I do not own Night at the Museum.

"Jedidiah, are you sure this is a good idea?"

Octavius' voice echoed slightly inside the confines of the air vent that he and his cowboy friend were currently exploring. He tried to keep any anxiety out of his voice, brave Romans did not become nervous at the thought of an empty tunnel, but he also knew that if they got stuck in here, it would be a long time before anyone found them. They had, of course, told their men where they were going, but the museum was a big place, and it would take a while to search all of the vents.

"Why? You worried?" Jedidiah asked, in response to Octavius' question. "It's just a bunch of air vents." He gestured at the walls of the tunnel, which to people their size was a wide space indeed. "I wanna see if we can use 'em to get around the building quickly so that we don't have to head back so soon to get back before sunrise."

Octavius nodded. Jedidiah had told him all of this before of course, it was the reason why the General had agreed to the idea at all. Still, now that they were actually doing it, a nagging feeling of unease would not leave him alone. He was certain that some misfortune was sure to pounce upon them if they continued on, but try telling that to the head-strong cowboy currently leading the way with a miniature lantern held out eagerly in front of him. Jedidiah obviously felt no trepidation, and brushed off any worries that his friend had.

The two continued on in silence, lanterns held high to light their way. They were watching for the tell-tale light that would signal an opening into one of the rooms of the museum. It didn't take long, and soon they came right up to the edge of a grate built into the floor of the air vent. The light from the room below illuminated their faces as they peered down to see where they were.

It was a room set aside for the use of temporary exhibits. Larry had mentioned to them that the museum was hosting some kind of science tour for the children, but the mannequins had not been brought in yet so there weren't any confused scientists wandering around the locked room. There were, however, several tables set up with chemical sets. Normally, they would only be empty glass beakers meant for display only, but with the power of the Tablet they were now full of bubbling, nameless liquids.

Octavius could almost see Jedidiah's eyes light up with the desire to explore somewhere that he really shouldn't.

Sure enough, Jedidiah was unlooping the long rope that they had brought with them, a huge grin splitting his face. Octavius thought about protesting, but then just sighed and shook his head. Short of knocking the cowboy out, there was little chance of getting him to stop when he had his mind set on something.

"Jedidiah, what are you doing?" He asked instead.

The Roman's tone of resignation was, of course, totally ignored by his friend, who simply turned the full force of his brilliant grin on Octavius. The dark-haired man felt a little dizzy just looking at it, as if he were looking at the sun. It almost, almost made up for how stupid their following actions were going to be.

For two people three inches in height, sliding down the eight feet of rope to land on one of the tables was a little like a controlled fall from a skyscraper. And they didn't land so much as they collapsed from the rush. Jedidiah, of course, was laughing from the experience, while Octavius was wondering why he kept following the crazy cowboy around on his insane stunts.

"Let us never do that again." Octavius said as he adjusted his helmet, which had fallen down over his eyes during the descent.

Jed just snorted good-naturedly. "Oh, come on, Octy. Where's your sense of adventure?" He asked, still grinning broadly at his friend.

Octavius didn't last long against his friend's charm. He muttered something incoherent and turned away to hide the fact that his face was now as red as his cape. Thankfully, Jedidiah was no longer paying attention, being more interested in one of the beakers of bubbling chemicals nearby.

"What do ya suppose all this is?" Jed asked. He was moving between the vials and beakers now, peering curiously at the multi-colored liquids and occasionally reaching out and touching the glass to see if it was warm. "Huh. Ain't hot at all." He mused.

Octavius watched Jed's investigation with a small amount of anxiety. He wanted to tell his friend to be careful, but didn't want Jed to think that he was mollycoddling him. Instead, he drifted closer, wanting to be there if Jed needed to be yanked out of harm's way.

"Well, isn't this a doozy." Jed was looking at a beaker about twice his height, filled with some kind of red goo. It was easy enough for him to grab the lip and haul himself up high enough to be able to see what the goo looked like up close.

"Jedidiah…" Octavius couldn't help a warning escaping his lips at his friend's rash behavior.

