Work Text:
It was a little past twelve in the morning when Baxter looked at the clock. He didn’t know how long he was down in the hotel's basement working on concoctions of all different colors, he didn’t even remember if he ate dinner or took his testosterone shot. Did that even matter when the answers he was desperate for were almost at his fingertips? He muttered angry German curses as acid spattered onto his lab coat and down his gloves. He angrily took off his gloves as he watched the liquid in his beaker bubble over into foam on the desk under it, he felt defeated as he watched hours of work quite literally go down the drain. He tossed his rubber gloves into the trash and grabbed another pair as he ran a hand up to push his lure back from out of his eyes, he didn’t bother to look as the time as he harshly sat down in his desk chair (which by this time he had tossed across the room twice out of his fits of rage, meaning it was just about as unstable as he was).
What he didn’t know was all the times he had caught himself in his rage, with all his screaming and tossing things around, he had caught the attention of the equally insane inventor in the rooms above him. Sir Pentious was working on blueprints for renovations on his blimp, since the last turf war he was in gave his blimp a brand new hole in the side of it. He was about to call it a night when he heard the upset angler fish slam things around. Of course he shrugged it off at first, seeing as he himself had moments of pure chaos in his headspace while working. But when he heard him scream German words that he dare not repeat while translating he figured he would go down to check on the mad scientist.
He put his Egg Boiz to bed inside of his pillow circle and then slithered down the stairs to the hotel's basement. He tried knocking of course, it was a courtesy he tried to extend to the scientist before he eventually barged in. When he got no answer he opened the door to see Baxter slumped over his desk almost seemingly crushed at his newest failure. Pentious slithered over to him and saw the foam and mixtures spilling over the side of Baxter's desk. Baxter, on the other hand, had his head down to the desk only inches away from the incoming liquid from the now broken beaker. Pentious looked at the purple liquid that remained intact and tilted his head, he looked back down at Baxter with his head still tilted. He had seen what seemed to be a simple fix, sodium. That's what the scientist had missed while mixing his liquids together, sodium.
“Mr. Baxter, why are you sulking? it’s actually quite a quick fix.” Pentious looked at him as Baxter picked up his head as he looked at him, he fixed his big yellow glasses that he claimed were goggles.
“What do you mean ‘quick fix’?”
Baxter sat up as Pentious looked back at the beakers as he picked up the tube of sodium and gently tapped some in. Suddenly the foaming and bubbling ceased much to Baxter's surprise. The angler fish took a second to stare at the beakers, analyzing them to figure out what just happened. When it clicked he sat up straighter, that’s what he was missing! Of course the sodium would cut off the foam! It was a neutralizer! It helped prevent the mixture from having the reaction, it had been so simple why hadn’t he seen it before?
“It was all that simple. Huh…”
He looked back at Pentious, who was overjoyed he could put his knowledge to use and help out even a little bit, though it might not be his expertise. Baxter cleared his throat and stood up. He was relatively shorter than the snake so he looked up and adjusted the buttons on his lab coat.
“Thank you, my work means the world to me..”
He kept his voice a bit lower, almost in fear somebody would hear if they got too close by. Pentious by this point was absolutely beaming as he took on a proud look.
“Oh, it was nothing at all! Truly it was just a simple thing really!”
Though he was proud he had that slight air or arrogance he usually had. Baxter felt as though it was a backhanded compliment, but he would take it anyways.
Baxter sighed as he looked at the time, it was now around 12:45. He didn’t know where the time went but when he felt his joints pop as he stretched he knew it was probably time to call it a night. He watched as Pentious looked around the room/lab Baxter had, clearly not understanding that Baxter wanted to sleep off the mild humiliation he felt being shown up by an inventor, a tinkerer at best. He cleared his throat;
“Uh, I’m going to bed..”
He refused to make eye contact as Pentious let that sink in, when the inventor let out a ‘ooooh’ of understanding Baxter felt himself relax.
“Oh yes! Of course, it is rather late isn’t it? Well, I hope you have a good night Mr. Baxter. Rest well!”
With that Pentious slithered out of Baxter's room and up the stairs to the main part of the hotel. Baxter let out a breath and slowly started turning his equipment off, making sure the burners were off and everything was safe. He walked over to the corner of the room where there was a curtain hung from the ceiling. He pulled it back to reveal his little ‘room’, as he stepped in he slid the curtain to completely cover the area from the outside world. He turned on his softer secondary lights and kicked off his boots, he took off his lab coat and hung it up as he slipped off the glasses and put them in his nightstand. He collapsed into bed and curled up into the furthest corner with his small shark plushie, (which if anybody asked he never had and didn’t know anything about). His mind wandered to the experiment earlier and how he had been shown up so easily. At least he thought he’d been shown up, he couldn’t get the feeling out of his chest of some shame and embarrassment of watching Pentious so easily see his mistake and clean up his mess. But on the other hand, he felt just relieved that all his work didn’t happen for nothing. Baxter yawned as he held the plushie a bit tighter and tugged a blanket up over him. He followed the soft glow of his lure which swayed from side to side, it was a thing he did often to help lull him to sleep. He closed his eyes and muttered out a few incoherent words as he began to fall asleep.
Maybe that inventor was just trying to help, maybe he wasn’t all that bad. Maybe he was just too proud and boastful for his own good. But then again, he could be charming and genuinely intelligent. Baxter figured he wouldn’t worry about it, he would figure it out with time.