disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or the characters contained therein, they belong to Masashi Kishimoto who is kind enough to let fans write fiction. I make no profit from this nor do I intend to.
A/N: A side fic (kinda )to The Hidden Life but is an AU that has Ibiki as a dentist and Ayumu as his patient...I thought the idea was kinda funny at the time...I got the idea from a conversation with one of my sisters at breakfast about her hunt for The Perfect Dentist. She had me in stitches about how her last dentist (one of many) reminded her of Her Big Fat Greek Dentist.
The Devil has a D.D.S...
Tanaka Ayumu paced up and down the street outside the doctor's office. She was almost hyper-ventilating due to the fact that she was in a large amount of pain and that she even had to be there in the first place. Ayumu hated dentists. Some people might say that the word 'hate' is too harsh a word, but for Ayumu it didn't even do justice to what she felt about them. She loathed them. She wished nothing but the foulest luck on each and every one of them. Ayumu had never had a positive dental experience-ever. Each and every time that she had to go she experienced severe mental and physical pain and anguish before, during, and after the office call. Plus, she had never found one that she had liked, and Ayumu had been to a lot of dentists over the years. None of them seemed to realize that she was in pain- real pain. She wasn't some nut-job there for shits and giggles. She wasn't there because she was bored or had nothing better to do. She certainly wasn't there because she was a masochist and liked the pain. She was there because she had no choice. The Fates had somehow blessed her with bad genes in the teeth department. No matter what she did or how faithful she was to her dental hygiene she always seemed to come up with cavities, cracks, missing fillings, infections, or wisdom teeth that didn't know if they wanted to erupt or just stay down deep in the gum where they belonged. It was just a bit too much really, and none of the dentists- not a one- were ever sympathetic enough to her plight. They just didn't seem like they cared- at all. She swore that the sadistic and greedy bastards only saw her as an excuse to ply their God-Forsaken trade as Horse Doctors in Disguise and bleed her pocket book dry.
But she was on to them. Each and everyone one of the bastards. She had gone on the Internet and read up on basic dental techniques on Wikipedia and followed each and every link. She had literally spent hours and hours (if not days and days) searching, studying, and digesting all the information that she had found. Armed with an amateur's knowledge of dental medicine Ayumu felt smug and righteous. Those quacks couldn't fool her or slack off anymore. She was armed and dangerous. It was time that they started to fear her rather then the other way around...
Still, even with her newly acquired knowledge to bolster her courage she was still scared and more then slightly trepidatious. Ayumu could feel a cold sweat start in between her shoulder blades. Her fingers were freezing and she could feel her stomach start to tighten in a knot. She had to pull herself together. She had to take control of the situation and herself before she went into the office. She couldn't go in there like a scared and timid rabbit. That would not be any good. Dentists could smell fear like some wild predator. Once they saw that their 'patient' quickly turned into a 'victim', and she wasn't going to let that happen anymore...
Ayumu stopped in front of the door and looked at the name: Morino Ibiki, D.D.S. Her best friend at work had swore that the man was probably the best dentist in town- if not in the whole, wide world. She highly doubted that...Just look at his name: Ibiki. It meant 'snoring' for crying out loud! What kind of dentist had that kind of name? She could just imagine him now: a lazy, slug of a man who was always on the verge of falling into a narcoleptic coma. Just beautiful...and this was going to be her next foray into the world of dental misadventure. But her friend swore by him, and she was rarely if ever wrong (of course no one was as sensitive as Ayumu was, so the real truth was yet to be seen...).
Ayumu shook her head resignedly and was just about to open the door when it was opened from the other side. There stood a middle-aged woman dressed in white medical scrubs and with hair that reminded Ayumu of molten lava. It was teased into a beehive and looked just as sturdy, as she had probably had to use a full can of hair spray to keep it's super structure. She looked annoyingly at Ayumu.
"Miss, do you plan on wearing a path in the side walk pacing all day, or are you going to come in for your appointment, or not? You need to make up your mind because we only work so many hours, and I am not about to miss my favorite game show on TV because we had to go into over-time because of backed-up appointments..."
