The good Dr. Crazystein, chapter 5
Dr. Crazystein Performs Surgery
“Hey, li’l Doc. Why don’t you like hugs, anyway?”
Dr. Crazystein blinked, looking up to Vet. Ever since his wounds had healed enough for the crippling pain to be no more than a dull ache, he’d gotten to follow the veterinarian around as he worked. Usually being carried or sitting on a counter, he’d met loads and loads of animals and fluffies with various sicknesses and pains. Broken legs, influenza, pregnancy, one particular fluffy whose eyes didn’t work (who Dr. Crazystein recognized and steered clear of), and so on. The good doctor got to see all of these and watch a REAL SENIOR medical scientist’s super-secret tricks of the trade!
But every fluffy he met (other than the aforementioned blind one) saw Dr. Crazystein. And most of them stretched out their hoof or hooves at him, eyes puffy and wet with tears, and asked the same thing: “Huggies?”
He rejected them all in an instant, and the fluffy who just left the consulting room had been no exception. The bloated fluffy, filled with not babies but rather some kind of liquid, was sniffling and hiccuping as he was carried out and as soon as he was out of sight, Vet had asked the question.
“Is dat stwange?” asked Dr. Crazystein, after a few long seconds of reminiscing on the aforementioned facts and coming to the conclusion that he DID, indeed, not like hugs. Further pondering revealed that so many fluffies begged him for hugs that THEY must like hugs. Huh.
“Oh, just a little bit. Most fluffies can’t get enough of them, and you don’t seem to mind when I’m the one doing it, so it makes me curious,” said Vet as he walked over and sat next to Dr. Crazystein, tapping a finger at the block of white he called a ‘schedule’. “Just as a man of science, you see.”
Dr. Crazystein thought about it. He hadn’t ever really been hugged by other fluffies, had he? All he could recall was a fuzzy memory of suffocation and distorted cries of “pwease babbeh nu take fowevah sweepies!”, which wasn’t incredibly helpful. So in the end, he just shrugged. “Doctah Cwazystein nu know. Nu wike huggies.”
“That’s fair enough, I suppose.” Vet stretched. “Alright… Next up is Giger. Come on, Jekyll, we’re gonna head to the operating room.”
Vet never did explain why he randomly called him ‘Jekyll’. Dr. Crazystein made it a point to not react to the name, but half the time it was pre-faced with “Doctor” or talking about something too exciting to ignore so he reacted instinctively. This was one of those times; surgery was the little doctor’s new favorite thing.
“What kinda suwgewy awe yu doin?” he asked excitedly, his messy tail wagging as he reached for Vet in anticipation of being picked up. He never was, though, as another human - one called “Aide”, who he hadn’t talked to but had seen wandering around - burst into the room.
“Dr. Andersson! We’ve got a problem!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Vet. Dr. Crazystein figured he had the same issue when it came to people calling him the wrong name. “I’ve got a surgery in just a few minutes.”
“Mary’s reopened her wound again!”
“Again!? That’s the third time! Is she doing this on purpose!?”
“I think she actually is! She was shouting about how humans can’t decide how she should act!”
“Gah-- either way, get someone else to fix it! I don’t have time!”
“Nobody else is available!”
Vet swore, causing Dr. Crazystein to instinctively cover his ears. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and he had seen Mary’s surgeries. She was always thrashing and screaming so her legs had to be disabled, something about “painkillers” not being effective on fluffies. Thus, as he watched the two humans yell and fuss about what to do, confirming there really wasn’t anyone able to do it and Giger’s operation could NOT be pushed back without fatal consequences, he had a great idea and raised a hoof high.
“Doctah Cwazystein can do it!”
Aide looked to him with an expression he couldn’t quite descipher. “That … uh … yeah, no, there’s no way–”
“Let’s let him.”
Aide instantly turned to Vet, eyes wide. “What!? Are you serious!?”
“He’s seen me perform her operations. He knows what to do. Besides, if she keeps wasting our time and energy because we’re HUMANS, then she’s got nothing to complain about when a fluffy does it, does she?”
There was a momentary silence before Aide’s face scrunched into a grimace. “Is this ethical? Or legal?”
“I think it’s such an outlandish situation that there’s no laws against it,” laughed Vet. “Look, I know it’s bad, but we really have no other choice. I CAN’T delay this operation. Just bring her and the necessary tools here, there’s no time to argue.”
