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“Dr. Gottlieb, this is Dr. Newton Geiszler.” The Marshall’s suit is immaculate, his hands clasped behind his back, and the man he gestures to grins instantly, all professional formality forgotten. “Dr. Geiszler, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. The two of you will be working together in the research division until further notice.”
Geiszler can’t be older than twenty-five to Hermann’s twenty-six, fresh out of grad school, his eyes alight with all the possibilities of the future, of all he has to offer to the PPDC and humanity, alight with knowledge and excitement, and when he thrusts his hand out at Hermann, there are swirls of black crawling up towards his wrist, outlines and patterns and guides for future completion. His hair is wild, his shirt untucked on one side, and Hermann finds himself instantly despising this small, manic child.
“Oh good, a rockstar,” he says, a rare moment of impulse, his mouth running before he can properly consider his actions, and Geiszler’s face instantly falls, color rising in his face. “We’re sure to get heaps of work done now.”
“And you’re a dick,” Geiszler shoots back, his arm falling and his fingers curling into a fist, his cheeks fiery and his posture still with the temper of a man pulling himself out of the last dregs of wild nights drowned in alcohol, parties lasting into the morning and flings on stranger’s couches and yes. Hermann despises him in the same moment that he finds himself almost intrigued, if only time would allow the reveal he wishes to indulge in.
They’re glaring at each other before Hermann’s entirely sure it’s happened, his stomach churning, beating in time with his heart, and Geiszler looks as though he’s merely a few seconds from outright sticking his tongue out. There’s an electricity in the air, sparking against the hairs on Hermann’s neck, threatening to ignite, and his teeth are gritting so hard a flare of pain spreads across his jaw.
“Play nice, gentlemen,” the Marshall warns, and turns on his heel.
-
Geiszler is made of colors amongst a world of monochromatic order, a whirlwind no scale could hope to register, his energy upending everything it touches and leaving destruction in its wake. His eyes never lose that manic glint and it translates into all he says and does, his hands more a source of communication some days than his voice, and by the end of the week the side of the lab that he took over is strewn with papers and blue, goopy blood samples. He goes on and on, elbow deep in chunks of skin and organs, the entire room smelling of formaldehyde and copper, and Hermann can never quite tell who it is he thinks he’s talking to.
“Okay, but can we just talk about the genetic make-up of these things, specifically the physiology because I have no idea what could possibly be going on here but it seems to be at the very least a circulatory system similar in function but not in essence to humans, I think. If I can get another specimen, preferably fresher than these, like, we’re talking on the scene examination, I might be able to see how extensive the veins go before the acid corrodes all of them--”
Their first official day as research partners is less than exceptional. Hermann tries, with an extensive amount of stubbornness, to ignore the prattling going on from the other side of the small laboratory they now share together, but Geiszler lives under the personal adage that all science is a team effort (despite the fact that technically speaking Hermann is a mathematician and therefore could hardly apply any of his personal academia to Geiszler’s corpses and vials of blood and entrails and lord only knows what else) and to deny Geiszler is to deny the whirlwind. An impossible task, but never one that Hermann doesn’t attack with bullheaded fury.
“--but I’m pretty sure Marshall Pentecost is gonna need me to fill out a stack of paperwork thicker than my head for me to get clearance to a death site so I guess that’ll go on the backburner for now, going to try and get back to that the more we know about these guys. Unless I can convince him that it’s viable information for attacking, which, again, is all dependent on whether or not I can get conclusive evidence on circulatory systems but that seems likely, how else could they survive--”
On and on, a never ending, restless line of code and thoughts that stream from Geizsler’s consciousness with seemingly no end in sight, wrapping around and around the room. It’s as if he’s physically unable to withhold himself, as if the thoughts have a direct connection to his mouth and it spills out, an oil slick, and try as he might Hermann simply can’t block it out. It’s prattling, is what it is. Incessant chatter as Geiszler just continues without pause.
For the first few hours it’s relatively easy to block out. Hermann has, from a young age, been able to block out the rest of the world at the flick of an internal switch, ignoring the endless unnecessary bile spewing forth from the majority of the company he’s kept in the past. People, not for a lack of trying, had eventually wandered away from him as he continued to coat himself in chalk dust, the weight of a world that needed protecting bending his back. He pushes people away not because he doesn’t desire their presence, but because their presence isn’t needed. And that, more often than not, serves the purpose.