Oh dear God- it began. If this was how his staff represented him then she was in for it. She almost decided to bolt, but the pain was swiftly growing larger then her fear. So she took a deep breath, and placed a stiff smile on her face and followed the woman in. She followed the woman to her desk and checked herself in.
"Name?" The woman asked with slight impatience. Her name plate read: Mrs. Fujiwara. Well, she certainly did seem like that great and monumental mountain. Too bad that she didn't have white hair instead of the bad dye job. If she did then the comparison would have been complete.
"Tanaka Ayumu."
Mrs. Fujiwara tapped on her keyboard for a few minutes and then motioned for her to have a seat while she filled out some paper work before her appointment. Ayumu sat in the waiting room and looked around. It was the most sterile looking place that she had ever been in. Everything was monochrome. It would have been totally devoid of life if it hadn't been for the huge fish tank that was against one wall. Inside it swam a multitude of brightly colored salt water fish, and they darted in and around coral whose colors also vied for attention. It was fascinating. Watching the fish Ayumu became entranced. She could feel herself slowly becoming lost in all their colors and their graceful movements. Without even knowing it Ayumu found herself in front of the tank and getting a closer look at its tropical denizens. The colors were just amazing! And it wasn't only the brightly colored fish that grabbed her attention but there was a small herd of sea horses as well. They clung with their tails onto a small grove of some kind of sea grass. They swayed gently in the current, and their delicate and sweet appearance brought a quiet 'oh!' out of Ayumu. She had never realized how tiny they were! Ayumu quickly became lost in the miniature world.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" said a deep and mellow voice next to her.
Ayumu broke out of her reverie and turned to the figure that had come up next to her without her knowledge. She turned her head and was met by a broad chest covered in a green surgeon's scrub top. The breast pocket had a name tag that read: Morino Ibiki D.D.S, PhD. Ayumu's eyes slowly panned upwards and she couldn't help the look of surprise from forming on her face. The man didn't look to be on the verge of a narcoleptic coma-at all. He looked neither lazy nor slug-like either. He had to easily be six and a half feet tall, and his appearance was just as impressive as his height. In one word he looked: rugged. He wasn't built like a football, hockey, or even baseball player, but more like a rugby player. He looked like the kind of man that would only play a full-contact sport that required spiked shoes and no other protection. He was large, rangy, and had a lot of scars running across his face and hands. His hair was cut extremely short, and the look in his obsidian eyes were friendly but knowing. He looked like a battle-worn but victorious veteran gladiator. Ayumu couldn't help but shiver, and it wasn't entirely from fear...
"Uh...yes?" Ayumu visibly cringed at her moronic reply, and then she blushed. She felt like such a stupid moon calf...She closed her eyes and turned back to the fish tank. First she had been caught staring at his fish and now she had been caught staring at him. Maybe she should just turn around and make feet for the street now, before anything really bad happened.
She heard soft laughter coming from the man. Great, he was on to her. She still had to time to salvage her dignity. The hell with the pain, she would take a few extra pain pills and find a new dentist. Worse came to worse she could go back to one of the other hacks that she had used in the past. She was just about to do just that when she heard the receptionist bellow out her name.
"Miss Tanaka! If you are finished gawking at the fish why don't you start on that paper work so we can get a move on things?"
Ayumu jolted at the sound. The woman probably picked up extra money down at the police holding center as a prison matron on the weekends. Of that she had no doubt. Ayumu took a deep breathe and turned to the woman with a tight smile on her face and a glint in her eyes. "Of course, please excuse my rudeness. Far be it from me to keep you from your job."
The doctor barked out a gravelly laugh.
Ayumu sighed and walked back to her chair and proceeded to fill out her paper work in silence. She kept her head down but as the doctor walked by she couldn't help but let her eyes travel his retreating figure. He looked as good going as he did coming, in fact even more so. The man had the most incredible backside...She was starting to think that her friend came here not because of the dentist's high quality dental treatments but more for the dentist himself. Ayumu shook her head and sighed. With her curly hair falling over her face she didn't see the slight look that the dentist himself gave her before he fully exited the room. If she had she would have seen a gleam of appreciation and interest in those dark eyes.
