a little Valentine’s Day present for @respectthepie: some AU in which Minho, Teresa and Newt are roommates, they are happy, have no care in the world, and somehow, there’s a dog involved, too, because, honestly, sometimes we need to escape that dreadful canon :D
Minho and Newt are 100% drift-compatible. Their brains are largely wired the same way, they share most of their opinions, and even though it is not made apparent since they are bickering a lot of the time, when the going gets tough, they work together without even needing words to communicate. It’s a skill they perfected in the Maze, but it had been present even before.
They are both huge freakin’ Star Wars fans. They have learned to reanact the lightsaber duel between Luke and Vader from Episode V, quotes and everything. For some reason, they usually break that out when they’re cooking, and duel each other with wooden kitchen spoons, much to the delight of whoever is there with them. Teresa giggles every single time Newt declares “Now, release your anger and your hatred, and destroy me!”.
They don’t show their affection for each other very openly in public, don’t kiss or hold hands all the time, Newt doesn’t like shoving their relationship into everybody’s throats, and so there are only glances that linger for a moment too long, hands that brush against each other, Minho’s hand on Newt’s lower back, Newt stopping Minho in his tracks by simply putting the back of his hand against Minho’s chest. It’s very discreet and non-verbal way, and since nobody bothered to declare that they’d taken the step from friend to more than that, it took a while for their friends to catch on.
They disagree on the most trivial of things, but woe betide anyone who tells them that to their faces, because they will instantly forget whatever they were fighting about and gang up on the poor soul who dared defying them. It is almost impossible to win a sass-off with the two of them. They work so well off each other, they are both quick-witted and smarter than is good for them.
They are both the kind of guys who loudly sing along to the radio or the playlist that’s running. Whenever either of them has no idea what the lyrics are, he makes some up. There have been instances of them dancing on the table to old Abba classics. Brenda caught them doing that, but to this day, nobody wants to believe her.
Send me a character of a ship and I’ll type down five headcanons for them?
Pleeeeeease write the window washer au for Minewt!!!
Anon, you got me. Of all the AUs on that list, I actually thought of writing that one before going ‘meh’ and only reblogging it.
And still, here it is. It kind of got to over 1k, what is plot, and I don’t even know what the hell I wrote here. So...enjoy?
Minho was fuming.
It was probably not healthy to think up twenty different ways to punch Gally in the face, but anything keeping him from actually realizing his streetfighter fantasies couldn’t be that bad, he reckoned. If he had to sit through another ‘brain-storming session’, as Thomas quite stupidly called them, in which Gally just seemed to exist to pitch the exact opposite of what Minho wanted to do, he’d probably end up throwing an office chair out the window. With or without Gally in it. He hadn’t decided yet.
The only silver lining was the fact that he at least could go down to the company fitness room and simmer down on a treadmill. And man, did he need that right now.
The business man smoothly slipped out of the jacket of his suit, throwing it almost carelessly onto his chair. One of the perks of having an albeit small office all to himself was that he could get changed here and not in the common locker room. He liked his colleagues, he really did…most of them anyways. But he didn’t like them enough to get down into that eighth layer of hell, not in a hundred years.
Minho, still lost in thoughts, was unbuttoning his shirt, when he suddenly heard knocking.
It didn’t come from the door.
Frowning in confusion, Minho turned to the window, bright and as high and long as the room, and was surprised to see dark brown eyes looking back at him.
The face belonging to those eyes was…really fucking pretty. High cheekbones, thin lips curled up into a mocking smile and those sparkling chestnut eyes, all of it framed by messy blond hair.
Then, Minho realized he was standing there half undone, his shirt open and everything, and because his patience had been strained enough already today, he acted before he thought over it.
With three steps, he had walked across the room and torn open the section of the window the man was behind.
He slammed his hands onto the windowsill and leaned forward, towards him. “What the hell are you doing here?? Enjoy playing peeping Tom?!”
In the three seconds it took the other man to blink confused, smirk cynically and answer “What does it bloody look like, you genius?”, Minho noticed a few things, like the harness and straps attached to the blond man, the squeegee in his hand and the fact that they were actually in the twenty-fifth floor of the building. All of that combined did not leave a lot of possibilities as to what this guy was doing, literally hanging outside his office window.
“…you’re cleaning the window.” Minho said tonelessly.
The other one actually laughed at his face. “Fancy fucking that. What did ya think I was doing? Didn’t you get the memo? I’d rather do my job and not be pissed on a bloody jerk who doesn’t even throw a glance outside or – mind you – close the damn curtains before starting to strip in front of a fucking gigantic window. And then that idiot has the audacity to yell at me for something that was of no fault of mine! Seriously, mind your own bloody business!”
Minho…just stared for a few seconds.
Shit.
He really should learn to watch his mouth.
The businessman let out a puff of air he didn’t known he’d previously held in. “I’m…sincerely sorry. My day has not been particularly amazing and I let it out on you.”
