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[dr_robchase]

By now, six years and counting, Chase should have been ready for whatever he had to come up against. He should have been expecting the worst and thought -- stupidly, stupidly thought -- that whatever this place had for him, it couldn't be worse than what he'd already lived through. It was bad enough to see both your parents leave you again (whether by death or disappearance), bad enough to have a near-death experience, to constantly lose everyone you ever loved, but the one thing this place had never done was take him back to the harrowing moments he had growing up.

At least, not until today.

He'd been downstairs, in Gwen's old room, trying to figure out whether they could shift the space around. One moment, it was the spare room with its dusty floors and the empty bed. He blinked, only closed his eyes for a second, but when he opened them, he knew that smell. He knew the feeling of being closed in, and he swore he could even smell the faint aroma of gin in the air. Chase felt a sick lurching in his stomach.

"No," he begged, terrified that he was right back to where it all started.

What if, behind this door, his mother was drinking herself into a stupor. What if his father has left for months? What if he finds his baby sister, what if -- what if what if. Chase slams both palms against the door, feeling a stricken with panic as memories filter back and he remembers, all too well, the begging and the shouting and the pleading he did to get out of this room. The books were the same, the leather armchair still had the cigar burn in the arm, and the carpet had that same old musty smell from too many glasses of scotch and gin spilled on it.

"Let me out!" he shouted, his voice catching. "Let me out of here! Let me..." he trails off, a weak and frustrated exhalation of 'Mum, please' on his breath before he slams his palms harder against the locked door, struggling with the antiquated copper knob.

Comments

[misanthrope_md]

House didn't typically come by his old home, the treehouse - too many memories, as stupid as that sounded even to him. But he was walking Fucker on the nearest path when the dog suddenly took off like a shot, toward it.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" he shouted after him, considering just letting the dog go, but finally grunted his displeasure and limped toward the treehouse. When he was there, and saw Fucker scratching at the door, that's when he heard the shouts from inside.

He felt a small stab of panic at hearing Chase's voice, and opened the door, cane clattering to the floor as he made an attempt at running despite the searing pain in his leg.

Once he got to his old room, heard the pounding on the door, he unlocked and opened it with clumsy fingers, expecting to see... he didn't even know, Chase being murdered inside or something.

[dr_robchase]

Chase's breath hitched sharply when the door was opened in front of him. He went stumbling forward, wrapping both arms around House to catch himself before he tripped too far and took them both out. He took a deep breath, staring up at House, still in a little bit of a panic. "It just came out of nowhere."

[misanthrope_md]

House very nearly fell over anyway. As it was, some of his weight went back on his leg and he gritted his teeth as he held Chase up.

His eyes darted frantically to the room. "What? What's in there?"

[dr_robchase]

It took a second for Chase to calibrate his balance, but he managed and stood back from House, hand lingering at the small of his back for only a second. He had to collect himself, though, which was why anything he might have said was delayed. "It's -- it's just, you know, it's more of the same. It's this place," he spat out. "It's fucking with my head again."

[misanthrope_md]

House blinked at him, and then looked over Chase's shoulder into the room. It was just... a room. Not the same one, but...

He looked back at Chase incredulously. "You were attacked by a room? Jesus, Rob, you scared the shit out of me!"

[dr_robchase]

Chase glared at House, wishing that he could give him a shove -- but knew that he'd feel bad for it, considering he'd already managed to nearly up-end them with a well-timed stagger. He bit his lower lip firmly to avoid saying something that he'd regret, but he only managed to get so far. "Look, you rescued me," he said, his tone curt. "If you're just going to make disparaging comments about the room, you can go, too."

[misanthrope_md]

Fucker, who had apparently been scratching at the door outside and finally managed to nose it open, came bounding down the hallway.

"He was worried about you," House said dryly as the dog barked and pushed insistently at Chase's legs.

[dr_robchase]

Chase let out a soft laugh, bending down to scratch behind Fucker's ears, bending forward to press his forehead to the fur. "House has been taking care of you, I hope," he murmured to the dog, glancing up at House. "It's just a room," he said, trying to convince himself of the same.

[misanthrope_md]

"Yeah, right," said House. "A hysteria-inducing room. Is there a chair in there at least? Because I really need to sit down."

[sortofaman]

It had been a weird day, and the Doctor was not a hundred percent sure he was pleased about it. Breakfast had been strange, people were acting oddly, and it was Tuesday. Tuesdays had always been strange.

He hadn't realised how strange--among the things he didn't expect to find was to get home to the sound of Chase yelling and shouting from Gwen's room. Nor did he expect to find a locked door either. "Rob?" he yelled back, then pulled the sonic out of his pocket, aiming it at the lock. "Hold on, Rob, calm down!"

[dr_robchase]

Chase gave the door one last slam, relieved beyond the telling of it to hear the Doctor's voice. He forced a shaky breath out, grateful that he hadn't been thrust back in time to cope with his childhood all over again. There was only so much of that he could take. "Doctor," he begged, voice low. "Doctor, please get me out of here."

[sortofaman]

"As soon as I can," the Doctor assured him, calling through the heavy wood (had it been that heavy this morning? he was thinking no). He cursed under his breath and slapped the sonic against his palm, then changed the setting, zapping the door once more and pulling on the knob.

