Chapter Text
The light coming through the curtains woke Newt long before it woke Theseus. Both of them were tuned to wake up early—Theseus had woken up at half five for years now, and Newt sometimes even earlier than that for the feeding schedules of his creatures—but this morning, Theseus’s face was still pressed into the duvet.
Holding his breath, Newt carefully extracted himself from the tangle of limbs. He might have scratched Theseus’s calf with one of his toenails on the way out, but his brother only made a sleepy noise and rolled further into the soft duvet.
In catlike silence, Newt padded across the bedroom, scooping his case up from beside the abandoned camp bed. He drew the door closed behind him, closing the curtains properly with a wandless charm—because Theseus needed the sleep. It shut with a quiet click.
Almost surprising to hear that, Newt thought. It was so easy to remember all the slammed doors between them—Theseus yanking his bedroom door shut as an irate teenager, Newt later taking pleasure in rattling doorframes when their arguments got bad long into their adulthood. Newt had used it to compensate for not raising his voice too much: had to prove that, while his anger was colder, it still existed, and Theseus should fear it, no matter how above being affected he wanted to be.
Retreating into the spare room felt exposing, even if it would be private. He couldn’t quite figure out why until he had his case open and pride of place on the dusty coffee table. He’d never tried to make himself comfortable in this space. First, it had been avoiding examining just how much denial and deliberate forgetting had been required for Newt to move on from his friendship with Leta. He’d had to burn her only and last letter. None of the severance had been easy. And then, of course, it had been Theseus’s engagement to Leta—and before that, it had just been Theseus, always too eager to reach out even when it felt as though they were constantly off the back of an argument. No one had apologised for 1925, even now. Hiding in this small space only reminded him of everything.
A photograph caught his eye—one he hadn't noticed the night before, half-hidden behind a stack of papers on the sideboard. Leta and Theseus at some Ministry function, both laughing at something off-camera. She was wearing deep purple robes that seemed to shimmer even in the still image, one hand resting on Theseus's arm. His brother looked younger somehow, the ever-present tension in his shoulders absent.
"Oh, Leta," Newt murmured, double checking the latches of his case and moving to pick up the frame. "We're making rather a mess of things without you."
He'd never really got to seeing this side of her—the elegant, sophisticated curse-breaker. His Leta had been all sharp edges and fierce loyalty, hiding her pain behind clever words and quick smiles. The woman in the photograph seemed softer somehow, more at peace with herself. He wondered if that was Theseus's influence, or if she'd simply grown into herself in the years they'd been apart.
Hands steadier now, he opened his case and climbed down the ladder, breathing deeply as the earthy warmth of the archives came to meet him. Down, down he went, past the shelves of books and collections and other curios, until he hurried out from the entryway and into the full wilderness of the case. He hummed a little to himself as he picked his way along the overgrown path, the tension in his shoulders starting to ease in the medicinal quality of good sunlight.
His feeding and care routine was practically second nature. There was a Hippogriff calf with a leg that needed sutures; in the night, it must have run at the edge of its enclosure and caught its thigh on a wickedly protruding branch. For the first time—for years, at least, because Newt had never been squeamish, nor even when he’d measured the decay rates of dead animals he’d begin to dissect in the woods—Newt baulked at the thick red gash. Sensing his distress, the Hippogriff calf ground its beak and screeched. Hurriedly, he pressed his cheek to its bristly hide that smelled of home and rubbed soothing circles there until it settled.
Once that was over, once he had carefully scoured the open wound from his mind as he was so adept at doing, he paid a visit to the raven sanctuary. Rarely did Newt keep animals that weren’t entirely injured or otherwise had nowhere to return to, but needed for a few species to keep the entire case alive. Their home was a huge wooden structure shaped a little like a lotus flower, the tips dappled with mould, the inside full of carefully carved hollows. It was surrounded by trees and logs; a mixture of Mooncalves and deer wandered out this far, grazing on the drying grass.
Usually, they fed themselves on the insects and grain around the case’s various habitats, but Newt picked up a bucket he’d left abandoned on its side and summoned a sack of specialised feed.
"Hello, my lovelies," he said softly. The largest raven—whom he'd named Corvus, in a moment of either inspiration or poor taste—hopped down to perch on his shoulder. "Yes, yes, breakfast time."
He'd started keeping ravens after Paris. It hadn't been a conscious decision exactly—he'd found an injured chick and nursed it back to health, just as he and Leta had in that secret alcove all those years ago. Then he’d found another, and another, and then they had bred, and somehow his case had become home to a small colony.
When naming all except Corvus—who had been an older rescue—Newt had chosen names Leta might have liked. Newt had always tended towards classical English names. Leta had always made fun of that—be more imaginative—and instead proposed her own names. Usually a mixture of a common object and ridiculously intricate middle names. By following at least those conventions, that teenage girl who'd feared her family's curse had still become the namesake for these clever, gentle creatures.
That had been their problem, really—both of them too quick to act, too slow to heal. Their friendship had been intense and immediate, two outcasts finding refuge in each other. But they'd never learned how to fix things properly after they broke. Just patched them up and carried on until the cracks showed through again. She hadn’t replied to any of the many letters he’d sent her until she’d finally sent one. He’d received it on the day of his father’s funeral and burned it, too lost to face it. Then, he’d already given up, right until he’d met her again after returning from a summer of travelling to his job in the DRCMC in 1921. By then, she’d somehow already known Theseus.
Some days, it made Newt feel sick. The Ministry floor. The same patch that had brought back such an avalanche of memory where he’d been reluctantly trailing to Theseus’s office, before all this. I don’t remember, he’d said, when he very much had, for a very simple reason.
Newt never was aggressive with his anger, nor did he toss it like an explosive like others might. But he was quiet, and cold, and precise. A habit he’d learned from watching his mother and been taught in practise by the way his father treated him—you could kill someone through a thousand cuts, and that way, it was easier to pretend to be good.
Another raven, this one called Shoelace, jumped onto his arm. He scratched it on the head as it tried to peel one of the buttons of his coat sleeves. “I understand why Theseus can’t stop remembering her,” Newt admitted. “I suppose that near the end, even I wanted to think of her as bad. Because of the expulsion, the engagement. I think, um, I think I understand why he does it. Holds on like that.”
In the artificial dawn light, they looked almost ethereal—creatures of myth and memory rather than feathers and blood. Leta would have loved them, he thought. Would have spent hours learning their individual personalities, teaching them to bring her shiny trinkets. She’d have been the first to build on the observations that they were capable of using tools to suggest teaching them how to fence.
