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Never before has he felt such heaviness in his heart. As if a mouth of ink and silence opened up within his chest, a yawning darkness swallowing up every last fragment of hope inside of him. His tears feel like acid where they began to drip down his cheeks. It burns, but for once, he cannot feel the pain.
He stands there for an unfathomable amount of time, his lips cracking in the dry, smoky air as he watches the aircraft become little more than a dot of light in the night sky. When it finally disappears, Thomas doesn’t notice—he remains still, eyes locked on where it had vanished. Only when a warm hand touches his shoulder does the anchor drop back down to Earth, linking Thomas’s mind with his body once again and freeing him up to finally begin registering actual emotion.
Thomas looks sharply to the side, finding Newt’s eyes already staring deeply into his. His friend says something, maybe Thomas’s name, but it falls on deaf ears. There’s just white noise, like static from a screen, filling his head where sound should be. The sight of Newt swims before Thomas’s eyes before his body fills with violent tremors and he falls into the older boy. Luckily Newt catches him, albeit quite unsteadily. Thomas doesn’t care. He’s cold, so cold, and he’s not sure if he’s crying or screaming or whimpering. For all he knows, he’s completely quiet. Maybe Newt isn’t even holding him. Maybe he’s on the ground, passed out, and this is just a vivid hallucination.
But there are certainly hands connected to reassuring arms stroking up and down his back, pressing him to a body that smells like ash and fire and home. Certainly the words being whispered into his ear are real; there’s no way he can imagine an accent that beautiful and thick. And Thomas certainly knows Newt’s eyes when he sees them; even in the pain, the pure absence of anything, he still finds solace in the chocolate-colored depths.
“Tommy,” says Newt, scanning his face. It takes Thomas a few long moments to realize that this is the fourth, fifth time Newt has had to say his name.
“What?” he coughs, turning his head to the side to avoid spitting on Newt’s face. He tastes salt. “I’m sorry.”
Newt pushes his eyebrows together. “Hey. Hey, Thomas, look at me.” His voice is firm, but still soft. He guides Thomas’s face towards with him with three fingers and looks at him with an expression that starts off serious before melting quickly into compassion and his own type of hurt. He seems at a loss for words at first, and Thomas knows why. What could Newt possibly say about Minho to comfort him that wouldn’t be a lie? “Minho’s a strong shank,” he finally tries. His tone is strained, held together by a fragile string. “He—he’s gonna be—”
When it becomes clear he can’t bring himself to finish his statement, Thomas lets out a choked sob and pulls Newt into him. Newt returns the tight embrace, twisting the fabric of Thomas’s jacket between his fingers. He doesn’t flinch when Thomas presses his face against his neck, not sobbing but simply crying between shallow breaths. Each one sends a bit of peace into his lungs, but it’s much too little. The fresh loss of Minho has opened a craving, a raw desire for someone, anyone to fill the void. The boy in his arms is more than enough and Thomas holds him with the intention of never ever letting go.
He’s afraid he’s choking Newt when one of the hands lifts from his back, but when he hears incoherent voices around him, he realizes someone’s just talking to him. At first he’s ashamed of how he must look, wallowing in his anguish and vulnerability, but decides it doesn’t matter. Surely no one can blame him for his feelings.
Newt taps him and Thomas reluctantly looks up. In the dying firelight, he can just barely see the redness outlining Newt’s eyes and striping over his face. “They’re telling us to sleep,” he says quietly. “C’mon.”
He lets go of Thomas, who hoarsely responds, “How—how am I supposed to—”
“Just come lie down, Tommy.” Newt hesitates, and then reaches out to take Thomas’s hand. Thomas looks down numbly, taking far too much interest in the way Newt’s thumb gently rubs his dusty skin before squeezing him once. “Come with me.” His soft voice brings him back to reality.
Thomas bites his lip, looking behind him to satisfy some urge that he can’t quite decipher. He looks around but whatever he’s looking for, he apparently cannot find, because he turns back around and focuses on the Brit. Newt must have figured it out for him, because he chuckles dryly, “That was Jorge talking to us. Brenda hugged you, but apparently you were too bugged out to feel anything. They’re somewhere now, I don’t know where. Like we should be.”
Thomas nods slowly, not really feeling the action. “Okay,” he thinks he says, allowing Newt to lead him with his hand. Through the dark that they enter after Newt finds some thin tattered sleeping bags before leaving the main site and his own tear-blurred vision, Thomas can’t rely on his own sight at all and places his trust in his guide. Sometimes Newt calls to him, telling him to watch for a rock or a step down or up. Thomas obeys wordlessly. All of a sudden he’s exhausted, emotionally and physically fatigued. It takes all of his willpower to concentrate on Newt and the ground underneath his feet that’s beginning to sway.
A couple minutes pass and Thomas is really beginning to slow. “Newt,” he rasps, pulling on Newt to bring him over. “How…how far are you taking us?”
Newt pauses, and then shrugs. “Right here is fine. I’m sorry—there was a ledge that I spotted a bit back, and I thought—”
“It’s fine. Keep…keep going.”
“It’s not much farther,” Newt says a little after he nods and keeps walking. “Are you alright?”
Thomas dips his head in affirmation, saying, “I think so,” when he remembers Newt’s not looking at him. Then, after a moment’s thought: “Not at all.”
There’s a sigh that sounds like some tears could be behind it. “I know. That was a bloody stupid question.”
“Are…are you alright?”
A long silence.
“No.”
Thomas knows he doesn’t have to respond.
Finally Newt comes to a stop a minute later and says, “Right here.” He doesn’t let go of Thomas’s hand, however, and only seems to remember and uncurls his fingers when Thomas collapses with a groaning sigh. The blankets that thump to his side are ragged and probably would not lend much heat, but it’ll have to do right now.
