maskormenacelogs | [Closed]

He woke up with fading nauseousness.

The only comfort to finding Hermann not in bed the next morning was the clear sounds of running water that indicated a bath and the connection mostly free of immediate distress. Newt rolled over, drawing back the covers, automatically searching out his glasses and pushing them up his nose. He climbed out of bed and turned on the little television on low volume. The news station was covering the events last night, of course. The reports were incomplete, the tally of injuries and possible deaths uncertain, but it looked like they had escaped just before the ceiling came down.

It only frustrated and scared him more, like the Trespasser report in 2013, but unlike with Trespasser, Newt was not riveted--he had been there last night, he had seen it first hand, and reliving it through the sensationalist and repetitive news offered no satisfaction for his morbid curiosity or relief for his utter helplessness. They couldn't yet tell him what he needed to know, and some of those answers were things he would have to find himself anyway. Newt promptly turned it off, opting instead to burn his restless morning energy pacing, straightening his clothes, making the bed, fluffing the pillows they probably wouldn't sleep on again.

Fuck. They came so close to not being alive. There were so many things he should have done differently, so many things he wanted to do NOW to prevent it from happening again--like how not to be helpless, how to get Hermann out without relying on help, and to slowly dismember the people who did this...

Eventually his pacing put him in front of the bathroom door, and Newt turned the knob, just enough to crack the door open, not enough to see in and encroach too much on Hermann's privacy. He pressed his forehead to the cool, beige-painted wood and listened to the sound of sloshing water. "Herm, you okay in there?"

He felt Newton's aggravation and restlessness, and after a slice of time where all his thoughts and feelings were his own, it felt a little jarring again. To think he'd gotten relatively used to this. Hermann wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not, but Newton's emotions felt closer to the surface than they had been before. Almost like he could reach out and take them for his own. It was alarming on some level, but it was something to examine further later.

He glanced up with a sharp look when the bathroom door cracked open- unlocked in case of emergency only- but Newton didn't push any further and he let it go upon glimpsing some of stress in his lab partner's face. He was almost finished anyway.

"I'm alright, Newton. ..You were watching the news?"

A guilty silence followed the question. "Not for long. They don't know much yet. ...Why? You could hear it?"

He thought it was low enough not to bother Hermann, but maybe his own hearing was dulled by too much loud music. Newt shifted, rubbed his foot against the back of his bare calf, and waited there, not making any attempt to leave. Standing on the other side of the bathroom door while your lab partner of five years bathed probably should have been more awkward than it was, but Newt had both no shame and found it mildly comforting, like their connection was buoyed by the lack of closed doors.

Hermann gave a half shrug, though he doubted Newton could really see it. "Not particularly, just a low hum of electricity. It's on the other side of this wall." The flux in Newton's emotions had pointed toward something more than the weather, so that bit was educated guesswork. But if the reporters didn't know much, it likely wasn't worth pursuing.

"Now close the door, I'm getting out." Hermann pulled the drain and once the door was closed, began the difficult process of levering himself up and out. He could've asked Newton for assistance, but he hadn't fallen so far as to need help with bathing of all things. He didn't like asking period, but relying on Newton had become strangely normal lately.

..When did that happen?

Hermann puzzled over this as he dried off and pulled his sleepwear back on. Sometime after the Drift, perhaps- Newton had pulled him through the halls of the Shatterdome..

Stretching his right leg and relieved to find it more responsive, Hermann grabbed his cane and made his way out of the bathroom.

"Do we know where we are?" All he knew was that it wasn't De Chima, and they were fortunate to have been able to call a taxi to a hotel.

"Oh, okay." At least it wasn't something with the connection, Newt thought.

He obliged Hermann and closed the door, standing nearby to listen in case Hermann wasn't as steady on his feet as the man's ego wanted him to believe. Not that he could carry Hermann very well or very far, but he could at least help move him a little and tend to him and call for help and--Newt didn't want to think about that. He was getting himself relatively worked up over the idea of it all that he was so relieved when Hermann stepped out of the bathroom all on his own and gave Newt something else to think about, something with answers he could figure out.

