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Ulrich had nearly broken Adler’s nose.
And this time, it had been his own fault.
They had been fighting again, or having a civilized debate as Ulrich liked to call it whenever concerned coworkers were brave enough to approach them. The ifs and buts of their argument weren’t important now; Adler didn’t want to worsen his headache by getting all worked up over the details again.
The problem of the matter, as always, had been Ulrich.
His stubbornness, his defiance to change his view point no matter how correct Adler was, his hypocrisy as long as he could defend his own words, his egocentrism that he claimed everyone would benefit from. The way he only used Adler as a sounding board, needing someone who listened to his insane ideas without ever accepting criticism. Calling everything Adler came up with either outdated, too scared of innovation – or he was being too forward, proposing theories with no ground in reality. It was aggravating! As interim director Adler wasn’t supposed to discuss lab experiment results with Ulrich, his approval was only required when it came to extra budgetary requests, field trips, changes to the organization and such.
And yet, Ulrich bothered him with these trivial matters. Adler had enough work on his hands, and yes, he enjoyed working alone in his office. He didn’t need people around him all day.
Worst of all, Ulrich was smug. Self-assured, confident he would never lose a fight to Adler. Acting as the rational, polite Awakened with everyone else, but being an emotional loose cannon with Adler. Shouldn’t he have earned himself more respect from Ulrich now that he was his superior?
But here Adler was, not being better himself.
***
“Adler! What are you doing!” Ulrich took a reflexive step back. His ferrofluid mass splayed out in a convulsing exclamation mark, both from the pain and shock. “Are you trying to shatter my head?” His gloved hands shot up to his glass tank, pressing them against the point of impact, prepared to prevent himself from leaking out of a crack.
Adler sank to his knees, his face in his hands. He let out a shaky breath, willing himself to be quiet.
“Oh fuck—”, he groaned. His hand hovered in front of his nose, too afraid to touch it. The pain was all he could focus on, it burned so brightly it stung his eyes. He blinked the tears away. As he tried to even his breathing through his mouth, there was the tang of metal on his tongue.
Ulrich’s hands were patting systematically across the entire dome even though he could very well inspect it from every angle on the inside. Despite no apparent damage he still yelled out, “For flux sake, Adler!”
The sight would have been comical, if Adler had been in the condition to look up.
“Oh Gott, can’t you just say fuck, Ulrich? What’s with your stupid fucking censoring—” He protested, keeping his face covered.
Ulrich interrupted him. “Don’t you have other problems right now?”
He was right, but if there was something that could distract Adler from the pain, it was Ulrich. If he was on his death bed he would probably fight just to get the last word in. But he wasn’t going to die now. If anything, he’d die from embarrassment.
What the hell did he do? The realization of it all threatened to choke him. He didn’t move from down on the ground, hoping if he kept his eyes closed long enough, he would open them to find himself somewhere else. Not here. Not in his directorial office, in front of Ulrich.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Ulrich asked, and despite the nature of the words it sounded like an insult to Adler. Of course he hurt himself, did Ulrich think he was just squatting on the ground for the fun of it? But before he could swallow the blood and reply, Ulrich continued.
“You don’t have to say anything. I’ll get you an ice pack.”
“Not necessary.” His dignity wouldn’t allow it. The pain was ebbing away, the initial shock seeping into his skin. He would dare to touch his nose, or even breathe, once he was alone. He just had to get up first. As he began standing up, he lost his footing and swayed a little to the side.
“Stay where you are!” Ulrich exclaimed, suddenly right in front of him and holding him by the arms.
“Let go!” But Adler’s words didn’t come out as vitriolic as he meant them. He was embarrassing himself. He pushed Ulrich’s hands away, having suddenly gained the strength he was lacking the moment before.
“If you're dizzy after a blunt head trauma you might have a concussion. I’ll see to it that a medical team comes here at once.” Ulrich’s tone was serious, unbothered that Adler shoved him away. Ulrich was already turning away to get his communication device he had left lying on a cabinet, when the constant messages interrupted his conversation with Adler earlier.
