sciencesaggressively | (no subject)

"No rush," Coop said, sidling in and taking a look around. "I'm sure there's something interesting and top secret I can find in here to get into."

He didn't make any attempt to go looking for anything though the urge was there. He was a thief through and through and while nothing in here was pinging him as magical, that didn't mean there wasn't something valuable around here.

"Whatcha working on?" Coop asked, walking over and peering at some of Newt's work.

"The usual," Newt answers, waving vaguely at the samples he has out that need to be put away and mounds of research that are scattered over various desks. His research assistants drive themselves crazy trying to organize for him but Newt has to say, they really don't do a very good job at it. Never mind the fact that he comes in and ruins their efforts every day, that's not the point. "Tissue engineering and what not. Got a doctor over at the hospital who's looking to start a clinical trial soon, we're helping her out with some of the research."

He says it like it's no big deal, which he supposes it comparatively isn't, considering he'd once saved the world from kaijus; but it's still super cool, even if most of his friends might not actively realize it quite yet.

"Not really top secret, though, sorry to say. I'm just wrapping up, though, so you won't have to wait on me for very long."

"Tissue engineering," Coop repeated, eyes comically wide. "See, to me that would mean taking a tissue and building a paper airplane out of it not what I assume you're doing. Good on you for being super smart and all but also thank god you're super smart because letting me do something like this would mean death for us all."

He peered at some of the work around the lab idly, not really understanding what he was seeing and but interested nonetheless even if it wasn't something he'd ever think about stealing.

"But good to know you're around if I ever do need some...engineered tissue put in my body," Coop joked. "At least I'll trust the person behind the work."

"That'd be one shitty paper airplane, dude," Newt says, glancing over his shoulder with a lifted brow, though he's amused because he actually can picture Coop trying to make one. He can even see multiple attempts being made, which would provide at least five minutes of solid entertainment so Newt thinks that at some point, he should put his friend to work on that.

"Hey, you never know," he answers, locking away some samples that he'd been making notes on earlier. "I mean, let's hope it never comes to that, but you'd be in pretty good hands."

It doesn't take much longer to put away everything that absolutely needs to be put away. The lab is still a little bit of a mess but it's fine, nothing that won't be taken care of tomorrow. Not by him, probably, but that's neither here nor there.

"Okay, you ready to do this? Because I'm thirsty as hell, plus I starved myself a little because I want to eat about five trillion wings at the bar."

"Ready and willing to drink my weight in bourbon and mix it with something spicy so I have unbelievably bad heartburn and a killer hangover."

When said out loud, it didn't sound particularly enticing but Coop could ignore that for the moment. He knew the journey to feeling like shit would be the fun part. Tomorrow morning he'd worry about the hangover and any potential wing induced nausea. When that happened, he'd bury himself underneath his blankets and live like a mole for a few hours until he felt better.

"You buy the first round," Coop told him, already heading for the door. "It's only right for making me wait such a long time for you to be finished with your smart people work."

"Wait, what?" Newt gapes at his friend, slipping past Coop as the door to the lab slides closed behind them. He turns on his heels, walking backwards toward the elevator so he can fix Coop with a hard glare. "Wasn't the whole point of this to make up for your evil twin putting me in jail? Now I'm buyin' first? That's rich, my friend, a real bold demand to make."

Frankly, he has no problem whatsoever buying the first round or any round after that. Newt's not exactly nickel and diming it, he hasn't been for the majority of his time in Darrow, but that's hardly the point. Besides, it would make all this a hell of a lot less entertaining if he resisted the urge to give Coop a hard time.

"Haven't I made up for that yet?" Coop asked, pulling a face and shaking his head. "That was like years ago, man! Besides, jail might have been a good thing. It could have hardened you and made you a stone cold killer."

Newt was not a stone cold killer of anything but bugs, maybe, but it was as good an argument as any.

"I don't think you can keep using that whole thing against me," Coop told him, wagging a finger at him. "That wasn't even me, remember!"

