Archive of Our Own

So, here’s the thing: Newt’s pretty sure that he and Hermann were supposed to have a moment after their Hail Mary kaiju drift. (Well, a second moment. He’s still counting their awkward handshake as the first.) They were supposed to look each other in the eyes, still basking in the afterglow of having known each other’s souls from the inside out. Of having learned, incidentally, while they were doing all that try-to-save-the-world stuff, that each of them is deeply in love with the other and has been for several years. They were supposed to lean in, so slowly, Hermann’s hand coming up to rest on Newt’s cheek, Newt’s hands drifting to Hermann’s waist. And then they were supposed to kiss. And each kiss would have felt like whispering “I love you”, would have made up for all those lost years, would have had just the right amount of tongue, which in Newt’s opinion is a lot of tongue— He’s spent some time formulating this hypothesis. That’s not the point. The point is, the problem is, that they didn’t do any of that stuff. Newt’s not sure why. It’s not because Hermann puked. Newt’s threshold for what it would take to make him kiss post-puke Hermann is embarrassingly low. It was just— Hermann didn’t say anything about it, and so then Newt didn’t want to say anything about it, and there was all that saving the world stuff, which had seemed really urgent at the time.

And now it’s two days later, and things are back to normal. Which is this.

“Is there a reason you saw it fit to leave this malodorous affront to God on my side of the lab?” says the love of Newt’s life. 

Said love is holding up a specimen jar and giving Newt a look that could probably boil its contents. He’s also standing in the middle of his own hurricane of computer printouts and chalk dust, so Newt’s not sure why a perfectly good kaiju spleen deserves his special disgust. “Of course there’s a reason,” Newt says. He’s on his side of the lab, the scuffed line of paint a good three feet back from his heels. He’d thought about scraping it up when they’d stumbled back into the lab that night, Newt with his arm flung around Hermann’s shoulder and feeling simultaneously like he was getting high and coming down from something, Hermann still dry-heaving, muttering equations. A sort of inverse monument to their moment of scientific union. But, again, the whole saving the world thing. “I woke up this morning and I thought, ‘okay, what can I do today specifically to piss Hermann off?’”

“And you felt that more than your mere existence was necessary for the task?”

“Sometimes I like to switch it up a little.”

Hermann lifts an eyebrow. “You have fifteen seconds before I drop this vile object on the ground.”

“Oh, that is low, dude.” Newt scrambles across the lab, flinging off his rubber gloves as he goes. Said gloves were just elbow deep in a steaming heap of kaiju guts, and his efficiency does not seem to improve Hermann’s mood. What else is new.  

Not that Newt, in spite of his impeccable sense of humor, is feeling all that great either. Post devil’s threesome drift, he still kind of feels like something stuck its long, slimy tentacles down his brain’s metaphorical throat and jabbed them around until he puked inside his own skull. Metaphorically. Mostly his head hurts and he feels dizzy when he moves around too much, and he is not going to tell Hermann about this because he knows that Hermann will attribute it to his earlier, admittedly ill-advised solo drift with the kaiju brain and never let Newt hear the end of it. Honestly, Newt just thinks it’s because he hasn’t been sleeping well lately. For his part, Hermann seems mostly unharmed after his drift with the kaiju brain plus Newt, although he has picked up some Newt-ish qualities that he apparently hasn’t noticed, like his new willingness to actually touch specimen jars while he yells at Newt about them. Newt is also not going to tell Hermann about this, because it’s fucking hilarious.

Newt yanks the spleen jar out of Hermann’s hands on second fourteen — of course he counted out loud — and flees back across the symbolic safety of the tape line. Hermann watches, lips still pursed like Newt didn’t just do exactly what he said. “And where are you going to keep that one,” he asks. “Under your bed? In your refrigerator? Please don’t tell me you’re planning to join up with that unsavory— What was his name?”

“Chau,” says Newt, knowing that Hermann already knew that. He sets the jar down gently and goes to peel his gloves up off the floor. “Hannibal Chau. And no, Hermann, I’m not going to ‘join up’ with him, ‘cause I’m a scientist and he’s— well, actually he was pretty helpful that one time. And he cut himself out of a freaking kaiju! I’m not going to shit talk him, Hermann.”

“How honorable.” Hermann yawns. Newt doesn’t think he’s seen him touch his chalkboard since they got in this morning. “I suppose you’ll give him your precious viscera, then?”

“Oh god no,” says Newt. Gloves retrieved, he rinses them in the sink, careful not to touch the gooey bits. “He’d probably make them into, into coats or something. Slimy coats. Badass slimy coats, but, y’know, still.”

“I hate to be the one to remind you of reality,” says Hermann, “but being made into coats is one of their very few options at the moment. One of their better options, perhaps, although heaven knows I would never wear one.”

“Everyone knows you would never wear one.” Newt drops the gloves into the sink with a wet thunk and leans on the edge of it to catch his breath. “I’m going to keep it in the lab with the rest of my specimens. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You can’t honestly believe we’ll be asked to continue our work here.”

“I think saving the world might net us some job security, actually.”

Hermann scoffs. “If you were after job security, you shouldn’t have helped defeat the kaiju. I’d imagine the PPDC is quite unnecessary now that they’re gone.”

“Okay, yeah, obviously the giant robots whose only purpose is to punch things and like, make people want to write guitar solos are unnecessary,” says Newt, turning to glare at Hermann. “But my work is important. My specimens are valuable! Even the PPDC figured that out. Eventually.”

“Then maybe they’ll help you find a nice museum to put them in,” says Hermann. “Somewhere the rest of us won’t have to see those verminous things staring out through their formaldehyde murk all day, unblinking—”

Newt stomps back across the lab, skidding to a stop in the danger zone of Hermann’s personal space. “Just because everything you ever worked on can fit on the back of a napkin—”

“Oh, yes, it’s my eternal regret that I’ve not spent my life flinging liquified organs about like some kind of lunatic—”

“Right, ‘cause you’ve been too busy solving for x in ‘hole plus ground equals monsters—’”

“Not that I’d expect any greater ambition from a man with a tattoo of a kaiju right above his—”

Newt’s mouth goes very dry.

“Ah,” says Hermann. 

“How did, uh—” Newt feels for his shirt to make sure he didn’t somehow rip it off along with the gloves. He has made Hermann look at some of his tattoos, but the Kaiceph tramp stamp was…personal. NSFW. A decision maybe slightly influenced by alcohol. “Oh! The, the drift?”

“Unfortunately.” Hermann turns away from Newt and, for the first time all day, starts shuffling through his papers. “I— I apologize.”

“S’okay.” Newt rocks back on his heels, shoves his hands into his pockets. “It is a really sick tattoo.”

“I’ve no doubt you think so,” says Hermann vaguely. Newt waits for him to say something else, and, when he doesn’t, walks back to his side of the lab, weirdly conscious of the movement of his hips.

So things aren’t, like, one-hundred percent back to normal. Newt knew plenty about the effects of drifting before he experienced it firsthand, from his own research and from jaeger pilot locker room talk. Honestly he’d been kind of excited. Like he was back in college with a tab of acid melting on his tongue and waiting to see exactly how it would fuck him up. (Actually, the one time Newt did do acid in college, he’d spent most of the trip recording notes about how it felt to be on acid like he was Timothy Leary or something. He hopes Hermann didn’t find out about this during the drift, cause it would totally ruin his bad boy rep.) But knowing about the effects of drifting and getting the full 4D Smell-o-Vision experience had turned out to be two very, very different things. And now there’s this. Newt can only think of it as a long, agonizing version of the morning after. He and Hermann spent one wild night together exploring each other’s brains and now should be the part where one of them calls a cab and they never speak again except they can’t do that so they have to make awkward eye contact while pretending it doesn’t matter and wow he needs to stop thinking about screwing Hermann before he makes an unprecedented advancement in the ‘involuntary boner’ subsection of the phalloplasty field. Woo.

Newt picks his gloves back up and finishes rinsing them, watching the blue goop swirl down the drain. If he ever has to save the world again, he’s gonna make a nice long list of pros and cons before he starts.

Everybody’s just about recovered from the impromptu ‘holy fuck the world’s not gonna end’ party, so now the PPDC is hosting a slightly-more-promptu celebration. Newt, having been mildly comatose and in the infirmary during the first party, is attending this one, mainly because his moral values require him to party whenever the opportunity arises. He’s not sure why exactly they’re celebrating. Most of the conversation he’s overheard this week has been about the devastation in Hong Kong, the death toll, the general difficulty of getting the world back on its feet now that the apocalypse has been cancelled.  Maybe the higher ups are trying to boost morale while they figure out a way to deal with a problem they can’t punch. Anyway, there’s booze.

Lots of booze. Not exactly top shelf, with apocalypsetime rationing and all, but Newt’s always been a quantity over quality type of guy. He takes a few generous scoops from a bowl of purple punch that smells like a hangover and finds a seat at a table that’s been pushed towards the end of the mess hall. He’s already kind of shaky, still feeling the jittery edge of a sleepless night, and whatever’s in his drink won’t help. 

