Chapter Text
If it was a choice open to him, Sean Renard would gladly step away from his place as a royal. His family is nothing more than a thorn in his side, his brothers all jockeying for any advantage they can find. If Sean said he was no longer interested, no one would believe him. Only his own scheming and planning has kept him alive this long. The only way out of the never-ending struggle is death.
Coming to Portland had been a calculated risk. Oregon had no Grimm, and one thing every royal needed was a Grimm. Marie Kessler’s arrival on the scene had shocked Renard. But not half as much as Nick
Burkhardt’s unveiling as her successor. Marie was a known quantity, Nick had been as well, but now that had changed. Because no one had taught Nick what it was to be a Grimm.
Rage had consumed the Prince when Kessler had literally dumped her responsibilities on his detective. Having a gun, being a police officer in no way was sufficient preparation to live the life of a Grimm. Especially not in the modern world where all eyes were watching, where murder did not go unremarked and where forensics waited to catch any incautious Grimm. Not safe, not now, not today. And not in Portland.
Having Kessler, a Grimm, dying of cancer was remarkable. Renard could not recall if he’d ever heard of one of them dying a non-violent death. Why had she not reached out, taught the boy? Instead she had
left him untrained and innocent, as good as signing his death warrant. In a city without a royal, Burkhardt would have already been gone. Either to flee, or to be buried.
There had been no choice, Renard had ordered the older Grimm killed. With a Grimm in his territory it would be a sign of weakness if he didn’t bond with her. But he couldn’t, not if she was dying, and her
talent was passing on to her nephew. The passing of a bond would weaken him too much to hold on to his place.
His only choice was to kill her and then lay claim to Burkhardt. Who knew nothing of custom, who knew none of the rites, who wouldn’t understand that he had to, was expected to, give up his girlfriend and cleave to the royal living in the territory they shared. Or, Renard could move to a new territory, start all over, and probably, inevitably die at the order of one of his own kin. Weakness was never forgiven in his family. In any Royal Family.
Damn Kessler. Damn her to the human hell. She’d refused to acknowledge her Wesen roots, set herself above all being a Grimm, she’d murdered the innocent. Perhaps it was her disease that drove her to do so. And it might cost her nephew his life. It might cost Renard his as well. There was no time to lose.
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Hiding from Burkhardt served no purpose. Renard wasted no time calling the other man and arranging a meeting. Nick had sounded puzzled, wondering if his partner Hank was also coming, of course he thought the meeting had to do with work, the only commonality Renard and he shared.
Not for nothing has Renard survived the politicking of the head families of Europe and Asia. He manages to convey the importance of the meeting and the need for confidentiality without making the detective suspicious.
It is less than fifteen minutes later that Burkhardt is announced by the doorman downstairs. The trip up the elevators takes less than five more minutes. Sean opens the door and invites the Grimm inside, not
really happy about what is going to take place in the near future. His own fate is sealed every bit as much as that of Portland’s newest untried Grimm.
Predictably, as Sean searches for a way to explain the situation to a man who knows far less than any Wesen child would, Burkhardt jumps to precisely the wrong conclusion. He decides his boss is propositioning him. Which....isn’t exactly wrong, but no. Not the point of this whole unveiling.
Renard is forced to show himself as he truly is. A royal is not an easy sight for Wesen to see, typically they fall to knees or bellies, for an un-tutored man...Renard is impressed Nick doesn’t shoot him. Or
faint when his captain gains a foot over his already unusual height and grows pitch black horns. His skin is finely scaled, bronze and pale gold, save for his black tail, hands and feet. Eyes are darker, a brown that is nearly black, dark, intense and large. The few humans who have seen Renard thus have always had trouble with his third eyelid, the clear, nictitating membrane being too alien, too bestial for them. His hair is the only part of him that is unchanged in color and texture, running silk-soft and wavy from his head, down his spine to cover his muscular tail. His nails click as he walks across the tiles toward Nick. His fangs are white, sharp and strong.