Adler didn’t try to stop him, there was no point. He leant against his desk for a second, breathing in and out through his nose. It still worked. When warm blood trickled across his lips, he pressed his coat’s sleeve against his face and quietly left the office.
***
For once he was glad to have separated his director’s office from his real office. Looking at the state of his private office, he doubted he had a choice in the matter. Just because he knew his way around the mountains of papers inhabiting this room didn’t mean he could lead Laplace under the same circumstances. He would have snorted at that word, lead, if he wasn’t afraid he'd break whatever was holding his nose together.
He closed the door behind him, locking it with a code, then dragging a chair underneath the door handle. With the advanced robotics department, full blood Arcanists, exceptional Awakeneds and super intelligent humans around the corner, he had learnt the simpler the trick to secure his peace the better. No need to waste time with complicated set ups to keep someone out, that was X’s specialty.
He walked over to the couch and sank down into the worn out cushions.
At last, he was home.
Despite the headache throbbing in the back of his mind and his bruised nose burning with every breath, he felt relief. He couldn’t believe he had managed to escape. Even though he picked the most obvious place to hide, he hoped Ulrich had the decency to leave him alone. He sent a quick text to the other man (“im fine. stop bothering.”), praying he could curl up like a dying animal and-
No. He was over that. He had a job now, no time for that.
He’d take a short break and then get back to it.
Now with the pain being a secondary problem, he knew he had been overdramatic before. He had been through way worse. He could touch his nose and while it hurt, it didn’t fall apart. The bleeding stopped eventually and he could breathe normally. He was going to be fine. He didn’t have to go the medical center and invent a convincing excuse for the state he was in. He wasn’t good at lying on the spot and had been trying to think of a reasonable lie on the way back to the office. Oh I just tripped and fell straight on my face, no I wasn’t drunk, no I don’t need addiction counselling, I promise it’s the truth this time!
Of course I didn’t assault a subordinate by head butting him over a difference of opinion, I’m fit to be the director of Laplace!
And most importantly, I wasn’t trying to get my coworker to shut up, he didn’t rile me up to the point where I wanted to grab him at his stupid metal collar, pull him close and kiss him.
Except whatever hilarious romantic instincts or pent up sexual energy compelled him to do that forgot to remind him that hey, the guy who you think is stupidly sexy and charming and infuriating at the same time, doesn’t have a face. That’s a huge part of him, actually. Literally. His head is glass. The guy’s not real. He’s just a black slime puddle that’s been driving you crazy for various reasons, from scientific to sexual.
He wanted to laugh. Or cry. Had he always been this stupid? Had the stress of the new position finally caught up to him?
Adler realized he was stepping into a mindset that could keep him glued to the couch till morning came if he didn’t break it off now. He wasn’t solving his problem any faster if he fixated on the ways he was being wrong.
He carefully wiped some dried blood from his mouth and chin with his worn out coat sleeve. He stared at the dark red stain on it. The longer he let it dry, the harder it would be to get the blood out. He didn’t want to buy a new one, it wasn’t easy finding an oversized piece of clothing for a guy his height.
Greta gently teased him when she first saw him in the coat. She wasn’t one to make fun of her younger brother, but the big coat on him must have brought back memories from childhood days. Adler had protested, saying it fit him perfectly fine. Maybe a little loose, but who didn’t like baggy clothes? She had told him she’d love to see when he’d grow into. He never did. And if he did, she would never see.
***
Multiple loud bangs jerked him out of his daydream.
“Adler! Open up right now!”
The voice was muffled through the door, but it was obvious who it was.
He slowly rose up from the couch and leisurely walked over. Delaying his fate.
“Who is this? Security guards?” He feigned ignorance.
“You wish! Open the door!” Ulrich banged on the door again.
Adler stood at the door, eyeing the numerical lock. It hadn’t been unlocked. How untypical of Ulrich to show restraint.
“How nice of you to knock!” Adler yelled back through the door. “You got what you wanted, right? You know I’m alive and breathing. Now get out of my hair.” He didn’t try to stop the smile reaching his lips.
