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.
It
was hard not to be embarrassed by the question, it was like your dad
asking you if you wanted to talk about the kid you punched in the face
or not. He twisted his fingers into one another, quickly and eagerly
shaking his head. “Ah, no..? There’s nothing. Why?” He asked with
suspicion in his voice, sure that Carlos was looking for something wrong
with him.“I just wanted to ask… see if there’s something else you wanted to talk about before I… you know, go off into the land of big words and science jargon. Heh…” Carlos laughed, like it was funny, but really he was worried about boring Skip all over again. Nothing hurt your interest in your hobbies quite like someone ignoring everything you have to say about it.
“Maybe I could learn something-“
Probably not.
But he would certainly try to at least distract himself in the confusion of what the scientist was about to spout on about, he seated himself next to Carlos and glanced over the microscope wondering how much it costed. “I bet you’re so much smarter than me I could never even hope to process what you’re saying, so I’m sorry if I.. get jumbled? Science wasn’t my forte in school, sorry.”
Carlos hummed. “I’ll… try to make this as easy to understand as I can,” Carlos said. “There’s just… already so much that’s different with your biology just from this sample. For instance, the structure itself is very different from what I’ve seen before…” Carlos started to describe the shape and attributes of the cells, as compared to ‘normal’ cells. He tried as best as he could to explain things in a way that Skip might understand, but sometimes he couldn’t avoid using a big word or phrase.
“Do you think it’s because I’m a vampire?” Slip blurted suddenly, his eyes wide at his own words as they left his lips, quickly swiping a hand to his mouth in nerves. He was likely to be ridiculed now, or simply removed from the town. He couldn’t take it back no matter how hard he wished, so he waited.
Carlos turned his head up to look at him. “I… don’t know?” he asked. He wasn’t as surprised at the statement as Skip was probably expecting, he realized. But even in the “normal” world, there were oddities that Carlos was aware of. “Um, what sort of vampire are we talking? The cultural vampire, who uses blood drinking or energy sharing as a way to bond with other vampires or thralls?”
The Perfect Scientist 