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It’s dark out by the time Frank arrives at the hospital, guiding his car into a bay near a small yellow beetle.
He pauses for a moment, uncertain now he’s here, and lets the engine idle before he reaches a decision and turns the key.
It hasn’t taken long for the Grimm to become known in the wesen community, and news always seems to travels quickly amongst their kind. He heard about Nick’s run in with the siegbarste earlier in the day, and some sense of obligation had sent him here now.
He’s just getting off the lift when a blutbad passes him, looking hurried and worried and barely sparing him a glance. Frank pays him little mind; they are common enough emotions to see on people, wesen or human, in a place like this.
There is a nurse on duty at the station where Frank asks for Nick’s room; she frowns, and her glance at the visiting hours sign is deliberate and pointed. He smiles at her, employs a little court room charm, and carefully points out that he’s visiting a detective injured in the line of duty.
He lets her draw her own conclusions, and he can see the moment that her expression thaws a little, her smile becoming more genuine.
“Well, five minutes won’t hurt, I suppose,” she says finally, “and it’s the least I can do for someone who keeps the city safe.”
You have no idea, Frank thinks, but all he says is, “Thank you, I promise I won’t be long.”
He pauses at the door; Nick’s lucky to be alive, but the sight of him still shocks Frank more than he expected. The Grimm looks terrible, bruising vivid and extensive, the colours almost grotesque against pale skin. He can hear Nick’s careful breathing from here, the tell tale indication of broken ribs as he tries not to aggravate them.
He enters the room quietly, but his presence is enough to break Nick out of his doze; Frank imagines it will be some time before that tense awareness drops back to normal levels. Detective and Grimm or not, being attacked in your own home would do that for you.
Nick turns at his entry and inhales sharply, obviously not expecting to see Frank there. Frank can’t blame him; he might have kept an ear to the ground as far as the Grimm is concerned, but they’ve not actually met since the roh-hatz. Even when Nick was at Diane and Barry’s court dates they did not speak to each other, Nick present in his official capacity and Frank too busy trying to remain strong for his family even as he endured the inevitability of their sentences.
“Hi,” he says finally, and moves his gaze away from Nick for a moment to give him time to settle.
Confusion and wariness colour Nick’s tone when he replies, “Hey.”
Frank tells him, “You look terrible,” because he really, truly does, and all the more so because the damage reinforces how much worse it could have been.
“Thanks,” Nick answers, a little bitterly, but it’s not directed at Frank and they both know it.
Siegbarste are rare, but Frank remembers doing the leg work on a murder case early in his career when he was at the DA’s office, sent out to the scene for ‘practical experience’ by his superior. It wasn’t the first body Frank had come across, but it was the first one to send him outside and vomiting into the red pansies lining the garden.
The sight had been bad enough to empty his stomach and bad enough that the officers present couldn’t even mock him for his reaction. One or two of them looked as though they would have liked to join him, faces tight and pale in memory of the carnage inside.
“You were lucky,” he continues after a beat, the thought of that case lingering in the back of his mind.
“So I’ve heard,” is Nick’s response, but he looks at Frank again and must see the truth of the comment on his face, because the anger at his situation fades a little.
They fall silent again, and Nick shifts uncomfortably in the hospital bed, a futile attempt to find a position that won’t jar his injuries further.
Frank gets an odd urge to help him, but refrains from reaching out.
“Why are you here, Frank?”
Nick looks surprised as soon as he says the words, like he hadn’t meant for them to come out at all.
Frank wonders how strong the drugs are that they’ve got Nick on, because they’ve clearly loosened his brain to mouth filter. He sees again at the bandages around his middle and the stitches in his forehead, and realises they probably answer his own question.
“I wanted to see if there was anything I could do for you,” he says honestly.
He owes Nick. The Grimm spared his son’s life when few others in his position would have done the same, and for all that Barry’s actions were a catastrophic error at best, he is still his son and he cannot conceive not loving him. Nick went against his own background, acted contrary to generations of kill first Grimms, even as Frank’s own family embraced their heritage to an almost unforgivable conclusion.
Nick saved his son twice: when he didn’t raise his gun against him, and when he stopped him from becoming a murderer.
