Archive of Our Own

The worst part, Newt thinks, of working with an uptight stick-in-the-mud like Hermann "sciencelier-than-thou" Gottlieb is that he can't ever relax long enough to have a little fun once in a while. Okay, so maybe it's not the actual worst part, but who's going to begrudge a man a little hyperbole here and there in the middle of a war? Certainly not any decent human being.

Not that Newt ever gets to work with decent human beings anymore. Man, he misses MIT sometimes. Especially the numerous crashed frat parties which all of his students would vehemently deny ever having seen him at if and when faculty administration ever asked. But no one's stopping him from bringing a little party to work now. Well, no one he actually has to listen to.

"Tell me that isn’t what it looks like," Hermann says, when Newt first hauls his custom-built stereo out of his barely-used living quarters and sets it up in the lab.

"Depends on what you think it looks like," he grunts as he lifts the massive thing onto the one clear spot on one of his desks. "I know you don't exactly get out much."

Hermann scowls a little. "Neither do you."

"Whatever, Hermann, it's scientific fact that people work better with the classics playing," Newt insists as he wires it up. "Especially me."

"The classics," Hermann repeats, with obvious skepticism.

"Oh yeah," says Newt, and hits play. He closes his eyes and grins, nodding his head along with the opening riff of Rock You Like a Hurricane. Nothing like a little Scorpions to start your day off right. Especially if it's going to get under Hermann's skin.

"You said the classics," Hermann snaps, "not noise."

Newt rolls his eyes. "It's not noise. What are you, somebody's grandfather? It's classic rock."

Hermann’s brow furrows even more than usual. "You cannot honestly expect to get any work done like this."

"Are you kidding?" Newt gives him a look better suited for someone who had asked an honestly stupid question. "I do all my best work like this."

"That explains so much."

"If you're implying something—"

"Implying," Herman interrupts loudly, "requires subtlety. I was stating it outright."

Newt narrows his eyes. Well, fine. If that's the way he's going to be, Newt can deal with it. He slides over in front of the stereo again and switches over to his most helpful (and admittedly most annoying) mix: three straight hours of Highway to the Danger Zone.

To his credit, it's two and a half before Hermann cracks. When Newt's busy and covered in guts, Hermann walks over and "accidentally" bumps his cane into the side of the desk, hard enough to send a precariously balanced stack of notes and heavy, hardback textbooks over onto the stereo. The cords rip almost violently out of the back, knocking the whole thing over and rendering it useless until Newt has the spare time to solder things back into place.

Newt can only sputter wordlessly as broken pieces of wire, metal, and plastic splay across the lab floor, even though he has to admit he saw this coming. It's still something like a victory, though, getting Hermann to stoop so low as petty property damage.

"Terribly sorry," Hermann starts to say, sarcastic grin at the ready, his eyes already doing that thing where they get all smugly squinty. But Newt's not ready to admit defeat yet. He spins around and taps a few keys on his laptop, bringing up the very same track list. The sound quality is downright awful in comparison, and there's now a bright blue smear on the keyboard that'll be hard to chip off later, but for the moment, he doesn't care.

It has the desired effect, and that's what counts. Before he can even turn around again, Hermann is storming out of the lab, muttering about reports and disciplinary actions alongside an incomprehensible mix of German and English curse words, rather than yelling them at the volume such words deserved.

The next morning, Newt arrives to find Hermann hard at work early, and he discovers that all of the music on his hard drive has been replaced with a selection of Vivaldi and Beethoven. There's even a few clips of soothing bird song where the very best of the Berlin techno scene had been the day before. It takes the edge off his anger, though, when he realizes that Hermann keeps idly, accidentally humming Kenny Loggins under his breath, scowling whenever he catches himself.

The worst part, Hermann thinks, of working with Newton Geiszler is that he refuses to allow himself to be taken seriously. Hermann would love nothing more than to be able to dismiss him as the fool he appears to be, but, though he is loathe to admit it, the man is not unintelligent.

Which is, in fact, the very source of the problem. Newton Geiszler, he of the six doctorate degrees (not a one of which he treats with the gravity that such a thing deserves) makes everything he does look so bloody effortless.

Hermann can scarcely believe that he was ever actually pleased at the opportunity to meet the man, but he truly had been, once. Newton was brilliant enough and talented enough to have earned a reputation for himself, and that had not escaped Hermann's notice. Dr. Newton Geiszler, he had been told, was a forerunner in biological research, and the same age as Hermann. The two of them were both young—very young—to have earned such prominent positions in their respective fields, and two of the first scientists to enter the Jaeger program. And, of course, the thought of working alongside another esteemed German scientist had been exciting as well. Hermann was so rarely excited about anything.

But then, he had imagined someone quite different from the person that Newton had turned out to be, with his American accent and his ridiculous fashion sense and his absurd insistence that he is, as he tells everyone so loudly and so often, totally punk rock. He gives off the complete opposite of the mature, professional image that Hermann has worked so hard to cultivate, and yet Newton seems utterly unbothered by it. Worse—Hermann knows that most of it is deliberate.

Someone so thoroughly unprofessional should not also be so brilliant.

The temperature control has gone out in the Shatterdome, and while regular announcements have assured the staff that technicians are working around the clock to fix it, Hermann hardly believes them. It isn't their priority, nor should it be. He knows better than anyone how urgent their work here is. He's run the numbers again and again, and each time he grows more certain of the quickening countdown to oblivion if something isn't done to stop the kaiju from coming once and for all. So what was a little heat in the face of hell?

Newton is, as usual, operating with far less dignity, but Hermann has tuned him out as he usually does, letting Newton's enthusiastic babbling over whatever massacred piece of flesh he had gotten his hands on that day turn to simple background noise—nothing more than another facet of the neverending din of the Shatterdome. Practically white noise, at this point. When he was deep in his work, he could ignore nearly anything—time, hunger, heat, and even the force of nature that was Newton Geiszler.

