Aftermath: 20 - Untangle This (2030)

“You think you’re so charming,” Hermann says testily.

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

Text iteration: Witching hour.

Additional notes: None.

2030 (Twenty – Untangle This)

Newt wakes up. Mmnot really but KIND of. 

His head hurts, someone is muttering in German, and it seems that his life partner, who is usually a lot nicer, has Newt’s arm in some kind of blanket vise? And is wrenching his shoulder in a way shoulders don’t go?

“Hey.” Newt’s vocal cords make almost no sound. 

Then, coughing. This helps his headache zero. It helps nothing, actually.

“Newton,” Hermann says, annoyed. 

Myeah, this is all very well for Hermann; his shoulder isn’t trapped in some topological impossibility. Newt tries to stop coughing, but it doesn’t work right away. Hermann rubs his back, says shhhhh, which is nice. Newt forgives him for his topologies, especially once the coughing stops. 

A new discovery is that IF Newt stays very still THEN his head doesn’t hurt so much. Good. Useful. Masterfade everything down to nothing. His muscles give up all at the same time. He twitches. 

“Oh no you don’t.” Hermann goes back to the shoulder yanking.

Newt wants no coughing but also no moving. Those two things at the same time. He’s not getting that though. “Why’re you doing this?” Newt asks. His voice is better this time, but not by much. His bones hurt, his chest is tight, he’s chilled with his own damp sweat. 

He’s sick?

Damn it.

“Why am I—” Hermann makes a frustrated sound and then jerks a sheet from beneath Newt’s shoulder and upper arm. He then starts immediately on the loop of bedding wrapped around his calf and Newt’s ankle. “How you managed this, Newton, you, I have no idea. Wake up, please, and help me detangle you.”

This doesn’t sound like a good plan to Newt. He knows what he needs, and it’s not ‘detangle.’

“Coffee,” Newt requests, lying on top of Hermann, totally limp.

“Tea,” Hermann says darkly, “if you’re lucky.” He uses his foot to work Newt’s ankle free from its sheet shackle. “You are impossible before eight o’clock, except when you’re not, which is worse. Can you please help?”

“Myeah,” Newt says, lifting his head to assess. His ankle is free and his upper arm is free but the rest of him is pretty tethered and he’s on top of Hermann which is very nice, actually. They should just call this a win and stay here. For a little while at least. Like fifteen minutes or half the day. He drops his head back to Hermann’s shoulder, helping done. 

“How did you accomplish this?” Hermann asks, finally freeing his second hand, which had been a project for a while, Newt realizes.

“Skill.” Newt lets Hermann yank the blankets around all he wants.

“You think you’re so charming,” Hermann says testily.

“Yes?” Newt offers.

“You’re lucky you’re right,” Hermann says, making quick work of the blankets once he has both hands to work with. This seems fine until Newt gets dumped, unceremoniously, onto the bed. It’s a lot colder than the human he’d been lying on, and his bones hurt extra.

“No,” he says, irritable.

“Yes,” Hermann replies, in his don’t-argue-with-me voice, but then he fixes all the blankets around Newt and finger combs the world out of Newt’s hair. That feels really nice. “Do you recall what you were dreaming of?” Hermann asks him.

“Nope,” Newt decides, after some consideration.

Hermann sighs. It’s definitely a sigh of relief though, not disappointment, so that’s good. Newt lets it go. Eyes shut. Brain on standby.

Until.

Something worms its way into his head to pry his eyes open. Gray light. Hermann, sitting on the end of the bed, writing in a small notebook. He’s murmuring affirmations into his phone. Not usual. That’s the thing that’s waking Newt up. Hermann doesn’t take direction from most parties. Not anymore. Historically, he’d been into saluting the military higher-ups. Newt does not miss those days. He doesn’t miss many things. He’s not really into nostalgia.

“Yes.” Hermann writes something down. “I agree.”

Hypothetical Rain. It’s got to be.

