newtralize | The End Of Love

Newt lost his hearing at seventeen. Of course, you would be pressed to find someone who had participated in the World War and leave the battlefield with everything intact. That was just how it was.

Losing his hearing was different from losing a limb though. It was jarring to say the least. Going from a world full of music and sounds and suddenly being stuck in a world completely silent. Stuck in his own mind and thoughts. He had lost more than just his hearing. He had lost a part of him. Passions so deeply entwined in music. It made the world just a little more grey.

He had learned to adapt with it. It became a well kept secret even. Most had no idea that the soon to be famous magizoologist couldn't hear the world around him.

When he had come to New York, he hadn't expected such a cold reception. No, not by the people around him. He knew he was a nobody in a big city. It was coming face to face with Percival Graves and being treated like a stranger. He had known on their first meeting that the man before him wasn't the same man that he had befriended so many years ago. Even if they had grown apart, there was no way that Graves wouldn't remember him.

It was no surprise to him when it was revealed that the Percival before them ended up being Gellert Grindelwald. It did leave a very serious question though. What happened to the real Percival Graves?

Newt couldn't just leave America without knowing the answer to it. He didn't have the heart to leave without finding the other. If he were honest, he didn't think they were doing a particularly good job finding the man either. It's why he had tasked himself into finding the auror.

That's how he finds himself sitting in the best hospital that the wizarding community in New York could offer. He watched quietly over the sleeping form of the real Percival Graves; the room oddly peaceful and quiet. The usual hustle and bustle of the hospital not reaching pass the door while the man slept. It let Newt mull over the events of the last few days. The difficulty of tracking Percival down and their interaction when he had found and rescued the man before the man had lost consciousness.

He gently reaches out to brush some hair out of Percival's face and considers leaving. Percival was surely safe now and he wasn't needed anymore, right?

For what feels like in the first time in far too long, Percival’s mind is blank. And how could it not be? After the whirlwind that was his rescue by a familiar face he couldn’t possibly believe was really there, being at the hospital with nurses was no better. It was clear Grindelwald had touched his mind. And telling by his reaction, in true fashion, Percival Graves had revolted. Every time, even as weakened and battered as he had become.

It had to have been a sleep spell—he had thrashed more when they brought any needle towards him—but it didn’t matter now. He was resting, finally safe, and taken care of as much as they could at the moment. There was no more fighting, no more words spat in defiance. There was only rest.

And his body needed it, after all. To say he was a mess was an understatement. How he had fought Newt, other aurors, the hospital staff without feeling tremendous pain—they weren’t sure how he was able to articulate so well. Once he was asleep they were able to heal his minor affiliations, the bruises, cuts. Resetting bones had taken more effort, and after some time they had gotten him to a stable enough condition to let him be in a room.

There was a gentle breeze through the window, tussling the long curtains drawn to the sides. The room was, despite being in a busy hospital, calm. The off-whites and minimal decor would normally be unsettling, but with the warm sunlight filtering through and illuminating everything—including the man dressed head to toe in color— it wasn’t so bad, as Percival was soon to find out.
The fingers that brush over his skin cause him to stir. It’s a small furrow of his brow and slow twitch of his head as if to escape the touch before his eyes open.

Dark and lethargic they take in the room, falling on Newt a few moments later, and he simply stares. "Newt...?" He mumbles, voice low and raspy, and t’s as if the words leave him before Percival recognizes them, or the man he’s looking at. When he does his eyes water and his breath hitches, mouth opening to say more but there’s some trepidation stopping him. His hand weakly grips at the blanket covering him. "You’re not real, are you?"

He can’t keep his jaw from shaking as he presses his lips into a line. This was a trap. Some new level of cruel thing. Grindelwald had finally gotten deep into his mind, to the people he’d tried to hide away from him—the people he could use against him for more information. He’d failed again.

Newt withdraws his hand from the other and settles on his lap for a moment. He lets out a quiet laugh before he speaks. Newt speaks softly. He had always been a quiet fellow, but had he always spoke that quietly? Not that Percival would know. It had been years.

"I hope I'm real. You put up quite a fight and it kind of smarts like hell." Newt rolls up his sleeves to show slightly bandaged arms. Where there weren't bandages, there was some scratch marks and even a bite mark here and there. "You weren't exactly willing," Newt replies before opening a crooked little smile.

"Typical that you'd fight until the absolute last moment. We had to sedate you, sorry." Even if it weren't for their own safety, it was for Percival's sake. The other would have likely hurt himself further if they didn't do something a tad more drastic and get him under control.

