It was three in the morning and he suddenly knew, knew he was on the edge of something and needed to be in the lab. He quickly changed out of his sleep clothes and scurried down to his chalkboards, but he stopped a few feet from the door. Of course Newton was there, of course he was playing music, and of course it was...It had to be Dark Side of the Moon. It couldn't have been any other album, any other band, of course it was exactly what would hurt the most.

Glimpses of the past from both perspectives flicked past, memories of doing work with this music in the background, the odd sense of pride in himself the first time he recognized it, the matching blossom of happiness from Newt (that memory had to be Newt's) of joy when Hermann had first absentmindedly hummed fragments from the album. They had...after that first time, after that first day, it was an unsaid fact that Dark Side was theirs.

So it had to be Dark Side.

"For God's sake, could you turn down that racket!?" Hermann exclaimed as he threw open the door to the lab, quickly hobbling over to his construct of boards and ladders.

Newt was clearly surprised, nearly jumping from his seat and almost spilling his coffee onto the computer terminal where he was working. "Right, yeah… sorry…" he replied, scrambling for the button on the audio system behind him. It took a few moments, as there were the remains of a cup of ramen, a large stack of papers, and something unnamed that Hermann would rather not question sitting on top of the controls.

Hermann couldn't help but scoff at the sight. Newt had been so...deferential since the slight altercation on his birthday, about a month ago. It was though Hermann's every whim was Newton's command, and while it had been nice at first, Hermann wanted nothing more than a full on screaming match, an actual fight instead of this quiet complacency. It was almost like...like Newt was dismissing him, ignoring him, tired of him.

Perhaps that would have been alright, perhaps Hermann could have lived with it, moved on, passed it by, but he was exhausted and frustrated by Newton's despondence and Newton was playing Dark Side of the Moon like it was nothing, like he could hear a heartbeat, or a cash register's bell without thinking of it, without remembering, without aching like someone had hollowed out his interiors and replaced them with burning cold ice. And Hermann...Hermann couldn't stand it anymore. Enough was enough.

"Are you even physically capable of keeping your space clean?" he asked, staring scornfully at the mess on Newton's side of the lab. "It's as though the gene everyone else has that inspires the urge to clean is mutated into some ungodly mockery that incites you to make the largest mess you find physically possible."

"Whatever you say, Hermann…" Newt responded, not a hint of scorn or sarcasm in his voice, not even a remnant of Newt's loud antagonistic personality present.

"It's like you're the embodiment of entropy: you are the chaos that increases in the positive direction of time."

Newt simply stared at his screen, blank and un-emotive. Alright, Hermann thought. Now it gets serious.

"Did you know that it was your disorganization that made your mother reject you?" A slight wince, so small it may have been a trick of the light. "She told me as much that summer when she visited. You remember, of course, what she said when she stepped inside. Let's see if I can get her exact phrasing down: 'Oh, Hermann, how on Earth are you convincing my Newton to be so clean? You must be a miracle worker!' Does that sound right? Actually, I don't think I managed to capture the awe in her voice quite right. And it was awe, awe that I deserved. I scrubbed at every surface of that flat until it shone while you sat there, twiddling your thumbs like there was no work to be done.

"That wasn't even the half of it though, did you know that? She pulled me aside later, talked to me, let me know that if you had been able to keep your room in her house as clean as that flat, she would have been willing to invite you back, to let you spend more time around her, but you were just so messy and inconvenient, she didn't want to deal with you." Newton reached for his i and began nursing from it, small sips through shaking hands. He was angry, quite angry, and Hermann could tell. He was nearly vibrating with rage, but still he was silent.

"Maybe that's why your father didn't love you, either. You were just so messy, so inconvenient. After all, your existence ruined his marriage, and he certainly cared more for his wife than he did for you. Oh, did you know that I knew that, that your father hated your presence in his life, that he didn't want you? I remember you never wanted to talk about it, but mein Gott, it's not as though it was difficult to put together. He clearly hated your presence, didn't want you there, and didn't want you to talk to him. He was ashamed of you."

"That probably hurts, having a failure ashamed of you. Let's see, he was a piano tuner, but seeing as how he couldn't keep his fork in his pants and away from the piano, he had to leave his home and go to America, the land of the wretched. He couldn't find much work there, seeing as he couldn't speak enough English to get any American pianos, and he had a bit of a reputation among the Germans with pianos, so no work there, so he got that job as a graveyard shift fry cook at a fast food place. Tell me, did he ever make manager? I know he'd been trying for a while. I just want to get a grip on how much of a failure we're talking about here, to make it clear how disgraceful it is that this man, this failed man, is ashamed of you."

