𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐬𝐚𝐦 | 𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐑𝐢𝐦/𝐈𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐏

𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐒 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍 as Newt is dragged down Shatterdome hallways. Heads turn and he doesn't give a shit, although it would have been considerate if they hadn't brought him down the busiest route possible.

He's back in his fourty seven year old body and he hates it. Hates the way he can't properly see through his left eye, the way Yamarashi's face is faded and patchy and scarred and tattoos don't feel as badass as they once did now that his life has been ruined.

But now he's home. His always inevitable home behind steel bars and three walls of concrete and a heavily guarded door. No way to tell time because the lights are always on and no way to keep the thoughts out because he knows this is it now. That he's trapped in here until his brain is taken over for good.

The plan didn't work, and he's useless again, and he's made everything worse just like he always does, because it's a curse carried with him since he was born and there's no beautiful prince left to come save him anymore.

He's strapped down to the chair and this time he doesn't fight. Doesn't kick and punch and twist away from fate, just let's the guards do their job.

They forget to take his glasses, so he squeezes his eyes shut, because actually being able to see what's around him is worse than not knowing. It's fine when he can play pretend, look into the blurry distance and imagine he's somewhere else.

He can imagine that Hermann is right there next to him, instead of ten feet away or not even there. So he doesn't have to look into the eyes of the man he loves and see the pain he has put him through, because his vision can't focus on anything.

Fuck Mac and his stupid words. His easy love with a childhood best friend. Fuck him for thinking anything good could come out of this. Instead Newt is sure Hermann hates him even more; where possibly could there be any love?

Hermann will fix this. He has Lightcap on his side and they'll figure something out and they'll help Newton and they will fix this.

Wishful thinking.

But there's nothing he can do in here besides such thoughts.

Maybe Hermann will find a way to stop this and they will end the apocalypse and confess their loves and live together. In the domestic bliss that he has wished for ever since the two started writing letters and he fell in love with scraggly writing he could barely read, because you know what they say about Doctors.

Maybe they could get a dog, maybe a cat, because he knows Hermann won't be able to take it for walks very often. He would get along more with a cat anyways. Newt knows he hates kids, but they could make up for that in houseplants and tabbies and maybe a crab because Newt has always loved them.

They could move back to Germany and live in a cottage somewhere and re-learn the language he is supposed to be in touch with, but hasn't spoken in decades. They could love each other and learn not to argue everyday and not have to get up for work at the asscrack of dawn due to another stupid alarm signalling the end of days.

But again, it's just wishful thinking.

Because the day the two met was the moment everything went downhill.

Newt remembers the day in great detail. How he ran off back to his shitty apartment and avoided all his roommate's incessant questions to cry in his bedroom, because Hermann had shouted at him with an anger he still hasn't seen to this day.

Newton didn't meet any of the man's expectations and it crushed him, but that is just who Hermann is. A man who becomes so offended at Newt's tattoos and crude humour and unprofessionality that he leaves the other bawling, despite already knowing all of these things from countless letters. A man who judges everything based on the first interraction, and has no empathy when things go wrong.

How could that man ever love Newt with as much passion and soul as he did, as he still does more than fifteen years later? He knows the answer; he couldn't.

Nobody could. Nobody could.