Title: A Working Arrangement 
Author: scy
Feedback: scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Someone else has claimed them. 
Fandom: Fantastic Four
Pairing: Reed Richards/Victor Von Doom
Spoilers: Pre-movie. 
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It's important to come to an understanding when you're working with someone. What sort of understanding depends on the relationship. 
Author's Notes: This combines some aspects of the comics with the movie-verse. Basically, you need to know that when they were teenagers, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Victor Von Doom all were students at 'The Baxter Institute, a school for the brightest students around. Written for Musesfool at her request. 
August 2005

Reed started stealing bites of Victor's food purely out of an impulse to see what kind of reaction he'd get. The first few times he was able to chew and swallow whatever he'd nicked and Victor didn't say anything. He had to have noticed; Victor was freakily aware of what people around him were doing, and got twitchy when they lingered inside his personal space. Reed had been able to sneak closer than anyone else because they were working together and it was hard not to grab your research partner's shoulder when you had some brilliant insight or shove him to the side because he was taking over table yet again with all his graphs and notes. If they were going to use a single table to lay out their work then Reed insisted on getting at least his half to work on

When his annoyance and pointed reminders failed to have any effect on Victor, Reed began eating the other boy's lunch.

It wasn't the most elegant form of attack; Sue would have called it juvenile and suggested that he have a discussion with Victor about maybe having more than one table. But Reed didn't think that was the problem. Victor didn't think or act like other people; as one of the smartest people in the world, even Reed couldn't understand why Victor did some of the stuff he did. Sometimes he would behave almost exactly like a regular teenager, and then he'd act as if anyone who wasn't completely convinced of the genius of his work was beneath his notice. Victor could turn on his heel and stalk out of a room with more regal disdain than that guy in King Lear. Johnny said that Victor's family came form old money. One of the other kids reported that he came from Transylvania and that such a thing meant Victor was probably a descendent of none other than Dracula. 

Sue had rolled her eyes at that remark. "What proof do you have that he's a vampire, besides the fact that he refuses to sit next you after you eat raw garlic?"

"Vampires hate garlic!"

"Nobody likes to have someone breathing heavily on them when they smell like you do," Johnny interjected, for once siding with his sister.

"He's creepy all on his own, not going to school functions unless they're mandatory and being so quiet all the time." 

"Granted he's not as socially conscious as you, so what? Some people can get past that and find ways to work together." Now Sue looked at Reed and he felt the back of his neck heat up.

"Well, Reed's weird too, I guess they have to cancel out each other's freakiness to be lab partners."

"Honestly, do you even try to edit what comes out of your mouth?" Sue said wonderingly and stood up with her tray and walked off. 

Reed let himself follow her as she walked off; never sauntering in the overly dramatic way that girls doing psychology experiments preferred when they needed subjects, or the rigid strides of the machinists "mech-heads" in the technology wing. Sue's walk was ultimately a means of transportation that was still interesting enough to hold one's attention.

"Really, I don't see how anyone can work with that guy. If he wasn't a genius he'd probably be hanging out in a castle with bats and spiders." 

"He has a castle?" This was information that Reed hadn't heard yet and he was curious about Victor.

"I said he came from Transylvanian, didn't I? Apparently his dad is some nobleman with a title, I guess."

"That's cool." Reed's family wasn't anywhere near being a family with status.  His mom and dad had their standing in the community but they were extremely ordinary. That was probably why having a son who couldn't help but think of bigger possibilities had thrown them so baldy. he knew they loved him, but more as the son who was off making something of himself.

They hadn't once accepted an invitation to come and visit to see what he was doing and try to understand.

Sue and Johnny were luck that their dad was their teacher. At least when they melted lab equipment he wanted their notes afterwards so that they could find a way to improve on the process. Dr. Storm had saved one of the misshapen microscopes as a paperweight and kept it in his office.

But he and Victor didn't have that support. Victor didn't talk much about home; if he was in the mood to extol the virtues of a man, then his father's most admirable qualities were elaborated on, but he didn't have any of the stories that he other students brought out like stuffed animals and other keepsakes.

"If his dad's someone in power, then does he have a title?" Reed wondered.

"At home he preferred 'sir,' " said someone behind him. 

Reed winced and the other students sank down in their seats.

"Hi, Victor." Reed felt that turning to face the topic of conversation was the polite move to make, and manners counted with Victor, even though he rarely used them himself.

