This takes place post-Graves route. Also, Avery is female in this simply because that's what I played as.
We were all sitting in on the large, circular couch inside the cafe with Graves in front of us, telling us more about the curse in detail and about Nacht as we ate the food Mason had cooked for us. I was barely listening. It was a mix of being exhausted as well being preoccupied with the lingering feel of my kiss with Graves. He had kissed back, right? I looked up from my plate and my eyes met Graves'. He gave me a small smile. He definitely kissed back.
"Alright. So if you all would like, I would like to take you all on as my apprentices. Learning any amount of magic in such a short amount of time is no small feat," Graves said, his eyes meeting all of ours. Everyone nodded and muttered their agreement. Graves clapped his hands together and smiled. "Great! We can discuss when to be able to practice and working that into your schedules later, right now, I believe you all should head home for the night. I'm going to close the cafe tomorrow as well but I would like you all to come in tomorrow evening for a proper thank you for all of you, but it is not mandatory and you will be paid no matter what," he said. I could hear in his voice how truly grateful he was to all of us. Everyone agreed again and stood up and got ready to leave.
"And if anyone wants to come in tomorrow beforehand to study the book or practice, you are more than welcome to. I will leave it in the break room," Graves said as he took everyone's plates from them. "Thanks, Graves," Landrey replied. I looked around at all of my coworkers, they looked as beat as me, even with all the coffee we drank. Everyone said their goodbyes and filed out of the cafe.
"I can go pack up my stuff and go back to my place," I said slowly.
"You are more than welcome to stay here tonight, Avery. It's late and you're stuff is already here."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course. Go ahead and go upstairs, I'm going to do these dishes and I'll be up after."
"Uh, okay. Thank you," I stuttered. I turned to go to the stairs when I felt Graves' hand around my wrist. He pulled me closer and tilted my head up towards him before leaning down and kissed me. I practically melted.
Graves pulled away slightly and smiled, "Go ahead and go to up to bed." I nodded and made my way upstairs, smiling like an idiot to myself. I got up to his apartment and got ready for bed. I took a quick shower and when I got out, I could hear Graves talking to Dracula. I put on my pajamas and towel dried my hair before walking back out into the living room.
"Hello there," Graves said, turning to look at me. "Hey," I smiled and sat next to him. I looked at the ground and tried to think of something to say. I still felt awkward around him, I mean, what the hell were we.
"Avery, would you like to accompany me to brunch tomorrow?" Graves said, grabbing my hand. I looked up at him and saw a gentle smile on his face. "Like, as a date?" The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Graves chuckled and tilted my face towards him. "Yes, as a date." "Um, sure," I said, biting my lip and blushing hard. "Well then," he lifted my hand towards his mouth and bowed slightly, "I bid you a good night, and I will see you in the morning." He kissed my hand before standing up and making his way to his bedroom. "N-night!" I called after him. My head was spinning.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, I was running towards Nacht as he swung his bat towards Graves. "No!" I screamed as the bat made contact with Graves' chest and he fell over, rusted. Nacht laughed maniacally as he swung his bat at the rest of my coworkers. One by one they fell, rusted over. I didn't feel like I was making any progress getting closer to him but after Mason fell, Nacht turned his attention towards me. He closed the distance in an instant. I fell on my back and fear and tried to push myself away. "Good night, kitten," he laughed and swung his bat down.
I woke up screaming and in a cold sweat. My body felt cold and heavy like it had been covered in rust. I looked down at my chest to make sure it wasn't when Graves rushed out of his room, his face full of worry. "Avery!" he exclaimed, and rushed to my side and pulled me onto his lap and holding me. I hadn't noticed I was shaking badly until then. "Shhh, it's okay. Just take a deep breath," he whispered as he rubbed my back. Turns out I had been crying pretty hard as well. I tried to follow what Graves was telling me and just trying to calm down. I don't know how long it took but eventually, I was just sitting there in Graves lap, my face against his chest.
"What happened?" Graves asked, wiping tears off my face. "Bad dream," I managed to croak out, "Nacht turned everyone to rust, right in front of me. I couldn't do anything." I could feel myself to start to cry again. "You don't have to worry about him anymore, I promise," he whispered, tilting my face towards his an looking me in the eyes. He smiled and kissed my forehead before hugging me.
"Are you doing better now?" he asked. I nodded slightly. "I think so," I whispered. He pulled away slightly and rest his forehead against mine. His fingers reached up and brushed against my cheek, causing me to smile at his gentleness. "W-what is this? Like, what are we?" I blurted out. I blushed hard and looked away from him again. I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut. Graves chuckled and kissed the top of my head. "Well, I definitely would like to be more than your boss or your mentor. I would like to court you if you would like," he asked, his voice sweet and sincere. It actually made my heart skip a beat. I looked up to see if he was messing with me. He had to be, right? But once I saw the seriousness on his face, I knew he meant it. "Uh, y-yeah, sure," I stuttered, blushing hard. Graves smiled and leaned in to kiss me.
The kiss started off slow and sweet but quickly became more intense. Soon I was straddling Greaves' lap with my arms wrapped around his neck and fingers in his hair. His arms were tight around my waist, pressing me against his chest. The kiss kept intensifying and I began to grind slightly against him, not really meaning to but not doing much to stop myself. I could hear a small groan in Graves' throat and his arms tightened around me. "Careful there," he growled, moving to kiss my neck. I moaned slightly, tilting my head to the side to give him better access. His hands moved to my hips, then up my sides to the sides of my breast. He was so gentle with his touch. My breath caught in my throat.
Graves chuckled against my neck and slid his hand down to my legs before standing up, picking me up with him. I wrapped my legs around him as he walked us back to his bedroom. He sat me down and swiftly took off his shirt and disregarded it on the floor. I bit my lip and looked at him. Besides the shirt, he had already thrown to the ground (Which surprisingly a t-shirt instead of one of those button-down ones) all he had on was his pajama pants and his hair was a complete mess. It was weird to see him not all put together, he almost looked like a different person. Either way, he looked really good.
Graves leaned down and kissed me again. It was a lot softer than when we were making out not even a minute earlier. "We don't have to do anything more if you don't want to," he said gently. There was some concern on his face like he felt like he was pushing me further than I wanted to go. Even just this short pause was enough to let my exhaustion set in. "It's not that I don't want to, I'm just-" I yawned. "You're tired, I understand. You go ahead and sleep in here and I'll sleep on the couch," he said, smiling at me. "Um, you can stay in here with me." I was blushing so hard. He laughed softly, "Of course my kitten." I smiled and crawled on the top of the bed, which was actually a mess, probably because Graves ran out of bed to check on me. He made his way to the other side of the bed and got in. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close as we fell asleep.