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“Sorry that I’m late. Couldn’t find my keys.” Thomas was out of breath as he rushed in to the classroom. The teacher threw him a disapproving glare and he lumbered off to his seat.
“Again?” The boy in the seat next to his - Newt - leaned over to whisper. “Didn’t you lose your keys yesterday too?”
Thomas shot him a glare, though he wasn’t actually annoyed. Newt was his best friend, probably Thomas’ favorite person ever, and lately there had been a certain… vibe between them. He was sure he didn’t imagine it, not with the long glances Newt shot him that made a pleasant tingle start up inside Thomas, or the lingering touches they shared. But at other times they were the butts of each others’ jokes.
“No. I didn’t,” Thomas corrected him now. “It was my phone.”
Newt raised an eyebrow. “And the day before that?”
“Then I found that someone hid my bag out in the garage. And before you comment on it, the day before one sock out of every pair I own had been thrown into the pool.”
Newt’s expression changed slightly, grew a bit worried. “Tommy-”
“Yes, mister Newton? Is there something you’d like to share with the class?” The teacher’s voice boomed out over the classroom. Newt shook his head and gave a mumbled excuse before he turned back to his notebook.
On their next break however Newt grabbed Thomas by the arm and pulled him along to an empty room. Not even a minute after they got there another person entered. It was Minho, another of their friends.
Newt nodded at Minho before he turned back to him. “Tommy, have you been sleeping badly lately?”
Confusion. This was not what Thomas had expected Newt to ask him. Not that he even knew what he’d imagined Newt was gonna ask. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just answer the buggin’ question!” Newt tapped his foot on the floor impatiently.
“Uh… yeah, now that you mention it. I have. Restlessness and bad dreams, mostly.”
Newt swore silently. He made a gesture to Minho, who had yet to say anything. Minho walked closer and Thomas noticed that Newt took a step to the side, away from him. Then Minho reached into his pocket and pulled out a small item.
“Take this,” he said as he held it out to Thomas. “Keep this on you at all times.”
Thomas took the item and brought it close to inspect it. It was a necklace. A leather cord with a heavy metal circle and in the middle, between two thin layers of some kind of semi-transparent mesh was a dried four-leaf clover.
Thomas looked up, sure that the confusion he felt could be read as easily in his expression as any book. The “what the hell?” didn’t need to be said.
“It’s a charm,” Newt explained. “A protection charm. Against the fae.”
“Uh… The fae?”
Minho nodded. “Yes, the fae. That there-” he pointed at the pendant, “is solid iron, a four leafed clover and hair of a siren. You won’t find a better protection charm.”
Thomas would have laughed if it wasn’t for the serious look of both of his friends’ faces. Still, he raised a doubting eyebrow at them. “You’re kidding, right? This is some kind of joke? Surely you don’t believe in that crap?”
They almost looked offended at his words, but then Newt sighed and sat down on the very edge of a chair, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees.
“Listen, Tommy, and listen well and good, alright?” Thomas nodded that he would. “You’re not from around here, so you don’t know the stories of this place. This here is smack in the middle of fae land; the forest and the town itself. Ask anyone around and they’ll tell ya. And the fae tend to be a bunch of nasty buggers. Not all, mind you. There are different kind of fae just as there are different people.”
“Um…” Thomas didn’t really know what to say. He was still waiting for them to crack up and yell “Got ya! Did you really fall for that? “So, assuming I believed all this. Just hypothetically. What does this have to do with me?”
“As I said,” Newt continued, “There are different kinds of fae. To make it simple you can say that there are light and dark fae, though it’s not quite that easy. Both can be just as mischievous or friendly. But the point is, the ones you’d call dark fae have a tradition of a human sacrifice once every seven years. Believe it makes ‘em more powerful. You can usually tell whom they’ve chosen beforehand since they like to play pranks on and generally being a nuisance to that human - stuff like interrupted sleep and hidden items. And--”
Newt stopped his ramblings and took a deep breath before continuing. “And I fear that you might be that teind . The chosen sacrifice. So do as we say and wear the bloody amulet!”