But he nearly falls off his ladder when he finally turns to find Newton up to his elbows in—well, what he's working on hardly matters, because the man has stripped down to his trousers. Hermann catches his balance, but only just.

"For God's sake!"

Newton can't even do him the courtesy of looking up from the slippery pile of viscera before him. "What now?"

"We are scientists, Newton," he replies, and truly hopes that he sounds more authoritative than affronted. "Do try to maintain some decorum."

"It's too hot in here for decorum," he says, slinging an apparently unneeded piece of kaiju organ aside. It hits the floor with a wet splat that sends a spray of thankfully-neutralized kaiju blood splattering up onto the toe of Hermann's shoe. "I'm just about sweating my balls off!"

It's a remark he doesn't want to dignify with a response, but he knows from experience that Newton would claim his attempt to ignore it as a personal victory. So he draws his shoulders up, scowling down the bridge of his nose at Newton with all of the disdain he had been saving up since their last argument ended mere hours ago. "As always, Newton, I have the utmost sympathy for the sorrowful state of your testicles, but do try to keep your clothes on. The sheer number of laboratory procedures you're in violation of—"

"Uh-huh, totally interested in what you're saying right now, really," Newton interrupts him before he can even truly get started on what a human disaster and disgrace to science in general he is. "Can you pass me that speculum? The big two-bladed one."

His vague but overstated gesture sends another splatter of blue, this time onto the legs of Hermann's trousers. Hermann snorts derisively, resigning them as a lost cause; just one more complaint to add to the growing pile of inevitably discarded paperwork. He knows there's little hope of reimbursement, and even less of any disciplinary action, but, as always, he strives for order in the face of chaos.

"The adults are busy," he replies. "I'm afraid you'll have to look after yourself today." It's too hot to be properly furious.

And frankly, he's preoccupied, examining his colleague with a sort of appalled fascination. Newton's skin is a riot of colors, the monsters he loves so much covering nearly every visible inch of him. It's never occurred to Hermann to wonder just how far those tattoos went. Now, unfortunately, it has. They are, like so much about the man, an utterly maddening distraction. Only now they have the added effect of reminding him just how warm it is in the lab—especially beneath his woolen sweater.

After a moment, the back and forth wave of a kaiju-blue covered hand in his general direction brings his attention to the fact that Newton is speaking to him again.

"Hello? You in there? Paging Dr. No Fun back to reality," he's saying. "Come on, I know it's hot, but don't check out on me. You'll contaminate my specimens if you fall off the ladder and crack your head open."

"I'm sure you've done a fine job of that without my help," Hermann retorts. There's God-only-knows-what plastered to Newton's hair, and more of the same smeared on one lens of his glasses. A kaiju glares up at him from the cacophony that is Newton's bare chest.

"Seriously, man, my hand's stuck in here," Newton continues, as if Hermann hadn't said anything at all. "I need that speculum."

This is supposed to be his equal.

It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.

Okay, so it was only a cross section of an eye. And it wasn't lost so much as accidentally left in a place where it could fall neatly into a bowl of soup Hermann had brought back to the lab for dinner. Accidentally.

Hermann makes a sound that can only be described as a squawk of anguished fury and turns on Newt a look that, wow, they really need to try and weaponize, because that would stop a kaiju in its tracks.

"That is it!" Hermann shouts. "I have been patient with your flagrant disregard for basic decency for far too long, Newton, but this—this—!" He stammers what Newt's pretty sure aren't words in any language for a few seconds before he swings his cane, knocking the bowl, the eyeball slice, and its accompanying section of cranial nerve onto the floor.

"Hey! That's irreplaceable!" Newt doesn't quite realize that he's throwing a folder full of Hermann's meticulously hand-written reports across the lab until the papers are fluttering to the ground. "Do you even know what I had to do to get that?"

"If you were in the least bit concerned for this disgrace you call work, you would do as I've told you time and time again and keep your things on your side of the lab!" He swats his cane at a discarded lump of kaiju flesh on the floor.

"My work is not a disgrace!" This time, he throws one of his (admittedly failed) experiments, sample tray and all. The disgusting splat its contents make into Hermann's paperwork is more satisfying than it probably should be.

Newt's noticed, over the past months, how Hermann has a downright unnatural amount of respect for personal space, but no one would know it with the way he's invading Newt's now, obviously trying to lord his few inches of height over him. Kinda like an angry cat getting all puffy, he thinks.

"Your work is a disgrace, your methods are a disgrace, and you, Doctor Geiszler," and he flings the title like it's an insult, which, hey, is insulting, "are a disgrace!" He punctuates his last sentence with a jab of his cane to Newt's solar plexus.

Newt grabs the end of the cane and shoves him back, much harder than he intended, and later he'll feel bad for the fact that it sends Hermann stumbling back, his bad leg losing his footing. But right now all he feels is months of pent up frustration finally, finally finding release as Hermann lands in an ungainly heap on the floor, directly on top of a particularly squishy chunk of upturned kaiju organ.

But before he can really register what's happening, Hermann's scrambled back to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane and staggering over to his desk, grabbing a heavy ceramic mug full of still-hot tea and flinging it blindly.

Newt doesn't see where it lands from where he threw himself under a specimen tank, but somewhere in the vicinity of the doorway he hears the sound of the mug shattering against the wall, followed immediately by the very unimpressed voice of their commanding officer.

"Both of you. My office. Now."

When Newt peeks his head up from under the tank his eyes go as wide as Hermann's as he sees the large wet splash across the front of the Marshal's crisp, blue uniform.

The Marshal had ordered them, in no uncertain terms, to find a way to make their arrangement work. Or else, he had added, in a forebodingly resolute tone. Neither of them had asked what "or else" meant. Some questions were better left unanswered.

And so they make it work. It's Hermann who finds a roll of tape in a drawer and splits the lab down the exact center with German efficiency, separating his perfectly organized research from Newton's maelstrom of organs and gore. It was as it should have been from the beginning. Only a pity that it had taken them this long.

