sciencesaggressively | *bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do~ plays distantly in the background*

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kate

bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do~ plays distantly in the background

It had started out innocently enough, just a casual conversation with Kate on the topic of the envelope mystery. It's when she'd brought up the idea of getting ahold of the security footage that they'd both stared at each other, clearly coming to the silent agreement that they need to get ahold of the security footage. It doesn't take long for both of them to get changed--all black, of course, because that's what the movies always say is best--and rendezvous at the train station at 1800 hours during a convenient switching of the shifts at the information booth.

Newt tries to look cool, leaning against the wall nearest the empty booth as a few people pass him by--and he finds it kind of weird that they seem to be noticing him more than usual, or maybe he's just being paranoid. The door to the security room is just around the corner and the station is emptying out, so it's pretty much now or never. Well, never until the next shift change, whatever. He peers around the corner, failing to notice Kate coming up behind him, so when she taps him on the shoulder he can't stop the yelp that escapes from his throat, and he really wishes he'd bought that ski mask he'd seen at the store because his cheeks are awfully red right now.

"I thought you were the fuzz," he says even as his eyes crinkle from a wide smile and he leans over for a kiss. "I think we're in good shape to do this, you ready?"

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He grins and holds his hands up in mock surrender before rubbing at the spot she'd elbowed, giving her his best pained look. "Just checking! Shoshana, the psychiatrist, right? Jesus, I'm curious what she would have said about me, wonder if it would match up to what other idiots have tried to say." Ooh, he wishes he hadn't said that because it makes it sound like he's had people shoving diagnoses down his throat for ages but maybe she hadn't caught it. "Very cool, with the painting and sculptures, though. You're not big on the art thing, then? I was so going to ask you to design my next tattoo, what a bummer."

A bell rings when the door to the shop opens, and he pokes at a rusty-looking copper sculpture of an ostrich that greets them in the threshold. "Wait, what? Wow, that's all kinds of messed up, your poor mom." He picks up a delightfully ugly lamp with a six-inch tall owl at the base except covered in fake feathers and with two giant yellow eyes above its beak. "Are your artsy senses tingling? Would your mom approve?"

Edited 2013-10-31 04:22 (UTC)

"Yeah?" Kate asks as she pokes around on some shelves. She loves this place, mostly because she's never sure what she'll find in here and she knows they're looking for something specific right now, but she can't help it. "What have other idiots said?" Maybe it's completely not her business, but he'd brought it up, and it's not like whatever he has to say will be any worse than what she's dealt with basically her whole life and if he doesn't want to tell her, he can just not tell her. She's okay with that, at least for the time being.

She laughs at the lamp, then shakes her head, reaching out to touch the feathers. "No way," she says. "Definitely not for you." She's not sure who might want that in their apartment, but as much as she likes weird, tacky stuff, she's not sold on the owl lamp for Newt's place and definitely not for hers either.

Instead, she picks up a framed picture of a little Victorian girl with a basket of flowers that looks like it's about a million years old. "God, this is terrible, too. There's a lot of really bad stuff here today." Which is really part of why she loves it so much.

Oh, well, of course she'd caught it. Newt supposes he should have known better than to hope she wouldn't, but it's not like the psych asshats at the PPDC had ever been successful in smacking a legitimate diagnosis on him, so he figures he might as well share. "Okay, so... When I got recruited to the PPDC, I had to take a psych eval, right? Whatever, fine, I already told you that I hate psychiatrists, but this team, I don't know. I think I pissed the guy in charge off or something because every time another eval came up, they tried to say I was manic-depressive, which I'm so not, okay? I'm a little hyperactive sometimes and I talk a lot and I don't sleep for days when there's stuff to get done sometimes but that doesn't make a person manic. You don't slap a label like 'manic-depressive' on someone just because a few signs are there."

He takes a deep breath, realizing that he's gone into ranting territory and picks up a dusty pair of binoculars only to put them right back down. "Anyway, they never made it past saying I was just borderline manic, so whatever. It's a thing and now you know it, not even a big deal, right?" He'd never thought so, had never sought help or anything like they'd suggested because he hadn't needed it, but he's also used to people trying to drive-by diagnose him that who don't even come close to having a psych degree. Which is totally a bullshit degree anyway. He doesn't think Kate will do that, but the fact that it's out there now is giving him just a little bit of anxiety so he gives her a big smile before zeroing in on a vintage music box.

