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fantasticbeasts_kinkmeme) wrote2016-11-23 07:27 am
fantasticbeasts_kinkmeme) wrote2016-11-23 07:27 am
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Prompt Post #1
ROUND 1
FUCK IT WE'LL FIGURE OUT SPECIFICS LATER
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FILL: pretty little head (1/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-11-30 06:13 pm (UTC)(link)-----
Sunday evenings are for the congregation. Credence marks the dates on the cheap calendar he has hanging over his bed, the corners of the pages worn smooth from frequent thumbing. Downstairs, the broken baby piano struggles through the hymns as Chastity practices for the dinner prayers. Modesty, pretending to be getting dressed for supper next door, clacks around in her brand-new shoes.
The soles are pressed cork, with rubber soles. A fairly expensive pair, considering the budget of a non-denominational church like their own.
Credence can afford it for her, for now. He's a few hundred short before he can buy that ticket out of New York, to parts of America yet unknown to him. Mother had asked about the shoes -- he'd said they were donated, from a couple driving through Harlem. Mother seemed to have doubted that answer, but shoes are shoes, and the pair fit Modesty perfectly.
Credence wonders if he can afford to take her with him when he leaves. When, not if.
He marks an X on today's date, scratches it off the calendar, and wonders how many times he'll have to be on his knees this week to make up the difference for the shoes.
-----
"Commissioner! Could I have a word!"
Percival Graves, Commissioner General for the New York Aurors Department of the MACUSA, sighs with aggravation into his morning coffee. He's had three hours of sleep at the most, and there's a lingering ache somewhere behind his ear that he isn't sure is a migraine or the side effects of a hex that hit him two nights before. He jams the elevator's button a few times as Det. Tina Goldstein's heels click behind him in hurried steps. Using the reflective surface of the elevator doors to see behind him, Graves sees that she has folders trapped in one arm and a small briefcase swinging wildly with the other. A very familiar flyer is sticking out of one folder; Graves prays, wills with his mind for the elevator to hurry up.
"Good morning, Tina," he greets her, not waiting for her to catch her breath. His voice rough from lack of sleep and four cigarettes smoked one right after another. "It's not even seven. I'm not going to hear about the New Salemers today, right, Tina?"
"Sir, Mr. Commissioner—" There's a plaintiveness to Tina's voice this morning. She draws a deep breath, a speech obviously prepared judging from her demeanor, but Graves cuts her off before she can go through his entire service record in some attempt to pander to his pride.
He won't deny he has one. He just doesn't have the patience for it today.
"Two minutes, Tina."
"It's the children, sir. The mother—"
He drowns out the rest, soon as he realizes that he's heard this before. Eight hours ago, to be exact; Tina Goldstein is nothing if not tenacious. Graves drains his paper cup, mulling over a response just as the elevator finally decides to arrive. The squat, frowning house elf manning the post today isn't Red, and Graves files the observation for later. He steps into elevator, hauling Tina in by the arm. It jostles some of the folders she's holding, but her reflexes catch the slack without missing a beat.
It makes him almost smile. Despite her demotion from Special Investigations to Community Disturbances, Tina's instincts haven't tarnished.
"Remind me again why I agreed to let you re-open the New Salemers case."
Tina's lips purse into a thin line. Meanwhile, the elevator careens to the Special Investigations floor, the floor numbers flicking by on a little gold panel abovehead. Graves catches the glint of longing in Tina's eyes as they near his floor - just his, now, and the handful of Aurors Tina used to work with - and not for the first time he considers giving President Picquery a very colorful piece of his mind about Tina's demotion.
"The New Salemers are a potential danger to the magical community because of the incendiary nature of their, ah, preaching—"
"Hate speech. You can say it, Tina. We're not in front of the board."
"That's exactly the problem! I need to meet with the board, sir!" The Auror's voice pitches high, just as the elevator shunts to a stop and the doors start folding aside to let passengers off. "They've moved from speeches to public demonstrations and Mary Lou Barebone has been using the kids under her care to—"
"That's not enough." Graves disembarks while shrugging his coat off, handing it and his empty cup to a waiting Abernathy. "Give me something I can squeeze on, Tina. Hell, give me something we can Obliviate, but until then—" He waves her goodbye as the elevator door shuts, Tina's audible protests folding over one another in a flurry of words.
Despite appearances, Graves is fond of the girl. Strong-willed, bull-headed, exceptionally keen. The mishap that led to her demotion had simply been... misguided. Graves shakes his head, his disappointment at her demotion still lingering after all these months. She would've made good work in Special Investigations.
