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Tweak says, "COOTIES!!!"

Simon Tam (can_swear) wrote in ipswich_rpg,
@ 2010-02-07 20:47:00

Entry tags:

2010 02, buffy summers, simon tam

RP: Myths are Real
Who: Simon, open
Where: Ipswich public library
When: Late afternoon, February 7, 2010
Rating/Warning: None?
Summary: Simon is curious and is researching
Status: Open, ongoing

Hell had been ... interesting. An adventure. Not something he ever wanted to do again, but he was glad to be back. Even if he was falling asleep on patients. Which he hadn't actually ... been tending. One of them had gone into a coma, which wasn't surprising, all things considered. It wasn't a deep coma, and Simon fully anticipated a quick recovery within a few days.

There had been a lot of people down in Hell, though he'd only run into a few of them until the rescue party had shown up.

Still, the adventure had prompted him to do a bit of research. In a world where Hell and witches and vampires, and all other sorts of things from legend were real ... he wanted to research the legends themselves in case he needed to know how to tend something that wasn't strictly human.

He didn't want to accidentally kill an angel, or something.

And so it was that Simon was sitting at a table at the library, surrounded by various works of mythology.

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likeacheeto
2010-02-09 02:50 pm UTC (link)

She wasn't sure what, exactly, had brought her to the library, except for the familiarity of it. She had known what she was sacrificing for Dawn when she had leapt off the tower - her friends, her family - but it didn't mean that she didn't miss them. The library always reminded her of Giles, and she smiled a bit at all the familiar dusty books.

She spotted someone at one of the tables that looked familiar, in a vague way. She wondered if he was one of the ones they'd pulled from Hell, or if he was just someone she'd seen around.

Hoping she wasn't intruding, she made her way over to where he was sitting, gazing over his shoulder to look at the books, see if she could see what he was reading about. It looked more familiar than she was expecting, and she grinned a little bit. "What are you studying?" she asked curiously, wondering if that was rude and if she should introduce herself first. Though, 'hi I'm Buffy what are you studying' didn't really make it any better to her.

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can_swear
2010-02-09 03:14 pm UTC (link)

Simon jerked, almost violently, as he was startled out of his thoughts by her voice. "I. Uh." He stared a moment, then shook his head before he made a sweeping gesture toward the books. "Mythology," he admitted. "It ... well, after learning that ... that is to say, what we thought wasn't real. What I thought wasn't real. Is. So I thought I could ..."

He trailed off, brow furrowing. "I'm Simon," he said, studying her. "You were ... there, right? Yester...day." Was it only yesterday? Good lord, it felt so much longer. Maybe being in hell had distorted his perception of time.

If she'd dropped a name prior, it escaped him now.

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likeacheeto
2010-02-10 03:52 am UTC (link)

She hadn't meant to startle him, and she flushed. She assumed that he'd notice someone standing behind him, reading over his shoulder, but she guessed she was wrong. Looking apologetic, she offered her hand.

"Buffy. Summers," she said. "And yeah, I was part of the... rescue group thing," for lack of better word. She rolled her shoulders sort of awkwardly, shifting her hands to her lower back for a bit as she shifted her weight. It had clearly been a while since she'd done this 'interacting with the general public in a way that was none - fast - food - oriented' thing.

She did have a vague sort of wondering why it was important that he learn about mythology. So he could what? But then she thought she remembered this had been the doctor that they'd been looking for, though... people were kind of blurring together. That would make more sense.

"Making any progress?" she asked, gazing over the books. "It can be a lot to take in this whole... mythical...ish whatchamacallits."

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can_swear
2010-02-10 05:24 am UTC (link)

"I ... really don't even know what I'm looking for," he admitted. "I suppose ... curiosity. Seeing if any of those things from Hell are real. Can be classified."

He exhaled. "It ... I mean, if things there are real, maybe we'll be plagued with other ... creatures from mythology." Yes, all right, it didn't make a lot of sense to him, either, and he shrugged a little. "This is just so far outside of my realm of experience, it ... makes as much sense as anything else right now. I mean, I was in hell. A place that I, up until a week ago, believed to just be a work of fiction."

Simon licked his lips. "And it wasn't. It was real. So what else do I think of as fiction is real? Where's the line?"

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likeacheeto
2010-02-11 03:44 am UTC (link)

"Probably," she said, pulling over a chair and sitting on the back of it, smiling slightly. "I mean, I used to live on a Hellmouth?" she paused - that likely needed more clarification. "It was sort of like what we had here, with a gateway to hell that hellbeasts came out of. There were some straaange things we had to fight."

She likely wasn't helping.

"But... you're adjusting okay to... Ipswich, right?" she tried carefully. "So it's just... other dimensions. Just assume that everything you ever read about everything - from fairy tales to Greek myth - is true somewhere. It really makes everything a lot easier."

She was talking too much.

"Does that... help at all?"

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can_swear
2010-02-11 05:19 am UTC (link)

"On a Hellmouth," he echoed. There was so much about this place he wanted not to believe - and so much of it was real. Dangerously real. Coma-inducing real.

Simon shook his head and sighed softly. "I ... I'm adjusting, I think, as well as can be expected," he said as he glanced over to her. "Assume everything I've ever read is real." He laughed faintly, glancing down at the books. "So kraken, leviathan, tentacle beasts, medusas ..." He normally wouldn't worry about water monsters, but there was a significant body of water fairly close by.

