Author: Athena2693

Title: In the Approach

Summary: Minho attempts to comfort Newt after Alby becomes cold after the changing. Could be a prequel to Forced Insomnia but stands on its own. Unrequited Minho/Newt, implied Alby/Newt

Crying in the Glade wasn't that uncommon of an occurrence. Most of the boys felt a bit of despair now and then, especially the greenies. As Minho passed the woods where the deadheads resided though, he swore the sob he heard was familiar. Like he had heard that sound before. A sound he remembered but one he had not heard in a long time.

He stopped in his tracks, standing absolutely still, turning his head in search of that sound. After a moment it came again and he felt his own heart ache for a moment before he turned to follow it.

"Newt, is that you," the runner called out hesitantly.

"No, go away!"

"Newt, it's Minho. Are you okay?" Minho pushed aside some bushes and hanging tree limbs until he eventually came upon the smaller blond boy sitting against a tree. He had his knees drawn to his chest and his eyelids were rimmed red, his nose pink like he'd been out in a snowstorm. He glanced at Minho quickly and then looked back down at his knees, sniffling.

"You okay?"

"Bloody wonderful."

"Yeah? Cuz you look like klunk." Actually, that was a lie. Newt was one of those types who looked beautifully tragic when he cried, his eyes shiny and wet, his lips swollen. But Minho always preferred to take the joking route when he could.

Newt chuckled pathetically and wiped at his eyes. Minho slid down next to him, putting an arm awkwardly around the other boy. He wasn't exactly a touchy feely person usually but Newt was always there for anybody else who needed him. He looked like he needed a hug. And to be truthful, Minho maybe just slightly appreciated the excuse to touch him.

The blond took the offer without hesitation, throwing himself into Minho's arms who just held the shaking body against him. His face was wet against Minho's neck.

"So what's up you shank?"

"It's Alby," he let out wetly.

Of course it was.

"He'll be okay." Newt's trembling back felt warm against Minho's palm. He pressed harder, rubbing it to comfort the other boy but also just appreciating how the shifting muscles felt under his fingers.

"It's not that. I know he won't die now. The serum worked. But he's being distant. He didn't even want to see me when he woke up. I was so scared when you three got locked out there and so worried if he'd react to the serum or not. And then he yells at me to get out of his bloody face. Me! He's never talked to me like that!" Newt made a harsh swallowing sound, like he was trying to keep in a sob and barely accomplishing the feat.

"That's how Alby has always been you shuckhead. Don't let it get to you." Minho slid his hand down the graceful curve of Newt's spine, choosing a new spot on his lower back to continue his administrations.

"Not to me, Minho. Our relationship is different. It's special."

"Because you two are lovers?"

Newt just grunted at that. It wasn't anything anybody spoke about. A lot of the boys hooked up, paired off, traded favors. Whatever you wanted to call it. When you have that many teenage boys packed together hormones rage. But everybody knew about Alby and Newt. They'd been the first to hook up and they had never strayed from each other. Such loyalty in such a setting wasn't usual. Minho had messed around with his fair share of the boys and his longest relationship with one had been 11 days. None of the boys could keep his interest long. Except one. He guessed Alby and Newt had been hooking up for at least a year and a half.

"He tells me not to touch him," Newt said, hurt in his voice.

"He's probably not in the most romantic mood right now." A couple comforting pats.

"I don't mean like that. I mean like when I try to help him sit up or fluff his pillow or even hold his hand, he keeps snapping at me to go away. I can't stand it. I don't want to lose him. I don't want him to change."

"Yeah, well..." Minho trailed off absently. There wasn't much he could say. That's what the changing did. That was why it was called the changing. None of the boys were the same afterwards. He remembered vaguely a boy who had once called Gally his best friend and how he hadn't seen them speak a word to each other in months.

"He acts like he couldn't care less if I lived or died."

"That's not true," Minho responded, at least sure of one thing. "Alby would never wish you dead. But who knows if you two will ever be like that again."

"Thanks, now I feel great."

"I don't want to lie to you, Newt. He went through the changing. There's no guarantee he'll get better or worse. Maybe he just wants to be alone. Maybe he's confused. I don't know."

"Do you think he still loves me?"

Love? There had been love involved in this? Certainly from Newt's side, yes, but what about Alby? Minho wondered if Alby had been aware of that. Of course, no matter how grumpy and hard Alby could be on the Gladers, his soft spot for Newt had always been apparent. The looks they shared. The way they held hands under the table at meals. How Alby always called for Newt first, before anything else, when he needed an opinion or advice or help with something. Newt was more than his second in command. If Alby was the king of the Glade, then Newt was the queen. Oddly fitting actually, as everyone's glademother, caring for the sick and scared and homesick. Still, did Alby really love him? Want him? Yes. Need him? Yes. Love him? Who knows? Could a real relationship exist with two out of three?

