Work Text:
Newt expected that his newfound status of a war hero—or, like, at the very least, a nerd who hooked his brain up with an alien hivemind and another nerd to help the other war heroes and became famous as a result—would lead to attention that occasionally toed the line between wanted and unwanted. Wanted interactions: tiny nerdy kids going up to him in the street and asking for his autograph, countless offers of teaching positions at universities, Starbucks baristas writing their phone numbers on his takeaway cups with winks (but only because it made Hermann get really possessive). Unwanted interactions: tabloids speculating about just how professional he keeps things with his “lab” partner (not helped by Hermann’s public reactions to the aforementioned baristas), new academics determined to tear holes in his ancient non-kaiju related research to feel good about themselves, YouTube videos of his shitty band from his early twenties suddenly going viral and fucking Buzzfeed of all things roasting the hell out of him for it (and tendency to wear fairly revealing clothing onstage). He’s used to getting recognized in public, getting double-takes in public, getting awed smiles in public.
What he hasn’t gotten yet is downright disdain. Or being treated like he’s the scum of the earth. For some reason, the entire population of Philadelphia is determined to change that. He and Hermann are only here for four days to give a guest lecture or two at Temple and he’s somehow already had several increasingly bizarre encounters. Hermann sent him into a Wawa to put money on their gas pump and the two weirdos at the counter wouldn’t accept his cash, because apparently he owes one of them an eye. He nearly got thrown out a coffee shop when a waitress yelled at him to leave her alone, and did he really think she was stupid enough to not recognize him even if he shaved?
But this is just the icing on the goddamn cake.
“Oh, so you’re a doctor now? You seriously thought I wouldn’t recognize your voice?”
“Look, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Newt sighs into the phone receiver. Hermann put him in charge of making reservations for date night—tradition yields to nothing—and he’s somehow managing to bomb miserably at something a small as that. “I just found you on one of those touristy websites. This is my first time in Philly,” he adds, almost pleading.
The waiter on the other end is not having it. “Nice try,” he says. “You’re still banned for life. No matter what kind of fake name you give.” And he hangs up.
Hermann’s sitting on the hotel bed reading, but he glances up and shoots Newt a bewildered look as Newt pockets his phone agrily and flops down next to him. “What on earth was that about?” He carefully closes his book and sets it down on the nightstand.
“So much for Philly’s finest,” Newt huffs into the pillow. He wriggles around onto his side until he’s facing Hermann. “Guigino’s is a no-go. They have a personal vendetta against me for some goddamn reason.” He pouts. “I told you you should’ve called.” Hermann’s accent would’ve scored them the best seats in the house in a heartbeat.
Hermann rolls his eyes.
They do, thankfully, end up finding another relatively fancy restaurant on Google Maps not too far from the hotel the PPDC’s put them up in that also specializes in Italian food, and Newt’s hypothesis proves correct: Hermann’s smooth, posh Britishness gets the job done in approximately a third of the time that it would’ve taken Newt, even if Newt didn’t have to argue with waiters out for his blood. The second part of Newt’s hypothesis also proves correct: Hermann is infuriatingly smug when he hangs up the phone.
“I don’t seem to have a problem in this city,” he says, and laughs and kisses the scowl off Newt’s face.
Hermann’s not as smug when they get to the restaurant the next night.
They endure a truly miserable ten-minute walk in the rain—Hermann refuses on principle to take their rented car and waste gas on such a short journey, and Newt begrudgingly admits he has a point—and their suits are uncomfortably damp where their umbrella didn’t shield them. And then—
“What do you mean you gave away our reservation?” Hermann snaps at the maître d’.
The man holds up his hands defensively. “Sincerest apologies, sir,” he says, “but I think you’re mistaken. Table twenty-six is reserved for Dr. Gottlieb and Dr. Geiszler.”
Hermann looks like he might pop a vein; if Newt wasn’t just as inconvenienced as him, he would revel in in the karmic smackdown Hermann’s currently getting. “I beg your pardon," he says, with forced calmness, "but we are Dr. Gottlieb and Dr. Geiszler.”
The man looks Newt and Hermann up and down skeptically. When he speaks, the sure-you-are goes unspoken. “Sincerest apologies,” he repeats, slowly, “but another member of our staff has already seated Dr. Gottlieb and—”
“But we’re—” Hermann tries again, but he deflates when Newt quickly reaches out and squeezes his hand comfortingly. “Fine. You already seated Dr. Gottlieb and Dr. Geiszler. Do you have any spare tables for us, then?”
As it turns out, the restaurant does have a spare table for Newt and Hermann, but it’s uncomfortably close to the entrance. Which means every time someone new walks inside a wave of chilly air washes over them, and it’s made even worse by their still-wet suits. Newt, frankly, is quite miserable, but there’s no way he’s letting Hermann know that.
