sciencesaggressively | living on the edge

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kate

living on the edge

Newt is pretty sure there's no truer happiness than being released from the hospital. It's been a few days now, about a week since the accident, and now he's in bed just staring up at the ceiling, bored out of his mind. Everyone keeps telling him to stay off his feet--something about it not being good to run around with a broken leg and lingering effects of a concussion--which, hi, five doctorates in biology here, he knows his way around the human body. He doesn't know why people feel the need to constantly remind him that he's basically an invalid right now, he hates it with a passion that he can't do anything.

He's had visitors, of course; Kate and Chuck have been in and out to check on him, help him where he needs it, and he appreciates all of it, he really does, isn't sure what'd he do without them. But he's used to getting shit done on his own, so having to rely on others to do simple tasks like pouring a damn bowl of cream is kind of infuriating.

So that's why he decides it's a good idea to roll out of bed, grab his crutches, and awkwardly make his way to the kitchen to find something to eat. Except there's a damn overhead lightbulb out, and he feels the inexplicable need to change it right now. He drags a chair over--harder than he'd have thought it to be, if he's honest--and carefully hoists himself up on it, using his crutch to balance himself. He bites his lip in concentration and he's maybe starting to get a little dizzy because okay, maybe this isn't his best idea and hopes nobody walks through the front door.

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He's quiet for a long time, so long that she probably thinks he's just a total asshat who just let her say all those mind-blowing things and isn't going to give anything back. But he wants to give her everything back, that's part of his problem, he wants to give her everything, he just kind of worries a little bit that what he's got isn't really enough for someone who deserves the world. He takes his glasses off and tosses them on the armrest, running a hand over his face and pretending that his stubbly cheeks aren't getting wet with rogue tears.

After taking a deep breath and a second to try to compose himself as best as he can, he manages to look over at her--even though it's through blurred vision--and clears his throat. "Yeah, totally payback," he says, a small smile playing at his lips. "But um, if I'm honest, the only thing that scares me about you is that you'll figure out you can do better. Not that I don't think I'm a badass, I mean, saved the world and shit, I think I'm doing pretty okay in that department. But y'know, sometimes it doesn't take a lot for people to figure out that I don't ever have a filter and that's hard to swallow for most." He shrugs a little because really, other than that teeny fear that Kate might walk away from this if she decides she's over it, he's... Well.

"You make me really happy. Like, stupid happy, the kind of happy that piss people off because I can't stop talking about it or you and how much I freakin' lucked out. The only thing I wanted to do was get the hell out of here until I met you and maybe that doesn't sound like it means a lot but it does, I promise it does." It does because back in the 'Dome, he'd been somebody, he'd been irreplaceable. Here, not so much. "I don't know how you did it in such a short period of time but... You changed everything."

For some reason, the first thing Kate thinks is that she's never had anyone say things like this to her who wasn't a total creep or completely wasted. He's neither, just sitting on his couch with her, saying all these amazing things that are somehow both the nicest and most terrifying things she's heard in an incredibly long time. Maybe ever. He's like no one she's ever dated before and that's a really good thing, even if it sets her heart pounding again, even if it means she doesn't know what she's doing a good part of the time. Even when it leaves her both petrified and completely elated.

"Filters are overrated," she says, curling closer, slipping her arm around him. With her head on his shoulder, she can't look at him, but she can feel the movement of his breathing and she closes her eyes for a moment, just sitting there. "And, yeah, I can totally do way better than a brilliant and super hot guy who cooks for me, says some of the most insanely incredible things I've ever heard and gets hit by cars while trying to get me flowers. Half the time I'm pretty sure the reverse is gonna happen and you'll figure out you can do better than me, even if I am pretty amazing." Ninety percent of the time, Kate's totally convinced of how fantastic she is, but every once in awhile, there's someone like Newt, and all that confidence disappears, leaving her totally stranded.

