Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chase finds himself uncomfortably hungover, his hands bind to a wall with what felt like heavy, cold chains. Looking around in his post-drunken haze, the lack of windows and a set of stairs told him he must have been in somebody's basement.

He gasps for air as the realization hits him. What the hell was he doing last night? Did he stumble his way into those sex parties again and agree to something he'd regret later? Was this supposed to be some sick foreplay?

No, he'd never agree to that. He hated feeling trapped. The claustrophobic setting of his bound hands and the otherwise spacious basement, of which he'd laid on the cold floor, caused him to greedily inhale heaps of air through his mouth. He didn't even mind the smell of mildew and static doing so.

A sting in his chest made him instinctively reach for it, only for the rattling and the sudden stop to remind him he was bound to a wall. He just pants, trying to ground himself. He looks around, spotting a bunch of old computers and open boxes, seemingly all filled with computer parts, sorted and organized. The old computers seemed taken apart, if not completely empty. This wasn't a sex dungeon, that was good at least.

Suddenly, the echoing thuds of what seemed like steps began approaching as a figure revealed itself. He saw a boy, quite young, around college age, holding a tray.

"Oh. Hi." he simply says, setting the tray next to him. "I made you a BLT and a coffee. Black, two sugars."

"Who are you?!" Chase yells, attempting to slide himself far, only to get not too far away. He recognizes the pain to be a panic attack, and this new figure's uncanny... politeness didn't help.

The boy stays silent, crouching down and staring at Chase like if he was mesmerized by some otherwordly creature. He slowly reaches out, patting Chase's head in a way that felt like a child in a petting zoo would - not getting what they were doing but meaning well anyway. He calms down, eyeing the boy. He seemed young, innocent, and polite, so not the type with malicious intent - assuming kidnapping could ever have a non-malicious intent. His gaze was familiar, like House when he hugged him - showing a rare form of newfound empathy -, in a way that made him feel... uncanny...

"Eat." he eventually says. "You'll feel better."

Chase's stomach grumbles, loud, reaching for the sandwich, only for the chain to hold him back.

"Oh, sorry..." the bloke softly says, taking a key out of his pocket and unlocking both of his cuffs.

Chase gets a shot of adrenaline, his mind screaming 'run', however his stomach decided he should scarf down the sandwich first, not even caring if it was drugged. He then washes it down with the pleasantly warm, perfectly sweet coffee, feeling like he'd just consumed ambrosia. He then places the cup down, loud, causing the weird freaky guy jump a bit, startled.

"BLT is your favorite, right?" he asks, "Did I get it right..?"

Chase softly nods, "How'd you know..?"

The guy just shrugs.

"Why did you uncuff me..?" Chase raises a brow.

"So you could eat..."

"And... Why did you chain me in the first place..?"

The bloke stammers, eventually just claiming "I had a good reason..."

"Which was..?" Chase slowly asks.

To this, the bloke just stands up.

"Wanna come upstairs? I can make you another sandwich, give your stuff back, and... you can go if you want to..."

Chase takes a deep breath, standing up.

"Sure..." he softly murmurs, realizing that staying for a bit longer might get him a knife to the throat, or a sandwich, but leaving will get him... nothing.

The guy softly smiles, heading upstairs, expecting Chase to follow. He does, seeing the colorful, yet perfectly cozy furnishing and plant collection of the living room. He sits onto the couch, watching the guy go and head inside what he assumes to be a bedroom. He soon returns with Chase's messenger bag, seemingly untouched.

"Here you go. I'll have your sandwich ready in a bit. Bathroom's down the hall. Make yourself at home." He lists off, his tone robotic.

Chase nods, watching the bloke start to prepare another BLT with leftover bacon. While he's looking away, Chase runs up to the front door, attempting to break out. He got a rush of what he could only describe as 'a bad feeling'.

Fuck. The front door is locked.

