Chapter Summary: Rodney finally gets a hint of relief!

Posted: Sunday June 1, 2014 Author: GlassesG33k

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

A/N 2: Personally I like the song/poem, let me know if you like it too, it popped up in my head while watching X-Files fan videos and it explained this darn fan fiction exactly. I HAD to put it in. =-) So getting an opinion on it, good bad or wonderfully horrible, would really help, thanks ;-D!

XII Twelve XII

Maybe it was his inborn need to fix every damn thing he saw wrong, whatever it was when Mr. Uptight came walking in through the door something in John popped.

He had no idea what it was but when he looked up and saw what he initially thought was a newly homeless man shuffle in he nearly leapt over the counter and hugged the guy up, shoving wads of cash at him. John stopped himself and went to turn away when he noticed it was the man from earlier, the guy who'd watched T.V. with him that one night.

Disgusted outrage that Mr. Uptight would come back warred with his need to keep peace and help the seemingly poor guy out.

For lack of what else to do and his damn curiosity overcoming him John made his way over to the man deciding to do some damage control and properly introduced himself, or tried to.

John gasped, or thought he did, thankfully no one seemed to notice. He'd forgotten what the guy had said so long ago now, no wonder he looked like shit, he took a step back.

Mr. Uptight rubbed his forehead, “vomiting from … ” he waved his hand, “I donno anymore …” he frowned as if his head was hurting him and rubbed his eyes a bit too hard, John winced in sympathy for the poor guys eye balls. Something clearly wasn't right but John couldn't put his finger on what it was. The first time they'd met he was sure the man was high and he'd been terribly wrong, he didn't want to make that mistake again. Though, there was something different about the guy this time, he was kinda … dull?

John looked the man up and down, his form was baggy, as if his skin were an afterthought that now hung on him; a suit that had at one time fit tight and now, like spandex, was wrinkling and folding where it'd been stretched too far.

“What's you're name by the way,” John felt one of his brow's frown and stood off about to go get what he could for the man. It was clear he wasn't right at the moment, if he was better off then he would have gone down to the Farmacy that was literally with in the very same strip mall as John's place.

“Ahh actually,” the man took out some bits of paper, “if you could just tea, just tea.”
“Tea?”
“Yeah, tea. Some of the weakest stuff you've got-and here-here's a list of my allergies.” he shoved some papers into John's hand and put his head down.

Wow. He was sick.

John took a step back, he could feel his own brow arch all the way to his hairline. What to do now …

He decided he might as well help the guy out, make him better or at least ease his suffering as best he could by way of getting some food into the man.

John went into the back and let his day manager know that he'd like her to take over again, she seemed burdened but somewhat relieved all at the same time. The twisted up tense look vanished from her face to be one of more relaxed uptight, 'about to go and do some hard work done' look.

“Than-ah. Alright. You know, you need the rest.” She took a step back and looked him up and down, “Just go and sit yourself down, have a nice long lunch and let me take care of everything alright?”
“Hey-you gonna be manning the store sir?” one of John's good friends came up to him.

“Oh ah, no, no you can-” he stopped and turned to everyone realizing he had been going off the deep end the last few days.

He'd gotten angry and had literally taken over single highhandedly running the shop for a good two weeks or so now. It'd nearly killed him once again, just like it had at the beginning, when he'd first opened up the place. He'd lost near ten pounds and hadn't slept with how busy they suddenly were. Customers had literally been banging away on their front door at five a.m. trying to get in just so they could get their stuff before work. John had never expected this and it had been hell setting John's nerves off every damn time. Once he'd been ripped form sleep still chocking on the dust of the desert and had army crawled to the back kitchen area before his arms touched the tile and he'd realized he wasn't in Afghanistan anymore.

He'd taken to sleeping on the couch once again after that, all the lights on and music up playing loud enough to blend in with the customers demanding. A cacophony of noise instead of the sudden rat-tatt-tatt of knocking or in John's ears, bullets or guns going off; punctuated by silence.

Instant shame and humiliation would be the second thing that hit, finding out-realizing that he'd just been there, back in Afghanistan which didn't exist anymore-he was here-home; in America not there-lost, dying, sucking in dust for air instead of oxygen.

It was this, the raging banshees screaming out, pulling him under every damn night as of late that caused him to quit trying to sleep at all.

Up until this point John had been proud of the fact that he'd gotten to where he could sleep with a few low lights on and no music playing. He'd pulled off sleeping in a closed, quiet, dark back bedroom, the four walls closing in on him and stuffy. But he'd managed it, not seeing the sky-open air surrounding him.

John blinked … maybe it was best he was homeless at first, after wards; even if he had the money to live indoors he probably couldn't, more then likely he would have ended up saving the money on rent and lived outdoors anyway.

John rocked back on his feet, well, maybe he would have at least rented a campsite-tent-or at least a sleeping bag, something better then being beaten on a sidewalk when he'd tried to curl up and doze for fifteen minutes.

John shook himself coming back to the here and now, it'd been hell and working with out sleep had been John's only way to cope with all the false alarms and cranky demanding public.

It had not worked, at all, only causing him to be that much more cranky and uptight himself and a bit short with his staff.

John had nearly fired someone just that morning, something he swore to himself he'd never do and it was then that he finally realized, he needed a break; immediately. (Or he decided, as soon as he could manage.)

“I'm done-you all can go back to work and I'll just take a few days off here!” John lifted his hands letting everyone know. “I know I've been a bit uptight as of late but I'll try to kick back, smoke some-” he smirked and thankfully a few nervous chuckles popped out of a few people in back, “and relax for a while. From here on out Chyah will be in charge and Elizabeth the head will be in charge till … I donno.” John waved his arms, “three days from now or till further notice, how about that.” John flapped his arms and smiled.

Someone actually hooted, then one person wooed.

Then a clap, and the next thing John knew everyone was clapping, someone yelled “Thank you sir!”
“Bout time!”

“Well You'll all get some time off from me, and on me! You all can take three days off-” everyone went into an uproar, “as-As Long As-” John curled his hands around his mouth, “AS LONG AS YOU CAN GET SOMEONE TO COVER FOR YOU!”

“Aw Man!”

“Woo!” and laughter ensued.

John was glad and was a bit more then humiliated since he'd never known he'd been that bad to deal with when he was uptight.

“Mu”*snort!* Rodney lifted his head it being bumped by someone or thing. He'd dozed off again and how he got down here-oh yeah, he'd just dumped his one last hope of living and been being fired. Great.

Just great.

He held his head moaning, worried and relieved all at once, he was supposed to go through at least two to three more treatments. Rodney wondered if he'd get better because he was off the whole mess or if he'd get worse, his body being over taken kind of like strep throat, how if you didn't take all the anti-biotic it'd come back raging and take you out in one fell swoop, no word at all.

Rodney stared off into the distance visions of death in all manner and how he'd be taken care of swimming before his eyes. He just hoped it wasn't like that one horror show he watched as a kid, “Crypt Keeper” with that darn skeleton. On the episode he had caught this one guy had sat down and started talking into the camera which was apparently the “dead” man. The guy said how he knew the camera or “dead” guy was still alive and that he'd noticed that the camera/dead guy was an organ donor, he then began to speak in great detail about how having your organs removed really hurt …

Rodney shivered.

“Hey you okay?” Something waved in front of his eyes but it seemed translucent, ethereal even. Rodney just hoped he'd be truly and entirely dead before he was cremated, one of his biggest worries was to be either embalmed or cremated while still alive.

*shudder!*
“Hey!”

Rodney looked up, “oh!” he sat back dragging himself into the here and now.

“You okay there?” the guy from who knows, slid into the seat across from him. He was dressed a bit differently, didn't have an apron, hat, gloves, or anything on like usual it seemed. His tacky company pants were replaced with nice form fitting jeans, an old broken in pair that fit the guys body perfectly. His blouse was replaced with a sweatshirt, when Rodney looked up it was the glasses that caught him. The guys skin was beautiful golden, a pale almost tan fading away to laugh-lines at the corners of his eyes the golden rimmed glasses perfectly accenting his features.

Rodney licked his lips and nearly wept.

The guys face contorted as if hurt and he nodded at Rodney, licking his own lips, “you got your tea.” Rodney looked down to see a cup being shoved towards him.

“Oh, oh thank God,” Rodney reached forward and nearly wept, again.

He pulled the stuff near him and prayed his guts out, which really was better then barfing them out, Rodney figured if their gonna be removed at least have them go with the chance of something good or worthwhile being done with them. Rodney begged anyone listening to just be allowed the dignity of keeping his stomach down while he sat here.

He tried to pick the cup up but his hands shook too badly, his arms nearly giving out, “Damn!” He had no idea why this was happening, there as no reason for it! Maybe it was because of the darn shit hole of a day he'd had, his resources depleted past empty.
He felt the weight of a stare then the darn guys voice was back, “her-here.” Rodney reached for the cup again, “here.”

Rodney looked up to see the guy slide the cup away from him, taking it; Rodney leaned forward nearly following the damn thing.

The blue jeans guy-what was his name? Did he ever say it? Rodney couldn't recall but the guy stood up cup in hand, “here. Come'ere. Follow me.” he walked away and Rodney blinked, not sure what to do … follow or … was he in trouble? Or about to be in trouble? …

Rodney shook his head, why not just go after the damn cup of tea, he was dying anyway, if the guy did anything it didn't really matter did it? Of course the idea of being beaten or what have you then dumped out back as trash didn't appeal to him. The image of his blindingly pale skin peeking out from under his clothes catching someone's eye as they wandered by the dumpster danced before his eyes.

*shudder!*

Despite himself Rodney got up trying to find where his darn cup of tea had gotten to. He walked into the back of the store past the kitchen area-oh yeah! Rodney recalled seeing it before, now it was starting to come back to him, damn his mind was really a mess; these darn pills were really taking it out of him. He found the guy who had his tea and went to walk up to him but the guy just slipped further into the back, past the cooking and prep area and into a whole other section. He crossed through a door way that was built onto a thick outside-or sound proofing wall it seemed. When he entered he noticed the whole place was kind of cramped and well, kind of had a feeling and look of a home.

The sound from the store faded away and his ears had an urge to pop, as if he were stepping into a recording studio, from what Rodney had been taught.

It was kind of odd to have the kitchen an noise, a cacophony of the store-muzack; people, pots, pans clanging and all, fade away and be just beside him as if the sound itself was obeying some kind of thick glass wall.

Rodney gulped and then he noticed it, a slight faint noise, it was … Rodney jumped, some guy was talking! He listened hard tilting his head to the side.

to broken to feel

take in what's real

He looked for the source of the noise but couldn't find it.

From what Rodney could make out it was literally the back of the store, the entire length of it had been extended at least ten feet or more and made into a sort of trailer type apartment. Rodney didn't want to even ask or know what kind of building, business and residential cods were being broken having this place attached to the fairly new store. He knew it was more then likely totally illegal though, in far to many obvious and various ways.

to hollow to care

to hollow to feel

( I'm numb)

“Here,” the guy put the cup of tea down on what was clearly his kitchen table. Rodney looked to the side and noticed that the other half of the, living room was it? The area attached to the kitchen/dining area was split in half one part being made up to be an office space, a desk sat cluttered with papers and electronic devices, the main one being what seemed to be a wimpy attempt to pimp out a laptop.

