sciencesaggressively | not cool, brain, not cool

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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.

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"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."

He lets his eyes drift shut as he sighs contentedly, a small smile on his lips. The feel of her hand on his chest is so pleasant, and he doesn't know how he's gone so long these past years without craving this, wanting a touch like this. A chuckle sounds deep in his throat and he puts his hand over hers, brushing his fingers against her skin. "Guess I'm worse at this than you pretended to be." He feels her knee come to a rest gently against him, and he's amused by how careful she still is around him in so many ways, even though she tries to hide it for his sake. He knows it's mostly because he'd probably make a fuss otherwise but the fact that she knows this and accepts it and does her best to respect it all while still finding ways to take care of him just reinforces that he's got the best girlfriend ever.

He blinks an eye open, his dimples deepening at her description of him. And at the part about Danny being off-putting, Newt still finds it kind of hard to believe that he gets to handle a gun on a regular basis. "Yeah, think this guy deserves a medal for that last part. Is a points chart still on the table?" He shifts until their cheeks are practically touching, as if the closer she is, the safer he'll be from Round 2 of ghost-drifting. "But whoever he is, I get the weirdest sense that he'd say it was worth it."

"No, I scrapped the points chart, you were so ridiculously ahead of everyone else that it was just getting kind of embarrassing. I ran out of paper, had to start drawing on the wall, it was this whole big thing. Carla Jean was super not impressed," she says, watching him with a faint smile. She's kind of hoping he'll fall asleep first, that maybe if she just keeps talking, eventually he just won't respond and she'll feel better about falling asleep herself.

"Hey, speaking of Carla Jean, I think she might cook for Thanksgiving," she tells him, the thought occurring to her right now, half-asleep, trying to get Newt fall asleep before her. Maybe talking about food isn't the best way to do it, but she's already said it and she's thinking about it. "You should come. And Chuck, invite Chuck. I like him." Given everything Newt's said about him, she's not actually all that surprised she likes him as much as she does, not when Newt clearly cares a lot about him. Plus, she had to appreciate his Halloween costume and she wonders just how many people dressed as dead things at that party had actually been dead. Or almost dead in her case.

"Wow, you're really inflating my ego right now and I like it." His tone doesn't do much in the way of expressing his amusement but apparently closing his eyes had been a terrible idea because he feels like he might fade away at any moment. Honestly, he hasn't gotten as much sleep as he has in Darrow ever, certainly not in the past ten years when he'd spent countless hours in the lab, poking at his kaiju parts and running tests and coming up with new hypotheses. Hermann had lectured him at least once every couple of weeks about how a lack of sleep would lead to a lack of accuracy, and Newt would just smile and wax poetic about how much Hermann did care. But here, it's just been so easy to let everything fall away, especially with Kate next to him, a source of comfort and warmth in what he's considering to be less and less of a foreign bed.

"I like Chuck, too," he mumbles, reaching his arms above him and letting one hand come to a light rest on her head so he can thread his fingers through her hair. "Besties for life. I can make pies, lots of pies." He smacks his lips because he may be sleepy but food is food, and he hasn't had a proper Thanksgiving dinner in a long while, not since his MIT years. "We call it Erntedankefest in Germany, basically means Harvest Festival of Thanks, but it's like, mostly a religious thing. American Thanksgiving is way better, way more food and celebration." He doesn't even really know what he's saying anymore, but he can't really be compelled to care at this point.

He's kind of rambling now, which he does a lot, so it might not be a sign that he's ready to fall back asleep, but she thinks it sounds pretty promising and the hand in her hair feels nice, so she closes her eyes as well. "She'd like it if you made pies," she tells him. "Did you know her husband was in his thirties when they got married?" It's completely out of the blue, but she's just thought of it now, how Carla Jean will be the last person in the world to comment in their age difference and she thinks maybe he needs something like that after Danny brought it up first thing.

"She was like, sixteen when they met," she continues. She knows that a lot of bad stuff has happened since then, but she knows Carla Jean was happy. That she was in love. She knows she gets it. Then, just because it sounds funny, she repeats what he's said. "Erntedankefest. German is such a weird language. Hey, can you speak German?" Just another thing to add to the list of weirdly hot things about him if he can.

