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The thing about going public that you’re kinda sorta dating your bitterest high school rival isn’t what you might think.
You might think the biggest hurdle would be figuring out that that burning sensation you thought was hatred was actually hot hot lust, or you might even suspect the trouble to pop up around the thorny little gamble of figuring out whether ye olde slow, creeping lava flow feeling was even mutual in the first place. Sure. That would be natural. You might think that.
But it turns out the real problem presents itself when the (current) love of your life and the (former)(…mostly) bane of your existence turns to you, with those devastating dark chestnut eyes – the ones with the glinting, golden-shot flecks you didn’t know where there for years but it turns out only reveal themselves once you’ve been granted the privilege of approaching within makeout distance – and they look at you in just. That. Way.
The way that a certain somebody knows does things to your insides and makes happy, giddy, unfair little tingles happen all the way down to the soles of your feet (no, it’s not weird okay, Thomas happens to be a very physical person, it’s an athlete thing, or something. People say they feel things in their guts all the time. Normal things, like lava, or like hyperactive butterflies in your leftmost cardiac ventricle, or weird, itchy prickling in your suddenly sweaty armpits or whatever, it’s fine and absolutely doesn’t need explaining or any sort of medical investigation).
No. The issue comes up when your (former) sworn nemesis and (current, and possibly lifelong) reason for existing, looks at you Just That Way and asks:
“So when are we going to tell people about us?”
“Oh my god.” Thomas grips the steering wheel a little tighter and keeps his eyes pointed forward. “Newt. I swear to you…” mostly because driving 30mph down Main street is an inopportune time for dropping his head between his hands and pulling a minimum of thirteen percent of his hair out.
Because. The thing about it is…
“You will not believe how hard I’ve tried already.”
Thomas waits a half a second or two before he cheats his gaze off the road and over at Newt for a sneak peek at his reaction. There was a time when Thomas would have expected that Newt would be – as Student Body Vice President, Co-chair of the Drama & Performing arts Club, and three-time State Science Fair participant – let’s call it the ‘tightly wound’ type.
But it turns out Newt doesn’t get uptight. Pretty much ever.
It turns out when you get to know him, Newt has this… presence to him. Like a quiet strength, and a cool sort of wisdom perhaps? Definitely whatever it is comes with a way heftier dose of patience than Thomas could ever manage to scrape together. Which, when you think about Thomas’ tendencies for chaos – maybe even a little destruction, depending on the number of his teammates who might be involved (plus factoring in how many of the involved parties are Minho), and general disasters all told – is probably a pretty big key to why this thing between them is turning out to actually kind of work.
As it is, Newt gently cocks his head and when Thomas finally looks over at him his expression is sympathetic, with that Newt-style patience and understanding that Thomas would have once found cooly indifferent and condescending, but now that Thomas knows how to read him, it’s all right there. The minute quirk at the corner of his mouth that says that Newt gets it; the soft spark to his gaze that says he knows, that Thomas is a wholesale dumb jock disaster and that’s okay because Newt is a superior being, endlessly wise and collected and nonchalant (and maybe actually kind of slightly amused?) for the both of them; the cute little crinkle between his eyebrows that says hey, at least my little apocalypsepuppy is trying.
Well, it’s nice that Newt’s amusing himself, apparently (at Thomas’ expense of course – and why is that kind of doing it for him – he’s honestly starting to feel like he might be some kind of freak…) BUT:
“No,” Thomas says, “noooo no no no no.” Because yes, it turns out Newt is patient and intelligent and kind and all kinds of fucking perfect (including unjustifiably hot), the bastard, but No. That isn’t it. That’s not the thing.
“Not tried,” Thomas explains, out the windshield. “Done. I’ve told people. I’ve come out about us to like the whole team about twenty-teen plus one times.” And the thing IS:
“Not one of those assholes will fucking believe me.”
When Thomas looks over again Newt’s expression has gone from understanding to understanding, and his head tips back to expose a length of throat that happens to feature a casual array of stretches and hollows and other various places that Thomas has recently had the opportunity of learning the distinct shape, temperature and the very taste of by heart, and he lets out a single lightning-crack of laughter.
