Work Text:
"You are not Cameron."
House's voice had Chase jerking his head up from the crossword he'd been occupying himself with. He considered the obvious, caring 'you're awake' but House could probably do with a distraction, and besides he would probably accept little else.
"I'm not?" Chase said incredulously, and patted his hands over his chest. "Well that is a relief."
House cracked a smile and ran a hand over his face. "Two days?" Chase nodded. "Disagree with me."
"About you being here for two days?"
"About anything."
"Why?"
"Because fake Chase agreed with everything I said. So, I look spectacular right now..." He waved a hand at Chase to prompt him to respond, which took a second as Chase was too focused on what 'fake Chase' meant.
"No, you look like crap, happy?"
"Did I get the ketamine?"
"You did."
"Super."
"You going to tell me who 'fake Chase' is?" Chase smirked. "Were you having dreams about me in your hour of need?"
"I was hallucinating about you in my hour of need. Does that make it less special?"
"Just me?" It was out of Chase's mouth before he could really think about whether to say it or not.
"Oh careful that almost sounded hopeful," The bastard grinned. "Just boring old hallucinations about work, but would you like it more if my subconscious was fixated on you? Ultimately, it would have been a more pleasant experience, probably would have let me know it wasn't real a lot sooner..." House trailed off, seemingly talking to himself now.
What the hell was Chase meant to do with that information? House had been having hallucinations with him in, but not about him, but if he had he would have been... pleased? And of course House picked up on Chase wanting House to have been thinking about him, that perhaps if he had they'd have this big emotional moment where Chase bent over the bed and kissed him and told him how scared he was of losing him.
House groaned and shuffled his legs, seemingly getting bored of tearing at the fraying seam on the white blanket. He made a move to sit up and Chase's hand moved to hover over his chest. House stared and blinked at Chase's hand and then raised his eyes back to Chase's face. Chase felt the urge to say something, something to break the silence, and something to distract House from trying to move.
"So what was fake me like?"
"Amazingly smart, so ready to agree with me, prettier, your hair glowed like a halo." House grinned and Chase laughed, shaking his head to move his hair out of his eyes.
"In your 'life flashing before your eyes' hallucination your brain decided to make me prettier and glow? Did it make anyone else prettier?"
"Made Wilson less pretty."
"But your brain decided what was necessary was to make me prettier?" Chase was trying to keep the colour of his face in check. How long had he felt himself getting braver around starting to flirt with House? He could easily pass it off as joking around. Problem with that was House had been reciprocating, which as nice as it was, either meant he was also joking around or he was actually flirting back and Chase didn't know which.
House almost seemed to soften at the question for a second, but Chase could have imagined it. "I wonder why?" House paused. "And this is definitely real this time?"
"Is my hair not glowing?"
"No, still pretty though." And there House went again, saying a compliment like that as if it was a fact. Not that Chase had poor self-confidence when it came to his looks (though he had plenty of poor self-confidence about other things). He squinted at House, wondering if the morphine was making him delirious or honest.
"You seem to call me pretty an awful lot, it's normally directed at my mouth though, but you've thrown 'pretty boy' at me quite a bit. I wonder why?" He mocked and repeated back.
"Hm, well if you can't figure that out I'm going to think you're an awfully lot more stupid than I already do."
"Well, normally when someone calls someone else pretty it's because they're attracted to them and they're flirting with them."
"And circle gets the square. Knew I hired you for a reason."
"Thought Cameron was the one hired for her looks?"
There was that grin on House's face again but Chase couldn't really focus on it as all of his processing power was focused on the fact that House had just said he was attracted to him and that he was and had been flirting with him this whole time. And it had been that easy to get the answer out of him.
"What I can't have two pieces of eye candy at work?"
Here goes nothing. "And what about having eye candy outside of work?"
House stared at him and Chase felt a sense of pride and dread at being able to make House speechless. The looming sign of rejection drooping lower and lower and the room suddenly felt very hot and maybe he needed to leave and not because he was worried about the next words out of House's mouth.
"When you're not at risk of tearing your stitches, and you don't have morphine running through your veins, feel free take the flirting up a notch," Chase turned his face away as he stood up, House was not going to have the satisfaction of seeing how red his face was or wasn't.
"I might be wrong, but I think sexual harassment is one of those things Cuddy gets hung up on."
"Your flirting scale immediately goes from light compliments to groping?"
"Yours doesn't? How sad."
Chase made it to the door without thinking about what getting groped by House would feel like. What it would be like if they were in House's office and anyone could walk in on them at any moment.
"How about I stop by your apartment once they kick you out of here? I could bring food?" Chase's hair was falling back into his face and god that spot on the door-frame looked really interesting.
"I don't know if I dare eat any food you can make."
"Take-out."
"Alright."
House said it so quickly it was almost an interruption and Chase finally looked at him and felt like shaking his head to make sure he wasn't the one with the hallucinations.
"Alright," He choked out, and made his way to Cuddy's office to tell her House was awake, and she definitely didn't question if he'd ran there because his face was still red.