It was loud, both inside Hermann's head and out. The outside volume was to be expected. They had just won a twelve year war, after all, and were entitled to some measure of celebration. The inside volume, on the other hand, was certainly and entirely Newton's fault. The little brat had been in his head and left behind a bloody mess of thoughts and impulses, loud and random, incessant in their fight for Hermann's attention. Dominating it, though, is Newton himself.
Both of them have been running on adrenaline for some time now, and Hermann is well aware of the physical price he will be paying for the last few days. He suspects Newton, too, will need some time to recover from their ordeal. Newton copes decently enough with stress when need be, but the fallout tends to be rather catastrophic, and Hermann suspects that fallout may be rapidly approaching. He has been suspiciously quiet since their Drift. Hermann had initially put it down to the shock, and to the sheer amount of nonverbal communication that could pass between them now. Conversations were shorter, gestures laden with meaning beyond what Hermann would have considered possible. Having known Newton since their teenage years, he considers himself to hold the dubious honor of understanding him better than perhaps anyone else on Earth, but the Drift had been...
He understands a bit more, now, why the Jaeger pilots behave the way they do.
Letting go of Tendo's shoulder and taking the few steps necessary to reach Newton is an exercise in pain tolerance. His leg is on fire, and the rest of his body is in a similar state. A problem to be dealt with later, and with the help of pain medication. For the moment, he is chiefly concerned with Newton, who looks even worse from this distance. Everyone in the Shatterdome looks haggard to some degree, but even by that standard, Newton is a mess. He is covered in all manner of disgusting dirt and fluids, despite both of them having been thoroughly doused in freezing rain on their way back to the Shatterdome, and he has a distant look in his eyes. He has yet to notice Hermann standing next to him, gaze fixed blankly on Tendo's monitor.
"Newton." Hermann is reluctant to touch him, as he tends to startle easily when in this state, but if Newton does not respond, he may have to. "Newton, can you hear me?"
With a full-body flinch and a gasp, Newton tears his gaze away from the computer and turns to Hermann. He is pale, almost grey, and the burst vessels in his eyes look worse than they had before. "Oh! Herms! Scared me for a second."
"I have been standing near you for quite some time." Hermann leans closer, resisting the urge to press a hand to Newton's forehead. He is trembling as if cold or feverish, but Hermann has no desire to get any of what is all over Newton on his own person. "Are you well?"
Newton licks his lips, then grimaces at whatever he finds there. The man is truly disgusting, badly in need of a shower. The sooner Hermann can get them both back to his quarters, the better. "I, yeah, I'm fine, just kinda..." He trails off, one hand fluttering around his head. "Like, maybe, you know..."
Newton's eyes roll back in his head and he collapses.
Hermann yells, and Hercules and Tendo whip around to face them. With the kind of reflexes Hermann has never possessed, Tendo darts forward and grabs Newton before he can hit his head on the console.
"Shit!" Tendo curses, lowering Newton to the ground just as he begins to seize. Hercules echoes the sentiment and begins ordering everyone out of LOCCENT.
"Out, everybody out! Someone call a medic."
Hermann drops to his knees. He knows he will regret it later, but right now, his only concern is with Newton. "What's happening?" he asks as though it's not evident.
"He's having a seizure," Tendo says, voice calm and level. "Give me your jacket."
Hermann sheds his cardigan and hands it to Tendo, who rolls it up and puts it under Newton's head. Newton is flat on his back convulsing from head to toe, limbs jerking and head slamming into the cardigan over and over. Spittle foams from his mouth, and were it anyone else, Hermann would be disgusted. It being Newton, all he feels is afraid.
Tendo glances at his watch, then looks back to Hercules, who has succeeded in clearing most of LOCCENT. "Medics?"
"Two minutes," Hercules responds. Then, to the last of the stragglers, "Come on, you, too. Everyone out."
On the floor in front of Hermann, Newt jerks and twitches, making awful little choking noises. Hermann sincerely hopes that he does not bite his tongue. "Alright, Newt," Tendo says, still kneeling on Newt's other side. "Stay with me, bud." Newton makes a high-pitched whining sound, face screwed up in what might be pain or might merely be spasming muscles. Tendo glances at his watch again, then breathes out as Newton begins to relax. "There you go. It's passing; that's alright. You're alright."
Hermann wonders if Newt can hear him, and if so, if Hermann should be speaking. Either way, he cannot seem to manage to do anything other than stare blankly as Tendo and Hercules roll Newton's now-limp body onto his side facing Hermann.
"Make sure he doesn't choke," Tendo tells Hermann. "He might throw up." Then, to Hercules, "Medics?"
Hercules opens his mouth to respond, but then the doors to LOCCENT slide open and a team of medics come jogging through. "There they are," he says instead.
The medics swarm around the four of them. One, a tall woman with ginger hair and a scar across the lower half of her face who Hermann recognizes as being named Jayna asks, "How long?" in that clipped, no-nonsense tone Hermann is so familiar with from his own experiences with Medical.
