Work Text:
1.
“What on earth are you wearing?”
Newt looked up from his microscope, grinning. Gottlieb was staring at him and visibly struggling to decide whether he should be disgusted or incredulous.
“You like it?”
“I’m not sure what I’m feeling at the moment.”
Newt looked down at himself proudly. The hoodie went halfway down to his knees, the fabric sporting a subtle pattern of scales and glassy blue buttons representing eyes. He pushed the peculiar hood back, his hair sticking up in all directions in a mess of static-ridden fluff.
“It took awhile to scrounge up all the fabric,” he said. “And then there was trying to find a decent sewing machine, the last one ate like…three sleeves I tried to do. Results came out pretty well in the end, though, check it out!”
He held up one arm, the sleeve dagged like a dragon’s wing. No, wait…
“Dear Lord, you imbecile. Is that…did you make some kind of Otachi jacket?”
“Excuse me, the term is Otachi hoodie,” Newt said mildly, yanking his hood up to emphasize the point. A stylized pattern representing the kaiju’s face glared balefully at Gottlieb as Newt bent over his microscope again. “I’m sorry I can’t pull off the librarian theme you’ve got going on, Hermann. Some people actually have style.”
“If you don’t take that atrocious thing off I’ll set it on fire with you inside it.”
Newt snorted, then paused and looked up at Gottlieb warily.
“Wait, really?”
Gottlieb rolled his eyes and made a long-suffering sound, turning away. He worked with a child. Bad enough he had the tattoos and the boots – and those ridiculous skinny ties that Gottlieb would love to take and use as gags whenever Newt got too chatty. Style? Heaven have mercy, Newt did not have style. He looked like he had rolled around in a pile of goodwill clothes and hoped for the best.
“I do not dress like a librarian,” he muttered as he passed Newt by. All he got in answer was another amused snort.
2.
“-so for the pattern on the inside I kinda based it on paisley, y’know, like on bandanas? And then it was just about finding the right kind of lining to use and-”
Raleigh listened politely as Newt rambled, biting his lip very hard to keep from laughing. He had to admit it; he really was impressed by the outfits Newt kept coming out with lately, but he had learned the hard way that asking about them meant at least a half-hour commitment to learning the creative process behind it.
“Where’d you even get the fabric printed?” he asked. Newt puffed his chest out proudly.
“Black market, actually.”
“You’re shitting me. You’re gonna sit there and tell me there’s black market fabric shops?”
“Well, not precisely. But it’s hard to get access to stuff like silk, satin, that kinda stuff, so…sometimes you have to go through channels that aren’t exactly…”
“Legal?”
Newt shrugged, looking rather smug.
“Hey, it’s fashion, okay? You do what you gotta do.”
Raleigh bit at his knuckles to stifle the laugh trying to escape. Newt didn’t notice, busily fussing with something in one of the jacket’s deep pockets.
“I almost forgot,” he was saying. Raleigh glanced up at him and then stared, astonished.
“Did you…”
“It’s, um. For Mako,” Newt said, pushing the plushie Gipsy Danger towards him. “I had some leftover felt and I figured hey, she really likes stuffed animals, so… why not?”
“You’re not gonna give it to her yourself?”
“Nah, man. Figured it’d mean more coming from you,” Newt said. Raleigh looked at him in surprise, and then smiled.
“Thanks, Newt.”
“Pff, don’t worry about it. I could make you something too if you want. Rangers used to get flight jackets, right? Did you ever get a new one?”
“Y’know, I never did.”
“Well, I may have to fix that…”
3.
“You’re not gonna win this one, Geiszler.”
“Excuse me, your shoes don’t light up.”
Tendo looked down.
“…wait, are these Yamarashi sneakers?”
“Vintage Yamarashi sneakers, man. I’m still looking for the Hardship run, those things go for like…hell, four or five hundred dollars now?”
Tendo shook his head in mock-disapproval. He wasn’t sure what was worse; that Newt was running around in five hundred dollar sneakers, or that he was actually pulling it off well with the rest of his outfit. Combined with the tattoos he almost looked…
“God, I almost thought you look ‘dapper’,” he said, sounding ashamed. “I’m not sure if I mean it or if it’s ‘cause I haven’t slept in forty-eight hours.”
“Coming from the king of the rockabilly throwback, I’m taking that as a compliment,” Newt said, preening. “Y’know, I could throw a good shirt-and-vest combo together for you.”
“Uh huh. And what’ll it cost me?”
“Admitting I’m the most stylish person in the Shatterdome.”
“Hey. I work pretty hard to maintain that title for myself,” Tendo said, giving his bowtie a tug. “I’d like to see you pull off what I do every day.”
“Oh, no. No, you are not issuing that kind of challenge with me.”
“I already told you you’re not gonna win this, Newt. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, y’know?”
“Says the guy in patent leather Oxfords.”
“Tread carefully, Geiszler. I don’t mind hitting a guy with glasses.”
Newt was trying very poorly not to laugh, and Tendo fought to keep a straight face as Newt poked him in the chest.
“You and your freakin’ bowtie are going down, Choi.”
4.
“It’s a dress.”
“I can tell. And it came from…where, exactly?”
Mako ran a silky length of ribbon between her fingers, looking over at Herc.
“Doctor Geiszler made it for me. He mentioned something about extra fabric, and I mentioned not having time to shop for formalwear, so…”
“Formalwear?” Herc asked, bemused. “Mako, you’ve been tromping around in combat boots and tanktops since you were knee-high to a grasshopper. Since when have you ever needed formalwear?”
“We do a lot of television interviews these days,” Mako said mildly, winding the ribbon loosely around her wrist. “It pays to look nice, I think. He said he would make something nice for Raleigh as well.”
“Jesus have mercy,” Herc muttered, sighing as he pinched at the bridge of his nose. “I wasn’t aware he was a fashion designer.”
“He has a lot of free time on his hands these days,” Mako said. She looked at Herc speculatively. “You could use something aside from that vest, maybe-”
Herc held up a hand in half-serious warning, shaking his head.
“Don’t you dare mention anything to him. You’ve seen that sweatshirt of his, he’ll probably make a Striker Eureka tuxedo for me.”
“I think you would look very refined if he did, Marshall.”
5.
There was a box sitting on Gottlieb’s desk. He eyed it suspiciously, poking at it with a ruler in case it was rigged. He had fallen victim to Newt’s “let’s put kaiju viscera in interesting places to see what Hermann does” pranks more than he liked to think about, so no one could fault him for being wary. When he couldn’t detect the telltale stink of ammonia, he relented and opened the box. Something was wrapped up in newspaper, and taped onto the package was a note in Newt’s nigh-unreadable handwriting.
Hermann-
Made you this so you wouldn’t feel left out. I know it’s hard trying to be as boring as you are, so here’s something for when you feel like being interesting.
(Please don’t burn it.)
-Newt
“I’m not going to burn it, you childish…” Gottlieb muttered resignedly, tearing the newspaper away. He stared, unfolding the sweater and feeling – dammit, he didn’t want to be as amused by this as he was.
He would never, ever wear it in public. For God’s sake, it was fashioned after a kaiju; the black wool, blue buttons and interesting cabling pattern reminded him vaguely of Slattern. Of course Newt would think a sweater based on the one and only category five kaiju would be a good gift.
But…it was rather chilly in the lab, now that he thought of it. Checking around carefully to make sure no one was looking, Gottlieb pulled the sweater on and fussed with it so that it lay straight. It was rather flattering, actually.
He sighed, resigning himself to the fact that Newt would never let him hear the end of it when he admitted he liked it.