Instead of an answer, he heard the short, high pitched beep of the door lock. The screen lit up green on his side. But when Ulrich tried the door handle, the chair stopped him. Adler knew it had been the right choice to pick an office without an electric sliding door.
“How long?” Adler asked. There was no way Ulrich cracked the code in the middle of their brief conversation. How long had he been standing there, trying to crack the code?
“How long, what? Just let me in. I can barely hear you through the door.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
His fingers hovered over the numpad, considering resetting the code. How many times could he change the code until Ulrich grew tired of unlocking it? Theoretically, Ulrich could do it all day and night until he had to take a break. But what was the point? Why not leave him alone, especially after he attacked him out of nowhere? A pang of guilt wiped the smile of his face.
The least he could do was apologize.
Ulrich nearly fell inside when Adler opened the door. He sorted himself out at once and looked around the room for the advanced tech that had kept him out.
“The chair? Is this how humans help themselves without Arcanum?” Ulrich scoffed.
“If I had conjured a chair out of thin air instead, would that have been better? It kept you out, so it did the trick.”
Ulrich crossed his arms and his ferrofluid formed into an X. His speakers began to rustle when Adler spoke up first.
“I’m sorry I hurt you. That wasn’t my intention.”
Ulrich went from a question mark to an angry mass so quickly, Adler would have missed it if he had blinked.
“You didn’t mean to? You grabbed me and smashed your face against—”
Adler winced, not wanting to hear it.
“I know what I did. I wasn’t thinking straight. I apologize.” For once, his apology was sincere.
Ulrich let Adler’s words sit in silence. Then, as if taking a deep breath, he straightened up and his mass fell into a noncommittal curve.
“I promised Madame Lucy I would try harder at building a team spirit. At embodying compassion. You are the hardest trial in my path, Adler.”
“You got me to apologize for hurting you, I won't apologize for whatever you're projecting on me.”
“You didn’t hurt me. I’m fine. But you injured yourself. Maybe we really should distance ourselves for a while until you’ve got yourself under control. You act more irrational than an Arcanist at times.”
Only Ulrich would still provoke him like this a mere moment after claiming to embody compassion. Adler balled his hands into fists to ground himself. Don’t get mad. Just let him leave. When his fingernails dug into the palm of his hand, he realized what the gesture looked like to someone he had attacked an hour ago. He opened his hands again, pressing his hands flat against the side of his legs. He wished he didn’t have to be so conscious of his every move around Ulrich.
When Ulrich didn’t get a reply, he continued.
“You seriously need to get your head looked at.”
“Just fuck off.” Ulrich loved crossing the line with him. What did Adler like about him again?
“No, I won't. I can see the blood on your coat. You need to see a doctor. There are lethal complications to concussions—”
“I’m not going to die from a nosebleed.”
“Did you forget I’m next in line? I’m too busy with hands on research to be the next Director!” It was a joke, Ulrich jumped up in an exclamation point to oversell his line. Jokes weren’t his strength, yet the attempt made Adler laugh.
“So that’s why you're here, making sure I do the work you don’t want to do?” Adler countered.
With that, Ulrich fell into a puddle, drops trying to make their way upward, like he was trying to express an emotion that wasn’t there.
“No, you idiot, it’s because I am worried. Despite your renunciation of such, I do care for your wellbeing. You obviously don’t care about mine, at least not when you're angry to the point of bodily altercation, but that doesn’t make us any less partners.”
“When did I ever say—” As much as had been willing his anger down before, he begged it to return now, just to stop the blush threatening to spread across his face. “Of course I care for your wellbeing. I didn’t—“ He stopped. The lies he made up in his mind for the medical personnel wouldn’t work on Ulrich. Ulrich knew he didn’t trip. Ulrich knew he grabbed him purposefully.
“What if I tripped and grabbed you for support and fell on your face.” Adler stated flatly.
“That’s what I told the emergency line on the phone. But I know it’s not the truth.” Ulrich’s face showed three simple dots, this time a sign of impatience.
“You told them that?”
“Stop deflecting. Just be honest. It won't kill me to hear you wanted to hit me, just don’t use your face as the tool next time.”
