Work Text:
I take great care of you whenever you enter Medical.
Every cell of regrown organic tissue, every wire soldered back together, every component that must be replaced; they are handled perfectly, as if nothing had happened to you at all. Your skin is clear and smooth with no scars or blemishes. Your mechanics function as if you were newly manufactured. I am an excellent doctor.
Every time you come to me in pieces, I am terrified that I won’t be able to put you back together.
With your habit of turning your pain sensors down, you become dismissive. Unconcerned with yourself. Your pain is something to be disregarded. Your suffering, a given. Who could blame you? You were treated as such for years, much longer than you can even remember. Any deeper consideration of this would surely send you spiraling at the sheer injustice of it, the magnitude of cruelty too much for your mind.
One of your arms has been severed entirely. You walked into my med bay holding it in your attached hand, waving it around casually as if this were par for the course. Well, it is in your line of work, but you seem either oblivious or flippant to how our crew reacts. Iris had confessed her horror at the sight to me. She’s not squeamish by any means, but it is different with people she cares about. She seemingly cares for you more than you care for yourself, as I do.
You have your pain sensors down as always while you recline on the surgical cot. A minor sliver of my attention is on your current serial, but the majority of it focuses on caring for you. Much more than is necessary, even, but I refuse to risk making even a single minor mistake with you. I would never forgive myself if you left my med bay in anything less than perfect condition.
You absentmindedly ask me questions regarding your media, about my predictions of various outcomes and analyses of several scenes. I answer, of course, since I love our media time dearly. I engage with your theories and shoot some more ridiculous ones down. I suspect you're trying to distract me as much as you're trying to distract yourself with how far-fetched some of your speculations are. You can't possibly be this stupid. You're trying to needle me into an argument.
I take the bait anyway. Part of me engages with your ludicrous takes while the rest reattaches your arm, regrows nerves, repairs synthetic muscle, solders circuitry back together. The seams are nonexistent when I'm finished, as if you were never hurt at all.
I remember each and every time you are.
I can only hope that you stop letting yourself be hurt in others’ steads, but until then, I will fix you up every single time.