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Thomas thought those inhuman screams would always scare him, that the look of black veins and the aggression that followed would haunt his dreams and make him nervous to walk around. But seeing it on Newt, that was worse. He wasn’t scared, he never could be scared of Newt. Newt was his best friend, the first person he trusted in the maze. He had grown attached to Newt very quickly, he had wanted to always be by him and he wanted to have his trust. Newt was the one person he knew that he could always trust.
There was so many other scary things that had happened to him, when he had spent that night in the maze and almost died, when he had to face the grievers to help escape the maze, when he found out that they weren’t safe after escaping the maze, when he was forced to go to that crank party and drink their weird fire juice, or when he had to jump out of that window with Newt and Minho and he didn’t know if they’d make it. Fear was an emotion that was common for Thomas. Fear always lingered in the back of his mind, always making his chest feel tight. It was something he knew all too well. But this? This wasn’t fear. At least not the type of fear he was so used to.
As Newt lunged at him, teeth snapping and inhuman screams and snarls falling from his mouth as he drooled, he wasn’t scared. As they rolled on the ground and he landed with Newt a few feet away, it was sadness that hit him first. Sadness hits him like a truck, weighing so heavily on him that he almost can’t push himself up to stand. “Tommy! Kill me!”
Thomas watches in shock, looking at Newt’s face as he looks over at him. How could Newt ask him to do that? It’s not possible. Never would he be able to kill Newt. He couldn’t think of ever laying a hand on Newt in that way, of raising the gun that’s on his leg and shooting him. He feels like he can’t breathe, like the air around him had disappeared altogether and he was left gasping for just a drop of oxygen in his lungs. The hurt and sadness that weighs him down stops him from moving. “Newt…”
The older man looks at him and he’s inhuman once again, lunging at him before he can move away. Thomas falls to the ground this time, Newt on top of him, growling. The growling makes him feel sick. Never should Newt sound like this. He should talk with his charming accent, with his crooked smile, making jokes and cursing in his funny way. This is wrong and it hurts. It hurts so much that he doesn’t even care about the way his skin burns from dragging against the road under him or the way Newt’s nails dig into his skin as he tries to grab at him.
They wrestle for a moment before his Newt is back, panting and looking at him with an expression that makes his eyes water. “I’m sorry To… I’m sorry Tommy,” Newt stammers.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” He whispers, also gasping for breath as he tries to calm himself down. Because it is okay, Newt isn’t doing this. It’s not Newt and he has no control over what is happening. He could never be upset with Newt over this, he just has to wait. He needs to keep Newt aware like this as long as he can. They need the serum and everything will be okay. He looks up at Newt, eyes trailing up the black veins on his face and he resists the urge to reach up and wipe the drool off the older man’s face because he knows it’s not the time. The man’s eyes are darker than usual and he can see the way they become darker as he loses himself, becoming completely black, hollow of life. Newt begins growling again and Thomas braces for anything that could happen but he doesn’t expect for Newt to reach for his leg, grabbing the gun out of the holster on his leg. He watches in fear as Newt raises the gun and cocks it before bringing it up to his head. “No!”
He raises his own hand quickly, quicker than he thought possible, and smacks the gun out of Newt’s hand. His head turns to watch it bounce across the ground before sliding farther away from them. An inhuman screech comes from Newt and he swears it sounds like Newt’s yelling ‘no’ at him but he doesn’t get to think about it because Newt’s attention turns to him and he’s just as angry as he was before. Thomas doesn’t care though, he’ll take all of the anger it takes until Newt snaps back to his Newt, until he can save him.
They wrestle around until he’s able to throw Newt off of him again and he pants a bit, trying to catch his breath. His body burns and he’s not sure what’s causing it, if it’s the pain from rolling around on the ground with Newt, or if it’s because he feels like he might start crying about seeing Newt this way. His chest is tight and it hurts, but not out of fear, it feels like someone has pulled his heart out of his chest and just left his chest open without any intention of closing it again.
He looks over at Newt again and his eyes widen when he sees the man pulling out the knife he had. Thomas is barely able to fall back out of the way of the knife as it’s swung at him and he loses his balance and falls onto the ground. It’s not even a second later that Newt is on him again, knife bearing down towards his chest. He brings his hands up, barely catching Newt’s wrists in his hands before the knife hits him. He pushes against them as hard as he can but Newt has always been strong. He remembers watching the older boy in the maze, watching as he carried heavy wood or supplies through the Glade. Newt did so much work around the Glade, it’s no wonder he’s so strong. Thomas was strong himself but he did not build up the muscle that the other Gladers had from the manual labor, he was only in the Glade for a few weeks. So it’s no surprise when the knife starts to lower towards his chest.
Thomas watches as the knife gets closer to his skin, towards where his heart is. He pants and prepares himself. He can do this, he just needs to make sure it doesn’t get too deep, if it helps save Newt and buys time he will take it. Newt is worth it. Newt growls as the knife comes in contact with his chest and he can’t help the scream he lets out as it starts to slice into his skin. It adds to the chest pain he was already experiencing and he knows he’s crying now as he fights to keep the knife at a safe place in his chest. It takes barely a moment for him to realise that he can’t do that, Newt is just too strong, the best thing he can do is get Newt off of him and keep him down.
