They were soaked, tired, and beyond irritated by the time they slumped through the doctor's front door. Karma paused in the doorway, wringing rainwater out of her hair and trying to ignore her chattering teeth. "I must look like a drowned rat" she thought to herself as she passed into the living room. Dr. Death disappeared for a moment and then returned with two towels, tossing one in her direction as he mopped at his face with his own. "Thanks." she muttered, wrapping it around her hair.
"Put it in the hamper when you're done. And when the rain stops, go home." he told her briskly. Apparently it hadn't been enough to lose his companion, now he was saddled with her as well. "I'm going crazy." he thought to himself. "Wheeeee!" He watched as Karma wriggled out of her sopping jacket and looked for a place to set it. "Not in here." he told her sharply. "Over by the heating vent." he pointed to the grating beside the front door.
"Yes 'sir'." Karma replied sarcastically with a mock salute as she went to hang her jacket up. As she did so, he slumped into his chair, not caring that he was still wearing his soaking clothes. His mind was a turmoil as he wondered just where his petpet had gone to. Images of him dead in a ditch or taken by Dr. Sloth came to mind and before they had a chance to form any realness to them, he quickly pushed them out of hand. No...Snap was simply missing, was all. Nothing horrible had been confirmed, therefore nothing horrible had happened.
As the rain outside beat steadily on the rooftop, it occurred to the yellow techo that he needed something to calm himself with before he became a basketcase. Not a cigarette....he didn't make a habit of smoking in indoors and wasn't about to go out in the rain again. He got up from his chair and headed in the direction of the kitchen.
"Where're you going?" Karma asked as she seated herself on the edge of his couch.
"Nowhere." he told her. "Just stay away from me."
He disappeared from her sight and Karma sighed, slumping her back against the cushions of the sofa. Part of her wanted to follow after him and make sure he was alright, but the rest of her had very strong reservations about it. In the end, she simply sat, resigning herself with a long sigh as she turned her attention to the rain outdoors, waiting for any sign of it letting up so that she could go home. As uncomfortable as she was in a strange house with an equally strange man, she felt that it would likely be a lot more uncomfortable walking home in the downpour.
In the kitchen, Dr. Death opened the cabinet under the sink and seized a bottle around the neck, setting it on the counter and sifting through the cupboard for a tumbler. He was about to do something he hadn't done in months: methodically get himself drunk to the point of oblivion. The fact he would, most likely, wake up sprawled on the floor or the couch with a pounding headache the next morning didn't matter much to him at the moment...but taking the edge off of his twanging nerves did.
Not finding a tumbler, he settled for a juice glass, and uncorked the bottle of rose wine, tilting it into the glass. The neck chattered briefly against the rim from the slight shaking of his hand as the pink liquid poured. The glass filled nearly to the top, he lifted it and tilted it back into his mouth, swallowing without tasting and proceeded to fill another. The alcohol began to take hold almost immediately, an unnatural warmth spreading through his chest and calming him with startling quickness as he drank back the second glass and poured a third....this time not drinking it immediately but setting it down on the table and then slowly allowing himself to sink into a chair as he pondered the day's events.
There was only one possible conclusion, he decided. Whatever powers there were watching over Neopia hated him severely and were doing their best to doom him to misery for the rest of his life. He lidded his eyes slowly, not fighting the haze that had begun to fog his mind, but rather welcomed it. He had no idea how long he sat there, staring off into space, but he jolted as his nirvana was shattered by an all-to-familiar voice.
"Now THERE'S a good solution to all of this." He cringed, turning his head slowly toward the entrance to the kitchen, already knowing who he'd see.
"I told you to leave me alone." he growled, leering at her through glassy eyes.
"I just came to make sure you were alright." Karma muttered, looking at the floor and rubbing at her upper arm. "You've been in here an hour."
"Get out of here." he told her, becoming irritated when she seemed to have no notion of moving from where she stood.
"I wish you'd stop acting like I'm out to get you..." she told him gently.
"Maybe that would be easier if you'd stop trailing me all over like you were attached to me." he snarled. She backed away a step as he clumsily stood. "I want you out of my house." He said icily. "I'm tired of you, Karma. Between you and Rose, you're driving me crazy."
"I hardly ever see you!" she argued. "I've talked to you maybe five times since I've lived here and been nothing but nice to you! How can you say I'm driving you crazy??"
"I don't like being coddled, which is what you're doing. THAT is what's driving me crazy."
"By being nice to you?" she asked in angry disbelief. "There's a pretty broad line between being friendly and mother-henning you."
"Go." he told her sternly, stepping closer. "I don't want to make you."
"Make me?" she asked incredulously. "Who the hell do you think you are?? Just because you're not happy with your life...."
"Stop it." he warned her, feeling his rage beginning to bloom.
"...and just because you're too insecure to get out from underneath your status and make some damned friends...."
"Shut up, you prying bitch!!" he sneered.
"....Doesn't mean you can treat the rest of the world like a pile of garbage and hide behind your job as an excuse for it---" Karma heard the slap before she felt it, a hot stinging enveloping her jaw as her head rocked back on her neck. She blinked twice, her hand reaching up to touch her cheek gingerly where his hand had connected, hot tears of humiliation stinging her eyes as she looked bewilderedly at the yellow techo.
"I...." he looked disbelievingly at his hand as though it had developed a mind of its own. "God, Karma I---" She whirled away from him, storming into the living room.
"You want me to leave? Fine. I'm gone." she said, her voice dripping with venom as she stormed to the hook she had hung her jacket on and yanked it off, heedless of the small sound of one of the seams tearing as it snagged the hook.
"Karma....Karma, will you just LISTEN!!" Dr. Death cried, making her stare at him, her eyes smouldering.
"What? Want to slap the other side so they match??" she asked icily. He flinched at her words.
"No, I just---"
"Then what?? I've tried everything else I can think of and now I'm leaving! That's what you wanted, isn't it??" Her voice rose to an enraged shriek and cracked. The tears that had been glistening in her eyes began to spill down her cheeks and over the angry red welt beginning to form on her cheek vaguely in the shape of his palm. He looked away, feeling sickened by what he had done as his rage deflated and replaced itself with guilt.
She fumbled with her coat for a moment, trying to find the armholes through her bleary eyes, and watched in utter frustration as it slipped from her fingers and landed on the floor in a crumpled heap. Her first notion was to bend over and pick it up, but somewhere along the line, the idea was abandoned as she found herself slowly leaning against the wall and beginning to sob. She didn't want to cry in front of him...that was the last thing she wanted, really, but found herself helpless to stop as tears continued to spill down her nose.
She don't know how long she crouched there, crying helplessly, but as she got herself under control again, she was aware that he had moved closer and was now standing over her, offering her a paper towel. She looked at it silently for a moment before drawing herself back up to her full height and wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand instead. "I'm fine." she said flatly.
"I want to apologize." he told her, his eyes focused on the floor. Karma glowered at him, knuckling the last of her tears away. "I had no right."
"No you didn't." she answered curtly. "Or maybe it was the wine making that decision for you." A red flush of humiliation rose along the bridge of his nose and he was unable to bring himself to look at her. The warm buzz he had felt moments ago from the drinks he had taken were gone and he was left in the coldness of sobriety.
"You DO trespass more than you dare, you realize and I...."
"Didn't you say you were going to apologize?" she asked snidely, cutting him off. He inhaled slowly, his breath hissing over his teeth and wondering if she honestly meant to be so irritating or if it was just her nature.
