Author's Notes: Hello all! First, an enormous thank you to my beta East-Wing-Witch who has taught me so much about grammar and writing in just these few weeks - I'm almost ashamed of the first half of this! On the other hand, this chapter is fifty times better because of her, so we can all sing a grand national anthem in her honor! Um... I might not update for the rest of the week because I'm getting a new computer, and the transfer process might take a while. This chapter is not a happy one, but I used a very cool format that I borrowed from the Star Wars fandom. Hope you all like!

Us and Them

Chapter 11
(Ain't My Bitch)

"And you're still here because?"

Chase stood up. Cameron and Foreman had left a few minutes ago, but it had taken House five more to realize that Chase had not departed with them and was still sitting at the conference room table.

"I wanted to talk to you," Chase said, glancing behind him to ensure that Cameron and Foreman were not coming back or lurking outside of the room, watching through the glass.

"About what?" House asked, watching Chase intently as he made his way around the room, over to where House stood.

Chase hadn't quite formulated that part, but he opened his mouth and hoped that something sensible would spill out. "About the—" He stopped at the sound of the door opening, and turned to see Wilson in the doorway.

"Oh," Wilson said, taking a slight step back as he took in the scene. "I... I can come back."

House waved his hand. "Talk," he commanded imperiously.

Wilson hesitated, and his eyes fell on Chase.

"Chase is staying," House said right away, seeming to understand Wilson's qualm before he'd even said it. His eyes flashed some warning to Wilson, and Chase wondered if Wilson had spoken to House. But then why would Wilson have asked Chase not to say anything to House?

"All right," Wilson agreed, as if he had actually had a choice in the situation. He came into the room, shutting the door behind him. "The meeting was about you two."

"I figured as much," House said offhandedly. "What's Cuddy doing?"

Wilson's face tightened. "We have two major donors threatening to cut funding, three minor ones that want to follow and one that's already gone—she's freaking out. Radiology isn't getting new stationing boards, Peds is dropping their campaign for an expanded wing, and we'll have to fire a third of maintenance if anyone else cuts out..."

"This means more clinic duty for me, doesn't it?" House asked in a long-suffering voice, and Chase suppressed his smile.

Wilson was not so willing to see the humorous side of things. "It's not a joke, House," he snapped, putting his hands on his hips. "You've cost this hospital $20 million alone today, and who knows how much more we're going to lose since you insist on keeping up this little..."

"Little what?" Chase challenged, glad to have an excuse to speak up.

"Nothing," Wilson said, his arms dropping to his sides and his shoulders sagging as he finally seemed to realize that he would not win this argument. "Anyway, don't be surprised if Cuddy's on the warpath for the next few days."

"All right," House said. "Thanks for the heads up."

Wilson turned to leave, walked over to the door, but then stopped with his hand resting on the handle, the door still unopened. He turned back around, his face curious. "House? You wanna get a drink after work?"

House looked over to Chase, who forced himself to shrug as if it didn't matter to him. "I was going to take tonight off, but you and Wilson can go out—I wouldn't mind." He would mind very much, actually, for fear of what Wilson might say to House. He could tell him all sorts of things, plant those little seeds of doubt in House's mind as he'd done to Chase, but he couldn't say that. Wilson was House's friend.

"I'm busy," House said to Wilson, surprising Chase. "Maybe tomorrow."

"Okay. I'll see you later." And with that, Wilson was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

"You know," Chase said, leaning back against the wall, "you didn't have to—"

He was abruptly cut off as House grabbed him and pulled him into a fierce kiss, startling all the thoughts out of his mind. Chase quickly forgot about Wilson and Cameron and Cuddy... he was locked in an exchange of heat and passion, his hands searching out the familiar skin and bones and muscles, and he realized how much he'd missed this in the day or so that he had been away from House. Together, they had such a strong, electrifying passion that seemed to have a life of its own. What was there to doubt? Only...

"No," he said, pushing House away gently and breaking the kiss as he remembered where he was. "If Cuddy finds us—"

"Fuck Cuddy," House growled, grabbing Chase's shoulder aggressively, as if he might start shaking Chase at any moment. "How long has it been since we did this?"

Chase tried not to listen to the part of him that was agreeing with House. "I know, but we agreed that we wouldn't do this at work... And Cuddy's losing so much money because of us already..."

"I never agreed to anything," House said hotly, his eyes flashing in defiance.

"We should wait until things settle down, at least," Chase reasoned desperately, knowing that he didn't want to be fighting with House and unsure of why he was putting up a fight in the first place.

