fantasticbeasts_kinkmeme | Prompt Post #1

(There will be a little bonus content/epilogue after this, so this is not totally the end, but it's the end of what I had originally planned to write for this prompt! Thanks to everyone for sticking with me and for your kind comments.)
___

Credence wakes with no concept of how much time has passed. She has a moment of silent panic (naked, in a unfamiliar room, with someone moving beside her) before remembering where she is. She turns to look at Percival, who is pulling his pajamas back on.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he says. "I don't sleep well."

"It's fine," Credence says.

"Separate rooms might still be better," he says. "I get up when I can't sleep." She understands now that he isn't saying it as an excuse to push her away. He doesn't want to inconvenience her. And it's strange, having someone consider her comfort that way. She thought it would always be the other way around.

"Where do you go?" Credence says.

"Downstairs," he says. "To the sitting room, to look over case files. Or to the dining room. I rarely have guests. It may as well be a study." He seems faintly embarrassed by the admission. Credence sees nothing shameful about being solitary and self-sufficient, but she has always been too dependent on others. She may lack perspective. "You can stay here. I can use the spare room, if I go back to bed. Or -- your room, now. If you don't mind."

"It's your house," Credence says very reasonably. "You can sleep wherever you want to."

"Our house," Percival says. "If we're sharing the hearth, we might as well share the rest." He looks uncomfortable. He seems less masterful now. It might be the late hour, or the fact that Credence is no longer desperately anxious. She isn't sure what will be expected of her but she knows it won't be anything terrible.

"Then we can share the bed," Credence says. She starts to get up.

"You can go back to sleep," Percival says. "I'm not going to be doing anything loud."

"I think I might like to wash up," Credence says. She feels a little sore, which is perversely satisfying, but the stickiness that accompanies that feeling is more annoying than anything else.

"Oh," Percival says. "Of course. I'll just be in the dining room, if you need anything."

Credence leaves her slip on the floor and wraps herself in the robe again. She doesn't run herself a bath, because bathing past midnight seems ridiculous. She scrubs at her thighs with a washcloth until the skin there is pink. Her hand wanders higher, tentative, but she doesn't linger between her legs. There's no blood. She still wonders if she did something wrong. There's supposed to be blood the first time. Anything else means a bride is impure. Used goods, unfit for any respectable connections. No one has touched Credence before, though, not like this. Men on the street grabbed at her sometimes -- at her waist, her hair, the hem of her skirt. But she was good at slipping through their fingers. None of them ever put their hands on bare skin. Still, there might be something else. Some other failing.

She walks downstairs. The wood under her feet is strangely warm. More magic, she thinks. It's all around her. The thought isn't frightening; it's a comfort. She doesn't feel like she belongs here, not yet, but she feels like she could. It's different than when she was in government custody. The magic here is not calculated to contain her, but to embrace her. Or to embrace Percival, anyway, and didn't he say that was the same thing?

Half of the dining room table is covered in paper in tidy piles. Percival sits on that side, writing something. He's using a cartridge pen instead of a quill: another small comfort. Something familiar. A point of connection.

"What are you writing?" Credence says. Percival startles and then seems to force himself back into stillness.

"A letter," he says. "To my sister. She's the head of the family, and she'll want to meet you as soon as her schedule allows."

"Is she very busy?" Credence says.

"She seems to be," Percival says. There is a splatter of ink across the page where he had tensed suddenly. He sets the sheet of paper aside and reaches for a new, blank one. "She'll make time for this, though." His hands are steady until they aren't. His tone is level until it isn't. He recovers quickly, but already she has seen something beyond what she was given to expect. Maybe, she thinks, this is why he prefers to be alone. So that no one sees the moments where he falters and becomes something other than what they trust to be constant.

Credence sits across from him. "May I write to my sister, too?" she says. "Or is that not allowed?" He looks over at her. "I know you make people forget, sometimes. I won't send her anything if she doesn't know who I am." That's a terrible thought. Modesty, who Credence had fed and guided and tended when she was sick, not remembering any of it. But it might be better, too. If she could forget all her time with Credence and Chastity and ma, go back to her old family or find a new and better one. Modesty might be happier.

"She won't remember the end," Percival says. "None of the magic. She'll know that Mary Lou Barebone and Chastity Barebone died in a church collapse. She'll know she hasn't seen you since then. But everything before that is fair game." He's not being as careful with her now. He's speaking plainly, as he did at the hearings.

"I understand if I can't see her," Credence says. "With the need for -- secrecy." Separateness, more properly, but secrecy is what they call it. "But I'd like to tell her that I'm married, and ask if she's being looked after."

"There shouldn't be any problem with that," Percival says. "And you should be able to meet with her, as long as there isn't any magic being done."

"Thank you," Credence says.

"You don't have to thank me for everything, Credence," Percival says. Credence takes a blank sheet of paper and pointedly (boldly) does not ask permission or say thank you. She writes a note in her neatest handwriting. Her neatest handwriting, incidentally, was unacceptable to ma, because it was printing rather than cursive. Her cursive is nearly illegible. But when she would print (in small, neat, even letters), ma would rap her across the knuckles and make her write it out in cursive instead. And then, when it was invariably messy, Chastity would have to do it over again. Another mark against her.

