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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"I still have my dick," he answers, and he's trying to sound super serious but his body betrays him as his shoulders start shaking from attempting to keep his laughter internal. The nice thing is, he knows that even though they're just dicking around--heh--he's on the side of positive that he doesn't have to worry about her leaving. Unless she likes, disappears back to that island or something, which he refuses to even give more thought to because he's not going to waste time worrying about waking up one day to find her gone when she's right here with him now.

"I'd totally stick around for you if you had no arms and no dick, just for the record." And that sounds so off but whatever, she knows what he means even if she'll mock him about it. He's fine with that.

"That's super good to know, given that I currently don't have a dick and have never had a dick," she answers, her eyebrows raised even as she smiles at him. "Wait, that's not true, there was that one time I had a dick, but it didn't last, obviously." And although it still sounds like she's joking, she's not, which she has the island to thank for. It had actually been a pretty good weekend, with the exception of her then-boyfriend being completely terrified of her, as if being a dude somehow meant she was somehow going to convince him that having loads of sex would be the best thing in the world. Which, okay, had actually been her intention until he'd freaked out.

"The weirdest thing about that was my centre of gravity," she admits, although she hasn't explained what she means even a little bit and she pauses, then purses her lips slightly. "The island did stuff like that to people sometimes, which sounds totally fucking crazy, I know, but I swear I woke up as a dude one day and it was kind of awesome. I was tall and had all these muscles and leaning how to walk in a different body is seriously the weirdest thing in the world."

"Wait, wait, wait." He shifts so he's half-sitting, relying on his elbows to keep him up as he shoots her an incredulous look. "You turned into a dude? Like, full biology, DNA switch-up, actual dude?" He stares at her for a long moment, his brain trying to process exactly what that means because it's simply not possible but holy shit. "That's amazing! Can you did it again, does that happen here? Oh my god, could I become a woman?"

He realizes that this kind of thing is probably the reason some people can get so put off talking to him--wondering aloud what would happen if he'd crossed human and kaiju DNA back at the 'Dome had definitely lost him some friends he'd never had in the first place--but whatever, he'd totally take samples of his own blood and do some testing on DNA if he ever turns into a woman in this place. Freakin' awesome.

"Full blown dude," she confirms with a nod, then giggles, because she's still tired and it's pretty funny. "Well, not full blown because no one seemed to think that was a very good idea, but yeah, I was a dude. Completely biologically accurate, although I guess I can't answer for sure about the DNA and all my insides, since no one really bothered to test that or if they did, they didn't tell me. But I felt different, you know? Like... I don't know, things were just different inside me."

Briefly, she thinks about the time she's spent in Darrow and she shakes her head in response to his other questions. "I don't know if it happens here. It hasn't happened to anyone I know. On the island, it used to happen to a bunch of people at once. I was living with my brother in a dorm at that point and we both woke up switched. Jeff, the guy my dog is named after? He'd turned into this really gorgeous blonde woman and shit, he was so mad." Which she still can't understand, because it's not like breasts are that difficult to deal with. A penis is a hell of a lot more uncomfortable when you aren't used to it in the first place.

"That's a shame, you totally missed out," he says with a cheeky smile. He's still preoccupied with thoughts of a person's entire DNA structure changing over night, XX chromosomes transforming into XY chromosomes because, what, some island dubs it so? It doesn't make any sort of logical sense, there's no scientific reason for it, but according to Kate, it had happened and that's enough for him to believe that it's true. It's not that DNA doesn't change naturally, but it's a long process, it's the process of evolution. A person just doesn't wake up with their entire biological structure different, it's just not a thing. Except for on that island, apparently. There are techniques he's worked with, ways to encourage change and jumpstart the polymerase process but he's never tried it with people.

"I want it," he announces, nodding firmly. "Can we call someone for that? Do a rain dance kinda thing? Because I'm so down to become my own experimental patient."

