Oil - Chapter XI - Eleven

[glassesg33k]

Chapter Summary: Accidentally high, dazed and confused, this is Rodney.

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Posted: Sunday June 1, 2014  Author: GlassesG33k

 

Chapter Rating: PG-13
Word Count:1817

Cross-posted

Archive of Our Own – http://archiveofourown.org/works/1347706/chapters/2811697,

Live Journal – http://glassesg33k.livejournal.com/

Dreamwidth – http://glassesg33k.dreamwidth.org/

Tumblr – hobbyhermit.tumblr.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/hobby.hermit

Special Thanks: TT, or TactlessTruth for all of her help. :-)

A/N:This was the chapter that nearly didn't happen.

Life changes on a dime and mine did thankfully temporarily here. By now you all probably know that I have been using Tactless Truths computer to post on here. It's an old 2007 HP model and is still coughing and sputtering along. Several times in the past it has been a close miss when starting it back from scratch. It nearly couldn't connect to the internet and the battery died on me. Reformatting, De-Fragging and doing other such things are a NO GO for this old model if I want to stay connected to the internet, it's sadly on it's last legs.

The battery just died and well, the both of us being un-employeed (Tactless being to ill to work, and me being far to badly injured, bad back and all; which incidentally has been the reason I have had the “free time” to write and post so proficiently as of late.) Initially after the battery died I was able to use Tactless' family computer, which was so incredibly KIND and LOVING of her mother. It has been a hard thing for her to share it, that has been clear. She has been so gracious and wonderful about the whole thing, I am truly grateful to her for her help. =-)

I was able to purchase a new battery that is spectacular compared to the old one and at a great rate too.

I got it from AtBatt.com so a shout out to them if you need anything cheap in the line of power.

But all this aside to say this has set me back on writing is a bit of an understatement.

So far I had about three chapters written that still needed piecing together before the initial FAST Edit and post I usually do. (On this note please pray for niffer, she was going to be my BETA Reader then was robbed. Everything was stolen from her family. She could truly use any kind of encouragement and help you have to offer at this time.)

But until I can get my hands on a new laptop in some way it looks like the chapters, if I manage to post them at all … well, I don't know when or if I'll be able to post any more.

It looks like this'll be the last post and the last chapter for a while.

I'm truly sorry for this and well, if anyone has an old computer that functions well enough then message me, it might just help. =-)

But I thought I'd let you all know that until further notice I don't know when or if I'll be able to post anymore to this story and many others I have in the works here, on the old laptop. They really were fascinating me and I really wanted to see how they were gonna end.

And I just wanted to say THANK YOU ALL for all of your support and I truly WISH I could have finished this story on a timely basis.

I'm sorry to flunk out like this, but well, Real Life rears it's hideous head and once again has stopped my endeavors to further myself. =-(!

…

I'm not sure what else to say so I'll just leave it at this.

 

G.G.

P.S. – But just in-case check back periodically to see if I've managed to post more. 

 

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Chapter 11

 

XI Eleven XI

Rodney wandered out to his car …

 

Empty …

 

Hollow …

The one friend he had, had told him that God himself had caused him to be ill and that he should tough it out. Rodney rubbed his face, hard … what did Carson think he'd been doing for the past, oh decade or so now huh!? Laying down and dying!?

Why the hell else would he have been in here today begging for pain pills! Begging for some kind of alternative medicine that didn't kill him off-didn't exact such a high price! …

Rodney's mind whirled off revving like an engine stuck in some odd gear.

He went on and on to himself, smacking the damn steering wheel and punching the dashboard, not like it did much his fist bounced right off his whole damn arm to thin and weak to do more then injure himself. Rodney turned his arm and looked, a bruise already was forming and that was truly bad, it'd swell great, just great.

Rodney held his head and that's when he broke …

He'd heard the terms before, whispered in relation to other patients, people he'd never met but knew their condition was worthless; worm food what they were.

His case, his life-he'd been talked about like that now; gotten stared at, the sidelong glances, the pitying mumbles as he passed nurses and others in the medical office; treated with sugary sweet cooing and kid gloves by all the nurses who had to get near him …

His mind whirled again and he started gasping the air growing tight, thick. He'd heard it all, stage four or five, whatever, Rodney didn't know and didn't care-it didn't matter, dead was dead and he was worm food now. One of the patients talked about in hushed whispers and mumbles, stared at by everyone-the other patients and all. The voo-doo practitioners-hell the fact that the doc had even mentioned God showed it all, showed how far behind the medical profession was-that it was not a science-barely an art. “Shouldn't even be paid! I paid! With my life-blood-body! My damn account!” Rodney smacked what he could again bouncing in his seat.

What little he'd managed to scrape together, whittle out of his meager paychecks when he wasn't having to shell out for college and student supplies that the school should have been paying for. What he had left or managed to scrape together with his bare fingertips, the damn things bleeding along with his wallet for twisting it so darn tight in an attempt to juggle everything-it'd bottomed out, his bank account. The tiny smattering of money he'd managed to scrape together had been wiped away from the damn medical-cancer treatments and whatnot. He'd been in debt for far to long now and his last ditch attempt at living …

Rodney turned to the side …

His own damn friend had taken his money and not cured him.