“The table’s not too terrible, is it?” Hermann says. He’s been verging on a dangerous medley of irritated and fretful since they sat down that, if Newt’s not careful, might end in him marching over to Table Twenty-Six in a blaze of righteous fury, waving his cane in the air and demanding their seats back.
He quickly nudges Hermann’s shin with one of his fancy dress shoes and smiles. “Not at all,” he says, and closes the minute distance between their two hands resting on the table to lace their fingers together. Hermann looks mollified, so Newt turns his attention back to the wine menu he’d been studying. “What are you feeling, man?” he says. It all looks incredibly fancy. The Newt of two months ago wouldn’t have been able to afford a glass of water here, probably. He can’t remember the last time that he had booze that wasn’t some shitty lukewarm beer.
Hermann scans the list himself, humming in thought.
There’s a prolonged silence.
“I have no idea what any of these are,” Newt finally announces.
Hermann breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh, good,” he says, breaking into a grin that Newt mirrors back. “Me neither. I was worried I’d have to play along.”
They end up ordering a house red because it’s the least expensive thing listed (even though, truthfully, neither of them really have a fondness for wine, but it seems like the thing to do), and then their waiter brings out unlimited (free!) breadsticks so Newt’s mood immediately skyrockets through the roof. Stuffy-wet suit and screwed up reservation aside. Also, the candle lighting is pretty romantic, and Hermann’s eyeing him up across the table in a way that makes him feel warm, and they haven’t stopped holding hands.
Hermann leans in a bit. “Newton,” he begins, voice soft, eyes flickering down to his lips. Newt thinks if Hermann kissed him right now, he’d be fine with it, public setting be damned. He’d be more than fine with it—
“If my boyfriend wants a milksteak,” someone in the restaurant loudly exclaims, followed by the commotion of what sounds like a tray nearly being knocked over, and the moment of stillness is ruined, “you will bloody well make him one!”
He sounds incredibly drunk.
Hermann makes a face and retreats back to his side of the table. Newt snorts to cover his disappointment. “Yikes,” he says, but it’s drowned out when the drunk guy’s—apparent—boyfriend joins in on the argument for whatever the hell milksteak is with their waiter too, and man, he’s even louder than the first drunk guy. And a lot more shrill.
“Some people have no social graces,” Hermann sniffs, but Newt’s too busy throwing his own social graces to the wind and craning his neck around Hermann to see where the guys are, and, holy shit.
“Holy shit, dude,” he says, “those guys are at our table.”
Hermann turns around so quickly Newt’s afraid he might’ve pulled something in his neck. “Can you see them?” he says. “I want to see who’s masquerading as us.”
Newt can only make out the back of one of them—messy brown hair the same color as Newt’s and some sort of ratty green jacket; the couple’s waiter is standing at the most inconvenient spot possible and blocking the other guy entirely. “Nah,” he says, “but I’m trying.” Thinking of the nice burgundy suit Hermann forced him into, he adds, “Asshole’s totally underdressed for a classy joint like this.”
Hermann hasn’t given up trying to spot them either. “I would imagine,” he says, with a particular malice. “Anyone who goes around stealing tables from—”
“Are you gentlemen ready to order?”
Newt and Hermann both jump in their seats, and turn to guiltily face their waiter in unison. “Sorry,” Newt says. “Didn’t see you.” The waiter is doing a poor job of hiding his irritation, so Newt quickly rattles off two random pasta dishes that had minorly piqued Hermann’s interest and hands over their menus so theu can get back to lurking.
The loud one’s evidently either given up on his milksteak or their waiter has given up on trying to convince him it doesn’t exist, because he’s no longer standing at their table. Newt still can’t see the other guy, though; he’s leaning back at an awkward angle, and there's a large potted plant in he way. He can make out some of his clothing, though—a plain shirt and a leather jacket. “You told me they wouldn’t let me in here if I wore my leather jacket,” he points out to Hermann with a frown.
Hermann hides his smirk behind his wine glass. “Did I?”
“You’re the worst.”
“You misunderstand my ulterior motives, dear,” Hermann says, and bats his eyelashes. “I simply enjoy the way you look in a suit.”
Newt would typically latch onto any and all opportunity to blatantly flirt with Hermann, especially in public, but judging by the reappearance of Table Twenty-Six’s waiter and the try he's holding they’ve evidently ordered two bottles of wine. “They’re drinking more!” he says, as the one in green whose face he can’t see reaches for a bottle and— “Hermann, I don’t even think they’re using the glasses. They’re just going for it. Not gonna lie, dude, that’s actually kinda impressive.” He still can’t see the other guy’s face, but when he leans his head back to drink from the other bottle Newt can see the beginnings of angular cheeks and dark hair.
