had forgotten about Henderson. He’d forgotten about the woman, the flower, the break-in, the blackmail. He’d forgotten about the message he had covertly slipped between the psychiatrist’s charts. He’d forgotten Chase’s warning. He’d also forgotten that Henderson was the head of the psychiatric department in the hospital. Perhaps asking for Chase to be put on suicide watch hadn’t been the smartest move. That flower really was going to bite him in the ass.
“What the hell is this?”
House squinted at the rumpled paper in the other man’s hand. He contemplated denying it, denying everything.
“Don’t deny it, you miserable louse!”
There went that plan. “Name calling? What is this grade school? I thought we were above that?”
“But not above blackmail.”
“That’s more a high-school level of malice. And it’s not blackmail until I ask you for something.” House hadn’t wanted anything, except to see the other man twist in the web of his own lies. So, he held his newfound knowledge over the man’s head, threatening to tell his wife or colleagues but made no request in exchange for the incriminating information.
Aghast, Henderson took half a second to temper his outrage and respond. “Is this just another power play for you?”
“Certainly looks that way,” House falsely confirmed. “Now get the hell out of my office before I make an announcement over the PA system.” He was in no mood to deal with Henderson. The conundrum of Chase and the mysterious wounds were the owners of all his attention. The mystery of the young lady with the allergies to a certain rare flower, and the doctor whose well-known hobby was growing rare flowers was yesterdays news.
“And stay away from my patient, Doctor House, or Cuddy will be the next person to get a visit from me.”
“Just don’t give her any flowers.”
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---H/C---
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He tripped over a branch and fell into a small river, more a stream. The book fell out of his grasp and into the water that was too shallow and the current too weak to move it. Soaked, he crawled the short distance through the stream to the ancient tome. The river flowed smoothly around it, wetting the cover and seeping into the pages but like the beach in the storm it withstood and he wasn’t worried. He was confused though, when he tried to pick the book up and couldn’t. There was another person holding it. Robert stared down at his reflection who also was grasping the precious volume. He tried to pull and his reflection did the same. The book didn’t budge.
Robert tilted his head right. His reflection also tilted his head to his right. There was something wrong with that.
“You don’t want this,” his reflection said and Robert felt himself saying it as well.
“I need to know,” Robert responded and though his reflection mouthed the words too they weren’t actually his. “I thought I’d be better off not knowing, but I’m not. They won’t let me.”
“I’m not ready. One man’s pain is better than all.”
Robert stared at himself. Behind his reflection the trees became a deeper green as slender vines wove their way through the branches. All at once they bloomed and a shelter of white flowers emerged over his head blocking the bright Australian sun. A few blossoms and petals floated down from the trees to dot the ground and some to be carried away by the flowing water. One blossom landed on the cheek of his reflection. Robert reached out to brush it away. He let go of the book with his other hand as well and gave up. He really didn’t need to know. He would be like the others.
The tiny patches of sunlight that slipped through the fragile roof of flowers began to grow as the light became more intense and the plants began to burn. Unperturbed, Robert watched it happen behind his reflection in the water and felt burning debris brush against him as it fell. Some fell on him, burning small dots of flesh on his feet, wrists, his back, side and forehead. He lay down in the unchanging stream and soothed his injuries in the cool water. The ache remained but it was less painful. As the sky blinded and the forest burned, he stared up at it all, unmoved, ignorant and content. He closed his eyes and rested.
He awoke from his peaceful reposed with a start. He couldn’t sit up. Something was holding down his arms. People rushed to him. He didn’t respond to their questions or comments, still trying to collect himself. He remembered the tranquility of a moment ago and even as part of him yearned to go back to it, another part of him revelled in being freed, as though without even knowing it he’d been trying to escape the dream and had suddenly won.
He began to relax. The familiar surroundings of the hospital and a few familiar faces eased his unrest and confusion. The comfort was short-lived. Burning, stinging pain lanced across his back producing a cry more of shock than of pain. Another came and marked him, rending the skin. He tried to get away from it but he was still restrained. His back arched, eyes went wide, and vision went grey. The streaks of pain came in quick succession, almost all at once. It ended as abruptly as it started and Chase laid there, numb in the centre of the chaos he’d caused.
Their pagers went off almost in unison. They didn’t spare a glance at their boss before heading to their patient. House levered himself out of the chair and went as well, his pace much more sedate. He arrived just as they were turning Chase onto his side and though he couldn’t see what had caused everyone to suddenly pause and gawk, he knew it was bad. The busy motions of nurses and doctors getting what they needed churned the swarm of people and House broke through the eddies to see for himself the damage.
Lash marks criss-crossed the expanse of Chase’s back, many of them seeping lightly scented blood. Perhaps more unusual than the scent and even the appearance of this lacerations was the flow of the blood. Chase was on his left side. The blood should have been flowing down the span of his back to bed. Instead it flowed down the length of his back as though he were sitting up.
House stepped back to allow the proper attention to reach his fellow. He watched and thought furiously, and in vain.
“Maybe it’s time for a consult,” Wilson suggested as he came up beside the diagnostician.
“You think it’s cancer?” House asked, purposely misconstruing what Wilson was trying to say.
“I think you know what it is. You just won’t accept it.”
“I think you’re afraid that the real explanation won’t be the one you want, so you won’t even let me try and find it.”
Wilson shook his head and looked away, exasperated even after a short time with House. “I’m afraid you’re going to kill him by withholding the treatment that he needs, treatment you can’t give.”
“So we should hand him over to people who consider this to be a gift from their god?” House asked angrily. “I guess you may want it, but for my birthday, don’t get me pain and suffering.” House quickly took his leave. He wasn’t helping being there and watching Chase dazed and pained wasn’t helping him. Usually the arrival of a new symptom would have him metaphorically rubbing his hands together and cackling (maybe literally depending on his mood). More symptoms narrowed down the possible causes. In this case House didn’t like where the symptoms pointed.
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As the small hands of clocks in the eastern time zone approached the ten Chase was still a prisoner of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. In consideration of the injuries on his back he was allowed to lie on his side. They’d generously freed him of the restraints as well. There were still a lot of rumours making their own rounds through the hospital but they no longer included self-mutilation, not that Chase cared. He couldn’t escape. He’d tried and was caught.
“So predictable.” Not ‘caught ‘cha!’ Not ‘Freeze!’ Not ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Predictable, as if his only purpose was to make sure he was still amusing to his boss.
More annoying than House, were House’s subsequent actions. He’d called security, ordered them to take the patient back to his room and make sure he stayed there. As Chase was being escorted away House had loudly announced that he was going home. Chase had hoped that he would fall going down the stairs where he’d just cornered the would-be escapee.
So now security was popping by every so often. There was no pattern and even if there was, the nurses were also on alert. It would take a freaking miracle for him to get out of here.
“Hello Robbie.”
That wasn’t his miracle. Or maybe it was. It had been days since he’d last seen Warren. Before that it had been seven years. The last few days had been harder.
Mayes was much better company than anyone else who’d been by to see him. Foreman had come. Chase had pretended to be asleep. He wasn’t sure if Foreman bought it or simply took it as an easy way out of the social nicety he wasn’t really enthusiastic about anyway. Cameron had been next, about half an hour later. She didn’t buy his sleeping performance and had forced the conversation he didn’t want. She’d offered to stay with him. He’d declined, now resigned to his nightmare with hope of a medical answer having fled him, and made it clear that he preferred solitude. When she left there was something very close to pity in her eye. She might have thought he made a mistake turning her away. Chase didn’t see himself regretting it any time soon.
Mayes glanced over his shoulder in an anxious manner. “So…uh, you ready to get out of here?”
Sitting up Chase nodded. With a brief smile Mayes handed him a purple set of scrubs.
“Stole them from some closet. There were plenty. One pair won’t be missed.”
Chase didn’t need convincing. It took some help to get the clothes on. Though there was enough blood flow making it to his hands that they weren’t necrotizing, the damage to his writs still left his hands nearly useless. Mayes helped with his the pants too, slipping up Chase’s lower legs while he was still seated then having him stand to pull them up the rest of the way.
“Just like old times,” Mayes said fondly, gently brushing his thumb over a lightly stubbled cheek. “C’mon.”
Chase slipped on the flimsy slippers the hospital had given him. “What about security, and the nurses?”
“They’re taken care of.” Mayes checked that the coast was clear before stepping into the corridor. “There’s a curious white fog in the diagnostic department,” Mayes told him, sounding far too pleased. Revenge and diversion all in one -it didn’t get any better than that.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing that he doesn’t deserve.”
That was probably true, Chase figured but he still wasn’t entirely pleased.
The break out went smoothly. Even with the few close calls necessitating that they hide around corners it was a fairly simple getaway. Weakened from the blood loss and the minimal nutrition over the last two days, Chase was dizzy and tired before they even made it to the car, his car actually. The light blue Oldsmobile was just down the way, parked next to the sidewalk that rimmed the hospital.
