Categories > TV > House
Title: Piecemeal
Author: seldra
Fandom: House M.D.
Pairing: House/Chase
Rating: PG-13-ish
Disclaimer: House is property of David Shore, I didn't create it and I don't own it.
Notes: Takes place at an indeterminate time somewhere outside of canon, then veers merrily off into alternate-universe land.
They've been fucking for the past two weeks. Chase doesn't know what else to call it. The frantic, half-crazed gropes and the rough strokes, the curse words muttered into his ear at night while House's hands rake through his hair. The contact is incredible. It sets his body on fire. Soon he wants it more than he has ever wanted anything. And he knows it will not last. It /can not /last. It isn't even a question - House barely tolerates him as a person and as adoctor. It is only a matter of time before he loses interest in what they do in bed, as well.
Chase doesn't know why that thought bothers him. More than bothers him, actually. He doesn't know why it torments him when he's alone, why it tugs at his thoughts and doesn't let him sleep.
It isn't even as though they have an actual relationship, not really. House kicks him out when they're done. House barely wastes an entire sentence on telling him what he wants. House has made it as painfully obvious as he can right from the very start that whatever they're doing, it doesn't have a rat's ass to do with love.
Then the day he's been dreading comes. House doesn't want him anymore. They don't say anything. He simply doesn't call on Chase for days, then weeks, and then, when the younger man finally works up the nerve to go and knock on House's door for himself, he finds that door slammed shut in his face.
And he doesn't know why he feels far more angry and hurt about it than he should.
When he dreams, he dreams about his mother. His mother before his father left them, laughing and clear-headed and bright eyed. His mother after his father left them, lying in bed crying, broken, ripped apart by emotions she could not control. In the dreams, he sees her loneliness and her pain and the despair...and he thinks, /this, this isn't what I want to become. /And he draws back, in the waking world, and builds walls and tries to cordon off the emotions.
And later, he dreams of her drunk, drowning out the emotions, except for the wild moments of pure blind rage. The mirror's smashed, there are thin rivers of blood, like red spider webs, painting her hands and her wrists. His father comes by sometimes. There's yelling. They're together. They're not together. He doesn't know.
The dreams don't follow proper order, sometimes his mother is whole and healthy and cogent. Sometimes he is sitting beside her, an adult, they are both adults, and they are talking, and everything is right and well and there is laughter...and then she laughs harder and harder, until the laughter dissolves into tears, and she is shaking, and there is blood on her wrists again. And even though Chase is a doctor now, he panics at the sight of the blood and doesn't know what to do. He screams and screams for help, but no one comes for them.
Chase wakes up with a headache. The phone is ringing. The caller ID tells him it's Doctor House. He doesn't want to answer it, but he does anyways because he still can't say no to the man, and because he's afraid of what he'll see if he lets the dreams come back.
It's been little over three months, and House says he is tired of hookers. Chase isn't sure if there were ever prostitutes, but Chase doesn't really know anything about House's life outside the hospital. He could have had Cameron, or Wilson, or both for all Chase knows. That realization should be enough to stop him from getting dressed at four in the morning and going to House's apartment. It should be, but it isn't.
He gets there, and House looks older and more tired than Chase has ever seen him before. He feels a rush of emotion for the man, so sudden and overwhelming it's like a kick in the chest. He pushes it back, out of his mind and does whatever House wants him to. And there's one moment, in the middle of it all, sometime out of time, when House runs his fingers through Chase's hair and his hand lingers there, and its affectionate, genuinely affectionate. But when it's over House snaps at him to get out, and he gets dressed and leaves, wondering how he'll be able to stay awake at the hospital tomorrow and hoping they don't have a new case.
They've been working on a difficult case. It might be impossible. Their patient is dying and House's team is trying to push the Grim Reaper back, but hour after hour after hour it's getting harder. He almost nods off over a stack of research papers they've got faxed over from another hospital, and he can hear House's voice ranting about the symptoms and possible causes echoing around inside his ears.
Eventually inspiration strikes House and he puts all the pieces together, names a disease and a treatment and sends Cameron, Foreman and Chase off to try out the medicine and see if he's right.
They've been working around the clock on this case, and Chase doesn't remember the last time he slept. He feels like if he closed his eyes for twelve seconds he would fall asleep on his feet, but House doesn't let him go when he dismisses Cameron and Foreman and leaves their recovering patient in the hands of nurses and other medical staff.
"You're coming home with me," House says. House isn't tired, he's charged and wired with the thrill of solving another unsolvable case. Chase looks at him with blurry eyes but still hasn't learned to say no.
