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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: "Nothing Shall Be Impossible" Part 10/? - Grindelwald + Graves/Credence Breeding Program
(Anonymous) 2017-01-22 06:37 am (UTC)(link)__________________
Graves wasn’t entirely certain how he’d wound up with an armful of half-naked Credence; he was half convinced it was a hallucination of some sort, except Credence’s mouth tasted like beef stew and his primitive hindbrain was still howling a child, a child, you fucking idiot. His primitive hindbrain – and his rational forebrain, for that matter – had yet to stop screaming at him, ever since his spectacular failure to keep his dick in his pants while not under the influence of desiderata, but the taste of beef stew was an incongruous enough detail to convince him that this was, in fact, reality.
It didn’t explain why Credence was kissing him, though.
Graves pulled back, letting himself cup the base of Credence’s skull in one hand and skritch along the short hairs there in a way he knew Credence liked. “Hi,” he said, in case Credence had meant the kisses as some kind of greeting. He was fairly certain Credence hadn’t, but it did no harm to pretend.
“Hello, Mr. Graves,” Credence said, leaning into him.
“I think,” Graves said carefully, trying not to spook Credence, “that you can probably call me Percival, if you want to.” And because Credence seemed uneasy when presented with choices, he added, “I’d like it if you did.”
“Oh,” said Credence. He licked his lips nervously.
Graves wondered if he had any idea how appealing he looked when he did that. Probably not.
You are a terrible human being, he told himself.
“Percival,” Credence said, shaping the unfamiliar syllables carefully.
“Yes,” Graves said, smiling. He liked it more than he’d expected to; the shape of his name in Credence’s mouth.
He’s not actually your lover, he reminded himself. He’s not bearing your child because he wants to. Try to remember that.
“Hello, Percival,” Credence said, still careful.
If Credence had actually been his lover, Graves would have kissed him then. It would have been a stolen kiss, just because he could.
Credence wasn’t, though, and he didn’t dare risk it. Things between them were confused enough. He didn’t need to confuse matters any further.
“You must be cold,” he said, gesturing to Credence’s bare torso. “Would you like the blanket? It’s not much – a bit scratchy, to be honest – but it’s warm.”
“Oh,” Credence said, flushing red. Graves was interested to see that it went all the way down his pale torso. “No, I’m fine.” He buttoned up his union suit and his shirt like he was donning protective armor. He started to pull on his jacket and paused, looking Graves over. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked. “Your shirt is ... ”
“Little better than rags?” Graves provided, since Credence was too polite to say so. “I used it for bandages, after Grindelwald’s little temper tantrum. I tried extending what was left, but the tailoring charms have never been my strong suit. That’s what my tailor’s for.”
Grindelwald had been amused. And smug, in ways that made Graves itch to punch him in the teeth. He’d liked that Graves seemed rattled by the possibility of impending fatherhood, and seeing Graves decked out in rags when Graves prided himself on being neatly turned out had to be the icing on the cake.
He’d get bored of it and provide Graves with proper clothes soon enough. He always did. Graves assumed he got some perverse kick out of demonstrating that he could not only make Graves ruin his wardrobe and degrade himself, but that he could do so repeatedly. It was probably meant to demoralize him, and if Graves had been as attached to his clothing as he pretended to be, it probably would’ve worked.
Graves had spent too much time fighting and bleeding and nearly dying to view his clothing as anything but an alternative to going naked. His suits were camouflage, nothing more. People expected the Director of Magical Security to look like a man of wealth and taste, so he’d always taken care to dress accordingly.
Credence reached out, like he wanted to touch the cut on Graves’ cheekbone and didn’t quite dare to, which Graves was grateful for. After two weeks, it was scabbed over and sealed shut, but it still ached sometimes, and he didn’t want anyone poking at it.
“Why didn’t you heal it?” Credence asked.
Explaining that he was running a long con on the genocidal fanatic holding them both prisoner did not seem like a good idea, since Graves was fairly certain said genocidal fanatic had his cell under a number of surveillance spells. “Healing spells are tricky,” he said, which was true. “At least they are if you’re not some kind of healer prodigy.”
“Like Aelinor Bluebird?” Credence ventured.
