I dunno a single darn thing about Pacific Rim BUT REGARDLESS: ♦ (slow dancing) with Hermann & Newt
“you know what i always wanted to do?” newton asks.
he’s leaning against one of the many messy desks in hermann’s office, not quite sitting on it. hermann’s not certain but he thinks it’s the desk that is home to the picture of the two of them taken just after the first war.
there’s an endless list of answers to the question. so many opportunities stolen. it’s difficult not to be melancholy all of the time, though surely less difficult for him than newton, and so he tries to stave off the mood, as best he can, as frequently as he can.
he walks over to newton and reaches out. newton stands and, startling hermann a little, steps into him, wrapping his arms around hermann’s waist, resting his chin on his shoulder.
“what?” hermann prompts again, running a hand up the length of his back, settling it in his hair.
“it’s silly,” newton says, “but we always had music playing in the lab, so...”
he shifts his hands on hermann’s back so that he’s not hugging him so much as holding him, straightens up and shifts his feet apart a little. hermann can’t tell if it’s conscious or not.
it’s still startling, this revelation that his feelings had been reciprocated so long ago, that newton had them sooner. that newton spent time imagining being together, as they worked on their separate sides of the lab. that he pictured them slow dancing amid the entrails and chalk dust.
hermann leans to the side to rest his cane against the nearest desk. he places one arm around newton’s shoulders and with the other grips his upper arm, and newton shifts to take some of his weight and tightens his own grip, frowning slightly like he’s not sure what’s happening. there isn’t much floor space in the office, but they won’t be going very far anyway.
“put on some music, then,” hermann says.
newton smiles, soft and small, disbelieving. hermann understands that, but he’s working for the day that newton smiles and isn’t surprised by it anymore. today, it’s dancing. tomorrow, undoubtedly something more ridiculous that hermann will do without pause.
they will reach the point where they are no longer surprised to be here and together; hermann is going to make sure of it.