Motivation Is What You Make It

Newt looks at him blankly. "If you're looking for Tendo, his room is down the way."

  Hermann wrinkles his nose. "Why would I be looking for Tendo?"

  "You have chocolate and beer. Obviously, you're looking to fuck, and Tendo's door is always open, so to speak. Mine is not—unless we're setting aside the part where we both actually hate each other because we need to get laid..." Newt looks him up and down, speculatively; Hermann turns red, but his voice remains flat.

  "That is not what I came here for. These are for you, but not for any carnal purposes. I just know that you like them, and I figured I would need leverage. I have a request. May I come in?"

  Newt squints. "It's really not a sex thing? 'Cause I'm not opposed to it being a sex thing, mind you. I just don't want to come in the lab tomorrow and not get to throw things at your stupid face."

  Hermann lets out an endless, long-suffering sigh. "It's really not a sex thing, Newton, honestly. We hate each other. That's worked out very well for us so far, and it will continue to work out for us in the future." He doesn't mention that they haven't always hated each other and that, at one point in their long relationship, showing up unannounced at Newton's door for the purpose of sexual favors would not have been so far out of the realm of possibility. Had been, in fact, one of those things Hermann had considered late at night long ago, when he couldn't go a week without a fat envelope in the mail full of Newt's ramblings.

  But that was quite some time ago, and he means it. They each get more work done than they would ever have separately, even if only because they like to rub their progress in the other's face.

  Anyway, admitting anything different would just give Newt ammunition.

  Newt perhaps looks a touch disappointed, but Hermann is sure he imagines it. He steps aside to admit Hermann, sitting down on his bed. After a beat, he pulls out his desk chair for Hermann, sweeping away cookie crumbs and removing a foot-tall Godzilla action figure from the seat to pride of place on his cluttered desk. Hermann moves some papers aside to make room for the chocolates, briefly wondering about the wisdom of putting food there. Then he sits, slowly, and holds out one of the beers to Newt.

  "The Gamera behind you is a bottle opener," Newt says, pointing. Hermann takes down the action figure; Newt holds out his bottle, and Hermann pulls off the cap for him before taking care of his own. Newt is still holding out his beer. After a moment, Hermann realizes what he wants and clinks his bottle against Newt's. "Cheers." Newt takes a swig and blinks. "Holy shit, this is real. Where did you get this?"

  "My brother sent it to me for my birthday," said Hermann, settling back in Newt's chair. His hip hurts, but no more than usual; he doesn't want to fidget even though he's nervous, even if he can disguise it as trying to get in a good position to make sure he can get up easily.

  Newt raises his eyebrows. "Okay, so if you don't want sex, then what is it? 'Cause it's gotta be something big for you to give something like this to me. I mean, I know you hate your family, but you like beer, so..."

  "I do like beer." Newt looks at him flatly. Hermann sighs. "All right, all right. I need a favor. You... you practice traditional tattooing, don't you?"

  Newt looks at him blankly. "Well, yeah, but what's that got to do with anything? You don't like ink." Hermann's eyes flick away. "You... you don't like ink." Newt looks at his beer dubiously. "You know, I'm starting to wonder if you slipped something in this because I must be hallucinating if I can honestly think you might want a tattoo."

  Hermann wraps both hands around his bottle, looking at his knees. "It's Brawler," he says at last, and some of the incredulity disappears from Newt's face, replaced by grief. "I thought... I thought I  was numb to losing Jaegers after all the funerals I've attended, all the memorial services... I thought I knew how to deal with it, at least, and yet..." Hermann's hands tighten. "I cannot seem to put this one aside. I thought..."

  Newt's voice is surprisingly gentle. "We all thought Brawler was gonna be there forever. And, hey, at least she got took down by a monster—first cat four ever." He pauses. "Sorry. I'll shut up." He shifts uncertainly. "So... are we talking about what I think we're talking about here? 'Cause, I mean, if you just want a tat, I can always recommend you to my artist. Lu's real selective, but she's a goddess. Just as good at Jaegers as she is kaiju. I can probs get you a discount, too, not that you need it."

  Hermann shakes his head. "I thought about that initially, but... it doesn't sit right. I need..." Pain is the word that comes to mind, but he doesn't say that; he has learned to keep his heart carefully closed away around Newton Geiszler, after all, and telling him that would reveal just how deep the wound goes in this case. Even though he probably already is by asking for this. "Well, for one thing, I would like it to take longer. For another... you've been there since the beginning, just like I have, Newton. You... Brawler's just a figurehead to the rest of the world, especially now that the Jaeger program is falling into disgrace. But you understand, don't you?"

  Newt takes another nervous sip of his beer. "Of course I do," he mutters. "Brawler... Jesus, Brawler. Fuck." He pushes a hand through his hair. "I've had a hard time getting it off my mind too, to be honest.   But, uh... I mean, are you sure?"

  "I haven't been able to get it off my mind since I came up with the idea. This isn't a spur of the moment thing, Newton. Well—coming here right this instant, perhaps. But..." He trails off, unwilling to say that he's had this idea for almost two weeks now and just hasn't been able to figure out how to ask. "It doesn't matter. Will you do it or not?"

  Newt blinks. "Well—uh—"

  "I'll pay you, of course," Hermann says, wondering if that's it.

  "No, man, no way!" Newt brushes that aside, a disgusted look on his face. "I mean, you drive me up the fucking wall, but... fucking Christ, this is too important for money. I don't..." His face softens slightly; he meets Hermann's eyes hesitantly. "I don't like you and whatever, but... that doesn't mean I want you sitting up at nights, either. Do too much of that shit myself."

  Hermann wonders, briefly, if Newt spends his nights thinking about the same thing he does. Then he squashes that. He has spent the better part of several years successfully not thinking about Newt, and he will continue doing so. This is a transaction, that's all. "Well, I will be anyway since that's the only time we'll have to work on this, and I'm given to understanding it will take quite a while."

  Newt nods. "Well, yeah, that's what I was hesitating over. It's kind of a serious commitment, man. It's... it's not like normal tattooing. I'm gonna kinda have to be all over you and stuff." He clears his throat. "So... what were you thinking?"

