necessary | newtmas au

𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 | a fictitious relationship

THOMAS walks into Language Arts a couple days after his tutoring session with Newt, already seeing him there, to his surprise, "And, we meet again."

"Hello, Thomas." Newt chuckles, looking up from his sketchbook.

"Hello to you, too," Thomas replies, dropping his backpack to the ground to lay it against the leg of his desk as he sits down, turning around as soon as he does, "You know, I'm glad that you've kept to your word. You said you were going to start showing up to your classes, and it's been a week since then and you're sitting behind me right now."

"I don't feel that way anymore." Newt admitted, "There's a reason for me to actually try now."

Thomas' expression changed. His lips parted and he was about to ask a follow up question, but Newt had already glanced back down at his sketchbook and Mrs. Ellenis had started to gather everyone's attention.

"Alright, so," She began once all students had settled down, "We're going to start a project." Groans escaped the mouths of many kids, heads turning as they mumbled to each other in annoyance, "But! Don't worry, you will get to work on it with someone else." The mumbling stopped and the heads turned back to face Mrs. Ellenis.

"Your task is to analyze any fictional romantic relationship you and your partner would like—students in the past have done Romeo and Juliet, Luke and Lorelai, Jude and Cardan—the list goes on. You're basically open to any relationship as long as, let me make this clear, it remains fictitious." She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote a date on the upper right hand corner of the blackboard, "That's your due date. The two of you will study this relationship over the course of two full weeks, and then present it to the class. You will create a poster board, a future, or in some cases, a reimagined ending for the characters, and explain during your presentation the true meanings of their relationship in-depth."

"We are approaching the end of the year, so this will be your big final. If you have any questions, feel free to come up to my desk and ask. Otherwise, you may all get up and go find a partner."

The sound level of the classroom immediately went from zero to five, students standing up and rushing to those whom they had been mentally signaling to a few minutes prior—all except Thomas and Newt. They both sat there in their seats, awkwardly scanning the room for potential partners. Thomas hadn't noticed Newt being lonely behind him before Teresa came up to him.

"Tom, wanna be partners?" She asked so casually, leaning on Thomas' desk.

"Sure," Thomas agreed, smiling at her. He felt happy with his decision for a bit, but then he saw Newt out of the corner of his eye, fiddling his thumbs and bouncing his leg. He then swiftly reached down to grab his backpack, which was Thomas' signal to do the right thing.

"Wait," Thomas called Teresa's attention whispering, "Do you think we can be a group of three with Newt? We can ask Mrs. Ellenis,"

"I don't know, Thomas." Teresa shifted her balance, as she was standing, and looked off to the side before matching Thomas' gaze, hesitating to continue whispering back, "It's not that I don't like him or have something against Newt, but he only started showing up to the class since last week, and I'm not sure if he could be an asset to our group. We'd have to do twice the work, too, since there's three of us."

Thomas sighed. He understood Teresa's point of view, but he couldn't let Newt stop coming to class again. He didn't want Newt to stop coming to class again—because of how much progress they had made during their tutoring sessions, of course.

"He's really stepped it up recently," Thomas said, "Newt can be helpful in this project. I know he can, and he, secretly, knows too. He can do it."