For a week, neither of them so much as says one word to the other. The silence is glacial, icy and immense, broken only by the squeaks and clicks of chalk on the blackboard and the occasional soft squishing sounds of kaiju dissection in progress.

Finally, one afternoon, the sounds pause, and Newton laughs quietly into his work.

Hermann pauses. Thinks better of it. Finishes the equation he's in the middle of. Then he pauses again, curiosity getting the better of him, and glances over his shoulder.

Newton's still laughing, mostly soundlessly, his shoulders shaking. "This," he says, when he notices that Hermann is paying attention to him again. "This is like, some Odd Couple-level ridiculous." He gestures at the tape line. "You know that, right?"

Hermann feels a swell of satisfaction at having outlasted his opponent's silence. It's a bit of a relief too, though he tries not to let it show. Still, his tone is slightly less clipped than usual when he replies. "And yet remarkably efficient."

Newton grins, one of his stupidly self-satisfied smirks tugging at one corner of his mouth. "Yeah, well," he says, discarding an unneeded piece of kaiju organ into a bin he had insisted on putting directly parallel to the dividing line. "I guess we'll see, Felix."

"Once again your pop culture references fall upon deaf ears," he says, all sarcastic sympathy. "And don't get any ideas."

"Oh, right, I forgot you're allergic to anything that could be described as 'fun'," Newton retorts, complete with absurd air quotes, but there's almost no actual antagonism behind his words.

"I’m afraid so," Hermann replies with a mild shrug, not feeling up to arguing about whether or not ancient sitcoms could possibly count as fun.

"Maybe you could take some antihistamines or something and give it a shot sometime."

Hermann rolls his eyes. "Oh, how I've missed your wit."

When Newton grins this time, it's not  infuriating or self-satisfied at all, and Hermann doesn't entirely know what to make of it.

"Yeah, I know."

"Achoo!"

Another kaiju specimen tainted. Luckily it was only a small one, but Newt really needs to steal a couple more face masks from medical before he runs out of tissue samples entirely. Unfortunately, every time he sneaks in there, someone tries to jab him with a needle, insisting it's for his own good. Like they even know what's good for him. Half of the staff in there doesn't even have one doctorate between them.

"Gesundheit," Hermann mutters with the same irritated tone as every other time he's said it.

Newt doesn't bother answering him, he's too busy trying to stifle another sneeze. It works for about five seconds, but then he sneezes so hard he feels like a plasma cannon just went off inside his sinuses. He sprawls back in his chair and takes his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose and groaning pitifully.

"If you insist on dying, Newton," Hermann drawls, "please try to do it quietly."

"Shut up, Hermann," Newt says without any actual heat behind it. He's almost too congested to start a fight.

Hermann, as usual, does no such thing. "You're undoing your own work, you know. How many samples is it that you've lost now?"

"Nngh," is Newt's only response as he presses the heels of both hands against his eyes. "I thought my work was pointless drrrivel?" His tongue is so thick in his mouth that he only barely manages to roll the R, but it's enough to get the mockery across.

That gets a prissy little huff out of Hermann. "It is," he says, "but from time to time, even you manage to stumble across the occasional worthwhile observation."

"Awww." Newt grins at him, the lopsided, out of focus grin of a man running a temperature. "You do care."

Hermann scoffs and narrows his eyes the way he always does when he starts getting impatient. "For God’s sake, Newton, will you please see a doctor and put an end to these bloody theatrics?"

"I'm fine," he insists, even though his head is pounding. He's on the edge of a major breakthrough in understanding a new and exciting aspect of the kaiju endocrine system, and he's not about to let a little cold set him back. Or even a moderate-sized cold. Or a big one. Whatever, the point is, he's fine.

"You’re thinking out loud again," Hermann says flatly.

"You're thinking out loud," Newt mutters, shoving his glasses back on and dragging himself—chair and all—over to his work station again. "It's your turn to get lunch."

"I may as well," Hermann snaps, "since I can hardly accomplish anything with the fuss you're making over there." He slams his chalk down and turns away from the blackboard, heading for the door.

Newt sniffles and silently mouths a mockery of Hermann's words, trying once again to focus on the gland in front of him through the haze of head cold. He thinks he's accomplishing something, but he still hasn't done more than lift a scalpel by the time Hermann returns with lunch, making a wide arc around him and leaving a tray of food at the farthest end of his work table.

He grunts something like thanks, but he's not sure if he's speaking English, German, or, in fact, any real language. It takes him several more minutes to remember he's supposed to actually eat his food, and he sets the scalpel down again and drags himself over to the tray.

"Chicken soup?" he asks, almost disbelieving, looking blearily over at Hermann. "What are you, my mother?"

"Thankfully, no," says Hermann, without looking up. "But given the circumstances, I thought it might be an improvement over your usual diet."

"Well, uh. Thanks," says Newt, after a long and sniffly pause. He thinks maybe the cold is starting to get to his head, because he can't actually find any way to argue or make some brilliantly sarcastic comment when Hermann is actually being nice. It's a weird feeling.

So instead, he digs in. It's not until he's about halfway through the bowl that he realizes it tastes funny. Almost medicinal. No, actually, really medicinal. Also, his vision is starting to go dark around the edges.

A moment before he blacks out and his pitches face first into the remainder of his lunch, he swears he hears Hermann say, in a voice even more pleased with himself than usual, "Goodnight, Newton."

They've just reset the clock after a kaiju attack in Auckland, and Hermann is going over his calculations. His model of the scenario had been inaccurate—not by much, not by any margin that would upset most people, but Dr. Hermann Gottlieb is not most people.

It is a consolation, though a pitifully small one, that no one had noticed. If only he could find what he'd missed, then perhaps—

"Dude, your head's gonna explode." Newton is sprawled in a chair, feet up on on a desk in between stacks of jars filled with God-only-knows-what. Vulcan Specter had damaged the kaiju too severely for any parts useful to his research to be retrieved, and his lack of immediate work means he has far too much spare time to spend annoying Hermann.

