Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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The train is whispering through the snow when Hermann wakes from his doze. It’s rocking slightly, and when he opens his eyes, Newt has pulled one of curtains up and is peering out into the night.

Hermann sits up. Outside, it must be well below freezing, but their little car is well heated and he doesn’t even bother with a dressing gown, sliding his arms over Newt’s shoulders and resting his chin on the top of his head.

Newt mumbles something, but he doesn’t even try for annoyance. For many minutes, they don’t say anything, just looking out into the blazing, dancing lights of the aurora, the silent banks of snow and the little sleeping Swedish villages sweeping past.

The breathless magic of the moment is so perfect, Hermann doesn’t dare to move or speak. Newt’s body thrums under his hands with the rhythm of the train, Hermann can feel him swallow, move his jaw, trying to find something to say.

Hermann decides to beat him to it, in case he says something asinine and ruins the moment. “Thank you.”

“Um- okay.” Newt turns, the lights cast strange colours across the planes of his face. “What for?”

“Do you think I’d have made it here, like this, without you?”

Newt shrugs. “It was your idea. I wouldn’t have come up with it.”

There’s another long pause, the train hisses through a tunnel- the rattle and bang makes them jump- but it passes quickly, and the din stretches out into nothingness again, stifled by the snow and the lights and the cold.

“We’re-” Newt clears his throat, swallows again nervously. “We’re a pretty good team, yeah?”

“I’d like to think so.” Hermann rests his head on Newt’s shoulder and closes his eyes, savoring every sensation of this. The heat of Newt’s skin, the smell of him, warmth and slight sweat from earlier. The sway of their bunk and the blankets and the solid block of heat inside their car- so different from the void of cold outside.

“You have- amazing ideas.” Newt continues. Hermann smiles, the words sparking sweet inside him. “I’m not to dumb either, but you- you get so much stuff- better than I do-”

“Nonsense.” Hermann kisses his shoulder, licks a line over his collarbone- not in seduction or with any aim of anything further, just for the sake of it, for the sensation of smooth skin on his tongue and the faint heat of sweat. “It takes nothing but an effort to try and think about someone else- and you have been very good at that where I am concerned.”

“Thanks.” Newt’s voice is low, a bit husky. He trembles, but it’s not the train. “That’s- I really try.”

“I know you do.” Hermann smiles. “I might have come up with this idea but you- fleshed it out, made it happen. You thought of places I would like to see and I’ve enjoyed- well, most of them.”

Newt chuckles, “And- uh, if I couldn’t? If I was- poor again, and couldn’t do all this?”

Hermann pauses, half wondering if the sudden blast of cold within him could have come from outside. “Newton- is everything all right? Is there anything you need to tell me-”

“What- oh, no!” Newt smiles, “Nah, I’m not leading up to say I’m bankrupt or anything, just- if I was.”

Hermann nods, “Just as long as this is not some- desperate last splurge. Newton, I really don’t care but I hope you’d take better care of your finances whether you were a millionaire or poor as a church mouse.”

Newt turns, his eyes are crinkled in smiles, soft and sweet and- rather different. It cracks open a strange, liquid warmth inside Hermann, sweet and tender. “Would you want to be church mice with me, if I were.”

Hermann chuckles. “Little mice with a larder of nuts under a pew.” He kisses Newt. “I’d nest with you, you ridiculous little mouse.” Another kiss.

“For ever?” And there’s something under that, something wild and raw and wide open that takes Hermann’s breath away because this is real. This is not some silly late night rambling. The wrong word here could be disaster.

He seems to have done well thus far. “Of course.” He says softly. “Until we’re both old grey mice complaining about the new vicar and the sorry state of wafers nowadays.”

Newt half laughs, and it’s nearly lost as the train sweeps through a brief flash of steep banks, the noise rising, then fading as they move on through the plain. “Then- uh.” He fumbles under the blankets. “I’d really like to be an honest mouse- um, with you.”

He opens his hand. There’s a ring.

The breath is snatched away from Hermann as surely as if Newt had opened a window into the subfreezing night. The band is very simple, dark silver, no ornamentation because whatever Newt says he really does try and he knows Hermann doesn’t like ostentation. Hermann picks it up and the moment stretches on endlessly as the train, as the night, as the dancing aurora above them.

“It’s meteoric nickel.” Newt breaks it, half desperate, half helpless. “It came down in Antarctica and I had it shipped over and cast and I was kinda planning to give it to you when we got to Narvik because- top of the world, you know, but then we were here and it was so perfect and-”

“Shh.” Hermann covers his mouth. “It’s perfect, love. Its wonderful.”

Newt blinks, “Then, um-” he mumbles against Hermann’s hand, Hermann pulls it off, “Is that a yes?”

“Of course that’s a yes.” Hermann replaces the hand with his mouth. “Of course.” Against his lips.

Newt’s eyes close, the lashes flutter against Hermann’s nose as he pulls away. “Oh thank fuck.” The sudden obscenity makes Hermann laugh, “Because I kinda thought I’d fucked it up and this really wasn’t how I thought it was going to go- I got a whole speech worked out and I forgot all of it-”

Hermann kisses him again, firmly, shutting him up. “The best laid plans of mice and men.”

Newt hits him with a pillow.