moose_mcmoose | Lights Out For Darker Skies

This has been a while in the making. I wrote it weeks ago but wasn't ballsy enough to post it. I still don't think it's all that good. But you know what? Fuck it.

To go by an old Geordie adage...'Shy bairns get nowt.'

So this is Chapter One....I've wrote another couple of chapters. But those are still way off being posted. Still too chicken shit to post this to the comm (is it good enough?...i dunno), so my dear friends, you get the first look.

Title: Lights Out For Darker Skies (chapter 1/?)
Characters: House, Wilson, Cuddy, four OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Words: 4132 (Prologue -270... Chapter - 3862)
Disclaimer: I don't own them. A shame, as then I could buy some new jeans.
Summary: This is some batshit crazy AU thing I've been writing in my sleep deprived hours and from watching too many films (more specifically Brazil, copious amounts of zombie/disaster films, just generally weird shit). First chapter is mainly a set-up piece, so if it seems fucked up it's because it probably is.

Hopefully it will get more coherent as time passes. :D

Prologue

It was October when it came. Usually they would take the victims to the hospital but now the problem was way past any hospital's capabilities. Now the infected were just thrown into any one of New Jersey's countless psychiatric facilities where they would be drugged and kept under wraps, away from the public

Where it came from they had yet to find out. It was only after a spate of muggings and murders in Atlantic City that the government even began to register what was going on and link the crimes together. But by then it had spread to the furthest corners of New Jersey and in danger of creeping into the lower regions of New York State and Eastern Pennsylvania. A state of emergency was rapidly called. All travel in and out of New Jersey was cancelled there and then, imports and exports stopped, homes and business raided to find the source.

The Infected they were nicknamed in the press and on the streets. The Infected would appear quite normal but conceal a rage, murderous and impulsive, that could surface at any time. By December, thousands had been murdered, mugged and maimed, and thousands more were locked up for the crimes caused by this unyielding and aggressive virus. All those infected were labelled IC (Infected Citizen) and held until a cure could be found. The rest were labelled UC (Uninfected Citizen) and given papers and identification to prove this so.

Princeton had been lucky up until February.

February was when Wilson was taken away, heavily medicated, tied to a gurney and thrown into the back of a white van

Chapter 1 - Protocols and Procedure

He didn't want to stop with his bum leg cramping up in such spectacularly painful style, but he had no other choice. It was either slow down and get cramped up, or speed up and get a bullet in his back.

Ahead, a uniformed man raised a gloved hand as he jostled an automatic rifle in the other, stepping out into the road to mark his territory. His uniform, all dour greys and putrid browns, his demeanour, a clenched jaw and furrowed eyebrows, and his intimating army issue crop cut all adding weight to his, as yet, unspoken statement that Gregory House shall not pass.

The bike crawled to a stand still a few feet away from the butch officer, and House flicked his visor up, the glare of the sun hitting his eyes as soon as he moved his hand away.

"Can you step out of your vehicle please sir?"

"It's a bike. I can't step out of a bike. I can step off the bike if you want me to do that." House leaned to grasp at his cane, held in place on the side of the chassis, and awkwardly swung his leg over the seat. He cursed under his breath as the cramp seared through his thigh. "Do we have to do this every time I go to work?"

"Protocol sir." The gun was dangling limply by the man's side, obviously comfortable with the fact that this seemingly grumpy cripple was of little threat.

"Well your damn protocol is costing me five minutes on my work journey everyday. Five minutes which I could use to better effect than stand hear and entertain you and your damn protocols." Flipping open the plastic lid on his seat, House pulled out a wad of papers bound together by a rubber band. "What do you want this time?"

"Just to see some identification sir." The youthful officer folded his arms, the bulging biceps and strong wrists making him look bulkier than he actually was.

"You identified me yesterday when I came through here, and the day before that. And the week before that. Don't you remember me?" The officer didn't budge. House rolled his eyes before sliding a blue I.D card from the thick wedge in his hand. "I'm hardly the type who blends in with the wallpaper."

The card was whipped from House's hands with startlingly speed. The officer twisted it through his fingers, glancing back to House, checking the features on the card in relation to the man before him. "What's your name sir?"

