Chapter 6
Their sessions are escalating and Newt is losing his mind.
Not in the magical sense, although there's an argument to be made there too.
In the other sense. In the sense that Malik's hands have migrated from Newt's shoulders to his arms to his waist over the past week and every escalation in contact produces an escalation in Newt's inability to think in coherent sentences, and he's starting to wonder if there's a mathematical formula for this.
If someone could graph the inverse relationship between Malik's proximity and Newt's cognitive function.
If there's a point on that graph where the line crosses zero and Newt's brain simply ceases to operate altogether.
He suspects they're approaching that point rapidly.
The exercises are getting harder. More complex.
The transmutations require sustained concentration over longer periods, the wards demand layered intent, the conjurations pull from deeper wells of power that Newt didn't know he had.
Malik is pushing him, deliberately, methodically, with the patient precision of someone who has been teaching for centuries and knows exactly how far to extend the leash before his student stumbles.
And Newt is keeping up. Barely, messily, with the magical equivalent of running full speed while tripping over his own feet, but he's keeping up, and every completed exercise is a small, private miracle that he holds close to his chest and guards.
The problem is that keeping up requires contact. More of it. Always more.
Today's transmutation is a sustained working.
A length of copper wire that Newt needs to transmute into a silver chain, link by link, without breaking the spell between links.
It's a precision exercise, Malik told him this morning over toast. It requires focus, patience, and the ability to hold a single thread of intent steady for an extended period of time.
Newt had nodded and chewed his toast and tried not to think about the fact that an extended period of time means an extended period of Malik's hands on him and what that's going to do to his already tenuous grip on composure.
They start with Malik's hands on his shoulders.
Standard position. Familiar. Newt can handle this.
He's been handling this for days, he's practically an expert at being touched on the shoulders by an incubus while pretending his entire nervous system isn't lit up.
He takes the copper wire in both hands, closes his eyes, and begins.
The first three links go well. Copper to silver, smooth, precise, each one clicking into place against the last. Malik's thumbs press into the ridge of his spine and the magic flows and the wire transforms and Newt thinks, I can do this. This is fine. Everything is fine.
The fourth link wobbles. The silver wavers, flickering between silver and copper, and Newt's concentration hiccups and the wire goes hot in his hands.
He hisses and grips harder and tries to force the transmutation through and it's not working, the thread of intent is fraying, he's losing it, and the wire is starting to glow and if he doesn't stabilize this in the next few seconds he's going to turn a copper wire into a molten projectile.
Malik's arm wraps around his chest.
Not his shoulders. His chest. One arm, looping around Newt from behind, forearm pressing flat against his sternum, pulling him flush against Malik's body.
Newt's back hits the solid wall of Malik's chest and his brain goes so completely blank he can hear static.
Malik's other hand stays on his shoulder, gripping, and his chin settles on top of Newt's head because Newt is exactly the right height for that, because the top of Newt's head reaches Malik's chin, and Malik's voice is a low rumble that Newt doesn't hear through his ears.
He hears it through his skull. Through his bones.
Through the vibration of Malik's chest against his spine and the resonance of the bond between them, which is humming so loudly, Newt is surprised the neighbors can't hear it.
"Hold it," Malik says. "You're fine. Hold it."
Newt holds it.
The transmutation steadies. The fourth link solidifies, silver, perfect, and the fifth follows, and the sixth, and the magic is flowing through him with a clarity and precision that makes him want to laugh, except laughing would require breath and breath would require his lungs to function and his lungs have apparently decided that functioning is optional when Malik's arm is pressed across his chest and Malik's heartbeat is thudding against his spine.
He can feel it. Malik's heartbeat. It's slower than Newt's, which is not saying much because Newt's is currently trying to exit his body through his throat, but it's steady and deep and it resonates through the contact between them, a rhythm that Newt's own pulse tries to sync with and fails because Newt's pulse is doing something erratic and embarrassing that probably has a medical name.
He can feel the press of Malik's hips behind him.
The solid, immovable weight of him, the way his body cradles Newt's body, the way Newt fits against him.
And he can feel... he can feel Malik's groin pressed against the small of his back.
The heat of it. The undeniable, physical reality of it.
And Newt's brain, which was already operating at reduced capacity, shuts down completely.
The seventh link forms. The eighth. Newt is transmuting copper into silver with flawless precision and he is not thinking about any of it.
He is thinking about the arm across his chest and the heartbeat against his spine and the weight pressing into his lower back and Malik's breath in his hair, warm, slow, steady, as though this is nothing to him.
As though holding Newt against his body is a purely professional act that requires no more emotional engagement than adjusting a piece of equipment.
Every rational thought vacates the premises.
The transmutation continues because the magic knows what it's doing even if Newt doesn't. His hands are moving, the copper is transforming, the silver chain is growing link by link in his palms, and his magic has never been steadier and his brain has never been more useless.
He's aware, distantly, that he should be focusing on the spell.
That this is a training exercise and the point is to learn and the learning requires attention and his attention is currently so far from the spell it might as well be in another city.
He's aware, less distantly, that he is getting hard.
That the combination of Malik's body against his back and Malik's arm across his chest and Malik's voice in his skull and the scent of him, amber and warm and everywhere, has produced a response that Newt cannot control and is probably very obvious to an incubus who is literally made to notice these things.
He shifts his weight, trying to angle his hips forward, trying to create distance between his body and Malik's without actually pulling away, because pulling away would mean losing the contact and losing the contact would mean losing the spell and losing the spell would mean failing and he can't fail, he can't, not when it's going so well, not when the magic is singing.
The chain completes. Twenty links of perfect silver, transformed from copper, each one seamless.
Newt opens his eyes and looks down at the chain pooled in his palms and it's beautiful.
It catches the light from the window and gleams and he wants to be proud, he is proud, the pride is right there waiting for him, but it's tangled up with everything else.
With the heat and the heartbeat and the pressure against his back and the impossible, mortifying fact that he just completed his best spell to date while thinking about nothing but the body of the demon behind him.
Malik releases him.
It happens the way it always happens. The arm unwraps from his chest. The hand lifts from his shoulder.
Malik steps back, one foot, two feet, three feet, and the warmth is gone and the heartbeat is gone and the weight against his lower back is gone and Newt is standing in the middle of his living room holding a silver chain and the space behind him is empty.
Newt feels the rejection land.
It's not new. He knows the shape of this feeling, has carried it around with him for years in various forms. The moment when someone pulls away.
The moment when the closeness ends and the distance begins and the message is clear even when nothing has been said.
That's enough. That's all you get. Don't reach for more.
His face says everything. Newt knows this about himself, has always known it, has spent his life being told that his expression broadcasts his thoughts with the subtlety of a signal flare.
He can feel what his face is doing right now.
He can feel the way his mouth is pulling into something that wants to be a smile and isn't, the way his eyes are bright with something that is not quite tears and not quite anything else, the way his entire body language is screaming the thing he will not say, which is: why do you keep leaving?
"Good work," Malik says. His voice is even. Neutral. Uninterested. "You should rest."
Newt nods. He wraps the silver chain around his fingers and takes it to the kitchen and sets it on the counter next to the jam jar and stands there for a moment with his hands braced on the counter's edge and his head bowed and breathes until the tightness in his chest loosens enough to be bearable.
He's fine. He's fine. He's been fine his whole life and he'll be fine now and the fact that Malik's arm around his chest felt safer than anywhere he has ever been is just something he's going to have to live with.
Malik goes out that night.