Chapter Text
1.
It was becoming very hard to look in mirrors.
Not because he didn’t recognize himself, but because there would be flashes of things Newt knew weren’t really there. A flicker of blue luminescence, eyes with slit pupils or teeth that were too pointed. He would catch himself staring at the mirror willing the images to come back to prove he wasn’t crazy, but there was nothing. More than once Gottlieb had caught him making faces at himself in anything reflective, and had long since stopped questioning why he was doing it.
Except when he did it in public.
“We were in the middle of a meeting,” Gottlieb hissed, dragging him along by the elbow. His cane rapped so loudly against the floor it made Newt wince. “You couldn’t keep your damn tongue in your mouth for five minutes?”
“I was not sticking my tongue out.”
“Yes you were, you imbecile! I should be thankful at least that you weren’t picking your nose as well, God knows you’ve devolved into a bloody five year old-”
Newt yanked his arm away and glared at Gottlieb, hands raised in appeal.
“You’re making way too much out of this. I wasn’t sticking my tongue out.”
“What were you even looking at?”
Newt, who knew full well he’d been trying to look at his tongue in the reflection of a coffee mug and drawing the attention of everyone in the conference room for fifteen minutes, looked away and shrugged. Gottlieb stared daggers at him, then rolled his eyes and turned away.
“Oh, c’mon. Don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not angry. I’m mildly disgusted and entirely unsurprised.”
“Only mildly? That’s…that’s good.”
Gottlieb stopped short and held up his hand as Newt tried to follow him. He looked irritated beyond words.
“I am going to the laboratory to finish a report,” he said shortly. “I would prefer if you found something else to do with your time.”
“It’s a shared lab space, Hermann,” Newt said, annoyed. “I can go back and work in the same room. You can’t kick me out.”
“I’ve been trying to get you kicked out of my general vicinity for ten years,” Gottlieb snapped. “And I just spent an hour sitting beside you while you pulled faces at a coffee mug. Go find somewhere else to be.”
“It’s not like I was trying to make out with it!” Newt called loudly, watching Gottlieb storm away down the corridor. “Fine! I’ll go somewhere else! This doesn’t mean I’m sorry, y’know, I’ve got stuff to do everywhere!”
“So go do it, you affliction!”
“Oh my God, you are such a…your face is an affliction!”
Gottlieb gave a choked sound of purest aggravation, refusing to dignify the jab with a response. He kept walking and Newt couldn’t help but laugh as he disappeared down the corridor, childishly pleased with himself. The humor faded a second later as he found himself surrounded by Shatterdome workers who were all staring at him, abruptly looking away when he made eye contact. He flushed and cleared his throat awkwardly, hands stuffed into his pockets as he slunk into the background.
It had been almost a month since the incident, and Newt still found himself ostracized. He couldn’t tell if it was suspicion, revulsion or fear that made people skirt around him or turn away when he approached, and there were the whispers that always rose in his wake when he left a room. He ignored it all as best he could, but it was starting to wear on him.
His stomach growled, reminding him unhelpfully that he and Gottlieb had been trapped in meetings all day with no time to eat. It was dull work asking for funding and planning out grant letters and petitions, but they were the heads of the K-Science department and that was part of their jobs now. Newt would’ve given a lot for a decent office assistant they could shove the boring work on so he could focus on his own projects.
He would have given a lot for people to stop flinching every time he got close, too, but that was apparently not in the cards. He walked down the corridor with his head bowed, eyes staring at the ground and muttering ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ every few seconds, trying to walk as quickly as possible without making any sudden moves. The effect he was having on people was not an enjoyable experience; it made him feel more and more like a freak every day, giving him the excuse to stay holed up in the lab where no one bothered him.
It wasn’t as though he was entirely shunned, though. Mako and Raleigh both liked him – or tolerated him, he wasn’t entirely sure which. Tendo was good for conversation and made a point to eat with him in the mess when everyone else cleared away from the table. Even Marshall Hansen dropped by the lab to check in from time to time.
And of course, Gottlieb was around too.
Newt winced in delayed embarrassment at the thought of his lab partner. He really hadn’t meant to cause another fight this time. He had just been so damn sure that he had seen a flicker of blue light in his mouth reflected in his coffee when he was taking a sip, a harsh glow just like the nodes on Otachi’s tongue. He had needed to check. But there had been nothing there, and now several people from Accounting thought he was even more of a nutcase and Gottlieb was ready to strangle him.
His stomach growled again. Newt didn’t like the idea of going into the mess alone, but there was nothing to eat in his quarters and he didn’t have change for the vending machines in the Jaeger bay’s break room. It was too early in the day for Tendo to be off duty; he would have to suck it up and find a far corner where he could eat alone. It felt like high school all over again, though just a tad more emotionally scarring with the isolation.
