A/N: my little fish baby i love him so muchhh 🥰! i really liked the wristband angle so i gave it another runaround. hope y'all enjoy!
Summary: Baxter's electrocution device needs more fixing than he thought, but rather than ask Charlie to be his guinea pig again, he decides it would be simpler to test it on himself
Word count: 1,782
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Baxter had never been one to surrender in the face of adversity.
In order to be a scientist, you had to be prepared to fail. Because you would fail. A lot.
That was a crucial of the learning process. Mistakes were just as vital as the successes born from them.
This instance was not an exception.
If he could bypass Vee Tower's security and hijack their screens, he could certainly work the kinks out of a fucking wristwatch.
His last experiment with Charlie had not gone as he had hoped.
The voltage calibrations on the device were set too low and he didn't have time to fix them while Charlie was still wearing it, for fear she'd asphyxiate herself.
It was unlikely after that fiasco that she would volunteer herself again. Which left him without a guinea pig.
This would be a long and slow-moving trial run, and depending on any of his friends to stick through it seemed a risky idea. Besides, he wasn't trying to make anyone uncomfortable.
Weighing the options before him, he decided it would be most prudent to just run the tests on himself. He could trust his own introspection much more than others' anyway, and he had been long accustomed to performing his research in isolation.
First, he had to ensure he would not be interrupted.
Baxter shut himself in his room and spun the wheel on the door until he heard it click. If Charlie's reactions were any indication, he would want to be safely locked away from anyone that might barge in unexpectedly. The locking of his door already helped settle some of his nerves.
He then dug through his drawers and pulled out the heart rate monitor before hooking it up to himself. It beeped familiarly as he checked his resting heart rate; the same as it always was. His was always much higher than other people's and he always wondered why, but there wasn't really a way for him to empirically investigate it.
The device sat propped up against his desk lamp. Gingerly, he scooped it up and held it in his palm.
Today was the day he would best this finicky machine.
Baxter swiftly clicked the band into place on his wrist. He already had his clipboard and pen ready to take notes on his progress.
Now the only thing left to do was turn it on.
Someone in this position might think to feel a little nervous. After all, he was moments away from being tickled with abandon. But if there was one thing Baxter understood, it was biology, and a little physiological reaction wouldn't rattle him enough to interfere with his work.
Well, maybe not little.
He recognized that his sensitivity was... exceptional compared to others, to say the least.
But he had locked his room door, so there was no chance of anyone walking in on him laughing like a dope.
He needed to get this done.
With a click of his remote, the wristband hummed to life.
There it was. He felt it.
Ghostly waves coursing through his nerves, the buzz so gentle it sent a shiver up his back.
Already the corners of his lips twitched, pushing themselves up trying to make a smile.
He couldn't let this get to him just like that. He was stronger than that surely. He was a professional.
But no matter how hard Baxter tensed, his scowl never lasted more than three seconds before his lips jumped up again.
Breathing had gotten considerably harder. He felt his diaphragm jolt to life inside of him, and his chest became noticeably tighter now that his exhalations slowed down.
None of those feelings were what he was worried about. It was that damn prickle flowing through his body, distracting him from his task.
Baxter muscled his way through some deep inhalations and exhalations; he was still in control. Now, to increase the frequency...
The whispers he had felt before now felt like more like prodding, like each individual nerve ending was being poked rapidly and bluntly. It tickled really fucking badly.
Baxter released a quick giggle before clamping his jaw shut. It was an accident. He didn't expect this to feel that intense. But whether he opened his mouth or not, the laughter kept coming, bubbling up in his chest like soda pop in a bottle.
He was not going to laugh. Again.
He could do this.
He looked at the voltage level he was currently at and turned to his clipboard to make note that this was DEFINITELY too low. He got the pen in between his fingers just fine, but had a rather difficult time keeping it still. His note was squiggly and dragged over the loose-leaf lines. It looked like a preschooler had written it. Pathetic.
The laughter, meanwhile, had only gotten harder to keep down. Although he managed to keep his mouth firmly scrunched, he heard himself making little noises from the back of his throat.
So while it wasn't necessarily laughing, it did sound a lot more like whimpering.
Which was almost worse.
Pull yourself together, Baxter!
He had to move on from this shock level before he completely lost his dignity.
He upped the voltage, readying himself for some sting.
