Like a surgeon

[leftinbasketforfbi]

Who: Spencer Reid and Albert Rosenfield
Where: Outside of Saffron
When: January 14th
Summary: For a genius, Reid's an idiot. So obviously, there needs to be fun with injections.
Rating: PG-13
Log:

[Hey, Albert. Private video call for you. A video call that involves Reid running around a room full of a menagerie of animals whilst pulling on a jacket.]

Albert? I need your help with something.

[And he wants to tell you about it when he's far from head-chewing range.]

Comments

[worktodo]

[When the video comes on, it's a Sableye peeking into the camera with big glittering diamond eyes; however, a moment later, the Gear goes bouncing and scurrying up a makeshift set of steps and onto the familiar surface of Albert's lab table — where Albert happens to be standing, armed in lab coat and gloves, stuffing organic material into a Shuckle.]

Did you pick it up? No, not there, put it right—

[MORE SCUFFLING.]

Hello?

[leftinbasketforfbi]

Albert?

[Reid turns to face the communicator while he's putting his jacket on, his Musharna floating lazily around him like a satellite.] I said I need your help with something. I think I've made a breakthrough with protecting against Psychic and Ghost effects.

[worktodo]

[Well, that's certainly worthy of setting aside what he's doing for the moment. He sets the berries down and rests one forearm on the Shuckle to keep it in place on the table, peeling off his other glove so he can pick up the Gear for a better chat.]

Yeah? What've you got?

[He's in Lab Mode at the moment, so his brevity isn't indicative of a lack of interest; on the contrary, he doesn't want to screw around with extraneous words where there is information sharing that could be happening.]

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[And luckily, Reid is good enough at his job to interpret it as just that.]

From what I've seen, most of a Dark-type's protection comes from the brain, especially cranial fluid. From my tests on animals, it seems like injecting small amounts of the fluid into other types provide similar protection. Before I tell anyone about it, though, I need to test it on a human and make sure it doesn't have unknown side effects.

[You might see where he's delicately going with this...]

[worktodo]

[Yes, see, the thing about Albert is he's not stupid. And maybe that subtle suggestion would be lost on some people, but not on him. This is because unlike most people he is not physically incapable of putting two and two together.]

So in other words, you're looking for a human guinea pig.

[Though he does assume Reid means someone else, because surely no one would be so phenomenally stupid as to try it on themselves.]

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[Ha. Yeah, no, Reid's conscience will make him phenomenally stupid.]

And I'm not going to test it out on anyone without testing it on myself first.

[THERE HE SAID IT]

[worktodo]

So in other words, you're calling me up like a sensible rational person because you're expecting me to talk you out of it, right?

[RIGHT?]

Because you realize that's what's going to happen here.

[leftinbasketforfbi]

No, I actually called you because I can't inject myself in the back of the neck, so it's either you or Mio.

[Do you want the the teenage girl doing it, Albert?]

[worktodo]

[Good question! Let's see what Albert thinks about that...]

Are you out of your mind?

[Welp.]

I don't give a damn if she's the peanut butter to your jelly, you're already cracked as it is for thinking I ought to be going after the back of your neck with a needle, much less handing it over to Princess Wallflower to take a stab at it!

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[You know, considering that was exactly the intended response, Reid does a pretty good job of keeping a straight face and looking innocent.]

Well, that's why I asked you first. So you'll do it?

[worktodo]

No, I'm not going to do it, you've got an IQ of five hundred and two and you can't think of a single better option than shooting yourself in the head with spooky monster juice?

[Don't mind him, he's just ranting here. The Shuckle beneath his forearm is beginning to look mildly alarmed.]

What if it does have side effects? Suddenly we're a man down and you're stuck in a hole again!

[leftinbasketforfbi]

One hundred and eighty-seven. I have an IQ of one hundred and eighty-seven. That's the highest anyone can score on the IQ test I had, which is the most common version used currently.

And besides, even on the version of IQ test with the widest known bell curve, the highest IQ ever recorded was two hundred and twenty-one.

[Yes, Reid is good at tangents. Hey, you said something wrong, so he needs to correct it!]

[worktodo]

Yeah, and I four-pointed English Lit. The word is hyperbole.

[Being a loveable nerd will not save you this time, kid.]

Are you even listening to yourself?

[leftinbasketforfbi]

Well, of course I am. I'm not exactly asking you to do this on a whim.

There are three options--abandon the research, test it on myself, or test it on another person. Yes, it's standard for people to test on others, and under normal circumstances, that's what I would be doing. In this case, I don't have the time or the resources to put together a medical trial, or even to follow one of the most basic tenants of human subject research: provide protection from physical, mental, and emotional harm.

[To be honest, he's actually terrified of this. He does value his own well-being. His sense of morality outweighs his fear, though, and like hell will he admit to being scared.]

I'm not going to ask someone else to be tested on under those conditions if I'm not ready to do the same. [And, well, he trusts you if something goes wrong.]

[thecrooks]

[The newly-hatched Joltik is on a mission.

It's the morning of the 15th; she is approximately twenty-eight hours old, and she is very small, and as a result that means there is a whole lotta world to see out there, and it sure as heck isn't going to see itself, if you know what she means. She has found many exciting things in her journeys so far: tall things and corner-y things and dark things and hidey things and round things and moving things and noisy things. So many things to encounter!

But right now, she is embarking on an adventure into an as-yet unexplored area of her fresh new world. The great unknown. The terra incognita.

Albert's room.

And so she goes crawling bravely along the wall, her little blue eyes bright and curious, as she heads off in search of a good place to attach a dragline.]

