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Robert Chase discovered something remarkable about himself at the tender age of four. In the spacious back yard, while running between his sand box and water tables with an orange shovel in hand, a curious wheezing sound attracted the child's attention. Even from a young age, the blonde tot had a sense of curiosity that would not be stifled even by the cloud of annoyance his parents existed in.
Discovering a young wombat huddled under a bush, panting harshly, with scarlet trickling from its nose failed to scare away the intrigued child. So, little Chase reached out and stroked the coarse fur, unconcerned by his father's lectures regarding wild animals, presenting with a pouty lip when the creature looked, for all intents and purposes, like the sick people in the hospital where his father worked.
"Come on. I don't want you to be sick."
Whatever the trigger was; God, nature, or random luck, the blonde petted his struggling friend and willed him to get better, only to experience a sudden tingling sensation all over his body. A second later, the child experienced a pain unlike anything he had felt before and he jerked away onto the grass, screaming senselessly.
A space of a few moments that felt like an eternity and the pain ended abruptly as it had come and the blonde watched dumbly as the critter waddled out looking all better despite the lack of a band aid, vanishing around the corner of the property. A second later, his father swept him into his arms in a rare show of affection, speaking to him quietly and dabbing at his bloody nose.
"My friend had a bloody nose too, Daddy."
His comment was shushed away and the child was ushered inside and up to his room to lay down since he apparently couldn't keep his eyes open, but he never forgot the sick wombat that had gotten better with a touch.
~~
Robert's experience grew with age and he came to realize that the reason he shied away from contact with his mother and became distressed with his father's notable absence because of the strained mood between his parents, both the good and the bad, were as easy to read as words on paper. Emotions, not thoughts, projected off everyone around him to such a degree that he shied away from the other children and kept to himself: growing up alone.
Over dinner with his parents, the child made the mistake of asking his mother why she hated them. Considering her understandable reaction involved thrown dinner plates, his father physically restraining his mother, and fleeing the dinner table, Robert learned that whatever made him different had to remain a secret.
In school, he made a friend named Emma and they played together all the time. But when his friend fell down and scraped her knees, Robert reached out and fixed her with a touch, the tears it brought to his face small in comparison to the hug he got in return even if he was exhausted for the rest of the day. But when Emma told her parents, who told the teachers, who talked to the school counselor, Robert lost his only friend to another school when her parents determined their friendship contributed to their daughter's delusions.
And so Robert's rule was born: no one must ever know.
~~
Robert used his gift quietly over the years when he accompanied his father to the hospital. If his father was in a meeting with the hospital, he would slip away to the oncology department where he could save people fighting the cancer by making it disappear while a patient underwent chemo.
The rare occasions his father caught his ten year old son looking at a patient's chart resulted in a quiet reprimand after which the proud father explained the words on the chart and provided Chase with tools he needed to help people more quickly. Absorbing another person's illness appeared to be easy, when he knew what to look for, but when Robert didn't know what was wrong, it felt more difficult to help.
And still, no one ever guessed the secret of little Robert Chase.
~~
By the time he was eleven, his parents hate for one another was palpable as was the despair that leeched off the both of them like poison. What made it worse was how helpless he felt to change anything. Cancer was a fight he could win most of the time, but fixing the twisted morass of discord was too much for the young boy to handle.
~~
Children his age grated on the blonde's nerves, but he made friends easily and waded the waters of social tiers with no difficulty merely by reading emotional levels and acting based on what he had come to know. All in all, the other children seemed to sense something was different about Robert Chase and everyone got along with him even if the blonde kept his distance, nose constantly buried in medical textbooks.
All was well because no one knew.
~~
When he awoke to a moving pillar of guilt and an accompanying wave of panic, Robert watched absently as his father walked out the door with his suitcase in hand, pausing partway through the threshold before turning back to his son with a tentative amount of hope that set Robert's teeth on edge.
"Come with me, son. There's nothing for you here."
Nothing for you.
With all his heart, Robert wanted to grasp his father's hand and run away but than his own guilt might eat him alive. His mother, no matter how much her hatred and envy sparked each time she looked at him, needed someone to stay with her.
