A/N: Newt in this fic is fairly irreverent about his asexuality. Frankly speaking, this is because as a sex-neutral ace myself, this reflects the way I experience and view sexuality - as something I have, but that doesn't really hold much bearing on my everyday life, and something that I don't really think about unless someone explicitly brings it up. Sex is something that doesn't really bother me either way, just so long as I don't have to have it, and mostly I'm just indifferent towards it.

However, due to the relatively recent proliferation of fervent arc/acephobia and LGBT+ gatekeeping, it would be irresponsible of me to not explicitly mention that aro/acephobia is a Terrible and Bad Thing. Your experiences of aromanticism and asexuality are real and valid, no matter where you lie on the spectrum, and no one has the right to tell you that you are Wrong or you're "straight", as if your identity and identification is unimportant.

If you ever have any questions, or you want to share your experiences with another person, I am always more than happy to have a conversation.

Sort-of prequel-ish to Libido Has Nothing To Do With It and And Then Take Love's True Form

There's maybe three weeks where Newt tries to rationalise away his lack of sexual attraction. He's 21 and he has two doctorates, but he's never had, or even really thought about having sex, outside of a kind of abstract knowledge that the other people around him are. Hell, he's kissed less people than he has degrees, and he's wanted to kiss even less than that.

He'd started at MIT at 14, and he'd occasionally overheard some of his fellow students talking about their relationships and casual flings, but he'd been far too excited about real lab access and scientific discovery to really pay them any mind. He'd put it to the side as something that would just happen one day, that he'd just wake up and suddenly go from nothing to everything, and he hasn't really thought about it since.

And now he's 21 and some of his colleagues in the biology department have invited him to a house party and they've never asked him before - never even really talked to him that much - but they actually invite him along now and he doesn't even think about saying no because he's so desperate to be liked. And someone there leans in close and asks him if he has any exes here they need to worry about and that's when he realises that it never did happen. He'd never woken up one day and thought about sex, never looked at another person and wanted to put his hands anywhere inside their pants.

Now he's actually thinking about it, he's aware of the fact that some part of him had just assumed that everyone had talked about sex so much while he was growing up to gross out and/or tease the wunderkind, and had simply dismissed it. He had offhandedly assumed that this lack of interest was just how everyone really felt, that sexual attraction was somewhat of a joke, that everyone pretended to care about it more than they actually did because you were supposed to. A foolish hypothesis now that he acknowledges it, especially for a biologist, but when you don't experience the evidence for yourself it's hard to know what other people are just making up, and what you're missing.

For three weeks it buzzes around in the back of his head, the idea that he's different. And while the truth is that he's always loved the idea that he's not the same as everyone else - that he's smarter, he's cooler, he's better - he doesn't enjoy this "different"; where the implication is that there's something wrong with him, something missing, that he's broken in some way.

So he tries to rationalise it away. He tells himself that it's only natural, given the way that he grew up without peers of his own age. No one to fumble through the awkwardness of puberty with, no one beside him going through the same when his hormones clued into all the fun things his body could do. A socialisation issue, most likely. Everyone he knew was long passed those years by the time it started happening to him, so unconsciously he had decided it wasn't important. After all, it wasn't like he had a chance with any of them, with everyone treating him alternately as a child, an annoyance, or a target for teasing, hatred and jealousy. Self-preservation, his never becoming interested in sex. It's not a virtue he's well known for, but he's somewhat glad it chose to make itself known here. He's had much more time to focus exclusively on his work.

And then he finishes his current doctorate and gets a few minutes with his laptop to sit down and think properly about it all. And that's when Newt discovers asexuality.

-00000-

Hermann is never arrogant. Sure, he's unfriendly and stand-offish and sure of himself to the point where he can not conceive of the idea that he might be wrong, but he is never openly arrogant, never brags about what he has achieved or the work he has done. Newt doesn't know how he manages it. The dude coded the Mark 1 Jaegars and you wouldn't even know it unless you looked back into the official records. Newt knows that if it had been him, he would never shut up about it. There would be a sign over the door to their lab: "Here stands the mighty Jaegar-coder. Fear my math powers. You literally could never."