"Are you sure she wouldn't just smash them in my face?" he teases, draping his other arm over his eyes. "She and Danny could team up, best Thanksgiving ever. Could probably even get Chuck on their side, but it's just because everyone loves me, right?" His raised eyebrows are the only visible indication of surprise on his face when Kate mentions Carla Jean's 30-something-year-old husband. "I didn't even know she had a husband. But that's cool, that she like, gets it." He lets his arm fall to the side and turns his head to look at her. "I really don't care if people think it's weird that I'm older than you. I mean, I'm not saying it's not maybe a little irritating..." He smiles. "But it's your opinion that matters when it comes to us, not anyone else's. Should I put that in the vows?" He gives a little laugh and nestles his head back in its previous position, closing his eyes again.

"I can speak German, yeah. Not often, haven't really had a reason to in a long time. But Hermann was from Germany, too, so when were like, super pissed at each other, we'd just scream at each other in the motherland tongue." Those were always times that would lead to full silent treatment for a couples days until one of them--usually Newt because silence has never been a friend to him--would break and their spats would start all over again. "Good times."

"He's not here. He died," she says, which is not how she expected this conversation to go and she frowns a little, shifting closer to Newt, tucking her head against his shoulder. It's been awhile, she knows, but she doesn't think a person ever really gets over something like that and she wonders how often Carla Jean thinks about her husband. She's about to say something about the other thing, because she's glad he doesn't care and she doesn't care, but she figures it can't be great to hear people commenting on it. But then he says something about vows and Kate doesn't tense up so much as she freezes, her eyes flying open again.

It's kind of like that conversation with Blaine all over again, but lucky for her, Newt's eyes are closed.

She should ask him about Germany again, she thinks, ask him to say something in German, but suddenly she's not very tired anymore. She still wants him to be able to sleep, but she's pretty sure she's going to be lying awake, staring at the ceiling and she knows he didn't mean anything by it, but the word vow still carries a pretty heavy implication.

"Oh." He doesn't know what else he can say to that. He hasn't had a lot of practice with the death of people close to him; in fact, Marshal Pentecost is probably the closest person to Newt who's died and though he'd always remained sure that Pentecost liked him more than he let on, they would never have called each other friends. He shifts, trying to make Kate more comfortable, and kisses her forehead and tries not to think about what it would be like if he lost her.

She's suddenly very quiet, and he wants to say something to fill the void, but then he thinks that maybe she's fallen asleep and it just wouldn't do for him to wake her twice in one night. So he keeps quiet, wrapping his arm around her because maybe if he keeps her as close as he can, he won't have to just pretend to sleep through the night.

"Say something in German," she murmurs after a moment, because he has his arm around her and it's just a word, anyway. She's tired, they both are, she's making way too big a deal over a single word and what's worse is that she's making a big deal of it internally. He doesn't even know, doesn't need to know, and it's not like he even has any way of knowing about the conversation she had with Blaine anyway.

She shifts against him, thinking she should just let him go to sleep, that was her intention all along, and she will. She just doesn't want him to fall asleep thinking there's anything wrong, because there isn't. It's just her own mind working against her.

"Anything," she adds, smiling a little. "I don't care what. Unless you're calling me something awful, don't swear at me in German."

"Anything, huh?" He pauses, considering what to say because really, sky's the limit here. It hits him then, a truth that he doesn't think he can express in English quite yet because he doesn't want to seem like he's jumping any guns, not when it's still so early on in their relationship... but he thinks maybe it would be okay to say in another language. He hesitates just the slightest bit before softly telling her, "Ich bin verliebt."

It still feels good to say, and he smiles to himself, suddenly feeling awake again though that's no fault of hers--it's mostly from the elation of being able to say it in his own private way. "That was like, such a mean thing to say, by the way. You should be so offended."

"I am, I'm super offended," she answers, smiling, her eyes still closed. She has no idea what he's said and she thinks she could ask him or look it up tomorrow, but she won't. Whatever he's said, it's not insulting and she has no idea how she knows that, because she doesn't speak a word of German, but she knows all the same. And she could look it up, but she sort of doesn't want to, not because she doesn't actually want to know, but because not knowing seems weirdly romantic.

"What if I was secretly fluent?" she asks, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. She opens her eyes briefly to look at him, then closes them again. She's warm and comfortable and he's calm and maybe he isn't tired, but at least he's not freaking out or pacing or having a panic attack. She pretty much considers that to be a victory.

