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Entry tags:
January (OTP 2025)
Title: when I'm not with you
Author: Phnx
Fandom: Grimm (NBC)
Ship: Sean Renard / Nick Burkhardt; Monroe / Rosalee Calvert
Prompt: Extremely late January sub for OTP 2025: first kiss, may I have this dance, sharing clothes, BDSM AU, Stockholm Syndrome, Strong - One Direction. Now I just need to write the rest of the year.
Summary: Nick runs into someone he hasn't seen for a long time. He doesn't anticipate where that takes him. {AU where Renard got promoted before Nick got Grimmed.}
“Detective Burkhardt? Is that you?”
Nick’s head snapped up from where he’d been tracking the movement of a Löwen moving through the park, but he relaxed quickly at the sight of Sean Renard, his old police captain, staring down at him.
Renard looked… He looked good. He was just as put together as he’d ever been—not like the captain they’d had after him, or, well, okay, the guy after the guy after him. His first replacement had turned out to be a Hässlich, so he didn’t last long in a precinct with a Grimm, not after he started trying to eat people. Renard’s second and current replacement had been Kehrseite, but Monroe had straight-up thought he’d be a Skalengeck for a worrying amount of time from his smell.
While Nick was lost in thought, Renard was taking him in, too, and the little frown on his face belied his feelings over Nicks’ scruffy chin and bedraggled clothes.
Nick cleared his throat. “Just Burkhardt, sir. I left the force a few years back, now.”
Renard’s eyes slid to Nick’s firearm, and Nick shrugged. “Private license,” he said, though Renard hadn’t asked.
Renard nodded slowly. “Why don’t we get coffee, Mr. Burkhardt,” he said.
He’d phrased it politely, but it was clear it wasn’t a suggestion. Nick sized Renard up automatically—he could take him despite the other man’s size and reach advantage—and then he winced when he saw Renard see him doing it.
He glanced back at the Löwen and decided he could wait to take him out. He wouldn’t be making his move until after dark, anyway. “I’d be happy to, sir,” he said, standing. When he looked back at Renard, he saw the man had followed his gaze to the Löwen, and he cleared his throat quickly. He couldn’t have Renard noticing when the Löwen disappeared suddenly. “Lead the way.”
The coffee shop Renard brought him to was light and airy, and very obviously outside of Nick’s price range. “I’ll pay,” said Renard, drawing out his wallet. “It’s only fair, since I was the one to ask you out.”
Nick didn’t argue. Rosalee paid well, but there was only so much an independently run spice and tea shop could afford to pay its most destructive employee.
Nick also didn’t argue when Renard ordered for both of them, though he couldn’t decide if it was thoughtless arrogance (Renard would of course be of the opinion that only his taste mattered), a power assertion, or a combination of the two.
“So tell me, Mr. Burkhardt,” said Renard as they finally settled down at a table together. “What’s changed in the last few years?”
Nick shrugged, cupping his coffee. His eyes flickered to the side, noting a blonde in a power suit drinking coffee while scrolling through her phone at a nearby table. In a brief moment of distraction, her woge revealed her to be a hexenbiest. “It turns out that I have a problem with authority.”
“That’s news to me,” said Renard calmly. “Some kind of disagreement with your new captain?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t—I didn’t fit in well with his leadership style.”
Renard leaned back in his chair, staring at Nick. “How would you feel about working with me again?”
Nick’s eyes shot back to Renard from where he’d be reflexively canvassing the cafe. That wasn’t a real offer, by any means, but it was still incredible that Renard would raise the topic without knowing the details between Nick’s termination.
“You were a good detective, Nick,” said Renard, correctly interpreting Nick’s expression. “One of my best. It’s a shame to see you leave your calling over some… creative differences.”
Nick looked down at the table, shame crawling up his throat. “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly. “Hearing you say that means a lot to me. But, while I’m not a fan of Captain Berger, I can’t pretend it was all his fault. Not long after you left the precinct, my aunt passed away—”
“Your Aunt Marie?” asked Renard. “She practically raised you, didn’t she?”
Nick blinked, surprised that his old captain remembered these personal details about him. “Yeah, she—yes, that’s right. After that, I spiraled a little—a lot. It was a period of transition for me, and it came out at work, where I became a… ‘loose cannon,’ as Berger put it. Always ready to explode or go off the books. Just, not a good situation. So while I don’t think much of Berger as a captain—” or as a person, Nick bit back, “—I can’t pretend my situation is anyone’s fault but my own.”
Renard hummed noncommittally and said, “Don’t let me keep you from your coffee, Burkhardt,” and Nick realized that he hadn’t yet taken a sip. Renard watched him silently as he drank, and Nick couldn’t make out what Renard could be thinking.
“Let me get you another one,” said Renard when Nick emptied his cup, and before Nick could protest, he was watching Renard walk away back to the counter. When he tore his eyes away, he caught the hexenbiest’s eye. She deliberately looked between Nick and Renard and gave him a big thumbs up, winking. Nick flushed bright red at the misunderstanding, but gave her an awkward smile and nod in response.
“Burkhardt,” said Renard, returning. “No—Nick. I’ll be honest with. I’m disturbed that your friends let you go as far astray as you’re implying. “Was Juliette—”
“We’re not together anymore,” said Nick quickly. “For—for unrelated reasons.” He’d been looking at rings before this had all gone down. He supposed it was a good thing his aunt had passed away and his Grimm traits had surfaced between he could make the downpayment.
“I see,” said Renard quietly. He didn’t believe Nick, which was fair—it was very obviously not the truth.
“But my situation isn’t anyone else’s fault. My friends—and Juliette, too—did and have been supporting me, anyway, and things are better now. I have a job at a tea and spice shop on Knight Street, and things are stable now.” He wasn’t sure why he mentioned that. It seemed strange to slide it in. But he didn’t want to be an object of pity for Renard, and it was true that he was doing fine.
“I think I know the place. Owned by Rosalee Calvert?”
Nick stilled. “Yeah,” he said carefully. “That’s the one.”
“I met her brother Freddie a few times. I was sad to hear about the accident, but I heard he recovered?”