"Wait, you want to turn into a woman or you want me to turn into a dude again?" she asks, laughing. Either way, she's pretty sure it's not the sort of thing they can request, but if she turns into a man again, she would kind of like some advance warning of when it's coming. She also hopes, if it has to happen again, that it won't be a total bust like last time, except she's not really sure how to say something like that.

Totally doesn't matter, anyway, it's all hypothetical.

"If you turn into a woman, can I dress you?" she asks. He's interested in the science behind it, she just wants to make sure he looks good while he's doing it and she's sure he can probably pick out his own clothes as a woman, too, but she has a whole closet full for him to use.

He waves his hands wildly, not even sure what the gesture's supposed to mean, and shrugs. "Doesn't even matter! Either? Both? I'm not going to be picky about a biological miracle." He won't, he swears to the science gods or whatever that he won't, he just wants to see it with his own eyes. Or with his own eyes under a microscope, preferably.

"You can dress me," he allows. "I'm going to draw the line at thongs, though." He's not a fan. Well, he'd be a fan if he saw Kate in one but for himself, not so much. "What do I get to do for you if you turn into a dude again?"

"Take me to the gym so I can build up my man muscles?" she asks before dissolving into laughter again, because the idea of them at the gym together is beyond funny for some reason, especially picturing herself as a guy. She's hardly a gym person to begin with and given how much difficulty she'd had with her balance the last time it had happened, she can't imagine wanting to go work out if it ever happens again.

She kind of never wants to go work out, though, so not much would change there.

"Shit, dude, I don't know. Whatever you want," she says, stretching in the bed. "Take a zillion blood samples and whatever else you want to do to see what's going on internally and... I don't know." She pauses, because she knows exactly what she'd want, but she's already freaked out one boyfriend that way in the past and she hasn't been with Newt long enough to judge how he might react to something like that. She thinks it would be okay, though, and as the pause stretches longer, she lifts her shoulder in a shrug. "Y'know. Anything."

He narrows his eyes at that, glancing down at his decidedly not flat stomach and looks back at her with an arched brow. "Don't think that's gonna work for me, sorry. The last time I went to the gym, it was to ask for change for the snack machine." In his defense, the gym-goers in the Shatterdome had been super intense, especially with the entirety of the Team Russia group dominating most of the machines. He's always been far more than content being mentally actively anyway but hey, he'd managed to outrun a baby kaiju so he's clearly not in the most terrible shape he could be.

"A zillion blood samples and internal examinations, hmm? You might sing a different tune if I actually try those things." He notes the pause, smiling to himself at the thought of what she might say--something sexual, he's guessing, and he's not exactly opposed to that. "Anything?"

She's still giggling at the idea of the two of them at a gym when he echoes her and her smile grows a little as she shrugs. If he wants, she really will let him take blood samples and do whatever he needs to in order to satisfy his scientific curiosity. She's not afraid of needles and doesn't have an issue helping him out, especially when it's something he's clearly interested in. It might be boring because she's sure she won't follow at least half of what he does, but she'll just like, bring a book or something.

Her smile and shrug are more directed at the other thing he's said, though, and she figures she can play coy or she can just be honest about it. He hasn't thrown her out of bed yet, after all, and it's not like she's been super subtle with the lengthy pauses. "Seriously, if I turn into a man again and I don't get a blowjob, I'm gonna be so pissed," she says. "But that's my only real request. Beyond that, the anything totally stands." If she only gets the body for a couple of days, she figures she should take advantage of that, even if people haven't always agreed with her in the past.

He pretends to be on the fence, shifting his hands like he's weighing his options before leaning in to give her a deep kiss. When he pulls away, he rests a hand just above the line of her panties and grins. "I will totally give you the best damn blowjob of your life," he promises, which he figures is legitimate enough because it will have been her only blowjob. "But you're so going to have to return the favor if I turn into a woman."

It's all hypothetical, he knows that, but he's having fun just thinking about it, even aside from the scientific implications and the impact it could have if he could study such a phenomenon. He settles back down, smiling up at the ceiling as he moves her hand from her stomach to grasp her hand. "As long as it's you, I'm not really opposed to much. I mean, there's a short list, but it's for whether you're a man or a woman, so y'know, whatever."

