Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I love you.”

Thomas’s words hang in the air.

Newt twitches, freezing. And then he leans down and kisses Thomas in an exact replica of their first, both of his lips catching more of Thomas’s lower.

And when they move everything is muted.

How when Newt shifts between Thomas’s legs there’s only shattered breathing. When Thomas tugs Newt’s shirt over his head it’s only the rustle of fabric. How Newt muffles his groan in the side of his neck, and the feeling of breath against his skin lights off fireworks in his nerve endings, everything exploding and shaking, and he doesn’t even know what he’s whispering, only that he’s asking Newt for something.

When Newt makes him shatter apart Thomas throws his head to the side, feeling hands convulse on his hips and Newt’s mouth latch onto his neck, sucking and kneading his pulse point between teeth, wave after wave, and through it all Newt touches him like a goodbye.

They lie together shoulder to shoulder silently after, breathing heavy and staring at the whirling ceiling fan.

When Thomas wakes up in the morning it’s instantaneous, sitting bolt upright in bed at the first moment of consciousness. He was alone. Newt was gone.

-

“Whatthefuckwereyouthinking?” Is hissed into Thomas’s ear roughly three seconds after Brenda hauls him into a broom closet at school (and even the broom closet is nice, is that real dried lavender in a glass jar what the fuck). Thomas blinks dully down at her, exhausted and blurry and barely able to focus and-

“Is that a fucking hickey?” Shoving him against the wall, rattling the shelves and Thomas winces, because the aches and pains are manageable but definitely not nice and Brenda had just made about two thirds of them go off again.

“I-”

“A hickey?”

“Bren-”

“Are you kidding me with this shit?”

Thomas’s tenuous hold on his temper explodes. “Yes. Okay? Yes. It’s a fucking hickey, okay? Who the fuck cares? Is it a issue? Is this what we need to be focusing on? My fucking hickey?” He snarls and Brenda slowly raises her eyebrows at him, and nothing more. His shoulders slump. Maybe this was the day he dies. But Brenda, surprisingly, drops it. Which only makes Thomas realize just how serious this might actually be.

“What the fuck were you doing? You’re Greenvale. You can’t be around our part of the borough with your guy Dan pulling the shit he’s pulling.” Spat out like an accusation.

Thomas raises his eyebrows incredulously. “You never told me where you were from either!” Gesturing between the two of them and Brenda rolls her eyes. Thomas takes a deep shuddering breath and brings his hands up in the universal ‘hold on’ gesture that transcends time and space and teenagers screaming at each other in broom closets. “Listen-Bren. You’ve got to understand, Dan, the guy that’s been starting stuff, I dunno what he’s done but Newt had nothing to do with any of it.”

She looks at him silently, eyes narrowing and contemplative. “That Dan guy, he really messed up the brother of one of the guy’s that jumped you. Really put him on pause. Bad Thomas.”

A long beat of silence.

Thomas swallows. “He gonna be okay?”

“...eventually.”

“Is he…did you…a friend?”

Her eyes flash angrily, looking almost red in the light. “Yeah.”

He raked frantic hands through his hair. “Okay, well. It’ll get handled. I’ll handle it, somehow. Can you pass it along? Dan’s, uh. Friends, they’ve got him under control now, and he’s been having a shit time. His dad got put away and…and just. I’m sorry. And the others are sorry. And Newt had nothing to do with it so…just…”

There’s a long tense silence. Brenda tilts her head and scans him as if she’s taking him apart from the inside out like one of her engines. (He hopes she will take it all.) “Yeah. I’ll pass it along.” She eyes him, silently, before adding “And I know Newt had nothing to do with it. I’ll tell them to back off.” Thomas’s shoulders slump with relief.

“They’ll listen to you?”

Brenda shrugs, reaching down and picking at a thread on her shirt before shrugging nonchalantly. “Yeah. My dad’s got pull with certain people.”

“Okay.” He breathes, legs in danger of giving out. “Thanks.” Tacked on weakly. If there was one thing that this strange summer had taught him, it was that once Brenda got an idea in her mind, she’d never stop.

Brenda somehow senses his Enemy Number One legs and takes pity on him, sliding down the wall and sitting with her knees bent as an excuse for Thomas to do the same. And he does. Definitely not with a sigh of relief, no way. She looks him over and Thomas sees how her eyes focus on the bruise peeking out from his shirt, the long scrape across his elbow, his scabbed knuckles. “You okay?” She asks finally and he laughs weakly.

“Would’ve been a lot less okay if you hadn’t gotten them to scatter.” Rubbing his face with his hand, resisting the urge to grip his own hair and pull, just to feel something sharp and angry.

Brenda locks her fingers together, wiggling them and tapping them against each other. “…Newt okay?” She asks after a beat of silence and Thomas nods.

“Yeah.”

She locks and unlocks her fingers and, for the first time in history, looks guilty. Thomas jerks upright when understanding hits him like a brick wall. “You knew who he was, didn’t you? At Aris’s party. When I…when I introduced you to him. You had a look…” He says and she presses her lips together, wiggling her eyebrows and nodding once.

“Yeah. Everyone knows that guy Matt, one of the guys, the car operation or whatever, had a kid that goes by ‘Newt’. ‘Newt’ honestly? Fuck me. Newt.” She snorts, scratching her short hair. “That’s when I put it together. Figured if you two knew each other then you must’ve been from the same place. Anyways-turns out that someone else knew who he was as well, knew about his connection to Dan… and that guy Dan had it coming… and…you know. Cousin for a brother or whatever. You know how it goes.” She shrugged, completely matter-of-fact. “They’d already seen you. By the time I got to the end of the alley and saw it all going down I figured everyone scattering was the best bet.” Her eyes flashed, lingering over the small mark on Thomas’s neck that he’d noticed that morning in the bathroom (He’d almost put his fist through the mirror). “I wasn’t sure but…you two?”

Thomas clenches his eyes shut, fighting against the thickness rising in his throat and the sting behind his eyes, aches and pains both physical and metaphorical banging against his nerves. “Pretty sure it’s over, so. Doesn’t matter.” He says, only slightly uneven and maybe rebellious, hands curling into fists. (He congratulates himself on it. And, you know what? Kudos to Thomas. He gets this one. Keeping your voice level when your heart is breaking is honestly pretty impressive.)

“Oh.” She says. And then- “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Brenda lets out a huge sigh and her head falls back against the wall, looking to the ceiling. “That why you’ve been so weird about going here in the fall?”

Thomas swallowed. “No-um. A bit. Kind of.”

She frowned. “Not like you can’t see him on the weekends Thomas. Don’t throw this away.”

The words scrapped out of his mouth like sandpaper. “It’s not that I don’t want to go…” He freezes, alarms blaring in his head. That line of thought was too dangerous. Biting the inside of his cheek before starting again. “My, uh. My mom. She’s gone. For a few years now. If I go here I can’t get parental permission to leave. I’ll be stuck here. Or worse, if I try to go here they might find me out. I might end up in the system, in foster care. I can’t risk it.”

A long beat of silence. Thomas grabs a random bottle off one of the shelves, spinning it between his fingers and they pointedly avoid looking at each other.

“Oh.”

When they slip into Bio class twenty minutes late, both of them looking impressively pale and worn, their friends do double-takes. “What’s wrong?” Winston asks, concern drawing his eyebrows together as he takes in Thomas’s bruises and scrapes from his desk next to Thomas. He shakes his head and Winston turns to the front with a frown that clearly states that Thomas wasn’t fooling anyone. Rachel watches them with observant genius eyes.

“Are you okay?” Aris whispers hesitantly from his seat directly in front of Thomas and his vision mists over, not for the first, and definitely not the last time today.

‘What would happen if you walked to Aris house?’.

He swallows, tapping his tablet and the screen lighting up under his finger, his eyes welling and glazing everything with mist. “Nah.” He chokes out.

-

He gets off the bus and looks at the empty bench next to his stop, sitting down heavily on it and almost, almost cries. He goes to Alby and Ximena’s and woodenly tells them what Brenda said. Spinning quickly away before they could question anything.

When he walks into Teresa’s house and darts into his-not-his room past Minho and Teresa he almost cries. He paces and his chest heaves and he looks at the wires and the tech and the half-finished projects and contemplates smashing them all into pieces. Then he contemplates walking into the nearest pawn shop and selling it all, getting just enough credits for a bullet-train ticket to anywhere.

And then he sits on his bed and he almost cries when he smells sagebrush on his sheets. There’s a faint knock and even before Thomas can open his mouth Minho’s barreling through the door with Teresa slipping inside after him and closing it with a click. They share a moment of long, wavering silence and their eyes drift to his neck. Teresa nods once to herself, and then she’s walking over. Sitting on the bed next to him and resting her head on his shoulder, both her hands clasping around his left palm and squeezing.

“I’m sorry Tom.”

Thomas eyes prickle again and he almost cries. Swallowing with difficulty. “I wish I’d told you.” Her hands squeeze his again.

“You didn’t have to.”

He looks down at the crown of her hair in shock. “You knew?”

Teresa gives a small snort from her spot on his shoulder, and even though he can’t see her face he knows she’s rolling her eyes at him. “Not for a long time. But then, yeah.”

Minho throws himself down on Thomas’s other side, managing to smile and frown all at once. “You guys are good together. You’ll figure it out.” Thomas blinks rapidly and clears his throat, feeling his Adams apple bob. A wave of exhaustion washes over him, and the world blurs again. His shoulders give a single shudder that he can’t stop, no matter how much he tries.

“It’ll be okay.” Teresa mutters and he lets his head lean on hers, curls tickling his cheek.

“Thomas?”

“Yeah Min?”

“Where do you go every day?”

He starts like he’s been electrocuted, staring at Minho and his brain suddenly and completely grinding to a halt. “Summer school.” Offered with only a hint of panic. Minho shakes his head.

“No, you don’t. I did summer school after freshman year, remember? Geography? Fuck my dad was so pissed-anyways I know that you don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and come home at six. And I know that our jacked school’s jacked summer classes aren’t tough enough to lay you out the way you’ve been. You’re too smart for that. So.” Minho says, holding out his hand as if Thomas was supposed to put the answer right in his palm. “Where do you go every day?”

Teresa squeezes his hand and Thomas almost cries as his head searches madly for some kind of excuse. He was supposed to be smart. “I go to summer school.” He mutters and Minho opens his mouth to argue. “I got into a summer program at, uh. At A.I, you know, the S.T.E.M school.” Minho’s previously open-and-ready-to-argue mouth closes quickly.

“What?” Teresa breathes the word, squeezing his hand again, eyes growing wide.

He tells them. About all of it. About feeling so alone and then having Brenda, and then the others. About the guilt and the lies and the fact that he hadn’t bothered to mention the entrance exam because he thought it wouldn’t matter. How if he decided to go there, if he got in, he’d have to move across the checkpoint and traitor had been knocking in his head all summer. (Teresa squeezes his hand hard and Minho’s mouth pops open and closed again.) He doesn’t tell them about Newt, and they don’t ask. He’s grateful.

When he’s done he takes a huge, massive, month-and-a-half-of-secrets-out-in-the-open breath of relief and there’s a long moment of silence.

“Do you want to go?” Teresa asks him simply.

The question pulls the breath out of his lungs. Yes. “I…I don’t know.” Lips barely moving and looking at the ground, letting his eyes slide out of focus. Panic rising as he finally, finally admits it. “If I try to go…I won’t be able to come home, like, at all and I don’t want them to ask questions. I don’t…” His Adams apple bobs furiously. “I don’t want them too…I can’t get shipped off again.” He admits in a whisper, letting his head hang forward. The bodies on either side pressing warmly against him.

