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They're not supposed to be drinking, but screw it. If Gally makes the moonshine, he can have the moonshine. And, he was only going to have a glass on his own, but Minho caught him. Now, they're sat on the grassy floor at the foot of the tree house, neither one of them able to recount how much of the communal alcohol they've gone through.
Gally's tongue is heavy in his mouth, body quietly buzzing with unused energy as he sits upright. Minho on the other hand is sprawled out far less carefully, and his fingers comb through the grass he is sat beside, not many thoughts passing through his head.
"Next bonfire is in four days," Minho slurs, staring off at the empty field in front of them, "you better restock."
"No 'ts not. I've got two weeks to prepare. Fourteen days." Gally huffs, almost knocking the small, brass lantern on his right over as he lifts his hand to count on his fingers.
Nothing moves. The Glade is filled with quiet snores and the rustling of hammocks as boys get themselves comfortable.
This has occurred a total of one other time before, and if Gally wasn't such a "stickler for the rules," as some say, it would've happened many more. It was in the early days of the Glade. The first, empty week after Gally figured out the best recipe for moonshine. With so much on his mind, he grabbed the lot he had been brewing and drunk until he was on the doorstep of passing out.
It was Minho who had found him. Dark-eyed, serious, frightening Minho — who didn't yell or cause a fuss at Gally's sorry, self-inflicted state like others would have, but instead sat next to him with a heavy sigh, the world upon his squared shoulders. He carefully pried the half empty glass out of Gally's hands, tossing it into the pile of drained ones on the other side of him.
"Fry was wonderin' where all his jars went." Minho said. And that was all Minho said.
This time around, the circumstances are very different. Gally was in a jovial mood after the successful repair of shower block — something that had been stressing him out for weeks — and had decided to quietly celebrate by himself with half a glass of liquor. Of course, Minho stumbled upon him, and is now sat on the earth next to him, breathing heavily.
Minho lolls his head back, giving Gally a clear view of the golden skin of his throat and the adam's apple that sits there. Slowly, the Runner's intoxicated face morphs into glee, "What're your thoughts on the Greenie, huh?"
"Greenie…" Gally parrots. It takes him a good few minutes to sober up just enough to process that he has been asked a question, then several more moments to figure out who Minho has referenced. "Chuck." Gally finally breathes, an image of the boy surfacing inside of his blurry mind, "He's nice."
Sniffing, Minho goes to push himself up, but his arms are too weak, so he gives up. His head thumps against the wood of the tree house base, and his face mellows in synchronisation, like the gesture has actually knocked a thought into him, "He's so…"
"Small."
"Yeah. That."
The quiet all around them feels almost unnatural now. Gally glares upwards at the dark sky which hangs over their heads, stars dappled in the ink like the freckles he sees upon his own face every time he catches his reflection, whether that be in water, or the polished metal of the knife strapped to his leg. "The Creators—" Gally begins, but stops himself. He's not an emotional drunk, but he feels sad thinking about their lives nonetheless. He looks back at Minho, everything inside of his mind clearly written upon his face for all to see.
"Sending a kid up here. Like, a proper kid." Minho hums, finishing Gally's trail of thought with admirable accuracy. Gally nods along, then decides he needs to be even less sober for this conversation. Finding that none of the glasses near to him have a drop of golden liquid left within them, he reaches out and snatches the cup in Minho's hand, taking a big sip from it before Minho can complain. That is a good call, because Minho is on him right away, wrangling the glass free from his hands. Thankfully, Gally has already swallowed. Minho gawks at him, "What the hell, man?"
"You're hoggin' the drinks." Gally sneers, this time leaning over Minho to try and reach for another corked glass beside the Runner.
"I'm not!" Grunting, Minho presses himself back against the tree house so Gally can reach by and not practically shove him over as he does so.
Gally has popped the cork off of the next jar before he's even sat up again, and he leans in close to Minho as he takes a swig. Minho can taste the scent of alcohol as it drifts in the space between them, and can hear it as Gally asks, "Are you on break tomorrow?"
