Prompt: Y/N gets promoted to being a Runner with a strict, harsh trainer: Newt. (This is set back when Newt was also a Runner).
"Greenie!" A voice calls, and you recognise it as Newt's. You hear his footsteps come closer and closer. Of course he still calls me Greenie.
You roll your eyes, "You do know that there have been at least three other Greenies since me."
"I am aware of that." You hear the cockiness in his voice, see it in his eyes.
"Then why keep calling me Greenie?"
"Because I can. You'll always be a Greenie to me." He says this sweetly, but with a bit of a smirk tugging at his lips.
"Great." You mutter, and keep yourself from rolling your eyes again. And then you suddenly remember that he probably called over at you for a reason. "So what do you want?"
He sighs, "I want many things, Y/N. And only one you can fulfil." You're already tired of his words, his joking.
"Seriously Newt, I'm busy." You gesture to the piles of wood and tools around you, "So do you mind getting straight to your buggin' point?" It's not that you don't like Newt, usually you're thrilled to have his company, but it's just been another drag of a week with Gally bossing you around and commenting on your every move. Being a Builder with Gally as the Keeper is worse than cleaning up klunk. It's tiring.
"Well if you're going to talk to me like a shank then maybe I won't tell you the big news." He huffs, crossing his arms over one another like a child.
You circle around one of your wood piles and choose a worthy plank, "Fine with me."
A few seconds of silence passes by before Newt's voice sounds out to you again. "Alright, alright, I'm sorry for being a slinthead," he holds his hands up like he's turning himself in. "Minho wants to talk to you about... Becoming your new Keeper."
You chuck him a confused glance but your eyes soon widen with shock and you gasp, your hand covering your mouth. "No way!?"
Newt smiles cheerfully, his brown eyes squinting excitedly, "Yes way."
"And that's all you need to know about being a Runner, are you in?" Minho's voice bounces off the walls, a slight grin tugging at his lips. You nod your head up and down enthusiastically and he claps your welcome along with all the other Runners that had gathered to hear the same news. Soon after your welcome, everyone gives you a slap on your back, and then Minho leads you over to a cupboard and opens it up: revealing boxes of shoes. "Now, I'm pretty sure all of these shoes are for men... So just take whatever fits best."
You choose a black pair with a slight yellow tinge to the edges, they're a bit dirty and only slightly worn in, and definitely not the best looking pair, but as Minho said, you take the pair that fits best. Then after you put your shoes on and tie the laces up, Minho hands you a plastic wristwatch. You look up at him, you're eyebrows slightly lifted. "How else did you think we always got back into the Glade in time for those walls to close?" You clasp the watch around your wrist and only now just notice that it is digital. Quicker to read, I suppose. Once you stand up again, Minho leads you over to the other side of the room, "Here we have you a backpack." He hands you the bag, "Inside that you'll be keeping these." He continues to hand you other things like a lunchbox and water bottles. "Then," he hands you a few new t-shirts and shorts, "These are your running clothes."
"No need for you to take a pair of our Runnie-undies." Ben says, laughing hysterically. You see Newt crack a grin but Minho only rolls his eyes. Whatever the joke was seemed to be lame to him.
"Alright boys, keep yourselves calm about the undies." Minho shakes his head as he chuckles, "Now we get to the serious stuff." You follow Minho into a smaller room, after he removes a pile of boxes you see a secret door leading deep into the ground. A basement.
"What's in there?" Your voice quivers slightly and Minho smiles amusedly at your nerves. But he doesn't reply, instead he opens the trapdoor and gestures for you to follow him.
You hesitate at first but you think about it for a second, it's only Minho, besides, by that wicked grin it means he's just playing around. Hopefully. Inside is very dusty but a lot cooler than upstairs. The floor isn't wooden like the Homestead but rather dirt, and only one light in the room to illuminate it. Shelves press against the walls of the room and a number of tables are scattered through, suddenly you feel very confused and only slightly afraid. "This is where we keep the weapons."
"Weapons huh..." You say slowly, staring all around the room at the knives, swords and bows and arrows. Your arms grow goose-bumps and you hug them to keep from shivering. "What do you need all of these for?"
Minho looks around the room too, his hands resting on his hips, "Don't really use them to be honest, but we Runners need the knives when we're out in the Maze."
You frown and itch the side of your cheek nervously, "Surely a few knives wouldn't be able to kill... the Grievers?"
Minho sighs, "They can't, unfortunately. But we do need them to leave ourselves a trail of vines otherwise we won't be able to find our way back." He shoves a thumb over in the direction of one of the walls.
So you grab yourself a few different knives, and within a couple of minutes you're back out in the sunshine of the Glade. Newt's blond head bobs up and down as he jogs over to the both of you and smiles, "All set?"
Minho chuckles, "Hold your horses shank, still gotta' show Greenie here the Map Room."
You frown, your eyebrows creased and your tone of voice irritated, "I'm not the Greenie anymore."
Minho ignores you while Newt laughs at your annoyed state, you could easily give him a big whack on the back of his head but Minho is around and as a new Runner you don't exactly want to cause a ruckus and embarrass yourself just yet. So you obediently follow Minho over to a concrete, boring building that seems to be locked very securely. He opens the strong, metal door and leads you inside the Map Room. Once you both are leaning over a table in the middle of the room, Minho doesn't hesitate to jump into the explanation of the Maze. As he talks you wonder how this boy can store so much detailed information in his brain, if it were you, you would be pretty stressed out.
Soon after he's finished pushing sequences of opening doors, closing doors, shifting walls and techniques that should be used, as well as some kind of ledge called the Cliff, he finishes up and you're outside again. "Now," Minho starts, "Before you go into the Maze, you're going to be doing a little bit of training."