The sex is hot and furious and good - so good - and for a while Chase even forgets to be tired. He's just a body, moving and melding against House, nothing but sensation, his lips against House's skin and House's rough, calloused hands everywhere on him, pushy and domineering as always. Somehow, that stirs a hunger deep inside his skin and he wants it more and more and more...wants it until he can't even feel the bed beneath them, it's just them, and House takes him and he hears House's heavy breathing and his own cries but they're faint and distant and he can't believe he's even a part of them.
And then the exhaustion comes back a dozen fold, slamming into him the moment he tries to lift his head and he falls back against the mattress into total oblivion.
He surfaces from the inky darkness of sleep sometime later, it could have been minutes or hours, he has no idea. But House hasn't shoved him out of the bed, in fact he's lying pressed against House's chest, and House has one arm propped lazily around his neck. His fingers are running absently through Chase's hair.
He stays as still as he can, knowing that if House knows he's awake, this will stop. And he doesn't want it to stop. He feels horrible, all of a sudden, horrible and wonderful and he doesn't want this contact, this one moment of affection to end. But he can't will himself back to sleep and he feels the shaking welling up inside himself faster than he can fight it down.
Chase can't explain why he starts crying. He doesn't know himself. It's not hysterical, it's just tears, tears that don't stop and House's hand pauses above his head and he endures a terrifying wave of fear at how disgusted House will be and pain like he's lost something (he doesn't know what.)
But House's hand trails down to his back and rubs him gently. Chase doesn't understand, but he's beyond wanting to understand. He feels House's chin brush against the top of his head and the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath him and tries to absorb every feeling he can from their contact, and from the feel of both their bodies pressed together, because he thinks that after this night it will never happen again.
And he is right. House does not want him anymore, or at least he does not ask for him. Maybe he is embarrassed by what happened, maybe he has just lost interest in him, maybe he has someone new. Chase tries very hard not to think about these things, and almost succeeds. Their working relationship is unchanged. They barely knew each other before, they seem to know each other even less, now. House continues to make clipped sarcastic remarks about his team. Chase tries not to take the ones aimed at him personally. But it is hard not to.
Eventually the team dissolves.
Chase loses contact with Foreman and Cameron and moves away from Princeton-Plainsboro. He becomes a doctor somewhere else for a while. It isn't very interesting. He misses the cases he worked on under Doctor House. He misses Doctor House. He even misses being insulted, or at least he tells himself that.
He tries several times to have a relationship - a real relationship - with different people. Men and women. It never holds together.
He dreams about his mother. Sometimes he's a child again, helpless and useless, watching her poison herself with too much alcohol and not enough food, nearly drowning in her own vomit, flying into fits of rage when not left alone in her darkened room twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes, in his dreams, he /is/her, and they are the worst dreams of all, because he feels her pain and loneliness and he's locked in a cage or drowning or sinking through the floor and crying and screaming for someone to help him, but everyone keeps walking past, his father (her husband) and House. He wakes from those dreams feeling disoriented and vaguely ill.
He quits his new job. He's restless. He travels for a bit. It doesn't help. He takes his current girlfriend to Marseilles. It rains. She runs off with another man. He doesn't protest. He stares out the hotel window at thick grey storm clouds and wonders what House is doing.
Eventually he wanders back to New Jersey. He has few friends and fewer family, and no where else he really needs to go. It's been three years. He feels oddly like he should have waited longer.
This time when he knocks on House's apartment door he feels nervous. Three years is a long time. House could have someone new. House could have /married/someone new, in three years. But when he finally opens the door (after making Chase knock for nearly ten minutes) he knows that isn't the case. House leans wearily against his cane, looking rather haggard, with dark circles under his eyes and more grey in his hair than Chase remembers. He smiles very faintly when he sees Chase. But he doesn't look surprised.
He looks at his watch. "You're three years late. I thought I had you trained better than-"
Chase steps through the doorway, pushing House back and wrapping his arms around him at the same time. He presses their mouths together and the kisses are deep and hungry. House's hands roam all over him, pulling him closer and Chase feels him lean heavily against him as he uses his cane to push the door closed behind them.
"This time I'm going to stay," Chase warns him.
He sees the undisguised amusement in House's eyes and for a moment he's angry that even now, House doesn't seem to be taking him seriously. But then House's hand is on his shoulder, steering him firmly in the direction of the bedroom."And here I was going to have all sorts of fun tying you up," he says.
