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There were hundreds of possibilities of how and when it could have happened. It had nothing to do with fate. It was simple math, really.
In this reality, it happened in the middle of the night in Newton's dingy, cluttered mess of a room.
They had done it. They had saved the world. Hermann felt dizzy on the taste of victory and the cheap bottle of Vodka Newton had found him with in the lab, holding it up in the air like a trophy.
They were sat side by side at the headboard of Newton's bed, so close that Hermann could feel the warmth of Newton's leg next to his own. The room was dimly lit by a flickering lamp on the bedside table, their minds clouded by too much alcohol, which, in their euphoria over the whole successfully saving the world thing, had seemed like a good idea.
Hermann's heavy head rested against the headboard of the bed, his tongue too heavy to interrupt Newton as he rambled on about something that, in his intoxicated state, probably only made sense to him.
They had been talking about something, Hermann had lost Newton's train of thought minutes ago, and by now his patience for Newton's chatter had also run dry.
In hindsight, it was probably inevitable. Logical, as well. Too tired and drunk to verbally disarm Newton, plus his patience wearing thin, resulted in … an alternative method to silence his lab partner.
The kiss was, for lack of a better word, godawful.
They were already sitting close enough that Hermann only had to turn his head to the side a bit and lean forward slightly to press his mouth to the rambling mouth of the man next to him. It was clumsy, Newton's lips were unpleasantly dry, and Hermann could feel the other man's face freeze in shock. At that precise moment, his brain seemed to snap out of whatever had possessed him for a split second, and the alarm bells in his head started ringing, reminding him – far too late – of what a stupid idea this had been.
Hermann leaned back a little, his mind still processing what in God's name he'd just done, and found himself staring at the face of someone who'd just been kissed by his colleague (partner? friend? person he had gradually developed something akin to tolerance for?) without warning and now had to completely rethink his entire worldview.
At least he kept his mouth shut, just as planned. For about ten seconds.
“What the hell was that all about, Hermann?”
His first reflex was to apologise. But apologising meant admitting his mistake. Admitting his mistake meant admitting that he had done something wrong. And admitting that meant Newton would tease him about it for the rest of his life. He wasn't even sure he could convince himself that it had just been a drunken mistake.
So he just faced Newton with a deliberately blank expression. "You were practically chewing my ear off with your nonsense."
"And that's why you wanted to chew my lips off." Newton sounded sceptical.
"Christ, Newton. I didn't ... chew anything off you. All I wanted was for you to finally shut your mouth."
Newton studied him, still not seeming convinced. His eyes sparkled with amusement at a joke that was already on the tip of his tongue.
"Oh, Dr Gottlieb, if you wanted someone for a hot "Hooray, the world didn't end!"-hook-up, all you had to do was ask."
Of course he couldn't make it easy for Hermann. Other people would have given Hermann a way out, laughed about it, and he could have joined in, sealing the deal that they would never speak of it again.
But not Newton. He knew Hermann far too well, knew that Hermann didn't do anything for no reason, and was probably already looking for a reason for his behaviour. Nothing with Newton was easy. That was precisely what made talking to him, debating with him, fighting over everything and anything so sickeningly appealing.
Someone who challenged him in a way that had become so familiar that an argument with his lab partner was now strangely comforting for Hermann. Letting off steam. Conversations coated with a generous layer of sarcasm. Insults, chalk and kaiju intestines thrown around. All that was easier to digest for a stomach that was already weighed down by the sinking feeling that humanity might be gone tomorrow, over in nothing but a short blink for Mother Earth.
Fighting with Newton was like a smoke break on a stressful day. Oddly comforting, but lurking in the back of his mind was the nagging feeling that he was actually just harming himself.
Maybe the pain was just too familiar to be entirely uncomforting by now.
"Please, don't spoil the most important triumph of my career with that mental image."
It was a peace offering. A request. Please, let's just not talk about it anymore.
Newton grinned, too bright, too amused, too charming for it to be entirely sincere. "Oh, so I'm just a warm body in near proximity, got it.“
Either he hadn't understood the implicit request, or – more likely – he simply ignored it. It wouldn't have surprised Hermann. It was late, they were drunk and alone and too euphoric for any kind of sleep, Newton was bored, and Hermann had just provided the perfect fodder for teasing.
"I mean, hey man, if you just want my body as a canvas for wish fulfilment, I'm drunk enough to be game.“ He elbowed Hermann in the side and winked at him in an obnoxiously exaggerated manner of faux-camaraderie. "But I swear to God, if you start moaning the name of a long-dead mathematician, it's fucking over.“
Hermann sighed as he was confronted with two revelations.
