Euphoria (Newtmas one-shots)

Battle Scars

A/N: Where Thomas isn't a brick wall and thus doesn't kill Newt, and Newt goes to Paradise with them... But he still has the Flare. Newtmas is established.

Trigger warning: Self harm (not explicitly stated/described)

Newt takes in a shuddering breath, the scent of fresh grass and spring faint in the air.

It's been too long since he'd smelt that, he almost couldn't believe he remembered. He almost couldn't believe they're finally here, that they've finally made it. To Paradise.

He feels a warm heat behind him and hears a soft crackle. He turns to see the Flat Trans up in flames. Brenda stands beside it, a determined look on her face. He stares into the flames, smiles. It's over. The terrors, the horrible, horrible things they'd been through. No more Cranks, no more WICKED. It's a nice change. He doesn't doubt that the nightmares will stop, perhaps ever, but he couldn't be happier.

He glances at Thomas, beside him. He remembers their confessions many nights ago, and slowly slips his hand through his. Thomas' fingers automatically tighten around his, in a warm, anchoring grip. He turns to Newt, and he smiles.

Newt lets his heart sink into contentment, feel the warm sunlight. This is real, he told himself. Softer than the dry heat of the Scorch, warmer than the artificial sun in the Glade. This is real, and everything is going to be alright now.

~

Everything was not alright.

He was fine when he went to bed, curled up beside Thomas. And he was right - the nightmares didn't stop. There he was, running for his life, cuts and bruises numb with pain. There he was, dazed and hallucinating, mistaking fiction for reality and lies for truth, wasting away hours, days of his life with the other Cranks, because that's who he is, isn't it? That's his life, his destiny. He wasn't going to be saviours or heroes like the others, he's the control, as the Rat Man had called it, the one that's not immune, the one that's going to die, the one that's always going to die. He sees himself in his dream, and he's screaming, screaming inside his head to stop, to come to his senses, to wake up, but he doesn't know if it's a nightmare, not when he can't even see straight. He hears himself beg for Thomas to kill him, hears his own broken voice and feels the physical pain as he watches Thomas break apart, but he can't stop, he doesn't stop, no matter how hard he tries.

And then it changes, it all changes, and instead of wide scared eyes and heavy panting there's an edge to Thomas, and he smiles, a sharp, unhinged smile. Newt tries to back away, tries to scream, but he grabs onto Thomas' jacket and watches, drowning in himself, watches as the gun becomes a knife and Thomas stabs it into his heart.

He wakes with a jolt.

He's sweating, and he's panting, and his heart is pounding like crazy. He puts his hand up to his chest, a small part of him expecting to find a messy bloody hole.

He heaves a sigh of relief when he finds nothing, but he doesn't go back to sleep. He can't, not when he feels the shadow of insanity around him, enveloping him, and he has to keep fighting, keep breathing, to keep it from drowning him.

He lays back for a bit, but the tick-tick-ticking of the clock on their wall drives him crazy, so he gets up, makes sure Thomas is still asleep - he is, after the exhaustion of the day before, and pads to the bathroom. He runs a bath, hot on the edge of scalding. As he waits, he strips and examines himself in the mirror.

There are cuts, cuts everywhere, scratches by branches and rocks and knives, he doesn't even know, and bruises across his skin. There's a horrible gash across his chest, where he'd been clawed by a Crank, and branches of black and purple across his back where he'd been struck with a taser of some sort. He looks at himself in the mirror, at the dried blood, the bruises, and he hates it. He hates what he'd become, he hates that he can't overcome it. He hates that it's taking control of his life, and for a second he feels a surge of something so strong it knocks the wind out of him. He braces himself on the sink, gasping, and he looks up into the mirror once more, sees the boy that jumped off the Maze wall, that tried to kill himself.