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I just saw a man die, Newt thought, staring at Hermann’s hand awkwardly clasped around his. He tightened his hold and smiled. This man, though, he’s still alive. We’re all still alive.
But for how much longer? His mind betrayed him, as he turned and began to rummage through his equipment.
The drift was overwhelming, and when they broke out of it, Newton forgot where he was for a moment, until he looked over at Hermann’s figure shaking in the dark beside him. Panic bubbled in his chest, and he rushed over to help him remove the apparatus from his head.
The next moments were a flurry of excitement, a rush of events, and before either of them knew it, the Kaiju had been defeated and the world was saved.
As the crowd of people around them jostled and cheered, they felt themselves drift toward each other.
“We did it,” Hermann mumbled somewhere near Newt’s ear, and he felt the heat rise in his cheeks.
“Yeah,” he said, turning to face the other man. “We did.”
His voice was a whisper lost on the crowd, but he knew Hermann had heard him.
---
They avoid talking about the drift for a while—or maybe they just get caught up in the excitement of canceling the apocalypse, to use the Marshal’s words.
After their intial celebration, however, it was time to deal with all the destruction and the deaths of their friends—and after that, they must learn how to live without the constant threat of a Kaiju attack hanging over their heads.
Hermann thinks that Newton should be taking it especially hard, now that their program and their research has been all but cancelled, yet he bumbles around their previously shared workplace happily, cleaning up the buckets and glass cases stained blue from Kaiju viscera.
Neither of them speaks, because they don’t want to acknowledge what is happening—they don’t want to say out loud how obsolete they are, even if everyone else is saying it. The Jaeger pilots may be out of a job too, but at least they get lauded as heroes. Meanwhile, Hermann and Newton are in their workshop, putting their belongings into metaphorical brown boxes and beefing up their resumes.
The empty glass cases remind Hermann of all they’d accomplished, though, and he is proud of them—of what they accomplished together. They also remind him of Newt’s brave—and selfish, selfish—stupidity. Hermann hasn’t completely forgiven Newton for scaring him so badly the night he had found him spasming on the lab’s floor.
Which brought back a flicker of the memories they had shared during that second drift with the Kaiju. It seemed that they had bonded over their lack of a structured social life as children, had bonded over their lives as outcasts, both in the ‘normal’ world as well as in the scientific community.
Hermann was embarrassed by some of the memories that had come to his mind, but as he had heard many Jaeger pilots discuss, he had not chased the rabbit. Though maybe that was because Newton had been right there with him, through it all.
He cleared his throat, readying himself to say goodbye to the man who he had worked with for over a year now.
A moment passes, though, and he still hasn’t said a word. Newton looks over at him, and in a rush of confusion, Hermann feels that they only thing he can do is apologize.
“Doctor Geiszler,” he starts, ignoring Newton’s glare. “I want to begin my farewell by issuing an apology for any times when I might have offended you.”
Newton’s eyes widened and he began to laugh. “You mean for calling me a Kaiju groupie?”
“Yes, well.” He fell silent again. Newton dusted off the last of his equipment, which was to remain in the lab until he could find another place for it.
“I told you how scared I had been when I found you after—after you drifted with the Kaiju, didn’t I?” Hermann said suddenly, breaking the silence.
Newton remembered. “Yes.”
“Yes, well,” Hermann repeated, and Newton saw that he was really struggling with this apology. “I know you liked them, but God, they frightened me. They’d cost humanity so much… and for a moment, I’d thought they’d cost me you, too.”
Hermann was blushing bright and Newton could feel his face grow hot as well. “Oh. Well, I never… I never liked them, you know? I mean, okay, I did, I tattooed them on my arms for goodness sakes, but it was more like… I found them interesting? Right? Like, scientifically.”
Gottlieb didn't look like he believed him. “But they're history now, right? So, I guess I’ll just be interested in them… historically?”
Hermann sighed. “Of course.”
“And, just to let you in on a secret,” Newton said, moving closer to Hermann and lowering his voice like he really was afraid of anyone overhearing. “They scared me too.”
---
They found each other in a bar in London, six months later.
Hermann had come home, had always planned on coming home, and yet he did not remember ever sharing this information with Newton.
Yet here Newton was, in this bar not far from Hermann’s flat, and Hermann could not seem to comprehend why.
