black_sluggard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
black_sluggard) wrote2015-03-10 04:26 am
black_sluggard) wrote2015-03-10 04:26 am
Entry tags:
(Fic) Grimm Reflections—Chapter Five: The Wolf
Title: Grimm Reflections
Series: Grimm Reflections
Fandoms: Castle, Grimm
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fantasy, Angst, Romance, Humor
Details: Slash, crossover, AU, genre!crack, fairytales, mythical creatures, unbetad.
Characters/Pairings: Castle―Javier Esposito/Kevin Ryan, Richard Castle, Jenny O'Malley. Grimm―Nick Burkhardt, Hank Griffin, Monroe, Drew Wu.
Wordcount: 1,888
Summary: A close call on the job exposes Kevin Ryan to a hidden world that has always existed just out of sight―and leaves him viewing the people closest to him in a whole new light...
Notes: Follows Until Lambs Become Lions.
Chapter Five: The Wolf
Earlier...
The phone was ringing, and Monroe was doing his damnedest not to panic.
He was actually doing a much better job, he thought, than he once would have guessed was possible. Of course the larger part of that was probably due to the spectacularly high bar his recent life had established for justifying panic. As screwed up situations went this didn't even merit over a five on the scale as he had been forced to adjust it since becoming friends with Nick Burkhardt. Compared to ancient volcanic demons, rampaging zombies and kidnapping this was hardly even a crisis. In fact it was really, probably—hopefully—just an unfortunate misunderstanding, at best.
He just had to remain calm. Calm was Step One. Step Two was communicating the information about the situation to Nick.
And if the call went well, Step Three would probably involve raiding Nick's fridge while he waited for the man to show. It was probably a vain hope that he would find some club soda in there, but Monroe liked this sweater, and if it was at all possible he would really prefer to get the blood out of it before it stained...
As wound up as he was, he nearly missed the sound of the call being answered.
"Burkhardt."
"Ah, Nick," Monroe stumbled briefly, momentarily at a loss for how to address the situation. "We've got...a bit of a problem..."
And, really, Monroe wouldn't have traded Nick's friendship for the world, but there were times he honestly missed having fewer conversations that started out like this.
"What kind of problem?" Nick asked, concern understandably creeping into his voice.
"Oh, you know," Monroe offered briskly, "just a cop-unconscious-on-your-livingroom-floor kind of problem."
The strained tone of cheeriness that crept into his voice was something he in no way felt, but at this point it might have been the only thing that could tame some of the tension that was still jarring through him. Nick seemed momentarily dumbstruck, and Monroe could hardly blame him—though he was more than happy to use it to his advantage, taking a deep breath before plowing ahead.
"Look, I seriously didn't know," he established quickly. "Rosalee asked me to drop off those books Juliette wanted to borrow, and when I got here there was this guy waiting for you. Only he was wesen and he had a ridiculous mad on and, well... Things kind of got crazily out of hand? Of course, once that was handled, I found his badge, and I thought maybe it was some kind of misunderstanding?"
"You did say unconscious, not dead, right?" Nick asked him.
Monroe spared a quick glance to the man in question. Fortunately, from the rise and fall of his chest it didn't look like the answer to that question had changed.
"Well, yeah," Monroe said. "I mean... Unconscious is what makes it a misunderstanding, but I'm pretty sure dead would upgrade this to a crisis."
Monroe paused briefly, running a hand over his face as he took in another breath.
"Look, just...tell me what I need to do."
For a moment Nick was quiet. Oddly, when he finally spoke, his voice sounded almost pained.
"Quick question," Nick asked him slowly. "You said you saw his badge...is this guy NYPD?"
Monroe frowned. The detail was so very specific that for a moment he wondered if it really was possible that the universe was playing some kind of joke on him.
"Uh...yeah... How did you know?"
After the call, Nick had explained as much of the situation as he could on their way out the door. Hank had made the calculated decision to head back to the station—because someone had to hold down the fort, and it was looking less and less likely that Nick would be getting back to work any time soon.
When they stepped through the door into Nick's home, Kevin wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it definitely wasn't what he found.
It was quiet, for one—almost deathly quiet, and Kevin was forced to shove the implications the word carried with it swiftly to the back of his mind—but the tension in the air was palpable even before the others came into view. They were seated in the living room, and though both men had looked up to witness his and Nick's arrival, their positions, directly across from one another, suggested a vigilant, watchful mistrust. They each had a beer in their hands—which Javier was not drinking in favor of holding the bottle to the side of his head. The other man—Monroe, Kevin supposed—sat with his shoulders slightly hunched, his overall posture seeming somewhat guilty.
And if the silence and tension between the two men—the two wesen—had been intense before, with the arrival of their Grimm counterparts it became almost overpowering.
Once he caught sight of his friend, it was Nick who finally broke it.
"Whoa, Monroe, are you okay? Your face–"
Monroe seemed almost confused by the concern, only belatedly lifting a hand to the damage on his face.
"What? No, I'm fine," he insisted. "This is... Well... I mean, it was just a little misunderstanding."
Though Kevin couldn't help but think that those wounds—four thin, parallel scratches across the plane of Monroe's left cheek—looked like a hell of a lot more than a simple misunderstanding. In fact, if pressed Kevin would have to say they looked an awful lot like claw-marks. He couldn't quite suppress the shiver that crept up his spine at the thought.
He could only hope that Javier hadn't noticed.
Kevin felt...trapped by the intense unease he found himself experiencing now that he was back in his partner's presence. And though he wouldn't have imagined it possible, once he managed to meet Javier's gaze, Kevin found himself hating it even more. His partner looked so wary and uncertain—though perhaps also just a little bit embarrassed, Kevin thought, as though he felt exposed. And Kevin tried to hold onto that, and to dismiss everything else he was feeling—just for the moment—from his mind. He tried to hold on and remind himself that he knew this man, and that the Javier he knew was his partner and his best friend, no matter what...
Perhaps it was in seeking out something familiar that Kevin's mind chose to latch on to one small—and admittedly rather random—detail.
"You got knocked out by Mr. Rogers?" he asked.
Because, really, for all the guy was sort of built like a lumberjack, Monroe was also wearing the same style of sweater vest that Kevin liked to wear on occasion—and which Javier chose to mock him for, mercilessly, on a fairly routine basis. And while Kevin knew for a fact that he pulled it off brilliantly every time, on a man of Monroe's height and build, the result was...slightly more incongruous, to say the least.
Kevin watched Javier dart a glance at Monroe, recognizing Kevin's meaning with a brief shock of surprise. At least for a second, anyway. Then he turned indignant.