"I'm sorry." he said lamely.
"Apology accepted." she nodded, though the coldness in her voice said otherwise. "And maybe I'm sorry too."
"You don't have to be." he muttered, wondering idly just where she was trying to take this. She looked at him, smiling a humorless smile that made his blood run cold.
"Of course I do. After all, aren't I a 'prying bitch'?" she asked. He felt another flush of embarrassment.
"I'll level with you. Nobody has ever tried to look out for me quite so much and I'm not used to dealing with it and what comes with it." he told her after a moment of silence, deciding it was a safe enough thing to say.
"What about Rose?" Karma asked.
"Rose, I'm fairly sure, would have the entire planet wrapped in swaddling blankets with a bottle in its mouth if it were left up to her." He had vaguely hoped that this might get a smile out of her to ease the tension, but her expression remained cloudy. Another long pause.
"Why won't you let people care about you?" she asked, looking him levelly in the eye.
"Because I don't need anyone to care about me. That's what I've been trying to get across to you." he answered, his gaze dodging hers and focusing elsewhere in the room.
"Don't need, or don't *want*?" she pressed.
"Both. I've taken care of myself for years and I've done fine. Just because I share species with a pet doesn't make me one."
"Understood. But you'd think years of being called one of Neopia's biggest jerks might get to a guy after awhile." she pointed out, her tone much calmer and less-guarded than it had been.
"You'd think that, but it doesn't bother me." he shrugged. "I don't give a damn what people say...that I take pets away, that I starve them, that I torture them, that I sell them to Frank Sloth, that I kill them in droves for the fun of it....it doesn't do any good to defend myself so why should I even listen anymore?"
"Alright but WHY do they say that?" she asked. "The pets you and Rose take care of should know better."
"Old rumors die hard." he sighed, realizing only after the words had left his jaws, that he had trapped himself. And now the questions would start, asking what rumors, what had happened, and all of that. He honestly didn't feel like getting out the old bones to gnaw on tonight. Instead, much to his surprise, she simply turned her head toward the window to look at the rain.
"I know how that goes." the frog nodded faintly. "I guess its none of my business anyway." she added, stooping to scoop her jacket off of the floor.
"Where're you going?" he asked.
"Home." she replied simply, giving her jacket a shake to straighten it.
"Its still raining." he pointed out.
"I think the rain's the least of my worries about now." she muttered, fumbling her arms into the sleeves and cringing at how cold the damp nylon was. "And I wish you all the luck in the world finding Snap. I'm.....I'm sure he's fine." The uncertainty in her voice confirmed that she had been thinking the same thing that had crossed the techo's mind more than once...that Snap hadn't run away at all and had been taken. At first he had tried to mentally compile a list of his enemies who would have done such a thing before coming upon the realization that most of Neopia likely thought of themselves as his enemy and that anyone could have easily taken Snap out of spite or greed.
"Bye." she said non-committedly as she wrapped her hand around the doorknob and moved to pull the door open.
"I lied." he blurted out, making her pause and turn to look at him. "About it not bothering me about what people say and think...." He fidgeted a little. "It makes me miserable sometimes. Damned miserable."
"I imagine it would." she nodded. "I'll see you later." she pulled the door open and took a step into the rain.
"You don't have to leave." he told her, making her stop again. "I'm sorry I said so. I'd feel guilty if you had to walk home in this."
"A little rain's not going to hurt me." she insisted...and as if on cue, a loud boom of thunder rattled the windowframes and made Karma shrink back into the house reflexively. "...maybe for a little while." she muttered, turning and walking back to the couch to sit down.
He looked down at his hands to discover that he had been wringing them compulsively and immediately made himself stop, dropping his arms to his sides. He had no idea why he had suggested that she stay...especially when only minutes ago he had been set to remove her from his house manually. Lingering guilt, he told himself, sitting down on the other end of the couch and folding his arms over his chest.
Quietly, not looking at her, he continued to mentally debate his sudden change of mood....and then suddenly, whether he wanted to believe it or not, the answer clicked in his head. It was because he didn't want her to have a reason to hate him. A REAL reason to hate him, unlike those that were quick to believe rumors that had no backing to them.
"What's wrong?" Karma asked tentatively. Realizing he had been frowning, he relaxed his face again..
"Nothing." he murmured. "Just thinking." He fell silent.
"I may as well bite, I guess. What rumors were you talking about earlier?" she asked, her tone sounding anything but enthusiastic as she gave the dying embers of their conversation a prod. He inhaled sharply as though touched with icy hands as he wondered if he really wanted to open so many old wounds again and explain. Well....it WAS his fault for mentioning it, he supposed. And it seemed to be the latest psychiatric fad to not "bottle up" one's emotions. Hell, maybe he'd feel better if he got it all out into the open. But where to begin?
"As long as I'm going to be delving into this, you may as well call me by my real name." he told her. Karma's interest instantly piqued.
"Dr. Death isn't the name you were given?" she asked. He shook his head.
"Glitz." he told her, bracing himself for her laughter. When it didn't come after a brief pause, he continued. "Its what my first owner named me when he brought me home."
"You had an owner?"
"Well, where did you *think* I came from?" he asked, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice. "You knew I was a neopet to begin with..."
"Sorry." she said quietly. He cleared his throat and continued.
"My first owner was a boy named Joey. I was his first pet and he had all sorts of dreams of doing great things in the battledome but....what can I say? I just wasn't much of a fighter. I embarrassed him for a few weeks until he dropped me in the pound in exchange for a better pet. I haven't seen him since."
"That's terrible." she remarked, listening attentively, wondering how far he'd go until he lost interest in talking with her.
"It gets better." he told her humorlessly. "I think I stayed in the pound for about three weeks before I got snapped up by someone who kept me for a week, never fed me, and then dropped me again the first time I came down with the Neezles. After another month or so, I was picked out as the fourth member of a rather wealthy family and shared a home with two spoilt acaras and one obnoxious usul."
"THAT lovely shindig ended when they recieved a transmogrification potion as a side-prize in a trade they made at the post and decided to "experiment" on me with it. Needless to say the owner was not only unamused by her other pets' joke but was disgusted with the mutant I turned into and that marked the end of that homelife." He shook his head. "And if you thought it was hard trying to find a home as a plain yellow techo, just try finding one as a mutant."
"Anyway, this time I was only in the pound for two days before Aislynn came."
"Aislynn?" Karma asked. "Who was that?"
"She was the only decent owner I had." he said, sounding almost wistful. "She and I were inseparable. When we had saved up enough from playing Meerca Chase together, she bought me one of Kauvara's yellow techo potions and turned me back to how I used to be. She used to tease me by saying she was going to spend all of our neopoints on a faerie paint brush and hide it in her safety deposit box so that when the faeries decided to bless techos with wings, she'd have the first faerie techo ever." he chuckled dryly. "Silly girl...."
"Why'd she leave you?"
"She didn't. She died." he said flatly. Karma jolted a bit upon hearing this. "Apparently she got sick...I don't know exactly except that she never came back to Neopia and by the time the word got to me on where she had gone, they also informed me that she was already dead. I ended up in the pound again...this time for the last time. Nobody cared, and nobody adopted me. After three months went by and there were no takers, I got pulled aside and was given an ultimatum. Either I could participate in a rehabilitation program that would train me to turn back to my basic instincts and teach me to be wild, or I could go to school, learn a trade, and earn a living."
