Every Beast Has Its Home

At first he slept.

Maybe sleep was the wrong word for it.

He hazily flitted in and out of consciousness, never reaching sleep and yet never fully awake. The exhaustion wrapped heavily around him – it helped keep his amorphous form small and wedged in the cracks of the wood. He hardly had the energy to exist at all. Maybe he never would.

Then again, some things might make him.

But those things were outside of the suitcase. And he was inside it.

Newt has never once looked at the gently undulating black wisps hugging the rafter. Nor has Newt ever addressed him, or acknowledged his presence.

But after several days of hiding in the suitcase, Credence is convinced Newt knows he's there.

"They're terribly shy," Newt says to no one in particular. The thing cradled in Newt's arms looks a bit like the fennec fox from the zoo. Except it's smaller, darker in color, and with an additional pair of eyes. Plus the thick tuft of hair at the back of its neck.

The creature nuzzles into Newt's hands and he smiles. "They don't like to come out unless it's just me. Bit picky. But they have a lot of predators." A pause. "Vulcines. They're just misunderstood, really. That fur on the back of his neck – they're spines. Awfully poisonous. But if you know how to handle them right…"

The Vulcine squeaked and bounced up Newt's arm to nibble at his hair with tiny sharp fangs.

"What did I tell you about teeth?" Newt chastised; the creature chittered and ignored him.

"It'll never grow in right with you around," Newt sighed, detangling the creature from his shoulder and touching the torn hair.

The Vulcine leapt from his arms and tackled a ball of yarn on the ground with a playful yip.

"People like them for their fur," Newt added. "The softs parts, at least. It's a bit of a sport to hunt them. Sometimes they're pets; in those cases, the spines are burned off. For safety, is what they say. It's barbaric." Newt goes quiet.

It bothers Newt, Credence realizes, and of course it does –these are his creatures: it bothers him to think of the awful ways they might be treated. But even so, the thought is surprising to him.

Newt puts a loaf of bread and a glass of water on the table, then leaves.

Several minutes pass by, and then hours.

At first Credence thinks he's forgotten it. But he'll come back and eat it, surely. It isn't Credence's. He shouldn't eat it. Although he hasn't eaten in days. Newt also has never left human food out before.

Hunger wins.

Credence flows down to the table and solidifies just long enough to eat the entire loaf, and to down the water.

He returns to the rafters as a mere wisp of smoke.

Newt never mentions it, but new food begins to appear on the table every day.

Sometimes, even safe in Newt's suitcase, the thoughts come back to him.

You are a miracle.

Used.

Come with me.

Manipulated.

Think of what we could achieve.

Controlled.

His ache for the magic world was excruciating.

Every morning he woke up, thinking that surely surely he couldn't bear even one more day under Mary-Lou's oppressive tyranny, and if Graves didn't rescue him right this minute he would tear himself apart to end it.

He needed to belong in this place where people would not only accept magic but embrace it and where someone could tell him he fit in but

You have magical ancestry but no power.

Credence spreads across the rafters, flowing along the boards until the ceiling is infested by a mass of darkness.

I'm done with you.

Used manipulated controlled.

His presence begins to dig into the wood, a low snarl rises from the mass.

Betrayed.

Graves' fingers combing through his hair, an arm around his shoulders –

Mary Lou would never hug us –

Graves' insistence that he was special, he was unique, he was important – that he actually mattered.

He was nothing - he knew he was nothing and he deserved all he got but somewhere in there he had indignation and fury and power and he wasn't nothing!

If he hadn't turned on me, if he had just taken me with him and if I could matter and if he'd –

If he'd give him that affection, that warmth –

Weak, weak, weak! Cowering stupid child aching for something as small as physical affection, and Graves didn't have to beat him to earn obedience, all he had to do was pretend to care and then Credence was wrapped around his finger -

Everything explodes.

Newt isn't looking at him, he never does, he only really looked at him in the subway, but he isn't looking now, and his jaw is tight.

Credence instinctively flattens himself to the rafters, because he knows it's his fault.