Newt sinks to his knees and does his best to fall neatly onto his butt. His weariness gets the better of him, though, and he grunts when he falters a bit. “Shit,” he whispers under his breath. Thomas laughs a little despite himself and Newt gives him a shy grin. It’s a tiny dent against his grief. Even still, it’s something.
He sluggishly helps Newt lay out the blankets. Once they’re done, Thomas lies back on the fabric and stares up at the clear sky while the other boy tinkers with something. It’s a shame, Thomas reflects, that the stars are so dense and so bright on tonight of all nights. That even through everything that’s happened, everything that’s gone wrong, nature still wants to prove it can be a wonder.
A flame pulls Thomas’s eyes to his left, where Newt is slipping a lighter back into his pocket and tending a small fire crackling in a controlled pile of dry leaves and larger sticks. “There,” Newt murmurs. “That should be good.”
Thomas hums, looking up as Newt crawls towards him and lies beside him. Thomas looks away from the flames, trading one beauty for another, and decides he much rather would stare at the living one. The one that he still has.
They stare at each other through the darkness for a couple of silent minutes, separated by a meager foot of air until Thomas whispers, “Newt.”
“Yeah?”
“How close were you and Minho?”
Newt looks away for a few seconds, thinking hard. “Close,” he answers vaguely. Though his reply is simple, his eyes betray what he really wants to say. At the first sight of tears, Thomas’s own body begins to react accordingly and does so by copying Newt’s. “Close,” Newt echoes again. His gaze grows distant.
Thomas purses his lips and closes his eyes, the fluid inside of them getting pushed out. Minho’s name hurts so much and he doesn’t know why he even dared speak it. “I couldn’t save him,” he mutters, a new hatred beginning to bubble up inside of him. He can’t even feel it properly because he loses it so quickly to everything else. “He’s gone because of me. Newt, I’m so—”
“Tommy, stop,” Newt interrupts, a note of pleading ringing with his words. “Bloody shut up and don’t ever say that again. Okay?” His eyes bore into Thomas’s as he reaches out to grip his shoulders.
Thomas sucks in a breath and whispers, “Yeah, but…I’m sorry, Newt, please—please let me say that. I never meant for…anything…like that.”
Newt’s hands gets stronger. He opens his mouth to say something, but it closes when he evidently notices Thomas’s crestfallen face. “I know,” Newt murmurs, pulling Thomas close. Thomas’s arms respond on their own, opening up to the hug he already expected. Lying down, Newt seems smaller in shape but larger in presence. The smell of smoke clings to his clothes but it’s so intoxicating. Thomas briefly brushes his palm over Newt’s hair, letting his touch linger over the feathery blond wisps. When his hands slip over Thomas’s side and clasp in the middle of his back, Thomas finds the strength to let go.
The silent barrier is crushed at last and first it’s just sharp, choppy inhales. But then they get deeper and louder and stuffier when the sobs hit him and his throat clogs up and he can’t see anymore. Newt whispers, “Oh, Tommy,” in his ear before rubbing his back, letting each of his knuckles skim over the ridges of Thomas’s spine. It’s such an intimate gesture that it breaks down whatever remains of the younger boy’s defenses, giving him the confidence to cry louder. It’s just him and Newt, and Thomas knows that with him, especially now, he’s safer than he’s been since…
Since the moment he woke up in the Glade, he supposes.
They shift in position and Newt cradles Thomas’s head against his neck, snug underneath his chin. Thomas lifts a hand and finds a spot on the nape of the other boy’s neck that makes Newt shiver against him. Something wet splashes onto his hair, and Thomas realizes the shiver came from Newt letting go, too. The sudden desire to kiss his neck fills Thomas from head to toe, and it takes all of whatever self control exists in him to repress it. He can’t, however, stop himself from letting his lips gingerly ghost over Newt’s skin. Another quick shudder quakes the older boy’s body.
As Thomas’s cries gradually die down in volume and intensity, Newt strokes his head and tilts it up. He leans back so Thomas can see him and the moisture in his eyes and face as he says in a low voice, “Don’t feel guilty for Minho. You know he wouldn’t want that.”
“That won’t stop me from wanting to make it right,” Thomas says just as quietly, entranced by the glitter of moonlight in the eyes looking down at him.
A shadow of a smile pulls at Newt’s lips. Thomas watches them with each syllable that Newt responds with. “Good that, Tommy.”
Thomas lets out a long sigh, all his tears depleted. He drops his forehead back against Newt’s neck and reaches up to find his face, pulling it down until Newt’s head rested on his. Then he reaches over Newt’s body, having to press entirely against him to get the right leverage, to fish around for another blanket. Newt doesn’t say a word, and the heat that begins to thaw Thomas’s face tells him that he doesn’t mind at all.
Thomas’s fingers hook around a strip of cloth and he brings it up and over both of their bodies, not sparing any room between them. Just as he expected, it doesn’t lend much insulation against the cold. But with Newt’s body flush against his and their limbs entangled with each other’s, he finds all the warmth he needs.
“Sleep,” Newt whispers. “I’m here, yeah?”
Thomas smiles—a full smile. “Yeah. Me too.”
Newt hugs Thomas tighter. “I swear to bloody hell, they’ll have to kill me to make me leave.”
The last tear rolls down Thomas’s face. He’s not sure where it comes from, or what emotions it holds, but he lets it. “I won’t let that happen. I’m not gonna fail again. I’m not gonna let them take you away too.”
I promise, Newt. Not you. They won’t take you too.
I promise.
END