Flailing, a chat, a couple of realizations, and job offers

Chapter 8: Flailing, a chat, a couple of realizations, and job offers
==Text==
"Newton. Newton. Wake up." Hermann nudges Newt’s leg with his foot, but allows the other man the courtesy of staying warm under his wing.
Newt makes a sleepy noise and kicks ineffectually at his bedmate. 
Hermann withdraws his wing and stares balefully at the back of the other man’s head. "Newton. We’ll be late for the senior staff meeting if you don’t get moving."
"Aren’t you supposed to be nocturnal? Stop being a morning person, jeez," Newt fusses as he huddles closer to Hermann in search of warmth.
"I have no trouble being a creature of the morning. Little Owls are diurnal. Now get up," Hermann insists, prodding Newt again.
"Knock it off with the ‘creature’ crap, Hermann. I mean it," Newt says and strikes out at Hermann with one of his feet. He feels it connect. Hermann inhales sharply and goes completely still.
Newt jerks fully awake so suddenly he tumbles off the bed. He pops back up instantly, wide-eyed and apologetic. "Oh, shit! Your knee! I’m so sorry, dude! Is there anything I can do?" Newt fumbles his glasses on and sees Hermann with his eyes screwed shut and both hands gripping his right knee.
"Not unless you feel like doing more harm," Hermann grinds out. "Give me a moment and it will pass." After a few seconds of carefully controlled breathing, Hermann cracks open an eye. "Of course, if you can pick yourself up and retrieve my medications, it would go a small distance toward making up for your clumsiness," he says. Newt scuttles to the bathroom.
"Hermann, I’m so sorry," he says as he hands over the pills and a glass of water as Hermann sits up. "I wasn’t awake enough to think straight."
"You never think," Hermann snarls, gingerly pulling himself to the edge of the bed. "That’s your problem." That’s why you nearly killed yourself. That’s why … this will never work. Hermann grabs his cane and hauls himself to his feet. "While I shower and try to work out the soreness, would you kindly collect some food for us from the mess hall?"
"Of-of course," Newt stammers and flails into the clothes Hermann had folded for him the night before. "On it!" he shouts as he darts out the door. Hermann sighs as the door slams behind Newt.
While Newt makes his foray, Hermann picks up his tablet and begins his usual morning review of the news and his email. First, however, he decides to re-read an article he’d skimmed a few days previous. He opens the browser history to look for it. A number of unfamiliar pages greet him.
Athene noctua. Avian bone structure. Comfortable binding garments. Repairing wing fractures. Stabilizing injured wings. Wildlife rehabilitation. Squid Girl. Cross-species gene transfer in vertebrates. Order fabric online. Surgical repair of improperly healed bones. Accelerated M.D. programs. 
Newton’s history. Newton’s read nearly nothing unrelated to me since that first day. At least I interest him as a research topic. Perhaps he actually does care for … but that’s a ridiculous notion. He said it himself. I’m only a biological marvel he wants to investigate. Hermann exchanges his reflective expression for a scowl as Newt unlocks the door and lets himself in.
"Newton!" Hermann squawks. "I asked you to clear your browsing history from my tablet. I do not care what you read, but I would rather know nothing about it."
"Oh come on! A little anime never hurt anyone!"
"Tell that to those poor traumatized cephalopods," Hermann says with a half-smile.
After the meeting, Tendo grabs Newt by the arm as the biologist tries to leave. "I’ll give him back to you in a minute, Doctor Gottlieb," he calls. Hermann nods and sets off in the direction of the lab. The J-Tech chief scans the room to make sure he and Newt are alone. The delay makes Newt fidget nervously, tapping out a rhythm on his thigh. 
"Listen, Newt, I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with Hermann lately. A lot of time." Tendo drops a hand on Newt’s shoulder, squeezes, and shakes the biologist a little. "You need to be careful with him. He’s fragile."
"Tendo, you have no idea," Newt says.
"Well, if you want to keep spending time with him or even more time you’d better be real about what’s going on. Are you serious about this? ‘Bout him?"
