an attempt at prayer is made
Nov. 4th, 2023 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lovinglefthandFirst Aid tells no one what he's thinking about. It's another lie of omission, he thinks guiltily, but perhaps just a small one? There's no guarantee that his thoughts will even go anywhere, so why share them? It's a private matter. The most important things often are, in his experience.
But he's thinking about Rodimus, and how unprepared he was to take up the Primacy when the Matrix chose him. He's thinking about how he worked with Ratchet for twenty years, exchanging comm calls nearly every day even after the Protectobots moved to New York, and how it still left him unprepared to do Ratchet's actual job. He's thinking about resource allocation, and how impossible it is to get the things you need if you don't at least ask. Not even the best quartermaster is telepathic, no matter how they might pretend to be.
He's thinking about worthiness, and ignorance, and his patients. The list is getting longer every day.
He doesn't visit the Temple, though. Jean has him paranoid now, thinking about neutrality and reputation and all those things that were supposed to be Hot Spot's job, and the Prime's after him. Hot Spot was team commander; he decided where they deployed and when, unless Optimus Prime ordered them into the field as part of a bigger operation. He was the one who talked to the press, and even though it was Groove who first figured out what blogs were and suggested that they should have one, he wouldn't have done it at all if Hot Spot hadn't approved.
Hot Spot should be the one trying this, First Aid thinks sadly. He'd definitely do a better job. But for whatever reason, Hot Spot isn't here. First Aid has to fill out his supply orders himself.
He does drive by the Temple, just to see what it looks like, and he pauses on the corner to admire its large windows, a little bit like the cathedrals in NYC. It must look lovely inside, he thinks, before he drives on. He needs to go out to the farms anyway, to have a talk with Eddie and two or three other people, but he lets himself get...just a little lost first. Not so badly that he can't find his way back to town, but he drives along fences and hedgerows until he can't pick up any more humanoid biosigns on his sensors, and then he finds a little copse of trees and stops there.
The ground is very soft and damp; when he transforms back into root mode and leaves the road, his feet sink slightly into the leaf cover and the mud underneath, and he wonders what the hell he thinks he's doing. He has no experience with this; what if he does it wrong and pisses someone off?
Well. Maybe that's where he should start.
"If I cause offense with my ignorance," he says carefully, lowering himself to sit under one of the trees with all the seams in his legs tightly closed as protection against the mud. "I beg your pardon. I don't have much experience with this." He laughs quietly and admits, before it can turn into an elephant in the metaphorical room: "I know I might have just asked Degas, but surely…” His fingertips drum out a nervous rhythm on his leg. “Surely it’s better I do this myself. Surely some fumbling around is better than…” He sighs heavily.
“It just makes no sense to me that you all – goddesses, your ladyships, however you would like to be addressed – it makes no sense to me that you would call us here and expect us to neatly categorize ourselves into the existing patterns when it’s so obvious that those patterns aren’t working. At least I think it’s obvious.” He stops the tapping before it can mess up his paint.
“It’s like – I’ve only been here a few weeks, but it’s like – I think I’m starting to see the shape of the problem. The general outline. And it’s not just the curse, is it? It’s how everyone’s been handling it – or failing to, as the case may be.” He laughs sadly. “I’m traumatized after dying a single time, but compared to the people who’ve been living here, that’s nothing. And the grief, the deprivation…the supernatural monsters that keep showing up to attack people, and yes, I am including the demons in that category…it all adds up. How is anyone supposed to live normally after this kind of ordeal?”
His plating shivers slightly. “I’m not even sure where to start fixing a problem this large – so it’s a good thing I’m not doing it alone, right?” He stops to look around. At the fallen leaves, the naked trees, a stretch of half-collapsed stone fence nearby. “And that, conveniently, is what I came out here to…to talk to you about, I suppose.” He starts tapping his plating again. “I’m not one to let a potential resource go unused, if you’ll forgive that term of phrase. Think of it as being a habit learned from being built for war. And we Autobots know all about transforming ourselves to fit the situation on the ground.” He smiles – not with his face, of course, but with his voice – amused and ever so slightly bitter. “So if there’s a way to become…better I suppose, more capable, more useful to the people here…I want in on it. If I’m not worthy yet, I’d like to know how I might change that. We have our stories about people questing to earn our god’s favor too – although I should mention, I’d rather not do anything that will take me away from the clinic for more than 24 hours. That would be counterproductive.”
He pauses to think and review everything that’s been said. He doesn’t mention that Cybertronian religion – or at least, mainstream Cybertronian religion – has been as dead as their homeworld for nearly five million years.
“I’m not even sure what I’m hoping will come of this,” he quietly admits out loud. “A larger altmode? My subspace compartments? The rest of my team?” He smiles again. “Those things would all definitely be useful to me personally, but maybe not so much the town as a whole? I don’t know. I’m a doctor, not a strategist. But there it is: you brought me here, I assume, to be a doctor to the people who live on this island. If it will help me serve them better, I’m willing to enter into a closer relationship with you. But, just to be clear: my first priority will always be the people who actually live here. The mortal townspeople, my patients, their friends and families…I hope they are your first priority too. It would make it much easier for us to work together.”
