"Is this really necessary, Newton?" Hermann asked. It wasn't surprising that he had asked. They had been there for nearly two hours at this point. No, far more surprising was the fact that this was the first time he had.

"You didn't have to come with me, Hermann," Newt replied, trying on another pair of glasses and looking at his face from several different angles. He stepped back away from the mirror and walked towards it again, just to see how it looked in action.

"That is not an answer."

"Well then yes, I think it is quite necessary."

"Literally every pair in this shop, Newton. At this rate you will have tried on every pair in this shop."

"Hey, aren't you the one always on my ass about being more methodical and not just making rash decisions?" Newt asked.

"When it comes to science, Newton, yes. Not when it comes to picking out a new pair of eyeglasses."

"Well I blame you for this."

"How-what-why-" Hermann sputtered. "How is any of this my fault?"

Newt shrugged easily. "Well, you're the one that I drifted with, right? Well, besides those two kaiju brains. And you think that this is new and unexpected behavior from me. So either we blame the two kaiju brains or we blame you. And while I know that you would rather not be blamed for anything, I also know that it's kind of ridiculous to act as though kaiju brains have any sort of stake in the scientific process."

"You are the most ridiculous person I have ever met," Hermann accused.

Newt laughed. "Maybe. But you have met me."

"That doesn't even make any sense."

"You don't even make any sense."

Hermann rolled his eyes but he seemed more fond than annoyed. That was new for them. A lot of things were new for them. And since the brand new not end of the world was going on, they had some time to deal with it. "Newton, you cannot honestly tell me you were thinking about buying those last pair."

"I was giving them a fair chance," Newt said, carefully replacing the pair he was wearing and grabbing another pair to try. "You know. For science and all."

"Newton, they're neon green," Hermann said flatly.

"For science!"

"I don't know why I even agreed to come with you today," Hermann said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I didn't actually even invite you," Newt pointed out. "I just told you I was going to go buy new glasses and you asked me what time we were going."

"And you were fifteen minutes late."

Newt rolled his eyes. "Well forgive me for not realizing that this was a time-sensitive mission and not what time I felt like heading down to the store."

"You made a promise you would be ready by a certain time and you broke that promise."

Newt laughed. "What kind of skewed view of promise is that? I said I'd be ready at 10 and I was down at 10:15. I didn't swear you a blood oath."

"And it's a good thing you didn't," Hermann said. "From what I know, I'm legally allowed to execute you if you do."

Newt stuck his tongue out as he grabbed another pair of glasses. "Yeah, I don't know about 'legally' but I can totally believe that you would do that. Though it's probably treason since I just saved the world and all."

"Treason to which country?"

"Uh…all of them? Since they were all saved? And this country in particular was saved. But that was largely because they were hunting me in the first place and…I should really not bring that part up."

"You shouldn't bring that part up when you're filing a complaint about how I executed you?" Hermann asked. "I should have known even death wouldn't stop you from harassing me."

"Hey, if any of us has a right to complain about complaints being filed it's me," Newt said. "You know last night Michael emailed me all the complaints you filed against me, dude? 329? Seriously?"

"It should have been higher," Hermann said unrepentantly. "But I took pity on the poor HR department and only really pursued the serious ones."

"One of the complaints was that you found my antics distracting when I slipped and fell and sprained my wrist!"

"Well you wouldn't have done that if you weren't dancing with your eyes closed around that junkyard you called your side of the lab," Hermann said. "And I got nothing done the entire rest of the day taking you to medical."

"Well that was your choice. You decided to complain because I was injured and you decided to be a human being about it."

"None of this has anything to do with you being late to our plans."

"Frankly, the fact I was only fifteen minutes late means I was practically early," Newt said.

"There is no universe in which being late to something by a small amount makes you early. Maybe if something happens daily and you were late to it one day and so very early for it the next but even that is really just an excuse. And we didn't have daily plans to buy you a new pair of glasses!" Hermann exclaimed.

Newt grabbed another pair of glasses. "I still don't know why you even came. I mean, did you really think this would be fun?"

Hermann looked away. "Well, no, but I didn't think it would take this long and I thought maybe we could do something afterwards. Maybe lunch or just taking a walk. When was the last time either of us actually went to a movie theater?"

Newt stilled. That sounded like Hermann's completely nerdy way of going on a date with Newt without actually having to ask. Because Hermann hated words like 'date' and 'boyfriend' and basically anything that made him feel like he was a teenager. Newt loved them. Old was a state of mind and it wasn't one he intended to reach for a very long time.

He grinned. "Aw, Hermann, why didn't you just tell me you wanted to spend more time with me?"

"Newton, I invited myself glasses shopping with you even though I knew you would never listen to my opinion," Hermann said. "Though I cannot deny that I don't trust you to go places alone right now given with the brilliant choices you've made over the past few weeks I can only imagine you would somehow convince yourself to go investigate the site of the closed breach. Most people would drown but knowing you you'd somehow manage to turn yourself into some sort of fish abomination with no thought about how to turn yourself back and go down there and possibly die of radiation poisoning while you're at it."

"Wow," Newt said, not at all offended. He could feel a smile tugging at his lips in fact. "I sound like a real mess. Never mind that my brilliant choices saved the world in the end and you were right there with me that last time."

"Well you know what they say about broken clocks," Hermann said. "And I had to do that or you'd have run off with Otachi's dead spawn's brain and raised it as your own."

Newt would never have actually done that. And he would love to deny that he would even want to, he really would. Unfortunately… "I want to raise a kaiju as my own."

"I know you do, Newton. But I forbid it."

"You are no fun."

"Not by that definition, certainly not."

"With all this faith you have in me, you sure you want to be standing here right now starting a relationship with me?" Newt asked. He knew Hermann did. He had felt it in the drift.

"I do," Hermann replied. "I blame that on you, just so you know."

"You…blame the fact you want to be in a relationship with me on me? In what way? Because I'm so adorable and brilliant and otherwise awesome and a rock star that you just can't help it? Because I'll gladly admit that I am all of that but blaming a guy for his virtues seems a little harsh, Herms."

"Well I was actually referring to the fact that I must have picked all these terrible decision making tendencies clearly at play here up from you in the drift."

Newt wrinkled his nose. "Nice try, Hermann, but even I don't love myself enough to want to date me. And I would have asked me about directly anyway. Of course I would have said yes! And you're absolutely right. We really should get out more. Otherwise I'll start to think you don't want a proper relationship and are only using me for my body. Which if I'd known before I totally would have been on board with but now I've got my hearts set on being your boyfriend and talking about being your boyfriend all the damn time."