  "A few lines of the code, here." He traces a line along the top of his shoulders. "Perhaps the date of their first and last battle. I'm not sure about that part yet."

  Newt considers this, his eyes narrowing slightly as they do when he has a new sample to work with. "That wouldn't be too bad. Just a couple nights, long as you don't want too much. The only reason it'll be fussy is just making sure I don't mess any of it up. Lots of straight lines..." He trails off, looking away thoughtfully.

  Hermann taps his finger against the bottle. "So... you'll do it?"

  Newt blinks. "Oh. Uh. Yeah. I guess. That's... cool. I've gotta get some stuff first—I've still got my needles, but I think all my ink's used up, and I'll need to clean everything and stuff. Make sure it's sanitized. I'll, uh, I'll let you know."

  Hermann nods. He starts to get to his feet, but Newt makes a protesting noise. "You haven't finished your beer, dude. Really gonna just leave me here to drink alone?"

  That was, in fact, the general idea. Hermann doesn't really want to finish his—the beer and chocolates were just the only things he thought might strike Newt's fancy—but... well, as little as he wants to spend more time with Newton Geiszler than he is absolutely forced to by the nature of their work situation... he'll be stuck with Newt for a few nights, at least. Might as well start now so he gets used to the idea. "I just wanted some chocolate," he says, reaching for one. "For heaven's sake, Newt. Don't jump to conclusions so."

  ***

  They get into an argument over Newt's cluttered desk—Hermann thinks the entire room needs to be fumigated—but it's a comfortable argument, not a bad one, just an echo of a shouting match they have every week in the lab. Family and broken-in, like a good pair of shoes. When Hermann leaves, it is with significantly fewer misgivings than when he first got this ridiculous idea.

  ***

  It takes Newt a week to get his things together; over that stretch of time, they do not once mention the subject, even though Hermann finds himself thinking of it every time someone sends him fresh code to inspect and every time Newt fills a syringe with kaiju blue.

  When they are closing the lab on Friday night, Newt turns to him. "So... I've got everything all set now if you wanted..."

  Hermann's throat locks up for a second with nerves. Then he banishes that feeling and pulls his composure back around himself. "If you're ready, I would like to start tonight. Sooner to get it over with and healed, you understand."

  Newt nods. "Your room, I'm assuming?"

  "It has to be," Hermann says dryly. "There's no space for me in yours, after all."

  Newt looks like he might say something to that, but Hermann turns back to his computer, and Newt blows a raspberry at him, which Hermann ignores.

  ***

  Hermann gets things set up while Newt collects his materials from his room. He sets out his heating pad on the bed and puts his pain medication on the bedside table—he will probably need it at some point. The winter monsoons have brought fierce joint pain with them. Lying on his stomach is not nearly as painful as sitting upright, but staying in any one position for too long will bring pain with it, certainly.

  He takes a shower so he won't fuss waiting for Newt; as he's getting dressed again, he hears a knock at the door, and only when he finishes buttoning up his cuffs does he realize the ridiculousness of what he's doing, since he'll have to strip again in just a few minutes.

  Well, he supposes that's less time Newt will spend looking at his half-naked form, and that can only be a good thing. He doesn't want to hear the mockery that will doubtless spill from Newt's lips.

  Newt has a case held against one hip; it clinks gently as he shifts his weight. "Ready?" he asks, looking as though he is waiting for Hermann to slam the door in his face.

  Instead, Hermann steps aside. Newt comes in at once, looking around Hermann's room with undisguised interest; his eyes flick over Jaeger diagrams and a portrait of Alan Turing with equal curiosity. His gaze finally settles on Hermann. Hermann does his best not to stiffen. He doesn't feel like letting Newt know how nervous he is about all of this. "So, uh," Newt says, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. "Undress to your comfort level, I guess."

  Hermann rolls his eyes at that, although it's a ruse.

  He's thought about undressing in front of Newt before, but never in a situation where he would have to wonder what Newt was thinking about. And that was a long time ago, when he was not quite so thin and bony.

  Then he remembers he has, in fact, undressed in front of Newt before and lets out a derisive snort as he starts to unbutton his cuffs and his shirt.

  "What?" Newt asks, setting his case on Hermann's desk without asking.

  "I merely had cause to recall the time you blew up the kaiju gallbladder," Hermann says, lips twitching. He's not sure if it was toward a frown or a smile. At the time, the incident was humiliating, since the Marshal had ended up seeing both of them in their altogether while they huddled under the chemical shower, but as far as Newt's failed experiments went, that one was relatively harmless.

  Newt laughs aloud, surprised. "I almost forgot about that. God, you didn't speak to me for a fucking month." He pauses, glancing sideways at Hermann with a hint of a smirk. "Dunno how you think that's a punishment, but whatever."

  Hermann shoots him a disdainful glance that he doesn't quite mean. Satisfied that Newt is concentrating on arranging his equipment and not paying attention to him, he finishes unbuttoning his shirt and shrugs it off, hanging it off the edge of his nightstand so it won't wrinkle. "I wasn't being quiet to punish you. You think much too highly of yourself if you believe that is the case. I just simply could not imagine speaking a word to you that wasn't an expletive, and such conversations, while enjoyable, are hardly productive."

  Newt chuckles. "Now that's what I'm talking about."

  Hermann waves that away and holds out his arms. He cannot help but wait for the derisive comment; he might as well indicate he's unaffected by it early. "Good enough?" he says, raising his eyebrows.

  "Yeah." Newt barely glances at him. "Just hang on for a second before you get cozy." He opens the case. Within are a number of ink bottles, a long, thin rod, and a few white packages. Newt holds one of them up. "These are the needles I'll be using.These are brand-new and completely sterile. You can even open the package if you want. I know how much of a germophobe you are." That last is accompanied by a bit of a smirk.

  Hermann shakes his head. "I trust you with that. Say what I will about your methods, but you don't cut corners. If only so you can shake that fact in others' faces when they take you to task for when you step out of line."