"You're the one who said you wanted to make up for it," Newt points out. "I was happy to let it go but nope, you insisted."

That's how he chooses to remember it, anyway. Maybe Newt still bitches about it every now and again, but it's just for shits and giggles. Plus, it's kind of funny to listen to Coop defend himself over something that obviously wasn't his fault. Not that Newt won't take advantage of this situation in general, free drinks are always desirable.

"And I'll stop using it against you once I get my drink on," he adds as they reach the end of the hall. He glances over at Coop with a shit-eating grin then taps the elevator button. "Cross my heart."

"This once, I will take the gesture of crossing your heart in good faith and believe you. I'll buy you some drinks tonight, enough to make you fall on your face and slobber all over your wife and then we'll be even."

Hopefully the other him didn't show up again and try to arrest more people. Coop's budget wasn't terribly small but he knew he'd end up broke if he had to keep making up his doppelganger's actions to other people.

"What're the jails like here anyway?" Coop asked him. "Did you have a smelly cellmate?"

"I slobber all over my wife even when I'm not shitfaced," Newt says cheerfully, "she totally loves it."

The elevator doors close, and Newt leans back against the wall as they start to descend. He wrinkles his nose at the question about jail and shrugs his shoulder.

"I mean, it technically wasn't here here but I've also been in jail here here and it was pretty much the same. Boring, kinda quiet, nobody as awesome as me there to keep me entertained. No smelly cellmates, though, which I guess was nice. Actually, dude was pretty goddamn hot, and he knew you. This you, I mean. Phil? Philip? One of those. He looks like my friend's kind of ex, actually, except without a lumberjack beard."

"Philip and yeah, the other version of me arrested him too," Coop said, shaking his head. "I can't even remember why. Maybe he looked at the other guy wrong or tried to flirt with him or something. It was a bunch of shit arrests that I can't actually believe his bosses let stand."

After the fact, that had been Coop's biggest mystery. Why had the other version of him gotten away with dumb arrests so easily? Wasn't there anyone to stop him from abusing his power?

"Guy I was in prison with was a literal swamp monster," Coop told him, making a face. "Not lying."

"I'd trade you," Newt tells him sincerely.

A swamp monster over the Irish guy who looks like Mindy's kind-of-ex? No contest.

He's ready to go on a verbal rampage over the whole jail situation because as Kate well knows by now, too, he's got a lot left to say on the matter but then the elevator jolts to a stop. Newt nearly stumbles right into Coop, his hands flying to rail behind him to steady himself, and he lets out an irritated groan as the lights flicker a couple times then... nothing.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he shouts, throwing his hands up in the air. It seems pointless to hang on if they're not going anywhere anymore. "One drink. Okay, several drinks, that's all I ask. What did we even do to deserve this?"

Coop had a diatribe ready to go on why Newt did not want to be anywhere near Rodney when he lurched forward, throwing a hand up against the wall to brace himself and five seconds from crouching down an rolling into a ball.

"Is it an earthquake?" he asked, far too familiar with those from having lived in Los Angeles for so long. But, that question is answered quickly when Coop realized there was no more shaking.

In fact, there was no movement at all which meant...

"Oh, fuck no," Coop said, pounding on the wall and cursing. "Is this elevator really stuck? That happens? That happens in this weird ass magical city?"

"It's never happened before!"

Which is not a helpful thing to say at all, Newt realizes, but he's starting to freak out a little. A few jabs to the emergency call button gets him absolutely nothing but a static buzzing in return. It's not like he's claustrophobic or anything but goddamn it, he's thirsty. And ridiculously hungry.

"Dude, this frickin' sucks! Like, seriously? Why us?" He pauses, pacing a couple steps front and back then spins on his heels, holding a finger out at Coop. "First thing's first. You got anything to eat on you? Granola bar or something?"

