the breath passed between you and me

There are days when Newt doesn’t recognize his own hands.

Well, maybe that’s not the right way to describe it. It’s more like – an alienation (haha, yes, pun intended) from the individual parts of himself. He had grown up feeling too big for his skin, tuned to a frequency that was always a little too fast, something that couldn’t really be contained by fragile flesh and bone. But despite it all, his body had always belonged to him, for that it was too short and had shitty eyesight and needed way more food and sleep than it really should have. It was still his to put tattoos all over, his to fill with ramen and caffeine, his to use to play instruments and dissect kaiju and to occasionally dehydrate (not like, intentionally or anything, but sometimes it’s easy to forget). Maybe Newt hadn’t always treated it well, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that his body had been his. Right up until it wasn’t anymore.

Anyway, Newt knows he’s a pile of neuroses dumped onto a pile of trauma (or is it the other way around?), so maybe a little bit of dissociation isn’t much to get worked up over. He didn’t go through a decade of mind-melding with an alien brain without expecting some side effects to show up. It’s not even a big deal most of the time. Newt will be tying his shoes or brushing his teeth, and his hands will do something – off, unexpected. Not in that comforting way, that easy autopilot that comes from years of habit. No, he will jerk on the laces too hard or his knuckles will bang into his nostrils, and it will feel like someone – something – else is in the driver’s seat. And in that moment, Newt doesn’t know (can’t know?) if this is something human or not-human that his body is doing.

For the most part, he doesn’t want to re-open multiple Breaches or level all of Tokyo or mine rare Earth elements from Mt. Fuji, so that’s probably a good sign. There’s still a low hum of desire, that addict’s curse, that still itches at the back of his brain. He still wants the clarity of the precursor mind, still wants the peaceful oblivion, the surrender of it. That craving is never going to go away. At least that’s what the PPDC psychologists tell him, though he’s pretty sure there’s no literature about the long term consequences of human-kaiju Drifting, and Newt knows for a fact that they aren’t talking from personal experience, so it’s more likely than not that they’re all talking out of their asses.

So maybe Newt will probably always be a little bit evil, but he’s at least 88% sure he’s not currently enacting a nefarious plan to bring about the end of humanity anymore, and those are pretty decent odds, statistically speaking. And that’s great. He’s real happy that his sinister plotting days are most likely behind him. But that’s not helpful when he doesn’t trust his own goddamn hands.

Hermann has theories, because Hermann always has theories. Sometime in the last decade, he picked up some expertise in the soft sciences, and now he’s convinced he knows anything about neurology, about Newt’s neurology. Hermann’s theory is that it’s a bit of muscle memory, those worn in neural pathways, like the way you never forget how to ride a bike. Newt’s pretty sure that he’s just spent too much time huffing unearned optimism.

Because Newt remembers what it was like to have his hands on Hermann’s neck, to feel Hermann struggle to breathe underneath the grip of his fingers. He remembers the pressure of Hermann’s hands laid on top of his, a kind of condemnation and forgiveness all at once. The warning alarms blaring all over LOCCENT. The sweetness of victory (for the precursors) and the bitterness of defeat (for Newt). Squeezing the remaining life out of the man he maybe kinda, sorta loved and knowing that he was also going to destroy everything Hermann held dear. It’s not one of the better moments of Newt’s life. Wouldn’t make the top 500 for sure.

And he’s not wallowing in it (thank you very much, Hermann). It’s just that it was a thing that happened that he would like not to happen again. Basic operant conditioning. Do what feels good. Avoid what feels bad. Newt’s a genius. He can figure this shit out.

(And it’s so fucking annoying that it’s Hermann, the sort of person who holds a grudge for so long he could tell you exactly who burnt his tea on August 13, 2015, who has been insisting this whole time that none of this is Newt’s fault. Hermann, who looked at Newt with doe eyes and said, “It wasn’t you. It was them,” with the same unwavering confidence he used to tell Newt he was a moron.)

Newt is– Newt is a fucking disaster, okay? And Hermann is clearly fucked in the head for wanting anything to do with him. Hermann could definitely do better, and if Newt was any less selfish or more self-sacrificing, he would tell Hermann that, but Newt wasn’t great at being selfless even when he was more inclined towards self-sacrifice, so yeah, not going to happen.