The mood is somber. People mill around in small groups, talking quietly and laughing, sometimes, a little too loudly. All starting to sink in, Newt guesses. The loss and such. He’s realizing he doesn’t actually know many of these people very well. Sure, he’d talked to some of them at mealtimes or in elevators or during various team bonding-type events over the years, but none of them really feel like his coworkers. He’d spent most of his time holed up in the lab with Hermann, and Hermann, Newt’s sure, isn’t here. 

Newt wishes he was, not that he knows what he would say to him. Not that Hermann was ever even fun at parties — his presence at a PPDC-hosted social event pretty much signaled that said event was mandatory. Usually Newt would end up steering him around, Hermann standing at the edge of Newt’s attempts at small talk, nodding occasionally, his eyes glazed over in the way that indicated math was happening in his head. They’d leave together too, Hermann steering a less-than-sober Newt now and complaining that he had to do this every time. Newt complaining back that he didn’t have to, that he had seven PhDs and was smart enough to find his own room, Hermann, but not letting go of his arm.

On the other hand, the fact that after all this it still took a mind meld to realize Hermann was in love with him probably does not say great things about Newt’s intelligence.

“Excuse me,” a voice comes from off to his left, and Newt turns to see a short blond man he vaguely recognizes. “Mind if I join you, Dr. Geiszler?”

“As long as you call me Newt, uh…”

The man smiles. “Kamil Novak. I work in the infirmary.” He holds out a hand, and Newt awkwardly shifts his drink around to shake it.

“Kamil!” says Newt. “It was on the tip of my tongue.” This is a complete lie. He remembers pretty much zilch about the time between whooping it up in the war room and waking up in a sickbed. Well, alright, he does remember, very clearly, embarrassingly clearly, Hermann’s face hovering above his, pale and damp, frantically mouthing something Newt can’t quite hear. But that’s about it. That rounds to zilch. 

Newt slaps the bench next to him, and Kamil sits down. “How’re things, doc?”

“Better than they’ve been,” Kamil says. “How are you? I checked up on you a few times while you were unconscious, but I didn’t see you get discharged.”

Newt grins. He must at least not look like complete shit, if Kamil has to ask. “So you’re making a follow-up visit? Very thorough doctoring, good job.”

“I, I’m not actually a doctor,” says Kamil, flushing across the bridge of his nose. “I’m still a student, third year, but they, the PPDC needed all the help they could get, so— I handled your IV, mostly. You didn’t need much else. I— I like your tattoo sleeves.”

“Yeah? They’re sick, right?” Newt rolls up his shirt sleeves so Kamil can get a better look, and Kamil quickly leans closer. “This one’s Yamarashi,” says Newt, pointing. “He was the biggest kaiju ever recorded at the time, one beefy motherfucker. If I could’ve gotten my hands on even one piece of him— I mean, he must have had some kind of massive internal hydraulic system to be able to move around like he did, but he got taken out pretty far offshore. All we’ve got are pictures.”

“Uh-huh?” says Kamil.

“The first kaiju I ever worked with was Scissure, he’s the one who made them quit using nukes. There wasn’t much left to dissect but I’ve got a sweet chest piece of him—”

“Can I see?” says Kamil. “Or, or no, it’s just— It’s really amazing. Your work.”

“Nat Chen over at InkUp HK did my last one, you want her number?”

“No, I mean— Well, thank you, but— your work.” Kamil takes a deep breath, then lets it out. It’s warm and boozy on Newt’s face. “You practically pioneered the field of K-science. The advances you made were incredible, I, I read that paper you wrote about modifying the polymerase chain reaction to account for the divergent denaturation point of kaiju DNA and it just, it just flew in the face of everything I understood about chemistry— But really it was your perspective, your mind. No one wanted to understand the kaiju like you did. And no one except you would have ever drifted with one. To have the courage to test a theory like that, to risk your mind against something so dangerous if it meant saving the world—” He puts a hand on Yamarashi’s teeth. “I’d like to be able to do something like that. To be able to make that kind of a difference. It’s amazing. Your work is amazing. You’re amazing.”

“Oh,” says Newt. “Wow. You have no idea how great that is to hear.” He gives Kamil a disbelieving grin. Obviously he knew that he was totally badass and saved the world, but he hadn’t thought people would realize K-science was totally badass and saved the world. And now someone wants to get into the field? Holy shit! “Listen,” he says, “listen, if you’re looking for a mentor, I can definitely tell the PPDC I need a research assistant, they owe me big time right now, and—”

“Um,” says Kamil.

“Hermann might be harder to convince, but you can clean his chalkboards or something. You know what, let’s go find him right now.” Which isn’t really necessary, but Newt wants to talk to Hermann, and unnecessary bragging seems like a good jumping off point for a nice, normal argument. The kind without sexual tension. Or, okay, the kind with sexual tension, but where neither of them acknowledge it so things don’t get all awkward. Newt can admit that.

He stands up too fast and immediately regrets it, his vision fuzzing out and Kamil grabbing at him with a little yelp. The fuzz clears when he sits back down, though, allowing Newt to see that 1. he’s spilled about half his drink on himself and 2. Hermann is here! Walking quickly toward them and looking like he’s ready for an argument of some kind, awkward or not.

“Newton—” he starts. 

“Dr. Gottleib!” says Kamil.

“Hermann,” says Newt, trying his luck. “Check this kid out! He’s interested in K-science, isn’t that awesome?” 

“Charmed,” says Hermann, offering a vague handshake in Kamil’s direction. “I’m afraid we must take our leave. Dr. Geiszler—”

Oh, so it’s Dr. Geiszler now. As if someone’s knocked their heads together, Newt’s mind echoes suddenly with all the zillions of secret pet names Hermann has for him. Well, not that they’re really secret. Newt just never realized that “vile creature”, when Hermann aimed it at him, was tinged with fondness and linked to memories of a mouthy housecat. This throws him off a little. “Herm— Hermann?  When did you even— Look me in the eyes and tell me you’ve been here for more than five minutes.” 

“My time of arrival is irrelevant. I came here to get you.”

“He, you should really sit down a little longer, Newt, er, doc—”

“That’s sweet. Does the drift tell you when I’m having too much fun?” Back in the game. Newt gives what he hopes is a challenging smirk, but Hermann just flushes and glares at the ground.

“It tells me when you’re feeling ill.”

“So go take an aspirin and send me the good vibes.”

“Oh, for— Why don’t you go—” Hermann pauses. His mouth works like he’s trying to figure out what to say, which is not something Newt’s ever seen him do. Kamil’s eyes flick rapidly between them. Then someone whacks a spoon against a glass, and Hermann’s gaze snaps gratefully to the front of the room.

“Everyone,” says Herc Hansen. “If I could have your attention for a few minutes.” He looks wounded and careworn and generally war hero-y. Mako Mori is next to him, managing to carry the same amount of gravitas while also fidgeting with a small red shoe. Herc mutters something into her ear and she gives him a stiff little grin. Newt doesn’t think he’s seen Mako without Herc since he woke up from his nap-coma, which he guesses makes sense. The traumatized veterans who lose corresponding familial figures together stay together. It seems like Herc’s staying together a tiny bit harder, though. Like Hermann’s parents with their grandchildren in the Hanukkah card they sent to the Shatterdome for some reason, cuddling their second-chance kids like they didn’t already fuck the first chance up.

After another comment from Herc, Mako steps forward and hops nimbly up onto a cafeteria table someone set up like a podium. The last few murmurs of conversation die away as people turn to look at her. Out of the corner of his eye, Newt sees Hermann staring with rapt attention. Geek.

“Acting Marshall Hansen has asked me to say a few words about today’s celebration,” Mako says. “I know that no one can top Marshall Pentecost when it comes to inspiring speeches—”

“Which might be why I asked you to do it,” says Herc, to some scattered laughter and another sad smile from Mako.

 “So today I would like to try to say what I think he— What I think he would say if he were here with us today.” She takes a long, slow breath, presses the hand holding the shoe against her thigh. “First of all: we won. The kaiju hit us with everything they had, and we gave it all back to them and more. They brought us the apocalypse and we kicked its ass!” A chorus of whooping and cheering. From across the room, Newt can see Raleigh Beckett staring up at Mako like she’s the world they just saved. God, if those two jocks get their shit together before him and Hermann he’s going to scream. “We won against the kaiju,” says Mako, and the room quiets back down, “but we won at a cost. Our cities are destroyed. Our oceans are polluted by kaiju blue and nuclear radiation. Hundreds of thousands are dead. I’m sure that everyone in this room can name someone they lost in the fight.” Newt glances at Hermann, then looks guiltily away. Probably not what she meant. “And that fight is— No. I wanted to tell you that the fight isn’t over. But I’m tired of fighting. We’re all tired of fighting. So I hope you’ll join me— join us— join together— in the journey to rebuild.” More cheering. Mako grins, and nods to quiet everyone down again. “As of today, the Pan Pacific Defense Corps is the Pan Pacific Reclamation Corps. And our resources are going to rebuilding our world— not fighting off the kaijus’.”

