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The Road Less Travelled
by Dorian Grey
This goes against everything he has ever been taught, everything he was raised to believe was the absolute truth.
If this had happened to him in Australia, chances are he would've panicked - would've instantly retreated into church in an attempt to cleanse his soul of sins he hadn't yet committed.
Yet, this is America. He's only been here for a couple of years - two, is it now? He doesn't quite remember, days always turn into weeks before he has a chance to notice them - and it seems like everything he's ever trusted has been turned on its head.
The world isn't out to get him, nor is it always going to help him. He has to stand up for himself, watch his own back - even if it gets him labelled a snitch in the process, and that's something he'll have to deal with on his own time.
The people he used to believe were sinners - were beneath him - are now the people he can relate to. They are the people he loves, and the people who love him back. They have yet to say the words out loud, but he knows better than most that sometimes what isn't said is far more important than what is.
If it is possible to understand a person simply by those they socialise with, he certainly doesn't wish to know what they say about him.
- - - - - - - - - - -
He's still not sure how he wound up here - this certainly isn't a place he would normally go. But as is always the circumstances, the events leading up to his presence in this bar certainly weren't classified as normal.
It's one of the things he dreads - when events like watching a child die before your eyes becomes normal, routine, and all those other words that people associate with things they come across almost everyday. He never wants working at the hospital to become routine. It's almost like he wants an excuse - something abnormal happens at work, well, that gives him just the perfect reason to go have a drink or two.
Normally (and there's that word again), he drinks alone, sitting in a corner of the bar. He's cheerful and polite to everyone who stops to talk to him - and people do, he's good looking and alone, it's almost a magnet for bar patrons of either gender.
The bar is about 50 miles outside of Princeton, and picked out not because of the quality of the alcohol it serves, or the atmosphere, but for the sheer fact that it is just far enough that none of his co-workers would consider it a place to relax. The last thing he wants to deal with them anymore than he has to. They aren't bad people, in fact, he rather likes them, but there are some people who you just can't socialise with outside of work.
However, as it always is, it's not his colleagues, but his boss who surprises him when he least expects it.
He'd guess about an hour's passed since he sat down, and started casually observing everyone who walked into the bar - quietly calculating their backstories and reasons for being in this bar on this particular night. He's studying a girl who he suspects has just escaped an abusive relationship - he doesn't know why he thinks that, he just does - when the door jangles again. Glancing back towards it, he notices that the man who has just walked in isn't someone he really wanted to see for the rest of the week, let alone right here, right now.
He rubs his cheek right where the bruise used to be - it's long gone, but Chase still remembers the feeling of House's fist colliding with his face, knocking him to the ground. The pain's almost engraved in his subconscious, coming back to haunt him whenever House says something that makes him question himself. Ducking his head back down, he crouches over in his booth, clutching onto his whiskey as if he holds onto it tightly enough, House won't notice him.
But he's Chase, and if there's anything he's not known for, it's luck. So when he hears Wilson's voice (and when did he show up?) calling to House, letting him know that `Hey, isn't that Chase over there?', Chase really isn't surprised. House's response - a silence, followed by the noise of House's cane getting closer to the booth where Chase is hiding - is just as predictable. If they ever left him alone, he suspects the world might end.
Without bothering to ask, House collapses into the seat across from him, Wilson quietly nudging House over until he, too, has room to sit. Chase almost doesn't bother to look up, almost just gets up and leaves, but at the last moment he doesn't. He looks up, he stays, and to seal his fate, he talks. `What are you doing here?' The words escape from his mouth before he can stop them, and maybe he's had too much to drink because that thought almost amuses him.
He also thinks he might have had too much to drink because since when does House wrap his arm around Wilson like he's being affectionate? Since when does House do affectionate? That thought too, almost makes him laugh, but he manages to stop himself this time because he remembers his mother's words. He knows that appearance is everything.