Still, he keeps getting distracted by that, by the fact that Hermann apparently decided to chuck ‘better’ out of the window, even when he’s straddling Hermann’s torso, looking down at where Hermann is spread out on the simple, white standard issue PPDC sheets of his bunk. Hermann is naked, and his body seems even more strange and gangly like this than it does when covered up in clothing that is both too big and too small for him at the same time. His limbs are too long and too skinny, a Gumby version of a man. Newt never thought that he could get turned on by claymation, but apparently that’s his life now.

“Newton,” Hermann says. He has such a distinctive face: big eyes, sharp cheekbones, wide muppet mouth. Newt could probably stare at it forever and never get bored of looking at it.

Eventually, Newt realizes that Hermann is staring back and waiting for an answer. “Uh, yeah?” Newt says.

Hermann doesn’t respond with words. He simply takes one of Newt’s hands in his and places it on the curve of his throat. Newt’s fingers flex – some kind of instinct that could be him or it could be not-him – tightening around the windpipe. Hermann doesn’t struggle against it, just continues staring at Newt with those wide eyes, so fucking trusting.

Newt yanks his hand back as soon as he realizes what he was doing. An old fear, that sense memory. No. Don’t. I can’t stop them. They’re too strong. “What the fuck?” Newt says. He’s pretty sure Hermann doesn’t have a death wish, and to be honest, considering how well they know each other, Hermann could probably annoy Newt into murdering him if he really wanted to. He doesn’t need to go through this weird sort of subterfuge by convincing Newt to strangle him again.

“I would think my intentions were obvious,” Hermann says with his huffiest how many times must I explain that this is a shared workspace voice. “I want you to choke me.” He tilts his head back, exposing the long line of his neck. He’s always had a nice neck, even when Newt only got glimpses of it while it was hidden away by Hermann’s neat collars and Hermann’s perpetual hunching over his computer. A nice long neck. Less a Gumby neck and more a Wallace and Gromit neck, which is also a pile of psychosexual mess that Newt does not want to think about too hard. Especially because Newt spent a lot of time jerking off to the thought of biting Hermann’s back in Hong Kong.

Newt says, “Yeah, okay, I got that much, but seriously, what the actual fuck.” He likes Hermann’s neck. He wants both Hermann and his neck to stick around a while longer, and the whole choking – the whole, maybe killing – Hermann thing doesn’t seem conducive to that particular goal.

Hermann blinks once. “You’re not going to hurt me.” He says it with steady, unerring conviction, like Newt is one of his stupid mathematical universal constants. It’s weird, because he’s heard Hermann talk about equations and predictive models that way, but for Newt, it’s always been heavy sighs and rolled eyes even after – or especially after – they started fucking. Newt knows there’s a reason why people keep him around. He’s saved the fucking world (and maybe attempted to destroy it once, but who’s counting?) and he’s carrying around his giant, genius brain that is smarter than all of Hermann’s current flunkies put together. But he also knows he’s not exactly what anyone would call ‘reliable,’ least of all Hermann.

“You can’t know that, dude,” Newt says. He clenches his fists at his sides, because he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands. He would much rather be feeling up Hermann’s pasty white chest and maybe licking a nipple or two instead of thinking about– instead of being forced to remember things by his fucking – (boyfriend? partner? lover?) – Hermann. “I could have killed you.”

“Yes,” Hermann says, placid and unconcerned even as Newt is freaking the fuck out, “you very well could have. But you didn’t. And I don’t believe you will now.”

Newt swallows around the lump in his throat. “Is this like a sexy thing or is it like a ‘prove something to the headcase’ thing? Because I gotta say, I’m here because I want to get laid.” (To be perfectly honest, he’s also here because it’s his bed, well, their bed. It’s the place he gets to crash after a shitty day, where Hermann will let Newt cling to him without any of his usual hangups about decorum and even, on occasion, cling back.)

Hermann licks his lips. There’s a flush creeping up his neck. He’s always been a prude, but sometime in the last decade, he’s gotten slightly less uptight about the whole thing. (If Newt thinks too hard about how that might have happened, he gets an awkward eye twitch, so he tries to do that as little as possible.) “I have to admit that there is a certain erotic charge to the idea,” he confesses.

