"In this lifetime
will I ever
come across someone
who will naturally
see through
this flesh and bone
straight into my soul,
Will I?"

Thomas talked to Newt more than he'd like to admit. Innocent text messages only once every 900 seconds or so, not a problem. The problem was when the topic shifted from books to the real world. Like Newt's favorite color, or Thomas's favorite meal. Then Thomas realized that he was obviously a giant loser for not having a favorite star constellation- because obviously everyone does.

Apparently Newt's was called Draco, because apparently he was a huge simp for Draco Malfoy- that's what Newt said and Thomas would never admit that he actually had to Google it. Simp, not Draco Malfoy. He was embarrassingly up to date on his Harry Potter fan base knowledge. He once took the sorting hat quiz for Stevie, he was a Hufflepuff, no big deal.
Thomas was meant to find his own favorite constellation, his own favorite group of stars? He didn't see the point in that. He'd never really desired the back stories of the stars, never bothered to learn them. It's fascinating how meeting new people can broaden your horizons.

There was another support group meeting tonight, and Thomas planned on going and of course had to tell Newt this as well. He remembered it as a distinct reminder of Thomas gracing him with his presence, a classic for sure.

N: I have a telescope if you're feelin like star gazin

T: that's kind of cheesy right?

N: maybe but aren't we supposed to share passions with each other?

Thomas pressed his phone to his chest at that and let his hands fall dramatically to his sides. How would you respond to that?

T: well I happen to be very passionate about ice cream

N: I happen to have a good ice cream shop by my house

T: then I guess I'm in

N: it's a date ;)

Thomas tossed his phone to the side this time, he really wouldn't respond. Now, now he was going to have to find something decent to wear that was not overdressed for the support group, but not underdressed for going to Newt's. As much as he sounded like those over dramatic teen girls in the movies- that's exactly how he felt.

"Mom, can I take the car tonight?" He called from his usual spot on the couch. He would die there if he could help it, he was too attached to the spot on the couch and was fairly positive his ass print was permanently imprinted there.

"Why?" It sounded like she was in the kitchen again, making god knows what.

"Uhh, I'm going to a-uh- friends house tonight after the meeting." Her head popped around the corner then and Thomas had to refrain from his eye roll.

"What kind of friend?" She had that horrible floral apron on and was wiping her hands on it, though she had a remnant of flour on her face from whatever she was making.

"Y'know, a friend from the group. Invited me over." Just for potential ice cream and star gazing, totally romantic but no big deal.

"So, like a date?" She asked, her hands shoved deep in her apron pockets.

"No, it's a guy." Thomas mumbled, tapping his fingers on his thighs.

"And that should make me think otherwise, why?" She asked, leaning her shoulder against one wall with a smirk on her face. Thomas sighed.

"Because...." He trailed off, because really he had no good explanation. "Because I said?" He tried lamely and his mom chuckled quietly, turning back toward the kitchen.

"Okay, Thomas. Be back by 11, okay?" She turned back in the kitchen before Thomas could answer and he sighed taking a peak at his watch. He had a few hours before he had to leave so he decided to get in the shower in a sad attempt to tame his mop of hair on his head.

He relished in the feeling of the scalding hot water pounding on his chest and leaned his head forward so he could feel the heat of the water on his head and soak through his hair. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander. He thought about those last words over text, was this an actual date? Was Newt really hitting on him or was this all a joke? Something platonic that Thomas still felt himself overthinking? He decided that he would under-think things, underestimate them until it's actually true. It's harder to be disappointed when you're expecting disappointment. Deep breath Thomas, use the good shampoo and conditioner and slightly up-play things  in case he was right.
Dress casually- but a higher level casual. Not quite date, but not quite- depression meeting for the sick and dying. A happy medium. Somehow he would achieve that happy medium—and somehow he did.