"How 'bout I get this and then I can hang that flower girl on my wall. Maybe get some cracked porcelain dolls. Creepy enough to make the girl crawling out of the TV right at home."

"Don't you have to have like, depressive episodes to be considered manic-depressive?" she asks, still moving things off shelves, looking at some of the pictures. He does have a lot of energy and he does talk a lot, but so does she on both counts and no one has ever called her manic-depressive, although she's sure it's probably one of the many things Shoshana has secretly slapped on her. "I mean, my knowledge of mental illness pretty much begins and ends with DID, but still."

She turns when he looks at the music box and crosses to where he's standing. For a second, she looks at it, nose wrinkled, then shakes her head before she leans into him and presses a kiss to his cheek. "Hey, I don't care," she says. "I mean, I care about the music box and the porcelain dolls, because that shit is creepy and I'll never come over again if you do that, but I don't care about all the other stuff. My mom was split into at least four other people my whole life, so..." She trails off and shrugs. "I like you, whatever a team of douchey psychiatrists have said, but seriously, no creepy dolls, that's where I draw the line."

He turns back away from her, narrowing his eyes but pretending to be very interested in a dusty old globe. He's momentarily distracted when he wonders where on this globe Darrow would fall, if it would even fall on it at all. Oh, but right, manic bullshit and all that. He remembers hacking into the PPDC system to see his file, remembers seeing the long list of reasons why he'd been marked as "borderline," whatever that even means: displays signs of grandiose notions, increased talking speed and volume, inappropriate social behavior (which Newt is still convinced had been referring to his invested interest in the kaiju), inappropriate irritability, increased energy, poor judgment, severe insomnia... Hermann had caught him peeking and had shrugged like he'd agreed, and that had set Newt off all over again.

"I mean, yeah, so sometimes after a nasty fight with my lab partner or like, a rough meeting with my boss, I'd get into a little bit of a funk, but it wasn't depression." He's feeling tense now, and it's not because of her, he doesn't mind talking about it with her. Not that there's anything to talk about because he rejects the idea that he's borderline anything but awesome, but whatever. Then she's kissing him on the cheek and telling him she doesn't care, like none of it matters, and the tension's leaving his shoulders because she likes him and that's what matters.

"No dolls. No music box. Roger that." He points at a set of bongos and holy shit, what are the odds that this place has bongos? Stoked. "That's a solid yes, though. If you're not good with those, ooh, I don't even know how this is going to work." He winks, nudging her with his elbow. "Thanks, though. Really."

She shrugs and smiles, because it really isn't a big deal, as far as she's concerned. She doesn't have a whole lot of faith in the mental health industry as a whole, having watched it fail her mother time and time again, but even if they're all completely right about him, it doesn't make a difference to her. There aren't many people in this world Kate will admit to admiring, but her father's right at the top of that list and if there's anything she's learned from him it's that sometimes things are worth sticking with. She misses Max suddenly, kind of painfully, and turns her attention back to one of the shelves.

"Hey, as long as I don't catch you playing them naked, they're cool with me," she says with a laugh, beginning to look through a stack of old, framed posters. "Because I'm pretty sure even famous people get arrested for that sort of- wow, okay, this is cool," she says, cutting herself off as she pulls an old Godzilla poster out from behind the others. She turns, showing it to Newt, having almost completely forgotten they're here to find a VCR. "I mean, he's not your monster, but if you don't want this, I'm taking it." It's in great condition, which is impressive, and she's not even sure how old it must be.

He's ready to forgot this part of the conversation ever happened, not that he regrets saying anything, but now that it's out there, he figures it never really has to be ever again. He doesn't know why he hates talking about it so much, maybe he's just afraid that one day he'll start to think that it's kind of true. But not today, not here in this shop with Kate because this is a happy place right now.