Newt tests the waters, lets himself imaging putting a hand around Hermann’s throat. This is a quiet moment. They’re in the comfort of their rooms. There’s none of that desperation, that nownownow excitement and fear, adrenaline being pumped through his arteries, his veins. He can overlay this moment over that one. He reaches out with one hand and rests it on the hollow of Hermann’s neck. He doesn’t apply pressure, just feels the way Hermann’s Adam’s apple – his laryngeal prominence Newt remembers from his anatomy textbooks – bobs with each rough swallow.

Maybe ten, fifteen years ago, this would have felt like the punchline to the joke. Haha, I finally gave into my desire to strangle Hermann. But Newt just feels – he feels raw and exposed, skinless and strange. He doesn’t deserve this level of trust from anyone, least of all Hermann. Hermann, for his part, is not freaking out at all, though his breathing has sped up and Newt thinks he can feel the rapid flutter of his heartbeat underneath his fingertips.

Carefully, carefully, he tightens his fingers around Hermann’s trachea. Human bodies are so fragile, so weirdly delicate. Newt spent years building jaegers for Shao, and so much of it was replicating all of the terrible design decisions onto a built construct. (Newt’s personal nemesis was knees. Just a bad idea all around.) He could have killed Hermann so easily back then. He could kill Hermann so easily right now.

Hermann’s eyes flutter closed. His lips part. Newt wants to kiss him, but he doesn’t trust himself to do anything else right now, not when he has Hermann’s life cradled in the palm of his hand.

After a few seconds, after a million years, Newt lets go. He doesn’t yank his hand away like he did when Hermann had first put Newt’s hand to his throat, so he can feel the deep, gasping breaths Hermann takes. Hermann’s expression has taken on the glazed look that he only gets when he’s really turned on. His arm shifts around the spread V of Newt’s legs, and Newt doesn’t have to look to know that Hermann is touching himself.

Newt understands how this whole thing works in theory. Oxygen deprivation triggers the release of certain endorphins. Once he had an excruciating conversation with his dad about why ‘autoerotic asphyxiation’ was in his Google search history after reading too many rock star biographies as a pre-teen. But now he just feels both shivery and overheated, a riot of too many emotions. “How was– was that okay?” he asks.

Hermann nods. His eyes are heavy lidded. He looks drunk. He looks like he did this one time they stayed too late at the lab, and they were too exhausted to remember that they hated each other, and they’d gotten drunk on cheap box wine, and Hermann had slumped against his desk, head tilted back, and all Newt could think about was what Hermann’s neck would taste like. Seems weird that all it took to find out was a decade of alien mind control and some light attempted murder, but Newt’s whole life has been the dictionary definition of “weird,” so maybe the intricacies of his love life don’t even rate.

There are words caught in Newt’s mouth. There are thoughts rattling around in Newt’s head. He doesn’t know what to do with either of those, so he tightens his grip.

Hermann goes pliant underneath him. Relaxed. Not fighting Newt at all, when they’ve spent so much of their lives fighting each other. It’s hot. Hotter than Newt expected it to be, to have Hermann at his mercy. Newt’s been sporting at least a half-chub since he crawled into Hermann’s bed tonight, and now all he wants to do is know is what it would be like to choke Hermann with Hermann balls deep in his ass, just sit on Hermann’s dick with his hands around Hermann’s neck and ride him until they both come. Hermann isn’t vocal in the sack, really, but he does have a tendency to make snippy, goading comments that both turn Newt’s crank and annoy the shit out of him at the same time. The thought of shutting him up once in a while does have some appeal.

Newt looks right into Hermann’s eyes, and something in his chest seizes. He’s squeezing Hermann’s throat, because Hermann asked him to. He’s squeezing Hermann’s throat, and he’s watching the light go out of Hermann’s eyes. He’s squeezing Hermann’s throat, and they’re in LOCCENT, and the alarms are blaring, and they’re in his head, they’reinhisheadthey’reinhisheadthey’reinhishead.

