Hopeless Prisoner of Loneliness

Chapter Summary: How Rodney's life began and general grypings.
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Posted: Monday, March 24th 2014 Author: GlassesG33k
Chapter Rating: PG
Word Count:2,026
Cross-posted: http://glassesg33k.livejournal.com/ http://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassesG33k/works
Special Thanks: TT, or TactlessTruth for all of her help. :-)
A/N: I just want to address any concerns, I know that in my previous series there was a character death, there shall be no death here! says me ;-D, so don't worry no one dies.
And just to let everyone know the title is the whole reason for the character living … well, that's giving too much away I guess, *BLUSH!* =-)
Just read and you'll discover WHY. :-)

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Rodney had graduated young, very young with his first Ph.D. and had started working right after. In a true early definition of hell itself life dragged on in a never ending torturous boredom that would just not cease. Being thrust into the adult working world when you still couldn't drive was not fun to say the least. Having to live at home while you were making enough to say buy whatever you wanted sucked. What was worse was when Rodney went to buy what he wanted and found that he had no control over his own bank account, all his paychecks being printed in his parents names. This meant that when he wanted to say, buy a Spiderman Action figure, or a few comic books, or even the coveted Dungeon Master Manual he couldn't.
Initially he'd thrown a fit and been grounded for it and then had thought of calling the cops. In the end nothing had happened and his parents had pacified him with some candy and not having to have dinner. (He hated lima beans and brussle sprouts.)
It was fine till he woke up sick in the middle of the night his stomach not happy with the fact that he'd had candy for dinner.
When Rodney had grown up enough to truly need that money he found that his parents hadn't even done him the courtesy of saving half of it, or even trying to help him by say investing and subsequently losing it all.
No instead he got to discover that his parents had taken the money he'd made and spent it, every last dime, on themselves and their darn kids; not leaving a penny for him. Terribly Rodney didn't get to find this one out till it was far past the point of too late. Yes, there may have been bills to pay and mouths to feed but they could have at least allowed him to live on his own and unburden them, then take his hard earned money away from him.
Somewhere in there he'd done his best to get a second Ph.D. but it had never worked out. He'd, as he called it, flunked out at a Masters Degree, too busy and poor to go further. He swore to himself he'd finish, some day getting a full doctorate but as the years passed he soon had to face the truth, he was never going to get that second degree no matter how much he wanted it. Oddly enough when he'd been sitting down looking over his life (and planning out his future at the ripe old age of 19) and discovered this he'd wondered if when he finally passed he'd be one of those unable to rest ghosts, floating around the college campus he'd always wanted to go to, scaring young kinds and having to read over people's shoulders as they disgustingly made out.
Rodney shivered and went back to what he was dong at the time, never realizing how prophetic that silly and worthless passing thought would be.

Before he knew it twenty years had passed … or maybe it was only fifteen, which he could never tell,
and he was scraping the bottom dregs of 34 and had had enough. That was the year Rodney had decided he'd quit his job, the one he'd managed to hang on to for a good ten years by then and pursue his own ambitions. He'd get his last pay check and one way or another do his damnedest to figure out wormhole theory, aiming to get his so rightfully deserved Nobel Prize.

Terribly that was the same year he found out he had cancer.

This of course put all his plans on hold and for a good two years or so he went through life shell shocked and staring, not sure what hit him or what to do about it, much less what to think. Most days it didn't matter because he was too ill to get out of bed, even though he had to since sick days were not allowed in the “American Working Diet” any longer, as Rodney liked to call it.
It was all Rodney could do to drag himself in and either teach, tutor or just get through one measly day. He'd nearly been fired several times over and he soon came to discover that as long as no one asked he wasn't going to tell. Thankfully everyone in the work place was far to self absorbed to notice even a middle aged man bent over the trash can in the teachers lounge, or the sound of retching echoing off the walls every time they walked into a nearby men's room. He also found that unless he missed work for any reason or wasn't on time to some, god knows what, he was safe.

