Chapter Text
London, December 1928
Through the Ministry windows, the London weather was as dreary as ever. As if nothing had changed since Paris.
Twelve months, and sometimes it felt like yesterday. Sometimes it felt like a lifetime ago. July had come and gone, like each one of the other months, and Newt had tried to drown the guilt about never having explained it all to Leta by taking on Albus’s mission to head to Bulgaria.
The brown-tiled corridors felt especially cold that winter morning, or perhaps it was just Newt's reluctance to enter his brother's office that made him shiver. He'd been avoiding these meetings for months now, sending reports by owl when he could. Each step was painful. He scuffed his shoes against the well-trodden carpet and remembered looking up from it to see her again.
The glowing lights illuminating the offices above were muted, like everything else those days.
Newt adjusted his grip on his case as he made his way toward the Auror offices, trying to ignore the whispers that still followed him.
People still stared—though whether they were remembering his role in the disaster or just his general reputation for causing chaos, he couldn't tell.
Probably both.
The bullpen had changed since his last visit three weeks ago. New warning posters lined the walls: sketches of suspected Grindelwald supporters, maps tracking dark magic signatures across Europe, timeline charts growing more complex by the day. Theseus's work, most likely. His brother had always been methodical.
Newt paused at one particularly detailed map, noting the red pins marking confirmed sightings, the black pins marking deaths. Too many black pins. They formed a pattern that made his stomach clench—a slow but deliberate movement eastward. Toward somewhere. Toward something.
"Mr Scamander?"
He turned to find one of the junior Aurors hovering nervously nearby.
"Head Auror Scamander asked to see you immediately upon arrival," the young man said, glancing anxiously at Newt's case. "He's in his office."
Of course he was. The office door was closed when he arrived, but he could see Theseus through the frosted glass—a dark shape moving back and forth, probably pacing.
Newt knocked. The door was unlocked. That seemed dangerous, for someone in Theseus’s position.
"Enter."
The office was colder than the corridor.
Theseus stood by his desk, surrounded by hovering papers and glowing tracking charms. He searched through the floating papers with one hand, tapping the other’s fingers against his thigh. A new stack of international newspapers, their headlines screaming about mysterious deaths and unexplained phenomena. A fresh burn mark on the carpet near the desk—evidence of another intercepted cursed letter, probably.
Everything about him seemed honed to a dangerous edge—his perfectly pressed suit, the careful way he held himself as he turned to face his brother. He was thinner, again, but with the unhealthy pallor of someone spending too much time indoors.
There was a burn on his neck, the width of a cigarette and tellingly close to the jugular. Newt eyed the floor again. Albus would have said if Grindelwald was after Theseus; then again, they weren’t working with the Ministry, but on the blood pact. Even Theseus wasn’t quite working with the Ministry, given his speech unsubtly criticising many of them at Leta’s memorial.
But his brother still thought this was the only way to get justice.
And so they suffered.
"You're late," Theseus said by way of greeting.
Newt hadn't seen Theseus properly in weeks. Oh, they'd passed each other in corridors, exchanged stilted letters, shared awkward dinners where neither mentioned the empty chair where Leta should have been.
But really talked? No. The closest they’d got was the look of pure longing that crossed Theseus’s face when things got too quiet, and the matching twinge in Newt’s gut when he’d remembered her last words. I love you. Sometimes, he listened to the memories Theseus had. Sometimes, he was too tired of the minefield that was all their messy history with Leta to dare to move.
The windows behind him showed a grey December sky, threatening snow. A silver-framed photograph lay face-down among the papers: Leta's photograph, Newt realised with a pang. Face-down but not put away, as if Theseus couldn't bear to look at it but couldn't let it go either.
"You wanted to see me?" Newt tried to keep his voice light, casual.
As if they hadn't been dancing around each other for months, their conversations becoming increasingly stilted and professional.
Theseus looked up, and Newt noticed new lines around his eyes, deeper shadows beneath them. Several empty mugs littered his desk. His brother had always been fastidious about his appearance, but now his usually perfect hair was mussed, likely raked through in frustration as he often did. He was breaking out, a smattering of acne on his left cheek.