He yanks himself back – whole body, not just his hand – nearly tripping over Hermann’s legs in his haste to get away. His heart is hammering in his chest. His palms are sweaty. His mouth is dry. He does his best to focus on the moment he’s in: the scent of Hermann’s room – always a little musty, like an old library, despite the clean white walls – the scratch of Hermann’s leg hair against his shins, the heavy breath filling his lungs. His hands, shockingly enough, are still steady. Once they would have been shaking so hard his teeth would feel like they were rattling, too.

“Newton.” That’s Hermann’s voice. Those are Hermann’s hands on Newt’s hips. Newt blinks to clear away the after images. That’s Hermann’s brow, furrowed with concern, looking up at him. Hermann is sitting up now, and though his breath is a little short, he is still breathing.

“I’m– I’m fine,” Newt says, and his own voice is scratchy and rough, like he was the one who was just choking.

Hermann makes a hmpf noise. “Clearly that’s a lie.” His expression softens, and it’s still a mindfuck to know that Newt can inspire soft, fuzzy feelings in Hermann-fucking-Gottlieb of all people. Hermann looks like he wants to say something else, but his combo British-German emotional constipation means that he just purses his lips and stares at Newt significantly.

Newt swallows. He’s pretty sure there was a time when he was really into talking about his feelings, but that’s all he’s been allowed to do for months, and he’s over it. Too much of a good thing and all of that. “Sorry,” he says. “I know PTSD flashbacks really spoil the mood.”

“You know that’s not what I’m concerned about.” One of Hermann’s hands drifts up to cup Newt’s cheek. Nothing but tenderness.

Newt doesn’t want it. Everyone has been treating him like he’s fragile, like he’s delicate. And okay, maybe he is, just a little bit. He’s been going through a lot of shit, okay? But that’s not the point. The point is that he’s sick of it. He pulls Hermann’s hand away from his face.

Hermann blinks at him. “What–” he starts, but he goes quiet as Newt holds Hermann’s hand up to Newt’s throat.

“Please,” Newt says, and he doesn’t know if he means please choke me back or please fuck me up so much that I don’t have to think anymore or please save my sorry, useless ass from my shitty brain. He’s too messed up and scrambled and turned inside out by everything that has happened to him over his entire fucking life, and he doesn’t know what he needs, but he thinks that maybe Hermann can be the one to give it to him.

Hermann pauses, studying Newt’s face. He always has to be that asshole quadruple checks everything (as if Newt needs a math Ph.D. to use a goddamn calculator). But he hasn’t taken his hand away yet, and Newt will take that as a win. Hermann says, “I didn’t mean to– I was hoping that it would be therapeutic for you to–”

Newt cuts him off. “Yeah, you can therapy my ass by repaying the favor.” He really does want this, he realizes. He wants to let Hermann take the lead, take the responsibility. Newt doesn’t trust his own hands or his own brain, but he’s always trusted Heramnn’s, even when things were at their darkest. “Please,” he says again.

Hermann doesn’t choke Newt immediately. Instead he leans forward to give Newt a slow, lingering kiss. And it’s nice, the way it always is, and it’s grounding, the way it can be when Newt isn’t up his own ass. Newt would never admit this to anyone, but Heramnn’s kisses always make his insides as wibbly as cafeteria Jello: tender, overly sweetened.

Newt doesn’t resist as Hermann maneuvers him onto the bed beside him. Hermann’s bed is bigger than their old PPDC bunks at the Hong Kong shatterdome, but it’s still much smaller than the luxurious thing Newt had in his apartment back in Shanghai. Out of the three of them, this one is still his favorite. Hermann keeps maneuvering Newt until Newt’s the one on his back and Hermann is looking down at him. Hermann is resting on his side – his better one – and his hand drifts from Newt’s shoulders back to his neck.

“Alright,” Hermann says. His fingers are gentle and careful, hesitant.

Newt makes a noise that is definitely not a whimper as Hermann tightens his grip. Some deep, animal part of him is terrified, all too aware of the threat, but there’s another part of him, the part of him that’s always chased after the kaiju instead of running away from them, that is thrilling at the danger. His body fights against it, struggling to pull in more air, but even as his brain goes a little fuzzy, it’s shockingly peaceful. He covers Hermann’s hand with one of his own.