He smiled fondly as the raven let out an impatient caw, summoning another friend. This friend landed on Newt’s head, seemingly content to watch the attempted button theft without assisting. With slightly shaky fingers, he reached out and stroked the feathers on its head once more, marvelling at their tar-black softness. A gentle laugh bubbled up at the back of his throat, something to do with the sunlight and memory and simplicity of intelligent living things.
And then something heavier swept over him.
Newt had always been quick to feel and slow to be able to process or identify his own emotions. Slights from anyone other than his brother often washed over him at the time, to be processed with a disappointed sigh weeks later, in the middle of laundry or something similar. It was like trying to thrust his hands into a rose bush to perfectly pluck out something close to a flower, when everything was fuzzed and thorned, either cutting or impossible to comprehend.
The laugh became something weaker. He screwed up his face, eyes stinging, and made a choked noise. “I don’t know why that makes me…” and he swallowed. “Oh. I don’t know. Why does that make me want to cry?”
He swiped the sleeve of his left arm over his eyes and said to Shoelace, his voice thicker now: “I know that I didn’t step forwards either. I just let her do it. It was her choice, but—but maybe—maybe I needed to think a little bit more about—what to do. Because I don’t think I wanted to remember it at all. But he does. I told you, he does. Enough to want to die holding it.”
Shoelace stared at him with beady eyes, and then launched off, stretching out powerful wings to retreat to the upper branches of the nearest tree. Unsure what to do with his hands, Newt interlaced his fingers, twitching each in one of the patterns he’d done since he was a child, and turned back to face the outside world.
Newt climbed out of the case, smelling tea and something sweeter. When he turned, he saw Theseus already in the kitchen, his pyjamas looking even worse than before in the morning light.
“What are you doing?” Newt asked.
Theseus turned around, stirring something on the stove. “Making porridge. Because it’s bloody cold.”
“Oh.” Newt glanced around the flat. He’d put his coat on over the nightshirt, and now felt faintly ridiculous, if warmer than the lightly shivering Theseus. “Well. Hmm. I suppose it is.”
Silence fell between them. Newt scratched at his wrists. He probably needed to shower at some point, too, but he sensed Theseus would be possessive over the bathroom now that he’d ordered it like that. His brother had always had an issue with being tidy, with secrets and personal space. It was an odd quality for someone also capable of being perfectly professional and charismatic (in a Theseus way, Newt always quantified, because he didn’t quite buy just how flattering some of the newspaper articles got about Theseus’s awkward charm). But Newt had learned not to criticise it. Sometimes. Not yesterday.
He had the distinct sense of already potentially making grievous errors, so Newt reframed the situation. “We need to throw away the sharp things. Um, we—yes.”
“Right.” Theseus sounded tired.
Theseus stirred the porridge with a wooden spoon and then added three teaspoons of cinnamon. He pulled out his wand and two apples rose out of the bowl, neatly coring and dicing themselves. Newt watched with a sudden realisation—how exactly did you stop someone hurting themselves when magic existed?
When Theseus turned around, Newt clearly didn’t rearrange his dismayed expression fast enough. A small smile twitched Theseus’s lips. “That’s the expression of a man either terrified of normal cooking or facing significant logistical concerns.” He sighed and turned back to the stove, drumming his fingers against the countertop. “In case you’re wondering, I’ve never used my wand to open the wounds.”
“But you’re an Auror.”
“I don’t just walk around cutting people up,” Theseus said. “Duels like that are life-or-death situations and then my magic is a bit more amenable. Besides, I’ve been mostly on desk duty recently, unless I’m consulting in the field or called out to do my duty rotation with the Minister. It’s like in the war, actually. I suppose my magic has enough significantly before I do. The first time I tried it actually caused a minor explosion. Because magic does tend to lack total logic like that.”
“So…”
“So if you try to take my wand, I’ll hex you. It’s like my arm.”
“Like cutting off your arm.”
Theseus turned and pointed the wooden spoon at him, eyeing Newt. “That’s not very funny.”
“No,” agreed Newt. He climbed onto one of the stools and pulled out his own wand, making himself some tea. His magic wasn’t always this fine-tuned to domestic matters. But having spent the night, having finally spent some time with Theseus, focused something Newt hadn’t even realised was drifting. “I wasn’t joking, though.”
“You can be very perturbing when you want to be.”
Newt stared into his tea, checking he’d not accidentally picked out that old and possibly decayed tin. Not that he minded much. He’d drunk worse. He looked up and took a sip. “I don’t, um, know why that’s surprising. I thought that was most of the problem with my—with my acceptability.”
Theseus took a long breath through his nose, shoulders hunching as he stirred the porridge a final time and then distributed it into two blue-rimmed bowls. Newt’s mouth watered. He hadn't wanted to ask, but he had hoped. Theseus’s apple porridge still tasted like the good parts of their childhood all these years later.
Quietly, they sat and ate, spoons clinking. The pigeons outside cooed; there was the distant rumble of the Knightsbridge traffic. Near the end of his breakfast, Theseus seemed to have to pause between each swallow. He kept glancing at Newt, something difficult to read in his blue-grey eyes. His body practically vibrated with unspoken tension.
“Should we do it?” Theseus blurted out. His stool scraped against the floor as he got to his feet, listing slightly to one side. “Let’s do it.”
Said with the sharp efficacy of the Theseus Newt remembered, in his early twenties and obsessed with politics, decisive and moralistic and more than a little intense.
“So, um, you promise it’s only…Muggle things?” Newt asked carefully.
Theseus stared at Newt.
Newt waited. But when no response was forthcoming, he raised his hands and signed out again: Do you promise?
“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Theseus said sharply. “Yes. Only Muggle things. Alright? You’ll have to trust me a little.”
Chewing on the inside of his lip, Newt took a gentle step back, unsure how to face the complicated mixture of emotions radiating from his brother. Soothing troubled humans could be so difficult, but much harder when they weren’t just strangers. He twisted his fingers together over and over, and looked up to find Theseus was also avoiding looking at him.
“Okay,” Newt said, his voice soft. Part of him wanted to ask Theseus not to be so sharp. The other part of him pointed out that if Theseus had been writing lists so that he wouldn’t kill himself, his brother potentially wasn’t in the state of mind to understand and interpret a request like that.
The smallest, most hidden part of him whispered that Theseus would gentle his words if he knew they’d upset Newt. When Theseus had been fifteen, sixteen, he’d gone through a prickly phrase, constantly critical and distracted. Most things Newt did were a problem Theseus had to lecture on, until it reached the night, and then, if Newt had nightmares, he’d always been welcome to sleep in Theseus’s room, an area out of bounds during the days he spent hours preparing for OWLs.
