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There's a word for it, because we love to name and categorize things. Humans are brilliant taxonomists. We created a system for naming every damn species on the planet and classifying who is related to who, and you know what? When DNA sequencing finally came around, it turned out we got it right, most of the time, down to the classification of families. Carl Linnaeus, man. What a rockstar.
So there's a word for it, a name for the state of mind that generates the thought, "What would happen if I drifted with a kaiju?" and without any further consideration, punches the Fuck It Let's Go Button.
Twice.
Okay, that's not fair to Newton's incredible, high functioning, versatile brain. He had the idea the moment he got his hands on that kaiju brain fragment, a few months back. There was considerable consideration. Much deliberation. Antici... pation. And he had ultimately and very logically decided that the idea was ludicrous, dangerous, and likely to destroy his oh so precious incredible-high-functioning-versatile brain, if not kill him outright. That's a no-go.
The problem is that later on he was in a very different state of mind, one much more deprived of lithium, Li, atomic number three, that shiny alkali metal with impressive mood stabilizing effects for some people with certain brain disorders. Deprived because maybe, possibly, as an adverse affect of said lithium, Newt forgot to refill his supply. But Newt is a scientist with a (previously well-funded, now horrendously under-funded) biotech lab still stocked with plenty of lithium chloride that he could divert from his RNA precipitation experiments and use to synthesize into lithium citrate, no problem. No problemo. Except he had so much else to do in the lab, and he felt all right, no he felt great honestly, so that idea fell by the wayside.
The screaming matches that he and Hermann had fallen back into shifted from a product of extreme stress into a brilliant competition. They would push each other harder, push the science further, that's the only way they would survive the end of the world with the remains of civilization intact. Every attack in viciousness and spite was a forceful leap for each other's survival. At least, that's how Newt thought about it.
Post drift, he realizes that was not the case for Hermann.
Hermann really had thought Newt's idea was insane, and shot him down not to spur him on, but to stop him from killing himself. Hermann had been so deprived of sleep, so burdened with stress, so deep into his equation modeling, that he had missed the fact that Newt's ideas were not a last-ditch grasp at straws, but a product of mania that Newt was determined to see through.
Mania. There, that's the word.
—
The first time Hermann witnessed Newt in a manic state was years back, when they were stationed at the Anchorage Shatterdome. Newt had decided to phase off lithium just to see where he was at, to test his ability to self-stabilize, because honestly he could do without the side effects, and he would do it in a controlled manner, obviously, he is a scientist. He would check in with Dr. Lightcap every day, while giving her the latest data on his kaiju blue toxicology studies, and she would intervene if he showed signs of altered mood states. It was a good system, for a few weeks. He was more productive, more focused, which he attributed to the lessening lithium levels in his system. He was less tired, even though his chronic insomnia did not lessen. His hands became steadier, which was great for pipetting. Everything was great, he reported. Lightcap chewed her pen and tentatively agreed.
Around this time Newt and Hermann were not speaking. This happened from time to time, when their jabs at one another became snipes became arguments became shouting matches. Their labmates had collectively decreed that either Newt and Hermann take a vow of silence, or they both move their work stations outside into the fucking snow. They took the silence.
But that didn't stop Hermann from leaving disparaging notes all over Newt's desk, and it didn't stop Newt from emptying the contents of Hermann's tea bags and replacing them with dryer lint.
Then Gypsy Danger went down, and Lightcap turned all of her attention to J-tech. That was fine. Really. K-science was a self-propelling unit, they knew what needed to be done.
It wasn't long before Newt broke the silent ceasefire, interrupting Hermann's work to unload his latest theory about kaiju taxonomy. He talked nonstop for two hours, and Hermann first tried to shoo him away but quickly took to shooting down every inconsistency in Newt's ideas. Their labmates kicked them out.
They spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the Shatterdome halls locked in fierce debate, much to the chagrin of the whole of the PPDC Anchorage team.
The next few days followed the same pattern, their disputes ever escalating in length and volume. If Newt had been a mathematician, if Newt had been Hermann, he would have tried to plot their behavioral trajectory and find an algorithm that would predict their next move. But Newt was not Hermann, Newt was a biologist, neuroscientist, geneticist, scientist in sextuplicate, and he could do a behavioral analysis, actually, he could, but he was just so tired.
So fucking tired.
Hermann would enjoy the silence of Newt's absence from the lab on Saturday. On Sunday, the quiet began to creep with a sense of unease.
When Newt was not among the bodies returning to the lab on Monday, Hermann went in search of him.
Newt remembers now from a borrowed perspective the worry in Hermann's mind, the slick sweat of his grip on his cane, the grit of his teeth, his hurried step as he made his way to Newton's quarters.
Hermann knocked and the door gave way under his knuckles, held closed only by a pile of books and clothes on the floor. The hinge creaked as Hermann leaned inside.
"Newton?" Hermann muttered as he fumbled for the light switch. "Where on earth are you, you impossible—"
The illumination of lights produced a groan from the pile of blankets on the bed. Hermann pressed his lips together in consternation. "Get up," he growled as he pulled away the comforter. "You have work to do, now get up."
Newton jerked back, but Hermann would not relent. Finally Newton sat up, grabbed the comforter with both hands and tore it from Hermann's grip. His eyes were red-rimmed and heavy. "Go away."
Hermann stood there for a moment, reeling, streams of thought aligning, details clicking into place. He shuffled over to where Newton had recreated his shelter of bedding to hide under, and sat down heavily on the bed.