Hermann's entire face turned red. "Newton, why are you like this?"

Newt laughed. "There are so very many different answers to that question, Herms, so let me just say this: one of us have to be and I feel very strongly like that's not going to be you."

"No, one of us really doesn't," Hermann said.

"Sorry, can't hear you, too busy desperately being needed to be like this," Newt said, grabbing the final pair of glasses. "What do you think?"

"I think that that is a trap and I refuse to fall into it," Hermann said bluntly.

Newt laughed again. "I really don't know what you mean."

"This may be some kind of twisted compliment, Newton, but I have the utmost faith in your ability to set a trap for me and spring it without even needing to be aware."

Newt grinned. "Aw, you're right. That is a nice compliment."

"Nice and twisted really aren't synonyms," Hermann said.

"Only if you're boring. Don't be boring, Hermann. I bring a lot to this relationship but I absolutely cannot carry the weight of being interesting enough for two people!"

"Newton, you can be interesting enough for an entire room full of people. You're basically that scene from Brooklyn 99 where all the psychologists go over to take notes on everything Gina is saying at that party."

Newt beamed at him. "You have no idea how much I love that you've watched that show."

"Oh, I think you gave me a decent idea last night," Hermann said wryly but he was smiling.

"Well remind me to give you another decent idea later. You know, just in case it didn't sink in."

"Oh, have no worries on that front," Hermann assured him. "I most certainly will."

Newt laughed and place the final pair of glasses back and then walked around the story looking at them all again for what may or may not have been about forty minutes. He wasn't timing it. At some point, Hermann pulled out his phone and started checking his emails.

"Alright, I have it!" Newt exclaimed triumphantly. He put his chosen pair on his face to really give Hermann the feeling of what he was going with. "This is the pair!"

Hermann looked up with vague interest then he froze. He stood up and slowly made his way to Newt, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. He reached out a hand and touched the side of the glasses, his other fingers brushing against Newt's temple.

Newt shuddered pleasantly at the touch.

"Newton," Hermann said, his voice dangerously calm.

"Yes, Hermann?"

"Are these the exact same pair of glasses that you had before all of this?"

"What? No, don't be ridiculous," Newt scoffed. "Those glasses have a scratch on them!"

"But, aside from the scratch, they are identical, yes?"

"It's so hot that you noticed that," Newt tried.

"Newton, it's been two and a half hours. You tried on every pair of glasses in the store. And you bought the same exact pair!"

"Well, you never know. I might have found one I liked better. I mean, I kind of doubted it because this pair is so obviously amazing but, like, it could have happened. I was just being thorough! We talked about this!"

Hermann stared at him long and hard then abruptly turned and headed towards the exit of the shop. "I am in love with a moron."

"Hey, that's not very-I'll have you know I have six-Wait, what? Did you say love?" Newt asked. He started to hurry after him but was stopped by a salesperson.

"I'm sorry, sir, but are you going to buy those? You can't take merchandise outside of the store."

Newt cast a longing look at Hermann who was almost to the entrance.

"Okay, fine, I'm going to buy these first but then you are getting back here and we are going to lunch and we are going to talk about this!"

It started with an incident so small that in a kinder world he wouldn't have remembered it at all.

One morning he awoke to find his glasses weren't in their usual spot on his bedside table and he banged his head and almost fell out of bed reaching down to see if they'd fallen between the table and the bed.

They had and they had gotten dusty because why would he clean that part of the floor? It would probably involve moving furniture or something or getting some weirdly specific 'get all the difficult to reach parts' wiper advertised on infomercials.

Newt was never going to be that old or that domestic.

This is ridiculous, the Precursors said, annoyed. Every morning fumbling blindly for the glasses. Every time it rains and the water clings to them. Every time the temperature changes drastically from inside to outside. Every time the glasses come off or fall off or are misplaced. This is a degree of inefficiency that costs us so many precious minutes throughout the day that led up to hours lead up to days may make the difference between achieving our goals on time and not. Imagine being unable to open the breach because the glasses fell onto the floor and were stepped on.

Newt didn't mind the inefficiency. He wouldn't have minded if after all this the whole plan was derailed because by the time he managed to secure a pair of glasses someone had come in and seen what he was doing and stopped it or if he had to blindly fumble with the computer and hit the wrong button and alerted everyone.

They knew that of course. Knew he absolutely would try to 'accidentally' knock his glasses on the floor and step on them to try and save the planet. But, despite what they may say, he didn't really think that was so unreasonable.

Glasses were great. Newt had always loved having glasses, from the moment the world he hadn't known wasn't meant to be so blurry and off-putting came into sharp focus and his environment began to make sense and begged to be explored. They were great for dramatically putting on and pulling off to make a point when he was talking about something cool or important and they could really complete a look. His face didn't look quite right without them. They made him look too young, still, despite pushing forty at this point. He was tired of looking young. Maybe it was better than looking old but appearing younger than his age had never done him any favors when he was already largely considered too young to be there.

All those complaints about glasses, while technically true, were petty and really manageable. Well worth the cost. And glasses were hot anyway. Everyone knew that.

The Precursors hadn't liked his rock star glasses. He'd needed to purchase a new pair anyway after they'd cracked somewhere along the way to saving the world. And of course he'd bought a pair identical to the broken one despite the strange feeling, easy to ignore, that he should get something more sensible. What was more sensible than those? They were plain black and didn't even have any flames on them or glitter or anything.

But then came Shao's offer and suddenly the glasses were too big and clunky and might make him look sufficiently dorky scientist but not a respected business leader. He wouldn't be taken seriously with those glasses.

Newt had been hell-bent on being taken seriously when he still wore nothing but band and anime shirts. Shao insisted he dress professionally but even she wasn't enough of a fascist to lecture to him about glasses (maybe if they were, like, clearly children's glasses and bright pink or something but they weren't). It was really just the Precursors who didn't like it and honestly that seemed half a desire to take away something he loved because they sucked and half because those glasses made him look like the rock star who had beaten them. They hated to look in the mirror and be reminded of that man just as desperately as Newt needed it sometimes.

So those glasses, the ones he loved, had been disposed of. In their place were a much sleeker pair half the size. They weren't as good as the pair he had chosen, of course, but he couldn't help fall in love at least a little. But wasn't that the story of his life?

