Fic; Names; oneshot; hello

Title: Names
Pairing: primarily Chase/Wilson
Rating: PG-13 (but with bad language and sexual references)
Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly.
Summary: House can’t be anything but House because that’s who he is. But for everyone else, they’ve simply become split personalities.
Notes: A bit random but I like this in places.

I'm failing my exams at the moment so all feedback is appreciated.



He can’t even remember when he lost the ability to use first names. He used to be Robert, or even Robbie, and now he’s simply Chase. He used to be able to hide away from his father’s control, never have to *hear* the name Chase. Maybe it’s sick, really sick, that his own name frightens him, but every time he hears someone say “Dr Chase”, he has to physically stop himself from turning around and looking for Rowan. The idea that makes him think he’s becoming his father is so frightening that Chase makes himself vomit at least once a week to try and stave the influence from his body.
*
Surnames are so complicated. Cameron. Foreman. Wilson. House. They could be Allison, Eric, James and maybe even Gre- no. House can’t be anything but House because that’s who he is. But for everyone else, they’ve simply become split personalities.
*
Maybe Allison is sweet and charming, coquettish and pretty, all curling hair and slightly high heels and floaty skirts. Maybe she has friends that she goes shopping with, and they sit in coffee shops and drink mochaccinos and *giggle*. Cameron is whiny, over-sensitive, insecure, and a rival to him in so many ways. He can’t like her, but sometimes he wonders why.
*
Maybe Eric is funny, vibrant and charismatic. Maybe he comes home to a girlfriend who cooks him casseroles, and he brings her home flowers on a Friday. Maybe he sits around in his boxers with popcorn and watches reality TV shows. Foreman is sarcastic and judgemental and dignified, and seems to resent Chase for a dozen reasons that he can barely work out.
*
Maybe James is romantic and strong. Maybe on Sundays he and his wife go for picnics like people do in films. Maybe he has a brother who he argues with, because he’s got to have some backbone *somewhere*. Wilson is weak, and lets House do what he likes to him for reasons Chase can’t even fathom. He acts like a schoolboy in his repressed tie and floppy hair and when he kisses Chase he tastes of nothing.
*
House is an enigma, an anomaly. Chase can’t picture him being anything but a spectre, coming around the corners of the hospital with that tap-tap-tap of his cane which sends shivers down Chase’s spine and makes him grit his teeth. He spits bile at people and holds them so far away that they have to squint to see him sometimes. Chase just can’t picture a Greg sitting alone at home crying because he can’t walk, or smiling and being romantic with someone.
*
House. Wilson. Chase. It’s like another life, and Robert sits in the back of Chase’s mind and watches him fuck up over and over and over again, eating lollipops and candy bars and occasionally watching through his fingers, when bad things happen. Like when Chase betrays House, or he has to watch the other man walk away on a date with another woman. Chase can’t afford to break down, but Robert can cry all night and not show the effects in the morning.
*
Chase reckons it’s only a matter of time before Robbie goes and gets himself his own life. And it will be a considerably better one than this. Robbie won’t kiss his boss’s best friend just because he can’t have his boss, Robbie won’t seduce him and take him back to his apartment, Robbie won’t suck him off and begin something that neither of them can abandon, but that they don’t really want.
*
One day Chase wonders what would happen if they had met under other circumstances. He wonders what it would be like if it were Robbie and James, not Chase and Wilson. Would James kiss sweetly, would they make love in proper bedrooms, not fuck in empty storage rooms and on the floor of his apartment? He supposes that he’ll never know.
*
He’s never asked Wilson how he feels about House, maybe because the answer would be something he couldn’t cope with. They don’t talk much because there are few safe topics- Chase just runs his tongue across Wilson’s skin and he can almost *taste* helplessness mingled in with the sweat. Sometimes Chase wants to ask Wilson who he’s thinking of when he kisses him- but then the fear comes in and he doesn’t want to know the answer, no matter what it is. He just presses his mouth further into Wilson’s as if the words can just burn themselves out between their lips and they’ll never need to be said.
*
“James,” he says, just once. From the way Wilson flinches Chase realises that it’s the first time he’s ever called him by his first name. And that’s worryingly sad, considering how many months they’ve been wrapping around each other’s bodies and tasting despair on each other’s back teeth. Fucking Wilson is like ripping off a band-aid; short and sharp and agonising (but oddly satisfying) and it hurts more each time.
“How about we start again?” he offers, with a smile Robbie would have given, if Chase hadn’t left him broken and battered and tied up with rosaries underneath a pile of self-hatred the last time House refused to look at him. In fact, every time House does something to hurt him, Chase no longer feels it; it sinks straight through to Robbie, whose bones snap and blood pours down his face and tears well in his eyes and Chase pushes Wilson up against the door of his office in another demanding, meaningless kiss.
He dies a little more inside each time.
*
Maybe it’s House who does this to them all, packages them into nasty boxes they can’t break out of until they stop fighting and sag, pathetically, into their roles. Wilson. Chase. Cameron. Foreman. He can’t even remember when he lost the ability to use first names.
*


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