Full Chemical Whistleblowing
Penelope had been against this in principle from the start.
Not against oral surgery, technically. She understood there were times in life when a person’s own body turned on them with the cold administrative efficiency of a landlord. Fine. Whatever. Her wisdom teeth were “crowded” and “partially impacted” and “a future problem,” which felt to her like three rude ways of saying her skull had unionized badly.
But the dentist part of it?
The chair. The lights. The bib. The tiny tray of silver instruments arranged like someone had thoughtfully curated a murder flatlay.
Absolutely not.
By the time they called her name, she had already said, in the waiting room and at full volume, “I just think if a profession needs that many hooks, maybe we all take a beat.”
Jack, sitting beside her, had laughed into his hand.
The receptionist had not.
Penelope stood too fast. “Okay,” she said, like a woman being summoned to testify. “Great. Amazing. Let’s go get harvested.”
“Pen,” Jack murmured.
“What? I’m keeping morale up.”
The assistant led them back with the kind patience of someone who had seen every possible variation of adult terror. The room itself was exactly as bad as Penelope had imagined. Beige. Clean. Cheerful in an almost punitive way.
“Go ahead and have a seat,” the assistant said.
Penelope climbed into the chair and immediately looked like she regretted every decision that had led her here, including basic calcium.
Jack rolled into place near the side of the chair and angled himself in with a practiced little movement so casual it barely registered. That, more than anything, annoyed her. He looked like he belonged here. Like this was manageable. Like she was being unreasonable for thinking the tray of silver instruments had the vibe of a tasteful murder board.
The assistant got the the bib clipped, the little tray tucked into place. Penelope submitted to all of it with the rigid dignity of someone enduring an elaborate prank.
“Any questions before we get started?” the assistant asked.
“Yes,” Penelope said immediately. “Why is every dental office decorated like a very clean child picked the palette.”
The assistant blinked.
Jack covered his mouth.
“Also,” Penelope said, because she was warming up now, “I know this is irrational, but the little suction tube feels like something a tiny alien would invent?”
“Breathe,” Jack said.
“I am breathing. That’s how I’m saying these things.”
The assistant smiled in spite of herself. “We’ll start with some nitrous to help you relax.”
Penelope looked at the mask with deep suspicion. “Happy gas is such a manipulative name.”
Jack made a small helpless noise.
She looked over at him. “Do not enjoy this.”
“I’m not.”
“You are already enjoying this.”
“I’m supporting you.”
“You’re supporting me in a way that is emotionally suspicious.”
The mask went on. Cool plastic. Sweet, faintly chemical smell. Not immediate oblivion, which she had maybe been hoping for. Just a soft, slow loosening at the seams.
The room stopped feeling so pointy.
Her shoulders dropped by accident.
The overhead light became less like an accusation and more like a bad design choice.
“Oh no,” she murmured.
Jack glanced up. “What?”
She looked at him, eyes narrowing with grave realization. “This is truth serum.”
His smile widened.
“No,” she said. “That reaction is exactly what I’m afraid of.”
A few minutes later, when the surgeon came in, things were already headed somewhere neither of them could stop.
The surgeon was cheerful and brisk, explaining the procedure in the soothing voice of a man who did this all day and had never once had to personally account for the existence of a hot person at bedside.
Penelope was already a little under.
Not gone. Just softened around the edges. Her limbs heavy. Her thoughts not heavy at all, unfortunately. Her thoughts had apparently gotten faster.
Jack was by the chair, relaxed, one hand resting near his lap, watching her with that quietly entertained look he had when he knew something was about to happen and had chosen not to interfere.
Penelope turned her head toward him and frowned.
“Oh, this is evil.”
Jack lifted a brow. “What is?”
“You.”
The surgeon glanced between them, still pleasantly professional. “Doing okay?”
“No,” Penelope said, eyes still on Jack.
Jack laughed immediately.
She pointed at him with slow, drugged accusation. “That. Why are you so hot when I’m this vulnerable? It feels targeted.”
The assistant bit the inside of her cheek.
Jack leaned back a little, delighted already. “Penelope.”
“No, because really.” She looked up at the ceiling for a second like she was trying to organize the complaint. “This is actually ruining my life.”
The surgeon said, “We can give you both a minute.”
“No,” Penelope said. “It’s fine. This is medically relevant.”
Jack folded his lips in, losing the fight not to smile.
She turned back to him, deeply offended by his face. “You have no business looking like that while I’m in a paper bib.”
“Looking like what?”
“Like a man who is somehow both useful and smug about it.”
He laughed. “Smug?”
“Yes. Not rude smug. Competent smug. Internally upright. Like, ah yes. A situation. Finally.”
The assistant let out a tiny sound that might have been a laugh disguised as a cough.
Jack was openly grinning now. “You think that’s hot?”
Penelope stared at him. “I think it should be illegal, actually.”
The surgeon very diplomatically busied himself with a tray.