"All right. Everybody, to me," he claps as he steps into the middle of the floor's bull pen. A whole section of the back wall serves as his backdrop - the wall is papered from the high ceiling to the carpeted floor with maps, pictures, and various notes, colored strings pinned to places as they all pull in to center on a card with one name written on it: Gellert Grindelwald. Graves unbuttons his cuffs, rolls his sleeves up, and takes the fresh cup of coffee Abernathy's already prepared for him. "Where are we on Grindelwald?"
The room erupts into a cacophony of eager voices.
This is going to be a long day, Graves thinks, and drains his cup in one go.
-----
The Woolworth Building looms high, casting a tall shadow in the middle of a hot Monday afternoon. Credence prefers to stand across from the building, at the corner with the street signs and stop light; there's a concession stand downwind and a storefront nearby with a strong airconditioning system; if he stands in a particular spot, the heat won't press so much against his back, and he could play a guessing game on what's for sale from the stand today.
They don't have a television in the church. No cellular phones, either. The one radio in the church remains strictly locked up in Mother's room, to be turned on only during Fridays and Saturdays so they could listen to the sermons from the Christian station one burrough over.
This is what passes for his entertainment, as he hands out flyers for the New Salem Philanthropic Society, his mother's church. Mother, he thinks a touch unkindly. Mary Lou Barebone is as much his mother as she is Chastity's or Modesty's - but she's all they have. So are the welts still stinging under his shirt from last night's punishment, when he didn't quite meet his quota of flyers given out that day.
Credence's back hurts. His knees still ache.
"Would you like to hear about the New Salem Philanthropic Society, sir?" He asks a grey-haired man as he holds a pamphlet out. "What about you, Ma'am, would you like to hear about our church?"
The crowd simply swerves around him. Credence perseveres like this for another two hours, until a man in a three-piece suit stops in front of him. His face is reedy, with blotched skin around the nose, and there's a slight droop around his waist. A faint recognition flickers across the man's expression, at the same moment Credence recognizes him.
"Would you like to hear about our church, sir," Credence offers, but not with the voice he uses when he's standing behind the pulpit with his sisters in tow. He tucks a stray fringe away from his eyes, looking up at the man with a half-lidded gaze. "It won't take a while. Just a minute of your time."
The man in the suit gawps, like an unattractive fish, but caves all the same.
-----
Credence spits twice into the gutter. The man shorted him, but Credence managed to tuck four pamphlets into his jacket.
It's a fair enough trade, as far as he's concerned.
-----
Time stops meaning anything.
At least that's what Graves would like to think, at half-past eleven, as the pile of "tips" they've received over the week regarding Grindelwald's whereabouts continues to grow like an enormous fungus. It's even started to eat up space on Tina's empty desk, the position left unoccupied despite Picquery's insistence to hire someone. He doesn't have to hire anyone when there's a perfectly good detective eighteen floors down that should be sitting there.
Graves sighs again. He's itching for a cigarette, but the new regulations won't allow it.
"Abernathy," he calls out, flagging the secretary as he passes with a flick of his fingers. The boy - for he couldn't be anything else, fresh-faced and barely in his twenties - all but runs up to him, eager to please. (Graves would not be opposed to seeing this eagerness outside of work, but— there are rules. EVen if it's just a one-off.) "Don't you have anywhere to be tonight?"
"No, sir," the boy answers brightly, if a bit confusedly. "Do you need me for anything, Commissioner?"
"Sort these papers on my desk in order of priority for week, and cancel my meeting tomorrow with the President." The boy blanches - Graves almost laughs at the look. "If her secretary gives you grief, handle it."
"Sir? We've already rescheduled the meeting four times—"
"Reschedule again," Graves replies, and this time he smiles - all teeth, barely amused. "If the president wants the meeting, she'll find a way."
Abernathy's eyes widen to near-comical proportions. Graves gets up off his desk, pats the boy on the shoulder, and calls for his coat and scarf. "Where are you going, sir?" There's an audible note of panic in Abernathy's voice, this time.
"To smoke. Get some sleep. Anything that gets me out of this fucking building."
Graves is already tapping out a cigarette before he's stepped out of the elevator, fingers ready to snap a little fire once he's reached the short awning that serves as de facto smoking corner for the department. The corner is glamoured against No-Majs, as their laws prohibit any public smoking entirely, but the glamour doesn't necessarily hide them from sight. No-Maj eyes only slide over them, conveniently forgetting about whichever wizard happens to be standing there.