“He did, but he’s not up to running the shop anymore.” In part because Nick and Rosalee wouldn’t let him, not with the way he kept sliding the shop back into the drug trade when their eyes were turned.
“That’s too bad. He’s a good man. Very compassionate,” said Renard. “Nick, I have to be back in the office soon—”
“Of course, sir,” said Nick, relaxing slightly.
“But I’d like to meet you again. We can make it a regular thing.” He pulled out a card—elegant, with a tasteful design—and scribbled on it. “Here’s my personal number. We’ll be in touch.”
“I—sure.” Nick stared down at the card.
“I’ll be seeing you, Nick,” Renard promised, standing and picking up his coat. He stilled as he was preparing to put it on, frowning down at where Nick was still sitting. “Why don’t you hold onto this for me,” he said, passing over his coat, and then he was gone.
Nick stared down at the coat in his hands, then looked down at the one he was currently wearing. It was a little threadbare, sure, but it was still functional enough.
He took another sip of his coffee. He could say this much for this overpriced boutique, it had a great brew. It was exactly how he liked his coffee.
He blinked, then looked down at his cup. It was exactly how he liked his coffee. Renard hadn’t presumed to order him a drink based on his assurance that it was ‘the best’ the way Nick had assumed. He had ordered the coffee because he didn’t need to ask what Nick would want.
Perhaps it wasn’t that strange for a former boss on a close-knit team to know how his subordinates took their coffee, and Nick’s preferences hadn’t changed much there. And perhaps it wasn’t that strange for a former boss, especially a former boss in law enforcement, to know about Nick’s primary guardian for much of his life. And perhaps it wasn’t even that strange that Renard had remembered all of that information long after it was needed.
And yet… Nick tried to ignore the weight of the expensive fabric where the coat was slung over one arm. No, all of these things on their own could be normal, but together, they were definitely weird. More than that, they were serious red flags.
Renard was a serious red flag.
Everything about him—his clothes, his posture, his mannerisms, his tone of voice—all oozed confidence. These were the sort of markers that usually had Nick twitching for a nail-studded baseball bat. People were confident because they had power over someone else, and people with power over others abused it. He had never had a problem with Renard in the past, and just an hour ago, if he’d thought to wonder at this at all, he would have argued that that was only due to his naivety in that brighter life he’d lived before he’d learned the other face of the world. But sitting across from Renard just now, spotting all these signals he should see as dangerous, he had felt more secure than he had for a long time.
He looked back at the coat. He was still too baffled to be quite sure how he felt about the impromptu loan, except that he was pretty sure he should be offended. Nick stood up slowly, figuring that he had better leave as well before one of the managers came by to send him on his way. Apparently, he really didn’t look like he could afford his own coffee here.
“You’d be able to tell if I had a spell cast on me, right?” Nick asked the hexenbiest, pausing as he passed her table.
“No,” she said pityingly. “But I could cast one on you myself, if you’d like.” She twiddled her fingers. “Need a little extra stamina?”
Nick made a face at her. “Thanks, no,” he said.
She smirked at him as he left.
The coat thing was weird, but it was sharing the story with Rosalee and Monroe over dinner that really drove in how weird it was.
“And he just… handed you his coat,” said Monroe again.
“Yes, that’s what I just said.” Nick tried to exchange a commiserating glance with Rosalee at Monroe’s fixation on this, but she was also staring at him, open-mouthed, fork frozen in midair on its journey from her plate.
“He handed you his coat, and you just accepted it?”
“...Yes?” Nick said.
“You sound uncertain.” Monroe nearly collapsed to the table in relief. “Are you uncertain? Are you uncertain that that actually happened? Please tell me it didn’t actually happen.”
“I’m certain that it actually happened,” Nick told him. “It was strange, but…”
“Mein Gotte,” said Monroe.
“What’s the deal?”
“Holy shit,” said Rosalee.
“Guys—”
Monroe stood from the table abruptly and began pacing the room, tugging at his hair. “I can’t believe you just accepted it!”
“Monroe—” Monroe’s head swivelled toward him, his irises bright red. “Oh wow, okay, let’s take this down a notch and put the fangs away—”
“You didn’t even ask us what we thought!” snarled Monroe.
Nick stared at him, hands raised placatingly. “I didn’t ask you what you thought about his coat?” asked Nick.
“Nick, please understand, this has kind of come out of nowhere for us,” said Rosalee.
“Okay,” said Nick, very much not understanding.
“We’ve been—that is, Monroe and I have viewed us all as a family for a while now, and with that comes certain expectations.”
“It would be different if he’d left home to strike out on his own, but while he’s living under our roof, I don’t think a little courtesy is too much to ask!” said Monroe to Rosalee by way of bellowing it at the ceiling.
“I’m technically living under the roof of the spice shop,” Nick stressed. Rosalee and Monroe both ignored him.
“It’s not that you have to ask for permission or anything,” Rosalee continued, giving Monroe a quelling look, “it’s just that… well, we expected to be consulted on any big life changes.”
“I get that, I really do,” said Nick. “And I think that up to now I’ve erred on the side of over-sharing rather than under-sharing. But I don’t really understand how a weird encounter with my old boss counts as a big life change, especially given that I’m telling you about it right after it happened.” Or at least, the same day it happened. Nick had still needed to deal with the rogue Löwen, after all.
Rosalee and Monroe stared at him.
“So, you haven’t seen him before this?” asked Rosalee.
“I haven’t seen or heard from him since he transferred from the precinct,” said Nick. “That was before I met either of you, by the way.”
Monroe threw his hands up in the air. “And you still accepted his coat?”
“Why are you so hung up on the coat?” asked Nick. “It’s a coat! What’s so nefarious about a coat? I’m giving it back, anyway; it was just a loan.”
Rosalee put her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “Nick, it’s not the coat, exactly. It’s what the coat represents.” When Nick continued to stare at her blankly, she said uncertainly, “Do Kehrseite not—no, they do, I know they do. I’ve seen it all the time in movies.”
“Seen what, Rosalee?” Nick ran his hand through his hair impatiently.
The clocks struck eight, and they all waited tensely through the resulting cacophony.
