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Maybe if Newt hadn’t been involved, that would have made it easier. As is, though, he clearly—very, very clearly—is, so that’s that. Theseus grimaces. Percy adds another slosh of whiskey to his coffee for him.
“There-there.”
“Just…don’t talk.”
After a beat: “What about interpretative dance?” and Theseus gets up with a sigh, and leaves the coffee, and the idiot, and—everyone else, because this apartment apparently became…so much more, while he didn’t pay attention for…what, half a year? You bury your fiance and deal with the mess of all that, with your feelings and your family, and what is the reward?
Graves doesn’t follow, of course not. Red in the face and unsure where to even head, Theseus stalks down the many flights of stairs until he’s out on the street, ignored the friendly concierge because…because. He sighs, turns his attention to the traffic. He stuffs his numb, limp hands dispassionately into the big pockets of his even bigger, stupid coat. Dressed up and everything. One of the better suits; just wanted to check on you, you haven’t been to work in…oh. Oh, shit, sorry, I didn’t know you’d—what happened to locking freaking doors?
Stupid. It’s all so darn…stupid.
“Theseus!”
Theseus considers just disapparating, but Newt already caught up with him.
“I can explain,” his little brother says, no longer flushed in the face but out of breath from taking the stairs, one too-thin layer of clothes haphazardly pulled on, back to his usual, blank self; but that is a new shirt he wears, and it might not even be his. Theseus sighs wearily as he lets himself get turned around, his shoulders more than slack under Newt’s hands. He should have taken the coffee with him. Newt stares him down, determined. Oh, just grand. “I meant to tell you eventually. Well—Graves did. But we thought you’d need… With Leta… You know.” Newt makes that face. That face for the blanks he does not know how to fill, that someone pointed out to him because he doesn’t see them. His hands slip off Theseus’ shoulders, at last. He stuffs them into the pockets of his trousers (that same old, familiar pair—at least something) and shrugs. Theseus huffs. Cars pass them by.
“Can we just…?”
“Yeah, uhm—yeah.”
“Okay,” Newt sighs, relieved, already drawing his wand to get them back upstairs, and Theseus wonders—how this idiot got himself involved in such a thing. Newt, out of everyone.
Theseus leaves the trio for good, an hour later, not any less confused. Slightly less upset, maybe, and his head keeps spinning all the way back home, all night, exhausted in his bed because he’d been working before he scraped his courage together and visited his old friend. Among his few consolations is that maybe, one of them lies awake just like him, wondering—if this is the right way to handle things. If this can work, at all: if this is what they want.
Theseus rolls over in his otherwise empty bed, the nice place he has yet to sign out of the lease for, now that he’s a bachelor once more. Not a widow, because that’s…no, he’d rather not go there. Distraction. Percy, he’d always been—that. More than that, at times, but… Oh. Just sleep, old fool. Just sleep.
~
“So this is where you ended up.”
“Yes.”
Credence curls further in on himself. Theseus fumbles with the cup in his hands, his coat hanging over the back of his chair. It’s warm, today. He forces his eyes to ignore the rather obscene marks peeking out above the buttoned-to-the-very-top collar of Credence’s shirt. Different memories well up in Theseus. They mix odd with the strong coffee.
“Mr. Graves has been—incredibly nice.”
“I bet.”
Credence stammers, “Uhm,” and his hand ghosts—to those bites, fresh-looking and big and Theseus wonders—oh, he wonders which one of them…
“It’s generous, I mean. To let you live in his home.”
“Y-yes, right.” Oh, boy.
Theseus sips. The lack of booze grows more and more irritating. “So, uh… My brother, too, huh?” Credence boils redder yet. “I, uhm. I get it. He can be…” The sentence drifts off, and maybe that’s better. Credence looks like he’s about to cry. By Merlin. If Theseus could ever empathize.
Percy joins them, eventually, which helps. Breaks the ice, because what does Theseus have to say to the plaything that somehow managed to domesticate Percival fucking Graves? Nothing at all, because he does not believe it, still, that something like this could occur. Then again, what Percy went through… If that doesn’t change a man, what else can? He looks old, so much older than he used to, and Theseus had of course noticed the new scars but he had not indulged in taking them in, really, adding them to the map of this man he’s known for most his life. Who’s been at his side, who fought with him, stood by him… Even after Theseus’ gravest failure. (“It wasn’t your fault. Nobody figured it out, not even Dumbledore. No offense taken,” and that small, tired smile. That one got stuck in Theseus’ head, and he fears it’ll never leave.)
