A/N: And we're back! Thank you all for your patience while I took a wee break. Here's a little smut and fluff and fixer-upper porn to brighten up your weekend.


"You're kidding," Adalind says, in that dry, scathing way he didn't even realize he missed until just this second. "You want to raise our daughter in a goddamn paint factory? Seriously?"

"Want is a strong term," Nick says, looking around at the bleak little loft apartment. The realtor had left them to explore on their own, probably figuring that a sales pitch would be wasted on the place. It's got good windows at least—blacked out windows, but still, once they're cleaned up, they'll be good—but the rest of the place is pretty dreary—industrial and spartan—perfect for hiding out from people who want to hurt them, not quite so ideal for a new baby unless your primary goal is hiding said baby.

"It'd be safe," Nick says, turning back to Adalind. "No one would find us here."

"You're damn right no one would find us here," Adalind says, both hands on her hips, glaring up at him with silver-blue eyes gone dark and stormy. "I bet they don't even deliver mail here."

"We'd have to get a P.O. Box."

"We'd have to get a tetanus shot and a site inspection. You just know this whole place is swimming in chromium six. Nick, I sue people for renting places like this."

Nick sighs. She's not wrong. This place has last resort written all over it. It's the place you retreat to when you're out of other options. It's the last chance corral.

"I don't know what to do," he says. "I don't know how to protect you—you or Diana. I don't love this place either, but it's isolated. It's safe from the outside."

Adalind's face softens—her hands slip off her hips and reach for his, lacing their fingers together, moving closer to him until he can feel her heat and her strength, rolling off of her in waves of comfort, letting his breath ease. He didn't even realize he was holding his breath, not until she took his hand.

"Nick," she says—gently now, so very gently— "It's not all on you, now. You have me. You have Hank and Monroe and Rosalee. You even have my mother on your side, what with the fairytale baby and picking up that brunch tab. That was her impressed bitch face, I could tell."

Nick laughs. Catherine had seemed pleased when they left her—like all her machinations for power were finally paying off.

"Your mother knows a power broker when she sees one. I bet she's already picked out a tiara."

"Picked out? Nick, my mother already has a collection. She's been ready to be the Queen mother for twenty years. I don't think she cares how we run Portland just so long as we are running it. She's going to be our biggest supporter."

"Because she wants power." That's a worry. People who want power rarely care where it comes from and who it hurts.

"No." Adalind soothes that worry with another squeeze of her hand. "She wants to sit next to power. My mother doesn't want to run anything—she could, you know. She could run circles around the Royal court and probably end up somewhere near the top. But that's not what she wants. She wants to be sitting pretty—next to the throne by right of blood and marriage—uncontested and unimpeachable. She doesn't want to hustle—she wants to be taken care of—and if we can do that, then she'll take care of us."

"That does sound better," Nick says. "How exactly is she going to take care of us?"

"Magic." Adalind grins. "Blood magic. She can hide us—me and Diana. Only a blood relation could."

"I don't have any of those." Nick's stomach turns over, thinking of his mom, thinking of Aunt Marie. He's been an orphan longer than he had parents, but it still stings.

"Yet," Adalind says, squeezing his hand again and pulling it to her belly, soft and warm under his hand. There's no bump there—Diana's no more than a dream and a promise at the moment—but still, what a dream. What a promise

"Yet," he agrees, sliding his hand further around her waist, pulling her in for a kiss that turns hard and wanting within seconds. His hands move to her hips, pulling her in closer, tighter, feeling her heat and her soft, round curves pressed up against him.

"Should we get started on that now?" His voice is a whisper in the empty loft space. If he speaks any louder, it would be real. It's only been three days—he's not sure if he's ready for it to be completely real—not just yet.

Adalind shakes her head between kisses.

"IUD," she says—kiss—"ritual ceremony"—kiss—"fucking paint factory."

She stops kissing him then, and just glares, like she only just remembered his proposal to move them into a potentially toxic safe house. He snorts and kisses her nose.

