Christine Chapel likes pointy ears! (nurse_chapel) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-04-28 00:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, christine chapel, obi-wan kenobi |
Go team Christine!
Who: Obi-wan, Christine Chapel
What: office exam, antibiotics, and falling out of love at first sight. Christine = date/romance bane
When: Today
Where: Santa Ana low/no income clinic
Rating: PG
Status: Complete!
For the waiting room of low income clinic, it wasn’t as devoid of human touches as Obi-Wan had expected. For example, there was a potted plant on the receptionist’s counter. It was dead, but still it was a nice touch. Obi-Wan slouched in plastic and metal chair, all but curled into a fetal position. His feverish face was buried in his hands, his breath was hot and sticky, his beard was rough against his tender palms. He felt about as good as the plant looked. Probably worse.
He certainly looked worse, with skin the color of wallpaper paste, except for his nose, which was chapped and pink. His coughs sounded like there was some sort of monster trying to escape from his chest.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you sick? Sir? Excuse me.”
It took the receptionist a few tries before she got his attention. Obi-Wan lifted his head slowly. Eyebrows already cocked, even though it made his forehead hurt. She needed a good WTF shot in her direction. “Of course I’m sick.”
“Then you need to wear this.” She was holding up a white surgical-type mask, and scowling as if he should have known better. Obi-Wan’s face fell. He muttered under his breath as he crossed the little room and snatched it from her hand. He looped it over his ears and across his mouth in one quick but rough motion, enough to satisfy his need to convey just how annoyed he was with this entire situation, and then fell back into his chair, exhausted.
Just his luck. Besides a bit of a wait, he hadn’t come in on a day when the fun male receptionist was working, but got the cranky woman one. The fun one had marked the files as ‘wee wee issues’ and ‘vajayjay problems’. It was probably also to his great misfortune, that Christine Chapel was working that day, and had pulled his paper off the top of the pile. Maybe this one would need a swab and blood tests. One could only hope!
She opened the door and poked her head out, saying with a smile, “Obi-Wan? You’re next.”
Obi-Wan lifted his head and replied with a grunt as he pushed himself from the chair. He felt utterly pathetic. He had to force himself to make eye contact with the woman as he passed, force himself because she had a kind face--rather pretty, really--and he imagined her day-to-day might be just as miserable in a place like this.
He was kind of cute. All right, Christine, don’t ruin this. She smiled kindly at him, because he looked like an abused puppy in an animal shelter, and that automatically made her super nurse instincts kick in and want to take care of him. Overall though, despite her frustrations with the health care system (which felt so antiquated and insufficient to her), she was genuinely quite happy where she was, helping people. It probably showed.
“You look like you’ve been put through the wringer,” she commented as she led him back to the exam room. She even gave him a not-so-coy wink as she stopped by an open door. “In you go? Take a seat on the exam table and let’s see what sort of virus is eating away at you.”
“Can I take this off first?” he asked, motioning to the mask he was still wearing. “I’m having enough trouble breathing as it is.”
“That’s fine, go ahead and take that right off,” she said with a way too huge grin, and started getting out a thermometer to take his temp. She was hoping the poor guy just had a cold, but if it was the flu, then...he was going to get hot and sweaty. Ahem. Mind on your work, Christine! “You can set it aside. I don’t think I’ll need you to lay down. Unless you want to?”
Obi-Wan removed the mask and crumpled it into a ball, which he dropped into the wastepaper basket on his way to the exam table. He climbed up. “Sitting is fine,” he replied. “Who are you, by the way?”
“Nurse Chapel,” she said with a smile, closing the door and fanning her face with the file folder. “Nurse practitioner. I can write you a prescription, but if you’re really bad off, then you’ll need the real doctor. And maybe a hospital visit. But let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.”
She went right to work. Bloop! Temperature time. In went the thermometer and took his blood pressure before taking it out and giving it a looking at.