"You wanna leave..?" he appears behind him. "You could've asked..."

Chase slightly nods. "N-no, I..." he sighs, "Sorry."

"Don't apologize." the bloke huffs, a smirk showing emotion for the first time. "If you want to leave, just ask, and I'll unlock the door."

Chase squints his eyes, unsure.

"Can I go, then?" Chase asks.

"Want me to wrap up your sandwich?" he offers.

"Why are you doing this?!" Chase finally breaks.

The bloke stammers, eventually blurting out a "What do you mean..?"

"You kidnapped me... Now you're letting me go?" Chase straightens, attempting to assert dominance, despite the guy being at least 4 inches taller than him.

"I didn't- kidnap you, I..." he assures, looking away and stammering. "I can explain, but- until then... You can stay for as long as you want and you can leave whenever you need."

Chase nods. Despite his large frame, this guy was very... meek. He nods, walking back to sit down.

"Tell me what happened."  Chase demands, watching him sit down onto the opposite side armchair.

"You don't remember..?" He asks, Chase shakes his head.

"I don't even know who you are..." Chase softly speaks.

"I'm Adam... You work for my father..." he meekly says.

Chase nods, eyes widening. "House has a kid..?"

Adam stammers, getting up to get Chase some water.

"How old are you..?" Chase raises an eyebrow.

"Twenty..." he says, returning with a glass of water.

"Only twenty..." Chase echoes. "And you already have a drink rack."

Adam's head reflexively shoots to the drink rack he had, full of wines, champagnes, brandies, and whiskeys. What caught Chase's eyes was the Jägermeister and vodka stock, which seemed to be in the majority.

"Gifts from family." Adam deadpanly states.

"How do you have your own house at twenty..?" Chase slowly asks. "Are you employed..?"

Adam shrugs, leaning back. "I buy and sell computers."

Chase stammers. It made sense, but he'd never met someone with a 'career' so... unconventional...

"As in..?" Chase raises a brow.

"I buy them, fix them, sell them. I go to scrapyards, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, buy a bunch of used computers, clean them, fix them up, and list them online." he explains, "I even have repairshop services, my office is in the garage, that's where the real magic is," he now smiles, seemingly giddy over getting to explain what he does, "but for the scrapped ones, I often times just take apart the unfixable ones, salvage whatever parts I can, sell the rest back to the scrapyard... or make something with them."

Chase glances around. The walls were full of decoration made with parts. There was a broken RAM stick snapped in half and mounted to the wall, with old, faded keycaps writing below: 'MEMORY LOSS!1', and little arrows used to pinpoint things like 'BATHROOM', 'OFFICE', and similar. That was just when he'd looked down, seeing the coaster for his glass being a literal motherboard, cut into a circle and coated in epoxy resin.

"And guess what, some of these whatsits actually go for quite a lot online. People like dumb art." he adds, almost giggling.

"So you..." Chase slowly starts, "take the junk and turn it into art..? Is that why you kidnapped me..?"

Adam's expression dies, glancing around as his eyes eventually fixate onto a fridge magnet - an old CPU coated in resin, labeled 'Brainfuck' -, taking a soft breath before leaning forwards, his eyes meeting Chase's again.

"If someone was to tell you something you... might not want to hear... would you want them to tell it upfront?"

"Yes!" Chase argues, Adam's demeanor telling him that whatever his reasoning may have been, it was serious. "Hit me with it. C'mon."

Adam stammers, as if he was gonna just... blurt it out, yet knowing he might not want to hear it.

"You... tried to kill yourself."

Chase's expression goes numb, his ear ringing as he looks down.

"Tell me what happened." he flatly commands.

Chapter Text

Adam was scurrying down the halls of the hospital. His college classes had ended, and it was now summer break, and he was spending the first night like this. He finished year 2 of his 4 year IT course, aiming for that sweet sweet place of 'network administrator in PPTH' for the fifth year now. He loved the hospital, part of the reason why he was here again.