“Stay, here,” Mayes said and allowing Chase to rest against the brick wall next to the bare metal side-door from which they exited. It was inconspicuous, hidden by the manicured foliage of the hospital, so it was a reasonable place for Chase to stay a short while. Mayes went to get the car and nearly made it.
“Where is he?”
Mayes, froze and let his shoulders slump. “Dr. House,” he greeted as the man emerged from a patch of darkness left by one of the burnt out lamps. “Late night?”
He’d been paged about a problem with his office. His arrival to the hospital had been swift. Not because he was worried but because he was nearby; in the theological library doing research. “I’m not in the mood for this! Where is he?” A lesser man might have been scared -if not by the tone then by the object in his right hand that could quickly be turned into a weapon.
“You know where he is. You’re the one who imprisoned him in the hospital. If he’s lost it’s your fault.”
“It’s not my fault if you kidnapped him.”
“I wouldn’t need to kidnap him. He would come with me voluntarily.” Mayes returned House’s glare as the unkempt man walked past him. “Pisses you off, doesn’t it.”
House swore he’d never heard a more annoying Australian accent. What was it about this guy that screamed to him ‘hit me’!
“You don’t like being second to any one.”
“Can you keep your dodgy psychoanalysis to yourself? I don’t think my ego can take it,” he deadpanned. The vivid blue eyes scanned the surroundings. He set off towards the side exit he knew was hidden behind some tall shrubs. With his cane to move the plants out of the way and the LED light on his keychain to illuminate, House searched the brush. “Aha!” House quickly stepped back out to the side walk and observed Mayes. “I didn’t actually find anything. You’re expression tells me I should have. So either Chase can make himself invisible too, or he’s slipped off somewhere.” House stared at Mayes, daring him to deny it.
“He couldn’t have gone far.”
House nodded slightly in agreement and set off in the most likely direction. The one that lead away from the hospital entrance. It was a dark path so it wouldn’t have been hard to sneak past unnoticed while House and Mayes had argued.
Mayes went along with him. They searched in silence for several minutes before Mayes felt the need to set things straight. “You’ve had your chance. When we find him he’s leaving with me.”
“Leaving to where? What’s he trying to get away from? Far as I know there’s nowhere far away enough to escape your God,” House replied, sounding not even vaguely interested, but he was.
“‘My God’,” Mayes repeated irritated by House’s words. He huffed out a mirthless laugh. “Why don’t you let me worry about that? Robert is my concern. You don’t want him anyway.”
“You can’t tell me what you don’t know.”
“So you do want him. Or you just want what you can’t have.” Mayes didn’t allow House to respond. He walked quickly away choosing another island of tall bushes to explore. House glared at his back. He was about to go in a direction that took him further away from Mayes, needing to put some distance between them before they came to blows, but he stopped. On the ground a few paces in front of him was a dark patch in grey cement. It stood out even in the dusk and poor illumination of the campus streetlamps. The small area was quickly lit up with the keychain flashlight. The concrete was the expected grey. The stain was the expected red. Fresh too -it smeared when House pushed the tip of his cane through it.
Aiming his light forward a little farther, House found another similar stain and farther ahead there were more. It was a trail. House followed it, stepping alongside it, measuring the distance between each bloody splotch. The distance was just right for footsteps. Perhaps a little close together, but he knew Chase wasn’t in the best shape at the moment. House followed the trail up a small set of stairs on the terrace of the quaint little courtyard where the trail led. He found a bloody mark on the brass railing. Then he looked up.
The statue before him stood out in the little available light, it’s figure catching his eye before that of his fellow laying under it. Arms outspread in welcome, clothes draping gracefully from her form, a figure House assumed to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary was captured timelessly in stone. Her head was tilted a touch to her left and her sightless eyes still managed to compel the a gentle, welcoming expression.
“Robin!” Mayes rushed past House who’d paused to stare at the statue, and tended to the unconscious young man lying below its feet. “Robbie, you’ll be okay,” Mayes assured gathering the tense body into his arms. Mayes was about to pick him up. He stopped and took notice of something disconcerting and new.
In his feet, one in each limb, passing all the way through were new wounds. A steady trickle of blood flowed from them. Dismayed, Mayes held Chase a little tighter. A soft grunt accompanied the effort required of him to pick Chase up. He ducked his face in to rest against the blond man’s warm cheek. He silently begged, prayed and hoped for this to end.
“Has it rained in the last couple of hours?” House’s question came out to the blue.
“No. Why?” Mayes answered barely paying him any attention.
House shook his head in disbelief and held his light to the face of the statue. “Because that isn’t normal.”
Mayes glanced back, then up at the carved face -the carved, weeping face. From the blank eyes, trickles of water fell. They traced a narrow path over the smooth cheeks, met at the rounded, graceful chin and then fell to the blood-stained ground.
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The blue Buick was rather old. In what House assumed was a flight of paranoia Mayes had decided to take it rather than his own rental car. Whatever his reasons House didn’t care except that that the seats were less comfortable than most newer vehicles. In what might only be a mild exaggeration House estimated that it was older than the man who owned it. He imagined it was pretty pathetic to pick up a date in this un-pimped ride. Now there was an idea. Maybe Xzibit would come to Princeton to pimp out a pretty white boy’s car. Foreman would probably have a conniption.
House looked down at the head lying on his lap. On consideration it wasn’t completely fallacious to imagine that a young woman wouldn’t mind such an ugly vehicle if it brought a handsome man to her.
Women.
“Chase.” House gently tried to wake his fellow. He wasn’t sure if this was another strange bout of unconsciousness or just plain old sleep. He poked Chase in the cheek with his finger and called his name again -again, no response. Okay, so not plain old sleep.
“How is he?”
House met Mayes’s eyes in the rear view mirror. “I can’t tell. He needs to be at a hospital.”
“You haven’t been able to do anything for him. You had your chance.”
“I just need more time.”
Mayes struck the steering wheel. House flinched. “There is no more time! This is it. You were his last chance, and now…now we do this my way.”
House shook his head and didn’t subtract the contempt from his expression when Mayes glanced back at him.
“You’re free to leave whenever you like, Doctor House,” Mayes informed.
“I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have to. You aren’t my concern.”
“Chase does what I do. I don’t trust you. He won’t trust you.”
Mayes laughed. “He doesn’t even like you.” He refocused his attention to the road, leaving House to smart. In honesty he wasn’t pleased that the diagnostician was still around. He’d simply invited himself along by getting in the car and refusing to leave. Mayes knew if need be, he could have overpower Dr. House. He hadn’t, and every so often he found himself regretting it. Thankfully it was a regret that he could easily remedy later.
They had just turned onto Chase’s street and were a block away when Mayes slowed. After a few seconds he pulled the car off the road and stopped entirely. House copied Mayes in searching the neighbourhood through the windshield. He didn’t see anything suspicious.
“What are you waiting for?”
Mayes shook his head, his eyes still darting over the urban landscape. “Something’s not right.” He breathed heavily through his nose, the agitation creeping up his back. He pulled a face and started the car moving. He made a sharp U-turn. “They’re waiting.”
“Who?”
“People with plans for Robert.”
“What plans?”
Tense seconds passed until finally, “…I don’t know.”
Fantastic. He was stuck with a half-wit that didn’t even know half the plot. On his lap Chase groaned softly. His eyes were pinched closed and his lips were parted for the shallow agitated breaths. He could feel Mayes glance worriedly back while still trying to keep them on the road. House didn’t know what to do. Thankfully instinct didn’t require knowledge. His right hand was running through the blond tresses before he could think better of it. Chase’s head turned away from the touch which put his face brushing against House’s pelvis. House couldn’t dissimulate the awkwardness of having the young man’s face so close to his crotch. His wide eyes gazed warily down but his hand didn’t relent in its motions. Unable to escape and unharmed by the touch, Chase relaxed. House wished Chase would turn the other way. Under his clothes his skin tingled with the sensation of an embarrassing touch that only existed in his imagination, so long as Chase didn’t turn further into him.
“Where else can we go?”
Pulling his mind from the puerile disquiet, House responded. “Two-two-one Baker Street.”
“Is that your place?” Mayes’s opposition if it was evident in his voice.
“You have somewhere better?”
Of course he didn’t. House’s place it was. House had almost given Wilson’s address but he needed to regroup at his place. Besides, Wilson’s new place was on the eighth floor. There was little chance of them getting to it without being noticed since Chase couldn’t walk, even if he were conscious, and his bandages weren’t soaked through with blood. If a knocked out bleeding man didn’t grab somebody’s suspicion then House was Santa Claus.
“Put him on the couch,” House instructed. He held the door open for Mayes to carry Chase in. He could add Chase’s blood to the list of other bodily fluids that had sullied his couch.