“Actually, there is something,” Nick asks, and although the offer was genuine Frank is still a little surprised that Nick hasn’t simply dismissed it out of hand, “would you mind driving by my house, check that it’s, you know, still standing? Stark shouldn’t go back there, and you don’t need to go in or anything – ”
“Sure,” Frank cuts him off; it’s no exaggeration that it’s the least he could do for Nick, “what’s the address?”
Nick gives it to him, and Frank recognises it as a nice area on the outskirts of the city, away from the centre with its high rises and traffic.
He doesn’t stay long after that; it’s clear that the pain is the only thing stopping Nick from dropping off into sleep, and Frank has a feeling that however accommodating the nurse was earlier, it won’t be long before she sweeps by to harry him away from her patient.
He’s at the door when Nick calls out, “Thanks, Frank.”
“No problem,” is Frank’s answer: “feel better, Nick,” he continues as he leaves, and he finds that he really does mean it.
He’s barely out of the hospital when his phone rings. It’s one of his more nervous clients, and the problem isn’t really a problem, but it still means that Frank spends fifteen minutes standing outside the doors in the cold reassuring him before he can hang up.
“You are so getting billed for that,” he mutters to himself, and he is about to head for his car when the hair on the back of his neck stands up.
The bear within him moans softly, a mild warning, and he recognises the presence: siegbarste.
It can’t be a coincidence.
Frank is surprised by the reaction of his bear, usually so easily controlled. He can feel its desire to rear up, to roar, to chase this threat away and make it pay for its impudence to be here now.
The siegbarste is close by, a massive man loitering just out of sight of the hospital entrance. Frank moves closer, acting like he’s simply going to his car.
He gets flashes of memory: of Nick’s clemency for Barry despite his disgust at the situation, of that body from all those years ago almost unidentifiable except by fingerprints, of Nick upstairs in a hospital bed barely able to stand.
It’s too much to ignore.
Siegbarste are strong, but so are jägerbar, and Frank is fuelled by anger and his attack is unexpected. He launches himself at Stark, a fierce tackle that sends them both to the ground and rolling over each other further into the shadows.
Frank gets away first, snarling savagely, and he is up and punching the siegbarste before Stark has had a chance to recover.
Frank can feel the bloodlust singing in his veins, primal and intoxicating, and he embraces it now.
The siegbarste laughs cruelly, lowly, as he advances.
Frank growls, and they meet, a feral attack in the dark of the parking lot. Neither of them is obviously winning; Stark has his strength and almost invulnerability, but jägerbar cut their teeth on fighting, and Frank has been tussling since he was old enough to stand and be knocked down again by his older brothers.
He catches sight of movement out of the corner of his eye: it’s the blutbad from earlier. Frank doubts it is an accident that he’s here again, and the wesen is carrying something that Frank would bet isn’t a briefcase.
He roars at Stark again, a distraction, ensuring that the siegbarste is focused on him and not anything around them. It works; siegbarste strength is physical, not mental, and Frank just hopes that he’s not making his own misinterpretation regarding the blutbad.
Stark hits him with a massive fist, and Frank is lucky he manages to glance away from the worst of the blow, because even now there are black spots dancing in front of his eyes and he staggers, barely managing to avoid the next strike.
He licks away the taste of blood and snarls, but the diversion has done its job and Stark is facing away from the blutbad. They’re out of the range of human sight, but not of a blutbad’s, and it shows a moment later when Stark just drops.
There’s barely time for a look of surprise to register on his face before he falls to the ground with such force that Frank is almost surprised the concrete hasn’t cracked beneath him.
He pants heavily, adrenaline burning through him, and when he looks down it is to a pool of red blossoming against the siegbarste’s back.
He locks gazes with the blutbad, who has been glancing between the rifle in his hand and the wesen on the ground in faint shock.
Someone must have heard that shot. They don’t have long, but Frank is a lawyer and if there’s one thing he knows, it’s how to clear up a mess.
“Get out of here,” he orders, and the blutbad pauses for a moment, eyes narrowed, before he gets.
Frank hears the car leave a moment later; he notices idly that it’s the same little yellow thing from earlier before pulling his phone out and dialling nine one one.
He’s still talking when another figure leaves the building, and as they pass under the lights Frank recognises them as Nick’s partner, Griffin.
“Over here,” he calls, and as the detective approaches he calls on his ability to talk quickly and think on his feet.