Minho let out a deep sigh, chest deflating before he grasps Thomas’s shoulder and gives a single firm shake, standing up. “We’ll figure it out. You look wrecked. Get some sleep, we’ll be in the living room.”

Teresa squeezes his hand again, hard, standing as well. Planting a firm kiss to his forehead, saying quietly “I’m so proud of you.” before following Minho.

Thomas’s eyes mist over again. He can’t leave them. “Kay.” Barely strangled out. They close the door quietly and Thomas lets himself fall back on the bed fully clothed, pulling the covers over his entire body. And then when that’s not enough, his head as well.

Under his sheets in a room that is not his, the sinking feeling fills Thomas’s lungs and he lets himself drown.

-

It was peaceful, down under the water, just like he’d imagined it would be. No Virtual Reality experience required.

-

About a month after the entrance exam and Thomas kissing Newt, (which means, if Thomas had it right in his head, that this was roughly half way through May.) he had been called back to the Principal’s Office to the hoots and applause of his friends. His smile was decidedly weaker than the first time.

Thomas sat down in the exact same chair and she’d smiled at him, and he’d known. His stomach dropped and his palms started to sweat, and when she’d turned her screen towards him and he saw the large ‘Summer Program-Accepted’ he’d almost thrown up, because this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Thomas thinks ‘No.’ and then ‘Fuck no.’ but what comes out of his mouth is-

“Oh.”

He’d walked out of the office in a daze and directly into Newt. “Shitfuck.” Bouncing off him and stumbling backwards, the hall-pass in Newt’s fingers slipping to the floor.

Newt laughed, putting out a hand to steady him. “Always so elegant.” And then frowning, looking at Thomas closely. “You looked like a ghost when they called your name. You okay?”

Thomas gave a weak laugh and knocked his knuckle against an old locker with chipped blue paint, the sound hollow and metallic and ‘fuk u’ written in sharpie in the corner. Thomas traced his fingers along the letters. “Something like that.” His eyes flicked up. “So, what, you came to check up on me?”

Newt stared down at him silently and Thomas couldn’t help but flush.

They hadn’t talked about it. Not a single time. Not once. And Newt would smile at Thomas and then it would be gone. Thomas would wordlessly ask Newt for things and then dart away, and when they saw each other next it would be easy grins and nothing different between them. Until the next time it happened. And it was happening more and more and Thomas was starting to feel like everyone could see the whites of his eyes, as if he was something trapped and panicking. (Because, a tiny part of him was really, really liking this. Maybe too much. Maybe things with Newt were just-maybe-something.)

“Hey.” Newt reached out and gave him a gentle shake.

At the touch Thomas jolted out of his thoughts and tugged on his hat brim fitfully, doing his best to smile. “You know Paige. Can kill a man with a single look.” He jokes weakly and Newt’s brow furrows more, eyes narrowing.

With a hum and then a nudge of Thomas’ shoulder with his own, Newt started to wander down the hall and towards the sunlit door, fingers walking along the wall as he went. “Come on, you need some air.”

Thomas’s tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, watching the way Newt’s hair skimmed his jaw. “Alright.” Hands brushing lightly, once, as they walk along the street, and for a brief second their eyes lock then fall away. Sliding along the storefronts and then the neighborhoods and finally, to a back-alley door of empty building that looked significantly worse for wear. “Uh, Newt?” Newt hummed at his question, patting his pockets and then his backpack, rooting around and pulling a small key chain out with a victorious grin. Thomas looked up and then left and right. “Newt are you, like, a super villain? Is this the part where you show me your evil lair and ask me to join you?”

Newt laughed. “Please. My evil lair would have a lot more style than this. I’d have at least three shark tanks, no question. Besides, Teresa’s the evil genius, we decided this.” Unlocking the backdoor and ushering Thomas through into the dusty space, letting him take it all in.

And Thomas did. Old heavy machinery all over the floor, boxes that’d long been left to mold, the occasional rusted car part. A whole gutted engine. So so cool. “This place is data as fuck Newt. How’d you find it?” Asking as he spun around in the abandoned garage that he would one day come to think of as theirs.

Newt laughed, leading him through the mostly empty space with casual purpose. “Used to be one of the hideouts. Place to stash cars when the block was too hot to move the merchandise. Dan told me about it ages ago. It was all locked up tight but I got curious and snooped around.”

“Really?” Thomas asked, tone bright and trailing after Newt, looking with interest at the residual echoes of crime. Newt hummed and shouldered open a door into what must’ve been the back office, and when Thomas steps in he closes the door behind him. The only things inside are a old desk, a dusty filing cabinet and a few rows of metal shelving. A bit post-apocalyptic, a bit office-administration. A nice blend.

Newt nods towards the empty far wall and pulls a spray can of paint out of his backpack with a grin. “Thought you could practice your tag, considering that Teresa’s absolutely trashing all of us in that arena.”

Thomas wiggles his eyebrows, reaching out and shaking the can. For a few minutes the only sound in the room was the tap-tap-tap of the ball bearing and the hiss of paint being sprayed. Thomas leans back and sighs at his work, a scrawling wavy mess. Which may, in fact, be an excellent representation of him. Artistic objective complete.  “I have no idea how she does it. It’s like she just makes the paint go exactly where she wants it too.”

Newt lets out a small chuckle and prods at the old desk with his shoe. “Honestly it’s Teresa. I doubt she’d let mere paint defy her.” Thomas had privately decided on the walk over that this whole ‘Alexandria Situation’ was ridiculous and needed to be mocked hence-forth. It was a stupid dumb idea. It was hilarious. Especially amidst the graffiti and the residual crime and the history of their block, with Newt right beside him, the whole terrifying concept that hid behind the word ‘Accepted’ suddenly seemed a lot less threatening.

Thomas crouches back down and shakes the can again before frowning.  “So wanna hear something super fucking weird?”

“Indubitably.” Newt sighs and comes to crouch next to him and admire the sloppy line work and green on the wall, reaching out to hover a finger over one of the drips of paint edging downwards from where Thomas had sprayed it on too heavily.

“So-you’ll never believe this. Paige calls me into her office like a month ago and starts spouting all this shit about some summer program that you take to get into the Alexandria Institute-you know that crazy-rich-private S.T.E.M school past the security checkpoint? The one that's always on the news?” He looked over and Newt nodded at him, head slowly tilting in curiosity.

And Thomas already felt better. He’d tell Newt and they’d laugh about it and that would be it. Maybe Newt would help him with a creative way to send back his resounding ‘Fuck no’.

Could they, potentially, get a smoke bomb across the security barriers without being arrested?

“What’s that got to do with you?” Newt asks, something lurking in his tone. (Tone, everything, etc, etc.)

Thomas laughs once at the pure fucking absurdity of the whole thing, turning back to the tag on the wall. “Well she made me write the entrance exam right? Guess it got around that I’m okay at coding,”- Newt snorts but Thomas continues stubbornly- “and programing and stuff. Paige starts spouting all this crap about how if I pass the summer program I’m accepted to the school. I move there and live in the dorms and ‘Use the right tools’ or what-the-fuck-ever. Anyways-get this-” He pauses to shake the can and speaks over the fizzle of paint spraying. “I got in Newt. I passed the entrance exam for the summer program. How funny is that? I wish I could see those rich fucks faces when I turn em down. I gotta think of something good. I was considering smoke bomb, but I’m open to suggestions.”

There was a long silent pause. Thomas traced the lines again with paint, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration. “Newt?” He asks. And then when he doesn’t get a response he turns.

Newt was staring at him, eyebrows raised and mouth hanging slightly open. He blinks twice, shaking himself and standing up, it seemed, for the sole reason of being able to look down on him. “Thomas, you have to go.”

“What?” Thomas’s face pulls into a laughing grimace, still crouching. “No way I’m going to that thing. I’m not wasting a summer just for them to say ‘No way Greenvale trash, spot’s been filled. Thanks for meeting our quota for the tax break though.’.”

“How do you know that? You could really get in.”

Thomas shakes his head and laughs disbelievingly again. Standing as well and stretching. “Are you fifty-one-fifty? I’d never get in. Not in this lifetime. The whole things rigged, you know that. Plus if I got in, which I wouldn’t, I’m not moving away.” He grinned sarcastically. “What would you guys do without me?”

“Thomas you have to go.” Newt repeated, dead serious and reaching out. Gripping Thomas’s shoulders, shaking him once gently like the can of paint, somber mood completely throwing Thomas off kilter. They were supposed to be laughing about this. Newt shakes him again. “You passed. That means you can get into A.I, and that’s the best school on the ground in the city. You have to go.”

Thomas felt the grin slip from his face. “No, I don’t.”

Newt’s eyebrows rocket up. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not. And I’m not going. Fuck that Newt.” He snaps, more than a little (afraid)pissed off by this point. Because this was supposed to be funny and if Newt wasn’t taking it as a joke, if Newt was taking it seriously then Thomas might have to take it seriously too. And he really, really didn’t want to do that.

“Tomm-.”

Thomas pushed Newt’s hands off of his shoulders with a scowl and gave a light shove, just for good measure. “I’m not going. I wouldn’t even told you if I’d known you were going to get all psycho about it.” He tried to walk past Newt, only to have his hand reach out and block his path. Thomas felt his hackles raise and something else entirely spark deep in his stomach.

“Thomas.”

“I’m not doing it Newt. Just drop it. Fuck.” Thomas snapped but when he tried to push past, Newt reached out to touch his arm gently. And the gentleness, more than anything, sends fear rocketing through him. Everything was tipping sideways, everything was off-kilter. Panic rising in his throat. And then Thomas shoved him hard and not just for good measure, but also to make Newt stop looking at him like he was an idiot turning down a lifeline on a sinking raft.

Newt shoved him back and Thomas couldn’t help the snarled “Fuck you.” from snapping out between his teeth because he was angry and that meant afraid. Newt’s eyes darkened and the hands on his shoulders pulled away quick, held up and beseeching.

“Thomas you have to go. You could get in. You’re amazing with tech, and if you go to A.I you could go anywhere for university. You could…you could get out. Tommy, you could go to Atlas.”

A chip of ice slips into his stomach and Thomas wishes that he’d never said a word, that he had just kept not mentioning it until after the deadline had passed. But instead he’d said something and the sinking feeling in his stomach that felt vaguely Blue saw it necessary to point out that this was, in fact, all his fault. 

(Thomas wears his mother’s abandonment like a cardboard sign dangling from a string around his neck like one of the people that walked down the street preaching the end of the world, and written in bold thick letters it declares ‘Never leave the ones you love.’)

“Fuck that.” Thomas snarls because this is all feeling dangerously like Newt wanting Thomas to move away from him, which, in a lot of confusing ways, made Thomas even more afraid. And after all, in their part of town the first reaction to fear is anger. Because what if Newt was regretting this whole thing and this was his way to make sure it ended? No muss, no fuss, Thomas just gone. Situation handled.

“Eloquent as always.” Newt teases sharply and it only makes him see red. So he shoves Newt again and then he kisses him instead, hands clutching at his shirt and pulling him closer, and Newt gets the message.

Thomas’s back hits the wall and Newt’s suddenly everywhere. And it’s hard and desperate and there’s a hint of something else in the way Newt’s moving against him. The way that Newt’s hands run up and down his sides and the way that he’s biting and nipping at Thomas’s lips to get him to open his mouth. The way that Newt reached down, gripping his hips and making him inhale sharp, clutch at shoulders because the friction.  

