Chapter Text
Dr Robert Chase hadn’t expected so much waiting around when he applied to join the diagnostics team at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Waiting for patients, waiting for lab results, waiting for House to have a sudden stroke of genius and announce that they were all idiots for not realising the man with a runny nose and a slight temperature was actually dying of a rare brain disease only found in pygmy goats. That last one had actually happened the week before, and Chase still hadn’t recovered from the dressing-down he’d received for not immediately noticing the man had strange ears, which he had. Chase had just thought the man was ugly. Or at least his ears were.
Dr Gregory House was objectively a genius, but not a kind one. His aversion to seeing his patients in person was probably a blessing for all involved. Chase had once seen him verbally eviscerate a woman who had fed her child who was extremely allergic to nuts Nutella because she thought it didn’t have nuts in. Foreman still talked about the time House threatened to call the pound on a man who’d been eating dog food to lose weight.
So, yes, keeping House away from patients was generally a wise move—not that he ever volunteered to see them anyway.
At present, the two of them were seated in the diagnostics conference room, Chase flicking through an outdated copy of The Lancet with all the enthusiasm of someone watching paint dry, when the door burst open and Dr Allison Cameron strode in, waving a file triumphantly.
“I’ve got something,” she announced.
—
The man had arrived by ambulance after collapsing in a bar. While that wasn't especially unusual in a location that sold alcohol, he was apparently a well-known and well-liked regular, and the staff insisted this wasn’t normal for him.
Initial blood alcohol concentration: 0.54%. Most people would be comatose—or dead—at that level. Then there were the eyes. A nurse doing a routine neuro check had noticed his pupils were slitted, vertical. Like a snake’s. Poisoning or brain trauma was the obvious assumption, though there were no signs of injury. But the tox screen came back clean apart from the alcohol. No opioids, no benzodiazepines, no party drugs. No antifreeze, no heavy metals. Before they could wheel him to imaging, he sat up. Just like that. Eyes still slit. He’d blinked against the lights and told the orderly that the lighting was “dramatically fluorescent.”
Now, no one knew what to do with him. Vitals? Stable. Cognition? Sharp. Motor function? Intact. No visible impairment—except for the staggering BAC and the fact that his eyes looked like they belonged to a reptile.
They ran the blood alcohol again. It came back 0.20%. That kind of drop in such a short space of time wasn’t just unlikely; it was physiologically impossible without medical intervention. And he’d had none—no fluids, no charcoal, nothing.
A medical mystery.
A medical mystery who was insisting they discharge him.
—
“Nothing came back in his labs,” Cameron reported to the team. “In fact, they’re cleaner than when he arrived.”
Chase leaned over the file she’d passed him, brow furrowed with interest. Foreman looked intrigued as well.
“And he’s sat up and talking?” he asked. “No cognitive decline?”
“None. He’s actively trying to leave. The attending’s managed to delay him for now.”
“So we’re treating a patient who doesn’t want to be treated,” came the voice of their boss. Dr House was lounging across one of the chairs, lazily pushing himself in a slow circle with his cane. “I thought we cared about consent these days. Or is that just for the girls?”
Cameron ignored the barb. “There’s no way he has the capacity to make decisions,” Foreman said. “The man should be in a coma.”
“And yet he’s not,” House said. “Why?”
“Isn’t that our job to find out?” Chase replied.
Cameron shot him a grateful glance.
“Only if the patient consents. And he doesn’t. If the man wants to die on a bar room floor, who are we to stop him?”
“Doctors,” Cameron said firmly.
House stared at her for a beat longer than was comfortable, then sighed. “If you can convince Medusa in there to be seen, then we’ll keep going. And when the lawsuit hits, you can all tell Cuddy I said the word ‘consent’.” With that, he pushed to his feet and limped out of the room.
—
The patient had been moved to a private room, though he didn’t seem thrilled about it. His belongings had been returned, and he sat propped up on the bed, dark sunglasses in place. He hadn’t changed out of the hospital gown, which made for quite the sight. His wild red hair sticking up in dishevelled tufts like an ageing punk rocker at the wrong end of a bender.
“Hi,” Cameron began, stepping forward. “I’m Dr Cameron. This is Dr Chase and Dr Foreman.”
Crowley gave a crooked smile and didn’t take her hand. “Doctor? Bit of a funny first name? Call me Crowley.” The long o in his accent stretched across the room.
“Oh, you’re English?” Cameron asked.
“No,” he replied flatly, offering nothing more.
Getting further information wasn’t much easier.
Full name? “Anthony J. Crowley.” No, the J didn’t stand for anything. Why would you ask?
Date of birth? “A millennium ago. I’ve stopped keeping track.”
Next of kin?
Crowley stilled. For a moment he said nothing, eyes hidden behind his dark lenses. Then, slowly, he shook his head.
It wasn’t dismissive. It was devastated. Like the air had left the room. Like someone had stabbed him in the chest without touching him. The sorrow radiated off him in a way that made all three doctors fall quiet. Chase looked away. Foreman blinked hard. Cameron found herself swallowing against the sudden lump in her throat.
She moved gently on to the next question.
When asked about his eyes, Crowley simply said he’d been born that way. Questions about light sensitivity, and visual acuity were all were met with a tone so uninterested it was clear he wanted to be anywhere else. Frustrated and uneasy, the team returned to the whiteboard. Without consent, they couldn’t run further tests. And without that, they couldn’t rule anything in—or out.
“Bad day at the reptile house?” House called as he strode into the diagnostics offices where they had gathered.
“Don’t call him that,” Cameron said firmly. “Crowley’s a person, not a reptile.”
House froze. His cane tapped once on the floor.
“What did you just say?”
“Anthony Crowley,” Chase said. “The patient.”
House stared at them for a moment with an unreadable expression. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room.
If they didn’t know better, they’d think he was heading straight for the patient’s room.