and here we are (again and again and again)

2024: Life 86

[Spoilers for The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, and The Death Cure. Also, the dialogue won't be the same because 1)it's an AU and 2)I don't want to copy it word for word and 3)I don't remember the exact words of what were said anyway. Thanks!]

It's dark in the box (box, cage, room, elevator, whatever it is, he can't tell, it's too dark and he's more focused on keeping himself calm right now), and hot and crowded. There are stacks of something in there with him, but it's pitch black and he can't see. He tries to search his mind for something to grasp onto, something to anchor him to reasoning so that he doesn't go crazy, but the file folders in his brain have been emptied. He finds nothing that will help him, not even a name. 

He has no idea where he came from, where he is, where he is going, who he is, who sent him here, or who he is going to meet when this box stops moving, and he is scared. But he breathes. In and out, in and out, in and out. He needs to keep breathing, he needs to think. 

He tries to isolate certain facts, things that he knows for sure. 1) He is in a box. 2) He doesn't know why. 3)He is surrounded by somethings. 4)He doesn't know where he is going. 5)The box is made of metal, obviously, because of the screeching noise (he feels as if that should mean something, as if the metal should be a clue about something [technology of the people who put him here, maybe?] but it isn't and it infuriates him). 

He stops making the list of what he knows because it turns into a list of things he doesn't know, and that list would go on forever. 

The box stops in a sudden, abrupt movement. He crouches down low, braces himself for anything, he is prepared, he thinks. He grabs something sort of soft and sort of solid at the same time, very smooth, and decides to throw it when he sees something. 

A bright light surrounds him and in a flurry of panic, he shields his eyes from the burning sensation and throws the object in a random direction, hoping that it made impact with the threat. 

He hears a squeal, then a groan, then boisterous laughter. He slowly adjusts his eyes to the bright lighting and sees the last thing he actually expects: a relatively small group of boys huddled around the box he was still crouched in, guffawing as if he had just done the funniest thing in the world. He stares at them suspiciously, then stands. 

"You shank!" some kid screams from the back. "You coulda taken my bloody eye out!" 

Neither of them sees the humor in this situation. The kid is still clutching his eye and The Nameless One is still terrified. 

His voice is scratchy when he asks, "Where am I?"

"You're in the Glade," a different boy replies. He is tall with a shaved head and dark skin. He stands like a leader. "Now up, come on, greenie. Get outta there. We gotta get the supplies." 

Nameless One (or greenie? he's not sure) is helped onto the stone of the Glade by some other boys as the boy who told him to get out jumps inside. He starts handing off boxes. Then he turns to the boy helping Nameless One. 

"Gally," he says, "show him around a little. Then make sure Newt isn't gonna kill him." 

Nameless One shivers. Kill him? Surely not. And who is Newt anyway? Nameless One assumes that it's the kid he hit with the weapon. At a better glance, he sees the weapon, expecting something advanced and maybe even plastic or metal -- but it's food. Banana, his mind supplies. His cheeks flame red at finding out that he used a banana as a weapon. At least it had worked, a little. 

The boy named Gally turns to him. "What's your name?"

"Uh . . ." 

The kid shrugs. "You'll remember soon enough." 

Then Gally shows Nameless One around a bit, mostly by standing in one spot and pointing, but Nameless One gets the gist. It angers him even more to find that he has a good memory (he has already memorized where everything is in the Glade and the names of those he has met) because if his memory is so great, why can't he remember anything of importance? He scowls. 

"Hey, Newt!" Gally calls just as he finishes describing the Homestead. "Alby wanted me to make sure you won't kill the greenie!" 

Alby. Nameless One files that away. 

Newt turned around, an angry expression in his face, but Nameless One had to catch his breath because something about Newt that makes him stop in his tracks. It clears his thoughts like an eraser. Those bright blue eyes glisten with annoyance but they are beautiful nonetheless, and he finds himself drowning, just a little bit, because he isn't quite sure what it is about him that makes him so stunning but there is something, and he knows that he has to know this boy, he simply has to. He smiles to himself a little. 

Minho. 

He doesn't think it's a coincidence that he remembers his name when he sees Newt. 

~~**~~

Newt is a stubborn shank (Minho isn't sure when he starts using the slang, but it happens), but he comes around. He begins to be friendly, even giving Minho a polite smile, and Minho is so proud of himself that he forgets to drink his water supplied by Frypan (the cook who is actually very good at what he does, but no one tells him that -- they don't have to). Newt shares his and Minho feels something in his stomach that probably isn't the food. 