He explains how he came by to see how Nick was (“paralegals,” he says, “they’re all gossips,”), and was just leaving the hospital when he was attacked by a stranger. He’s lucky, because there was a gun shot, but by the time he recovered whoever it was must have been long gone. No, he has no idea who could have done it.
There’s a look in the detective’s eyes, though, something dark and personal when he stares at the body on the ground.
Frank gets the feeling that there’s more going on here than he knows about, and also that with the siegbarste dead no one’s going to be investigating this too closely.
He stays long enough for the uniforms to arrive, and to promise Griffin that he will call by the station tomorrow to give his statement.
He spares one last glance for the building opposite, imagines one of the windows is to Nick’s room, and thinks of him there, safe and hopefully unaware of what’s just taken place outside. It’s a guarantee that Griffin will head back up there soon enough, and let him know Stark has been taken care of.
Frank hopes the knowledge will let Nick rest more easily tonight.
He returns home, the house dark and empty. He paces for a while, until finally he tears off his clothes and runs through the woods, bear fully released.
He has tried to ignore it recently but this is who he is, just as much as the lawyer who walks on two legs, and he can feel the joy of it in his blood as he powers beneath the trees, plunging into the river and shaking the water off in freedom and delight.
He doesn’t stop running until dawn.
*
Frank goes to Nick’s house two days later, and it’s only as he’s driving down the street that he remembers he never actually made it the first time.
He knocks on the door, and Frank can hear someone inside, moving slowly, before it opens.
Nicks is on the other side, and the only reason he looks better than when he was in the hospital is because of the clothes hiding some of the worst of his injuries.
“Hi,” Frank says, but he loses creativity after that.
He’s not sure what he wants to say to Nick, because he’s not actually certain why he’s here: I wanted to explain what happened the other night, perhaps, or I wanted to check how you’re doing, or, my bear side hasn’t settled for the last two days, but now it’s seen you it’s suddenly more content.
He has no intention of saying the last one out loud, and not just because it’s as confusing for him as it would be for the Grimm.
Luckily Nick saves him from his unexpected attack of muteness, because he steps back in the universal gesture for come in.
“Nice eye,” he says about Frank’s face as he leads him further into the house, and Frank smirks a bit, feeling a little like he did back when he and Diane were first dating and he used to show off his marks of honour.
He was a lot younger then, not terribly different to Barry at that age in some ways, not that his son would believe him were he to tell him that now.
“Nice house,” is Frank’s only response, but he’s more genuine than Nick was. It is a nice place, if a little empty. There’s not a lot of clutter, fewer things on the table tops than he might have expected. He guesses it’s the result of Stark’s visit, and wonders how bad it looked a couple of days ago.
“So, how did you get away from Stark the first time?” Frank asks, because it’s something he’s been wondering about since he heard about the attack.
Nick pauses a moment in the act of filling the kettle.
“Luck, mostly,” he admits, “Juliette had come by to pick up a couple of things, and she caught us going at it. She dumped a pot of boiling water over him,” he continues with a little bit of pride.
“Brave.” Frank agrees, “Is that your girlfriend?”
“Ex,” Nick says, “she moved out a couple of months ago now.”
That would explain the recent spring clean look of the place, apparently not all the result of a post-siegbarste clear up.
“Sorry,” is his only reply, because he’s never quite worked out what the appropriate response is in these situations.
Nick goes to shrug, remembers his shoulder, and quirks his lips instead.
“Yeah, so were we. I still care about her, just, maybe there’s a reason we didn’t fighter harder for it in the end.”
Frank doesn’t offer an answer, and he gets the feeling that Nick wasn’t looking for one. He knows how to read the signs that someone doesn’t want a conversation pushing any further, and he recognises the shadows lingering in the other man’s eyes. He gets Nick to direct him towards the cups and changes topic.
He already knew Nick was a good guy; the detective wouldn’t have acted in the way he did at the roh-hatz if he weren’t, but Frank’s a little surprised by how quickly the time goes just talking to him.
Frank tells him about that night at the hospital and the blutbad who put a bullet in Stark’s back (“Monroe,” Nick explains, “he’s a friend.”), and Nick fills him in with rough details on why the siegbarste was there in the first place.
