Aftermath: 37 - Like an Ill-Sheathed Knife (2028)

Maybe they’re dead, standing in an infinite cold wind, waiting for Lightcap.

Chapter warnings: Realistic depictions of neurological, physical, and bureaucratic trauma. War. Grief. Death. Mental illness. Regular illness.

Text iteration: Witching hour.

Additional notes: None.

2028 (Thirty-seven – Like an Ill-Sheathed Knife)

Newt, ostensibly conscious, drifts in and out of his own mind. 

He stands outside, wrapped in a jacket, wrapped in Mako’s arms. She’s between him and the worst of the wind. A few snowflakes fall.

“Snow for Christmas,” Mako whispers, her chin tucked over his shoulder. “I brought presents.”

What is Mako doing here anyway? It seems right to Newt though. Maybe they’re dead, standing in an infinite cold wind, waiting for Lightcap. 

Babyfaced, bitter little thing, Lightcap whispers. I loved you to death, and beyond.

They don’t wait forever. A car pulls up. Mako opens its door, helps him inside. Hermann’s driving. 

“Hi,” Newt says, semi-suggestive, a what-is-a-guy-like-you-doing-in-a-place-like-this kind of way. Mainly because he’s not too clear on that point. 

“Hello.” Hermann strokes his hair, once, before pulling away from the curb.

“Mako was here,” Newt points out, not too sure what that might imply.

“Still here!” Mako pops forward from the back seat, her face next to his. She kisses him on the cheek.

“Seatbelts,” Newt slurs, fading out. 

“—usually for about a day,” Hermann is telling Mako. “With any luck, this time it will last a bit longer, proportionally speaking, since the regimen is stronger.”

“And then?” Mako asks.

“And then it will be horrible,” Hermann says in his most fatalistic tone.

“Okay,” Mako says, resigned. 

“Well don’ you two make a’terrible pair?” Newt says, trying hard on the talking, cracking his eyes open.

Hermann gives him an alarmed look. “Newton, do you have any idea what we’re talking about?”

“Nope,” Newt admits. “But ’m sure you’re wrong about it.”

“I hope so,” Hermann says. “Go back to sleep.”

His brain turns out the light.

“Come on,” Hermann murmurs, no time later. How does that work? Gray cement. Parking garage. Deployment dock? Parking garage.

“Out of the car.” What car? Why out.

“Newt, Newt, Newt.” Mako opens the car door. Okay, well that answers one of the car questions. What car? This car.

She unbuckles his seatbelt, gets his right foot on the ground, then helps him up, pulling his arm over her shoulder with a stretch that makes everything hurt, arches of feet to base of skull. He makes a distressed sound and Mako freezes, then presses him against the car. He can’t fight her, he has nothing to fight with, but his tormented muscles barely accommodate the slight backward extension. Also, this car isn’t Hwi. This car is MUCH different. 

He can’t he can’t he can’t; everything is acid.

Newt drops his head back and fortunately there’s car there. His muscles are relaxing but he’s trapped, he can never move again. He can’t; it’ll hurt too much.

“Give him a moment,” Hermann says. “He spent four minutes in total body tetany and he’s consequently quite sore, I’m sure.” 

Yup, that.

“Should I—” Mako says. “He’s—kind of leaning back. Is forward better?”

“Yes,” Hermann says, and they pull him forward. Why is Mako even here. Where is Hwi.

“Why’s that th’car?” Newton asks, his voice cracking, swaying against Mako or vice versa.

“Because,” Hermann says tightly.

“It’s my car, Newt. I rented it.” Mako sounds anxious.

“Newton,” Hermann snaps. Literally snaps. His fingers. In front of Newt’s face. “Focus. Pay attention.”

To what even. This garage is boring. “Fine,” Newt says, affronted. It just sounds whiny when it comes out though.

“Poor Newt,” Mako murmurs, sounding sad.

God, it hurts to walk. What’s wrong with him? 

Hermann takes his arm. They help him to the elevator. Newt thinks this would be a good place to sit down but Hermann and Mako don’t agree. 

“Is it usually like this?” Mako pins Newt against a wall so his knees can’t bend.

“No,” Hermann says through gritted teeth. “He is typically not this bad. You picked a particularly propitious postictal period in which to make your visit. I’m not sure I’d have been able to manage him on my own.” 

“Maybe Newt should get the credit,” Mako says. “He waited for me.”

“Perhaps so,” Hermann replies.

“What’s happening?” Newt slurs.

“Walk,” Hermann says, as the elevator doors open. Newt walks, then leans on Mako while Hermann unlocks their door. 

“Bed?” Mako asks.

“Couch,” Hermann says. Probably because there’s a couch mostly just right here, which is convenient. Newt can’t figure out how to get down there though, his body hurts too much to sit. He’ll work it out though, eventually, he’s good at these kinds of—

Hermann and Mako do something, both of them together, and then everything all at once is on fire, and they’re still moving things—it’s too much to take, the pain both sharp and dull. 