“Wait,” says Newt. “What?”

“Hush,” says Hermann.

“You hush,” says Newt. “What is she talking about?”

Hermann mutters something under his breath and turns away from Mako for a more effective glare. “Listening might elucidate that for you, Newton.” 

Now we’re cooking, Newt thinks. “What is there to elucidate?” he whisper-yells. “We can’t just stop studying kaiju, we, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what there is to know about them!”

“Do you think everyone besides yourself is an idiot?” Hermann whisper-yells back, now fully facing Newt. “They’re not ceasing all kaiju research, they’re simply moving it out of the Shatterdome.”

“Yeah? And who told you that, Hermann, your secret source at the PPDC?”

“Miss Mori, just now, while you weren’t listening. And they’ll be moving us into actual research—”

“Okay, sure, so we’re expected to just completely upend all our work and drag it around—”

“—facilities so I really don’t see why that’s important, Newton, because you can just as easily—”

“—to different labs well of course you don’t—” says Newt, and then cuts himself off with a terrible, embarrassing, quivery, “You don’t?”

“Oh!” Hermann leans back a little. “Well, well you have to admit that sharing a laboratory isn’t the most ideal working situation—”

“You’re not the most ideal working situation.” Newt’s voice comes out like it’s made of jello. He should go. “I should go,” he says, and then stands up, too fast, to do that. “Whooaaaooshit—”

“Newton!”

Kamil, with his stupid medical skills, grabs Newt and lowers him gently back to his seat before he can fully pass out. “Head between your knees, you’re alright. Dr. Gottleib, could you—? Thanks. Okay, now just squeeze and relax your hands. There you go. You’re doing great.”

“Yep!” says Newt. “I’m, I’m a pro.” The buzzing in his ears recedes enough for him to tell that the room has gone completely fucking pin-drop silent. “Great speech!” he yells, not looking up. “Very affecting. War is hell!”

“Dr. Geiszler was instrumental to our defeat of the kaiju,” says Mako. She’s so deadpan that Newt can’t tell if she’s making fun of him or trying to help him out. There’s laughter either way. Mercifully, she continues her speech, now talking about some program to use salvaged jaeger parts in the construction of temporary housing, which would be really cool except Newt thinks that a better use for the jaegers would be killing him very thoroughly until he is dead.

The rest of the room tunes back into Mako’s speech, and Hermann stomps into Newt’s field of vision with a plastic cup of orange juice crushed in his hand. “What’s wrong with him?” he demands of Kamil, and the anxiety Newt can feel curling off his thoughts is weirdly gratifying. 

“Hopefully just a little dehydration. Get some fluids into him for now—”

“Yes, for god’s sake, Newton, drink something,” says Hermann, shoving the orange juice towards Newt’s face.

“I’ve got it, Hermann—”

“Of course you have,” says Hermann absently, and presses the cup to Newt’s lips anyway. “What else?”

“Um,” says Kamil. “Have, have him eat something, drink some more. How are you feeling now, Dr. Geiszler?”

“Better already,” Newt burbles.

“Good. Then when you’re ready you can try standing up again — slowly — but if I were you I’d head back to your room and lie down after that. And take it easy for the next few days.”

“Gotcha.”

“And obviously, come back to the infirmary if you’re feeling worse, or, here, you can just call me.” Kamil takes out a piece of paper with a phone number written on it, then inexplicably yelps and drops it like it’s on fire. “I mean, as a, as a doctor, call me if you need a doctor.”

“But you’re not a doctor,” says Newt.

“N-no,” says Kamil, “but well, yes, but— I’m drunk. Sorry. Congratulations.”

“Congratulations?” says Newt, watching him speed away.

“I suppose he’s impressed that you’ve managed to survive this long,” says Hermann.

“Ha ha,” says Newt. “Weren’t you leaving?”

“With you,” says Hermann.

“Right,” says Newt, and then decides not to say anything else for a while.

Newt wakes up the next morning so not hungover that it’s actually disorienting. Well, he’s kind of hungover, but considering that he’s fun-sized and drank an indeterminate amount of mystery punch last night, he’s feeling way better than he’d expected. Either the whole kaiju brain drift thing has exactly one positive side effect, or he got a decent amount of sleep last night and his shit is so fucked that this counts as a minor miracle. He hopes it’s the first thing, if only so he has something to rub in people’s faces when they tell him he’s an idiot for drifting with a kaiju brain. Okay, so ‘kaiju cured my hangovers and I drink enough to notice’ is kind of sad. Maybe there’ll be other perks? Fuck it, he’s a scientist, he can theorize. He should publish a paper. What Happens with Kaiju Stays Inside You. Oh god, that’s terrible. He needs to tell Hermann immediately. 

Where is Hermann, anyway? And where is he? Newt’s memories of last night get fuzzy somewhere around his decision to just rest his head on Hermann’s shoulder for a minute. There’s no real reason to think that he didn’t wake up and go back to his room and go to sleep, but Newt knows himself. He opens his eyes slowly.

The room comes into focus, shapes establishing themselves as blurry but semi-recognizable objects. They’re not semi-recognizable as objects in his room, which is inconvenient. It’s somebody’s room, though. A very neat somebody, from what Newt can see without his glasses, who keeps a bottle of antacids and a thick notepad covered in sleepily scribbled equations on their nightstand. Somebody who’s curled up next to him right now. Oh shit. Oh, shit. 

“Oh shit,” says Newt, out loud, and for some reason his idiot brain decides that the only way to save the situation is to do his best impression of Hermann’s voice, which is very bad. “I think we got Freaky Friday -ed, man.”

“We got what?” says Hermann. His impression of grumpy, annoyed Hermann is tragically spot-on. “Don’t mock my accent.”

“I’m not mocking your accent, this is a serious situation! How else would I end up—” Newt prays to the testosterone cypionate gods that his voice won’t crack. They are pitiless. “— in your bed? I, I mean, you know…” Newt has seven PhDs. “Freaky… Freaky Friday.”

Hermann takes a long moment to absorb this. “It’s Sunday,” he says finally.

“Huh? Oh yeah, yeah. I just—” Why is he still doing this. “Freaky Friday just means, like, I thought our brains got swapped. Cause of drift stuff.” 

“I know what Freaky Friday means.”

“No you don’t.”

Hermann sighs. “You watched the original film upwards of twenty times and the remake twice. I have a deep and terrible knowledge of what Freaky Friday means.”

“I was stoned the second time I watched the remake.”

A heavier sigh. “I know.”

“Ha,” says Newt. “Wait, seriously? Did you get drift-stoned?”

“No, I did not get ‘drift-stoned’,” says Hermann. “You told me about some of your youthful escapades in a— in one of those letters you used to write.”

“Oh,” says Newt. “Those.”

“Do try to sound like you remember.”

“I do remember! Just not anything specific. I mean, there were a lot of them.”

“It was also the letter in which, in response to my asking if you’d named yourself after Sir Isaac Newton, you said that your namesake was in fact, and I quote, ‘hot alien David Bowie from The Man Who Fell to Earth.’”

“Oh god.” Newt puts his hands over his face. “Please don’t tell anyone about that.”

Hermann laughs. “Who would I tell? I don’t exactly keep up a robust correspondence these days.”

“You’re not seeing any other biologists?” says Newt, peering at him through a crack in his fingers.

“I’m not much for letter-writing in general,” says Hermann. “No. It was just you.”

Newt peels his hands away from his face. He could say something now. He should say something now. Tell Hermann that he’s not big on letters either, but that he’d spent hours wrangling his thoughts and handwriting into something manageable and enjoyed every minute of it because he knew Hermann would read it so carefully and reply to every stupid little thing he said with his perfect handwriting and his perfect, beautiful thoughts. He should tell Hermann he loves him.

But then, Hermann already knows that. Hermann knows that Newt loves him, and Newt knows he knows, and it’s— Well, it’s already making things worse, isn’t it? Burdening every conversation between them with about five different layers of hidden meaning and a level of social awareness Newt usually reserves for first dates and job interviews. Making him do improv comedy at eight a.m. instead of just asking Hermann if they fucked.

The thing is that with Hermann it’s always been easy. Even their arguments — especially their arguments — felt like the hemispheres of Newt’s brain yelling at each other. And when he’d thought he was deep in un requited love with Hermann, he’d never worried about risking their friendship because they didn’t have a friendship. Just a steady feeling that only seems unbelievable now that it’s gone, a certainty that Hermann would always be there snapping at his heels, complaining about his theories, dragging his drunk ass home from the party and taking his glasses off before he passed out. That’s what they’re good at. They don’t need any stupid mind-melds or big dramatic love confessions. 

So what the hell are they supposed to do now that they’ve had both?

No, Newt’s not going to say anything. He’s going to shut up and wait for things to go back to normal. And if “normal” is silently pining for Hermann while knowing that it can never, ever happen— Well, he likes that, apparently. So there.

