It never got easier, no matter how many hours, days, weeks passed. Hermann Gottlieb never forgot the sensation of flesh becoming slack under his touch, how Newton Geiszler's mouth parted to form words, only produce a sound that shook his entire body in a death rattle. Even with the fresh knowledge in his mind, the bile rising up in his throat, Hermann was hardly aware of the urgency of anything anymore. He watched the life leave Newton's eyes, felt the tight grasp on his jacket fall, and then there was nothing but white noise.
Hermann woke up to screaming, a roar of noise, a wall of cacophony that shook him to his knees. The Breach was closed. The world was saved. Yet, it was already over. Marshall Hansen's hand came tight against his arm, lifting him, pulling him away from the uproar off celebration. The ticking of claws on concrete, the sensation of his back being forced against a bulkhead of the Shatterdome's innermost structure. He felt Hercules' arm close around him, found his own shaking hands curling into the elder's shirt, registered the sensation of the man's broken sobs into his shoulder. Realized that he was making the same motion, mouth dropping open in a moist cry into the army-colored vest.
All Hermann could do was scream, howl himself hoarse into the textured fabric against his mouth. A faint, buzzing feeling overwhelmed his extremities, and soon the only thing keeping him standing was the Ranger before him, bracing him against the wall with his own choked lamenting. There was a thick, warm hand on the back of his neck, his own chilled, narrow digits curling tight into the back collar of his vest, the two men sagging against each other. How long they were like this, Hermann didn't know, and that in itself was distressing. Hercules jolted, in turn startling Hermann, when a high-pitched whine and a bark sounded at their feet. Max Hansen padded around them, then stood on his hind legs and rested his large, fat paws against his owner's lower thigh. They both stared at him, breathless and halted, before moving in sync and staring at each other. Hermann counted the teardrops trapped in Hansen's eyelashes, finding solace in solid figures. One, Two, Three- He moved to freckles, next, just like how he had when he'd found Newton crumpled in a heap on his laboratory floor. One, Two, Three, Four-
Hercules pushed close, resting his forehead against Hermann's, startling him but not repulsing him. The physical closeness did nothing for him; but he calculated a 93.12% chance that it was what Hercules needed in this moment, someone who shared his pain, at least somewhat. Mako was not here; Hermann was the only other who'd lost someone close. Hermann allowed the contact, even permitted himself to savor it, though it held no comfort in him. His fingers curled against the back of Hercules' vest and began to drag, the twill weave grinding against his fingertips enough that he could feel it. How many seconds from one shoulder to the other? One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, six and a half seconds. Hermann's hand lifted and replaced it on Hercules' shoulder, and repeated the motion. Six and a half seconds. At the fourteenth repetition, the pads of Hermann's fingers began to tingle. Just fractionally over a minute and a half. On the twenty-sixth, Hercules pulled away.
They locked eyes, staring into each other. Hermann wondered if Hercules' eyes were actually blue, or if they were green. A darker hue than Newton's, so, in all likelihood they were blue. His silence and internal calculating were missed by Hercules. "Ah ya gon' be alroigh'?" His accent was thicker, his voice padded with mucus and anguish. Hermann blinked.
"Ja- yes." He answered. He didn't even believe himself, but Hercules finally stepped away from him, only to catch him when Hermann nearly fell.
"Wh'ah's ya cane?" Hercules asked. Hermann's eyes narrowed in thought, and he realized that he had dropped it when he fell. He muttered quietly that it was most likely near Tendo's chair, with a high chance of it having been kicked under the desk. Hercules nodded, and Hermann reached to brace himself against the bulkhead, hand sinking into a curve. He nodded, jaw tight, dismissing the Marshall.
It was a tense 184 seconds. Hermann lifted his head and thankfully took the can, hitching it to the floor. It hurt to stand; his bad leg was in agony, but so was his good one, from putting weight on it so long. Even so, he turned and moved away from the noise, the clatter, the blight of celebrating. He felt Hercules' eyes boring into his back, but he did not turn to meet them. Instead, he worked his way, slowly but surely, to the laboratory. The scent of ammonia from Newton's outstanding samples hit him, familiar and chilling. He sat and stared into his computer module, looking at the theoretical sciences that flitted by, his work of the past ten years. It all paid off, didn't it?
Hermann began to work. Ignoring his screaming muscles and shaking hands, the scientist wrote down new theories, new equations. New numbers. The probability of the Kaiju returning, was his first job to tackle. It would take months, he knew it, reveled in it, adored it. Wiping his mind clean of nothing but calculations, figures, sums, totals, fractions, and variables. There would be no room. No room for anything else.