And it’s maybe actually kind of a good thing, just for a eensy-weensy second, that Newt has that cast on his leg right now, because there go the tingles, (yes, if you must know, all the way down the backs of his thighs and into his heels, so what) and Thomas is momentarily but deliciously tempted to pull the car over, crawl across the font bench of the Jeep and help himself to a straddle across Newt’s lap that pins his thighs conveniently to the leather under their shared weight, and shut that laughter off doing things to the stretch of that throat that (may or may not leave marks and) would definitely be worth the resulting tardy slips.
Though probably not the citation, if the local deputy were to happen along and catch them at it. Again. After they got off (heh) with a warning last Saturday night. In fairness, Saturday night was date night – their second, not that that counted for anything when you’ve known each other as long as they have, it’s like dog years – and Thomas had Newt doing things to him that (admittedly, had him pretty excited – if not maybe even a little nervous – for what was going to go down when that cast finally came off, but also) had a very non-zero chance of being illegal. If not in several states, then definitely at the side of the road. So.
Thomas sighs and drags his focus back out the front of the windshield and on the road where it belongs.
“Seriously. I bet I could hire a sky writer to fly over the pitch during the big game on Friday and proclaim that I’m now officially sucking you off daily, and they’d still all be convinced it’s some kind of prank.”
Newt snorts at that. “I mean…” which is an admittedly slightly less irresistibly hot reaction. “You did try to murder me.”
But then he sits there. Silently. And Thomas can feel the way he’s smirking at him even with his eyes pointed dutifully forward and suddenly the whole Saturday night, side of the road, pinned to the leather idea is back on the table.
“Okay,” Thomas counters, responsibly making the turn for the school parking lot and not driving them immediately to Deadheads Lookout (aka locally as Makeout Ridge). “Dramatic. It was more like involuntary manslaughter at the most. I swear, you commit one little minor assassination attempt around here and suddenly it’s all murder this, cloak and dagger that, and Benoit Blanc is on the case!”
Newt shakes his head at him, in a fond, ‘somebody remind me what I’m doing with this gorgeous himbecile again’ kind of a way that sends ye olde lava flow creeping a little closer to curling itself around the butterfly nest in his leftmost ventricle, right up until Thomas pulls them into the spot closest to the school doors he can find and sets the parking brake.
“Seriously, you good?” Thomas can hear his own tone change, slipping serious and entirely into service animal mode, even as he’s popping open his own car door and circling around the nose of the Jeep to Newt’s side. “Properly hydrated?” he asks, when Newt’s door opens, snagging Newt’s crutches out of the back and handing them over to let him get situated first before he grabs both their schoolbags off the seat. They have it down to a science by now. “Temperature regulated and everything? You know boyfriend hoodie privileges are totally an option now.”
“If they could only see what a devoted and attentive lover you are.”
And the fact that it’s sarcastic doesn’t stop the praise from tingling its way all the way down to the soles of his sneakers this time, or the blush from rushing all the way up to the tips of his ears. Probably another piece of the why-this-thing-between-them-actually-works puzzle Thomas doesn’t have time to slot into place right now – all he can say is he can totally recommend the whole smooshin-your-rival strategy to every highschooler across the state.
“Guess we’ll just have to show them all,” Newt concludes. “Stage some grand gesture, worthy of the Glade High history books.”
“Yeah, that sounds like our vibe,” Thomas agrees glibly, juggling the weight of both their bookbags onto his shoulders the better to escort Newt to his first class. “But just so you know, lowkey I already maybe sorta looked into that sky writer thing…” For completely non-proposal related, very very much for the future and not for getting carried away doodling the possible ways to combine their last names, juuuust in case the need might ever happen to arise, in the very back page of his Biology notebook at 3 a.m. reasons, of course. “And those guys are EXPENSIVE.”
If he was honest with himself, Thomas couldn’t really blame them.
At the beginning of September, if anybody had told him he’d be playing tonsil ping-pong with the likes of Newt Isaac by the end of senior year, he probably would have introduced their face to their lunchtime helping of crappy cafeteria mashed potatoes.
Thomas could be the first to admit things probably went too far – especially around the time of the election.
The whole thing started as kind of a joke; Minho declaring he would be running against Alby, of all people, for Class President, just so Athletics could claim the lion’s share of the year’s fundraiser money for new uniforms. But in typical Minho fashion, the attention garnered for one stunt could only lead to another prank, and then another. Then, on the heels of one particularly rousing impromptu karaoke session delivered standing atop their usual table in the cafeteria in aid of robustly announcing his candidacy, either the thunderous round of table thumping and applause he received actually made Minho think he had a shot at it, or whichever teacher was writing up the ballots thought it would be a fitting lesson to make him put his money where his mouth is. Heck, maybe it was a bit of both.