"Ooh, I definitely can't promise I won't be playing them naked, isn't that kind of just like, standard when it comes to bongos?" He's examining a super cool tin lunchbox with Spider-Man and remembering that Spider-Man lives in their goddamn building when he glances over to see the-- holy shit, the awesome as all hell Godzilla poster she's holding up. He discards the lunchbox and holds his arms out for the poster like it's a newborn baby, eyes wide and jaw dropped. "Oh my god, this is like... This is original 50s Godzilla, this is awesome." No, it's not his monster, but he'd been a huge fan of all sorts of kaiju movies since childhoold. Godzilla and Mothra, even King Kong vs. Godzilla, all of it. "I might cry."

"Quite the date, huh? We broke into a locked room, stole a video tape, got our dumb asses caught, and then I made you cry," she says, looking amused as she hands over the poster. It's just something she found in a pawn shop, not even something she got him as a gift and there's no reason for her to feel as weirdly proud as she does, but he just looks so happy. "But this has been a pretty freaking lucrative trip, I'd say."

They still haven't found a VCR, but she doesn't even care anymore. They'll figure it out.

"I wonder if there are any more," she says, going back to digging through the pile. "Are you really going to cry if I find another one?" One is pretty great, but she thinks having two posters in the same family but from different movies, maybe, would be an even better deal and she pulls out another creepy painting of a little girl in her search for something else for him. It's kind of great making him smile like that.

"Yeah, you know, it's that last part that really highlights everything." He's kidding, of course, but he's not sure if it really comes across because he's so entranced by this poster that he's already forgotten what he'd said. He feels like a kid on Christmas morning except this poster is an infinitely more epic gift and okay, maybe it isn't an on-purpose gift but that doesn't mean much to him, it's the thought that counts. He's not even embarrassed when he hugs the framed poster to his chest, it's become his first valued possession, he's totally going to cradle it.

"If you find another, I might not recover. Say nice things at my funeral because I'm putting you and Chuck in charge of the eulogy." The thought of Chuck delivering something like that actually makes Newt laugh because they really haven't been friends for very long, and Newt's pretty sure he'd just kind of stand there in silence for a long time until mumbling something Australian and walking away. He frowns at the awful painting she's holding up now. "What the hell is with these little girl paintings, I am so disturbed."

"I don't know, someone must have sold a whole bunch of them at once," she says, making a face before she drops the painting unceremoniously and pulls another poster out of the pile. It's not another Godzilla poster, but it is a pretty cool print from Psycho and she turns it around with a shrug. She's not really the movie poster type, it's not the kind of decoration she tends to put up on her walls, but it's still pretty neat looking and she doesn't know what kinds of movies he likes, but it's better than a lot of the other options in here.

"Hey, there's a VCR," she says, suddenly remembering why they're here. It looks like it might actually be in pretty good shape, too, far less than a million years old, which was pretty much what she's been expecting to find. "Which is apparently a better find than another Godzilla poster, because I'd hate to have to deliver a eulogy, I'm shit at stuff like that." She can talk a lot, but she really doesn't love the idea of having to stand up in front of a bunch of grieving people and say nice things without crying. That's just not something she imagines she'll ever be any good at.

"That is a sweet poster," Newt says with an approving nod. "That movie scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, I showered with the curtain open for like two weeks after I saw it. And the violin screech? Damn, the music for those old horror flicks are so fantastic, the composition is just mind-blowing." He could go on and on about music and movies--especially monster and horror movies, he's never been able to get enough, though he can't remember the last time he'd even gone to see one.

He's propping the Godzilla and Psycho posters up side-by-side, beaming like a proud father at each one, when she points out a VCR and oh, right, they'd come here for a VCR because tape with maybe nothing, maybe death on it. "I'm sure you'd do a fine job, it could just be like, y'know... Oh, Newt, yeah, he was an okay guy and then you could just leave. I'm easy." He squints at the VCR, and he's pretty sure the last time he'd seen one was when he was just starting high school, like 1999 or something like that. But he'd taken it apart to make other things. "Well, at least if we don't die after watching this tape, I can get some other use out of the parts inside."

"Are you going to take it apart and build something else?" she asks, pulling it off the shelf. The cord comes tumbling down after, puffing dust up everywhere because it clearly hasn't been touched in a very long time. It's actually kind of gross, just how much dust coats the surface and she makes a face, trying not to hold it too close to her body to save her clothes from getting covered in dirt.