They've done this to themselves all over again and Kate knows she should change the subject or, at the very least, think about something else, but then he's kissing her and promising to give her a hypothetical blowjob and he has his hand right there, so she can't really be blamed for not being able to think about anything else. Even if she's pretty much convinced of her own heterosexuality, she thinks she'd be able to bend the rules a little bit for Newt if he turned into a woman. He'd probably be a ridiculously adorable woman, too.

"I could do that for you," she decides, squeezing his hand lightly, her fingers threaded with his. It's almost as bad as playing Sexy Chicken again, but there's also something really sweet about what he's saying. He just wants her and she only wants him, so that works out pretty well for the both of them, she figures. "I mean, I've never been with a girl before, I've never even really given it much thought, but if it was you as a woman... yeah, I could do that." Maybe it'll never happen, maybe it's nothing she'll ever have to think about it again, but she's pretty sure she'd be into it. "What the hell, right? I mean, I'm not gonna be the one to deny you something like that. That'd just be shitty."

He gives her a gentle nudge in the side with his elbow. "You wouldn't have to do it, I would never like, y'know, force you or whatever. Give you an ultimatum. Any of that. 'Sides, knowing how awesome I think it would be, it'll probably take another 12 years for it to happen anyway so you've got some time to think about it some more." He's so down to give her a blowjob if the dude thing ever happens, but he'll be content not to get any action as a woman himself--he just wants the DNA samples. He thinks it's a little absurd that this is even a possibility, a thing that they're having a legitimate conversation about what guidelines should be followed if either of them were ever to switch sexes.

"But hey, if you're up to it, I'm not going to argue the point. As long as you don't decide to like, never speak to me again until my dick is back where it's supposed to be, everything will be good."

Kate shakes her head, smiling up at the ceiling. "I don't like you just for your penis, dude," she points out, her voice teasing. "Given that I'm totally lying in your bed at whatever o'clock in the morning and your leg is broken and I still haven't seen your dick I feel like that should be obvious. No, I could totally be into getting busy with you as a woman." But she doesn't think the same extends to anyone else. She's kind of surrounded by a lot of gorgeous women in Darrow, as she was on the island, but she never has anything even close to feelings of attraction toward them. It really is just all Newt.

Turning over, she rests her forearm on his chest, looking up at him. "You'd be a gorgeous woman, too. I can totally see it. I don't need twelve years to think about it." The thought that she might be around and with him long enough for that time to pass, though, isn't as scary as she once would have thought. It's a long time, she'd be in her thirties by then, but maybe she'll still be here. And maybe she'll still be with him. It's kind of a nice thought.

"Hey, you totally had the chance to see my dick but I can't get my pants off by myself." That's the opposite of true but meh, not even the point, okay. Sexy Chicken is a game he half wishes he'd never started with her because goddamn it, he'd gone a whole like, 12 seconds without thinking about getting naked with her. "I do appreciate that you're totally willing to hit this in female form, though."

He raises an eyebrow at her comment, looking down at his tattooed chest and arms and tilts his his head. "Think I'd still have these? Did your tattoos like, transfer over? It'd be weird, seeing myself without them even if I wasn't me me." He hasn't been untouched by ink since, Christ, his sophomore year at MIT; it's hard to imagine being a Newt Geiszler without the tattoos that have so helped him to stand out, helped me break out of that scientist stereotype he's always abhorred. "I do agree that I'd be super hot, though. I mean, come on."

"You made me stop," she protests, hitting his shoulder, although she's laughing and there's not much strength behind her swing. At the time she'd thought it was probably a good idea, too, but now she's wondering why the hell they'd bothered. She could have taken his pants off without the two of them having sex. Probably. His pants are off now and they're managing to resist. "I'm totally good with my hands, you even said so yourself, but you made me knock it off."

