sciencesaggressively | 6/29 open to all!

6/29 open to all!

It’s been a good morning.

As much as Newt prefers to have his wife around, he also can’t deny that every once in a while, having a day off when Kate is scheduled to work can be kinda nice—even when it means Jeff tries to cuddle up next to him when he’s trying to lounge naked on the couch. What makes that worse is the way goddamn Cat stares at him like he’s trying to peer real deep into Newt’s soul.

Otherwise, it’s perfectly relaxing, and he knows Kate would say the same of when he’s out long enough for her to have the condo to herself for the day. Of course, being that the place is so big, there’s only so much tinkering and TV watching and baiting the dog with the cat that he can take before he needs to be out and about. That wouldn’t have been a problem at the ‘Dome, he’d been totally content to be alone in a dark lab for hours on end, not even bothering to take a break to eat unless Hermann would sigh at him from across their diving line before going to grab him a tray from the mess hall. Nowadays, though, he’s about to be around people. It gets too boring without having some to talk at, and the pets don’t count.

Once it hits noon, Newt decides that he’s craving something he doesn’t have to go the trouble of making himself for lunch. Indian, maybe, or Thai. Or pizza. Chinese? A burger. No, probably Thai. Definitely Thai, and he can grab something to go before he leaves the restaurant to drop off for Kate at The Dressing Room to earn himself some extra Super Awesome Husband points. Yes, good, a plan.

Before he leaves, he makes sure the dog has done her thing and the pet bowls are stocked up with food and then he’s out the door, nodding at Jack the Door Guy as he passes through the lobby doors. The Thai place is only a couple blocks away, his mouth is already watering at the thought of shoveling some pad thai in his mouth, but he has to take a moment to pay attention to his surroundings because it’s such a nice day out. The sun is shining, the sky is clear, and all Newt can think is that he’d better not get a burn because he’s so not prepared to deal with a peely nose. Granted, he probably should have remembered to slap on some sunscreen before he’d left but the thing is, he hadn’t so really, it’s up to Mother Nature now to do him a solid.

Squinting up at the offending sun, he adjusts his glasses, losing track of where he’s stepping because of the distraction. Before he can process what’s even happening, Newt crashes into another body, nearly landing his ass on the ground.

“Dude!” he exclaims as he steadies himself, arms held out to maintain his balance. “That was totally my bad, sorry. You good?”

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"If it makes you feel any better, I'm willing to bet there are plenty of rock stars who've fucked their phones up after having a little too much to drink," Newt tells him with a broad grin, and he's not even being facetious.

He's actually fortunate enough to have only needed to replace his phone twice since getting here and neither time had even been his fault; but still, having a phone break in the name of partying hard isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world.

He holds a hand out then, snapping his fingers before pointing at Coop's pocket. "I might be able to fix it, if it isn't so fucked up that it's too far gone," he continues. "I mean, I seriously need to get something to eat before my stomach eats itself first but yeah, I could take a look at it, if you want."

"At this point, I'll try anything including handing my phone over to someone IO just met and might have given a concussion to if things had been different," Coop said, plucking his phone out of his pocket and passing it to Newt.

"It's not really broken but I can't get into it. I don't know if I set up the Fort Knox of a security code or I managed to break something inside which is being disguised by how the outer appearance doesn't look too bad."

He couldn't remember putting the phone under water or sneezing on it or trying to give it a drink of booze so he was taking those as good signs.

"You clearly make the best choices," Newt says dryly, taking the phone and turning it over in his hands. He pokes at the screen, letting out a little hum when it's unresponsive. There aren't any major cracks on the phone, no pixelation of the screensaver, nothing like that. Might take more than a quick try on the sidewalk.

"Might need to be debugged, could be something wrong with the hardware," Newt says. "Problem is, we need to actually get into it, but we might be able to do it with an OTG adaptor. I've got one at home and at my lab."

He glances up at Coop. "How do you feel about taking a trip to a stranger's house?"

"As long as you don't try and kidnap me and keep me in a closet, I'm okay with it," Coop decided after a second's worth of thought. "I've been kidnapped a few times already and it is not fun."

Coop made sure to keep his voice light, joking even if there were teases of truth in his statement. He didn't think Newt was the type to kidnap anyone and Coop thought that he could probably get away if he was. Still, it was good to put up some boundaries in their newly started friendship.

No kidnapping. That seemed like a solid start.