Still, he holds his arm out to the other if the other chose to touch him. Giving the other the option to find out himself that Newt was seated in front of him. That he was where he was and no longer in Grindelwald's grasp. "Grindelwald has been taken into custody."

A vague thought of enjoying this mirage of his friend flutters in his mind. He hadn’t seen Newt in so long—what was the harm in enjoying it? It was sure to be used against him soon enough, so he might as well. The other looks almost ethereal in the light of the setting sun and how unfair that is, he thinks, as he takes in the red halo his hair makes.

As relaxing as the sight is, as much as he missed that voice, it’s more gentle than he recalls it being, letting an anxiety creep in along with dark thoughts. Why was he using Newt to get to him? The wizard had nothing to do with his place in MACUSA. Was it just to break him? It had to be.

Percival had heard the logic before. Silver words to lure him. Give him that false security. “I couldn’t make it easy,” The words puff out on a chuckle. He certainly wasn’t going to apologize to Grindelwald for making things difficult. That was the thing about being in his hold: you couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. He used your mind against you, and he won.

So Percival still isn’t convinced this is real. Not until he sees those scars littered all over Newt’s forearm, and not the ones he’d put there. He knows those weren’t there last time they met even in his foggy state—the one detail Grindelwald couldn’t have known to convince him with. And then tears begin to well up.

He reaches out with a shaking and trepidatious hand, gently pressing his fingertips against those marks to map them. A wet laugh leaves him after and he shakes his head at Newt. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—“ Hurt you. He hurt him. It’s an unconscious thing, the exhausted healing magic seeping through his fingers as he brushes over the damage he’d done.

Percival blinks through quiet tears as he does but stops when Newt speaks again, summoning every bit of focus he has to process it. A short and sudden breath fills his chest and he clenches his jaw, nodding. “Good,” His voice shakes as his hand starts over the other’s arm again. He wants to say more, every angry thought he’s had about Grindelwald, but more tears fall and all he can seem to get out is a mantra of: “Good.”

Newt offers the other a warm smile. One that is very sympathetic as though he knows the other hadn't believed he was free yet and the moment he had. "No, it's good that you didn't. It's important you still have fight in you. I think we would be more worried if you hadn't given us some trouble." After all, if Percival still had fight in him, then it meant he still wanted to survive. And it meant there will be plenty of fight in the next few weeks while they painstakingly help him recover. It wasn't going to be an easy road.

"I've had worse. I think we've all had worse." The nurses and doctors and himself. "Scratches and bites are far from how extensive your injuries were. There's a lot of damage and there's a limit to what magic can do for them." It sounds a little bleak said that way, but Percival was expected to make a mostly full recovery. Just that the healing process would be arduous and that Percival's physicality might be a little more limited than it had been before. For what it's worth, there wasn't too much irreparable damage done with dark magic and perhaps that's the best possible news.

Of course, it also meant that Grindelwald had no qualms to use more medieval techniques to be cruel.

Newt keeps his hands out towards the other if it helps the other feel more grounded. To help solidify that all of this is very real and isn't some sick game or a desperate figment of his imagination.

"Welcome home, Percival." How long has it been since Percival has heard his name spoken by someone else that wasn't Grindelwald? By a friendly face.

“I was tired of fighting,” The mumble is exhausted, shaking. “I was done with it.” It’s why he thrashed, it’s why he hit and scratched and bit. He’d had no magic left, nothing that could throw something heavy. If he had—well. That certainly would have been it, but that would have been the plan without it too. He wasn’t going to let Grindelwald have any more information to ruin MACUSA, the world, and if his death was the only way to shatter the facade, so be it.

But it wasn’t. It didn’t end up that way; they figured it out. How, he doesn’t know, after all these months of overthinking everything and absurd escapes attempts. Percival takes his free hand and finally wipes the wetness from his face, laughing some faint thing as Newt tells him they’ve had worse. “They seem to have done a bang-up job, despite. Can’t hardly feel a thing.” an ache, sure, but it was ignorable with a distraction.

A distraction that Percival is still preoccupied with—trying to heal Newt from the damage he’d given him. The magic fizzles and pops from his fingertips as he presses them into Newt’s arm with a blank sort of resolve, a need to fix it no matter depletion and strain it put on him. Newt was a friend—he deserved it. And then his eyes dart up to him.

Welcome home, Percival.