It's convenient enough. Graves takes two long pulls, savoring the bitter smoke and the nicotine rush. Tonight is a cold night - the wind picks up harshly, pushing Graves' coat open and his scarf afray before he can spell an invisible wall to shield him from the breeze.
That's when he notices the boy.
He's a slight little thing, with an uneven haircut that's been grown into, the remnants of a severe bowlcut softened by passage of time. The boy's cheeks are a high pink, possibly from the weather, and his clothes look handed down at least twice.
He also has a very familiar pamphlet in hand.
Curious, Graves thinks, dropping his stick to the floor and putting it out with his heel. He taps out a second, lighting up as he makes his way across the street.
"You, boy!" He calls out. Graves' voice startles the young man, even prompting him to step back as if he's done wrong, but a soft resolve forms in him. The boy doesn't walk away. "What's that you got there?"
"The work of God, sir," the boy replies - his voice is deeper than Graves had expected. "Would you like to hear about—"
"How about you skip the script, get to the good part about the witches?"
The boy, with his hand (and pamphlet) held out in front of him, blinks at him in bemusement. "You're familiar with the church?"
"You're the New Salemers."
"Mother Barebone disapproves of that name, but yes." There's a slight furrow to the boy's frown now; if Graves had to guess, the boy isn't used to being paid attention to. "We're seeking the enlightment of the people against the threat of witches creeping through the city right under our noses."
"Do you believe in witches, then?"
At this, the boy's eyes harden. It's a stark look on the boy. "I believe there is evil in this world, sir."
"And witches are a part of it."
"Among many things, sir."
Graves draws a deep pull off his cigarette, eyes watchful on the boy. This is Tina's case - he can see why her concern had been flourishing unabated, if all the Barebone children under the wretched Mary Lou's care are as undernourished as this boy. Graves blows smoke out on the exhale; the wind picks up again, and drags the smoke right into the boy's face. He sucks a breath through his teeth. "Sorry about the smoke."
"It's fine," the young man says, though he coughs once. "If you'll take a pamphlet—"
"Oh, you'll call it even?" The boy smiles - Graves is sure of it, even if he thinks he may have made it up, the smile having come and gone in the blink of an eye. He takes the pamphlet from the boy's outstretched hand all the same. "How about you tell me your name and I'll take the rest of those flyers off you?"
Without missing a beat, the boy replies. "Credence Barebone, sir."
Credence - what a strange name for a boy. Graves takes the sheaf of pamphlets from the boy's hands, and as the boy's sleeve rides up his arm Graves doesn't miss the faint scars running up the boy's wrists. The boy - Credence - doesn't notice that he's noticed.
"Well, then. Credence. Let's not see you on this corner again at this time of night, shall we?"
Credence definitely smiles now, but it's not a happy smile. There's a deep sadness etched into the corners of the boy's mouth - something about it makes Graves want to wipe it off with his fingers, to brush it away like errant dirt. "Would that I could, mister - the Lord's work does not rest."
-----
SENT: 11:47 PM
TO: GOLDSTEIN.P@MACUSA.NET
History of abuse re: Barebone children?
SENT: 11:48 PM
TO: GRAVES.P@MACUSA.NET
Well-documented in No-Maj court, but no arrests were ever made. Are you looking into my files, Commissioner?
SENT: 12:21 PM
TO: GOLDSTEIN.P@MACUSA.NET
Just curious. Look into it.
SENT: 12:21 PM
TO: GRAVES.P@MACUSA.NET
I knew you heard me. Sir. I won't let you down.
SENT: 12:29 PM
TO: GOLDSTEIN.P@MACUSA.NET
Fucks' sake, Tina.
SENT: 12:21 PM
TO: GRAVES.P@MACUSA.NET
:)?
SENT: 12:29 PM
TO: GOLDSTEIN.P@MACUSA.NET
Don't make me fire you.
-----
(i'll try to get the sex in for the next part, this intro got away from me >_>; )
OP: Fucking Thrilled!
(Anonymous) 2016-11-30 08:05 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2016-12-01 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)Re: FILL: pretty little head (1/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-01 08:42 am (UTC)(link)Re: FILL: pretty little head (1/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-01 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)FILL: pretty little head (2a/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-01 10:40 am (UTC)(link)-----
There are many things that Mary Lou Barebone could forgive, in her generosity, but wasting graces has never been one of them. Credence, kneeling on the hard cement floor with nothing worn on his back, carves this truth into his mind as the woman he calls Mother whips him with a switch.
