Credence washes off.
What else can he do? Chase down Newt with shaving soap all over his face? His cheeks are smooth, and the air flows over them strangely, making them feel almost cold. He hadn't realized he'd gotten used to the thin beard growing in, and now that it's gone it feels different.
Flipping on the faucet a little too hard, he splashes water over his face frantically, getting his shirtfront a little wet in the process. It gets wet when he dries his hands on his shirt as he hurries over to Newt's case.
Credence wipes his face dry with his sleeves as he stands over Newt's closed case, looking down at it.
It's so unassuming. Smooth, shiny, fastenings that rattle. So ordinary. You'd never guess what was inside—Credence has nothing but a vague idea—and you'd certainly never guess how special it was, how precious.
Inside this one case and inside one falling apart leather-bound notebook is a whole man's heart, beating, pulsing, alive.
Credence is almost afraid to touch it.
But Credence is part of Newt's heart too, whether he deserves to be or not, whether he understands why or never will, and—
And—
He's just standing here.
"Open the case," he orders himself, hoping it'll help him think straight if he makes himself articulate his thoughts. "Just open the case and go in. Newt does it all the time. You know there's a ladder there."
He feels stupid talking to himself, so he stops and lays the case flat. It's heavy in his hands, heavier than any case this size should be, but a lot lighter than you'd expect for a case full of more creatures than can physically fit in it.
Very ordinary.
He unlatches the shiny gold clasps and takes a deep breath.
The Niffler isn't dangerous. The Nundu is too big to jump through, this much he knows. As is the Erumpent—but no, the Erumpent got out into Central Park one way or another. Does the width of the opening of the case expand too? What could Credence run into trying to get over to where Newt is?
Credence runs his thumb over the smooth line where the top of the case meets the bottom of it, and pictures himself opening Pandora's box of creatures, something huge with teeth taking his head off—there are few things Newt can't be trusted to do, but one of them is correctly assessing whether something is dangerous. There are definitely dangerous things in there.
In the end, it doesn't matter.
Newt's down there.
Newt's down there, and he's upset, and it's entirely and understandably Credence's fault, and his whole world feels cold and wrong, knowing that Newt's upset with him. Like he's underwater—slow-moving, clumsy, unable to speak.
Credence pulls the case open.
Newt has these very curious-looking steps. Or, it's a ladder, really. This long, solid center that has flat wooden platforms sticking out on either side, all the way down, big enough only for about half of your foot. It's so wonky, strange, and no small amount of impractical, but it gets Credence down safely, so he supposes it works. It's so very Newt.
He finds himself in a small space, positively covered in stuff. There are shelves on the walls that are overflowing with papers and ink bottles, vials and buckets of different substances Credence doesn't even want to know about, bins on the floor pull of curious little beans and bloody, red meat, workbenches and tables coming out from the walls so that the space within the room itself is as narrow as a walkway.
It looks like a creative sort of mess, the kind someone might leave behind because they have more important things to do than sort out the papers and put the vials all in order.
It looks like Newt could do with someone who knows how to clean up a bit.
There are no creatures, though. Nothing jumps out at him and rips his chest open and eats his beating heart, which is a relief. Once Credence has ascertained this, he continues on—there's really only one way to go, and that's forward.
He picks his way across the littered floor and opens the door to the rest of the case.
He did not realize he'd be opening the door to the outside.
Sure, Newt had explained that he replicated the outdoors as best he could with magic, so that creatures had the closest to their natural habitat as he could manufacture, but this?
This is not what Credence expected.
There's a sky, for one. The sky is bright and blue, clear as a summer's afternoon and thin as a winter's morning, the kind of day you can get at least once in every season. There's even a little bit of a breeze—and that's not even the most amazing part.
The most incredible part is the expanse. Credence looks all around, and he can't see the end of this space in any direction. There's a forest off one way, a field off in another, a snowier area, a desert-looking area, complete with rocks jutting out of the sand. There's the structure Credence just came out of, which is a rickety-looking wooden shack, and out between a little Chinese pagoda and a ledge with a faintly glowing tree, there's a huge slab of rock that seems as if it overlooks the rest of them…
Credence swallows and makes his way over to the ledge, hoping he'll be able to spot Newt from up there. Who can say, really, with the enormity of this place? He's almost afraid to walk into it, as if it'll all close up and dissolve around him, like a fallen illusion that takes him down with it.
