𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐬𝐚𝐦 | 𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐑𝐢𝐦/𝐈𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐏

𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

❝𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒,❞ 𝐇𝐄 whispers. Time stops.

Newton's eyes open and he's laying on the sticky floor of Paddy's, back against uncomfortable wood, and Hermann's hand in his own.

His nose is bleeding. It drips onto the floor below him, and he can't help but think of Illia's poor carpet. He drags sleeves down over arms, uneven bumps littered along the way.

"Precursors?" he's sure Hermann's hip hurts like a bitch right now. Crouched over, kneeling on the floor next to him. What Hermann asks isn't really a question. He knows what Newt means.

"We just made it worse..." Dee passes him a glass of water. Blood drips into it, he drinks anyway. "The Kaiju birthing pool in the Antiverse... that's what the puddle is made of. They're trying to get into this world too. And now that we've made a breach, they can get back to ours, and probably any other, if they really try. They're following me wherever I go and I fucking knew this wouldn't work. I told you."

He stands up, shaking his head. He's put every single person in this world, this universe in danger.

You're helping. You wanted this, you wanted to prove them wrong.

"They're in my goddamn head again. They never went away, and they never will. Not until I die."

You'll kill yourself.

That's the point.

He shakes his head. He doesn't want to go back. Back to when he lived life for far too long in the passenger seat. He lived his whole life for ten years as a blur. He should call Illia before it's too late. Apologise for the carpet, for everything else. He can't remember the last time he talked to the man. He hopes he's still alive. He must be.

Somewhere in the corner of his vision he sees something scurry. He hopes it's Isaac. Dennis made him leave the rat in the basement last night. He hopes Isaac likes his new home. He hopes Charlie is taking care of him, but he knows it's stupid to think he isn't.

He doesn't look anywhere but the floor. Hermann's far too familiar expression, and everyone else's discomfort. He isn't himself, yet again. Even those who don't really know what's going on can feel it. He feels Frank shuffle a few steps.

Drip, drip, d-

He catches the drop in his hand, wipes his nose. Illia's carpet. Illia's carpet.

When he walks into the basement, nobody follows. He knows it's filled with carbon monoxide, far too many exposed wires and death and danger. He doesn't bring himself to care.

There's broken glass on the floor. He kicks it away and crosses his arms, digging nails into flesh through his shirt.

Isn't that the point? Don't push it away when it's right there.

No. Not for twenty years. Not again.

But broken glass is familiar.

Not as familiar as the look on his Uncle's face. Sees Newt bloodied, dripping on the carpet. Ribbons for arms. Not as familiar as those three words he's burned into his retinas. Far too many times heard, but ignored.

You'll kill yourself.

It seems like a taunt, now. A promise broken by crossed fingers held as secrets behind backs. Like a school child not wanting to agree to complete confidence, cheating at the last moment that pinkies collide. A limbo, forever teetering on the edge, but not falling. He's fourty-seven years old now, and he feels lied to that he's lasted this long when it was all he heard as a teen. He kicks glass further. He understands why Charlie likes it down here.

A tub of bio-slurry yuck sits precariously on a box, waiting for the faintest breeze to knock it off and burn a hole through cement. He wonders what would happen if he drank it.

Does it matter?

Probably not.

Maybe it'd set his insides on fire, burn through him from the inside out. Maybe a Kaiju would grow, tear through his guts like one of the movies he watched with Mac in the early hours of this morning. But it doesn't matter how. He'd deserve it, either way.

He should have stayed in the prison. The Precursors would have gotten tired eventually. Torturing a man who's already done far too much himself for it to really cause damage. They'd give up after a while. Or maybe not. Maybe he'd rot in handcuffs and only see Hermann's blurry form from ten feet away, but he'd deserve it.

He sits in the dim lighting of Charlie's basement for far too long than is probably good for him. When the door at the top of the stairs opens, Newt doesn't want to look. But it's Mac, and he shuts it behind himself and makes his way over.

He sits. Newt is surprised he does, given the nature of this room. Maybe Mac has been around Charlie's grime so much that he doesn't really care. He remembers something about them being childhood friends, and wishes he had someone that close to him that he could love that much.

"I have no fucking clue what's going on, and I don't know about the other guys, but I'll help you, and Charlie will too," Newt stares a hole into the bottle of yuck.

"It's not that simple. I don't think there's anything left to help," God knows I've tried.

"Hermann thinks there is."

"Hermann's a dumbass."

"I think he just cares about you, dude. If this shit happened to Charlie I'd do literally whatever. I'd totally beat up those alien fuckers."

"I don't think Hermann cares about me as much as you do about Charlie. I don't think he even thinks we're friends," I don't want him to feel that way.

"Then you're a dumbass too. I thought science bitches were supposed to know shit. If he doesn't care about you, why'd he do all this portal shit? Didn't he almost kill himself to come here with you?"

"But he- I don't know, dude. I never know what he's thinking," the exact opposite to Newt, a man who says everything on his mind. Hermann keeps to himself, only speaks when necessary. He fucking hates it, but Christ, he loves it.

"So ask him. Tell him how you feel," and it seems like Mac's not only talking to Newt as he says this.

"It's too fucking late for that, dude. It's been, what, two decades? Half of that I don't even remember. I avoided him for ten years, then tried to end the world. He's fucking insane if he doesn't hate me."

"It's not too late, dude."

"What if it is, though?"

Silence, a long beat, until Newton speaks again, a whisper of a secret he's never uttered out loud.

"I think I love him."

"Yeah. I know that feeling."