Nick’s eyes skitter about the room for a moment when he talks about Stark, almost as if he is tracking the fight through his house. It makes the more primal part of Frank regret the quickness of Stark’s death, snarling with a sudden vicious desire to have felt the siegbarste’s blood in his mouth.
Instead, he gets up and makes them more coffee. Nick takes it gratefully, and jokes about needing to redecorate anyway.
By the time Frank leaves, he is pressing a business card into Nick’s hand with the request to call him if he needs anything. The bear snuffles happily when Nick keeps a hold of it, and Frank finds himself hoping that Nick does.
*
The next time he sees Nick is an accident; he is leaving the office for the night, and Nick happens to be walking along the street at the same time.
The Grimm looks a lot better than the last time they met, and the gash above his eye is already a healing line, though it remains a stark red against his skin.
They greet each other, and Nick’s smile seems genuine.
Frank doesn’t quite know what makes him say it, whether it’s the faint lines of exhaustion he sees around Nick’s eyes or the strange sense of loneliness that matches his own, but he finds himself juggling his briefcase into his other hand and asking, “Do you fancy a drink? I know a good place just around the corner.”
Nick looks surprised by the offer, and he hesitates a moment before agreeing, “I – actually, yeah, why not.”
It sounds almost like an admission. Nick doesn’t say that there’s no one waiting for him, but Frank hears it all the same.
Nevertheless, something warm pools low in Frank’s stomach, unexpectedly pleased by Nick’s acceptance of his company. He ignores the feeling, and instead gestures the way back down the street.
They settle in an out of the way corner of the bar, beers in hand.
The conversation stops and starts at first, pleasantries interspersed with silences for which they don’t know each other well enough to be completely comfortable.
It must be lonely, Frank realises suddenly, to be a Grimm in these modern times. Nick seems like a popular guy, he must have friends, but it has to be wearing to hide such a large part of himself from the people with whom he is closest. Surrounded by people but still alone, it is a difficult breed of isolation.
He wonders how much keeping those secrets played a part in the ending of Nick’s relationship. He gets the impression that it wasn’t the only factor, but he can also remember the flash of guilt in Nick’s eyes when he said Juliette was an ex, the clear regret at keeping so much of himself from her.
Frank knows all too well the silence of a house when you are used to sharing it with someone else, and he finds himself telling Nick about his family, his own remorse at not being able to do more for Barry before things went to shit and his separation from Diane.
Nick looks at him with a feeling of kinship there, but Frank is aware that their relationships were different. He and Diane have always been fond of each other, but it was more a case that he was a jägerbar and so was she, and they were a good match. It was never an epic love story.
That said, she is still pack, and no matter her mistakes that won’t end even when they divorce.
“Will you sell the house?” Nick asks suddenly, glancing up at him from under long eyelashes.
“No,” Frank says, and he surprises himself with how emphatic his answer is.
In truth, it is something he’s been wondering about. It’s a big house and every empty space is a gaping reminder of the people who aren’t filling it anymore. Even now he’ll sometimes find himself standing in one of the rooms with a bitter taste in his mouth as he recalls the terrible things that happened, and almost happened, there.
At the same time, though: “No, it’s my family’s land; it has been for longer than the house has been there, or even the one before that. I can’t just leave it.
It’s Barry’s home, too, and there’s a lot of good memories there, more than the bad. What you saw, that’s not all we are.”
“I know,” Nick tells him earnestly, and Frank can see the belief of that in his eyes.
He nods.
Nick picks at the label on his bottle for a moment, lost in his own thoughts.
“Why did you ask me to drive by your house that night?” Frank asks after a while, long enough that his own drink is now more empty than full.
Nick peers up at him again, and Frank hadn’t expected to notice how sweet he looks like that, all dark hair and soft eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you trust me to help you? I didn’t think we left a great impression last time we met.”
Nick smiles at that, “I’m usually pretty good at reading people, and you seemed like a good guy.”
Frank can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the answer: “I told you to stay away from my family, and my wife gave our son her blessing to eat a pair of teenagers.”
“You only did that once you realised what I am: you were just trying to protect your family, I get that now. I know I might not have acted like it then, but when it came down to it, you did the right thing. Those kids are safe, and you helped make sure of that.”