"Are you finished here?" Victor didn't wave a hand dismissively at the group, but Reed caught the way his eyes passed critically over them.

"Yeah, you want to get something to eat?"

"Yes." Victor turned and headed toward the cafeteria, leaving Reed to fumble with his notes and run after him.

"Slow down, we're not late for anything." 

"You seem to like a certain spot in the cafeteria."

"Oh, by now I think everyone has figured out that it's our spot."

Victor didn't say anything else until they'd gotten their food and found their single, small table and spread out food and research. 

Reed left off comparing theory to expected results and watched Victor take a deliberate bite, chew thoroughly, swallow and repeat. He ate without any obvious signs of pleasure, as if for him, hunger was just a problem to be solved like any other. 

Victor reached out to grab a series of equations, Reed stabbed a clump of noodles with his fork and tugged them off Victor's plate. As Victor looked up, the trailing end of a noodle was still hanging off Reed's fork. 

Under Victor's gaze his usual twirling maneuver to wind the pasta onto his utensil faltered, but after a second attempt, he managed to shove it into his mouth. He chewed methodically and met Victor's eyes innocently. 

"Something wrong?"

"I see you ordered a hamburger and fries today."

"Yeah, that's right."

"So why is it that you're eating off my plate?"

"I was just wondering what it tasted like."

"In the past week I have ordered the same meal three times and you have stolen a portion on each occasion."

"I didn't know that you'd caught me." 

"I'm not unaware of my surroundings."

"Like we soft, spoiled kids are, is that what you're saying?"

"I was observing my own habits."

"But, you were implying that the rest of us are inferior. God, I get sick of the way that you act. You're not loads better than anyone else just because your family comes from Transylvania."

Victor looked confused but Reed didn't let him correct or lecture. "I know you like to be superior, but that doesn't work  with me. Remember, I said that you needed to treat me like a partner, not something you'd flatten on a slide." 

"You ate my food."

"It was only a few bites and it was just a joke."

"Where I come from, a joke is amusing only if someone laughs."

Victor paused to eye Reed closely. "You're becoming upset, your face is flushed and you're tearing those notes. Stop." He reached out for the papers that Reed was crumpling and Reed slapped his hands away.

"Don't, leave those alone. I'm working on this set and you can darn well wait until I finish. That is, if you can let me have them that long. After all, sharing seems beyond you." Reed scooped up what he could reach, ignored his lunch and made one of those exits that the class had always made fun of Dr. M for making his trademark.

He got to his room without anyone staring at him but by the time their evening recreation time came around, he knew that word of the fight would have reached every interested ever in the school. 

*
When he came to Baxter, one thing that had been an utter relief was how utterly unlike his old school it was. People at the Bax didn't point at him and stare like he was some freakish throwback needing readjustment. he didn't get jumped by bullies who didn't like it when a geek dared to fire back an insult after they called him a 'gay sissy,' or worse things.

He had friends at the Bax but most of them were also busy with their own special projects. it wasn't as if they hung out all the time. When dinner time became an exercise in keeping his eyes down and not meeting anyone's curious stares, he hustled after Sue and Johnny as they left the cafeteria. 

"Did I hear right, you had a fight with Victor?" Sue asked almost as soon as he stepped in beside her.

"I heard that you two were going to get into a fist fight,' Johnny chimed in. He bounced around Sue to walk on Reed's other side. 

"If you had, Victor would have knocked you flat," Sue said worriedly.

"Not Reed, I bet our boy could have gotten in a few slaps." Johnny sounded very interested in speculating about the prospect of violence.

"I fight like a wimp? Great way to make me feel better, Johnny," Reed muttered. 

Johnny slung an arm over his shoulder, "You just need some coaching, I think you'd be a sneaky fighter."

"I don't want to fight anyone," Reed objected.

"Not even Victor especially now?" Johnny smirked knowingly and Reed ducked out from under his arm.

"No, I just want him to listen to me."

"And share his food?" Now the look Sue gave him was thoughtful. Reed had seen her regard unexpected test results with the same expression and he felt uncomfortable without knowing why. 

"I feel like I'm hitting a wall. He's scarily good at knowing where we need to go with our research, but he has no idea of how to work with another person and he has to have control over every little detail."

"That sounds an awful lot like someone in this group," Johnny said and Reed frowned at him.

"What?"

"You, Reed. When you're in mad scientist mode there's no getting your attention until you snap out of it. Funny, you're bitching because you've finally found someone who's just less polite about it."

