Archive of Our Own

Newt can't really place when he started getting high with Thomas. Not a date, not even a year. He knows it was at one of those mad high school parties that are always just fuzz the next morning, somewhere in the middle of his high school career, but the line between sobriety and wherever the hell he is now is so blurred, he's not sure that old him ever existed.

He vaguely remembers a joint being thrust into his hand. He remembers doing what any sensible person would do and taking a long drag. He recalls Thomas laughing hysterically beside him as Newt hacks and coughs for nearly ten minutes despite having the same reaction when the joint is passed on to him and he takes a drag longer than Newt's.

From then on, every moment becomes a smear of dulled senses, heightened amusement, and an atmosphere so dense it makes Newt's head and limbs pleasantly heavy. Life begins to stand still and no longer is Newt worried about school, grades, future colleges and careers. There is no future. There is just the here and the now, and Thomas next to him. Always next to him, that bemused grin on his thin yet well-structured face, his blood-shot eyes bright with giddiness, and his brown hair untidy, yet so mechanically so it looks a masterfully sculpted mess on his head.

Thomas was always next to him before, of course, never left his side, but it's different now. They're closer than they were before, which seemed impossible then, but inevitable now. They had been outcasts then; though together, they were still isolated, two stark figures standing out against the silhouette of the world shadowed beneath the monster called Society. When weed is added to the equation, when every aspect of the world blends smoothly together into a peaceful harmony, it seemed Newt and Thomas do too.

Suddenly, Thomas isn't only with Newt physically, he is there mentally, inside Newt's head. They spend a lot of time together, always have, it's the way they both like it, but there will always be times when one has to do something without the other. Visit his parents, go to work... go out on a date. But even at these times—when Newt can't turn his head and see Thomas giggling at him or at the TV; or with his eyebrows knitted together, neck craned, mind waist deep in a book that anyone who didn't know Thomas like Newt did would think too intellectually advanced for the shaggy-haired brunette to comprehend; or taking a hit, laughing with that wide, genuine grin he never used when they were sober—he can see him, in the back of his mind, almost translucent if it weren't for his glittering brown eyes and the way the dim light flickering in his hollow mind dances off his fragile skin; and he beams at Newt, tousles his hair with long, thin fingers. Newt can feel more than hear the dull echo of Thomas's bold, honey-sweet laugh.

At first Newt thinks he's going crazy, that maybe he already is, but then he thinks this is what you get when you add years of drugs and a relationship stronger and closer than brothers. He wonders if the same thing happens to Thomas, if he dwells on Newt as Newt does on him, but he never asks.

Newt doesn't notice it at the beginning, the way Thomas makes him feel when he's baked; that he doesn't look at Thomas like you would look at a brother anymore, the way he did before, all those eternities ago. Very slowly, he takes notice of the way Thomas's biceps tend to strain his sleeves when he wears t-shirts he has to know are too small for him; or the way his perfectly sculpted chest and abdomen glisten with sweat like a cascade of miniscule diamonds reflecting against the sun when they have the windows sealed shut to keep in the smoke, and Thomas just has to take off his shirt to prevent a heat stroke. It becomes hard to ignore it when Thomas would lick his plump lips like he doesn't even know how hot he is and just leave them sitting on there on his face, wet and kissable and--

But when he does start to see it, he realizes it isn't only when he's tripping balls: it's in the mornings, when he wakes up clear-headed before he can get out his bong, and sees Thomas in the bed across the room, sprawled, tangled in the covers in only his boxers, his muscles taught and flexed involuntarily and Newt is jolted with a pang of that feeling in his gut, that feeling he doesn't always recognize when he's stoned out of his mind, that feeling of want, of need; and in his sleep, in his dreams, too often his unconscious mind has Thomas on display, most of the time naked, sometimes in boxers or old, thin t-shirts that have no effectiveness in the way of concealing what Thomas had under there, and always he has that stupid, crooked grin on his face as he stalks toward Newt. He never says a word but somehow still Newt can hear him calling out to him, telling him I want you, Newt, I need you, I need you in me, and Newt tries and fails to shut his eyes, turn his head away and plug his ears from the subconscious hallucination of Thomas so vulnerable and open and wanting, the way Newt wishes he could have him almost as much as he wishes he didn't feel this way.

It's easier to ignore these feelings when he's high, ironic as it may be, given that this didn't start until he began getting high. But when he lets the drug takes over, and his mind is filled with cotton, he can look at Thomas, and he knows that he wants him more than he's wanted anything, but he can't make himself care. That's the effect weed has on him. Nothing matters; not himself, not Thomas, not even what he's going to have for dinner, neither that night nor ever. His instincts ebb away. It's that calm, content carelessness that keeps him from jumping on Thomas, forcing him, with his body and his lips and his hands, to feel for Newt the way Newt does him--or else from going insane with longing for him.

And that's why he can never get sober. Not that he's ever wanted to, but if he does one day, it won't matter. He doesn't have a choice. Because with sobriety comes the reality of his feelings for Thomas, clearer than they've ever been. He'll have to leave, because living on with Thomas, with the vision of his beautiful, brunette best friend so real in front of him every day without a cloud of smoke to fog up the truth would be too hard. And he could never leave Thomas. He doesn't know a life, a world, without Thomas, and trying to adapt to one wouldn't be worth anything in the world.