"I wanted to be a doctor." he said after a pause. "And since the doctor's guild wasn't very sharing in free classes, I took side jobs and paid off my tuition myself. When I graduated from medical school, I took some specialty courses on the care of humans as well. I wanted to be a shoo-in for whatever job I applied for. By the time I got back, both of the positions I had wanted had been filled so I ended up taking the next best thing....a part-time veteranarian and pound attendant."
"At first, I loved my job and I loved seeing people and pets united with one another. I loved it so much that I almost could ignore the obnoxious people that abandoned their pets but soon I just...." he sighed, losing his train of thought for a moment. "I just couldn't stand it...all the sadness and neglect."
"So you turned into this, then." Karma remarked.
"Not overnight, no." he shrugged. "But if you had seen some of the things I've seen maybe you'd understand why I just don't care anymore."
"Sad story, but it doesn't answer my question." she prodded. He narrowed his eyes a moment and then relented, realizing she was right and that he had completely avoided what she had asked. "You don't have to, Glitz..." she said, trying the name out. It sounded odd to her and didn't fit him at all...likely why he had dropped it, she thought.
"No...I opened this can of worms, I may as well." he said, shaking his head and running one hand over his gray hair that had become slightly matted from the rain in a vain attempt to straighten it. He closed his eyes, calling all the details to mind. He hadn't forgotten a thing about how he had been laden with his nickname....hell, he could even remember the smallest things like the faintly obnoxious scent of Rose's violet perfume she had been wearing that evening. Clinging to these details, he began....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ten minutes till closing." Rose smiled, taking a sip of her neocola as she went about putting the day's paperwork in alphabetical order for filing in the morning as Glitz did the same.
"Thank heaven for small favors." he sighed, managing a small smile.
"Caught ya!" the uni teased, pointing at him. The techo immediately dropped the smile and cleared his throat. "Ohhh stop." she chided. "Would it kill you to smile once in awhile?"
"Nah." he dismissed her. "I just don't feel like it much anymore."
"Is it the abandoners getting to you again?" He nodded a bit and shrugged with a forced chuckle.
"Stupid, I know. Do you think I'm letting them bother me too much?" he asked. She squinted as though in deep thought.
"Well, maybe just a TAD..." she said, holding her hooves as far apart as she could. "And they're starting to complain about you to the employment office, ya know."
"Good for them." he muttered.
"I know...they're in the wrong and the first thing they do is lash out at everyone else." she replied. "But you're going to lose your job if they complain too much."
"Heh, I doubt that. How many people out there do you know of who hate themselves enough to saddle themselves with MY job?"
"You have a point." the uni smiled. "And on that note, I think I'm going to go get a late dinner after we check up on the inmates. You want to go with me?"
"No, I think I'll just--"
"I'll pay....c'mon Glitz, are you going to say no to a free meal?" she teased.
"Alright, alright...if you put it *that* way..." he trailed off as the front door opened and banged shut again as a heavyset boy with oily black hair entered, dragging a blue lupe behind him. The neopet whined and did its best to walk, but in the end simply gave up, allowing itself to be pulled across the floor, finding no strength in its legs to pull itself along. Glitz and Rose forced themselves not to stare at the ruined shell of the neopet as the boy approached the desk.
"........can we help you?" Rose inquired, her sapphire eyes wandering back to the lupe who licked at one sinewy front paw and half-snorted, half-sighed as its sunken eyes looked plaintively up at her and Glitz.
"Yeah, I gotta drop off this fellah here." the boy said, jerking a disinterested thumb at the lupe. Rose and Glitz exchanged a troubled look as the techo fumbled an abandonment form out of the drawer and slid it across the table with a pen. He was too distracted by the horrible state the lupe was in to grill the abandoner as he usually did. The room was utterly silent except for the scratching of the pen as the boy filled in the fields. When he had finished, he fumbled eighty neopoints out of his pocket, tossed them on the desk, and turned to leave.
"Oh yeah, and its been awhile since he's eaten if you wanna take care of that." he added as a parting shot before pushing open the door and disappearing.
"My god..." Rose gasped, walking slowly around to the front of the desk and approaching the animal. The lupe trembled, but thumped its matted tail once in greeting against the foor. "Oh.....my god...." she repeated as Glitz approached as well and crouched in front of the emaciated creature.
"I couldn't agree more..." he said in disbelief. It was a mystery to him how the lupe was even still alive. Its ribs stood out against its skin prominantly and, even as he watched, tiny black insects crawled over the bridge of its nose and disappeared in its mangy fur, and he could see large angry-looking red welts covering the beast's body. "This is.....disgusting." he said, swallowing and feeling as though his throat was lined with cotton suddenly. The lupe's paws slipped on the smooth tile of the floor and it whimpered, trying to regain its balance but lacking the strength to do so as it slid to its belly with a resigned yelp. A cloud of mites, upset by the sudden movement, all clustered into the air over the neopet's body before venturing back down into his fur again. One of them alighted on Glitz's nose and he hurriedly crushed it beneath his fingers before it could hide itself in his hair.
"Let's get him into the back." he told the uni hurriedly, working his arms carefully under the lupe and lifting. The creature grunted but didn't protest as he was carried. Rose followed worriedly, wringing her hooves as they ventured into the small veterinary office kept in the back of the pound. Since the establishment had been built, Glitz hadn't gotten much use out of the small office as most of the pets that came in were perfectly healthy or had only a casual disease that would wait for the person who adopted them to cure.
As he laid the lupe out on the examination table, it gave a groan, its side fluttering rather than rising and falling. What had happened to the poor creature? It was by far the worst case of neglect he had ever seen in his short medical career.
"Is he going to be okay?" Rose asked, standing uneasily in the doorway.
"I don't know..." he muttered, shaking his head. "Rose, go to the front and get the former owner's name from that form he filled out. I want to get a police report filed." he added. She nodded and eagerly left as he assessed the ailing neopet some more. The red welts on the skin indicated a case of neopox gone horribly awry but the neomites....he had never seen a pet with two diseases at once. The lupe licked its chops feebly and whimpered. "Shh....its alright." he soothed. "Not going to hurt you..."
"Glitz?" Rose called as she poked her head back into the room. "He didn't leave his name." she told him. "Just a psuedonym."
"Damn..." the techo hissed as his anger at the former owner of the neopet blossomed momentarily before he pushed it out of hand. "Alright...see if there's any neopox pizza in the freezer, I'm going to try and get rid of these mites."
The minutes dragged on as the medication was administered and the techo and uni looked on hopefully for signs of improvement in the bedraggled lupe. Twice, Rose attempted to get him to swallow some water with no success and the creature seemed to have no interest in food.
"Well...." Glitz said finally, dabbing a bit of ointment on an especially swollen area of the lupe's neck where the neomites had bitten him. "I guess that's that."
"So what now?" Rose asked, looking worriedly down at the heaving pet.
"Well, I guess we'll see if he survives the night before we make any long-term plans. I'd definately want to make sure that this one goes to a very good home." Glitz said matter-of-factly, though his voice betrayed his utter upset at the situation.
"Yeah..." Rose muttered, looking doubtfully at the lupe. She didn't want to say anything, but she didn't hold high hopes for the creature. Its diseases that had been allowed to fester, coupled with the fact that it had been starved for lord only knew how long, made its survival look bleak.