“Are you alright, Newton?” Hermann’s turned towards him in the bed. His eyes are a bit unfocused, and his hair is perfectly tousled from sleep. Which is awesome. It’s totally awesome that Newt can never, ever run his fingers through Hermann’s perfectly tousled hair.

“I’m fine,” says Newt. “But, um, just to be clear, I’m not in your bed because of a wacky supernatural happenstance that’ll ultimately help us grow as people.”

“You are in my bed,” says Hermann, “because, last night, when I attempted to take you back to your own room, you became— Ahem. You decided it would be more efficient for the both of us to go back to my room. I obliged. You then immediately made fun of my pajamas, asked if you could borrow a pair, and passed out, fully clothed, from a standing position. Luckily I was able to keep you from breaking your neck.”

“Appreciate it,” says Newt.

“Your—” Hermann blushes. “Your virtue is also intact.”

“Okay, actually, you should have let me die.”

Hermann scoffs. “Perhaps I should have, if this is the thanks I get.”

“I said thank you—”

“You did not.”

“— just, stop saying things that make us sound like we’re in a bodice ripper about viscounts.”

“It’s pronounced vai-count.”

“Whatever. Did I keep you up?”

“I actually slept quite well, for once.”

“Huh. You’re welcome.”

“Oh, as if you had anything to do with it.”

“I could have!” says Newt.

“Yes,” says Hermann. He takes a long breath. “You could have.”

“But probably it was those super snazzy pajamas—”

“Oh, for—”

“I hope you’re aware that this is an absolutely idiotic idea,” says Hermann. 

“Well if at any point I’m not,” says Newt, “I have you here to constantly remind me.”

“He stuck a knife in your nostril!”

“Yeah, and I told him, ‘You better move that knife or you’re gonna need a new hand to hold it with.’”

“A new hand?”

“Cause I’d cut his hand off.”

“With what, your scalpel? Your wit?”

“Alright—” They turn a corner, and Newt uses his penlight to confirm the presence of the secret symbol on a street sign, an action that is still incredibly cool but slightly harder to do in the daytime. They’re on their way to find Hannibal Chau and see if he can get their hands on a couple more kaiju organs before he closes up shop for good. Or at least, that’s why Newt’s here — Hermann just came along to have something to complain about.

“I still cannot believe you went to his— his den of iniquity by yourself,” says Hermann, elbowing past pedestrians who aren’t really in their way. “What were you thinking? You couldn’t have taken anyone else along? Someone— brawny?”

“I’m brawny!” says Newt. He finally matches the symbol to the right sign and pulls Hermann down a side street. “I’m buff as hell, dude, and anyway I was under orders— the Marshall sent me.”

“You’re very selective about the orders you follow, Newton,” says Hermann. “Only the ones that could get you killed, it would seem.” He glares sideways at Newt as if to make sure he caught that sick burn. Alright, so there’s one thing — since the drift Newt has come to appreciate that what he’s always thought of as complaining is more like fussing. Protective, mother hen-type fussing. Why Hermann wants to fuss over Newt is still hard to understand, but this revelation does explain why Hermann has such a bug up his ass about Newt forgetting to wear a coat when it’s cold out. And why it took about a half hour of arguing and repeated assurances that yes, Newt did feel better after getting some sleep, no, he wasn’t lying, yes, he knows he said that last time too, but this time he’s really not lying, before Hermann even let him leave the Shatterdome this morning. Although, now that he thinks about it, Newt didn’t actually need his permission. Ah well.

After about another fifteen minutes of speedwalking, arguing, and backtracking — “It’s to keep the feds off our tail, Hermann” “If they are on our tail, you should ask them for directions” — they find the right storefront. Newt takes a minute to mess up his hair and loosen his tie. Since he’s got kind of a badass reputation around here now, and everything. Hermann squints around suspiciously.

“So this is Chau’s butchery. One would think he’d have a bit more style—”

“Hermann!” Newt yelps, accidentally yanking his tie tighter. “You can’t just say that man, it’s— erk— a secret!”

“Well that’s ridiculous — for god’s sake, Newton, here — that’s ridiculous, how can Chau expect to get any business if—”

“Stop saying his name, Hermann!”

“What, Chau?”

“Oh my god—”

“Excuse me, are you two fine gentlemen looking for Hannibal Chau?”

“No!” yells Newt. “Er, yes, er— Chau?”

“Afraid not,” says the man looming over them. He’s very tall, wearing big dark sunglasses over an eyepatch and under a wide-brimmed snakeskin cowboy hat. “I’m just the humble proprietor of a local eatery. Please, join me.”

“Um, right,” says Newt. “Thanks. Quit messing with my tie, Hermann!”

“Excellent. Right this way.” 

Newt reaches for the door, but not-Hannibal-Chau slaps his hand away with a flourish and directs them instead to a small storefront across the street, which is, in fact, a somewhat devastated coffeeshop. The only waiter in the place throws some menus down on their table and leaves immediately. 

“Much better,” says Chau, settling in next to them and unfolding his napkin. “I don’t like to spend much time over there. Hannibal Chau was a very dangerous man.”

“Was?” says Newt. “But—”

“Eaten by a kaiju. Tragic.”

“And then cut himself back out,” says Newt. “People— people saw.”

Chau shrugs. “People see what they want to see. And usually—” He picks a steak knife out from his cutlery and flips it delicately into the air. “— they want to see.”

“Got it.”

Hermann clears his throat. “So then, you’re not in the kaiju business yourself, Mister, ah—?”

“What kaiju business?” Chau stabs the knife into the table. “It’s all shut down. Not a damn scrap left and nothing more coming through. The government’s out on the street picking up every dealer they can get their claws on. Buncha hypocrites.”

“Totally,” says Newt.

Chau gives him a look. “So what do you want?”

“Well, kaiju,” says Newt. “I mean, if you— If Chau— If, if there’s any left.”

“Did you not hear what I just said?”

“Yeah, but that’s, that’s just the government line, right? You’ve gotta have something you kept for yourself.”

“Newton,” says Hermann warningly.

“Do I look like a sentimental man, Geiszler?”

“Okay, okay, well do you know who has the last couple of pieces you sold?”

“Are you referring to the detailed records I keep of all my illegal transactions?”

“Yeah! Can I—”

“I’m joking, you idiot.”

“Oh.”

“Of course I don’t know who has them. Probably revving up some old bastard’s balls by now.” He stares off into the distance for a moment. “It was nice work, while it lasted. I’m in real estate now. Garcon!” he calls, and the waiter reemerges from the kitchen. Newt notices that he has a pistol tucked into his apron strings. “What was it they used to serve here?”

“Food, I think.”

“Right, right. Great place. Great location. It’s a buyer’s market, gentlemen.” Chau sits back, pulls out a switchblade and picks at his fingernails with it. Newt figures this is a gesture of dominance, because it can’t be good for the man’s cuticles. The coffeeshop is quiet around them, the only sound air whistling through cracks in the plate-glass window. Someone’s stripped the copper out of all the light fixtures.

“Well,” says Hermann, adjusting his coat, “it’s been a pleasure, but I do have some paperwork I need to—"

“Can I ask you something?” says Newt. Chau and Hermann both look at him. “No, you,” he says, pointing to Chau. “You, you, whoever you are. Just a real quick question. What’s wrong with you?”

Chau raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Yeah, you! You, and, and people like you who just wanna suck the world dry for your own benefit— I mean, those things had value, man— scientific value, not just whatever your price per ounce was we could have saved lives with those organs but we never got our hands on them because you and your people were always hanging around like a bunch of vultures ready to— I, I mean is it hard to to only care about yourself so much, like like like were you born this shitty or did you have to practice because let me tell you man you are doing a really good—”

“You know,” says Chau, “I almost want to see how long you can run your mouth.” ‘Almost’ seems to be the operative word here, because he’s pressing his switchblade to Newt’s throat. “You’re a funny guy. An uppity little prick—” The blade presses down harder. “But funny.”

“P-please don’t kill me,” says Newt. It comes out like a teakettle whine.

Chau grins. “Hilarious.”

“Do you think so?” says Hermann. His eyes flick to Newt, then Chau. “I personally find him rather odious. I’m a colleague of his, and—”

“Odious,” says Chau. “Good word.” He raps the knuckles of his free hand three times on the table and the waiter appears beside them, gun drawn. “Are you going to tell anyone you saw me here, Merriam-Webster?”

“I wouldn’t, wouldn’t dream of it. You simply can’t imagine the intensity of loathing I have for the man.” Hermann looks at Newt again, and this time he doesn’t look away. 

Newt’s never really had an intuitive understanding of consequence. Hermann’s always the one making his nervous little calculations, turning numbers over and over in his head like he could smooth their edges off. But looking at him now, looking at Newt, Newt can tell that he’s not calculating their odds of survival, not working through the permutations of an escape. He’s picturing Newt dead in front of him. And the waves of fear and pain and blank, crushing misery rolling off of him make it harder to breathe than the knife at his throat.

“Really,” says Chau. “You loathe him.”

“To the fathomless depths of my soul,” says Hermann. 