He liked having glasses. He chose that. He didn't choose to have imperfect eyesight but nothing could convince him to fight with contacts every day of his life and he knew he'd probably end up forgetting to put them in or take them out and just cause a huge mess. And if he had wanted to get LASIK-

The Precursors turned their attention to him. LASIK. What is…a surgery? To fix the eyes and remove the need for glasses. Preparation time and healing afterwards but then no further need for the glasses. This could be the answer.

They walked over to his computer and pulled up a browser, searching for information.

No! Newt exclaimed. No, no, no. That's really a waste of money and you're right that the aftercare would be a bitch. Better just stick to the glasses. It's fine. We can be more careful about putting the glasses down. There's really no need to resort to surgery.

You speak like it would be some sort of punishment, the Precursors said, puzzled. As if it would be done to hurt you. These eyes are imperfect and require glasses to function. Now we find that perhaps a procedure can be done to correct this and function at a more optimal level yet you balk at the very idea. It does not make sense.

Of course it didn't. Not to them. The idea of a Precursor with glasses was an amusing one and he wasn't so drowning in good times these days that he could afford to ignore it.

I love my glasses. You want to take them away because they inconvenience you but I love them more than they bother you.

The Precursors considered that. That does appear accurate but you are a human and love any number of irrational things. You love that poison you drink more and more of.

He didn't love the alcohol. It just made him hate everything slightly less. But was that really such an important distinction?

We cannot indulge your every whim and this body must function at peak level. If this surgery will do what you believe it will do then we will get it.

He wished he could say he was surprised that they considered not forcing surgery on him to be an indulgence. Even now, even inside his head seeing what he was thinking and the slow horror that was growing inside of him, they simply did not understand. It was a matter of sentiment and abstractions like autonomy so it was simply a human irrationality.

They understood the rationale behind his not approving of their presence in his mind and their work towards destroying his world but that was not up for debate. It was rationale that they prioritized their own wants over his needs.

He should have known it would come back to a perfectly functioning body. That was why he had a nutritionist whose advice the Precursors followed religiously and a fitness trainer who had him doing CrossFit five times a week. That was why most nights he got nine hours of sleep and even at their most indulging he never slept less than seven.

He was aware, vaguely, that in the past he had tossed around the word fascist a bit loosely but then he had never seen anyone that label fit better than the voices in his head.

He tried very hard not to pay attention as the Precursors read through page after page of information on LASIK, how much it cost, the complications of the surgery, aftercare procedures, what eye deficiencies it would correct. But how could he not pay attention when his eyes were focused sharply on the words in front of him? His poor glasses were being used to usher in their own obsolescence. At least the Precursors considered throwing away perfectly good possessions impractical and always donated them. Maybe his glasses could make some other rock star very happy.

The Precursors, having already discussed the matter with him and found his objections irrational and thus irrelevant, called his optometrist and scheduled an appointment to discuss the possibility of him undergoing corrective eye surgery. Dr. Langham was available to see him Thursday at 11:15. The Precursors would just take an early lunch.

Newt spent the next few days trying desperately to enjoy having glasses as much as he possibly could and memorize the feeling of wearing them, the look of them on his face. The Precursors indulged him by letting him spend minutes at a time starting at his reflection when he happened by his reflection.

He didn't attempt to persuade them not to get the surgery. He knew there was no point. It was an issue of efficiency with them and the only times he had ever been able to change their mind were when he had an equally good argument about rationality or efficiency. Those arguments had kept his preferred drift partner alive and miles from him but they could not save his glasses. The closest they ever got to sentiment was the way they treated Newt and that said really all it needed to. He refused to feel grateful to them for that and they indulged him in that, too.

The day of the exam came too quickly and Newt watched the Precursors reading reports as they waited for his name to be called. Ordinarily, Newt could handle reading reports all on his own but he was way too stressed and unhappy about the upcoming procedure to possibly be able to focus on them. The Precursors had arrived fifteen minutes early to the appointment though Newt honestly couldn't remember ever arriving before five minutes late when it had been him.

"Newton," the physician's assistant said and Newt's body got up and followed her into the exam room to wait for the doctor.

I don't want to be here.

It will not take long, the Precursors replied as though that were supposed to make things better. And maybe, technically, they were right. It wouldn't take long to steal his glasses from him but at least he would not have to spend a long time enduring the theft. It is not stealing anything, it is fixing your eyes. This is unambiguously a good thing. Your tendency towards nostalgia goes beyond what we have observed in other humans.

The implied judgment meant nothing to him.

"Well, Newt, I have to say that I'm surprised to see you in here," Dr. Langham said as she walked through the door.

"Are you? Why?" the Precursors asked, narrowing his eyes.

Dr. Langham laughed. "Oh, I don't know. Something about the fact that you showed me your top fifty pairs of glasses and were discussing when and where you were going to wear each of them. And you explaining in great detail for the better part of half an hour all the things you'd rather do than get 'corrective vision.' And the virtual essay you gave me about society's obsession with 'fixing' things that don't need to be fixed at all and the benefits of keeping your vision the way it always was."

Well, yeah, when Dr. Langham put it that way it did seem rather strange that he had suddenly changed his mind.

The Precursors chuckled. "Okay, yeah, I may have gotten a little extra there."

"Oh, no, I didn't mind at all. You're fascinating to listen to and I actually ordered one of the pairs you showed me. See?" she tapped at her frame.

"Nice!" the Precursors said appreciatively and somehow managed to sound genuine. "But that was a few years ago. I…probably should have been in a year ago, actually. I'm sorry, I'm so bad at keeping track of appointments and stuff and my glasses were working fine. But three years on, I have, uh, softened my stance considerably on LASIK and I'm getting sick of always misplacing my glasses. You don't even want to know how much I've had to spend on replacements because they just always end up right where I'm walking."

Dr. Langham nodded sympathetically. "Oh, I quite understand. You've had glasses a long time and sometimes it's just time for a change. Have you considered contacts?"

Contacts would only be marginally better. They are tiny and easy to lose or involve way too much precision work removing them and putting them in. Correcting the vision is the goal.

The Precursors made a face. "I've thought about it but, well, the thought of having to actually touch my eye to put things in? Like, don't get me wrong, I've talked to people and they have no problem with it but I think I'd just psych myself out and not be able to do it. Too much touching. Of the eye."

