End Game (Newtmas AU) {ON HOLD}

TWENTY

Brown irises blinked their confusion in the sound of Collin's words. His mind, no matter how hard it spun, just couldn't make sense of everything that had been just said.

"Thomas is your what?"

"Boyfriend." Collin said with pride coaxing his voice. "Do you want me to spell it out for you? B-o-y-f—"

"Yes, I got that the first time."

Despite how today's events had turned out—his mother's disappointment and finding out that Thomas – his Tommy – had a boyfriend he wasn't aware about, one that happened to also go out with his mother too—the face Collin pulled when he got interrupted like that brought the remnants of joy in his bitter heart.

Good, asshole, he thought but didn't actually voice it out loud. The man before him was a walking, breathing and talking version of a snake and it was just then that Newt realised just how careful he needed to be around him.

He had let his guard down once before.

Never again.

Both hands came up to rub through his face; his temples, his forehead, over his eyes and then reached back to run through the dirty blonde strands that had been dirtied by the pearls of sweat caused by his mother's earlier interrogation. One foot was put over the other and not long after he found himself pacing up and down his room.

According to Collin's saying, Thomas was his boyfriend.

Which could only mean Thomas had agreed to have a relationship with him.

But Newt had whatever they were having with Thomas.

Thomas certainly never mentioned a boyfriend.

But then his mother was also having a relationship with Collin.

And judging by how his mother kept tolerating Collin and how he had used present tense about his affair with Thomas, then that must have meant neither Thomas or his mother knew of the other's existed.

Newt had definitely not signed up for this kind of mess.

Collin was more interwined into his life than Newt would have liked. Actually, if it was up to him, Collin would have been put into a catapult and thrown over the borders into–hopefully– Antarctica or somewhere really far away from him.

"To be frank, I don't blame Thomas," The other started as he carelessly played with one of the guitars' pens that laid over in a pile atop of his desk. Digits studied one side and then flipped it over, repeating the process. "I haven't been given him much of attention nowadays given how caught up I've been in this situation. It is normal of a man his age to look for something crib-like fresh. But that little adventure of yours stops now."

Okay, that did it.

His fingers clutched together to form a first and came to collide over Collin's face. Collin, caught by surprise, didn't dodge it or tried to avoid it; Instead, Newt watched how his head flew back, how the guitar pen fell from his hand and roll into the floor — He also noticed how his hand came to grasp upon his mouth that had taken most of the trauma of the impact. Blue eyes then narrowed over the blonde who couldn't help but squint his own atop of him.

Both held each other's stares. Neither's was adverted. It was like a game of whoever blinks first loses. It was the type of loss, that concerned him though.

What was there to lose?

His dignity?

The relationship with his mother?

Thomas?

The two of them didn't even have anything to begin with.

He didn't know. But right now, all he cared about was to remove the threat from his personal space. And that threat happened to be Collin.