Chapter Text
I am tired, Newt thinks. Less “normal tired”, more “death must be so beautiful, to forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace” kind of tired.
Death must be so beautiful, Newt thinks. It’s all he could think about, really, as the days drag on, as months turn to years, as the flowers die and the world refuses to heal. He wonders, as he sits on the top of that bridge, if death would be as beautiful as Oscar Wilde says.
Except he didn’t have to wonder. Not really. This would not be his first dance with death. And as he lays crumpled on the edge of that river, when the cool hand of death cups his cheek whispering a “not yet”, it’s not a discovery. No, it’s a confirmation. Death is so, very beautiful.
***
The first time Newt died, he was five years old.
He took a tumble off of the stairs and, well. Children are very delicate, after all. Your skull’s gone cracked, your bones went snap. Newt’s breath leaves him in a shuddering exhale, and he drifts.
But someone cups his soul in sun-warmed hands. Pushes it back into his chest, and presses lips against his forehead. “May you live happily,” they say. “May you grow like the trees in the forest and flowers of the earth. May the lavenders grow in your bones and stardust glow in your veins.”
Newt wakes up sore and bruised and tired. He stumbled onto too-small feet, and kept walking.
***
The flowers are dying.
The earth is one gaping wound. The sun was merciless in its killing – it razed the earth and left it to rot. It is one big ugly sore in the galaxy and it refuses to die.
The earth refuses to die. Newt thinks that’s exactly the problem.
***
The second time Newt died, it’s because he was fourteen.
And because he was stupid.
He was out playing with the older boys by the river. It was summer and it was baking hot, of course it was, but the way the sun shone off of one of the boy’s bodies made his mouth go extra dry. He stood on the top of a waterfall and he wanted to impress them.
“C’mon Newt!” They screamed. “Don’t be a chicken!”
Newt holds his breath and leaps. He crashes down into the water, all lanky limbs and sprawling bones. The water pushes him down, and for a moment – he is suspended. There is water around him, the world is dark and blue and cool. He is weightless, he is limitless, he is everything and nothing at the same time. He doesn’t feel human. He does not feel the water, he is the water.
Then his lungs burn and in a snap , he is human once more.
He cannot swim up. Currents are battering him underwater and something sucking him downwards. He thrashes. Why isn’t he coming up? Someone asked. Why isn’t he coming up ?
The water fills his lungs and lines his throat with grit and dirt. Newt falls to oblivion, and he feels like a body, he feels like a boy, he feels like nobody, and he feels disgustingly human.
***
There is a hand combing through his hair and a weight on his chest. “You’ve got to stop doing this to me,” the voice says. “You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
Newt peels his eyes open to an angel on his chest. He is golden eyes, hair dark and thinning like smoke. Wings of pure white stretched out behind him, a cloak of obsidian wrapped around his frame. His freckles are gold against his skin. Looking at him fills Newt with the deepest sense of horror.
“What are you?”
The creature’s eyes bored into his. “Something from another time,” he said. “Another place.” He is otherworldly, that’s for sure. Something ungodly. He was beautiful. And yet there was a scythe against his back. Newt felt his heart lurch.
The creature shifted. “I have to go,” they said. “There are other souls who need to be delivered.”
Newt’s hand darted forward, closing around their wrist. “Wait.” His voice sounded raspy. He fumbled. So many questions. Which one to ask? “What do I call you, then?” He settled on.
They looked at Newt. Newt looked back. “I am the dead,” they said. “I am everywhere and nowhere at once, I-” they paused. “I have many names. But you can call me Thomas.” And when Newt blinked, he was gone.
***
Thomas feels time all out of order. All jumbled up and strewn together, like a pile of yarn. He hums a song and frowns when Newt asks what it’s called.
“I dunno. I heard it before your time,” he said. His frown deepened. “Or sometime after. It all feels the same sometimes. I think I heard it in a diner. With those stereos. That must have been before, yes? There were people. But you don’t have stereos. Maybe it was after the world healed?” They mutter to themselves, but Newt is more preoccupied with the latter half of their statement.
“Wait,” he runs in front of Thomas, holding him in place by the shoulders. “Are you saying this gets better? The world heals?”
Thomas looks at him with pupil-less eyes. “Well, it must.”
“How do you know?” Newt demanded, but Thomas was moving again, counting on his fingers and muttering to himself.