Dr. Langham laughed. "Okay, you've made your point. Well I'll have to give you an eye exam to see if your eyes are healthy enough for the surgery and if your vision would really be improved by this. We'll need to evaluate the shape and thickness of your cornea, your pupil size, any refractive errors, and any other eye conditions you may have. I'll check the moistness of your eye as well in case I need to give you precautionary treatment to reduce the risk of your developing dry eyes after the surgery. Then I'll look over your health history and the medications you're on to see if you're a good candidate for LASIK surgery."

The Precursors had smiled and answered her questions and asked a few of their own. They submitted to the eye exam and Newt would have flinched away had he been able but the middle of a doctor's appointment was no time for him to react negatively to a procedure that would improve him. They were instructed not to wear contacts at all before the procedure in two weeks.

Newt returned to work and at the end of the day barely paused long enough on his way to the nearest bar for the man Shao had tailing him to catch up. He briefly wondered what it must be like to have to sit at a bar all night watching a drunken mess try to hate everything a little less.

"I don't understand," Jihao told him. "If you don't want eye surgery, don't get eye surgery."

Newt laughed a little helplessly as he downed the rest of his drink and gestured for another. "You don't understand!"

"I did just say that."

"I have to get it. Like, I don't want it. I don't want it so bad. I've spent like a million years arguing with fascists who keep insisting it'll make my life better and glasses are ugly about how we're not exactly trying to be Übermensch here and now I've got this shit going on."

"Are you seriously throwing German at me right now?" Jihao demanded. "I speak Mandarin and English now I'm supposed to speak German?"

Newt shook his head and felt a sudden wave of dizziness overcome him. "No, not that, I just…perfect. Perfect mind, perfect body. I'm not trying for that."

"I should hope not," Jihao said. "Because you are rather a mess."

"Hey!" Newt objected, more out of habit than because he was offended or disagreed.

Jihao shrugged unrepentantly and placed Newt's next drink before him. "Well you just mentioned the glasses thing and you spend way too much time in here to be doing all that well in other areas."

Newt raised his glass and toasted vaguely at Jihao. "Have to do it, though. Tried not to. Really don't want to. But it's 'irrational' and 'inefficient' to prefer glasses to surgery. Never mind my glasses make me me and now I'm being irrational again."

"That sounds bad but you haven't explained how anyone can be forcing you into having surgery," Jihao said. "You're not a child, you aren't being forced to undergo an emergency life-saving operation, you haven't been abducted and cut into against your will…"

Newt laughed so hard he might be crying. "I don't know, man, I just don't know. Or maybe you don't know. Maybe I have been kidnapped and being forced into surgery against my will. Ever thought about that one?"

Jihao looked critically at him. "Well if that's the case then you have the most lax kidnappers I've ever seen. Just in case, do remember to bring a real spoon with you when going through airport security. I've heard it can save a life."

"I don't understand anything you're saying," Newt informed him.

Jihao sighed. "Neither do I most days, Newt."

"Jihao?"

"Yes, Newt?"

"I think you're my best friend," Newt said.

Jihao had a strange look on his face. A look that said he didn't want to believe that but maybe did anyway.

It wasn't like Newt wasn't aware of how pathetic that was. But honestly, aside from the Precursors Jihao was probably the person Newt had the most actual contact with.

"At least you're in the city," Newt tried to justify himself. "At least you know that I'm all kinds of fucked up. That's better than…than my old best friend ever did."

That wasn't fair. It wasn't his fault Newt and the Precursors were keeping him away.

But it sucked anyway that it was so obvious to the bartender and not to the one person who should have known.

Jihao looked at him for a long moment. "I'm going to go get you a water."

Newt didn't remember much about the rest of that night which was how he knew it was a better night than most of the nights he had had lately.

Two weeks went by and the night before the surgery he had not been allowed any alcohol because the Precursors had read drinking before a surgery was not good. Instead, he was bundled on the couch surrounded by his favorite take-out and marathoning his favorite anime. It had been awhile.

He didn't think it helped but maybe it didn't hurt either.

Then the Precursors had taken the day off of work and arrived for the procedure a full twenty minutes early. They were not nearly as excited about the surgery as he was filled with dread. He felt their disapproval but they said nothing to him. It was for the best. There was no point trying to explain something they were simply not capable of understanding and it only frustrated him to try.

Newt's legs should be shaking. His breathing should be coming out shallowly and on the verge of panicking. His palms should be sweating. His body was perfectly calm under the Precursor's control.

The Precursors took off his glasses for the last time and his hands were steady and he hated it. He felt exposed without his glasses. Almost naked without them. He was too exposed already. Always. Don't take that away, too. It was too late. There was no point in begging. Not this late in the game. There never had been.

Dr. Langham asked him some casual questions designed to keep him at east about his work. The Precursors weren't nervous in the slightest but gave easy, vague answers anyway. They held his body perfectly still while a nurse applied numbing drops to his eyes to prevent any discomfort during the procedure. For a moment, Newt felt the reflexive urge to blink rapidly to clear his eyes but he didn't. Was his heart racing? No, of course not. His breathing remained as steady as ever.

After a few minutes, his eyelids began to tingle a bit then go numb. He didn't know if his eye was numb as well because eyes generally didn't feel like anything unless you injured them but it stood to reason. He didn't want it to be numb. He didn't want to feel the laser burning into his eye and he certainly wouldn't be able to sit still even if he wanted to it he could so he would likely blind himself but he didn't want this change to happen.

"Are you doing alright there, Newt?" Dr. Langham asked him.

"Yes, I'm fine."

No. I'm not fine I'm not fine I'm not fine I'm not

He felt strangely calm. He wasn't calm, not at all. He knew how much this was something he did not want and could not stop and would be permanent and no one would even know. But he had had panic attacks over incidents way more minor than this. Two nights ago at the bar some guy had offhandedly told him that he looked hotter without his glasses and Newt had thrown his drink in the man's face and hid in the bathroom for twenty minutes before calming down.

He wasn't calm. He didn't want this. Why wasn't his body working right? Yes, yes, it was largely the Precursor's body these days and he had known that he was feeling things from a distance but was he unable to even panic properly? The very thought should have sent his heart racing and caused his breathing to resemble him running up and down a flight of stairs. There was no change. How had he only realized this now? Was he right? Was he just imagining things? Now was hardly the time to be trying to figure this out logically. He couldn't he couldn't he couldn't he couldn't he had to. He was watching it happen and there was no element of choice present.

The nurse approached him with a lid speculum. He knew what it was and what it was used for but that didn't make the wire device meant to hold his eyelids open during the surgery any less horrifying. He thought abruptly of Clockwork Orange. It wasn't going to be hours and he wasn't going to be forced to stare at anything. Well, technically he would be forced to look at the cabinet in front of him and the laser and whoever was in his line of sight. But without the speculum he would still be forced to look whichever way his eyes were pointed. And wasn't that a cheery thought?