Newton was fuming, to the point that Hermann was somewhat surprised that paths of steam were not trailing up from his ears. He was shaking and his face was contorted into some bizarre expression partially between rage, pity, and hurt. Still, though, he didn't say a word, didn't say a single thing. How could he not say anything?

Hermann marched away from his boards to the side of Newton's desk, spinning the man's chair to the side so he was boxed in, Hermann's hand blocking one side, the desk blocking the other. Hermann loomed low over the seated man, his eyes inches from Newt's, boring holes into the biologist's forehead, as Newt wouldn't even meet Hermann's eyes.

"Why won't you fight back?" he hissed, voice cold and quiet. "Why won't you say anything, I can see that you want to. It's burning you up that you're not saying a word, not a single thing. Are you afraid? Afraid of what you'll say? Afraid of me? For God's sake, you're scared of a cripple, of a man who couldn't hurt you if he tried! Just try! Let loose, come on, I can tell you want to. Yell. Scream. Call me an egomaniac, a control freak, a monster, an automaton, an uncultured swine, ein Schweinebacke, anything! You want to; I can see it. You want to call me every name you can think of, you want to rant and roar and shout, you want to hurt me back, don't you?" Newton was silent. "DON'T YOU!" Hermann suddenly roared into Newt's face, eliciting a flinch.

"I'm not going to yell at you, Hermann…"

"You didn't ANSWER THE QUESTION! TELL ME!"

"Just calm do-"

"I WILL NOT CALM DOWN, YOU COWARD!" Hermann roared back. "I KNOW YOU DO, I KNOW, SIE WOLLEN MICH ZU VERLETZEN WIE ICH DICH VERLETZT HABE, ALSO WARUM NICHT SIE? SCHREIEN SIE AT ME! SIE EINFACH-" Hermann stopped mid-sentence and raised the hand still clutching the arm of Newton's chair to his hair, ruffling it in agitation, both at Newt for driving him to this, and at himself for allowing it to get to the point where…

He curled his hand into a fist in his hair, pulled it back in imitation of the gesture he had seen so many times on the other end, the recipient's side, and allowed his arm to unwind, connecting forcefully with Newton's cheek, snapping the man's head to the side.

OoOoO

It took Newt a moment to register what had just happened. There was yelling and the a sharp pain in his cheek as Hermann's fist collided with it. For a moment it was like he was a child again and that thought alone was too much to bare. Suddenly he was pulled back into the present and made an attempt to run away from the other man, but failed miserably and fell to the floor. He couldn't find the strength to get up so he just slid back into the corner as quickly as he could and curled up, the familiar feeling of the beginning of a panic attack building in his chest. He wanted to say something but the fact that he was hyperventilating made that nearly impossible

"Newton! Are you alright, I didn't mean to actually-Newton!"

It took a few moments for Newt to get his breathing slow enough to say anything at all, and even once he had, it was still quite hard to understand. "W- Why w-wou-would y-you do t-that… You k-knew… I t-told y-you- abo-about y-you k-k-knew…"

"Newton, knew what? I don't know what you mean, what's wrong?"

"I… I told you… I-in the l-letter I sent y-you f-from the hospital… about m-my dad… and y-you still… I know y-you ha-hate m-me but how c-could you…"

"Letter? Hospital? My God, Newt, what happened? What are you talking about, I don't understand!"

OoOoO

Early, way too early. What the hell! They know I'm the best one there, I'm the only one who can handle everything at once! They need me, but they cut me early! I'm going to need to pick something up on the side if they keep doing this! I don't have the time to work three jobs! I am an artist, I am the best in the business! I should not have to stoop so low! I should not need to beg, to fish for scraps at the bottom of the barrel, to work under fools that don't deserve to lick the soles of my boots! If they could hear one of mine played, they would weep at its beauty. If only they would listen, just LISTEN for once in their foolish, little lives! The fools don't understand that they have the tuner for the Deutsche Oper Berlin on their payroll! They treat me like a swine, like I am a failure like the rest of them, like that useless son of mine!

My stop, get out of my way, you swine! If I'm going to get off this early, I'm damn well going to get to sleep at a reasonable hour, and you fools do not get to stop me!

It wouldn't be so bad if that useless son of mine would do something good with himself instead of sitting in that room of his all day "studying." I was a boy once, I know what you do when no girl would even think of touching you and the door is locked. Maybe that's why he's been so moody since he left Darmstadt, maybe he finally found a cunt that didn't mind if he was a freak and let him have a few good ruts. It'd be easy enough for him to get over it if he wasn't such a pussy himself, such a freak of nature.