"A minute twenty," Tendo says, and she nods. Newton would know better than Hermann whether or not that sort of number was good, but Newton is still semiconscious on the ground. He is beginning to come around and his eyes have opened a bit, but he doesn't appear to be seeing anything.
"Alright, everyone out of the way," Jayna says, and Hermann is about to protest when Hercules puts a hand up.
"Not the doctor," he says firmly, leaving no room for argument. "They're Drift partners." Hermann stares at him, unsure of how Hercules had figured it out and even more unsure of why he would choose to intervene on their behalf. Hercules merely shrugs.
Jayna nods curtly. "Right," she says, and if she wonders why two scientists have been Drifting, she does not mention it. Instead, she goes to her knees beside Hermann, who does his best to get out of the way without leaving Newton's line of sight. Newton tends to become agitated when waking into strange situations, and Hermann has no desire to deal with the consequences of that agitation at the moment. "Hey, there, Doctor Geiszler," she greets Newton, shining a penlight in his eyes.
Newton groans in response, blinking groggily. "...Huh?" Then, he seems to register the penlight, and begins rolling his head clumsily from side to side in an attempt to avoid it.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry. Just taking a look; I'm done now." With a click, Jayna turns off the penlight. "Are you with me?"
Newton works his mouth as if trying to get rid of a bad taste. "Mmm-huh. 'S Hermann?"
"Hermann's right there on my other side," Jayna assures him, pointing to Hermann. "See him?"
Newton tips his head with a grimace, then catches sight of Hermann. "Hey, Herms."
"Hello, Newton."
"The fuck happened?"
"You had a seizure," Hermann informs him, and Newton wrinkles his nose.
"...Wha'?"
Jayna frowns. "Do you know where you are, Doctor Geiszler?"
"Dunno," he says, and coughs. "Feel li' shit."
"I'm sure you do," Jayna says. "We're going to get you to Medical and get you feeling better soon, but I have a few more questions for you. Do you know your name?"
"Newt."
"And the year?"
"2023." Jayna's frown deepens, and Hermann's does, as well. While it is not uncommon for Newton to forget the day of the week, or even the month, forgetting the year is another matter entirely. "What... what's goin' on? I feel... bad."
"I know," Jayna assures him. "We're going to get you taken care of really soon, alright? I need you to let me know if you're going to--- Shit!"
Newton's eyes glaze over and he begins to seize again.
Newt is pretty used to waking up feeling like shit. It's normal for him, but this is extra shitty. He feels like he's been run over by a Jaeger, or maybe gone a few rounds with a Jaeger pilot. That's happened to him before, after all. It was a a whole thing, and Hermann had been so mad at him. Anyways. Feeling shitty. Yeah. Really shitty, with a headache the size of a Cat 3 and an ache in his... everything. He's warm, though, and that's a start.
Huh. He's also not wearing his own clothes and everything smells like antiseptic, so. Medical. Fucking hell. Newt's experiences with Medical are rarely good, and more often than not involve the kind of psych meds that leave him unable to do any meaningful work for days. The only thing keeping him from freaking the fuck out right now is the rock solid surety that Hermann is somewhere in his general vicinity. Hermann won't let anything too batshit happen to him.
Well, no sense in delaying the inevitable. He opens his eyes, and oh fuck, oh, wow, that hurts. That really hurts, and he slams his eyes shut again, newly aware of the burn and the dryness and the metric fuckton of gunk going on up there. From the feel of things, he's on a shitload of painkillers, so if he can feel that through them, yeah, not something he wants to be dealing with right now. He makes a noise that he's pretty sure sounds supremely pathetic, and that aggravates his throat, and now he's coughing, and wow, that really sucks. That sucks more than anything else has sucked so far, and it makes the pounding in his head that much worse.
Then, there are hands on his shoulders pulling him upright and he might freak out a little bit before realizing they're Hermann's hands and Hermann is, in fact, trying to help him. Newt tries his best to help Hermann help him, in between all the coughing. Between the two of them, they get him sat up, and then the bed raises to meet him, which really helps. Hermann's hands don't leave him, though, and stay on his upper arms until the coughing finally stops.
"Hello, Newton," Hermann, who must be a good deal closer than Newton had expected, says. His voice is soft and rough in that way it gets early in the mornings, and Newt wonders what the hell is going on, because he's pretty sure the warmth he felt earlier is Hermann sitting right next to him, like in the same bed as him, and he might be confused and drugged up but he's pretty sure that's not a thing they usually do. It's happened before, but usually under the influence of a lot more substances than Newt feels like he's on right now, and never in Medical. "Are you with me?" Hermann continues.
Newt risks cracking his eyes open again and finds that squinting out of one at a time is borderline acceptable. "'M with you," he answers, and wow, he still sounds really pathetic. Hermann must think the same thing, because he gets a little plastic cup of water from somewhere and holds it up to Newt's mouth. Newt cups his hands around Hermann's to at least feel like he's helping while he drinks it, but really, he feels like his muscles have been replaced with very sore gelatin and he's not sure how much he actually helps.