Hugging him in that graveyard felt so long ago. Newt couldn’t decide whether he wanted to do it again or leave the country. Where did you put all the love, all the grief, for a person as complicated and wonderful as Leta Lestrange had been? What could Newt say when it had been his feelings that had caused their fight in 1925, that meant even now he was scared to hurt Theseus with all the memories of the past once more?
"The occamy situation in Prague," Theseus said finally, pulling out a specific file from the precise stack on his desk. His hands were steady, but something in his voice wasn't quite right. "Three of my best tracking teams, pulled off surveillance of known Grindelwald sympathisers. For what you claimed was a simple breeding pair."
Newt shifted, fingers tightening on his case. The scratches on the leather suddenly felt like they were burning into his palm. "They were being used for illegal trade—"
"Were they?" Theseus's voice was too careful, too measured. "Because my reports suggest you spent rather more time in the old alchemical district than anywhere near the supposed breeding grounds."
Their eyes met for a moment. Newt looked away first, studying the map behind Theseus's desk. New markers had appeared in Prague, glowing faintly red. Warning signs.
"The traders were operating out of—"
"Don't." Theseus set the file down. "Don't lie to me, Newt. Not about this. Not when we both know what you were really looking for."
The unspoken name hung between them: Dumbledore. Always Dumbledore, with his careful suggestions and meaningful glances. His research into certain magical bonds that might be broken, if one knew where to look, what to study.
"The occamies were real," Newt said. "They were being harvested for their shells. You know what that means in certain types of dark magic—"
"I know exactly what it means." Theseus's fingers drummed once on his desk, then stopped abruptly. "Just like I know why you've suddenly developed an interest in Eastern European alchemy. Why you've been tracking 'creature smuggling routes' that just happen to align with known magical artefact trafficking."
“Someone has to do something," Newt said, hating how defensive he sounded. "While the Ministry holds meetings and writes reports, he's getting stronger.”
"We’re not—“ Theseus took a deep breath. “Grindelwald's followers are gaining ground across Europe. We're losing Aurors faster than we can train them, and Travers won’t let up, no matter how hard I push for us to de-escalate and focus on the cases. And even if we do—"
He cut himself off, but Newt heard the unspoken words anyway. We're still burying our dead.
"Just because—" Newt began.
"Because what? Because since Paris—"
"Don't." Newt snapped it out without thinking. The memories hit him like a flash grenade, bright and blinding and too much, and years of being lectured about the messes he’d made only guided his hand to the first logical assumption. "Don't blame me or Albus for what happened there. If you hadn't brought in the Aurors—"
He cut himself off at the look on Theseus's face—not anger, as he'd expected, at Newt saying what he’d never dared to say aloud before, but something worse.
Something hollow.
Theseus stared at him, something flickering behind his eyes. "I was going to say," he continued, "that since Paris, we need to be more careful about where we allocate our resources. My job is to stop—to stop people from dying. It’s not blame my little brother for me failing to do that.”
He paused. “I wasn’t going to say what you clearly thought I would, but feel free to assume the worst of me.”
Newt looked away, studying the magical board in the corner. New faces had been added since his last visit, more glowing threads connecting them in an ever-expanding web of conspiracy and violence.
"You’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you?” Theseus added.
"You've been avoiding everyone," Newt mumbled. "Buried in your work, chasing every possible lead—"
"Because people are depending on me to prevent another massacre. Because I can't let him—"
Theseus stood and slammed his hand down on the open drawer of his metal filing cabinet, making them both jump: Theseus as if he hadn’t done it at all. The silence that followed was deafening. Theseus closed his eyes briefly, examining where his knuckles had split on the edge of the metal drawer, and then sat again. He touched his bleeding hand to his mouth and tasted it.
"I'm sorry," he said finally, his voice carefully modulated again. "That was...inappropriate. But Newt, since Paris, we've lost twenty-three agents to Grindelwald's cause. Twenty-three of our own, turned or killed.”