Everywhere Rodney looked everything was made specifically for space saving, almost like some boat or yacht. Every single surface was of the highest quality and polished to shine but it was also packed into some of the smallest space possible. Infact (as Rodney literally turned in a circle he heard a chuckle) it looked like most of the cupboards, furniture and everything here was literally made from or more then likely taken from a Yacht,“Huh.”

A Venetian blind was pulled over a large plate glass window, it's slats open to let in light. The size of the darn thing took up half the opposite wall. On either side there were rectangular sections able to be opened to let air in. There was a glint and Rodney noticed that the whole of the window had a kind of dark sun-glasses tinting to it, the sort that would be reflective on the other side and have a mirror like silver to it; a one way mirror of sorts.

“Did you steal all this?” Rodney looked down not sure he wanted to sit, he didn't want to be incriminated simply by being here.

Suddenly a booming chorus ignited and it made itself known.

Rodney covered his ears, “What is that!?” He turned again trying to catch where the damn sound was coming from, it seemed that the whole place was vibrating like those darn cars he hated, the ones that came booming along with an earth shattering bass tone.

“Oh sorry,” the skinny hot guy scrambled digging, he bent over a few things and Rodney noticed how nicely curved the man's ass was.

The guy picked up what looked like a remote and pushed a button. Silence engulfed like some kind of sucking void. Rodney blinked and noticed the whole place suddenly felt starkly different, like the damn noise had never been off from the day it had been built.

“Sorry I ah,” the store manager-owner who ever he was tossed the remote aside. “It helps me. It's a local group. Olson's.”
“Ah!” Rodney nodded feigning knowledge of what the heck the guy was saying then looked at the table where his tea had been placed. He wavered not wanting to sit down. He swayed turning in a circle again, he still felt that if he made himself comfortable he'd be arrested instantly or in the future-either way he didn't want to die in prison that was for sure.

“Are you ahh … ” he waved his hand over everything, “ah-ah,” he finally stopped turning and then started in on the detailed visual search of each and every single item, “you're a drug dealer aren't you?”

“What!?” the guy crossed his arms.

associated with water before-how'd you get it?”
“From a friend.”
“Yeah, uh huh.”
“Listen this was a bad idea,” the guy lifted his arm, moving to usher him out, “how about we go back out front.”
“Yeah I'd like that but ah, can I get that to go.”
“Yeah sure.”

“So how did you get into this business anyway.”
“Well,” at this, to Rodney's great dismay, the guy stopped seeming to think hard as if it were some long drawn out difficult thing. He set the cup back down, “here why don't you sit.”
Rodney glanced down, all he wanted was a yes or no, a quick answer.

“It won't bite'ch'yeah,” the guy smirked and did this thing with his shoulders all casual looking like he was leaning backwards.

“Ahh.”
“If you want we can go out front but you look like you're about to keel over where you stand.”
“Actually I think I'm about to puke, you got ahh” Rodney pointed and thankfully the guy showed him back into the far reaches of the place. He opened a door and once again it looked far to tight and claustrophobic, like some yacht.

It was a good half an hour before he was able to even show his face again. While losing what he didn't have Rodney realized he was probably going to die and if he was this close to death he might as well feel good for a short amount of time.

He wasn't sure if the pill had come up, it seemed that half of it had but not all of it, whether that was a good or bad thing Rodney wasn't sure.

He wanted to say Chemo and pain pills sucked ass but that's be an insult to ass sucking and really Chemo wasn't anywhere near that nice, or even pleasurable for any party.

Rodney heaved again and spat.

He sneezed despite himself.

“Yeah I-” he waved his hand wishing he had a Kleenex, “I just have allergies.”
The guy's face went worried, “Oh crap, I didn't-” he jumped up opening windows.

Rodney plopped himself down on the couch, “sorry about ah-all...” he waved his hand and then got chocked up. It hit him then that he was about to be forced to apologize to a stranger he'd just met for vomiting in his bathroom. He was so damn sick and now was getting emotional about it, in the worst possible place, at the worst possible time!

God!

He held his face, hiding from it all. Here he was, about to die in the back of a drug dealers wanna be pimped out trailer in the back of a pot store! What a way to go!

“Hey you okay?”

“Do, do ah,”

Rodney heard the guy scrambling around, “do you need me to ah, call a doc. Or, or somethin'?” Rodney caught a glimpse of him wiping his hands on his jeans.

The guy picked it up and brought it over to him.

“Probably cold by now.”
“I don't care I need this stuff right now,” Rodney went to hold it then, “this has pot in it right?” he looked up at the guy.

“Yeah,yeah.” the skinny dealer sat down next to him.

“Thanks,” he went to take the drink but he was still too weak his hands shaking, actually he'd been vibrating at some level the whole day.

“Here.” The guy gingerly thread an arm behind Rodney and held the cup in his other hand. He brought it to Rodney's mouth and tilted it just enough so Rodney could sip out of it.

Ohh … ahh … the liquid was soothing and down right wonderful.

Rodney soaked it in, savoring …

“Ohh yeah,” he sighed when the guy finally drew the cup away.

He noticed he was leaning up against the man and for the first time in … well, his whole life, he felt warm and wrapped in soft fuzziness.

“Oh God that was good.”
“Good?” the guy smiled at him, then shifted looking forwards out the large plate glass window. “Thanks.”
“Huh?” Rodney turned to him.

“I made it,” the guy lifted the cup, showing it off.

“Oh,” Rodney turned away, nodding.

He thought for a bit, his mind wandering off.

He wondered for a minute if the pot would interact with the Chemo and other meds he was already taking, but once again he dismissed it. Granted he'd caved and taken one of the pain meds that morning but it hadn't done one damn bit of good. It was why he was here now.

“Hey?” Rodney said.
“Yeah?”

“What,” John said.
“Oh like John Dough?” Rodney said.
Rodney got what looked like a frown, “No. Like John Sheppard. Why.”
“Sheppard huh.”
“Yeah.”

Rodney thought on that, rolling it around in his mind like candy on his tongue, smooth and buttery.

“I think I like you John Sheppard. I like Sheppard.” he nodded matter of factly.

“Well,” the guy grunted slipping out from underneath him, “thanks.”

Rodney was laid on his side the world going wonderfully soft and puppy like.

Puppies … puppies were so soft, so soft, like kitties … so soft-awesome.

Rodney looked up to see the guy smiling down at him,“what.”
“Puppies huh.”

“What?” Rodney said, the guy-John guy wasn't making sense.

“Just go to sleep.”

“Hey!”
The guy-John stopped.

“What to know my name!?”
“Sure,” the guy smirked down at him, as if he'd said something really funny.

“It's Rodney,” he nodded, “Meredith, Rodney McKay.”
“McKay huh.”
“Yeah. If you wanna befriends-I've never had friends before.”
“Oh you haven't have you.”
“No. I need a friend. Mom-Mom says-she said before she died...” Rodney rubbed his eyes, he was crying again, “She died John! Mom died!”
“I'm sorry buddy,” John petted his head.

“She died and I couldn't save her! And she hated me! And my sister” he sniffed, “My sister she left! She hated me! She was my only friend and she said she never wanted to see me again! Said I was a terrible brother! I couldn't save her! I couldn't I couldn't save her from the bullies! And she said-” he gasped, “she said I was bad and terrible and Mom said too! And she lef-”
“Shh … Shhh....” Rodney felt a weight stroking him, it ran lightly over his head and down his shoulder.

“She left me-turned her back and never looked back!”

“Shhh! SSHHH!!!”

Rodney snuffled and snorkeled, “I need a Kleenex.”

John looked around, worried. “Ahh...” he jumped up and before he came back darkness faded in then over took.

Rodney felt something, pressure wiping-rough on his nose. It hurt, burning sharp and terrible-then nothing.

Rodney was gone.

John stared down at the heap on his couch.

He clutched at the cup in his hand.

It didn't even look like a person was there just a pile of blankets the poor man, Rodney Meredith McKay, was so damn skinny.

“Shit dude,” John tossed the paper towel he had across the room almost hitting the waste basket.

So close but so far, John tried for a smirk but just couldn't bring himself to it.

There was nothing else he could do.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter Summary: Rodney wakes up, or does he.

Posted: Sat. May 24, 2014 Author: GlassesG33k

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

A/N: I just want to say there is such a thing as being allergic to Aspirin and Tylenol. I am and my Dad is. Sadly, I'm also highly allergic to Cannabis /Marijuana, Pot, you know.
Yeah. Genes are great.

So really this has some facts in it, interesting huh. :-)

By the way, there are two websites that I gleamed parts of this chapter from, if you read them you'll see how I incorporated them into this bit of the story.

One is something vitally important and I WISH people had had the curtsey to well, not say the stuff to me that they have. *Steams!* =-(!

Don't Say This to a Cancer Patient

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-duffy/what-not-to-say-to-a-canc_b_3578732.html

“Info.” I based this chapter on

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/chemotherapy-versus-death-from-cancer/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rodney sat, staring at the little piece of paper in his hand. …

“Now you're sure about this.” A Scottish accent cut through his mind.

Rodney blinked, his sight going wavy; he rubbed his itchy stinging eyes. To say the day had not gone well was an understatement. Instead of being able to get an appointment immediately he'd been forced to take any cancellations that might open up. So instead of going straight to the quack's office he'd decided to go ahead and try doing something useful with his day, which meant going to work.

The second he'd gotten in he'd been called to his bosses office and more or less fired. Apparently it was irresponsible of him to order a large amount of expensive items then bugger off and not even answer his phone, as if Rodney didn't know that.

“I believe Zelinka even tried-went over to your place.” He leaned back in his chair seeming to have the upper hand now.

“Yeah well.” Rodney looked off to the side, his mind racing to come up with an appropriate answer.

It had been a tricky and mind bending fight, it was finally at the point where Rodney knew he'd lost that he popped.

“YOU KNOW WHAT!?” Rodney jumped to his feet, “you wanna fire me for having cancer FINE!” he poked his chest.

His boss feigned surprise and shock.

“YOU KNOW IT! EVERYNE KOWS IT!” Rodney ripped his hand through the air to encompass the whole of the school, “DON'T SIT THERE LYING!”
“Lying I'm not-”
“YOU KNEW IT ALL ALONG! YOU'D NEVER APPROVE OF MY SCHEDULE IF YOU WERE IGNORANT! THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE-THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE-YOU CAN'T EVEN LIE! And If You Wanna Fire Me Cause I'm A CORPSE!” he shook livid, “Then go ahead! I'll drag this whole damn institution to hell! And speaking of hell...” he'd gone off there, letting the shit hole know what was wrong with the place and all the items the boss was falling down on the job on.