The first he voiced, as he swatted at Newton's elbow: "It's concerning how little brain-to-mouth filter you possess."
The second he tried to banish from the front of his mind as it was that he found Newton's suggestion dreadfully, shamefully appealing. Not the part about using Newton like a blank canvas. Or the part about dead mathematicians. Obviously.
He had thought about it when they started writing to one another. How it would be like to meet in person, to talk to, to touch the person that seemed to understand him like no other. It had been nothing but a harmless crush upon feeling seen by another person for what felt like the first time.
It hadn't been the same after their first meeting, after their fight, even as they seemed to settle into a semi-functional relationship as colleagues, like a broken bone that hadn't healed quite right.
"Can't blame my mind for going there when you lay on the big moves,“ Newton replied, trying to poke Hermann in his sides with his finger, seemingly delighted that his elbowing had bothered Hermann so much. "Besides, no use for a brain-to-mouth filter when I've essentially done a mind meld with you.“
He had to agree with Newton there. To experience the mind of another person in such an intrusive way probably justified a lack of boundaries afterwards.
Even though the drift had only seemed invasive in retrospect. While they were drifting together, it had never been a question if they were meant to be linked together in such a manner; it had simply felt right. Like they were one, shared emotions, thoughts and memories.
The side effects of the drift seemed to linger. It was as if there was still a small part of Newton's mind within him.
Every time he reached for the colourful mass of memories and emotions, though, it seemed to retreat further into the back of his mind.
However, that feeling of irrefutable rightness was still there, present in a way that made his chest feel pleasantly tight in the same way a rib-crushing hug would feel right now and unpleasantly tight to the point Hermann felt on the verge of a panic attack when he had been alone in the lab to finish up some reports.
He wondered if it was the same for Newton, if that was the reason he had found Hermann in the lab only minutes after they had separated with the Vodka in one hand and dragging him to his room with the other while subjecting Hermann to his rambling monologue that could be boiled down to "Oh my God, we nearly all died, but we didn't, like fucking badass rockstars, Hermann, let´s get drunk about it!“
Maybe that profoundly right feeling that seemed dangerously close to codependence would never stop. Hermann had to admit to himself that he probably wouldn't mind.
Being with Newton – as pen pals, begrudging allies who annoyed each other daily, lab partners, drift-compatible morons with a death wish – it had become such an integral part of his identity that it was hard to imagine any future without him in it. He couldn't help it that all interactions with other people seemed contorted by radio static compared to the absolute clarity with which he understood Newton's thoughts.
He would understand Newton in a way that could not be undone for the rest of their lives, whether he liked it or not.
"You're so quiet. Still thinking about banging me?“ Newton waggled his eyebrows.
The frustrating thing was: he absolutely was. Now after the world hadn't ended, now that he could allow his mind to wander outside the realm of mathematics, now that the drift had happened …
It was hard not to let those thoughts resurface.
He glared at Newton, who raised both hands in mock-defeat.
"Relax, dude. I meant like banging me to death … wait, no … uh, you know. Like, banging my head in with my lamp and making it look like an accident. I totally meant it like that.“
He thought about it for a second. "Although if you do plan on murdering me, I want 'Survived kaijus, banged to death' on my headstone.“
He began to quietly chuckle at his own joke, while Hermann sighed and massaged his throbbing temples, a sign of an impending migraine. "Being colleagues with you should be considered a form of self-harm."
Newton made a mock-indignant face. "Seriously, Hermann, first kisses, then insults. You're sending me some pretty..." He waved a hand in the air, searching for the right words, "... mixed feelings." He frowned. "No, wait, mixed signals. I'm the one who has mixed feelings about this whole thing."
Hermann swallowed. Something deep inside of him felt strangely electrified by the admission that he had triggered some mixed feelings. But certainly that wasn't what Newton meant. "Mixed feelings about what?" he pressed. "Whether this – " He gestured somewhat awkwardly back and forth between himself and his lab partner, "will be funnier if you tell it to the drunk masses now or wait until we are all sober tomorrow?"
Newton blanched. He couldn't have looked more shocked if Hermann had hit him. "What? No." For the first time, he no longer seemed amused by the whole situation. Rather, he was indignant that Hermann had even considered such a thing. "I wouldn't..." The thought remained unfinished, but Hermann knew what he meant.
With a strange kind of satisfaction, he watched as a faint blush rose to his partner's cheeks at the thought of what he wouldn't do. A blush that would have been invisible in the dim light of the room if they hadn't been only centimetres apart. Only now did he realise how close they still were.
