i spent three years driving around

House removed Chase’s outer shirt as quickly as he could without stressing the wound.  It bled through the sleeveless undershirt he wore, a dark puddle spreading like ink across his quavering abdomen.

He tore the sleeves off at the seams and tied the three separate pieces together.  Wrapping it around the torn flesh, House grimaced at the hot, pulsing fluid, pouring out faster than he could keep it in.

“What the hell are you doing here?” House demanded.

“I followed,” Chase lifted a hand to gesture but dropped it.  He gasped, blinking rapidly.  “Why would you…?”

“It’s okay, Chase.  We thought you were someone else.”  Cameron’s voice broke as she touched his face.  She stroked his hair but received little response.  “I’m sorry, Chase, I’m sorry—”

House grabbed her hand and pressed it firmly over his wound instead.

“Do you have a phone, Chase?” House asked as he rummaged through his pockets.  “Chase, stay with us, do you have a cell phone?”  The smooth, small object met his fingers with the answer; he withdrew it and started scrolling through the numbers list.

“I thought Turner said we couldn’t call for help,” Cameron said.  Her shaking hand grasped Chase’s while the other remained bloodless over his reddened gash.

“We’re not calling the cops and we can’t call a hospital.  Not directly.” Finding Foreman’s number dead last, House selected it and listened impatiently as the ringing continued, hanging in midair against Chase’s labored breathing and Cameron’s unsteady inhales.

Cameron leaned close to Chase, whose lids looked heavy.  “House?” she asked, panicked.

“Keep him conscious!” House snapped.  “How hard is that to do?”

She choked out a half a sob before giving his shoulders a shake.

“Chase, stay with me.  Please, Chase?  We’ll go out for a drink after this, okay?” She smiled and a tear rolled down over her lips.  “Where do you want to go?  Tell me where.”

Groaning, Chase slowly rolled his head to the side.  He opened his eyes again, staring at the empty space between House and Cameron.  A trickle of blood slipped from the corner of his stilled mouth.  Cameron wiped it away with her thumb.

The puncture was in a bad spot.  House saw immediately where it had ripped through the liver and into the lung; right where he’d aimed.  There was nothing to solve and treatment was obvious, but away from the hospital with no help they could only wait, crippled by time.

He checked his watch.

“You’re not going to die, Chase,” House told him.  He tilted Chase’s head so their eyes met.  “Are you listening?  You’re not going to die.”

“Okay,” Chase said.  He sputtered once.

Foreman finally picked up the phone, and House told him to bring his ass down there now but gave no further explanation.

* * *

A pair of shoes appeared outside the basement window.

House dragged himself unsteadily to his feet and loped over, throwing it open with agitated haste.

“What the hell took you so long?”

“I told you, I was at home.  What are you doing here, hiding from Cuddy?”  Foreman, now in dressed causally, knelt on the grass and peered through the space.  He stopped.  “Shit, what happened?”

“He’s stabbed and you have to take him to a hospital, not Princeton-Plainsboro,” House said.  “And when people ask, he got jumped in an alleyway while you both were walking back from the bar.”

Foreman’s eyes widened into garish white circles against his face.

“Is that Chase?”

“Cameron, you need to lift him by his shoulders.  I got his legs.”

Foreman rapped erratically on the glass of the opened window.  “Hey!  How the hell did Chase get stabbed?” 

House clenched his jaw, glancing once at Chase who gazed back at him blankly.

“Turner,” Cameron suddenly said.  She remained staring down at Chase’s quiet body.  “He followed us here and Turner attacked him.”

House waited for her to look at him, but she never did.

“Who?” Foreman asked.

“Unless you want to literally get us killed, shut up,” House hissed.  “On the count of three, Cameron.  One, two—”

“You can’t lift him, you’ll screw him up even more.  I’m coming down—”

“Stay out of the house!”

Foreman froze again, looking doubtfully around himself, and then from Chase to the window.

“I don’t think he’s going to fit,” he said.

“He will,” House snapped.  “Get ready to pull him out of here when we lift him up.  Ready?”

“Chase?” Cameron let go of the grip she’d had on his shoulders and returned to his side, peering into his face.  She touched his cheek, and his head rocked back and forth limply on his neck.  His eyes rolled back.

“Lift, Cameron!”

“Wait,” she cried.  She put her face next to his, her fingers at his neck.  Shaking, she scrambled to rest Chase’s head on her lap, but it kept slipping off her knees.  The back of her hand covered her mouth.

“House, help me,” she begged.  Her cough turned into a sob as she shook Chase by the shoulders.  “He’s not—”

House stared down at him, now slouched on the floor with his head tilted at an odd angle.  His blood had permeated the bandage and started seeping onto the floor.

“House!” Cameron demanded distantly.  Foreman yelled something but it flew beyond his hearing.

He realized suddenly that she was furiously shaking his shoulders, too, but the grip she held on his arms felt loose and limp.  She was crying.