Adjusting the collar on his shirt, Minho suddenly feels a slither of confusion, "No. Why?"
The look in Gally's eyes doesn't help. They're glazed over from drunkenness, yes, but there is something beneath his gaze Minho can't quite peer at. Unlike his endless maps, and the ivy on the Maze Walls, Gally is hard to read, and Minho feels a twinge of irritation from that. "Ah." Gally sits back properly, no longer radiating warmth to Minho, and he looks ahead as he takes another gulp of moonshine, "You plannin' on running the Maze hungover?"
"Can't get hungover if you don't stop drinking." Minho chuckles, finishing his own jar before tilting his head to watch Gally, "I thought you were gonna ask me something else."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Something stupid, like if I wanted to go down to the lake with you."
"That's not stupid."
"Yes it is."
They glare at one another for a beat, then relax amusedly. "When are you not arguing with someone, eh, Min?" Gally prompts, tracing his fingers lightly across the jar in his hands. The glass is smooth and cool — heavy as well, despite the lack of drink inside of it.
Minho sniffs, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Well, from what I've gathered, you're pretty antisocial—"
"Hey—"
"And I've heard you arguing with Ben before. With Newt, Alby, Adam, Hank… the lot. Is there a reason behind that? Or do you just get off on it."
Jutting one of his legs out, Minho lifts his ankle, then promptly digs his heel down onto Gally's exposed shin, "You're such a dick."
Gally yelps out in pain as he feels the hard leather of Minho's boot smack down right onto his bone, and his whole leg jerks in reflex, "Ah, you fuck—" he curses, hands flying to Minho's collar and gripping on tightly.
It is just his luck, however, that before he can shake Minho violently, a voice which sounds eerily familiar to Winston's calls over, "Will you two shut it already?"
"People are tryna sleep." A second voice from the same direction — Minho's been in the Med Hut often enough to recognise it as Jeff — snaps. Minho's face drops, yet no such thing as embarrassment or awkwardness crosses it, just annoyance.
"C'mon." Minho mutters, prying Gally's hands off of him and gradually raising himself to his feet. Gally copies and clenches his fingers over the copper handle of the lantern at his side feebly, brain already preparing for the inevitability of sleep. A shoulder bumps into his, lightly pressing him towards the direction of the forest, "You don't hear me telling either of them to quiet down when I'm waiting for Jeff to see me, and they're goin' at it."
Gally chuckles at that.
And so, instead of heading to their hammocks, they take a detour. A meandering walk down and through the woods. Dead leaves crunch beneath their feet louder the further beneath the canopy they venture, and the air feels crisp with ice.
Minho clears his throat, using the orange glow from Gally's lantern as a guideline for where to safely tread next, "Chuck's a funny little guy."
"You think so." Gally deadpans, not even pretending to question Minho.
Minho laughs lightly, "He's doing a good job at keeping us all entertained, no?"
"Frypan made him a slingshot."
"So?"
"The bugger was shooting pebbles at me and Newt for ten minutes."
"And you didn't stop him?"
"Alby told us to leave him be! I wasn't allowed to!"
Throwing his head back, Minho laughs at the image of that, scrunching his face up. Gally scoffs, turning away, but a smile creeps onto his lips. As they venture further into the crawling darkness, Gally can tell where Minho is taking them. There is a clearing — a pretty unknown one — right by the West Maze Wall. Gally has been there before, and considering its proximity to the Map Room, so has Minho.
"It's weird seein' you without your harness on." Gally speaks, breaking the silence with whatever he can think of, "Really weird. It feels wrong to look at."
"Gee, thanks." Minho mutters, unconsciously lowering his hands and adjusting his shirt, ensuring that it is still tucked in. Gally watches Minho's hands, seeing the tendons beneath the skin twitch and flex. Those same hands that delicately built the model in the Map Room, the same hands which carefully sketch out piles and piles of maps every day, and the same hands which have punched him a couple of times. 'Water under the bridge,' is how they refer to it now.