So, Robert shook his head and bore the disappointment as his father turned and walked out of their lives.
And he was alone again with the secret weighing down his conscience.
~~
Robert Chase's gifts could not save his mother. To her body, he restored her liver to full health while she slept in a drunken stupor. When she woke up, Robert offered her a plateful of pancakes, eggs and sausage, feeling hopeful for the first time in ages. But the blonde with her dull hair and perpetually sunken expression narrowed on him and she swept the plate out of his hands, rage reeking like an overpowering perfume, and she slapped him across the face.
That was the moment he realized his gift was not perfect. Fixing the body was not fixing her mind. Nevertheless, when his mother imbibed too much, Robert quietly fixed her when her system reached poisoning levels and monitored her from behind a textbook, still wanting to find away to help her.
Inevitably, she finally won the fight with an overdosed amount of pills accompanied by a bathtub drowning. Try as he might, he could not will life into his mother's corpse and once again, the limitations of his gift strangled him.
And he wondered if the price of secret was too high.
~~
For a couple years, seminary seemed like the ideal hiding spot to recover from his failure, but it only highlighted two things in his mind. One, God had given him a gift and he definitely would not be making the most of it in seminary. Two, seminary was boring and he had always wanted to be a doctor.
So off to medical school he went, graduating in record time with flawless grades as an Intensivist in order to make the most of his gift. With a medical degree under his belt, Robert felt more confident that he could subtly help people even if physical and practical limitations meant he would be unable to save everyone. At least, he could make a difference with and without his talents.
Perhaps the blonde's leading frustration was a lack of sex life. Because the downside of being able to read emotions was that he could tell when someone was actually feeling something for him. And his inability to cope with dishonest, loveless sexual encounters lead to Robert being familiar with his hand but retaining his virginity. The guy with the powers wasn't what the comics cracked them up to be.
A desire to avoid his father lead him out of Australia and directed his attention to the States. A little research kept bringing up the name Gregory House as one of the world's leading diagnosticians. It was a speciality that would no doubt be useful and beneficial to someone with his skills. And in short order, Robert became obsessed with somehow earning a fellowship position under the man.
So the blonde submitted his application, worked himself into a tizzy, and literally panicked when he scored an interview with a man that reports labelled as rude, intolerant, and impossible. So the Australian arrived for his interview an hour ahead of schedule, which proved to be wise when it allowed him to park himself down the hall from the office a sympathetic nurse directed him to and 'listen' in to someone else experiencing their own interview.
The disgusted disbelief with flashes of horror had to be the applicant. The amused, deranged glee would have to be...his potential boss. But as someone who had read emotions his entire life, Gregory House was just another puzzle to solve and his ticket to becoming a better person.
So when an emotionally wrecked woman stormed out of House's office, Chase stood still like a deer in headlights until a tall, thin man wearing a scowl like it was armor and the piercing eyes of a hawk zeroed in on his dumbstruck look, the man rolled his eyes and waved a cane in his direction.
"You're prettier than the hooker I fucked last night. And if you're as moronic as you are pretty, like that last girl, you can save us both a lot of time and just leave."
The lust accompanied by profound annoyance was flattering and frighteningly honest. Not at all offended by the man's crude demeanor, Robert felt his cheeks heat up as he watched the man dry swallow a pair of pills and limp back into the office down the hall.
Distantly, he wondered if this was what love was like; a lightning strike in the middle of a tornado. Chaos and inevitable like a planet orbiting the sun.
Either way, he was determined to find out.
~~
The two weeks of his new job proved to be a series of tests of fortitude; House made snarky comments and observations, assigned him countless hours of clinic duty, and forced him to participate in assessing the current state of Wilson's marriage every day. In his spare time, he offered his services to a grateful ICU, only to discover House's pale eyes haunting him outside of patient rooms and even spying on him in the locker room. The stalking habit of his boss prevented Robert from using his gift too often. Waiting until House was bewitched by General Hospital or stealing the poor oncologist's lunch.
