Credence can hardly look. There are bees crawling all over Mr. Scamander’s hand—but Mr. Scamander comes up without a sting and a fingerful of very liquid honey.
“This is how it is straight out,” Mr. Scamander tells him. He licks his finger clean and makes a small, pleased sound, his blue eyes fluttering, and Credence loses his breath. Mr. Scamander scoops up more. “Here.”
Credence can’t speak. Mr. Scamander is very close, and his lips are wet, and he’s holding out his finger for Credence to lick.
Or: Credence and Newt are neighbors. Newt is a beekeeper, Credence is a gardener, and they’re both pining.
Read on AO3
"Beekeeper" AU for the AUgust 2021 fest (@augustwritingchallenge)! The collection is here!
Credence grew up hearing stories of the Devil. He was Heaven's most beautiful angel. He lured people using only truths and beauty. He was Temptation Incarnate.
It turned out the Devil was an unassuming British man with a small smile and a large suitcase.
Credence knows the truth. He has been raised with it, taught it, explained, extrapolated, lives with it every day of his life. Witches live among us. Witches hide and seek and beguile. Their magic is of the Devil, and it comes at the cost of one’s soul, and death comes to those who accept it, and there is no mercy in death, for there is no soul anymore.
He knows the truth. He is evil. Darkness runs through his veins like blood, like poison. He is corruption and sickness. His soul already is a withered husk, abused by belts and spells and angry, sweltering thoughts that rampage through his mind in the dark of night when he should be sleeping, recovering. Evil is a living cloud of darkness made of anger coalesced into grains of death and destruction. Evil is the white eyes that stare at him through reflections as his heart beats a thunderous rhythm.
He knows the truth, but his ma does not. She can’t, or she would do so much more than take the belt to him. Witches are evil and evil can only be purified by holy fire. It is a ritual, sacred, sanctimonious. It is necessary, but it is not kind, and he is frightened. It is a ritual followed by death, with no rest for the purged souls. These souls are lost, sold, gone already, traded for power, beauty, the Devil’s kiss. Do not give in to temptation, his ma says, and Credence tries to listen, he does, but the snap-crack of his belt distracts him, and trying not to cry out distracts him, and the roiling darkness within distracts him. He tries to listen, but it is so tempting, so appealing to let loose and lose control. He is so tired…
He knows the truth, but he doesn’t want to believe it. The man—the witch—is looking for a child. Something dangerous, someone in danger. The story changes, but he has always wanted something from Credence, and he tries, he does, but it is never enough, and he wonders if this might be Hell after all. Credence searches anyway, though he doesn’t know what he’s searching for. Unconsciously, he ends up looking for pure white eyes. He looks for hands like claws clutching at a stomach—at arms at legs—trying to hold their own body together. He avoids mirrors because he knows what he will see, and it is not him the witch is looking for. Credence will find the child, and perhaps the witch’s honey-sweet words will come true. Perhaps this is not what he knows it to be: a contract with the Devil.
He knows the truth, now. Mr Graves is no Devil. He is merely a man, like any other: ignorant and cruel, and Credence had been simply too desperate before to see it. The man stands before him, spitting condolences and revoking his words. Lies, simple, stupid lies, all of them. The Devil does not lie, and Credence is so tired of holding back. The roiling mass that substitutes his soul screams to be released and he sees no reason to refuse it anymore. He is done trying to redeem himself; he is already too far gone. He is Evil. God has not seen fit to save him, and the Devil has not come to claim him, and he is done trying to please both, so he lets himself free.
Credence is not sure what follows next. Darkness and screams, pleas and rage, and he can’t tell which he hears and which he feels. A flash of blue and gold Credence, can I come closer and lightening and screams and the witch is back. He speaks of joining together, but his words are no temptation. His deceit is done, and Credence knows the truth, suddenly, innately. Mr Graves is just a man, and Credence could end him now, easily, like Ma, like the Senator. Then there is light, absolute, and surely this must be the wrath of Heaven. Credence screams, wonders if the pain will end, berates himself for his weakness. There is no relief in death for the Wicked. Only Hell and the Devil and he wonders if Hell is the wreckage of his old home, soaked and cold and alone because that is where he finds himself, after the light stops tearing him to shreds. Credence looks around his room, breaths quick, heartbeat more-so, and thinks his Ma was right all along. There is nothing worse than this, and he deserves this and he never wanted this—he always wanted this, something screams, always. Finally, another part of him thinks, finally the Devil—someone—has seen fit to claim him.
The Devil, as it turns out, is a British man with rose-gold hair, a small smile, and a large suitcase.
Credence can’t help his laugh, rough and manic even to his ears. All this time, he’d been so blind. A flash of blue in the subway, slow approaching, a soft voice. An unassuming man on the steps of a bank—more of a chaser, really—said with a smile, an inside joke.
“You were there,” Credence says to the man’s questioning brow, and he thinks it’s not much of an explanation, but the other seems to understand.
“Ah, yes,” he nods slowly, not quite looking at Credence, “and I’m sorry. I tried to stop it,”
Credence doesn’t know if he believes him, but these words don’t have the honeysuckle sweetness of Mr Graves’ words. They are laced with a soft bitterness that makes something in his chest ache.