Almost ethereally, the clearing appears before them. Moonlight glints through the trees, dappled across the ground, then flooding the grassy floor where the canopy gives way to open sky. Minho tilts his head up like he had when sat by the tree house, and again, he can see stars above. Thousands of specks of brightly shining silver. They remind Minho of the Lake in a way, when the early morning sunshine lights up the rippling water and brings it back to life from the stillness of night.
Without a word spoken, Gally follows Minho to the wall, and turns to have his back against it before sitting down. The stone is freezing, making his back arch when his exposed neck accidentally comes into contact with the coldness. Minho is wiser than him, slowly reclining backwards in order to adjust his body to the temperature. Soon enough, the pair of them are comfortably reclined, eyes fluttering open and closed as sleep desperately chases them.
Gally has his arms out by his sides, his right hand still holding the lantern, just very loosely. His left sits in between him and minho, flat against the soft moss below. He curls his hand inwards a fraction just to feel the damp earth beneath his nails and palm, keeping him awake for longer. He does want sleep, yes, but moments like this are rare, so he wants to appreciate this. Minho looks like he is battling his own exhaustion too, as he keeps sighing, hands on his bent knees, fingers drumming against the coarse fabric of his trousers.
Despite the faintness of the taps, Gally closes his eyes and listens. The pattern is stable. A simple one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, beat. Gally finds himself involuntarily counting over and over again. "It's so quiet." Minho eventually says, "I'm sure you're not used to quiet."
"Mhm." Gally agrees. Minho is speaking the truth. From when he wakes up to when he goes to bed, Gally is surrounded by people. Even just now, almost completely alone, he still reached out in order to locate sound. It's instinct. "And you are?"
"Well, yeah." Minho sniffs face obscured by shadow, hidden from Gally's sights. Minho tilts himself towards Gally, thinking, "The Maze is quiet, on a good day. Then.. the Map Room, that's quiet too."
"It's soundproof."
"I know it is."
"You asked me to make it soundproofed."
"I did."
Something less than a smile crosses Gally's face, yet it's sincere above all. Minho nods and looks away, sliding his palms slowly down his thighs as he flattens out his legs on the ground.
A breeze rustles a few leaves around them, and a sudden shriek from a Griever echoes from the South. Gally doesn't flinch anymore, yet the noise makes him uneasy, with unpleasant memories churning in his gut. What makes it worse is the thought of Minho being in the same Maze as them for hours each day. If Minho didn't return to the Glade because of one of them, what would Gally do? He knows the changing, but he doesn't know death. Feeling the warmth of Minho's body gradually drifting towards him, he decides that he would also want to know death first between the two of them.
And truthfully, that will likely be the case. After all, Minho has this odd drive about him. A sick version of twisted perseverance that has him up and running every day. The Glade may have not stripped Gally of his fight and his fury just yet, but he can't catch up with Minho. In his eyes, no one can.
A second, ghastly noise steals away their peace, the groan bellowing from the East this time, and Minho rolls his eyes behind closed lids. There is fear within him, racking each nerve and thought. He doesn't dare let that slip, though. Not to anyone, not even to himself. Even more so now that there is a child present within these prison walls. Minho knows Grievers frighten him, even from his damaging lack of knowledge about them. It's a gut feeling that pushes this, like a memory locked away that he doesn't have the key to.
This thought, however, leads Minho somewhere else. A place much lighter than crying monsters and forgotten times long gone. Fear itself isn't bad. It comes in many shapes and forms, all conquerable with time. So, because time isn't something Minho has yet, he does the bravest thing he has ever attempted before. His hand develops a small tremor which pulses from his fingertips, to his wrist, to his shoulder, and he shifts his hand as close to Gally's on the grass as he dares. When the second wave of adrenaline overcomes him, he lifts his pinky finger, an rests it on top of Gally's. Nothing more.
"You're touching my hand."
"I am."