Warnings: Written following season four, and thus may contain spoilers for any episode up to and including the end of episode 4.16.
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own these characters, and have no intention of profitting from this.
It was that niggling curiousity as to why, exactly, a teenaged boy would have a stomach full of creepy-crawlies that sent Chase to the patient's room a few days later. He already knew that his diagnosis had been confirmed: it had been carbamate poisoning. The kid had had his stomach washed out and been given activated charcoal; he was now responding well to the proscribed Robinul. Chase had, additionally, ordered a course of pralidoxime to reactivate the patient's acetylcholinesterase. There was no reason, really, why he needed to see the patient again.
And yet, here he was, and to the evident delight of the boy's three visitors: stunning teenage girls, one each in blonde, brunette, and redhead, who eyed Chase with openly hungry looks that had him blushing from the moment he walked in the door. He tried to ignore them, and fixed his gaze on the patient. "You're looking well," he said, his voice unconvincingly jocular even to his own ears. The damned girls giggled, and he felt his ears grow hot as the blush worsened.
"You wouldn't like to tell me why you were eating the bugs, would you?" Chase asked, now in a hurry to get this over with.
"The blood is the life. I've grown stronger, these past few months," the boy said, and Chase had the distinct impression he was playing to the peanut gallery. For one thing, he'd put on a solemn look of teenaged intensity; for another, he'd carefully glanced at the three girls to see how they were reacting to his proclamation. Chase grinned slightly, amused and sympathetic, but right now getting information from the patient took priority over the patient's quest to get laid.
"You lot," he said, making the effort required to resume control of this situation. "Out." He gestured to the door, and stood waiting until they got to their feet and straggled out.
"Anything you say, doctor," the redhead whispered as they passed him, and the other two giggled. Chase flushed again, uncomfortably, and felt distinct relief when he'd shut the door behind them. Clearly, he thought, he'd gone without for too long; he wasn't usually this susceptible. He pulled his attention back to the matter at hand.
"So you've been eating insects for months?" Chase asked, eyeing the patient. "Um, a lot of insects?"
"I need to consume life. It gives me strength," the patient insisted, still sounding melodramatic. When Chase failed to look impressed he sighed heavily "I don't eat anything but protein," he explained, in a much less stagey voice. "I'm trying to build muscle mass and gain strength, okay? I don't want to put on any fat. So, yeah: I eat a lot of insects. You know, pound for pound, bugs provide more available protein
and fatty acids than traditional livestock, and they're higher in some vitamins and minerals."
It made sense, in a way; this kid was so skinny he didn't have a lot of fat for the pesticide to accumulate in, so presumably he had been eating the things in, well, bulk. "So you're primarily eating insects for your health?" Chase asked, mildly amused.
"Not just my health," the boy said self-importantly. "For the health of the planet. Eating lower down the food chain benefits us all."
Chase's grin widened at the familiar hectoring tone of youthful morality. "Except when we inadvertently poison ourselves," he couldn't resist pointing out.
The boy scowled, and sank lower in the bed. "That was an accident, and it wasn't my fault," he said. "If corrupt multinationals didn't push biotoxins, and if bourgeois homeowners obsessed with their suburban lawns didn't obediently buy them, none of this would have happened.
"So before you started spewing," Chase asked, "did the girls find your bug-eating attractive?"
"Why do you want to know?" the kid sneered. "The exotic foreigner angle not working for you, Accent Boy? Go ask them yourself." He jerked a contemptuous thumb towards the window, through which his fan club could be seen, standing pressed against the glass.
When Chase looked up, the three of them licked the glass, slowly, and then dissolved into silent mocking laughter. Then they abruptly stepped back half a pace, looking much younger and less threatening, and a minute later the boy's mother approached. That was weird, Chase thought. It wasn't strange that they were trying to look more respectable in front of a parent—he'd done that often enough himself—but they'd seemed to know that the patient's mother was nearby before they could have seen her. And they hadn't even turned to look.
"How is he?" the mother asked anxiously, hurrying to the bedside and beginning a series of fussy, fluttering gestures to which her son reacted with obvious annoyance. He pushed her rudely away as she tried to fluff his pillow, and brushed her off when she tried to smooth his hair.
"He's doing well, Mrs. Renfield," Chase said, but without summoning any of his smiles. He almost felt sorry for the little snot, really. Tough luck, having his three girlfriends watch while his unattractive mother coddled him.
"My Master will help me," the boy muttered feverishly. Chase stopped, halfway across the room. "Our Master is coming, and He will make me strong." As he spoke the girls flattened themselves against the glass again, as if in response, though Chase knew they couldn't have heard.
"What Master?" Chase asked, more sharply than he'd intended. The patient, whose mother had
responded to his rebuffs by sitting in the chair next to the bed and beginning to cry, seemed oblivious.
"He's coming," the boy repeated triumphantly, "and he will make me strong." The mere thought had made him strong enough to push his mother away, Chase reflected approvingly, but with a feeling of unease he wondered if this were merely an adolescent's compensatory fantasy, or another symptom.