"That's like, so specific that I almost don't know if you're joking or not," Newt tells him, squinting suspiciously, though he brushes past it quickly enough. "Listen, I'm grabbing Thai from the place up the street before we do anything else. Kidnapping won't be a thing but if I don't get my lunch, I can't promise I wouldn't resort to cannibalism."

He's already walking backwards toward the restaurant, dangling Coop's phone out in front of him like it's bait, and he grins.

"You can grab something, too, if you want. My treat for making you come along just so you can get your phone fixed up."

"It's been a difficult few months," Coop said by way of explanation. He glanced around, checking for any vans that someone might try and throw him into before he nodded. He was pretty hungry and while Thai wasn't his typical hangover food, it'd do to ease the oncoming headache and get some food in his belly.

"Cannibalism's one I haven't experienced before," he said lightly, falling into step with Newt. "I hope to never experience that either. I've done a lot of questionable stuff but I don't think I deserve to ever have my body eaten. I probably taste bad anyway. Too much alcohol."

"Are you saying that in the past few months, you've actually been kidnapped and kept in a closet? Dude, that's grim. Like, I came from a world under attack by aliens who used giant sea monsters to wipe out mankind but still. Grim."

At least that's one thing he's managed to avoid, a good ol' fashioned kidnapping, though Newt hopes he hasn't just jinxed himself. It's been awhile since someone's fucked him up, even since he's had a flare-up in his head from being connected to the hivemind--though he's not sure how strong that connection is anymore, if it's still there at all, because he's so far removed from Hong Kong. Life's just been good lately. Between working with Kieren on keeping him de-zombified and moving into the condo, everything's been pretty gravy.

He'd prefer if things could stay that way.

"Where're you from, anyway? So I can, y'know, not go to there."

"Maybe not the closet part but kidnapped? I absolutely have been kidnapped in the last few months," Coop admitted with a wince. It hadn't been his proudest moment and, what had been worse, is that the nice new clothes he'd bought had been freaking ruined by that idiot cop Nelson. It had been to prove a point, show Coop who was in charge but all it had done was make Coop sad. Those had been nice clothes and now they were probably a homeless person's blanket or bathroom.

"I'm actually from Los Angeles but it's probably different than the Los Angeles you might know," he explained. "Little weirder, little more...liable to kill you via supernatural means."

Newt hums thoughtfully, glancing over at Coop with an amused smirk. "Weirder than Darrow? This place has its share of the supernatural, sorry if you haven't gotten the memo yet. Got my neck nibbled on once by a vampire who needed a snack. I had to tell people I accidentally fell onto a barbecue fork."

Nearly everyone who comes here is damaged in some way or another, it seems. He's yet to meet a person who's live has been just dandy up until they'd gotten here. It's true that most people have issues, shit they keep buried, but then there are those who live cushy lives without ever running into a problem beyond maybe needing to ask their parents for more money. He'd met a few of those people at MIT and that hadn't made them any less likable--well, maybe some of them--but he wonders what they'd think if they could catch up now. If they hadn't all been killed by the kaiju already, anyway.

"'Sides," he continues, "the L.A. I came from got destroyed by this guy." He holds an arm out, rolling up his sleeve so he can point out one of his tattoos. "Yamarashi. Not to scale, for the record."

"Ugh, vampires," Coop said, making a face at the mention of those particular creatures. Vampires were only good for one thing and that was something that he'd yet to find in Darrow. He was still looking, still hoping but it didn't look good.

Coop peered down at the tattoo, eyes widening slightly. "That's, uh, that's unfortunate. Los Angeles is slowly going down the tubes but it's still in one piece and, as of yet, untouched by any giant monster. Where the hell did something like that even come from? Did it step out of some freaky kid's nightmare or something?"

"From the Mariana Trench," Newt tells him, offering a wry smile. "Long story, there were these things called Precursors, they wanted to colonize the earth, etcetera, etcetera. Hot mess, seriously, we got our asses consistently annihilated for like, ten years. I was the only kaiju biology specialist left on our team and, y'know..." He shrugs a shoulder casually, like he's not about to drop an awesome fact about himself. "I saved the world. It's whatever."

Okay, so he'd had some help. If Chuck was here, his best friend would probably punch him so hard his arm would go numb. Luckily, Chuck is not here, but Newt makes a mental reminder to treat the guy extra nice the next time they see each other.

"Don't worry, though, there's nothing like that here. Obviously. We'd definitely be dead if there was."

"You saved the world?" Now, Newt didn't look like much but Coop had learned that looks meant jack shit if you had certain abilities at your fingertips. So, while there was some doubt that one person could save the entire world, it wasn't enough that Coop questioned Newt's proclamation.