“Things feel more real,” he said to Newt one day. “When I’m with you. Everything feels more solid, you know? I can tell where I am.”
“How are you here?” Newt asked. “Do you control where you end up next?”
He shakes his head. “I usually go where someone dies,” he said. “I appear and I walk with them and then pop , again and again and again-” He stopped. “But I try to come back,” he said. “I think if I wish hard enough, the universe lets me come back.”
Sometimes Thomas disappears for weeks. Newt spends the time meandering through life, reading his books, and messing around with friends. He has his first kiss at fifteen. He told Thomas about it.
“Oh,” they said. “Did you like it?”
Newt thought about it for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. Like a liar. Thomas nodded like they understood.
“I don’t remember mine,” he said. Newt looked over at him. “I mean,” they said hastily. “I’ve been like this for a long time, y’know? I don’t… I don’t remember a lot. From before this.” His cheeks were slightly darker than they were before, and they wrapped their arms around their knees, turning away.
Thomas has always looked young. Though his eyes were old with age and exhaustion his freckles made him look boyish. Newt suddenly wondered how old Thomas really was when he became death.
“I can be your new first,” he offered. Thomas’s head snaps over Newt wouldn’t be surprised if his neck cracked. “It doesn’t have to be right now,” he said. “When you’re ready. When it’s right.” And yeah, Thomas is definitely blushing now.
“I- I don’t know,” he stuttered, and Newt wanted to laugh. If anyone had told him a year ago he would leave death without words he would have called them crazy.
“It’s just an offer,” he said, bumping his shoulder with Thomas. “Don’t make it weird, Tommy.”
“I’m not ,” they whined, but they still buried their face into the neck of their cloak. “Thank you, though,” they said softly. “For offering.”
Newt snorted. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’re my best friend, alright? It’s what we do.”
Thomas huffed. But he leaned against Newt’s shoulder and the two sat there, in companionable silence, until Tommy inevitably fades away again.
***
High school is a mess. The kids are somehow meaner and there is just less time for everything, he feels like he is going crazy. He is existing, he is not living. He looks at the stars and thinks of Tommy and feels like a dead star.
Thomas comes most days, almost like he knows Newt needs it. He comes and he holds his hand and tells him about planes and men on the moon and all the people who died when the sun burned the earth. “You know what scares me?” He said once. “The ones who are undead.”
“The cranks?”
Thomas nodded. “Because they’re… dead,” he said. “Except not really. Because it’s like they’re not quite there and not quite here and they keep almost falling out, except when I try to pull them they scream, and I have to stay for days and days until their soul is finally free.”
“So those cranks…” Newt felt sick to his stomach. “There are actual people in there?”
“They’re not people.” Thomas fiddled with the edge of his cloak. “And the body shuts down pretty soon anyway. It’s just that… when the body is still moving …”
“The soul is still in the body,” Newt finishes. Thomas turns away. Newt reaches an arm around his shoulder. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. That you have to deal with that.”
Thomas huffed. “It’s not even me that’s suffering,” he said. “But I don’t know how much they feel, Newt. How much they understand. It’s just… it’s just not fair .”
“Nothing really is,” Newt said softly. He toys with the hair on the back of Thomas’s neck. “Hey, Tommy?” He asked. “I’m going to need you to promise me something.”
That night Newt learned that Thomas cries tears of dripping black ink. Guilt is a monster chewing on his insides. He can’t bring himself to take it back.
***
The April festival brought with it lanterns, food, and an explosion of stars in the sky. Newt makes his way through the festival, feeling people and not-quite-people brush up against him. Like the feeling he has around graveyards.
“Newt!” Thomas cheers, wrapping his arms around Newt’s neck. Newt laughs. Thomas feels warmer today. And… yes, his skin is slightly pinker, his eyes more brown than gold. More alive, more alive, more alive . He smiles, just because he could. “Can we get the red candy over there? Oh my god, I’ve never done this with someone before!”
Newt heads towards the stall Thomas pointed out. “So you’ve been to the festival before?”
“Yeah,” Thomas shrugs. “Or at least something really really similar. I can usually choose where I want to go today. Because there are dead everywhere .”
“Yeah, I can feel them.”
Thomas’s chin digs into Newt’s shoulder. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah. They’re like blobs of space. Like water?”
Thomas hums. “That’s weird. Most people don’t feel them, I think.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the ghosts bump into them and pass through them all the time and they never have any reaction,” Thomas says. “ I’ve bumped and passed through people with no reaction.”
