The plant was humongous, and Seymour was as pale as a ghost. "Can we stop now?" he asked it, who kept making kissing sounds at him. "No more, please?" Then the plant opened its mouth, reached down, and swallowed him whole. "Audreyyyyy!" he tried to yell, but it was too late.

Seymour Krelborne screamed, sitting up in his bed. Tears and sweat rolled down his face, and after putting on his glasses, he looked at his Audrey II that sat in the corner of the room. He had placed it there after he discovered it would only eat - get this - blood. Since he didn't know anything about the plant, he put it as far away from him as he could; there was no telling what it would do. Already, the lips on the plant seemed a little redder just from the few drops of blood Seymour had given it. It looked like it was sleeping, but he didn't believe that.

It was 8:37, half an hour after he was supposed to get up. With a sigh, Seymour pulled himself out of the not-comfort of his bed. The calendar on the wall said it was September 22nd, a day just like any other. Seymour took a deep breath in and forced himself to get ready for the upcoming day of work.

After a weary fifteen minutes, Seymour straightened his taupe sweater vest as he stared at himself in the reflection of a mirror hanging on the wall. He looked like a wreck, what with his brown hair sticking up at odd angles and his eyes wrinkled from lack of sleep. As he took a comb to his mess of hair, he heard lip-smacking noises from the corner of the room.

Not again. "This isn't going to become a habit, is it?" he asked Twoey. That was his nickname for the Audrey II, and so far, it was the best idea he had of one. "I can't keep doing this. I'll become anemic, you know. Maybe later, okay, Twoey?" Seymour said, setting down the comb and walking to the stairs. His less-than-comfortable living quarters happened to be in the basement of Mushnik's Skid Row Florist's, which he didn't particularly mind anymore. After all, he did work there, so at least it was a short commute.

He opened the basement door and looked into the sunlit shop. It was pretty bare in the small store, with dying bouquets in the display case and the checkered tile on the floor slowly staining yellow. Seymour reached into the pocket of his brown corduroy pants and pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill. It wasn't much, but it was enough to buy a cup of oatmeal at Shmendrik's. That was his daily breakfast nowadays - a cup of instant oatmeal for $3.95. Oh well, it was better than nothing.

So ten minutes later, he returned with lukewarm oatmeal in a Styrofoam cup to find he wasn't the only hungry one that had taken residence in the shop. Audrey II seemed to be louder, and even with the door to the basement closed, Seymour could still hear its voiceless begging for his blood. Every few seconds, the lip-smacking noise resonated through his ears, until finally he threw his arms in the air and screamed, "Fine, then!"

The basement door flung open, and Seymour pounded down the stairs to face the plant. "All right!" he yelled, not noticing its smug smile. "If I feed you, will you just shut up?!" Twoey then silenced, either grinning or baring its little jaws for the imminent feeding. Maybe both. Seymour then reached for the knife that sat on his dresser for no apparent reason and, with a grimace, shoved the blade into his finger. Not too hard, but hard enough that he could feel the knife cutting through his skin and into his bloodstream. He removed the knife from his fingertip and, noticing the red stains on the shiny silver blade, set it down carefully on the dresser. He watched the blood flow out of his extremity and dance along his skin until he put it in the vegetable's little mouth and let its lips close around it.

The plant hungrily slurped up the blood, sucking on the finger similar to an infant breastfeeding. Seymour began to feel lightheaded, but he kept watching it suck his finger dry. When it was a pale white, the plant let go, its teeth covered in the red stuff. It seemed to be smiling - at least it wouldn't bother him for the rest of the day. Seymour wrapped his finger in a Band-Aid and carried Twoey in its pot upstairs and into the florist's.

Mr. Mushnik had already arrived, and was hanging his coat up as Seymour stormed into the shop. "Ah, the plant's looking better today," he said, his accent thick as usual. "What was it called again?"

"A-an Audrey II," Seymour stuttered as he placed it in the windowsill. "It's called an Audrey II."

"Well, that Audrey II you've got there is gonna make us famous! That customer that came in yesterday? He has a friend in radio that got you a live interview!"

