Yawning, Jane staggered back to her home, well hers and Dorothy's. Her muscles felt like jelly and her brain felt like mush, all Jane wanted was to submerge herself within a hot water. It sounded so heavenly... But the lights were on, strangely. If Jane remembered right, Dorothy tended to work until late at nights at her lab, and that's if the girl remembered to come back home even.
Jane still walked into the house though, after all this place was hers too- both of them paid for the rent together. "I'm home. Are you here, Dorothy?" She shouted once she had closed the front door, tired but still wanted to talk a bit. It had been a few weeks since they had last talked... Every morning, Dorothy was still asleep while every night, Jane was out like the lights before it was even twelve am. She had to wake up early unlike Dorothy, so there wasn't really any choice.
The answer was shouted back, Dorothy's voice clear and let Jane relax her shoulder slightly, relieved. "Yessss, I'm in my room! Come on in if you want."
Walking through the kind-of-clean house, Jane noted that they probably should call a housemaid over for a huge cleaning soon, this weekend maybe. Opening the door to Dorothy's room, she looked and sighed the moment she registered how dirty everything was. Dirty laundry strewn everywhere, books and papers put wherever without much rhyme or reason... Jane felt a headache coming on. But even the room seemed to be better than the condition of the owner of the room. Dorothy looked like hell, messy hair, really dark eye bags, and- Jane flushed as she finally noticed the condition of Dorothy's outfit. Or to be more exact, the lack of it. Luckily she still had her underwear but those didn't really leave anything to the imagination. "Uh." Jane managed to say intelligently, blinking at the sight.
Luckily that was enough to jolt Dorothy out of her focus, making her turn slightly on her chair to look properly at Jane. "Oh, hey you look like hell, Janey. They must be using you a ton huh?" Even the smile Dorothy was giving seemed to be so weak and tired.
"Yeah they do..." Jane started to reply before she finally managed to think about what she needed to ask. "Nevermind that, tomorrow will be the same thing but what about you? You looked..." she tried to find the right word that might not be offensive. "Like hell. Yeah that sounds right. But seriously, I haven't seen you for days and now you seemed like you haven't slept for what, a week? Two? Anyway, too little sleep." She finally ended, trying to be firm.
Dorothy shrugged slightly before stretching her body right in front of Jane, showing off more of her body and finally pushed Jane to look away. "True, true. But can't be helped, my experiments have finally been going well and then... they don't let me test on humans! The boards suddenly revoked my permission, saying that this might actually be too dangerous and such. Urgh, so annoying... especially when experimenting on humans is the last thing that I have to do before this thing can be cleared and approved once and for all. Then they can move forward with the production and it'll just do a liiiitle thing like revolutionise the whole industry. If only I can test this on myself then all these problems will not be there! I can give my own body the permission needed and they can't stop me. Hmph, this must be the work of another researcher jealous of my brilliance!" Dorothy ranted in the end, puffing her cheeks slightly in anger.
Her mouth automatically opened, ready to soothe the frazzled scientist but Jane closed her mouth once again. She knew Dorothy was brilliant, so it wasn't too far fetched of an idea that someone would try something like that. But at the same time, that kind of skirted too close to fictional stories but still, Jane knew those kinds of things were not impossible. "Hm... that sounds problematic." Jane finally decided to say, hedging her bet that it was better to not disagree too much and instead accepting of her words. "So then what do you think? Is it really unsafe? It's a bit weird they revoked your permission though..."
"You understand me! Even though my labmates are all smart... you are the only one that understands me. But I bet you are curious about what I'm talking about, right?"
Urgh, Dorothy really knew her well. Slowly, Jane looked back to the scientist, who was now grinning widely the moment Jane gave her a slight nod in answer.
"Good, good. So I'll start it with how this thing is totally safe, and well... you know, looking at how you seemed very stressed..." Dorothy went silent, staring at Jane very, very closely with her hand gripping her own chin. It was a little too much that Jane couldn't help but squirmed slightly while standing, trying to move away but Dorothy just followed her movement easily. "Don't move too much, but you seemed... good choice to be honest. You are pretty average height, not too heavy, stressed... the type of body I want people that try this thing to have."
"What are you implying..." Jane finally replied with a sigh, massaging the side of her head as she stared at the increasingly excited researcher. "I haven't even agreed, you know?"
The grin stayed as Dorothy rubbed her hand together, "Well yes, but you are interested, aren't you? This thing won't even be too invasive- just a little injection then boom, you have your ticket to relaxation." The researcher said as a matter-of-factly. Which it probably was, Jane wasn't so sure.
But for a moment, those sentences nearly broke the deal. The thought of a needle going through her skin and then putting whatever was within its container into her blood... that slight imagination she just had sent her skin crawling. But then Jane looked at how excited Dorothy was, coupled with that grin- she couldn't really deny the girl what she wanted. So even though there was some hesitation still in her guts, Jane gave her a nod. "Alright." She finally said, feeling defeated. This should be fine, after all Dorothy was a great researcher as far as she knew, and they were friends for a long while already.
That answer made Dorothy beamed at Jane, happiness plain on her face. "You sure? There's no backing off after that and well... I'll also need to ask you some questions after. Some of them might be uncomfortable, but that way we can see how it'll help you get down from the worry and anxiety that those questions will cause."
Last chance for her to back out from this experimental thing. But well, where would Jane be if she didn't try at the very least? Not here and definitely not friends with Dorothy. So with a shaky smile, Jane let out a nod and reaffirmed her agreement. She could believe that she could answer the questions needed as well. "Y-yes. Let's do this thing. I'll answer those questions as well." Her heart felt like it was beating so fast within her chest but still, she knew she wanted it.
Even if this whole thing could fail, and that was probably the likeliest result. But at least Jane knew one thing, at minimum, she knew she made Dorothy's day and that was enough for her.
Another tiring day at work, but Jane wasn't as stressed or as tired as she was the previous night. The anticipation of what would happen tonight was more than enough to push her to do everything as quickly as possible, and now she was sitting on the edge of her own bed in her bedroom. All according to what Dorothy had told her- to be where she could lie down and feel safe in.
