He could feel it coming. See it coming, and even hear it coming.
Whenever he walked past the showrooms in the busy streets of New York, or when he turned on the radio or TV and couldn't change to National Geographics quickly enough. Even the college hallways were plastered with posters.
Every year at the end of march, the world changed into something that Newt had learned to hate with all his being. A big blue hell, he used to think of it.
New York wasn't any better than London or the boarding school in Scotland, which he had attended for four years, had been, but back then he at least had only been a school kid without many responsibilities, so he used to simply stay in bed all day on this day, pretending to be sick.
His parents had known he wasn't actually sick, he could see it in their faces whenever he could hold their gazes long enough to catch a glimpse of sympathy before he lowered his eyes again- the feeling of meeting someone's gaze was just too uncomfortable, even with his own parents.
Even though they had known, they hadn't said anything and had just spoiled him with his favorite snacks and drinks all day. Theseus had usually snuck in his room at one point and had brought him a new documentary about polar bears or tigers or something on DVD had watched it with him. It was the only day each year they would do all this for him, and even now at the age of 23, Newt wasn't sure if they really had compassion with him or if they just felt guilty somehow. Guilty that they didn't have to live like this. Guilty that they rolled their eyes whenever he threw a tantrum about something so trivial to anyone else. Guilty that they didn't understand him.
After moving to New York in order to visit his dream university and finish his double-degree in Zoology and Biology, Newt had found friends. The first friends since his older brother Theseus and Theseus' fiancée Leta. The first real friends at all for him.
Theseus and Leta were nice and more understanding than most people Newt had ever met, but they also didn't really have a choice there. They somehow had to like him by law. And still they failed to understand him most of the time.
When Newt transferred to New York, he met Jacob and Tina. They were in a few of Newt's classes, but they mainly met up in the coffee shop on campus that Jacob worked in since they didn't really study the same things.
It was weird, new and confusing for Newt, but he had immediately gotten along well with both of them.
Jacob was funny, nice, understanding. He seemed to get Newt in a way no one else had ever done before, not even Theseus who had been Newt's biggest support system throughout his childhood- bar a few years of Theseus being in the middle of puberty and simply being fed up with his odd baby brother.
Jacob didn't really understand Newt or why he would avoid eye contact, stumble over his own words whenever he was supposed to speak up or flap his hands slightly whenever he was excited, but he accepted Newt just like he was and didn't ask why Newt did what he did. He understood that Newt was simply Newt and didn't need to be changed.
Newt figured that Jacob, other than his obnoxiously handsome older valedictorian brother who had been captain of not only every sports team, but every team in general he had ever joined, was something like an outcast himself and was just in dire need of a friend who wouldn't dump him for all the other people waiting in queue to be his friends instead.
Tina was also very nice, and also very pretty, but even to Newt it was obvious that he had confused her from the beginning. She totally didn't understand him, but she was still nice and didn't touch him without permission, but hold him tightly whenever he was hyperventilating about something so trivial to anyone else.
Newt liked Tina. Liked her in a way he had never really liked anyone before, not even Leta who he had always thought of as the most beautiful girl in the world as they grew up together.
But he was pretty sure that Tina didn't like him the same, despite what Jacob told Newt or what Tina's little sister Queenie said. Tina deserved someone normal, someone better than Newt. Someone who wouldn't throw a fit because the gloves hurt the skin on his hands or because the leftovers that were put in a plastic container were no longer edible because they now tasted like plastic.
Newt had first met Tina's sister Queenie when she visited her older sister at campus, and despite the almost six year age difference between Newt and Queenie, they had immediately become good friends. Whether it was because Queenie was very mature for her age or because Newt was the exact opposite, it didn't matter.
Queenie somehow seemed to understand him without words- which was a useful skill since he so often didn't find the words to explain what was wrong. She simply always had ways to just know what he was thinking or feeling at the moment and what he needed, and more than once it had been her who had been the first to register that Newt was about to break. That things got too much for him. Too loud. Too bright. Too overwhelming.
She once had jokingly said that it was because she had taken extracurriculars in psychology and pedagogy, but everyone had just went silent in response and Tina had nudged her in the side as if to say shut up, you're being rude.
