Not dead.

Written for the prompt:

Hermann/Newt; glasses kink

cynical_sweater

2013-07-16 08:24 pm (UTC)

Post-film, Newt's glasses are pretty banged up, so he decides to swap to contacts. He's pretty okay with the change - hey, less fuss! - but Hermann absolutely mourns the loss of Newt's glasses and tries to convince him to go back.

Found on LiveJournal for the Pacific Rim Kink Meme - Round 1.

Warning: UNBETA-ED. G.

Enjoy your neural handshake.

"Here you are. Minus four point three and minus four. How long has it been since you last wore them?"

"Ah… Last year. No, wait, less. Eight months?"

The optician nods and taps a number on the calculator. "Try one for six hours each, for the first week. Are you sure you're not in a hurry for your spectacles?"

Newton doesn't even take a moment to consider it, and shakes his head. "I'm sure you are swimming in a sea of prescriptions Doc."

The doctor smiles lightly and takes off his glasses to polish them for the fifth time in the last quarter of hour.

Nasty-looking purple bags circle his eyes and his complexion looks like it hasn't seen the sun in months.

"Yeah, I'm… We are all dealing with the post-zeros, you know."

The "post-zeros" is what they've started calling it. Yeah, he knows.

Newt sighs existing the infirmary quarters.

He knows nothing.

.

.

.

The day next the sky over Hong Kong threatens god's wrath over them and his head is fucking killing him.

It's a jungle of screeching and sniffing sounds and he doesn't know what's better. To hear the confused wrath of the Kaiju clones or the long-past pains of his co-worker. Because the word 'friend' is a whole different can of worms right now.

The lab, their lab, is an honest-to-god mess and he likes it more that way even though goddamn Hermann has already started packing his stuff and – there they are, his pills.

He takes one for the blood pressure and another one for the facebleed. Tests results didn't show when it should stop, and Hermann said he hasn't all the variables yet, the fucker.

He checks that everything is in its rightful, even-god-doesn't-know-where place in his mess and when he finds a stack of papers he could, perhaps part from, a bugging pinch outside his peripheral vision almost makes his turn around.

Almost. They've already gone through this awkward shit the first post-zeros day.

It's Hermann staring at him and the lingering neural drift between them is what Newt is feeling.

He didn't know that Hermann wanted to fuck him senseless all this time they have been sharing labs, since right after the Manila fiasco and the Alaska Shatterdome, or Newt would have happily complied with it.

After the drift they fucked for days in Hermann's quarters because Newt didn't want to strain Hermann's leg more than necessary and wanted to keep an eye on their bleeding, but that doesn't mean that Hermann is being less than a teasing, English bastard and that Newt has to turn every time he stares.

Because he has learned how much he has been stared at these past three years and fuck if he's comfortable with that.

Half an hour and several rice crackers later the staring has been almost non-stop.

"What is it?"

Hermann turns to him, that man can turn his head faster than a hummingbird flaps his wings, and looks stupidly back.

"Nothing."

Newt sighs and tries not to scratch the fading bruise on his left hip, not the one left by Hermann's hands in bed, how many times does he have to think that, the one he got in that clusterfuck trying not to die with a smile on his face because he was being chased down by a Kaiju.

And yeah, he got that beauty down on his left shoulder, fuck you all.

"Herm, you've been staring at me since I walked in. What is it? If you are gonna remind about the heart exam again, I've already circled it in red on the calendar. Again."

Hermann stares another fair bit, mouth partially open, hands still on his folder, forehead wrinkled and was that a disappointed frown?

"All right." Is all what the mathematician says, and turns back.

.Hell. .

.

.

.

Herm is unusually awkward all that day, he doesn't even accuse him of having stolen his chalk again and Newt ends up grudgingly emptying his pockets before following for dinner, until he carefully slides in bed next to Hermann with a damp washcloth later that night.

"I didn't see any lens in your room before so I can safely assume that you bought them this morning."

Darkness shields him so he can frown however much he wants. "Y-Yep…"

"By the state of your spectacles I can also say that you have a spare pair, what happened to them?"