Newt feels suddenly, and almost inexplicably, sad. He pays for the candy.
“We should probably go to the woods,” he says. “Where I wouldn’t be gawked at for talking to myself.” Thomas nods in agreement. A laugh from classmate behind them makes Newt tense. “Okay,” he hissed. “We’ll be going now.”
“Woah,” Thomas has to jog to catch up. “What’s going on? Who’re those guys?”
“I do not want to talk about it.”
“But-”
“Tommy.” Thomas’s mouth shuts with a click. “Thank you. Please just-” Newt huffs. “Just not right now, okay? I’ll tell you later.”
Thomas hums. The two pick their way through the forest, arriving at the clearing they’ve claimed as their own. Thomas settles back against a cherry blossom tree, attacking the candy with an intensity Newt had previously only seen him exert on chess or card games.
“You eat like you’re starving,” he comments.
“I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since I became death.” Newt stared. “What? I never stay in the same place long enough to get money. Or cook. I don’t need to eat anyways.”
“You’re eating right now.”
“I said I don’t have to eat, I never said it wasn’t enjoyable.”
To be entirely fair, Newt has never asked Thomas if or when he ate. “Do you get hungry, then?”
“I kinda got used to it.” Newt punches Thomas in the arm. “Oi! What was that for?”
“For being stupid, that’s what that was for,” Newt says. “Why did you never tell me you were hungry? I could have gotten you something!”
“Yeah, and I’ll spend the next few days hungry again!” Thomas rolls his eyes. “Honestly Newt, it’s fine. As I said, I’m used to it. I need to get used to it or I’ll be all grouchy and people will get scared of me.” He tilts his head to the side. “Though I think people are terrified of me regardless.”
“I was terrified of you when we first met,” Newt admits.
“And you asked for my name anyways.” Thomas scoots closer. “You know you were the first person who did that?”
Newt chuckles. “Well. I thought you were terrifying, but I also thought you were beautiful.” He bumps his shoulder with Thomas’s. “Still do.”
Thomas’s breath stutters. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, well.” Thomas’s face is flushed slightly bronze. “You’re also really pretty.” He reaches up and tugs lightly on Newt’s hair. “See?” They say. “Pretty.”
Newt snorts. “You’re ridiculous,” he sighs. Leans his forehead against Thomas’s anyways. Bumps their noses together so that Thomas’s eyes cross. “Are you ready for that kiss now?” He teases. Thomas’s eyes startled open.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, definitely.”
When Newt kisses Thomas, it’s a confirmation of what they already knew. Because for all his life it’s always been Newt and Thomas, Thomas and Newt . Where would Newt be without Thomas? He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. Newt has wanted to kiss Thomas since he was fifteen. He allows all the feelings he’s kept close to flood from within, the rush leaving his lips tingling. Everything changed. Everything stayed the same. It’s still Thomas and Newt but it’s so much more.
As they resurface for air, Newt takes in Thomas’s golden eyes. The matching freckles on his face. Pitch black hair, like space itself. So fucking pretty , he thinks. Death is so fucking pretty .
“Wow.” Thomas giggles. They hide their face in the crook of Newt’s neck and laugh, Newt feeling the vibration through his collarbone.
“That a good first kiss?” Newt asks, tugging the dark hair at the base of Thomas’s neck.
“The best,” he says. Then he leans up to do it again.
***
The serotonin from that first kiss could have carried Newt through the rest of senior year, he thought. Two weeks later, he realised just how much the universe loved to prove him wrong.
The bruise on his face stung. So did the cut on his lip. The classmate punching him was taller and bigger – Newt can’t do anything except sit there. The fist comes down again. Newt’s neck snaps backwards and he feels more than hears his nose go crunch. The girl watching from the sink hissed in faux sympathy.
“That sounds painful,” she says. She checks her watch. “Class is starting soon. Maybe we should head back.”
You’re punching me into oblivion and you’re worried about tardiness? Newt thought deliriously. The world is insane. His classmates are insane. He’s going insane.
“Not until the twerp learns his lesson.” The classmate pulls him up by the collar of his shirt. Newt feels a prickle at the back of his neck. A feeling like a blob of space passing in front of him. Then. Dark smoke materialised between him and the bully. A cloak of darkness, covering a face with eyes of burning gold. A scythe, stretching from one end of the room to the next. He was death. He was terrifying. And Newt has never been so in love.
