Pearls of Wisdom (Top Model sidestory)
Bluest-of-Jayys
Emil Bondevik sat nervously in the dentist's waiting room, completely aware that he was about to die.
"Stop that fidgeting," his older brother, national-renowned model Lukas Bondevik, reprimanded sternly, "you'll be fine."
On Lukas's other side sat Mathias, who was equally as famous for his modelling and happened to be engaged to Lukas. "He's gettin' all four of his wisdom teeth out, Lu. Go easy on the kid!"
"Pshh. I've seen Emil take much worse," smirked Lukas, rubbing Emil's back, "he's not a baby anymore, he can handle it."
Emil suddenly found himself wishing that he was a baby, because babies didn't have to get a quadruple extraction and could sit around having their big brothers rub their backs because damn, Lukas's backrub felt great.
"We'll take you out for ice cream later, how about that?" asked Mathias.
Before Emil could respond, a nurse came into the waiting area, saying his name with such sweetness that he forgot about his impending doom for a moment. But only a moment.
Mathias and Lukas smiled at him. "Good luck," they said in unison.
"Thanks," answered Emil, "I'm gonna die."
XxX
Before he knew it, Emil was planted firmly in the dentist's chair with a paper bib clipped around his neck and some American game show playing on the TV above him. His dentist, an austere-looking woman named Ms. Arlovskaya, entered the sterile room with a presence far more foreboding than her small, slender stature let on.
"Your bottom two wisdom teeth are impacted," she said tersely, showing Emil a X-ray of his mouth, "we'll have to saw them into pieces and take them out bit by bit."
Emil gulped.
Ms. Arlovskaya smiled (a little too much like a hungry wolf for Emil's comfort) and tied her hair back as her assistants entered the room. "This will be a relatively painless procedure," she pointed to the syringe full of Novocaine, "you will only feel a little bit of pressure. Of course, I can't say for sure how much pain you'll be feeling after the Novocaine wears off, but…" she smiled again, pulling on a surgical mask, gloves, and visor, "...you'll be fine. Open your mouth, please."
Emil opened his mouth and in went a cotton bud of numbing cream. Once Ms. Arlovskaya was sure he'd been numbed enough, in went the syringe. Emil felt his face begin to swell as the drug went to work. A few more shots, then he felt nothing at all.
His first tooth, the top right one, was out before he knew it. The taste of blood and chipped bone filled his mouth, and Ms. Arlovskaya and her assistants went to work on the tooth in the upper left corner of his mouth, which came out relatively quickly as well. Ms. Arlovskaya was right he only felt a slight pressure; it did not feel like his gums were being cut open and his teeth were being ripped directly out of his skull, not at all.
Now it was time to take care of his impacted teeth. Ms. Arlovskaya sighed. They must be bad, thought Emil. The process was nowhere near as quick as the other two teeth; Emil gripped his own hand tightly as he heard the shrill sound of the drill boring through bone. He let out a garbled noise; he was beginning to choke on his own spit and the Novocaine was beginning to wear off.
"Can you feel that?" asked Ms. Arlovskaya.
Emil swallowed the mess of blood, spit, drug, and bone particles in his mouth and nodded. Ms. Arlovskaya picked up the syringe and injected him with the drug again before going back to work, and Emil did not feel a thing.
After some careful work drilling, his third tooth was out. Now for the last one.
His lower left wisdom tooth took the longest time to extract. Ms. Arlovskaya and her assistants were baffled; she sawed and sawed at the tooth, taking out the little bits that had fallen into Emil's mouth, but no matter how hard she gripped the tooth with her tongs, it would not budge, and she would have to begin drilling again.
Emil hated the drill. He was worried that he would cut his swollen tongue on it.
"This tooth… really…" Ms. Arlovskaya grabbed Emil by the chin and pulled at his tooth with her tongs. Emil felt like his entire mouth was about to be dislocated, and he held tight to his hand.
Come on, tooth, get out, end this torture, pleasepleasepleaseplease…
Finally, a feeling of emptiness came over the back of his mouth, which was quickly replaced by the feeling of clotting blood. Ms. Arlovskaya had extracted the tooth, and she held it up proudly, in its bloodstained glory, for her assistants to see.
It was fucking huge.
How could that even fit into my skull? Emil wondered hazily, smacking his lips.
"Four roots!" Ms. Arlovskaya exclaimed excitedly, waving the tooth around, "on such a massive tooth!" She placed the tooth in the biohazard disposal and retrieved her sutures. "I'm going to stitch you up now, okay?" she said.
