Kerosene Kisses and Gasoline Dreams

Part 1

There are five products of petroleum. Bottled gas, gasoline, kerosene, diesel and fuel oil. Bottled gas is what you put in those portable stoves, gasoline and kerosene power cars and jet engines. Diesel powers trucks and heavy duty vehicles. Fuel oil for ships and power stations.

There's also a byproduct, a wasteful extra step. They use it to make roads and roofs, a hard material that burns at 350° celsius after the first five has already been extracted.

Severus felt like bitumen, the 6th step that people utilized simply because it was there. It wasn't the main reason they burnt the petroleum but they could still use it for ground work.

So you had places the drive the cars powered by gasoline and roofs you can cook under with the bottle gas. It was a shelter for their main products, their main assets.

And that's exactly what Severus felt like, he was a fucking byproduct. Unwanted, unnecessary, useless until made useful.

The only time he felt truly peaceful was when he had a body on the operating table, when he had a scalpel in his hand.

The funny thing is, he never wanted to be a doctor. He wanted to be a chemist, teach it in a big fancy lecture hall with a class full of students. But teaching chemistry didn't make nearly enough money as this. He was the country's leading cardio-thoracic surgeon. He is head of cardio, had a salary close to a million, no debt thanks to his full ride scholarships and a savings account that looks like it should belong to one of Jeff Bezos' kids.

It helped he had an eidetic memory, could memorize a whole textbook just by reading it once. Passed the MCAT with flying colours, had hospitals fighting for him to be their newest resident.

And yet....it took over his life in the worst way possible.

Ever heard of a surgeon's ego? Yeah, it's a fucking nightmare. A surgeon's life revolves around their job, infests every little crevice of their mediocre and short life. It makes them lavish, cocky, overly bitchy and Severus was no exception.

He could keep it up at work but once he got home, to that barren maze of a house, he was just him. A lonely kid who only did this so his father wouldn't think he was a failure. So his mother had money for groceries and bills and whatever her heart desired.

He works 20 hour shifts at a time, works out every spare chance he has just so his heart doesn't stop and goes home to take a nap, before doing it all over again.

It was fucking exhausting. He thought he suffered in med school but this was a whole other world of self hatred.

He would often space out at work, during lunch time when he sat in his office and just stared into his sandwich instead of eating it. And then he'd either get paged or called in for a consult and the sandwich would end up in his trashcan. He doesn't have friends in the hospital, no.

He has colleagues, mentees, fans even. Patients, nurses, subordinates. But not friends.

But you know who had friends? The people who weren't as successful as him. The nurses were all close, had their own little world within the hospital walls. They would gossip while folding bedsheets or replacing bedpans.

The residents ganged up on attendings, the attendings ganged up on their residents. He feels like he should have friends, a little support group. Maybe the other department heads but all of them were so busy the only time they talked was about work.

And the worst of all, the EMT's. They were the hospital superstars. Not a superstar like Severus was but they were humorous, charming, handsome and pretty. They had the nurses giggling around them as they made stupid jokes all while Severus is wheeling away their now forgotten patient.

Severus found them annoying.

This one guy especially. He has slept with half the nurses in the hospital and is slowly making his way to the interns. Severus overheard him talk about how in his frat they had a checklist of all the sororities and how if you slept with a girl from each sorority you were basically a god.

That's what he's trying to do. Worst of all, he heard him say 'one day I'm gonna charm my way into a department head's bed' and Severus couldn't help but scoff.

The oncology head has been running after him for months, unbuttons her blouse a little whenever he is around. The dermatology department head has had his eye on him for so long the poor paramedic probably thinks he has a stalker.

He could have them if he wanted to. And yet he doesn't. It's puzzling, really.

Severus doesn't understand him.

" Dr. Snape."

" Hm?" Severus snaps his head up from where he was zoning out on yet another sandwich to see a nurse standing at his door.

Alice, he thinks her name is.

" The chief of medicine is asking for you." She smiles sweetly and waits for his answer.

He sighs and nods, sliding the sandwich into the trash before following her.

" Weren't you gonna eat that?" She asks and Severus is almost surprised she's talking to him.

" Oh. No, no I don't have time anyway."

" Dr. Minerva said it won't be long. You could still get something from the canteen. Today is chicken curry." Alice perks up but Severus shakes his head.

" I don't handle spice well."

" Well I'm sure the interns would be tripping over their feet to bring you another sandwich from the coffee shop." Alice laughs, Severus finds himself laughing with her.

" Thanks Alice but I'm fine."

" You know my name!" She gasps and Severus raises his eyebrows.

" Is that so surprising?"

" I didn't think you knew any of the nurses names. You barely glance at us."

" Well..." Severus thinks.

" There's my favorite scrub nurse, that would be you. Mary, April and Molly works on the first floor. I think the oncology team has three nurses I see all the time but I only know Marlene."

Alice has this smug look on her face and nudges him a bit.

" I'm your favorite scrub nurse?"

Severus chuckles and nods, putting his hands in his pockets.

" Yeah. Nobody can tie a glove like you. Or hand a scalpel faster."

Alice has a nice full body laugh and tells him to stop joking, which he does but they both have smiles on their faces till it's time to part.

He braces himself for a talk with the boss and walks in, only to see the hospital president sitting opposite of the desk.