A Scrape Above (aka Reese being a Tool)

Reese, once again, was bored out of his goddamn mind.

The routine was mind numbing: Get up in the morning, start dusting the places the robots couldn’t, and try to annoy the robots with no success. Reese complained the entire time through the whole ordeal. The best part was intentionally botching the job just so Maurice would yell at him. Right now, he was in the second part: dusting.

The fact that he had to do this every day was annoying as hell. One would think that Maurice would realize that he didn’t want to clean or do the housekeeping. Wasn’t being experimented on enough to earn his keep or whatever? He did that every day, too. That should count as his chore, not cleaning.

Reese wrinkled his nose in disgust as he used a feather duster to get the corner of the room. Maurice’s robot servants were useless if they couldn’t do things like this. But, noooo, of course Maurice didn’t see it that way. He never took Reese seriously for any reason. But, hey, at least he looked at Reese when yelling at him.

That was something.

He grumbled under his breath as he pulled away from the now less-dusty corner. After a moment of consideration, Reese decided not to check it thoroughly with a little light. Sure, he could, but that was effort. And he wanted to get on with things already. The sooner he got things done, the sooner he could go to his video games.

Reese rose to his feet, dusted himself off (intentionally spreading some of the dust back onto the floor), then stormed off. He nudged a robot servant to the side as he did so.

“Useless piece of garbage,” he mumbled.

“I apologize, Reese Greer, I do not understand --”

Reese didn’t hear the rest of the robot’s stupid voice. He was too far into the massive living room, which was the worst room in the house to clean. Maurice and his stupid trinkets and his stupid rug. If Reese had his way, he’d have decorated this place much differently. Maybe some  neon lights, and way more space for consoles and games.

Not his room, though. So, he had no say. ‘When I get out of here, I swear to God ...’

He immediately set to work. Thankfully, it was much easier to fake a good job here. As long as the vases and frames and such looked good, Maurice didn’t look too closely. Reese smirked to himself as he half-heartedly dusted the shelf.

Then, something rather interesting caught his eye. It glinted in the sunlight filtering in from the window. Before Reese really realized what he was doing, he had reached out to grab it and look at it.

It wasn’t anything amazing; it was just one of the many curettes used by Maurice. Still, though, he had been looking for this one in particular for months now. ‘Scrapes really well,’ he had said. And while Reese enjoyed watching Maurice work with it, he didn’t give two shits about Maurice’s wants.

He had an idea now. And that was going to be Maurice’s problem for the rest of the day.

Reese glanced over his shoulder to make sure none of the robots were watching. Then, once he saw that they weren’t, he slipped the curette in his pocket. It was a decently long trek back to his room, and if he wasn’t discreet about this, one of the stupid robots would see the outline of the curette in his pocket. Then, the jig would be up.

Instead of immediately rushing to his room, Reese actually bothered to tidy up the living room properly. He took the time to light the darker crevices in the shelves, turn things around to dust them, and even put them back in their proper places. Hell, he even washed the TV screen. Then again, that last one was more for his benefit; Maurice barely watched TV. His loss.

Once the coast was clear and the room was done, Reese casually wandered over to his room. He kept one hand in his right pocket, and made sure the feather duster covered the outline of the curette with his other one. Casual. Cool. Chill. Everything he needed to be right now.

“Good morning,” one robot said.

“Eat shit,” Reese responded.

“Very good.”

God, it would be so much funnier to make fun of these stupid things if they actually got upset when he insulted them. Unfortunately, Maurice wasn’t too good at building stuff -- not many had the ability to get angry.

If only Quincey was around more. He was fun to kick around a bit, tease him about his height, poke and prod all the specimens he brought in ... all good stuff. Sure, it meant getting stabbed in the shin, but it was always worth it. It hurt, but no more than the experiments did. So, fuck it. It was still funny.

Reese froze for a moment when a robot passed by just a bit too close to him. If they had been any bigger, they might have felt something weird. Then it would all be over. Sure, it was just a prank, but this was also his entertainment for the day.

He let out a silent sigh of relief when the servant passed, completely unaware of anything off.

Reese had never been happier to see the door to his room. He picked up the pace just a bit, then basically slammed the door behind him as soon as he got there. Once he had his back against the door, he let out a huge sigh of relief. Then he fished out the curette, a wicked grin on his face as he did so.

Time to hide this baby.

He had to consider his options. Maurice would tear apart the room looking for this thing once he figured out the prank -- if he figured out the prank. If nothing else, Reese was good at being unpredictable with these things. Still, though, best to hide this in a weird place.

Hiding it in the dresser was too obvious. The closet was even more obvious. While hiding it behind something was plausible, one wrong look and it’d be clear as day. Maybe ... hmm. Damn, this was harder than he thought it would be.

Reese glanced at his mattress. Then, he glanced at it again. One more time. After staring at it for a second, he let himself grin. He probably looked like a gremlin or the Cheshire cat; it was hard to tell when he couldn’t see it. But it was the spirit behind the grin. The utter chaotic energy.

Lifting his mattress with one hand was harder than it looked, and it already looked pretty damn hard. But it was so satisfying when he managed to shove the curette under there and drop the mattress back down. A few pats showed that it couldn’t be felt from the top of the bed.

