Chapter Text
With an unabashed grimace, Newt sipped at his coffee, trying not to slosh the quickly-cooling liquid all over his face as he stumbled his way across the quad. It was unreasonably cold outside for still being autumn and the grass, crusted with frost, crunched pleasantly beneath his feet. It was cold, and the coffee wasn't helping the way it was supposed to. It wasn't like Newt had the money for a proper winter coat, despite the fact that living in Cambridge really did specifically call for one. He wrapped himself in layers that morning: shrugging on two shirts and a sweatshirt, tugging a leather jacket on over that, finishing with a mismatched scarf in an poor attempt to shield his neck from the biting wind. He hadn't managed to nick a forgotten hat from the campus library yet, but he was hoping he would soon, because goddamn, his ears were freezing, if they were even still attached to his head -- he couldn't tell.
To be fair to his coffee for not warming him as significantly as it should have been, Nalgene bottles weren't really conducive to retaining heat. But the bottles had been free at the club fair at the beginning of the year, and unfortunately no one had been keen on handing out travel thermoses during the summer. Also: expensive. And it wasn't like he was slowly poisoning himself or anything by putting hot liquid into a plastic bottle -- he had checked. The polyethylene was good for temperatures up to 120 Celsius, and there was no chance in hell that the coffee from the cafeteria ever reached boiling, much less went over it. Sure, he could have gotten a coffee at the nearby coffee shop, but those were at least two bucks a pop for something basic and he didn't have the disposable cash for that. He did, however, have a meal plan that provided free beverages and no one normally yelled at him if he filled up his Nalgene bottle with coffee straight from the carafe. Occasionally, if Newt wasn't feeling the pressing need for a hit of caffeine, he went with hot chocolate. And, if he was feeling really crazy, he got both, mixing himself a nice, cheap mocha. It was great (decent) and cheap (free).
Braving the cold for another sip of coffee, with only minimal spillage on his hoodie, he quickly tucked his face back into his scarf and picked up his pace. He had to get to Genetic Neurobiology before all of the really great seats were taken and he was stuck next to the window, feeling cold in an ancient classroom with poor insulation for over an hour.
The trek to the building was muscle memory at this point. It was kind of a homing instinct, really, and Newt was simply a wayward pigeon, guided by magnetic fields. From the cafeteria, from his shitty apartment, from the science library: all routes, if Newt wasn't paying attention, lead to the Biology complex. He was greeted this time, unsurprisingly, by the familiar scent of formaldehyde tainting the air within a hundred meters of the building. It tended to seep through the cracks of some of the labs and permeate the air outside the building on select days. Luckily, Newt liked the smell just as much as he enjoyed the smell of antiseptic or ammonia.
He pushed his way into the building, wrestling a bit with the crowd of students leaving from other classes. He bypassed the main open stairway and made for the stairwell on the far end of the building -- hardly ever used and much faster, though less-aesthetically pleasing. Nearly knocking into a mixed group of students and professors standing and waiting for the elevator, talking something heated and fierce about fluid dynamics and predictive modeling, he slipped into the stairwell and marched up the three flights that deposited him directly outside his classroom. By the time he plopped down in a seat in the front-middle of the classroom, he was overheated and sweating. It was a nice change, really, and it was punctuated perfectly with a sip of his now-cold coffee. It would only be a matter of time before he grew cold again, and then would have to face the frigid air once more. He mentally scheduled in some time at the lab to work on one of his thesis projects (he had a couple going, because he couldn't focus in just one -- thesis, anyway, not to mention project) before he braved the cold.
After a few moments spent puttering away at his tablet, the professor filed in and began the lecture, and Newt was left enthralled by gene expression patterns. Two of his peers headed a presentation and a decently run discussion about genetic analysis of membrane excitability, and while it was pretty well researched, Newt was a little disappointed to find that they had left out some really key points -- points that he felt compelled to correct them on, and then expand upon extensively, in the discussion. It wasn't like Newt didn't know that he tended to take the baton and run with it when it came to group discussions, peer-reviews, or any other situation that let him open his mouth, but he was highly informed and well educated and he was only furthering the Socratic method by challenging his peers. Which was maybe why he had few friends in his field. He only ever noticed his lack of friendly banter after leaving lectures or discussions, when he really felt the need to hash things out with a friendly face.
Once the class finished, Newt downed the last of his cold coffee and haphazardly shoved all of his things into his messenger bag for the short shuffle downstairs to the lab. He had a few quick tests he wanted to get started before he left for the day. A plan, of course, that lead to Newton looking up hours later to the clock on the drab wall of the lab and grimacing. The clock was kind enough to inform him both that it was definitely dark outside by that point in time and also that the cafeteria had closed for the night an hour previously. Ramen for dinner it was, he decided, as he put away all of his equipment and bundled himself for the cold. On the way out of the building he stopped by the lobby to check for the school paper -- Tendo, one of his few friends and journalism major, was meant to have an article in it, front page. He nabbed one, lucky that there were some left, and stuffed it into his bag, not worrying about a few creases.
The walk back to his apartment building was quick and chilly -- it passed in a blur of visible breath fogging up his glasses and the sharp pain of a cold nose. Once inside, Newt closed the door behind himself and breathed a moderate sigh of relief. His apartment was definitely shielded from the elements, the biting wind and the inevitable cold autumn rain, but he didn't currently have the funds to warrant turning the heat on yet. If anything, he really had to save up for when it actually started snowing and there was the potential he'd wake up with blue around his fingertips. So, for now he kicked off his boots, shuffled into slippers, and wrapped a fleece blanket around his shoulders.
A half hour later had Newt slurping from a bowl of mediocre spicy noodles, campus newspaper spread out on the trunk he was using as a coffee table. Tendo's article had been good -- about the various options for MIT to consider in the effort to divest from fossil fuels. But he had finished with it fairly quickly and had poured over the rest of the paper with only moderate enthusiasm. He picked up his bowl of noodles and downed the last of the broth, only to look down at the paper with curiosity. Some broth must have spilled over the sides of his bowl when it had been too full and it had left a ring in the paper around an ad in the corner of the page.
Now, classifieds weren't normally Newt's deal, but something about the clipped language of the ad caught his eye. He set the bowl down to the side and pulled the soup-ringed paper closer, squinting at it with interest.
Wanted - Part Time Personal Assistant
Responsible, dependable, physically able individual
Available for personal assistance to sufferer of MS
Needed: book/equipment carrying, errand running
MIT Campus | inquiries:[email protected] | $3.5/hr
Oh damn.
That sounded right up his alley. Well, at least in the way of some disposable income, at least.