(no subject)

[thebloodyglue]

They ride it out and, gradually, the city outside the windows goes quiet. Newt lies in the hospital bed, feeling scraped out and hollow, but better than he had. The doctors keep telling him that everything should level out, that they've tweaked his treatment, his medication, that they're going to introduce a pill for him to take daily, that it shouldn't happen again. There's nothing that he can do but nod and smile but, in his core, he feels that whatever they've done is working.

He feels still, somehow.
He wakes up to someone sitting beside his bed. He shifts.

"Hey, shank."

Comments

[shuck_you]

"That's all you can say after what you went through?" Thomas asked, brow creased in worry. "Like you just woke up from a nap!"

Thomas shook his head and rubbed at his tired eyes. "How are you feeling?"

[thebloodyglue]

"Washed out," says Newt, with a wan smile. The back of one of his hands has a needle taped into it, a drip on a rack over his bed. He lifts the other, can't see the shadow of his veins. Something in his chest relaxes. "But I'm okay. Whatever they're doing, it's working."

[shuck_you]

Thomas snorted and rubbed a hand over his face.

"Were you here when all the...klunk was going down outside?" Thomas asked, gesturing vaguely towards the window. "Probably the safest place you could be. No one got into the hospital, right?"

[thebloodyglue]

"I heard some things," he says. "They had people on the doors, I think." He lifts one skinny shoulder in a shrug. "Honestly, Tommy, I was pretty damn out of it. Could have been in here with machetes and I wouldn't have known. What about you? Your people alright?"

[shuck_you]

"I don't really have people but as far as I know, everyone's fine," Thomas said, nodding. He knew the same couldn't be said for everyone but those he knew, they were fine if a little banged up.

"So, when did all this -- " Thomas nodded at Newt and the various machines that were hooked up to his body. " -- start happening?"

[thebloodyglue]

"Couple of days before everything went to shucking hell," says Newt, his eyebrows drawing together. "Middle of the night. I started throwing up, couldn't stop, knew that something was really stupid shucking wrong."

[shuck_you]

"Why didn't you say anything?" Thomas asked, shaking his head. "I would have come to help. I've been giving you my shucking blood for a long time. I would have done it this time if it was needed."

[thebloodyglue]

"I know. I should have." He sighs. "There's been a lot going on, Tommy. Things have been weird with Kavinsky, with his dreaming."

[shuck_you]

"Weird how?" Thomas asked, brow furrowing. "Things have been shucking weird all over this city. Between that Purge klunk and nightmares and other things, it's all going to shucking klunk lately, shank."

[thebloodyglue]

"Like...dream things breaking down," says Newt, holding up his hand, ringless for the first time in months. "Our wedding rings. My garden. The Evo stopped working."

[shuck_you]

"Damn," Thomas said, blinking. "I hadn't realized things were falling apart. Honestly, at this point I wouldn't be able to tell since there was some earthquake on Halloween night that messed up a lot of stuff too. Can you get those things back?"

[thebloodyglue]

"Maybe eventually?" says Newt, nodding. "Some of it, anyway. I doubt the birds will ever be the same. The garden's kind of a wreck."

[shuck_you]

"Sorry, shank. Wish there was more I could do." Thomas frowned, chewing worriedly on his lower lip. "I can always be some manpower if you need help cleaning anything up. I'm never gonna be a gardener but I can move things and I don't mind getting dirty."

[thebloodyglue]

"Might have to take you up on that, Tommy," he says, smiling wanly. "Shuckload of planting and digging out to do to get it even close to what it used to be."

[shuck_you]

"Well, I'll be around," Thomas said wryly, shaking his head. "Not like I can take off and leave you high and dry. Not that I would if I could. Just let me know, shank. I work and that's about it. Call me and I'll come over and make a mess of your yard."

Thomas smiled, snickering slightly. "You and Kavinsky might kick me out when I make a huge mess."

[thebloodyglue]

"I mean, have you met the shank I married?" says Newt. He reaches for a cup on the side table and winces. "Could you pass me that, Tommy? I'm not sure you could make more mess than Kavinsky."

[shuck_you]

"I could try," Thomas said, passing him the cup and shrugging. "I'm pretty shucking good at making messes of things, Newt. You know that."

[thebloodyglue]

Once he's got the cup, Newt takes a sip. The water's warm, tastes kind of tinny, but somehow manages to be completely and utterly delicious, anyway.

"Yeah, I do," he says. "But I figure I've got enough practice at keeping you sort of in line, right?"

[shuck_you]

"Sort of," Thomas said wryly, crossing his arms. "But, sort of not too. Either way, I'll still help you. It'll give me something new to do. Feel like I've fallen into a pretty monotonous routine lately. I'll be glad to help."

[thebloodyglue]

"I'm not going to ask you the shame shucking question that I always ask you," says Newt, taking another sip of his water. "Because you'll just give me the same shucking answer you always do."

[shuck_you]

"Probably gonna save you some time," Thomas said, grinning lightly. "I appreciate that you want to ask me but yeah, if you know what I'm gonna save, save your breath. You're still recovering. I don't wanna make you sicker."

[thebloodyglue]

"You're my best friend," says Newt, rolling his eyes. "Closest thing that I've got to family. You can't blame me for hoping that, one day, you're doing to get your shucking act together."