"What if my mom was German? Or my dad? I guess Gregson's not a very German name, is it?"

"Well, then, I guess you'd probably be dumping my ass right about now," he replies, keeping up the charade because he's not about to tell her that he's foreignly admitted he loves her at whatever the hell o'clock it is right now. He's maybe not thinking the most clearly right now, but he's definitely aware enough that this isn't the right time for that. Maybe tomorrow. "Yeah, Gregson isn't all that German, it's very English. If you were Kate Geiszler, I might have been more careful with the Deutsch talk."

He rests his head against hers, and he sighs softly, taking this moment to appreciate the fact that he has someone in his life he can do this with--be next to in bed, talking about anything, just being content with each other's company. And yeah, he's pretty sure he might sleep in embarrassingly late tomorrow between the nightmare and the love confessions but at least this night will have ended on what he's considering a high note. "Du bist schön," he says, and it surprises him a little because he hadn't even really meant for it to come out in German. "Look what you've started."

"I would say I'm sorry, but I'm totally not," she mumbles, smoothing her hand over his chest again before she stretches, arching her back for a moment. Then she relaxes against him again, still smiling faintly, running the words over in her mind. It's no different than being spoken to in English, or it shouldn't be anyway, but they're just for her somehow. In the dark, in the stupidly early hours of the morning, in his bed, they're just for her. She doesn't need to know what he's said to feel that way.

"It's weirdly kinda hot," she admits, but then it's like everything he does is weirdly -- or not so weirdly -- kind of hot, so it doesn't surprise her much. Even now, half asleep, it makes her heart beat a little faster just to be lying next to him. She's pretty sure that's not even just the fact that she's totally into him taking over, she can't imagine ever getting over it and she's completely content with that. Everything he does is something she's into except, maybe, for climbing on chairs with a broken leg, but she can forgive that.

"Really? Maybe 'cause I'm choosing my words wisely. German is like, the angriest sounding language ever," he laughs. "Give it some time, you'll demand that I stop altogether." It gives him a little thrill, though, to hear her say that. He's not sure why, but a memory sparks in him of being in the LOCCENT command center, holding his breath and praying to anything that what he and Hermann had learned from the second drift was true, that they'd found the only way to close the Breach. He remembers Pentecost--and Chuck, god, it's crazy how much more it hurts now to think that Chuck had ever been gone--and Mako, exchanging their last words, what she'd said to him in Japanese that Hermann had later explained meant I love you, teacher.

He thinks of this, he realizes, because in these moments in the dark of the night, where it's completely private, he can feel comfortable with feeling vulnerable. He can tell her he loves her--maybe not in words she understands just yet--and he can talk to her about the nightmares, the memories that plague him, and he can fully trust that she won't run. "Maybe I'll learn like, French. Game over."

"I know some French, too, so you wouldn't be able to use it to say things to me that I can't understand," she says, although it's not like she knows a lot of French. Just things she's picked up here and there, mostly expressions from movies Marshall had made her watch during his French New Wave phase. She knows more Japanese than she does French and she sure as hell doesn't know much Japanese, but that's it, those are the only two languages she has under her belt besides English and it's a pretty pathetic showing from both of them.

"But whatever language you're speaking, I'll like it. Even German. Even if it's angry sounding," she tells him. "But what you said, that sounded nice... nice-ish, anyway. Ich bin verliebt, right?" She truly has no idea what she's repeating, but she knows whatever he's said, whatever he tells her about dumping his ass if she understood, it has to be something nice.

"Plus, I totally have access to the internet, dude." It's mostly an afterthought, she'll probably forget to look anything up in the morning. "Whatever the Darrow version of google translate is, I can type shit in there and know everything."

His eyes snap open when she says the words and for a second, it's like he forgets where he is, almost like he's having an out-of-body experience or something because Christ, hearing her say that--even though he knows she has no idea what she's really saying--kind of blows him away. He tries to speak but his words catch until he clears his throat and even then, his reply is near a whisper. "Yeah. That's right. How dare you." He presses a soft kiss to her forehead, letting it linger.

"You could," he agrees, though he's fairly certain that it won't happen, "but where's the fun in that? We should randomly bust out the French and German to each other when we're out, confuse the hell out of people." The thought makes him laugh, the two languages being bounced off each other, because yeah, they don't mesh very well together; but then again, he's always found that an unlikely pair always seems to be the one that works out best.

