ph_logs | Please state the nature of your medical emergency [Oct/Nov TL]

"Ah."

There are some logical questions that a person might ask, such as how a metal knife would be able to punch through a metal faceplate, but Chris doesn't do any of that. It is a ghost; if the 'rules' the ghost operates under say that he stabs you in the face, then there's likely enough energy gathered behind the action to make it happen regardless of physical limitations.

"Do you want me to take a look at it? I assume you bandaged yourself in one of the mirrors, but..."

"...I don't want you to see it," First Aid quietly admits. His optics switch back on, but dimly. "It's ugly, and I'm embarrassed by it..." He averts his gaze, the light of his optic crystals moving restlessly behind his visor.

"I already did everything that can be done for it. Now it's just a matter of giving my internal repair systems time to do their job. In a few days you won't even be able to tell there was a puncture."

"I understand if you've done everything that can be done for your injury," Chris says calmly, with a nod. "But there is something I don't understand."

Chris reaches out, and places their hand over First Aid's.

"Would you shame and judge someone else for their injury? Even if they got it from being foolish? Or would you treat them kindly?"

Then why -- is the unspoken question -- do you treat yourself with less kindness?

"Um..."

First Aid's plating shifts and clicks for a moment, restless with excess energy while his processor chews over that statement. Finally he slumps with a small sigh, and says, "I'm sorry."

And now he has a new, even worse thing to be embarrassed about. Great. That's just fantastic. He sighs again and says, "I didn't realize I had any prejudices against humans like that. I always...I really do think of you as my partner here, Chris. We're working together, and I value that. It's just...Ugh."

What's a non-scary way to say, 'I guess I have a few hang-ups about my former ability to squish you like a bug by accident?'

"I used to be so much larger than I am now," he says, a little helplessly. "I'd barely have dared to move, if you'd stood this close to me back then. I'd have been so scared of accidentally crushing you. But I guess the other side of that is that I got used to being...so much stronger. Humans were always more at risk of being hurt than me, in nearly any situation. So now, being hurt like this..." He looks away again. "It embarrassed me. I didn't want to admit to any weakness."

"It makes sense," Chris says. "If you're used to being bigger and stronger, there's an adjustment period to suddenly being a completely different size." They sing-song a little when they murmur, "Go ask Alice..."

They give their head a little shake. Focus, Chris. Don't be too weird; treat it like being on the clock. First Aid needs you to be serious.

"As for being embarrassed, I can understand it. If you're used to being stronger, it makes sense that getting hurt would seem shameful. But!" Chris pats First Aid's hand, "You don't have to be ashamed. I've done worse. The first week I was here, I got distracted trying to chase down a ghost for answers, and I didn't even notice the Bluffs before I already fell off of them!"

Don't ask if Chris survived that.

First Aid's visor flashes in sudden concern. "You fell off the Bluffs?? Chris --"

He stops himself before he can get too worked up, gently taking Chris's hand and picking it up so he can study the back. Their boney knuckles and the path of their veins. First Aid's hand is nearly twice as big as theirs, but even that difference is neglible compared to what it would be if they were on in his Earth, in his original body. Chris's entire body could fit easily in the palm of his hand, everything they are or could ever be.

"I'm glad you're okay," First Aid says, refocusing on their face. "And I'm okay too, I promise. It's just a puncture, I already checked everything. The ghost didn't hurt any of my internal components." A little uneasily, he adds, "I won't try to hide from you, next time."

"Yes, it was a very stupid thing, but there's nothing you could have done about it! Happened weeks before you got here, so don't worry too much. I am fine now, and I know the ghosts aren't much for helping even if you can catch up them, so I won't do it again." That was, perhaps, a little too much talking, but Chris knows that First Aid is a worrier. And it filled up the silence in the time that he was studying Chris's hand.

Though of course Chris doesn't know the path of First Aid's thoughts.

"I'm glad that your internals are all right." Chris looks away for a moment, considering, before meeting First Aid's gaze again. "I think it's okay if you don't want someone to look at an injury you already took care of. But I would feel better, knowing sooner if you've been hurt. So I can help keep an eye out for signs of infection or fever, those kind of things."

There's no judgement there, just calm acceptance, and an offer to meet First Aid halfway.

"...I'll have to teach you what to do when a Cybertronian catches rust or a fever, then," First Aid concedes. Trying to lighten the mood, he adds, "Though at least I'm unlikely to catch a coding virus out here. No comms network for them to proliferate on."

He lets go of Chris's hand and turns back to the sink, picking up where he left off in sterilizing the tools. "Might come in handy anyway, if you ever run into another Cybertronian. I can't be everywhere all at once, after all."

"So there are some upsides to being low tech!" Chris says with a smile, having picked up on the mood-lightening attempt.

