Work Text:
It's the end of days.
It's been a long time since Newt has been to church. He went to Catholic Masses with his mother in Berlin as a kid, although they both could tell even then that religion would never stick to him. But now, as the world crashes slowly down around them and all the talking heads on the news are increasingly speechless, one verse from Revelation floats through Newt's brain with delicious irony:
"The beast that ascendeth out of the abyss shall make war against them..."
Check.
"...and shall overcome them, and kill them."
...Yeah. They're losing. He can tell that Hermann feels it too. That insistence on his Double Event bombing plan, even when he knows that Newt knows that he knows that he doesn't have enough data, is like fingernails on one of his fucking blackboards to Newt. They screamed at each other about it this morning. Newt's throat still hurts from the shriek-y place he went. It's bad, even by their standards.
****
Newt hears his own gasp before he feels it. The wash of light and color in front of him balloons out into three dimensions and memory rises to meet it as he recognizes his surroundings. He is in the lab. The angle is off, though, and as his sense of touch comes back online, he realizes why: he is slumped on the floor, the grate pressing hard and painfully into his tailbone.
He registers points of warmth surrounding him. Something alongside his head, around his neck, against his arm. His mouth tastes of blood and, more distantly, seawater. The smells are dizzying. Kaiju Blue, antiseptic, his own sweat, and something... vaguely floral. When he registers this last, he feels a tightness in his chest, why is that? There's something about... it's familiar, but infrequent, he knows he only smells it when he stands
near
Hermann.
It's Hermann's dryer sheets that he's smelling, and he's Newt, and Hermann is wrapped around his head, yanking off the cap and shouting his name. He's in the lab, their lab, on the floor, because he just did something colossally stupid, but it WORKED!, it worked, so there, Hermann, oh, Hermann, oh, shit. Newt's fingers are desperate for purchase and they bunch the sleeve of Hermann's jacket into a fist, Newt's other hand wrapping around Hermann's forearm. The kaiju mind is still swimming below his own, bubbles bursting through the surface, and the texture of Hermann's clothes and the warmth of his skin beneath them is Newt's only lifeline.
"What on earth were you thinking, you could have died," hisses Hermann venomously as he drapes Newt's arm around his shoulders. Newt feels him stagger as he tries to stand, dragging Newt with him. Newt gets his feet under him and together, both unsteady, they stumble to a chair, where Hermann dumps Newt and then sags against a nearby desk. Newt looks around for Hermann's cane and spots it, discarded on the floor near the Pons.
Newt's eye throbs, his entire fucking head throbs. He wipes at a bead of sweat on his upper lip and his hand comes away red. The kaiju mind is still slotting itself into something he can make sense of, but the overwhelming physical sensations are fading. He is elated. He is fucked up.
"I told you it would work." He is gloating. He doesn't care. His whole body is beginning to tremble, more and more violently.
Hermann turns a look on him of such narrow-eyed rage that Newt leans back in his chair, eyes wide, abruptly guilty. He opens his mouth to say... what, he doesn't know, but it doesn't matter, because Hermann quickly turns away and, all stiff limbs and awkward angles, retrieves his cane. Without looking at Newt, he charges as fast as he can out the door and down the hallway, uneven footsteps echoing. Getting the Marshall, no doubt.
Newt files the look, and his own sheepish response, away for later study.
****
The next few hours are a nightmarish blur of activity. Newt counts four and a half near-death experiences while he waits for the PPDC chopper to land, carrying Hermann and the makeshift Pons. He is reeling with the thought of what he's about to do, again, sick with anticipation and fear. His body hasn't stopped trembling since the first Drift, and Hannibal Chau and Otachi haven't helped matters. But he needs to position the neural spike in Junior's brain, here, and Hermann won't shut up about his calculations. As he scrambles against time to start the neural handshake, Hermann's protestations and his own reflexive sniping mingle into a familiar background buzz until he hears something unexpected:
"I'll go with you."
It's surprising enough that he pauses, and things go quiet, for a moment. He turns to look at Hermann, whose chin is high, his back straight, betrayed by a slightly sheepish smile at the corner of his mouth. "That's what the Jaeger pilots do... Share the neural load."