As the humans scattered and disappeared from the room, Dr. Crazystein clapped his hooves together in anticipation. He went over in his head once more how Vet had done the operation. Wash your hands, then just a snip here and there, remove the thread bits, and carefully thread the needle …
Hm. Looking to his hooves, the good doctor realized the one very big difference between himself and Vet. No hands.
…
Well, he was sure he’d do fine anyway.
Even before she was brought in, Dr. Crazystein knew Mary was arriving. The shrill, distraught cries of “Nu mowe huwty suwgewies!” were unmistakable, and before long Aide darted into the room. In his arms lay Mary on her back, legs waving at the air, and behind him he pulled a clattering tray of various tools. He set Mary down on the examination table, moved Dr. Crazystein himself onto the table, then worked on moving over the tools so the little doctor could reach.
“I’m sorry,” Aide said, “but even I can’t stay around. I don’t want to be held responsible for any of this. Give a shout when you need something, just press the button on this.” He set a little device with a button on it next to the doctor tools, and then he hurried out.
Mary lay there on her back, her green-furred belly stained deep red and tiny wings half-heartedly beating on the table. A big gap had been pulled open along her gut, lined with shiny, broken threads. For a few long seconds she just stared up at the ceiling, then she noticed Dr. Crazystein’s presence and turned her head to look at him. She gasped, eyes growing wide. “Nyu fwiend!” she cried out, waving her front hooves in an attempt to run over to him. “Nyu fwiend! Gif huggies!?”
“Nu.”
He had never seen a more betrayed and horrified look. There she was, bleeding out and in terrible pain, and he wouldn’t spare her even a tiny hug. Well, not that he cared; he was a doctor, and so it was his job to patch her up, not comfort her! (Dr. Crazystein was never made aware of the difference between doctors and scientists, and as such assumed that they were the same thing.)
“Am Doctah Cwazystein, an’ am hewe to fix yu owwies,” he explained and looked around at the tools. Now what was it Vet used? … Oh, yes, it was that tool with the pinchy things, which he used to pull out the broken threads. Dr. Crazystein picked up the tweezers in his hooves and set them as carefully as he could to one of the threads sticking out. Then, he raised a hoof and slammed it down onto the tool so it would shut around the thread.
As it turned out, he couldn’t hold it steady with just one hoof, so the tweezers missed their mark entirely and instead tightly pinched Mary’s skin. The reaction was instant; the filly shrieked and started thrashing, a hoof hitting Dr. Crazystein and knocking him back a little. He frowned somewhat, but this was just a minor setback.
“Nu move, Mawy!” he chided as he walked back up to her, batting at her flailing hooves to make her settle down. Unlike Vet or the other humans, he didn’t have access to the hoof-disabling thingy, so this would have to do. It took a few seconds of batting, and a few more seconds of him forcibly holding said hoof down, until Mary finally stopped squirming in favor of sobbing and let him try again. This time he used his mouth to hold the tweezers, but it made it hard to see what he was doing and as such, he only managed to shove the tweezers into his patient’s gut with another pinch.
Again Mary shrieked and flailed, hitting Dr. Crazystein right in the face. He dropped the tweezers with a yipe, and grumbled as he hit Mary right back on her snout. “Dun do dat! Am HEWPING!”
“Nu! Nu! Yu am huwting Mawy!” the filly cried. “Pwease hewp! Hoomans pwease hewp Mawy!”
“Bu’ hoomans said Doctah Cwazystein gets to do dis,” the doctor replied, more surprised than upset. “Hoomans awe aww busy.”
“Nuuuuu!” sobbed Mary, hiding her face in her hooves. At least she wasn’t kicking and hitting him anymore, giving Dr. Crazystein a third shot at his task. He COULDN’T fail, how could he be a doctor if he couldn’t even stitch his subjects - er, patients - up? This time he discarded the tweezers entirely, shoving them aside, and instead used his teeth to grasp one of the threads and yank it out. Mary squeaked and jumped, batting at the air and missing Dr. Crazystein entirely. He gave her a nose boop anyway as a warning before yanking out the next thread.
Before long he’d managed to remove all the thread, and backed up to proudly survey his handiwork. Mary was crying her heart out, but the wound was all cleared out of thread. He just needed to add new thread now, and they’d be all done!
As he collected the spool of thread and needle, Dr. Crazystein returned to his subject’s side and looked the wound over. As he did, he couldn’t help but pause. He could see so deep, right down to her belly! There were threads stitched into it, but at least these didn’t look to be torn. He had never seen a fluffy’s insides before, much less so clearly, and he couldn’t help but be curious. He reached inside and tapped at the organ - it was soft, and spongy, and -
Then Mary squealed and clocked him right in the head, and he lost his balance; accidentally stepping hard on her belly to catch himself. The sound she made was indescribable, and as Dr. Crazystein stepped off of her she twisted onto her side and threw up all over the table. The good doctor tapped his hooves together, feeling awkward, but gave her his most reassuring smile.
