Crewt Oneshots

were there clues I didn't see?

I return to you with more Crewt content!!

Here's your oneshot info: 5k, Farm/Ranch AU, Getting Together, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Mutual Oblivious Pining

Newt feels bad the moment he sets eyes on his new farmhand.

The man is, to put it simply, a heartstopper. He's gorgeous, in the worst of ways. Dark hair, pale skin, sharp features. He looks like a knife. His handwriting on the application was round and smooth, and this man looks decidedly the opposite.

"Please, come in, I'll show you your room, just inside and down the hallway, and then I can show you the barn, and introduce you to all the animals. I'm sure they'll take to you, although I'll have to warn you, the dogs are allowed in the house and they might bark at you when you come inside," Newt babbles, and when the man says nothing, he reaches out with a hand: "Let me take your bag."

The man– Credence Barebone, read his application– has one bag, and when Newt takes it from the new helper, who doesn't say a word, he realizes it's barely got anything in it. He doesn't say anything about it, but he feels a pang in his heart as he lifts it and gestures for Credence to follow him into the house. It's all clothes– except for a notebook that bangs against Newt's foot, and Newt flushes.

"Sorry, just, a little clumsy. Suppose you'll get used to it."

He read that Mr Barebone aged out of the foster care system, his last foster mother keeping him for a very long time and later found to be unfit as a guardian. He thinks he can see it in the way the twenty-something shuffles obediently as if still a child, his head down, his black hat clasped respectfully in both his hands and doesn't respond.

"What brings you here?" He asks as Mr. Barebone follows him down the hallway, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floorboards. He can see Mr Barebone casting his eyes about the large house– the sunlit kitchen, the large dining area with a rough wooden table and no class, the living area with several large beanbags, their colours faded from sun exposure. "It's the job, sure, but why this job?"

Mr. Barebone speaks softly, as if trying not to upset anything. Perhaps, since the dogs haven't come by, he thinks they're asleep, and is trying not to wake them. Perhaps he's frightened of Newt, but Newt doesn't think so. He's skinny and awkward, freckly and generally uncomfortable, which aren't conducive to intimidation.

"Just to get away, is all." His voice is warbly. Looking at him, Newt would've thought the man's voice would be deep and a little commanding, but he sounds like a frightened child with a man's voice, trying to sound like a child, still. "It's quiet here," he says, as if he's going to say more, but he doesn't.

Newt nods and shows him his room. He shows him the window, how to pull the curtain, the barn he could point to from the window, the fields, the little herb garden he's been trying his hand at. His bed, which Mr Barebone's eyes go wide at, the closet and the bathroom, right next door, Newt's room on the other side. He warns him about the rooster and tells him he'll be up early. Mr Barebone nods and nods and nods, looking obediently where Newt points without a word. Newt can't tell if he's a sullen man or if that's just his normal face that he doesn't mean to be making.

When Newt gives up and asks, "Do you have any questions? Concerns? Anything you need?"

Mr Barebone just shakes his head and says, "No, sir."

Newt dithers about for a little bit, and then says, "Alright, well lunch is in about an hour, if you're hungry."

Mr Barebone is hungry. He eats through most of the food on his plate remarkably fast, then eats through the rest of it slowly, as if trying to slow himself. Newt urges him to take more. He refuses, and Newt gives him more anyway. He doesn't seem to have any qualms about funny-shaped homebaked bread, or goat cheese, or arugula that's really much spicier than it should be because it's homegrown and Newt hasn't figured out why it keeps ending up as sharp as it does. He eats it all.