Chapter Text
Things had been going downhill for Thomas since he had woken up in that stupid metal box. Unsurprisingly and unfortunately, “downhill” was typically how apocalypses worked. This, however? This was more than downhill. This was “Burrowing Down Into The Pits Of Hell, Securing The Bar In Place and Limbo-ing Swiftly Under It Like A Drunken, Drugged Up, Flare-Infected Sewer Rat ™."
Thomas didn’t need a stupid therapist or any stupid medical attention or a stupid happy ending to tell you that it wasn’t worth it without Newt. If he didn’t have Minho around to breathe down his neck and practically guilt-trip him into considering the “Fate of the World” the entire time, he most likely would have given up on himself the second Newt had made him walk away in that stupid Crank Palace.
He couldn’t clearly recall a single morning since that had happened, nor a single night. They’d all begun to blur together in the hazy mess of his mind. That was why he had agreed so quickly to be the Right Arm’s little sacrifice.
All he had to do was walk straight into WICKED’s headquarters (willingly), risk his life for every second he stayed in the building and wait for enough explosives to kill God to be planted right under his nose. Sure. Fuck it. Why not? If he was killed then he was killed, it wasn’t like he cared anymore. None of it was worth caring and none of it felt real. Fuck you.
The white noise in his brain had become so loud that when he heard his own voice scream for the van to stop, and felt his body scramble to open the car door, it took a long while to even register what he was doing.
The words he had exchanged with Newt that day had burnt into his ears and echoed for years to come. In the moment though, they didn’t quite reach his mind. He might have considered fighting against it if he wasn’t so busy trying to savour what was certainly the last he’d hear of Newt's voice. Ever.
He caught a few things. The worst of it. The shit that stung.
“I’ve always hated you.”
Thomas couldn’t even argue. He knew the Flare did horrendous things to the mind and body, but in all honesty he wanted to believe it. He wanted to hear the things he felt, deep down, that he deserved.
He found himself stuck in a loop, back and forth between expecting (and accepting) every word Newt had thrown at him and watching his understanding of the last 12 weeks crumble before his eyes. In that moment, he could feel himself deconstructing every memory he’d ever had, subconsciously trying to prove Newt’s onslaught of insults wrong. But he couldn’t. There was a single memory they had shared which actually proved Newt could even tolerate him, not now that he thought about it.
Maybe he’d been getting Newt wrong.
Crackling across the floor and whistling past Newt’s ear, a launcher fired from the van’s window. Thomas couldn’t even order them to stop before he found himself winded and on the floor. With an unceremonious thud, his body felt back and his vision flickered painfully for longer than he could brush past. When it returned, his eyes landed on Newt who was now pinning him to the ground with a concerningly violent shine to his eyes. A small terror fuelled sob escaped Thomas’s mouth and his hand very slowly reached for his gun.
That’s what he remembered the most.
Before Newt had even suggested the idea of hurting him, Thomas was practically aiming. It was as if he was itching to, even. Impatient and ready to end things quickly. Each time he relived the memory later, he could count on two hands the amount of times he sought to harm his friend.
He could still recite the speech he was given, word for word. Newt wanted to die. Newt had always wanted to die and that was no one’s fault but Thomas’s. Everything Thomas had ever done in life had led to this moment, and Newt knew it better than anyone. His nails clawed at Thomas’s wrist, grabbing the hand that held the pistol and forcing Thomas to point towards his forehead.
“Make amends.”
With shaking hands, Thomas forced himself to look away and let out another pained sob.
“Kill me or I’ll kill you.” Newt spat, his own tremors shaking Thomas’s hand that held the gun.
In all honesty, it didn’t even sound like too bad of a deal for Thomas right now. Newt was right. This entire time he had been so selfish. Everything he did was selfish. Surely, it would only honour all of his past choices to make his last act a selfish one too. Surely if he waited… Newt would do it for him. Newt would single-handedly take back every bad decision Thomas had ever made, just like he had been doing since the second they’d met. And then it would be over.
But it wasn’t over.
No matter how many silent prayers Thomas recited in his mind, he couldn’t stop Newt’s expression from crumbling into one of such immense pain. His last grasp of sanity. The hand that gripped Thomas’s wrist stopped shaking abruptly and Newt looked him dead in the eyes like a deer. A deer staring into the headlights of a scared man. A terrified kid, but a hunter nonetheless.
“Please, Tommy. Please.”
Thomas couldn’t do this anymore. This was truly what Newt wanted and it was what he deserved after the life of pain he had lived. It was Thomas’s fault after all. He winced and closed his eyes, bracing himself for what he decided would be his last action in this world.
A gun shot echoed across the highway.
