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Hermann doesn’t dance. He says it’s because of his leg, but Newt’s pretty sure he didn’t dance even before the surgery. So Newt does enough dancing for the both of them.
On days when he’s feeling Pretty Damn Awesome, he blasts upbeat oldies and shimmies around the lab. He slides up and down his work table and does the occasional twirl. And he knows that Hermann watches him sometimes.
Sometimes he’ll even go up to his curmudgeonly lab partner and grab his hands to do a spin or a dip before Hermann smacks him with his cane.
“Enough,” he’ll say, but there’s definitely mirth behind those cold eyes. So Newt lets him go and wiggles his hips right back over to his own side of the lab.
Hermann always looks away when Newt makes eye contact – when he catches him staring. And that’s how Newt knows that this next idea is not going to go over totally awfully. He hopes.
He comes to work the next day with a brand new play list. Songs that Hermann most definitely knows because Newt’s played them before, but there are new ones in there, too. The songs grow mellower as the play list progresses until one of those songs comes on. The song that every boy at his senior prom dreaded: the slow dance.
He glances up from the paperwork he’s doing on purpose to keep himself from being covered in kaiju what-have-yous.
The set of Hermann’s shoulders is relaxed. He stands on the bottom of his ladder. And now is a perfect time to strike.
Newt makes his way across the room and offers a hand to his lab partner. “May I have this dance?” he asks, heart pounding and eyes pleading.
Hermann whips around to face him, jaw slack. “You kn-know I don’t d-dance,” he stutters, but Newt takes his hand gently and pulls him close. He doesn’t resist at all, instead just swallows hard and settles into the rhythm Newt sets for them.
It’s slow and tender; Newt pulls him in by the waist and Hermann rests an uneasy hand on Newt’s shoulder.
Before either of them realizes it, the song is over and a light-hearted but more upbeat song plays. They’ve made it halfway across the lab. Hermann pulls back abruptly and straightens his jacket. A blush crawls across his cheeks and it’s literally the cutest thing ever.
“Herm,” Newt says, touching his chin to make him look up. He looks into his eyes – ridiculously cliché, he knows, to gauge his reaction. Trepidation, apprehension, and a whole lot of hold me again. So he does. He pulls Hermann close again and kisses him gently before pulling away. He steps backwards, still holding Hermann’s hands, before dropping them. The other man opens and closes his mouth over and over, wanting to say something but at a completely lost for words.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Newt says shyly. “I just…”
“I rather think I’d like to do that again,” Hermann says, and his normally sour face breaks into a grin that lights up his entire body. He surges forward and pulls Newt in by the shirt and planting a gigantic kiss on his lips, and Newt’s pretty sure there are fireworks.