Prompt: When Kristyn starts having severe mouth pain, she tries to hide it from her dentist-boyfriend, Niall. Kristyn's fear begins to move to the side when the pain becomes too much, and she can no longer hide the agony she has been in. Once Niall finds out, he takes Kristyn to his office to find out what's going on. Unfortunately, Kristyn is in for a lot of dental work (which she is horribly afraid of), but it's all worth it when Niall takes a week off of work to stay home and take care of his girlfriend, because Kristyn gets the surprise of a lifetime.
It was any other day for Kristyn after she came in from her shift. She threw on her comfy clothes, and waited for her boyfriend to get off of work too. As she waited, she decided that since she had skipped lunch to get some extra work done, that she would grab something small to munch on before they started supper later that evening. She grabbed an apple, and started cutting it into pieces, and headed back to the couch. After biting into her first apple slice though, she noticed a sharp pain in the back of her mouth. "Ouch!" she exclaimed dropping the slice and grabbing her face. "Oh my goodness," she whispered to herself; she knew that something wasn't right. She decided to throw the apple she cut away, and get a cold rag to lay on the inflamed area. She pondered what could be wrong as she cleaned up some stray mess that she had made cutting her apple. She remembered several years back that she had some cavities that were left untreated, because she panicked so badly in the middle of the procedure. "That's got to be what caused it," she thought out loud. "Huh?" Niall replied walking into their shared house causing her to drop the knife she was washing. "Oh! Nothing," she laughed nervously trying to conjure up an excuse as to what she said. "Didn't mean to scare you, babe," Niall said kissing her and taking off his coat. "How was work?" he asked shedding his own work clothes. "Pretty good, I was very productive today!" Kristyn gleamed thankful that the attention had been brought off of what she had said as he was walking in the door. "Good! It was pretty busy for me too," Niall told coming through in a pair of sweats. "I bet!" Kristyn replied. Kristyn admired Niall's hard work, as he was a very young dentist. She wished she had a greater appreciation for the dentist, but something about the way it smelled, the way it sounded, just everything made her highly uncomfortable. She remembered having horrible dentist appointments as a kid. She never developed a good opinion of the dentist, because her dentist was extremely rude. He was never nice when she would go into procedures, and she really could have benefited from some comfort. "Hello...earth to Kristyn," Niall laughed pulling her from her thoughts. "Oh sorry! I'm off in my own land," she said drying her wet hands off, and putting the clean dishes on the wrack to dry. "It's okay, love. What do you want for dinner?" he asked plopping down at the kitchen bar. The truth was, Kristyn wasn't hungry for anything now. Between the pain in her mouth, and the memories replaying in her mind from the dentist, it made her lose her appetite. "I'm not really sure. What do you want?" she asked him coming to join him at the bar. "I could really go for some Mexican food," he smiled. "That's fine with me!" she exclaimed knowing she could get something soft and bearable. "Awesome! How about you call it in, and I'll go pick it up?" he asked grabbing his keys. "Sounds good to me!" she exclaimed. Once she had called and placed the order, Niall walked out the door, and she flopped down on the couch. She was terrified of what was to come with her new-found mouth pain. She decided the best move would be to hide it as long as she could, and give it time to go away on its own, even though she knew it wouldn't.
About 30 minutes later, Niall walked in with their takeout bags. "I'm back, love," he announced setting down his belongings. "Okay!" she said skipping to his side. "Here's your rice," he said pulling items out of the bag. "Oh! I noticed you didn't put chips and salsa on the order," Niall said pulling out chips. "Oh!" she said trying to act surprised. Kristyn knew if she didn't eat the chips and salsa that Niall would definitely know something is up. "Yeah, so I told them to add some on," he beamed at his deed. "Thanks babe," she replied lacking her normal enthusiasm. Niall sat and watched as she ate her rice, and didn't lay a hand on her chips. "Love, are you sick? You normally love that stuff, you haven't taken a single bite of a chip," he said looking at her concerned. "Oh! No! I am just waiting till the end. Best for last, ya know?" she laughed anxiously, and Niall followed suit, he obviously didn't pick up on the nervousness in her voice. After a minute, she knew she was going to have to eat some of the hard chips. The thought alone made her sick to her stomach, but she grabbed one nonetheless. As she bit into it, she tried to push it to the opposite side of her mouth, but that side hurt bad too. She nearly choked trying to strangle her sounds of discomfort before Niall figured out what was going on. "You alright, love?" he asked not looking up from his TV show. "Yes, just choked," she replied. She knew that this was going to be a lot harder than she expected.
