"Dear lord, Newton, look at the size of those!"
Newt grinned at Hermann's hilariously shocked face as he looked at the samples he was carefully taking out of his box.
"Pretty rad, right?" asked Newt.
"But what are they from, a whale?" Newt was about to tell him what they were really from—because no amount of illegality of how he got these organs was enough to keep him from telling Hermann about it—when Hermann figured it out. "Are those—" He was so appalled that he actually crossed over the sacred line of Hermann-ness to hiss in Newt's face, "are those Kaiju remains?"
Newt smiled. "Hell yeah, dude. I—"
"I am not your dude," Hermann interrupted, but Newt ignored it.
"—got them off of some black market dude. Apparently people harvest the organs all the time because they've got useful shit in their systems. Now I can finally figure out what it is for myself!"
"On a scale of one to ten, how illegal is it to experiment on Kaiju body parts?"
"Hey, as far as I know, it's not illegal. People buy the shit for fertilizer and the bone powder to get a bigger better boner, why can't I buy the kidney just to take a little peeksie at the inner workings of the Kaiju urinary and endocrine systems?"
Hermann grumbled, and then looked down to his feet like he'd only just noticed his heinous crime of crossing the tape line.
"Oh, apologies," Hermann muttered as he crossed back over.
"Dude, it's your line, not mine. I don't care if you cross it."
"But I can't expect you to uphold the boundary if I don't, so I apologize nonetheless."
"True," Newt said. "So I guess you're gonna have to let me cross the line once in return."
Hermann glared, but seemed to be thinking that this was the only way to upkeep the sanctity of the line, or however the hell Hermann thought.
"Oh… oh, fine. Do it now; I don't want you hanging it over my head later."
Newt looked down at the line, and then dipped his foot over the tape as if testing water with his toe. Hermann gave a long-suffering sigh. Then Newt hopped over it.
"Hey, no land mines."
"Newton, stop being a child."
"Hey, I'm just making sure this wasn't all a plan to kill me. I wouldn't even put it past you, dude." Newt immediately went for Hermann's couch. The thing was heaven. Though he'd totally scratched the perfect brown leather with the chain hanging from his wallet one day—by some miracle, Hermann hadn't noticed—so he sat carefully as not to do it again. He sank in and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. God, so comfortable.
"You only get twenty three seconds."
"Yeah, yeah, five more minutes, mommy," Newt murmured, already feeling himself falling asleep. Maybe he should have slept last night. Or the night before.
Nah, he didn't need to sleep, just needed coffee.
"Newton," Hermann said warningly. "If you think I'm not willing to drag you back to your side, you are entirely mistaken."
"With your bad leg? Unlikely," grumbled Newt.
His eyes were still closed, but Newt heard Hermann huff, obviously insulted by the comment. Newt considered that poking fun at Hermann's limp was maybe going a little too far. He actually had no clue why he had a limp at all. He often wondered though. He sometimes liked to think he had this giant battle scar with this awesome backstory that shows that Hermann is secretly a badass or something, but more likely it was some childhood illness or something.
And then Newt heard Hermann's cane clatter to the floor and there were hands on his arm, tugging at him with more strength than Newt could've expected. It made his eyes snap open, and he had to force himself not to panic.
It's okay. It's only Hermann. It's not…
He took a deep breath.
"Okay, Herms, okay, I'm moving," he said with a laugh that he had to force out as he yanked his arm back. He stood up, but not before grabbing Hermann's cane and handing it back to him. It wasn't Hermann's fault, after all. Newt had been asking for it, and Hermann didn't know…
Hermann glared, like Newt's kindness made it harder to hate him and that bothered him. Newt just rolled his eyes and went over to his own side, putting all his organs back in the box. He needed to get out of here, suddenly. Go hide away in his room.
"What're you doing?" asked Hermann.
"Putting these away. And don't worry, there's room in my second fridge, it won't be going with the food."
"But… you only just got them. I was sure you'd want to do something with them now."
Why the hell did it matter? Newt couldn't figure out why Hermann chose now to pretend to give a fuck. Bad timing.
"I'm just tired, okay? Lay off. I thought you'd be glad I was getting out of your hair."
He stuck his box in the fridge and rubbed his eyes, as if that might get rid of the stupid images flashing through his head. He really did need some sleep, probably. But he already hated sleeping, and now… it'd only be worse now. He was still considering going for coffee instead.