Oh God, why did you give me such a freak for a son? Why couldn't I have had a good boy, one more like me? Wasn't Astrid leaving because of him punishment enough? Why couldn't he be a normal boy? Couldn't he have liked normal things, like football and music instead of plants and insects and monsters?

Unlock the door, at least he made sure to lock the door behind him, God I need a drink. What do we have? No beer, I finished that last night. Is there still any whiskey? Ah, yes. Just a bit to relax, and then I'll check on the freak. Well, a bit more. That feels better, nice and loose, good.

The light's on in the boy's room, is he still awake? It's...when did the numbers on the clock get so blurry? It's too late for that little shit to be awake. And he's talking to someone! Talking, at this hour! I'll just listen a little, outside the door, see what he's doing.

"Alright, so I think I'm starting to get it. We use this when we can't integrate normally, so an example would be the integral of like, the square root of four minus x squared. We could set x equal to two times sine theta, and then we just have to use the power reducing formula and you have the integral of one minus cosine two-theta, and theta is the arcsine of the bounds divided by two, so if it's like, zero to two, so that's...let's see, pi over two plus...no...minus one minus another, so pi over two minus two?"

Freak son won't speak German, won't speak English, speaks this weird made up shit to himself.

"Very good, Newt! See, you're starting to get it! I told you, it's really not that hard. I don't see why you put it off so long?"

Alright, not to himself, but who said he could have someone over? The little swine-shit was going to figure out not to pull this shit pretty fucking fast.

"Nah, I'd be doing pretty terribly if I didn't have such a handsome tutor ready to help."

This was why no girl wanted to be seen around the little freak, he was always pulling shit like this, pretending to be a cocksucker. Maybe if he didn't pull shit like this, he'd be able to score some time.

"Come on, we both know you're the handsome one."

So he's talking with another shit who thinks it's funny to pretend to be a faggot. Well, I'll just have to show them both how to be men.

"I miss you, Hermann."

Weak ass little shit. Talking to one of his little friends from that freak-school in Darmstadt.

"I know, Newt, I do too, but it's been a few months, and see? We're still doing just fine."

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"I know, it's just, I love you so much and I miss the touch of your hand, the look of your face, the way you say my name when I put my hand on your-"

"Newton!"

"Sorry. I just miss you. It's hard to get any when your boyfriend's in Germany."

The little shit! So he wasn't just pretending to be a cocksucker, the little freak is a faggot! I open the door and he's still talking, his back is to me and he's not paying attention, so he doesn't even know I'm there until I grab the phone from the bed and throw it against the wall hard enough that something breaks, but it doesn't matter. If he can't even pretend to be a real man, he doesn't deserve something nice like that.

He's whipped around to face me, and the little opfer looks so scared he's probably shat himself. He tries to scramble away, but I've got a hand on his arm and he can't move, can't get away from me.

"Please, Dad, no! I'm sorry! I-"

The mecker liese won't shut his mouth if I don't shut it for him, so I use my free hand to hit him in the jaw hard enough that something cracks.

"SIE SPRECHEN WENN SIE GESPROCHEN!" His nose. "SIE SCHWANZLUSCHER!" His eye. "SIE MUSCHI!" His stomach. "WAS IST LOS MIT DIR?" I take the arm that I'm still holding and throw him onto the bed.

And then I beat the faggot out of my freak of a son.

OoOoO

"... I… I was in the h-hospital for two w-weeks…" Newt said through heavy breaths, "I'm lucky he even took me… didn't want my professors to worry I g-guess…I… I w-wrote you w-while I was in the h-hospital… they w-wouldn't let m-me make an out of c-country c-call…a-and my d-dad checked m-my email..."

"Newt-I...I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but I never got that letter, I had no way of knowing, knowing that you...that your dad...I'm so sorry."

"R-right…" Newt replied softly. "Don't act like y-you didn't j-just think I was s-some freak wh-who got h-hit by his d-dad… It's why I n-never had any f-friends… and w-when you showed up h-here… I tried to be n-nice, I w-wanted to show y-you that I'd grown up alright… that I w-was well adjusted and s-shit… b-but you just…hated me…"

"I wouldn't have cared, Newt! I...I don't care! That doesn't matter! Why would that matter? I didn't...I wouldn't have cared, not at all. I wasn't...I haven't said what I have all this time because of-of your father! I thought you hated me! Or, more accurately, I hoped you hated me. Because either I did something, said something that made you hate me, or you had gotten bored, and I liked the idea of you hating me more. So when you were there and you tried to pretend that nothing had happened, that we were friends...I did hate you, just a little, because I wanted you to hate me and you didn't. So I...I was horrible to you, so horrible, because I wanted you to hate me, because if you hated me, then it would be alright that I still love you."