"David Coverdale."

"It say-"

"Oh for God's sake. It was a joke. They obviously extract humour from you guys in the training process." He had played the same joke yesterday with the officer, that time using Robert Plant. Seems this guy was either an idiot, had a memory like a fish or had a serious humour bypass at some point in the past. "Gregory House is my name. I was born the eleventh of June 1959. My UC number is 26459." He whisked the card back from the grip of a brown leather glove. "Anything else? My favourite car? My perfect Sunday? A recipe for chicken curry?"

The officer tugged his gloves, stretching his fingers beneath the restrictive leather. "No that's fine sir. But this route is closed. You'll have to take the diversion around the block."

"What do you mean it's closed? This is my way to work."

"The route is closed sir." A clench of the teeth and a harsh tone. "You will have to follow the diversion that has been set." Like all good officers, he gave little information, just what was necessary, and House didn't dare push his own line of enquiry. He merely nodded and slipped the papers back into the space under the seat.

The officer gestured to the left, where a ticker tape trawl of yellow had been left to divert any oncoming traffic onto a different route. House flipped his visor down and hopped raggedly back onto his bike, watching warily as the officer trudged back to his post.

Make that another ten minutes added to his journey this morning.

He revved the engine into life before heading off, following the sickly snail trail that was draped across the road, bearing left away from the route he would usually take. Trying to suppress his natural curiosity would have been a pointless exercise, so he stole a quick glance down the blockaded street before it escaped from his view. Three black cars, sleek and slender with tinted windows. It didn't take a genius to work out they were government issue. Two were discarded on the right side of the street, the other parked up on the left. Further up, also on the left, lay a white van, back doors flung wide open, the clinical gleam of the inside available for all the world to see. A stocky, grubby looking man stood leaning on the back of the van, a cigarette perched between his lips, both hands pushing back and forth on the side bars of a gurney.

House didn't bother to stop to investigate further.

A white van meant only one thing: they'd found another one. Another infected one to add to the thousands already locked within the walls of New Jersey's glorious institutions.

He revved his bike a little too aggressively and swerved his way onto the diversion track, his mind not permitting him another look back.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bradfield inhaled another cloud of noxious, nicotine tainted fumes and pressed down on a chronic crease in his otherwise sleek shirt.

Doctor Cuddy had been ever so receptive to his visit, ushering him up to the fourth floor herself and leading him directly to the office. Though she had little say in the matter. Not with a switch blade to her back anyway.

"So when is this enigmatic Doctor House due back?" Bradfield leaned back onto the balcony wall, slipping the cigarette between his lips as he perched his elbows on the brick. He cast a look to the balcony opposite and the office shrouded in darkness behind a glass partition. Doctor Wilson's office he presumed.

Cuddy cleared her throat. "He should be in soon. His shift started ten minutes ago."

"Not a punctual man then?" He flicked the butt of his cigarette off the balcony before immediately going to his pocket for another. He cursed himself for having such a dirty, and now taboo, habit, but smoking was the only thing that gave him any sense of joy these days. Well, that and occasionally his job.

All Cuddy could manage was a nervous chuckle, fake in its delivery and ultimately pointless. "I guess so."

"I thought as much." Bradfield twiddled a rogue crumb of brick in his fingers. "Seems like that type of guy."

"Have you met Doctor House before? If you're here for legal purposes then--"

Bradfield coughed out a hearty laugh. "Legal purposes? No, no, no." Another cigarette is stubbed onto the wall. "Doctor House has some important information about an acquaintance of his. This acquaintance is somebody I need to talk to. We have some sensitive issues that need to be dealt with."

"Any acquaintance of Doctor House will definitely be an acquaintance of mine. So I'm sure I could help." Cuddy gazed into the liquid, black, almost inhuman, eyes of the man before her. What and who he was she was not sure. He wasn't a government worker; she'd had enough inspections in recent months to know an official when she sees one. Nor was he even local, judging by the Mid-Western drawl that tumbled from his lips. But the suit and expensive shoes all hinted at the fact that whatever he was involved in was very prosperous indeed.