"He's a blutbad," Javier defended sharply. "They're ruthless killers."
"Um, hello? Pot? Kettle?" Monroe objected. "You were the one who jumped me."
"I came looking for a Grimm and found a blutbad lurking on his doorstep," Javier said, turning his gaze toward Monroe. "What the hell was I supposed to think?"
There was, Kevin thought, remarkably little actual anger in either man's voice. But while the exchange was surprisingly civil in light of the circumstances, it was still far from friendly, and Kevin felt a creeping sliver of anxiety at the thought that their earlier...misunderstanding might still possibly reignite.
Fortunately, it didn't seem that Kevin was alone in his concern.
"Hey, Monroe, would you mind..." Nick asked, ending the question with a nod of his head toward the other room.
Only a brief, blank moment passed before the other man understood.
"Oh, yeah. Right. Sure."
Though perhaps Kevin hadn't been fully successful in interpreting Nick's intent, not completely. Because once Monroe had stepped out of the room Nick went to follow him.
And then Kevin and Javier were alone.
The silence that fell between them was by far the most uncomfortable Kevin had ever experienced, heavy with things still yet to be acknowledged. Kevin was at a loss for how he should break it, and almost afraid to even try. Javier appeared to mirror his uncertainty, eyes falling short of contact, as if unsure whether to meet his gaze or look away. And Kevin thought he almost looked like he wanted to bolt—which should have been absurd after following him all this way, but while Kevin's panic and his terror had done the work of driving him here, knowing what he did now, he felt almost certain that it was this moment that Javier had feared the most.
And Javier had come seeking it anyway.
Kevin took a deep breath, and it shook, but though his words were somewhat hesitant his voice was steady when he spoke.
"Javier, what... What are you doing here?" Kevin asked. "How did you even find me?"
"You took off from work scared out of your mind," Javier muttered quietly, hardly looking at him. "Excuse me for being a little concerned."
Which Kevin felt was perfectly fair, of course, even if it didn't quite answer his question. He didn't know what to say—caught between conflicting desires to either press for an answer or apologize, it seemed safer to say nothing at all. Instead he sat down, taking the seat opposite Javier that Monroe had just vacated. He couldn't quite make himself look at Javier, either, but he heard his partner sigh.
"Jenny told us where you were headed, so here I am," Javier said finally, wearily. "I really wish you'd stuck around, Kev. Castle and I were just waiting for you to calm down before trying to explain. I probably could have caught you at the airport before you left, but Castle thought cornering you like that would be a bad idea, so I grabbed the next flight I could after yours."
He paused a moment, a slight shift audible in his voice when he continued.
"It's just as well," Javier continued, almost sullenly. "Considering you took off without any notice, someone had to tell Captain Gates about your sudden 'family emergency'. So if you've still got a job when we get back, you know, you're welcome."
As Javier had finished up his grousing—though he really was genuinely upset if he was resorting to actual air quotes—Kevin couldn't help but let out a faint snort.
"Yeah, okay," he conceded weakly. "I get it. I'm a dumb-ass."
And, glancing at Javier, the smile his partner wore was just as faint, but it was there.
"I also brought you some clothes, since I'm guessing you didn't stop to pack before running off," Javier said. "Castle told me he'd book you a flight back. When you're ready."
Kevin's eyes stung just a little. It was such a relief that, even in the midst of all this, Javier and Castle still did have his back. That they really were on his side, even when they had every reason not to be. And maybe all wasn't yet forgiven—whether for secrets kept from him, or for the scare he had given both of them in running–
But it was definitely a start.
"So..." Kevin started, trying to hard to relax, and just a little desperate to keep the conversation from stalling. "Who else that I know is...wesen? I mean, Castle and Jenny, obviously. According to Burkhardt's books, Jenny's a...seelengut? But I didn't see what Castle looked like. What is he?"
Javier hesitated in answering, though only for a moment.
"Castle and his family are all fuchsbau," Javier told him. "That's like a fox. Oh...and Perlmutter. He's a todesrabe."
And, honestly, Kevin isn't sure why, after so many surprises about people much closer, the news about Perlmutter still managed to throw him just a little. Perhaps simply because the ME would never have otherwise crossed his mind. But he was saved from thinking too hard when Nick and his friend returned.
"I don't think I've encountered those before," Nick commented curiously, wordlessly offering Kevin a beer—which he accepted with an almost desperate gratitude.
Monroe seemed unsurprised by the inquiring glance the detective sent his way.
"Todesraben are crow-like wesen," he offered readily. "You can think of them as the more scrupulous competition in a geier's traditional niche–"
He paused briefly, tilting his head.
"Well, granted your definition of 'scrupulous' credits scavenging from the dead as a lesser evil to murder," Monroe stipulated, almost as an afterthought.
Most of that went over Kevin's head, but granted Perlmutter's profession, he still found the implications rather alarming.
"Javi, Perlmutter doesn't–"
"Only if they were organ-donors," Javier interrupted, answering the question a little uneasily. "And I'm pretty sure it's not whatever gross thing you're thinking."
There was a brief, but significant moment of rather awkward silence. Javier pulled a drink from his beer with a grimace. Honesty, though, Kevin wasn't even sure he knew what he was thinking, so he decided he was probably better off not thinking about it, for now. Resolving to ask later—preferably much later—Kevin did his best to put those questions out of his mind.
"And you're a...löwen?" Kevin asked, returning to the more immediate topic at hand.
Javier hummed softly, nodding, though Kevin noticed him hesitate briefly.
"Though, my mother is yaguaraté," he added after a moment, somewhat quietly, as if the detail were something significant.
And it seemed that, judging from Monroe's faint snort, apparently it was.
"Well I suppose that winning combination explains your lovable disposition," Monroe remarked—sarcastically, but also somewhat thoughtful.
Javier rolled his eyes, but didn't seem to take any real deep offense.
Kevin decided he wouldn't ask, not here, though he could recall all too easily the times when Javier had complained of inheriting his mother's temper. Kevin had met his partner's family, of course, more than once—Javier's mother and his sister, Theresa. Though Kevin had never personally had the misfortune to fall on their bad side, he had heard and seen enough to know that he absolutely never wanted to be.
Still, even with this in mind, it felt odd trying to fit them into the larger picture. By that same token, it was difficult to imagine Castle's mother Martha, and his daughter Alexis as a part of it as well. He had seen so much and had even more revealed to him in just the past two days, yet Kevin was starting to realize it was hardly more than a glimpse of what was really out there.
Kevin was lost for a moment for anything else to say.
"And are you, uh, wieder?" Kevin asked, finally.
