Work Text:
“Shit, fuck,” Newton yelped, springing to his feet to try to dodge the saline solution he’d managed to dump in his lap. “Ich hab, es mit deiner freunden etrieben,” he told the mess scathingly as he stacked paper towels on top of it, “aber sie war nicht so gut wie deine mutter.”
“Newton, is everything alright over there?” Hermann asked archly in a way that implied that everything had better be alright and Newt had better shut up.
“Fine, fine,” Newt muttered, flapping his hand in Hermann’s general direction. His arm felt twitchy; his brain did too, and this spill was yet another frustration adding to the electricity under his skin. “Fucking dumbass saline, how did you spill under the desk?!”
“That’s not toxic, acidic, or contagious, is it?” Hermann pressed him, perched on his ladder and eyeing Newt with something like concern.
“No, Hermann,” Newton snapped, knowing he was being an asshole but somehow unable to stop himself. “Despite your irrational fastidiousness, I have, in fact, taught classes on lab safety; and I don’t, actually, want to kill either of us and do, actually, have an extensive working knowledge of the chemicals I’ve worked with every day for the past howevermany years—so, ya know, why don’t you shut up and let me do my job?”
He got through with this whole speech without getting talked over by Hermann, which was both unusual and worrying. If this was a normal argument, they’d be at loggerheads right now, snapping theories and rebuttals back at each other with scarcely a pause for breath, much less allowing the other to talk.
But this didn’t feel like a normal fight; it felt like Newt was coming out of his skin, ready to throw himself out a window or at a Kaiju or under a goddamn train so his skin would stop jumping and his heart would stop flicking the inside of his ribs with that constant, repetitive—
“Fuck!” Newt yelled again, not looking at Hermann, not wanting to see how pissed his lab partner was. He knew he was being stupid, he could feel it, but he couldn’t make it stop.
He hurled his wad of paper towels at the trash can, but they flopped unhappily a few feet away. With a strangled groan, he stalked over, ready to toss them in by hand, good riddance—but he kicked his chair as he passed it, and the chair hit the desk, upsetting the saline beaker that was still on its side and sending it to the lab floor to shatter.
Newt spent one awful, suspended second trying to either let the scream out or keep it in but to make it go somewhere other than clogging his throat and sticking to his palate. All that got him was even more frustrated, almost panicked, frozen and staring at his mess and not sure why he was shaking.
“Newton!”
He wasn’t surprised that Hermann was yelling at him, but he didn’t expect to hear the sound coming from so close. At some point when Newt hadn’t been paying attention, Hermann had climbed off his ladder and crossed until he was just toeing the line separating their lab spaces. His face was cold, determined, and suddenly the most comforting thing Newton felt he’d ever seen. He knew what was going to happen.
“Newton, come here.”
Newt tried to make himself move, but his limbs were still twitching with phantom, anxious energy.
He was going to explode, and he had to get out of there; he couldn’t let Hermann see—
“Newton, get the towel and come here.”
The fight drained out of Newt right there, replaced by a feeling that could possibly be the first stage of relief. He felt himself start slowly toward the deep sink in the back of the lab. Various towels hung from the edges, or on racks nearby, but one particularly soft grey piece of worn flannel was folded neatly under the plumbing. It was hardly used, but kept there lovingly just in case.
Almost reluctantly, Newt carried his prize over to Hermann, but the man did not take it from him, instead pointing at his own desk.
“Set it down and kneel.”
Newt shivered in anticipation, dropping heavily to his knees onto the concrete, barely cushioned by the towel padding but it didn’t matter because Hermann would take care of it now.
He took his time, though, picking his way slowly over to Newt as Newt followed him with his eyes.
“You’re twitching,” Hermann accused him.
He was, his fingers tapping a sharp rhythm on his thigh, and he felt a mostly involuntary roll of his shoulders start up, back and forth, unable to stay still.
“And why is that, Newton?” Hermann pressed. Newt almost never had an answer, and he didn’t today, either.
“I don’t know, I just—“ he didn’t know how to finish that. “I feel—“ Nothing. He felt nothing but tight and frantic. “I don’t know!”
But outbursts were not how Hermann liked Newt to behave when he was like this, and Newt watched his lips as they thinned in disapproval.
“You’ve been unsettled, rude, and your inability to control yourself has now affected the safety of the lab. You need to be taken in hand.”
“Yes,” Newton tried to agree, but it came out as a whine. He swallowed heavily, trying to control his voice before the tried again. “Please.”
Hermann settled himself so he was leaning against the desk, his weight on the furniture and off his knee when he dropped his cane. This was hard on Hermann, to do it like this, and Newton tried so hard not to lose it in the lab but today the static in his temporal—he could pinpoint it, just in the soft spot above his left ear—wouldn’t stop and—
Hermann’s long, deft fingers brushed over his cheeks, chilled and talcy with chalk dust. They grounded him for just a moment before Hermann moved to press his thumb roughly against Newt’s lower lip. “Keep your mouth soft for me.”
Newt whined and pushed his head forward, nuzzling, trying to get more contact with Hermann’s skin. He shouldn’t have; he knew the rules. Hermann frowned at him, truly disappointed, and tapped him sharply on the cheek.
“Netwon,” was all he had to say—Newt rocked back immediately on his heels, his eyes filling, hoping this wasn’t over before it even started. Hermann had never, ever abandoned him when he needed him but what if today was the day--?
“Settle,” Hermann ordered, and slid his slim-fingered hand into Newt’s hair, tugging sharply.
Newt’s whole body tensed at once, muscles locking up painfully, and then relaxed just as quickly as Hermann guided Newt’s head forward.