"If Alby loves anybody then it's you," Minho replied, avoiding an outright answer.

"Maybe he had a girlfriend before. Maybe he remembers her now and I'm just a distraction he no longer wants. Maybe he doesn't want a boy." Newt nuzzled his face deeper into Minho's throat, as if trying to escape the very idea.

"Even if that's true, about him liking girls, what's it matter? There are no girls here. Except Sleeping Beauty, of course."

"Maybe we are in prison. Trapped in giant walls, copulating with other boys like sheep in heat."

"Copulating, huh? Sounds like you two were doing more than copulating. To be truthful, I'm a bit jealous of you two. Of what you have, I mean." He quickly corrected himself, not wanting Newt to take it the wrong way...the right way. His hand, which he had let creep dangerously far down so it nearly rested on the other boy's butt, he now slid back up to the broad shoulders. Less suggestive. "It must be nice to have somebody to sleep next to every night. Somebody always there you can trust and depend on. You two are good together. You always have been."

"Except now," Newt replied glumly. "He was my first friend here, you know? He took me under his wing and made me part of the group. Even when I tried to, well, when I tried to leave here, leave him, he still wasn't angry with me. He still told me he loved me. He helped me remember why life was worth living at the darkest part of my life. Without him I'd be nothing."

"That's not true," Minho replied. He ran his fingers gently through the other boy's floppy blond hair soothingly. "You're one of the most important people in the Glade. You keep the order. You keep us all going in the right direction. If you had been lost back then, who knows where we would all be now. I wouldn't be surprised if everything would've fallen apart. And honestly, even with all this shuck going on around us, you've been keeping everything together as good as anybody could. I know how worried you've been about Alby but you still lead the gathering like a pro. I doubt Thomas realizes how lucky he was to have you speaking for him. If he had any sense in him, as soon as he gets out of that cell he should be kissing your feet in gratitude. Hell, we all should."

"The only one I want kissing anything of mine is Alby," Newt responded in the same monotone voice.

Minho rubbed his face with his free hand, feeling a couple days of his own stubble scratching the calluses on his palm.

"Newt," Minho responded helplessly. He couldn't say anything to make the boy feel better. Not really. He didn't want to lie to him. Maybe a different approach was needed here.

"Remember when we first woke up here, and I was like 14, and built like that sapling over there?" The blond gestured towards a nearby tree that had branched off a larger one nearby. Several feet tall already, but as thin as a pencil, with only a couple even thinner twigs hanging from it and a scant scattering of pale green leaves.

Of course Minho remembered. Minho remembered every interaction he'd ever had with Newt since the first time he saw the other boy, curled up, sobbing hysterically in his own hands. He had been tall even then, but the other boy was right, he had been as thin and fragile as the sapling. Back then, Minho had easily been able to curl his fingers around Newt's skinny bicep, his fingers overlapping where they met.

"And Alby was like that tree right there," Newt continued with his train of thought, nodding towards the tree that towered over the sapling, only a foot or two away from the twig. "So big and strong. He took me under his arm and protected me until I was able to stand up for myself, like that tree protects that sapling while it grows."

Protects? If anything, that tree stole the light from the sapling. It kept it small, muted, unable to truly flourish. Overshadowed the sapling in a way that prevented it from reaching its full potential. Maybe Newt was right, the analogy was perfect.

"If you remember right, I'm the one who helped you bulk up," Minho responded, trying to hide the bitterness in his own voice. Unlike many of the boys, but similar to Alby, Minho had already been athletic and fit upon waking. His arms had already bulged with his muscle, his six-pack already well defined. Right from the get go he had the body of a runner. He had taken it upon himself to start training Newt. His lithe body had been decent for the actual running, but he tired out easily carrying the packs and had trouble cutting the ivy as quickly as he should have. Minho had started heaping his plates with meat and eggs and milk, ignoring Newt's protests that he couldn't eat that much, and had stood over the boy for hours at a time while he lifted progressively heavier objects, encouraging him to just lift it just once more time, and then another, and another.

Within a few months, Minho had no longer been able to fit his fingers around Newt's bicep. He had thought his arms had been cute when they were scrawny, but the confidence in Newt's face had been enough of a reward.

"Yeah," Newt brushed off all Minho's support and hard work like that. It stung the keeper right in his heart. He took a swallow, tried to calm his rapidly increasing heartbeat, went for it.

"Listen," Minho finally stated, "Alby's a great guy and he's done a lot of good for us all. I'm not going to ditch him or anything, but I will say this. If he's not treating you right, he doesn't deserve you. I told him so a long, long time ago. I warned him that if he ever stopped loving you, ever stopped treating you like you deserved to be treated, that I was going to stop being Mr. Nice Guy and go for what I want."

