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From what Hermann could tell, anniversaries weren’t normally competitive. Perhaps competitive with other couples in some circumstance but not competitive with the couple themselves.
And that made sense. It did.
But trying to apply that logic to his own relationship? His brain just crashed every time.
Other couples followed a list of anniversary themes. Year one was paper, year two was cotton, year three was leather, year four was flower or fruit, year five was wood, and so on all the way up until 60. After that, in the unlikely event the couple was both still living and still together they were free to start over again apparently.
He and Newton hadn’t gone that route. Why constrain themselves?
For this anniversary, Newton had had a portrait of them painted that Hermann certainly didn’t remember sitting for. It was a very good likeness of him but, he had to admit, he was far more interested in counting every freckles on the portrait Newton’s face and marveling over how it captured his partial heterochromia exactly.
Newton had looked a charming combination of affectionate and smug the entire time Hermann was examining the gift.
That was the thing about competitive anniversaries. You really do win either way because wanting to win only increases the quality of your gift and your partner trying to beat you gives you a wonderful gift in return. You either give or get the better gift.
There was always a winner, after all.
And this year it looked like it would be him if the scowl on Newton’s face was any indication.
“You dick.”
“Something the matter, my darling?” Hermann asked innocently. “Do you not like it?”
“No, of course not, I love it and I hate you so much right now.”
Hermann smiled. Newton was such a romantic. “Is that so?”
“You have our letters. How do you have our letters?” Newt demanded.
“Well, if you’ll recall, half of them were sent to me,” Hermann said.
“Yes, yes, and of course you kept them. I kept mine, too. And I know for a fact you didn’t, like, steal them or something. Did you go and photocopy them or something and sneak them back? Where did you get the ones you sent me?”
Hermann cleared his throat delicately. This really wasn’t embarrassing, not after all that they had been to each other and it wasn’t terribly embarrassing even before that. But his emotions couldn’t always be convinced by his logic.
“I made photocopies of my letters to you before I sent them off,” he explained. “That way I would be better able to follow the narrative of our correspondence if I wished to reread them or if you responded to a particular point I made. It could be challenging if you referred to something specific I said weeks ago to remember precisely what that was.”
Now Newt was grinning softly at him. “Aw, baby, you’re such a nerd.”
“You’ve called me that four times since breakfast,” Hermann reminded him.
“Yeah but this time you’re especially a nerd,” Newt said. “And this…I can’t even…you organized our letters by date and turned them into a book? Like who does that? Like oh my God.”
“Well,” Hermann said, “I read them often enough it just seemed more practical. And what better an anniversary gift then literally the story of our early relationship?”
Newt was valiantly fighting the growing smile on his face but it really was a lost cause. “My husband co-wrote a book with me.”
“We’ve cowrote nearly 70 papers,” Hermann reminded him. “And that book about our experience during the war.”
“Still,” Newt said. “This is different.”
Hermann felt a soft smile spread over his own face as a warm feeling strangely reminiscent of baking cookies washed over him. “It is, isn’t it?”
“And you called it ‘Dear Newton’,” Newt said. “Like a nerd.”
“Well, I had to call it something and since it is from me to you I felt addressing you would be more to that sentiment,” Hermann said. “Much more so than if I had titled it what you actually began our correspondence with.” He shook his head despairingly. “ ‘Hey Hermann.’ Honestly.”
“Honestly,” Newt mimicked, laughing. “It got your attention, didn’t it?”
“You’ve never had to try to get my attention.”
A lovely blush was turning even the tips of Newt’s ears a rather attractive shade of pink. “Shut up. Oh my God, I’m going full-blown Tsundere over here.”
“Use real words, dear.”
“I am using real words! You’re just refusing to be multicultural!”
“Is that what not engaging with your strange cartoons is called?” Hermann asked.
“You know very well it’s called anime and, furthermore, you know exactly what a Tsundere is so don’t even fuck with me right now. And anyway, you’re way more of one than I am.”
“You keep saying that word like if you keep using it the translator chip that, of course, I have in my brain will start doing its job,” Hermann said.
“I’ll translator your chip,” Newt said.
Hermann paused. “I’m not sure I quite got that, actually, just that it’s supposed to be some sort of euphemism.”
“Neither do I,” Newt admitted. “But still. Let’s sex stuff.”
Hermann laughed. “That’s hardly any better!”
“What can I say?” Newt asked, shrugging. “I’m a direct kind of guy and this book has made my heart horny.”
“You are butchering the English language,” Hermann accused, “and my ears may never recover.”
“Tell your ears to get with the times,” Newt said.
“My ears being anthropomorphized objects distinct from my brain and not the way I am taking in the words you just spoke?”
“God, I love you so much right now and I love your stupid face and I am going to fucking crush you for next year’s anniversary and, fair warning, your birthday present will probably give you a heart attack,” Newt said, setting the book carefully on the table and practically flinging himself at Hermann.
Since Newt did this at least once a day, and often more, Hermann was fully prepared for this and it went a lot better than it had the first few times Newt had tried it.
Besides, having his arms full of Newt was one of his preferred activities.
“Oh my God, why are you like this?” Newt asked between kissing every inch of Hermann’s neck.
Hermann desperately wanted to start stroking Newt’s hair but he refused to move his arms from where they were mildly crushing the life out of his husband. He compromised by kissing the top of his head instead.
“Why are you like this?” he countered.
“Why are your eyes like this?” Newt asked.
“Why is your nose like this?”
Newt raised his head to plant a kiss on Hermann’s cheek. “Why is your mouth like this?”
They could go on all day, they really could.
In fact, it was probably already turning into a competition of who could focus the best and not run out of body parts to list.
All in all, this was an excellent way to spend an anniversary and he was only a little more smug than he should have been about the fact that this year he was the clear winner.
Newt would have been absolutely worse if it had been him and by the end of the night Hermann knew for a fact that Newt absolutely intended to prove it.
That was the thing about competitive anniversaries.
In the end they both won.
But, this year, Hermann a little bit more than Newt did.