For the whole of his working life he had the joy of watching one person after another get fired for missing as little as three days in one year, or say being late only twice. Hell he'd even witnessed time and time again people of all ages being laid off, or their performance being under-graded simply because their kids had gotten sick, or their time was being monopolized because they had an elderly parent at home. Basically if you couldn't spend and extra one to three hours off the clock getting much needed work done then you weren't worth keeping around. And this wasn't just in the area of the desk jokey crowd, the few places he'd tried to work retail had been the same. If you didn't work off the clock then you were let go and no place would hire you again, whether you put your last employer down or withheld it. Rodney had worked away watching through the years as unnumbered people were let go for obvious reasons. There were some memorable ones though, he could count on both hands people who were fired simply because they had a disabled child. One poor woman had an insane adult child that truly needed to be institutionalized, that poor lady was laid off right when she finally got her kid admitted and was in need of the pay check.
And then there were the elderly. The sheer number of old people he'd seen and even had the utter joy of being forced to do the firing himself when he was far to young ... yeah that had been horrible. Even back then he knew that most of them were ill, at least half of them had something terminal like cancer; so he knew better now then to let any of his cards (or in this case balding actually) show.
Thankfully he'd always been a “right bitch” as his one friend had called him and he'd already been going bald, the process seeming to speed up as the years went by, so there was really no way for anyone to suspect anything.
And the few times anyone noticed his weight loss they always complemented him saying how good he looked now, and young; some even going so far as to pull him aside and comment on how proud they were of him.
(He must have really been getting fat, honestly he'd never cared and had never thought it was that bad.)
At first he was upset, babbling half formed words because he wasn't sure what to say to enraged, insulted and scared that they'd figured out his secret and would get him to be let go. Then it hit him he needed to use this to his advantage since it was the perfect way to hide. So when people came up to him he agreed even going so far as to give tips and telling people his “secrets”. He looked up worthless willpower sayings for the more emotional large women who'd come up and try to start talking to him. (In the span of one Christmas week he'd had at least three crying on his shoulder and he wasn't about to let that happen again.)

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Still getting cancer was not fun to say the least the only upswing was that he lost weight, and a lot; fast. Going from rocking in at a good 350 American pounds to a mere 150 kind of took a toll on his mind and in a fit he stomped into his bosses office one day and quit. Granted by this time the disease was in remission and he had been given a six month tentative bill of health. After his next check up if he was clean then he'd be in the clear but the whole ordeal had left him needing to get some real personal work done.
To his shock his boss begged him to stay and even let him, “go home; take the rest of the day off, and think it over first … okay?”
Rodney just sat back and blinked, he'd never been refused firing before. In all the jobs, internships and whatnot he'd had over his lifetime he'd always been kicked out or “allowed to resign” far before he even wanted to leave. The fact that he lasted longer on this job then he had on owning a cat so far was downright amazing.
So instead of quitting he came back the next day with a list of demands, most of which consisted of literally breaking the job down into at least two if not three departments which should have been done in the first place. Now instead of having to do it all himself, others would be running things and he would merely be there for show. And instead of having to babysit everyone and thing anymore he'd get a lab of his own and be able to finally start doing what he was promised in the first place, experimenting and calculating. Not relying on underlings (who screw up) to do it, but actually being able to do the mathematics himself.
Now instead of working say eighteen hour days and being on call even after he went home he'd only be working a mere eight to ten hours a day and not have to worry if say some student blew something up once he left the office.
He also made sure to put in for vacation and plenty of “professional days” since sick leave was frowned upon.
His boss nearly said no and despite all his pleading the day before said he had to think about it.
It took nearly two weeks and constant checking in but Rodney got his deal with a few adjustments.
He was glad and even relieved but by this time he really didn't care anymore and nearly quit anyway.
Initially it looked like the cancer had gone into remission and that he was out of the woods, no more rupturing his esophagus in vomiting, no more aching and terrible pain, no more food having no taste and no appetite to eat anyway. Yes, until that day Rodney was free and clear again and about to start in on his new life, one of freedom and the health to actually do what he wanted to do in the first place. Until that day he still had … well, life itself.
Then the call came in; he'd just gotten off the phone with his new oncologist and well; his caner had come back or really it had never left. As it turned out he had a small unnoticed tumor that his doctor and surgeon had missed and since it had gone unnoticed it managed to go into his blood stream hence the call from a suddenly new and nervous sounding medical department. To say the call was telling was an understatement, how nice the receptionist was to how odd everyone was talking said it all;
he didn't have long to live.

Rodney hung up and stared at the claustrophobic pit of an office … He felt like he should call someone, ready them for his death. Get things prepared for his funeral or … or what have you. But …
…
But there was no one to call.
No one at all.
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