sciencesaggressively | prayer circle for seymour

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buffy

prayer circle for seymour

Newt has made a grievous error in thinking that hauling a covered bucket full of ammonia and housing a kaiju skin louse around town wouldn't be that hard. It is that hard, goddamn it, and he has so many regrets, but Seymour had desperately needed to get out of the lab, Newt could tell. Or maybe Newt's the one who needed to get out of the lab because he's working late tonight since a couple of his colleagues had so very conveniently called in sick the day after Christmas, leaving him to pick up the slack. Dick move, total dick move.

By the time nine o'clock had rolled around, Newt had been pretty sure he was going cross-eyed because he'd forgotten to take a lunch today, and Allison continues to attempt to make coffee scarce for him because she's just rude like that, apparently. So he'd decided to bring Seymour out for a little outing, just to see what would happen if he changes the little guy's environment. He hasn't heard a peep out of him yet, which is better than Seymour trying to skitter his way out of this bucket, and Newt settles down on a bench so he can peer in to see how his skin louse is doing.

"You're good, right, buddy?" he asks, keeping his voice low because it's cold enough that people aren't really taking casual strolls out here in the park, but he'd still spotted people here and there--and he's starting to think Kate's maybe right about keeping Seymour more on the down low. It's not even that he's worried he's not supposed to have him, it's more that Newt's paranoid someone might actually try to take him, and he's grown weirdly attached. It's because it's the only thing he really has to remind him of where he's from, he supposes, other than Chuck, but Newt can't keep Chuck nearby in a bucket of ammonia all the time. Or ever, really.

"I really have to start teaching you some tricks or something, Seymour. Allison and Kate think you're gross and everyone else thinks you're pretty much useless, but we can totally prove them wrong." The parasite's six black eyes stare blankly back at him, and Newt sighs. "Just hanging out, talking to my skin louse. The fuck is even wrong with me right now?"

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It's cold enough and late enough that the only people in the park right now are either totally crazy or have no real choice in the matter. Buffy falls under the latter category, but sometimes, she wonders if she isn't a little bit of the former as well. Questioning her sanity is nothing new. That sort of thing tends to happen when you're the vampire slayer and your parents had you admitted as a teenager because you tried to be honest about your unfortunate destiny.

For the most part, Buffy keeps to herself as she walks through the park. Every now and then, though, she'll spot someone taking a short cut home and she'll trail behind to make sure they make it out alive. She doesn't know what it is about public grounds that makes them turn into demonic hotspots after dark, but that's the way it's always been, as far back as Sunnydale.

The person she's currently trailing is carrying a bucket. She doesn't know why, and it's none of her business. She just need to make sure that he doesn't get attacked by some undead creature on his nighttime stroll. She loses track of how long she spends following him; he seems to be in no real hurry. That's kind of annoying, but then, he can't know how much danger he could really be in. Even in a land of magic trains and suddenly appearing ski resorts, some people still don't believe in monsters.

Eventually, Buffy gets lost in thought and fails to realize that the man up ahead has stopped moving. She gets too close. Now she has to play it off like she was just walking around herself, not keeping a close eye on this man and his bucket. His bucket which is emitting a seriously nasty smell. She can't help herself; she has to ask. "What are you carrying in there, old cat litter?"

Newt's head snaps up when he hears her voice, and he quickly stands from the bench and steps to his left, his right, then just sits back down again because what the hell, it's not like he can really be discreet about the fact that he's been talking to his bucket. "You should wear a freakin' bell or something," he tells her, eyes darting between Seymour and the woman before he fixes her with a quizzical gaze and arched eyebrow. "What're you even doing, stalking me? That's so not cool, you don't even know me. I was attacked in an alley once, y'know, you could give me horrific flashbacks, you just never know."

Okay, so he hasn't had horrific flashbacks of what had happened to him back in February for like, an entire month now, but his point still stands. Now that he's getting a better look at her, though, he feels like he can be afford to be a little less jittery. It's not even that she's super petite and possibly even shorter than him because Kate's petite, and she could definitely kick his ass if she wanted to do it.

This woman, though, doesn't look like she'd sneaked up on his ass just to fuck with him. He rolls his eyes, mostly at himself, before pointing into the bucket and nudging it the slightest bit closer to her with his foot. "Not cat litter. Just a parasite. His name's Seymour, I don't recommend petting him."

