Chapter 13
Newt feels numb.
He sits on the couch in the living room that Malik has quietly, methodically put back together in the hour since they returned from the estate.
The books are back on the shelves. The cracked coffee table has been pushed against the far wall where its damage is less obvious.
The chair that caught fire two days ago is gone entirely.
The townhouse is clean and neat and softly lit and it looks, for the first time in weeks, like a home, and Newt is sitting in the middle of it with his hands flat on his thighs and his breath coming in small careful measured exhales, and he cannot feel any of it.
The closest he has ever come to controlling his magic.
The closest he has ever come to being something other than a disappointment.
The closest he has ever come to being understood and she is going to take it away from him because he couldn't make it work fast enough.
Because he was too scared, too slow, too hesitant.
Because he wanted Malik so badly and was so terrified of wanting him that the wanting itself became another kind of failure.
The half moon is tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night Mathilde will stand in her study with her ancient patient hands folded in front of her and she will unmake the contract, and Malik will be taken back into her service, and Newt will be alone in this townhouse with a coffee table pushed against the wall and a jar of thistle tea on the counter and the smell of amber candles in the curtains, and—
His eyes sting.
He is not going to cry. He is done crying.
He has cried a truly embarrassing amount in the past two weeks, sometimes about things as small as the way Malik lays his teacup down with the handle pointed carefully away from the edge of the table, and he is done.
He breathes in. He breathes out. He stares at a point on the opposite wall, somewhere in the middle distance, and he spirals.
He does not notice Malik cross the room. He does not notice him stop in front of the couch. He does not notice him lower himself to sit directly in front of him, so close their knees almost touch, until Malik says his name.
"Newt."
Newt blinks. Refocuses. Malik is right there. Inches away. Newt startles back into his body so hard his breath catches.
"Sorry," he says, automatically. "Sorry, I was—"
"Don't." Malik's voice is very low. Very careful. "Don't apologize."
Newt swallows. He doesn't pull away. He doesn't have the energy to pull away, and he doesn't—he doesn't want to, that is the worst part, he never wants to pull away from Malik and he is going to have to learn how to starting tomorrow.
"I want you to cast something for me," Malik says.
Newt almost laughs. It comes out as a small wet noise somewhere between a breath and a sound. "Malik, there's no point. Mathilde is going to—she's going to take you back tomorrow, there's no—"
"Cast something for me."
"Malik—"
Malik reaches out. Takes Newt's wrists, both of them, and places Newt's palms flat against his own chest.
Newt inhales.
Malik is solid under his hands. Warm through the thin cotton of his shirt, the fabric soft where Newt's fingertips press in, and Newt can feel his heartbeat thumping against the heel of his right hand.
His face goes pink. He feels it go pink, feels the heat crawl up his throat, and there is nothing he can do about it.
"Something small," Malik says. His thumbs are stroking the undersides of Newt's wrists, so lightly Newt isn't sure whether he's imagining it. "Light the candles on the coffee table."
"That's—that's dangerous if I lose focus, that's—"
"You won't lose focus."
"Malik, I always—"
"Cast the candles, Newt."
Newt closes his eyes.
He reaches for his magic the way Malik has taught him—not grabbing, not shoving, just opening—and he feels the familiar thrum rise up from the center of him, warm and eager and relieved, because his magic loves Malik, his magic has always loved Malik, it behaves for Malik the way it never behaves for him.
He lets it pool in his palms. He lets it settle.
And then he thinks of the candles, three of them, the cream-colored ones in the iron holder on the coffee table, and he pushes the thought of flame out through his fingertips and into the warm solid wall of Malik's chest.
The candles light.
Newt opens his eyes. Glances past Malik's shoulder. Three small flames, burning steady and clean, no higher than they should be, no lower. He exhales.
"Good," Malik murmurs. "Now lift them. While they're lit."
"That's a bad idea."
"You can do it."
Newt bites his lip. He reaches again. The magic comes easier this time, like a muscle that has remembered what it's for, and the candles rise. All three of them. A careful foot off the surface of the table, the flames wavering but not extinguishing.
"Spin them," Malik says.
Newt's focus catches—just for a second, because Malik has begun, very quietly, to work the buttons of his shirt open one at a time.