"Ugh, you can totally have this, it's disgusting," she says, taking it over to the counter where they have to pay, mostly because she doesn't want to have touch it any longer. "So you've pretty much made out like a freaking bandit here today, huh? Movie posters, bongos, the gross VCR and we totally got away with getting one tape, plus we got to make out a little in the locked room. Good day, overall. As long as, you know, there's not something super fucking creepy on that tape that we seriously come to regret having seen for the rest of our lives."

She pauses, then smiles. "Not to sound super negative or anything. I'm sure it'll be fine." She's not sure of that at all.

"I'd much rather do that than have to look at it any longer than I have to," he says just before he sneezes when a puff of dust blows up his nose. He takes a few steps making, wiping at his eyes, and nearly knocks down an old coat rack that is so totally not placed where it should be placed.

"You're so good to me." He rubs at his nose as he follows her, doing his best to drag all his new goods along with him. "But yeah, this stuff is going to make that apartment feel way more like home. A home that I might not stick around in for very long if that tape is as messed up as we're making it out to be, really hope you're prepared to have me camp out in yours if that happens, I'm just saying."

He piles all his stuff on the counter and tops it off with the VCR, pulling out his wallet as he waits for the shopkeeper to ring them up. He turns to face her, grinning as he leans against the glass. "But I'm not too worried 'cause like you said, we got to make out in a locked room today, so it's not like I'll die sad."

"Hey, exactly," she says, leaning against the counter and peering at the old watches and rings that are spread out below the glass. "And, hey, if you end up having to camp out in my place, we can totally make out there, too, so it'd just be like a bonus before we died horrible deaths."

The more she says it like that, the less likely it seems, so she feels like she should keep talking about it and maybe they'll end up okay. It's like something Shoshana would say about giving something more power by ignoring it. She's totally not interested in doing anything Shoshana thinks is a good idea, but it actually seems like sort of a decent idea.

On the other hand, she's definitely not opposed to the idea of him being stuck at her place for awhile. She totally meant what she said, they can make out all they want there, too.

"I would not even be mad about that, at least they'll have something to write on my headstone. 'Here lies Newt Geiszler, at least he died while he was making out.' People might even cry at how beautiful it is. Chuck might even cry. Chuck will definitely cry."

The shopkeeper hands him a receipt and offers a couple bags that are pretty useless considering the only thing that would probably fit would be the VCR. Newt's thankful for that much, though, because he's not super inclined to walk back to the apartments if he has to sneeze every two seconds. Though he's less concerned about that right now than he is about this promise of making out because yeah, that sounds good, really good. So good that he thinks the tape can maybe even wait for just a tiny bit longer.

"I don't want to make Chuck cry," Kate says, taking the bag with the VCR, because as long as she doesn't have to touch it, she doesn't mind carrying it. Besides, she can't expect him to carry it all and she's pretty happy that they've found him some stuff for his apartment. It makes it seem like he's a little more content with the idea of staying here and although she'll never say it, the idea that he'll be the one to figure out how to leave is a little scary. He's a genius, she figures if anyone's going to do it, it'll be him, but she likes him being here. She doesn't want him to figure out a way to go.

"I haven't even met him yet, it seems like it'd be pretty rude of me to have a hand in making him cry," she continues, pushing the door open with her hip and holding it for Newt to follow her back out onto the sidewalk. "So I'm going to take that to mean we just shouldn't die. Not that we shouldn't make out." That's sort of how she'd rather this day went, anyway, with very little in the way of their deaths.

"Yeah, no, I don't think it'd be pretty. He's got one of those faces, y'know, it looks weird if it's doing anything other than being stern." He's strategically places the bongos under one arm and the two framed posters under the other and walks with her out of the shop, totally satisfied with his purchases for the day--save for the VCR because yeah, nobody could ever be satisfied with a VCR at this point in life, though he also has to admit that he kind of owes it one considering the reason they'd come here in the first place was for that piece of archaic machinery. So he sends a silent thanks to the little guy and considers them square.