  Newt grins. "Oh, you know me so well." He takes out another packet. "Gloves. Also sterile. And I've got some alcohol wipes and all that good stuff. Satisfied I won't give you tetanus or something?"

  Hermann shrugs. "I was never concerned. If you gave me some terminal disease, then you'd have no one to pick on, and where would you be?"

  "You make an excellent point. The lab would be too quiet without you shaking your cane at me like the granddad you are." He looked over his case again, then back at Hermann. "Okay, seriously, any questions about my stuff before we get started?" Hermann shakes his head. He doesn't want to say that he'd done research so he knew what to expect. Newt knows Hermann only does research when he's anxious, and Hermann does not feel like giving Newt that in. Not when he is half-dressed and about to be poked over and over for a prolonged period of time. "Cool beans. Turn around so we can see how the transfer looks."

  Newt applies the transfer to Hermann's back and hems and haws about how it looks for a few minutes before washing it off and reapplying it. "I know you won't settle for anything less than a perfect straight line, even if you can't see it," he mutters.

  "Well, it is going to be a permanent part of me," Hermann says, his voice dry.

  Newt clicks his tongue. "Okay. That's better. Here, I'll show you." He snaps a photo with his phone camera and holds it out for Hermann's inspection. The line is straight and clean across the top of Hermann's shoulders, with a shorter line centered beneath it. At the base are Brawler Yukon's dates of deployment.

  The sight should make him nervous—but instead it calms him, for the first time since Brawler fell. Concrete evidence at last that Hermann will not let this go on in vain. He will find the secrets of the Breach, and he will make the kaiju answer for what they have taken. "It looks acceptable," he says when he realizes he has been staring for almost a minute.

  "Whoa, whoa, man, back up there. Don't get too crazy. Your enthusiasm is killing me." Hermann says nothing to that. Newt rolls his eyes. "Okay. Go ahead and get comfy. I'm going to get my stuff set up."

  Hermann settles onto his stomach, letting his arms lay flat beside him. His hip protests slightly when he shifts, but hopefully the heating pad will keep that quiet for now.

  "Okay, this is going to be cold," Newt warns, just before brushing alcohol wipes across Hermann's back. He adjusts the lamp clipped to Hermann's headboard, muttering under his breath the whole while. Hermann, to his own surprise, isn't nervous. The pain can't be any worse than what he puts up with at the end of a long day climbing up and down his ladder, after all. And he can stop it whenever he wants.

  Finally, Newt seems satisfied with the light. "Okay. I'm, uh, I'm gonna get started. If you need a break or if you're ready to stop, just lemme know, okay? I mean, you drive me crazy, but that doesn't mean I actually want to, like, hurt you or anything."

  The words make Hermann's lips twitch, almost fondly, and he's glad Newt can't see his expression. They understand each other better than anyone would think. For all of his bravado, Newt is actually a wimp. "I'm ready. I'll let you know when I am ready to stop."

  "All right. If you say so." Newt leans over him, stretching the skin of Hermann's left shoulder taut with one hand. Hermann closes his eyes. The pain is sharp and bright at first, stinging like nettles. Hermann bites his lip. After a few minutes, it settles into an even haze of pain, like the sting of a fresh burn. Not nearly so bad as he thought.

  He's surprised by how quiet Newt is. Hermann expected a stream of chatter—if not to Hermann, then at least to himself. Newt always talks when he's working. It's why Hermann bought him the tape recorder for their first Christmas at the Hong Kong 'dome. He'd gotten tired of Newt expecting him to actually listen to his constant chatter and remember things he hadn't been paying attention to, so he made sure Newt would have some way to make a record of what he was always going on about.

  But Newt isn't even humming. The only sound is the soft tapping of the needles against Hermann's back and the creak of Newt's gloves.

  It reminds Hermann of P.T., years and years ago, when he would be worked within an inch of his life and then wrapped up in hot towels to ease away the pain. Time would stretch and dilute; if he paid attention to it, it would only make the pain worse. Ignoring it was better. He'd long ago learned to sit with his aches.

  He starts when a timer rings on Newt's phone; thankfully, Newt is at the desk, refilling the little vial of ink he kept balanced on the hand he used to stretch Hermann's skin. "Okay," says Newt, stretching his hands. "It's been half an hour. Need a break?"

  It had felt like no time at all. The skin on his back is raw and scraped; when he shifts, the pain flares, but it was a whisper compared to his hip at the end of a long day. "I should stretch," he mumbles. He feels a bit drunk, honestly, or perhaps sleepy. He might rest well for once after Newt leaves.

  "Just your legs, though, not your back," said Newt, casting a critical eye over Hermann's shoulder. Hermann feels no self-consciousness at that; it's the same expression Newt wears when looking at a shoddily preserved bit of kaiju.

  Hermann nods, carefully getting up. The skin on his back feels taut and sore; the motion makes him wince. He stands, slowly, and stretches out his leg, feeling his hip shift and stretch. It's not like he was expecting, but that might just be because he's so focused on his back.

  "Have some water," Newt says, passing across the bottle Hermann keeps on his bedside table. Hermann looks at the bottle suspiciously. "What? I'm trying to be considerate! Lu would skin me otherwise."

  "As long as it's for Lu's sake," Hermann mutters. He is thirsty. "I would begin to wonder if you'd spiked this if it was out of concern for me."

  Newt scowls at him. "Dude, even I'm not that much of a dick. You drive me nuts, but that's whatever. We get along."

  They do, actually, so Hermann says nothing. He gets settled back on the bed.

  "So what are you thinking?" Newt asks. "How much longer?"

  "At least another half-hour," Hermann says. "I could do longer, but that's how long I can stay in one position before it starts to ache." He swears he feels light fingertips against the back of his leg, like Newt has brushed the area once bent so out of true by his long-ago accident, but when he glances over his shoulder, Newt is putting on a fresh pair of gloves, his hands far away from Hermann's skin.

  Is he disappointed? Hermann shakes his head in disgust at his own folly. He thought that was all gone, buried under years of the loud, messy reality that was Newt. They do get along, but it's not in that way.

