Aftermath: 3 - Like an Ill-Sheathed Knife (2028)

“Someone’s had a productive morning,” Hermann observes archly.

Chapter warnings: Realistic depictions of neurological, physical, and bureaucratic trauma. War. Grief. Death. Mental illness. Regular illness.

Text iteration: Witchingest hour.

Additional notes: None.

2028 (Three – Like an Ill-Sheathed Knife)

Newton is up and out of bed before Hermann wakes, but, to Hermann’s immense satisfaction, the man isn’t staring at the Wall. He has, instead, made a mess of their kitchen table. Two laptops are open, a tablet brightly displays an mRNA heatmap, a scattered collection of printed articles are marked up with pen. Hermann counts two empty mugs, undoubtedly for coffee, notes the remains of breakfast cereal. 

Newton is, at this precise moment, chewing on a pen cap and giving the screen in front of him a look of savage concentration. After a brief interval, his brow relaxes. He takes the pen out of his mouth and writes something in a margin, smiling faintly, as though he’s scored a victory, knows it, but has no intention of resting on his laurels.

Hermann leans against the doorframe with crossed arms and attempts to savor the moment. Newton is putting together a Nature paper, his first in four years. His hair is growing wildly out of its most recent cut, he’s wearing a white dress shirt and that green sweater that Hermann particularly likes; his jeans are black, his feet are bare. He looks healthy. 

He’s lost that quality of the brink he carried with him for so long.

The man looks, now, like something that will endure the span of a normal human life. More than that, he radiates a je ne sais quoi of scientific safety and intellectual promise that attracts graduate students and postdocs like flies. If the man isn’t careful, his lab population will explode. Already, he turns away more people than he takes. Already, those he’s selected feel elevated, part of an inner circle. As, of course, they are.

It’s always been this way with Newton, but never so much as now, when he’s famous independent of his academic work, when he drives neuroscience forward in that relentless way he has, when he’s still so young but with a track record so old. Papers from twenty years ago, when the man was in his teens, are classics in the field of tissue regeneration. Over the course of their acquaintance, Hermann has vacillated between astonishment, envy, admiration, outrage, pride, and frustration at the man’s prolific output. Now he is, simply, grateful. 

“Someone’s had a productive morning,” Hermann observes archly.

Newton looks up at him and smiles, quick and with an element of roguishness, as though he may or may not have been aware of Hermann’s presence but will never tell. He drops his head to finish documenting his thought, then looks up, watching Hermann approach.

It occurs to Hermann that in those middle years of the war, when happy endings seemed possible, if unlikely, he’d imagined moments like this. Small gems, hidden away, emerging in the darkest hours.

This is not a dream, he tells himself, as he draws Newton to his feet. The other man, understanding what he wants, pulls Hermann into an embrace, receptive and slow. Hermann had always known the man possessed these qualities—this careful study, this intense focus, this profound steadiness—layers and layers down. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be the scientist he is, and Hermann saw and loved the science first. 

This much, Newton has come to understand: that Hermann craves, in physical touch, what Newton has always been able to do with his mind, or with a multi-channel pipette and a 96-well plate. He has learned to translate that, somehow, to the physical. He presses Hermann back against the table, sweeping pen and papers to the floor, smiling as he does so. There is no urgency in the motion, it’s just a manifestation of the man’s peculiar panache. Hermann sits on the tabletop. Newton steps between his legs and kisses Hermann with the same attention to detail that, moments ago, had been devoted to manuscript preparation. 

This is not a dream, Hermann tells himself, still not sure it’s true. The golden light of morning seems a fiction in December; they’ve gone so long under cloud cover. Newton’s arms, solid, wrap around his shoulders. Hermann pulls him further forward, and Newton, accommodating, deepens the kiss, turning it too risqué for a weekday morning. They had better stop now, or they won’t be stopping at all. Hermann pulls back to contemplate the other man. Newton smirks at him and quirks an inquisitive eyebrow. 

“You’re terribly quiet, Dr. Geiszler,” Hermann murmurs.

Newton clears his throat, leans back, shoots Hermann an apologetic look. “Didn’t want to ruin the moment,” he says, ruining the moment. His voice has an unmistakable rasp, he’s clearly congested, and that brightness of eye that Hermann had taken for scientific verve—

“Newton,” Hermann snaps. “You sound very much like you are developing some kind of viral illness.”

“I knew you were going to react this way,” Newton says, trying to kiss him again, unsuccessfully. “I’m sure it’s the ragweed.”

“This is not Massachusetts,” Hermann says, with overt disapproval. He pushes Newton back a step, then slides from the table. “I doubt ragweed grows anywhere within five hundred miles.”

“Okay, well, you’re probably wrong about that,” Newton says. He’s still smiling; it’s offensively charming. “Doesn’t ragweed sound like a thing that grows everywhere? I do admit though, this isn’t the season for ragweed, and, in retrospect, I should’ve chosen mold.”

“You will stay home today,” Hermann informs him.

“I won’t,” Newton says, firm, “but if I start feeling bad, I will come home.”

“You will let me know,” Hermann says, punctuating each word with two fingers, pressed to Newton’s chest.

“I will let,” Newton says, kissing him quickly. “You.” Another quick kiss. “Know.” And a third. “C’mon,” he says. “I’ve gotta get this paper out. I’m gonna get scooped.” 

“Does that really matter?” Hermann asks. 

“Yes, Hermann,” Newton explains patiently. “This isn’t a beautiful temple to higher math, okay? This is biology. It’s a rat race. To be good at science, one must be good at science.”

“Your H-index is higher than Einstein’s,” Hermann says, cross. “It does not matter, in the slightest, if you are ‘scooped’.”

“What about Jake?” Newton asks. “It matters for him. Grad student, first paper, first author?”

“Jacob,” Hermann says, “would agree with me, I’m sure.”