"You called, dad?" Adam asks, barging inside the office.

He'd stopped caring about Chase - in the way that he was still in love, but refusing to hide -, so this 'barging' became common. Unfortunately Chase was never there to get to know him.

"Did you change my password?" House asks, looking up from above his reading glasses.

"Lord..." Adam mumbles, dropping his laptop bag wherever it was safe and slouching over him. "Last time I changed it to 'Wilsonisgay69' just like you asked. I even wrote it down for you." he points to a sticky note he'd stuck next to the touchpad.

"Well, it's not working." House quips.

"Did you try capitalizing the W..?" Adam deadpanly asks.

House, fingers slower than ever, tries the password again.

"It's so hard to tell with your handwriting. People are gonna think you're a bigger doctor than I am." House rolls his eyes, the laptop unlocking.

Adam looks at House opening Opera - his idea of a superior browser he made House get -, cursor circling around and opening menus.

"How do I switch to incognito again?" House loudly asks.

"Control, shift, n." Adam rolls his eyes.

House looks down, a focused grumble on his lips playing on his small double chin.

"Control is C-T-R-L..." he repeats, slowly pressing each key. "Okay, perfect."

"Your data provider can still see your searches, big man." Adam pats House's shoulder. "If you have to murder someone or watch weird porn..."

"What's the point, then?" House complains.

"Dad, it’s for hiding your search history from the team and me, not the government" Adam quips.

House slowly types in 'Cat video compilation' and clicks on the top result.

"Now I can think. Thanks." House deadpanly says. "Now get out."

Adam huffs, leaving.

Foreman and Cameron were in the lab, seeing which, Adam heads inside.

"House is in the office." Foreman reflexively responds.

"I know." Adam deadpanly replies. "Chase?"

"Went to the supply room." Cameron absentmindedly says, "Didn't say why, something about maintenance."

Adam nods, slowly heading out. "Thanks guys" he quips, leaving. He heads to the nearest supply closet, hoping Chase was still there, hoping that, maybe just maybe, they can finally meet.

He slowly cracks the door open, silently entering. 6 years of stalking the man was plenty time to learn how to be sneaky and silent. He tries to suppress any fantasies of closet sex in the surprisingly spacious closet, passing by a packed rack.

He finally spots Chase, recoiling behind said rack, peeking around like a child. He was sitting on an empty desk, hunched over, hair covering his face completely. His two hands were together, almost like a prayer, which explained the sobbing mumbles emanating from his lips. This is when Adam gets a bad feeling, his giddy excitement immediately dropping on his face, instead replaced by a silent gasp.

He slowly gets closer, seeing an empty antifreeze bottle. Talk about maintenance. He picks it up. It was empty. A meniscus ring stopped around a third of the way up from the bottom. He drank what was left. The bottle was 6 fl. oz. so there were only two ounces left before. Not enough to kill him. Not right away.

With this realization, he shakes Chase's shoulder, who jumps a bit, his face and torso drenched in sweat.

"Chase..." he softly says.

"This isn't-" he slurs "This isn't what..."

"Hey, look, it's okay. I'm not gonna report you." he pleads, voice hushed, dropping the bottle as tears well in his eyes. The bottle makes an echoing thud as Adam's arms wrap around him. "We need to go."

"No... let me die..." he pleads back, burying his face in Adam's neck, holding on like a lifeline.

"No..." Adam chokes out. "What were you praying about..?" he deflects, hoping he can convince him.

"...Peace... an angel in the afterlife... anything..." he cries out.

Adam thinks for a bit. The ethylene in the antifreeze causes confusion, something he could exploit.

"Here I am." he states. "I'm taking you."

"I'm not dumb." Chase spits back.

"No, really. Come on, we need to go." Adam hurries.