Conversation in the mess lulled when he hopped down the stairs two at a time, pretending nonchalance. He stood in line and refused to look around the room and acknowledge the people staring at him, and eventually voices rose back into normal levels. He loaded his tray without really looking at what he was grabbing, willing the cold knot of humiliation sitting so heavily in his chest to go away. This was ridiculous. None of these people had any right to judge him like they were. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Sure, he’d done plenty of stupid things. He was more than willing to acknowledge that. But nothing wrong.
Well. Except for maybe trying to bash that one guard’s head in. And the other guard with the broken collarbone. And he had bitten a guy.
Newt felt his face burn in contrast to the iciness in his chest, and he ducked his head as he walked to the farthest corner of the mess he could find. A gaggle of pilot program recruits watched him pass, and he tried to ignore them.
“-is he even human?”
Newt froze mid-step. The words had been whispered, but they rang in his ears like they had been shouted. The recruits smothered their conversation and stared at him, and he looked away and kept walking. His food tasted like ash but he forced it down.
It was a valid question. He would sure as hell like the answer. It wasn’t just the reflections that were plaguing him; every night, he dreamed. The ocean, the Anteverse…cities. He hated the dreams about cities most of all. He didn’t want to think of them as memories, but it was a weak denial at best.
The first one had been a fragmented, terrifying dream about Karloff. Newt had never been to Vancouver personally, but he had studied the footage of the battle between the kaiju and Brawler Yukon so closely he could picture the destroyed city blocks perfectly. It had been the phantom pain of the Jaeger beating Karloff to death that had woken him with a strangled shout.
Gottlieb had heard him and sat with him all through the night after that. Never questioning, never prodding, just offering his presence and dismissing Newt’s humiliated apologies. The embarrassment returned and turned to guilt, souring Newt’s stomach. He would definitely have to apologize for acting like such an idiot. There had been a lot of dreams since, and Gottlieb had been an uncharacteristically patient presence through the aftermath of every one.
Appetite gone, Newt pushed his tray away and stood. Conversation around him stuttered again but he ignored it, and he forced himself to hold his head up as he walked past the recruits again.
“-what is he?”
It was the same voice, and this time the speaker hadn’t bothered to whisper. Newt looked over at him, jaw working slightly. The recruit looked back.
“I’m sorry, were you talking to me?” Newt asked. The recruit’s friends demurred and looked away, but he sat up straighter and stared at him.
“No,” he said, letting a pregnant pause pass before adding on, “sir.” Newt had never heard so much contempt poured into a single syllable before.
“Do you have some kind of problem with me, recruit?” he asked icily. The kid’s eyes narrowed slightly. Newt realized the conversation was winding down into mutters again, and a spike of anger shot through him. He looked around the room defiantly. “Does anyone have something they feel like saying to me?”
No one took up the challenge. Newt forced a thin smile, shrugging and starting to walk again.
“Actually, yeah,” the recruit called. Newt’s shoulders hunched and he turned around. The kid was standing now, face aglow with the kind of cockiness only idiots and bullies could pull off. “We were just wondering what you are. Kind of a running debate.”
“Well, I’m about ten years your senior here and a hell of a lot smarter,” Newt said loudly. The kid glared. “Yeah. So maybe a little more deference would be good. And an apology.”
“Sorry,” the recruit muttered.
“Sorry, what?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“No problem,” Newt said. “Don’t let it happen again.”
“Kaiju-lovin’ freakshow.”
Anger had never used to be such an issue for Newt. Now the slightest thing could set him off. He wheeled around and stalked towards the recruit, hands balling into tight fists.
“You want to say that to me again?” he asked softly. Some of the cockiness had faded from the kid, and all of his friends were refusing to look up from their trays. “Go ahead. Say it.”
“S…sorry, sir.”
“Say it again.”
“Doctor Geiszler.”
Newt glanced over his shoulder, the anger fading. Gottlieb was standing at the foot of the stairs, ignoring the people staring. Newt looked from him to the recruit and back again, then shook his head and turned away.
“You can’t stay out of trouble for more than five minutes, can you,” Gottlieb said in an undertone, walking behind Newt as he brushed past and left the mess.
“I didn’t need your help.”
“On the contrary. You looked like you were about to start something you were going to regret.”
“You’re not my babysitter,” Newt snapped, rounding on him. “Why’d you even come here? How’d you even know I was here?”
Gottlieb tapped his temple above his right eye.
“Call it intuition,” he said dryly. Newt stared at him a moment, then sighed and kept walking.
“Fine. Thanks, I guess. Can I go back to the lab now or are you still mad at me?”
“If you promise not to make faces in anything reflective, I suppose I could let you come back.”
“Terribly generous of you.”
Gottlieb laughed slightly.
“What can I say? It’s a dreadful flaw.”
“Yeah, you've got a few of those.”
“Now’s hardly the time to start calling the kettle black, Newton.”
Newt smiled reluctantly, and Gottlieb clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder. Behind them, the murmurs in the mess rose into a buzz of talk like a kicked hornet’s nest.