Hot cocoa, it turns out, is a drink, an almost cloyingly sweet one that's served warm. Newt slurps it with gusto, smiling at her shyly over the rim of his mug and pretending not to notice the way Tina stares at him, her own drink quite forgotten in the face of her wonder, and not a small bit of confusion.
He shifts uncomfortably under her perusal, and she drops her eyes—for a few seconds, at least. Then they return to him like iron filings to a magnet, and the back of his neck heats up as he tries to match the intensity of her gaze until she shies away, he drops his eyes, and they start again. The whole thing would be charming if it weren't so confusing. He's used to mortals—especially female mortals—being afraid of him. Her frank curiosity is a novelty, and inspiring in its own way, so he weathers it and his doubts until the drink is gone and she's staring fixedly just to the left of his shoulder.
"Um," he says slowly and touches the rim of the cup. "Would you—that is, do you happen to have any more of this? It's very good. I've never known a drink to be so sweet."
"Oh, there's plenty more," Tina says and scrambles to her feet. She stumbles over the leg of her chair in her haste and he politely pretends not to notice when she trips before righting herself and walking nonchalantly to the stove. "Here," she says in a hoarse whisper and brings a metal pan over to pour him a generous dollop. He glances up in time to see the tears standing in her eyes, and wraps his fingers around her wrist without thinking.
She inhales sharply before going very still.
"Are you alright?" Newt asks in his gentlest voice, the one he'd last had occasion to use on the three-headed dog of Hades, just before singing it to sleep. Tina gasps and looks at him with wide eyes before wrenching her hand free.
"I'm fine," she says a bit too quickly. He doesn't believe her but there's no time to ponder her evasiveness because the front door of Tina's home opens and another woman—this one radiant in a way that is a sharp contrast to Tina's dark and brooding beauty—breezes into the room. She shrugs off her jacket and steps into a pair of fuzzy mules before floating unconcernedly into the kitchen.
"Oh!" she breathes, stopping short when she catches sight of him, and her blue gaze drifts curiously to the other woman. "Who's he?" she asks with no apparent concern. Tina pushes her dark hair back and sighs deeply before turning to face him.
"Mr. Scamander," she intones with heavy irony, "I'd like you to meet my sister, Queenie." She turns to the blond. "Queenie, that's Mr. Scamander. Um, he's...lost his way, I think, and I'm going to help him find it."
"Lost his way?" Queenie echoes, and her disconcerting blue eyes land on him. They glow eerily for a long moment before she winces and lifts a hand to rub her temple. "Oh," she moans lowly, "what are you, some kinda demon or somethin'?"
"Er—might be," he murmurs with a crooked smile, temporarily caught off-guard by the blunt question, and her eyes widen when she steps back. His smile dims until she visibly rallies, looking him over before sharing a questioning glance with her sister.
"Teenie, what have you been up to?" She asks her sister with an excited bounce, and Tina shrugs and crosses her arms over her chest in response. Queenie stares at her through narrowed eyes before grinning broadly and turning back to Newt. "I always have trouble with your kind—demons," she tells him gently. "It's the accent."
His gaze falls to the floor when Tina makes an odd sound, something between a laugh and a choked-off sob, and turning on Queenie. "You're not helping," she hisses urgently, and the blond flaps a languid hand while drifting over to the stove.
"Hogwash," she airily rejoins while rattling pots and pans. "I can't read him, but I can tell he's hungry. His kind always are. Aren'tcha, honey?"
Newt looks up at her through the unruly fringe of his hair at the same time his stomach growls loudly, and now both of the women are staring at him—one smiling brightly, the other frowning—and he isn't quite sure what to do with himself.
"Erm—" he attempts eloquently, only to wince when Queenie's silvery ripple of laughter fills the room. She magically replicates a pile of lamb chops while smiling at him forgivingly, and it takes him a long minute to realize that her laughter isn't at him, but with him.
He watches the sisters cook with no small amount of wonder and, for the first time, actively wonders how he came to be there.
Supper is an awkward but enlightening affair.
The last time he'd had occasion to dine among humans, a war had raged and he'd been working with a legion of soldiers, all of them male, and all who'd used their tunics as napkins and swilled cerevisiae like water. Now, he has to quickly learn how to use something called a fork—easy enough when watching Tina, which he does not-so-surreptitiously throughout the meal—and remember to use an actual napkin. A task admittedly made easier by his distinct lack of clothing.
Chewing without flashing too many of his teeth is a challenge but he thinks he pulls it off convincingly enough, and he eats the meat the sisters pile on his plate with a grateful nod. They hardly even seem to register it when he cracks the bones to suck out the goodness within as if having a marrow-noshing demon at the table were a regular occurrence and not a distinct anomaly. He finds himself relaxing his guard as the evening wears on.