"This is really cracking you up, isn't it?"

"Karma is hilarious from the bleachers, and from where I'm standing, you're having to deal with what everyone else does on a daily basis."

"Am I that bad?" Reed glanced over at Sue, knowing that he was on the edge of whining.

Sue tried to hide her smile behind a little cough, but took her hand away when he gave her what he knew was a plaintive look. "No, you're never insufferable, just, um, focused." 

"Annoying," Johnny added, and Sue swatted him. 

"Speaking of annoyances, shouldn't you be hurrying up? Dad wants you to check on your pet project and he's not going to be happy if it explodes all over the lab again."

"No worries, I've been looking into containment, so if it does blow up, we only lose half the lab." Johnny slapped Reed on the shoulder and tugged Sue's ponytail as he moved unhurriedly away.

"He considers losing half the lab an improvement?" Reed said, raising his eyebrows.

"Unfortunately, I feel the same way. At least this way I'll be able to continue with what I'm doing and he'll have to rebuild what's left of his side. I can't believe Dad made us share a lab."

Shrugging, Reed suggested, "Maybe he's trying to get you ready to work with people that you don't always get along with."

"That would be a good idea, but I bet that he just wants us out of his hair once in awhile and if we're driving each other crazy then he's safe." Sue grinned and tucked her notebook more firmly under her arm. "Just wait until we actually collaborate on something and get on his nerves at the same time." 

"He'll be so surprised that he won't know what to do," Reed said and checked his watch. "Looks like I'm keeping you from your work, sorry that I held you up."

"It's no problem, Reed. You just need to figure out what to do about Victor; Johnny and I aren't going to be around to protect you until this evening so you need a better plan than hiding between us."

"It was a spur of the moment thing."

"I could tell, it lacked polish." Sue smiled at him kindly and flicked a hand at him. "Now, I know that you can't have solved all the world's problems since breakfast, so go do something and think about what I said. Victor's your partner, you've got to have some idea of how to apologize."

"I shouldn't have to-" 

Cutting him off with a sharp gesture, Sue began walking backwards toward the lab. "Don't justify yourself to me, go after Victor when you're in one of these moods and you two might actually get work done. Later, genius." 

Waving resignedly after her, Reed continued on to the small room where he and Victor often met to compare their findings and make new plans. There was no one inside and the room felt stuffy; up until their fight, they'd been spending more time in the student lounge or Reed's room where they weren't tempted to move off topic and fiddle with any one of the other ideas that came up during their work.

As he shut the door, Reed realized that he didn't have any idea of where Victor might be holed up. Not talkative unless truly inspired, Victor didn't volunteer information that he considered irrelevant to their research. It was as if he didn't let anything that could be distracting interfere, and somehow he thought that socializing was one of those abnormal impulses that a real scientist ignored.

He didn't know how Victor had learned to be so careful about what mattered. Science wasn't related to emotion, bias had to be recognized and speared from fact, but Reed liked to think that everyone at the Bax cared about what they were doing. Having a real interest in a subject demanded work and that was only going to lead to frustration if a person didn't believe that what they were doing had merit. As a scientist, Reed could admire the way that Victor kept his emotions and his work compartmentalized, but in the long run, he didn't think such a trait would leave him personally satisfied.  

One of the students from the robotics department hurried past Reed with a crate full of scrap parts. When he caught Reed's eye he stumbled and smiled a little too widely. Apparently the news of his falling out with Victor had spread to even the most remote corners of the institute, and probably been wildly exaggerated in the telling. 

Rather than try and explain himself to someone who had no idea of what he was talking about, Reed tried to give the underclassman a friendly look. "Hey, have you seen Victor Von Doom?"

"Uh, n-no." The boy readjusted his grip on the box and moved quickly past Reed. 

"Thanks anyway," Reed called after him, shaking his head. People who spent all their time around machines tended to be kind of weird. 

"Of all the obvious-" If Victor really wanted to be by himself, he'd choose a place that was either empty or where other students were to caught up in their own work to bother him. That eliminated the student lounge and cafeteria, and if Victor planned on getting something done, he'd brave the annoyance of other people to have access to equipment. 

Reed continued down the hallway to the elevator and pressed the 'down' button. The basement lab was dark, quiet, and the most isolated work area in the building. With any luck, Victor would have retreated there.