The man, Newt, a lizard, an amphibian—a snake in the grass—says he’s leaving back to his homeland, offers to take Credence with him, and what choice does he have? It’s too late for redemption. It’s too late for family. It’s too late for hope. Credence has none as he agrees and the witch—wizard—smiles happily. He opens his suitcase and jumps in.
Credence expects the worst, and can’t bring himself to hope for much better, but if this is Hell, he pities those who seek Heaven.
Inside the suitcase is a world full of mysteries and magic. To his left is a sun-filled Savannah, to his right a moonlit cliff. One foot walks in forest while the other digs into soft sand. above him large orbs of water float about aimlessly. And the beasts. Creatures the like of which Credence has never imagined dot the landscapes, peering out cautiously at him, lovingly at the man before him.
“What is this?” Slips out of Credence’s mouth before he can stop himself.
Mr Scamander—a small, blue, winged serpent curling around his arm, a half-invisible monkey-like creature folded around his shoulder, and a large, terrifying cat-like creature rubbing against his legs—replies, “This is home,” And Credence thinks of the Devil his mother spoke of. Not the red-skinned, horned imp of a demon, but rather the most beautiful angel in heaven, Lucifer, who tempts in truths and beauty. Credence looks around himself and wonders how he ever thought Graves had anything to do with this, wonders why anyone would seek anything else.
It turns out, Credence knew nothing before this. Nothing of magic, nothing of temptation. Time flies by, uncertain and unimportant. Newt offers him a home, a small cottage in between a sunlit meadow and a twilit forest. He offers an education; he offers an explanation.
Credence is an Obscurial. He has an Obscurus. It is an important difference, Mr Scamander emphasizes, then gives a strange, considering look, shrugs, and says, “Perhaps not for you anymore,” Then smiles as if this is an accomplishment.
He starts to trust Credence with his animals, and they, in turn, begin to trust Credence themselves. He gives Credence little touches, a pat on the arm, a guiding hand, and Credence spends too much time thinking of those touches, shivering, spending hours considering how gentle those hands are. He wants more, but he knows not to ask for more, knows better than to hope.
Newt gives and gives and never asks for anything in return, and Credence doesn’t know what to expect anymore. He’s waiting for the spell to break, waiting for the moment when this all comes crashing down, wondering when he will wake up, return to reality. He waits for the contract to be complete, for Newt to ask for his half. He expects and he doesn’t hope.
He wakes up with blood on his hands one day, and screams and screams. Its his Ma’s. It’s the Senator’s. It’s his, accompanied with the crack of a belt buckle. It’s Newt’s, curled and jerking on the railing of a subway station. Warm hands warp around him and pull him close. Credence feels more than hears the heartbeat tucked up against his cheek. It’s fast, but not as fast as the near constant thrum of his, and he attempts to focus on that instead of the screams of the city he long since left behind. Newt murmurs quiet condolences into his hair, grown out and wild, and his hands tighten their grip, and this is all that keeps Credence from falling out of his skin as he latches on with everything he has, gripping Newt too tight.
Eventually, the blood sloughs off and the screams subside, and Credence knows he should let go, but he doesn’t, and Newt never tries to tear himself away. So they sit there on the ground beside in his bed in his cottage in between dawn and dusk, and Credence wonders if eternity can fit in a moment.
The moment subsides and Credence is left with dread. It pools in his stomach, sharper than the Obscurus, forces him to push himself away, compels him to look at the ground. He can sense the questioning stare well enough without seeing it. He can feel the uncertainty in the hands clenched near his arms. He works his jaw, tries to loosen the words stuck just behind his teeth.
It takes too long. The moment has come and passed, but Newt hasn’t moved, hasn’t pushed or pulled or insisted or asked, and Credence uses this to force the moment back and shove the words out.
“Why?” He bites out, “Why are you doing this?”
The silence is all-consuming. It’s filled with the memory of voices. It screams Demon! it whispers do it for the child. It pleas Help me, help yourself, help God. It sneers go away, Freak! It cries soft sobs, and darkness shifts and churns as his vision goes white—
Credence’s thoughts are so full of ghosts he almost doesn’t hear the softly murmured, “Because I care about you,” Almost doesn’t believe he does hear it, except Newt looks so very confused by his own statement. He glances at Credence for just a moment, and Credence would swear to God that Newt is asking him to clarify, as if he were the one that said it.
Credence knows the truth, finally. It’s soft lips and a soft sigh. It’s warm hands grabbing his overgrown hair. It’s a murmured name and a shiver and a low heat in his belly that forces out a low moan. It’s redemption and temptation all at once, and Credence knows he will never get enough of this.
They break apart for need of air, and Newt presses his forehead into the the joint where Credence’s neck and shoulder meet and confesses, “I’m afraid I’ve gotten rather attached,”
Credence doesn’t know what to say to that—doesn’t know what to say in the face of what he’s just done. He doesn’t know what the future holds. He doesn’t know if he’s found Hell or Heaven, but Credence knows the truth.
The truth is thus: Newt will never ask for anything, and in return Credence will give him everything.