Hands squeeze and hold Thomas in place while Newt moves against him and his whole body is glitching, signals firing and misfiring and he blames it most definitely on the misfiring when he gasps out a desperate “More.”

With a deep groan Newt is slamming a hand up against the wall just above Thomas’s shoulder and it should have pissed him off but it only makes that ‘something’ low in his stomach burn. Newt’s other reaching down and Thomas twitches, letting out a sharp gasp and body chasing the feeling involuntarily. But Thomas wants more.

“More.” Sighed against frantic lips and the way that Newt shudders has Thomas running his fingers through blonde silky strands and pulling, forcing them to lock together. It’s harsh and hot and angry and good and, just maybe, a tiny bit sad.

The horrible sinking feeling that’s been creeping up on him for weeks bubbles in his chest and Thomas pulls tighter, reeling from the way that Newt presses him into the drywall. Thomas’s hands slide down Newt’s chest and then lower. Starting to undo Newt’s pants with shaking movements. “Newt?” Whispered soft and he’s not brave enough (yet) to admit that he’s begging.

Newt stills when it clicks in his head what he wants, lips pausing in their frantic kissing and eyes fluttering open to look down at him. “Thomas.” His voice low and rough, cheeks pink and gaze fever bright, worrying his lip between his teeth. A slash of white against flushed red. “Thomas.” Muttered again and Thomas can’t stand it. Can’t stand the way Newt is looking at him and can’t stand the way he feels like he’s drowning in his own head and can’t stand Newt not kissing him. So he presses close, hands reaching up to grip the front of Newt’s shirt.

“Tommy-“ Newt tries to step back, but Thomas holds fast, fist clinging to the fabric and Newt let out a shuddering breath. “Tommy we-” He doesn’t let the words leave Newt’s mouth, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what came next. Firm hands griped his shoulder and push him back, just slightly, and Thomas is still leaning in even as he bumps against the wall. 

“Newt what?” Soft and pained and beseeching. 

Newt moved shaking fingers through his own hair, and then, deciding to go with the other option, starting to push Thomas’s wild mess of brown back into place fitfully. His hat had been knocked off. He doesn't remember that happening. “We should.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, Tommy. We should...” Eyes drift down to his mouth, tongue darting out to run along his teeth, and each word Newt spoke seemed to fall with increasing weight. “We should. We-fuck. I can’t believe I’m.” Newt coughed out a single laugh, looking down and shaking his head. “We should just, we should slow down.”

But before Newt was even done speaking he was kissing Thomas again, lighting him up from the inside, making him spin out, coming forward easily when Thomas gives a fitful tug on his shirt. One of Newt’s hand’s cups his face, thumb stroking his cheek. The other slipping easily around his waist, pinning him to the wall and pulling Thomas against him in a very apparent tug of war, both physical and metaphorical. 

His lips felt pillowed and numb and maybe shaking a little from the way that Newt held him so tight, not an inch of space between them. “Do you want to slow down?” Thomas managed to shudder out over the pulse in his throat. 

With an audible gulp Newt kissed him again, then let himself tip down, their foreheads pressing together. Mouth open and moving soundlessly for a moment. With a shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the fact that Newt’s hand at his lower back was drawing tiny circles around the small dimples there, Thomas leans up and kisses him to stop him from looking so lost.

It doesn’t work.

Even as they press together he can feel the sadness leeching from Newt’s movements. 

Thomas tries another time, because no one would ever say he wasn’t determined, and there were few things in the world that felt worse than dark brown eyes going sad and far away like a distant mountain. “Newt I.” Newt’s breath was ghosting against his skin and he couldn’t think. “Newt do you want to slow down? We can.” He shivered. “We can slow down?”

A click in Newt’s throat, the fingers splayed on Thomas’s back curl, digging in, blunt bitten nails scratching sensitive overheated skin and the sensation makes Thomas inhale sharply, tipping his face up in a wordless request. 

“I-” Newt croaks. A deep inhale, holding it, wiry shoulders tense. “No.” So Thomas kissed him, slow and soft and asking him wordlessly for things until Newt pulls back, searching his face. “Have you, before?” The words warm against his skin. Thomas answering without making a sound, moving forward, brushing their lips together.

“Tommy.” Mumbled against his mouth, and the tone of it makes Thomas flush because all he can think about is keeping everything in his head quiet and nothing makes his mind go as blank as Newt. And then Newt’s lips are doing something at his neck that doesn’t make his mind go blank so much as explode with color and he falls back against the wall, head up and body tight. The (shaking) hands at his jeans going still and Newt whispering, “This okay? Are you sure?”

“I want. Yeah. Do you…do you want too?” Thomas asks soft into his ear and Newt exhales sharply against moist skin and making him shake. Every thought felt like it was balancing on the tip of a knife. Drywall chalky against his skin. The room smelt like rust and stale air and maybe secrets and Thomas didn’t care because he was hiding.

“I do. Yeah.” Newt whispers against his thudding pulse.

There was a crack in the ceiling that he traces with his eyes. “Alright.” Just as quiet.

Thomas had enrolled in A.I the next day.

-

In his-not-his bedroom after confessing everything to Teresa and Minho, Thomas lets himself drown for a day, and then because it felt good, one more. And then on the third morning he deeply contemplates another, watching the clock tick and decides to do just that.  

He burrowed back into his sheets and turned to comfortably let another day pass him by with hazy fitful sleeping and long hours of pulling everything apart everything stitch-by-stitch. It was a bit like poking a bruise, the dull ache satisfying and throbbing and a bit addictive. He inhaled deeply, trying to imagine that the sheets still smelt like Newt and shuts the world out.

His eyes droop closed.

“Up-n-at ‘em.”

The covers were ripped back from over his head and Thomas was suddenly looking at the excruciatingly chipper smile of Minho, flushed and a bit sweaty and clearly just back from his early morning workout. Thomas might hate him a little bit.

He tries to pull them back, tugging on the blanket fitfully. “Min-stop.” Half-successful and managing to get the sheets up to his chin. “Just leave me alone.” He added, turning back to the wall. There was a moment of silence and Thomas shifts, staring resolutely at the wall and trying not to let how guilty he felt show on his face. Because even as he’d said the words he hadn’t meant them. He sighed. “Sorry. I just. I’m…tired.”

“Nah.” Minho chirped and with one massive yank Thomas was uncovered for the first time in days.

He sits up, staring mutinously at one of his now former-best-friends. All thoughts of apology long gone. “What the fuck Minho.”

Minho shrugs, unaffected. “We gave you two days. You needed them. But now you gotta get up. Bosses orders.” He points his thumb over his shoulder and Thomas notices Teresa standing in the doorway, arms crossed and small smile on her face. Thomas glared at his now other-former-best-friend and she shrugs as well.

“You’ve got school. Which is, apparently a lot bigger of a deal than we’ve been led to believe.” Teresa states matter-of-fact. “And Minho’s the only one that’s strong enough to carry you, in case you won’t get out of bed.” She adds, walking over and taking one of his hands, Minho the other, and together the three of them managed to pull him up and on his feet. Teresa wrinkled her nose at him. “Go have a shower, you stink.” And yeah, okay. She had a point. His skin felt gritty, his eyes fuzzy. Thomas is pushed gently towards the bathroom and he goes, but he throws an angry resentful glance over his shoulder at them.

Minho winks.

He lets them push him out into the morning, and he walks down the empty early-hour streets. It made you possessive of a place, being what felt like the only one awake. It gave you a sense of ownership.

Thomas drags himself to the bus stop resentfully. He eats the egg sandwich that Minho had shoved in his hands resentfully. He crosses the checkpoint resentfully and he walks into his school and contemplates burning the whole thing down.

“Thomas!” Echoing over the din of the halls. He turns.

Aris and Rachel and Winston and, yes, even Brenda with her bad attitude, standing there against the lockers, Winston waving and gesturing him over. He feels the warmth of a full stomach, acknowledging the fact that he’d still be under his sheets if it wasn’t for his best friends, and looks at people that he would have never imagined being able to call friends but now does. He also acknowledges that he would’ve never even been here, without Newt. Newt.

Thomas doesn’t so much push himself off the bottom of the Blue ocean as start the long, slow, painful process of letting himself float upwards.

-

It happens in fits and stops and starts. Sometimes Thomas only misses Newt excruciatingly, and sometimes he misses him so much that he feels like he can’t breathe. He avoids all the places that he knows Newt will go and he spends long hours at school and when he walks down sidewalk  he keeps his eyes down. School, if anything, surprisingly helped. (He hated it more than a little bit.) His final exam which would determine if he had a spot at A.I was fast approaching, and Thomas refuses to think of anything that comes after that date.

The only thing of notable difference was Minho and Teresa were wholly and completely aware of everything in his life. It felt good. It felt really good.

“What…what the fuck does this say?” Minho asks with a frown and a disgusted grimace as if the math on the screen had thrown up on his shoes. Thomas smiles and snags his tablet back and Minho gives it up easily, leaning back from his seat at Teresa’s small kitchen table and yawning.

“I hate this too. No one gets it. Well, this one guy, Winston, he does. He used to use math as a way to make his diving better, something about angles. He was on his old school’s team.” He offers absentmindedly, almost missing Minho’s smile. Thomas frowns. “What?”

Minho snatched the tablet back, swiping to the next question. “Nothing. It’s just cute. You’re such a dork and now you’ve got all these dork friends.” He flashes his teeth. “Think we’d all play nice together?”

With an eyebrow wiggle and a bite of the small ball of bread (pão de queijo, Mariana’s specialty) Thomas shrugs. “Honestly I think you’d fall head over heels for my friend Rachel.”

Minho’s head tilted in interest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Think you could get me across the checkpoint for a date with this ‘Rachel’ when you’ve got big private school clout?”

Thomas rolled his eyes and chewed furiously. “I’m not getting in.” Gesturing for Minho to start quizzing him again.

Minho sighs with raised eyebrows. “Yeah. Definitely. Sure seems like it.” Grimacing down at the offensive math.

Later that evening when Teresa had taken over for Minho as study-partner, she looked at him and frowned as they sat in her room. Thomas didn’t bother to look up from the questions he was revising. “What is it T?” He says absently, reaching over to write a line down in his notebook.

“Does writing things down by hand really help you remember better? It’s so old fashioned.” She asked for the hundredth time, flopped onto her bed with her head at the foot and her feet by the headboard. Decidedly reverse and decidedly Teresa.

Thomas shrugged. “I dunno if it does with anyone else but it helps me, for sure.”

“It’s gonna be weird when you’re all…” She gestured vaguely. (Thomas winced internally, he really had been-as Harriet would say-trying to not, vaguely.)

Thomas frowned, looking down at the tablet and then jotting a line. “When I’m all what?”

“You know, all successful at your new school. A big deal.” She shrugs, lying on her stomach and legs kicking in the air and making a long-abandoned stuff animal dance.

Thomas laughed, writing down another note. “I’m not getting in.” He says in knee-jerk response before adding “T, if you wanna talk success, we literally once all agreed that you’re the most likely to turn evil and achieve world domination.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Well, Jen from the Convenience store, Princess-who do you think? Me and Minho and New-” His voice clipped off suddenly on the last name and for the ten thousandth time that hour Thomas fought the urge to ask Teresa about Newt. He bit down on his tongue and the silence stretched.

(Does he miss me? Is he upset? Has he figured out yet that he’s a fucking idiot? I miss him. Is he sorry? Why hasn’t he tried to talk to me? I love him. Does he miss me? Why didn’t he say it back? I miss him. Does he love me? I think he might love me. Does he?)

 “You’re right.” Teresa sighed, poking at a long abandoned stuffed animal and Thomas starts out of his constant love-sick looping inner monologue.

