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Newt couldn’t sleep. The torrential rain outside sounded like a thousand hammers on anvils in his ears, yet they did nothing to quieten the whimpers coming from Minho, who was curled up on the floor by Thomas’ feet. He tried to deafen them out, ignore the weak sounds of pain coming from him, but if anything, the harder he tried, the louder it sounded.
Eventually Newt couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t stand to turn himself over and hug his knees closer to his chest again and try and ignore his friend’s muffled cries, so he got to his knees as quietly as he could and shuffled closer to him, dragging the last of the water he had been saving with him.
"Hey," he muttered under his breath when he was close enough to see the other’s face in the darkness, attempting a smile to cheer the other up but failed dramatically - he only hoped it was dark enough for Minho not to have seen how dramatically it was.
"Newt?" Minho’s voice was even weaker than his whimpers, and cracked badly half way through his name, like speaking hurt him even more. Minho tried to shift so he could look up at Newt’s face better, but stopped before he’d barely shifted at all, face contracting in pain as he let out a low groan.
"Shhh," Newt tried to soothe, "Don’t move shank, I’m right here, don’t want you getting worse now do we." He settled against the wall near Minho’s head, thigh almost resting against the top of the boy’s grime-ridden hair. Absentmindedly his hand went to the dark spikes, brushing through it like he used to do back in the glade on the nights where the other was so tired from the day’s running he could barely sit up straight, slowly combing the dirt and sand from it, returning it back to it’s natural softness.
It helped, or at least seemed to. The whimpers coming from his friend died down, and Newt could have sworn that they he heard Minho heave a small sigh.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, already knowing the answer, but not knowing what else to say. Minho almost laughed… almost.
"Sure as shuck does," he croaked, before coughing once and contracting his body in pain yet again. Newt frowned and reached for the plastic bag that held what little water he had left with his free hand.
"Tilt your head back," he instructed, removing his fingers from the other’s hair for a short moment to help Minho rest his head against his thigh, pulling his mouth open just slightly so he could pour a bit of the water in. Minho swallowed it thirstily, and Newt poured a bit more before closing the bag up again.
"Thanks," Minho muttered after a short while once his body had started to relax. Newt suspected that it was a combination of the burns, the hunger and the thirst that was keeping the other in so much pain right now, so it felt good to help ease one of them at least.
"Don’t worry about it," he said, managing a small smile this time as Minho smiled back up at him. His head was still rest on Newt’s thigh, but neither of them cared, this was just them.
It felt almost surrealistic to have something so normal right now, in the middle of what they were going through, with who knew what lying ahead, but it sort of made sense. Since when had their lives ever had any sense of normality?
Neither of them could remember anything before the maze, but from what Alby had told him in his post-Changing craze, Newt didn’t really think he wanted to know. It made sense that they had each other, that one bit of normal in their completely abnormal life. It seemed right.
Newt’s hand had returned to brushing through Minho’s hair again during his thought process, and looking down at his friend Newt would have thought Minho had fallen asleep, if it wasn’t for the eyes that were watching him lazily, shining in whatever faint light that was coming from outside.
"Newt?" Minho asked again quietly, his eyelids closing slowly before opening again, as though he was determined not to fall asleep just yet.
"Yeah, shank?"
"You’re still more of a leader than I ever will be." Newt smiled down at Minho, before carefully leaning down and pressing his lips to the other’s.
"Suck it and go to sleep, Minho." He said, an edge of a laugh to his voice.
Minho smiled up at Newt before closing his eyes and keeping them closed this time, muttering “just saying” before falling in to a light sleep. Newt watched him quietly for a while, before eventually succumbing to his tiredness as well.