Chapter 20

Newt was dying. His head pounded with a brass band, and every chime, twang, or rattle of the prison waking went straight through him. He buried his face in Leo's chest, but it didn't muffle anything, only made Newt's skin clammy from his panted-out breaths. For once, Leo's body was too hot for him.

"There, there," Leo said deadpan while walloping his big hand against Newt's back.

"Patronising prick," Newt muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"It's a hangover," Leo told him before peeling himself away from Newt's death grip. He made sure to thoroughly rinse Newt's mug before filling it with water. "I hear they're painful."

Newt took the mug and thought about trying to drown himself in the water. He spluttered out a sob when he realised his head wouldn't fit.

"Aspirin," Leo said, dropping two tablets into Newt's palm. "Lovingly dropped off by your brother earlier."

Newt took them with a gulp of water. His throat tingled. "That stuff burnt last night."

Leo shrugged. "Didn't feel a thing."

"I've never been drunk before."

"The last time I got truly drunk, someone dared me to jump out a window." Leo perched on the edge of the bed. "And me, being an impulsive twenty-two-year-old eager to impress and make friends, did just that."

"What happened?" Newt asked.

"I cut myself to pieces on glass and terrified my potential friends. More stitches than I could count." He shrugged.

"You're making my first drunk experience sound so lame."

"It was interesting to witness."

Newt looked up from his mug of water. "What was?"

"You, under the influence of alcohol. You were rubbing your cheek against me like a cat, even purred too, and every time I stopped stroking your belly, you elbowed me for more. It was cute."

"That didn't happen."

Leo smirked. "If you say so. The walk back to the cell was interesting too, and I think you freaked Jude out when you started calling out to him across the wing."

The door opened, and Jude strode in with his arms crossed and addressed his question to Leo. "How's he doing?"

"He's feeling sorry for himself."

"Poor you," Jude pouted. "I remember you once hid eleven alarm clocks around the house when Mickey was hung over. He got a taxi to mine, weepy and exhausted, before collapsing in my spare room."

"He deserved it," Newt replied, affronted. "The time before that, he mistook my bedroom for the bathroom and threw up in there while I was sleeping. I needed my revenge."

"Eleven alarm clocks," Leo hissed beneath his breath. He glanced at Jude. "That's evil."

"Oh, he is. Don't let the big eyes and innocent face fool you. Newt is cut from the same cloth as the devil."

"Have you only come in here to mock me?" Newt asked.

"I'm making sure you're all right."

Newt replied by throwing the duvet off himself and crashing into the toilet. He vomited into the bowl.

Jude sighed. "Any issues, hit the button."

"I've got him," Leo murmured.

Newt vomited again. He hung his head in the bowl before Leo came over to lean him back a bit. His firm hand was heaven on Newt's shoulder, keeping him steady as he flushed the contents away.

"Back to bed."

Newt didn't protest, and he slept most of the day away on Leo's bed. He woke up feeling better twelve hours later, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and curled up on his side on Leo's bunk.

"What have you been up to while I was…was…" Newt cringed.

"Unconscious on my bed." Leo snorted. "You know, the usual, TV, sit-ups, push-ups, read a bit."

The tops of Leo's ears glowed red. Newt frowned. "What did you read?"

"You know, I read…words."

"Leo."

Leo shot an almost shy glance over his shoulder. "Aaron wrote to me."

"Aaron?" Newt asked, shifting to the edge of the bed. "As in Mickey's Aaron?"

"Yep. He kind of had this idea, and I thought it was all talk, thought we were just getting caught up in the mania that is The Street?—"

"Heaven forbid."

Leo glared. "But he wrote me the beginning of a scene."

"A…scene?"

"With Cindy, like a set-up, introduced a new character, a potential storyline, but it's only the beginning. He wants me to write the next part and send it back to him, and we'll continue like that." He shrugged. "Gives me something to do, and I reckon we can do a hell of a lot better than those half-assed scriptwriters."

"Are you trying to tell me you and Aaron are writing Cindy McCree fanfiction?"

"It's not fanfiction."

Newt rubbed his chin. "Well, you're both fans of the show, and you're writing fiction, not fact. It kinda sounds like you're a two-person fanfiction club."

Leo slapped his hands to his hips and slowly turned to face Newt on the bed. Newt covered his mouth, trying to stop his laugh from escaping, but Leo saw and attacked him with tickles. Newt thrashed, trying to fend Leo off before giving up, wrapping his hands around the back of Leo's neck and pulling him down for a kiss.

