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Shadowed Guilt: Chapter Sixteen Intoxication

House collapsed while making his slow painful way up the sixth floor stairs. Wilson, who was climbing the stairs behind him just to make sure that this exact scenario didn't happen, caught him. However the extra weight threw him off balance and had both him and House tumbling down the stairs once again. They came to a painful rest on the sixth floor landing, Wilson moaned as House's cane bored its way into his rib cage. House, who would deny this to his grave, whimpered and clutched his right leg. The pain was almost unbearable. Wilson managed to maneuver his hand into his jacket pocket without molesting House, who was using Wilson as a seat cushion, and offered him a nearly empty orange pill bottle. Realizing that he was practically sitting on Wilson, House crawled off of him. Wilson rolled over on his stomach and slowly got up. Massaging his back, he watched House take the last of the vicodin. "Are you sure you're not going to keel over from vicodin intoxication?" Wilson asked and sat down on the steps.

"I've had like...what? Twenty vicodin?" House leaned on the wall opposite to Wilson, "It's possible, but then my system is use to my intake of vicodin. So..." he trailed off looking for the right word, "The most likely effect from all these pills would be me getting high. I would happily embrace the feeling of momentary euphoria, however it's not working. So you're stuck with grumpy me for the next four or so flights of stairs."

Wilson got up and stretched his sore muscles, "I'm going to go see if the elevator works." he left House splayed out on the opposite side of the landing.

House made a noise that was a cross between 'urgh' and 'bastard.' Rolling his shoulders, he pulled himself up into a painless position. Tipping his head back, House amused himself by counting the thin cracks that old age and the cold had done to the ceiling. Getting bored, he stared at the floor, it was a pasty whitish yellow that some cheap interior designer had painted over the hard wooden floor. The railings were next on the list of House's scrutiny, the blue paint was chipping off to show their rusted contents beneath. Wilson interrupted House's musings by bursting through the landing's pale grey door, "The elevator actually works!" he exclaimed.

"Son of a-"

"Come on." Wilson interrupted, "It's near midnight right now and I'm too tired to hear you complain."

House grumbled and gave the doors of the elevator a good whack as he went in, Wilson avoided the furiously flying cane and pressed the cool plastic number that was decorated with an acrylic black 10. The button turned orange and the elevator hummed quietly as they felt the confining box they were in rise swiftly and as gently as possible upwards. Silence stretched between them, it wasn't an awkward one, but a comfortable one where their conversation could be told by their eyebrows. Wilson raised an eyebrow as the elevator dinged pleasantly as they reached the floor which Chase lived. House hesitated slightly before nodding and limped out in front.

The hall was a narrow dreary grey, only two doors decorated it. One led out to those treacherous flights of stairs and another stood a little bit off center, it was a varnished oak door with a polished gold colored door knob. There were no numbers marring the simple elegance of the door. House turned and felt a sudden urge to run, or in his case limp, for it. Wilson placed a hand on the opposite wall effectively blocking House's exit, "You're here now." Wilson steered him towards the door, "You've been dragging me for about four hours around this place and tried to kill both of us more then once. You're not going to waste all that hard work because you're scared. You have an obligation, if not to yourself, but to Chase, to apologize. Just because you're feeling a little bit mad at the world, you don't take it out on people. Every action has a reaction. This resulted from your need to lash out, now you have to face the consequences and fix it."

"Wow." House finally managed, "You sound like a goddamn shrink."

"House." Wilson chuckled, "I work in the Oncology Department. It's a general rule over there to learn how to analyze people."

"Well apparently you're doing something wrong." House said with a touch of light sarcasm.

"What's that." Wilson leaned on the door.

"My leg-"

House was cut off as Wilson landed heavily on his backside and muffled a shout of surprise. The door had swung open as Wilson had applied his weight on it, rubbing his back and groaning Wilson turned and stared into the gloomy darkness inside. "Well what do you know, he's not even here." Wilson muttered darkly.

"That can't be true." House muttered as he stepped over Wilson and let his eyes adjust to the darkness, "It's way pass midnight."

"Have you ever considered that he might be out drinking or picking up girls." Wilson asked as he stared at the blinking yellow light of the sleeping computer monitor.

House shrugged and glanced up at the ceiling, "Well since the door was already open, this can't be considered breaking and entering. We might as well poke around, if we're questioned we'll say we got a mysterious 911 call that we decided to check out alone without backup and-"

Wilson held up his hands and slowly got up, "I get the point."

"Good." House said and searched the wall for the light switch, "Jesus Christ. Who doesn't keep their light switch around the door?"

"Apparently Chase. You know he could have night vision or something." Wilson mused.

