Chapter Text
"This is the same girl who betrayed us, correct? The same dick?" Brenda yells, her exasperation clear in her tone.
I lean forward into my chair, fingers curling around each other to stop the tremors. I wanted to find humour in Brenda's comment and in Gally's quick "I like her," reply, but I couldn't.
I can't feel much of anything over the roaring in my ears, like waves battering at the sides of my skull. I could only feel a jealousy, wailing inside my head and pounding fists against my closed lips. It made it hard to breathe. Hard to think.
My shaking hand flies to my mouth like I might be able to physically hold back the disease I know is brewing inside me.
"What's going on?" Brenda murmurs gently to Thomas, worried speaking up might cause him to crack into a million pieces.
I look between them, from Brenda's soft expression to Thomas' lost one. I could see it all on my best friend's face, covering his skin with marker and flickering like a lightbulb behind his eyes. He still cared about her. He still thought she could come back from this - from her fucking betrayal.
He would pick her over us all. Over me.
The thought sends me falling over the edge and into a rabbit hole.
Thomas might be cracking, but I was already broken.
"What, are you afraid your little girlfriend is gonna get hurt?" I hear myself saying, watching with a sick delight as Thomas' shock is visible on his features. "This has obviously never just been about rescuing Minho," I continue, my voice rising like fire and searing Thomas' skin.
"What are you talking about?" Thomas, my ally, my friend, my... I blink at him, anger stealing my thoughts before I can finish - before I can gag the virus perched in my mouth.
I find the strength to stand and whatever expression Thomas sees on my face sends him backing up. I follow him instinctively like a predator might follow his prey.
Part of me felt the wrongness of this situation - the darkness that laced itself into my thoughts. I know I'm wrong to keep screaming or to think that Thomas was anything other than my best friend, but wherever those thoughts are I can't reach them.
I could only see darkness, slithering like a serpent beneath my skin and charging knife-shaped words out of my mouth.
"Teresa. She's the only reason Minho's even missing in the first place and now we find an opportunity to get him back and you don't want to because of her?"
Thomas' back hits a wall but I keep coming, squeezing my fists at my sides to stop them from violently shaking. I want to stop. I want to close my mouth and be done with this - with everything.
My body doesn't obey.
Maybe it's because I'm hurting and I want someone else to be too. Whatever the reason, it's a battery that won't power down. I had things to say, even if I didn't want to say them.
"Because deep down inside you still care about her, don't you? Just admit it." I pause, noticing our proximity, noticing that if I moved forward just a hair our lips would be touching - kissing. The thought of that intimacy between us makes me pause, my breath dying in my throat. Did I want to kiss him? With a start, I realise I do. I want to close the gap between us and silence the pounding in my head. I know it will work. He's been my rock before; in the maze, in the scorch... I had relied on him to save us. To save me.
Could he save me now?
The disease kills the question instantly.
"Newt, I-"
The flare breaks my hands free of the chains I'd held them in, slamming Thomas's shoulders into the wall.
"Don't lie to me!" I'm screaming. "Don't. Lie. To me!"
Thomas blinks at me, his mouth hanging open in surprise. I barely register the scraping of chairs behind me and Gally calling Thomas' name. I only see Thomas. His stare is so tender - worried, not for himself but for me. My lips part, although I can't seem to speak anymore. The flare had left my thoughts in tatters. Letters, words, and feelings were strewn across the floor of my mind.
I want to tell him the words swirling in my head but none of it is coherent. There are only unintelligible mumblings of a crank who just wants to be loved in return by the man he loves more than anything in the world.
The thought stops me dead. I had never admitted it to myself until now. Never even realised that I might...
The disease slinks into the back seat, disarmed by the words now ricocheting inside my skull.
Could I really be... in love... with him?
I find my focus wandering to my hands on his chest, to his eyes searching my face, and to his lips parted in a paused breath. The gentleness in his gaze makes my heart thump. How had I not noticed it before? How had I not realised that this familiar feeling in my chest was love?
All those memories of him, each one so carefully conserved, run blindly through my head. Every look. Every hug. Every smile.
Shit.
