sciencesaggressively | not cool, brain, not cool

Entry tags:

kate

not cool, brain, not cool

He'd drifted off easily enough, a smile on his face because his arm had been draped over Kate's waist, their fingers entwined and his forehead resting against her shoulder. He doesn't know how deep into sleep he is when it starts, the images tinted in blue--images and memories and emotions. He can see the Precursors, sees their wide eyes as Gipsy Danger destroys them all and closes the breach, a victory for the PPDC but nothing but pain and tragedy for the aliens; he can feel it when Striker Eureka kills Scunner; when Gipsy blasts Leatherback into oblivion. It's all pain, experience his mind believes he's connected to because of the drifts, and the part of his mind that is still just Newt is desperate to get the hell out of this, for an escape, for the pain to ease and--

He wakes up, chest heaving, and he paws at the nightstand beside him until he manages to find his glasses. He blinks a few times, trying to adjust back to reality, and realizes his hands are gripping the bedsheets so tightly that they're trembling. Or maybe it's his whole body that's trembling, that's quickly becoming a larger possibility. His one relief right now is that Kate only shifts a little in her sleep, and he holds his breath until she stops moving and her breathing steadies again; it's the last thing he wants to do, wake her up because of this shit, but then he feels something wet dripping down his nose and he curses to himself as he reaches up to wipe what he knows is blood away.

"Goddammit," he mutters to himself, trying his hardest to slide out of bed without disturbing her. He makes it to the bathroom quietly enough even without his cane to help and winces when he turns on the light, his eyes adjusting to the brightness. When he catches sight of his bloody mess of a face, he grimaces, shaking his head. He grabs at some toilet paper and perches on the edge of the bathtub, stuffing his nose with a distressed sigh. He has no clue what the hell had spurred the nightmare, he hasn't had one since the first time nearly a month ago. He'd honestly thought this wasn't going to be an issue but even if it is, he needs to be able to figure out if this is going to be a random occurrence or if he'll be able to map this out. Nobody needs to know about this, right? It's nothing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When she wakes up and he's moving, she doesn't think much of it at first, even if she really wants to wake up enough to tell him to take his cane if he's going anywhere. But somewhere just before she gathers enough energy to actually manage words, she falls back asleep. She's been staying with him a lot or he's been staying with her and sometimes she wonders if it's weird to be spending so many nights with someone she hasn't actually slept with yet, but mostly it's just nice. It's easy falling asleep with him there, surprisingly so, because she's actually done it so rarely. She's used to sleeping by herself and she always thought she'd prefer it, but it turns out she's wrong about yet one more thing when it comes to being in a relationship with him.

The second time she wakes up, she's not sure how much time has passed, but she's aware that he hasn't come back yet and that there's light spilling out of the bathroom and into the hall. Blinking, she rubs her eyes, then pushes back the blankets, because he's probably fine, but there's the other part of her brain that's trying to convince her he fell on his broken leg and smashed his head on something and is lying in a pool of blood. That's the part of her brain that's not going to let her get back to sleep until she checks, no matter how much it annoys him, so she gets out of bed and wanders toward the bathroom.

"Newt?" she calls, voice soft. She raps her knuckles against the door frame before peering around the corner, mostly glad to see he's not lying on the floor. But he is bleeding and her eyebrows draw together as she looks at him. She's not quite awake and can't make sense of what's happening, but she can see all the blood. "What happened?"

He groans quietly, kicking himself for waking her up. He doesn't want her to see him all shaky and bloody from something that's all in his head, she doesn't need to deal with that, nobody does. He rubs at his temples for a moment before glancing up at her with a forced smile. "Hey, yeah, just me." He briefly considers bullshitting, telling her it's nothing, just a fluke and that she should go back to bed because he's fine. But he knows she'd see right through that, and he doesn't want to get into a fight; she deserves better than a fight over him being clearly less than fine.

"Nosebleed." It's all he manages to get out at first, as if it should be enough to explain everything. He sighs, lowering his head into hands and mumbles the rest, half hoping she doesn't make most of it out. "I had a nightmare. Kind of like, a side-effect of drifting with giant man-killing monsters."