“He’s not.  Just check, he’s not,” she pleaded.

He stared at the body on the ground, sprawled like Wilson.  Chase had been the distraction.  This entire night had.  The party, the kiss, coffee.  Cameron’s dress, the mystery.  The cards.  All distractions.

“We’re lifting him up,” House told her after a long pause.  “And then I need you to listen very carefully to what I’m going to say.”

House looped his arms around the lower half of the heavy, unresponsive body, his leg splitting at the pressure.  Cameron, coughing and clenching her eyes shut tightly, fumbled around his torso and pulled upwards, until Foreman gathered a hold and the three eased Chase out the window with inches to spare.

Foreman spread Chase on the grass and House could only see their respective sneakers at the basement angle, although he could picture Foreman crouching over him and taking vitals, his dark fingers searching pale neck and wrist.  His head swam.  Taking Cameron away from the window, he outlined the final plan, fighting through her streaks of tears and uneven breathing.

Foreman reappeared moments later in the window.  He looked like he’d just gotten punched.   His voice contained no expression.

“Guys…” he said.

Cameron stumbled back and House caught her, hands on her elbows, and wouldn’t let her fall.

* * *

Each step was hell.  Still crying, Cameron supported him scaling the basement stairs, but the flight to the second floor was his trial alone.  He braced the railing, the muscles in his arms knotting from the pressure they’d steadily endured.  The darkness paled on the stairs as morning approached.

On the second floor, he dragged himself to an empty room and hid behind the opened door.  His breathing rebounded off the small space and he steadied himself one last time before preparing for the plunge.

The front door slammed downstairs, as planned.  Cameron had begun the distraction.  House hoped she’d grabbed her dress up from her ankles and was now sprinting across the lawn, into the prim landscaped trees, back to the safety of the fake graveyard and onto Cuddy’s porch, back inside the house where there was light.

House honed in on Turner’s footsteps breaking the silence upstairs, then the shadow that passed by the crack between the door and wall.  He waited until the steps turned hollow on the stairs as they left to investigate the slamming door, before House silently slipped out and moved towards Wilson’s room.

Wilson lay in the center, much where House had left him.  Hands and ankles still tied, he curled on his side in a jagged cocoon, eyes tightly shut.  The lone lamp was sit on and, beside it, the coffee mug was now empty.

House left the stability of the wall and hobbled over, surrendering halfway and resorting to a crawl.

“Wilson—”

Wilson lurched blindly and turned away, his body nearly epileptic in resistance.  His eyebrows knitted into a grimace.  House touched his knee and Wilson flailed, kicking frantically with his legs constrained and screaming muffled.

“Stop, stop, it’s okay.”  House went to his side away from his kicks, and found the front of his pants had been cut open, his penis exposed and limp.  The smell of sweet and stale blood and semen rammed itself down House’s nose and choked in his throat.  He went cold.  Glancing over him quickly, House attributed the blood to the deep gashes down Wilson’s thighs.

House covered him as Wilson breathed hard through his nose.  His white shirt was mangled and stained; the cuts penetrated through into his pale skin, the fabric sticking to the dark, spilled blood and his slight paunch of middle age streaked red.  A large welt rose on the side of Wilson’s brow, and finer cuts crisscrossed along his face.

“Sorry,” House murmured as he moved Wilson further onto his side.  He reached around with the knife to cut him free of his bonds, but stopped when he smelled burnt flesh.  Wilson’s fingers and knuckles were bloodied, boiled and peeling.

“Shit, Wilson.” House lowered his head and turned away for a moment.  He gripped the knife more firmly to overcome his trembling hands, then cut him loose.  Wilson moaned, eyes refusing to open.  House sliced the cords on his feet but didn’t remove either set of bonds entirely.

“Stay still,” House said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder.  “Pretend you’re still tied.”

Wilson froze, then began shaking.  His body convulsed and yet he seemed entirely unable to move by his own will.

House put the knife away in his pocket and moved his hands up to Wilson’s hair, greased with sweat, imitating the brush of fingers Cameron had used as Chase laid motionless.

“Look at me. Wilson.”  House hesitated as Wilson continued to shake.  “It’s almost over.  I’m not leaving.  I’m going to hide, and when he comes back, we’ll take him by surprise.”

Though he’d have to put it back on so Turner wouldn’t suspect tampering, House reached for the duct tape over Wilson’s mouth and slowly pulled it from the corner.  Wilson flinched but House steadied his head as he peeled it off completely.

Wilson opened his eyes and House first turned away from the terror reflected in them.  When he looked back, Wilson stared rigidly at House’s neck, rising incrementally to meet his gaze.  Slow recognition filtered back.

Then fear.

A blow across House’s shoulders sent him reeling to the floor.  Two hands grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him against the wall.

Turner leered into his face.

“Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

House spat at him and marked victory as the wad sprayed across his brow and nose.  “Fuck you.”

Turner thrust his forearm like a bar over House’s neck.  House fumbled with his hands to free himself, but Turner gave him another slam and crushed his throat more, disorienting him.

“So she got away?” Turner asked.  He shrugged but his pale eyes smoldered.  “Oh well.  At least you and your faggot friend will get to die together.”

House’s stomach collapsed as Turner suddenly groped him.  His fingers squeezed his penis and pulled in long, firm strokes.  House lowered his eyes, then closed them.

“Your friend told me you never did it, but he lied.  Do you know how I know?  Because when I fucked him he was too loose.”

House opened his mouth but there was no air to make sound.

Turner’s hand continued stroking, and House’s body reacted despite his will.  He pleaded against biology as Turner worked him to half-hardness.  Devastated, he tried to escape but Turner surrounded him, his fingertips hard and palm roughly rubbing.

“So why would he lie?” Turner whispered in his ear.  “Humiliation?  Maybe you forced him?  Maybe sometimes you pushed his head down on your cock?”

Thoughts dropped around House like dead birds.  He couldn’t grasp any of them.  Did he?  Did he ever make him?  He saw Wilson looking at him, Chase’s kiss, Chase’s death, Wilson lecturing him from bed.  Of course not he’d wanted it, he’d told him stop, never if he did, when it was over—

House ripped open his eyes.  Black dots and white fog shrouded Turner’s face.

Turner smiled and gave him one hard tug.

“I don’t think you need this anymore,” he said, removing his hand and withdrawing the knife.  House struggled but the distorted, empty space only spread further in his mind.  He couldn’t focus.  A painful tingling, desperate for air, dominated.

Turner drew the knife lightly along his groin but moved it over to his left thigh, where it stopped.  The point poked him through his pants.

His limbs had drifted away.  Just a distant scorch in his chest and groin kept him connected and safe from the blankness.

But if it could just end.

Turner’s arm crushed his neck and jammed up against his jaw.  White curled around his vision and pieced together in one perfect, final image, so concise that the aching throb of his body no longer needed appeasement.

“What’s the point,” Turner’s voice came to him, “in having one good leg if you already have a crippled one?  I say we make it even.”

A sharp pain descended on him, vibrant and radiating until he closed his eyes and relinquished agony.  He heard screaming but felt nothing.

House welcomed the black.

* * *

Then something shattered over the back of Turner’s head.  Air suddenly rushed back to House’s lungs.  He slid dazed to the floor, surrounded by large and white, broken shards of a coffee mug.

Wilson stood behind Turner and dropped the handle he’d held in his charred hands.   House missed Turner’s face as he turned around so quickly, but on the back of his head his scalp had been broken open and splotches of blood seeped into his white hair.

Turner lunged at Wilson and House couldn’t make out who screamed what.  Wilson raised his hands to fend him off but rapidly lost strength and balance.  In seconds Turner had thrown him to the floor again, then stood over him as he kicked Wilson relentlessly in the ribs.  Dull thuds were followed by a sickening crack.

House fumbled for the knife Turner had dropped.  His body felt no pain as he crawled closer.  Raising the knife back, he jammed it into Turner’s calf until he hit bone.

Turner screamed, low and furious, and dropped to his knees.  House sent a fist across his face and then tackled him onto his back, linking his hands firmly around Turner’s neck and beginning to squeeze.

Turner seized his hands and rocked back and forth to try and flip their positions, but House straddled his waist and anchored his weight.  Hands clenching harder, he lifted Turner’s head and smashed it repeatedly against the floor, the steady sound of thuds rising until each slap sounded wetter, and each time House pulled Turner’s head up to slam it down blood glistened on the floor and House screamed every time he saw it.

Turner’s hands gradually slackened and fell off.  House continued smashing his skull and strangling until he knew it was only a useless throat he was crushing, and the mouth that took in air was not going to open anymore.

House withdrew, hands shaking.  He stared down at the grim, pale face, the still opened blue eyes.

He pulled away and returned to Wilson, who lay motionless on the floor.

House drew him up to his knees and linked his arms around Wilson’s back, embracing the bloodied and broken body against his own.  Wilson’s heavy head fell limply on his shoulder.  House stilled, his cheek against Wilson’s ear.

He stared at the wall until he felt Wilson stirring, then shaking, fighting to get free.    House tightened the embrace until Wilson gasped and cursed, crying as finally broke down.

There were no words.  Grieved, House separated from him.  Wilson gazed back from somewhere beneath the struck horror marring his face, the expression House instantly recognized as an entrapment of pain.  House wanted to touch him, heal him, but instead he withdrew the knife Cameron had given him from his pocket.  He turned back to Turner, whose eyes remained opened.

House stabbed the knife through the motionless chest and let blood run.

END 


Epilogue:  http://nakannalee.livejournal.com/63682.html