He's gotten old enough that a leather belt won't cut it any longer.
"You've wasted supper," Mother hisses, her words plain and undisturbed even as she brings the switch down on Credence's back. "Burned it, so that your brothers and sisters will starve through the night."
Two lashes. Three lashes. Four.
Credence's back feels too warm - and now, wet. A viscous, heavy wetness trickles down between his shoulder blades, mingling with sweat and leaving behind a sharp sting. He understands this, and bears it quietly - Mother has drawn blood.
By the grace and the power of His Name, he prays, shutting his eyes as Mother swings again. For the good and the glory of His Church.
"Has the Devil possessed you—!"
The tenth lash comes upon him, hard, forcing a sharp gasp from his throat. Credence falls on his hands, prostrates himself without meaning to as his palms slide from his knees and onto the floor.
Mary Lou Barebone whips him five more times for making a sound.
-----
Later, that same night - when he's thrown out to sleep in the empty shed standing derelict in the small parking space, Credence limps his way down to a public restroom under cover of night to pray. Where the Lord hasn't listened to his prayers, a trucker with well-trimmed whiskers and a beer gut does.
(He gets an extra twenty, just for saying please. The Devil may have possessed him, but the Devil helps him eat.)
(The Devil can stay just a little longer.)
-----
Graves leans back into a large wingback chair as he drains his glass, topped up to near the brim with the most expensive alcohol in his collection. The young man on his knees between Graves' own is having a go at it with everything he has; Graves smiles over the lip of the glass as he watches his cock disappear between plush lips. The young man's cheeks are rosy with effort, and on every other downstroke or so Graves is hitting the back of his throat -- half on purpose, just to see how much the young man can take.
He's trying not to call the young man a boy.
He's not doing too well, in the privacy of his own mind.
Graves grunts, setting his glass down on a nearby table. With both hands free, he cards through the boy's hair - silky, pale yellow, that they almost look like spun gold. He combs fine strands back, stroking the boy's cheeks with his knuckles; the boy hums around him, pleased as fucking punched at the touch.
Yeah, you like that. Graves takes a fistful of hair and tightens his grip unkindly.
The boy hums again - this time, edged with a bitter note.
"I'm going to fuck your mouth in earnest now, if you don't mind," Graves breathes, the words rumbling low. "Put your hands on my knees if you want something else. If you're good—"
A high-pitched whimper. Graves liked the sound of it.
"If you're good, if you can take it. Leave your hands where they are."
There's a long, stretched moment of hesitation where Graves thinks the boy might actually tap out, in a manner of speaking. He thrusts a couple times, shallowly into the boy's mouth, his version of gentle foreplay causing the boy to cough.And then, quite decidedly, two slender hands press firm against the upholstery of Graves' seat.
It doesn't take too long before a frantic string of muted ahs fill the room.
-----
(i gotta flee real quick i'll be back)
FILL: pretty little head (2b/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-01 03:41 pm (UTC)(link)-----
The New York landscape buzzes alight, and Graves peers down upon it from the penthouse suite he spends his weekends in, a clove cigarette slowly burning between his fingers. The place is his in name - it's something of a family heirloom, passed down from generations of Irish immigrants who had worked their backs raw for a piece of that American Dream. They have the gold and the fame to show for it, relatively speaking, but there's no legacy to speak of yet.
Graves is going to change that.
"Mind if I take one?" A soft voice pipes up from behind him, and soon a cool hand is plucking the cigarette from Graves' own. The boy - the young man, what was his name? - uses the burning end to light a cigarette taken from Graves' own stock; the thought to take the boy by the jaw and make him ask again, politely this time, crosses his mind.
He knows he shouldn't, though. Their time this week is up.
"Same time next Monday?" He asks perfunctorily, already sorting through his schedule to see if he should amend his own question. Unexpectedly for Graves, the boy takes the decision out of his hands tonight.
"Can't do next week, hon," the boy coos, blowing perfect circles at the last oh. "I'm skipping town."
Oh. Three perfect concentric circles float towards the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, before dissipating. Graves hadn't planned for this, and the very thought of it annoys him.
He's slacking.
"You're not gonna ask if it's the money?" The boy asks, his question dripping with insinuations. "I actually hoped that you'd ask."
