The good Dr. Crazystein, chapter 6
Dr. Crazystein’s New Assistant
“Whewe is sketties, doctah?”
The small, pale blue fluffy awkwardly scooted backward. A towering green fluffy followed, unseeing eyes burrowing straight through his fur.
“Mistah Hyde wants sketties, doctah.”
“T-Thewe nu awe sketties…”
“Come on, doctah. If yu nu say whewe sketties is, Mistah Hyde take yu tummy sketties instead!”
Dr. Crazystein woke up with a flinch, eyes shooting open. For a few moments he stared at nothing, then he sat up and grimaced as he gingerly rubbed any remaining sleep from his mismatched eyes.
“Oh, good morning,” said Vet from his position next to him, working with a softly blinking computer screen. “Uneasy sleep?”
The little doctor made a vaguely murmured remark about a bad dream - he could barely recall anything, other than how the fluffy who nearly took his life was involved. Nodding sympathetically, probably guessing the topic of the dream, Vet gave him a pat on the head and ruffled his already quite messy mane.
“Well, I have some good news,” he said with a smile. “You’ve healed up perfectly fine, and it’s Friday. So your mom’s coming by to pick you up!”
“Mummah?” Dr. Crazystein paused, glancing over the tall human. He’d been at this hospital for so long, recuperating from his wounds and studying the medical sciences practiced on the animals brought in, that he had just about forgotten he ever had an owner who wasn’t Vet. “Otay… When?”
“Just a few minutes, really. I was worrying I’d have to wake you up. Belly feel alright?”
He looked down to his front, where his pale fur was still shorter than it should be. But it didn’t hurt anymore, and so he nodded in agreement. Vet hummed something cheerful, but already Dr. Crazystein was distracted by half-curious, half-concerned thoughts about what his mother would say.
Dr. Crazystein looked uneasy as he sat in the passenger’s seat of his mother’s strawberry red car, a belt stretched uncomfortably across his stomach to keep him in place. He’d never liked these things, the “metal monsters” that could easily crush a fluffy into nothing but a fine paste. Right now the horrid thing was moving, emitting a constant, muffled roar, and though he stared at the door he was just too short to actually look out any window.
“So,” said the woman in the driver’s seat, her voice terse and her fingers drumming impatiently at the wheel as though she had to think hard about what to say. “The vet told me everything.”
Dr. Crazystein froze, his breath catching in his throat. Maybe if he didn’t react she’d drop the topic, so he sat utterly frozen and tried harder than ever before to act like he hadn’t heard her. Despite his efforts she continued:
“You’ve put me in a really hard spot, you know.” He continued his attempt to pretend she was talking about someone else until she sharply flicked his ear, causing a flinch. “Look at me, Crazystein.”
The good doctor looked up to his owner, hooves tapping together uneasily as he gave her the most convincing smile he could muster. “Y-Yus?”
“You broke my rules, you know,” noted his mother with a grumble, looking ahead as the car pulled to a temporary stop. “And BIG rules, too. I’d beat your butt raw for it, but you ALREADY suffered a near-death experience from your hubris, so you pretty much already punished yourself in that regard.”
“What is hubwis?” asked Dr. Crazystein cautiously. Debating anything else would probably get him that butt-beating, and he really didn’t want that.
“Hubris? It’s … In short, your confidence that you could handle a mad feral twice your size. It means having too much pride or confidence.”
“Oh.”
“Back to the point, and don’t try to derail me-- oh, damn, green light.” The car begun to move again. “The point is, you’ve been hurting a lot of fluffies with your actions. But as a result there’s hardly any ferals that dare to bother me anymore, they’re all too scared of the yard with the ‘crazy doctor’. And you’ve caused humans trouble too, but Vet told me you won’t do any more experiments that could do that. So what am I supposed to do with you?”
“Um… um… What do yu mean? Am- am fine, nu wiww do mowe eye expewiments!” Well, she was asking what to do, right? Maybe if he could give a good suggestion… “Maybe um…” … … No good. He couldn’t think of anything between ‘please don’t beat me’ and ‘give me a reward’. “Maybe… nu do anything?”
