fantasticbeasts_kinkmeme | Prompt Post #1

Tina goes into labor while she and Newt are forced to hide out in his suitcase. With his empathy and experience with animals, Newt is a surprisingly knowledgable, comforting presence while helping her deliver. Tina, who likes to be in control as much as possible, needs his help to surrender to the process.

They can be in a relationship or Newt can just be helping her as a beloved friend. Up to you!

I think I can do this for you, nonny! Can you tell me a little more about what you're hoping for? Is it loss of control and scariness of labor offset by calming force Newt, or is there anything else you're looking for in this story?

Yes, that's it exactly! Feel free to include Newt geekily enthusing about birth amongst magical creatures if you fancy it, but it's certainly not required. Include or leave out whatever you'd like, anon, I'm ecstatic you're taking it on.

Just comfort and Newt's brand of earthy, odd nurturing to bolster Tina's bravery in the face of uncertainty.

I wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten you and am still working on this! A different prompt I filled unexpectedly grew a sequel that ate my brain (you know, as they do), but this is still happening.

(I said I was still working on this, and then I finished it right away. Hah! I hope you enjoy it, nonny.)

At first, it was Tina who reassured Newt.

“No, wait,” he’d said, as she stepped into the case. “You can’t! We have to--”

“We have to get out of sight, right now,” Tina said firmly. Once they were safely inside, she added, “Anyway, it’s my first. The midwife said labor will probably take all day. And I’m only just feeling the contractions. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

And she’d believed it, too.

But that had been hours ago. And now they were trapped, for who knew how much longer, and she was more than just feeling the contractions.

“Maybe if I try walking again,” Tina said.

Sitting on the stairs had felt good for a few minutes - her feet had been so swollen for weeks, getting off them always felt good - but then the squeezing had started up again, and she had to do something. Newt helped her up, and let her lean on him as she shuffled back and forth. It didn’t help.

“Maybe… Sitting…”

“Here,” Newt said, “try this. Put your arms around me, like we’re dancing, see? You like to dance.” He smiled, that sweet, shy, earnest smile that had made her fall for him so hard that she had let him put her in this awful position. Tina felt fondness and rage in roughly equal portions, but mostly she felt pain, so she put her arms around Newt’s neck and let him lead her in little, swaying circles across the floor of his workshop. He put his hands on her hips, half holding her up and half guiding her along. The rocking motion started to ease the pain a little, and Tina let her head come to rest on Newt’s shoulder. She was so tired. If only she could sleep.

The strongest contraction yet came, and she bit down on the fabric of Newt’s jacket to keep from screaming.

“They’re coming very close together, Tina,” Newt said quietly. “I think you’re having the baby here.”

“No,” Tina said. She could feel tears on her face, though she wasn’t really aware of having been crying. “No, I don’t want to. I can’t.”

Another strong wave hit her, and Newt held her through it. He touched her face. “You have to, love. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But you have to. You can, and you will.”

“No,” Tina said.

Newt guided her to lean against a workbench, and began gathering things together. He had some blankets in a cupboard that he hastily cast a cleaning charm on before arranging them into a pallet on the floor, and a large iron pot that he pulled out of an improbably small drawer that he filled with water and set to boil. “I wish I had some proper towels,” he said.

“I want Mrs. Goode,” Tina said. Her midwife had delivered dozens of babies. Hundreds. “I want… I want my mother.”

Newt stopped what he was doing and came to kiss her, cradling her face in his hands. “You have me. I’ll take care of you.”

“Oh, oh,” Tina sobbed, wrapping her arms around her belly. “It hurts. I can’t.” She had been so excited, so happy to see that roundness grow, to feel the first kicks and rolls of the life inside her. How magnificent her body was, to perform this miracle.

But now she felt betrayed by it, this thing that used to be hers and had escaped all control.

“Brace your arms, there you go,” Newt said, urging her to lean over at an angle. “I’m going to push on your back, all right? I think it might help.”

He pressed firmly, right where the hurting was worst, and it did help. It didn’t take the pain away entirely, but it made it bearable, and gave Tina a chance to catch her breath and even think a little. Newt was right - the contractions were very close. The baby was coming, like it or not.

