To Have and To Hold

by slyprentice

Promised into an arranged marriage since before he was born, Nick didn't have much hope for his future or his future happiness, but when his family moves back to Portland to begin the courtship process, his opinion about everything, including his future husband, begins to change. SLASH. Nick/Renard. Arranged Marriage AU.

Title: To Have and To Hold
Author: Prentice
Rating: Mature
Fandom: Grimm
Pairing: Nick Burkhardt/Sean Renard
Category: Alternate Universe l Arranged Marriage l Dark l Drama l Hurt/Comfort l Romance

Notes: This fic is based loosely on an arranged marriage prompt I saw a few months back. It doesn't follow every aspect of the prompt but I figured Valentines' Day was a good day to start posting it. I hope you all enjoy!

Warnings: I wanted to give fair warning to everyone: Nick is a teenager (16) through a good chunk of this story and will be in a developing relationship with an adult Renard. While there will be some hanky-panky (later) between them, nothing explicit will ever be posted on this site. This will also teeter on the edge of being a dark!fic so if you're sensitive to either aspect, I would turn away now.

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This is a gift it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
- Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) by Florence + the Machine

Prologue

The night the child was born, there was blood in the city. Great rivers of blood that flowed from the young Prince's fingertips, raining down on broken pavement and shining asphalt, the copper sweet smell of crimson and rain mixing in the drain pipes and filling up the gutters. It was a baptism by fire, a blood oath made real, and the young prince smiled in his viciousness even as he slaughtered his enemies.

It was only when the child cried, voice like a clarion call through time and space, did he pause, eyes closing and head tilting, listening to those soft sweet sounds of newborn life. It was a boy, his boy, and he could feel the threads of their destiny pulling them tight together, igniting something inside of him that he'd once thought lost and forgotten. Wasted away by time, and family, and cruelty.

By endless hours of training he would never be allowed to use. By a mother who didn't love him and a father who didn't want him. By a brother who wished only to hide him away from prying, curious eyes, and who'd taught him that the only people he could trust were those he'd forever tied to himself by blood or contract.

The child and his family were both to him. Bound in blood through the boy and signed contract through his parents. They were his to do with what he pleased, though he wished to do nothing more than protect and love the child that would one day be his in body, mind, and spirit.

For the parents, he would offer them what he could and give them the little respect they deserved for siring his future intended. He had no desire for the boy to have a childhood like his own, cold and sterile, with parents who wanted nothing more than to be rid of him. No, his beautiful child would have a loving home life for the short time he lived with his parents, and when the time came for the boy to join him, that would not change.

Smiling again, worse than before, his pale eyes darkened with an internal flame. This city would be his before the night was through and in the years to come he would wipe clean those who would oppose him and get it ready for the child who had been promised to him almost from the second he had been conceived. If only he didn't have to wait…

TBC