  "Hour's good," Newt says, casting a critical eye over Hermann's back. "We can do this in about three sessions that way, I think, since these are simple. I don't want to push you too much anyway—trust me, it catches up with you after a while. I've passed out a time or two 'cause I hit my limit and I didn't realize it, and that's with a machine. This is way more intense." He cracks his knuckles. "Ready to get back at it, old bean?"

  "I have told you a thousand times to please leave aside the terrible accent," Hermann says, even though he knows it will do no good. And Newt just snorts and starts again.

  The pain is worse this time, but only because it had begun to fade into the background while they were talking. Still. It is a far sight from Hermann's worst experiences. He might even be beginning to understand why Newt enjoys this—it is one stretch of time where he thinks of nothing but his own body and his own mind. He cannot drift off into anxious thoughts about the future without the sharp prick bringing him back, and the skin where Newt works tingles agreeably.

  When Newt's timer rings again, Hermann almost thinks of telling him to continue, but the twinge he feels when he shifts tells him otherwise. If he continues to lie in this position, he will regret it. "That will do for now, I think."

  "Yeah, that's about all I can do anyway." Newt flexes his hands, wincing a bit. "Been a long time. Forgot what it takes out of me. Dunno how Lu does this all day. Lemme get a bandage on it and we'll call it good. Set an alarm on your phone if you fall asleep—you gotta take this off in a couple hours so it can breathe." He pauses. "And sleep shirtless. That'll help it itch less tomorrow, 'cause I know you're still gonna wanna dress full grandpa, and that ain't gonna feel very nice."

  Hermann scowls at him. "I do not dress like an old man. I dress professionally."

  "Yeah, for an office in the fifties," but Newt's voice is affable. This is territory they've covered for years. Hermann isn't sure they've had an original argument since coming to Hong Kong. All the topics are as comfortably broken in as Hermann's oxfords or Newt's Doc Martens. He tapes gauze to Hermann's bloody back and covers it in plastic wrap. "Good thing you aren't an Armenian sweater kind of guy or this could get awkward..."

  Hermann says nothing to that, settling instead for a delicate, disgusted sigh he has perfected over his years in Hong Kong. Newt just chuckles.

  Newt gets to his feet and begins packing up his case. "I'm just gonna leave this here if that's okay with you. No reason to move it—it's not like I'm tattooing anybody else in the near future."

  Hermann makes an agreeable noise. He also stands and stretches, slowly, testing the tightness in his hips. Not nearly as bad as he was expecting, but enough to let him know he'll remember what he'd been doing in the morning.

  Newt finishes packing up and stretches his arms over his head. Hermann sits back on his bed, stifling a yawn. His back stings like a bad sunburn, but he's pleasantly tired now; the pain will not keep him awake. "That wasn't so bad," Newt says thoughtfully.

  "It wasn't," Hermann says, honestly surprised. He almost feels like this has changed something.

  Or maybe he's just high on endorphins.

  He's probably just high on endorphins.

  ***

  The next day seems more painful than the tattooing process itself; he wears only his thinnest dress shirt, since putting even that on seemed unbearable, and after a few hours, he gives in and takes it off.

  He'd chosen a moment when Newt seemed engrossed in his work, but as he shrugs off his shirt, he hears a wolf whistle from the other side of the line. He doesn't look; that will only encourage Newt.

  "Look at you getting freaky," Newt says, snickering. Hermann continues to ignore him as he scales his ladder. "Looks good, though." For a moment, Hermann pauses, wondering why on earth Newt is commenting on his physical appearance. Especially since those descriptors are the last he would use.

  Then he remembers the source of the itching is not the Shatterdome's cut-rate detergent but his fresh tattoo. He glances over his shoulder, trying to see it.

  "Want a pic? I shoulda taken one to show you last night, sorry."

  Hermann pauses, contemplating an answer. Really, he should tell Newt to fuck off, because he doesn't want to encourage him, but... he desperately wishes to see what he's agreed to have done to his body. And, anyway, he's only gotten a few steps up the ladder. He comes down and turns to Newt. "If you wouldn't mind." He keeps his voice withering, but Newt grins at him.

  "Aww, yeah. If I knew this was all it took to get a sexy picture of you, I would've suggested it years ago." Hermann just huffs. Hermann says nothing. He's repellent and he knows it, but to say so would give Newt a weapon Hermann cannot hand him. They fight constantly, yes, and they make each other so angry that the best they can do is retreat to separate sides of their lab and fume for hours, but they've never really hurt each other. Not since the first time, anyway.

  Hermann does wonder sometimes if Newt thinks about their missed connection as much as he does.

  Of course not. It probably never crosses his mind.

  He turns his back on Newt and lets his arms hang loosely at his sides, the only position that does not make the skin on his back feel flayed. He resists the urge to hunch his shoulders or cross his arms over his chest, waiting for the click of Newt's shutter. Newt mutters behind him, but Hermann doesn't bother deciphering that. Newt is terrible at taking pictures.

  Finally, he hears the snap, and he turns.

  "Say cheese!" Newt says, still holding up his phone. Hermann moves to cover his face, but the flash goes before he gets that far.

  Hermann looks at him flatly. "You are insufferable."

  Newt shrugs, unbothered, still looking at the picture on his phone. "Ha. That one actually came out." He swipes across and holds out his phone.

  Hermann does not cross the line of the lab to look, even though he is terribly curious. His back is raw, but the ink is stark, blacker than the bottom of the sea. It's only a third of the entire design, but Hermann can already imagine how the rest will look.

   Newt swipes across to show him the second picture. Even though Hermann was in motion, the only part that blurred is his hand, halfway to his face; his expression is clear. "I love it when you make that face." Newt's voice is fond, like when he's talking about a new kaiju sample. It's the way he always talks about upsetting Hermann, like it is a cute habit like blushing or stuttering. "Like a turtle's asshole."

  Hermann shoves the phone away. "Always the charmer," he mutters, and turns to scale his ladder. Halfway up, he glances down to see how much of the board he has to work with and catches Newt still staring at the picture on his phone. "Don't you have work to be doing, Newton?"