But the ground is steady, and the wind doesn't change, and the world here seems very much real.
And it's all populated with creatures.
Credence recognizes the Demiguise before it goes nervously invisible. He spots the feathery gray down and huge, bright eyes of what he guesses must be a Mooncalf peeking out between rocks that must be its burrow. He hears bird calls that he's sure he's never heard before, but that he can identify as some sort of bird calls.
He plucks a leaf, just to feel this real, unreal world at his fingertips, and something twig-like and green lets out a tiny scream. In a moment, there are two of them on his hand, human-shaped but far thinner, with little black eyes.
They're cute, he thinks for a split second.
And then the first one lashes out.
Their thin arms, it turns out, end in even thinner fingers, sharp and thornlike, piercing his skin and causing blood to well up as quickly as a belt.
"Sorry—" Credence gasps out, stunned for a moment by the red before the pain even kicks in. He remembers now, too late, that Bowtruckles are extremely protective of their trees. "I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to."
They don't care that he didn't mean to, it seems, and now the pain kicks in, sharp and bright and stinging. They can understand him, can't they? Credence can't remember anymore if they can learn the language. Pickett was a Bowtruckle, and Credence has heard upwards of twenty times how much Newt adores Pickett, despite his insistence that he doesn't have favorites.
"I'm a friend of Newt's," he blurts out, and the lashing pauses. The little creatures peer up at him with their little black eyes, and then back at the crumpled green leaf, and then back at him. "I think I hurt his feelings—" Immediate screeches and more lashing. Credence winces. "I'm here to apologize! I'm here to apologize."
One of the little guys in his hand reaches up and swings themself onto the branch Credence has been urging them onto by holding his hand very close, hoping they'll hop off. The other one continues to glare. They've got a sprig of young green leaves at the top of their head, and they look especially grumpy, and they're stepping on the cuts on Credence's hand sending pain up his arm.
"Are you Pickett?" Credence inquires, gritting his teeth and trying not to let his hand spasm so much that he drops the little thing. "I'm Credence."
The Bowtruckle stops.
Credence's heart flutters tentatively in his chest, and he repeats it: "I'm Credence."
It appears Newt has mentioned him, because Pickett shoots one last glare and clambers off, patting Credence's wounded hand as the loser of a game might unenthusiastically shake their opponent's hand.
Newt must have mentioned him.
Credence's chest aches.
Even the feeling of the gentle breeze makes his hand sting when he walks, so he wipes off the blood on his shirt, hoping someone will magic out the stains later, and continues on his way to the rock ledge.
The creatures are real. Obviously, they're real, but it's something completely different to come into contact with them, to interact with them, to have his hand sliced open by a couple of them.
He can see, suddenly, why Newt has such a fierce love of them—why Newt always wanted to introduce them, to bring him down into his case and show him all of these creatures, and it makes Credence feel weak and breathless. Newt wanted to introduce Credence to his family.
Credence can already feel himself getting rather attached to Pickett himself. Evidently, Pickett cares for Newt deeply. Credence knows a bit about that.
Credence puts his bloody hand in his pocket to keep it from stinging so much, but he has to pull it back out to clamber up the piled rocks leading up to the outcropping. They're big enough rocks that they could almost be a staircase, and there are definitely smooth patches that have been worn down, but Credence still needs his arms out for balance in some places.
Dust gets in his cuts, stinging more persistently, and he gets the sinking suspicion that they'll start itching soon from irritation—it happened every time he got little particulates in the lashes Ma would give him.
Still, he makes it to the top.
From the top, the space looks completely different.
Credence can see how this incredibly real space is clearly built with intent—borders create clear cut-offs from meadow to savannah to forest, and what look like tarps separate even more disjointed segments, as if each area is its own piece of the world, completely unaffected by the ones around it.
Magic.
