Hermann was never quite sure why Newt always insisted on tagging along with him on laundry day. It wasn't as if Newt was allowed to touch anything (not since what Hermann had dubbed Night of the Red Sock) or like Hermann minded being the sole arbiter of the washing - on the contrary, he found the inherent 'order from disorder' properties of laundry strangely soothing.
Still, he had to admit, sometimes it was nice to have company during the long wait between permanent press and tumble dry - not to mention that his partner always seemed to be wearing something in desperate need of laundering.
"Gott in Himmel, Newton," Hermann exclaimed, reaching for Newt's velour jacket with a tch of disapproval. "Do I want to know if this is blood or barbecue sauce?"
Newt flushed a little, then muttered, "Probably both...It's actually a pretty funny story! You see, I'd started this experiment on coagulation properties, but I had this craving -"
Hermann raised his eyes heavenward and proclaimed, "For once, I do not want to know. Give it here at once, and I'll do what I can to revive it."
Newt had just relinquished the jacket to Hermann's care when a strange expression passed over his face, and he exclaimed, "Ummm, just kidding! It's fine. It's good! I, uh, like it better this way, actually! Gives it character."
"Don't be ridiculous, Newton," Herman continued to pretreat the stain, unperturbed. "I know how much you love this jacket. If it is rendered unusable by your carelessness and my neglect, I shall never hear the end of it."
"No complaining, I promise! Not a word, a sound, a peep, even, from me! " Newt's words were spilling out of him, even more rapidly than usual. "Just give it back, huh?" He made a clumsy dive for the jacket, which Hermann avoided easily.
"You can have it back in an hour and twenty five minutes, infinitely improved from when you found it," he insisted. Newt always did choose the strangest things upon which to fixate.
"No!" Newt cried as Hermann went to throw the jacket in the machine with the rest of the load. He lunged for a sleeve, initiating something of a wrestling match as he grunted, "I can't...let you do...that..."
"Newton, what on earth..." was as much as Hermann got out before their combined push-and-pull sent the jacket hurling against the nearest wall and a small, black box tumbling to the floor by Hermann's feet.
The fabric of time in their sector of the laundromat seemed to slow a little bit as he bent to retrieve the strange intruder on their domestic routine. He had only just begun to turn the box over in his fingers, methodically examining each inch of its dark, matte surface, when it was unceremoniously snatched from his hands.
"It's a gift!" Newt shouted. His tone placed him rather past the verge of hysteria. "I mean, an experiment...it's an experimental gift!"
"You sound delirious," Hermann observed, brushing the back of his hand over his partner's forehead. "Are you feeling quite all right? You are rather warm."
"Warm? Hot, I think you mean." Newt's attempt to lounge seductively on a nearby washing machine merely resulted in him banging his elbow and cursing loudly.
"That is quite enough of that." Hermann literally and metaphorically put his foot down. "Newton Geiszler, if you do not tell me what is going on this minute, so help me God, I will march you straight into the clinic back at the base and -"
"Fine!" Newt thrust his hands into the air and sank to his knees, "Fine, okay? But don't say I didn't warn you!" As Hermann watched, growing increasingly worried, Newt struck himself on the forehead, corrected to one knee...and opened the box.
Inside was a ring - a delicate pas de deux of copper and tin, each inscribed with part of a string of numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... Hermann's heart thudded dully in his chest, throwing his lungs off rhythm and shortening his breaths, as his brain struggled to puzzle out what his pulmonary system apparently already knew. "Newton..."
"Hermann Gottlieb..." Newt's voice hummed with a throaty vibrato, distinctly enough that the few patrons of the laundromat who had not already been staring at the two insane foreigners were now facing their way with interest. "Will you do me the honor - privilege? - no, no, stick with honor...of, um...separating the whites and darks with me...now and...as long as we both shall live?"
Hermann was brought back from wherever his mind had sent him by the sharp pain shooting up his spine. He closed his eyes and silently thanked the standing banks of dryers for allowing his swift and unceremonious collision with the concrete floor to end in less than grievous injury.
"Hermann!" Newt frantically half-rolled, half-scooted toward him from his own position on the floor. "Speak to me, man! Oh God, this is the worst proposal in history. I might as well have hidden the ring in some kaiju guts...even if Mako did hint that you might not appreciate it."
Hermann watched Newt continue to spew an ever-unraveling stream of consciousness with the quiet wonder of a man hypnotized. Of the thousand replies buzzing around his mind like gadflies, the one that actually emerged was a half-drunk, "How long have you been carrying that around?"
Newt removed a hand from the side of Hermann's face and rubbed it sheepishly over the back of his own neck. "Two months? Three? I must have almost popped the question a hundred times, but the timing never seemed...right, you know?"
"And you decided nearly killing me in the middle of laundromat was the Platonic ideal of romance, did you?" The corners of Hermann's mouth began to stretch into a taut grin.
Newt had barely a few seconds to look truly crestfallen and mutter, "Man, I really blew-" before Hermann lunged forward and kissed him. His spine ached, and his left knee complained, his ears rang with the whoops and hollers of the gathered crowd...and Hermann Gottlieb had never felt better in his entire life.
"It is I who have blown it," Hermann murmured, when he finally let go. "Such a weighty question deserves an immediate answer." He reached for the box where it had fallen in all the commotion and delicately removed the ring.
After taking a few seconds to renew his acquaintance with its uniquely perfect shape and inscription, Hermann handed it to Newt and extended his left hand. "Yes. Infinitely so."
Newt grinned tearily and all but shoved the ring onto his finger before kissing him again. This time, neither let go.