“Oh, but that’s the issue. I can’t let you off scot-free, but there’s no point in hurting you because you already hurt yourself so badly. Plus, I can’t guarantee that you won’t go and do those experiments ALL OVER AGAIN, or that you won’t get hurt again if some big feral forces its way into the house.” She glanced down to the doctor for a brief moment before returning her gaze to the road. “I could take away your chemistry set, but apparently that stuff is the only reason you’re still alive right now, and I can’t just leave you with no way to defend yourself.”
“Nu, pwease nu take science toows! Doctah Cwazystein NEED science toows!” The good doctor grimaced. Suddenly being beaten didn’t sound so bad - what would he do if he couldn’t have his science things? There was a quiet chuckle from his mother, which only made him more worried.
“Well, I’m still contemplating,” she replied with a bit too much amusement for his liking. “By the way, Vet told me that you don’t get along with other fluffies too well. Is that true?”
Dr. Crazystein paused, thinking it over. “Guess so,” he then said. “Nu wike aww da noise an’ da asking fow huggies.”
“Well, that’s good to know then,” hummed his mother, and the rest of the ride was spent in a very worrying silence.
Once they got home Dr. Crazystein was carried to his saferoom, where he was set down on the soft carpet. Everything was cleaner than he remembered it, no hints of pooling blood or glass shards or stains from spilled concoctions. As he looked around, however, he also found that neither beakers nor chemicals were anywhere to be seen.
“You’ll get them back later,” said his mother with a mean smile as she watched him search, earning her an immensely wounded look. “Now, I refilled your water and kibble in preparation, so you’ll be fine on your own for a while. I’ve got a surprise for you, so just wait here.”
Before the good doctor could even answer, she had shut the saferoom door. He stared at it for a moment before realizing what had happened, heart sinking. She had locked him in. She NEVER locked him in. Not since he was a baby! This had to be a mistake!
He rushed over to the door, tapping at it with his hooves. “Mummah! Yu fowget to weave doow open!” he called, but to no avail. He wasn’t getting any reply - she had left! Pacing back and forth, he tried to see if maybe there was another way out somewhere, but could find nothing but solid walls and solid door.
Well, actually he did find that his stuffy friend now wore a cute little nurse’s hat, but that was hardly relevant.
Finally, he had to give up and accept the truth; this must be his punishment. Trapped in a toy room with no good toys, alone to wallow in the mistakes that brought him to this point. He spent a good while burrowed into the pillow that made up his bed before he’d had enough of wallowing, and soon after grew tired of pacing around and fretting too.
Giving up, he walked over to the blocks that were neatly stacked by a wall and shoved them all down to the floor. It was only a three-block high structure, as he had no more than five blocks in total, but it helped his mood somewhat. Sitting down, he picked up a block in his hooves and studied it. It had a picture of a duck in a sailor’s hat on the side, so he put it on top of the block that said ‘B’. For… bird? Boat? Beak? Maybe it was just luck, because he certainly didn’t know how to read.
Next block, another letter. A. He reached up to balance it very carefully on the other two, then looked over his handiwork. “Bducka”. … Hrm. Or “Bbirda”? Although the A was set upside down, so it was closer to “Bduckv”. Ugh, that wouldn’t work at all. He knocked the blocks over and started again, just doing what he could to distract himself.
Even when he heard the saferoom door open some time later, he didn’t look away from the blocks. Mostly because he was a teeny bit upset at his mother for trapping him in the first place, and wanted her to speak first. He heard her scuffling around, setting something down, and then padded thuds on carpet. He studied the duck in the sailor hat pointedly.
“Hewwo, Doctah.”
All at once Dr. Crazystein forgot how to breathe, squeezing the block in his hooves. He knew that voice. That tone. Dark, deep - expectant, one step away from a taunt - those sounds were hooves, of course they were hooves, but why -
The padded thud of the fluffy behind him taking just one step closer snapped the good doctor out of his thoughts, and with a squeak of a yell he twisted around and threw the block at Mr. Hyde. The large fluffy let out a yelp of surprise and moved back a step, giving Dr. Crazystein the time he needed to scramble to a stand and run to another side of the room. Only when he paused to look back at his attacker, every muscle tense and ready to dash off again, did he notice something.
Mr. Hyde was all the wrong colors.
