Chapter Text
It's been a week now and Eren is still in excruciating pain.
He's hanging off the edge of the couch with his head upside down and a heat pack pressed against his cheek as he bemoans this fact to Armin. Despite of the constant ache that feels like its burrowing through his molars, he can still manage to complain.
"Does that position actually do anything?" Armin wonders as he peeks over the screen of his laptop. He's seated by the kitchen table and working on an essay, if the papers and textbooks scattered around him are of any indication.
"Some guy on Yahoo Answers said it was supposed to help," Eren replies. As he speaks, his tongue grazes against his hurting tooth and he flinches at the contact. "But I don't really think so. I've been lying here for almost an hour."
"You know what would help?" Armin goes on, but Eren can't hear him due to the fact that he's shoved his fingers in his ears. Even so, he still knows what Armin is saying as he recognizes him mouthing the word 'dentist'. Before he has the chance to disagree loudly, Jean strolls in. Eren sees his worn sneakers as he makes his way across the floor to the fridge.
"How was the exam?" Armin asks, to which Jean responds by letting out a long groan.
"Oh my God, let's not even talk about it," he says. Eren hears him shuffle around a bit, but soon he plops down on the other end of the couch with a tub of Ben&Jerry's, sending Eren a pitying glance.
"Dude, you still haven't gotten that checked?"
With great effort, Eren raises his head to glare back. "What do you think?"
Jean cracks open the lid and digs in. "Just get to a dentist already," he says. "It's not that bad."
It is, though, Eren wants to reply, but instead he squeezes his lips into a thin line. The pain is always there, near the back of his mouth, but eating and talking often make it even worse. He's spent countless hours in front of the mirror with his mouth wide open, staring at the tooth that's giving him so much trouble. It's on the bottom row, second one from the back, and if Eren squints and tilts his head the right way, he can see a definite cavity.
He's had cavities before as a kid, of course, but he doesn't remember any of them hurting this much. Maybe he's growing soft and weak with age, he thinks as he clambers up. The upside down position has done nothing but make him feel dizzy.
Jean nudges his foot with his own. "Hey, cheer up, Eren. You want some ice cream?" he offers, a mocking grin on his face. "Oh, wait, you can't."
He flips Jean off, sagging against the pillows as he watches him spoon more ice cream into his cavity-free mouth. "I don't like dentists."
"No-one does," Armin chimes in from behind his laptop. "You just gotta suck it up. It's only one appointment and then you can go back to neglecting your dental hygiene."
"What are you, the tooth police?" Eren mutters. His sore tooth is probably listening in on their conversation as a particularly sharp throb of pain from the back of his mouth makes him wince.
Armin shrugs. "You know I'm right," he says in a sing-song voice, and Eren does know this. Armin's an all-around great friend and an ideal roommate, except for the fact that he tends to be right about pretty much everything.
"I can come and hold your hand if you're too scared," Jean gurgles through his mouthful of ice cream. There's a speck of chocolate at the corner of his mouth and Eren feels tempted to punch it off.
"I'm not scared, dickbag," he snaps.
"Then go to the dentist, assbasket," Jean retorts with a wave of his spoon.
Eren grips on to the heat bag so hard that his knuckles are going white and quips, "Maybe I will."
It's not as simple as it sounds, though. Eren would never admit it, especially not in front of Jean, but he may be just a tiny bit scared.
He still remembers when he was ten and had to visit Dr. Shadis who always smelled like fish and poked at his gums so much that they'd bleed afterwards. During one memorable appointment when the good doctor had whipped out a particularly large and loud drill, Eren had panicked and chomped down on his fingers when he'd tried to shove the thing in his mouth.
When he finally caves in and calls for an appointment, he specifically informs the receptionist that he does not like dentists. "It's very good of you to mention that," she chirps. "We'll book you with Dr. Smith, he's very good with nervous patients."
This information doesn't make Eren dread the appointment any less. Luckily it's on a day when he has no classes to attend or anything else scheduled, because he spends all morning going back and forth between the mirror and his phone, hoping that the cavity will magically disappear and he'll be able to cancel.
Spoiler alert: it doesn't.
As a result, he finds himself sitting in the waiting room fifteen minutes early, fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against the surface of the hard plastic chair. There's an older woman sitting on the opposite wall and reading a magazine, along with a teary-eyed young girl and her mother who's desperately trying to cheer her up.
"But I don't want to! It hurts!" the girl wails, and Eren thinks 'same'. The mother leads her to the children's corner and gives her a bright red toy car to play with, shushing her gently. It works, and as she straightens up, she locks eyes with Eren for just a few seconds and gives an apologetic smile. He can only manage a slight quirk of his lips in response.
