Chapter 2 #2
And, again, nobody has ever said those words to him.
Especially not in a voice that sounds the way Malik's voice sounds, deep and unhurried and smooth in a way that settles somewhere in the base of Newt's spine and radiates outward.
Malik, who towers over him, who poured out of smoke and air when the summoning circle flared, who walked into the mortal world all oiled muscle and hip-clinging pants and purple eyes that track Newt across whatever room they're sharing with an intensity that makes Newt's ears burn.
Malik, who had handed him a contract with a raised eyebrow and a faintly amused expression and Newt had signed it without reading it, because Malik had been standing very close and he'd been shirtless, because apparently demons don't come through the veil fully clothed, and Newt's brain had not been functioning at its highest capacity.
He signed a contract with a sex demon without reading it because the sex demon was shirtless.
This is the caliber of decision-making he’s working with.
So maybe Newt gets a little aroused when Malik touches him.
When Malik tells him what a good job he's doing.
When Malik looks at him with those half-lidded eyes across the room and asks if he's ready to try again, voice pitched low, and Newt's body responds before his mind can catch up.
It doesn't matter. It can't matter. Newt is more than aware of what he is: a scrawny, freckled, dangerously inept witch whose sexual inexperience has been broadcast to half of Haven at this point.
He knows what people say about him. He knows the coven talks about him behind cupped hands, knows that his virginity has somehow become common knowledge in a community that should have better things to gossip about, and while apparently that sort of thing would be enticing to some incubi, it is obviously not the least bit interesting to Malik.
Because despite having his hands on Newt in some fashion throughout their castings, despite his general appearance being more than enough to make Newt avert his eyes and flush scarlet, despite the fact that they are trapped together in this one-bedroom townhouse for the foreseeable future until Newt can master his magic, Malik hasn't made the slightest untoward attempt toward him.
Not a lingering touch. Not a comment. Not even a look that lasts longer than it should, and Newt has been watching for it, hating himself for watching for it, because he knows what it would mean if Malik wanted him and he knows what it means that he doesn't.
It means Newt is not enough.
Which is fine. Which is expected. Which is the conclusion he arrives at every time he examines the evidence, and the evidence is considerable.
Malik is eight hundred years old. Malik has been with, presumably, thousands of partners across centuries.
Malik is stunningly, devastatingly beautiful in a way that makes Newt's chest ache when he looks at him for too long, and the idea that someone who looks like that, who moves like that, who speaks like that, would have even a passing interest in someone who looks like Newt is absurd.
Newt knows this. He accepts this. He is not going to be stupid about it.
He has spent several nights lying awake, staring at the ceiling of his small bedroom, listening to the quiet of the townhouse, trying to figure out what Malik's angle is.
Because incubi in positions of power over their summoners take advantage.
That's what they do. It's in their nature, embedded in the architecture of what they are.
And an incubus summoned by a virgin, specifically, should be.
.. well. Newt has read enough about the subject to know that his situation is, historically, extremely rare and extremely dangerous and usually ends with the virgin in question unable to walk for a week.
Malik hasn't touched him beyond what is required for their sessions. Malik pulls his hands away the moment the spell is complete. Malik puts distance between them. Malik leaves.
Newt has been trying to figure out why and he keeps coming up blank, and the blankness is worse than any answer, because in the absence of explanation his brain fills in the gaps with the most obvious one: Malik doesn't want him.
Not as a source. Not as a partner. Not as anything beyond a professional obligation, a contract to be fulfilled, a task to be completed.
It's not a pleasant feeling, is the thing.
Newt takes another sip of cold tea and watches a pigeon land on the windowsill and feels the tight, familiar ache in his chest that he's learned to carry around with him, the one that shows up whenever he's reminded that wanting something and deserving it are two very different things.
It makes him nervous. Not Malik, specifically, but the uncertainty. The not-knowing. The waiting for the other shoe to drop, because in Newt's experience there is always another shoe, and it is always heavy, and it always lands on him.
He drains the last of his tea. Sets the cup on the sill beside the pigeon, who regards it with suspicion. He unfolds himself from the windowseat and stretches, feeling the pull in his lower back from sitting curled up too long, and pads barefoot across the hardwood to the kitchen.
He puts the kettle on for fresh tea. He puts bread in the toaster. He takes out the jam, the good kind, the blackberry he found at the market two streets over, and sets two places at the small kitchen table. One for him. One for Malik.
Malik isn't here. Malik left sometime in the night, which is not unusual, and Newt doesn't ask where he goes, because it's not his business, because they're not that, because Malik owes him nothing beyond what the contract requires.
But Newt still sets two places.
He's pouring tea into Malik's cup when the front door opens, and he looks up, and there is Malik. Filling the doorway the way he always does, all height and horns and silver hair, and Newt's heart does that stupid, traitorous lurch in his chest and he smiles before he can stop himself.
"Morning," Newt says. "I made breakfast."
Malik looks at him. Then at the table. Then back at him. Something passes across his face, too fast for Newt to read, and then he steps inside and closes the door behind him and sits down in his chair and picks up the cup of tea and drinks.
"Thank you," he says, and his voice is quiet, and Newt doesn't know what to do with the way those two words make him feel, so he sits down across from him and picks up his toast and starts talking.
He talks about the candles. About the doorknob bird, which he has decided to be proud of regardless of its accidental nature.
About a passage he read in the incantation book last night that he thinks is wrong, actually, because the author conflates channeling and conjuring and they're fundamentally different processes, and Malik's eyebrow goes up at that, which Newt interprets as agreement, or at least interest, and he keeps going.
He talks about the weather. About the pigeon on his windowsill.
About whether there's a spell for keeping pigeons off windowsills and whether that would be a responsible use of his training or an abuse of power.
Malik's lips quirk at that one, just barely, the ghost of a smile, and Newt's chest goes warm.
Malik hardly talks at all. He eats his toast and jam.
He drinks his tea. He answers Newt's ramblings in raised eyebrows and quirked lips and the occasional low hum that means he's listening, and Newt knows he talks too much, he's always known that, but Malik doesn't seem to mind.
Malik doesn't tell him to be quiet. Malik doesn't look away.
Malik sits across from him and watches him over the rim of his teacup and lets Newt fill the silence between them with every thought that passes through his head, and Newt thinks they're developing a language all their own, the two of them.
A vocabulary made of Malik's expressions and Newt's words and the space between them that gets a little smaller every day.
He kind of likes it.
He kind of likes it so much it scares him.
"Ready?" Malik asks, when the tea is finished and the toast is gone and the morning light has shifted from pale gold to warm amber.
He pushes back from the table and stands, and the room adjusts to accommodate him, the way rooms always adjust to accommodate Malik, and Newt pushes back his own chair and stands and is, as always, aware of the difference between them.
The top of his head barely reaches Malik's chin.
He has to look up to meet his eyes. He has to tilt his head back, and every time he does, every time he catches those purple eyes looking down at him, his neck goes hot and his pulse kicks and he has to look away.
"Ready," Newt says, and follows him to the living room, and tries not to think about the way Malik's hands are going to feel on his shoulders in approximately thirty seconds.
He tries and he fails, but that's nothing new. Failing is what Newt does best.