Chapter Text
The boy named Alby shows him around the Glade. He likes Alby. He can tell he’s trying to be more man than boy, but while his eyes may be wise, his smile is still as young as any of the boys he has seen here. It’s nerve-wracking and comforting all at once.
They wander around, and as massive as the place is, there really isn’t that much to see. He’s more interested in the outside, what’s beyond the walls. He won’t settle here, he can already feel it. He’s already itching to get out. It’s claustrophobic, and everything is foreign.
Well, not everything.
He feels his stomach ache at the thought of blonde hair and brown eyes and a crooked smile. He wonders if he’ll be able to avoid the boy while he’s here. If they find a way out soon- and they must, there’re what, thirty boys here already, that’s more than enough brain power- maybe he can go the whole time without seeing him. The guy might be the only familiar thing here, but it’s not worth it if being around him causes that huge knot in his stomach, this confusion of familiarity without remembrance.
Of course, as soon as he decides this, he zones back into whatever Alby has been saying only to hear, “Hey, alright Alby?
The sound of the boy’s voice ghosts over him, feels like it’s sinking into his skin. It’s overwhelming and he screws up his eyes for half a second, opening them to find the face that he somehow knew went with the voice.
Brown eyes stare back at him, and the crooked smile may be in place, but the eyes are weary. He can’t decide whether Newt – the name rolls around oddly in his head – thinks he might bolt, or if Newt himself is considering bolting.
They shake hands and the calluses of Newt’s fingers rub against his skin sending shivers up his spine. He suppresses a shudder and drops Newt’s hand, very conscious of the fact that Newt’s grip tightens a bit before he lets go.
“That was some dash you made earlier,” Newt adds, and he gets that feeling again. He knows Newt’s voice. It echoes around his head and he tries to ignore the way his heart gives an uncomfortable skip at the sound before settling again. Newt’s familiar eyes are warm and teasing and as they look at each other, he suddenly feels more at ease than he has since he woke up.
But something Newt says distracts him. “'Runner’?”
It’s the wrong thing to ask because then Alby is sending Newt away and his heart rate picks up again. He needs Newt to stay, needs to figure out whatever this feeling is. Needs to remember.
Newt turns to leave, a bit begrudgingly, he thinks, but then he’s having a hard time figuring out how much of this is just in his head. And as Newt steps between them to leave, his side brushes against his own, and he feels a tug in his spine, like his body wants to go with Newt
As Newt leaves a quiet panic rises in him, tightening his throat and making his heart work double-time. Things only seem to make sense to him when Newt is around. Newt brings out this calm in him because Newt is the only thing that feels distinctly familiar. He might not know his own name but he knows that he knows Newt, somehow, from someplace. He realizes that avoiding Newt is going to be impossible, and that now, he doesn’t really want to. Being around Newt may be the only way to feel calm enough to be able to think properly, the only way to fill in the blank spaces in his head. One of those spaces is already starting to feel a little more full.
He glances back over his shoulder to find Newt subtly glancing back in his direction with a confused and weary look on his face. And he wonders if maybe he isn’t the only one feeling this weird calm mixed with a knot in his stomach when they look at each other.
But then Alby turns him away, pulling him along to finish the tour. He’ll just have to find a way to see Newt again later.