Hoping for the best, they bundled the lupe into a kennel with several blankets and a bowl of fresh food and left for the night.......
The following morning, Glitz arrived to work early and headed straight for the kennel that the lupe had been left in. The few pets that were awake called out passing jeers at him which he managed to ignore as he crouched and peered between the bars. The food was untouched and the lupe's head was settled peacefully on its paws. He slid a hand between the bars, gently running it over the neopet's head. When the lupe didn't stir, Glitz frowned and undid the latch.
As he reached inside and carefully lifted the beast's head, it lulled bonelessly to the side, confirming what he had feared and that it was dead. At the very least, it looked as though the lupe had slipped off quietly in its sleep...and he tried to assure himself that it hadn't had much of a chance anyway. He sighed in disappointment and worked his arms around the corpse, drawing it carefully out of the kennel and into his arms.
The hard part would be getting it into the back without being seen. It was the first time any of the pets left in his care had died and he had a feeling that it wouldn't be at all well-recieved by the other caged pets that saw him. Taking a deep breath, he began carefully toward the back room.
"Hey! Where're you taking him??" a cheeky red meerca called as it leered suspiciously at the doctor.
"Shush." Glitz whispered. "Don't wake everybody up."
"Oh yeah? Why not? You hiding something??" the meerca pressed. Glitz bit his tongue to keep from yelling....this particular meerca had been one of the more snide pound-goers he had had to deal with for the next few days. It occurred to him that with his luck the little rat would never be adopted and he'd have to put up with its antics for the rest of his career. Before he could answer, the meerca's beady eyes widened. "What's wrong with him??"
"He's---" Glitz began. The meerca gasped loudly.
"He's dead!!" the neopet cried, backing into a corner of his kennel. "HE'S DEAD!!!"
"Huh? Who's dead?" a sleepy yellow gelert asked, blinking awake.
"Gosh darnit, I was trying to sleep!" a green baby usul whined.
"That lupe's dead!! That crazy jerk killed that lupe!! I TOLD you he was going to start putting us all to sleep!!" the meerca shrieked. Glitz's eyes widened at the accusation but before he could defend himself, the pound came alive with a flurry of frightened voices and shouts.
"I didn't kill him!" Glitz tried to speak out, his voice lost in the excited chatter. "He died in his sleep, how could I have--"
CLONG!
He winced and staggered backward a step as one of the caged pets flung its food dish at him. Following suit, the air was soon alive with missiles as the pets hurled bones, bits of food, litter, bowls, water bottles, plushies, blankets, and anything else they could get their paws on. Glitz winced and dodged as well as he was able until he felt his back strike the wall as the barrage of voices assaulted him. "Going to kill us! Murderer! I hate you!"
A thick marrow bone handed out to skeiths and grarrls when they were impounded glanced off of his temple and made him cry out, the corpse of the lupe spilling from his arms and onto the floor. It was then that he heard it....it began as one voice in the back of the clamour and spread like a fire across dried grass as others joined in the chant. Before long, they were all chanting it, rattling their bars and still throwing things at him, all of them seeming to ignore the dead lupe sprawled on the tiles.
"Doc-tor Death! Doc-tor Death! Doc-tor Death!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
".....and so that's where the nickname came from." he finished, his eyes fixed on the floor. The resurgance of the old memories had left him feeling surprisingly vulnerable. He could feel his hands trembling a bit as, in his mind's eye, he could still see the deep-lined contempt in their faces and feel the pelt of items hitting him.
"......damn...." Karma managed to say. "That's.....god damn, no wonder you hate people." He began to wring his hands to hide the fact they were shaking.
"From then on it just stuck. And as far as the rest of neopia is concerned, that lupe died because I killed it. I fought it for awhile and when it became clear that nobody cared to hear my side of things, I gave up. They wanted a monster and so I became one. But....I've never once killed a pet. I never would." he finished...and then lowered his head, fixing his eyes steadily on his lap.
"I believe you." Karma offered. He didn't answer. "That's a crappy reputation to get stuck with, Glitz, but I think all things considered you've been big about it." He still said nothing, his hands wringing compulsively. "Are you all right?" She heard him draw in a deep breath and let it out in an uneven and shaky sigh.
"I never....k-killed anybody....I---" he faltered. "I only ever wanted to he-elp and---" he broke off, trying to hold his inner dam together as it strained. In the end, he realized he was fighting a losing battle and that the outburst about to come was already long overdue and wouldn't be put off any longer. Gritting his teeth, the tears began to pour from his eyes as how unfair it all was began to sink in. Where he was, what he was doing with himself, how people saw him....this wasn't what he had wanted for his life at all.
Karma remained silent, unsure of what to do as she realized that he was crying. She had never been particularly good at dealing with emotional extremes from her friends back home and wasn't quite sure what to do now, but she had a good idea of where to start as she tentatively put a hand on either of his shoulders. She suspected his first impulse had been to try and pull away as she felt slight resistance, but it only lasted a moment as he collapsed against her in resignation. ~What's wrong, doc, you've never been hugged?~ she thought sympathetically as a shudder racked his body.
He sobbed quietly and deeply, as though fighting the crying every step of the way and allowed his head to rest on her shoulder. For the moment, it didn't matter that he was supposed to be irritated at her. Right now he would have hugged the Snowager himself if he thought it would be of any comfort.
Karma wondered silently how long he had been bottling all of this...likely since the day it happened, she assumed, as she gently wrapped her arms around his back and held him. A minute or so passed before he drew away from her, busily wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Don't you dare tell anybody about this." he told her, trying to bring his usual iciness into his voice and failing.
"I wouldn't do that." Karma assured him. "Who would I tell even if I wanted to? I don't have any friends."
"Good." he replied, sounding more relieved than snide as he said it, clearing his throat and heaving a sigh that filled every cavity of his chest and then let it out again as he brought everything in to perspective. He didn't feel any better, Snap was still missing, and worst of all he had just poured his guts out to someone he didn't like all that well. If anything, hell, things had just gotten worlds worse and he wanted nothing more at the moment than to just be alone in the dark and try to escape from the old demons of his past.
"Are you alright?" she asked after a moment.
"I don't believe I just did that..." he muttered, fixating his eyes on the floor.
"Well, the world didn't end, did it?" she asked softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. He reached up, slowly brushing it away.
"Please....just leave me alone." he whispered. Karma looked at him for a long moment before nodding and getting up.
"For what its worth, I hope you feel better." she told him. He didn't respond, keeping his gaze focused on the floor. She sighed and quietly opened the front door, slipping out into the dwindling rainstorm. As the door closed behind her, the silence and solitude was oddly comforting and stifling at the same time as he turned sideways on the couch and laid down, pulling his knees to his chest and staring off into space as his tail wound around his ankles.
He wished, for what had to be the thousandth time in his career, that he had everything to do over again. If he just hadn't been so eager and trusting, he told himself. If he had held out just a little longer instead of accepting the pound occupation, none of this would be happening. People wouldn't hate him and pets wouldn't fear him...that was the way things were supposed to have been.
"But its not the way they are, so deal with it." an inner voice told him indignantly. "You took the job, people hate you, and what are you going to do about it, Glitz?" He told the inner voice to kindly shut up as he closed his eyes and willed away an impending headache he felt building. He wished Snap were there...even though it had only been a week, he had gotten to be comforted by going to sleep beside the warm furry petpet every night...and now he was gone.