"Really?!" Seymour was stunned. He was mainly surprised that his boss had accepted the request, even though he knew of Seymour's glossophobia. "When is the interview?" Maybe he'd be able to gain enough courage by then. Or maybe he'd have too little blood to be able to turn down the situation.

"It's today, at 1:00 sharp. Over at the WQHT station." Mr. Mushnik smiled at the boy just enough to seem friendly, and not like someone that would drive people away. That happened all too often with someone like him. "I think the interview's with Mr. Tucker."

Seymour looked up from misting the ferns at the balding man that sat in the room with him. "Mr. Tucker? You mean, the one that hosts the morning broadcasts?"

"That's the one! I'm telling you, boy, this thing is going to make me-" The florist glanced at the young apprentice. "-I mean us rich!" With that, he stood up and grabbed a stack of envelopes that lay on the cash register. "Now, I'm going to mail these out. Audrey should be here any minute, and once she arrives, you can open up. Can you handle that, Seymour?"

"I-I think I can, sir," Seymour nodded, setting down the spray bottle on the counter. "It's not a very hard task, but I'll do my best, sir."

With that, Mr. Mushnik pushed out the door and walked into the mid-morning. Seymour heard his calls of 'Off the street, ya urchins!' and saw the three girls run off down the street, but everything was a blur. "Oh, Twoey," he sighed to the plant, which seemed considerably bigger than it was fifteen minutes ago. "Twoey, I don't know what to do about you. Sure, you'll bring in the customers, but all you seem to eat is blood. My blood. It's not a very healthy diet. Not for my sake, at least. I'm still not sure about you and all. Maybe we'd both be better off if I just didn't feed you."

At that, the plant turned its little head around to look at Seymour. It looked menacing, like a dog just before it starts barking. Its expression seemed to say Are you serious? Don't be messing with me. Seymour looked down at his hands, which were still full of color. Maybe he should keep feeding the plant - it wasn't like he was losing too much blood. He wasn't slitting his wrists; he would probably be okay if he kept feeding it, just for now. "Sorry," he corrected himself. "I don't know why I said that."

The door to the shop opened, and a gust of wind rustled through the flowers as Audrey rushed into the little store. "Good morning, Seymour. Is Mr. Mushnik here? Oh God, I hope he isn't. I'm late again!" Shaking off the cold, she took off her coat and hung it up on a wall hook. "The plant looks bigger today. Did you finally figure out what it eats?" Seymour thought back to the times in the past few days when he complained to her that he didn't know what Audrey II ate.

"Actually, I did," Seymour said, smiling at her. Man, she was beautiful, with her long blond hair and her big puppy-dog eyes. Her shiner was still on her face, still purple. He didn't get how someone like her could end up with someone like Orin Scrivello, the sadistic dentist that the whole town was afraid of.

Audrey beamed at her co-worker's pleasant information. "Well then, good for you! Glad to hear you finally found something. Hey, should we open for the day?"

"Sure, I guess." The florist walked to the door and flipped over the sign that said 'open' on one side and 'closed' on the other. Audrey unlocked the cash register, and Mushnik's Skid Row Florist was open for business.

Mr. Mushnik got back no more than five minutes later, clutching a few papers in his coat. "You finally cared enough to show up, Audrey," he said, taking out a roll of tape and taping one of the papers on the window next to the Audrey II advertisement. "If you keep arriving late, I'm going to have no choice but to replace you. Which reminds me..." he tapped on the piece of paper. "I'm hiring someone new to help you out in the shop. With the increase in business and all, we're going to need it." Seymour didn't necessarily agree with this reasoning, but there was no use arguing with his boss, so he just nodded and said, "Okay, Mr. Mushnik."

"Good. Now, I'm going into the back room to grab the new shipment of petunias. Let me know if anyone comes in the shop."

"We will, Mr. Mushnik," Audrey affirmed, touching the bruise under her eye and cringing. The shop owner nodded and cantered into the room behind the curtain. Almost immediately, a passer-by on the street caught Seymour's attention. He was standing outside the window, looking from the plant to the new signs that were posted, a grin on his face. He jumped up and down a couple of times before reaching for the shop door and flinging it open.