"How long have you been here?" Tendo stood behind his translucent display, eyes dim and shadowed, dark circles obvious. Hermann would by lying if he said he didn't know, because he did. Down to the second, he knew how long he'd been working.
"Twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes." He answered dully, ignoring how Tendo's eyes halved, how his expression became sad. Hermann mentally calculated the percentage and degree of the angles of Tendo's facial features as they moved, and nothing else about them registered. Apathy had swarmed over him entirely.
"You haven't slept."
"In my lifetime, I have slept approximately-"
"Hermann," Tendo rasped it, it was raw and harsh and it caused the mathematician to stop, his hands falling slowly to rest in his lap.
"No, Mr. Choi, I have not slept." He finally admitted. "Nor do I have any inclination to."
"You don't need to work anymore." Tendo took a step closer, and it put Hermann on high alert. He didn't want him here. He wanted to be alone. Hermann wanted to waste away in his own way, fade into his structures and algorithms.
"I am aware of the... Lack of requirement on my part. However, my current situation and project are entirely personally-driven and utterly of my own desire." Hermann snapped out, knowing that his voice was hoarse, that he sounded as if he had been howling for hours. He hadn't. Not a tear was shed after his encounter with the Marshall.
Tendo heaved a faint sigh, then turned to leave. But he didn't. He returned, instead, with one of the rolling carts from the kitchen area across the hall, and a loaded tray of tea. He said nothing, merely pushed it within Hermann's reach, then stepped away. Hermann counted the steps of Choi's polished shoes as he curled back into his work, jutting out his bad leg and hissing as the muscles screamed in protest.
Hermann discovered 8 hours and 39 minutes later that the trolley that had been rolled in was loaded with not only a tea station with fresh water, but also protein and energy bars on the lower racks. He made himself some milky tea, dipping a clean spoon into the jar of honey, getting it coated, and letting it drizzle into the hot liquid before he stirred it with one hand- his other still writing out numbers, as they flowed from him smoothly.
The power bars were sweet. None were bready enough to dip into his tea, sadly, but as he roughly tore off one of the thick pieces of a Peanutbutter flavored bar, he drank enough warm tea to at least soften it.
When he finally left the lab to return to his quarters, it was of his own accord and free will. He shut down and locked the lab as he always did. The silence he'd endured over the last 30 hours and 21 minutes had been harrowing, to say the least. The pain in his legs made his face burn, redness curling up to the tips of his ears by the time he slumped into his bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror. His face was smeared with blood that was nearly two days old. Not all of it was his. He stared into his reflection, into his own gaze, until he couldn't any longer. His lids fluttered closed, lashes stark against his pale flesh. His leg panged him, reminded him. Opening his eyes, he tore through his cabinet and began taking his pain medications, of which he had several.
And then he turned on the shower, pulling off his clothes and folding them tight and neat despite being soaked in filth. He sat on the low shelf in his shower, and bathed in broiling heat for 126 minutes. The heat singed him, warmed his chilled body down to the creamy white of his bones, soothed his tortured muscles. Trembling fingertips slid against the knotted scars and deep depression left in his leg where the pain raided from. He closed his eyes again, lashes cold against him, and turned off the water.
Pulling on his winter sleepwear- a button-up black long-sleeve and matching shorts, in a warm cotton blend- he stared in the mirror a as he did, then turned, plucking up his cane. He carried it to bed, limping but in far less agony now that his medications had kicked in, and that the shower had loosened his joints and muscles. He slid into bed. It felt big. Far too big. Newton and he shared the Full for five years now, since budget cuts had forced them to share. There used to be a berried of body pillows between them, but come winter months even Hermann agreed to forgo them.
He lay on his back, staring into the darkness of his ceiling. The silence, he realized, wasn't as awful as he wanted it to be. He had expected- there was an 83.7% chance- that the quiet in the absence of his partner would be hard to bare.
It wasn't. The silence wasn't so bad, but he didn't enjoy it. He tried to fill it, but it took two to murmur in the dark. As he lay in bed, the sheets pulled up to his armpits, his arm stretched out onto Newton's side of the bed. Oceans of fabric cascaded in its wake, the back of his palm slid against it, and he turned to stare. His hand, turned upwards, fingers arched naturally upward, had the smallest of tremors to them. They clenched, muscle memory of a warm palm pushing against his own, fingers filling the spaces of Hermann's digits, completing him. The silence hurt in that moment, as he stared in horror at the blank, incomplete distances between his digits.