“Sorry, Newt,” Mako is saying. “Sorry sorry sorry.” 

Rain outside. The rain. Lightcap. Mako runs toward him sprinting through falling water. He sweeps her up in his arms.

A haze of times come and go, different levels of clear. Mako and Hermann sit together with cups of tea. Mako cleans the windows, humming as she goes, Hermann yells at her for helping too much, she laughs. Mako reads while Hermann gently presses on Newt’s sore muscles. 

Newt, all of a sudden, wakes up to an actual afternoon. 

Something’s wrong with him. He can’t move right, he can’t think clearly. Hermann and Mako are talking, but they’re talking about him, and he’s right here. Right. Here. Looking at them. He wants to tell them that, but he can’t make the words come out sounding like they should. Complicated. 

Fine.

He can make a dramatic exit.

Newt tries for it, but when he moves his whole body rips apart and reveals it’s been coated in a shell of acid. The pain is acute and deep, so all-encompassing that it doesn’t even feel like pain, it’s a whole different class of thing. And he knows what THIS is, god damn it. And he knows why his brain is being a little shit and not doing complicated words for him.

Mako is there, holding him down, or, rather, here, and, wait, why is Mako here? What is Mako doing here? No answer is forthcoming. None at all. Mako moves aside and Hermann is sitting next to him, that seems more normal. Normal is good. 

Hermann gives him a searching look. Maybe he, too, is looking for Newt’s brain. “You had a seizure,” Hermann tells him, “It was a bad one. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Newt says, offended, emphatic, overwhelmed with the weight of what he wants to say, but his outrage and his upset remain outside the realm of his verbal abilities and there is NO REASON for this he can understand. “Yes.” He shifts, getting the same acid leak for his efforts that he’d gotten before. He doesn’t care; he doesn’t want to be here, he wants to be anywhere else.

“Please don’t panic,” Hermann says. “You are not thinking clearly because your anti-seizure medications are very strong and currently being tapered. This is temporary, Newton.”

He’s thinking just fine. Fine enough. “Why?” Newt demands. “I don’t want that.”

“Newton,” Hermann says, stroking his hair. “Jacob emailed me this morning.” 

Jacob? 

“Jacob?” Newt asks. 

“Jake,” Hermann clarifies, as if Newt doesn’t know. “He told me to tell you something.”

“You’re trying to distract me,” Newt says, knowing it’s true, knowing it’s working, overwhelmingly angry about that. “Do not do that, Hermann,” Newt shouts. “Don’t, okay? I know when you’re doing it. I know.”

“All right.” Hermann raises both hands, his expression unhappy

Newt tries again to get up, but Hermann presses him down, which pisses him off indescribably before it starts upsetting him. He can’t get away. He can’t. 

“Let. Me. Up.” Newt tries icy arrogance where logic hasn’t worked and physical effort hasn’t worked. He has to get away from here. He doesn’t want to be with people he wants to be BY HIMSELF so he can think in his own way, and solve—he doesn’t know. Something needs to be solved. Something’s wrong and Hermann’s trying to DISTRACT HIM.

“I’ll let you up when you’re calm,” Hermann says.

“When I’m CALM?” Newt practically shrieks at him. “How am I going to—”

“Newt,” Mako says, appearing out of nowhere. No that’s not right, she’d been around—sometime. “Newt, it’s okay.”

“It’s okay?” he asks, “It’s ‘okay,’ Mako? THAT SEEMS UNLIKELY.”

“Newt—” Mako says, anxious, looking at Hermann. 

Painful as it is, Newt presses a hand against his forehead, trying to figure out what’s happening, why he feels so bad, why everything hurts, why Hermann won’t let him up, and why is Mako here, when did that happen, and he was upset about something, they’re trying to get him to calm down about, but he doesn’t know why and on one hand maybe that means it’s not important but on the other hand maybe it’s extremely important. 

“Something is WRONG WITH ME,” Newt announces to the room at large. To whomever. 

“Nothing is wrong with you,” Hermann says, upset. “You had a seizure, Newton, that is all. You’re medicated and it’s interfering with your cognition.”

“I—" Newt says, now confused again, mostly because this makes sense, but he was sure it hadn’t. “I don’t—but why is Mako here?”

“It’s Christmas,” Mako says in a small voice. “I came to visit.”

Well, that’s news to Newt. 

He puts it together then. For just a moment, the picture comes into focus. Nature paper, sickness, seizure, Christmas, Mako. And Mako is watching this? He looks from Hermann to Mako and back again. They’re both staring at him like they’re watching a tearjerker on Lifetime. 

Speaking of which.

Hermann pulls him up, wraps his arms around Newt. 

Newt, for a reason he can’t really recall, is crying.