The gun does come out then. Pointed rock solid, unflinching at his forehead. Renard knows it wouldn’t kill him, not even if it were a perfect shot. But he hates being shot, because it does hurt, and healing isn’t instantaneous.
It takes nearly half an hour to get Nick calmed down enough to listen and comprehend what else needs to be said. Once Sean is shifted back to his human form and redressed, things move on, but slowly. All of it, it is too important to rush, too important not to make sure Burkhardt believes. Sean can’t afford the slightest misunderstanding. Trust is essential. There can be no lies, not even a small one to
maintain his dignity. Renard lays it all out to his Grimm.
Who is having a difficult time believing it is true. More because he doesn’t want it to be true than any other reason, if Sean had to guess. Nick doesn’t have any familiarity with Wesen Royal history. He
barely knows any Wesen history, either. It is painful. He wishes he could kill Marie Kessler all over again. Did she hate her nephew so much she wanted him to die as painfully and as confused as possible?
It is four in the morning before Sean has the impression that Nick is at last catching hold of the enormity of the problem they share. As a royal, it is agonizing to have to ask for cooperation rather than ordering it. He is not playing his human role, but the role that normally gives him status over every living Wesen in this city and territory. Nick knows none of that, has not the faintest glimmer of how hard Renard is trying to ask. As a royal, Sean is used to demanding, ordering, literally taking what he wants. Denial, refusal is just not something he is faced with as a Wesen. Nick, though, is reluctant, stubborn.
Nick loves Juliette. Renard is his boss. What Renard is suggesting....no. One sticking point is Renard’s lack of...humanness, apparently. As well as their gender. Nick is not gay, or bisexual, or even a little curious. Renard sighs internally. Humans reduce all things to sex. As an unbonded Regnant, Sean has only ever engaged in intercourse to procreate. Gender based preference is not a basis for denying a bonding alliance pure and simple. The thought would never occur to any Wesen. But Burkhardt’s frame of reference is entirely different. He was raised human.
It doesn’t please Renard to hear Burkhardt making referrence to a Blutbad. Who is his main source of Wesen knowledge. Sean will track down this Monroe and speak to him personally. Make sure he knows who the Grimm belongs to. Confusion on the topic of who the Grimm owes his first loyalty to won’t be tolerated. Any tendency toward possessiveness will be nipped in the bud. Or the Blutbad will die. A
solution that is elegant in its simplicity. Loyalty can not be in doubt.
The explanations continue for hours more. Renard planned this all carefully, timed it precisely. Neither he nor Nick are expected in today. He has all day if it takes that long. They both do. Nick will understand, Renard will keep talking until he does.
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It does take hours longer. Nick sleeps for an hour one time, then two and a half another. Sean can’t sleep at all. He waits, eats, makes breakfast for them both. Showers. Talks when Nick wakes. No details
are left out, maybe he does skew things, but Sean is a royal, and he sees things as a royal. As he talks he is also learning. About Nick, his Grimm. He must know all that is his Grimm. Each trait, habit, belief. As if it were his own. Surprises can be deadly. They must work as a single unit. Think as one. Act as one.
Nick learns, at last believes, knows that Renard rules Portland territory. The land is Renard and Renard is the land. The people are his, all of them. The ties are deep and binding. To Sean’s delight, it is something Nick already understands. Nick is a Grimm, and a Grimm is just as bound to a territory as a royal. Itinerant royals or Grimm are rare and not healthy, they are mad, unstable. A Grimm without a
territory is a paranoid killing machine. Sean sees a a personal light in Nick’s gaze when he tells him that. Is it Marie he is remembering? Maybe so.
In the end, or at least the end of this marathon session, it comes down to Burkhardt accepting himself as other than human. That is the crux of it all. Renard sees it when it happens, it is there in the grey/green eyes.
It is late afternoon by then. Nick takes the couch, he is too tired to get behind the wheel and Sean sleeps in his own bed. He is a royal, and guest or not, no one is getting his bed. He will make arrangements to turn the larger of his spare rooms into a bedroom for his Grimm.
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