Newt and Hermann had known each other long before they ever actually met. The kaiju may have been what captured Newt's imagination and mind, but the idea of building giant, mind-controlled robots to fight them was still ridiculously cool, and even if he wasn't going to be directly involved, Newt still wanted to know everything about them. He'd written immediately to Lars Gottlieb, whom the media were reporting to be the man in charge of the programming, and a week letter had received a letter back from Hermann. While at first Newt was offended that his scientific inquiry was being fostered off on the son of the man in charge, he had only to read two paragraphs before it became clear that Lars Gottlieb was little more than a figurehead with money to donate. Hermann was where it was at, and Newt wanted nothing more than to climb inside his brain and live there. Or, at least, climb inside to pull the strings and figure out how Hermann worked.

Newt wrote long, rambling letters and Hermann's replies were concise, but not to-the-point enough that Newt wouldn't find out totally inane details about Hermann's favourite colour (green, which was frankly tragic, because hello, eye colour, but that also means he's reaching like hell for this guy), his musical tastes (likes: Neue Deutsche Härte, dislikes: pretty much everything else; and Hermann likes shouting German men good to know) and his opinion on having to attend the Jaegar Academy even though he'd been working on the Jaegar project practically since its inception (not positive, and Newt had not look forward to attending in the next year when his teaching contract at MIT was up). Newt somehow never managed to get bored of him, and he got bored of everyone eventually. But Hermann was everything, and Newt wanted to meet him more than he'd ever wanted to meet another human being.

When they did eventually come together, it was not the fairytale Newt had hoped. He'd wanted to talk with Hermann, actually talk, for hours. Take him out somewhere nice, hold his hand. Maybe at the end of it he'd kiss him, just to see what it was like. It was a rare feeling for him to have - especially since his last foray into dating was so disastrous - but not an unwelcome one.

What actually happened was this: Hermann looked him up and down scathingly, taking in his tattoos and leather jacket with the air of someone who was expecting so much and getting so little. And Newt's absurd first thought was happiness that Hermann was expecting good things from him. His second was that it wasn't fair, because there was nothing bad about Hermann that he could throw back at him. Oh, sure, he could have made a comment about the leg if he really wanted to hurt him, but that was beyond a dick move and straight into kinda-sorta-evil territory. Or there was his face, which looked almost stretched, in a way, but annoyingly it absolutely worked for him and besides, Newt would never have made fun of someone's appearance. And the clothes and haircut, which was both a petty and pointless angle, because if Hermann went out like that. he obviously didn't care.

So instead he did something he thought he would never do and he played nice, smiled and told Hermann how excited he was to meet him, and how much he admired his work. Hermann had gone bright red at the compliment, and for a moment Newt had thought that he had him, had shamed him into some kind of acknowledgement or regret. Instead, Hermann had grasped his arm tight and pulled him close and hissed to keep his involvement in the Jaegar program quiet. Newt had, in all honesty, thought him to be joking, and his laughter had drawn quite a number of stares in their direction. Hermann had only flinched away from the looks and said, in a voice that was both quieter and angrier, that he was here to talk about his mathematical work in locating the Breach, and did not want to spend the entire time fielding questions about the Jaegars.

After that, Newt had gone to every lecture Hermann gave and asked questions exclusively about the Jaegar program, even questions he already knew the answer to (which, incidentally, was almost all of them). He and Hermann had been writing to each other for almost three years by that point, and there was very little about Hermann's work that Newt hadn't already asked after, as interested in it as he was. Hermann must have thought he was an idiot, asking the same questions over and over again, and he knew he was ruining any chance of having Hermann consider him an intellectual equal, but it was worth it to see the veins in Hermann's hands pop out where he gripped his cane in fury, hear the way that he snarked and belittled back as good as he got - Newt revelled in all the ways that showed Hermann to be as petty and childish as himself.