Minho discovers that Newt is not a happy person (how could anyone really be happy when they had been kidnapped and placed in this hell? Minho finds a way, sometimes). He sees Newt glaring at the walls of the Maze as if he can burn them down by eye contact. 

Minho decides to be a runner. He hates being so idle (working in the fields isn't necessarily idle, but it might as well be) and he wishes he could cheer Newt up while he goes off in the Maze. The blond boy always seems so sad when he comes back. 

Minho becomes a runner very easily. Everyone had begun to trust him immediately, anyway, and Minho naturally acts like a leader. He meets up with Newt after he is accepted. 

"Did you hear the news?" he asks with a grin. 

"Why would you do that?" Newt turns on him angrily, his eyebrows narrowing. 

Minho is confused, to say the least. "What?"

"You can't be a runner!"

"Why not?" Minho is a little offended now. Who does Newt think he is, telling Minho what he can and can't do?

"You could get hurt!" Newt exclaims, throwing his hands out. "You could get trapped in there, you could die, do you not realize that?"

"Of course I do!" Minho fires back. "I can't stand not doing anything! I have to get us out of here!"

"What makes you think you can do any of it?" Newt questions. "What makes you think you'll be so much better at mapping the bloody Maze than the rest of us?"

"I don't," Minho says, lowering his voice. He takes a breath. "I just can't work the fields like I've been doing. I know it's important, but it's not working toward getting us out. I need to work on getting us out." He pauses again, letting Newt calm himself down for another moment. He continues, "I'll even follow you around. I'll let you watch me like a baby so I don't get hurt." Minho feels triumphant at working that in there because that is exactly what he wants anyway. 

Newt watches him carefully. Then his features soften. "Fine. But if you die, I'll kill you."

~~**~~

They run through the Maze together and Newt finds that Minho is a natural. He relaxes a little. 

A Griever greets them on their third day out. They round a corner and not four feet away is the monster. Newt has never been very good at facing Grievers. He always froze for a moment before he could think of anything. But Minho doesn't even have to think about it before grabbing Newt's hand and taking off in the opposite direction, making turns and twists and checking behind him every second. He outsmarts the creature, confuses it, and Newt is in awe by how under control Minho keeps himself. 

They run back into the Glade after escaping and Newt is so stunned that he latches onto Minho's arm, both of them breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. Minho lets out a chuckle, terrified himself, and leans into Newt. 

Newt decides to never run alone again. He will always be beside Minho because he knows Minho will protect him. 

~~**~~

Minho hurts his ankle one day, after months of running with Newt. Alby has to restrain him (literally) to keep him from running the next couple weeks. Running had become his only goal in the Glade, and he is practically lost without it. Alby will not give in. 

Newt almost asks if he can stay with Minho while he recovers, but in his mindset, he sees it as himself being weak, and he cannot stand for that. He keeps running, and though he knows he convinced himself to do it, he still feels weak for even considering quitting. He hates this entire place anyway, and it only intensifies when Minho isn't running with him. It makes everything seem so lonely and empty and hopeless. The walls of the Maze, hundreds of feet tall, tower above him day after day, and he can't help but feel like a bird in a cage (one day he remembers a line from a story he must have read before he was put here: the caged bird sings with fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom but it doesn't help him, it just restates what he already knows, and that's useless to him so it only makes him angry). 

He wants a way out -- any way out. So he takes one. 

Just days before Minho is fit to run again, Newt hits his lowest bottom. Out in the maze, he decides to do it, to just end it, because this place isn't even worth living in anymore, this air isn't even worth breathing anymore. 

He climbs up one of the walls. He wants to get to the top, but that's impossible, so he settles on halfway. He thinks it should be high enough. He could drop himself off the wall and land with disastrous results and that is exactly what he wants. He wants to feel that pain because it's something new and lately all he's been feeling is rage. 

Before he jumps, something in his mind keeps trying to convince him to just carefully climb down and go back to the Glade, get some water, maybe eat something, and visit Minho. Minho. That's what it is, he knows this is the part of his brain that has taken after Minho, because the parts of his brain that are fully his own are telling him to jump and he doesn't need Minho anyway, Minho would be far better off without having to drag him around all the time and worry about him. He could get so much more mapping done without Newt beside him. Minho would get himself and the other Gladers out, just like he set out to do. Newt is just a nuisance.

He jumps. 

~~**~~

One of the other runners, Ben (much newer than Minho or Newt but he has been here a while) finds him and hauls him back to the Glade. Newt is unconscious but breathing, and Minho thanks whoever might be listening when he finds out that Newt's heart is still beating. 

