angel

Rating: T
Pairing: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb

Summary: "Newton Geiszler: reluctant guardian angle"


In the beginning—

Well, there was a beginning, or something; Newt wouldn't know, given he wasn't, well, there. Either way, there's a whole mess at the Start, what with Creation and all, and, well—Newt didn't pay attention, really.

At some point though, he suspects someone up and said "Fuck this," because honestly, that's fair, things were getting boring and, well—well, that person was sort of Newt, yeah, so.


The point is, he's been stuck on Earth for the past two decades. So he does what he does best—bounces between interests, sleeps too little, sleeps too much, gets a few degrees, gets some trauma, you know, everyday things.

"Sorry, what?" Newt hisses at the angel by his side.

Samel offers nothing but a small tilt of the head. Newt resists the urge to bounce on his feet unsuccessfully, and this time, Samael scowls, says, "You've gone native, I suppose," in an annoyingly staid tone.

"Uh, yeah," Newt says. "But that doesn't give you the right—"

"Who are you to question the Plan?" asks the other.

"Fuck you," Newt replies, "I'm an atheist."

This time, Samael graces him with a stern look. "You're an angel—albeit one who's soon to fall out of Grace if you do not do this."

"But me?" Newt whines, "c'mon, dude, I'm not guardian angel material—especially not for Doctor "Call me by anything but my title and get murdered by my glare" Gottlieb."

"Would you rather fall from Grace?" asks Samael—rhetorical, because who the hell wants to fall from Grace, that's what gets you killed, or worse, and fuck, even being basically, for all intents and purposes, human, is better than falling from Grace. Newt offers a nervous laugh, and Samael gives him a small nod. "Good, then. We are at an understanding," and—

"Fucking angel," Newt huffs after he stops coughing his lungs up from the smoke created by the other's disappearance.

Hermann, who has, somehow, managed to appear from out of nowhere, scowls at him imperiously. Newt, not willing to deal with him, too, turns on his heel and walks in the opposite direction.

See, the thing is—

The thing is, Hermann is—

Confusing.

Like, Newt hates him, sort of, which is weird, because angels are always harping on about "loving all of the Power's creations" which is, like, dumb but Newt's never hated anything before, not even brussel-sprouts, which are awful, but—

What can that tightness in his chest, that stabbing sensation whenever Hermann's words are just a bit too biting, a bit too personal, be besides hate?

The first time Newt actually has to do anthing, though, isn't for over a year.

It's winter, though one can hardly tell given that the temperatures almost never drop bellow ten degrees. Hermann, however, somehow manages to catch a nasty strain of something that leaves him trembling like a leaf under his parka, hands shaking as he tries to write on his chalkboards.

Newt barely manages to ignore it for more than half an hour before the buzzing in the back of his head gets to be too much. "Alright, you know what?" he says, "fuck this," and snaps off his gloves, strides over the Line of Demarcation. "Hermann," he says, "Hermann, buddy, you need to lay down, stat."

"But my work—" Hermann protests, only to be cut off by a rather violent sneeze that leaves him blinking down at Newt dazedly, cheeks slightly flushed in a way that's kind of charming.

Newt hates the fact that that thought crosses his mind, scowls, because he hates Hermann, and his stupidly nice voice, and his stupidly nice face—

"Yeah," Newt says, "no. C'mon down, dude, let's get you into bed."

Somehow, he manages to get Hermann both down the ladder and down the hallways to his quarters. It's a bit of a minor miracle, honestly—Hermann's swaying rather alarmingly a good portion of the way.

Hermann crashes in his bed and Newt doesn't see him for eighteen hours.

Newt expects that to be that.

What he doesn't expect is to develop something equivalent to a spider-sense in regards to Hermann.

(Hermann-sense?)

In the next four years alone, Newt loses track of the number of times he has to intervene to make certain Hermann doesn't die—often because the physicist is a stubborn bastard who won't stop, hell or high water be damned.

"Can you at least try and not die?" Newt snaps, the words slipping from his lips, two days after Hermann has a seizure from their Drift.

Hermann, laying in the white on white on white medical cot, offers him a raised eyebrow. "I wasn't aware I was trying," he says, drily, "though I appreciate the implication that you are, if nothing else, annoyed by it."

"Oh fuck you," Newt says, without bite.

Hermann's lips twitch. "That wouldn't be advisable, given our current states," he says, deadpan, and Newt's suddenly hit with the shell-shocking clarity of, Oh damn, it isn't hate after all.