What Hermann said didn't help much, if anything, it made it a bit worse. Newt's hyperventilating picked up again and he shook his head violently. "N-no…", he choked out. "D-don't say that… Y-you hate m-me..p-please d-don't.. I'm s-sorry I got you s-so m-mad… I s-saw how u-upset you w-were about y-your w-wife in the dri-drift and I j-just.. I thought I s-should back off s-so you w-weren't so u-ups-set a- and I thought m-maybe you would b-back off… I found a n-new way of coping and I- I was doing a-alright and you.. you…" He couldn't bring himself to finish that though because Hermann reached out a hand, probably trying to comfort him, but that didn't matter. The hand stopped him in his tracks. "DON'T T-TOUCH ME!" he shouted, trying to curl up into himself even more.

"Newt, I didn't...I wasn't...I'm sorry. I just wanted you to fight back, like you had before. It was frustrating. I felt so alone, because...Gott, even before I found out about Vanessa, you were the person closest to me. And then...and then when she was gone I realized how alone I was, that the only person who cared at all about me I wanted to hate me. And then I saw how angry you were at me in the drift, and I thought it was working, and then it wasn't and you weren't fighting anymore and I couldn't take it, couldn't take you ignoring me, not again, not when you were playing that album, not when you were right there. I just...I had to make you hate me. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I never should have...I mean, I never would have if I'd...I shouldn't have anyway and I'm so sorry. I won't, not again, just...please, continue?"

"I-it's f-fine.. like I said…I-I found another w-way of c-coping…" Newt said quietly; finally calm enough to turn to face the other man, who at the moment looked like he had just been punched in the face.

"I'm...I'm sorry you had to have a way to cope in the first place. I should...I should have given you a chance after the drift...Gott, I should have given you a chance to explain when we met again. So just...tell me. Tell me what how you've been...coping."

Newt's hand instinctively went to his right forearm and he began to scratch furiously "Trust m-me...You d-don't want to know…" He couldn't let Hermann see… He didn't want to be thought of as a freak again and this… this would freak Hermann out…

"Newt, if it's-" Hermann paused and took a deep breath. "If it's something I don't want to know, it's something I need to know. I need to know the full accounting of my sins against you, in case...in case you ever give me the opportunity to make it up to you."

Newt took a few moments to think about what Hermann had just said and let out a defeated sigh "P-please don't freak out…" he rolled up his sleeve so his full forearm was showing and held it out for Hermann to see. "It's one o-of the r-reasons I got t-these tattoos… n-not the wh-whole reason, but it w-was partially because I d-did this w-when I was a teenager and I… I didn't like people asking a-about the s-scars…"

OoOoO

Hermann had been...confused for a moment, not certain what he was seeing. Not until he saw the thin scars crisscrossing beneath the tattoos, just the slightest bit lighter, ever so subtle beneath the bright and explosive color of Onibaba. And then he noticed the newer lines, dark red against the blue, some bleeding slightly from the attention Newton had been giving them moments before.

It was...worse than he could have thought.

"You...you've been doing this because of me?" Hermann asked, not really expecting an answer.

"N-no I just… I was upset a-and having t-to hold it all i-in… It's my f-fault for b-being so t-terrible at c-coping…" Newton scrambled out, seeming all the more distraught at Hermann's reaction.

Hermann nodded, almost numbly, as though he couldn't quite process what he was seeing, the denials Newton was giving. "And before the first drift, the way that you didn't seem to...care if you lived, that was because of me?"

"I… I s-shouldn't have b-blamed you for t-that… I was just p-pissed…"

"No...no, Gott, you were right, you were so right and I couldn't even see, couldn't understand what I was doing, it was…I was…" A sob escaped Hermann as he sat down on the floor just far enough to be intentional. "Please, tell me. I know...I know you didn't have these before...before that summer. When…?" Before Newt could reply, Hermann interrupted his own question. "You don't have to answer that. You don't have to answer me at all. If...if you want me to leave, I'll leave."

"No… it's fine, H-hermann… I'm fine…" A look came over Newt's face, as though he was actively attempting to avoid a negative reaction, and his hand reached out for Hermann as though to offer some sort of comfort.