*

The elevators were like a lot equipment in the institute, seemingly ordinary and upon closer inspection, constructed wit ha flair that was a shade unpolished, though functional. A group of students designed and built the elevator for an honors project. Nobody had told Reed why it was such an astounding achievement, but then there were a set of buttons on the control panel that weren't standard or labeled in any way that Reed could make out. 

Later, if things went badly with Victor he could take a stupid chance and see if any of the buttons would send him into the fourth dimension, or at least to a parallel plane where he would have to deal with the most frustrating partner anywhere. The part of Reed's mind that stayed removed from the scheming and planning to keep track of when he was getting caught up in some minor glitch, warned him that he'd made the choice to work with Victor and that he wasn't the most eagerly sought out researcher either. When his voice of reason started to sound like Sue, Reed told it to shut up.

The elevator descended almost silently and when it halted at the bottom, Reed barely felt it settle into its berth.

He stepped out and glanced from side to side, trying to orient himself to an unfamiliar place. He'd seen floor plans of the entire building and used them for his own purposes, but this part wasn't one that he'd felt was worth learning about.

"Of all the times to goof off on being thorough," Reed muttered, deciding that going to the left was the most likely way to find success. It wasn't any less blank in its uniform off-white walls and linoleum flooring but there seemed to be a few more lights in that direction, so at least he'd be able to see if he got lost.

Reed saw a few doors that were marked innocuously as 'storage' and wished that he'd brought Johnny's lock picking kit along. Then there was an actual storage closet that leaked industrial grade cleanser fumes. He took a few steps beyond the point where he decided that there wasn't anything further down the hallway and found a door that looked as though it had been lifted straight out of a bunker. It was metal and without touching it, Reed could tell that it was solidly enforced. Some people liked to hang out in tree houses, Victor would be the one to break the mold and hole up behind security measures that a head of state would covet. 

Feeling a bit like an envoy from another country, Reed raised his fist and knocked. The sound echoed down the hallway and as it faded away, the door slid open. 

Set back from the doorway, almost against the wall was a long table outfitted with a hodge-podge of standard laboratory equipment and some additions that Reed didn't think could be requisitioned by students.

It wasn't surprising that Victor had gotten his hands on the machinery, getting it downstairs without being seen was another feat.

"Nice," Reed said, eyes taking in the bare efficiency of the space.

"No, it's not, but it's functional," Victor answer, not looking up from what he was doing.

That could have counted as self-reflection from anyone other than Victor.

"How did you get all this stuff down here without the professors finding out?"

"I didn't let them catch me." In all honesty, Victor may have thought that was all the explanation he felt he needed to give; Dr. Storm hadn't expressed a dislike for some of Victor's more obsessive practices and mostly let him set his own schedule. Reed hadn't' decided whether Victor was testing the bounds of administrative tolerance, or he just didn't care what they thought of him.

"That's not very instructive."

"I wasn't aware I was being asked to give a course on the subject."

"But you probably could without needing a lesson plan."

"I do have some expertise in the area."

Right away Victor managed to distract him without discernible effort.

"I didn't come down her to take inventory of your lab."

"No?" 

Victor was still using a small torch to shape a component and unless Reed said something that he couldn't ignore, he wasn't going to let himself be distracted. 

"I wanted to apologize."

"I understand that e-mail is catching on."

"Well, would you have opened a message from me?"

Being around Victor made it clear that one of them didn't get out enough; Reed was beginning to appreciate Victor's unwillingness to try and deny an unpleasant fact and instead keep silent when he couldn't think of a nicer lie.

"Okay, so I got upset, but I think I'm not the only one here who needs to rethink their behavior." Assuming that he came to any level of understanding with Victor, Reed was going to return the favor by going to the library and doing an internet search on antisocial scientist types. Although Victor wouldn't admit to being interested in his findings, sharing could lead to some interesting conclusions, and if he wanted a long-lasting collaboration with Victor, it was the polite thing to do. 

"This isn't-" 

From the way Victor looked hard at his hands, Reed guessed he was thinking that it wasn't something he had a lot of experience with, but tried to give him a few choices. 

"Not what? The best idea? What you want?"

"Easy."

Reed grinned. "Should it be? Neither of us is any good at this; I bet that nobody else around here can claim that, which is something we can take pride in."

"Our dysfunctional partnership is noteworthy?"

"Well, it's either that or both of us wasted all those good therapy sessions." 

"Therapy is a waste of time."

"I bet you screwed with the shrinks' heads, didn't you?"

