I finally wrote the thing!
Read it here on tumblr, or on AO3 for full warnings and tags
In the Dark
Credence curls into himself on the couch, trying to hold back his whimpers. He aches from Grindelwald playing with him. He’s miserable and exhausted, and nothing he can do will make it better.
Graves sighs in exasperation from where he sits at his desk, and Credence winces. He’s trying, but it hurts so bad. Graves has warned him before about having such a sullen attitude when he and Grindelwald have more important problems. He knows Graves is working and he knows he needs to be quiet, but…
He’s trying.
“You stupid boy, I told you I can’t work with your sulking. ”
“I’m sorry sir. I’m so sorry -”
“For the love of Merlin, shut up.”
Credence falls silent, terrified of making Graves angrier with him. He knows he’s useless. He just wants to rest, he wants the pain to stop, that’s all. He wishes he could stop the hot tears that well up in his eyes, hold them back from slipping down his cheeks and catch them before they fall, but he can’t. He can’t stop the way it makes his breath hitch and shudder, and he can’t stop whatever Graves is going to do to him because of it.
“That’s it.”
Graves’ quill hits his desk with a clatter, and Credence flinches back as he strides across the room to twist a hand tightly into his hair. Shocks of pain dance across his scalp, and it makes Credence cry harder.
“Christ, you’re pathetic. And filthy too,” Graves says, sneering at the bloodstains Credence leaves on the sofa.
Graves hauls him up and Credence stumbles along after him as he’s dragged across the room, crying out from the pain in his scalp. Graves doesn’t wait for him, his patience evidently gone, and it’s all Credence can do to stay on his feet. He’s apologizing incoherently, he doesn’t know what Graves is going to do to him and he’s sorry, he never wanted to interrupt Graves’ work, he didn’t mean it.
Graves stops in front of the hall closet, and Credence doesn’t understand – Graves has never done this before, he’s done so much but not this. He knows what’s coming like a half remembered nightmare, a fear learned long ago blooming in him once more.
Credence looks at him with wet, pleading eyes as he opens the door.
“In,” Graves growls, and Credence doesn’t have a chance to move before Graves shoves him forward, sending him stumbling into the small, dark space.
“Wicked boy,” Ma would say. “You will learn gratitude.”
Credence had trembled as Ma took him by the scruff of the neck, steering him towards the small cupboard in the corner of the kitchen.
“Please Ma,” he’d begged. “Please…”
He had to learn his place.
He had to learn to be grateful for what he was given.
By the time he’s managed to turn around Graves has already closed the door. There’s a resounding click as it locks.
Credence feels his breath speeding up.
His heart pounds as he presses his palms to the wood. Darkness surrounds him, closing in on him, he can’t breathe and he needs Graves to let him out, please.
It’s everything he can do not to bang on the door. He knows it would be useless – worse than useless, it would only bring greater punishment.
He’d meant to be good. He’d wanted to be good.
He knows what he must do, he knows what he deserves. Ma is fair, and she’ll let him out when he’s ready to beg for his punishment. He was ungrateful and ungodly, that’s why he’s here. He needs to be punished, and he should have accepted it gladly. Ma is only teaching him, and he must thank her for the lessons.
The faintest crack of light seeps under the door, not enough to see by, but enough that the darkness is just shy of absolute. Credence focuses on it, tries to breathe, and only manages a shuddering sob. He has the sudden thought that Graves could come back to blot out that crack of light, and it makes his chest constrict with panic.
Credence sinks down, unsteady, back pressed tight against the hard door, as close to the light on the other side as he can manage. His spine aches to curve against the wood, but he can’t bare to go any deeper into the dark.
There are shapes all around him in the dark, bulky things that encroach and threaten. He knows they’re coats and brooms, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t see them – or maybe he can? But the shapes twist and distort, moving all around him until he can’t trust that they’re real at all. He closes his eyes to shut them out but it doesn’t make a difference, he can’t get away from them.
It’s all right. It’s all right, it’s fine, it’s going to be fine. The slightly hysterical thought crosses his mind that he should be glad to be in here, alone for the first time in who knows how long. He should be glad no one’s hurting him. He’s out of the way.
But he knows what it means. There will only be greater punishment when he’s ready to beg for it, that was how it had always worked.
He knows he can’t avoid it, but he can’t bring himself to ask for it. Not yet.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been there, cramped in the small space. His limbs ache, the darkness pressing in on him. He puts his hand to the bolted door, straining to hear sounds from the other side – cooking, muffled voices, footsteps.
He trembles, too afraid of pain to beg forgiveness.
He can’t get his shaking under control, he’s lost and disoriented in the dark, and he can’t escape. The darkness expands and contracts around him, stretching out sickeningly before it seems to collapse again, threatening to crush him. He curls into himself as tight as he can, arms wrapped around his knees, and begs silently for it to be over.