"Malik—"
"Spin them, Newt."
"You're—what are you—"
"I'm getting comfortable."
The first button comes free. Then the second. Newt can see the faint bronze of his skin in the widening gap of his shirt, the shadow at the hollow of his throat, and Newt's magic jolts and one of the candles drops two inches before he catches it.
"Focus," Malik says, mild.
"I am, I am focusing, I just—"
The third button. Newt can see the line of his sternum now, the smooth tan of his chest, and his hands—which are still on Malik, still pressed flat to him—twitch, helplessly, against the slowly uncovering skin.
Malik undoes the fourth button. And the fifth.
He parts the shirt. Leaves it hanging open on his shoulders, and Newt is looking at the long bare torso of him, the flat hard planes of his stomach, the definition of his hipbones where they disappear into the waistband of his trousers, and his magic simply gives up.
The candles falter. Flicker. One of them guts out.
"Newt."
"I can't—Malik, I can't concentrate if you're—"
Malik takes Newt's hands in his own and presses them, palms flat, against his bare chest.
Newt gasps.
The heat of him. The feel of him. Warm and smooth and right there, right under Newt's palms, and Newt can feel his heartbeat directly now, can feel the faint rise and fall of his breathing, and the candles—Newt has no idea what the candles are doing, Newt has lost track of the candles entirely—roar upward into twin pillars of flame that reach almost to the ceiling.
"Oh my god," Newt says.
"Don't worry about them."
"They're on fire—"
"They were always on fire."
"They're—Malik—"
Newt's thumbs have started moving. He does not remember deciding to let them move.
But his thumbs are stroking, tentatively, across the flat of Malik's chest and they drag, by accident, over the small hard peaks of Malik's nipples, and Malik makes a sound low in the back of his throat that is not a word.
A hum. A satisfied pleased dark little hum, and Newt's whole body goes molten.
He does it again.
On purpose, this time. Both thumbs. Slow. And Malik breathes out, audibly, and one of his hands slides up to cup the back of Newt's neck, and Newt's magic goes somewhere it has never been in twenty years.
The torches—they are torches now, they are absolutely torches, they are half-height medieval sconces hovering in the middle of Newt's living room throwing heat and shadow against the walls—flare and then shift, the orange flame turning blue at its base, and Newt should be worried about this.
Newt is worried about this in some distant part of his brain, but Malik's hand has slid up into his hair and Malik's thumb is tracing the shell of his ear and he is shifting forward, very slowly, until Newt is practically climbing into his lap.
"Malik—"
"Come here."
"Malik, the—the candles, they're—"
"Let them burn."
Malik's hands come down to Newt's hips. Large. Firm. They slide around to the small of his back, and then down, and then Malik grips him, palms full of the curve of Newt's ass, and lifts.
Newt makes a noise that he is certain no human being has ever made in the history of the spoken word.
A small high startled sound, like a kettle, torn directly out of his throat, and he is being pulled up and over and into Malik's lap, knees bracketing Malik's thighs, and his face is flooded with heat all the way down his neck to his collarbones and—
Malik kisses him.
Oh, Newt thinks.
It is different from the last time. The last time had been frantic, had been the house coming apart and Malik's mouth on him like a decision, like a rescue.
This is slow. This is Malik's mouth opening against his with intention, with patience, with the warm wet drag of his tongue parting Newt's lips and sliding in, unhurried, like they have all the time in the world, and Newt does not know what to do with his hands.
His hands are up at Malik's shoulders. Then at his neck.
Then sliding up, tentative, into the silver fall of his hair, and Malik hums into his mouth and kisses him deeper and Newt forgets, for a long moment, that there is a half moon, that there is a coven, that there is a spell, that there are torches burning in his living room.
He forgets his own name. He forgets he has one.
He can feel Malik against him. Against the heat of him through two layers of fabric—Malik is hard, Malik is hard for him, and Newt's brain simply shorts out.
He makes a small whimpering noise into Malik's mouth and rocks, once, involuntarily, and the friction of it sends a spike of pleasure through him so sharp it is almost pain.
"Oh," he breathes, into Malik's mouth.
"Yes," Malik says. Dark. "Yes, love, just like that—"