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Thomas had always thought Newt looked like an angel.
He always thought it was uncanny, really, how someone could look so ethereal at the end of the world. And to him, it was an objective observation. Much like the sky was blue and the Earth was round, Newt was pretty, and that was it. Just one more rule to add to the long list of the unshakable truths of existence.There was something about his cunning smile, about his fair hair and bright eyes, about the way his sharp jawline and gracious neck seemed to have been sketched and resketched over and over agin to find the perfect angles and curves, that made him look so out of place amongst the other boys. Maybe that was what had pushed Thomas to look back on that first day, when Alby had walked him away from Newt just after introducing the two; look back, look back, just to make sure he hadn’t made him up. To make sure that, even the third time around, he would still be here, still real, and not just a figment of his imagination.
An angel, flung out of space.
And though life had been unkind to them, Newt had remained the same. The sun had burnt the skin of his cheeks and grime had dirtied the fold of his nails, but nothing had ever tarnished him, not his soul at least. Even when his body had started to decay from within, when his beautiful brain had gone twisted, when his hands had cocked guns and slashed knives and tightened themselves around necks, he was still the one Thomas had grown to cherish. The wise voice on his shoulder. His ride or die, forever.
Thomas was sure angels couldn’t die. No God in their right mind would allow it. And yet, there he was, his angel, lying still on a makeshift bed, devoid of any sign of life.
“There is no way to know when he’ll wake up, or if he will wake up at all,” Vince told them when they laid his inert body in a recluse tent. “And even if he does, he may not be…” the man hesitated. “He may not be Newt.”
“What do you mean ‘he may not be Newt’?” Brenda, the bravest of the bunch, had asked.
“No one has ever been cured of the Flare after reaching the Gone, so we have no idea what to expect.”
Vince had then listed all the possibilities.
Newt could wake up, but only partially. He might never speak again, or not be able to move. Be totally lethargic. A vegetative state, Vince had said, and Thomas wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it didn’t sound good, so he didn’t dare to ask.
Newt could wake up and remember nothing, absolutely nothing, not even his own name, and when Vince mentioned that possibility, Frypan wept.
His final guess was that Newt could remain asleep forever. Braindead, in a never-ending comatose state. There was no way to know if the Flare had consumed his brain entirely, and if any of that damage was reversible, nor if there was anything they could do to make it go back to the way it was before. What medicine heals a rotten brain?
“Worst case scenario, he might wake up and still be a crank,” Vince had finally declared. “If it happens, well,...”
Vince never finished his sentence, and he did not have to. They all knew what he meant.
If Newt woke up and cranked up again, they would have to kill him.
Thomas almost had, that day back in the Last City, when the whole world was set aflame, falling apart along with his heart.
In the end, he had managed to straddle Newt and choke him unconscious, pressing on both sides of his neck with all the strength and the gentleness in the world, sobbing i’m sorry ’s and please forgive me ’s in the dirty blond hair that had once gleamed under the sun. His fingers had left red marks there, on the pale skin of Newt’s neck, that were yet to fade away, and Thomas hated the sight of them. At night, when the winds got colder, he would gently wrap Newt’s red scarf around his neck so as to not see them. His hands still trembled with the memory of his best friend’s throat throbbing with blood, throbbing, throbbing, and then nothing.
Nothing.
But it had come rushing back, eventually, coursing through his whole body, spreading the cure on its way. The blue liquid flowed through him alongside his blood, washed all the black veins away
But Newt never woke up.
It didn’t surprise them when he didn’t wake up right away. His body had endured something no other human being had ever survived before. It was fighting a battle on uncharted territory, against an unknown enemy. So when Thomas woke up before him, it didn’t worry anyone, and life followed its course, idly.
It worried pretty much the whole island, however, when after a week, he was still asleep. Yet, in a silent agreement, it seemed everyone had decided to act as if nothing was happening, as if the small tent in the far end of the island where a half-dead body was kept didn’t exist. Conversations revolved around the passage of time, about whether the weather would be kind. One day it was decided that the carrots would be cultivated on the west side. Another, it was stated that meat would be served once a day.
