Work Text:
It goes like this:
They fight, they argue, they bicker and snap until they’re both on opposite sides of the lab with such fury in every step that it’s a wonder they’ve never thrown punches. They are two opposing forces, sparks that clash and create with every collision, setting fires where they land. Hermann despises Newton, Newton abhors Hermann. And together, they create a solid, functioning unit.
“Fortune favors the brave, dude,” Newton calls as he heads out, his shoes clacking against the metal floor, and Hermann glances at the Geiszler Array, stares at it until a thought forms, shapes, twists itself into an idea and finally settles into a decision.
Newton has risks, there are relationships and families at stake, he has people that he loves waiting for him back in Boston. Hermann knows this. His own family is back in Germany, moved away from England after the second Kaiju strike and back to the familiar. There is not much he can leave behind. Newton, perhaps. His mother most definitely, and Karla has always been his favorite sibling.
But the world needs Newton Geiszler, desperately needs him and all that he has to offer. The world can plug the numbers into Hermann’s formulas. They don’t need him, or at least he has chosen to believe this.
Before he can change his mind, before he can turn around, he presses the button.
-
They are staring at him.
Terrifying and glorious and righteous and angry, beady black eyes, they are staring at him with hatred glowing in the endless tunnels of their black black eyes, they are looking into him and seeing all that he is, ever was, identifying him. They see him and he sees them, and horror pulls at his heart and twists. The indifference of their gaze is astonishing. They look at him as if he were a measly little fly that fluttered into their domain, only a twinge of curiosity. And then they are ripping him apart and piecing him back together, a roar of agony torn from a throat that isn’t his.
The Kaiju feel him, strongly and ice cold, tugging his mind towards them with little regard for anything else, they feel him and they pull, they sense another mind and they need it, the hivemind--the hivemind, they are the same, they are one and the same they are clones they are all the same Newton was right--begs for another, for as many as they can, for blind familiarity and comfort in the constant presence of a mind to join them.
But they know what he is on a basic scale, they know that he is not them and they are startled by it, confused, poking and prodding and trying to determine what it is that he is, and he feels it. He feels the sense of anger and violence that craves destruction, they are created to destroy and nothing else. It is their directive, his directive our directive and he bares his teeth, feels that desire, cherishes it because it is his existence he was made for it it is all he knows
before coming back to himself, sees the darkened silhouettes of his family swirling in front of him, feels the pit of his stomach drop. They turn away, and pain blooms horribly behind his left eye, he wants to clutch at it but he can't feel his body, it does not exist. The Kaiju feel it, they tilt their heads like baffled puppies at the feeling of love that blossoms gently at the sight of his mother, at his brothers and sister, at Newton, they are confused by what it means because they only know anger and pain and being remade purely for the sake of destruction. They see him at five, at nineteen, twenty, at thirty-two, they see his life and contemplate it, they wonder what it is and are so confused by it that for a moment, he doesn’t understand it either.
father will be angry with me, he thinks maddeningly, as if such a thing was still a concern, and there’s a warmth dribbling down over his lips, father will be angry he will be disappointed
hermann hermannhermann ohgod what did youdo what are you
They won’t let go. They can feel his pain and his misery and they hate it, they hate such a thing but they want it because he is theirs now, and they do not want to give him back. He is theirs.
come backcomeback come back hermannplease hermann
oh my god
His bones are pulsing, warm heady pain spreading across his hips and down his right leg, muscles aching and his hands are cold, and they roar and dig their talons in deep. Someone else tries to pull him back, a warm hand against his cheek, another tugging at his collar, shaking him desperately. They roar and roar and roar and do not let go.
please don’tdon’t do this no hermann nicht sterben komm zurück zu mir
lass mich nicht allein
His eyes open.
“Oh, god,” Newton whispers, and his face is pale, he’s shaking like a leaf and Hermann stares at him, trying to place him, trying to place his fear. The image is swimming, but Hermann can still focus enough to recognize him. “Oh, god, Hermann, what did you do?”