Both were high. Obi-Wan caught sight of them as she passed. The temperature was the more disturbing reading, at 102.4. “Yikes. That’s not good, is it?” He was trying to play it off with a casual smile, but there were more than a few reasons to be terrified of getting sick when you lived on the street. Still, he offered that smile--which was immediately destroyed with a hacking cough. “Sorry... sorry...” he tried to interject between hacks.
“That’s really not good. Have you been having periods where you break out in a sweat, then feel fine for a bit? I’m thinking this isn’t a cold, but the flu.” She took her stethoscope and put it in her ears. “Better give your lungs a listening to.”
Obi-Wan gritted his teeth. The flu was not an option. No way. “Mostly I’ve just been shivering,” he said, hoping that was somehow better. He eyed the stethoscope, unsure of what angle she was going for. He shivered at the thought of lifting his shirt. The room was kind of cold already. “Can you catch the flu from being out in the rain, cos that’s all it was. Really.”
“You can catch a cold from other people sneezing and things, and a cold can turn into the flu, especially if your body’s compromised by, umm...stress, rain, conditions like that,” she explained, and held the metal part against the inside of her lower arm to warm it up. “Shivering isn’t the best sign, it means your body is cold and it’s trying to warm up, and then with a fever? You’re probably on your way to bronchitis or pneumonia. But we’ll see how bad it is, okay?”
Obi-Wan reached for his shirt. “Where am I lifting?” he asked “Front or the back?”
He was doing his best to remain, hm, calm was the word. Honestly, he was rapidly becoming more pissed. Mostly with himself.
“No need.” Christine barely lifted his shirt up and placed the stethoscope against his back, saying when she wanted him to breathe deeply, or as deep as he could. Then she switched to the front of his chest, and knit her brows together like she heard something she didn’t like. “You have some rattle in a whistle. Not good. Where have you been staying? I can give you a list of shelters, if you don’t have someplace where you can stay out of the weather for a few days. If you don’t, you’ll need to go to a hospital, because this could get worse.”
So it was obvious, then: his living arrangement. Obi-Wan wrapped his arms around his chest. “Shit...” He felt the usual embarrassment. He tried to remind himself that this was the life he’d chosen. “Would the shelters take me like this?”
“Sometimes they have a little space set aside, for those who are sick. Or they’ll make you wear a mask. It beats the alternative, which is a hospital. You have to get out of of damp, dark places. No place that’s cold, and don’t bundle yourself up too much because you could make your fever spike,” Christine advised, but she said so with a smile. “You’d be surprised how many people come in here, either in danger of losing their homes or having already lost them. You’re not alone.”
She began writing prescriptions to help him through it, about three slips worth, then thought better of it. She ripped up two of the slips, and rummaged through a drawer she unlocked, taking out some antibiotics samples, and handing them over to him. Freebies!
Obi-Wan accepted the pills and tried to seem happy about it. Inwardly, the idea of taking any kind of drug was terrifying. He’d been down some awfully bad roads in the past. Even the thought of mimicking that behavior... “I don’t suppose you have any room to put me up for a bit, do you?” He didn’t mean it. Not at all. At least, he didn’t think he did.
“I have a couch, but you’ll have to contend with Walter,” she replied. Ohhhh he was very cute too. Was she blushing? She was so blushing. And he was looking a little hot and sweaty too because of that fever, which was a little sexy. “I had a date with Juan but I can really cancel that and take care of you, instead. I think that’d be great! Because you won’t leave in the morning like Ricky, Jim, Pedro, Michael, Andrew, and all those other guys did. I think it’s because I’ve got a monster huge butt, but...sure you can if you want!”
Hi, she’s too eager, and her eyes are bright and shiny. It’s kind of not normal looking, no. In fact, it’s kind of like that Stephen King story where the woman gets ahold of that writer guy and has him captive in her home.
Obi-Wan’s eyebrow lifted uncontrollably at the list of men’s names. Where these cats, he sort of hoped; or actual persons who had ran out on her? She was clearly a little, hm, kooky but it was a pleasant sort of nuts.