"Uh." Coop stopped his pounding on the walls to pat his pockets, trying to figure out if he'd stuffed something in there on his way out the door. His wallet, phone and keys were all there but he couldn't feel anything else.

He tried the back pockets of his jeans and came out with a mint. He wasn't sure how long it'd been there but he offered it to Newt anyway.

"That's all I got, man. I wasn't exactly planning to be camping out in a fucking elevator," he admitted, jumping up and down to try and coax the elevator to get its ass moving. "Aren't there like...security guards that can come get us?"

"Well, yeah, we're the biggest freakin' lab in the ctiy, there's definitely security guards," Newt snaps, gesturing wildly at the elevator buttons. "If this thing would just work we could actually, y'know, call out to one of them."

He snatches the mint anyway, scowling at Coop before tearing open the candy and popping it into his mouth. Taking a breath, Newt squeezes his eyes shut, just to look for a moment of zen so he doesn't end up doing anything he might regret. Like resorting to cannibalism or some shit. He and Kate had come across a close call at that timeshare presentation but now that they're in this position, Newt thinks he has some serious things that might need consideration if they can't get out of this quick. Because he's starving and a mint isn't going to last him very long.

"Can you get reception?" he asks, pulling his own phone out and tapping at it. "No service on mine. Fucking awesome, dude."

"Hey, you could say thank you, that's the only food we had!" Coop told him, scowling in Newt's direction. He hoped they weren't going to be stuck here long enough that he'd be regretting giving that to Newt. He didn't want to have a discussion of who ate who first.

Coop watched Newt bang around the elevator before he ripped his phone out of his pocket and woke it up. There was one tiny sliver of bar so he tried to dial out and got nothing. He tried to text and it failed. He tried to open up an app to order pizza and it didn't work.

"Goddammit, fuck," Coop snapped, sighing. "Should we try screaming?"

"Don't call it food," Newt snaps, "it was a mint, dude. A mint isn't food."

He bites down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying anything he can't take back while stuck on an elevator with someone, closing his eyes as he takes in a deep, zen breath that doesn't help even at all.

"Screaming won't do us any good," he says, "everyone on the floors above and below me are always gone by like, five, so there won't be anyone there to hear us. At some point, the security guards are going to have to notice that one of the elevators aren't working, though, right?" Not necessarily, but he chooses not to go down that road. "Or... I don't know, maybe we can jump until we freefall. What's the worst that could happen?"

"It was more than you had, jackass," Coop retorted, surprisingly defensive over his mint. He'd even been nice and given it to Newt when he could have eaten it himself and had minty fresh breath while being stuck in an elevator, contemplating throwing a tantrum.

He reached for the seam in the doors, trying to yank it open though he didn't know what good it would do. If they were between floors, all they'd see is wall. It was just as well that his puny arms didn't even budge the thing.

"The worst that could happen is that we both end up pancakes on the floor of this place," Coop pointed out. " I don't know about you but I'd like to keep my organs inside my body today."

Newt turns to glare at Coop, ready to snap right back, but he holds his hands out in front of him instead, almost in mock surrender. "Okay, dude, we're both being super bitchy right now and need to find some chill," he says, eyes still wild and wide behind his glasses. "You know I'm not exactly the best voice of reason for like, anything at all, but if we don't calm the hell down, we might just end up plummeting to our deaths anyway because we'll be trying to beat the shit out of each other."

They're actually not that far up, but Coop's right. It still wouldn't be fun, going for the kind of ride down the elevator shouldn't be giving them.

"Let's just, y'know..." He trails off, dropping his hands back down to his sides and slumping with a petulant huff against the wall of the elevator. "I don't know, just fucking wait for someone to notice, I guess."

Coop tried to stay mad, he tried to keep glaring at Newt but he was never that good at being angry in the first place. His anger dissolved quickly and he deflated, leaning back against the wall and smacking at it with his fist.

"That sounds like the safest plan but I have a question," Coop said, peering up at the top of the elevator. "Are your security guards observant? They're not the type to be sitting at their stations, eating donuts and drinking coffee while we slowly rot away in this tiny room of horrors, are they?"

