thatonegirl28
partially awake
Rhodey
filler
filler
filler
filler
filler
filler
David Bowie
Space Oddity
It started towards the end of the school day, the professor's lecture slowly boring a hole into the side of his head from it's monotonality. It was the last portion of the last class of the day that really dragged on and on. Squinting down at the screen of his laptop Rhodey attempted to at least pretend to continue taking notes. While he had his phone sitting out on the table beside his folded up cane recording the lecture, the act of taking them by hand onto his keyboard was an aspect of school that he had grown fond of. Not so much in times like now when he was in the beginning stages of a migraine however. The dull ache of eye strain from daily use of his remaining vision slowly evolving from a fatigue like feeling into more of an ache that was now reaching from just under his brow bone behind his eyes to much deeper in his head.
This was still the more manageable level compared to the full blown epicenter of an episode, once the point of no return was passed he usually ended up spending the rest of the day holed up in his apartment with the blinds fully drawn, trying not to be sick and waiting for it to all be over. Migraines had been practically a staple in his life since around senior year of high school when his vision loss from Stargardt's Disease had taken another steep decline, it wasn't the actual process of the loss that caused the pain but the result of it. Having less useable vision meant his eyes and the surrounding muscles and nerves had to work harder to try and pick up the slack, resulting in the reoccurring pain.
Since then he had gotten pretty used to having around two episodes a month, sometimes three if he was putting in more hours than usual on the computer or other visually draining activities. Like being under fluorescent lights in a lecture hall.
Shutting his eyes to try and block out some amount of the offending light he listened to the professor's ending ramble and instructions of which chapters to read and what discussion posts to turn in, vowing to look up the homework on Canvas later on instead of committing them to memory as the words faded to background insignificance while the students around him began to back up their belongings. After a moment adjusting to the light again as he reopened his eyes he followed suit, tucking his laptop and other miscellaneous items into his backpack. Exchanging the items for a pair of sunglasses he's kept in the front pocket of his bag for occasions such as these. He slipped them over his eyes with one hand, taking in the minimal relief with a sigh, and extended his cane in front of him with the other. Following the crowd of other students out the door of the room and into the campus shortly.
The gathering of people began to disperse as the area of open space opened up outside the building. Cold January air brushed through the thinning crowd causing most to turn their jacket collars against the wind and brace against it, Rhodey on the other hand tugged down the zipper of his own coat and allow the brisk air to hit the exposed skin of his neck. The slight sting of it cooling down the mild increase of heat in his upper body that signaled the continued escalation of his migraine. The walk back to the apartments was not very far and on a good day was quiet enjoyable, but in these circumstances it would certainly be more demanding than usual. Thankfully he could mostly rely on the proverbial autopilot he'd developed from taking the path so many times by now and not have to tax himself too badly with thinking about every little thing.
Hearing upbeat top 40s pop music muffled through glass alerted him to the fact that he was now passing by the same hair salon he always used as a 'halfway point' marker in his mental map of the journey to the lofts from the UNCC campus. He relaxed a little in knowing he was closer to being done as the sound of his own cane sweeping the sidewalk in front of him and scraping the concrete was starting to become grating on his ears.
He was taking hold of the building's front door not too long after, the rush of the heat in the lobby whirling around him as he stepped inside and allowed the heavy door to shut behind him. The process of getting to the elevator and onto his own floor was uneventful, as preferred, no neighbors or visitors tried to strike up any conversation with him from the entire way to the door of unit #222. Getting inside his own space reduced the moderate stress he had been experiencing, now he just needed to get started on reducing the pain he was still in the throes of.
After ditching his coat, bag, phone, and cane, on the console table beside his door he made his way across the room and closed the blinds on all his windows. The comforting darkness increased as he gradually shut out the sunlight pouring through the slats in the window dressing. Navigating the darkened apartment he entered his bedroom and approached the dresser, grabbing the old cigar box against the back rightmost corner and flipping it open. Inside was a ziplock bag containing a few pre-rolled joints and a lighter. Pocketing the lighter he pulled out the bag, fishing out a joint out of it before resealing it and replacing the contents into the box and then placing the box itself back onto the dresser.