"How dare I," she agrees, stifling a yawn. She's warm and comfortable and it's easy to forget why she'd woken up in the first place when she has her arm slung across his chest and he's pressing kisses to her forehead. It's kind of ridiculous, how goddamn normal it is given their extremely not normal lives, but maybe that's why it's so nice, maybe that's the kind of thing she's been looking for without even realizing it.

"Shit, dude, I already confuse people," she says. "I don't need French for that, but I like the idea of you breaking out some foreign languages whenever you feel the urge." He already knows one and she thinks it'll be easier for him to learn more than it will be for her, since he has the big genius brain to begin with. "Except my French knowledge comes from French movies, so the stuff I could blurt out is probably super strange. My brother went through a New Wave period. He went through a German Expressionism period, too, so I guess I should probably also know some German, but mostly they just sounded so angry that I left that shit to him."

"See, I told you it's an angry language. Lots of ichs and eins and unds. But okay, we can confine the weird, random French things you know to just you and me, I'm good with that. Mein Französisch liebling." He knows he should let her sleep, there's a voice in the back of his mind that's telling him he's being selfish keeping her up like this. He sees her attempt at holding back the yawn, should just stop talking altogether or pretend he's asleep so she can drift off on her own, but it's hard to give this up. She anchors him, calms his nerves even when she's causing his heart to beat a little faster, is there for him in ways she probably doesn't even realize.

"You should go back to sleep," he finally tells her, lightly running his hand up and down her arm. "See if you dream in German, maybe you'll wake up just knowing what the things I've said mean."

"I am going back to sleep," she answers, because she is. She really is, she's just waiting for him to go back to sleep first, which probably isn't going to happen if she keeps talking to him. Tilting her head up without opening her eyes, she brushes a kiss against his jaw, pressing her nose against his cheek, smiling faintly. He's become so familiar to her in such a short period of time and she thinks a year ago that might have scared the shit out of her, might've caused her to back off and get awkward, but something's changed. She doesn't know if it's her or if it's him or maybe it's a combination of both, but whatever it is, she's good here. Nothing about this makes her want to run and that in itself is pretty terrifying. Or it would be if she wasn't comfortable and warm and mostly asleep.

"I never remember my dreams, so even if I dream in German and figure it all out, I won't remember in the morning," she promises. "So your German secrets are safe until I figure out how to spell them and remember to look it up."

"So do it," he teases, unable to hold back a smile she can't see. It's a smile that lingers as he blinks up at the ceiling, reveling in a simple kiss, feeling her own smile forming against him. He's starting to think this is turning into a game of Sleepy Chicken, each of them waiting for the other to fall asleep, and it's so ridiculous but it's so them, this is just what they do. And it actually feels so good because what it means to him is that they're there for each other, even in ways that might come off as silly to anyone else. So yeah, the fact that they keep talking doesn't help at all with the getting her to sleep thing but he takes comfort in knowing that the only reason she's still forcing herself to stay awake is because she cares about him, wants to make sure he'll be okay for the rest of the night. He doesn't know if he will be, doesn't know whether the nightmares will happen again tonight, but at least he knows that she'll be next to him.

"Nah, I'll just tell you you're crazy, I don't speak a word of German, it was all a dream." He thinks he might get a smack out of it if he really did do that so it's a good think he's certain she'll never remember to look it up at all.

"I would, but this is nice," she tells him. "I mean... not the nightmare and the bleeding nose, but this part. This is nice. Not like I have to get up early anyway, I could just stay here all morning and stay awake the whole time and it'd be nice." Her eyes open again slowly and she can't really see him from where she's lying, pressed so close, so she tips her head back on the pillow, just enough that she can see his profile.

She's told exactly one guy that he was nice in the past and he hadn't loved that description, so she hadn't said it again. For Kate, it's kind of one of the best things she can say, because there are plenty of dudes out there who are attractive and there are plenty who are smart and she's pretty sure there are even plenty who are funny. But most of them are dicks. Most of them wouldn't be lying awake with her, murmuring things in German, telling her to go back to sleep.

When she looks back, this might be it, she thinks. That moment Blaine was talking about when she just figures it out, when she realizes just how big her feelings are and it's not as scary as she thought it might be.

Edited 2013-11-25 12:56 (UTC)

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