Is it Newt's imagination or Hermann's voice sounds slightly concerned. Over a pair of glasses?

"Broken. Last year's second attack, Alaska's Shatterdome. Didn't bother to ask for a spare so, lens it is." Hermann knows too well that he can't put together a full, pronouns-included sentence after a good round of mind-blowing sex, sue him.

"Good night, Sherlock." Hermann's warm snort touches his hair as he falls asleep.

.

.

.

There are days when the sky threatens with god's wrath and the day progresses smoothly and uneventful, and there are days when the sky is crystal clear and choppers fly right and left to remove debris, while the Shatterdome implodes.

"Declared the epidemic status. A whole hospital locked down. 30 people, doctor Geiszler. If you can tell me if this is Kaiju's poison work, I'll get you a new pair of glasses."

"Ugh! What is wrong with my lens? Something less to fuss about, right? Hermann always complained about finding them in his half of the lab, anyway!"

"Yeah, that's the problem."

Before Newt can loudly inquire further, Hansen is out of the corridor shouting orders about tracking down every single drop of Kaiju's saliva in a 30 miles radius.

.

.

He examines samples from the city and the countryside, blood-samples, skin tissue, goddamned shit, god he hates humans, and he really shouldn't care so much about where Hermann is on a day like this, but he could or could not tracks his relative position through the residual drift, yes, he's a jealous bastard like that, and he might or might not have counted the minutes, one hundred fifty three, until he walks in the labs, not even complaining about the dubstep he's listening to.

Seriously. What the hell even.

Hermann is a bitch and Mako is an angel of the lord, though, she's brought a double-shot coffee in a gigantic mug.

He thanks her and realizes she's watching him like he turned into a golden lizard.

He traces back his synapsis and finds his fingers on his temple for no reason at all. Oh wait, no glasses. Right.

"But won't your lens worsen the condition of your eye, Geiszler-san?"

"Don't worry. They are already at the lab, they just have their hands full there right now. No rush or anything, and the clock is set to zero now, right?"

That was supposed to make Mako smile, Newt thinks, instead she nods uncertainly at him and while she straightens from the bow, he catches her sending a pitying look at Hermann.

Is it something in the water or was it last night's paella? But who cares, there's coffee and shit to analyze, so Newt analyzes.

.

.

"It's not in the Kaiju Blue! There are no such acids in the blood tests of two thirds of the people-"

"There wouldn't be because it's not a substance from this planet!"

"I searched for every Kaiju-related acid, too, and there's no evidence-"

"There is! Maybe you can't see it with that blood-shot eye!"

Hermann's rage is a red-tinted, nasty window of messy algorithms in his biological-driven, accurate, I'm-king-of-the-lab mind.

"What's with my eye now! Your isn't any better, Herm!"

"Yours was, doctor Geiszler, two days ago it was."

"Don't doctor Geiszler me like I did something wrong!"

"Thir-Thirteen days, five hours, fo-forty-two minutes!"

What?

Because it's not the only time that Hermann blurts numbers to prove his self-asserted, superior point, but it's the first time he's so red he looks like a boiled lobster, his breath is short and his upper lip is so stiff it might be hurting by now.

Plus, Hermann stuttered. Code Healthy Bickering just turned to Code Something's Wrong.

"What days, man?"

"Ah-ah-Until the condition of your eye worsen. Thirteen days five hours and forty-one minutes. Even with last-generation liquid-crystal lens, and I don't think you can afford enough of them before you receive your long-celebrated rock star paycheck, it's going to take thirty-three days, seven hours and twelve, no, eleven minutes."

"Hermann..."

"You didn't do enough tests for me to say what the level of consumption of your eye will be but it certainly will be nothing like mine. Mine will look like a joke, in comparison; as if I drank one more glass of whisky while you're past alcohol-induced coma and you know that alcohol doesn't agree with my liver."

Hermann stood there, so flustered that a lock of greasy hair was threatening to fall over his good eye, while his shaking hand was white around the handle of his cane.

Newt wanted nothing else than walk up to him and prying it gently away from his fingers, they were starting to hurt, in the back of his mind, right there along with the red thread of rage going through his skull.

