I Never Give In (Percival Graves x Reader)

A bit of a smudge

„Because I don't fucking want to lose you" Percival's low voice filled the silence of the room and echoed in your ears. Your body froze. The blunt ringing from the fast heart beat filled your head. What was this? You felt like your chest could explode, yet dared not move and just stared at him in surprise. You'd expect everything but this. Saying categorically that you have other responsibilities and cannot just leave them? Sure. Using the argument of your mental state, which was completely true and you would not be able to counter it all? Definitely. But not this. You lost your voice completely. Even if you could say something, your mind was not really working either. You were a tormented mess inside.

Graves realised what he had just said and sighed, his body eased a bit, not towering over you anymore. His expression softened and for the first time since he recovered, you could see how tired, how worn out he was.

"I don't want to lose you, (Y/N). If anything were to happen to you..." Percival brushed your hair away from your face and his hand lingered there for a bit longer, as if he was unsure what to do. His eyes were full of warmth and worry as you've rarely seen before. You could feel your cheeks getting heated up and wanted to turn away in embarrassment but you were in too much shock to move even an inch. The look in his eyes was showing he had decided something and his hand moved from your cheek to the back of your neck. Before you could react it any way, he lightly pulled your head towards him, forcing you to look up, and not even a second later his lips landed on yours.

You could feel how your insides froze, your cheeks were getting even more heated up. Your eyes went wide and it took you a good moment to realise what was happening. Before you could collect yourself and react in some way, he pulled away. His hand lowered to the table you were leaning on with his fingertips touching the counter. He was visibly slumping his shoulders, looking away from you.

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have..." Percival's whispered apologies were interrupted when you reached out and put your hand on his. Your sudden touch made him straighten up a bit and look back at you. You still didn't trust your voice so you did the only thing your intuition told you to do.

You leaned forward and kissed him.

Graves responded to it almost immediately.

Suddenly his left hand was on the back of your neck, pulling you forward again, this time with a bit more force, making you lift your chin to match the height of his lips. He didn't waste any time and what started as a soft touch of lips was becoming more and more passionate. You were in perfect harmony as if your lips were made for each other. Your arms went over his shoulders automatically, playing with his hair. With each second you felt your knees growing weaker, with each time he sucked on your lips you felt more out of air. As if he knew that, he quickly lifted you up and placed on the desk, his hands never leaving your body and resting on your waist. You felt him pulling your body closer against his chest, you were now sitting at the edge of the table, Percival standing right between your legs, leaning forward so that he could comfortably kiss you. His lips never left yours.

When you finally parted, both of you were panting heavily. There was no way to tell how much time has passed- it felt like hours but also seconds at the same time. Your lips felt a bit swollen. Percival backed away, his hands still on your waist, holding you steadily and domineeringly. His eyes were dark with desire and you could see he would gladly continue, however, there was something darker there as well.

Before either of you could say anything, the sound of steps had drawn your attention away from Percival. Someone has entered the office and you hadn't noticed the door opening, being so... enticed. You quickly jumped off the table and Graves automatically backed away, stepping fast to the second table and looking through documents laying around on it. You barely made it in time before Tina's figure popped from behind the corridor, her eyes stuck to the piece of paper in her hand.

"(Y/N) have you seen, we're both going to..." she looked up and her sight went from you to Percival, from Percival to you. She was visibly holding back a smile. "I... seem to have interrupted something." Tina looked at you with a knowing look and you just gazed back at her, confused. She raised her eyebrows and glanced behind you suggestively. Furrowing your eyebrows, you looked back to where she was pointing to see Percival's profile by the table behind you and... your smeared lipstick on and around his lips. He seemed to be ignoring whatever was happening and to be in full focus on what was in front of him. 

A blush crept out on your features as you looked back guiltily to face Tina. You saw her mouth the word "finally" as you walked towards her quickly and took her by the arm, turning her around.

"How about we discuss that by a coffee? Coffee sounds great!" You said nervously and started to lead her outside.

"Have a nice day Mr. Graves!" Tina managed to say loudly before you took her around the corridor. "Although I think it is already going pretty nicely..." she added quietly so that only you could hear that. Your lips went in a straight line from embarrassment of being caught like that. You were about to open the door and step out of the office when the girl stopped you.

"You don't want to go out like this." she said quietly and handed you a napkin. It took you a second to get the allusion but once you did, your hand covered your lips and you glanced at her, taking the fabric out of her hand and wiping your face so that all the smudged lipstick would come off.

"Thank you. But can you please not say anything about this? What did you want to discuss?" you tried to changed the topic, looking at the papers in Tina's hand and skipping over what was written there, leading her towards the cafe and ignoring her questions about what has just happened.

Percival's POV

To say that the decision about you joining the Grindelwald hunting party surprised Percival was an understatement. He was aware of how passionate and devoted to the job you could get, he even had suspected you wouldn't say no if Picquery had asked you for help, but never in a million years would he have thought that you were going to volunteer. He may have had problems with his mental health after Grindelwald's doings but he was very well aware of how much strain it has put on you. The fact that you had been there almost every time Graves' state got worse was of such enormous help to him and yet he was unable to help you with what he was perfectly aware was going on. You had been hiding it all pretty well thus so far he just had had his suspicions and by the reaction to his words you have proven these assumptions to be true.

Percival listened, seemingly nonchalantly, as you went out with Tina. Hearing her whisper, his hand went to his own lips and he wiped them with a finger, only to see a red smudge that was left on it.

"Fuck" whispering, he took out a handkerchief and dipped it in a bit of water that was in a glass on the table, then proceeded to get the stain off of his face. 

This wasn't planned. Hell, it wasn't even what he had thought he'd ever do but here he was, wiping off the lipstick of his subordinate off his lips. His mind was filled with worry about what he's allowed himself to do, but his heart felt at peace for the first time in days. Now that he's seen how warmly and eagerly you have reacted, he could calm himself a bit and think of what to do next.

And there were quite some thing to think about.

[Authors's Note]

This took soooo long to write and I know that I normally write a lot more but this time it felt right to have a shorter chapter. Thank you all so much for reading and for all the love this story has received <3 

The cover for this story is my art btw :>