Chapter Text
Newt woke up with a choking gasp to the familiar, tight grip of horror. His elbows and ankles slid against his cot as he propped himself up, the drowsiness wearing off as he scanned his surroundings.
The fright vanished when Newt saw Minho’s distraught face to his right, despite how troubled his best friend looked.
“’Nother nightmare?” Minho murmured, the type of distress on his face that wasn’t common, the kind solely brought out by a sudden, momentary strike of fear.
“Yeah,” Newt breathed, sliding back down to land flat on his cot, the springs chirping like the thrushes perched in trees nearby, singing melodiously and signalling dawn.
“Damn,” Minho groaned quietly, turning to lie on his stomach. The other boys, asleep, snored peacefully on their makeshift beds.
Relief softened Newt’s bones, as if his muscles had flexed from the adrenaline rush of the nightmare.
He was tired, though he couldn’t see the point in trying to go back to sleep now.
Newt stared up at the shabby, log-built roof of the Homestead, wishing the comfort of stars stretched above him and not the thin slits of light reminding him of a day’s work approaching.
The real nightmare was waking up and having to go to the very place that frightened him to his core, so much so that the horror plagued him even in slumber.
Newt twisted to face Minho, as if conversation would stop the inevitable, when it succeeded only in passing time, stalling. Nothing stood in the way of it; the rules forced them to go out there, as hard as that was for Newt to swallow every dreaded morning.
“You know what day it is tomorrow, shank?” Newt reached out to poke Minho’s shoulder. Minho turned to him, face crinkled and eyes crusty.
“It’s the end of the second year.”
Newt had said it cheerfully but was sure it would be the gloomiest thing the Gladers would hear of that day.
In the time of their stay at the Glade, Newt and Minho had grown closer than Newt assumed possible. They’d always had a natural affinity for each other, though. Since the moment Minho sprang out from the Box, drenched in water and smelling of copper.
“Huh. Oh yeah.” Minho—sprawled on his front—spoke into the space of air below his pillow so his voice wasn’t muffled. “Happy Glade-day, I guess.”
Newt supposed he should feel bad for waking Minho, should be letting Minho get his nap time… but Newt didn’t want to be awake alone.
Minho righted his back, his torso rising so his body knelt. His lids were half-closed, groggy; he rubbed his eyes with the side of his thumbs.
Then, because Minho’s blanket was pulled back, Newt witnessed Minho’s shoulders jerk at the chill breeze, Newt’s own heart sputtering at the sudden movement.
The spasm reminded him of last night.
Newt couldn’t remember exactly what had happened in his dream. Because it was your own bloody brain controlling it, dreams held that kind of predetermined understanding, knowledge that you were never told explicitly but just knew.
From that, Newt remembered that he’d been Stung before being chased. He’d obviously been unable to feel the crazy. Nothing in the dream proved that he’d been Stung. Again, he’d just known it happened.
And he hadn’t caught a glimpse of that thing that chased him. Yet he knew its name as well as his own.
“Was it about a Griever?” Minho shuffled around as he pulled his blanket around his sides, seeming restless himself.
Newt replied first with a nod and a pathetic smile, then whispered, “I think I was being chased by one.” It cracked into a murmur partway through.
“Been there, done that,” Minho grumbled; typically, Minho was one for nightmares, more than Newt surprisingly (though that was probably because Newt didn’t get much sleep at all).
Minho always appeared… different when he woke from a nightmare. The almost childish look of fright, the profuse trembling, the hysterical muttering.
All of it was so not Minho.
In those scenarios, Newt didn’t need to do more than find ways to assure Minho where he was—in the Glade, on his cot, safe. Not in the Maze, where Griever appendages tore at flesh and pricked skin.
Having Minho, quivering in fear and covered in cold sweat, in Newt’s arms…
///
Minho eventually retreats to his own cot, tossing a quiet, embarrassed “Thanks” and “G’night” over his shoulder as he turns around.
Warmth suffuses Newt as his deep breaths work to calm himself. Minho would be okay. And twenty-four hours later, if he isn’t, if again those bloody nightmares don’t leave him alone, Newt will spend as long as it takes to make sure Minho makes it back to sleep.
In a few days, it’ll be a year since Minho came up the fourth ever Box.
In a quick flash, Newt sees the two of them years in the future, living the same lives. Returning to sleep after a nightmare, waking up, having chats (fights), before they get their butts to work.
Maybe it’s a silly, sappy thought, but thinking about being with Minho for the next who-knows-how-long makes it seem a little more promising.
Newt reaches out, adjusts Minho’s blanket. He slowly retracts his hand, balls it up, and keeps it to himself as he questions the state of their relationship. Does he truly feel the same way he does about Minho that he does about, say, Alby or Nick or Gally?
His ribs suddenly ache, lungs tight in their chambers, and the emotions he’s experiencing are far too intricate for a thirteen-year-old like himself.
All he knows is that spending time with Minho is the one thing that resembles home, even when those moments aren’t all happy and perfect. Talking with Minho, arguing with Minho, laughing with Minho, even running with Minho in that wretched Maze.
Minho’s company soothes Newt in the way he yearned for during his first month, before the brown-eyed boy arrived.
That goes deeper than friendship.
And it hurts so bad to recognise. Worse than anything Newt ever felt.
Why. Did it hurt. So bad.
He covers his nose and mouth, tears running down his cheeks as he fights back sudden, unexplainable sobs, choking on them.
He lies down, pulls his own quilt over himself, but he isn’t shaking from the cold.
Newt closes his eyes, water leaking down onto his thin, clumpy pillow. The realisation sets in on him: Newt has feelings for his best friend. A boy.
A boy who will probably never feel half the same way.
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