-

One day, when their tiny apartment is silent and the air is still and their sitting together quite bored on their old, smelly sofa, because they forgot to pay the cable bill that month—they could go out, do something with their lethargic selves, but they preferred to live like bats: only going out at nights, in the dark and empty world where nightmares blend with reality, and people who view themselves as so much better and more civilized than junkies like Newt and Thomas can pretend they're just a bad dream—Thomas observes with a vague smile stretching his lips, "You stare at me a lot these days."

Newt doesn't ask how long "these days" is referring to, because he knows he's been doing it for a while and it doesn't really matter how long Thomas has been noticing it. So he pretends he means recently and says, "That's because you're the most interesting thing to watch in this place without the bloody television."

Thomas chuckles, but his eyebrows pull together like he's thinking, trying to find an answer to a complicated question. Newt turns away abruptly, afraid he's giving something away with the look on his face, which is growing hot. He leaps to his feet and tells Thomas without looking in his direction that he's going to go roll a joint, and disappears into the bathroom, the only other room in the studio apartment, where they keep their stash.

He suddenly feels uncomfortably stuffy and claustrophobic, and he needs to get out, to knock down these walls, to breathe fresh air and clean out his murky lungs. He needs to get away from Thomas, but there's no escape from him. He's always there, either in front of his eyes or in the back of his mind. He's never felt a greater need to escape in his life.

He doesn't know what to do, he's a prisoner inside his own skin, and as much as he wants to run away and never have to deal with the turmoil writhing in his chest over Thomas again, he'd rather just run up to Thomas, pull him into his arms, and tell him how he feels.

But he can't do either of those things.

So he does what he told Thomas he was going to do; he rolls a joint, and smokes the whole thing by himself, sitting on the hard, cold, grimy tile floor, with his knees held up to his chest. When the joint gets so small he can't take a hit with burning his fingers, when the world starts to swim pleasantly in front of his eyes, and he can’t get rid of the dumb smile splayed across numb lips, he throws the used joint into the sink.

It's impossible to think straight like this. Before he can muster a complete thought, he forgets what he was thinking about and lets his mind wander to something else. He tries to figure out how Thomas managed to do that to him, make him feel that way, when he was still high, but his brain weighs a ton and every rational thought he's ever contrived is leaking out his ears, and it's pointless.

He realizes he's slipped to his back and is now staring up at the water-stained ceiling.

Even this high, even this so far out of his goddamn head, he still can't stop thinking about Thomas. This doesn't happen. When he's like this, so strung out he can't even feel his fingers, Thomas isn't supposed to be such a problem. He isn't supposed to care. Why does he care?

If weed is Newt's antidote to Thomas, or moreover, the effect Thomas has on him, what is he supposed to do if he becomes immune to it?

Newt lies on the disgusting bathroom floor for a long time, one of those eternities that pass hollowly and meaninglessly by. He's run out of thoughts of Thomas, but he's still dwelling on him, can see his face when he closes his eyes, so he leaves them open, barely allows himself to blink. He tries to focus on the other things in his life, but there aren't that many that aren't Thomas, or don't involve him.

Newt wishes he could crawl into Thomas's brain. He's wondered it before, but now he needs to know. He needs to know if Thomas feels this way, not if Thomas wants him, but if Thomas is so disturbingly attached to Newt like Newt is him. He's already decided that's he not crazy--he's not. He just needs to know that's he’s not not crazy alone.

He can't ask Thomas. Because if Newt is alone in this, he doesn't want Thomas to know about it. So he's stuck. Stuck in a maniacal spiral of mixed thoughts and feelings and lust, and this is nothing pot can fix.

When his vision and mind clear enough so that he can stand without stumbling he pushes himself to his feet, he braces himself to face Thomas, who will surely be sitting on the couch smiling contentedly to himself oblivious to the fact that Newt had left him for so long. And it actually hurts Newt that he has to brace himself to see someone he’s known, and always been so comfortable around, for so long.

Thomas is stuffing his phone in his pocket when Newt exits the bathroom with his head down. Thomas flicks his head toward Newt so fast, Newt looks up on reflex, and he hates himself for noticing the way Thomas’s long, delicate eyelashes seem to grow more proud and beautiful in the shadow of his brow when his eyes widen.

“Hey, that was Minho. He’s got a—well, I guess you could call it a ‘party’—starting in about an hour. Said we should come; there’s gonna be free dope,” Thomas explains, looking excited, and adds, giggling, “So, ya feelin’ it, Mr. Krabs?”

Newt laughs despite himself, and his eyes flick toward the bong on the coffee table. He thinks of taking a hit; he feels too clear-headed albeit the joint in the bathroom. Before he can decide against it, he’s sitting next to Thomas, and within minutes, he’s tripping balls again. He’s afraid to look at Thomas. He isn’t sure what he’s expecting when he does: that casual, ever-present lust that he can neglect under the right conditions that’s he grown dependent on; or that uncontrollable desire that he’s come to associate with sobriety, stronger than natural human instinct, so wholly overcoming there isn’t much in the world that can abate it .

But when Thomas says, “Bro? You with me?” Newt has to look at Thomas, so as to not constitute concern or suspicion, even though he could hear the amused smile on Thomas’s face.

