you can't wake up, this is not a dream [for Newt]

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky woke early. Al was out already, a note left on the kitchen counter saying he had work until the middle of the day, but would bring back lunch on his way back in from town. Kav made coffee and sat at the table, flipping a strange coin he'd dreamt back and forth over his knuckles as he waited for it to brew. There were supplies still to get for Newt's birthday on Monday, but otherwise the house was in order. It was just quiet and still, and he liked that, the moments before the house was full awake.

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[thebloodyglue]

Trust me. And he does. He does. And he's so glad that there isn't a gun in the house, because God knows what he'd be begging Kavinsky for right then. He draws in a shuddering breath, his chest screaming like he held the last one too long.

"What's happening to me?"

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky reached, and for a moment it felt like an insurmountable distance. He brushed his fingers on Newt's wrist, catching it gently. Trust me. He could be unafraid of this, as he had been unafraid of so many terrifying things in his life. He might not be able to understand what was going on, but he could try.

"I don't know," he said. "But you're going to be okay."

[thebloodyglue]

Kavinsky's touch is warm, centering, and Newt doesn't try to pull away from it. He drags in a breath. He keeps his eyes tight closed. He trusts the boy in front of him. He'd trust him with his life.

He feels like he's going out of his mind.

"Tell me what you see," he says.

[mitsubishievo]

"Just you," Kavinsky said, soft and gentle and earnest. So earnest it hurt a little, because he still didn't really know what he was supposed to be seeing. Newt had told him bits and pieces of what the Flare was like, what it could do, but this--not only was it too sudden, too vicious, but it was all wrong in general.

He slid his fingers up Newt's arm slowly, smoothed his thumb against his shoulder. "It's just you, Newt. I don't--I don't know what this is. I don't know what's happening."

[thebloodyglue]

"I don't feel it," says Newt, his eyes squeezed shut. "I don't feel...sick? I don't feel shucking sick. B-but. I looked in the mirror and I saw...It was like I was already Gone, Joe. It was like it had me."

[mitsubishievo]

"Okay. Okay, hey." Kavinsky slid his hand up to Newt's cheek. Newt was shaking, a fine vibration of anxiety and fear. "If you were Gone, you'd feel it. You definitely would. Right? We would have known it was coming. None of us would have let it happen. So--so a trick of the light. You were still sort of sleeping. It's just a dream."

[thebloodyglue]

"I know when I'm awake." His voice grates against something in his throat and chokes him. "I can't look." He clings on to Kavinsky because Kavinsky is solid and real and there. Because, whatever else Joseph Kavinsky is, he trusts him not to hurt him.

[mitsubishievo]

"Okay," Kavinsky said, because it was easier, better than disagreeing. Of course Newt knew when he was awake. It was Kavinsky who did not always. It was Kavinsky that walked that trembling line at all times, that worried that a thing he saw was a thing made terribly manifest.

Newt clung to him and Kavinsky shushed him gently, petting his hair, holding him. "Come on. You don't have to look at anything but me. Come on, let's get off the floor, though. We'll get back in bed a while and try and figure this out."

[thebloodyglue]

When Newt opens his eyes, the first thing he sees are his own hands, his veins black and pressed against his skin, full of foulness, running with rot. He swallows, takes a deep breath, trusts the boy in front of him.

"Okay," he says. "Let's shucking do it."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky could see the way that Newt was looking at himself, but it was just at himself--his own skin, his own disease, made strangely, oddly manifest. Kavinsky could not see it. He curled his fingers over Newt's hands, covering his elegant palms and the veins on the backs of his hands, and he drew Newt gently to his feet.

It was such a short walk, back to bed, but it felt like a march. He walked backward, keeping his eyes on Newt's face. When they reached the edge, he climbed on and moved to the middle, drawing Newt with him.

"You want anything? Tea or a soda or something?"

[thebloodyglue]

Newt shakes his head and immediately presses forward, his face against Kavinsky's shoulder, chest to chest. His breath catches and his fingers flex, clinging to his shirt. He shakes his head again. He keeps his eyes squeezed tight shut.

"Tell me something good."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky bundled Newt close and pet his hair, his ears, the back of his neck. Everything was good. Everything was perfect and light and warm. Except for this boy in his arms, right now. He was good, but not well, and Kavinsky could fix this. Not with lies, but with truths. And that felt so big, so important, that he didn't know what to do with it for a moment.

"Al kissed your hair this morning," he whispered, because Kavinsky had woken up and seen it, but Newt had still been asleep. "The garden looks fuckin' great. Your birthday is tomorrow. You're gonna be eighteen. You very foolishly decided that Newt Kavinsky was an awesome decision and not a fuckin' mouthful."

Kavinsky kissed Newt's hair. "I love you. I didn't know I was built to love people so much."

[thebloodyglue]

All of that is true. Newt recognises it as true and it feels so sharp and clear that it's difficult to breathe for a moment. He can feel the light of all of the things that he knows are true pushing back at the darkness, the hurt. He clings on, all the same.

"It's a shucking mouthful," he says, his voice raw. "But I want it anyway."

[mitsubishievo]

"I know you do, sugar," Kavinsky said, mouth against Newt's temple. He smudged kisses all over his skin, all the places that Newt seemed leery of--his temple, his cheekbones, the pulse in his neck and then his wrists, the back of his hands. This was the truth: here was a boy he adored. Here was a boy he would walk to the ends of the earth for. Here was a boy he would sell what little soul he had, if it meant he didn't have to suffer.

"Everything's gonna be okay."