Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was time. 

Smitty took in a deep, shaky breath as he tried to slow down his heart rate. His heart was racing with adrenaline. 

It’s alright.  He thought to himself. You’ve been developing this elixir for a year now, it’s time to try it. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he felt more stable, opened them again. He looks over at his wall of medals, plaques and awards. He particularly settled on a specific green one towards the middle of the wall of his lab.

Dr. Smitty Plus

The Priestley Medal

Awarded on 10/12/01

By the American Chemist Society

For advanced achievements in the field of science

“Man, already been 10 years since that award.” Smitty chuckled to himself quietly. He looked back at his messy workstation. Beakers were everywhere, some overturned. All sorts of colorful liquids, powders and packages were strewn about the tables except for one small table that held a small glass jar with a swirling green liquid in it. He began to walk over to it when suddenly his lab door flew open and a shorter man in a mussed up lab coat ran through. 

“Woah! Woah! Matt, what's the matter?” Smitty exclaimed, as the man, presumably Matt, ran directly into him with the force of a freight train, knocking Smitty back against the cabinets. 

“Dr. Smitty you can’t do this, it’s insane!” Matt exclaimed. “You can’t just mix shit together, drink it and assume it’ll work!”

Smitty laughed. “Matt it’ll be fine, trust me, I know what I’m doing. I have all these awards for a reason, man.” Matt didn’t look too sure and opened his mouth to disagree, but Smitty cut him off.

“Listen, if you’re that worried, I’m gonna be writing down everything that happens tonight so if I die or the lab explodes, you have a detailed record of what went on.” Smitty said, rolling his eyes. “I highly doubt this will work anyways, it’s literally just a drink of random shit that's probably edible.”

“PROBABLY?!” 

Smitty sighed and went back to the table with the little table with the jar. “Yes, probably. Look I’m really busy tonight, I’ll see you in the morning and we’ll go over the lab notes I take, alright?” He ushers Matt out of the door while Matt wildly protests, but eventually is shoved out. Smitty locks the door behind him. No more distractions, he needed to focus.

He walked over to his desk and rifles through a couple drawers before finding what he was looking for: his lab journal for taking notes when doing experiments. He grabs it with triumph and walks over to where the mysterious green liquid is.

“Alright,” he mutters to himself. “Now is the time for action.” He picks up the jar and opens his notebook. 

He writes down “October 31st, 2011” at the top of his page. Smitty picks up the jar and looks on the side. The liquid stops at 10 centiliters. He looks to the clock, 11:58 pm, drinks the liquid and writes it down as he makes a face. 

11:58 pm- consumed 10 centiliters of formula JK 1.5

“That was fucking awful, next time I’m adding sugar.” he said, trying not to vomit. Smitty sat back, pondering the weird aftertaste, trying to find the words to describe it.

Bitter, salty, smells like actual dog ass

He began to feel very flushed, almost as if he had a fever. Odd but nothing too bad. Until his stomach lurched and he realized it was only a matter of time. Smitty got up and stumbled over to the nearest bucket he could find in a frenzy. He promptly vomited, the elixir tasting way worse coming up than going down. Smitty shuttered despite feeling like he was burning up.

He slowly walked back over to his notes and wrote down:

11:59 pm- feeling flushed, feverish, threw up and am now cold too

“What the fuck did I put in this??” He complained, trying to rack his brain for ingredients, but alas his head was swimming and too muddled to remember. “Why didn’t I write it down?” You said you’d just remember it dumbass, well clearly not. His next mission was going to be making a time machine so he could smack past Smitty for assuming he’d just remember what the hell he threw together to make this awful concoction. 

The clock struck midnight and Smitty thought he was dying. He was in excruciating pain, temple throbbing, rapid breathing, sweating, shaking. He gasped for air like a fish out of water and fell to the floor in absolute misery. No, agony. He was in hell, about to get fast passed to the devil himself at this rate. 

Smitty could feel a dark force taking over in what felt like a soul sucking, bone crushing, torturous overthrow of a tyrannical kingdom. He tried desperately to get over to his notes but whatever had him in a choke hold would not let go. 

He let out an agonizing scream as pain flowed through his system, every cell in his body burning at temperatures he wasn’t even sure he could describe. The ringing in his ears deafened him, he had no idea Matt was outside his door banging on it, trying to get in. Everything was loud, pounding, shrieking

Suddenly, the symptoms quieted down and Smitty could hear himself think again, and Matt banging on the door. He ignored Matt and went to a mirror to see how awful he looked.

He went to his little lab bathroom and turned on the lights, then turned to stare at his reflection in the mirror. He was instantly filled with dread and turned a ghostly pale.

The man staring back at him was not himself. He had blonde hair, rings, a multi-colored hoodie and was a good bit taller. 

The man gave an evil smile and let out a blood curdling, maniacal laugh. 

“ FREE! ”

Smitty screamed in horror and passed out.