So Chase used his gifts liberally in the clinic, carefully in the ICU to stabilize, and shrunk but did not disappear cancer in oncology. Vanishing diseases would attract attention, but ones that would more likely vanish completely after a few rounds of chemo could be chalked up to a healthy dose of divine intervention.
Even so, when House began working on challenging cases with him, Robert felt profoundly confident. Gregory House might verbally rip his head off, but there were emotional bursts of occasional pride that Chase was able to pick up when he contributed to their successes and occasionally uncovered the big bad diagnosis.
All in all, Wombat wasn't such a horrible nickname anyway.
And besides, his secret was still safe.
~~
After a month with House, watching the man limp became too much for the blonde and he sat in his tiny apartment for days combing his brain for a solution. Watching his hero down pill after pill, grasping his leg in pain when he thought no one was paying attention, and overflow inside with utter self-loathing was too much for Chase to ignore.
Healing House's injury instantly was out of the question. A dent in the man's leg disappearing overnight would expose him and the American Feds would drag him off to some secret lair for a billion tests. Well, that's what his paranoia declared. So, that left only one option: repetitive treatments. Multiple healing sessions to repair the bone and rebuild, work on the connective muscle and nerve tissues, and then work on the flesh.
But how?
And then epiphany struck.
~~
"You want to what?"
Selling his idea was the most difficult part of Chase's plan and he knew it, but it was the only plan he had to help House.
"Just let me try this. Please, Dr. House."
If Robert couldn't sense emotions, he would have thought the softening around the man's eyes to be a trick of the light. But then the tricky devil that added to the man's evil mythos spurred to life and he smiled at Robert roguishly.
"You wear pink scrubs for a week and you got yourself a deal."
"Done." Humiliation was small potatoes if he could help his mentor.
~~
Per agreement, Robert arrived at House's apartment, fully aware the older man was humoring him. Still, the diagnostician waved him into his home and Chase took a moment to look at the piles of take out cartons on the kitchen counter and beautiful piano in the sitting room. House, wearing a bathrobe, hobbled to the couch, sat down and wordlessly offered the leg and turned on an episode of the L-Word.
Content to be ignored, Robert shed his coat, dropped to his knees and reached out to grasp the hairy leg in his hands and calmed the frayed nerves while his fingers set to work massaging the tender area and manipulating the leg. Maintaining composure while healing--aka not screaming--was a mastery that had been accomplished with time, practice and a lot of pain, but he was mindful of House's sounds as he tentatively mapped out the extent of damage to the leg and all the work it would require.
So caught up in encouraging cells to build and keeping the pain numb, the blonde never noticed House's turning away from his program to watch him with a open-faced wonder. Nor did he see the man's fingers uncurl from where they were braced for the expected agony. And he certainly didn't notice himself become a puzzle to the older man.
"How does that feel?"
"Okay, I guess." The happiness radiating from the other man was a true enough response and Chase smiled brighter than the son at the grumpy man's incredulous look.
House was worth it.
~~
Cuddy had taken one look at his scrubs and went off to scream at House. Chase didn't bother trying to stop her, knowing House got a thrill each time they fought. And honestly, the blonde didn't mind the pink even if he did attract more than his typical fare of stares. It entertained House and that was good enough for him.
After a day devoted to diagnosing a patient that had an infected cat bite, House paged him as he was leaving with a message telling him to come over for dinner. And the empath noted the implied query tacked onto the end.
And if House ordered Chinese that looked suspiciously like what Chase had ordered for lunch last week, the blonde knew better than to comment.
A pain numbing massage with a piece of partially reinforced bone later had the blonde yawning wearily as the last 24 hour stretch caught up with him. Either way, his heart fluttered lightly when House pressed him firmly against the couch with a blanket and a pillow, muttering a quiet.
"Too late to drive home and I'm not letting you call in sick so you might as well sleep here."
~~
The week flew by with him visiting House's apartment five out of the seven evenings that weren't booked by Wilson and sleeping there two of those nights. Robert forced himself not to thinking anything of the appearance of pizza favorites and the variety of Thai options that House arranged for.