"Not now," Hermann snaps, without glancing up from the set of charts on his computer. "This is important."

Suddenly, Newton leans over his shoulder, far too close for his personal comfort, and deposits a large can of beer between himself and his computer. "So's relaxing every now and then," he insists.

Hermann goes tense. He stares at the drink for a long moment before shooting Newton an utterly unamused glare. "Be serious."

Newton spreads his arms wide and tilts his head, not quite grinning. "I'm totally serious."

Hermann cannot begin to guess what he's playing at now, but his first instinct is to be suspicious. "Why?" he asks, finally.

"Because we've got a few minutes of downtime for once? Because you're sleeping even less than I am lately?" Newt shrugs and crosses his arms, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. "Pick a reason. I got more, if you need."

He needs a moment, because that surely would have been a display of concern, had it come from anyone other than Newton. It isn't, of course, but it's close enough that it makes him feel wrong-footed and uncomfortable. "Absolutely not."

Newton rolls his eyes in such an exaggerated manner that his whole head moves with it. "For God's sake, Hermann, it's not gonna kill you."

"With you," Hermann retorts, "it might."

"Oh come on." Newton actually sounds exasperated, almost frustrated. Good. That makes two of them.

"Don't you have someone else to bother?" Hermann asks, turning back to his screen.

A pause, then one obnoxiously tattooed arm reaches over and snags the can of beer again, and Hermann can only blink in surprise as Newton all but stomps off. For very the briefest of moments, he feels something almost like regret. Curiosity, perhaps. What on earth did Newton think he was doing?

Well. It's probably better that he doesn't find out.

By the time the construction on the Wall of Life project is actually in full swing worldwide, a bunch of their colleagues have already taken off. They'd either been too eager to get back to husbands and wives and children, or they found that their areas of expertise were more applicable to engineering a wall that would never stop the kaiju from breaching the coasts. Maybe both, but K-Science just wasn't as appealing anymore.

On the rare occasion that Newt or Hermann put down their work long enough to eat in the mess hall, both of them heard rumors of so much funding being pulled that Shatterdomes around the world were losing staff too quickly to be maintained. It was a harsh reminder that not everyone was there because they knew it was the only place in the world for them.

The Jaeger Project's been in trouble for years, and he knew it, but Newt never really thought the world would abandon kaiju research altogether. Or maybe he just didn't let himself think that way. After all, what the hell was he going to do with himself when the Hong Kong Shatterdome shut down? Go back to lecturing bored students in Massachusetts until the kaiju destroyed the Atlantic coasts, too?

He leans forward on the railing in front of him and looks down into the main hangar, where boxes of research and personal belongings are being hauled out to the helipad. There were choppers ready outside to take another group back to California today. It had been a group heading back to Tokyo yesterday, and Sydney the day before. Half the K-Science staff alone gone in a week, and that wasn't even counting the losses in other divisions. There's even whispers of rumors that their Marshal is being replaced by someone who refuses to give up so easily.

The all-too-familiar uneven sound of footsteps and cane against the metal grating of the catwalk alerts him to Hermann coming up beside him, but he doesn't look up. Instead, he cracks a humorless grin and sings, mostly to himself, "It's the end of the world as we know it."

"I see why you went into the sciences," Hermann says, leaning a hand on the railing and surveying the hangar.

"I was in a band, you know." Newt still doesn't look up. A parade of white lab coated deserters (traitors, a less charitable part of Newt's mind supplies) pile into the elevator, suitcases full of emptied out personal quarters dragged along behind them.

"So you've said," Hermann replies, "more than once." He's quiet for a moment, before he asks, "Why did you quit?" Almost like he's actually trying to make conversation or something, which is weird, for him.

"The fans got too crazy, I just had to get away." Newt actually laughs this time. "Why'd you get into science?"

Newt hears Hermann let out one of his offended little huffs. He doesn't answer, either.

"Yeah," says Newt, but he's not entirely sure what he's agreeing with or why.

"Having second thoughts?"

"You're not getting rid of me that easily." Newt glances at him out of the corner of his eye and swears he sees a flicker of a grin. Or maybe he's imagining things. Who knows?

"I know," Hermann says. "I’ve tried."

Newt snorts and crosses his arms on the catwalk railing, leaning down and resting his chin on top of Yamarashi's scowling face.

"What do you think of them?" he says. He knows he doesn't have to specify who.

"They're cowards," Hermann replies, scathing. "Selfish and shortsighted. How long do they think the world out there is going to last without this?" It's probably the most honest Hermann's ever been with him, and it's exactly what he needed to hear.

"Apparently pretty long," he says, partly because he knows it makes Hermann's eye twitch a little when people answer rhetorical questions. "Morons."

"If the world truly is going to come to an end," says Hermann, "then I, for one, intend on being here to document it."

"Good," says Newt, and he honestly means it. He knows Hermann would never leave, but the reassurance in the face of their slowly emptying division is almost comforting.  But, of course, he can't leave it at that. "Someone's gotta be around to hurl numbers at the kaiju."

"As you run out to shake their hands."

"Better than running for the hills," he says, and he doesn't have to see the nod Hermann only barely gives to know his partner agrees.

Not once in any of Hermann's numerous complaints, officially filed or otherwise, does he ever request his own laboratory.

They were strapped for space at the beginning, when the Kaiju Science division was still teeming with bright young minds. Now they were the only two left, and his excuse no longer stood.

But now, he insists—although the only one he has to justify it to is himself—it would be a drastic change in the established order. A risk too dangerous to attempt at this late stage. Newton's presence is a constant; the lack of it would throw everything off balance.

Or, in other words: they've been sharing a space for so long that he can't imagine anything else. Newton, for all his myriad flaws, is at least a familiar nuisance. A problem that he's become so accustomed to that he can no longer imagine living without it. Like his leg. (Like the war, too, though he does his best not to linger on the implications of that.)