"Okay, what bizarro world are we in that I, the cute, innocent blonde of the story, am being accused of stalking by the tatted up guy talking to his smelly bucket?" Sometimes the best defense, as they say, is a good offense. Or is it the other way around? It doesn't matter, because in this case, it's true. The best way she can defend herself against his accusations is to turn it around on him, make him look like the shadiest character here. He has no way of knowing that she actually was following him, after all. She was careful. At least, she thinks she was.

Even in the dark, she can see him rolling his eyes. She's about to call him out on that rudeness when he starts to nudge the bucket toward her. Buffy holds her breath as she steps a little closer, too curious for her own good. And when she finally sees it, she jumps several feet back, clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle her scream. She reaches instinctively for her stake. "You named that thing?"

"People who go around calling themselves innocent are usually the ones who aren't," Newt points out, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks her over, just to assess. She's sassy as hell, doesn't take being a goddamn science genius to figure that out, but then again, so is he most of the time so he kind of has to respect that. "Anyway, you're trying to say that I'm the bad guy here because I've got tattoos and a bucket? That is some backward ass thinking right there, I'd be offended if I like, cared more or whatever."

He's used to judgment for his tattoos but he's pretty sure this is all just a smokescreen this girl's trying to put off to throw him off her shady as hell scent. He respects that, too, at least until she peeks into the bucket to see Seymour and freaks out like the little guy is fucking Godzilla trying to take over the city or something.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" He stands from the bench again, stepping in front of the bucket and holding his arms out at the side like a human shield because he'll be damned if he lets this random stalker girl bust out a weapon on his skin louse. "Step away from the parasite, miss, and hell yes, I named it. What, you've never named anything before? I called my bed back home 'Beduardo' and my bongo set 'Alan' because I had a friend named Alan once, and he was cool. Doesn't matter, point is... I don't even know what the point is, I'm all riled up now."

He has a point. In Buffy's experience, it's been true that those most vocal when proclaiming their innocence are usually the ones with the most to hide. And in this case, technically, he isn't wrong. She is trying to cover up for the fact that she was kind of, sort of stalking him. For his own good! But stalking nevertheless. Not that any of it matters at the moment. There are larger, ickier matters to be dealt with.

She's about to shout that yes, she names things all the time, and in fact her lucky stake is named Mr. Pointy, thank you very much, when the parasite moves in the bucket, sloshing around in that foul smelling liquid, and she remembers why she started screaming in the first place. "You're riled up? I'm riled up! Why are you carrying a parasite around in a bucket? And aren't parasites supposed to be, like, microscopic?"

"Why are you riled up?" His voice is getting a little screechy, as it's prone to do when he's totally riled up, and he's lost all control over the way he gestures with his hands, which is probably why they're thrown up in the air right now. "It's my parasite, my bucket, we're just minding our own business out here."

He needs to relax. He's pretty sure the main reason why he's having this little freakout right now is because he's paranoid that being out in the open with Seymour might only get the skin louse taken away from him. Newt's in way too deep to let that happen at this point, even if it means alienating this random girl who's admittedly asking questions that are totally fair. It's not like he's had trouble alienating people before anyway.

Newt does manage to settle down a little at her question about microscopic parasites, his voice settling into a less ear-busting octave as he bring his arms down to cross over his chest. "And y'know, they are but if you consider the fact that this one came fresh off something close to a 250,000 ton sea creature, you can really start to imagine how it would seem microscopic, at least in comparison." He pauses, huffing out a sigh before running a hand through his hair and gesturing at the bucket. "A bunch of little guy like him came falling down on my wedding a couple months ago. It's the only thing I've got that's really from my world so like, yeah, whatever, I"m carrying it around in a bucket because-- Well, I don't know if good memories is the right phrase but it brings back something like that. You cool with that or are you going to report me to the parasite police?"

"I have every right to be riled up! I'm being yelled at by a loony with a giant parasite in a stinky bucket!" There is every possibility that Buffy started yelling first, or at least that her initial scream kicked off this whole yell-o-rama, but she isn't about to admit as much. She's still at the totally-lacking-in-maturity, name-calling stage of freaking out. Which makes it especially embarrassing for her when he decides to be the bigger person and begins to act all calm and rational, at least in comparison to how he was acting only moments ago. She deflates a little, then, easing out of her battle stance into something a little less intimidating. She lowers the stake.