The sadness overtook him, swelling in his heart, smothering him. He sat up. He pushed himself out of bed, grabbing for his coat as he fled the bedroom. It was just as filthy as his other clothes, but he didn't care. He zipped up the jacket and pulled up the hood. He forced his harsh pacing to a stop as he came to his desk in the living room. He dragged open the upper right drawer, reached inside, and palmed the rectangle of cardboard, flicked his pointer and middle finger to close around an oval of plastic.
Stuffing both into his pocket, he continued to the other side of the apartment. It was a deck, of sorts. More designed as a storage area, it had a huge open window that showed outside of the Shatterdome; exposing the ocean in all of its horrors. Pushing aside some of the boxes of books and figurines, Hermann leaned against the wall and stared. There was little he could do to find repose; Newton left an empty void in his life, one that held his emotions hostage. All he felt now was a wrecking pain in his heart, and a numbing buzz in his brain. His eye pulsed, picking up on his own heartbeat, then stilled.
It had been over two days since he had last rested. But he found himself strictly opposed to sleeping, after the chilling nostalgia that washed into his very marrow. Digging in his pocket, he retrieved his desk items and held one in each hand. He tapped the box of hand-rolled cigarettes against the palm of his other, falling into an old motion. He hadn't smoked in years. Hadn't felt the need to. All of his anxiety was caused by the same thing that relieved it. Now that singular point was gone, a hardened stone-cold body on a table in the medical ward.
He flicked on the lighter once, twice, a third time, watching it, holding it until it just barely burned, then lit the cigarette he'd placed between his lips. He sucked in a long drag and pushed open one of the circular windows and sighed, the smoke pouring from his nostrils and being whisked out the rushing wind outside. It was three in the morning, in the dead of winter, yet the chill didn't seem to bother him.
Hermann closed his eyes in a slow blink as he sucked in another long breath of smoke. The moment that the darkness enveloped him, his mind jumped to Newton, and when they opened he was gone. Just like that. He repeated the motion, and realized that in the closed-off sensation of lidded eyes, all that was there to greet him were memories of his lab partner.
After that, he only opened them to light another cig. As the memories flooded him- good and bad, fights and silent make-ups, throwing of entrails and peace offerings of food, books and software- the crushing aloneness that had trampled him from the moment he saw the light leave those two-toned eyes wasn't there anymore. The isolation was staved off by memories of a lightly freckled, stubbled face, eyes whose color Hermann didn't know until 7 years of working with him. Of tattoos he couldn't make sense of, only seeing a mass of shapeless color. Of how, in the Drift, he saw the ink for what it was, through the eyes of their owner. How seeing them filled his heart in ways he didn't understand, and didn't care to.
For once, Hermann didn't know exactly how long he'd slept. He didn't remember drifting off, only waking at twilight the next day, opening his eyes to the hues he couldn't make out. It all looked white; he knew from study it was shades of yellow and orange. His eyes fluttered and his chest heaved. He looked to the long burnt out cigarette on the floor, long since dropped from his fingers to the metal below. He stood- ached, terribly, medication worn off long ago and muscles stiff and objecting- closed the window, and returned to the bulk of the apartment.
Hermann got dressed. He took his medications, and he ate a bagel on his way back to the lab. As he stood before his many chalk boards, black and white because it was easy to see, he felt a warmth in his chest he was surprised by. He adjusted to an empty lab, the silence boring down on him but not leaving him anxious. He smiled; the motion foreign, but welcome. He would have to forget what he once knew to be home; the noise, the annoyance, the fighting. He had to, to continue, to move forward. He picked up an eraser and began wiping the slate clean. He'd forget the world he'd called home, but he'd never forget the man who made it that way.
The sadness was still there, heavy and cold, but it was overpowering anymore. With a goal, a need, he had purpose, a reason. Something to cause a change. A change he didn't want to make, but had to. Still, phantoms from the past were there, memories of muscle and mind and eye, he still saw a flash of white of his partner pacing, he still heard the dibble from abandoned headphones. He felt as though there was a window to the past just out of his field of vision, and he badly wanted to turn quick enough to catch it, to reach back.
Illogical. No point in trying. He knew this. Still, as he felt in his gut the icy pit of mourning, he stepped back and stared at his mass of empty black boards, and his eyes halved. His knuckles became white on his cane. Hermann set down the eraser in its tray, and closed his eyes. He saw the face of the man who kept him going, even in death motivating him to move forward. He closed his eyes, smiling back at the face that grinned after telling a terrible joke.
He opened them, to the sight of blank slate. He picked up a piece of chalk, and began to write. Every time he blinked, he saw the grinning face of his lab partner, his roommate, his colleague, his friend.
"Oh, Liebling, ich wünschte, du wärst hier."