He is excited to find just the right spot on the walls for the posters--even think he might stick the Pyscho one in the bathroom so that anyone who comes over can see it when they look into the mirror. He's silently cackling at the very thought when he realizes how nutty it is that he's already planning on having people come over at all--other than Kate, of course, Kate is invited always--because isn't the reason he'd gone to help Kate get that tape in her bag partly because he wanted to help her solve the mystery of whoever's behind all the shit in this city... so he can leave? It doesn't really seem like much of a priority right now and maybe that's just because he's with her, having a great time and there's really nowhere else he'd rather be. But he figures he can worry more about that later, likely in the late, late hours of the night.

"Aw, you'd like him, he's fussy but he tolerates me in ways most people can't, so I have no choice but to believe he's a good guy," he says. It's true, though, he feels so lucky to have Chuck around, someone who understands what it's like to come from a world ruined by kaiju. It makes it a lot easier to know that there's at least one person in this city he can talk in-depth about it with, if either of them ever wants to. "I prefer your plan, though, with the no to the dying and the yes to the making out. You have the best ideas."

"I'm pretty much brilliant," she agrees brightly, conscious of the tape bumping against her hip as they walk. They're not far from their building and she shifts the VCR long enough to dig her keys out of the little pocket in the front of her bag, wondering if they're really going to find anything. If she wants to find anything. She's always felt comfortable here, more comfortable than she ever did on the island and maybe it's just part of growing up, being away from home, but she feels like this is probably a better place for her than Overland Park.

Her family was always the only thing that would have kept her there, she thinks. But her mother had been getting better and Kate's been away for so long now that she doesn't think they really need her anymore.

She doesn't want to leave. Trying to figure out the envelopes, getting the tape, it's all just a game to her, but she suspects it's not just a game to Newt and she finds herself hoping there's nothing on the tape. She doesn't want him to leave.

Twisting the key on the lock, she holds the door open for him to go in, then asks, "What if there's something on the tape?"

"I can't argue with that," he laughs, nudging her with the corner of one of the poster frames. "But I'm glad you already know it." That's something he likes a lot about her, the way she carries herself, the fact that she can say something like that without a hint of self-deprecation. He's always felt that way about himself--confident in his skills and the kind of person he chooses to be, to a fault if the way people have treated him for that sometimes is any indication. He thinks the Marshal had appreciated it, though, that Newt had never acted like he second-guessed himself. He thinks that's why no matter how many complaints Hermann would file against him--even though most of them had been filed just so Hermann could say he'd done it--he'd never really been disciplined. He's good at what he does, he knows it, and he's not sorry for it.

By the time they get to her place, his mind is already back on the tape. What if, that is the key question, isn't it? He doesn't think the answer to getting out of the city is going to be there, not even close--though he's not sure he wants it to be because as much as he hadn't believed it possible, Darrow is actually starting to grow on him. "If there's something on the tape, we'll be mystery-solving rock stars," he eventually answers, unceremoniously dropping his stuff down on the floor before gesturing at the bag holding the VCR. "Only one way to find out."

Jeff runs over to them when the door opens and Kate nudges her aside with her foot as she wrinkles her nose, thinking about what he's said. There really is only one way to find out and she hands him the VCR before going into the living room and turning the TV around so he can access the connections in the back. It's a pretty shitty TV, but she hasn't bothered with a new one, mostly because she doesn't watch it often enough for it to be a thing. Now, though, she's kind of glad. If there's something creepy on the tape, the last thing she wants is to be able to see it in great detail.

"Hi," she says to the dog, crouching to rub her ears, though Jeff seems way more interested in Newt than she does Kate at the moment. She wags her tail, sniffs around at the bags on the floor, then moves over to his feet, following him wherever he goes.

"You're new, she likes you better," Kate says as she sits down to pull off her boots, leaving them on the floor without a second thought. Her place isn't messy, exactly, but she hasn't bothered to pick up after herself lately and she's suddenly very aware of the fact that half her closet is draped over the chair in the living room. "You do that, I'm going to..." She gestures at the mess, then grabs a pile of clothes to get it out of the way.

