Hangman

PART FOUR
It is four a.m, and it is another day, and Chase is *not* drunk. He sits alone on the cold floor of his shower, although the water is not running. Drops of liquid roll out of his hair and down his back, and he looks and feels like a drowned rat. Or wombat. He winces unconsciously at the nickname. He should get some sleep except that every time he shuts his eyes he sees House walking away, Wilson looking dejected and flushed, and he feels an oddly-soaked Cameron helping him to his feet. Maybe he needs some therapy.
Chase stands up and pulls a towel off the rail after sliding the glass door open. He rubs himself down, appreciating the warmth and dry that the material gives him. He hisses slightly as it passes over the freshest bites on his chest and deposits the damp towel on the floor beside his discarded underwear, shirt and trousers. He pulls a warm fleece dressing gown out of his airing cupboard and tugs it over his battered body.
Chase leaves his bathroom and heads through to the sitting room.
“You’re feeling better then?” Cameron stands before him, a mug of steaming hot chocolate in one hand and a bowl of soup in the other.
“Much.” Chase says with a smile he doesn’t really mean, and hopes she can’t see the tearstains on his cheeks. “You should get some sleep, Allison, thank you.”
“Will you?” she asks, handing him the soup. Chase’s stomach clenches.
“Yes.”
“Everybody lies.” She murmurs, coming to sit beside him. “You should eat something. The soup isn’t that bad. I didn’t make it.”
Chase takes a sip. It’s not bad actually.
“Are you coming back to work soon?” asks Cameron, drinking his cocoa for him. Although, she made it, so he doesn’t really mind.
“Just when this cold stops being so bad.” He says. “I don’t want to infect the other patients.”
It’s a lip-service excuse, and he knows it. It’s been two days and he’s been sneezing a bit from over-exposure to water, when Wilson drove him home and he kissed him and Wilson didn’t shove him off but his eyes were so sad as he drove away. Chase knows he has to face House eventually.
After about ten minutes of fruitless conversation, Cameron stands up and goes to wash the cocoa mug in the sink before leaving.
“I have to get back to the hospital,” she says over the running water, “But I’ll call round again if I get the chance.”
Chase isn’t really paying attention. He’s thinking of House’s expression as he was standing in front of him, looking down at Chase on his knees. It was an expression Chase had never seen before and didn’t want to see again. It was a frantic, *desperate* expression. It was House when he wasn’t in control. As much as Chase despised House’s power over him, he didn’t feel safe when the older man wasn’t there, always the essence of calm and sarcasm. He had control and that was what attracted Chase in the first place. After spending his childhood with a mother who drank herself to death, no matter how many times he pleaded with her to stop, Chase needed some form of structure in his life.
“Shall I send House your regards?” Cameron steps back into the room, wrapping a scarf around her neck.
Chase checks his cheeks with the back of his hand and smiles back at Cameron once he’s sure none of his tears have slipped out.
“Yeah, please.” Chase says, “I’d appreciate it.”
Cameron gives him a small smile and a brief wave.
“I hope your cold goes soon.”
Chase attempts to smile back, though the corners of his mouth feel as if they’ve been weighted down.
“Yeah. I’ll be back to work in no time.”
Cameron gives him another smiles and walks out of the front door. Chase stays where he is, with only the empty soup bowl and the grief in his heart for company. He buries himself further into the sofa and cries himself to sleep.
*
It’s all a matter of control, reflects Wilson. House likes to have it. Chase likes to be on the receiving end. And Wilson wants it, sometimes gets it, always loses it. He sits on the couch long after Julie’s gone to bed, just thinking. She’s been glaring at him for the last couple of days, more than usual.
“Just make up with House.” She snapped eventually.
“I thought you didn’t like him.” He pointed out, resisting the urge to add “And I don’t like him much either.”
“I don’t. But when you two aren’t speaking you mope about like someone’s killed your fucking dog.”
“Or my wombat.” He murmured.
“What?” Julie said, confused, and then sighed. “I don’t understand. I don’t care. I’m going to bed.”
Wilson is thinking about a pair of blue eyes, but they don’t belong to his wife, and they don’t belong to House either. These blue eyes are red-rimmed from crying and full of exhaustion and maybe slight madness. And even though he knows he shouldn’t, he can’t stop thinking about them.
His mind is still fixated on the way sodden Chase folded up miserably in the passenger seat of his car, still without shoes, wet, silent and *hurt*. His mind is still fixated on the journey back to Chase’s apartment, and the way neither of them said a word, and though there was no one in the car with them, they could both feel him sitting there in the back seat, tapping his cane against his hand and sucking Vicodin loudly and laughing. His mind is still fixated on what happened when he pulled his car to a stop outside the boring-looking apartment where Chase lives.
Chase, trembling slightly, leant across the car, took Wilson’s face in his hands and kissed him. His fingers were cold and he tasted of desperation, humiliation, and sadness. And that broke something inside Wilson, because although he *wanted* Chase to kiss him, he didn’t want it like that. He doesn’t want it to be because Chase is drowning and needs a lifebelt, because he can’t go on, because he wants to get away from House.
*
A little while later Chase is woken with a start. He sits up, runs a hand through his hair and at last notices the sound. His sleep bedraggled mind is telling him dreamily to pick up the damn phone. Chase staggers over to the handset.
“Hello?”
The noise continues. Chase puts the phone back down and glances sleepily around. He catches sight of himself in the mirror, his eyes are sore and puffy, his hair rumpled and, as he cranes his head, he can see the dark shadows of House’s teeth marks still on his neck. He blanches slightly and closes his eyes. He’d half been hoping that it had all been a dream.
He blunders blearily towards his front door, his mind still foggy with sleep. Chase hitches his trousers up from where they’ve been playing round his hips and pulls open the door.