Thomas wondered on which day they would vote to end Newt’s suffering.
Was he suffering, at all?
If the Gods were kind, perhaps Newt was in heaven already. Perhaps he was with Chuck and Alby, and all the friends they lost along the way. What is another death when you’ve buried more people than you have met?
But Newt wasn’t just another death. His absence could be felt everywhere you went, whether you had known him long or little. Smiles never reached ears and laughter was never sincere. Food grew stale and fruits struggled to ripen, as if the world had suddenly lost its balance and the soil carried the grief of the people, watered by their tears. Flowers blossomed only to wilt the morning after, under a sky that was never cloudless yet never shed rain.
“I wish you could smell that one,” Thomas sighed, nose buried between pink petals. He had plucked a few, the prettiest ones, the same as those he remembered seeing in the Glade during the few days he spent there. Newt’s tent could use some colour, he figured, so he brought to Newt what little life the island had created, with the desperate hope that their hues would bleed on his sallow cheeks. Soon, their perfume took over the room, somewhat reminiscent of the Glade, when they would all lay at night with nothing to do but smell the air of their homelike prison. Then, Thomas laid on a cot by Newt’ makeshift bed and remembered those first nights of innocence, when he thought the maze was the worst thing that would happen to him, having no idea hell was actually outside and not within. Those nights were quiet. Him, Newt, and the flowers; the hum of the tide outside.
There were nights, however, where the universe, instead of mourning its brightest one, raged against the dying of the light. Storms would struck, destroying the crops and terrorising the children, when bestial screeches awoke each and every soul. How could Thomas believe then, that Newt was free of pain, when his body twisted to the sound of his screams, as if his insides were desperately trying to purge themselves of the devil himself? How much more of this demonic black tar could his body regurgitate, he wondered as he held the poor boy’s frame, leaning him on his side so he wouldn’t choke on his own sooty sick.
Even on peaceful nights, that sound still haunted Thomas, desperately trying to nip at the memory he had of Newt before all this.
None of it stopped him from running, rushing, dashing to the tent whenever he heard those howls, and from holding the weak, pale frame of his friend, in an often fruitless attempt to shield him from what devoured him from within.
He always stayed near, even when the day was in full swing and the island was buzzing with people building, harvesting, cooking, hunting. The camp was where he stayed, when Minho explored the island and Brenda followed the trail of hares and deers. He could have helped them, of course. He more than knew how to. But his legs were tired of running and his hands of shooting weapons, while his heart ached, having to beat for two.
People had seemingly, unspokenly, decided to keep him busy and entertained, building dams to the consent flow of his tormented thoughts. Gally, surprisingly, sat by his side the most. With small knives – those too little to stab or kill – he showed him how to carve, taught him how to turn wood to life, much like he must have taught Chuck, months and months in the past.
Thomas carved birds and huts and people, little figurines, like a miniature safe haven. He carved fishes into the old wood, and the little lizards that ran up tree trunks. There was one that he particularly liked, thought he had outdone himself with it, so he naturally kept it for Newt, placed it in his inert hand so Newt could feel the smooth edges he had managed to create. Now the lizard watched over Newt whenever he couldn’t; though he tried his hardest to make those moments as rare as possible.
Some nights, he even ate at Newt’s bedside, his bowl precariously set on his lap.
“I had no idea fish was this good,” he told Newt, the first night Frypan succeeded – after a long list of fruitless attempts – to properly grill some. “He told me he can’t wait for you to try it.” And neither can I , he thought as he took another bite, fetching in his dish with bare hands. “But just a little tip for when you get to taste it: don’t go anywhere near the kitchens. The smell is so bad, I’m surprised it didn’t wake you up!”
Such things were only part of the long one-sided conversation he had with his friend. He told Newt about the island, about how quickly the crops grew and how delicious the fruits tasted, how high the trees were and how tranquil the life that awaited him was. He gossiped, too, about Gally and Brenda and how close they seemed to become, or how unsuccessful Minho was in his courtship of Sonya, who only seemed to have eyes for Harriet. He didn’t mind the one-ended nature of those discussions. In a way, that was how they had always rolled. Thomas talked, and Newt listened, for hours on end.
