Tales Told Out of Turn Part 5
Title: Tales Told Out of Turn Part 5/?
Rating: NC-17 (overall)
Pairing/Grouping: House/Wilson/Chase
Disclaimer: Don't own them, as we all know.
Crossover w/Stargate: Atlantis (you don't need to know much about Stargate to get this fic.)
Summary: House spent way too much time moving around the world as a child and some places had more interesting people than others. How much trouble can a childhood friend cause?
Warnings: Hurt!Chase makes an appearance, although the harm is done prior to this fic. Mentions are made, but no graphic discriptitions. (And I fix him, so it's really about the healing not the hurt.)
Beta:
recrudescence
(Part 4)
*****
House watched gleefully as Cuddy’s face turned red.
"I think I do want to know."
House grinned. "Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you…"
"No! Bad, House!" Wilson threw his pen and hit House in the cheek.
"Hey!" House stood and dropped the pen on Wilson’s desk. "See if I screw you again anytime soon." House stood and tapped his cane against Cuddy’s chair. "I have a General to meet. Later."
Cuddy and Wilson watched as House left, not quite slamming the office door behind him. Cuddy turned to Wilson.
"Do I need to worry about that last statement?"
Wilson shook his head. "No. He didn’t call the man back."
Cuddy sighed. "I’m going to have a talk with Chase." As she stood and placed the file back on Wilson’s desk, she glared at him. "If I even hear about sex within this hospital amongst the three of you, I will make your lives hell."
Wilson nodded and waited until the door clicked closed to mutter, "I just made House mad at me. My life is already hell."
****
Chase quit laughing as Cuddy slid the door open.
"Chase, I need to speak to you, please." Cuddy ushered Foreman into the room. "Now, Chase."
Ask or order, you can’t do both. Chase nodded his understanding and followed Cuddy from the room. Bloody hell, what’s House done now?
They entered the elevator and Cuddy rubbed her temple.
"Are you getting along with House’s friend all right?"
Chase schooled his expression from surprise to calm blandness before Cuddy looked up. "Rodney is nice."
"Nice?" Cuddy winced as her voice bounced off the walls. "Sorry. He just wasn’t that nice seeming to me."
Chase forced his shoulders down from where they had hunched slightly. "He is blunt, but I’ve heard far worse things come from House."
Cuddy nodded and led the way to her office. Once inside with the door firmly shut, Cuddy sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk and waited for Chase to sit.
"House told me something a little while ago that I want to speak to you about."
Chase sighed. "What did I do wrong this time?"
Cuddy’s eyebrows went up. "You haven’t done anything wrong. House decided that I should know about your relationship with him and Wilson."
Chase ducked his head and rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Please tell me he didn’t shout it out at you in a hallway or something."
Cuddy almost smiled, as Chase’s accent became thicker. "No, not that I wouldn’t have expected that. I got upset, so it was just as well we were in Wilson’s office."
Chase seemed to fold in on himself, although Cuddy didn’t see him move.
"Oh, I’m not upset about the relationship itself. If you want the work of dealing with House all the time, I applaud your courage. I was mad House didn’t warn you before telling me."
Chase took a deep breath. "We had a bet going about it." Chase smiled brightly. "No matter how you found out, you learned of it first. I win the bet."
Cuddy laughed. "Wilson thought that you’d tell House he cheated."
Chase shook his head. "Oh, no, I didn’t much like what either of them would have won." Chase shrugged. "I’m less adventurous than they can be."
"If you stay with them long enough I’m sure you’ll pick it up."
Chase cocked his head. "I’d be careful what you say, if I were you."
Cuddy leaned forward. "What do you get, anyway?"
Chase smiled and color rose to his cheeks. "If I answer that you’ll never be able to un-hear it."
"Never mind." Cuddy leaned back. "How long has this thing been going on?"
"It isn’t a thing; we finally got House to quit calling it that a month ago. Don’t you dare start that up again."
Cuddy blinked. "Okay. I just …The idea of House involved with anyone after Stacy is just hard to accept."
Chase sighed. "Not as hard as getting him to accept us was."
Cuddy smiled. "I can imagine. Why both of them?"
Chase half-smiled as he gazed past Cuddy’s shoulder. "Between the two of them I feel complete." Chase glanced at Cuddy. "Happy."
Cuddy nodded. "I know you have a hard time talking to people, but if you need someone to complain to you can come to me."
Chase laughed. "No, I’m fine. I’ll remember your offer though." Chase motioned at the door. "Can I go now?"
"Yes, you can go." Cuddy watched as the young man walked from her office. She shook her head at the craziness that House could produce in people.
****
Chase slid the door to Rodney and John’s room open to find Foreman staring as two men in suits argued with Rodney. Chase glanced at John, who appeared unconscious because no one could sleep through that much noise. Then Chase started making sense of what Rodney was saying and he backed out of the room and paged House and Wilson.
Standing in the hallway just outside the door, Chase listened to the muted yelling as he waited for the others to show up. House was moving fast enough that Chase knew extra pills would be swallowed for the next couple of days.
"What’s happened?"
"Cuddy left Foreman with them while she spoke to me. Rodney is screaming at two men in suits about drugging Sheppard."
House cursed under his breath. "Was Foreman doing anything?"
Chase shook his head. Wilson appeared at House’s shoulder.
"What’s wrong?"
"Someone with papers showed up."
Chase frowned. "You don’t know they had any papers, House."
House turned to the door of the room. "Sure I do. Even Foreman would roll over for a Presidential Order, no matter how fake."