"I think it's, like, the next county over," he said, pulling out his phone from his discarded pants to check again. "South-west of De Chima, I think? I sort of checked when we were in the taxi last night, but I don't remember the specifics now." His phone caught up with him, the gps placing them in a neighboring county, a substantial distance within its border. "Yeah, to the south-west. Qubit put us far enough away from the action, it seems. We're going to end up owing him a lot, at this rate." Not that Qubit seemed to ask for anything in exchange for his portals, but it seemed like the guy always seemed to be there to get them out of a bind.

Hermann nodded and made his way to the bed where the rest of his clothing was and set about getting dressed properly. Much as it pained him to pull on grass-stained articles, they didn't really have a choice at the moment. His abilities weren't a fix-all.

"Mr. Qubit and the man that rescued us, it seems." Had they gotten a name? He didn't recall, but it hadn't exactly been a time to make introductions. They'd just have to thank him if they ever happened to see him again.

Somewhere down the hall, someone slammed a door, and Hermann's hands slipped in buttoning his jacket and fled to clutch at his lapel instead. And there it was, that spike of panic that proved he wasn't fully recovered after all. He sat down and willed himself to relax. Newton was still there and the window just as bright and cheery as it was a moment ago.

"..Anything about the effects of the gas?" The words came a little fast, but relatively even. Because if this new penchant for anxiety was a lasting condition, he was going to make absolutely certain someone answered for it.

"Yeah." Because Newt couldn't rescue them himself. It still was salt in his wounds, but he was grateful to them for their help.

...Newt flinched with him.

"Nothing so far." It was totally unfair that this seemed to be hitting Hermann harder, when he was usually the one with his shit together and Newt was the one running around like a headless chicken. Could it...be Newt's healing power? Could it have reduced how this affected him, or did Newt just burn it off faster than Hermann? Shield-guy seemed to tough it out okay, relatively, but Newt wasn't really a tough-it-out kind of guy. "The news is full of the usual meaningless buzzwords and guesswork and I never trust their guests unless I know their background myself--so the network will probably be more useful. Someone there will have actual information, and it'll be as damn close to peer-reviewed as I think we'll get."

He tucked a leg under him and sat down on the corner of the bed, picking at the bedding, casting looks over at Hermann. Tempting as it was to leave well-enough (was it well-enough, though?) alone, it was harder not to examine the emotions floating around in their shared head-space when they were as complete as if they were Newt's own. They might as well have been his own, and he was really not a tough-it-out kind of guy.

"It's not going to be permanent, though, Herms."

Well at least he wasn't the only one. It was that more than Newton's reassurance that convinced him. Much as he didn't wholly appreciate the man picking up on his thoughts, either. But it was difficult not to. He wasn't sure half of his thoughts were his own anymore. It was the Drift, now a 'superpower' that was behind this mutual connection to one another. If they hadn't drifted, would it still be there? Hermann wasn't inclined to think so.

"...Newton." Were they really going to talk about this now? He didn't feel ready, was relatively certain he never really would. "It's not your job to look after me, and I don't want you to do so."

Oh. Somehow it felt like a line had been crossed, perhaps a little more dramatically than the one in their lab. Maybe it was Hermann who crossed the line just now; or maybe, it scared him to consider, it was Newt last night, somewhere in the middle of the mess of gas and fear.

Newt shrugged and gave an indignant sniff, taking the opportunity to shake out his pants and decide he was going to forego a shower and just start getting dressed because if this became too much of an argument, maybe maybe he wanted to be dressed enough to storm out and not look too foolish about it. Not that Newt was totally against storming out in his underwear, or having a shouting match in his underwear. They were sinking to new lows every day.

"Okay," he said, casting a glare over at Hermann. He shoved a leg irritably into his pants. "Fine! Let's figure out what the hell my job description is, and I'll stick to it!"

And just like that, there's nothing to think about. After an evening spent in varying degrees of helplessness, and a morning full of limited success at self-efficiency followed by an uncomfortable revelation, he was on the defensive immediately.

"Your job description was never meant to be anything more than nuisance!" he snapped. "I may have drifted with you, but I did not, under any circumstance, invite you into my head anymore than I've asked for you to take on the role of caretaker!"

