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"Credence, come back. Please." Newt pleaded, trailing after the younger man quickly. Credence was leaving him, packed bags and all, and Merlin, if he didn't feel like an absolute sod right now–
"Just let me explain, Credence, it was a dumb thing to do and I know I shouldn't have done it, but let me make it up to you, please." He tried once more, only to jump when Credence whipped around to glare at him, dark eyes flashing pure menace.
"I don't know how you can make it up to me since you cheated on me, Newt. And with the Director? What were you thinking?" Credence said, chest heaving with heavy breaths, and Newt flinched at the way Credence intentionally omitted Percival's name from the question.
"I wasn't thinking, that's the thing. We were drunk, and we just happened to stumble into–"
"I really don't want to hear it, please. Just... I trusted you two. It took me months to do that. Months, Newt. I don't understand why you'd throw it away like that." Credence bit his lip in a fruitless attempt to keep his tears back, the clear droplets trickling down his face in a tentative stream. "You said you'd be fine at the party, but obviously with Mr Graves being there everything would just get tossed out the window, right? What is it about him that I don't have? Is it money? Status?"
"No! Credence, it's not any of that, I promise. I don't need all that because I have you. Percival–" Newt didn't miss the way Credence's hand clenched at the name, "Percival was a mistake," he admitted, "I didn't tell you because I was so embarrassed at what I'd done, but I never wanted you to find out this way."
"So you'd rather I find out the way I did? The rumors were flying, Newt. The ladies visiting the bakery aren't exactly the most subtle about the way they discuss certain affairs. Mr Jacob was kind enough to make them stop and ask me if I was okay, but the damage was done the moment you said 'yes' to Mr Graves." Credence dropped his bags on the ground with a dull thud against the carpet. "Just tell me, and I want the truth, Newt... Do you actually love me?"
"Fuck, Credence, I'm so sorry. I really am, and I truly do love you. I just don't know how to make it up to you, and I can't seem to– " Newt took a step forward, but stopped when Credence pointed a warning finger at him, thin wisps of black smoke emanating from his steadily clouding eyes.
"Don't. Move. Don't you dare come near me because I don't believe you anymore. I'd laugh if the truth weren't so painful, but that's just life, isn't it?" Credence let out a mirthless chuckle, hollow and empty. "Now, if you really loved me, you'll let me walk out that door– No, don't say anything. You'll let me walk out the door, and you will not follow me. I do not want to see you or Mr Graves again even if my life depended on it.
"But you can run along to him if you want after I leave. After all, it's not like our relationship was that important to you, am I right?"
And as quickly as Credence's anger had shone through in a long time, the thin cloud that surrounded them filled the hallway ever further in a thick billow of smoke, and Credence was kissing Newt in the haze of black and confusion and pain, his cold hand just barely cupping Newt's warm, freckled cheek.
But before Newt could bring his hands up to rest on Credence's waist as they've done so many times before, the younger man pulled away forcefully, his breathing growing laboured and tears once again filling his whitened eyes.
"Good-bye, Newt. "
And with that, Credence flung himself away, out the door in a black, swirling mass, the rush of wind knocking over the potted plants and sending letters – their letters – flying around the hallway to come to a fluttery rest at Newt's feet. Credence was no longer standing in front of him, and the tangible silence settled over the hallway like a weighted blanket.
Newt hadn't realised he was crying till he found himself falling to his knees, clutching the necklace that Percival – no, Grindelwald – had given Credence so long ago, the outer triangular shape of the symbol cutting into his roughened palm with how hard he gripped it. Credence's outburst had rendered him completely speechless, and who knows where he could have gone now that the Obscurus the both of them had worked so hard to keep controlled was out in the open again.
It was only when Newt felt a hand touch his shoulder gently that he looked up to see Percival standing over him looking at him with concern. "Are you alright, Newt? The necklace called me here."
"H-He knows, Percival. And now he's gone." Newt stammered, staring down at the pinpricks of blood on his palm which slowly disappeared on their own, Newt's automatic healing charm working its magic despite how much he didn't want it to. He needed to feel what he'd done to Credence in full, not magic his way out of everything like in the past. It was too easy.
"Shit, Newt, I'm sorry," Graves crouched down and pulled Newt into his arms, watching as the younger man forced heaving breaths of oxygen into his lungs but collapsed into stuttered sobs that wracked his entire body with their force.
"No, it's m-my fault. I was the one who suggested it in the first place at the party, I s-shouldn't have done it. Fuck, Percival, I really, really messed up, what do I do?"
"I'm... I'm not sure, Newt. I can try to track him down but it'll be difficult now that he knows he doesn't want to be found. Fuck, I hadn't meant for things to go this way or to come between you two. I'm sorry, Newt. I truly am."
***
Credence sat perched on the roof of the house, his newfound powers he'd kept hidden from Newt allowing him to listen in on the conversation the other two were having on the first floor.
They seemed genuinely sorry, but he didn't know how much of it was real or fake given his past history of living with Mary Lou and having been manipulated by Grindelwald all within the same time span. His nature was telling him to forgive, to forget, but part of him didn't want to. And even though his leaving had been hasty and ill-planned, he really wanted to follow through on it and just disappear; no need to see Newt or Mr Graves anymore, no need to feel how much he loved and was loved. No need to feel.
So he stood, his mind made up, listening to them concoct a plan to find him and to the light wind swirling around him which rustled a few dead leaves on the roof; then he picked up his bags, only containing his old clothes from before he'd met Newt and Mr Graves (the others he left in the closet in his and Newt's shared bedroom), and he vanished without a single plan of where he wanted to go.
fin.