"Well … ," Newt sputters. "I don’t know. Yet. I mean, I like him and he’s awesome and really cool, in his own way. I like hanging out with him, talking, and, yeah, arguing, and sleeping to … sharing a room has been great, but-but I … don’t know … ."
"You’d better make up your mind soon," Tendo says with a hint of menace in his level gaze. "He’s special. He’s my friend and I don’t want him hurt again. I’ve got my eyes on you, brother, and my eyes are everywhere on this base." Tendo pats Newt on the shoulder and strolls out. Newt gapes at his retreating back.
"That … that was a shovel talk. From Tendo. About Hermann," Newt whispers to himself as he leans against the wall of the conference room. "When did my life get this weird? As if giant alien sea monsters weren’t weird enough." He scrubs at his face. I think I’m falling for my lab partner, who has wings, and it’s so obvious that a guy I haven’t seen in a week is giving me a shovel talk. Newt launches himself himself from the wall and aims for his quarters. He needs to think. Alone.
Newt returns to their—Hermann’s—quarters that evening with his own tablet giving the special knock they’d agreed on so Hermann didn’t panic when he opened the door. "What’re you doing? Looking at job offers? Anything good?"
"Oxford offers the Wykeham chair in physics," Hermann says quietly from his resting position in front of his desk. Hey! He’s undone the binding from his hurt wing! Newt’s mind supplies before he is distracted by, of all things, Hermann. Newt watches the man’s wings move slowly back and forth, his unique muscles rippling under his skin. It’s exquisite … .
He yanks himself back to reality, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "That’s … that’s your dream job, isn’t it? Ever since grad school. Well, that or having total control of Jodrell Bank. The best I have is MIT and Chicago arguing over who can build me the better lab. Oh yeah, and this company out of New York wants to pay me something with a ridiculous number of zeros involved." Newt considers for a moment. "Do we have any in common? I’ll show you mine, if you’ll show yours." Hermann pulls up a file and hands over the tablet and Newt flops onto the bed.
"You made a spreadsheet? You are such a dork. I can’t believe I hang out with a total nerd," Newt says affectionately. "Let’s see what we have here. Stanford. MIT. Cambridge. Imperial College. ETH Zurich. Carnegie Mellon. Tokyo. Hong Kong. The other one in Hong Kong. Peking. And you’ve got Columbia and I have that company. Huh. That’s not as much overlap as I was expecting." He passes the tablet back. "Still, if we want to stay together, there’s plenty of choices."
Hermann jumps slightly in surprise and locks eyes with Newt. "Why do you think we’d accept employment at the same location?" he asks.
"Ummm … ," Newt stalls for time, doing that thing he does with his lips when he’s nervous or unsure of how to react. "Well, we’ve worked together a long time and we work well together and … ummm … we’ve been … getting along so … well lately, I thought, maybe … ."
"I hardly think how we’ve spent the last few days is a sound basis for a decision like this," Hermann says sensibly. "We should each accept the best offers for us, regardless of location."
"What? And break up the band?" Newt yelps. This is not going well, he thinks before saying "Tell you what. We should sleep on it. Let’s get your bad wing taped up and turn in for the night."
"That seems a wise course," Hermann agrees and yawns.
Hermann’s wing secured, they arrange themselves in bed and huddle together under the gentle brush of Hermann’s feathers.
==Meta===
Thanks to artificiallifecreator for the inspiration behind the browser history incident.
Squid Girl is an absolutely harmless comedy anime.
Endowed, named professorships are the Holy Grails of academia. At the big, old British colleges and universities the Wykeham professor of physics provides the best fit for Hermann I could find.
Ah, the Jodrell Bank Observatory, one of the heavy lifters of modern cosmology and astrophysics. It’s my headcanon that Hermann, space groupie that he is, would love to get his hands on this thing. I don’t think he’d want to be the manager, but the principal investigator for all the things. You’ll see it name-dropped in a bunch of my fics, which all seem to be WIPs yet.
If you have any questions you’d like to see answered, have something you want clarified, or are simply wondering anything about this Hermann and his life, please drop a comment or let me know at my Tumblr. I respond to all comments and will try to work answers to as many appropriate inquiries into future chapters as possible. A couple of earlier requests get their answers here.
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