Work Text:
Newt's bedroom door opens shortly before 2pm. His eyes are barely open and the sunlight piercing its way through the window in the hallway is doing him no favours. He barely suppresses a groan and shuffles his way reluctantly through to the living room and kitchen.
He's wearing his favourite pair of grey sweatpants and the hoodie he'd 'borrowed' from one of Minho’s friends and never returned. The night had been hazy and he didn’t have the dignity to ask who it was he’d accepted it from. All he knows is that it's black, three sizes too big, and feels like a giant fluffy blanket, giving him more comfort than anything after another night spent struggling to sleep.
As he pushes the kitchen door open, already thinking about the taste of coco pops, the muffled sound of gunfire and radio communication reaches his ears. Minho is lounging across the sofa, legs up on the armrest, propping himself up with his elbows. The only parts of his body that hold any tension are his hands, which grip the Xbox controller tightly, as if it's a real firearm.
Newt yawns and Minho glances briefly over at him before returning his gaze to the screen, laughing.
"Sleep well?" he asks.
Newt pulls the finger and hopes it reaches Minho’s peripheral vision.
He’s probably already been down to the park for his daily run and cooked himself a gourmet breakfast when he got back. He always seems to have his life under control and manages to stay on top of everything that Newt struggles to even attempt.
Asshole .
Newt opens the fridge door and fumbles blindly, wondering what kind of sleep pattern would bring on hallucinations. He reaches for the milk and his hand grabs on to thin air. He blinks once.
There's no milk.
Without a word, he closes the refrigerator door and lightly taps his head against it, leaving it there against the cold surface.
A laugh comes from the direction of the couch. "I'll go out when I finish this. There's heaps of bread in the pantry."
Newt turns his head towards Minho, keeping his forehead pressed hard against the fridge. Then, after a brief moment of deliberation, he swings open the pantry door, pulls out a loaf of bread, and throws two slices into the toaster before pressing the lever down.
He leans across the kitchen counter and rests his head on his folded arms, waiting until the toast pops up. He closes his eyes and wonders if he should just go back to bed for the day and try life again tomorrow.
The toast pops up. Newt throws it onto a plate, pulls a jar of Nutella from the pantry and lathers it on. He grabs one slice, takes a bite and heads over to the couch, sending Minho a warning glare that has him dropping his legs off the armrest and to the floor in milliseconds. Newt sits down.
“You excited for tonight?” Minho asks, in between gunshots.
Newt frowns at him, confused.
“Fuck!” Minho yells at the screen. He turns to see Newt still frowning. “Tonight?”
Newt slowly shakes his head; he has no idea what Minho’s talking about.
With a roll of his eyes, Minho returns his gaze to the screen. “Do you ever check the group chat?”
Newt realises his phone is somewhere under his bed covers and probably dead by now. He considers Minho’s question for a moment. He does check the chat...sometimes. Usually when he’s bored or looking to annoy Ben or reveal something embarrassing about Minho. Mainly, he just relies on Minho to fill him in on anything important.
Which is exactly what he does.
“Everyone’s been super stressed so we’re taking the weekend off and having drinks tonight. Sound good?”
Newt shrugs. “Sure. Where?”
“Here.”
Newt finally seems to wake up. “Here?!” he all but screams.
Minho’s game finishes and the word ‘victory’ pops up on the screen in bold lettering. “Is that okay?” he asks.
Newt pulls his hands up into the sleeves of his hoodie and folds his arms, leaning back into the couch. “Some warning would’ve been nice.”
“What, do you need a few hours to curl your hair or something? It’s in the group chat.”
“You know I don’t read that.” Newt stares blankly at the toast on his lap. “Who’s coming?”
Minho raises the remote to turn the TV off. “Everyone,” he answers plainly. “Ben, Thomas, Alby, Fry, Winston, Gally, Brenda, Teresa… yeah, everyone. We tried to make it happen on a night when we were all free.”
Newt frowns. “How did you know I’d be free?” he asks, as he takes another bite of toast.
He should’ve expected the laugh. Minho stands up and ruffles Newt’s unruly blonde hair. “Because you’re always free, man.”
Newt shrugs. It’s true.
“I’m heading out to stock up before tonight.”
They have a reliable housekeeping routine going by now: Minho tidies the flat and Newt messes it up again. Thankfully, Newt’s only just gotten up, so Minho easily finds his wallet and keys on the kitchen bench.
“You need anything?” he asks.
Another bite of toast. “A full night’s sleep.”
Minho’s hand pauses on his keys and his smile fades. He turns to Newt. “You’re still not sleeping?”