With Geiszler, it’s like it does nothing but draw him closer, a yipping puppy with an intense desire to get into everything it can set its little eyes on. A mischievous little puppy, a mentality Hermann openly abhors.
And that only seems to spur Geiszler on.
“Hey, Hermann!”
Out of a sense of professional obligation, Hermann grunts, his hand darting across the chalkboard. That doesn’t appear to be enough for Geiszler, though, who raises his voice by cupping gooey blue hands around his mouth. A health hazard violating at least three different protocols, Hermann’s sure.
“Hey, Hermann!”
“What,” he snaps, turning around just in time to be slapped in the face by entrails reeking of ammonia. Not dangerous, not at all, and Hermann highly doubts they have any relevance to whatever it is Geiszler needs for his research, but when it slaps to the ground Hermann sees red. It’s by sheer force of will and nothing else that he stares Geiszler right in his smug, grinning little face and sniffs, pulling a handkerchief out of his front pocket and wiping his face off.
“Juvenile,” he comments, barely keeping his anger in check, and turns back to his chalkboard. “I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do less than engage in your positively delinquent--”
The next batch hits the board with a hard smack and slides the floor and with it, most of the formula Hermann had just drawn out.
That’s the one and only time Hermann literally chases Geiszler straight out of the lab and all the way down to the Jaeger deck, and the Marshall is not impressed. They’re put on probation for a month, told to behave themselves, and that’s the end of that.
-
Geiszler isn’t fresh out of grad school, as it turns out. No, he’s fresh out of teaching grad school and for some bizarre reason, Hermann’s impressed. A little stunned even, but most of all, he’s intrigued, even despite his infuriating childish whims.
What an odd thing.
It’s worth paying attention to, at the very least, despite his better judgement.
-
The accident occurs when Hermann is twenty-eight, a little over a year and a half after he meets Geiszler initially. The Jaegers haven’t been prepared at the Lima shatterdome, still being transported from their initial facilities, before Jaegers were assembled on site, back when everything had still been new and unsure, when people were still trying to piece together the new tone that life had taken.
The Kaiju takes out an entire third of the shatterdome, killing forty-eight workers and injuring well over a hundred. Hermann had been on the second floor in one of the new offices, shiny and neat, papers still organized into folders and cabinets. It takes less than a second for the floor to give out from underneath him as a claw, enormous and smelling of bile and death, scrapes out the lower levels. Everything jumps and shifts, like a rollercoaster on the initial plunge and he lands on his back, knocking the wind right out of him, and when everything settles an I-beam comes crashing down full force onto his right leg and hip.
The world goes black instantly, accompanied by an agonized shriek that echoes off the walls.
He wakes merely a few minutes later with his throat burning and blood soaking warm and wet into his pants, and it takes a moment to collect his thoughts, to realize what’s happened. With shaking hands he makes a feeble attempt to push the heavy iron bar off of himself, to no avail. The Kaiju shrieks above him, infuriated as a Jaeger is set down with an unearthly boom against the floor of the shatterdome’s main level.
Attempting to roll over enough to watch sends ropes of pain winding all the way up to his ribs and his head thunks against the floor with a gasp. He can feel the shattered pieces of bone poking out through his skin and he tries to regulate his breathing, chest heaving with exertion, fingers scrabbling at the metal again. He rolls his head up and tries to see what’s become of his colleagues, only to find blank, empty eyes staring back at him. The image burns itself into his mind, blood and death and misery and he shudders.
“Help,” he tries to call, but dust catches in his throat and he coughs instead, knocking his head back against the floor again.
Later, he finds out that the Jaeger deployed--Diablo Intercept, a monstrosity painted black and red with blades slicing through the Kaiju’s flesh with ease, stained blue now, image sharp and defined in Hermann’s memory--had led the Kaiju out of the shatterdome and towards the ocean. To get it away from survivors, the Rangers had explained. Their plan had indeed saved lives, countless, but Hermann still spends six hours in the debris and darkness, flickering in and out of consciousness before a flashlight finally shines onto his face, white and drawn and bloodied and so very, very tired.
Geiszler is the second to visit him in his hospital bed (the first being Marshall Pentecost, who gently sets down a small, black box that Hermann only ever opens once and thanks him for his courage in a voice that sounds too hollow but sincere nonetheless) and the first thing he does is throw himself down into the chair next to the bed and loudly ask if Hermann’s going to eat his pudding.
