Floss // A Harry Styles AU

two

I'd never had a panic attack before, but I'm pretty sure the situation I was putting myself in was about to induce one.

I'd left Dad at the garage for an hour so I could go to this stupid appointment that Mum had set up for me, but I felt so queasy and nervous, and I hadn't even been sent into the actual dentist room thingy yet. I think that's why I was anxious. This overcompensating waiting room was light and airy and cool and every bit as welcoming as it always was. And I'd never felt this nervous sitting in it before one of Ruby's appointments. Yet I still felt like I was meeting impending doom.

What if the same disaster happened again? What if I went into that room and made a fool of myself like I did the last time and I'll continue to have that reputation that already preceded me? The whole village would be laughing at me. I'd pick Ruby up and all the other mums would be whispering about me - how a single mother in her late-twenties can't even go to the dentist right. I'd go to the corner shop and the shopkeeper would make a snide comment about my bizarre inability to let a man look at my teeth. Oh my God, I'll be in the fucking Gazette, headline reading 'Local Mum Useless At Dentist'.

I needed to leave.

"Floss," Susie suddenly called, conveniently, just as I was about to grab my bag and run.

I looked up at her from my naughty chair, startled.

"Dr Styles will see you now." She smiled, straight teeth like a haunting reminder of why I didn't like coming at all.

Dr Styles? Surely that's a made up name.

"O-okay." I mumbled, and slowly rose from my chair, bag in hand.

Someone with a surname that stupid couldn't be real. I mean, obviously he was a living, breathing person, otherwise people wouldn't be nattering on about him the way they were. But it definitely sounded fake. Maybe it was fake. What if this man had come from the outside to ruin our little village from the inside? Implode us like the aliens did when he left the moon.

I stopped myself in the middle of the empty corridor.

I sounded like a fucking lunatic.

I straightened up and physically shook myself, horrified by my own inner thoughts. This man was fine - a perfectly ordinary dentist with a child the same age as my own, probably just looking for a fresh start in a boring little village like Bibury. I was not going to let my stupid, ridiculous and irrational fears of the specific profession ward me off. I did not want the man to think I was the local fruitcake. Even though I probably (definitely) was.

With my chin up and a determined attitude, I charged into that practice room as if I was there to save the world.

Inside, however, I was immediately put back in my metaphorical naughty chair. I forgot there were always two people in this room - the dentist and his... nurse person. Assistant? Anyway, I could feel the anxiety physically returning to my body. I imagined myself to look like a fraught potato, probably with black car oil on her face.

The two ordinary humans looked up at me - the scared potato -, with calm expressions and easy smiles.

The assistant was familiar, obviously. I didn't go to school with her but she was around my age and my mum cut her hair. (What was I saying? Mum cut everyone's hair). She was pretty, in a kind of unassuming sense. I saw her around the high street sometimes and she always smiled at me. Could I remember her name, though? Fuck no.

The other person in the room besides la papa (me), however, looked like he'd been plucked from another planet - maybe even the moon before the aliens blew it up -, and placed him here in this dentist practice to taunt me. He was beautiful. Thick and shiny brown hair kept relatively short but somehow curly blossomed from the top of his head. His green eyes were welcoming yet utterly terrifying. The longer I looked at him the more I realised the tip of his nose moved with every slight adjustment to his expression. His lips were pink and pertinent around what I imagined would be a mouth that was bigger than it appeared. I also imagined it would earn him points in other departments. I don't need to tell you which ones.