At the end of the week, Robert convinced himself to be bold and showed up unannounced to House's residence, well before dinner time, with bags of groceries. To his amazement, the other man just let him in and sat and watched television while he made a homemade lasagna from scratch.
Chase pretended not to see House boring holes into the back of his skull and the pair ate their dinner in silence.
Without any verbal exchange, Chase fell to his knees and accepted the leg that house offered him without comment.
"If you think you'll get special treatment for this, you're wrong."
Amused, Chase numbed the area as his fingers pressed the tense area and made small improvements to the connective tissues and blood flow, turning his face up to watch the blissful yet calculating poker face on the older man.
"I don't want special treatment. I just don't want to see you in pain anymore."
Nothing more was said, but the older doctor remained laser focused on the blonde who returned the look with a fondly, wistful look while rubbing at the man's leg. Out of nowhere, Robert almost suspected it was imaginary, a tendril of affection sparked in the man. Sure, he knew what it felt like, but that feeling directed at him took his own breath away and jolted his concentration.
An aborted move up, Chase leaned toward his wide eyed boss in order to close the gap between them and brushed their lips together. Not even a real kiss, but it had him recoiling and running out the door like the petrified wombat he was.
Best case scenario, House would torture him forever. Worst case, he would be looking for a new job.
~~
House cornered him in the men's bathroom outside the NICU; Chase knew better than most that hiding from the man was impossible. Still, it stunned him no end when the man corralled him against the bathroom stall and all but shoved his tongue down the blonde's throat and squeezed his ass with powerful pianist's fingers.
It lasted no longer than a minute, but Chase was already desperate for more.
"I drove by your apartment this morning. It's a shithole. You're moving in with me."
Like the whirlwind of destruction the man was, he sauntered out leaving Chase thunderstruck by the sincerity and possession in House's emotions. Or did this make them boyfriends? Either way, for someone who could read emotions, blatantly rude honesty was quite frankly amazing.
~~
Dr. Wilson protested his car being used as a U-Haul, but House told him to shut-up and ordered Chase to pack his things which mostly consisted of clothing, books, and a few personal items. The furniture they left behind as it was mostly second hand anyway and they returned to House's apartment with Wilson looking noticeably paler as House commented on the merits of a gay threesome.
But even the oncologist stopped talking, barely pretending to watch the L-Word when pizza night ended with Chase on his knees, rubbing House's leg.
"It looks better than I remember it being, Greg."
"It'll never be a winner in a beauty pageant."
If only you knew.
~~
The next pair of weeks passed in a bizarre way that could be considered House's version of domestic bliss. Bedroom activities remained rather platonic even when Robert wished it were otherwise. But if he woke up as the little spoon regularly, he refrained from commenting and saved Greg--as the other man insisted he call him outside of work--from emasculating feelings.
In the morning, Chase would prepare breakfast with food that House magically arranged via online shopping, citing it only made sense that a cripple shouldn't have to visit the supermarket. And if a crossword subscription appeared as if by magic in the mail addressed to Robert Chase, House refused to claim responsibility. Lunch, was only stolen from Wilson fifty percent of the time, with the other half designated to lunches prepared by Chase.
During cases, House worked him harder than ever, pushing him to new heights of thinking and together they saved tons of people even if his boyfriend overcompensated by cracking the whip a little too much.
Cuddy eventually learned about Chase's living situation when Wilson caved under pressure and that finally ended with House forced to do more clinic hours.
All the while, Chase saw the gradual signs that his work was making a difference. Vicodin doses were fewer and farther between and House's gait was improving and definitely less stiff. If House recognized the signs of improvement, he never commented.
But little things like a pair of brand new pillows appearing in House's bedroom and a night watching sci-fi. The little things and fearful moments of adoration that left Chase absolutely breathless.
One particular evening, he rubbed the smoothed area, noting the crater had decreased in size and the nerve damage was nearly completely repaired, Chase eyed House's housecoat thoughtfully, and moved away from the light massage to open up the robe and stare at the semi-erect penis that jerked upright as he reached out toward it. His lover pulled him forward and taught him how to give a blow job.