Nick had used the word in describing Monroe's habits during their drive. Kevin winced a little as he stumbled over the term, almost positive he was pronouncing it wrong. And he wasn't sure he had understood it anyway...
Something about impulse control and...Pilates? Maybe it was a Portland thing.
Perhaps his confusion showed. Or perhaps something about the question itself was ridiculous in some way Kevin wasn't aware of. Or maybe it was simply the fact that it was Kevin asking it which was funny—it was difficult to tell, but Javier let out an amused snort. That earned him a warning glare from Monroe, which Javier did respect, albeit reluctantly, putting on a straight face that Kevin could tell was rather forced.
"I do what I can with my issues," Javier allowed diplomatically, "but just because I've got ways of handling myself doesn't make me...wieder. It's just the way my sister and I were raised."
"But you clearly have a thing," Monroe pointed out, somewhat insistently.
Javier let out an irritated breath, though he hitched a half shrug.
"I just try to keep myself focused," he said slowly. "I choose something in my life and I just...give as much of myself to it as I can. Sports in high school, then the military. These days it's the badge."
Though for some reason Kevin couldn't quite place, his partner's words felt like half-truths, and Javier's vague discomfort with the topic had him reluctant to pursue it any further. Filing it away, Kevin resolved from there to change the subject.
It was really just one more thing he would have to ask his partner about later.
Javier had been subjected to his fair share of surreal moments in his life—more than his share, he would have said, if anyone had bothered to ask. In recent years, the vast majority of those moments could be blamed rather squarely on his association with Richard Castle—the writer was like a magnet for weird, seriously. But if Javier was going to be perfectly honest when it came to the degree off offense, even the strangest situations that the fuchsbau could arguably be held responsible for barely held a candle to the things Kevin had put him through.
The real problem with Kevin, Javier had long ago decided, was that the weirdness had a tendency to creep up and catch you off guard. Everything you did for him seemed perfectly rational up until the moment where it suddenly wasn't—and if you were Javier, that moment was generally rather devastating.
Castle had once claimed that it was really only Javier who had such a hard time seeing this, and that the reason he never seemed to notice what he was getting into was how tightly he was wrapped around his partner's finger. Of course, Castle being Castle, he had made the questionable choice of offering this observation the night that Kevin had left on his honeymoon with Jenny. They had been about half a bottle into his efforts to dull the pain, and Javier had literally snarled at him—the writer had wisely never brought it up again.
The previous winner for the most bizarre moment in his life had, quite naturally, been Kevin's wedding. Though Javier had cursed both himself and his partner on several occasions leading up to it, it hadn't been until the wedding itself that he had seriously started to wonder at exactly which point he had actually lost his mind. As the sole löwen groomsman amongst a wedding party full of terrified seelenguter—holding his peace while the man he had fallen for married someone else—insanity had seemed like the only possible explanation.
(Miraculously, the wedding itself had gone off without a hitch, though he was fairly sure the best man—Jenny's weedy half-brother—had nearly fainted.)
And that masterpiece of misery had only just been supplanted a few months ago by the events surrounding Kevin's divorce. That it had happened at all had been disarming enough—so suddenly, and initially without explanation. His initial shock—and his anger toward Jenny—had driven him to press for that explanation, and Javier doubted that anything could have prepared him for the answers he found.
Kevin Ryan—his partner, his closest friend, the man Javier had been pining over uselessly for years—was descended from Grimms.
It had seemed so laughable at first—literally, if Javier hadn't been so furious he might have laughed in Jenny's face. After that had come disbelief—not just at Jenny's discovery, but for how she had acted upon it. She had broken Kevin's heart, and to this day there were times when Javier just couldn't quite believe it—even now, having seen the truth of it himself, it still didn't seem quite real.
And Javier wasn't entirely sure whether he should count his current circumstances separately, or as a continuation of what had come before, though the distinction probably didn't matter...
When it came to the strangest moments of Javier's life, Kevin was definitely the reigning instigator, and still champion.
It really was sort of funny, he supposed, how it had made sense at the time, coming all this way. Yet now that he was here the chain of events barely sounded sane, even to him. Javier half can't believe he actually did it, but here he is. On the opposite side of the country. Sitting—brooding—in a Grimm's livingroom. Drinking a Grimm's beer while the Grimm and his partner talked Grimm things in the next room.
Seriously, his life anymore. Just...how?
Of course, the fidgeting blutbad in the sweater vest that kept shooting him looks of pity really wasn't helping much either.
"So," Monroe ventured cautiously, after what was clearly too long a silence for his peace of mind. "Löwen and yaguaraté. That must have been rough growing up."
Javier threw him a sharp glare, but Monroe was quick to raise his hands in defense before he had the chance for anything else.
"Hey, trust me, I'm not trying to make light," Monroe said hurriedly. "It's just– I got married recently, and my wife...she's a fuchsbau, and the whole grundfalsch thing has totally turned out to be a much bigger deal than I maybe thought it was when I proposed. So, I don't know. I'm rambling. Sorry. I just—I thought you might have a bit of perspective on that."
It was offered conversationally enough, but there was a faint note of tension in Monroe's voice. Based on his own experiences, Javier had a feeling that "big deal" was probably a gross understatement. In fact, now that Javier thought of it, hadn't he seen something in the news a while back about PD in Oregon taking down some murder cult? He remembered thinking, even then, that some of the details the story described had smelled suspiciously like the Wesenrein...
A cop and a Grimm whose blutbad buddy had married outside of his kind—you didn't even need to be a detective to put those pieces together. Even if Burkhardt hadn't already earned a grudging respect for the help being offered his partner, that story alone might have forced Javier to like him just a little bit.
Well, if a Grimm could be charitable then so could he.
"Yeah," Javier acknowledged quietly. "Yeah. It wasn't always easy."
"I mean...I'm guessing you weren't exactly part of the pride?" Monroe pressed.
Javier shook his head, quiet a moment before he answered.
"No, I wasn't," Javier said. "I mean, my sister and I grew up with some of our father's traditions, but it was always just on our own."
He had wanted to be, when he was a kid though. He had wanted so badly to feel like he belonged...
Now that he was older Javier not only saw his father's wisdom in keeping him and his sister out of it, he was grateful. The comparison was overused, but New York really could be a jungle sometimes, and that held especially true for wesen. Perhaps his experiences weren't typical, but Javier could remember too few times in his past that wesen who socialized in traditional groups had shown him anything but ugliness.
"But we stuck it all out together," Javier said, finally. "In the end it doesn't matter who your family is—it's having them stand beside you that really matters."