And he's been doing it ever since. He pokes and prods to get Hermann to react, to shout and scream and berate. Every time Hermann raises his voice at him and Newt shoots right back, it's like he's coming alive, like sparks are flying and his brain is forcing its synapses to make connections that it never could before in order to beat Hermann; to be better than him, more right. And he knows Hermann feels the same, that their fights push him to greater discoveries because he has to think of new ways to prove Newt wrong.

Newt still wants inside Hermann's head, But if Hermann won't let him, he's determined to get the next best thing.

-00000-

Newt decides Tendo is his best friend almost immediately after meeting, and then doesn't speak to him for two weeks.

He'd made plans to, of course. Hermann went down to LOCCENT two or three times a week too oversee any new programming on the Jaegars, and Newt had planned to follow along and say "hi". But the first time he had simply forgot, and then the next three he was dissecting a kaiju sample so he was too busy and then he'd worried for four days that he'd left it too long and it would be weird to turn up at LOCCENT and expect that anyone would remember him no matter how he was sure that he and Tendo bonded. He doesn't have the best track record in judging people's feelings about him (see: Hermann as Exhibit A).

And then one day Hermann gets called away early when someone in J-Tech messes up a string of code that he'd inputed without oversight and no one could find the mistake to start the Jaegar again. Hermann returns hours later - somehow angrier than he had been when he left even though he had presumably fixed the problem - and huffs that "Mr. Choi" had asked after him.

After the few seconds it takes to figure out who Hermann is talking about, Newt drops everything he is doing and jogs out of the lab without remembering to say thank you. On the scale of all the rude things he's done to Hermann, it's very low on the list.

Newt's only ever been to LOCCENT during kaiju attacks, and it's a very different place without the hum of activity and the strained feeling of bated breath. Three of the techs surround one desk chatting calmly. Another is completely bare, and Newt assumes that the one who messed with the Jaegar code has been fired. Fired by Hermann Gottlieb. Newt can only imagine that that's an experience and a half.

Newt darts between desks to get to Tendo, without acknowledging the other heads that swivel around to glare at him on his way. It occurs to him briefly that now was perhaps not the best time to visit, given that one of J-Tech's own had just been fired and the rest were likely upset, and then the thought slips away. Because he has so many questions; about the Jaegars, about the neural link and the shared mind-space facilitated by an AI.

Truthfully, Newt knows so little about it. Hermann's fingerprints are all over the programming, but his knowledge of the engineering is only as good as the briefs he's read: that is, technically flawless, but impersonal. He's never had his hands inside a Jaegar, never felt the Drift.

That knowledge has never stopped Newt from asking constantly, of course. Hermann still knows the most about it than anyone Newt talks to, and he answers questions up to a point. But he quickly gets frustrated, especially when he doesn't know the answer and Newt teases him. At one point, Hermann had actually yelled "I'm a mathematician, not an engineer", and to this day, Newt can't for the life of him figure out if it was deliberate or if Hermann has never even seen Star Trek.

Either way, Tendo has all the hands-on experience that Hermann lacks, and Newt wants to know everything. He asks him question after question and Tendo answers them all with a smile; happy, it seems, to have someone fresh and excited to explain his work to. But Newt can feel the buzz on the back of his neck, the way that the other techs are glaring at him. Can hear their muttering that they don't want him here, that his voice is loud and high-pitched and distracting, that they wish he'd just shut up for a moment.

And the thing is, a part of Newt really wants to. A corner of his brain is shouting at him to stop talking, to leave the J-Tech crew to their jobs, to ask about Jaegar engineering when no one is supposed to be working. It's telling him to he's being annoying, and Newt knows he is; knows that Tendo has more important things to do, knows that his very presence is interrupting people's thoughts. And a part of Newt desperately wants to listen to it, to stuff his curiosity in a box and get it out again at a more appropriate time.