"Go away," Newton murmured half heartedly, pushing Hermann without any real force.
"What is the problem?" Hermann asked quietly, almost gently.
"Nothing," Newton grumbled.
"Newton," Hermann urged, his usual edge creeping back into his voice. "What is the nature of the problem?"
"Brain chemistry, okay?" Newton shot back. "There's nothing for you to solve. Will you go now?"
Hermann considered the warm lump of blankets for a moment. His hands rolled over his knobby knees. "Are there any medications you take?"
Newton did not respond.
"Have you been taking them recently?" Hermann paused, shifted his position, pressed on. "Where do you keep your prescription?"
The silence stretched long enough that Hermann began to consider a different tactic, but finally a hand emerged from the blankets and waved at the pile of clothes on the floor. "The messenger bag. Outer pocket probably."
Hermann's knee clicked as he rose to retrieve the bag. After some digging, he found the bottle at the bottom of the main pocket, amongst old receipts and a poptart wrapper. He scrutinized the label, tipped out the dosage into his hand, and nudged the blankets off of his lab partner. Newton accepted the medication and swallowed it without looking at Hermann. Hermann did his best not to look at the scratches on Newton's arms, or the old scars now apparent under the tattoos.
"When did you last eat?" Hermann asked, training his eyes on the cluttered floor.
Newton buried his head under his pillow. "I can't take you being this nice to me, man. What the fuck."
Hermann huffed. "When is the last time you ate, you moronic imbecile?"
Newton shrugged and made a sound that might have been the edge of a laugh. But Hermann could not be sure.
On threat of endless lecture, Newton ate something from the tray of food Hermann brought, and spent the rest of the day intermittently thumbing through his phone and approximating sleep, while Hermann typed away on his laptop at Newton's messy desk.
When Newt returned to the lab he thanked Hermann by throwing away all of the tea bags filled with detritus, and replaced them with Constant Comet because honestly, nothing sounds more boring than Earl Grey.
—
Back at LOCCENT, post-apocalypse-aversion, Newt leans over to whisper in Hermann's ear. "I put confetti and glitter in your tea bags."
Hermann looks at him sharply. "What?"
"A few days ago, I think," Newt shrugs. It's an annotation in ambiguity, it doesn't mean anything on its own, Newt plays pranks all the time—but Newt can't gather the words into the right order, and he knows Hermann will make the connection he's trying to portray. He can see the information rearrange in Hermann's mind, he can hear the reevaluation of memories as Hermann pulls what he found in the drift up to the present. He hears neurons firing and connecting. Newt marvels at this.
"Are you getting any feedback from me?" Newt asks. He picks at the hole in the shoulder of his jacket, tugging the seams further apart. "I think we might be ghost-drifting, man."
Hermann's brow furrows, and in the moments before he speaks Newt tries to pull apart the expression. He separates out consternation, which is itself composed of varying parts anxiety and surprise. Determination, that's there. Exhaustion too. Discomfort, distress, a background wave of relief—
"You smell like a sewer," Hermann says, tightening his grip around Newt's ribs. "We should go to the medical bay."
Newt is not sure about that plan and tries to frame his argument but the words start spilling out too fast. "The party's here man, lets stay, there's no way I smell worse than anyone else here, the whole Shatterdome is like one big gym locker—"
"Whilst you were tramping around a Hong Kong alley amidst kaiju entrails. I assure you that you smell worse," Hermann retorts while steering him out of LOCCENT.
"Fine, let's get cleaned up and come back. But seriously, Hermann—" Newt stumbles over his words as Hermann directs them away from their quarters and toward the med bay, that is not something Newt wants to be a part of, but even more so he doesn't want to let go of Hermann, because, "Seriously, are you getting any kind of vibe from me? Like uber-empathy, maybe telepathy? Because I can hear not just what you're thinking, but how you're thinking, all the neural processes, and it's fascinating, dude—"
Newt finds that they are standing at the intake desk of the med bay, and Hermann is insistently hitting the call button. Newt is getting waves of increasing distress off of him, and Newt did not agree to this plan, he thinks about pulling away, but—
Hermann runs a hand through Newt's hair and leans in, and his voice soft but loud so close to Newt's ear. "I believe we may, at the moment, have an extremely empathetic connection," Hermann says. "But that aside," and Newt can feel the words coming next before they are spoken, "I think you may be escalating to an acute manic state."
Newt nods, biting his lip, "Right, yeah, that makes sense, that makes a lot of sense," dammit he hates when Hermann is right, no that's not even true, but "this is bad," how in hell is he supposed to work out what is in only his brain and what is coming from Hermann's, "oh shit," he says, his breath increasing, rapidly, and then a nursing assistant comes in, looking very disgruntled at Hermann's hand on the call button, and Newt is getting a whole set of vibes from this other person, that's probably not real? Right?
The thoughts he's hearing from both of them are loud, too loud to follow the verbal discussion they are having, but Newt is ready to jump in and defend Hermann at any sign of trouble, he will punch a guy, he will, but eventually the assistant retreats and comes back with someone else, then that person retreats and Hermann receives two pharmaceutical bottles and then they retreat, stumbling back to Newt's messy quarters.
Newt takes whatever Hermann gives him, takes a perfunctory and uncoordinated turn in the shower, and they collapse on Newt's bed, Hermann's fingers combing Newt's hair and Newt saying things he doesn't mean, or things he means too much, and they ride it out, and Newt thinks or says that maybe he's in love, maybe he's been in love for a long time, and he knows, he knows, he knows Hermann feels the same.