Archive of Our Own ^beta

Hermann always believed that the beginning was the hardest. Ending was hard, too, and of course, middles were exceptionally difficult because life just isn’t fair. 

Being a man of science, beginnings for him consisted of gathering the right variables, numbers, and other necessary information in order to come up with equations that could lead to the middle, which meant lots and lots of math and guessing and hypothetical answers. The number of times people have been annoyed with him for insisting that numbers are the closest thing we have to the handwriting of God –which, to be fair, wasn’t every chapter and verse labeled by numbers?--and Newton’s insistence that it was a bad thing that all Hermann was able to give was what led to the end: all of that for an educated guess was nearly impossible to count. Nothing more than a prediction, he’d said.

But right now he couldn’t be a man of science. He had to be an . . . acquaintance. Because, unfortunately, being stuck inside a lab with Newton for hours on end only to have to live with him in the midst of an apocalyptic end-of-the-world catastrophic event, no one knew Newton better than he did, apparently.

And then he and Newton slowly started drifting apart after he got the opportunity of a lifetime job, which Hermann reluctantly encouraged him to take; and it wasn’t long before Hermann missed rolling his eyes, sighing, before complaining no Kaiju entrails on my side of the lab, please. It’s incessant. 

Or maybe he started caring more than he intended when he found Newt in the middle of a seizure on the lab floor, still holding that stupid Drift remote and the garbage-made headpiece knocked askew from when he’d fallen, slumped against the wall. Or some machine. Hermann hadn’t really been paying attention. He’d just thrown it all off and grabbed Newton’s face to see if he would wake up after, but ended up having to lay him sideways on the floor until he quit shaking, timing it as it happened. He tried not to think about how it had technically lasted longer than whatever time Hermann came up with, because he’d already been shaking on the floor when Hermann found him.

Newton created a neural bridge from garbage and Drifted with a Kaiju.

Newton, with all his six doctorates and other smarts and years of experience teaching at MIT, a rather prestigious college, proved himself to be an absolute imbecile at times.

I found him prone and . . . he’s sort of dazed. I don’t exactly know what to do.

He tries not to think about how fast he’d ran to get help so he could get back to Newton after placing him half-conscious in a chair and forcing a glass of water into his hands and demanding he drink it.

“Here. Drink this. It should help. Water’s, uh, water’s good for you, you know. Scientifically proven, in fact. Can facts bring you back?”

But Newton had just continued to stare off into space, his body working on autopilot when Hermann handed him the glass for him to grab. So Hermann had to guide it towards him so he’d actually drink it.

Newton spent a lot of time staring off into space. Occasionally the Precursors that had lodged themselves into his lab partner’s brain would yell about how they still planned to burn the world to the ground, that they wouldn’t be letting Newton go anytime soon and as soon as we get out of here, you’ll all be sorry!

But seeing as they were strapped down at the wrists, ankles, and just about anywhere else a muscle could move even a tiny bit towards escaping, it didn’t seem likely that they’d be going anywhere anytime soon, much less destroying the world. Plus, they probably thought the ones inside Newton had either died or betrayed them, so it was also unlikely that any other monsters would be coming to rescue them at any minute, something else the Precursors tended to swear upon.

They’ll get us out and then you’ll all be sorry!

Today seemed to be a day where zoning out was the fun activity of the day. That and tormenting Hermann and pissing him off more than he thought was scientifically possible. How much anger could the human body hold before it exploded?

“Back already?” Newton–no, the Precursors wearing Newton’s face –asked without looking up, without snapping out of wherever they currently were.

“I’m here every day, Newton,” Hermann replies simply. “same time every day, in fact.”

The door closes behind him, and Hermann gestures to the others behind the two-way window that are observing for bot Hermann’s safety and keeping an eye on Newton’s vitals. Though keeping an eye on those was a constant responsibility these days, and Hermann had been learning everything he could so he could understand them for himself, even if there was an entire team dedicated to doing just that all the time .

“You’re not here to talk to me.”

“Nope.”

“Then why are you here?”

Hermann ignores his question. After all, it’d only been thrown out there to make Hermann doubt himself, to question why he really was here. Because why was he here? Newton was his lab partner once, during the end of the world. They’d been colleagues before that through written letters (“Pen pals, Hermann, just call it like it is.”) for three years before hating each other in person and parting ways almost immediately. 

"So, where are you going to Newt is today?" 

"Whatever hurts the most," the Precursors say in a way that sends a chill up Hermann's spine. "I could tell you that he's in here, drowning, screaming for someone to save him. Or I could tell you that he's gone, that he was gone before you ever even realized there was something wrong." a pause. "But either way, whichever one of those proves to be true, what do you think would be left behind of him? He hasn't been in control for over ten years. That's one heck of a recovery, no? Practically dead. Or at least braindead, right? Wouldn't just letting him die be a mercy instead of throwing him into a life where he would have to relearn basic life skills, unable to do anything for himself?"

“You’d seriously leave behind nothing?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” it asked. “I’d find another host, leave nothing but a blubbering, braindead, paralyzed pile of nerves that had once been the brilliant mind of Doctor Newton Geiszler and we’ll continue our path towards this world’s destruction.”

We are never going to stop, and sooner or later your luck is going to RUN OUT.

“Right. And where would you go? We believe Newton was affected more than I was because he’s Drifted twice with a Kaiju, and one of those times he took on all the neural load himself.” Hermann retorts. “Alice didn’t make it worse. She . . . alleviated . . . the stress that Newton’s brain was under. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” it says after a moment of hesitation. “what’s done is done.”

“Mm.”

“You should have known.” they start again quickly. “When he started wearing fancy suits and was more clean shaven . . . lost the punk-rockstar look in favor of looking like a well-tailored businessman. Big red flag.”

“There was . . . a lot going on.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” the Precursors laughed in a way that didn’t at all belong to Newton. “ Wow . Maybe we really have been treating him better than you have for the past ten years. And we did nothing but pretend to be him, and you, the brilliant Doctor Hermann Gottlieb, who considers himself superior to Newt in every way imaginable, didn’t pick up on the changes. Subtle or not. Aren’t you a man of variables and evidence?”

“You don’t get to call him Newt.” Hermann spits out. “We’ll get him back. You’re nothing but a set of insignificant little parasites and bacteria throughout his body. Nothing worse than a bad flu. Newton will come back, I’m sure of it.” Then turned around and walked out with purpose, slamming the door behind him.

He doesn’t think he’s ever crammed so many lies into one sentence.