"The nosebleed is a side-effect or the nightmare is?" she asks, though it doesn't really matter which. Briefly, she wishes she was just a little more awake for this and she rubs the back of her hand across her eyes before she comes into the bathroom. Then again, if she wasn't still half-asleep, she'd probably ask him if he's okay, if he needs anything and she's pretty quickly learned that he's not a huge fan of being treated like he needs help, so maybe this works better.

Crossing the room, she sits down on the edge of the tub beside him and leans her chin in one hand, looking over at him. He looks rough, besides the blood, and she reaches over with her free hand, brushing her fingertips over his forehead and back into his hair. "What was the nightmare about?" she asks.

"Kind of maybe both," he admits. "Wouldn't have the nosebleeds if I didn't have the nightmares, and I wouldn't have the nightmares if I hadn't done the drift. It's a viscious cycle." He watches her close the space between them and briefly closes his eyes at the feel of her hand in his hair. He can at least be thankful that it wasn't something worse, like a seizure, which he doubt he'd have again but hell, it's happened to pilots before who'd only drifted with other human beings, so it's definitely possible. The thought of her walking in on him like that, out of control and jerking on the ground... It makes him shiver, it disturbs him, he needs that to not be a thing that ever happens.

When she asks about the nightmare, he frowns, brows furrowing because he doesn't want to recall it but maybe it's better to talk about it then keep it to himself. Maybe. "Kaiju. Felt like... memories, but I could feel everything. Their rage, their fear, their pain. I was part of their hive mind for a little bit, y'know? What they knew, I knew. What they felt, I felt. I guess bad memories like that die hard."

The nightmares cause the nosebleeds, which doesn't sound like a good thing, and Kate frowns, trying to decide what to make of that. If the nightmares are the cause, she wants to suggest that he go to a doctor and have them scan his brain or something, but she's reluctant to say anything, partly because she's still not sure she's awake enough to really understand what he's telling her and partly because she's sure he won't like it. Not that someone not liking what she has to say has ever stopped her before, but if they're going to fight about this, she doesn't want it to be in the middle of the night.

And she'll fight about it if she has to. If there's something wrong, she wants him to fix it so that he's around for a long time.

"Yeah, I get that," she says, because she's had her own nightmares. They're fewer and further between now and she finds she doesn't have many on the nights she's at Newt's, but they still come and she still wakes up in the dark, staring at the ceiling, her heart pounding. But at least her face doesn't bleed. "So the nightmares are because of the brain sharing?" she asks. "Like the actual..." She pauses, trying to remember the word he's used. "The drift itself caused it? Or is it like mine, where it's just fucking traumatic shit that screws up your brain?"

He bites his lip, trying to figure out the best way to explain it. He knows that the nosebleeds and the seizures and even those memories aren't limited to getting triggered just in his sleep. He wonders if Hermann is experiencing the same thing or if this is a front-row show reserved just for him because he'd done it himself the first time. She's still blinking sleep from her eyes, so he wants to keep this from getting too convuluted--which will in turn help him to not spend as much time thinking about it as he could.

"When pilots drift with other pilots," he finally says, "it's like they both open a door in their brains for each other. They're connected, in sync, what one person is planning on doing, the other already knows it. There's a thing called ghost-drifting, it's when the neural handshake is broken, but the pilots are still in each other's heads. It'd be like... I don't know, if you and I drifted, I might be able to tell that you're having a nightmare even if there aren't any physical signs." He pulls the tissue from his nose and starts to rip it up, just so he has something to keep his hands busy. "Sometimes memories start to get confused, like something that was your experience might actually feel like it was mine. It can happen when you're awake, obviously it can happen while you're asleep."

He shrugs a little, giving her a small smile. "It's not like I didn't know this is a thing that could happen. The first time, the first drift I did, it-- It was bad. If my partner hadn't been there to help me..." He shrugs again because he doesn't want to admit it, that he could have died. Probably would have. Knowing the consequences ahead of time, being prepared, it's got nothing on how it feels like in the moment.

She doesn't need him to finish that sentence for her to understand how it ends and she slips her hand onto his leg, just resting it there for a moment before she squeezes lightly. Maybe she'll never get to meet this partner of his, but she's grateful for him anyway, if only just for being there in that moment. "So they're memories more than they're real nightmares," she says, trying to see if she's understood him. Not that she imagines they're any less terrifying than a real nightmare; they're worse, probably, because they're real. She was never closed in the casket, so when she wakes up from those dreams, she can convince herself everything is okay. None of it is real.

