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Newt understood pain more on a scientific level than he'd ever did on a personal one. He had surprisingly never broken a bone, despite his clumsy aptitude for adventure, never been in a fight longer than a single punch to the head that knocked him flat on his feet, rarely cut or burnt his fingers in neither kitchen nor laboratory.
He could trace the path of a nerve signal from receptor to cortex, could label every synapse on a diagram both human and Kaiju, every part of the system that translated electrical impulses to ow fuck fuck that hurts. He understood it tangentially to MS, through his letters with Hermann and readings surrounding the topic after, because maybe they didn't see eye to eye and maybe (definitely) Hermann hated his guts but he was not going to be another ableist asshole in his life if Newt could help it.
And despite all that, he was completely unprepared for how god awful it would be to feel real lasting pain for the first time in his life. Because the thing about shitty life circumstances is that no one ever expects it to happen to them.
It had started years ago when he was just 23, four PHDs in hand and working on numbers five and six. His own fault really. Too many days tense and hunched over the dissection table, not enough days spent walking outside the lab or doing any regular exercise. (Ah, his old nemesis, the consequences of his own actions.) The sciatic nerve, merely another name in a textbook, decided to make itself truly known to Newt with as much subtlety as a category four Kaiju in a coastal city. It ran from the bottom of his spine through his thigh, but he didn't need a textbook to tell you that when he could feel it. In the first few months it was just an occasional ache, then a noticeable twinge in his step that forced him to slow his pace, and he ignored it with the same confidence he applied to most problems that weren't immediately apocalyptic. It would go away. His number one solution for solving problems, with a shockingly high success rate, was to ignore them until they went away on their own.
And then it didn't, and one morning Newt couldn't get out of fucking bed.
He was terrified. He knew, on an anatomical level, that realistically he was not going to tear a muscle just by turning over, but that rational voice was silenced by the sharp white-hot pain that radiated from his lower back every attempt he made. It took half an hour more for Newt to grit his teeth and use headboard slats to pull himself into a seated position, which made it easier to manoeuvre his body off the bed completely. Once he was on his feet, the feeling lessened, lulling him into a false sense of security, then rearing its ugly head again when Newt tried to climb back into bed and found he could not put any pressure on his left leg. Any position other than flat on his back was a minefield, which meant he couldn't even sleep through it as he was a very adamant side sleeper, but flat on his back was the most difficult position to get up from in the morning, which was a real fucking conundrum wasn't it.
The flare-ups came without any warning or pattern that he could discern. Sometimes they happened weeks apart, sometimes months, always when it was most inconvenient. Back when he suffered through menstrual periods there was often a low roar in his abdomen that preceded a few days of bleeding, but there was nothing like that here.
Newt had self diagnosed sciatica after reading some personal accounts online. Okay yeah, he didnt have an official diagnosis. He'd never seen a doctor about it (fuck, he hated doctors.) It had taken him until his second phd to even consider getting a diagnosis for adhd, low diagnosis rate for AFAB adolescents aside, and until his fourth to consider getting medication for it. For this? Well on days where he was fine, there was nothing to ask about, and on days where he wasn't fine there was absolutely no fucking way he was going to make it to a doctor. So he was stuck with shitty over the counter Advil that did nothing, but he took it anyway in the hope that maybe it was doing something psychologically.
On good days, he could push through it. Pop some placebo painkillers, stretch a little, keep on his feet. On bad days, he stayed as still as he possibly could.
Today was a bad day.
Newt lay on his back and stared at plain concrete, counting the circles of mold that dotted the surface of his bunk. Honestly, it was a good reminder that despite littering the walls with band and anime posters, he'd failed to add his own pizazz to the ceiling. The mattress beneath him was the same standard issue Shatterdome slab that everyone got. Thin, firm, and designed for soldiers who were young and fit and didn't have potentially degenerating spinal discs. Every time he shifted, even fractionally, the nerve lit up like a live wire and sent a bolt of pain from his lower back that made his vision swim.
His phone alarm had gone off forty minutes ago. He'd managed to reach over and silence it, and that single movement had cost him fifteen minutes of recovery time, lying very still and breathing through his teeth while the pain ebbed from unbearable to just awful.
