BROT4 TIME. I love these guys and the dynamics between them. Lol at spellcheck trying to tell me BrOT4 isn't a word.

As mentioned in the summary, this can be interpreted as Newtmas (if you squint). If that doesn't float your boat, their relationship can just as easily be read as platonic/bromantic. Definitely bromantic. Also Gally is part of this bromance, so love it or leave it. Rated T for language cause Glader slang is my jam. ;)

With a suppressed moan, Thomas gingerly rolled over on his side to find Minho's sleeping form beside him. He and his fellow Runner had a pretty rough day of it yesterday. After going hard for most of the daylight hours, they'd run into a lone Griever late afternoon and had straggled back into camp just before the doors closed, almost too done in to eat the rations Newt brought them. Now everything was sore. Thomas had come to expect the stiff joints and aching muscles that followed a day in the Maze, but that didn't make it hurt any less. On those nights he was always left somewhere between exhausted and dead on his feet, and last night had been no exception.

Newt had been waiting. Between mouthfuls of food—it had been a struggle even to chew at that point—Minho and Thomas had begun debriefing him on the details of what the Maze had presented that day, just getting to the Griever encounter when Gally had turned up with a couple mason jars full of homemade grog in hand, eliciting weary groans when he demanded that they start the story over so he could hear it in full. Reluctantly they'd obliged, though not before draining the jars to the dregs. After that, things had wound down quickly. It had taken no more than a lull in the conversation for them all to collapse, sleeping where they fell as the liquor and fatigue overtook the best of them.

Even now Thomas was feeling the effects. Apparently one night wasn't going to be enough to sleep off the soreness, and lying on the ground instead of in his hammock hadn't helped anything. But that was beside the point.

The point was, he had needed last night. All of them had.

It was after one of his and Minho's more brutal experiences outside the Glade that the four of them had first taken to sleeping all together. Newt and Gally had been there for them when they made it back, as usual. Concern had given way to easy banter, which had given way to exhaustion, drooping eyes and yawns, and eventually to a silent acceptance that no one was heading to their respective bunks that night. When they'd woken up it had been all in a row, damp with dew and somewhat sheepish, but more comforted than any of them had felt in a while.

Then it had happened again. And again.

Whenever one or all of them needed a talisman against the grind and often the terror that came with being a Glader, they'd find each other at the end of the day. Now the hammocks were regularly abandoned in favor of drifting off more or less shoulder-to-shoulder on the grass, complaining when one of them snored or overly invaded another's space, but inwardly appreciating the closeness. Because it was like Newt had said. They were all in this together.

Maybe a little too together at the moment. He was pretty sure it was Newt's chin that was currently digging into the middle of his upper back. He peered behind him. How Newt managed to sleep at such odd angles and wake up without a knot in his spine or a crick in his neck was beyond him.

Rolling back over, Thomas saw that the boy's blond hair was stuck to his forehead with a combination of night-sweat and dew. When Thomas lightly flicked the tip of his nose, Newt's lashes fluttered at the touch, and his hand moved downward to discover the absence of a blanket over him. He shivered and curled in on himself.

"You've taken all the bloody covers again, Tommy."

"Mm. ...Then take someone else's. Minho stole mine."

Newt rubbed his eyes and propped up on an elbow. "I'm the one who got these for us last night. I'm owed the right to wake up with my own damn blanket."

Thomas smiled to himself. Of course it'd been Newt. He smirked at him and whispered, "Mother hen."

At that, Newt flung an arm towards him, his fingers slapping lightly across Thomas's temple. "Shuck off."

"Ow. Ugh...dammit... My head's already about to split."

From the other side of Minho, Gally issued a satisfied snort. "Anytime, Greenie."

Minho rolled over on his back, groaning. "Seriously, that was one hell of a batch, Gally. Original recipe's bad enough. But that burned like you didn't even follow the recipe."

"The 'recipe' is however much I wanna add of whatever I wanna add. And for your information that latest batch was a stroke of genius. Plain and simple."

"He'll never let on what's in the stuff, cocky bastard." Newt shrugged to Thomas. "Like I told you: trade secret."

"That explains so much right now," Thomas said, cradling his throbbing head as Newt reached over him to strip Minho of his blanket.

"No you don't, this one's mine," Minho raised up, still groggy and sporting bedhead of what could only be considered epic proportions.

Newt wrestled it away from him. "Yeah, it isn't, actually. Besides, it looks like you've got bigger problems to deal with." He jerked his chin at the boy's hair.

"What? Oh. Yeah, it grows that way."

"Upwards, you mean."