Home. He was home—a place he never thought he’d return to. The exhale puffs from his chest as he blinks down and away, preventing the falling of more tears by dabbing his sleeve against his eyes. The sniff after is short, his gentle nodding hiding the tremble in his jaw and expression some. “Thank you,” He breathes. “I’m glad to be.”

"You have time to rest now," Newt says softly. Had he always been this soft spoken? "And you really will have to give your body some rest. Over exerting yourself wouldn't help you or anyone. I believe Madame President would fire you before she let you back to working anytime soon." Not really a fire, but she definitely wouldn't want to see the man back so soon after being found at the brink of death. He pulls his arm away from the other. Honestly, he had been scratched, clawed, bitten, and even hospitalized by his own creatures. There was no need for Percival to expend energy just to heal these.

How this man manages to fuss over him when they're the one hospitalized is endearing. Hilariously so. "Now stop fussing. We should all be fussing over you. I'm not the one in the hospital bed," Newt chides lightly.

He digs through his many pockets for a handkerchief. It's one that was worn, but well taken care of. "I've gotten permission to temporarily settle here for the time being. I thought, well, perhaps you'd like company while you recover. I've also done extensive physical therapy with creatures before- not that you're a creature or anything. I- Bugger, that didn't come out quite right. What I mean to say is that I'd like to help. With your recovery."

Percival attributes Newt’s softeners in speaking in two parts: firstly to the constant ringing in his ears, and secondly to the situation at hand. They’re in a hospital, and while it’s far from a library people tended to be more quiet. The chuckle he gives is a little strained, not from attitude but effort: he simply lacked the energy. “She likely already put me on leave. She knows this job is all I have.”

That’s how he managed to fuss over him. Protecting others was his livelihood, keeping people safe. The people closest to him were no less exempt from it—and maybe they wished they were, with how much extra he worries about them. But Newt was right, he needed to rest. He could, now, and what a thought that was. Maybe it was just the medication that made him amenable to it.

The blinks are lethargic as he listens to the other’s words, peering over to him when he mentions staying for company. A thought of needing to ask why he was here in America in the first place pops up in his mind but it’s buried again when Newt starts stumbling over himself. Percival smiles, the motion small still but warm and gentle—something he hasn’t worn in months. “I would like that. Your being here.”

"She values too much to replace you," Newt replies back. Percival isn't exactly from some no name lineage and no one would consider the man weak or anything because he had been captured by Grindelwald. After all, many who had faced the wizard hadn't lived to tell the tale.

Also, Newt could tell that Seraphina had a soft spot for the man. A well hidden detail, but one that Newt has picked up.

Newt looks at him before glancing away. Embarrassed. "Right. I. You should probably get more rest. You've just only woken up after all." And he imagines that Percival could do with more of it. His body had a lot of recovering to do and that wasn't going to happen unless the man rested more. "We can speak more once you've gotten more rest." He smiles as he looks back at the other. "You still look rather tired if I can be honest."

When Percival looks to Newt at his kind words, the blink he has is tired, fighting some deep dark doubt in the back of his mind. Still, he nods gingerly as a smile flinches over him. “She’s always been good like that. Since Ilvermorny.” She could be snappish, sometimes a little too sassy, but she was always thoughtful—even if not everyone sees it.

Like Newt. He wasn’t snappish but he was here, kind and thoughtful in his willingness to help despite all their years apart.

Why was it so nice to see the other so flustered? Percival can’t sort it currently though when Newt is prepping to leave he feels a familiar dread inch in from his limbs. “Could you stay?” Is the quick tumble of words as his hand reaches for the edge of the bed—for Newt. “Just until I’m asleep,” He clarifies quietly. “I know you said he was—detained, but…” The words trail as Percival scrunches his eyes closed, head shaking minutely. Grindelwald was still there, right in his mind. He knows Newt is Newt, that he’s real and technically safe, but not the silence and shadows that followed him here.

The question catches him by surprise. His eyes widen a little before they immediately soften. He doesn't judge the other nor is he surprised that the other would request company. Percival had gone through unspeakable torment and it would be foolish to think that he wouldn't have lingering trauma for it.

Newt settles back into his seat. "Of course. You needn't explain yourself. I understand. I will stay for however long you need me, so please rest. I'll be here when you awaken." And perhaps he'll linger incase the other has to be awakened. Newt was doubtful that his sleep will always be peaceful going forward.