It’s the oddest thing Newt has ever experienced. It’s like Thomas is glowing in front of him, like a spotlight that only he can see shining directly on Thomas. Everything around the brunette is dark and pointless compared to this perfect body before Newt. There’s a feeling in him that he has never known—not in his sober life and not now, and it’s incredible and it is everything. It is the sun and the universe and the stars. It is the beginning of time to the end of time a dozen times over. It is filling Newt head to toe with a mist that tickles his nerves and plays with his emotions so he doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but it’s a feeling beyond this world, beyond science and explanation, and if Newt keeps looking at Thomas right now, he knows he’s going to crack, he knows he won’t be able to hold back for another second, and he’ll be on Thomas, touching him, kissing him, and holding him like he’s the most precious thing any person could hope to lay their eyes on.

Quicker than is wise, Newt stands unsteadily, tearing his eyes away from Thomas, and it’s as if a giant, unforgiving hand that had been grasping him around the chest so tightly he could hardly breathe releases him.

“Newt, are you—” Thomas begins, standing too, and it’s the first time Newt has heard genuine concern in his voice in years.

Newt lets out a bark of manic laughter that he couldn’t explain. He hasn’t felt this sober in months, but his vision is swimming, and his mind’s interior is a 360 degree trampoline and every thought, every fear, and every desire is ricocheting relentlessly from all sides, so quickly they’re just a blur as they pass the small part of his brain that is trying to figure out what in the hell just happened to him.

“I’m fine, Tommy—I just gotta—you go to Minho’s, or whatever, just—don’t wait up,” Newt stammers as he trips towards the front door, “I’m fine,” and he throws the door open and practically runs out, doesn’t even shut the door behind him.

Sure Thomas is bound to follow him, Newt runs down the staircase and darts out of the building where thankfully groups of loud, rude people in suits are bustling down the sidewalk, and he realizes it’s rush hour. By the time Newt is immersed in the gaggle of workers and being forced down the street, he can only hear a few shouts of “Newt!” in Thomas’s panicked voice before he’s escaped earshot, and hopefully Thomas gives it up as a lost battle and goes to Minho’s.

At the first opportunity, Newt turns down a side street. It’s dank and slightly chillier than the street he just abandoned. The cold and empty atmosphere suggests this is a spot of the earth the sun never touches. He’s surprised to see two lines of shops on either side of the road. He doesn’t allow these stores to grab his attention, though, a new and unexpected fire now burning in his gut.

Not sure why or where he’s going, Newt tears down the sidewalk, his fists clenched, and his feet connecting with the ground with more impact than necessary. Whatever he had just felt had been the most extraordinary sensation he has ever experienced, and he’s never despised himself more than he does now for having felt it.

He knows what it was, that feeling. He knows its name, but he’s not going to let himself even think it. Then maybe he can pretend it wasn’t real. What he’s felt for Thomas, for all this time, all these eternities, it’s never gone further than lust, than want, and that was enough to deal with. But now this? He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to face Thomas again. To look into his face and feel what he just felt, and not get that kind of passion in return. Newt’s pretty sure he just discovered what would be worse than letting Thomas go and learning to live without him.

But he still doesn’t know if he can. He doesn’t know if he can ever get the image of Thomas, so beautiful and sweet and everything, out of the back of his mind.

A neon sign brighter than the sun in the dank dusk distracts Newt from his thoughts. He notices that it’s a bar called The Glade he’s walking past, and with his legs seeming to have more control over himself than his mind, he walks in.

It’s dark, darker than the street outside, and the air is thick. The walls are covered in dark red brick, which gives the place the feel of a back alley. There aren’t many people inside, but Newt’s entrance doesn’t seem to make much of an impact on them. None of them flinch, look his way, even give a hint that they noticed his arrival.

He sits at the dark wooden bar, smooth under his skin as he rests his elbows against it. He wishes he had a joint, or he was back at the apartment with Thomas taking hits off the bong, or at Minho’s party getting high with him and Teresa and Brenda and Gally. He’s too aware of everything. It’s all too real, and it’s unnerving to Newt. He has forgotten what reality feels like over the years. He almost gets up to head back to the apartment, but he can’t. He can’t face Thomas after this, but at the same time he can’t live without him. It’s not like he’s being haunted by Thomas, it’s not like he doesn’t want Thomas; it’s that Thomas doesn’t want him. An echo of Thomas is in all of Newt’s thoughts and dreams, always, it’s so surreal, and Newt wonders if it’s always been like this; if weed had really been holding these feelings and this turmoil at bay for so long.

He’s ready to go around to every person in this bar and ask them if they could spare a joint—even if it won’t hold back his fiery lust for Thomas anymore, at least it would help subside every other intense thing he’s feeling right now making it so much worse—when the bartender approaches him.

“What can I get you, sweetheart?” she asks, voice hoarse and face damaged beyond repair from years of smoking.

Newt hesitates. He’s never been much of a drinker; it never seemed necessary. But maybe if there’s something that could do what weed can’t anymore, it’s alcohol; so he answers confidently, “The strongest stuff you got.”

And a minute later he’s choking down a shot of amber liquid that burns like he’s swallowing lava, and within seconds his mind grows pleasantly fuzzy. So he orders another; then another. Until he’s grinning so wide he can feel it in every muscle of his face, and his mind is free.