Chase and Wilson exchanged glances as House pulled the door open. They followed him inside.
"Get away from my patient." House’s voice was steady with just a bit of edge to it. Rodney stopped yelling and sat panting heavily.
The taller of the two men turned towards House. "He isn’t your patient any longer. We have orders to move both these men to a safer location."
House twirled his cane. "Really? Huh. Who signed your orders?"
The man smiled coldly and extended a sheaf of papers towards House. "The President."
House smiled just as coldly back as he twirled his cane the other way. "I don’t think so. The President was a bit irate that I didn’t call his General back and he yelled at me not ten minutes ago."
The man blinked and looked at his partner, whose calm façade had started to slip. The man turned back to House. "The President wouldn’t call you."
House dropped his false smile. "Which alphabet soup agency are you from? Let me guess… Can’t be FBI, not pretty enough. Can’t be CIA, not smart enough. Can’t be NSA, they never liked Rodney enough. That just leaves… The NID."
The men both started. House immediately swung his cane and hit the man with the papers on the forearm. The man grunted and grabbed at his arm as he backed away from House. The second man broke for the door, only to be punched by Chase. Wilson quickly moved to help and the second man was held down where he had landed.
House herded the first man into the corner as Foreman sluggishly called Security. "Next time you decide to make a bid at kidnapping, I suggest you pick someone else’s patients."
****
House sat with Rodney in the room they’d been moved to without changing the records in the computer as they waited for Sheppard to wake.
"They figure out what your fellow was hit with?"
"Toxic isn’t back yet, but he’s still fairly out of it." House fingered his cane. "They didn’t drug you, why?"
Rodney snorted. "I’ve made a big enough issue of my allergies over the years that most attempts they try to force me to cooperate some other way."
"For once Cuddy gets to be pissed at someone besides me. I dug up the NID’s phone number just for the occasion."
Rodney laughed. "Oh, that’s wonderful. I really need to call our boss."
House tapped his cane against the floor. "I called your boss’s boss. Nice guy, didn't even yell too much. Do I want to know why we have an office of Homeworld Security?"
Rodney blinked. "Uh, no." Rodney shook his head as though trying to clear it. "I can’t believe they answered the phone that way."
House smiled. "I can’t believe you just sat and screamed like a girl."
Rodney made a rude noise. "I wasn’t about to leave John and besides, if they thought I couldn’t move, they stayed put longer."
"Uh huh. When are you going to just tell him you want him?"
Rodney checked John before glaring at House. "Shut up, House."
"Nope. He isn’t hard-nosed and he flirts back, what’s the problem?"
Rodney dropped his head into his hand. "Oh, shit. Just kill me now."
"Rodney." House sing-songed the name as he tapped the cane against the bedrail.
"Oh, fine. Shut up and I’ll tell you."
House grinned and leaned back in his chair.
Rodney sighed. "He’s my best friend, House. The only person who actually doesn’t mind most of what I do, what I don’t do. He doesn’t get upset with me for forgetting things when an experiment keeps my attention longer than I think it will." Rodney gazed at Sheppard. "He makes sure I actually eat on something resembling a schedule. He has killed to keep me alive."
House nodded. "He loves you."
Rodney turned at stared at House. "What?"
House smirked. "You heard me."
"I heard you wrong."
"No, you didn’t and you know it."
"He’s into females, House, trust me on this."
House sighed. "Appearances are just that, Rodney. You know that as much as I do. I seem like an addict to everyone around me, addicted to Vicodin. What do you think?"
Rodney blinked. "Your pain is bad enough to use that?"
House nodded. "Yes. Tell me what you think that means."
"Well, you’ll never overdose on it like you might something else. Your pain is indescribable, isn’t it?"
House snorted. "No one except you sees that, knows why I wouldn’t overdose. I worry Wilson all the time."
"Why not just tell him? It was my mother, after all. You didn’t cause it to happen."
House’s eyebrows rose. "I don’t like to talk, as you well remember. And we both know if you and your sister hadn’t stayed over at my house that night, you would have heard her. You never slept hard enough to miss her."
"I knew even then I was fighting to keep her alive as she was trying to passively die. I just lost a little sooner than I might have."
House hummed. "The point you are trying to desperately avoid is that you love him and he loves you back. Get your head out of your ass and admit it."
Rodney scrubbed his face with his hand. "If he kills me, I’m going to haunt you."
House grinned. "Oh, please, haunt me and I’ll just drive you crazy."
"Crazier." Both House and Rodney turned towards John as his raspy voice reached them. John worked his throat. "Water?"
House laid a hand on Rodney’s arm as he stood. "I’ll get it, you stay in that bed."
Rodney huffed and watched as House handed John some water. "When you called Chase a wombat, you meant what I thought you did?"
House settled back into his chair. "Lovely topic change, Rodney."
"Just answer the question."
House snorted. "Yes, I did. His mother lasted longer, but mostly it matches far too well."
Rodney nodded. "He knows too much about obfuscating to not have seen it a lot."
"He’s very good at it. Probably better than you."
Rodney’s eyebrows climbed. "That’s bad."
"Yeah, it can be." House twirled his cane. "Managed to get him to talk about it far more than I ever thought possible."
Rodney smiled. "You’ve been trading sex for information, haven’t you?"
House just smirked at him.
****
(Part 6)
A/N: The NID is a made up agency that is used/mentioned on both Stargate TV series for those of you that don't follow Stargate at all.