Too late, Newt realised Theseus must have seen this entire war play out across his face, his usual tells and twitches amplified from the stress of yesterday. Theseus visibly deflated, busying himself re-adjusting those awful worn pyjamas. Shame creased the corners of his mouth.
“Alright,” Theseus said for the final time in a rough whisper.
Walking to the hallway, he reached the coat pegs and opened the heavy chest beneath them, pulling out a canvas hold-all. He walked back to the kitchen, looked at the knife block. Two breaths. Newt thought of the groceries they’d bought. Then, with a catching breath, Theseus picked it up in one hand and put it into the bag.
His brother had never liked cooking with magic. He’d learned at about eleven, twelve, how to use a stove. Between their mother’s sickness and their father’s incredibly weak magic, and without any real lessons, Theseus had grown to love cooking the Muggle way.
Newt curled his fingers into his palms. “Is it—it is really so bad you’d give up those?”
Theseus shrugged, heading over to the bookcase, dumping the bag onto the coffee table with a thump. He ran his fingers over the shelves, bringing them away stained grey with dust. Like he was searching for listening devices. He pulled out one box from behind a stack of volumes of magical law and opened it; it turned into a trunk-sized thing, papers spilling over the sides. Theseus hummed and scooped up a few of them—letters and cards and trade leaflets and some in which Newt recognised his own handwriting, only ever a few sentences at a time as it had always been.
This time, he moved with more purpose, the shoulder of his pyjama shirt slipping off as he stooped to the bottom shelf and withdrew a silver box. “This one is in case of home invasions,” he said, standing up and wrenching it back up, hiding the scars from shrapnel and Auror work dotting the lightly freckled on the back of his arm. “Leta bought it, actually, from Turkey. Said it turns itself into a truncheon if you’re about to land a deadly strike, but stays a curved blade the rest of the time. It’s tempting. For its safeguards.”
But Newt was still stuck on the kitchen knives. “If it, um, if it was that bad, then why wouldn’t you tell me?”
His voice had tightened with a pain he didn’t realise he was feeling. “You—you idiot,” and Theseus had said that to Newt many times, so it practically rolled off Newt’s tongue now, or as close to it as anything ever got with Newt, “why didn’t you tell me you can’t even—you can’t even be near cooking things? Surely you can’t even be allowed in the field?”
Very slowly, Theseus placed the silver box into the canvas bag, tracing the zip with fingers that had begun to shake. Then he straightened up, entire body aimed more at the oil painting of the ocean hanging by the hallway than Newt. He looked sharp, dangerous. Newt’s heart gave a warning squeeze, skipping a beat, his arrhythmia playing up with the changed atmosphere.
“Well, she had to die for you to be here,” Theseus said, each word quiet and studied, like sliding in a needle, the shadows under his eyes bringing out their darkness. “Didn’t she.”
It wasn’t a question.
Newt’s lips parted, but he couldn’t find the words. The skin of his face prickled; and then Theseus froze, staring at Newt, startled like a rabbit.
“Sorry,” Theseus said, almost convulsively. He took a few heaving, panicked breaths. He looked at the floor, swallowed, looked back at Newt, the whites of his eyes almost luminous in the dim flat. “Sorry. Too far.”
Adjusting his coat, turning up the lapels to ward against the chill, Newt turned away. Like hardening clay, his face was setting in an expression he could barely control.
Theseus went back to the bookshelf, now adjusting and stacking, occasionally lingering over a photo or memento. Looking down at his hands, Newt turned them over, lacing his fingers together, thinking.
His brother was both right and wrong, he supposed. “That’s—that’s not fair,” Newt said. He sounded terribly young.
“No. I don’t believe any of it was,” said Theseus. A pause. “I’ve got something in the study and something in the bedroom. You don’t have to come with me.”
“It rather sounds like I do,” Newt said.
“Fair enough.” Theseus jerked his head towards the study and Newt followed, his boots sounding loud and clumsy against the floor compared to Theseus’s whisper-quiet feet. After a moment, he remembered the bag, and snagged one of its handles off from the coffee table.
Funny how things changed. When they’d been younger, Newt had always been the quiet one, the sneaky one. It was also funny how some things didn’t change. Newt did tend to keep his life rolling down the same habitual tracks. After the argument, he’d followed the obvious, easiest path: avoid, avoid, avoid. Reconciliation had drifted across the horizon as slow as a sunrise, something he could tilt his head back and stare at as the possibility descended. Something that he knew he could chase; but hadn’t, not that day, and not the next. Not until weeks had passed since the March book signing.
Newt had always possessed modest expectations of his relationships with other people, which surprised him at best when he remembered he still had them. A side effect of too long misunderstood and lonely.
That they could one day fix things had been enough for Newt.
And then, there’d been no more days. He’d believed he had time. They were both there. They had both been there.
If he said something, it would come out wrong. He’d had enough experience with that. Saying one thing and it being interpreted as something else entirely. While Theseus usually understood Newt’s communication style, while Newt noted Theseus fucked up far more often and so was less afraid of his own mistakes, there was still Theseus being the older one. What was he meant to say? He couldn’t even articulate his feelings about being best man even now. One day, he knew them as he knew the people he loved best in his life; the next, they didn’t exist.
Theseus’s study was cluttered and organised. Case files humming with security enchantments filled the heavy wooden desk. There was still an iris etched onto the right side, in one of the front panels, where Leta had claimed her half. The two had shared it in their early days, when she’d been studying for her curse breaking exams and he’d been starting out as an Auror. Not that Theseus had told him himself. Too shy. Just like Newt was too wary to share anything too real about love with his brother.
“Probably should get the letter openers out of here?” Theseus said, glancing up at Newt as he opened the top drawer of his desk.
“I don’t know.” Newt came around the desk, nearly tripping over a few more boxes of files.
“Busy at the moment,” Theseus said stoutly, rather than apologising.
“Mmh.”
“With Grindelwald. Like I said, I’m heading up the task force.”
“Yes,” Newt said delicately as Theseus fished out several different letter openers, brass and silver both, glinting in the study’s warm light. It surprised him, actually, that he felt comfortable in this space, all traditional edges and reminders of duty.
“Catch,” Theseus said, tossing the first into the canvas bag. Newt just about managed to react, blinking slowly as his hand moved without his permission—some distant memory of throwing the Quaffle with Theseus as a child, discombobulated and out of sync.
More deftly now, he managed to get the rest. The clattering silverware nestled uncomfortably inside the too-large bag, which looked expensive and smelt of mildew and old camping trips. Newt was frowning at what looked like a lichen stain on the left, wondering how on Earth Theseus had convinced Leta to go camping.