  Newt blinks, inexplicably, and turns away. "Yep. And it's way more important than yours."

  Hermann ignores the comment for now, waiting for Newt to get lost in his business before throwing a piece of chalk at his head. The way Newt yelps is, as usual, exquisite.

  ***

  Hermann is already undressed when Newt arrives next time, sitting on his bed. Newt busies himself with his case, but Hermann thinks Newt keeps glancing at him sideways. It makes him uncomfortable; he does his best to keep that off his face.

  When Newt takes out a fresh sheet of transfer paper, Hermann offers his back. Newt presses on the design. "This looks like it's healing up well," he murmurs. "It's gonna start to itch like a bitch soon."

  Hermann says nothing to that. When Newt is satisfied with the transfer, Hermann settles back on his stomach. The position is a bit more uncomfortable than yesterday, but not bad. Newt mutters under his breath this time as he gets set up, but Hermann can barely hear him, so he ignores it.

  The pain this time is worse at first, perhaps because he thought he knew what to expect but didn't. But it fades into a dreamlike haze even more quickly than yesterday's work; his mind drifts, and he barely hears Newt when he speaks.

  "I meant to ask you what that code is even for," Newt says. "I mean, I can kind of guess what it does, but why that bit?"

  Hermann blinks. He wasn't expecting speech. Newt was so quiet yesterday after all, and... He swallows, thinking of dissembling, but...

  Newt has respected him on the matter of the tattoo so far. And, also, he can always tell when Hermann is lying or uncertain, and he jumps on weakness like a terrier on a rat. Better to not give him a chance to do that when Newt has needles at hand. "It was an adjustment I made after their first Drift together, to bring Brawler further in line with their paired minds." Hermann bit the inside of his cheek. "I know that my work on the Breach is more important, but—I've never had code feel so personal. Those first Jaegers—all of them had to be tweaked so carefully to match them to the minds of their users. It was a beautiful problem. I only wish it was used to solve something else."

  He waits for Newt to make a joke, but Newt just makes a thoughtful noise. The steady pace of his hand never falters, as rhythmic as a kickdrum. Hermann almost thinks that's the end of it, but Newt speaks again, his voice low. "Lu always tells me to be choosier about what I put on my body. Don't just put a monster in the slot. Really think about what it means to you. But they all mean something to me. I don't know how to pick one over the other—it's just a matter of what fits." He pauses. "Except Onibaba. Tokyo was personal."

  "There's one such for all of us," Hermann murmurs.

  Have he and Newt ever had a conversation like this? Quiet? Civil? He'd even go so far as to call it friendly.

  Everyone thinks they want to tear each other's throats out, but that isn't the case. Yes, there's the baby carrots and the shouting and the chalk throwing, but those incidents are just in line with how they work. No one sees that Hermann wakes Newt up when he falls asleep on his work and pushes him over to the lab couch or back to his room. No one sees that Newt steals Hermann's keys so he can grab Hermann's painkillers on a bad day. Those moments aren't loud, so they're easy for someone to brush over.

  Maybe it's not the way Hermann's always thought.

  Newt turns to leave. Hermann almost tells him to stay, because neither of them are going to bed just yet. Then he realizes how foolish that would sound. In any case, Newt wouldn't accept. So he settles for, "Good night, Newton."

  "Night, Herms." Newt shuts the door on Hermann's disgusted groan.

   ***

  Hermann keeps his shirt off in the lab again; putting it on for the short walk from his room to the lab was excruciating, and even Newt's quiet laughter cannot dissuade him. Once he's up with his numbers, he won't feel it, but first he has to reach that place in his mind, and that's difficult when he's fighting off pain. His hip isn’t doing the best, either. This is not going to be a good day.

  "You want another progress pic?" Newt says when Hermann comes down for lunch at his desk, wiggling gloved fingers covered in kaiju blue.

  Hermann snorts. "I know what you're doing, you know. It won't work. I haven't the faintest who you think would be interested in blackmailing me. Tendo, maybe, but I've got his number, so you are out of luck, Newton."

  Newt chuckles. "Dude, you are reading way too much into it. I told you. Sexy pictures." Hermann looks at him flatly. "What? You've got nice shoulders." Hermann tips his head back, looking to the ceiling for patience. "Well, all right, put it this way—your tat is never gonna look as good as it does right now, before it heals. The ink's blackest right now. You'll wanna know what it looks like, trust me. It sucks when it starts to fade."

  Hermann shrugs at that, pouring himself tea from his Thermos. "You say that as though I'll be looking at it. It's on my back for a reason, Newt."

  "So you can cover it up with your stupid grandpa sweaters, yeah yeah yeah." Newt waves that away. "You've already got your shirt off, bro. Take it or leave it."

  "For heaven's sake, Newton, I am not your bro." Newt waggles his eyebrows in an obscene matter, which Hermann brushes aside. His mouth twists, and it's not from the lemon he always squirts into his tea. "All right then. Do your worst. It might be a nice reminder later."

  Newt strips his gloves and strides blithely over the line. Hermann scowls at him; Newt ignores it, as he always does, pulling his phone from his pocket. Hermann lifts his cup of tea and waits for the click, letting the cup warm his cold fingers. When he hears Newt's shutter, he takes a sip of his tea, expecting that to be the end of it, but—

  Newt's arm snakes around him, and Newt's head appears next to his shoulder, and Newt says, "Cheese!" and the shutter clicks again.

  "Delete that at once," Hermann snaps, turning to face him, but Newt has already scooted away, grinning.

  “Tendo owes me five bucks now.”

  Hermann inhales deeply through his nose, already composing a complaint to human relations in his mind.

  ***

  Hermann has ignored the warning twinges in his hip all day, but that falls to pieces the moment he attempts to lie down on his stomach. He winces and shifts, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing is comfortable.

  Newt watches with a critical eye. “It’s not like we gotta finish this tonight, dude. Couple days won’t make a difference.”