It gives Frank pause; he won’t absolve himself of responsibility, and he still feels guilty for Barry, and the teenagers, and a hundred other moments which, looking back on them now, he wonders if they were a chance to stop the downward spiral that ended with the roh-hatz.
It helps, though to hear Nick say that. He wonders, too, if Nick’s change of opinion has anything to do with what more of the wesen world he has seen in the intervening months. His culpability is not something to be examined now, though, so Frank slots it away and turns back to Nick.
“So, when you say you can read people, how good are you?”
Nick smirks: “Okay, that blonde woman at the bar, why do you think she’s here?”
Frank studies her for a few seconds: alone, decent suit, playing with her phone.
“I don’t know; she’s stopped off for a drink after work? She looks like she’s from one of the offices.”
“Nope,” Nick counters, “she’s having an affair with someone around here; she doesn’t usually wear a suit, she’s only got it on to try and fit in. He’s married, and it’s been going on for a while.”
“You can’t possibly know that,” Frank disputes.
“Ten bucks says she’s meeting a guy, and he’ll be here within ten minutes.”
“Fine,” Frank agrees, and they both watch the bar.
Eight minutes later a man walks in, heading straight for the blonde. They kiss, briefly, and quickly turn to leave. It’s as they walk past the table that Frank notices the pale line on the man’s finger, evidence that a ring has been removed.
Nick looks smug, and Frank rolls his eyes even as he can’t help but laugh. It feels like a long time since he’s done that, and something loosens in his chest.
He hands over a note, but makes Nick get up to bring in the next round.
*
Frank’s phone rings, and he pats at his pockets before realising it is rumbling against the table in front of him, hidden under a pile of legal journals that never would have been allowed to build up were Diane still in the house.
The sound has been going for a while before he gets hold of his cell, and he doesn’t have time to look at the screen, instead flicking the phone open and asking, “Hello?”
“Oh, hi,” goes the voice at the other end, in the sort of tone that implies they were about to hang up, “It’s Nick Burkhardt.”
“Nick, what can I do for you?” Frank asks, leaning back on the couch.
“Actually, I was wondering what you know about hundgeist?”
“Hundgeist?” Frank repeats as he thinks, “they’re black dogs, but they don’t tend to settle this far north.”
“Oh,” Nick says, like he’d been hoping Frank could give him more information, “look, thanks anyway, I’ll – “
“But,” Frank interrupts, “I’m pretty sure I have a book around here somewhere. If you’ve got time why don’t you drive round and I’ll see if I can dig it out?”
“That would be great, I’ll be over soon.” Nick hangs up.
Frank wonders if Nick simply doesn’t think he has anything else to do on a Friday evening, or if he’s like this with everyone. He’s always got the impression that the Grimm is rather single minded, and with a life like his, concepts such as sociable hours probably simply don’t register.
He can hardly complain, though; it’s a Friday evening, and he is sat on his couch seriously wondering if he’s bored enough to take up wood carving as a hobby.
The book is on the table when Nick arrives, and Frank waves him through.
“Thanks for this,” Nick tells him, “I wouldn’t bother you, but Monroe’s out of town, and I could really use some more info on this one.”
“It’s no trouble,” Frank says, “we’ve got a ton of books around the place; there’s not much point if they don’t get used.”
Nick’s eyes brighten at that, and Frank wonders what he’s let himself in for.
“So,” he says instead, “what’s the interest with hundgeist anyway?”
Nick tells him about the latest case he’s caught, a straightforward murder but it looks like a hundgeist is the main suspect, and he wants to check if there’s anything he needs to know before he tries to track it down.
It reminds Frank a little of his days with the DA, talking MO and perps. He finds himself going off on a tangent about state border law, but when he manages to stop himself he realises that Nick is still listening closely, an interested expression on his face.
“Have you eaten?” he finds himself asking, and is pleased when Nick gives a negative response.
It’s nice, having someone else in the house with him; Barry will be out in a couple of months, but Frank is under no illusions that will be an easy ride no matter how much his son regrets the actions that landed him there, and until then its just been him rattling about this big place by himself.
Nick slots in with unexpected ease, at home in this combination of civilisation and nature. He pops open a couple of beers as Frank slaps their steaks under the grill, and while the food cooks Frank finds himself regaling the Grimm with tales about growing up the middle of four jägerbar brothers.