Something unzipped. He looked up to see Theseus running his hands over a small leather pouch. That, Newt recognised. His Muggle shaving kit. Theseus had been top of his class in Muggle Studies even before the war, hoarding strange books and playing his non-magical radio when their father was out.
“Now I understand why you have that,” Newt said, and then immediately wanted to kick himself. Just as he clamped his mouth shut, he realised both he and Theseus had made one more assumption.
That this wasn’t new.
That kit was nearly fourteen years old. And I’ve been doing this for a long time, Theseus had said.
“Oh,” Newt added.
Theseus’s eyes, to Newt’s surprise, crinkled. “Well, I can’t exactly grow a beard, can I?”
“It wouldn’t suit you,” Newt said.
“Hey,” Theseus said, voice a little lighter than it’d been a few minutes ago. He threw the shaving kit into the bag. Newt instinctively caught it, putting it down gently. Whatever its use, it was still one of his brother’s few treasures—and Theseus had always been austere with his possessions.
“Hey, what?” Newt mumbled, glancing around the study to see if anything else obviously needed removing.
“At least I’m clean-shaven,” Theseus said.
Newt rubbed his thumb across his stubbly jaw. He usually got away with it; his hair was light or even golden with the right illumination. “This is, um, this is good,” said Newt defensively. “I mean, there have been times when I had a beard, so you can’t—you can’t complain, really.”
Theseus crooked both eyebrows. “A beard? Sweet Merlin.”
“Mmh; when I was in Honduras.”
“That’s…really very unfortunate,” concluded Theseus.
Newt hadn’t thought it’d be that bad, but he once more followed as Theseus headed to the master bedroom. This time, Theseus had less of an air of utter defeat, and more of the appearance of a somewhat uncomfortable host.
“Mind the mess,” Theseus said, indicating the heavy layers of dust gathering in the corners.
There were a few spiralling paths tracked over the grey-tinted carpet, as if Theseus occasionally opened the door to the tomb-like room and tracked a few circuits. That human-shaped dent on the sofa. Newt doubted Theseus found much peace here.
From somewhere at the back of the wardrobe, behind a dozen perfectly pressed shirts and the occasional worn-through pair of black loafers, Theseus removed a wooden tray. It had once, according to the label, held apples. Now, it contained a box Newt immediately recognised, a stack of envelopes, and a blue notebook.
Theseus straightened up, and saw Newt staring at him. Staring at the envelopes. Each was heavy, cream paper, thick and expensive. In Theseus’s familiar sloping handwriting were labels. Names.
Newt’s name.
Unceremoniously, Theseus grabbed them, nearly dropping one, and stuffed them into the waistband of his trousers. Breathing more heavily, he thrust the crate at Newt. “Take this. Never mind those. I’d forgotten.”
Slowly, Newt picked up the notebook and the box. The box looked strangely familiar, although he couldn’t place it, so he reached for the notebook.
Envelopes. Letters. The thought had made Newt’s fingers numb. When he tried to flip it open, he only crumpled the thin paper cover. Something like a school exercise book.
“Oh,” Theseus said behind him. “You don’t have to look at that.”
Newt opened it anyway, shooting a single backwards glance over his shoulder. Without making eye contact, he hoped it conveyed how he felt.
It was neatly organised, like a log. The writing was softer. Some of its former elegance, restored. Theseus was taking sharp, sawing breaths behind Newt, but they had already gone back and forth enough, and Newt’s understanding of how to deal with this situation was wearing thin. If this was anything or anyone else, he would have simply read it. So he pretended it was, and did, flipping through in case Theseus tried to snatch it off him.
Somewhere around the fourth page:
Went a whole week. Longest yet. Bought myself those cufflinks I've been eyeing as a reward. Going to keep trying.
- Newt might need me someday
- Maybe we can fix things
- Maybe I can be better
- Maybe it's not too late
You can stop. He's alive. He's safe. He's building a life. That has to be enough.
Halfway through the book. Too far through to suggest stopping had worked:
Made it nearly five days this time. Thought about what he said about creatures in that article—how they’re always worthy of care. Trying to believe that applies to brothers too.
Day 1 ✓
Day 2 ✓
Day 3 ✓
Day 4 ✓
Day 5
Newt had written that article last spring, a piece about rehabilitation techniques for abused magical creatures. He remembered being pleased when Theseus mentioned having read it, though his brother's only other comment had been about a typo in the third paragraph. Closer to the back was a half-written letter, folded in between the pages and now as thin and fragile as a pressed daisy:
Little brother,
I won’t send this. But—do your creatures ever hurt themselves when they're caged? When they can't be what they're meant to be? Do they ever get so trapped in patterns they can't break free?
Sorry. It's too late and I'm not making sense.
Love always,
Theseus
Almost absently, unable to process the fresh wave of grief this inspired in him—something as cold as a breaking ocean wave crashing to unrest in the pit of his belly—Newt looked at the box again.
He closed his eyes. “I carved that for you. It was a gift.”
"I'm sorry," Theseus said quietly. He crossed his forearms over his hips, the pyjamas too loose on him now to hold the letters, and clasped them tight. "I just... it reminded me of you. Of better times. Sometimes that helped, having something of yours nearby to…make it feel…safer, when I…”
Without opening the carved acacia box, Newt added it to the canvas bag, and yanked the zip closed, the notebook still pinched between his fingers. He remembered working on it during one particularly dull stint observing a manticore habitat somewhere in southern Turkey. The acacia wood gathered earlier in his travels had been warm under his hands as he'd carefully etched protective runes into the corners, moving on a whim despite that having been a year in which they’d stayed estranged.
He'd meant it to hold important things. Precious things. Not this. His brother had sent back a thank you note: It's beautiful, Newt, he'd written. For once there had been no lecture about staying safe, about not replying to any of his other letters.
Behind him, Theseus was already moving with renewed purpose, heading to his wardrobe to pull out a fresh suit. The transformation was jarring—from the vulnerable man in worn pyjamas to the Head Auror preparing for another day at the Ministry. Newt watched from the corner of his eye as Theseus began the familiar ritual of dressing for work, each movement precise and practiced.
“I should get going,” Theseus said, voice steady now as he selected a tie. “There's a meeting about the Prague situation at nine.”
Newt's fingers tightened on the notebook he still held.
Theseus paused in knotting his tie, catching Newt's reflection in the wardrobe mirror. "You can keep that, if you want. Or burn it. Probably should have done that ages ago."
"You tried," Newt said quietly, more to himself than his brother. "You really tried to stop."
