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How exactly Hermann had quite found himself in the position he was in, staring blankly and unmovingly at the blackboard for the past hour and a half, he wasn’t entirely sure. What he did know was that something or the other, or maybe lots of “somethings” now that he thought about it, had worked their way into his brain and just wouldn’t leave. Stuff from the past, stuff from the present, stuff from that future that hopefully would still exist when the time came, stuff about the “hopefully” part of the future, all frankly stuff he didn’t really have that much control over. That part also irked him. As the day had gone on, all of those somethings had ultimately converged into the form of one very complex equation that stared back tauntingly at him from the blackboard, written by his own hands. It had paralysed him so efficiently that nothing could quite pull him out of it. Despite it all, he could still hear Newt’s mutterings, the sharp incisions that parted the skin of his latest sample, and the wet effluence that soon became sharp, rhythmic drips as it flowed from the table onto the cool metal of the lab floor. He could hear his own breathing, the ringing in his ears that had been with him as long as he could remember. Louder than all the rest was the muddle of thoughts that ran through his brain, panicked horses whose jockeys had all fallen off various lengths of time ago and were running rampant, bumping into each other, mingling.
Really, he couldn’t keep working. He didn’t know how he had and so many around him had expected him to, not when everything was undeniably awful. Each of the parts that made up the whole were bad on their own, but in combination the potency of it would have been enough to cause even the most stalwart of people to stumble. As he had been, they would be forced into facing the abyss of the future and the sands of their past, whilst the vicious sun of the present beat down upon them. It was just a little bit too much, he thought.
'Newton? I’m going to get something to eat. You should come,' said Hermann, still intensely focused on keeping his body moving, taking each step, forcing his body to keep moving and refusing to let doom control him for another moment.
Newt didn’t look up, elbows deep in his specimen, cyan streaking his lab coat and most things within ten foot of his work space. Sighing, Hermann tried again, a little firmer, a little louder, a little more tired.
'Newton, I said I’m going to eat something.'
This time round, Newt raised his shoulder, tilting his head to make contact with it, seemingly in an effort to turn off the earbuds that were probably a little bit too loud. With a frustrated grumble, he gave up, and flapped one of his hands to loosen the stained nitrile glove he had on before finally managing to pull it off with his other hand. He slipped an earbud out, placing it in his pocket. It made a “tink” noise as it hit the floor. It wasn’t that they couldn’t afford more lab coats, thought Hermann, more that Newt had an inability to sit down and fill in a form if the information wasn’t all there in front of him, and the exact item number for his favourite lab coat still hadn’t cemented itself in his brain.
'Sorry dude, didn’t catch that. What?'
'Don’t say what, it’s rude. I said that I’m going to get something to eat, twice. You are welcome to join me if you wish, though you’re under no obligation to.' Said Hermann, wrinkling his nose.
'Nah I’m good. Go eat, I’ll see you soon, I just gotta finish this before it goes rotten.'
Hermann’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded at Newt anyway and raised a hand to him as he left. He didn’t know when Newt had last eaten, let alone taken a break, but understood that there was very little point in nagging at him any further. As much as they needed one another, they still had to be responsible for their own choices and there was no need to push some things. Instead, he walked alone to the cafeteria.
~
The food had been fine and not much more. Simple rice noodles made with a simple broth, and a little bowl of salad with a dressing equally as simple as every other part of the meal had been. He’d eaten, it’d helped a little though not as much as he’d hoped. It hadn’t stilled his mind or eased his fears, nor had it lessened the weight of the doom-creature that had attached itself to him. The walk back to the laboratory was also fine. He nodded to one of the few remaining janitorial staff who still cleaned his and Newt’s work areas, and thanked another for something they’d done for him a little while ago. None of it had been particularly conscious; his body ran on autopilot as his brain remained firmly preoccupied by the impending end of the world.
It wasn’t dramatic to believe that the end of the world was a likely possibility, he’d decided. After all, he’d seen the forecasts: Global destruction, with a chance of rain. Even if the world didn’t end, he was certain the scale of loss and devastation would be crushing. It didn’t make it easier knowing that success was still possible, however small the chances may be. If anything, it made it a whole lot harder. How could he work to fix something that was so broken, where every action was a gamble, where anything he did could only improve the odds by infinitesimally small amounts? How could he work to solve a problem that was only perpetuated by those with more power and money, the same people that shut out the problems entirely, burying their heads in the sand? How could he work on anything at all when the past was catching up to him in ways he thought it never would, and things were getting to him that he’d told himself time and time again were fine, and didn’t bother him? Newt hadn’t moved from his table, scalpel still in his hand. Hermann stood by his ladder, but could only stare at the chalkboard, and the equations laid out on it spelling the end in his own handwriting, and he froze.
'Newt?' His voice carried tension in it.
Newt’s reply was lighter.
'Yeah?' He said.
'Do you ever stop and look at what you're doing and think… I’m not sure. That it doesn’t matter?'
Abruptly, Newt stopped digging around in whatever decaying piece of organ he had in front of him. He looked up at Hermann, whose back was turned and whose head was tilted up towards his chalkboard, as though the white scribbles that filled every part of it were curses.
'Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes I think I can’t get up and face it, but I get up and do it anyway because I kind of love what I get to do, and I kind of hate it too.'
'Oh,' Hermann said, closing his eyes.
'You doing alright, Herms?'
'...I’m fine, yes.'
'You don’t have to be fine about it.'
'I know.'
'You don’t.'
Hermann hadn’t noticed Newt walking over, and he flinched when his hand touched his back. It comforted him to feel it there, even more so when Newt began to rub gentle circles into him.
'You’re allowed to talk about it, if you want to. I mean, you’re allowed to not talk about it too, I’m not gonna force you to talk about it with me, or with anyone at all actually, but you can talk about it. If you want.'
Feeling his lip twitch, Hermann nodded. The twitch risked turning into a tremble if he weren’t careful.
'You can say whatever it is you want to say. I know you can’t see a future, I don’t think anyone in your position could.'
Hermann removed Newt’s hand from his back. He could see a future actually, but all of them were violently throttled, extinguished. Newt kept talking anyway.
'I’m not gonna pretend to know what’s going on in your head, Hermann, and I’m not gonna pretend I get it if you tell me what is, but I will listen. Do you want me to go? I can go if you want.'
Shaking his head, Hermann turned to face Newt, and embraced him.
'It feels so hopeless.'
'I know.'
'Thank you.'