It's an incredible thing. And the way Newt has used it here—it's almost an art form, the way he has made this wonder and put it all inside one little case. All his creatures, right here.
Credence can spot the Graphorns snuffling around behind the rocks, lazy and drowsy in the day, and separating the desert from the ice enclosure is a thick tarp, waving gently in the wind.
Inside the ice enclosure.
Spot of red-brown hair. Bright blue coat. Tall, thin, long-limbed.
Newt Scamander.
Credence stares at him for a moment. He stands at the edge of this rock in the middle of a world Newt made, watching the man he loves.
Newt is looking at something too, from the stillness of the way he stands—he's only still like that when he's observing something, or else he's moving in some way or another—but Credence can't see what it is from here.
Credence turns to hurry down the trail of rocks and go to the ice enclosure, go to Newt, but—
"Oh, god," Credence says aloud, as if that'll help him. He stops himself from taking a step backward just in time—he would've gone over the edge.
A huge, cat-like thing looms in front of him, larger than a lion. It looks like one, though. Instead of golden fur, black and yellow spots, and a mane of spikes standing menacingly raised, with long, needle-like points.
It's glaring at Credence.
Nundu, Credence thinks, kills entire villages with its breath.
And then, stupidly, Newt's drew this one really well.
The Nundu snarls, deep and throaty, feet pawing at the ground and leaving gouges in the thin dirt that has accumulated over the rock.
The Nundu doesn't know Credence, and Credence is quite literally, in the Nundu's space. He can recall Newt's voice, soft and accented. "A bit territorial, but it's to be expected for a creature of its size and appetite."
Credence searches his brain frantically for anything else Newt has said.
Newt's the expert. What would he do?
Credence pulls his bloody hand back out of his pocket and wipes it clean again.
Credence kneels.
He holds his hands out, open, palms up.
The blood wells in his palms, dripping darkly onto the stone beneath him when he opens his hands, pulling open the cuts.
But Credence remembers Newt's lessons on predators.
"They're not these bloodthirsty beasts everyone makes them out to be," Newt explained once, blood still on his shirt from feeding the Graphorns. "Predators can't afford to attack everything, they have to pick and choose if it's worth the energy and the effort. If they're not hungry and you're not a threat, there's no reason for them to hurt you."
Credence knows Newt wouldn't ever let the Nundu go hungry.
And he's right.
The Nundu watches him, as if waiting for him to make another move, but its muscles relax, and it no longer looks like it's going to pounce.
A minute goes by. It feels like a millennium.
Eventually, the Nundu snorts, and with a heavy thump, lays down in front of Credence, stretching its body out in the sun. It's heavy enough that Credence can feel it in the ground.
"Thank you," Credence whispers, too cautious to speak any louder, and then he's up, edging past the Nundu, wiping his hand clean again, scrambling down the rocks so quickly, he expects a bruise on his bum soon.
When he's at the bottom, he looks up.
The Nundu hasn't moved.
Releasing a breath, Credence turns back to the path ahead.
Newt.
He can't stop thinking about Newt—the way he looks at Credence, and how he always looks quickly away when Credence catches him. The upset, apologetic look on his face when he offered to move to a different room under the completely wrong assumption that he was making Credence uncomfortable.
Newt's confession, way back when. I rather fancy you, a bit. Merlin knows I'm not subtle. Newt said… a lot of things there, but those parts Credence remembers. Those parts Credence is sure he will never forget. He's relived the pieces of that conversation that stand out to him a million times.
Credence never goes past Newt's words, though. He doesn't like to think about what he said in response.
Sometimes he likes to think of what he would've said, if he'd known better. I want the same things. More than anything, I want the same things. I want them with you.
He has a chance to say it now.
He's standing right in front of this flapping white tarp, and he could say it to Newt right now.
Credence pulls back the tarp.
The tarp makes a crinkling, plastic sound when Credence pulls it back, folding over itself, and a rush of cold air sweeps over Credence, as if he's just stepped out of a heated building into a cold winter day.
Newt must hear him, because he turns quickly around, wand in his hand. Credence catches the end of a sad expression before Newt's face goes blank with surprise.
Newt stares at Credence.
Credence stares at Newt.
Newt's cheeks are pink from the cold, and his eyes are wide, his mouth partway open in surprise.
Freckles and blue eyes. Utterly bewildered expression. Credence is frozen for a moment, looking at him.
Newt's eyes flick over him. "Your shirt—"
"Oh, I know," Credence says quickly. "The Bowtruckles—that's not really important—"
"The Bowtruckles?" Newt puts his wand away quickly and strides toward Credence, his eyes worried. "Bowtruckles are—"
"Very protective of their trees, I know, listen—"
"Where?"
"My hand. Newt—"
Newt grabs his hands and runs his fingers over the cuts over Credence's right hand. Credence was right, they do itch a bit, and they overlay the scars from Mary Lou's beatings in a way that makes him think they'll be indistinguishable once they heal.
"Oh, Credence. I didn't think you'd come down here, or I'd have showed you around properly." Newt brings his wand out again. "Let me heal you."
It takes Credence a moment to pull his mind off of the way Newt has said his name, as if of course Credence would do it and Newt wouldn't have it any other way. "Oh!" He fishes around for words. "Yes. Please."
"Episkey."
Credence's hand feels successively hot and cold in very precise lines over his skin, as if pressed first to hot irons and then to ice, before the pain, the sting, and the itch all fade in one.
Glancing up from his hand as the cuts disappear, Credence catches sight of something strangely familiar.
"Is that an Obscurus?" It certainly looks like what Credence knows—a curling, shifting black mass, as if a colored gas, hissing faintly. It's surrounded by a thin, clear bubble of something that's probably magic, and is clearly a containment.
Newt glances back and the grieving expression returns fleetingly. "Yes."
Credence forgets about what he came here to say for a moment. "Mine?" Is that what they were doing when they were sharing magic? Has Newt slowly been pulling the Obscurus from Credence's magic and Credence hadn't noticed? He would've felt it, he expects.
Newt shakes his head. "Someone else. It's the Obcurus, of course. Not a person."
Credence reaches for Newt's hand quietly. He doesn't know enough to know what to say, but he knows that looking at it upsets Newt. He wonders why Newt even looks at it at all, then.
"She was eight. I tried to save her. I… didn't."
That explains why he spends time with the Obscurus, at least. "Was it your fault?"
"I couldn't save her." Newt steps forward, closer to the Obscurus, which doesn't respond to his presence at all. "So in a way, it was."
Credence swallows. The Obscurus is the size he might've been half a day after the Aurors blasted him to shreds. He's never seen one from an outside perspective before, and even while it's contained, it brings out a faint rushing in his ears, a memory of the feeling.
"You realize," he says finally, unsure, "that it doesn't make very much sense?"
"What?"
"Blaming yourself."
"Oh." Newt is quiet for a moment. His eyes track the tiny movements the Obscurus makes—from outside, this little one almost looks starkly beautiful against the glistening white snow. "Yes. I do. It just feels… I couldn't do it, and I was trying to."
Credence knows what he means, but he still isn't sure what to say. Newt's shoulders are small and slumped. "How often do you come down here?"
"On bad days. When I'm feeling thoughtful. Or unhappy." Newt glances away from the Obscurus, looking down at their hands as if just noticing they've been holding hands this whole time.
"You come here to make yourself feel worse when you're already feeling bad?"
"No," Newt says instantly. He stops. "Well… yes? But it isn't as bad as all that."
Credence reaches out and touches the barrier without even thinking, and Newt's breath sharpens beside him.
"Credence," he says warningly, but the clear, strangely warm barrier doesn't break, though it gives gently, like stretching rubber.
"If I were to be seperated from my Obscurus like this, and I died, I'd never want for you to keep it," he declares. "Never."
Newt pulls out his wand and waves it at the bubble, making the shield feel thicker than before. "To be safe," he murmurs absently, and then, "Why?"
"Why would you keep it?"
"Wha—Well—" Newt's fingers tap against the back of Credence's hands, fingertips rough with calluses. "I don't know what else I'd do with it, do you?"
"I'd leave it behind." Credence gently releases Newt's hand and cups the bubble between his palms, as if cradling a huge crystal ball. The Obscurus seems to sense him; it settles, stilling in the air. It looks like the colored cracks in a rock.
"I—sorry?"
Newt's watching him. It's incredible what Newt's gaze does to him—maybe because his eyes are this exact shade of blue-gray that Credence can never conjure up in his mind exactly the way they are in real life, or maybe because Newt hardly ever looks at Credence for this long without looking away. He's looking at Credence now, and Credence has to let out a breath and take another, his heart beating in his chest. He can feel it, physically, as if Newt has turned it on.
"You can't take things with you that keep hurting you," Credence says. He's sure it sounds like a cheap line, but if there's one thing he's learned after everything, it's that you sure can't keep everything. Not unless you want it to drive you insane, or turn you into a roiling, furious black mass of violent magic. Or whatever it may be. "Do you remember what I was like when I carried Credence with me? The other one, the one Ma saw me as?"
Newt's eyes flick to the Obscurus between Credence's palms. "That's not quite the same."
"No."
There's a moment. Two moments.
"She wouldn't have wanted me to trap her here and make myself miserable," Newt says slowly, as if trying out the words in his mouth to see how they sound out loud. His eyes are still on Credence. "She was very kind-hearted for eight."
"Adapt." Credence holds one hand out to Newt, palm up, and offers him a tentative smile.
Newt takes his hand.
"I don't know what I'm doing," Credence makes sure to warn Newt, "But…"
He lets his magic well up inside of him, first in his heart and then carefully to his skin, in small amounts, and then bigger, until it's building like water at a dam. Inside of it, he can find the part that is violent, the part that screams and twists and howls. It's so far from him now that he can identify his magic and this thing separately. He calls it now.
The still Obscurus inside the bubble jerks and presses to the edge of the containment where Credence's hand is, as if able to sense something kindred in Credence.
They link.
Credence isn't sure how he knows that they've linked, but he knows they have. He can feel it somehow, a certainty.
"I need you," he murmurs, not taking his eyes off of the Obscurus.
In an instant, Newt's magic is there.
Warm, bright, thick like syrup. Climbing up towards Credence and curling around his heart. An extremely inappropriately timed desire to kiss Newt erupts in Credence's stomach, and Credence opens both palms to the flow of magic.
And looks at Newt.
Newt's watching the Obscurus intently, his wand in his hand, his expression equal parts wonder and disbelief. Credence just watches Newt.
Something tugs at Credence's magic. "I'm sending it up," Credence whispers. There's a sort of quiet here that Credence doesn't want to shatter. "I think it wants to."
He does. The Obscurus has gotten fainter, as if rendered in pencil the graphite blurred, and he gives the bubble a push into the air. They can see it for a bit, against the pale blue of the artificial sky, and then… it fades. As if it has been erased altogether.
"You can remember her without having to dwell on it," Credence murmurs, and turns off the flow of his magic. He doesn't let go of Newt's warm hand. "You're a helper. I know she appreciated your attempts."
Newt's head is still tipped up, his eyes on the sky. His hair falls back from his forehead, curls tangled from the wind. "You don't know," he says quietly, but with no conviction. "Is the Obscurus really gone?"
"Yes." Credence flexes his hand. He feels as if some of his Obscurus is gone, too.
For a moment he can see himself as Newt seems him—a wonder, ever progressing, faster than anyone would think possible. When he first arrived in Obscurus form, unable even to revert back to the body that he hated, he never thought he'd end up like this: able to call his magic to his fingertips, to call his Obscurus back to his body, to open and close the door to the flow of the power inside of him as easily as flipping a switch. Certainly not this quickly.
"How do you know?"
"I know."
Newt stops searching, takes his eyes off the sky and nods, and Credence knows Newt believes him.
What happens now? What does Credence say?
Now that the Obscurus is gone, Credence realizes there isn't anything else in this habitat, not right now, at least. It's a snowy expanse that looks to be about as big as your average New York apartment footprint, too big for a single floating Obscurus. Credence wonders what used to be here before Newt released it to the wild.
He could ask, and they could have a very normal conversation about that.
