resolved for my life to wear a funeral suit

[gimp]

This is Newt. Can't come to the phone right now, so leave a message and I'll get back to it proper quick.

Comments

pre-support group yata yata

[arms]

[ Minho has, finally, figured out where the shuck Newt lives. It had taken a little while, because the city is big, and they don't really broadcast where people live, but he knows Newt well enough. He's his brother, and it might as well be by blood with how much they've shed for each other.

And he's not about to just let him turn a cold shoulder his way, not after how they parted. Not after how much they'd been through together.

It takes him some polite asking, some charming, to figure out which apartment is his, though. The mailboxes don't have names - or, well, Newt's doesn't, probably for this reason - and after that it's a matter of jogging up the stairs, trying to figure out what the hell he wants to say.

He figures just knocking on the door will work well enough, but kicking it down is still in the cards for the next five minutes. ]

clutches chest

[gimp]

[ newt's been hiding.

he knows it's bad. he knows it's the wrong way to deal with things. but trying to handle everything that happened--newt was supposed to be dead. he's supposed to be gone, shucked off to a different kind of paradise, sitting with alby and watching the gladers build a world that could, really, belong to them this time. newt shouldn't have had to deal with the repercussions of his admittedly tragic death. now, not only was he alive (the one thing he hoped wouldn't happen--the one wish he had, he sacrificed for the chance to cure the flare once and for all) but thomas knew his secret, but minho had more words for him after what was supposed to be their goodbye. he'd wanted them to know him as himself instead of as the thing he was when he died, but now here he is, himself again, and too much of a shuck coward to do anything.

alby would yell at him, he thinks, without a touch of humor. what kind of a shuck sissy are you, huh? go out there and deal with it, like you always do.

but it's easier this way. it's easier to walk away from it for now, because newt can't just--he can't pretend things are alright. thomas knows, which means minho will know, thomas killed him and newt wanted--that's what he asked for, that's all he wanted, but minho wouldn't understand and thomas just wanted to apologize, and he hurt him so badly but he doesn't regret it, not for a shuck second, and there's just. there's no fixing this. the mighty gladers, together again? what a load of klunk.

the knock ont he door comes when newt's reading. it's a hobby he's picked up now that he's able to do it, often with his head in a book and with a cup of tea at his side, and he wrinkles his brow a little as he hears it. he hadn't told anyone where he lived, save his coworkers, the people who hired him because they asked him to, but he was too skittish to broadcast the information too far. but, he gets up anyway, and it's when he checks through the peephole that his hand freezes on the knob, because standing there is minho.

how he thinks, first, brown eyes wide, hand still half turning the knob, heart sinking into his chest. it's time to face the music. put up or slim it, says his inner alby, a voice he wished would quiet down a long time ago, and when the knob turns, newt opens the door just a crack, enough to be seen. he doesn't look a wreck--he's clean, showered, still dressed in clothes that don't fit him but that's not to be helped, hair pulled back in a low ponytail. ]

Minho. [ he says, and it sounds strange on his tongue. his heart aches. his body aches. ]