“Hm.” Chau taps his switchblade thoughtfully against Newt’s pulse. “Tell me what you loathe about him.”

“What do I loathe about him?” Hermann takes his glasses off and polishes them on his shirt, still fixing his gaze on Newt. “I can hardly think where to begin. He never can keep his mouth shut, as you have so thoroughly pointed out. If you’ve found him infuriating in the past ten minutes you ought to try sharing a lab with him. Even when he’s ostensibly concentrating he still makes noise. Singing or humming or whistling—”

“I don’t—” says Newt, but stops when he feels a hot prick of blood at his throat.

“You very much do,” says Hermann. “Incessantly, the Sex Pistols or somesuch, I’ve looked it up, it’s not meant to be whistled, Newton. And he has absolutely no respect for authority,” he continues, now turning to Chau as if looking for agreement. “You’ve seen that. He’s utterly impertinent. Familiar. Intimate. Like a dog. Oh, I could list a thousand of his characteristics and never sufficiently communicate my distaste— He talks with his mouth full and he references films no one else has seen for his own amusement in polite conversation and he always has fingerprints on the lenses of his glasses and he licks his lips whenever they’re dry even though with seven PhDs one would think he’d have the intelligence to realize this only makes them dryer—”

“Seven PhDs?” Chau kicks Newt under the table. “You compensating for something, Geiszler?”

“Constantly!” says Hermann. He’s up from his chair now and pacing the floor, his cane clacking against the tile like a metronome for a panic attack, which makes Newt think he might’ve gotten off course from whatever the hell exactly his plan was. “He’s always going on about how brilliant and brave and becoming he is as if it’s not immediately obvious, as if anyone would have to be convinced. He’s one of the greatest minds of the century and he thinks that the only way he can prove it is by doing something idiotic and getting himself killed. He’s the bane of my existence. I haven’t known peace since I met him. I doubt I ever could again. So, ah—” He stops pacing, turns back to face Chau, gives him a pained grin. “So, of course I don’t mind if you kill him. But, really, you’d be playing right into his hand.”

Chau considers this for a moment. Newt feels the drop of blood, now a trickle, snake slowly down his neck. Finally, Chau lets out a single bark of a laugh and lowers his switchblade. Newt sucks in a huge breath, then immediately wheezes it out when Chau slaps him across the back. “You guys crack me up,” he says. “If I’d’ve known you two were the smartest people at the PPDC I would have spent a hell of a lot less time coming up with secret codes.”

“Ha,” says Hermann weakly.

“Now get the fuck out of here before I diversify my investment portfolio with your kidneys.”

They do, stopping only to dig in their pockets for the 100% gratuity that is apparently mandatory for parties over one. “By the way,” says Newt, dumping his credit cards on the table and hoping he remembers to cancel them, “just to, just clear things up, I do have a pretty average-sized—”

“For god’s sake, Newton,” says Hermann, and grabs Newt’s arm and yanks him out of the coffeeshop.

They walk very quickly for several blocks without stopping, which is impressive considering that Newt is pretty sure he forgot his lungs in the restaurant. When he’s judged them to be out of, Newt doesn’t know, sniping distance of Chau’s goons, Hermann forces them to a stop under a streetlight. “I would like you to be aware,” he says, jabbing a finger into Newt’s chest, “that the only reason I did not allow Hannibal Chau to kill you is that I felt I would be able to accomplish the task far more effectively and painfully myself.”

“Yeah?” Newt gasps for air. “Is that why you were telling him he should kill me? So you could watch and, and give him tips?”

“What do you think? No, no, that was—” Hermann’s mouth works, his glare fades. “No. I simply thought that if, if I sympathized with his having to experience your rudeness, he might be mollified enough to— I’m terribly sorry b-but you didn’t exactly leave me much choice—”

“Hey, hey.” Newt takes the hand Hermann’s got smashed up against his chest. It’s shaking. He holds it until it’s not. “It’s okay, dude. I figured you were pulling some James Bond-type action with all that trash talk.”

“Yes. I truly didn’t mean any of it.”

“Really? Not one thing? Not even a little bit?”

Hermann presses his lips together. “You’re still bleeding,” he says. “Here.” He unfolds a handkerchief from his pocket and holds it against the cut on Newt’s neck, his touch just light enough that Newt can breathe. They stand like that for a long time. Past the point where the bleeding’s stopped, probably, but Newt doesn’t really feel like sharing his superior biological knowledge at the moment. Hermann stares into his eyes. Frowns. Opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.

“What is it?” says Newt. “What’s wrong?”

“Your glasses.” Hermann shakes his head, breaks eye contact. “I’ve another handkerchief in my left pocket. For god’s sake, wipe them off.”

“You got it,” says Newt, and takes the handkerchief, and does not tell Hermann that he just said he didn’t mean any of it.

It’s two in the morning and Newt has decided that he actually hates Hermann’s guts. Apparently his one night of decent sleep was a fluke, because now even a cardio-heavy day of fast walking and life-threatening danger isn’t enough to pass him out. He takes a deep breath and wills his exhaustion to work and not just stick to the back of his eyeballs like gum. But, alas, when he lets the breath back out he’s still awake and only more resolved to pour salt into Hermann’s coffee tomorrow morning. 

This fucking drift, man. Newt used to sleep great. He used to piss Hermann off by bragging about how great he’d slept, stretching like an actor in an antidepressant commercial while Hermann muttered curses into his caffeine. Why couldn’t the drift have shared that? Are the kaiju also insomniacs? Did Newt’s brain get, what, outvoted?

After another fifteen minutes of unsuccessful attempts to fall asleep, which include counting sheep and throwing his pillow across the room, Newt finally decides he might as well get some work done. He throws on an old band t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and shuffles down to the lab.

The lab’s night lighting — a couple strips of red-orange bulbs stuck into the wall at ankle height to make sure no one trips and eats shit if they come running in for emergency science — is already on, and Newt doesn’t bother turning on anything else. In the dim light the lab looks sleeker, newer, the scuffs and stains melted into shadow. It’s never looked like that while Newt’s been working here. Sure, he may have added a couple dings, but for the most part, the lab looks about as well-loved as it did when he and Hermann got here, down to the apologetic line of paint separating their workspaces. At the time, Newt recalls, he’d found the conditions a bit insulting.

Newt grabs a pair of gloves and his favorite scalpel — and realizes that there’s not much to cut into. He’s already processed the few scraggly kaiju bits that got nuke-puked up near the Breach, and Chau had made it pretty clear he didn’t have any new samples. But it’s not just Chau— there’s not going to be any new samples. Ever.

It probably says bad things about Newt’s priorities that this makes him tear up a little bit. Stupid insomnia.

“You’ll feel better in the morning if you at least lie down.”

“Jesus!” Newt whips around. Hermann’s fuzzy-edged silhouette stands between two specimen tanks, a hand thrown up in surprise. “Warn me next time, man!”

“I greeted you very clearly when I entered the lab.”

“Well, well make sure I’m paying attention next time, then.” He scrubs at his eyes before Hermann can see. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

Hermann grumbles. “Losing the little sleep I can get, it would seem.”

“So go back to sleep. I’m not stopping you.”

“Indeed you are not,” says Hermann. He puts a hand against a tank, leans closer and peers inside. “Do they sleep?”

“Do you care?”

“Not like you do. But I’m curious. Explain.”

Newt pulls at the fingers of his gloves. Thinking about the behavior of the kaiju is strange now, his scientific knowledge mixed up with intimate, personal details, alien emotions and their human analogues. But Hermann knows that. “I don’t think we would call it sleep,” he says finally. “They don’t do it very often, and when it does happen, their metabolic processes slow until they’re basically comatose. It’s an extremely vulnerable state. They can’t wake voluntarily, once it starts. Not until their energy reserves are replenished. Some of them, some of them don’t like it. Like a kid who’s afraid of the dark.”

He peels his gloves the rest of the way off and joins Hermann by the tank. Watches him stare into it, even though there’s not really enough light to penetrate its formaldehyde murk. “It’s weird, though— It always happens to all of them at once. I guess because of the hive mind thing. When one kaiju falls asleep, the rest do too.”

“That seems impractical,” says Hermann. “One would think the Precursors might put a bit more forethought into their weapons of mass destruction.”

“Yeah, one would think,” says Newt. “But they’re sort of always drifting, right? So they can always feel each others’ presence, even when they’re sleeping. They don’t call it sleep either. I guess our closest word for it would be— they just call it the Together.”

“That’s lovely,” says Hermann. He taps a finger against the tank. “I suppose that’s why my tranquilizer hasn’t been effective for the past week, then? Because the surviving kaiju aren’t in the Together?”

“Oh.” Newt stops short. “Oh, y-yeah, I guess, I guess it is. Fuck, Hermann, I’m sorry.”