Theseus's hands stilled on his tie. "Of course I tried. I'm not completely..." He trailed off, then reached for his waistcoat with slightly too-quick movements. "Anyway, it doesn't matter now. We've dealt with everything, haven't we?"
Newt finally made himself move, crossing to where his case lay open on the floor. The basement level would be safest, he decided. Somewhere among his archived research materials, where the protective enchantments were strongest. He'd need to add more spells: perhaps something to detect if anyone tried to retrieve the contents.
"You don't have to worry about security," Theseus said, reading his expression with the uncanny accuracy he sometimes displayed. "I won't try to get them back."
"Won't you?" The words came out sharper than Newt intended. He softened his voice. "You kept trying before. Kept starting over. The notebook shows—"
"That was different," Theseus interrupted, turning away to button his waistcoat. His brother had never changed clothes this casually in front of him before, modest and meticulous to the last. Newt watched out of the corner of his eye, cataloguing scars which he didn’t know the stories of. There were strange, straight ones on Theseus’s shoulder blades, with ragged heads and tails like shooting stars in every direction. "That was when I thought—well, it doesn't matter what I thought. Things are different now."
Because Leta died? Because I finally noticed? Because you can't hide anymore? Newt wanted to ask, but the questions stuck in his throat.
Instead, he carefully placed the canvas bag in his case, next to several boxes of stored bone specimens. The notebook he kept separate, sliding it between two volumes on Romanian dragon sanctuaries. His fingers lingered on the cover, tracing where Theseus had pressed too hard with his quill, leaving slight indentations in the paper.
"I'm heading out," Theseus called down into the case. His voice was steady, professional. Head Auror voice. "Lock up when you leave?"
Newt looked at all the evidence of how hard his brother had tried to stop, how many times he'd picked himself up and started counting days again. How many times he'd failed and started over.
"You don't have to go in today," Newt said, loud enough to carry up. "We could...we could talk more."
A long silence.
When he climbed out of the case, Theseus was still waiting. Newt checked his pocket watch. 07:40 in the morning.
“I didn’t call off sick today,” said Theseus, as an explanation. “Right now, even leave booked weeks in advance isn’t really guaranteed, and Travers is liable to cancel mine even if I take it.”
“Have you tried?”
Theseus looked a little bemused. “What, taking leave? No.”
Newt raised his eyebrows, so Theseus hurried in to explain. The explanation was easy to tune out as Newt briefly considered the prospect of setting a small, select team of Nifflers loose on Travers’s desk. Something about Theseus using Paris to gain political leverage over Travers given the oversight involved. Something about Travers having been an irate and often punishing mentor and Theseus not wanting to sever that tie lest he lose his job for his hints of instability. Something about justice requiring unpalatable company within the wheels of the Ministry.
Theseus often liked that metaphor: wheels. Like it was just one great machine he knew he was a small, favoured part of. Just not so favoured now.
"The thing is," Newt said carefully, "I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for at the Ministry."
Theseus's hands stilled on his lapels. "What I'm looking for?"
"Justice. Or whatever you think will make it hurt less." Newt rubbed his fingers over the cuff of his coat sleeve. "She wouldn't have wanted—"
"Please don't tell me what she would have wanted."
They stood in silence for a moment, the air heavy between them. Through the window, Newt could hear the first stirrings of London traffic, the world moving on as it always did.
"I'll be home early," Theseus said finally. "We can...talk more then. If you want."
It wasn't quite a promise, but it was something. Newt nodded, watching his brother straighten his shoulders and slip back into his public persona like pulling on a well-worn coat.
"The wheels keep turning," Theseus added as he headed to the doorway. "Someone has to keep them moving in the right direction."
After he left, Newt stood alone in the bedroom, staring blankly into the back of the closet, the door left ajar like a presented slice of a life Newt wasn’t sure he knew so well after all.
The wheels keep turning, he thought. But they're grinding you down in the process, aren't they?
The weekend stretched long and empty, time drawing itself out in sticky drips like sweating taffy. Newt kept finding reasons to visit the flat—forgotten papers, checking the wards, making sure the groceries hadn't spoiled. Each time, he found only echoes of his brother's presence: a half-drunk cup of tea gone cold on the counter, case files spread across the study desk, boots muddy from fieldwork kicked into a corner.
Saturday evening brought an urgent owl from Albus: another lead on the blood pact, something about ancient Germanic rituals. Newt found himself in a dusty bookshop in Knockturn Alley, carefully not thinking about how Theseus would disapprove of both his location and his company.
"You seem distracted," Albus observed, leafing through a particularly suspicious-looking tome. "More than usual, I mean."
Newt shifted uncomfortably. He trusted Albus—perhaps too much, according to some—but this wasn't his secret to share. Still, the words pressed against his teeth: My brother is falling apart and I don't know how to help him.
"Just tired," he said instead.
But then Monday morning brought chaos. The Daily Prophet's headline screamed about a massacre in Dresden—twenty-three dead, including three Aurors. Grindelwald's symbol burned into the sky above the city. By noon, the Ministry was in upheaval, emergency meetings called, teams dispatched.
Newt watched it unfold from the sidelines, catching glimpses through newspapers and overheard conversations in the Leaky Cauldron. Theseus would be in the thick of it, he knew. His brother thrived in crisis, when everything narrowed down to split-second decisions and clear objectives.
When Tuesday afternoon came, Newt visited the Auror Office, his demeanour making him both incredibly suspicious and practically invisible. But the moment he slipped in through the door, looking to make a quiet beeline to Theseus’s office and perhaps ask about lunch for the first time in months, he stepped into chaos. Maps hovering in the air, showing moving dots and flashing signals, while various wixen rushed between departments with arms full of documents.
He backed himself into a quiet corner as he recognised Theseus in the corner, deep in conversation with both Travers and a woman with short dark hair. Those three were analysing a set of grainy, blown-up black-and-white photos; but, every so often, Theseus would turn to the teams and direct them to their various places, making split-second decisions about resource allocation and tactical responses.
"The Vienna team needs backup," someone called out.
"Redirect Phillips and Martinez," Theseus replied without hesitation, casting a spell to adjust the floating maps. "They're closest. Watson, get on a direct Floo connection to the Austrian Ministry. You’ll need to coordinate containment procedures with them."
"Sir, the Warsaw situation is deteriorating—"
"I see it." Theseus's voice remained steady even as red warning lights began flashing across one section of the map. "Get me Baginski on the mirror network. And someone find out whether those cursed objects have any links to our currently monitored suppliers—they might try a follow-up attack on the response teams, wouldn’t be the first time."