This was something they had never discussed. Not in so many words. But all three of them knew about it and all three knew the others knew. The unsaid attraction. Minho had loved Newt just as long as Alby, if not longer, he just hadn't had the balls to go for it. Before Alby and Newt, that sort of relationship had been unexplored in the Glade. Every day Minho had regretted not taking the chance but once Alby had claimed what was his it wasn't in Minho's nature to get in the way.

"He still loves me," Newt insisted, seeing where this was going. He pushed himself away from Minho, moving far enough away that Minho was no longer holding him, but close enough their arms still touched. "I can't believe you'd take this opportunity to put a move on me."

"He never loved you. Not like I did. Like I do."

"You don't know anything about our relationship." Apparently not happy enough with the distance between them, Newt quickly pulled himself to his feet, taking a few steps from Minho.

"Don't know anything about it? I've been the outsider looking in on your relationship for nearly two years!" Minho followed Newt's example, pulling himself up as well off the grassy ground. "Do you have any idea how hard it has been for me? Watching that bumbling ox pawing at you? Knowing how much better I'd be for you? How I'd worship you if you'd let me? Meanwhile there you are, bowing at his feet, answering ever beck and call. Never questioning him. Never asking for more. Love you? Maybe he is fond of you, maybe he was even enamored with you once, with your cute little body and pretty eyes and exotic accent, but infatuation is not synonymous with love."

"Go away, Minho," Newt said shortly, his voice cold.

"No! You listen to me!" He grabbed the other boy by his upper arms, held him in place as he leaned in to speak to him. "I have loved you since the moment I set eyes on you. I have been there when you needed me. I have not said a word against your relationship with Alby. I only obey buggin' Alby just to please you. I want us to be together forever. Even if we never escape, even if we grow old inside these walls, I'd still consider my life a happy one if those years were spent with you. I want to live in a cottage together and collect stupid memorabilia and grow gray and senile with you. I want to wake up in the early morning light and feel you in my arms. I want to smell your horrible morning breath in my face and find your hair in my food and sleep in your wet spot with your ugly yellow toenails digging into me. I know you're not shucking perfect but I still love everything, absolutely everything, about you. If Alby ever did love you, which I seriously doubt, it's time for you to accept he's changed and give me the shucking chance you should have given me two years ago. I can guarantee that I would surpass Alby in every shucking way if you'd give me a shucking chance. I can love you, hold you, protect you, kiss you, take care of you, and shucking make love to you better than Alby ever could or ever would be able to in the future if you'd just stop being such a shucking little bitch and gave me a shucking chance!"

"Are you bloody finished," Newt asked cooly.

"No, one last thing." Minho yanked Newt forward and kissed him, forcefully and as passionately as he could with an unresponsive partner, thrusting his tongue halfway down the blond's throat in some indescribable need. He ravaged Newt's mouth for a solid minute before pulling back, panting, pleased at how swollen and plump Newt's lips looked after his administrations. "I guarantee if you say yes right now I'll do you so hard you won't be able to sit, let alone walk, for a week."

"Alright then," Newt spoke just as cooly as if he hadn't just had Minho's tongue in his mouth for the last minute. He reached up to grab the hands still on his shoulders and flung them down so they hung at Minho's sides. "Now listen to me, as bloody tempting as the promise of becoming physically infirm sounds, I am Alby's. He is mine. We are going through a rough patch right now but I love him and he loves me. He always has loved me, he still does, and he always will. He may not be as funny or as good looking as you and he may not shout it out to the word, but our feelings for each other are as true and deep as anybody has ever felt for anybody else in this world. I cannot believe in this time of need you'd turn your bloody back on him. I am going to go find him and tell him I love him and see if he needs my help with anything. If you ever try to touch me like that again, I'll rip your bloody balls off, have the shucking med-jacks sew them back on, and tell Alby so he can rip them off again, you hear me?"

"Good that," Minho responded simply with a swallow.

"Good." Newt turned and stalked off angrily in the direction of the Homestead.

Minho waited until he was well out of sight, standing still amongst the trees in the green glow of the leaves, and slowly a sad smile formed on his face.

That approach had worked. Newt was confident in his love for Alby once more, no longer crying and abandoned in the woods. But Minho was. He angrily wiped the forming tears from his eyes, upset with himself for getting emotional. He knew Newt wouldn't fall for some showy over the top declaration of love. He was too much of a natural doormat, accepting hints and subtlety, craving quiet approval. He still loved Newt, wanted him almost more than anything. The only thing Newt wanted was Alby. The only thing Minho wanted more than the blond was Newt's own happiness. He turned to head towards the map room.