There was certainly a lot more that Javier could have said on the subject, but he honestly wasn't in a sharing kind of mood. He had spent the past several hours experiencing all the various shades and flavors of panic out of concern for his partner—prodding those old childhood scars to see if they still hurt was the last thing Javier needed.
"Anyway," Javier deflected, offering Monroe a faint smile, "I've seen much stranger matches than a blutbad and a fuchsbau."
In spite of the brief and stilted nature of their earlier conversation—the one that had taken place after Javier had regained consciousness—he had Monroe pegged as the morbidly curious type. He wasn't disappointed.
"Oh?"
And maybe it was a little personal sharing the details of Kevin's past love-life, but after the trouble he'd been put through Javier felt his partner owed him into next week...at least.
He could always blame it on his head-injury if he felt any regrets.
"Kevin's ex-wife, Jenny, is a seelengut."
"Really?" Monroe remarked, with undisguised interest. Though his surprised expression drooped into a slight frown. "His ex-wife, though? That sounds a little...not optimistic."
Javier winced slightly, because he supposed that was fair.
"She served him with papers once she found out about his...family history," Javier explained. "I mean, it kind of scared the crap out of her, to the point where she couldn't even look him in the eye. Which is kind of a shame, because before that they were...sort of perfect."
And didn't it just make Javier the pettiest man alive that—even now, after it had all fallen apart—saying so still felt sour on his tongue.
"Now that Kevin knows, maybe there's a chance she can get over it," Javier said—though this was possibly an attempt at justifying his own bitterness to himself. "Maybe they can find a way to make it work..."
"But?" Monroe interrupted quietly. And that frown of his had only gotten deeper. "You...don't actually sound all too happy about that."
And Javier chose to blame it on the fact that he was so very, very tired, but he barely managed to keep it from showing on his face—in every sense of the word, though he briefly felt claws pricking at the flesh of his clenched fists. Yet something else in his posture or scent must have given him away, because Monroe's eyes widened slightly.
"Oh," Monroe managed, faintly. Then, "Oh. Really?"
Which Javier chose not to dignify with an immediate response—though apparently Castle was right if he really was that transparent.
"If they want to try and pick up the pieces—there's no way in hell I'm getting in the way of that," Javier finally told him, tiredly, "but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't love a second chance. I gave Jenny a free pass the first time around because I thought she was what he needed, and she threw that away. She was the one who wound up breaking his heart, and Kevin–"
And Kevin obviously wasn't as fragile as Javier had once thought.
"Man, you really have got it bad," Monroe said. "If this is what comes of a kinder and gentler generation of Grimms, then may God have mercy on us all."
And as much as Javier might have liked to take offense he couldn't help but laugh.
"So," Javier asked after a moment, determined to sate his own curiosity, "Kev and I met through work, but you said you were a clockmaker—just how the hell did all this happen?"
All this was accompanied by a rather vague gesture, but Monroe seemed to understand nonetheless.
"Unsurprisingly, it went down a bit like our introduction," Monroe said after a moment. "During his first case after he came into his heritage, there was a little...well, let's call it 'racial profiling' that happened. Then later that night I caught him snooping in my back yard and tackled him through a window."
Javier let out a snort. Maybe Kevin was fooled, but having gone up against Monroe himself head-to-head...yeah, he could picture it.
"I was sort of first-contact for Nick as far as wesen were concerned," Monroe continued. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't what he was expecting, but then the feeling was totally mutual. When we first met, Nick was more like a confused puppy than the monster I grew up hearing about in stories..."
"You felt sorry for him," Javier guessed.
"Well yeah, a little bit," Monroe admitted with a tilt of his head. "But I guess I was also, I dunno, curious? And when I talked, he listened to what I had to say..."
Monroe trailed off, clearly remembering, dismissing it after a moment with a shake of his head.
"One day he accuses me of kidnapping a little girl," Monroe said, voice fogged somewhat with lingering disbelief, "the next he asks me to watch over his dying aunt."
"Huh," Javier managed—because yeah, he could see how that could throw you.
"His aunt was Marie Kessler," Monroe added.
"Wait, are you kidding me?"
"Not even a little bit."
Because Javier had heard of Marie Kessler, of course, and news of her passing had spread through the entire wesen world. There had even been some faint murmurings that another of her line had taken up the gauntlet, but then of course there would be—a legacy as terrifying as hers would hardly die an easy death. But with little more to go on in the way of hard details, they were still only rumors. Javier would never have imagined the unconventional Grimm whispered about in gossip from out West could possibly have been the same man...
A man to whose house Javier had shown up, uninvited, and started a fight with someone who was clearly a very close friend–
Honestly, Nick Burkhardt seemed like a decent enough guy, but right now Javier really felt lucky just to have his head.
"Wow, so, uh, what finally got her?" Javier asked—which may not have been strictly appropriate, but Castle would probably never forgive him if he didn't ask.
"Cancer," Monroe answered, a touch incredulously.
Javier could hardly blame him. It wasn't often you heard about a Grimm meeting their end that way. Most were said to live very violent lives, even the longest of which normally had a very abrupt and gruesome end. The simple fact that Marie Kessler had lived long enough for something like that to take her down in her old age said everything about her that any wesen needed to know.
(And it really wasn't a subject Javier wanted to think about, but he realized with a start that it was something he would more than likely be forced to confront—and probably soon. For Kevin's sake and for his own they would both need to be ready...)
Javier was almost grateful when Monroe chose to interrupt his thoughts.
"So, what happens next for you guys?" Monroe asked cautiously. "I mean when you get back to New York and everything."
There were a lot of ways Javier might have chosen to answer the question, he supposed, though a few of them skirted uncomfortably close to the concerns he had only just managed to set aside.
"Whatever has to," Javier told him finally, decisively—as if the answer were honestly that simple. "I mean—I made friends with a seelengut."
Javier almost enjoyed Monroe's wince of sympathy.
"Which is arguably a little crazy," he admitted quietly, "but I did it for Kevin—because Kevin is my best friend and he means the world to me. That hasn't really changed. So...so what if my best friend is now a Grimm? Maybe it won't ever be exactly the same as it was, but...there will be a way to make things work. There always is."
It probably wasn't the strongest argument Javier could have managed. Still, the blutbad seemed somewhat impressed.
"Well. Good," Monroe said with a nod. "But let me tell you, it's not going to be easy..."
Chapter Six: An Interlude
Author's Note: Because: a. Honestly, how could Perlmutter not be wesen?and b. Where's the fun in even writing for this fandom if you don't invent a new wesen at some point?
Though Javier obviously isn't the sort of löwen who goes around eliminating his competition, I couldn't in a million years imagine him identifying as wieder.
