Work Text:
It's a long time before Percival Graves starts to stir.
The curse laid on him was complex, powerful - at least, as far as Newt was aware. None of their diagnostic spells turned up anything of use. He'd left New York on a Muggle train with a half-spelled carpet in his suitcase, his wards adjusted and re-adjusted to perfection, and on his way out Tina had caught his arm before he reached the door: her expression unreadable, her mouth in a thin, stubborn line. "Please," she'd said, and looked at Graves lying just as still and silent as the day they'd found him entirely by chance, transfigured into an innocuous brick in the subway station wall. "If anything can help him..."
She wasn't wrong. Newt couldn't say no.
The small transfigured cot that Graves was lying in is gone by the time Newt returns to his case, on a cold, frosty day with the sun hanging low in the sky. The train's still rattling along its tracks, travelling slowly, inexorably west and he's paid enough fare for a first-class cabin and the privacy it affords. Newt has to be careful with the wards on the door, now; he has to avoid the too-obvious effects of the Muggle-repelling charm, and sticks with a proximity alarm delicately tied to a faint notice-me-not - and it takes him a good hour to set everything up to his satisfaction, complete with an illusion of a person sleeping in the bed.
So when he drops into his case, picks up a bucket of food for his creatures and opens the cabin door, he's entirely unprepared for the wand in his face.
"Who are you?" are the first words Graves says to him. His face is pale and drawn, the shadows under his eyes heavy. Newt wonders if his sleep was dreamless, or if it could be called sleep at all. "And where am I?"
"I'm not a danger to you," Newt says, and he automatically finds his voice switching to an even, soothing register as he sets the bucket of raw meat carefully on the floor. He doesn't make any sudden movements, doesn't maintain eye contact for more that a second, gaze flitting over Graves's worn face and seeing only the same exhaustion newly writ into Newt's bones. "I'm Newt. Newt Scamander. You're inside my - suitcase, I suppose."
Graves doesn't seem to relax, exactly, but the tip of his wand lowers, and Newt lets himself breathe again. "This," he says, and pointedly looks over his shoulder to Newt's multitude of habitats, the extra cabin he anchored into the ground. "This is a suitcase?"
"With a few Undetectable Expansion Charms," Newt says, somewhat sheepishly. "I'll show you the outside if you'd like, but..."
"But?" Graves repeats, eyebrows quirked, and Newt can't help the face he pulls as he glances away.
"It's quite a story. I'm travelling by train now, at any rate - Muggle, I mean - so nothing will... change, given a few hours. And I'm sure you'd like something to eat."
Graves studies him for a long moment, his gaze piercing, and then he sighs. "You left my wand by my bedside," he says, and lets his hand fall, slipping the aformentioned wand back up his sleeve. "So you can't want to trap me here, at least. But what happened? Where are we?"
Newt can't stay tight-lipped for long. Graves lets him delay long enough to get tea and rescue enough supplies for sandwiches from his stores, and he's the one who conjures a neat lunch table and chairs, matching in lovely design, a light flourish to the functional shapes. "I don't know how much you remember," Newt starts, hesitantly, "from - before you were captured," and Graves shakes his head.
"He caught me from behind," he says, "but he woke me, once, to extract my memories. It was Grindelwald?"
"It was," Newt says. The name still sends a shiver of disquiet down his spine; the fear is not for the man, but for what he's wrought. "I... how much do you know about his plans in New York?"
"Less than nothing," Graves says. He only starts at his sandwich after he's seen Newt eat one entirely, but after three bites he's evidently taking it slow. "I assume it had something to do with his magical supremacy bullshit."
Newt smiles briefly despite himself. "Yes, I suppose that's explicative enough. I only arrived in New York in December, and by the time I realised what he was after... I was far too late."
Graves stills, his hand on a teacup handle, expression frozen flat. "Too late."
"He achieved - practically everything he wanted," Newt says, quietly. His failure still weighs heavy on his shoulders, chokes the words on his tongue. "It's - well. I've been getting the Prophet from Theseus, and the Muggle papers here - you can see for yourself."
"...And New York?"
"Oh, most of MACUSA is fine," Newt clarifies hurriedly. "Though they've largely moved to Ilvermorny, I believe. I'm still in contact with them, Tina - Goldstein, that is - gave me a Vanishing Box before I left. And we're only a few days out from my business in Arizona."
"Goldstein," Graves mumbles, and closes his eyes, rubbing a hand across his forehead. "I should contact Seraphina. Where are these papers? And what happened to Grindelwald?"
Newt fixes his gaze on the table. "He's dead."