But he can't stop asking questions.

-00000-

Newt is the one who first put up the dividing line in their lab. Everyone automatically assumes it was Hermann, that Hermann's fastidiously neat nature caused him to snap one day and banish Newt to one half of the lab. And given that it's only Newt who violates the line barrier, it's not a bad assumption to make.

But it's Newt who puts down the hazard tape, Newt who paces out the lab in the middle of the day when Hermann gets called away to supervise some programming upgrades.

Hermann had moved something that morning, he doesn't even remember what, but what he does remember is coming into the lab half asleep and reaching for something where he had left it in the very late hours of the night before stumbling off to bed, and not finding it in his hand. He'd shouted at Hermann to not touch his stuff, and Hermann had sneered "what are you? 5?" and they'd been well on their way to a good, loud argument when Marshal Pentacost's young, recently-adopted daughter had cleared her throat quietly and said that "Doctor Gottlieb" was wanted in LOCCENT. Hermann had left immediately with a calm apology to Mako and she had trailed out after him graciously accepting it, and Newt had emptied most of his draws onto the floor looking for the hazard tape.

By the time Hermann returns to find their lab divided exactly down the middle, Newt is well passed his righteous fury stage, and worked himself into a panic attack. Because it's just so childish. He's given himself a side that Hermann isn't allowed in, a line he isn't allowed to cross, like Newt really is 5 years old and his mother has had to separate him and his sibling because they can't work it out between them and get along. Not that Newt has any siblings or a mother that's present in his life, but the metaphor stands, as does the accusation that Newt's brain keeps screaming at him: that he can't deal with things like an adult, the heavy feeling of shame settling in his chest like an anvil, crushing his ribs and his lungs and he can't breathe, can't think about anything but his own failure to act rationally.

So Hermann finds him sitting on the floor of his lab, surrounded by the mess from all his draws with his knees pulled up against his chest. He doesn't need to see the way that all of the colour drains from Hermann's face to know what he looks like. Someone had filmed him once at college and then played it back, much to the amusement of everyone who had seen it who were then subsequently treated to a live reenactment when Newt walked in and saw his much older classmates laughing at him. He knows he looks bad, knows that he goes deathly pale and shiny with sweat and his hands shake uncontrollably. He had sat down when he had felt himself working his way up to the panic attack because he knows he gets dizzy as well, and it would be even more humiliating for Hermann to find him collapsed on the floor amongst his trashed workspace instead of sitting. Just another thing to feel more anxious about.

He watches as Hermann hurries forward towards him, and then stops abruptly at the hazard tape line. Newt can see Hermann's mouth moving and he knows that he's saying something, but he can't hear him over the pounding of his heart in his own ears, his quick, harsh breathing as he hyperventilates. Hermann seems to realise that Newt didn't understand him, because he speaks again, slower and more clearly, and Newt strains to listen.

"May I cross?" He asks, and in that moment Newt has never been more grateful to anyone in his life.

-00000-

Hermann Gottlieb is better with people than Newt. That had been a sobering revelation almost five years in the making. At first he hadn't noticed, because Hermann is grumpy and standoffish and slightly neurotic and Newt had assumed that people just didn't like Hermann in the same way that they didn't like him. After all, it's not as if he ever really sees Hermann spending time with anyone outside of his work. It takes Newt an embarrassingly long time to figure out that that's because Newt doesn't really do anything except move from the lab to his quarters, and has no idea what Hermann gets up to when he's not in front of his chalkboards or a computer screen.

Turns out Hermann has friends. Friends that he drinks beer and watches sports with; like he is just some normal guy instead of a genius mathematician that spends most of his time in a lab yelling at Newt and refusing to let anyone address him informally: some of the J-Tech crew that he's known and worked with for years. The Kaidonovsky's, a pair of Russian pilots and Newt had practically begged for the story about how he met them, and Hermann had snapped back that the what he appreciates most about Sasha and Aleksis was that they don't feel the need to fill silences with meaningless chatter or ask stupid questions.