Newt spends all night in that bar, drinking, and it's the first time in longer than Newt can remember that there is no sign of Thomas in his psyche or anywhere else.

-

Newt doesn’t know if Thomas has noticed his absence; he never sees him conscious anymore. He has to have, though, of course he realizes he never sees Newt anymore when for so many years Newt had been a force in Thomas’s life that was always there. The real question is if Thomas misses him. If he looks at the void space next to him and feels an emptiness in his chest like Newt knows he would. If Thomas wishes he knew why Newt’s hiding from him so often, wonders why the boy who would spend so much of his time staring at Thomas suddenly started acting like he never wanted to see him again. Newt wonders if he’s hurting Thomas—if it’s worth it, if he is.

These are the things he thinks about before he can get a drink into himself, and suddenly Thomas is just as hidden in shadows and insignificance as everything else in Newt’s mind. Indeed, what Newt has really come to depend on is alcohol.

He starts spending more time in that bar drinking than anywhere else. The warm glow and distracted content of drunkenness starts to become as familiar as the bemused haze from a high off dope that he’s slowly separating himself from. Not intentionally, it’s just harder to smoke enough weed to keep him stoned all the time when he’s never at the apartment anymore. He smokes in the short spurts of time he’s home when he knows he’ll be able to avoid Thomas; mostly in the mornings, when Newt forces himself awake hours before Thomas’s subconscious even thinks about facing the day ahead; and at night, when he comes back from The Glade after Thomas is already asleep, and he’s drunk off his ass and tripping over his own feet but still manages to fit a joint or a bong hit in before he goes to sleep, just because it’s something familiar, not because it means anything anymore.

But when he wakes up in the morning, he’s sober, something that hasn’t and will never change. As much as Newt attempts to avert his eyes, he can’t keep them off of Thomas’s perfect, slumbering form, just as gorgeous as it’s always been no matter Newt’s inner storm. And these are the only times he really thinks about it these days, about how Thomas could hold Newt like putty in his hands if he wanted to, if he realized what Thomas was to him. It’s as overwhelming and painful as a hard compress on Newt’s heart, and that’s when Newt runs out of the apartment, racing to get a drink in him.

He tells himself it would be easier for himself and for Thomas if he just left the apartment, left the city. If he just said good bye to Thomas and went to go live a different life, now that he has a way to keep his mind from Thomas for hours at a time, but he’s not ready. It still feels like Thomas is an integral part of his life, even when he works so hard to pretend he’s not, to force it so he’s not.

When Newt is drunk, it’s like Thomas doesn’t exist, but there’s an ache in his gut, and he knows that he misses Thomas even when Thomas seems miles and lifetimes away. This isn’t something running away would fix; Newt knows running away would make it thousands of times worse.

He suspects he knows why that is. What he actually feels for Thomas, that word that he won’t say or think or admit he has any knowledge of; it’s keeping Newt in this city with Thomas, still at arm’s length with the brunette Newt once would—maybe still does—consider part of himself.

But he drains these thoughts and worries away with that amber liquid that burns hotter than holy water, and it cleanses Newt from the inside out, until his mind is empty and pure and nothing matters, not even that stupid, pointless ache in his gut.

When he starts getting so drunk throughout the day that he doesn’t even remember how he gets home, he starts having nightmares. At first, the nightmares have no material, nothing tangible; no more than chilling whispers in a deafening wind, but he wakes drenches in sweat, breathing in gasps and his pulse a drumroll.

After a few weeks an image begins to appear within the blinding, vast void of his subconscious. It has no face, no real form, no identity, but it holds out its hand for someone to take, and Newt reaches for it, stretching out his arm as far as he can, extending his fingers to the peak of their ability; and it takes so much effort, but he gets so close, always, always, so close, inches away, but before he can join hands with his nightmare’s, he’s jolted awake with his heart almost beating out his chest, a raw fear clinging to the cold sweat on his face.

He refuses to believe that it’s the liquor that’s causing this, and continues to drink. Even if he does accept that he is doing this to himself with endless days of endless drinking, what is he supposed to do about it? There are no easy solutions in life; there are no benefits without the cost. He withering and breaking and fading, but at least it’s under his own terms, his own decisions. At least it’s not as he’s looking at Thomas with lust in his eyes and rejection in his heart; he’s not seeing those shining, brown doe eyes in every visage he faces; he doesn’t hear that careful yet confident voice calling for him over the roar of time revolving around him; he doesn’t spot the top of that perfect brown mop over the top of every passing crowd.. The weight pressing down on his chest is more bearable when his heart is hollow than when it’s bursting at the seams.

-

Wind around his head is blowing so fiercely, it rattles his ear drums. Its force is so great, it’s as if waves are crashing into his skull. It should be impossible to hear anything, but still they creep in, the whispers, incoherent and broken, they infect him and he fears them, but he can’t shake them away.

Newt sees his own hand reaching out for a ghost-like, misty one pleading for him to take it. He can’t reach, it’s too far away, it’s too hard, like trying to force his way through feet of solid iron, but it’s begging him to stretch an inch further, only a bit further, so he does. He feels like he’s been reaching to take this hand forever; it’s surely the only thing he’s ever known.