They didn't talk about it. They didn't need to. It was incredibly obvious to everyone that there was something wrong with Newt, and they all had only taken a few days until they had figured out what was wrong with him. They all had seen The Good Doctor or Atypical or any other TV depiction that Newt didn't think of as very accurate, but it had been enough to get what was wrong with Newt., even without high school extracurriculars.
They still hadn't asked him directly. It wasn't a secret that he would try to protect at all costs- not that he could even really deny it, it was so damn obvious- but unless someone asked him directly, he also didn't go around and yell Look here world, I'm autistic!
Queenie had first figured out and Queenie also understoodhim and his needs more than Jacob and Tina- maybe her extracurriculars had actually been useful.
For a short while after he had just experienced a horrible sensory overload in a coffee shop and it was Queenie who had grabbed his hand and had pulled him out, he had thought about what he felt for Queenie. If he liked her in a way he hadn't known before. But Queenie was only sixteen and they'd only meet up on the weekends. And she seemed to likeJacob. And Newt liked Tina.
Tina, who probably understood him the least out of the bunch, and was also seemingly least concerned about him, or at least she didn't bend over backwards just to cater to his every last wish.
Newt liked that. She treated him normal. Tina was just always there, even though she didn't understand him at all and sometimes got frustrated with him. She was never angry at him, but she was sometimes just annoyed when he was behaving inappropriately again, but that was just Tina. She also got frustrated when Queenie or Jacob behaved like idiots, so it didn't give Newt the feeling that there was something wrong with him that she wanted to change. She treated him like everyone else. That was nice.
His friends accepted him as he was and they didn't want him any different. They tried so hard to understand him and with each passing day, Newt had the feeling that they came a bit closer to the goal.
But when their first April second as a friend group arrived, something inside Newt had died because suddenly it felt like none of his friends understood him at all.
He had known for weeks that it was coming. The advertisements for special blue products where unavoidable, posters for numerous charity concerts where all over campus, and already at the end of march, people started wearing puzzle piece badges.
The friends had met up at Jacob's place since it was Sunday and they usually met up on Sunday evenings to hang out, watch movies or play games together. It had somehow become their tradition before starting a new week full of homeworks and chores.
At first, Newt had not wanted to leave the house on this day. Too big was his fear of running into all this blue stuff, but in the end, he had told himself that there wouldn't be anything crazy going on outside in the evening and that he also would probably like the distraction of meeting with the three friends he already started seeing as his family after only knowing them four about seven months.
He had nontheless avoided to put on his usual blue coat that night, even though the april air of New York was still chilly. He simply couldn't stand what it would look like to the people outside. Instead, he went with a much thinner- too thin- black coat.
He had been positive that the evening would be nice and that he would have fun with his friends, but when Jacob opened the door to him that evening, Newt's heart skipped a beat.
He smiled brightly at Newt, but Newt had not even been able to recognize his friend's genuine happiness because the blue, the obnoxious pretentious blue of Jacob's t-shirt, pants, base cap, yeah, even socks, all tagged Autism speaks attacked Newt's retinas. Jacob even wore badges with the puzzle piece and actually autistic written on them.
Newt hadn't been able to say anything to Jacob, and he was only thankful that Jacob had decided to also not say anything for the moment being as he invited Newt in and waited for the auburn haired man to take off his unusual dark coat, his trademark leather boots and his favorite yellow-black scarf.
Newt swallowed as he did so, trying to tell himself that Jacob had only tried to be nice. That he didn't know better and that he didn't understand, but had never meant any harm.
He had managed to actually calm himself a bit down by telling himself this over and over again, but when he walked into Jacob's tiny living room and he saw the rest of his friend group sitting on the carpet in front of Jacob's small wooden coffee table, he felt the sudden urge to throw up the dinner that he had had to force down earlier in anxious awaiting of what the evening would hold for him. It had come so much worse than he could have ever expected.
Tina and Queenie were both drenched in obnoxious blue items such as badges, base caps, hair ties and actually autistic t-shirts. Queenie wore a blue skirt and Tina dark blue jeans. Even their socks were blue. Again, all their items where tagged Autism Speaks.
Under normal circumstances, Newt would have wondered if they had raided the organisation's headquarters or where they had gotten all these items from, but right now, he could only stare at their clothes in disbelief, focusing hardly on not letting out a frustrated scream or just run away.