The phrase "Stockholm Syndrome" flutters sarcastically through his mind, and he dismisses it just as quickly.

They're in the lab, and Newton is engrossed in his latest project. Probably on the verge of a breakthrough, Hermann thinks. He always gets this way.

He's in a manic phase, too. This morning had been the second in a row that Hermann had come into the lab to find Newton already there, still dressed in the same clothes he had been the night before. Hermann had inquired as to when he'd last slept, but Newton brushed off the question as if he hadn't heard, moving directly into a disorganized ramble about what he'd learned last night. Hermann had decided not to press the issue, simply sighing and, at the earliest possible break in the monologue, reminding Newton that the mess hall was serving breakfast.

It's late afternoon now, and Newton has barely paused once, still pacing wildly about the lab as he talks, and talks, and talks. Hermann, for his part, is hardly paying attention. He's at one of his computers, absorbed in perfecting his latest predictive models. It doesn't matter, he thinks; this isn't actually meant for him. Newton would be talking to himself if no one was there to listen.

He's so deep in working out a physics equation that it takes him several moments to notice that something has changed. He pauses, brow furrowing, as he tries to place it. And then he realizes.

Silence.

He swivels in his chair to see Newton, still standing, but slumped over his metal work table with his head pillowed against his folded arms, his face nearly in the pile of dissected kaiju flesh he's been working on. Finally, his lack of sleep—almost a record length for him—had taken its toll.

Hermann sniffs primly and turns back to his work.

It's never truly quiet in the Shatterdome, but it nearly seems that way now. It's the first time he's ever noticed the cadence of his own typing, and now it's all his mind seems able to focus on. Has his keyboard always been so bloody loud? He tries to push the distraction aside, but the more he works at it, the more his mind latches on.

Impossible, he thinks. He cannot seriously be having this problem.

At last, and with an exasperated grumble, he gets up, leaving his chair spinning slowly behind him. "Just get on with it," he mutters under his breath.

Newton always records himself. Egotism, most likely. He's still clutching the recording device in his hand. Hermann regards him for a moment, wondering how it’s possible that things have come to this, before taking the device between thumb and forefinger—who knows what manner of unpleasantness Newton has allowed it to come in contact with—and tugging it out of Newton's grip.

He makes it all the way back to his desk before something vaguely resembling sympathy comes over him. Which is utterly absurd for more reasons than he cares to count, not the least of which is that he highly doubts that it would be reciprocated. Which is a moot point, of course, as he would never be in such a situation in the first place. Even at his most single-minded, he's never fallen asleep at his desk. Newton has, like so many other things in his life, brought this entirely upon himself.

And yet.

Hermann stands there, warring with himself for several long moments, before heaving an exasperated sigh and crossing the room again. He grabs a nearby chair and shoves it none-too-gently against the backs of Newton's knees, and gravity does the rest for him. Newton slumps into the chair, arms dangling over the sides and head lolling uncomfortably to one side. Hermann simply rolls his eyes, though there's no one there to appreciate it.

Newton mumbles something unintelligible in his sleep, but gives no indication of waking. Good. He'll probably be out until morning and complain of a neck ache. His own fault, of course; he'll certainly garner no sympathy for his troubles.

Finally, satisfied that he's the bigger person—and honestly, Newton hardly deserves it—Hermann heads back to his desk.

It's the most practical solution, he tells himself, as he presses play on Newton's recording device and sets it aside. Whatever it takes to get work done. The words don't particularly matter, but the sound of Newton's endless chatter is familiar enough to center his thoughts again.

It's pouring down that awful, freezing cold, early-January rain again, and Newt is trying for what feels like the hundredth time in the last ten minutes to clear his glasses, shifting from foot to foot, half out of excitement, and half to keep warm. The shipment of whatever parts of Mutavore the teams in Sydney could scrape together will be here any minute, and he's been promised live specimens. A live brain, even. Well, a piece of one. But it's still more than he'd ever hoped he'd be able to work with.

Hermann's complaining about something next to him, but he's tuning it out, only occasionally nodding and chiming in with half-assed mockery to keep him from thinking Newt isn't paying attention to him, because God knows they can't have that.

He's not even sure why Hermann is out here with him, actually. He'd been in the middle of apparently complicated calculations, muttering to himself about chances of extinction and double events, so absorbed in his work that he hadn't even noticed when Newt purposefully started throwing desiccated bits of kaiju flesh at his back. But as soon as the call had come in to inform Newt that the specimens were en route, Hermann had been off the ladder and stuffing his arms into his ridiculously fluffy parka before Newt could even grab his own jacket.

"They're late," Hermann grumbles, tugging the hood of his parka forward as he searches the sky.

"Probably the storm," Newt says, wiping his glasses again and squinting through them, not that he can see much of anything through the sheets of rain, glasses or no. "Come on, come on, come on..."

He's bouncing on his heels now, like a little kid impatient to open his Christmas presents. Which is pretty much what it feels like, if he's honest. He's freezing and dripping with rain, but this is so huge, too cool for him to really feel the weather until Hermann whacks him in the ribs with what he realizes is a closed umbrella. It's surprisingly gentle, which means it still kinda hurts.

"Ow! What?" It's been months since they've come to anything close to physical blows, and Newt's pretty sure he's not even doing anything wrong right now.

"The last thing I need is you dripping all over my notes," Hermann says. The umbrella's still aimed at him, and Hermann is shaking it impatiently. "Take it."

Newt stares at it for almost a full minute before he takes it and opens it. He's pretty sure it's raining sideways, but it helps a little. Without most of the rain coming down on him, it is somewhat less cold. He glances at Hermann out of the corner of his eye, watching him for a moment. Then he raises the umbrella high enough to cover both of them, even though Hermann's mostly warm and dry anyway.

"I knew you couldn’t be bothered to bring one yourself," says Hermann, smugly, as he shoves a hand into the pocket of his parka.