“Huh?”

Teresa looks at him with her big eyes and smirks. “You’re right. I’d definitely achieve world domination.”

“Would I be your second in command?” Thomas asks with a grin.

“Nah, I’m giving that to Harriet, she’s ruthless.”

“Then what am I?”

Teresa examined her nails, the pink color long since chipped and starting to crack. She reached over and grabbed the bottle of polish from her night stand, unscrewing the top and starting to repaint them. “Evil minion?” She offers with a contemplative frown.

“You know, it’s funny? I always related deeply to the flying monkeys.”

She nodded appreciatively. “I feel like that’s a good fit.”

Thomas grinned. “Understatement.” 

The next day he slipped outside, walking by himself to the sandwich shop for a study break and keeping his eyes glued to the ground, kicking a pebble almost the entire way there. Ordering three meatball subs and practically running back under the swaying trees. Because if Thomas slows to a walk then his feet would take him to Newt’s house. And then he’d bang on the door and maybe Newt would open it.

And Newt would exhale, once. Sharp and frustrated and wooden. A tight ‘Thomas.’ And gentle but firm hands would push him back and away. Closing the door in his face like Thomas had wished he’d done the night that they had first kissed.

But maybe…maybe if Thomas went and banged his fist on the door Newt would sigh in relief, and then his arms would come up and wrap around Thomas tightly in that particular way they did, pulling him close and grounding him. Maybe Newt would press his lips against Thomas’s, hand moving to rub soothing circles on his back. ‘I’m sorry. I missed you. I was an idiot. I love you too.’

Thomas swallows thickly, pavement blurring and thanking whatever was left up there in the sky that no one was out on Alby and Ximena front porch. He was hunched and cradling the bag of subs like a precious child, which was kinda weird, actually, so he stops. Dragging himself down the street, miserable and stressed and trying his best to make it through the week. And he was doing an okay job of it, but the question mark in his mind that was once sharp eyes and a small little smile was an ache that bordered on excruciating.

When he walked back in the house Teresa’s mother was sitting at the kitchen table and Thomas knew in the way that all teenagers knew when faced with a parental figure sitting and waiting at the kitchen table, that he was Officially Fucked. 

Teresa’s bedroom door was closed but Thomas knew intrinsically that she was pressed up against the wall, eyebrows furrowed, a curl in her mouth and an ear to a glass cup, listening with the force of a thousand suns. And despite his being Officially Fucked and heartbroken, the though made his lip quirk. 

And then he looks down to Teresa’s mom’s hands and sees what she’s holding. He was, truly, Officially Fucked. “Thomas.” Mariana says when he freezes in the doorway. In her fingers is his school issued tablet, insignia and all in the top corner. She raised it up, waving it slightly. “Your backpack was open on the couch. It must have fallen over, and this was lying on the ground next to it.

He sputtered for a moment. “I can expla-“ 

“Are you mugging people?” She asked him calm and level and he shook his head wildly. 

“No, it’s not-”

“Then why do you have a piece of tech that we both know costs more than you could get in three months?” 

The clock was flashing red and zero in the top right corner. His time had run out.

“I got into the Alexandria Institute.” Thomas says thickly, hands opening and closing at his sides. Trying his best not to shake because this was it. Finally, it would be out there, and it was over, and despite the fact that shame ran thick through his veins a part of Thomas was viciously glad. This might make his decision a lot easier. If she kicked him out, and his only other option was the streets, he’d gamble for the all the things he’d been doing his best to tell himself he didn’t want. Live painfully with the fact that he’d bought into the whole fucked up unfair system that put the people he loved here in the first place.

Teresa’s mother’s eyebrows shot down, face falling in shock. “What?” 

Thomas nods and tries to take a deep breath, stifling and tripping over his own organs. “I, uh. Took an entrance exam. A few months ago. I got in.” His fists opened then closed. Open. Close. “I qualified for a scholarship. That’s where I’ve been going all summer. Not, uh. Not summer school. Well, I guess, technically still summer school-but not-you know....” 

Mariana looked at him, shook herself and seemed to recover from the shock with minimal difficulty. She was a nurse, after all. She could do, or handle, literally anything. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Thomas swallowed, feeling his Adam’s apple bob furiously. “I just...” Hands going open and close, open and close. “I didn’t want you to think that...that I was, that me going meant, that this wasn’t enough.” He squeezed his eyes closed in time with his fists clenching. “That I didn’t-that I don’t know how much you’ve done for me. And that I don’t appreciate it. And I got it in my head that going meant that I was saying this isn’t enough. And it is. You’ve-you’ve been so good to me and I just…and then I kept not telling anyone, and then it went on too long. And I’m just.” He grits his teeth, steeling himself and opening his eyes to a slightly blurry world. “I’m sorry.”

She’s up and walking towards him before he’s even finished speaking, arms rising like a breeze caught under them. Teresa’s mother is just as beautiful as Teresa, but she’s also shorter then Teresa, which is mildly unfortunate for Thomas when she tries to gather him up in her arms while his chin could rest comfortably on her head. He makes it work. 

“Meu filho.” She says and rubs his back with soothing mother-hands and Thomas finally stops trying to blink back his tears. 

“I got subs for dinner.” He offers with a sniffle. A manly sniffle, mind you.

Her hand stills and then she lets out a small exasperated laugh. “Thank you, Thomas.”

-

School devolves almost exclusively into frantic studying and Thomas and his friends handle the pressure in different ways. Aris swallows and chews his nails and maybe mutters just a bit to himself. Rachel buries her head in her tablet and reads words silently with moving lips. Winston starts to go for swims in the on-site pool at lunch to clear his head.

Brenda for the most part is unaffected, but if Thomas notices her frowning down at her notes and typing just a bit quicker than usual, well. Thomas himself reacts to the mounting pressure surprisingly well, starting to feel the pin-pricks of relief that in a week’s time it’ll all be over. He would have two weeks left until school started again. He just wasn’t sure which school he would be returning too. Thomas starts to mix his lives together, as if he blended them enough he would somehow be able to keep both.

“Hey.” He says, slamming his lunch tray down next to Winston, Brenda squished between Aris and Rachel on the other side of the table. 

“Are you not hungry?” Winston asked, frowning at his empty plate.

Thomas shook his head. “Nope. They just didn’t have what I wanted. It’s data though.” He says with a grin, fishing around in his backpack for a moment. He pulls out a small plastic container, opening it and grinning even wider. Picking up the sandwich, taking a huge bite and chewing happily. “Do you like meatball subs?” He asked Rachel and she shrugged. He held the sandwich out to her. “Here-it’s good. Have a bite of mine.”

-

He’s walking along a back alley avoiding Newt’s regular paths in the neighborhood, when he catches sight of Newt, walking down the back alley to avoid Thomas’s regular paths. Because their paths were, for the most part, identical. (There’s a single side street deviation. Thomas taking Elmer St. and Newt taking MLK Blvd, mostly because Newt likes to look at one particular house that was painted bright yellow, it was his favorite.)

Thomas sees Newt (and Minho, his brain registering sluggishly) first, and does the only reasonable thing he can do.

Okay, it’s not like he dives into a door stoop, tucking himself out of sight, but no one could blame him for wanting to avoid that potential shit storm. He listens to their approaching steps with rising dread, checking to make sure he was hidden, pressing back against the brick, feeling it dig and scratch at his skin.

“Jesus Newt, you stink. How much have you been smoking?”

A scrape of shoe heel against pavement. “Just had one in Gal’s car with the windows rolled up. Must’ve really stuck.”

“Sure.” Came Minho’s vibrating disbelieving response.

Newt made a noise, half between a scoff and a laugh and it was so bitter that Thomas’s shoulders hunched against the wall.

“Newt.” Minho says gently.

“What.” Snapped back, and Thomas could see clear as day in his mind’s eye the way that Newt would be hunching his shoulders and working his jaw.

“Newt come on man, just talk to him.” There’s a long resounding silence. And then-

“You know.” Newt says flatly. “Thomas told you about A.I.” Thomas swallows. He contemplates plugging his ears.

“Yeah. He finally spilled the beans a few days ago. I figured he told you long before us.”

“Why’d you figure that?” Newt asks, sharp and defensive.

“Newt don’t flip the switch. Come on, just talk to him.”

“I can’t.”

Thomas’s eyes fluttered closed and he wished he could be anywhere else in the world right now. The way Newt’s two words shook was slicing through him.

“Newt, come on. I dunno what went down with you two but-”

“Min I can’t. He won’t go.” Thomas’s eyes widen silently, staring blank at the bricks in front of him. Completely frozen.

“This is about Thomas going to school? That’s what this is about?”

“He’s got to go, he can’t stay here and I-

“Newt he’s going to go anyways.” Minho cuts him off.

“I-what?” Newt stops short.

“He’s been studying like crazy all week for that exam. He keeps saying he’s ‘not gonna get in’-” Minho’s voice does a deep sulky impression and Thomas has the sarcastic decency to roll his eyes in his hiding place. “-but he’s going to get in. And then he’s going to go.”

There was a sigh and a faint grind of skin against brick and then the soft thump of a body dejectedly hitting the ground. “It’s his only chance Min. To, you know. To get out.”

“He’s going to go.” Minho murmurs comfortingly, and Thomas hears him scrape his shoes on the ground, Minho settling next to Newt. He could see it. The two of them with their heads bent towards each other. How many times had Thomas found them like that? How many years? 

(“Thank god you moved back Tom. Sometimes Minho and Newt would get all wrapped up in being super-best-friends and I’d be left out.” Teresa had teased one day when they were eleven. She’d rolled her eyes while they’d watched the two of them whisper-arguing together, crouched over a scrawled in the sand plan of attack for dodgeball in their primary school playground.)

A huge gusty sigh of relief. “Good.” 

“Newt, you should…you should talk to him. Just…I’d hate to see you guys throw something away, when you didn’t have too.”

“Doesn’t…really matter. He’s going. He’s gotta go Min. Or else he’s…he’ll be stuck here.”

It was quiet between them.

“Newt?” 

“Yeah Min?” 

“I’m really sorry you feel so trapped here.” 

Thomas counted the bricks on the wall in the silence. He got up to sixteen. 

Eventually Newt cleared his throat. “I don’t as much, really. Anymore.” 

“I know. But, still.” 

“Thanks Min.” 

Even after they’d gotten up and left Thomas sat and counted every brick.

-

“Okay. Okay. This is fine. We’ve got this. Does everyone have pens? A bottle of water? Winston-where’s your bottle of water? You need to stay hydrated. Dehydration rapidly decreases brain function and-”

Thomas did his best not to smile as Rachel frantically shoved pens and bottle of water and, weirdly enough, sticks of gum into each of their hands as they waited in the hallway.

“Chewing gum helps you think.” She offers and Thomas unwraps the foil and pops it into his mouth, chewing loudly to pacify her. They stood huddled together, only a few minutes before their exam would start and even Thomas has to admit that his insides were jumping in confusing nervous twists. He fussed with his backpack, patting his sweaty hands on the sides of his jeans and trying to remember the breathing tricks that Minho had taught him.

‘They’re for running but they’re helpful with anxiety too.’ Minho had said with a gentle sqeeze of his shoulders.  

Leaning next to him against the locker Brenda’s nose wrinkles at the gum shoved into her palm. “Got anything besides peppermint?”

Rachel’s face falls with over-anxious desolation. “No.” All around them students paced or stood still or closed their eyes and muttered frantically to themselves, counting things out on their fingers or quizzing their friends with flashcards.

“I’ve got some that’s grape flavor?” Aris offers and Brenda smiles.