The classmate stumbles backwards, letting go of Newt’s shirt. Newt slumps onto the floor of the bathroom, nursing his broken nose. The girl takes one look at the towering figure of darkness standing between Newt and the bully, spins around on her heel, and slips out the door.
The boy wasn’t quite so elegant. He shrieked, bashing his elbow against the sink, shrieked again, and fumbled against the door before spilling out into the hallway. Newt listens to his pounding footsteps disappear down the hallway before finally breathing a sigh of relief.
And just like that Tommy turns back around. All concerned eyes and an unhappy turn of his mouth. “Are you okay?” He asks. “Are you hurt?”
Newt sighs. “Tommy, I’m fine-”
Thomas’s hands fluttered anxiously. “You’re bleeding,” he said. “What do I do? Newt what do I do how do I stop-”
“Tommy, stop,” Newt said. He was exhausted. “It’s just a nosebleed.”
“People bleed when they’re going to die,” Thomas muttered. “You can’t die,” he protested. “You can’t.”
“I’m not dying, Tommy,” Newt pulled Tommy downward. The cape pools around him, making him seem smaller than he actually is. “It’s just some kids being stupid. It’s not that bad, see?” He wipes the blood away from his face, cringing at the red on his hand.
“No,” Thomas muttered. “You can’t die. Not now. Not ever. Not yet.”
Newt felt dread pool in his stomach. “Tommy,” he said slowly. “You do know that you can’t stop me from dying forever, right? I have to die one day.”
“But not now,” Thomas said. His breath was coming in shorter and shorter now, almost to the point of hyperventilation. Newt wonders if the dead can have panic attacks. “You need to stay,” they said. “We need more time. Because if you die, you’ll leave , and then everything will be dull and meaningless again, and I won’t know time and I won’t be real and you won’t be there and I-”
“Tommy, c’mere.” Newt pulls Thomas down so that they’re tucked under Newt’s chin. Thomas’s shoulders heave.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m like this, I’m sorry.” He swallows. “It’s just… you ground me. I don’t know what to do when you’re gone.”
Newt remained silent.
“I’m sorry if it’s selfish, but you get it, right? You get why you can’t die too soon?” Thomas asked plaintively. “You’re- you’re the one good thing that I have.”
Newt sighed. Breathed into Thomas’s hair. “You don’t have to apologise for anything. Of course I promise,” he said. “I’m not going to leave anytime soon. You don’t owe me anything. You’re my one good thing too.”
“So you’ll stay?” Thomas asked quietly.
“As long as you keep coming back, I’ll be here. You’re my best friend. I need you just as much as you need me.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
***
Thomas comes back. Thomas keeps coming back. Thomas comes back with hugs and kisses and arms looped around his shoulders. He comes with the scent of drying flowers and soft I love yous . He keeps coming back.
Until he doesn’t.
Days stretch into months. Newt graduates. Sits in the trees during the summer and waits for him to reappear. Take longer routes to the library to avoid the kids playing in the street.
Things are getting worse.
There are more cranks outside the gates. A boy around his age got sick and was pushed out the village walls, screaming the whole way. His father covered his sister’s ears and the whole family huddled around the dinner table.
“We can’t stay,” his father says. “We can’t stay.”
The flowers are dying. Newt stares at the night sky alone and thinks that it’s a dead thing over a thing that’s undead. Not alive. Just something too stubborn and too stupid to die. He thinks of Oscar Wilde and how death must be beautiful, like blooming flowers and the soft earth.
He refuses to die. He waits for Thomas to come back.
Newt stands at the bridge some days. Not a lot of people bother him there. Nobody really goes into the forest anymore. He meets a girl there with flowers in her hair.
“I know you,” he says. “From the bathroom.”
“That’s me,” she agrees. She doesn’t apologise. Newt doesn’t expect her to. They stand together on the bridge instead, watching the water batter the rocks down below. The woods are silent. Newt tries to remember the sound of birds chirping. His mind comes up empty.
“You shouldn’t pick the flowers,” he says instead. “They’re dying out.”
“So am I,” she giggles. Newt looks over and she pulls back the sleeve of her jacket. Green-blue-purple veins were a bracelet around her wrist. “I’m already dead,” she says. “Might as well take down part of the earth with me.”
