"How are you feeling?"
The bright light suddenly vanished and my eye lids shut themselves from staring at the intense light for the last few hours. I tried to speak, but the cotton balls in my mouth made it hard, and I could feel the saliva overflowing from my mouth and down the side of my chin, all the way down my throat making me want to vomit.
I felt a tissue wipe it all off and the cotton balls vanish from my mouth and I leaned over into the sink and spat out all the liquid in my mouth.
"Hurts," I managed to get out as I sat up in the dentist's chair. I could see Gabriel and Fern's silhouettes from the corner of my eye, sitting there like frozen statues through the entire procedure, refusing to leave me in a random dentist's office in a foreign country.
I could barely remember their conversation, I was mostly unconscious for most of it, until that rude sharp light woke me up and all I felt was pain, and all I heard was voices.
"It'll take her a bit longer for the anaesthetic to wear off, so make sure you keep an eye on her at all times."
"Sure I will," I nodded, and then realised that the dentist wasn't talking to me.
I felt a set of hands around my shoulders, pulling me out of the chair and I looked at Fern, "Rude, I was sitting."
"Yes, we need to get back it's quite late."
"Get back where?"
"Home."
"Home? Who's home, where are we?" I asked, trying to see past the big man blocking my view, no other than Gabriel.
"My mouth really hurts," I told them as Fern opened the car door, ushering me inside, "What did they do to my mouth," I could barely feel my cheeks.
I buckled up looking at Gabriel sitting next to me, well not next to me but one seat down in the back, he had one of his poker faces on so I didn't know what he was thinking.
I leaned over, placing my index finger against his cheek, when he moved I nearly jumped in my seat.
"What are you going?"
"I was just checking you were human," I said straight and clearing my throat, "You looked frozen for once."
Well, he looked frozen quite often but I wasn't going to say that out loud, or the other ridiculous things that were running through my head. I tried relaxing my jaw, trying to get that odd sensation out but it wasn't working. My entire lower face hurt and it was hard to move my upper mouth.
"This is going to set us back," Gabriel said.
"Set what back?" I asked confused.
"It's ok, we can hide the bruises with makeup."
"What bruises?" I asked, did they mean my bruises? Why would I have bruises? I raised my hand to touch my cheeks, wincing when they stung like someone had punched me.
"The dentist said your skin might bruise a little bit from the procedure."
"What did they do?" I asked, raising my hand to touch my feet when Gabriel's hand shot out and grabbed it, just as my finger was about to touch my lip.
"Best not to touch it, we don't want the tooth to fall out."
"Tooth, fall out?" I asked confused. Didn't the tooth already half fall out at the restaurant?
"They had to get rid of the whole tooth because it snapped and exposed the nerve," Fern said, his eyes meeting mine in the rear view mirror, "So we got you a new tooth!"
"It better not be gold or silver," I muttered.
"Nope, it looks even better than your one! It's a little whiter compared to yours but that's alright no one will notice that."
"Are you calling my teeth yellow?" I asked shocked, sure they weren't white but surely they weren't yellow. "It's not real human tooth is it, not form some dead body that didn't need it."
"No it's artificial constructed, enough with the questions, go to sleep," Gabriel said as he pulled out his phone, in his grumpy mood as always. I leaned over trying to see what he was doing, but he hid his phone from me, leaning into the car door trying to put distance between us.
"Wow that was fast," I said going to reach for my fake tooth again but stopped myself before Gabriel could. I placed my hands in my lap, interlocking my fingers so that itchy to feel that tooth stopped, but it didn't. All my gums were slightly irritated and I just felt like drinking gallons and gallons of cold water.
"Yes because it was expensive to get it done on the spot" Gabriel complained.
"Hey, this was Fern's dumb idea, don't blame me," I said as I leaned my head back, closing my eyes as the world spun around me even more with my eyes closed. Just as I was about to rest the car came to a sudden stop and I nearly lurched forward.
"We need to sneak you upstairs," Fern hopped out of the car, hurrying over my my side before I could even take my seat belt off. Gabriel came around a few seconds later, both of them lending me an arm, Gabriel more reluctantly, as they lifted me out of the car.
"Are you capable to walk to the room?" Fern asked, looking worried and somewhat guilty. Good, as he should.
Gabriel on the other hand could care less, as always, "Yes," I nodded but the moment Fern let go I nearly tripped over my own feet, if it wasn't for Gabriel's arm holding my arm, I would have no doubt smashed into the ground and broken the broken tooth again.