Considering that we've barely heard it mentioned since season one, my head-canon is that the whole wieder lifestyle as presented really is just a Portland thing. Or possibly even just a Monroe thing.
Series: Grimm Reflections
Fandoms: Castle, Grimm
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fantasy, Angst, Romance, Humor
Details: Slash, crossover, AU, genre!crack, fairytales, mythical creatures, unbetad.
Characters/Pairings: Castle―Javier Esposito/Kevin Ryan, Richard Castle, Jenny O'Malley. Grimm―Nick Burkhardt, Hank Griffin, Monroe, Drew Wu.
Wordcount: 1,888
Summary: A close call on the job exposes Kevin Ryan to a hidden world that has always existed just out of sight―and leaves him viewing the people closest to him in a whole new light...
Notes: Follows Until Lambs Become Lions.
Chapter Five: The Wolf
Earlier...The phone was ringing, and Monroe was doing his damnedest not to panic.
He was actually doing a much better job, he thought, than he once would have guessed was possible. Of course the larger part of that was probably due to the spectacularly high bar his recent life had established for justifying panic. As screwed up situations went this didn't even merit over a five on the scale as he had been forced to adjust it since becoming friends with Nick Burkhardt. Compared to ancient volcanic demons, rampaging zombies and kidnapping this was hardly even a crisis. In fact it was really, probably—hopefully—just an unfortunate misunderstanding, at best.
He just had to remain calm. Calm was Step One. Step Two was communicating the information about the situation to Nick.
And if the call went well, Step Three would probably involve raiding Nick's fridge while he waited for the man to show. It was probably a vain hope that he would find some club soda in there, but Monroe liked this sweater, and if it was at all possible he would really prefer to get the blood out of it before it stained...
As wound up as he was, he nearly missed the sound of the call being answered.
"Burkhardt."
"Ah, Nick," Monroe stumbled briefly, momentarily at a loss for how to address the situation. "We've got...a bit of a problem..."
And, really, Monroe wouldn't have traded Nick's friendship for the world, but there were times he honestly missed having fewer conversations that started out like this.
"What kind of problem?" Nick asked, concern understandably creeping into his voice.
"Oh, you know," Monroe offered briskly, "just a cop-unconscious-on-your-livingroom-floor kind of problem."
The strained tone of cheeriness that crept into his voice was something he in no way felt, but at this point it might have been the only thing that could tame some of the tension that was still jarring through him. Nick seemed momentarily dumbstruck, and Monroe could hardly blame him—though he was more than happy to use it to his advantage, taking a deep breath before plowing ahead.
"Look, I seriously didn't know," he established quickly. "Rosalee asked me to drop off those books Juliette wanted to borrow, and when I got here there was this guy waiting for you. Only he was wesen and he had a ridiculous mad on and, well... Things kind of got crazily out of hand? Of course, once that was handled, I found his badge, and I thought maybe it was some kind of misunderstanding?"
"You did say unconscious, not dead, right?" Nick asked him.
Monroe spared a quick glance to the man in question. Fortunately, from the rise and fall of his chest it didn't look like the answer to that question had changed.
"Well, yeah," Monroe said. "I mean... Unconscious is what makes it a misunderstanding, but I'm pretty sure dead would upgrade this to a crisis."
Monroe paused briefly, running a hand over his face as he took in another breath.
"Look, just...tell me what I need to do."
For a moment Nick was quiet. Oddly, when he finally spoke, his voice sounded almost pained.
"Quick question," Nick asked him slowly. "You said you saw his badge...is this guy NYPD?"
Monroe frowned. The detail was so very specific that for a moment he wondered if it really was possible that the universe was playing some kind of joke on him.
"Uh...yeah... How did you know?"
. o . O . o .
After the call, Nick had explained as much of the situation as he could on their way out the door. Hank had made the calculated decision to head back to the station—because someone had to hold down the fort, and it was looking less and less likely that Nick would be getting back to work any time soon.
When they stepped through the door into Nick's home, Kevin wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it definitely wasn't what he found.
It was quiet, for one—almost deathly quiet, and Kevin was forced to shove the implications the word carried with it swiftly to the back of his mind—but the tension in the air was palpable even before the others came into view. They were seated in the living room, and though both men had looked up to witness his and Nick's arrival, their positions, directly across from one another, suggested a vigilant, watchful mistrust. They each had a beer in their hands—which Javier was not drinking in favor of holding the bottle to the side of his head. The other man—Monroe, Kevin supposed—sat with his shoulders slightly hunched, his overall posture seeming somewhat guilty.
And if the silence and tension between the two men—the two wesen—had been intense before, with the arrival of their Grimm counterparts it became almost overpowering.
Once he caught sight of his friend, it was Nick who finally broke it.
"Whoa, Monroe, are you okay? Your face–"
Monroe seemed almost confused by the concern, only belatedly lifting a hand to the damage on his face.
"What? No, I'm fine," he insisted. "This is... Well... I mean, it was just a little misunderstanding."
Though Kevin couldn't help but think that those wounds—four thin, parallel scratches across the plane of Monroe's left cheek—looked like a hell of a lot more than a simple misunderstanding. In fact, if pressed Kevin would have to say they looked an awful lot like claw-marks. He couldn't quite suppress the shiver that crept up his spine at the thought.
He could only hope that Javier hadn't noticed.
Kevin felt...trapped by the intense unease he found himself experiencing now that he was back in his partner's presence. And though he wouldn't have imagined it possible, once he managed to meet Javier's gaze, Kevin found himself hating it even more. His partner looked so wary and uncertain—though perhaps also just a little bit embarrassed, Kevin thought, as though he felt exposed. And Kevin tried to hold onto that, and to dismiss everything else he was feeling—just for the moment—from his mind. He tried to hold on and remind himself that he knew this man, and that the Javier he knew was his partner and his best friend, no matter what...
Perhaps it was in seeking out something familiar that Kevin's mind chose to latch on to one small—and admittedly rather random—detail.
"You got knocked out by Mr. Rogers?" he asked.
Because, really, for all the guy was sort of built like a lumberjack, Monroe was also wearing the same style of sweater vest that Kevin liked to wear on occasion—and which Javier chose to mock him for, mercilessly, on a fairly routine basis. And while Kevin knew for a fact that he pulled it off brilliantly every time, on a man of Monroe's height and build, the result was...slightly more incongruous, to say the least.
Kevin watched Javier dart a glance at Monroe, recognizing Kevin's meaning with a brief shock of surprise. At least for a second, anyway. Then he turned indignant.
"He's a blutbad," Javier defended sharply. "They're ruthless killers."
"Um, hello? Pot? Kettle?" Monroe objected. "You were the one who jumped me."
