#thesidence

[angryzilla]

Exhale | | Thesivaldence, created with @maggieandthedragon for our darling @fractalspaces

Something about the way his Auror had slumped against the wall, blood leaking from his mouth had reminded him of Sam Crispin hung on concertina wire, bleeding and twitching in no man’s land as the gray sky clotted in his blood and flowers burnt all around.

[Or: Theseus doesn't carry all of his scars on his skin. But at least he's not carrying them alone.]

read | | Ao3

[maggieandthedragon]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Graves stared at his father. “Are you telling me to ask out Theseus Scamander?”

“I’m saying that you could. If he’s what you want to spend your status on.” The Bullets’ favorite blonde starlet had come out to sing the anthems and Godwin unmuted the tablet, letting the music leak out softly. “You’re twenty-nine, Percy. You’re going to have to stop playing one day; you’re lucky it wasn’t yesterday. When you do, I want you to have more than a championship ring for company.”

The memory of seeing his own body sliding motionless across the ice warred with the taste of Credence's fluffernutter sandwich and the wounded note of Tizzy’s voice. We were just stupid kids. It kept Graves silent. [the hockey AU returns! Featuring Graves’ dad, lots of texting and mortifying conversations]

[angryzilla]

But the stars weren’t wrong, the time felt right | | belated holiday gift for @maggieandthedragon & @fractalspaces | | rated E

Feeling lulled by Percival’s thumb slipping back and forth across his temple, Credence breathes in deeply, curling his arms around Theseus, snuggles into his warmth. “Hanukkah is the festival of lights and we celebrate it to commemorate the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.”

read | | Ao3

[angryzilla]

And I heard you say, let’s lose ourselves out here always | | Thesivaldence, created with @maggieandthedragon for our darling @fractalspaces

“I know,” Graves said again and kissed him. It was slow and steadying, like the white cliffs of Dover and the salt spray of the Atlantic, like chips and malt vinegar and a pint of mild, like coming home and Theseus found himself clinging to the other man, both of them adrift together in the ruins of Nurmengard, no lighthouse here to guide them through the bones and spirits lost in blood, just the broken vowels of whimpers and whines, constellations of short-cropped hair under palms.

It would be enough. It had been before. It would again.

read | | Ao3

[angryzilla]

We'll find how to make it with the rain; this rage will lead us through the burning plains | | Thesivaldence asked by @archadianskies

“Thes?”

A soft voice.

My heart broken by the blight.

“Theseus?”

Silver seeds tearing the soil.

It murmurs a little for a while.

A kiss on his forehead; different hands at once on his cheeks (rough and calloused; thinner and irregular with welt bumps).

“I know you’re awake.”

Theseus opens his eyes and settles his emerald gaze upon the face peering down at him— lanky fingers curling in the deepening sheets, shadows blue with the cloudy, purplish day in London; and the windows grow thick with fog.

Having them here and disobeying the trace of his injuries; remembering home and soft lights and candles crackling in the night. Rain is falling (spilling) and memories keep flooding but they’re not unkind, for once— almost gentle with shades of affectionate kisses and murmured I love you’s spreading through the spicy air (pumpkin butter and star anise).

“Feeling any better today?” Credence asks quietly as he moves back down and buries his face in the crook of Theseus’ neck, hot and welcoming; almost molded to receive Percival and him there.

“Hmm,” Theseus mumbles with his nose in his lover’s dark curls (he loves the faint scent of pine and lemon he can find) while Percival’s hand works the knots in his stomach by tracing soft arabesques and golden letters all over his flesh. “Think so.” Credence’s head perks up suddenly, giving him a worried look, his magic creating little spikes of aurum-coloured greens. “Baby, I’m definitely feeling better than yesterday evening, don’t you worry.”

A smile so hesitant at first (is he happy enough? Am I doing it right?) but making edelweisses bloom on the spot once it gets there.

The rain-filled darkness of the day before— the interrogation room; the blood of his Aurors and the severed hand sent as a proof; and the horror, really—

He shakes his head.

Slight quirk of the lips, slight tilt of the head.

The curtains seem to breathe through the copper rain and slowly— slowly, the smiles of ivory-white skulls grow bearable in the low morning light.

How out of the darkness leapt a pale hand that ended up curling in his red curls and caressed his forehead; how love gave him back to himself, not unremembering of the horrors painted in large gasoline and crimson strokes; how the disorderly parts of himself went back to something near a state of equalization, of balance returned.

Don’t sever me from reality, take me back, take me back, take me back to the start.

“You know that you are allowed to ask for help,” Credence sighs softly, his breath a gentle summer breeze brushing upon green-veined flesh and stitched up arteries.