THE END.
Author: seldra
Fandom: House M.D.
Pairing: House/Chase
Rating: PG-13-ish
Disclaimer: House is property of David Shore, I didn't create it and I don't own it.
Notes: Takes place at an indeterminate time somewhere outside of canon, then veers merrily off into alternate-universe land.
They've been fucking for the past two weeks. Chase doesn't know what else to call it. The frantic, half-crazed gropes and the rough strokes, the curse words muttered into his ear at night while House's hands rake through his hair. The contact is incredible. It sets his body on fire. Soon he wants it more than he has ever wanted anything. And he knows it will not last. It /can not /last. It isn't even a question - House barely tolerates him as a person and as adoctor. It is only a matter of time before he loses interest in what they do in bed, as well.
Chase doesn't know why that thought bothers him. More than bothers him, actually. He doesn't know why it torments him when he's alone, why it tugs at his thoughts and doesn't let him sleep.
It isn't even as though they have an actual relationship, not really. House kicks him out when they're done. House barely wastes an entire sentence on telling him what he wants. House has made it as painfully obvious as he can right from the very start that whatever they're doing, it doesn't have a rat's ass to do with love.
Then the day he's been dreading comes. House doesn't want him anymore. They don't say anything. He simply doesn't call on Chase for days, then weeks, and then, when the younger man finally works up the nerve to go and knock on House's door for himself, he finds that door slammed shut in his face.
And he doesn't know why he feels far more angry and hurt about it than he should.
When he dreams, he dreams about his mother. His mother before his father left them, laughing and clear-headed and bright eyed. His mother after his father left them, lying in bed crying, broken, ripped apart by emotions she could not control. In the dreams, he sees her loneliness and her pain and the despair...and he thinks, /this, this isn't what I want to become. /And he draws back, in the waking world, and builds walls and tries to cordon off the emotions.
And later, he dreams of her drunk, drowning out the emotions, except for the wild moments of pure blind rage. The mirror's smashed, there are thin rivers of blood, like red spider webs, painting her hands and her wrists. His father comes by sometimes. There's yelling. They're together. They're not together. He doesn't know.
The dreams don't follow proper order, sometimes his mother is whole and healthy and cogent. Sometimes he is sitting beside her, an adult, they are both adults, and they are talking, and everything is right and well and there is laughter...and then she laughs harder and harder, until the laughter dissolves into tears, and she is shaking, and there is blood on her wrists again. And even though Chase is a doctor now, he panics at the sight of the blood and doesn't know what to do. He screams and screams for help, but no one comes for them.
Chase wakes up with a headache. The phone is ringing. The caller ID tells him it's Doctor House. He doesn't want to answer it, but he does anyways because he still can't say no to the man, and because he's afraid of what he'll see if he lets the dreams come back.
It's been little over three months, and House says he is tired of hookers. Chase isn't sure if there were ever prostitutes, but Chase doesn't really know anything about House's life outside the hospital. He could have had Cameron, or Wilson, or both for all Chase knows. That realization should be enough to stop him from getting dressed at four in the morning and going to House's apartment. It should be, but it isn't.
He gets there, and House looks older and more tired than Chase has ever seen him before. He feels a rush of emotion for the man, so sudden and overwhelming it's like a kick in the chest. He pushes it back, out of his mind and does whatever House wants him to. And there's one moment, in the middle of it all, sometime out of time, when House runs his fingers through Chase's hair and his hand lingers there, and its affectionate, genuinely affectionate. But when it's over House snaps at him to get out, and he gets dressed and leaves, wondering how he'll be able to stay awake at the hospital tomorrow and hoping they don't have a new case.
They've been working on a difficult case. It might be impossible. Their patient is dying and House's team is trying to push the Grim Reaper back, but hour after hour after hour it's getting harder. He almost nods off over a stack of research papers they've got faxed over from another hospital, and he can hear House's voice ranting about the symptoms and possible causes echoing around inside his ears.
Eventually inspiration strikes House and he puts all the pieces together, names a disease and a treatment and sends Cameron, Foreman and Chase off to try out the medicine and see if he's right.
They've been working around the clock on this case, and Chase doesn't remember the last time he slept. He feels like if he closed his eyes for twelve seconds he would fall asleep on his feet, but House doesn't let him go when he dismisses Cameron and Foreman and leaves their recovering patient in the hands of nurses and other medical staff.
"You're coming home with me," House says. House isn't tired, he's charged and wired with the thrill of solving another unsolvable case. Chase looks at him with blurry eyes but still hasn't learned to say no.
The sex is hot and furious and good - so good - and for a while Chase even forgets to be tired. He's just a body, moving and melding against House, nothing but sensation, his lips against House's skin and House's rough, calloused hands everywhere on him, pushy and domineering as always. Somehow, that stirs a hunger deep inside his skin and he wants it more and more and more...wants it until he can't even feel the bed beneath them, it's just them, and House takes him and he hears House's heavy breathing and his own cries but they're faint and distant and he can't believe he's even a part of them.
And then the exhaustion comes back a dozen fold, slamming into him the moment he tries to lift his head and he falls back against the mattress into total oblivion.
He surfaces from the inky darkness of sleep sometime later, it could have been minutes or hours, he has no idea. But House hasn't shoved him out of the bed, in fact he's lying pressed against House's chest, and House has one arm propped lazily around his neck. His fingers are running absently through Chase's hair.
He stays as still as he can, knowing that if House knows he's awake, this will stop. And he doesn't want it to stop. He feels horrible, all of a sudden, horrible and wonderful and he doesn't want this contact, this one moment of affection to end. But he can't will himself back to sleep and he feels the shaking welling up inside himself faster than he can fight it down.
Chase can't explain why he starts crying. He doesn't know himself. It's not hysterical, it's just tears, tears that don't stop and House's hand pauses above his head and he endures a terrifying wave of fear at how disgusted House will be and pain like he's lost something (he doesn't know what.)
But House's hand trails down to his back and rubs him gently. Chase doesn't understand, but he's beyond wanting to understand. He feels House's chin brush against the top of his head and the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath him and tries to absorb every feeling he can from their contact, and from the feel of both their bodies pressed together, because he thinks that after this night it will never happen again.
And he is right. House does not want him anymore, or at least he does not ask for him. Maybe he is embarrassed by what happened, maybe he has just lost interest in him, maybe he has someone new. Chase tries very hard not to think about these things, and almost succeeds. Their working relationship is unchanged. They barely knew each other before, they seem to know each other even less, now. House continues to make clipped sarcastic remarks about his team. Chase tries not to take the ones aimed at him personally. But it is hard not to.
Eventually the team dissolves.
Chase loses contact with Foreman and Cameron and moves away from Princeton-Plainsboro. He becomes a doctor somewhere else for a while. It isn't very interesting. He misses the cases he worked on under Doctor House. He misses Doctor House. He even misses being insulted, or at least he tells himself that.
He tries several times to have a relationship - a real relationship - with different people. Men and women. It never holds together.
He dreams about his mother. Sometimes he's a child again, helpless and useless, watching her poison herself with too much alcohol and not enough food, nearly drowning in her own vomit, flying into fits of rage when not left alone in her darkened room twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes, in his dreams, he /is/her, and they are the worst dreams of all, because he feels her pain and loneliness and he's locked in a cage or drowning or sinking through the floor and crying and screaming for someone to help him, but everyone keeps walking past, his father (her husband) and House. He wakes from those dreams feeling disoriented and vaguely ill.
He quits his new job. He's restless. He travels for a bit. It doesn't help. He takes his current girlfriend to Marseilles. It rains. She runs off with another man. He doesn't protest. He stares out the hotel window at thick grey storm clouds and wonders what House is doing.
Eventually he wanders back to New Jersey. He has few friends and fewer family, and no where else he really needs to go. It's been three years. He feels oddly like he should have waited longer.
This time when he knocks on House's apartment door he feels nervous. Three years is a long time. House could have someone new. House could have /married/someone new, in three years. But when he finally opens the door (after making Chase knock for nearly ten minutes) he knows that isn't the case. House leans wearily against his cane, looking rather haggard, with dark circles under his eyes and more grey in his hair than Chase remembers. He smiles very faintly when he sees Chase. But he doesn't look surprised.
He looks at his watch. "You're three years late. I thought I had you trained better than-"
Chase steps through the doorway, pushing House back and wrapping his arms around him at the same time. He presses their mouths together and the kisses are deep and hungry. House's hands roam all over him, pulling him closer and Chase feels him lean heavily against him as he uses his cane to push the door closed behind them.
"This time I'm going to stay," Chase warns him.
He sees the undisguised amusement in House's eyes and for a moment he's angry that even now, House doesn't seem to be taking him seriously. But then House's hand is on his shoulder, steering him firmly in the direction of the bedroom."And here I was going to have all sorts of fun tying you up," he says.
THE END.
Sign up to rate and review this story