Newt's chest hurts. He should say no. But it's been the single shittiest day of his life, and he doesn't fucking want to.
Instead, he says, "You're serious. You w- you would do that for me." Wait, what? "Or... You would- you would do that with me."
"Well, with worldwide destruction a certain alternative, do I really have a choice?" It's the weakest jab Newt's ever heard. Hermann is smiling. Holy shit, they're gonna do this. Newt wants to crow like Peter fucking Pan.
"Then say it with me, my man!" He holds a hand out. Hermann won't have any clue what to do with it, he knows, but Newt's amped up and he has to show it somehow. "We are gonna own this bad boy!"
What Hermann lacks in cool, he makes up for in enthusiasm, patting and gripping Newt's hand hard enough to hurt. "By jove, we are going to own this... thing for sure!" he shouts. It's gloriously awkward. Newt could kiss him.
They throw on the Pons headgear and Newt counts them down. In the moment between pressing the button and losing himself in the Drift, he thinks: did I mean that?
****
Newt has spent enough time around pilots to know that there are plenty of ways to have a strong Drift. You can start with a common history, like the Hansens or the Wei Tang boys. You can, like Pentecost, go in a blank slate. It's less common, but you can even craft a connection out of something more deep-seated: a shared approach, convergent instincts, like Mako and Raleigh. In every case, success in the Drift relies on riding the smooth areas of overlap. Specific emotions and memories, anything you don't share, can catch like burrs and pull you out of alignment if you chase them.
Chasing them, in this case, is exactly what Newt is trying to do.
He feels Hermann in the Drift, and that's easy - surprisingly easy. A decade of professional and personal vernacular and a joint sense of purpose means they slot together like puzzle pieces. All that arguing, it turns out, was good for the Drift. And Newt can see those arguments now, echoed in their thousands like parallel mirrors, but he can see both sides at once and suddenly it's too much and he's going to be sick. But then rage blows through him like a breath of cold air and he's stumbling toward his own crumpled form in the lab, his leg complaining sharply, pulling the Pons cap off his head and cradling him while his hand fists in his jacket and he's so unspeakably, wordlessly furious because how could he... because what if... because...
And then.
Like a whale from the deep, it rises beneath them. The cold ruthlessness of the hive mind smashes like a cannonball through their mingling recollections and sends them spinning. It's cold, cold like dark water, cold like the vacuum of space, and it hates. And they see it. They see.
*****
The lab is dark. Newt flicks on just one of the light switches, and every third fluorescent tube buzzes to life. He closes the door behind him as softly as he can manage. He knows, with a certainty he should not have but which doesn't scare him, that Hermann will find him here in a little while. He just needs some quiet.
Sounds echo down the hallways from LOCCENT, reaching Newt thinly through the heavy door. You couldn't call what was happening back there a party. It was a celebration, sure, but it was also a wake, a scream of rage, a gasp of relief, a drinking to forget. A biological and mathematical inevitability. A duty.
Newt's legs are shaking as he sinks into his chair, and once he's off his feet, the tremor spreads. His chest is tight and it burns deep inside. He sucks in air and knows his breathing is spiking. Frustration blooms and hot tears slide down his cheeks as he starts to laugh, raising a shaking hand to cover his eyes. Of course this would happen now. He's elated and he's awash in panic and exhaustion as ten years of apocalyptic weight leave his shoulders, and he hasn't taken his meds in two - no, three days. His joints ache like he has the flu.
He sits a while in the semidarkness crying and laughing, heels of his hands pressed to his eyes as he waits for the panic to run its course. His heart is hammering and strings of spit burst against his wrists whenever he gasps for air. Holy fuck, does he need a Kleenex, but he can't convince himself to go find one, and instead he snorts - a massive noisy inhale that leaves him coughing. He folds his arms together on his desk, and slowly lays his forehead down on them. Breathe. Breathe slower. Feel your breathing. Good.
