I believe I said something about an easter bunny and being updated soon. Well, I'm a horrible liar and so this has nothing to do with the easter bunny. Sorry!
Dentist
XX
Kurogane sat idly twirling a tweezer between his fingers as he stared at the clock hanging over the door. Fifteen minutes before the surgery would open and he was already sick and tired of the day. There was only so much one could take when, five days a week, he spent it looking down the mouths of others.
The room was too white and smelt of antiseptic mouthwash. Various charts and posters about cavities with stomach-turning pictures were plastered against the wall. The operating chair stood in the very centre next to the sink and the tray of tools, which Kurogane shifted his gaze too as the last of his precious few minutes were over.
"They're opening up the practice," Fai smiled over a cup of coffee. He had been reclining against one of the smaller chairs, flipping through records and patient files with one hand whilst he drank with the other.
Kurogane opened his mouth to reply. Probably to comment on how he hated work, or say something about being sick and tired of doing this every day, or even complain about how people could not brush their teeth properly nowadays. However, whether he was going to make some grouchy comment or irritated aside or curse the cavities out of his patients, he was cut off by an ear-piercing shriek.
"What the - " Kurogane stood, staring bewildered and somewhat irritably at the closed door.
Fai put his cup down intop of a filing cabinet and cautiously rose. The screaming had not stopped. Gods, it sounded as if a cat was being repeatedly run over by a lorry. It was a horrible, screeching, wailing, screaming sound that wavered and fell but never stopped.
Was someone being murdered? Was someone being excruciatingly mauled to their death by tiny screwdrivers? Fai and Kurogane shared a confused look but neither motioned the other towards the door.
Then someone knocked.
The wooden door creak as it opened just an inch, opening cautiously as a young, dishevelled woman poked her head in.
"Excuse me? Excuse me!" she had to shout over the sound of someone being tortured. "My daughter has an appointment!"
The door opened all the way and finally both Kurogane and Fai could see the source of that dreaded noise.
It was a girl. A small, screaming girl was holding her mother's sleeve with one hand and clutching a small book to her chest with the other as she cried and wailed for all she was worth. The mother looked down and tried to hush her to no avail. She looked absolutely worn as she tried to calm her child.
Through her screaming tantrum, she brawled the few comprehensible words of "I don't wanna! I don't wanna!" and held on to her mother tightly.
"Come now, it's not scary. I'll be waiting right outside," her mother softly detached herself and left in a hurry, closing the door behind her before the child could follow.
"Crap, just make her shut up!" Kurogane sat down and swivelled round on his chair, preparing the tools for use. They sometimes got patients like this, screamers that tried to protect themselves by bursting the eardrums of any nearby threat – he usually let the 'other one' deal with them.
"Kuro-chi, you're frightening her!" Fai waved him further away.
"Whatever, you deal with her," he grunted and began searching for her file.
Fai steered the girl towards the chair, wincing a little as she continued to cry her eyes out. He smiled reassuringly and reached for a jar from above one of the filing cabinets.
"Now come on, there's nothing to be frightened of. See? Good little girls who are quiet get lollipops!" he said, crouching in front of the small girl, shaking the candy jar in front of her face.
"Right, give her sweets that will give her more cavities just so she can come back here," Kurogane muttered under his breath.
The girl caught his words and screamed even louder, pulling at her dark brown braids, doing what little children always did and pounding her fists against the floor.
Fai looked at Kurogane accusingly. The screaming was just getting louder and louder. The lollipop tactic had failed miserably. It was time to bring out the big guns.
"How about you talk to Mr. Bunny?" he turned back to the girl with a bright pink bunny rabbit puppet over his right hand. He flexed his hand and made the bunny rabbit move and wave a paw at the girl. "Mr Bunny wants to be your friend but he can't talk to you when you cry so loudly."
"I – I don't want me teeth oooouut! It'll huuurt!"
"No it won't!" Fai desperately tried to stop her from damaging his hearing. "Mr Bunny with give you something magical to stop it from hurting!"
"Are you selling crack to children now?" Kurogane kept making unhelpful comments as he cringed at the girl's impressive set of lungs.
"Sit down on Mr Bunny's magical chair and Mr Bunny will protect you," Fai said, pointedly ignoring Kurogane. Reluctantly, the girl took a seat. "That's right! Now Mr Bunny will inject you with anaesthetic!" he clapped and fished out a large, pointy needle, holding it between the paws of Mr Bunny.
The girl began to scream.
Kurogane sighed and stood up again, running a hand through his hair. "C'mon kid, quit crying."
The girl looked at him as if she had not noticed him before. Her cries were reduced to snivels as she stared at him wide-eyed. "You…"
"Is there something on Mr Doggy's face?" Fai curiously pushed Mr Bunny close to Kurogane's nose.
"Stop calling me that!" he batted the puppet away.
"Mister, are you homotextual?
Both men stopped and turned towards the girl sitting on the patient's chair.
"What?"
"Do – do you like people from your own camp?" her voice still quivered as she sniffed.
Kurogane cast her an odd look. "What camp?"
"Do you p - play for the other team?"
"Wait," he began slowly, "are you asking me if I - "
"Take it in the other way," the girl wiped her nose on her sleeve. Her crying had stopped and she began to collect herself.
"What?"
Fai smiled and tossed Mr Bunny aside. "Little girl, where did you learn such things?" he asked politely.
"In my books the men were acting funny and I asked my sis about it and she said it was because they like people from their own camp." She handed Fai the book that she had been holding when she had entered the room, relinquishing it as if it were her most precious treasure.
"Well, you shouldn't assume that every male is like that," Kurogane pressed a button that made the chair lean backwards. There was work to do after all.
"But you look like that type," the girl continued.
