Because not only did Newt not reciprocate, not only did he do nothing except cling and moan and come apart in under ten minutes, but he didn't even react correctly afterward. He didn't collapse. He didn't suffer. He didn't demonstrate the appropriate level of physical devastation that Malik's partners apparently experience, which means the exchange was so negligible on Malik's end that it didn't produce the normal after-effects. Newt's orgasm, which had felt like the most cataclysmic event of his entire life, had been so underwhelming to Malik that it didn't even register as a proper feeding.
He'd spent weeks wondering why he wasn't enough. Now he knows.
He's embarrassed to even admit that was his first kiss. Malik could probably tell. Malik, who has kissed thousands of people, who kissed Newt off-center and then corrected with his thumb and kissed him properly, Malik could absolutely tell that Newt had never been kissed before, that the clumsy desperate way Newt had surged back into it was the fumbling of total inexperience, and he's judging him for that too. Of course he is. And Malik is probably starving. He didn't go out to feed last night, which means Newt was supposed to be the meal, and Newt had been the worst one of his eight-hundred-year career, and Malik is sitting across from him being polite about it because Malik is, despite everything, surprisingly kind.
He called you love,whispers the stupid, hopeful part of Newt that will not die.He said love. Against your mouth. While his hand was...
Newt crushes it. He crushes it flat and buries it and puts a rock on top. Incubi say things during sex. Incubi are creatures of desire and seduction and they say what their partner needs to hear in order to come, and Newt had needed to hearloveand Malik had given it to him the way he gives everything, skillfully, precisely, without it costing him anything.
It didn't mean anything. It was a technique. Newt was a meal and the meal was bad and the word was seasoning.
Newt's eyes sting.
He can feel it starting, the hot prickle at the corners, the tightness in his throat, the pressure behind his face that means tears are coming whether he wants them or not. His chest is tight. The silence is crushing. And the smile on his face is crumbling at the edges and he cannot, he absolutely cannot, cry in front of Malik at the breakfast table after the worst sexual encounter of Malik's immortal life.
Newt pushes away from the table.
"I need some air," he says, and his voice is steady, which is the last miracle his body is going to grant him today. He stands. He picks up his plate and sets it on the counter, uneaten, and walks through the living room with as much dignity as he can manage, which is not a lot, and he's willing to admit that his dignity reserves are critically low at this point and have been since approximately the moment Malik's hand slid past his waistband and Newt made a sound that could generously be described as desperate and less generously described as the noise a small animal makes when it's been stepped on.
He gets halfway through the living room before he realizes his room is not where he needs to go. His room is the room where he lay in bed last night staring at the ceiling with the phantomfeeling of Malik's fingers between his legs and his mouth burning from the kiss and the wordloveringing in his ears, and if he goes back there he is going to fall apart in a way that is not recoverable. He needs to get out. He needs space. He needs air that doesn't smell like Malik's amber and the ghost of what they did.
He pulls on his boots. His cloak. He heads out into the crisp morning air and the cold hits his face and it helps, a little, the way cold always helps, a sharp bright shock that pushes the tears back for a few more minutes.
He makes it to the bridge overlooking the river before he calls Knox.
The bridge is old stone, arched over dark water that smells of mud and magic, and the morning light is pale and grey and the city is just waking up around him. He leans his elbows on the railing and breathes. He breathes in the cold and the stone and the river and the absence of amber, and he pulls out his phone, and he hesitates for one long moment because he has never called Knox before. They're friends, maybe. Friendly, at least. Knox is kind to him, genuinely kind, in a way that doesn't feel transactional or obligatory, and Dimitri tolerates Newt's existence with a grudging protectiveness that Newt suspects has more to do with Knox's feelings than Dimitri's. But calling someone implies a level of closeness that Newt isn't sure he's earned. Calling someone at this hour, about this, implies a level of trust that Newt doesn't know how to extend.
He calls anyway. Because he has no one else.
"Hey, Newt," Knox says.
Even though it's early. Even though he's probably busy. Even though Newt has never called him before and the fact that Knox picks up on the second ring and says his name warmly, casually, as though calls from Newt are a normal and welcome part of his morning, makes Newt's throat tighten dangerously.
"Hey," Newt says. He rests his elbows on the railing and watches the river and says, "I hope I'm not bothering you."
"Of course not. Everything okay?"
In the background, Newt hears Dimitri's voice, sharp and immediate: "Of course it's not fucking okay, angel. What did that motherfucker do..."
Newt laughs. It comes out wet and surprised and a little broken, but it's real, and the sound of Dimitri's immediate, reflexive fury on his behalf, the way Knox's soulbound demon goes from zero to homicidal in the span of a sentence at the mere suggestion that someone has hurt Newt, is so unexpectedly comforting that the tears he's been holding back spill over.
"It's not really anything anyone did," Newt says. He wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. "It's just... I feel overwhelmed and I feel like I did something wrong and I don't know how to fix it."
They talk for a while.
Newt doesn't tell Knox everything. He doesn't tell him about the kiss or the wall or the hand or the sounds or the wordlovespoken rough and low against his mouth. He talks around it, the way you talk around a wound you can't quite bring yourself to touch, and Knox listens. Knox is good at listening. He asks questions that are gentle and open and don't push, and when Newt says "I just feel like I'm not enough" Knox is quiet for a moment and then says, "Newt, you're enough. I promise you, you're enough."
And in the background, quieter now, Dimitri says, "Tell him I'll kill the incubus."
"Dimitri says he supports you emotionally," Knox translates.
Newt laughs again. Wipes his eyes again. Breathes.
When they hang up, the morning is warmer and the river is brighter and Newt feels lighter in a way that is fragile and temporary but real. He has friends. He has people who pick upthe phone and listen and threaten to kill demons on his behalf. That's something. That's more than he's ever had.
He walks home.
The walk takes fifteen minutes and he uses every one of them to rebuild. To put the pieces back in order, to arrange his face into something that looks okay, to practice being a person who is fine. He will go inside. He will finish breakfast. He will train. He will be fine.