He couldn't feel it as she affixed it to the eyelids of his left eye. That was good because this would be very painful if he could. This was bad because he couldn't feel his eye. He couldn't move his eye and now he couldn't feel it. It was like he was being cut off from himself inch by fucking inch.

The nurse directed him to sit in front of the laser and the doctor began to work.

He couldn't feel anything that was being done but he certainly noticed when the suction ring was applied to the front of his eye which stopped it from moving. He couldn't move it anyway and it was important to keep it still while the surgery was happening but he couldn't move it and he was still feeling far too calm and he couldn't believe he had ever felt calm enough to breathe that steady in his whole fucking life and how were they just sitting there like that? If it were him he'd scream at them to get that thing off his eye and then run from the room and never come back. If it were him he'd never have ended up there in the first place. The doctor had it right the first time. This wasn't him. What would certain people even think when they saw him? Would they wonder, too, and realize how very much not him this was or would they just chalk it up to him growing and changing? Would they think he looked better, too, when he no longer got to choose? No longer got to look like him? He couldn't think about it. He couldn't think about anything else.

His eye focused on the target light and the laser turned on and he couldn't feel it at all. It was reshaping his very cornea and he couldn't feel a goddamn thing. There was maybe some pressure? Maybe all in his head. It didn't hurt. It was changing him. 'It's not a big deal' anyone would tell him. 'This is fixing you' the Precursors would say. It was wrong. It was modifying his body without his consent and it was forever and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. There was a clicking sound. He thought his breath was hitching again but it wasn't. That sound could drive a man to madness. There was a laser in his eye. He'd heard horror stories of lasers malfunctioning and power going out and causing horrendous damage. What was that poor boy's name? David Reimer.

The laser turned off.

The doctor asked how he was feeling and praised the Precursors for having done so well.

The nurse took the speculum off one eyelid and used the other set of metal rings to attach it to the other.

He couldn't go through this again. How had he gone through it before? It didn't hurt but it was wrong and his eye was burning and it didn't seem any less blurry to him. The Precursors had read that that happened immediately following surgery but it was supposed to clear up by the next morning. He wasn't clear to drive until Dr. Langham confirmed his vision was improved so any problems could be addressed then.

The light turned on and again he had to watch, too still and completely powerless, as it happened again. The Precursors thanked Dr. Langham and the nurse for their help and promised to come back the next morning. They called a taxi to take him home so he could sleep the rest of the day again and have his vision mostly recovered by the next morning.

They left his glasses behind in that room.

Newt might have known Hermann had kept a pair of his glasses. Hermann had gotten quite sentimental in the past few years. He supposed one of them had to be and he certainly hadn't been capable of much sentiment, regardless of what certain brain-stealing aliens thought. What else but sentiment had kept him coming back to Newt when he received nothing but brush-offs and polite distance and not even the courtesy of telling him frankly that he didn't want Hermann in his life anymore? Hermann could have easily taken the hint but sentiment kept him right where he was at the very periphery of Newt's life instead.

It was a little surprising to find that Hermann had kept four pairs of his glasses. They all looked exactly the same, save the rather pronounced crack on the right lens one of them had. That must be the glasses he was wearing when he saved the world.

"Newton?" Hermann asked, coming into the room. "Newton, are you here? I-Oh."

"Oh," Newt echoed. He was peering idly through the world-saving glasses but he hadn't put them on.

"I kept telling myself I was going to donate those," Hermann said. "And all the other things you left behind. I don't think I believed me."

"Well as a man who gave away everything purchased since he went to Shao, let me thank you for not leaving me completely without shit," Newt said. "I mean, I didn't even hate all of it. They didn't actually buy anything I found truly horrible. Some of it I even picked out. I had to wear clothes of a certain standard but they didn't see a need to not allow me any input since I cared more than they did. But it's a matter of principle, you know? It was my evil wardrobe from when I was evil and so it has to go. But I can't even burn it because I had ten years of being told how inefficient destroying things was and I'm still anti-capitalist enough to know getting rid of perfectly good clothes when other people need clothes is unbearably wasteful."

"Letting you choose the clothes, to an extent, and giving what they didn't want or need to others? Newton, forgive me, but you're making the Precursors sound almost…" Hermann couldn't find the word.

Newt snorted. "Tell me about it. But they weren't good people. They wanted to kill us all, remember? They tried to kill you and Mako and actually did kill like a shit ton of other people I'm lucky I don't know. They just didn't believe in inefficiency so while they hadn't yet killed us they were going to share resources they were not using. And I think they saw me as some sort of…badly behaved pet or something? Something sentient but beneath them and to be used for their own ends to the destruction of everything that mattered to me but not something they felt real malice for. Someone. Not someone. So they would control me and fuck me over every goddamn day but then they'd let me pick out my preferred dress shirt and go drinking when the stress of possession and isolation and plotting genocide became too much. What fucking saints."

Hermann's eyes turned sad. "Newton…"

Nope, he wasn't going there.

"I still can't believe I'm the same size I was back then. If anything, maybe things are a little looser. Or else I wore them loose back then. Ten years on, who can even remember anymore?" Newt asked rhetorically. "Like, seriously, I've never managed to maintain the same weight for ten goddamn years before. But then, I guess I hadn't had many ten years before that? Really depends on if we're counting like ten to twenty and twenty to thirty as two or for, say, eleven to twenty-one and twelve to twenty-two as different sets of ten years. But given that ridiculous health kick they tortured me with – not literally, Jesus, Hermann – I had better look fucking great. And enjoy it while it lasts because I am literally never going to work out ever in my life again. Not even if my life depended on it. I come in and see a bomb attached to an exercise bike saying 'keep your heart rate above X or you die' and I'll just lie down and die. Well, maybe run for it first but if that doesn't work then I'd lie down and die."

Hermann merely nodded and he took a seat next to Newt on the sofa. After a moment he said, "You have the glasses. I haven't seen you with glasses for some time. You could…you could try them on. I know ten years out your prescription has likely changed but-"

"I don't have a prescription anymore," Newt interrupted.

Hermann furrowed. "What?"

"You haven't seen me with glasses, Hermann. You said it yourself."

"Well not when you were in custody, no, but I had assumed since then you had, I don't know, contacts or something. Did drifting with that thing somehow impact your eyesight?"