“I am, as always, entirely unsurprised by your lack of decorum,” Hermann sniffs, delicately handing the carton and plastic spoon to Geiszler, who immediately attacks the lid with his teeth like a five-year-old with a treat. “Is your bedside manner always this shallow and uncouth?”
“Hey, man, I could’ve just not shown up at all,” Geiszler says thickly around a mouthful of vanilla. “Plus, was that even English? Do you know how to say small words anymore?”
“I don’t recall ever asking you to visit,” Hermann retorts instantly, and forces back a grimace when a warm pulse of pain settles across his hip. “I’m quite content on my own, especially if your idea of visiting involves rudely taking my food. You’ve invited yourself here.”
“Ein Unglück kommt selten allein,” Geiszler says sagely, unhesitant and vowels goopy from the pudding, but nevertheless it grabs Hermann’s attention enough that his mouth drops a little before he can catch himself. A disaster seldom comes alone.
Misery loves company.
“Well,” he finally mutters, collecting himself and tugging the scratchy hospital sheets higher over his bandages. Geiszler grins at him, but there’s something almost soft about it, like a storm taking a moment to collect itself, and he settles a little more comfortably into the chair. Hermann watches his movements with his head tilted upwards just so, staring down his nose as if unable to pinpoint exactly what sort of creature is sitting in his hospital room. Geiszler is unperturbed, licking the last of the pudding up and tossing the crinkled, empty cup at the garbage. It bounces off the lip of the can and he groans instantly, trudging over to pick it up.
“So what’s the deal, then?” he asks as he moves, and Hermann’s eyes tighten uncertainly. When there’s no response, Geiszler just continues with an explanation. “Like, any badass scars? Metal limbs? Are you gonna go cyborg because let me tell you, between your exceptional and incredibly irritating repertoire of big words and your raging math boner you could totally make the robot thing work, dude.”
Hermann hesitates, his hand finding the thick bandages and the staples beneath, the rods and screws currently keeping his bones together, a macabre work of art spanning over eight hours of surgery. He’s lucky, supposedly, but all he sees is a temporary blip in his schedule. It will take time to heal, he’s been told, to learn how to walk again, to return to a semblance of normal.
But normal, somehow, is sitting in a rickety wooden chair with fresh ink running up a previously blank arm and a glob of pudding at the corner of his mouth. Normal is the insults and the bickering, familiar and casual, almost lost amongst the beeps and shallow breathing of the dying around them. Normal is, to Hermann’s greatest dismay, his partner.
“My hip was shattered,” he explains, and resists the urge to pick at a spare thread sticking out of the blanket. It’s a horribly Geiszler thing to do, that. “As was my knee, though not to the same extent. Several other fractures and lacerations beyond that. I’ve been told walking again will prove to be... challenging. Difficult.”
“I’m not carrying you,” Geiszler replies instantly, but there’s a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, eyes shining with mischief and Hermann has to resist the urge to snap at him, instead relying on a more tame response.
“You’re too small to do so, at any rate,” he says, and continues above the startled and offended hey, I am a man, Hermann. “I shall just have to work harder, in the future,” he says with vehemence. “This is merely an inconvenience, one that should serve to boost my own motivation if nothing else.”
Geiszler sizes him up, eyes flicking up and down before he leans back in his seat, one arm thrown over the back and his leg coming up to rest against the metal lip of the bed. He looks as though he’s considering his next words, a rare event for him, but when he speaks it throws Hermann entirely off-guard again.
“You can do it,” he shrugs, as if the words have always come naturally. “If there’s anyone I know that can throw a middle finger at something like this it’s you, man. You’re stubborn as shit.” He pauses, words sinking in, eyebrows raising, and then his voice raises in pitch and volume, gleeful as he points at Hermann’s face like he’s just seen the most magnificent sight of his life.
“Oh my god you’re blushing! You’re actually blushing!”
Damn him.
He’s twenty-eight and handed a cane and told he can never walk without it again. He’ll never chase Geiszler out of the lab again, never run or even walk without experiencing pain, but Geiszler is kind enough to slow himself down enough that Hermann’s angry hobbling almost causes a viable threat. Never once does he bring attention to the cane, the limping, he never brings up the bright orange bottle of pills standing vigil on Hermann’s desk. The closest he ever comes to even acknowledging the new limitations that Hermann finds himself struggling with daily is, miraculously, that he slows down on their walks to the cafeteria at three in the morning, until Hermann falls into step alongside him.