He’s never wanted anything more than to grasp this hand that is so close to his it seems impossible that there is any space between them. He doesn’t even know what it’s like to want something other than this; this is the only important thing in the world, in the universe.

The wind pounds against his face, and it hurts, and his face is wet. It must be raining; he can feel drops trickling down his face, hot and salty, and Newt doesn’t thinking about how that’s not what rain feels like.

The space between Newt’s own fingers and the creature’s before him is only centimeters wide, he knows it, but they are also dimensions away. Newt can see that clearer than anything he’s even seen. He knows there is no chance that he will ever know how it feels to hold that hand, but still he tries.

He has to try.

What else has he got?

So he stretches further, twiddles his fingers as if that will have any real effect, and the rain falls faster and harder, and his face gets wetter.

A slit opens where the creature’s mouth would be if it had a mouth, and the wind subsides, and the rain grows cold, and Newt starts to shiver.

He can hear it, his name, clearer than the whispers, than the pleas, but he turns his head away from it. He doesn’t want it.

The hand and the form attached to it vanish into mist, as if fleeing from the voice, and Newt wants to call out, scream in agony, so he does.

Newt!

It’s a voice he recognizes, a voice he fears and he loves.

“Newt! Newt, wake up, what the hell, man!”

Newt’s eyes fly open. His heart is beating harder and faster than he thought possible, he’s barely breathing, and his face is drenched in sweat and his own tears. The lights are on, and they blind him to the point where everything is a stinging blur of yellow. It takes him a few seconds to figure out where he is and what happened, but when he does, he starts to panic.

He’s on the floor beside his bed; the carpet is rough, rubbing and burning his bare skin. There’s someone leaning over him, his hands on either side of Newt’s head. He doesn’t need to wait for his vision to clear to know who it is, but when it does he’s surprised to see the expression on his face. Newt doesn’t think he’s ever seen Thomas look scared in his life, he wasn’t sure if Thomas got scared, but here he is now, obviously terrified out of his mind. Newt thinks vaguely that he wishes the look on Thomas’s face when Newt had looked directly into it for the first time in weeks had been a face he recognized

“Newt, are you alright?” Thomas chokes in a voice breaking with fear, so different than the one Newt knows.

And no, Newt isn’t okay, he’s never been less okay, he’s shaking and he’s scared and he’s staring up at Thomas and he wants to grab his face and kiss him and he doesn’t even know why anymore. And he can’t tell Thomas this, and he can’t tell him he’s alright, because that’s a lie too big to tell, so he just scrambles from under Thomas and to his feet, who follows and looks at him, face all concerned and scared and pleading.

He knows he needs to say something, to tell Thomas something, anything, everything. He can see questions forming behind his eyes, in the twitch of his frowning mouth, and he deserves answers, but before Newt can open his mouth, he’s running out the door, feet bare, in only a t-shirt and boxers.

This time Thomas doesn’t follow him.

Newt is sure that that has a meaning much deeper than he wants to think about.

His feet are cold and stinging against the pavement as he races down the same path he used to escape Thomas the last time, what feels like decades ago. The chilly night air painfully pinches his skin, and he figures he could have at least put on pants and shoes before storming out if Thomas wasn’t even going to follow him.

His first response is to go to The Glade—if he’s ever needed a drink, it’s now—but it’s been closed for hours, and won’t open for a couple more, and annoyance bubbles up inside him. Is this what he’s reduced himself to—someone who doesn’t belong anywhere anymore, who has nowhere to go, who would do the planet good if he just hid, stopped trying to fit into a world that wasn’t made for him, and disappear?

He doesn’t know what or who he is anymore. He lost his identity when he ripped himself from Thomas, forced himself to give up the only person he’s ever really cared about, and he’s never regretted anything more. He wishes he could forget about Thomas, for good, not just under the density of his beloved amber liquid that’s built up to weigh so much more than Newt could have ever imagined. He’s passed the point of return, that’s obvious.

Maybe it’s time, finally time, to leave. It has to be time to let Thomas move on with his life even if Newt never really can. He could just turn tail and run right now, and he will probably have drowned himself in “what if’s” and “if only’s,” in sorrow and regret and pain, in mind-numbing drugs and too much alcohol, before he has the chance to look back…

But when he finds that he’s somehow ended up on Minho’s doorstep, he doesn’t hesitate before knocking. Minho must have already been awake, either already up for the approaching day or he simply never went to bed, because he answers in under a minute. His eyes widen in shock, though, when he sees Newt before him, for the first time in weeks, half naked, dried tears smudging his cheeks, and every cruel emotion humanity has to offer etched onto his face.

Newt doesn’t offer a greeting before stumbling over the threshold, into the living room, and crashes onto the couch, Minho following him carefully, looking alarmed. Minho’s apartment isn’t much nicer than Newt and Thomas’s, but it is larger. Newt is thankful for that as claustrophobia threatens to take him, overwhelm him into submission.

Newt holds his face in his hands, and shuts his eyes tight. He doesn’t know why he’s here, or why he’s glad he is.

“What’s up, Newt?” Minho asks calmly, and Newt laughs despite himself because what a simple question with such a complicated, twisted answer.

He debates whether he should tell Minho, but he doesn’t even know how he could put his situation into words, and if he could, how he could manage to get it all out without breaking down. He doesn’t want to break down. He can’t break down until he leaves, before this life is in his rear view mirror.

