“That’s just love, Newt,” said Illia. “It’s always a choice, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”
If love was a choice, then Hermann supposed he would always choose Newt: through sorrow, through anger, through the difficult times as well as the simple. It did not feel like a choice stealing Newt from the custody of the PPDC and helping him fight his monsters, but Hermann supposed it must have been. A series of choices all along, through each door, through every moment he had spent in the Drift. He had chosen Newt each time. He would choose Newt until the very end.
Chapter nine: A lizard, a long-overdue confession, an act of courage. The chapter that puts the burn in slow burn and the slash in Newt/Hermann. Hope you all enjoy! This was one of my absolute favorite chapters to write 😀
Neon. Neon. Neon. Newt suspected that there weren’t any other kinds of lights in Las Vegas.
During the day It was so hot and dry that the sweat evaporated off of you before it even had the chance to cool your skin. Now, at 1:20am it was a little better. A nice mild… Newt checked his smartwatch. Jesus Christ. 87 degrees Fahrenheit.
Upon their arrival for the Jaeger Tech summit, Newt had been thrilled (“Cowboys! Showgirls! Light-shows! BRITNEY SPEARS!!”) and Hermann had been skeptical (Gambling. No windows to trick people into more gambling. 44•C weather.)
But now after three days on the strip they hadn’t made it to a single show because their presentation had gone… poorly and they found themselves on the defensive all weekend. Turns out saving the world only counts if your involvement isn’t heavily classified, and the goodwill they’d garnered as two of the Heroes of ‘25 was fifteen years stale. They both considered it lucky nearly to the point of miraculous that no one outside the PPDC ever had to find out about the “invasion,” or the multiverse or the obliteration of the Precursor threat, but Newt still kind of wished he could get his hands on some of that world-saving clout about now.
“C’mon, Herm! I’ve almost got a fire ready. Get out the
marshmallows,” Newton called from further up the beach where he was gathering
driftwood.
It was January, 2026, exactly one year after the end of the
war. Newton had been adamant about commemorating the occasion somewhere warm and
remote, so the two found themselves on an isolated island in the Maldives, sunset
turning the receding tide into alternating splashes of turquoise, violet and orange.
“I want you back, baby,” Newt says softly. “Do you think I would buy expensive champagne for just anyone?”
“Do you think,” Hermann pauses, setting his jaw with determination, “that calling me a pet name I despise and ordering me expensive food will win me back after the callousness with which you broke up with me?”
in which Hermann realizes something’s wrong with Newt and decides the only way to save him is to date him
“That I did,” said Newt. “That I did. You didn’t have a Facebook, so I had no idea what you looked like. You know what I was picturing? Some dude in a leather jacket who didn’t cut his hair himself. You sounded way cooler in writing.”
“A leather jacket,” spluttered Hermann. The back of his neck felt very hot, and Newt’s fingers laced with his own helped little.
“Oh, yeah. Leather jacket, combat boots… I imagined us going out to a bar, and then some guy tries to pick a fight with me, but then you step in and suplex him into the bar with the power of math. And also your muscles.”
At 5.5k this chapter is slightly shorter than usual, but we are out of the thick of the Nightmare Action at last! Time for Hermann and Newt to recover and have a little chat about feelings. I’m excited about this chapter, but then again, I’m very excited about everything from here on out!
Summary: Newt is horny, and Hermann is just trying to read.
Just as Newt gets up to go jerk off in the bathroom, Hermann clears his throat loudly. He shifts down in bed and opens his legs, making eye contact with Newt over the top of his book.
Pst. Hey. If anyone’s reading Effort, this is approximately what Cambridge Newt looks like.
I never see Newt in Charlie Day’s face in interviews, but this still caught him in a rare moment. Thanks @avelera for drawing this to my attention.
This is the guy teaching at MIT yelling at you about Kaiju biology and then going on endless tangents ranging from tropical fish to intersectional feminism and seamlessly back again while you furiously take notes and wonder if it’ll be on the test. (The intersectional feminism is definitely on the test.)
Also Hermann is now wearing clothes that fit and has a decent haircut and they’re just walking around campus being terrifying, breaking hearts, and living their best lives.
Avelera 