The other guy huffed. “Yeah, my day has not been exactly sunshine and daisies either. Ain’t yelling at strangers for that though.”
Minho pinched the bridge of his nose. “Dude, I’m honestly sorry.”
His opponent smiled, and for some completely off reason, it made Minho’s day just a bit better.
“We all have these days.” the window cleaner said a lot calmer.
Minho looked at him for a second, and then stretched out a hand. “Minho Park.”The smile snuck back on the blond’s face as he shook it. “The name’s Isaac Ayscough. People call me Newt.”
Minho’s eyebrow jerked up. “They do?”
Newt raised an arm to put the squeegee into a bucket hanging from his side, and Minho couldn’t help but notice that, despite the other man being rather tall and lean, his arms were muscled and his hands calloused, used to work.
“Don’t ask.” he said, shaking his head over the nickname.
“I won’t.” Minho promised with a grin. “I’ll just accept that there are companies in New York who hire gigantic mutated amphibians to clean windows.”
Newt grinned and obviously wanted to retort with something teasing when a sudden gust of wind moved his Boatswain’s chair, catching both of them off guard.
He tipped forward, legs against the window, hands clinging onto the windowsill. Minho, at the same time, had surged forward, momentarily forgetting that Newt was secured with ropes and belts.
It left them in quite an awkward position. Their faces were barely centimetres away, and Minho could make out little specks of green in Newt’s brown eyes. He was very suddenly reminded that he had spent this whole conversation with an open shirt like a really watered down pimp. There was the feeling of Newt’s knuckles pressing against his lower abdomen and his breath brushing over his face.
For a few seconds, they stayed like that, neither of them moving a centimetre, and stared surprised into each other’s eyes. Then, Newt’s glance flicked down for just a moment, almost discreetly.
“…how do you want to un-awkward this again?” Minho then asked with a sly grin.
“I’d first button up that shirt. It would be five times less awkward already.” Newt answered, mirroring his smile.
He pushed himself away from the windowsill, and his fingers brushed for the blink of an eye over Minho’s skin.
The businessman felt his cheeks heat up, but he still had his quick tongue. “Making you uncomfortable?”
Newt laughed. “Making me rather insecure than uncomfortable, to be frank.”
Minho blushed even harder at the compliment.
Before he could try to respond to this ridiculously quick-witted, ridiculously handsome guy, a voice interrupted him.
“Newt, are you alright?? You’ve been glued to that one window for five minutes now!”
The window washer looked up to wherever the voice might’ve come from, and rolled his eyes. “’m fine, Alby, don’t worry!”
“Then get your ass to work!” the other window washer – Alby? – yelled back, but Minho could hear the smile in the man’s voice.
“I will!” Newt called and flashed Minho an apologetic grin. “I gotta actually clean this window now…so if you could kindly close it for me not to get cut off by my partner and plummet down to my untimely death, I’d really appreciate it.”
Minho snickered. “I’ll even close the curtains this time.”
“You are the single most attentive guy I’ve ever met.” Newt said mockingly.
The businessman winked, and Newt’s smile deepened.
“Ayscough! Work! Now! You can still flirt after quitting time!” Alby interfered yet again.
Newt’s face flushed.
“Yeah. When do you get off work anyways?” Minho asked, recognizing an opportunity when it offered itself.
Newt looked at him for a long moment before smiling. “Six.”
“Half past six, then, at ‘Frypan’s’? You know, the café just down the street?” Minho said almost too quickly.
Newt grinned. “Sure. Till then, I guess. I really gotta hurry, or Alby’s gonna bottle me up.”
“Okay.” Minho answered and simply shut the window, leaving the cleaner to laugh at him outside.
Newt grimaced at him as he drew the curtains, and Minho couldn’t help but smile fondly as he turned away.
Gally did not understand why Minho, wearing full running gear, shook his hand in the elevator, and thank him for driving him mad in that session an hour ago.
punkbrenderesa replied to your post: well, I just came back from seeing TST...
HEY NOW WANNA CALM THE FUCK DIWN
We can alternatively talk about how the sole purpose of that scene in the car, with Newt smiling and Minho looking grumpily and Jorge smirking all knowingly, was to show that a certain someone called shotgun before Minho did, and that Minho (the guy who jumps up beds to get the top bunk before anyone else does) actually does that that guy says. Or about how both Newt and Minho are now canonically top-bunk-people. That means no, I won’t be calming down anytime soon.
well, I just came back from seeing TST for the second time in cinema and I realized why Minho keeps quiet at the end, when the others talk about how the Gladers that were most important to them should’ve seen this place, should’ve gotten to safety
it’s simply because the person he wanted to get out before anyone else is sitting right behind him on that rock, talking about how much he wanted Alby to see this - Newt’s still there, and Newt is safe
wait one movie and Minho too will have a name to utter whenever regret comes up
