#scamandercest

This is basically a soulmate AU.

Newt is travelling Egypt when he comes across an ancient sphinx locked up in an underground facility run by creature smugglers. Freeing the sphinx is more difficult than anticipated because they insist on posing riddles. Newt manages to answer them alright and tricks the sphinx into coming with him by posing a riddle that they can’t solve. Though this leads to the sphinx being finally free, they curse Newt for playing unfairly.

“By the ink on your skin you shall know your kin, your one true love and mate. Ere all thirteen farewells are said they must know or it’s to late.”

Later that day, Newt notices a red 13 that has appeared on the inside of his wrist.

More curious than worried, Newt does some research in Egyptian libraries. Since he didn’t gain much other information on the sphinx he thinks it might be a good addition to his book.

The research leads him to several scriptures that describe the curse as quite common in ancient days. The red number on the cursed person’s wrist is known as mark of the curse that can take different forms depending on the victims perception of numbers. With each time the curse carrier parts from their soulmate, the mark changes to the next lower number. When eventually the countdown has terminated, the soulmates will never see each other again. In almost all cases this is ensured by the curse carrier’s sudden death. The only ways to end the curse is for the curse carrier to confess their love and get a love confession in turn or to kill their soulmate. 

True to his philosophy, Newt takes the information but doesn’t really worry about it at all. Part of him is convinced that he doesn’t even have a soulmate (an occurrence that is referred to for two cases in one of the scriptures he has studied). Even if he does, it seems like there are harder things than confessing your love for someone - even if he isn’t quite as sure about the fact that someone is also supposed to love him.

Of course there is someone he loves already. But that is something else entirely. 

In accordance with his first evaluation, nothing happens for months. Nothing happens, in fact, until he leaves New York.

After saying goodbye to Tina at the docks, Newt finds that the number on his wrist has changed from thirteen to twelve. He is confused because, though he likes Tina well enough, he isn’t in love with her or even feels that way about her. They are friends, he supposes. And they survived an attempted execution together - that sort of thing that makes you bond for life. So maybe she can be his soulmate. Maybe he just isn’t in love with her yet.

A part of him that he very much ignores is relieved and disappointed at once - it’s not who he thought it could (not!) be after all.

Newt’s confusion rises when the countdown continues as he moves back to London.

At first, he doesn’t notice. The first weeks back in England are stressful as expected. With Newt being banned from travelling, and about to publish a book and his brother announcing his engagement to Newt’s former best friend Leta Lestrange.

There is an awkward and partly unpleasant (for Newt) family dinner and a few truly unpleasant ministry meetings that deal with what Newt knows about Grindlewald and Newt’s - hopefully - soon to be revoked travel ban.

The next time Newt looks at his wrist quite by accident while tickling some of his savings out of a pregnant niffler, he is startled to find that the count is down to nine.

Going through the people he met in his head, he suspects that it might be Leta after all. Which - to be honest - makes more sense to him personally than it being Tina. He has been in love with Leta once. And though he isn't sure he would call her a friend now, they seem connected on some level. They both love Theseus, for instance. Though they hold his love in quite different ways. It makes no real sense, however, because Leta wasn’t in New York when the countdown started.

“It’s a curse, isn’t it?” Leta asks, out of nowhere as they wait for Theseus after a press-meeting for the newly published Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Newt raises his brows, not quite looking at her. They aren’t exactly on friendly terms with what happened between them and Leta’s engagement to Theseus. There are many unspoken things between them. Newt suspects that that’s just the way things are between him and people he is or used to be close to. “The mark on your wrist,” she adds after a while though they both know that Newt knows what she’s talking about. Newt automatically rubs his thumb over the red number six that is hidden underneath his coat sleeves. He nods shortly. “What does it count down to?”

“It counts the times I part from my soulmate,” Newt offers, half annoyed and anxious, half glad to tell someone. He doesn’t exactly like Leta right now - part of him feels guilty about his reasons -, but he trusts her to keep his secrets as he keeps hers. Leta nods. Newt wonders whether she knows something about the curse. She is very well read in such things. “Who is it then?” Direct as ever, if she choses to speak. Newt isn’t bothered by it at all. It feels familiar and he realises that, despite his philosophy, he has started to worry. “Tina Goldstein,” he says trying to sound as convinced as he wishes he were. “The countdown started after our first farewell in New York.”

Leta looks at him strangely then, for a long moment. Newt wonders whether she, too, thinks that it would make more sense if it was her. “Do you love her?” She asks and makes Newt sure that she has come across this curse before. They are silent for too long after that and Theseus approaches from where he’s been talking to the press. “I could,” Newt says and is paranoid that Leta knows him well enough to know what else he’s saying. That he could if he wasn’t in love with someone else.

When he returns home that day, his six has melted into a five.

Newt stops writing to Tina and, curiously, Tina stops writing to him too.

Newt has good reasons to avoid his brother and his fiance. After all, their wedding is approaching. Then, Grindelwald escapes and Theseus is busy with the auror department. And though Bounty is a reliable and much needed help with his creatures, Newt himself has all hands full of work with his little menagerie. There is no other reason.

Newt misses Jakob. They haven’t known each other for long, but Newt can count his friends with one hand and with Jakob talking had been easy. He feels, maybe for the first time ever, that he would really like to talk to a friend.

Finally, Newt has to meet Leta and Theseus again as he tries to get his travelling ban revoked at the ministry. Leta uses the time she walks him through the ministry halls to inquire why he didn’t answer their dinner invitations. Newt deflects, but Leta holds out her hand, quietly asking him to show his wrist. He looks away, hand clasps over the mark.

“I don’t love Theseus,” Leta then says quietly. Newt blinks completely taken aback. He realises that Leta has cast a spell around them so no one listens in to their conversation. “I care for him, but I don’t love him.” Newt shakes his head quietly, a bitter smile playing on his lips. This is what she said about him too. “Why are you telling me this?”

“He is not in love with me either. He thinks he is, but he really loves the idea of what we could be.” “He adores you,” Newt manages to say through gritted teeth, “He would die for you.” Leta smiles and it makes it easier for Newt to become really angry at her. “Theseus is a hero. There are many people he would die for without hesitation. I’m not-”

“Why are you telling me this?” Newt interrupts, barely able to keep the irritation from his usually so calm voice. Is she taunting him? Telling him that she doesn’t love Theseus either but he is the better match? Newt doesn’t love Leta any more except for the way in which you love a childhood friend - no matter how estranged. But it hurts him that she gets to have Theseus though she doesn’t even love him.

“I’m telling you so that you know I’m not doing this out of pity,” she says and Newt is taken aback again. “We like each other well enough and we would have been good together, but to tell you the truth: I’m relieved.” “I don’t understand.” “We broke up.” Newt stares at her then, brows furrowed. He still doesn’t understand. “It’s not official yet. We wanted to wait until after my job here is more secure.” Newt looks at her blankly. He is overcharged with the situation and completely unsure about her reasons.

She looks at him intently as if there is something she wants him to understand and then nods, shortly, as if their conversation ended in an agreeable way. Just like that, the spell is broken and they are on their way to the conference room again. Before she leaves him there, she leans in and whispers goodbye into his ear. He frowns after her as she leaves.

During the commission, he looks at his wrist. There is a red five there - unchanged. He declines working under his brother.

When Theseus hugs him goodbye to disguise a whispered warning about the ministry monitoring Newt, just for a moment, Newt wants to hold on to him and never let go. When he leaves the building, there’s a four on his wrist. He doesn’t need to look to know.