Pulling the lighter back out as he made his way down back out into the main area of his apartment he placed the joint between his lips and lit it, taking an extended drag, tossing the lighter onto his coffee table, and taking a seat on the couch. He slowly exhaled the smoke, leaning back and toeing his shoes off so he could bring his legs up onto the couch and lie down, thankful he had made the choice to reach for joggers instead of jeans that morning. The silence of the apartment made the throbbing in his head a little more apparent, hopefully the pain would soon be lessened by the high. He stared up the ceiling and waited for time to pass, closing his eyes and trying to sleep would likely be fruitless if not ill-advised considering the still lit object in his right hand.
A few feet away his phone let out a notification sound. Rhodey snapped upright, driving the heel of his free hand into his temple with a groan in response to the noise. The volume on his tech devices were kept pretty low for the most part, especially at school. That hadn't changed despite what it felt like, but even the faint sound may as well have been a cymbal crash and it would've hurt all the same.
Once the shock of the abrupt noise had worn off he was met with another realization, he didn't need to check his phone to knew what it said. It was a text message. He'd forgotten that he had told Nora that she could come over to return a book on cooking she had borrowed from him and possibly swap it out for another one if she wanted.
Sure he could've probably texted her back and cancelled, but he didn't really need to. He could pull himself together for this and be fine, he'd done it before. Not very fun, or easy, but doable. Besides to cancel with what was probably less than a half hour was super rude and and overall, kind of a dick move.
Moving back around the dark apartment he set to making it a little more presentable, starting with putting out the join in an ash tray on the coffee table, but not before taking a final drag off it. Once that was settled he entered the kitchen to turn the fan over the oven on, the sound of it running would be hellish but making the apartment smell a little less like a skunk just ran through it would be preferable when having other people in the home. He also went to ensure that his belongings were no longer in a pile beside the front door, now instead sort of pushed to the side. The fatigue was already pretty bad when he had gotten home, now after hustling around the space a few times he was pretty much ready to collapse, looks like that was as 'presentable'' as the place was gonna get.
One last thing to be done was to send a response to Nora instructing her to let herself in, a minor, albeit important, request but avoiding any knocking on the door would be ideal. Then it was just time to wait for her to actually show up, and of course as per usual when doing virtually anything with a migraine, try not to be sick.
This was still the more manageable level compared to the full blown epicenter of an episode, once the point of no return was passed he usually ended up spending the rest of the day holed up in his apartment with the blinds fully drawn, trying not to be sick and waiting for it to all be over. Migraines had been practically a staple in his life since around senior year of high school when his vision loss from Stargardt's Disease had taken another steep decline, it wasn't the actual process of the loss that caused the pain but the result of it. Having less useable vision meant his eyes and the surrounding muscles and nerves had to work harder to try and pick up the slack, resulting in the reoccurring pain.
Since then he had gotten pretty used to having around two episodes a month, sometimes three if he was putting in more hours than usual on the computer or other visually draining activities. Like being under fluorescent lights in a lecture hall.
Shutting his eyes to try and block out some amount of the offending light he listened to the professor's ending ramble and instructions of which chapters to read and what discussion posts to turn in, vowing to look up the homework on Canvas later on instead of committing them to memory as the words faded to background insignificance while the students around him began to back up their belongings. After a moment adjusting to the light again as he reopened his eyes he followed suit, tucking his laptop and other miscellaneous items into his backpack. Exchanging the items for a pair of sunglasses he's kept in the front pocket of his bag for occasions such as these. He slipped them over his eyes with one hand, taking in the minimal relief with a sigh, and extended his cane in front of him with the other. Following the crowd of other students out the door of the room and into the campus shortly.