An English woman that he speaks to over the phone at least twice a week. Newt had assumed that they were colleagues of some sort because Hermann speaks to her as professionally as he does everyone else. He discovers differently when Vanessa visits for a day while she's in the area and Hermann absolutely refuses to let him meet her. Hermann has never kept an intellectual resource from him, so Newt figures there must be something more going on between the two of them, and he sets his alarm extra early to catch them before they leave the Shatterdome for the day. He only manages to see the backs of them as they walk out the door side-by-side, equally tall and slender. One of the Jaegar trainees asks Newt to introduce him to her, which is how Newt discovers Vanessa's last name, and after a quick Google search he understands Hermann's reluctance to let him speak to her: full time model, part time astrophysicist, and Newt can't imagine any situation where he doesn't say something catastrophically stupid to her.

Newt has friends too, of course. But barely in the plurals. He maintains that Tendo is his best friend, even though he hasn't spoken to him in weeks, and they've been moved to different Shatterdomes. No time to catch up often. Which is probably for the best, because if experience has taught him anything, then the longer people spend around him, the more they'll dislike him.

It's not always a gradual process, some people don't like him on sight: the tattoos, especially, people find confronting. Newt had raged about people looking down on the tattoos for almost half an hour once before Hermann had sighed loudly and told him that it had "nothing to do with the tattoos, Newton, only the subject. They find them disrespectful, and frankly I can't blame them" which Newt can totally get, alright, why people might find his tattoos distasteful, when the kaiju destroy cities and kill thousands almost every time they come through the breach, but that's because they don't get it.

It's not that he likes them. He doesn't think they're cool or anything, although he kind of does, from a purely aesthetic point of view. If no kaiju had ever come through the breach, Newt doesn't doubt that he'd still have monster tattoos. It's just that he thinks they're fascinating. The way they're designed, how they work, how they're all unique. They're his childhood imaginings come to life, and now he gets to look inside them and see what makes them live. He'd tried to explain it to Hermann - that he meant no disrespect he just wanted to celebrate something he found scientifically beautiful - and Hermann had told him that he understood, even if he didn't agree, but be that as it may, his intent behind the tattoos won't stop people hating them. Newt had tried to argue that if people only understood, but Hermann had interrupted him to scoff that hadn't he ever heard of Death of the Author. Newt thinks that that's a fair enough point, even if he resents it and still thinks that they're wrong.

It just proves, annoyingly, that Hermann understands people. Sure, he doesn't like them very much, and he would as soon a snap at them than have a civil conversation, but he can be polite and deferential when the situation calls for it, and he knows when to shut up and listen.

Newt has never been good at any of those things. As a kid, only his dad and his uncle had ever really listened to him. Everyone else had dismissed him and his ideas as the excited ramblings of a child, and Newt had had to shout to be heard. And he's never really moved on from that. He gets in everyone's face, he knows. He's only trying to be friendly, but he has an inkling it comes off as obnoxious. No one has ever said it to his face, though, too afraid that he'll up and leave the PPDC if they anger him, he guesses, which frankly is insulting. He missed out on being among the first to join, but he'll be damned if he's not going to be the last to leave. Can't let Hermann have all the glory. Also, he wants to help save the world and stuff. Be a rock star.

No one says anything about it, except Hermann. Newt thinks that that's why they click so well, even when they're shouting at each other. Especially then. When other members of the PPDC visit the labs, they have a tendency to be drawn to Newt, because he seems friendlier. And he is, but he also has no idea how to do small talk, only wants to talk about his research in excruciating detail, and he can see the way they start to edge away, start to try and engage Hermann in conversation, any conversation, so they don't have to listen to Newt's theories anymore, and Newt just talks more and louder because he doesn't want them to leave, but this is all he knows how to do.

