Newt Imagines (The Maze Runner)

What It's Like

Newt is aware that he is a little bit luckier than most. This is a sentiment that he never thought he'd be caught dead believing. Not in the Glade. Not in the Maze. Not anywhere in this surreal mess of a place. Yet it's on repeat in his head on a day to day basis nonetheless, ticking off the hours like an alarm clock consisting solely of his blessings.

Newt didn't think he'd have that much to brag about. No memories means no history he can mention to his equally luckless friends. Still, he's got one important victory in his life that no one else can even dream of, and that's the fact that he's dating Y/N. Yeah, that certainly sets him apart in the world of good things given to kids who can't quite convince themselves they deserve them.

Some would say that Newt is being a little dramatic. He would argue that his response is perfectly within reason. One girl has been sent up in all the months that anyone's been in the Glade, one girl and one girl alone, and she just happened to choose him. Around here, that's grounds for being nominated for sainthood.

Newt isn't going to act like he's not just over the moon every time he thinks about the whole situation. Against all odds, Y/N fell in love with him. That's so unreal that Newt has to pinch himself every hour on the hour just to make sure it isn't a dream. He never tries too hard, though. Just in case.

He didn't have many thoughts on love before she came up. There wasn't really time now, was there? It was just him and the scores of other stragglers making do in their bloody terrible world. You don't spend much time lingering over potential sweethearts when the closest thing to a Romeo is Gally yelling at everyone in the Glade except his friends.

Not great dating material, to say the least. Even when Y/N came up that one month, though, he still hadn't fallen for her from the start. He liked her, obviously, she was nice and didn't test his patience, but he was perfectly content to keep her as a friend, just that. Great expectations have a way of letting you down. Newt's learned that if you keep your eyes on the ground, stop looking up at the sun and stars, you'll be able to deal with it a little easier when all your brightest aspirations go away.

He'd done that before and he planned on doing it again. Even as time passed and he realized that his heart had a funny way of speeding up whenever she was nearby, when it occurred to him that his daily routines always had a way of working in chances to see her, Newt forced himself to ignore everything. Maybe he liked the way the morning sunlight always played on Y/N's face, maybe he could have spent hours wondering over the way her eyes sparkle when she laughs. It was nothing that he could ever commit to treasuring above anything else.

It took several rounds of self-talk and about a dozen different interventions staged by his friends for Newt to get up the courage to tell Y/N how he felt. Hell, it took at least half of those interventions for him to even admit how he felt to himself. Newt had been internalizing for so long that bringing some of those emotions to the forefront of his attention was damned near impossible. Minho, Alby, and a few others, however, were so sick of seeing him 'mope around like a lovesick fool,' to quote them specifically, that they were dedicated to the task of getting him in order.

It worked, too. Newt had run through what could have been a hundred speech variations in his head, all mentioning her character or her sense of humor or any one of the millions of things he liked about her best. In the end, he didn't choose a single one. The second Newt pulled Y/N away from a crowd of their friends for 'something he needed to say in private,' every single whirlwind of thoughts storming through his head came to an abrupt stop. He totally blanked out.

Newt wouldn't even know that he managed to force any words out at all were it not for the fact that the effects of that interaction are quite obvious. Somehow, Y/N ended up returning his affections, and they've been doing pretty well ever since. Newt doesn't like counting his eggs before they hatch and all that, but he'd go so far as to say that he doesn't see it ever breaking down for quite some time, if ever. They're alright. They're great, and they're happy, and in a place like this, you take that and run with it for as long as you can. Maybe it'll ruin itself someday, but Newt plans on pushing that off to the distant future for forever and a day.