Intertwined
A/N: So this was supposed to be crack!fic, but took on a life of its own. It's a House MD/Chicago Fire crossover. This is set well after the s8 finale according to the House timeline, and sometime after 1.07: Two Families according to CF.
Also, it's Chase/Casey (yes, both characters are played by Jesse Spencer). ...Yeah. When I said I shipped Casey with almost everybody? I wasn't kidding.
Summary: Chase/Casey. You know how it goes: a doctor and a firefighter walk into a bar...
Warnings: SPOILERS for all of House-s6 and s8 in particular; for 1.07: Two Families in CF. Sex (fairly tame, though, nothing terribly explicit), plenty of swearing, crack, metaphor-abuse.
Disclaimer: I don't own House, Chicago Fire, or any of their characters. Also: my sincerest apologies to Jesse Spencer.
Intertwined
Robert Chase thinks this would be a narcissist's perfect fantasy: sitting here with his tongue down the throat of someone who looks exactly like him, while his clone's hands snake up under his shirt, scrabbling at his skin like he's fucking climbing Mount Everest. He wonders what House might think (and hasn't that just become a footnote to his entire goddamn life right now)-maybe he would point to this bizarre instance of auto-eroticism as another way Chase is irreparably fucked up; maybe he'd just dismiss it with a careless comment about how Chase dares only love himself; maybe he'd just shut up, take a few choice pictures and use them as blackmail material-
(still filling in the blanks like before, are we, robert?)
-and then there's steady, grinding pressure against his crotch, and Chase just stops thinking altogether.
Matt Casey wasn't avoiding Hallie. Nope. Sure, he was sitting in a bar after shift instead of going home (trying to time it so that he'd go back just as she was leaving for the hospital but no no no he wasn't doing that wasn't even thinking it), and sure, he and Hallie hadn't really had a proper conversation since Thanksgiving, but-
He was not avoiding her.
He was avoiding Dawson.
He downed another gulp of beer. He suddenly had the strange impression that he was stretched like a particularly warm piece of taffy, caught between want and need, thinning out in the middle as the pressure increased on both sides. The thought amused him for about five seconds before he decided he was not nearly drunk enough for this shit. He threw down a few bills for the beer and got up, wondering if he could crash at Shay and Severide's place for the night-
The door opened, and Matt thought, Star Wars?
Fuck, he wasn't even sure why he thought that, except for the tenuous connection between clones and Star Wars, and oh shit, yeah, now not only was he guilty of watching the dreaded prequels, he was also guilty of enjoying them-Dawson would laugh her head off at him if she knew-
(not thinking of dawson no stop)
The man at the door was his exact likeness-sure, the hair wasn't nearly as close-cropped as his, and he sure as hell wouldn't dream of wearing that ill-fitting suit and tie, but that was him. Standing there, staring at him in stark surprise with the same eyes same nose same mouth same goddamn everything like some demented funhouse mirror.
Yeah, he was definitely not drunk enough for this shit.
They decide to go to Chase's hotel room because it's the closest to the bar and both of them are too keyed up to even think of driving.
Matt (matt, that's his name, nice upstanding christian name, matthew robert matthew) is still grinning (high) from their little session in the bar and Chase can't help but be insanely pleased. House taught him that people can be studied right up to the minutest detail if you just know where to look; Chase has come to realise that study as an art form. He knows how to play the body like an instrument, both on the inside and the outside.
(statistically you're the best)
By the time they get to the correct door and Chase is fumbling with the goddamn key, Matt is already pulling at Chase's shirt, fingers hot against bare skin. Finally he gets it open (so used to picking locks you've forgotten to open one the regular way? house might say) and they practically tumble inside the room. Chase just has enough presence of mind to kick the door closed.