Everything Newt had said jumbled together in Thomas’ head. It didn’t make sense, any of it.
“So…” He started slowly, still trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. “So what? A group of pixies wanna kill me and this piece of metal and dry grass is gonna scare them away?”
Minho shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“And what am I exactly supposed to even do with it? Just like--” Thomas held the cord so that the amulet dangled and spun in frantic circles and hels it out towards Newt to demonstrate.
“NO!” Newt almost screeched and jumped back so quickly that he tumbled off the chair and fell to the floor. That reaction was not what Thomas had expected, especially not from the usually so calm and collected Newt. He reached out instinctively to pull Newt to his feet but again Newt jerked away, staring with wide eyes at the small little scrap of metal Thomas hadn’t realized still hung from his grasp. Thomas quickly pulled his hand away from Newt and put the pendant in his pocket and Newt visibly relaxed.
“Way to be discreet, pal.” Minho said in a tone practically dripping with sarcasm. “Sure our buddy Tommy here has no idea what’s going on.”
Thomas felt more confused than ever. “Uh, what?”
Minho threw him a glance, his expression clearly saying that he thought Thomas was being slow. “Right,” he said after a moment passed. “Forgot who I was talking about.”
“Hey-”
“Shut it!” Newt interrupted Thomas’ offended outburst. He’d gotten up again and he seemed a bit flustered about his previous reaction. He was quiet for a heartbeat, then he shook his head and gestured to Thomas. “Come with me. Minho - I’ll see you later, alright?”
“Sure thing,” Minho replied with a mock salute before he turned and headed out the classroom. Newt left too with Thomas following closely behind. Thomas reached out to take Newt’s hand, something they’d done more and more often, especially when one of them was sad or angry or needed support. Or aggravated, like now. It was their way to say “It’s okay, I’m here” . But this time Newt pulled his hand away before Thomas had a chance to take it.
“Sorry, Tommy. Not right now,” he said with a small apologetic smile. It felt like he’d pushed Thomas into a pool of freezing water.
Newt led them out of the school and into the forest a little while away. It was the first time that the silence between them had been awkward, and Thomas didn’t know what he could say or do to get Newt back to his normal cheerful self.
They had walked pretty deep into the woods before Newt stopped and turned to him. He had a look of determination that Thomas hadn’t seen him wear before.
“Newt? What are we doing here?”
“I can trust you, right?” Newt did an odd movement where it looked like he was about to walk closer but changed his mind mid-step and instead pulled back, resulting in an odd jerking. “If I tell you something I can one hundred percent trust you not to tell anyone?”
“Of course!” Thomas said immediately. “Besides, who would I tell anyway. My foster family don’t care all that much - you know that; I’m only really close to you and Minho, and it seems he already knows whatever it is you wanna tell me.”
Newt nodded shortly, seemingly pleased with that answer. “Okay. So I take it you don’t believe in what I told you before? About the fae?”
“It is a pretty fantastical tale, you’ve gotta admit,” Thomas shrugged. “I stopped believing in faerie tales when I was four.”
“This one’s true though, Tommy. I wouldn’t lie to you about that. But I guess seeing is believing, so…”
Newt took a deep breath, and before Thomas’ eyes, he started to change. It wasn’t anything too drastic, but it was too obvious to pretend he didn’t see it. His face became a little narrower, cheekbones more defined. His eyes became slightly squinted and even darker than before, and his ears grew more pointy. But his face wasn’t the only thing transforming. The changes to his body wasn’t as pronounced, but still noticeable. If Thomas would describe it, he’d say that Newt was leaner than before, maybe a bit taller. The whole process took just a few seconds and Thomas didn’t know how to comprehend it at all. When it was done, it was still Newt, but in a way also not Newt . He wasn’t the Newt Thomas thought he was.
“Wha-”
“I’m one of the fae folk,” Newt said in the same tone one might say I’m going out to buy milk. “So now you see, the fae do exist. Will you wear the buggin’ charm now?”
