Sooooo tired...(reaches out to bed)
Review please. OMG nearly one hundred reviews (jumps around and dances)
Shadowed Guilt: Chapter Eighteen Tell
The first thing he noticed when he became aware of the real world again, was the pain. His stomach was writhing, twisting, pulling at his intestines inside of him. His lungs burned. The heart pounded a fast rhythm. Muscles contracted until it felt like they were going to break like flimsy thread. Under the pain, was the faint tremor, the sweat. Gasping, he tried to curl himself into a ball only to find that his splayed form was permanent. Ragged gasps. Panic. He struggled against the restraints, reducing his skin to bloody and raw rags to no avail. His blood shot eyes darted around the room and landed on a face he never expected to see again. He gave a weak smile to the scowling man with the receding hairline, "Come to gloat? Tell me I'm nothing. Wish you never impregnated mom with my filthy substance?" the man kept staring, "Wish you never spent your precious money on my education? Destroying my already shattered dreams?" he was talking too fast and he hyperventilating, not a good sign but he didn't care, "Gonna slap me and tell me to shut my mouth?" his weak voice rose in volume, "Don't want me to tell them your dirty little secrets?"
The man, apparition, ghost rose and looked down at him from his aquiline nose. He didn't say anything. He didn't move. The young man on the bed looked up into his eyes, those disappointed eyes. Somehow that hurt him more then any slap or broken bone he had ever received in his life. Chase couldn't stand it. He looked away, his sweat soaked hair falling into his eyes. "Go away. I know you don't care."
A glance back showed the image of his father had indeed dissipated into the air. A ghost? Or an hallucination? Did it matter, he was already psychologically scarred. What did it matter that now 'crazy' would be listed in his file. The years of being impoverished to follow. Chase didn't think anyone would give a skinny rat's ass to what would happen to him after this. He knew he was stuck in the hospital; that much he could tell from the restraints, beeping monitors, the glass walls that his limited vision and hearing gave him. He a thought that he had even treated a patient in this same Detox room, oh the irony. Everything was coming back to bite him in the ass, but he deserved it. For everyone he had ever let die, this was going to be part of his penance. He would suffer the brunt of it in Hell. That's right, he was going straight down to the ninth circle of hell. Hadn't he been told that time and time again by the priests in seminary, but it didn't matter. Nothing did to him nowadays, but to get to tomorrow.
Why the will to live? Chase had always wondered about that. Why had he not ended his life as soon as he could? There had been that one try right after his mother had died. He had chosen; Death By Overdose. He hadn't succeeded considering that his father had barged in looking to drag him right out of seminary and straight into med school. Chase never understood why his father had chosen that exact moment to come, or that he even came himself. Was it the workings of God? No, it couldn't possibly be. Despite what he thought in his earlier years, God did not consider him as somebody worthy of his attention. Granted that there were billions of people out there in the world, but God supposedly gave love to everybody, even the sinners. It was all a lie, everything about himself was a lie.
The lies had become routine after a while, always smiling and telling his teachers that the ugly purple bruises on his arms, back, and legs were all from playing a rough game of rugby. The countless teachers knew it wasn't true, but didn't pursue the subject matter any farther. Chase giggled madly through the haze of pain. Teachers were always encouraging students to talk to them, tell them of their troubles. Well how good were they at solving problems when they avoided them in the first place.
A particularly sharp steel pang of pain was jammed right into his stomach, he bit his lip until it bled trying not to scream. A muffled whimper made it's way out as he twisted trying again to curl into a ball. He wondered why, it was probably human instinct. Make yourself smaller to avoid the enemy. Such animalistic instincts they resorted to when all else fails, even the instincts bred in them from the beginning of time failed.
He retreated into his mind where he could block out most of the fiery pain, but he couldn't escape the terrors he had endured during his short life. 'Let me die.' he thought, 'Why don't they just let me die.'
oOoOo
"What do you mean I won't have my results until tomorrow?" House yelled, it was three in the morning and he was running on bad coffee, "You mean I have to wait another twenty four hours?"
The lab technician looked at him with unperturbed sleepy eyes, "Not my fault we're backed up to Pluto." he snapped his purple gum that he was chewing nosily, "Frost is making itself known to New Jersey, every doctor are always putting priority rushes on their results. Look, if you wanna complain. Complain to the dragon lady, not me. We're understaffed with limited equipment and she's the one to make a difference."
House steamed, "How about this, get my results within the hour and I won't shove my cane up your ass."
"I doubt you'd waste the dignity of your cane on me." the tech turned back to his computer, "Like I said talk to Cuddy."
House turned and growled as he hobbled out, he'd come back later to threaten and badger a less experienced tech. But in the meantime, why not badger a more available source. He stalked all the way into Chase's Detox room, the younger man's head was rolling from to side to side, slurred words rushing past his slack lips. He slammed his cane down on the rail where his wombat was tied to, it made an effectively loud noise. Chase flinched, his bloodshot eyes wide. The heart monitor skipped and jumped. House watched, his face not giving anything away. Chase's eyes wandered listlessly through the room before landing on House's, "What are you doing here? Haven't you tormented me enough?" his voice was hoarse, his eyes wandering again.
"What are you on?" House demanded.
"What does it matter?" Chase's eyes darted back towards him. He glanced at his tremoring hand tied to the railings of his bed, "Precaution. What for?" he muttered to himself, before looking back at House, "Why did you bring her?"