While Tina at least had the decency to look somewhat uncomfortable, apparently sensing that he wasn't feeling all too well and excited himself, and tried to avoid his gaze, Queenie was practically buzzing of energy.
“Sit down and have some snacks!“ She said and hold up a snack board full of different kinds of blue candy, all from M&M's to Sour Patch Kids and Skittles, different kinds of blue gummy bears and worms, jelly beans, chocolate wrapped in blue foil and even the disgusting blue cheetos all of them hated with a passion.
When he didn't react, she also seemed to sense his discomfort, so she quickly lowered the board, not wanting to overwhelm him. “Jacob chose a movie for us tonight,“ she said then, much calmer: “It's called aqua man or something.“
“Rain Man,“ Tina awkwardly corrected her sister with a shy voice and stared at the table in front of her. She had gotten the memo how dumb this whole thing was after all.
Newt saw that at least she had understood that what they were doing was stupid, but she had also not done anything to prevent it from happening. And that made him even more sick.
He froze, unable to say or do anything, but when Jacob clasped his shoulder from behind him and offered him a collection of stupid obnoxious actually autistic badges, he flinched hardly and stormed out again, leaving his shocked friends behind.
He had not put on his coat or shoes or scarf, simply had ripped them from the coat rack and had stormed out. He also hadn't made it back to his apartment that was only three blocks away, before he collapsed in the narrow alleyway behind Jacob's building.
He was trembling and he could feel the tears running down his face when he sat down behind a dumpster, hoping that no one would see him sitting on his own in the approaching darkness, holding onto his shoes and coat for dear life instead of wearing them.
For what felt like an eternity, he didn't now what to do. He just kept running his fingers over the soft fabric of his old school scarf in an attempt to soothe him down, it usually worked, but not today. His brain hurt and he felt so so lost. So alone in the world, so far away from his parents and older brother who had maybe never understood him, but who had still just known how to make him feel better on this stupid, obnoxious day each year.
It took him a few minutes until he was able to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone, now running his fingertips over the rough surface of his phone case that he had specifically chosen in case he needed something to run his fingers over, but it also didn't help, and he needed a new plan.
It took him several minutes to unlock his phone, trembling and sweating as he was, even though it was starting to get really cold. His gingerly fringe clung to the sides of his head.
He tried to catch his breath, but he just couldn't, and so he searched for Theseus' number in his list of contacts. After another few minutes of contemplation, he pushed the green button and waited until Theseus' voice sounded through the telephone.
“Newt?“ Theseus asked slightly confused. Newt never called him. He hardly even texted him, usually it was Theseus who texted Newt, not the other way around.
Newt couldn't form actual words, all he could manage was a sob.
“Newt? What happened?“ Theseus sounded suddenly very concerned. “Newt? Where are you? Are you hurt? Please, talk to me.“
Newt couldn't speak, couldn't answer. All he could do was sob as the concerned voice of his brother kept filling his head, distracting him from everything around him, but not from the pain that his friends had caused him. Accidentally and unintentionally, he tried to remind himself, but it didn't help in the very moment when all he wanted was to snuggle up with Theseus in his warm bed and watch a documentary about tigers or polar bears or something like they had done when they were children.
Theseus was silent for a moment, then he spoke up again, much calmer, as if he was afraid to scare Newt away otherwise. “I'm gonna switch to video call now, Newt. You gotta accept, though. Can you do that?“
He didn't get an answer, but when he requested video call and Newt's wet cried face and his auburn hair that was even messier than usually appeared a second later on his phone, Theseus let out a relieved breath. At least Newt was still reacting to him somehow.
“Can you tell me what happened?“ Theseus asked carefully then. He seemed to stand in an alley outside of a bar, a few people behind him. Newt recognized Leta and a few of Theseus' friends, and suddenly he realized that it must be well after midnight in London already. He was surprised that Theseus was even still awake and out, and wasn't laying tucked in next to Leta in their warm bed, trying to get some rest before the both of them would get up early in the morning for another exhausting days as police detectives.
He shook his head as an answer to Theseus' question, still unable to form words.
Theseus simply nodded. He didn't seem frustrated with Newt. That was his biggest skill, his gift. To be able to talk to Newt Scamander without getting frustrated. “Give me a moment,“ he then said and lowered his phone.