“Exactly like,” Graves said, smiling at him. He hadn’t expected Credence to remember that he’d mentioned the Bluebird at all. “For the Bluebird, healing magic’s like … like breathing, I suppose. She doesn’t have to work for it. The rest of us do. To properly cast healing magic, you need to be able to focus. If you can’t focus,” he shrugged. “Then you get to heal just like anyone else.”
“You never have any trouble healing me,” Credence pointed out.
“You’re easy to focus on,” Graves said, unthinkingly honest.
Credence flushed red and ducked his head. “Why do you call her that?”
“What?”
“The Bluebird,” Credence clarified. “Bluebird’s her last name, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Graves acknowledged. “Calling her the Bluebird is a mark of respect. Mediwitches like Aelinor are rare. Her abilities are quite singular. Extraordinary, really. She could work for any hospital in the world, and people would pour dragots into her lap by the bucket to heal their ills, but she works for MACUSA instead, because she wants to be on the front lines, where her abilities will do some good. We’re lucky to have her. The least we can do is show that we honor her decision.”
“She must be very powerful,” Credence said. “Like you. Are you the Graves, among wizards?”
Graves choked on a laugh at the thought. “Merlin and Morgana, no,” he said. “I don’t know that anyone with the Graves name qualifies for that title, except maybe old Gondulphus Graves. He was one of the Twelve, you know.”
Except, of course, Credence didn’t.
“What did Grindelwald tell you about wizarding history?” Graves asked, to cover up the awkward silence.
“Nothing,” Credence said, low and ashamed, like it was his fault Grindelwald hadn’t seen fit to explain the finer points of wizarding America’s history to him. Grindelwald probably couldn’t even name all of the Twelve, much less explain why they were important. “Mr. Grindelwald is more interested in the future.”
“That’s because he’s an idiot,” Graves said cheerfully, imagining Grindelwald’s hiss of rage when his surveillance spells relayed that little tidbit to him. “Those who remain ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Wizarding America’s roots aren’t as deep as wizarding Europe’s, but it still shapes who we are and what we hold dear.” He was careful to keep his voice gentle when he asked, “Would you like to hear about the Twelve? You’ll need to know our history, if you’re going to be a part of our world.”
Credence wavered. He had some odd hang up about believing that he could do magic. Possibly Grindelwald or the awful No-Maj woman had done more damage to him than Graves thought, but Graves was no Healer-Legilimens, to help him come to terms with the lies other people had fed him. He could only offer the truth. It was all he had.
Credence pressed a hand to his belly and settled onto Graves’ cot. “You could tell both of us,” he said, a little shy and a little not. Graves almost thought Credence was flirting with him, except he was fairly certain Credence didn’t know what flirtation looked like.
“I’d like that,” Graves said, ignoring what that hint of flirtation did to his libido. “Alright, so I imagine you already know about the Salem Witch Trials from a No-Maj – a Non-Magical, that is – perspective?”
Credence fisted one hand in the thin sheet and nodded.
“Right. Well, the story goes a bit differently, from our perspective,” Graves said, picking his words with care. Credence had been told, all his life, that the Salem Witch Trials were God’s work – a righteous thing. Graves didn’t think he believed it, since he hadn’t run away screaming at the first hint of magic, but he knew first hand how hard it was to disregard the things you’d been told over and over again were true. Better to choose his words with care. “At that point in time, Wizarding America had no governing body. We were made up of too many different cultures, too many conflicting ideals. No one could agree on whether we owed our allegiance to the wizarding world, to our home nations, or to the new world we wanted to build. We were … less cautious, perhaps, than we should have been. It was naivete, I think, that made our wizarding ancestors so careless. A good number of them wanted to build a society where wizards and No-Maj’s could live together, like equals. A new Camelot for the New World.
“It didn’t work quite like they intended. The Witch Trials changed things. In Europe, they laugh at the Burning Times. They’ll tell you stories of witches and wizards who deliberately let themselves get caught, who cast charms that rendered the flames harmless. They won’t tell you anything about what happened to the No-Maj’s who were accused of being witches, or the squibs who had enough magic to see our world but not enough to stop what was done to them.
“In America, because our ancestors were less cautious about their magic than they should have been, the No-Maj’s who hunted us knew that it’s hard for us to cast spells if we’re disoriented. A bit of head trauma works just as well to disarm a wizard as it does anyone else. And if that failed to do the trick, well, that was what the Scourers were for, wasn’t it?”