"All good points," he concedes, and then he grips her hips even tighter and spins her—hoisting her up on the built-in kitchen counter—the only available surface in the place—and trails open mouthed kisses down her neck.

"What are you doing?" Her tone sounds like she's going for stern shock, but it's undercut by the little moan she makes when he scrapes his teeth over the hickey on her neck.

"Fucking you in a paint factory," he says, moving lower.

"Oh." Her fingers are in his hair, pulling him in, pushing him where she wants him, and he nips at a nipple and keeps going, working his hands under her skirt, working his lips over her bare skin.

"Oh," Adalind says again—breathier now, less focused—"Okay."

Loving Adalind with his mouth is easy—delightful—the way she sparks under him—the way she melts—the way she tastes—tangy and spiced—hot and liquid—molten like the core of earth and gushing just a little. More than a little. She makes these sounds—sharp little cries that make something inside him coil even tighter—even harder—desperate for her and her cries and her crest, which comes all at once—leaving her wet and shaking, leaving him shaking, too, and ready to beg for her.

He doesn't have to beg. Adalind slides off the counter and spins him instead—pressing him to the hard edge that digs into the curve of his spine, but he doesn't care—doesn't even notice really—not when she's looking up at him with those silver bright eyes and taking him in her mouth. She's molten here, too—molten where her tongue swirls around his head and then she swallows, and he's gone, wrecked and wasted by her mouth and her eyes and her heart, shining bright in this shitty loft that could have happily been his home so long as it was with her.

They come back to reality slowly—kissing and swaying together like teenagers—free for a few moments from the weight of a destiny and a calling and a job that's chosen them just as much as they've chosen it.

"This place isn't so bad," Adalind says, sounding a little dazed in his arms.

"That's the orgasm talking," he tells her, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. "And you're right. We're not alone now. We have people who want to help. We have a plan to help everyone. We don't need a fortress. Not now."

She hums in agreement. "We're going to need an assembly space, really. Somewhere people can come together. Somewhere with heavy-duty protection and cloaking magic, but still welcoming to our community. We're going to need to show people what Switzerland could be like. We can't preach public safety from the private shadows—we have to be open and available if we want people to trust us."

Nick stares at her—struck again by how far out of his depth he is and how much none of this would be possible without Adalind at his side.

"How do you know these things?" His voice sounds just as star struck as he feels.

"Homeschooling," Adalind says with a grin.


They spend the rest of the day searching—looking at condos and apartments and small homes that would be fine for them and a baby but not much good for entertaining the whole community that they're trying to build. There's the budget to consider, too, even if Adalind does have a lawyer's worth of savings squirreled away for the down payment.

It's a commitment, buying property together. Nick knows he should be more concerned about that—about getting financially tied to Adalind three days into their new relationship. Even he and Juliette kept that stuff separate—it was her house and her mortgage and that was how she liked it—he just happened to live there. But that just means that he has enough saved from his own money and his parents' for half of the down payment and some repairs, too, if he and Adalind can ever find a place that suits their needs. And he wants that—he wants to come home to Adalind. He wants to own a home with Adalind.

"Maybe we should start small," he says. They're in Monroe's neighborhood, traveling to his house for the night—finally done looking for the day and both grateful to Monroe for the offer to stay in his guest room and avoid Adalind's cursed bed for another night.

"Maybe." Adalind sighs and shrugs. "Maybe Rosalee would let us run Switzerland stuff out of her back room at the shop in the meantime. We just wouldn't be able to protect it as well. She has a business to run—we couldn't be as selective about who's allowed in as we could be at our place."

Nick nods. He's not entirely sure what she's talking about when she talks about protection magic, but he has a pretty visceral interest in accommodating it.

"Is that a for sale sign?" Adalind sticks her head out the window to look as they drive past. "Nick, stop the car, there's a for sale sign."

Nick rolls his eyes but pulls over anyway. They've stopped at every for sale sign they've run across today—he doesn't have any hope that this one will be the home of their dreams, either—but he still follows her out into the street and down to the sign. The dark is creeping in—the sun is below the trees and the light is fading—and in that gathering dark the house stands like a ghost—white, pale and grim against a pink and purple sky.