Queenie and Tina talk over the meal, the blond lightly and with the occasional ripple of laughter, the darker-haired sister straight-faced and employing an economy of words, yet both do their best to hook him into their conversation. He's never been good at dealing with humans, especially human women—outside of bed, at any rate—yet he tries for the sake of Tina and the continued regard of her remarkable, dark eyes.
"So, Mr. Scamander, where are you from?" Queenie asks him idly over dessert, something sweet and dense called a strudel. He swallows carefully before answering.
"Greece, originally," he says in his soft voice, "though it was the Druids and Celts who first invoked me. They're the ones who figured out my given name, at any rate." He braves a smile but must do a bad job of it, because Queenie frowns and glances at her sister before turning back toward him.
"Then, how'd you end up here?" She queries gently, and her eyes glow blue for a long moment before she gives it up for a lost cause.
"You're trying to read my mind again, aren't you?" he asks curiously, and she bites her lip while nodding. He considers her bemusedly before turning his eyes to Tina, who pushes a lock of hair away from her lovely face and meets his gaze evenly. Feeling acutely awkward and far too exposed, he drops his eyes, lingering questions forgotten, and Queenie giggles.
"I'm not flirting," she says airily and sends the dishes to the sink with a wave of her hand. Newt looks at Tina in confusion, her eyes widening in alarm when Queenie shakes her head hard enough to send her curls flying. "I'm not," she insists a bit more firmly. "I have Jacob, remember? It's you who's flirting with him if anything," she admonishes, and Tina blushes crimson and drops her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles to the table, and Queenie shoots her a haughty look. "I'm just sayin', we don't know how he got here. I'm going to have to send him back, so we can't go gettin' attached." Queenie's face falls, and Tina turns to him. "It's nothin' personal.",
"You may find sending me back harder than you think," he informs her seriously, "because I'm not entirely sure how I came to be here. One moment, I was enjoying a nap; the next, I was in your home, and you were threatening me with magic." He looks at Tina pointedly before going on. "As an aside, you'll be glad to know that I'm not something that can be summoned and dispelled of on a whim, Tina. It takes a fair bit more to get rid of me, and I can mostly come and go as I please."
Tina's fair cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink with abashment, while Queenie seems to be trying to bite back a smirk but doing a bad job of it. Newt angles his chin a little haughtily before glancing out the window, where dark has come down with finality and the streets shine with a strange, flat light. "Besides," he continues in his gentlest, most conciliatory tone, making a conscious effort to visibly relax but intent on making Tina understand the source of his frustration, "you called me. Surely you had a reason for that."
Tina's eyes widen and Queenie giggles at whatever thought is in her mind, her hands clamped over her mouth in delight. "Oh, Tina," she squeals and performs a happy wiggle right there in her chair. She bounces out of her seat before turning the full force of her smile onto Newt and beckoning him to stand. He acquiesces with unthinking military precision—only for her eyes to drop automatically to his waist before widening into shocked blue marbles.
"Mr. Scamander," she squeaks in mock-outrage and puts her back to him while modestly covering her eyes. "You're going to have to put that away unless you want to scare the prudes and give the virgin nightmares!"
Newt turns to Tina to find that she's hiding her face in her hands. "Nice going, Queenie," she growls, and the blond bends double in a fit of laughter as Newt, feeling exposed and confused but evermore intrigued by the dark-haired women's no-nonsense approach to life, stoically withstands their scorn. Tina, shaking her head with a heavy sigh, meets his eyes. "You need to put some clothes on," she explains tiredly, and Newt ducks his head in embarrassment.
Queenie, sufficiently recovered and seemingly no worse for the wear, beams when she takes his hand and leads him to a small sofa. "C'mon, honey," she says with a grin. "We'll pick something nice out for ya, whaddaya say?"
"I don't see that I have much choice," he mumbles rather petulantly, perfectly comfortable with remaining naked, but Tina smiles shakily at him from the other side of the room and Newt, suddenly bolstered, allows the blond to shoves something called a magazine under his nose. Truth be told, he doesn't really notice any of what she shows him, most of his attention otherwise occupied by dark hair and dark eyes and lovely pale skin that's etched with magical tattoos.
Newt pieces together an acceptable suit at random when his patience wears thin, snapping his fingers to summon a cavern-brown jacket and trouser combination, something called a waistcoat in the distinct color of sulfur, and a shirt of near-pristine white that feels rather like it's trying to choke him. Queenie insists on something called a bow tie but he balks at actually tying it, already feeling far too constricted, and they compromise by hanging it inertly around his neck. He quickly loosens the top button of his shirt while Queenie pretends not to notice, and Tina stares at the exposed bit of skin, her gaze direct and unabashed until she recalls herself and, cheeks flaming red, her eyes fumble away.
Honestly charmed and amused, and a bit flattered, Newt shoves his hands into his pockets to glance at himself in the mirror, only to grimace when it shows his true form, not the humanoid shape he wears when walking among mortals. Neither of the girls seems to notice, wrapped up in their own murmured conversation, and he quickly moves away from his reflection while hastily putting on a nonchalant air.
A knock rings out from the door behind him, and Queenie makes a happy sound before trotting gaily across the room. She flings the door open to throw her arms around a short, portly gentleman who murmurs a greeting before returning her enthusiastic embrace and stumbling over the threshold. He hangs his jacket before turning to Tina, who crosses her arms over her chest when he nods politely. Frowning in a way that doesn't quite fit his broad, friendly face, he turns to Newt and sizes him up curiously before showing a tentative smile.
"Hey, how ya doin'?" the stout man greets him and clasps Newt's just-passing-for-human hand in a companionable shake before thumping him on the back. The man is warm and friendly in a way that puts the not-quite-demon instantly at ease, and he murmurs a greeting while making uncharacteristic eye contact. Queenie appears at their side and the man turns to her with a lover's smile.
In a sudden flash of insight, Newt thinks he understands the dynamic at the heart of the three of them far better than a moment before and turns to eye Tina from across the room. She stares back with stubborn determination before remembering the remains of his circle, the one that had summoned him, and waving it away. It goes in a flash of light with a parting whiff of sulfur before Queenie turns to make introductions.
Jacob, as it turns out the other man is called, effortlessly pulls him into their trio, and even Tina relaxes her prickliness after just a short while, unbending in the face of his sheer friendliness. He produces baked goods the likes of which Newt's never experienced, even counting Queenie's lovely strudel, but which awaken a long-dormant part of him to clamor for more. He helps himself to another tasty treat—something called a paczki—and munches it thoughtfully as across the room, Queenie turns up the volume on a tinny, music-producing device called a wireless and pulls Jacob into a dance.
Tina watches them with absent fondness before she and Newt resume their cautious observations of earlier. She looks up at him, he matches her gaze until she drops her eyes, and this goes on until Jacob and Queenie are breathless with laughter and the candles have burned low.
Alcohol comes out after that, something his hosts call Buchanan's. They offer him a glass and he accepts it curiously, finding it strangely cool going down, and very refreshing. Queenie pours everyone a second round and he knocks his back neatly, followed by another until a softness suffuses his limbs and the damnably perceptive woman with golden curls smirks at him.
"What don'tcha ask her?" She encourages while placing a gentle hand on his arm. Newt squints at her in confusion before Queenie turns her head to deliberately look at Tina. With a wink that clearly conveys, I know what I'm doing, so just trust me on this, she drifts back to her beau and leaves him to his own devices.
Which is precisely where he doesn't want to be, because he's slightly drunk and slightly lonely, and Tina is lovely beneath her boxy work blazer, dressed in hip-accentuating black slacks and a thin white blouse, and while it's true he wants to dance with her, it's also true that he's utterly convinced his eager hands will leave scorch marks on her undeniably feminine shirt. Or, worse, burn it right off her.
Lost in reflection, Newt wanders closer until he's standing directly in front of her, her dark eyes regarding him nervously as he thinks his long thoughts. He comes back to himself with an almost audible thump, trying on a smile he suspects comes across as a grimace and consciously hiding his pointed teeth. She crosses her arms over her chest while hoisting a sardonic brow, and he ducks his head to search the floor for his words.
"Um," he begins and rolls his eyes at his own ineptitude. "That is, would you, er—would you like to dance?" He says the last in a rush and takes a deep breath to repeat himself, more slowly this time, when she snorts rudely and shakes her head.
"Thank you, but no," she says sharply. "I know my sister put you up to it. You don't have to ask me on her account."
"She didn't," he corrects quickly, forgetting his awkwardness long enough to meet her eyes. "I wanted to ask you. She just...encouraged me." He takes a deep breath while shrugging one shoulder. "So. Would you? Dance with me, I mean."
Tina stares at him until he squirms uncomfortably in place. "Please," he breathes while doing his level best to hold her gaze, and she relaxes her jaw with a put-upon huff to sigh loudly.
"Alright," she growls, and he carefully bites back his smile. "One dance, one, and this had better not be a pity thing or I swear, I will make you regret it."
I don't think I could regret anything you did to me is on the tip of his tongue, but he's not so drunk as to think this a wise comment, and so refrains from voicing it. He can no longer hide his smile, however, and it widens when her small, cool hand finds his, and her arm wraps shyly around his shoulders while his drift to her waist. Her eyes lift from the floor to capture his, wide and dark and breathtaking, and he falls willingly into them.
They share one dance, and then another, and another, losing count until Jacob and Queenie leave without either of them really noticing. They dance past the point of the candles sputtering out, and when true darkness descends on the apartment, Newt allows a bit of the fire in his soul to warm and light the place. Tina hums her thanks and he thoughtlessly pulls her closer, pressing his face into her neck to inhale the clean, human scent of her.
The kiss they share at the end of the night isn't planned, but then neither was his being here. Yet one taste of Tina—whose mouth is sweeter even than the hot cocoa she'd given him earlier—is enough to convince him that here is precisely where he wants to be.