And yada yada, Thomas’ name ended up on Minho’s ticket as his running mate for Student Body Vice President. Against Newt. For real. In actual black and white. He and Min had to write a speech and deliver it to the whole auditorium like they were actually going through with it and everything.
And the thing about when Minho Park, Captain of the Gladers lacrosse team, does anything, so does the entire team. So when Minho Park runs for President… well, you get the picture.
Thomas isn’t sure he’d be prepared to retell all the details, even if he could remember them correctly, but let’s just say the aforementioned chain reaction of pranks didn’t get any shorter, and by the end a locker or two may or may not have ended up filled with shaving cream.
It probably didn’t help that two days before the election a rogue impromptu poster was found stuck up on one of the pillars outside the girls’ change room featuring a caricature of what was very clearly supposed to be Newt, wearing a beauty pageant style crown and sash that read V.P., and a bold bubble-text announcement that with your vote the theme of the next school dance would be Depressing Coffee House. Complete with a little tagline asking for volunteers to start painting the entire gymnasium black.
And okay. Thomas could admit it now, even to Newt (probably) (…maybe) that at the time, he laughed. The coffee house thing was such a valid read, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen Newt wearing an actual colour to school for over a year.
He can swear to this day though, that it was completely beyond him why the hell everyone and their aunt’s neighbour’s dog would then assume, just because Thomas was listed as the other guy running for VP, that he himself must have been the proverbial Banksy behind it all. Everybody who knows him knows Thomas can’t even draw a stick figure straight (if only they’d believe it wasn’t the only thing about him that wasn’t straight, har har).
But if there was one thing he had learned from all of this, it was that the rumour mill absolutely had an entire life of its own, because however it happened, and with or without Thomas’ consent, will, or participation (…mostly), by the end of October he and Newt now apparently had Bad Blood the likes of which the world had not seen since Taylor vs. Katy, circa the Left Shark era.
Needless to say, the election came and went and even after everything, Thomas could admit the right side probably won (Hint: not his and Min’s).
But that didn’t mean that Minho’s jocks and Newt’s drama queens had to let their beef go.
Maybe it was good for everybody, in a way, that the friendly rivalry got a little… heated. Maybe all the dumb rumours were the reason more people actually came out to the pep rallies and the fundraiser barbecue, and the end-of-year production of Macbeth had now sold more tickets than any school play in recent memory.
Okay so maybe it was a lot when Aris Jones’ band, Group B, wrote and performed their diss track Jock Itch at Homecoming (for which Newt was both the occasional bass player and the responsible party for booking the live music), and the cheer squad may have turned the lower tri-county regional lacrosse semi-finals into a personally dedicated vendetta with their new cheer; something along the lines of
The votes are in, the ballots cast,
The Gladers team will kick your as…k us no more questions,
We’ll tell you no more lies,
If you nerds think that you can beat us,
You’re in for a surprise!
No, you don’t want this Drama,
Go run home to yo mama,
Get ready for another goal,
Right before your eyes!
GO GLADERS
But the thing was they won that game, and now they were in the championship, coming up on Friday.
The squad had performed it no less than three times during play, each time seeming to actually spur the team on to scoring another extra goal. Thomas himself ended up making the pass that fed Minho the game-winner in the last two minutes, and amid the hubbub and commotion as they both found themselves lifted into the air on the shoulders of their celebrating teammates, all Thomas really remembered was catching Newt’s eye. And if he was expecting a look of annoyance there – frustration, jealousy, any vestige of their ribaldly rumoured rivalry at all – instead Newt looked… proud?
Sure, Glade High had just beaten WCKD Academy’s butts like a finely doe-skinned drum, maybe Newt had good reason, but. Thomas still feels warm, squirmy little caterpillars in his belly that haven’t quite made their way to hatching into butterfly status yet (no, it’s still not weird), every time he remembers the way Newt’s eyes found his.
They had been close once, after all.
Best friends, you might even have said.
It wasn’t like anything bad happened, they were just kids. Then Newt went away to London for the summer before high school.