And now, though he was relieved to be rid of Karma, a part of him wished she had stayed for a little longer. Still pondering many things, somewhere along the line, the techo slipped off to sleep.
TBC.......
"Put it in the hamper when you're done. And when the rain stops, go home." he told her briskly. Apparently it hadn't been enough to lose his companion, now he was saddled with her as well. "I'm going crazy." he thought to himself. "Wheeeee!" He watched as Karma wriggled out of her sopping jacket and looked for a place to set it. "Not in here." he told her sharply. "Over by the heating vent." he pointed to the grating beside the front door.
"Yes 'sir'." Karma replied sarcastically with a mock salute as she went to hang her jacket up. As she did so, he slumped into his chair, not caring that he was still wearing his soaking clothes. His mind was a turmoil as he wondered just where his petpet had gone to. Images of him dead in a ditch or taken by Dr. Sloth came to mind and before they had a chance to form any realness to them, he quickly pushed them out of hand. No...Snap was simply missing, was all. Nothing horrible had been confirmed, therefore nothing horrible had happened.
As the rain outside beat steadily on the rooftop, it occurred to the yellow techo that he needed something to calm himself with before he became a basketcase. Not a cigarette....he didn't make a habit of smoking in indoors and wasn't about to go out in the rain again. He got up from his chair and headed in the direction of the kitchen.
"Where're you going?" Karma asked as she seated herself on the edge of his couch.
"Nowhere." he told her. "Just stay away from me."
He disappeared from her sight and Karma sighed, slumping her back against the cushions of the sofa. Part of her wanted to follow after him and make sure he was alright, but the rest of her had very strong reservations about it. In the end, she simply sat, resigning herself with a long sigh as she turned her attention to the rain outdoors, waiting for any sign of it letting up so that she could go home. As uncomfortable as she was in a strange house with an equally strange man, she felt that it would likely be a lot more uncomfortable walking home in the downpour.
In the kitchen, Dr. Death opened the cabinet under the sink and seized a bottle around the neck, setting it on the counter and sifting through the cupboard for a tumbler. He was about to do something he hadn't done in months: methodically get himself drunk to the point of oblivion. The fact he would, most likely, wake up sprawled on the floor or the couch with a pounding headache the next morning didn't matter much to him at the moment...but taking the edge off of his twanging nerves did.
Not finding a tumbler, he settled for a juice glass, and uncorked the bottle of rose wine, tilting it into the glass. The neck chattered briefly against the rim from the slight shaking of his hand as the pink liquid poured. The glass filled nearly to the top, he lifted it and tilted it back into his mouth, swallowing without tasting and proceeded to fill another. The alcohol began to take hold almost immediately, an unnatural warmth spreading through his chest and calming him with startling quickness as he drank back the second glass and poured a third....this time not drinking it immediately but setting it down on the table and then slowly allowing himself to sink into a chair as he pondered the day's events.
There was only one possible conclusion, he decided. Whatever powers there were watching over Neopia hated him severely and were doing their best to doom him to misery for the rest of his life. He lidded his eyes slowly, not fighting the haze that had begun to fog his mind, but rather welcomed it. He had no idea how long he sat there, staring off into space, but he jolted as his nirvana was shattered by an all-to-familiar voice.
"Now THERE'S a good solution to all of this." He cringed, turning his head slowly toward the entrance to the kitchen, already knowing who he'd see.
"I told you to leave me alone." he growled, leering at her through glassy eyes.
"I just came to make sure you were alright." Karma muttered, looking at the floor and rubbing at her upper arm. "You've been in here an hour."
"Get out of here." he told her, becoming irritated when she seemed to have no notion of moving from where she stood.
"I wish you'd stop acting like I'm out to get you..." she told him gently.
"Maybe that would be easier if you'd stop trailing me all over like you were attached to me." he snarled. She backed away a step as he clumsily stood. "I want you out of my house." He said icily. "I'm tired of you, Karma. Between you and Rose, you're driving me crazy."
"I hardly ever see you!" she argued. "I've talked to you maybe five times since I've lived here and been nothing but nice to you! How can you say I'm driving you crazy??"
"I don't like being coddled, which is what you're doing. THAT is what's driving me crazy."
"By being nice to you?" she asked in angry disbelief. "There's a pretty broad line between being friendly and mother-henning you."
"Go." he told her sternly, stepping closer. "I don't want to make you."
"Make me?" she asked incredulously. "Who the hell do you think you are?? Just because you're not happy with your life...."
"Stop it." he warned her, feeling his rage beginning to bloom.
"...and just because you're too insecure to get out from underneath your status and make some damned friends...."
"Shut up, you prying bitch!!" he sneered.
"....Doesn't mean you can treat the rest of the world like a pile of garbage and hide behind your job as an excuse for it---" Karma heard the slap before she felt it, a hot stinging enveloping her jaw as her head rocked back on her neck. She blinked twice, her hand reaching up to touch her cheek gingerly where his hand had connected, hot tears of humiliation stinging her eyes as she looked bewilderedly at the yellow techo.
"I...." he looked disbelievingly at his hand as though it had developed a mind of its own. "God, Karma I---" She whirled away from him, storming into the living room.
"You want me to leave? Fine. I'm gone." she said, her voice dripping with venom as she stormed to the hook she had hung her jacket on and yanked it off, heedless of the small sound of one of the seams tearing as it snagged the hook.
"Karma....Karma, will you just LISTEN!!" Dr. Death cried, making her stare at him, her eyes smouldering.
"What? Want to slap the other side so they match??" she asked icily. He flinched at her words.
"No, I just---"
"Then what?? I've tried everything else I can think of and now I'm leaving! That's what you wanted, isn't it??" Her voice rose to an enraged shriek and cracked. The tears that had been glistening in her eyes began to spill down her cheeks and over the angry red welt beginning to form on her cheek vaguely in the shape of his palm. He looked away, feeling sickened by what he had done as his rage deflated and replaced itself with guilt.
She fumbled with her coat for a moment, trying to find the armholes through her bleary eyes, and watched in utter frustration as it slipped from her fingers and landed on the floor in a crumpled heap. Her first notion was to bend over and pick it up, but somewhere along the line, the idea was abandoned as she found herself slowly leaning against the wall and beginning to sob. She didn't want to cry in front of him...that was the last thing she wanted, really, but found herself helpless to stop as tears continued to spill down her nose.
She don't know how long she crouched there, crying helplessly, but as she got herself under control again, she was aware that he had moved closer and was now standing over her, offering her a paper towel. She looked at it silently for a moment before drawing herself back up to her full height and wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand instead. "I'm fine." she said flatly.
"I want to apologize." he told her, his eyes focused on the floor. Karma glowered at him, knuckling the last of her tears away. "I had no right."
"No you didn't." she answered curtly. "Or maybe it was the wine making that decision for you." A red flush of humiliation rose along the bridge of his nose and he was unable to bring himself to look at her. The warm buzz he had felt moments ago from the drinks he had taken were gone and he was left in the coldness of sobriety.
"You DO trespass more than you dare, you realize and I...."
"Didn't you say you were going to apologize?" she asked snidely, cutting him off. He inhaled slowly, his breath hissing over his teeth and wondering if she honestly meant to be so irritating or if it was just her nature.
"I'm sorry." he said lamely.
"Apology accepted." she nodded, though the coldness in her voice said otherwise. "And maybe I'm sorry too."