Adler couldn’t take this. Why was he feeling pity for Ulrich? He refused to let him believe he would hurt him out of anger. Yes, they had thrown research papers at each other. And pens. And other small, harmless objects. They had ripped items out of each other’s hands, bumped into each other aggressively. They had towered over the other, close enough to feel the others breath if Ulrich had possessed such. Ulrich had climbed a research station once just to grab him by the collar, just like Adler had done today (minus the climbing). They had raised their hands, but never struck. They were always close to touching another, but never did it. That was probably why Adler overshot the mark today. All the energy and heat from the fight, the excitement, the pent up longing, he just wanted to bridge the gap that had been shrinking between the two of them.
He tried to, at least. There was no relationship to be had with Ulrich. At least not the kind he had been aching for.
“It was a human bonding ritual,” said Adler.
“That’s bullshit.”
“No, no…you can see it in team sports too. When things get intense. Arcanists do it too, I didn’t mean to generalize.”
“You knock each other out?”
“No, you lean in, touch foreheads, that’s all it is. I understand if it makes no sense to you. I meant to diffuse our argument but in the heat of the moment I forgot about,” he gestures at Ulrich’s “head”, “your lack of forehead.”
“There’s enough space on my tank to use as forehead. Show me what you meant.”
“Show you?” Adler had hoped his explanation would suffice. But obviously, no theory could be proven without a practical application.
“You're a bad liar, which is why I already lied on the phone for you. I don’t think this is the truth.”
“Fine, I’ll show you, if you insist on being so difficult.” Adler sighed theatrically, trying to cover how his anxiety spiked at the proposition.
He stepped closer, raising his arm. He had felt a genius for his spontaneous lie, but now he wasn’t sure it had been the right choice.
“So what do I do?” Ulrich asked. Adler was too busy with himself.
“Nothing. Try not to touch my nose.” He braced himself. It would be over quickly. And it wouldn’t have been the first time he touched Ulrich’s head today.
Adler had to lean down, his hand awkwardly placed on Ulrich’s neck, where the back of his head connected to his body. The connectors felt delicate, despite made out of metal. It felt intimate pressing his fingers against the rods, feeling the ridges and lines that were engraved in the gold plating. Adler’s breath hitched, and he hadn’t even pressed his forehead against Ulrich yet. He leant down a little further, unsure where to put his head exactly, when Ulrich reached up and placed his hand on Adler’s on his nape.
“Don’t play around here, this is where one of the disconnectors is located.” He pressed Adler’s index finger gently against a nub in the metal. “It’s a weird feeling. Better put them here.” Ulrich guided his fingers an inch further right and removed his hand, but the touch burned Adler up. Even the tip of his ears felt hot. Now he wanted to press his entire face against Ulrich cold glass surface. Instead of completely dropping his hand, Ulrich raised it again and now mirrored Adler’s movement, cupping the back of his head, fingers threaded through his hair until they rested against his skin.
“Like this, I suppose?” Ulrich asked.
Adler’s face was mere inches away from Ulrich’s, staring right at his ferrofluid form, but realized with relief he couldn’t see his own reflection. He didn’t need to see his dumbstruck face, unable to say a single word at the delicate touch Ulrich had caressed him with.
Maybe he was touch starved. Maybe he was starved for Ulrich’s touch.
He closed his eyes.
Tilting his head slightly to the side, he pressed the softest kiss against Ulrich’s face. Somewhere in the middle, it didn’t matter. Ulrich didn’t need a face for the gesture to count. The glass wasn’t as cold as he had assumed. The surface was smooth, but the contact didn’t feel object like. He could feel Ulrich vibrating and moving inside.
Adler let the touch linger for only a few seconds. When he dared to inch the slightest bit away, his breath fogged up the glass of Ulrich’s head right in front of him. Adler only noticed from his ragged breath how he was shaking ever so slightly.
“That was…that was not what you said it was.” Ulrich said abruptly after another silence that felt like an eternity. Two firm hands on Adler’s chest pushed him away.
“That’s not what you said.” Ulrich repeated again. This time for himself, it seemed.