While it was all a little overwhelming, Newt had to admit that this was likely why Theseus was the youngest Head Auror in a century. But he couldn’t catch Theseus’s eye—not that he was really looking anywhere near his eyes—and was starting to draw suspicious looks hanging where he was in the corner. Since the publication of his book, he’d become widely known, the Aurors either steering clear of him or occasionally smiling.
In an active international crisis, flooded with orders and laws and organised teams, Newt had nothing he could offer. Swallowing a painful lump in his throat, he turned away and walked back through the brown-red-tiled corridors alone, shoulders hunched, his fingers worrying at the third button on his coat over and over as if that would give him an easy answer.
The crisis stretched into Thursday, then Friday. Waiting in the Ministry atrium by the fountain, his case clamped securely by his knees, hoping to perhaps catch Theseus on his way out of the office, Newt instead only caught snatches of conversation about how Head Auror Scamander had personally led the raid that captured three of Grindelwald's key supporters. How he'd duelled two dark wizards at once while protecting a group of trapped civilians. How he'd worked for seventy-two hours straight, coordinating the international response.
By Monday, when Newt finally managed to get away from his own obligations (the weekend spent investigating a series of increasingly cryptic messages from Albus about meeting contacts in Knockturn Alley), he expected to find Theseus's office empty. But the sight of the dark window and locked door still made his heart sink.
The flat was worse.
Most of the groceries they'd bought together had spoiled. The vegetables in the fridge wilted in their neat arrangements. A half-eaten piece of toast sat on a plate by the sink, covered in a preservation charm that had started to fade around the edges.
A small, defeated sigh escaped him as he stared at his surroundings. It had only been two days. Why could he never get anything right, when it came to Theseus?
That was when the memo hit him, a small paper airplane smacking into his shoulder with surprising force. It fluttered to the ground, unfolding to reveal a single word in Theseus's usually elegant handwriting, now shaky and faint:
Sorry.
Newt's heart began to race. "Thee?"
No response, but something about the quality of the silence from the bedroom made his skin prickle. He crossed the flat in quick strides, pushing open the bedroom door.
The darkness hit him first—the heavy curtains were drawn tight against the afternoon sun. Then the smell: stale air and unwashed skin and something else, something that reminded him of sick creatures in their dens. As his eyes adjusted, he made out Theseus's form on the bed, curled on his side like a comma.
Theseus raised his hand in the gloom, fingers forming their childhood signs: Hello. Safe. Here.
"Let me get some light," Newt said softly, but Theseus made a low sound of protest.
"Please don't." His voice was scratchy, barely there. "It's...it's better like this."
Newt's eyes were adjusting to the gloom now. He could make out more details: the way Theseus's usually pristine work clothes were rumpled and stained, his tie hanging loose around his neck. His brother's hands moved restlessly, combing through his hair over and over, but there was something wrong about the motion. Too aggressive, too desperate.
"Thee?" Newt took a careful step closer. "When did you last drink anything?"
A weak shrug. Theseus's fingers tangled in his hair again, pulling hard enough that Newt could see strands coming loose. "Too much," he whispered. "It's all too much. The raids, the reports, everything we found in Dresden. I can't...I can't make it stop."
Without thinking, Newt moved to the bed. It wasn't until he was already touching Theseus's head, gently examining where patches of hair had been torn away, that he realised what he was doing. But Theseus didn't pull away. If anything, he went completely still, like a wounded animal accepting help.
Theseus hadn't just been running his hands through his hair. Yes, it was greasy from touch, sweat-stained in a way that likely meant he’d had nightmares. But he’d been pulling it out, too. Curling dark brown strands littered the white sheets. Theseus had changed the linen since last time. The pyjamas hadn’t even made an appearance.
The damage was worse than Newt had initially feared. Several spots were completely bare, the skin red and irritated. Others showed signs of repeated pulling, the hair broken and uneven. It reminded him of the phoenixes he'd studied in Egypt, how they would pluck out their own feathers when stressed or ill, leaving raw patches that wouldn't heal until the underlying cause was addressed.
"Oh," Newt breathed.
He should have known: replacing one load-bearing coping mechanism, however unhealthy, would either make everything collapse or lead down another path. Hadn’t he already experienced it when he’d tried to give up cigarettes—and found himself considering a few venoms barely fit for human consumption?
Do you remember, Theseus signed, when Mum used to get ill? When she couldn’t get out of bed for days?
It struck deep within Newt, the pain ringing and echoing through him like something bell-like and percussive. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, remembering being small, scuffing his feet at the doorway. She’d preferred his presence to Theseus’s: her softer little boy. Newt had always curled up beside her with a poisonous guilt. The lupus had onset with her second pregnancy. No one had confirmed it, but it was a fact nonetheless. And only a few years later, it had been Newt unable to get out of bed, head buzzing with static, limbs nailed to the mattress.
Newt half wanted to shake his head, but he forced his frozen neck to move, the bones popping and clicking. A single nod.
And I’d tell you she’d get better soon? Theseus signed. When you were still small enough I could wrap my arms around you without thinking twice about it?
Newt gave another pained nod, and then said: “But she didn’t. She still isn’t. It’s just that she has no children to look after anymore. None, um, in that house, anyway, because, um, we’re both still here.”
Theseus closed his eyes and raised his hands. Or is it more like Father and the drink?
“It’s neither,” Newt said.
But it’s not getting better.
Theseus opened his eyes. They looked at one another. Exhausted. The last year hung in between them like dead weight.
Theseus’s lips quirked into an attempt at a smile; a dry swallow. “It’s not getting better,” he said. “I don’t think it does.” The raspy quality to his words confirmed Newt’s more medical suspicion that Theseus was extremely dehydrated. The words themselves answered nothing at all.
As his hand crept back to his hair, Newt took it. “You need to drink some water.” He swallowed, searching for the right words. “And it…will. It has to.”
His brother made a small huffing noise and used only one hand to sign this time. With his hair pulled back from his face, he looked almost bruised from exhaustion, his smattering of freckles almost-not-quite like Newt’s more visible. You, with careful precision, because one hand meant you had to spell some of the words letter by letter, you d-o-n-t c-h-a-n-g-e.
Newt had said as much to his brother plenty of times before: hissed, muttered, shouted. It had always been the perfect revenge, a little trio of words like beads on a string, click click click, always guaranteed to rattle. He had hope for him, and then he didn’t. He waited to be proven right, or wrong—and with enough time, he was.
With some difficulty, Newt let go of Theseus’s hand. “I have to write some letters. Will you—um, will you be alright by yourself for a few minutes?”
When Theseus didn’t respond, Newt hurried to the study.