He lifts his wand to avoid seeing Graves's expression, focusing on the stacks of newspapers he's started to keep; the proximity ward goes off as he does, though, a reminder that he's not safe enough, even this far from MACUSA and New York. "And that'll be today's paper," Newt says, as the faint sound of it rings through the air, "I'll just be a moment - "
He scrambles up the ladder in his case, dismisses his illusion, and manages to briefly straighten his waistcoat before he hears the knock on the door. It's always a brief, terrifying moment before he opens it, the rush of adrenaline clearing his head and making him jittery as he slips his wand back up his sleeve, and Newt gives what must be an anxious smile to the porter at the door. The man - the Muggle - is dressed impeccably, expression incurious as he holds the broadsheet Newt asked for - and then his eyebrows twitch as he looks over Newt's shoulder and Newt spins on his heel and follows his gaze.
His heart stops in his throat. It's Graves, rumpled, wearing Newt's ill-fitting clothes and there's hardly enough space in these tiny compartments for two. Newt looks at the porter and wonders how quickly he can get away; an Obliviation will leave a mark, Apparition too much of a trail. But that moment of silence - the porter with paper in hand, Newt on the edge of panic, Graves's quick, sharp realisation - is abruptly broken. "Sorry," Graves says, voice rough and different in a way Newt can't quite pinpoint, "I thought I heard..."
"Sirs," the porter says, and clears his throat. Newt, awkwardly, takes the newspaper from his hands.
"If you could, ah - "
Graves has sidled up to him, far too close in the confined space, and sets a warm hand on Newt's hip as he leans forward, smiling crookedly. "I hope you'll be able to forget this," he says, and his accent has deepened, his vowels lengthened. He takes the porter's hand and slips some Muggle notes into his palm. "Your discretion is appreciated."
Graves meets the man's gaze as he says it. Newt glances at him, heartbeat stuttering in his chest; he's not sure if it's fear or something else entirely.
The porter says, a moment later, "Of course, sir." Newt still barely breathes until the door is shut again, the man's steps finally faded away.
"I," Newt starts, and swallows. "You don't think he noticed?"
Graves detaches himself from Newt's side, takes a step back that feels smaller than it should. His wand is well-hidden, at least, not even a glimpse of the handle visible in the rumpled lines of Newt's shirt, and his expression is more amused than worried. "That we're magical? No."
Newt feels his own relief wash over him, a slow steadying calm as he lets his breath out in a rush. "You still bribed him," he says, and glances back down to his case, shoved hastily under the bed extended over the floor. Nothing's visible, they're safe - at least as safe as they can ever be.
"He thought you snuck me in," Graves says, eyebrows quirked. "No-Majs are more tolerant of... proclivities with money involved."
"Oh?" Newt says, somewhat confused, and then realisation dawns. "Oh. Of course. I hadn't even thought..."
He covers for his slip by passing the newspaper over as he pulls his case clear of the bed, again checking his wards before he heads back inside. Graves doesn't follow him, not immediately; Newt's halfway to pulling out some more articles from the past few months as he levitates some food over to the hungry occamies when he realises Graves is still standing by the cabin door, flipping through the newspaper, expression unreadable.
"So this is the state of things," Graves says to him when Newt approaches, near enough to hear. "This - stalemate."
"It's better than outright war," Newt says, though he knows nothing is quite that simple. There are communities everywhere that must be suffering under the onus of tight secrecy, magical creature sanctuaries and habitats starting to be encroached upon by people increasingly desperate and afraid. "It's - some places are worse than others. New York..."
The New York Post's headlines today read, Hundreds more dead in magical terror; there's a still image of Muggles in uniform, pointing rifles up at a dark incomprehensible sky. Graves looks at the photograph and back at Newt, his gaze piercing, intent. "You said you'd be done here soon. In Arizona. Then you're heading back to New York?"
Newt can't help the disquiet he knows is etched into his frown. "You can leave without me, Mr Graves. I - you know I can hardly keep you here."
"There seems to be a reason you're not Apparating," Graves says, eyebrows rising. "Or taking Portkeys, for that matter - there must be more efficient methods of travel than this. I know precious little of what happened here, and to get to New York by myself..."
Well, Newt thinks, and looks away. "Of course," he says, and sighs. "Our next stop is in Denver. I have a carpet I was planning on taking from there."
Newt still has to fix up the charms on it, to make it invisible to Muggle and magical eyes. He'll work on it, but first there are creatures to be fed, habitats to check, and he busies himself with double-checking the spells on Frank's tiny patch of Arizona sky as he tries to ignore the weight of Graves's gaze on his back. Graves reads through the papers Newt has kept, asks him questions, some of which Newt can't answer. Then he stops, falling silent, and Newt glances back and abruptly realises Graves seems - unmoored, here in Newt's case and cut off from the world. "Here," Newt says, and shoves a bucket of mooncalf pellets at him, so abruptly Graves takes it without conscious thought. "You can help me feed the mooncalves. They're very docile, they won't be a problem."
"I can't imagine you came into America with permits for all of these beasts," Graves says, giving a pointed look towards Frank, probably only because he hasn't yet spotted the nundu. "We have laws about smuggling."