“He gave you the coat off his back after also providing you with sustenance,” said Monroe, seeming to find a store of calm in himself as the final cuckoo faded. “If there’s a more classic example of courtship, I can’t think of it.”
Nick stared at him. “I can. Flowers? Dinner and a movie?”
“Oh, sure, for casual dating,” said Monroe dismissively. “But when you’re serious, when you think you might want to spend your life with someone, when you’re considering a formal arrangement—that’s when you pull out the courtship rituals.”
“Monroe made me a scarf,” said Rosalee, smiling at Monroe and reaching out to hold his hand. “He knit it himself, and then he wore it every day for a week so that it would smell like him.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” said Nick. “It was sweet. That was a courtship gift?”
“Of course,” said Rosalee. “What else would it have been?”
Nick turned around in his chair to look at Renard’s coat, currently hanging from a wooden coat tree by the front door. “No way.”
“Nick…”
“No, there’s really no way. Anyway, he’s Kehrseite, not Wesen.”
“Die Schliche kennen?” asked Monroe delicately.
“No,” said Nick.
Rosalee frowned. “Are you sure, Nick?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Mostly sure. Sort of sure. “I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary, anyway. Nothing to indicate he’s in the know. So, there’s no courtship, just a chance encounter and a brief catch-up.”
“Then,” said Monroe, looking completely bewildered, “why did he give you his coat?”
“Let’s go over it all again,” suggested Rosalee firmly, and Nick sighed into his hands.
Captain Renard, this is Nick Burkhardt. Thank you for loaning me your coat. When and how can I get it back to you?
“No, no, no—saying ‘thank you’ implies a favor owed,” said Monroe, reading the text over his shoulder. “Take that out.”
Nick stared up at the living room ceiling, but it offered him no respite. He obediently edited the SMS draft.
Captain Renard, this is Nick Burkhardt. I have your coat. When and how can I get it back to you?
“Now it sounds like a hostage message,” said Rosalee doubtfully. She was seated on his other side on the couch, and both she and Monroe were leaning into him to read the screen.
“Oh yeah,” said Monroe. “It kind of does! Hey, you should write, ‘If you want to see your coat again—’”
“No,” said Nick, holding down the delete button.
Captain Renard, this is Nick Burkhardt. When would you like to meet up so I can return your coat?
Neither Monroe nor Rosalee seemed to have any meaningful protest to share over the revised message, so he sent it with a sigh of relief.
“Now, you’ll want to wear the coat as often as possible,” said Monroe, rubbing his hands together. “Actually, you should go put it on now.”
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Monroe, we’re inside.”
Monroe waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, but we might be on a time crunch, here! How else are you going to transfer over your scent?”
“Kehrseite don’t share clothes for the purpose of spreading our B.O.” Monroe ignored him, herding him over to the foyer and nudging him until he shrugged the coat on. Its inner lining was soft where it brushed the skin of his arms, and he let them drop into the roomy pockets self-consciously. He would never admit it to Monroe or Rosalee, but the spicy scent clinging to the coat was—well.
“Good,” said Monroe. “Now remember, you are absolutely not going to take this courtship any further until Rosalee and I have met this guy.”
“There’s no courtship,” Nick reminded him wearily. He sniffed surreptitiously at the coat again. It smelled good, and the thought of covering up that lovely scent with his own stale end-of-day musk made his stomach turn. “I should probably dry clean this before returning it, right?” asked Nick.
Monroe stared at him. “No,” he said. “No, you should definitely not do that thing.”
“Nick!” called Rosalee from the couch. “You got a text! Nick!”
Monroe ushered him back over to the couch, where he and Rosalee crowded around him again.
“Is it from him?” asked Rosalee. “What did he say?”
Nick gave her a bland look. He still hadn’t looked at his phone to see.
“Niiiick,” whined Monroe piteously, and Nick sighed and picked up his phone.
“It’s from him,” he confirmed, and Rosalee and Monroe cheered. “He said—”
“Dinner this weekend?” gasped Monroe, grabbing Nick’s hand to tilt the phone more in his direction. “Isn’t that moving a little quickly?”
Nick felt his face slowly flushing.
“Not for a second courtship meeting, but it is a little fast given that neither of us have met him.” Rosalee frowned. “Did he suggest a location?”
“No,” said Monroe. “He probably has some fancy reservation planned already.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Rosalee decided definitively. “Nick, tell him that he’s welcome to come here for dinner—”
“Wait, he’s sent another text!” Monroe interrupted. “‘If you don’t mind, we can have dinner at my place. Feel free to bring friends—Ms Calvert, maybe?’ Well, good that he’s going about things correctly now. Maybe he was surprised at meeting Nick so suddenly, too.”
“It must have been love at first sight,” sighed Rosalee.
“I knew him at work for years,” said Nick. “And I still think that he just feels bad that things went downhill for me after he left. He’s the kind of guy who looks after his own.”
“Good,” said Monroe, nodding. “That’s a good sign in a marriage partner.”
Rosalee agreed, then glanced over at Nick contemplatively. “We both have some okay outfits, but we’ll need something for Nick to wear.”
Nick sighed. “I’ll pull my old suits out of storage,” he told them. “You can pick out whatever you think would be best.”
“And you’ll wear the coat, of course,” Monroe added.
“And I’ll wear the coat,” Nick agreed.
He gave a silent apology to Renard, who had lent him a clean coat and would be getting an overly used coat back.
Still, there was really no point in arguing anymore. They’d see what this really was for themselves over the weekend, when Renard would make it clear that this was neither a date nor part of a Wesen courtship ritual.
“Please, come in,” said Renard when he opened the door and gesturing them inside. He was wearing a two-piece suit, but he was missing the jacket and wearing an apron. “I hope you don’t mind—I’m running a little behind, and dinner isn’t quite done yet.”
“It’s no trouble,” said Rosalee brightly. “We brought a little something as well. We weren’t sure what wines would pair well with dinner, so we brought a custom tea blend for after.”
“Wonderful,” said Renard. “May I take your coats?”
“I mean, this one is yours, so sure,” said Nick dryly, shrugging out of it and handing it over.