“See Bambi? This is why you’re my favorite.” She says, snatching the purple and silver package.

Aris perks up visibly. “I’m your favorite?”

Brenda scoffs, tweaking his nose. “Of course you are. How could you think anything else?”

“Well I figured Thoma-”

“Nah, fuck that guy. Too grumpy.”

“Does that mean I’m no one’s favorite?” Winston asks, face falling.

“You’re everyone’s favorite Win.” Thomas assures him with a grin.

There was a single high clear bell ding and they as one turned towards the exam center room, a shiver working its way through the collective. “Okay. Okay. We got this.” Winston says, patting Rachel’s shoulder.

Thomas took a deep breath, pushing off of the lockers. He bumped Brenda’s side once. “We got this.”

After the tense dead-silent four hours of testing that left Thomas dizzy, they explode out into the sunlight. Through the massive mahogany doors, down the shinning glass walkway and out the wrought iron fence.

All the way back to Aris’s house where they do cannon balls in the pool and drink pre-mixed cocktails and laugh and just in general celebrate because holy shit they did it. Brenda re-tweaks the hoverboard to have a little less ‘oomph’ and manages to get Aris on it, watching with a satisfied smirk and hands on her hips as he rockets around the backyard.

“We passed. We got in.” Thomas says to just Brenda, the two of them standing slightly apart. They wouldn’t get their results until after the weekend but he knew. He’d known from the first question.

Brenda let’s out a sharp sigh through her nose. “Yeah, we did.” She was quiet, contemplative for a moment before- “Oh my god.” She gripped his arm tightly and Thomas looked down at her, alarmed.

“Bren what?”

“Thomas.” She whispered, eyes widening in horror. “We’re gonna have to start wearing a uniform.”

-

Two days before the first barbecue of the summer, the one where Thomas and Teresa had shown up late, Thomas and Gally got into a fight. (Which would most likely, he was pretty sure, make this the first week of July, almost two months ago.)

It had been just after one of the times that Newt and him had wandered their way to the abandoned garage, breathing each other in and hands searching everywhere and Thomas’s lungs giving out as Newt made him break into a million pieces, face buried in his neck.

After, the two of them tucked into the doorway out of sight, Newt had quirked an eyebrow, reaching up to cup Thomas’s face, running a thumb across his lips and giving a playful hum.

Thump.

Thomas’s heart hit his ribs with a wet smack. And then Newt tapped him on the shoulder with his knuckles lightly, once, twice, three times. “Later.” Sauntering down and out into the streets in long easy strides. And Thomas had stood there, trying to swallow and get everything under control. Pressing his forehead into the warm concrete of the garage’s back door and then hitting his head against the surface, feeling his brain rattle in his skull. Letting out an angry sigh.

“Well that was interesting.”

Thomas jumps out of his fucking skin, and then his head whipped around, seeing Gally detach himself from his spot shielded from view by the dumpster in the alley, face calculating. There was a sharp smell of industrial chemicals that seemed to exude from the very concrete. It made his nose sting.

Gally just stared, impressive eyebrows slowly pulling together. “Don’t look so tilted, I’m won’t say anything.”

“I.” Thomas’s mouth stalls. He tries again. “It’s not-what’re you doing here?”

“Walking. It’s this thing people do. I’m not going to say anything, alright?”

Thomas shoots him a mutinous look, his skin felt hot, his tongue felt heavy. Guilt laced behind his eyelids. The chemical smell in his nose burned. “I don’t know what you’re-”

With arms crossing and scowl deepening, Gally looked Thomas from his shoes to the crown of his head, contempt clear as day. “I told you, I’m not going to say anything. But Thomas? Maybe this thing? Whatever the fuck this is? Maybe this isn’t such a data idea.”

“You don’t know shit.” Thomas snarled, panic sparking through his nervous system. Because Gally didn’t know shit.

It only makes Gally sneer. “You’re right. I’ve only been best friends with Dan my whole life and literally watched Newt grow up. And maybe I have a better idea of where Newt is coming from then you do. But fuck me, right?” Contempt dripping like acid, falling to the ground to sizzle on the pavement. And then he pushes off the wall, walking forward and getting into Thomas’s space, and when he spoke the words were as grey and choking as smoke. “I’m just saying, be careful. He hides it pretty well, but you know he’s in-”

Thomas punches him. One solid crack across the face, Gally’s head snapping to the side with the force of it.

And then it devolved massively for Thomas.

Gally was older and had been in more fights and was decidedly bigger than him, and it only took an embarrassing three hits for Thomas to slam hard to the pavement, making his teeth rattle and all the air push out his lungs and up his throat. He rolls onto his back, and then his side, curling around the ripple that his stomach had become from a well-placed fist. Gally giving a kick as he walked past (although, admittedly, not as hard as he could have).

“Fuck you.” Snarled breathless at the retreating figure.

Gally snorted, not bothering to look back as he strolled away with an angry bounce in his step, hands in his pockets. “Right back at cha.” 

Later, sitting in Teresa’s bathroom as Minho winced in sympathy and pressed a towel to the cut on Thomas’s eyebrow while Teresa rifled through drawers, Newt had crossed his arms disapprovingly, leaning against the doorframe and scowling. “So, you just decided to start shit with Gally? Why? What the hell happened?”

“Nothing.” Thomas had said, voice clipped and staring determinedly at the wall. “Fuck Gally.”

-

Stumbling and tripping into Teresa’s house after the exam, late, much later than he usually did, waylaid at the checkpoint as him and Brenda did their best to act sober. He tried to tiptoe through the darkness towards his room, but at the last second thinks better of it, swerving towards Teresa’s instead. He knocks once, softly, and gets a quiet “Come in.”

She looks up from sprawling on her bed, watching one of the Wizards of Oz’s (because of course she is) on the tiny old TV that Thomas had fixed up for her. Light from the screen a bright square in the dark. Thomas stumbles over to the bed and she shifts to make room for him. Falling beside her with a massive ‘thwump’ and rolling, with some difficulty, to look at her.

She stares back expectantly. “So, how’d it go?”

His eyes tear up, and he tries to blame it on that fucking Acai berry alcohol that Aris loves so much. “Why am I happy and sad at the same time?” He asks and she smiles sadly at him.

“Because you’re not sure what’s coming next, and you don’t know what you want. And that’s really really scary for you.” Her words are gentle and kind and make Thomas nod and bury his face in her pillow and try not to cry.

“What am I going to do without you?” Thomas whispers.

“You’re going to come home every weekend and visit me, that’s what you’re going to do.”

He sits up, rubbing his eyes. “T I can’t leave campus without parental permission. They need written and an in-person interview with the school administration, they have to make sure it’s a ‘conducive supportive space for learning’.” He makes bitter air quotes. “I can’t hack my way around that one.”

She pauses the movie, turning to him. “Thomas, you have to go after what you want. I know you want too. Stop holding back. Ask for what you deserve.” He blinked at her, chewing on his lip. Teresa’s smile grows and she reaches up, ruffling his hair. “Do you think you deserve to go to A.I?”

Newt thought he did.

“Yes.”

The dull glow of the screen made her eyes look, if possible, bluer. “Do you think you deserve to be with Newt?”

“Yes.” The word out of his mouth without a second’s hesitation.

Teresa smiled, soft and warm and he remembered, suddenly, how she had shared her lunch with him on the first day of school. A ziplock bag of grapes, half a ham sandwich. “Well okay then. Go ask for what you deserve.”

Thomas retreats to his room, lying in his bed and staring at the ceiling. Wishing Newt was next to him and his whole body aching. Eventually his eyes droop closed.

He sleeps for almost thirteen hours, and when he stumbles out the next mornin-holy shit afternoon, Teresa’s mother looks at him for a long moment. Taking in his bleary stare and hair standing out all over, and she raises her eyebrows and give a simple, mildly impressed. “Wow.” But despite the ‘wow’-ness of it all, Thomas feels better. He feels clear.

The opening ceremonies for the Olympics would start tomorrow. Miyoko was everywhere and despite the mild dread and jumping nerves that have taken up permanent residence in his stomach the excitement that seemed to shake the very street he lived on was infectious, and Thomas finds himself drawn in. 

“This, this is my masterpiece.” Teresa declares in her backyard after Thomas had showered off a thirteen-hour coma and stumbled outside. Her hands resting on her hips over color splotched overalls. She stares at the massive bedsheet spread out on the ground, donated by her mother and turned into a work of art by Teresa herself. Minho and Thomas claiming the roles of helpers through the act of holding the banner flat. 

In equally splotched clothes, Minho and Thomas agree feverishly. ‘G.V forever’ splashed across the canvas, Teresa’s now iconic bubble-lettering shouted out, and Thomas wasn’t sure how she’d managed it, but the canvas seemed to scream with rebellion and pride. 

“Alby and Ximena are going to love this. Where you hanging it?” Thomas asked, staring down at the artwork and then up at her.

A curl escaped the bun on Teresa’s head and she blew it away with a puff of her lips. “Dunno, maybe the front of the house? I know they’re setting up the projector so that the garage door is one big screen. Are you still gonna help him hack the uplink?” Thomas bit his lip and nodded. He’d promised Alby he’d do it weeks ago. Before.

Teresa crouched down, adding a last few bits of shading. Minho let out a low whistle, and on his shirt were the words ‘One child, one teacher, one book, one pen.’ overtop of a outlined image of Malala. She had been Minho’s idol since he did a project on her in the eighth grade. “T, are you taking a art course as one of your senior elective classes?” Minho asks, eyes running over the canvas.

Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, tilting her chin. “No. But I think I’m going to stop by school tomorrow and change my schedule up a bit.” 

“Yeah.” Minho agreed with a laugh. “I think that’s probably a good idea.” Thomas looked at the two of them, Teresa with her art across her clothes and beaming with satisfaction.

Minho, so politically charged and ready to champion his causes that he walks around with them on his body like a billboard. Chasing what they wanted.

He might not be able to have what he wanted. He might have to choose. He might get nothing. But he could try. Maybe, just maybe, he could be more than this. While still being him. “I gotta go.” The words flying out of his mouth, riding the wave and spinning around before he could second guess himself.

Minho sputtered as he rocketed out of the backyard. “Thomas what-”

And Thomas turns, looking at the two of them splattered in paint. “I’ll be back.”

The rattling swaying commute is longer on the weekend and the cops give him a hard time at the security barrier. Pulling up his immunization records on his social file and shooting questions at him. He holds his temper, despite their tone, and eventually he gets past.

Sneakers squeaked on the shinning lacquered wood floor, striding along the halls with purpose. The whole school empty, even emptier he was used too, and absently he wondered what’d be like in the fall, the building full and chattering with a entire student body. Maybe he’d find out. 

Thomas shoved open the door to the biology room with the momentum he’d been building since the bus ride here, crashing into a desk and shouting “Mary?” 

The teacher looked up, eyebrows shooting to her forehead as Thomas tumbled into the classroom. “Thomas? What’re you doing here?” 

He came to a screeching stop in front of her desk like the roadrunner throwing on the brakes. “I’m good. At coding. At programming. I’m really really good. And...” he squared his shoulders. “And A.I should want me as a student, because I’m more than good. I’m one of the best. And I need...” he took a deep breath. And thought of Newt.

And what Newt wanted for him. What Newt wanted him to have. What Newt thought he could have. What Newt thought he could be. What the three of them thought he could be.

“I need you to help me. So that I can go here. And this school should want me to go here. So...” Thomas trailed off, swallowing.  

