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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] Matchmaker, Matchmaker 4a/4 - Percival/Newt + Theseus
(Anonymous) 2016-12-18 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)The instant Newt comes out of his suitcase he knows something's wrong: Percival doesn't seem to recognise him at all.
"Is that really Mr. Graves?" he hisses to Tina as they're lead down to the dungeons, wincing at the tightness of the binds around his wrists.
Tina stares at him, confused. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Newt says, "has he been acting strangely? Memory loss? Polyjuice? Anyone want to cast a revelio or two?" He glances back at the Auror holding him, whose steps have slowed. "I just don't believe - he promised he'd do his best to keep my case from being impounded, and now - "
"You know Mr. Graves?" Tina asks, looking startled. "Personally?"
"Well," Newt says, awkwardly, "he's friends with my brother, you see, and Theseus is, well, and every time we see each other there's always something - I mean, I don't know if we're friends, exactly, but when you wake up in the same bed enough times it's - "
"You've slept with Graves?" asks the Auror escorting Tina, giving up all pretense of not listening in. "Graves?"
"That angry guy, with the," and Jacob makes a tilt-of-the-head gesture that doesn't quite work with his hands bound behind his back.
"No!" Newt exclaims. "I mean, I suppose technically, but not in the - carnal sense, though not for Theseus's lack of trying. My brother's been trying to set us up for," and he pauses to think about it. "It must be years."
"Set you up," says Tina's Auror. "With Graves?"
"He's not all bad," Newt says, feeling a little ruffled at the extent of this disbelief. "I mean, objectively, he's quite handsome, and kind enough if nothing's breaking his bloody laws - all that fuss about permits, honestly! - but out of his jurisdiction he's far less uptight. He's very clever, and a good conversationalist, and he always seems interested in hearing about my new creatures. And he's very good with a wand. Or without one," Newt adds, remembering the pieces of wandless magic he's seen, nothing flashy but still astounding in his complete control. "Quite amazing, really."
"Newt," Tina says. Her expression is a cross between a smile and outright disbelief. "Goodness."
"Are you sure you're not sleeping with him?" asks Jacob's Auror. Newt narrows his eyes at him. "I'm just saying..."
"Saying what?" Newt says huffily. "Just because I realise Percival isn't quite as bad as you lot make him out to be - "
Newt's Auror stops suddenly. The three exchange glances. "Percival," Newt's Auror says.
Newt can feel his face warm. Tina's practically staring at him open-mouthed. It can't be that much of a surprise that Percival has - acquaintances who call him by his first name, for Merlin's sake. Theseus even calls him 'Percy'. He opens his mouth to say something of that sort but is interrupted by Tina's Auror, who says, "There have been a lot of inter-department reshuffles lately."
"McMahon's been transferred to desk-work, customs."
"And Goldstein - sorry, Goldstein - "
"You don't think..."
"Well," Newt says, "if you could get me my wand," and they exchange glances again. Jacob's Auror sighs.
"Fine, I'll do it."
They start walking again, but if Newt's not mistaken, with far less hostility; when the Aurors lock them in their cell, they give him an almost-friendly nod. "We'll be coming by later, for your questioning," says Jacob's Auror, and raises his eyebrows significantly at Newt. "I'll have you."
"Yes," Newt says, and at a nudge from Tina, "yes, thank you."
"If he has been replaced," Tina's Auror says, on the way out, and is quickly quieted by her fellow's elbow.
Tina herself, in the cell, has no such silencer. "You really think Mr. Graves has been replaced?" she wonders. "How did I not know you were dating?"
"We're not - dating," Newt says. "And, I don't know. But it's really very strange. He would at least be blaming Theseus for this all prematurely."
Tina shakes her head, obviously paying no attention. "Dating," she repeats, amazed.
"So," Jacob says, looking utterly lost, "what's all this about Mr. Graves? And what was all that about an obscurus, or obscurial, or whatever?"
Newt takes a breath, and explains.
It's more than an hour before they get called back upstairs for questioning. Newt, led by the Auror who previously guarded Jacob, falls into a the chair with his wand slipped up his sleeve. Someone's told him, is the first thing Newt thinks, because the man wearing Percival's face gives him a quick smile, too wrong and completely insincere. It's like he's watching one of those Muggle rubber masks over his face, the strangeness of it, and Newt fixes his gaze on the man's shoulder and doesn't meet his eyes.
"Newton Scamander."
"Yes," Newt says, quietly.
The man follows with a list of Newt's - many problems, his expulsion (as though Percival hasn't once seen the photograph of Leta in Newt's suitcase, as though he hasn't heard Theseus calling foul on it far and wide), and Newt lets his wand slip into his palm and closes his fingers around the hilt. He's not the best at silent spells, but Newt thinks the tight, tense feeling in his chest, his magic stirring around his fingers with the growing ball of panic stuck in the back of his throat, will make him good enough. Revelio, he thinks, and then meets the man's gaze as his disguise slides away.
Newt drops to the floor, Pickett's tug strong for a bowtruckle, and just in time as Grindelwald's expression turns dark and spells start flying through the air. A spell splashes against a shield he didn't cast as he retreats to Tina's position, her wand in hand as she casts another incarcerous, overdone with the Dark Lord wrapped in a half-dozen chains.
But if the man playing at being Percival is Grindelwald - then where is Percival himself? The Aurors are calling in back-up, Grindelwald levitating wandless in the air, and Newt steps not-too-close and says, "Where is he? Where is Percival Graves?"
Grindelwald looks at him and laughs.
He doesn't stop laughing until they drag him away. Newt's pacing, thinking of locator spells, magical creature tracking and trying not to think of Percival pale and cold and dead. "It was Polyjuice," Tina reports, when she returns to him in the corridor.
"Then," Newt says, and she nods, mouth firmed in a thin line.
"Mr. Graves might still be alive."
Newt has - things, of his, but his suitcase is still impounded somewhere, his creatures shut away. He could owl Theseus - should owl Theseus, but in the middle of that thought Pickett climbs up to his shoulder and tugs on Newt's hair. Newt frowns at him. "What is it, Pickett?"
Pickett makes a quiet chirping noise and plucks at the chain around Newt's neck, then goes back to pulling on his hair. "Alright, alright, I'm going!" Newt tells him, and Pickett gentles his grip slightly even as Newt speeds up his pace. "I don't - this pendant, he wouldn't have made it himself, you know, it's probably some sort of standard Auror issue or something, Pickett, you're just going to get me in trouble again - "
"Pendant?" Tina asks, jogging along next to him, and Newt pulls it out from under his shirt. "Oh," she says. "Um. Wow."
Newt slants her a look. "Wow?"
"Definitely not Auror issue," she says. "Is that real platinum?"
Newt examines it. "Maybe?"
Tina's eyebrows are raised, but when Newt glances at her she just shakes her head and smiles. "Newt," she says, and then, as Pickett's tugging comes to a stop, "Wait. We're at the Apparition point."
Newt looks around the room, the crack of people coming and going, and then to Pickett, tugging at his pendant. "Pickett," Newt says, slowly. "You're not saying..."
Pickett chitters, tugging on the pendant again, and Newt gives Tina a beseeching look. "I think he wants me to Apparate, but I'll be doing it blind," he says, and she bites her lip and sighs.
"Side-Along me? You know I can't let you go alone."
Newt nods and closes his eyes, wrapping his hand around the pendant and trying to feel out the magic in it. He's hardly as good as Pickett, who could probably trace someone across an entire city, but Newt's learned some tricks in tracking down creatures, and he thinks he can feel it out. Tina's hand lands on his arm and Newt remembers destination, and he spins on his heel and lets the tug of magic pull them away.
Wherever they land, it's dark. Tina lights up her wand and as soon as they see the figure, reeling away from the light Newt hisses, "Nox, nox!" and Tina extinguishes it. Newt feets a tiny tendril of magic into his own wand, until its tip shines with a low fluorescent glow, and Tina follows his example as he steps forward and crouches down at Percival's feet.
Percival blinks at him in the low light, his hair scraggly, his face thin, and Newt swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. "Hello," he says, quietly, "sorry about the wait."
"Let me guess," Percival says, his voice hoarse. "Theseus again?"
"No," Newt says. "All me this time, I'm afraid."
He taps his wand against Percival's chains, but Percival shakes his head, then looks like he's already regretting having done so. "Magic-proof," he says, and Newt glances down at his coat sleeve but Pickett's two steps ahead of him already, clicking open the latches of his handcuffs.
"Not bowtruckle-proof, luckily," Newt says. "Come on." He helps Percival's hands out of the cuffs, and murmurs quiet numbing and healing charms over his shoulders as Percival grits his teeth and wrenches them back in place; he offers a hand, then an arm, then a shoulder as Percival struggles to his feet. Pickett jumps to Newt's hand and then to his head, and Newt says, "It's because of Pickett that we found you, truly. Bowtruckles are fantastic at picking out individual magic traces. I didn't realise he was so fond of you."