He should get up. He knew he should get up. Hermann was probably already in the lab, had probably been there since 6AM, scratching away at his chalkboards and muttering under his breath like he always did. And Newt had his own work that was time sensitive, three tissue samples from the latest Kaiju kill that were degrading by the hour and needed to be catalogued and preserved before they dissolved into a horrible stink of biological sludge. Hermann was probably cursing his name right now, leering at the specimens from his side of the line.
He tried to sit up.
Then immediately collapsed back onto the mattress with a strangled sound that he was grateful no one was around to hear. His leg spasmed, the muscles in his calf seizing up in a cramp that layered on top of the nerve pain until he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
"Okay," he whispered to himself. "Okay. Not yet. Yeah, that's fine. Give it a minute."
He gave it five. Then ten. At the twenty minute mark he attempted a second sit-up, made it halfway, and had to stop, bracing himself on one shaking arm in an awkward yoga bridge position while his body screamed at him for daring to even try.
So, alright, he wasn't getting up today. Or at least not yet. Maybe in an hour. Maybe two.
Newt let himself collapse back down and pulled the sides of his pillow into his face. It smelled like the cheap detergent the Shatterdome used for everything, sheets, uniforms, probably the floor if he had to guess. He breathed it in and tried to think about anything other than the hot, grinding ache that pulsed like a heartbeat. Maybe if he tried hard enough he could huff the detergent and get high enough to ignore the pain.
His stomach growled.
Right. Food. That was a thing his body needed on top of everything else. He craned his neck as slowly and carefully as he could to look at his nightstand. An unopened bag of pretzels. Two half empty energy drink cans. A granola bar that he'd probably stolen from Hermann's pocket as a joke and forgotten to give back because it was the kind that tasted like compressed sawdust and raisins. A crumpled bottle of water that had exactly one mouthful left.
Unfortunately, any attempt to stash snacks for emergencies like this was a bust. If there was food to graze on in sight, he didn't have the self control to stop himself from consuming it that same day. The only reason there was currently anything on his nightstand was because he'd spent the past few days sleeping on the couch in the lab and not in his room.
He could call someone. Theoretically. He could radio down to the mess and ask someone to bring him a plate of whatever was being served today. Except, he'd done the math on that particular social equation and the numbers didn't work out in his favor. He wasn't a ranger. He wasn't essential personnel in the way that Tendo was essential, or Herc was essential, or even Hermann was essential. (Hermann was the good kind of scientist that predicted attacks and saved lives, and Newt was just the mad vulture that swooped in after the fallout to fuck around with the remains.) If Newton Geiszler didn't show up for work and then had the audacity to request room service, the assumption wouldn't be that he was hurt. It would be he must be feeling extra lazy, or he must be hungover, or maybe he's busy pleasuring himself on his own Kaiju dildos if they really wanted to spice it up.
And honestly? He didn't entirely blame them. He'd cultivated that shameful reputation himself, hadn't he? The guy who didn't take anything seriously, was always a little too loud, too annoying, too weird, and whatever else people said about him behind his back. Sure, having approximately one and a half friends meant he had a lot of free time to focus on his job, but it also meant that when he genuinely needed help, the infrastructure wasn't really there for him.
Which meant, fuck yeah, pretzel time.
He reached for the bag, and even the small motion of extending his arm rotated his torso a few degrees, sending a ripple of pain through his lower back that made him hiss through his teeth. He got the bag. He ate a handful of stale pretzels. He drank the last of his water.
And then he lay there, and he waited for it to go away like he always did.
The first day was... survivable, he supposed. Newt had texted Hermann a quick excuse.
Newt: food poisoning, don't worry, probably that dubious tofu cube from the cafeteria, back tomorrow
Hermann: I did warn you, and before you say anything I did not dare you to eat it either. Do try not to contaminate the lab when you return.
That was as close to "get well soon" as Hermann ever got. Newt had smiled at his phone and then set it face-down on the nightstand because the light was making his dehydration slash exhaustion headache worse.
