OBLIVION [Thomesa]

fifteen

A hand clamped over his mouth,
yanking back his neck rigidly.
A cold blade pressed against the sudden heat of his throat,
as warm blood pumped through every vein,
in sudden adrenaline.
"Make one noise and I'll rethink my decision on committing a murder tonight."
Thomas.
Newt, feeling in the darkness nodded.
Keeping the blade at his throat,

Thomas shifted one hand to the handcuffs at Newt's wrists,

and unchained them from the table. His hands were left bound,

"Stand," Thomas breathed darkly,

and Newt did, his neck still stretched tight.
A blindfold pressed against Newt's eyes,
and tightened at the back of his scalp.
Thomas grasped his shoulder and began to drag him up a flight of stairs.
Newt stumbled, bruising his shins,
and Thomas, none too gently, shoved him forward,
digging the blade into his skin.
He had changed his mind!
Newt's heart was pounding, his chained hands fisted.
Thomas was going to kill him!
He was going to kill him in the middle of the freaking night!
Newt continued walking, and Thomas grasped his upper arm and led him down a level hall.
"Tommy, I - "
"Shut up."
Newt heard a door slam open,
and then the burning cold of icy rain stung his face like frenzying hornets.
They both instantly began to shiver.
For a few moments,
Newt blindly continued to follow Thomas,
before he was abruptly jerked to a forceful stop.
"You love her.
"You love her, don't you? You moronic piece of filth."
Newt, stunned,
was sure now that this must be the reason for his imminent death.
"Er - what do I say if I want to not die tonight, please?"
"Dammit, Newt. I want the truth!"
Angry fingers ripped the blindfold from Newt's face,
and it flew downward,

over the two-hundred feet of pure drop,

into maddened water,
waves crashing with merciless bone-crushing strength
onto the dark jagged rocks of the coast.
Thomas shoved Newt off the edge,
as he stared shocked at the sudden drop,
and Newt fell,
a yell strangled on his bleeding lips.
Thomas caught his hoodie,
and Newt dangled over the edge,
his feet scrabbling at the edge of the roof.
"You love her?"
"Yes!"
He couldn't lie,
not now, not about this.
"Yes, I love her!"
"I will drop you! I will drop you! Do you love her?"
Thomas had to be sure.
Newt knew his words could seal his death,
but he had spent too many years lying.
"Yes," he breathed,
trying to calm himself,
"Yes, I love her."
Newt watched in horror as Thomas' hand loosened from his shirt,
his mouth thinning.
And then his fist tightened once more.
"And do you hate me? I sure as hell hate you."
"Uh - no! No, I don't hate you!"
"Do you hate me - ?!"
Thomas shook him, fiercely,
and Newt's shirt ripped.
"No, no - please, man!"
"Tell me the truth then, you bastard!"
He'd drop him either way.
"Yes," Newt yelled. "Yes! You have everything I've ever wanted!"
Thomas stared at him with a blank expression for half a second,
considering him.
And then Thomas heaved Newt back over the side,

and thrust him to the cement floor.
Newt struggled to breathe, on his knees.
"Good," Thomas said, staring away from Newt.
"I had to be sure you wouldn't betray me."
Thomas lowered his voice.
"I need your help. My friends can't know about this."
"What the hell do you need me for?"
Newt rubbed his neck, and leaned back against the short cement wall that ran along the rim of the tower.
Thomas paced agitatedly.
"Teresa. She's being tortured. It's bad. It's so, so bad."
His voice broke, and thickened.
"I have to get her out of there. Gally and I have an agreement - a life for a life.
My life for hers.
My friends would try to stop me. They'd say that there has to be another way.
There isn't.
"I can't do this alone, Newt. I can't."
Thomas turned to Newt.
"I knew you loved her from the moment you spoke about her.
You love her enough that you'd die for her.
I don't expect you to do that.
I just want you to help me die.
And you hate me enough that I doubt you'd flinch at the idea."
"I need you to understand -
I know you understand -
that I can't -
not
- do this."
"We love her too damn much."

Newt gaped.

"You - you knew?"
"Of course I knew. And I don't suppose I could blame you."
How could someone not fall in love with the beauty of those blue eyes,
or resist the temptation of those cherry lips?
They were both just two in the crowd.
"Are you going to be with me, Newt?
Can I trust you to keep your mouth?
Will you help me save Teresa?"
"She'd hate me for it,"
Newt said, stunned. "She'd never forgive me."
Like she ever would anyway.
"But she'd be safe," Thomas reminded him,
pleading with him. "That's what matters."
Newt swallowed, glancing down.
"Yeah. Yeah. That's what matters."
It's why he came.
He wasn't looking for forgiveness.
"I'm asking for your help, Newt. I don't say it often, I swear. I need your help.
This can't work if I don't have someone on my side that won't betray me."
Newt's words felt foreign in his mouth, not his own.
There was static in his mind.
"If it would save her, I'd put a bullet in your head right now."
There was a short silence.
"Me too,"
Thomas sighed,
and then he went over to the wall,
and leaned on it, staring over the horizon.
The faint promise of dawn bled across the sky.
"It's a beautiful night."

If only he could die now,
And not in six days.
She has to be with him for six more days.
With the Rat Man.
Newt, stood and turned,
staring heavily at the dawn as well.
And then he stared up at the stars,
and the pinpricks of light,
that glittered like her tears,
and were so much like her eyes,
only not quite able to live up to the beauty
of her glance beneath those dark lashes.
He remembered his wish,
and was crushed by the weight of the coincidence. Could it be coincidence?
Or was there a god somewhere that heard his prayer,
and actually listened?
He was coming.
Coming to save her.
Newt didn't know whether he moaned,
as he fell back to his knees,
or if he mumbled words of thanks and gratitude and fear and uneasiness.
Thomas didn't hear him, regardless,
lost in his own imaginary conversation with the stars.
How quickly the night had changed.
But Thomas would be dying for her.
And Newt would have to be the one,
left behind,
to explain why he let her lover sacrifice himself for her.
She would hate him.
She would hate me.
But she'd be breathing.
They were both making their own sacrifices.
And Thomas knew that his own was easier.
It was easy to die for the one you loved.
Dying was part of it.
Part of the mask he wore, and the oath he had taken so young.
They would all die.
He was the one that got to do it saving the most important thing in the world.
And after everything,
Newt's grave would be lonely and desolate and
hated,
by her.

They were both making their own sacrifices.