He smiled. A wicked, thin lipped slice through his face curved upwards. He'll give her credit where it was due. Her protectiveness was something to admire, if not a little foolish. "Don't concern yourself with things that don't involve you. All I need is a chat with Doctor House and I'll be on my way. And I promise I won't use this again." He cracked a smile once again, waving a switch-blade in the air. "You have my word."

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

South Street Diner, Philadelphia

She'd only been here three months and already her mind had listed the regulars. Mark and Melinda always took table 7 at eight-thirty. Mark would have a egg white omellete with extra cheese and a cup of white tea. No sugar. Melinda would devour three warm pancakes with lashings of maple syrup. A basic cup of white coffee to complete her meal.

Then Howard would traipse in around eight-forty, carrying a plastic bag full of newspapers in one hand and his red chequered hat in the other. He'd always change his order every couple of days. 'Keeping you on your toes' he would mutter, flashing the lonely looking teeth in a smile full of gummy gaps. But Darnella had decided he was just a cantankerous old grump who enjoyed messing around.

Lily would be there before Darnella had even started her shift, curling her legs around the leather seat of table number 14. Darnella had guessed she was a whore just from her clothing. Black lace tights stretched over a pair of slender legs, a red PVC skirt hitched to the upper thigh and a short black jacket. Her make up was as equally overt, lashings of black eye-liner, red lipstick, and a streak of purple eye shadow. Darnella's boss, Mr Mitchell, said she was good for business. Brought in customers that the diner wouldn't otherwise get, and they always bought something, a coffee, an espresso, before Lily led them away for a quick blow job before work.

Then there were the truck drivers and people just passing through. Though, those numbers had considerably dropped into single figures since the east side Pennsylvania had been hemmed off from the rest of the state. The occasional goon, all suited and shaded up, would make their presence felt a couple of times a week. But apart from that, new diners were few and far between.

But today there was a curious new guest at table 9. A man, slim, head angled downwards showing a thick head of brown hair, with one of those faces where the age was hard to pin down. He could have been anywhere between 30 and 50. A thick sweater hung over his upper body, with a simple pair of faded blue jeans adorning his lower. He didn't look odd; he looked like he could have been any other regular guy stopping for a bite to eat. But strangers don't come around these parts much any more.

Mr Mitchell had told her to report any new diners, any one she didn't recognize. Strangers were to be looked upon with the highest amount of suspicion. Any of them could be infected. It is was protocol to be suspicious, it was procedure to be wary.

The man at table 9 continued to flip the plastic menu between his hands, not registering Darnella's presence as she paced up to his table.

She tucked a rogue lock of hair behind her ear and opened up her pad of paper, pencil at the ready to scrawl his order. "What can I get for you this morning sir?"

The man licked his lips, trailing a slender finger down the menu. "Can I get a black coffee, four sugars." He shook a hand into his pocket and pulled out a ten dollar bill. "And a plate of French toast please." Rummaging again, this time in his other pocket, he pulled out a few more one dollar bills. "Make that two plates."

"You hungry sir?" Darnella inadvertently chuckled at the stranger's excessive order, for every local knows that one plate of French toast could feed two people easily. Though, the way the stranger glared ravenously at the menu, she could be right in assuming that he could finish the lot off with ease.

The man smiled, and his dull, pale face, for one moment, glowed along with his deep brown eyes. "You could say that." After running a hand through his hair, he placed the menu back onto the table. "I think that's it thank you."

"You want any toppings on your French toast? Or you just want it plain?"

"Um...just plain thanks."

"Okay. So that's two plates of plain French toast and one black coffee, four sugars." She tucked the pencil back into the front of her apron along with the paper pad. "We gotta couple of newspapers at the front if you wanna read them." She pointed a finger to the wooden rack hanging on the tiled wall to the right. Only the New York Times and Washington Post had came on time this morning. The rest in the rack were no doubt out of date.

Leaving the man to his own devices, Darnella headed over to the counter and bellowed the order through the hatch. "Norah. I need two plates French toast. Plain."

"What's that?" A plump, red faced woman popped her head from the side of the hatch. Her hair held up in an unattractive hair net, her face beaded with sweat. "I can't hear with all this damn machinery. Why's this microwave so fucking loud?"