The second day was harder. Somehow his situation got worse, not better, and that was really fucking with his current problem solving strategy. The nerve inflammation had reached some kind of new plateau where every position (even the old reliable) felt wrong, and every movement was somewhere on the spectrum between bad idea and worse idea. The pressure in his bladder and the dreadful thought of having to do this in piss soaked boxers had spurred him enough to get up around midday, shuffling like a zombie to the tiny bathroom attached to his quarters that Newt was lucky enough to get so he wouldn't flash his tits in the public showers. The return trip had taken him another five minutes, but hey, at least now he was upright, even if he was trembling and sweating.
His mind once again wandered to the specimens on his desk, no doubt already in a sorry state from how hot it always was in the lab. He didn't want to go back to bed just yet, but the thought of having to trek all the way down a flight of stairs and through several corridors to get to the lab was also not very appealing. At least he could stand at the laptop in his room and do something to pass the time. Watch a movie, read a recent research paper. Maybe even type up that report he was supposed to have finished by the end of the week.
His snack supply was looking dangerously low. One pitiful granola bar and a few pretzels he'd somehow stopped himself from eating. He'd refilled his bottle with that yummy bathroom tap water, so at least dehydration wasn't going to be what killed him. Just hunger and boredom and loneliness.
He'd thought about texting Hermann. Actually picked up his phone and pulled up the contact and drafted a few messages before deleting them every time. What could he even say? Hey, Hermann, I know you navigate this horribly inaccessible facility on a cane every single day of your life and never complain about it, but my back hurts and I'm sad and I want someone to bring me soup?
Nope. Absolutely not.
Hermann had real problems. Hermann had a injury that was visible and permanent and required accommodation he did not receive half the time (which was absolute bullshit and wasn't for lack of trying, by the way.) Hermann's pain was the kind that people took seriously because they could see it, could see the cane, the limp, the way he frowned and braced himself against furniture when he thought no one was looking.
Newt had a bad back because he slouched. It wasn't the same. It wasn't remotely the same, and he would rather eat stale pretzels in his bunk for a week than stand in front of Dr Hermann Gottlieb and try to equate their two experiences like he had any understanding of how difficult it was to be disabled.
By the evening, his phone had accumulated a small wall of message notifications.
Tendo: Didn't see you around yesterday, you good, brother?
Hermann: Your Kaiju viscera is dying and will likely take me with it. I refuse to be held responsible for the state of your workstation.
Hermann: Newton. Respond.
He hit Tendo's message with a thumbs up, then typed out an actual response for Hermann.
Newt: Still alive. Stomach thing. Sorry about the samples. Back soon.
Hermann's reply came fast.
Hermann: "Soon" is not a unit of time I can work with. . Clean up your mess or I will throw them out. Tomorrow. Non-negotiable.
Newt stared at the message. His back throbbed. His stomach was empty. His leg felt like someone had replaced the nerve with a strand of barbed wire.
Newt: Sure thing.Tomorrow.
He set the phone down and nibbled on his last granola bar, trying to make it last. It didn't.
Tomorrow was, surprisingly, actually better (and that definitely didn't trigger his insecurities about the entire thing being psychological.) Testing the waters, he gingerly lifted his right leg (the one not fucking him over right now) so that his knee was up to his chest in an approximation of the stretches he'd seen online. Of course, he never remembered to do them regularly when he was actually able to painlessly move his limbs. He held it for a moment and stretched it back out, which helped a little bit. Rolling over to his front was a no-go but he could rotate his body parallel to the bed until he was able to not so gracefully slide off the edge onto his feet. Now that he was vertical, he was okay to deal with the lesser, persistent ache all day as long as he distracted himself and didn't bend his left leg in any way.
This plan was immediately foiled by the act of getting dressed. Shirt was normal, pants were fine if he sat down and kept his legs straight out. The worst bit was always socks, and Newt was tempted to leave them off but he knew Hermann would notice and say something. His shoes were easier, the heel caps destroyed by years of putting them on wrong, and he could practically slide them on without bothering with the laces.
He skipped the thought of getting anything to eat. No time, no energy. He could eat when this was all over.