And then he came back, half a head taller and wearing shoes you couldn’t run in. Wrapped in coats and scarves too long and too posh for the last of their ditch hopping and tree climbing days, and speaking capital E English like it was a whole different language. Marked off from the rest of them with their lazy, round syllables and low-swinging vowels.
And then Thomas and Minho joined the lacrosse team and Newt picked performing arts and that was it. For a couple years.
But then, they were seniors.
Senior year can be pretty intense, and it’s not even just about keeping your grades up or cramming for finals. You’ve got financial planning and student aid deadlines, and you don’t even know where you’re going to be living this time next year, all you really do know is you’re saying goodbye to everyone you’ve grown up with all your life. Then there’s SATs retakes (if you’re Thomas) and volunteer hours and of course everybody is trying to rack up all the best extra curriculars to write into their college applications.
So maybe it meant the drama club took Minho’s threats to their budget for Macbeth a little bit personally. Or maybe the Gladers booked the gym for drills on all the available nights the school play wanted it to rehearse their swordfight choreography just to be dicks about it a couple, few too many times. Maybe. Thomas wasn’t the bookings guy (how Minho or anybody else had thought he was organized enough to ever be VP of anything remained a mystery to this day), and he couldn’t really be one to say.
What he could say, however, was that between all the volunteer hours and the SATs and the wildly vacillating vindictive practice schedule, Thomas had no idea most of the time whether he was supposed to be running to the back field or to the gym for practice on any given after-school day. And it meant that one particularly tardy and generally apocalyptic Thursday he went barrelling – very much late for practice, wherever it was – through the gym doors at top speed, and instead of running into the expected sweat box full of jumping jacks and burpees, he ran straight into set decoration for Birnam Wood.
Specifically, straight into a ladder, that had been propped up against the nearest wall by some innocent soul intent on the task of affixing the art department’s artificial tree branches to the top of the set dressing panels, and who (rightfully) did not expect a crazed starting string Midfielder with no fewer than three gym bags full of pads, cleats and various sporting equipment he probably didn’t even need that day, to fling the doors open hard enough they would fly open on their hinges all the way around to go slamming into the adjacent wall. (Or in this case, adjacent ladder.)
A ladder, that as the cruelty, or the humour, (or whatever those bitches were up to) of the fates would have it, happened to have Newt on it.
Past tense being key, there, because Newt wasn’t on it anymore. He was on the floor. And the ladder, in turn, was on Newt. Toppled at a nasty and mocking angle across his legs – one of which turned out to be very definitely broken.
“You don’t have to wait here with me, Tommy.” Newt looked up at him from his seat in the folding hospital wheelchair, pale under the fluorescent waiting room lights. “Thanks for driving me. I reckon I’ll be fine from here. Truly.”
But Newt hadn’t called him Tommy since they were kids. Since before the poetry readings and the Shakespeare. Before London, and the bass guitar, and the motorbike Newt showed up to school on only months after his sixteenth birthday (the one Thomas was one of few people alive who would know Newt had been talking about saving up for since he was ten).
Then the triage nurse called “Isaac, …Newton”, the way Newt always hated, and Thomas didn’t even laugh. And Thomas meant it, maybe more than anything he’d ever meant before, when he said
“There’s nowhere else I need to be.”
They freeze it, with needles, so it isn’t supposed to hurt. But you could hear it when the bones moved and set under Newt’s skin, and when Thomas grabbed instinctively for his hand, Newt grabbed back with both of his own. And he didn’t let go until the cast was all done.
Even once Newt’s parents had come to drive him home, the doctor came over to Thomas to deliver the care instructions, and to make sure his ‘boyfriend’ drinks enough water with the pain killers. And neither of them laughed then either.
After that, everything between them kind of changed.
Though not, it would seem, for anybody else. No matter what Thomas himself tries to tell them.
Sure, maybe people figure it’s all out of some kind of golden retriever poster boy sense of morality – it’s only right, after all, that Thomas offers to be his ride to school until he can get back on the bike, and how else is he going to get from class to class with all his stuff, on crutches? Hell, maybe they figure it’s just good old fashioned guilt.
But every now and then, Thomas kind of can’t help but feel like people are just enjoying the rivalry so much it’s like they don’t want to let it go.
Because seriously, he wasn’t bullshitting. He’s tried.
"Gotta go help my boyfriend carry his books."
