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There was a moment of full clarity.
“Please, Tommy, please”, he pleaded and the moment not so much slipped away but intensified. There was no blackness, no pain, no Thomas, no death. At least not yet. He opened his eyes, because somewhere along the way he’d closed them and it took him a while—if time really was a thing here—to realize he was looking at himself. Not himself now, cranked out and probably dead on top of Thomas, no, but himself over two years ago. Splayed out on the ground. He was blacked out. He found himself thinking that he was pretty and nothing made any type of sense. He looked around, saw the original Gladers scattered alongside him and realized that this was the first day. The day. The first they remembered. He looked back down at himself, his own piercing blue eyes staring back at him and he was taken aback for how much it made him feel. Newt remembered the exact moment, and his stomach turned when he realized, at least partly, what was going on. The first thing Newt had ever remembered seeing, was Minho’s face.
The whole situation was absurd. He watched himself live through life in The Glade, having to pass through every single one of Minho’s emotions and not being able to act out on anything. He wasn’t there as an outsider, he was there as Minho and all he wanted to do all the time was comforting himself, hug himself and kiss himself. Which was pretty much what he’d wanted to do with Minho during the years, but never had the guts to ask for. Never. And there's been so much else to do. In the beginning there had been surviving for one. Making something sustainable for another. Then there been running and mapping and… and fear. The same fear he felt now, the one of rejection and embarrassment and public humiliation. Like the two of them somehow could ever have done that to each other.
Like Newt could ever have hurt Minho. Like Minho could ever had hurt Newt.
The second memory? Flashback? Scene? That was prominent and not just images and flashing feelings was one when they sat around the fire one night. Maybe a month in. Maybe more, maybe a little less. Minho, future Newt, was cracking jokes and made everyone laugh. His gaze fell back to past-Newt over and over, watching if he could get the other boy to lighten up too. Felt like a million stars was shining on him every time the long haired boy rolled his eyes or it twitched in his lips. He remembered trying not to laugh that night, didn't want to give Minho the encouragement. The jokes were extremely bad.
Their first hug took Minho/Newt’s breath away. They'd out run a pair of grieves, made it back in time for the Maze to close and thrown themselves first at the ground and then into each others arms, relief flooding every vein, happiness in every breath. They'd hugged for too long. Too hard. Not enough at all.
At first, Newt had tried to understand what was happening to him, why he was made to re-live the relationship between himself and Minho from the other boy’s perspective, but as the memories spread out, as the feelings deepened, he just couldn’t make himself care. There was a lot of things he’d never understood or gotten the change to understand and if this was what it was to die, he wouldn’t bloody well spend his last moment trying to understand them. Because he knew this was the end. There was no way this was his own mind playing tricks on him, the flare didn’t look like this, didn’t feel like this. This was oblivion. This was… a last gift.
He saw his own body fall.
He was crying. Sitting beside a bed in a dark room, crying for hours, days, weeks. Newt was shocked because he'd never seem Minho cry and wondered whether this was some sort of false interpretation. Until he recognized the room. If he hadn't already been crying he would have now. Minho had been sitting by his bed every night, he understood. At night when Newt was sleeping, when everyone was sleeping. He felt a faint tinge of recognition when he watched himself wake up in the bed. Minho caressed his face, told him that he was dreaming and should just go back to sleep. He had. Now he wished he hadn't.
Happiness was a feeling Minho always seemed to be surprised at. It caught him in moments he didn’t feel anything but hurt and it overpowered him. It was strange to feel it through someone else, but Newt knew that if he’d gotten to choose, he wouldn’t have picked anyone else’s mind, body or soul. Minho was his first choice, always. From the beginning, till the end, there was no way he’d change that. He experienced falling in love with himself and even though he could’ve never explained it to someone else, it was the most precious thing he’d ever gotten. To know. To be able to see that he had meant as much to Minho, as Minho had to him. To feel safe and secure.
For the very last memory, there was only hopelessness. Tunnel vision that showed himself in a bowling ally and himself screaming. There wasn't any tears. There wasn't much of anything. Emptiness filled the earth, filled Minho, filled Newt. He couldn't understand how badly it had felt to the part of himself that was still sane in that moment and to now have to bear the pain from his friend also. Friend though? Newt thought. The word wasn't enough even if they'd never called themselves anything but. Even if there hasn't been enough time for anything else. Never enough boldness. Never enough peace. Newt wanted to scream at the universe for being so fucking unfair and unsympathetic. He wanted to thank it for the honor of having Minho’s mind for the time he’d gotten it. He wanted to cry in it’s lap of relief for showing him that Minho had loved him.
And then he wanted it all to end again.
So the cosmos granted him his last wish and sent him off into forgetfulness and harmonied nothingness. It let his soul glide away and his mind wander in every direction all at once.
As Newt slipped away into the endless abyss, the only thing his torn mind was able to think was that he was happy it hadn’t been Minho that had seen him one last time before he died.