It’s not even like he’s recounting it in a ‘look, not all wesen are bad, a lot of us are pretty normal’ way, there’s just something about Nick that makes it easy to share this with him.
Nick laughs, and it’s a bright sound that fills the kitchen. Frank finds he likes telling Nick about his family; he looks across and sees Nick sat at his table, beer in hand and under the gaze of the large wooden mask on the wall, a totem that has been in his family since his grandfather’s time.
Something deep in his chest rumbles at the sight, not quite daring to say pack, but the word is there and already guarded by his bear. He feels the desire to welcome Nick further, to draw him in, and he realises that’s what he’s doing already.
He has protected Nick’s back, has invited him inside his home, has told him about his kin and in doing so opened up his pack to him.
Nick sits there, oblivious. He is studying the book again, fingers gentle on the pages and dark hair sweeping over his forehead.
Frank turns away and flips the steaks.
*
The thing about hundgeist is that they’re exceedingly difficult to track in their canine form, at least for non hunters.
That would explain why a couple of days later, when Nick phones and tells him that their suspect has disappeared, Frank finds himself offering to help track him down.
Another three hours and Frank has followed his scent through the woodland to a small clearing. The guy clearly isn’t a genius; he dumped his car at the edge of the forest, and it didn’t take Frank long to pick up the traces of his trail.
Ironically, if the hundgeist had kept to the city streets, they would probably never have been able to find him in this way. As it was, the scent was still strong, and Frank had been able to pick up on the occasional bent branch or broken leaf that indicated they were going in the right direction.
They’re close now, but by this point the scent is all around them, no clear trail. Frank turns to Nick to warn him that the hundgeist must be trying to circle around them, but Nick is already alert and wary, gun out and pointed down.
Suddenly, there’s a dark mass headed for Nick, who barely has time to spin and get a shot off before the hundgeist is knocking him to the ground.
It clearly has no intention of coming quietly.
Frank isn’t even aware of changing until he roars, deep with horror and anger, and it’s the guttural tone he can only make when transformed. He leaps at the hundgeist, barrelling him away from Nick and swiping at the massive dog with what is more paw than hand.
He’s coherent enough to realise still that Nick is there, and he’s not a threat, but the rest of it is pure instinct. His heart is beating protect protect protect, a fierce need that before now only his family has inspired in him.
The hundgeist howls and tries to twist free.
A shot rents the air but the other wesen ignores the warning. A second one and the hundgeist falls, struggles for a breath in the dirt, and goes still. He morphs back into his human form, clearly dead.
Frank looks across at Nick and sees him standing there, gun still in hand. It was a good shot; the pair of them had been practically on top of each other and a clear aim must have been difficult. Nick keeps his gun trained on the body a moment longer before holstering the weapon, and it’s only after that Frank realises Nick put his gun away before Frank had changed back.
He glances again at the hundgeist, recalls Stark, and thinks about how this sort of thing never happened to him until he met Nick.
He meets Nick’s eyes when he comes closer to check the hundgeist for a pulse, and judging by the half companionable, half apologetic look he gets in response he suspects Nick knows exactly what he’s thinking.
Frank has returned to his human face, but the bear in him is still growling; it wants Nick far away from that body, regardless that it’s no longer a threat.
Nick breathes out heavily as he rises from his crouch, “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine; you?”
Nick nods in response and gets his phone out. “There’s no signal here; we better get back so I can call this in. You should probably get out of here too.”
It makes sense; Frank doesn’t really want to think about how Nick would account for tramping through the woods with a lawyer, half of whose family has been arrested by the detective, and ended with the fatal shooting of a suspect.
“How are you going to explain this?” Frank asks as they make their way back, and wonders how much more difficult being a Grimm has made Nick’s police work, constantly having to fudge over details and find new excuses for events.
He’s walking close to Nick, senses alert for anything else that could be lurking in the woods. He’s probably nearer than he strictly needs to be, but he finds himself unwilling to move further away. Nick slants an odd look at him on a couple of occasions, considering, but he doesn’t say anything.
“I’ll tell them I came by to check out the car, saw Stevens, and gave chase,” Nick answers.
“That works,” Frank says, and later, when they get back to the cars, “I should get going.”