Newt's lips were parted when their mouths met, and their kiss was wetter than it had been before, sloppy in a way that made Newt's cheeks burns, but Leo was already hot with embarrassment after his admission and didn't seem to mind when Newt broke away to wipe his mouth before pulling him down by the neck to try again.

Leo caught himself on his forearms on either side of Newt's head.

"I see you didn't forget this part from yesterday?" Leo murmured.

"Of course not," Newt whispered, lifting his head from the pillow to push their lips together.

Leo knocked Newt's thighs apart with his knee before easing his weight down on Newt's body. Leo tasted of mint, and something else, a base essence of him, and it made Newt's heart skip. Newt used his tongue with no art or grace, just a desperate need to have more of Leo. He was twenty-two years old and had never kissed anyone before, never even considered that slipping his tongue inside someone's mouth could be good and make him want to do it again and again.

"It's just… It's like a disease hot spot."

"Huh?" Leo said, drawing back.

Newt shook his head. "I was thinking out loud."

Rather than be offended, Leo laughed. "Disease hotspot?"

"Sorry, I didn't?—"

"Joke's on you." Leo winked. "Because I think you kinda like my disease hotspot."

"I think I do too."

Newt slipped his hands from Leo's neck to his back, where he scratched and clawed at his vest until he got a good grip.

The butterflies in Newt's insides were going crazy again, messing with the beat of his heart and making his breaths catch and his lungs burn.

Leo covered him, coaxing more kisses until warmth flooded down to Newt's spasming toes.

Leo rolled off of Newt, taking his position on the bed by the wall. Newt lay on his back, panting as he fondled his swollen lips.

"Was that okay?" Leo asked, and he sounded breathless, which made Newt feel immensely pleased with himself, but he wasn't sure why.

He didn't know why Leo's puffy lips made his stomach flip.

"Yes," Newt told him. "Can we do it again?"

"Only if you're sure."

Newt gripped the top of Leo's vest and yanked him into a kiss.

* * *

Newt needed advice, and there was one person he trusted with this kind of issue. He paced back and forth in front of Scott's and Thomas's cell, waiting for Scott to return and help Newt sieve through the conflicted thoughts and feelings spinning around in his head.

He paused in the doorway. "How long now?"

Thomas sighed. "Like I told you before…" He looked up from the card game he was playing with Bull on his bunk. "I have no idea how long. He's with his lawyer."

"Get your ass in here," Bull said. "You're working a groove in the floor and making me nauseous with the constant back and forth."

Newt sighed and stepped into the cell. Thomas and Bull continued to play Snap, blanking his presence. Being locked down for days at a time pushed them all to the limits of sanity. The titanic-like drawing of Thomas on the wall proved Scott's breaking point. A pot of instant noodles covered Thomas's modesty, beef and tomato flavour.

"Damn!" Bull growled. "I'm out."

He bristled, twisting on the bed to face Newt. "Why do you need to talk to Scott so bad?"

When Newt didn't answer, Thomas looked up from collecting the cards. "He wants to ask about sex, and Scott is somewhat of an expert."

"Sure, he's pretty," Bull said, "and he's an escort, but that doesn't mean he's a god when it comes to sex. I'm almost double his age, which means double the experience."

Thomas rolled his snake eye. "Are you an escort too?"

"No, but I've been with plenty of women." Bull pulled out the chair beneath the desk with his foot. "Between me and Thomas, we can set you straight."

"Not literally," Thomas said.

"Well, no, not literally, but we can help you with whatever issue you've got going on. Are you having trouble getting an erection or maintaining it?"

Thomas smirked. "That's Bull's area of expertise."

"Hey," Bull snapped.

Newt glanced back over his shoulder. Scott was still nowhere to be seen, and Leo had been whisked off for his medical with Riley. He admitted defeat and sat down in front of Thomas and Bull.

"What is it you want to know?" Bull asked.

"It's about kissing."

Bull and Thomas exchanged a look.

Weeks had passed since he and Leo began tongue kissing. Newt enjoyed it immensely, but it didn't take the place of the small kisses between them. The press of dry lips, and the pecks to cheeks and temples continued, and the deeper kisses were an added intimacy, not a step up or away, until…

"Go on," Thomas said.

"I just wondered whether it's satisfying on its own." He frowned at his knees, knocking together on their own accord. "Whether it's enough."