Car doors open and shut. Heavy footsteps rushed over. Voices yelled orders that Thomas couldn’t comprehend. Just as he let the pistol clatter to the ground, a hand grabbed at Thomas's arm. As it dragged him up off the floor, he fought tooth and nail to free himself, crying out with a guttural scream. He could only watch Lawrence hauling Newt’s limp body away from him. Over his protests, he was certain they had tried to talk some sense into him but he wasn’t going to listen. All he could do was cry and sob and scream and kick like a child.
Thomas reached and clawed until he almost passed out. Anything. He was begging for anything to happen right now that could end whatever awful sickly emotion he was feeling. Drugs, concussion, freedom but preferably death. Something about finally experiencing an infinite period of nothing-at-all sounded like paradise to him. He would never admit it, but he’d been thinking that way for longer than he could remember.
“You need to calm down.” Lawrence snapped, trying to hold Thomas’s arms back from lashing out and get the kid to look him in the eyes.
“I killed him. I fucking killed him,” Thomas wailed. His voice was raw as all his strength was put into yanking his arms back from Lawrence’s grip. The man wouldn’t budge. “Let. Me. Go.”
“Kid, you need to listen. That’s not-” Thomas cut him off with another scream, and a narrowly dodged kick.
It wasn’t until Lawrence had forced him to sit in the open boot of the van that Thomas had given up completely. He curled himself up, hugging his knees to his chest and sobbing so violently that he was sure (if it hadn’t been for his lack of appetite prior to their outing) he’d have violently thrown up every ounce of food in his system.
“Thomas. Thomas, you need to talk to me.” Lawrence sighed, his attempt at a softer tone ruined by his past 14 years of cheap smoke and soot clogging his lungs.
Thomas felt a hand rest on his knee and batted it away with a scowl, a cat-like anger in his glare.
“I’m not fucking talking,” he mumbled, pouting like a child and scotting further back into the van as a means to hide away from Lawrence.
The other woman, Jenny, sat on the edge of the van’s boot and exhaled softly. “I need you to listen to me here, okay?”
Admittedly, her words were more soothing than the older man’s, but Thomas was still reluctant to listen.
“Neither me nor Lawrence want to be carrying around a Crank like old cargo but… that dart lasts a minimum of 3 hours on a healthy body. You have at least 5 until he wakes up.”
Thomas’s eyes shot up and widened. He’d killed him. He had killed Newt. That was what happened, was it not? Thomas had become a monster and let Newt’s disease talk him into ending the life of the only person he’d consider living for. What the fuck did a tranquiliser dart have to do with anything? It was a sick joke. All of this was.
“If we take him back and our plans work out nicely,” she continued, “then we can consider keeping him on Bliss until we have other options. But you have to cooperate with us here, you hear me?”
He watched as Jenny tilted her head, a curl falling from her loose hair tie. Scoffing in disgust, he rolled his eyes. Thomas was sick of people using Newt as leverage. It was always:
“Newt will get a cure if you keep working for WICKED”. “Newt will be safe if you just let this mad man operate on your brain”. “Newt will be fine if you potentially sentence yourself to death in the name of an organisation you hadn’t heard of last week.”.
And it worked. Every. Damn. Time.
“I’m going fucking crazy,” he mumbled to himself, if only to hear words that weren’t being forced into his ears.
Wiping the tears from his eyes and hopping out the van, he passed the woman coldly, refusing to look at neither her nor Lawrence as he climbed into the passenger seat. He leant his elbow on the car door, using it to support his chin. If he just pretended that this wasn’t the worst day of his life, maybe he’d start believing it.
Who the fuck was he kidding.
Jenny and Lawrence lifted Newt’s body into the backseat, Lawrence holding him still while Jenny pricked his neck with the small device in her hand. Thomas refused to watch, but couldn’t ignore the wash of green light that coated the van’s interior for a few seconds, flashing with two beeps. He didn’t react though. The longer he spent convincing himself none of this was happening the better.
“Thomas…” Jenny called, throwing Lawrence a confused glance. “Can you check the glove box for me? I think this scanner’s out of charge.”
Thomas reluctantly did just that, rummaging through the compartment until his hands landed on another device. He turned around and passed it back, resting his chin against the car seat headrest. This time, he forced himself to stomach the sight before him. It made him nauseous, watching Newt’s body barely manage to heave in enough breath to fill his lungs. How the oxygen stuttered on its way in.
Thomas observed in cold, curious silence as Jenny passed another glance up to Lawrence.
“Again?” she whispered with a frown.
“Why what’s the matter,” mumbled Thomas who had leant closer to see the device itself.
“Twice now it’s come up clear,” Jenny explained calmly. “If we can’t gauge how long he’s been infected we won't be able to help him.
“We might have better equipment back at base. Get Thomas to WICKED first, then we test the kid,” Lawrence ordered. He crossed his arms and slammed the van door shut before hopping into the driver's seat.
Thomas took in the view from the window in silence as they drove him to his potential end. Again.