“What’s the point?” Newt asks. “Does the suffering of others just delight you?”
The girl turned to look at him. With flowers in her hair, she was almost childish. But as soon as he looks in her eyes –
“My ancestors buried themselves with things they loved,” she says. “I can’t do that anymore. So I want to pass on with them instead. Who are you to deny me that?”
“No one.”
Newt leaves the girl standing on the bridge, petals drifting from her hair. He doesn’t see her around anymore.
Somedays, Newt stands on the bridge. Somedays, Newt thinks of jumping. Most days, he just waits. “You promised,” he says to the dry summer air. “You promised you would come back. I stayed, I’m right here. Where are you ?”
He dreams of flying. He dreams of lavenders finding purchase in his bones and sprouting out of his skin. He dreams of dying. He dreams of rotting. He dreams of veins of green and purple climbing up his arm and waking up heaving.
The day he flew, it was raining. The sky was grey, like a blanket covering the earth. Petrichor fills his nose and burns his eyes. The rain feels like acid dripping onto his head.
“The bridge was slippery that day,” he would say later. “It was an accident. I didn’t know I was slipping until it was too late.”
All of that was a lie, of course. He didn’t fall from the bridge. He lept. And as he crashed down into the rushing river water, he felt almost unearthly.
***
Newt remembered, very suddenly as he opened his eyes beneath the bridge, that Tommy would have to come and deliver his soul eventually.
He thought it would be poetic, in a way. Thomas finally comes back. Newt comes to see him again. He can feel his soul clawing its way out of his chest, past the wreck of broken bones. Newt closes his eyes. He wonders what dying would feel like.
But then. There are hands against his chest, keeping his soul from escaping. He tries to scream, managing only a raspy cough. There are hands on his face, someone is crying.
“You have to wake up! You promised, you promised you would stay. Someone, please help me- stop bleeding stop bleeding stop stop stop why are you doing this to me? ”
Newt thinks of golden eyes and inky black tears. He wonders if Thomas will be able to join him in the garden of death.
***
Newt wakes up on a bed with a creature on his chest.
He jerks violently, throwing Thomas off entirely. His leg feels like it’s on fire.
“What the hell, Thomas,” he growls.
Thomas gawks up at him. “You’re asking me?” He asks. “I’m asking you . What happened, Newt? You promised !”
“So did you!” He retorted. “You promised you would come back! Where have you been ?”
“What do you mean where have I been?” Thomas squawked. “People are dying ! I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they are , now more than ever, and I’m being thrown across countries and space and I’m so tired , and I’ve tried to get back but I barely get a moment to breathe before I’m being sent somewhere else again , and then when I finally think I succeeded I just see you -” his voice cracks. “I don’t get it. Why?”
Newt wants to cry. He buries his face in his hands. “It’s been over a year Thomas,” he said. “Not a word from you. You just… disappeared.” He dry heaves. “Things are getting worse, Thomas. Things have been getting really bad. And I needed you, I needed you so many times and you weren’t there .”
Newt knows Thomas isn’t an angel. But it does feel like that sometimes. His own personal guardian angel, there whenever he needs him. It’s selfish. It’s so fucking selfish. Guilt tightens it’s fingers against Newt’s throat and he chokes.
“I’m sorry.” Thomas’s voice was quiet.
“You shouldn’t be. It wasn’t your fault. It was nobody’s fault.” Newt scooted closer to the edge of the bed. “You hear me, Tommy? It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
Thomas’s breath shuddered. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
“And now you’re back, right?” Newt reached out and ran his fingers through Thomas’s hair. They leaned into the touch, sighing. “We’ll figure everything out again.”
“We’ll figure everything out again,” Thomas muttered like a mantra. “We’ll figure everything out again. We’ll figure everything-”
Newt blinked. Thomas was gone.
***
For a few days, Newt is worried Thomas will be gone again. The sickness is still spreading. He can smell corpses if he gets too close to the city walls.
Newt was packing his bags when Thomas appeared on his bedside table. His wings wrapped around his shoulders, and he looked almost like a crow rather than a person. Or at least, a personified representation of death.
“Where are you going?” Thomas asked. He doesn’t mention his two-week absence.
“To the east,” Newt replies. “See if there’s anywhere that’s less affected by the flare.”
Thomas nodded his agreement. His scythe hung loosely from his back, the tip almost touching the floor. “How’s your leg?” he asked. “It’s still wrapped up.”
