Work Text:
Ryan tried to convince himself that the Professor wasn't his enemy. After all, co-workers are coworkers, and you can't get all weird about coworkers if you want to have a healthy work environment, even if that co-worker is a puppet.
Even a little blue devil puppet who has it out for you.
With a PHD no less.
"Do you even have a PHD?" Ryan asked one day, before he could mentally slap his own hand away from touchong a hot and fiery subject.
"Uhhhhhhh," the little man said, as if it was a very complicated question with an even more fraught answer. "Yes. Yes I do."
"Where'd you get it," Ryan continued for some outrageous reason.
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…"
"Was it a muppet college or like…"
"Now hey, don't be...don't be discriminatory."
"Right," Ryan said. "Sorry about that."
HR Complaints were not "healthy work environments."
"Sure." The Professor said.
"You didn't...you didn't answer my question though…"
"I HAVE A DEGREE! RYAN !" The Professor shouted as a puppet should probably not have the lung capacity for, his little blue body flapping around wildly.
"Ok, geeze, sorry I asked." Ryan said, looking into the camera.
Later, Ryan would lose that very history competition.
"Yay, ok, great." Ryan said. "What a...what a shocker!" He turned once more to the shining empty void of the recording device before him, the only listening ear seeming to take notice of his plight.
Beside him, the guest delightedly accepted their ill-gotten goods.
Or perhaps well gotten, difficult to tell.
Ryan stared into the Professor's little plastic eyes. The Professor stared Ryan back into the eyes with heated intensity.
"Are you happy? Does this make you happy?" Ryan asked.
"Yes. Yes it does." The Puppetmaster of History replied, never blinking, always staring.
"So you admit you cheat?" Ryan said.
"No. You just...you just suck at this." The Professor replied. "It's not my fault."
"Yeah. Ok." Ryan said, smiling, only a little coldly, and never breaking eye contact.
Winning wasn't necessary for the show to be successful. So in a way, this is a healthy working environment.
Ryan could take the blow to his pride. He'd done worse on his ghost hunts with Shane.
He could believe The Professor and Shane are friends, because they look at him the same way, chaos in their eyes. And he couldn't find it within his heart to hate either perhaps.
"I had fun." The Professor said.
"I'm sure you did." Ryan said.
"We make a good team."
"Sure."
"Didn't you have fun?"
Ryan pondered this for a moment. "...yeah i did."
"Good."
"Good. We both had fun, that's all that matters." Ryan said.
"Right." The Professor said strangely.
Ryan smiled.
The Professor stared on.
The Professor woke suddenly and swiftly, like an impact, like a collapse in his stuffing brain.
He felt the wall behind him, stone covered in grime and now pressed beneath his hair.
The world was bathed in an unnatural sick warm purple and howling blue. Like florescent neon lights at a twisted up little talk show. Like his fur in a smearing nuclear hellvision.
The Genie laughed. He towered over him, looming across the unnatural shine of his lamp.
"You...you tricked me…" The Professor croaked.
"You deceived yourself," the Genie said.
"Is my wish...did you actually grant it at all?"
"Of course," the Genie said with a hungry smile. "That is what I do, after all."
The Professor doubted that was what he did at all.
But if you wanted to be fastidious. Or maybe charitable. Or some strange cross between both.
God, his little blue head hurt.
"What..what did you do to me?"
The Genie threw back his head and laughed in a properly unholy fashion. "I gave you what you wanted."
The Professor groaned. "What...does that even mean to you?"
The Genie spread his arms and gestured grandly. "You can now travel the vast waters of time in a proverbial waterfaring vessel of your choosing. In your case…" he motions to the fallen puppet, his grinning mouth full of teeth.
"Ah."
"Ah indeed."
"Well then ...why am i on the floor?"
"Overwhelmed with your newfound power." The Genie said, behind his teeth, and the Professor knew it to be a lie.
The blue and purple reached a headache pitch.
"What…" The Professor's mouth felt very dry. His hands felt nothing but dust and he tasted brine, and blue. "What's the catch?"
The Genie laughed again. "i don't know if id call it such a thing…"
"Well i would ," said the Professor, still on his back. he should move. He should move. He should run.
He laid there, the lights dancing before his eyes.
"Alrighty then." The Genie said.
He stared, his glowing gaze transfixing and burning in equal measures.
" Tell. Me!" The Professor snapped, as much a plea as a command.
" alright," the Genie said. "You must pay a price."
"A price?"
"A sacrifice, if you will," the Genie gestured again. "Give upon me what is owed."
"...what the hell is that supposed to mean!?" The Professor propped himself up on one arm.
"...i think you already know... good doctor… " The Genie was suddenly upon him, too close and too cloying and far too delighted.
"..no…I…" But his mind was drifting to something he didn't understand.
"Sacrifice," the Genie said, his voice echoing around the cavern. "Give me what is due. Something unfairly taken."
The Professor stared at the horrible entity's eyes, and then the dancing ceiling.
Something echoed in his mind that he did not quite understand. But he knew already. what his price might be. Before he truly understood it.
"That's nothing," he said.
"I know."
"That's terrible."
"I know ."
"I won't do it." The Professor said.
"You will," the Genie leaned in. "For the same reason you came to me at all."
His grin was a canyon. "You're like me now, in that way."
The Professor stared at the dancing cave ceiling.
"You will lose what you have. If you don't." The Genie continued simply.
"I..."
Was this ash in his lIttle palms?
"He'll win." The Professor said, without comprehension. "He's bound to win eventually."
"Yes he will." The Genie replied.
The Professor said nothing else.
Lights ate his vision.
"I'm going to chase you now." The Genie said. "Run, little professor."
"Why?" The Professor whispered.
"Because I can ."
The Professor was in the breakroom, holding a cup of puppet-sized coffee.
He looked into his cup and back at his companion.
"Ryan." He said. "You know I like you, right?"
"Sure," Ryan said, his mouth twitching.
"Really." The Professor said. "I do."
Ryan scoffed. "Ok."
"Yeah."
Silence lingered.
The Professor played with his tiny mug in his hand. "So. No hard feelings right?"
Ryan was staring at the wall beside them, caked with trophies from past Unsolved Episodes and decorative parahanillia.
"Yeah. Sure thing."