“Go in already, I'll join you in a few minutes,“ Newt heard Theseus say to his friends, and they sighed in response, but other than Leta who inquired to know what the matter was, they left him alone. Theseus quickly brushed his fiancée off with a simple “It's Newt and it seems important. Go in where it's warm, love, we'll be fine.“
“Okay, here I am,“ Theseus said with a compassionate smile to his baby brother after lifting his phone up again. “Can you now tell me what happened?“ His voice was unusual soft and not in the least demanding, he was simply concerned and wanted to help his baby brother.
Newt shook his head once again, still trembling and sobbing, avoiding to actually look at his brother. He felt himself blushing and he was so ashamed that he had called Theseus in the first place. That he had ruined Theseus' night probably because he just was a mess and odd and annoying and not normal.
“Alright,“ Theseus breathed out and seemed to think for a moment, then Newt could see him shuffling around until he had apparently sat down on a curb in front of the bar, happy, drunken, loud people passing by behind him.
“You know what?“ Theseus began then: “My friend David just got a pet rat. A rat. Can you believe it?“ Theseus chuckled softly. “Of course you can. I'm sure you'd have twenty rats if your landlord would allow it.“
He fell silent for a moment, clearly thinking, but he couldn't avoid noticing that Newt had stopped to sob and was only silently sniffing by now. “He says they usually live for two or three years. You know what he called it? Julius Cheeser.“ Theseus cracked a laugh. “Isn't that a cool name for a rat? Anyways, he asked me if I wanted to hold it, but I politely declined. That's nothing for me! What if it would bite me? I don't wanna die because of some kind of rat-disease.“
“Rats don't just bite unless they're threatened,“ Newt weakly managed to say then at last. His throat hurt and his voice was raspy, but it caused Theseus' face to light up ever so slightly.
“I didn't know that,“ he said, trying to contain his happiness. “Hey Newt? Where are you right now?“
Newt looked around before he sniffed. “Somewhere behind Jacob's building, not far from my place.“
Theseus nodded understandingly. “Would you tell me more about rats while you walk home now? I really want to know more about them, so that I'm not afraid if David asks me again to pet his rat.“
Theseus was a terrible liar, and even Newt understood that Theseus didn't give a damn about rats and would probably never touch the furry creature anyways, but Newt had also understood that Theseus was concerned and wanted to help his brother, and Newt never let an opportunity to talk about animals slip away, too.
He sniffed again when he stood up from the ground, wiping the tears away with the sleeves of his black sweatshirt. “Rats are actually friendly animals,“ he mumbled with a weak voice when he began with putting on his boots and coat before slowly walking home in the approaching darkness.
Only after Newt had changed into his warmest and coziest pyjamas and had made himself comfortable in his bed and had put on a documentary about rats that Theseus had suggested, the older brother said goodnight to go back to his friends.
“Hey Newt,“ he had said suddenly shyly before he had hung up: “it's good that you called me, you know? I'm proud of you, you did the right thing. Please never shy away from calling me whenever you need something, even if you just wanna talk or tell me about rats.“ He paused and the silence was uncomfortable for a split second before he spoke up again: “you know that I love you, right? And I'm sure that your friends also love you. No matter what happened today, I'm sure your friends will understand and still love you. Don't worry too much about what they will say or do when you see them the next time, yeah? Worrying means you suffer twice, like grandma used to say.“
Newt was still slightly shaken by the events earlier, but talking to Theseus had helped a lot. He just wasn't sure how he was supposed to survive college tomorrow. He was sure many people would still wear blue clothes and he wasn't sure if he could take that. Also, he was sure that his friends hated him now and didn't want to be his friends anymore, despite what Theseus had said. Theseus may have been older than Newt and usually had good advice, but he simply didn't understand what it was like to be Newt. To be awkward and odd and to have no friends in the world, to not be loved by everyone.
In order to distract himself- because the documentary surprisingly wasn't enough for this right now- he opened Instagram where he immediately saw that Theseus had posted a video of the brothers as children.
He was surprised to see that Theseus had not just posted the video now, but actually earlier this day as if he had known what would happen.
In the video, thirteen year old Theseus was carrying around his giggling five year old brother on his back. Newt recognized the event the video was taken at as the first and last Autism Speaks benefit festival on April second the family had ever visited.