Before she knew it Ayumu was sitting in a patient's chair and being prepped by the dental hygienist. He was a bubbly and personal man about her own age. He was dressed in gleaming white scrubs and his name tag read: Hamada Hiroshi, Dental Hygienist. He talked constantly, almost as if he could sense Ayumu's present painful situation and growing apprehension about what the future might hold. Even though he chattered almost non-stop it wasn't in an obnoxious or annoying manner. He slowly made Ayumu relax, and even made her laugh a few times.
"I suppose that you had to deal with that old battle axe out in the waiting room... Why Dr. Morino keeps her on is beyond me. The woman just scares too many of our patients! And not just with her personality, but that hair as well! What was she thinking?! Please bite down on this and we can get a few radiographs of your teeth.."
Ayumu always hated this part; the the dental film always hurt her mouth and made her feel like she was going to gag and choke on them. After a few brief uncomfortable moments they put all that behind them, and Hamada Hiroshi was back with the developed film. Ayumu craned her neck in the chair to get a look at her teeth on film. She quickly scanned the film to make her own diagnosis and prognosis. The tooth in question stood out glaringly in white. It was a huge caries (ever since Ayumu had decided to take her dental health in her own hand she had made sure to learn all the proper technical lingo, and she always made sure to say caries rather then cavity. She wanted the dental staff to know that she meant business...) and she was thinking about all her possible options. Root canal? No way. Half the time they had to be re-drilled, re-filled, or just pulled altogether. A huge waste of time and money on her part. Filling and crown? Hmm- could get kind of pricey...Dentists always wanted to use expensive crowns like platinum or porcelain for the crown. Another large expense. She rather use that money to buy more shoes to fill up her closet with. Only plausible option was to have it pulled. Get rid of it and lets move on to something more interesting.
With all the preparations ready and the patient waiting for the doctor Hamada Hiroshi left the patient, but not before giving her a pat and a sincere smile. She looked terrible. The poor girl vacillated between being hot and sweaty or cold and clammy. She looked like she was getting ready to commit ritual suicide. "Don't worry Miss Tanaka, Dr. Morino really is the best at what he does. And I am not saying that because he is my employer. I am saying that because other doctors as well as other dentists are his patients. He is that good," and with a final pat he left her to get the doctor.
Ayumu smiled bravely and nodded as assertively as she could. Once he left though she couldn't help but slink down in the chair. This wasn't going to work out. She could feel it in her bones. She didn't know why it wouldn't work out, but she knew that it just wouldn't. In a panic Ayumu tore off the paper bib and started to slide out of the chair when the door to the exam room opened. She froze in place as Dr. Morino walked in. He stopped in the doorway with a hand on the handle and a raised brow on his face.
"We wouldn't be leaving now, would we Miss Tanaka?"
He seemed amused and not in the least bit surprised. Ayumu thought that his Dental Assistant (who was most probably also in on the Grand Scam) probably dropped the hint about a possible panic attack and/or bolt coming from her. Ayumu slumped her shoulders in defeat. There was no way that she could break free now. Not only would it take some fancy talking to get past him, but his large and intimidating bulk blocking the doorway wouldn't help either. She sighed and slowly slid herself back in place.
"No doctor," Ayumu whispered. She lay back in the chair and tried to get as comfortable as possible.
The doctor chuckled again. "Miss Tanaka, you look like you're getting ready for some sort of sacrifice or ritual suicide...Just try and relax and we'll get through this quickly and painlessly."
He shut the door behind him and walked over to the viewer and looked at the x-ray film. Ayumu couldn't help but try and sneak a peak back at him. His back was to her but Ayumu could still tell what he was doing. He is probably trying to figure out the quickest and most expensive way to get through all this, she thought frowning slightly.
