Disclaimer: Don't sue me. I don't have anything worth suing for.
X O X O X
He had always had this thing for you.
It wasn't a crush exactly or an infatuation.
Those are inevitabilities. Those at least had a chance of leading to love.
This, this thing; this was destined for despair.
It could be pocketed, put away, brought out with just a whisper or an inch more of skin; a photo snapped while you looked the other way.
Why couldn't you see it?
You were so set on the impossible; a normal life, a love-story that made they guys at Disney look like chumps. You wanted the fairy tale, free of failure and broken hearts.
Is that what makes you real, your faults, your downfall?
Was the love you couldn't feel what made you stone?
Was it human to hate this much?
It all started so innocently.
No, that's not true. You were innocent in thinking you could touch without feeling, love without caring.
You loved another man, one incapable of returning your affection.
You had never let that stop you before.
So you found comfort in another, someone younger and guiltless, the type you should have been falling for in the first place. The fact that he was a co-worker made it just forbidden enough to seem sultry. You were suddenly something to be disapproved of, to whisper about, to be used as an example in reprimand. You were Eve eating the apple, all whilst lusting for the serpent.
But what of poor Adam, dragged down in your sin?
You had sex, as elementary as that sounds, simplistic and distant. You could kiss, your lips braced against his, his sweet taste filling you, his smooth hands with calloused fingertips tracing every inch of skin they could reach, all while you felt nothing.
It went on for so long.
It felt like years, waking up with your face buried in the nape of his neck, soft gold hair mixing with your own, limbs tangled beneath cotton sheets. You'd lay, still as a statue of one of those Greek goddesses, the kind that never lost their composure, until your alarm clock wailed and he stirred, moaning in his newfound wake. You'd pretend to be waking along side him, beg for five more minutes, while in reality you'd just spent hours watching his chest rise and fall, listening to his pulse through his skin, steady and calm.
You'd pretend you were human too.
It ended so suddenly, the blade of the guillotine falling between the two of you, beheading all hopes, cutting short any dream of a better day. The look of hurt in his pale eyes begs for a numb death you cannot provide.
How could you laugh?
How could life go on?
You went through the motions of living; you bed feeling empty and your mornings quiet. Somehow, you don't feel any lonelier, just more alone, if that's even possible.
Its times like these you believe you're the human proof.
The days grow longer and the nights grow shorter and with the warming weather came a newfound calm. Tensions fade, even if his longing stares didn't.
He'll always be in love with you, that stupid self-righteous voice in your head coos, he's broken and you're the one who broke him.
You wish you'd seen this coming.
You soon realize your intentions weren't as blithe as you had originally thought.
House watches you more now, those electric blue eyes following you as you pretend not to notice. God knows what he sees, but you can tell from the way he looks away every time you dare return his gaze that he's disgusted. By your certainty? Your cool?
No.
He just wants to know where the girl he once knew has disappeared to within this heartless statue that now stood in its place. It makes you want to scream.
I'm still here.
Those eyes won't leave you alone.
Somewhere, I'm still here.
Eventually you can convince them of your novelty. You can bind him by blinding him. You step close, press your lips to his, kiss until he kisses back. You make him want; you play him until his body matches yours.
You're just standing in his office, listening to the sky collapse in droplets, feeling his hands on your waist, this new heartbeat in his fingertips matching yours.
Lust, the all-too familiar voice reasons, you've never seen him lust before.
At some point you break, an unspoken agreement to continue this at your place or his formed. You glance away and for a moment, you swear Chase is watching from the corner. You don't have time to blink before he or his illusion has disappeared.
Was it your former lover or guilty conscious playing games?
You dismiss it as the latter, pretending the guilty part didn't matter so much.
Sometime later that night, after you've stripped down clothes and mind, you sit, wondering why you don't feel any less hollow.
It must fill in time.
It was the treatment for a broken heart and injured soul.
It takes time to heal.
Do you really have a heart, a soul left to treat?
It went on like that for weeks.
At some point House stopped fighting your kiss, Chase stopped avoiding your glance and you stopped waiting around for your emotion to catch up with you. You were doing well enough without it.
And besides, did you really need the real thing, whatever that is?
What was this if not love?
It was a simple pattern. You'd follow the day as if nothing was going on. You're a doctor. You don't have a personal life. Then the clock hits some obscene hour and your shift ends. You say goodbye to Foreman and you give Chase a warm smile that he always returns, just as distant, just as plastic. If you wait long enough House will ask for your plans for the night. If you twist your hair the right way or smile sweet enough you just might interrupt his.
Who knows how long this could have gone on for, had fate not intervened?
You were never one to believe in God, to hold faith in a higher order.
All you've ever prayed for is that you'll never have to encounter one.
