I've got a bad case of lovin' you [Chase/House, House M.D.]
Part 6 Part 5 Part 3 Part 2 Part 1
[3.6k; AO3]
“Foreman wants us to pay a visit to HR, which, if I may point out, wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t told everyone and their sickly grandma they’d brought into the clinic, that we’re shagging.” “Shagging,” House says, managing to imbue the word with both intense mockery and amused delight. “Sorry for dashing your plans of keeping some nurse on the side.” “It’s alright, as long as you keep putting out. (can be read as a standalone but series will bring extra context)
“Need you to make House understand that he never had destroying-MRI-machines privileges, and, if he did, they’ve long since been revoked.”
Chase swivels his chair around and fixes Foreman with a look.
“I’m definitely going to need you to pick a lane here – he either never had them or they’ve been revoked.”
“The end result should be the same.”
“Yes, because when has House been one to nitpick,” he says drily but them nods at the other man. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks,” Foreman is half out of the door when he seems to think better of it and takes two steps back into Chase’s office. “How’s that going, by the way?”
“Umm, since I said I’d do it 3 seconds ago?”
Foreman gives him a look that says he’s known Chase a few too many years to buy his act. Chase supposes he’s known him just enough years to read his looks.
“You and House.”
“Me and House?”
“Are we pretending that he didn’t declare to half the hospital and a significant amount of clinic patients that he’s been “brought back to life through the sheer power of sex with a blond surfer half his age”?”
“I’m more than half his age. And haven’t touched a surfboard in over a year.”
“Request some PTO and stop playing coy.”
Chase groans a little and lets his head drop back, so he can at least stare at the ceiling instead of directly into Foreman’s judgmental (though not as much as he’d expected) eyes. He’s pretty sure it will win him no points to mention that, at the time when House had said that, they’d barely made it to second base.
“It’s… probably way less antagonistic than you’re imagining.”
“That’s the sort of ringing endorsement I hope all of my friends can give their romantic relationships.”
Chase rolls his eyes but can’t deny the kindle of warmth he feels at the sarcastic statement. His and House’s relationship has evolved the most over the years, thanks to recent events, but he thinks him and Foreman are a close second.
“Look, did I expect this to happen? No. Was I hoping for it? Yes. Is it what I thought it would be? Honestly, it’s better.”
Foreman’s eyebrows make a leap for it, surprise very clear and not all that unpleasant.
“And that’s as much as I’m willing to say at this point because House now has even more direct access to my balls.”
And there goes anything pleased in Foreman’s expression.
“You could’ve said less,” he mutters before sobering up and giving him a long, probing look. “Long as you know that, as far as me and the hospital are concerned, if this goes sideways, it’s House that’s going to end up on the curb.”
Chase feels a strange mix of gratitude at the show of unwavering support, the kind he’s rarely felt like he had in his personal life, and a sharp pain at the idea of House very literally on the curb, losing both his job and his current place of residence just because him and Chase couldn’t hack it.
That’s… not the kind of position he wanted to put House in.
“Chase?”
He lifts his eyes – Foreman looks like he’s screwing up his courage to go even more mushy on him and Chase is not sure either of them will recover from that.
“Thanks, that’s… I mean, I appreciate it but also, it won’t come to that. If this goes south, we’ll handle it like adults,” he tells Foreman and himself.
“When has House ever handled anything like an adult?” Foreman raises a disbelieving eyebrow but thankfully, doesn’t push it, and Chase almost thinks he’s in the clear when the other man turns back from the doorway for the second time. “You do know I expect you both to go sort this out with HR by the end of the month, right?”
So much for House being an adult and Foreman being a friend.
///
He gets burgers. From the fancy burger joint where House calls everyone extortionists and geniuses in the same breath. He throws all his principles to the wind and gets the ones with mozzarella sticks inside the burgers. And an extra side of mozzarella sticks because he’s that desperate.
House immediately knows something is up when he gets home, so Chase launches into the little “MRIs are way more expensive than you think” speech he prepared to distract him. Thankfully, House is riding the high of a correct and very rare diagnosis so takes the warning with the attitude of a man who believes he has the power to MRI a patient with his superior brainwaves alone. Chase takes the win and prays (just a little) that it won’t be his last tonight.