Emil was too dazed to even nod.
The sutures were a waxy-looking thread with an attached metal piece serving as a needle. Ms. Arlovskaya deftly sewed up the gaping holes from Emil's impacted teeth and coaxed him into a sitting position so he could rinse his mouth.
So much blood.
Emil felt himself go pale.
"See? You're fine," Ms. Arlovskaya patted Emil on the back before opening a packet of sterile gauze. "Just one last thing. Open your mouth…"
Emil let her wedge the gauze over his bleeding mouth-holes before biting down.
"Good job. Keep biting. That will stop the bleeding," she encouraged, handing him several more packets of gauze plus a sheet of aftercare instructions and a prescription for a bottle of Vicodin.
Am I done now? wondered Emil. He tried to ask his question out loud, but all that came out was a pained muffle.
"You're done," said Ms. Arlovskaya, "you can go now."
Neat, thought Emil as he shambled out of the room and back into the waiting arms of his brother and brother's fiancé.
Lukas welcomed him with open arms, quietly stroking his hair and letting Emil bury his numb, swollen face into the curve of his shoulder. "How was it?" he asked gently.
Emil let out another pained muffle.
"He's alive," Mathias said, a small, polite smirk gracing his lips. Emil handed him the prescription. "Vicodin, huh?" his eyes widened, "that's some serious stuff. You sure you need to be on it?"
Emil nodded. He could feel pain beginning to blossom, and it promised to be a doozy.
"Well, we'll pick up some for you at the pharmacy on the way home," Mathias tucked the prescription safely inside his wallet, and the pseudo-family walked out to Lukas's car.
Emil admired his face in the rearview mirror. His lower lip was easily thrice its normal size, and his cheeks were reminiscent of those of a chipmunk. He looked so silly that he couldn't help but smile a little, but he couldn't get his facial muscles to move, so he stuck to staring angrily into the mirror before taking a selfie on his phone and posting it on Twitter.
Just removed all 4 of my wisdom teeth! #pain #wisdomteeth #adultproblems
It got 35 retweets and 84 favorites.
XxX
Emil and Lukas waited in the car while Mathias got the Vicodin, and Emil was really beginning to feel the pain.
"Lukas, when's Matt coming back?" he asked piteously, his speech garbled by the state of his mouth.
"He'll be back soon," answered Lukas, "don't worry, don't worry. Just try to sleep, okay?"
Emil leaned his face against the coolness of the car window and closed his eyes. Everything hurt too much for him to fall asleep, but he tried. Lukas turned the car radio to a more soothing station and sang along softly, just like how he did when Emil was very small. He would never, ever admit to it aloud, but he enjoyed those rare times when his older brother would actually act brotherly in his own small ways, and this was one of them.
He barely registered when Mathias returned to the car.
"He's sleepin'?" whispered Mathias.
"Think so. Did you get the medication?"
"Yep. Bought 'im some instant porridge, too."
No reply; Lukas kissed Mathias and started the engine.
XxX
Upon returning to the Bondevik household, Emil immediately rushed to the bathroom, changed his gauze, then buried himself under his covers without even changing or brushing his teeth. Lukas came in a couple minutes later with a white pill and a glass of water. Emil refused the water and swallowed the pill dry between his gauze pads.
"Is there anything else you want?"
"My phone," groaned Emil, "Twitter…"
Lukas rolled his eyes. "Can't let you do that, baby bro."
"But I need to notify my followers…"
"You're talkin' crazy, kiddo," Lukas smirked, "The pain meds are making you loopy. Try to get some sleep."
"I will not get some sleep!" slurred Emil, "I want beef…"
Lukas stroked Emil's hair. "You can't have beef," he said soothingly, "bad for your mouth. You can have porridge when you wake up."
"I'm not asleep yet," whined Emil, "I want beef!" and he started to sob. Lukas sighed and slid into the bed next to his brother, who was too drowsy to feign his usual teenage disinterest and push him out. Instead, Emil clung to Lukas's waist like it was a lifeline and rested his head on the older man's stomach. Lukas resigned himself to stroking Emil's hair in an attempt to get him to sleep.
"The meds are making you loopy," he hummed, "it'll get better soon. Just wait a little."
Emil visibly relaxed as he dozed off on his brother's stomach.
XxX
In the meantime, Mathias was in the middle of relating his day to his and Lukas's closest friends, Tino and Berwald, over the phone.