“It’s called a cast,” Newt huffed, amused. “We’re leaving in a month. It takes around that time for my leg to fully heal. It’ll still be janky, but better than now.”
Thomas laughed. He slipped off of the table like a pool of black ink, landing cross-legged on the floor. He pressed a kiss to Newt’s knee, patting it lightly. “For good luck,” he said. “For lavender veins and stardust bones.”
Newt leaned against the side of the bed, shaken. He lets out a breath, sitting down fully on the mattress. Thomas is next to him in a flash, looking at him with worried eyes.
“Newt? Did I do something wrong?”
“It’s been a year , Tommy,” Newt said in place of an explanation. It’s been a year, a year of wishing for Tommy’s presence, Tommy’s kisses. Having them now is both intoxicating and terrifying. He understands Thoams’s point now when they said they would rather starve themselves than eat and have to lose that privilege again. Now that he has Thomas back, it just makes him all the more terrified to lose him again.
“I-” Thomas hesitated. “Does that change… everything?”
“It changes a lot of things, Thomas,” Newt said. “You’re back. You can be gone again. I can’t rely on you being there anymore, do you get that?” He looked over. Thomas looked crestfallen.
“Every time I leave you, I’m gone for so long ,” Thomas fidgeted with his fingers. “I don’t even know how long I’ll be gone. It feels like years. So this is kinda just,” he flailed his arm around wildly.
“Normal for you,” Newt sighed. “You can’t possibly understand because this is normal for you.”
Thomas is used to long breaks in the relationship. He’s used to Newt being a constant, never changing force in his life. Newt isn’t holding up well after Thomas is gone for a year – how is Thomas holding up now that Newt has changed so drastically?
“Not everything is different,” he said, reaching a hand out and interlacing their fingers. Thomas played with his hand quietly, looking down at it instead of at Newt. “I just need a bit of time, okay? To get used to it again.”
“I’ll give you time,” Thomas said. “It’s the only thing I can give. You can take all the time you want. Until everything is okay again. Everything will be okay again.”
***
Everything was not okay again.
The car was hit by a group of cranks. Ten, maybe twenty. Newt can’t tell. One minute he was dozing in the backseat with his sister against his shoulder, the next he was shoving a lantern into the face of something rotting and decaying and screaming for his sister to run, goddamnit Lizzie run!
Thomas stands, a swirl of black smoke, an outstretched hand. Newt runs, bad leg almost buckling under him. Something sharp presses into his arm, and he
f a l l s.
***
Newt wakes up to dust on his lips and sand in his hair.
“How?” He whispers. There is sand in his mouth and between his teeth. When he bites down they make a crunching noise like candy. Sitting up hurt — his knees, his arms, his half-healed leg. He manages, though, staggering to his feet and brushing the sand out of his eyes.
He is in the middle of nowhere. Sand, stretching forward in all directions. “Lizzie?” He called. It scratched his throat. “Mum? Dad?” He spun around in the circle. The sun beat down on him relentlessly. “Tommy?”
Newt?
“ Thomas ,” he screamed, desperation and dirt tearing at his throat.
“Newt?” There is a hand on his arm and a hand in his hair. Thomas’s eyes are gold and pooled with worry. “Newt, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m-“ he gulped. “I’m okay. Did you see them? Did you see where they went? Thomas-“ he hissed in pain as Thomas’s hand brushed something on his arm. Something wet and sharp and painful. He brushed back the sand and grit to look. Really look.
There is a bite mark on his arm. His arm is an open wound, and he can feel the floor beneath him falling away.
“Newt?” Thomas asked again. He looked up at him in worry, eyebrows creased and confused. “That’s not good, is it?”
“No,” Newt said quietly. The world warps, a bit, restructuring and reshaping and reforming. “That’s not good at all.”
***
“I’m going to find them,” Newt tells Thomas that night after they wrapped his arm in inky black fabric. “My family. We agreed to go to the town — we just have to get there.”
“Follow the sun?” Thomas asks. He’s been acting strange ever since Newt explained what the bite meant — more subdued. Almost like a statue. Newt keeps reaching over to make sure he hasn’t frozen over into wax.
“Exactly,” Newt says, pretending he can’t feel the edges of madness peaking into his head. “We follow the sun.”
***
There is something inside of him.