"Highly unlikely. Even that orange moron from last year didn't have good night vision." House muttered as he slowly moved right.

"What orange moron?" Wilson asked curiously.

"Remember the guy who ate too many carrots and vitamins? The one with the cheating wife who wanted to sue me?"

"Oh, that guy. Yeah I remember him." Wilson said and bumped into a table.

"Anyways my point is, unless Chase carries night vision goggles around with him in his apartment, it's likely that he can't see any better then us in the dark. Sonovabitch." House swore as he tripped full length across the floor, "When I see him I'm going to wring his neck for not putting in light switches in every convenient place possible."

Wilson chuckled and cried in triumph as the lights turned on, "Wow this is pretty dim for someone who likes sunny Australia."

House grunted and managed to make his way to a couch without any incident, "What do you expect? He practically turned nocturnal with the hours he pulls on the night shift."

"I don't think so." Wilson gazed around the nearly barren room, "He's more somniphobic or at least he's suffering from insomnia. Chase doesn't sleep period."

"Ohhhhh." House said in a mocking child's voice, "Maybe he's a vampire too."

"I think you've been reading too much superstitious stuff again." Wilson arched an eyebrow as he inspected the immaculately clean kitchen, "I think he's also sitophobic."

House gazed at him with disbelief, "English please? Unlike some people I don't have the whole...phobia list memorized."

"Fear of food or eating." Wilson supplied, "It's like devoid of food in here."

"That's just not right." House muttered coming over to look.

They say when you're surprised by an extremely large and wild bear you should lay still and pretend to be dead. In that way the bear wouldn't find you as a threat or something fun to be chased after. However human instinct contradicts this piece of genius and survival instincts take over. The number one survival instinct is flight. Of course in some rational part of your mind that isn't soaked with fear, you know you'll never be able to outrun the bear. But instead of listening to that sound advice, the body takes over and you meet your death. Or just a serious mauling if you're lucky.

Although Chase couldn't be compared to a bear with his lack of muscle, height, and hair; he certainly did have the element of surprise on his side. A enraged scream alerted House and Wilson that they were being attacked by someone. That mere second was all they got before something solid knocked them both down to the ground. Their minds didn't acknowledge they were being attacked instantly; House was thinking about how his leg was going to hurt like hell tomorrow and Wilson thought he should see a chiropractor with all the falling on his back he did now a days. Those mere seconds passed and reality hit them as an inhuman snarl deafened them, the lights had gone out and all they were aware of was somebody clawing madly at them.

House quickly grabbed the offending person around the waist and switched their positions so he was practically straddling him. A bony hand frozen like a claw swiped House's right cheek and he could feel the person underneath him bucking and screaming profanities. As he felt his warm blood sliding down his cheek, House grabbed both the offending hands and slammed them to the ground as Wilson hurriedly switched on the lights. "Chase?" House asked horrified.

He could barely recognize the snarling man underneath him who screamed out in pain as the light hit his eyes, even those were unrecognizable. They were a wide and a blank stone grey, the pupils were dilated into pinpricks. Something very much like fear was the only thing that House could read in them. The young man's hair was snarled and tangled, his cheeks bloodied, probably from self induced injuries judging by the long bloody rakes on his cheeks. House hadn't noticed before but Chase was mere bones held together with only sinew, his clothes hung off of his pale shoulders and billowed as he tried to get out of House's grasp. House glanced at Wilson who was just as shocked, "Call 911." he said breathlessly, "Hurry."

Yes I know, I'm a very evil person because I haven't updated in like a million years...if you want to get technical approximately two weeks and a half or so. But it's not my fault because unlike some lucky bastards I'm still in school until the 16th then exams are coming my way. So frankly I'm stuck in between studying and getting attacked by teachers who want to cram every little bit of information possible into our minds. So sorry a million times over, but there will probably be a non-update period for a while...Damn Exams...

KatieMalfoy19: Thankz and yes meth is like the hottest drug out there, but nope it's not meth. Something less lethal...but lethal...if that makes sense at all. Here's your update.

evilchild666: One of them. (I'm so mean, but you'll find out next chapter.)

blasphamy6669: Lol, you're right about that. (Looks mischievious.) But are you sure he got a kitty. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

Dybdahl: Look a precognitionist! (Is that even a word?)

felixgirl: Whoops, sorry. Hope it works out okay and thankz.

Rubix-Complex: Of course House cares, he just cares till it hurts so he tries not to care...Anyways...nope not meth. Hope you did fine on your finals, mine's coming up pretty soon (whimpers.)

AtreidesHeir: But bad is good...because we all survive on angst. Lol.

Dying Angell: Aw thankyou and here be your update.