"He all right?" asked Tino, "I remember when I got my wisdom teeth out," he shuddered, "not a pretty experience."
"Yeh, he's alive and kicking. Emphasis on kicking," answered Mathias, "the dentist prescribed Vicodin for him, so the poor kid's been bawlin' his eyes out, something about wanting beef…" he sighed into the receiver, mostly out of pity for Emil. The poor guy had a long day.
Tino's voice was heavy with concern. "They put him on Vicodin? That stuff is heavy! All I got was Acetaminophen with Codiene. Was it that bad?"
"Apparently," said Mathias, "he had a quadruple extraction. You'll have to get the dirty details from him when he isn't loopy. He's been clinging to Lukas all evening."
"Ooh, ouch!" remarked Tino. Mathias could almost hear him wince. He was silent for a moment, listening to the hushed tones coming from the receiver as Tino consulted his own husband before returning to the phone call. "Berwald says to ice it when he wakes up and to keep him from going to school tomorrow," Tino advised.
Mathias hummed in agreement. "Thanks, T. I'll pass it along."
XxX
At precisely 6:30 the following morning, Mathias woke to the sounds of footsteps stomping through the house. He wondered for a moment or two who could be up at this ungodly hour, then his sleepy mind connected the dots and he realized that it was a Thursday and school started in about an hour.
He leapt out of bed and zoomed straight to the kitchen, where he found Emil attempting to heat up leftovers for his breakfast.
"The hell you think you're doing, Em?" Mathias huffed, whirling his not-quite-brother, not-quite-son around by the shoulders. Emil gave an annoyed grumble, his mouth made useless by the presence of fresh gauze in his cheeks. His protest was drowned out by Mathias's shocked gasp.
"You look like shit!" cried Mathias, and it was more than true. The dark pockets beneath Emil's eyes were black and puffy, his eyes themselves red from crying. The rest of his face was pale, his skin clammy, and he wobbled when he walked, no doubt from the effects of the Vicodin he was on. The worst parts were that his breath smelled like rotting death, and the lower half of his face was swollen and jaundiced.
Emil shook off Mathias's grasp. "Going ta shcool," he garbled.
"Like hell you are," argued Mathias, "you look like shit, you feel like shit, your breath smells like shit. You're staying home today, kid."
"Gog a test today!" protested Emil.
"You think you can take a test like this?" Mathias pointed out, eyebrow raised, "You can barely operate the microwave. Sit down. I'm gonna call your school and make some porridge for ya, 'cause you're takin' it easy today."
Knowing when to give up the fight, Emil blew a sigh through his nose and sat down at the kitchen table to watch Mathias make his breakfast. Lukas shuffled in a few minutes later, sleepily demanding a cup of coffee from his fiancé. Mathias rolled his eyes and added that to his list of things to do. Soon enough, all three of them were eating porridge and drinking coffee, save for Emil, who wasn't allowed to drink anything too hot.
"Staying home today?" Lukas asked between mouthfuls of not-too-hot, not-too-cold porridge. He had an oat stuck between his front teeth.
Emil nodded. "Dunno what'm gonna do though," he slurred.
Mathias grinned, getting up to retrieve an ice pack from the freezer for Emil's enlarged cheeks. "Watch movies with us?"
Lukas's eyes flashed with glee. "Sounds like a good idea," he agreed, reaching up to stroke Emil's hair.
In the end, Emil acquiesced to planting himself on the couch in front of the flat-screen TV and nodding off to every Disney movie that Mathias and Lukas picked. By midday, the bleeding had stopped, and Emil was able to speak relatively normally again. He brushed his teeth gently and carefully to rid himself of the black death sprouting from his mouth, then allowed himself to be tucked into bed by Lukas and Mathias.
"Do you think it's gonna be like this when we have kids?" asked Mathias, brushing damp silver locks away from Emil's forehead.
Lukas simply pinched his fiancé's cheek and sighed, looking back at his younger brother's sleeping form.
"Maybe," he answered softly, "maybe."
AN: I got my wisdom teeth removed back in November and as soon as I could form complete sentences again, I began writing this. Domestic DenNor ftw~
Icey's experiences are pretty much mine, only a little better. My mom made me go to school the next day while I was in pain/high on Vicodin, and I ended up spending most of the day sleeping on the cot in the nurse's office. Bleh.
To anyone who is going to get their wisdom teeth removed: it's literally a surgery so after you're done, take it easy~ and watch out for dry sockets!