Within minutes after their arrival on the fair ground, Newt had been so overstimulated by the things going on around him that he had started crying bitterly until Theseus had wrapped the red-golden scarf from his school that Newt liked the texture of around his ears to muffle the noises and had picked him up and squeezed and rocked him just like Newt liked it until the kid had stopped to cry.
The caption to the video simply said “f#ck april second“ and it brought a small smile to Newt's face. Maybe his brother didn't understand why the sun hurt Newt's eyes or why animals made so much more sense than humans, but he did understand Newt. He had known that it would be a hard day for his baby brother when he had seen the date in his calendar, and he had known that he could give Newt his voice back by rambling about a random animal. Newt wondered if Theseus' friend David even had a pet rat. Or if Theseus even had a friend called David. He didn't usually listen to Theseus talking about his life too closely.
He kept playing the video again and again, and with each passing second of him watching himself and his brother playing around, their hair equally ginger in the spring sun, his heart ached a little less and his smile became a little wider.
It only faded slightly when he saw that Tina had liked the video.
He swallowed, afraid of what would happen in college tomorrow. She had seen the video and had surely read the caption. Newt wondered if she had looked so guiltily before because she had seen the video upon his arrival, or if she had figured herself that the whole thing of wrapping everything in the ugliest blue of all time was stupid. But if she hadn't seen the video before, she will surely feel remorse now, Newt thought.
When he woke up after a long and restless night the next day, he had to force himself to get up.
It had taken him forever to fall asleep and when he finally succumbed to the threatening claws of constantly interrupted hours of nightmares, it had purely been because his body and mind had been too tired to fight back sleep any longer.
He so didn't want to go to college today, afraid of all the blue and what his friends, his first friends ever, who had only meant to be nice, would think and say. They surely wouldn't want to be his friends now anymore. He so didn't want to go to college, but he knew that he had to.
It had been part of the deal with his parents to support him financially that he would try his hardest and would not skip unless he was really unwell.
He had always had issues with defining what unwell meant, if he needed to be throwing up his breakfast for this or if the simple feeling of dying an excruciating death if he had to see anything blue today was enough.
For a moment, he thought about calling Theseus again to ask if he thought that Newt feeling like this was enough to just stay in bed, but then he decided against it.
Theseus would surely still be asleep after his night out yesterday- or he was top fit and fresh walking on and about the streets of London to catch a criminal. He had always had the ability to function perfectly well with only three hours of sleep. Newt didn't need much sleep himself, but even he envied his older brother for this skill from time to time.
He decided that no matter how bad he felt right now, his feelings would still be the same tomorrow if he didn't make it out today.
Also, he suddenly remembered that they would dissect a pig's eye in his bio class today and he had been excited to do that since he had enrolled in the program. He just hoped that he would be calm enough to hold the instruments and not rip the retina out of the poor pig's eyes before it was time to.
He wrapped himself in his blackest clothes, not risking to have even a splatter of blue on him today. The only color was provided by the soft yellow-black scarf he still had from his boarding school.
Even though he had- other than Theseus- not graduated from the school, but had instead been expelled for a number of things that mostly included hurt animals that he had tried to hide in his dorm, he still loved carrying this scarf around with him whenever the temperatures outside would allow him to not look like a complete idiot wearing it. It was soft and running his fingers over the fabric soothed him.
He put his noise canceling headphones on before he left the house and put on a playlist that Theseus had made for him in order to show him what real music is. The playlist mostly included all kinds of rock classics throughout the last century, many british artists among them. Theseus had always had a soft spot for art made in his home country.
He took a deep breath before he started humming softly to Pulp's Common People. It wasn't the first time where he just wished he could live like common people and do whatever common people do.
He kept running his fingers over the fabric of his scarf all the way to college in an attempt to calm himself down.
Worrying means you suffer twice, he repeated in his head again and again. He wasn't as sure as Theseus that his friends would actually understand and still like to be his friends after he had ran away so suddenly last night. After all, he had thought before that they understood him, but then they had put on all this blue and had made his world crumble.
He stopped before walking on campus, contemplating if he shouldn't just turn around and walk back home, hide in his room, under his warm and cozy covers and watch another animals documentary.
He hesitated for a moment, but when he felt like people were starting to stare at him, he drew in a deep breath before he walked towards the coffee shop Jacob worked in.