It was also by Newt’s side that Thomas practiced the guitar, something he had decided to try his hand at one bonfire night when he sat next to Vince, curious as to how strings and carved wood could make such sweet sounds.
“I’m sorry if it’s terrible,” he apologised as his fingers hit the strings. “I’ve just started to learn, you know? But Vince says I have a lot of potential. He taught me this song called ‘Landslide’ and I think it’s really beautiful. So I wanted to play it for you. I hope you don’t mind.”
He played it over twenty times that night.
That was just a couple nights before Newt’s state got worse.
A little temperature wasn’t anything unusual as part of the healing process for the Flare, they had come to learn, but quickly, Newt’s whole body was convulsing with shivers. His skin was scalding to the touch and wet with sweat, making the mercury skyrocket up the thermometer that the doctor stuck in his mouth from time to time, brows furrowed, repeating over and over that a body and a brain weren’t supposed to survive that high a temperature, as if Thomas wasn’t right there, pressing a wet cloth against Newt’s forehead, hearing every bit of this death sentence.
And yet, Newt lived. Well, “lived”. His lungs drew air in and let it out. His stomach digested whatever broth Sonya or Minho or Thomas sneaked into his mouth. His hair and nails grew, so did a timid attempt at a beard that Thomas quickly shaved, leaving a few cuts in his trail. His body functioned, apart from his eyes which never opened, while Thomas slowly forgot the exact colour they were.
His biggest fear was becoming true, and the sinking realisation of it was what crushed him the most. He remembered how Newt’s voice was supposed to sound, found the right adjectives to describe it to those in the camp who weren’t lucky enough to have met Newt, but he couldn’t hear that cunning accent in his head anymore.
It was through carefully-chosen words that Newt had pushed him forward, had convinced him to keep going when all felt desperate and doomed. And now, that part of Newt was gone from Thomas’s memory. His brain had stupidly erased that one little thing that had made Thomas realise how much Newt mattered to him. Now, he was left with nothing but the ghost of what Newt once was and the fear that what he had cherished would never return.
This was the first clue he found when he tried to resolve the mystery of his grief. He missed Newt — his laugh, his wits, the warmth of his presence and the kindness of his words — more than he had ever missed anything. He grieved Newt more than he grieved his younger self, the boy who was him and who was not, who had ceased to exist a long time ago, along with the memory of those who loved him, and whose body kept functioning while he himself was gone, much like Newt’s.
Then came the moment he noticed how dull his perception of things had become, how colours simply weren’t as vibrant anymore, how sounds didn’t quite reach his ears. Sleep made itself scarce and , and when the sun finally rose, he would spend the day in a confused, tired haze. All the others had progressively adapted to their new lives, while his remained on stand-by, waiting for Newt to catch up so they could walk their path together.
He had lost Chuck, and he had survived. He had lost Teresa, and he had survived too. Losing Newt, however, would be different. He felt it in his bones every time Newt’s heart gave up, stalled, choked, stopping the Earth in its rotation before kicking it back into motion with one beat, then two, from the stubborn drum of his heart.
That heart, he showered it with thank-yous at every pulsation, and showed his gratitude for its obstinacy by cherishing the cage it was trapped in. Jorge had told him about religion a couple of times, and though he was not quite sure he fully grasp the concept yet, there was most likely something holy about the long minutes he spent bathing and cleaning Newt’s body, inches and inches of scorch-burnt, flare-tarnished skin. He washed away his own guilt with the piece of cloth he meticulously rubbed along Newt’s arms, down his legs – not quite the way he would have chosen to learn Newt’s body, but he didn’t get to be picky. He would scrub Newt’s hair to keep alive the sunshine trapped in it, trim it here and there, cut his nails and clean his wounds, keeping his body at bay for when his soul would finally decide to make use of it again.
He learned to treasure the body as much as he did the soul.
