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“I can’t figure you out,” House announced, more to the room than to Chase.
“Sorry?” Chase tried. “Thanks?” He turned to face House, who was pacing back and forth in front of the whiteboard, flipping the marker between his fingers.
“You were raised Catholic. You have daddy issues and an oral fixation.”
“Okay?”
“You’re pretty. You’ve slept with women.”
Chase squinted at him, trying to figure out what he was up to. “One of my pastimes, yes.” Against his better judgement, he’d put in a lot of hard work to earn the title of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital’s resident manwhore.
“Why haven’t you slept with men?”
Chase squinted at him, tilting his head as if the question would make more sense at an angle. “You’re confused because I’m… not bisexual?”
“I’m confused because you are bisexual. And yet you don’t sleep with men.”
Whether he was bisexual was a question best left for himself after a single shot that barely had any effect on him but would give him a reason to find a man to make out with. Sober Chase had to be straight so Drunk Chase could be gay. Which evened out to bisexuality, he supposed. Maybe a sort of Schrödinger’s bisexuality situation. Maybe House was onto something.
“Who says I’m bisexual?” Chase asked.
“Who says you’re not?” House was slowly circling the table, now. Step, step-tap, step, step-tap . Like an animal stalking its prey.
“Me?” Chase tried. “Why don’t you have sex with men? Wilson say no?”
House let out a quick breath, almost a laugh. “Catholic shame must be part of it. With homosexuality being a sin, and all.”
Chase chose to ignore that. “I’m not bisexual.”
“Were you abused as a child?” The bluntness of the question startled him, though bluntness was to be expected with House. It wasn’t a question born out of sympathy; thank God for that, the derision was familiar, and Chase didn’t want to see pity in House’s sharp gaze. “You had all the risk factors; neglectful parents, addict caregiver, Catholic.”
Chase considered his words– a rare occasion, one House most likely picked up on. “You’re under the impression that the reason I don’t have sex with men is that I was abused by a man as a child. Due to being Catholic.”
“You were abused by a man as an adult?” House tried.
“Can’t I just not sleep with men because I don’t want to? Is that a possibility?”
House squinted at him. “You were abused by a woman?”
Chase gave him a look he hoped came across as mild irritation and not rising frustration. “We’ve got a patient in the OR right now, in case you weren’t aware. Allegedly I’m a doctor and not a case study.”
“She’s fine, liver failure never hurt anyone. Why would that stop you from sleeping with men?”
“She’s undergoing a liver transplant. Not sure she’ll survive the surgery.”
“Is it an attempt to, what, reclaim your sexuality? Rewrite your story?” House paced around the table before sitting down on its edge, a foot from where Chase was sitting with the patient file open and ignored in front of him. “You need to prove it was your choice this time?”
A flash of rage hit him and Chase turned House’s words against him. “You seem to care a lot about this. Look in a mirror, you call a hooker every few days, it seems. Least I don’t have to pay.”
House remained remarkably calm, almost amused. Sometimes Chase wondered exactly how much House could wear on him before he resorted to physical violence. “I’m trying to do a differential, here.”
“This seem like any of your business?” Chase snapped, gesturing around the room at nothing. His self control was waning.
“It’s important for me to get to know my team.”
“It’s important for you to try and figure out, what, if I was molested or not?” He spat the word out like it tasted bad. House still didn’t flinch.
“It could be medically relevant.”
“Ask again when I’m dying in the fucking ICU, then. I’m fine.” Chase looked up at him with white-hot anger behind his eyes that he didn’t bother hiding. House already knew he was pissed and was clearly trying to draw it out of him. Chase couldn’t quite figure out what his game was.
“I didn’t ask if you were fine.”
Chase shrugged, faux-nonchalant, gritting his teeth. “Well, I am, so.”
“I’m trying to figure you out. I’m missing a piece of the puzzle.”
“I’m not one of your puzzles,” he snapped. “The fact that you’re so stuck on this says more about you than me.”
House raised an eyebrow, his breaths infuriatingly even, his expression unreadable. “You think I’m projecting?”
“I think you’re realizing we’re two sides of the same coin,” said Chase, and then the words were tumbling out without his permission. “I think you sleep with women you barely know because you’re scared to form an actual connection with anyone. Because then you would have to admit what you’re doing isn’t healthy, and be vulnerable for once in your fucking life. You ask me why I don’t have sex with men but you’re really asking why I do have sex with women. And I think you know. I think you see yourself in me.”
House’s response came after a pause, a mean glint in his eye, a measured breath. “Yeah, I could see myself in you.”