In the time it takes Newt to agree to stay, as slight as it is, Percival already feels some degree of shame. He’s a grown man, no matter the horrendous things that happened to him, and the other had already reassured him his captor was locked away—those facts should have been enough for him. Still, they weren’t.

Yet once Newt is seated and agrees, as quickly as that negativity appeared it vanishes. There’s still an anxiety, of course, that something somehow will happen—but the thought that he won’t be alone makes it less. Percival smiles a small, exhausted thing that shakes a little at the corners of his mouth. “Thank you.”

He has no intention of sleeping well, or at all really, but once the sounds of the hospital and Newt’s breathing finally register as normal things that wouldn’t harm him or shock him awake, he drifts off. Even then he fights himself, a halting pattern of jolting himself awake a few times right before he falls asleep. Once he does let go, thoroughly exhausted, Percival dozes a solid few hours—far more than he’s used to getting.

And his body is primed for the fallout of it. It’s not used to resting so well for so long, and it tells near the end of his sleep by the way he shifts. Down the hall a heavy door slams, sending Percival into an immediate panic. He’s still drowsy, confused from the rest he’s gotten, but he still sits up in bed despite the pain shooting through him, slamming his back against the headboard as he scans the room with ragged breath. Surely Grindelwald was coming—he knew he would eventually.

Instead of leaving after Percival falls asleep, Newt just busies himself with some writing while he sat in a chair that was far from comfortable. How he misses sitting on a forest or jungle ground trying to finish a sketch of some exotic bird before it flew off. The city isn't really his thing. It never had been and it still wasn't, but he found that he'd probably be here for awhile.

He's still there when the other suddenly jolts awake. Newt goes completely still as he watches the other for a moment; not wanting to cause the other any extra distress. The Brit does speak up though, voice soft and gentle. "Percival?" Newt had always been good at making himself seem harmless and smaller than he seemed. Slightly hunched and holding himself in a way that made him seem less threatening. It worked well with creatures, so hopefully the other would also not see him as a threat.

"Percival, are you okay?"

Seconds tick away in his head and those seconds, whenever he heard a noise, were all he had to make a plan when waking from whatever rest his body could steal. Immediately his eyes are darting from the door to the windows, both on the interior and exterior walls. He doesn’t seem to notice Newt until the man speaks his name and it doesn’t matter how quietly he manages to sound, it startles Percival.

His head snaps to the other side of the bed and his eyes are nearly wild—anticipating. The entirety of his body is wound up, ready to spring in spite of the fact he doesn’t have the energy for much else. Unlike an animal in a trap however, he keeps still at the sight of Newt. Breathing is another thing, still heavy and unsure, but his eyebrows flinch at the words.

And in a few long moments Percival’s breath hitches and he shakes his head. Once. Twice. Hands that were clenched into the sheets so tightly that his knuckles paled slowly loosen, along side the rest of his body. “The noise. I thought it—” The words bob in his throat before he takes a half gasped breath, hands coming up to rub at his eyes. “Him.”

Newt is also completely still. Percival isn't a beast, but the idea is the same. Any sudden movements could startle and the last thing he wanted was to cause the other more panic than he already probably was in.

Once the other seems to acknowledge and recognize him, he holds his hands out to the other with his palms up. A gesture that shows no signs of hostility. A silent offering for the other to ground himself and to be sure that he was real. He would give the other whatever he needed to hopefully find some form of comfort.

"It was just a door," Newt explains. "Nothing to be concerned about. You're safe here." Newt offers the softest of smiles. "You aren't in danger and you aren't alone."

Dropping his hands from his eyes, now puffy and bright, he dries them with his blanket as he looks to Newt’s hands. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust the other man but something else tugs at him, gnawing at his mind and holding him back. It’s clear by the look on him, though more so by the hand he reaches out with.

When it meets Newt’s the touch is halting, as if he expected some static to jolt him, and when nothing adverse happens he tests it further, a hesitant and trembling hand feathering over before gently rest his palm over Newt’s. Touch was clearly not the problem, if the way Percival slowly clutched to the other was any indication, but the manner in which he expected it to turn.

“It doesn’t feel safe,” He mutters in reply, flexing his grip on Newt to check the reality of it. Looking up he catches Newt’s smile and immediately looks back to their hands. “That could be me, however.” Still discombobulated from captivity. Who did that, jumping from the sound of a door?

Sniffing in a breath he stops biting the inside of his lip. “Thank you. For staying.” He knows Newt promised but he's still grateful for it.

The End Of Love

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