“Walter’s my cat, he’s about twenty something pounds, he’s HUGE,” Christine gushed, looking pretty pleased he was so agreeable and only raising an eyebrow at her. This had to be THE ONE, and he might even look good with those costume pointy ears she had in the drawers of her bedroom, along with that gummy stuff that people used to make them stick, during halloween. “And the rest of those guys were...I’ll tell you all about them, hon. We’ll have plenty of time tonight to talk about that.”
She patted one hand over his, like they had all the time in the world to share all her stories of every time she’d been dumped or done wrong by men. And how they never called back. Fun times!
Wait, Obi-Wan wondered, Had she actually taken him seriously about the moving in joke. No, Couldn’t be possible. She was cute, but cute only got so far with him. There was something maternal about her that was more attractive to him. And she did have the slightest bit of a large posterior, but he’d never say that aloud.
Oh she so took him seriously, in fact she kept right on talking while handing him the slip for some cheap generic cough syrup. “I can make you soup and feed it to you, and we can listen to some nice soft music and I’ve got some candles that will be perfect and so romantic. You won’t regret this! It’ll be great. And then we can talk about you staying for longer, too!”
Christine, if she heard her ass was big, would probably be jogging an extra five miles a day. And then ruin it by eating more Ben & Jerry’s.
The next step was photoshopping his face from phone pictures onto wedding photos. Which, hi, she just took a picture of him with her phone, so she could get a preemptive strike in on that fine arts and craft project! Go team Christine!
“Oh, I, uh, I...” His mouth was completely dry has he began to stammer. How could such a harmless, clearing non-serious comment get him into such a mess, so quickly. “I, um, you really don’t want me as a roommate. I mean... you...”
Crap. His brain was a smushy mess. He didn’t knew what to say. Actually, it felt more like he’d forgotten how to talk.
“Roommate?” Christine looked perplexed by that development. “Roommate? No, I thought you wanted something more than that, maybe. You know, like...candlelight dinners, walks on the beach, babies....”
She kept going too, like picking out curtains together, and dish towels, and decorative doilies.
“Well, sure. I mean, who doesn’t?” Obi-Wan smiled. Genuinely, now. “But do you really think I would ask a woman to marry me in a hospital exam room?”
“Why not?” Oh no, now she looked deeply wounded. She was giving him the ‘how could you?’ stare. “Don’t you believe in love at first sight?”
Doom. Girl doom. It made the air in the exam room seem about ten times heavier than before.
“No,” Obi-Wan replied. For some reason, he was still smiling. He actually felt like laughing.... right in her damn face. It was the best he’d felt in days, though. “Of course not. That’s silly.”
Christine went silent. That sort of silent that happens before a big storm hits. If he could smell, there might be that aroma of ozone, as if lightning might strike, and it might be aimed at him. She went to the door and opened it, leaning against it, looking deflated and disappointed. Finished before it started! There went their great love affair, right down the drain. And she was laughed at! God danggit, her and her stupid big butt.
“I’ll get you a list for those shelters,” Christine said, like the charity ball she was giving was out of invites, and the buffet was full of twigs and fiber dietary supplements, and nothing at all yummy. She headed out of the exam room and came back with a slip of paper and some instructions for what he should do, if the symptoms worsen. “Don’t stop taking the meds, ok? And you’ll need that cough syrup to get that stuff out of your lungs. Don’t stop taking that either. Here.”
She handed him enough money to cover the cost. That helped, right? Right!
“You’re good to go,” she said, quietly and calmly. A lil bit too calmly.
It was like he had flipped a switch. Suddenly, she was back in nurse practitioner mode, and all traces of crazy Christine were gone. Like a switch. Just like that. It was... disconcerting. But Obi-Wan felt rather bad about it. For a moment, she had trusted him enough to let it all hang out, so to speak. And he felt like he had done something wrong to crush her to swiftly.
But he couldn’t pretend he cared for her actual romantical feelings, per say. Well, actually, if he tried, he would prove to be an excellent liar, which he why he refused to do it. Honestly or nothing.
“Would you rather I pretended I did believe in it?” he asked. He was still sitting on the table.