The elevator to the lab was broken again because it always fucking was, no matter how many complaints both Hermann and Newt had filed. On a normal day he could be at his desk in under five minutes, but today it took him twenty and he was sweating by the end of it. He took a second to catch his breath before scanning his ID card (thank fuck he remembered to bring that, or he'd probably start crying right then and there) and pushing the laboratory doors open.
Hermann was at his chalkboard as he always was. He didn't stop writing but he did acknowledge his entrance by sounding his displeasure.
"You're late," Hermann said without turning around.
"And good morning to you too, Herms." Newt's voice was scratchier than usual and even he winced at the sound of it. He crossed to his side of the lab with careful, measured steps, keeping his gait as even as he could manage, and leaning on every table he passed. His workstation was a disaster. Hermann hadn't been exaggerating about the samples. Two of the three containers had gone cloudy, the tissue inside breaking down into biological mush. The third was probably still viable, barely. No matter how many times Newt explained his careful containment procedures and the importance of keeping them refrigerated to the delivery guys, they always just dumped them on his desk without care. He could, at most, salvage the third sample if he started on that right away.
This was, at least, something Newt could perform standing up and standing still. It was also something he'd done a thousand times and didn't have to focus on, which was good because he did not concentrate well on an empty stomach, but also kind of sucked because it did nothing to distract from the pain.
After everything was either disposed of hygienically or safety stored away, Newt turned to his tape deck to queue up his next distraction. In his experience, it was easier to ignore his leg if the heavy metal pounding throughout the room made his ears hurt more. As Newt hit play, he gave it exactly five seconds before his lab partner was forced to pay attention to him.
"If you don't turn off that infernal racket- Good lord," Hermann said, finally turning. He gave Newt a brief, assessing look that Hermann probably thought was subtle but that Newt had learned to read years ago. "You look terrible."
Newt turned the music down so that he could hear him better, but not off. "Gee, thanks. Two days of food poisoning will do that to a guy."
"Hmm." Hermann's gaze lingered for a moment longer, then he turned back to his board. "Well. I've emailed my latest report of Breach activity to the Marshal, and I recommend that you do the same in the next hour if you wish to guarantee your continued employment."
Despite everything, the pain, the hunger, the bone-deep exhaustion, Newt felt a flicker of emotion that Hermann seemed to care about him. But also, who the fuck was he to tell Newt what to do? "Dude, calm down. That's due Friday."
"Indeed it is, Newton. It is also Friday, today."
"Ah shit." Well, nothing like an imposing deadline to get him to actually do something.
Using his computer meant he had to sit down (he'd put in a request for an adjustable standing desk, and hadn't heard back) if he wanted to type faster than hunt-and-pecking. The chair was too hard, too flat, with no lumbar support. He'd considered requisitioning a better one for months but given up after his desk inquiry went ignored, because "comfier chair" sounded even more like a waste of precious PPDC resources, and he didn't exactly have any documentation to explain why he needed ergonomic accommodations. Sitting was... fine, if he leaned a certain way, like twisting an old broken headphone wire to make it work. He shifted around, trying to find that magic position, and pulled up his half-finished report.
The work was detailed and required concentration, which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it gave his mind something to latch onto. A curse because forgetting about his problem meant he kept moving, reaching for a file, turning to check a reference, or bouncing his leg, and his body would remind him very loudly why that was not okay.
An hour in, he had to stand up again. The pain had been building steadily, a slow crescendo that had gone from background noise to a full orchestral swell, and if he didn't change positions, he was going to start making terrible sounds. He pushed back from the desk and stood, one hand on the table for support, and tried to stretch without being obvious about it.
"Problem?" Hermann asked from across the room.
"Nope. Just stretching. You know how it is, sit too long and your legs fall asleep." He forced a grin. "I'm just about to submit my stuff."
Hermann made a noncommittal sound and went back to his scribbling. Sometimes Newt theorised he wasn't actually calculating anything 80% of the time, just making squeaky chalk noises specifically to piss him off.
Newt stood for a while, experimentally shifting his weight from foot to foot, letting the nerve settle. Then he sat back down, and the whole cycle started again.
By hour three, he was in serious trouble.
