Dearest Readers,

~ "Give an example of a glamorous profession."
- "Hitman!"
~ "That's right, Kids. You wanna grow up to be a hitman."

Read on, Cherubs.

Over and out.

Wombat Retrieval

His mind was spinning. He had no idea what to say or do or how to feel. When he answered the door, he was expecting to see Aura or even Wilson...but not House. He had his back turned towards House, fiddling with his fingers as his right foot turned inward on its platform. Chase stared down at the carpet, not really seeing anything.

What was he suppose to say?

House took a few steps into the apartment, keeping his eyes on Chase. He knew that Chase was nervous and frightened just by his body language. He took a deep breath to steady himself and walked towards Chase carefully.

"Chase..." House began, not knowing what to say. He felt slightly ashamed when he heard his own voice sound pathetic.

"Who was she?" Chase asked quietly, moving to stand in front of their bookcase. The older man sighed and looked at the floor for a few seconds, knowing that Chase was talking about Stacey.

"She's not important." House said, instantly regretting it. He saw Chase become rigid, indicating that he was getting angry. He tried to see Chase's face, but found that he couldn't look passed the blonde curtain surrounding Chase's face.

"Not important, huh?" Chase asked in a deadly whisper.

House felt a wave of chills fill his body at the tone of the young man's voice. Chase turned to look at House and saw that Chase's green-blue were glassy. But, House noticed that the blonde was not choking up because he was sad:

Chase was choking up because he was so angry.

"I take that back. Stacey is important to me, but-"

"But you just said she wasn't." Chase snapped, crossing his arms.

"Stacey is important to me, just not..." He couldn't find the words.

"Just not as important as she used to be?" Chase finished.

"I guess you could say that." Chase took a step forward, kind of swaggering as he did so.

"What is this sick hold that she has on you?" House faltered.

Sick hold?

"What...she doesn't have any kind of hold on me." Chase scoffed.

"Say whatever you want, after all...you do have the right to be wrong." He made to turn away, but House grabbed his elbow and pulled the blonde towards him, catching Chase off guard.

"What is this 'hold' that you're talking about?" House asked, his voice almost coming out as a hiss, failing to hold back his anger.

"She did something to you. Something that you can't let go of. I assume that it happened a long time ago, seeing that it seemed that you haven't seen her in some time." Now it was House's turn to become angry. He glared deeply at Chase, tightening his grip on Chase's arm, making the blonde wince.

"I can't let go?" He hissed. "I can't let go? You don't have the right to talk about not being able to let something go!" House pushed Chase away from him, causing Chase to stumble and almost fall to the floor. The Aussie glared back at the man who just shoved him away, more anger in his eyes.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Chase spat, rubbing his elbow unconsciously. House let out a small sarcastic laugh.

"What am I talking about?" House took a step forward. "You're the one who caused all this to happen in the first place!"

"What-"

"If you would just let go of what your father said and did, we wouldn't be in this mess right now! If you would just let go of the abuse that was forced upon you, we wouldn't be like this! If you weren't so damn sensitive about any and everything that reminds you of your past, we wouldn't be like this!" House shouted, towering over Chase, who backed away slightly.

Chase sniffed and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sweater, looking away from House. He was right...it was all his fault. It's always his fault whenever something bad happened, just what his father had taught him. A sob escaped his lips before he could catch it and Chase walked around the coffee table so that he wouldn't have to go pass House to reach the piano.

He felt House's eyes follow him as he pulled the bench away from the piano and sat, hovering his delicate fingers over the keys. Soft, slow, soothing music filled the apartment as Chase began to play, closing his eyes and swaying slightly. He tilted his head slightly, his hair hardly falling into his face.

House knew that playing piano had become one of Chase's coping mechanisms, so he decided to stay quiet for a few moments even though he was still angry at the blonde. He remembered that Chase said that he began playing piano since he was quite young, so he began to wonder if playing piano had always been a coping mechanism.

While he knew what it was like to be abused, he admittedly didn't know what it was like to be abused by two different people. There was only so much he could relate with Chase before he didn't understand what it was like to be in Chase's situation. Plus he was sure that Chase had been abused for a longer period of time than he was.

He thought back to how Chase was before they started dating, which had made him certain that the blonde never had anyone around besides his abusers. Although he had Aura, he kept her at a safe distance so that she never found out about the abuse until they were in their late-teens. He felt his eyes soften and his anger slowly die down as it started making sense.

Chase hasn't really let go of his abuse because he never had someone there to help him through it; so he's still sensitive about it and has very sensitive triggers because no one has really helped him through the letting go process. Good God, Greg, since when were you a psychologist?

House stared at the blonde who had stopped playing the piano. He quietly limped over to Chase who just stood from the piano and was making his way to their patio. Tentatively, House grabbed Chase's arm. Chase cocked his head back at him, but not making eye contact.

"Look at me." House said, tugging lightly on Chase's arm. The blonde stepped back into the apartment and looked evenly up at House.

In that moment, House knew that a simple apology wasn't going to work. So he found himself doing something that not only has he never done before, but something that he never planned to either. He let go of his cane, allowing it to clatter to the floor. Chase looked down at it, bending to pick it up, but House stopped him. Chase looked up at House, confusion on his face. Then, gingerly, House knelt down on both of his knees, placing more of his weight on his good leg. He wrapped his arms around Chase and pulled the blonde as close to him as humanly possible, laying the side of his face against Chase's stomach.

Chase was caught off guard to say the least. He looked down at House, on his knees, holding him as close as he could. He got the message:

I'm sorry.

A gentle smile graced his lips and he lightly stroked the top of House's head, placing his other hand on the other side of House's face. They stayed like that for a while, feeling the negative emotions they had towards each other disappear. House's leg was cramping and felt like it was on fire, but he didn't move; he never wanted to let the young man go again.

"Greg?" Chase asked quietly.

"Yeah?" House responded, not moving.

"It's Friday." House's brow burrowed in confusion at what Chase meant.

"You already forgot?" Chase said, laughing slightly.

"What did I forget?" House asked, looking up at him, but keeping his arms in place around the blonde's waist. Chase jokingly glared at him.

"Thai or pizza?" House smiled as he remembered that Friday nights were take-out nights.

"Hmm...that's a difficult decision." Chase rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, choosing what kind of take-out you want is definitely a life-changing decision." House glared playfully up at Chase, who smiled.

"I'm thinking Thai."

"Good 'cause that's what I was going to get anyway."

"Then why did you ask?" Chase smirked.

"Just wanted to make you feel like you had a choice." Chase laughed as House began to stand up, Chase helping him. House slipped his hand into the blonde's and pulled him towards the kitchen to where they kept the take-out menus. His leg was extremely painful, but it's worth feeling since he got his wombat back.

House analyzed the blonde as he leaned on the counter, looking through the Thai menus. His hair fell into his eyes, which he would brush away from time-to-time, each time he stared at his bare ring finger. He smiled lightly as Chase let out a long, loud yawn as he picked up his cell phone, dialing their favorite Thai restaurant. He looked up at House.

"How about we have Aura over?"

HouseXChase

Alright Gang,

I do hope that you're still enjoying this story.

As always, patience and reviews/PMs would be appreciated!

When-Rabbit-Howls