Work Text:
Newt rolled over for the third time and found himself glaring at the damp spot on the wall again. He shouldn’t be able to see it but the Quintaps took darkness as invitation to attack so it was vital to keep at least a low light on at all times. He’d like to think that was the reason he couldn’t sleep but, honestly, it went deeper than that.
Honestly, if he wasn’t stuck alone on this island, he’d have given up and gone back to Hogwarts by now.
Credence had kissed him.
He was being ridiculous about it, he knew. He was a grown man. He had work to do. There were a million better uses of his time than obsessing about a fraction of a second of a brush of lips. The Quintaps were, after all, fascinating. He’d never had trouble focusing on work before.
He’d never had trouble getting a little out of his head before.
Not that he’d had many of them. His fair share, of course, but not that many. People didn’t tend to want to kiss him. Punch him, maybe, but not kiss him. And the ones who had, well, they’d been lovely. He’d cared about all of them very deeply. All two of them. But when it came time to focus on work, he’d been able to push them away without any trouble and do what he was meant to do.
This was different.
This was so different, he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Half his notes trailed off as he’d slipped into daydreams. Even the Quintaps were looking askance at him.
He’d never felt like this before.
So completely out of his depth.
He rolled over again. Facing the room was worse than facing the stained wall. There was only one room. It was small. He was sleeping on what amounted to a straw mattress on a few raised boards. There was a fireplace and a desk and a chair. There was a contraption to hold his kettle and a cooking pot above the fire.
There was no way out.
Of course, it was a palace compared to some of the places he’d stayed over the years. It had four solid walls, they even had a thin layer of stained plaster. It had a roof that didn’t leak, particularly important in the freezing Scottish weather.
But he was alone here and he wanted.
He couldn’t help but play it over and over in his head but every time he did it went differently. He’d be a little braver. He’d lean forward before the kiss ended. He’d wind his hands in Credence’s. Or maybe bring them up to tangle in Credence’s hair, where it was growing long. Maybe he’d kiss Credence’s cheek. His neck. Maybe…
He rolled back at the wall. Best not to think about it. Nothing could come of thinking about it.
And maybe Credence had only meant it as a soft goodbye. An ‘I miss you’. It had been the barest touch of lips, after all.
Maybe Credence would see these half-formed fantasies and want nothing to do with Newt any more. And Newt, his only friend in the entire world, would have betrayed him just because he couldn’t keep himself to himself.
But what if.
Newt would be lying if he said that he wasn’t being more than a little selfish here. He wanted Credence in his life. He’d been alone for so long and, well, it wasn’t that there was anything wrong with alone. He liked alone well enough. He’d traveled alone for years and met a lot of interesting people, learned so many things. He’d never had to curtail his travel to accomodate someone else.
It was just that, maybe, accommodating someone else wasn’t a bad thing.
Maybe, all this time, when he thought he was free, he was mostly just lonely.