I was in love with him... I am in love with him. I had always been.
"I'm sorry, Tommy." I breathe, pulling the tremors out of the air and returning them to my fingers.
Thomas' eyes widen like he can read every thought on my face - like he sees my heart held out for him on a silver platter. Maybe he could. Maybe he was horrified with the realisation that I felt that way about him. The fear of his rejection swirls inside my stomach, and I step back just as Thomas leans forward, his focus flickering to my lips.
No. They couldn't have...
A cold starts to seep into the newly formed wedge between us, our gaze the only bridge over a raging river. Did he feel the same? Could he? The questions threw my relationship with him into a blender.
Thomas seems to notice my turmoil and takes it upon himself to span the stream. Softly, he whispers my name and takes my hands in his. My name sounds so beautiful coming from him, I hadn't realised until now. He made it sounds like a song - like it was art.
My head tilts forward to watch his hands. They're a shade darker than my own sickly pale skin. He had a warm tan from the scorch, almost golden. I watch, entirely enraptured, as the pads of his thumbs slide to my wrists and rub gentle circles across my skin.
If he's surprised by the raised veins he must feel there, he doesn't show it.
"Come with me." He breaths, towing me along a winding corridor and onto the roof. I don't look back at our companions. They don't even come to mind as Thomas sits me on the roof edge, his gaze never wavering from my face.
"Talk to me," he murmurs. One of his hands glides up to my waist, cradling my skin in his palm. It brings me clarity; having his hands on me is a lifeline. I can't think of anything else other than him. The virus is cast out across a vast ocean when Thomas is this close. "What's going on?"
My eyes search his. There's something so soft in them that I can't place; it's a look I've seen him give Teresa before - a look that is simultaneously delicate and intense. It's a look that roots me breathlessly to the spot and edges me closer to him. I had been so lost in it that I hadn't noticed his hand lifting until it cups my face and gently tilts me forward, pressing a soft kiss to my lips.
It only lasts a second but it knocks three words straight out of my heart and flying into the open.
"I love you," I whisper suddenly, wishing that I could reel the words back into my throat. The rising fear of rejection swirls but Thomas' expression becomes impossibly softer and it cocoons my worry, storing it for another time. "I am in love with you... and I'm sorry that I took so long to realise."
I wait, my mind emptying of any thoughts except ones of him.
After a second, Thomas' lips curve upwards into a warm smile. "I love you too," he whispers. "I think I've been in love with you for a while, but I had never thought-" he licks his lips and I find my gaze falling to them as he speaks. "I had never thought until today that you might feel the same..." He squeezes my hand in apology, not aware that I was glad for the slowness of this moment. I want to savour it. I want it to last forever.
The hand left on my wrist tilts it over revealing the black lines inked under my skin. I had accepted my fate the moment I had seen them but now, watching Thomas's fingers trace the raised bruising, it's sealed. Someone else finally knows. Someone else can finally help me shoulder this weight.
"Whatever's happening to you," Thomas breaths, his voice shaking violently between us. "I want you to know that I will be there with you and that we will fight it together."
My heart melts in his palm.
I don't think about what I do next. I just fall forward clumsily and claim his lips with my own. The sound Thomas makes, an almost relieved moan, has me shaking for an entirely different reason.
His hands fall into my hair, tangling on the blonde strands and gently tugging. I practically keen in response, opening my mouth to him and deepening the kiss. It feels endless, blanketing me in a warm light and pulling me away from the darkness harbouring inside me.
I want it to go on forever, but he's the one to break the kiss, maybe realising that I would've been happy to go without breathing and to die in this spot. He catches his breath, his eyes falling to my swollen lips and mine to his. I don't want to stop. I don't ever want to not be kissing him.
With that thought in mind, I gently tilt his head to the side with my still fingers and press a soft kiss to the base of his neck. Thomas' head falls onto my shoulder with a shiver and he groans deep in his chest when I bite down hard enough to leave a mark.
The sound is music to my ears.
And when he pants, his body trembling against mine, I realise that nothing could make me happier than I am now.
If I must go, then I am happy to have had this moment on the roof, with the boy I love.