"Damn man, I bet that's a great pickup line," he joked with a shake of his head. "All I've got is I let a guy shoot me twice, point blank range, and didn't die. Not the world's best way to make people swoon."

Not that he wanted people to swoon, of course. Not recently, at least. He was still slightly sore from the mess with Giselle and seeing her again had just churned that all up. He hated his own traitorous heart.

"It did get me married," Newt says, nodding his agreement as he holds up his left hand to show off his ring. "And to like, the actual most gorgeous woman in this city, I'm not even shitting you, dude."

He's got photographic evidence if Coop asks for it, Newt's always happy to show off the fact that his wife is amazing but just as he's reaching for his phone, he gets distracted by the sight of the restaurant up ahead.

"Oh, shit." He practically whispers it, he wouldn't even be surprised if Coop were to look at him and see stars in his eyes right about now. "There it is, man. The promised land. Thai Tanic."

"Well, congratulations on that," Coop said sincerely. Marriage, that was one of those things that seemed so far out of reach, especially now. Maybe at one time he'd thought himself capable but those possibilities had been well and truly squashed with the heel of a black stiletto.

"...does your wife know that you stare at a Thai restaurant like you're dying and it's the only thing that can cure you?" Coop asked curiously. Never mind the ridiculous name of the place, he'd get to that later. Right now, he was wondering if Newt was going to go plant a kiss on the restaurant's door or something.

"Hey, thanks. One of those things I never thought would happen but hell, this place tends to turn your world upside down. Lot of things have happened to me here that probably wouldn't have if I'd stayed back in Hong Kong."

Newt doesn't know for sure what he'd be doing right now if he were still in his own world, whether he'd still be tucked away in a lab with Hermann, working on something new, or actually living out the rock star life he'd always wanted. It's hard to say where the road might take someone who's played a part in saving the world, but it's moot now. He's not interested in going back, not if it means leaving what he's got here behind.

"And dude, Kate would not even be surprised, seriously. That was a mild reaction, at best, she's seen way worse. 'Sides, you give this food a shot, and you'll be singing its praises real quick."

"I don't know, I'm pretty in love with bourbon these days," Coop said, deciding to play along because why the hell not. This guy might be able to fix his phone without Coop smashing it to pieces before saying a car ran over it and hoping that would be enough to get him a new one without him having to shell out too much money.

"Thai food's never been there for me in the worst of times," he remarked with a snicker. "Only the sweet, sweet burn of alcohol and the horrible mistress it leaves behind: a hangover."

Coop frowned. "Of course, bourbon's the reason I'm in this mess with my phone in the first place so maybe she's not a great wife. Or husband. I don't know if alcohol has a gender."

The more Coop talks, the more Newt starts to suspect his friend is a borderline alcoholic. Or maybe he's even crossed the border, there's not even hard evidence yet. Newt likes to drink, the condo's always pretty fully stocked in case they have company over, but for the most part, it's just a beer or two most nights.

"As far as drinks go, coffee's more a mistress for me," he says. "Wouldn't be able to get through the day without it. Allison, she's a friend, works over at the lab, she tried real hard to hold an intervention for me. Thought I was drinking way too much caffeine. She wasn't successful, it's too formidable a bond."

Even Kate hadn't bothered to jump on that train. Besides, drinking assloads of coffee had been exactly what he'd needed to stay up for days on end in his effort to save the goddamn world. If anything, coffee is totally his co-hero and without it, he might not have been sleep-deprived enough to think drifting with a kaiju would be a good idea. In summation: coffee, yay.

"Anyway, what're you havin'? Because I might just buy out the whole place, I'm so damn hungry."

"I'm going to make a confession," Coop said, staring up at the menu with the look of a man who did not order Thai food often. He squinted, tilted his head in a futile attempt to make the words up make sense.

He almost asked if they had any pictures that he could look at so he wouldn't accidentally order a meat that came from an animal that he really did not to eat. But, he figured that would be offensive for the owners and embarrassing for Newt so he refrained.

"I haven't really had Thai food in...ever," he admitted with a wince. "So, I don't know what's good and what's not. Recommendations?"

"Everything," Newt instantly replies, which he realizes isn't actually helpful at all, but he can't help that it's the truth.

With a mild grimace, he peers at the menu over Coop's shoulder, pointing at the Entree options. "Okay, so the lemongrass chicken here is super delish. Obviously, you can't go wrong with the pad Thai, that's like, what Thai restaurants are known for and shit. Shrimp, beef, chicken, veggie, doesn't matter, it's all good. It's made with these rice noodles, there's bean sprouts and peanuts and scallions and what not in it. Dude, so good, I'd probably go with that to start. Oh, the curry's bomb, too, though."