Instead, all that he felt were pulsating waves of tickly buzz. These shocks had a bit of a crackle to them, creating a scratching sensation under his skin.
And just like that, the battle was over.
Uproarious laughter exploded from him all at once, making his small body rock back and forth with the force of it.
Baxter hugged himself around his belly, foolishly trying to protect from the invisible attack, but of course there was nothing there to defend against. It was his own hubris that brought this upon him.
He couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious. He thought that locking himself in total isolation would absolve any feelings of potential embarrassment, but he felt just as stupid alone and in the dark.
Even through his giggle fit, he still knew what he had to do.
Baxter reached for his pen once more, only this time, he couldn't quite find it, grabbing blindly at his desk with his eyes squinted shut. With a groan of frustration, he finally found it and set it to the paper. If he thought his penmanship was suffering before, he was appalled at how difficult it was now. His frame shook with laughter, making it harder to steady his hand. After twenty seconds of vigorous waving, all he had accomplished was covering his clipboard with chicken scratch.
Defeated, but oh so giggly, he dropped the pen and wheezed at the absurdity of the situation. Here he was, laughing like he was a little boy again, tickle-tortured by his own means! Even he couldn't deny the humor in that.
So he couldn't take notes. Whatever. If he could just find the voltage level that delivered pain, then he would be sufficiently able to resume his test.
Grabbing the remote, Baxter went to increase the voltage yet again, hoping (strangely) this time for a flash of pain.
Unfortunately, extensor muscles are not at their most precise when they are being tickled.
In other words, he accidentally bumped the dial that relocated the shocks instead of the level modulator.
It was only when he felt the tickles fall all the way down to his flippers that he realized his error.
With a frantic squeal, Baxter practically leapt out of his skin and flopped in a great big heap on the floor. He flailed wildly trying to right himself back up. He needed the remote. In his hysteria, he hadn't realized that the remote was teetering over the edge of his desk. One uncoordinated smack and the remote went flying across the room.
This was bad for getting the remote back, of course. The good news, however, was that it landed in such a way that it moved the dial.
The tickles left his flippers mercifully and migrated up to his neck and ears, where it was much less exhaustive.
He was still giggling like a daffy fool, but at least he wasn't out of breath. This was much more manageable.
His laughter turned positively emasculating. He squeaked and squealed like a frail little mouse. He hiccupped girlishly in a way that shattered any image of toughness. And worst of all, he was snorting. Couldn't seem to stop, in fact.
Practically every other inhale was the most obnoxious snort he had ever heard.
From his peripheral vision, he spotted the remote. It wasn't far; he crawled to it easily. All of this laughing had gone and muddied up his brain, he would have to cut this experiment short again and regroup.
Looking at the remote in his hand, he hesitated.
Why?
Why didn't he want to turn it off?
Thanks to this cloud of delirium he was in, he could see the answer with full clarity. Something so unbecoming of a genius like himself that he never would have accepted it had he not just cackled away all of his inhibitions.
Baxter couldn't remember a time in his life when he had ever laughed this hard. For any reason, whatsoever. It was a feeling he had gotten used to going without, seeing as how friends were few and far between. He had foolishly convinced himself that he didn't need it; this silly kind of fun. He was a respectable man of science, and he was above relying on such primitive enrichment. Even if that meant bearing some sorrowful nights alone and overworked.
In all that time he spent on his own, Baxter had forgotten how wonderful it felt to laugh. How free he felt while doing. No need to mask or conceal himself; he could just lose himself in his whimsy and retreat into a carefree place. His most valuable quality was his intellect, and even that didn't hold a candle to the extent of happiness he felt in this moment.
It was too rich a feeling to tuck away back into the closet.
A few more minutes of leaving the device on wouldn't hurt.
Baxter set the remote down delicately at his side, and laid his head back as he relaxed, letting his giggles course through him freely.
He supposed this wristband would not make an adequate electrocution device after all. But that didn't mean it wasn't good for anything. Based on his two experiments, it could considerably weaken anyone wearing it. Who said a weapon necessarily needed to cause pain?
And if Baxter kept it under lock-and-key in case he ever needed a good laugh again?
Well, then no one had to know.
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i think what ive learned here today is that i have a much easier time writing autistic-coded characters. golly gee i wonder why that could be