“The truth is, I love you, Newt,” he imprudently confessed one night, himself struck by that realisation. The camp had got quiet and fireflies were keeping him company, drawing constellations behind the tent canvas. No distraction could come in the way of that evident truth anymore. “I think I always have. I don’t know why I didn’t realise it earlier, I just–“ he mumbled as he felt his eyes reddening. “I guess I was too stuck in my own head to see it.” he rationalised, though every excuse felt flat to him. He should have noticed. He should have understood why he always looked for Newt in a crowd, why he had stuck by Newt’s side from the moment they met, why his world seemed to fall apart when he learned about Newt’s disease. Now, all he had left was a shameful proclamation of admiration that no one would ever hear. Perhaps if his heart’s cowardice hadn’t been so jarring, he would have told Newt, and none of this would be happening.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, with Newt’s hand cradled in both his. “I’m so sorry.”
Something Newt would have loved – Thomas was sure of – were the nights when Jorge would tell them stories by the fire, half of them he pretended were true. Vince, however, had quickly spilled the beans and told them all that Jorge was simply reciting plots of old movies from his childhood; nothing out of his own imagination or past life. They all love it nonetheless.
“Jorge told us this crazy story over dinner tonight,” he reported to Newt one night once they had all gone to bed “It’s a children’s story, you see, about a princess who is cursed to stay asleep forever, but a prince kisses her and she wakes up. That’s so weird, like, who the hell does that?”
Naturally, when Jorge had reached the end of his story, Minho had jumped on the occasion to taunt Thomas, telling him that he should kiss Newt; that, maybe, it would wake him up. Of course Thomas had brushed it off, hitting back with a witty remark on Minho’s own desperate courtship of Sonya.
He wasn’t going to kiss Newt back to life, for heaven’s sake.
Still, weeks had turned to months and had turned to seasons, and Newt still lied still, stuck in an in-between, not dead and not quite alive. The doctors were adamant that no change was to be expected given the evolution of things. As winter came, it was probably a matter of days before they would decide to pull the metaphorical plug on this limp body that took away precious resources. Perhaps desperate times called for desperate measures.
Thomas would have used that excuse, had anyone found out and asked why he inched closer to Newt, calmly getting nearer, until he closed his eyes and let his lips land on Newt’s. Just a flutter, oh-so timid. Barely a kiss, yet filled with hopes and wishes.
When he leaned back and opened his eyes, Newt’s were still soundly, tightly closed.
“What the fuck are you doing, Thomas?” he sighed to himself, burying his head deep in his hands.
Life went on, and he barely did, the memory of Newt’s unresponsive lips only adding to the agony he was enduring. He made himself rarer in the camp, dedicating all his time to Newt, not quite sure of how much of that time remained. He got better at playing guitar, having little else to do in Newt’s tent to pass the time. Yet, his favourite song to play was still the same, the first he had tried, the first he had played for Newt.
“I took my love, took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
'Til the landslide brought me down”
An orange glow was peering from outside the tent, an early setting sun, something Thomas still wasn’t used to. He wasn’t upset by it though. How could he be? Newt looked so much more alive, bathed in this dark sunlight, almost like the glimmer of the bonfire that very first night, the first time he got to properly look at Newt, watch him, admire him, and, in retrospect, fall for him.
“Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?”
His eyes went back to his guitar, to his fingers chasing the strings. He knew the chords by heart by now, but part of him was still insecure. His audience wasn’t going to complain, sure, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t outdo himself for Newt.
In the end, those moments were the only ones during which Thomas could pretend everything was alright, because he had no doubt Newt would close his eyes to listen to his music so he could hear it better. Newt was like that. He wanted to live every emotion and every sensation, good or bad, to the fullest. He wanted to live.
“Well, I've been afraid of changin’
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older, too”
Then, Thomas looked up, and the world was okay again.
He might have forgotten the shade of Newt’s eyes and the pitch of his voice, but that smile, the one that betrayed Newt’s playful nature whenever he faked authority, he could have never forgotten it. It was quiet, discreet, but world-changing all the same. In the chaos of the world they lived in, it was the only thing that could keep Thomas anchored. If Newt’s smile could exist, it meant the world still had things worth living for in stores.
And just like that, it was back, along with two tired, darkened, but utterly open eyes.
There was no doubt that his own eyes matched, wide open in disbelief. His fingers faltered against the strings, resulting in a cascade of wrong notes that earned him a feeble snort from within the bed.
