Maybe this was a good idea at the time, Dexter muttered mentally. He tried to face-palm himself, but his hands were stuck in the goop. Ben was laughing maniacally, sliding further and further into the mess involuntarily. Dexter sighed. He brought his watch up to his mouth with some struggling and ordered, "Computress, please send a cleaning crew to Level 2. Benjamin made a mess of it."
"You helped!" Ben cried indignantly.
"You poured the compound into the third beaker when I said the second!" Dexter snapped back. Ben pouted and attempted to cross his hands, but only succeeded in folding them over one another. "And anyways, what were you doing in here?"
"You seemed lonely."
"Lonely?"
"Yes."
"That's what you care about in a war with aliens? If one of your friends is lonely?"
"Yes."
"That's stupid."
"Well, so are you!"
"What?"
"I don't know why. You're just stupid!" Ben scowled in fake indignation while Dexter's was genuine.
"I don't know why I put up with you, stooooopid boy," Dexter gurgled in the pile of goop. Ben snickered.
"Yes, yes, stooooopid Dex," he mocked, furrowing his brow and pretending to push up his glasses. Dexter tried to hide a chuckle. "You with your lab and stoooooopid accent."
"Hey, I like my completely out of place accent!" Dexter cried, cheeks reddening in embarrassment. He laughed when Ben did, and the two watched a group of cleaning bots approach them.
"Oh, Dex, what is this stuff? What'll it do to us?" Ben suddenly panicked. He flailed his hands free of the red stuff.
Dexter smirked. "Me? Nothing. I have an antidote. You...well, I'll let you figure that out."
"Wha- You won't give me the cure?!"
"No." Dexter's smirk widened. "Because I'm stoooopid, remember?"
Later that day, Gwen gave him an odd look and asked him why he smelled like chocolate covered cherries, and Ben frowned and gave her no answer but, "He is so stoooooopid."