"It does mean a lot," she says, opening her eyes and tipping her head back to look at him. She doesn't know all the details, but she knows he was important where he came from, that he had something he loved. It means a lot. Slowly, she smiles and shifts, taking care not to jostle his leg as she slips onto his lap, her hands against his chest. "I can't promise I won't yell at you again if I find your stupid ass climbing the walls."

He kisses the top of her head when she leans on his shoulder, taking a shaky breath. "It's just like... I never cared about having a girlfriend before, y'know? It was never a priority of mine. And now, it's different, I wake up in the morning and I think about you. I used to think it was so stupid when people said shit like that but..." He trails off because he thinks she probably gets it without him having to spell it out for her.

When she slides onto his lap, he leans his head back against the couch so he can look up at her, resting his hands on her hips. "Well, I'm not gonna lie, it'll probably happen again. I mean, not the chair thing but similar. You can yell, I won't take it too personally. But I might yell back because it's just what I do."

He pauses because honestly, there's about a hundred million things he thinks he could say to her right now. "I was really scared that night," he says quietly, but he forces himself to keep eye contact because he's being totally sincere here, he wants her to know this and know that even though he's really bad at talking about feelings stuff, he's willing to try with her. "Like, there was a second there maybe between actual impact and landing on the ground that I thought maybe that was it for me. I can survive face-offs with giant monsters but not with a car. And when I realized that I could open my eyes again, I just thought about how much I wanted you next to me and then you were and now you're still here. I can't do better than you, Kate. I just can't."

He just keeps doing it somehow, saying the sorts of things that she can't respond to because she has no idea how, she only knows she can't stop herself from smiling, that his words do something to her inside and she drapes her arms over his shoulders, leaning closer. All she remembers about that night is being terrified and being furious, wanting to rip the face off the driver who hit him, not wanting to leave Newt's side, wanting someone there who knew what to do, because she's sure she doesn't have the best bedside manner, but she'd tried for him. She hadn't left to murder the driver for him, because he hadn't wanted her to go.

She shrugs a little, still smiling, then says, "Yeah, I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere because your leg is broken. I mean, I'm not going anywhere for any reason, but especially not because of this." And maybe tomorrow she'll find him doing something else dangerous and she'll yell at him and he'll yell back, but she thinks they can probably handle it, if this is going to be how stuff like that ends. She doesn't mind it either. Fighting is something she can do and at least he's not trying to order her around, tell her what to do. That's a problem for Kate, but yelling and fighting... that stuff is normal.

And the thing is, he probably can do better than her, but if he says he can't, she isn't going to sit there and argue the point. Even if he can, hearing it from him is enough, and she kisses the tip of his nose, then his mouth, the pauses, pulling back just a little. "I can't do better than you either," she murmurs. It doesn't seem like much, not after everything he's said, but she means it and even saying that much causes her heart to beat a little faster again. "I don't want anyone else anyway. I only want you."

"So I don't have to keep myself injured to like, guilt you into hanging out with me?" He gives her a genuine smile, resting his forehead on her shoulder and letting out a little sigh. "Good to know. I think that would get kind of exhausting, y'know? You'd be so over it at a certain point, you'd be like, 'How did I even end up dating such an idiot?' and I'd be really embarrassed. Glad we talked about this so I can avoid all that extra pain and hassle."

He's starting to ramble again which isn't altogether unusual but even without the glasses, he's still feeling a bit hazy. He shifts under her weight, trying to be casual about it because he likes her right where she is, doesn't want her to move because having her this close to him is a comfort he's not really willing to let go of, but goddamn, his leg is really starting to throb.

Hearing her say that, though, having a verbal confirmation that she thinks he's good enough for her is really nice, helps him forget about his leg, and he brushes hair out of her eyes before leaning forward to given her a gentle, long kiss. "So I can tell the line of guys outside the building to back off? They're gonna be awfully disappointed."

"Yeah, you know, if you could avoid injury in the future, that'd be really cool of you," she says with a laugh, because she isn't sure she can deal with another car accident or any other random injury that sends him to the hospital. When he rests his head against her shoulder, she reaches up, running her fingers through his hair, making it stick up more in the back and she can't stop noticing just how much she likes being close to him, not even doing anything, just sitting with him. Or on him in this case. She notices his shifting and thinks she should probably get off him before she makes his leg any worse, but then he's kissing her again and it's sort of hard to think about much of anything when he does that.