“For what? I’ve been an insomniac for years, as you well know. I hardly think you were sorry all the times you woke me up at three a.m. to share some ridiculous theory—”

“Yeah, but, but now your meds don’t even work? I mean that’s worse, Hermann, that’s terrible! A-and if we hadn’t— If I hadn’t—” And he’s crying again. Great great great. “I-I’m not crying, okay, I mean, I am crying but just because I’m really tired which sucks and now you have to— all the time—”

“Newton,” says Hermann. “Newton. Really. It seems you have a greater adjustment to make than I—”

“You wouldn’t have to make an adjustment at all if I, if I hadn’t— hadn’t drifted with this stupid fucking—” There’s a loud thunk, which is Newt punching the specimen tank. Plexiglass. He knew that. “Ow! Shit—”

“Oh!”

Newt wrings out his hand. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” 

“Why don’t you sit down, just in case—”

“I’m fine, Hermann,” says Newt, hoping Hermann can’t see him blushing in the dark. Punching things always seems so much more reasonable in movies. “Seriously—”

“Then come over here and be fine while sitting down.” Hermann grabs him by the waistband of his pajama pants, drags him to the lab’s first aid station, and practically throws him down onto the narrow metal bench that usually serves as a hangover recovery pad and/or nap spot for people who enjoy back pain. “Stay,” he says when Newt makes a move to unfuse his vertebrae. “And let me see your hand. Is anything broken?”

“No,” says Newt. Sniffs. “Just needs some ice.”

“Then I will get you some ice. And a handkerchief. Don’t you dare use your sleeve.”

He stomps away, and Newt calls out a faint, “I wasn’t gonna,” to his retreating back. Then he hunches over on the bench and clutches his punching hand against his chest. It hurts. See, this is why it won’t ever work between him and Hermann. It’s not cause of them getting along too easily or knowing each other too well or whatever other dumb shit he’d rationalized his silence with. It’s because Newt’s an idiot. A dangerous idiot who should’ve let the first drift melt his big stupid brain before it could hurt anyone else.

“Now that isn’t true,” says Hermann, sitting down on the bench with a cup full of ice. He’s wearing his striped green and white pajamas, Newt notices for the first time, but he’s still got his regular shoes on. Makes him look like a teddy bear having an adventure.

Newt takes the ice and one of two proffered handkerchiefs. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I’m aware,” says Hermann. “But your self-loathing is quite…pungent.”

“Ha.”

“I don’t want to increase your already outsized ego,” Hermann says, adjusting Newt’s grip on the icepack because he’s apparently holding it wrong, “but you should know that our drift — the drift with the kaiju — was one of the most beautiful moments of my life.”

Newt can’t come up with anything more biting and sarcastic than, “Right.”

“It was as if our essences were one. As if someone had unspooled the neurons from our heads and braided them back together. To know and be known so completely. Not as a matter of learning, nor understanding, but with the same assurance you have that your heart will continue to beat.”

“Right,” says Newt again, quieter this time.

“I would have thought— I would have thought there wouldn’t be any need for words between us, afterwards.”

“So what if there was?”

“I’m a mathematician,” says Hermann. “Every proof I write, every equation I derive— I’m only discovering a truth that already exists. Something pure, perfect, universal. Numbers are the language of the universe. Words are nothing. Words are useless. Or at least,” he smiles sadly at Newt, looks away. Takes his hand off of Newt’s, which is damp and numb by now. “I don’t know how to use them.”

Newt should say something. Something, literally anything, that will make Hermann kiss him on the mouth right now. But all he can come up with is, ‘You don’t have to use words, just tongue’ and some cheesy line about one plus one equalling two. “I’m not good with words either,” is what he settles on.

“Clearly not,” says Hermann. “Seven godforsaken PhDs and you never had time for an English degree.” When Newt doesn’t snipe back, he sighs and lets it drop. “You really should try to lie down. They want us clearing out the lab tomorrow.”

“What?” says Newt. “Tomorrow? And then that’s it?”

“I suppose it’ll have to be.”

They sit in silence for a long time. It’s late, or early. Newt is, finally, something approaching sleepy. He should be making a plan. There has to be some way for him and Hermann to stay together as colleagues, some other too-small lab to keep up their pretense of normalcy in. But instead he thinks of the kaiju, comforting each other in their Together. And he wonders if they’ll reach for him and for Hermann too, when the next one comes, and pull them close in the long, long dark.

Back in the lab. Cleaning the lab. Newt’s awake. He’s so awake. He’s not sure if he slept last night or if what he thought was a dream about a bunch of pianos gaining sentience and standing around his bed snapping at him with their keys like crocodile teeth really was a dream and not just his unfiltered experience of reality at five a.m., but now he’s definitely awake. Awake and on his knees and scraping kaiju gunk up off the floor. Apparently Hermann was right about the orders from on high. The lab, with its thick metal walls and its airtight-sealable ventilation system, is being repurposed for the admittedly urgent task of figuring out how to de-nuke the Pacific Ocean. They’re to clean it out today, and move all of Newt’s samples to what some stuffed shirt claims is a very safe storage facility. Not the most glamorous task for humanity’s saviors, but Newt has to respect the PPDC’s resistance of hero worship and idolatry. 

Newt really, really wishes that the PPDC would quit resisting hero worship and idolatry. But he’s on his knees scraping up kaiju gunk anyway, because even though he saved the world he’s still totally a humble salt of the earth guy and all that. Hermann, who’s probably feeling really smug about his stupid shiny non-gunk-spewing predictive model right now, is cleaning out his desk. Or at least, that’s what he told Newt he was doing this morning, in a vague mumble, sweeping past him without even a sideways glance. Now he’s not even cleaning anything. Just keeps pulling out a stack of envelopes, glancing at Newt, putting them back. There’s a prickle of anxiety coming off him, and it lodges itself like a splinter in the back of Newt’s head. Not that it really matters. Newt would know Hermann was hiding something even without the drift. He knows a lot of things about Hermann. And in a couple hours, that won’t matter either.

Hermann pulls a letter out of the stack, glances inside it, shoves it back into the pile like he’s fooling anybody, and Newt decides he wants one last argument. For old time’s sake.

“Hey man,” he calls, “whatcha lookin’ at?”

Hermann hesitates before answering. “Some, ah, very crude cartoons you’ve drawn of me. I’d always thought you were taking notes when I explained my equations to you, fool that I was.”

“No. The other thing.” Newt heaves himself up off the ground, knees crackling, and limps over to Hermann’s desk. “These. The letters.”

“Oh, well these are just some old—” He winces when Newt picks up the stack and starts ruffling through it. “They’re, they’re job offers, Newton, if you must know. Don’t bend them.”

“Job offers?” Newt frowns at the letters. He sees a few addressed from highbrow universities, some from labs he recognizes, several others from various geeky locales. There’s a lot. “You got all these in the past week? Is there a shortage of high school calc teachers nobody told me about?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Hermann. “And stop bending them. No, they’ve all come over the last few months.”

“Really. People were hiring mathematicians during the end times?”

“Not as such. But my predictive model was very well-known.” Hermann nods to himself. “Actually, I’m rather in demand.”

“Your predictive model.” Newt rolls his eyes. “They didn’t even know if it worked yet!”

“Well, it certainly hadn’t failed—”

 “I mean, really, you wouldn’t even know if it worked until you ran out of stuff to predict, so—”

“Irrelevant. Mathematicians value the beauty of a process over its results. Unlike biologists, who seem to relish in gore—”

“Oh, right, beauty over results! Is that why you guys have so many theorems you can’t prove? Big deal, I could—”

“—and uncertainty Newton I know you’re aware of what a foolish statement that is to—”

“—write a bunch of numbers on a chalkboard and tell people they meant something too if I wanted so come on let’s see what you have over…me.” Newt holds the letter he’s torn out of its envelope up to the light. Turns it over like maybe there’s a neatly-typed job offer on the back. There isn’t. “This is— This is my handwriting.”

“Yes,” says Hermann.

“This is my letter.”

“Yes.”

“To you.”

“For god’s sake, would you like to look at it under a microscope? Yes, it’s your letter!” Hermann flings a hand out in a wide arc, then draws it slowly back to his chest. “They all are.”

“You— You kept them?”

“Obviously.” 

Newt looks more closely at the letter in his hand. His handwriting makes it tough to tell, but he thinks this one is from around the time when they started getting less intellectual and more, well: “...Has anyone ever told you you’re a genius, Hermann? I mean, sure they have, but has anyone intelligent enough to actually understand what you’re talking about ever told you you’re a genius? Because I think you’re a genius…” 

Newt looks back at Hermann. “Why did you keep them?”

“I keep all my correspondence.”

“In your desk?”

“It’s really none of your business—”

“It’s my letter, I think—”

“Hello,” says Mako Mori. “We aren’t interrupting anything, are we?”

Newt slams the letter down on the desk. “Nope!”

“Miss Mori!” says Hermann, jumping out of his chair and launching a handshake at her. “A pleasure to see you, as always.”