[shuck_you]

Thomas shrugged, made no excuses and offered no reassurances. "Maybe some day. As far as I know, I'm still pretty young so I've got time to figure it out."

Thomas was pretty sure he wouldn't really focus on his own life until he got back to the Scorch and made sure his friends and all the innocent lives he'd affected were okay. They came first.

[mitsubishievo]

The past few days in the hospital were touch and go at first, and it got rough in the midst of it, because Kavinsky had to be separated. He collapsed, and they weren't sure what was wrong with him, but things seemed to be doing alright now.

He'd woken up with a discolored, pale streak of hair near his temple. He was already trying to figure out if he could just spot-dye it.

But he was allowed to roam again, so there was that. He was going a little bit fucking stir crazy, because he hated hospitals. But Newt was doing okay, and so he couldn't be too bothered, he supposed.

"Hey, shug," he murmured, carefully twining their fingers. He still had the bandage on his hand, from where they'd tried to extract the metal of his ring from his finger. "How you feelin'?"

[thebloodyglue]

It takes Newt a moment to register what's different - the streak in Kavinsky's hair, the fact that he's not wearing street clothes, the bandages on his fingers. He frowns, shifting as much as he can on the bed.

"Come up here," he says, his voice still raw in his throat. "Tell me what's been going on."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky moved, a little stiff. He laid out on the thin, rickety bed next to Newt, curled in next to him, and tucked himself in under his chin.

"I don't know," he admitted, softly. "Still. Whatever it is. I can...feel it, still. The thing in my dreams, in the forest. Coming for all the shit."

Kavinsky sniffled vaguely. "I don't know why I put the ring on again, I don't remember doing it. I thought I had them both in the box, but I woke up wearing it. I mean--I woke up, and it was already melting in. And you were sick already, so it didn't matter it'd happened. I'm sorry..."

[thebloodyglue]

Newt lifts the arm without the drip in it, curls it around his husband's shoulders and holding him as close as he can manage. "Well, it didn't get me and it didn't get you, so I figure we can cope with any thing else it wants to throw at us." He combs his fingers through Kavinsky's hair. "Does it hurt?"

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky shook his head. "I look fuckin' stupid, and I don't know how it'll take dye, but I guess we'll figure out. Or, ya know. I'll be all bride of Frankenstein and shit. But it doesn't hurt."

He was quiet for a second. "They wanted to keep me on some pain meds, for my hand, but I, uh. I figured I'd better not? In case I dream. I don't know if that's... So that hurts like fuck. But I'll manage."

[thebloodyglue]

"I meant your hand, clunkhead," says Newt, a smile catching and staying at the corner of his mouth. He idly plays with the white strands of Kavinsky's hair. "You should have said something, Joe."

[mitsubishievo]

"You were sort of having a crisis," Kavinsky pointed out. "It wasn't the first time I'd fucked something up. I had to take care of you."

He shrugged, though. He was really good at focusing outward when he needed to, for a boy that had grown up mostly selfish. Especially when it came to Newt, this boy he loved so much.

"I was really worried," he whispered.

[thebloodyglue]

"I know, baby," says Newt, softly, dropping a trio of kisses into Kavinsky's dark, ruffled hair. "I'm sorry that that happened. I'm sorry something got shucked up. It's better now."

[mitsubishievo]

"It's not your fault," Kavinsky whispered. He tilted his chin up and just watched Newt for a second. He'd been so, so scared, to wake up and find him like that, all that dark, black shit like what was in his dreams and in the cars and on some of the plants, that rot. He knew it lived in Newt, but in the moment, there had been that terror of unreality involved.

"You're feeling better though, right?"

[thebloodyglue]

"Yeah, I am," he says, nodding, bending his head to press a kiss against Kavinsky's mouth, just light, just chaste. "Washed up, scrubbed out, all shucked up, but definitely better. Just..." He shrugs. "Light."

[mitsubishievo]

"Fresh, clean start," Kavinsky claimed. He thought of Newt describing it like that, washed out and scrubbed, after his relapse that had landed him in the hospital their first New Years.

At least they hadn't fought this time, but he didn't think that the physical ramifications were worth it. He almost wished they had, if it had meant they'd known something was off a little sooner and saved Newt a bit of suffering.

"I can't wait to get out of this place," he grumbled, nosing in against Newt's shoulder a little. "I hate hospitals."

[thebloodyglue]

"I know you do," he says. "But they'll let us go home soon, and we can get into bed and watch movies and eat things that are really shucking bad for us. It'll be good, love. I promise."

[mitsubishievo]

"Day bed," Kavinsky said, sort of vaguely for a moment, eyes a little distant and vacant. He'd been doing inventory of every dream thing in their house, in the studio apartment, in Darrow, that was his. There wasn't a lot of them, but there was enough. "We're gonna have to gut out the bed and the couch. And the TV. ...but the hottub'll be okay. So there's that at least."

Kavinsky breathed, slowly. "Gonna have to get you a new truck."

[thebloodyglue]

"Day bed and hot tub," says Newt, smiling "Sounds like we've got enough to be going on with, shank. We can worry about the truck later. Not like I can work for a few days."