He doesn't have that same comfort.

"Still, knowing it could happen and actually having it happen are different things," she says, because there's a lot of shit she knows could happen. She knows Newt could decide tomorrow he's not interested in her anymore and while she doubts it would happen, it's possible. But having it actually happen would be about a thousand time worse than just knowing it's a thing that could happen will ever be.

"I guess so, it's weird," he says, trying to work it out in his head. "Drifting is supposed to allow the pilots to control their jaegers, a right-brain, left-brain kind of deal. But I wasn't trying to control anything, I was just trying to, y'know, understand the kaiju better. Caused a neural overload, at least when I did it alone, and boom." He slaps a hand down on the porcelain of the tub and grips the edge until his knuckles go white. "Seizure. But I retained what I saw, remembered what they told me, for lack of a better term. But we blew them to pieces, there's no hive mind for me to be connected to anymore, just... just a bunch of stuff in my head that I didn't even realize I still had."

He wonders what would happen if he did it again, knows it's not even possible considering there's no such thing as the Drift or kaiju in Darrowb, but he wonders and not for the first time. "I don't regret it or anything, I totally found out how to save the world by doing that. I just don't want this to become like, a thing."

The sound of his palm slapping against the tub wakes her up a little more and she glances down when he says the word seizure. It makes her think back to the car accident, hearing him say that in the ambulance, wondering what the hell had happened, what would have caused the seizure and now she has her answer, though it doesn't really do much to ease any fears she had about it.

If anything, hearing him say it was caused by the thing that's now causing nightmares and nosebleeds makes her worry more. She definitely doesn't want it to become a thing either and she chews her lower lip, squeezing his leg again, probably harder than necessary, because she's suddenly a little more freaked out.

"How's your nose?" she asks instead of any of the other million questions that seem to be flying around inside her head. She can ask him later or maybe things will make more sense when she's awake in the morning.

"I-It's-" and he cuts off right there because it's the start of a stutter, and he only stutters like this when he's exceptionally nervous or afraid. It's not the way he wants to be speaking with Kate next to him, though he knows she won't spare a second of judgment for it. It's not so much that he's embarrassed about it, it's just that he's got no real reason to be afraid, not in Darrow. Not even if he'd been back in Hong Kong, with the Breach closed the kaiju gone. He tries again. "It's fine," he says, though the occasional drop of blood still falls from his nose. He grabs for more toilet paper from the roll and stuffs his nose again, offering a sheepish smile. "It could have been worse."

He's not sure if that's more or less of a comfort but it's what he keeps telling himself. He feels kind of like a train wreck and suspects that he looks like hell but it could have been worse. She looks like she wants to ask him something--probably quite a few somethings--but she holds back, and he feels kind of bad about it. It's too late, maybe even too early, for this shit, and while there's a major part him that just wants to go back to bed, he knows anxiety over this happening twice in one night will keep him awake.

"God, you've got blood everywhere," she says with a little laugh, though it's not all that funny, because she's hardly squeamish, but she doesn't love the sight of his blood. She's seen way too much of it lately, tonight on his face, that other night on the sidewalk. She's had his blood on her hands, and she has to push that aside as she gets up from the edge of the tub and begins to look for some kind of cloth she can run under the water for him.

"When they had you in the hospital, did they do a CT scan or an MRI or whatever the hell they do for head injuries?" she asks as she hunts, finally finding a small towel in a drawer. She goes to the sink and runs it under cool water for a moment before offering it to Newt as she waits for him to answer. Maybe that's something they do when a person has a concussion, maybe they've already looked at his brain, determined everything is fine and there's nothing to worry about, but if they didn't, she's going to ask him to go to a doctor. It's weird to have decided already, especially while still partly asleep, but she has. He can pick the doctor, she doesn't care, but she wants to be sure he's not just going to keep having seizures, she wants to know that he'll be okay.

"I'm a hot mess," he agrees, feeling guilty that she'd woken up to this. He'd been perfectly ready to handle this on his own but now that she's involved, he selfishly doesn't want her to leave him alone.