He pulled a year-old newspaper from his desk drawer. Newt recognised it. The paper from the day after the rally in Paris. On the front page, a simple list of thirty-nine names: every Auror and civilian killed in Paris other than one.
Leta Lestrange. She’d been left off the list and Newt knew why. Theseus was still shocked at it; Newt wasn’t. They were afraid that a Lestrange might become a martyr for the cause.
But she wasn’t joining him, Theseus had burst out once when they’d tried to talk about it. She wasn’t.
Do you think the Ministry cares about the truth? Newt had said.
I know they don’t, his older brother had said, but I do.
Newt swallowed hard. "I didn't know."
"No." Theseus shuffled papers on his desk, not meeting Newt's eyes. "You've been rather busy with your creatures. As always. You’ve picked your side, and I suppose it’s rather far away from the justice we’re trying to get here. Secret, isn’t it? Secret and the like.”
The accusation hung unspoken between them.
"At least I was trying to save something," Newt said, the words bitter on his tongue. "Not just, um, not just following Ministry protocols while everything burned."
His time with Albus had only sharpened his feelings about the Ministry. His professor had asked him if they should bring Theseus in, if he could be trusted.
I don’t know, Newt had said, but he’d said it with finality. Being around Theseus was like being around Leta. The two were attached in their grief, in their—in their quality, their selfhood—even though one was alive and one was dead.
Theseus straightened the papers on his desk, and that sleeve caught again, making him wince. “Every dark wizard, every illegal operation, every shadow market dealing in blood and pain. He's pulling them all into his orbit, using them, corrupting them, and we can't—I can't—"
He stopped, pressing his fingers to his temples.
"Everything will be lost if we don't stop him. Everything we're trying to protect, everything we're trying to save. All of it, gone in fire and darkness because we didn't have enough people in the right places at the right times."
Theseus was rigid, every line of his body screaming tension. There was something—something not quite right about the way he held himself. It was a gut instinct Newt had for injuries not quite perceptible by the naked eye.
"You're working too hard," Newt said carefully. "When was the last time you took a break?"
"We don't have time for breaks." Theseus gestured at the maps on his walls. "Every day he gains more ground, more followers. Every day we fall further behind."
"Thee—"
"Don't," Theseus whispered. "Please don't. Not when you've barely looked at me in months. Not when you couldn't even stay for the whole memorial service. Not when—"
His sleeve caught again as he moved, and this time, the wince was unmistakable.
Newt flinched. "I've been busy—"
"We're all busy." Theseus stood and went to study one of his maps. "Some of us don't have the luxury of choosing what we're busy with."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" Theseus traced a line of red pins with one finger. "The Ministry, the law, everything we thought we could count on. It's all falling apart.”
"I'm trying to help," Newt said quietly. "In my own way."
Theseus looked away. “I know. I suspect I know what you’re doing, with Albus.”
But it wasn’t that sharp comment that Newt didn't mean to notice. It was Theseus himself. He'd been carefully not noticing things about Theseus for years, always hurt when his brother eventually lashed out and pushed him away for daring to see. But something about the way Theseus held himself—the straightening of the fabric over his arms, the stiffness—
He was injured. How?
The revelation hit like a stunning spell.
"Show me your arms," he demanded.
Theseus went very still. "What?"
"Your arms," Newt repeated.
"Don't be ridiculous," Theseus said, but his hand moved to his left sleeve. "We're discussing the—"
"I don't care. What have you done? You’ve done something."
He would never expect it of Theseus, but Newt had once had a habit of biting himself as a child, and he suspected. He suspected as he never had before. It was the kind of behaviour he recognised more in animals than humans: the kind that was never really talked about, when it came to the society of wixen, other than in hushed tones and quiet institutional referrals.
"Well," Theseus said. He hastily went to his desk and began to stack his files. "I have another meeting—"
It was transparent enough that Newt immediately knew something was wrong.
"Show me!" The shout burst out of Newt with such force that Theseus actually flinched.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, slowly, Theseus set down his papers.
"Little brother," he started, his voice carefully measured, "I don't know what you think you saw—"
"Roll up your sleeves."