"Newton, Newt, you don't have to do this. It's alright," Hermann fought against another rising sob, but failed. "It's alright if you aren't, if you don't...It's alright if you never want to see me again, much less...You don't have to do this." Because I did this, I made you terrified, I made you hurt yourself, I made you...I made you willing to throw your life away. I did that, I did all of that, all while thinking that I loved you. "You don't have to do this, because I'm worse, I'm so much worse. I loved you, I still love you, and I did this to you."

Newt drew his arm back into himself like a wounded limb and began to scratch furiously. "It's o-okay… I mean… You didn't k-know… and a lot o-of the things you were saying a-are true… I'm annoying and unprofessional a-and…"

"Newton! None of that was true! I didn't-I didn't think you believed any of what I said!" Hermann began to reach out a hand to stop Newton's scratching, terrified that he would open more of the fresh wounds, but he paused. "Newton, please...please stop. Please, just stop, I can't...I can't see you hurting yourself like this and not…please."

"S-sorry… sorry…" Newton stopped immediately and shifted his left arm down, as though ashamed of it. "It's o-okay… I-I'm okay.. I just… Of course I t-took you seriously… You made v-valid points.. My tattoos are an 'eyesore' and I'm n-not… I'm not a real scientist… I don't even know why I'm still h-here…"

"'Don't know why you're still here?' Newton, you saved the world! Not Mr. Becket, not Miss Mori, not the Marshall or Chuck Hansen, not the Kaidonovski's or the Wei triplets, you. I-Without you, the plan wouldn't have worked, the apocalypse would still be on schedule.

"And, your tattoos...yes, I can see why they offend some people. But do you know why they hurt me so much?"

"No…" Newt looked down at his lap, staring down Onibaba. "You don't have to be nice to me just because you freaked me out, y-you know…"

"That's...that's not what this is, Newt. This is me setting the record straight." Hermann took a deep breath, struggling once more against a sob. "Your tattoos hurt because...you drew them, didn't you?" At a small, terse nod, Hermann gave a sad smile. "I thought so. They...they made me think of the better times, the sketches you'd draw of everything: plants, animals, subjects from movies, even...even me. They reminded me of when we were happy.

"And...for the record, I'm very sorry to say that yes, what your mother said to me was a direct quote. And if you don't mind me saying, it makes her completely unfit for that title that she was unable to forgive a child of his mess. You were eight years old. She had no right. She did not deserve you.

"And I don't know if you want to hear this, but neither did your father." Newt's hand made an aborted move for his forearm, matched by a similar reach by Hermann, but both stopped short of the completed action. "You will never know how proud of you I was, even before I knew everything, that you'd managed to take nothing, absolutely nothing, and turn it into the man before me right now. The rockstar scientist that saved the world.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but I don't deserve you either. I hurt you, hiding behind my own mask of pain, without ever stopping to ask why. And you deserved at least that much, but I should never have given up on you. I should have kept dialing, called the college, called your mother, called anyone that might know how to contact you. I should have been there for you when you needed me the most. So...so I'm sorry. Because I should have been with you through the worst of it, and instead I was sulking in my own pain."

"Y-you didn't know…" Newt's left hand reached out, slowly, but far more steadily than the last time he had tried. "I s-should have called once I was back at MIT a-after break… I just… I was c-convinced you didn't want to talk to me a-anymore b-because… You k-know…"

Hermann offered an upturned palm, but made no move to reach for Newt. "I do. And you'll never know how much I wish I had gotten that letter."

Newt closed the space between their hands and shifted a little closer. "I just wanted you to l-like me a-again…"

"I know, I know. And I just wish I had let myself. You know...you know that I always loved you, right?"

"Well n-no...but it's good to hear and even th-though I wanted to hate you for what you were sayin I c-couldn't.. I felt the same and it hurt s-so much w-worse..."

"I...trust me...I understand. It would have been so much easier if I could have just hated you. But...even though I know it hurt, I'm still glad for the pain. Because...because now, if you'll let me, maybe we can start to make things better."

"I-if that's what y-you want.. You d-don't have to do anything for me…" Newt closed the space between them and gingerly laid his head against Hermann's sweater-vest clad chest.

"That's...that's where you're wrong. I owe you at least fifteen years of pain, of hurt. And I'd like to make it up to you, because you deserve it. And I may not be alright with what I've done, I may never forgive myself, and I understand if you never can either, but I'd like to at least have the chance."

Newt's head nodded softly against Hermann's chest before lifting himself up to look Hermann in the eye for the first time that night, noticing the silent tears that had run down the mathematician's face. Newt gently wiped away the tear tracks and pressed a tentative, chaste kiss to Hermann's lips. "A-alright…" Newt smiled weakly at Hermann, who in turn allowed his mouth to curl into a slight smile.

"Alright."