Newt stands frozen in the center of the room, as if trying to decide whether he has words for speaking or not. The shack is half in ruins. Newt looks like he's restraining the urge to run and check every single corner of his suitcase.

Credence experiences the strangest compulsion to apologize and hand him his belt. Lashings won't make up for it, though. He deserves them, and worse.

"Are any of them hurt?" Newt finally says and his words are stiff and frigid.

Credence doesn't answer right away, and Newt finally nails his eyes directly onto him. "Are any of my creatures hurt?" he demands louder.

"No," Credence answers, his voice disembodied.

Newt closes his eyes, exhales.

"I'm sorry," Credence adds. He wants to hand over his belt, but to do that he'd have to be corporeal.

"I'm going back to England." Another pause, he looks away. "You're not really supposed to smuggle people in your luggage. You're not really supposed to smuggle creatures over, either."

Credence wonders if he's being given permission.

"Credence," Newt says, "if I bring you to England, you mustn't leave the suitcase in that form. Not once."

Credence is silent, but he hopes Newt can sense his sincerity. He hadn't meant to. He doesn't want to do it again.

Newt repairs the damage done to the shack, and leaves to tend to his animals. Credence is lonely.

Several days pass, and Newt doesn't speak to him.

The loneliness grows.

"There's something I want to show you," Newt finally says, and he has Credence's attention instantly.

Then he leaves, not out of the suitcase, but deeper into it, turning the corner and departing from Credence's sight. Credence wonders if he is supposed to follow, but doesn't much want to. Here, clinging to the rafter, he feels that things are stable. More stable. Mostly stable.

A flare of self-hatred at his own self-pity. He's been camping in Newt's chest without ever asking permission and he's got no right, he's intruding, and now after all he's done – he's worthless, a stupid child cowering away from the world, not even able to move from this spot.

Then Newt pops his head back in; his eyes briefly dart to the rafters and then back to the floor. "Credence," he blurts, as if he felt he hadn't been specific enough before.

Credence flinches; his form flows faster around the rafters, thicker, agitated. He'd rather not interact. He'd rather not be anybody.

"Might be easier to walk," Newt suggests.

Walking means being corporeal.

"Come on then," Newt says, and he hasn't beaten Credence and he hasn't kicked him out of the suitcase and he was a wizard but he wasn't like Graves.

Credence thinks of Newt splayed on the train tracks, spell after spell striking him.

Maybe he can manage this for Newt.

Silently, he drips down from the rafters until he's kneeling, shivering, on the floor. It's disorienting. Without even trying, he feels the unsteadiness of his human form, like it's a thin sheet of paper trying to encase a whorl of fire. He clenches his fists to his chest.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He hates that Newt is watching, because he'd rather nobody see him. It's humiliating enough, being –

A freak.

Not that Newt is really looking. He's not ashamed of looking, or afraid of looking, but it's – it's what Newt does. That's… comforting.

Credence stands, all at once, and keeps his own eyes affixed to the floor.

"Right, then. This way," Newt says.

It's hard not looking around, just a bit. For all his time in the suitcase, Credence has never actually left his little corner of the shed's ceiling. And the suitcase, he realizes, is huge. Full of animals, and definitely not the kind of animal you'd find in your run of the mill zoo.

Credence unwittingly finds his eyes darting left and right, hungrily taking in the fantastical environments and creatures that abounded here.

Magic. Of course, because Newt was a wizard. Magic creatures. Graves hadn't told him much about magic creatures.

The more Credence thought about it, Graves hadn't told him much at all about magic. Just enough to keep him interested. Keep him hopeful.

Wisps branch off from his hands: Credence tucks his hands in his pockets and shoves away the thoughts.

"I could teach you," Newt says suddenly, shooting a furtive glance back. "About my creatures, I mean."

"Can you read my mind?" Credence asks, because Newt's question sounded similar to what he'd been wondering.

Newt looks surprised. "I've never been any good at that magic."

Credence furrows his brow. So there's different areas of magic, and you could be good at one and not another. Like with non-magic people. Oddly, the desire rises in him to transform again. He's good at that.

There's a surge of pride, poisoned by shame. He thinks he likes it, what he can do.

The room suctions out of existence for a single moment – Credence envisions his own belt reared back, ready to fly down and flay his skin for daring to think what he just did.

He jumps and the room returns. It's dark, and they're beside a mossy hillock, upon which stand several four-legged large-eyed creatures.

"All right?" Newt inquires.

"Y-yes sir." Credence is happy he didn't transform after all because he doesn't do anything good like that. Not that he does any good anyway.

Newt reaches out his hand to thin air, and grasps something. As he pulls, the very air itself seems to peel back like a canvas, and a snowy tundra world is revealed.

Newt nudges his head toward this opening and smiles fleetingly. "Go on."

Credence eyes him. Is this a trick?

The shivering starts.

"Nothing in there is dangerous," Newt informs him.

Credence doesn't ask him to promise, because he didn't think anyone kept promises anymore.

He steps into the snow anyway, and Newt follows – nothing dangerous happens. But deeper into the tundra they do come upon something, something very familiar and dark, trapped in a floating bubble.

"It's an Obscurus," Newt informs him. "They are very rare, but terrifically powerful. They are… developed when a child suppresses their magical ability, often to avoid persecution."

A lot of things click really fast. "I'm…" Credence trails off.

'To be properly technical, you're an Obscurial. Host to the Obscurus. A very unique one, too. See, most - most don't live past ten years. You're very extraordinary."

Graves had said the same thing. Obscurial. Extraordinary. Credence hadn't understood at the time, because he hadn't known exactly what it was. He thinks he understands a lot better now.

You are a miracle.

"They – they're not well studied," Newt continues on with the air of one who doesn't comprehend conversational norms. "After witches and wizards went underground, the numbers of Obscurials dropped. No one's seen any for a century." Newt isn't being shy about looking at him now – in fact, he's practically staring. "But... there are exceptions," he says matter-of-factly.

Me. Credence blinks incomprehensibly at the Obscurus. There's an odd disconnect in his mind. He can't be this creature. He can't be what Newt is describing. He's… weak, powerless.

His mind drifts back to the subway station, where he'd raged through the tunnels in a fervid bid to hurt Graves back.

His shoulders begin to shake; his head lowers.

"Hey, hey," Newt breaks in delicately, not unlike the way he'd talk to one of his creatures. "Credence? Credence, are you with me?"

A comforting hand settles at the base of his neck. Suddenly everything inside him breaks. There is no reason and instantly Credence hates himself for it. But he can't seem to stop it.

Against his own will, he slumps bonelessly against Newt's chest, face buried against his shoulder, and – oh god – he's crying.

No no… why is he crying?

Of all of the humiliating things to do in front of Newt… the wizard must think so badly of him, first wrecking part of his shack and then just bursting into tears all over him.

Credence is mortified to realize he's crying on Newt's jacket and it's disgusting, getting the fabric wet –

"Oh," Newt says in surprise.

Flushing in shame and humiliation, Credence moves to get himself off of Newt but – Newt's arms close around his shoulders and hold him in place.

"All right, settle down," Newt says soothingly, hands rubbing slowly between Credence's thin shoulder blades. "That's it, easy does it…"

Somehow all of it comes out in tears – all the anger and humiliation and horror, thoughts of Graves' betrayal and Mary-Lou's death and the number of times that hated belt sliced open his skin.

Newt is too patient with him, repeating gentle words and holding him close like he doesn't deserve but Credence helplessly leans into it until his tears alleviate, and all that's left are shaking hiccups and gasps.

"Sorry," Credence whispers. He yanks away all at once and tries to make himself look as small as possible, as if at some point he'd vanish entirely and nobody would have to look at him anymore. He instantly misses the warmth.

"Hobgrubble soup," Newt says.

Credence flicks his gaze up briefly. "S-sorry, what?"

Newt smiles. "Hobgrubble soup. My mother made it for me whenever I felt under the weather. Tastes better than it sounds, I promise. Do you want a bite?"

"Thank you," Credence whispers.

"Come on, then." Newt begins to stride back to the cabin, only to pause and half-turn back. "By the way, would you fancy a better place to stay?"