Work Text:
Hermann was unsurprised to find that Newton had spent the entire night working on one project or another. He was prone to these episodes that bordered on - and sometimes passed over the line of - mania, and Hermann had long ago learned when to simply allow Newton to wear himself out, and when it was time to gently ease the man away from his work. Today things seemed to be productive, as supported by the fact that he had four new paper drafts (and six memos) sitting in his inbox and waiting his attention. There were minimal spelling and grammatical errors, and the contents were all well supported by research and/or editorial comments that seemed in line with Newton's normal behavior.
"Did you eat?" Hermann asked, knowing it was useless to ask if the man had slept.
"Yup."
Hermann headed to their refrigerator ('Food only, no specimens!') and opened it to find that Newton had eaten 3/4 of Hermann's sandwich, a bite of a bagel that was otherwise moldering, and what looked to be the leavings of approximately eight lychee fruit. Hermann sighed, pull on a pair of gloves, and emptied out the trash into a bio-hazard receptacle before he went to work on his math.
Newton, as usual, filled his hours with babble, which Hermann listened to and argued with in equal turns. Other than a few more bizarre suggestions (wake boarding behind a kaiju and kaiju sashimi) he seemed fairly focused. Unfortunately, that meant when Hermann gently - and then less gently - tried to urge Newton to turn in that evening, he waved his hand with a casual 'I'm good'.
Hermann feared the worst for the next morning, when he walked into their shared lab, but rather than find Newton either still working, or vertical at all no matter the consequences, he found Newton face half squeezed against his couch, snoring.
There were certain truths that should be relatively constant in the universe, and that included that someone should be less attractive the more time they spend sleepless and unwashed and unshaven. Newton slept with what now seemed to be three days of growth, his hair was sticking up at all ends - a consequence of a quick scrub in the sink, no doubt - and he looked... disgustingly attractive.
Newton was annoyingly attractive on a good day, green-hazel eyes, dark brown hair, and his mostly put together 'geek-chic', but he was always... kempt. Not today. Today he was scruffy and wild. It was a secret known onto to Hermann himself that this was the side most attractive to Hermann. He was handsome.
"Damn."
Hermann took a deep breath, and returned to his side of the office, before getting to work on some simulations. His resolve lasted not very long at all. Newt, rather than drag himself back to his room for a proper rest, decided that what he needed to do would be to immediately check over his work of the last few days.
Newt asked him about the memos he'd managed to spew out over the last two days, the papers, and Hermann tried not to find himself distracted, but every time he forgot, even for a moment, that an overwhelmingly attractive version of Newt was waiting when he turned around, his train of thought was irrevocably lost.
All he could do was stare, caught as he was, looking at Newt, watching the slick, coiffed, version of Newt melt away and be replaced with a soft, sleepy, handsome version of his lab partner.
Hermann wondered if he always looked like that when he woke up...
That was enough. His mind could not take this, he did not want to take this.
"Newton, for the love of all that is sanitary, I hope you don't intend to dissect something while you have that mass of pathogen carrying fuzz on your face."
"Dude," Newt glanced over at him, and then frowned. "If you want me to shave you just have to be a little nice. If it bothers you that much I'll go shave."
"It does."
Newt, thankfully didn't protest, or keep it because he was being contrary, but he stood, yawned, and then headed towards the exit. Hermann watched him go, trying to keep something that might have been fondness, and perhaps some attraction, off his face.
He couldn't have been entirely successful, however, because Newt glanced over to him, caught something in Hermann's expression, and then cocked his head to the side. "Alright?"
"Yes, of course!"
The answer transformed Newt into a dog with a bone, eager to chew on Hermann. "What changed? There's nothing differ--" Newt reached up and rubbed his knuckles against the stubble and Hermann could feel the flush rising in his cheeks. "Beards do it for you, huh?" He asked, all smirks.
Hermann hid his discomfort, as he always did, by glaring at Newt until he went away.