Graves takes the boy's chin in one hand, rubbing at the faint scar along the jut of the jawbone. He'd put it there, remembers his teeth cutting into the skin, eyes shut but mindful for the watchword they've decided between each other. It never came. That, coupled with Graves' suspicions that he's been underpaying—
"If it were the money," Graves mouthed against the boy's brow, breathing in the scent of shampoo and soap off the boy's skin. "You'd have said something weeks ago."
The boy hums against Graves' collarbone. Deft fingers unfurl the knot of Graves' robes, slipping between the terrycloth and taking him in hand. He's not ready to go for a while yet; Graves is loathe to use magic for these affairs.
Pale eyelashes flutter against the collar of Graves' robe, the boy breathing delicately as his well-practiced hands toy with Graves' length. "One last go?" A blunt fingernail scrapes roughly at the slit, the edge digging into sensitive skin. "I'll do it for free."
Graves sighs into it. "Let's put a limp in that walk of yours."
-----
Under the same New York skyline, Credence tosses in sleep. A fever-heat has seeped into his very bones, but his sweat is cold, almost milky; Credence's back is bowed so severely that his bones seem to threaten to push through his skin. His threadbare quilt has long been kicked off the bed, having slithered into a limp pile on the floor.
Even in his dreamless sleep, Credence knows it's the Devil come to visit.
"No, please," he prays, slipping to and from consciousness. A deep blackness creeps around him, taking hold of him at the ankles, at the wrists, until Credence thinks he might disappear into it—
-----
The church groans, shudders, cobwebs and dust raining down as if the whole house is being shaken apart.
A broken window rattles as a dark shape slithers through the glass.
-----
"You slept well, Commissioner?"
Graves had suspected that some sort of game was afoot the minute he stepped into the Woolworth Building, as a great hush descended on the crowd at the sight him walking in. He'd thought it to be his imagination — he'd actually slept, after all, for a solid seven hours. Perhaps this was how people normally behaved around him, and he'd never noticed in his usual waking hours, during which he reserved all of his focus for getting his work done. None spared for the trivia of daily minutiae; Graves was never the type to waste people's time, let alone his own.
But no, his momentary flight of fancy had been exactly that - to borrow a phrase from Graves' subordinates when they think he's not listening, he's an utter jerk with the sense of humor born of a rougarou.
Honestly, he's just relieved that the cause of the day's mystery is none other than—
"Madame President," Graves greets her with two hands held shoulder-level, palms up. Out of the corner of his eye, Graves watches Abernathy gesture wildly. Whatever the man's trying to communicate, he's not getting. "To what do I owe this visit?"
"You've been avoiding me," President Picquery reminds him, regal as ever, to which Graves sweeps a hand towards the mounting paperwork surrounding every table in the bull pen, plus the ones beyond it.
"The Grindelwald case—"
"Is a priority, I understand," Picquery continues, unprompted, but her voice is inlaid with steel and no small amount of barbed wire. "Which is why I've come down here. To you. So we can talk."
"I could have just sent Abernathy upstairs to give you the report." The aforementioned young man swivels to Graves' direction, absolute panic clear on his face. Graves, otherwise unsmiling, merely winks at him. "He could use the change in scenery."
"Graves."
With one mention of his name, Picquery effortlessly causes all the lights to dim. Enchanted paper mice scurry away, and unmanned mops washing the windows halt dead-still. Even the computer screens littering the pen have turned their displays off in fear. Graves puts his hands up, this time in surrender. He himself forgets sometimes that Seraphina Picquery didn't arrive into this world fully formed, jewels and silk robes and all — she had been, and still is, one of the most powerful Aurors this side of the continent.
"All right. All right," he insists, and between one heartbeat and the next the hustle and bustle of the bull pen resumes. "What do you want to know."
Picquery flicks two fingers, sending papers flying up to form a map of New York's burroughs. Conjured ink bleeds into the sheets at certain spots, spreading out into spidery lines until they form a chaotic grid of intersections. Graves peers at it, then looks past the MACUSA President to compare her map with the sprawling one pinned to the far wall. Only a handful of similarities between them, but Graves frowns when he sees that the points that do overlap are the biggest points - confirmed sightings of Grindelwald within the state, proven by the body count the magiterrorist has been leaving behind.
"I take it this is news to you." Picquery pulls him back to the present conversation, aware of his habit of diving headfirst into the work. The president waves her hand, and the map condenses into a single roll-up sheet, individual papers seamlessly merging with one another. She pinches the air, rolling the map before flicking it at Abernathy's general direction (the boy, testament to his work ethic, catches it with grace). Graves blinks.
