Phoenix

T.V. Show: House MD

Pairing: Chase/Cameron

Author: Foxes' Dreams

Summary: Tense with the anguish of spiritual struggle, Chase is no longer able to defeat the trauma of being alone. Even though he had been missing Cameron's cautious whispers of innocence and complexity, her return might be the real approach of doom.


Chapter 7 - Obligatory

An ineffable splendor crowned the arising sun, the gentle swaying of the tall poplars startled in Chase a kneeling sort of nostalgia and reminiscence. Watching with subtle awe the glorious nature, he was not tattered by poverty and toil, he was relaxing with a tumult of easiness constricting his heart. The bench he was sitting on was uncomfortably rough and multicolor, with patches of contrasting nuances all over it in a blur. The paroxysms of rage or anxiety avoided to submerge him, Cameron's willing confession coming as an ascetic reminder that his trusting ability was not completely shrewd.

"Hey brother," Fred's distant voice concreted into being. On that day, he was wearing grey-hued capri pants and a marine chemise, looking utterly formal and imposing, rashness and heedlessness emanating from the untidy wrinkles of the plain shirt.

"Hey, what's going on?" Chase raised his bowed head with utter amazement, a cheerful grin overspreading his face, quickly earning a questionable frown from Fred.

"It seems you are finally communicating with me. Wanna grab a bite? There's a little bistro around the corner," Fred suggested, trying to maintain the good mood, now that Chase overcame the demoralizing and enfeebling stage.

"Yeah, sure. I'm starving, the breakfast has been really shallow," Chase complained mildly, wasting no time and standing virtually upright in a matter of dense and luminous seconds.

The bistro they chose was an amalgam of chocking smoke and delicate sizzling, feebleness and folly running wildly within Chase. He was wrinkling his nose with pure disgust, a feverishly furious mix of odors invading his nostrils.

"Can you give me your notes from the last night semiology lecture?" Fred asked politely, hectic and pitiful tone coming to his senses.

"Oh, yeah, that. I didn't go to that course after all," Chase admitted slowly. He wanted to avoid the fatalistic question, inertly knowing that the confession might destroy their balance.

"How come? You have always been the one with perfect presence," Fred teased with no heckling and interruption, unconsciously not knowing the magnitude of the peculiar absence.

"Nothing special, I was keeping myself preoccupied," Chase said nonchalantly.

"I doubt you just stood in your room and watched TV without much sense. Another something that's bothering you happened," Fred dismissed his theory urgently. He has become an odd sort of medium, ostentatiousness and gaiety sometimes coming out of his mouth in a rush.

"I was with Cameron again last night," Chase whispered simply as though the encounter with her was something regular, almost platted.

"You got laid again? Haven't you learned your lesson?" Fred exclaimed, suffusing a groan; he was beyond sick of his foolish mistakes due to him being long lasting enamored.

"We didn't. We talked for hours in a row until she broke down, started crying hysterically and had to sooth her down," Chase explained thoroughly, painstaking and cumbersome images flashing before his eyes.

"She told you about the lawsuit and pyrazinamide, hasn't she?" Fred assumed, leaning over the table to increase the secrecy.

"Yeah, everything. It's tragic that this plunged exactly on her, right after the divorce," Chase said, paltry and inglorious guilt crashing upon him as he spoke. He gripped the edge of the wooden table for a somehow imaginary support.

"Trust me with one fact. I tried to stop her from continuing with the trial, it was way too risky to damask a full blown operation by herself, with no security defense," Fred reasoned with him, trying to erase all the patched and dry events Cameron had faced. For Chase, those remained borderless wounds. "Anyway, let's skip the drama. Tonight, there will be a special dinner for all of us, you know, dancing, booze and food. Are you into it?" Fred asked with no shifting compromise. He was really only posing as a figure willing to party with endless shabbiness and little vulgarity.

"Not entirely," Chase scoffed, stuffing his ardent mouth with unnecessary food and libations, trying to cover a sharp or vigorously alcoholic slip.

"If I told you Cameron is coming, would you come, too?" Fred asked rhetorically, watching as desire pooled in his pupils.

Chase could only stare numbly at him, probity and candor making his heart leap vigorously. Another furtively nimble meeting with Cameron could either destroy or blossom him.


Some variably scattered ornaments were cradling the colorless walls, the scurrilous mix having people staring and blinking. The music was rather loud and old fashioned, the weltering current of emotions affecting Chase. He was mostly abashed and ashamed by his presence, keeping important distance from any temptation.

"I don't know why I agreed to this. This party is one of the lamest I have ever been to," Chase puffed with ignorance, again wondering if he should be there. He was leaning on a peripheral wall, abruptly averting his gaze from any perilous sensation he might endure.

"Come on, live a little! You're just saying that because Cameron is missing," Fred whined, imitating a shapeless and crumbling posture, much alike to Chase's.

Chase was balancing between contemptuous amusement and actual malice, looking at Fred with utter criticism dancing in his eyes. Fred seemed crude and primitive, drinking liquor from a narrow flask.

"You haven't seen her? She's right there, flirting with God-knows-who," Fred constricted the bewilderment sparkling in his pupils. He showed the direction in which Cameron was fitting, oddly light and lithe, grinning wholeheartedly.