Exact words, used by yours truly, just last week (mostly by means of a quick escape before Gally's after-practice commentary on their goal-tending exercises could turn into a full blown all-expenses-paid lecture on defensive strategy and planning, but still).
Gally had just scoffed, and gone back to unfastening his chestpiece. "Yeah, he’s really got your number, Greene. What's it been, a month now? Guess the drama geeks won this round."
Then there was the time Minho asked him what he was doing after practice and Thomas said he couldn't hang out because he and Newt had a date.
"Good one. Hey, give him an extra sloppy one from me,” was the reply. Complete with an additional exemplary pantomime performance of what he could only assume was meant to be French kissing (and included a very dubious hand gesture, which apparently necessitated spitting – either into his palm or onto what had to be at least two of his fingers) and made Thomas want to never have eyes again.
But the time he could finally be really, extra sure they weren’t all just giving him a hard time about it was the time Aris sidled up to him at the library Quiet Study tables – obviously the most opportune time to inquire who he was going to be asking to prom – and Thomas answered that he figured he didn't have to ask, now that he and Newt were a couple, and the only response he got was dismissively whispered "ha! You wish."
So when he’s speeding to class between first and second period (after dropping Newt off first of course) and happens to spy Brenda, currently engaged in the usual avalanche-control activities at her locker, Thomas pounces on his chance and re-routes for a quick detour.
“Hey— whoa,” Thomas says, by way of announcing his approach as he takes the last few steps coming up behind her at a run, just in time to catch her – or somebody’s – letter jacket before it makes its way onto the floor. “…I need help.”
“Thanks,” Brenda relieves him of the rumpled bundle of leather without blinking. “I’ve been saying as much for years, but go on.”
“Har dee har,” Thomas retorts, as she turns back to the locker to go about stuffing it back in. “I can’t get anybody to believe Newt’s my boyfriend.”
“Well, you did try to murder him.”
Thomas frowns (yes, it’s totally a frown, and not just a straight up pout). “Sure, take his side.”
“Just saying.” The jacket appears to be putting up a formal protest about going back into the locker until something else comes out. “I mean I can see how attempted homicide could put a damper on the relationship.”
Something else turns out to be what looks like a fur-lined snowboot, even though they are now fast approaching the height of summer temperatures outside. Brenda hands him the boot without so much as a by-your-leave, or even looking over at him to see if he’s got a hand free to take it.
“That— that’s not what I need your help with.” Thomas takes the boot. “We’re fine. Mostly.”
“Good,” Brenda responds, shoving what appears to be a musical instrument into his arms along with the boot. Thomas is pretty sure she hasn’t been in the band since sophomore year. “Because I was not going to give you sex tips.”
Thomas leans a shoulder against the lockers and accepts his fate as a makeshift hatrack, as several more random articles and ephemera (including at least three hoop earrings in colours that do not match) make their way out of the locker and get balanced atop the instrument case – a flute, if he remembers correctly.
“See, I know you’re making fun of me, but that’s actually kind of a bummer.”
“Eh, I’m open to negotiations.” Brenda is digging in earnest now at the bottom of the locker for whatever it was she’s been after this whole time. Which, when she straightens up and waves it at him, appears to be a blue binder full of Spanish notes. “But it’s gonna cost ya.”
“Seriously,” Thomas pleads, as the rest of the items he’s been juggling start making their way one by one back into the avalanche zone, “can you get on the team for a second? It’s actually starting to affect our relationship. He’s starting to ask when we can tell everyone about us, and there’s only so many times I can literally tell those slintheads and they just…”
Brenda actually pauses in her strategic stacking activities to look at him and let her eyes go big with surprise. “Oh my god, this is for real, isn’t it? You’re actually for real, right now.”
“Not you too,” Thomas groans.
“I mean, I’ve known you guys were a thing since Newt used to pull your pigtails in the third grade but you’re really a thing. This is, like, serious.”
“Okay for starters, the pigtails were fifth grade,” Thomas snarks back, though he’s not sure Brenda can hear him over the sound of her hastily-slammed locker door, “and we— I’m. I don’t know— we didn’t even like each other like five weeks ago.”
“Uh huh.” Brenda pops her gum, and an expectant hip, as she shoulders her schoolbag and looks him over skeptically. “You wanna tell me what this has to do with me?”