  Hermann frowns. He cannot explain to Newt why this is so important—not even because Newt might use it against him. He’s not worried about that. Some things strike too close to the heart; Newt knows the line, more or less. But he can’t articulate it to himself, really. He just… needs it. Something about the process is putting the anxiety he’s felt since Brawler fell to bed, and if he doesn’t finish it now—

  “No, it will be fine.” Hermann sits up, straightening his back. “Can you work like this? There’s not much left.”

  Newt considers him. “We can make it work,” he says and leaves it at that.

  Hermann ends up facing the wall on his bed while Newt sits in his desk chair.  This time, Newt hums under his breath. Hermann doesn’t mind it as much as usual. That, certainly, is the work of adrenaline.

  He’s used to the time stretching like taffy; it’s a shock when Newt takes his hand away. “Done.”

  Hermann starts. He cranes his head over his shoulder to make Newt is being serious. The other man is already wiping down Hermann’s back, so it must be true.

  Newt notices Hermann’s confused expression. “Said it yourself, man—there wasn’t much left to do. I coulda finished it yesterday, honestly, but I didn’t want to push you too hard.”

  Hermann blinks. He watches Newt pack up his case, trying to pull his mind out of the haze. Only when Newt gets up to leave does he snap out of it. “Wait.”

  Newt pauses, raising one eyebrow. His expression is speculative, just as it was when Hermann first appeared at his door the other night.

  Hermann realizes he has nothing to say and scrambles for a lie. His eyes fall upon the small fridge next to his bed. “I know you don’t want payment,” he says, leaning forward to unlatch the fridge, “but I still have two of these, and I need to get rid of them. Dietrich is threatening to come visit, and the last thing I want is for him to see that I haven’t done anything with his present. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Newt tips his head to the side. Then he shrugs, sets his things back down, and plops into Hermann’s desk chair. “No point in saying no to good beer, I guess.” Hermann opens both bottles with the opener magnet Karla gave to him several years ago and passes one over to Newt. Newt sips his beer, watching Hermann over the top of the bottle.

  Hermann wonders if he should invent a topic of conversation, but that would be admitting weakness, and he has already done so by inviting Newt to stay at all. He swallows.

  Then Newt speaks. “It was good to do that for me, too.” His voice is quiet, lacking his usual aplomb. Hermann raises one eyebrow, giving Newt a chance to back away from the seriousness in his voice if he so chooses, but apparently he doesn’t so choose. “I get caught up in it too much—studying the kaiju, I mean. I know I do. I step on people’s toes all the time. It’s cause people don’t make any sense to me half the fucking time, but the kaiju… shit, at least they’re supposed to be a mystery.”

  He flips his bottle cap over, his eyes dark. “But I forget that people are dying sometimes, and that’s fucked up. Gotta get my priorities in line, I guess.” He pauses. “And I forgot that doing shit like that makes my brain shut up for a while.”

  Hermann takes a slow sip of beer to avoid having to come up with something. Everything he wants to say is too honest. So they drink in silence, and Newt leaves when he finishes his beer without saying another word.

  ***

  Hermann feels like things should be different when he comes into the lab the next morning—at least awkward, the way they were awkward the first time they had to send professional correspondence to each other after their disastrous first meeting.

  But Newt just winks as Hermann shrugs off his shirt. Hermann flips him off, and from there it’s business as usual.

  He feels like he should be disappointed, but honestly he’s relieved Newt hasn’t used anything against him yet. It’s better to brush this under the rug, the same way they brushed their careful flirtations under the rug all those years ago.

  Yes. Better.

  ***

  The Drift makes some things clear and some things even more confusing, but the only thing that matters is that Hermann can’t find the words to stop Newt from disappearing into the crowd of partying Shatterdome residents. He’s too used to tamping down anything true.

  So he retreats to his room and takes a very long shower and only comes out from underneath the blissfully hot water because someone is pounding on his door. He answers with a towel around his waist and several choice curse words behind his lips, but they die the moment he sees Newt’s face.

  Newt’s hair is wet and spiky; he’s changed out of his grime-spattered clothes into a beat-up Black Flag t-shirt that Hermann now knows he wears to bed. On his face is the expression usually reserved for when Hermann picks a fight with him in front of the Marshall.

  Hermann blinks and opens his mouth, but Newt speaks first.

  “Tebori,” he says. “What I practice is called tebori.”

  Hermann blinks again. His fingers flex; he now knows how it feels to stretch skin beneath his fingers and strike and strike again, leaving ink in his wake. He opens his mouth to tell Newt this, but Newt continues.

  “Lu taught me that when we were in grad school together. She wouldn’t, at first, because I was just some dumb gaijin. She wouldn’t even tattoo me that way at first—she would only use the gun. But she changed her mind after she saw what I was trying to do. She let me in, and that meant a lot, and that means I would never, ever go into giving someone a tattoo like that lightly. Fucking Christ. I know I fuck everything up and I talk too much and I put my foot in my mouth, but some things I don’t touch, and ink is one of them. You should fucking know that.” He jabs Hermann in the notch where his collarbones meet his sternum.

  Hermann opens his mouth, closes it, and at last manages to say, “If we’re going to have this conversation now, at least let me put some damn trousers on, Newton.”

  He steps aside to let Newt. Newt claims the desk chair and sits backwards on it, still with that fixed expression on his face.

  Hermann sighs. He puts on the pants he left in the bathroom, even though they got almost as dirty as Newt’s, because even though now he knows that Newt appreciates the sight of Hermann’s awkward, angular body—he knows exactly how much, and it makes his pulse beat quicker against his throat—he still can’t bare himself like that. Not when he’s already put so much front of Newt already.

  It is actually more frightening to contemplate doing so now that he knows such ideas are within the scope of possibility.

  He swallows and steps out into his room.

  Newt pushes a hand through his wet hair. He watches Hermann sit down on his bed; Hermann feels like he should be able to make out Newt’s expression, but mostly he just looks tired, and that blocks out everything else. “Yeah we’re gonna have this conversation now,” Newt says, but his voice is quieter and less angry. “What did you think? I was just gonna go party? After what you did?”