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[Reid is asleep (for once without any nightmares), and nicely not suspecting any imminent spider invasions. He is still in the position Albert left him in; if it weren't for the fact that he's breathing, it'd be easy to mistake him for dead.

He will not be blessed with the relative peace for long, he's guessing. The world will not let him be peaceful.]

[thecrooks]

[It's pretty empty up here on the walls, really. Down there near the ground in the middle of the room is where all the action seems to be at! And so that's where she heads, skittering down the wall and onto the nightstand, working her way up and over books and around a glass of water that Albert probably left out in case Reid wakes up when he's not around.

The lump on the mesa across from her is moving!

But how to get to it?

She could go down the side of the nightstand, across the carpet, and back up the headboard. But the long way is for squares. Obviously she should just jump the chasm. She can totally make it.

(But she'll attach a dragline to the glass of water, first, just in case.)

And then WHEE! There she goes, over onto the mattress, sinking rather uncomfortably into the pile of blankets and floundering around a little when she realizes she's made a rather grievous error. These are not the nice solid planes of her usual travels! This is fluffy and shifting and uh-oh, she's floundering as she sinks. EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE FOREVERRRRRR.

Inadvertently, rather cricketlike, she lets out a desperate chirp.]

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[Okay, okay, just because he's asleep doesn't mean his migraine's subsided and OW THAT WAS RIGHT NEXT TO HIS EAR OW

Reid jerks awake, delirious, frightened, somewhere he doesn't remember falling asleep in without anything familiar, and he catapults into a sitting position, making his head swim and his body teeter until he almost falls back over. Ow. His head. Ow ow ow

And in his delirious state, he says all that comes to mind.] Chirp?

[thecrooks]

[AAAAAAH EARTHQUAKE EVERYWHERE WHAT IS HAPPEN

Being both prudent and not possessing of a death wish, the little Joltik does what any sensible bug would do in a situation like this — instantly curls inward and battens down the hatches, desperately trying to weather the sudden calamity without incurring egregious bodily injury in the process.

And then the moving mass of terrain chirps back.

...uh.

She chirps again, more pitiful this time, convinced she is going to sink into the quicksand that is this comforter and never be seen again save for maybe by this strange chirping mountain she has encountered.]

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[Chirp. There was a chirping noise. A pretty sad one, too.

The pain in his head makes Reid's stomach twist and the world wobble. He leans back against the headboard, squinting his eyes against the (very dim) light, then slowly turns so he can see whatever is chirping.

...There is a fuzzy spider thing on his bed.

Huh.]

Scared?

[He rests his hand on the comforter near the spider. The creature looks terrified, and Reid has never been the type to squish bugs (unless, of course, they're known to carry disease, which bright yellow spiders who may or may not be hallucinations are not), and it'd be cool to see it a little closer. Or release it out the window. Or just put it on the bedside table and fall back asleep because he's not thinking too straight.]

[thecrooks]

[At this point, anything would be better than being in this shifting sinking expanse of blanket, so any reservations she might have about crawling onto Reid's hand go right out the window when the offer is made; slowly, she half-flounders, half-clambers out of the divot she's made in the blanket and onto the much more solid security of his hand, WHERE SHE WILL CLING WITH OVERWHELMING RELIEF because okay, that escalated quickly and was not the most adequately thought-out plan, nope.

...and her dragline even severed from all the commotion, that's just terrible too. :c ]

Tik?

[She fixes all four of her big blue eyes toward the mysterious largething that seems to be at the other end of the platform she's clinging to, trying to make sense of what it could be.]

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[Huh. You're kind of cute.

Reid cups his hand so the little spider won't be knocked around too much. Joltik, right? The smallest known animal in this place. Elecrtic- and Bug-type. Maybe this one belongs to someone.

Normally, Reid would just get up and ask who the bug belongs to, but getting up seems like a lot of work and he kind of likes being in bed where he won't fall flat on his face, so instead, he does the next best thing.]

Who do you belong to?

[Because bugs can totally answer him, right? God he's out of it.]

[thecrooks]

[Oh, that's much better. And much less terrifying! And now that everything's sort of stable again, she's seriously considering following this apparently solid bridgelike thing from where she's currently sitting all the way up to the vantage point at the top. There might be something interesting up there!

Or you know what else there might be.

Static electricity.

Gosh, she is pretty hungry, come to think of it. Going on adventures is hard work.

Hard enough, in fact, that for the moment she's just going to snuggle up against the walls that Reid's hands are forming for her as contentedly as a Joltik can, the sensation an odd cross between prickly and furry.]

[leftinbasketforfbi]

[There is a spider thing cuddling into his hand.

It's a yellow prickly spider thing.

Also his head hurts.]

You didn't answer...

[Rude spider. Not answering his question. If he weren't delirious he'd be put out. 8(

But at the moment, sleep sounds nice.

He lays back down, keeping his hand cupped and away from his head. He considers putting the spider on his bedside table. Maybe if he asks nicely, it'll stay there until it feels up to telling him who it belongs to.]

[thecrooks]

Tik?

[Carefully at first, but then with greater confidence, she clambers up and over the walls his cupped hands are making and starts making her way up his arm.

The largething keeps making noises at her, but its noises aren't like her noises. But they also don't sound like predator noises. What could the noises mean?

CLEARLY, MORE ATTEMPT AT COMMUNICATION IS REQUIRED.

Have a steady stream of chirp-chirp-tik-tik-chirp-tik-chirp coming out of your new friend, Reid.]