Jackpot.

“Hey, Maurice!” Reese poked his head out of the door and glanced at the entrance to Maurice’s office. One of the few perks for being this close to Maurice’s workspace was that he could bug the hell out of him. It was either to suffer that or not have such a tight leash on him. Maurice had picked ‘suffering’ long, long ago.

“What is it?”

Maurice’s voice came through the muffled door; Reese could barely hear it. He rolled his eyes, scowled, and then left his room to make the short trek to Maurice’s. He didn’t even bother knocking; he just opened it right up, much to Maurice’s chagrin.

Maurice, of course, was hunched over at his desk. He didn’t even bother looking up at Reese. That used to upset him a lot more, but at this point, Reese was used to it. At least it let him roll his eyes without any consequences.

Papers were scattered all over the desk, and Reese could see some medical equipment, too. Whatever he was working on must be something wild; normally, he never brought those tools into the office. Reese was curious. Painfully curious, even. But he was on a mission, and he wasn’t going to let anything distract him.

“Remember that curette you wanted? The one really good at scraping?”

Maurice’s head snapped up immediately. Pretty predictable.

“You found it?” Wait. Was that some twinge of excitement in Maurice’s voice? Reese almost couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah, I think I saw it, at least.” Reese shrugged casually. It was such a struggle to keep his tone even, but he had to do it. He had to. “I found it in the living room while cleaning.”

Maurice blinked dumbly. “How did --”

“Hey, don’t ask me. You don’t let me touch that shit, remember?” Reese leaned against the door frame and folded his arms. “There’s an issue, though.”

“Of course there is,” Maurice remarked dryly. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’s the problem, dearie?”

Reese, to his own surprise, managed to keep a straight face when saying, “It’s stuck behind the giant case. You know, the one with all the trinkets and stuff on it.”

There was a moment of silence. It took everything Reese had to not burst out laughing at the look of utter horror on Maurice’s face and the way he just dropped his pen out of sheer shock.

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s weird.” Reese hid the twitch of a smile. “I can’t really lift that, so ... might need to get your robots to do it.”

Maurice just huffed. It seemed like he wasn’t going to get up for this -- anyone would say it was just a tool. Reese, however, knew that the siren song of having his favorite tool would be way too much to resist.

And he was right.

“Dea!”

Reese nearly jumped at how quickly she appeared. Her long beak poked past Reese, into the office. Her green optics blinked curiously.

How long had she been --

“What is it?” she sang. Reese almost gagged.

“I need help moving the case in the living room,” Maurice explained. “Apparently the curette I was looking for is there.”

“That’s weird.” Dea tilted her head. “Why would that be there?”

“I don’t know.” Maurice paused, then glared daggers at Reese. “Reese apparently found it. But I’m sure Reese also knows that if he’s lying to me, he’ll have hell to pay.”

Reese smiled innocently. “Why would I lie about that? I like the tools more than you do. I’m just as excited, here.”

“Hmm.” Maurice regarded Reese skeptically, but eventually just shrugged. “Fine. But you stay in your room, understood? I’m not going to have you break things just because you think it’s funny.”

Reese raised his hands defensively, physically biting back a grin. “I’m not complaining. I hate moving that thing.”

“Then go. Shoo.”

Maurice waved Reese away, and Reese was more than happy to fuck off. He was back in his room in a flash. It might’ve been seen as suspicious or strange, but at this point, he didn’t care. As far as Reese was concerned, everything had worked out perfectly.

Now, it was time to wait.

For once, Reese was glad to not have any games in his room. It would’ve drowned out the sweet sounds of Maurice barking orders, the robots scraping the case against the rug and the wooden floor, Dea chirping happily as she rustled around ... okay, maybe that last one wasn’t so great. But the rest of it was.

Then, it all went silent.

Reese leaned over his bed and reached for the curette from under the mattress. It took some rustling around and bending over a bit too much, but he managed to grab it and haul it out. Now, when Maurice inevitably came in, screaming his head off ... oooooh, it was going to be so good.

And he couldn’t have timed it better.

“Reese!” Maurice yelled.

Someone stomped up the stairs. The sensible part of Reese felt just a twinge nervous; after all, Maurice got ... sadistic, when angry. The rest of him, though, was absolutely and utterly thrilled. And that part won out when Maurice flung open the door.

Reese grinned and twirled the curette in his hand. “So, any luck?”

“You and your stupid pranks!” Maurice barked.

Reese burst out laughing, nearly shaking from the force of it. He didn’t stop Maurice from storming over and yanking the medical tool out of his hand. The fact that Maurice’s face was redder than a tomato from sheer and utter rage made everything worth it.

“I wasn’t lying, though! I found it in the living room --”

“And then you stole it!” Maurice scowled. “And sent me and my servants on a little goose chase. Are you happy with yourself now?”

Sure, there’d be painful experiments done on him because of this. He wouldn’t get any anesthesia, it would be intentionally drawn out, and Maurice would use the sharpest tools imaginable in places where they didn’t need to be. It’s how he got his aggression out.

But oh, was it so, so worth it.

So, Reese grinned.

“Yep.”