"Really," Percival says, quiet. He studies Pickett, who stares right back at him. "Well. Thank you."
Pickett makes a chirping noise and hides himself in Newt's hair. Newt tries to give him a reproachful look, aiming it over his shoulder, but thinks he misses. "I've found the exit," Tina calls out, her wand a slightly brighter point in the room, and Newt takes most of Percival's weight as they take the stairs up careful and slow.
"It's good to see you, sir," she tells Percival, and he inclines his head.
When they finally exit it's from a tiny silver pillbox in Percival's living room. Newt's unspeakably glad he's there holding up Percival's weight for the way he stumbles at the sudden bright lights, the rush of noise, the change in perspective, and catches him before he falls. The house is teeming with Aurors and they're held at wandpoint in a sudden silence. Percival tilts his head at Newt, the tug of his mouth wry, and Newt coughs to hide his smile.
"Yes," Tina says, voice raised, "this is the real Director Graves, medical would be great, anytime - "
She's lost in the sudden din, people rushing back and forth, and Newt steps back when Percival's carted off to proper healers and thinks, longingly, of the house before: open and quiet, Percival with his sleeves rolled up and a pan minding itself on the stove.
It's a thought that makes him want to trace his steps back there, to Percival's kitchen and his comfortable bedroom, to his small library of interesting books. There's a place for his case there, enough room for a Niffler's small den and a nest of baby diricawls and a bowtruckle who thinks Newt's his home tree - but it's a silly thought, Newt knows. His case is impounded, and he still needs to send Theseus an owl.
[Fill] Matchmaker, Matchmaker 4b/4 - Percival/Newt + Theseus
(Anonymous) 2016-12-18 03:41 pm (UTC)(link)Pickett leads Newt out of the bedroom and down the hall, where Newt hears Theseus's voice from the kitchen. " - should just tell him, Percy, it's not like Newt'll catch on otherwise."
Newt's step forward is halted by Pickett's grip on his ear. Percival's voice says, "I can't just say it - he doesn't - " and Newt tunes him out, something about this feeling all-too familiar. He narrows his eyes at Pickett, who waves his arms and clambers up into Newt's hair.
"Pickett," Newt hisses sharply, and tries to grab him; Pickett climbs over Newt's head and tugs painfully at his hair. Newt tries to soften his tone. "Pickett, you know I won't hurt you, but if you won't tell me what's going on - "
Pickett suddenly jumps and Newt scrambles to catch him; he crawls up Newt's sleeve and Newt shakes his arms, trying to extract him. "Pickett," he says, volume rising, "you're behaving just like Bandit now, I might have to stop indulging your attachment problems - " and as Pickett makes a leap to the side table Newt just manages to catch him - and falls, crashing, through the kitchen door.
Newt can already hear Theseus's choked laugh as he picks himself up. He holds Pickett out between finger and thumb and turns his glare on his brother. "You!" Newt says. "You're the reason he's been acting so strangely. What did you bribe him with?"
"Nothing!" Newt frowns at him, and Theseus relents. "Well, we might have had a chat."
"A chat," Newt says doubtfully, and turns his frown on Pickett. "You need to stop this. Whatever Theseus told you, he's wrong."
"Hey!" Theseus protests. Newt ignores him.
Pickett chitters, and Newt says, "No! No, that's not right at all." Pickett's pose turns slightly regretful, and Newt sighs and lets him clamber onto his wrist. "You behave yourself now, all right?" He climbs up Newt's sleeve and into his pocket, and it's then that Newt realises he's interrupted a - probably private conversation. Percival has his head in his hands. "Ah, I - I'm sorry about that, really. I didn't hear anything, really, I can just go - "
"No," says Theseus, with the air of someone who definitely arranged this terribly coincidental meeting, "we were just talking about you, Newt. Come on, sit down and have some tea."
"Talking about me," Newt says warily, sliding a glance to Percival who is studying his tea like he's looking for his future in the dregs. Newt approaches the table, taking the chair gingerly as the teapot pours him a cup. "Theseus - "
"What were we talking about, Percy?" Theseus asks brightly. Percival makes a quiet, choked sound from behind his teacup. "Right, the first time you two met? Do you remember it, Newt?"