There was a moment of ringing silence. The computer on the desk that Mary sat at beeped three times, as if it was laughing at him, as if it saw how ridiculous it was for Thomas, some stray with nothing, to ask for things. To demand things. To think he deserved things. He fought a blush rising in his cheeks. Fuck that computer.

Mary’s hands drew away from her laptop, lacing together and leaning forward on her desk. “Okay.” She said with a nod, and the genuine earnestness of her entire presence made something in Thomas’s throat close. Gesturing with her hand for him to sit. And he does, trying he best to wipe the disbelieving expression off his face.

“So.” She smiled. “Let’s figure this out.” 

-

He goes with Teresa to school the next day, to keep her company, he explains. But maybe there’s just a hint of a sentimental smile as he pushes open the heavy blue-paint-chipped doors. Maybe he reaches out and brushes the lockers as they walk to the registration office. Maybe he waits outside the reception, to think, while Teresa goes inside to change up her schedule, to take a gamble on her art.

Thomas slid to the ground, sitting against the wall and looking at the old trophy case, the same medals and picture’s that’d always been there in the main entrance. He’d never really stopped to look at them before.

“I hear congratulations are in order, Mr. Edison.”

Thomas looks up, and today the pants suit is an absolutely beautiful rainy-day-grey. “Oh, um. Thanks.” He hopped to his feet and for the first time realizes that he’s taller than Paige.

She smiles at him, one eyebrow raising. “I know it’s supposed to be secret until all the results are released, but one of your teachers reached out to inform me that you passed and accepted a spot for the fall. I wasn’t the least bit shocked.”

Thomas clears his throat. “Oh, uh. Yeah. Thanks.” Knocking his knuckle nervously against the wall.

“Well, seeing as you won’t be returning here for your last year,” She held out her hand, and Thomas takes it numbly. “Good luck.” She gives a single firm shake and turns to leave.

“Hey, uh, Pai-Principal Paige?”

She turns around. “Yes, Mr. Edison?”

He swallows. “Thanks, you know. For…for everything.” She nods, turning again, and something occurs to Thomas.

“Wait-uh.” He asks and she turns for a second time, eyebrows raised. “How’d. How did you know I’d passed? Who-why did one of my teachers tell you?”

The woman’s lips twitch up. “Your Biology professor, Mary. Her and I attended Alexandria together.”

Thomas blinked. “You…you went to Alexandria?” She laughed, once, the only time he’d ever seen her do it.

“Yes, Mr. Edison. Mary and I are actually both from this borough.” She quirks her eyebrow mischievously at him. “We were part of the inaugural class of the Bridging Program, funnily enough.” And with that she turns, walking down the empty hallway, heels clipping and echoing off the lockers and linoleum. Thomas watches her go, mouth moving wordlessly.

Teresa and him part ways on the sidewalk, her heading back to their house and Thomas trudging resignedly towards Alby’s, dread filling his shoes like cement. “You got this. Just be breezy. Easy breezy. Breezy as fuck.” Teresa had advised him while patting his shoulder consolingly. He hated himself viciously for promising weeks ago to help set up the uplink. But how could he have known?

“Oh.” Alby says, blinking and clearly taken aback as Thomas marches himself through the gate. And then he recovers and the shock is gone in a moment. “Hey, thanks for doing this man. I wasn’t sure…” He clears his throat.

Thomas walks woodenly forward to the small tablet sitting on a milk crate and attached to the projector pointed towards the closed garage door and crouching down. Doing his best to sound breezy. Breezy as fuck. “No worries. Getting the uplinks can be a bit tricky, so…” Thomas was infinitely thankful for the device in his hands and the excuse to not look Alby in the eye. A slightly uncomfortable silence stretched into a very uncomfortable silence that stretched into a holy shit say something now silence.

“So I-”

“-Do you-”

“-Oh I-”

“-No, sorry, you go-”

Thomas looks up to see Alby smiling ruefully, and he can’t help but laugh once in return. The awkwardness doesn’t so much melt as become more manageable.

Alby nods to the projector. “You were always good at this stuff, even as a kid. Glad to hear your taking it further.”

Thomas blushed, looking back down. “Oh, um. Thanks.” He should probably get used to it, to people just bringing up his new school so casually. It was odd. He’d put so much into hiding it, so much pain and frustration and shame.

But.

It was strange. The minute Teresa’s mother had started to tell the cashier at the grocery store about his acceptance, patting his shoulder proudly and beaming, all he’d wanted in the world was for her to do it again.

“You fixed my mom’s TV once. Got the pixels to reconfigure or whatever the hell you did.”

Thomas looks up at Alby, the uplink connection download bar filling slowly across the screen. He’d been eleven, and given two full slices of apple pie as a reward. The memory on his tongue as warm and sugary as the desert had been. “Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” He chirps, and Alby smiled as well, soft and fond and maybe not seeing him at all.

They shook themselves out of their thoughts at a beep, Thomas clicking the final command. “So, it’s all good, all you gotta do is press ‘Cast’ and it’ll go right to the projector.”

Alby nodded. “Thanks. You’re coming tonight, right?”

Thomas shrugged. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to deal with the absolutely terrifying idea of looking at Newt across the lawn and not being able to brush their fingers together. For some strange reason this seemed incredibly important. He didn’t know what he’d do with his hands. They might buzz with want and longing, filling up his fingertips with static and shocks like carpet against fabric. They might Itch. Because Thomas had a lot more questions than answers and what the fuck was happening with them. His chest throbbed painfully. “If I’m done packing in time, yeah.”

“Alright, well. Hope you do.”

“Thanks. It, uh, it cool if I go through the backyard to the alley? I’m gonna go and grab a drink from the store.” Scratching his elbow and shifting from foot to foot. Suddenly shy and asking permission where he once would have simply used the short cut. Things were changing already, apparently.

Alby nods, wordlessly waving him in the direction of the backyard before heading into the house. Yelling playfully through the screen door for Dan and Gally and Fry to get it together, the boss was here now. Dan’s laugh sounded lighter than it had in years.

Thomas grins in spite of himself at their shouts and swung around the corner of the house, pushing open the gate with squeak of hinges and feeling resistance from a thin layer of rust. He shoves, shaking the gate. And then again, forcing it open, stumbling.

Letting the sun beat down on him outside the Convenience store, looking down at the bottle of apple juice in his fist and feeling the taste on his lips. A bike bell dinged on the street. The chatter of people on the sidewalk washed over him. Eyes slipping closed and breathing out once, slowly, until all the air had left his lungs and his head spun. And then back in.

And then Thomas runs. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it until he’s done it, barely managing to swerve around people on the street as he sprinted. Along the alley and through the backyard and the gate is still rusted, trying to jerk it open, losing his grip because of palms that were suddenly sweating, tripping backwards, feet pinwheeling under him to stay upright, stumbling right into-

Newt, swinging around the side of the house.

Hands snapping out to steady him, fingers tracing and holding, anchoring him, like always. Newt’s eyes widen, going shining and full. Body freezing half through his step and then jerking his foot down in a fluid defining motion. Mouth parting an inch and cheeks flushing. “Tommy.” Escaping in a sharp sigh. Echoed longing shaking the sound of his name in the air. 

Thomas is equally as beautifully heartbroken. 

“Shitfuck.” He stutters, backtracking over his own feet. Tripping into the garbage cans and they might as well have been cymbals clashing in a particularly dramatic part of an opera with the volume they produce.

And again, because Newt would never let him fall, gentle hands gripping his shoulders, looking down at him, face shifting between joy and sadness and maybe, just maybe, bitten lip nervousness. “Tommy-” 

Something in Thomas snaps like a rubber band.

“No.” Thomas shakes his head as he walks forward, and Newt takes a step back in surprise. Opening his mouth to speak but Thomas barrels over whatever words were waiting. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to be all ‘Oh, Tommy. Look at me. The champion-of-one-liners. I’m so sad and tragic and noble, and I make all the decisions about what’s best for everyone and clench my jaw.’ You don’t get to do that.”

Newt’s lips twitch up in spite of himself. “I wouldn’t say champion-” 

“And another fucking thing.” Thomas crowds him, backing Newt up with a bump against the side of the house, and Thomas’s pointer finger pokes his chest, because fuck it, he was on a roll. “It was never up to you. You can say whatever you want, but it’s my choice. You don’t get to decide all by yourself what’s best. You’re not king of the fucking borough, despite what everyone’s told you your whole life.” 

Newt stares down at him, eyebrows rising steadily, once again in danger of disappearing and lips tilting precariously close to a grin.

Thomas grits his teeth against the rush of warmth that the sight gives him, jutting his chin defiantly and fighting his stomach’s very apparent urge to flip. “You don’t just get to decide what’s good for me Newt. What I want matters too.” Newt was losing the battle with his smile, corners of his mouth twitching up. “You don’t-you don’t just get to decide for both of us. What I want matters just as much.” Thomas might not be talking about school anymore. “And! And. What-what you want matters too. What makes you happy matters too. It’s not wrong...it’s not wrong to choose something that makes you happy, Newt. To…to pick your own happiness.” 

Their faces were inches from each other. He wasn’t sure when that had happened. His finger was still pressing into Newt’s skin. He should stop doing that. And he does, but only to lay his whole hand flat against Newt’s chest instead, palm open and fingers splayed, feeling the heartbeat underneath, fast and quick and insistent. Thomas missed him so much his lungs were caving in. 

“I’m going. To school.” He snaps, fighting against the ache because Newt needed to understand. “Not because you think it’s the thing I should do. I mean that's-I know you-I’m going because I want too. But I’m coming back. Because I want to do that too. I went to one of my teachers. I told them that they should want me as a student, and that they needed to find a compromise. So, they did. Eventually. Had to threaten a patent suit but...” Thomas trailed off with a weak laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Which is a sentence I never thought I’d say. Anyways, yeah. Teresa’s mom is gonna sign for me. They’re making an exception.” 

He swallowed compulsively at the memory. It had been terrifying, and in the back of his head the entire time he had spoken with Mary and the Headmaster all he could think was that he was making the biggest mistake of his life. The way his hands had shook and skin felt clammy and in his ears was the rattle and clank of bus wheels and the rising dread of the unknown to the beat of a thundering pulse. The taste of animal crackers thick on his tongue as he sat in the office amidst the tasteful wood and the tech that blended effortlessly together. But he'd done it.

“I’m doing this thing where I ask for what I think I deserve. Going after what I want.” Thomas snapped out, and Newt tilted down, hair brushing his jaw. His thumb started to rub small circles on a sharp collarbone and Thomas tells it to stop. It doesn’t. Officially Enemy Number One. Dark brown eyes soften and his chest glows at the sight.

Newt bites his lip. “That’s good.”

“I was trying to make myself pick. To make myself choose.” He shook his head to try and counter the whirling thoughts in his head. “And I…I don’t want too. I don’t want to have to choose. I don’t want too. That’s not who I am. I think I deserve to go to school and I…I think I deserve you.”

A deep sigh rattled Newt’s shoulders, affection and exasperation mixing and melding in his voice and the glow in his chest is now has a distinctly hopeful feel. “You can’t have everything Tommy.”

“I can try.” The moment hanging, staring at each other, and in the very distant part of his mind that wasn’t currently getting lost in dark brown eyes, Thomas realized that, holy shit, it was broad daylight and anyone could walk into the backyard.

And they weren’t jumping apart.

Newt swallows. Then, a hint of a smile. “There’s that plucky attitude.”

“Oh fuck yo-”

Newt kissed him. Soft and light and for a second Thomas freezes, the world whiting out.  

Loveyouyouyouyouyou.