Though still wound up, the little doctor untensed and studied the other fluffy. He was a bleak, orange-ish color like wood or sand, with a dirty red-brown-something mane and tail. Yes, the mane and tail were all wrong, too, uneven and awkward like a botched hairdresser job.
“Wow, he wasn’t joking,” noted his mother from her position at the door. Dr. Crazystein glanced between her and the unfamiliar fluffy a few times, trying to piece together what was going on, until she smiled and spoke again. “So, ‘doctor’. Say hi to your new body guard.”
“Body… guahd?” He hesitated. Was this fluffy supposed to protect him? He was supposed to trust someone so similar to Mr. Hyde? “Nu need body guahd!”
“Well, that’s a shame, because the pound sure won’t take him back.” The human was smiling with a look he didn’t like. “And besides, I don’t much care what you think you need. This guy will keep an eye on you so I KNOW you’re not getting up to any more terrible experiments.”
Dr. Crazystein felt an involuntary shiver run down his back, for a few moments unable to shake the image of how easily a fluffy that size could stop him from doing anything. He still smiled, though, in an attempt to appease his mother. Surely she’d understand if only he told her this wasn’t necessary.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the right words, so she just kept talking. “At the same time, he’s big and strong enough to keep any ferals at bay, so I don’t have to worry about … THAT happening again. He used to be a toughie, isn’t that right?”
“Dat’s wight,” replied Mr. not-Hyde. The good doctor couldn’t help but notice that his voice wasn’t QUITE Mr. Hyde’s, and it seemed a bit more genuine and friendly than the cruel taunts his tormentor had made. Still a bit too close for comfort. “Am bestest tuffie!”
“So now he’s YOUR toughie.” His mother smiled in evident satisfaction, leaned on the doorway with her arms crossed. “And if you don’t like it, just consider him your punishment for everything you’ve done. Like a little angel of vengeance.”
Any thoughts Dr. Crazystein had about explaining himself crashed and burned right there. “Oh.” She wasn’t doing this to be nice to him or protect him. It was the exact opposite. He forced a smile and a small laugh, eyes darting from the fluffy to his mother awkwardly. That was fine. Fluffies were supposed to love each other, and besides this one DIDN’T have that grating high-pitched shrieking voice, and-
-and he was walking right up to him. Dr. Crazystein backpedaled a few steps before telling himself that even though he was towering over him this fluffy was NOT about to attack, and he should be nice. He straightened and smiled to the fluffy, extending a hoof with another small laugh. “Hewwo… Am Doctah Cwazystein! What’s yu name?”
“Nu haf name,” the toughie admitted, sitting down. “Mummah say yu gif name. So, doctah, what’s tuffie’s name?”
Hm. Dr. Crazystein pulled his hoof back, trying to think. Orange and red was hardly conductive to a color-based name. But what kind of mad scientist EVER had a body guard? He hadn’t heard of a single one. Assistants, yes, but not …
Wait, what if he made this fluffy his assistant? That could work! Dr. Crazystein’s smile grew more genuine as he finally managed to spin the situation to something favorable. Plus, he knew by heart the most popular and common name for an assistant.
“Yu name is Ivo!” he declared, reared up with his front legs spread out for dramatic effect.
Ivo’s face split into a wide grin, and before the doctor had a chance to realize what he was doing he was torn into the air and shoved into the thick, orange fluff. Dr. Crazystein let out a half-audible yelp, squirming helplessly in an effort to escape the sudden hug, but it did nothing and so he had to endure the uncomfortable grip for several far too long seconds until the toughie had enough and set him back down. He coughed a bit, struggling to recover.
“O-Otay, nu… nu hugs,” he gasped. “Pwease.”
“But yu make huggie weggies,” Ivo pointed out. “Nu make huggie weggies if yu nu wan hugs.”
Duly noted, don’t make gestures. Hearing a snicker, both Dr. Crazystein and Ivo looked to their mother. “Oh, don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m just glad to see the two of you are getting along so well. Ivo, I just need to tell you about a few rules we have in here, and then you and Crazystein can play to your heart’s content.”
As Ivo trotted over to the human, leaving Dr. Crazystein alone in the saferoom once more, the doctor couldn’t help but feel like this would take quite some time to adjust to.
< previous || index || next >
