Chapter 4: Featherbrain

"What are you doing here?" Sean greeted her at the door. He would hardly needed to be afraid of Christian becoming a scientologist, but Kimber bothering his friend at a point when he wasn't feeling well neccessited some offensive action against the blonde.

"Sean, please. Leave that just now. You're late and I'm very worried about Christian. You'll be too once you see him. He looks like shit and he's in a lot of pain. I swear if you weren't coming I would've tried to convince him going to the hospital," she ranted while leading Sean to the bedroom.

"What's going on?" Sean enquired from Christian.

"Good you brought your bag. Cause I think I got a bit dehydrated," Christian pulled himself higher on his pillows.

"How did you get dehydrated?" Sean took his friend's pulse.

"How do you think? By puking my guts out fifteen times a day?" He lied.

"Little fast," Sean acknowledged about the pulse, "how long have you been feeling sick?" He opened his bag.

"The day the before yesterday."

"He said he had a sore stomach for months," Kimber intercepted.

"You did? Why didn't you say so?" Sean took the blood pressure cuff out.

"Because you were busy with the baby?" Christian pulled his sleeve up willingly for the cuff. He was sure he was dehydrated enough to have made a difference to his system. Sean deserved to get worried about him too. With all the baby situation, he still felt Sean didn't care enough about him to make sure he was really okay after Kimber had left him. What kind of friend was he?

"But I thought you were busy with..." He fixed the cuff on, hesitating one moment before saying the name, "Michelle." It would not be a surprise for Kimber that Christian slept with another woman and even if it'd hurt her he wouldn't give a damn.

"I was...at times...as well," Christian said slowly, making sure Sean could concentrate listening to the pounding in his ears at the same time as well.

"Pretty low, your blood pressure," Sean stated, "show fingernails," he tried to assess hydration status, "what are your other symptoms?"

"Mostly nausea and pain. Sometimes a little dizzy and I have a headache."

"Right. I think I'll set up some fluids, but let me see your stomach first. Where does it hurt?" Sean asked compassionately.

"Up here," he rubbed a hand across his stomach settling above his navel and organised himself into the correct position for an abdominal exam.

Sean got on with cautiously probing his belly with his fingertips, superficially, then deeper, leaving the mentioned area last with Christian trying to kid on stiffle a moan in reply to the pressure. "I can't detect anything obviously wrong," Sean concluded, "but I don't have the proper equipment to check you out. I think you should be in hospital."

"Let's not overreact here," Christian freaked out over the prospect of going to hospital and having found out he was mainly pretending to be ill. If Sean wanted to send him to hospital he still had some work to do so that he couldn't be accused of making himself ill. "I don't have a fever. That must be a good sign. And I'm better than how I was last night. Really. So just give me those fluids and let me continue with the meds I've been takin."

"What like?"

"Rulox," he lied. The antacid was meant to neutralize gastric acidity and increase the pH of the stomach and duodenal bulb inhibiting smooth-muscle contraction and gastric emptying. In fact he had taken or was intending to take no such thing, quite the opposite, but he needed them to think that he had all these symptoms deaspite measures against them.

"Fine," Sean agreed, "but I want you to stay in bed. And don't think you're getting away with anything," he warned, not even aware of how much he was on spot, "I'm taking a firm stand on taking you even if just to the practice tomorrow nmorning for some blood tests and imaging studies. Now I need to go back to the car to get some specimen bottles as well I'd like you to fill. I wasn't prepared for this, you know, you should've at least said on the phone today you were this bad..."

tbc