They nod over that. "It's only fair. Since you know how to treat humans and Cybertronians, if we're working together then I should know, too."

"I certainly won't turn down a second set of hands," First Aid agrees. "Although I should warn you that I've never taught anyone before, so who knows if I'll be any good at it."

"As long as I can ask questions, I think we'll get through it with me decently educated by the end."

Chris takes First Aid getting back to the tools as a hint that they should get back to the normal routine. "I'm gonna go grab some tea and check who's up to be hassled about dodging their annual checkup for too long."

Dr. Winterbottom wasn't quite up to the challenge of chasing such folks down, as focused as she has been on more dire circumstances. But with an actual staff behind her now, she gleefully marked the records of those who have avoided her.

-- A FEW DAYS LATER --

His conversation with Angel turned out to be exactly the kick in the aft First Aid needed to make good on his promise to Chris. Actually, he reflects with no small amount of embarrassment, he might have gone a bit overboard.

"Still interested?" he asks tentatively, come back from the store room he uses for recharging with a him-sized armload of butcher paper. Yeah, he definitely went overboard. "I couldn't decide where to start, but I thought...even if it's not directly useful, some foundational knowledge wouldn't hurt, right...?"

They are not going to cover cranial surgery today. They absolutely are not. Ratchet would return from the grave and cross universes just to smack him upside the head with a socket wrench.

Edited (fixed a typo) 2023-10-27 11:01 (UTC)

[ OOC: The fact that there are multiple backstage images of Chris's faceclaim reading books tickles me. ]

Chris raises an eyebrow at that big stack of pages, looks up into First Aid's face, and says "Of course I'm still interested."

Were you expecting a medical student to be intimidated by thick books? Were you expecting someone who interned as a medical assistant to fear disorganized papers? Come on, First Aid.

"It seems to me the most logical way to start is how most medical courses start. Anatomy, the structures that make up the body; and physiology, the function of those living systems. Everything else can be built on that base -- would you agree?"

Chris can seem a little scatter-brained in the day to day, but whenever medical issues are addressed -- whenever they are called on to do something related to that job and the oath they swore -- they become... much more placid.

No, of course not. It's just...for all his talk of the social prestige that comes with being a doctor...First Aid rarely gets to enjoy the experience of anyone actually listening to him describe his work. Everyone else is just too busy...so he's rather badly out of practice.

"Y-yes!" he says, mortified and excited at once, and puts the stack of papers down on the table between them, smoothing them out to lie flat. "I thought just the same thing."

The first paper in the stack contains a diagram of a mech, with the major "organs" and support struts pointed out and labeled. The mech isn't First Aid himself -- he was too embarrassed. Streetwise will do as a substitute, for now; they're close to the same size, and as they're both ground vehicles their internal structures are nearly identical anyways. The differences won't matter until they get into First Aid's combination structures, which could days or even weeks, depending on how quickly Chris masters the material.

"So, the most fundamental structures of a Cybertronian's body," he begins, and gently taps the drawing once on its head and once on its torso. "Nine million years ago, the physio-philosopher Rossum of Burthov identified the processor and the laser core as the most vital components of a Cybertronian's body, without which continued function is impossible without immediate and on-going medical support. But after transformation technology was invented the transformation cog was also identified as a vital component." He taps the drawing's torso again, a cog symbol drawn beneath the laser core. "Because transformation itself is energy-intense and required extensive re-writing of Cybertronian code in order to integrate it into the population, the sudden loss of that functionality is regarded as a trauma on par with damage to the other two components, and ranks only slightly behind them in Cybertronian triage." He cirles the drawing's torso and head. "These three components are called Rossum's Trinity or Rossum's Rule of Thirds, and they form the cornerstone of Cybertronian medical practice."

Chris pulls out a small notebook that rests easily in one long-fingered hand, along with a pencil. And they start jotting down notes as First Aid speaks.

"Processor, would you say that's an analogue to the brain? And what exactly does the laser core do?" Chris asks. They don't try to come up with a similar human or organic structure for the transformation cog -- it sounds more like something that Cybertronians specifically 'evolved' themselves to have.

"Indeed. The processor contains both long- and short-term memory, the personality core, sensory suite, and several other components which all contribute to the gestalt of Cybertronian consciousness. Like the human brain, these components are small and fragile enough that damage to one nearly always coincides with damage to its neighbors, and thus they are considered to a cohesive whole except when discussing cranial surgery, which we will not be going into today." His self-directed amusement is evident as he murmurs, "My mentor's ghost might just show up to kill me if I try to jump that far ahead."

"The laser core, on the other hand, protects and regulates the energy given off by the spark, which has no direct equivalent in human physical anatomy. The closest cultural equivalent might be the spirit, or the soul."