Glancing down at his question, she traces a line of ink on his chest with her forefinger, then nods. "Yeah, I still had both of mine. And a friend of mine who's got a ton of tattoos had all his when he turned into a woman." Tunny didn't have nearly as much ink on his body as Newt does, but he'd had more than anyone else she'd known at the time and it had made identifying him pretty easy on a weekend when everyone had been someone else. "Jesus, that's so unfair. You'd be this little green-eyed, freckled, tattooed woman. So stupidly hot."

"I made you knock it off because it would be really embarrassing to make a mess all over myself and then have to ask for your help in cleaning it up," he shoots back, laughing with her as he dramatically rubs at the spot on his shoulder that she's smacked. "Besides, you wanted it to be special, remember? I was all hopped up on pain meds, obviously I had your best interests at heart."

"Well, that's a relief. And also stupidly cool that it transfers over like that, goddamn, maybe if I close my eyes?" He squeezes his eyes shut and counts to ten, holding his breath, before opening them again and looking down with a sigh of disappointment to see that nothing's changed. "C'monnnnnn," he whines, "I want to see how far we can take Sexy Chicken while I'm a lady. You could tell people you have the hottest girlfriend in town."

"I said I want the first time we sleep together to be special," she answers, trying not to laugh, surprised by how easy it is to talk about this with him. Technically, she also just said she didn't want to be drunk, but she's kind of really come around to the idea of making a big deal out of it. She's never done anything like that before. "I didn't say anything about first handjob." And she's mostly teasing, but also kind of not really. There are plenty of things she's willing to do for him -- and to him -- before they have sex, but she's also just as willing to wait if he sort of wants to have it all at the same time.

"Looks like you're out of luck with growing some tits tonight," she says with a laugh when he whines. "Sorry, dude. We'll have to wait on telling everyone I have the hottest girlfriend in Darrow." She's pretty sure it would be the truth, though, if he had actually somehow managed to turn himself into a woman just by wishing for it. "Maybe if you ask for it for your birthday it'll happen."

"My pain means nothing to you," he deadpans, giving her a woeful look before rolling over onto his stomach, being careful of his stupid mummified leg. "It's too risky anyway. We get each other all worked up and all naked and boom, we accidentally do the thing." It's not like they're not both functioning adults who know how to use words, but the scenario he's just painted definitely isn't improbably now that he thinks more on it. He's pretty sure all it would take is like, one raised eyebrow on her side before he takes it as a sign that they should just go to town. But no, as much as he's being bratty and acting like the blames lies with her, he does admit that he's totally up for making it a romantic evening--not that it wouldn't be special otherwise but the thought of doing something like that for her is too hard to resist.

"That's not too far off," he replies, squinting to himself as he counts the days in his head. Just under two months. "I can wait." He's not a very patient man but when it comes to miracles of science, he'd to just about anything.

When he rolls over, she shifts back to give him room, then turns onto her side, facing him. Stroking her fingertips against his shoulder absently, she smiles and then sighs heavily, as if he's expecting something huge from her. "I was trying to prevent pain," she points out, laughing at the look he gives her, but it doesn't matter now anyway. They've decided to wait and she's excited by that prospect, even if it is fun to tease him about it now. The thing is, he's probably right, they'd probably end up doing it just by accident and she smiles softly, her eyes closing again.

"Man, your birthday is way too close to Christmas." She hasn't given much thought to the holidays or gifts just yet, because it's still ages away and Kate's always been behind when it comes to stuff like that. There's one idea, though, she's been sitting on and she's pretty sure that it's going to be Newt's Christmas gift, but then his birthday comes right after and she'll have to come up with something even better. "What if I use up all my good gift ideas for Christmas and then just get you some socks or something for your birthday?"

"If you get me socks for Christmas, I'll never speak to you again," he teases, nudging her foot with his own under the covers. "Unless they're like, dino socks. I'm down with dino socks." He chews on his bottom lip at the thought of Christmas and gifts and good ideas because he has no clue what to get for anyone. He has a ton more friends here in Darrow than he'd had in Hong Kong--where he'd had exactly two, Hermann and Tendo, and even then, it'd been kind of hard to celebrate and think hard on gifts when the fate of the world rested on their shoulders--so he's not used to having to come up with this stuff anymore.