He knows Nick is perfectly safe, and that he’s more than capable of looking after himself, but the bear still moans unhappily at the thought of leaving him here alone, even as he knows it’s the best option logically.
“Thanks for your help,” Nick nods, and looks up from his phone when he sees Frank still there.
Were it anyone else, Frank would have no compunctions about leaving now; instead, he finds himself standing there and fighting an urge to run his hands over Nick, to make sure he’s whole and uninjured. He can smell the faint traces of his own scent on Nick, a proof of their proximity, and he likes it there.
Frank has no idea what Nick sees in his eyes, but the other man slips the phone back into his pocket without using it and without even seeming to realise that he’s doing so. His gaze remains on Frank.
The jägerbar steps closer, and the desire to feel his hands on Nick is too strong to ignore anymore.
He wonders what Nick is thinking, if he’s thinking, because god knows Frank is just filled with need right now, and that’s all he’s acting on when he leans down to Nick.
(Actually, when Frank touches Nick, large hand curving around his jaw and cheek, Nick is surprised not so much by the action but by the feel of it. He had always assumed, had he taken the time to think about it, that Frank’s skin would be soft and unblemished, the sort of hands suiting a man who spent his days behind a desk and handling nothing weightier than files and highlighters.
Instead, his hand is unexpectedly rough and Nick can feel calluses against his own skin, texture that hints at more than hours sat in offices and court rooms and the imperfections make him somehow more real.
It’s enough to have Nick bridging the gap between them, tangling his fingers in the lapels of Frank’s coat. This close, he has to look up to meet Frank’s gaze.
There’s heat in it, but also warmth, and Nick barely has time to draw a breath before he feels lips on his own. It’s an insistent pressure, and before he knows it there is a tongue swiping across his lips and gaining entry to his mouth when he opens in instinctive response to the sensation.)
Nick doesn’t seem to notice when Frank’s other hand drops to his hip, not until fingers burrow under his shirt and drag against his skin in a way that has Nick buck helplessly even closer to Frank’s body.
One of Nick’s hands moves, travelling up to curl around the back of Frank’s neck; blunt nails scratch through his hair, a sharp nip of sensation, and it’s an encouragement to the bear.
Frank doesn’t pull back from Nick’s mouth until the need to breathe pushes over everything else. He can hear Nick’s puffs of breath, feel them against his cheek, and he feels like a teenager making out in public.
The thought isn’t enough to release Nick, though; instead he simply balances one hand against the roof of the jeep he can’t even remember pushing Nick against, boxing him in with his other hand still claiming a hold on his hip.
It feels like a long time before Nick shifts, and even then it’s only for his hand to slide down from Frank’s neck, coming to a rest over his heart. Frank imagines Nick can feel the thump of it against his palm, an intimate tattoo binding them together.
Nick glances up at him from under those dark eyelashes, eyes unfathomable.
Frank doesn’t move until his breathing steadies, and he steps back, slowly relinquishing his hold on Nick. He doesn’t think he imagines the same reluctance from Nick, whose hands remain on Frank until Frank’s own movement makes them slip away.
The space between them fosters uncertainty, and Frank hates this feeling of wanting to grab onto Nick and keep him close, but not knowing if he needs to, or if he can.
“Will you come round later?” he asks instead, and he’s aiming for relaxed but the sound is too tight, too intense, to succeed.
He gets away with it though because Nick looks at him in his own assessing way, like he can see right into Frank, but he also says, “Yeah, ok.”
“Good,” Frank smiles, and he can’t help but lean down and press another kiss to the side of Nick’s mouth before turning and leaving.
*
Frank’s expression when he opens the door to Nick is a difficult combination of pleased, relieved and nervous, all rolled into one smile.
He tries to take Nick’s jacket for him, and when he catches what he is doing it makes him feel like an old fool. It’s awkward, he and Nick both attempting to do the same thing, and when they get tangled and he grazes Nick’s hand with his it is a different type of awkward of its own.
In the end he steps back, and Nick takes off his own jacket and hangs it up, because he is actually an adult and capable doing so on his own. Frank smiles at him apologetically, and wonders if Nick is already trying to think of a way to leave.