“Doctor Gottlieb!” Newton slurred drunkenly from across the bar. He slipped closer, stumbling, and Hermann put a bracing hand on his forearm when Newton caught up to him. He noticed that the tattoos were hidden by the long sleeves of Newton’s jumper.
“Please, Newton, call me Hermann.” He smiled at the other man’s surprised smile. “I’d say we’ve been through enough for formalities to be dropped.”
They shivered slightly together, and Hermann wasn’t sure who began it, but he knew they were both thinking of the drift.
They sat together in a booth in an isolated part of the bar, and it was dark and slightly chilly and with Newton pressed against his side, sipping glumly at the water relegated to him, Hermann thought it was rather perfect.
"Didn’t you ever want to become a pilot?” Hermann asked, because Newton had been avoiding serious discussion since they met, and there were answers that Hermann had always wanted to know.
“No,” Newton answered after chewing on his lip. “No, not athletic enough… not combative enough. Too interested in what I was supposed to be fighting to actually fight it, not that I ever gave it a shot. Not even a simulation.”
Newton rubbed absently over his forearm. Hermann watched him bite down on his lip, for a second thought he might actually bite through it, and felt that he knew exactly what question was dwelling in the other man’s mind.
His hand clenched defensively on his cane, which he had absently been resting against even though he was seated.
“Do you want another beer?” Newton asked suddenly, hefting himself up from his seat.
Hermann nodded and felt a happy flurry of activity in his chest. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”
Newton took his empty mug off the table and smiled, all teeth. “Maybe.”
As he watched the other man sway to the bar, Hermann bit back a smile of his own.
Newton hadn’t asked. Newton never asked. So Hermann would just have to tell him.
---
They stayed together in London for a while, coexisting rather peacefully now that they weren't confined to the same cramped work space. Newt had his own place to go back to, Hermann had his flat, and they met at the bar for drinks twice a week. In between then, they met for walks in the park, or at restaurants, where they would snipe at each other about their respective fields and laugh and reminisce.
It was kind of perfect, in both of their opinions.
The bar was reserved for serious conversations though, which Newt found he could handle because they took place so infrequently. They talked about their childhoods, about Hermann’s leg, about Newt’s tattoos, about the Kaiju war and how it had affected each of them differently and yet the same, the same way it affected all of humanity. It was a shared experience for everyone, a jumping off point that connected the whole of the world.
Newt could feel them working their way toward the topic of the drift, though. He knew that it would only be a matter of time before one of them brought it up, and he wasn’t sure which of them would.
When he got a job offer in Tokyo, he took it.
He left London without saying goodbye to Hermann, because he knew if he had to face the other man, he wouldn’t leave without saying something he wholeheartedly meant. For all that Hermann claimed Newton was brave, Newt knew he was a coward at heart.
They lost contact, because Newt hadn’t left any contact information. He knew that Hermann could probably find him, if he looked hard enough.
Five months passed, and Newt realized that maybe Hermann didn’t want to look for him at all.
---
A year had passed since the breach had been rendered useless, since the mission had succeeded—since the Kaiju threat had been eradicated. The Shatterdome, closed down for nearly that long, was to be opened once more for a reunion of sorts—a celebration and memoriam for those they had lost in the war against the Kaiju.
Hermann booked a ticket for Hong Kong and was there a day before the ceremony. He got into contact with Tendo—who had remained in Hong Kong even after the program was shut down. Tendo informed him that Newton was already in the city; that he had been for a few weeks—and Hermann assured him that this information wasn’t the reason he had been calling, and bit back a thank you. Tendo seemed to understand anyway, though, and his low chuckle rang over the line even as Hermann hung up on him.
The Shatterdome looked the way it always had—it was a little cleaner, and quieter, maybe, but Hermann felt like he was coming home. This was strange, of course, because he hadn’t been here very long, hadn’t gotten along with everyone working there, and most certainly had spent most of his time holed up in the lab with—
There were screens set up around the large area with names and faces flashing on them—and in the center, a large screen with Pentecost’s photograph. Hermann avoided looking at it too long—felt guilty, for some reason, perhaps that they hadn’t worked harder to save everyone. A lot of lives had been lost that day, but all of humanity had been saved in return for those lives.
Hermann strolled along one side of the room, which was decorated with plaques dedicated to other Jaeger pilots and the soldiers who had fought before them. He paused over one of the plaques, scrolling his eyes over the tiny names, when he felt a presence next to him.
“Hey,” a voice he would recognize anywhere said.
