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It’s been a month.
A blissful month, mind you. A mind-blowing, mind-numbing, totally euphoric month. Every moment competes with that one earth-shattering moment when the earth failed to shatter that occurred only a month previous. Newt’s favorite part of every day is waking up and forgetting where he is, what he’s done, and what he’s conquered—and then turning his head to see that scraggly, scholarly undercut and remembering all over again.
Their first kiss was the night the clock stopped. They’ve been inseparable ever since.
…
They had walked together, arm and arm, to their shared lab, both of them stumbling slightly, tipsy from the secret stash of scotch Hermann had under his bed and thrumming with the nervous energy of victory. Hermann collapsed onto his desk chair and Newt gracelessly hopped up onto Hermann’s desk. He swung his legs and gazed down at Hermann with a lopsided grin.
“I don’t know if I ever said…if I ever said thank you, dude,” Newt stammers. “But. You know. If it needs saying—if you didn’t already know by now—”
“Get to the point, Newton,” Hermann sighs, but he does so with a conceding smile on his face, which stretches out Newt’s grin even wider.
“Thank you, Hermann.” They lock eyes and Newt bites his lip before ducking his head. “For, uh, you know. Not letting me kill myself. It means a lot.”
“You’re very welcome, Newton.” Hermann pushes his chair forward and lays a hand on Newton’s knee. “I suppose I should thank you, as well.”
Newt can’t tell if he’s blushing due to the alcohol in his veins or the way his body seems to hum at the mere touch of Hermann’s slight fingers against his clothed skin. He laughs shakily. “You’re welcome for being a dick to you for twelve years. I guess I must not’ve been too heinous, if you still thought I was worth another breath in the end.”
“I’m being serious,” Hermann says, shaking his head and smiling. Newt stares at him intensely, but Hermann just stares at his thumb absently tracing lines across his knee instead. “Most people are hesitant to oppose me or tell me that I’m wrong. It’s frustrating, quite honestly, to be put on a pedestal, as if I am but a brain and nothing more. You were the first person I’ve ever met to see me as equal—nothing more, nothing less. It made me want to hit you with my cane more than a few times, if I’m to be truthful, but it made me work harder. Your ambition, your wit, your passion—it made me a better scientist. A better man, even. I can’t say that any of this could have been possible without you.”
Newt stares at Hermann, his jaw unwilling to shut. “Hermann.”
“Hm.”
“Herman, look at me for a second.”
They look at each other, really look at each other, and it’s all Newt needs before he’s surging forward and cradling the back of Hermann’s head and crushing their lips together. Hermann brings his hands up to grab at Newt’s hips and pull him closer until he’s perched precariously on the wobbly desk chair, straddling Hermann with all he has.
“This is all I’ve wanted,” Newt gasps between heated kisses and needy hands. “For years and years, all I’ve ever thought about—”
“Shut up,” Hermann rasps. “I know, you imbecile. I’m in your head. I know.”
Newt follows orders for the first time since he can remember and puts his energy into focusing on how long he can keep Hermann’s voice sounding like that.
…
A month is when you start to tell your friends you think it’s starting to get serious. It’s when you think about what gifts you’ll get them at the next big holiday, or think about maybe possibly telling your parents even.
A month is not when you get a tattoo of your significant other’s initials on your hand after possibly having a few drinks too many with incorrigibly over-supportive and perhaps even sort of schadenfreude-inclined friends.
Of course, Newt’s never been in a serious relationship before, and he’s also kind of an idiot when it comes to these things, and he also happens to be something of a hopeless romantic. No one had ever thought it necessary to tell Newt of this presumed unwritten rule of novice relationships. Not to mention the fact that Tendo and Raleigh are kind of dicks and laughed and encouraged him all the way to the tattoo parlor.
So that’s how Newt wakes up the next morning with a crucifying headache and the letters “HG” scrawled across the side of his left hand in ominous black ink.
At first, he just tries to pretend it never happened. He covers the offending mark with a band-aid and nonchalantly tells Hermann he just cut himself making dinner one night. He gets real proud of himself for that one and manages to become a little too confident and maybe even actually forget about it completely until one morning he, idiot he is, decides to hop into the shower Hermann’s occupying to try and sweet-talk his way into some morning shower sex before they both have to head off to work. His plan is going beautifully until he starts to slide his hand through his slick hair to push it back and Hermann’s eyes immediately go wide. He reaches out and snatches Newt’s hand without missing a beat and both of their hearts stop simultaneously.