Newt snorted. "Oh, that would have been better."

"Newton, what happened?" Hermann asked urgently.

"The Precursors found my need for glasses inefficient so they got LASIK surgery."

"But…" Hermann looked lost. "You loved your glasses."

Newt's eyes softened. "Yeah. I did."

"LASIK…don't you need to be awake for that?"

"Yeah."

Newt suddenly found himself enveloped in a hug and his hands moved automatically to return it.

"I am so sorry, Newton," Hermann said quietly.

"I…thank you. But it was a long time ago and it was a ten minute procedure. It didn't even hurt. It was hardly the worst thing they did or even that they did to me."

"That doesn't mean it doesn't matter. I saw you didn't have glasses but I assumed it must have been contacts. It barely made sense to me why you would stop wearing glasses but I thought maybe it was for your public appearances. You certainly had those god-awful sunglasses on often enough even indoors. Newton…I'm sure you know this but I still feel I have to tell you that you're allowed to be upset about this. It was done against your wishes and without your consent and cannot be undone. How this ranks compared to the dozens of other atrocities they committed is absolutely irrelevant."

Hermann had been kind enough not to say anything when he had caught Newt Googling 'how to reverse LASIK.'

Newt's eyes stung.

Hermann pulled back and gently wiped something wet off his cheeks. He pressed a gentle kiss to his nose.

"I missed you, you know?" Newt told him. By now that should be blindingly obvious but sometimes he still felt like he had to say it. He could never say it enough times to make up for all the times he had made Hermann think that he had flipped a switch and suddenly stopped caring for him. They had done that. But he had been involved.

"Of course I do, Newton. Just about as much as I missed you, I suspect, though I was given more headspace to wallow," Hermann said. "It's not your fault. None of what they did was your fault. You weren't the one who was deciding anything that mattered."

Newt's lips disappeared into his mouth. "That is…a mostly accurate statement."

Hermann blinked at him. "Mostly?"

"So much mostly. About nearly everything in fact. Except for stupid things that didn't matter, of course. What flavor health drink was I going to have? Red grapes or green? And then there's that one big glaring exception that did matter and it's not like I regret it, exactly, because I still feel I did the right thing but it's just…It's occurring to me you should probably know about it. My last big secret. We, uh, don't do so well when we hide things from each other."

By 'we' he mostly meant he himself but keeping secrets led to Hermann doing ridiculous things like assuming he was too boring or grumpy or awkward for Newt to want anything to do with after Hermann had finally agreed to join him in rock stardom and saved both his own life and the whole world in the process.

Hermann looked pained. "Newton, if you're referring to the circumstances that led to you falling under the Precursor's sway in the first place then we talked about this. The first and second drift were necessary because no one else would listen and we needed that information or we were going to die right then and even had the Precursors succeeded last year your actions gave us an extra ten years of life and let us live unafraid for the first time since this all began. Whatever happened after that, however they whispered that you needed to know more and it was safe and you had to find out if they were coming back, you weren't acting in your right mind." He winced. "I know how that sounded. I'm not saying you weren't…just that they were already in your head then and you can't be blamed for their influence, especially as it seemed so benign at first."

Newt knew for a fact that Hermann felt that cloning a kaiju brain and drifting with it for any other reason than it was the only thing standing between the human race and complete annihilation in the immediate future was unbearably stupid and deserving of a never-ending lecture and possibly some jail time. But not when it came to him, apparently, because oh look at how he had suffered and Hermann loved him too much to want to see any more of it. It was hypocritical and was it strange that Newt loved him for that?

"No, it wasn't that," Newt admitted slowly. "I'm actually not blaming myself for that today but when I inevitably cycle back around towards that I'll keep what you said in mind."

Hermann peered curiously at him. "Then what are you thinking?"

"Well, the same thing I'm always thinking about, I suppose," Newt said. "I'm thinking about you."

Hermann swallowed hard. "Newton."

"More to the point, I'm thinking about how you featured into the Precursor's plans," Newt said, glancing away.

When he looked back, Hermann was blinking rapidly in confusion. "Forgive me but I hadn't realized I had factored into the Precursor's plans at all. Maybe in that nebulous Plan B Lambert heard you mention but aside from that I wasn't even supposed to be there when they opened the breach and they not only took their time attempting to kill me but didn't even finish the job once Shao arrived."

Newt breathed slowly through the casual reminder of that one time he had totally nearly murdered Hermann. That was fine. Everything was fine. He had been crying. He hadn't cried sober since the night he had left Hermann and even that had eventually turned into drunken crying.

"Herms, I told you there was no Plan B," Newt said. "I mean, I get why everyone thought there was. We did totally say there was and they'd be idiots if they weren't on the lookout for anything else that's coming. But, like, they barely got me to form a proper Plan A. You think I had the discipline and focus for a Plan B?"

Hermann's face plainly said 'he has a point.' That would be insulting if it weren't so true. "I had rather imagined the Precursors had more control than that."

"Well, sure. They could make me do whatever they wanted. They could prompt me with words or ideas and see what my brain came up with. But that is not necessarily the same as forcing me to focus. They could force my eyes to focus on words and I had no choice but to process them but generating ideas? Yeah, I gave them that first one. They asked how I would reopen the breach and that was what I had. But when they wanted a back-up plan I just kept thinking about the first plan. You know how I am about Plan Bs. I wasn't even really trying to sabotage them. I just always have so much faith in the first thing I try or it wouldn't be the first thing I was trying and attempting to make it perfect that a Plan B just sort of never ended up happening. Not that it'd have mattered if I had since Nick knocked me out and I was stuck in that cell."

"It's Nate," Hermann corrected.

"Whatever."

Hermann's hands came up to gently cup his face. "Newton."

Newt moved his hands up to grab onto Hermann's wrists and they just sat there for a few moments, breathing together like that.

Eventually Hermann lowered his hands. He was still sitting right beside him but irrationally Newt missed the touch. "How was I involved in the Precursor's plans, Newton? I know that whatever they were planning is over now but I would like to know. I think it might drive me mad wondering otherwise."

Newt hesitated.

"Newton."

"It's going to hurt you."

"A lot of things about the situation hurt me," Hermann said. "Nearly everything in fact. What's one more thing? It's over and done with. Knowing won't make things worse."