 

…

Had robbed him blind then blamed his illness and the fact that he had not gotten better on his own body's unwillingness to heal and a mythical deity.

Rodney face palmed and breathed … just breathed.

 

…

 

…

…

It's what he got for letting someone-anyone in.

He held his face, oddly feeling ashamed for the fact that he'd never had any friends. He'd been taught from day one not to trust anyone then gone and screwed up at the last bit – the last step of his life.

“God of all things!”

 

~~~~~

After a while Rodney stared out the windshield, his mind bereft of thought, his soul just … empty … no feeling at all. He looked down at his arm and hands, it was like he was hollow and the non-feeling-the void, the, for lack of a better way to describe it, numbness, was so overcoming it had seeped out into his physical body.

He looked at the areas of his hands and arms, bruises, deep ones, forming; his blood no longer able to clot like it could. … from what the damn quack had told him it was going to swell-or could, ballooning up like some kind of goose egg if he wasn't lucky. All cause of the damn … whatever it was called.

“Shit.” Rodney pinched his brow and winced, the pain from earlier suddenly re-presenting itself,“great. Just great.” He looked over at the passenger seat beside him then dug out the damn samples he'd been given. It was the same old crap the secretaries and nurses always shoved at him and everyone else he suspected, who might walk in through the door. Rodney always threw it all out, never even glancing at it.

It was more like he'd been going to an upscale pusher then a real doctors office. No solutions were to be found, no cures, healing fixes, merely drugs, pills, medications and more drugs, it was terrible.

 

Rodney noticed he was shaking, his whole body one quivering mass of pain, a dungeon master couldn't have gotten better results. He looked out the windshield again and noticed his vision was jittery … he looked over to the various trial prescriptions on the seat beside him.

…

Giving in and giving up he dug around till he found something that at least tried for reasonable. It was a relatively small dosage (he hoped) and it didn't say anything about side effects, on the small packaging at least. It said it was something great and would cure all his ills, Rodney scoffed, “yeah right.” he looked for interactions and anything that said he couldn't operate heavy machinery etc. etc. etc.

It said nothing, or nothing that he could tell.

Despite this he decided to not take one, at least not until he got home.

Driving though, driving changed his mind. He was no further then the second stop light, not fifteen minutes later and he was so wracked, so blind, his eyes were watering, vision going dark and blurry from the torturous pain! He looked at the pill on the seat next to him then ripped open the packaging and popped the damn thing bereft of what else to do. He swug as much water as he could knowing that he would need it, then dug around for something to barf in, if it was going to come right back up. He manged to get his hands on the waste basket in the back seat, something he'd learned many years ago to carry with him. He'd had many a day when he'd used it before even getting to work. Driving while vomiting was not fun but by this time he was used to it.

Rodney was on his way home when he decided to see where the car would take him.

“Interesting,” it took him to the one area he'd spent most of his life as of late trying to ignore or get away from. “Maybe Freud was right,” Rodney snorted to himself, “what a pile of crap.” He'd been told once by a more then dull person, that if you wanted someone to think about something or notice an item then tell said person to not think about it, or look at it, listen to it, etc. etc.

Maybe it was because of this fact alone that Rodney's car seemed drawn to the one place he wished didn't exist, pot alley; or that's what he called it.

It was a good sized area right around the college where students could come to get things cheap or have a job while they were in school. Basically it was like any other place around a university, many half run down shops shoved in-between the pompous and plush ones; each and every area either newly built or lovingly fixed up and remodeled. Each store offered either the most out of style or the latest and greatest in whatever was in at the time. Every store was stuck up or in reaction to the surrounding environment and all the snotty nosed rich brats just plain didn't care.

One constant though was the good deals to be found along with cozy out the the way corners to read and study. There were more then enough hidey holes as Rodney had heard it once called, places where you could sleep between jobs or classes or even daydream. How he had loved those times in his youth. It had been the only good time in his life.

 

He rolled down the window and a waft of smells hit him, good food was another constant in these areas it seemed. Everywhere Rodney turned all he could see were homey nooks and crannies, places to study and eat, all nestled away in these corners. Rodney wondered if this would be a good area to think and if this was why his car was taking him to this area. A good place to straighten out what was going on in his life and ponder over what had already happened.

He drove till he was near the one street he'd done his best to pretend didn't exist. The next thing Rodney knew he was parked and out of his car, staring at it like he'd just been beamed down to Earth and didn't know what to do with himself now. He blinked and then turned, letting his feet take him to … wherever …

 

~~~

Rodney walked, not noticing people or things, except for the few stares and glares he got. He'd changed before going into the voo-doo practitioners office, “mud hut is more like it,” Rodney mumbled and someone bugged their eyes out at him as they passed, pressing themselves into the crowd to give him a wide berth.

“Whatever.”

He waltzed along not knowing where his feet were taking him or where he had been. He found himself at the shop he'd come to a few nights before. He floated in and plopped himself down hard, as if he were a marionette and his strings had just been cut. He sat, dejected, holding his head; lost.

His mind was blank, there were no answers or solutions as far as he could see, and now his stomach was getting upset again, great.

 

~~~~~