"I passed customs," Newt protests, half-heartedly. "Muggle, at least. And you hadn't done a particularly good job at cracking down on the trafficking, anyway."
Graves's mouth twists. "I suppose not," he says. "Not that it matters now."
"It should matter," Newt finds himself saying, with a little more vehemence than he means to. "Now, more than ever - the destruction of creatures' native habitats is already increasing thanks to witches and wizards' use of their parts for potions, their coveting of their hide or shells or fur - with Muggles in the mix, even creatures who might have had a stable if slim population are now under potential threat, and - "
He cuts himself off, forcing himself to stop, and he takes a handful of pellets from Graves's bucket and watches the mooncalves trip over each other to get some food.
"You care a lot about conservation," Graves says, and when Newt spares him a glance his expression is curious, not condescending. "Is that why you're here?"
"I..." Newt shakes his head. "I came here to return Frank - the thunderbird, that is - to Arizona. I still will, if their nests can be trusted to be kept safe."
Graves tosses his own handful of pellets to the mooncalves; Newt lets himself pet the youngling that's come over, its eyes large and gleaming in the low light. "Mr Scamander," Graves says, after a moment, and then: "Newt. Was it one of your creatures that was loose in New York?"
Newt stills, hand entangled in the mooncalf's short fur. Graves doesn't look accusatory, at least, but he's watching Newt with the sharpness of Legilimency, enough so that Newt tries to remember Theseus's old lessons on clearing his mind. "No," Newt says, "no. There was a - mixup involved, yes, but... what Grindelwald wanted was an Obscurial."
"In New York?" Graves says, but he's the one who breaks their gazes, looking past Newt to the hilly line of the moonlit horizon. "The Second Salemers. Of course."
Newt bites his lip and looks away. "It was handled terribly - but it was Grindelwald who incited it."
"Even once he's dead, that man is a curse," Graves says, and lets out a tired sigh as he tips out the last of the mooncalves' food. He examines his cuffs as he lets his arm fall, and gives Newt a faint, wry smile. It crinkles the corners of his eyes, dark and fathomless in the faint light, and it makes Newt feel - strange, lost. "If I am causing you trouble - "
"Oh, no," Newt says quickly, "it's quite all right. If you don't mind the detour. I could use some help with the spells on the carpet, too - Tina lent it to me from MACUSA storage when I left."
"Confiscated storage," Graves says when Newt summons it with a flick of his wand and it spills out on the dark grass, the striking gold tassels fading into the dirt. "Though that means little by now."
"It means as much as you want it to," Newt says, and the look Graves gives him - startled, almost - makes warmth rush to his face as he drops his head and hides an uncertain smile. "I'm not particularly up on mixing charms with levitation spells, I'm afraid - this knot here in particular..."
They work on the spells until Graves is starting to hide yawns, wide and cracking, behind his hand, but he still insists on casting the final loop of them, a beautiful, intricate swirl of magic that settles, shimmering, into the carpet's weave. By the time he retires to the cot he'd awoken in, Newt's hiding yawns himself, but for some reason his steps feel light as he climbs the ladder and sets away the Muggle bed. It's still a few hours before they pull into the station, and Newt spends it dozing with his head in his hands, the book he was once working on open again in front of him and his quill stained with ink.
He packs it hastily, guiltily away again when the porter knocks on his door.
Newt knows precious little about Denver. Graves knows more, enough to tell him to keep to the outskirts of the city when they book a small Muggle hotel room for two. There are Muggle soldiers roaming the streets, and Newt is questioned at every checkpoint, the sharp, pointed once-over and the deliberate check for a wand. "He's with me," Graves says, there; and again, this time with an array of detection spells and the skin-tingling sensation of passing through heavy wards. "Director of Magical Security. Percival Graves."
"MACUSA," the woman scoffs, but lets them over the threshold to the magical street. It's cold and still and quiet, a few harried witches and wizards bundled in warm coats and scarves as they hurry to their destinations, not meeting anyone's eyes. "For all the good they've done."
"We're trying to re-establish lines of contact," Newt says, and glances at her long enough to see the stress lines around her eyes. "You seem to have everything well in-hand here, of course, but in the case of some trouble..."
She glances between him and Graves, who has his hands in his pockets and looks authoritative, Newt thinks, if a little tired, a little lost. He still stands straight-backed, has charmed Newt's spare clothing to fit him better than it ever has on Newt, and the witch's mouth pulls tight as she sighs. "What sort of contact?"
In New York, it'd taken only a week for the remaining Aurors and other MACUSA employees to come up with solutions, however crude. Newt passes on some of them now: a protean-charmed alert small enough to fit in a pocket, a set of passwords for the newly-established Floo. "And I don't suppose you've heard from the wampus reserve?"
She huffs a brief, unamused laugh. "Wampuses have taken care of themselves for years before we came along. There are bigger things to worry about."