But then Minho says, “It’s Thomas, isn’t it?” and Newt looks up at his friend in surprise, who is standing there so confidently, so relaxed, as if the chaos of the world wouldn’t even dare try to mess with him, as if the sun revolves around him.

“How—” Newt stammers, hands falling from his face, and he feels intimidated by Minho standing so powerfully over him, but too weak to stand and try to match his strength.

Minho smirks, and Newt wants not to believe it, that he would smirk when Newt is so obviously falling apart, but he knows Minho too well for that, and he says, “I’ve known for a while. You aren’t subtle.” When Newt frowns, Minho does too, “You need to tell him. It’s going to destroy you.”

Newt wants to say It already has, but he bites his tongue, because Minho seems so willing to believe that Newt isn’t broken beyond repair, and Newt doesn’t want to ruin that for him; he doesn’t want to use his invalidity to destroy the faith in another one of his friends.

“Why don’t you tell him?” Minho prods.

“I won’t be able to handle it,” Newt says in his quietest voice, and he’s never felt so pathetic, he’s never disgusted himself so much, “I won’t be able to bloody handle it when he tells me he doesn’t feel the same way.”

Minho looks stricken, and his voice is barely louder than Newt’s when he says, “How do you know Thomas doesn’t feel it back?”

Newt looks incredulously up at Minho like he can’t believe what he’s asking.

“Because—because who would?” Newt cries, clutching his shirt at the chest, slowly curling into a ball on the ratty, old sofa. Tears are threatening to fall again, and this has to be weakness at its lowest, most demeaning point, because he feels barely human now, sitting here, fragile and feeble and broken in so many ways, and no, this isn’t humanity, Newt is much smaller than that now.

Minho says desperately, “You can’t honestly feel that way about yourself, man.”

And Newt want’s to laugh for some reason, but instead he explodes, shouting, “Look at me, Minho!” jumping to his feet with sudden and unexpected rage and throwing his arms wide as if pleading Minho to take a look at him, all of him, a real, long, scouring look, so that he can finally see how brittle Newt is, has always been, “There isn’t enough of me left to have feelings for! I’m not—I’m not whole! I’m not human.”

Minho stares at Newt for a really long time. The air between them is so still and so hollow, it’s like they’re in a vacuum, and everything concrete has been sucked away. Minho’s voice is as weak as Newt feels when he says, “Newt, man, you need help. Please.”

Newt scoffs, but it isn’t meant to be harsh. It’s not an insult to Minho, or his dedication as a friend. It’s bitter curiosity; and such as one would wonder how the world spins, how stars explode, how black holes are formed, and how the universe could be so big, Newt wonders how anyone could be lead to believe that he can be helped. Newt is so, so far beyond help.

“I’ll see ya later, Minho,” Newt says stalely as he retreats toward the front door, because there’s nothing else for him to do here, to say to Minho.

“I know what you’re thinking, Newt!” Minho calls after him, but he doesn’t follow him, just like Thomas, and Newt wouldn’t expect him to, “You can’t run from this! This isn’t that kind of problem!”

Newt goes to The Glade, and he plops himself outside, still without shoes and pants, waiting for it to open. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do now, where he’s going to go. He can drown himself in as much liquor as possible, but he will never be able to face Thomas again. But he can’t worry about that now. Right now, he just needs something to drink.

His wish is granted an hour and a half later, when the bar finally opens and Newt trudges inside. He’s obviously the first one in there, other than the bartender, in the early hours of the day, and he’s barely sitting in his usual stool at the bar two minutes before he’s draining a glass, and Newt sighs in relief.

He tries to think about Thomas, but his mind doesn’t let him, and since there is nothing else in Newt’s life that’s worth thinking about, his mind remains blank, and he honestly couldn’t ask for anything better.

A couple of hours pass by in the closest to what Newt has known as peace in too long, and the people in the bar, around him, change, they move around, but Newt doesn’t. He’s stuck in a single point while the world keeps carrying on around him, and Newt thinks this is the closest to death you can be without the actual threat of dying.

A Hispanic, older man that he has seen around the bar quite often but never spoken to sits down next to Newt and orders himself a drink. He doesn’t lend a word to Newt as he sits and sips, but he keeps throwing him glances, frowning, eyes twitching from Newt to his constantly refilled glass, and Newt wants to say something, but it isn’t worth it, nothing is anymore.

 “You’re killing yourself, hermano. Trust me.” He says out of the blue, concerned eyes turned on Newt and, despite the wisdom that radiates off of this stranger and how much he wants those words to mean something to him, to want to want to act on them, Newt thinks maybe that’s not such a horrible thing.

Newt doesn’t say anything in return, and eventually the man leaves with a meaningful frown towards Newt. He looks at his drink, half-empty, and he thinks maybe he shouldn’t order another, but then he thinks maybe he should ten more.

That’s when he hears a voice from behind him, close to his left ear, “Newt, I’m sorry.”

Newt jumps and turns in his stool to see Thomas standing before him, and Newt has never seen Thomas like this before, when he is drunk, and it’s weird. This warm fuzz from liquor, he usually associates with avoidance of Thomas, and now Thomas is here in front of him, more real than he has been in weeks.

