10 and 14 kiss prompts please!
Don’t cry, and, lingering. This is somewhere in between, or both, or neither. Thanks @kemara24 for reminding me to finish this one!
Newt curls an arm around the loose blankets, at first finding nothing remarkable in their familiar touch and the emptiness of the space beside him.
Then he catches the faint scent of crushed leaves and coffee and lavender that seems to linger wherever Tina has been, and remembers that he had not in fact gone to bed alone.
This has been a new development in the week or so since their marriage, but, he reflects with a smile at the way he’d reached out even without recalling why, not an unwelcome one.
For a moment, he simply allows his mind and body to wake, guessing at the very early morning hour from the scant moonlight shining in through the curtains and the absence of the animal sounds he’d expect near dawn.
His eyes linger on the shadowy outline of Tina’s shawl draped across her desk chair and the stack of books resting on the wooden surface. Her wand is missing from its spot beside the bed, but there is nothing unusual in that; she carries it from room to room by habit even to fetch a glass of water.
When she still has not returned after several minutes, Newt turns to face the door, considering.
Without the sounds of pouring water or a boiling kettle or spoons clicking against pottery in the nearby kitchen, he guesses she might’ve gone down to the menagerie. He thinks about leaving her to her wanderings. After all, she could find him if she wished, unlike those dreadful, wonderful days they spent at his parents’ home before the wedding, when they stole brief minutes alone only in his case or in momentarily quiet halls.
But then his thoughts drift to a few days ago, when he’d been staring with growing horror at a letter from his least favorite editorial manager, full of observations such as ‘Why not tell people how they can acquire one of these for themselves?” and ‘Aren’t these dangerous? Don’t current laws allow for hunting?’ and other such rubbish. Something in his posture or in the tone of his muttered exclamation must’ve given him away, because she’d asked a moment later. It’s a new thing for both of them, but for him it has been nice—bloody wonderful really—to have someone not only care about but also understand his mood and choose to say something about it.
It doesn’t need to happen all the time, but it’s something he’d never quite known how to miss, before, and never again wants to live without.
With that in mind, he shifts from beneath the blankets and into his worn leather slippers, gathering up Tina’s shawl on his way to the door.
He finds his wife—his wife, he thinks again happily, his memory readily supplying her bemused grin and tender eyes at how often he repeats the word—in the menagerie as he’d thought. She rests on the last few steps of the staircase, her arms curled around her waist and her eyes facing into the shadowed and mostly quiet enclosures. A few squawks and rustles break into the room on occasion, but for the most part, things are still. He treads softly down to her seat, knowing she’ll him before he startles her. Her pajamas rustle as he settles the shawl around her.
She does not turn to face him, but she does press into his side, grasping back when he searches out her hand. He bends to kiss her shoulder, settling against her with their joined hands tucked beneath her shawl for warmth.
“What is it?” he murmurs when she stares wide-eyed as he tucks her hair behind her ear.
“Nothin’. I’m...so used to worryin’ by myself in the early mornin’. This is different. A good different.”
He taps a few gentle fingers against hers. “It took me a moment to recall why it would be strange that the other side of the bed was empty.”
“Mm.” He kisses her palm. “So. Early morning.”
“It was the only time Queenie wouldn’t hear.”
He hums in understanding.
“Momma’n Poppa—” She swallows. He traces absent patterns across her palm as she tries again. “Momma’n Poppa used to try to tuck me back into bed. But once I’m awake...”
She catches his gaze, looking a little surprised.
“I usually hear you when you get out of bed to make your coffee or find a book. Erm. Unless we’re otherwise occupied.”
Tina smirks and nudges his shoulder. “Y’know, I always figured you were a morning person.”
“But you’ll sleep as late as possible when you have the chance.”
“Mm. your view might be slightly affected by the fact that sleeping late this past week has rather tended to involve staying in bed with you.”
She nudges his shoulder again. “You’d sleep late anyway.”
“It’s not as nice though.”
She laughs lightly and leans into him, tucking her chin over his shoulder. They sit in comfortable silence for several minutes. “There was this professor at Ilvermorny. Lovely man with these huge gold glasses and the habit of wandering into class a few minutes late like he’d forgotten about it until the last second. He used to notice when I was having a bad moment or looked tired or worried and he wouldn’t say anything about it. He would just say ‘Miss Goldstein, I believe we’re going to need more parchment today. Would you fetch us some from the storerooms?’ and send me off for a few minutes of peace.”
“He was. None of the other kids knew what to say to me. The orphan girl whose parents died in the epidemic. Queenie was always good at disarming people. Batting away their nosy questions, or making them feel like they could talk about something normal. I was so glad when those first two years without her were over. Crazy isn’t it? She was only little.”
Newt slides an arm around her back. “You needed each other, hm?”
She nods, her expression wobbling.
“Tina, you were only little, too.”
“I know. It just. It feels like it did when... The world is different and complicated and I want—“ She swallows back tears until he guides her into his side. “I want her back.” She hides her face against his shoulder, half tucked into his chest.
Newt kisses the top of her head. “I know, love.”
“Will you stay here with me for a little while?”
She takes a deeper, more settled breath against him, and Newt falls just a little more in love.
“You were telling me a story about the niffler the other day, before we got...”
“A bit distracted,” he supplies, smiling at the memory.
Newt threads his fingers through her hair, shivering at her warm breath rushing across his bare neck, and gently begins to speak.