While Mayes got Chase settled House closed the door and took out his phone. Mayes eyed him when he noticed House was making a call. His eyes dared House to call the cops or the ambulance again. House met the challenge unblinking. “Hey, Wilson, come over to my place. Bring the books on my desk with you…Yeah, I know…I’m always five steps ahead. And bring some bandages too…just get over here.” He snapped his phone closed. “Oncologists,” he complained to Mayes. Perching himself on the armrest of the piece of furniture now occupied by his intensivist, House watched Mayes pace up and down the apartment frantically thinking. He watched the muted apprehension play out in the man’s limbs and on the few lines of his face. House would have tripped him if he wasn’t so sure that the tall man would punch him, both in retribution and to alleviate his tension.
House nearly sighed in relief when the knock at his door interrupted the silence. Mayes darted to the door and slowly opened it, ready to attack or defend if need be. It wasn’t needed. Wilson was about as harmless as they came.
He glanced at the House and the unfamiliar man cautiously as he stepped in. “Where’s Chase?”
House tilted his head toward the seat of his couch. Wilson gave House one of his looks; this one saying that he was cleaning up his mess yet again, but this was the last time. It never was.
While Wilson tended to Chase, House kept an eye on Mayes who was keeping a wary eye on Wilson. The oncologist -his role briefly switching to nurse -replaced the soaked bandages that had begun to unwrap and hang loosely on the patient. He was just finished with the right wrist and was about to ask for help getting at Chase’s back when House interrupted.
“Don’t forget his feet.”
Mildly confused Wilson looked up at him. House didn’t elaborate so Wilson gingerly unwrapped the dark towel that had been around the blond man’s feet and found two more wounds. He must have been staring for several seconds, maybe even minutes at the rounded injuries. He heard distantly House say something. The words escaped his notice but the tone was the typical abrasive one that House usually bore when faced with a situation of which he thought he was in control.
“House!” Wilson interjected suddenly, silencing his friend and preventing the angry retort Mayes had been gearing up to make. “This isn’t a puzzle for you anymore. He needs help that you can’t give him.” Wilson lightly probed the area surrounding the deep red and still bleeding wound, wincing in sympathy even though Chase didn’t respond.
“This is exactly a puzzle for me.”
“I know how much you enjoy bringing down establishments, but he’s suffering.”
“No, he’s not. He’s unconscious…or asleep…or something.”
“You don’t have a clue, House.”
“Neither do you. You believe in remissions and miracles. What kind of miracle is it to suffer without a cause?”
“You’ve been suffering for years for no reason! You tell me!”
“Enough!” Both Wilson and House were silenced by the low, accented and yet forceful command. “Dr. House, your methods have failed…”
“Don’t sound so happy about it,” House mocked under his breath.
“…And we’re not going to look for help anywhere else.”
The two doctors (that were conscious) spared a second to glance at each other then to Mayes. His desperation and anxiety were showing through his determination and his fierce protectiveness of their colleague. Their confusion pertaining to the source of his fierce emotion was prominent, but more so was his resolve that Chase would not, absolutely and under no circumstances, see a man of faith.
“No faith in science,” House started, slipping into his familiar assessing drawl when dissecting people. “No faith in…God.”
“I have faith in people,” Mayes corrected. However, his tone implied that this faith was not a virtue. “I know that they’re stupid, selfish creatures that can’t be trusted. Not even those that pledge themselves to their Lord.”
House and Mayes glared eye-to-eye until finally…
“Wow. You’re tortured soul came through on that one. I bet it drives the young ladies crazy.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“You’re observant.”
“…guys…” At Wilson’s soft call House and Mayes turned to him then followed his gaze to Chase, who now had his eyes open and seemed conscious, if a little silent. “Chase?” Wilson called softly. He’d been shocked into stillness and moment ago when he turned away from his friend and the stranger’s argument to find his patient looking at him with an unnervingly blank gaze.
“Robin.” Mayes went to a knee to get closer. The blue-green eyes shifted to him.
“Hi,” was Chase’s short, soft and simple greeting. He saw Mayes smile in relief and saw Wilson’s tension drain. His immediate concern for them passing as their ease returned, Chase turned his attention to the unfamiliar surroundings. The ceiling was white and a square-ish light fixture was up there. The walls were a light blue-grey and there was a black baby-grand piano in the far corner of the room. He wondered who played. His question was answered as he continued his perusal and noticed for the first time that House was seated on the arm rest of the couch above his head.
“Sleep well?”
On guard and unsure how to respond, Chase just blinked. After a stretch of silent seconds he ventured a response. “I wasn’t sleeping.” It was practically an open invitation to ask what he had been doing. Realizing this, and also realizing he didn’t want to get into it with House, who was too curious and too sceptical as it was. Chase addressed Mayes. “They’re around, you know.”
“I know,” Mayes agreed reluctantly.
“We have to go.”
Mayes nodded solemnly.
“You can’t go anywhere in your condition. Dr. Chase, you know that,” House said condescendingly down to him. House didn’t want Chase going anywhere that he couldn’t find him, and that seemed to be exactly what Mayes was planning. Recalling the packed boxes from the small apartment and his sudden announcement that he quit House assumed that Chase had been planning a trip away too.
“Rest here for a bit. I’ll get my things and then we’ll go -together.” Mayes brushed Chase’s cheek with the back of his fingers. “Okay?”
Waiting seemed an impossible task to Chase just then. He wanted to go, just disappear until this blew over. And he wanted to go now. Warren must have read his impatience.
“I have to get some things,” he placated. His rental car was still parked nearby Chase’s place and there were items he needed. He’d left in his rental the paper with a list of trusted contacts there, in case he had been caught during the hospital breakout and the list was lost. They had few allies in this and Mayes had a feeling they would need every one.
Exhaling shakily, Chase gave a weak nod. Mayes returned one of his own and only when Chase looked away did he find the strength to move from his dear friend and lover’s side.
Taking House by the arm, Mayes forced the crippled man to show him to the door. Wilson, horrified by the unfamiliar man’s rough treatment, realized that, like House, he expected people to go out of their way to help the crippled man even if he was a jerk. Mayes didn’t suffer fools, or arrogant physicians.
“Don’t let him go outside. Don’t let strangers in. Don’t take him back to the hospital. I don’t think Dr. Henderson would be very understanding at the moment. And if I find Robert back there, I’ll kill you. We clear?”
Pained and bothered House didn’t even argue. “Crystal. Get out.” That didn’t mean that he’d follow the orders just that he was sick of this man’s presence and wanted him gone as soon as possible.
Mayes took one last measuring look at the older man before leaving. He didn’t trust House, couldn’t imagine himself ever trusting or even liking him. Grudgingly, though, he trusted the man’s instinct. The desperate state left him with no recourse, so he might simply have been looking for something to ease his mind about the diagnostician’s character. And if something did go terribly wrong, he wouldn’t feel bad about taking it out on House.
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---H/C---
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Babysitting, that’s what he’d been reduced to doing, just with a bigger baby. Instead of changing diapers he was changing bloody bandages. A baby would have been fussier and probably more entertaining (at least for a short while). The silence, while helpful for House’s reading, was uncomfortable. Seated at the small table which doubled as his dining and poker table, House skimmed through the books on Stigmata and related subjects he’d retrieved from the library.
Wilson had left a half hour ago, about twenty minutes after Mayes. His patient, one of the ones knocking on death’s door, needed him back at the hospital. He’d taken a break from the relatives and nurses to tend to House but he knew he couldn’t stay. Unenthusiastically he’d gone, promising House that he wouldn’t call a rabbi to come over. Since his departure there had only been quiet and torment.
Like the previous mysterious injuries, those in Chase’s feet intensified in pain and then eased. There was no apparent pattern to it and the wounds didn’t heighten in pain together. When they did happen to coincide he barely kept from screaming. It hurt so much. However, this was purely physical pain. He wasn’t sure if the mental torment of his recent dreams or visions was worse. He didn’t know which one he would choose and that thought continued to turn over is his mind. That there was a choice to be made somewhere; he just wasn’t sure what the options were, though he was peripherally aware that he’d been making this choice all his life and proving it every seven years. Never like this though.
His feet began to pulse with pain and it caught him off guard. A muffled cry forced its way out before Chase could hold it all back. He turned his face to the back of the couch hoping to muffle it further.
The searing ended and Chase felt in control enough to relax a little. The marks on his back made that difficult but the constant pressure on his weight on them smeared the episodes of agony and streaks of minor relief into one throbbing, and more easily ignored ache.
“Chase, what is all this?” House was standing over him, having been brought over by the sound of distress. It was just one of many that House had been forced to endure over the past hour. Hearing someone in pain had never bothered him as much as it did now.