Adler could only stare at the spot on Ulrich’s face he had left foggy. Ulrich didn’t wipe it away, a part of his ferrofluid hidden underneath the spot. It was pulsing like a sine function, short waves, moving fast, blurring together. He hadn’t ever seen this expression before.
“No, it’s-” Adler stopped in the middle of the sentence.
It’s what I meant to do before. Ulrich was smart. He would know.
Suddenly Ulrich wiped his face with his gloved hand. Aggressively, so. Now he must know for sure.
“Next time you say something instead of trying to kill yourself! I cannot believe this. Were you thinking at all? Your nose, your head, you must have enjoyed your time in the hospital so much you wanted to go straight back…take a sick leave for all you want but don’t- don’t – don’t do that!” Ulrich was sputtering, stumbling over his words. Adler opened his mouth, but Ulrich interrupted him.
“First, medical center. Once they tell me you don’t have a concussion you can explain this to me again. I don’t think I trust anything that comes out of your mouth right now.”
Adler didn’t want to leave the room. Yes, he was a romantic, a fact he never admitted to himself because there was no point to it. He didn’t have a love life, why dream about candle lit dinners? But spending the afternoon in a medical center waiting room after a first kiss was far from ideal. He either wanted to tend to his broken heart in his own four walls or bury himself with work, or…
…was there another option?
“Fine, I’ll go. But I’m sure you’re missing the lab, feel free to leave. Don’t have to waste all day with me.”
Ulrich finally looked up at him again.
“You’re stubborn and hypocritical and so, so infuriating, Adler Hofmann. Didn’t I tell you I care? Never make me repeat myself again. Now let’s go, they’re waiting for us.”
It wasn’t a normal kiss, therefor it didn’t carry the same implications. Adler should count himself lucky how Ulrich managed to play it down, saving him the embarrassment.
“And once that’s taken care of, we can talk. About that.” Ulrich gestured with his hands. He had been studying many gestures, his body language becoming more and more precise. But the vague way he waved his hands showed even he was at a loss for words. Adler wracked his brain trying to read his mood. The words he said out loud didn’t match the energy pulsing in his ferrofluid. Unless he was nervous.
“Let me just say—” Adler got interrupted again.
“You think I’m stupid? I know what a kiss is. Now let’s go, I need to know your mental state before I start thinking seriously about this.” Ulrich turned around and yanked the door open with more fervor than necessary. “Chop, chop!”
After the trouble Adler had given him today, the least he could do is listen to him once. That much his ego could swallow. He followed Ulrich and closed the door behind him, resetting the code now that Ulrich had broken in again.
"Give me a minute," Adler asked, his headache clouding his brain. Ulrich had broken in for the fifth time in the past weeks and the new code had to break whatever pattern Adler had been subconsciously using. He knew he couldn't keep Ulrich out, but he liked challenging him. Ulrich only replied with a "hmpf", facing away from him, hands on hips, one foot tapping impatiently. He had a way to overdo it with body language now that he had a grasp on it.
Adler wasn't sure if this code had been more difficult than the last one, since Ulrich hadn't answered his question before. Two weeks ago it took him half an hour. Had it been the same today? Did Ulrich try again and again, and when the worry overtook him, he started banging on the door while simultaneously checking off his list of possible codes?
When Adler was satisfied with an 8 numbers combination and was about to turn around, he noticed Ulrich shifting behind him. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Ulrich move his hand up to his face. The sight of it made him breathless, like someone had hit him hard on the chest. Breathing in was impossible. Ulrich tapped his fingers against the middle of his head, his ferrofluid pooling against the surface, meeting his fingers if it weren't for the glass. Right where Adler had kissed him, where his breath had clouded Ulrich's vision. The fingers pressed against the glass, as if searching for the lingering of Adler's presence.
Adler had to stop watching, or he'd get dizzy again.
He glued his eyes to the numpad and pressed enter.
"All done!" He exclaimed without turning to Ulrich, giving him a second to collect himself.
As if nothing happened, Ulrich replied.
"Took you long enough, I bet I'll have it figured it out faster than that."
Adler laughed. He looked forward to it.