When the time was right he found himself dressed in a long sleeved blue v-neck and black skinny jeans. Because somehow this was some sort of happy medium between date and casual. The drive to the meeting was unusually quiet, he was so used to the quiet chatter of his mom on the way and the fact that he was actually driving just added to the weirdness. He didn't remember the last time he actually drove himself somewhere, and there was that slight moment of panic when he thought maybe he'd forgotten. When he pulled into the parking lot, he sat in the car for a long while, debating if he should even go in. Yeah, he should just turn around and go home. No harm, no fowl.

Just as his fingertips brushed the cool metal keys, he heard the unmistakeable sound of tires screeching against the pavement. His eyes darted upward and he spotted an old Ford F-150 pulling into the lot. Pulling in was putting it mildly, however. The truck screeched and jerked and Thomas was pretty sure at one point only two tires were touching the ground. Everything pieced together when that tall lanky figured strode from the driver's seat and slammed the door shut.

He was the definition of beautiful. His skin was pale and speckled with light freckles, as if God himself delicately placed each and every one just as he'd placed each star in the sky. His eyes were the moon, beautiful and breathtaking and they- were looking at him and oh God he was staring right at him. So, his secret plans of escape were inevitably thrown out the window and- he was still staring. Good job, Thomas. Just get out of the car, you really can't make anything worse right now.

The same girl from the last meeting was at Newt's side now and he was waving Thomas over. He mentally cursed himself for not cutting his hair or putting gel in it or literally doing anything to it so he didn't look like a psycho.

"Hey, Thomas." Newt greeted, lips spread wide in a toothy smile.

"Hey." he replied awkwardly, his hands in fists in his pockets.

"This is my friend Teresa. Teresa, that's Thomas." he motioned to each of them when he introduced them and Thomas just nodded in acknowledgement.

"Hey, Thomas, nice to meet the face behind Newt's daydreams." Newt shot her a look and she pretended not to see it.
"He's cute," she winked and elbowed Newt in the gut.

"T, you better quit." he warned.

"Sorry. I'm still trying to fight the urge vomit from that shit you call driving. Sometimes secrets just tumble out." she flipped her hair over her shoulder and started walking toward the church, not looking back.

"You always drive like that?" Thomas asked, his eyes going to that pale yellow, American made truck behind Newt. The paint looked fresh for such an old truck, like it had been recently touched up, and from what he could tell the interior looked to be in great condition as well.

"Sometimes I kick it into high gear just to piss her off." he shrugged and let his eyes wander over to where his friend disappeared.

"Well, no offense but I'm not getting into any car you're driving any time soon." Newt chuckled half heartedly, his fingers rubbing absently on his thigh.
"You want to skip this?" Newt said to him, as if he could read his very thoughts.

"You serious?" Thomas asked.

"Why not?" there seemed to have been some sort of mood change since the last time Thomas saw Newt. "I'm not in the mood for that depressing shit anyway." Thomas blinked in surprise but shrugged nonetheless.

"What about Teresa?"

"I'll leave her the keys to my truck and we can take your car since you won't be letting me  drive you around anytime soon." Thomas rolled his eyes and the pair strolled back to Thomas's car together.

"When did you become so crotchety?" The car beeped when Thomas unlocked it and they both climbed inside.

"Crotchety?" he raised an eyebrow at Thomas as the car roared to life.

"It's a word. Y'know to describe cranky old people."

"Oh, so now I'm cranky and old." Thomas huffed and began to pull out of the parking lot.

"And sensitive, apparently." Newt didn't respond, and Thomas feared he touched a nerve so he made a more to change the subject.
"So how'd you come into that truck? It's nice." Newt was staring some where far off and took a few moments before he answered.

"My dad got it for me when I turned 16, we fixed it up together, gave her a new paint job and here she is." a smile tugged at his lips at the memory.

"Is he still around?" Thomas asked. They were still sitting at the exit of the parking lot of the church, Thomas was waiting for some directions to this magical ice cream shop Newt had told him about.