"That depends," she says slowly, gesturing toward the bucket. "Is it dangerous? Does it bite?" If he answers in the affirmative, she'll have no choice in the matter. She doesn't expect him to, though. He seems overly protective of that hideous creature. She has to ask anyway.

"Oh, I'm a loony? You're the one pointing a-- what is that, is that wood? Is that a freakin' stake? You're carrying a stake around like you're hunting vampires or something, and I'm the loony. That's rich but check it, lady, this little guy isn't a vampire and neither am I so let's just chill, okay?"

It's a little easier to do that when she backs off, and Newt still feels like he's just had like, eighteen coffees in a row because he's all kinds of jittery right now. This is so not what he'd expected when he'd brought Seymour out here tonight, but he supposes it could be worse. She could've just kicked the bucket over and his skin louse would have been lost forever.

"He doesn't bite," Newt answers, and it's the truth. He pauses, huffing a sigh with a roll of his eyes. "He doesn't do much of anything actually, he just kind... sits in his bucket. I've been keeping him in my lab for a couple months and there hasn't been much change, so I thought I'd see if a different environment might help. Turns out no, not so much." He glances down at the parasite, grimacing as all six of Seymour's eyes blink back up at him. "I'll tell you what, the things he would have clung to really know how to fuck a world up but you could at least use them for stuff after they died. I mean, after the kaiju blue was neutralized, obviously."

Okay, he has a point. Especially since she actually does happen to be out here hunting vampires tonight. She probably couldn't win the sanity contest if her life depended on it, even if this jittery weirdo was her only opponent. She isn't about to admit any of that aloud, however.

The thing is, he's right. She's relatively certain by now that he isn't a vampire, and that hideous thing in the bucket behaves like no vampire or demon she has ever encountered. And while it should be against all laws of nature of any insect to grow that large, it technically isn't any business of the slayer's.

"Obviously," says Buffy, with no small amount of sarcasm. Of course, she means the exact opposite — there is nothing about what he just said that strikes her as obvious. Or even remotely understandable. What the hell is kaiju blue? "You realize that all sounded like gibberish to me, right?"

"I realize exactly that, and I have little to no problem with it," Newt answers, lifting his chin at her even as he kneels down next to the bucket. He doesn't want to distress Seymour with any more bickering, even though he doesn't even know how this bickering even started or why it's happening with a lady he's never met, never mind the fact that he's never actually seem Seymour distressed. He kind of just always sits in his bucket, loving the ammonia life.

He pauses for a beat, just long enough to maybe make her a little more curious, then shrugs. "I guess I could tell you about it, though, if you want hear about it. Giant monsters, saving the world from an impending apocalypse, that's what it is, if you're into that kind of thing."

If he's honest, Newt think she just might be, so he holds an arm out for her to get a better look at one of his tattoo sleeves. "These guys on my arm? Yeah, they were real, and most of them weighed in around the two hundred, two hundred and fifty pounds mark. Came out of a hole in the Pacific and just destroyed entire cities, they were engineered to do it. The kaiju blue, that was just their blood, but it was toxic so it would contaminate anywhere a kaiju was injured or killed. This little guy over here, he's a parasite. A kaiju skin louse. Good times, wouldn't you say?"

Giant monsters, he says. Saving the world from impending apocalypse, he says. Might as well be reciting the Buffy Summers life story, she thinks. It's effective, though. She's definitely hooked, taking a few steps forward and leaning in for a better look at his arm. Interesting tattoos, she would have thought, and left it at that. Then he tells her that they were real, and suddenly, she understands what he meant about the parasite looking microscopic in comparison. This is the sea creature he was talking about. She thought he was just rambling to throw her off or something.

It feels a bit naive, to readily believe this man she would have called crazy only moments ago. But after all that Buffy has seen in her life, there isn't much that she wouldn't believe. And technically, that abomination in the rotten-smelling bucket is proof.

"How do you fight something like that?" She has to ask. Call it professional curiosity.

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