The pain had migrated from a localized burn in his thigh to a full-body event. It came in waves and made his whole body tense involuntarily. His back muscles had seized up in response, forming a solid wall of spasm that made it hard to breathe deeply. He was clenching his jaw so tightly that his teeth ached. And underneath it all, persistent and impossible to ignore, was the hollow, shaky feeling of having eaten practically nothing in the last thirty-six hours.
"Newton," Hermann said, half distracted by the formulae he was currently copying out, three steps up his little ladder, "Would you be so kind as to pass me the red chalk from my desk?"
On the last cycle of standing and sitting, he had just about managed to get into his chair without falling over. The problem was now that he wasn't sure if he could ever get up again. But, Hermann needed him! What if that piece of chalk was what closed the Breach once and for all? (Or, more importantly, what if Hermann was nice to him afterwards?)
"Uh, yeah. Of course. One sec, man." Newt's chair was woefully not on wheels. Not since Hermann had unscrewed them after he kept ramming full speed into his desk when he was bored, which was fair enough. That did, however, make things a little bit harder for right now.
Newt pushed himself upright using the armrests of the chair, keeping his feet together, then limped over until he was past the great dividing line on the floor. He reached across the desk for the mug of loose chalk and his back spasmed so sharply that his hand knocked it over. They scattered across the desk and onto the floor with a clatter that sounded enormously loud in the quiet lab. Newt froze, one hand still extended, every muscle in his body locked up.
"Newton?"
"Fine," he gasped. "Shit. It's fine, hang on."
He tried to bend down to pick up the chalk and his body simply refused. The nerve fired a warning shot so intense that his vision went white at the edges and he had to grab the desk with both hands to stay upright. A whimper escaped him, a small and involuntary sound that he tried to swallow and couldn't.
The tapping of Hermann's cane echoed on the concrete floor, getting closer and closer.
"I said it's fine, Hermann!"
"You are very clearly not fine." Hermann's voice was closer now, right behind him, and Newt could hear him frowning. "Sit down."
"I'm trying to pick up the-"
"Leave them. Sit."
Newt sat, too fast to find a good position. The motion sent a wave down his leg and he couldn't stop the wince, couldn't smooth his expression fast enough before Hermann came around to face him. Hermann's eyes were sharp, always were, and right now they were fixed on Newt with an intensity that made him want to disappear into the floor.
"This isn't food poisoning," Hermann said. It wasn't a question.
"I'm still recovering," Newt started, but stopped as he received a deeper scowl.
"Don't." Hermann held up one hand. "Don't insult my intelligence. You've been sitting in that chair for three hours like it's made of broken glass. You flinch every time you move. You haven't eaten anything yet I can hear how hungry you are, and your complexion is horrible." He leaned on his cane and fixed Newt with a stare as intense as the Kaiju specimens on his dissection table probably felt. "What is actually wrong with you?"
Newt opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
He considered lying again, because when you were in a hole as deep as he was in, the shovel seemed a lot easier to reach than the top. The thing about lying to Hermann Gottlieb was that it was technically possible, simply because he did not care enough to make a fuss about the odd white lie given to him. Unfortunately for Newt, it seemed that right now was not one of those cases, and he would not take anything but the cold, hard truth.
"It's nothing," Newt tried, looking away. "It's just my back. It's a thing that happens sometimes. It's not a big deal."
Hermann's expression didn't change. "Your back?"
"Yeah, it flares up sometimes and it's all, bleh, for a few days." He gestured vaguely. "It's annoying, but it passes, then I'm back to normal."
"A few days." Hermann repeated it slowly, the way he repeated things when he was solving a particularly troublesome equation. "You've been in bed for two days with a potentially serious back problem and you told me it was just food poisoning."
"Because it's not a big deal, Hermann. It's just, like, sciatica or some shit. Everybody gets-"
"Sciatica?" Hermann lunged towards him, gripping his arm in shock. "Newton, how long?"
Newt blinked. "What?"
"How long have you had this? How long have you been-" Hermann gestured at him, at the chair, at the scattered bits of chalk on the floor.
"I don't know. A few years? Like I said, it's not a big deal."