A second later – or maybe a whole minute, it was hard to keep track of time in such a moment – Newt’s mouth opened. Barely, just like his eyes, but just enough to say,
“...K–...Keep…p-playin…”
It took Thomas even longer to come back to his senses. Muscle memory stepped in, his fingers unconsciously playing the following chords, and he uttered one last chorus, his voice quivering on each syllable that his disbelieving grin twisted into messes of sounds. He was crying, that much he knew. He hadn’t let himself cry over Newt’s fate, not once, and now that uncertainty had left and Newt was born again, he couldn’t help himself. He gave Newt quick glances as to make sure his exhausted, hopeful brain hadn’t made it all up, but no. Newt was watching him fondly, awake, awake, awake.
“...Hi,” Newt painfully mumbled, once Thomas had finished his song and settled the guitar on the ground.
“ Hi, ” he repeated in a flabbergasted chuckle.
“F-fancy…seein you…here,” Newt struggled again, and another chuckle emanated from Thomas.
“I should…I should go warn the others,” Thomas realised, standing up in a hurry, almost knocking the pitcher of water off the nightstand.
“S-Stay…”, Newt protested, his voice barely loud enough to be heard. “’m tired…”
Thomas sat right back, a tad closer than he was before. “You can sleep, I’ll be there.”
Newt smiled and closed his eyes again, “...I know…”
The months that followed, though coated with relief and joy, suffered from a trial harder to overcome than the many they had already gone through. Coming back from the dead was not an easy task, doing it twice was a torture in itself. It wasn’t the first time that Newt had to learn how to walk again, but it was the most difficult one. Both his legs and arms had gone stiff despite regular massages to keep his muscles from atrophying, something Minho had insisted on doing, just so he could do something.
Minho, also, was probably the most worried when it came to Newt’s spirits. Of course, his biggest fear had been that Newt would never wake up. But close second was the fear that Newt would come back unwillingly, that his body would awake but not his lust for life, much like it had happened before. Inevitably, every sight of Newt from the moment he woke up surprised him. In the three years they had spent together in the Glade, never had he seen such a constant smile on Newt’s face. Even when his joints ached, when he suddenly lost his balance and landed in the dirt or the sand, when food miserably fell from his mouth, his jaw failing to chew and his throat forgetting to swallow, he still managed to laugh it out.
The one variable which had shifted, he realised, between Newt’s recovery process in the Glade and the one in the safe haven, was Thomas; and there was no doubt in Minho’s mind that it wasn’t himself that Newt was trying to reassure with his laughter, but Thomas.
Thomas, who stuck by Newt’s side day and night, helped him get in and out of bed until he could do it himself, let him lean on him when they walked, fed him until he was strong enough to hold a spoon; a list of small needs that would have made Newt spiral in frustration just a year ago.
When, finally, Newt could walk and talk and eat properly again, Thomas took him on long walks to show him the island. Newt’s gait was still hesitant, and he still used a crutch that Gally had built for him, but he had insisted, intrigued by this whole new world that opened up to him.
Newt’s determination didn’t prevent his body from going tired, so the two boys eventually settled by the sea and let the warmth of the sand calm down Newt’s aching legs. Thomas, who had taken his guitar with him, let it slide on his lap and played some idle chords. He had dreamed of moments like this, the breeze of the ocean on both their skins, Newt squinting at the sun, the salty air filled with possibilities.
“Can you play the song you were playing when I woke up?” Newt asked, glancing at him, shielding his eyes with his hand.
Thomas smiled and complied, playing the familiar partition without thinking about it, like one knows how to breathe or how to walk. He carefully avoided Newt’s eyes, for he knew of the tenderness with which he was being watched, none of which he considered to be deserving of, but Newt had decided to bless him with it anyway.
Something had changed about him, about Newt. So much should have been expected, after the months he spent torn between life and death, but it manifested in the strangest of manners. Death had made him bolder, happier, even reckless. There were things Newt would have never done before that he had no problem doing now, like diving headfirst into the ocean or attempting to climb a tree to pick some fruits, much to Thomas’s despair. Perhaps, more than anyone, Newt knew how precious life was, and how fully it should be lived. What could scare a man who had beaten death twice?