He shoved the other leg in, giving a hop to get the skinny jeans on, seriously not regretting his choice to get dressed because Fuck you, Hermann. That hurt. That was a slap in the face if Newt ever felt one. If he didn't have to cross Hermann's side of the room, he would totally be out that door. Except that meant leaving the last word to Hermann and Newt could never do that.

"BULLSHIT, Hermann. You invited yourself, you asshole. That's your job description: asshole." He raised his hands, panning them over like a marquee. He snatched up his shirt, tie falling to the floor and the lamp they were both draped over swaying precariously. "I didn't need you--I don't need you--I drifted just fine by myself, but NOOO you wanted to be a part of that, and you know what? That was cool, that was fine, I was just fine sharing my head-space with you--" He had gotten off track and took a moment to put his arms through his sleeves. "Point is, Hermann, a Drift goes two ways. You chose to drift with me, and you chose to pick me up off the damn floor--and if you didn't want it to go both ways, you should have left me where you found me."

With a bitter huff, he grabbed his tie ungracefully from the floor. "I never asked for a fucking caretaker either!"

Hermann wasn't sure if that pang came from him or Newton, but he fed on it all the same, used the flicker of pain to fuel his ire. He reached for his cane and pushed himself to his feet.

"Don't be ridiculous. I saw what was on that screen, and I ran those numbers, Newton. You would've died, and the world would have ended. I only did what was necessary to ensure our survival. All of this," he waved a hand between them, and then the window to the foreign world outside. "Was never meant to happen. And now I couldn't be rid of your incessant chatter and godforsaken pity if I went halfway across the world!"

Twist the knife why don't you.

Was it all just numbers? Just survival? What about that smile, that sense of exhilaration, of togetherness? Five years had to amount to something, right? Concern for Newt's 'ducks' had been nothing to do with world survival. ...Right? Or was he just some nuisance Hermann tolerated all this time and just didn't want to see die out of some...ridiculous sense of obligation? Out of pity, even.

You should have left me with Mutavore's brain.

"Pity?! If you want pity, you're barking up the wrong tree. Ask someone a lot nicer, dude--" Newt turned up his nose in disgust, turning up some of the bravado. "Pity is for people beneath me, and I don't have time for those." He wished he could quit Hermann. They'd hated each other after they met and he had finally thought they maybe MAYBE had recaptured the tentative friendship from their pen-pal days. But maybe it was all a lie. Maybe he was just a nuisance, but smart enough to be useful and Hermann put up with him for the sake of humanity. God, what a fucking martyr. "And you're no peach to be stuck with either!" But he was stuck with him and the words of that shrink, Chilton, rang back at him. Is Hermann your only friend? Yeah, maybe he was. And Newt was such a fuck-up. He'd known Hermann over a decade and in all those years, all he'd managed to do was be a nuisance.

"Look, look, okay? I did not bring us here, so don't act like it's my fault we're sharing head-space. Once we settle in at--once I--" The 'we' that snuck in so naturally had to be banished. "--Once I have a steady lab job, I'll work on a neutralizer."

Hermann stared hard at Newton, working his jaw while unwanted feelings of self-deprecation and worthlessness washed over him. Nauseating, hopeless creatures he wanted to banish immediately and never feel again. It had never been clearer that he was hurting Newton, cruel words hitting their mark with unerring accuracy. Contrary to what he'd believed, he drew no satisfaction from it. Guilt flashed through his mind, but he went straight for self-righteous fury instead.

"Beneath you now, am I?" he snarled, stepping around the edge of the bed. "I wasn't the one that forced you to stay behind out of some misguided sense of noble self-sacrifice when you should have run!"

You're not beneath me, that wasn't what I said, I-- He mentally flailed and tried to backpedal. It was hard to have, no... It was hard to show respect for him right now, but pity was not what he felt for Hermann. They were equals and Hermann had long since cemented Newt's sincere respect. He hated him for it. It would be so much easier if he didn't actually respect his mind, his thoughts, his feelings. Newt wished he knew how to give up, too.

The guilt was twofold, but Newt's lingered longer before being replaced with anger

"Noble self-sacrifice?!?! Ha! That's rich coming from you, Hermann." He stepped up to an imaginary line between them, standing straight and tall to claim whatever inches he could in height. "You'd have liked me to run, huh? Well, suck it! Maybe I stuck around just to be a nuisance. Apparently that's my job."

