Take Me To Church

[scaredywombat]

Chase felt empty, fingers playing with the rim of an empty shotglass as he tried to find an answer to a question that wasn't there to ask. There was no question. He didn't feel that what he'd done was wrong. It didn't mean that he didn't feel like shit about it, that he didn't want someone to forgive him. That was a lie. What he wanted was someone to punish him, someone to make him hurt, to take all the acidic feelings inside of him and take it out on his body, until he could take solace in that, bleed these feelings out of him. Foreman kept telling him to talk to Cameron, and Allison kept trying to tell him that they could get through this together, but Chase knew that she couldn't be what he needed. Not for this.

There had been a time when he'd thought that maybe she was, maybe she could be, and they'd tried it once. His wrists, handcuffed to the bed. It was nothing, as far as Chase was concerned, but he never told her that. Not when even that dissolved into alternating giggles and awkwardness. He never brought it up again, and she never asked why he had a pair of handcuffs. He never brought up how much it meant to him, that when things pulled him too taut, it was the feel of restraints, the pain, the biting words, the feeling of having someone guide him through a scene with a hard touch, and catching him after when he crumbled that made it all make some kind of sense. It was what put him back together.

He knew he was hurting Allison, but he couldn't stop. He couldn't call her, because he had no explanations, nothing to offer that she'd accept. He needed to get drunk because he just... couldn't right now. He was pushing her away because he didn't know what else to do, and he couldn't tell her. She wouldn't understand. He knew her well enough to know that once she'd decided not to kill Dibala that she wouldn't forgive him when he did. He was okay with that. It just meant he couldn't tell her, that this was something that would always be between them.

And so he was here, at a bar, trying to find any other answer. Whiskey wasn't an answer, but it was something. A balm, maybe. It made the hurt feel less sharp. He wasn't drunk, even if he was working on it. He was just tipsy enough to dull the pain, and some of his inhibitions, but sober enough to be coherent.

Comments

[scaredywombat]

It's reassuring, makes him slowly lean more into House's body at the words voiced quietly between them. The words I've got you and how the other man holds onto him. Maybe even moreso than the beginning, when House was tying him up, this is all about trust. If House let him fall, Chase isn't sure that he'd even be able to get his hands up in time to try and break the impact.

But House has him, safe. He leans into him, tries to offer as much help as he can as House moves him over to the bed. He winces a little, predicting that he'll end up sitting on the edge while House unties his arms, but instead, the other man places him on his side, more or less. He ends up mostly face-down in the pillows, and lets House's fingers work over the ropes.

It feels good, the way they come away from skin, leaving red marks in their wake. There's a freedom in it, a feeling of all the tension and the hurt coming away with the ropes in those moments. His arm is floppy, unsteady, but he reaches out for House anyway, wanting to touch, to hold onto him, feel him.

[the_house_rules]

It's all awkward at this point, and standing bent over the bed and over Chase like this in the wake of fucking and beating him has his leg aching to lay down, to relax, to stop supporting weight and being forced to move. Still, he's careful as he unties Chase, knows that it's not just his ass that's sore, but his wrists, his arms, sore where the rope rubbed at his skin, where he might have bruises in the morning.

Completely untied, Chase reaches out for him, and House lets him but looks at the bed, assesses the situation - Chase is too close to this edge of the bed for him to join him, and while he might normally take great pleasure in making him move, he's not now.

"Hang on," he says, fingers skimming over Chase's arm, and he makes his way around the bed, limp heavier than usual, and climbs in the far side. He struggles his way closer across the mess of sheets towards Chase, and he pulls a blanket up over him. He may not be cold yet, but he will be once he really starts to come down, once the sweat on his skin cools in the air.

This isn't something they've done before. But then, neither is impact play and kinky bondage sex. Still, for House, for whatever reason, this feels more wrong than fucking and beating him. Maybe it's because he's got the time and mental distance to really think about it. He's not caught up in the moment, in giving Chase what he needs and being wrapped up in the energy of it. They're in his bed together. That's different than standing in the bedroom together, than fucking in the middle of the room. It's intimate, but it's necessary. It doesn't matter to House that whatever this is may not be a relationship and may never happen again. It doesn't matter that, tomorrow, he's going to do everything in his power to lord this over Chase at work. All that matters is that he's opened something up in Chase, put his thumb on something that needed to come out and brought it to the surface and left it raw and angry and now there's work still to be done. He can't just let him go, or take him home. He's got to let Chase come down first. Really come down, come back into his skin and feel whole and okay again before he considers bringing him home.

They're facing each other, and he scoots a little closer, until their legs are touching, and he throws an arm around Chase's shoulders and hauls him in closer, cuddling him up against his chest because he can tell from the way he reached for him the second his arms were free that he needs contact. Maybe he doesn't usually like to cuddle - maybe he does - but he is now.

"C'mere," he says softly, talking mostly into Chase's hair.

[scaredywombat]

Usually, Chase hated the whole conceit of aftercare. Usually. But tonight wasn't usual. Not in the stimulus that had triggered this, not in how things had gone with House and him, not in the fact that it was House at all. He craved the contact. Something to hold on, something to anchor him when he was still reeling. He felt lightheaded, knew driving was as out of the question as if he'd gone through a bottle of whiskey back at the bar. Things were too soft, too insubstantial, he'd be liable to end up through his windshield.

The words hang on are a comfort, in that when House pulls away, he's expecting it. It doesn't entirely feel like the world falling out from underneath his feet. He notices how heavy House's limp is, but he's still too out of it for it to really connect to what they'd just done, to feel bad for it. He cuddles into the blanket, and toward House's body as the man places a blanket over him. He's almost feverishly warm, but he knows it wont stay that way. There's something uncertain in his body, even as he leans toward House.

This is strange, makes his heart race, because Chase usually gets out and away as soon as possible. He should be putting his clothes on, heading outside, letting the cold air make his head stop spinning, and then taking a cab back home, pretending this didn't mean anything at all. Most of the time it didn't. But after years of wanting House, there was no way to pretend this didn't mean anything. It showed the cracks between Allison and him that he wasn't talking about, that he had spent two years trying to ignore. House had been the thing between them they couldn't address without falling apart. He knows that even if he walks away now, it wont stop House from holding this over his head. In fact, it just might make it worse. But that's not why he's staying.

It's because he needs this. So eventually the tension calms a little and he shifts, dragging his legs gently against House's as he leans in against his chest, an invisible smile against his skin. His hands are clinging to him again, against his sides, trembling fingers against skin, and a low murmur on his lips that he shyly kisses into House's flesh. He's still reeling, and having House holding him makes it feel better, makes it okay.

The shift out of subspace is always slow for Chase, and he usually doesn't like to let anyone else see it.