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When Hermann finds Newton, he’s smoking on one of the Jaeger deployment bays. Hermann’s knee twinges from the stairs, and the rush of the waves hide the sound of his cane so that Newton flinches when he comes to a stop next to him. The ember of his cigarette glows in the breeze, and the waves below them are inky black and viscous in the night. Newton isn’t wearing shoes, and the tasteless tattoo on his foot is an incomprehensible smudge in the dark.
“I thought you had quit.” Hermann says instead of hello, and carefully takes a seat next to him. His feet swing out into darkness, and he thinks of teeth and glowing tongues.
“Never been able to shake it, man.” Newton says contemplatively. They sit in silence for a minute, and Hermann thinks that despite Newton’s candidness he may be one of the most impenetrable people he’s ever met. He glances to the side, takes in the slope of Newton’s nose, the streams of smoke escaping his mouth like dark thoughts. He wonders what’s going on beneath that carefully styled hair currently being brushed apart by the wind.
“You haven’t been at the lab all day.” He says instead of everything else that’s clamouring in his throat. Hermann’s never been good at words; he knows that, he hates that. Numbers make sense, people don’t. He had come to terms with it a long time ago, that he was never going to be the sort of magnetic personality people gravitated towards to, like Newton. He was perfectly content as long as he had his numbers and his theories.
Newton hums thoughtfully, taking a final drag off his cigarette and flicking it away. Hermann watches the orange ember arc into the darkness, follows it down until it winks out. If it wasn’t for the light catching the crests of the waves beneath them, they could be sitting on the edge of a void. “I have hit a metaphorical and physical wall, my man.” He says finally, and Hermann can almost hear the implications that lurk beneath that throwaway statement. Newton turns to him then, as if he’s just realised that he was there. He grins, brief and bright. “Are you checking up on me?”
“No.” Hermann says, and Newton grins again. “Stop that.”
Hermann has never tried to understand the intricacies of Newton’s mind. He’s never wanted to. He imagines it’s so different from the cleanly ordered rigidity of his own mind that he probably wouldn’t want to comprehend it. And yes, he’s read Newton’s personal file, but only because Newton read his first in a fit of pure nosiness. So, when he says, “How long has it been since you’ve slept?” Newton knows the questions that lie beneath.
“Three days.” Newton says shortly, then, “Want one?” He’s holding out his carton of cigarettes, and Hermann’s fingers twitch in his lap. It’s been years since he’d smoked. “C’mon,” Newt says, and shakes the carton at him. “You won’t need lungs if your predictions are as accurate as you think.”
“My predictions are always accurate.” Hermann snaps, and takes a cigarette because if he can’t have a smoke at the end of the world, when can he?
Newton lights his cigarette for him, cups his hand around the flame as it lights up his face. Hermann notes the deep purple bags under his eyes; the droop of his eyelids, before the flame goes out and the only light is the glowing end of Hermann’s cigarette. He inhales, and the burn in his throat is almost sweet. The waves crash below their feet, and Hermann counts in multiples of seven until he has the courage to open his mouth and-
“I know I look like shit.” Newton heads him off before he can even gather his words. He is a smudge of slightly lighter dark next to Hermann, and won’t meet his eyes as he gazes off across a bay they can’t see. The lights of the city are very distant, and even the Shatterdome below them is quiet. It feels like they could be the only people left in the world, and Hermann stops that line of thought short as his chest constricts with anxiety.
“You haven’t been taking your meds.” Hermann says carefully, and takes a drag as he feels Newton bristle beside him. He keeps his gaze ahead on the distant winking lights of the city, though he can feel Newt’s eyes on him like a physical weight.
“That’s none of your business.” Newton says, voice tight with something Hermann can’t quite detect. Betrayal? Surely not.
“It is my business when it keeps you from coming into the lab.” He says lightly, and smoke billows from his nose like a punctuation mark as Newton makes a disgusted noise and finally turns away. There is something oddly comforting about Newton being annoyed by him, some return to a status quo Hermann has never really acknowledged and definitely never enjoyed. He supposes that consistency in wartime is a rare pleasure.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Newton repeats, and Hermann fights the urge to roll his eyes and ultimately fails. “But I promise I’ll be back Monday, all in working order. Happy?” He spits the last word out like something foul-tasting.
“It’s not about my happiness.” Hermann says. The haze of nicotine is nice, he decides. He shifts a little when his hip starts to ache from the cold and the hard ground, turns so he’s facing Newton, who is staring resolutely ahead. His jaw is set, and he holds a steadily burning cigarette in his hand half frozen in the air. By the glow of Hong Kong’s light polluted sky, Hermann can see the curl of Yamarashi emerging from the cuff of his sweater. The sea whispers beneath their feet.