“I’m hot,” she said. “Help me.”

Between contractions, they got her stripped to her chemise. Newt took off his outer layers while they were at it, then his shirt, which he tore into a few large, irregular rectangles. “That will do for towels,” he said, seeming very pleased with his ingenuity. Tina smiled at it, until she couldn’t anymore.

“Something’s happening,” she said. She felt it deep inside, some fundamental shifting of her body. It was exhilarating, and terrifying. Also, nauseating. “I have to--”

Newt, wonderful Newt, was there with a basin to catch it when she upchucked.

“This is good,” he said, which was absurd, but he seemed to really mean it. “Can I check how far dilated you are?”

“No,” Tina said. “You may not. You’re my husband.”

“Doesn’t that just mean I’m already, er, intimately familiar?”

“You’re not even supposed to be here,” Tina said, gasping between words. “You’re not meant to, to see this. To see me like this. You won’t think I’m--”

She felt suddenly like her body was trying to turn itself inside out, and the next sound out of her mouth was an inarticulate moan, like the call of one of Newt’s beasts. There was a popping sensation, and wetness splattered over her bare feet.

“Never mind,” Newt said. “I can see you’re ready to push. Here, darling, come here.”

He guided her, stumbling, to the little nest of blankets he had made. She sank to her knees.

“You mustn’t think about what ought to be. Just do what you need to,” Newt said, soothingly. “Whatever you do is right.”

Tina felt that inside-outing squeeze again, some horrible combination of cramping and Apparating and using the john, and suddenly it seemed perfectly natural to be on her hands and knees with her husband beside her, rubbing her back and gentling her through it as she pushed their child out of her body. So what if he saw something awful down there - it was his own fault, anyway.

“You’re doing wonderfully,” Newt said, after a decade, or possibly half an hour. “You’re so strong, Tina. So beautiful.”

Tina, mid-scream, did not feel either of those things, but she believed that Newt believed it, and she took strength from that as she pushed, and pushed, and pushed again.

“I see the head!” Newt said. “Oh, it’s ginger. And what a lot of hair! You’re almost done, love!”

“Catch it, catch it!” Tina said, as though Newt wouldn’t, and pushed the baby out.

“It’s a girl!” Newt cried. “A daughter. She’s beautiful.”

Tina collapsed onto her elbows, rolled awkwardly to one side. “Give her to me,” she said. “I want to hold her.”

Newt handed her their daughter, wrapped in his torn shirt. Her tiny face was red and covered with stuff, and wrinkled like a prune, except for the places where it was swollen and a little bruised-looking, and she was the loveliest thing Tina had ever looked at. She stared at her, and cooed to her, and barely even noticed when the afterbirth came out.

Then Newt was cleaning her with warm, wet cloths, and wrapping her and the baby together in blankets, and though she ached all over, she felt happier than she’d ever been.

“What about Regina, for a name?” Newt suggested.

Tina kissed him, and brought their daughter to her breast.

Thank you for posting this, nonny! I love it! Tina is wonderful here, and you really captured the weirdness of childbirth, that whiplash between feeling fine to puking, self-conscious to confident. The way you write Newt and Tina's interactions filled me with joy, too. They're so wonderful together here.

Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it. My youngest baby is not yet two, so I still had a pretty visceral memory of the whole labor experience to draw on. :)

Full body shiver reading this. I mean that as a compliment. It reminded me viscerally of my own birth story, in a terrible and wonderful way.

Terrible and wonderful was pretty much what it was like for me, both times.

Anon, this is just what I wanted from the prompt. Intense and loving and sweet. Really perfect. Thank you so much for filling it!

I'm so glad you liked it!

Reposted on AO3 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9083152

Prompt Post #1

Newt/Tina or Newt & Tina - birth

Re: Newt/Tina or Newt & Tina - birth

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FILL: Newt/Tina or Newt & Tina - birth

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Re: FILL: Newt/Tina or Newt & Tina - birth

Re: FILL: Newt/Tina or Newt & Tina - birth

Re: FILL: Newt/Tina or Newt & Tina - birth

Re: FILL: Newt/Tina or Newt & Tina - birth

Re: FILL: Newt/Tina or Newt & Tina - birth