"Everything I've ever read could be real." He wondered, just a little, what the odds were of a ship full of reavers finding their way here, and he shuddered at the thought of it. But really, had the hell beasts been any better?

"So you ... have experience, fighting things like this?"

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likeacheeto
2010-02-14 03:29 am UTC (link)

"I've seen worse," she said with a grin. "Dragons, and giant snakes, and The First Evil," which... really hadn't been that bad for her, all things considered. It had been Angel who had bared the brunt of that encounter. "Also, the government," she said with a serious nod of her head before she broke into a grin.

"I joke, but..." she sighed. "You kind of have to, you know? My night job involves... uh. Well. Long and short I fight a lot of these things. Super powered and... all that. I guess that's kind of old hat here," she smiled wryly. "But where I come from, it's... kind of a one-woman deal."

Well, two-women, if you counted Faith, which she wasn't sure she did very often.

"I take it you... don't?" she asked. "Or just... as stories and stuff? 'Cause maybe you just haven't encountered them in your world or something." Maybe the Slayer of his time was on her game.

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can_swear
2010-02-14 03:52 am UTC (link)

"I don't," he agreed. "I thought Reavers were just stories until ... I was shown otherwise," he confessed. "Reavers, being ..." he made a gesture and hesitated, wondering how to explain. "They were people, once. But there was ... an additive to the atmosphere. A real ... real big snafu on a planet, big government secret, and ... that's what created them. Mad men who'd just as soon kill and rape and eat you as look at you."

He shuddered a little before dropping his eyes briefly back to his books. "So ... no, I've never seen anything for real."

Turning his eyes back to her, he offered her a half smile. "Your night job," he echoed a little belatedly. "So someone paid you to ... beat up monsters?"

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likeacheeto
2010-02-14 07:07 am UTC (link)

"Reavers?" her eyebrows raised, though the name gave away nothing as to what sort of creatures she'd be dealing with for that one. But her eyes widened in horror when he explained. "Oh ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. No thanks." She held up her hands defensively, as though attempting to push the offensive imagery away.

"Consider yourself lucky then. Ew. Ew. EW!" she shook herself trying to get rid of the images that way. She was imagining a whole slew of demons that would be 10 times scarier if they had raping instincts. Eewwww.

She almost missed the question, and looked back up suddenly before grinning again. "I use the term 'job'," she used air quotes and everything, "loosely. I'm not... actually employed by anyone specific? I mean, there used to be a Watcher's Council..." she waved her hand. "It's supposed to be a giant destiny sort of thing, completely with magic and all that. It sounds really unbelievable if I try to explain, but basically I'm... The Chosen One. The Slayer. She Who Hangs Out In Graveyards And Slays Vampires. That... sort of thing. Completely with the magical powers in order to do so."

She shrugged almost apologetically.

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can_swear
2010-02-14 07:26 am UTC (link)

Simon nodded. If Buffy had come to him in his own time and told him that ... he wouldn't have believed it. At all. But after some of the things he'd seen (and experienced) here ... well, he wasn't going to be so quick to doubt her claims of being a Slayer. A Chosen one. Why not?

He did grin a little at her response to his description of Reavers. "It's ... I mean, like I said ... we ... well, I didn't know any better. Not until Zoe explained ... when I was on Serenity. When we ... encountered them, on more than one occasion, even before we went to Miranda. The ... planet that they'd ... come from."

A wry smile pulled briefly at his lips before he exhaled and started to stack the books back up. Maybe he'd check some out and crash in bed with them.

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likeacheeto
2010-02-15 02:57 am UTC (link)

"Planet?" she caught on the term, frowned a bit, sort of puzzled, before clueing in. "Oh! You're one of the... future people. From like hundreds of years in the future and different planets and all that," she nodded, thinking that she'd heard something, or read something, or maybe both. She thought she might be assuming, but he was talking about planets and she knew there were a couple of space-faring individuals in Ipswich, and it fit, didn't it?

"And the doctor, right?" she asked, watching as he collected the books. "Aside from the mythical stuff, this all must seem pretty crude to you, right? Guess you're probably pretty advanced in your time."

They'd have to be, right? All teleporting to locations and stuff? She'd seen space programs and movies. Everything was all tech. She wondered if reading from books was a strange experience for him. Maybe they downloaded everything directly into the brain in his world.

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can_swear
2010-02-15 03:44 am UTC (link)

"Hundreds of years. It's the twenty sixth century where I'm from. Or ... when ... I come from. I'm not sure which ... how we're referring to it."

Simon nodded. "I am the doctor. A doctor, anyway. I ... thought there was another one here, but perhaps not. And yes, a lot of it ... there were such advances made in the five hundred years between now and then. It stands to reason, of course. Science, medicine, biology is always advancing. Even in my time. It's a field they're always pushing the edges of. And there are a few changes I'd like to implement here, but ... who's to say it won't very negatively impact the future?"

He shrugged a little, offering her a half smile. "It's not ... crude. Just different. A lot of planets have their own different sorts of legends, but since they all stemmed from basically the same place, for the most part, there're similarities. It was just nothing I ever paid much attention to. I didn't have time for fanciful things while I was preparing for med school."

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