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A few seconds after Newt’s thrown an arm around him, Hermann realizes something is very wrong.
Newt’s standing there, beaming, looking for all the world like he’s full of life and as excited as everybody else - but Hermann can feel him shaking. And not just trembling, not just adrenaline still pumping through his system, but full out shaking, hard and uncontrollable.
“Newton?” Hermann asks. “Are you alright?”
Newt turns to look at him and he’s still smiling but his eyes are dull and exhausted. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, great - it’s over! It’s… we did it, man, we - um. Yeah. So I might just… now that we can relax, I might just go ahead and sit down for a minute.”
He reaches behind himself for a chair, doesn’t find one, and Hermann’s just about to let go and grab Tendo’s chair for him when Newt’s eyes roll back and his body slumps. Hermann can’t catch him, can only ease his fall a little as Newt crumples to the ground, unconscious.
Hermann drops to his knees next to him, unmindful of the twinge of pain that runs up his leg at the action. “Newt-“ he begins, then realizes how little good it will do - Newt can’t hear him. “Tendo,” he calls instead, and his voice carries easily through the sudden and growing hush in the area around them. “We need assistance.”
“On it.” Tendo rushes over, one hand to his earpiece. “Medical team, to the main deck, stat,” he says, and drops to the ground on Newt’s other side. “What happened?” he asks.
Hermann shakes his head. “I don’t know. He seemed fine, but he was shaking badly just before he -“ Hermann cuts himself off as Newt’s limbs start twitching - it’s minor, but it’s there. “Oh, no,” Hermann whispers. “Please, no. Not again.”
Herc’s cleared the area around them and is kneeling by Hermann’s side. “That looks like neural overload,” he says. “You’d better hope he doesn’t start seizing any more than that.”
“Not helping, Herc,” Tendo says, and puts a hand on Hermann’s shoulder. “He’ll be okay, Hermann. He’s only twitching, and he’s tough.”
“He’s already… seized, once. After the first Drift. I - I found him, I thought if I went into this one I’d be able to help, to stop this from happening again and I couldn’t, he’s -“ Hermann knows he’s rambling, knows half the people in the room can hear him, but he can’t stop. “His numbers,” he murmurs, and finally gets control of himself, biting his lip hard.
“I know,” Tendo says quietly. “But yours aren’t all that hot either, and you made it. He will too.”
The medics arrive then and Herc and Tendo back off to give them room to work. Hermann refuses to leave Newt’s side, and the medic who tries to argue with him takes one look at the bloody ring around Hermann’s eye and leaves him be. They check Newt’s vitals, then load him carefully onto a stretcher and lift him, Hermann standing with them. “You’re going with them, right?” Herc asks.
“Well, of course. I wouldn’t leave him alone like this.”
“I meant for you. It was a delayed reaction for him, could be that you go into the same state in a couple of hours yourself.”
“I’m going with Newton,” Hermann repeats. “If they insist on examining me, they’ll have to do it at his bedside. He is my Drift partner and I will not leave him in this state, as you put it, with nobody by his side.”
Nobody argues with him, and Hermann keeps pace with the stretcher as they head out of the room. He watches Newt’s hands twitch where they’ve been folded over his chest, and prays.
***
The twitching stops after ten minutes, but Newt, pale and wan, doesn’t wake up. Hermann, as promised, has taken up bedside vigil - he’s passed all of his own medical checks, although he’s as much under observation as Newt is right now, he knows that. If it means he can stay here until Newt wakes up, he’ll endure it.
About twenty minutes after their arrival, there’s a gentle knock at the door and Mako and Raleigh enter, still in their Driftsuits. “Herc told us,” Mako says quietly. “How is he?”
“Was it overload?” Raleigh asks.
Hermann nods. “Not severely, but yes.” He forces his attention from Newt for the moment. “I’m glad to see you both well,” he says. “Have you had your medical checks?”
“That’s what we’re here for. And then about four days of sleep because it’s over, thank god.”
“Indeed.” Hermann looks at Mako, considers offering his condolences, then leaves it. She looks shattered, and the last thing he wants is to make her emotional too. “Once Newton is awake, I’m certain sleep will be on our agendas also.”
“I’m sure it won’t be too much longer,” Mako says. She gives Hermann a small smile, who returns it, then takes Raleigh’s hand. “Come on. Let’s leave them to it and go get ourselves poked and prodded.”
Raleigh allows himself to be led away with one last empathetic look - and he’s replaced almost immediately by Tendo. “Mind if I join you for a bit?” he asks.
Hermann gestures to the free chair. “By all means. They’ve said that if everything’s fine in his mind, he should wake in the next hour.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
Hermann doesn’t answer that.