Blood is still leaking steadily from Hermann’s nose down over his lips, dropping fat and thick onto the collar of his oxford, and he reaches up, tries to staunch the flow with his fingers. It takes him another moment to realize that he’s on the floor, which answers the question of why his legs are killing him. He must’ve fallen when the drift was initiated, then. Newton is still holding tight to his shirt, but his hands have moved upwards, one checking his pulse with trembling, icy fingers and the other one gently pulling the skin down beneath his left eye. Hermann wants to swat at him but his arms feel like lead. He needs to tell Newton, needs to tell him what he’s seen.
“It worked,” Hermann whispers thickly, and shivers are starting up at the base of his spine, starting off gentle but becoming more violent, and Newton looks devastated. “It. It worked, Newton, you. You were right,” and another day, another time, another situation Newton would be crowing his victory but now he just looks horribly, horribly pained. “They, they’re clones, they are made, they are coming for all of us and we need, we need to warn the Marshall--” He’s getting increasingly more agitated, his hands finally coming up to grasp at Newton’s sleeves.
“Okay,” Newton says, and leans forward, hooks his elbows underneath Hermann’s arms and hoists him up, slowly, carefully until they’re both standing, Hermann’s legs shaking horribly beneath him. He feels like he’s about to vibrate right out of his skin, the whisper of the hive still fluttering against his brain like an ever-present parasite, eating away at his consciousness. They want him back, he thinks vaguely, they want him back even as they hate his very existence.
He’s deposited with surprising care into his chair, Newton’s hands holding onto him tightly enough that Hermann can feel his quivers, and Newton takes his face in his hands again, forces eye contact.
“I’m going to get you a drink of water,” he says slowly, and Hermann frowns at him. He’s not an imbecile, there’s no need to speak as such, “and then I’m going to go get Marshall Pentecost.” Newton’s eyebrows are furrowed and he looks angry, he looks angrier than Hermann can remember having ever seen him and it looks very wrong on his face. “Damnit, Hermann.”
“What,” he snaps back, because he’s already starting to gain his faculties, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressing it against his nose. Newton rounds on him, red in the face and clearly furious. His hands are clenching and unclenching into fists as he gestures, angrily swiping a glass from the tiny cabinet by the sink and filling it with tap water.
“That was my idea,” he snarls, and both of Hermann’s eyebrows raise, stunned. “That. That was my idea, Hermann, I was the one who came up with it! I should’ve done it! It should’ve been me!”
Taken aback entirely, Hermann’s yelling back before he can think, wanting to stand and gain some leverage but still shaking too badly to properly get up. “Of all the selfish, childish things you have ever said, Dr. Geiszler,” he spits, and Newton throws his arms up and rolls his eyes, nearly splashing water everywhere, “this is by and far your finest accomplishment. Well done.” He gropes around, searching for the handle of his cane as he attempts to rise, but Newton just points at him and snaps.
“Sit down. I’m going to get the Marshall. Just.” He looks around, runs a hand through his hair until it stands up at even wilder an angle. “Just stay here.”
Hermann wants to show his teeth and growl, a lingering voice in the back of his mind whispering angry, wordless things as they all bristle at the rage he feels, but instead he glowers, allows Newton to press the cold glass into his hands and stride off, arms swinging sourly before he takes off at a dead run.
Left alone to his own devices, Hermann looks down, stares at the ripples that form on the surface of the water from his shaking hands. They’re there, so gently and lightly but they are very much there, just so, and he closes his eyes and tries to think, tries to form coherent theories about what he saw. Another tickle on his consciousness sends a shiver down his spine again, settling into the pain still pulsing in his hip and right leg. They are angry that he was torn away, but he blocks them out.