Of course the guy denied it, blamed most of it on him and who ever else he could, then called security or must have, who knows.

All Rodney knew or cared was that when he was done he turned to leave and there were two campus security guards at the door to escort him off the premises.

Rodney huffed out a half sob and curled in on himself, he now sat in his oncologists office being told to continue with a treatment that was killing him and not even allowed the relief of effective pain killers.

Interesting how it all ends.

The ex-professor winced, he hated it when people used that term, he knew by now though that it was used when someone was getting annoyed and was wanting to be rid of him. He heard the wheels of the doctors chair along the rug, the quac-doctors khaki clad knees came into his peripheral vision. Carson was a man who'd he become fast friends with and found that for the first time in his life, maybe because he was truly at the end of his life, and therefore rope, he trusted the damn guy.

“I know that you're concerned with the mix of chemicals and prolonged effects but-”
“Am I getting better,” Rodney uncurled lifting his head. He sat up and crossed his arms despite how much it nearly killed him. His world whited out but he fought on, not caring that even touching his own skin was like frigid fire, his very pores igniting in searing pain. And this was on top of the overall full body ache he had from the stiff and unmoving muscles, a gift from two days before.

His skin was tender and he could feel the layers underneath the peritoneum or whatever it was 'Carson the Quack' as Rodney was now starting to think of him in his mind, had called it. Apparently the overall membrane that held his skin onto his muscles was slightly inflamed and would get a bit worse before it got better. Rodney had been told to watch it closely and that it was going to take on a bit of fluid. He'd been ordered to come back if anything changed, right now at this point he was wondering if it had all been worth it, the chemo and passing out from weakness and pain.

“Carson do you know what it's like to rupture your esophagus from vomiting? Do you know what it's like to puke up blood and heave so damn hard you can feel your stomach move within you? It damn Jumps up your throat!? You don't! You don't know what pain I'm in!”

The room went eerily silent, as if he'd just trespassed committing a social taboo, something Rodney constantly did but never knew why or how he misspoke when he did such things.

For whatever reason he became angry about the idea of not being allowed the room to screw up.

“Don't. … Just Don't.”

Rodney could feel Carson lean back and stare as if he were mental, it bit right through him.

“Rodney you march in here, demand to see me. My poor secretary goes and makes room which mind you wasn't easy.” Carson shook his finger admonishing, “you demand me to give you pain pills that you can take and then tell me your cutting off your treatment. Now what in the world.”
“I have no money Carson-”
“You do too. Your insurance-” “not anymore.” Rodney mumbled. “-may be givin' ye' trouble but I can fix that.” Carson said.

“Not anymore.” Rodney said.

“What?”

“Carson I'm not getting better-”
“Yes ye' are. Incrementally.” Carson said.
Rodney scoffed and wiped his face; then rolled his eyes and looked to the ceiling.

“It's gradual but there's clear indication that you're getting better,” Carson looked over the charts in his lap.

“So I'm getting better.”

“Aye. An' stopping treatment now would only cause ye' to relapse. The disease would grow exponentially-you wouldn't have six months if ye' stop treatment now.” Carson lifted and dropped his shoulders, he was begging as if he were at the end of his rope.

Rodney looked down at him, if he was going to ask this then now would be the time. “Carson … I'm wondering-*ahem!*” he cleared his throat and sat up, “I'm wondering what you're thoughts on Medical Marijuana are, do you have any kind of medi-scientifically tested knowledge about it.”
“Yes I do.” Carson rolled backwards so he could lean against the far wall. He crossed his arms and glared at Rodney for a good long beat …/, or three. The answer was clear.

“Listen! I'm just wondering what you think of Cannabis for ah” Rodney looked off to the side, cleared his throat again.

“Cannabis for what Rodney,” Carson clicked his pen. Rodney could feel the man's eyes boring into him.

“For ...” Rodney waved his hand. “Well since I can't!” He noticed that he was starting to shake, the whole damn day had been far to long, far to hard on him. That was why he was such a mess right now, running on below empty, no meat on his bones to even keep himself upright any longer. His physical condition was why he was shaking right now, he told himself, that was all. “I can't take regular pain medications, you know that! So I was wondering if the medical community has any kind of knowledge yet in the area of-”
“Rodney.” Carson sighed and slapped the files down on the counter next to him, he rubbed his brow … then rolled close. “I've known you for a good two years now and I can tell somethin' buggin' ye'.”
“Yes! I'm in pain!” Rodney waved his hands.

Rodney looked away, he hated that deep searching stare of Carson's, it gave him the shivers!

“You'll feel better then you are now undergoing the chemo, but this'll only last for a while. And yes, the cancer might shrink,”

Rodney looked into Carson's eyes.

“This can happen.”

“But with mine-my cancer -” Rodney said.

“It more then likely will, but once the chemotherapy course is done,” Carson rolled back his voice going into what Rodney knew all to well, rote recitation of learned facts, teacher mode as he called it. “the patient does feel better because the cancer is no longer causing secondary symptoms and like dominoes the other symptoms being caused by the secondary symptoms are also relieved.”

Rodney hated teacher mode, there was no true learning, no true imagination, no brain power involved. Carson hadn't figured out how or why any of it worked or seemed to care, he was too busy reacting, not thinking and planning a … Rodney searched for the word but couldn't find it, the closest he got was a power plan.

“It's true that more chemo-treatments will make you feel lousy again for a short time. Unfortunately, the additional therapy is necessary to maximize the chance of cure. Disease frequently relapses without additional courses of treatment. Science and clinical trials have told us that.”

Rodney shook his head.

Carson caught his eye and looked right into him, Rodney had the great need to punch the son-of-a-bitch …

Rodney looked away.

“Many now dead patients are proof, an anecdote that is consistent with what science tells us.”

That was a low blow, he knew Rodney was science itself, Carson knew that he breathed, lived, drank science; hell it was the only damn thing that had kept him alive these past … God, was it a full decade now, Shit! Rodney went to grab his head then thought better of it, the pain wasn't worth it.

“Rodney, cancer doesn’t give up. It can’t be bargained or reasoned with. If it's not treated, it'll not stop until you're dead. And it rarely will be a pretty end.”
“Don't patronize me Carson-”
“I'm telling you what you seem to have forgotten about your own health Rodney!” Carson now waved his hands, “I'm trying to give you accurate knowledge of the risks and benefits, which I as a science-based physician-” Rodney scoffed. “-must provide you. If you choose palliation over true scientifically tested cures you'll be condemning yourself to an end far more brutal than's necessary-”

“So vomiting up my own esophagus is less brutal!”Rodney popped, he pocked his chest.
“Your not yet terminal-”
“But I'm getting there!”
Carson threw up his hands, looking skyward, “I donno what to tell ye', you're on the teetering edge right now-if you were te' give it all up then ye'd be giving up on your one best shot!-”
“You say.”
Carson leveled his gaze at Rodney, yes it was a cheap shot and petty Rodney had to admit, not to mention childish.

Rodney shifted looking off to the side, unable to say sorry just yet.

“Rodney propaganda paints chemotherapy as “poison,” radiation as “burning,” and surgery as “slashing”, but these are the best treatments we have thus far!”

“Yeah well, maybe there's better out there-”

“There isn't”

“How do you know that!?”
“Because I've been schooled-”

“Oh yes tell me about that. Tell me about how the institutions of today-their meat market stamp punch outs- I work in the education system Carson! I work there! Don't shove me shit and tell me it's roses! And medicine is a business! It doesn't search for cures anymore, it searches for alleviating symptoms, Not fixing the underlying problem! You know that!”

“Rodney! Without treatment you're dooming yourself to a terrible death!”

Rodney glared hard, “such as passing out in my own feces-having tile marks on my face because I spent a day-a day Carson, on the bathroom floor!?” Rodney shook livid. His one deeply close and trusted friend, the one person he'd allowed get into his very heart was now betraying him when he needed the damn support, the emotional help the most.

It seemed that today no matter what direction Rodney turned a door-hell a wall was slammed in his face. He'd been denied a job or even compensation for all the hard work and years he'd put into that damn facility and now he was being denied his very rights to his own private body.

His say over his very life and the direction it was taking was being cut off in quick order and he didn't like it.

“Rodney you'll have the sort of end untreated cancer patients suffered hundreds of years ago, before there was effective therapy.” Carson whined, actually whined begging, all his fight ebbing away as if he'd given up.

“I couldn't get up! I couldn't move!” Rodney pointed at himself, “I laid there for the rest of the day then had to slither back to bed! I wasn't even able to wash it off Carson!”

Carson patted the air, as if trying to calm a wild animal, “Rodney, the seductive promise of a cure without pain and hair falling out, without nausea lures people, like you,” Carson flapped his hand at Rodney, “to havens of quackery and that's the road I see you going down now.” this time he kept his voice level, quiet; soft. “Rodney if you do this, if you stop treatment, go down this road-

“I have no choice Carson.”

“Yes you do.”

“No I don't.” Rodney said.

“Yes-”

“I lost my insurance-job-Zelinka-my only reason-hell Carson I lost my apartment by now probably!” Rodney didn't know that for sure but by the end of next month if he didn't figure out how to pay rent he'd be out, gone, homeless... and what would it matter, he'd die on the street from cancer eating him alive with nothing but a concrete side walk for his pillow; if he was lucky and wasn't beaten to death first by a band of punk teens. Rodney shook his fist, head bowed, glaring at it.

“Rodney.”

…

“Rodney”

…

“Rodney I didn't know that.”
Silence descended, heavy and un-breathable, he heard the sound of the chair wheels on the carpet, felt Carson draw near.

“I know we are close, do ye' feel that same way?”
Rodney squirmed, unable and unsure how to respond.

“Let me pay for ye' treatment-”
“Wha-”
“Rodney it's only a few more left an' I think you have a chance-”
“Yeah but that won't keep me housed, it won't-”
“I don't know what to do about tha' but ye' need te' finish this.”
Rodney saw a hand appear next to himself, he looked over to see that Carson had put his head on the exam table next to him, his arms crossed pillowing.

“Rodney dying from untreated cancer is terrible and I don't want you to endure tha.”

Carson looked up into his eyes and clicked his pen.

He actually seemed serious, and suddenly distant now. … Rodney frowned, it was odd, like some wall had come down.

“Rodney, Untreated cancer can mean a bowel obstruction. It can mean having a nasogastric tube to drain your digestive juices to prevent you from throwing up.”

“I wish I had a tube to keep me from puking.” Rodney said.

“It can mean bleeding because you don’t have enough platelets to clot. Ye' can bleed inte' the brain-a hemorrhagic stroke.”
Rodney crossed his arms, this was sounding far to astronomical to be real and Carson's attitude only enforced that. His disbelieving haughtiness, as if he knew better.

“Yes but worse then this Rodney! To the point where you're unable to get outta bed!”

“Yes it can Rodney and I'm trying to give you the best possible outcome-choice … Rodney …” Carson rolled away putting more then just emotional distance between them. It was as if Carson had suddenly cut himself off, as if he'd been told that Rodney was dead already and he was now speaking to a … an android, a corpse; a ghost even! It was terrible and odd. “Alright, I know ye'r depressed an' a bit upset-”
“I'm upset! Lookit yourself!” Rodney waved his hand over Carson.