The girl and her mother are called in after only a couple of minutes. Soon the older woman's name is also called and Eren is left alone in the waiting room. There's a stack of magazines on the table next to him, and he grabs one and opens it at random. The article he's stumbled on details the different ways to deal with menopause, but it doesn't matter – Eren's eyes skim over row after row, not a single word sticking to his memory. All he can focus on is the muted sound of a drill coming from one of the rooms down the hallway.
The sound of a door clicking open has Eren on the edge of his seat, and what follows makes him want to crawl under it. "Jaeger," a voice intones from the hallway, but to Eren the sound is equivalent to the gates of hell opening up and beckoning him inside. He takes in a deep breath as he stands up, holding it in and counting each step he takes towards his inevitable doom.
His dentist seems unaware of Eren's discomfort as he gestures him to enter. He probably says something to Eren, too, but it all goes in through one ear and out the other. Luckily this time there's no lingering smell of fish, he thinks as he glances down at Dr. Smith's name tag, only to discover that it reads an entirely different name.
"You're not Dr. Smith," he blurts out.
The not-Dr. Smith raises a groomed eyebrow at that, as if to congratulate him on his observational skills. "Yes, I'm aware," he says, giving the name tag a little tap. When Eren reads it again, he sees that his dentist for the day is called Dr. Ackerman. "He called in sick this morning, so I'm picking up the slack."
He moves to the side board to grab a pair of disposable gloves, still oblivious to the fact that Eren is practically vibrating with nervous energy. "Have a seat and we'll begin in a moment."
As Dr. Ackerman continues his preparations, Eren has plenty of time to come up with a dozen different scenarios of how this could all go horribly wrong as his eyes dart across the room, looking for possible escape routes. There's a window on the opposite wall along with hideous yellow curtains, and he debates smashing through it before he remembers that they're on the fifth floor. The door behind him is still unlocked, so he could bolt out any minute, and he almost goes for it, except that Dr. Ackerman takes that specific moment to turn around again.
"Well?" he asks when he sees Eren still standing at the same spot.
"You want me to, uh," Eren gives a vague nod towards the one piece of furniture he's avoided looking at ever since he stepped over the threshold, "sit down here?"
It's difficult to say what Dr. Ackerman thinks of his hesitation as his expression seems to be set in a permanent scowl. "That's sort of how this goes, yeah," he replies. "If you have a better idea, please do share."
Though his voice is dripping with sarcasm, Eren is tempted to suggest an alternative solution anyway: how about I just turn around and never come back? He inches towards the dentist chair on the middle of the floor very slowly. "I'm sitting down," he announces, both to Dr. Ackerman and to his own brain that becomes clouded with all sorts of impulses at the mere sight of The Chair.
It's just a chair, and realistically, he knows that a simple chair cannot do him any harm. Still, its imposing stature and the clammy surface he feels beneath his fingertips as he reaches out to touch its armrest make him feel like it warrants capital letters anyway.
"You sure aren't in any hurry, are you." Dr. Ackerman has returned to preparing the equipment, and even though his back is turned, Eren can imagine the statement accompanied by an eye roll. While Eren finally plants his ass down on the chair, shivering as the bare skin of his arms comes in contact with the upholstery, Dr. Ackerman snaps his gloves on and moves to hand him a pair of protective glasses.
Eren finds this almost relieving – at least the glasses will cover the look of unashamed panic that will no doubt show in his eyes.
As the back of the chair is lowered, Eren takes a few deep breaths. The more horizontal his position becomes, the more he begins to question his life choices – specifically the one to chew oodles of gum instead of actually brushing his teeth regularly, but also the one to not turn on his heels and walk away upon laying eyes on not-Dr. Smith, otherwise known as Dr. Ackerman. Though half of the man's face is now covered by a surgical mask, he still manages to appear fleetingly irritated as he stares down at Eren.
"In addition to sitting down, you'll also have to open your mouth, you know," he points out as he adjusts the overhead light. Eren hadn't even noticed that he'd clamped his mouth shut. He relaxes his jaw, or at least tries to, and swallows down his anxiety before opening his mouth.
It feels weird having someone else probe around in his mouth, but Eren can at least congratulate himself on the fact that he doesn't immediately throw up when Dr. Ackerman begins running the probe across his teeth. The sensation resembles tickling, at least until the probe catches at the sore teeth in the bottom row. He jerks and makes a small sound at the back of his throat, which prompts Dr. Ackerman to place a firm hand by his shoulder to keep him in place.
"You have a few cavities here," he declares.
A few, Eren wants to call out, but due to the tool in his mouth, it comes across as a half-intelligible gargle.
"This one," Dr. Ackerman goes on, and Eren feels him give a gentle nudge at the tooth in front of the sore one, "is very small and still developing. I can fill it in right now after I get rid of the tartar on your upper molars – which you also have, by the way. But this one here," now he nudges the sore tooth and Eren flinches again, feeling the warm pressure against his shoulder increase, "will need a second appointment."