“And yourself, Dr. Gottlieb. Dr. Geiszler.” Mako smiles at Newt, takes a few steps past Hermann’s desk to better see the lab. She’s lost Herc Hansen, and now Raleigh Beckett trails behind her. They’re doing that kind of not-touching that means they really, really want to be touching. Raleigh’s hand inches away from Mako’s hip, Mako’s eyes dipping back over her shoulder. That whole electric, arguing way too close to each other until we realize we’re about an inch away from kissing thing. Or however it manifests for other people. Anyway, it’s really not helping Newt’s mood. “You know our scientists, don’t you, Mr. Beckett?”

Raleigh raises an eyebrow towards Newt. “We met, Miss Mori.”

Mr. Beckett. Miss Mori. Newt is going to actually scream.

“That’s right,” Mako says. She seems to lose herself in thought for a moment. “Not a great first impression. But, you know, they came after the rest of the K-science team left. That’s a lot of very smart people who decided not to bet their lives on our odds.”

“We’re right here,” says Newt.

Mako nods. “Exactly. You stayed. And I know the Marshall was grateful— I mean, the former Marshall—”

“Hey.” Raleigh steps forward, puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright, Mako.”

“I keep forgetting that he’s gone.”

“It’s because you can feel him in the drift. There’s a piece of him that’s still with you.”

“It feels like a shard of glass.”

“That’s also true.”

“Will it get better?”

“You’ll get used to it. I did.”

Mako gives him a smile, small but genuine. “You’re used to a lot of things I’d rather not put up with, Mr. Beckett.”

“Three-in-one shower gel is a perfectly fine—”

“Hey, excuse me,” says Newt. “We’re actually doing some really important science things here, so if you don’t mind—”

“Actually, that’s what I came to ask you about, Dr. Geiszler,” says Mako, hip-checking Raleigh when he opens his mouth. "You haven’t said whether you’re staying or not.”

“Staying here?” Newt flaps a hand at the mess around them. “No. Tragically, I’m giving up my dream of scraping kaiju gunk off of things for a living to go do boring old science in some other lab.”

“Not this lab?” says Mako. “With the radiation cleanup team?”

“The what? I mean, I’d love to, but I wasn’t exactly invited—”

“You were,” says Raleigh. “By Dr. Gottlieb.”

“What?” Newt gapes at Hermann. “Since when?”

Hermann blinks. “Since it got approved, I suppose. I’m as surprised as you are. But that’s excellent news, Miss Mori, I look forward to—”

“Hermann. When did you invite me?”

“Oh, a few days ago. I’ve had to get this all together very quickly. I didn’t want to mention anything in case it fell through, but— Well.” Hermann smiles. Extends a hand. “I look forward to continuing our work as colleagues, Dr. Geiszler.”

Newt keeps his own hand on the desk. “And you really didn’t think I needed to know any of this ahead of time.”

“What’s there to know?” says Hermann, his smile growing taut. “We’ll be working together. Things will be exactly the same as before.”

“Yeah,” says Newt. “Right.” Across the lab, Raleigh whispers something to Mako, his breath warming the shell of her ear. Newt looks at Hermann, his stiff handshake. The letters scattered on the desk. Hermann won’t put them back there, but he’ll keep them. Another secret between them, something they both know but can’t admit out loud. 

And that works. That’s fine. That’s the problem, maybe— They don’t need a dramatic love confession, or a mind-meld. Hermann doesn’t need Newt to kiss him until he’s breathless, and Newt doesn’t need Hermann to run his fingers through his hair, and they don’t need to screw or sleep in the same bed or waltz together in their kitchen to music only they can hear. They can just keep doing this forever. All they have to ignore is everything they actually want. “Thank you,” says Newt. He takes Hermann’s hand, shakes it. “I appreciate the offer, Dr. Gottlieb. But I’m gonna have to decline.”

And then he walks away, very quickly, and he doesn’t look back.

Newt shuts the door behind him without breaking his stride, and he’s put a good distance between himself and the lab before he realizes he’s not actually going in any particular direction. He stops in the middle of some random fluorescent hallway, tries to get his breathing under control. The smug feeling of beating Hermann at his own game fades, and regret pours in to replace it. He just ruined everything forever. Why did he do that? Can he go back? No, he can’t go back, what would he say? ‘Hey, sorry I made you look like an idiot in front of Mako Mori, I’m actually totally down’? No. Fuck. 

Maybe he’ll just stay right here. Maybe if he just stays right here and doesn’t do anything he can go five fucking seconds without fucking something up.

“Excuse me,” someone says from behind him, “do you mind—”

“God damn it.” Newt turns around and recognizes, sort of, the blond guy from the party who admired his work. “Dr. Kovacs, hi, listen, now’s not really a good time—”

“Dr. Novak,” says whatshisface. “Or, not— I’m not a doctor, just— You’re blocking the hallway.” He looks down, and Newt follows his gaze to the cart of medical supplies he’s pushing in front of him.

“My bad.”

“It’s fine.” 

Newt flattens himself against the wall, and whathisface, Kamil, takes a couple steps, sighs, and turns to face him. “Are you feeling alright, Dr. Geiszler? No dizziness, disorientation?”

“Peachy.”

“You look tired. Have you been getting enough sleep?”

“Eight hours a night.”

Kamil frowns. “Would Dr. Gottlieb back you up on that?”

“Um, I doubt it,” says Newt. “Why the hell would Hermann know how much I sleep?”

“Because you two are—” Kamil’s voice slides up an octave. “—t-together?”

Newt snaps his fingers. “Nope.”

“Are you sure?” says Kamil. “I, I mean, my mistake, I’m just going to—”

“Hey, it’s cool.” Newt sags against the wall. “We kinda do seem like a couple, right? I mean, I’m in love with him. And before that fucking drift, I thought that was enough. You know, just to be with him whatever way I could. But then—” His voice cracks. “But then I found out he was in love with me. And now everything’s screwed up. I thought we could just keep going the way things were before. I thought I wanted that. But I don’t. And it’s the only way I can have him.”

“That…sounds difficult,” says Kamil. 

Newt sniffles. “You have no idea. It’s like playing the opposite of gay chicken all the time, it’s fucking killing me.”

“So why don’t you just tell him, tell Dr. Gottlieb how you feel?”

“Right, sure,” says Newt, fighting the urge to wipe his nose on his sleeve. “Having a fucking soul-bonding moment of complete connection didn’t work, but my fumbling attempts at communication are gonna blow this thing right the hell open.”

“I mean…” Kamil rocks back and forth on his heels, shoves his hands in his pockets. “That’s it, isn’t it? We’re all fumbling around. Maybe that’s how you connect, you know? Not just in spite of the fumbling, but because of it.”

“That’s great. Let me know when your next open mic is. Listen, Kamil, unless you’re gonna prescribe me a way to never have to be in the same room with Hermann again, I think I’d like to cut our consult short.”

“Oh. Well. If you’re sure…” Kamil gestures to his cart of medical supplies. “I’m, I’m heading out tomorrow. There’s a research vessel heading out into the Pacific, to where the Breach used to be. They’re kind of having trouble finding people who want to go out on the ocean right now, so, I thought, well, since everyone’s making fun of me for hitting on— Um. I bet they could use you too.”

“A research vessel?” says Newt. “Tomorrow?”

Kamil nods. “It pulls out at, at eleven thirty sharp. Undocks? However, however boats leave. At eleven thirty a.m.”

“Natch. Man, nobody tells me shit around here.”

“Sorry.” Kamil laughs nervously. “And just, just so you know, this isn’t actually— I’m not legally allowed to prescribe—”

“I gotcha, dude. Eleven thirty sharp.” Newt claps him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you there.” 

And he’ll never see Hermann again.

Okay, maybe he’ll see Hermann one more time. After several harried hours of folding clothes and collating papers and convincing-slash-threatening people to look after his potted plants, Newt sneaks back to the lab for his favorite scalpel. It’s already late enough that the night lights are on again, and he creeps past the marginally cleaner tables and murky kaiju tanks. He kind of wishes he could see the lab one more time in the full light. Just to remember how it really looked. Not badly enough to stay, though.

“You don’t have to skulk around, you know,” says Hermann.

“Jesus—” Newt whacks his hip against a table. “Dude!”

“I was sitting here when you walked in.”

“Well sit louder then. Fuck!” Newt looks up, rubbing at his hip, and sees Hermann at his desk. Still at his desk, looking like a toy some kid dropped. Newt’s letters open all around him.

Hermann clears his throat. “Anyway, I said you don’t have to skulk. You have as much a right to be here as I do. For now.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about that. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Leaving?”

“On a research vessel. Undocks at eleven thirty sharp. Or however boats leave.”

“But you’ll be— You’ll be coming back?” His voice wavers at the end, somewhere between a statement and a question.

“No,” says Newt, and there’s not enough anger left in him to give it the bite it should have. “Not to— Not to here.”

“I see.” Hermann stares at the letters spread out on his desk. He picks one up, puts it back down, picks up another. 

“I kept yours too,” says Newt.

Hermann doesn’t look up. “I figured as much.”

“Yeah, well— Well, I just wanted to tell you.”

“Goodbye, Newton.”

“Right,” says Newt. “Goodbye.”