Gingerly lowering himself to sit on the coffee table House met the tired gaze. He was tired too. He was tired of repeatedly hitting his head against the wall that was this mystery and not having even a chip of brick to show for it.
“That thing that was on you’re back,” House continued when Chase didn’t respond. He opened the book he’d brought with him to a marked page and showed Chase the image printed there. “It’s a sigil of baphomet. I’m sure you already knew that, and that it’s a symbol commonly used by satanic organizations. I’m sure you also knew that stigmata, according to the ‘experts’, can also be faked by demonic forces.” It was clear in Chase’s eyes that he wasn’t perturbed. “So…are you possessed? Do we really need to call a priest and do an exorcism?” He wasn’t sure how far he wouldn’t go if it gave Chase some relief.
House was far too familiar with unbearable, unmanageable pain not to feel for Chase. Stuck with him in the same apartment, trying to wrap his mind around what he’d seen, what he’d heard and what he believed left him raw and more open than Chase had ever seen him.
“Had one…” Chase croaked, regarding the suggestion of an exorcism. “..didn’t help.” He’d actually had several, or at least several versions of the same idea, all with the same outcome of nothing. “I don’t know why…why this…just want it to stop.”
“Yeah…” me too, Greg thought but refrained from saying. He watched Chase close his eyes, probably trying to fall asleep or reach that special place were the pain couldn’t touch him. House didn’t actually expect him to find it. Since the first appearance of the wounds, those on his wrists, Chase had been almost completely lucid, save for a few strange sleeping episodes. Whatever majesty had been bestowed upon him for a brief stretch of minutes when Cameron and nurses had been trying to help him had fled. Everything since seemed like a punishment. Still, House left him to his search anyway.
His small, long, and sometimes too piously written windows into a world he’d never really believed in regained his attention. The answer probably wasn’t in those books but he needed all the information he could get. He remained seated on the coffee table, perhaps just hoping his proximity would help in some undefined way with Chase’s discomfort.
Several minutes passed until, without warning, the young man sat up on the couch. House moved his eyes up from the book to eye his fellow.
“Chase?”
Chase didn’t respond. He began unwrapping the gauze around his left wrist. House’s bland protest went unheeded. Finally the bandages came off. House sat up straight and abandoned the book to examine Chase’s wrist. It was completely healed. House ran his thumb over the spot where the wound had been and though there was still some tenderness and a faint mark, only the blood smears remained as proof that the skin had ever been broken.
Unwrapping the rest of the dressings found the other wounds in similar states of repair.
House was dumbfounded. Chase too, though he was willing to take the break from the seeping injuries and the excruciating pain.
“Well…it’s convenient, I guess,” Chase couldn’t help but comment. His voice was still weak and wavered a little. The searing had faded to a dull ache, the type he was more familiar with from previous episodes.
“How is this convenient?” House inquired, still at a loss.
A pale smile turned the lips, not enough to light the troubled eyes, only to show House that Chase was attempting to slip back into his usual persona. “Where’s your washroom?”
“At the end,” house replied nodding to the corridor. Chase followed the instruction. His walk was slow. House could tell from his gait that his feet still pained him, though not enough to stop nature from taking it’s course. House abandoned his book and waited for Chase to return. It was interrogation time.
The sound of the toilet flushing reached his ears a minute before Chase was in his sight again. His purple scrubs were rumpled, stained with blood in a few places, but the younger man didn’t look all that much worse for wear.
Unaware of House’s appraisal Chase continued forward, not towards House of the couch where he’d spent most of his time in House’s apartment. He was following another spectre. It was faint, and like many of the others, he couldn’t tell from which side it came. He’d noticed it when he was washing his hands and wrists, removing as much blood as he could. From the corner of his eye he’d seen it in the doorway, just looking at him. When it began away, Chase had followed it out of curiosity.
Now it was in the living room and still moving. Chase followed in its steps until he could go no further. There was a wall in front of him. The spectre had walked right through it. He went to the window to follow the unknown being’s movements. It faded out of sight after stepping off the sidewalk. Chase remained at the window, not shocked, confused or even stunned.
“What is it?” He heard and saw House’s reflection in the glass ask a moment before he felt some of his warmth at his side. “What do you see?”
Chase looked towards House and leaned in close to whisper to him. “I see dead people.” He couldn’t keep a straight face and half a second later he couldn’t hold back the giggle that bubbled up. House, meanwhile, was not amused. Chase was in the middle of one of the biggest religious mysteries on earth, House with him since he was stubborn like that, and he was making jokes?
“That’s not funny.”
Chase disagreed. “It’s lame and it’s funny.” Both wondered if he was headed for a psychotic break. The mirth was under Chase’s control again as he carefully trod back to the couch, and found a place where there was no blood to sit. House sat down next to him after checking that the small smear of blood that Wilson missed on his clean up was dry.
“So nineteen-ninety-three, you’re fourteen. You decide to get a tattoo -rebellion of some feeble sort?” House prompted looking straight ahead at their reflection on the black screen on his television.
Chase shook his head and admitted with difficulty that “It…it wasn’t my choice.”
“Peer pressure doesn’t mean you don’t have a choice, it just means you’re more likely to make the stupid one,” House chastised, putting together Chase’s words and his own ideas to come to the simplest of conclusions.
“Peer pressure?” Chase barked. “Is that what you’d call it when they strap you down and draw marks on your back even while you’re yelling and begging them to stop?”
“No, I’d call that assault.”
“…answer for everything, huh?”
On some days, House liked to imagine so. Every day reminded him he didn’t know much, little matter how many articles he read and mysteries he solved. “Who did it, and why?”
Eyes flitting over objects and decorations of his surroundings, Chase didn’t respond at first. He shrugged. “Mistaken identity.” He didn’t have to look at House or the reflection in the TV to know House didn’t like that answer. “It’s the only answer that makes sense.”
It didn’t make sense to House. “Were they trying to…curse you? Or…”
Chase shook his head. “They…they were trying to bind me.” To hell, to the devil, Chase didn’t say but House heard anyway. “The mark faded. I thought it was over.”
“But it wasn’t. So, who were they? Same people your friend is worried about?”
“Possibly. Probably” Chase corrected. Shaking his head to told House: “They think I’m someone who can change things.” He didn’t want to get into what those things were. “Everything I know tells me I’m not.”
“Then either they’re wrong, or you’re missing information.” Confused and disturbed eyes turned to House but Chase didn’t say anything. “What?”
“…information…” That was familiar; not the word itself -he was well versed in the English language. It was the notion that he perhaps didn't know everything regarding not only the situation, but himself as well, that struck a chord in him.
"What? What is it?"
Chase was going to tell House about his dream, if only so that he could get a second opinion on it, though House believed as much in the prophetic powers of dreams as he did in a supreme being. He didn’t get the chance. As he opened his mouth his intended speech was lost and replaced by dread.
“They're here.”
End Chapter 6
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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.
A/N: My apologies for not posting sooner. Life was very hectic this past month and I wasn’t able to get any editing done. Hopefully, interest hasn’t been completely lost, and hopefully things will settle down enough to allow me to finish posting the rest of the story in good time. All your questions should be answered as the story continues. Thanks for all the great responses! ^^
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!
Chapter 6: The Unknown Self
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---H/C---
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He was walking with someone. They were at his left side but he couldn’t turn left to look at them and when he turned right he couldn’t go far enough around. Whoever was there remained faceless and constant. It was the waves of the ocean at his feet that drew most of his attention. It was peaceful here, though he knew that at all its other shores there were masterpieces of unhappiness.
“Robin, what are you looking at?” From his right, his tall friend came up next to him and followed his gaze out the window. “You’re father’s not here yet, is he?”
Robbie shook his head and stared up at this best-friend his other constant companion.
“Well, he’ll miss a great game.” Warm brown eyes looked down at him and the much loved face brightened with a grin. “But I’ll be there.” He handed the black and white football in his hands to the little boy. “I’ll always be there.”
“No you won’t,” Robert corrected. He took the ball, small hands fumbling with it for a second before getting a good grip.
Warren still grinned, not hearing or not taking him seriously. “Come on. You don’t want to be late.” He ruffled the bright blond hair and turned from the room. Robert didn’t follow immediately. He looked back at the painting and wished that he could spend another day at the beach with his parents. In this painting there was a storm on the horizon and it was those days on the beach he liked the best. The impending arrival of the distant and, at the time, quiet tempest had always churned an excitement within him. As the day wore on the sun would become paler, the smell of the air blowing onto shore from the ocean would changed. The atmosphere was charged and ready to erupt in a maelstrom of wind, rain and lightning and thunder. And though he’d never seen the release -they always went home before the storm made landfall -he’d always wondered about the destruction it caused. Especially since when they went back on another day the beach looked very much the same as it had. He liked that something so beautiful and fragile in appearance could withstand the fearsome onslaught he imagined it took.