"You don't have to be." he muttered, wondering idly just where she was trying to take this. She looked at him, smiling a humorless smile that made his blood run cold.
"Of course I do. After all, aren't I a 'prying bitch'?" she asked. He felt another flush of embarrassment.
"I'll level with you. Nobody has ever tried to look out for me quite so much and I'm not used to dealing with it and what comes with it." he told her after a moment of silence, deciding it was a safe enough thing to say.
"What about Rose?" Karma asked.
"Rose, I'm fairly sure, would have the entire planet wrapped in swaddling blankets with a bottle in its mouth if it were left up to her." He had vaguely hoped that this might get a smile out of her to ease the tension, but her expression remained cloudy. Another long pause.
"Why won't you let people care about you?" she asked, looking him levelly in the eye.
"Because I don't need anyone to care about me. That's what I've been trying to get across to you." he answered, his gaze dodging hers and focusing elsewhere in the room.
"Don't need, or don't *want*?" she pressed.
"Both. I've taken care of myself for years and I've done fine. Just because I share species with a pet doesn't make me one."
"Understood. But you'd think years of being called one of Neopia's biggest jerks might get to a guy after awhile." she pointed out, her tone much calmer and less-guarded than it had been.
"You'd think that, but it doesn't bother me." he shrugged. "I don't give a damn what people say...that I take pets away, that I starve them, that I torture them, that I sell them to Frank Sloth, that I kill them in droves for the fun of it....it doesn't do any good to defend myself so why should I even listen anymore?"
"Alright but WHY do they say that?" she asked. "The pets you and Rose take care of should know better."
"Old rumors die hard." he sighed, realizing only after the words had left his jaws, that he had trapped himself. And now the questions would start, asking what rumors, what had happened, and all of that. He honestly didn't feel like getting out the old bones to gnaw on tonight. Instead, much to his surprise, she simply turned her head toward the window to look at the rain.
"I know how that goes." the frog nodded faintly. "I guess its none of my business anyway." she added, stooping to scoop her jacket off of the floor.
"Where're you going?" he asked.
"Home." she replied simply, giving her jacket a shake to straighten it.
"Its still raining." he pointed out.
"I think the rain's the least of my worries about now." she muttered, fumbling her arms into the sleeves and cringing at how cold the damp nylon was. "And I wish you all the luck in the world finding Snap. I'm.....I'm sure he's fine." The uncertainty in her voice confirmed that she had been thinking the same thing that had crossed the techo's mind more than once...that Snap hadn't run away at all and had been taken. At first he had tried to mentally compile a list of his enemies who would have done such a thing before coming upon the realization that most of Neopia likely thought of themselves as his enemy and that anyone could have easily taken Snap out of spite or greed.
"Bye." she said non-committedly as she wrapped her hand around the doorknob and moved to pull the door open.
"I lied." he blurted out, making her pause and turn to look at him. "About it not bothering me about what people say and think...." He fidgeted a little. "It makes me miserable sometimes. Damned miserable."
"I imagine it would." she nodded. "I'll see you later." she pulled the door open and took a step into the rain.
"You don't have to leave." he told her, making her stop again. "I'm sorry I said so. I'd feel guilty if you had to walk home in this."
"A little rain's not going to hurt me." she insisted...and as if on cue, a loud boom of thunder rattled the windowframes and made Karma shrink back into the house reflexively. "...maybe for a little while." she muttered, turning and walking back to the couch to sit down.
He looked down at his hands to discover that he had been wringing them compulsively and immediately made himself stop, dropping his arms to his sides. He had no idea why he had suggested that she stay...especially when only minutes ago he had been set to remove her from his house manually. Lingering guilt, he told himself, sitting down on the other end of the couch and folding his arms over his chest.
Quietly, not looking at her, he continued to mentally debate his sudden change of mood....and then suddenly, whether he wanted to believe it or not, the answer clicked in his head. It was because he didn't want her to have a reason to hate him. A REAL reason to hate him, unlike those that were quick to believe rumors that had no backing to them.
"What's wrong?" Karma asked tentatively. Realizing he had been frowning, he relaxed his face again..
"Nothing." he murmured. "Just thinking." He fell silent.
"I may as well bite, I guess. What rumors were you talking about earlier?" she asked, her tone sounding anything but enthusiastic as she gave the dying embers of their conversation a prod. He inhaled sharply as though touched with icy hands as he wondered if he really wanted to open so many old wounds again and explain. Well....it WAS his fault for mentioning it, he supposed. And it seemed to be the latest psychiatric fad to not "bottle up" one's emotions. Hell, maybe he'd feel better if he got it all out into the open. But where to begin?
"As long as I'm going to be delving into this, you may as well call me by my real name." he told her. Karma's interest instantly piqued.
"Dr. Death isn't the name you were given?" she asked. He shook his head.
"Glitz." he told her, bracing himself for her laughter. When it didn't come after a brief pause, he continued. "Its what my first owner named me when he brought me home."
"You had an owner?"
"Well, where did you *think* I came from?" he asked, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice. "You knew I was a neopet to begin with..."
"Sorry." she said quietly. He cleared his throat and continued.
"My first owner was a boy named Joey. I was his first pet and he had all sorts of dreams of doing great things in the battledome but....what can I say? I just wasn't much of a fighter. I embarrassed him for a few weeks until he dropped me in the pound in exchange for a better pet. I haven't seen him since."
"That's terrible." she remarked, listening attentively, wondering how far he'd go until he lost interest in talking with her.
"It gets better." he told her humorlessly. "I think I stayed in the pound for about three weeks before I got snapped up by someone who kept me for a week, never fed me, and then dropped me again the first time I came down with the Neezles. After another month or so, I was picked out as the fourth member of a rather wealthy family and shared a home with two spoilt acaras and one obnoxious usul."
"THAT lovely shindig ended when they recieved a transmogrification potion as a side-prize in a trade they made at the post and decided to "experiment" on me with it. Needless to say the owner was not only unamused by her other pets' joke but was disgusted with the mutant I turned into and that marked the end of that homelife." He shook his head. "And if you thought it was hard trying to find a home as a plain yellow techo, just try finding one as a mutant."
"Anyway, this time I was only in the pound for two days before Aislynn came."
"Aislynn?" Karma asked. "Who was that?"
"She was the only decent owner I had." he said, sounding almost wistful. "She and I were inseparable. When we had saved up enough from playing Meerca Chase together, she bought me one of Kauvara's yellow techo potions and turned me back to how I used to be. She used to tease me by saying she was going to spend all of our neopoints on a faerie paint brush and hide it in her safety deposit box so that when the faeries decided to bless techos with wings, she'd have the first faerie techo ever." he chuckled dryly. "Silly girl...."
"Why'd she leave you?"
"She didn't. She died." he said flatly. Karma jolted a bit upon hearing this. "Apparently she got sick...I don't know exactly except that she never came back to Neopia and by the time the word got to me on where she had gone, they also informed me that she was already dead. I ended up in the pound again...this time for the last time. Nobody cared, and nobody adopted me. After three months went by and there were no takers, I got pulled aside and was given an ultimatum. Either I could participate in a rehabilitation program that would train me to turn back to my basic instincts and teach me to be wild, or I could go to school, learn a trade, and earn a living."
