Food Poisoning Won't Harm Him
Chloe found it rather irritating that the Psychonauts didn't provide her with a proper hazmat suit. On her smaller frame, the sagging, rubbery material awkwardly creased at her joints. It hardly flattered her, not that Chloe cared about appearing presentable when she was in a psilirium mine. But she preferred the decency of a fitting suit to protect her from psycho-radioactive crystals that would have caused her mind to lapse into a hypnotic trance.
As she lumbered forward, the heavy suit cumbersome in comparison to her extravehicular mobility unit, she was also bewildered. She craned her head over her shoulder, seeing as far as the helmet would allow without fully turning to look at him. Bobby's back faced her as he examined the glimmering golden gems jutting out from the deep gray limestone cavern. He weighed a few smaller shards in his hands, bringing one up toward a light fixture dangling from a loose rope.
He only wore a headband that had been threaded with a component to repel psilirium poisoning. Compared to Chloe's seemingly excessive attire, he was dressed only in his Psychonauts uniform with the sleeves torn off. The addition of a leather backpack also threaded with resistance to psilirium, where he telekinetically stored the shards and resumed his observation, was the only accessory that seemed natural on him considering their circumstances.
She had wondered why he was dressed so minimally when he shrugged off the hazmat suit on the jet. She would have asked, but they had to locate the cavern first; their pilot had dropped them off at the other side of the jungle. He left them stranded until a stroke of luck led Chloe and Bobby to their destination. Benny was going to get an earful from her later if Bobby didn't find him first.
With the mission well underway - observing for irregularities caused by the psilirium, then extracting them for examination at the Motherlobe - she asked, "Why didn't you want the hazmat suit?"
As she spoke, Bobby's fingers curled around a fragment, and he heaved it out with a grunt. He shuffled in place, holding it as if handling a dagger. Casually, he flipped it up and down, his eyes falling to the thin ridges along the ground, and he snaked his other hand through his hair. When he finally looked at her, the silence only quelled by the calls of animals, he pursed his lips.
It was at that moment Chloe knew Bobby was about to inform her of one of his prior, quite possibly illegal, proclivities.
"Y'know, uh, how you can-" Bobby vaguely gestured with the psilirium. "-build up a natural immunity to something? Like when you get sick, you make antibodies to protect you?"
She arched an eyebrow and slowly tilted her head. "Well, yes, but that can't factor into curing psilirium poisoning."
Bobby poked the inside of his mouth with his tongue. "Uh, not if you…eat it."
The psilirium Chloe held dropped with a resounding clamor off the walls. Chloe stared at Bobby with eyes that would have made Mirtala shriek. She raised her hands, and a noise escaped her. She prided herself on her articulation and hearing herself stumble forced her to clear her throat. Clapping her hands together, she stared at her boyfriend with a particular look she had given him several times in the past.
Bobby flashed her an unconvincing smile. "I mean, y'know, sometimes I'd, uh, just-" He tapped his fist into his open palm. "-mash down the shards to a nice powder and sprinkle them in some brownie mix, and I baked it all."
Her mind blanked. She felt her mouth drop, and she tossed out her arms. They remained stiff, unable to rise or fall. Of all the irresponsible ideas Bobby had over the years, devouring psilirium in any capacity was beyond her ability to fathom.
"You ate psilirium?" she exclaimed, her voice reverberating throughout the cave. Somewhere deep within the tunnels, bats stirred and squealed. The psilirium shook, their hues swirling, agitated from Chloe's outburst.
"Brownies baked with psilirium powder," he gently corrected, "or I'd just spread it on top of the brownies. It, uh, depends if I remembered to toss it in before I put the pan in the oven." He held up his hands. "Oh, hold on, it's not like I do it all the time. It's a pain in the ass to break down psilirium to that tiny size, and it's even harder to get psilirium in the first place."
The miles-long list of side effects of coming into contact with psilirium raced through Chloe's mind. Exposure over some time resulted in hallucinations and paranoia. There also existed the possibility for permanent mental distortion. Summarizing them as "bad trips" as she once heard Gisu say after an experiment when she chewed on a sliver of psilirium was an understatement.
Tapping his temple as he approached, he said, "It's not like I was eating them whole like Gisu. You told me she swallowed one the size of a quarter and had to be hospitalized for days."
Chloe steepled her fingers. "But you must've suffered from initial adverse side effects."
Bobby paused. "Well, yeah, but that was only for the first few batches. Then, my brain got used to it, I guess." He whistled. "But, uh, yeah, those living nightmares weren't fun, heh."
She furrowed her brow. A reprimand was on the tip of her tongue, but fascination quelled it. She knew psitanium could be smoked, but eating psilirium opened the door to new experiments. The subtle improvement of the brain's tolerance to psilirium through consistent consumption of the mineral piqued her interest. Bobby was living proof that somehow, without his brain or stomach imploding, he maintained more immunity to psilirium poisoning, furthering her interest in pursuing the experiment.
As if noticing her intrigue, Bobby offered, "I'll bake some for you.."
"I appreciate the proposal, but the risk outweighs the reward. All minds are susceptible to even the slightest amount of psilirium. Even in a powder form, it proves dangerous." She raised her hand when he tried to interject. "That also includes baking psilirium directly into the brownies."
His face twisted for a moment before relenting with a shrug. "Alright. More for me and Lili."
Her telekinetic hand grabbed his shoulder when he tried turning around to the other wall. She noticed a hint of smugness crossing his features. From the slight lift of his lips to the twinkle in his eyes, she knew Bobby had her in the palm of his hands with five simple words.
Chloe composed herself. "Lili…eats them."
"Yeah."
"With you?"
"Uh-huh. She says I make 'em better than her." He hummed as if mentioning Lili prompted him to have a realization, and his eyes widened. "Though, wait, on second thought, you could have a bad reaction. You're sensitive to this kind of stuff."
She nodded. She disliked the pungent odor of marijuana, and she was not one for holding her liquor. If she was made to remember her embarrassing endeavor of drinking bong water at Quentin's party, then she recalled fainting seconds after the sewage-like concoction landed in her stomach.
But if Bobby and Lili had mustered a defense through eating psilirium-laced brownies…
"If it's for the sake of scientific curiosity, I'll have exactly one brownie with shaved psilirium on top," she remarked.
Bobby broke into a wide, impish grin. Delight decorated in his demeanor. "Nice! If you have a bad trip, I'll be there for ya."
Chloe frowned. "I feel like my pursuit for intellectual discovery sometimes leads to bad decisions."
He snorted and plucked a psilirium pebble out of the wall. "At least you have a good reason. I just make bad decisions."
"Well, I won't argue with that," she said, and when he expressed an indignant cry, she let a hint of a smile cross her face as they returned to their work.
