or: five times Theseus set Newt and Percival up in some strange matchmaking scheme and one time Newt actually appreciated it.



1.
Newt wakes surrounded by warmth, something quietly breathing, every exhale tickling the hair beside his ear. He yawns and opens his eyes, squinting into the sunlight, sees the expanse of an unclothed chest before him, and follows it up to - oh, no. Not again.

Newt grabs his wand off the nightstand, spelling his clothes on as he throws open Theseus's spare bedroom door. "Theseus!" he shouts into the corridor. "I come to visit you for one night and - "

"You shack up with my very handsome, very single friend?" Theseus suggests, holding a cup of tea like a shield. He smiles. "My little brother has to grow up sometime. Percy's not a bad sort, really."

"'Percy'," Newt says, very loudly, "is in that bed! Naked! Because you put him there!"

Theseus looks offended. "Not completely naked, I hope. I didn't go quite that far." He pauses, considering. "Though if he was naked because you got up to something, that's fine. Has he even woken up yet?"

Newt closes his eyes for a moment and takes a step back into the doorway. Sure enough, Percival Graves is still asleep, deep enough through all this noise it must be enchanted. "What did you give him?" Newt sighs, resigned.

"That's for me to know and you to work out," Theseus says, grinning. "Oh, look at the time - "

Newt casts a petrificus, but he's too late to stop Theseus from Apparating out. The spell splashes against the wall and dissipates into the air.

Which leaves him in Theseus's flat, alone, with a sleeping Graves for company. Newt rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.

It turns out to be a sleeping potion, or some variant thereof. Newt spends two hours digging ingredients out of his case and Theseus's stores and brewing up an antidote, by which time he's wondering if there might have been an easier solution to this - tracking down Theseus and forcing him to hand over the antidote, or just leaving on the boat to South America like he had planned - but then he looks down at Graves, expression still tight and worried in sleep, and sighs.

So when Percival Graves finally wakes it's to Newt's face, furrowed in concentration as he leans over the man, his wand between his teeth and his whole body holding him down, and the first thing Graves says is, "Theseus fucking Scamander."

Newt smiles, awkward and comisserating, and gets off as Graves wipes a hand over his face. "Unfortunately so," he says. "Sorry."

Graves shakes his head, his wand coming to his hand from across the room. "No, I should have noticed. What was it this time?"

"Sleeping potion," Newt says, "an uncommon variant, actually, and I think Theseus did some modification because you didn't react to generic snake fangs, I had to recover some from the Ashwinder stores - " and he stops, feeling self-conscious. Graves, rubbing his temples, raises his eyebrows. "Probably in your food," Newt says quickly, and Graves raises his shoulders and drops them.

"My drink, I think." He sighs and waves his wand in a lazy swish, his clothing coming to him in a far neater procession than Newt's ever managed. Newt feels suddenly rather unkempt, given his state of haphazard dress and bed-hair, and hides it by shuffling around to grab his case and straighten his waistcoat.

"Well," Newt says, "I'll try not to stay at Theseus's any longer, I'm very sorry - "

"Somehow," Graves says, "I don't think you have much sway over Theseus's plans. No, it's not your fault." He sighs. "Your asshole of a brother mentioned you were leaving this morning. I have an International Portkey permit, if you..."

"Oh, no," Newt says, "I might have missed my ship today, but there's always... tomorrow..." He trails off, and Graves smiles, wry. "On second thought."

"Where were you headed?"

"Brazil. The terminal at Sao Paolo would be fine, thank you."

Graves accios some of Theseus's lovely but impractical house decorations - wherever did he get that bottomless vase from? - to turn into portkeys, and hands Newt the spinning magnifier after a tap of his wand. "Well," Graves says, picking himself up, "no offense meant, but I hope it's some time before I see you again, Mr. Scamander."

Awkwardly, Newt says, "Yes - no - I mean," and Graves's mouth curls into a familiar smile. Newt can feel his face heat and he drops his gaze. "Thank you."

Graves's huff of laughter lingers even after he's gone, and Newt takes some time to have a cup of tea, magic up some breakfast, and let his Niffler loose in Theseus's flat, pointedly not looking back at the bedroom they'd shared.


2.
"Theseus, where are you," Newt mutters to himself, crouched behind a very large, very transfigured stone. He's disillusioned and spelled silent, but he's not really the ideal person to go in wands-blazing considering there are far more smugglers in this thunderbird operation than he expected. He'd sent a letter by owl a few days ago with coordinates and a time, but he thinks if his brother doesn't show up soon, he'll have to pull up his courage and make do.

The thunderbird screeches, a terrible sound that makes Newt's chest hurt in sympathetic pain. The cage is open to the air now, out of that dreadful warehouse, but there's a boat on the dock and Newt knows he'll have to free it before it gets that far. He's starting a mental run-through of all the hexes he knows when someone taps his shoulder.

