Chapter Text
The signs had been there all along. Really, in the end, it had been his very own fault that everything had went so monumentally wrong. If there was a PhD for the ability to ignore red flags and walk straight into one's doom with a big stupid grin, he'd have it.
Newton Artemis Fido Lurch Scamander had been known for living just a little bit too close to the edge when he was a rich little kid back in London. Skipping middle school classes to go to the zoo or breaking into a circus at night to free the caged (and very much dangerous) animals held there, weren't a rare occurrence. His parents didn't know what to do with him, especially, since their first son had turned out to be such a success – Theseus, ever the favourite – and found it therefore inexplicable how he himself managed to turn into such a failure. He was awkward and isolated, didn't care about school, talked to animals and was not interested to succumb to the family tradition that would have entailed him joining the military.
His oddness had been cute when he was 5 but gradually turned less and less bearable until his parents reached the point in which they dragged him to a Psychologist who glued the “autistic” tag onto his forehead in their very first session. From that point on, Newt gave up on trying to please his parents completely and didn't even bother to camouflage his disinterest in school and people and everything that was dear to them. The police regularly dragged him home after catching him trying to break into the zoo at night or finding him already in deep one-sided conversations with the local monkeys in the morning.
So yes, he had been known for living on the edge – He wondered if anyone had been surprised when he finally tumbled, what with running away at the age of 15 and bribing his way from London to Texas – A story he once felt quite proud of but lost its appeal over the years.
Newt never did finish school, instead, he worked on several ranches, hitch-hiked from place to place and – tempted by the idea of quick money and dangerous animals – decided to try out Rodeo. He hadn't been bad but, well, he guessed he could have been better. Even after a year, people saw him as nothing but a joke anyway – A British lanky cowboy trying to become a Rodeo king, that boy must be out of his mind.
In the end, they had been right.
It was the 14th of August, he remembered the sun leaving a pink tint on his skin as he barely managed to spend a second on the bull's back before his Rodeo career as well as his chances to find work at some other ranch were ruined violently. It was the moment his right leg and hip were broken and his knee crushed by the bull's hooves, that he really did feel like the embodiment of a bad joke.
The Rodeo clown got fired, Newt dragged to the hospital and that was that.
At just 23, he already felt like his life was basically over. Newt wasn't a British cowboy anymore, no, the joke had turned even better than that. Now, he was a British gimp in a cowboy costume. Of course, his limp made it impossible for him to find jobs that depended on strong bones and muscles of steel. Sadly, those were pretty much the only decent jobs that didn't require any scholar education.
After 8 years of being away, he finally contacted his parents. Sometimes, he wondered what their reaction had been like, what their faces had looked like as they realised they had gotten a letter from the failure that once had been their son – He never did find out, but he didn't care that much as his hospital bills were paid and they sent him enough money to afford a stinky motel room and a lousy burger once in a while.
After almost two months in which his search for a somewhat decent job turned out to be as fruitless as expected, he decided to leave El Paso.
Taking the bus, he eventually ended up in Austin.
It felt like a stroke of luck as he managed to get a job as a bartender, even though, he felt like his leg was killing him from all the standing around he had to do. His boss seemed to like him well enough, though, he didn't particularly enjoy the guy's random comments.
“Newt's a good boy,” he would sometimes tell a drunken customer, clapping him on the back and making him spill some whiskey. “'s not exactly the brightest bulb in the box, but this British skinny piece of ass works like a damn Mexican, let me tell ya!”
Even though, some of his comments made the vein on his temple pulse in irritation, he always smiled and kept his mouth shut, sometimes even laughed along with the man just to get him off his back. Fortunately, things got better after a year. The customers got used to him and his limp, his boss decided the “British Mexican”-jokes weren't so funny anymore and he himself slowly started to enjoy life again. Still. He was lonely.
“Scamander,” his boss mumbled one day, cigarette dangling from his lips, as he nursed a whiskey, sitting at the bar. Newt didn't stop cleaning tables but hummed once to indicate he was listening. “Y'ain't got no family, right?” He paused. “Thanksgiving is jus' round the corner, ya know. Ma' wife wouldn't mind havin' ya around for supper. It's gonna be a full house anyway, so what's one other mouth to feed, hm?”
The thought of a 'full house' terrified him. After all, he hadn't been around a lot of people since his last Rodeo and even then, people usually kept their distance from him. His gut told him that it was a very, very bad idea to accept the offer.
He still hummed in approval.
Mr Barebone grinned.