Seymour stood by his hastily made display on Audrey 2 in the gym, wishing that he had had more time in between the science fair and school and the play and actually having to get at least some sleep each night to make it look more presentable. Audrey had saved it and him somewhat by drawing some very nice vines resembling the plant's around the papers on the board, adding some good cohesion that his work on it had completely lacked. His original plan had been to bring the plant itself along with the board, but with the days in which it would have been able to fit through the front doors of the shop long behind them, he had had to settle for just bringing the board and a leaf from one of its vines that it had allowed him to take. He had completely lied in the section about what it lived on, filling out that it lived on Miracle-Gro plant food, the brand that had sponsored the shop and gotten him to say in one of the few interviews he had been able to make time for rather than Ms. Greene kindly going in his place that Audrey 2 lived on its plant food, instead of blood. Not that it would have been a good idea to be honest about what it really lived on even without the sponsorship…
Attempting to get his mind off of his nerves about the science fair, the opening night production of Fiddler on the Roof he would be performing in after this, and the away game Audrey was currently at… not that he doubted her capabilities in volleyball, it was just that bad things had happened to her and followed her back to their school at away games in the past… he looked around at the other entries, squinting at some kind of paper mache volcano on the other side of the gym after giving up on finding any other plant-related entries until he heard a voice addressing him and swiveled around to face its source, which turned out to be Mr. Martin, his teacher that liked him the least and one of the judges. "Stop the press, hold your horses, ride 'em home to deliver this news; the amazing, miraculous, spectacular Audrey 2 is your science fair project?!" Astounded from the lack of hostility in Mr. Martin's voice as he addressed him, Seymour took a moment to respond. "...Uh, yeah, I crossed a butterwort and a Venus flytrap together and made it." Other teachers and students had heard his proclamation, seemingly purposefully crafted to project across the entire gym, and were now moving towards them even as Seymour was still answering his question about how it had grown so big… there were so many of them, he hadn't even realized there were this many people in this now small-seeming auditorium, so many eyes and questions directed at him…
He suddenly felt himself almost instinctively shift into the headspace of his beloved, much more confident than him comfort character Tevye. Even though it was a little early for him to do this, with the play not being until later that night, it still helped him to approach the crowd and their seemingly endless barrage of questions with a different style of speaking than he would normally use and far more confidence than he normally would have had access to, although Audrey had been helping him with his confidence lately. She and the budding girlfriend and boyfriend relationship they had somehow miraculously developed were the reasons he had stopped preferring Tevye's fictional and admittedly objectively even more depressing life over his own, especially as he felt less and less like the most horrible person that ever lived with her support, but in moments like these it was still nice to be able to tap into the confidence of a character with a more established place in the world, even as he was slowly but surely becoming more confident that he was finally gaining a place in the world of his own at Audrey's side. Before he knew it, he had somehow successfully made it to the portion of the science fair where everyone but the judges anxiously waited outside of the auditorium for them to decide on the winners and place their trophies at their tables, albeit with more uses of the phrase "on the other hand" than he had expected to use.
Finally, Mrs. Luce opened the doors, and Seymour eventually managed to get to his table through the swarm of people. He stared at the trophy that had been placed there in disbelief, not trusting his ability to perceive it or the text saying 1st at the top of it correctly, before eventually getting his bearings enough to grab it and the board and book it out of the gym before anyone asked him any more questions or he lost any more time in the auditorium to prepare before opening night. He felt hesitant… pride? at this actual accomplishment of his, that Mr. Mushnik had said would never happen, especially with the results of him just messing around with plants in the basement like usual, and he couldn't wait to tell Audrey about it. But first, he needed to get through the show, which surprisingly was no longer making him wish for the Earth to swallow him whole. He was nervous, sure, and he knew it was gonna get a whole lot worse for at least a little bit while he was actually on stage in front of all those people, but for once he wouldn't give anything to be anyone besides himself or Motel… even Motel didn't seem… as annoying as usual…
Although the character had grown on Seymour slightly as he had become acquainted with his actor and watched him go through some super complicated, ever shifting love triangle drama with the actors for Tzeitel and Lazar Wolf that had ironically ended with them getting together without him in the week before productions started. At least, he was pretty sure it had ended… Seymour quickly changed into costume and got his mic on, milling around awkwardly and mentally running through his blocking until Ronnette, who had essentially become their director after Mr. Mushnik had never 'come back from Czechoslovakia,' herded them together to do some warmups. After the most tense Zip Zap Zop game of his accidentally gained acting career, it was finally about time for the play to start. Seymour made his way onto the stage, fighting a surge of panic with confidence that felt like it was only partially… probably mostly… Tevye's, and then the curtains lifted, revealing the audience to him and him to the audience.
"A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no?..."