"Oh, them?" she asks, tipping her head to the side as she grins at him. "Yeah, I already told them to get lost. Turns out they were here for you all along. They were pretty disappointed, you're right about that." There isn't any line of guys waiting for her. She's pretty sure there's not even one guy waiting for her, except maybe the creep who keeps offering to sell her weed for cheap if she shows him her tits, but that's been going on since she got here and she's never once taken him up on it. The only guy she's even come close to doing anything with is Harley and she knows for a fact that he sure as hell isn't waiting for that to happen again.

"It's just you," she tells him, then shifts on his lap. "Is your leg okay? Should I get you some drugs?"

"I'll try but no promises, who knows, cars might just be really attracted to me and want to hit on me all the time now." It's a dumb joke, he knows it, but honestly, who knows? He's used to having a bit of luck, hadn't broken a bone since he was a kid, and yeah, he'd been beat up here and there but nothing super serious. Honestly, he should probably be more concerned about the whole possibility of future seizure thing but he doesn't want to think about that, wants to push it as far from this thoughts as possible because it's hard to look Kate in the eyes if he's thinking about the fact that just a nightmare could potentially trigger a way to off him for good.

He bats his lashes and makes like he's going to get up. "Well, if they're waiting for me..." He twirls a strand of her hair around his finger, grinning, and kisses her cheek. "Bummer for them, I fell for someone and I fell hard."

He shakes his head firmly. "You don't have to get me drugs. I can get me drugs." Because he's a grown ass man and she's already brought him coffee and breakfast and has been generally awesome, so he doesn't want her to have to feed him pills, too. He's pretty sure he's back to sounding bratty, though, which can't even be helped at this point.

"Okay, then, I'll rephrase the question," she says with a heavy sigh she totally doesn't feel, because whatever else they've said to each other today, he's just said that he's fallen hard for her and it's hard to be annoyed at anything. "Do you need me to get off you so that you can hobble around the apartment and get your own painkillers?"

She doesn't mind getting them, but she's probably going to have to pick her battles when it comes to this whole broken leg thing. Climbing on chairs is totally forbidden. Hobbling around his apartment to get his own medication she can probably let go, even if it makes way more sense for her to do it, since she's already here and she already wants to get up and get herself something to drink. She probably should have gotten another coffee.

Picking up his glasses from the arm of the couch, she pushes them back onto his face gently, then kisses him again before she slides off his lap and to one side. She's absolutely not going to ask if he's sure, if it wouldn't just be easier for her to do it. Instead she looks at him with a smile, eyebrows raised.

"Yes, thank you, that is exactly what I need." He's relieved that she's not mad because that hadn't even been his intention, he just really wants his drugs. "You're the best girlfriend ever, you totally get me." She really is, though, especially because he knows how difficult and stubborn he can apparently be, if Hermann's constant complaints had ever had any truth to them. At least Kate can't file anything official, not that it would stop him.

He has to stop himself from laughing, though, because oh, that is one hell of a challenging face if he's ever seen one. So he smiles back way more smugly than he should considering how much of a pain in the ass it's going to be to get up right now. He keeps his eyes locked on hers, grabbing for his crutches and heaving himself up, trying as hard as he can to keep himself from groaning in distress. His hands are shaking from the effort and he wonders if he's as pale as he feels because shit, even getting up as slowly as he did has made him infuriatingly dizzy. Goddamn car accidents and their goddamn consequences.

He starts his trek to the kitchen, craining his head to look back at her. "Can I get you anything?"

"Nope, I'm good," she answers, relaxing back against the couch, because she doesn't want to look like she's ready to jump up and help him the second it looks like he might need her. She is ready and she's watching him, but he doesn't have to know that. Or if he knows it -- because he probably does, she's been around enough, helping him as much as she can -- then she doesn't want it to be super obvious whenever he looks at her. "I should've gotten myself a coffee, too, I didn't even think of it, so I'm stealing some of yours."