"I came looking for a Grimm and found a blutbad lurking on his doorstep," Javier said, turning his gaze toward Monroe. "What the hell was I supposed to think?"
There was, Kevin thought, remarkably little actual anger in either man's voice. But while the exchange was surprisingly civil in light of the circumstances, it was still far from friendly, and Kevin felt a creeping sliver of anxiety at the thought that their earlier...misunderstanding might still possibly reignite.
Fortunately, it didn't seem that Kevin was alone in his concern.
"Hey, Monroe, would you mind..." Nick asked, ending the question with a nod of his head toward the other room.
Only a brief, blank moment passed before the other man understood.
"Oh, yeah. Right. Sure."
Though perhaps Kevin hadn't been fully successful in interpreting Nick's intent, not completely. Because once Monroe had stepped out of the room Nick went to follow him.
And then Kevin and Javier were alone.
The silence that fell between them was by far the most uncomfortable Kevin had ever experienced, heavy with things still yet to be acknowledged. Kevin was at a loss for how he should break it, and almost afraid to even try. Javier appeared to mirror his uncertainty, eyes falling short of contact, as if unsure whether to meet his gaze or look away. And Kevin thought he almost looked like he wanted to bolt—which should have been absurd after following him all this way, but while Kevin's panic and his terror had done the work of driving him here, knowing what he did now, he felt almost certain that it was this moment that Javier had feared the most.
And Javier had come seeking it anyway.
Kevin took a deep breath, and it shook, but though his words were somewhat hesitant his voice was steady when he spoke.
"Javier, what... What are you doing here?" Kevin asked. "How did you even find me?"
"You took off from work scared out of your mind," Javier muttered quietly, hardly looking at him. "Excuse me for being a little concerned."
Which Kevin felt was perfectly fair, of course, even if it didn't quite answer his question. He didn't know what to say—caught between conflicting desires to either press for an answer or apologize, it seemed safer to say nothing at all. Instead he sat down, taking the seat opposite Javier that Monroe had just vacated. He couldn't quite make himself look at Javier, either, but he heard his partner sigh.
"Jenny told us where you were headed, so here I am," Javier said finally, wearily. "I really wish you'd stuck around, Kev. Castle and I were just waiting for you to calm down before trying to explain. I probably could have caught you at the airport before you left, but Castle thought cornering you like that would be a bad idea, so I grabbed the next flight I could after yours."
He paused a moment, a slight shift audible in his voice when he continued.
"It's just as well," Javier continued, almost sullenly. "Considering you took off without any notice, someone had to tell Captain Gates about your sudden 'family emergency'. So if you've still got a job when we get back, you know, you're welcome."
As Javier had finished up his grousing—though he really was genuinely upset if he was resorting to actual air quotes—Kevin couldn't help but let out a faint snort.
"Yeah, okay," he conceded weakly. "I get it. I'm a dumb-ass."
And, glancing at Javier, the smile his partner wore was just as faint, but it was there.
"I also brought you some clothes, since I'm guessing you didn't stop to pack before running off," Javier said. "Castle told me he'd book you a flight back. When you're ready."
Kevin's eyes stung just a little. It was such a relief that, even in the midst of all this, Javier and Castle still did have his back. That they really were on his side, even when they had every reason not to be. And maybe all wasn't yet forgiven—whether for secrets kept from him, or for the scare he had given both of them in running–
But it was definitely a start.
"So..." Kevin started, trying to hard to relax, and just a little desperate to keep the conversation from stalling. "Who else that I know is...wesen? I mean, Castle and Jenny, obviously. According to Burkhardt's books, Jenny's a...seelengut? But I didn't see what Castle looked like. What is he?"
Javier hesitated in answering, though only for a moment.
"Castle and his family are all fuchsbau," Javier told him. "That's like a fox. Oh...and Perlmutter. He's a todesrabe."
And, honestly, Kevin isn't sure why, after so many surprises about people much closer, the news about Perlmutter still managed to throw him just a little. Perhaps simply because the ME would never have otherwise crossed his mind. But he was saved from thinking too hard when Nick and his friend returned.
"I don't think I've encountered those before," Nick commented curiously, wordlessly offering Kevin a beer—which he accepted with an almost desperate gratitude.
Monroe seemed unsurprised by the inquiring glance the detective sent his way.
"Todesraben are crow-like wesen," he offered readily. "You can think of them as the more scrupulous competition in a geier's traditional niche–"
He paused briefly, tilting his head.
"Well, granted your definition of 'scrupulous' credits scavenging from the dead as a lesser evil to murder," Monroe stipulated, almost as an afterthought.
Most of that went over Kevin's head, but granted Perlmutter's profession, he still found the implications rather alarming.
"Javi, Perlmutter doesn't–"
"Only if they were organ-donors," Javier interrupted, answering the question a little uneasily. "And I'm pretty sure it's not whatever gross thing you're thinking."
There was a brief, but significant moment of rather awkward silence. Javier pulled a drink from his beer with a grimace. Honesty, though, Kevin wasn't even sure he knew what he was thinking, so he decided he was probably better off not thinking about it, for now. Resolving to ask later—preferably much later—Kevin did his best to put those questions out of his mind.
"And you're a...löwen?" Kevin asked, returning to the more immediate topic at hand.
Javier hummed softly, nodding, though Kevin noticed him hesitate briefly.
"Though, my mother is yaguaraté," he added after a moment, somewhat quietly, as if the detail were something significant.
And it seemed that, judging from Monroe's faint snort, apparently it was.
"Well I suppose that winning combination explains your lovable disposition," Monroe remarked—sarcastically, but also somewhat thoughtful.
Javier rolled his eyes, but didn't seem to take any real deep offense.
Kevin decided he wouldn't ask, not here, though he could recall all too easily the times when Javier had complained of inheriting his mother's temper. Kevin had met his partner's family, of course, more than once—Javier's mother and his sister, Theresa. Though Kevin had never personally had the misfortune to fall on their bad side, he had heard and seen enough to know that he absolutely never wanted to be.
Still, even with this in mind, it felt odd trying to fit them into the larger picture. By that same token, it was difficult to imagine Castle's mother Martha, and his daughter Alexis as a part of it as well. He had seen so much and had even more revealed to him in just the past two days, yet Kevin was starting to realize it was hardly more than a glimpse of what was really out there.
Kevin was lost for a moment for anything else to say.
"And are you, uh, wieder?" Kevin asked, finally.
Nick had used the word in describing Monroe's habits during their drive. Kevin winced a little as he stumbled over the term, almost positive he was pronouncing it wrong. And he wasn't sure he had understood it anyway...