Rodney didn't like it, it felt like being manhandled.

“Rodney I'm ye' friend and … I ...” he clasped his hands and looked off to the side, “I feel very close te' ye' … and since I do I'm going te' be blunt. Ye' need-I think ye' need counseling right now-”
Rodney grabbed at his head, once again realized there wasn't hair there so he wrung what little skin he had and breathed … just breathed for the life of him-and did his damnedest not to scream.

“Ye' in denial-”
Rodney made a noise, couldn't help it, thankfully Carson ignored it.

“Carson.”
“I'm going to write a contract for pain medication and I want ye' te' sign it.”
“Carson.”
“What.”

Rodney liked Carson because he was so darn straight forward, he'd liked the guy for that, maybe it was something about being Scottish, he didn't know. But right now the damn quack was really pissing him off.

“Rodney if you're going to be relieved of the symptoms you're suffering from then that requires you to actually accept treatment.”

“Carson … “ the fight left him, Rodney had had enough, “Carson I can't. … I just can't.”

“Rodney I know what ye've been through and I know how horrible it is,-”
“Oh really? Have you had cancer Carson?”
Carson's mouth snapped shut and he froze, he leaned back then rolled away, near the wall. He looked right at Rodney. “God doesn't give you a cross you can't bear.”

Rodney pressed his mouth tight, he shook his fist. He'd heard this one, one to many times.

One to many, and to have it coming from Carson of all people now. Someone who was able to insult and harm him in the most personal, private and intimate ways this one really took the cake.

“Carson.” He kept his voice as level as possible.

Waited till Carson actually responded.

It was pissing him off that Carson was waiting as well, on what.

Rodney looked up, his sight pinning Carson to the damn wall. The fucker wasn't giving, just sat there his gaze level, brow in that dead pan neolithic stare.

Rodney had to remind himself that only the most simple flunkies were allowed a Medical degree, and really at this point why was he wasting his time arguing with someone who was too simple to even comprehend his argument much less his side of the conversation. This whole thing was a practice in insanity, repeating an action that turned up the same result, over and over and over again.

“Did you ever think-just hear me out Rodney,” Carson patted the air with one hand.

Rodney was instantly reminded of a show he'd passed while flipping the channels. It was one of the programs he stayed far away from, the jokes being political and just nuts, but the image he caught was shocking, and he thought at the time, had explained the show and it's opinions well. The picture was of a small bat with a tin-foil hat on. The image was introducing a segment called “Bat Shit Serious” or “Insane”, either way the coined term was clear, what Rodney saw at this point mirrored that exactly. Carson's words matched what that little voice over for the small animal said, “Now just hear me out” before it took a dump on the words.

Rodney smelled a dump of biblical proportions coming on.

“Could this be that this might be part of God's bigger plan for ye'? Maybe it's a test, a learning lesson.”
Rodney clamped down on his explosion … he breathed in

…

and again.

…

and again.

“What?” Carson rocked forward his arms crossed tight around himself, as if he was the one needing protection.

“Have you been ill.”
“Yes Rodney I hav-”
“Have you been Cancerous.”

Carson merely pressed his lips tight together.

…

“Yes. Well. Have you ever had Cancer.”
Rodney waited. … he drummed his fingers on his leg feeling the bone there, no muscle, just his fingers-bone tips hitting his femur.

“No. I haven't.” Carson mumbled, he leaned back shifting uncomfortably, messing with the flaps of his coat. “but I don't want ye' te' give up on me. I've been wrokin'-fightin' hard right along side ye' with-in this-”
“Oh have you. Have you been vomiting blood with me. Have you been up all night as I've lost weight from sweating pain alone?”

Carson didn't answer.

“I think that the reason you're trying to convince me to keep on this damn regimen is because you're in cahoots-” “Cahhots?”Carson said. “-with a drug company or the hospital itself-”
“No.” Carson partially stood, adjusted his white coat and sat down.

“-and it would hurt your reputation,” Rodney said.

“Rodney there's no such thing as dying healthy, that's a lie-” Carson mumbled so quiet Rodney couldn't catch it.
“What!?”

Carson huffed out a defeated sigh instead, “Rodney I know you're feelin' ill and the Chemo will take your energy and strength away but-”

“My condition may be better but I'm feelin' worse Carson.”

“Right now you're a bit depressed-”
“A lot worse-What!?”

Carson stopped, thankfully, Rodney really didn't need this right now.

Rodney shifted and looked at the worthless prescription in his hand, “right,” he glared at Carson, “here,” and shoved the damn worthless piece of paper at the quack.

“Rodney you need-”
“I need help. You can't give me that.” he slid off the table and went for his jacket, he was cold despite the fact that it was a good 70 Degrees Fahrenheit out, even more indoors.
“The treatments-”
“Are worthless.”

“Rodney what's gotten into you.”
“Truth.”

“What!?” Carson gasped, as if exasperated and unable to believe what he'd just heard, as if Rodney was suddenly a mad man.

“You heard me.” Rodney shoved his arms into his jacket and opened the door. “Oh and there is such a thing as a cross bigger then you can bear, it's called death, that's a cross bigger then you can bear! And illness that kills you! Anything that kills you is something bigger then you can bear!”

He left with out a glance back.

Posted: Sun. May 18^th, 2014 Author: GlassesG33k

Chapter Rating: PG-13
Word Count:7,050
Cross-posted: http://glassesg33k.livejournal.com/http://glassesg33k.dreamwidth.org/

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

By the way (BTW) I've made all the food stuff here, just as stated and it really tastes GOOD, I suggest trying it. Ask me for my recipes if you want ;D!

Chapter 9

Degrees of Discrimination

Kinsey the main co-worker Ford dealt with and the person who doled out his orders for him to deliver had screwed up, or that's what he'd thought. Entering the Farmacy there had been three orders on the counter, usually he'd have five to deliver for the whole day. He had one client for his morning run before his classes started, or that was before the whole local news thing had aired.

When Ford had come into the shop he found that it was well liked, the whole place being packed, customers getting their daily rations before work. He hadn't been in early since his last run which was a good week ago so he was surprised to find that it was so full this early in the day. At the moment though he was in too much of a hurry to care, he needed to get his one pre-dawn order before heading out. When he'd found the three deliveries waiting for him he'd gone in search of Kinsey; that was when he learned that the shop, being under such strain, had hired quite a number of new people, one of them being his new “dole-girl” as the title was named. She was the one in charge of doling out his “run” or “outside” orders he had to deliver. Ford had argued with her and found out that ever since the whole Late Night News with the local anchor had aired all Friendly shops had become so over run that they were having to send clients to competitors.

The new girl had also warned him that he was well known now and had supposedly become somewhat of a “celebrity”.

Either way, instead of having the one, hour long drive to the old man's house he was now stocked with two other orders that would take a good thirty to forty-five minutes a piece just to get it out to the waiting customers.

By the time Ford got back to the shop to check in before he headed out to his classes he was shoved one last order and it was also a half hour long drive. He nearly shrugged off his classes for the day but managed to get in to the beginning of his second class at the last minute.

By four o'clock when he was finally heading back to the Farmacy after a long day in school he was wiped out and just wanted to crash for the evening.

The day had not gone well and being recognized by a few of his clients and a couple of kids at school didn't help his mood any. It was nice but weird to have total strangers point and call out to you, a few even ran up smelling of pot, wanting an autograph. Far worse was the numerous people who walked up talking and using his name as if they knew him well and were old friends.

*shudder!*

That one really creeped him out.

Then there were the ones who thought that merely through talking to him they could get some kid of a “good deal” on god knows what. He tried to dissuade them, let them know that he was no one special and he couldn't help them, or didn't know them at all; it didn't seem to make a difference though, they all wanted something from him.

He'd also gotten plenty of new hate and slurs thrown at him, now with the added benefit of “pot head” or “druggie” thrown in.

The only upswing that day had been his new GoogleGlass equipment. He had signed up hopeful and had thankfully been chosen to be a first line BETA tester. Ford liked new technology and was always trying to get his hands on the most cutting edge items being released to the public. Before he decided to go into law he had been studying to go into the field of computer programming and animatronics/robotics. He'd only managed to get a double bachelors in that though. It was because of this and his love for technology that his older clients had nick named him “gadget guy”. To Ford though all the new technology and knowledge was just normal everyday life. Yes it made certain things far easier but overall it was just the way the world worked.

It was kinda fun to try out the new “toys” and see if they were worthwhile; work out the kinks before anyone else dealt with them. This helped when his friends would complain about some item not working or were having a hard time assimilating the new technology. Ford could let them know how to deal with certain issues and what the new stuff was capable and not capable of. He could let them know how things were set up and functioned with the new equipment since he'd already had to deal with it or fix or figure out whatever problem it was.

When it came to the older generations, usually the clients that he served, they would be lonely and would always be wanting to talk, and since Ford was a bit shy it was a good place to start a conversation, everyone wanting to know about the stuff he had on him. The older people were always curious about what new phone he had or what “new finagled kind of techno-thingy” he was sporting. He'd usually come in and hang out for a few minutes giving them updates on his life or on what he was messing with or had discovered. He'd even had fairly long talks introducing his clients to all the “neat new things” and how to use the equipment.

When signing up to test GoogleGlass he let the company know this and told them that many of his customers, after talking to him, would eventually end up buying many of the new items he had shown off. He'd even introduced old Mr. Phil, his ancient 6 a.m. client he delivered to before the work day started, to many new things. It was a shock when one morning the old guy had excitedly ushered Ford into his house and shown him his new Apple I-Pad. They'd talked for a good hour then and Ford had shown him all kinds of things the item could do, mostly all basic stuff. He'd helped the poor old guy out on necessary items even telling him about how to connect to something “new and extraordinary called the internet”, Ford had to really work to suppress his chuckling smile on that one. He was taken aback when the old guy told him that he was having a business come over later on that week to install “a new in-teerr-net or ... whatever,” the old guy had waved his hand sighing tiredly as if it were some great burden learning this new stuff. Ford had to hold back the all out laugh at that point and offered to, after classes, come back around for a few days and help the old guy out. Phil was more then grateful and granted it wasn't that much fun but the old guy was so much like a grandfather Ford was glad to spend a bit of extra time with him.

After class Ford had raced home, he'd gotten a text telling him the new equipment had arrived and that Google had someone waiting for him. He let the Google-Guy know that he had to get to work and was in a hurry. Despite this he ended up having to spend the better part of an hour and a half finding out all the new stuff, how it all worked and how to do basically everything. By the time he got to work he was yelled at by the new girl who'd just started then the lower manager reamed him out. On top of this he had ten orders, ten; each and every one taking 25 to 30 minutes just to get the item out to the customer which meant that every order would take a good 45 minutes to an hour or close to it, without traffic. Ford shook his head and after the gryping he got he took his first order and went straight over to John's place.