He nods asbsently, trying his best to must up a grateful smile as he takes the towel and holds it to his nose. "Yeah, they only did it because they knew about the seizure. But it just confirmed a concussion." He wishes he'd been able to see the scan himself, especially since Owen had been so vehemently pissy about the incompetency of the local doctors. "Even if they had found something, I'm not sure anyone would know what to do about it. Drifting's not exactly a common thing here."

That fact is a little worrisome, that if something really was wrong with him, a solution might be lost here. Not that he couldn't totally come up with something on his own, given the time and resources, but as far as things go right now, he's at the mercy of what's available to him. Still, he reaches out for her hand and squeezes reassuringly. "Don't worry, everything's fine. I can deal with a few nosebleeds." He's less confident that he'll be able to deal with getting hit with more memories, but he keeps that to himself.

"It's not the nosebleeds that freak me out," she says, leaning against the sink, watching him with the towel. "But at least they checked." The idea that they might miss something or might not be able to do anything even if they did find something makes her uncomfortable. It's not like she has a ton of faith in doctors to begin with, they've pretty much failed her family in a hundred different ways, but she wants to believe they can still help.

She lifts a hand, pulling her hair over her shoulder so she can untangle in with her fingers, looking down at the ends instead of at Newt for a second. She doesn't want him to see that she's worried and if he thinks he can deal with this, she doesn't want to spend all their time together freaked out that it might get worse or that he might have another nightmare. So she takes the moment, pushes the worries aside as best she can, then looks up again and smiles. "Alright, dude, no worrying," she says. It's a stupid thing to promise, she can't follow through on it, but she can do her best to make sure he doesn't notice.

"I know," he answers quietly, and he forces himself to look up at her because if she's come this far with him, all the way through the stupid car accident, then he figures she deserves to hear what he's really feeling, as much as he doesn't want to feel this way. "Maybe a little worrying. I mean, not a lot, just the least amount of worrying because what if next time this happens while I'm walking down the street or--or at whatever job I eventually get or whatever? What if next time it's a lot worse and it's just you and me, and you've gotta, y'know, deal with that, it's not okay. It's not okay." He's unloading on her, and he feels terrible about it because this isn't him; he's a rock star, he's a hero, he can handle a bad dream. But it's not just a dream, is it? No, it's memories buried deep in his mind, and he has no control over when they're going to surface.

His chest is starting to feel tight and wow, okay, that's a major wave of dizziness there. He tries to take deep breaths but it's turning out to be a lot more difficult than he's used to, and he feels like his body's going numb, and the lights seem way brighter than they were, and he just needs to get up, he needs to move. If he moves, he'll have something to do, so he pushes himself up off the tub and sure, he's a little wobbly and kind of regretting leaving the cane in the bedroom now but he can't be all too concerned about that right now.

He's freaking out, she can see it as soon as he starts to talk and Kate's never been great at dealing with her mom when she has panic attacks -- most of the time, she's come to realize, she was kind of the cause of them -- but she knows what she's supposed to do. And while she doesn't have a handful of anxiety medication she can give him, there are other things she can do, she knows that. As he talks, she has to admit, the things he's bringing up are actually kind of terrifying, but if there's one thing Kate is usually pretty good at in the face of her mother's panic, it's keeping her head. All this shit, she can worry about that later on her own time instead of worrying now and making things worse for Newt.

"Hey," she says, stepping up to him, her hands finding his. She's not sure where he wants to go, but it's probably better for him to sit back down until he's freaking out a little bit less. "Come on, come back to the bedroom." Her father used to try and distract her mom, get her talking about something else or pull her out into the back yard and make her run in circles. She's not about to do that with Newt, but she figures she can find something to distract him as long as she can get him to sit back down. "How's your leg feeling?" Maybe she can irritate him into panicking less.

He follows her, trying to focus on her hands in his and the sound of her voice until he's sinking back down on the bed. "I'm sorry," he says, and he makes a frustrated sound when his voice cracks a little. "I'm sorry, this is so stupid. It's just, it's a lot, y'know, to feel what they were feeling all at once, there were so many of them and none of it was good, there's just so much emotion there, they were emotional creatures, they felt. There was fear and rage and pain and not much in the way of anything happy, how could there be, right, not with a mission like they had."