“Dat’s what happens when yu move,” he said. She didn’t seem to hear him. He still had to stitch her up, though, so he reached over and pulled her back onto her back. She barely struggled, gasping and gagging, which let him double-check that he hadn’t broken the stitching unimpeded. It looked fine, so he could move on to stitching together the skin. Thankfully, Aide had tied the needle onto the thread already, so he didn’t have to do that.
Dr. Crazystein picked up the needle in his mouth, and plunged it into Mary’s exposed skin. The pained gasp told of the yell she’d make if she had the air to, but she seemed to be in shock and thus didn’t react too much. Dr. Crazystein pushed the needle through until he could see it inside her body, and carefully grabbed it in his mouth again as he pulled it through and out. The thread came along, which was good. He could taste blood, briefly wondering if he’d ever get used to that awful metallic tinge as he pushed the needle through her skin on the other side. Get the needle back out, and then he pulled until the skin flaps were tightly together.
Perfect! One stitch done, eleventy-hundred-and-fifty-seven to go. Dr. Crazystein smiled wide as he kept working, managing three more stitches before Mary had finally recovered enough to start hitting at him. She was gasping and sobbing - it looked like she had been crying for a quite long time, actually - and even though she was still attached to both needle and thread, she fumbled to get onto her hooves.
“Nu move!” chided Dr. Crazystein and hit at her snout, but she didn’t stop this time. She was just coughing and crying and wailing as she tried to get away, and even when Dr. Crazystein shoved her over and tried to get her on her back she just kept trying to hit him in her pain-fueled panic, crying so hard that her yelling was indescipherable.
So he hit her again. And again. Until his hoof slipped and instead of hitting her head, he struck her right in the throat. All of a sudden she was gagging and coughing instead of kicking, surprising the doctor something fierce. But if it worked, then it WORKED, and thus he resumed his stitching. Any time Mary recovered and tried to hit him or get away, he hit her in the neck again and soon she stopped trying, hiding her face in her hooves and just crying as the good doctor finished his job.
Finally he was done with the last stitch, stepping back and proudly surveying his work. Beautiful, more-or-less straight stitches were lining her belly now, with no sign of the big gap other than the blood that still stained her fur. But still, something was missing. What was it?
Dr. Crazystein had to think about it for a long while before he realized; the white cotton thing! He’d always gotten it on his wounds, so it should be on hers too. He looked around, and sure enough there was a packet of what had to be the white stuff among the doctor’s tools. He pulled it out, and its contents spilled onto the table.
There was a roll of white stuff, but try as he might he couldn’t figure out how to open it or use it properly. There were other things in the packet, though; little brown strips of something, and as he opened one up he found white stuff on it. The sides stuck to things, and the middle was white cotton! Yes, this had to be just as good as the other white stuff, and thus he taped not one but TWO of the brown strips onto Mary’s belly.
Beaming with pride, he pushed the button on the little device Aide had given him. “Doctah Cwazystein is aww done nao! Mawy is aww fixed up!”
“Jesus.”
“This is just …”
“This is the absolute worst stitching job I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m just stunned. He used band-aids.”
Dr. Crazystein looked between the two humans who were studying Mary. The filly’s pitiful sobbing still hadn’t stopped, but she was quiet and docile, whimpering little apologies for ever being mean to the humans. He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that, but he didn’t care. He had done a surgery! All on his own! A veterinary (not Vet, but someone with the same kind of job) had just finished whatever his task was and kept Aide company as he entered.
“Actually, it’s… it’s a terrible patchwork, but I don’t think it’s going to open up on its own. We’ll need to clean up this blood on the outside and gauze it properly, but then it’ll hold unless she tears it open again.”
Aide glanced from Mary to the brightly smiling, blood-soaked Dr. Crazystein. “Somehow, I don’t think she plans to,” he replied before picking the doctor up. “I’m going to go clean up Andersson’s little buddy. He’s not too charming with his face and legs all bloodied.”
“Make sure to clean off the table when you’re done,” the veterinary replied, Aide giving a not too enthusiastic acknowledgement as he carried Dr. Crazystein out of the room.
Vet was going to be so proud. Maybe he’d even let him do more surgeries!
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