darling, you'll come back to me
a/n: written for hogwarts - wandlore task eight (write a hurt/comfort)
a/n2: i have no actual clue what real!graves is like, but this is just how i picture him, so this happened.
a/n3: muggle!au
The doctors say Newt will probably not get much better.
A horrific accident, they say. Significant internal injuries, they say. He almost died, they say. He could still die at any time, they say.
Percival has heard them say it since a few hours after they arrived at the hospital. It's been in front of him. He has seen the charts and reports the doctors have shown him, with all the descriptions of all the things that no longer work as they should.
Percival hears it and sees it all around him, but he believes none of it.
Because Percival does not wish to one day be reunited with the Newt he knew, the one who regarded him with an abundance of love. He knows it will happen, and it's better to know than to wish and hope. Despite all the doctors say, Newt will get better, because he's one of the strongest – no, the strongest – of all the men Percival has ever known.
Even if it takes a year, even if it takes ten, Percival knows that the doctors are wrong. Because Newt has always said that nothing could ever tear him away from Percival, and certainly this is no exception.
-x-
The doctors say Newt will never again recognize his lover and it is foolish to make him try.
It's not just Percival, they say. He doesn't know Theseus or Tina or any other person any of them could think of to bring in, they say. There is nothing that can be done to fix this, they say.
There is never a response when Percival enters Newt's bleak and dreary hospital room. He may as well not even be alive for all the response Percival gets.
But the man remains unbothered. As Theseus schools his features into a forced calm and Tina tries to save her tears for later, Percival's stoic façade never wavers. It doesn't need to, because he knows there will be a change someday and he's willing to wait.
-x-
The doctors say that Newt is going to need more care than Percival can give him.
There is a decent care home nearby, they say. You can visit as often as you like, they say. Given the circumstances, it would be best, they say.
Percival sits in the waiting room beside a stack of brochures that remain untouched. The only thing stopping him from tossing them in the bin is the conviction that it does not matter if he does or not. Percival knows he will never need them, so he casts them aside like the worthless scraps of paper that they are.
Because the idea of leaving Newt in some home, some place where he will undoubtedly be ignored and left to waste away in his own filth for days on end, is admittedly something that makes Percival feel sick to his stomach. He could never condemn someone he loves so dearly to a place like that. To him, the idea that anyone would even suggest that isn't much better.
So when someone offers to inquire about a home in which to place Newt, Percival respectfully declines. Perhaps his recovery will take considerably longer than Percival originally thought, but even so, he plans to keep him at home for as long as he needs to.
-x-
The doctors say that while they wish the circumstances were as optimistic as Percival makes them out to be, it is senseless to continue on this way.
We know you wish for better, but we've seen little change in all the time he's spent here, they say. It's time to consider your other options, they say. It isn't fair to Newt to deny him the care he needs, they say.
Percival has heard it said that there is no known remedy for the sort of injuries that Newt has sustained. Only a miracle, the doctors have told him, could bring Newt back to him.
Even as he gazes into his lover's eyes that don't seem to truly see him, Percival still vows that a miracle will come. It may not be today, and it may not even be soon, but he knows that one day Newt will come back to him.
He knows they have both fought too hard to give up now.