The stairs were misshapen as he went down them, too steep in some respect, yet he didn’t fall. He knew that if he ignored it he would get through it unharmed. He reached the main floor and the world became upright as it was meant to be. His limbs became heavy though, and though he tried to walk quickly he seemed to barely take each step. Getting to the living room was a long and difficult trek and when he arrived he found strangers seated and standing.
“What do you want?”
Their leader stood. “We’re looking for Robert.”
“He’s not here,” a voice that sounded like Robert’s said but it wasn’t him.
“Lying is a sin, you know,” the man said. A woman stepped forward as well. A woman who was supposed to be his friend. Her presence evoked a sting of betrayal from a memory he couldn’t recall. “You can’t choose what you are,” the man went on, “or who.”
A resounding clap of thunder echoed within the room. Its power and sudden emergence knocked them all to the ground, except for the goat in the corner of the room. It approached. First on all fours, then it stood and walked on its hind legs. Robert wanted to run but his legs were stuck. And try as he might, he couldn’t escape.
A burst of light from behind him warmed his back. He turned and could barely hold his eyes against the blinding white light. He couldn’t escape that either. His feet were still stuck.
He worried that the clash of these two forces would tear his home apart, when he probably should have been more concerned with the astral ramifications of the conflict. But he was just a man, just one man among many and all he knew was this life, this one struggle. It was his and it was simple, and he would find his way through it if they would just leave him alone.
In a flash of all things, left and right, duty and freedom, the clash was brought to a tense simmer with the appearance of two beings, one facing side each, holding back the wrath and uproar to leave a small patch of peace where he was safe for now. They were androgynous, indistinct and familiar those two spectres. He would have approached, touched them, but they turned their heads in unison to him and asked in absolute and overwhelming silence a question that he could not repeat and could not answer. He turned away and grabbed the book, the one he’d been looking for. It felt heavy and old in his hand. He clutched it to his chest as he ran as fast and as far as he could. The conflict was left behind.
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---H/C---
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House had forgotten about Henderson. He’d forgotten about the woman, the flower, the break-in, the blackmail. He’d forgotten about the message he had covertly slipped between the psychiatrist’s charts. He’d forgotten Chase’s warning. He’d also forgotten that Henderson was the head of the psychiatric department in the hospital. Perhaps asking for Chase to be put on suicide watch hadn’t been the smartest move. That flower really was going to bite him in the ass.
“What the hell is this?”
House squinted at the rumpled paper in the other man’s hand. He contemplated denying it, denying everything.
“Don’t deny it, you miserable louse!”
There went that plan. “Name calling? What is this grade school? I thought we were above that?”
“But not above blackmail.”
“That’s more a high-school level of malice. And it’s not blackmail until I ask you for something.” House hadn’t wanted anything, except to see the other man twist in the web of his own lies. So, he held his newfound knowledge over the man’s head, threatening to tell his wife or colleagues but made no request in exchange for the incriminating information.
Aghast, Henderson took half a second to temper his outrage and respond. “Is this just another power play for you?”
“Certainly looks that way,” House falsely confirmed. “Now get the hell out of my office before I make an announcement over the PA system.” He was in no mood to deal with Henderson. The conundrum of Chase and the mysterious wounds were the owners of all his attention. The mystery of the young lady with the allergies to a certain rare flower, and the doctor whose well-known hobby was growing rare flowers was yesterdays news.
“And stay away from my patient, Doctor House, or Cuddy will be the next person to get a visit from me.”
“Just don’t give her any flowers.”
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---H/C---
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He tripped over a branch and fell into a small river, more a stream. The book fell out of his grasp and into the water that was too shallow and the current too weak to move it. Soaked, he crawled the short distance through the stream to the ancient tome. The river flowed smoothly around it, wetting the cover and seeping into the pages but like the beach in the storm it withstood and he wasn’t worried. He was confused though, when he tried to pick the book up and couldn’t. There was another person holding it. Robert stared down at his reflection who also was grasping the precious volume. He tried to pull and his reflection did the same. The book didn’t budge.
Robert tilted his head right. His reflection also tilted his head to his right. There was something wrong with that.
“You don’t want this,” his reflection said and Robert felt himself saying it as well.
“I need to know,” Robert responded and though his reflection mouthed the words too they weren’t actually his. “I thought I’d be better off not knowing, but I’m not. They won’t let me.”
“I’m not ready. One man’s pain is better than all.”
Robert stared at himself. Behind his reflection the trees became a deeper green as slender vines wove their way through the branches. All at once they bloomed and a shelter of white flowers emerged over his head blocking the bright Australian sun. A few blossoms and petals floated down from the trees to dot the ground and some to be carried away by the flowing water. One blossom landed on the cheek of his reflection. Robert reached out to brush it away. He let go of the book with his other hand as well and gave up. He really didn’t need to know. He would be like the others.
The tiny patches of sunlight that slipped through the fragile roof of flowers began to grow as the light became more intense and the plants began to burn. Unperturbed, Robert watched it happen behind his reflection in the water and felt burning debris brush against him as it fell. Some fell on him, burning small dots of flesh on his feet, wrists, his back, side and forehead. He lay down in the unchanging stream and soothed his injuries in the cool water. The ache remained but it was less painful. As the sky blinded and the forest burned, he stared up at it all, unmoved, ignorant and content. He closed his eyes and rested.
He awoke from his peaceful reposed with a start. He couldn’t sit up. Something was holding down his arms. People rushed to him. He didn’t respond to their questions or comments, still trying to collect himself. He remembered the tranquility of a moment ago and even as part of him yearned to go back to it, another part of him revelled in being freed, as though without even knowing it he’d been trying to escape the dream and had suddenly won.
He began to relax. The familiar surroundings of the hospital and a few familiar faces eased his unrest and confusion. The comfort was short-lived. Burning, stinging pain lanced across his back producing a cry more of shock than of pain. Another came and marked him, rending the skin. He tried to get away from it but he was still restrained. His back arched, eyes went wide, and vision went grey. The streaks of pain came in quick succession, almost all at once. It ended as abruptly as it started and Chase laid there, numb in the centre of the chaos he’d caused.
Their pagers went off almost in unison. They didn’t spare a glance at their boss before heading to their patient. House levered himself out of the chair and went as well, his pace much more sedate. He arrived just as they were turning Chase onto his side and though he couldn’t see what had caused everyone to suddenly pause and gawk, he knew it was bad. The busy motions of nurses and doctors getting what they needed churned the swarm of people and House broke through the eddies to see for himself the damage.
Lash marks criss-crossed the expanse of Chase’s back, many of them seeping lightly scented blood. Perhaps more unusual than the scent and even the appearance of this lacerations was the flow of the blood. Chase was on his left side. The blood should have been flowing down the span of his back to bed. Instead it flowed down the length of his back as though he were sitting up.
House stepped back to allow the proper attention to reach his fellow. He watched and thought furiously, and in vain.
“Maybe it’s time for a consult,” Wilson suggested as he came up beside the diagnostician.
“You think it’s cancer?” House asked, purposely misconstruing what Wilson was trying to say.
“I think you know what it is. You just won’t accept it.”
“I think you’re afraid that the real explanation won’t be the one you want, so you won’t even let me try and find it.”
Wilson shook his head and looked away, exasperated even after a short time with House. “I’m afraid you’re going to kill him by withholding the treatment that he needs, treatment you can’t give.”
“So we should hand him over to people who consider this to be a gift from their god?” House asked angrily. “I guess you may want it, but for my birthday, don’t get me pain and suffering.” House quickly took his leave. He wasn’t helping being there and watching Chase dazed and pained wasn’t helping him. Usually the arrival of a new symptom would have him metaphorically rubbing his hands together and cackling (maybe literally depending on his mood). More symptoms narrowed down the possible causes. In this case House didn’t like where the symptoms pointed.
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---H/C---
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As the small hands of clocks in the eastern time zone approached the ten Chase was still a prisoner of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. In consideration of the injuries on his back he was allowed to lie on his side. They’d generously freed him of the restraints as well. There were still a lot of rumours making their own rounds through the hospital but they no longer included self-mutilation, not that Chase cared. He couldn’t escape. He’d tried and was caught.
“So predictable.” Not ‘caught ‘cha!’ Not ‘Freeze!’ Not ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Predictable, as if his only purpose was to make sure he was still amusing to his boss.
More annoying than House, were House’s subsequent actions. He’d called security, ordered them to take the patient back to his room and make sure he stayed there. As Chase was being escorted away House had loudly announced that he was going home. Chase had hoped that he would fall going down the stairs where he’d just cornered the would-be escapee.
So now security was popping by every so often. There was no pattern and even if there was, the nurses were also on alert. It would take a freaking miracle for him to get out of here.
“Hello Robbie.”