Something curled up and ugly. A thing , with fleshy strings for arms and a gaping maw. It whips an arm out and Newt stumbles. There is a thing inside his head and veins crawling up his arm. He thinks of a girl on a bridge and the flowers in her hair. He thinks of the girl and I want to be buried with something I love, who are you to deny me that?
There is a boy next to him- Tommy is next to him. Tommy who is somebody, who is a boy, who is nobody, who was never here.
Except he brings him food, sometimes. Food that tastes like dirt but food nonetheless. And holds him close when he sleeps. And sometimes quietly asks, “Newt?” and “Are you okay now?” and “Please talk to me.”
Newt feels like he’s drowning.
***
They find his parents a few days later. Nothing but decomposing flesh and scraps of fabric. Newt does not cry. The sun takes and takes and it’s taken all the water inside of him too. “Did you deliver them?” He asked Thomas. Thomas is a wisp beside him. A ghost. He has never felt more like a grim reaper.
“I must have,” Thomas said. “Or maybe I did so later.”
Newt’s hands shake. He thinks he should bury them. But the sand burns his hands. There isn’t a shovel nearby. And the earth will cover them soon, one day. The sand is almost burying Newt . His parents will be alright.
Newt walks around the wreck of his parents. Digs through the abandoned car till he finds a change of clothes and a backpack. Supplies. Resources. He pats the old family car and walks with the sun. He doesn’t let himself look back.
***
Holding Tommy’s hand helps, sometimes. Let him remember who he is. The bullying and the teasing and the good. All the good, too. Tommy smells like autumn leaves and drying flowers.
Some nights, Tommy combs his fingers through his hair and whispers blessings of lavender and stardust. Most days, he mutters for things to be alright and for Newt to be alright. They massage Newt’s arm and beg him not to leave.
Newt is the one going insane. He thinks he might bring Tommy down with him.
“You promised,” he screams at Thomas, one day, when he’s particularly angry and the thing inside of him is particularly loud. “You promised me!”
“I’m here,” Thomas said, eyes pleading. “I’m right here, I didn’t leave, I never left.”
“Not that. Before that, before all that, you promised .”
All the colour drained from Thomas’s face. “No,” he muttered, pacing. “No no no no no-”
“You promised me, Tommy, you promised to kill me , if you were ever my friend if you ever intended to keep it-”
“Stop it!” Thomas screamed. “We’re going to get you east and get you to a city and they can help you, they can cure you-”
“Since when was there a fucking cure?” Newt laughed, all edge and no humour. “There’s no fucking cure, Thomas! Not now, not yet. I’m a dead man walking.”
“I promised you a good death,” Thoams protested.
Newt laughed again. “I guess you were always meant to break your promises, huh, Tommy?”
Tommy stayed silent.
***
“Newt?”
He walks on.
“Newt? Where are we?”
“Nowhere.”
“I think we left nowhere behind two hours ago.”
Newt laughs. Vomits black ink instead. He thinks of the girl on the bridge. He yearns for one himself.
***
He asks Thomas to kill him again. Thomas screams, raw and ugly. “Stop it stop it why are you doing this to me-”
“I’m dying, Thomas,” he said, trying to be gentle this time. “Remember, what I told you? Back in the bathroom?”
“No no no no no-”
“I’m dying , Tommy,” he said again, firmer. “And neither of us can stop it.”
“I won’t let you die!”
Newt gives him a crooked smile. “I don’t think that’s how it works, darling.”
“I am death!” Thomas screams. Tears on his face are inky black as it drips out of his hollow eyes. “I decide how it works!”
Newt’s heart cracks, just a little. “Do you?” he asked quietly. Thomas buries their face into Newt’s chest instead, shoulders shaking.
“Please,” he begged. “Just a bit more time.” Newt holds them close and tries not to think about how little time they actually have.
***
He is a dead thing, shambling on rotting legs. Black drips from his eyes, from his mouth. There is a monster inside of his chest. Vines are crawling up his neck.
There is a boy. He knows the boy is called Tommy and he is kind, and he is horrifying, and he is home. He is trying to find a home. No, not home. A family? A girl. The one on the bridge? No, no. Sister. His sister. A little girl with blonde hair-
“It’s okay.” The boy takes his hand and leads him forward. “We’re almost there, see? I’m still here.”
Newt takes a deep breath and keeps walking.
***
To his credit, Tommy does try. To rip out his soul. He cups Newt’s face with his hands, presses their foreheads together, and yanks .