“Well.” Here goes nothing, as they say. “You have friends in cheer squad places right? I need a favour…”
Friday feels like it comes around before Thomas can blink, and all that anyone can talk about all day is the championship game coming up that afternoon. But Thomas only has one thing on his mind.
For a while he’s worried he might be too nervous to perform but it turns out Thomas must do some of his best work under pressure or something. The game goes so well Minho is all psyched and already crowing about the after-party by half time.
Things are touch and go for a minute in the final quarter when their opponents score twice and nearly tie it all up, but in the last two minutes Zart sets up a pass that gives Thomas just the run on the net that he needs, and by the time the whistle is blowing, the crowds are already on their feet in the stands.
They’ve won. They’re Lower Tri-County Regional Champions, and everything is a cacophony of blaring sunlight, hands clapping him on the shoulder pads, and helmets knocking together, as the band strikes up a rollicking fanfare amid shouts of triumph and congratulations in his ears – and Thomas nearly forgets everything, for a second, as the cheer squad file out onto the pitch for the home team victory number.
But instead, the music the band is playing dies abruptly away.
It’s happening.
Thomas hadn’t asked her what song she intended to pick, but as the first, highly meme-ified, strains of Wolf Parade’s I’ll Believe in Anything begin to play over the PA, he swears internally that Brenda is either the worst friend he’s ever had, or a genius with the best taste and sense of humour Glade High has had the privilege of knowing.
Give me your eyes
I need sunshine
With a subsonic crackle like in-stadium thunder and a brief squeal of ear-splitting microphone feedback, Brenda’s voice goes booming into the stands. “And now, the MVP of today’s game has a message for a special someone in the crowd.”
The cheer squad are formed up facing the bleachers, each of them shaking a pompom in one hand, while the other holds up a poster-sized card decorated with a single letter.
Whether Brenda had gotten the whole team in on it, or they are all as surprised as the rest of the crowd, either way Thomas can feel them all rallied behind him, shoving and encouraging him forward to take his place at centre stage. He takes his cue, quickly pulling off his helmet, dumping his mouthguard and gloves inside, and entrusting it to Minho with a grin. Then he takes a breath and heads off at a self-conscious jog, through the little aisle left between the two banks of cheerleaders and their placards; all lined up so they can spell out
N E W T P R O M ?
It’s a little bit of an act, raising a hand to shade his eyes and scan the crowd like he doesn’t know exactly where Newt is seated just as well as if he were the only person in these stands, today, but Thomas singles him out and points a dramatic finger up into the crowd anyway.
Give me your eyes
I need sunshine
He can’t see Newt glaring daggers at him from here, exactly, but it’s no surprise that a few agonizing bars of the song go by before it looks like he’s going to take the bait and move.
Your blood
Your bones
Your voice
And your ghost
“You know who you are, come on down here,” Brenda’s microphone-voice chimes in helpfully over the blasting music.
But it’s truly all over for Newt’s resistance when Alby stands up next to him, forcing helping Newt up to his feet, and clearing a path down their row of seats and to the handrail.
Thomas considers for a brief second that maybe he should have worried a little more how long this could have taken, given Newt’s crutches, but thankfully they seem to have opted to ditch them at the seats and Alby seems committed to escorting him the whole way as Newt hops his way down the bleacher stairs. Alby even offers a handshake and a wink when Thomas moves to the foot of the bleachers to meet them, like a preppy, fraternity bro version of a proud father giving away the bride. (Yes, Thomas offers to carry Newt honeymoon style over the threshold onto the pitch. And Newt grips his shoulder under the pads hard enough to hinder circulation and mutters a soft don’t. you. dare. terrifying enough to momentarily freeze his usual Newt-is-in-my-general-proximity lava flow glacier solid, and frankly, Thomas was expecting nothing less.)
An arm around the shoulders it is, then, and when they’ve limped their way close enough to center field together, to the sounds of mounting screams of encouragement from the bleachers, Thomas turns to him and takes both his hands.
We've both been very brave
Walk around with bowed legs
Wait for the scary day
We both pull the tricks out of our sleeves
“You wanted a grand gesture.”
“I was definitely thinking something more the speed of actually sitting together in the cafeteria instead of at the jocks’ table with your lacrosse mates,” Newt says, loud enough to be heard over the screaming spectators but low enough not to be heard by them. “Eating off each other’s plates, maybe? Holding hands in the hallway, if we were feeling deliberately gay about it.” He smiles venomously, turning their hands palm up so he can interlock all their fingers oh-so-romantically together. “I ought to kill you.”