Audrey cautiously smiled at the strange man. "Hello, welcome to Mushn-"

"Yes, I read the sign. I'm the Doctor and I'm here to apply for a job." His accent was different; British, Seymour could tell. His fashion sense was odd, and this was coming from a 24-year-old who wore sweater vests. "Who do I speak to about that?"

"Mr. Mushnik's in the back," Audrey said. "He's our boss. I'll go get him." With that, she scurried into the back, leaving Seymour alone with the Doctor.

The silence was awkward, to say the least. "So what's your name?" the Doctor asked.

"I'm Seymour," Seymour said, extending his arm. "Seymour Krelborne. Do people really call you the Doctor?"

"Why wouldn't they?" the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrow - that is, if he had any eyebrows. He seemed to have none, which shocked Seymour a little.

"Just 'the Doctor'? Doctor who, exactly?"

"Yes." The Doctor nodded, and shifted his attention from Seymour to Audrey II. "That is an amazing plant! Where'd you get it from?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story," Seymour said, his conscious beginning to drift into his subconscious. He thought back to a week ago, when it all began. "See, I was walking through the wholesale flower district the other day-"

"Shoop-da-doo," the voices in his head sang. He had voices in there, just like anyone else in Skid Row. His happened to be the voices of three black women, singers that barely made it by as urchins.

"-and I came across this place where this old Chinese man was-"

"Shang-da-doo..."

"-he sometimes sells me weird and exotic cuttings-"

"Snip-da-doo..."

"-because, you see, he knows that strange plants are my hobby," he said, and the voices filled in his breath in with "Sha-ba-da-sha-ba-da-doo". Trying to recall what happened next, he stuttered a little. "H-he didn't have anything unusual there that day-"

"Nope-da-doo..."

"-so, I was just gonna walk on by-"

"Good for you..."

"-when suddenly, and without warning, there was this total eclipse of the sun!" Seymour held out his arms for emphasis, remembering the dark that occurred so abruptly. "It got very dark, and there was this strange humming sound, like something from another world." He thought of the sound, the piercing screech of a hum.

"Da-doo!" the voices serenaded once again.

"When the light came back, this weird plant was just sitting there-"

"Oopsy-doo..."

"-just stuck in, among the zinnias-"

"Audrey-two..."

"-and I could have sworn it wasn't there before, but the old Chinese man sold it to me anyway, for a dollar-ninety-five." Seymour came back into the present, his story told, and saw a look of confusion and surprise on the Doctor's face.

"That's a really interesting story," he finally said, gazing at Twoey. "There was something from another world, you say?"

"Well, I don't know, it was just an observation," Seymour said, staring at his feet. "It just kinda sounded like that."

"Hmm," the Doctor said, walking over to the plant. "Did you feed it anything?"

"Feed it?!" Seymour looked up from the counter. Should he tell this almost-stranger the truth? He'd be deemed crazy. "No, I haven't fed it. Hey, aren't you supposed to be the one answering questions?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so," the Doctor said, leaning over the vegetable. "What's it called, by the way?"

"It's an Audrey II. That's what I named it."

"You named it?"

"Yeah. I couldn't find it in any of my plant catalogs, so I gave it my own name."

"Audrey must be a very special girl, then," the man murmured, his face so close to the plant that Seymour was surprised Twoey hadn't tried to bite off his face yet. "A special girl, indeed."

Speaking of Audrey, where did she go to? "Be back in a minute. Don't get too close to the plant." He felt weary about leaving this stranger alone in the shop, but he had to find out where Audrey and Mr. Mushnik went.

However, it didn't take too long for Seymour to find the two, because he turned around and immediately found himself colliding with a flat of purple petunias, which went crashing to the ground. Dirt and flowers flew all over the tile, and Seymour guiltily glanced at Mr. Mushnik before dropping to his knees to pick up the mess. "Sorry, Mr. Mushnik, sir," he gasped, pushing the dirt into a pile before sweeping it all into his sweater vest. Looks like he'd have to wash it again.

"Seymour!" the shop owner yelled. "This is valuable merchandise that you wasted!"

Audrey, however, got down on the floor and helped Seymour pick up the flowers that had skidded across the floor. "Don't yell at Seymour, Mr. Mushnik! It wasn't his fault!"

"Ah, whatever," the bitter man said, setting down the flat on the counter. "Now, what is it you wanted to show me, Audrey?"