“Would you care to explain this?” Hermann asks very pointedly, his words sharp as knives. “Or do you have an explanation at all?”
“What are the odds you’ll believe this is just a very coincidental birthmark?” Newt jokes meekly. Hermann raises an eyebrow and clenches Newt’s hand a little tighter in his. “I’m sorry, Hermann, honestly, I’m so—can we get out and talk to each other about this while I’m not butt-ass naked? I’m embarrassed as it is.”
“No.”
“Oh—okay—I—uh, okay, that’s—um. Okay. Didn’t expect that. I deserve it, though.” Newt swallows thickly and tries to look around anywhere but Hermann’s eyes or his dick. “Look, okay, it was a stupid mistake, I was drunk-ish, Tendo and Raleigh are pieces of shit who shouldn’t be allowed outside in the real world with other human beings, they should be kept like dogs and walk around with newspapers around their necks so you can roll them up and smack them on the nose, and when I think about you it feels like my heart might explode out of my chest and run off and make a little colony of Hermann-worshippers where they all have weird half-bowl cuts and wear sweatervests even when it’s, like, 80 degrees out and, like, I know I’m not supposed to say all this because it’s barely been two months but sometimes I feel so much I don’t know what to do about it. And I guess inking has always been my coping mechanism when I feel too much; it numbs me out and it expresses things better than words can and it helps me stare all of my fears and challenges directly in the face so I don’t have to be afraid anymore. It helped with the kaiju and I guess it’s helping me cope with the fact that we’ve barely been dating for any time at all and all I can think about is how I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. Which is, I realize, an incredibly ridiculous thing to point out at this particular moment in time. So, if you want me to go and get it removed or whatever I totally get it, I’d do the same thing, probably, I just want you to know—”
Hermann cuts him off by shoving his back against the marble wall of the shower and kissing him so hard their teeth knock together. When he pulls away he presses their foreheads together and breathes heavily against Newt’s bruised lips.
“You talk too much,” Hermann growls. “I knew you had to have done something this thoughtless. The damned drift has been radiating guilt and repression for weeks. I assumed you had just done something to one of my jumpers, but, in fact, it was something even more idiotic than I had assumed you capable of.”
The sound of water falling against Hermann’s arched back tempers the heavy silence between them.
“Hermann,” Newt whispers. “I can’t tell if you’re mad at me or not.”
“Normal couples do not permanently scar themselves with the memory of their partner with only a month and a half of established relationship behind their belts.”
“I know,” Newt hits the back of his head against the wall. “I know, and I’m sorry, honestly, I’ll get it removed if it really shakes you up that bad, I don’t care about the laser removal surgery, I’ve dealt with worse, believe me—”
“But we’re not normal, are we?” Hermann interrupts him, cradling Newt’s hand in his and tracing over the still tender skin where his initials lie, staring back at him like a promise he can’t will himself to be afraid of. “Newton, if I seem angry, it’s because every part of my logical being is telling me to run. But this part of me that is no longer me, that is now you, is telling me that there’s nothing to be afraid of. And there it is, the physical manifestation of the impossibility that is the two of us looking me right in the face, daring me to deny it. This is it. You are it for me. I hope you know that.”
“Dude,” Newt says, and he’s glad they’re in the shower because he feels his eyes starting to become heavy with tears. “Look at my stupid fucking hand. Obviously I know that. The only reason I hid it from you is because I wasn’t sure if we were on the same page. Every time I try to think of life before you, life without you, my whole mind stutters to a stop. Every time I’m apart from you it gnaws at me and tears apart, little by little, until I can see you and touch you again and you put me back together. It’s true what they say about the drift. It’s life-changing. There’s a bond that can’t ever be broken, hard as we try and claw at the edges.”
“Because it hasn’t been two months, has it?” Hermann smiles shyly. “It’s been the better part of our lives.”
“Hermann, don’t laugh at me,” Newt grins at him. “But I think every moment of my existence has been with the distinct purpose of finding your existence. I think the term ‘soul mates’ was created specifically for people like us.”