The screams turn into wolf-whistles, followed by a chant that sounds a lot like KISS, KISS, KISS…
Thomas uses their two-handed grip to pull himself a little half-step closer. “Anybody ever tell you you’re just a little bit obsessed with murder? S’kinda weird.”
“Tommy,” Newt threatens, and that name does the things it’s always done to him. The lava unfreezes, caterpillars sprout butterfly wings and he can feel the tingles start to tingle in each of the fingers Newt has interlaced warmly in between his own.
“Alright, fair’s fair. I guess it’s your turn for a little attempted homicide.” Thomas steps in the last little bit of space left between them, and the next voice to shout suggested lip-locking activities sounds suspiciously like it’s coming from Minho’s direction. “But could you do it after you kiss me? I’m about to die of humiliation in front of everybody we’ve ever known all our lives and save you the trouble.”
Newt shakes his head, and laughs that ‘he may be a gorgeous himbecile, but he’s my gorgeous himbecile’ laugh at him, and leans in.
The lava ignites, and the butterflies that used to be caterpillars all choose that moment to start leveling up and evolving in Thomas’ insides like some rare breed of demonic Pokémon, and the tingles are tingling their way into places Thomas didn’t even know existed. And he is no longer worried he might be some kind of freak, because this is definitely, one hundred percent confirmed, some kind of kink that needs examining and very very thorough exploration (and okay fine, it might even be a little bit, totally, weird) because their lips haven’t even touched yet.
“OH.” Thomas pulls back, just before they do. “Take me to prom, or whatever? First. …Then the murder.”
But I'll believe in anything
And you'll believe in anything
I said I'll believe in anything
And you'll believe in anything
Newt smiles; somehow a threat and a promise all at once.
“Deal,” he agrees, and both the chanting crowd and ye olde creeping lava flow alike simultaneously erupt, as Newt pulls Thomas back in for that kiss.
The thing about going public at the biggest game of the year, to the entire student body, that you’re now dating the (current) love of your life and (former) bane of your existence, is it’s kind of less of a huge monumental revelation deal than you might think.
Sure, people keep calling them things like ‘Kip’ and ‘Sunshine’, and making ‘Cleated Rivalry’ jokes in the halls. And on the night of the school play, when Newt’s drama queens knock Macbeth completely out of the park to a standing ovation, Thomas’ genuinely proudly presented bouquet of flowers for Newt, as he comes out on stage to take his director’s bow, sends up enough of an audible laugh from the record-breaking audience to make Thomas wonder if everybody still thinks it was all just a big setup, and whether any of it mattered at all.
And okay so maybe it’s a lot, when Minho sits in Newt’s lap at the lunch table every lunch hour for a week, claiming that he’s just doing it so that Thomas won’t, and they should all be thanking him for sparing them the appetite-endangering PDA. But Newt lets Minho hand-feed Thomas tidbits from his tray when he does it on Tater Tots day (and who on this good green earth is gonna ever say no to free Tots?) and honestly, the truth of it is – it’s just nice, seeing everybody clowning around.
Being the three of them again.
It’s the kind of nice that makes it hard to care what anyone else thinks. And besides, there are only a couple fleeting weeks of high school even left.
Though Thomas does take his chance, when he gets it, for a little confession.
“Hey Newt…” he starts, hesitant for obvious reasons to interrupt Newt in his current business of tickling up and down his bicep with a blade of grass, plucked out of the turf of the now-abandoned lacrosse pitch where they lie, basking in the so-close-to-summer-there’s-no-real-point-attending-classes rays. “I just thought of something.”
“Mmm?” Newt replies eloquently, voice mellowed out and deepened gently on the way Thomas is nuzzled in against him, and on the occasional nibble, casually taken from his collar bone (and now and then, his earlobe).
“You should probably know it wasn’t me. Who drew that Espresso Depresso poster, at the start of the year.”
“Oh, I know.” Which, sure. Naturally. Because somehow Newt always knows everything first. “…It was Sonya.”
“Your SISTER!?” Whatever response Thomas had been expecting from Newt, he has to admit it sure wasn’t that.
