You never meant to hurt him, but that's all you seemed to do. Broken smiles and a closed off expression— that was all you ever saw. That's all you ever knew.

-+-

The numbers were harsh against the slip of paper and Chase found that he couldn't even look away from them. James was off resting in bed, having been down from a bad cold, and all the Aussie had to do was the laundry. He figured it was an easy task, really, but now, as he is staring at the messy handwriting on the slip of paper, he feels his stomach churning wildly against him. The paper feels like needles between his fingertips and he's unsure of how to go about it— if he should touch the subject at all.

Swallowing thickly, the blond moves tentatively down the hallway and peers into the bedroom where the man he called his lover was resting, lying beneath a heap of blankets.

"James, are you awake?" He calls uncertainly into the room.

The oncologist sits up slowly, sniffling and raises a brow at his obviously distraught Aussie. For some terrible reason, he can feel absolute hell brewing. Something was terribly wrong. Chase approaches the other man and sits on the edge of the bed, still trying to decide what he wanted to do with the slip of paper in his palm. His heart was thumping against his chest and fear was setting in.

Letting his body go through the motions, his hand jutted out as he let impulse take over him, the slip of paper hurled at the opposite man's chest. James carefully picked it up, brows furrowed. The moment he saw the numbers, though he crushed the paper in his hand. Dark browns lifted so that blues could meet them. It felt like, by that gaze alone, they were waging war upon each other— each one battling desperately for answers, for truth, for… anything but the tension in the room.

"Why?" Chase finally dares.

"It was in the past. When I was looking for the house key—"

"The house key, right." The blond remarked, snorting softly and turning his back upon the man. "Whose number is it?"

"No ones."

This time, sharp blues met cold browns. Silence passed between them, the tension hovering around them almost suffocating. "It sure must be someone's." Chase finally snapped, his words venomous.

Things would be much easier if Wilson would just tell him who it was and when it had happened. Things could've gone back to the peaceful moments they shared before those numbers were glowing in one another's mind and the fire was set ablaze in their eyes. It was in a flurry of seconds that Chase swept up the crumpled paper and moved for the telephone. Wilson made a move to stop him, but his moves were sluggish and delayed thanks to cold medicines.

Chase, however, was already at the phone, listening as the dial tone blared on and on at him endlessly. When he did finally receive an answer, he grimaced, slamming the phone back to its receiver. By this time, Wilson had made it to the living room where the phone sat with Robert's hand clamped tightly over it.

"A hotel?" The man's voice was grim and Wilson looked to his feet for a moment before dark eyes lifted. This was all from the past, he wasn't to blame! He hadn't even been seeing Chase at the time! Hell, he hadn't even cared that the man existed at all.

"It was in the past, Chase. Let it be. It's not relevant." James warned, the flame of anger within him only growing.

"Who was it you saw in the hotel?"

"No one."

"Who?"

"No one."

"It was House, wasn't it?"

Wilson cringes visibly and looks away from the man again, the broken sound of his voice painful to his ear, "Yes, it was." He admits quietly, but there is still confidence hidden in that voice.

Chase isn't sure why he is so angry, but he is. His mind was already unstable and this news was not something he really needed. Not at all. With thoughts of his very mother ghosting through his mind and Wilson's prodding questions from the night before, he's still too open, too vulnerable. And here he was, years of built up emotion escaping, flowing out through the serious placid tone in his voice.

"And you weren't going to tell me? Were you going to assume that I wouldn't notice?" Chase was too calm for this. Too, too calm.

"There was no need for you to know. You didn't ask and it was in the past."

"How would I know to ask? You're hardly an open book. And we've tried that once before, it only ends up like… like this!" He threw his hands up in exasperation, eyes serious and slanted in on Wilson.

These attacks from Chase, they came too often lately. Each day the male was becoming more and more irritable and closed off. When he did finally get the intensivist to open up, he exploded, snapped and chewed him to bits. It was too much to handle. He didn't deserve any of this at all, any of it.

"I'm leaving…"

Chase wasn't sure he was hearing things correctly.

"W-…what?"

"You heard me clearly."

Any and all anger that Chase had been feeling fled swiftly. Of all things, he thought he would be the one saying that to Wilson, not the other way around. It didn't work that way! It just didn't!

"I'll be out in the next few days, then I suppose you won't have to worry about secrets anymore, hm?" It was a bitter statement and the smile on Wilson's face was anything but friendly. But he could see the hurt look in Chase's eye and almost considered just sweeping the man up right then and there, to cure the hurt in those blue eyes.

"All…right then." Uncertainty clouded Chase's voice, "I'm…I'm going to go out for a while."

And when Chase slipped on his shoes and disappeared out the door, James wished direly to reach out and stop the blond, but he didn't, and he had a feeling he would regret it highly later.

-+-

You knew ignorance would be the death of you.