Renard smiled at him as he took the offered coat. “It’s practically shared property at this point, really,” he said.
A silly joke like that shouldn’t be enough to make Nick blush, but Monroe and Rosalee and their courtship nonsense must have really messed him up, because he felt himself turning red.
“...Sure,” he agreed hesitantly.
“Nick!” hissed Monroe. Nick wasn’t sure why he was bothering—Renard was closer to him than Monroe was, and if Nick could hear Monroe’s failed attempt at sotto voce, so could Renard. “Remember what we discussed!”
Nick sighed. “I mean,” he clarified, “any shared property agreements have to go through Monroe and Rosalee, first.”
“Of course,” said Renard courteously, as though that wasn’t a completely nonsensical request. “If you’ll all follow me, the dining room is right through here.”
Renard’s home was elegant, tasteful, and modern, exactly like the man himself. The table in the dining room, too, was beautifully laid out, and Nick swallowed at the sight of the series of forks and knives laid out alongside each plate. Something about the idea of multiple mean courses made him feel like the proverbial bull in a china shop, and he was abruptly frightened to touch anything, in case his hands left streaks of grime and blood on the sparkling, pristine surfaces before him.
Renard pulled out a chair, and Nick stared at him blankly for a moment before realizing that Renard intended for him to take it. “Thank you,” said Nick nervously, sitting down.
Rosalee and Monroe had seated themselves before Renard could offer to assist, if he had intended to, and Renard went to fill their glasses instead. “I’m glad you didn’t bring wine after all,” he told them with a smirk. “I already had this bottle decanting.”
Nick smiled at Renard when he filled his glass as well, but he couldn’t quite trust himself to speak. What was going on? This wasn’t what a normal dinner with a former boss looked like, certainly.
“I love the music,” said Monroe. “Though a waltz is an interesting choice of white noise.”
“Perhaps it is,” said Renard noncommittally. “Or maybe I was hoping for a dance.” He raised his eyebrows in Nick’s direction. Nick didn’t turn red at the insinuation, but only because he hadn’t stopped being red since they arrived. There was a water glass beside the wine glass—that should be safe, Nick thought, and he gulped it down as Renard went to pull something out of the oven.
Dinner was delicious, and though it crossed Nick’s suspicious mind that maybe Renard was for some reason simply pretending to have cooked it, he was certainly adroit enough at answering Monroe’s detailed questions about its preparation to make that possibility unlikely.
“So tell me, Sean,” said Rosalee once they had all moved into the sitting room and Renard had served them Rosalee’s tea in what seemed to be an antique tea set. “What first drew your attention to Nick?”
“Nick was always an exceptional officer,” Renard told them seriously. Nick stared down at his clenched hands rather than meet anyone’s eyes. “Of course, I couldn’t think of him as anything other than another one of my detectives when we worked together, but meeting him again, knowing that we’re unlikely to be bound together again in a professional context… that made me reconsider some things.”
Nick hated it when Monroe and Rosalee were right.
“You offered to look into bringing me into your precinct,” he pointed out, mouth dry.
Renard met his eyes calmly. “Yes. And you said no.”
Nick nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry to have learned that Nick has been struggling since his aunt passed away,” Renard went on. “I wish I had been around to help him through that, but I’m glad to see that he has such good friends in the community to support him.”
“What happened to not being die Schliche kennen?” Monroe hissed at Nick in a tone that was perfectly audible to everyone at the table.
Nick shook his head silently. His heart rate was through the roof.
Renard politely didn’t comment. “I was having some family troubles of my own around that time, or I would have been there for you. I’m very sorry, Nick,” he said, dark eyes meeting Nick’s with an intensity that made Nick’s breath catch. “No matter how distracted I was, I should have been more aware of the events happening in my city.”
“I understand,” Nick told him, bewildered. “I never expected anything.”
“You should have expected everything,” Renard told him fiercely.
“Thank you,” said Nick helplessly.
“Well, it’s getting late,” said Rosalee, standing up. “Thank you so much for dinner, Sean.”
“Of course,” Renard agreed, standing as well. “I hope we can do this again soon.”
Renard showed them to the door and gathered their coats for them. The coat he presented to Nick was not the one Nick had returned to him—it was an entirely different, equally expensive coat. Nick didn’t complain as Renard helped him into it, but as the coat fell around him, he said softly, “Captain, I have no idea what’s going on.”
Renard was standing behind him, and his hands, having released the lapels they had been holding, were now settled on Nick’s shoulders. He was so close that Nick could feel the warmth of his breath against the bare skin of his neck, and then Renard was closer still, turning his face into Nick until Nick could feel the shape of his smile as well. “I know,” Renard told him. “Does that frighten you?”
Nick was silent for a moment, thinking that over. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I like knowing things.”
“I’m not always a very honest person, Nick, and there are many things about myself and my plans that I haven’t told you. But I will tell you this: there are two reasons I am pursuing this courtship with you, and one is because I think we will make a very powerful team together. I want you on my side, and I want to be on your side.”
Nick nodded slowly. “What’s the other reason?” he asked.
“The other reason?” Renard gently guided Nick around until they were facing each other. His hands fell to Nick’s waist as their breath mingled together. “The other reason is that I want you.”
Nick only had to lean forward the barest of centimeters for their lips to meet in a soft kiss. When he pulled away, he pulled all the way back, out of Renard’s arms and back toward the door where Monroe and Rosalee were pretending not to be eavesdropping. “I’ll think about it.”
“I’m glad,” said Renard.
Nick piled into the truck with Monroe and Rosalee. It didn’t take long for them to break the silence.
“Will you really think about it?” asked Monroe.
“Yes,” said Nick, almost surprising himself. “I like him. I really like him.”
“You trust him?” asked Rosalee cautiously.
“Hell, no,” said Nick. “I already have a few leads on him I intend to follow. Freddy might be my first stop, actually. Renard mentioned they’d met.”
Monroe gave him a little punch in the arm. “Great! You know we’ll help however we can. But are you finally going to admit that he was courting you?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine—he was courting me. Are you happy now?”