Dinosaurs. There were dinosaurs, he remembers seeing that much, their vast size and unearthly roars loud in his ears, the Kaiju destroying them without a second thought. Great battles of unknown proportions, and he shudders at the memory of the world shaking beneath his feet as the monstrous creatures tore into each other with fury. It’s all mingled with his own memories, things he had forgotten or tried to forget, things he never could, and at the center of it all are the Precursors, looking at him with hatred.
They are going to destroy the world.
“Mr. Gottlieb.”
He looks up, spilling water onto his lap from the force of his tremors now, and finds Marshall Pentecost staring down at him, Newton behind him with concern etched so tightly onto his expression that he seems to have aged several years. Hermann stares up at him, handkerchief still pressed to his bleeding nose, and finally speaks again. The hive hisses softly.
“Newton was right.”
-
Newton demands to go with him, and Hermann can’t say no.
-
The man looms, his expression grim, and the two of them try not to shrink away. Newton’s maneuvered himself the tiniest bit, his arm floating awkwardly above the line of his hip as if he were protecting Hermann. But Hannibal Chau still has his hand on Hermann’s face, and in a mirror of Newton’s early motions, he’s dragging skin down with his thumb and staring into Hermann’s ruined eye with growing fury.
“Holy Jesus,” he says, and Newton’s still shifting like he wants to throw him off of Hermann, but to do so would probably do more harm than good. Chau’s hands are calloused and large and make Hermann feel very small indeed. “You've gone and done it, haven't you?” There is no real question in his tone, the answer already clear, and despite his growing sense of dread, Hermann glares anyway.
“I may have, yes,” he replies coldly, unmoving, and Chau’s hands drop down, his expression terrifying in its anger.
“You goddamn moron,” he snarls, just as the sirens begin to wail. He turns on his gold-plated heels, striding with long legs back towards his shop and Hermann has to breathe, has to collect himself and already Newton is trailing after Chau with intent in every step. Hermann follows behind, feeling the rain blowing mist onto his back as they head back inside.
“Hang on a second.” When no one answers Newton, he raises his voice, and Hermann can hear the exasperation and the uncertainty bleeding into his tone as he steps alongside him, and this time Hermann is the one to speak.
“Excuse me.” He’s injected enough severity into the words that heads turn to look at the both of them, eyebrows raised and expressions unimpressed all around. Chau seems amused that they’re even still in his shop. “We’d like to know what’s going on.”
Chau gestures towards the outside as people swarm around the shop, preparing for the worst, their chattering raising the volume in the shop. If anything, it’s their defiance that probably prompts the answer. “There’re two goddamn Kaiju heading straight for Hong Kong city.”
Hermann’s stomach drops, calculations firing rapidly in his head, and from next to him Newton’s hands wave around, gesturing wildly, his voice pitching higher in shock and terror and the realization that Hermann was right all along.
“No, no, no, no,” he stammers, and looks over at Hermann with fear in his eyes. “That's not possible, there's never been two before--”
“Well, maybe that's ‘cause nobody ever drifted with one before, genius!” This he spits at Hermann, who stands his ground and grips his cane until his fingers twinge. Chau is a large, intimidating man, but Hermann has spent his entire life standing up to large, intimidating men and this, he feels, could be where he excels most of all. But Chau isn’t finished, and he’s vocalizing thoughts that Hermann himself had already considered. “When Jaeger pilots drift, it's a two way street.”
“Yes,” Hermann says at the same moment Newton replies with an unsure, “right.”
“A bridge, right?”
“Of course, yes.”
Chau waves his hands, standing even closer, encroaching on Hermann’s personal space until he feels personally threatened, like a cornered animal, and his grip on the handle of his cane nearly shakes his arm. But still he keeps his stance, his chin raised, his one hand in his pocket and the other on his cane, back as straight as he can manage. He will not be intimidated by a thug, no matter the subject matter.
“It sets them the connection, both ways!” True, Hermann thinks. He has already considered this himself, but Newton’s gone quiet, his rapidfire mind taking leaping bounds, his arm reaching out unconsciously again in front of Hermann. Hermann, who wants to bare his teeth again, can feel the whispers that grow stronger the louder the sirens wail. “A hive mentality, you said.” He looks at Hermann, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, and prods his chest once hard enough to leave a warm, dull ache on his ribs.