  Hermann picks at a loose thread in his pants. Then he spreads his hands, hopelessly. “It’s what we’ve always done, Newton.” Newt likes to be called that, but only from Hermann’s lips. What a thought.

  Newt opens his mouth, then closes it again. “Shit,” he mutters, pulling at the collar of his shirt. “This is exactly what happened last time. I can never fucking say what I mean to say. It just kind of—comes out.”

  Hermann bites his lip.  Then, quietly, because even though the words aren’t that personal, they really are, “Well, luckily, we’ve got a very long time ahead of us now for you to figure out how to get out what you mean. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to sleep any time soon.”

  Newt’s eyes flick to his; Hermann sees that he does, in fact, understand. His jaw works. “…I want to see your tattoo. I’ve never seen how it turned out healed.”

  Obediently, Hermann turns sideways. Newt comes to sit beside Hermann on the bed. His fingers smooth over the design on Hermann’s back. Hermann will say one thing for being pale—it leaves the marks stark, so even when they did begin to fade, it left the meaning clear.

  “What I meant was.” Newt clears his throat, his hand pressed to the center of Hermann’s back. “What I meant was it was just as important for me as it was for you, and I would never have used that to hurt you. I already… I already did too much of that as it was.” He presses his forehead to Hermann’s shoulder.

  “As did I.” Hermann can’t quite bring himself to turn and face Newt, not yet, so he reaches out until he find’s Newt’s knee and squeezes it.

  “You want Cherno, don’t you?” Newt’s voice is even softer; his lips brush against Hermann’s skin.

  Hermann’s throat tightens at the thought. So much to mourn.

  But also… also so much to celebrate.

  He turns to Newt. “Yes. But not right now.” He presses one hand to the side of Newt’s face.

"Izzy. I'm working with you today." He keeps his voice neutral as he opens Tai's file. "Just need you to fill out the top of this form since it's your first time, and then we can get started." The line comes automatically, which is good because he's disconcerted by the way Tai stares at him. Is his fly unzipped? Is his hair messier than usual? Does he have spinach in his teeth?

 But Tai is smiling warmly, not smirking or holding back a laugh. Maybe everything is okay...? Maybe he's just kind of dumb.

 Tai takes the folder and the pencil Izzy slides across to him. He puts down his name and pauses. "You know, I feel like I've seen you before."

 And then it clicks. "You're Kari's older brother," Izzy says, before he can stop himself.

 Tai's eyes light up, and he flops back in his chair. "Oh, yeah! You're that kid who fixed her camera one time. I remember now. Your hair was shorter."

 Izzy touches his head uncomfortably. He knows he needs a haircut. He's just not really eager to return home after what he learned on his last trip. He still hasn't figured out how to talk to his parents about it. He clears his throat. "So, uh, before we can get started, I really need you to fill that out."

 Tai looks down at the form. “Oh. Yeah. Tutoring. Right.”

  It’s easier when they get into Tai’s problems—he needs to pass this chemistry class so he can keep his soccer scholarship and so on, the same story Izzy has heard a thousand times.

 Except—

 “So why are you taking this chem class, anyway?” Izzy asks, pausing to inspect the diagram he’s drawing on the whiteboard.

 Tai looks up from the little monkey he’s making out of a notebook page. Izzy would have told him to stop it, but it seems that he just needs something to do with his hands, since his concentration hasn’t wavered. Or, at least, he answers all of Izzy’s questions. “Uh. ‘Cause I could take it, I guess?”

 Izzy glances down at Tai’s form. The major space is blank. “You’re undeclared?”

 Tai shrugs. “I figure I’ll do a lot of everything, see what sticks. You know what I mean?”

 Izzy has no idea what he means. Computers and science and computer science has been his life since he was old enough to hold a microchip. But he shrugs. It’s not his problem.

 “And let me guess,” Tai says, putting the finishing touches on his monkey. “You know exactly what you are doing and where you are going.” There’s no judgment in his voice; it’s a statement of fact.

 Izzy does, in fact. “Grad school,” he says, shrugging. “That’s just how it is.”

 Tai makes a pleased noise. “I’ll get there someday. Just gotta figure out what path to take first.” He pushes the monkey toward Izzy.

 When their hour’s up, Izzy packs up his things. He glances at the origami monkey. After a moment, he tucks it in his bag.

  It’s not like his other sessions. Izzy can’t fall back on standard questions—did you bring the assignment sheet, where do you think you went wrong, what does the textbook say.

 Tai is easily distracted, always wanting to show Izzy homework from another class or Snapchats from his sister. And he’s always asking Izzy about himself.

 “I went and got noodles the other day at that new place downtown—you ever been? We should go.”

 Or, “I heard there’s a secret tunnel that connects the library to the student union. Me and Matt Ishida are gonna go check it out this weekend—wanna come? We could use somebody to hold the flashlight.”

 Even, “Matt’s band is playing this awesome concert on Friday, and I’ve got backstage tickets because I’m awesome. Okay, it’s because I punched Matt until he gave me some, but whatever. Got an extra I need to get rid of, you know.”

 Izzy never takes the chance of showing interest. He knows Tai isn’t serious—or if he is, it’s not the kind of serious Izzy thinks of when he catches himself staring at Tai’s floppy hair or the way he grins when he gets a text from one of his million friends. Izzy doesn’t want to be one of those million friends, and it’s stupid, and he should just stop that right now. So he keeps his mouth shut, making excuses about homework or a seminar, things Tai accepts with a nod.

 He’s just doing it to be nice. Izzy doesn’t want just nice, so he should be quiet about it.

  Tai does improve—it never seems like he’s listening, but when Izzy sets him a problem, he starts getting it right. It’s a good feeling.

 “I knew this stuff was a walk in the park,” Tai says, putting his hands behind his head. Izzy has long since stopped trying to keep him from propping his feet on the table. “I just needed a good tour guide, that’s all.”

 Izzy thinks he might be blushing, and that is stupid.

 Tai ruffles his already incredibly messy hair. “You know, my sister and my family are coming up to visit me pretty soon. You should come have dinner with us or something.”

 Izzy looks at him blankly. “With your family?”