He is sending off one last email for the day while House finishes the dishes – somehow it’s always his turn when they get takeout and the extend of “the dishes” are two dirty glasses, when he hears the water shut off and the shuffle of uneven steps.
Looking up from his laptop, he almost wishes he was immune to the sight of House with his shirtsleeves sloppily rolled up, tossing a hand towel over his shoulder.
“So, do you wanna ask now or bribe me with sex first?”
Chase shuts his laptop without looking at the screen again and makes short work of the distance between them, backing House into the kitchen he came out of and against the sink he must have stood at, tossing the offending towel in the general vicinity of the counter.
“Definitely door number 2.”
///
House talks a big game but they haven’t actually made it to home base yet and personally, Chase is it no rush to get there. He’s messed around with a few guys, had a couple of trial-month-long boyfriends but never made it to the point where he wanted to let them fuck him, and the idea of fucking House feels almost sacrilegious. And makes him almost blackout for a second every time he thinks about it too hard.
So, he’s not too surprised when it becomes obvious that House doesn’t expect that kind of sex as his bribe. However, they’ve definitely graduated from handjobs on the couch to the point where Chase is confidently kissing his way down House’s happy trail when he’s unceremoniously tugged up the bed to face the other man.
House kisses like a man starved (except when it’s too late at night and his lips are chapped but the press of them ever so soft or too early in the morning and his breath is stale but his mouth endearingly clumsy), a man who is claiming territory that Chase thinks should be painfully obvious is his already.
His beard scratches against Chase’s already sensitive lips, spit smeared against his cheek, and Chase can’t help but laugh into it as he realizes House is fumbling with the lube on the nightstand behind him while refusing to stop slobbering all over him long enough to look at what he’s doing. His laughter is punished by those lips turning into teeth quicker than Chase can complain.
Eventually though their efforts are rewarded when House’s wet hand wraps first around Chase, then around both of them, squeezing them so close together that Chase can feel the zipper of House’s jeans leaving an impression into his naked thigh (his beloved sweatpants were discarded at the doorway while House’s jeans are still riding just below his ass – enough for crucial access, not enough that any part of Chase might accidentally come into contact with House’s scar, but he doesn’t say anything about it, he never does, he’ll wait until they’re done and House shucks his clothes and slips under the covers and falls asleep next to Chase – naked and exposed and trusting him not to make a move he’s not ready for).
“Fuck, Chase.”
Oh, but he sounds close already and Chase moves with surgical precision, wrapping his arms around House’s waist to pull him that little bit closer and his lips around House’s pulse point to feel the way his heartbeat spikes just before he comes.
Chase has no logical, non-gross explanation for it but it’s so much easier for him to finish with House’s come rather than just lube smoothing his way.
After, House hunts around for wet wipes, still with the handicap of having his mouth attached to Chase’s, finally shucks his jeans and sprawls out on his back, working his leg a little to the side with a grimace.
Chase scratches his nails down his side in an attempt to keep the endorphins high and distracting a bit longer. He can’t help but notice that House has filled out a bit. He’s always been lean and wiry but he’d come back from his and Wilson’s adventures on the road properly gaunt. They eat grease takeout as much as anything else, despite Chase’s best efforts, so it’s not like he can take full credit for it but it makes him feel good to scratch and poke House and find meat instead of just bones anyway.
“You should know you’re wasting precious post-orgasm minutes,” House mutters, not exactly responding to Chase’s caresses but clearly not pulling away either.
Chase groans and figures he might as well bite the bullet.
“Foreman wants us to pay a visit to HR, which, if I may point out, wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t told everyone and their sickly grandma they’d brought into the clinic, that we’re shagging.”
“Shagging,” House says, managing to imbue the word with both intense mockery and amused delight. “Sorry for dashing your plans of keeping some nurse on the side.”
“It’s alright, as long as you keep putting out.”
He shamelessly thrills at the evil look House gives him and the way he arrests Chase’s hand – supposedly to stop his teasing scratches and caresses, but then just pulling it across his torso so that Chase has no choice but to press himself all along House’s left side.
“Hope Foreman has a fund for psychological damages, I’m feeling like those people in HR really need all the information we can provide in order to do their job right.”
“They really don’t.”
“Nonsense. How would you like a patient giving you only half the symptoms.”
“Not even remotely the same but I honestly do not care about the HR department enough to put myself in the crossfires.”