"Well, that's what I have—"

The rest of his sentence dies on the tip of his tongue the moment the incoming choppers come in, his precious kaiju specimens being lowered down carefully. Another chopper has landed as well, and Newt vaguely remembers something about some old Mark-3 Ranger being brought in that everyone outside of their lab has been talking about, but his excitement is entirely focused elsewhere.

As the ground crews move to help unload the cargo, Newt takes off at a full run for all of six steps before stopping and waiting for Hermann to catch up. But his patience only lasts until he sees how roughly his beautiful kaiju pieces are being handled.

"Easy, easy!" he shouts at the crew moving the brain. "That's a live specimen!"

Hermann is having a good morning, the looming apocalypse aside. His data had been accepted, while Newton's wild plan to kill himself by drifting with a piece of kaiju brain was appropriately dismissed. His tireless efforts have paid off, his brilliance has been recognized, he is going to save the world, and the only thing that's keeping the moment from being well and truly perfect is the fact that Newton has stolen his baby carrots from their shared refrigerator. Again.

He's on his way back to the lab, and he can only hope that Newton isn't taking the Marshal's rejection too hard. It would spoil his day. Hermann has earned the right to boast, because he's won, and it simply isn't as satisfying when his partner is in one of his moods.

And honestly, Newton should have expected it. Should have, but never would have—the two of them are mirror images in their stubbornness. But Newton's plan is suicidally reckless, and Hermann had told him as much, over and over again. Which had been about as effective as trying to convince Newton of anything else, of course—rather like banging his head into a wall, and twice as painful. And yet he tries, and tries, and tries. Whether it's out of stubbornness, or some ridiculous sense of routine, he doesn't know. Perhaps there's no difference between the two anymore. Not for them.

But he is a man of science, and even he can admit that Newton's theory is... somewhat interesting. Not worth the almost definite cost of his life, especially given that Hermann doubts that such a thing would even work, but an interesting theory nonetheless. Perhaps he'll even tell him so.

It puts him on edge, the enthusiasm with which Newton is willing to throw his life away for a plan with barely the slimmest chance of success. The war has changed them all, it's true—they're hard and they're tired and they're starving for any scraps of hope they can find. And even in the best of times, Newton's never been the sort to look before he leaps. But this is desperate even for him.

There's a horrible poetry to the fact that that's the last thought he has before he walks into the lab to find Newton slumped on the floor and seizing, hooked up to a device that can only be one thing.

Thoughts collide in his mind in the span of instants, barely registering through the panic: of course the bloody fool did it, he should have known he would do it, how could he have thought otherwise even for a moment, he’s stupidly brave and relentlessly stubborn and he always, always has to be right, and of course he would find a way to ruin this for him—

And if Newton is dead, he will never be able to yell at him for it.

The post-Drift hangover, as Newt had heard some of the Jaeger pilots call it, hadn't fully hit him from his first drift with the mostly dead kaiju brain until he was face-to-bioluminescent oral appendage with Otachi. Probably something to do with the brain piece being small and mostly dead, and the unfamiliar connection of human mind to kaiju.

But now, with only a few hours between that and his second drift, with Hermann's brain right in there with his, he's having a hard time telling where his thoughts ended and Hermann's started. Both of their racing minds were overlaid with the mind-blowing impressions of the Precursors and the Anteverse, of bioslurry and kaiju assembly lines, the end of the world, and the one piece of information more vital to the survival of humanity than any of their research combined.

He barely registers that his nose is bleeding again before Hermann presses a clean tissue into his hand. He's seriously getting sick of nosebleeds.

Thanks, he says, or at least he thinks he says it out loud. Hermann reacts like he has, but he's not sure that means anything.

They're sitting in the back of a Jumphawk, waiting out the longest helicopter ride of their lives, and hoping their arrival back at the Shatterdome won't be too late to save Operation Pitfall. To save the world. Newt laughs, humorless and manic, and stuffs the tissue into his nostril, and Hermann puts a steadying hand on his arm.

A rush of images floods his mind—both of their minds, he assumes—a jumble of memories from the last eight and a half years of working together, all of them glowing kaiju blue in his mind's eye. It's disorienting and exhausting, and with everything he's been through in the last 24 hours he'd really like to pass out any time now, but he thinks he's probably running way too high to sleep possibly ever again.

Hermann's upgraded from steady hand on his arm to tightly gripping it, and one of them—or maybe it's both of them—is just as exhilarated as he is terrified. Because sure, the world's this close to ending, but they've just made history, and whatever way this thing goes down, they're gonna be the only two people who've ever done something as completely goddamn crazy as that.

They're both rock stars now, and somehow it's even better that they did it together than when he was the only one. Something pretty close to giddiness passes through their link, followed immediately by surprise and also an undeniable weirdness at the fact that Hermann could ever be described as anything close to giddy. Newt wonders if maybe some of his mania has decided to make itself a new home in Hermann's head, and he's almost immediately sorry for that, suddenly hoping that the downswings and crashes that come after don't find him as well.

That would be something they might need to talk about later. Or not, since Newt can tell whatever he's thinking is echoing through Hermann's head. Is this what it feels like for the Rangers every time they come out of a Drift? Newt's really not sure how anyone does it. Or maybe it's Hermann who isn't sure. He still can't tell, and even though he's used to his thoughts feeling too crowded, before this he was at least reasonably sure they were all his.

But they'd done it. They'd actually freaking done it. There had been no way to be 100% sure it was going to work, but they'd gone for it anyway—which, hey, was kind of Newt's thing, but the complete opposite of everything he'd thought Hermann was, but Hermann was turning out to be full of interesting surprises. And it had worked. It worked, they'd Drifted, which means they're Drift compatible. And that probably means a lot of other things that this is so not the time to think about, and maybe the most surprising thing about the whole thing is that it isn't a surprise at all.