They write quickly, with thin cramped letters, in a print-cursive mix that only really disconnects to cross 't's and dot 'i's.

There's the quick flash of a smile at the soft joke(?) First Aid makes. "Poltergeists, the ones that can affect the physical world, generally have to have a lot of emotion behind their intent to do things..."

Chris nods at the explanation of the laser core, and comments, "Sounds as important as the heart is to something with a circulatory system, though the functions aren't the same."

"We do have a circulatory system and a fuel pump, but they are less vital to our continued functioning than the laser core," First Aid gently corrects. "The human body cannot survive longer than 30 seconds if the heart stops beating, due to the necessity of supplying the brain with a constant supply of fresh oxygen. Destruction of the laser core will kill a Cybertronian even more quickly; I think the longest recorded survival period was something on the order of eleven seconds, and in most cases death is believed to have been nearly instantaneous. A Cybertronian can survive up to thirty minutes without the fuel pump, on the other hand, provided their processor had enough charge stored up to make it without a supply of fresh fuel. I've even heard of people jury-rigging their processor to function on spark energy alone in emergencies, although this is not medically recommended at all."

He pauses thoughtfully, and then notes, "The fuel pump is also far more easily fabricated and replaced than either the processor or the laser core. You might almost call it an interchangeable component, since it contains no individualized code and plays no role in generating consciousness. The same would not be true of long-term memory storage, for instance."

More notes. Existence of the circulatory/fuel pump system noted, that it's a replaceable part, et cetera...

"Is spark energy non-replenishable? Is that why it's not recommended to run a processor directly on that energy source...?"

The questions and assiduous note-taking as First Aid answers will continue until ~~morale improves~~ Chris gets a cramp in their hand that doesn't go away with a quick shake of the fingers and roll of the wrist.

"Hrm, I think that's a sign to stop," Chris comments. They stash their notebook and pencil into their ever-present canvas shoulder-bag and start doing a series of stretches that works up from the wrists all the way to the shoulders. "Plenty to study until your next lecture." There's another quick smile. "Thank you for doing this."

"Thank you for listening," First Aid responds. They watch Chris stretch, memorizing the way they move, which joints seem to give them particular trouble. It might be useful later.

"You've been a wonderful student. Far more attentive than I was."

"I went through a lot of schooling. Bit like riding a bike, I suppose -- you never forget how." Chris rolls their shoulders once before giving an easy shrug. "Maybe I should invested in different colored ink pens when I re-copy... helps me organize."

They also take a moment to stretch their neck muscles briefly. Then Chris brightens up.

"Oh yeah! So some of those folks who've been dodging the doctor and their annual exams work in the mines. I got a guy who works with them to talk them into making appointments."

"You did? That's great!" First Aid's visor brightens as he shares in Chris's enthusiasm. "I'd have done it if we had to, but I really was not looking forward to tracking them all down one by one. Erik Osborne was frustrating enough."

He tidies up the scattered papers -- they actually covered quite a bit more ground than he thought they would, mostly because Chris kept asking very good questions -- rolling them and preparing them to be put away. "When's the first one? Not today, I hope. Your hands could use some rest."

"You should have let me handle him," Chris teases, "I had an efficient plan."

Chris goes to grab the agenda book. "We had to work with their bosses to arrange time off. There are five -- starting off with one the day after tomorrow, he's been given time in the afternoon for his check-up." Chris taps the entry, so First Aid can make note of the time. "Then the next day, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. The last two had to get pushed to next week."

Chris wrinkles their nose and pulls an exaggerated scowl. "The mine foreman was a hardass about givin' 'em time away in the work-week. Had to pull out the 'good of the community' argument."

"I was worried your 'efficient plan' would get you stabbed in retaliation," First Aid says dryly. "Fortunately Lord Osborne turned out to be quite reasonable once I pointed out how he stood to cooperate with the exam."

He easily memorizes the dates and times Chris shows him -- benefits of having a literally photographic memory -- and sighs dryly at their description of the foreman. "Stubborn," he says disapprovingly. "Perhaps we should have had Father Degas give a sermon on the value of community health care and mutual aid? In small communities like this it's often a good idea to get the spiritual leadership on your side anyway, especially when introducing new ideas."

"Oh, pfft. First of all, we have a bit of a history. Second of all, Erik would be more likely to bite and I was planning to occupy his mouth."

Which, indeed, might be information that causes First Aid to protest all the more about Chris giving Erik medical care. (Good thing Erik generally doesn't need it.)

"Degas isn't ordained, I think. He might protest being called 'Father'. But he'd probably agree to shaping a sermon around that subject. He cares about the community a lot."

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