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They happened at the most inconvenient moments.
Like when Newt was doing laundry and suddenly bright red drops of blood were dripping onto his white shirts, and goddammit, that would never ever come out.
Or when Hermann was making himself dinner and suddenly the pan sizzled, and blood was in his potatoes, so he tossed them angrily into the sink and ordered Chinese food with a tissue stuffed up his nose.
Of all of the post-drift after-effects, the nosebleeds were the absolute worst. Hermann could cope with the random flashes of bright emotion from Newt, and Newt could deal with the flickers of memories that he saw in the drift, but neither liked dealing with the semi-frequent nosebleeds that showed no sign of disappearing.
Newt would wake up in the morning with pillows stained red from nosebleeds that happened while he was asleep, and he’d go through the motions of taking the pillowcase off his pillows and washing his face in the sink.
Hermann would wake up in the middle of the night with blood dripping down his face, and he’d clean himself off before falling back asleep.
“Do you get nosebleeds?” Newt asked as they prepared for one of the lectures on their circuit.
“Yes, they are most inconvenient,” Hermann answered as he shuffled through his papers, checking that they were all there.
“Right? They suck, man,” Newt replied.
Newt was glad for the circuit, because he didn’t really think he would be able to be without Hermann for long. Tons of colleges wanted the scientists behind the end of the apocalypse to speak at their schools, and they offered plenty of cash to do it. The whole thing gave him an adequate excuse to stay with Hermann without having to actually talk about it, because talking about anything like that was dangerous territory that he wasn’t quite comfortable crossing yet.
However, he knew that talking was something that would have to happen eventually, especially since Tendo wouldn’t stop texting him stuff like “How’s it going with your weird math husband?” or “Have you finally talked to Hermann about your weird, huge boner for him?”
But if he could put it off, he would, and he’d put it off for as long as possible.
They gave their lecture with their usual amount of arguing.
Newt would say one thing, Hermann would correct him, Hermann would state one fact, Newt would disagree and say that it went completely different.
They made it through to the end, though, and the applause they received was pretty great.
“Good lecture, Newton,” Hermann said as he packed up his papers.
“Thanks, dude, you too,” Newt replied with a grin, and before he could stop himself, the words “would you like to, I dunno, go to dinner?” fell out of his mouth.
Suddenly, he was drowning in the complete embarrassment of holy shit, I can’t believe I said that, I just ruined everything.
“Dude, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“Finally, I thought you’d never ask,” Hermann interrupted exasperatedly.
“Wait, what?”
“Yes, I will go to dinner with you, and just so you know, this will most certainly be a ‘date,’ before you ask,” Hermann repeated, looking up at Newt.
“Oh, well, good! So what do you want to eat? We could go now? Or maybe later? I’ll pay, obviously, but you get to choose the place, and-”
“Just be quiet,” Hermann interrupted.
Newt looked up and Hermann was somehow right in front of him, only a few inches away and moving closer.
Newt closed the distance, grabbing onto Hermann’s lapels and pulling him into a kiss that hopefully spoke of this is all I’ve been waiting for, this is all I need, this is all I want.
However, Newt pulled away as he felt wetness dripping down his face, realizing that his nose had started bleeding.
“Fucking hell,” he groaned, reaching a hand to catch the blood.
Hermann smiled slightly, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a handkerchief.
“Sorry, dude, I totally just ruined this. They just happen at the most inconvenient moments,” Newt apologized, taking the handkerchief and using it to try and stop the flow.
“It’s quite alright, Newton,” Hermann answered.
Newt knew right away that Hermann was telling the truth completely.