Bit by bit, the panic metabolizes into leaden fatigue. The tide of sleep is tugging him out to sea, but he's not all the way gone yet, and in the dozy in-between place he sees flotsam from the Drift. His drowsy mind picks through the memories and sensations and starts to catalogue them. A fight with his father - Hermann's, he knows now. An embarrassing rejection in an MIT bar - his, but with a new echo of laughter and... maybe fondness? One of his billion fights with Hermann bobs to the surface, and he feels that same sick edge at seeing one moment from too many angles. But here in quiet half-sleep, he feels something else beneath it. A warm underside to all the screaming and cane-waving. He can't tell whose it is. Maybe it doesn't matter anymore. He pulls it close to him and finds that he has no intention of ever letting it go.
It takes Newt a moment to realize that he isn't dreaming the hand that rubs between his shoulderblades. "Come, Newton," says Hermann. "You need rest."
Bleary, he rubs a sleeve across the dried tears and snot and spit and blood and whatever the fuck else is crusted all over his face. Hermann offers a hand to help him up, and Newt takes it; once he's up, Hermann doesn't let go, and Newt doesn't want him to. He's... honestly not surprised that he didn't spot this. His brain lies to him all the time, and all he does is hedge his bets: try to convince himself they're lies while bracing for the worst. Optimism suffocates in there. But shit, it's a whole new world now, isn't it?
They walk hand in hand toward their bunks. Hermann says nothing, and Newt just turns the warm feeling over and over in his heart like a smooth stone. Now that he sees it, it's all he wants to look at. Well, that and Hermann. Even with his absurd haircut and that fucking shirt buttoned all the way up to his Adam's apple, with one eye bloodied from their Drift, he looks... How much time has he wasted not looking at Hermann?
When they reach Newt's door he begrudgingly releases Hermann's hand to dig out his keys. He's still shaking badly enough that he drops them twice, and the crash on the metal decking is the loudest sound he's ever heard. He straightens and Hermann is looking at him with that tiniest sliver of a smile, reaching out a hand to grip his shoulder and shake it lightly. "Sleep now. It seems tomorrow's coming after all."
Newt nods, fumbling with his keys as he climbs the stairs. Once he gets the door open and steps across the bulkhead, he stops, turning back and bracing himself in the doorway. Hermann is still standing at the foot of the stairs, looking up at him. He raises his eyebrows in a question.
"Hermann."
"Yes, Newton?"
"Was it real?"
Hermann's eyes grow wide, and his mouth barely has time to open before Newt realizes that he's terrified of the answer. He can't watch himself go down in flames like this. He ducks his head and starts to pace.
"I mean, what... what we felt in the Drift, you know, my brain, it lies to me a lot, and I'm out of the habit of trusting it, Hermann, I mean. With molecular biology and neurochemistry and shit I'm awesome. But with stuff I'm scared of, and with stuff I want to be real, you just never know, man, and I need a, a, a... reality check... I guess," he trails off weakly, risking a quick glance at the doorway.
Hermann has climbed the steps and is standing very still, just outside the threshold, one hand on his cane and the other in his pocket. His chin is high and his eyes are following Newt, back and forth.
"Are you scared of it," asks Hermann, "or do you want it to be real?"
"Well, definitely the second one, dude, but maybe a little bit of the first one too? I just don't want to fuck anything up, Hermann, this-"
"I know, Newton, hush." Hermann reaches out a hand to halt Newt's pacing, gripping his wrist, slim fingers sliding pale against his brightly-colored skin. Newt stills, turning to face him. "I was there too, or did you forget?" There's no venom in it, only Hermann's smile, and Newt has never wanted anything as much as he wants to make Hermann smile that smile every day forever.
Hermann leans heavily on his cane and steps across the bulkhead. He shifts his hand to Newt's elbow, helping him keep his balance, and then he's close, he's in Newt's space, and Newt can feel the warmth of his skin and his breath. Hermann's hand moves, then, and Hermann's eyes follow it, and Newt thinks he sees a dull astonishment in Hermann's barely-open mouth. His hand rests at Newt's shoulder, and then against his neck, and then Hermann's thumb brushes Newt's cheek and Newt could cry.
"Ja, mein Schatz. It's real." And Hermann kisses him.
Newt catches himself with his fists halfway in the air, and wraps them around Hermann's hips instead as he kisses back.
Rock star.