“What? No, you were quite right to say that,” Christine said, her chin tilted up a little bit, like she needed some damn Ben & Jerry’s, and she needed it asap. Preferably the sort with chocolate in it. “If you have problems, please come back and we’ll see what we can do for you. Here, take some temperature strips, and keep track of your temperature to see if you get worse. If you do start to spike at one-oh-four, or eek closer toward that? You need to get to a hospital right away.”
She smiled again, but it was slowly given. “Good luck. I hope it’ll get better soon.”
Slowly, Obi-Wan slid down from the table. He stuffed the pill packets in his pockets and tucked the bottle of cough syrup under his arm. He intended to chuck that first chance he got, but he felt he ought to keep that information to himself. He was a little afraid to say anything even slightly negative to her at all. But cough syrup was a big no-no.
Maybe it was the flu weakening him, but his usual wits felt beyond his grasp. He was feeling bad for things he wouldn’t normally feel bad about. He usually enjoyed telling people off, one way or another. But he’d been reduced to the most pathetic version of himself.
So maybe that was why he hesitated to leave. “Listen, I’m sorry. That was pretty rude of me. As you can tell, I’m big on honesty, so why don’t I tell you something I don’t usually tell anyone, just to make this fair.” He took a little breath, but it wasn’t exactly a dramatic pause. He wasn’t a fan of those either. “I’m sort of married. I mean, I’m married, but I’m separated and... for me, that makes me unavailable. So, it really wasn’t anything you said or did. I’m just not in a position to act on anything.”
He wheezed a little as he spoke. It was difficult getting that out, in more ways than one.
It was as though she felt the earth opening up beneath her feet and swallowing her whole, like a devastating loss. Over before it even started. He probably had some wench of a wife, somewhere. She was barring him from ever falling in love, because he’d never get over her, or she over him, and she imagined, briefly, that they could have some sort of hot illicit affair, before stopping herself and not letting it get too much further. Not safe, letting it get too much further, if their love was never meant to be.
All she could do was nod to him, and say, “Apology accepted, but it’s probably not a great idea to have strange walk-in patients in my home. You can go to a shelter, or one of those safe houses on the list, and that’ll get you through this. If you don’t, then you’re going to get worse. I’m sorry too. Is it because my butt’s too big?”
Well that fell right out of her mouth, but she’s looking like she’s expecting an answer, while she’s holding that door open for him.
Obi-Wan tilted his head thoughtfully. “You’d believe I was telling the truth either way, right?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Look, you’re a really handsome guy, and I’d probably marry you in an instant because you’re cute. But you’ve said you can’t and our love simply isn’t meant to be, so y’all can go, and I’ll just go on thinking my butt’s real huge. Guys aren’t supposed to lie to ladies.”
Christine gave him the sort of look like she was boring holes through his skull. No lies! She might stick you with needles, if you lie! And she loooooved giving people shots. Just to prove that, she took out a nice big needle and some antibiotics, and looked like she was going to give him a shot in the butt or something, to make it all better. Faster. The door was left wide open.
Yes, Obi-Wan was grateful for the wide open door. Truthfully, he actually preferred the idea of a shot to a pill. At least, it was something he wouldn’t be administering himself. But, obviously, he wasn’t privy to all those crazy thoughts darting through her head. All he had was the visual of a woman pulling out a needle without provocation. He was too sane to wait a see how that would play out, not that he was actually afraid of the woman. It would take a much larger butt person to make him nervous.
He began to back away. “No, I think I’m good. Thanks for the pills.”
And backing away quickly became running away. Pretty soon, he was out of breath.
Christine caught up with him, grabbed a sleeve, stuck her tongue out like she was concentrating, and wham, stuck him with that needle and gave him a first round of antibiotic treatment. Then, sweet as sunshine, told him, “Be sure to take your pills. Ok?”
Then she let him go. She probably caught him in the middle of the waiting room. Because some kid started screaming bloody murder at the sight of needles. Nuuuuu!
If she’d been a guy, he would have slugged her.