"Theseus!" Next exclaims, widening his silencing ward with a wave of his wand, "It's about time," but when he turns around the camoflagued form isn't his brother, but - "Oh, no."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Percival Graves says, looking rather more put-upon than sorry. "Theseus said there was some sort of situation."

"Yes, but he was supposed to come himself, the bastard," Newt ends in a mutter, and shakes his head. "I need to rescue that thunderbird." He peers out around his transfigured rock, to see the way its head is drooping, trying to catalog the broken bones. "Smugglers, you know. It's disgusting."

"Ah," says Graves, "I see."

Newt's lost in thought - an alohamora, obviously, but the lock might be more complicated, and then there's coaxing it out for treatment - but notices when Graves renews his disillusionment charm, far more steady than Newt's wavering form. "Here," Graves says, his wand at hand, and tosses Newt a pendant. "A protection charm, just a simple shield."

The pendant is in the form of a phoenix. Newt feels curiously strange.

"Put it on," Graves says. He rises to his feet, slowly as to not draw attention, and his wand grip is relaxed. Newt clasps the pendant around his neck, and when he looks up Graves is smiling, just a bit. "I'll take care of the smugglers."

"Oh," Newt says, "thank you," and starts walking, slow enough to avoid notice, toward his goal.

The thunderbird is trying, so hard, to whip up a storm. Without its wings it's a localised cloud, some fog and water and nothing that will stop anyone with magic, and Newt taps his wand against the cage, whispering unlocking spell after unlocking spell until finally the lock clicks open. The steel bars are hard and unforgiving and the bird too large for it, crushed in the space and Newt takes a step forward until its gaze snaps to his disillusioned form.

Newt drops it, not paying attention to the spellfire around them. "Hello," he says, quietly, meeting its gaze. It's in the nature of magical birds to want eye contact, and he holds it for a long moment before ducking his head in respect. "I'm here to help."

A long moment later, the thunderbird drops its sharp beak and Newt approaches it carefully, cutting away steel bars as he goes. "You're beautiful, you know," he says conversationally, and the bird lifts its head slightly, makes a tiny noise. "Oh, would you prefer handsome?" He waves his wand at the last few bars, levitating the roof of the cage away and doesn't pay much attention to where it lands. "Come on, now," he coaxes, and runs his hand and wand down the length of the thunderbird's body, healing abrasions as he goes. "Can you show me?"

Its wings are broken, in multiple places, some not so easy to fix. Net murmurs soothingly, conjures up bandages and splints, healing what he can. "Good," he says, "good boy," and the thunderbird nudges him, careful. Newt runs a hand down its head, brings his nose to its beak, and it gentles at his touch.

"Now," Newt says, "I have a place for you, if you want it. This isn't your home, and you've suffered so much here - if you come with me, I'll take care of you, and take you back home once you're healed." He summons his suitcase from beyond where he started, where he left it safe and warded behind a tree. "I made a place just for you," he says, with a gentle smile. "What do you think?"

The thunderbird croons, bumps its head against Newt's own and knocking him back, almost laughing. "Careful, now," he says, as the bird rises shakily to its feet; he leans down to unlatch his suitcase and it steps forward once, twice, and is gone.

Newt closes the case, checking the latches, and only then looks up to see Graves standing a careful distance away, surrounded by unconscious-or-groaning smugglers. "A thunderbird!" Newt says with enthusiasm, as soon as he gets close enough for conversation. "Can you imagine? I haven't had the chance to study them in their natural habitat yet, but with Frank I'll be able to study his magic, too - they say they can call up storms, and wind, and lightning, but how specific their abilities are and - "

Newt stops when Graves touches his arm. "Not that it isn't interesting," Graves says, "but you look exhausted."

Newt feels it too. It comes on him like a rush, all the adrenaline of the last few days, staking out and spying on the smugglers from a distance, the jittery, closed-in feeling he had whenever he saw the poor thunderbird's cage. That and the magic he's expended suddenly feels like far too much, and he looks down at his hands and unclenches his fingers from the hilt of his wand. "Y-yes," he says, suddenly unsteady. "I - I think I am."

"Where are you staying?"

"Oh, I have a room at the - inn, Muggle, it's," and Newt's voice trails off as Graves gently presses his hand to Newt's chin, lifting his head. Newt meets his eyes for just a moment and Graves says, "Yes, I see the place."

"Ah," Newt says, as his legs wobble slightly, "good."

Graves steadies him with a hand on his hip and gives him an assessing look before glancing around the area. "I'll call the Aurors on these idiots," he says. "Side-Along?"

Newt only manages a brief nod before they're off to the small bedsit Newt's renting, and he collapses on the bed with a sigh. He lets his suitcase settle to the ground from his hand, mumbles something about Frank, and drops off to sleep.

Graves isn't there in the morning, but Newt still has a phoenix-shaped pendant around his neck.


(I said to myself, 'just a quick shippy fic' but this... turned out longer than I thought. Plus half the focus is on the earlier parts. Oops. I hope it satisfies anyway! Next part (hopefully) up tomorrow.)