"Hermann… I-"

"I'll go get some fresh air, if anyone asks for me. I-I apologize for the uproar." And there he is, fucking borderline Hermann Gottlieb, being a more messed-up-in-the-head scientist than him since 2015.

Newt doesn't even try to go after him and demands an explanation, he will only get barely audible apologizes all the way through his room, where he will lock himself up covered in naphthalene and chalk for the rest of the evening.

Fuck.

He goes for his desk and starts searching frantically. Under the Kaiju's body parts capsules, beside his telescopes, under his notebooks, and fuck, where the fuck is it.

"Geiszler-san?" Mako stands a few steps from the door, hands trained at her sides but her eyes spill the worry that must be pulling at her arms to clutch her chest any moment now.

"I saw Gottlieb-san running in the corridor.." Sweet Mako. Gods bless her.

She began using normal motor verbs for Hermann before anyone else and made everyone else use them with just the power of her glare, the tightening of her forearms muscles and about the right amount of fearsome kawaiiness.

"And he wasn't crying, but… He looked pretty upset."

"Yeah yeah, I know." He huffs and stares at the convoluted vortex that is Hermann's algorithms. And this time, maybe the first one since they know each other and definitely the first one since they knew they were being oblivious fuckers, all that incomprehensible, white jungle is about him.

An invisible fist of an emotion he doesn't want to recognize tightens his chest, while he curls his fingers around the padd and he knows his toes are the same in his leather, definitely-not-Hannibal's shoes.

"He's just being his usual, crazy, bundle-of-repressed-emotions self. I'll come up with some heavenly cuddles for him later." He grins and forces himself to wink because Mako is a sweetie who had always rooted for them and might or might not have started and won a Shatterdome pool bet about them.

She nods in answer and with a second of hesitation, exits again and this time, closes the door, bless her soul.

That fucker Raleygh is a lucky man.

He keeps searching until he's gone through every inch of paper and bio-liquid and metal table of his half, and he does it all over again. The third time he slams his hand on his (metal) desk and relive in the pain.

It's nothing compared to the mourning kind of brooding that's nagging the back of his mind.

God-fucking-damn it, they were always there even when he didn't need them and where they are now when he needs them.

Fucking glasses.

.

.

.

There are leaden sky days, and clear-as-a-sapphire days, and then there are days when little puffy clouds sail the light blue vault and grey ones lurks around the horizon and it's how the sky buggers you with the questions 'Will I call the wind? Will I clear out? Will I coagulate and bleed the Flood on you? I may even if you don't find your spare broken glasses and put them on until the repaired ones come and make Hermann happy again you little bitch'.

And yeah, maybe the last part is not a hundred percent meteorological ponderings.

Who would have thought that Hermann had a soft spot for his spectacles?

He can understand the tight pants part, the wake up at the crack of satans ass to switch on the bedside light and check on his inflamed iris part, he gets the obsession for his thicker hair and his needle-traced designs, but his fucking spectacles?

Well… maybe if the way he stared while Newt carefully tucked them away before falling asleep and the way he would smirk at Newt's fumbling fingers in the early morning were any indications…

But enough of that.

He has a four millions inhabitants city to browse for a black, simple frame and a brooding partner in the Shatterdome quarters and tonight's wanking was lonely, cold and fucking horrible and he swears to every Kaiju part he set his eyes on, he's never going to sleep alone until Hermann breathes his last 'yes' and how fucking terrifying is that thought Jesus fucking Christ.

After the optician apologizes and tells him that he sent everything at the lab already he starts whistling lightly and takes out the list of opticians and second-hand shops where he might find another pair.

Eight pm and his mood is three feet underground, the shops are either turning into bars or pubs or casinos or they're pulling down the shutters and why nobody told him, that morning, that finding a black, simple frame of spectacles is freaking impossible in Hong Kong?!

Cross his heart and hope to drift with another Kaiju again, he saw every frame humans could come up with, some of them were so crazy they floated near Sherlockian-crazy level.

When Newt starts to consider a pair of 'Happy 2026' ones it's night fall and his legs are hurting and he feels shitty enough already for having imposed his burning muscles on Hermann's knee, he just traces a U turn and takes a damn cab for the Shatterdome, thankyouverymuch.