And it’s like he’s seeing Thomas for the first time, a million times over. Seeing his beauty like he’s never seen it before, more radiant and blinding than the sun and words aren’t enough to describe him anymore, not in this language, used by mortals, criminals and scum and people like himself, and, god, why is Thomas doing this to him, making him feel this?

“Tommy, why are you here?”

Thomas raises a strong, thin hand, and cups Newt’s face, and it burns, and he’s sure it’s going to leave a scar. Newt stands and Thomas takes a step towards him.

“I want you. I do.” Thomas says, and it’s so quiet Newt isn’t sure he heard him right, but by the look on his pale, weakly smiling face, there’s nothing else he could have said.

“But… Thomas…” Newt mumbles, because he doesn’t understand how this can be real.

Thomas’s head falls to Newt’s shoulder, resting there, and he inhales deeply through his nose as if he’s taking Newt in, his scent and his lust and his soul, and holy shit this is real. “I’m sorry,” he says again into the crook of Newt’s neck and a shiver goes through his entire body, and it’s a sensation he hasn’t felt in so long—it’s pleasure.

“Don’t be sorry. I should have told you.” Newt reassures the brunette, wrapping his arms around him and embracing him, and he doesn’t care that’s they’re in a bar full of people, because he’s wanted to do this for so long and nothing is going to stop him now.

When Thomas lifts his head to look at Newt, it’s the closest they have ever been face to face. Newt can see every fleck of color in Thomas’s irises, every long, beautiful eyelash brushing against the others. He can see his lips, wet and ready, and he doesn’t hesitate, he doesn’t wait one more second, he’s been waiting so long, and he can feel atoms joining together to create life, dimensions colliding, every broken piece of himself building themselves back together again as his lips connect with Thomas’s and something that Newt has never known bursts within him; and he realizes this is the beginning, this is where his life truly begins—no, this is where time begins. Nothing before this moment exists. The contact between his and Thomas’s lips have caused the universe, every universe, every dimension, to explode and start again, right here, right now, with Newt’s arm around Thomas and Thomas’s hands threaded in Newt’s hair.

When they pull apart, and Newt opens his eyes, he notices that everything seems a little brighter, like he’s taken off a pair of sunglasses and he’s suddenly remembered that light exists. There’s something so strong bubbling within him, and it isn’t just pleasure, he feels happy, and he’s almost sure he had forgotten what that’s like.

He’s seen Thomas in so many ways, with so many different kinds of lust and want and need so wild and prominent in his chest, desperate to be tamed, to be subdued, but he’s never looked at Thomas like this; with someone writing inside him that can be reciprocated. And it finally is.

Thomas grabs Newt by the hand, and drags him towards the bathroom, and every person in this place who has been paying attention to them knows what they’re going to do, and Newt doesn’t even care; a genuine laugh even escapes his lips at the thought.

When Thomas shuts the bathroom door behind him, he’s blushing; Newt doesn’t know if it’s from embarrassment or anticipation or thrill, but he doesn’t give himself time to ask or Thomas time to explain. In a swift movement, he’s pushing Thomas against the rough brick wall and kissing him again, rougher this time. He slips his tongue into the brunette’s mouth, and he tastes like pot and pizza and stale pepsi, and Newt fucking loves it. He bites down on Thomas’s bottom lip until he moans, and Newt shudders from the sound of it.

He pushes himself against Thomas as close as possible, his hands on his chest, on his face, caressing down his sides, anywhere he can reach; Thomas’s hands are running up and down Newt’s back, grasping his hair, grabbing his ass, and he can feel Thomas getting hard against his leg, and he knows he’s doing the same. He throws his head back and gasps as Thomas trails kisses down his jawline, against his neck, sucking hickeys into his porcelain skin, and he’s leaving his own bruises on Thomas, his fingers clenched so tight around his biceps.

Thomas pulls away, lifts his head, and Newt takes the opportunity to take over his lips again, sucking his bottom lip, licking the inside of his mouth like he owns it, his hands clasped to this sides of his face like Thomas might pull away if dared let go. Thomas just fucking lets Newt take control, lets Newt tilt his head in hands as he kisses him deeper, and it just makes the whole thing so much hotter.

When Thomas starts grinding against Newt’s thigh, dick throbbing, hard, through his jeans, Newt releases Thomas’s face and starts fumbling with his fly, hands shaking with disbelief and pleasure and a bliss so pure nothing else but this on the planet could cause it, and all the while Thomas is planting light, hot kisses on Newt, on his nose, his lips, his cheeks, and each one leaves the spot tingling as if a million miniscule butterflies were fluttering around in his skin.

But Thomas can’t help but give up this task and throw his head back and his back arch with a gasp and a moan that make Newt’s own dick throb even harder as he closes his hand around Thomas’s cock and gives it a quick and sudden jerk. And now it’s Newt’s turn to spread kisses up and down Thomas’s face and neck as he strokes him until he’s weak-kneed and shaking and biting his lip to keep in the sound that’s threatening to burst from his hot, swollen lips.

Newt closes his mouth on Thomas’s again with one more hard stroke and that’s all Thomas needs, and with a shudder he’s coming all over Newt’s hand.

Thomas is grinning like an idiot when he gains control of himself and looks at Newt again, “Your turn,” he says, waggling his eyebrows and sinking to his knees, and Newt swears never been so turned on in his life.