The research vessel is big, dull, grey, lead-lined, apparently, with some secondhand-looking hazmat suits piled on its deck. Newt stands on the dock and tries to remember if he gets seasick. The wind bites at his ears — he was gonna bring a hat and then he left it somewhere. But he always cuts these things too close, and there’s no time to go back for it. Story of his life.

Newt makes his way onto the boat, discovering when his foot hits the gently bobbing deck that yes, he does get seasick. It’ll be a distraction, at least. He sets his suitcase down next to someone else’s and walks slowly over to a railing, just in case. It’s quiet. There’s some people hustling around, doing important boat-looking things, but not many. Good. Solitude. Very Moby-Dick. Or, probably very Moby-Dick, he’s never read it. Not one godforsaken English degree, like Hermann said.

Newt crosses his arms on top of the railing and leans over it. The ocean looks somewhere between calm and choppy, like someone took a big butter knife and spread blue-grey frosting over it. Hermann would have a better way to describe it, probably. Newt remembers one night, wrangling some piece of lab equipment into the service elevator while the rain came down outside. Hermann hand-squeegeeing water off his parka and muttering that Zeus must be wringing a thundercloud’s neck up there and he’d like a turn with it next. Newt, now as he did then, rolls his eyes. Hermann knows how to use words. He just uses them to say weird shit instead of telling Newt that he loves him.

Why does Hermann love him, anyway? Newt still has the information, but there’s no way to piece it together into any kind of schema, into that sudden shock of certainty that was the drift. Just observations, rattling around in his head like broken glass and catching the light. The way he trips his words up when he’s onto a new theory and trying to get it all explained. A certain tone he takes when he’s worried about Hermann but trying not to show it. The sound of his laugh, which is strange, because Newt is pretty sure he has an annoying laugh. It’s all strange. Seeing himself through Hermann’s eyes, through that Vaseline on the camera lens fog of love. Hermann must feel that way too, Newt figures. All the evidence and no solid theory.

Or maybe there’s no good reason things turned out this way. Maybe they’re both just cowards.

Newt checks his watch. Eleven twenty-nine. In one minute, none of this will matter. He’ll be out in the middle of that big, big ocean, and he’ll be out of Hermann’s life for good. And hey, it’ll be okay. His life doesn’t begin and end with Hermann Gottlieb. He can still do some good work, rack up another couple PhDs. Meet someone, maybe, in a few years, someone he loves just as much as Hermann. And they can have some kids if they want to, settle down, and it’s kind of weird that Newt’s picturing his hypothetical future children as toddler-sized kaiju wearing propeller hats but it’ll be okay. It’ll be perfect. There’s just one problem:

He needs to get off this boat.

“Wait!” Newt whirls around and throws himself in front of the first person he sees, a muscular woman who is holding and then immediately not holding a large coil of rope. “I need to get off this boat!”

She stares at the rope, then him. “So get off the damn boat.”

“It’s not too late? Listen, this is really important, this is the love of my life—”

“Please get off the damn boat.”

“Thank you,” says Newt. “I’ll never forget this. Hermann!” 

He runs for the gangplank or whatever it’s called, leaping over boat equipment and mostly dodging sailors. He’s running faster than he ever has in his life and yet he’s never felt so slow. It has to be eleven thirty by now and the boat’s gonna leave and it’ll be too late, and Hermann’ll never know that Newt changed his mind, never know that Newt loves him—

“Stop that boat!” somebody yells. “Stop that boat at once!” And it’s Hermann, striding towards the boat, a look of panicked determination on his face that Newt knows must match his own. He’s yelling and waving his free arm and generally making more of a scene than Newt’s ever seen him make in his life, and Newt has to stop himself from vaulting over the railing to get to him. Instead he runs out onto the gangplank and Hermann meets him in the middle of it. Newt grabs Hermann’s shoulders and Hermann clutches at Newt’s face, like they’re both trying to reassure themselves that the other one is still there, and for once, finally, it’s not hard at all to think of the right words to say.

“I love you, Hermann,” wheezes Newt. “I would go anywhere with you, do anything, even if, even if we were living in a sewer—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Newton,” says Hermann, equally breathless. “I love you too, of course we’re not going to live in a sewer—”

“— or something and I’m sorry that I ran out on you before because I didn’t realize—“

“— or anything remotely resembling a sewer and there’s absolutely no need for you to apologize it was my own—”

“—that you were just trying to keep us together and I want to be together with you any way I can because—”

“—fault for not being able to express my feelings properly but regardless—”

“—I love you.”

“—I love you.”

Newt laughs. “We already said that.”

“Well,” says Hermann, cracking a smile, “given the circumstances, I think it’s best we reiterate. Just to be clear.”

“Yeah.” Newt lets his head fall to Hermann’s shoulder. “We really fucked this up, didn’t we?”

Hermann puts a hand in his hair. “Perhaps. But for you, Newton, the quantity of fuckups I would withstand numbers in the tens of thousands.”

“You’re so weird,” says Newt. “I love you, man.”

“And I you.” 

The gangplank sways as waves curl against the side of the boat. Hermann runs his hand through Hermann’s hair, and Newt leans against him, breathes him in, feeling for all the world as if they’re drifting again. That same overwhelming feeling of love and knowing washes over him. Except this time it’s just them. This time it’s on purpose. 

Then the gangplank sways a little harder, and Newt looks up to find Kamil trying to sneak past them onto the boat. “H-hello, Dr. Geiszler, Dr. Gottlieb,” he says. “You two look— well.”

“Hell yeah we do,” says Newt, patting Hermann’s shoulder while Hermann attempts to dismiss Kamil using only his eyebrows. “Anyway, I’m gonna have to flake on the whole research vessel thing. Give everyone my regards, will you? And get on the boat before it leaves!”

“Oh, um. About that.” Kamil scrubs at the back of his neck. “The boat, it, it actually doesn’t leave until twelve. I just, um, figured— figured you might want some extra time.”

Newt blinks. Turns around to look at the boat, which is still firmly in the harbor, and the glaring sailor holding Newt’s suitcase, whose presence seems to indicate that somewhere in the course of his miraculous escape from the boat Newt in fact got kicked off. 

“Kamil,” he says, “you are the best not a doctor I have ever had.”

And then, because he finally can, he grabs Hermann and looks into his eyes and kisses him. And each kiss feels like whispering “I love you”, makes up for all those lost years, and has a truly incredible amount of tongue. 

A few hours later, and after a long-overdue round of what Hermann apparently calls bedsport, they’re lying together, sweaty and naked, on a blanket thrown over Newt’s bare mattress. (Hermann’s bed has sheets, but Hermann’s room is a couple feet farther down the hall and the difference had seemed really, really important at the time.) Newt’s head rests in the dip of Hermann’s shoulder, and Hermann’s hand is tangled in Newt’s hair. Hermann’s hand has barely not been in Newt’s hair since they got to his room, so apparently this is an impulse he’s been suppressing for a long time. Newt’s not complaining. Then Hermann sits up on his elbow, and Newt does complain in the form of a whine, which is embarrassing but will probably become a regular thing. Turns out he really, really likes touching Hermann. Like, so much. 

“Oh, hush,” says Hermann. “I just want to look at your tattoos. I’ve never actually seen all of them.”

“That’s your own fault,” grumbles Newt. “I’d’ve shown them to you if you asked.”

“Really.” Hermann traces a hand down Newt’s chest. “All of them?”

Newt gives him a lazy grin. “Mm-hm. Woulda stripped right down in the lab and everything.”

“You were put on this earth to torment me,” says Hermann.

“If that’s what you wanna call it.”

Hermann presses down on one of Scissure’s arms, and the sound he teases out of Newt definitely wins him the argument. “These are very well-done,” he murmurs, solidifying his victory by mapping out the tattoo with his fingertips. “Garish subject matter, of course, but quite beautiful, in a way. I can almost understand what you see in them.”

“Yeah, uh-huh, me too,” says Newt. “Keep doing that.”

Hermann obliges, and some number of minutes later they’re lying next to each other again, spent and sticky. Newt nuzzles closer against Hermann and makes a half-hearted attempt to cover them both with the blanket. Exhaustion soaks into his bones, and when he tilts his eyes towards Hermann he can see he’s feeling the same way. Which reminds him. “I have a theory,” says Newt. Yawns. “About that whole kaiju slumber party thing.”

Hermann yawns too. “Elucidate.”

“I was thinking, with the whole, the cross-Breach interference, and the dissimilar biologies and the…” His words are starting to come out fuzzy. “...the whatever.”

“Indeed,” agrees Hermann, also fuzzy.

“I think we don’t need the kaiju sleeping for us to be able to fall asleep. I think we just need to be together.”

“Mm.”

“But I’m not sure yet.”

Hermann yawns again, wraps his arms around Newt and closes his eyes. “No, no. I think… I think it’s a very good theory. We just need…to investigate.”

“Thoroughly,” yawns Newt, and he closes his eyes and breathes in deep, his heart keeping time with Hermann’s as they drift off to sleep.