"That is Matthew something from Seattle Grace, great aesthetic surgeon, but-" Chase started to ramble continuously, defaming and tarnishing his attempt to make himself impassive.

Cameron was oddly dressed in a lambent outfit, blackberry nuances falling on her dress and her shoes. She was somehow deft and offensive, dancing with irregular moves and laughing incoherently. Chase frowned even deeper, planting his brawny arms on his rigid hips, unremitting toil contracting his back.

"Wait a minute, of course you observed that. You're falling for her again, especially after seeing her naked again. Now, jealousy is eroding you, you can't stand seeing her with someone else, in such a proximity," Fred tried to make Chase confess, seeing how squalid distress was mercilessly consuming him.

"I don't know if I ever stopped loving her," Chase said, his voice above a faint, vanquished whisper.

He was pouring out all the dilemmas and enigmas obstructing his heart, a love that was unconditionally remaining in his heart with statuesque immobility. With all the curves and ashes, his affection was directed to Cameron, in any state or nature of their relationship. He wasn't her minatory shadow, but the opalescent soulmate.

"That's how love works, buddy. It's sorrow, regret mixed with affection. I know you're tormenting yourself for letting her go so easily, but you need to know that time changes everything. May destiny let you meet again, you will meet again," Fred told him soothingly, giving him a patent example. He eyed Chase with honesty, his soul hurting at his dissolution.

"That's what all people say to numb their pain," Chase said pessimistically, as though he has given up any last shred of hope.

"And it doesn't work?" Fred half-exclaimed incredulously. "Just the fact that she came to you, after an impending divorce, seeking release is vital. Any other single person would have got drunk and would have got coited on her own. But, no she came to you either way," He continued, his voice sharp and decisive, thorns of truth escaping his mouth.

Fred crossed his arms with passive obedience while Chase decided to sit on a coquettish bar stool, his head spinning with the lightheaded admission.

"She was drunk," Chase whispered, trying not to let himself be prey to another ghastly possibility.

"Exactly. Getting drunk is a need and it actually shows how a person is and what she wants. She lost her sense of rationality, so she gave into her desires," Fred explained with more dedication, the narcotic effect making him stammer over simple syllables.

"People say you know best, how's like getting drunk until you forget your name," He jabbed ironically, alluring degradation coming into his senses as the situation turned strangely amusing.

"Which people?" Chase asked with subdued indignation.

"Many more than you might imagine," Fred said with a hysterical laugh, much inappropriate for such times. He had evolved from a friend sated with priceless advice to an adhesive drunk person in shallow minutes.

"It's strange. She never used to drink that much in a short period of time," Chase virtually ignored him, his gaze transfixed to a slightly flexible Cameron who was going to the lowest point of degradation, dancing promiscuously with jerky, irregular movements.

"Judging by what she had done recently, drinking is kinda minor. And it's understandable for someone who has been through so much pain," Fred said without much care, twirling an olive between his straight and catatonic digits.

Chase was still watching Cameron with intriguing braggart, questioning her attitude with intuitive perception. She was sorely transforming as she was dancing with hoary mania, utterly provoking and selfishly uncoordinated. The guy was watching from afar, with tentative eyes, her graphic portrayal exactly on his taste.

Suddenly, a purely white powder poured out from his fingers, sinking with unutterable force in Cameron's cocktail. He was watching pleasantly as though his aim was accomplished, treating Cameron with immunity as a passing sequence.

"Did you see that?" Chase asked alarmed, meeting Fred's glassy scandalized glance. A wave of soberness put Fred back on track, both standing upright.

"He put something in her drink," Fred whispered dangerously low, the fragmentary facts whirling in his mind.

"I'm going to take care of that," Chase warned with a sort of growl escaping his constricted throat, lunging at the guy with immense force.

"Chase-" Fred gasped perilously, following his enraged companion.

"What do you think you are doing? Drugging an innocent woman just to take advantage of her later? How scrupulous!" Chase assaulted the guy from behind, foul calumny escaping his lips.

"How do you dare to accuse me of that?" The guy pretended to be completely ashamed, despite his disgraceful attempt.

Cameron was just approaching them, frail and forlorn inconsistence claiming her steps.

"Allison, look at me," Chase turned towards her abruptly. "Her pupils are dilated and she can barely stand up," He accused with venom swirling in his mendacious tongue.

"Why do you think I drugged her?" The guy challenged him, the fluctuating light accentuating the stubble on his beard and the rosy scar on his forehead.

"Because I saw you, moron!" Chase shouted forcefully, his inhumanly fist clenching as all Chase's enraptured attention focused on him. He punched him with dreary force, sending him twirling to the frigid floor. Just as he was hovering over him in scandalous triumph, preparing for a truthful fight, Fred's strangled voice startled him.

"Chase, no time for that!" Fred reminded him, dragging him with one arm from the entangled position. "Take her to this room, fifth floor and hide. Stat!" He shouted in a cogent statement, putting Cameron as a priority.

Chase scooped Cameron up with unseen easiness, the colossal failure that had threatened her still frightening him. He ran as fast as he could, seeking chastened hope and escape, knowing they were only floors away.

Author's Note: Since I was asked in a review, I don't have a pair at the moment. But, I did have one years ago, who propelled me to write, to achieve my dreams. Also, a million thanks to my guest reviewer, Bess, who really made my day by writing a simple, but heartwarming feedback.

Read and Review! :*