Chapter Text
The day started out like any other: with coffee and death.
Sean sipped at his coffee as he flipped through the newest case file that had been brought to his desk for review, the pictures within doing nothing for his appetite. After so many years of exposure his stomach should have been hardened to sights like these, but it still wasn’t a pleasant way to start a Monday morning.
A knock sounded on his office door. Hank stood in the doorway with someone new, someone with bright eyes that tracked Sean’s movements when he sat back in his seat, almost as if the man was cataloguing him. But his smile was wide and easy, and he wore the badge of the PPD on his hip.
“Fresh meat, Captain,” Hank said with a grin.
This must be his newest detective, then. Sean closed the file and waved them in. “Nice to meet you. Nick Burkhardt, correct?”
“Yes, Sir,” Nick said, stepping up to his desk alongside Hank. “I’m excited to be here.”
“Good.” Sean stood and held out his hand, which Nick took readily. “I’m Captain Sean Renard. I don’t want to hear it when that excitement wears off.”
Sean froze mid-handshake. He hadn’t meant to say that. Those words had not been his. What he’d meant to say was, ‘You can come to me with any concerns you might have.’
“Uh…” Nick said, slowly extricating his hand from Sean’s grip. He cast Hank a wide-eyed glance and said, “Of course, Sir. You won’t hear any complaints from me.”
“No, that’s…” He tried to say it once more, and managed, “Good. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Captain…” Hank muttered. Sean shook his head, his jaw clamped tight around the words that weren’t his own. Something was wrong. He must have been cursed or something, because while what he’d said was the truth-
It was the truth.
Sean could not have been cursed to tell the truth. His life depended on the strength of his lies, on the belief in them. He had to break the curse, and fast.
“Everything okay?” Hank asked him.
“Yes,” Sean said, which was an utter lie. But if he had been cursed to tell the truth he shouldn’t have been able to say that at all. He should have been forced to tell the truth regardless of who he spoke to - unless it wasn’t a curse.
Nobody could lie to their soulmate.
But that was absurd. Most people didn’t find their soulmate, and Sean wasn’t going to be the exception. He couldn’t be. Finding the one person in the world who he could not lie to was too dangerous to even be a possibility.
Nick’s easy smile was gone, and Sean had to say something to repair the damage that had been done. He told Nick, “You’re going to ruin me.”
When what he’d meant to say was, ‘It’ll be good to have you with us.’
Nick and Hank gaped at him, and Sean knew then that he was fucked.