"A few years." Hermann's voice had gone quiet, which was infinitely worse than when it was loud, and always made Newt feel terrible. Loud Hermann was annoyed and made for great banter. Quiet Hermann was upset and hurt. "You have had a chronic pain condition for years and you haven't told anyone."
"There's nothing to tell! I deal with it."
"You deal with it." Hermann scoffed, looked at him for a long moment, and then he turned and limped over to the little compartment in Newt's workstation where he kept his miscellaneous supplies and the odd packet of cookies. He looked at the empty space where food might have been, but wasn't, then slammed the drawer shut. "When was the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday," Newt said, rather defiantly.
"A proper meal, Newton. Not whatever dreadful snack food you've been subsisting on."
He took the time to properly recount his activity over the past week. The last full meal he'd eaten had been dinner, two nights before the flare-up started, because he'd gotten sucked into a project and was planning on making up for it later. Obviously that hadn't gone to plan. "Four days ago," he said quietly.
Something shifted in Hermann's face. The irritation was still there, as it was always when talking to the biologist, but underneath it, something else that Newt didn't see as often. Something that looked, if he didn't know any better, like hurt.
"Four days," Hermann said. "You haven't eaten properly in four days because you couldn't get to the canteen." He stopped. Took a breath. "You didn't think to ask someone? To call? To send a message?"
"Who was I going to ask? Come on, Hermann. You know that no one here likes me, especially not if I started asking to have food delivered like I was above everyone else."
"I know what you think people feel about you. That is not the same thing."
"It's close enough!"
"It is not." Hermann's cane struck the floor with a sharp crack that made Newt flinch. He sighed. "You could have asked me."
The words hung in the air between them, and Newt felt something tighten in his chest that for the first time in a while had nothing to do with his back.
"I can't ask you," he mumbled, his voice coming out a lot weaker than he intended.
"Why not?"
"Because!" He gestured at Hermann's cane, and at his leg, at all it represented. "Because you've got your own shit to deal with. Real shit. You don't need me whining about a bad back on top of everything else."
The silence that followed was so very quiet that Newt could swear he could hear the whirring and rhythmic thud of Jaeger machinery from the other side of the Shatterdome.
"I'm sorry," Hermann said, very carefully, "did you just tell me that your pain is less valid than mine?"
"I didn't say that."
"That is exactly what you said. You said, real shit," Hermann mimicked, the expletive spat out harshly, "as though what you're experiencing isn't real." Hermann pressed the heel of his free hand against his forehead, the way he did when he was trying very hard not to raise his voice in a public setting. "Newton. You absolute, you colossal-"
He didn't finish the insult. Instead, he sat at his secondary chair (not only did Hermann still have his wheel rights, but he had two of them) and pulled himself over to Newt, his bad leg extended stiffly in front of him, and faced Newt with an expression that was equal parts anger and something Newt was too afraid to identify.
"Listen to me, you insufferable man," Hermann hissed. "Are you listening?"
Newt nodded.
"Your pain is not worth less than mine. It is not worth less than anyone's. Pain is not a competition, and even if it were, you don't forfeit your right to basic human care because someone else in the building is also suffering. That is not how any of this works." He leaned forward, holding Newt's gaze with an almost ferocious intensity. "You have been lying in your room, alone, in pain, going hungry, because you've decided that you don't deserve help. And I am-" His jaw tightened. "I am very angry with you right now."
"I'm sorry," Newt began.
"I am not finished." Hermann held up a finger. "You should have told someone. You should have told me, at least. At minimum, you should have informed Medical." He leaned back. "Has anyone actually diagnosed this? Have you seen a doctor?"
"Nah. I looked it up online and just kinda accepted my fate."
"Oh, for god's sake, Newton."
"I know what it is! I have six doctorates, Hermann, I can diagnose myself better than any quack working at the fucking PPDC."
"You have doctorates in marine biology, not medicine, and even if you were a medical doctor, you would not be qualified to treat yourself because you are clearly terrible at it." Hermann snapped back, his voice cracking, just slightly, on the last word, and he looked away for a moment, composing himself. When he looked back, his expression had softened fractionally. "How bad is it right now? Honestly."