He smiles with delight when her dog runs over to him, dropping to his knees to scratch behind the pup's ears. "She's so friendly, what's her name?" He laughs a little when she rolls over onto her back so he can scratch her belly, not wasting any time in obliging. Kate holding the VCR out to him brings him back to focus on the matter at hand, and he fiddles with the wires on the TV, absently petting the dog as Kate cleans up around the apartment. It's not hard to figure out, pretty much the opposite of rocket science, and he connects yellow to yellow, red to red, white to white with his one free hand.

"Don't clean it all up, what I find a tube top I want to borrow?" he calls out to her teasingly, picking up Kate's bag to get the tape. "Totally going into your purse for the thing, by the way, just sayin. I'm about to be ready when you are." Once he's got it, he pushes it into the VCR and presses pause so he can wait for Kate to come back to the room. He takes a deep breath, knowing fully well that a creepster dark-haired girl isn't about to crawl out of the TV and find them but the thought of finding something that's actually useful on the tale suddenly seems terrifying. "Place bets now on what's going to be on here or forever rest in peace."

"Jeff," she answers, piling her arms with clothes. "She's named after this friend I had on the island. I used to bug him by calling him my Fake Island Dad, but he wasn't actually like my father figure, he was mostly just... he was Jeff." She isn't sure how else to describe Jeff Winger, except that she loves him and she misses him and she'd made it her personal mission to make him as uncomfortable as possible almost all the time. She smiles a little, then disappears into her bedroom to dump her clothes on the bed, which is actually a really good way to keep herself from wanting to pull Newt in here after they watch the tape.

There's always the couch, though, and she wrinkles her nose, wishing there was something she could do to make that less tempting.

"Okay, so, here's hoping we don't die?" she asks when she joins him in the living room again. And maybe she's sort of hoping they don't find anything useful on the tape either, a thought she doesn't express as she joins Newt, then slips her hand into his.

"I like it," he says, and he does, it's different. Unique. Like her owner. The last dog he'd been around was Max, Chuck's pup, and he'd been a good little guy. He suspects Chuck must miss him pretty terribly, they'd been practically inseperable whenver Chuck was in the 'Dome. In fact, it's only with Max that Newt ever remembers seeing Chuck even remotely vulernable, and he briefly weighs the consequences of finding Chuck a new dog here in Darrow before deciding against it. Maybe a little stuffed bulldog, though.

He squeezes her hand as he hits the play button, taking a deep breath. He's tapping his foot against the ground, and he tries to stop it, it's a nervous thing, but it's awfully hard with all this suspense. The video flickers, and it's just footage of Kate looking bored at her post at the information booth for a few seconds until it cuts to snow and static. Which, okay, that's awfully anticlimactic. He looks over at her, trying not to look too disappointed. "Um. At least we're still alive?"

"That's it?" Kate asks, wrinkling her nose as she stares at the TV. She's not sure what she was expecting, but something relatively more interesting than her own face for a couple of seconds before it dissolved into nothing. She steps forward, pressing the fast forward button on the VCR, then waits for something else to appear, but it really is just a whole lot of nothing. Just more snow. She stands there for a long moment before she hits the play button again, waiting to see if there's something they're missing.

"Well shit," she says, stepping away from the TV again to look at Newt. "That was a whole lot of buildup for a whole lot of nothing." And she's weirdly disappointed. She doesn't want to find a way to leave Darrow, but they've kind of gone through a lot just to get the tape and then they had to buy a VCR and yeah, so they kind of got some great stuff for Newt's apartment out of the trip, but she still feels cheated. "I demand a refund."

"Think the train station will give us one? We should march back over there and see." He sighs, feeling a little frustrated that all the effort they'd put into getting this damn tape had amounted to no new information. "Okay, well, we know that something was moved in that security room, which is suspsicious as hell." Almost like someone had known they were coming, but Newt pushes that thought aside because he refuses to become that guy, the one who's paranoid to even say anything out loud. "And seems to me that this tape's been erased. So what's on it that somebody doesn't want us to see?"

He's convinced that however the envelopes get to the station must have been shown on that tape, he doesn't care if it sounds like he's reaching. But the only proof they could have hoped for is a bust, so he groans, falling back on the couch. "This town is fucking weird."

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everyonetakes - 2013-11-21 01:02 (UTC) - Expand

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