When he starts chatting at Hermann, Hermann doesn't move away. He just stands there and grimaces and works and eventually, when Newt gets too much, screams at him to back off, and Newt honestly, truly appreciates the lines Hermann gouges deeply in the sand, even as he delights in dancing over them. Because at least he knows where he stands with Hermann at any given time.

It's kind of amazing.

Another five year revelation: apart from his family, Newt's only constant is Hermann.

-00000-

"She seemed nice." Newt says, as the new J-Tech employee left the lab he and Hermann share after coming down to introduce herself. "Friendly." Hermann makes an odd little snorting sound that Newt would mistake for laughter if it wasn't Hermann and he didn't know that Hermann was allergic to laughter and any emotion that wasn't anger, frustration, condescension or respectful-awe-at-Stacker-Pentacost. "What?"

Hermann snorts again, and says "she was flirting with you, Newton."

"Oh." Newt says, and thinks about it for a moment, because she was nice, and if she was interested in him then Newt's inclined to take her up on it because it's a fairly rare occurrence, but on the other hand– "Damn." He settles on, and Hermann looks up sharply, confused. "Do you think she wants to sleep with me? Do you think she thinks I want to sleep with her?" Hermann gives him a look which feels uncomfortably like 'duh' except he can't imagine a world where Hermann has ever said 'duh'. "Because I don't. I mean, she's hot, if you go for that kind of thing, but I...don't."

"Women?"

"Women. Men. Anyone of any or no genders, take your pick. But I didn't mean that. I wouldn't call a persona 'thing', that's just horrible. I meant sex. I don't go for sex. I'm asexual."

"Truly?" Hermann asks, sounding almost comically shocked. "I never would have guessed."

"Making assumptions about me, Hermann?" Newt asks slyly, with just enough of a hint of something else to make Hermann squirm in embarrassment.

And squirm Hermann does, while he attempts to splutter out a response. "No– I– Uh–"

"Relax, dude, it's okay." Newt says with a chuckle, and as soft a smile as he can muster. "It's pretty rare, and the kind of world we live in, even I'm guilty of just assuming. And I don't exactly telegraph it. I just don't see why my sexuality is so important when there's science to do, and besides, I don't have time to be explaining it to people. So mostly I just let them come to their own conclusions and tell them I'm busy. I'm not ashamed, mind you. Not at all. It'd just all so...unimportant to me, you know?"

"I see." Hermann says, and he sounds like he really does see, which is intriguing. "I feel the same."

Newt comes to an abrupt stop, and fumbles with the kaiju tissue sample that he's returning to its case after taking it out to show to their visitor. "You're asexual, too?" He asks, somewhat breathless, while thoughts race through his head. He had meant it when he said he was just as susceptible to assumptions re: sexuality as Hermann, and he had been certain that Hermann and Vanessa had once been involved in a romantic relationship. And with that had come the assumption of sex, and Newt had put any feelings he had for Hermann on the backburner until he figured out Hermann's opinions on the necessity of sexual contact in a romantic relationship. Newt has been burned once before, and it is not an experience he is keen on repeating. But now, if Hermann's view of sex is compatible with his own– "Man, we could have started a club. Think of all the parties we could've had."

"No, I'm not." Hermann says quickly, and Newt's fantasies grind to an immediate halt. No more Hermann holding his hand, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead, holding him at night. Just his second year teaching at MIT and his girlfriend yelling at him that he's sick, he's broken, he's disgusting because she bets that the reason he can't get it up for her is because he only can manage it for the kaiju. "I only meant," Hermann continues, "that I also find scientific discovery far more interesting and fulfilling than sex."