Those two words echo in Eren's head as he stares up at the ceiling and vows to never skip brushing again.
Dr. Ackerman has to remove his hand from Eren's shoulder as he begins scraping off the hardened plaque from his upper teeth, using both a mirror and a probe. Somehow Eren misses that small source of comfort as he tries to tune out the sounds of metal grinding against teeth. The procedure itself isn't painful, but the sounds and the sensation of something being rasped off are enough to irk him. To pass the time, he takes a couple of minutes examining the few imperfections in the ceiling. There's not many, though, so instead he moves on to staring at Dr. Ackerman's face, as it's the only remotely interesting thing in his line of sight.
Even as he works, concentrated on the task at hand, his eyebrows are still knit together, making him look like he has a personal grudge against plaque. However, his gaze holds no particular emotion as he tilts Eren's head backwards slightly for easier access. When he runs a finger along Eren's gums to check for infection, Eren allows himself to relax and tries to tell himself that this isn't so bad, after all. It's like getting a massage or a facial treatment or something – you'll feel better afterwards, and even though it's uncomfortable now, he knows he'll be thanking himself later.
As if on their own, his eyelids close as he tries to envision himself on a paradise island with free drinks and massages every day, though the light touch on his jaw as Dr. Ackerman holds his mouth open somewhat breaks his fantasy.
Speaking of fantasies, it seems that one part of his body hasn't gotten the message that he's at the fucking dentist.
His eyes fly open as he realizes this fact, immediately crossing his legs in a clumsy attempt to hide the unwanted reaction.
Who the hell gets a boner at the dentist? Just who?
Well, Eren fucking Jaeger, that's who. If his mouth weren't otherwise occupied (in a decidedly non-sexual manner, mind you), he would've belted out every single expletive he knew.
Maybe it's because there's things in his mouth. Besides, having someone poke at your teeth puts you in a pretty vulnerable position, so in that way he supposes that it could be considered an intimate experience. Okay, and he won't dismiss the fact that his dentist has remarkably sharp and well-defined features under that mask as well, but popping a boner while the aforementioned dentist is scraping off his plaque is a bit strange, even on Eren's standards.
He's a young guy, okay? He gets boners all the time. Once he got a boner when watching the weather report, and he still has no idea what it was about torrential rain that made his titan awaken. These things happen when you're young.
"Stop squirming," Dr. Ackerman tells him and places his hand down on Eren's shoulder again, this time just a fraction lower. The contact only adds more fuel to the fire, making Eren squirm harder, which in turn makes Dr. Ackerman press down harder.
Things are certainly getting hard in more ways than one, but so far Dr. Ackerman hasn't seemed to notice Eren's little problem, and he thanks his lucky stars for that. He has to cease his squirming, however, because while he enjoys having that constant warm weight on his shoulder, he would rather get rid of his awkward erection as soon as possible.
To achieve this, he tries to think of gross things, like that one yogurt he forgot to throw out that started growing mold, the prepacked meals sold at the campus cafeteria, and Jean's feet. The last one makes his boner droop considerably, but then Dr. Ackerman is sliding his fingers along the lining of his gums again and he has to imagine Jean's feet growing mold in order to keep himself contained within his pants.
This is so ridiculous, he thinks, grateful when Dr. Ackerman announces that he'll move to work on his cavity. Eren is less thrilled when he realizes this means that Dr. Ackerman will have to stand up and go to his other side, which will give him a perfect view of Eren's half-boner.
"Wait!" he barks out once the tools are out of his mouth. "I think there's still something there, at the very back of my teeth."
Dr. Ackerman looks at him with clear disbelief. "I was very thorough, believe me."
"No, no, there's definitely something," Eren claims as he runs his tongue over his upper teeth. There's nothing there, of course, but he literally does not care, as long as Dr. Ackerman doesn't switch places right now at this very moment.
"Well, let's take a look, then," he says grudgingly, and as he peers inside for only a couple of seconds before retreating. "Told you so, all clean."
"Do you think teeth can grow mold?" Eren asks. He tries to imagine Jean's feet covered in moldy teeth, and he's pretty sure he can hear his boner retreating inside his body at the mental image. Dr. Ackerman looks absolutely baffled at the question.
"Mold cannot grow in your mouth," he simply says. "Take a few breaths or something while I get the filling material ready."
With Jean's feet in mind, Eren endures the rest of the appointment. It takes Dr. Ackerman only a short amount of time to fill the small cavity, and he doesn't even have to use a drill for it. Once Eren is seated in an upright position again, he scrawls the time and date of the next appointment onto his patient card and hands it to him before sending him off.
It's only four days away, Eren notes as he studies the card at home. He has four days to calm down his dick or risk complete embarrassment.