Jed waved him off. "It's fine." He said. "I won't fall in."

Octavius gave a little whine of frustration in the back of his throat. He knew that his friend was a little reckless sometimes, but this was going a bit far.

"Jedidiah, please…" He began, but was interrupted when Jed gave a yelp of pain and fell backwards off of the beaker.

Now, you must understand that Jedidiah had never found anything that before then that his gloves could not protect his hands from. He had even picked up hot coals without any ill effects, so when he stuck his gloved hand curiously into the red liquid, he wasn't expecting anything too bad. It came as a big shock when his glove actually began to smoke and eat through the thick leather like a flame through paper. He was so shocked that he fell clean off the beaker and onto the tabletop, knocking into another beaker on the way down.

Octavius saw the second beaker, which had been precarious before, begin to teeter back and forth under the force of Jed falling against it. He shouted out Jed's name to warn him of the danger, but all that did was made Jed look up just as the glass container tipped, pouring some kind of blue goop all over him.

Octavius very nearly leaped out of his skin at Jedidiah's scream of pain.

"Jedidiah!" The Roman bolted forward, ignoring everything around him as he made his way to his friend's side. Thankfully, skin contact was not what was causing Jed's pain, because otherwise Octavius would have been in massive amounts of pain as well with the amount he was getting on his sandaled feet. Not that Octavius was thinking of himself at that moment, he was too busy using his cape to try and clear the offending stuff from Jed's eyes.

"Augh, my eyes!" Jed moaned, trying to reach up and clear his eyes, only to have his hands gently swatted away by Octavius, who was trying to do the same thing. "They're burnin'! Make it stop!"

By now Octavius' cloak was totally covered in blue goop, and he threw it away impatiently. The Roman looked around, hoping for some way to clean out Jed's eyes. Immediately, his eyes landed on a nearby sink, the only thing in the room that hadn't been affected by the Tablet.

"Be strong, Jedidiah. I will help you, my friend." He said. He grabbed the cowboy and, in a rare show of physical strength, lifted him onto his shoulders in a shepherd's carry. Ignoring Jed's complaints, understandable as they were, he jogged across to the sink and lowered Jed to the bottom. Then he moved around to the sink's handles and pushed on the nearest one until the smallest trickle of water came out of the spout.

Jed had been sitting in pained, confused silence at the bottom of the sink until the water hit him directly on top of the head. Then he gave a small sound of surprise, and shuffled a little to the right to get away from it.

"Don't move, Jedidiah." Octavius called out as he slid down the side of the sink to help his friend. "We need to clear your eyes. Come, stand by me."

Octavius took Jed's arm and gently led him over to stand directly under the falling water again. He then turned the cowboy's face so that it got hit by the water, ignoring Jed's half-hearted wriggling. He found a washcloth draped over the sink's divider and gently used to corner to wipe at Jed's eyes and face. Through it all, the cowboy sat still with uncharacteristic docility, allowing Octavius to work without complaint or protest.

Finally, there was nothing more that Octavius could do, so he dropped the washcloth and turned off the water before returning to Jed's side. For some reason, the cowboy still had not opened his eyes, and it caused a spike of alarm to go through Octavius.

"Jedidiah?" He asked cautiously. "Your eyes are as clean as I can get them. Why do you not open them?"

Octavius placed a hand on Jedidiah's shoulder and was alarmed when his friend actually flinched at his touch.

"Jedidiah?" He said again, prompting an answer from the other man.

"I… I did open my eyes, Octavius." Even if Jedidiah hadn't sounded like he was about to cry, the fact that he was using the Roman's true name, instead of "Kemosabe" or "Toga-Boy" would have set off alarm bells in Octavius' brain. "I just didn't see anything."

And then Jedidiah opened his eyes, and Octavius had to fight himself to avoid backing away from his friend. It looked like the pupils and irises of Jedidiah's eyes had been completely wiped away, leaving blank white orbs in their stead.

"By the gods." Octavius breathed.