Newt shakes his head. “Nope. And to answer your next question, I don’t want to talk about it.”
There’s a palpable silence as Minho struggles with what to say or do. Newt knows he’s itching to confess how worried he is, especially given the events of the past year, but he decides to drop the subject altogether in favour of giving Newt some peace and quiet.
“If you change your mind, you’ve got me. And you’ve got beer. At least, you will after I get back.”
Newt smiles and settles into the couch, propping his feet up where Minho had been sitting. “See ya, Minho.”
“Bye!”
Seconds later, he hears the front door open and close again and decides he’d better shower, considering he hadn’t done so in the last two days. Or was it three?
He slowly finishes his toast and stands up from the couch grimacing at the pain that shoots up his leg. He lets it settle and limps over to the bathroom, cursing himself for forgetting to do his physio exercises yesterday. And the day before. And maybe the day before that, too.
After the shower, he gets himself presentable. The others are arriving around six, so he might have some time to squeeze a quick nap in or at the very least lie down for half an hour.
Maybe it won’t be so bad. He reminds himself that he does like Minho’s friends. In fact, they seem to like him back too. Part of him wishes he could get closer to them. Maybe this party would be an opportunity for that.
He’s hung out a lot with Minho’s group in the past, but they’ve all been so busy with uni that it’s only ever in small groups for short periods of time. This would be different. They’d finished for the year.
He thinks about how it all started. Newt and Minho meeting at high school, becoming best friends as years went on, then deciding to go to the same uni. Newt, with his law school plans and Minho with his physiotherapy.
Then Minho met Thomas. Thomas was another physiotherapy student, who sat next to Minho in their first lecture and told him he liked his hair. That was the easiest way to get Minho’s seal of approval. Thomas was probably Newt’s favourite out of Minho’s friends. He was upfront, easy to talk to, inclusive and optimistic. Talking to Thomas always felt like walking into the sunshine after a century of rain.
After Thomas came Teresa, Thomas’ buddy since kindergarten. They’d grown up together, attended all the same schools and now moved to the same university, only Teresa was studying medicine, because she was “smart with a heart”, according to Thomas. Newt thought that was a very apt description.
Teresa then made the life-changing decision of introducing her new friend, Ben, to the group. Ben was also in med school, but differed to Teresa in that he very quickly became Minho’s boyfriend. Those two had been almost inseparable since the day they met and sometimes it seemed that Ben and Minho were the ones living together, rather than Minho and Newt. Newt liked Ben. He was kind, a little reserved but the sort of person who would stop at nothing to make his friends feel better, as Newt had discovered firsthand in the last year.
Brenda entered their lives when Teresa and Ben shared a biochemistry paper with her cohort, and grouped up for a project. Brenda was studying chemistry, which automatically made her an expert in Ben and Minho, as she liked to remind them at every opportunity. Newt didn’t know Brenda very well, but he envied her confidence. There was no challenge she wouldn’t accept and, over time, Newt had realised that her confidence was backed up by her rate of success. Brenda could do anything she put her mind to.
Gally and Fry came next. Gally was a zoology major and his best friend Fry studied dietetics. Fry met Thomas and Minho when they shared a few papers, and Gally hung out with him enough times for the others to get to know him too. Fry was sweet, generous and the life of the party, while Gally tended to sit back and watch whatever chaos Fry was creating unfold. They made for a hilarious duo.
Winston studied zoology with Gally and had known Alby from high school. Alby was studying politics and just so happened to share some papers with Newt, so when they got introduced, Newt found himself a new friend in half of his classes. Newt had spent most of the semester trying to convince Alby to study law instead, but to no avail.
It wouldn’t have mattered much to Newt anyway, who, in a series of events, went from law student to law school dropout.
His train of thought is broken with that stark reminder. Newt sighs and tries to focus on celebrating his friends tonight instead. He’s still got time to figure out what he wants to do and how to do it. He tells himself what Minho’s been telling him for months:
Law school didn’t make you happy. You’re better off without it.
He’s gelling his hair when he hears keys rattling in the front door. It opens and shuts.
“Newt!” a voice yells through the house. “Give me a hand!”
Newt steps out of his room and heads to the front door. Minho eyes him up and down, frowning. “Did you do your physio?”
He’s met with an eye roll as Newt bends down to pick up two of the bags.
Minho shakes his head to himself. “I’ll take that as a no. Do I need to take over again?” He’s carrying bags on each arm as he walks through to the kitchen, following Newt.
“No,” Newt insists. “I’ll do it. I just keep forgetting.”