Coop really didn't want to be in this elevator long enough that they started discussing who was going to eat who first.

They're not so Newt just shrugs a shoulder, which probably says enough in itself.

Eventually, there might be others who've stuck around to work late who might point out one of the elevators is broken but who the hell knows when that'll happen? It might not even work out like that until tomorrow, and Newt is hungry now.

"You're not claustrophobic, are you?" he asks, wrinkling his nose. "Because I'm really not good at like, comforting people, y'know?"

"You did not answer my question which pretty much answer my question," Coop said, groaning and shaking his head. "We're gonna die in here, aren't we?"

He didn't want that! Maybe while he'd been stuck in Surf City, he'd considered that as a way out but now, he didn't want it to happen. He had plans in this city and people he liked and dying in an elevator just seemed lame and dumb and sad.

"I expect at least a hug if I start crying," Coop told him, sliding down to sit on his ass on the floor of the elevator. "Fake it if you have to but I expect a hug."

"We're not going to die, dude!"

They might die. They might kill each other. They're both a little high strung right now, is all, and Newt's trying to keep his chill but it's really hard when Coop says shit like they're going to die. If either of them is going to die, it should be Coop. Newt's the one with a wife and like, several pets.

"And you're not getting a hug. Maybe a pat on the back, that's my best offer, take it or leave it."

"You don't know that! We could die if your security guards are inept enough to leave us in here until we starve to death or something," Coop argued, feeling the urge to just lay down on the floor and have a good tantrum.

"But your wife would notice you gone, right? If you didn't come home for dinner, she'd realize something was wrong and come find you? Or is she the type to just let things flow and you'll be back when you're back so might as well drink some wine and go to bed?"

Coop really hoped she was the former. He knew he was going to die one day but he didn't want to die in an elevator with Newt.

"She thinks I'm going out with you!" Newt points out hysterically.

Yeah, Kate would notice eventually, like if he didn't come back home tonight; but who the hell knows how far into the night it would be before she started to think something might be wrong and already, Newt feels guilty about worrying her.

"Christ. Okay. Let's try the emergency thing again, maybe they were doing rounds or some shit, I don't know."

Do the security guards here even do rounds? Newt vows to pay more attention in case this every happens again. For now, he jabs at the call button. Once, twice, three times, and it seems pretty hopeless until an irritated voice finally answers, "Hello?"

"Does she think we're having a sleepover! She'd have to notice eventually!" Coop retorted, waving his hands around. He didn't know Newt's wife super well but he had to believe that she didn't just let her husband go out and stay out all night with any guy. And while Coop liked Newt, he probably wouldn't drag him back to his apartment and let him sleep on his couch. He'd just call him a cab.

He paced as much as he could in the small space, head jerking around when he heard a voice that wasn't Coop or Newt's. "Did someone answer? Hey! Hey you! Get off your ass and come save us! For Christ's sake, do your job!"

Coop's lucky someone had answered the emergency call because Newt had so been ready to put him through a very long tirade about how Kate isn't insecure enough to be kept awake at night wondering where he is. If he and Coop had managed to get out of here as planned and Newt hadn't made it home until past midnight, he's pretty sure he would've just gotten home to a sleeping wife.

It doesn't matter anymore, though, because they're saved. They're totally saved.

"Dude!" Newt kneels down on the floor of the elevator, his mouth way too close to the speaker. "We're in the elevator, it's stuck! I know the other guy's being kind of a dick about it--" He pauses to scowl at Coop. "--But I swear, we will be the actual most grateful guys in the world if you get us out of here like, yesterday!"

There's a way too long sigh from the other end of the speaker but Newt can hear shuffling, and it's the most satisfying thing he's heard since the voice had spoken in the first place. "Okay, fine. Which elevator are you on?"

"I don't know, the stuck one."

Another sigh. "Give us like, ten minutes. We're on our way."