No one is keeping score now.

Her note to Modesty says that she is married and thinks she will be happy. That's all she can think of to say, besides asking if Modesty is likewise well and happy. She doesn't know how to address the envelope, and decides to save that problem for when it's properly morning.

"I'm going back to bed," Credence says. When she looks up, Percival is looking back at her. He has already finished his letter.

"I'll go with you," he says. If he wants to have her again, she won't refuse him. But she doesn't think he will. This is about something else. Their vows to share their space and their possessions and their lives, maybe. When they reach the bedroom door upstairs, he says, "I didn't think of carrying you over the threshold."

"It might have startled me," Credence admits, and he smiles. They settle back into bed, side by side. In the dark, she finds the courage to whisper, "I had never. Before."

He sighs. "Credence, please don't take this the wrong way, but that was very apparent to me."

"I just wanted to tell you," she says. "Since I... since I didn't bleed at all." Next to her, in the dark, Percival settles into another calculated stillness.

"Not everyone does," he says. And then, after another moment, "Does it bother you that it wasn't my first time?"

"No," Credence says immediately. She doesn't even have to think about it.

"I've had other lovers," he says. "Men and women." This gives her pause. It doesn't change anything, though.

"I don't mind." Without those unknown other people in his bed, he might have hurt her. He might not have known how to avoid it.

"Then please believe me when I say that your inexperience is not what makes you valuable." His hand finds hers under the covers.

"What is?" Credence says.

"Everything else," Percival says. Credence turns her head to look at him. There isn't much to see, in the dark. Impulsively, she kisses him on the cheek. She feels him smile. There is a kind of understanding between them. In the morning, she will wake to her first day as Credence Graves. The name no longer seems like an ill omen.

Awwwwwww. My heart is warmed! This story is so sweet. And angsty. Like emotional Sour Patch Kids. Which are hella delicious, so please take that as a high compliment. :)

Thank you for writing this and sharing it with us. It has been enjoyable through and through. I hope you will consider posting this to AO3 some day. Looking forward to the bonus/epilogue content x

I loved this story and have been eagerly following the updates. Thank you so much for writing this, nonny!

This is such a wonderful fill, I love that you managed to write something that's finally very sweet, even though neither character is at the beginning? It feels like they're finding something within themselves as well as in each other and I love that a lot... fem!Credence is perfect, and I guess we're all Queenie here hahahaha. I love the way you write Graves - love that he's so fleshed out and that your writing style allows us to perceive so much about a character who isn't into talking about his feelings, for many reasons, and who isn't the POV. Absolutely loved the part about where Grindelwald kept him locked in and the thing about his sister - and Modesty! I'm glad Credence will be allowed to contact her! I loved that Graves was in the back of his mind wondering if Credence had insisted on marrying him because of Grindelwald, and that despite this suspicion he nonetheless allowed her this possible selfishness by going along with it anyway. Okay I'll stop now because if I keep talking about the things I loved, I'll just write a detailed summary of everything that happens in the fic hahahaha. Anyway, it was really wonderful and lovely to read something with Credence developing in a positive way, with something so potentially traumatic and motivated by such despair coming out good in the end. Oh yeah also, the pretext - the marriage magic - def seemed authentic and something that would exist in Rowling's universer which was pretty cool tbh. I'm generally into horrible kinks with Graves ships but rn I'm just wishing this couple lots and lots of satisfying oral sex and healing and growing fondness and regard for each other :')

Couldn't resist doing a bit of fanart for the saddest bride in New York
https://68.media.tumblr.com/279a28fa03e54b26be434f494c830b98/tumblr_oiwtm7nxWN1w0hb43o1_1280.png
Hope it's not too different from ur mental image!

Author-anon here -- oh my gosh! I usually don't respond to comments until I'm posting the next installment (and there is still a little bit more to come, despite the main fill being finished), but I couldn't resist answering this one immediately. This art is so beautiful, and very much along the lines of what I imagined. I notice that the image is at a tumblr URL. Would you mind telling me your tumblr username, so I can reblog it to my own tumblr? (I'm stylusmaleficarum over there. I hope saying so isn't a breach of kink meme confidentiality!)

Oh wow, that art is perfect for this story. And also very lovely as an independent piece. Beautiful work!

another sketchy fanart if you don't mind:

https://68.media.tumblr.com/8164fdb13d59aa3d6b32056c1232a04e/tumblr_oj267e9Dus1w0hb43o1_r4_1280.png

I love this scene hahahaha <3

not A!A but I love this art

I just saw your post on the fill board and hurried to read this. It was a really lovely story, thank you for sharing it with us.

Hey!!! You are the absolute total tops best! I was on holiday so I only got to see this now but WOW. It's just amazing through and through and I feel so lucky that you picked my post and ran with it and just, 4 million for you Glen Coco, you go Glen Coco. <333

this is so LOVELy i'm YELLING do you have an ao3 sweet anon

this story is wonderful. I've read and reread it maybe four or five times while it was being updated. do you have any plans to put this on AO3?

This is GORGEOUS and so so wonderful, atmospheric and with a really beautiful depiction of Credence, and Graves through the veil of Credence's fear and hope. I loved it.

Prompt Post #1

fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

OP Here!!

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)

Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 6/6)