"This is hardly the time or place—"
Newt closed the distance between them in two quick strides and flung himself around the desk. Theseus tried to back away, but his legs hit his chair, trapping him. He glanced from side to side, breathing fast.
But Newt was already reaching for him, fingers grasping at his sleeve. Theseus nearly knocking over his inkwell jerking away, but Newt had spent years handling creatures far stronger than his brother, and he caught Theseus's left sleeve, and before Theseus could react, he magically vanished his suit jacket, popped the buttons of the cuff, and shoved the starched fabric up to the elbow.
They both froze. Theseus was panting as if he’d run a marathon, shivering a little now he was only in his shirt and waistcoat. His mouth opened and closed, but there was nothing to say.
The cuts were fresh—angry red lines crossing older, silvered scars. Some looked barely hours old, still raw and unsealed. No bandages, no healing charms, not even a cleaning spell. Just open wounds exposed to fabric and air.
"You didn't even..." Newt's voice failed him. "You didn't even try to heal them."
Theseus jerked his arm back, but Newt's grip was iron-tight around his wrist.
"Let go," Theseus said, but his voice had lost its authority, becoming something small and desperate.
"Other arm," Newt demanded.
"No—"
But Newt was already reaching with his free hand, and Theseus couldn't defend both arms at once without hurting his brother. They struggled briefly again, Theseus trying to twist away, Newt pursuing with grim determination.
"Stop fighting me!" Newt's voice cracked. "Just stop—"
They stumbled against the bookshelf, sending several volumes clattering to the floor.
"Let go!" Theseus tried to pull free, but the movement made him wince.
He caught Theseus's other sleeve and yanked it up, revealing more cuts—these ones shallower, but no less precise. On his wand arm, done with his non-dominant hand.
They stood there, locked in their awkward position—Newt gripping both Theseus's wrists, Theseus half-turned away but unable to break free without actually fighting his brother.
"Merlin," Newt breathed. “You could get permanent damage.”
"There is some." Theseus's voice was barely audible, his eyes fixed on the floor. "Some nerve damage. In my left hand. The little finger mostly."
Newt's grip on Theseus's wrists loosened. "What?"
"It's fine most of the time," Theseus added quickly, still not meeting his eyes. "Just when I'm tired, or stressed, or cold. I lose some sensation, some fine motor control. Nothing that affects my work. I'm very careful about that. Don’t carry hot drinks with it.”
"Why didn't you tell me?"
They’d never really told one another anything.
Theseus huffed out a tight breath. "Last summer—I wrote to you about nerve healing in creatures. Asked if you'd encountered any remedies in your work."
A memory surfaced. The letter had arrived while he was in Peru, tracking a particularly dangerous group of traffickers. He remembered the parchment, Theseus's usually neat handwriting slightly shaky:
Dear Newt,
I hope this finds you well. I wondered if I might ask for your expertise on something. In your work with injured creatures, have you encountered any particularly effective remedies for nerve damage? Specifically in extremities—paws, wings, anything requiring fine motor control?
I'm working on a case involving some rescued creatures (nothing too exciting, I'm afraid, just some mishandled pets), and one has some deterioration in its front paw. The healers at the sanctuary say the damage may be permanent, but I thought perhaps you might know of alternative treatments from your travels.
Particularly interested in any remedies that might help with loss of sensation or temperature sensitivity. Also any thoughts on maintaining function when the damage is more pronounced during periods of stress or fatigue.
Just if you happen to have encountered anything relevant in your work.
Hope your research is going well.
Your brother,
Theseus
P.S. Do be careful out there. I hear the mountains can be rather dangerous this time of year.
"I never answered," Newt whispered. "I was tracking those traffickers, and I meant to write back, but then..."
"It's alright," Theseus said. "I did lie about the reason. You couldn't have known."
"All those specific details—stress, fatigue, temperature sensitivity—“
"You weren't meant to know."
Newt's face crumpled, but Theseus pressed on, surprisingly honest. Or maybe not surprisingly honest—because if his brother was a terrible liar, then he’d been being honest in his own way, all along.
