The good Dr. Crazystein, chapter 8
Ivo’s new wings
Dr. Crazystein stared at his supplies. A big glass shard as a scalpel, check.
Needle and thread fished out of a sewing box his mother hadn’t set back in its proper space, check.
Band-aids that his mother had purposedly left in the safe room in case of an emergency, check.
Anesthesia, not check.
He could feel Ivo, his assistant, staring at him from the other side of the saferoom. The large fluffy sat completely still, wood-colored fur stained with deep red blood, only using a hoof to gently nudge the dead falcon in front of him back and forth. “Doctah am weady soon?”
“Yus, yus, am awmost weady!” the little scientist called back hurriedly. He couldn’t waste any more time looking for anesthetics. There was no telling when Ivo would lose his patience, and besides Dr. Crazystein himself was impatient to get started.
He pulled his supplies over to Ivo a piece at a time, going over what he had to do in his head once more. It should be a simple procedure. He had to tend to the wounds too, though.
“Otay, Doctah Cwazystein haf to stop da bweeding an’ stuff fiwst,” he said, sitting in front of Ivo and motioning at the red stains. Ivo didn’t move, but when the smaller fluffy brushed a hoof against his wounds he felt him quiver. He did his best to move the fur out of the way of the wounds, until he could see the gouges in his assistant’s body.
He would have to use a lot of band-aids.
Candi felt somewhat apprehensive as she drove up to her house. Today was the first time she had left her two fluffies alone together for a full day, and even though logic dictated they would be alright, fluffy logic dictated that an unwatched fluffy always managed to get itself into some kind of mess. Besides, ever since she had returned home almost too late to save Winter - or Dr. Crazystein as he insisted on being called - from dying of a ruptured lung, she had been a bit afraid to leave him unsupervised, even with his new bodyguard.
As she stepped into the yard she looked around, noting blood splashes and feathers in the grass along with a greyscale filly unicorn. Maybe its mother got taken by a hawk, she thought, feeling an instant pang of pity as the filly rushed up to her. “Wady! Wady! Be nyu mummah!?”
“Sorry, sweetie, but I can’t. I already have two fluffies.”
“Duskie know! Big woodie fwuffy save Duskie fwom big biwdie munstah an’ it was WEAWWY WEAWWY COOW! An’ Duskie wan be pawt of coow woodie fwuffy an’ doctah famiwy!”
The filly waved her hooves in clear excitement, and Candi felt the color drain from her face. That meant the blood in the grass didn’t belong to any random feral fluffy, but to her very own Ivo! She hurried into the house without even answering Duskie, or closing the door for that matter. Blood and feathers had left a long trail, and Candi followed it until she burst into the saferoom. “Winny! Where’s Ivo!?”
Dr. Crazystein stared up at her with a mixture of shock and pride. His entire front was stained dark red, and in his hooves was a severed bird’s head. He gently set the gruesome thing down to point at the fluffy bed where Ivo was lying happy as a foal, covered in bandaids and terrible stitching work, with two large wings roughly stabbed into his back. They were clearly too heavy for him, and judging from the bloodstains Dr. Crazystein had stabbed the hollow bones through his skin, but a combination of stitches and bandaids kept them from falling back out.
Candi could do nothing but stare, eyes trailing over the rest of the saferoom. It was like something from a horror movie. A pool of blood showed where the surgery had taken place - made obvious by the discolored glass shard, empty bandaid packet and sewing supplies lying near it - and gory hoofprints lead from it throughout the room. Torn feathers had been piled in a corner, and the well-worn chemistry set had been filled with blood, an unidentifiable organ stuffed into the largest container. The bird’s corpse was torn open, a pile of gore and bones, some of which Dr. Crazystein had evidently tried to clean and pile up, and right now he was cleaning the head after having managed to remove one eye and crush the other. The water bowl had been used for cleaning SOME kind of gore in and for absolutely no reason, there were glass shards in the food bowl.
There were no words to describe how she felt, and only when a small, female voice spoke from the kitchen did she snap out of her shock. “Wady mummah? Can Duskie haf fwoow-foodsies?”
Candi let out a loud, frustrated scream. “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?!”
Dr. Crazystein visibly recoiled as she pointed at him and stomped into the room. “ARE YOU SERIOUS!? I LEAVE YOU FOR ONE DAY! ONE! DAY! AND YOU SPREAD BIRD GUTS IN THE ENTIRE SAFEROOM AND STAB IVO IN SOME GODDAMN MAKESHIFT SURGERY ATTEMPT TO TURN YOUR BODYGUARD INTO A HAWK!!”