"Training?"
"Need your leg muscles to be strong to endure a whole day out in that Maze otherwise you'll collapse and be stuck in there a whole buggin' night. Wouldn't want that now would ya'." Newt says, his face serious and his voice almost stern.
You turn to look at Minho expectantly but he looks over at Newt, "Newt here will be training you since I have some... other things to attend to."
Newt makes a face at Minho but beckons you to come over anyway, "C'mon Greenie, gonna train ya til you drop." A wicked grin spreads across his lips and you suddenly hope that he doesn't end up killing your muscles.
"Run Greenie! Run!" You run from one part of the Glade, to the other. Your legs burning from the amount of exercise Newt has pushed upon you already. Your lungs struggling for oxygen, and your heart thumping so hard that you can hear it crawl up your throat into your ears.
"Faster!"
You push your legs faster, gaining even more speed. Your chest heaving up and down but you start to slow down as you reach the opposite wall of where you came from. You slap the sun-heated concrete and spin around, speeding up again to reach the point you began at. "C'mon Greenie, my Grandma could run faster than you!" You grunt frustratingly at Newt's behaviour today, just because he gets to train you shouldn't mean he's free to insult you.
Suddenly he comes up alongside you, sweat beading at his forehead with his blond hair curling messily over the top of his head. He lazily wipes the sweat away from his forehead with the back of his hand and catches your stare. "I know it's hard for you to tear those eyes away from this attractive face but you should probably concentrate on where you're running." You want to rip that damn smirk right off his face, why is he being such a shank today?
You're about to reply, something quite witty too, but your feet get caught up on a pile of logs causing you to stumble and then fall onto your hands and knees. You groan and turn yourself over, inspecting your now bruised and slightly bloodied legs. "See? What did I tell ya?" His voice is full of amusement before he laughs, his crisp brown eyes playful.
"How about you just slim it already Newt." You practically growl as you stand up from the dirt and wood, brushing wood chips and grass off your legs and shorts. "It's no fun when you're insulted and then laughed at for getting hurt."
Newt's eyebrows immediately turn into a frown, the side of his eyes crinkled with confusion, "This," he says, gesturing to the whole of the Glade, "Isn't supposed to be fun."
You shake your head, "You've completely missed the point of what I was trying to say, do I have to spell it out for you?"
Newt crosses his muscly arms over his chest and leans back on his left leg, "Okay then, go ahead." His voice is full of annoyance and you can see it plain in his eyes and the way he twists his mouth too.
"You're not very encouraging when you scream at me, and when you insult me." You brush away the fallen hairs from your ponytail away from your face, "I want to learn to become the best Runner I can be and as a trainer you should be more of a teacher rather than a complete slinthead."
Newt shakes his head, "I was teaching you! You need to be faster than fast to survive out there!" His finger points to one of the openings in the Maze walls, "If you don't come back you're stuck in there for a whole night with the Grievers. No one survives a night out in the Maze, you know that."
You throw Newt a menacing glare, "I know what the risks are Newt, I know what they are and I still want to become a Runner! I have to do this, Newt! I can't stay around the Glade all day building crummy old tables when there's a chance I could be out there really helping us!"
Newt's chest rises angrily, "Knowing isn't enough, a lot of us Runners know and a lot of us have come very damn close to becoming Griever meat anyway!"
You roll your eyes and wipe the sweat from your upper lip, your hands resting on both sides of your hips. "That doesn't mean you have to push me so hard."
Newt walks around in a circle for only a moment before he musters up enough courage to reply, after frustratingly kicking over a few planks of wood, "I'm pushing you because I don't want to lose you, you slinthead!" His breathing is heavy and his chest moves rapidly, his firm brown eyes never leaving you.
For once in your life, around this blond headed boy, you're lost for words. No witty comeback, not even a thank you, nothing. You just stare at him, a bit of the inside of your lip between your teeth. Thankfully though, you don't have to say anything anyway because Newt comes over to you and rubs the side of your arm in comfort like he usually does when you're stressed, but only now does it really calm you. "I know it doesn't excuse me being a complete shank to you, and I'm sorry for insulting you and laughing at you. Sometimes I don't know how to act around you because you always make me so buggin' nervous..." His eyes flicker around your face nervously, to his feet for only a moment and then back up to your eyes. "And maybe... Maybe I shouldn't push you as hard as I did but... When Minho told me about his choice, I'm not going to lie, I felt physically sick," he pauses to chuckle light heartedly, "and with one side of me I knew you could do it but the other just kept on worrying and worrying, I didn't know what to do. And of course I didn't want to just straight out tell ya' that you couldn't become a Runner for no good reason because you definitely earned it, but I couldn't just let you... go." He takes your loose bits of hair into his fingers, stares at them for a moment, and then tucks them behind your ear, "So I somehow managed to convince Minho to let me train you..." He sighs, "Obviously it didn't turn out the way I wanted."
You can't help but smile slightly, although your cheeks redden from his words. "I didn't know you cared about me that much, being the usual shank you are."
He too smiles, crookedly, and tilts his head to one side, "I guess I just have some kind of soft spot for you."
"You know..." You look to your feet, twisting in the dirt. "I would have probably done the same to you." Your voice is sort of shaky and not as confident as you usually hear but the words manage to tumble out without a stutter. "You are a shank but I care about you too."
You're completely engulfed in nerves when his hand finds its way around to the back of your head, and as he pulls you in closer before playfully but lovingly places a small kiss in the middle of your forehead. "Thanks Greenie." He pulls your arm over his shoulders and takes your hand into his, "Now lets go get your legs cleaned up."