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“Dude, I’ve literally never lit a fire before.”
“Then it’s about time.”
Newt sighed heavily and shot a rather annoyed glance at the fireplace, where there was nothing – no fire, no firewood. For some reason, Hermann expected that Newt would be the one to fix it. And while he was pretty good at some things, like digging around in kaiju (when they still were around), and playing his keyboard; making fires was… Well, it wasn’t one of the thingshe actually knew how to do. And he hated that.
“But you know how to do it!” He whined, not even wanting to get out of the warm couch, where he’d wrapped his legs together with Hermann’s (after kicking off his shoes, of course). Even if the room was cold, the couch they were lying in was warm and soft, so they didn’t really need the fireplace anyway. “And I’m really comfy right now anyway!”
Hermann snorted lightly, without even bothering to look down at him. It seemed like the book was terribly important for Hermann; he hadn’t put it down for days. All the time he read in it – on the bed, while cooking, while Newt watched his movies… Newt didn’t quite understand why anybody’d willingly drag around such a heavy, dusty, old book all the time, and read it for amusement.
“Ugh, fine.” Newt made sure that it was obvious that he absolutely did not want to do this while he slowly crawled off the couch. His body screamed for more contact with his Hermann, but it didn’t seem like Hermann missed him very much.
He stood up, stretched, and yawned loudly, before he moved slowly towards the cold fireplace. Hermann was right though, it was pretty damn cold in the room now that they weren’t sharing their body heat. But it wasn’t just a room, it was their living room. The room he and Hermann owned. Together.
Which meant they also owned the fireplace together, and they should take turns on making fires in it. Hermann couldn’t always expect Newt to do it (though this was kind of the first time Newt actually did it), so it wasn’t anything the other man should get used to. Newt turned around and raised a finger while opening his mouth to speak.
“But if I-” He started, but Hermann quickly cut him off;
“Just light the fire, Newton. It’s cold in here.”
Newt was this close on telling Hermann to just get a blanket and then they could cuddle under it together, in their cozy couch, in their home together. Sometimes, just the very thought of the fact that they had bought themselves a nice little house in the outskirts of a forest together was enough to make Newt want to jump around in pure happiness. Back when he’d met Hermann the first time, he was slightly upset that they had to share their lab. If someone back then had told him that he was going to move out with this man, and live happily with him… Newt’d just shook his head and laughed.
Either way, the fireplace needed to be on Newt's mind right now. He crouched down in front of it, shaking his head quietly. He knew literally no techniques for this, but it couldn't be too difficult, now could it? It was literally just to burn some logs and then he'd done it. He could do that. He could show Hermann that he was capable of fixing up a darn fire. Yet he kinda wished he’d paid more attention the several times Hermann had done it right in front of him… But he had been very busy checking out the man’s gorgeous backside.
Okay. The logs was first, right? Of course they were. He got a couple of big logs from the stack next to the fireplace and shoved them in, stacking them up at the cold, black stone. It looked… Pretty good. Not very professional, but… Descent. It would probably burn. He glanced quickly over his shoulder to see if Hermann agreed, but it the man's face was nearly impossible to read - with except for a tiny smile playing on his lips.
Right, then it was probably good enough. Newt got a couple of matches, lit one, and put it against the bottom log, but it wouldn't catch fire. He cursed under his breath and tried another match, but it neither this time did it burn.
"You see the newspaper there?" Hermann's voice asked calmly. Newt glanced quickly around and sure enough - there was a newspaper there. He picked it up and examined it. A couple of pieces were ripped out, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why, and what they were used for.
He snatched out a couple of pages, curled them together in loose balls and stuck them in under the firewood. He lit a third match and put it against the paper. It burned nearly instantly, but it was only for a very short while, before they were nothing but ashes. The logs had some black areas, but didn't burn.
Newt groaned impatiently at the stubborn logs. He pushed them with the fire iron in hope that it would fix it for some reason, but of course it didn’t.
Fine. If the logs wanted to be like this, then fine. He'd fight fire with fire. Literally. He stood up and stormed out of the living room, long before Hermann would be able to ask where he was going.
Just a couple moments later, he was back, holding a small can of flammable liquid. He was going to make those stupid logs burn.
The liquid was transparent as he poured it over the four thick logs, but it smelled pretty badly. Newt could feel Hermann's eyes burn in his back. The poor guy was probably sick with worry. But Newt knew what he was doing. He had absolute maximum control.
Also, he took absolutely maximum wrong.
The liquid was a little bit more flammable than he expected. It didn't help that he had soaked a couple of newspaper pages and tossed them in as well, before flinging in a burning match.
The entire thing went WHOOF.
Newt jumped back to get away from the hellish flames, only to crash into Hermann, who'd stood up for some reason. Probably to help him, or to tell him that it was a very bad idea to mix chemicals and fire, and he should be more careful. But Hermann didn't have time to say anything more than a half-squeaky "Newton!" before they crashed down on the couch.
They just lay like that for a while, baffled over what'd just happened. Hermann uncomfortably on his back, with Newt stacked on top, also on his back. It sounded like the flames had calmed down a bit, and the room was getting warmer.
Though after a moment with silence, Newt couldn't hold it in any longer. He laughed loudly at the whole situation, driven by the adrenaline, which was pumping through his veins like crazy.
Even Hermann couldn't help but to laugh a bit, even when he gently pushed Newt off of him so he could sit up properly, he laughed for himself. Quiet, and while shaking his head.
It was about half a minute of this before Newt crawled back into the couch and cuddled up to Hermann. He pushed a gentle kiss to the man's jaw and grinned. "I fixed it."
"...you sure did."
Hermann wrapped his arms around his beloved Newt and held him tightly. Newt sighed happily and up at him, shooting him a very innocent smile, like he hadn’t just put the entire house in danger of burning down. But now there was a nice little fire in the fireplace, which they had under full control. It warmed the room to a lovely temperature, and when it got too warm for them to cuddle like this, Newt simply slipped out of his warm woollen sweater and helped Hermann do the same. Even though it was Christmas and it was tradition to wear ugly sweaters, it was okay to take them off for a second, to cuddle in their undershirts.