He pauses again, waiting for a response and wondering if he’ll even be able to recognize it if it comes. “I hope that’s acceptable,” he finally says, and pushes himself back up onto his feet.
But he's thinking about Rodimus, and how unprepared he was to take up the Primacy when the Matrix chose him. He's thinking about how he worked with Ratchet for twenty years, exchanging comm calls nearly every day even after the Protectobots moved to New York, and how it still left him unprepared to do Ratchet's actual job. He's thinking about resource allocation, and how impossible it is to get the things you need if you don't at least ask. Not even the best quartermaster is telepathic, no matter how they might pretend to be.
He's thinking about worthiness, and ignorance, and his patients. The list is getting longer every day.
He doesn't visit the Temple, though. Jean has him paranoid now, thinking about neutrality and reputation and all those things that were supposed to be Hot Spot's job, and the Prime's after him. Hot Spot was team commander; he decided where they deployed and when, unless Optimus Prime ordered them into the field as part of a bigger operation. He was the one who talked to the press, and even though it was Groove who first figured out what blogs were and suggested that they should have one, he wouldn't have done it at all if Hot Spot hadn't approved.
Hot Spot should be the one trying this, First Aid thinks sadly. He'd definitely do a better job. But for whatever reason, Hot Spot isn't here. First Aid has to fill out his supply orders himself.
He does drive by the Temple, just to see what it looks like, and he pauses on the corner to admire its large windows, a little bit like the cathedrals in NYC. It must look lovely inside, he thinks, before he drives on. He needs to go out to the farms anyway, to have a talk with Eddie and two or three other people, but he lets himself get...just a little lost first. Not so badly that he can't find his way back to town, but he drives along fences and hedgerows until he can't pick up any more humanoid biosigns on his sensors, and then he finds a little copse of trees and stops there.
The ground is very soft and damp; when he transforms back into root mode and leaves the road, his feet sink slightly into the leaf cover and the mud underneath, and he wonders what the hell he thinks he's doing. He has no experience with this; what if he does it wrong and pisses someone off?
Well. Maybe that's where he should start.
"If I cause offense with my ignorance," he says carefully, lowering himself to sit under one of the trees with all the seams in his legs tightly closed as protection against the mud. "I beg your pardon. I don't have much experience with this." He laughs quietly and admits, before it can turn into an elephant in the metaphorical room: "I know I might have just asked Degas, but surely…” His fingertips drum out a nervous rhythm on his leg. “Surely it’s better I do this myself. Surely some fumbling around is better than…” He sighs heavily.
“It just makes no sense to me that you all – goddesses, your ladyships, however you would like to be addressed – it makes no sense to me that you would call us here and expect us to neatly categorize ourselves into the existing patterns when it’s so obvious that those patterns aren’t working. At least I think it’s obvious.” He stops the tapping before it can mess up his paint.
“It’s like – I’ve only been here a few weeks, but it’s like – I think I’m starting to see the shape of the problem. The general outline. And it’s not just the curse, is it? It’s how everyone’s been handling it – or failing to, as the case may be.” He laughs sadly. “I’m traumatized after dying a single time, but compared to the people who’ve been living here, that’s nothing. And the grief, the deprivation…the supernatural monsters that keep showing up to attack people, and yes, I am including the demons in that category…it all adds up. How is anyone supposed to live normally after this kind of ordeal?”
His plating shivers slightly. “I’m not even sure where to start fixing a problem this large – so it’s a good thing I’m not doing it alone, right?” He stops to look around. At the fallen leaves, the naked trees, a stretch of half-collapsed stone fence nearby. “And that, conveniently, is what I came out here to…to talk to you about, I suppose.” He starts tapping his plating again. “I’m not one to let a potential resource go unused, if you’ll forgive that term of phrase. Think of it as being a habit learned from being built for war. And we Autobots know all about transforming ourselves to fit the situation on the ground.” He smiles – not with his face, of course, but with his voice – amused and ever so slightly bitter. “So if there’s a way to become…better I suppose, more capable, more useful to the people here…I want in on it. If I’m not worthy yet, I’d like to know how I might change that. We have our stories about people questing to earn our god’s favor too – although I should mention, I’d rather not do anything that will take me away from the clinic for more than 24 hours. That would be counterproductive.”
He pauses to think and review everything that’s been said. He doesn’t mention that Cybertronian religion – or at least, mainstream Cybertronian religion – has been as dead as their homeworld for nearly five million years.
“I’m not even sure what I’m hoping will come of this,” he quietly admits out loud. “A larger altmode? My subspace compartments? The rest of my team?” He smiles again. “Those things would all definitely be useful to me personally, but maybe not so much the town as a whole? I don’t know. I’m a doctor, not a strategist. But there it is: you brought me here, I assume, to be a doctor to the people who live on this island. If it will help me serve them better, I’m willing to enter into a closer relationship with you. But, just to be clear: my first priority will always be the people who actually live here. The mortal townspeople, my patients, their friends and families…I hope they are your first priority too. It would make it much easier for us to work together.”
He pauses again, waiting for a response and wondering if he’ll even be able to recognize it if it comes. “I hope that’s acceptable,” he finally says, and pushes himself back up onto his feet.