“Maybe those Kaiju are trying to find you.”
Newton steps in front of him again, his movements clearly unthinking, and Hermann lets out a long sigh through his nose. Yes, he has already figured such might be the case. They are angry, when he focuses on them, still just a brush of sensation in the very back of his mind, a word on the tip of your tongue but just out of reach.
“What are we gonna do?” Newt demands, his fingers clutching at Hermann’s parka, pulling him close as if to make sure he was still there, and when Chau starts to walk away from them he tugs, pulls Hermann along. It’s an awkward gait, between the cane and Newton’s faster pace and the fact that Hermann can still feel pain crawling up both legs now, but he pays it no mind.
Chau looks over at them, his expression disinterested. “I'm gonna wait out this shit storm in my own private Kaiju bunker. But you and your gimpy boyfriend--” “Don’t call him that,” Newton snarls angrily, as if the words personally insult him, as if Hermann hasn’t heard the jibe a hundred times before, but Chau ignores him and continues, “--are going to a public refuge.” Finally he raises the dark sunglasses and Newton nearly takes a step back at the white of his left eye, the scar that runs vertical across and down. “I tried it once. Once.”
He beckons at his goons and suddenly guns are drawn, pointing at their heads and Hannibal Chau is walking away, leaving the two of them behind.
“Now get the hell out of here.”
-
Hermann has never liked to be wrong, but here, he finds, being right comes at a great cost.
-
They’re huddled together in the shelter, listening to the screams and frantic cries of the dying above their heads as the Kaiju rampages above, and Hermann can feel her, he knows what she is and she licks at his consciousness, looking for him, searching out. He doesn’t say anything, he knows better than to say anything when they are surrounded by people and for once Newton keeps his mouth shut, staring up at the ceiling. There’s a scratch above his left eye, but it doesn’t look very deep. His hands are shaking where they grip at Hermann’s parka, and Hermann watches his eyes flick back and forth, tracking the sounds.
It goes silent above, and Newton looks at him.
“Hermann,” he whispers, and Hermann hisses.
The ceiling crumbles and everyone screams at once, jerking back as claws dig wildly into the pavement, digging searching screeching and he can feel it in the depths of his mind, she is looking for him found you
found you come back leave go away
hatehatehatecome back found yousmall foundhate leavego comeback
Her eyes appear, wild and blue and shining, looking down into the shelter, her tongue flicking out and her talons ripping chunks of cement out of the foundation.
And then he is looking at her, and she, him.
She is glory and fire and Hermann hates her, too.
“Hermann,” Newton whispers again, desperately, his hands gripping at Hermann’s arms as she lets her tongue down, as the blue tendrils swirl and tickle at Hermann’s face, feeling his consciousness against its own and Hermann can only stare at it, terror halting every possible movement. Newton is still tugging at him, trying to pull him away as Otachi howls and shrieks, trying to get to him, trying to drag him away to do God only knows what. Eat him, maybe. Kill him, no doubt.
“Hermann, come on, get away from it,” and how odd is that, that Newton of all people should want to leave the Kaiju be. That Newton should want to drag him away from the very thing he adores with every fiber of his being. Hermann doesn’t want to be near it, he wants to get away from her but she’s whispering in his mind like a song made of scratching and wailing, come back.
no
come back
“Hermann,” Newton says louder, tugging at him harder and then they hear from above the metallic scream of a Jaeger and then Otachi is pulling away, her wails loud and full of rage and Hermann blinks and pulls away from Newton, trying to breathe and make sense of what just happened.
“We need to get out of here,” Newton gasps, and tugs at him again. “We need to move, we need to go.”
“Yes,” Hermann whispers, and they’re off again, Newton practically dragging him.
