Chapter Text
At first, Hermann was unable to place what had woken him. His room was still dark, and the illuminated hands of his alarm clock confirmed that it was still the middle of the night. He was not in pain, nor did he need to relieve himself, the Shatterdome was as quiet as it ever was and he couldn't remember dreaming of anything. In short, there was no logical reason for his sudden return to wakefulness.
"-so, I was thinking we could play cards."
The startled jump and shriek that Newton's voice prompted from Hermann was undignified in the extreme, but he felt at least partially justified in his reaction, given the sudden materialisation of the man at the foot of his bed. Newton, damn the man, didn't even pause for breath and continued the conversation he had apparently been having with Hermann since before he'd even woken up.
"We could bring a table in and-"
"Newton! This is my bedroom!" Stating the obvious was equally undignified, but given the circumstances and the fact that he had been awake for less than thirty seconds and already Newton was proving himself insufferable, it was hardly surprising.
Newton had the gall to look baffled for a moment. "Uh, yeah, obviously. I know what a bedroom looks like, Hermann. I have one too. Anyway, like I was saying, I think we should totally play cards. I even brought a deck with me, see." He had, in fact, brought a deck of cards with him, although the suspicious staining that was visible even in the dim light spilling from the bathroom made Hermann doubt that they were sanitary enough to touch, let alone play with. It also did not explain why Newton was standing beside his bed at a quarter to four in the morning, brandishing a deck of cards and obviously expecting Hermann to understand what he was blathering on about.
"Congratulations, you understand what a bedroom is. That does not in any way explain what you are doing in MY bedroom at this ridiculous hour, or why you thought it in any way appropriate to break into my quarters in the first place." There was a definite snap in Hermann's tone, despite his best efforts to keep his voice down to an aggressive hiss; just because Newton thought it was acceptable to wake up his neighbours did not mean that Hermann was buying into his lack of manners any time soon.
Rather than looking in any way cowed by what should have been a stern dressing-down, Newton just smiled and waved a hand as if to brush the conversation away. "Oh, I picked the lock, but that's not important right now. And I told you why I was here, man, weren't you paying attention? I thought we could play cards."
"At twelve minutes to four in the morning?" Dry didn't even begin to describe Hermann's tone, but Newton seemed as impervious as ever. He did, however, cast a faintly puzzled look at the clock.
"Shit, would you look at that. I thought it was earlier. Doesn't matter though; I can't sleep, and I'm bored, but I'm too tired to actually work, so I was sitting in the lab thinking 'what am I going to do for the next fuck knows how long?', and then it comes to me. You're a mathematician, and you have the most amazing frown in the world, dude. Like, nothing changes your face. They serve pasta in the canteen? Your face is like- frown. Kaiju trashes the city? Frown. The showers actually have hot water for once? Still with the frown."
Now that he was looking more closely, Hermman could clearly see the dark shadows under his fellow scientist's eyes and the trembling hands that Newton was trying to hide by clutching at his soiled and dog-eared deck of cards. The man was pale, scatterbrained and undeniably manic; Hermann found himself suddenly grateful that Newton had chosen to invade his room rather than remain in the lab. He had a habit of leaping to life-threatening tangents and attempting the impossible (and likely fatal) when exhausted and left to his own devices.
"Newton, what on earth does this have to do with the deck of cards that you are currently strangling? Because at the moment all that you have succeeded in doing is insulting my face."
"No, no, man, I was saying that you have an amazing poker face! I already told you, we should totally play cards. They do late night poker, right? And you'd obviously be scarily good at it, so I was thinking that we should totally play."
Newton was ridiculous, utterly, unforgivably ridiculous. But he was also exhausted and reaching out in what had to be the safest way possible, given his track record when it came to inventing borderline insanity and leaving it (and himself) lying around the lab when he finally fell asleep into whatever he was tinkering with. Here, at least, Hermann would be able to manage his erratic co-worker's more irresponsible urges, and there was very little in his quarters that Newton would be able to cause havoc with.
Which was why, at four in the morning, when they were both expected to report to Marshall Pentecost at 0700, Hermann found himself reaching out and carefully extracting the cards from Newton's grip before he could destroy them further. He made a mental note to thoroughly decontaminate his hands later; the cards were sticky.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, give those to me, and get yourself a chair, you stupid man. I won't have you looming over me all night."
Hermann's feeling of triumph when, almost an hour later, he looked up from his cards to be met with Newton's soft snores, was not something he would readily admit to. However, if forced to explain it, he would likely claim that it was down to his winning hand, rather than any satisfaction at seeing Newton finally asleep. The fact that he presented their findings alone and made some excuse or other to the Marshall as to Newton's absence? Self preservation. Newton was intolerable when in Pentecost's bad graces.
It certainly wasn't because he liked the man.