“Like I said-”
“I don’t need you to take over again! Bloody hell!”
Newt’s outburst is cut short as he peers into the bag he’s just set down.
“You bought pancake mix?” he asks, incredulous.
Minho grins. “For tomorrow morning. You’re welcome.”
Newt sends him a smile before unpacking the bags, bit by bit.
He has enough time to unpack them, do his exercises under Minho’s watchful eye, tidy his room up, and start on a beer before Ben walks in the front door, greeting Minho with a polite kiss, so as not to bother Newt. Of course, he follows up by giving Newt a big hug and telling him he looks great and “love the shirt, man”.
It doesn’t take long for the others to all arrive, each one of them greeting Newt with a warm hug and a smile. Thomas even picks him up and spins him around, which Newt does not enjoy, but also doesn’t object to.
Before long, the music is loud, their friends are laughing, and everyone is drunk. Newt finds himself swaying a little where he’s perched on the kitchen bench, watching Minho try to do the worm. He laughs as Thomas attempts it and nearly faceplants the floor.
“Hey, man. Is there somewhere I can smoke?” Gally asks him, appearing out of nowhere.
“In hell!” Teresa answers, somehow hearing them over the music.
“Save your lungs!” adds Minho, from the floor.
Gally turns to Newt, rolling his eyes.
Newt smiles. “Out the back.” He gestures to the back door, which leads into their garden.
He receives a nod of ‘thanks’ from Gally, who heads in that direction.
“Me too!” yells Brenda, hurrying out after him.
Newt’s smiling after them, snorting to himself as Brenda jumps onto Gally’s back and kicks open the back door with her boot. He wishes he had the kind of energy Brenda always seemed to have.
The opening notes of Piano Man come through the speaker and everyone cheers except Minho, who knows that Ben’s about to sing both his ears off. Newt laughs as Alby sits down facing the couch, using it as an impromptu piano with Winston lying across it in the most dramatic way possible, arms and legs draped in all directions. Newt watches as, one by one, they all seem to become part of this elaborate bar scene, with Ben not-so-coincidentally playing the role of the town drunk. As the song draws to an end, Newt realises that Minho’s supporting nearly all his weight.
Newt wonders if they should have a bucket nearby, or at the very least supply Ben with water, or get him to sit down for a while. He also wonders when he decided to become his own mother.
He’s pulled out of that thought when Thomas glides up onto the bench beside him, dangling his legs off the edge, kicking them like a little kid.
“Hey,” he says, simply, in his happy little Thomas way.
Newt returns the greeting. “Hey.”
“Are you alright? You’re really quiet today. Like, more than usual.”
When Newt turns to face Thomas, he’s met with a look of genuine concern, as though Thomas has been waiting a while to ask this question.
He sighs. “I’m fine. Really. I just didn’t have the best sleep last night.”
Thomas frowns and Newt can see his brain ticking through ways to fix this somehow. “You should go sit on the couch,” he suggests. “Go chill out over there.”
They both watch the couch as Frypan climbs clumsily across it, spilling more than half his drink in the process.
Thomas cringes. “Or maybe not.”
Winston sits down on the couch and frowns to himself, readjusting before settling in. Newt wonders if he thinks the couch is normally cold and wet.
He laughs. “It’s fine, really. I’ll sleep better tonight.”
Brenda and Gally walk back in at that moment, reeking of smoke, singing along to a Macklemore song that Newt doesn’t know the words to.
“Hey,” Brenda slaps Newt on the shoulder. “It’s Thomas’ month this month!” She grins at Thomas and jogs over to dance with Ben, who’s waving his arms frantically, somehow without hitting anyone in the face.
Newt turns to Thomas. “Your month?”
He swears for a moment that Thomas’ eyes sparkle as he shrugs, a huge grin plastered across his face, dopey as ever with how drunk he is.
“It’s Christmas!” he says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “And my birthday! It’s my favourite month!”
Newt realises he doesn’t actually know the date of Thomas’ birthday. He’ll have to check Facebook later and then find him a present. Buying a present for Thomas would be easy; the guy liked everything.
Or not.
Much to Newt’s surprise, Thomas’ signature smile fades from his face as he leans in to talk so the others can’t overhear him.
“The truth is,” he says, “I can’t wait for this year to be over. This year was shit. Uni was hard and there was just one bad luck event after the other. This year just sucked in general.”
He stares into the space ahead of them and Newt isn’t really sure if Thomas actually wants Newt to answer or just get this off his mind. If he wants Newt to answer, he’s shit out of luck, because Newt doesn’t have a word to say in response to that.