“He won’t ever ask for help,” Percival butts in, sarcasm heavy on his tongue and rolling off in, electrically charged with thoughts of another time. “You know that, sweetheart.”

Our hands tied and bombs falling like snow and blue roses all over while things tear away at us, at us, at us; tiny opalescent gems of hatred.

It’s a moment fused into crystalline rocks and frozen grass— ice spreading upon a pond, licking at old wounds; colour of sand and sea and sky merged as the tide comes in and washes over his fingers buried in the sand.

A needle pushing in a vein— it pulses green and blue and scarlet bleeds out and drips—

Drips—

A few skips, an ellipse, the wind and pined wrists.

“Shh, Director, shhhh. Calm down, let us take care of you.”

Theseus tries to rise and wipe the crusted blood off his nose, off the corner of his lips; apprehends the rough bumps of it, of these valleys; his cheek burning with a blossoming purple.

“Where’s that little— lit— little shit, Septima?” and he grunts, feral. “You g—gave me a bloody d—do—dose, you— you bunch of corny id—diots.”

“It’s for your own good, for fuck’s sake,” Septima Bragge says, staring into the blood pits of his eyes made wild in the flesh and stench of himself.

That voice, smooth, a rougher whisper. She tightens her hold on his arm  particularly harshly, and Theseus does not yelp— he’s too gone for that with the drug injected.

“You’re bloody fucking lu—lucky you’re— you’re my Head Auror and that—” breathe, breathe, fucking breathe, fucking breathe Scamander “—that I trust y—you with my bl—oody fucking life, Bragge.”

Oh, he looks like some creature torn to shreds, harsh and snarling, sinking deep beneath her veins. And it’s not about her, it isn’t, he’s a nebula of anger and distorted anxiety.

“Don’t fight it, Director, please. Have a nice trip to Wonderland.”

And air hits that patch of irregular lips, flattens down—

Until it all goes quiet, just rumbles hitting against the Director’s lungs.

Everyone else just stands there, waiting.

“What— what happened to Mr. Scamander?” one of the junior Aurors asks in a concerned voice as she watches him fall into deep slumber.

Theseus’ head member of his Auror team settles her smooth, silver-polished steel of a stare on the junior Auror. “An asshole happened to our team and he took charge.”

She trembles a little as realisation blooms on her face.

“Yeah,” Septima mumbles, “you don’t want Theseus Scamander coming after you when you’ve injured someone he cares about.”

That cruel breathing that forces him to fold back his arms on his stomach.

“Escaping Scamander is your best chance at still being alive in the evening,” she tells her—  the way his long throat moves, the flutter that passes through as magic sizzles on his fingers.

How scary he is to other people, even his own team, when rage fills him up and chokes his throat.

”You are basically fleeing the fury of a hurricane. Would you stand in front of one and think, ”I can take it down myself?””

She shakes her head, left to right, a stretch of skin.

”There you go. Don’t ever piss him off if you value your life.”

“I don’t need help, my darlings, I need kisses.”

Credence snorts at that, feeling some of the tension leave his body since he knows there’s a playful air to his partner; and the tightness in his wrists loosens; he still sends him a pointed look.

“From you, very obviously, baby,” Theseus is quick to add, smirking intently; Credence pinches his side, making him squeak.

“Thes,” the younger man groans.

His clear eyebrows shoot up. “What did I do again? Don’t you believe me? You’re the only two people I want to kiss, I swear to Merlin and all higher magical deities—” Theseus asks, ignoring his baby’s scowl.

“Theseus,” Percival cuts in, stern and sharp. “Don’t play that game.”

He’s on his way to saying, a game? What game? But there’s no use in hiding anything to his other halves who know him as well as the back of their hands; he can feel his head start to pound. Theseus doesn’t know if he flinches or if Percival has scanned his magic, but he figures he shouldn’t bury his emotions under too-familiar hills of blurry smoke and liquid humour.

“Fine,” he sighs heavily, the leaves of his ribcage arching above his heart in curling blades of frost. “I’m fine. I promise.”

Another pointed look. The red-haired man sighs in defeat. With trembling fingers, he picks up Credence’s hand, traces the splatter of brown freckles hiding between and behind his fingers— his heart that stumbles against his muscles.

“... I’m okay. It’ll— get better, once I know Wilhelmina is out of danger.”

True, this time, this quiet onslaught of light where all pretenses dissolve and Theseus shows himself; hurt and vulnerable, lingering, crumbling, thoughts soaring.

“Let us take care of you, okay?”