The desk itself told more of a story than it had the last time Newt had visited. Whether that was good or bad, he didn’t know. Stacks of case files, each tagged with coloured markers—red for urgent, blue for ongoing investigations, black for casualties. Some bore coffee ring stains; others had corners worn soft from repeated handling. Opening the desk drawers, Newt scrounged around until he found one of Theseus’s many fountain pens, uncapping it and grabbing the first sheet of paper he could find. This entire situation was making him anxious enough that composing a suitably formal response left him utterly stumped for several long minutes.
In the end, he wrote:
Dear Mr Worme,
Due to an unexpected family situation, I regret that I must postpone our meeting regarding the second edition. I anticipate requiring at least two weeks to address these matters.
Thank you for your understanding.
Yours sincerely,
Newton Scamander
The publisher would be annoyed, but they needed him more than he needed them.
Newt capped the pen and rolled it between his fingers, pausing to chew absently on the cap as he considered what to say to Albus. Was there anything to say at all? Albus and Theseus had relatively limited contact, and Albus simply didn’t talk about him other than to politely remark if Newt thought Theseus was ready to be brought into their plans. To which Newt always said no; the idea of Theseus encroaching on this small bubble of frictionless cooperation and odd mysterious adventures and parcel drops was somewhat terrifying in a way he couldn’t quite place.
So, no, he didn’t want to write to Albus, simply because that world and the world that had Theseus in it were two very different, complicated things. In one, he had the first understanding from someone outside his family he’d received in his life; a mentor; someone who had uncritically listened both to his stories of being bullied and his excited rambling about creatures. On the other hand, he had a brother who seemed to bring out the worst in him; who had dragged his old friend and old grief back into his life; and who seemed to, despite attempting to make painfully earnest amends as an adult, consistently cast some kind of shadow.
His thoughts were being repetitive; usually, they were scattered. He didn’t like this turn of events, this state of mind, where his brain latched onto something and couldn’t let it go. He scrunched his hands into claws, letting them hover at around shoulder height as he tried to think.
Nowadays, it felt a lot like him and Albus watching Theseus. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth, followed by immediate guilt. Sometimes, he had to admit, Albus needed questioning. Although Newt had utter loyalty to him, his faith wasn’t undying. But Newt did owe Albus rather a lot—and Albus never said it aloud, but he needed Newt, and was perhaps the first person who ever had. It was simply doing good things for a good friend, with added complications Newt usually tried to ignore, because it all came down to the few creatures he could help along the way.
His hands moved like birds over the scattered case files left there on the desk. He could see, mixed amidst the black ones, receipts and correspondence to various people with the DMLE’s Auror Division insignia in the top right corner. They seemed to be financial remuneration, sometimes rejected and sometimes accepted. The account number for these letters—marked with condolences and names Newt didn’t know, but vaguely recognised from the post-Paris papers, which had listed all but Leta’s—was familiar. He suspected it was Theseus’s. When, with a dull curiosity, he tried to open one fully, another piece of paper slipped out. It was written in crimson ink, the script beautiful.
Head Auror Scamander,
Your dedication to justice is admirable, if misplaced. How many more must die before you understand? She made her choice. Perhaps you should honour it by making yours.
For the Greater Good,
G.G.
Newt froze and dropped it like a live wire.
No, he wouldn’t contact Albus.
Instead, he hurried to his case and sent off Artemis to Augustus. When he returned to the bedroom, Theseus was sitting up against the headboard, curving to rest the full weight of his head in his hands. His hair was too long. It hid his eyes; that and his fingers, guarding Newt from seeing any obvious expression like the bars of a prison cell. Shuffling over, Newt bent down and tried to gently adjust some of the hair to see the patches he’d pulled, accidentally tugging on Theseus’s ear.
Theseus made a low mumbling sound and curled further into himself.
“So, um, it was quite a difficult week?” Newt asked, hoping a little conversation would make his brother amenable to the next steps desperately required.
“Of course it bloody was,” Theseus said. He sighed and yanked his head up, blinking as if seeing stars. “Where’d I put my tie?”
“Mmh, yes,” Newt agreed, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Would you like to drink some water?”
Theseus attempted a smile. “What I’d like and what,” and then he paused, frowning as he searched for the next words. “What I’d like and what I can…I don’t know. Everything was in place. Everything was right until I stopped, and I had been itching for it, but of course I didn’t, and then it…I felt everything.”
“And it was too much?”
“Yeah.” Theseus tried to swing his legs out of bed and nearly fell over. Newt caught him.
“Thanks,” Theseus said, the tips of his ears flushing.
“You—um, well, I couldn’t help but see that you also, um, got a letter? From….?”
“Grindelwald. Yeah. What, do you not?”
Newt couldn’t tell if that was a joke or not. He didn’t get letters, precisely, but Albus had warned him that once he finished consolidating his list of contacts to reach about the blood pact, Newt was likely to be trailed when he went abroad. That, however, was very much in the category of things he couldn’t tell Theseus.
“I don’t…um, know,” Newt concluded finally. He realised Theseus had got to his feet with purpose and hastily prepared his own. “Thes. I have something that can help with your scalp, with regrowing some of those patches. They’ll hurt an awful lot tomorrow, otherwise. I just need to wet your hair to mix it in.”
Theseus hesitated and then wordlessly made his way to the bathroom, holding onto the doorframe for support. He could hear light clattering, the sound of the tap: Theseus pouring himself a glass of water. Finding the potion in his case was easy enough—birds, especially, tended to pluck their feathers and self-injure in captivity, partly due to their naturally higher intelligence and awareness.
When he crossed the small corridor and entered the green-tiled bathroom, Theseus was sitting uncertainly not on the rim of the bath, but on the floor by it, one knee tucked to his chest. They both stared at one another.
I have very little idea how to do this, Newt thought. He leaned past Theseus, not sure what to say, and turned on the taps. Eyes widening, Theseus looked up at Newt.
This was all wrong. It had been Theseus running Newt’s baths when they were children, back when Newt had been small enough to need the little dented tin bucket bath. Theseus would check the temperature by sticking his fingers right into the water that was either freezing or boiling in their isolated rundown home in the Devon countryside. His older brother had taught him to use shampoo, conditioner (not that Newt had kept that habit up, being frugal and utterly unconcerned with hair health), and the importance of washing under his nails and behind his ears. Newt had hated bathtimes, tense and cold: the horrible feeling of getting out, the scratchy towels.
But on some good summer days, when he’d been sticky and hot and covered in mud and insect bites, he’d summon the will to flick water at his serious older brother as well as simply getting through it.