Bigger, perhaps. But Newt's reminded of the fragility of life again when he sees the lonely magical pet store, the size-expanded cage with an old, cranky kneazle and a single baby crup. "Are these the last you have?" he asks the shopkeeper, a teenager probably barely out of Ilvermorny if at all, and the boy shrugs, not looking up from the radio he's tuning. The magical stations are quieter, but not yet dead.
"I just work here," he says. "But I think so."
Newt pays for them with American currency, the dragots he exchanged in what seems like a lifetime ago. "You're a bleeding heart," Graves says, not unkindly, when Newt meets him again at the seamstresses'. "You can't save all the magical creatures in the world."
"Is it wrong to try, though?" Newt says without thought, and then bites back whatever else he was going to say at the seamstress's sharp glare. Graves shakes his head, collects the shirts folding themselves into a paper-wrapped package, and shrugs on his new coat. As they walk back out to the street, Newt manages, into the silence, "I'm sorry."
Graves glances at him, expression unreadable. "There are other things we should be doing," he says, "is that what you want me to say? Fixing the problems Grindelwald's left?"
"I," Newt says, and stops. They're on the edge of the quiet street, still in the comparative safety of the wards, and Newt's copy of the Prophet yesterday had the closing of the Leaky Cauldron as front-page news, Muggle-hating rhetoric in their published letters. Newt peers at Graves under the harsh winter sunlight, the stark shadow he casts against the brick wall, and Graves watches him back, eyes dark and unfathomable. "I think it's obvious enough," Newt says, as the quiet stretches long. "I'm not made for - this. Politics, organising - Tina asked me to meet with the puckwudgie commune once and that went terribly for everyone involved. I... I was writing a book, before."
"Your magical creatures?"
"Information, not extermination," Newt says, and the words come with difficulty, the guilt of admittance like a curse. "In the hopes of - of people understanding, that perhaps we're not so different after all." He manages a smile, brittle and tight-edged. "A good thought, you're probably thinking."
"Yes," Graves says, voice low. "It's a good thought."
On the Muggle side, the city is teeming. Newt is used to being dismissed as odd but now that's something of a danger, and so he keeps his head down and his steps not-too-hurried, double-checks the lock on his suitcase and the switch keeping it glamoured safe. Graves could fade into the crowd, his smooth American accent and easy cadence lending him a familiar, unobjectionable air; "Military?" one of the soldiers asks as he checks over Newt's papers, and Graves nods.
"I retired after the war."
"The first war," the soldier says.
"Will it - really come to that?" Newt asks as he takes his papers back, clutching a little tighter to his case. Graves brushes a hand against his arm, and Newt forces himself to relax as the Muggle soldier gives them both a grim smile.
"Look at what happened in New York. They're a danger, just you wait."
Their hotel is off a quiet side-street, but there are still the clanking sounds of the boots of Muggle guards intermittently across the pavement. Newt pulls the curtains shut as Graves shuts the door, and only then allows himself to take out his wand. "Is this what it's like," Graves says, as Newt casts his usual set of spells over the windows, "everywhere?"
Newt shakes his head. "The Muggle entrance to Diagon Alley - in London, that is - is entirely closed. And Grindelwald's support base in Europe - "
"They're fighting back," Graves says flatly.
"It's difficult to fault them," Newt says, "but after everything - I don't know."
There aren't any easy solutions. There isn't anything but his case and his creatures, the magic that jitters restlessly under his skin. And Graves, too: for all his poise and seeming self-composure, Newt wonders if he might feel just as lost as Newt does, this unmoored feeling that made him leave in the first place. "You had some trinkets from the people at MACUSA," Graves says, "Goldstein, you said?"
"Yes," Newt says, and spares him a glance as he sets his case on the floor, clicking open the latch. "They're setting up communication, I think - paths of transport that won't draw too much attention. The sound of Apparation, and the points we used to have - "
"And the wards can't be pulled down," Graves realises, "because of this war."
"If Grindelwald's supporters want to mount an attack, losing the wards would be..." Newt bites his lip and looks into his case. The kneazle sticks a paw out, and he reaches in and pulls her up; she looks enough like a cat that she'd be fine in the Muggle world, he knows, but -
No creature should be left to that life, bred to be kept and then thrown to the streets. No creature should have to live its last days in a cage. "Hello, sweetheart," Newt croons at her, and she stops bristling long enough to give him a distasteful look, cleverer than anyone would account for. "It's all right. I know you can't be happy, you've been shut up for so long. It's an entirely new life out here for you now."
Graves has crossed the room to the window when Newt looks up, and has his gaze fixed on the streets below, visible through the curtains thanks to a one-way charm. "I still can't believe it," he says, when he turns and sees Newt watching him. "This feels like a dream."
"Yes," Newt says, "I lived through it and it - it still does."
The kneazle leaps out his arms and Newt raises his eyebrows at her as he summons some food from his case, but the old girl isn't even interested as she stalks toward Graves, tail-up. He regards her with the wariness most people afford Newt's more dangerous creatures, but she drops both tail and head when she stops at his feet, pressing her nose to his shoes. Slowly, Graves drops to his knees and holds out a hand for her to sniff.