That wasn’t his miracle. Or maybe it was. It had been days since he’d last seen Warren. Before that it had been seven years. The last few days had been harder.
Mayes was much better company than anyone else who’d been by to see him. Foreman had come. Chase had pretended to be asleep. He wasn’t sure if Foreman bought it or simply took it as an easy way out of the social nicety he wasn’t really enthusiastic about anyway. Cameron had been next, about half an hour later. She didn’t buy his sleeping performance and had forced the conversation he didn’t want. She’d offered to stay with him. He’d declined, now resigned to his nightmare with hope of a medical answer having fled him, and made it clear that he preferred solitude. When she left there was something very close to pity in her eye. She might have thought he made a mistake turning her away. Chase didn’t see himself regretting it any time soon.
Mayes glanced over his shoulder in an anxious manner. “So…uh, you ready to get out of here?”
Sitting up Chase nodded. With a brief smile Mayes handed him a purple set of scrubs.
“Stole them from some closet. There were plenty. One pair won’t be missed.”
Chase didn’t need convincing. It took some help to get the clothes on. Though there was enough blood flow making it to his hands that they weren’t necrotizing, the damage to his writs still left his hands nearly useless. Mayes helped with his the pants too, slipping up Chase’s lower legs while he was still seated then having him stand to pull them up the rest of the way.
“Just like old times,” Mayes said fondly, gently brushing his thumb over a lightly stubbled cheek. “C’mon.”
Chase slipped on the flimsy slippers the hospital had given him. “What about security, and the nurses?”
“They’re taken care of.” Mayes checked that the coast was clear before stepping into the corridor. “There’s a curious white fog in the diagnostic department,” Mayes told him, sounding far too pleased. Revenge and diversion all in one -it didn’t get any better than that.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing that he doesn’t deserve.”
That was probably true, Chase figured but he still wasn’t entirely pleased.
The break out went smoothly. Even with the few close calls necessitating that they hide around corners it was a fairly simple getaway. Weakened from the blood loss and the minimal nutrition over the last two days, Chase was dizzy and tired before they even made it to the car, his car actually. The light blue Oldsmobile was just down the way, parked next to the sidewalk that rimmed the hospital.
“Stay, here,” Mayes said and allowing Chase to rest against the brick wall next to the bare metal side-door from which they exited. It was inconspicuous, hidden by the manicured foliage of the hospital, so it was a reasonable place for Chase to stay a short while. Mayes went to get the car and nearly made it.
“Where is he?”
Mayes, froze and let his shoulders slump. “Dr. House,” he greeted as the man emerged from a patch of darkness left by one of the burnt out lamps. “Late night?”
He’d been paged about a problem with his office. His arrival to the hospital had been swift. Not because he was worried but because he was nearby; in the theological library doing research. “I’m not in the mood for this! Where is he?” A lesser man might have been scared -if not by the tone then by the object in his right hand that could quickly be turned into a weapon.
“You know where he is. You’re the one who imprisoned him in the hospital. If he’s lost it’s your fault.”
“It’s not my fault if you kidnapped him.”
“I wouldn’t need to kidnap him. He would come with me voluntarily.” Mayes returned House’s glare as the unkempt man walked past him. “Pisses you off, doesn’t it.”
House swore he’d never heard a more annoying Australian accent. What was it about this guy that screamed to him ‘hit me’!
“You don’t like being second to any one.”
“Can you keep your dodgy psychoanalysis to yourself? I don’t think my ego can take it,” he deadpanned. The vivid blue eyes scanned the surroundings. He set off towards the side exit he knew was hidden behind some tall shrubs. With his cane to move the plants out of the way and the LED light on his keychain to illuminate, House searched the brush. “Aha!” House quickly stepped back out to the side walk and observed Mayes. “I didn’t actually find anything. You’re expression tells me I should have. So either Chase can make himself invisible too, or he’s slipped off somewhere.” House stared at Mayes, daring him to deny it.
“He couldn’t have gone far.”
House nodded slightly in agreement and set off in the most likely direction. The one that lead away from the hospital entrance. It was a dark path so it wouldn’t have been hard to sneak past unnoticed while House and Mayes had argued.
Mayes went along with him. They searched in silence for several minutes before Mayes felt the need to set things straight. “You’ve had your chance. When we find him he’s leaving with me.”
“Leaving to where? What’s he trying to get away from? Far as I know there’s nowhere far away enough to escape your God,” House replied, sounding not even vaguely interested, but he was.
“‘My God’,” Mayes repeated irritated by House’s words. He huffed out a mirthless laugh. “Why don’t you let me worry about that? Robert is my concern. You don’t want him anyway.”
“You can’t tell me what you don’t know.”
“So you do want him. Or you just want what you can’t have.” Mayes didn’t allow House to respond. He walked quickly away choosing another island of tall bushes to explore. House glared at his back. He was about to go in a direction that took him further away from Mayes, needing to put some distance between them before they came to blows, but he stopped. On the ground a few paces in front of him was a dark patch in grey cement. It stood out even in the dusk and poor illumination of the campus streetlamps. The small area was quickly lit up with the keychain flashlight. The concrete was the expected grey. The stain was the expected red. Fresh too -it smeared when House pushed the tip of his cane through it.
Aiming his light forward a little farther, House found another similar stain and farther ahead there were more. It was a trail. House followed it, stepping alongside it, measuring the distance between each bloody splotch. The distance was just right for footsteps. Perhaps a little close together, but he knew Chase wasn’t in the best shape at the moment. House followed the trail up a small set of stairs on the terrace of the quaint little courtyard where the trail led. He found a bloody mark on the brass railing. Then he looked up.
The statue before him stood out in the little available light, it’s figure catching his eye before that of his fellow laying under it. Arms outspread in welcome, clothes draping gracefully from her form, a figure House assumed to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary was captured timelessly in stone. Her head was tilted a touch to her left and her sightless eyes still managed to compel the a gentle, welcoming expression.
“Robin!” Mayes rushed past House who’d paused to stare at the statue, and tended to the unconscious young man lying below its feet. “Robbie, you’ll be okay,” Mayes assured gathering the tense body into his arms. Mayes was about to pick him up. He stopped and took notice of something disconcerting and new.
In his feet, one in each limb, passing all the way through were new wounds. A steady trickle of blood flowed from them. Dismayed, Mayes held Chase a little tighter. A soft grunt accompanied the effort required of him to pick Chase up. He ducked his face in to rest against the blond man’s warm cheek. He silently begged, prayed and hoped for this to end.
“Has it rained in the last couple of hours?” House’s question came out to the blue.
“No. Why?” Mayes answered barely paying him any attention.
House shook his head in disbelief and held his light to the face of the statue. “Because that isn’t normal.”
Mayes glanced back, then up at the carved face -the carved, weeping face. From the blank eyes, trickles of water fell. They traced a narrow path over the smooth cheeks, met at the rounded, graceful chin and then fell to the blood-stained ground.
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The blue Buick was rather old. In what House assumed was a flight of paranoia Mayes had decided to take it rather than his own rental car. Whatever his reasons House didn’t care except that that the seats were less comfortable than most newer vehicles. In what might only be a mild exaggeration House estimated that it was older than the man who owned it. He imagined it was pretty pathetic to pick up a date in this un-pimped ride. Now there was an idea. Maybe Xzibit would come to Princeton to pimp out a pretty white boy’s car. Foreman would probably have a conniption.
House looked down at the head lying on his lap. On consideration it wasn’t completely fallacious to imagine that a young woman wouldn’t mind such an ugly vehicle if it brought a handsome man to her.
Women.
“Chase.” House gently tried to wake his fellow. He wasn’t sure if this was another strange bout of unconsciousness or just plain old sleep. He poked Chase in the cheek with his finger and called his name again -again, no response. Okay, so not plain old sleep.
“How is he?”
House met Mayes’s eyes in the rear view mirror. “I can’t tell. He needs to be at a hospital.”
“You haven’t been able to do anything for him. You had your chance.”
“I just need more time.”
Mayes struck the steering wheel. House flinched. “There is no more time! This is it. You were his last chance, and now…now we do this my way.”
House shook his head and didn’t subtract the contempt from his expression when Mayes glanced back at him.
“You’re free to leave whenever you like, Doctor House,” Mayes informed.
“I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have to. You aren’t my concern.”
“Chase does what I do. I don’t trust you. He won’t trust you.”
Mayes laughed. “He doesn’t even like you.” He refocused his attention to the road, leaving House to smart. In honesty he wasn’t pleased that the diagnostician was still around. He’d simply invited himself along by getting in the car and refusing to leave. Mayes knew if need be, he could have overpower Dr. House. He hadn’t, and every so often he found himself regretting it. Thankfully it was a regret that he could easily remedy later.
They had just turned onto Chase’s street and were a block away when Mayes slowed. After a few seconds he pulled the car off the road and stopped entirely. House copied Mayes in searching the neighbourhood through the windshield. He didn’t see anything suspicious.