Hermann smirks and runs a hand through Newt’s hair. “I believe you’re becoming sentimental in your old age, Newton.”
“Nah,” Newt shakes his head. “I think I’m just starting to figure things out. I always did like unexplored territory.”
“I think I like you romantic and trite. It becomes you.”
“I think so, too,” Newt sighs and pulls Hermann closer. Their noses brush together as their breaths start to intermingle and their heartbeats start to sync up. “I think you become me.”
…
“We’re such nerds,” Newt says, his voice muffled by a pillow. “We really are, you know that? People are supposed to have rabid, crazy, animal sex on their wedding night. We just watched half a Star Trek episode and fell into a shared coma.”
“We can participate in ridiculous, impractical marital rituals in the morning,” Hermann groans. “Right now I feel like relaxing for the first time in months.”
“Hey,” Newt pokes Hermann and peeks out at him with one eye and an impish smile on his face. “We did it. We’re married.”
Hermann smiles and laughs and Newt’s childishness. “So you keep reminding me.” He grabs Newt’s hand and traces the ring on his left finger before his thumb wanders fondly over the slightly faded letters on his hand.
“You wanna hear something really stupid?”
“Almost never, but do go on. It might just lull me to sleep.”
“I don’t recall much from the night I got this tattoo, except for one thing I remembered a few days after you found out about it.” They both laugh quietly at the memory. “When Asshole Number One and Asshole Number Two, a.k.a. The Assholes Formerly Known As Tendo And Raleigh, were hyping me up to get the tattoo, they kept trying to talk me into getting your initials on my ring finger. Right? As if it wasn’t already the Guinness World Record’s Worst Idea Ever. Imagine how much worse that fight would have been if you had found it there instead. Anyway, I kept going ‘No, no, no, fuck off, leave it alone, I’m not getting it there’; all that shit. And they kept asking me, they kept going, ‘Why? Why not? It would be so cool, just do it man, blah, blah blah’. And I remember just looking at them and going ‘If I did one thing right in my life, it’s telling that guy I wanna fuck him’. I totally wish it had been more poetic than that, but I think editing memories is just dishonest, and plus it gets the general message across. Even when I was out of my mind drunk, I knew that the tattoo wasn’t meant to be a sign of devotion or ‘I’ll love you forever’ or whatever romantic crap Tendo and Raleigh probably thought it was. It was a notice of ownership. It was like, you’d taken over me, you’d crawled into the darkest caverns of my mind and brightened them up and brought a fucking ottoman and shit because you were there to fucking stay. And even if you left me the next day, fell off the face of the earth, told me you never wanted to see me again, whatever. Even if I met someone else who was exactly who I would’ve thought I wanted before I’d met you, there’d still be something missing. Because it’s tacky and corny or whatever, but you complete me. Even saying something that contrived makes me wanna fucking gag, but it’s true, I guess. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.
“Okay how about—it’s like this, okay: it’s like, your whole life, you’re just pieces of a puzzle. And big landmarks in your life kind of become a new piece of the puzzle. And every time something happens to you, good, bad, beautiful, ugly—they all add to the puzzle. Each time you’re becoming more and more of who you’re supposed to be. And one day, I was like, okay, that’s it. My puzzle’s over. It’s completed. I’m brilliant, successful, educated, somewhat confident in myself, I’m all set. And then I kiss you and it’s like—there’s a whole piece there I didn’t even see. And all of a sudden I look and that piece just bridges over to a whole new puzzle. A puzzle where I’m learning more about myself, finding shit I didn’t know I liked, meeting people and going places and loving myself in ways I never even imagined I would before you. And that’s what your puzzle piece says—that’s what it looks like, right there, that patch of skin on my hand that says ‘HG’. It’s small, but it means everything.” Newt laughs and scratches his head. “Jesus, I talk a lot when I’m sleep-deprived. Herms? You still awake? Babes?”
“You had better kiss me in the next ten seconds or you’ll lose your window to have sex in the last twenty-three minutes that still constitutes as our wedding night.”
It’s easy to make a next decision after that.
…
“You better saddle up, cowboy, because I got you the best gift ever,” Newt boasts, his cheeks red from champagne and the excitement of the night. He collapses on the couch next to Hermann with a big box in his lap, wrapped messily with old wrapping paper with anime characters all over. Hermann smiles at him sweetly, his hands noticeably empty.