Without abandoning her job, Audrey pointed to the Doctor, who was in the corner of the room. "There's someone here for a job interview."

Mr. Mushnik looked up at the man who was in the corner, and immediately felt embarrassed. "Oh, I'm sorry you had to see that," he said, beckoning the Doctor closer. "I own this place, and sometimes even I'm afraid to be seen in it. So, how's about that interview?"

"Okay," Seymour heard the man say. "Is there a special interview room or...?" The Doctor sure had high standards. The back room was unusable; it was hard enough to find anything in there already. "Sure," Mr. Mushnik said anyway, surprising both of his workers. "It's right downstairs. I'm sure Seymour doesn't mind."

"Actually, I do!" Seymour called, but by that time, his boss was already leading the Doctor into his employee's living quarters. "I do mind!"

Audrey patted him on the shoulder as they both stood up. "Don't worry, Seymour. I bet your room isn't too messy."

That wasn't what Seymour was worried about, however. He was worried about the knife he had left on the dresser, stained with blood. The Doctor seemed like an observer. He could probably put two and two together.

"Seymour, are you okay?" Audrey asked, snapping the florist back into the present. "You don't look so good."

"No, I'm fine," he replied, dumping the pile of soil and petunias into the trash can. "I'm fine, don't worry."

Audrey seemed to shrug it off, even though on the inside she was worrying about him. As the two were in silence once again, a customer entered the shop. "I'll take care of it," Audrey murmured before turning to the woman and welcoming her to the store. Seymour brushed the remaining dirt off his sweater vest, and realized that he should probably change it. After all, the interview was only three hours away, and he didn't want to look like too much of a wreck. Before I change, I should probably change Twoey's pot. Don't want it to outgrow that thing. He walked over to the plant, picked it up, and carried it into the back by its pot.

Seymour pulled the curtain shut behind himself, and reached for a bigger pot from a high shelf. "Look, see?" he whispered to the vegetable, which began to snap wildly at him. "More room to grow. You get to come with me to the interview, but no biting anyone, okay? I don't want to get in trouble because you but some lady's ass off or something." Preparing to be bitten, he lifted the plant out of the smaller pot and placed it in the bigger one. He poured the dirt into the pot with Twoey, and added some more potting soil for good measure. Keeping an eye on the plant, Seymour reached for the watering can. "This is serious, Twoey. My life is beginning now. I don't want you screwing things up. Got it?"

The plant nodded, which Seymour took as a 'yes'. "Good, then. Here, have some water." He tipped the can ever so slightly so the water poured out onto the not-so-little Twoey. The water was being sucked in as soon as it hit the ground, which meant that the thing was thirsty. Most likely hungry, too. But Seymour wasn't ready to feed it yet. Maybe he would tonight, but not now. With a grunt, he picked up the bigger pot with Twoey in it and lugged the whole thing back into the main shop.

As he adjusted the surrounding plants in the display to fit Audrey II's new pot, Mr. Mushnik and the man came back up the stairs. "Seymour, Audrey? I need to talk to you two for a moment," the owner of the florist's said to the two employees. Audrey excused herself from helping the customer decide between daisies and foxgloves and walked over to him. Seymour put down a fern and met the three others by the cash register. "Guys, this is your new coworker. He's called the Doctor. I expect you to show him the ropes, Seymour, and teach him what he needs to know."

The Doctor beamed at them, but Seymour was feeling angered. "Wait, why me?" he asked.

"You've been with me longest, and I trust you with this. Don't let me down, okay?" Mr. Mushnik had an expression on his face like he didn't want to deal with any questions.

"I-I won't, sir," Seymour replied. First the fight between him and Audrey's boyfriend, then Twoey and the whole blood thing, and now a person to train. Great. Just great.

A/N

And the worlds collide! So sorry I haven't updated, but with our new play of the year and end-of-semester tests approaching, I haven't had much time. I have plenty more ideas for how to move the story forward, but maybe you guys have some more ideas? I would really appreciate them. So if I see you... people again before Christmas break, I'll see you soon, and if I don't, Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Hooray for Winter Solstice! Happy whatever winter holiday you celebrate! See you guys soon!

-C.A.T.