House doesn't answer, and Chase realises for the first time that the alcohol smell surrounding his boss and his friend...boyfriend?...whatever Wilson is to House is almost overwhelming. He gets a feeling that this isn't the first bar they've been to. After several seconds that feel like minutes of silence, Wilson speaks up.
`House convinced me that a pub crawl would be a good way to celebrate our...oh, House, what is it we're celebrating again?'
Wilson gets a shrug in response. This definitely isn't the first bar, not by a long shot. Chase can't sit here and let his boss and Wilson make a fool out of him, doesn't want the rest of the bar to assume that he even knows these people at all, so he does the only logical thing he can think of. In retrospect, it wasn't that logical at all.
`So, uh, how do you guys plan on getting home?'
With this, House decides that it's his turn to talk, chiming in with a sarcastic `we'll walk', which Chase interprets as `We'll call a cab, pretty boy.'
He isn't sure how `we'll walk' turned into `Chase'll take us home', but somehow it has, and that's why he's driving down the interstate with his superiors almost passed out in the backseat. He's not watching them, refuses to even look at them, because the last time he did, they were frantically kissing, and Chase isn't sure whether it was his Catholic upbringing or jealousy that made him look away.
It isn't until he passes the `Welcome to Princeton' sign that he realises that he doesn't have the faintest idea where either of them live. He looks back in the rearview mirror, and asks Wilson - who seems to be the most sober - where he should drop them off. Wilson glances down at House, who is laying face up on his lap, and House rotates slightly so that he's staring at Chase through the mirror. There's something about his gaze that unnerves Chase, but that's how House always is. In that slightly slurred tone, House mumbles something that Chase is almost sure he heard right, but doesn't want to believe, so he asks House to repeat himself.
`I said, take us to your house.'
There are unspoken words behind those, and despite his mother's voice ringing through his head - `See those men, Robbie? Those are men God hates, those are men that are going to Hell, Robbie. I want what's best for you, Robbie, you know I do. I really worry about you. Appearances are everything, and if you go about looking like that, nobody will ever respect you.' - he really wants to listen to House and take them back home, consequences be damned. He's drunk enough that he can blame it on a drunken mistake and never speak of it again, and he knows that House and Wilson are so drunk that they probably won't even remember any of this in the morning.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
And that's how he wound up here, kneeling on his living room carpet as House and Wilson kiss - and don't they do a lot of that? - in front of him, and he's patient. He won't make any advances, just wait for them to notice him. He's kneeling because, really, it isn't that he doesn't know his own sexuality - he does - and it isn't like he's not experienced. He knows what he likes, he knows what others like, and if he doesn't know what he's comfortable with, that's just yet another thing he's got left to learn.
He can tell when the other two start to sober up, their eyes start to wander around the room, examining their surroundings. House is the first to notice him there, and the quick grunt he makes in Wilson's direction is enough to get Wilson to look over at Chase too.
He glances down, avoiding the heated stares that they're giving him. He's never felt more awkward than he does right now, but at the same time, he's never felt more turned on either.
When House gets close enough to thread his fingers through Chase's hair, he has no other options but to look up, seeing the desire that must be evident in his eyes reflected back at him through House's own.
The statement is quiet, but Chase isn't going to question what he heard this time. His hands reach out and lightly run down the front of House's jeans, and the light shiver this draws from House quickly adds itself to his list of accomplishments. For once, he has the control over House, even if the older man's hands are holding onto his hair rather tightly.
Before he has the chance to unzip House's jeans, Wilson makes a noise and draws House's attention away from him. The other two men hold what seems to be a silent conversation before House leans forward and taps Chase in the back of the head before sauntering over to the couch and sitting - almost falling - down. He gestures, and Chase follows.
And when Wilson comes up behind him, and gently runs his hands down Chase's spine, drifting downwards until his fingers are tucked under the back of his jeans, Chase simply looks back toward him and grins before turning his attentions back to House.
After all, Chase has always known that nothing worth learning can ever be taught.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
The Road Less Travelled, Robert Frost
As always, I don't own them. As always, I love and desire feedback. =P
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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