“As long as you keep us up-to-date,” said Monroe peaceably.
Author: Phnx
Fandom: Grimm (NBC)
Ship: Sean Renard / Nick Burkhardt; Monroe / Rosalee Calvert
Prompt: Extremely late January sub for OTP 2025: first kiss, may I have this dance, sharing clothes, BDSM AU, Stockholm Syndrome, Strong - One Direction. Now I just need to write the rest of the year.
Summary: Nick runs into someone he hasn't seen for a long time. He doesn't anticipate where that takes him. {AU where Renard got promoted before Nick got Grimmed.}
“Detective Burkhardt? Is that you?”
Nick’s head snapped up from where he’d been tracking the movement of a Löwen moving through the park, but he relaxed quickly at the sight of Sean Renard, his old police captain, staring down at him.
Renard looked… He looked good. He was just as put together as he’d ever been—not like the captain they’d had after him, or, well, okay, the guy after the guy after him. His first replacement had turned out to be a Hässlich, so he didn’t last long in a precinct with a Grimm, not after he started trying to eat people. Renard’s second and current replacement had been Kehrseite, but Monroe had straight-up thought he’d be a Skalengeck for a worrying amount of time from his smell.
While Nick was lost in thought, Renard was taking him in, too, and the little frown on his face belied his feelings over Nicks’ scruffy chin and bedraggled clothes.
Nick cleared his throat. “Just Burkhardt, sir. I left the force a few years back, now.”
Renard’s eyes slid to Nick’s firearm, and Nick shrugged. “Private license,” he said, though Renard hadn’t asked.
Renard nodded slowly. “Why don’t we get coffee, Mr. Burkhardt,” he said.
He’d phrased it politely, but it was clear it wasn’t a suggestion. Nick sized Renard up automatically—he could take him despite the other man’s size and reach advantage—and then he winced when he saw Renard see him doing it.
He glanced back at the Löwen and decided he could wait to take him out. He wouldn’t be making his move until after dark, anyway. “I’d be happy to, sir,” he said, standing. When he looked back at Renard, he saw the man had followed his gaze to the Löwen, and he cleared his throat quickly. He couldn’t have Renard noticing when the Löwen disappeared suddenly. “Lead the way.”
The coffee shop Renard brought him to was light and airy, and very obviously outside of Nick’s price range. “I’ll pay,” said Renard, drawing out his wallet. “It’s only fair, since I was the one to ask you out.”
Nick didn’t argue. Rosalee paid well, but there was only so much an independently run spice and tea shop could afford to pay its most destructive employee.
Nick also didn’t argue when Renard ordered for both of them, though he couldn’t decide if it was thoughtless arrogance (Renard would of course be of the opinion that only his taste mattered), a power assertion, or a combination of the two.
“So tell me, Mr. Burkhardt,” said Renard as they finally settled down at a table together. “What’s changed in the last few years?”
Nick shrugged, cupping his coffee. His eyes flickered to the side, noting a blonde in a power suit drinking coffee while scrolling through her phone at a nearby table. In a brief moment of distraction, her woge revealed her to be a hexenbiest. “It turns out that I have a problem with authority.”
“That’s news to me,” said Renard calmly. “Some kind of disagreement with your new captain?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t—I didn’t fit in well with his leadership style.”
Renard leaned back in his chair, staring at Nick. “How would you feel about working with me again?”
Nick’s eyes shot back to Renard from where he’d be reflexively canvassing the cafe. That wasn’t a real offer, by any means, but it was still incredible that Renard would raise the topic without knowing the details between Nick’s termination.
“You were a good detective, Nick,” said Renard, correctly interpreting Nick’s expression. “One of my best. It’s a shame to see you leave your calling over some… creative differences.”
Nick looked down at the table, shame crawling up his throat. “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly. “Hearing you say that means a lot to me. But, while I’m not a fan of Captain Berger, I can’t pretend it was all his fault. Not long after you left the precinct, my aunt passed away—”
“Your Aunt Marie?” asked Renard. “She practically raised you, didn’t she?”
Nick blinked, surprised that his old captain remembered these personal details about him. “Yeah, she—yes, that’s right. After that, I spiraled a little—a lot. It was a period of transition for me, and it came out at work, where I became a… ‘loose cannon,’ as Berger put it. Always ready to explode or go off the books. Just, not a good situation. So while I don’t think much of Berger as a captain—” or as a person, Nick bit back, “—I can’t pretend my situation is anyone’s fault but my own.”
Renard hummed noncommittally and said, “Don’t let me keep you from your coffee, Burkhardt,” and Nick realized that he hadn’t yet taken a sip. Renard watched him silently as he drank, and Nick couldn’t make out what Renard could be thinking.
“Let me get you another one,” said Renard when Nick emptied his cup, and before Nick could protest, he was watching Renard walk away back to the counter. When he tore his eyes away, he caught the hexenbiest’s eye. She deliberately looked between Nick and Renard and gave him a big thumbs up, winking. Nick flushed bright red at the misunderstanding, but gave her an awkward smile and nod in response.
“Burkhardt,” said Renard, returning. “No—Nick. I’ll be honest with. I’m disturbed that your friends let you go as far astray as you’re implying. “Was Juliette—”
“We’re not together anymore,” said Nick quickly. “For—for unrelated reasons.” He’d been looking at rings before this had all gone down. He supposed it was a good thing his aunt had passed away and his Grimm traits had surfaced between he could make the downpayment.
“I see,” said Renard quietly. He didn’t believe Nick, which was fair—it was very obviously not the truth.
“But my situation isn’t anyone else’s fault. My friends—and Juliette, too—did and have been supporting me, anyway, and things are better now. I have a job at a tea and spice shop on Knight Street, and things are stable now.” He wasn’t sure why he mentioned that. It seemed strange to slide it in. But he didn’t want to be an object of pity for Renard, and it was true that he was doing fine.
“I think I know the place. Owned by Rosalee Calvert?”
Nick stilled. “Yeah,” he said carefully. “That’s the one.”
“I met her brother Freddie a few times. I was sad to hear about the accident, but I heard he recovered?”
“He did, but he’s not up to running the shop anymore.” In part because Nick and Rosalee wouldn’t let him, not with the way he kept sliding the shop back into the drug trade when their eyes were turned.
“That’s too bad. He’s a good man. Very compassionate,” said Renard. “Nick, I have to be back in the office soon—”
“Of course, sir,” said Nick, relaxing slightly.
“But I’d like to meet you again. We can make it a regular thing.” He pulled out a card—elegant, with a tasteful design—and scribbled on it. “Here’s my personal number. We’ll be in touch.”
“I—sure.” Nick stared down at the card.
“I’ll be seeing you, Nick,” Renard promised, standing and picking up his coat. He stilled as he was preparing to put it on, frowning down at where Nick was still sitting. “Why don’t you hold onto this for me,” he said, passing over his coat, and then he was gone.
Nick stared down at the coat in his hands, then looked down at the one he was currently wearing. It was a little threadbare, sure, but it was still functional enough.
He took another sip of his coffee. He could say this much for this overpriced boutique, it had a great brew. It was exactly how he liked his coffee.
He blinked, then looked down at his cup. It was exactly how he liked his coffee. Renard hadn’t presumed to order him a drink based on his assurance that it was ‘the best’ the way Nick had assumed. He had ordered the coffee because he didn’t need to ask what Nick would want.
Perhaps it wasn’t that strange for a former boss on a close-knit team to know how his subordinates took their coffee, and Nick’s preferences hadn’t changed much there. And perhaps it wasn’t that strange for a former boss, especially a former boss in law enforcement, to know about Nick’s primary guardian for much of his life. And perhaps it wasn’t even that strange that Renard had remembered all of that information long after it was needed.
And yet… Nick tried to ignore the weight of the expensive fabric where the coat was slung over one arm. No, all of these things on their own could be normal, but together, they were definitely weird. More than that, they were serious red flags.
Renard was a serious red flag.
Everything about him—his clothes, his posture, his mannerisms, his tone of voice—all oozed confidence. These were the sort of markers that usually had Nick twitching for a nail-studded baseball bat. People were confident because they had power over someone else, and people with power over others abused it. He had never had a problem with Renard in the past, and just an hour ago, if he’d thought to wonder at this at all, he would have argued that that was only due to his naivety in that brighter life he’d lived before he’d learned the other face of the world. But sitting across from Renard just now, spotting all these signals he should see as dangerous, he had felt more secure than he had for a long time.
He looked back at the coat. He was still too baffled to be quite sure how he felt about the impromptu loan, except that he was pretty sure he should be offended. Nick stood up slowly, figuring that he had better leave as well before one of the managers came by to send him on his way. Apparently, he really didn’t look like he could afford his own coffee here.
“You’d be able to tell if I had a spell cast on me, right?” Nick asked the hexenbiest, pausing as he passed her table.
“No,” she said pityingly. “But I could cast one on you myself, if you’d like.” She twiddled her fingers. “Need a little extra stamina?”
Nick made a face at her. “Thanks, no,” he said.
She smirked at him as he left.
The coat thing was weird, but it was sharing the story with Rosalee and Monroe over dinner that really drove in how weird it was.
“And he just… handed you his coat,” said Monroe again.
“Yes, that’s what I just said.” Nick tried to exchange a commiserating glance with Rosalee at Monroe’s fixation on this, but she was also staring at him, open-mouthed, fork frozen in midair on its journey from her plate.
“He handed you his coat, and you just accepted it?”
“...Yes?” Nick said.
“You sound uncertain.” Monroe nearly collapsed to the table in relief. “Are you uncertain? Are you uncertain that that actually happened? Please tell me it didn’t actually happen.”
“I’m certain that it actually happened,” Nick told him. “It was strange, but…”
“Mein Gotte,” said Monroe.
“What’s the deal?”
“Holy shit,” said Rosalee.
“Guys—”
Monroe stood from the table abruptly and began pacing the room, tugging at his hair. “I can’t believe you just accepted it!”
“Monroe—” Monroe’s head swivelled toward him, his irises bright red. “Oh wow, okay, let’s take this down a notch and put the fangs away—”
“You didn’t even ask us what we thought!” snarled Monroe.
Nick stared at him, hands raised placatingly. “I didn’t ask you what you thought about his coat?” asked Nick.
“Nick, please understand, this has kind of come out of nowhere for us,” said Rosalee.
“Okay,” said Nick, very much not understanding.
“We’ve been—that is, Monroe and I have viewed us all as a family for a while now, and with that comes certain expectations.”
“It would be different if he’d left home to strike out on his own, but while he’s living under our roof, I don’t think a little courtesy is too much to ask!” said Monroe to Rosalee by way of bellowing it at the ceiling.
“I’m technically living under the roof of the spice shop,” Nick stressed. Rosalee and Monroe both ignored him.
“It’s not that you have to ask for permission or anything,” Rosalee continued, giving Monroe a quelling look, “it’s just that… well, we expected to be consulted on any big life changes.”
“I get that, I really do,” said Nick. “And I think that up to now I’ve erred on the side of over-sharing rather than under-sharing. But I don’t really understand how a weird encounter with my old boss counts as a big life change, especially given that I’m telling you about it right after it happened.” Or at least, the same day it happened. Nick had still needed to deal with the rogue Löwen, after all.
Rosalee and Monroe stared at him.
“So, you haven’t seen him before this?” asked Rosalee.
“I haven’t seen or heard from him since he transferred from the precinct,” said Nick. “That was before I met either of you, by the way.”
Monroe threw his hands up in the air. “And you still accepted his coat?”
“Why are you so hung up on the coat?” asked Nick. “It’s a coat! What’s so nefarious about a coat? I’m giving it back, anyway; it was just a loan.”
Rosalee put her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “Nick, it’s not the coat, exactly. It’s what the coat represents.” When Nick continued to stare at her blankly, she said uncertainly, “Do Kehrseite not—no, they do, I know they do. I’ve seen it all the time in movies.”
“Seen what, Rosalee?” Nick ran his hand through his hair impatiently.
The clocks struck eight, and they all waited tensely through the resulting cacophony.
“He gave you the coat off his back after also providing you with sustenance,” said Monroe, seeming to find a store of calm in himself as the final cuckoo faded. “If there’s a more classic example of courtship, I can’t think of it.”
Nick stared at him. “I can. Flowers? Dinner and a movie?”
“Oh, sure, for casual dating,” said Monroe dismissively. “But when you’re serious, when you think you might want to spend your life with someone, when you’re considering a formal arrangement—that’s when you pull out the courtship rituals.”
“Monroe made me a scarf,” said Rosalee, smiling at Monroe and reaching out to hold his hand. “He knit it himself, and then he wore it every day for a week so that it would smell like him.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” said Nick. “It was sweet. That was a courtship gift?”
“Of course,” said Rosalee. “What else would it have been?”
Nick turned around in his chair to look at Renard’s coat, currently hanging from a wooden coat tree by the front door. “No way.”
“Nick…”
“No, there’s really no way. Anyway, he’s Kehrseite, not Wesen.”
“Die Schliche kennen?” asked Monroe delicately.
“No,” said Nick.
Rosalee frowned. “Are you sure, Nick?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Mostly sure. Sort of sure. “I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary, anyway. Nothing to indicate he’s in the know. So, there’s no courtship, just a chance encounter and a brief catch-up.”
“Then,” said Monroe, looking completely bewildered, “why did he give you his coat?”
“Let’s go over it all again,” suggested Rosalee firmly, and Nick sighed into his hands.
Captain Renard, this is Nick Burkhardt. Thank you for loaning me your coat. When and how can I get it back to you?
“No, no, no—saying ‘thank you’ implies a favor owed,” said Monroe, reading the text over his shoulder. “Take that out.”
Nick stared up at the living room ceiling, but it offered him no respite. He obediently edited the SMS draft.
Captain Renard, this is Nick Burkhardt. I have your coat. When and how can I get it back to you?
“Now it sounds like a hostage message,” said Rosalee doubtfully. She was seated on his other side on the couch, and both she and Monroe were leaning into him to read the screen.
“Oh yeah,” said Monroe. “It kind of does! Hey, you should write, ‘If you want to see your coat again—’”
“No,” said Nick, holding down the delete button.
Captain Renard, this is Nick Burkhardt. When would you like to meet up so I can return your coat?
Neither Monroe nor Rosalee seemed to have any meaningful protest to share over the revised message, so he sent it with a sigh of relief.
“Now, you’ll want to wear the coat as often as possible,” said Monroe, rubbing his hands together. “Actually, you should go put it on now.”
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Monroe, we’re inside.”
Monroe waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, but we might be on a time crunch, here! How else are you going to transfer over your scent?”
“Kehrseite don’t share clothes for the purpose of spreading our B.O.” Monroe ignored him, herding him over to the foyer and nudging him until he shrugged the coat on. Its inner lining was soft where it brushed the skin of his arms, and he let them drop into the roomy pockets self-consciously. He would never admit it to Monroe or Rosalee, but the spicy scent clinging to the coat was—well.
“Good,” said Monroe. “Now remember, you are absolutely not going to take this courtship any further until Rosalee and I have met this guy.”
“There’s no courtship,” Nick reminded him wearily. He sniffed surreptitiously at the coat again. It smelled good, and the thought of covering up that lovely scent with his own stale end-of-day musk made his stomach turn. “I should probably dry clean this before returning it, right?” asked Nick.
Monroe stared at him. “No,” he said. “No, you should definitely not do that thing.”
“Nick!” called Rosalee from the couch. “You got a text! Nick!”
Monroe ushered him back over to the couch, where he and Rosalee crowded around him again.
“Is it from him?” asked Rosalee. “What did he say?”
Nick gave her a bland look. He still hadn’t looked at his phone to see.
“Niiiick,” whined Monroe piteously, and Nick sighed and picked up his phone.
“It’s from him,” he confirmed, and Rosalee and Monroe cheered. “He said—”
“Dinner this weekend?” gasped Monroe, grabbing Nick’s hand to tilt the phone more in his direction. “Isn’t that moving a little quickly?”
Nick felt his face slowly flushing.
“Not for a second courtship meeting, but it is a little fast given that neither of us have met him.” Rosalee frowned. “Did he suggest a location?”
“No,” said Monroe. “He probably has some fancy reservation planned already.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Rosalee decided definitively. “Nick, tell him that he’s welcome to come here for dinner—”
“Wait, he’s sent another text!” Monroe interrupted. “‘If you don’t mind, we can have dinner at my place. Feel free to bring friends—Ms Calvert, maybe?’ Well, good that he’s going about things correctly now. Maybe he was surprised at meeting Nick so suddenly, too.”
“It must have been love at first sight,” sighed Rosalee.
“I knew him at work for years,” said Nick. “And I still think that he just feels bad that things went downhill for me after he left. He’s the kind of guy who looks after his own.”
“Good,” said Monroe, nodding. “That’s a good sign in a marriage partner.”
Rosalee agreed, then glanced over at Nick contemplatively. “We both have some okay outfits, but we’ll need something for Nick to wear.”
Nick sighed. “I’ll pull my old suits out of storage,” he told them. “You can pick out whatever you think would be best.”
“And you’ll wear the coat, of course,” Monroe added.
“And I’ll wear the coat,” Nick agreed.
He gave a silent apology to Renard, who had lent him a clean coat and would be getting an overly used coat back.
Still, there was really no point in arguing anymore. They’d see what this really was for themselves over the weekend, when Renard would make it clear that this was neither a date nor part of a Wesen courtship ritual.
“Please, come in,” said Renard when he opened the door and gesturing them inside. He was wearing a two-piece suit, but he was missing the jacket and wearing an apron. “I hope you don’t mind—I’m running a little behind, and dinner isn’t quite done yet.”
“It’s no trouble,” said Rosalee brightly. “We brought a little something as well. We weren’t sure what wines would pair well with dinner, so we brought a custom tea blend for after.”
“Wonderful,” said Renard. “May I take your coats?”
“I mean, this one is yours, so sure,” said Nick dryly, shrugging out of it and handing it over.