Hermann stiffened and turned, forcing a smile on his face. “Doctor Geiszler.”
Newton winced. “Yeah. Hi, Hermann.”
“That’s Doctor Gottlieb, to you,” Hermann said, because he could be cruel, he could be cruel like Newton, who had left him without a word in London.
Newton sighed. “About that, Hermann—”
Before he could say another word, there was the sound of static, and Mako Mori began to speak over the microphone.
Hermann and Newton stood in silence together, listening to her respectful dedication to her family, new and old.
Halfway through the dedication, Hermann felt a hand slip into his own, and turned, scandalized, to glower at Newton. The man simply shook his head, however, and tugged him over to the back entrance.
As Newton led him out of the Shatterdome and through the back hallways, Hermann understood where he was taking him.
“Newton—” he started, not in the mood at all. He was still furious with the man, furious about a lot of things.
“Just wait,” Newton said, and despite it all, Hermann fell silent.
They reached the old lab in a matter of minutes, and it was only once they had entered the dim, musty room that Newton released Hermann’s hand. The cool air felt harsh against the areas of skin that had previously been warm, and Hermann shuddered against his will. He stretched his hand to get rid of the feeling while Newton scurried around the room, flipping on a lights. It did not do much to brighten up the place.
Hermann looked around their old workplace and grimaced. It really was small, too small for two men with such large egos to share.
“It had to be here,” Newton was babbling, and Hermann tuned in to his voice. “I wanted to say it in London, I wanted to say it a million times before that, but I just knew it had to be here.”
“Say what?” Hermann asked, at a loss. He felt a rush of anger at the mention of London. “Whatever it was, I don’t want to hear it anymore. You obviously felt no great turmoil over leaving without a word five months ago.”
“I—” Newton started. He ducked his head. “I did. Hermann, I did. I got a job offer in Tokyo—that’s where I was—”
“I know,” Hermann said. “Don’t insult me. I know how to find people, just like you knew how to find me in London.”
Newton’s mouth was open, and it was very unattractive, Hermann told himself. “You knew?”
“You were at a bar two blocks from my house. And not a very good bar. Of course I knew.”
“I—” Newton stuttered again. “I had to find you again,” he started. “We had to talk, we had to talk about so many things…”
“And we did,” Hermann said. “But you wouldn’t talk about the drift, and neither would I, so you left.”
“I had a job offer!”
“I was offering friendship, Newton.” Hermann blushed. “And, something else. It’s obvious that things got too serious for you, why else would you leave without a word?”
“Because I loved you!” Newton blurted out, and all his wild motions stopped. “I mean… even now, I still love you. I have for a while.”
Hermann frowned. “This is what I was talking about,” he said. “You panic when things get serious, Newt.”
“Y-You just called me Newt!”
“Did I?” Hermann laughed dryly. “My mistake.”
“No, wait!” Newton said, rushing Hermann and grabbing his wrists. His face was inches away from Hermann’s. “We can talk about the drift. We can do it right here, right now, and then we can go get drinks and talk about it more. I- I want to.”
Hermann hesitated. “What you said earlier, about leaving London—”
Newton pulled back slightly. “I left because things weren’t serious enough between us, Hermann. Not because it was too much. And that was my fault, I know, because I never said anything, but neither did you!”
“I was about to,” Hermann said, and with a quick turn of his wrist he captured Newton’s hands in his own. “You knew where we were going with our relationship, don’t try to tell me you didn’t.”
“I—I did.”
“There we go,” Hermann said, and he leaned forward to press his lips to Newton’s.
Newton made a strangled noise in his throat and pulled his hands from Hermann’s, and for a moment he thought he was going to pull away altogether, but instead Newton wrapped his arms around Hermann’s neck, pulling the man closer and opening his mouth for more access.
They remained like that for a few minutes, until a loud thunk from somewhere in the lab startled them apart.
“Just a pipe,” Hermann mumbled, looking over at Newton. The man was flushed red, and smiling, and Hermann couldn’t help but smile back at him.
“That was… awesome,” Newton said, balling his fists in Hermann’s dress shirt, and pulling up. Hermann startled and pushed his hands away, and he felt a panicked giggle rise in his throat.
“Not here,” he said. “And besides, I think you promised me a conversation, first.”
Newt was pouting, but he nodded, and Hermann knew he would keep that promise.
And in the dim light of their old lab, they began to talk.