John plopped down gasping and wincing from the terrible pain. His hips and legs were bugging him again, his lower back screaming out in agony. He'd had a long hard three days and things weren't getting any easier.

After far to long the pain subsided enough for him to have his brains back. He looked over the mess of paperwork and other items on his desk and started to seriously calculate upping his prices just to get some of the customers to go away.

John's place had been so damn over run no one had, had enough time for so much as a bathroom break. First thing yesterday the doors were being pounded on a good two hours before the shop was scheduled to open. Once again John had freaked going for his gun, this time positive that a mob was after his shop, that public opinion had suddenly turned and his place was one of the first few to be torn down.

It was only now, thinking back on it that he suddenly realized, he kept waiting for everything to turn and become like Afghanistan.

John leaned back putting his arms behind his head, he looked up at the ceiling, why would he be thinking like that!?

…

It was because the atmosphere was feeling like that.

Tense to the point of popping.

Everyone was against each other pointing fingers of blame at the very people next to them, refusing to let by goens be by gones, forgive or just plain walk away. Everyone was taking issue with the smallest most mundane things, refusing to admit that everything was either created by or run by humans and people as a whole and individually make mistakes, screw up; sometimes in small ways and areas, sometimes in huge ways and areas.

And the whole justice system was beyond gone, run by criminals for criminals, innocent victims and bystanders were being arrested, blamed for the very crimes committed against them. Their side of the story was not being told and if they were allowed a voice at all their side was spoken against and made out to be a lie or at best questionable. Even people who stopped to try and help those who were being hurt, burglarized and the like were arrested or turned into a “criminal” in the police departments eyes. Someone who stopped by to help would be taken in simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, blamed for something they had noting to do with. Their acts of good punished and their lives, names, reputations ruined simply because they saw a victim and could not stand by and let them be hurt, robbed or what have you.

It was these two things right there that made the very air vibrate with nearly igniting rage, just like over in the Arab countries.

John shifted testing his hip and legs, not yet; couldn't move just yet.

And with the legal arrest system now being a business, where cops had to arrest more on this day then they did on the exact same day the year before, and more then they did the year before that; a whole system made to up the number of arrests while causing the true-real criminals to go free. The situation was so skewed that when say, a real criminal turned themselves in, which is the point it had gotten too, the cereal murderer or what have you was not touted as “we got our man!” but hidden away; slipped quietly into the prison system, under far lesser charges. Instead of being put away for life he's in for say, bad parking tickets, or some other rot. And instead of having no parole he's let out after a good say five to seven years. While someone else who merely tried to stop and help a poor old African American lady who'd been mugged was put away in jail for life, without parole; simply because he was being a good Samaritan.

John shook his head, it was terrifying, truly horrendous and unbearable!
“Ahhhooff!” John wiped his face tilting his chair back to stare at the ceiling.

… Poverty was increasing, hopelessness was increasing, and everyone had such differing beliefs, attitudes, ideas.

And in this vacuum, this division being created was a hole that allowed extremists to pop up and flourish like weeds, and not just any old weeds. It was just like over in the dessert countries, where everyone was nuts … maybe it was the heat, maybe the heat made everyone go absolutely insane.

John looked over at his on the wall electronic thermometer that gave the inside and outside, temperatures, humidity and air pressures. The weather had been doing oddball things and that was another argument, it was clearly getting hotter but anything that could be done would merely slow down the heating process now, not stop it. John stared, dead tired having not slept for a good three days really. He'd gotten cat naps and snippets of snoozes here and there but he'd been having to work straight day and night since that damn T.V. show had aired.

God damn those darn reporters and the local news station! He plopped his chair down and sighed. It was barely 3:00 p.m. and he really needed to eat something, yeah it'd been bad to slink off home after being overrun, letting his employees deal with it all but it soon became too much.

John got up gasping and wincing, he limped over to his fridge seeing what he could do in the line of food for himself; not much, he looked at one pitiful bit of Ramen …

It was a still sealed uncooked plastic rectangle of “Chicken Flavor Yakisoba with Japanese Noodles”, why he had it in his fridge he didn't really care at the moment he was just glad it was there. He managed to find some chicken bullion and fairly good celery and green onions. He set to work scrubbing and chopping everything up. He put the veggies, bullion and all in the microwaveable container and filled it to the line with water from a water-bottle, then stuck it all in to nuke. While waiting he looked around and managed to find some possibly not too old Spring Rolls in the freezer that he'd gotten a while ago, finger food for one of his last meetings here. One of the perks to having your office in your home was that if anyone needed anything they could just get it easy and the leftovers were his to eat. John warmed up three spring rolls in his toaster oven and held the dipping sauce packet between his hands, trying to thaw it while he waited for his stuff to finish.

John leaned against the counter his mind instantly going back to what he'd been concentrating on.

One of the problems was that the side that had the most power was fighting the hardest and the loudest, saying they were morally upright and were of God and religious and, or family values. Just like the extremists over in the other countries where women couldn't drive and had to wear burkas. Their countries had become so morally upright that it wasn't even safe for women to walk the streets alone any longer, much less go anywhere without the aid of a man.

These groups in the U.S. were much like the ones over there, promising through many and various means, even the magical act of, “being right with God” that the whole of the nation would be well again, but what did they mean by well?

They always left it hanging and never answered it, they just kept harping on the same stuff and never once said anything like everyone having the money and the means to support themselves-their families. They just kept saying that the whole nation needed to “turn back to God again” and magically if everyone did this these politicians, public speakers, groups, etc. said, “everything would be good again, like it was …” but, like it was when?

John had always wondered about that, what all these people; senators, representatives, preachers and the like meant by that, it had never made sense.

John figured to say that things were good back in the day was to look at the past with a tainted eye and not admit to all the greatly controlling, large to minute problems that had existed back then. Even looking to the future is a form of escapism and yes it's nice to imagine but really it does no good, unless Oprah was right and imagining your future really did cause it to become reality.

The whole point had become to en-mass as much money as possible and the hell with everyone else, either let the other guy suffer, hurt them or even prevent the opposition from also succeeding. And that was the other problem right there, everyone was pitted against each other, no one was helping each other out. No one was coming together even in small groups to protect and defend each other, the only ones coming even close to that were the terrifying groups, neo-natzis, KKK, and others.

John found some marshmallows and butter, his cereal cabinet had Rice Krispies … Nutella.

Maybe that was why these groups were gaining so much ground now, it was he only place, like street gangs where you could actually manage some kind of protection, a slight hint of clearly false safety, even if it was tentative.

Of course the once well organized groups seem far more, well, “safe” then something as wild and nutty as a street gang; but John had never been a part of either so really he had no idea, and he didn't want to have any idea either.

John managed to hop over to his stove and took out a large pot and a nice large pan. He greased the pan then took the rest of the butter and put it in the pot turning the stove on low. He took out a spoon watching, hypnotized as the butter melted …

There was no upward mobility anymore, anywhere; heck John had to add on the Cannabis and open a Friendly shop just in order to hawk his goods, there was no way anyone would have come by-heck he'd been told not to waste his money on a sub-shop or even a soup and sub shop. You could no longer work for a business anymore and expect loyalty, in any way shape of form. You couldn't work for a company your whole life any longer, it was not only unheard of it was seen as downright wrong, almost illegal. Yet the whole of the U.S. was set up so that you were forced to open your own business instead of work for someone else. And for little shops like John's if you tried starting a small business more likely then not you were going to fail, your very investments, retirement even house and car being ripped away in order to pay for your companies debts, and there were no laws against this, protecting one or even more time business owners from such things. If the business did survive it couldn't grow, even now John was fighting, cutting prices close to the line just to get products off the shelf and sold in time. He was doing his best just to make ends meet and not close shop.

John rubbed his face, “Blah!” and shook himself trying to wake up, the butter was nearly burning and he grabbed the mini-marshmallows, quickly dumping in the whole bag, no measuring, into the pot. He stared nearly drifting off again, he really needed to change the way things were run around here. John stirred going through the steps of making Rice Krispies treats, it was methodical and helped in some way John couldn't put his finger on, like walking. Just moving and doing something that took little to no thought helped, as if his body needed to work out the problems for him, it also helped keep himself awake. After a bit John was able to pour and spread the gooey substance, he licked and ate up the scraps enjoying every bit of it.

When he was done he cleaned everything up even going so far as washing and drying it all, there was no real reason to put anything in the dishwasher. John looked down at the thing, so far he'd barely used it, the appliance only being run when he had guests over the night or day before. He barely ever got the ability to be in his own house he was so busy with his job-his shop.

Thinking about that brought him back to what he'd been contemplating earlier.

Those in power now no matter what party they represented were willing to pass any laws and do whatever it took to get a larger pay check and en-mass as much money as they could, causing poverty to increase. And because of their evil, their conscious being riddled with guilt they were seeing everyone and thing as enemies, seeing any kind of dissent as a threat to their word, authority, power or their money, etc. And their way of thinking, like mold on food or a blood disease was spreading and quickly, eating up the rest of the nation; it was terrible.

John sat down to his now late lunch it being four o'clock.

“Ahh,” he inhaled the fumes; fast, easy and so cheap it's crappy food, where would he be without it. John smiled to himself and pulled the top off his noodles the darn things still steaming hot, he folded them over, stirring to make sure everything was incorporated well. John dug into his spring rolls first and was glad that they weren't as terribly hot. As he ate he kept thinking and realized that really the current problem was that the side that had all the say wasn't letting the other side be heard much less have their ideas be done. They weren't even allowing pockets of dissenting opinions and life styles to exist. They were out to, “tear down the opposition” as they themselves had said. They were radical, refusing to give or compromise at all; even giving up any pretense of playing fair with any kind of opposition. (Heck they'd just taken out one of their own with a bridge debacle since he wasn't a radical like them and had a chance of being voted into office by the very opposite party.) In the 80's and even 90's lip service, which was just as bad, would have been applied liberally like a slave to help an especially nasty jagged pill go down smoothly, and compromise was big but now, now everyone and thing was in absolutes, there was no compromise especially with the side that thought God was on their side.

It was just like Afghanistan, the parties in power were spouting religious or moral absolutes, saying they were in the right, and the peoples rights were being ripped away. Everywhere John looked he saw people being oppressed and on the verge of doing something, anything, to relieve their pain, their daily-weekly-monthly torture.

The worst part was that the religious, the “morally upright”, the ones who were shouting the loudest and making the most fuss were also the ones inciting and igniting upset and chaos; they were poking, tilting, pushing everyone and thing to the edge of rioting, it was terrible.

John pulled at his chin itching the stubble there, he would have to shave when he was done with dinner, or lunch whatever he as having now. It didn't take too long and John was done, he took care of the recyclables and trash then sat down to have one last treat, a Rice Krispies Treat, yumm! He took the Nutella and cut the gooey stuff into skinny perfect finger food type bars. He popped the jar open and dipped the sugary bar into the Nutella, savoring the pick me up.