~~
Discovering Robert's virgin status had apparently come as a huge turn on and House had him on his knees at least twice a day, courteously offering the blonde a cough drop after each encounter. In no time, fingering over the couch after Chase made dinner and the massage became a nightly thing, with House wringing orgasm after orgasm from his body to the point that the Aussie felt convinced he was going to die from the stimulation.
One night, after a particularly thorough healing session, House had allowed Chase to curl up against him while they watched Oz until the man's bladder protested. House got up and ambled across the floor to the bathroom. Sleepy, Chase was startled back to wakefulness when he was all but mauled by his boyfriend who looked at him with a manic expression that was frankly terrifying, not at all helped by the difficult read he was getting from him.
"What?"
"I walked to the bathroom and back. No cane."
Staring down dumbly, he smiled lightly at the distinctively less concaved flesh and melted at the awed if disbelieving look on House's face.
"I'm going to fuck you now."
The other man swallowed his moan and Robert felt cocooned by the man's love that he returned a thousand fold, even if House never told him. Losing his virginity was beautiful because riding the high of shared love was ecstasy.
~~
Someday, the blonde hoped House could voice what his emotions broadcasted, but he wasn't about to push the other man, particularly when a case snared his attention like nothing else in the world could.
Today though, House was putting himself through dozens of tests including a contrast MRI in order to medically assess his leg that no longer required a cane even if he persisted in walking with a limp. Cuddy had questioned the pair of them extensively and the physical therapy department was up in arms practically begging for House to allow them to assess him. Still, no one suspected the intensivist to have done anything beyond a daily deep tissue massage everyday for the past couple months.
In the end, House obsessed over his test results with a puzzled frown before looking to him for answers to questions Chase knew he could never answer.
~~
In the middle of the night after a particularly trying day, Chase worried that House's affections would wane once his leg was restored aside from a shallow bed of muscle deposit that Robert intended to leave since the area itself should present no discomfort. He suspected that he could conclude his work in another week or two now that House was down to one to two pills per day, but still, he worried. And prayed.
~~
Healing someone had always felt like coming to the end of a journey, but spying on House dumping his Vicodin while Cuddy and Wilson watched with twin shocked expressions was priceless. For his lover to admit pain pills were not needed was incredible.
"Rehab wants to steal Chase from you, House. They think he's the next Jesus."
"Tell them to keep their hands off. The wombat is mine."
"Have you told him you love him?" Typical Wilson.
"He knows."
"You need to tell him, House. I've never seen someone so perfect for you in all my life."
~~
Robert had healed people near death and nearly gotten himself killed as a result before his body kicked in and healed the damage. But the one truth was that his healing mimicked what he healed briefly. So, the child in a coma in front of him presented a peculiar conundrum. Yet, the six year old had grabbed his hand so trustingly before trauma from her car accident sucked her under. The surgeons stabilized her condition, but the head trauma might render the coma state permanent, which tugged at the empath's heartstrings.
Throwing caution to the wind, Robert reached out and absorbed the worst of the head injury, jerking backward away from the girl's hospital bed and hitting the floor with a harsh crack. And then everything vanished.
~~
"Chase!"
Greg. Lost in a room he could neither see nor feel, Robert looked for the man he loved.
"You shouldn't be in a coma. Wake up, damn you!"
Guilt shouldn't be something he was feeling.
"If you don't wake up, you're fired!"
Liar.
Oh. Somehow he could feel pressure as if... someone was holding his hand.
"You can't die after you made me fall in love with you."
"You finally said it."
Blinking awake, the blonde looked at the gobsmacked expression on the hospital's resident genius and smiled softly.
"I love you too, Greg."
Thank God he had woken up if only to witness this moment. The day Gregory House shed a tear was the day for miracles.
The hand gripping his tightened and a forehead pressed up against his own with a destroyed look.
"No more vacations for you wombat. You're not allowed to leave me here alone."
Words were special, but emotions were priceless and Chase was rich beyond measure.
"Never."