"I wanted to be a doctor." he said after a pause. "And since the doctor's guild wasn't very sharing in free classes, I took side jobs and paid off my tuition myself. When I graduated from medical school, I took some specialty courses on the care of humans as well. I wanted to be a shoo-in for whatever job I applied for. By the time I got back, both of the positions I had wanted had been filled so I ended up taking the next best thing....a part-time veteranarian and pound attendant."
"At first, I loved my job and I loved seeing people and pets united with one another. I loved it so much that I almost could ignore the obnoxious people that abandoned their pets but soon I just...." he sighed, losing his train of thought for a moment. "I just couldn't stand it...all the sadness and neglect."
"So you turned into this, then." Karma remarked.
"Not overnight, no." he shrugged. "But if you had seen some of the things I've seen maybe you'd understand why I just don't care anymore."
"Sad story, but it doesn't answer my question." she prodded. He narrowed his eyes a moment and then relented, realizing she was right and that he had completely avoided what she had asked. "You don't have to, Glitz..." she said, trying the name out. It sounded odd to her and didn't fit him at all...likely why he had dropped it, she thought.
"No...I opened this can of worms, I may as well." he said, shaking his head and running one hand over his gray hair that had become slightly matted from the rain in a vain attempt to straighten it. He closed his eyes, calling all the details to mind. He hadn't forgotten a thing about how he had been laden with his nickname....hell, he could even remember the smallest things like the faintly obnoxious scent of Rose's violet perfume she had been wearing that evening. Clinging to these details, he began....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ten minutes till closing." Rose smiled, taking a sip of her neocola as she went about putting the day's paperwork in alphabetical order for filing in the morning as Glitz did the same.
"Thank heaven for small favors." he sighed, managing a small smile.
"Caught ya!" the uni teased, pointing at him. The techo immediately dropped the smile and cleared his throat. "Ohhh stop." she chided. "Would it kill you to smile once in awhile?"
"Nah." he dismissed her. "I just don't feel like it much anymore."
"Is it the abandoners getting to you again?" He nodded a bit and shrugged with a forced chuckle.
"Stupid, I know. Do you think I'm letting them bother me too much?" he asked. She squinted as though in deep thought.
"Well, maybe just a TAD..." she said, holding her hooves as far apart as she could. "And they're starting to complain about you to the employment office, ya know."
"Good for them." he muttered.
"I know...they're in the wrong and the first thing they do is lash out at everyone else." she replied. "But you're going to lose your job if they complain too much."
"Heh, I doubt that. How many people out there do you know of who hate themselves enough to saddle themselves with MY job?"
"You have a point." the uni smiled. "And on that note, I think I'm going to go get a late dinner after we check up on the inmates. You want to go with me?"
"No, I think I'll just--"
"I'll pay....c'mon Glitz, are you going to say no to a free meal?" she teased.
"Alright, alright...if you put it *that* way..." he trailed off as the front door opened and banged shut again as a heavyset boy with oily black hair entered, dragging a blue lupe behind him. The neopet whined and did its best to walk, but in the end simply gave up, allowing itself to be pulled across the floor, finding no strength in its legs to pull itself along. Glitz and Rose forced themselves not to stare at the ruined shell of the neopet as the boy approached the desk.
"........can we help you?" Rose inquired, her sapphire eyes wandering back to the lupe who licked at one sinewy front paw and half-snorted, half-sighed as its sunken eyes looked plaintively up at her and Glitz.
"Yeah, I gotta drop off this fellah here." the boy said, jerking a disinterested thumb at the lupe. Rose and Glitz exchanged a troubled look as the techo fumbled an abandonment form out of the drawer and slid it across the table with a pen. He was too distracted by the horrible state the lupe was in to grill the abandoner as he usually did. The room was utterly silent except for the scratching of the pen as the boy filled in the fields. When he had finished, he fumbled eighty neopoints out of his pocket, tossed them on the desk, and turned to leave.
"Oh yeah, and its been awhile since he's eaten if you wanna take care of that." he added as a parting shot before pushing open the door and disappearing.
"My god..." Rose gasped, walking slowly around to the front of the desk and approaching the animal. The lupe trembled, but thumped its matted tail once in greeting against the foor. "Oh.....my god...." she repeated as Glitz approached as well and crouched in front of the emaciated creature.
"I couldn't agree more..." he said in disbelief. It was a mystery to him how the lupe was even still alive. Its ribs stood out against its skin prominantly and, even as he watched, tiny black insects crawled over the bridge of its nose and disappeared in its mangy fur, and he could see large angry-looking red welts covering the beast's body. "This is.....disgusting." he said, swallowing and feeling as though his throat was lined with cotton suddenly. The lupe's paws slipped on the smooth tile of the floor and it whimpered, trying to regain its balance but lacking the strength to do so as it slid to its belly with a resigned yelp. A cloud of mites, upset by the sudden movement, all clustered into the air over the neopet's body before venturing back down into his fur again. One of them alighted on Glitz's nose and he hurriedly crushed it beneath his fingers before it could hide itself in his hair.
"Let's get him into the back." he told the uni hurriedly, working his arms carefully under the lupe and lifting. The creature grunted but didn't protest as he was carried. Rose followed worriedly, wringing her hooves as they ventured into the small veterinary office kept in the back of the pound. Since the establishment had been built, Glitz hadn't gotten much use out of the small office as most of the pets that came in were perfectly healthy or had only a casual disease that would wait for the person who adopted them to cure.
As he laid the lupe out on the examination table, it gave a groan, its side fluttering rather than rising and falling. What had happened to the poor creature? It was by far the worst case of neglect he had ever seen in his short medical career.
"Is he going to be okay?" Rose asked, standing uneasily in the doorway.
"I don't know..." he muttered, shaking his head. "Rose, go to the front and get the former owner's name from that form he filled out. I want to get a police report filed." he added. She nodded and eagerly left as he assessed the ailing neopet some more. The red welts on the skin indicated a case of neopox gone horribly awry but the neomites....he had never seen a pet with two diseases at once. The lupe licked its chops feebly and whimpered. "Shh....its alright." he soothed. "Not going to hurt you..."
"Glitz?" Rose called as she poked her head back into the room. "He didn't leave his name." she told him. "Just a psuedonym."
"Damn..." the techo hissed as his anger at the former owner of the neopet blossomed momentarily before he pushed it out of hand. "Alright...see if there's any neopox pizza in the freezer, I'm going to try and get rid of these mites."
The minutes dragged on as the medication was administered and the techo and uni looked on hopefully for signs of improvement in the bedraggled lupe. Twice, Rose attempted to get him to swallow some water with no success and the creature seemed to have no interest in food.
"Well...." Glitz said finally, dabbing a bit of ointment on an especially swollen area of the lupe's neck where the neomites had bitten him. "I guess that's that."
"So what now?" Rose asked, looking worriedly down at the heaving pet.
"Well, I guess we'll see if he survives the night before we make any long-term plans. I'd definately want to make sure that this one goes to a very good home." Glitz said matter-of-factly, though his voice betrayed his utter upset at the situation.
"Yeah..." Rose muttered, looking doubtfully at the lupe. She didn't want to say anything, but she didn't hold high hopes for the creature. Its diseases that had been allowed to fester, coupled with the fact that it had been starved for lord only knew how long, made its survival look bleak.
Hoping for the best, they bundled the lupe into a kennel with several blankets and a bowl of fresh food and left for the night.......