“Mmmmuugh!” God it was good!
When he was done he got up going to shave. Thankfully his office was also his house so scrubbing up was no big deal. It felt great to be able to have meetings right in his living room, the atmosphere calming him down and letting him know if any clients were a good match. So far it had helped him get some pretty close friends, most would come over to do work and would end up staying for a long time enjoying his company.

Granted it was a cheap shot, doing what he could through business to get friends and companions, or at least people to hold a few light conversations with.

When he got out he dried off and collected his old clothes then got sucked into straightening out his place.

John pulled at his chin then winced at the sting, he went and slathered chap stick on … God what a relief! Afterwards he looked down and almost tried to do his whole body but then thought better of it. He went in search of his lotion, scrounging around but wasn't able to fin any, he wondered if he ever had any to begin with. John righted himself his back giving out a sharp pain, “Gaw!” He winced and started shuffling back over to his kitchen chairs when his back door, or was it technically his front door he could never really figure that out, was knocked on.

John made his way over and was surprised to see Ford there, it was a bit early but it was also odd for John to not be in the shop at this time of day. John opened the door after stepping back from the pep hole, Ford had probably been out front asking for him.

“Hey.” John smiled at the kid-guy, he had to remind himself that Ford was a young man and not a little brother or kid sibling. The youth had always struck John as his responsibility and therefore his closest friend. He was one of the first few people John had taken into his heart, as much as he denied it. … John had learned the value of keeping everyone at arms length and not letting anyone in or close. If people got close they died, or hurt you in one way or another, either way it was best to stay away even if you were in close physical proximity.

John looked Ford over, “What's that on your-”
“Oh! It's GoogleGlass! Here!” the kid-man, young man, John remained himself again, popped the glasses off his face and started to shove them onto his head.

“Here-wait!” John took them and put them on.

“Okay see the...” Ford went through everything showing off his neat new toy. John was thrown off but it kinda impressed him. At the moment it seemed more gimmicky then anything else but he could definitely see how wiring up his shop and passing these out to all his employees could really make things faster and easier for everyone. Heck, they wouldn't even have to text each other they could just send a video or audio feed and ask directly, even if they were on the other side of the state.

“Wow.”
“Yeah! Isn't it great man! Here-gimmeit.” Ford wiggled his fingers getting John to disengage.

John chuckled and handed it back.

“Yeah-well, this just came today,” Ford deflated and he looked down.

“Dude...” Ford bit his lips together and looked up, he wasn't sure how to ask this one … wow must be pretty heavy.

“Here sit.” John pulled out a chair but Ford hesitated, “have you been getting more customers then usual lately?” Ford lifted his head and the glasses in his hand as if reaching out to John.

“Here, sit down,” John patted the table top, “sit down.” he winced at his own voice, he sounded like his mother, God. He couldn't help it, Ford, despite his age; he just brought out something in John, he couldn't help himself. No matter when or where if Ford needed him or wanted help John would drop what he was doing and try to fix whatever problem the poor kid had. He got very protective and parental around the young man and … well, it was just darn weird, John leaned back frowning at himself, at a loss. He'd never felt like a parent before and had never wanted kids, he didn't have the patience for them and was too darn selfish to spend all his now extremely precious energy, time and strength on caring for a kid; but Ford, Ford … it was odd, his very mind and, it was like body-his biology made an exception for him. He didn't know why, there as just no reason for it; unless he was longing for that which he had never had, what his brother did have; a happy family. John had the joy of witnessing his brother's home, his three kids and wife interacting-loving eachother and each others company; how they hadn't fought and hated-despising each other like John and his siblings had when they were growing up.

No.

No it seemed that John's brother had a very healthy, happy family life and John had terribly been on the outside of it. The whole time John had been living with his brother, which was only a few months, he'd not been allowed to be a part of his brother's family, to truly get close, interact; to be a part of it. It'd been terrible, like being on the outside of a glass wall, his face pressed tightly against the impenetrable division as if he could, through osmosis or some chemical or other means, inhale; imbue the acceptance and caring he saw there and was not allowed to be a apart of; to have.

It was like John was trying to draw in, through the very invisible wall the love he needed so badly and just wasn't allowed to imbue.

John shook himself, trying to come back to the here and now; at least he had figured out the reason that he was doting on his friend so much, he was trying to create a family in whatever means and ways possible. John shook his head again coming back to the conversation at hand.

“Sorry what?”
Ford looked at him, “I donno what to do.”

“You said ten orders?”
“Yeah, on top of the five I had this morning.”
“Crap.” John pulled at his chin. It was against Federal law to have more then one ounce of marijuana in your possession so the carriers or “delivery boys” could only process one order at a time, if they were pulled over carrying even a millionth of an ounce more then they'd be in federal prison for life, no parole. John wagged his head, the laws were just plain ridiculous, they needed to be overturned, wiped away, it was impeding business. Heck it was the main reason he'd decided to not allow deliveries, carry out or even a dive through window, which would have been an option if he'd chosen the store on the end of the strip mall. The whole thing was literally prohibition all over again and it was just plain wrong, ruining lives for no reason, creating gangs and danger-deaths everywhere. Heck prohibition was the reason gangs had taken a hold so well and thoroughly in America at the turn of the century and it was the same now, with the pot and drug wars. It was literally creating and fueling the problem, the cops, judges and whole system created the problem and then cleaned it up, they got you coming and going it was terrible.

If things were going to really get cleaned up then instead of making drugs illegal it should be legalized and strongly taxed and regulated, with in and inch of it's life. John knew that if you truly wanted to kill something then just tax the hell out of it, the taxes made the item unsavory for businesses and the customers, causing everyone to go elsewhere, or just do without. And in the mean time the local and surrounding economies got rich off the tax money, overall it was a win situation, there was so lose. Money would be coming in, people wouldn't be overdosing from “hot hits”, or items that killed being mixed into something that should be safe and mundane. Gangs would be instantly eliminated, no more killings over something as small and worthless as a “dime of …” well anything.

And best of all anyone who had a problem with drugs, addiction, all the money could go to much needed rehab centers and shrinks, along with helping people reconstruct their lives and get on their feet. A boom of jobs would be created and the states would have a surplus of money, which could go to the poor and jobless, even homeless.

More then likely though all the money and tax revenue would only end up lining those in power's pockets, representatives, senators, governors and everyone else with a big title or on the take in the state capitols. … Really there could be a lot said for keeping money out of their hands and pockets. Heck they were already being paid far to much, voting in easily and smoothly their own pay hikes, raises and vacations; while they cut everyone else's pay and eliminated vacation time. The state lottery that had just recently been instituted not five years ago now, instead of it going to the schools like it was supposed to, or even the winners, it was going to legislators pockets, not even one child had been helped by that money.

John shook his head.

“Hey man.” Fords voice broke in.
“Huh?” John looked over at his young friend.

“What's wrong?”
“What?”

“You've been really distant tonight, what's wrong?”
“Oh!” John stretched popping his shoulders and shifted, “ohhh...” he scratched, “I guess … I'm just too darn tired. Sorry man.” he rubbed his face.

“No what's goin' on.”

John looked up, Ford's face was full of concern. A chuckle popped out, John couldn't help it, he was shocked to find his own concern, his own words thrown back at him, Ford was mirroring him exactly, it was so darn odd! He smiled large and wide despite himself, “it's okay, it's okay. I'm just tired and my minds running,” he motioned with his hand, “you know how it is when you get tired, trying to solve all the worlds problems in one night.” He looked at Ford, smirking wide.

“Ahh...” Ford nodded, frowning and clearly lost.

“My own shop has been over run, everyone's coming in at once. Hell!” John sat up, “I was just thinking how I could up the prices just enough to convince a few customers to go elsewhere,” he smirked.

“Yeah I had no idea-you know it was cause of that damn New Local News thing?”
“Yeah that's what I heard-” John said.
“Everyone was calling my name when I got to school,” Ford said.
“Really?”
“Yeah! Hell one of my teachers even called me out, said that 'Mr. Celebrity was here-too important to get to class on time.' ”

“Shit-head,” John said.

“I'll say,” Ford said.

Ford got to the shop and swung by John's place to see if there was anything he could do for him. He usually stopped by to try and lend a hand but today things had been so bad and rushed that instead of helping he ended up getting help. He was glad for it and talked for a bit with John Sheppard the shop owner, letting the guy know about his troubles and getting some good advice, it really soothed his nerves and upped his spirits a lot.

“I donno I had no idea.” Adrian Ford ran his fingers over his hair, he sat hugging the back of a turned around chair tilting it as John sat opposite him and leaned back in his own hard wooden seat.

“Yeah I'm kinda surprised, here I thought yesterday was a fluke-my new creation actually was that good. I had no idea.”
“Yeah well, I just found out about it today.”
“From who,” John said.
“Amy,” Ford said.
“Who's-”
“She's helping out Kinsey, just got hired, they measure out the items and set stuff up to be sent out,”Ford said.
“Oh. Huh. How many orders-”
“Ten man!”
“Ten!?”
“Yeah! I had four this morning and then I came in tonight and they had ten waiting for me and-”his pocket buzzed. Ford picked it up looking at the text and typing. “I got five more-what the crap.”
“Dude.”
“Yeah I'll say.” Ford finished his response and huffed shoving the phone back into his pocket. “I told them I'm in college-I took the job cause it would allow me to study.”
“Yeah I know...” John pinched his lips together biting and twisting them. “Have you asked them to hire on more-”
“No an' I don' dare-”
“Why not.” John nonchalantly shrugged, he leaned back playing it cool.

“Cause...” Ford gave him a look.

“How about I try talking to 'em,” John shrugged again as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

“Please?”
“Yeah sure.”
“I was actually wondering if I could come work for you-I need ta' sleep.” Ford stood up and turned the chair around sliding it so that it was put away.

“Actually!” John stood himself stretching, “I'd like that.” John walked around his kitchen table and patted Ford on the shoulder, “If it gets to be too much you can come work for me okay?” He squeezed and smiled big and genuine at Ford.

Ford smiled back, “alright man, thanks.” He nodded and grabbed John the both giving each other big manly back pats.

“I gotta go man.”
“Alright. Drive-”
“You really gonna open another store?”
John paused and leaned back, “I donno.”
Ford waited a beat.

“I donno... I'll think about it.” John stepped back patting Ford's back.
“Well, we could really use it around here.”
“Well,” John chuckled, “if you come to work for me then you'd be my tech guy, not a runner.”
“That's great!” Ford beamed at him, he loved technology, “well, I gotta go.” It was already a good hour and a half gone and if he didn't hurry he wouldn't get the one order out that he had with him. Ford knew when he got into work that evening that there was no way all the orders were going to be delivered tonight. There was a nine o'clock cut off point when the store wouldn't deliver to customers homes after that hour and with how many deliveries he'd been handed Ford would have had to work all night just to get them filled.

There was just no way at all.

“Alright. Drive safe Adrian.”

“I will. Thanks John.”
“You're welcome.” John smiled at him, Ford could feel John watch him as he left.