“What are you waiting for?”
Mayes shook his head, his eyes still darting over the urban landscape. “Something’s not right.” He breathed heavily through his nose, the agitation creeping up his back. He pulled a face and started the car moving. He made a sharp U-turn. “They’re waiting.”
“Who?”
“People with plans for Robert.”
“What plans?”
Tense seconds passed until finally, “…I don’t know.”
Fantastic. He was stuck with a half-wit that didn’t even know half the plot. On his lap Chase groaned softly. His eyes were pinched closed and his lips were parted for the shallow agitated breaths. He could feel Mayes glance worriedly back while still trying to keep them on the road. House didn’t know what to do. Thankfully instinct didn’t require knowledge. His right hand was running through the blond tresses before he could think better of it. Chase’s head turned away from the touch which put his face brushing against House’s pelvis. House couldn’t dissimulate the awkwardness of having the young man’s face so close to his crotch. His wide eyes gazed warily down but his hand didn’t relent in its motions. Unable to escape and unharmed by the touch, Chase relaxed. House wished Chase would turn the other way. Under his clothes his skin tingled with the sensation of an embarrassing touch that only existed in his imagination, so long as Chase didn’t turn further into him.
“Where else can we go?”
Pulling his mind from the puerile disquiet, House responded. “Two-two-one Baker Street.”
“Is that your place?” Mayes’s opposition if it was evident in his voice.
“You have somewhere better?”
Of course he didn’t. House’s place it was. House had almost given Wilson’s address but he needed to regroup at his place. Besides, Wilson’s new place was on the eighth floor. There was little chance of them getting to it without being noticed since Chase couldn’t walk, even if he were conscious, and his bandages weren’t soaked through with blood. If a knocked out bleeding man didn’t grab somebody’s suspicion then House was Santa Claus.
“Put him on the couch,” House instructed. He held the door open for Mayes to carry Chase in. He could add Chase’s blood to the list of other bodily fluids that had sullied his couch.
While Mayes got Chase settled House closed the door and took out his phone. Mayes eyed him when he noticed House was making a call. His eyes dared House to call the cops or the ambulance again. House met the challenge unblinking. “Hey, Wilson, come over to my place. Bring the books on my desk with you…Yeah, I know…I’m always five steps ahead. And bring some bandages too…just get over here.” He snapped his phone closed. “Oncologists,” he complained to Mayes. Perching himself on the armrest of the piece of furniture now occupied by his intensivist, House watched Mayes pace up and down the apartment frantically thinking. He watched the muted apprehension play out in the man’s limbs and on the few lines of his face. House would have tripped him if he wasn’t so sure that the tall man would punch him, both in retribution and to alleviate his tension.
House nearly sighed in relief when the knock at his door interrupted the silence. Mayes darted to the door and slowly opened it, ready to attack or defend if need be. It wasn’t needed. Wilson was about as harmless as they came.
He glanced at the House and the unfamiliar man cautiously as he stepped in. “Where’s Chase?”
House tilted his head toward the seat of his couch. Wilson gave House one of his looks; this one saying that he was cleaning up his mess yet again, but this was the last time. It never was.
While Wilson tended to Chase, House kept an eye on Mayes who was keeping a wary eye on Wilson. The oncologist -his role briefly switching to nurse -replaced the soaked bandages that had begun to unwrap and hang loosely on the patient. He was just finished with the right wrist and was about to ask for help getting at Chase’s back when House interrupted.
“Don’t forget his feet.”
Mildly confused Wilson looked up at him. House didn’t elaborate so Wilson gingerly unwrapped the dark towel that had been around the blond man’s feet and found two more wounds. He must have been staring for several seconds, maybe even minutes at the rounded injuries. He heard distantly House say something. The words escaped his notice but the tone was the typical abrasive one that House usually bore when faced with a situation of which he thought he was in control.
“House!” Wilson interjected suddenly, silencing his friend and preventing the angry retort Mayes had been gearing up to make. “This isn’t a puzzle for you anymore. He needs help that you can’t give him.” Wilson lightly probed the area surrounding the deep red and still bleeding wound, wincing in sympathy even though Chase didn’t respond.
“This is exactly a puzzle for me.”
“I know how much you enjoy bringing down establishments, but he’s suffering.”
“No, he’s not. He’s unconscious…or asleep…or something.”
“You don’t have a clue, House.”
“Neither do you. You believe in remissions and miracles. What kind of miracle is it to suffer without a cause?”
“You’ve been suffering for years for no reason! You tell me!”
“Enough!” Both Wilson and House were silenced by the low, accented and yet forceful command. “Dr. House, your methods have failed…”
“Don’t sound so happy about it,” House mocked under his breath.
“…And we’re not going to look for help anywhere else.”
The two doctors (that were conscious) spared a second to glance at each other then to Mayes. His desperation and anxiety were showing through his determination and his fierce protectiveness of their colleague. Their confusion pertaining to the source of his fierce emotion was prominent, but more so was his resolve that Chase would not, absolutely and under no circumstances, see a man of faith.
“No faith in science,” House started, slipping into his familiar assessing drawl when dissecting people. “No faith in…God.”
“I have faith in people,” Mayes corrected. However, his tone implied that this faith was not a virtue. “I know that they’re stupid, selfish creatures that can’t be trusted. Not even those that pledge themselves to their Lord.”
House and Mayes glared eye-to-eye until finally…
“Wow. You’re tortured soul came through on that one. I bet it drives the young ladies crazy.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“You’re observant.”
“…guys…” At Wilson’s soft call House and Mayes turned to him then followed his gaze to Chase, who now had his eyes open and seemed conscious, if a little silent. “Chase?” Wilson called softly. He’d been shocked into stillness and moment ago when he turned away from his friend and the stranger’s argument to find his patient looking at him with an unnervingly blank gaze.
“Robin.” Mayes went to a knee to get closer. The blue-green eyes shifted to him.
“Hi,” was Chase’s short, soft and simple greeting. He saw Mayes smile in relief and saw Wilson’s tension drain. His immediate concern for them passing as their ease returned, Chase turned his attention to the unfamiliar surroundings. The ceiling was white and a square-ish light fixture was up there. The walls were a light blue-grey and there was a black baby-grand piano in the far corner of the room. He wondered who played. His question was answered as he continued his perusal and noticed for the first time that House was seated on the arm rest of the couch above his head.
“Sleep well?”
On guard and unsure how to respond, Chase just blinked. After a stretch of silent seconds he ventured a response. “I wasn’t sleeping.” It was practically an open invitation to ask what he had been doing. Realizing this, and also realizing he didn’t want to get into it with House, who was too curious and too sceptical as it was. Chase addressed Mayes. “They’re around, you know.”
“I know,” Mayes agreed reluctantly.
“We have to go.”
Mayes nodded solemnly.
“You can’t go anywhere in your condition. Dr. Chase, you know that,” House said condescendingly down to him. House didn’t want Chase going anywhere that he couldn’t find him, and that seemed to be exactly what Mayes was planning. Recalling the packed boxes from the small apartment and his sudden announcement that he quit House assumed that Chase had been planning a trip away too.
“Rest here for a bit. I’ll get my things and then we’ll go -together.” Mayes brushed Chase’s cheek with the back of his fingers. “Okay?”
Waiting seemed an impossible task to Chase just then. He wanted to go, just disappear until this blew over. And he wanted to go now. Warren must have read his impatience.
“I have to get some things,” he placated. His rental car was still parked nearby Chase’s place and there were items he needed. He’d left in his rental the paper with a list of trusted contacts there, in case he had been caught during the hospital breakout and the list was lost. They had few allies in this and Mayes had a feeling they would need every one.
Exhaling shakily, Chase gave a weak nod. Mayes returned one of his own and only when Chase looked away did he find the strength to move from his dear friend and lover’s side.
Taking House by the arm, Mayes forced the crippled man to show him to the door. Wilson, horrified by the unfamiliar man’s rough treatment, realized that, like House, he expected people to go out of their way to help the crippled man even if he was a jerk. Mayes didn’t suffer fools, or arrogant physicians.
“Don’t let him go outside. Don’t let strangers in. Don’t take him back to the hospital. I don’t think Dr. Henderson would be very understanding at the moment. And if I find Robert back there, I’ll kill you. We clear?”
Pained and bothered House didn’t even argue. “Crystal. Get out.” That didn’t mean that he’d follow the orders just that he was sick of this man’s presence and wanted him gone as soon as possible.
Mayes took one last measuring look at the older man before leaving. He didn’t trust House, couldn’t imagine himself ever trusting or even liking him. Grudgingly, though, he trusted the man’s instinct. The desperate state left him with no recourse, so he might simply have been looking for something to ease his mind about the diagnostician’s character. And if something did go terribly wrong, he wouldn’t feel bad about taking it out on House.