Or he could take the plunge.
He should just do it. Newt's always calling him brave; now's his chance to actually be brave.
Credence draws a breath. "Newt, I'm here to say I'm sorry, and—" he starts, at the same time as Newt drops his wand into his pocket and says, "I was just about to go up and apologize."
Credence stares. "Apologize," he repeats dumbly. "What for?"
"You look cold," Newt says, as if he hasn't heard, and he lets go of Credence's hand and shrugs off his coat. "I hadn't even realized—and your shirt is wet. You must be freezing."
Credence could mention using a Warming Charm—but he doesn't see why he should turn down a chance to wrap himself in Newt's coat. It's already warm from Newt's body, and once again Credence has to remind himself that this is real—the warm blue coat around his shoulders, the man in front of him who it belongs to, who cares about him so immensely it stuns Credence.
It smells like Newt. Credence is half sure he's going to die, and half sure he's invincible because the devil himself couldn't make Credence leave this man's side. When Newt turns and makes his way out of the enclosure, picking his way over in the direction of the shack, Credence follows as if Newt is a magnet.
"I was going to apologize—" Newt is saying, as Credence pulls the coat tighter and holds open the thick curtain for Newt.
It's warmer outside, but Credence keeps the coat.
"—because I reckon I was being a bit rude and presumptuous."
Rude.
And presumptuous.
Presumptuous?
Rude?
"Pardon?" Credence manages.
Newt's cheeks are pink. He won't look at Credence. "I accused you of—of teasing, essentially. And I—"
"Well, I was being—"
"You can't blame yourself," Newt says quickly. "It's not your fault. Really, it's just. I—I—there's—when you hope for something enough it's hard to see things right, see?"
"Right, but—"
"But there's hardly anything worse than a man that gets upset at someone because he feels like they're flirting when they're not—"
"Newt, let me speak."
"I—yes. But you have nothing to be sorry for, really," Newt's blabbering on earnestly. "And I think—I'm trying to be a good friend."
"You are," Credence assures him quickly. "But—"
Newt looks pained at the but, and if anything, more frantic. "I don't want to be the friend who asks you if you've changed your mind or makes you uncomfortable or—or expects anything else—"
"Newt, shut up!" Credence gets in. Newt gapes. "I have been throwing myself at you for two months."
Newt stops.
Right there in the middle of the line these huge beetles are rolling balls of dung, and they have to go around him, he stops walking.
He stares at Credence. He blinks. Once. Twice. He looks so thrown off guard that Credence very nearly laughs.
Help, he thinks. I love you.
"Um?" says Newt. His voice is weak and croaky. "Um. Oh." He blinks more, and flutters his hands about as if unsure what to do with them. "Wow." He winces and glances quickly away, looking embarrassed. "Sorry, I just said wow—I meant to say… thank you?" Newt shakes his head. "Not thank you…"
Oh dear God. Credence is so terribly in love. "You feel… the same way? As you did before?"
Maybe he isn't sure. Maybe he just wants to hear it. Maybe both.
Alright. Fine. He just wants to hear it.
"Yes," Newt says immediately, bringing his gaze back to Credence. "Yes, of course. And…" he gestures helplessly. "More. Considerably more."
Credence's heart flutters. "M-More?"
Glancing away, cheeks pink, Newt's eyes land on the dung beetles still dutifully rolling their dung around him. "Bugger. Apologies." He steps out of the way. "Let's go up? Shall we?"
More?
More?
But evidently Newt's not going to talk about that right now.
It dawns on Credence suddenly—Newt wants him, and Credence wants Newt, and they both know both of these facts.
Now that they've sorted this out, what in the world do they do next? What's allowed? What isn't? Credence doesn't know what's normal, only that the way he was brought up under Mary Lou wasn't normal, not in any sense of the word.
And, now, with this confusion out of the way, a whole new sort of wanting sets in.