There are so many goddamn choices, and Newt doesn't want to have to pick.

"Okay, okay, how about this: we order all of that, and you can give 'em all a shot. See which one you like best. It's win-win because I want everything anyway."

"You wanna order everything?" Coop asked, raising an eyebrow at Newt's very ambitious dinner plans. He doesn't mind though and his stomach grumbled a little at just the thought of mood.

"Okay, I think that's a yes," he said with a laugh. "I don't know how much of that I'll eat but you can keep all the leftovers and eat off that for a week."

Well, maybe not a week with how much Newt seemed to love Thai food. "Okay, if not a week, a few days, at least. You and your wife can have a date where you eat Thai food and don't leave the house."

"We'll see."

He's being sarcastic, of course, kind of. There's no way they're going to be able to eat all the food Newt's just personally signed off on, but Coop's right. Kate will appreciate leftovers, and Newt gets brownie points in the process for being a thoughtful enough husband for bringing food home for her, which he'd planned to do anyway. Everything's lookin' up, not that anything had brought him down.

"Okay, let's get this shit ordered so we can get out of here and eat it. And try to fix your phone, I guess. Sorry, pal, I've got unchangeable priorities."

"It's all right, really," Coop said, waving off any apologies or platitudes. The fact that Newt was even going to try and fix his fuck up was enough. If he could get away with breaking into his phone and not having to get a new one, he'd be grateful. Plus, he got to eat a bunch of food and sit around with a guy who was funny so Coop saw no down side.

"I honestly have nothing but time on my hands lately," he said, chuckling. "It's been kind of...well, boring sometimes but freeing too. It's been awhile since I've had time to myself. Just to do nothing but navel gaze, if I want."

"You gotta find a hobby that's not purely getting shitfaced, my friend," Newt tells him, flashing a grin before holding up a finger to excuse himself so he can order.

The cashier doesn't even blink when he lists out the copious amounts of food he wants, just flatly delivers the cost and how long it'll be before the food's ready, which works just fine for Newt. Coop's way better at conversations, anyway.

"She said like, ten to fifteen minutes," Newt tells him, gesturing at a small table nearby. "I ordered us a couple sodas out of the fridge, too, if you wanna grab yours while we wait. But dude, okay, hobbies. I've been telling my BFF Chuck--don't tell him I called him that--we should be doing the same damn thing, but he keeps rejecting all of my ideas! What the hell is wrong with taking up like, baking? Right? Or knitting? We could save so much money on Christmas gifts if we just learned how to make a sweater. I'd make the ugliest ones, too, because it's not like they can be returned. The real gift would be for me because I'm the one they'd have it wear it for at least once."

"Hey, it's not the only thing I do," Coop protested though it was weak. He knew he did that a lot and he knew it was maybe getting to be a slight problem but he also thought he deserved to sow his wild oats after all the shit his life had thrown him.

"I helped out a friend with his dog and his robot the other day," Coop shared even though he knew that wasn't really a hobby. "And I'm thinking about getting a cat. I don't know if that's going to make me some crazy cat man but if it does, you should knit me a shawl so I can really get the persona going. I like to go all out when I do something."

All the talk about hobbies made Coop realize that he didn't really have a lot of them back home. Between prison and all the shit with the box, he hadn't much time to do anything but get kidnapped and steal things that he didn't want to steal. "I don't know if I'd be a great knitter."

"A dog and a robot," Newt repeats, arching a brow. "Okay, was the dog also a robot? Because a robot on its own, that's pretty freakin' awesome but just consider a dogbot. Is that not even cooler? Anyway, if you've never owned a cat before, don't do it, you don't even know what you're getting yourself into. They're demonic, dude, for real. My wife's friend disappeared from Darrow awhile back and for some goddamn reason, we inherited the guy's cat. His name is Cat."

Most days, Newt makes a habit of taunting Jeff with the cat, which is a hell of a lot more fun than being stared the hell down by some little shit he hadn't asked for in the first place.

"I could be a master knitter if I wanted to be," he says, narrowing his eyes in thought. "Yeah, I totally could. Little bit of effort, I could knit you your shawl plus little sweaters for what I'm hoping will be tons of dogs, not cats. It's okay if you have a lot of dogs, y'know? Having tons of cats makes you crazy but make 'em dogs, and you've turned yourself into a stud."

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