-
He feels it, when she’s killed, he feels it when they are both killed, and he winces as Newton drags him through the bone slums of Hong Kong, until his legs are killing him and his heart feels like it will never stop racing.
-
“HEY!”
Chau turns to look at them both, dirty and bleeding and Hermann leaning hard enough on Newton’s side to make his knees wobble. But Newton just points, his eyes gleaming with mania and adrenaline and residual terror. Hermann’s hand grips tighter at Newton’s jacket, his expression defiant, and he feels Newton’s heart beating wildly through his clothes. “Guess who's back, you one-eyed bitch?! You owe us a Kaiju brain!”
-
She is dead, but her child is not, and it is raging. It wants him, it wants him, hatehatehatehatehatehate
“Hermann!”
For the first time in a long time, Hermann runs.
-
Newton’s eating a peanut butter sandwich when Hermann returns from the doctor’s office. That detail, for reasons he can’t begin to explain, has always stuck in his mind. He looks up when Hermann walks in and grins, his mouth sticky.
“Hey, Herm, how’d the check-up go? Did they have to surgically remove the stick up your ass?” He looks endlessly pleased with his little quip, but there’s a distinct falter in his expression when Hermann just blinks at him, still in the daze he has been in since a folder was carefully handed to him, explanations finally given after several constant visits.
Manageable, so they called it. At first, manageable.
His lips part, uncertain, and Newton’s getting up slowly, his brow furrowed.
“Hermann?”
Something about his name snaps him out of it and he straightens his back, fingers twitching into fists as he raises his chin. There’s still a hollow pit in the bottom of his stomach, still a soft ache in his muscles and the echo of a spasm shaking his right leg, but he ignores it.
“It was fine,” he replies evenly, and Newton narrows his eyes at him, sizes him up.
“If you need anything,” he says slowly, but doesn’t finish. He seems sincere, and Hermann nods stiffly. For all their fighting and bickering, squabbling, their anger and frustration, they are partners in the end, and in the day as he climbs his ladder to get to the chalkboard his foot slips, and Newton is there to catch him. He always has been, perhaps, Hermann finds himself wondering.
Newton finds out, of course, but the only thing that changes, in the long run, is the cane in his hand.
-
They’re both shaking, Newton’s breath coming in horridly short, pathetic wheezes. He’s halfway over Hermann, curled overtop of him, his hand on Hermann’s head and the other thrown over his shoulders. His weight is heavy on top of Hermann’s back, warm and the staccato, wild beat of his heart thumping against Hermann’s spine brings his mind slowly back into order.
one two three four one two three four
The world is quiet.
“Hermann,” Newton finally breathes, warmth gusting over Hermann’s ear. “Hermann, are you okay?”
two three four one two three four one two three four one
Hermann swallows. “Never better.” Newton huffs out a weak laugh and Hermann feels more than sees him lift his head to glance around, his arm never moving from where it lies over Hermann’s shoulders, and finally he says out loud, “I think… I think it’s dead for real this time.”
“I hope your skills at such things are a mite stronger than Hannibal Chau’s,” Hermann mutters. one two three four. Newton laughs again, still vibrating with fright, and finally he slowly gets up, rolling into a sitting position as he looks at the scene before them. Hermann needs another moment, his legs and hip burning as though on fire. He ran, he knows better than to run, he can hardly walk without pain, but Newton will say later that it’s startling what the mind will do when the body is in danger.
“God,” Newton says out loud, and Hermann manages to roll himself over and sit up slowly, trying to work out the sharp, intense spikes of pain with both hands massaging into his thighs. He’ll pay for this day for weeks to come, he knows. “Wow. Yeah. It’s, uh, I’d say it’s dead for real this time, dude. I’m gonna call it.”
Hermann finally takes a long look at it.
The baby Kaiju gleams fluorescently in the darkness, its tongue lolling out and dripping blood onto the ground beneath it and Hermann has a sudden, intense desire to mourn it as if it were his own. A remnant of Otachi, perhaps.
