Newt x Reader || A13

12 | trust

"No." Is all he says.

I cross my arms, frowning at him.

"What do you mean "no"?" I press. The sad, lonely way he's holding my eyes is beginning to scare me.

"What are the directions?" He asks.

"Two lefts and a right, but I don't-"

"You have to go." He says, his tone insistent.

"Julian, I don't understand." I say, my voice breaking a little. "Just help me to underst-"

"You." He says firmly, "you have to go."

The way he heartbreakingly says my name after is enough to confirm my suspicions. He wants me to leave him, but for what?

Even so, his pleading eyes have tears building in mine.

"Not without you." I say. I'm not ready to leave him. Perhaps it's selfish of me, but I know I can't lose him today.

He gives me another pleasing look and then pulls his arm up from his side. Dread settles in my stomach as I realize what he's doing. He pulls his sleeve up to his elbow and there, in his forearm, is a small wound, no bigger than a dime.

Surrounding it, his veins are turning to black, and his whole forearm is a shade of purple.

"It stung you." I say, my voice breaking.

"I'm already dead." He says. I search his voice for any hint of uncertainty, any sign he may not believe this is his only option, but there I find nothing.

I watch as his eyes flicker down to my leg, then back to my face.

There's the lie.

He knows I've noticed; he know's that I recognize his argument is not in full as I've been stung as well. I've been stung as well, yet he wants for me to return alone.

The look in his eyes brings me back to forbidden memories. Years ago in a lab. A boy and a girl who grew to know each other better than anyone else.

"All this time, and you still take me for a fool." I say, speaking to our past. Though he doesn't acknowledge it, I'm sure he recognizes this.

"I never have. Not once." He holds my gaze and draws in a shaking breath.

"Take this." He pulls his bag off his shoulders and unhooks a long, silver dagger from the strap, handing it to me. It's thin and elegant, with engravings in the hilt. JP.

Parting gifts are too much of a goodbye for me to bear.

"I am not leaving you here." I tell him, clutching his dagger to my chest.

"And this." He ignores me but hesitates before unzipping the pack and lifting a fold, revealing an inner hidden compartment.

"Please," from the compartment, Julian procures a leather bound book and hands it to me. I take it and begin to unwind the leather. "Not now- not with me here." He stops me, and I put the book into my own bag. I turn back to face him, traitorous tears threatening to spill over.

"Please come with me." I say. Julian ignores me.

"Listen to me," he starts, "you need to get them out. They don't know it, but they've been waiting for you."

"The Gladers?" He nods, then leans in closer, bracing his hands on my shoulders.

"Trust the next," he whispers, his voice a shuddering caress, "and trust yourself."

I don't breathe as he pulls back slightly, face hovering inches from mine.

"If you know how to get out, why don't you just come back?" I whisper.

"Well, you have to trust me as well."

"I do." I say, looking at him. He gives me a weak smile and reaches up to touch my face just as he did last night. "Julian I-"

"I did know you- before the maze." He interrupts, saying my name with a parting resignation that breaks my heart. "You'll remember the rest."

"You don't have to stay- you can come back with me." I try one last time.

"That would be too easy for them." He says quietly, then gives me one last smile. A real one. "Get them out. Promise me."

"I promise." I say.

"Good." He says, taking a step back, releasing me and pretending to ignore the way my hand reaches out for him impulsively.

"I never did win any arguments against you in the end." I say as my fingers wrap around nothing. He gives a small chuckle.

"Wrong. You won every one. All of them."

"Not this one." A tear rolls down my cheek and falls to the stone beneath me, seeping into the roots of the insatiable maze, the maze about to take even more from me.

"You said you trust me?" Julian asks. I nod.

"Always." He takes another step back, and by the time I realize what he's doing, it's too late.

"Then see you on the other side."

Julian takes one final step and lets himself fall off the edge of the wall. The last thing I see are the grey eyes of a boy who saved me so long ago, and then there's nothing.

Nothing at all.