In my dreams I'm dying all the time

[bloodyinspired]

He dreams of being back in the Maze, not in the Glade, but out in the Maze itself, with the light fading. He dreams of walls so high that he can't see the top. In dreams, sometimes, his limp is gone, and he finds himself able to run quicker, but it's never quick enough. Something is chasing him, in the corner of his eye. Griever. Crank. Gilly. Something. Someone.

In his dreams, Newt does the only thing that he can.
He flees.

This time, they're going to catch him; he can already feel that before the toe of his sneaker catches on a tree root and he's falling through space and...

He wakes up, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets and, from the way his ears are ringing, a moment ago, he must have been shouting.

"Bloody hell," he mutters, dragging himself up into a sitting position, pulling up his knees.

Comments

[shuck_you]

Newt's words are enough to draw Thomas away from the cliff. He'd been on the cusp of sinking back into his guilt, letting it wrap around him like a shroud. The sound of Newt's heart beating and his voice pulled him back from the desire to sink into the void and stay there for awhile.

He pushed himself up slightly, one hand braced on the bed beside Newt's shoulder. His eyes were dark, his smile light and he couldn't resist saying, "What's the magic word?"

[bloodyinspired]

Looking up at Thomas, tilting his head to the side, a smile quirks Newt's mouth.

"Now?" he says, both hands sliding up under Thomas' shirt, finding bare skin over his ribs. "Please?"

[shuck_you]

"You'd be a mad shank if I said neither of those was right, wouldn't you?" Thomas quipped, reaching down to tug his shirt up and over his head.

The act left his hair askew and Thomas brushed it back down after tossing his shirt aside. "Better?"

[bloodyinspired]

"So mad," says Newt, rolling his eyes but then he gets distracted, by Thomas' bare skin, sparse dark hair, the strength of hands and forearms. He bites his lip, tracing the tips of one finger along Thomas' waistband.

"Better. Not all the way, though."

[shuck_you]

"You're a demanding shank, aren't you?" Thomas teased, glancing down at Newt's hands. He couldn't stop the sigh from slipping through his lips, didn't even really mind Newt hearing it, actually.

"Always wanting more," he murmured, leaning down to press a kiss against Newt's soft lips.

[bloodyinspired]

"Would you want me any other way, Greenie?" teases Newt, actually hooking his fingers over elastic, tugging lightly. He lifts his head, pressing up into the kiss, his free hand splayed against Thomas' ribs.

Not more. He wants everything. Everything he missed back in the Maze and the Scorch.

[shuck_you]

"I'd want you any way I could get you," Thomas told him, mumbling the words against Newt's lips and smiling at how that tickled. He pulled back when Newt started tugging and looked down, amused.

"You gonna work some magic and get those off of me while I'm sitting on top of you?" he asked.

[bloodyinspired]

"No," says Newt, grinning up at him. "But if you wanted to get up and taken 'em off yourself, I'd be pretty made up. If you could see your way to that."

[shuck_you]

"I guess I can do that," Thomas said, brushing one more kiss against Newt's lips before he rolled off and settled his feet on the floor.

He'd thought of just laying on his back and wiggling out of his pants but he knew, with his klunk luck, he'd get completely tangled up in his pants enough that he'd need help getting out of them.

"Just because you asked so nice," he murmured, smiling over his shoulder at Newt who looked so comfortable and so good just laying there, relaxed.

[bloodyinspired]

This is not the first time that Newt has lain back and watched Thomas strip out of his clothes but it's another thing about this new world that Newt is never going to get tired of. He pushes one hand into his hair and watches, his other hand resting on his belly.

"You're beautiful, Tommy," he says, quietly, voice heavy with awe. "I tell you that lately?"

[shuck_you]

Thomas didn't know if you was beautiful right now, standing next to the bed with his pants around his ankles but he smiled anyway.

"Bet you say that to everyone," Thomas said, voice low. "Everyone that sleeps with you at night."

[bloodyinspired]

"Just you," says Newt. There had been times with Alby, yeah - a handful of times with Miho, too - but, somehow, Thomas standing there is all the more beautiful because they're not in the Maze. There had been quiet times in the Glade, moments stolen in filtered green light under the trees, but this is different because this? This is nobody but theirs.

Newt bites his lip, eyes slipping down Thomas' body, taking in all of that bare skin. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

[shuck_you]

"You look like you're painting a picture in your shucking mind," Thomas said shyly. It wasn't like this was the first time, far from it.

"Least it looks like you like what you see," Thomas said, looking down at himself and then back up at Newt. "Unless you're picturing someone else...?"

For so long, they hadn't been able to tease and touch like they were right now. Thomas continued to try and make up for lost time with his terrible sense of humor.

[bloodyinspired]

"Because I am. Sort of." He rolls his eyes at the self-depreciating, unable to fathom how Thomas could possibly serious think that he could be looking at him and picturing anyone except for the person right in front of him. "You look plenty good to me, Tommy."

[shuck_you]

Thomas went to say something else, another quip to possibly make Newt laugh or smile or something but held off. He found he really wanted to just crawl back into bed, covering Newt's body with all his newly exposed skin.

"You gonna just lay there, all covered up like a monk?" he asked, pressing a kiss to his chin.

[bloodyinspired]

"I just got sidetracked, looking at you," says Newt, but then he sits up, wrapping his fingers in the hem of his worn t-shirt, tugging it up over his head. "You want to take care of the rest, Tommy?"

[shuck_you]

"In a second," Thomas said, leaning down so he could kiss each and every rib that he could see now that Newt's shirt was gone. He inhaled the soapy smell on his skin and felt the hard ridge of bone underneath his lips.

One hand skittered down, landing on the waist of Newt's pants and he tried to be slick, tried to get the buttons and zippers down without looking. He wasn't going to have much success, probably.