“Atta boy.”
///
Much later, Chase will remember that House fell asleep in the middle of a conversation and hadn’t taken a pill since before dinner.
Now, Chase wakes to shuffling and grunts that sound nothing like the ones House made earlier. He’s on his side of the bed, no part of him touching any part of House anymore, which is unusual enough. He hears House swear viciously under his breath and turns around to face him.
“House?” He starts to reach for the other man’s naked shoulder – stops himself halfway, starts to ask if he’s alright and bites his tongue at his own stupidity. “What do you need?”
He can quite literally hear House’s teeth grinding together.
“Nothing,” he manages to bite out eventually and struggles into a sitting position, supporting his leg as he moves, turning his clammy back to Chase. “Go back to sleep.”
“House, come on,” he tries to keep both the pleading and the exasperation out of his voice. “I can get you a pill.”
In the moonlight streaming through the windows, he watches the muscles in House’s arm move as he squeezes and rubs at his leg, trying to relieve the pain, and he waits.
Eventually (miraculously, as far as Chase is concerned), House responds with a single “fine”.
Chase jumps up, trying not to jostle the bed and House in the process. He grabs his sweatpants from the doorway and tries to pull them up while heading for the kitchen, hopping around on one foot half of the way.
He puts the kettle on, fills a glass of water and grabs House’s pills. He delivers those quickly before heading back – he doesn’t have to wait for a thanks House is not gonna give and doesn’t want to see how many pills he decides to take.
When the kettle is near a boil, he grabs two kitchen towels and soaks them in the hot water, burning his fingers like an idiot before deciding to let them rest in the sink for a minute. Then he squeezes the excess water out and takes them back to the bedroom.
He purposefully gets back on his side of the bed and offers House the towels over his shoulder rather than ambushing him face-to-face.
“Try these on?”
“This isn’t some joint stiffness you can fix by applying heat,” House hisses at him with less strength and venom than Chase wants to hear.
“Heat can work on muscle spasms too,” he replies calmly and once again, just waits.
House takes the towels with a disgusted scoff but he takes them and that’s all he cares about. Chase makes himself pull back and lean against the headboard, keeping a close eye on House’s back, the muscles still rippling across it as he presses his pain back into the leg causing it, and a close ear on the sounds House is clearly trying to stifle.
After some time, not enough for the Vicodin to have kicked in yet but enough that House has discarded the cooled towels, Chase can see House’s hands slowing down, his grunts almost as much frustration as they are pain.
Chase bites his lip and thinks fuck it, House needs to realize they’re not in the habit of preserving lines uncrossed between them.
He shuffles behind House and puts his hands on his shoulders, digging his fingers in, firm and unhesitating. He feels him stiffen and relax, like a ripple going through him, wanting to resist Chase but being pulled away by the pain. He slides his hand down and rubs all across House’s arm, stopping just above his pisiform bone.
“Want a fresh pair of hands?”
“Don’t have time for your randiness right now.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, handling your dick does not require more than one hand,” Chase says matter of fact, extremely pleased with himself when that punches a scoff that’s not all pain out of House.
He feels the shift as the older man allows himself to lean back, into him. Tries to mentally school his body into being the perfect mix of stable and comfortable. Then, to no surprise, he waits.
He waits even as he can feel House trembling slightly against his chest, waits even as he can hear House’s teeth grinding again, waits even as he counts House’s quicker breaths and then the minutes it takes him to get them under control.
He waits until he’s rewarded for it by House’s hands dropping exhaustedly to the side and letting Chase’s take their place.
///
Chase wakes up alone. It’s not surprising House is awake – a flare up and a good night’s sleep are rare bedfellows, as much as that he hasn’t yet woken Chase up too. He supposes the pain might’ve been enough to stave off both his sexual and regular appetite, in which case an awake Chase isn’t essential.
He makes his way into the living room, unsurprised to find House just sitting on the couch and staring into space, twirling his bottle of Vicodin between the fingers of one hand. Chase will take what he can get – namely the sound of many pills still rattling inside.
Despite the morose quiet, House looks at home here, in what used to be only Chase’s space. The intrusive thoughts of yesterday come back with a vengeance and he knows this is not the right time but he can’t help it.
“We need to talk,” he rushes out, quickly taking a seat next to the older man.