It's not her usual drink, but she's been getting up kind of early lately and the last thing she needs is to try and get through the day without caffeine, so she leans over to retrieve his coffee from where he's left it.

"You don't mind?" She doesn't want to distract him, but she doesn't want him to think about his leg either. And maybe she can keep him talking, keep his mind off his leg and how much it must suck trying to get across his apartment on crutches. She's never had a broken leg herself, but she has a feeling it's pretty shitty to try and get everywhere using crutches instead of your own legs.

"'Course I don't mind," he calls back at her, and he's so glad that she's not there to watch him because now that he's out of sight, his hands are shaking more so that his pills rattle around in the bottle as he tries to open it. He taps one out and reaches for the glass of water he'd left out earlier as he grips the edge of his kitchen table so hard that his knuckles go white.

He takes a deep breath, eyes shut tight, and tries to mentally urge the medication to work faster because he refuses to walk back out there without a smile on his face. Is he being stubborn? Absolutely. No regrets. He grabs a paper towel to dab at his forehead before rolling his neck and strolling--as best as he can, at least--back out to the living room. "See? I managed not to get myself killed on my way to the kitchen."

From where she's sitting on the couch she can hear the pills rattling in the bottle and she has to lean over and retrieve his coffee from where he's set it down to keep herself from getting up and going to help. Her foot bounces impatiently as she waits for him and she sits up once, only to slouch back again. If he wants to do this on his own, she can let him, even if she thinks it's sort of ridiculous not to let her help when she's right here. Then again, she's always been pretty bad at letting people help her or relying on anyone.

Still, she thinks if she broke her leg, she'd have someone waiting on her twenty-four hours a day.

When he appears in the living room again, she smiles, takes a sip of his coffee and then nods at the place beside her on the couch like it's no big deal. "You're a goddamn rockstar," she teases as she waits for him to join her. "And, dude, just in the interest of honesty, if I ever break my leg, you're gonna have to do everything for me. Like, pillow fluffing, meal preparation, constant companion. Basically I'll be the most annoying person ever."

"I really am, I don't know why it takes people so long to believe it's true." He takes back his spot on the couch, already starting to feel a little better to his great relief, and steals the coffee back from her to take a sip. "Constant companionship I can deal with because I kind of like you, but I draw the line at pillow fluffing." He winks, though he can't help but think of how close she'd come to actually ending up in the ground, before he could ever even tell her--

He doesn't want to think about it. She's here, she's okay, and so is he. Well, for the most part, clearly a little worse for the wear but nothing he can't manage. "Why don't we just go ahead and make sure you don't break your leg, 'kay? Always look both way before crossing the street."

"Yeah, see, my mom took care of that lesson at a very young age," she tells him. "I mean, she did a lot of really dumb crap while we were small, mostly because of the other people thing, but I definitely got the whole look both ways part instilled in me. Also don't talk to strangers and definitely don't take candy from them and if someone is looking for their lost dog, never ever help them. She covered all that stuff."

There are plenty of things her mom didn't cover and she's still amazed she and Marshall managed to get through their childhood mostly unscathed with all three of the alters giving them very different versions of the birds and the bees instead of their mother.

She smiles over at him and shakes her head. "Nope, pillow fluffing is just part of the package. I'd totally do it for you, among other things."

"Good on your mom because obviously it's still lost on me," he says with an amused smile. "My parents tried really hard, don't get me wrong, but I always had a knack for getting into trouble one way or another. But I managed to talk my way out of it most of the time, my mom was a real sucker for these eyes." He widens them, showing off the green--and that bit of hazel--and plasters on his most charming smile. "My dad wasn't ever so convinced but mom never stood a chance."

He gives a dramatic sigh, letting himself drop back against the couch and bringing down a hand to rest on her thigh. "Fine, fine, I'll do the pillow fluffing, the whole nine yards. For the record, though, I wouldn't even ask you to do that so... Chew on that."