Hermann only allows him a few sips before pulling the water away, and while he's putting it back wherever it came from, Newt manages to muster up enough coordination to rub at his eyes. That makes the whole vision situation a little better, and when he next opens them, he can see he is, indeed, in one of Medical's private rooms and Hermann is, indeed, in the narrow bed with him. It's a good thing Hermann's such a skinny bastard, because these things were not made for two. "What happened?" he rasps, because he's got a bad feeling he did something fucking stupid.
"Quite a bit," Hermann tells him. Newt can't really see his face well, but the blurry blob he's looking at doesn't seem too pissed off, so Newt figures whatever it is is at least fixable. "Do you know where you are right now?"
That's never a good question. "Medical. Why?"
"You have woken up several times in the last few hours, but were not particularly lucid. I am trying to determine how awake you are at the moment."
Newt considers this. "I feel awake."
Hermann makes an agreeable noise. "I have paged a doctor to come and assess your current condition," he says, and Newt might pout a little bit because he's sure he's seen plenty of doctors in the last few hours and he really isn't in the mood to see more. He's feeling sick and confused and bad and all he wants is to hole up with Hermann and talk about it until everything feels manageable. And maybe close his eyes again, because ow. "In the meantime, think about the past few days and try to figure out what you remember."
Another fairly ominous statement, but Hermann doesn't look too freaked out, even if he sounds a bit pissy, and Newt doesn't have much time to consider it because then the doctor comes in. At first, with his limited visual capacity, he doesn't recognize her as anything more than a vague white and blue blob. Then, she starts talking and he realizes it's Doctor Nelson. That's cool; Doctor Nelson is cool. "Hello, Doctor Geiszler," she greets. "It's good to see you awake. How are you feeling?"
"Like shit," Newt says, and she laughs.
"I'm not surprised. Do you remember what happened?" She moves closer, and Newt tenses up. He's not a fan of people in his personal space when he can't see them properly. Beside him, Hermann shifts, and Newt thinks he might reach for something again.
"You had several seizures," Hermann tells him, and he sounds properly pissed about it.
Newt turns to face him again, snarking back, "Oh, yeah, like that's my fault."
"Considering you made the decision to Drift with a kaiju alone," Hermann says, and oh, yeah, he did do that, didn't he? "It is safe to say that it is very much your fault." Taking advantage of Newt's indignation, he slides Newt's glasses onto his face. The world comes back into focus just in time for Newt to see the corner of his mouth twitch up. Their eyes meet, hold, and then Doctor Nelson clears her throat. Right, Medical.
"Can you tell me a little more about what you remember of the last few days?" she asks, and Newt spends the next few minutes rehashing them. Apparently, it's close enough to accurate and complete that she's confident his brain isn't going to slide out of his ear anytime soon. She says this, or its equivalent in medical jargon, and Hermann huffs.
"Good," he says. "You're already so very short on common sense; it would be a shame to see you lose any more."
"Hey!"
Doctor Nelson laughs. "I'm going to take you for a few more tests in about an hour, but for now, I'll leave you and Doctor Gottlieb alone." Then, she's gone, and it's just Newt and Hermann. Newt relaxes a bit, slumping against the bed and leaning into Hermann's side. Hell, if sharing a bed is something they do now, he's going to take advantage. He buries his face in Hermann's shoulder
For a few minutes, they just lie there in companionable silence. Newt's exhausted, and he's sure Hermann is, too. Not just sure in a normal way, but sure in a wow, being Drift partners is a bigger deal than I thought way, and he decides it's probably time to address that.
"So," he says into Hermann's shoulder. "Drift compatible, huh?"
Hermann hums. "Look at me," he says, and it's a command, not a question. Newt raises his head to find Hermann watching him. He turns to face Newt more fully and says, "Was there ever any doubt?" Newt doesn't know how to respond to that, and he's pretty sure he's blushing out to his ears, and then Hermann reaches up and cups his face in his hands.
"I guess not," Newt manages. He's not a fan of eye contact under normal circumstances, but he finds himself unable to look anywhere else but into Hermann's eyes. He's so close and Newt wants so badly.
"Newt," Hermann says, and that's all he says, and then he kisses Newt. On the lips. It's quick, just a press of lips on lips, but it's Hermann and Newt makes another one of those embarrassing noises. He feels like a little kid again, swimming in the lake, under the water for too long and breaking the surface to gulp air that felt like life itself. He realizes he's grabbed two fistfuls of Hermann's sweater and clings tighter, pulling Hermann to him. It's an awkward angle and Newt is sure he doesn't taste or smell great right now, but he can't stop, and Hermann seems to feel the same way.
Finally, they break apart, but it's only to rest their foreheads against each other and breathe in the tiny space between them, and nothing need be said.