He balls his hands into fists, trying to force himself to stop trembling, and grits his teeth. Enough, he keeps telling himself, she doesn't need this. And neither does he, for that matter, he hadn't let the first drift slow him down, he can't very well let a ghost-drift knock him on his ass. Maybe the thing that freaks him out the most is how there's just a little bit of empathy for them, for the kaiju he always so vehemently denied loving. He wouldn't have called it that, not like Hermann always did. He'd built a visual shrine on his body to the kaiju, had made them the highest priority in his life, they'd changed him, he'd seen them as amazing biological beings; but to understand them and then have that connection destroyed... It makes him feel a little like he's missing something now. The question about his leg comes at a good time because he'd much rather focus on the minor strain he's put on it tonight than the confusing string of thoughts running through his head. "My leg's fine. Everything's fine." He closes his eyes, repeating it like a mantra. "Everything's fine."

"Hey, seriously, don't apologize," she says, standing in front of him, her hands pushing through his hair again before they both slide down the back of his neck. "Trust me, when it comes to freaking out, this isn't even in the top ten I've seen." It's a shitty attempt at a joke, but it's true, too. Newt isn't turning into other people and the stuff he's got on his mind is pretty huge, they're all pretty valid reasons to panic. She presses a kiss to his hairline, then looks down at him, her arms around his shoulders. When he says it -- everything's fine -- she doesn't buy it, but only because she's sure he doesn't really feel it. But that doesn't need to matter. If he says it enough, it can be the truth, she's learned that from watching her mother, too.

"You wanna play a board game?" she asks, her mouth hitching into a faint smile as she drops her arms from around his shoulders and reaches down to take his hands instead. He has them balled up and she wants him to relax, so she threads her fingers through his, holding them loosely and wrapping both his arms around her waist. "Or maybe I Spy? Twenty Questions? Sexy Chicken? I hear you're good at that one." As far as she remembers they were both good at that one, but she just wants to distract him now, take his mind off the nightmare, off the bloody nose, off everything that's worrying him. She'll play I Spy all night if it helps.

He almost apologizes for apologizing but he hates it when people do that and suspects Kate probably feels the same way. He reminds himself of how good he's been having it here, in spite of a couple of these minor setbacks, reminds himself that this isn't a thing he needs to cry over--not that he's crying, there are no tears, just some dust in his eyes--or dwell on for too long because if he starts living every day in fear that this is going to happen under less than desirable circumstances, he can't be the same person he is--the person he likes being. He wishes he could explain to Kate how grateful he is that she's here, but the words he needs just aren't coming to him. How do you even begin to thank someone for doing what Kate's done for him?

He lets out a shaky laugh at the comment about games--she's good-- and takes comfort in having his arms around her, letting her anchor him. He rests his cheek against her shoulder and smiles. "Sexy Chicken sounds good," he says, though he shakes his head because one more round of that and he might actually go batshit insane. He lets out a few deep breath, relieved that the tightness in his chest is fading, and looks up at her sheepishly. "I spy with my little eye someone who makes my life a million times better."

Probably better for him to go with something other than Sexy Chicken, since she's pretty sure it's somehow both the best and the worst game ever. It might be distracting, which is what he needs, but she's certain if they do that again she's just going to lose it completely and then she'll definitely lose the game. Or win. She's not even sure how someone wins or loses at Sexy Chicken. Either way, it's not going to end the same way it has in the past.

She smiles, lips pursed as she pretends to give his clue some consideration, then tips her head to the side. "God, I hope the answer is me, because if there's someone else in this room I'm gonna be seriously fucking creeped out, dude," she tells him. "I mean, I was just sleeping not too long ago." He seems to be calming down, though, which is what she wanted and she shifts where she's standing slightly, squeezing his hands. "Can I ask for another clue? Is that allowed in I Spy? Remember when I said I didn't know how to play, I wasn't fucking around. I can't remember anything besides that first sentence."

He feels the slightest twinge of regret at passing up another round of Sexy Chicken because every time they play it, things have tended to escalate. Which is all that can be expected in such a game but still, he knows he must be feeling pretty lousy if he's playing I Spy instead. It's ultimately better, he decides, because they'd talked about wanting their first time together to be special and falling into bed after suffering a sort of mental trauma isn't exactly the romantic story either of them are looking for.