Then he’s throwing his arms around Newt neck, hauling him down. It's fast. It's all happening so fast. Newt tugging at his waist, pulling him close. Everything in Thomas going off like fireworks, heart slamming against his ribs so hard they’re in danger of cracking. Sparks were jumping under his skin, his head spun, the smell of sweet grass was in his nose, he was soaring, no VR flying simulation required. Thomas pressed their lips together so hard it almost hurt. Newt doesn’t seem to mind, hands gliding up his sides to wrap around his back, clutching at the fabric of his t-shirt, the two of them swaying.  

When they finally break apart, slowly, so slowly, Newt keeps him close, his eyes closed and their noses brushing. Thomas wished he would open them. He loved them. And he’d missed them. Newt twitched “I don’t...I just…I don’t want you to give anything up. I’m not saf-”

“I get to pick what I want to give up. And what I want to risk. Stop putting aside what you want. Just because something makes you happy doesn’t mean it’s wrong, or that it doesn’t matter just as much Newt. And stop deciding for me.”

The hands gripping his t-shirt tightened and Newt’s eyes finally opening as he worried his lower lip between teeth. “I don’t want you to get hurt. The other day, what happened. I don’t want you to have to risk anything. Especially for me.”

Thomas shrugged. “Life’s risky. And not being together hurts too, so. Guess we’ll figure it out.” The sound of his own pulse thumping through his ears is deafening. And then-

Newt, smiling. Newt, sighing, as if in resignation. Newt, leaning in, lips brushing his. “Guess we will.” His body turned into a warm fog. Thomas couldn’t help it, getting caught up in the glow that seemed to be coming from his chest and he kisses him, and then again, just for good measure.  

And that’s all they do, for a while. The sun warm on his skin and the whole world quiet, only the crickets to keep them company.

Eventually Newt pulls back. “I was…I was coming to find you, actually. Alby said you’d gone to the store and I…Alex talked to me.” He offers, and Thomas blinks, taken aback. Newt and his step-father existed in the realm of cautious distances and stilted yet warm interactions. Not talks. Newt let out a tiny breath, hand moving to cup Thomas’s cheek, gaze hungry and making his knees weak. “He told me that ‘complicated’ doesn’t mean bad. That it just means a little different. That...if it’s something you want...” His fingers trace Thomas’s lip. “That it can’t...it can’t be bad if you feel…well. If you feel a certain way. If you want to be something...for someone.” He trailed off and Thomas’s eyes widened in understanding, but Newt was already speaking again. 

“I never really thought about it...like that. Blind spot, I guess.” He admitted with a cough of ruefully laughter. “How complicated it must have been. How him and my mom, you know. Chose to be together, in spite all the shit they’d have to put up with.”

Thomas tilts his jaw up. “Yeah. Well. That’s what you do when…when you feel a certain way about someone.” Rebellious and stubborn and heart in his mouth. Newt swallowed and kissed him again, just a ghost of lips brushing.

And then-

That Smile. And Thomas might have just finally figured out what it meant. His throat felt tight, and he realized, absently, while drinking in Newt’s face, that it was closing, and it was with happiness. His breath was a whistle. His pulse was thudding in his ears. The crickets were laughing at him. Newt was laughing at him too, just a little. “King of the borough?” He asks, scarred eyebrow quirking and hands moving to rub Thomas’s arms, sweeping up from his elbows to his shoulders and then back down again. Soothing and loving and making him spin. 

He tried to speak around the block of wood that his tongue had become. “Well you act so fucking aloof all the damn time.”  And then he leans in because they could be doing other things. The world doesn’t quite white out this time, but it’s close.

“Tommy.” Newt murmured against his lips, warm and familiar and turning up at the edges. Thomas smiles right back, tasting the happiness on Newt’s lips. “Tommy.” Soft and light and mouths brushing. “Tommy.”  Hands running through his hair, blunt bitten nails scratching his scalp and making him shiver. “Tommy.” Heart rising like a balloon inside his chest. “Tommy.” A happy sigh quickly stifled. “Tommy.” Newt whispered over and over again. “Tommy. Tommy. Tommy.” 

They stumble back to Thomas's, and it's kind of cosmic levels of luck that the house is quiet and empty. Clothes being peels off and maybe ripped in haste, Newt walking him backwards, the two of them bouncing off the doorframe and laughing, tripping, falling onto his bed. Hands reaching and clutching and sliding and fingers digging into skin. Chest's bumping against each other with frantic breathing before finding a rhythm. Newt's lips drawing long lines all over and shaggy soft hair brushing his cheek. Kissing and moving against each other. To Thomas it feels like being safe and it feels like belonging to someone it feels like belonging with someone. He shudders, head thrown back and through all of it Newt touches him like he loves him. 

The light outside Thomas’s bedroom window slowly faded towards pink twilight, and Newt raised his head from its spot next to Thomas, the two of them pressed together on his bed and sharing a pillow. “Tommy we should-” Thomas kissed him. “We should-” Again. “The party’s gonna start-” A soft breathless laugh against his cheek and then Newt kisses Thomas for real. And even though the world had stopped whiting out roughly an hour ago, he can’t help the swooping sensation in his stomach. That didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

Newt sighed with resignation, starting to push himself up, and a tiny spark of panic shot through him. “Newt wait.” Hands snapping out and gripping his shirt, and Newt lowers himself back down carefully. “Just.” Thomas let go with some difficulty, plucking at the fabric and trying to smooth out the creases with nervous movements. A scarred eyebrow arches in an unspoken question and Thomas blushes. “I just. Uh. Just as a heads up, Minho and Teresa, they know.” The jittering in his nerves is replaced instantly with indignation when Newt snorts.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t subtle. I’m glad. That…that they know.” And quite suddenly, Newt was, just maybe, blushing. But, still kinda a sarcastic shit. “You make me not subtle.” He offers with a tiny smirk.

Thomas’s smile got, weirdly, bigger. Because, weirdly, it made him really really happy. The room bathed in a soft setting glow, everything blurry and colors pastel around the edges like a daydream. “You gave me a hickey.”

Newt shrugged, ducking his head and kissing his neck once, making him shiver. “Guess your dramatics are rubbing off on me.”

“Brenda saw it.”

“Bet that went down well.”

“Nah.”

“Never would’ve guessed.”

They smiled at each other, Newt’s happy beam warming him like the sun. But underneath all the warmth and the happiness and the joy at the familiar feeling of the body pressing against his was a small nagging fear, and no matter how hard Thomas tried to get lost in dark brown eyes, he just couldn’t lose the prickling misgivings. Newt must’ve sensed it, because his own smile slipped a bit. “What?”

“I, uh.” Thomas looked down at his fist balled up in the fabric of Newt’s shirt, forcing it to let go and shrugging. “I’m just.” Looking back up. “I don't care. If you want to keep this quiet. Like, like it was.”

Newt's smirk got slightly bigger. "Well I mean there goes my plan to start coordinating our outfits-" Thomas snorted and shoved him lightly making Newt laugh, before slowly letting it slip and growing serious. A warm hand cupping his face, lips brushing his and Thomas couldn't help but melt into it. “We'll figure it out.” Newt says, staring at him, open and honest and maybe a tiny bit nervous which, admittedly, was fair. “Things are going to be different.” He reached out, giving a squeeze of his hand, and a single shrug. “It’ll be strange and hard but we'll figure it out.” And the frankness of his words, how very Newt it was, comforted him. It felt better, so much better, to talk about it, to share fears.

And he could feel Newt’s lips turn up when they kissed this time, offering him a soft, quiet, “Yeah. We will.”

The first thing Thomas notices when they slip out of his house was that someone had done a pretty good job with the sound system, that was for sure. The entire neighborhood spilled out onto the street, tables set up and covered with cloth, food piled high on top of them. Someone else had clearly splurged on those new biodegradable balloons, not cheap.

Everyone crowded around the lawn as the live-feed played, and on the makeshift screen of a blanket draped over the garage door two news reporters sat at a desk and going over preliminary reports about the opening ceremony. What kind of show it would be, who the musical guest was, the basic stats of different high-profile athletes. (Miyoko’s face flashed across the screen next to her medal count and a cheer went up.) With a quick scan of the crowd Thomas spotted Teresa and Minho parked at one of the fold out tables with Harriet and Sonya, Newt’s chest pressing lightly against his back, the sensation filling him with happy pins and needles and jumping jittering nerves in equal measure.

There's a shout of Newt's name, and they turn to see Dan and Alby and Ximena and the others and Newt waves with a smile, but gestures to to the other table with a shrug, not waiting to see their reactions and pulling at Thomas's wrist. 

They slid over, throwing themselves down at the fold-out table next to each other, and Newt might be able to look relaxed and only smirk slightly when Minho raises his eyebrow questioningly, Thomas feels the heat rush to his face and his two best friends sitting across the table beam. He snatches the drink out of Harriet's hand. "Oh Thomas that has-"

He chokes over the impressively strong drink, swallowing with difficulty and looking at Harriet scandalized. "Holy shit Harriet."

She shrugged, picking a nail. "What? I'm a tank." Next to her Sonya snorts. With a mischievous grin Teresa looks around before subtly pouring a clear liquid out of the small blue flask that lived permanently in her purse into two cups of punch, passing them to Thomas and Newt. There was a huge cheer, and the group of them looked up, watching the screen.

The massive shining coliseum was slowly filling up with athletes and Minho let out a low whistle. "Damn dude." And yeah, okay, damn dude. The coliseum floor was breaking apart, the different boarders of countries appearing as the seams, and on each of the country shaped platforms the athletes from that nation stood and waved at the crowd of fifty-thousand and the camera's that broadcast to millions beyond. As the country-shaped platforms rose into the air to spin in gentle circles the frame panned in, focusing on one beaming waving figure in particular. One that Thomas had grown up with, watching her smile and laugh as she sprinted around the dirt track of his school.

And as people around them shouted and cheered and clapped, Newt took his hand, squeezing it and smiling. And then just keeps on holding it. And Thomas gets a little bit lost in his eyes, in That Smile. Longer, necessarily than was normal. Waiting for Newt to untangle their fingers. He doesn't.

Directly next to them Sonya looks down, noticing, eyes widening in understanding, tilting her head up at her brother, absolutely radiant. Offering a bright, satisfied “Radical dudes.”

And as everyone around them cheers, Teresa raises her glass with a playful grin. “A família.”

“Geon-bae.” Minho adds.

Newt rolls his eyes, and it might be the light of the setting sun, but his cheeks tint the slightest bit pink. And then he looks at Thomas.

Thomas's whole world was turning to color again.

-

He drifts in the liquid honey of dusk, blinds open and casting stripes against the far wall, the two of them tangled on Newt’s bed and the house blissfully peaceful. Only the gently clicking swirl of the ceiling fan and the sounds of the sidewalk drifting through the window. Newt was humming softly, and if Thomas couldn’t feel the vibrations through his cheek where it was pillowed against Newt’s chest he might have not noticed it at all. 

With drowsing clarity Thomas recognizes the song, and he can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. He feels Newt shift to try and look down, book placed forgotten on the rumpled bed. “Gonna let me in on the joke?” 

Thomas yawns. “It’s the ukulele one.” He explains sleepily, eyelids heavy and so so content. A tiny part of him wishes he could stay in this moment forever. The body pressed against his was warm and soft and hard all at the same time. Fingers were trailing along his back in gentle sweeping lines. 

Newt’s previously-book-occupied hand comes up to cup his chin, tilting Thomas’s head up. “I’m not familiar with that one.” He says low and tracing Thomas’s freckles with his eyes, and already the air between them was starting to get a bit thinner, already he was feeling the first jolts in his stomach. It had been like that a lot since they had made up. He’d never say that their fight was a good thing, but yeah, alright, all this stuff was a wildly unexpected silver lining.