He knows that if he were to run his hand down Newton’s arm, he would be able to map his mental states by ridges and bumps under the ink.
“Why do you care.” Newton says eventually, eyes on the horizon and body angled ever so slightly towards Hermann. The inflection in his voice makes Hermann’s chest ache a little. Newton has been, and always will be, what his father calls a ‘tough nut to crack’, but has an element of horrifying vulnerability that makes Hermann’s skin crawl. He selfishly likes Newton best when all his walls are intact.
“Because you’re my colleague of seven long years, and I have a certain interest in your well being, as anyone would.”
Newton huffs and takes a drag off his cigarette, ashing over the side and watching the wind whip it away. “Hermann, dude, I know you’ve got this whole misplaced, stubborn loyalty thing going on to like, everyone who looks at you sideways but that doesn’t mean you’ve got a right to hound me about my meds. People think I’m crazy enough as it is, and they make me feel stupid and slow.”
Hermann flicks his cigarette butt into the yawning darkness beneath them. The white tipped waves swallow it whole. “I care about you beyond a professional capacity.” He said quickly, before his brain could catch up with his mouth. “Have you ever considered that?”
There’s a long pause, the sound of the wind and the waves swelling between them. Newton is looking at Hermann through the darkness like it’s the first time he’s seen him. “I haven’t.” He murmurs dumbly, and the expression on his face is so open that Hermann can barely look at him. His heart feels too big in his chest, and the first touch of Newton’s hand to his (clenched tight in the fabric of his trousers, cold and barely human) unwinds him a little. He melts forward, and Newton is there, fingers skating over the short hair of his undercut to rest warm and solid against the nape of his neck.
Newton nudges his nose against Hermann’s, their lips brush, breath mingling in the cold air. Hermann has never known him to be so still. He smells like cigarettes, and probably hasn’t shaved in a few days, but Hermann closes the gap regardless. They kiss, the barest press of lips. Hermann leans infinitesimally into it, and Newton’s hand presses on the back of his head, urges him forward. With a breathless noise that he will deny later, Hermann curls his hands in the front of Newton’s threadbare MIT sweatshirt and tugs him closer.
This is beyond numbers, beyond calculations and the careful plotting of eventualities. Some things are beyond even his predictions, and Newton Geiszler is consistently one of those things. It is past midnight, his hip is hurting, and Newton’s hands are large and gentle on him. He very carefully rolls his tongue over Hermann’s spit-slick lower lip, humming when Hermann parts his lips on a noise wrenched from deep in him. Newton’s beard scratches at his face, and Hermann brings his (cold, shaking) hands up to cup his jaw, cradle his face like the precious thing he is.
The world drops away, the murmur of the waves, the distant city chatter. Hermann has never felt his world narrow down to something so intensely before, he feels dizzy with it. Drunk on Newton’s mouth and the giddy feeling of letting go.
They part, and Newton kisses him again straight away. A soft, reassuring press of lips. His fingers twitch behind Hermann’s ear, and he kisses him again at the corner of his mouth. Gentle, sweet.
“That was rather-”
“Fuck.” Newton mutters, sounding a little dazed as he presses his forehead to Hermann’s.
“Quite.” Hermann replies, closing his eyes against the outside world and wondering if he concentrates hard enough if he could hear Newton’s innermost neuroses, pressed together like this. “I don’t think you’re crazy, you stupid man.” He murmurs belatedly, and Newton kisses him quiet.
“I am.” He mumbles back. “It’s okay, I am.”
Hermann guesses that it’s only Newton’s depressive downswing that is making him so pliant and still against him. He hates it, but can’t hate the way that Newton tucks his nose into the space between shoulder and neck, breathes out soft and slow. “This is not a one time incident.” Hermann says, eyes on the orange sky. Newton makes a half-hearted noise against his throat.
“I know.” He replies, sounding exhausted. “Let’s stay here for a bit.” He adds when Hermann shifts as if to move. “Just stay a little while.”
Hermann has always found it difficult to deny Newton like this. Newton presses his face into Hermann’s sweater with a tired noise. Hermann looks down at the brown head of hair before him, wonders if he’ll ever know what he’s thinking. Somewhere across the bay, a siren shreds through the night, and Newton stirs in Hermann’s lap with a frown creasing his forehead. The sea moves on beneath them.