"I think she likes you," Newt says, "at least more than she does me."
"Give it time," Graves says, and when Newt looks at him, he's smiling.
Newt's eventually drawn back into his case by the need to feed his creatures and he does his rounds again, chastising Pickett when he tries to sneak away in his waistcoat pocket and discovers he can't find the niffler for galleons; he double-checks his spells, casts a locating charm, and sighs when it turns up empty. There's enough magic-resistance to a niffler's coat that he isn't terribly worried, but Dougal fixes him with a blue-eyed stare when he's about to leave and Newt finds himself taking the shrunken carpet in his pocket too, just in case. As he climbs out again, he asks, "I don't suppose you've seen - " and stops.
Graves's hair is damp, curling at the edges, and Newt can see the moisture still clinging to his skin. He's abruptly reminded that the man is startlingly handsome, with the glimpse of the thin cotton of his combinations doing precious little to hide the breadth of his shoulders under his shirt, and he barely manages to look away before Graves finishes with his buttons and raises his eyebrows curiously. "Seen what?"
"Ah," Newt says, and clears his throat and tries to think of more prurient things. "It's nothing, really - I've just seemed to have misplaced my niffler - he can't have gone far, with the wards..."
He trails off. Graves follows his guilty glance to the door.
"I," Newt says. "Well. He should still be in the building, at least."
"That's reassuring," Graves says dryly, but he shrugs on a waistcoat and slips his wand up his sleeve, running a hand down his arm with a careless wandless spell that settles the lines of his shirt straight, his wand invisible. Newt gives him a brief smile as he clicks the lock on his case and turns to the door.
"I'm sure he wouldn't." Newt puts a little more conviction in his voice. "But I should find him before he gets into too much trouble."
Too much trouble - an understatement, Newt thinks, as he heads down the hallway and sees the tail end of a niffler slipping under a door at the bottom of the stairs. He hurries to it, finds himself in another stretching hall and spots a paw disappearing around a corner; then it's through a set of double-doors and Newt manages to grab the wriggling creature by the nape as he pulls to a swift halt in the room.
It's the kitchen - for the silverware, of course. Newt glances around and unclasps the lock on his case but Graves, half-a-step behind him, clears his throat. His gaze is fixed on the pantry door, the wooden slats - and Newt's voice sticks in his throat.
"Ma'am," Graves says, "you can come out now."
Slowly, she does. She's young, still; probably not much older than the boy working in the magical pet store, barely out of school. Newt says, "I'm very sorry about this one, really, he's - a terrible rascal," and tries on a smile, brief and wavering. She's looking at his niffler like -
Fear. Newt presses his tongue to his teeth.
"It won't get loose again," Graves says, a promise Newt knows the niffler isn't inclined to keep as it glares at him balefully from his hands. "Will you be all right?"
The girl's fingers are clenched together, tight enough her knuckles are white. "Y-yes," she says. "I'm fine."
Graves inclines his head and looks at Newt for a moment that feels stretched thin, and Newt wonders if he, too, can hear his own heart pounding in his ears. Newt drops his gaze as he heads back to the door and on the other side, he steps aside far enough for Graves to follow.
They stand there for a brief, taut moment as the door clicks shut. Newt's fingers itch for his wand, but first he checks both ways and drops the struggling niffler back into his case right there in the hall. "She might not," Newt starts, as Graves says, "We could Obliviate her - "
There's the sound of a far door closing, echoing through the floor. If Newt were listening, perhaps he'd hear footsteps, a girl's trembling voice. Graves's hand lifts, half-instinct, and Newt can feel his magic rising to his aid as a strange, foreign buzz against his skin. "We shouldn't," Newt says, and cuts himself off. "Perhaps we should go."
"Yes," Graves says. "Let's go."
He takes the path back to their room unhurried, stiff-backed, almost preternaturally calm. Newt can't keep his fingers from his wand; he curls them around the hilt, thinks of stunning spells and compulsions as he heads back up the stairs. They're half-way there before the external doors open with a bang that reverberates through Newt's bones.
Newt's fingers slip from his wand to the shrunken carpet, and he pulls it out and sets it on the floor. Then he reaches for his wand again.
Graves, paused on a half-step, looks back over his shoulder, nonplussed. "Here?"
"If you have a better idea," Newt says, and Graves casts his gaze over Newt's head, to where he's sure there are soldiers starting in -
Magic washes over Newt like a storm, both familiar and strange. The carpet expands under his wand and feet as he takes the step up onto it, and as it rises into the air he reaches out to Graves, looking at the men, shouting, their voices too muffled for Newt to hear through the ringing in his ears, the sparking sense just before a lightning strike emanating from Graves's skin -
Newt says, "Please."
Graves takes his hand.
It sends a shock through Newt's arm but he pulls Graves up beside him, keeping his gaze fixed forward instead of behind. The carpet starts sluggishly in the confined hallway, and Newt doesn't look as he feels Graves make a sharp, cutting gesture with his arm; his magic leaves him in a rush, a wave Newt feels like a herd of hippogriffs flying by, particularly with the shouts that follow. "You can't," Newt starts, and Graves huffs and brings out his wand, starts weaving a spell complex and powerful in the air.
"Better than an Obliviation," he says, as Newt flicks the door open in front of them, and the window at the end with a tantalising glimpse of sky, "just give me a second - "
They lift out the window and Newt spins the carpet up as Graves's grip on his wand goes white-knuckled, the strain of the magic he's holding visible in the tight lines of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw. Newt eyes the doorway from their vantage point and thinks they'll only be dazed a few moments at most. "A second," he says, "or a few?"
Graves gives him a exasperated glance softened with a half-smile, murmurs a few words in Latin and lets the magic go. It settles as a wide web of a spell that shimmers for a blink before sinking into the brick of the building beneath; then, on an exhale, he says, "It's done."
Newt casts a quick notice-me-not over them again as the carpet rises, and then they're flying smoothly through the air, toward the setting sun.
The low light of evening slowly turns to dusk, and by the time they land the sun has sunk below the horizon, the shadows drawing long. The glimmer of moonlight shines though the faintest wisps of cloud and Newt's spent the last hour watching the stars and his wand in his palm, directing him further and further south. The forests they passed over are all-but-gone now, trees turned to sparse scrub against the pale dirt, and the carpet settles smoothly on a patch of ground that's scraped clean by the breeze.
Graves had dozed off, somewhere in the first few hours; from the exhaustion of handling magic and his recent recuperation, perhaps. He doesn't stir immediately, now. Newt looks at the dark circles under his eyes, the crows-feet from the corners, and wonders if they've deepened as he sets a gentle hand on his shoulder. "We've stopped," he says, and keeps his voice soft. "It's safe."
For a moment, Newt could think he's again been taken by a curse: Graves appears as he once had, still and silent, the only evidence of life in his heartbeat and the steady movement of his chest as he breathes. But at Newt's touch his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, and not a moment later he opens his eyes. Graves's expression is startlingly unguarded for the briefest of moments, not longer than a blink, and Newt awkwardly drops his hand and looks away.
This can't have been what Graves would have wanted, being trapped on a journey with Newt's messy sense of priorities and direction, and Newt briefly wonders if he should have suggested Graves stay in Denver, where they'll certainly have a Floo up and running in a few far-less-stressful days. He opens his mouth, closes it again when Graves rubs at his eyes and raises his eyebrows at Newt's expression, however much of it he can see.
"My apologies," Graves says, his voice still rough with sleep.
"It's perfectly fine. You've barely woken and after all that magic use - " Newt bites his lip and manages a wry smile. "I really should have had things under better control."
"As long as you retrieved that infernal creature of yours," Graves says, and when Newt glances at him his eyes are shadowed, his tone faintly amused. "Are your travels always this frantic?"
Newt can feel his face heat, and hopes it's hidden under the cover of darkness. "Perhaps not quite to this extent. My niffler's actually been fairly well-behaved the last few weeks - I'm not sure what's gotten into him. Before - before New York, he was quite the menace."
Graves tilts his head, hair falling over his face, and says, "Go on." The flash of his smile warms Newt from the inside out.
Recounting the tale of how he happened to come across the niffler is the easiest starting point, of course - they're native to Britain but uncommon in cities and homes, no matter how much they like hunting for shiny goods. Newt's niffler was an outlier in that regard - entirely unconcerned with where it should have been, Newt had first found it when a magical jewelry shop started complaining about thieves. "I found him stealing - entirely unashamed - from their safe, of all places. Magically-locked, of course, but not warded against opportunistic nifflers."
"And you took it with you?" Graves says, amused.
"I could hardly leave it there," Newt says, "after that - it would end in a niffler running havoc somewhere or the poor creature's death. At least this way I can do something about it."
"Not enough, apparently." Graves's tone is light, though, as he lifts his head to look at the endless sky. "Is this the reason you took me along, too? Another stray for your collection?"
"No, I mean - " Newt starts, startled, and only then catches the teasing edge of Graves's voice, the quirk of his eyebrows over his sly smile. Face flushing, Newt ducks his head. "It's one of the reasons, perhaps. You weren't improving there, and I - I think we hoped taking you away would help."
"Some sort of location-dependent curse, then," Graves muses, "or just serendipity."
Tentatively, Newt says, "I am sorry about the detour. If you wanted - "
"If I wanted," Graves says, "I could have stayed in Denver, you mean. Or retraced your steps on No-Maj trains all the way back to New York."
Newt glances at him, the long shadows of his cheeks under the moonlight, the glint of the stars in his eyes. Graves examines him in the darkness, and Newt feels a rush of self-consciousness even as he wonders what he makes of him; instead he forces himself to look away, out to the dusty horizon. "You could have," Newt says, "yes. It would have gotten you back faster."
"And to what?" Graves says, wry. "Picking up the pieces of MACUSA? Everything I worked for, everything there I've done... and how much could I help, now? At least you seem to need an extra wand."
"I have been travelling by myself, you know," Newt says, an odd curl of warmth in his chest. "Though - I wouldn't mind the company. It's..." empty, Newt doesn't say, watching the world go by his window and knowing there's nothing to be done about any of it, except for the tiny chance some creatures, at least, might make it out of everything with their homes and their lives; that there'll ever be phoenixes and thunderbirds in the sky. "It's been a while."
"Yes," Graves says, and there's something understanding in his expression, in the way his arm brushes Newt's as he rises to his feet. "I'll set the wards. Do you have a tent somewhere in that ridiculous case of yours?"
Newt bites back a smile. "I rather thought we'd camp out under the stars."
Food is from Newt's stores, a rather haphazard mishmash of nutrients that ends up in a soup; not one of his best efforts, but Graves seems to appreciate it anyway, bare hands curled around the warm bowl. There's no light, no sound but those of the many unaware creatures skittering around, avoiding them in a circle of magic barely visible against the ground, and Newt breathes in the silence and watches the stars in the sky, Graves in a transfigured bedroll by his side.
The next morning starts with the sun in their eyes. Newt's fed almost all his creatures by the time Graves drops in his case, and he's spent the last half-hour talking to Frank - pointlessly, he knows, terribly coddling, as Pickett has been sure to inform him - and throwing treats for him up into his enchanted sky. "Today, then," Graves says, approaching Newt and Frank with a healthy dose of practical caution but little fear, "you'll be taking him back?"
"He's been looking forward to coming home," Newt says, though his voice feels choked in his throat.
"Thunderbirds have plenty of defenses," Graves says, "weren't you saying they camouflage with the sky? We have enough trouble finding them I doubt No-Majs will bother."
It's reassuring, in a practical way. "Yes," Newt says, and sighs. "You're right. There are far worse creatures to be than a thunderbird in these times. You're ready to go home, aren't you?" he asks Frank, and the thunderbird croons as it butts Newt's hand with its head, its feathers sleek against his fingertips. "I've just been... dillydallying."
The quirk of Graves's smile is sympathetic, and Newt finds himself smiling in return. "All right, let's get him home."
They're still hours out from the thunderbird nests in Arizona, but this time Graves is wide awake, a welcome presence for all that he's grimacing at Newt's handing of the carpet as it sweeps through the sky. "As much as I trust my own charms on this," he says, "do you actually know how to use it?"
"I've flown it this far," Newt says, biting back a smile, "and there are spells that keep us from falling off - "
"Mercy Lewis," Graves says, and winces as the carpet wobbles. "No. As long as you don't tip us over."
The wind's worse out here, as they finally cross the mountains. The air becomes thin enough Graves decides enough is enough and starts casting more charms - and has some difficulty layering them on the already-complex enchantments on the carpet. Still, it isn't long before they're flying as though the breeze is quiet and calm, Newt's case safely anchored beside them, and the low-lying clouds they're flying through pass by with the distortion of a bubble-head charm, shapes long and wide.
The snow disappears from under them when they drift lower, the desert stretching out in front of them for miles. Newt glances between his wand in his hand and the clouds around them, and it's still a fair distance away from where his wand is directing them when he gradually brings them down to the ground.
Graves is first off the carpet and takes a few unsteady steps on the ground before Newt follows him, case in hand, and sets it carefully down. "We're here, now," Newt says, into his case, and he knows Frank must hear him; there's a rush of wind, a thunderbird's wings, and Newt takes a step back and watches him leap out into the sky.
Frank flaps his wings a few times and then coasts back to the ground. His wingspan is absolutely magnificent, the lame wing he once had well-healed and working well, and yet Newt still feels a rush of melancholy as Frank nudges him and he wraps his arm around the thunderbird's neck. "I'll miss you," he says, quietly. Frank croons at him, runs his beak through Newt's messy hair as though he needs to be groomed, and waits for Newt to take a few deliberate steps backward before he once again spreads his wings and takes to the sky. The sunlight is bright, shining into his eyes, and Newt shades his gaze with his hand as he watches Frank fly away, until he loses his shimmering wings in the light.
He turns back to the carpet, and stops. It's hovering in mid-air under Graves's feet, his brow furrowed in concentration, and Newt says, "Ah - "
"You wanted to follow him, didn't you?" Graves says, head tilted, expression almost a challenge. "I think I have a handle on this. We'll lose the trail if we don't hurry."
"Well," Newt says, "in that case," and grabs his case before he clambers aboard.