"You'll have to guess and see, you really are rusty at this game." He's feeling a lot calmer now, even though the fact that she's playing along is strictly for his benefit. He's not even sure what time it is, but he's certain she'd much rather be sleeping right now. He's exhausted from the nightmare, the consequences that had come with it, but he doesn't know if he'd be able to get back to sleep if he tried. So he's prepared to keep the game going for as long as she can stand it, until she falls back asleep and he can ensure that neither of them suffer anymore nightmare tonight. "I'll allow it. This person has one of those smiles that light up the room. A deep-rooted love for wontons. Oh, and impeccable sword skills."

"Sword skills give it away, it's totally me," she says and she gives his hands another squeeze before she moves back to sit down on the bed beside him. She's more awake now than she was in the bathroom, but as soon as she sits down, she can feel herself just wanting to curl up under the blankets again and go back to sleep. Even as tired as she is, though, she's smiling down at her knees, because he's just had a nightmare and a nosebleed and probably at least a little bit of a panic attack, but he still manages to say the sweetest things.

"A million times better, huh?" she asks, looking over at him. "That's a lot of times better given that I don't actually do a hell of a lot." She hangs around, pesters him into not doing anything too dangerous while she's there, but in truth, she's pretty sure she's getting the better end of the deal here.

The pillows look really inviting and she pushes back on the bed, holding out her hand toward him. "C'mon, lie down and I'll keep playing."

"And it only took you like, two questions. I think you hustled me, it's a good thing I didn't place bets." He lets out a little laugh that turns into a yawn and yeah, maybe he doesn't want to go back to sleep, but his body is being a dick and betraying him right now. He nods, rubbing at his face with both hands, trying to wipe the exhaustion away. "It is a lot, but you're so wrong on that not doing much part. This with the not karate chopping me in the throat for waking you up at the ass crack of dawn, that's worth like, half a million right there."

He takes her hand, following her direction gladly. "Think it's your turn to spy." Assuming she doesn't fall asleep first, which would be fair anyway.

"Dammit, I knew I was supposed to get you to do something before I hustled you," she says with a laugh, sliding back under the blankets. Curling up on her side, she props her head up with one hand, looking at Newt with a bit of a smile. At least he's calm now and he looks kind of tired, too, which gives her hope he might fall back asleep. "And what the hell, I don't care that you woke me up. Besides, I don't know any karate yet. Korra hasn't taught me."

Besides, she doesn't have anywhere to be in the morning, she can pretty much sleep as long as she wants, which she fully intends on doing, unless he plans on kicking her out, which she doubts.

"My turn," she says, pretending to look around the room. "I spy... someone who maybe woke me up stupidly early, but who didn't bail when I really needed him to stick around."

"Better luck next time," he says, shifting to get comfortable on his back with his head turned toward her. "You should have Korra teach me, then I could like, totally dropkick cars and dream kaiju. Seems legit, right?"

He squints, pretending to be at a loss, but he's admittedly a little puzzled because who the hell would bail on someone who'd gone through what she had? He thinks it would take a real asshole to do something like that, to abandon someone during a time like that. Maybe he gets nosebleeds during these nightmares, but that doesn't make hers any less traumatic. It's not fear of being devoured by a kaiju that has him waking up in the middle of the night, but Kate... To think that she might open her eyes and still think she's in danger of actually being in that casket, it causes his chest to ache. Still, he gives her a small smile, letting his head sink further into the pillow as he tries to stifle another yawn. "Hmm. I'm not as good at this as you are, I guess, I might need some assistance here."

Still leaning on her hand, she reaches over with the other, her palm against his chest. Rubbing back and forth slowly, almost absently, she hums softly, considering her next clue. "I thought you were supposed to guess first," she teases, relaxing against her pillow, her arm still draped over him. It's still kind of surprising to her sometimes, just how comfortable she is next to him, and she stretches in the bed, her knee brushing his leg, though she's careful not to nudge against him too hard.

"Okay, then I spy someone with some ridiculously hot tattoos and eyes that kind of make me want to agree to anything who willingly sat through the Darrow equivalent of meeting the parents even when said pseudo-parental figure was maybe a little off putting at first," she says, then laughs softly even as she tries to stifle a yawn of her own. "Jesus, that's one hell of a clue."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject