#misterjanson

     The glow of the fire flickers across Thomas’s face, warm and comforting and familiar, as he watches the others mill about. A lot of them have finished stuffing their faces by now, but even so, they linger; everyone’s gathered and having a good time, Gally’s apparently fiddled with his trade secret special recipe and brought out a batch for everyone to try (bleh), and there’s no reason to go to bed just yet. No harm in having a little fun after a long day.

     Thomas, for his part, is sat a little further away from everyone else, fiddling with the now-empty kebab stick he’s had in his hand for the last, what, twenty minutes? Just watching. He doesn’t feel particularly sociable, even waved Minho away after a while, but he does like watching everyone else make fools of themselves. It’s a nice reminder that the Maze isn’t all there is.

     He lets out a small puff of air. He doesn’t want to think about the Maze right now.

     That’s too bad, though, because there’s the sound of footsteps approaching on the grass, and then a torso is blocking his view of the fire and everyone around it, and he looks up to see---someone he doesn’t know.

     “Are you Thomas?”

@misterjanson | x | accepting

@misterjanson | x | accepting

     Janson...has a general sense of what he looks like, he thinks. He remembers one sunny day, back when everyone was still calling him Greenie (god, he’d hated that, never mind how funny it is to do it to other newbies), he’d come across a pond that turned out to be a frequent water source for the Gladers, and spent a while looking at his reflection out of curiosity. He’d realized, back then, he didn’t know what he looked like, or how tall he was, or even his own age, or....or anything, really. Nothing concrete, nothing that would help him tell up from down in this hell. But he’d sat by that pond for as long as he could stand it (not long), and since then he’s caught other glimpses of his own face too, small ones like in spoons or fiddling with cups of water. He’s pretty sure he knows what he looks like.

     A bit like this guy, actually, without the extra two decades or so tacked on.

     More than a bit.

     Okay then.

     (What now?)

@misterjanson | x | accepting

@misterjanson | x | accepting

     “Pretty sure I know that better than you.”

     Does he know that? No. He’s only got so much memory to work with here --- certainly far less than...who. This man who looks like him, but is not. He’s not talking to himself. They are not the same. The Assistant Director, then. Janson (the real Janson, the Janson of his universe, the only Janson HE cares about) isn’t sure how to feel about this, but he DOES know he doesn’t particularly like him at the moment.

     Anyway. Memory. Right.

@misterjanson | museum of natural memes

     Thomas shoots him an irritated look. What he’d MEANT was that the sunset is pretty --- for a few quiet minutes, it’ll give the grass a nice golden glow, and paint the sky in shades of red and orange and purple, and the sun looks bright red and huge against the backdrop of the hills, it’s kind of no wonder people used to write so much poetry about it --- but it’s not like Janson’s ever been poetic.

     Then again, Thomas has never been particularly poetic either.

@misterjanson​ | museum of natural memes | accepting

     He wasn’t going to, actually. He’s not particularly hungry; mostly he’s just tired and achy and counting down the minutes ‘til an acceptable hour to sleep. He’s not even really aware of what it is he’s eating. Stew with some kind of meat, thrown together with some other things, probably vegetables, he’s not paying attention. But the question annoys him. He’s not sure why, maybe it’s just the bad mood making Janson grate at his nerves more than usual, but the look Newt shoots him is utterly deadpan, and he makes a show of gathering up a sizeable spoonful and stuffing it in his mouth.