Renard smiled at him as he took the offered coat. “It’s practically shared property at this point, really,” he said.
A silly joke like that shouldn’t be enough to make Nick blush, but Monroe and Rosalee and their courtship nonsense must have really messed him up, because he felt himself turning red.
“...Sure,” he agreed hesitantly.
“Nick!” hissed Monroe. Nick wasn’t sure why he was bothering—Renard was closer to him than Monroe was, and if Nick could hear Monroe’s failed attempt at sotto voce, so could Renard. “Remember what we discussed!”
Nick sighed. “I mean,” he clarified, “any shared property agreements have to go through Monroe and Rosalee, first.”
“Of course,” said Renard courteously, as though that wasn’t a completely nonsensical request. “If you’ll all follow me, the dining room is right through here.”
Renard’s home was elegant, tasteful, and modern, exactly like the man himself. The table in the dining room, too, was beautifully laid out, and Nick swallowed at the sight of the series of forks and knives laid out alongside each plate. Something about the idea of multiple mean courses made him feel like the proverbial bull in a china shop, and he was abruptly frightened to touch anything, in case his hands left streaks of grime and blood on the sparkling, pristine surfaces before him.
Renard pulled out a chair, and Nick stared at him blankly for a moment before realizing that Renard intended for him to take it. “Thank you,” said Nick nervously, sitting down.
Rosalee and Monroe had seated themselves before Renard could offer to assist, if he had intended to, and Renard went to fill their glasses instead. “I’m glad you didn’t bring wine after all,” he told them with a smirk. “I already had this bottle decanting.”
Nick smiled at Renard when he filled his glass as well, but he couldn’t quite trust himself to speak. What was going on? This wasn’t what a normal dinner with a former boss looked like, certainly.
“I love the music,” said Monroe. “Though a waltz is an interesting choice of white noise.”
“Perhaps it is,” said Renard noncommittally. “Or maybe I was hoping for a dance.” He raised his eyebrows in Nick’s direction. Nick didn’t turn red at the insinuation, but only because he hadn’t stopped being red since they arrived. There was a water glass beside the wine glass—that should be safe, Nick thought, and he gulped it down as Renard went to pull something out of the oven.
Dinner was delicious, and though it crossed Nick’s suspicious mind that maybe Renard was for some reason simply pretending to have cooked it, he was certainly adroit enough at answering Monroe’s detailed questions about its preparation to make that possibility unlikely.
“So tell me, Sean,” said Rosalee once they had all moved into the sitting room and Renard had served them Rosalee’s tea in what seemed to be an antique tea set. “What first drew your attention to Nick?”
“Nick was always an exceptional officer,” Renard told them seriously. Nick stared down at his clenched hands rather than meet anyone’s eyes. “Of course, I couldn’t think of him as anything other than another one of my detectives when we worked together, but meeting him again, knowing that we’re unlikely to be bound together again in a professional context… that made me reconsider some things.”
Nick hated it when Monroe and Rosalee were right.
“You offered to look into bringing me into your precinct,” he pointed out, mouth dry.
Renard met his eyes calmly. “Yes. And you said no.”
Nick nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry to have learned that Nick has been struggling since his aunt passed away,” Renard went on. “I wish I had been around to help him through that, but I’m glad to see that he has such good friends in the community to support him.”
“What happened to not being die Schliche kennen?” Monroe hissed at Nick in a tone that was perfectly audible to everyone at the table.
Nick shook his head silently. His heart rate was through the roof.
Renard politely didn’t comment. “I was having some family troubles of my own around that time, or I would have been there for you. I’m very sorry, Nick,” he said, dark eyes meeting Nick’s with an intensity that made Nick’s breath catch. “No matter how distracted I was, I should have been more aware of the events happening in my city.”
“I understand,” Nick told him, bewildered. “I never expected anything.”
“You should have expected everything,” Renard told him fiercely.
“Thank you,” said Nick helplessly.
“Well, it’s getting late,” said Rosalee, standing up. “Thank you so much for dinner, Sean.”
“Of course,” Renard agreed, standing as well. “I hope we can do this again soon.”
Renard showed them to the door and gathered their coats for them. The coat he presented to Nick was not the one Nick had returned to him—it was an entirely different, equally expensive coat. Nick didn’t complain as Renard helped him into it, but as the coat fell around him, he said softly, “Captain, I have no idea what’s going on.”
Renard was standing behind him, and his hands, having released the lapels they had been holding, were now settled on Nick’s shoulders. He was so close that Nick could feel the warmth of his breath against the bare skin of his neck, and then Renard was closer still, turning his face into Nick until Nick could feel the shape of his smile as well. “I know,” Renard told him. “Does that frighten you?”
Nick was silent for a moment, thinking that over. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I like knowing things.”
“I’m not always a very honest person, Nick, and there are many things about myself and my plans that I haven’t told you. But I will tell you this: there are two reasons I am pursuing this courtship with you, and one is because I think we will make a very powerful team together. I want you on my side, and I want to be on your side.”
Nick nodded slowly. “What’s the other reason?” he asked.
“The other reason?” Renard gently guided Nick around until they were facing each other. His hands fell to Nick’s waist as their breath mingled together. “The other reason is that I want you.”
Nick only had to lean forward the barest of centimeters for their lips to meet in a soft kiss. When he pulled away, he pulled all the way back, out of Renard’s arms and back toward the door where Monroe and Rosalee were pretending not to be eavesdropping. “I’ll think about it.”
“I’m glad,” said Renard.
Nick piled into the truck with Monroe and Rosalee. It didn’t take long for them to break the silence.
“Will you really think about it?” asked Monroe.
“Yes,” said Nick, almost surprising himself. “I like him. I really like him.”
“You trust him?” asked Rosalee cautiously.
“Hell, no,” said Nick. “I already have a few leads on him I intend to follow. Freddy might be my first stop, actually. Renard mentioned they’d met.”
Monroe gave him a little punch in the arm. “Great! You know we’ll help however we can. But are you finally going to admit that he was courting you?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine—he was courting me. Are you happy now?”
“As long as you keep us up-to-date,” said Monroe peaceably.