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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: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-12 06:41 am (UTC)(link)___
Credence listens, because she has to, because this is important -- to prove that she can be good for him. She breathes in.
It's enough to bring her back, to remind her that she has a body. That she's not smoke and ember. She opens her eyes, gasping.
"I know this has been stressful for you," Percival says, sounding tired again. "And it seems like there's a conversation we should have, but I'd rather not have it here." He straightens up and offers her his arm. "Shall we?" Credence stands and takes his arm. She isn't sure whether to fit herself against his side or stand as far off as she can. He doesn't want her, so she shouldn't stand too close; they are to become as one flesh, and she ought to get used to the solid heat of his body. She settles for something in-between. They take the elevator down and walk out through the lobby. It's fully night now. No one looks at them. They're on the sidewalk, and then (darkness, pressure; apparating?) on a different sidewalk.
"You don't even have a coat," he observes suddenly. "Christ, what was I thinking?" He shrugs off his overcoat and drapes it around her shoulders. She doesn't comment on his taking the Lord's name in vain. Impious or not, she has no right to reprimand him. "I would have used the Floo network, but I didn't want to risk you getting lost," he explains, unlocking the door. Then he does something with his wand around the doorframe. "We'll have to get you added to the family register," he says, talking more to himself. "That will make adjusting the wards easier." Credence only understands the most rudimentary elements of magic. She has nothing to add, no comments to make, but he looks to her anyway.
"Alright," she says.
"You'll have to meet my family for that," he goes on, still working on the door. "I'll see about getting in contact with them tomorrow."
"You don't have to," Credence says. "If you'd rather not, I mean." She cringes. "Sorry."
"The sooner the better," he says briskly. The door finally swings open, and he waves her in. The entryway is dark. It might be any house in one of the nicer neighborhoods. Credence realizes that she has no idea where they are. She isn't especially alarmed by the thought. There are more immediate, more alarming things to be dealt with.
The lamps flicker to life. "I want to go to bed," Credence says, and hates herself for sounding childish. But she just wants to get it over with.
"In a few minutes," Percival says. "I promise." He rakes a hand back through his brilliantined hair and some of it falls loose around his face. "Would you like to sit down? There's a sitting room through there." He nods to a doorway on the right. She goes, and the wood in the fireplace sparks suddenly into flame. The walls are papered over with maps and moving pictures. Webs of lines draw and redraw themselves. "Casework," he says, following her astonished gaze.
Credence perches on the edge of the couch and looks up at him. He sits down in a chair across from her.
"First thing's first: what did you feel during the ceremony?" he says. This isn't any of the things she thought he might say.
"Nothing," she says after a moment's consideration.
"I felt like I was getting hit in the chest with an anvil," Percival says bluntly. "Some of that is because your magic lacks control and took a volatile form. But some of it has to do with sheer power. You're a very powerful witch, or you will be. What you lack is technique. Raw power like that can be dangerous, even when it doesn't take the form that yours has." He leans forward intently. "What I volunteered to do was key my magic into yours, to help you maintain control while you learn. It's not a one-way street: most magic attuned to me will be attuned to you. To put it in no-maj terms, it's like we're broadcasting on the same frequency." Credence nods, though she doesn't entirely understand the comparison. "The main exception to that is blood magic, which is mostly illegal. I have a dispensation to use some kinds, which is why the wards on this house were difficult to navigate."
"Blood magic," Credence echoes. She remembers the sermons: stolen infants bled out, their fat mashed to paste for ointments.
"It's not as sinister as it sounds," Percival assures her. "Usually." He reaches across to her, and she holds out her hand to meet his. "I understand your desire for respectability, especially given your circumstances. I don't want you to worry that this is keeping me from fulfilling any lifelong dreams of wedded bliss." Credence's hand in his starts to shake. "If I had any prior attachments, I would have bowed out," he goes on. "As it is, my job takes most of my time and attention. I don't want you to think this has to prevent you from having your own life, too."
Credence pulls her hand back and clasps it in her other hand to stop it trembling. "I won't take much of your time," she says. "I'll look after the house."
"Credence, I don't want you as my housekeeper," he says, sounding aggrieved. She flinches.
"No," she says. "Of course." She can do what she likes, he seems to say, within reason. But they are man and wife.
"You're tired," he observes. She nods, grateful that she at least will not be kept waiting in dread. "I'll show you to your room." He'll want his own space, of course. That makes sense. It seems terrible, like a shameful secret, that one of them will have to visit the other in the night, but this is his house. He can arrange things however he wants to.
Credence's room is probably very large and probably very beautiful, but she only lights one lamp. Enough to see the buttons on her dress. Enough to see the bed. She can worry about the rest in daylight. The dress gives her some difficulty, but she is careful with it. She doesn't know whose it is. They will want it back, even if it's now too long and too narrow. She stands in her slip and shivers. Should she open the wardrobe? Will there be a nightgown inside? That seems like too much to expect. She slides under the covers and feels too exposed even there.
She waits. And waits. There is no knock at the door, no footsteps in the dark. He isn't coming. So, then, she's meant to go to him. She hopes he won't be angry with her for taking so long to realize.
All the lights in Percival's room are off. She walks unsteadily forward in the dark, arms outstretched, until her hand touches a bedpost. A soft light blooms from the other side of the bed.
"Credence," Percival says, in the same careful tone he had used when she felt like she was about to fly apart. "What are you doing?"
Credence doesn't cry on her wedding day, but she does cry on her wedding night. Helpless, confused tears. She was born to Eve's weakness, Eve's sin, but lust has never been her great temptation. She has been covetous, disobedient, wrathful. (The closest she came to lust was with her Mr. Graves, the impostor, and even then she couldn't imagine wanting to take any greater liberty than a kiss.) She can't rely on her wickedness to guide her, and she's too unprincipled to to her duty otherwise. She sobs and turns her face away. Percival won't want her now that he's seen her, thin and scarred as she is.
But, against all odds, he reaches for her. Just one hand, outstretched, as he had done downstairs in the sitting room. "What's wrong?" he says.
She gathers courage from his invitation. Credence takes his hand and surges forward. She kisses him, feeling bold and ashamed. He cups her face in his hands and draws back. "I think there's another conversation we should have."
Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-12 07:01 am (UTC)(link)Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-12 09:08 am (UTC)(link)Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-12 05:52 pm (UTC)(link)Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-12 05:40 pm (UTC)(link)(Also, for what it's worth, this is the anon who requested the MFMM crossover. Nice seeing you again!)
Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
OP Here
(Anonymous) 2016-12-13 12:08 am (UTC)(link)Re: OP Here
(Anonymous) 2016-12-13 02:58 am (UTC)(link)And fear not, I will be getting to that sweet, sweet cunnilingus in... probably the next part or the part after that. There was just a lot of set-up that had to happen first (and also I love inflicting emotional turmoil on characters I like).
Re: OP Here
(Anonymous) 2016-12-14 03:25 am (UTC)(link)Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-13 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)Aaargh I want to bundle the two of them in a counterpane, give them hot cocoa and tell them everything will be all right! Although Percival should work a bit more on the sweet nothings. "I felt like I was getting hit in the chest with an anvil", forsooth.
Re: fill: "to honor and obey" (original!Graves/fem!Credence, part 2/?)
(Anonymous) 2016-12-16 06:28 am (UTC)(link)I will say, though, that I don't necessarily think of Graves as a dude who's great at sugar-coating things for the sake of smoother social interaction. Credence will have to get used to interpreting straightforwardness as sweet talk, haha.