And in those early mornings, over bitter coffee and stale waffles, Geiszler tentatively becomes Newton.
-
They never really stop arguing, if anything it only gains more vehemence as the years go on, but there’s something underneath it. An underlying fondness, one that grows warm and comfortable even amidst the fights and shouting and glares. Even when they gain interns, partners, even when they’re not sharing a lab anymore, they somehow always inevitably end up together.
It’s infuriating, and it’s home.
-
Shockingly, incredibly, the world continues to spin on its axis, even as attempts are made to stop it, but people begin to leave. What had once been a sizeable array of some the best minds available has slowly but surely dwindled down over the last seven years to only the two best minds and now, with the Jaeger program on its last legs, it’s only a matter of time before it’s shut down entirely. Newton gets angry and volatile and spits venom at the ones who retreat, his words bitter, but Newton to his core has never been a particularly violent being. Loud, perhaps, but never violent.
Still, it’s a lot of work for two people, even with perseverance such as theirs. Hermann blinks at his chalkboard one afternoon (night? early morning? there are no windows in their lab, who is to tell what time it is. The world could have ended, for all he knows) and stares with something of bewilderment at the trail of stuttered marks to where the chalk is rested. He’s holding on to it, but he can’t recall having made the marks.
Newton’s still going on, and the subject matter seems mildly familiar, giving way for only two possibilities. Either Hermann merely dozed off where he stood, an event in and of itself, or Newton’s already been through this tirade once before.
The latter seems more likely, but evidence leads to the contrary and with a reluctant sigh Hermann carefully sets down the chalk and reaches for his cane.
“Are you going to the mess hall?” Newton asks instantly, head popping up like a prairie dog from behind a kaiju carcass, and there’s a splatter of blue over his shirt. Hermann looks at it disdainfully, holding his chin a little higher.
“I hadn’t planned on it, no,” he replies, and Newton’s entire face scrunches up with dissatisfaction. Hermann rolls his eyes before turning on his heel and heading out, but not before Newton shouts after him, “hey! Hey wait but if you do, bring me back something, okay? A Pepsi or something, whatever they’ve got!”
Hermann doesn’t bother to respond, but knowing Newton he’s going to badger him until the end of his days if he doesn’t get one. His cane raps against the empty hallways as he slowly makes his way down towards the mess hall, loud and sharp, and it keeps him alert long enough to get him down the stairs, slowly but surely. Stairs used to be far more difficult than they are now, but through a combination of belligerence and sheer will power, they no longer prove to be too much of an issue.
The mess hall is entirely empty, and that clues Hermann in on just how late it is, or even early perhaps. He sighs deeply and makes his way towards the one wall made of coolers and instants and vending machines. The stairs and the walk have taken a bit of a toll on his leg and he’d quite like to sit down.
“Don’t see you down here often, Doc.”
He turns to find a mildly disheveled-looking Tendo Choi, suspenders hanging around his waist and two steaming mugs in each hand. Shockingly, he’s offering one up. Given Tendo’s notorious tendency to hoard coffee at any chance, the fact that he’s handing Hermann a cup willingly is enough for Hermann to carefully lift the mug out of his grip.
“Thank you.”
Tendo smiles at him, genuinely. He looks tired, as do the rest of them. Tendo’s been buried to his nose in paperwork for the last three days since the other technicians abandoned the program, and it shows. He looks haggard as he sits down at one of the empty tables, and after a moment of contemplation, Hermann sits down as well.
“So you’re taking a break?” Tendo asks conversationally, as if the time and workload hasn't affected him in the slightest.
“Yes,” Hermann replies, turning the cup slowly in his hands. It’s warm, and in the chill they can’t seem to escape in the crisp ocean air even when indoors, it’s appreciated. “I suppose, though one never really takes a break given the increasingly dire consequences we find ourselves in.”
“I find a break kinda lessens the stress there, Doc,” Tendo says easily, though the bags under his eyes say different. “Sometimes you’ve just gotta sit back and remind yourself the world’s still out there, even if we’re working our asses off trying to defend it.”