“I mean,” Newton continued, “it’s not like there’s much to tell. You kissed me in this sad excuse of a bed and it wasn’t even good.” He chuckled and Hermann could feel the corners of his mouth perking up. “ That's just the sad truth. I won't willingly offer that information up to anyone. I'm not an idiot.“
“Noted.“
Newton sank a little deeper into the pillows of his bed and turned so that he was facing Hermann. He tilted his head and looked at him. Hermann felt an attentive pair of eyes resting on him. Newton's gaze was soft and inappropriately insightful in a way that made him wish he could literally jump out of his skin. His undivided attention was intoxicating. More intoxicating than too much Vodka after the cancelled end of the world.
“But seriously now, Hermann, what was that?” He sounded a little desperate, and Hermann wasn’t sure whether to feel sorry for him or to feel gratified that Newton was now experiencing even a spark of the confusing, indescribable feeling that had been his constant companion ever since their first letters to each other.
The worst part was that he didn’t have an honest answer that he could bear saying out loud. It was too honest, too vulnerable, too risky. Not like the previous teasing. Newton couldn’t even look him in the eyes.
“If you don’t know what that was, Newton, then I’m truly sorry for you and every person you have ever dated,” he replied with a thin, spiteful smile. Hoping Newton would take the bait and they could postpone a conversation along the lines of “What was that, and what does it mean for us?” for a little while longer. Luckily, he did.
“Well, if that’s how you kiss, then your sympathy should be directed toward your own dates.”
Hermann tried his hardest not to snort. It had been ages since he had last been with another person, and he supposed it was the same for Newton, considering he had spent every hour not preoccupied with sleeping or eating in the lab with him, elbows deep in kaiju intestines.
“Who says I kiss like that?” he retorted instead.
“Me?” Newton replied a bit incredulously. “Me, as…” he hesitated, searching for the right word, “a victim of your poor kissing skills.”
Hermann could practically see the triumph about the less-than-flattering choice of words in Newton’s blood-shot eyes.
“That doesn’t count,” he answered before he realised that the objection sounded like that of a petulant child who had just lost a game. “That wasn’t – ”
Well, wasn't what? Wasn't meant like that? Wasn't planned? Wasn't enough?
"That wasn't right."
"Right?" Newton raised his eyebrows. "So what would be right?"
It was a challenge. A wind-up. Hermann wasn't new to those. But here it felt particularly charged. Side by side on the bed. So close that he could feel Newton's body heat, smell the alcohol on his breath, and count his eyelashes individually if he wanted to.
He knew what would be right. What the right thing to do would be. The right thing to do would be to go to bed, sleep off their inebriation and pretend that tonight had never happened.
"It would be right …" he began, meeting Newton's gaze. For a few seconds, they simply looked into each other's eyes. As if one wrong move, one wrong word, could shatter the moment.
He nervously licked his dry lips and watched as Newton's eyes followed the movement.
"It would be right," Hermann began anew, slowly leaning over Newton, pressing him deeper into the pillows beneath him with his hands on his partner's shoulders, ignoring the dull pain the movement caused for his bad leg. "If this time I make sure..."
He moved closer and closer to Newton until they were practically breathing the same air. "That you finally keep your mouth shut for more than just a few seconds."
And with these words, he closed the gap between them.
Their second kiss was better. Warm and wet, and a little intoxicating. Although the latter was probably due to the excess alcohol and lack of air.
Not the feeling of butterflies in your stomach that romance novels often seemed to promise upon finally kissing a person desired for years, but pleasant nonetheless. Safe in the way only something familiar could be, and electrifying in the way only something new could be.
Newton grabbed Hermann by his jumper, pulled him closer, and Hermann went compliantly. Hermann let go of Newton's shoulders with one hand, stroking his neck, his cheek, brushing a hand through his hair, grabbing a handful, and – oh. It was no secret that Newton often metaphorically tugged on Hermann's pigtails, but that it also literally did something to the man beneath him was new to him.
He used his hand in Newton's hair to tilt his head back and deepen the kiss. A breathless sound escaped his lips, and Hermann caught it in his mouth, feeding it back to him in a deep kiss.
He pulled away from Newton, and for a moment they just rested in the moment of borrowed time before reality would undoubtedly come crashing in, forehead to forehead, breathing heavily.
"Was that right?" Newton finally asked into the silence.
His voice was a little rough and breathless, and Hermann felt a heavy, warm feeling spread through his body, gathering in his stomach at the thought that he had done this to him.