"Maybe the anaesthetic hasn't worn off fully," I admitted, should I tell them that was I seeing double as well? Nah, it's not that important, surely they wouldn't care.
"Alright, Gabriel you help her to the room, I need to get this car out of sight."
Gabriel reluctantly nodded, grabbing my arm tighter and started walking.
"Hey, ouch, you could be gentler."
"Oh...sorry," he said slowing down and then releasing the pressure on my upper arm, not realising that he was dragging me along like a rag doll. He slowed down even more for my feet to be able to walk properly.
I could see his grey eyes focused on me and I felt self conscious if I had saliva coming out of the side of my mouth again, "What?" I asked after a few more seconds.
I couldn't stand the stare he was giving me.
"Nothing," He shrugged off, as he opened a door that was definitely not the front door, "Come on."
He pushed me, this time gently, through the door, one of his hands reaching out in front of me to hold the door open so I didn't bang into it, which I might have done seeing that my vision was telling me the door was to the side, which is wasn't.
"Watch your step," Gabriel said, which I didn't, my toes banging straight into the step. I swore and stopped for a moment, Gabriel pausing in front of me, "What?" He asked.
I looked down at the stair and then up at him, "I can't see the stairs." I said
"You can't see?"
"I can see, just not the stairs,"
"How can you not see the stairs?"
"They're blurry," I said, raising my foot trying to find the stair, not to mention all stairs were turning into jumbled in my mind, all of them on top of each other and I had no idea where to take the next step.
"Do you want me to carry you up?"
"No thank you," I said quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly judging by the look on Gabriel's face, which I couldn't exactly make out because you know, my vision, it looked like he had two or three faces that kept changing.
"Just go slowly," I added as I lifted up the other foot till I found the next stair, and so on began the battle of my feet trying to find stairs, without tripping forwards or backwards and breaking this brand new tooth.
I finally made it to the top, and I wasn't sure how Gabriel had the patience to just stand by me acting like my railing as I went up, one by one till we finally made it to the top. Just when I thought it was over, he turned around the corner and there it was, my nemesis for the night, more stairs.
"Are you sure you don't want me to carry you?"
I nearly gave into the temptation of not having to play footsie with the stairs but resisted, and took another step forward. Perhaps Fern expected us to get to my room quickly, make haste really, but in fact it was a solid ten minute job and it didn't help that the lights were dim and Gabriel refused to use the torch light on his phone.
He said we were sneaking, but did he want me to sneak successfully? Or did he want me to trip over something and send it knocking down the stairs, and wake everyone up, which wasn't really sneaking was it?
Gabriel opened the door to my room, ushering me inside and following me behind, a bit too quickly and closely that he stepped on the back of my heel. Somehow I managed not to trip over and heard him close my door, and the sound of the lock clicking in place.
"Ah, home," I said singing as I looked around the room and then corrected myself, "Well not really home. I need a shower," I announced.
I was stinky from the earlier hike, the lasagne and tomato stains and definitley sticky from my own saliva.
"I don't think you're in any condition to have a shower till the drugs wear off."
"What drugs?" I asked turning around to face Gabriel.
"Well they gave you a lot of pain killers and two doses of anaesthetic because you nearly woke up, and then extra pain killers before they let you out and Fern has some more."
"Ooh yum."
Gabriel raised his eyebrows at me, sighing and walking past me as he shrugged his nice black coat off, placing it on the table next to my bed.
"You can have a shower tomorrow morning."
"No, you don't understand my dear boss, I must shower or else I can't sleep. It's my ritual, I just must shower."
"Just close your eyes and sleep will come, count sheep or even better, count how many teeth you have left,"
Was that a joke?
Because it was a bad joke.
I ignored him as I headed towards my suitcase, gabbing what looked like pyjamas.
"I will be fine," I said as I headed towards the bathroom, taking small steps, and using my hands to navigate into the bathroom before I closed it shut, locking the door before I leaned against the wall and looked at myself in the mirror.
I opened my mouth, or tired to, but the sharp pain shot up my entire mouth and I yelled out in pain.
It was that weird sensation here your lips were dry and cracked and you tried to stretch it, drawing blood.
"Are you alright? Do you want me to call you a main to assist?"
"I'm fine," I said as I turned the fan off to zone out whatever he was saying as I headed to the shower. How hard can showering on drugs be?
Not that hard surely.
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