Newt - doesn't think he does, honestly. All the times Theseus has arranged for them to be together, and he can't pinpoint the time he hadn't known Percival, then Graves. Long evenings and shared nights have blurred together in his memory, and Newt wonders if there's a point to all this. "That small magical place you liked?" Newt hazards. "After..."
Theseus's smile gentles a little with the recollection. "After we got back from the war."
That's right. Newt remembers, now, the smoky air, the still-pervasive sense of relief. He was still feeling lost; he'd left all his dragons behind. "But," Newt says, and shakes his head. "I don't understand."
Percival says, "Theseus."
Theseus rises from his chair, the sound of it scraping against the floor loud and jarring against the silence. Newt opens his mouth, closes it as Theseus crosses the room and leaves, the door clicking shut behind him. He doesn't know what to say to break the fragile quiet and Percival sighs, closing his eyes.
"Did I forget something important?" Newt asks, hesitant. Percival's mouth twitches and he shakes his head, his gaze fixed over Newt's shoulder.
"Probably not," Percival says, "for you. You might remember, though, that I approached you first. I bought you a drink." His smile turns self-deprecating, and Newt says, "Oh."
Because he does remember, now.
Someone had said something, American, but Newt, sitting alone in tucked-away booth, was lost in the arithmetic properties of the Undetectable Extension Charm he was researching. He still said, "Oh, thank you," at the drink pressed into his hand. It was the same as the one he'd had earlier. "I'm sorry, but I'm - quite busy right now."
"Extension charms," said the stranger, and Newt glanced up; an Auror, by the looks of it, about Theseus's age. "Are you making a living space?"
"Oh, no," Newt said, "something much more complicated than that." He'd done his research on habitat preservation but that was another thing he'd have to incorporate - climate controls, partitioned. "Well. It's quite niche, really."
"The friend I was meeting is running late," said the other man. "I have time."
So Newt, slowly, started to talk. The stranger was surprisingly good company, clever and better educated than Newt, though unboastful about it; they delved into charms theory and pored over his calculations, discussed all the charms he'd need to interweave to get the habitats he wanted. Newt tried ideas on him and he responded with applications, and he offered some surprising flashes of insight that Newt started working into his spell. Sometime, Newt realised, he'd finished his drink and the stranger had sat down next to him, the press of his thigh a long line against Newt's own; sometime, Newt realised, he'd started to categorise the shades of his rare smiles. "...and it's good to be prepared for any eventuality," Newt finished, his point feeling a little muddled. "Dragons aren't quite as rare as the Ministry likes to pretend, you know."
"I have no doubt," the man said dryly, with a touch of a smile. "But keeping one?"
"Temporarily," Newt corrected, "keeping one temporarily. He worried his lower lip with his teeth, looking down at the sketches filling his notebook next to pages of calculations. "Just in case. I don't really know what I might stumble over."
"I'm sure you'll manage," said the man. He put his hand over Newt's, where he was fiddling with the edge of the page of his notebook, and Newt stopped, glancing at him to realise he was being watched with a startling intensity. Newt ducked his head, face warming. "In fact, if you're available, later..."
The man's attention was caught by the door. He'd been glancing up every time it opened, checking for his friend - "great man, terrible at time management," he'd said - but this time lasted longer than all of the last, and Newt jumped at the distraction, followed his gaze.
"Is that your - oh, Theseus!"
The man went still beside him. "Theseus," he repeated, and Newt waved his hand, smiling as Theseus caught sight of him.
"Yes," Newt said, "my older brother, you know - "
By the time he'd finished saying it, Theseus was already there, his hair mussed and robes slightly askew. "Newt! Oh, Percy, I see you've already met my little brother." There was something odd in his tone, and Newt frowned slightly up at him. "Newt, this is the friend I told you about, the Director at MACUSA, Percival Graves."
"Mr. Graves," Newt said. Hadn't he been closer? When Newt looked at him his back was straight, his expression carefully closed, and the man Newt had been talking to - wasn't gone, exactly, but hiding in the soft corners of his eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Mr. Scamander," Graves said. His gaze passed from Newt to Theseus. "I should have known."
Newt remembers. But he's still - he doesn't know what to make of it, with Percival watching him over a tea set and a kitchen table, with the odd curl of confused anticipation in his chest. He says, slowly, "You helped me with my case. I remember."
"Then," Percival says, "perhaps you remember I was also approximately five seconds away from asking you to come home with me."
Newt's brain halts. "I - I'm sorry?"