"No, he died about a year ago. I think... I think everything got too much for him. He was a low level mechanic, didn't make much and with all of the medical bills and this-"  he cleared his throat and shook his head slightly. "My family has a history of depression is all. Uh- take a left then a right at the stop sign up here."

"Oh, uh, I'm sorry." Thomas mentally cursed himself and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He wondered if the anniversary of his death was nearby and that was why he seemed to be off. He couldn't imagine how Newt must be feeling, or how that must have effected him.

"It's alright. You didn't know." he cleared his throat again and pointed out the ice cream shop after a few minutes.

"Okay, I'm not trying to intimidate you or anything, but if you don't like the ice cream here then I'll have to shun you." he smiles that original award winning smile that Thomas had grown accustomed to and heaved himself out of the car. Thomas followed suit and entered the ice cream shop, Newt holding the door open for him. The bell on the door rang gently, and his senses were overwhelmed with the smell of sweets and oddly, he thought he could smell freshly baked bread. He walked up to the glass with all of the ice cream on display and could feel his mouth fill with saliva as his eyes raked over the different flavors.

"Right?" Newt said, approaching him from behind.

"What do you usually get?" Thomas asked, secretly eyeing the snickerdoodle cookie dough flavor himself.

"This coffee flavor is to die for, or Reeses cups." Thomas felt like a little kid in a candy shop, he could practically see himself glowing. Newt was standing close enough for their shoulders to brush as they browsed the flavors, and at some point Thomas felt their fingers brush. That nervous pit in his stomach started to squirm again and he stepped away, pretending to have seen a flavor that caught his attention. Everything about Newt made his nerves stand on end, and though he admired his obvious beauty, he didn't know if this nervousness was a good feeling or a bad one.

"Hey guys! What can I get you?" A young woman came from some where in the back. She looked to be about college age, her hair pulled back in a messy bun and University of Tennessee sweatshirt on.

"I think I'm going to do a cup of the snickerdoodle cookie dough." Thomas told her, pointing toward the flavor.

"That coffee flavored one in a cone for me." she scooped their ice cream quietly and Thomas dug in his back pocket for his wallet.
"No, let me." Newt interjected, though Thomas was already handing her the cash.

"No. I suggested the icecream, and I always win." Thomas winked this time but he already felt the heat on the back of his neck and his cheeks flush. Why the hell did he do that? They took their ice cream and sat at a table near the door. They had a good view of the cute little town they were in, the sun had mostly set leaving a soft glow over the street.

"So, what's your story?" Newt asked once they were comfortable. Thomas licked his lips, catching some ice cream that apparently had missed his mouth.

"What? My cancer story?" Thomas almost laughed, and he might have too if he had thought Newt was joking.

"Yes. You know mine, it's only fair." Thomas sighed, taking another bite to buy himself some more time.

"I don't know yours technically, but I suppose... I was first presenting symptoms when I was 13, headaches, nausea, vomiting, all that fun stuff. Then at 14 I got my diagnosis, Glioblastoma." He pushed some of his hair back to reveal the scar on the side of his head and then let his hair flop back down. "I get to go back for visits with my brain doctor every now and then to make sure I don't get any more."

"Ah, the brief summary." Newt smiled and straightened out his bad leg, rubbing at his thigh again.

"That's all I got out of you, remember? The 'I'm Newt, I have Osteosarcoma, the bad thing is they chopped of my leg. I'm also a Taurus I enjoy long walks on the beach and stargazing'" Newt stared at him for a long time and stabbed his spoon into his ice cream.

"Those were my exact words." He said, almost in awe. "You remember my exact words?" Thomas held back a smile and took another bite of his ice cream.

"I do." He smirked. "I have a blessed brain and a cursed brain. I remember everything I see and hear." He chewed on the end of his spoon nervously and looked down at his half eaten bowl.

"That sounds terrible." Thomas laughed, actually laughed. Every time he's told someone about this, they told him how lucky he was to be able to remember everything he did.