The gathering of people began to disperse as the area of open space opened up outside the building. Cold January air brushed through the thinning crowd causing most to turn their jacket collars against the wind and brace against it, Rhodey on the other hand tugged down the zipper of his own coat and allow the brisk air to hit the exposed skin of his neck. The slight sting of it cooling down the mild increase of heat in his upper body that signaled the continued escalation of his migraine. The walk back to the apartments was not very far and on a good day was quiet enjoyable, but in these circumstances it would certainly be more demanding than usual. Thankfully he could mostly rely on the proverbial autopilot he'd developed from taking the path so many times by now and not have to tax himself too badly with thinking about every little thing.
Hearing upbeat top 40s pop music muffled through glass alerted him to the fact that he was now passing by the same hair salon he always used as a 'halfway point' marker in his mental map of the journey to the lofts from the UNCC campus. He relaxed a little in knowing he was closer to being done as the sound of his own cane sweeping the sidewalk in front of him and scraping the concrete was starting to become grating on his ears.
He was taking hold of the building's front door not too long after, the rush of the heat in the lobby whirling around him as he stepped inside and allowed the heavy door to shut behind him. The process of getting to the elevator and onto his own floor was uneventful, as preferred, no neighbors or visitors tried to strike up any conversation with him from the entire way to the door of unit #222. Getting inside his own space reduced the moderate stress he had been experiencing, now he just needed to get started on reducing the pain he was still in the throes of.
After ditching his coat, bag, phone, and cane, on the console table beside his door he made his way across the room and closed the blinds on all his windows. The comforting darkness increased as he gradually shut out the sunlight pouring through the slats in the window dressing. Navigating the darkened apartment he entered his bedroom and approached the dresser, grabbing the old cigar box against the back rightmost corner and flipping it open. Inside was a ziplock bag containing a few pre-rolled joints and a lighter. Pocketing the lighter he pulled out the bag, fishing out a joint out of it before resealing it and replacing the contents into the box and then placing the box itself back onto the dresser.
Pulling the lighter back out as he made his way down back out into the main area of his apartment he placed the joint between his lips and lit it, taking an extended drag, tossing the lighter onto his coffee table, and taking a seat on the couch. He slowly exhaled the smoke, leaning back and toeing his shoes off so he could bring his legs up onto the couch and lie down, thankful he had made the choice to reach for joggers instead of jeans that morning. The silence of the apartment made the throbbing in his head a little more apparent, hopefully the pain would soon be lessened by the high. He stared up the ceiling and waited for time to pass, closing his eyes and trying to sleep would likely be fruitless if not ill-advised considering the still lit object in his right hand.
A few feet away his phone let out a notification sound. Rhodey snapped upright, driving the heel of his free hand into his temple with a groan in response to the noise. The volume on his tech devices were kept pretty low for the most part, especially at school. That hadn't changed despite what it felt like, but even the faint sound may as well have been a cymbal crash and it would've hurt all the same.
Once the shock of the abrupt noise had worn off he was met with another realization, he didn't need to check his phone to knew what it said. It was a text message. He'd forgotten that he had told Nora that she could come over to return a book on cooking she had borrowed from him and possibly swap it out for another one if she wanted.
"Fuck..."
he whispered, forcing himself to stand up.Sure he could've probably texted her back and cancelled, but he didn't really need to. He could pull himself together for this and be fine, he'd done it before. Not very fun, or easy, but doable. Besides to cancel with what was probably less than a half hour was super rude and and overall, kind of a dick move.
Moving back around the dark apartment he set to making it a little more presentable, starting with putting out the join in an ash tray on the coffee table, but not before taking a final drag off it. Once that was settled he entered the kitchen to turn the fan over the oven on, the sound of it running would be hellish but making the apartment smell a little less like a skunk just ran through it would be preferable when having other people in the home. He also went to ensure that his belongings were no longer in a pile beside the front door, now instead sort of pushed to the side. The fatigue was already pretty bad when he had gotten home, now after hustling around the space a few times he was pretty much ready to collapse, looks like that was as 'presentable'' as the place was gonna get.
One last thing to be done was to send a response to Nora instructing her to let herself in, a minor, albeit important, request but avoiding any knocking on the door would be ideal. Then it was just time to wait for her to actually show up, and of course as per usual when doing virtually anything with a migraine, try not to be sick.
♡coded by uxie♡
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