#i know i cant shut the fuck up with similes and metaphors but its just how i work i guess fuc k

[multi-purpose-tool-guy]

Grow

(part of my little ongoing month-long project of crewt one-shots which you can read here, but I really liked it so I’m posting it here!)

Shuffling the paper bag in his arms Credence pulls in a deep breath. The muggy New York air rattling around his lungs again after so long being away was not an entirely unpleasant feeling, and that alone surprised him.

He had been living with Newt in his suitcase (which was shuffled from hotel to inn to hostel on Newt’s long and final leg of fieldwork before his book was to be published) for almost two years now, and the space between being ripped apart in that dark subway tunnel and waking up half-dead on the Goldsteins’ doorstep felt like he really had died that night, and everything good he had now was someone up there giving him a second chance. He didn’t quite remember when it had stopped feeling like whoever it was was going to pull the rug out from under him, but he was just thankful to anyone who would listen that so far his luck was holding. And what a strange thing, to feel so laden with gifts in this life, when every breath he had taken in the one he had left behind was an act of survival.

He could hear Newt in his head already, just as if he were sitting at his desk with ink on his cheek as he explained with a glint in his eye how Doxies had evolved to have extra limbs. “Surviving is not an inferior state of being in the absence of thriving; survival is an act of strength. If one lives and breaths in this world it must fight for every minute of its existence, and for every day that it still stands in the face of everything opposing it, it grows that much stronger.“ He always had this incredible knack of telling you something about some creature or another, and it turning out to be immensely helpful advice that you didn’t even know you needed to hear. He doubted Newt himself new just how wise he was, but then one of his favorite things about Newt Scamander (and ironically what made Credence the most nervous in his early days living with him) was that he was entirely unpredictable.

The thought made him smile softly to himself, and he took another breath of New York air that didn’t seem to choke him like it used to before crossing the street. He had volunteered to pick up some ingredients that Jacob and Queenie needed for dinner that night, both to get a little bit of fresh air and to privately see if he could come back to this city in one piece and not immediately fall apart again. Newt had offered to tag along, but he was promptly plopped onto a sofa between two very proud Goldstein sisters (and one very proud pastry chef) and prodded lightheartedly to read aloud from the very first printed copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, hand delivered from the author himself.

So far Credence was proud of how well he was holding up, the dirty streets and towering buildings feeling like snakes without fangs now that he’d found a place that actually feels how a home should. He’d even started humming to himself as he walked, relief that he was actually maybe-sort of-mostly okay flooding through him like champagne in his veins.

In hindsight he should’ve have expected it, shouldn’t have been so foolish as to think he could step over the old bones of the city of his past and not bump into a few ghosts.

He rounded a corner onto Pike street almost as if by memory, like his feet had rediscovered the old grooves in the sidewalk made from years of haunting the streets, passing out flyers with garish words he didn’t believe in, for a mother who wasn’t his. The moment he laid eyes on what was left of the church he froze, the paper bag slipping from slack hands and sending vegetables rolling across the pavement.

After all his time away the church still lay in ruins, charred and splintered wood jutting from the ground like mangled tombstones. Even now, as Credence watched, people crossed the street to avoid going near it, like they could see the scars of what happened there. Consecrated in pain and rage and nothing near holy, treated like hallowed ground.  

A tear slipped down his cheek as it hit him hard enough to shatter that that is exactly what it was. A graveyard, a once sacred place where his mother, his sister, and his childhood are buried.

He had hoped it would have been renovated into a hat shop or a delicatessen or anything else in his absence so he wouldn't recognize it if he ever felt reckless enough to wander down this damned street, but Credence knew far too well the feeling of a wound that just wouldn't close.

Just when he thought he’d be sucked into the dirt and be trapped between the floorboards of his past forever, he spotted something that made his breath catch in his throat.

In the middle of the carnage and decay a little patch of plant life was blooming, fresh green leaves wet with dew and the little blue faces of flowers nestled in the rubble and standing out starkly against the gloom. He was seeing it, plain as day, but his mind couldn’t comprehend it as a reality. How could this place for dead and howling things be home to anything but? How could something live where once so much had suffered, had died?

He realized with a jolt that he recognized the flowers.

They were forget-me-nots.

He wanted to scream.

This isn’t right, this can’t be real, people walk past and it doesn’t even matter to them, little kids probably climb over the ruin and pick those flowers no this can’t be happening I can’t- I don’t-

He was only aware of how fast he was breathing when someone bumped into him from behind knocking into his shoulder and blundering past without a word. Some stranger, probably on his way to work, Credence having a breakdown in front of a broken down church probably just static in the background of New York to him. The impact spun him around and he stood there heaving for breath with groceries at his feet and suddenly, the church at his back, he was there, static in the background of New York, not two years in the past with his sister’s blood in the creases of his hands.

He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, but the sun had begun to dip between the buildings, spears of amber light jutting across the bustling city.

He stood there and breathed for a while, steady ins and outs of that muggy familiar air, and when he could trust himself to move he wiped the cold tear tracks from his cheeks and bent to collect his groceries. Without another glance at the broken building behind him he pushed his shoulders back and started off on the quickest route back to the Goldsteins’ apartment, counting his breaths.

On his way back, he thought about what Newt would have said if he’d been with him, if he would have known what to say at all.

Newt always had something to say, though, and he didn’t doubt that he would’ve gone really quiet, wrung his hands like he did when he was thinking of the right words for something important, and said something terribly cryptic but penetratingly profound. He would’ve probably fluttered a hand to lay on Credence’s shoulder, only to pull away at the last moment and turn away from him, and say something like, “Life can come from death, flowers can grow between old bones and joy can be born from tragedy. Life moves, life goes on, and you will survive, because you are stronger than you were then.”

Credence would be breathless, like he always was when Newt said things like that, and he’d tuck the words away to whisper when it was dark and he couldn’t sleep and he needed them most, and try desperately to believe they were true.

Comforted, Credence tried to shake off the strangeness of the evening and quickened his pace, eager to get back and hear what the real thing had to say.

He knew that going back to the remains of his old life would always do that to him, always try and drag him back down into the Hell of old mistakes and regrets. But with Newt, he never knew what tomorrow would bring. He only knew that with Newt, with his new family, he was both surviving and thriving.