“Glad you’re not trying to boast with size, because we both know I’ve got the biggest one here,” Newt winks and gestures to his box again. “What should we do, yours first or mine?”
“I think we both know which you want to do first.”
Newt grins and sets his to the side. “You know what? We’ll save best for last. Let’s do you first.”
“Haven’t heard that in a while.”
“Shut up, you liar. Just go before I change my mind.”
“And forfeit a present? Don’t make me call your bluff,” Hermann smirks. He starts to fidget with the ring on his finger and bites his lip nervously. “I’ll be honest, I hadn’t expected your gift to be so large. I’m a bit embarrassed by mine, now. I’m starting to think that you won’t like it.”
“Hermann, you could give me a wad of used toilet paper and I’d get it framed. C’mon, quick, before mine gets cold!”
“Don’t be crude. And alright. But don’t be disappointed if it’s not what you wanted! I’m inside your mind, but that doesn’t mean I can read it.”
“Aw, you didn’t get me the action figure I asked for?” Newt pouts. “Quit the foreplay and get on with it. You’re so dramatic sometimes.”
Hermann rolls his eyes and sighs before he takes hold of his ring and starts to slide it off. Newt’s heart starts to race for a second and his mind goes into panic mode. Hermann grabs the sides of his face with both hands and kisses him hard, anticipating this and thus assuring Newt so as not to send him into a fit. When he pulls back, Newt is stunned and a little shaken.
“Not that that wasn’t great, Herms,” Newt says, his voice a little hoarse, “but I gotta say, it seems like you didn’t even try to one-up me this time. I mean, it’s the first anniversary. You kinda gotta put in a little more effort. I can get that any night for free.”
Hermann raises an eyebrow and draws back, flashing his ring finger in front of Newt’s face. Newt’s whole face goes white and he feels his mouth dry out as he reaches forward and grabs Hermann’s hand in disbelief.
“Oh my god…Hermann…are you…?” He stares, his hands and lips both trembling, at the small markings on the inside of Hermann’s ring finger, rendered invisible by the ring that usually covers it. Small letters stare back at him, the indisputable scrawl of a tiny “NG”.
His eyes start to well up and Hermann leans in to kiss him again. “Oh, darling, please don’t cry. You’re already hysterical as it is.”
“I can’t help it, you asshole, you know that. I cry at commercials with dogs in them. I can’t fucking believe you hid this from me—it’s completely healed! How long have you had this!”
“I knew I’d get it the very night you told me about where you almost got your tattoo,” Hermann whispers against his lips, crowding Newt against him and nudging him to straddle his lap. “You left for business in Munich a few weeks later, and I called an appointment at the nearest tattoo parlor the next day.”
“I thought you hated tattoos,” Newt says, and his voice is getting shaky again. A stray tear slides down his face when he closes his eyes to kiss Hermann.
“Yes, but I love you.”
Newt lets out a loud sob that he can’t hold in and edges closer to Hermann, even though they’re barely inches apart. “I love you so much, Hermann. I’ve loved you since the first letter you sent me. You’re everything, you’re all of it, I can’t believe my luck, I love you so fucking much.”
Newt kisses him until his lips are puffy and his tears have subsided. He holds Hermann’s hand, stroking his ring finger until they have to break for air. As he stares down at Hermann, breathing heavily, he starts to unbuckle his trousers and push his hips forward.
“Newton, wait,” Hermann protests, holding his hand over Newt’s to stop him. “What about your gift? I never got to open it.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s stupid, really. it’s a custom made jaeger helmet with your initials carved into the side. I got Tendo to place a few calls and pull a few strings and find a buddy of his that helped with the design to put a new one into production. It has stars on the inside of the visor. It’s nothing.”
“Newton,” Hermann gasps, tracing a finger along Newt’s cheek. He pulls him back to kiss him deeply. “That’s gorgeous. Thank you.”
“It doesn’t even shed a light on what you just gave me,” Newt whispers, kissing Hermann back desperately. He struggles with the buckle of his belt around the loops of his tight jeans. “C’mon, help me with this. I wanna see those initials disappear inside me.”
Hermann’s eyes turn dark and his mouth goes slack and he finds himself immediately retracting all of his previous objections.