Newt broke both wrists, his left forearm, and his left leg, but when he wakes up, he doesn't see it as a blessing that that was the only damage done. He screams. He fights. He cries. He probably hits Minho in the face ten times but he can't bring himself to care because he shouldn't be around to care about anything anymore. 

Minho, the stoic rock-to-lean-upon, acts as if Newt only fell while running until everyone leaves. Then he contorts his face into the oddest and scariest mixes of anger and sadness. He yells at Newt for doing something so stupid and he cries, just a little, because he can't stand the fact that Newt thought suicide was a better answer than coming to him. 

"You listen to me, shank," he says, pointing with shaking hands and watery eyes. "You never do anything like this again. You never scare me like that. You could have died, and I know that's what you were going for, but I don't think you understand what that really means. We need you here. I need you here. And you can't just take the shucking easy way out when it gets tough." 

Newt wants to scream back at him, but he's tired. He just stares, clenching his jaw. He tries to be angry because that's what feels right but really all he feels is sorry. He's so shucking sorry. The worst part is that he's not even sorry that he did it, he's sorry that Minho has to deal with it. He should have thought that before. But he's selfish and he knows that and he knows that Minho deserves better so he tries. 

Minho stays with him that night. 

~~**~~ 

Months and months later, Newt is completely healed excluding his leg. He can't be a runner anymore and part of him is reluctantly relieved. He allows himself to let out a sigh before working his way up to the top beside Alby. Newt isn't the official co-leader, but everyone considers him as such. 

He misses Minho during the days but he knows that Minho will come back. Minho will always come back to him. 

Until one day, he doesn't. 

And neither does Thomas or Alby. Those three are Newt's only friends and he almost loses it when the walls close. His heart starts beating abnormally and his face is permanently contorted into some form of terror (he's not sure which but this is definitely the worst kind) and his knees wobble and he almost falls to the grassy floor of the Glade before someone (Chuck) grabs his shoulder. 

Part of Newt thinks it's over. He thinks Minho is dead. He's never coming back, he broke his promise. But part of him holds a fierce kind of faith that no, Minho is not dead, Minho is smart and careful and fast, shuck, he's fast, and he can do this, he can make it out. Newt doesn't know what he believes but he hopes he believes Minho will return. 

Newts finds a way to compose himself. Alby isn't here and someone needs to calm these shanks down, so he takes the job. Inside he is screaming, but outside he is calmly giving orders, spreading a calm over the Glade because no one else can do it. He tells Frypan to fix supper and when everyone is done eating, he tells them that it's a tragic loss (he doesn't want to think of it as a loss, because they can't be dead) but that they will have to continue as they have. 

No one sleeps well that night. 

In the morning, the walls of the Maze open up and Newt has talked himself out of any hope he might have had. He is walking across the Glade to get breakfast when the screeching starts. He glances out of habit and nearly trips over his own leg when he sees three figures wobbling out of the Maze. 

He rushes over, something like elation bursting in his chest. Then anger because Minho said he would always come back and he didn't but God he did and Newt doesn't know what to feel so he just stops in front of them, too stunned to do anything. He mumbles, "You shucking made it." 

Minho gives him that smile (it has only been one night but Newt thought he lost that smile and it's so much better than he remembers) and says, "I told you I'd always come back." Newt laughs a little in amazement and then jumps into action, helping Minho and Thomas carry a damaged Alby. 

Newt has never adored Minho more than he does right now.

~~**~~

He cannot believe it. He cannot believe it. He cannot believe it. They are out of the Maze. They lost half of the Gladers in the process and he should really take the time to be properly sad about that but he can't because he cannot believe it. Thomas, Tommy the genius, figured out the Maze. 

Thomas did it, really, but Newt can't help but grin so widely at Minho because Minho kept his promise, they are out of the Maze. He practically tackles him when they get on the bus with those people, whoever they are. Minho laughs and hugs him back, just as stunned as Newt, who says, "You got me out."

"I promised." 

~~**~~

The Scorch is so ironically different from the Maze that Newt isn't even sure what the point of it is. Newt was never sure of the point, but putting them in the Scorch seems so drastically opposite that he is even more confused. 

He walks beside Minho, the sheet over their heads. They steal glances at each other but don't make conversation, not enough water to talk. It's too hot and painful and dry. 

Newt almost cries out when Minho is targeted by the lightening strike. He helps Thomas carry him gently into the building, places him on the floor. 

Minho is having very bad luck lately, apparently, worse than the rest of them, because not only did he get hit by lightening, but Jorge, the leader of the Cranks, targets him as well. Newt realizes how vital it is that he does not get involved, but it's still hard to watch as Jorge snarls at Minho. 

