AN: As ever, I'm sorry about the wait. School, and all that. Thanks to all reviewers, and I'm sorry for any mental scarring. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, the latest chapter of my great masterpiece (snort). I still don't own House, MD. "What is this fic rated?" I hear you ask. Well, gentle reader, this particular fic is rated an M – yes, that's right, an M.

Here we go.

Chapter 7

House opened his eyes, and immediately wished that he hadn't. Tritter, the man who had become the one constant in House's life, was crouching over him. Tritter, the man who had broken his fingers...

His fingers. Crap. He looked down at his hand, feeling the nausea swelling up inside him at the memory of his fingers rotting. He didn't want to look, but he had to. His head was in the right position now, but all he was seeing was black. Oh, right. He'd closed his eyes. He forced himself to count to three, and then wrenched his eyelids apart.

His hand was there. All of it. All five fingers were firmly attached – they were purple and significantly larger than usual, sure, but they were there. What the hell was going on? No way had what had happened earlier been a dream. It had been way too real. Nobody had dreams that vivid. He had smelled the rotting flesh. Even the memory made his stomach turn. His throat was still raw from screaming. He couldn't have imagined it all. Could he?

House raised his head, ignoring the dizzying sensation that the small movement provoked, and trained his eyes on his right thigh. For one thing, his lower leg was still there. For another, he couldn't see the bone. He couldn't even see any blood. What the hell? His thigh was throbbing angrily, in a way that made him suspect that he had definitely done some damage, but the pain was nowhere near as bad as it should be, nowhere near as bad as he remembered it being. So, what? Had he hallucinated the part where his leg had fallen off? Where his fingers had rotted? Where his femur had been broken? Or was he hallucinating now? He could no longer tell the difference between reality and delusion. It was an all too familiar feeling.

He felt his neck snap to one side as Tritter slammed his fist into House's face. If House hadn't been in so much pain and so confused, he would have been impressed by the amount of force that the detective managed to put into the swing. He was almost certain that he had heard something crack. Or had he? Was he even awake? He couldn't be certain of anything any more.

Tritter's hands were suddenly being placed on either side of House's head, and he felt Tritter manoeuvre him so that the two of them were making eye contact. House felt shame burning in his gut as he realized that hallucination or no, he was still terrified of the man persecuting him. Looking into a pair of blue eyes more than a little similar to his own, House felt his palms begin to sweat. This may or may not be reality, but the pain would be real. That much he knew.

To his surprise, House felt his nerves settle slightly as he was that Tritter was holding a knife tightly in his right hand. The small part of his brain that was still thinking rationally told him that this was simply the fight or flight reflex kicking in at long last. However, another part of him couldn't help but take comfort in the fact that Tritter was going to torture him. It wasn't that he was a masochist. Tritter was a constant – the pain that he caused was a constant. It was fear of the unknown that he couldn't take. He could take the pain.

House felt Tritter pulling off first his right shoe, then his sock. Fear stirred in him again. What was Tritter going to do? Why a knife? He hadn't used a knife before.

"Take the pain like a man, House," Tritter told him, in barely more than an elated whisper. House nodded in agreement. He could cope with the pain. The body forgets pain. It forgets the intensity. House had forgotten.

He screamed out loud as Tritter dug the knife into the sole of his foot and dragged it up from the toe to his heel, opening up a gash in the skin and muscle. His vision was pulsating, red and blue and gray and black. Swimming, swirling, dizzying, sickening twists of nauseatingly bright colours.

Tritter's face was there again, as always. "Still think you stand a chance there, House?"

House gave a grunt.

"Answer me." The knife dug into the ball of his foot again and again. Random gashes? House wasn't so sure. Nothing with Tritter was ever random. Everything was planned and calculated.

"No!" House gasped.

"'No' what?"

"Don't... Not... Win..."

More pressure, more pain. House wished that Tritter would just plunge the knife into his heart and get it over with now.

"Grovel."

"Wha... What?" No way was House going to grovel. He was broken, but he wasn't utterly pathetic.

"Grovel, House. Plead with me to stop." That look in Tritter's eyes... the man was enjoying this. He loved the power. Well, huffed House's inner sane person, if Tritter liked power so much, why couldn't he just indulge in some light BDSM like everyone else?

Stupid crazy people.

"Not... going... grovel. No."

More pressure, more pain. Pressure. Pain. God, House was so tired. He just wanted to sleep. Preferably eternally. His eyelids were drooping, threatening to close.

A particularly sharp stab to his foot brought him back to the land of the living with a yelp of agony. Damn, he couldn't take this anymore. Whatever Tritter wanted.

"Please... Please! Stop! I'll... do... anything. Anything."

Tritter pulled the knife out. "There. Was that so hard?" And then the knife was being plunged back in again. House didn't have the energy to scream.

A couple of minutes later, it was all over. House just about managed to raise his head enough to look at the sole of his foot. Beneath the blood, House could make out words. Tritter had carved words into his foot. House squinted. The sight of the blood was making him feel nauseous and dizzy, and he knew that he could only stay awake for so long.

Four words: one, and then the other three beneath it.

Michael Tritter was here.