Credence tries again to breathe, pressing his palms over his eyes to blot out the dark, but he can’t. It seeps behind his hands, inside him, through him, and with a start his eyes spring open, focusing on the nothing in front of him. It’s just a closet. There’s nothing else here, there can’t be.
Right?
Suddenly he isn’t sure. He’s heard Graves and Grindelwald talking about all kinds of creatures that lurk in the dark, and who’s to say they couldn’t be here now? But more than that, the darkness itself has a presence. He can feel it, pressing against him and closing in, shifting where he can’t see it, and if he looks away for a moment he knows it will swallow him whole.
So he stares, arms wrapped around his knees, as he rocks back and forth.
He has no way to know how long it’s been. The quiet of night has fallen, everyone’s gone to bed, there are no sounds by which to orient himself.
By the time he breaks there’s no one there to hear him beg.
It feels like a lifetime before he hears the front door open and footsteps pass through the hallway. Grindelwald must be home, he can hear him and Graves talking. There are muffled voices on the other side of the door, and Credence can’t take his eyes off the dark, he can’t make out what they’re saying over the thudding of his heart, but he strains towards the sound all the same.
Please. Please, let him out. He’ll do anything, just let him into the light.
Maybe Grindelwald will want to play with him. Graves was tired of him but Grindelwald might want to hurt him, or dress him up. If he’s had a long day he’ll use Credence to take out his stress, and right now Credence would give anything to be used that way.
He hears footsteps back in the hall and his mind pricks with hope. Maybe, maybe.
When the door opens out from behind him he spills into the hallway, shaking and sobbing and not prepared for the brightness of the light.
He looks up at Grindelwald with tears streaming down his cheeks, grasping at his pant leg and so, so grateful.
Grindelwald smirks down at him, and Credence knows that look. Grindelwald is aroused, aroused by Credence’s tears and his fear, but that’s fine, that’s good if it only means that he’ll take Credence out of the dark to use him. He feels hazy and disoriented, everything bleeding together, but he knows what he has to do.
“Please sir,” he begs, “I’m ready to be punished, please – I’ll do anything, please use me, please let me out -”
Grindelwald cups the back of Credence’s head and he falls silent. He draws him in until he’s nuzzling the bulge at the front of his pants, tears dampening the fabric as he strokes almost gently through his hair.
“Tell me, boy. What should I punish you for?”
Credence swallows, pressing in against Grindelwald to steady himself.
“For my selfishness, sir. I was sullen and ungrateful. I interrupted Mr Graves’ work, and I – I didn’t stop crying when he told me too. I’m so sorry sir. I’m sorry.”
“Hmm.” Credence can hear the smile in his voice. “Open your mouth,” Grindelwald says, and Credence does.
Grindelwald undoes the front of his pants with one hand, keeping Credence snug against him with the other. Credence doesn’t protest, doesn’t struggle at all as Grindelwald guides his cock into his mouth. He laves over Grindelwald’s length with his tongue, letting the saliva spill down his chin the way he knows Grindelwald likes, until he pulls back to suckle at the head, tongue swirling over the slit.
He sucks desperately, bobbing his head up and down as he looks up at Grindelwald above him. His eyes are closed, face tense with pleasure as he leans against the door frame with one hand, the other palming roughly at the back of Credence’s head and drawing him deeper.
Credence puts everything he has into it, grateful for the chance to serve him. He’ll do anything, let Grindelwald use him however he likes, to earn forgiveness.
When Grindelwald starts to thrust down his throat Credence goes pliant for him, relaxing and taking it. His knees ache on the hard floor, but it doesn’t matter.
He can feel when Grindelwald is close, when his movements falter and his breathing quickens.
Grindelwald grips him by the hair and comes across his face. Credence tips his head back as the hot come hits him, making it easy for Grindelwald. Grindelwald groans in satisfaction, taking a moment to breathe before wiping his cock on Credence’s cheek.
Credence is shaking, trembling in Grindelwald’s grip. He doesn’t know what Grindelwald will to do him now but he’s grateful, so grateful. In that moment, he feels as though anything would be better than the darkness.
Grindelwald looks down at him and smiles.
Credence’s blood runs cold.
In an instant Grindelwald’s hand wraps around his throat, squeezing before Credence has a chance to make a sound. He’s thrown backwards, tumbling over himself onto the closet floor and no, no, Grindelwald was supposed to let him out he was supposed to get out –
The door slams shut in front of him and he wails, tears mixing with the come coating his face. The darkness closes in again, crushing him, and it’s almost worse this time because he was supposed to be forgiven, he was supposed to be safe.
He should have been better. He shouldn’t have bothered Graves. He shouldn’t have been so sullen.
Next time he’ll be better. He will be, he has to be. He’ll be good, he’ll be useful, he’ll –
He’ll do anything, anything to get out of the dark.
Mercurial Tenacity 