Maybe it would've been surprising a year ago, or two years or—Newt's really not sure he can pinpoint what moment exactly in their history it was that made the fact that they fit so neatly into each other's heads and lives not a surprise. Maybe it wasn't just one moment, but thinking about it with the jumble of both of their moments and memories still spinning through his head makes his head hurt.

He closes his eyes for a moment, which he immediately realizes is a mistake, because he's still seeing after-images of the Anteverse burned into the back of his eyelids, all the nightmarish, repetitive images of the troops of kaiju waiting to come through and slaughter everyone if they fail.

They won't fail, and he's pretty sure that was Hermann's unwavering belief in the figures he's worked out, and in the new knowledge from what they saw their Drift. Newt clings to that belief as hard as he can. Almost as hard as Hermann is clinging to his arm.

When he opens his eyes he notices, somehow for the first time, that he and Hermann are sitting so close together still that if they were any closer, someone would be in someone else's lap. It's completely ridiculous and weirdly comforting in ways that Newt is actively avoiding thinking about, and he's pretty sure Hermann is doing the same. But before either of them can move away (or not move away, and really, the lack of action here would be more telling) they're touching down on the helipad, and they have to basically throw themselves out of the Jumphawk in their rush to make it to LOCCENT in time.

Time to save the world. Hopefully there would still be time for anything else after.

After the breach is collapsed and Gipsy Danger's pilots returned safely to the Shatterdome, the whole world is celebrating. But nowhere are the celebrations so joyous as in the Shatterdome itself. Even with the immense losses the final day of the war brought, they had done it. Humanity was saved.

Hermann has never been fond of large gatherings—an understatement if there ever was one—but even he can't help but be swept up in the excitement of the moment, at least a little. Perhaps he's still feeling the effects of the Drift, sticking close to Newton and riding the wake of his far more obvious enthusiasm, but he's sure that some of it is his own, too.

Newton's thoughts are as disorganized as the rest of him, and that had been an adjustment (how on earth did he live like this? how did he get so much done?) but it was hardly a shock. The real shock had been realizing that he trusted Newton implicitly. That maybe he'd trusted him for a very long time. Not the way that one usually thought of trust, perhaps, but the way he trusted numbers: the results weren't always pleasant, but the outcome was reliably predictable.

Most people, he thinks, wouldn't call Newton Geiszler predictable, but when you've spent nearly every waking hour of the last eight years with someone, eventually, they run out of ways to surprise you.

The big surprises, at least. The smaller, frequently infuriating ones... well. Hermann thinks of all the petty arguments that he never would have had, and all the days that he could have had actual silence in the lab, and all the nights when he might have actually slept instead of furiously trying to perfect his work for no other reason than to prove Newton wrong. At least, then, they've always kept things exciting. And perhaps, he thinks, excitement isn't entirely terrible.

In moderation, of course.

But Newton, as ever, doesn't seem to believe in moderation. He's still riding the admittedly well-deserved self-congratulatory high of them being instrumental in the continued existence of the human race. Hermann imagines he could probably feel it coming off him in waves even if they hadn't Drifted.

Newton is a little drunk at this point, too, and loudly regaling Hermann for the third time with the story that he already well knows of his trip into the Kowloon Boneslum.

"And then—and then," Newton says, gesticulating wildly, "he sticks the end of his knife in my nose. My nose!"

fear pain pain blood disbelief more gross coppery smell in my nose not again who does this guy think he is oh god i think he might kill me

Hermann shakes off the jumbled flashback of emotion and pats Newton somewhat awkwardly on the arm. "So you’ve said."

"Who even does that?"

"It was terrible, I'm sure," Hermann replies, sounding more patronizing than he'd intended. It's only that he can't quite remember what sympathy is supposed to sound like, especially when it's meant for Newton.

But Newton continues, unaffected, drawing a crowd as he rambles loudly on about the shelter and Otachi busting through the ceiling, and later about watching her baby devour Hannibal Chau whole.

shock terror please die please die please oh god is he dead he has to be dead please don't reach me how much slack can that thing have left why did i ever want to see one of these alive and close up oh god oh god please die

Hermann actually flinches from the force of the flashback, and watches Newton's face for any trace of that aftershock of feeling, but there's nothing. He's equal parts impressed and concerned by that, and the realization that both of those feelings were directed towards Newton, of all people, doesn't horrify him as much as it would have only a day ago. Still, his shoulders stiffen as he wonders whether Newton can tell.

But Newton just slings his arm around Hermann's shoulders again, like he had in LOCCENT mere hours earlier. It’s surprisingly comfortable for someone with Hermann's usual need for personal space. The contact is still strange and unfamiliar, but, perplexingly, it still feels like the most natural thing in the world. Residual from the Drift, he assumes, though he’s never heard of this particular side effect.

While he's busy over thinking it, Hermann nearly misses the fact that Newton is all but swaying on his feet now, though likely it's more from exhaustion than intoxication, and perhaps his arm around Hermann's shoulders is more to keep himself upright than anything else. Hermann leans more heavily on his cane and politely excuses the two of them from the crowd, leading them back to their lab. It seems an odd choice, but he isn't sure where else to go, and Newton certainly isn't offering any suggestions. He can feel the exhaustion in him, and is honestly surprised that he's still awake at all.

"We should have left earlier," Hermann says, lightly chastising.

"Nah, it's a party!" Newton flails one of his arms vaguely back in the direction of the crowded hangar.

Hermann does his best to keep them both steady, tightening his grip on Newton. "There will be other parties."

"Yeah," says Newton, distractedly. "Yeah. Because we saved the world."

"We did," Hermann agrees. And then he hesitates, because what he wants to say next is almost as antithetical to who he’d thought he was as sharing the Drift with Newton had been. But he squares his shoulders as much as he can with Newton's arm wrapped around them and says it anyway: "You're a rock star."

At least he’ll always have the satisfaction of being the first one to recognize it.

"You kinda are, too," says Newton, almost quietly, and there's no hesitation or mockery behind it whatsoever.

