Title: Shaky

Pairing: House/Chase

Episode: Half-Wit

Disclaimer: I don't own House.

Author's Note: Quid pro quo means, basically, 'I gave you something, you give me something.'

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Chase sucked in an anxious breath.

It could very well be his last.

There was no way he was going to make it out of there alive.

"I can't believe you're making me do this," Chase sighed, giving a pained look to his pretty colleague.

"I have strep," Cameron innocently insisted.

"The hell you do. You just don't want your lower lip being torn off by an angry brain cancer patient who just got forcibly pulled into a make-out session," Chase snapped, and Cameron shrugged, smiling coyly.

"Remember – once you get the needle in, you'll have to work fast, because he'll feel it. Get the blood and run. I'll be waiting in the lab," Cameron grinned. "Or the plastic surgery wing, if that's what it comes to."

"You're hilarious," Chase sarcastically stated, and Cameron shrugged, walking off, her heels clicking on the tile floor.

One more anxious breath, and Chase pushed the door open. House glanced up.

"How's the kid…and why are you so shaky?"

"He's fine, and I'm not shaky," Chase insisted, shoving his trembling hands into his pockets and running his thumb along the side of the syringe. "How are you?"

"Apathetic. Annoyed. Most anything that starts with an 'A,'" he answered. "Quid pro quo. Why are you shaky?"

"I don't know."

"Let's find out, then," House continued, getting closer to look at Chase's pupils. "Look at that, your pupils are dilated and you're sweating…"

"I'm sick? You're the one with bloody brain cancer!" Chase shouted, and then almost in a bi-polar fashion returned to his apathetic mood. "If you left, I'd go, too."

"You'd really want to leave?"

"There's no point in me staying if you're not here," Chase shrugged, casually picking up a few things off House's desk and putting them down without really looking at them.

"I'm not dead yet," House remarked. Chase turned and walked towards him, practically pressing himself up against him before House said anything.

"Chase, what are you doing?" House asked, but not in the angry, brash, rip-your-lower-lip-off tone Chase had expected. It sounded almost as though he was certain it couldn't really be happening, like nobody could possibly…

Love him. Chase swallowed and tried to clear his head. This was more wrong than a former altar boy kissing his male boss. This was wrong in the way that he was misleading him. In the way that he was taking the man with only one friend in the world who couldn't hold onto a girl for more than a few months without letting her slip right through his fingers and completely manipulating him to get proof of something potentially fatal.

Chase might have flunked right out of seminary school, but he had better morals than that.

"I can't do this," Chase sighed, throwing the syringe onto House's desk and turning to leave. House rolled his eyes.

"It's pretty easy," House muttered, grabbing Chase by his tie and pulling him back to where he was before, possibly a bit closer, and grabbing Chase's hands, pressing them to his cheeks. "Junior high kids get the hang of it awfully fast. I think someone with a Ph.D. will find it fairly easy to understand."

"What are you…?" Chase's eyes looked around frantically. "Look, I'm sorry. Okay? You don't need to do this."

"If you're going to come into my office and flirt with me, you're going to at least give me some momentary gratification. So who sent you here?"

"Cameron," Chase squeaked out, and House grinned.

"Well, she certainly chose the right person. How did she know that I'd been imagining you in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform all day long?" House smirked at Chase's agape expression for a moment before pulling him close and pressing his lips against his. Chase, reacting naturally, placed his hands on House's shoulders to steady his suddenly weak knees and allowed House's tongue to part his lips, submissively allowing House to explore his mouth for a total of about five minutes before he pulled away. Picking up the syringe, he injected himself and handed it to Chase.

"The next time you bring me a syringe, make sure it's full of something that will make my mouth taste like purple," House scoffed. "Now run along and give this to Cameron. And be sure to tell her that I'm a great kisser." House grinned at the blonde until, blushing a dark pink, dashed away, syringe in hand.

"Cute little thing, that wombat," House mused, returning to his desk.

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