As ever, just as if they were arguing back in their lab, the end of Hermann's cane dropped between his feet as he drew himself up to his full height and glared down his nose at Newton.

From nowhere came the absolutely insane urge to laugh of all things. Like some windfall of giddy relief that had no place between them here and now-- a promise he had no business believing in.

"You should have," he reasserted with less heat despite everything. "It was the practical choice." And it was here he felt his arguments falling apart, the tight hold he had on his cane wavering. "Losing two lives for one is meaningless."

"You forget who you're talking to! You're the practical one--I'm..." A shrug, defeat settled between his shoulders. What were they even doing anymore. Why did they do this to themselves, drag this out? If it was over, it was over. Why did they have to fight to be the last one to put the nail in the coffin. "The rockstar."

Newt sighed. "You don't get it, man. You never will. I mean, I thought you did, there was really a time when, but--" Newt looked down and shook his head. God, was he really that big of a masochist? Yeah. He was. Newt's voice softened and he shifted, betraying his discomfort, looking down at his hands. "You're telling me you would have left me? I don't want to know what logically should have been done, I know what should have been done by the numbers--I get it--and I don't want to know what you think I want to hear or what society or some other bullshit expects you to say... I mean, what I want to know is...straight up, no hard feelings, dude," Not that he imagined Hermann cared about his feelings that much, or no, he liked to imagine it, but his proof and justification were steadily disappearing. His gaze dropped from Hermann to button up the front of Newt's own shirt and roll up the sleeves. "If the roles were reversed, if I was...out of my mind with hallucinations and unable to walk and you could get out... What would you have done?"

Hermann swallowed, feeling defeat and derision roll through him like they were his own. Much as he wished to, staying angry was an uphill battle he couldn't win. Instead, his shoulders set and he tightened his jaw, eyes lowering as Newton's voice softened in a way that was at painful odds with how all this started. Didn't they usually walk away long before this? Stalking away in mutual offense before they could ever get to this discomforting deceleration. Everything between them had changed.

He didn't know how to answer this.

"I... am a cold-hearted person, Newton.” Nerves fluttered around this painful self-evident truth, and his gaze dropped to the hands gripping his cane. “When the double event I predicted rose from the Breach, I made an argument to sacrifice the entire population of Hong Kong in order to preserve the Jaegers for Operation Pitfall-- for the sake of the world. We lost two Jaegers, I believed my caution justified, if no longer quite relevant. If this had happened then, I probably would've left you." He shifted his weight, distinctly uncomfortable. "However.. it's not something I truly believe I'm capable of now. Not since the Drift."

He wasn't entirely sure that was a fair self-assessment. Hermann was no colder than the military men like Hansen and Pentecost who had to make the hard decisions. Like chess. Sometimes that meant sacrificing other pieces to win, sometimes that meant sacrificing yourself. That was why Hermann drifted, why Pentecost piloted, why Chuck died, why San Francisco was nuked...because the greater good was at stake.

He knew he was a sacrificial piece when he was asked to drift again. Newt had just let the drift color his memory rosy. The proverbial honeymoon was over.

"We're not Drift Partners, Herms. You don't owe me that. You don't really owe me anything." This was a little more real than he'd signed on for when he planned to come to De Chima. Newt took off his glasses and wiped them off on his shirt. "Hey, before the Drift, I would have left you, too." He would have picked himself over Hermann easily. Or rubbed his face in Newt's death by drift. And yet he had selfishly, hypocritically wanted it to be different from Hermann. Now, in retrospect. Maybe even then. "So, don't worry about it."

It didn't sting as much as he'd expected it to, only managing a short, jerky nod in response. But he wondered if they weren't both lying to themselves as well as each other. Wishful thinking perhaps, now that there was an ugly truth to face.

"Then what is this, Newton?" Hermann hated just how tired the words came out and immediately straightened, shaking his head like snapping out of a dream. "Nevermind, we should just focus on getting out of here. I imagine it must be close to check-out."

