Chapter Text
When the low comes, it hits Newton like a tidal wave. About three days after the WORLD IS SAVED, WE DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ANYMORE, comes the MY JOB IS WORTHLESS, NOBODY NEEDS ME ANYMORE.
He meets the morning in the streets of Hong Kong, his home of five years, and realizes he will have to move, and he’ll have to teach again, and that is an unbearable thought, lectures and people asking him what was it like, drifting with a kaiju, and not even remembering his work in artificial tissue replication. The white noise, no scholarship getting written, scanning classes of hundreds to find anyone like him, being lonely again, lonely, impatient, taking it out on students, getting put on academic probation, no grants getting written, incompetent teachers’ assistants…
His phone is ringing. He looks down, sees “Hermann,” and ignores the call.
He was feeling good, too. Not to say that medication doesn’t work, but the nature of work sure as helped his mental state. And now that’s all done, woo hoo, time to spelunk into his psyche now that he can’t hide in the work anymore.
His phone rings again. He sighs, and answers.
“What,” he says.
“And hello to you too, Newton,” Hermann says. Newt doesn’t even feel the thrill of having rated a rare first name address from Doktor Gottlieb. “I’ve been trying to reach you. There’s lab work which needs to be completed.”
“Are you referring to the five feet of paperwork Tendo put on my desk yesterday?” Newt says. “Naw, Hermann, I’m not doing that.”
“You have to,” Hermann says.
“Let’s get one thing clear, dude, I don’t have to do anything,” Newt says. Of course, he doesn’t want to finish lab reports and the like because that would admit everything was finished, that he’d have no good reason to talk to Hermann anymore.
“Dr. Geiszler,” Hermann says, and Newt sighs, sniffing out a long rant where he can’t even scream a word in edgewise.
“Look, I’ll be late,” he says. “Do you want anything for breakfast?”
“Nothing from a street vendor, thank you,” Hermann says, prim as ever, and hangs up. Newt nods at the phone and shrugs.
Maybe things have gotten a little better at Massachusetts since the last time he was there, but Newton is fairly sure the Hong Kong situation of being able to find yeasted filled dumplings the size of his fist for breakfast still isn’t the norm, with a generous side of fermented black bean sauce. He eats one heavenly pork bun while walking to the Shatterdome, saves the other couple for later. And Hermann looks in his direction more than a few times, he’ll offer him one for lunch. Hermann is a black coffee for breakfast kind of guy; Newt needs something to eat in the wee hours, especially after he’s pulled an all-nighter.
He rolls into the Shatterdome, still a flurry of activity even after the kaiju being defeated, the breach being closed etc. People are smiling, laughing, working like horses to put this whole program to bed and Newt can’t join with them, because the work’s all done.
Their lab has been dismantled for the most part, kaiju samples in biohazard bags so they can be preserved to be put on display for future generations, under glass and dead. Hermann is sitting, working through endless lab reports and looking very at home. Newt makes a lot of noise coming in so Hermann hears him and isn’t startled later when he looks up from his work.
“Really, must you make such a racket,” Hermann says without any real bite.
“You interrupted my morning, so I’ll interrupt yours,” Newton snaps, drapes his jacket over the back of his chair and sits down. “All rightttt paperwork! Puh-paperwork, let’s go.”
He twirls his pen for ten solid minutes before putting anything to paper, and in what feels like the blink of an eye, he’s spent three hours to complete one procedure form. Hermann is definitely eyeing those buns that he’s surreptitiously put on the desk.
“You can have one,” Newt says, tapping his pen against the edge of his desk in a strict, soothing rhythm. “Be aware, they are from a street vendor. But I got that black bean sauce you like so much to go with it.”
“Thank you,” Hermann says, and grabs a pork bun and the sauce. He isn’t so prissy when he eats, gladly eating the thing with his fingers. Newton can respect that in someone.
“What are you going to do after everything here is decommish?” Newton asks.
“Nothing on my end is ‘decommish’,” Hermann says, with some half-assed finger quotes as though his disdain for the abbreviation isn’t completely clear. “The code I wrote for the program is still vital, useful. I have several articles to write about the methods of determining probability I utilized during the kaiju attacks. Teaching, of course.”
He already sounds like an introduction to a heavy mathematical text. Newton supposes some academes can land on their feet after any period of practical application.
“Teaching, huh?” he says, rapping away with his pen. “Doesn’t that mean you’ll have to spend time in a lecture hall, talk to people? I don’t know, Hermann, maybe you’re not cut out for that.”
“Anyone can teach,” Hermann says. “Didn’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Newt says, his pen at a hummingbird’s heartbeat now.
“Nothing,” Hermann says, with a raise of his eyebrows. “But you did spend the entire morning on that lab report.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, I don’t want to do this,” Newt says, throwing his pen down when the rhythm won’t contain his feelings. “I get you’re just moving on to the next thing, but I got to do things I’ll never get to do again, Hermann, so no I don’t want to finish the stupid lab report, though I could.”
Hermann seems taken aback, and Newt reddens, looking down.
“I mean, it’s cool,” he says with what he hopes to be a convincing shrug. “I’m okay with saving the world, obviously. I’ll just get back into the tissue engineering lab, laser assisted bioprinting, man, I mean that was going well before…”
“You’re scared,” Hermann says.
“No, I’m not.”
“I’ve been inside your head, Newton, I know.”
“What do you know,” Newton says, voice rising, panic tingeing his timbre and oh man, he should not have come to work today. “What do you know?”
Hermann splutters, reddens, and they both just stare at their desks for a while.
“I know how sometimes,” Hermann says, and sighs deeply. “We both feel as though… I don’t see why we should be apart, Newton.”
“I don’t, uh, I don’t follow,” Newt says, and can’t say any more, because Hermann kisses him, just once and soft on his lips. He pulls away, and Newt stands, looking awkwardly around their familiar lab. “What, you’d put up with me even now that the world isn’t at stake?”
“It pains me to say, but I’d do much more than put up with you,” Hermann says.
“That’s brilliant, so romantic, I feel extremely wooed right now,” Newt rolls his eyes. “Why don’t you kiss me again?”