It's a two story house—square and hulking—with a portico offering the slightest shelter over the shabby black front door. The paint is chipping badly—the siding needs some repairs and the windows all need new sills. There are two windows on either side of the door, all the way up, and another in the center, above the door. It's not exactly the House of Usher, but it looks stately enough—and haunted enough—to give Poe a whole host of nasty ideas.

"It's perfect," Adalind says—breathless—and Nick turns to her, open mouthed in shock.

"You're kidding," he says. "Adalind, it's a death trap. Probably literally. Someone definitely died in there."

Adalind waves a hand and starts marching closer, veering around the side of the house. "Like we don't deal with death all the time. Let's look at the back."

Nick has no interest in looking at the back, but he has even less interest in letting Adalind get killed by a haunted, dilapidated house, so he follows her around the corner. Old flower beds line the side—dark, dead earth with no flowers—and there's a porch on the back with a sagging roof overlooking a backyard with the largest oak tree Nick has ever seen sitting smack dab in the center.

"Now that is a magical tree," Adalind says—coos really—and Nick gets that horrible feeling again. That feeling that tells him he's about to give her whatever she wants, even if what she wants is a haunted house that might as well have the name "Money Pit" painted over the door.

She's on the porch next, peering in the windows and making frustrated noises when she can't see much besides her own face. The back door isn't solid wood like the front—it has paned glass in the top half—and before Nick can stop her, Adalind shatters the lowest pane by the doorknob with her elbow and reaches in to unlock the door.

"Shit," Nick says, "could you not do shit like that in front of me? I'm still a cop, you know."

"Of course, officer." Adalind grins and pulls him in through the back door. "You can totally handcuff me later."

Nick's brain shorts out then, thinking about handcuffs and Adalind and a headboard, maybe with slats or even bed posts, and then he's standing in the hall of the house which runs from the back door to the front, staring up at a grand staircase that's missing a few treads and more than a few banisters but still manages to convey something of its former gleaming majesty, even under what must be several inches of dust.

"You could make an entrance on those stairs," Adalind says. She sounds genuinely gleeful, and then she's off again, passing through one of the open arches at the end of the hall on either side of the front door.

There's a massive dining table inside, lined with old wood chair frames with ragged upholstery. It's all falling apart, but it doesn't smell damp, to Nick's relief. Whatever went wrong here, it doesn't seem to have affected the walls or the roof.

Adalind's already into the next room, through a swinging door on the back wall of the dining room, and Nick follows her into an ancient kitchen that looks like it's been untouched since the fifties—all formica counters and mustard yellow everything—the fridge, the counters, the stove.

"This is going to be the worst of it," Adalind says. "This and the bathrooms. Speaking of which, this floor needs a powder room."

Nick closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

"This floor needs an exorcist and a millionaire, Adalind. There's no way we can afford this."

"We'll see," she says, leading the way once again. "I've watched HGTV. Sometimes it can be cheap."

"Oh God," Nick says, following her back out to the hall and into another room on the other side of the house. "Just promise me no shiplap, please."

There are another two rooms on the first floor—front and back—parlor and den, Adalind says—and upstairs it's the same—two big bedrooms on one side and one bath squeezed between two smaller rooms on the other side of the hall. There's a rusted clawfoot tub in the bathroom, and Nick can already tell he's going to need to figure out how to get it refinished.

"This is it," Adalind says at the top of the stairs, glowing up at him in the twilight. They've made the full circuit—twice to see the tub—and Nick's not thrilled about having to risk the stairs again in the dark, but he knows what she means. If there's any way they can afford this house, then they're buying it. Even if it's haunted. Even if it's a money pit. Even if he has to re-enamel the damn tub himself. Any place with Adalind would be home, but this place?

This place already is.


A/N: Pour one out for the fome! Is it even a Grimm story if they don't have ill-advised sex in the fome? And also, the US housing market is absurd—the house buying and renovation process in this story is clearly a fantasy. Your mileage will vary.