Hermann looks torn between revulsion and fascination.
The evening, actually, passes by very nicely after that. Newt continues to give a play-by-play of Table 26’s truly staggering wine intake while he and Hermann demolish two baskets of free breadsticks, and then, when their food arrives, a play-by-play of Table 26’s truly staggering cheese tray intake. One of the nicer parts of their post-drift relationship is that Hermann’s boundaries on sharing food have become practically nonexistent, so he has free range of Hermann’s spaghetti in addition to his own glorified ravioli.
Hermann’s reaching across the table and stealing a bit off Newt’s plate when things get interesting. “Oh, shit, one of them’s getting up,” Newt says, and he leans so far out of his seat to see that he runs the risk of falling to the ground. It’s the one with the leather jacket. He’s making his way—well, more like stumbling—to the general direction of the bathroom. “Hermann.” Newt gets an idea. “Want me to—”
“Obviously,” Hermann says.
Newt waits until the guy’s disappeared into the men’s room, and then waits another minute before he jumps up and hurries over there as well. He just wants to get a look at him and then report back to Hermann. Just enough to see how he managed to pass himself off as one of them.
Pretty easily, he finds out when he pushes the door open.
His brain short-circuits, because standing at the sink is—Hermann? Except it’s obviously not Hermann, because Hermann is sitting at their table, and Hermann has an undercut and Hermann wouldn’t wear jeans to a fancy restaurant, but they’re identical. Almost completely identical.
Not-Hermann blinks drunkenly at him, drying his hands off on his jeans. “Charlie!” he exclaims happily. And then, after a moment, he arches an eyebrow suggestively.
“I’m not—” Newt begins, but Not-Hermann is moving towards him and pressing him up against the wall and looks about two seconds away from kissing him. Newt squeaks. Not-Hermann seems to realize that something’s off when Newt doesn’t return his bedroom eyes and backs off, looking at Newt suspiciously.
“Why are you so...clean?” he says, and then he seems to catch on to Newt’s glasses, his suit, and he frowns, confusion flitting across his face. He’s swaying a bit.
“Not Charlie, dude,” Newt says, and makes a beeline for the door.
As Newton vanishes into the bathroom, Hermann decides he should do some reconnaissance of his own. A distinctly Newtonian move, truthfully, but Hermann has better things to do than dwell on drift after-effects at the moment; besides, it will impress Newton. He's also, admittedly, a bit tipsy from his own wine. He lays his suit jacket over the back of his chair, stands up, and starts to make his way over to the general direction of Table Twenty-Six, where the one in green is still sitting. There’s glass of water dangerously close to the edge on their table. Perfect, then.
Hermann waits until he’s right up alongside it before he quickly nudges the glass with the top of his cane, and it falls and shatters on the floor. He gasps, mimes shock. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean—”
He finally gets a good look at the other man’s face when he looks up at Hermann, and Hermann is startled into silence. The man could be Newton’s massively unkempt twin. He shrugs Hermann’s apology off, but he does look a little confused, and glances between the bathroom door and Hermann. “How’d you get here so fast?” He’s slurring his words.
“What?” If anyone has a right to be confused, it’s Hermann.
The man shrugs again. “Whatever.” He gives Hermann a wide smile, and Hermann’s struck with the sudden, horrifying realization that Newton wouldn’t look half-bad with a beard. “Can we get dessert? The guy said they have cheesecake. I didn’t even know you could put cheese in cake.”
“I—” Hermann stammers. The bathroom door swings open again and Newton trips out, red-faced and possibly in the throes of a minor crisis, and looks relieved when he spots Hermann. Hermann understands how he feels. He more than welcomes Newton hustling him back over to their table, leaving Newton’s almost-twin to his drunken confusion.
There’s another prolonged silence. Their second of the evening.
“Have you ever considered growing a beard?” Hermann finally says, at the exact same time Newton says “I just ran into your sexy double.”
There’s another tense silence.
“Beard?” Newton says, at the exact same time Hermann says “Sexy?”
“Not that you’re not sexy!” Newton exclaims shrilly. “You’re very sexy! You’re the sexiest guy I know!”
At least three heads turn in their direction. Hermann, still mildly offended, feels his face heat up in mortification. “Newton,” he hisses, cutting Newton off before Newton can launch into a long speech extolling Hermann’s apparent sexiness in front of everyone.
“I just mean,” Newton’s lowered his voice, at least, “you’re not exactly a make out-with-me-in-a-public-bathroom kinda guy.”
Hermann’s almost afraid to ask him what he means by that and wishes for nothing but a swift and immediate end to this conversation. Thankfully, he’s spared by their waiter reappearing, possibly also in the hopes of ending this conversation immediately. “Will that be all, gentlemen?”