That day, of composed by the Lord or Brahma or Zeus or Whatever, was enough to make you hate.
It started out normal enough.
House had clinic duty, which meant Chase or Foreman would spent a half dozen hours analyzing sore throats and sore groins in his place.
There was nothing out of the ordinary to indicate this day would be his last.
You got a page sometime before lunch, around that time where you're not quite hungry enough to eat but start trying to get out of whatever you're doing so when you are you won't be in the middle of something.
You rush down to the clinic, indifferent to the prospect of wasting fifteen minutes.
Chase leans against the window, curtain half-drawn. It takes you a moment to see the patient, her wispy frame and washed out coloring.
"I wanted a lady-doctor," she says quickly, filling the silence before Chase has the chance to. There's something rushed about her tone, unsteady. It makes you uneasy. "I felt a lump."
She indicates to her pale pink sweater. You nod politely. She's scared of cancer. It shouldn't take long to disarm concerns.
You put on gloves, mainly to look professional in front of your co-worker who's looking at you again with that look you can't name. You feel beneath the sweater and find what she feared, just below her collarbone.
There's definitely something there and you're almost sure it's cancer.
You don't feel your face change, but you can see it mirrored in the woman's. For a moment you regret not asking her name, because she's rocking now, scared and dangerous. You want to comfort her, but for once, you don't know what to say. You step away, take off your gloves and turn back to your colleague.
"Doctor Chase," you begin but he's not looking at you. He's watching the woman over your shoulder.
In an instant, he grabbed you, pulled close and wrapped himself around you, a human shield. The gunshots sound so far away. One into the wall, one into the door, two through the supposedly bulletproof window, one skimming your arm that hurts so much you can breathe.
The situation's scattered and out of order in your mind. You're tempted to step away, look at it from a distance and try to make sense of it, but he's holding you so tight, like a child, afraid.
His back's to the gunwoman and he's protecting you from that final shot she's yet to take. One hand clutches your arm just below your wound, your own blood dribbling over his fingers.
He's got my blood on his hands.
You're in the nape of his neck again, breathing his toxic scent, too dazed to be afraid.
Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the gun poised at the back of his head.
"I don't believe in love," the woman muttered unsteadily. "Prove me wrong. Prove me wrong before I die. Do you love her?" She kept saying it over and over again. "Do you love her? Do you?"
You can feel his comprehension sinking through his skin. He says no, the woman blows your mind. He says yes, who knows?
No, you want to scream, no.
You feel his eyelashes brush your forehead as he hangs his head slightly, closing his eyes.
No.
"Do you love her?"
No.
This is his decision, to make no reply.
You focus your eyes on the off-white wall above, wanting to speak out with no voice.
No.
You don't hear the gun go off or yourself scream.
All you see, all you know is the spray of bright red across that stupid white wall, violent flowers blooming over a quiet devastation.
Suddenly you meet the cool tiles beneath you, the weight of his limp body on top of you. Don't feel it.
You're unaware, your ears buzzing from the gun being fired so close to them. You don't hear the gunwoman being wrestled to the floor nor feel yourself being lifted from it.
You're shuffled around between security and police and at one point Cuddy. You're not sure exactly what's going on, but it must be bad. You're far away, closed off in your own mind.
By the time the shock starts to wear down you're in the locker room with what looks like a giant Hefty-bag and orders to seal up your clothes as evidence, shower and change into scrubs. You strip and pack, turn the water on as hot as it can go and step beneath the violent rain. The blood on your skin deludes and traces down your body on its way to the drain, the last of Robert Chase falling from your skin.
Then it hits you.
He is the lamb and you did nothing to stop the slaughter.
He is the lamb.
He is the lamb.
You finish washing and step away, you body red and raw from the water.
"I thought you'd drowned in there."
You turn fast to the sound of House's voice. You try to cover yourself but decide better of it. It's nothing he hasn't seen before.
"Learn anything today?"
His tone is cold but welcome. It was the perfect opportunity for you to say something cold and have it be completely excusable.
You start to get dressed despite yourself.
He comes up close behind you and suddenly you don't feel like being touched.
"Don't," you whisper before he can comfort you.
House leans back, taking you in.
"What did you learn today?"
You swallow hard. You're far away again.
"That I don't love you."
Those damn eyes look you over, seeing under your skin.
"Because you love him?"
If you say yes, he'll tell you you're full of crap.
He'd be right.
"No," you hear yourself say, "Because I can't love."
He shakes his head and limps away, leaving you alone again.
You finish dressing and take a seat beside your police-issued Hefty-bag of bloody clothes.
You're alone.
For the first time all day you dare to cry, tears burning your raw face as you hollow yourself in great, emptying sobs.
He is the lamb.
You are the slaughter.
You're human.
He's dead.
You miss being a statue.