“That's why I wrote it that way,” Theseus said calmly. “Plausible deniability. If you didn't answer, I could tell myself you were just busy, not that you'd rejected my attempt to ask for help. And if you did answer—if you did answer, I could pretend it was just professional interest."
"You—“ Newt felt hot, cold, and faint, all at once. "You bloody hypocrite. All these years of being perfect, of doing everything right, and you're—you're—“
"Like you don’t get injured and hide it from me. Like you ever— Newt, you—“
"You don't get to 'Newt' me, not now!"
Theseus's face had gone very pale. "Keep your voice down."
"Why?" Newt demanded, his voice rising further. "Afraid, um, afraid someone will hear? Afraid they'll know the great Theseus Scamander isn't as in—infallible as he pretends to be?"
"Please," Theseus whispered, but Newt was beyond stopping.
"How long?" he said. "How long have you been doing this? While lecturing me about being careful? While trying to make me proper and safe and normal?"
"I wasn't.”
"You were. You always are! Perfect Theseus, with his perfect life and his perfect job and his perfect—perfect—" Newt's voice broke on a sob. "Perfect cuts all in a row!"
Theseus flinched as if struck. "I can explain."
"Explain what?" Newt blinked back hot, angry tears. "Explain how you can sit there bleeding while expecting me to be better?"
"I never expected you to be better," Theseus said. "I just wanted you to be safe."
"Safe?" Newt laughed. "Like you're being safe?"
"That's different."
"How?"
They stared at each other across the office, the air heavy with their shared, unspoken grief.
"Get out," Theseus said, straightening up.
“No.”
"I said get out."
Newt dug in his heels. Theseus would never have him officially escorted out of the building, and Newt wasn’t going to leave. "How long have you been doing this to yourself? I recognise guilt when I see it. I know you feel guilty.”
Something more vulnerable blossomed in Theseus’s face, then snapped closed like a steel trap. "Interesting. You’ve never said. But, still, you don't understand."
"Then explain it to me!" Newt's voice cracked. "Explain why you’re cutting yourself up like...like..."
"Like what?" Theseus's voice was brittle. "Like someone who needs to be in an asylum? Like someone with the same blood you have? Like someone who can't do anything right? Like someone who keeps failing the only person left who—"
He cut himself off, turning away.
"The only person who what?" Newt pressed, his heart pounding.
"The only person who matters," Theseus whispered. “To have some kind of relationship beyond civil nods in Ministry corridors. To understand why you can barely look at me anymore. Even after…after Leta.”
Newt felt as though he’d been struck directly in the chest, like someone had taken his heart and squeezed. "That's not..."
Theseus looked as though he was evaluating a case file, hints of exasperation twitching in the fine lines around his mouth. "Not what? Not fair? Well, neither is finding out my little brother would rather work with strangers, risk his life in foreign countries, and do anything other than spend time with me.”
"I am trying to protect myself," Newt mumbled.
"But I’m trying to protect you,” Theseus said, raising both his hands. “We lost her, Newt. She loved…someone. That means something. It has to. It means there’s only the two of us, now, if there ever was the three.”
It was a low blow, but Newt took it. "Protect me,” he said. “Um, protect—protect me.”
Theseus seemed to deflate suddenly, sinking back into his chair. "It makes sense," he said. "Listen. You're not...this isn't about fixing you."
"Then what is it about?" Newt demanded. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"
"Because I failed!" Theseus shouted, his composure finally cracking. "Because I'm supposed to protect you, to be there for you, to be the brother you need, and I keep failing! Because every time you run from me, every time you look at me with fear instead of trust, I know it's my fault! I failed her, I failed everyone who died that night, and now, my own brother can't trust me to..."
He trailed off, but Newt heard the rest anyway.
Can't trust me to love him. Can't trust me not to break him.
Newt stepped back. He pressed a hand to his mouth and had to turn away, to face towards the door, just to remind himself it was there. He blinked hard, his breathing suddenly tight in his chest.
"Merlin, Thes," he whispered.
Newt heard Theseus swallow, and then, painfully, ironically, his brother repeated: "I’ve already said—you should go."
