sciencesaggressively | 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?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

prayer circle for seymour

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject