Chapter Text
Credence wonders if he’ll ever be able to sleep, he has been awake for nearly 48 hours and it has started to affect him. He’d always thought he didn’t need sleep, that it was just one of the very few luxuries he could afford. Sleep had never been about resting for him, it had always been about getting away from his ma and the horrible thoughts which swam around his brain during the day.
Right now, he accepted that sleep was no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Credence no longer needed it to escape from the woman he’d called his mother for years. He no longer needed it to escape from the feeling of lightning which ran through his veins, constantly pushing against the boundaries of his flesh. The magic inside him had always longed to come out, he understood that now. It had roared inside him like a beast for years, and he still wondered how he’d ever been able to tame it on his own.
Newt had taken him to a room with a properly sized bed, and the softest bedding he’d ever felt, and whispered he’d needed to sleep. Credence had said he would, but no matter how soft the bedding were, or how comforting it was to hear Newt doing his business behind the door. It was strange when it came to being with Newt. The other never expected anything from him, never asked for a favour. It was different in that way when he’d placed all of his trust in mister Graves.
Credence wonders if he’ll ever sleep, maybe this is god his deal. Credence gets to be safe during the day, but never gets the joy of another dreamless sleep again. The lighting underneath his skin has turned to a gentle warmth. No longer ready to consume him alive, but rather warming his core with a gentle pulsing rhythm. He owes Newt a lot, he understands that more than people realise. Credence has heard the whispers when he’s outside. The soft voices from behind him when he passes. They call him dangerous, they deem him ungrateful.
He understands that he should have died that fateful day, he understands that Newt should never have saved him from the monster that he once was. But he isn’t ungrateful, not to Newt, and most certainly not to his other saviour. Graves. After all it had been Graves who had come to him when he could no longer see the light in the dark. It had been Graves who had truly saved him from his mother when he’d needed it the most. Of course he had betrayed him after that, but it didn’t matter.
He isn’t sure when he started crying, but his pillow is damp and his cheeks are tear stained. Graves had always hated it when he cried. He would wipe his face with the back of his hand and whisper words of comfort. Credence would melt against the other man’s frame, as if he wanted to crawl inside Graves. After all, he was desperately trying to get away from the home he had despised and feared for many years now.
Graves had showed him kindness, when no other could find it in him. Credence had been determined to give everything he could to the wizard, even if it wasn’t much. After all, what could a boy like him to for such a man? Graves had everything he desired. Credence couldn’t do much, or even be anything Graves needed. Or at least, that was what he thought. Until he felt a hand rest on his lower back the next time he cries. He felt the ghost of lips against his tear stained cheeks, and the lingering touch of a finger tracing his bottom lip.
He knows what he must do now to repay the kindness and the safety that Graves has given him.
The first time they kiss Graves closes the distance between them, it is just the confirmation which Credence needs. He could never have imagined that anyone would ever want him that way, but here he is, with the lighting being more powerful than ever underneath his pale skin than he has ever felt. Graves kisses him again and again, until Credence is wishing that he’d never stop. He feels as if he could take on the entire world, right here and now, pressed against the wall of some dirty backstreet alley. His mother would beat him senseless if she ever found out.
Credence doesn’t say a word when a pair of strong hands become to rest on his hips, just as he keeps silent when lips leave his and start to mark territory on fragile pale skin in his neck. The lighting shifts, to directly beneath where lips rest, Credence is sure that Graves can feel it. He must have felt the pulse of it. Maybe that’s why he bites down, hard, until he breaks the skin and blood wells up from the tiny wounds. The lighting is still trapped but it has never been trying to escape as hard as it does during that moment. Credence is sure he whispered a prayer somewhere down the line. God is so easy to call upon when you’re trapped in bliss.
He nearly misses the dangerous smile Graves gives him, nearly, but not entirely. His eyes fly open and he wonders why he even closed them in the first place. Why did he ever want to miss any of this, after all, this is the only true time he has ever felt wanted in his life. The shy ghost of a smile still plays on Graves his lips as he licks them in one swift motion. Have his lips always been this perfectly crimson, or was it his blood which stained them? Credence isn’t sure anymore. Just as he isn’t sure anymore if the wicked smile and look in Graves his eyes have always been there, or if he is simply just noticing them.
Lips leave flesh, but the hands stay steady and true to their goal. Gently resting on his hips, thumbs rubbing circles in a gentle motion near the inside of his thighs. The name leaves his slightly parted lips like a prayer ‘Percival’. It becomes so easy to say it, to say the name of the man currently looming over him. It is in that moment that Credence decides that he has found a new deity to be loyal too. His mother’s god never favoured him anyway.