"Pretty bad," he admitted. "Like, seven out of ten? Eight if I'm not careful about moving... so basically, eight, yeah."
"And you walked here, stood here, sat in this appalling chair for three hours, at an eight."
"You said you needed the specimens gone. You said non-negotiable," Newt shrugged.
Hermann's expression did something complicated and painful. "I didn't know," he said, and his voice was rough. "If I had known, Newton, you must understand that I would never have asked you to-" he white-knuckled his cane. "Hell, I would have performed the necessary steps through written instruction if it was that dire."
"I know." And he did know. That was the stupid, terrible thing. He knew Hermann would never have asked him to work through this kind of pain, which was exactly why he hadn't told Hermann about this kind of pain, because he didn't want to be the reason Hermann had to work alone, or rearrange his schedule, or stick his hands in Kaiju guts when he didn't deserve to do any of that. "I know you wouldn't have. That's kind of the point."
Hermann stared at him. Then he shook his head slowly, a gesture that managed to communicate exasperation and fondness and something very close to grief all at once. Newt had often heard people talk about Hermann as if he was some emotionless robot, and could never understand how they didn't see him, how deeply and frequently the physicist felt.
"You impossible man," Hermann murmured. "Right. Here's what's going to happen."
He stood, retrieved his cane, and assumed what Newt privately thought of as his Sucking Up To Pentecost posture, spine straight, shoulders squared, chin lifted in a way that gave him just a centimetre more height. The effect was somewhat undermined by the fact that his eyes were suspiciously glassy behind his glasses, but Newt wasn't about to mention that.
"First," Hermann said, "you are going to stop working. Now. The report will have to wait."
"But the Marshal-"
"Will have to wait. Second, I am going to the canteen, and I am going to bring you a proper meal, and you are going to eat all of it. Do not argue with me."
"Hermann, you don't have to-"
"Third," Hermann spoke over him again with the practiced ease of a man who had been winning arguments with Newton Geiszler for a decade. "Tomorrow, we are both taking a rest day. A real one. I will inform Mr. Choi, and if the Marshal objects, he can take it up with me personally." Okay, wow. Don't tell anyone, but Hermann saying fuck you to authority like that made him a little weak at the knees, and Newt was grateful he was already sitting down.
"Hermann Gottlieb, taking a rest day? Has the apocalypse arrived already?" Newt giggled, slightly hysterically.
"The Breach will still be there the day after tomorrow. It has been reliably apocalyptic for over a decade. It can manage without us for another twenty four hours." He paused, then added, more quietly, "We are no good to anyone if we destroy ourselves in the process of saving everyone else. That applies to you as much as it applies to me."
Newt began to protest, found he didn't have the energy, and stayed silent.
"And fourth," Hermann said, "when we return to work, we are going to make some changes. You are getting a proper chair. I don't care if it requires a requisition form, I will fill it out myself. You will behave," he stressed, "with a wheeled chair. You will see an actual medical professional who will give you an actual treatment plan. And you are going to tell me, in the future, when you are having a flare-up, so that I can-" He hesitated, his composure flickering for just a moment. "So that I can help. If you'll allow it."
Newt looked at Hermann Gottlieb, who navigated his own pain every single day with a kind of stubborn, private grace that he had always admired and never felt entitled to emulate. Who was standing here, in their shared lab, offering not just sympathy but solutions. Not a one-time gesture of kindness but a system, a plan, a permanent accommodation for him. Because that was how Hermann showed love. Not through grand dramatic declarations but through planning and frameworks and long-term labor.
Something in Newt's chest cracked open, and to his absolute horror, his eyes began to sting. Oh god, please do not let him cry in front of Hermann. That would be so embarrassing.
"Okay," he sniffed. His voice cracked again and he didn't try to fix it. "Yeah. Okay."
Hermann nodded once, briskly, as though they'd just agreed on the parameters of an experiment rather than navigated something that felt, to Newt, like the single most important conversation they'd had since their first in-person meeting.
"Good. Stay there. Don't move, and I mean that literally, not as a figure of speech. I'll be back."
He turned and headed for the door, his cane tapping its familiar rhythm against the floor. He was halfway there when he stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
"Newton."
"Yeah?"