"Ugh, yeah, I know, your eyes are ridiculous," she says, reaching up with one hand and pushing his face away playfully, mostly so she doesn't have to look at his eyes, which are pretty ridiculous. "Pretty sure most women and gay dudes don't stand a chance if you turn those things on them. I mean, I'm more or less totally doomed." She figures there's no harm in admitting that, it's not like he doesn't know she's seriously attracted to him, especially after Halloween and pretty much every other day that's followed.

"You wouldn't ask me to do anything," she points out with a grin, turning toward him on the couch. "But the point is that I would do it anyway, because I'm spectacular. And totally selfless, too. I wouldn't even do things for you with the hope of getting something out of it for myself. I'm like a goddamn saint or something." Her grin clearly says otherwise, but she tries her own wide-eyed look on him, as innocent as she can manage.

He laughs when she pushes at his face, wagging his eyebrows and giving her a wink. "Resistance is futile. And don't think straight dudes are off the table, I'd be willing to bet I could get Chuck and Sawyer to do what I want by pulling this face at least once. 'Specially when I'm on crutches." He might try that, actually, he's pretty sure it would work. Chuck already does a lot of what Newt asks, though it's possible that's more due to Newt's incessant harassment. Still, he makes a mental note to make a solid attempt on both of them. "Shouldn't have admitted that about yourself, though, you're just asking for me to do it all the time now."

He nods in agreement because yeah, that's totally true, he wouldn't. Nothing that involves helping him during times like this, at least, because he's perfectly capable of doing it himself. Or at least, he feels the need to prove it to himself that he can--not even to anyone else, but he hasn't really had the luxury of relying anyone since he left home in his teens so it doesn't seem like a good time to start when he's well into his thirties. "You're right. Twice. Total saint." He grins at her expression, shaking his head. "Except that expression isn't fooling anyone."

"Like you don't already know," she answers, rolling her eyes, even though she still can't seem to stop smiling, which is totally his fault, too, because she's a generally happy person, but he's kind of tempered her endless cynicism lately with... whatever it is he's done to her. She thinks of the conversation she had with Blaine, then shakes her head, trying to shove that away. It was only two days ago, but she's been thinking about it almost non-stop, unable to focus on much of anything for very long and it's kind of driving her nuts.

"And, come on, I can totally pull off the innocent thing," she adds, sitting up a little straighter on the couch, even though she knows she can't. It's never been one of her strong points, never was something she did to try and get her way with her parents. They knew what a demon she could be anyway, it's not like it would have worked, especially not with her father. Besides, innocent rarely worked with the attitude she had most of the time. "Are you gonna tell me that if I asked you for something and looked at you like that, you wouldn't do it?" she asks, pulling the face again, her eyes wide, the corners of her mouth turned up just slightly.

"I'm a bad, bad man with a fantastic set of peepers, and now you're just like, totally trapped. I'd be sorry 'bout it, but I ended up with the better end of the deal here, so..." He shrugs, giving her a sincere smile because he thinks it's true. The last time any woman had been able to distract him from any kind of scientific work for longer than a half hour max had been the last time his mother had cooked him a meal. Not that he's comparing Kate to his mom, no, ew. He just acknowledges the fact that the rest of the dudes in this town have a huge reason to be jealous of him.

He laughs at her second attempt at feigning innocence, offering a golf clap though he shakes his head again. "I mean, that halo of blonde hair helps your case but..." He leans forward, catching her lips in a long kiss before pulling back a little. "I don't know if innocent is the right word. Doesn't mean you don't have me wrapped around your finger, though."

There's not much else she can say when he kisses her like that and whether or not she has him wrapped around her finger is pretty much irrelevant, because he could just say the same thing about her. Maybe that's better, though, maybe it means she's not going to turn around and be an asshole and take advantage of him without thinking. She smiles and kisses him again, lifting her hand to his cheek. Less than ten minutes ago, she was shouting at him, but now she can't even remember feeling the slightest bit pissed off.