"Didn't take you for a show-off, with all due respect, Madame President."
"Something is stalking the No-Majs of New York. Could be Grindelwald, could be something else entirely."
Graves nods, thinking he's getting the picture she's painting out for him. "And you want Special Investigations to look into it, just in case."
"Yes and no," Picquery answers. The answer is unlike her; the president is nothing if not direct, a quality mutually shared between them. It makes Graves sit up straight from where he's leaning against the edge of some detective's desk. "I want you to look into it."
-----
Queenie Goldstein peeks from behind a folding divider as Commissioner General Graves engages the president - the president! - of MACUSA in a shouting match in his office. The blinds are spelled to be sound-proof, but not light-proof, and the silhouettes of the two authority figures are - quite simply - going at it.
And not in a pretty way.
Abernathy, stock-still where Queenie's pressed up behind him, is in turn hugging at the hinges of the divider.
"Good gravy," Abernathy mutters under his breath. "The commissioner's real mad."
"He is," Queenie murmurs in agreement. "How is her fascinator staying in place like that?"
"Her what?"
"The hat thing, it's a— Never mind." The continue on, watching as the figures play out the dialogue they can't hear — well, Abernathy can't. Queenie can hear them perfectly fine.
-----
"You're benching me."
Picquery's patience is running thin, Graves can see it. Fine lines are becoming more pronounced around her painted lips, and a deep furrow has formed between her eyebrows. At most, she looks primly annoyed to an outsider, but Graves knows the signs for what they are — the Madame President is furious.
"You've been handling the Grindelwald case for nearly a year now, Graves. We're nowhere close to finding him, and you won't take on any more detectives to relieve you overworked team—"
"If you didn't keep firing or otherwise demoting the ones I need on my team—"
"Goldstein attacked a No-Maj in broad daylight and Nightingale was abusing opiates while on the clock—"
"You come into my department throwing your weight around, you don't ask me why or for what—"
"ENOUGH!"
Graves seethes, but keeps his peace, and a loaded silence blankets the cramped office that Graves barely uses. She's still President, he reminds himself, biting down on the inside of his cheek that he's near fit to bleed. Picquery, for her part, visibly deflates. Not enough to smooth her expression into a pleasant blankness, yet, but enough that Graves doesn't think he'll have to relocate everyone off his floor anymore.
"You've not been the same since you came back from Germany, Percy," she says at a volume so low Graves almost doesn't catch it. "He bested you. It stings. I get it."
"Do you?" The ten-inch scar along Graves' left flank aches sympathetically at the memory of his duel with Grindelwald. It was right in the middle of Munich, surrounded by No-Majs and wizards alike; the Obliviation fiasco that followed was nothing compared to the sheer destruction he'd witnessed. Dead bodies, anywhere he looked - and Grindelwald hadn't used a single Unforgivable spell. He hadn't needed to. Whatever spell or hex Grindelwald had hit him with, Graves knew he was lucky to survive. The mediwizard had been empathically explicit; if he'd been standing just an inch differently—
"You haven't taken a break since you got back." Picquery's gentle but firm voice draws Graves back into the present. In one swoop, Graves finds himself tired of the whole conversation.
"So you are benching me."
"You need to step back." Picquery's shoulders drop, just a smidge, from their marble-cast poise. "Look into this disturbance, verify it, if it ties into the case then it's no harm done."
"I voted for you," Graves can't help but remind her. He's never been good at losing, no matter what the game was. "Remember how close that election had been?"
The president smiles, and it's a sharp thing. Even sharper is the motherly kiss she leaves on Graves' cheek, her powerful hands smoothing across the Auror's shoulders. "I do. And I don't owe you anything."
Graves laughs then, though it's a clipped sound with all the fight gone out of it. "You should've stayed an Auror."
"You should've stayed in America."
"Get the hell out of my office," Graves barks, pulling the door wide open with wandless magic, but there's a balance struck now between him and the president — a truce, as it were. "And give me Tina back."
President Picquery throws him an eloquently arched look over one graceful shoulder before Disapparating away from his office. A minute later, a probationary reinstatement for Det. Porpentina Goldstein, Auror First Class, materializes on Graves' desk.
From somewhere behind the folding divider, Graves hears an undignified squeak.
-----
(i came here to write porn and ended up with this sexless monster)
Re: FILL: pretty little head (2b/?)