Thomas’ head felt like it was spinning. “Uh… I think I need to sit down for awhile.” He went over to the closest tree and slid down to sit between its roots, leaning back against the trunk. Newt sat down too, but not beside him like he would have done had it just the day before, but five feet away. Every one of those feet felt like an ocean that Thomas desperately wanted to cross but had no way to do so.
A few minutes passed when neither said a thing. “Okay,“ Thomas said finally. “Okay, so you’re fae. And there are other fae out for a sacrifice, and that’s me. And the protection charm will keep me safe. Got it.”
Newt rolled his eyes as it to say “Finally!” Thomas nodded without even knowing why. Just a confirmation that he had indeed accepted this wild story, crazy as it might be. But there was one more thing to be discussed, if he could just figure out how to go about it.
“But,” he swallowed, feeling like he was treading in unknown waters. “This charm… You’re afraid of it too?”
Newt winced slightly as Thomas pulled the item out and absentmindedly fiddled with it.
“Not… afraid, exactly. It burns. Horribly. And the clover would have forced me to reveal my true nature, if the iron hadn’t burned through my skin and the siren hair poisoned my blood before that. I told you it would keep the fae folk away. That means all fae.”
The full meaning of this hit Thomas like a truck coming out of nowhere. “So I can never touch you again? We can’t be together?”
Newt looked pained, and he seemed to have tears in his eyes. “We can still be friends. Just not- I just have to keep my distance.”
Thomas looked back down at the charm, turning it over in his hands trying to ignore the hurt he felt throughout his whole body. Then in a split-second decision he raised his arm and threw the charm as hard as he could into the forest. Newt’s eyes grew wide with shock at the sudden movement.
“Wha-”
“No!” Thomas scrambled closer to Newt and reached for his hands, and this time Newt let him take them. “There must be another way. I don’t want to lose what we have. I want to be able to explore this, whatever it is that’s between us. I want to be close to you, to get a chance to be with you. I don’t want to be apart from you, I wish I’ll never have to.”
Even before Thomas had said the last word, a sound started from somewhere close by. The sound spread and grew in volume until he could hear dozens of shrill voices, giggling . Something shimmered just out of sight and Thomas suddenly felt like he was falling, without anything to slow him down. The feeling only lasted a moment, and then he was once again aware that he was sitting on the ground, in the forest by the school. He looked up at Newt, who looked just as startled as Thomas felt. Newt shook his head rapidly, as if to shake the odd sensation, then he was turning right and left towards where the giggles came from - even though there was no one to be seen, before he turned back to Thomas.
“Oh, Tommy, do you know what you’ve done? You should be careful what you say in places where there can be fae listening! They’ll take you on your word just to get a laugh!”
“So that means… what?” Thomas asked, not quite getting what Newt was saying, but he had a sneaking suspicion.
“That they were spying on us, and just now when you wished to never be apart I think they made it so we can’t. I don’t think we can actually ever leave each others side. Which, unfortunately, means that you can’t return home. You must come with me to the realm of the fae. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s your only reaction?”
Thomas gave Newt a small smile. “Newt, you’re literally the only person I care about. What do I have to return to anyway?” His smile faded slightly. “Well, I will miss Minho, though.”
Newt actually chuckled slightly at that. “During this whole thing, didn’t you wonder why he seemed to know everything? Minho is one of us, you dimwit. Well, technically he’s half fae. He can come and go to our realm as he pleases.”
“Oh!” Thomas exclaimed. “I hadn’t even considered that. So the amulet; he could touch it because he’s part human?”
“Yep, precisely,” Newt nodded. Then his expression grew a bit worried. “So you’re really okay with this? Never coming back? You’d have protection, of course, no fae would touch a human if he was bound to another fae. But you’d give up the life you’ve lived up until now.”
Thomas squeezed Newt’s hands slightly, smiling warmly and earning a smile in return. “Yeah. It’ll be weird, for sure. Hell, I only found out half an hour ago that faerie tales were real! But if it means I can continue to be with you, it’s worth everything.”
Newt’s eyes practically shone as he looked at Thomas, and his smile was nothing short of brilliant. He stood up and pulled Thomas along with him. “Well,” he said. “Come on then, let me show you our new home.”