“Oh,” Tendo says after a moment. “Well. It won’t come to that. Not our Newt.”
Despite himself, Hermann smiles a little. “Not our Newton,” he agrees. “After all, he saw the Drift memories and now knows that I was the one who switched his coffee to decaf to force him to sleep two weeks ago. He’ll have to wake up so he can yell at me and apologize to you.”
Tendo smirks. “I told him it was you - he wouldn’t believe me. Yeah, he wouldn’t pass up a chance for that… and everything else he hasn’t said yet.”
Hermann’s seen a lot in the Drift, including conversations between Newt and Tendo that highlight just how deep their friendship runs. He knows things about Tendo that he perhaps shouldn’t, but, more vitally, he knows exactly what Tendo is alluding to - he’s seen the conversations between them on that particular topic.
He nods. “I think that will be a very important conversation indeed.”
Tendo stays for another five minutes, then reluctantly heads off. Apparently there’s a lot of paperwork that comes with saving the world and Tendo’s the one who has to do it. He instructs Hermann to let him know when Newt’s awake so he can put it over the PA system - Hermann is about 90% sure he’s serious about that one too.
And then it’s just Hermann, waiting, and trying not to watch the clock.
Forty minutes after Newt first hit the ground, there’s movement - and this time it isn’t twitching. Newt’s stirring, eyes slowly opening and Hermann kind of wants to cry but decides that’s not the best decision right now. Instead he shifts his chair a little closer and waits.
Newt blinks himself awake, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before looking to his side, eyes focusing on Hermann. “Hey,” Newt says, his voice groggy. “Never thought I’d wake up to you by my bedside, Hermann."
Hermann smiles in absolute relief - Newt knows who he is, and his comprehension seems normal. “Never thought I’d have to sit by your bedside,” he says. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Nu-uh. No, wait - yeah, that’s right. Strangest event of my life, dude.”
“What?"
“You hugged me.” Hermann rolls his eyes and Newt grins sleepily. “Oh, yeah, and then I passed out or something. Everything got kinda shaky and blurry.”
“That about sums it up. You went into neural overload again - but minor. The doctors will need to examine you again, but as long as you take it easy for the next few days, you should be fine.” As long as you don’t find a third brain to Drift with and do this all over again, he wants to snap, but bites it back.
“Did I have another seizure?”
Hermann shakes his head. “No, thank goodness. You… twitched, but that was the extent of it.”
“Good. I - um, I know how scared you got during that last one. Glad you didn’t have to see it again.” Hermann doesn’t quite know how to respond to that, and Newt swiftly changes the subject. “So, hey, you’re all good? Because you came out of that just as wrecked as me.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
There’s a long silence, and then Hermann sighs. “Why did you have to do it?” he asks quietly.
“To save the world,” Newt says. “You know that.”
“Yes, but… why you? You have some of the worst numbers out there -“
“Second to yours,” Newt says pointedly. “At least I’m not medically exempt from Drifting, dude.”
“Your compatibility is limited, Newton. You were lucky enough to be compatible with me, let alone the Kaiju hive mind.”
“Well, lucky was just the word of the day, clearly. It’s not like your compatibility is that much better either -“
“You have the second-highest chance of emotional destabilisation and the highest ever recorded in the PPDC! You are damn lucky you didn’t fall to pieces in either one of those Drifts - you could have lost your bloody mind!”
Newt goes quiet. Hermann realizes he might have crossed a line, but a moment later Newt’s fingers are tightening around his own - and how long have they been holding hands? Hermann doesn’t even know. “You really were scared,” he murmurs. “That’s why you came with me. You - you thought you might be able to anchor me so I didn’t fall to pieces.”
There’s no point in lying - Newt’s seen it. “Yes,” Hermann admits. “I know my stability wasn’t much greater than yours, but any chance of keeping you here and keeping you sane, I was going to take it. You couldn’t handle the neural load on your own again, and you know it.”
Newt nods. “I probably would’ve died in that second Drift without you.”
Hermann winces a little against the words being put out there so boldly, but of course he knows they’re true. “I wasn’t intending on letting you,” he says quietly.
“I know.” There’s a long moment when they just look at one another, then Newt smiles a little. “So, we’re Drift partners now. You know that means we’re kinda inseparable?”
Hermann takes him in - this ridiculous man who thought it was smart to attach his mind (his fragile, low-scoring, incompatible mind) to that of a Kaiju, and then to Hermann. Hermann, who has now seen everything, every single part and thought of him, everything that makes him who he is - and hasn’t been surprised by a single thing, because deep down hasn’t he known him all along?
He takes him in, takes in their hands linked together and the bloody red ring around their eyes, marking them to the rest of the world as connected. But they've never needed a physical reminder.
“Weren’t we always?” he asks.