Thomas and Brenda (he doesn't trust her, something's off, he knows it) get separated from them when the food supply is blasted. Jorge takes charge even though Minho is obviously the leader (it's stamped on his skin, for shuck's sake) and they make it back to Thomas and Brenda easily. 

Minho is very worried about Newt. His leg can't take much of this, he knows, and it must be killing him. But every time Minho looks over at him, the blond is trudging along, determination etched onto his face, and Minho figures that he must be in love with Newt because all he wants to do is carry him or make him laugh or something.

Minho knows that this is the absolute worst time to realize that he's in love, so he keeps quiet because it's not important anyway, they have bigger fish to fry or something like that. 

~~**~~

When Rat Man (Minho hates him, he hates him with all of his being because why the shuck can't they cure him fix him something) tells them that Newt is not immune, Newt is quiet. He says he is okay, it's not as if he thought he didn't have it, he was told that he did, he was convinced that he had it, it isn't a surprise but it is. It hurts him, almost as if he can feel the disease crawling up his throat and into his brain. He can't, but that's what it feels like.

Minho is nearly bursting with rage, but he contains it for Newt's sake. He doesn't want Newt to be scared. He has every right to be terrified, of course, but Minho can't stand the thought of Newt as frightened as he was when they were in the Maze. And he is just so angry. He had promised Newt that he would get them out, and for what? What did that accomplish? Newt's going to turn into one of those shucking Cranks, and how is that any better than the Maze? How is that a win? 

Minho and Newt pretend it doesn't bother them as much as it does.

~~**~~

Newt can feel it. It's taking over, and he tries so hard to keep it at bay, reduce his anger, but he just can't and that infuriates him even more. He even attacks Minho, all the while thinking in the back of his head that he doesn't want to, he knows Minho is just trying to help. 

Later, when Thomas, Brenda, and Jorge enter Denver, he is even angrier that they left him. The sensible part of his brain (it's very small now, he knows, and wasn't it supposed to take longer than this?) is telling him that of course, they had to leave him because he is infected and it would raise the alarms and he wouldn't get in anyway, but couldn't they think of a better plan? Did they have to choose the one in which he waits outside like a shucking puppy on the doormat? 

He is almost grateful when the people come to take him to the Crank palace. He leaves a note so that they (Minho) don't panic when they realize he's gone. He feels so old after all of this. He feels as if he's lived almost a hundred lives and this is the worst one. It is. 

~~**~~

Minho is on edge when they get to the Crank palace. He wants to find Newt and take him home. They don't even have a home but if they did, Minho would take him there. They don't even know the meaning of home anymore, but the feeling is still there, sort of, mostly when they're together. It's safer than this shuck world ever could be. 

But Newt doesn't want to see them. Minho feels his heart break when Newt points the Launcher at them. He just wants to hold him because he's so so sorry that he got him out just to have him become this monster. He knows it's not his fault but he feels as if it is because he should have done something anything. 

"Newt," he croaks out, determined to not cry in front of Thomas because that is unacceptable, after all they've been through he has only cried when Newt jumped off the wall of the Maze and Minho refuses to believe that this is as close to an end as that was. "Come back with us. You're not supposed to be here."

"Get away from me!" Newt snarls, glaring at Minho. There is hardly anything left of him anymore, and both of them know that. "I'll shoot! I'll shoot and I don't care where it hits!" 

Minho hopes he doesn't mean that, hopes he would care if it hit him, but the deadly gleam in Newt's eyes assures him that he is wrong. 

He wants to scream at Thomas (wants to hurt him) when he says that they need to go. He simply cannot leave Newt here like this, with these freaks, refuses to believe that Newt is becoming one of them because it's not fair. After all of the klunk WICKED has put them through, after all the klunk they've beaten, this is what they get and Minho wants to kill whatever God is watching. 

He decides there can't be one. No God would ever allow someone as beautiful as Newt to become such a disaster. 

~~**~~

Thomas gets them to Paradise, and Minho should be relieved, happy even, because they really and truly escaped but the only thing he can think is Newt would have loved this place. Newt would have loved the ocean and the trees and the actual sun in the sky, he would have been so perplexed by the changing of the seasons and every smell in the air. They could have been happy. They could have been happy together. 

Minho isn't stupid. He saw the note for Thomas. He knows that Newt isn't alive anymore. He refuses to say the word (dead) but he knows. And part of him is glad that Newt didn't have to continue living as that monster he had become. He would have hated it, if he was still in his right mind. Minho knows that. He accepts it, mostly. 

But he still wakes up every day wishing Newt had fallen asleep beside him.