"No."
"Newt.” Theseus’s voice took on that careful, controlled tone that Newt suddenly realised meant his brother was barely holding himself together. "Everything is fine. You might as well go."
"Everything is not fine! You're hurting yourself! No one has to hurt themselves to be worthy of... of..."
"Of what?" Theseus asked when Newt couldn't continue. "Of love? Of family? Of you?"
The last word hung between them like a curse.
"It's under control,” Theseus added. Newt turned; Theseus rolled down his sleeve to cover up his arm again with medical precision, and that he had forgotten to do so at all spoke volumes. “Surely there's something I can do, to fix—"
"Fix what? Your need to control everything?"
"Look what happens when I don't have it. Yes, people die, but look at you. You run, you hide, you can barely stand to be in the same room as me unless you're trying to please me, which is even worse because that's not you, that's not—"
Theseus cut himself off, abruptly getting to his feet and stepping away from Newt, retreating to the bookshelf.
"Not what?" Newt asked, a flicker of hurt seeping through his fear. "Not what you want? Not what you think I should be?"
"Not who you are," Theseus said. "Not my wild little brother who never needed anyone's approval. Who was always strong enough to be himself."
Something in Newt's chest cracked. "Not always. Sometimes I just—I just also want you to love me—and I hate it, um, I hate that I still need—"
He stopped, swallowing hard.
"Need what?"
Avoiding the answer, Newt caught Theseus’s arm again. His fingers pressed against the fresh cuts.
"Don't look," Theseus hissed. "Don’t look, you idiot, I already told you.”
"But you don't get to take all the guilt, Thee. I know you’re responsible for our distance too. For pushing so hard, for trying to make me fit your mold, for—"
"I know." Theseus sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes. "I failed. That's why I—"
"So you punish yourself?" Newt's voice was thickening with tears once more. "Cut yourself open because you think you deserve it? How much guilt can you possibly take?"
"As much as necessary. Otherwise what’s the point of me?”
"You and your bloody control,” Newt said numbly.
A tear slipped down Theseus's cheek. He wiped it away quickly, but Newt saw.
“Don’t you dare. You're taking the person who taught me to read, who protected me from bullies, who held me through nightmares, and you're cutting him up like he's nothing. Like he deserves to bleed. Don’t you dare pretend that doesn’t upset you, at least a little.”
"I wouldn't—" Theseus started.
"What if something went wrong?" Newt's voice was sharp and cold. He began to move again, his hands fluttering, pacing the office like a caged creature. "And the worst part? The worst bloody part is that you probably cleaned up perfectly after each time, probably healed them just enough to keep working, to keep being bloody Theseus who never shows weakness, who never needs help—"
"I'm not perfect. I'm not even close." Theseus cocked his head to one side, but there was no defiance in the gesture. He recited the words as if they were memorised from a textbook, to be repeated and flattened of emotion into simple fact. “I’m a terrible person. And you know that.”
Newt glared at Theseus through his fringe. "Look at what you're doing to yourself because you can't stand being imperfect. And I'm supposed to not be afraid of disappointing you? Not be scared of being too much or too little or too different? When this is what you, um, what you do to yourself?”
Theseus gave a weak smile. “Well. It’s me, after all. It’ll be okay. Or you’ll be okay.”
"No. Don’t. Don’t say that. Do you know how quickly you can bleed out if that goes wrong? I've seen it in the field, I've watched creatures die from less, and you're sitting there telling me I'll be okay?"
"I'm careful," Theseus tried to interject.
"Oh, yes, you're so bloody careful with your neat little rows of cuts! So precise about how you hurt yourself! That doesn't make it better! That makes it worse! I know how your mind works.”
He ignored the bitter laugh from Theseus that implied, you don’t.
“You've probably got it all worked out, haven't you? The exact time of day when no one will check on you. The precise depth that will hurt but not leave permanent damage. The healing spells that will hide the worst of it."
Theseus's silence was damning.
"No evidence. No mess. No one having to know that their perfect Auror is falling apart in his bathroom."