"Don't worry Miss Tanaka, I won't bleed you dry- monetarily or literally."
Ayumu's eyes widened and she whipped her face forward. Eeek! How did he do that?! She thought in a panic. He wasn't even facing her and he knew not only what type of face she was pulling behind his back but what she was thinking as well...This man was obviously different from the rest of her doctors, but he still had the potential to be a quack.
"I am going to assume, and rightly I am sure, that you have already taken a look at your film and decided what course of action I should take." He walked over to her and sat down on his stool next to her with his arms crossed over his chest and a smile on his face. "So, what is your diagnosis and medical opinion?"
Ayumu stared up at him, and clearly not amused. She couldn't help but frown and send his attitude right back at him. "Maybe you should tell me-doctor-isn't that what I am paying for? To be in debt to my eyeballs so you can play around with my mouth?!"
Ayumu quickly clamped her mouth shut, and all traces of her attitude left immediately when she thought about what she had said. Her eyes became big and her face felt like it was on fire. Dr. Morino never let the smile leave his face, but she saw something shift in his eyes. She thought she saw his nostrils slightly flare. Ayumu quickly closed her eyes in mortification. She was embarrassed beyond all belief.
"I am sorry doctor, I don't know what came over me...I wasn't raised to be like this-honest."
She heard him laugh quietly and then felt him pat her arm lightly. "Don't worry Miss Tanaka, you would be surprised how people change when they lay back in this chair. I have seen everything, believe you me. You aren't the first to act out of character and you won't be the last. This is a place that puts people out of their element and on their guard. They always seem to expect the worst for some reason, so I don't get offended when people try and lash out. It is to be expected after all."
He turned away and when he turned back Ayumu saw that he had donned some latex gloves and now held a sharp and pointy looking tool in his hand. "Please open up for me," he said.
Ayumu went almost cross-eyed looking at the thing. She clamped her mouth closed and shook her head. "Mmm-mm," she said in a last ditch effort.
"I can't see your teeth if I don't get a look into your mouth, now can I?"
His voice was so soft and mellow for such a big man, Ayumu thought. He almost purred the words out. She thought that if she was asked to describe his voice she would have to use words like 'hot honey', 'fur rug', or just 'downright sinful'. Ayumu was now dead sure as to why her friend liked to come here; the dentist was to die for. She was thankful that she wasn't a spy and he was some sort of Interrogator because she knew that she would implicate her own grandmother in whatever scheme he was trying to uncover. She didn't think that anyone could resist him.
But she still wouldn't open up. She kept her mouth clamped shut and her hands and arms were braced on the arm rests tightly. In fact the only thing that did open up were her tear ducts; Ayumu started to suddenly tear up. A few tears escaped and when they did it was like something was set off inside her. She started to sniffle and shake. The tension in her body was so great that she started to shake almost uncontrollably.
The doctor just placed the instrument back on the tray, took off his gloves, and quietly took her hand and held it in his own. He held it and said nothing. He held it in silence and just let her know that everything was going to be alright.
Somewhere in the back of the pile of Jello that was Ayumu's present state of mind she still had a little something left in which to be able to contemplate his hand. It was big, warm, and secure. It felt nice. It felt steady. Whatever he was doing it was working, as Ayumu slowly came back to reality and her sanity. She took the offered Kleenex and wiped her eyes.
"I am sorry-" she started to say but was politely cut off.
"I told you Miss Tanaka, no reason to apologize. This is perfectly normal behavior."
Ayumu looked up at him (after loudly and inelegantly blowing her nose) and saw nothing but sincerity and genuine warmth. Something inside Ayumu melted. Maybe this man wasn't such a money-hungry nutter after all. Maybe he did have a bit more integrity then his peers. She nodded and obediently opened her mouth to him.
He quickly took advantage of it and gently but expertly looked around at her teeth and gums. With a few small pokes and prods(one of which caused Ayumu to jolt in slight pain) he looked the situation over. He nodded and took his hands and instruments away.