"Yes a blessing and a curse." He smiled and finished off his bowl.

"Also, what kind of person gets a bowl of ice cream and not a cone?" He asked, taking a bite out of said cone.

"Cones are gross, so..." he replied, swirling his spoon in the bowl.

"Just when I was starting to like you, Tommy." He finished off his cone and tapped his finger on the table as if realizing what he'd done.

"You don't like me, but you give me a nickname. That's very contradictive." Newt just smirked, tucking his legs underneath him and heaving himself to his feet.

"Yeah, yeah. Now, I believe you owe me a little star gazing." Newt offered Thomas a hand and he took it and got to his feet. Then they got back in Thomas's car and headed to Newt's house.

"Mom's out right now, we can just go through the back." Thomas followed Newt to the side of the house to a wooden gate and pushed it open. He lived in a small house, it could almost be described as a cottage. From the outside it looked like a one story house made of brick with greenery growing up the sides. It was very cute and even from the outside it seemed very homey.
The backyard was beautiful in itself, thick, deep green grass grew around the concrete slab of the back porch and beyond that was a small manmade pond sat along the back of the fence. Then on the concrete slab by the sliding back door sat a large telescope. Thomas let himself wander around the backyard while Newt presumably set up his telescope for them. The backyard was dreamy. There were fairy lights strung on the overhang on the patio that gave the yard a nice glow.

"This is nice." He mused, though Newt barely seemed to be listening, he was gazing into the telescope.

"Come here." Thomas approached slowly and Newt took a couple steps back so that he could peer down in the lenses.

"The moon is huge." Thomas gasped, he was peering into the most high definition picture of the moon he'd ever seen. He could see each crater and if he was an illogical man, he would even say he could see the footsteps from previous astronauts.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Newt asked softly, his head was tilted upward into the sky but Thomas found himself gazing at Newt, perhaps in the same way he gazed at the sky. Upon second look, the grass had been flattened as if someone or something was always laid on it. When Newt looked back at Thomas, he quickly averted his eyes from the blond.

Newt clumsily fell to the ground, straightened out his leg and laid back in the grass. He patted the spot next to him as a gesture for Thomas to lay down beside him. He followed suit, their heads only inches apart as they looked into the sky.

"How often do you come out here?" Thomas asked softly, his eyes gazing among the millions of stars that dotted the night sky.

"A lot." He replied quietly, the soft sounds of his fingers pulling out blades of grass filled the air. "Sometimes-" he sighed "sometimes when I watch the stars, I wonder if they're telling me that it'll be okay."

That took Thomas's breath, like someone had punched him in the gut. He didn't realize how broken he was, how much the sickness had drained the hope from this boy.

"It will be okay, Newt." He whispered, though it was an empty promise. He had no real way of knowing if it would all be okay but what else would there be for him to say? Thomas thought that Newt was going to argue with him then, but he was silent. His heart was beating in his throat, and he was sure that Newt could hear it even over the sounds of that grass being ripped from the earth. Slowly and carefully he reached his hand over and grasped Newt's, stopping him from destroying any more of the grass.

"Thank you, Tommy."

**

Thomas finally made it home around 11 that night. His parents had long went to bed and he decided to get a shower before he laid down. Though, he couldn't keep the smile off of his face. The night with Newt sparked something in his heart and he felt something new, something foreign, something good. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so genuinely happy. A book could never do that to him and he thought maybe, maybe this is what it was like being in a romance novel, maybe this was the start of his own story.

He laid down in bed that night and he dreamt of every romance story he could think of. He relived everything moment when the main character realized a change, something new and he felt his heart swell.

Then, abruptly the dream changed. He was back in the hospital bed when he was 14 and in pain. Then he was awake and the pain he felt was very real.

"Mom!"

A/N:
Y'all I pushed through a massive headache for this you're welcome

funny how the similarities here relate to actual maze runner bc Newt knows he wants Thomas and Thomas is stupid :D
Also all the quotes are from