Chapter Text
Hermann was a terrible liar. He always had been; his face gave away his emotions. The one and only time he and Geiszler had played poker (deep in the basement of the Los Angeles Shatterdome during a power outage, the emergency lights flickering across their faces) they had played all of two hands before Geiszler had thrown his cards onto the table. "I fold. Permanently. Seriously, we are never playing again. I can tell that you're counting cards, first of all. You keep getting this clever look on your face. We're done, dude."
They had discussed their work, instead. Well, it started out as a discussion but quickly became an argument, and then escalated into what could almost be considered a brawl. Geiszler had ended up standing on top of a table, shouting down an equal mix of insults, curses and inspired-but-insane theories, while beneath him Hermann had rolled back and forth in his wheelchair, shouting back and throwing the occasional chalk-board eraser.
Geiszler could have gone upstairs via the stairwell like everyone else, but he never did. He stayed in the basement, in the dark, shouting at Hermann until the lights came back on.
The only person that Hermann was really good at lying to was himself.
He only hoped to have more dreams, Hermann told himself, because he wanted to collect more data. He didn't have any other reason for wanting them. And he certainly didn't feel a rising panic each morning as, night after night, his sleep was undisturbed.
By his fifth week in London he had a comfortable routine: get up, immediately take pain medication (or he knows he'll regret it later), then do his physiotherapy exercises. After 45 minutes of those his leg was exhausted and he was sweating, although he was proud to note that he no longer needed to use a chair in the shower afterwards. Then, work away on the theorums he'd been scratching out on the blackboards in the living room. Eat, maybe take a walk. Finally (for the past week, at least), do the experiment in the evening.
On the morning after his fourth test, (Experiment #4, February 15 2025; Start time: 2050 UTC (0450 HKT); End time: 2102 UTC (0502 HKT); Flashcard symbol: Ͽ) he woke up disappointingly well rested. With a sigh that he hoped made him sound like a long-suffering scientist in search of data (and certainly not like a lovelorn teenage girl sitting by the telephone) he began exercising his leg.
He was almost done, his face damp with sweat and his leg feeling weak, when he heard the knock at the door. Well, not really a knock; it sounded more like someone had kicked it. Angrily. He limped over, cane tight in his hands, and looked through the peephole. Dr. Newton Geiszler was on the other side; just pulling back his leg to kick the door again. Swiftly, before he could, Hermann opened it.
For a moment, Geiszler just stood there, staring at him. Then he slowly raised his hand to wave his finger in his face, shaking his head. Hermann recognized when Geiszler was gearing up for a long rant, and did the only thing he could think of to do: he backed up and motioned for Geiszler to step inside.
Geiszler pushed past him, stomping into the apartment, and then slammed the door hard enough to make the walls shake, for good measure.
“You...” he was still just getting started, pacing back and forth, pushing into Hermann's personal space before backing off again, knocking things over just for the sake of it. “You... you...”
“Now Newton...” Hermann started, trying to be placating, and that was the catalyst, that was what Geiszler had needed because after that he was shouting, right in front of Hermann, making him take steps back until he was against the wall and there was nowhere for him to go.
“You prick. You unbelievable, arrogant son of a bitch. Who the hell do you think you are to poke at me like I'm some brain in a jar? What the fuck is the matter with you? You're like a goddamned robot! And now you're going to call me 'Newton' as if everything is normal? As if nothing has changed and you can just call me that instead of Doctor Geiszler and as if you didn't fucking leave? After we saved the fucking world?!”
And that was Newton Geiszler, yelling and shouting and pushing his way into his home and into his personal space until he couldn't even get away from him, just like he did. Just like he always did. And in that moment Hermann was so unbelievably glad to see him that completely forgot himself and laughed, one short “ha!”, right in Geiszler's face.
For a moment he was completely still, and then Geiszler slammed his hand, palm open, into the wall next to his head. Hard. “You left. When half of the people we knew were goddamn dead. When the rest of us were still trying to figure out what the hell had happened. You left. Me there. Alone. And now you're going to laugh at me? You were the only one there who talked to me, dude. The only one.”
And Geiszler's eyes are shiny and his arm is shaking where it's still braced against the wall, and Hermann is scared now, really scared for the first time since he arrived in London because Newton Geiszler isn't supposed to cry. He's supposed to yell, and rant and throw things and he isn't supposed to feel hurt, dammit.
“I'm just...” and Hermann closes his eyes for a moment, embarrassed. “I'm just glad to see you, that's all. Truly glad to see you.”
“You weren't even glad to see me,” Geiszler grinds out, his face red and his jaw clenched, “When I dug you out of a pile of rubble in L.A. Don't bullshit me. You are going back to Hong Kong today, end of discussion, because you never got any of the brain-scans that they made me get after we drifted with the Kaiju, and you never even took your stuff out of the lab, and there's still tons of work to do and we need an abstract mathematician and we need you, dude, so whatever you saw in my head that made you leave we'll work it out and we'll talk about it if you want to talk about it or we can never talk about it if you never want to talk about it and if you hate me now, really hate me, or something then we can deal with that and you can experiment on my head all you want, okay? But you have to come back to Hong Kong.”