And at that the floodgates burst open and Newt is overwhelmed by the fondness and love that he has held back for Hermann ever since he's known him. From the first few letters where Hermann treated him as an equal, a useful collaborator who's opinions he valued, and every time Newt sent one back he imagined himself sealing up the feelings he wouldn't allow himself to have (in case Hermann might expect something from him he wasn't prepared to give if Newt pursued a relationship) as easily as he sealed the envelopes. Through every time that Hermann glared at him and yelled and didn't treat him as anything less than capable, a worthy opponent instead of a pest. Through every night working side-by-side, where Newt had denied himself even the luxury to think that he might like to get closer to Hermann, to touch him and not have Hermann expect anything. And now, here, he knows: he and Hermann may not be the same, but they are compatible.

Hermann's voice breaks through Newt's musings, and he only just manages to catch what he says. "I am, however, bisexual. In the interest of full disclosure."

Newt feels a spike of irritation slice through his good mood. "What? You want me to explain all about my sexuality too? Some show-and-tell? Because I just said I don't like to do that, and–"

"Not at all." Hermann interrupts loudly. "There's been quite enough unprofessional conversation in this lab today already."

Newt falls silent, but he can't keep the grin off his face, equal parts relief and joy.

They work relatively quietly for the rest of the day, only Hermann's chalk scratching at his board and Newt's occasional muttering to himself and the squelching sound that comes hand-in-hand with dissection interrupting the peace. They both usually work late into the night, but come 8pm Hermann puts down his chalk with a sigh and Newt abruptly stops his own experimentations to look at him in surprise. Hermann is bright red, but staring determinedly back at him, and Newt swallows reflexively, strangely nervous.

"Would you like to have dinner?" Hermann asks, and his words are unnaturally loud in the quiet of the lab and Newt startles a little, even though he knew Hermann was about to talk. "As a date. I wish to make my intentions clear." Newt feels himself flush deeply, his mouth open and close without any sound leaving it. He's never been rendered speechless before, and it couldn't be more inconveniently timed now. "Unless you don't 'go for' dating, either," Hermann continues in a rush, and he's more ineloquent than Newt's ever heard him. "In which case I am sorry to have assumed and I'd like to extend a similar offer without romantic intentions attached."

He even does the little finger quotes and everything, and it is literally too cute for Newt to handle gracefully. Instead he just shouts "No!" and then loses the rest of his words. However, the minute fall in Hermann's expression is enough to bring them rushing back. "No. I go for dating." He says, at a far more acceptable volume, but in an almost incoherent rush. "I definitely go for dating. I'd like to go for dating with you."

And the smile Hermann gives him back is incredibly fond.

-00000-

They move labs again, as they always inevitably do. Kaiju are taken down all over the world, and Newt's work is best done when his samples are as fresh as possible. Hermann always follows, grumbling about Stockholm Syndrome and an inability to work anywhere that isn't filled with Newt's chatter or the smell of tissue samples being cut open. Newt just needles, sing-songs that Hermann loves him, and when Hermann doesn't refute it it's pretty much the biggest win of Newt's life. He's been a little in love with Hermann Gottlieb since the man was little more than a scrawled signature at the end of a letter, and now that he's letting himself actually feel all these things, every time Hermann grumbles at him and blushes it gets a little more endearing.

Hermann sets up the lab while Newt is onsite directing a harvesting crew, and when he gets back he finds their space set up exactly as it had been in their last Shatterdome, right down to the yellow hazard tab separating their respective "sides."

Newt stops and stares at the dividing line, and his lack of noise must startle Hermann, because he turns away from his chalkboard in surprise, looks at Newt's face and then down at the tape and back to Newt, a small smile on his face. "I like having a space where I can be sure I won't trip over some horrible piece of kaiju." Hermann says with a shrug, utterly unashamed. "It was a good idea, Newton."

Newt steps over the line, nearly trips over his own feet in his haste to get to Hermann, and kisses him, hard.

Hermann gives as good as he gets, and makes his intentions very clear.

He always does.

That's what Newt loves most about him.