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Babysitting, that’s what he’d been reduced to doing, just with a bigger baby. Instead of changing diapers he was changing bloody bandages. A baby would have been fussier and probably more entertaining (at least for a short while). The silence, while helpful for House’s reading, was uncomfortable. Seated at the small table which doubled as his dining and poker table, House skimmed through the books on Stigmata and related subjects he’d retrieved from the library.
Wilson had left a half hour ago, about twenty minutes after Mayes. His patient, one of the ones knocking on death’s door, needed him back at the hospital. He’d taken a break from the relatives and nurses to tend to House but he knew he couldn’t stay. Unenthusiastically he’d gone, promising House that he wouldn’t call a rabbi to come over. Since his departure there had only been quiet and torment.
Like the previous mysterious injuries, those in Chase’s feet intensified in pain and then eased. There was no apparent pattern to it and the wounds didn’t heighten in pain together. When they did happen to coincide he barely kept from screaming. It hurt so much. However, this was purely physical pain. He wasn’t sure if the mental torment of his recent dreams or visions was worse. He didn’t know which one he would choose and that thought continued to turn over is his mind. That there was a choice to be made somewhere; he just wasn’t sure what the options were, though he was peripherally aware that he’d been making this choice all his life and proving it every seven years. Never like this though.
His feet began to pulse with pain and it caught him off guard. A muffled cry forced its way out before Chase could hold it all back. He turned his face to the back of the couch hoping to muffle it further.
The searing ended and Chase felt in control enough to relax a little. The marks on his back made that difficult but the constant pressure on his weight on them smeared the episodes of agony and streaks of minor relief into one throbbing, and more easily ignored ache.
“Chase, what is all this?” House was standing over him, having been brought over by the sound of distress. It was just one of many that House had been forced to endure over the past hour. Hearing someone in pain had never bothered him as much as it did now.
Gingerly lowering himself to sit on the coffee table House met the tired gaze. He was tired too. He was tired of repeatedly hitting his head against the wall that was this mystery and not having even a chip of brick to show for it.
“That thing that was on you’re back,” House continued when Chase didn’t respond. He opened the book he’d brought with him to a marked page and showed Chase the image printed there. “It’s a sigil of baphomet. I’m sure you already knew that, and that it’s a symbol commonly used by satanic organizations. I’m sure you also knew that stigmata, according to the ‘experts’, can also be faked by demonic forces.” It was clear in Chase’s eyes that he wasn’t perturbed. “So…are you possessed? Do we really need to call a priest and do an exorcism?” He wasn’t sure how far he wouldn’t go if it gave Chase some relief.
House was far too familiar with unbearable, unmanageable pain not to feel for Chase. Stuck with him in the same apartment, trying to wrap his mind around what he’d seen, what he’d heard and what he believed left him raw and more open than Chase had ever seen him.
“Had one…” Chase croaked, regarding the suggestion of an exorcism. “..didn’t help.” He’d actually had several, or at least several versions of the same idea, all with the same outcome of nothing. “I don’t know why…why this…just want it to stop.”
“Yeah…” me too, Greg thought but refrained from saying. He watched Chase close his eyes, probably trying to fall asleep or reach that special place were the pain couldn’t touch him. House didn’t actually expect him to find it. Since the first appearance of the wounds, those on his wrists, Chase had been almost completely lucid, save for a few strange sleeping episodes. Whatever majesty had been bestowed upon him for a brief stretch of minutes when Cameron and nurses had been trying to help him had fled. Everything since seemed like a punishment. Still, House left him to his search anyway.
His small, long, and sometimes too piously written windows into a world he’d never really believed in regained his attention. The answer probably wasn’t in those books but he needed all the information he could get. He remained seated on the coffee table, perhaps just hoping his proximity would help in some undefined way with Chase’s discomfort.
Several minutes passed until, without warning, the young man sat up on the couch. House moved his eyes up from the book to eye his fellow.
“Chase?”
Chase didn’t respond. He began unwrapping the gauze around his left wrist. House’s bland protest went unheeded. Finally the bandages came off. House sat up straight and abandoned the book to examine Chase’s wrist. It was completely healed. House ran his thumb over the spot where the wound had been and though there was still some tenderness and a faint mark, only the blood smears remained as proof that the skin had ever been broken.
Unwrapping the rest of the dressings found the other wounds in similar states of repair.
House was dumbfounded. Chase too, though he was willing to take the break from the seeping injuries and the excruciating pain.
“Well…it’s convenient, I guess,” Chase couldn’t help but comment. His voice was still weak and wavered a little. The searing had faded to a dull ache, the type he was more familiar with from previous episodes.
“How is this convenient?” House inquired, still at a loss.
A pale smile turned the lips, not enough to light the troubled eyes, only to show House that Chase was attempting to slip back into his usual persona. “Where’s your washroom?”
“At the end,” house replied nodding to the corridor. Chase followed the instruction. His walk was slow. House could tell from his gait that his feet still pained him, though not enough to stop nature from taking it’s course. House abandoned his book and waited for Chase to return. It was interrogation time.
The sound of the toilet flushing reached his ears a minute before Chase was in his sight again. His purple scrubs were rumpled, stained with blood in a few places, but the younger man didn’t look all that much worse for wear.
Unaware of House’s appraisal Chase continued forward, not towards House of the couch where he’d spent most of his time in House’s apartment. He was following another spectre. It was faint, and like many of the others, he couldn’t tell from which side it came. He’d noticed it when he was washing his hands and wrists, removing as much blood as he could. From the corner of his eye he’d seen it in the doorway, just looking at him. When it began away, Chase had followed it out of curiosity.
Now it was in the living room and still moving. Chase followed in its steps until he could go no further. There was a wall in front of him. The spectre had walked right through it. He went to the window to follow the unknown being’s movements. It faded out of sight after stepping off the sidewalk. Chase remained at the window, not shocked, confused or even stunned.
“What is it?” He heard and saw House’s reflection in the glass ask a moment before he felt some of his warmth at his side. “What do you see?”
Chase looked towards House and leaned in close to whisper to him. “I see dead people.” He couldn’t keep a straight face and half a second later he couldn’t hold back the giggle that bubbled up. House, meanwhile, was not amused. Chase was in the middle of one of the biggest religious mysteries on earth, House with him since he was stubborn like that, and he was making jokes?
“That’s not funny.”
Chase disagreed. “It’s lame and it’s funny.” Both wondered if he was headed for a psychotic break. The mirth was under Chase’s control again as he carefully trod back to the couch, and found a place where there was no blood to sit. House sat down next to him after checking that the small smear of blood that Wilson missed on his clean up was dry.
“So nineteen-ninety-three, you’re fourteen. You decide to get a tattoo -rebellion of some feeble sort?” House prompted looking straight ahead at their reflection on the black screen on his television.
Chase shook his head and admitted with difficulty that “It…it wasn’t my choice.”
“Peer pressure doesn’t mean you don’t have a choice, it just means you’re more likely to make the stupid one,” House chastised, putting together Chase’s words and his own ideas to come to the simplest of conclusions.
“Peer pressure?” Chase barked. “Is that what you’d call it when they strap you down and draw marks on your back even while you’re yelling and begging them to stop?”
“No, I’d call that assault.”
“…answer for everything, huh?”
On some days, House liked to imagine so. Every day reminded him he didn’t know much, little matter how many articles he read and mysteries he solved. “Who did it, and why?”
Eyes flitting over objects and decorations of his surroundings, Chase didn’t respond at first. He shrugged. “Mistaken identity.” He didn’t have to look at House or the reflection in the TV to know House didn’t like that answer. “It’s the only answer that makes sense.”
It didn’t make sense to House. “Were they trying to…curse you? Or…”
Chase shook his head. “They…they were trying to bind me.” To hell, to the devil, Chase didn’t say but House heard anyway. “The mark faded. I thought it was over.”
“But it wasn’t. So, who were they? Same people your friend is worried about?”
“Possibly. Probably” Chase corrected. Shaking his head to told House: “They think I’m someone who can change things.” He didn’t want to get into what those things were. “Everything I know tells me I’m not.”
“Then either they’re wrong, or you’re missing information.” Confused and disturbed eyes turned to House but Chase didn’t say anything. “What?”
“…information…” That was familiar; not the word itself -he was well versed in the English language. It was the notion that he perhaps didn't know everything regarding not only the situation, but himself as well, that struck a chord in him.
"What? What is it?"
Chase was going to tell House about his dream, if only so that he could get a second opinion on it, though House believed as much in the prophetic powers of dreams as he did in a supreme being. He didn’t get the chance. As he opened his mouth his intended speech was lost and replaced by dread.
“They're here.”
End Chapter 6
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- - - H/C - - -
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Cast and Characters