“What’s a Scourer?” Credence asked. He pulled his feet up underneath him, looking faintly unsettled. Grindelwald had probably fed him pretty stories about the glories of the wizarding world; stories that fit, with the narrative of wizarding superiority that Grindelwald was trying to construct. Doubtless Grindelwald had forgotten to mention that the truth behind those pretty stories was just like the rest of history, and full of grit and death and blood.
“A traitor,” Graves said bluntly. “There’s no other word for them. They were wizards, much like you or I, and they used their magical abilities to track other people down. They started out as bounty hunters, or so the stories go. If there was a bounty and your gold was good, wizard or No-Maj, the Scourers would bring them to you. Over time they became … corrupt. Their tactics changed. They started turning their own kind over to the No-Maj’s.
“The original MACUSA was founded to keep our people safe. To stop the Scourers. In the aftermath of the Witch Trials, Josiah Jackson – the first president of MACUSA – recruited and trained the first American Aurors. He asked them to hunt down and stop the Scourers, to make sure the No-Maj’s couldn’t hurt us again, to keep our people safe by any means necessary – at the expense of their own lives, if necessary. Twelve witches and wizards answered the call. Wilhelm Fischer, Theodard Fontaine, Gondulphus Graves, Robert Grimsditch, Mary Jauncey, Carlos Lopez, Mungo Macduff, Cormac O’Brien, Abraham Potter, Berthilde Roche, Helmut Weiss and Charity Wilkinson. Ten out of the Twelve paid for the safety of our people in blood. Gondulphus Graves died stopping the Scourer Corbin Mather from trafficking three young witches and wizards.
“Any descendant of the Twelve, including the one you carry, has the respect of Wizarding America for what the Twelve sacrificed. The Graves name is a bit more so, because there has always been a Graves in MACUSA, to ensure the safety of our people. When old Gondulphus died, his son Geriant joined MACUSA as its newest Auror. And that’s the way it’s been, ever since.”
It was possible, Graves realized, looking over at Credence’s pale face, that he could have started with a slightly prettier chapter wizarding history. He winced. He really was a fucking idiot sometimes.
He spread his hands apart apologetically. “It’s not a pretty story,” he said. “History often isn’t. But it’s ours.”
“Is that … is that what you expect our son to do?” Credence asked.
“What?” Graves asked, a bit stunned by the mention of our son.
“Join MACUSA,” Credence said, careful not to stumble over the unfamiliar word. “Die to keep magical people safe.”
“Our people,” Graves corrected. “And … no. Of course not.” It was what every Graves was raised to do, of course, but he realized, suddenly, that he didn’t want that. Not for his son. His son would have more than a life of honorable service and sacrifice. His son would be safe. “No Graves serves MACUSA if they don’t want to. If they aren’t called to it. My sister Dindrane is a researcher for the Fisher Institute. They research new spells, refine magical techniques. It’s a good job, one worthy of the Graves name. She’s happy there.”
Arthur, Dindrane’s oldest, would probably follow Dindrane into the Fisher Institute. He had Graves’ own knack for wandless spellcasting, and a good head for magical theory. Lance was only eight, and it was anyone’s guess what he’d be. Right now he wanted to be a professional quidditch player, or a broom maker, or a movie star, or whatever else caught an eight year old’s fancy. He’d find his place by the time he graduated from Ilvermorny.
And as for Gwen …. Well. Gwen would probably join MACUSA, just like her Uncle Percival. She’d want to break every record Seraphina set. Knowing Gwen, she’d do it, too.
“That’s … that’s good,” Credence said, setting his jaw stubbornly. “I don’t want my son dying for Mr. Grindelwald’s war or yours.”
“I’m not fighting a war,” Graves protested.
Credence braced himself, like he expected Graves to hit him. But that didn’t stop him from meeting Graves' eyes and asking, “Aren’t you?”
Re: FILL: "Nothing Shall Be Impossible" Part 10/? - Grindelwald + Graves/Credence Breeding Program
(Anonymous) 2017-01-22 12:21 pm (UTC)(link)Re: FILL: "Nothing Shall Be Impossible" Part 10/? - Grindelwald + Graves/Credence Breeding Program
(Anonymous) 2017-01-25 03:49 am (UTC)(link)