He actually hears the pop of House’s neck with how sharply he turns to look at him. He’d think he’d somehow snuck up on him, frightened him, but the shock on House’s face is much deeper than that. He looks profoundly tired now, eyebags a little darker, pain lines a little deeper, and it’s probably that exhaustion which takes his guard down and makes every emotion that passes over his face so painfully obvious.
Chase almost feels like he should look away, like he shouldn’t be seeing such genuine shock on House’s face. The anger that follows is only marginally better, used to be more familiar. It makes House’s features harden a little as he opens his mouth to say something. But he stops himself. And this one, this is the worst one in whatever domino effect of emotions Chase has triggered – the desperation. The anger melts away as quick and unexplained as it came and now there’s something frantic and desperate and devasted in House’s eyes and Chase is so –
“Last night…” House starts, his voice choked in a way Chase has definitely never heard. “I’m— It doesn’t happen often. And you don’t have to—”
All at once, things click quickly and horrifically.
“House, no, stop!”
Chase doesn’t even try to fight the urge to reach for the older man and pull him close. The real kicker is how easily House goes with it – in a tiny part of his mind, Chase thinks this might very well be the first thing that’s ever happened easily with House, how his own hands go around Chase’s waist almost as soon as Chase’s go around his shoulders.
“You don’t have to explain or, or… apologise for any of that, you idiot. Why would you ever—"
House pulls back to look at Chase with all the incredulity a human frame can carry.
“Did you just call me—”
“Fully deserved,” Chase defends himself quickly. “There’s nothing about last night that you need to justify.”
“Well, gee, not when the first words out of your mouth this morning were some of the worst in human history.”
Chase opens said mouth to defend himself but then – he knew it was a bad idea, he just didn’t realise it was disastrous.
“Go on then,” House baits him, recovering his equilibrium a little bit and with it his shit-stirring ways, though Chase notes that he still has one arm half-wrapped around him.
“I just… Foreman said something yesterday that made me realise we have kind of put all of our eggs in the same basket – working together, living together… sleeping together. And I just wanted to… make sure that you knew that… you could have your eggs back at any time. Completely unbroken.”
Chase swallows and peers at House with one eye closed and what must be an embarrassed grimace on his face. The look House gives him certainly reaffirms that he has reason to be embarrassed.
“Wow. You know this is why only I’m allowed to use metaphors.”
Chase’s shoulders loosen even as he gives House an annoyed look.
“So, let’s double check if I got the gist of that. I can keep my job and keep sleeping in your bed, even if we’re suddenly no longer boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“I’m not your girlfriend.”
“Ah, but you rightfully assumed that—"
“And you can keep living here, we probably wouldn’t be… sleeping in the same bed.”
“But your bed is more comfortable.”
“It’s—”
“That very much sounds like losing an egg to me. A yolk at least.”
Chase huffs and drops his head against the back of the couch. Tries not to crack and smile as he feels House’s hand, trapped between his back and the couch, sneak up and rub at the nape of his neck.
“Fine. In the unlikely,” Chase makes sure to imbue the work with all the confidence he holds in his body. “Event that we break up, you can have the bed.”
House reels back a little, an almost pitying smile on his face.
“You’re such a sucker.”
Chase literally throws his hands up in exasperation.
“You just said—”
“I’ve screwed you over and you’re still keeping Foreman off my ass and letting me live in your apartment and sleep in your bed.”
“Who says you— Maybe I screwed you over,” now he sounds indignant.
House gives him an almost indulgent look as if he wasn’t just as close to freaking out as he has ever seen him over Chase breaking up with him.
“Maybe HR screwed us over. Maybe they didn’t trust you, wielding all that power over me at work.”
“Oh, no way. You’re not getting out of going to HR with me, you—”
Taking into account the data collected so far during their relationship, Chase hasn’t pegged House as a kiss-them-to-shut-them-up kind of man but, clearly, he still has a lot to learn. It’s not a short kiss either, House making full use of the grasp he still has on his neck.
“I’m not trying to get out of anything,” he says against Chase’s cheek when they finally pull apart.
It’s loaded and Chase tries to skirt around the thought in his own head but it’s right there – neon fucking letters above an all-you-can-feel bar – I love you.
He’s not fool enough to say it. But he’s obviously fool enough to feel it.