The moment when, in the middle of a chorus, he slid his hand behind Thomas’s neck and crashed his lips onto his was probably a good example.
Thomas gasped, then, caught off-guard by a sensation unlike anything he had ever felt. Newt’s lips were warm, so warm and so alive, like they poured life in its purest form into him. And Newt was kissing him. Newt was kissing him . Newt had woken up, had recovered, had survived going to hell and back, and was kissing him, like it was the natural, predictable, obvious continuation of his journey; like everything until this very moment – the hardships, the suffering, the loss and the grief – had happened so they could be on this beach, kissing.
When Newt detached his lips from Thomas’s, the poor boy hadn’t quite finished processing it all yet, and was left without a single word. He had been smart once, but all he knew now was the taste of Newt’s lips, the softness of his hands on his skin. All else had been swiped from his memory.
“Wow,” Newt chuckled, his smile brighter than the sun. “I never thought I could make you speechless, Tommy.”
Torrents of confused words flooded in Thomas’s mind, until three of them clumsily fell out of his mouth, “I…I love you…”
“I know,” Newt chuckled.
“You know ?” Thomas repeated, nearly terrified.
“You told me before, when I was asleep” Newt explained, toying with a strand of Thomas’s hair that fell down his neck.
“You heard that?” the other boy winced.
“How many times do I need to tell you?” Newt rolled his eyes, enamoured. “I heard everything,” he explained, looking down at the forgotten guitar between them.“I smelled everything,” he added, glancing at the field of flowers that stretched out in the distance. “I felt everything,” he said then, letting his fingers run down the back of Thomas’s neck, and, gazing at his lips, he finished with an impetuous, “I tasted everything.”
Thomas instantly felt himself turning red with shame at the memory of the quick, stolen kiss, “Newt, I’m so sorry,” he said. “You must think I’m a creep–”
“I thought it was kinda cute, actually,” Newt admitted. “Too bad I’m not a princess. I would have loved to see your face if it had worked. All confused and flushed, like now.”
Embarrassed, Thomas tried to hide his face, but Newt’s hand moved, cradling his cheek with affection, and Thomas leaned into it, borrowing some courage from the other boy.
“I died, you know?” Newt suddenly confessed, avoiding Thomas’s eyes, as if all his confidence had suddenly vanished. “Many times actually. I phased in and out, consciousness coming in waves.”
“I saw what it was like, up there,” he continued, as Thomas watched him with concern. “And it’s beautiful. There is no pain. There’s just…pure, total bliss. I could have stayed. Could have chosen to just…let go. Maybe…maybe I was supposed to let go. But something felt wrong. Something was missing.”
“What?”
“You, Tommy,” he said, shrugging, like it was a self-evident truth.
“It was beautiful there. But you were here ,” he continued, glancing at the island, on which the sun had started to set. “There was your hand holding mine, like an anchor. The sea was astonishing. But the shore…It was where I belonged, because that’s where you were. That’s where your voice was calling my name, telling me about all those tremendous things I was missing on. And you made them sound so perfect.” A joyful sob escaped from his mouth before he continued, “I wanted to see the tide and feel the water under my feet. I wanted to see the flowers. I wanted to taste Frypan’s stupid fish. And I wanted to kiss you back,” he smiled fondly. “So I came back, and it wasn’t easy. But if there’s something I realised, lying there in that tent, it’s that I wouldn’t have to do it alone. You’d be there. And you’d walk that road with me, even if it was going to be long and tortuous.”
“I’d follow you anywhere,” Thomas said, out of breath, only now grasping the weight of the words Newt had written to him, all those months ago.
“You sap,” Newt chuckled, and he leaned in one more time, the second of many to come.
Newt is not an angel. Thomas knows that by now. He is simply a boy; a fallible human being made of flesh and bone, and his heartbeats are not sacred, nor gifted by some divine power. They’re a show of resilience, of hope, of willpower. A deliberate choice to fight back against fate. No God was to thank for Newt’s survival, in the end.
Only love was.