"Don't call me a dick, dick," Coop said once Newt had finished talking on the phone. From the one side of the conversation he heard, it sounded like they were going to be rescued but now Coop was going to worry that whoever was coming wasn't going to be able to fix whatever was wrong.

"Someone's coming, right?" he asked, running his hands through his hair and looking up hopefully at the ceiling. "Are they certified elevator technicians? Please tell me they're gonna know what they're doing and aren't going to stand outside the elevator and stare at it like I do when one of my appliances break. I know that's not helpful but no one's ever trapped inside my damn toaster!"

"You can't tell me not to call you a dick when you just called me a dick, you freakin' dick!"

It's a pointless argument, but Newt's had plenty of those and he excels at keeping them going so really, if anyone's going to lose here, it's totally going to be Coop. The nice thing to come out of all this is to know that they're pretty much on each other's level when it comes to how hard they freak out getting stuck in elevators.

"I'm pretty sure the security dudes aren't really certified anything," Newt admits. "Like mall cops, y'know? They'll probably just pry the doors open and get us out that way." He hopes, anyway. "I'm going first, for the record."

"You called me a dick first, you dick!" Coop retorted, not willing to be the one to admit that this was a dumb stupid argument that no one was going to win. If Newt was going to call him a dick, Coop was going to return the favor and he'd do it until he was blue in the face.

"What if we're stuck between floors, smart guy?" Coop asked him, crossing his arms and fixing Newt with a look. "They can pry the doors open and what if there's only like half a space to crawl through? Are you going to go first and wiggle yourself out and then help me out, which would be the gentlemanly thing to do?"

"Okay but if you call me dick for calling you a dick then don't you think that by default, that also makes you a dick because you also called me a dick? Dick."

They're going to throttle each other if they don't get out of here soon, Newt's pretty goddamn sure of that. He does wonder, though, if they'll be able to get over it quickly enough to still go out to the bar because ultimately, his biggest problem is still that he's hungry as all hell.

"And who ever said I was a gentlemen? I mean, I know I fixed your phone for you that one time, I guess that was pretty gentlemanly... but sorry, dude, if I get a chance to shimmy out of here, it'll be the one time being a little on the shorter side will give me an advantage. Like, okay, I'll stick around if they tell me it'll only take another ten minutes to get you out or something but I have to say, if it's more than an hour? I'm going to bail. Not even in a rude way, I'm just starving, y'know? If it makes you feel better, I'd bring you back a burger or something."

"You were the one to originally call me a dick and I had to, in my defense, retaliate and return the favor. Therefore, you calling me a dick was premeditated and calculated. Me calling you a dick was self defense and thus means I am not a dick but a man who has to defend himself."

Coop had gotten a little lost in that explanation so he just hoped it made some sort of sense. Whatever, Newt was still a dick.

"You fixed my phone and I gave you the mint in my pocket that you took without even asking," he pointed out. "We're even. I'm not going to fight you to get out first but if you call to your bloody death down the elevator shaft, I will tell your corpse 'I told you so.'"

"If I fall to my death, it'll be preferable to standing here listening to you right now," Newt shoots back. "P.S., you're a dick. No, but hey, we're still getting drinks after this, right? Because that mint actually made me really thirsty, even thirstier than I already was, I'm going to need about eighteen beers just to rid myself of the trauma this experience has brought me."

Once they get out of this, they'll be able to laugh about it. Maybe. Probably. Could take a few months. But still, as bitchy as they're being with each other right now--all of which can be chalked up to pure, uninhibited hunger so Newt isn't even mad--there aren't very many other people he thinks he could stand being stuck in an elevator with without straight up murdering their asses.

"Y'know, you're lucky it was me," Newt says. "There's a guy a few floors up who like, always smells like formaldehyde and B.O. so I think as far as elevator co-inmates go, you hit the jackpot."