Thomas is right; this year was shit. On all kinds of levels. It’s something Newt tries hard not to think back on. It’s something he dreads talking about in therapy. In fact, right now as it crosses his mind, he’s wondering if the room just got a few degrees warmer or if someone’s filling the room with something other than oxygen. He takes a long breath.
Suddenly Thomas’ gaze fixes back on Newt, lips parted in shock. “Sorry,” he stutters out. “It’s not like I need to be telling you this, is it?” He sighs and drops his gaze. “How’s your leg doing?”
Newt huffs out a shallow laugh and kicks it out in front of him, studying it. “It’s better,” he says. “The physio’s working.”
When he does it.
Teresa comes over to enlist Thomas’ help in some kind of debate between her and Gally and Newt takes the opportunity to climb off the bench and head outside for some fresh air. With everyone inside, maybe he’ll get the chance to zone out, breathe, and just look up at the stars for a minute.
The grass is a little damp but Newt decides he doesn’t care today. He lies down in the middle of the lawn, staring up at the clear sky above, feeling the crisp breeze on his skin, keeping him in the moment. After a minute, he closes his eyes, just to embrace the feeling of being. He’s here, lying in the grass, under the stars and, right now, nothing else matters. A shitty year, big mistakes, bigger recovery, sleepless nights, his own failures and his friends’ successes -- none of it matters. He tries to push it down and just breathe.
He wonders, after a while, if he’d sleep better outside. He feels weirdly comfortable, if cold. He’s considering bringing his blankets out here later when he hears someone walk over and lie down beside him.
“You can talk to me, you know?” Thomas says quietly, after taking a moment to consider his words. “I’m not gonna judge you or freak out or anything. You don’t have to tell me you’re okay either. Nobody’s okay all the time. That’d be weird.”
Newt opens his eyes and turns to find that Thomas’ face is much closer than he expected, looking right at him. It feels too intimate, so Newt looks up at the stars.
“It’d be really weird,” Thomas repeats, as if Newt didn’t get it the first time.
So Newt looks back at him. When he speaks, his voice is quieter than he expected. Almost a whisper.
“I just want to feel like I’m not failing all the time,” he admits. “Law school, sleep, life, death.”
The expression on Thomas’ face is the only thing that alerts him to the gravity of what he’s just said.
“You’re upset you failed at that? Even now?” Thomas asks, and his voice is a whisper.
Newt stares at him and as he’s working out how to answer the question, he gets a tight knot in his chest and feels his eyes prickle with tears, unexpectedly.
He blinks quickly and answers in a rush. “No. No, it’s not like that.” He means it. “It’s not that, exactly. It’s just that it’s one more fail on a list of many.”
The tears are returning, so Newt reaches up and rubs his eyes, embarrassed.
“Newt…” Thomas starts, and Newt feels himself cringe at the sorrow in his voice. He hates that he’s made anyone feel that way.
“I was so glad you made it,” Thomas continues. “Of course, it sucked to see you hurt like that but, God, one of the best feelings in the world was when you left the hospital that day on crutches. You turned what you thought of as a failure into one of the biggest successes I’ve ever seen. And, selfishly, I’m glad I still have the chance to get to know you.”
He’d been expecting the usual ‘it gets better’ speal, so Thomas’ words take Newt entirely by surprise. They’re said with such sincerity and care that Newt’s stuck with how to respond.
“You’re drunk,” he says.
Thomas laughs. “Only mostly. My point is I want to know you, Newt. I’ve got that chance now, haven’t I? Your so-called failure gave me that. I want to use it.”
This boy is unbelievable, Newt decides. Truly unbelievable. Who looks at life that way? Who sees each event, good or bad, as an opportunity for something else? Who’s that optimistic? Who’s that extraordinary?
The answer is lying right beside him, waiting for him to respond.
“Okay,” Newt agrees. “What do you want to know?”
“What’s your favourite colour?” Thomas smirks.
“That’s what you’ve been wanting to know this whole time?”
“Answer the question, smartass.”
Newt laughs and it echoes across the garden. “It’s blue,” he says. “Boring and generic, I know, but it’s calming.”
“Blue isn’t boring,” Thomas objects. “Are you insulting my shirt?”
Newt looks over and notices, for the first time, that Thomas is, in fact, wearing a navy blue shirt.
He chuckles. “Your shirt is fine, Thomas. Like I said, it’s my favourite colour. What’s yours?”
“Mine’s orange.”
“Yuck.”
“I know.” And then Thomas has moved on to the next question. “What’s your family like? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“I have a younger sister. She lives with my parents back in Florida.”