“You’re not wearing pants,” Thomas giggles like this is news to both of them, as he tugs Newt’s boxers down around his ankles.

“Oh yeah,” Newt laughs in return, because he really did forget, but he chokes on the laugh before it really leaves his lips because suddenly Thomas’s lips are on his cock, and Newt has one hand on the wall for support, and the other’s fingers wound so tight in Thomas’s hair it’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t pull a couple strands out.

And he swallows Newt’s cock, he doesn’t even gag, and he drags his tongue down Newt’s length as he pulls back out, and he plants a kiss on the tip before he swallows him again, and it’s sloppy and it’s hot and it’s more than anything Newt ever thought he would get in his life. He continues this method a few times, growing faster and hotter and better with each bob of his head, and Newt would be embarrassed about how fast he comes if he hadn’t been waiting for this for so long, if he hadn’t been so immersed in the pleasure of it as he bit his lip so hard it bled to keep himself from screaming Thomas’s name.

They use the back door to escape the bar as fast as they can, messy and hot and sweaty and stinking of sex, and neither of them ever returns to The Glade again.

-

They get high that night, after they get back to the apartment and cleaned up, and Newt can’t explain it, but he’s felt cleaner and more pure than he has in years, in eternities. They get high together, and Newt remembers that this is what if felt like before, before his stupid feelings for Thomas fucked it up; when they were together as just friends and nothing really mattered and life wasn’t as important as people had spent their entire lives telling them it was. Back then, it was the best time of Newt’s life, but if he was given the chance to go back, to keep it that way forever, he wouldn’t, not ever. Newt would never take back the horrible journey it took to get here, because the here and the now, with Thomas in his arms is a paradise greater than any heaven Newt could ever imagine.

Newt and Thomas share a bed for the first time that night. Sleep is different, when you have another warm body pressed against you. Even in your dreams you’re never alone; their warmth and presence is a dream catcher, snatching the dangers and horrors of sleep away before they can reach you, and you can’t feel unsafe with their arm draped over you, like they’re an impenetrable force, and you’re the same for them.

He doesn’t have any nightmares tonight—he never has the nightmare of the outstretched, pleading hand again.

Waking up to the sight of Thomas looking so lovingly at him next morning, with sleepy eyes and a dreamy smile sends a wave of reassurance through Newt, and he knows their world is okay again.

And how he would smile smugly at the Newt of the past if he could; at the blonde, hopeless boy who didn’t know after last night he would never have to sleep alone again.

-

Time is different when you're stoned. It drags on; seconds become minutes become hours become an eternity. The planets' orbits stall, the hands on every clock lag, and the very blood in your veins abates to a trudge. And that's why it's the best way to fuck someone. The attraction and intensity of sex build and build for what seems like lifetimes until the passion becomes so dense, so hot, you can feel every particle in your body making contact with your partner's, burning, pleading for more.

You're aware, in the back of your mind, that your bodies are intertwined, rocking, and shuddering with lust just as they would be were you sober, but that doesn't matter; it's not the same, it's not as good that way. And you don't want it to be. You want an excuse to do it like this, when your brain isn't in your skull, yet you've never felt so present inside your own skin; your nerves are on fire, and there is ice in your veins, and you've never felt a pleasure so immense, so whole that you can feel it in every twitch of muscle and every shiver across your sweat-glistened skin.

You want an excuse to do it like this, when you're in a room clouded with heavy, polluted smoke and that old bong on the decrepit coffee table; when you're bubbling with irrational laughter, because you're so goddamn baked you don't even know where you are anymore; and you can use those details as justification to why you so desperately love fucking your best friend.

-

They’re lying in bed together, both baked, one night. The lights are off; they’re facing one another with their arms wrapped around each other, their faces close enough so that they can see the other’s even in the immense darkness of the one room apartment and occasionally planting a kiss to the other’s lips. Mostly, they’re just content, happy, and warm, watching the other’s eyes droop as he tries not to slip into unconsciousness first.

Thomas takes Newt by surprise by whispering, breath hot against his ear, “I’m sorry that I let you get like this—like that, I mean.”

And Newt doesn’t want to forgive him, because Thomas didn’t do anything, he shouldn’t be apologizing, but he knows Thomas would fight him on that, and he’s too stoned right now to deal with that argument, so Newt kisses the tip of Thomas’s nose, and says, “It’s okay, Tommy.”

Thomas smiles like a burden has been lifted from his shoulders, and he kisses Newt deeply as if thanking him.

And while things are so calm and so real, Newt has to ask, because it’s driving been him crazy, "What is this to you?"

Thomas says, eyebrows raised and bemused grin ever-present, "What is what?"

Newt doesn't know how to phrase this question so bluntly without it being obvious the answer he wants, so he says, "What we have, I mean…” and his voice trails off, and he feels stupid for even asking it.

Thomas’s eyes grow clear for just a second, and he says, voice confident and unadulterated, “I love you, Newt.”

And Newt thanks the lord he can finally admit it when he says, “I love you, too,” and sinks deeper into the covers with Thomas and pulls him closer.

Newt likes getting high, he always has and he always will; he’s thankful now, with Thomas in his arms, that he doesn’t have to be afraid of being sober.