Newt was delicate, this time, mouthing over the sharp, metallic zipper under his lips, trying to parse out the shape and girth of Hermann’s cock as it grew against the tweed of his trousers. Hermann let go of Newton’s hair long enough to undo the button, the zip, then very slowly let both pants and boxers slide down his thighs.
This was always the worst bit, because the impatience in Newt drove the static in his brain to feverish levels as he waited to be allowed to touch Hermann. His hands were clenched so hard that they shook, his heart hammering like he was overdosing on caffeine pills again.
Hermann’s cock was hard and thick and weeping before Newton’s face; Newt could smell the precome and his own dick pulsed. He could feel his front hole twitch and leak. It was too much, he was going to fall to pieces.
“Open, Newton, and do not move.”
Cool fingers on his nape, and the smooth, flared head of Hermann’s cock rested hot on his tongue before slowly sliding forward.
Newt’s eyes finally slid shut and he let out one long exhale, fighting against the spasming of his throat muscles, because Hermann’s slow thrust did not and would not stop. The head bumped his soft palate, and then more forcefully slid into his throat, choking Newt and cutting off his air.
Finally.
Newt’s body fought for only a moment before acquiescing to the asphyxiation. Hermann would let him breathe when he needed it—or not, and either way it wasn’t up to Newt anymore; he had no power left.
Newt sucked air with a whimper when Hermann pulled out the first time, but soon he didn’t have any extra oxygen to make any noise as Hermann picked up his pace. It was no less steady for the speed, however, and no less demanding. Newt was reduced to aching lungs and a full throat, focused only on staying conscious and still for Hermann’s use.
Endorphins and asphyxiation combined to fuzz Newton’s vision and dulled his sensation. He was vaguely aware of the burn on his wet lips and tongue from the damp curls of Hermann’s pubic hair against his soft skin, or the way his knees ached, but none of it mattered. He didn’t need to struggle—it was all up to Hermann, now, and Hermann was everywhere. Newt felt the man in him and around him, the smoothness and heat of his thighs bracketing Newt’s face, the scent of sweat and the precome Newton couldn’t lick away, the cradling hands in his hair, the way Hermann was now dropping steady words into the air.
“You have all of me, Newton, and you’re doing so well.” Hermann spoke softly, steadily. His voice didn’t hitch as it normally did during sex, although it was higher and more strained. He praised Newt, promising nothing, only letting him know that where he was, at Hermann’s feet, was where he was meant to be. Hermann never told him it was almost over or that there was only a little more—what would the point be? Newt would kneel here, open and willing, for as long as Hermann wanted.
“Relax,” Hermann told him, and his hips sped just a little harder, a little faster. Newt was barely breathing at all, lungs fluttering in an ill-fated attempt at hyperventilation while Hermann’s cock took his throat again and again, stretching it wide before pulling out again. Every time he pulled out, Newt felt a little more bereft.
There was blackness just at the edge of his vision now, but he could hold out. Hermann’s thighs were tight and trembling with climax, and he was making a noise in his throat that signaled the end of his control. Newt could take that for him.
With what felt like intense mental will, Newton swallowed as heavily as he could around the cock in his throat. The ripple of muscles clenching did it for Hermann, who thrust all the way to the root of his cock and orgasmed as he stood, buried so deep within Newt that Newt could not taste his release at all, only felt his chest blossom in warmth and contract with choking coughs. He waited, patient and oxygen-starved, for Hermann to withdraw all the way, before taking a breath into his lungs so big that they hurled it back up again. He was well into the throes of hyperventilation now, clutching his stomach and doubled over on the floor.
“Shh, dear boy, and do breathe steadily for me. You know how.”
The gentle hands came down to rub at his back—Hermann had dropped heavily into an office chair and was now bent half over Newt, hands everywhere, moving in slow circles as if trying to show Newt’s body how it was supposed to breathe again.
Newt’s blood was hot, but his skin was cold and damp—slick was drying on his thighs under his jeans, and his front hole twitched with the end of his own orgasm, which he had barely been able to distinguish from the pleasure of bringing about Hermann’s own. His limbs, his chest, his stomach were heavy and full. He settled quickly at Hermann’s touch, lassitude creeping over him, along with hotness in the corners of his eyes and dryness against his lips. Pulling himself out of his fetal ball, he looked up into Hermann’s pleased, soft gaze, letting his head rest gently on Hermann’s bare thigh.
“There you are,” Hermann sighed, his muscles shaking a little still with the end of their exertion. Newt brought his hands up automatically to start to massage the aches away, letting Hermann touch him in turn. They brought each other down from the high, and when Newt felt his brain begin to work again, the cogs begin to turn, it was smooth and rhythmic and humming, no longer the sharp staccato of a meaningless panic.
“Thank you,” Newt whispered, lips barely brushing Hermann’s sensitive kneecap.
“Always,” Hermann replied, so serious, but Newt had to have said it. Hermann might have come, but he did this all for Newt, and Newt could not love him more than he did in this moment—until the next moment came upon them both, and the next.
“Lay down,” Newt told him, helping him up and to the couch. “Lemme clean up.”
Hermann looked, suddenly, very tired, but he clutched Newt’s hand tightly until Newt used the soft, old throw blanket at the end of the lab couch to cover him. Newt leaned down to press a kiss to the side of Hermann’s head. Newt’s body was warm, his mind was sharp, and he was secure and solid in his own skin, knowing the man stretched out under him loved him beyond measure.
“I love you,” Newt promised, because he did and Hermann needed to know. Hermann smiled back, close-lipped and fuzzy-edged, and was asleep within moments.
Newt turned his music on softly, letting it fill the lab, and got back to the business of saving the world.