Title: Oil Chapter Title: Chapter VII- SEVEN

Disclaimer: Refer back to the top of the page on the Prologue or First Chapter, here: http://glassesg33k.livejournal.com/

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

A/N2: Some incidents occurred and I have a few announcements to make.

I didn't want to address this but needs to be dealt with.

I have a dear and close friend who is going through some very tough medical things right now and needs my help. Because of my own struggles with depression and the slight falling out I had with her upon finding out how ill she really is I did not write for a while on this story. New events have caused me to pick it back up here, mainly the greatly encouraging comments, though they may be few they were what I needed to continue.

Thank you all, it's amazing how such a small thing can help out so much :-) X's and O's to all of you :-) But because of this for the next 3-5 weeks I'll be posting only on the weekends, so check in every Sat. and Sun. for updates and most of that will more then likely be PWP items.

I desperately NEED everyone's encouragement and comments on what I post here and on these items especially. I'm an A-Sexual and have studied sex and all the stuff that goes with it. I am now trying my best at “applying” what I have learned and the first step is writing about it. (Like a paper at the end of college, the first step is writing.) So PLEASE let me know if I am getting it right.

Let me know if what I am writing is enjoyable and if you feel so inclined what I may have written correctly or you loved the most. If anyone has any critiques at all then PLEASE I BEG of all of you to LET ME KNOW. Only through criticism will I grow as a writer and I DESPERATELY NEED THIS. (Unfortunately everyone seems to rather like being mute or praising, which I'm more then for. ;-D, the praising that is, I NEED the ego boost to say the least, but it also doesn't help me grow. :-/! )

Anyway, that's it.

PLEASE show your support for my writing by clicking the Kudos button or better yet letting me know what you liked about it, or how it made you feel. :-)

Every comment, share, like etc. etc. is a BIG Pick-Me-Up for TactlessTruth ( and me =-) ) so PLEASE show your support by reading this fiction and spreading the word to any and all communities and people who might like to read it also.

Thank You and may you be blessed =-)

G.G. =-)

When John got to the door he found it was only one skinny ill looking middle aged man. He was hunched, drawn and bald, his eyes deep in his sockets and dark as if he hadn't slept for a whole lifetime or longer. He was pale and shook like he had some muscle disorder, his fist knocking on the metal part of the door. John couldn't tell if he was purposefully pounding away or if the man was unable to control his movements, his hand jerking despite himself.

John walked up to the door, the man babbling so fast he was incoherent, and unlocked it doing his best to be polite.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I need ...” this actually gave the guy pause, he licked his lips his mouth hanging open for all of a few seconds. John could see that his teeth weren't perfect, one overlapping another and his top teeth, there was a bit of a gap there; not as big as Letterman's but it was still present.

“I donno what I need, just give me something I'm about to die here!” the guy waved his hand and bent his head more or less ramrodding his way past John and into the shop.

“Ahh, actually were close-”
“You're sign says open till ten or are you deaf and blind-” the guy pointed, “and I'm not about to be refused simply because I don't have some quacks card stating that I need the shit you sell here. And since it's now free a for all I suggest you pony up!”

John blinked and put his hands up taking a step backwards, “ahh,” he didn't know if this was a robbery but that sure sounded like it.

After a few seconds the guy actually shuffled over to a seat and plopped down deflating as he did so.

“Oh my God!” he rubbed his back, “do you know how long-I can't believe I can't stand up for a measly ten minutes now with out-” he cut himself off his head snapping up to glare at John. “I thought you were gonna get me my order,” he frowned.

John's felt his own brows jump, “what,” he turned his ear towards the guy and frowned one brow at him. This guy was nuts, great just what John needed tonight, some insane asylum escaped druggie needing a high.

“I want the best of whatever you've got-here...” the man reached around and John nearly dived for his gun, which again didn't exist anymore.

“Alright, I know what I said earlier and how I'm allergic to everything and yes I might just be allergic to your stuff too. But really don't worry about it-what I said earlier,” the man waved his hand over the pile of money in front of himself, “I'm in so much pain right now that a heighten allergic reaction and going via-how did that guy off X-Files put it?” the man actually put his finger to his bottom lip and struck a thinking pose, “auto-erotic-asphyxiation; is actually better then what I'm experiencing right now. So if I do keel over in your store you won't be blamed for it. If you really want just give me the damn stuff and you'll never and I swear-” he cut his hand through the air, “never hear from me again. And don't worry, I don't have any kind of family or friends of any kind so you won't have to worry about people out for revenge or blood or whatever,” the guy finished sighing like he was suddenly about to puke and leaned forward putting his elbows on the table top. He let his forehead drop into his hand and wrung his head.

“You know it's odd, I always thought it was so terrible to go bald, and that the cause was because I was wringing my hair … You never know how much you need to wring your own hair until it's gone,” he chuckled and then turned to look at John. “What.”

John just stood there, then had the great need to ask, 'what's wrong with you.' but he thought better of it. The man's eyes narrowed anger igniting in them.

Before John got a chance to decide if he wanted to serve the guy or not the man started babbling again, this time getting even more angry then he was before.

Not knowing what else to do John turned and went into the back. He grabbed up one of the small measuring cups he'd created for the half an ounce servings and scooped up the chocolate he'd been working on. It was made with pot-butter which was a creation of his own, the chocolate also had it's own pot mixed in. He had combined the two, the next step would have been mixing in some more marijuana along with other ingredients. This was the base mixture that he used to create his fine confectioneries, boxes of bon-bon's and melt in your mouth fudge, along with fruit dipped and drizzled in this and white chocolate.

Usually this base wouldn't even be touched until he was done perfecting it, and the items he made with it were far more fancy then this.

John was so flustered and upset he just grabbed up a scoop of the stuff and shoved it into a plastic dipping cup, popping a lid on.

Never before had he stooped so low as to give a customer a raw unfinished product.

John marched back out front and slapped the container down in front of the guy. He spun and walked away,“don't let the door hit'yeah'ass!” he waved over his shoulder hoping the guy would get the hint.

John was in the back before he heard the guy making noise again.

“Wait-what!?”

John heard the chair scrape, stuttering across the floor and winced, he'd made sure the feet of the damn things were capped so they wouldn't screech when slid across the tiled floor. To make any kind of noise with those damn things you really had to press hard and work on it.

“Don't you want me to pay for it!?” the guy sounded like he was shuffling, yes shuffling his way into the back. John scrunched his face up upset with himself for not installing a proper door in the place. The doorway between the back preparation area and the front customer area was a two person wide archway with counters on either side.

“Keep it!” John waved him off.

“No! As contradictory as this is I don't want to get arrested for not paying for the stuff-an' don't you have a profit margin or some such crap to deal with-” the guy changed mid breath, “of course I don't want to get caught paying for it either if I get pulled over leaving here.” The guy slapped his hand over the top of the tiny container and looked around as if he or the item in his hand was about to be ripped away. “Actually can I just eat it here-just in case. I don't want...”
John actually stood back, grabbed his hair and nearly yanked it out. Never before had he ever encountered someone like this. For lack of what else to do he actually did his damnedest to stop himself and his whole world at that moment, employing a Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist or god knows what religion it was that, that one guy was trying to shove off on him that one day, technique and tried to stop his mind from thinking.

Then he took Teyla's advice of all things and breathed in as deep as he could through his nose, long and slow-or as slowly as he could at that moment … then let it out … releasing all his tension.

“Oh,” the Guy said.

“Oh wow,” Guy said.

John inhaled again and let his arms reach out and his hands splay wide, then decided to go all the way and imagined a wind moving all through him taking his tension and rage, his overall uptight … ness, and washing it all away …

“Oh god-aahhh...”
John heard shuffling.

“Are you okay,” the guy said.

After a minute he was able to open his eyes and think for all of ten seconds.

Maybe it was because the damn customer was finally silent, and thankfully looking scared instead of like he'd been horribly offended and wronged.

“Ahh,” the guy swallowed.

“How about you eat it out front,” John nodded at him putting his hands on his hips. He tried giving his best smile to the guy, the one he used to always have in place but until lately he hadn't been able to drag up. He'd figured it was dead, buried somewhere in his past, with his lover and dreams, but this monster that had just stormed his little safe haven was able to get him to, through sheer need to be rid of the guy, drag it back up again.

John did his best to be polite and usher the guy out to the front of the shop. He sat the man down and asked if he might want something to drink.

“Ahh-ye-yeah actually ah,” the guy gulped, like he was nervous of something, “I'd like some bottled water-but not the Dasani stuff that always gives me the trots!” he held up a finger as John went to get him just what he asked for.

John brought it over and just as he was about to go into the back both of their attentions were grabbed by the T.V. set.

“Are banks going to be punished for giving loans to Marijuana growers and shops who sell, or are “Friendly”; this is the question being asked right now-”
“What a bunch of crap,” the guy said.
“What-excuse me,” John turned to him.

“Oh it's already legal-hell their pulling in more money then they ever have, they wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot,” he waved at the screen opening his water and taking a swing.

“If the federal government doesn't quit leaning on the banks-at least lay off a little then I don't know what I'm gonna do,” one interviewee said.

“I mean-their making it hard for the rest of us,” the next interviewed person waved their hand to encompass all around, “I'm an honest green house, and shop owner, and I was questioned just last week-had to fill out a form and everything. And one of my banks-lenders they cut me off. I don't have half the money I need now to keep my business open-I mean I'm gonna hafta shut down the green house.” She gave a surprised disbelieving chuckle waving over her property. “I don't know what I'm gonna do,” She shook her head.

John turned back to the man, this was the story he'd been waiting to see all night. Deciding he raced for the remote glad that the strip mall had come with the option of cable. He grabbed the control finding it behind the counter right where his best but also most bossy cashier worked. He also grabbed a bag of chips for himself and switched the radio off. He needed to hear this.

He sat himself down on one of the chairs then jumped up again to turn the lights off in front of his shop. That was when John found that he'd left the OPEN sign on; he hung his head for a minute trying to get his anger under control. No wonder someone had come along demanding service, John had been sure he'd had the sign turned off before everyone left early for the night. After a few seconds he flipped the switch making sure the OPEN sign was no longer on, the only light now, was coming from inside his shop. Just to be sure he pulled the venetian blinds, slating them so that his customer didn't feel too boxed in, the last thing he needed was for the guy to go off on him again. He didn't want any more distractions and just to be safe he locked the front door, again.

The guy watched him closely, his eyes bugging when the door was bolted but thankfully he didn't say anything, John wondered why but didn't care right then, he had serious T.V. watching to do.

John got himself a few more things, since he hadn't had dinner yet he grabbed one of his sandwiches and a nice cold bottle of pop from the customers cooler then sat back down.

The guy was staring as John went through it all and hadn't touched his stuff.

John sniffed, figured.

He sat himself down and pressed the button to rewind, “whaddyeah do that for!”the guy squawked but John just ignored him his finger on the button.

“Hey!”
Finally it was back at the beginning of the show and John let it play.

“Dear god,” the guy said, shifting around, it sounded like he was getting up.