Everything is the WORST. He sits up. 

Hermann waves at him to lie back down. God, so bossy. Newt collapses back dramatically against the pillows. Bad plan from a headache perspective. Ouch. He lies there, eyes half open, taking stock. Hermann had been right about the viral prodrome thing, which Newt finds excruciatingly annoying.

Newt has the instinct to get up, get dressed, make a total pest of himself, trying to show up to lab, but there’s no way that’s going to fly on any level. Even if he somehow made it past Hermann, his lab will stage a group walk out if he so much as coughs. This has been a policy since 2028. 

Plus? He’s supposed to NOT torture his life partner. In fact, yesterday evening Newt had articulated some aspirations re: being good.

He already regrets it. Not really but kind of. 

He turns his face into the pillow, buries his head in his arms, and whines in acute self-pity. Hermann reaches out and briefly grabs Newt’s ankle, giving it a reassuring shake.

Newt should be good. 

What’s good, Newt?

Tylenol is good.

Not making Hermann pull teeth to get him out of bed is good. 

Other things are good that’ll probably occur to him when his brain is more reliably perfused and he feels more like a human being as opposed to a barely conscious pile of misery.

Newt sits up. 

Hermann scowls at him and shakes his head, but this time Newt nods and waves vaguely at him, a yes-yes-my-brain-is-online wave, a have-fun-with-Hypothetical-Rain wave, then stands and searches out clothes, which, if he’s being honest with himself, are really just alt-pajamas. He retreats to the bathroom, takes that Tylenol ASAP, brushes his teeth, decides he’ll get ambitious and so takes a quick shower which does a lot to make him feel like he’s trending more toward “human” and less toward “misery pile.” He gets dressed in his carefully selected pseudopajamas. He towel dries his hair but doesn’t bother with gel. He takes his morning Keppra and morning inhaled steroid. 

Hermann must be having quite the conversation with Hypothetical Rain. Newt is surprised he hasn’t shown up by now. 

Oh right. Rain’s new strips. That’s what they’re talking about.

Ugh. 

I don’t know, kids, what do you think?

The kids hiss in disapproval, which probably means the strips are a good idea. Newt’s pre-coffee brain leaves a lot to be desired, a lot, but it’s about two orders of magnitude better than his brain on Hypothetical Rain(‘s pharmacological concoctions). He really wants to put up a fight about this. Really really really. He’ll be out of it, he’ll spend most of his time sleeping, then he’ll have brutal insomnia for a week, and it’ll take a solid six weeks for circadian rhythms to normalize. He’ll be confused, which reliably pisses him off, and then, because he can’t articulate why he’s pissed or understand what’s happening he gets frustrated and cries and catastrophizes, which stresses Hermann out. It is the WORST.

Of course, if he seizes, which he probably will, that will DEFINITELY happen, he’ll just have fewer memories in medias res.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about it, Newton, his brain tells him, sounding pretty Gottliebian for this hour in the morning. You said you would try it.

“Myeah,” Newt whines, his forehead pressed against the bathroom door.

Hermann is probably still in their bedroom, talking anxiously to Hypothetical Rain, who’s probably giving him an encouraging spiel about not caving when Newt looks sad. It’s Newt who should be getting that pep-talk. And it should probably be a scolding. Which he can give to himself, right now. 

Don’t make things so difficult for him, his brain snaps, again in Gottliebian mode. This is much harder on him than it is on you; you’re barely conscious for most of it. You likely don’t even remember the worst of it. Who knows what you’ve said to him? Who knows what you’ve put him through?

“Okay,” Newt whispers, “jeez.”

And be nice about it. His brain hisses. Try not to cry when he prevails upon you to Take the Thing. Just do it, Newton.

Oh really, Newt fires back. Try not to cry? You try not to cry how about. 

The kids hiss, VERY annoyed. They prefer seizures. They would.