"Newt—"
"No! Let me finish!" Newt's hands were trembling violently now. "Because that's what terrifies me most. Not just that you're hurting yourself, but that you've turned it into a—a system. A routine. Like paperwork or case files or any other bloody thing you organise to death."
Theseus covered his ears like a little boy afraid of a backfiring car. Like the adult afraid of backfiring cars he’d become after the war.
"And what happens when the system breaks down? When you've had a terrible day, when I've pushed you away one too many times, when you're three firewhiskies in and your hands aren't steady anymore? What happens when you can't maintain that perfect control you're so bloody proud of?"
Theseus went very pale, and Newt knew he'd hit a nerve.
Newt went still.
"That's happened already, hasn't it?"
“No,” Theseus said.
But Theseus had always been a terrible liar.
"So there have been times when you weren't so careful. Then—how many times have you sat there working out exactly how far you could—?“
This time, Theseus didn’t just go pale.
He wrapped his arms around himself and tipped his head back against the wall, as if preparing to face an opponent in the ring, but with infinite weariness in that look towards both Newt and the heavens.
"Only once or twice," Theseus said quietly. "I was able to heal—"
Silence.
“Oh.”
Newt’s throat was closing up.
Silence.
“Oh.” Newt gulped down his horror, and forced the words out. “You have, haven't you? Thought about it? About how far you could go?"
Theseus kept his face turned away.
"Theseus," Newt said finally, his voice cracking. "Look at me."
In a small, fragile gesture, his brother shook his head.
"Please."
Like a stuttering frame on a rundown film, Theseus jerkily looked back at Newt, out of the corner of his eye, silhouetted against the dreary window, the picture of rumpled propriety in his neat clothes. They were full of tears he was trying desperately not to shed.
"You're my brother," Newt said.
"I know, and I'm sorry.”
The words were falling like rain: so soft, so quick, so unlike the usual Theseus’s bite when backed into a corner. “If you gave me another chance,” Theseus said, “I wouldn’t know what to do with it. So I thought sometimes…maybe I didn’t need that other chance, at all.”
It took several seconds to register what his older brother was saying.
“I would miss you,” Newt said, the words so small they barely existed in the heavy air of the office that had suddenly become a battleground. “So, so much that I don’t think I’d be able to live, either.”
Theseus ran his hands over the rest of his suit, over his charcoal waistcoat. His fingers twitched at his pockets as if he wanted to bury his hands in them.
But in the end, he bent his long legs and slowly slid down the wall.
When he hit the floor, he curled up ever so slowly, as if the energy had been stolen from him to do even that. He pressed his fingers against his face, slivers of his shining eyes poking through, the purple shadows under them more livid against his reddened knuckles.
Theseus bit out a pained breath, sniffed, raked both hands through his hair at full force. Holding them there, as if preparing to drown himself.
And then, with another long exhalation, he rocked forwards and pressed his head to his knees. In the surprising quiet of the office—Theseus crumbled entirely. His shoulders began to shake with silent sobs that quickly became raw, tearing sounds that seemed ripped somewhere from deep inside him.
Newt had never seen Theseus cry like this—not when Father was at his worst, not after the war, not even in the graveyard after Leta’s murder. Not ever.
Hesitantly, Newt took a step forward, then another. He crouched down a few feet from his brother, uncertain how to bridge this final gap between them.
"Thee?" he whispered.
At the sound of his voice, Theseus made a broken noise and suddenly reached out, pulling Newt into his arms with desperate strength. Newt found himself pressed against his brother's chest, Theseus's face buried in his hair, breathing in the smell of paper and cologne and the slight bitterness of dried nervous sweat.
"I'm sorry," Theseus mumbled. "I'm so sorry, Fido."
Back and forth. Newt’s boots creaked; he let himself be rocked like a sailor crossing some stormy sea, still not entirely able to register just how quickly everything had turned upside down.
It reminded Newt of when they were children, when Theseus would hold him after nightmares. Even now, falling apart, Theseus's hands moved in soothing patterns on Newt's back, drawing out lines across his shoulder blades as if trying to bless him with wings.