Credence didn't think it could get any worse—he couldn't have imagined how, possibly, it could get worse, but here it is, burning in his chest and making his something low in his stomach hot and his fingers itch: he wants to run his fingers through Newt's curling hair and kiss all of Newt's freckles and also the calluses on the ends of Newt's fingertips, and he wants to explore all the scars from Newt's different "not dangerous" creatures—even, God, even the ones currently under Newt's soft white work shirt and under his dirty-bottomed trousers—and he wants to touch Newt and to—to do things you're not supposed to do before you're married—but of course two men can't get married so… so what happens then—?
Newt's watching him, eyes anxious, and Credence realizes he's been staring openly at Newt for who knows how long. "Uh—yes! Good idea. Let's go up."
Newt looks relieved, as if he'd thought Credence was sizing him up for second thoughts, and Credence wants to kiss him dead on the mouth and say I love you, but he doesn't.
Newt goes up first, and Credence determinedly does not look at Newt's bum. He can hear Newt stepping out of the case and into their shared room as if Newt is standing on a ceiling above him.
Credence of three months ago would've been terrified of this exact situation—Newt out of the case, right above him, Credence alone in the case, helpless should Newt close the case and carry him off to who-knew-where for his own malicious purposes.
Now the idea almost makes him laugh out loud.
NewtMerlin.
What?
Merlin.
Helga, help, Newt thinks, and then, how? And why? And Merlin.
And then, Credence. Credence. He thinks he could scream it. Credence. Newt. Credence and Newt. Credence and me. Credence.
He can't stop thinking it over and over, in a cycle. Merlin, how, Credence, Credence, Credence.
Tina has to snap right under his nose. "Pass the salt? Newt?"
"Oh—" Newt was playing back through his memory—Credence in the bathroom, his knees on either side of Newt's hips, Credence curled around him as they read through Fantastic Beasts, Credence the night Newt moved out of their room temporarily, pink-cheeked, agitated, watching Newt intently. "Right, yes."
"Gosh!" Queenie laughs brightly, teasing. "What's happened to you?"
Newt glances down quickly at his plate—very nice food that he hasn't been appreciating properly one bit—and wonders aggressively what to say. The proper response would be something that began with Credence and I, but the only thing running through his mind is Credence fancies me back. Like a schoolboy clutching a note passed in class. Look. Look at me. Look how lucky I am.
"I don't believe it!" Tina's voice comes, making Newt look up. Her eyes are darting between Newt and Credence, who has set down his fork and is fumbling aimlessly with his napkin, his short hair now unable to obscure his sheepish expression. "Did you really?"
Newt clears his throat. "Please try not to sound so surprised." He can't blame her. He's rather surprised himself… although looking back, it doesn't seem entirely implausible, if you look at it with the right eye.
"Oh! Oh! Newt! Credence! That's wonderful!" Queenie flutters her hands about dramatically, as if overcome, and Newt's cheeks burn. He's a grown man, for Merlin's sake. Even if he feels a bit like how Queenie's acting, on the inside—as if he might burst out of his skin. "Wait here, I have champagne."
"Champagne?" Credence echoes weakly, his brow furrowing. "We really—don't need—"
"I've been saving this bottle specifically for today," Queenie calls over her shoulder, clinking around in the cabinet for glasses. "We're having it."
Newt resists the urge to bury his face in his hands, and his other countering urge to break out into an embarrassingly wide smile.
"Wow," Jacob says. "Congratulations!"
Newt winces a bit—he's not sure wow will stop being an embarrassing word for a while. Wow, he'd said. Credence had basically informed Newt that he was being a complete and utter blind idiot and that he cared for Newt too, and Newt had said wow.
"Man," Jacob is saying now, "It's been a while, huh?"
Merlin, please. "Jacob," Newt gets out. "Not for Credence."
"Yes for Credence," says Credence.
"Champagne!" says Queenie, and glasses of bubbling champagne float down to each table setting gracefully, in the same glasses they used for New Years' Eve. "I've had this bottle for forever, so enjoy it."
"Oh, stop," Newt interjects. "You bought it for me and Credence?"
"I did." Tina smiles a little over her glass at them both, eyebrows raised. "It's just been sitting there, waiting for you."
"Well." Newt doesn't know what to say.