.

.

Nearer and nearer the Shatterdome, his home-made mental shields crumble and eventually thin out.

There's a trail of panic fading out, a touch of recognition and something that Newt couldn't name if he wasn't experiencing some of it in his own mind, maybe… anticipation?

He doesn't know what made Hermann come out from his igloo of mourn, but he's grateful for that.

.

.

Strangely, he doesn't find Hermann in his room, their lingering neural handshake isn't as stable as the pilots' was so they can't pinpoint each other's exact location every time, but Newt doesn't even look at any other path (fuck his grumbling stomach and the canteen) and heads for the lab.

Hermann is leaning on his desk, his hands cradle the cane, resting sloppily between his legs.

"First, it wasn't my right to pry into your personal choice of clothing and accessories. What you do to your body is your decision, your only, we both know that; I agree with that."

An hesitant pause in his voice makes Newt step ahead.

"No, you were right, I give you that. I would have to keep replacing the left lens too often anyway." He stops when Hermann raises stiff, shaking fingers from his grip on the cane, his head is still slightly bowed.

It's unsettling, to say the least, to see him like that. It's like he's two seconds away from downright begging, for fuck's sake.

"I burdened your mind with uncontrolled emotions recently not only because I am concerned for your left cornea, but also because…because I favour your spectacles. Motive and explanation will not be given presently, though."

That said, the brilliant German gentleman in front of him shifts his cane and leans on it, opening his arms a bit to show an angle of restive acceptance.

His hands are still shaking, though, his upper lip is too, and Newt's mind is still pinched with anticipation. Not to mention the stream of stumbling uncertainty beneath it all.

"Herm. I didn't know you cared about them so much. Look, I searched every damn corner of the city for another pair but I couldn't find an exact copy."

Hermann's face wrinkles in thought and then, in rage.

"You bloody… you bloody inked punk, you were out in a fortytwo degrees, seventyfive-percent humidity day? And you didn't tell me?"

"What? You were the one who locked himself in his room, man!"

"At least I wasn't running around uselessly, burning every muscle in my legs to the point of agony-"

"Yeah, sorry about that, that hurt right?"

"I don't care about my bloody leg! I've lived with it for twenty years now! I'm talking about your legs, your body, because it's not like you drifted with once, but twice, with a bloody-"

"Again? Are we having that conversation again?"

"Yes! Because you could have another seizure in the middle of the street and everyone were too busy fanning themselves inside their houses with the air-conditioner at maximum!"

Oh. Was that why he saw so few people around? Did they call the heat wave? Maybe they did. Fuck his life.

"As for the spectacles…. I wouldn't mind if you threw them away at this point… Even if…I-I w-would mind. But that's your choice to make."

He's about to say that his spare pair disappeared into thin air, when his eyes follow the direction Hermann's cane is pointing at.

On his Kaiju's ear capsule there's a black box. Inside it are his spectacles, perfectly repaired. He tries to put them on but the lens' graduation get in the way and he can't tell if the glass is the right one.

Hermann squints at him from his newly relegated position against the blackboard.

He's managing to lean both on the black surface and on his cane, propped firmly in front of him, like a well-known shield, his hunched shoulders and his sneaking gaze only make Newt act quicker.

He takes his lens off with a faint hope blooming in the recesses of his mind and when he puts them on again he can see clearly, more clearly than before.

Hermann is watching him with the barest hint of smirk on his face and Newt might have run or he might have teleported but the second later he's smashing their mouths together, his hand safely clutching the back of the mathematicians' hair.

"I hope you won't regret your choice Newton." Pants Hermann in between their need of oxygen.

Newt glares at him and adjust his glasses with his free (not for long) hand.

"I made my choice and I'm in serious need of a reward. Either I'll take it or you give it to me, I don't care, but tonight I'm getting some or for fucks' sake I'll-"

He doesn't make it until the end of the sentence and after Hermann bites his favorite spot near the jugular, he finds that he can't track his train of thoughts any longer than

'fucking glasses man'.

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.

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Thank you.