flatsound || newtmas

twenty-one

t.w- mentions of abuse, social services, foster care, and a very brief mention of suicide.

Newt wanted to know more about Thomas. As much as he could, if he were honest. They were in the same position with boiling hot chocolate, courtesy of Newt's mother.

"I want you to tell me about you," Newt said, taking a sip of his coco. Thomas looked down at him, contemplating his next words.

Newt noticed how Thomas tensed up so he quickly tried to retract his statement. "I'm mean, you don't have to if you're uncomfortable, I completely understand that. It's oka-," he was cut off by Thomas.

"It's okay. Not many people ask that so it caught me off guard," Thomas reassured, while rubbing the back of his neck. Newt turned to face him, crossing his legs.

"So, I'm the oldest out of two kids..you already know that," Thomas said while rubbing his face, making Newt giggle. "Let's pretend that I haven't heard that, please continue."

"Okay, so I was born first then a couple years later Chuckie came into the picture," Thomas said, pulling his arms around his legs. "Only T and Min know this, but we don't have the same dad."

Newt tilted his head and Thomas answered his confusion. "My dad passed away a year after I was born, I didn't know him. Then, my mom met Jack," Thomas said, an uncomfortable feeling flooded his chest at the name.

"It was fine, until I was seven..he hit my mom. I always knew something was wrong, but not to that extent," Thomas bit his lip. Newt pressed his thumb to the back on Thomas' hand.

Thomas sighed and looked back at Newt. "He put her in the hospital for a week with a concussion."

Thomas got invigorated just thinking about that man laying one hand on his mom. He took a deep breathe, calming himself down while focusing on the slight pressure Newt put onto his palm.

"Chuckie was two. He hadn't seen any of the true horrors that man created, but this set the bar. We were taken to social services and placed with an elderly woman at first." Newt wanted to ask something, so he did. "Was she nice?"

"Yeah, she took us to the park a lot and she loved chicken so we always ate that!" Thomas laughed at the end. "I ended up hating chicken after that but she was good."

"She passed away soon after that from an illness." Thomas said. "My mom got us back, but nothing was put against him; so he came back, then the same thing happened when I was nine."

"He broke her wrist and split her head, so we were put into a group home because they couldn't find a spot for us." Newt hoped it was someplace good, but the look on Thomas' face told a different story.

"There was around eight of us, two to a room. My roomate was Derrick, he was eleven," Thomas took a deep breath.

Newt reached out and rubbed his arm comfortably. "A lot of the people were really bad there. There was a seventeen year old punch me in the face when I was eleven."

Thomas remembered when he ran from Lawrence's room with a cigarette burn mark on his shoulder. "The adults didn't give a shit about any of us, they only used us for the money."

Newt has been through some rough patches but never really thought about the people being abused and taken way. He couldn't fathom Thomas having to go through that his entire life.

"A lot of the boys were never taught to be nice so the younger kids were beat up by the older boys. The only one that cared about us was Mark."

It hurt just to think about him, the fear of the unknown haunted Thomas daily. "He was around eighteen, but he'd been living with Lawrence for a couple years."