Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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Newt must have fallen asleep after all. He wakes up stiff and shivering, still under the table. He bites of a groan as he props himself up on stiff legs, blinks a few times to clear the sleep from his eyes.

Hermann isn’t there.

The destroyed tupperware boxes are still there, torn apart and starting to stink as the cloned remains rot. His bag trails away in a blur of blue and claw marks.

Newt’s eyes follow it, the track of blue stains to their battered sofa. There’s a new tear down one of the seat cushions, the stuffing puffing out, tipped with more blue.

Newt pulls himself carefully out from under the table. “Hermann?”

There’s a scratching sound from behind the sofa, a faint creak. Newt takes a breath. It’s not the Victor. The Victor wouldn’t be hiding.

Even so, he doesn’t walk around the sofa. He squats down on the seat cushions and carefully pokes his head above the back, haunches clenched to leap away if- if-

He can’t even think it. It’s beyond thought, an instinctive tremble in every nerve. The tension that had kept him alive, for so long.

It fades quickly though, when he sees Hermann.

He’s huddled up against the back of the sofa, spines poking little holes in the hessian sacking, the weight of him pressing a hollow between the wooden stats. His legs are pulled up to his chest, four arms crossed into a wall and head tucked down. He trembles again, squeezes his arms, his legs tighter, coiling up to make a tiny ball even tinier.

“Hermann.” Newt hesitates, doesn’t know what to say. He lopes down, falls heavily on all fours beside Hermann and slides his legs out to sit beside him. The tendrils on his back flare and instinctively reach for Hermann, but his flinches away, and Newt forces them flat.

“I’m sorry.” He tries. It seems a good bet.

“What in the world for?” Hermann’s voice is low, grinding and wretched.

“I should have told you.” Newt drops on his belly, puts his head on his forepaws. The heavy tendrils of his tail twine and flick. “If you knew, you wouldn’t have- freaked out.” It’s the best way he can put it.

“Freaked out.” Hermann repeats. His arms drop away and he looks up, his face is slack, jaws open in small, helpless pants. He’s so miserable and he’s the most beautiful thing Newt has seen and wow he feels bad about that but oh fuck it’s him it’s Hermann.

Hermann must have seen the relief on his face, he twists away. His hands come up, trembling in shame.

Newt slides closer, gently bats his hands away. “Hey, hey.”

“Don’t-” Hermann’s voice is frail.

“It’s okay-”

“I could have-” he chokes.

“You didn’t.” Newt takes a breath because it’s true. The Victor could have killed him. He would have been as easy a target as the cloned meat- and probably tastier. But it hadn’t. “Not a scratch, look-” He spins around on his rump.

Hermann looks at him, takes a deep breath, and lets it out with a heavy shudder. He rubs his face, his arms, the back of his neck. The spines stand up, Hermann wraps his arms around himself and this time his breath comes out raw, ragged- a cry.

“Hey- hey-” Newt forgets the Victor, the trembling terror-instinct of the last night, and pulls Hermann in. He feels frail in his arms, the terrible strength of his other self melted away and gone. Thin bone and spun muscle and Newt wonders how he could have even been scared of him, even for a moment.

Hermann doesn’t move for long moments, his sobs breaking great and fearful as though each one was rent from his body, his hands keep moving, mapping out around his body, reassuring himself that he is his, he belongs to himself and there is no one else in there.

“Shh.” Newt rocks him. He thinks, for a moment, of the great bodies of their larger cousins, how Newt could huddle against them and let the horrors of the Anteverse whirl around them like a storm against great rocks. He tries to be that, in the Hive if not in body, great and solid and unbeakable and warm and holding life and comfort in every crevice of his body.

Hermann must have felt it, and lets out a weak chuckle. He looks up, and this time, the worst of the pain has passed. “If it counts for anything, I don’t think I- it- would have hurt you. The hunger- nothing else mattered, but I- it was still there, under my skin, I wouldn’t have-” he touches Newt’s shoulder, very lightly. The tips of his claws- those deep blue, razor sharp claws- whisper so softly against his skin.

Newt looks into his eyes, and- he knows. he can feel him, Hermann and, deeper still, the Victor. There, in the Hive, curled up alone and afraid and- in it’s own way- ashamed.

“I know,” he says softly. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermann whispers. “I ruined this. You worked on this for months and- and we should be so happy and- I ruined it.”

Newt shrugs, and hugs him again. “I’ll make more. We’re fine, Hermann.”