He would like to say that he doesn’t know where the nerves have come from, but that would be a lie. He’s over a decade older than Nick, he hasn’t dated anyone since Diane (which, in hindsight, actually seems like it was an incredibly straightforward endeavour) and now that Nick has been in his house his bear seems very much against the idea of not having him here anymore.
Nick is looking at him again, one of his hard to read expressions that give the impression he is cataloguing everything about you, including all the parts you are trying to keep hidden.
“So, did you get everything cleared up with the hundgeist?” Frank asks as he leads Nick through to the kitchen, because his mind has blanked on any other topic that won’t make this more uncomfortable.
“Yeah, it’s all sorted,” Nick answers before falling silent himself.
Frank doesn’t regret kissing Nick, not at all, but with the action it’s like the solid ground beneath him has been replaced by sand, and he doesn’t know how to balance or where to put his feet. He’s stuck where he is, and he doesn’t know which direction is stable enough to move in.
He is still weighing up whether to just bring the incident up, or to try and act like nothing has changed, when Nick solves the dilemma for him.
“This doesn’t have to be awkward, you know.”
Frank had forgotten about Nick’s predilection for jumping in with both feet. Nick’s words are a splash in the water, and it’s enough to thicken the sand beneath Frank, giving him a path to follow.
He huffs out a laugh. “Sorry, I’m a bit, uh, out of practise.”
“You’re not the only one,” Nick smiles to take the sting out of it, and takes a swig from his beer. “So, tell me about that weird sword thing.”
“That weird sword thing?” The change of subject distracts Frank, which is Nick’s intention.
He looks in the direction Nick is waving his beer to see which particular ‘weird sword thing’ he is referring to, and back to Nick, “By any chance do you mean the twelfth century BC Egyptian scimitar?”
“That’s what I said.”
Just like that, the tension is broken. Frank still takes his revenge on Nick’s deliberate and laughing ignorance, though, and proceeds to tell him about african weaponry in far more detail than Nick could possibly want.
Later, when Nick is leaning against the counter and Frank is getting another drink, he drops an absent kiss against Nick’s forehead as he passes by. The act doesn’t register for another few seconds, not until he is head deep in the fridge.
He almost smacks his face against the shelf when it does. It had been an automatic gesture with Nick standing right there, the bear side of him rumbling in quiet contentment at his presence.
He glances at Nick from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his reaction. Nick is carefully reading the label on his beer bottle, and Frank is at the wrong angle to see his expression, but he thinks he can detect the faintest line of pink against Nick’s cheekbones.
Okay, then.
He doesn’t know if it was intentional on some subconscious level, but he realises with a warm jolt that he kissed Nick over the line on his forehead that Stark had cut open just weeks ago.
It’s strange to think that it’s only been that long; in a lot of ways it’s like Nick has always been here. Weirdly, Frank feels a bit like he owes something to the siegbarste; it still fills him with a thrumming anger when he thinks of what Stark tried to do, yet at the same time if not for him, Frank would probably have had no cause to see Nick again.
The thought makes the bear growl, makes it want to press his nose into Nick’s hair and inhale his scent, reassure himself that he is solid and safe and there.
Instead, he takes another pair of bottles from the fridge, and if their fingers graze when he passes one over, skin warm against the chill of the glass, neither of them moves away.
Frank doesn’t ask him to stay that night, pushing down his bear’s desire to keep Nick safe, which to the bear means here with him. It would be too much too soon for the both of them.
When he does, lying together on the couch with his mouth fitting against the curve of Nick’s neck and the taste of the Grimm’s sweat on his tongue, Nick pauses and says no. He peers up at him from his position under Frank, strokes a thumb across his jaw and catches his mouth in an apologetic kiss.
The first time Nick does stay, Frank wakes up the next morning to Nick curled against him, back to his chest, and Frank’s arm a possessive weight around his waist.
His hand rests on Nick’s bare stomach, and he can’t help but curve his fingers, a gentle scratch against his skin, a soft hello.
Nick’s only response is to arch back into Frank a little more, easy and pliable in his sleep, his arm slipping forward so that his hand brushes against Frank’s.
Frank smiles, can practically feel the bear in the back of his mind curling in proud contentment at finally having Nick here, in his bed. He tangles his fingers with Nick’s, twined together against his stomach, and falls back to sleep, warm and happy.
Pack, his bear says, and Frank would be a fool to disagree.