Percival slides him a glance, the tilt of his mouth amused. "Of course, then Theseus came along, and I realised you were the little brother he'd sworn vengeance for on literally anyone who tried to touch him - "
"He wasn't that bad," Newt protests weakly. He feels strangely warm, and he can't look at Percival's face.
" - so I must admit I thought he was putting me through some sort of trial." Percival taps his fingers on the rim of his cup. "Of course, by the time I realised it was genuine, we'd already come to an accord. And I didn't think... well."
"You don't mean," Newt says, tentative and quietly disbelieving, "all this time..."
"You frustrate me," Percival says, quiet. "You ignore all laws when it suits you, you rush recklessly headlong into danger without any regard for your personal safety if something's hurt or in trouble - the way you treat creatures that could kill you is frankly disturbing - and that's not to mention your disregard for the chaos you leave in your wake. And all this time... yes."
Newt guiltily glances up. Percival's expression is gentle. He reaches out and takes the teacup from Newt's trembling hands and clasps them in his own. He leans forward, meeting Newt's eyes, and Newt feels caught, unable to look away.
"Newt," Percival says, "would you come home with me?"
Newt's heart is pounding, a slow unfurling happiness in the flush of his cheeks and the catch of his breath. He wants to lean forward and close the distance between them, to press Percival down against his mattress until he can only say Newt's name. He wants to fall asleep beside him and wake up there again; he wants to learn the intricacies of his magic and settle creatures in his house and - someone to come home to, Theseus had said, and Newt - Newt wants that, too.
Instead, Newt says, a spark of mischief in his smile, "You do realise that we're already here. At your home."
He leans forward and catches Percival's huff of a laugh between them. Percival's mouth opens under his own but Newt isn't expecting the pull around his waist that sends him stumbling, laughing, into Percival's lap, where Percival winds his hands into Newt's hair and keeps him there. When Newt can catch his breath again Percival's smiling at him. "You know, it can be yours, too."
"Oh," Newt says. There's a giddy sort of delight in his chest, and he can't seem to stop smiling. "Yes. That would be lovely."
They're interrupted by a disgruntled chittering coming from his pocket. Newt squints down as Pickett sticks his head out, and Percival sighs when Newt detaches himself to let Pickett climb up to his hand. "Yes, all right," Newt says to Pickett. "Really? After all this time? Oh, I see." He unbuttons his waistcoat and leaves it over his chair, Pickett safe in a pocket.
"I suppose I'll get used to them," Percival says, and slides his hand under Newt's jaw, drawing him into a kiss. "Will he be all right there?"
"He'll be fine," Newt says. "So, how do you feel about diricawls?"
"In the house?"
"They're very docile," Newt says, cajoling, "if you hand-raise them, they hardly ever knock things over - "
"Newt," Percival says. Newt closes his mouth and glances up at him pleadingly through his eyelashes. Percival sighs. "Diricawls are fine. But - " he starts, before Newt can interject, "Theseus has promised me he won't be back until morning. That means we have the house to ourselves. Do you really want to spend it talking about diricawls?"
"Oh," Newt says. Percival's smile is familiar, fondly amused. "Well, it wouldn't be a complete waste of an evening but - I'm sure we can find something more interesting to do."
Diricawls, Newt's still thinking, a tree for bowtruckles outside the window, his Niffler in a den and maybe a small nest of Ashwinders in the fireplace - and then Percival kisses him, and he can't think of anything else at all.
(Thanks so much for the comments, guys! I have to apologise for this getting so long, it kind of ran away from me! I'll have it up on AO3 in a bit. :))
Re: [Fill] Matchmaker, Matchmaker 4b/4 - Percival/Newt + Theseus
(Anonymous) 2016-12-18 04:00 pm (UTC)(link)http://archiveofourown.org/works/8879488
Thanks so much to OP for the prompt, I hope I did it some justice!
Re: [Fill] Matchmaker, Matchmaker 4b/4 - Percival/Newt + Theseus
(Anonymous) 2016-12-19 03:15 am (UTC)(link)...and the ao3 link was linked to a different story?
Re: [Fill] Matchmaker, Matchmaker 4b/4 - Percival/Newt + Theseus
(Anonymous) 2016-12-19 04:47 am (UTC)(link)Re: [Fill] Matchmaker, Matchmaker 4b/4 - Percival/Newt + Theseus
(Anonymous) 2016-12-19 06:14 am (UTC)(link)Re: [Fill] Matchmaker, Matchmaker 4b/4 - Percival/Newt + Theseus
(Anonymous) 2016-12-19 07:44 am (UTC)(link)