He wants to get her something awesome even though she could give him a goddamn grain of sand from the beach and he'd be overjoyed because like, sentiment or something. He turns his head to brush his lips over the fingers on his shoulder and gives a quiet sigh. "It's going to be so different," he comments and if he sounds a little far away, it's because he is. "Actually having people to celebrate with this year? I've missed it."

"Me, too," she says softly, settling her head down against the pillow, her fingers still moving against his skin without thought. It's not like she didn't have anyone on the island, but it was different. The island had always changed during December, thrown them into a world unlike the one they were used to and the only memories she has of Christmas are mostly strained. She remembers being freezing cold last year, unable to warm up, huddled in as many goddamn shawls as she could find and refusing to move from her spot in front of the fire.

This will be different. This is more like home.

"I should get a tree," she mumbles, though she's not sure why she's thinking about it now. They're both relaxed, she thinks she might actually be able to fall asleep again. "And a wreath. And lots of mistletoe so I can just make you kiss me every time you turn around."

"I mean, you don't need mistletoe for that but 'tis the season." He grins at the thought of how totally gross they're going to be once he's out of this cast, how he won't be able to keep his hands off her and all their friends are going to be horrified by how attractive a couple they are. But hey, it's his first Christmas being surrounded by people who actually like him in a long time and definitely his first Christmas spent with a girlfriend.

It's not like he's spent all these years moping around, hell no, he'd show up to lab in a crappy, old Santa hat and poke around kaiju guts until Hermann yelled at him for getting entrails on his side of the room and the hat would be thrown in Hermann's face and then it would proceed like any other day. He's never minded it, Hermann had been closest to what he could consider family at the 'Dome--but this time, here, he remembers what it's like to have loved ones around. "I might not leave your apartment if you get that tree, though, I've got what might actually be a physical attraction ot the smell of evergreen."

"So if I rub myself in a pine tree, you'll pretty much do whatever I want?" Kate asks with a laugh and maybe she's joking, but maybe this is also pretty handy information to have at her disposal. She's not sure she wants to go around smelling like a tree all the time, but she figures she could probably arrange to deal with it sometimes. Just for Newt. Mostly for herself, though, if he's really that into it.

"Y'know, the island had this magic mistletoe that would trap people under it," she says and it's just one more thing on a long list of stuff she doesn't miss. The mistletoe hadn't been the end of the world, really, except when she'd been caught under it and had to kiss Jeff. Even then, not the worst thing that could have happened to her, given that there had been some kind of creepy ass serial killer running around at the same time, but it had been pretty terrible. "I got stuck under it once with the guy my dog is named after and it was pretty much the most disgusting moment of my life, but we couldn't just stay there forever and hope someone else might come save us. It was gross."

He tilts his head, simultaneously intrigued and amused by the image of Kate rolling around in the scent of evergreen and hey, it's not a crime, he thinks it's maybe kind of a turn-on. "I mean, I'm not saying you should like, smother yourself with car fresheners or y'know, dive into a sea of Christmas trees. But uh, yeah, I'd say you'd definitely have some free reign." Not that she doesn't already; he's hardly in a position to put up any sort of fight as it is but he also doesn't think she'd find much resistance having her way with him.

He scrunches his nose at her magic mistletoe story because Christ, that sounds terrible. He can't even think of a single person at the 'Dome that would be less than gross to kiss in a situation like that--Mako and Sasha are, of course, the primary candidates but there's also the fact that a kiss with either of them would most likely lead to a painful, painful death at the hands of the Marshal or Sasha's mister. "Get that mistletoe for this year," he tells her, reaching to cup her cheek and leaning in to give her a soft, sweet kiss. "We'll replace that icky memory with lots of really good ones."

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