The following morning, Glitz arrived to work early and headed straight for the kennel that the lupe had been left in. The few pets that were awake called out passing jeers at him which he managed to ignore as he crouched and peered between the bars. The food was untouched and the lupe's head was settled peacefully on its paws. He slid a hand between the bars, gently running it over the neopet's head. When the lupe didn't stir, Glitz frowned and undid the latch.
As he reached inside and carefully lifted the beast's head, it lulled bonelessly to the side, confirming what he had feared and that it was dead. At the very least, it looked as though the lupe had slipped off quietly in its sleep...and he tried to assure himself that it hadn't had much of a chance anyway. He sighed in disappointment and worked his arms around the corpse, drawing it carefully out of the kennel and into his arms.
The hard part would be getting it into the back without being seen. It was the first time any of the pets left in his care had died and he had a feeling that it wouldn't be at all well-recieved by the other caged pets that saw him. Taking a deep breath, he began carefully toward the back room.
"Hey! Where're you taking him??" a cheeky red meerca called as it leered suspiciously at the doctor.
"Shush." Glitz whispered. "Don't wake everybody up."
"Oh yeah? Why not? You hiding something??" the meerca pressed. Glitz bit his tongue to keep from yelling....this particular meerca had been one of the more snide pound-goers he had had to deal with for the next few days. It occurred to him that with his luck the little rat would never be adopted and he'd have to put up with its antics for the rest of his career. Before he could answer, the meerca's beady eyes widened. "What's wrong with him??"
"He's---" Glitz began. The meerca gasped loudly.
"He's dead!!" the neopet cried, backing into a corner of his kennel. "HE'S DEAD!!!"
"Huh? Who's dead?" a sleepy yellow gelert asked, blinking awake.
"Gosh darnit, I was trying to sleep!" a green baby usul whined.
"That lupe's dead!! That crazy jerk killed that lupe!! I TOLD you he was going to start putting us all to sleep!!" the meerca shrieked. Glitz's eyes widened at the accusation but before he could defend himself, the pound came alive with a flurry of frightened voices and shouts.
"I didn't kill him!" Glitz tried to speak out, his voice lost in the excited chatter. "He died in his sleep, how could I have--"
CLONG!
He winced and staggered backward a step as one of the caged pets flung its food dish at him. Following suit, the air was soon alive with missiles as the pets hurled bones, bits of food, litter, bowls, water bottles, plushies, blankets, and anything else they could get their paws on. Glitz winced and dodged as well as he was able until he felt his back strike the wall as the barrage of voices assaulted him. "Going to kill us! Murderer! I hate you!"
A thick marrow bone handed out to skeiths and grarrls when they were impounded glanced off of his temple and made him cry out, the corpse of the lupe spilling from his arms and onto the floor. It was then that he heard it....it began as one voice in the back of the clamour and spread like a fire across dried grass as others joined in the chant. Before long, they were all chanting it, rattling their bars and still throwing things at him, all of them seeming to ignore the dead lupe sprawled on the tiles.
"Doc-tor Death! Doc-tor Death! Doc-tor Death!"
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".....and so that's where the nickname came from." he finished, his eyes fixed on the floor. The resurgance of the old memories had left him feeling surprisingly vulnerable. He could feel his hands trembling a bit as, in his mind's eye, he could still see the deep-lined contempt in their faces and feel the pelt of items hitting him.
"......damn...." Karma managed to say. "That's.....god damn, no wonder you hate people." He began to wring his hands to hide the fact they were shaking.
"From then on it just stuck. And as far as the rest of neopia is concerned, that lupe died because I killed it. I fought it for awhile and when it became clear that nobody cared to hear my side of things, I gave up. They wanted a monster and so I became one. But....I've never once killed a pet. I never would." he finished...and then lowered his head, fixing his eyes steadily on his lap.
"I believe you." Karma offered. He didn't answer. "That's a crappy reputation to get stuck with, Glitz, but I think all things considered you've been big about it." He still said nothing, his hands wringing compulsively. "Are you all right?" She heard him draw in a deep breath and let it out in an uneven and shaky sigh.
"I never....k-killed anybody....I---" he faltered. "I only ever wanted to he-elp and---" he broke off, trying to hold his inner dam together as it strained. In the end, he realized he was fighting a losing battle and that the outburst about to come was already long overdue and wouldn't be put off any longer. Gritting his teeth, the tears began to pour from his eyes as how unfair it all was began to sink in. Where he was, what he was doing with himself, how people saw him....this wasn't what he had wanted for his life at all.
Karma remained silent, unsure of what to do as she realized that he was crying. She had never been particularly good at dealing with emotional extremes from her friends back home and wasn't quite sure what to do now, but she had a good idea of where to start as she tentatively put a hand on either of his shoulders. She suspected his first impulse had been to try and pull away as she felt slight resistance, but it only lasted a moment as he collapsed against her in resignation. ~What's wrong, doc, you've never been hugged?~ she thought sympathetically as a shudder racked his body.
He sobbed quietly and deeply, as though fighting the crying every step of the way and allowed his head to rest on her shoulder. For the moment, it didn't matter that he was supposed to be irritated at her. Right now he would have hugged the Snowager himself if he thought it would be of any comfort.
Karma wondered silently how long he had been bottling all of this...likely since the day it happened, she assumed, as she gently wrapped her arms around his back and held him. A minute or so passed before he drew away from her, busily wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Don't you dare tell anybody about this." he told her, trying to bring his usual iciness into his voice and failing.
"I wouldn't do that." Karma assured him. "Who would I tell even if I wanted to? I don't have any friends."
"Good." he replied, sounding more relieved than snide as he said it, clearing his throat and heaving a sigh that filled every cavity of his chest and then let it out again as he brought everything in to perspective. He didn't feel any better, Snap was still missing, and worst of all he had just poured his guts out to someone he didn't like all that well. If anything, hell, things had just gotten worlds worse and he wanted nothing more at the moment than to just be alone in the dark and try to escape from the old demons of his past.
"Are you alright?" she asked after a moment.
"I don't believe I just did that..." he muttered, fixating his eyes on the floor.
"Well, the world didn't end, did it?" she asked softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. He reached up, slowly brushing it away.
"Please....just leave me alone." he whispered. Karma looked at him for a long moment before nodding and getting up.
"For what its worth, I hope you feel better." she told him. He didn't respond, keeping his gaze focused on the floor. She sighed and quietly opened the front door, slipping out into the dwindling rainstorm. As the door closed behind her, the silence and solitude was oddly comforting and stifling at the same time as he turned sideways on the couch and laid down, pulling his knees to his chest and staring off into space as his tail wound around his ankles.
He wished, for what had to be the thousandth time in his career, that he had everything to do over again. If he just hadn't been so eager and trusting, he told himself. If he had held out just a little longer instead of accepting the pound occupation, none of this would be happening. People wouldn't hate him and pets wouldn't fear him...that was the way things were supposed to have been.
"But its not the way they are, so deal with it." an inner voice told him indignantly. "You took the job, people hate you, and what are you going to do about it, Glitz?" He told the inner voice to kindly shut up as he closed his eyes and willed away an impending headache he felt building. He wished Snap were there...even though it had only been a week, he had gotten to be comforted by going to sleep beside the warm furry petpet every night...and now he was gone.
And now, though he was relieved to be rid of Karma, a part of him wished she had stayed for a little longer. Still pondering many things, somewhere along the line, the techo slipped off to sleep.
TBC.......