"Did you ever wonder why the Precursors didn't attempt to try anything with you?" Newt asked slowly. His hand almost unconsciously reached out for Hermann's who quickly threaded his fingers through Newt's own. "You were the only other human that was real to them. The only other human who they saw as posing a threat to them. You and I saw into their hivemind and brought knowledge back with us. You and I used science to give the rangers the tools they needed to hold off the kaiju as long as they did then close the breach. You and I were always going to be the ones they came after. And yet they only came for me."

Hermann's face was pale. "I…suppose I hadn't considered that. I had wondered, you know, what the aftereffect of drifting with a kaiju brain would be. There were terrible nightmares of course. Sometimes I considered the benefits of drifting with a kaiju brain again, of figuring out how to open up a breach from this side. But those were just idle musings. I didn't know if it was my own curiosity, the same way you can't help but wonder how you would plan a perfect crime for example. It might have been my own thoughts that were changed forever after the drift and in some way wanting what they wanted. And I knew it might be just straight-up what they wanted. I spent hours trying to parse out what was my desires and what had changed since the drift. I don't know if I entirely succeeded because the brain is so wonderfully complicated and I had no baseline measurements but I at least knew that anything that could potentially aid the Precursors must not be done at any cost."

Newt nodded. "Well I drifted one more time than you and without anyone to share the neural load and I've always been more reckless and less meticulous than you. And my fascination with kaiju was already such a big part of me. So they got in. And maybe you'd be able to resist the little they could poke at you with from our shared drift but there were other ways, once they had me."

Hermann's eyes were wide and his face still. "Ways?"

"Looking at it logically, it really was foolish to just leave the one person who was always as smart as I was and knew my methods and how I thought and had helped stop the kaiju last time alive and fully committed to the PPDC, wasn't it?" Newt said, as casually as he could manage. "And in the end, it was your science that saved the day. Shao helped finish it but you were the one who did that."

Hermann said nothing but his grip tightened in Newt's hand.

"The Precursors would always listen to what I had to say but they were never moved by sentiment or irrationality," Newt said. "And given when I really disagreed with them it was usually because I was against the whole destroying the world and ripping apart my life thing, they never were convinced. But this was important."

"And the world and your life were not?" Hermann asked incredulously.

Newt shook his head impatiently. "No, of course that's not what I meant. But I was their only window into this world when you stayed away from anything kaiju-related and they'd been stuck on taking this planet for hundreds of millions of years so both of those were lost causes. But you. You were negotiable and by God did I negotiate."

"What did they want with me?" Hermann asked, his voice almost a whisper.

"Well at first they wanted to get you to drift with Alice," Newt said. "And I was horrified at the very thought. Not only would having you under their control as well just fuck us that much harder and take away the only person I thought had a reasonable chance of stopping this but what happened was…it was pretty bad, Hermann. I wouldn't wish that on anyone and certainly not on you. But they didn't care about that. It was irrationality. So I pointed out that the person who you were didn't want to understand the kaiju. You wouldn't risk your life just to know. You wrote out a list of the possible negative consequences of anything even remotely dangerous before you did it. You had hated it when you had done it. There was never going to be a way to convince you."

"And that was the end of that?"

"Well, no," Newt admitted. "I mean, they believed me you'd never do it willingly but it doesn't have to be willing. We proved that when we drifted with two kaiju brains that never consented to it. Maybe we'd never pilot a jaeger together but it was enough to transfer certain things. They wanted me to overpower you somehow, maybe drug you because it was less risky that physical force and they were mindful of how sick the thought of striking you made me."

"So they would have had you hook me up to that…that thing against my will and force me to get infected and become part of their plan?" Hermann's voice sounded almost steady but his hand was shaking in Newt's.

Newt brought their joined hands up to his lips and planted a kiss on Hermann's wrist which seemed to calm him.

"That was their plan," Newt agreed. "But again, I pointed out the flaws in it. With each drift they gained more control but it was ages before they had enough of a hold on me to convince me to do anything but clone another brain to drift with and keep it a secret. Giving you a second drift might make you more vulnerable to the whispers of the Precursors but, being you, it was really doubtful you'd actually do it. So what was the next step? How to explain away that you mysteriously lost consciousness and woke up feeling the aftereffects of a drift? Even if that could be explained, would you be willing to come to dinner again? And if the same thing happened that couldn't possibly be chalked up to a fluke and after only three drifts you'd probably know something was up with me and bring the PPDC in to investigate which was the last thing that they wanted."

"But Newton," Hermann objected. "Wouldn't that have been a positive outcome for you? If I had figured it out then and looked into it and found out what was going on, we could have saved you years before anything happened in Sydney or Tokyo."

But Newt shook his head. "See, that's only one way it might have played out. You might have just thought I was an asshole creep now who got off on drugging people. You might have confronted me alone or investigated on your own and been caught seeing too much. Or maybe you did bring reinforcements and you were still killed. There was no guarantee that things would have played out the way you described but the threat of it was enough to talk the Precursors out of it. The other option would have been to hold you prisoner until you had drifted enough to be in the same boat I was. That would have been safer for them but they'd need a place to hide you where no one would see and where no one looking into my movements in the case of an investigation, or with Shao having her security guys follow me all the time, would find you. You're a high-profile guy and not the type to just up and vanish. Questions about your disappearance and reappearance would be hard to answer. You couldn't just be kept in the apartment nor could you be realistically brought there to drift with Alice and put back every so often. Would another brain have to be cloned where you were? It was all a logistical nightmare and very impractical."

Hermann swallowed hard. "So…here I am…saved from being forcibly made into a puppet of the Precursors through the power of logic. You amaze me, Newton. So far gone and trapped and still fighting for me."

"Of course I would. Who else would I fight for?" Newt asked.

Hermann actually smiled at that.

"But that wasn't the end of it, oh no. I had convinced them they couldn't convert you but that still left killing you on the table. You would be a valuable resource and they did so hate wasting those but since I had already thoroughly explained why they could not have you, it became practical to-" He broke off. He could do this. He took a deep breath. "To destroy you so that humanity could not have you either."

"Destroy," Hermann repeated. "Newton, they would have had you murder me."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It wouldn't have been your fault and you didn't anyway. You couldn't even that time."

"We didn't realize that," Newt said. "And if Shao hadn't come in when she did, determined to murder me herself…it hadn't got to that. I hope to God it wouldn't have ended with me not being strong enough to keep you alive but all it would have taken was one moment of weakness and there it was. If I fought them on it, even if I did far better than I think I could have, I could have stayed their hand 99 times and on the 100th you died."

"But you said it didn't come to that," Hermann said, a strange urgency in his voice.