"You can close your mouth now Miss Tanaka." He turned away and grabbed a pad from the counter next to him. He wrote quickly and surely, and then after ripping the paper from the pad he handed it to her.
Ayumu was shaking so hard that she couldn't even look at it. She didn't want to look at it. Whatever he had found it was too bad for even his legendary skill. He had to pass her off to someone else...she just knew it.
"What?! What is it Doctor?! Are my teeth going to fall out? Do I have some rare gum disease that is about to go septic and invade the rest of my body? Is my jaw starting to deteriorate and now I have to go to an oral surgeon to have it-"
He laughed good naturedly and place a hand over hers. "No Miss Tanaka, all you have is a slight infection of your right pre-molar, and I have given you a prescription for a dose of antibiotics. Once they kick in you will be feeling right as rain." He shook his head and walked over to the sink to wash his hands. "However, you are still going to have to come back and let me fill in that cavity that you have. The antibiotics will kill the bacterial infection, but they won't fill in the hole. You will have to eventualy have it filled though." He looked back over his shoulder at her with a sly expression.
Ayumu nodded sadly back at him, almost like a little kid being told that she didn't have to do detention today, but she would at some point have to make it up. "Ok, Doctor," she said quietly.
He patted her shoulder, walked over to the door and patiently held it open for her. "You are free to go Miss Tanaka. You sentence has been temporarily commuted."
Ayumu couldn't help but look at him and roll her eyes. She couldn't help but let a small giggle escape her. Ayumu got up and floated out the door past him. Maybe her friend was right after all, the man did seem to know what he was doing...
A Few Days Later
Ayumu was in the market trying to decide what to make for the week. She usually liked grocery shopping, but for some reason she just wasn't in the mood. She felt- edgy. It wasn't her tooth bothering her because that had stopped hurting her just the other day. The doctor was right in that when the antibiotics built up in her system they seemed to attack the infection immediately and all the pain slowly dissapeared. So it wasn't her tooth. She just didn't know what it was, but either way she had to buy food because she couldn't afford to eat out all the time.
She stopped on front of a large, triangular shaped display of citrus. They looked wonderful. She could imagine making fresh squeezed juice from them or just eating them peeled. Her mouth almost started to water at the idea. The only problem was the pile was about twelve feet tall and she just knew that one wrong citrus pulled would bring the whole pile down on her. Why did they pile food like that? They wanted you to buy it but they didn't want you to mess with it. She looked around and saw that there wasn't a single clerk around to help her out. She would just have to chance it and do it on her own.
Ayumu tentatively pulled a fruit that didn't appear to be balancing too many others. Nothing. The pile stayed intact. She pulled another. Still nothing. She pulled yet a third, and still no travesty. With each fruit that she pulled her confidence became stronger and her delight at having out-witted the architect of this scheme grew. Ayumu noticed that she had ten of the buggers in her bag- she was two shy of her goal. She grabbed one more and smiled brightly. The light at the end of the tunnel was in sight. As Ayumu reached out a hand to pull her last fruit she paused for a moment. She had to be very careful, as she had methodically pulled fruit from various places in the structure, and she wasn't sure now how it was all being held up. She had made small but distinct holes in its super-structure.
Ayumu looked around to see if maybe there wasn't a clerk around now. What she needed was for someone to pull that last fruit for her, because she just knew that the whole house of cards was going to come tumbling down on her when she pulled that last one. What she needed was a scape goat.
Ayumu hemmed and hawed. She waited for someone-anyone- to come around and help her, but no one came. With no one around Ayumu decided that the she would just have to be her own scape goat. She needed to get home and get to finishing some paper work that was due tomorrow. She had an important meeting and lots of work to do before it.
"Oh, the Hell with it-!" Ayumu pulled her last fruit and-nothing. No great avalanche followed that last citrus. Ayumu couldn't help but cock her head to the side in amazement. She gave herself a snap and a bell ring for beating not only the odds but gravity as well.