"Shh," Theseus hummed, as if Newt were the one crying. "It's alright, it's alright..."
"You don't have to..."
"I'm sorry," Theseus said again. “I won't go anywhere. I promise, little monster, I promise."
"I'll hold you to that," Newt whispered.
"Good," Theseus managed through his tears. "Someone should. I won't—won't let anything happen. You’re s—safe.”
He pressed his face into Newt's hair, still rocking them both.
"I'm so s—sorry.”
“Stop apologising,” Newt said, holding onto his brother tighter to hear the bird-fast beat of his heart. Theseus was as hot as a furnace under all the well-tailored layers. “Just stop—stop thinking about dying, stop hurting yourself, stop—stop—"
Newt couldn't finish the sentence.
He buried his face back in Theseus's shoulder, seeking out the familiarity of the gesture as it could make the realisation any easier. His sudden and unknowable anger had been the only thing getting him through the entire encounter; now, the terror was returning.
The floor was hard beneath them, scattered papers from the earlier scuffle under their knees, but neither noticed. Theseus cried with the desperate abandon of someone who'd forgotten how to stop, while Newt held on, his own tears soaking into his brother's pressed shirt.
When, after what felt like hours, Theseus's sobs finally quieted into shaky breaths, and neither brother moved. Holding on. The office had grown dark around them, London's evening settling in beyond the enchanted windows.
"Come on," Newt said finally. "We're going to your flat."
Theseus tensed. "You don't have to—"
"Yes, I do." Newt pulled back just enough to look at his brother's tear-stained face. "And you're going to let me. Even if you’re scared.”
"I'm not scared," Theseus protested, but his hands were trembling where they gripped Newt's coat.
"No?" Newt's voice was soft. "Then why won't you look at me?"
Slowly, so slowly, Theseus raised his eyes to meet Newt's. They were red-rimmed and vulnerable in a way that made Newt's chest ache.
"There you are," Newt said gently. "Now, can you stand?"
Theseus nodded, but when he tried to push himself up, his legs shook from sitting so long on the cold floor. Without comment, Newt slipped an arm around his waist, supporting him as they both rose.
"I can manage," Theseus mumbled, but he didn't pull away.
"I know you can," Newt said. “I'm staying with you."
Something flickered across Theseus's face—relief, fear, gratitude, shame. "You don't have to—"
"Stop saying that." Newt's voice was fiercer than he meant it to be.
Theseus flinched, but nodded. "Leta and I’s flat, then?"
Newt tried to push the rising, agonising ache of loss aside. "Your flat,” Newt said. "And when we get there, you're going to show me where you keep them."
They both knew what he meant. Theseus's hand moved unconsciously to his sleeve.
"All of them, Thee. Every razor, every sharp thing you've been using. No more hiding."
For a moment, Newt thought Theseus might refuse. But then his brother's shoulders slumped. "Okay.”
“And, um, see,” Newt added, “I happen to be an expert at being imperfect. I can—I can teach you."
That startled a laugh out of Theseus. He ran a hand through his too-long hair, frizzing into its usual curls, blinking hard. "Merlin help me."
"That's the spirit. Should, um, should we Floo or Apparate?”
The question didn’t seem to register with Theseus. Newt saw the potions on the bookshelf, carefully stacked behind some hefty hardbacks. The purple of Dreamless Sleep, the orange of Pepper-Up. Leta had once told him about Theseus’s nightmares. He wondered what they were like now.
A lack of reply or even attention from his brother was concerning, so Newt kept his hand on Theseus's arm—bandages, Merlin, only his brother could make him forget something as basic as needing to bandage an open wound—as they gathered their things. Theseus packed his briefcase as if his mind had gone entirely absent, taking the odd pen or file, reaching for the turned-over photo of Leta as if he ritually checked it before stopping himself.
At last, Theseus scrubbed his hand over his face then straightened his shoulders, trying to pull himself together. "I can Apparate."
"Thee." Newt's voice was gentle but firm. "Remember what we just said about not having to be perfect?"
Another shaky laugh. "We can Floo."