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newt’s heart was rotting.
maybe it always had been. slowly and carefully and painfully, never too much but always there. it whispered filthy reminders into newt’s ear, made sure he knew what he was meant to be, made sure he knew what his heart would look like when it finally stopped beating.
rot wasn’t supposed to hurt that much, but as newt grew older, it ached and burned and stung in his chest, like it was punching and stabbing and burning him all at the same time, slowly eating him alive, more painful with every second that passed.
it stayed hidden, a dirty secret. but newt knew that one day everything would snap. newt knew that it would spread to anyone who got too close to his stupid worthless decaying heart.
newt would look at thomas, watch him laugh or listen or sleep or work or smile, and he would shake away the forbidden feeling. dirty and unbound and everything he had ever wanted.
a sharp breath, a shove it down. he wouldn’t let someone who he didn’t trust. he wouldn’t let someone who he didn’t want to hurt.
but no sharp breaths or cold showers or shiny blades would stop the rot from spreading. because it desired and desired and desired and desired and slowly, it climbed it’s way over to tommy’s body.
it infested his soft skin and his untouched heart and his beautiful mind, painting him with everything he was not, attempting to drain him out of what was still left.
“you are not going to hurt me” tommy told newt.
yes, he would.
because he was selfish.
the rot spread over them both, burning and stinging, pulling their hearts together with a thread. there was blame and hatred that wasn’t hatred, and trust that split into distrust that split into trust, there was silence, second by second, ripping apart, burn and burn and burn, scared of anything that wasn’t, longing for the same thing.
and the rot kept didn’t stop. not until they were both tangled up into a pile of pain, the two of them tied together by something reassembling the sun, powerful and intense and burning.
but one day.
one day, as the right words finally fell from their mouths, the burning sun melted into a warm sunset, made of matte orange and light pink and sweet relief.
“that’s not true.” thomas said as newt told him of his dirty heart, the source of everything.
newt didn’t believe his words.
thomas was stubborn.
thomas showed him.
it was careful and awkward and soft and it felt like flying.
i am hurting too. we can hurt together. until it doesn’t anymore, came from thomas’ honey eyes, from his soft chuckles and awkward smiles and careful nudges and the way he melted into newt’s every touch.
it was soft and beautiful and gentle and everything it should have been from the start. it was the smell of laundry and it was laughter sparking with life, it was sharing food and long walks and watching TV on the couch and listening to the other’s ramblings, it was soft against soft and light against dark and skin against skin, and fingertips tracing and giggles and hands in hair and brief shifts getting caught by the other’s knowing eyes, and sometimes it was pain and yells and tears and silence and rot, but after came soft apologies and warm embraces and gentle kisses, and it was long nights and long days and words newt hadn’t believed would ever leave his throat, it was lips refusing to separate and thunderstorms and curves fitting perfect together and stories of everything still left untold, and whispered confessions and bad days and good days and gentle touches that help promises and reminders, firm touches that kept everything at place, and knowing, so much knowing, and it was fumbling around with feelings larger than themselves while gradually learning how to hold them, where to fit them into the jigsaw puzzle, and it was kisses and smiles and tears and cracks and touches and chuckles, and it painted newt’s heart in their favorite colors, because maybe he was also made to love.