"I said I need two plates of plain French toast for table 9."

"If it's that damn Howard again, tell him he can stick it up his ass. He complained about my toast the last time." Norah sent the microwave onto another four minute whirr. "That old crone can make his own damn food. I've got enough on my plate without his fucking whining about brown bits on his toast."

"Norah-"

"It's toast! It's meant to be brown."

"It's not Howard. It's some new guy."

Norah froze, before slowly turning her head to meet Darnella's gaze. "You told Mitchell right?"

"Not yet. Come on, he's harmless. He sounds like he's from around here anyway."

"That doesn't mean anything. You see somebody strange, you've gotta tell him." Norah turned back to the the loaf of bread, slicing thick cuts with a knife. "Last time we had a stranger in here we ended up with three dead folks and a swarm of FBI guys in the place. Took us a damn age to get the place back to normal."

"Mr Mitchell never told me about that." Sure, she'd heard about it on the news, the first attack in Philidelphia showing the infection had crossed the state border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but she had never read into far enough to know where it actually was. Darnella twirled her pencil between her fingers, glancing back to the man sitting at table 9, who was gazing out the window seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

"Would you have took the job if you knew?"

"Probably not."

"Well there's your answer." Norah dipped the slices of bread into a bowl of egg. "Now go tell him before he comes out here and finds the guy himself. Unless you wanna be in the shit."

Mr Mitchell's office door was right next to the counter. A battered old, cheap wooden door, with chips of of timber missing from every corner. She gave a quiet knock to call her boss to the door. The door opened with force and a short, elderly man stood, hands in his pockets, a few distracting white moustache hairs hung over his lips, swaying with the occasional breeze from the open window nearby. He brought a swift finger under his bulbous nose and wiped away an impending sneeze with a tissue. "What is it?"

"We have a...um a new guy in."

Old, bagged eyes widened. "Where? What table?"

"Table 9. He ordered some French toast and a coffee." She waved a hand in the direction of the table.

"I don't give a damn what he ordered. You stay at the hatch. I'll sort this out." Mitchell pushed passed Darnella and strode towards the stranger's table, while she slid back to her position behind the counter. "Norah." She prodded the cook in the arm with the butt of her pencil.

"What?"

"Mitchell is having a face off with the new guy."

Norah dropped her spatula onto the work top and stuck her head from out behind the hatch, watching on as Mitchell approached the stranger with confidence.

"Sir. Can I see some identification?" Mitchell folded his arms.

The stranger padded his hands onto his pockets, first jacket, then jeans, before smiling weakly. "Sorry. I think I've left my papers in my car." He gently began to rise from his seat, almost towering over Mitchell when he straightened himself up. "I can go and get them for you if you want me to."

Mitchell smiled and patted the stranger on the arm. "That won't be necessary." He turned his head back to his workers. "Darnella! Call the cops." There wasn't much time for him to react before he felt himself being flung onto the table by the stranger, his head sending the salt and pepper shakers tumbling to the floor. The stranger grabbed him by the collars of his shirt and shook him fiercely.

"You can't call the cops. Please." The knitted brows, the fearful eyes and the shaking hands made a convincing case, but Mitchell wasn't in the giving mood.

"Too late. They've already been called."

The man glanced over to Darnella at the counter, a phone held up to her to ear and mouth, her fingers nervously twining around the telephone wire. "Shit." The man pushed Mitchell back down onto the table with a sharp movement of the arms before making a dive for the door.

Darnella hadn't even managed to give the name of the diner to the cops before the stranger was gone.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

He was twenty minutes late. Not a new record by any means but it was late enough to get an annoying earful of crap from Cuddy. All the blame will lie at that annoying little shit of an officer and that equally annoying diversion which had pushed him so far away from his normal route that he wasn't even sure where he was at one point.

Curiously, Cuddy wasn't in her office when he limped through the reception. Obviously Rachel has vomited on something and it rendered her absent from work. Fingers crossed.