Now, Percy laughs again—laughs with an Obscurus under his arm, a ticking time bomb none of them can control, not really; and Newt being around might be a good thing, might be why nobody else had to die so far. And Credence looks contended, looks happy. Percy got him a wand, says he’s teaching him, that Credence is doing well with it. With a way to channel his magic, maybe the Obscurus’ influence will wane. Will die off, drop like overripe fruit. Maybe all can be well, at some point—well, all that is left.
“You can stay for dinner, if you’d like,” Percy offers, nonchalant and charming and his arm still around Credence, his legs crossed. He comes into the ministry more and more often again, is back to his suits. It means the world, and Theseus can’t even tell him unless he’d like to make a complete clown of himself. “He’s getting great at casseroles.”
“I’d like that,” Theseus hears himself say, and he is just as surprised about it as the other two. Just for a moment, Percy looks like he’s about to backpedal, give Theseus an out. But then he doesn’t. Says, “Yeah! Sure,” and Theseus feels his cheeks heating, his stomach churning.
Newt comes up after dinner, and only shortly. Only to dip into the kitchen, wolf down his share that they put aside for him, and then he’s back in the suitcase, mumbling to himself all the while. Theseus watches from deep within the living room armchair, fascinated. Slightly tipsy, maybe. “He does that every night,” Credence explains, somewhere to Theseus’ right. Theseus nods. Just like Newt did it back home, all those years ago. Minus the magical suitcase.
Theseus’ eyes drag—to them, on the sofa. Clinging like a couple, and Percy plays with Credence’s tie and Credence’s hair and he is positively drunk, but what else is new—and Credence glows in the attention, in the flickering light casting from within the livid fireplace. If Theseus wasn’t here, they’d probably… Theseus averts his eyes, fumbles with his sleeve.
“I should… It’s getting late.”
“Not horribly late.”
“Late enough, I fear.”
“How much more could they possibly want to learn about you Brits? No, no, don’t let me stop you… Just saying. Wait, I’ll see you to the door—be right back.”
Theseus hears them kiss, and the warm grab to his elbow is that much more conflicting, by the door. Out of Credence’s sight, all light coming from the gap under that ajar door, Percy—close, knowing. Sensing it, because he always does that. Stepping in front of Theseus, the door in Theseus’ back. Looming.
“You can stay,” he mumbles, quiet and warm and Theseus mumbles back, “I should go,” and if Theseus hadn’t tucked his chin, maybe their mouths would have met instead of their foreheads. Theseus huffs, drunk and heavy. The stiff, white cotton of Percy’s shirt bunches tight in his silly fists, and Theseus’ coat still only hangs over his arm, and he could do—anything, right now, and it’d all be right. It’d be fine, he’d be allowed—nobody’s married to anyone or anything, we’re just fooling about, old boy, just a queer gang of idiots trying to pass these hard times… Percy doesn’t go further than this, not even when Theseus lifts his head, finally. When their cheeks rest against each other and he must feel the heat of Theseus’ skin, the tension in his jaw when Theseus swallows.
“Will you come back?” Percy asks, and Theseus nods and says, quick, “Good night,” and fumbles for his wand, disapparates—home. To where a home once was supposed to be born for him, and now lies dormant, choked off before it got a chance. The rich, dark wallpaper glares back at him in the lightless bedroom he now stands in, by himself. The imposing, tall furniture. The house elves took the last of Leta’s clothes, last week, when Theseus had been at work. Their little get-away in America; a new world, love.
Theseus does come back, a few days later, and Newt waves him into the study, into the damn suitcase, and they feed the beasts together until Credence joins to remind Newt of something Newt profoundly thanks him for: he dashes to collect something, Merlin-knows-what, pulling on thick gloves as he does, and Theseus can’t help but laugh. Oh, old boy, what did you get yourself caught up in, now?
Credence sighs, “He’s genius,” and Theseus agrees, “Yeah,” with a huff, and the same, helpless adoration connects them in that moment. A first one of many, and that doesn’t register because that is the nature of these things, so Theseus just sighs some more and hefts the bag of feed where Newt designated it to go. Credence makes the linen pop open with a swish of his wand, and the flutter of too-many, too-small feet makes Theseus’ skin crawl, but he knows he mustn’t be afraid of whatever is drawing close. Not really, not horribly so. He sighs, again.
“Let’s help him not get himself killed, yeah?”
“Yeah,” no hesitation. Oh, boy. They’ve got Credence trained well at this point, those two. Theseus strides after the young man, not in an open hurry but everything but loitering. You never know with Newt. You really don’t.