Theseus gulps, then nods, steeling himself, the curve creased around his face in his pillow littered with strands of his reddish-gold hair; Credence brings up his hand and pushes back his curls, tucking them behind an ear and brushing his cheek in the process.

“Damn it, Thes, you look like a fucking scared deer. It’s just us, hey.”

A romance like his tea— warm and proper; steady and strong; spice racks and sweaters after work, hands curling around one another, lips brushing and touching and tasting. Getting ready for summer nights with the slight apprehension of never being good enough.

“Hmm. You’re a scary bear with your growing beard,” Theseus mutters, blood rushing in his ears.

“It’s fucking stubble, Theseus,” and Percival rolls his eyes; reaches a hand up to touch his cheek. “Tell us,” he murmurs very carefully, “whatever feels right under our fingers and lips.”

Credence runs the tips of his fingers over his neck and chin and Theseus tips his head back again, closing his eyes in anticipation.

Tense, so tense, always, ever so tense.

The smell is spicy and comforting— gingerbread cookies and gentle, crackling fire; the flash of his lovers’ combined magic in the darkness that surrounds as it spills across his closed eyelids like honey.

And—

Percival sucks a particularly fervent kiss into Theseus’ throat while Credence is nipping softly at the tendon, his bright, sorrel gaze never wavering as he licks, bites, presses sunsets into Theseus’ skin; grasping his wrist, encircling it, and Theseus feels the known-weight of old welts, these bumps, their meaning lost to loving touches, idle gold, idle silver. How could these pinched and narrow fingers have known violence when they’re nothing but light?

They slip into the delirious coils of moans and whimpers as their bodies press Theseus into the mattress, heavy and hot and his legs pumping his heart out—

Steadying.

Like wind in the leaves of autumn trees, reddening, flushing, blushing, rushing, and Credence and the conquering of his tongue— the moans that escape his lips and fall into the world, into the open air. They’re unlatched stars.

“Oh, you like that,” Percival chuckles; Credence continues to murmur encouraging, soft words of praise in the crook of Theseus’ neck where ginger constellations spread like ink; scrape of sharp teeth against the sensitive flesh and hands that hold him down with a bruising grip. “Well, let us show you more, my darling.”

Thighs rub together, lightning bolts fluorescent— and they’re bent forward and heaving, and arms fold him against a broad, warm chest.

Theseus, Theseus, Theseus;

A litany.

The waves come up to them, restless— ripples of light that Theseus passes his fingers through.

The echoes of love sigh.

| | Notes

Short and sweet? What? Did you mean: hurt/comfort? With a dash of smut?

No?

Oops.

[angryzilla]

Anyone up for giving me prompts and I'll write them something?

[maggieandthedragon]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Letting Credence in was as easy as breathing. Keeping him close, kissing him back, looking for the places that made Credence shiver and sigh was so instinctive it would have been frightening if Graves had had the breath or the brainpower to spare. They broke apart and Graves vaguely registered that this would be the last moment to pull back, to make some comment about tradition and a good game and send Credence on his way. But the younger man’s pupils were dark and wide and his lips were damp from Graves’ mouth.

So Graves kissed him again.

The first time he’d kissed Theseus, they’d been sixteen and the power forward had tasted like salt sweat and room temperature beer. Credence? Credence tasted like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff and Graves immediately retracted any ill will that he had ever had toward high-fructose corn syrup and artificial flavorings. [The hockey AU lives!]

[angryzilla]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapter 4 Relationships: Original Percival Graves/Theseus Scamander, Credence Barebone/Original Percival Graves, Credence Barebone/Original Percival Graves/Theseus Scamander, Credence Barebone/Theseus Scamander Additional Tags: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Post-Grindelwald, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Past Child Abuse, Fix-It, Recovery Summary:

Distress spreading like blotted ink, everywhere upon Percival’s face.

And tenderness, too. Mostly tenderness, and soft lines, gentle features.

“Thes,” and Theseus gets ready for the slap that is about to come, closes his eyes. Merlin do they burn. Why did he do that, why did that happen? He didn’t mean to— “I love you, too.”

Definitely not what he had expected.

“... You do? But—”

“Took me long enough, I guess?”

Theseus stares; stares at Percival, long and proper. Suddenly, his heart starts beating again, pumping hard against his ribcage in pulsations that are almost too much to handle. The other man stares back, for a moment surprised, his dark eyes warm and silent.

“No, you— you don’t, Percival. You— you don’t.”

In which Theseus’ past in the trenches is explored, as well as his meeting with Graves out there; Graves and Credence share moments; Theseus deals with his PTSD. This chapter is heavily Thesival-oriented, but I’m not saying more!