Newt was a tired college student. Thomas was the night shift barista at the glade coffee shop. Naturally, they ran into each other. The first couple of weeks, it had been sweet, but feverish, and constant, but never draining. It was perfect.
Until it wasn't.
Newt was falling away rapidly. Every day, Thomas saw him less and less. And that scared him. He loved the blonde more than anything else, but Newt didn't seem to love him near as much now.
Newt, straddling Thomas' lap, kissing him feverishly, hands tangling in his hair and the neck of his shirt, Thomas kissing back, hand s on his boyfriend's hips.
Newt begging, "please, Tommy, please" and Thomas complying. The world going white when he would finally cave.
Newt's head resting on Thomas' chest as they fall asleep in the sweaty bed, exhausted, and adrenaline-surged.
And waking up in the morning to a cold, empty bed, a back soon! X Newt note on the counter.
Thomas walked into the glade, stepping behind the bar. He entered the bathroom to wash his hands, and noticed the small crack on the tile.
Newt, slamming him against the wall, lips moving hungrily against his, hands making desperate circles on his back. Thomas pressing against him shyly, hands on Newt's neck.
The click as Newt flicked his belt buckle open, dropping to a kneeling position.
Thomas stifling a moan as Newt proved that his mouth could be used for so much more than speaking in that beautiful british accent.
Newt pulling away, just shy of letting Thomas come, and walking away, as if he did this every day.
The bell over the door tingled, announcing a new customer. Thomas looked up hopefully, but it wasn't Newt. It was never Newt. Thomas hadn't even seen him for days. Not since Friday night.
Friday night music playing. Lights and mirror balls reflecting the colors. People screaming and jumping and grinding. Thomas fighting his way through the crowd to get to the bar.
Newt, pressing a muscular, Asian man against the wall, gently grinding, kissing softly.
It would have been beautiful. Except for the fact that Newt was his.
Thomas, marching towards Newt to confront him. The crowd, closing in and pushing him back.
Thomas, giving up and walking away, Teresa, sending him home early because he was crying his eyes out.
Newt, pressing the Asian against one of the bathroom stall walls.
Thomas walked up to his apartment at the end of the day, pulling out his keys to unlock his apartment, before realizing his door was already open. Panicking, Thomas lunged into the apartment, ready to take on any burglar-
"Bloody hell, Tommy, you gave me a heart attack!" A melodious British accent rang across the room.
Newt. Sitting on his couch, looking as much like an angel as ever.
"Newt," Thomas whispered, before running forward and straddling his boyfriend, slamming their lips together.
Thomas let out a little moan as Newt bit his lower lip, sliding his tongue into Thomas' mouth. Newt pulled him closer, and Thomas pressed harder, deepening the kiss.
And then Newt pulled away. "Tommy, this is too much."
Too much? They'd done it so many times, and now a deep kiss was too much?
Seeing Thomas' confusion, Newt let out a little angelic laugh and gently pushed Thomas off of him.
"I mean this relationship, Tommy. It's getting too serious."
"I thought you loved me," a shell-shocked Thomas whispered from the floor, mind still racing to comprehend.
Newt smiled sadly. "No. I never do. I'm just in it for the thrill. Once the novelty wears off, I leave. Eventually, they forget me." He laughed humorlessly, gave Thomas one last burning, chaste kiss on the lips, and picked his way out of the apartment.
Thomas never saw Newt again, and he slowly began to move on. He stopped seeing blonde hair and hearing British accents everywhere. He married Teresa and had a daughter with her. Eventually, he began to forget the nuances of his face, how his voice sounded, the exact color of his hair.
But he never forgot the feeling of Newt's hands on him, Newt's lips on him. Newt above him, pressing down on him. And that was what brought the pain.
More time passed, and Thomas forgot more and more. He forgot his accent, he forgot what color his hair was, how tall he was, his body shape. How they had broken up.
But he remembered the name, remembered the feeling, remembered the contact.
Some nights, he would hear a voice in his head, murmuring please, Tommy, please, and he would connect it with Newt.
But forty years later, Newt was proven right. Thomas still loved Newt. He was like something out of his wildest dreams. And maybe he was.
By the time Thomas was sixty-one, he had no idea if Newt was even real.
His twenty-five-year-old daughter Kalin was getting married, to a man named Shane. Shane's father sat across the aisle from him, and he looked startlingly familiar. As soon as the man caught his eyes, he stood up and left.
Thomas began to think he'd imagined it. But until the day he died, he always remembered his son-in-law's father, whom he oddly never saw again. He never forgot his imaginary boyfriend.
After he died, Teresa went through all of his old notebooks, but there was only one written, over and over again.
The word was Newt.