Hermann is immensely proud of the fact that he doesn’t stumble, though he feels a bit like he’s lost his footing. "You’re also drunk," he says, because he honestly has no idea how else to react to that.

"Yeah," Newton agrees, grinning wildly.

Hermann simply shakes his head and steers them both into the lab. There's a couch tucked away in the corner—a fairly recent acquisition. Hermann had had it brought in after the last time Newton had stayed up for three nights in a row. He had tried to lock Newton out of the lab, but he'd picked the first lock and hacked the digital one, and the night had turned into another shouting match with neither one of them getting any work done. At least this way, he'd thought, Newton might stop falling asleep at his table.

He silently congratulates himself on his foresight as he dumps Newton unceremoniously onto the couch. Newton spreads out across it almost immediately, pulling his glasses off and tossing them vaguely aside. They’re still cracked and filthy, and Hermann is frankly amazed that he can see through them at all. He makes a mental note of where they’ve landed for later, when Newton inevitably forgets what he’s done with them.

"Move," Hermann says. He removes his parka and sits without waiting for Newton to do so, fitting himself into what little room there is left. Instead of moving away, Newton sprawls further across him, with his legs over Hermann’s. Hermann tenses at the intrusion into his space, making a cursory attempt to shove him off, but for half a dozen reasons, he doesn't try as hard as he could. "Must you?"

"Mmmmhm," Newton mumbles, and Hermann is almost certain he's already asleep.

He sighs long-sufferingly, lifting a hand to rub at his eyes and wincing slightly when he realizes his left still stings. Of course. Newton's had still been ringed with blood from the hemorrhage; his must be, too. God, the two of them must look a mess. Well, they're war heroes now. He supposes they're entitled.

He'll get up in a moment. For now, he just wants to sit. He feels like he hasn't slept in days, and he knows that a great deal of that is residual from Newton's own exhaustion. He's had the worst of it. And maybe that's the reason why Hermann drapes the parka over him (though it's more of a throw than a drape, really, and he gives him another shove just for being stubborn) and decides that he can tolerate it, for just a little while.

Newt wakes up to the low-grade headache that almost always follows a night of too much beer and celebratory shouting. That doesn't surprise him. What surprises him is the fact that there is something soft and smelling a little like chalk draped over his head and torso. It takes him a moment to realize that it's Hermann's parka.

Well. That's interesting. What's equally interesting he notices a moment later, and it's that his legs are spread out over the warmth of another human body. He doesn't have to look out from under the parka to know that it's Hermann.

He doesn't move for several minutes. There's something weirdly content about all of this, and he's trying hard not to think about it. Unfortunately when you spend pretty much your entire life analyzing data, it's hard to stop. But his head hurts just enough to put it off for now, and he rolls over, not really minding too much that doing so means he accidentally kicks Hermann in the stomach a little.

Hermann grumbles something he doesn’t understand and shoves at Newt’s feet. So apparently he’s awake now. Newt shifts over again and throws his legs further across him, just because he can.

"I don’t suppose you have the decency to be hung over," Hermann mutters.

"Sorry," says Newt, and of course, he's not sorry at all.

"I'm sure," replies Hermann, but makes no immediate move to push him off.

Newt shifts a little, and it's getting increasingly more difficult to ignore that, awful lumpy couch aside, this is really comfortable. It shouldn't be for either of them. Sure, Newt's slept in worse places, but Hermann giving up his personal space like this is unsettling at best.

After a moment's deliberation, though, Newt decides that maybe it just shouldn't be surprising that it is, all things considered. Not that he's been considering.

"Either hold still or get off me," says Hermann, in the tired, impatient voice of a man who definitely doesn't want to be awake right now.

Naturally, Newt shifts some more, just to be contrary. Hermann grumbles and pins his shins with an arm.

"Okay, okay," says Newt. He goes still for only a moment, then pushes the parka down off of his face enough to squint over at Hermann. The lingering connection from the Drift isn't as strong as it had been the day before, but he can still feel that place in his mind where Hermann had been. And the strangest part was, it felt like it had been there all along.

"Where'd I leave my glasses?" he asks, when he finds he needs something to break the uncomfortably comfortable silence.

Hermann waves a hand vaguely in Newt's direction without looking over. "Behind you, on the floor."

Newt lets another moment of silence pass, before ungracefully removing himself from the couch and retrieving his glasses. He pushes them on, and they're still sticky with blood and sweat and who knows what else, and he looks around the lab that's pretty much been their home for the past several years. Hermann's towering blackboards and orderly notes, his own untidy sprawl of kaiju samples and memorabilia. The hazmat tape in a line down the center of the room.

He wonders what's going to happen next. They saved humanity, but they'd both spent nearly a third of their lives in this lab trying to do just that. What comes after a war like this? He's not worried for his career—he's just pioneered an insanely awesome all new usage of cutting edge technology. There's no questioning that people are going to know his and Hermann's names for generations to come.

But there's also the question of what comes after you open your mind up to another person. Even when it's to save the world. Even when it's a person who's been the only real constant in your life in almost a decade. Or maybe especially when it's that person.

Newt shakes himself from his thoughts as his gaze falls on the battered old stereo, shoved into a corner of his workspace where it's less likely to be purposefully sabotaged. He glances back at Hermann, who has been watching him silently from the couch, and grins. He crosses the room quickly, and, before Hermann can comment, queues up another of his endless loop playlists.

"I've paid my dues, time after time," croons Freddie Mercury's voice from the speakers as Newt cranks the volume and turns to grin widely at Hermann.

"Really," Hermann says, raising an eyebrow and doing his best to sound disbelieving even though Newt knows he's not surprised at all.

"Really," says Newt. "Come on. We are the champions, my friend."

Hermann heaves one of his put-upon sighs as he grabs his cane and gets to his feet, but there's the tiniest hint of a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. Almost like the one Newt had seen on him when he’d suggested they Drift together.

"Once," concedes Hermann, as he crosses the lab to join Newt. "Just once."