Night Visions (TMR) (Newtmas)

02 (*)

Newt's moan of pain was enough for Thomas to freeze, nose rubbing against Newt's and his weight heavy on the boy's bad leg. "Heck," he said. He quickly pulled his knee back to free Newt's leg, but Newt wriggled in pain and Thomas fell forward again, his forehead crashing against Newt's collar bone. Before he could mess up any further, Newt pushed him aside with a surprising strength and violently jolted up, teeth gritted as he crouched over himself and rubbed his leg. As he sniffed and breathed heavily, Thomas got up from the floor and looked around, growing more anxious when he didn't see anything to keep himself busy with. Then Newt patted the matress harshly, eyes fixed on the wall across the room as he stubbornly set his jaw and gripped the edges of the bed.

"What—"

"Shush."

"Can I—"

"Shush."

"Sorry."

Newt looked eager to shush him again, but he just stared at Thomas for a second before his eyes went back to the wall in front of him. He didn't reach for more painkillers. Sitting on the bed, he just breathed in and out evenly. Flushed, Thomas did the same. He didn't know why he wasn't gone yet. Possibly because his feet were glued to the floor now. Tired of feeling scared and weak all the time, he gathered the little boldness he had left and waited for Newt to make a move, either shout at him to get his ass out of the room or crack a joke. To be honest, he really hoped it was the second.

In the end, the boy sniffed. "Tell me."

"Sorry, what?"

Newt snorted, quite obviously irritated. "What you saw. Come on, Greenie. Don't dumb down. Quite obvious you were having another—whatever they are."

Which meant he had seen it, too. Thomas thought briefly of making up some excuse or at least lie about what he had seen, but understood it would only make Newt not trust him the moment he spoke. Still, they words he was being asked for weren't easy. If the visions were some sort of memories, or at least related to their past, they meant Newt had been sent to the Glade by someone, and Thomas had known. The fact that Newt was Subject A10 in his visions wasn't helping, either. In his vision, that he had had something to do with whoever 'they' were, the 'they' that had apparently sent Newt up here. And the Nikola guy—maybe he was Nicky, the one Newt had mentioned while he took him to the Homestead looking for Chuck? Beneath his eyes, his brain hurt from all the things that didn't make sense.

"It—You were—I just—I think you were sent here," he finally said, unable to meet Newt's gaze. "And I think we... We knew each other before. You weren't Newt and I don't know whether I was Thomas, but we seemed to be something close to... Friends."

No answer came. At least, Thomas thought sadly, he was a strong candidate for the Freak Greenie Of The Year Award. Heck, he was going to beat the other eleven new kids without breaking a sweat.

In the end, he bent forward towards Newt and touched his knuckles with his fingertips. "Sorry," he said again. Newt didn't answer, so he just sighed and left, unable to decide how he should feel about the whole thing.

His hammock was the only available one, so it wasn't hard to find it even among the dozens of sleeping boys. Not feeling any better than when he left, Thomas curled up on it, shaking despite the covers he threw on. Slow but steady, his heart recklessly pumped venomous doubt and insecurity through his veins to every last corner of his body, blood chilly in his veins. Newt and Chuck had been the only kind people at the Glade yet, and he was managing amazingly to scare the first away. And who knew, maybe he'd electrocute Chuck by accident the next time the kid touched him. He could almost smell that Award.