Chapter Text
“Dude. What’s that smell?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Newton,” Hermann responded dryly, sitting on the edge of his bed. After a long day, Hermann was looking forward to spending at least a few hours lying in silence. Between the clanging of the Shatterdome’s ductwork and Newt’s incessant nattering, Hermann was ready to be horizontal.
“I don’t smell anything except ammonia and your particular… Musk.” Hermann grimaced. “It’s been a long day. Perhaps instead of barging, uninvited I would add, into my quarters, you should shower.”
“Uh, rude. I got you a sandwich,” Newt carped. “It’s ham. I think.”
Newt squinted uncertainly at the two shrink-wrapped, partially crushed sandwiches in his hands before lobbing one of them at Hermann. Hermann made no effort to catch it. Instead, the sandwich hit him in square in the chest and flopped into his lap.
Hermann gave Newt a sour look, keeping eye contact as he delicately unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. He relaxed his posture a little, the curvature of his spine resting on the metal wall behind him.
Newt sat down on the floor with his legs splayed out, back to the opposite wall. Hermann’s quarters were so small that Newt’s outstretched feet touched Hermann’s bed.
“No, there’s definitely a smell,” Newt insisted, sniffing the air inquisitively. He took a large bite of his own sandwich.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Hermann scolded, his face briefly twisting in disgust. Newt, bristled.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Newt echoed in a mocking tone, flapping his hand like a jaw. His voice began to rise in both pitch and volume. “I brought you a sandwich at two in the fucking morning after working for twelve hours straight but you just have to be a dick about it. Just like with everything else.”
Hermann’s face began to grow red and hot, his mouth forming a tight, angry line.
“I didn’t ask you to!” Hermann spat. “I didn’t ask you to do anything!” He dropped his sandwich back into his lap and reached for his cane, although he remained seated.
Newt, on the other hand, sprang to his feet, gesticulating wildly, waving his own sandwich around like he’d forgotten it was in his hand to begin with.
“It’s called being a nice person! I did a nice thing, Hermann. I did a nice thing for you!”
“I didn’t ask you to come into my quarters. My private quarters. This is my space, Newton. My sanctum sanctorum.”
“Seriously, your ‘sanctum sanctorum’? What are you, Superman? Like this closet in the basement of the Shatterdome is the Fortress of fucking Solitude or something…”
“…I should file a complaint!”
“Oh. Oh yeah, a complaint? A complaint! I’m sure that’ll fix everything! You…”
Newt swept his arm, knocking everything on Hermann’s bedside table onto the ground. There was the sound of breaking glass. The air in the room changed instantly.
“Oh. Oh shit. Hermann, I’m sorry, I didn’t… Did I break your glasses?” Newt dropped to the ground and began groping blindly under Hermann’s bed. “You need those to see. It’s not like getting a new pair is easy these days. I mean we get dental and vision, but the Shatterdome eye doctor only has those shitty looking plastic ones…” Newt babbled.
“Really Newton, I just use them for reading,” Hermann interjected. He still felt tense, but his anger had mostly bled away. From his vantage point on the bed, he could only see Newt’s legs and bottom. The scene was a little comical, Hermann had to admit to himself. He let go of his cane again, resting it back against his bed.
“OK. I think I found your glasses. They look OK.”
Newt came out from under the bed and settled into a low crouch. He squinted, inspecting Hermann’s glasses for signs of damage. Satisfied, he quickly licking each lens, wiping them off on his t-shirt. Hermann’s eyes went impossibly wide.
“Newton, that’s disgusting!”
Newt seemed unperturbed, if somewhat confused. He placed Hermann’s glasses next to his sandwich on the bedside table before diving back under the bed.
“Relax, I just cleaned them for you. If your glasses aren’t broken what was that sound, though? Something definitely sounded like breaking glass…” Newt sounded a little muffled through Hermann’s mattress.
Newt’s body stiffened suddenly. He crawled back out from under Hermann’s bed holding a small wooden box with a broken-off glass tube sticking out of one end.
“Hermann, what is this?”
“What does it look like, Newton?” Hermann asked, gritting his teeth.
“It looks like a vape, dude,” Newt replied quietly. His eyes narrowed. “wait…”
Newt shouted victoriously, waving the vaporizer in front of Hermann’s face like a detective who had, after a long and grueling investigation, finally found the crucial murder weapon.
“I knew it I knew I smelled something! It smells like a freshman dorm room in here, dude. I thought the wildest thing you’d ever done was maybe jaywalk. And that’s a big maybe. But the whole time you were in here, getting blazed.”
Newt pressed the vaporizer into Hermann’s outstretched hand, picked his sandwich back up from the bedside table, and took a bite. He looked eminently satisfied. Hermann hated it.
“I do not ‘get blazed,’” Hermann said, making quotation marks with his fingers. He lowered his hands and removed the broken off glass tube, tossing it into a nearby waste basket. Hermann sniffed. “If you must know, cannabis helps with spasticity. And pain.”
Hermann slid the drawer of his nightstand open. He rifled around for a few moments before finding a small metal box. Hermann opened the box and procured another glass tube. He then returned the metal box to the drawer and unceremoniously slid the drawer shut. Finally, he inserted the glass tube into a small aperture in the vaporizer.
“I only have a few more of these. If it’s even possible for you, be a little more careful. I’m not actually sure where to get another one of these in Hong Kong. It’s still not strictly legal. If my calculations are correct, we are rapidly approaching the end of our world, and I simply do not have time for a trans-Pacific jaunt to Seattle.”
Hermann set the vaporizer back onto his bedside, sat back, and finished his sandwich. He paused again, setting his remaining plastic wrap on the bedside table.
“You didn’t break my glasses. Although I may need to set them aflame to disinfect them. Did you have to put them in your mouth? Aren’t you a biologist? It’s downright unsanitary.”
Newt had too much of his sandwich in his mouth to answer immediately. He shrugged.
“Well, you can’t run them through my autoclave. Pretty sure they’d melt,” Newt managed, after a gulp.
There was another silence, punctuated by the sound of Newt chewing and swallowing.
"Well," Hermann asked expectantly.
"Well, what?" Newt asked. He had finished his sandwich and balled up the plastic wrap. He took a shot at Hermann's wastebasket and missed.
"Aren't you going to ask me to get you high?" Hermann needled, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
"Nah," Newt shrugged.
Hermann looked mildly shocked.
"Hey man, it's not like weed is some big mystery. I smoked a lot in grad school. It makes ice cream taste awesome. But it also makes me feel like I've got too many cotton balls stuffed into my skull cavity. And we've got shit to do. Averting-the-apocalypse level shit. I mean, we're pretty much all that's left of K-science. Gotta be sharp."
Newt sprang to his feet. "Alright! You ate. I ate. Time to get some sleep. Science to be done," he declared, stretching his arms wide. Yamarashi's nose peeked out from one of Newt's sleeves.
Hermann slumped back and closed his eyes. He let out a long breath.
"Are you finally going to leave me in peace?" Hermann growled.
Newt paused in the door frame.
"Yeah. Just. One more thing."
Hermann opened his eyes.
"Well, what is it? Out with it, man!"
"I'll see you tomorrow, right?"
Newt's voice was unusually soft.
Hermann knit his eyebrows together in confusion.
"Yes. Of course. Where else would I be?"
Newt gave a half smile.
"G'night, Hermann."
Considerately, Newt flicked the light off on his way out.