Newt had known that Jacob would be there of course, Jacob always worked morning shifts and took afternoon classes then, but no matter how much he wanted to avoid seeing Jacob now, he was in desperate need of a bagel and a hot cup of tea, and he had no groceries at home to make either, so he just hoped Jacob was busy preparing food in the kitchen and that one of his colleagues was working in service today. Jacob's coffee shop was the only one on campus opening early enough for Newt to grab breakfast before his morning classes.
But when Newt entered the coffee shop hesitantly, he was surprised to not only see Jacob, but also Tina and Queenie- who was supposed to be in school- sitting around their usual table.
All three of them were dressed in the most ridiculous assortment of colorful clothing items. Jacob wore a red shirt and dark green pants under the dark apron with the logo of the coffee shop. His outfit was topped off with an orange basecap and red sneakers. Tina wore a purple t-shirt, a pink-grey-striped skirt, that Newt was pretty sure belonged to Queenie, and the old green Nikes she had stopped wearing months ago after the sole had almost come off from one of the shoes. Queenie had a rainbow dress and yellow-purple ballerina shoes on. The girls also had several colorful bows in their hair and all three of them wore several bracelets with colourful beads that Queenie had probably made herself.
Newt froze in his tracks as Tina and Jacob shyly looked up to him. Only Queenie was once again buzzing of energy as she jumped up from her chair and walked over to Newt who was still blocking the door. She knew better than to just touch him, but she extended her hands and offered him something.
Newt needed a moment to comprehend what it was, but when he finally recognized the red, yellow and green badges, he swallowed again. The red one had a polar bear printed on it and the green one had a tiger printed on it. Two animals Newt loved. Well, he loved all animals, but these two he thought were extraordinarily cool. The episodes of National Geographic's about these two would always hold a special place in his heart, he had gotten both DVDs from Theseus after another extremely bad April second when he was sixteen.
He wondered how they had known or if it was mere coincidence. He was sure he had never told them about this, it was something between him and Theseus. He blinked a few times at the yellow badge in Queenie's hand before he processed what was written on it.
Actually Newt, he read and his heart skipped another beat.
“Teenie texted your brother after last night,“ Queenie said, suddenly shyly and afraid of his reaction: “She, uhm, saw this video of you guys.“
When he looked up he saw that Queenie, Tina and Jacob all wore differently colored badges with their respective names on it, and they also all had badges with things they liked.
Jacob had two badges with baked goods next to his turquoise Actually Jacob badge, Tina had handcuffs and a police car since she loved true crime documentaries and took mostly forensic classes next to her orange Actaully Tina badge, and Queenie wore her violet Actually Queenie badge right above two badges with little fairies and flowers.
“We are sorry, Newt,“ Tina said as she stood up from behind the table and walked around to join him and her sister. “We didn't know that...“ Her voice trailed off, she was clearly trying to find the perfect words.
“We didn't know that blue was such a shit color,“ Jacob finished for her, also joining them with blocking the doorway for every poor soul that might want to buy coffee to survive 8am classes. “We are not blue that you are our friend and that you are who you are. We don't give a damn about... you know... We just hope you still want to be our friend after what we pulled off last night. It was really stupid and we're sorry.“
A faint smile tugged at
Newt's lips. “You've, ugh, texted Theseus?“ Newt asked shyly, looking only slightly past Tina's eyes. Theseus lived in England and had never met Newt's friends in person after all.
She smiled shyly at him. “I hope I didn't cross any boundaries with that... It's just...“ She looked at Queenie and Jacob who had equally remorseful looks on their faces. “We felt really bad because we knew we've upset you, but we were too dumb, too blind to understand. When I saw the video your brother had posted... and the caption... I just couldn't stop myself from sending him a DM. We were really worried. He explained it to me then... He probably thinks we're stupid now. Well, we are.“
“Anyways, he told us about your little tradition,“ Jacob said and pointed at the animal badges Queenie was still holding out for Newt, and Newt couldn't help the smile flashing over his face.
“We would like to watch these National Geographic things with you tonight. Only if you want, of course,“ Jacob finished with another shy smile.
Maybe they did understand him after all. And if they messed up, they were willing to learn to be the best friends Newt could have ever asked for.