"Well it's not like the Box sends up any gel, genius. I maintain this volume naturally. How else?" He ran a hand through it, spiking it even higher.

"Dunno, really. Thought you might use Griever klunk."

"Right, like what you use to wash your face."

"For shuck's sake, slim it already," Gally muttered.

"Gally's got a blanket; share with Gally," Newt told Minho.

"No, do not share with Gally," Gally shot back.

"You're too damn big to share with anyway. You take up the whole thing," Minho said. "So how about I just—"

"What the hell!" Gally's glare bored into the boy. "No, sure. Go ahead, yank 'em off me, cause damn if I don't live to share covers with your shank asses."

"You're a saint," Minho agreed.

For a brief moment, Gally fixed Minho with narrowed eyes before deciding it wasn't worth it and moving on to zero in on the next closest target. "Thomas, give me yours."

"Fat chance."

Gally put his hands behind his head with a shrug. "If a need arises, Greenies give up their supplies first. Those are the rules."

"Bullshit, you made that up."

"You got no way of proving it."

"Yeah, well neither do you."

"Hand 'em over, Greenbean."

Yawning, Newt rolled his eyes. "Leave him be, Gally."

"That sounds like a great idea. Besides," Thomas added, "if anyone's the green bean, it's Newt. Look at this bod." He poked him lightly in the side. "Skinnier than a switch with the bark peeled off."

Newt flinched away from him reflexively, biting back a laugh. "You're one to talk."

"Hey, at least I've got some muscle definition going on."

"Do you now? Oh yeah, yeah right I nearly forgot, you're a Runner. Keeping tabs and making abs—"

Thomas cut him off as he again pressed his fingers against Newt's sides in a rapid dance that left Newt doubled over.

"Damn it, Tommy, I hate that. You know I hate that."

Gally just stared at them. "If you two'll stop sexing each other and give me a blanket before I hafta get up and smother you with it, that'd be fantastic for everyone."

When Newt recovered, it was with a voice quavering with suppressed laughter and false annoyance that he said, "I complain of Thomas."

"I complain of Gally."

"I also complain of Gally," Minho nodded.

"Oh, yeah?" Gally said. "Well I complain of shuck-face."

Thomas raised his eyebrows. "Meaning?"

"Meaning all you skinny shanks with skinny shanks."

"Guess that rules me out," Minho sighed, sliding a leg from beneath his blanket. "Hauling ass for three years has made these shanks more shapely than ever."

"The khakis kinda obscure the view," Thomas smirked.

"I'm not stripping for you."

Suddenly Gally's brows drew together and his hand reached to wrap around Minho's ankle, lifting it up to peer underneath. "Guys, the other one's under him. It's under you, shuck-face! Give it back."

"...What."

"The blanket."

Minho flattened himself back out protectively. "I need it more than you. I'm sore."

"We're all sore, slinthead, we just slept on the ground."

"Not like this," he groaned. "You've never known sore like this. Tell him, Thomas."

Thomas scratched the back of his head. "If he's feeling what I'm feeling...it's muscle ache on a new level, Gally. It's pretty bad, honestly."

"It's about to get worse if he doesn't give me the damn blanket back."

Newt shook his head. With a belabored sigh he said, "Doors aren't even open yet and there's already a war on," before turning back over to hide his crooked grin.

Thomas closed his eyes and began to relax as he felt himself dozing off, Gally and Minho's argument fading into the background, his upper arm resting between Newt's shoulder blades.

According to Minho, they had the day off today. Tomorrow too, maybe. But before he knew it, they'd have to shake out the knotted muscles and head out again. Runner's schedule. Routine.

But for now he had this. And this... This felt good. This felt peaceful, or as close to peaceful as he had managed to get lately. This was the kind of routine Thomas could get used to in the Glade, because it felt like a constant. He knew that no matter what happened out there in the Maze, he'd have Minho to run like hell with him, and when they made it home at night, Newt and Gally would be waiting for them with food and drink and a series of lighthearted insults to lessen the shadows cast by those walls.

Because they were more than just fellow Gladers. They were his comrades. And effortlessly, sometime when he hadn't been paying attention, they'd become the kind of friends that he could drink with and fall asleep beside, knowing they had his back.

They were the kind he could trust.

Thomas's eyes reopened briefly at Gally's words.

"I'd fight you, except it'd be so easy it'd be sad."

"Nah. I'm hung over and I still think I could take you."

"You think that because you're hung over."

"Say that to these shanks."

"Get off my shucking covers, Minho."

"Bloody hell, Tommy, see what you've started," Newt mumbled.

Thomas closed his eyes again.

Slintheads.