i dooooooooooooo cherish youuuuuuuuu lmfao no but really

[sciencesaggressively]

It's been a month. Well, give or take, but still at least a month since he and Kate had gone on their first date. It seems like so much longer, after everything that's happened--the casket, the car accident, meeting the surrogate parent, the nightmare--and yet, he's still got butterflies in his stomach as he waits for her on the roof, holding a bottle of champagne. It had taken him most of the day to prepare this date, and she's been working so he wants so badly for this to be relaxing and enjoyable and all those nice words that should be associated with a date.

He'd been very specific. Meet him at his place, no need to knock--not that either of them do anyway. Just beyond the door, he'd placed that little pink flamingo she'd told him about, the one that her friend had put in the casket with her, with a note reading Change of plans. Take the elevator. Inside the elevator, another note: To the roof. The door to the roof has a bouquet of daisies propped on it along with another note: No broken limbs this time. P.S. Don't laugh.

And he's here, on the other side, surrounded by more arrangements of every kind of flower he could get from the shop--carnations, lilies, roses, tulips. He'd had help, of course, especially with dragging the round glasstop table and wrought iron chairs he'd found at the pawn shop up here. Plus another lawn flamingo that he'd strategically placed next to what is now being designated as Kate's chair. He figures he can leave it all, let whoever happens to come up here take advantage of it, but for now there's a lit candelabra on the table along with an ice bucket, two champagne flutes, and two plates of roasted lemongrass chicken that are still steaming under their lids. A portable stereo is playing some soft rock radio, and he's going to be pretty damn broke until he secures a job but he wants this to be special. He wants it to be something she won't forget.

Comments

[sciencesaggressively]

He closes his eyes, smiling contentedly at the feel of her lips against his skin. She's glad that she doesn't find the things he says overwhelming because he knows it could easily come across as just that. He's sure their friends will have something to say about it, whether in a lecture or a tease, because it seems to Newt that being so certain of being in love with someone so soon into a relationship isn't really typical. But he's never been particularly good at typical, and Kate sure as hell isn't a stranger to the abnormal. Besides, why would he even want to be like everyone else? His relationship with Kate is special, different, and that's why it makes sense that they be a little unorthodox.

"Yeah, you have said it a lot, maybe you're the creepy one," he teases. He wraps his arms around her, just reveling in their closeness and how soft her skin feels and how good her hair smells. "But if that's the case, don't stop because apparently it's a turn-on for me."

[everyonetakes]

"Me? Oh, yeah, I'm totally creepy, dude," she says, pulling back a little and tilting her head, her hair falling over her shoulder. "But I'm glad it's working for you, it's not really one of those things you can just stop being if someone doesn't like it." She's never stopped being anything just because someone doesn't like it, which had kind of kept her sane through most of junior high. By high school people had stopped giving her a hard time because of her total dismissal of their bullshit. If she couldn't be ruffled, it wasn't fun anymore, but there had been a lot of cruel comments leading up to that, a lot of places where she could have just tried to fit in, be the normal kid instead of the kid with the freak mother.

But she'd never bothered. And she knows she doesn't need to bother changing now.

"You don't have to go back to a life without me," she tells him with a small shrug and a smile. "I mean... I'm not going anywhere." It's not something either of them can really promise, she knows that. This place might decide to take one or both of them away, but there are some things in her control and she can promise she'll be here as long as the city lets her.

[sciencesaggressively]

"The creepiest," he agrees, nodding earnestly at the assessment. He can't hide his affectionate smile, though, when she go on about not being capable of being something you're not just for the sake of someone else. It's one of the many things he loves about her, after all, that she's so uninhibited around him. No pretenses, no bullshit, no filter, just herself; he's always been the same way, never really putting feelers out when meeting new people to see how he should act. He is who he is, he makes no apologies for it. He thinks that's why it's been so easy to fall in love with Kate, the fact that both of them are comfortable with themselves and with each other. It makes things a hell of a lot easier, he's finding.

"Neither am I," he says softly, brushing her hair off her shoulder and tucking it behind her ear. He'd talked about this a bit with Carla Jean not too long ago, about having plans for the future when the future is so uncertain. It's always uncertain, though, isn't it? No matter where you are, curveballs are possible. Probable, even. Five years is a long time to be stuck in a city with no way out, the mere thought gives him a bit of cabin fever. But it'll be more bearable with Kate by his side, at least he knows this.