Chase decided to pretend the feeling that stirred in him was rage and tried to disregard it. “Underneath all your puzzles and riddles you’re a fucking coward.”
“You seem to be taking this awfully personally.”
“Well, it’s about my personal life, how else should I be taking it?”
“Like a man?” That glint in House’s eyes was back, and he tilted his head ever so slightly. “Like a good boy?”
Chase kept his expression as unaffected as possible as he scrambled to come up with a response and found the effort wildly unsuccessful. His attempt to guess what puzzle or game or trap House had put in motion was equally fruitless. After a moment of deer-in-headlights staring, he settled for a grit-teeth “Just keep out of my business.”
“Your business is so interesting, though.”
“So is our patient. In the OR. With liver failure.”
“And my patient is here. In the DDX room.“
“I’m not your patient.”
House got off the table, rubbing his leg half-habitually before resuming his pacing around the table. “You’re presenting with rage, which could be neurological, and a history of trauma, which could precede any number of psychiatric concerns. And you’re bisexual.”
“Neurological? I’m mad because you’re being a cunt,” Chase snapped. “And I don’t have a history of trauma.”
“Aside from Daddy leaving and Mommy not loving you enough?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
House didn’t blink, didn’t falter in his rhythm at all. “I’m good ’til my lunch break, thanks.”
Chase opened the case file as if he was going to get anything done and wondered if his jaw would be permanently clenched by the end of this conversation. Maybe he could figure out House’s game if he stayed quiet long enough, let the man talk himself in circles. An uneasy quiet settled over the room for a good three seconds, four if he was generous, before House felt the need to fill the silence again.
“You sleep with all these women, and it makes you feel dead inside, but you keep doing it. It’s compulsive.”
“Maybe I’m just a heterosexual man and I have sex with women because I like having sex with women. That not occur to you?”
“You feel cheated because you didn’t get your first time on your own terms so you try to make up for it,” House said, making his way back to his desk. He was throwing theories at the wall like Chase was any other patient with a brain tumor or a rare clotting disorder. Chase felt like ripping his skin off would be preferable to this conversation.
“You, what, think I was raped, so you cornered me in a room alone to interrogate me about it? You think that’s the best way to go about asking?”
House squinted slightly, and it was the first uncalculated pause Chase had noticed since he decided to make Chase’s day worse. “Are you… afraid of me?”
“I’ve worked under you for years. If you wanted to fuck me, you’d have done it by now,” Chase said, and the words tasted more bitter than he’d meant them to. Not that there wasn’t truth to it. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone along with something because it was easier to let it happen than to fight.
“Not if you didn’t want me to. It’d be inappropriate for me to initiate that type of relationship as your employer.”
Chase barked out a laugh. “Since when do you care about sexual harassment in the workplace?”
“Cuddy said I couldn’t do that anymore. Because she hates fun.”
“Since when do you listen to Cuddy?”
“I had a change of heart when I accepted Jesus, but this isn’t about me. Why would being abused by a woman stop you from sleeping with men?”
“Maybe men are just harder to find. If I was trying to find them, which I’m not. And I wasn’t abused,” Chase said, words tripping over each other in a futile attempt to keep denying everything House said.
“Sorry, is assaulted the right word?” House kicked his good leg up onto the table and used his hands to lift his bad leg up too. This was the thing about House: he saw a stray thread and he would pull it until everything unravelled, regardless of whether or not it needed to be unravelled. In fact, he seemed to get more enjoyment out of the unravelling the more unnecessary and cruel it was.
“What is your fucking problem?” Chase snapped, voice getting louder with each word, and once he started he couldn’t stop. “Why do you want to dig into whatever you think happened to me? Do you get some thrill out of it? Is it funny to you? Is it just another one of your stupid games?” He got up to pace back and forth like House had been doing. “Are you just bored?”
“I’m curious,” said House, like it was simple. He tossed his ball from one hand to the other.
“Okay,” said Chase, voice coming out more blunt than he meant it to. He looked down at the file. “Says here our patient’s liver is failing. I’m curious about that, so. See ya.”
He made his way to the door. House clicked his tongue, and Chase turned on instinct.
“What? Go deal with the patient.”
He didn’t turn back around, but his hand lingered on the door handle. He wasn’t sure why. The two of them looked at each other for far too long before House broke both the eye contact and the dead air.
“Sorry that happened,” he said, gruffly.
Chase gave him a curt nod and said nothing in return.
Before House could say anything else, Chase turned into the busy hallway, making his way straight towards the locker room. He needed to sit down for a moment, and take some ibuprofen for his House-induced headache before it got any worse. The liver transplant patient would just have to wait a few minutes.