Newt turned and jumped hard when Hermann was only two feet behind him. Hermann's already suspicious face became more concerned.
"Newton, are you alright?"
His concern was only infuriating, at the moment. The one thing he never wanted anyone to ask about, that he was never willing to talk about, and it was the only thing Hermann cared enough to notice. It was ridiculous. "Yeah, I'd be fuckin' fine if you'd get off my back."
Usually this would be enough to get Hermann going off about respecting other people by not cursing at them, but apparently it wasn't enough now. Hermann stepped closer to say something, but then shut his mouth again when Newt stumbled back at the innocent advance. Damn it, he was being psychotic. He needed to calm down. He took off his glasses to rub his eyes again.
"Newton?" Hermann asked again, and damn it, Newt'd never heard the guy sound even a little worried before—why in fucking hell did he start now?
"I just need some rest, okay?" said Newt. "I'm… I'm fine. Thanks—thanks for the concern I guess…"
Newt could tell Hermann wasn't planning on letting it go. Which was fucking stupid.
"Is it because I grabbed you?"
Damn geniuses. They were such a fucking pain. Nobody else would have figured it out that fast.
"Hermann, for the love of God, please let it go." He was getting so frustrated he had to force himself to speak English instead of lapsing into German, which for some reason came out more naturally when he was mad. Hermann would have understood it, of course, but probably that would have made it quite obvious that he was feeling a bit out of control. If it wasn't obvious already. Which it totally was, Newt assumed.
"I didn't intend to make you upset."
Yup, that did it. Newt's 'I'm pissed' switch was a little hard to flip, but once it was flipped, he had a little trouble controlling it. "Was meinst du damit hast du nicht—" Damn it, there was the German. He forced himself to speak English again. "Whaddayou mean you didn't mean to upset me?! You always mean to upset me! It's, like, your fucking goal in life! It must drive you crazy that I never get upset by the shit you say, but Herms, I'm used to shit like this, alright? Don't think that you're the first person to hate me just for being me. I get it, I'm not your type of person, whatever—I'm not most people's type of person. But don't tell me you're not trying to be a dick, because you are. So stop pretending you care, because that isn't part of the deal and I know that. You can hate me all you want; it's fine by me as long as we both keep paying the rent."
Hermann was staring at Newt with wide eyes, and Newt considered that if he weren't already feeling vulnerable because of all the flashbacks that were veering through his mind, he'd never have said any of that.
Hermann looked about ready to talk again, but Newt wasn't in the mood to chat now. He felt exhausted from the yelling and the lack of sleep, but electrified in a very bad way from the memories he was still trying to keep away, that he'd shut into the back of his mind so carefully over the past two years.
He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep without regretting it, and he couldn't get comfortable without falling asleep on accident. He'd have to keep himself busy, but he couldn't work on any experiments when he felt like this.
Good thing the world was full of distractions, especially for a highly distractible person like Newt.
"Are you hungry or something? I'll cook you something," Newt said.
"Newton—"
"Or if you're going to insist on talking some more, you can eat Top Ramen for the rest of the semester."
Hermann kept looking at Newt with a hard stare. "I won't discuss the other thing," Hermann said quickly, probably so Newt wouldn't stomp away before he could finish his sentence. "But I think it's necessary to talk about what you just said."
"Why?" Newt whined. "It was all true! You hate me, it's cool, I don't even care. Now please just let me cook you something and we can never talk about that meltdown I just had ever again."
"I don't hate you," he said timidly.
"Fine, hate's a strong word, you dislike me a lot, whatever." He started looking through the cabinets, deciding he's going to cook either way just because it made him feel better when he did it. It was something to focus on.
"Damn it, Newton, would you just listen to me?"
Newt was surprised enough by the cursing that he looked over, pausing in his search for ingredients. "I apologize for upsetting you and I would very much like for this not to put another wedge between the two of us. Things are already… tense enough without this hanging in the air between us too. Can we put it behind us?"
Okay, now this was something Newt could agree to. Pretending none of this ever happened. He didn't have to put so much effort into his next grin. "Yeah, you're right, man. Let's just forget it ever happened. I'm sorry I kinda started yelling. I'm crazy sometimes."
"Understatement."
It made Newt feel more comfortable to have Hermann teasing again, so he smiled once more. "Well you're crazy all the time, so I still win."
And so things were back to normal.
At least for now.
Hope you're liking it so far. Please let me know in a review. Thanks in advance!