It finally gave way, and he rushed through the door. "Rob, what's going...on?"

His voice trailed off as he took in not only Chase but the room.

[dr_robchase]

"It just...it changed while I wasn't looking," he said, trying not to let it bother him so much. He was still on the island, he hadn't managed to find his way into the hellish days of his past. He was okay. He was okay. He couldn't say the same for his family, but he wasn't being made to relive it. "Where's Nate? Is he okay?"

[sortofaman]

The Doctor suspected there was more to it than that--Chase wasn't that easy to startle into a full-fledged panic. "Nate's fine," he said, looking Chase in the eye, trying to calm him down. "He's over at Jane's, showing Lydia how to make mud pies...Rob, what is this room?"

It smelled of booze, for starters.

[dr_robchase]

Chase crossed his arms around his torso as tightly as they'd go, not sure if that would make him feel better, but it was something. It was better than nothing. "It's my father's study," he said, his tone completely even. "It's where I used to go--"

No, that wasn't it.

"It's where my mother used to put me."

[sortofaman]

For someone who'd been panicking a moment or two earlier, Chase was almost preternaturally calm, and the Doctor looked at him warily, before realising what exactly he was trying to say.

"Oh dear god," he said. "Here? In our house?"

[dr_robchase]

Chase was fairly sure that he was pale -- even considering the island tan he was sporting. There were some things that could spook the colour right out of him, and bringing his past out in front of him was a surefire way of that. "Right here in the house," he agreed, glumly. "I thought -- for a minute, I thought that I was back there. With her, locking me in here."

[priorcommitment]

Times like these, Ishiah was glad for the fact that he had set a precedent for himself to venture around the island, keeping his pace quick and steady to increase the chance of coming across peers, neighbors, anyone who perhaps needed a hand or, alternatively, simply needed a kind nod and wave to start their day. Ishiah was trundling along at a quick pace when he heard that shout from the distance, recognizing Chase's part of the neighborhood, his pace hastening as he grabbed for the sword at his hip and drew it, wondering what the reason was behind the strangled yell.

Once closer, he noticed the jarring coming from the doorknob, and quickly sheathed his sword again. Locked in? Perhaps with someone else inside.

Turning the lock with a click, Ishiah tugged the door sharply open, wood creaking in its wake.

[dr_robchase]

Chase staggered backwards in shock when the door opened and the familiarity of the face in front of him took him a moment to process, especially when his panic-ridden state of mind was already filling his brain with worst-case-scenarios. For a moment (before the height and the scar hit his awareness), he actually thought it might have been himself. Then, realization hit, the confusion cleared, and he knew where he was.

It took him a minute, but he managed to take a deep breath and compose himself, refusing to look over his shoulder into the room. He just wanted to keep staring forward. "Ishiah," he said, evenly. "Sorry, I didn't want to cause any disturbances."

[priorcommitment]

Ishiah waved off the apology with a quick tilt of his hand and a shake of his head, reaching out for Chase's shoulder to try and encourage him to leave the room that was clearly giving him trouble. Staring back into the room, he tried to discern what exactly it was that frightened Chase, but could come up with no quick answer. His parents' library? Perhaps.

He knew the general picture, but not the specifics.

"No apologies. The island has a tendency to bring what troubles us most," Ishiah replied. "Do you want me to help you clear all of this away?"

[dr_robchase]

Chase looked back at the room -- how the interior had completely changed and how the paint was exactly as he remembered it. "The books," he said, before he could even process what he was saying. "I need to get the books out of here." No matter what else they did, he needed to get that done first. "They should go to the Clinic, they could use them. They're helpful, they're all medical texts."

[priorcommitment]

Without pause, Ishiah stepped into the room, quickly gathering large piles of books under his arm and hauling them outside, under the sun, where Chase wouldn't be forced to deal with the confinement and all that it apparently triggered. And that was when he realized, glancing back to the lock of the door, nose turning about to try and catch any hint of a scent in the air, eyes darkening significantly.

"This is the study," he said with that moment of realization, eyes wide as he glanced about, gathering more books still under his arms.

[dr_robchase]

"This is..." he trailed off, mostly because his voice caught in his throat and he found that he couldn't even find the words to get past that. That was the problem, wasn't it? No matter what he tried to do, it was hard to get over the fact that his family had stunted his emotional development on such a base level. "Yeah, the study," he finally got out. "I just, I thought I was back there. I thought I was locked in, again."

[priorcommitment]

"You're not," Ishiah said, not because he believed Chase somehow believed himself still there, but instead because there were times when the spoken word had more weight than anything else— or so Ishiah was told. "You're still on the island, nothing here has changed. This is another occasion where the island is bringing back pieces from our previous lives for some type of dramatic emotional effect."

His eyes roved over the surroundings, before he strode to the front door and placed the books outside. "Do you still plan to live in this house?"

[dr_robchase]

"It's the Doctor and my house," was what Chase said, quietly. "We've been married for five years. We've lived here for almost six," he said, a quiet feeling of dread settling in his stomach. "This is my home and now it's here," he said, taking in a deep breath and trying to settle his mind down from the edge of panic he'd been inching towards.