Carlos hadn’t been to a circus in years – not since he was little. But there had been a raffle at work and Carlos had won a coupon for a free ticket. He kinda hoped that his brother and/or his dad were in town so he could invite them to go with him.
Carlos made his way to the ticket office that was set up, standing in the line with his coupon as he looked at everything around him. Some things were different than what he remembered or imagined a circus to be like, but not everything could be a dated cliche trope he supposed.
Once at the ticket office he smiled and offered the coupon. “Hey… this any good?” he asked in a joking manner.
“Skip
Mariah Danby,” He sighed, embarrassment twisting the tone of his tongue
as his eyes followed the walls and his foot tapped into the air. “Why
do you need to interview me if you’re just taking stuff from my body?
Can’t you just- I don’t know.. Knock me out and take what you want?”Carlos made a slight face at that question, but he quickly wiped it away. “Well, no… I’d really rather not do that,” he told Skip. “I need to be able to label the samples correctly and I need to know some of your physical conditions so I can keep it in mind while testing.”
He quickly typed in Skip’s name. “I’m a scientist, but definitely not the ‘mad’ variety.”
“Then maybe you’re the cute variety, I think it’s a rare species.” In the moment he believed it to be one of the cheesiest pick up lines he had come up with, it was a severe blow to his ego and he instantly regretted it. He flinched at his own words, opening his mouth to say something but finding it empty.
Fingers ran through his hair nervously as he finally stuttered out, “S-sorry..”
Carlos lifted an eyebrow at him. “Uh… are you okay?” he asked. He tried to be gentle about it, but it probably came out as sounding like he was weirded out by Skip. Which he probably was, just… not for the flirting.
“Do… do you want some water or something to eat? Just to help you feel more comfortable?”
Skip wanted to flinch back and make a sassy remark about how Carlos couldn’t even take a compliment, they weren’t in the Middle Ages. Instead he simply blushed harder now even more embarrassed, “No,” The acrobat sighed through locked teeth, “Anymore questions?” Now he just wanted to get this done and over with, what an absolute mistake getting out of bed this morning.
“Yeah, actually,” Carlos said. “Just blood type and stuff…”
He thought about it. “Would you rather do this later?” If Skip said yes, Carlos had a feeling that they’d never get to the experiment and Carlos would be out of a volunteer. But he had to ask.
The Perfect Scientist 