“Hello Chase.”

Chase has been expecting this and yet hasn’t been. Wilson stands in his doorway, looking like he hasn’t slept all night, and Chase isn’t sure how he feels about that. Sure, he kept Cameron up half the night with soup and sympathy, but who cares about that? Cameron *likes* to look after things that are broken, and they don’t come much more broken than Chase. But Wilson… is a different matter entirely, still in the pale blue shirt he probably wore to work yesterday, hair messy, eyes swirling about with so many emotions that Chase almost feels normal for a second.
All this has been going through his head in the split-second he first sees Wilson. He almost opens his mouth to say it- I don’t know how I feel about this -except that it’s five a.m and Wilson has work in about three hours and they both know what’s going to happen now. Maybe that’s why there’s no “please”, there’s no “would you like to come in?”, no “Chase you kissed me in the car and does that mean *anything* because I’m going out of my mind trying to figure this all out”, no “I think House hates me and every time he touches me it *hurts* but you won’t, will you Wilson? You can be gentle, can’t you?” Maybe that’s why neither of them make the first move but the next second they’re in each other’s arms, kissing desperately, like this could make everything better except that it won’t.
They don’t even close the front door as Wilson pins Chase against the wall, one hand sliding his pyjama bottoms down a little to grab at a hipbone, the other tangling in his hair. Chase is tugging at Wilson’s shirt, needing the contact, needing to be touched in a way that won’t leave bruises.
Neither of them hear the tap-tap-tap of the cane until it is way, way too late and House is already walking away. Chase disentangles himself from Wilson in a heartbeat and is running after him in pyjama bottoms and no shoes (it’s getting to be a habit around him).
“House!” he screams. Wilson, as he picks his shirt up off the floor, shouts:
“Chase!” just once, just in case. As he buttons it up again, he tries to work out which man he wants to run after, and for which reason.
*
Chase stands in the road in the grey light that comes just before the sun rises, and watches House drive off, unable even to cry because there’s nothing left in him.
“House.” He whispers softly, but the “come back” gets stuck in his throat.
Eventually he makes his way back up to his apartment. Wilson is gone, of course, and the place is exactly as it was half an hour ago. But in those thirty short minutes, his life has utterly, spectacularly, fallen to pieces.
*
Wilson is just pulling into his driveway when he notices the familiar red car on the opposite side of the street. Switching off his own engine, Wilson climbs out and turns to find a very angry Greg House before him.
“You bastard.” House’s first hit lands on Wilson’s jaw, “You complete bastard!”
Wilson feels House’s fist collide with his nose. He backs away, trying to shield himself from the heat of House’s anger. He stumbles slightly on a loose paving slab and lands on his back.
“House, you’ve got to listen to me.” Wilson croaks, aware of how vulnerable he is, with his nose slowly trickling with blood, his legs still quivering. “It was a mistake. Neither of us knew what we were doing.”
House looks down at Wilson, his blue eyes radiating nothing but hate and anger.
“‘We didn’t know what we were doing!’” House mocks. “You’re not fifteen years old any more Jimmy!” House’s voice breaks slightly, his tears beginning to strangle his words. “Why do you have to ruin every chance of happiness I will ever have?” he whispers.
Wilson looks up at his oldest friend, his face etched in desperation, desperation to make House understand.
“It wasn’t meant to happen that way. It wasn’t *meant* to happen.” Wilson struggles to his feet and swipes his nose with the back of his hand. “Please Greg, you’ve got to understand.”
“The only thing I understand, *Wilson*,” House says, stepping closer to the other man, their noses almost touching, “Is that every time I seem to be getting somewhere with someone, with *anyone*, you have to ruin it.”
House’s mind is blazing in anger. He doesn’t know why it hurts so much to watch Wilson squirm and try to escape. Doesn’t know why each lie is hurting him more each line. And he doesn’t know why all he’s seeing is Wilson’s mouth over Chase’s. Wilson’s hands on Chase’s hips. Chase’s hand running through Wilson’s hair.
“I trusted you Wilson.” House says. “After what happened last time I swore I never would again. But I did.” He never takes his eyes off the man. “And look where it got me.”
Wilson opens his mouth to try and explain again, but House turns and walks away. Wilson watches the car tear down the road and for once he isn’t thinking of anything except the single tear that had fallen down House’s cheek.
After a few minutes, Wilson pulls out his cell phone and dials Chase’s home number.
“Chase? It’s Wilson. I’ve just had House round here and I’m presuming he’s coming round to you now. I hope you check your messages before he gets to you.” Wilson pauses. “I’m sorry Chase.”
He hangs up quickly after that, turns his phone off and tries hard not to let the lump in his throat overpower him.
*
Chase is sitting on his knees in the middle of the floor, a bottle of tequila in one hand and a shot glass in the other. He doesn’t know why he bothered getting a glass, he’s not using it. He takes a swig from the bottle and hears the answering machine in the hallway begin to speak.
“Chase? It’s Wilson.” Chase closes his eyes and tries to ignore the rest of Wilson’s message. Why should he care what he’s got to say? Why should he care if Wilson’s sorry?
“You’ve ruined my life” Chase whispers, clutching the glass. “You’ve ruined my fucking life!”
He throws the glass against the wall where it shatters satisfactorily in the silence, sending a spray of fine glass across Chase’s floor. Chase dissolves into broken sobs again, clutching his head in his hands, the tequila bottle lying empty on its side.
“I’m sorry House. I’m so sorry.”
Chase lets himself roll over onto his back, where he stays, the tears still coursing down his cheeks, his heart faithfully thumping beneath his chest. Chase knows he’s still alive, knows his heart isn’t really broken, but it’s hurting. It’s hurting him so much, and right now he thinks he would prefer to be dead.