Obviously, Newt wasn’t planning on actually bathing Theseus. That would be like trying to feed a Graphorn toffee apples. Theseus might have lost weight, might have not eaten or slept, but he knew all the trigger points to get Newt flat on the floor if needed thanks to his Auror training. Not everyone was as practical nor as unconcerned with social norms as Newt.
“What are you doing?” Theseus asked blearily. He still had his wand in his wrist holster, and filled the abandoned glass next to him once more. “Christ. My throat.”
When he rubbed his hand through his hair, his fingers came away streaked with blood. The flat, frank glance his brother gave the fresh crimson was enough to tell Newt this was nothing new.
“I thought you were, um, really proud of your hair,” Newt said, taking the soap dish and reshaping it into a bowl.
“Am I meant to understand this?” Theseus said quietly. He knuckled his eyes. “Don’t exactly want to go bald either.”
“No,” Newt agreed immediately.
The gene for early balding didn’t run in his family, or at least he didn’t think so. Their family trees weren’t exactly transparent—their background had necessitated a mixture of hiding and shame. Theseus knew a little more about their relatives than Newt himself, by virtue of being the oldest and most vigilant—but when society’s general consensus was the genealogy was fundamentally tainted, and Newt himself had run from family all his adult life, there were several unanswered questions.
Newt got down to his knees. “Thes. Could you shuffle to the middle of the bath and lean your head back over the edge of the tub?”
Wincing, Theseus obeyed. He stretched out the leg that he’d been holding to his chest; with both of them now longer and lankier than they’d been as children, they had to negotiate their limbs in a London-sized bathroom. “I’m trusting you on this. That this won’t turn me green or something.”
“I know.” Newt paused and realised that it might sound like he had some master plan to turn Theseus the colour of cabbage. “I mean, I know you’re trusting me. Exceptionally, here, because you’ve not even asked me the usual five to ten questions.”
“Like a Muggle hairdresser,” Theseus remarked. His eyes were still a little unfocused; he seemed to be losing the thread of the conversation thanks to the neglect of the weekend.
“Exactly like a Muggle hairdresser.”
Theseus snorted. “You liar. As if you’ve ever been in one.”
“I’ve looked through the windows,” Newt protested. He uncapped the potion bottle with his teeth, the same way Theseus always uncorked their mum’s antiseptic when Newt’d scraped his knees, and poured a handful of pine-and-honey scented liquid into his palm. “All those ladies there with their hair in…things.”
“Oh, exactly,” Theseus mumbled.
“Is it okay if I touch the back of your neck?” Newt asked. When Theseus made a small affirmative noise, Newt slid his hand around and helped Thesyes lean back at the right angle. The tendons in his neck were still too prominent for comfort. Before Newt could stop himself, he said: “This reminds me of when you got back from the war.”
Theseus went as tense as a bowstring. “Oh.”
Sensing he’d triggered unpleasant memories—oh, it had been both awful and the most relief he’d felt in his life, meeting Theseus on that train platform a week after the Armistice—Newt instead focused on working the potion through Theseus’s hair. Most people didn’t see, but his dark curly hair glowed auburn red in the right light. It didn’t feel right to see Theseus allowing himself to stay so ungroomed.
“What’s it do?” Theseus mumbled. This, at least, was a more familiar softness than the broken speech Theseus’d first mustered when Newt had entered the flat. His brother was surprisingly softly-spoken, if still authoritative, for someone of his status at the Ministry.
“It should help the patches grow back faster,” Newt explained. “It’s sort of, um, like washing your hair, but also healing it. It will make it possibly a bit too silly for styling for a week or two, but that’s because of the protective ingredients. It works extraordinarily well for most of the creatures I’ve tried it on.”
“No styling?” Theseus asked, looking faintly alarmed. He tried to sit up. Newt let him, the mention of the war making him hesitant to handle Theseus too intensely. The last time they’d done something like this, there’d been more blood, and Theseus hadn’t stopped shaking. At least now he was distant and almost timid.
“Your hair will still look nice,” Newt said. “I just need to mix the water in. It only needs to be left for a few minutes.”
“Has it been a few minutes?”
“No.”
“Damn.” Theseus leaned his head back, a little of the excess potion dripping down the sides of the tub. He folded his hands together in his lap and closed his eyes. “Hmm.”
Newt’s back was beginning to hurt from stooping over, so he squatted down on his haunches. Theseus didn’t miss the wince. Even having spent three days comatose. “Doesn’t look like you’re exactly taking care of yourself either,” his brother said.
“Twisted my back in Peru.” The tap was still running, the sound reminding Newt of a cleaner and clearer waterfall. “Okay. Um, are you ready for me to wash it out? I’ll be gentle.”
It was a barely visible shift in Theseus’s expression, but Newt saw his face drop. “It’s hard to have my hair touched.”
“Why?”
“Too many happy memories.” Theseus closed his eyes to hide the naked emotion. “You shouldn’t have to be kind to me.”
Newt’s knees creaked traitorously as he got to his feet, years of creature-wrangling and getting into dangerously tight spaces showing. He reached for the wooden soap dish he’d turned into a bowl and put it under the tap, watching it slowly fill with warm water. Tipping his wrist, he poured it over Theseus’s head from the hairline down. His hair soaked up the water eagerly, heavy with the potion.
Without really processing what he was doing, Newt began to hum. Low and in the back of his throat. The tune was tentative, suppressed before it could take flight into a melody. Theseus didn’t open his eyes again, but the furrow between his brows softened. In the bathroom, it echoed. He pitched it as he would when facing a particularly nervous creature—but—but, despite his intentions, other traces crept in: the songs his mum would sing when he was in bed, the drinking tune his father had croakily, desperately sought the notes of, when Newt’d been sick with influenza.
“There,” Newt said, getting the last of the potion out, his brother’s hair now gleaming between his fingers. The satisfaction of easing some ailment. The mental checklist came next: water, food, settling into the habitat…
Before he could offer Theseus a towel, he rocked forwards, spraying water over the wool of his waistcoat. Theseus’s spine was beginning to curl again, like he couldn’t escape it, and for several moments, his older brother only breathed raggedly, the water tracking down his face like tears.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly, glancing up at Newt. “You don’t have to.”
Newt pulled the hand towel off its loop. “Thes. I want to. This time, I’m not going anywhere.”
He knew with certainty that his brother would be too proud to ask the question too obvious in his exhaustion: really?
It ached too much, the accusation and the abandonment and all of it, for Newt to do anything close to meeting those tired eyes, so he simply found a chipped tile to focus on, and mumbled: “I promise.” He took a deep breath. “I’d—I’d give you another chance, however times you need it. I always would, however long it takes me. In the end, I would.”