"Just for the record, you can do that like, any time you feel like it," she tells him, grinning. "Appropriate or not, whatever, I'm down. People around us will just have to learn to deal." She's already prepared to annoy the crap out of people for the next little while, she's okay with it. It's not like she hasn't listened to her friends talk about their significant others, all the while feeling pretty damn pathetic and alone, so she figures she's owed at least a few weeks of being disgusting in their presence.

"Oh, really?" He gives his best attempt at a villainous laugh, and it's not so bad, he could totally take over the world if he wanted to, no big deal. "You know that's basically an invitation for me to dip you and start a heavy make-out session in like, the middle of a double date or something in front of your pals, right? Because I just want to make sure we're on the same page before it actually happens, little bit of front row action never hurt anybody."

He's joking, of course. Kind of, in a way, maybe. It's not like he hasn't already talked Chuck and Sawyer and even Derek's, to a certain extent, ears off about her, plus they've all met Kate now and it hasn't been remotely difficult for them to understand why he likes her so much. He suspects some extended kissing action would phase any of them all too terribly, though he's then only one of them with a significant other--ha, how is that even a thing that happened--so he doesn't really have any qualms about making them envious. He's not sure whether that makes him a bad friend or just a super excitable boyfriend. Not that the two are mutually exclusive.

"Anyway, maybe we ought to practice some more because the grosser the better, right?"

"Absolutely, totally on the same page," she says with a grin, trying to imagine how Jesse in particular might react to such a thing after she's spent months giving him a hard time about getting laid. She thinks he probably wouldn't be all that surprised, especially after seeing the two of them together at the party on Halloween. She has good memories of that night and most of them aren't even hazy as a result of being drunk, which she's grateful for.

"Like they didn't already get an eyeful on Halloween anyway, dude," she points out, turning toward him on the couch, her fingers hooked lightly in the collar of his shirt. "We got a ton of very public practice that night." And she's not sorry about a second of it. "But you're totally right, that's the sort of thing we should always be practicing."

He's pretty sure that this right here is what's going to irritate him the most about having a broken leg. He wants to pull her back on his lap and do things on this couch that will make him die on the inside every time Chuck sits on it in the future but it's not really on the cards quite yet because a cast kind of gets in the way of getting particularly frisky. Or maybe not, it's not like he's actually tried.

"They were all drunk on Halloween, a sober eye is the best eye for these kinds of things. Unless it's me watching someone else, but that's not what we're talking about." He glances down at the light tug on his collar before giving her a coy smile. "Intensive training required. Like, marathon training, it's serious business."

"Well, I don't start my new job for a couple of weeks still, so my schedule is pretty open," she says thoughtfully, her fingers slipping out of his collar so she can rest her palm against his chest. "We could probably find a way to fill all that time, huh? Because, y'know, we wouldn't want to embarrass ourselves when it came time for the big show."

She's a little worried about hurting him, because while she's never broken a bone, she knows just slapping a cast on it isn't going to make it instantly better and she knows if they start fooling around now, she's probably going to forget about the cast and do something horrible by accident. But at the same time, she sort of just wants to crawl back into his lap, because he's looking at her like that and he's smiling like that and it's all kind of enough to make her squirm on the couch a little.

"I can thing of a few things we could do, yeah," he says, pulling his wide eyes again. "Bowling, ice skating, hiking-- Oh, shit, all stuff I can't do right now. But oh, right, the practicing." The pain meds are definitely in full force now, his leg feels a hell of a lot better, but he's only got one thing on his mind. He brings the hand on his chest to his lips before tugging softly until she's back in his lap. "Isn't this just like, so much more comfortable?" he asks as he reaches under her shirt to brush his fingers against her skin.

This is much better, in his humble opinion, and he wouldn't care if the entire city walked in on them like this other than the fact that it would be one hell of an irritating interruption. Okay, so maybe he would definitely care, he likes it better just the two of them here like this, all cozy and close. He's being a little selfish, he knows, enjoying having her here to himself when she's surely got a million better things to do, but he's not about to argue with it when it's... well, sitting in his lap.

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