"Who?" House glanced around the room just to make sure he was indeed alone with Chase, "There's no one here."
Chase's laugh rasped hollowly inside his lungs, "Your trophy wife which you go and fuck every night."
House was confused, but it suddenly hit him, "Are you hallucinating Chase?"
"The great Dr Rowan Chase won't even refer to his son as something as personal as his first name?" Chase sneered and twitched. He rubbed his soaked temples against the pillow.
"You think I'm your father?" House sat. This could become interesting.
Chase looked at the spot just right of House, "Has anyone even had the guts to tell you you're a pedophile?"
"Well." House said conversationally, "Occasionally."
His teeth chattered, but he wasn't aware of it. Chase looked abashed, "I'm s-so s-s-sorry s-sir. I-I-I d-didn't mean t-to...I-I-I...s-sorry?" It came out like a question.
The older man rubbed his stubbled jaw, uneasily. He waved a hand over Chase's unfocused eyes, "Chase?"
His eyes widened, the pupils dilated until only a slim sliver of the pupil could be seen. House was frozen in shock as Chase arched up. His muscles stiffened until he seemed like a pale marble sculpture frozen in pain's grasp for eternity. House moved in cautiously, "Chase?" he called one more time.
A blood curdling scream escaped from Chase's lips before he collapsed, limp, onto the bed. House was shaken to the bone, but his doctor instincts took over. He checked Chase over and found nothing that hadn't been there before. Pressing a button he called for the nurse to come and extract another blood sample from his employee, he also reserved a MRI just in case.
oOoOo
House stood in front of his white board, the eraser in one hand, the black felt marker in his right. He was tapping them together. One of his hands sorely wanted to rid the board of Mr Reichs symptoms, the other hand just wanted to solve his problem before everything could be striped off. Frowning, he erased the symptoms and started writing. When he was done, he leaned back to observe his handy work. In the upper left hand corner Mr Reichs' symptoms were written minutely, then he drew a thick black line before putting down Chase's symptoms. It was a no brainer; drugs, drugs, and more drugs. But what he was interested in was how it all started. Doctors went through drug screenings as part of their yearly evaluation, of course some doctors found ways around it. But symptoms from street drugs were more noticeable then prescription drugs. House didn't know the exact reason why, but he suspected it had something to do with the developer.
Most prescription meds came from big companies which monitored, controlled, and regulated the amount of chemicals in each pill, inhalant, or injection. With street drugs, people were flirting with death everyday. Some were impure, mixed with trivial things like cornstarch. This gave the user very little satisfaction, so they bought more and more until finally all that intake of drugs caused death. Then there were some drugs that were kept pure, purer then most which you could overdose in a blink of an eye. Other drugs, usually lesser drugs, were sold off as the classy high end drugs such as Ecstasy. Sometime the cooks didn't even care what they were pouring into the drugs, they all just wanted something that could pass as Ecstasy or something else. All in all most times street drugs led to death, either slowly or quickly. What House wanted to know was why Chase was bargaining his life for such a petty and brief hit of euphoria.
Shaking his head, he glanced at his nearly silent clock. Seeing that it was morning and that shift change should've occurred by now, he headed for the labs. House peeked through the glass wall before walking in. He put on his vicious scowling face and prepared to do battle.
oOoOo
Cameron was walking quickly through the halls, she was still oblivious to the fact that Chase had been admitted during the night. Of course the nursing staff and every other group of doctors were gossiping rapidly about it, Cameron however thought it immoral and tuned them out like you would do with white noise. However when she was walking past the labs, she could not help but overhear the fight that was brewing within the glass walled room. Cameron found herself struck dumb by the scene playing in front of her eyes. As House walked out the door, a triumphant smile on his face and a piece of paper in his right hand. Cameron congratulated him, "House..." she stopped looking for the words that had escaped her mind, "I never knew you could do something like that with a cane."
House smiled, a blissful look on his face, "You probably can't without breaking all those pesky scientific laws. But it is worth a try."
They walked in an almost companionable silence up to the diagnostics conference room, "What's going on?" Cameron finally asked, "Has Mr Reichs' system finally shut down?"
House's happy bubble popped, "Unfortunately no."
"Then what?" Cameron persisted, "Come on House...oh..." she said as she spotted the white board.
"Now you know." House sighed and lowered himself in a chair like an eighty year old grandfather.
"Oh." Cameron said again before putting a hand on the glass table for support, "But...he's a doctor." she spluttered.
He glanced up at her, "You're telling me."
Well...started work yesterday...all in all...have worked about eleven hours...gonna get paid 77 bucks...Yipee! But god damn, my feet hurt. (needs a foot massage)
Merlin71: Lol, Chase has been a very naughty boy. Yes indeed.
Dying Angel1: Lol, who cares about cryptic english exams anyways? Well we'll have to see about the rehab won't we?
AtreidesHeir: Well let's just say Chase might be very paranoid after this experience.
felixgirl: Well don't we all? And what's the point of angst if there is no hugs in the end?
Firetop: Aw don't worry about it, it just means I'm not updating soon enough. Of course my butt won't get into gear because it's just too damn tired. Apparently his mum didn't have 'that' great of influence on him, or... (I'll leave you to your thoughts.)
blasphamy6669: Yes, I love giving people a hard time. I'm glad you love this story...although when I reread it I thought...wow...my continuity is just as bad as the producers. Lol. Thankz for the insight on how to upload chapters when problems occurr, next time...MWHAHAHA