She kept going because, tragically, there was nothing between her brain and her mouth anymore.
“And your forearms are obscene.”
Jack blinked. “My forearms.”
“Yes. Why are they like that?”
“How are they?”
“Like they know things.” She squinted at them. “Like they’ve done paperwork. Like they could fix a gate.”
That broke him. He laughed outright, shoulders shaking.
Penelope watched him with the solemn irritation of a woman making an excellent point to a hostile committee.
“I’m serious. They’re extremely administrative and it’s upsetting.”
Jack wiped under one eye. “Administrative forearms.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what we’re going with.”
“That is exactly what I’m going with.” She paused. “Also your mouth.”
He stilled just a fraction. “My mouth?”
“Yes. Hate it.”
The grin came back slower this time. “Do you?”
“I do not mean hate. I mean the opposite of hate in a way that is currently unhelpful.” Her brow furrowed. “You have an unfair mouth for a person who already gets to be calm in emergencies.”
The surgeon said, with heroic neutrality, “You’re doing great.”
Penelope turned her eyes toward him. “Thank you. This is not my normal personality.”
Jack said, “That’s not true.”
She swung back to him immediately. “Wow. Betrayal in front of witnesses.”
“It’s extremely true.”
“No,” she said. “Usually I have editing software.”
He was smiling so hard now it was almost obnoxious. “And now?”
“Now it’s just raw footage.”
The assistant laughed. She couldn’t help it.
Penelope narrowed her eyes at Jack again. “And then there’s the sleeves.”
He glanced down at himself. “The sleeves.”
“Yes. Why do your shirts always act like that?”
“They act like shirts.”
“No, they don’t. They sit there pretending to be normal and then suddenly I can see exactly enough forearm to lose all moral structure.”
Jack made a choked sound into his hand.
The surgeon stepped slightly farther away, which was the kindest thing anyone had ever done.
Penelope looked almost mournful now. “Everything with you is annoyingly specific. It’s not just one thing. It’s like ten small bureaucracies of hotness.”
Jack was gone, laughing with no dignity left at all.
Penelope kept talking over him because now she had momentum.
“You know my sister used to work at a dental office.”
The surgeon glanced over. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Penelope said. “We used to go in after hours and pass the nitrous mask around.”
There was a beat.
Then startled laughter from the assistant. Jack folded harder.
The surgeon gave her a look over his mask. “Probably shouldn’t know that.”
Penelope nodded once. “No, I agree. But here we are building trust.”
She kept going, because why stop now.
“And the worst part is you’re funny on purpose and hot by accident, which is an infuriating ratio.”
The surgeon glanced over, smiling despite himself now. “Should we maybe get started?”
Penelope nodded. “Yes. Sorry. I came in here with a dental issue and also a long-standing secondary issue.”
“A long-standing secondary issue,” Jack repeated.
“Yes. You being extremely my type in several niche categories.” She started counting weakly on her fingers. “Calm under pressure. Stupid forearms. Helpful face. Offensive mouth. The sleeves. The—”
She stopped abruptly.
“Oh. Would you think differently of me if I slept with Joe Biden?”
Jack stared at her.
The assistant dropped her chin to her chest.
The surgeon went very still.
“What?” Jack said, laughing.
“Answer.”
He was trying so hard not to lose it again. “I think I’d need context.”
“Wrong,” she said immediately. “The correct answer was no, unless it was for national security.”
That did it. He folded completely, shoulders shaking, laughing with no hope of recovery.
Penelope watched him with dim satisfaction.
“And when you’re trying not to laugh. That’s disgusting.”
Jack lowered his hand just enough to say, “Disgusting.”
“Yes. It makes me want to bite things.”
The room went briefly, magnificently silent.
The surgeon cleared his throat with the composure of a saint.
Penelope closed her eyes for one second. “I think that one should have stayed inside.”
“Probably,” Jack said.
She opened them again, very grave. “See? This is why I need regulations.”
He was still smiling at her in that helpless, openly wrecked way, and that seemed to hit her all over again.
Her voice dropped a little.
“I just think it’s unfair that you get to be that hot and safe. Pick a struggle.”
That got him.
Not just the laughter. Something else. Something warmer and quieter underneath it.
He leaned in a little. “Penelope.”
She groaned behind the mask. “Don’t say my name like I’ve made this tender. I was doing material.”
He smiled. “Sure you were.”
She pointed at him one last time. “This is why I can’t be sedated around you. You catch too many.”
The surgeon stepped in. “Any questions before we start?”
Penelope blinked up at the ceiling. “Am I going to remember this?”
“Yes,” the surgeon said.
She stared at the light for one beat.
“Damnit.”
Jack made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a choke.
Then the surgeon reclined the chair, the assistant moved into place, and Penelope stared up at the light and said to absolutely no one, “I can’t believe I confessed to sleeves in a clinical environment.”
