never say never
Rating: T
Pairing: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Summary: "Lars Gottlieb assumes.
Naturally, he assumes wrong."
Hermann's reading the paper as he eats once Newt finally drags himself out of bed. His hair is—well, it's better than it was during the War, especially now that he's not cutting it himself anymore, but paired with his clothing choices, he still looks stuffy.
It's adorable.
Newt serves himself some eggs, sticks a few pieces of bread in the toaster, and shifts from foot to foot, the tile of the kitchen floor cold even through his socks.
"My parents have decided they wish to visit," Hermann says, out of the blue, gaze still fixed on an article as he pokes at his own breakfast, and turns a page. Newt, in the process of diving forward to grab the toast as it pops up, chokes, stumbles, and hits his chin on the bar counter.
The next few moments are spent trying to right himself, blinking stunnedly at Hermann through the pain. "W—what?" he finally manages, just the tinniest bit ragged.
The other finally sets down the paper and sighs. "You clumsy idiot," he says, not unaffectionately. "Come sit down. Your food isn't going to get any warmer." At a loss for what else to do, Newt does as suggested, though it does take him a few moments to fish the bread out of the toaster, hissing when his fingers accidentally touch the heated metal.
Hermann offers him a glass of water when he sits down, and waits for Newt to swallow before he says, "My father, especially, has, for some unknown reason, shown a marked interest in your person."
"That's…not great," Newt laughs nervously. "Uh, you said—you said no, right?"
A flat stare; Hermann's expression unreadable, or at least approximating it, and he says, "My father is stubborn, Newton, in ways that you cannot imagine. Believe me, this was the far better option."
Newt laughs again, edging on hysterical, and, well, "I guess it runs in the family." He presses his eyes together, brings a piece of too-hot toast to his mouth and tries to ground himself with the burn. "Fuck."
Hermann presses his lips into a thin, severe line, and nods.
"Well, then," Newt says, "the instant he sees this place I will be eviscerated, given that he basically thinks I swore and oath to him to never sleep with you and that's obviously exactly what I did."
That does elicit a reaction—Hermann chokes on his own toast, drops the paper he's only just picked up onto his plate, That's going to get eggs on it, Newt thinks, and after a moment of coughing, demands, "What do you—?" and then starts hacking, again, seriously Newt is starting to get concerned, "you—my—what?" he sputters, glaring, albeit weakly, eyes watering. "In—in what possible—you promised my father you wouldn't fuck me? In what possible context?"
Newt raises his hands placatingly. "I didn't mean it!" he protests, "it was—it was that time he and those other assholes trying to get our funding cut came around offering their false sympathies, and job offers, and he tried to get me to quit the PPDC and work for him, and I sad something along the lines of The day I join you is the day I give up all for lost and sleep with Hermann, and—" some choice expletives, too, he means to tack on, but it all shrivels up when he realises how that sounds.
"I didn't mean it like that," he says, lamely, "I—fuck, I was running on fumes and spite and I thought you hated me, so that gave me a free pass to be an asshole."
Hermann doesn't say anything for a long moment, just sits there silently, and then, quietly, just as Newt's beginning to wonder if it's anger brewing there, quiet, like the calm before the storm, quietly, "That is…the past, now."
Newt excises the breath he didn't even realise he was holding. "Yeah," he says. "But I'm still sorry. Even if it isn't good enough, I am. I was petty, and I hurt you."
"You did," Hermann agrees. "You were an asshole. But so was I. But that's not who we are anymore, and I'm glad of that."
He offers Newt a weak smile, and then says, the slight undercurrent of pettiness Newt thinks makes him fall for Hermann again and again, "I, for one, shall enjoy forcing him to acknowledge that he's got no control over either of us."
"Hermann!" Newt gasps in mock surprise, "I never thought you could be so rebellious!"
The weak smile pulls into a baring of teeth. "Watch me, darling, watch me."
