It started on Tuesday.
Brad could handle pain. For reasons he'd rather not get into, he was used to it. So when the stabbing pain in his stomach started on his way to work Tuesday morning, he didn't let it impede his day.
He assumed he ate something bad or had gas, that it would go away soon.
It didn't. An hour later, the pain was still there. He simply took the bottle of aspirin out of his desk and swallowed two pills with his morning coffee, then moved on and tried to ignore it. That helped. What was probably an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, calmed down to a tolerable 5, and Brad could just focus on his work. He nursed his coffee, thankful that Jo didn't seem to think twice when he asked her to grab him another. It was nearly noon and he was still in pain, but he knew better than to run to Web MD just so it could tell him he had cancer or something.
He remembered the last time David had an upset stomach and worked himself into a tizzy because the internet told him he had diabetes.
"Brad," David began, wheeling his chair around and standing up. He seemed to have a perpetual content smile behind that mustache, "You ready for our meeting with the accounting department? Ian said he was bringing Bear claws!" He rubbed his hands together in excitement.
Looking up at him, Brad forced his mouth into a polite smile, "Yeah-AH-" he sprung up from his chair, instantly falling back down when a rusty steak knife was stabbing his left abdomen, at least that's what it felt like. He grabbed the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white, letting out a sigh.
"Are you ok?" David asked, stopping at the door and raising an eyebrow at him.
Gritting his teeth, Brad forced himself into a standing position, "Yup, just..banged my knee on the desk," he weakly reached towards his knee, rubbing it to really sell the lie. He stood up, walking-well actually hobbling-over to David.
The other man looked like he wanted to say something, looking Brad up and down, but instead he just shrugged and walked away.
It took everything in Brad to walk through the office and into the meeting room without looking like he was in excruciating pain. Once he sunk down into his chair at the long conference table, he breathed a sigh of relief that that was all he had to do for a while: sit there and listen. That worked for about 5 minutes while Ian droned on about something none of them cared about. That guy really just talks to hear himself talk.
"So Brad, you were gonna tell us about your new lootcrate idea?" Ian asked, looking up from his phone.
Oh, right.
He'd totally forgotten that he said he'd have that done today.
"Right, yes ok, well this one is still in the early stages but basically I was thinking that-"
"Oh Cmon, do it properly. Stand up and present it to us. Give it some pizazz!" Ian baited, kicking his feet up onto the table.
"Brad doesn't do pizazz."
'Brad doesn't do pizazz.' He said it at the exact same time as Poppy, garnering an annoyed scoff from her.
"Stop that."
"Fine," Brad put his hands flat on the table, pushing himself up slowly. He bit his tongue so hard he thought he was gonna draw blood. Almost there, almost there, and ok. He was able to stand up and walk to the front of the room.
"Brad, are you ok?"
He paused, his gaze darting to Ian, "Yeah, why?" He could taste iron. Shit, his tongue actually was bleeding.
"You're walking all.."
Poppy finished the sentence for him, "Like a senior citizen. Did you throw your back out, old timer?"