Jack, still grinning like this was one of the best afternoons of his life, said, “For the record, I’m keeping ‘ten small bureaucracies of hotness.’”
She closed her eyes.
“Monster.”
The actual procedure happened in flashes.
Pressure. Hands. A bright blur of voices over her. The vague mechanical horror of modern dentistry, made bearable by chemistry and the fact that every time panic tried to get purchase, she could turn her head just enough to find Jack still there.
After, she was dimly aware of being sat up, of cotton and instructions and someone telling her to keep pressure on the gauze. Her mouth felt huge and absent at once. The surgeon said everything had gone well. The assistant handed Jack the post-op instructions in the tone medical people used for the actually functional adult in the room.
Penelope blinked at this with mild offense.
“Rude,” she said thickly.
By the time they got to the car, the world felt mildly unreal and deeply inconvenient.
Jack got her settled in the passenger seat, then moved to his side. He positioned his chair beside the driver’s seat, braced a hand, lifted, and transferred over in one smooth sequence, pulling his legs in after. Then he reached back for the chair, popping off a wheel, then the other, folding the back down and hauling it in piece by piece. Efficient. Familiar. The kind of competence she would normally have the dignity to observe privately.
She watched all of it through heavy lids.
“Oh my god,” she murmured.
Jack pulled the door shut and looked over. “What now?”
“You’re still hot.”
He laughed under his breath and started the engine.
“That is not a post-op emergency.”
“It is to me.”
He backed carefully out of the spot. “How you feeling?”
She considered this. “Like my face has been rezoned.”
“That bad?”
“It feels political.”
He smiled at the windshield. “Political.”
“Yes.”
A beat.
“Did I say weird things?”
He looked over.
“Penelope.”
“Give me a scale.”
He merged out of the lot. “Do you want honesty?”
She stared at him.
“That was a threatening question.”
He grinned.
“Oh my god,” she said. “It was bad.”
“It was incredible.”
“That is not the word I asked for.”
“For the record,” he said, navigating a turn, “‘this is medically relevant’ might be one of my favorite things you’ve ever said.”
She made a wounded noise.
“And ‘administrative forearms.’”
“Stop.”
“And ‘ten small bureaucracies of hotness.’”
“Jack.”
“And apparently my face suggests I could handle a flood.”
She pressed the heel of her hand to the ice pack against her jaw. “I need you to hit something with this car.”
“That feels disproportionate.”
“I’m trying to create a second emergency so the first one recedes.”
He laughed. “Good plan.”
He was still grinning. She could hear it. The whole car was full of his delight, which was somehow the most humiliating part.
After a second, she cracked one eye open. “You’re having the best day of your life.”
“Top ten.”
“Monster.”
“You already used that one.”
“I meant it again.”
He glanced over just in time to catch her trying not to smile around the gauze and failing.
“You also asked me a policy question about Joe Biden.”
She dropped her head back against the seat. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
“With context?”
“There was something about national security.”
She let out a long, pained groan. “Kill me.”
“I thought it was a fair standard.”
She turned her head slowly toward him. “Did I really say the hot and safe thing?”
Jack didn’t answer right away.
When he did, his voice had gone gentler around the edges. “Yeah.”
She stared ahead.
“Were you normal about it?”
He laughed once. “No. Not even slightly.”
Something in her eased at that, which was annoying.
She let her head tip against the window and watched the light change on the glass.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Mutually unfortunate.”
“I don’t think unfortunate is the word.”
“It is for me.”
He turned onto her street.
“You also told the surgeon you and your sister used to pass the nitrous mask around after hours.”
Penelope went very still.
“No I didn't.”
“You did.”
She stared at the dashboard. “He said I’d remember this.”
“He did.”
“I thought maybe he was lying to keep me humble.”
Jack laughed hard enough he had to take a second before parking.
He got her inside, got her set up on the couch with pillows and water and the post-op instructions he had absolutely already memorized. At one point he came back from the kitchen with fresh gauze and found her watching him.
“What?”
She held up a finger.
He waited.
She looked him over.
“Still too hot for a weekday medical event.”
He laughed, helpless all over again, rolled closer, and braced a hand on the edge of the couch as he handed her the gauze.
She took it. Then caught his wrist before he could pull back.
He looked down.
Her face was puffy. Her eyes were heavy. There was absolutely nothing glamorous left in the situation, which maybe made it worse.
“You can keep,” she said slowly, “like… sixty percent of what I said.”
His brows lifted. “Only sixty?”
“The other forty is protected health information.”
“Made up law.”
“The best kind.”
He smiled.
She let go and sank back into the pillows.
Just before her eyes closed, she murmured, “Not the Joe Biden thing.”
Jack laughed under his breath.
“That one’s going in a vault.”
“Good,” she said, already half gone. “National security.”
And that was the line that finished him.
He sat there between the coffee table and sofa, laughing quietly to himself while she drifted under.
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