Suddenly he feels the pain of fingers digging into flesh, hard enough to leave bruises, and his breath gets knocked out of him with the force Graves presses their lips together. Hungry and needing. The lighting roars inside of him, partly due to the pain, and partly because he must have felt how much there was wrong about the whole situation. When their lips part once more he can’t help but let out a soft sound of pain. He is rewarded with another bite, this time on his collarbone, and with no soothing kiss to ease the pain afterwards.
He is weak, he has known it all along. Never has he had the courage to do something right. Never has he had the courage to stand up to his mother, to stand up to the world outside this place. That must be why he finds himself in these situations. Covered in bruises and bite marks, laying on a pearly white bedding which looks smooth but is rough to the touch after years of wear. It must have been magic which has kept those sheets looking fresh and new, but even magic couldn’t hide the fowl things which they had to endure.
Credence takes it like a good boy, he never sheds a tear, not once does he cry out in pain when it hurts. Oh god, how it hurts. Maybe he is too young, too naïve to understand that this is the worst decision he could ever have made. But to him Graves is nothing but comfort. Graves has been there for him when he needed him the most, he has given him a goal which he is more than happy to fulfil.
His mother would despise him, beat him until sweet oblivion came for him. But he didn’t care about his mother, didn’t even think about her when Graves wrapped him up in his arms afterwards. The lightning came to rest inside him. Safely caged behind his ribcage, resting near his heart there was comfort. Credence was finally at peace with himself. It didn’t matter that Graves refused to heal his new wounds, nor did it matter when he betrayed him days after. It had been his way of saying thanks. It had been his way of saying a prayer to his new god.
Credence wakes up with Newt sitting on the other side of his bed, reading one of his books apparently deeply lost in though. He doesn’t know how long he has slept, he didn’t even realise that he’d fallen asleep. “Good morning.” He whispers softly, his head hurts from sleeping to long and he is vaguely aware of how utterly lost he must look right now. Laying in a bed which feels soft enough to sink into, his black hair ruffled from sleep and his eyes still glazy from his dreams.
“Good afternoon, you mean.” Newt smiles at him while he closes his book and lays it down on his lap. “You must have slept for over 12 hours. I guess you truly needed to rest, didn’t you?” His voice is always so soft and gentle. Credence wonders how it is possible for men like Newt to exist in such a cruel world as this. He wonders how his heart could have stayed so kind, he wishes you could posses the same amount of kindness one day.
Had it really been only 12 hours? He feels as if he missed a couple of months. How he wishes he could miss a couple of months. Tina had told him it would take time for him to heal, and he had taken her advice to take things easy for a while. But the scars didn’t fade as fast as he would have hoped. He still struggled with basic things, like saying what he wanted. Newt had tried to help him with it, starting small. Questions like ‘what would you like for breakfast?’ Or ‘do you want to go out for a stroll or stay in today?’
To others they would have been easy to answer, others wouldn’t have spared them any thought, but to him they sometimes felt like the most difficult thing in the entire world. Credence didn’t know what he wanted for breakfast. He didn’t know which tea he wanted during lunch, and he most certainly didn’t know where he wanted to go if they decided to leave the safety of the apartment. Most of the time he tried to let Newt decide, but he quickly learned that the Englishman wasn’t satisfied with a ‘I don’t know.’ Or an ‘I don’t mind what we do.’
It had been little over a month since Newt had taken him under his wing, and he had learned that he liked strawberry flavoured tea with a little bit of honey mixed in, and that he liked his breakfasts to be simple and plain. He also learned that the hours he spend inside the magical suitcase were the best of his day.
“I guess we can’t really go out anymore today, so, what do you want to do now that you’ve woken up, eat something now or later?” Two questions in one sentences, it was almost like Newt had found him to be ready for the next step. “Eat later.” He answers as he stretches and rubs the sleep from his eyes. He is hungry, he can’t deny that, but the pain of betrayal still lingers even after he has woken up and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stomach anything in this moment.
“Very well then.” Newt gets up and places the book he had been reading on his nightstand. “I’ll be down in the suitcase if you need me, call me up when you get hungry. Alright Credence?” He smiles as an answer, how he wishes Newt would stay, if only for a little longer. He has grown accustomed to the other’s presence. So much even, that he feels lost when Newt isn’t around.
“Is it alright if I come down as well, later?” Asking questions is easier for him, it is the only form of communication he is used to after all. Even if his questions were usually answered with a strict ‘no’ or a slap on the wrist, it was something familiar. He doesn’t get an answer, all he gets is a hand gently ruffling his hair and for the first time it feels comforting instead of denigrating. That is perhaps the most amazing quality of Newt, he doesn’t ask for much, he is a giver. And Credence himself has never been a taker either.