Ayumu turned to finish her shopping, and that was when she heard it. This muffled rumbling behind her. It sounded suspicious. It sounded suspiciously like a whole pile of fruit collapsing. Ayumu turned with a grimace and saw twelve feet of fruit falling and rolling towards her. Her eyes grew big, and all she could think about was trying to stop the whole pile before they littered the market's floor. Ayumu vainly made a grab for them, but their sheer number and velocity made it impossible for her to do anything but grab a stray few. Some of them even bounced, and one of them even smacked her right in the eye. Ayumu saw stars. She dropped her basket and grabbed her eye. It hurt, and it hurt bad. The thing had hit her in such a way and with enough force to cause her to tear up. Ayumu sat down on the floor and held her face in her hands.
"Here, hold this over your eye, and let me get a clerk," someone said as they thrust a bag of frozen vegetables in her hands.
Ayumu didn't look up but she did take the bag. When she placed it over her eye she felt it quickly take the sting out of the hit. Ayumu rested her back against the neighboring display and sat cross-legged. As the eye was quickly getting numb Ayumu wished that her brain would as well. This whole fruit thing and her basic luck were just not working out. She heard a clerk come back and after a brief inquiry about her state of health he started to gather up the fallen fruit. Ayumu kicked a fruit that had rolled towards her away in frustration.
"Is your eye any better?"
Ayumu looked up and immediately wished that she could die a thousand deaths. It was her dentist- Dr. Morino standing there, and it must have been him that had given her the vegetable compress. He was squatting next to her and looking concerned. Ayumu nodded and lowered her head in embarrassment.
"Oh grief..."
He laughed and took her hand and the bag away from the eye. He looked at her eye critically and then gave a small smile and nod. "You'll be fine. There won't be too much- if any- swelling, but you will have a pretty good shiner by tomorrow morning."
Ayumu nodded her head. Great, she had a report to give tomorrow and she was going to go into the meeting looking like she had been in a bar brawl. Great. Wonderful. Fan-fucking-tastic...She groaned.
"Seriously, are you ok?"
Ayumu nodded dejectedly and then started to stand, but he kept a hand on her shoulder and holding her in place. "No, just sit for a moment. No need to rush things."
Ayumu looked up and did a double-take. He was a man who played rugby after all. He was dressed in his rugby togs and looking like he had just come back from a scrimmage. He was banged up and dirty, and he smelled sweaty. He looked like a gladiator returning straight from the arena. He looked like heaven. Ayumu gulped.
Dr. Morino raised a brow and leaned forward. "You really ok?"
Ayumu caught his scent and almost keeled over from it. She thought that she had never smelled or seen anything so masculine. All that dirt and sweat made Ayumu's mouth water, even more then the fruit had. It took everything that she had to not take in a big whiff of him. He might not appreciate that...She could feel her mouth turn to ash and she suddenly wished that she had some of that fresh squeezed juice right now to try and get things going again. She certainly needed the sugar rush to get her brain back in gear.
All she could do was nod dumbly.
He suddenly seemed to realize something, and he leaned back on his haunches and a slow, knowing smile crept across his face. A rumble of pleasure erupted from deep within his chest. He sat down next to her and quietly took her hand, just as he had at his office. Except unlike his office this time he laced his fingers with hers and placed their clasped hands on her thigh. Ayumu looked down with her good eye and stared. Then she blushed. She looked over and saw that he wasn't looking at her. He just sat there, holding her hand, and watched the stock boy try and re-make the fruit pile. He even gave a quiet laugh at the boy's monumental task before him. Just as Ayumu was about to look away and try and wrap her mind about the whole situation he turned to her.
"Miss Tanaka, how about I take you home, let you freshen up, and then maybe we can catch a bite to eat? This whole shopping thing is for the birds..."
For the first time in days and with an important meeting looming in her future Ayumu smiled. She nodded shyly and smiled tremulously. "That would be nice. But if we are going to do that I think that you should call me Ayumu."
He smiled and nodded as well. "Then you should call me Ibiki."
Ayumu blushed again and looked quickly away. As she tightly held onto his hand she thought that she had maybe-finally -found herself the perfect dentist.