But Otachi is dead, she is smoldering just a hundred feet away and Hermann shakes himself mentally and physically both, shuddering at the thought. Chau’s minions have scattered, leaving them alone save for the people still attempting to emerge and get a glimpse of the destruction, and when Newton turns to look at him, Hermann sees the glint in his eyes.
“Dude,” he says, “we have our brain.”
-
Newton demands to go with him, and Hermann can’t say no.
-
Returning to the hive is like nothing he can liken to, the feeling of all of them rushing at once to find him again. When they find the second presence they all howl, and in the back of his mind he feels Newton’s delight and horror all at once. Newton doesn’t know what to do in the face of it all, the Kaiju, the Precursors, the breach, they are staring at it and the two of them have suddenly become one, the two of them are no longer Hermann and Newton but some ghastly combination that neither can comprehend, they can only act.
The Kaiju stare at them and the Precursors stare at them and they feel it as one. They see the breach, they see themselves, they see the Kaiju realizing that the small specks below them suddenly have feelings and thoughts and ideas, they have love and hatred and sorrow, they sense it twice over and they don’t know what to do with it.
Hermann sees a teenage Newton fishing with his uncle, the pinprick of his first tattoo running up his shoulder, he feels the dedication to his work and the indifference to the whispers of the people around him, groupie, freak, traitor, it doesn’t matter because he is a rock star.
Newton gasps.
Like a flash, Hermann sees himself, in the throes of seizure on the dirty floor of the lab and Newton is running in, sees what he’s done and drops to his knees, crying out in shock. He feels it like fire to ice, Newton’s panic and frantic desperation, words and thoughts bleeding into each other until it’s just a tirade of emotions, oh god no hermann please don’t die don’t die this is my fault it’s my fault my idea it should be me i should be here
it should be me
no
ishould be the one whodid it hermann don’t diedon’tdie
no this is why i did it
don’t die
stay with me stay stay staystaystay
They return, and Newton vomits.
“Yes,” Hermann agrees, and when Newton looks up at him, his left eye is violently, startlingly red. They stare at each other for a moment, the cacophony of thoughts merging and shifting before finally settling down into a pleasant hum, nothing like the Kaiju’s hisses and growls. Newton’s eyes flick between his, narrowed in consideration, before Hermann breaks the silence with an urgency in his tone. “The drift, you saw it?”
“Yeah.” Newton rubs his fingers frantically under his nose and looks startled when they come away bloody, watching his fingers shake. He looks up at Hermann, and his eyes are wide. “We have to warn them, the, the Jaegers, the breach, the, the plan.”
“It’s not going to work.”
-
“It’s not going to work,” Hermann says as he stares at the mess of machinery, leaning hard on his cane and staring into what looks like… is that a bellows? and Newton rubs a spot of grease off of his face with a frown. His sleeves are rolled up, garish tattoos loud and colorful as he puts both hands on his hips and says stubbornly, “Yes it is.”
“You couldn’t possibly hope to connect a human mind to this contraption, Newton. It’s folly.”
“Okay, no, who the hell says folly. Are you Sean Bean?” He puts on a gruff, hilariously bad Northern accent, harrumphing his way back and forth. “Not with a thousand men could you connect a human mind to this contraption, it is folly.”
Hermann wrinkles his nose. “I don’t sound like that.”
“When you say shit like it’s folly, you do.” Newton turns to look at the messy assortment of parts that make up the machine, looking at it as fondly as if a mother might look at her child. He’s grinning widely. “It’s going to work.”
“Look at it,” Hermann snaps, gesturing. “It’s as though you went to the scrap heap, closed your eyes and pointed.”
“You know, sometimes you just say things that make me want to punch a hole through your face.”
“That’s not even possible.”
“God, Hermann, it’s called an exaggeration, I know you’ve heard of one.”
“Of course,” Hermann sneers. “I daresay working with you has given me quite the experience on the matter."
