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Nick has been awake for a while now, but he figures that Sean must really be tired because the big guy is fast asleep still.
Nick's fingers absently stroke the smooth skin of Sean's upper arm as he ponders the complexity of their relationship. Sometimes he doesn't know what to think, the zauberbiest is tricky. Nick knows that is in the nature of the biest, but with Sean it is more than that. He's half-zauber. For years Nick worked with the man, and then when Nick became a Grimm it was more than a year before Sean's true nature revealed itself to him. Even now it is hard for Nick to tell what is nature and what is a learned behaviour as a result of Sean's messed-up childhood and youth.
The Royals. That's another fairly tricky subject, because Nick really isn't sure exactly where they fit in the scheme of things. Are they merely human, or is there more to it. Okay, Kelly is still a baby, but he seems so cheerfully uncomplicated as half human and half Zauber. Is Nick himself actually wholly human, or is he something that is a little more.
Nick and Sean together, something more than human, and something less than zauberbiest, and it feels so very right. Which in theory is so good, but on paper shouldn't be. Of course, there is Adalind, who Nick does love, perhaps not quite like he has realised he loves Sean, and Sean's daughter and Nick's son which adds another layer of complexity to an already incongruous triangle.
"I can feel you thinking."
"Huh!?" Nick startles.
Sean's smile is soft and there is a look of understanding in his eyes which makes Nick go all melty inside. "I can almost hear your thoughts."
Nick blushes a little, and because he isn't quite ready to go through all this stuff while his lover is injured, he changes the subject, "hey, how about something to eat." he looks around, "I'll get the fire going, and we can have dinner and movie right here."
Sean knows he's being diverted from Nick's real thoughts, but he seems to have developed an intuition with Nick about when it's right to push, and when it really isn't, and right now, his ankle aches, telling him it really is long past time for a painkiller, and his stomach reminds him he's slept through lunch. Nick carefully extracts himself and Sean sits up, lifting his casted leg carefully. He's not ready to bear weight on it, and from the ache it will be a little while before he is, it was a bad break.
Sean eyes his very pink cast a little grumpily, he should have steered Diana towards a less gaudy colour, but at the time he was hurting more than he was prepared to admit to, so Diana's choice didn't particularly register until the nurse was actually wrapping his ankle. From the mirth in her eyes he could tell she was aware that he would have baulked at the colour, but didn't want to disappoint his daughter.
"Painkillers."
Sean holds his hand, palm up, to receive the two white tablets, then takes the glass from Nick's hand. Nick cares for him, and while Sean is perfectly capable of crutching his way to the bathroom, and helping himself to the tablets, he is actually starting to appreciate the loving attention that Nick is lavishing on him. It's been a long time, and honestly, it's a pretty unfamiliar feeling. Sean holds that feeling a little jealously to himself, occasionally takes it out to examine it a little more fully, and that's the clue to this relationship.
He's had love affairs, only once before in his life was it the real thing. He's had hook ups, and dates, and even what has boiled down to sex for dynastic or political reasons with people who have wanted him for what he can do for them, so forgive him if he's fought against his feelings for so long, and screwed things up with something he thought he needed but was totally wrong about, recognising that this is the real, deep-down thing that is not an echo of the doomed love of his teens but something real and tangible and totally in its own right... well that is something he isn't used to.
He is savouring getting used to it.
Nick goes back to the kitchen, and Sean gets himself slowly to his one good leg using the crutches (he's learned that speed might just dump him on his ass if he isn't careful), and gingerly crutch hops his way to the squishy sofa.
It's old, and a bit battered, and Nick does a regular sweep for loose pocket change which to date amounts to almost sixteen dollars, and it is quite the ugliest bit of furniture that Sean has ever laid eyes on, but he loves it because this is where he and Nick had their first serious encounter of the carnal kind. So Sean forgives it its rather foul aspect, and curious material and smiles at it with a fondness which would surprise any of his acquaintances if they could see him.
He sits near the bookcase and studies the selection of DVDs in their cases. He could go with French, because that's his mother tongue and the familiarity is pure comfort that he sometimes isn't really aware he needs, but that seems a little unfair to Nick, so he puts away 'Amelie' with a fond but regretful smile and turns his attention to others, there are some very old classics, The Letter, Now Voyager, To Have and Have Not, because he has a weakness for good acting and complex plots, and the subtle simplicity of the black and white era, the golden age of Hollywood, it's something he picked up from his mother. The films recall moments when they were not running for their lives, and invoke feelings in Sean that he's not quite ready to cope with. Something tougher, more thought provoking perhaps, he picks up Brighton Rock and studies the back of the case for a moment, puts it on the seat beside him, maybe. Perhaps something funny, he studies The Green Man, Arsenic and Old Lace, drifts past the spines to Green For Danger. It's not comedy, there's an intensity to it that is pretty startling, but it's good. He lays it beside Brighton Rock.
The last practically falls into his hand, Went The Day Well. He knows that it is war propaganda, but there is something so quietly heroic in the Battle for Bramley End, with its themes of personal sacrifice and dogged bravery, somehow it appeals even more than the other two.
"We do have a colour tv you know." Nick's voice is gently teasing, but there's a question in his eyes. He knows Brighton Rock, well of it at least, the other two he isn't familiar with, but he knows enough that they are all British films from the 1940s, and that always surprises Nick, Sean's love for old films and classic crime novels from the thirties and forties. It seems to sit a little oddly with all the other things that Nick knows about his Royal Zauberbiest.
For just a second there's a vulnerability in Sean's eyes that startles Nick even more than the choice of films, he sets the heavy tray down on the table in front of the sofa, and reaches a hand out for the three films. "Which one first?"
Sean gets himself under control, he didn't really think his emotions would be stirred up like that, and he was unprepared for that moment, even in front of Nick.
"Green For Danger, I think." Start with something that doesn't prick his emotions so much. Maybe work up to Went The Day Well. Perhaps that one is for another day.
Nick turns on the television, flips the case open and pops out the disc. He studies the blurb on the back as he sets it up, notes the cast with interest, and settles back to press play.
"Sandwich?" He says, handing a plate to Sean, and pressing play on the remote. This is going to be interesting.