"What type?"
"The type in my books."
"And what does 'the type' look like?"
There was a pause. "Lemme see…they're big and scary and they're dark and strong and some of them wear dark glasses – that's how you know that they're perverts!"
"Well I don't wear dark glasses and I'm not a pervert!" he replied tersely. "Do you even know what a pervert is?"
"A man who does naughty-naughty!" she responded proudly.
Kurogane rolled his eyes and Fai hid a small grin behind his back.
"I don't think little girls should be saying things like that."
"I am not a little girl, I am nine years old!" she protested.
He felt a headache coming on. He just wanted to get through his patients as quickly as possible and go home. "Well then, I don't think nine year old girls should be saying things like that," he replied.
"But it was in my books," she complained, "mister, do you like hotdogs?"
"Hotdogs?" he felt like an idiot repeating every word the little girl said. Behind him, he could feel Fai laughing at him.
"My sis said that there are two kinds of people, people with donuts and people with hotdogs. She said that the strange men were acting that way because they don't like donuts, they like people with hotdogs but I think both are yummy."
"That's great," he humoured her, fighting the urge to make some blunt comment. Had the girl been older, he would have, by God he would have.
Kurogane hoped that she would be silent as he drew closer and began arranging the tools on the tray but the girl, finally calm and no longer nervous, could not stop talking.
"Do you have a paddle, mister?"
"A what?"
"Sis said that even though some people with hotdogs like other people with hotdogs they get oar spasms just the same."
"Oar spasms?" a muscle near Kurogane's eye twitched.
"That could be interesting," Fai's expression was more than amused.
Kurogane shot Fai an annoyed look ans gestured for him to get ready to inject the kid with painkillers. "Okay now, little girl, why don't you just lean back and let me get on with my work?" he suggested.
"This was in my book too!" the girl ignored him. "One guy was always touching the other one and the other one was always blushing and that the strange man wanted to share a bed with the other guy and lie on top of him."
"And what did your sister say about that?" Fai could not help but ask but the girl favoured talking more than listening.
"You're a submarine, aren't you, mister?"
"I wasn't the last time I checked."
"But you must be a submarine because you're boy-friend is too small!"
"Boy-friend? This thing?" Kurogane stabbed a finger at the man standing behind him.
"Kuro-min, that was so cold!" Fai feigned a look of hurt.
"Sis said the one that lies on top is the domino and the one on the bottom is the submarine so you must be the submarine other wise you'd crush Mr nice dentist."
"My, what a bright girl you are!" Fai immediately brightened, patting the girl's head affectionately and laughing as Kurogane bristled.
"If he's Mr nice dentist, who am I?" he muttered then shot at the terrible two, "that's not for little girl's to know!"
"We can't have Kuro-pon crushing me now, can we?" Fai humoured the little girl, loving every second that Kurogane's annoyance grew. "Those books sure teach you a lot, don't they?"
"I always ask sis about them!" she bobbed her head up and down. "She also told me that when they share a bed their hotdogs go funny," she frowned, "but I think she was lying because hotdogs only do that when they get stale and then you have to throw them away or else the ants come and eat them."
"Well, I don't know about that. Have ants come to eat your hotdog yet, Kuro-tan?" he grinned devilishly.
"No, but I know a small, stupid, blond creature that likes the taste of it just fine," he shot back, which shaded Fai's cheeks with a touch of pink.
"So the…submarine makes…lots of noise…" the girl began to drift off, having talked herself tired. Fai used this opportunity to give her the painkillers and Kurogane was finally able to get to work with minimal resistance.
XX
"Thank God that's over," Kurogane was stuffing his things in his bag as the long working day was finally at its end. Finally, one screaming brat, two flirting woman and about a dozen boring salary men later, they could go home.
Fai smiled and helped clear things up for the day. By the time that they arrived home, Sakura would be ready with a hot meal and Syaoran would be more than willing to listen to them moan and complain about the unfairness of being an adult. He was imagining what Sakura had cooked for dinner when his eyes fell on the book that the girl had brought.
"Oh, that girl left her book," he picked it up, flicking through its contents. He tried to read the title and the author but he hardly understood the language. "Cru…Curam? Craa…"
"Burn them. They're obviously the spawn of evil," Kurogane plucked the book from Fai's unresisting hand but he could not make sense of it either.
"Was Kuro-tan, embarrassed?" he shot him a wry smile.
"No!" Kurogane quickly denied all accusations.
Fai resisted making any further comments. He wanted to go home too. Teasing could wait until then…when they were in front of the children.
"I'll take these with us before the cleaners throw it out. I'm sure the girl will come back looking for them," he took the book back and tucked it under his arm.
XX
The smell of Sakura's cooking was wonderful. Fai breathed deeply and stretched backwards against the kitchen chair, sitting across the sure table opposite Kurogame as Syaoran dutifully brought them their food.
"Kurogane-san, is something the matter?" the boy picked up on the man's scowl.
"He's just annoyed because people keep mistaking him for a submarine," Fai smiled innocently as he was stabbed with an icy glare.
Syaoran looked at them quiziccaly but did not ask. Months of experience had taught him that that was the safest route. He moved away their things to make way for the food. "Fai-san, is this book yours?" he asked as he picked up the dreaded book that the girl had left.
"I've heard about these books!" Sakura shortly joined them. "They're by CLAMP."
"The spawn of evil," Kurogane muttered.
His comment however went unheard by the princess as she curiously flicked through the pages. Her face dropped and she looked somewhat puzzled by the pictures inside. Turning it round for all to see, she pointed at one of the panels.
"Fai-san, what are the men on this page doing?"
Honestly, I'm rewritting the easter bunny one. I wonder what Sakura saw.
