Too Slow (Newt X Reader)

Author's Note: Not an alternate universe, but I did change some canon stuff to make the story fit. Not like a lot of stuff, but Alby doesn't get stuck in the maze with Minho and Thomas, and Teresa hasn't arrived at the Glade yet.  

No, no, no. You thought, running desperately. You had gotten turned around in the maze (how stupid was that; you had been a runner for a year and a half and now you were going to die in the shuckin' thing), and now you didn't think you were going to make it to the doors before they shut.

__y/n__, you suck, You mentally scolded yourself. C'mon, run just a little harder and you'll make it!

You nearly sobbed in relief as you ran around the bend, and the entrance to the Glade finally came into sight. Newt, Minho, Thomas, Alby, and all of your other friends were waiting for you, and when Thomas caught sight of you, he cheered.

"Come on, __y/n__, you can do this!" You heard Minho say, but you felt your heart drop. The doors were already closing, fast, and even though you put all your energy into just moving your legs faster, c'mon, faster!, you knew you couldn't make it.

You weren't that fast. You never had been. Minho always raced you back to the Glade, and every single time, he beat you. No matter how much you trained, you still weren't fast enough.

You saw on Newt's, Minho's, Alby's, and Thomas's frowning faces that they knew it too.

"__y/n__, you shuckin' shank, put everything you have into it!" Minho shouted, and you scowled.

"Damn it, Min, I am!" You hollered back, and even though your feet kept pounding against the pavement, the walls were closing faster than you could run. You saw Newt move to run into the maze, but when you glared at him harshly and Thomas grabbed him by the shoulders, he stilled, even though you knew that everything in him was telling him to run forward.

You were close enough that you could see the glistening of unshed tears in his eyes, but too far away to be able to soothe him.

"__y/n__!" Newt's desperate cry of your name was the last thing you heard before the doors to the maze slid closed, and you skidded to a halt, only two feet away from the stone wall.

You were close. So, so goddamn close.

But it wasn't enough.

You fell to the ground, panting harshly and struggling to breathe as hot tears slipped from your eyes.

You were going to die. No one had ever survived a night in the maze, and you knew damn well that you wouldn't be the first. You were too slow to outrun the Grievers, and there was nowhere to hide from them.

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Newt stared at the wall in shock for a solid minute after the doors had closed and sealed __y/n__ inside.

He couldn't lose you.

He just couldn't.

He had already lost his memories, his life, his freedom, and too many friends to count, did they have to take away the one person he still cared about more than anything?

He needed you. Alby was the leader of the Glade, and Newt was the second in command, but you were the den mother of the Glade. You checked up on the other Gladers regularly, making sure that they all got enough food and sleep, and letting them know that they always had someone to talk to if they needed it. Everyone loved you (even Gally couldn't find it in him to say anything bad about you).

You were smart as a tack, always coming up with new, better ways to build things (like the time you had figured out how to weave grass into a tub that was tight enough to hold water, and everyone in the Glade had been able to have a real bath for the first time in a long, long time), incredibly sweet, constantly telling stories to the younger Gladers to help them sleep, and extremely helpful, willing to assist anyone with absolutely anything (even the silly stuff, like when Frypan asked for your help in making a pie for the other Gladers, and the sensitive stuff, like the time a Glader by the name of Charles, now known throughout the glade as Charli, asked you for some of your clothes because they felt more like a girl than a boy; you gladly loaned her some and gently corrected someone anytime they referred to her as a boy).

"Hey, come on," Gally said, surprisingly gently. "You need some rest." He grabbed his arm and led a numb Newt to his hammock, carefully pushing him onto it. Newt didn't protest, and after a moment of Gally trying to figure out what to say, he clapped Newt on the shoulder, murmured "I'm sorry.", and left to go to his own hammock.

It was no secret to anyone in the Glade that Newt liked you, and the few poor Greenies who had tried to make a move on you backed off the moment Minho and Thomas 'politely' told them to (it may or may not have involved some knuckle cracking and glaring).

You liked Newt too, but you were both too afraid of the relationship ending to let it begin. If you decided to date and it didn't work out, you would be forced to see each other every day in the Glade and it could cause tension in the group and neither of you wanted that, so you and Newt had shared a talk one night and agreed that it was better for everyone if you just stayed friends.

And now, Newt was staring blankly up at the sky, desperately wishing that he had at least been able to kiss you, just one bloody time. He didn't think he'd ever get to know what it felt like now, and he knew already that that was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

With a sigh and a quiet, dry sob, Newt curled in on himself and willed his mind to go blank so he could sleep.

It wouldn't.

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You know what? Shuck this. You thought, hastily drying your tears and climbing to your feet. You were going to do this. You could survive and you would survive, because damn it, you knew that Newt needed you. You knew that everyone needed you, and, not to be conceited, you didn't want to imagine just how much the Glade would fall apart without you.