Hermann doesn’t answer, instead taking a slow sip of coffee. It’s black with sugar, but the burn and the bitterness feels good, and he hadn’t realized how tired he was until it hits him then with the drink. They sit together for a while, neither speaking, preferring to bask in the rare quiet, a sort of interval between panic and disarray and swift victory.
“You are married, correct?” Hermann finally asks into the silence, and Tendo’s eyes flick up to stare at him oddly. Hermann’s reputation in the shatterdome isn’t exactly being known as the most companionable of people, but Tendo Choi has this damnable habit, a presence, even, and it gets people to talk, even about something as trivial as the weather, and Hermann is... curious, he supposes is the right word for it. After a moment Tendo grins at him again, lips curling up at one end and he lifts his head a little.
“Yeah,” he says proudly, wiggling his left fingers. The rosary clacks against its own beads, loud in the silence of the emptied mess hall. “Got married last year. Why?”
Hermann pauses, as always considering his thoughts before voicing them. “I was merely curious with how one finds a partner in this day and age, particularly in our profession.” Tendo shrugs and reaches for his mug, downing what appears to be an unhealthy amount of coffee in one gulp.
“Well, I met her in Anchorage, she worked in munitions so. I guess I can thank my job for this wonderful holy communion, all that jazz.”
“Are you happy?”
Tendo twists the ring on his left hand absently, over and over, clearly in thought, before finally answering. “Yeah. You know? I am. I wish I could see her more but, she’s.” He sighs, and it sounds more content than Hermann has ever heard in any shatterdome before. “It’s great. She’s great. I love her, every day, and it just grows. You just know, man, when you find them.” He tilts his head and stares at Hermann for a moment. “It gets kind of obvious.”
“I see.”
Tendo suddenly smiles at him over the rim of his mug, and there’s a look in his eyes, the one that means he’s already figured everything out. It’s infuriating, because it’s the same exact look that Newton gets in his eyes when he’s realized a new way to irritate him. But on Tendo, there’s something else, a spectator who has already predicted the end of the game, the plot twist before the finale, and Hermann excuses himself from the table, suddenly uncomfortable.
“Thank you,” he adds as he turns to leave, “for the coffee. It was quite good.”
“You’re welcome, Dr. Gottlieb,” is the response, and it’s far more cheerful than the time should warrant.
Before he leaves, he digs a can of Pepsi out of the fridge near the stairs, and he can hear Tendo chuckling behind him.
-
At some point the following day, Tendo stops by the lab and carefully places another mug of coffee on his desk while he’s at the chalkboard, and Newton doesn’t shut up about Hermann making a “new friend” or “how the ever loving shit did you get Tendo to share his coffee, what unholy black magic have you uncovered in your equations, Hermann?” for the rest of the day.
Tendo just smiles knowingly, and Hermann sighs until he thinks his chest will give in.
-
Love is not divided up into neat little graphs and numbers and theorems, able to be charted if one only took the time and effort to do so. No, love is... it is unpredictable and volatile, in the same way that Newton is, and Hermann clings to that thought because at least then, there is some order in the strange churning of his stomach, the heat that attempts to rise sometimes in his cheeks when a genuine smile is thrown his way.
To say that Newton is fascinating would be like saying a hurricane is large, or that the ocean is wet. There is a fundamental explanation being given, but lacks the larger picture, the beauty and the danger that comes with a natural force. He is brilliant, a sun unable to go out, every thought launched into the open without consideration, and Hermann finds that despite everything, despite their bickering and the angry pit Newton’s rambling creates in Hermann’s chest, he is in love with him. It has taken years, but he’s come to the realization that yes.
He is in love with this small, strange creature with too many tattoos and hair on end and bright, shining eyes that never dim, even in the depths of the night when the rest of the shatterdome is sleeping, with hands that cut through the air with the ideas born of a mind that never rests.
To his credit, he has not followed the cliche, the love at first glance, the secret kept safe for every moment they've ever known each other, tight under lock and key. No, for Hermann it was more like a begrudged respect and no small amount of irritation when they first met and it has stayed that way for some time, slowly growing and fumbling and finding itself out.
And that, he feels, at least somewhat lessens the blow of the realization.
-
The problem with Newton Geiszler is that he exudes understanding and obliviousness all at once, and after ten years Hermann’s still not entirely sure whether he has a handle on reality or not. It’s questionable, at best, but sometimes Newton looks over from his side of the lab and studies him and there’s a glint in his eyes that looks knowledgeable, maybe even hopeful when they’re not spitting toxic at each other from across the hazmat tape.