“Uh- nu- Doctah Cwa–”
“DON’T GIVE ME THAT SHIT!” The fluffy jumped, mismatched eyes darting around at the mess he had caused. “YOU ARE CLEANING ALL OF THIS UP RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN, OR ELSE I AM BREAKING EVERY SINGLE THING YOU OWN TWICE OVER AND LOCKING YOU INTO THE GODDAMN BATHTUB EVERY DAY I GO TO WORK! IS THAT CLEAR!?”
“Yus mummah.” Dr. Crazystein’s voice was tiny and his every feature drooped. “W-Wiww cwean aww of it…”
“Wady mummah!” called the filly from the kitchen again. “Can Duskie haf fwoow-foodsies?”
Candi snatched up Ivo, who made a startled grunt and kicked at the air, then left the saferoom and slammed the door shut. Duskie following her into the house when she’d clearly said no did very little to help her mood, though the mix of frustration and horror was starting to lean more toward worry. She’d have to call the vet again and ask about what to do with Ivo, but for now, she should go and throw out Duskie …
… She entered the kitchen to find the fridge wide open, food kicked out onto the floor (including a shattered jar of what had once been pasta sauce), multiple broken cupboard doors, and bottles of detergent, bleach, drain cleaner and other things scattered around. Duskie sat by a lukewarm piece of cheese, patiently waiting for an answer so she could dig in. Candi made a strangled sound, then turned around and just left the house. She half-dropped Ivo on the steps, walked out into the yard, and fell to a sit with her head in her hands.
It took about fifteen minutes for Ivo to walk up and put a reassuring hoof on her hip. She fought the urge to hit him away. “Nu be mad at doctah,” the fluffy urged. “Ivo wan wings, doctah hewp.”
Candi bit back a reply, grimaced, then slumped in defeat. What was she even supposed to do? She couldn’t keep the fluffies at home if THIS was what would happen. She glanced to Ivo, big woody Ivo the ex-feral who was probably going to die from some combination of bird flu, blood poisoning and infection.
… Oh yeah, she should probably call the vet. She fished out her phone and exhaled, composing herself as best she could as she called the number.
“Yeah, hey. This is Candi … Can I talk to Dr. Andersson?” … “Yeah.” … “It’s okay. I’ll wait. Trust me, I don’t think any other vet would understand.”
By the time she returned home with Ivo, it had gotten dark out. Dr. Andersson had wanted to study the fluffy’s wounds and wings, and they had together determined that Ivo was quite proud of his new appendages, pain or infection or not, and thus utterly refused to let them remove the things. Taking them by force might cause him to become violent later on, with Dr. Crazystein being the most likely victim, and there was nothing preventing him from just killing another bird to get new wings whenever he got an opening anyway. As a result, the vet just cleaned his wounds up and did what he could to embalm the wings, so that they wouldn’t just rot and fall apart. Candi also got a receipt for antibiotics, which she had fetched before they returned home.
“Wook, wady mummah! Am home!” Duskie gasped from her spot beside Ivo. She had brought the filly along to drop her off at the shelter where she had bought Ivo, but as soon as the car stopped and the ex-feral saw the sign, he had grabbed onto the tiny fluffy and hidden her under himself. He had nearly suffocated her before Candi finally agreed not to drop her off.
She still planned to get rid of the filly, but at least for the night, she was stuck with her. Candi sighed as she pulled up to the driveway, but soon they were all indoors and she collapsed on the couch, letting herself sink into the cushions. God, she could just fall asleep right now, without even washing up or eating dinner. As she was dozing off, though, someone tapped at her arm. She swatted vaguely at the air.
Ivo tapped at her again. “Nu can weach doctah.”
Oh, right. She had locked him in the saferoom. Candi groaned, pushing herself up to her feet. She would have to clean up that horrible bird corpse before it begun to rot and smell everywhere… “Hang on, I got it…”
Exhausted, she opened the saferoom door, but to her surprise the room was squeaky clean. Dr. Crazystein had gotten rid of as much of the gore as he possibly could, with a dedicated corner for the bird’s head, feathers, and various supplies he’d wanted to keep, and the rest of the corpse collected into his food bowl. He sat there, looking tired and kind of sick, smiling awkwardly in an attempt to look his best despite being more red than blue.
Maybe, Candi thought as she picked up the foodbowl and left to toss out its contents, maybe these fluffies were salvageable after all.
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