There was a odd smell of tobacco wafting through the corridors of the fourth floor. He thought nothing of it at first, probably a nurse having a quick one in the stairwell, but as he hobbled closer to his office the smell intensified. And when he saw Cuddy, arms folded across her chest, her foot tapping to some invisible rhythm, he thought maybe one of his beloved ducklings had been caught. His money was on Chase.

But her stance was too defensive, her eye line to high for it to be Chase or even Foreman. Then he saw the flutter of a black jacket, the curling plum of nicotine cloud and the wave of a large, masculine hand.

House paused before aiming his beady eye through the glass wall. The man was tall, with a short but lazily arranged mop of blonde hair, and strangely dark eyes for a man so fair. A long nose sat crookedly upon a taut face, with thin lips being the only source of expression. If House hadn't seen the man move he would have sworn he was chiselled out of granite.

He inhaled a deep breath, attempting to muster the legendary House bluster. Though, Granite Boy in there could be resistant to his charm.

"Morning!" House brightly hobbles into his office, throwing his rucksack onto the chair.

"You're twenty minutes late." Cuddy put on her best boss face, but House could see beneath that façade she was quaking for some, as yet unknown, reason.

"Twenty two minutes actually. Some meddling officer stopped me. Again." House leaned nonchalantly against the wall. "Do I have a new case?" He gestured his cane in Bradfield's direction.

"This is...this man would like to talk to you."

Bradfield smiled, the pressure of movement adding to the tautness already showing on his face. "I'm not a case Doctor House." A flick of the cigarette sends ash floating to the floor. "I would like to talk to about an acquaintance of yours."

"Well I can say Lisa Cuddy is good at her job," House leans in. "And a fireball in bed."

"You misunderstand me." Bradfield positioned himself between the doctors, his back to Cuddy, his attentions on House. "I'm sure she is fantastic in bed, but Doctor Cuddy is irrelevant." A swirl of smoke falls from his nostrils. "Doctor Cuddy, would you mind stepping out onto the balcony for a moment?"

"I'm not leaving you alone with a member of my staff." Defiantly, she stood her ground, a hand perched on her hip.

"Remember the last time we had a misunderstanding?" He jostled his left pocket menacingly. "Let's not go there again. So, if you will."

Cuddy pursed her lips together, leaving a lipstick trace above the line of her top lip. There was no way she could get security up here in time nor would it help the situation. Just let the man conduct his business and hope for the best. She stepped onto the balcony and could only watch on as the glass door slid back into place, leaving her stranded alone in a New Jersey breeze.

"Why didn't I think of that earlier?" House slapped a palm onto his forehead. Why hadn't he? He could have saved himself fifteen years worth of headaches. Granite Boy had began idly examining the items on House's desk, a paperweight was currently making its way between his excessively huge hands.

"You're a humorous man Doctor House." With a gentle thump, the paperweight sat back onto the desk. "Now humour me."

"What kind of bee makes milk? Boo bees. That's all I have. So can you go now? I have internet porn to watch." House barged himself past Bradfield's square shoulder and took a seat behind his desk.

"That's not what I meant." Bradfield yanked out the plug socket connecting the computer to the wall.

"Okay." House adjusted his buttocks in the seat. If this guy was trying to be intimidating then he was succeeding. Very well indeed.

"We have matters to discuss. You have information. I need that information." Bradfield leaned forward, tipping the desk with his weight. So much so that the paperweight rolled its way off the desk.

"And what if I don't want to give that information?" That's great House. Get on the bad side of the aggressive, granite, totem pole.

"You will give me that information."

Yes. Yes, he will. Because judging by the disturbing glint in Granite Boy's eye, House wouldn't have any say in the matter. "Fine. What do you want to know?"

"I want to know about your friend. Your missing friend." Bradfield juggled a hand into his trouser pocket and produced a picture. "James Wilson."

_________________________________________________________________________

Part 2a

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Katzenjammer- Kyuss

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

hibernia1.livejournal.com

I like it! It has an interesting premise and I like Original Characters when they have indeed some character, which yours have. And I love your House. And I love how Wilson went missing and turned up again and YES! Love the whole thing.

Can't wait for more, actually.

From:

Crackers

Lights Out For Darker Skies

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