"I see no reason to reflect over personal problems with a stranger." He looked through narrowed eyes at Reed. "And from what I know of your habits, it's unlikely that you practiced scrupulous honesty during your own sessions." 

Busted, Reed thought, and let his mouth twist in a wince. "You got me there."

"Mm."

"You came down here unprompted to apologize?" Victor inquired.

"Uh, actually Susan suggested that I work things out with you." 

"She's very persistent."

"She thinks that we should all get along."

An admirable, if rather unattainable goal.," Victor declared.

"What's so far fetched about it? We're here and talking, aren't we?"

"Susan believes that everyone is somehow redeemable, it's a charming failing."

"Just because you're too cynical for words doesn't mean the rest of the planet has to give up."

"Of course." 

"Stop trying to get me mad, Victor, it's not going to work. I came down here for a reason and I want you to shut up and listen to me."

Victor smirked at him. "Are you insisting that we get along or you'll become violent?"

"No, I'm not, I just don't know how to get through to you a lot of the time." Motioning for Victor to clear a space on the table, Reed sat down. His legs hung off the edge and he kicked absently as he tried to say what he wanted to in a way that Victor would understand. He wasn't good at explanations that didn't include equations.

"Susan thinks that we're a lot alike. I don't know if I agree with her, but I think that as partners, we do need to make this work."

"A good place to start would be to leave off baiting me at mealtimes."

"You can't be the one to lay down all the rules, we have to do this together.

"And how do you suggest we go about this?"

Reed put his hands up. "I didn't get that far, it took me since our fight to come up with this much."

"That's part of your problem, Richards, you can think on an impressive scale, but you don't consider the nuances."

"See, that's why I need you to be with me on this."

"You want me to pick up on whatever you miss and solve the unexpected problems that invariably crop up to thwart you?" Victor's tone was mocking, but he'd paused in his welding and seemed to be reaching a mindset where consideration of the benefits Reed was offering warred with his customary disdain of everyday matters. 

Reed leaned over the table, deliberately putting an arm on either side of Victor's project.

"What do you say?"

Victor's gaze traveled up from where Reed's sleeve came within inches of his welding torch and reached carefully around him to switch it off.

"I say that you are keeping me from my work."

"Our work," Reed corrected, piking Victor in the shoulder.

"You don't care for robotics, Richards, and I concluded that as we were not communicating, this was-" he cut himself off, apparently figuring that being rude right after they'd made an agreement to get along was not a good idea.

He didn't get embarrassed ,but he did the Victor equivalent, which was to focus intently on anything else, in this case he stared at his hands rather than look at Reed. 

"Your nails look fine, Victor, I'm sure that your manicure wasn't ruined by a few minutes of actual work." 

That snapped him right out of that uncomfortable moment, and Victor glared at fiercely at him. "My taking the time to adequately look after my appearance is not a sign of weakness, Richards."

"I'm not saying it is, I just thought I'd reassure you. No amount of physical labor will spoil your GQ looks." He took a great chance and reached out to pat Victor on the shoulder. Either he was going to get punched in the jaw or reduced to a smoking pile of ashes when Victor pulled out the ray gun he'd made that afternoon while he was working out his anger by inventing an incredibly complicated machine and vaporize him with it. 

Victor didn't sock him in the jaw, but he did turn his head to regard the position of Reed's hand thoughtfully. Reed didn't like that expression; his experience with it in the past was that he had to redo days' worth of research all because Victor suddenly connected several seemingly disparate pieces of information and found what Reed had missed. In this case he didn't know what pool of facts Victor was drawing his conclusions from and that made him more nervous than Victor's continued stillness. 

"Victor?"

"What?"

"You alright?"

"Yes."

"You're staring at me, any reason why?"

Instead of answering, Victor nodded.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Tilting his head to one side, Victor appeared to be studying Reed's face. Heat rose in his cheeks and Reed knew that he was blushing; nobody scrutinized him so closely and he almost always had a similar reaction, though it didn't make sense. Victor was just trying to freak him out with that feline stare of his, it didn't mean that he was ever going to explain just what was so fascinating, or what he knew that made Reed blush even though he didn't get why it was happening.

Somehow Victor knew when he'd made Reed more than a little uncomfortable, and although he liked to bother Reed, he normally seemed satisfied once he'd reduced Reed to shifting on his perch and wondering whether he was supposed to do something. It was almost like Victor was asking him to answer a question that he hadn't asked, and Reed thought that one of them should be able to say as much. This time though, there was difference; Reed still hadn't let go of Victor's shoulder, and neither of them had even mentioned the fact that there was some very interesting mechanical parts scattered over the table between them.