Something about impulse control and...Pilates? Maybe it was a Portland thing.
Perhaps his confusion showed. Or perhaps something about the question itself was ridiculous in some way Kevin wasn't aware of. Or maybe it was simply the fact that it was Kevin asking it which was funny—it was difficult to tell, but Javier let out an amused snort. That earned him a warning glare from Monroe, which Javier did respect, albeit reluctantly, putting on a straight face that Kevin could tell was rather forced.
"I do what I can with my issues," Javier allowed diplomatically, "but just because I've got ways of handling myself doesn't make me...wieder. It's just the way my sister and I were raised."
"But you clearly have a thing," Monroe pointed out, somewhat insistently.
Javier let out an irritated breath, though he hitched a half shrug.
"I just try to keep myself focused," he said slowly. "I choose something in my life and I just...give as much of myself to it as I can. Sports in high school, then the military. These days it's the badge."
Though for some reason Kevin couldn't quite place, his partner's words felt like half-truths, and Javier's vague discomfort with the topic had him reluctant to pursue it any further. Filing it away, Kevin resolved from there to change the subject.
It was really just one more thing he would have to ask his partner about later.
. o . O . o .
Javier had been subjected to his fair share of surreal moments in his life—more than his share, he would have said, if anyone had bothered to ask. In recent years, the vast majority of those moments could be blamed rather squarely on his association with Richard Castle—the writer was like a magnet for weird, seriously. But if Javier was going to be perfectly honest when it came to the degree off offense, even the strangest situations that the fuchsbau could arguably be held responsible for barely held a candle to the things Kevin had put him through.
The real problem with Kevin, Javier had long ago decided, was that the weirdness had a tendency to creep up and catch you off guard. Everything you did for him seemed perfectly rational up until the moment where it suddenly wasn't—and if you were Javier, that moment was generally rather devastating.
Castle had once claimed that it was really only Javier who had such a hard time seeing this, and that the reason he never seemed to notice what he was getting into was how tightly he was wrapped around his partner's finger. Of course, Castle being Castle, he had made the questionable choice of offering this observation the night that Kevin had left on his honeymoon with Jenny. They had been about half a bottle into his efforts to dull the pain, and Javier had literally snarled at him—the writer had wisely never brought it up again.
The previous winner for the most bizarre moment in his life had, quite naturally, been Kevin's wedding. Though Javier had cursed both himself and his partner on several occasions leading up to it, it hadn't been until the wedding itself that he had seriously started to wonder at exactly which point he had actually lost his mind. As the sole löwen groomsman amongst a wedding party full of terrified seelenguter—holding his peace while the man he had fallen for married someone else—insanity had seemed like the only possible explanation.
(Miraculously, the wedding itself had gone off without a hitch, though he was fairly sure the best man—Jenny's weedy half-brother—had nearly fainted.)
And that masterpiece of misery had only just been supplanted a few months ago by the events surrounding Kevin's divorce. That it had happened at all had been disarming enough—so suddenly, and initially without explanation. His initial shock—and his anger toward Jenny—had driven him to press for that explanation, and Javier doubted that anything could have prepared him for the answers he found.
Kevin Ryan—his partner, his closest friend, the man Javier had been pining over uselessly for years—was descended from Grimms.
It had seemed so laughable at first—literally, if Javier hadn't been so furious he might have laughed in Jenny's face. After that had come disbelief—not just at Jenny's discovery, but for how she had acted upon it. She had broken Kevin's heart, and to this day there were times when Javier just couldn't quite believe it—even now, having seen the truth of it himself, it still didn't seem quite real.
And Javier wasn't entirely sure whether he should count his current circumstances separately, or as a continuation of what had come before, though the distinction probably didn't matter...
When it came to the strangest moments of Javier's life, Kevin was definitely the reigning instigator, and still champion.
It really was sort of funny, he supposed, how it had made sense at the time, coming all this way. Yet now that he was here the chain of events barely sounded sane, even to him. Javier half can't believe he actually did it, but here he is. On the opposite side of the country. Sitting—brooding—in a Grimm's livingroom. Drinking a Grimm's beer while the Grimm and his partner talked Grimm things in the next room.
Seriously, his life anymore. Just...how?
Of course, the fidgeting blutbad in the sweater vest that kept shooting him looks of pity really wasn't helping much either.
"So," Monroe ventured cautiously, after what was clearly too long a silence for his peace of mind. "Löwen and yaguaraté. That must have been rough growing up."
Javier threw him a sharp glare, but Monroe was quick to raise his hands in defense before he had the chance for anything else.
"Hey, trust me, I'm not trying to make light," Monroe said hurriedly. "It's just– I got married recently, and my wife...she's a fuchsbau, and the whole grundfalsch thing has totally turned out to be a much bigger deal than I maybe thought it was when I proposed. So, I don't know. I'm rambling. Sorry. I just—I thought you might have a bit of perspective on that."
It was offered conversationally enough, but there was a faint note of tension in Monroe's voice. Based on his own experiences, Javier had a feeling that "big deal" was probably a gross understatement. In fact, now that Javier thought of it, hadn't he seen something in the news a while back about PD in Oregon taking down some murder cult? He remembered thinking, even then, that some of the details the story described had smelled suspiciously like the Wesenrein...
A cop and a Grimm whose blutbad buddy had married outside of his kind—you didn't even need to be a detective to put those pieces together. Even if Burkhardt hadn't already earned a grudging respect for the help being offered his partner, that story alone might have forced Javier to like him just a little bit.
Well, if a Grimm could be charitable then so could he.
"Yeah," Javier acknowledged quietly. "Yeah. It wasn't always easy."
"I mean...I'm guessing you weren't exactly part of the pride?" Monroe pressed.
Javier shook his head, quiet a moment before he answered.
"No, I wasn't," Javier said. "I mean, my sister and I grew up with some of our father's traditions, but it was always just on our own."
He had wanted to be, when he was a kid though. He had wanted so badly to feel like he belonged...
Now that he was older Javier not only saw his father's wisdom in keeping him and his sister out of it, he was grateful. The comparison was overused, but New York really could be a jungle sometimes, and that held especially true for wesen. Perhaps his experiences weren't typical, but Javier could remember too few times in his past that wesen who socialized in traditional groups had shown him anything but ugliness.
"But we stuck it all out together," Javier said, finally. "In the end it doesn't matter who your family is—it's having them stand beside you that really matters."
There was certainly a lot more that Javier could have said on the subject, but he honestly wasn't in a sharing kind of mood. He had spent the past several hours experiencing all the various shades and flavors of panic out of concern for his partner—prodding those old childhood scars to see if they still hurt was the last thing Javier needed.