“Yes,” he said, his own voice unusually rough. And then, after a brief pause, during which he mustered up all his courage: “Good?”
“Yes.” The answer came immediately, seemingly before Newton’s brain had caught up with his mouth. Embarrassment made his cheeks flush a shade darker, matching his lips.
Hermann rolled off Newton with a groan, caused half by his leg, half by the lack of warmth, so that he could lie beside him again. As if drawn by a magnet, Newton rolled onto his side so that they were face to face.
"I like you like this."
Hermann frowned "Like what? Drunk? Really, Newton?"
Newton shook his head. "Nope. Honest. Also please, just call me Newt, I just had my tongue in your mouth."
Hermann frowned. "I am honest."
"Not always. Not with yourself," Newt replied, the corners of his mouth curled into a provocative smile.
"Well then, set a good example and be honest with yourself,“ Hermann said, "What was that? And what do you want? What do you really want?"
"Well, world peace should be top of the list. Now that the murderous aliens are not a problem anymore, I guess."
Before Hermann could reply, Newt tilted his head forward and pecked Hermann on the lips quickly. Hermann's heart skipped a beat. "But I also want more of that.“
When Newt took Hermann's chin in his hand and leaned forward again, Hermann met him halfway there.
Once they had to pull apart for air, Newt caressed his lips with his thumb before moving his hand to Hermann's cheek. "Your turn now. What do you want?“
"You,“ his brain supplied embarrassingly quickly.
A small part of himself, Hermann mused, had always wanted Newt. Wanted his approval, wanted new information about the man messaging him, wanted to meet him, wanted to forget that they had ever met afterwards, wanted to hear him talk about his research, wanted him to shut up, wanted to wipe the stupid smile off Newt's face when he was teasing Hermann, and wanted nothing but the smile to return to his lips when he saw him tired and broken one too many times after a hard day. He wanted to share the neuronal load and wanted to die with Newt rather than lose him. He wanted Newt.
"You're thinking too loudly," Newt said after a few moments of silence, while Hermann was still trying to force the beast of tremendous feelings in his chest into words. "You know what I think, Hermann?" Newt asked, not waiting for an answer.
"I think you're overthinking things that are actually quite simple. You're analysing all your feelings down to the smallest detail, dissecting them further and further until everything is so fragmented that you no longer know what the big picture was. You desperately want to understand everything and assume that it can all be explained by complicated details and connections, but maybe it's all quite simple after all.”
Newt looked at him intently, as if he wanted to personally prove the theory that eyes were the windows to the soul.
“I think you feel too much and think too much.”
“And you talk too much,” Hermann retorted, pulling Newt toward him by the collar to silence him with his newly discovered and highly effective method.
Newt let himself be pulled in.
"Alright", he got out between kisses, "I'll keep it short.“
He put a bit of distance between them so that he could look into Hermann's eyes. "Fuck, Hermann, please, I don't want to stop, but I also want to know –“
"I want you,“ Hermann blurted out, the words spilling from his chest, tongue loosened by vodka-laced kisses. "Newt, I lo-“
"I love you too,“ Newt burst out.
An awkward silence stretched to the edge to infinity for a few seconds, only interrupted by their heavy breathing.
"So that's settled then,“ Newt said. "Shall we continue?“
"Yes, good idea," Hermann replied, already leaning in again.
For the next few minutes, they were like a tangle of touches, sensations, and feelings. One hand on his cheek and one on the back of his neck, the rough fabric of Newt's shirt between his fingers, and Newt's mouth, warm and soft and perfect beneath him.
Frantic kisses, as if they stood the risk of being awoken from a dream should they stop. Newt on all fours above him. Forcing him to seek his mouth, again and again, granting him a quick kiss before pulling away, letting Hermann's head sink back onto the pillows beneath him. A thigh between his legs, a hand in Newt's hair, and soft, whispered words that meant nothing. Hectic breathing and feverish pleas that were absolutely not begging, pleas so honest and simple that they shouldn't even matter.
Later, side by side on the bed, Newt's hand in his, fingers tracing every line in his palm, every knuckle, every vein. Feather-light, almost as if they weren't there at all.
"I'm about to ..." The rest of Hermann's sentence was swallowed by a yawn.
"Evidently." He couldn't see Newt's face, but he could practically hear the smile in his voice.
"Good night, Liebling." The last thing he felt before sleep settled over him like a dark, heavy blanket was the gentle squeeze of his hand.
And maybe it really was quite simple after all.