It’s like unravelling his skin. Like pulling out all his bones. There is a mass shifting inside his chest and his bones are creaking, snapping, he is screaming , it’s like being flayed alive, it’s like being ripped apart, it’s like being turned inside out-
Then it’s over. Tommy is sobbing, a cacophony of sorry sorry sorry sorry I’m so sorry- while Newt fights to breathe.
He brushes his hand through Tommy’s hair. Breathes through shaking coughs and gags on the blank ink building up in his throat. He can’t breathe. He can’t stop breathing either.
***
There’s something particularly terrifying about going insane. Feeling your mind slip out from between your fingers.
The boy who’s half dead walks. He walks, blindly into ruin, into fire and brimstone tearing and pummelling his skin. And death follows. Death follows, eyes wide open, and doesn’t let go of their hand.
***
Except it’s not enough.
There is love. And there is hate. And that line is so close together Newt stumbled over it with childlike steps.
Go for the eyes. Go for the soft, squishy bits. Hear them scream. Hear them yell.
They’re going to le a ve. Go for their ribs. Dig your fingers in. Merge us together so they can’t leave. Bite. Eat. Keep the keep them close to what are they d oi n g-
He thinks he remembers screaming. He thinks he remembers tearing at black robes, digging at wide terrifying black eyes, thinks he remembers begging.
Please, Tommy? Please?
***
Hands are clutching his soul with cold dead hands. Something is squeezing through his skin, he is being squeezed through his skin. He is on fire, he is ice cold, someone is screaming, he is screaming, he doesn’t know how to stop, he feels so dreadfully alive -
Newt wakes .
He does not breathe. He is unable to breathe. The air is useless in his nonexistent lungs. The world no longer burns – no, he does not quite feel anything at all.
Except there is a boy – a being – who is holding Newt’s hand in his own. He is trembling – perhaps Newt is the one shaking. He can no longer tell. Newt looks and– He can keep walking. Get up and walk forwards, keep walking. He thinks maybe he can see his parents in the distance. His parents are smiling, he can see them smiling, they are proud, they are proud of him , and he can reach out his hand –
The boy pulls him to his feet. Smiles, something sad and soft and kind. “C’mon,” he says. “I’ll walk you there. It’s no fun dying alone.”
They walk the desert together again, hand in hand. Newt feels like he’s floating out of his body. Like he’ll float right off the surface of the planet into the stars. He feels no heat. He feels no pain. The hand the boy holds is cold, it’s burning through his veins. Newt squeezes his hand, just because he can. The boy squeezes back.
They finally speak. “You won’t forget me, will you?” Death asks softly. “You’ll wait for me. Until I finally cross over. Because I will cross over, I promise, I’ll find you again, if you want me to, that is, I don’t–” He breaks off. Newt thinks of how Thomas’s thoughts must jump around, overlapping and hopping, like the way he experiences time, like the way Thomas experiences everything. Newt thinks of Thomas existing and flowing with the river of time for all eternity. Newt thinks of how Thomas cannot die and how that’s not really living at all.
I have not yet lived either, Newt thinks. He stumbles. Thomas grabs him by the arm to hold him steady because Newt’s thoughts were spinning. Because a life of fear, of embarrassment, of running away from other children and waiting for another to show up one day isn’t living at all. He hadn’t started living yet and he was already dead.
He’s not ready. He does not want to die. More time. More time with the only person who’s ever made him feel alive.
“Newt?” Tommy whispered quietly, and Newt stops walking. He turns and wraps his arms around Tommy’s shoulder, nails digging into his back. Tommy’s breath hitches, but he hugs him back just as tightly.
“I don’t want to go,” Newt says. “I don’t want to go yet. I want to stay with you.”
“I don’t-” Tommy shakes his head. “Your family?”
Newt thinks of the earth, a dying thing. He thinks of Tommy, a thing that cannot die. He knows, he knows. Perfect clarity, for the first time in his life.
“I’ll see them again someday,” Newt said. “I know I will. Everything comes to an end, you know? The world one day will do. But until then I want to stay with you. I want more time.”
Tommy hesitates, for a beat. “You’re sure?” He whispered.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Tommy chokes on a sob and buries their face into Newt’s neck. Over their shoulder, Newt can see his parents in the distance. They still look proud. They still look happy, albeit hazier. Like a desert mirage. His mother raises a hand and waves.
Newt waves back.