He stops communing with the wood of the door. Too emo. He slides his glasses into position. The misted mirror looks a little too misted at its periphery. Almost sparkly. Hmm. He opens the bathroom door, looks out into their bedroom. Nothing. He’s feeling significantly better. Just a post-shower, post-Tylenol rebound? Or something more? Too much better? Suspiciously better? Maybe. Deep in his head, there’s a building pressure. Distant now. 

He looks at Hermann, still on the phone, but watching him and frowning. Probably because Newt has been staring intently at nothing, trying to determine whether he’s getting some manifestation of his super weird non-aura aura that’s not the quantum foam, but could be. 

“Are you all right?” Hermann whispers, one hand over the speaker of his phone.

Newt nods, then crosses the room, makes a backrest of pillows, and then gets back in bed. He presses his feet against Hermann’s hip. Hermann wraps a hand around his ankle, clearly much happier now that Newt is neither standing up nor staring into space.

Move the lab to Florida, Jake is always saying.

Maybe, in a few years, he’ll be able to live somewhere far from the shore of the Pacific.

Nooo, the kids hiss. 

He’d consider the Salk. It’s warmer there. But Mako—

MAKO. Duh. 

I don’t know about you sometimes, brain, he thinks, pulling out his phone. 

::Hey Mako:: he texts.

Two seconds later she’s already writing back. 

::Newt!:: she replies. Plus a heart emoticon.

Ugh. Is he really going to do this? He’s never invited her to ringside seats to the Newt versus Pharmacology Match of the Century. Has she seen it? Yes. Has he invited her? No. Does he want to? No. Is he going to? YES. Why? Because it will make things easier for his stressed and long-suffering life partner.

::I realize you live across town now, but you wanna come stay for a few days anyway?:: 

::YES YES YES…why:: 

::I’m sick:: he admits.

::Sick?::

::Yeah. Normal person sick [cough cough] but Hermann could probably use some surprise backup, because he seems to think I need 24/7 watching::

::You do::

::Maks, you’re supposed to be on my side::

::I have switched allegiance. I’m on Hermann’s side. Raleigh is the one who is on your side now::

::I knew this day would come::

::We all knew. I’ll tell Hermann we’re coming::

::Bringing Captain Sir Saves Everyone?”

::He loves that name; I call him that every day. I don’t have to bring him though, if you don’t want that::

Newt sighs. She gets it. She knows he doesn’t want to be asking. Truth be told though? He’d actually love to spend a low IQ week with Becket and no one else. He just doesn’t think it would rile him up in the same way. He sincerely doubts Becket would care whether or not Newt can multiply three-digit numbers in his head. He actually doubts it would bother Becket much if Newt had trouble stringing words together into sensical statements. Becket would just…be chill and probably take the opportunity to beat Newt at Portal, which would be fine, because they’d both know that Newt wasn’t on his A-game.

::Nah, def bring Becket::

::Really?:: Mako sends a skeptical emoticon.

::If you don’t bring him, I’ll be sad. You said he’s on my side now:: Newt sends a crying emoji.

::Okaaaaay::

::Ha. See you crazy kids soon, I guess. Pretend I didn’t tell you that Hermann needs company::

::You are all right? Are you going to have a seizure?::

::I’m good. I’m BEING good even. Case in point, I’m texting you about this. I’m turning over a new leaf because Hermann has this thing::

::What thing?::

::This thing where he feels bad about things he shouldn’t feel bad about and romanticizes me too much or something. I don’t know::

::Oh Newt::

::Don’t you ‘oh Newt’ me Maks::

::Too late. Everyone in the world has that thing. I’ll be there soon. Behave::

::I always behave::

Newt pockets his phone and curls his toes against Hermann’s thigh. “Yes,” Hermann says to Hypothetical Rain, for about the sixty-fourth time. “Thank you.” Oh that’s a new one. Maybe they’re almost done. Hermann looks worried and hopeful, cutting a tragic figure against the window. Newt smiles faintly at him. You’re taking on too much, he thinks. You always take on too much.