"What, when Cuddy manages to beat us into submission?" House demanded of him, his hand on Chase's shoulder tightening.

Chase tried not to squirm under House's painfully tight grip. "That's not what she's trying to do," he said wildly, the pain making his mind race and his mouth babble. "It's only for a little while, just until people get used to us, that's all, then we can do this. It's not that I don't want to, I do, but I just don't want—"

"Is that what you think?" House sneered, using his hand to shake Chase roughly. "This is it? Once people get over the initial shock, everything will go back to the way it was?"

"I don't know!" Chase struggled to free himself from House now, twisting violently and trying to pry House's fingers away, but House didn't even seem to notice him. "I don't know, all right?"

"It's not going to end, Chase!" House yelled, his hand twisting a little and causing a sharp sear of pain that left Chase unable to breathe and made white spots dance before his eyes. "There's always going to be people who won't understand us! You can't hide from the world forever!"

Chase stared at him, regaining his breath, a million words flying through his head. He nearly staggered backwards, but House's hand held him. "Let go of me," he said, not trusting his voice to be louder than a whisper.

House suddenly seemed to realize that he was still holding Chase, and he jerked his hand back roughly.

"Go have drinks with Wilson tonight," Chase said, and then he left.

This is how it feels to be Gregory House:

You are scared. You've just hurt the only person your life who isn't currently pissed off at you—Chase wouldn't admit it, but you could see the pain and the fear that had burned in his eyes. The part that scares you is that you didn't even realize that you were hurting him until it was too late. Now you can add him to the list of people that you need to avoid... And maybe, if you were a better person, you would go and apologize to him. But you can't. You have no idea where you would start, because it isn't just this moment that you have fucked up.

You should have never kissed him in the first place. It had been impulsive, you were completely high on morphine (you'd have to tell him that, too), and ever since that day you've only been dragging him down. You forced him to keep up that stupid charade for nearly a month, made him lie to Cameron and Foreman and Cuddy, and then you nearly made him lose his life in that stupid fire, then you threw him out on his ass while thinking that you were protecting him, you forced yourself into his apartment, you alienated him from Cameron and thrust him into the hospital gossip mill, put his job in danger, and now you've hurt him.

You've done nothing but hurt him.

It would be better if you ended it.

Told him it was over.

Everything would be done.

You could claim that Wilson was right, that Chase was just a fluke and a mistake that you never meant to make, and things would go back to normal. You wouldn't be dragging Chase down... but you'd probably destroy him as well as yourself in doing so. Chase wouldn't understand, he would be so lost and confused if you were to go in and just drop him. You can see his face as you say the words, watch the life leave those blue eyes as his entire face shuts down, closing you out forever. You don't know if you could do that to him. To yourself.

You don't know what to do next. You want to run and hide away from all of this, and you wish that you'd never opened yourself up to Chase. The world around you is closing in, there's no one left to turn to, and it's all your fault.

This is how it feels to be Robert Chase:

You are scared. The one person in your life that you thought would be on your side has just hurt you. You know that House didn't mean to hurt you, but the image of him mocking you and shouting at you won't leave your mind. Part of you is saying that if he really loved you, if you weren't some sex toy, then he would have been able to control himself. House would have remembered that he loved you and wouldn't have grabbed you and hurt you like he did. You wish that he would come and prove you wrong, come to you and apologize.

House is probably one of the best things that you've had going in your life for a long time—at least, he was. You were beginning to think that it might work out, that this was the one thing that would finally go right for you... Now you've let the outside world into your private life, and House can't even kiss you anymore without it starting a fight. It seems like Wilson and Cuddy and Cameron are lurking around every corner, waiting to tell you more things about House and how it's never going to work out. You feel like the longer you hold on to House, the harder everything is trying to push you away.

You're tired of holding on.

It would be so much easier to let go.

You could go back to Australia.

Never see House again.

You could say that this argument was the last straw, that you couldn't be with someone who was going to be abusive, and then the pressure of the people who were tearing you apart would be gone at last. House would be free of you and he wouldn't have to pretend that this was something more than a game to him. You can see his face, the tense lines wiping away as you tell him that you're leaving. But the image makes you sick, because you don't want to leave and you'd rather be a fling-boy rather than not have him at all.

You don't know what to do next. You're too scared to run away from all of this, too cowardly to challenge House, but you hate sitting here and letting him make all of the moves. Things are out of your control, life is spinning and unraveling before your eyes, and you hate it.