 “Yeah! I told Kari you were my tutor, and she wouldn’t shut up about how you guys used to be in computer club together and stuff. Remember that?”

 Izzy shrugs, uncomfortably. He does remember it, but he doesn’t feel like admitting it. Tai always talks about what Kari’s up to—she’s popular now, successful. Izzy is still the same nerd who blushed whenever she smiled at him. It took him a week to get up the courage to ask her if he could fix her camera. “Well, yeah, but—”

 “Come on, she’d love to see you! And my mom’d love to see the guy who’s keeping me from tanking my GPA and stuff.” He grins at Izzy sideways. “It’ll be fun.”

 Maybe it’s just because he can pretend to see Kari. Maybe it’s just because it’s getting harder and harder to say no to that stupid sideways smile. He clears his throat. “Uh—”

 “My parents’ll pay,” Tai says slyly. “They’re always bugging me to bring a friend.”

 Izzy blinks. He swallows.

 Nope. Can’t do it. His willpower is gone. “Who am I to pass up free food?” His voice squeaks a little, but Tai just throws his head back and laughs.

 Izzy is screwed. He resists the urge to set his head down on the table, opting instead to ask Tai about next week’s reading.

  Izzy fusses about what to wear—his instinct is casual clothes, because Tai dresses like a slob and he doesn’t want Tai to think this is anything important, because it’s not, but at the same time, he’s meeting Tai’s family, and… and he wants to look good, because Tai looks good like it’s nothing, and…

 In the end he wears a nicer t-shirt and jeans, but he puts on a tie, too, the one patterned with tiny beetles. It has to be good enough.

 They go out for sushi. As Tai promised, his family welcomes Izzy: Tai’s parents ask him questions about tutoring and his major and the robots he builds, because apparently Tai sent them a video of one of Izzy’s competitions—and when did he even tell Tai about that? He doesn’t remember.

 Kari is exactly like Izzy remembers: quietly perfect, with a smile so sweet you might miss the wicked twist at the corner. She does, in fact, remember computer club, and she still uses the camera he fixed. It is mostly full of pictures of her cat, interspersed with her boyfriend.

 Izzy feels bad, but he’s barely paying attention to her. It’s not even Tai that’s distracting him. It’s—

 Tai’s parents bicker throughout the entire meal, but they also trade bites of every dish and argue about who’s the better cook.

 Tai blushes and yelps when his mother shows Izzy a baby picture she has on her phone, but he also brought flowers for his mother and a tie clip for his dad and a little stuffed kitten on a keychain for his sister.

 Kari calls her brother a gogglehead and teases him about some girl he used to chase around the soccer field, but she also hangs off his chair and tries to comb his hair into some semblance of order.

 It just… Izzy’s life used to be like that. His mom used to complain about the state of his hair and take a comb out of her purse and make it lie flat. And his dad used to sit with him and make Izzy walk him through the code of his robots, even though he barely understood how to wire a motherboard.

 They still do those things. But now when his mother plays with his hair, Izzy can only think that he didn’t get the auburn in it from her. Now when his father tries to put something together, Izzy understands that his technical genius wasn’t a fluke—it came from someone else’s genes entirely.

 And—

 “I’m gonna step out for a minute,” Izzy says to no one in particular, because no one is listening—they’re currently arguing over some old family photo, trying to decide whose expression looks the worst.

 Nobody notices, and that’s good. They’ll just think he went to the bathroom.

 Really, he steps out to the balcony, gripping the wood tightly in hopes it will ground him.

 Well, this was great. Come out here because he has a stupid crush and end up almost crying because he can’t tell his parents he knows he’s adopted. Because everything’s changed and he doesn’t feel like he has a single person to tell. Because—

 “Hey, are you okay?”

 He freezes at Tai’s voice, and he really should say _yes, everything’s fine, the wind is just cold on my face, _but…

 He blinks a few times, trying to get the words out, and then Tai’s hand comes down on his shoulder, broad and warm, and Izzy has to press the crook of his arm against his eyes to hide his tears. “Was the sushi that gross? Oh, man, I gotta never bring you home, then. Mom’s cooking’ll kill you. Tofu. Tofu everywhere.” His voice is light, but his hand is rubbing soothing circles against Izzy’s shoulder.

 Izzy shakes his head. “Not the sushi,” he mumbles, even though that’s the least important part of Tai’s rambling.

 “You wanna talk about it?” Tai’s voice is quiet, empty of his usual joking tone.

 Izzy takes his arm down and turns away, fully intending to demur, but what comes out is instead, “I’m adopted.”

 “Uh—”

 The words don’t stop. “I’m adopted, and my parents never told me. I found out ‘cause I heard them talking about it when I went home for Christmas, and now I don’t know how to talk to them because—” He breaks off, pressing one hand to his face.

 “You’ll figure it out.” In Tai’s voice is perfect confidence.

 Izzy rubs at his eyes and says nothing; he can pick apart where Tai went wrong in his homework, but he feels so helpless and lost whenever he thinks of his parents that he can’t even say it out loud.

 Tai puts a hand on his shoulder again, turning Izzy to face him. He puts his other hand under Izzy’s chin and tilts it up. “No, really, you will. You figure everything out in the end. And they’re still your parents. They gotta know how lucky they are that they got someone like you for a kid. It doesn’t change anything about who you are—and even if it did, you’re still pretty great.”

 Izzy blinks. Honestly, the way Tai’s looking at him kind of makes him feel like crying more, but he’s not that much of a baby. He scrubs at his eyes with his arm. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I dunno why that happened.”

 Tai shrugs. “It’s ‘cause you’re alone a lot, that’s all. Why do you think I keep asking if you wanna hang out?” He pauses, and then he ruffles Izzy’s hair, laughing. “That and you’re really cute, but you know. Priorities.”

 Izzy stares at him. “But you—”

 Tai grins. “There’s a reason I wanted you to meet my parents, and it’s not ‘cause I need somebody to drink my mom’s milkshakes. You wanna go back inside?”

 Izzy rubs a hand over his face and swallows. Tai is still smiling, although it’s softer than usual. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, okay.”