Newt cast a tired look up and shrugged. What was this? An exercise in futility? They were scientists, they should want to chase answers, but sometimes--right now--he wanted the answer to just present itself. What was this? What were they, what were they doing? Was there a simple answer (yes/no, please check one) or were they one of Hermann's complicated equations that ran off the boards and included too many variables? Why couldn't they be a dissect-able creature? Newt could cut in, split them in pieces, run their DNA, get to the heart of the matter.

He looked into Hermann, Hermann looked back into him. But they weren't philosophers. Maybe this was beyond the scope of their knowledge.

Maybe Newt just needed a seventh degree.

"Yeah, it's 10:25 now." He did up his tie haphazardly and stepped around Hermann to grab his boots, feeling cowardly and full of self preservation. "You want me to call a taxi while you check out?"

Hermann's shoulders slumped, leaning against his cane for a bracing moment after Newton had moved past him. Profound relief and a twinge of disappointment washed through him as their relationship resisted definition once again. But there would be time for that later.

Hermann buttoned up the rest of his jacket and pulled on his oxfords . "I'll call the other hotel in transit," he say in way of agreement. "With luck, they'll be willing to cooperate with us.."

Us. Wasn't that something drift partners did- pluralize themselves like it was as natural as breathing? Feeling unnecessarily awkward about it, he shuffled out the door and went straight for the elevator.

He checked them out at the counter, partly relieved a different receptionist was behind it, and was already on the phone with the hotel in De Chima by the time Newton made it down to the lobby.

"Okay." They had been an Us for five years, if not longer. Or maybe that had been in Newt's mind. It was a little bit of Us Against the World when they were pen-pals and it seemed like they could push each other forward, when Hermann's letters were both inspiration and motivation. Then when they were K-Science, Us was implied, and when they were all that was left of K-Science... Wasn't that Us definite? Or was that line a clear marker: You, Me...no Us.

Newt lingered, checking that they had everything as he placed the call for a taxi. He spotted Hermann's glasses, and though it was tempting to leave them, just to spite him...I don't want to listen to him bitch and he prefers text messages over voice...

Out of habit, he took the elevator, though it made him impatient without Hermann to talk to and he fidgeted the whole way, staring at the numbers overhead restlessly. It was only one floor.

"So, taxi is on its way, we get our stuff and then hit up a teleporter back to the apartment?" He didn't know what to say to Hermann; he hated that, and wordlessly shoved the glasses at him.

Hermann had been watching the stairs for Newton, and it came as something of a surprise to see him leave the elevator instead. He didn't know why this bit of knowledge stuck with him, but he didn't interrupt the call for Newton, rather accepting his glasses (how could he have forgotten them?) with a raised brow and a brief nod.

After a few more minutes of the kind of polite double-talk he despised with a sincere passion, he thanked the person on the other end and hung up. "It seems we won't be getting out of a late fee," he lamented with a brief scowl to the device, and there was that we again, now that he was more aware of it. But no less able to stop using it, apparently. They'd been stuck together too long, he reasoned.

He tucked the phone away and turned his attention back to Newton's proposal.

"That's the general plan. I have little desire to see much more of De Chima at the moment." Even if he'd half-planned on scoping the apartment complex before they left. Not that they had to pay for government housing, but he liked being aware of all options. "And we have no further side trips to take, as far as I'm aware?"

Newt shrugged, a clear 'what can you do' expression at the late fee comment, and despite their tension a few minutes ago, he had the amusing thought of Hermann writing a few rather detailed and highly critical complaints to the hotel once he was feeling better. No, maybe while he was feeling like crap, because complaining was totally Hermann's kind of therapy. Hell, Newt would find him the links to their Yelp pages while in the taxi. He was completely behind this.

He peered out the glass lobby doors, keeping an eye out for their taxi.

"Side quest for food, probably take-out to go back with us." Honestly? He wasn't too terribly keen on sitting in a restaurant and he was pretty sure Hermann would appreciate not being in public for a while, too. Not that it really mattered what Hermann wanted, of course. But, you know. Less bitching to listen to. "Or maybe we can call for delivery." Ugh, there was that we, that Us that didn't exist. Or you can call for delivery and I can call for delivery, totally separately, but since this argument was sort of about logical choices, wouldn't it be logical to place one order for food together? "What do you want to eat?"

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