He lets himself ride the wave of endorphins, content to let Hermann control when to stop and start. He doesn’t have to think right now, doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. For better or worse, he’s at Hermann’s mercy, and for all that Hermann is a prissy, uptight asshole who will give scathing (his opinion) and hilarious (Newt’s opinion) criticsms of every bit of Newt’s life, he’s also– he’s also the best man Newt has ever known. Even as Newt goes lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, he trusts Hermann absolutely.

It’s something of a shock to Newt’s system when he feels Hermann cup his erection. He’d almost forgotten he was hard. But right now, when he’s short on oxygen and long on Hermann’s hands all over him, every sensation is hightened, more intense. He can feel the brush of Hermann’s fingers on his cock all the way in his goddamn toes.

“Please,” Newt chokes out again when Hermann lets him breathe. He feels like he’s dissolving, breaking up into his component molecules, but he wants to be ground into atoms underneath the heel of one of Hermann’s stupid dress shoes. He wants Hermann to finish taking him apart, so that maybe Hermann can maybe put him back together, remake him into something slightly less broken, something slightly less damaged.

“Shhh,” Herman says, “I’ve got you.” He shifts until he’s pressing down on Newt. His hands tighten at both points of contact, jerking Newt off with steady, even strokes. Every single bit of stimulation sends tingles down Newt’s spine, every sensation both duller and sharper all at once.

It’s on the longest choke, one that goes on for long enough that Newt’s vision starts going dark at the edges, along with one last rough pull of Hermann’s hand on his cock, that causes him to come. It’s an electric sensation, intense enough that he might black out for a moment, caught up in the shiver and shake of his body, in the chemical rush of a really fucking good orgasm.

Hermann lets go, pulls back entirely, as Newt comes back to himself, gasping through heaving breaths. He still feels tingly, the natural high lasting so much longer than it would from an otherwise perfunctory hand job, and he still feels floaty, the usual noise of his head turned to a soft buzz instead of a steady roar. He feels shattered, fragmented into pieces in the best sort of way.

“Fuck,” Newt says. It comes out as a mumble, because trying to articulate words is a little too difficult for him right now.

Hermann doesn’t say anything, but he does make an amused hmpfing noise as he cleans up the mess on Newt’s belly with a tissue, standard operating procedure for the two of them.

“Sorry that didn’t–” Newt gets out, “– for you.” He makes an absent gesture with one hand.

“I am hardly dissatisfied with the outcome of this encounter,” Hermann says. He’s leaning over Newt now, his expression softening as their eyes meet. “I’m hoping you, ah, aren’t dissatisfied, as such, either.”

“You blew m’fucking mind, dude,” Newt says. He thinks there’s still tingling in his teeth. He reaches up and draws a finger along one of Hermann’s cheekbones, over the new wrinkles on Hermann’s forehead, down the line of Hermann’s nose. He feels so much more present in his body after sex, and his pituitary gland is really handing out the good drugs after an orgasm that intense. When he’s like this, he likes the simple pleasure of touch, of feeling his hands, of feeling his hands feel other things.

Hermann’s rubbery face pulls an expression that Newt can’t quite decipher, something that seems both happy and sad all at once. Hermann says, “I would like to reiterate that you aren’t– that I don’t feel as though you are culpable for the crimes they made you commit, including, but also perhaps especially, the ones you commited against me in particular. But I am glad to hear that this brought you some relief.”

“The headshrinks only wish they could therapy me this good,” Newt says, and he’s not even lying. Newt had this pet snake growing up – a gorgeous garter snake, mostly black, with yellow stripes – that would shed her skin a few times a year. Kid Newt loved to watch her as she did so, as she pushed herself through the fragile shell of her old skin to reveal the shiny new scales underneath. He feels like that now, stripped bare under the steadiness of Hermann’s hands. He’s still an addict, still some asshole who will always be craving his next hit, but maybe he can swap out one addiction for another, maybe he can swap out the memory of his hands around Hermman’s neck with Hermann’s hands around his.

He cradles Hermann’s face, one hand cupping Hermann’s cheek, one hand curled around the back of Hermann’s neck. His hands feel good. They feel steady. They feel like his own. Newt finds himself smiling as he draws Hermann into a kiss.

FIN.