"Thank you," Credence tells them, bright eyed and flushed, as if already tipsy—but he's not; Newt has seen him tipsy. He gets quite flirty when he's tipsy. Although, Newt realizes now, he only really got tipsy-flirty with Newt. He didn't really flirt with Queenie or Tina. At all.
"Not that long," is what he ends up saying.
"A toast!" Jacob crows, lifting his glass up towards them. "To two great guys finally working it out!"
"To champagne I thought we'd be drinking a lot earlier," Tina chimes in dryly, her eyes alight with mischief. She looks so happy for them, and Newt's heart warms at the realization that he'll no longer suffer through getting kicked in the shins under the dinner table.
"To Newt, you wonderful man, who cares so much he doesn't realize anyone else also cares," Queenie begins warmly, and Newt wants to die.
This is entirely unnecessary, he thinks, but then Credence laughs softly, his eyes darting to Newt with a bright affection, and he decides—no, this is definitely something he needs.
"And to Credence," Queenie continues, "Who must've been very brave, which should come as a surprise to no one."
"I'll toast to that," Jacob agrees heartily.
Well, it's come around to him. "To Credence," he says. I love you. "I love the way you face the things you're afraid of, and how quickly you manage to cope with a changing world, and how you care about my profession, and you are so considerate and patient with me when I'm being foolish, and—"
Credence is getting redder and redder and redder, and Newt realizes—Helga help him—he's babbling again. He should bring it to a close; wrap it up.
"—And how you wash dishes," he blurts decisively, and then almost drops his champagne glass. Credence is laughing. How you wash dishes. "Oh Merlin," he mutters, mostly to himself, but Credence must hear him because he laughs even harder.
"Don't pretend you didn't mean it," Credence says, still laughing, his voice scratchy. "I know you mean it."
Newt groans, laughing a bit himself, though he's sure he'll die right here, right now. "I didn't mean to say it."
"I believe that." Credence smiles a moment more, quieting; he looks to the glass in his hand and watches the bubbles, brow wrinkled, probably parsing out words in his head. "Thank you," he says finally. "Newt. For supporting me through everything that I asked for, and everything that I—that I am. You never doubted me. You never even got angry at me, even though I deserved it, sometimes."
"Objection," Newt mutters, and the crease between Credence's brow eases a bit, one side of his mouth turning up.
"You never stopped helping me, even though I never gave anything back, and even after I was—horrible to you. The one time."
Queenie and Tina look over curiously, and out of the corner of his eye, Newt can see Jacob raising his eyebrows. "You were only being honest," he says quietly. Credence doesn't feel guilty about it, does he? He bloody hopes not.
"Remember? I told you to stay away." Credence bites his lip. Queenie and Tina make simultaneous noises of surprise. "I only said that because I've met men before who have doubted me, and expected things from me, and I thought…" Credence's dark, dark eyes flick up to meet Newt's briefly, the touch of a smile on his lips. "You were too—too sweet and kind and—beautiful to be real, and you had to be pretending to get—something out of me."
Newt's breath catches.
"You weren't," Credence says simply. "It was all real."
Newt swallows hard. Merlin, he thinks. Credence.
Credence's eyes go back to the glass in his hand. "I do want to drink this," he says matter-of-factly. "I want a drink."
"Well." Tina sounds off-kilter; they're probably all still processing. Or maybe it's just Newt who's off-kilter. "That's what the champagne is for. Drinking."
"To Newt, then." Credence smiles, and Newt can't look away. "Who, I believe, was under the ridiculous impression that my feelings developed recently, despite things I've said to the contrary."
Jacob laughs, and it spreads, until the five of them are all laughing brightly, contentment hanging in the air around them like magic. "All this time, huh? Got any other game changers for us today?"
"Fresh out," Credence returns, without missing a beat.
"Good." Newt finally finds his voice. "I couldn't take another one of those."
All this time. So… Credence never found him impossible. Out of the question. Completely intolerable. I never ever want anything… And Credence never hated him, or found him unbearably annoying, or, or, or…
Well, alright. Bit of a stretch. Credence probably still did feel those things—just not to the extent Newt assumed he had.
"To me," Newt says. "And to you."
Credence raises his glass to Newt's.
Clink.