Drifting causes immortality by ceasing aging at the point of drifting. To keep aging, you have to ke

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“They’re all gonna be jealous,” Newt grins, and leans back in the taxi cab. “Ten years on and we’re still sexy sexy rockstars.”

Hermann would have once rolled his eyes, hissed at Newt, acted annoyed. It’s been ten years and he no longer bothers. “Hmm,” He leans in, and paws through Newt’s hair.

“Hey!”

“What’s this, are those grey hairs, Doctor Geiszler?”

“Oh fuck you, I’ll have you know they’ve been grey since I was like, twenty.” He elbows Hermann, “You’re just jealous ‘cause you’re not a sexy silver fox.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Hermann looks at himself quickly in the taxi’s rearview mirror. His hair is still dark, not a thread of grey. Funny, both of his parents had gone grey in their early forties. “Besides, are you denying you want to show me off?”

“Hell no.” Newt kisses him, “I have the sexiest boyfriend ever, totally showing you off-”

The taxi pulls in at the old Shatterdome. Hermann pays the driver and they both step out onto the ancient helipad, now cracked through ten years of typhoons and heat and monsoons.

“We’re not the first.” Newt points, and Hermann nods, two people are standing near the entrance to the ‘dome. A man and a woman, even from here, he can recognises Rangers Beckett and Mori.

The wall of the Shatterdome is covered, top to bottom by a steel plate that had once come from the Wall project. On it, scribed in tiny letters, are countless names.

Somewhere on there are the names of Stacker Pentecost and Yancy Beckett. As they watch, Mako raises her hand and traces a worn name.

“Hey, Mako!” Newt calls, hurrying across the pad.

They turn and- Hermann stops dead.

Gott, they haven’t changed.

Neither have they, and it’s only now, only here, that Hermann can see it. Newt, and Raleigh and Mako and all three of them could have stepped out ten years ago. Hermann could half imagine he could turn around and they could all be here, Marshall Pentecost, Herc Hansen, Tendo Choi-

“Hermann! My man!”

Hermann turns, and the illusion dies.

It’s Tendo, but - changed. His hair is grey around the temples, his eyes marked with crows feet and the smile lines around his mouth don’t smooth away any more. It’s a shock to see him. It’s a shock to see someone who’s changed.

His smile fades, although the wrinkles still flicker on his skin, a wink to time. He looks at them, the four of them, unchanged. Timeless.

Something cold locks in Hermann’s stomach. He looks at Newt, he’s trying to smile, but he’s shocked too. After ten years of always seeing the same face in the mirror, the same face across the breakfast table, Tendo has shaken him. “Hey man,” He forces a smile.

“Newt, great to see you!” Tendo smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s an uncertainty there, almost fear. “You- look great.”

There is nothing they can say to that. If to look great is to look exactly the same as the last time you met, they cannot say it back to Tendo. “You all look great.” He hesitates.

“Great moisturiser,” Newt tries to brazen it out, although there’s a faint quaver in his voice. “I’ll send you a few cases, you’re back in the states, right-”

He’s trying to make this normal, pretend so hard maybe they could make it real. Raleigh’s eyes spark and he joins in, a brassy cheerfulness to cover up the fear.

Mako meets Hermann’s eyes, remains silent. She can’t look away, Hermann’s can’t. It’s like the Breach calculations all over again, something he doesn’t under stand but knows is wrong, something bad, hiding just under the surface. They don’t know what it is yet, but it’s there, unable to ignore, like a burrowed insect, under the skin.

They need to do something.

Any chance of any more Newt/That Creature fic? Maybe Hermann starts "sleepwalking" as his alter ego

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Newt wakes up alone. He sits up, the bedroom is empty.

“Shit.” He throws the blankets off, and kicks his legs out. The door is open and a thin, cold breeze cuts into the bedroom. “Shit!”

He shoves his legs into a pair of pants, and doesn’t bother with more. “Hermann!”

No answer. Newt runs out into the narrow corridor. No sign of him. “Shit. Ah fuck.” Newt picks a direction, starts running, his bare feet slamming wetly on the damp ground.

Boneyard is empty at this hour, the base silent and breathless and cold. Newt shoves his head into the tiny cubby where Hermann works- nothing, dark and empty, the computers dark. Even thought it’s barely the size of a closet, Newt looks under the table just in case.

“Shit shit shit-” Newt runs his fingers through his hair. Come on, where would he go? Did he have a freakout and go back to Miami base? Nah, he’d have woken Newt, but what if-

“Oh no.” Newt moans, and runs flat out. The steel floor jars his heels with every step. He braces his shoulder and hits the outer door head on. 

The door bursts open, Newt half falls, half jumps down the six steps down to the cave floor. The air is freezing and Newt rubs his arms as he runs, teeth chattering. His breath huffs up in steam and his bare skin seems to smoke as he runs.

Most of the lights are off for night time. The ground underfoot is fine and ashlike, Newt stumbles and struggles to keep up a good pace, wincing as his foot hits something sharp.

He races around the wreckage of the pits, the waist-high remains of the walls. “Hermann!” He roars, but his voice is drawn up into the unimaginable space above him, choked and silenced.

This is horrible, this is a nightmare. He’s even had it a few times and Newt looks around despite himself not really expecting to see the Masters, but-

Just making sure.

He tries to remember where it was. Hermann’s memories are cloudy and uncertain, but Newt’s bare feet mark out the same steps as he had done- so many times, over the ruins and shattered dead earth, stumbling over wreckage and-

He almost trips over Hermann, in the end.

Newt skids, stops too short and falls back onto his ass. “Hermann!” The sheer relief sweeps through him. “Fuck man, what are you doing-”

Hermann doesn’t respond, he’s huddled against the remains of the wall. His eyes are open, but glazed. He doesn’t even seem to see Newt.

“Babe?” Newt gets up on his knees, “Are you okay?”

He reaches out to touch Hermann’s shoulder- then Hermann looks at him.

His eyes are wide, the pupils tiny. Newt freezes, and slowly lowers his hand. “Hermann?” he says softly, “D’you know me?”

A blink. Newt reaches to him through the Hive, and Hermann’s mind is- slack. Sleeping, lost in a nightmare.

“Ah fuck.” Newt mumbles, and floods the Hive between them with warm and safe and love. Hermann blinks at him again, but his clenched hands slowly relax. He’s still asleep, but in whatever dream he’s lost in, he can see Newt isn’t gonna hurt him.

“Okay babe,” Newt tries to think, waking sleepwakers is supposed to be okay, but waking Hermann here would be- not good. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

The vague emotions through the dream feed through faint hope and disbelief. They’re leaving?

“Yep, going now.” Newt gently takes his upper arm, and helps Hermann up. He takes two steps, then collapses back down onto all sixes.

“Okay.” Newt says firmly, “Come on sweeties, this way.” He puts a hand on to Hermann’s shoulders, guiding him slowly out of the ancient cave, through the boneyard and eventually out- out into the eternal sun and blessed warmth of the Anteverse.

Hermann looks at him, mouth open wordlessly. Newt wonder what he’s seeing, in his dream.

“Come on,” Newt encourages, “Just a bit further.”

It takes the best of two hours to trek through the puffball jungle and make their way to Miami base. The moment Newt opens the door, some part of Hermann seems to realises where they are. He pads over to the bed and drops flat on it, falling back into real sleep.

Newt groans and slides down to sit beside him, exhaustion crashing in after this aborted night of broken sleep.

Fuck the marshal’s orders, they are never overnighting in Boneyard again.