Matt yanks him forward by his tie before capturing his mouth in a bruising kiss-
(don't turn into a good guy on me now chase)
-and Chase gives back as good as he gets. He manoeuvres them toward the bed even as he's taking off Matt's jacket (you're quite the multi-tasker, cameron might say, with an uncharacteristic giggle that only he ever got to hear). They break the kiss long enough to take their clothes off (in some sort of surreal frenzy), and Chase manages to glimpse an ugly burn scar on Matt's chest and think briefly, almost hysterically, about the thin scar above his own heart before Matt tackles him to the bed and they're kissing again.
Chase thinks he can see the ghosts of House and Cameron on either side of Matt, laughing at him.
The clone was a doctor, and his name was Robert Chase. The clone was also distinctly Australian, and this caused Casey inexplicable relief. He had hardly ever been out of Chicago in his lifetime, so this slightly reduced the chances of this guy being his long-lost twin. There was also the fact that, upon closer inspection, he appeared to be much older than Casey-there were lines at the corners of his eyes, his forehead that Casey was sure he hadn't (yet).
They decided to buy drinks to celebrate the occasion, because, hey-how many times were you going to accidentally meet your exact replica? (You better hope it's never, was Matt's personal opinion, because he actually valued his sanity.) By the time he was well into his fourth glass of whiskey, he was already insisting that Dr. Chase-Robert-call him Matt, and that maybe the problem wasn't so much that he was a piece of taffy, but that he was a big roll of cotton candy. He was easy enough to tear, but pieces of him kept getting stuck everywhere.
He laughed when Robert even told him that that made complete sense.
"Complete sense, mate," he said. "Isn't that what you guys say? Mate?"
"Sure, mate," Robert told him, and suddenly the way his lips moved as he said the words seemed like the most fucking fascinating thing in the world. There was no more taffy or cotton candy; all Casey wanted to do then was to see how it would feel kissing his own lips.
Turned out that Robert was thinking along the same lines (or he was just sharing Casey's thoughts, and wouldn't that make the Star Wars reference all that more fucking brilliant?), and the next thing he knew, they were in a bathroom stall, kissing.
Robert tasted of lemony mouthwash and stale whiskey, and the combination made Casey kind of want to gag, but then Robert ground his hips against his, slamming him back against one of the walls of the stall, and-oh yes. That had definitely gotten him interested. He returned the kiss with a ferocity he didn't know he possessed, and gave a small sound of disappointment when Robert broke away.
"Wait," Robert said, and started to slide down to his knees. As he unbuttoned Casey's pants and ever-so-slowly slid down his zipper and the waistband of his boxers, Casey felt as if all the blood in his body was divided in between going to his head or straight down to his cock. (It was a tie, Casey reasoned.) Robert smiled (fucking amazing bastard) and then, without warning, closed his mouth around the tip of his cock, sucking gently and Casey-
-and Casey-
For Chase, Chicago has always been this amorphous, even mythical place-the City Where Cameron Was. He hasn't thought of her in years (although he still has nightmares about Dibala)-he got an email from her telling him that she'd married again (again), and then one more a year later, saying she'd given birth to a son. He'd sent perfunctory notes of congratulations to both, and that had been that for two blissful years.
Then Foreman decided that Chase simply has to attend the annual meeting of the American Cardiology Association, held that year in Chicago. "You could use the exposure," Foreman told him, and though Chase rolled his eyes, he was not House, so he went.
Just being in Chicago seems to have resurrected every ghost he'd worked so hard to put to rest, until he's hearing (seeing) Cameron (and House) wherever he goes. After a while, he can't stand it, so he turns to his (mother's) favourite refuge-alcohol. He throws on a coat, walks through the brisk cold to the nearest bar, enters-
-and is convinced that he's gone utterly mad at last, because there's a man standing at the counter who looks exactly like him.
It only takes a moment's inspection to realise that that's not really true-this man's younger, less weatherbeaten than the face he sees in the mirror every morning. The attitude's off, the clothes are off, and besides, he's still gaping at Chase like a landed fish.
There's a low thrum just under his skin-an excitement that he hasn't felt in a long, long while slowly uncoiling at the pit of his stomach.
Robert Chase smiles, and, ever-so-slowly, winks.
Finis