Zooming after a thunderbird in flight on a wavering carpet is an absolute disaster, a complete delight. Graves has the theory behind it and precious little else, and the enchantments over them do little to stop the whistle of the wind whipping past Newt's ears, the rush of adrenaline as the carpet's buffeted to and fro. "Are you really sure," Newt starts, and his voice feels like it's torn from him, lost in the swooping sensation of speeding up as Newt belatedly spots Frank's wings against the growing clouds, and when Graves gives him a look that's all challenge Newt can't help his smile.
"Are you?" Graves says, eyebrows raised, and they drop into a curve as they follow him, spiralling down.
Newt's worries feel like they've been left behind as they soar after Frank and as the sky starts to darken ahead, a slow bloom of clouds and magic accompanying the tingling sensation of lightning in the air. It's there that he spots the shadows in the sky, now - multiple of them, some large, some small, all startlingly beautiful, feathers tinted with magic older than anything he knows. "We have to," he starts, breathless, and Graves pulls them into a heart-stopping freefall, until Newt feels almost dizzy from looking up into the sky.
The carpet slows to a still-jarring halt at the ground and Newt scrambles for a quill and notebook as the clouds deepen and darken, as the storm starts to build and the thunderbirds wheel on the wind, their voices distinctive, faint but clear. Their nests will be high, their eggs thick-shelled and large, but Newt isn't here for that, scanning the sky for the patterns they make through the misting air.
It's a complicated endeavour, introducing a new creature to an already-established group, and in a different way with intelligent magical species like these; Newt can barely pick out Frank in the mess of them, from the patterning of his wings and the sound of his calls. They're socialising, in the way that thunderbirds do: a dance in the sky, a flirtation of magic, the twisting and whirling that calls up a storm from them all. The clouds grow dense, the thunderbirds' caws echoing like thunderclaps in the air and it's not a moment later that it starts to rain, a faint drizzle onto Newt's book and hair.
Graves holds up an impervious charm above their heads, just in time as the sky opens in earnest, emptying a heavy flood of water that thoroughly obscures Newt's sight. He has a few sketches down, a messy set of notes, and Newt looks again to try and pick Frank out of the flock - but it's difficult to tell one thunderbird from another, and as they glide through the air, circling large, he thinks it's folly to try.
Newt exhales, closes his notebook, and chances a look at Graves by his side. Graves's expression is contemplative as he watches the birds in the sky, his wand held up in the air as he keeps them dry, and Newt feels a heady warmth at his presence that's not entirely inexplicable, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "It's quite something, isn't it?" Newt says, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the rain pouring down, and Graves glances at him, eyebrows quirking, and matches his smile.
"I never thought of seeing them outside pictures," he says, "but they're spectacular creatures. Their magic alone..."
"It's beautiful," Newt finishes for him, and Graves holds his gaze for a long moment, until Newt starts to feel conscious of just how close he is, the solid brush of his arm against Newt's, the warmth of him just close enough to be felt beside him. "Mr Graves, I - "
"Percival," Graves says. "Newt."
"Percival, then," Newt says, " - thank you."
It's for more than just this trip to Arizona, the charm separating them from the rain; it's for more than the thrilling carpet ride, the helpful wand by his side. But Newt's still blindsided when Graves leans forward, cups his jaw with a hand and kisses him: he tastes like rain, like the lightning crackling down from the clouds. Newt's unaccountably drawn to him, to the warmth of his body and the frisson of heat that runs through him at his touch, and he knows his cheeks are hot when Graves pulls away.
"I didn't mean," Newt starts, and Graves huffs a laugh, his smile enough to chase Newt's fears away.
"Thank you," Graves says, quietly sincere. "For everything. But especially for letting me see this. You, and your creatures - it really is worthwhile, isn't it?"
Newt says, startled, "Percival," and Graves quirks an eyebrow at him, still smiling. Quickly, Newt says, "You know I - probably wouldn't have even gotten this far without you."
"Yes," Graves says lightly, "I have no idea how you would've managed that kneazle without my expertise."
Newt laughs and kisses him again, then; Graves's wand hand falls to Newt's hip as he reels him in, but his wandless magic is enough to keep them from being drenched in the rain. Instead it soaks into the ground as thunder cracks through the air, and when they break apart again Newt's still smiling irrepressibly, warmed from the inside out.
"The carpet isn't impervious, you realise." Graves sounds amused as he gives pointed glance to their feet, and Newt follows his gaze to the thin streams of water running underfoot, rapidly turning dirt to mud. The carpet lifts from under him, a half-inch off the ground, and he offers his hand to help Newt up. "If we want to get out of here - "
Newt pauses with his hand in Graves's own. "You - you were going back to New York, weren't you?"
Graves raises his eyebrows and tugs at Newt until he comes, stumbling, onto the carpet - already starting to turn slightly damp from the deluge. "I heard there was a wampus reserve that needed checking," he says. "Care to join me?"
"Well," Newt says, smiling despite himself, "I suppose you could use a magizoologist along."