You and Minho had drifted away from the bonfire once again, following the familiar path toward your usual spot near the edge of the Deadheads, where the warm flicker of firelight barely reached.

Crickets chirped from the shadows, and the gentle rustle of ivy against stone mixed with the occasional distant creak of the Maze walls shifting for the night.

Lying side by side on the cool, slightly damp grass, you both stared up at the sky. The stars weren’t always visible—too much cloud cover, too much smoke sometimes—but it didn’t matter. Starry or not, you stayed there. Talking or not, you lingered.

This had become your unspoken ritual. Just the two of you, away from the others, decompressing after the chaos of another long day. You didn’t need to fill the silence. The comfort came from the quiet itself.

Everyone in the Glade knew better than to intrude. Not because there was anything scandalous going on, but because Minho would throw an absolute fit if anyone ruined his one chance to relax after hours of running the Maze.

So there you were, his arm folded beneath your head like a pillow, your thighs pressed together, sharing body heat in the growing chill. The bonfire crackled distantly behind you, and beyond that, the endless stone walls loomed, patient and unknowable.

But here, right here, it felt like you had carved out a little pocket of peace in a horrifying world designed to keep you running and surviving off supplies sent up in a metal box every month.