"For the record, if you ever lie to me about this particular ailment again, I will recalibrate all your apparatus and ruin your scientific credibility."
Newt choked out a laugh that had transformed itself from a sob. "That's almost as scary as the time you threatened to burn all my band shirts if I dared to rock up to another meeting in one.'"
"I stand by both statements. I'll be back in fifteen minutes."
The door swung shut behind him, and Newt was alone in the lab with paper and chalk all over the floor, and a feeling in his chest that was warm and overwhelming and entirely too big for the space it occupied.
He didn't pick up the chalk. He didn't go back to his work. He sat in his terrible chair and waited for Hermann to come back, and for the first time in a very long time, he let himself believe that waiting for help was okay.
The rest day, when it came, was not what Newt had expected.
He'd expected Hermann to enforce it with a sort of military precision, an itinerary for three square meals, scheduled rest periods, mandatory hydration every hour, possibly a spreadsheet tracking his caloric intake. And there was a little of that, because Hermann was Hermann. But mostly what happened was this: Hermann showed up at Newt's quarters at nine in the morning with one cup of tea and one cup of coffee, because he had more than enough sense not to try and serve Newt a cup of tea, a plate of toast, and a cushion that he'd procured out of thin air.
"For your back," he said, thrusting the cushion at Newt. "It's not quite ergonomic, but it's better than nothing."
Hermann also placed a few brightly coloured pills and a glass of water beside him. "They love to prescribe me painkillers instead of doing anything more productive, like installing ramps or anything effective long term." he said, shaking his head. "I can at least spare a few for you." And, fuck yeah, Hermann's painkillers were the good kind.
Then he sat down in the single chair in Newt's tiny room and opened a book, and proceeded to read in companionable silence while Newt chewed on his toast and drank coffee and slowly, carefully, let his body unspool from the knot of tension it had been tied in for days.
They didn't talk much. They didn't need to. They kept a silence, pleasant and comforting, not like the brewing tension of yesterday, simply enjoying the company, enjoying someone being there, not because they had to be but because they wanted to be.
At some point, Newt actually managed to doze off. When he woke, Hermann was still there, his book open on his lap, his bad leg propped up on the foot of the bed. His free hand dangled tantalisingly close to Newt's own, and he almost reached out to hold it.
"Hey," Newt said, his voice thick with sleep.
"Go back to sleep."
"Have you seriously been here the whole time?"
Hermann turned a page. "I have nowhere else to be. We're on a rest day, remember?"
"Yeah, but you don't have to sit here and like, watch me sleep. That's weird, dude."
"I'm not watching you sleep. I'm reading." A pause. "I insist you go back to sleep. I would like to keep reading."
Newt smiled, real and small and tired and honest.
"Hermann?"
"Mm."
"Thanks."
Hermann didn't look up from his book, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "You're welcome. Now, sleep. Doctor's orders."
"You're not a medical doctor either, dude," Newt scoffed, already pulling the covers back up over his chest.
Whatever witty comeback Hermann had to that he didn't register before he conked out again.
Newt slept. And when he woke, there was a new cup of decaf coffee on his nightstand, still warm, and a note in Hermann's precise handwriting:
Requisition form submitted for new chair. Medical appointment scheduled for Thursday. I expect you to attend or I will escort you there personally and it will be deeply undignified for both of us.
There are leftovers from lunch in the container on the floor. Eat them.
Doctor Gottlieb
Newt read the note twice. Then he folded it carefully and put it in the drawer of his nightstand, next to the empty bag of pretzels and the sticky wrapper from that granola bar, artifacts of a version of himself that had believed he had to do this alone.
He was a sentimental sort, but didn't frame the note or anything dramatic like that. Perhaps he would in future if Hermann was being annoying, and he wanted to embarrass him a little. But he kept it, and on bad days he would read it again and remember that someone had noticed, and someone had cared, and someone had built him a net to break his fall when his body wouldn't hold him up. Someone who filled out paperwork on his rest day all for him (and also because Hermann found paperwork therapeutic) and sat beside him while he slept, and never once made him feel like his pain was something to be ashamed of.
And that, Newt decided, was more than enough.