"Anyway," Javier deflected, offering Monroe a faint smile, "I've seen much stranger matches than a blutbad and a fuchsbau."
In spite of the brief and stilted nature of their earlier conversation—the one that had taken place after Javier had regained consciousness—he had Monroe pegged as the morbidly curious type. He wasn't disappointed.
"Oh?"
And maybe it was a little personal sharing the details of Kevin's past love-life, but after the trouble he'd been put through Javier felt his partner owed him into next week...at least.
He could always blame it on his head-injury if he felt any regrets.
"Kevin's ex-wife, Jenny, is a seelengut."
"Really?" Monroe remarked, with undisguised interest. Though his surprised expression drooped into a slight frown. "His ex-wife, though? That sounds a little...not optimistic."
Javier winced slightly, because he supposed that was fair.
"She served him with papers once she found out about his...family history," Javier explained. "I mean, it kind of scared the crap out of her, to the point where she couldn't even look him in the eye. Which is kind of a shame, because before that they were...sort of perfect."
And didn't it just make Javier the pettiest man alive that—even now, after it had all fallen apart—saying so still felt sour on his tongue.
"Now that Kevin knows, maybe there's a chance she can get over it," Javier said—though this was possibly an attempt at justifying his own bitterness to himself. "Maybe they can find a way to make it work..."
"But?" Monroe interrupted quietly. And that frown of his had only gotten deeper. "You...don't actually sound all too happy about that."
And Javier chose to blame it on the fact that he was so very, very tired, but he barely managed to keep it from showing on his face—in every sense of the word, though he briefly felt claws pricking at the flesh of his clenched fists. Yet something else in his posture or scent must have given him away, because Monroe's eyes widened slightly.
"Oh," Monroe managed, faintly. Then, "Oh. Really?"
Which Javier chose not to dignify with an immediate response—though apparently Castle was right if he really was that transparent.
"If they want to try and pick up the pieces—there's no way in hell I'm getting in the way of that," Javier finally told him, tiredly, "but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't love a second chance. I gave Jenny a free pass the first time around because I thought she was what he needed, and she threw that away. She was the one who wound up breaking his heart, and Kevin–"
And Kevin obviously wasn't as fragile as Javier had once thought.
"Man, you really have got it bad," Monroe said. "If this is what comes of a kinder and gentler generation of Grimms, then may God have mercy on us all."
And as much as Javier might have liked to take offense he couldn't help but laugh.
"So," Javier asked after a moment, determined to sate his own curiosity, "Kev and I met through work, but you said you were a clockmaker—just how the hell did all this happen?"
All this was accompanied by a rather vague gesture, but Monroe seemed to understand nonetheless.
"Unsurprisingly, it went down a bit like our introduction," Monroe said after a moment. "During his first case after he came into his heritage, there was a little...well, let's call it 'racial profiling' that happened. Then later that night I caught him snooping in my back yard and tackled him through a window."
Javier let out a snort. Maybe Kevin was fooled, but having gone up against Monroe himself head-to-head...yeah, he could picture it.
"I was sort of first-contact for Nick as far as wesen were concerned," Monroe continued. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't what he was expecting, but then the feeling was totally mutual. When we first met, Nick was more like a confused puppy than the monster I grew up hearing about in stories..."
"You felt sorry for him," Javier guessed.
"Well yeah, a little bit," Monroe admitted with a tilt of his head. "But I guess I was also, I dunno, curious? And when I talked, he listened to what I had to say..."
Monroe trailed off, clearly remembering, dismissing it after a moment with a shake of his head.
"One day he accuses me of kidnapping a little girl," Monroe said, voice fogged somewhat with lingering disbelief, "the next he asks me to watch over his dying aunt."
"Huh," Javier managed—because yeah, he could see how that could throw you.
"His aunt was Marie Kessler," Monroe added.
"Wait, are you kidding me?"
"Not even a little bit."
Because Javier had heard of Marie Kessler, of course, and news of her passing had spread through the entire wesen world. There had even been some faint murmurings that another of her line had taken up the gauntlet, but then of course there would be—a legacy as terrifying as hers would hardly die an easy death. But with little more to go on in the way of hard details, they were still only rumors. Javier would never have imagined the unconventional Grimm whispered about in gossip from out West could possibly have been the same man...
A man to whose house Javier had shown up, uninvited, and started a fight with someone who was clearly a very close friend–
Honestly, Nick Burkhardt seemed like a decent enough guy, but right now Javier really felt lucky just to have his head.
"Wow, so, uh, what finally got her?" Javier asked—which may not have been strictly appropriate, but Castle would probably never forgive him if he didn't ask.
"Cancer," Monroe answered, a touch incredulously.
Javier could hardly blame him. It wasn't often you heard about a Grimm meeting their end that way. Most were said to live very violent lives, even the longest of which normally had a very abrupt and gruesome end. The simple fact that Marie Kessler had lived long enough for something like that to take her down in her old age said everything about her that any wesen needed to know.
(And it really wasn't a subject Javier wanted to think about, but he realized with a start that it was something he would more than likely be forced to confront—and probably soon. For Kevin's sake and for his own they would both need to be ready...)
Javier was almost grateful when Monroe chose to interrupt his thoughts.
"So, what happens next for you guys?" Monroe asked cautiously. "I mean when you get back to New York and everything."
There were a lot of ways Javier might have chosen to answer the question, he supposed, though a few of them skirted uncomfortably close to the concerns he had only just managed to set aside.
"Whatever has to," Javier told him finally, decisively—as if the answer were honestly that simple. "I mean—I made friends with a seelengut."
Javier almost enjoyed Monroe's wince of sympathy.
"Which is arguably a little crazy," he admitted quietly, "but I did it for Kevin—because Kevin is my best friend and he means the world to me. That hasn't really changed. So...so what if my best friend is now a Grimm? Maybe it won't ever be exactly the same as it was, but...there will be a way to make things work. There always is."
It probably wasn't the strongest argument Javier could have managed. Still, the blutbad seemed somewhat impressed.
"Well. Good," Monroe said with a nod. "But let me tell you, it's not going to be easy..."
Chapter Six: An Interlude
Author's Note: Because: a. Honestly, how could Perlmutter not be wesen?and b. Where's the fun in even writing for this fandom if you don't invent a new wesen at some point?
Though Javier obviously isn't the sort of löwen who goes around eliminating his competition, I couldn't in a million years imagine him identifying as wieder.
Considering that we've barely heard it mentioned since season one, my head-canon is that the whole wieder lifestyle as presented really is just a Portland thing. Or possibly even just a Monroe thing.