Hermann has the familiar feeling that he only gets when talking to Geiszler: that he had missed something. "I..." and he chooses his words carefully, speaking quietly and precisely because Geiszler is breathing heavily and his bitten-down fingernails are digging into the wall where his palm is pressed next to his head. "I didn't see anything during the drift, not really. Not anything that made me want to leave. But I knew that it would be awkward and difficult afterwards. I am.... not accustomed to sharing my feelings, let alone sharing the inside of my head." Geiszler is staring at him, staring like he doesn't trust him at all, and it makes his stomach clench for reasons he hasn't quite worked out yet. "But I'll come back to Hong Kong, of course."
And Geiszler is carefully, almost delicately grabbing hold of his shirt in both hands, twisting it around his fingers until his knuckles are white and the muscles in his forearms clench, colourful under the tattoos. "You'd better." he says, shaking Hermann slightly, pulling his face closer, so that they're nose to nose. "This is two strikes, dude. Twice you've walked out like this. That's it. After this, if you leave I will personally break your leg, and properly this time so you can't walk out again. And you know I mean it, because you're in my head now." .
Hermann realizes, with a sudden clarity, exactly how hurt Geiszler was after he'd gone, and how desperate he is to get him back. And he has to admit how miserable he's been in London, and how very, very sorry he is that he ever left. Geiszler knew how lonely he was, he realizes, and he followed him. And he was inside of his head. They were drift compatible and they had done the impossible and saved the world and seen inside of the Kaiju hivemind and now Geiszler was back once more, just like he always was, to push him and goad him and make him be better than he was. Being around Geiszler made him giddy sometimes, as if he were short of oxygen, and it made him not care if he looked foolish, just for a little while, because his enthusiasm was infectious and he loved how it felt to not care, and he loved Geiszler's ridiculous handshakes that he never bothered to learn, because he loved the way it made Geiszler roll his eyes at him when he couldn't do them, and he loved... well, it was becoming quite obvious, now that he thought about it.
Geiszler's face is still only a few inches from his, and it's so easy to lean in just a little, so that their lips brush. And it's easy to take a deep breath, and tilt his head to the side and do it again, and then again and again, until Geiszler's hands are knotted even tighter in his shirt and they're both breathing as if they've been running. He can feel Geiszler's heart racing where his chest is pressed against his, and below that, he can feel the hardness between them where he can't help but grind his hips, ever so slightly.
For once in their lives Hermann is more under-dressed, and he's cursing that now because Geiszler's clever fingers are already ghosting over his skin, tickling along his hips and up underneath the shirt he'd been sleeping in a few hours ago. He fumbles with the ridiculously skinny tie and button-up shirt, finally dropping both of them onto the carpet next to his cane. Newton Geiszler is colourful underneath his clothes, and of course he would be, because that's the way he is. His blunt, clever fingers are sliding up and down Hermann's back and that's him, somehow blunt and sharp and colourful all at once.
Newton gasps when Hermann touches him, long fingers mapping out his skin, tracing the colourful lines and soft contours. He moans when Hermann bends a little bit to taste him, to draw his tongue along his collarbone and trace his lips up along his neck, stopping just below his ear. He's pushing and pulling at Hermann now, desperate in a way that Hermann would consider making fun of, if he wasn't feeling fairly desperate himself. They're so close to the bedroom, but getting there takes time, each step a battle of lips and hands and teeth, because neither of them have ever given an inch to the other before this, and there is no reason to start now.
The bed is underneath him, suddenly, and then Newton is on top of him, knees on either side of his hips. He's panting and asking Hermann if his leg is alright like that, even as Hermann gently takes Newton's glasses off and sets them carefully to the side and that must be what love is, right there, Hermann realizes with a warm rush that starts in his stomach and spreads outwards, tingling in his fingers and toes.
Neither of them are going to last, not with weeks (or was it years?) of foreplay behind them, and neither of them care. Hermann simply buries his fingers into Newton's hair, pulling his mouth down to cover his own, and rocks upwards against him. Newton is noisy in bed, moaning and cursing against his mouth, saying things that would probably make Hermann blush, except that they make his pulse pound in his ears and his dick even harder, if that's possible.
When he comes, it's with Newton's name on his lips and Newton's hand on his dick and Newton wrapped around him, arms so tight he thinks he might never let go. When Newton comes a moment later, gasping and cursing out his Christian name as though it's the filthiest thing he's ever said, Hermann thinks he might come again, just from hearing that. And afterwards, in the afterglow, Newton leans in to kiss him relaxed and slow, and Hermann smiles so broadly that his face aches.