“Yes,” Hermann says, before Newton can jump in and ask for the dessert menu. The sooner this mildly bewildering night to comes to an end the sooner he can curl up in their hotel bed with his (unbearded) Newton and sleep. “Just the check, please.” He doesn’t even bother to look at the bill before he hands over his card to the waiter.
“Not that I want you to make out with me in public bathrooms,” Newton continues, evidently deciding that they, actually, aren’t finished with this conversation and that it’s completely appropriate to hold it in front of their waiter as he runs Hermann’s card through the reader. “I’m just saying it’d be kinda hot.”
Hermann drags a hand across his face and counts to ten in his head. “If I say I’m open to the possibility in the future, can we please stop discussing this?”
“Okay,” Newton says happily.
Hermann signs the check, and then Newton helps him back into his jacket and links their arms together. They’re on their way to the door, Newton talking his ear off about some movie he wants to rent on the PPDC's dime tonight back at the hotel, when another distinctly Newtonian thought hits Hermann: payback at Table Twenty-Six for stealing their table and very nearly ruining their evening. There’s an umbrella stand resting at the entrance to the dining area, so once Newton grabs theirs out he casually tips the whole thing over with the bottom of his cane. At least a dozen wet umbrellas tumble to the floor to the floor with a loud clatter. Nearby conversation immediately halts. “Table Twenty-Six did that,” he declares. They’re getting glares.
Newton giggles. “That was so lame,” he says, “like, that wasn’t even clever,” and he’s trying to tug Hermann towards the door, but he’s dangerously close to a shelf of expensive-looking wine bottles and Hermann thinks he ought to warn him before it’s too late. Except, then, it is too late—Newton trips over one of the umbrellas and crashes directly into the shelf, knocking that over as well. Bottles shatter on the floor with a deafening crash, and a red-white-rosé puddle forms and starts spreading across the nice tiling immediately. This time, all conversation halts. A few members of the wait staff stare at them in horror. Newton and Hermann stare at each other in horror. Then, Newton grabs the end of Hermann’s sleeve and yells “Table Twenty-Six did that too!” before hauling him out of the restaurant doors as fast as both of them can manage.
“Man, those guys were nerds,” Charlie says, turned in his seat to watch the two loud dudes in suits leave. Because they were total nerds. He and Owen are much cooler, so much cooler they even managed to score a free reservation at this fancy place because the guy at the front thought they looked like some famous people when they were just planning on sneaking in. And then some nerds act like assholes and try to ruin their fancy date by blaming them for shit. “Nerds and assholes,” Charlie adds. “I can’t believe that guy didn’t want to make out with you.” Not that Charlie’s not, like, glad he didn’t, but.
Owen nods in sullen agreement, drinking from his wine bottle again. “I pity his boyfriend. Truly.” Their waiter appears again, with a guy in an even fancier get-up. “About time,” Owen says, and Charlie gets excited, because Owen said they could get dessert, and they stole Frank’s credit card for their fancy date night so they can probably afford the really good shit (just like all the wine). “We wanted cheesec—”
The guy the waiter’s brought doesn’t look happy. “You’re not Dr. Geiszler and Dr. Gottlieb, are you?” he says. His arms are folded.
Charlie, Owen, and whoever Geiszler and Gottlieb are get banned from the restaurant for the foreseeable future, but all in all, Charlie had a great night.
Newton ends up getting his way with the rented movie later that night, but not before he steals a pair of Hermann’s pajamas and cuddles up to the man in question. Hermann can’t bring himself to complain about the theft, and he certainly isn’t going to complain about having Newton in his arms. He is, however, having a difficult time following the plot of the film. There are a lot of explosions and prolonged, bloody fight sequences. Newton appears to be enjoying himself at least.
“Sorry dinner got screwed up,” Newton says out of the blue, while the main character of the film strips out of his t-shirt for some reason and Hermann idly plays with Newton's hair.
“It’s hardly your fault,” he says. “We’ll have a re-do tomorrow evening after the lecture, how about that? Somewhere casual,” he adds, pointedly. He remembers passing by a small Irish pub on their drive to their hotel, not too far away; perhaps Newton would like that. Newton smiles warmly at him, and they fall back into comfortable silence. For a short time. “What’s this movie again?” Hermann says cautiously, watching yet another building collapse on screen.
“‘Thundergun Express 5,’” Newt says with a dramatic flair, as if he’s narrating a movie trailer. He drums his fingers on Hermann’s chest. “To be honest,” he admits after a moment, “I only wanted to watch it because I hear the main guy hangs dong.”
Hermann slides his glasses up his nose. Newton’s not wrong.