Title: Easy

Pairing: House/Chase

Rating: T – angst

Warning: Implied slash – nothing graphic

Disclaimer: All publicly known characters and names belong to their respective affiliates.

I make no money in writing this.

A/N: ::peaks out from hidy-hole:: So sorry I haven't updated in ages. I've been completely drained of all creativity since the beginning of the semester. Sorry this is kinda angsty but I needed to write it – why, I have no idea, but I did.

Easy

It should have been easy. But it wasn't, not by a long shot.

House knew he should have learned from what happened last time; but everyone has perfect vision in hind-sight.

He sat at his favorite bar, drowning his sorrows in liquor. The bartender forced him to surrender his keys – something he did easily. He knew he shouldn't drive, he knew he was way past that point. Instead, he reached for his cell phone and dialed the first number that came to mind.

Chase answered. It surprised House to no end. They had a major blow-out earlier that evening, which was why House found himself in a bar, drunk as a skunk.

"What do you want, House?" Chase asked, sounding thoroughly annoyed.

House winced at the use of his surname instead of 'Greg' which Chase had taken to calling him whenever they were alone. "Can you pick me up?" he asked, his speech slightly slurred.

He heard Chase sigh heavily on the other end of the line before answering with a clipped "Where are you?"

House told him and was about to continue talking; however, Chase cut him off by hanging up on his end. House sighed heavily into his last glass, hating the way his eyes were prickling. He would not cry, not here. He would wait until Chase dropped him off at his apartment to let go.

He should have learned from the past that this was not a good idea. But what are the odds that the same thing would happen twice?

It didn't happen exactly the same way as it had with Amber. No, Amber made it to the bar and died on the bus. He never liked Amber, there was a reason House and everyone else called her 'Cut-throat Bitch', and it was a title she defended all the time. But House remembered how much it hurt Wilson when he learned that it was House she had gone to pick up when she died. House now knew what that felt like.

He sat on his barstool for an hour before he began to panic. It was an irrational fear, he was sure, but Chase didn't live that far away – it shouldn't take him this long to get here. Yes, the roads were wet, but not wet enough to warrant the snails pace Chase had to have been driving at.

House gave up on him, figuring Chase didn't want to be near him at the moment and called up Wilson instead. After skillfully avoiding the 'what about Chase' question, Wilson agreed to pick him up.

He didn't have to wait long before Wilson came in, right before the last call for alcohol. "House," Wilson said, sounding exasperated. Wilson sat next to House as he finished off the last of his water the bartender had forced on him. "Why didn't Chase pick you up?"

Damn, knew I wouldn't avoid this forever. He squared his shoulders and looked at Wilson over the rim of his glass. "Me 'n him ha' a figh'," he said quietly, his words slurring more than they had when had talked to Chase a little more than an hour ago. "He wus suppose' ta come 'n get me -" He stopped talking when a stricken look came across Wilson's impassive face. "Wha'?" He asked. The strange feeling in his chest - the one he had been feeling since Chase didn't show up - intensified. He no longer felt the effects of the large amount of alcohol he had consumed. "What is it?" he asked again.

Wilson didn't answer, but his eyes trailed over to the door. "Come on," he said, grabbing House by the arm.

He stumbled to Wilson's car with the help of his friend and sat in the passenger seat, staring at his pager that had just went off. It was from Cuddy.

Emergency. ICU -NOW!

"Take me to the hospital," House commanded, the feeling in his chest now exploded, encompassing his entire body until he was shaking so badly he couldn't buckle his seat belt.

Wilson didn't ask why but the look on his face gave everything away. He buckled House in and sped away, taking the freeway to avoid all the bar traffic.

House was out of the car before Wilson had even put it in park. He hobbled towards the door to ICU, adrenaline pumping through his veins as his heart beat rapidly against his ribcage. Please – if there is a God – please don't take him.

HCHCHC

It should have been easy to stop after it happened a second time.

It wasn't.

House sat on his couch, surrounded by empty beer bottles and the scrapbook Chase had made of the two of them (What a fag, he thought affectionately). He didn't even realize half of these photos had been taken.

The first page had a note taped to it.

Greg

I've been collecting these for some time – I hope you like it. They remind me of how happy we can be when we aren't fighting. We're both too stubborn for our own good.

But I love you all the more for it.

All my love,

Robbie

House slowly peeled the note off the paper, careful not to tear it or the page it was attached to. He set both the note and the book on his table before his bad leg gave out on him and he collapsed next to the table, tears finally flowing freely. He hadn't let himself cry when they pronounced Chase dead on arrival. He hadn't let himself cry when they lowered his body into the cold, wet, ground. But now, when he was alone with nothing but his memories, he let himself cry.

House once wondered what Chase would do when the years of drinking and pill popping finally caught up to him. Not once did he ever realize that he would out-live his young lover.

It wasn't easy to stop drinking; but, at the bottom of a bottle, it was easy to forget the pain. It was easy to forget that his heart had broken into a thousand pieces when they closed Chase's unseeing sea-green eyes.

The only hope the other doctors were able to give him was that he died quickly. It was an easy death. House laughed morosely through his tears. It might have been easy on Chase but what about House? Did no one care that it happened again? He killed someone else because he was too immature to stop drinking before he got totally sloshed.

HCHCHC

It wasn't easy to forget, but House found it easy to follow. Two years later House died of an accidental overdose. It was painful, it was messy but it was easy.

So sorry this is so damn depressing. I guess I'm in on of those moods.