"Kissing is foreplay," Bull said. "It's literally the thing you do before the play. You still need the play to be satisfied."

"I don't even consider kissing foreplay," Thomas said. His snake eye found Newt. "I find it rather…irrelevant. Unnecessary."

"Un…necessary," Newt breathed.

"I tend to skip it all together," Thomas said. "But I have a different approach to sex than most."

"Because you like to use cars, buses and planes?"

Thomas smiled. "Yes, and other contraptions."

"Con…traptions?" Newt stuttered.

"The bottom line is, kissing is not enough to satisfy someone," Bull said. "It's first base?—"

"A generous first base," Thomas grumbled.

"And red-blooded males like Leo want the home run. Hell, they need it."

Newt shrunk back, paling. "I never said anything about Leo. I was curious, that's all."

"You didn't have to say it." Bull chuckled. "But me and Thomas aren't stupid. This all goes back to what I said to you in the sweatbox. How do you know you don't like it until you try it, huh?"

"I just do."

"You need to do it at least once to know. Right now, you only think you won't like it."

Newt swallowed the lump in his throat.

"And the thing is, Leo does like it, so you owe it to him to at least try once." Bull shrugged. "No guy who's into sex is going to settle for someone that isn't. Only kissing—that's a tease, it's cruel."

"Cruel?"

"To deny him. You want to keep him, Newt, then you're going to have to find some kind of middle ground. A compromise. Sometimes we've got to do things we don't wanna to make someone happy. You've got to ask yourself, is your discomfort more important than Leo's need?"

Newt hunched forward.

"Exactly, do yourself a favour and make Leo happy."

He couldn't meet either Bull's or Thomas's eyes as he got to his feet and left.

He returned to his own cell, sat on the bed and drew his knees up to his chest as he thought about the previous night, and the reason he'd needed advice.

They'd been kissing, tongue kissing, and it had been amazing. Newt had been lying on top of Leo, holding his face, experimenting with longevity, depth, speed, technique, and Leo was more than happy to let him.

Occasionally he answered a question when Newt asked, which inevitably was something along the lines of, ‘is this okay?' which Leo always responded to positively as he stroked gentle fingers down Newt's neck and reassured him he was doing great.

Then Newt felt it. The heat at Leo's crotch, the firmness there that hadn't been there before, and as soon as Newt noticed, he froze and lifted his mouth from Leo's.

Leo blinked a few times, licked his lips, then with a hoarse voice, apologised.

He apologised for getting aroused.

Newt had stared, wide-eyed, not knowing how to proceed, but Leo hard beneath him wasn't an unpleasant feeling. He quite liked it, and with an experimental thrust of his body, he pushed against the hardness, eliciting a soft moan from Leo followed by a breathless chuckle.

Newt resumed kissing him with the occasional rock of his body that always got a sound from Leo's mouth. He liked it. He liked controlling it, and he liked leaning back to see Leo's eyes so dark and his lips parted as he waited for Newt to kiss him again.

He liked turning Leo on despite having no intention of helping him find relief. He liked that he was hard beneath him, making soft sounds of pleasure, his eyes fluttering, and his chest rising and falling faster and faster.

Eventually, Leo rolled Newt off his chest. "It's time for bed."

Newt didn't protest. He lay down, mind whirling with his reaction to Leo's arousal.

He'd…teased him on purpose.

And he didn't know why.

Leo fell asleep soon after, and Newt joined him, only to be woken in the night by the bunk shifting.

It wasn't unusual for Leo to get up and use the toilet. Newt didn't spare Leo climbing over him a second thought until he heard the slide of wet skin, a nasally breathing. Newt lifted his head, peeking a look towards the toilet where Leo had one hand on the wall and the other on his cock.

He pleasured himself, cleaned himself up, flushed the toilet, then washed his hands. Newt closed his eyes as Leo clambered back into bed, faking sleep, but he'd been unable to drift off again that night.

It's cruel.

Those were Bull's words.

Newt didn't want to be cruel to anyone, but especially not Leo, so he promised himself, next time, he'd help Leo find relief, no matter how uneasy the thought of touching him like that made him feel, no matter how much he didn't want to.

His discomfort wasn't more important that Leo's need. He could put it aside to satisfy him.

Scott poked his head in the door. "Thomas said you were looking for me, everything okay?"

Newt nodded. "Everything's great."