"I'm gonna need about three damn drinks minimum after this," Coop said decisively. Newt was still a dick but Coop had had drinks with worse people and they'd gone through a traumatic experience together so they deserved to drink until they couldn't see straight.

"Oh please, smells don't bother me. I spent nearly two years sharing a prison cell with a guy who was a literal swamp thing," Coop said, thinking of Rodney. "I can handle a little stink. Everyone stinks when you're in prison so your sense of smell dulls just so you can survive your sentence. Guys who are in their for life can't tell the difference between smelling great food or some guy's dirty socks."

He's heard about Swampy before, but Newt still doesn't think that would make any future shared, small spaces with smelly dudes any more tolerable. Whatever, though, if Coop can't appreciate how good Newt smells, that's his problem. He's about to say as much when there's a clanging from the other side of the elevator doors, and Newt's eyes brighten.

"Salvation!" He claps a hand down on Coop's shoulder then takes the couple steps forward to pound on the door. "Hey, get us out of here, man!"

"Can you wait one damn minute?" comes the response. The guy sounds grumpier than the one on the speaker, and Newt's pretty sure is Frank. Goddamn Frank. "We're workin' on it, we got a crowbar and everything."

"Oh, a crowbar!" Coop called from behind Newt. He thought about shoving Newt aside and fighting him to be the first one out but that seemed like it might jostle the elevator or just cause the guys trying to help them to walk away so he waited patiently.

Somewhat patiently.

"I'm so relieved," he continued, shaking his head and tapping one hand against the elevator wall. "Glad we got the experts here after like an hour or calling! My heroes!"

Newt glares at Coop from over his shoulder, kicking a foot back, though he doesn't actually make any contact. "Dude, shut up, don't piss them off!" Lowering his voice, he adds, more urgently, "If it's Frank out there like I think it is, he might actually leave us in here just to spite me."

"It is Frank, and I still heard that."

With a heavy sigh, Newt closes his eyes and drops his head, fist clenched as he pounds it against the elevator door. "I rue the day you were hired, Frank!"

"I've been working here for twenty years, Geiszler, keep your mouth shut!"

"That's literally impossible because Darrow isn't twenty years old but keep lying to yourself, buddy!" He looks back at Coop, exasperated. "He hates me because he doesn't like it when I point out all the discrepancies about the city. I mean, most of the 'natives' here don't like that, but Frank's an old geezer and gets especially pissy."

"Swear to god, Geiszler, I'll leave you and your little friend in there to rot!"

The words don't have the same bite to it that they could have, if only because the doors creak open then, the first bit of new, glorious hallway light starting to shine through.

"Don't kick me, you dick!" Coop said, falling back on an old friend because he couldn't think of anything else witty to say. He just wanted to get out of this elevator and drink until he couldn't feel his toes.

"You leave me in here to rot, you'll have to explain that to my wife and one year old kid!" Coop lied because it wasn't like Frank knew he had nothing but a plant and a few stolen items at home. If he wanted to be a jerk, Coop was going to make him feel like a jerk.

"He loves his daddy and you taking that away would scar him for life," Coop added, muttering several thankful curses when he saw light and the decor of Newt's building beyond that. "Hurry up so I can go home to my kid, man!"

Before Newt can even say anything, mostly because he's glaring at Coop out of pure exasperation--this must me how Chuck feels when they hang out--the elevator doors pry open and there it is. Freedom.

Freedom and Frank, whose ugly mug is staring at them both expectantly, like he wants to be paid extra for doing his job or something.

"He doesn't have a kid," Newt says quickly, stepping out of the elevator, which had totally and conveniently landed right at the level of what he recognizes to be the third floor. "Thanks, bud, we'll just get right out of your hair. Maybe take the steps this time, am I right?"

He grasps for Coop's sleeve then, tugging hard and giving his friend a little shove toward the staircase with Frank's raspy voice calling after them, "You're a real prick, Geiszler."

Not untrue, but that doesn't mean he has to stick around to be verbally abused. Even real pricks have feelings.