He raises his leg, kicking Newt in the side and watching as the man flies off of him. He rolls over, ignoring the pain in his chest as it presses onto the ground. Newt’s growling at him and he pushes himself up to punch him, knuckles stinging as Newt falls back to the ground. He’ll apologize later but for now he has to keep Newt safe. Where is Minho? Brenda? The serum? He needs it. He’s not sure how much more of this he can take. He can’t stand seeing his Newt like that. His Newt who smiles at him so lovingly. His Newt that he could actually talk to, the one he trusted more than anyone.
Thomas pushes himself up off the ground as Newt does the same. He wants his Newt back, he hasn’t snapped back to himself in so long, he needs the serum before it's too late. He glances at the knife in Newt’s hand and stumbles back in surprise when Newt starts swinging it around, if it was anyone else he would think they were a madman, but not Newt. Not his Newt. Every time it slices through the air it barely misses him and his knife wound burns from his arm moving so much as he stumbles and tries to use it to catch himself.
He gasps as Newt once again lunges at him and he’s ready, ready to take the knife in his abdomen, ready to take any wound he needs to just to make sure that Newt is okay. But as Newt hugs him close by the shoulder, a touch that is so comforting, one that is so common between the two, no pain comes. He hears Newt gasp in a way that makes his heart feel like it fell to his stomach. Thomas pulls away slowly, glancing down. And he sees it. The knife that was once swinging wildly at him is now buried in Newt’s chest, scarily close to where he had just been stabbed himself.
Thomas stares at it for a moment as Newt lets it go, shocked and feeling like his lungs have stopped working all together. Earlier he had been gasping for breath but now it feels like his body is the thing that can’t breathe. He looks up at Newt’s face and his eyes are teary so he has to really focus to actually see his face rather than a blur of colors. They stare at each other, Newt makes no noise. He’s unsure if that’s good or bad. Maybe his Newt is coming back, or maybe the knife to his heart is making his whole body shut down right in front of him.
Newt suddenly starts falling and Thomas is there, cradling his head as he takes the brunt of the fall and carefully lays Newt down on the ground. He sits on his knees next to Newt, pushing himself up so he can look at him. Thomas stares and stares because just by looking at him he can tell Newt is gone. There’s no breathing, no sounds at all, just Newt’s body. His black eyes staring up at the sky and that stupid knife sticking out of his chest.
If he thought his chest hurt before then he was stupid because now it truly hurts. It burns and feels like there’s twenty tons resting upon it, crushing his ribcage and making it stab into his heart and lungs. He can’t tear his eyes away from him. His best friend. The love of his life. The one that he loved more than anything else. He was gone. He reaches out to grip Newt’s jacket, tears falling from his eyes and falling onto Newt’s body.
He’s pulled from his thoughts by footsteps and gasping. It hurts to pull his eyes away but he does, looking over at Brenda who is standing there with the serum. He knows he must look horrible, with blood on his shirt from his stab wound, tears falling down his face, lip shaking like a child. But Brenda looks at him with tears in her eyes too, taking uneasy steps as she stares at the two of them.
Thomas pulls his gaze away, looking back towards Newt. He’s almost angry at her. If she had been here just a few moments earlier Newt would be fine. But no other emotion can push past the devastation that has settled through his entire body. He reaches up and cups Newt’s face, using his thumb to try and clear away the unnaturally colored drool on his chin. A shaky breath leaves him as he stares down at Newt, unsure what he should do now. Is there anything to be done in this situation?
He hears other footsteps but doesn’t look up, just watching Newt, the Newt that is no longer breathing. He’ll never hear that laugh again, or hear him call him Tommy. That was his last word, his nickname. The thought makes him sob, pulling his hand away from Newt’s face as others walk over and fall to their knees around him. This does make him look up, looking at Minho who looks down at Newt with tear-filled eyes. Frypan is kneeled above Newt’s head, staring down at him in shock.
Thomas turns his attention back to Newt, his mind is completely blank for once, there’s no racing thoughts about what he should do or what he should say. Because what is there to do? To say? There’s no use in doing anything. Newt was the reason he kept pushing, the reason he made it to this place in his life. Now Newt is gone. He loves his friends, Minho, Frypan, but they aren’t Newt. They aren’t the only love he has ever known, the only one that understood him completely. They aren’t his Newt that called him Tommy and made him laugh and made him feel so much.
He stares and he thinks he might hear people talking but it doesn’t register as he stares at his boyfriend lying dead on the ground. The world is quiet to him, there’s no sirens, nobody talking, no Newt and his cute accent and nice laugh. Then without really thinking about it he turns his head and stares at the gun that lays behind him, the one he had slapped out of Newt’s hands just moments before when he had tried to kill himself to save Thomas from what he might do. His eyes might be full of tears but he’s never seen anything so clearly as he looks at the gun.
He scrambles over, ignoring everything and anything that is not the gun. The gun that almost ended Newt’s life before that knife came into play. The gun that can reunite him with Newt. The one that can take away the crushing weight that has settled over his body. He feels like he can hear calls of his name as he grabs the gun but it doesn’t matter because it’s in his hand and it’s already cocked, saving him even more time. As he brings it up to his head it’s almost like he can hear Newt’s voice, yelling at him, telling him ‘Don’t you bloody do it, Tommy’. But that can’t be, because Newt is gone. And he’ll be gone too. It takes only a moment for him to pull the trigger, ignoring the hands that reach for him, and then, there’s nothing.