“Holy shit, Hermann made a funny. What else can you do?”
“I am not your trained show dog, Newton.” Hermann wrinkles his nose. “I’m merely offering up that the likelihood of this plan actually succeeding is overshot by your expectations.” He repeats himself, firmly. “It’s not going to work.”
“Just you watch,” Newton grins, and his smile is as bright at the gleam in his eyes. “I’m gonna be a goddamn rock star.”
-
In a startling turn of events, they end up saving the world.
“Who would’ve thought,” Newton’s giggling as they sit on shiny metal tables in the med lab, waiting on the nurses to return with their blood work. Next are MRIs, the very bane of Hermann’s existence, and after that, who knows what else. Newton’s flexing the hand of the arm they drew from, wiggling each finger. They’re both stripped down to basics from the waist up, Newton in a wifebeater and Hermann in his plain undershirt. He feels naked without layers to hide beneath. “Man, who would’ve thought.”
“That could mean a vast assortment of things,” Hermann replies, watching the movements of each digit.
“Who would’ve thought it’d actually work,” Newton amends, finally trading his flexing for leaning back on his hands and staring up at the ceiling, the line of his throat tight as he closes his eyes. It bobs when he swallows and sighs, and Hermann watches the motion carefully. He feels the constant need, now, to watch signs of life in everything Newton does. He felt Otachi die, he felt Leatherback die, and the burning, shrieking rage of the Kaiju dying in a last fiery blast, and his mind doesn’t want to let go of Newton, too. The thought of being alone again in his head, to his shock, seems unappealing, frightening even.
When he looks up, Newton’s staring at him out of the corner of his eyes. His glasses are gone, shattered and sent out for repair already. The one is still bloodshot to match Hermann’s, and the nurses have already commented on it.
They sit for a moment in silence, and finally Newton speaks.
“You didn’t know it would work,” he says, and there is no question in his tone. “You didn’t even believe me. But you did it anyway.” He tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “Why?”
Newton has been inside his head. He knows why. But Newton has always been a man of action before reason, and Hermann knows he wants to hear Hermann speak for himself, rather than just know and assume. So after a moment of contemplation, Hermann also leans back, resting the back of his head against the wall behind them.
“It felt… justified, at the time,” he begins slowly, “that between the two of us, you were the more reasonable choice. That if the experiment should fail, your survival was more crucial.” He shrugs, the first time he can remember doing so in years. Newton’s eyebrows are raised. “Perhaps I wanted to play the hero.”
“There aren’t heroes like us, Hermann.”
Hermann glances at him, startled, but Newton’s looking at him with a small grin on his face, wry and exhausted.
“No,” Hermann says slowly. “There aren’t. And yet here we are.”
“Here we are,” Newton echoes, and chuckles. They fall into silence, companionable and soft, their hands just shy of touching where they rest on the metal. Hermann can feel him, like a dull but warm pulse in the back of his head, and he sighs.
“The world needs Newt Geiszler,” Hermann says quietly after a moment, as if that enough could explain himself, could explain the intense myriad of feelings he has for this wild, insane being that burst into his life like a hurricane. Frustration, anger, wonder, love. Newt just stares at him, working the words around in his head for a moment before he sighs and scoffs, his head coming down into his hands for a moment in startled laughter.
“Yeah, okay, dude,” he chuckles, and his cold fingers curl around the back of Hermann’s neck, tugging him closer and bumping their foreheads together when Hermann allows it. “But I need Hermann Gottlieb.” He’s so close that he’s blurred, so Hermann closes his eyes, feels the whisper of Newt against the ever-present emptiness of what was once a thousand buzzing voices. “Yeah?”
Hermann swallows.
“Yes.”
Newt grins.
“We’re gonna be goddamn rock stars, baby,” he crows, but out loud or in his head, Hermann will never truly be sure. But Newton has always been in his head, in a manner of speaking.
And loathe though he is to admit it, he rather likes it that way.