"Are you going to tell me what you're working on?"

Victor visibly debated the question before shaking his head firmly. "No, I don't think so."  

"You have a plan," Reed said, knowing that the way Victor was frowning thoughtfully meant that he'd made a decision and was only waiting for Reed to give him a chance to put it into action. 

Rising up from his chair Victor brushed Reed's hand of this shoulder and ran his palms up Reed's arms until they rested on his elbows. While Reed was trying to follow where Victor was going with this weird behavior, Victor yanked Reed closed and kissed him. It didn't become one of those lingering tender afternoon soap opera kisses that Reed would never admit to having watched during his cultural studies of romance. 

Victor licked his mouth and when Reed's lips parted, Victor's tongue slipped inside. He didn't wait for Reed to respond, he just tasted to his satisfaction and then pulled back, letting Reed fall back onto the table. 

Reed swiped at his mouth, fingers pressing on his lips like he could catch the sensation and hold onto it. "What was that?"

"Even someone of your limited experience has to recognize a kiss, Richards." 

"Thanks for clearing that up, I mean, why did you kiss me?"

"I thought it seemed appropriate."

"That might be normal where you come from, but nobody I know does that out of the blue." 

This time Victor's expression was puzzled, as if he ever didn't know exactly how much he confused Reed. "You weren't expecting that?"

"To get kissed by you? No, I never expect that."

"I see."

"See what?" Reed felt himself getting excited and could tell that he was about to start talking quickly just to get his thoughts out so that he didn't lose his nerve. 

"Never mind." Victor reached down as if he was going to go back to his project. Reed grabbed his wrist and jerked his hand away.

"No, really, this is just what I'm talking about. Tell me what you're trying to do, I'm not seeing your angle."

"Well you're flat on your back," Victor pointed out.

"Does anyone else know that you have a really lousy sense of humor?"

"I don't have a sense of humor."

"Got it." Steeling himself for his own lunge, he moved in close and somehow managed to take a kiss without asking or demanding, not making the attempt was enough to get Victor's attention away from their usual routine and common sense.

At first Victor let him get as close as his unsure fumbling took him, and then he got impatient and bent Reed backwards and pressed him into the table. Now that Reed had come back at Victor without any sign of being intimidated, neither of them was going to back off. 

Reed didn't know what to do or what Victor was hoping he would do, so he cast his mind about trying to come up with something. Maybe an arch up and groan wasn't beyond him. Remembering the comment about Victor's ancestry, he put his teeth to Victor's throat and bit down just enough to feel blood flowing and earned a buck of hips against his. Research taught a scientist, that if you liked the results, repeat the action.

The second try got a slow *roll* of pelvis against him and Reed groaned. He hadn't known he'd been putting out signals or where Victor had gotten this idea, but somehow he'd put this puzzle together and presented it to Reed and it felt pretty good.

*
"You know that you're lying on me?" Reed said when he came back to his senses.

Victor lifted his head and rolled off.

They lay side by side staring at the ceiling.

"I think I'm lying on a piece of metal," Reed said and reached back to pull the component out of from where it was lodged painfully along his spine and brought it up to his face to examine it. 

"Hey, looks like you solved that joint issue you were having with your machines, what did you use to make the limbs move so easily?"

'I came up with a material that's semi-solid but flexible enough to allow for movement."

"Cool, do you have the notes on you?"

Victor waved a hand at the stuff they'd shoved off to the side in their frenzy. "Over there, I think."

Reed sat up and ran a hand shakily over his hair. His glasses were smudged and resting slightly off-kilter on his nose.

"What do you say we get some of this organized and move it upstairs?"

"There's more room down here," Victor said.

"Yeah, but upstairs there's food, and I've got a bed in my room."

"Your room is poorly lit," Victor got to his feet and began twitching his clothes into place so that there was no sign that he'd been rolling around on a table with his research partner and friend.

"Are you insulting my lighting?" Reed couldn't quite believe that Victor had said that.

"I'm sure it's adequate for your purposes," Victor said condescendingly, and didn't look up from working a crease out of his shirt as he added," but I also have a larger bed in my room."

Snickering, Reed reached out and used Victor as a support so that he could hop off the table. "Okay, now you've convinced me, let's go."

-end