“Sonya, right?”
“Yeah! How did you-”
“You’ve mentioned her before. She wants to be a nurse, doesn’t she?”
Newt nods, amazed that Thomas remembered all of this. “She’ll move here next year to study.”
“I can’t wait to meet her. I’ve got two older sisters. One lives in Canada and the other’s a flight attendant, so she lives everywhere, but mostly California. Did you have any pets growing up?”
Newt smiles. Thomas is asking these questions at an alarming speed but, surprisingly, Newt doesn't mind. He's enjoying this. “I had a budgie, Gary. Sonya has a cat named Pepper.”
It’s Thomas’ turn to laugh. “You named your budgie Gary? ”
“He was pink and I named him after the snail in Spongebob!” Newt defends himself.
“Alright, I’ll let that one slide.” Thomas is still snickering. “But you had a cat and a budgie. How did that never end in disaster?”
“Gary lived in my room and Pepper was never allowed in. She respected Gary’s boundaries.”
Thomas is stifling his laugh with his hand. “Lucky Gary. I’m sure he grew up to be a great accountant.”
“Leave Gary alone, Thomas!”
Thomas laughs harder and then somehow gets himself together. “Alright, alright. Okay. I never had any pets, so I’m not one to judge their names. Give me a fun fact about yourself.”
“Um… I don’t know… I moved here from England fourteen years ago.”
“Okay,” Thomas considers this. “Now give me a fun fact.”
Newt gasps. “Hey!”
“Go on!”
He pauses for a second, then blurts out his fact. “I like boys.”
Smooth, Newt. Real smooth.
Thomas grins. “That’s a great fact. You’ve got taste.”
Despite being out for years now, Newt still sighs in relief. “Thank you. Now you. What’s your fun fact?”
This time, there’s a smirk. “I like boys too.”
Although the news surprises Newt, he gathers himself enough to remain petty. “You stole my fun fact, you bitch.”
Thomas snorts. “Fine, fine. Okay then, I’m bisexual. Is that better?”
Newt considers it for a moment. “It’s still a lazy fact, but it’ll do. I’m gay, in case you were wondering.”
“I figured with your blatant I-like-boys statement.”
The world sways for a second as Newt shuffles around on the grass. Yes, he’s definitely drunk. Very drunk. Which is probably where the courage behind his next statement comes from.
“Thanks for joining me out here. It’s really nice to know that you care this much.”
Thomas does a double take that, in any other context, would’ve been hilarious. “Of course I care, Newt. I care a lot. Like, a lot, a lot.”
He pauses and Newt can see he’s trying to gather his thoughts in a swirling, drunken state of mind.
“You know what?” He concludes. “Fuck it.”
And then Thomas is kissing Newt.
The force of it takes Newt by surprise, and his eyes widen before he responds, leaning back into it, eyes squeezed shut with a feeling that only equates to overwhelming, long-awaited relief. This is right.
It lasts longer than they’d probably both anticipated but Thomas pulls away first. He stares at Newt, lips red and puffy and eyes wide with excitement. “I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time,” he admits, dazed.
Newt’s giddy. He hasn’t felt this alive in a long time. He lies back in the grass and stares up at the sky, grinning into the night. “I’m so happy,” he sighs.
And apparently Thomas wants to keep things that way, because he rolls over and kisses him again. And again. And again. There’s a point where Newt isn’t sure when he’s finding time to breathe, but somehow he must be.
They’re still making out on the grass when Ben runs out, screams, and gallops back inside.
Thomas pulls away, leaving his face mere inches from Newt’s. He sighs and his breath is warm against Newt’s cheek. “I give it ten seconds,” he says.
Six seconds later, there’s a chorus of whooping and cheering from the back porch.
Newt laughs, blushing.
Thomas turns and waves at them like the queen, then he leans in again. “What they don’t know,” he says, “is that this is all just part of my elaborate plan to steal my hoodie back.”
“That’s- “ Newt’s eyes widen. “It’s your…? Of course it’s your hoodie,” he laughs.
“Minho says you’re wearing it more than I did.”
“It’s comfy.”
“Then keep it. It’s yours.” Thomas stands up and reaches out a hand to help Newt up. “Come on,” he says. “I want to dance with you before you pass out from exhaustion.”
It’s a few more hours before Newt finally does that, enjoying the best sleep he’s had in months. He knows he has four possible things to thank for it: alcohol, the prospect of pancakes for breakfast, the world’s most comfortable hoodie, and the quietly snoring, inquisitive boy who took an opportunity that night.