Thomas laughs. “No. Not a ukulele joke.” He kisses Newt once, soft as the light streaming through the window. “You’re humming ‘Over the Rainbow’. But it’s the one by IZ. The one with a ukulele.” 

Fingers brush hair away from his forehead and his eyes close momentarily. When he opens them Newt is smiling ruefully down at him. “How’d you know it was that one?” 

“Because.” He kisses Newt again, long and heavy and when they break apart maybe Thomas is pressing into him a bit harder, the hand at his hip gripping tighter. “I know you. And that one’s your favorite.” He shook along with the laugh that escapes Newt’s chest, elbowing him to make him stop, and then kissing him once, lightly, just for good measure. “Plus, you were tapping out the chords on my back with your fingers.” 

Newt hums knowingly. “Ah, see? Gave myself away.”

Thomas nodded seriously. “You’re your own worst enemy.” 

“Understatement.” Newt murmurs, tracing lines onto the skin of Thomas’s lower back, exposed from where his shirt had been rumpled and pushed upwards.

Victorious, Thomas applies himself once again to dozing contently on Newt’s chest in the evening twilight, and Newt picks up his abandoned book, finding his page and humming as he read. They were meeting up with Minho and Teresa later at the pool hall. The others would be there too. He didn’t have any homework to worry about and-

“I love you.” Newt says quietly and as matter-of-fact as if he was noting that the sky was blue.

Thomas’s face might split in half from smiling too hard. “I know.” 

“What gave me away this time?” 

With a lazy shrug Thomas inhales sagebrush and sunshine clinging to Newt’s shirt. “I know you better than anyone.”

-

On Thomas’s last night the four of them ride the bus to the water tower. Sitting quietly, legs dangling over the edge. Half-way between the ground and the future, watching the sunset.

(Nostalgia- a word of greek origin that means both ‘Homecoming’ or, it’s literal translation; ‘The pain from a old wound’ Thomas’s brain reminds him helpfully.)

“T?” Thomas asks, turning to watch Teresa as she doodles her new, more practiced and polished tag next to her old one from a endless summer day that felt like a lifetime ago.

“Hmm?” She offers, playfully batting away Minho’s hand as he tries to take the large felt pen from her.

“Why do you love The Wizard of Oz so much?” The sun lighting the whole city on fire. All the buildings seemingly made of copper, all the windows a shining glinting red. Atlas hanging in the distance. And the four of them. Together.

Teresa shrugged. “I just love it, I dunno. The adventure. The colors. The heartache behind it. The idea that you can click your heels and be home again, no matter where you are.”

Newt’s hand slipped into his, warm fingers lacing together with his own, and Thomas let a sharp breath out of his nose in a silent huff of a laugh. “Yeah, alright. I get that.”

-

Thomas was currently trying, really, really, really hard not to cry. Had been trying, with lessening success, the entire bus ride to the checkpoint. He was failing. But so was Minho. And so was Teresa. Maybe Newt too, a little. At least he was in good company.

In the distance a metallically cheerful automated voice was telling people to expect delays, to make sure they have their I.D ready, to stay in an orderly line. They stood outside of the main entrance area, stopping just before the painted white line on the ground that declared ‘People traveling over the checkpoint only’. Thomas readjusted his backpack and took his duffle bag from Minho (who gave it over begrudgingly), putting it on the ground by his feet. 

Amidst the shuffle of crowd Teresa rubbed her eyes with careful precision, trying her best to fix slightly smudged mascara. “This is so fucking stupid.” She swiped delicately under her eye again. “You’ll literally be back in a week.”

“Yeah it’s just a week.” Thomas agreed, voice wavering and hands shaking. And all of his bravery, all of his, as Newt would say, ‘plucky attitude’ gone in an instant.

Minho sniffed, once, and then his arms wind around Thomas, pulling him into a crushing hug. He didn’t need ribs anyways. “Be careful over there with all those rich people okay?” Minho pulled back, gripping both of Thomas’s shoulders and giving him a single firm shake. “I’m proud of you.” 

And then Teresa threw her arms around his neck, and her feet left the ground in his exuberance to hug her. She buried her head in his shirt and let out a single wet hiccup. When he puts her down her makeup is shot to hell but she’s beaming up at him, letting out a sniffle.

He let out a hiccupped chuckle of his own. “I’m still your evil minion, right?”

Teresa patted his cheek. “You’ll always be my flying monkey.”  And then she fanned her face with her hands, taking a step back and looking up. “Okay, fuck, fuck, I’m good. I’m good. We’ll give you two a mome-oh. Oh, okay.”

Thomas didn’t hear her, really, too busy dealing with the ringing in his ears. Newt had swooped down, kissing him soundly, hands cupping his face and pressing their lips together. And Thomas couldn’t help but reach up and grab his shirt, hands curling into fists in the fabric. All his resolve crumbling in that moment, because he didn’t want it to change. Didn’t want this to change.

But it would, with or without him. And all Thomas could do was change with it. Grow with it. He couldn’t live in his memories.

Newt pulls back first, lingering, for just a second, a tiny peck added at the end of the long drawn out moment, both if his lips catching more of Thomas’s lower one. Newt, warm against him. Newt who thought he could do this. “I’ll pick you up from the bus stop on Friday?” He asks, maybe a touch uneven.

Thomas smiles. “Nah.” And then kisses him again once, quickly, for good measure.

“Well this is just heartwarming. Didn’t pick you as the PDA sort Newt.” They turn as one, and there, of course, is Brenda. Duffle bag much like Thomas’s slung over her shoulder.

Newt grins. “Exceptions can be made, in certain situations.”

Her eyebrow quirks and she nods at Minho and Teresa. “You guys Grumpy’s other keepers?”

Teresa laughs, gesturing appreciatively at Brenda. “I like her.”

“So do I.” Minho adds.

Thomas might have just created another monster.

He shrugs the monster-creating thoughts off and picks up his duffle, swinging it over his shoulder and looking at his friends. “I’ll be back.”

And it only takes another three shoulder shakes from Minho, two more hugs from Teresa, and finally, a single long, lingering, kiss from Newt.

He breaks away from them with difficulty, crossing the white paint line with a tight swallow.

When Thomas starts to veer off into the visitor entrance security line Brenda tugs at his sleeve. “Dumbass, we’re residents now.” Pulling him into a much shorter and faster moving line. Less of a screening process.

The profoundness of it hits and he stalls for a second. “Oh.”

Brenda takes pity on him, smiling and letting out a single chuckle. “I know. Took me a hot minute too.”

“Yeah. Kinda twisted…you know?” Thomas says, articulate as always.

“Valid.”

He turns and Newt is there, hands in his pockets and beaming, mouthing the three words that made Thomas's heart trip over itself.

They walk through the checkpoint with their new updated social files, and as they move past the security fences Brenda looks over her shoulder for a second. “You’re friend’s name, it’s Teresa, right?”

Thomas looks over his shoulder again as well and looks the three of them, watches Newt until a fence blocks them from sight, and he nods as they step over into their new world. “Yeah. What about her?”

“Nothing.” Brenda says with a shrug. And then- “She has nice eyes.”

-

In a borough where things weren’t as bad as they used to be, but still not great, a radio broadcast drifts out of an open Convenience store window. Shutters thrown wide to entice the sharp breeze that carried, amazingly, a hint of chill. 

Four small children stop in their chaotic game of tag on the sidewalk to listen, huddling around and hands hanging off of the window ledge to peek inside, as if the act of seeing the radio could make it louder. The cashier, noticing this, smiles, twisting the volume dial up. There was a short burst of static, and then-

“And straight from the campaign trail, we have one half of the most dynamic political teams that the country has, arguably, ever seen. Now, it might be a bit premature but I think it’s safe to say that I wouldn’t be wrong in calling you Mr-soon-to-be-Vice-President?” 

There was a laugh, low and deep and just a hint of embarrassment. “Not so sure about that. There’s still a few weeks left of the race, anything could happen. Don’t count your ballots before they’re cast.” 

The radio host let out a small tutting noise. “Now, I know you’re the modest half of the presidential bill, but, even you have to admit that if the preliminary polls are in any way accurate, your party is looking to win the presidency by an unprecedented landslide.” 

“Yeah, we’re doing pretty good so far, it’s been such an experience to finally see all these years of work come into action.” 

The sound of papers shuffling could be heard, and the host started in on the meat of the interview, tone growing more pointed. “Now, Mr. Edison-”

“Thomas.”

“Thomas, of course-the charisma between you and your running mate is clear, and even before the two of you started to campaign, you were in business together, right?” 

“Yep, we’ve been working side by side for a while now. She keeps me in line.” 

“Can you comment on your running partners most recent announcement that she plans on giving the new endangered ecosystem conservation laws ‘A little more oomph’ as she so delicately stated?” 

A notably undignified snort. “I think she said it all at the press briefing, to be honest.”

“You two initially made names for yourselves as the first, and in many cases, the last, word on sustainable energy and environmental reclamation, but even before that you went to school together, didn’t you?” 

There it was again, that warm genuine laugh. “You’ve done your homework. Yes, my running mate and I met during our senior year of high school. She’s actually the one that got me started on the process of environmental reclamation.”

“Your cabinet is full of old faces, isn’t it?”

“Yep. Right again.” Another chuckle. “One of our main advisers is a childhood friend. He’s been interested in politics since we were kids. Never met someone with a stronger sense of right and wrong. I met a few other of our other party leaders during my senior year as well.” 

“Now, it’s not just your cabinet that’s full of old faces, your running mate met her wife through you, didn’t she?” 

Even over the radio, everyone listening could hear the grin. “She’s my adopted sister. It was-and they’re going to kill me for saying this-most definitely love at first sight.” 

“Was love the thing that inspired your sister’s most recent art exhibit? Her decision to hold the event in your old neighborhood has been herald as a political move to further your campaign.” 

“It was an exhibit about history, about belonging, about where you’ve come from and where you can go. No better place for it than our old neighborhood, to be honest.” 

“And that, truly, seems to be what you’ve hung your campaign on, isn’t it Thomas? Where you’ve come from, and where you can go. It is quite the story, a mixed cabinet of people both from our own cities boroughs as well as the wealthier.”

“It is, really. That’s one of the things we’re fighting for, above all else. The chance to be anything. The chance to be more.” There was a moment of silence, contemplative, and then he continued. “I was given that chance. A lot of people came together to help give me that chance. And now I want to help give that chance to others.” 

“Your speaking, of course, about your somewhat contested platform of removing the checkpoint system all together?” 

“No one should be trapped behind walls just because of where they were born. No one should turn on the news every day and feel their planet slipping away from them. Feel hope slipping away from them. That’s what we’re trying to do. Make the world a little more hopeful, if we can. Through our work on environmental reclamation. Though our work with wealth redistribution, through ending the checkpoints that keeps us divided. Through showing kids-people, really-that it doesn’t matter where you came from. That everyone, everyone, deserves a chance to hope. My husband taught me that.” 

“Of course. His organization to help fund the new public education system does seem to be quite ambitious. He started the foundation with his sister and her wife and two others from your neighborhood, didn’t he?” 

“He did. They’re doing amazing work. It’s been unbelievable to watch the them achieve so much in such a short period of time.” 

“It truly has. Now, turning to more wide range topics, after you're done campaigning here, which has been wildly successful if I do say so myself, your moving along to-”

Outside the Convenience store the group of children hung off the window sill and every word coming from the radio. All of them wearing light jackets, leaves blowing down the pavement on a fall wind. The season starting to change.