But the world is at stake, and the glint is lost in stress and vitriol and work into the early morning.
-
And then. And then, it’s just the two of them, and suddenly they’re sharing a lab again, and everything’s exactly the same.
-
He remembers, in excruciating detail, what it had been like to find Newton unconscious and seizing on the floor, blood dripping steadily from his nose onto his shirt. The fear that had gripped every part of him until he was propelling himself across the lab with very little concern for anything else, throwing his cane to the ground and gripping Newton’s jaw in his hands. The warm, steady beat of a pulse against his fingertips that had been enough to send his heart into the pit of his stomach in swollen, agonizing relief.
Hermann remembers, and he acts upon it, because he has to do something.
It’s too much, this drift, his eyes rolling back into his head and pain explodes across the left side of his skull, trickling down over his lips as the memories, the emotions, the utter existence of two other beings separate from himself wash over him, take hold in a viselike grip and refuse to let go. There’s a warmth as there is a chill, and without a single thought he reaches for the warmth, finding a stream of consciousness that spreads into a familiar, shockingly comfortable ache in the center of his chest.
herei’vegotyoustupidstupidi’mstupidit’sokayholdontomeyou’resafei’mherefindmewhereareyou
intruderinvaderleavedirectivekillretrieve
i’mherei’mrightherefindmedon’tstopfindmei’mhere
where?
directive
here
Every part of his being reaches out, past the recollection of his father gently, firmly, angrily tugging the toy airplane out of his hands, past the chalkboards made of lines and swirls and the dust coating him head to toe, if i can’t be a pilot i can do something else, i will, i must, past the boys singing threats and jeers in German and hot, heavy tears slipping down scraped knees, numbers will hide me i can hide behind them because they are never angry, agony blooming across his hip, ripping through his leg and empty, empty eyes and his hand touches down onto another, everything overtaking him in that same instant, and it bubbles out, boils over.
here
Fingers intertwine on another plane of existence, creatures lost in the labyrinth of their own minds meeting at the same crossroads and Hermann instinctively holds on tighter, tugging it closer and it’s Newton, in his purest form, in a hurricane of thoughts and mania and insanity and colors but Hermann doesn’t feel afraid, he feels only the familiar, ten years of bickering and squabbling and respect guiding him through the shrieks of monsters and demons.
Memories swirl and combine, intertwining without pause, without hesitation, the burn of a needle against naked skin and a knife replaces it, the fear of beady blue eyes staring him in the face, the chill of metal against his hands and blood seeping wet and angry into his collar, and yet that warmth stays, like a breeze in the dead of fall with the sun shining down, crisp and sharp and yet burning against his being, something that feels like home. It’s the same feeling that twists Hermann’s stomach when Newton smiles, the brush of playful shoulders, an elbow against a stomach, the weight of a parka against his curled form on a couch, and he realizes these are no longer his feelings, his thoughts and yet they are, they have become his as if they always were, and the same word echoes against his skull even as chaos rips around them, shows them the inner workings of a species they could only ever pray to understand, even as it threatens to tear them apart limb from limb.
He is safe.
There is safety, Newton’s relief raining down around them and Hermann’s body jerks once, twice, slips into rigid seizure where he stands as the world upends and rights itself again. He’s staring at stars and clouds and smoke wisping gently from broken buildings, and there’s a siren in the distance. His stomach burbles.
“You okay?” Newton’s voice, sharp and tired, feels like a spike right through his left eye, and Hermann struggles to unclip the squid cap with shaking fingers. His leg feels on the verge of collapse, nothing to say of his mind. If one could mentally run a marathon, he’s just run five.
“Of course,” he replies, attempting bravado and falling a little short. “Absolutely fine.”
There’s a jolt of concern amongst the tired resignation when Hermann immediately darts to the wonderfully convenient toilet resting against the debris and empties his stomach, bursts of pain crawling up his leg and coming to a pulsing stop behind his left eye. It stays there, firmly, powerful and slowly twisting into something else. They look at each other, eye-to-eye, and Hermann’s chest, of all things, flutters. Like a goddamn schoolboy with a crush.
“Oh,” Newton says.