"No, it didn't. It wasn't necessary, I said. You were clueless and on the other side of the world, I said. You weren't a threat to them. And if they did kill you, there would be an investigation. We didn't know for sure we could manage to kill you without any witnesses or evidence or even just suspicion. I've seen cop shows, you know, but I'm not an expert on police procedure and they sure as hell weren't. And every now and then, when it really mattered, sometimes I could break through for a moment. You saw it. What if I did that in the process of trying to kill you and you were able to get away? The jig would be up. What if you'd accidentally killed me? What if I managed to turn the gun or whatever on myself? What if, either with or without you dead, I made enough of a scene that I got a psychiatric eval or even institutionalized? There were so many ways that could go wrong. And for what? The chance that maybe at some point after their plans were in motion you could stop it?"

"I did stop it."

Newt couldn't help the proud smile at that. "Yeah you did. But it seemed pretty unbelievable then."

"You said you made one major decision that impacted me," Hermann said slowly. "So far what you've described is just saving me."

"Yeah."

"So you wanted to keep me safe from them, not give them a reason to reassess my potential value or threat. You didn't want to risk me getting suspicious and discovering something and falling victim to them. You…it wasn't you, was it? The one who pulled away?"

It broke Newt's heart to hear the pain in Hermann's voice. Still, he had agreed to be honest.

"It…wasn't exactly that. I wasn't the one who chose to leave. We were already living half a world away from each other but we were still texting each other and calling all the time. But after that…well what if you did notice something? They weren't happy that the rational decision at that point was to leave you alone. I couldn't risk that. You knew me better than anyone."

"But you kept inviting me to meet Alice. What if I said yes?"

Newt laughed harshly. "Please. The moment I uttered the name 'Alice' in front of you I knew you would sooner stab yourself in the face than ever be forced to witness how happy I supposedly was with your replacement."

"But what if I did?" Hermann pressed.

"It was never going to happen, Hermann. I knew you too well for that."

Hermann made a face. He let go of Newt's hand in favor of leaning against him. "I suppose I should thank you."

"That's what you got out of that story? You owe me one?"

Hermann shook his head. "No, nothing like that. I do greatly appreciate that you were willing to share that with me. It's not easy for me to hear and I know it can't be easy to say but I think it's important to share what you can. And you did save me. That's…that's a good thing to know."

Newt fidgeted uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, it is what it is, you know?"

"I'm sorry about your glasses."

Newt sighed. "Yeah, me too. I'm probably the only dissatisfied customer in the world who had nothing go wrong with his surgery."

"I'm sure your doctor would understand," Hermann said. "It's been several years since then and I know it was against your will but I can't help but feel like there's more behind your dejection at your loss of glasses than you've said."

Newt managed a small smile. "Can't get nothing past you, can I?"

"I had rather thought that that was what we were going for," Hermann said primly.

"I just…I had a certain mental image of me. You know the guy. Awesome hair, skinny tie, punk jacket, huge black glasses. The clothes went pretty soon and that wasn't, you know, great but I had worn other clothes when I had to. They were just clothes. And they never could get my hair right but at least they didn't like let it lie flat. I hate it when it does that. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I was looking at my face. And my face had glasses. That's just how I saw myself. Even when I lost control, it was still my face, you know? My face they were controlling. And I didn't see much of myself in the mirror because they were a hell of a lot less interested in doing that than I was. But then they took away the glasses and it was still my face, I guess, but it just looked so different. The hair was off which felt like a much bigger deal with the glasses gone. I looked…different. It just transformed my whole face. I looked older, I guess. Less approachable. Colder. Corporate. I didn't like it. I hadn't ever thought of myself like that, even when I did see myself without glasses. I looked like a Precursor puppet like that. And after all this time having my own mind and body back and finally fixing my goddamn hair…It's been too long. My mental image isn't who I was back then anymore. I know I'm not but I still look in the mirror and see that same old Precursors puppet. And it makes me miss my glasses."

Hermann didn't say anything. He was smart enough to know that sometimes there was nothing to say. But he wrapped his arms around Newt and they sat that like for who even knew how long. It helped.

Eventually, Hermann said, "I know it wouldn't be the same, but there's no reason you can't go out and get glasses again. You don't need the lenses but fashion glasses are everywhere these days. You can choose how you look again and stop having to feel like they took something you can't get back. Much of it you can't. The time, you can't. We can't. But this you can."

But Newt shook his head. "It's a nice thought, Hermann, but I don't think it would help."

"Why not?"

"They'd just be glass. I'd know they'd just be glass. Looking through them wouldn't feel any different than not looking through them and I'm well-used to what my goddamn perfect vision is like now. And if I had on glasses but they were fake I think it would just remind me even more of the glasses I used to have. It'd be too much a comparison between my real glasses and the fashion accessories."

Hermann made an understanding noise at that. He couldn't possibly understand. He had glasses and he didn't dislike them but he only needed those sometimes when he was working. They were a tool, that was all. He would never go out and get surgery to stop himself from requiring them but had his eyes suddenly changed and he no longer needed glasses at all he would consider it a net positive the same as the Precursors did. No, that wasn't fair. He shouldn't compare Hermann to the Precursors even when it came to something like this.

"I don't suppose this will help immediately," Hermann said haltingly. "Forgive me if you just want to be heard, I am hearing you, but you know how my mind always tries to find solutions to problems."

"No need to apologize, I'm the same way," Newt said. "And hey, if you can find a solution then by all means. God knows I haven't managed to."

"Eyes change all the time. That's why prescriptions must be updated every few years. From what I know of LASIK, there is no guarantee that the eye will not change again and the surgery will be less effective. In a few years, perhaps your vision won't remain so perfect. Or even longer than that, the effects of old age may catch up with you and require some form of glasses."

A startled smile spread across Newt's face. "Hermann, are you trying to cheer me up by suggesting my eyes might spontaneously turn to crap after all that angst?"

"I…yes?" '

"Here's to hoping," Newt said. He slid the pair of glasses he'd been playing with earlier onto Hermann's nose and his grin widened. Hermann looked absolutely ridiculous like that. His glasses definitely needed to be more 'hot nerd'. It was just his aesthetic. "I love you."

"Newton, your eyesight was terrible," Hermann complained. What else could you possibly say when trying on someone else's glasses? "But I love you as well."

Newt leaned in and kissed Hermann and at some point the glasses were tossed onto the table and pretty soon he wasn't thinking about glasses or LASIK or Precursors at all anymore.