Whenever there was a fight between Gladers, you were there to separate them and help them talk through their anger, and if you weren't there, you were a little afraid that everyone would resort back to fighting as a coping method.

With an eye roll at the mere thought of it, you reached your hand behind you and grabbed a knife from your harness. After looking at it for a moment and deeming it sharp enough, you used it to start cutting down ivy from the wall. After you had collected a decent amount, you started weaving it together into a rectangle shape. You knew that there were little hollows in the some parts of the maze, places that people could fit in (you had hidden in them before and then jumped out, scaring the klunk out of Thomas and Minho), and you were hopeful that they might be just what you needed.

When you were finished, you dug around for one of the crevices, and when you found it, you tested it to make sure that your rectangle of woven ivy would adequately cover you. It did, and although you could already hear the sound of Grievers moaning in the distance, you dashed around for a moment, grinning when you found a pile of Griever sludge (you really hoped it was just mucus and not feces). You scooped some onto your fingertips and slathered it all over your body, trying to mask the smell of human and hopefully make you harder to find.

You jogged back to your hole and had just gotten inside and wedged your woven rectangle in the slot when the sound of metal clicking on concrete filled the air.

You tried to slow your breathing as much as possible, keeping your body perfectly still as the first Griever walked by you.

It was going to be a long night.

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When the doors started to slide open, Newt couldn't stop himself from running to them, peering out in search of you. There was no sign of you, and Newt frowned deeply, turning back around and deciding that it was better to start on his job for the day (gardening) than to wait for someone that would never come.

He paused his stride when he heard shouting, hesitantly looking back around. Thomas and Minho were sprinting for the doors full force, and when they stepped back into the Glade, you were lifted high on their shoulders.

All three of you were grinning and whooping, and Newt could only look on in shock as the other Gladers noticed and formed a joyful circle around you. Your eyes flicked around before they finally landed on Newt, and you smiled softly as you whispered something to Thomas. Thomas and Minho quickly put you down, and the other Gladers made a path for you as you made your way over to Newt.

Newt's legs eventually caught up with his brain as he started to walk towards you, and he finally let himself smile as he met you in the middle.

"You're not dead," Was the brilliant thing his mind came up with, and Newt wanted to chop his tongue off. You didn't judge him on it like he thought you would, you just grinned at him and murmured "No, I'm not." before surging upwards and kissing him.

Newt groaned, a husky, low sound from somewhere deep in his throat, and kissed you back eagerly, one hand coming up to thread through your hair while his other hand moved to your waist, pulling your body closer to his. You made a sound of agreement and brought your own hands up to cup his cheeks, but opened your eyes and blinked in surprise when you felt wetness.

Newt was crying.

You broke the kiss long enough to brush his tears away with your thumbs and mumble a "Don't cry, love, I'm fine, really.", before sealing your lips with his again in a softer kiss. Newt's tears stopped after a moment, and you smiled into the kiss. One of your hands moved from his cheek to his hair, and you ran it through the sandy-blonde strands like you'd wanted to do for far too long. You could distantly hear the other Gladers cheering and hollering, but you didn't pay attention to them. Right now, Newt was the only thing in the world that mattered to you.

"How did you get out?" Newt asked, breaking the kiss and looking at you with a mixture of disbelief, joy, and love in his eyes.

"I don't really know, honestly." You said, before shaking your head. "And I don't wanna talk about it yet. I really just wanna kiss you some more, do you-"

Newt didn't let you finish, pressing his lips to your again and pouring his heart into the kiss. You had both spent too long running from the inevitable, and Newt wanted to make sure that you understood just how much he cared about you. You responded in kind, and Newt could feel the air between the two of you crackling with electricity as you nipped on his lower lip playfully, pulling out of the kiss. You pressed one more quick kiss to the edge of his mouth before wrapping your arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.

"We should probably wait to kiss any more before I do something that the other Gladers might not want to see." You whispered, only a little sheepishly, and you could feel the vibrations of Newt's laugh all along your ribcage.

"I disagree, love, I'm pretty sure most of those shanks are dying to see that. I'd just rather them not." Newt teased and kissed your shoulder. "You ready to tell them how you fought off three Grievers by yourself?"

You raised an eyebrow at him. "But I didn't?"

Newt arched an eyebrow right back at you. "But they don't know that."

You grinned widely, breaking the hug and dragging him with you as you walked over to the Gladers, who were now sitting on the grass, patiently waiting for you and Newt to finish reuniting.

"So here's what happened," You started immediately, making your voice deeper for effect. "I've got two Grievers on my left and one on my right..."

Newt and the others listened eagerly, but Newt couldn't help the sly smile from spreading across his face as he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you down onto his lap.

You stuttered in your storytelling only for a moment before continuing, and Newt's smile softened, a single thought crossing his mind.

He was so shuckin' lucky to have you in his arms, and he was going to spend every moment he could showing you how glad he was that you weren't dead.

End.  <3