“She got annoyed with me for using one of my own old t-shirts as an engine rag, because she had been planning on wearing it to her girlfriend’s – apparently I had been previously and very well informed that The Smiths are Harriet’s favourite retro band. Besides, she probably wouldn’t have minded if Minho’s New Athletics Uniforms 4 All platform had won the day, either. But it was most likely just the ruined Morrissey shirt.”
Thomas frowns (and yeah, no, it is not a frown, this time he can admit it is a full and straight-up pout. His bottom lip is totally sticking out and everything). “And you let everybody think it was me the whole time.”
Newt shrugs one shoulder against the grass, and then he rolls up onto it.
“Love and war,” he quips, simply, leaning down to put a nibble of his own on the previously-mentioned, conveniently placed lower lip. “All’s fair,” he concludes, placing a soothing little kiss there to follow it “…luv.”
And the way it makes Thomas’ resting Newt-induced lava levels well up and over until every bit of him is fiery-molten inside, and all but melting away into the grass, there’s nothing fair about it. Nothing fair at all.
“Wow,” Thomas remarks, when he’s once again capable of coherent sound. “So you come from a family of criminal masterminds. Okay. Noted. But just so you know, we can not – under any circumstances – ever let your sister start hanging around with Brenda.”
“Bit late,” Newt replies, stretching himself languidly out onto his back next to him, so Thomas can nestle himself back into optimal nibbling position. “Who do you think her secret cheer squad contact on the inside was, for setting up your great grand-stand stunt?”
Newt gets his cast off just in time for prom.
In unrelated news, Thomas is pretty sure nobody should be able to ride a motorcycle in a tux. The way Newt looks, when he arrives at the bottom of Thomas’ driveway to pick him up, all golden and backlit in summer twilight like Prince Charming if he suddenly developed a penchant for leather, really should be against some kind of law.
Jeez. (Controlled substances bi-laws maybe?) Thomas knew this was coming, you’d think he would have been better prepared.
It turns out he is even less prepared, however, for the ride; as glad as he – and let’s face it, the both of them – may be for the excuse to wrap himself tight around Newt from shoulders to thighs for dear life: Damn. (These drama geek types do not play around, that thing is terrifying.)
But they make it, flying free and wild and dang near sideways around every corner, through town in what has to be record time – boutonnieres securely pinned on, and photos safely, smilingly snapped. (Nobody’s hair should look that good coming out of a helmet either by the way. If it’s not against the law, then definitely the laws of physics. It’s unscientific, is what it is.)
Safe, that is, until the point in the evening where somebody makes sure Wolf Parade makes it onto the dancefloor playlist and every eye in the balloon and streamer (and very much not all Espresso Depresso black) festooned gym feels like it’s turned on them for a slow dance. And Newt looks at Thomas like he just might be considering taking him up on that whole romantic murder-me-after-prom plan (so only slightly less Charming).
But Thomas takes Newt’s hand, and then his waist, and only steps on his foot twice, and it’s easy, to forget all the eyes. With Newt lit up spotlight purple and laser green under the disco ball lights, slotted up against him and muttering threats into his ear about all the things he’s going to do to him if Thomas breaks his other foot for the summer.
Senior year can get pretty intense. Not that it hasn’t been fun – the championships and the standing ovations and even the rumours and the rivalry of it all (and most notably and especially, these past few weeks with Newt, eating off each other’s plates in the cafeteria, and holding hands in the hallway when they’re being deliberately gay about it).
Thomas just can’t seem to make himself sad to see it end, though. Not with Newt in his arms, and his thoughts all full of what lies ahead – weeks’ worth of time to spend just like this. With Newt all lit up golden in summer twilight instead of bright spotlight purple and laser green, of lying beside him in sun-warm grass, back in his old Chucks and jeans instead of a cast (or who knows, maybe even a little shirtless pool party action – not to mention the added benefits of a full range of motion. Maybe they could even try out some of the stuff Newt’s voice is still threatening low and steady in his ear, some of it lowkey sounds kind of fun…)
Time without public rivalries or explanations, or any intricate shenanigans and grand gestures – or anything, to prove to anyone. And yes, fine, even the terrifying rides flying through town, wrapped tight around Newt from shoulders to thighs for dear life, will be well worth the price of admission. To see Newt waiting for him at the bottom of his driveway like his own private Prince Charming in Leathers, with the whole world of adventure as their oyster, and nowhere else they need to be.
Just two whole, gloriously uninterrupted months of pure Sunshine.