He's seen this happen before. House cured an inmate on death row by getting him drunk. He got a thing of 56% vodka as a college acceptance gift from his maternal relatives, more than enough ethane content to bind to the ethylene. It would only take around 5 to 6 shots.

"How long have you been sitting here..?" he asks, grabbing a spare wheelchair.

"Idonnoo" Chase slurs, having Adam sit him down as he, almost drunkenly collapses in his seat. "About... 5 minutes..."

Adam nods, wrapping him in a cooling blanket, both to disguise him as a patient, and to slow the creation of metabolites from the ethylene. He had less than an hour before said metabolites would be produced and his organs would shut down. He knew he had to get him out somehow, because while hospital treatment is obviously the best bet - he would lose his career. His qualifications, his credentials, decades of hard work, all flushed down the toilet for one rash decision that'd probably been brewing for ages. If Chase were caught in an attempted suicide at PPTH? Mandatory psych eval. Immediate suspension. Possibly reported to the state board. Damn you, bureaucracy.

He takes the bundled up Chase out, luckily avoiding many stares with the given fact it was the night shift. Nobody gives two fucks during the night shift. He elevators his way down to the parking lot where he'd left his car, haphazardly leaving the wheelchair on the edge of the parking lot and laying Chase and the cooling blanket in the backseat. He wasn't gonna let Chase die, nor was he going to let him be watered down from a smart, handsome doctor to nothing but a liability. He did what he thought was best.

Arriving home, he hurries the confused and lost Chase into the living room, sitting him down and bringing out two shotglasses.

"Let's have a drink and talk it out, okay?" he says with a pretend-smile, pouring out the strong stuff. "Here, I'll race you."

Chase lazily nods, clinking glasses as Adam, trying to handle the situation like he isn't completely heartbroken and terrified, downs the first shot. Chase follows, his face scrunching up.

"Five shots. That’s what it takes. You drink five, you live." he murmurs, pouring out the second, then third shot. "You better be hungover tomorrow, you dramatic bastard."

Chase just silently drinks, barely coherent. Adam, hand tremoring, pours out the fourth shot.

"Hey, dude, I don't-" Chase slurs. "I don't need more, I'm already wasted.."

Adam looks at the clock. 10 minutes left. The three shots probably distracted most of those unfortunate ADH hormones, but it's not enough.

"You a loser?" Adam pants, "What, you seriously gonna lose to some- some kid? I mean I'm not even supposed to drink until next year and I'm still only tipsy."

With this, Chase huffs, drinking the fourth, only for his shotglass to be replaced by Adam's. He lets out a terrified chuckle as Chase downs that too.

"Okay, fine, hit me. I'm ready for number six." Chase dares.

Six would be too much, so Adam thought.

"No, you win" he admits defeat. "You get a special cocktail as reward."

Chase just whistles, intrigued. Adam rushes to the kitchen, trying to recall the case. Acidosis and electrolytes. He pours a glass of tap water, mixing baking soda for the acidosis. Why does he even have that?? He then mixes sugar, remembering having an electrolyte suppliment he'd impulse-ordered, for which House called him a moron. He stirs it, bringing it over.

"Drink." he commands.

Chase takes a sip, letting out a disgusted groan.

"This tastes like ass."

"Drink!" Adam raises his voice.

Chase, startled, drinks the whole thing. Adam gets him more water, which he also drinks. He wipes his lips, standing up.

"I need to take a fuckin' leak." Chase proclaims, his accent more prominent.

"Bathroom's down the hall." Adam says, relieved. If he'd done everything well, the antifreeze should just pass right on, leaving little trace or damage.

He takes a small rosary from his pocket - one he'd also impulse-ordered, originally to mess with House but has gotten attached to -, and mutters a soft prayer. He didn't actually know how to pray 'properly', but both the Lord and the Catholic church tends to recognize free-worded prayer, right? Putting it away, he watches Chase stumble back.

"I missed." he mopes.

"I'll clean." Adam sighs. That's the least of their problems right now.