The feeling is odd, as if he were experiencing it in time with Newton, and with a start he realizes that such is exactly the case. The emotion’s origin is entirely lost, neither man understanding where it might have begun, but each feeling it nevertheless, and Hermann finds himself unable to act upon it. Newton’s uncertainty rings clear in his head as well, even as the pair of them clamber onto the helicopter, even as the guard comments on their now matching scarlet left eyes, but it comes to a head when, at last, Hermann grabs dirty, ripped fabric and pulls Newton against him, presses their mouths together with the taste of copper still on his lips, the triumphant cries of the shatterdome echoing off the walls behind them, lost in the corridor they’ve retreated to.
Newt smiles, exhausted and still quivering with remnants of adrenaline still pulsing through his veins, singing through Hermann’s chest and he kisses him back, fingers trailing up and winding into Hermann’s hair.
And at last, the whirlwind finally calms, the colors soften, and the love that Hermann has always felt for this small, strange man beneath him settles into the same warmth he had felt in the drift, the warmth of acceptance and appreciation and adoration, love that has always been shared, equal and different all at once, finally twined into one singular entity. He feels it as if it has always existed this way, two beings sharing the same emotion, the same thoughts, the same heart.
It is, perhaps, the most content Hermann can remember feeling.
“Well,” Newt murmurs, the quietest Hermann has ever heard him, and the word brushes against his consciousness, like a feather on the breath of the wind. “I never took you for the unrequited love type, Hermann. You don’t seem like the pining sort.” His hands move down again, tips of his fingers finding the dip of Hermann’s back pockets and resting there.
“I was hardly pining, Newton,” Hermann reprimands, but there’s no venom in it. “Merely engrossed in my work, which inarguably was more important at the time. I didn’t have time for. For pursuits other than the academic.”
“But you can't deny you’ve totally had a crush on me for ten years, dude,” Newt teases, undeterred, and his voice is rising in the excitement of the truth revealed. “I was in your head, okay, you were like three minutes away from writing our initials in arrow-pinned hearts on your chalkboard. NG plus HG,” he sings, and laughs when Hermann swats him. “Okay, fine, but still.” His voice softens a little, his eyes gentle, and he tilts his head in question. “Really, though? I mean. I know the answer. I felt it, in the drift, but. I guess hearing it from you sort of makes it real. You know?”
There’s a long pause, and then Hermann says carefully, “you’ll have to be clear on what it is you’d want to know.”
Newt frowns at him, leans in close.
“I’m asking you to say it out loud,” he says slowly, with no trace of nonsense in his tone. It’s perhaps the most serious that Hermann has ever seen him, and the question leaves him reeling for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. “Be romantic.”
“To understand one’s own feelings, one must be prepared to accept their existence, which is what I’ve done,” Hermann replies carefully, and Newt rolls his eyes, though there’s another pang of fondness in the curve of Hermann’s skull that feels like home on a warm day.
“Real people talk, Hermann. You know. Like everyone else talks. Like a freakin’ human for maybe three seconds. Small words.”
The answer is open and clear, on the tip of his tongue, and hesitantly Hermann wraps his arms around Newt’s waist, unsure, staring into eyes that wait with patience and acceptance, and it finally comes in the form of a whisper, soft and gentle and sincere.
“I love you.”
Newt beams.
“Good,” he says, and presses their mouths together again, bodies so close that Hermann wonders if, perhaps, those would fuse as well. Newt’s hands find his hair again, thumbs resting against the corners of Hermann’s eyes, rubbing away the wrinkled years of stress and dedication and pain with gentle strokes. “Good,” he repeats against Hermann’s lips, “because I’m totally kind of in love with you, too.”
“I suppose we have ten years to make up for,” Hermann says carefully, wryly, and Newton laughs out loud. It reverberates against Hermann’s chest, both physically and emotionally, wrapping around his heart and squeezing until it very nearly takes his breath away. It’s Newt, it’s the whirlwind in its purest form, it’s what he feels from the very center of his existence, and for the first time, Hermann isn’t afraid of what that entails. There’s another feeling, familiar and old, something soft and sweet, gentle and kind and it feels careful, hesitant, but willing to grow, strongest when Newt grins.
“Dude,” Newt chuckles, and his fingers twine together behind Hermann’s head, drawing him in close. “If all that wasn’t a decade of some weird repressed love, then I don’t even know what love is.”
The feeling blossoms, delicate but resilient against the whirlwind, and Hermann smiles.