(no subject)

[theprodigaldoctor]

Everything hurts.

This is how Chase wakes up, ever since the anesthesia wore off and the pain of having a surgical blade shoved into your ribs comes screaming at you, trying to vault over the help of the morphine. It hurts and for a few selfish seconds, Chase thinks that maybe he'd trade the use of his legs if the pain would go away. That thought recedes as alertness filters into his mind, but the pain stays. He sits up slowly, one hand over the thick gauze bandages that covers his stitches and tries to work past the dry mouth the drugs give him.

He glances to the window, then to the clock. Four hours, this time. At least it's better than the pained twenty minutes of sleep he'd caught before. Between the physical pain and the nightmares his subconscious is so ready to provide for him, Chase hasn't exactly been getting much rest.

The worst of it is that his own stubbornness landed him out of the hospital and back home. He couldn't be there any longer; couldn't look at Adams and her guilty face or Park not knowing what to say. He hated seeing Foreman try to couch his words with sympathy and the less he saw of House, the better. Chase reaches for his crutches, beginning the long process of getting to his feet and getting to the bathroom for his middle of the night routine.

Take a piss, take new drugs, clean the bandages and restitch anything he might have pulled. Rinse, lather, repeat. Every step remains excruciating, but he's grateful he can still walk. Carefully, he backs his way into the bathroom, hobbling and hopping.

When he turns to look at himself in the mirror, disorientation hits him like a two-by-four when there isn't a mirror to be found and instead, he's staring down a long hallway, devoid of anything but bad hotel art. He's been on drugs for a while, but they shouldn't be causing this much of a hallucinatory episode. Chase leans a little too heavy forward and barely stops himself from careening to the ground, but the shock and twist of pulling back makes him hiss in pain as a bright new flash lances through his body.

He glances down at his white t-shirt and grey sweatpants and knows there'll soon be a bloodstain seeping through. He needs medical equipment, drugs, and apparently, a little sanity. Chase backs up against the nearest wall for support, slamming into it a little harder than planned with his balance still so off-kilter.

"Shit," he hisses, breathing hard and heavy as he tries to get a second wind that will help him get somewhere else. "Shit," he gets out, more resigned when he doesn't exactly know how to find that kind of energy.

Comments

[prettysure]

The first thought to enter Gwen's mind was two simple words: Of course.

Of course she could be blithely minding her own business only to turn a corner and stumble upon a grown man barely able to remain upright due to injury. Of course he clearly required help, of which she was woefully underqualified to provide. Of course this sort of thing kept happening to her, because somehow, for reasons only known to the cosmos, she was apparently doomed to be a common denominator for a procession of wheezing, wounded dudes.

"Whoa," she said, immediately dropping her bag on the carpet so that she could reach out toward his shoulders, hands hovering tentatively in space just in case this guy decided he wanted to keel over.

"Oh," she continued, eyes rounding as she took in the spot of bright red blooming across the man's shirt. "Okay, yeah, that's blood. Not good. Maybe sitting or laying down would be a better option? I'm thinking yes."

[theprodigaldoctor]

In his attempt to right himself, the crutches clatter against each other and make this awful metal sound that makes Chase wince. He's treated a lot of ill patients, seen a lot of crap, but he never really thought he'd be the one in this situation. Oddly enough, he'd always pegged these sorts of danger situations as House's domain and his only. "I keep tearing it loose," he admits, sliding down the wall in an attempt to sit. "They always say that doctors make the worst patients." And doctors who nearly lost the ability to walk and have seen, firsthand, what that can do to a man, definitely try and push the limits.

He looks up at the girl, trying to make sense of this. "What are you doing in my apartment?"

[prettysure]

"Oh good, you're a doctor," Gwen replied as she fell into a crouch, although she didn't sound terribly reassured by this revelation. Doctors might have made the worst patients, but she might have expected one to know better than to pop his stitches while crossing dimensions.

"Unless you live in an outer space version of the Biltmore, I'm pretty sure this isn't your apartment, Doc," she said, and after a moment's hesitation, reached a quick hand to tug up on the hem of the guy's shirt.

"Okay, yeah, that's definitely not good," she said, and tipped a worried glance up to the guy's face. "But you're the doctor here, so you tell me what to do. Just about anything other than leave you here to bleed out is an option."

[theprodigaldoctor]

He presses his lips together tightly when he shifts and the stab wound strains slightly. It's that pulsing, immediate pain that he's gotten used to, which is an uncomfortable thing. He bites back a comment about the fact that he's actually fairly used to posh residences, but she's right: this one isn't his. "How are your hands?" he asks, seeing as the pain has made his start to shake. "Steady?"

[prettysure]

"Yeah," Gwen was quick to reply with a nod. "I work in a lab- Or, I did. It's complicated, and you're bleeding." She huffed out a thin, awkward laugh.

"I'm guessing you're asking because you want me to fix those for you," she continued with a motion to the popped stitches. If it was wrong that she found the idea a little exciting, she didn't want to be right. Having to sew stitches into, say, Peter? That would not be fun. Having to sew stitches into a stranger she didn't have an emotional attachment to? Really cool.

"I've got a sewing kit thing in my room," she offered. "It was in the drawer with the Bible and TV remote."

[theprodigaldoctor]

There's a slight look of horror in his eyes at the thought of a sewing kit helping him with this. He cranes a look over his shoulder, staring at the still propped open door where he could see a sliver of his apartment through it. "Or maybe you can help me shuffle back to that door over there and you can use medical-grade stitches?" he suggested, seeing as he had all the tools there.

"Have you ever used them before?"

[prettysure]

"That would probably be the better alternative, yeah," Gwen hastily agreed, a sheepish wrinkle of her nose as she reached to help the guy back up again. In her defense, she couldn't have known that there were supplies for medical-grade stitches through that door and not, like, giant octopus monsters that would eat her face off.

"No," she admitted with a shake of her head. "But I'm a fast learner, if you can just tell me how to do it."

[theprodigaldoctor]

Chase felt like he didn't have many options unless he could go back in time and give himself a high dose of a very powerful drug to strip away the pain. That? Definitely wasn't happening, so he had to work with what he had. He looked at her, worried about her clothes and her frame, because he needed to get back there. "Do you mind if I maybe have you carry me back?"

He can walk, slightly, but he doesn't trust his two feet to make it the whole way.

[prettysure]

"Let's do it," Gwen replied, and shuffled to wedge her shoulder up under the guy's armpit, her arm slung carefully around his back. She figured that was answer enough.

"You tell me if I'm going too fast or making things worse, and I'll tell you if I think there's a chance I might drop you. Deal?" Tenacious as she was, this was a full-grown man, and unlike certain people she knew, Gwen didn't have the benefit for super-powered assistance.

"I'm Gwen, by the way. I'll be your welcoming party-slash-gurney for today."

[theprodigaldoctor]

"Chase," he replies, though his voice is tense slightly as he tries to walk without agitating the wound too much. He breathes out deeply as he keeps going. "Rob Chase," he gives the full name, mostly as a way to keep his attention on the fact that he's moving towards feeling better. He reaches with his good arm for the door, hauling it back and finding that's a relief to find that it's still his flat.

"We're doing good so far," he says, half to himself. "We can do it. We're nearly there, so close." To that, and to drugs.