“Want me ta' let you out,” John offered eyes glued to the set.

“No thank-you,” Guy said.

John heard the top of the small container pop open and he rolled his eyes, hopefully it would get the man to actually relax for once.

He sat and watched not noticing a thing from the peanut gallery, it took the whole news cast but finally at the end they showed the story they'd been promising to show all week.

“The Marijuana debate and how Citizens Uptight are petitioning to have it put to another vote. ...”

John watched and listened not once noticing the man behind him, or anything else for that matter he was so absorbed.

When the story was over he sat back and watched for a bit not sure what to think, his mind went blank and he just stared. … It had been one interesting story and from the sound of it, by this channel anyway-John checked to see what channel it was, each one differed in their politics and therefore made the story seem as if it were something it wasn't, usually.

John checked and then had to recalculate, wondering what the real story was. He shook his head finally shutting the whole thing off, he was going to have to look it all up, see for himself, there was just no way to tell. At least he had the topic headings now to know what he needed to look into.

He turned ready to finish his meal but jumped not expecting to see the customer from earlier still there.

He'd been so silent … and now John knew why.
Tracks marred the poor guys face, his eyes all red rimmed, his nose wet.

“Sorry sorry-it's it's just I-” the guy wiped his eyes suddenly animated, “I haven't-it's been so long since I haven't been in pain. I forgot what it was like. Do you know what it's like to be tortured, not able to breath it hurts so bad!?” His voice cracked and he pinched his nose wiping his hand on his pants after-wards. “Ahh, sorry, sorry.” shaking and in a jerky manner he stood grabbing up his stuff. The man quickly shoved his pockets to bulging with his cash and one credit card.

John reached out steadying him-it didn't look like the guys legs would hold him up. The guy jerked away as if he expected to be hit-or hurt but John managed to grab him anyway. The man's whole body tensed in reaction as John gripped his arm, then just as suddenly he seemed to pause, full body, and slowly ever so slowly, he relaxed.

After a second John let go, “what's wrong with you,” he looked the man up and down.

The guy frowned at him, and crossed his arms dropping his phone. He picked it up and sized John up right back, “you don't seem dumb-are you?”

“What,” John leaned back.

“I'm TERMINAL,what is there not to understand about that!”

Pity hit John hard, he must have gasped or something because the guy reacted.
“Seriously what can you here back there-oh,” The guy snapped his fingers rapid fire near his head, pretty impressive for how much strong pot he'd just had, “yeah you had the radio on blasting and the T.V. How in the world did you even hear me-no wonder I was having to bang away for whole hours-” he shoved the chair under the table the two hitting each other and nearly tipping, “I could have died-DIED because you couldn't cater to one customer!”the guy waved his arms.
John leaned back, “Hey,heyhey,” he put his hands up, “I'm sorry, I've got what this one shrink-head quack called it PTSD can't work with out noise-hell I can't sleep most-”
“Wait what.”
“PTS-I donno-never min-”
“No, you were a soldier?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy crap.”
“Yeah well,” John turned to leave, “have a nice day,” he gave a mock salute to the guy and went over unlocking the front door.

“No I had no idea-I'm sorry what's-ah-what's your name.”
“Don't matter,” John just nodded at him opened the door as wide as it would go and gave him the biggest shit eating grin he could.

“No seriously cause maybe I can-”
“We're closed,” he glared at the guy,smile firmly in place. That kind of look was guaranteed to creep him out.

“Fine,” the guy scrambled his few items left out into his pockets and checking everything twice stomped out the door.

He turned and John shut the door in his face, the blinds banging against the damn thing.

It had been one horrible night and his original creation was gone, John looked around the shop. … Might as well just close up, calling it an early night and try again tomorrow.

At this point there was really nothing else he could do.

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Chapter I



ONE

To say Rodney McKay's life had not gone the way he had hoped it would would be an understatement.

Before the age of one he found that everyone and thing around him was rather dull, by three he had been taught that if you're smart that just means you're blamed for whatever goes wrong, and there's no way to argue yourself out of it.

By five he learned that if you're poor then you don't get a good education and are forced to sit in class with your brain rotting away no matter how much you insist you already know everything.

By six Rodney's family had moved down into the lower Southern U.S. where he quickly learned what “Corporal Punishment” was and that it was enforced in school. That year Rodney learned that he was a “damned yank” and that since he was a “damned yank” it was his fault for every little thing, even concocted items or problems that had no basis in reality. Later on he'd realize that it was prejudice he was being beaten with verbally, socially and otherwise plain and simple; no matter how much everyone around him denied it and instead pointed to all of his “flaws” and all the ways he was “evil” such as being born in Canada, being a “Democrat” though that was never true, and being, “for the damn niggers”. Since everyone around him wanted him to “go home! Just GO HOME!” (which never made sense) and he couldn't they were going to eliminate him as quickly as possible in whatever way possible. This meant that before he was say six months into his school year he was spanked, extremely hard with a compressed baseball bat the school called a “paddle” by his teachers first then the principle and then yelled at hard by his parents at home for “acting out in class”. Thankfully his parents had the wherewithal to get the heck out of the U.S. and went back home to Canada.

The next year he figured out that even though it was shit Canada was better then America when it came to … well, everything.

Life continued on after that, in one miserable way or another.

His parents fighting over him and his sister until his Mom died the very next year, at the age of eight. … and then his Dad remarried.

This time though he got the joy of far to many half sisters (three in all) in name only as far as he was concerned. As time went on and his damned parents kept on it like rabbits he got way to many more siblings, till there were at least seven of them.

To many for Rodney to keep track of as far as he was concerned. The only one he ever really cared about was his whole sister or “real” sister as far as he was concerned. Somewhere along the way though she grew up, decided he sucked, and turned her back on him like all the rest.

…

It didn't matter anyway.

What did matter though was math and being able to apply it and through this medium prove that he was right and had been right since the beginning. Because of this Rodney pursued Mathematics and applied physics getting a double degree. Once he was finally out of school he had been expected to be the first to get a Nobel prize an he'd sworn to work towards this goal. He had many theories and through the pure perfect logic of mathematics he was able to finally start piecing together the origins of the universe and the meaning of life itself, as far as he saw it. Heck if he worked hard enough he'd be able to get a Nobel Peace Prize within a decade. Upon his graduation Rodney was sure of all this.

There was just one monumental flaw in it all though, money.

After his degree Rodney had no idea that he wouldn't be able to get a job, or at least one that paid well enough to keep his head above water. So in the end he spent his next remaining years which ended up amounting to the whole of his adult working life breaking his back to keep his many and various jobs, most of which didn't pay him enough to make ends meet and ended before he could even collect say a fourth paycheck. No one understood him and tolerance for his type of caustic and point blank truthful personality was rare to say the least.

He'd had goals and dreams when he had gone into this field and he quickly found that unless you had money coming out your ass then you were screwed from the get go. No matter who you knew or how many connections you made you were not going to be able to peruse your goals mush less have your dreams become reality.

Though after receiving his Ph.D. he was finally able to snag a job that paid him better then the others.

Unfortunately the big bucks and fame didn't come with it, instead of say even eighty-thousand American Dollars a year in salary he was forced to accept a position where he was virtually working three jobs in three different departments at once and making a mere fifty-thousand a year, at best; most years he only cleared forty-five thousand. And that was before taxes and other personal and academic expenses. The school had never told him he was going to have to spend his own paycheck to merely buy supplies for the various departments and students. Or say pay to have something fixed even though it was the fault of the school for not replacing something when it was too old to be used without breaking. So in the end he was lucky to walk away with say twenty-thousand in his pocket which barely covered rent and toiletries. Rodney just wished that the school would at least do him the courtesy of providing food; another “luxury” that had to come out of his pocket.

It wasn't long, maybe five years into his new “career” that he finally had to stop and face it all, coming to terms with the truth. He wasn't going to get his dreams much less be able to reach his goal of a Nobel Prize.

At all ever.

This caused him to review his life and try to figure out what was the good in sticking around if he wasn't going to be able to get his Nobel's, or even answer his many questions about the universe.

His mind went blank as if going dead already from the mere suggestion.

...

He shook his head, if he was this bad off then how much worse off were people working in say the retail industry, or even his own students. … Maybe that was why most of them smelled and looked like they were living in their cars, it was because they were. And here the sciences, back when he was young, had been a sure bet to being able to provide for yourself at least, family too if you were so inclined and lucky.

Rodney sat back and thought about that wishing he'd been able to be accepted, that people and therefore society were different.

That there had been a chance for him from the get go.

But friendship and more so romance was something for the rich and he wasn't one of them, it was clear now he'd never be that lucky. Heck he never had and never would have the time to pick up a phone and call his sister to see how she was doing, and no one wanted him around anyway that was blatantly clear. … Being a thorn in everyone's side was; well it made life downright impossible to live especially when everyone kept insisting that they were right and he was wrong, Wrong, WRONG. It didn't seem to matter how many times he pointed out the facts and the blatantly obvious everything was run according to some skewed social code and hierarchy that he still hadn't been able to crack.

Rodney deflated and looked at the many and various student papers tossed on the table before himself. No he'd never be able to get what he wanted and life was truly about making it to the end, which meant the ripe old age of say eighty and then die alone, for everyone died alone anyway didn't they.

Rodney rubbed his brow and looked away from the mess before himself, so the real question in the end was why keep going.

…

It took the better part of a week but he finally realized that the only thing keeping him around was having enough money to support himself and not being homeless (though it was a close thing most of the time) like his own students were.

Having enough money to get him by and be even slightly better off then someone else, such as the people who served him at the many and various drive-throughs and take out restaurants he frequented was about the only reward he'd be getting in this life time. From the looks of others around him some days it seemed to be a pretty big reward, at least he wasn't living out of a car with three kids, totally alone and trying to get a degree while working three jobs. Most importantly though, knowing far more then anyone else around him was what got him to stick around, for the time being at least, or that's what he told himself. Really though it was not being homeless and being too busy and worn out at the end of each day to do anything else but sleep, in his office as per usual, that stopped him from finally say, taking a long walk off a short pier.

Time slipped by Rodney doing his damnedest to ignore it and speed it up as mush as he could. Then after he hit his late twenties something curious happened, time started to speed up. At first he actually calculated whether or not it had sped up since it clearly had in some odd way, he even blamed it on technology thinking clocks were timing things faster, giving less split seconds in every minute since business was wanting more work done faster. It made sense especially since everything ran on digital now instead of old fashioned mechanics, something that was harder or more obvious if you tried to tamper with it.

Then his thirties hit and time suddenly started disappearing with out his knowledge of it. Before he knew it it was New Years, and then New years again, and it left him wondering when he'd missed his birthday and what year-or how old he was now.

He'd never known the world or life to go so fast and in the far back of his mind he started to believe that it was truly some kind of wormhole, time dilation field or some other sci. fi. oddity. He soon began calculating wormhole physics in scribbles on scraps of paper in his free time.

Despite all of this what came next he just wasn't ready for and it turned his world on it's head.