The first week passed in routines.
That, Belfast quickly learned, was how Monroe survived.
Routines meant control. Control meant safety.
By day three, Belfast understood the schedule better than he understood his own thoughts.
Morning: coffee, precise temperature. Newspaper, front to back. Light classical music while Monroe catalogued clock repairs.
Midday: errands.
Evening: cooking. Always from scratch. Always paleo.
Belfast ran the errands without complaint.
Groceries from small local markets. Specialty meats from butchers who never quite looked him in the eye. Hardware store stops. A discreet trip to a spice shop Monroe insisted was "ethically sourced."
He carried everything. Paid when handed cash. Spoke politely. Kept his eyes open.
Portland breathed differently when you knew how to listen.
A flicker in a shop window reflection. A snarl disguised as a yawn. The faint ripple of woge suppressed too slowly.
Wesen were everywhere.
Most of them were just… living.
That surprised him more than anything.
He had expected danger around every corner.
Instead, he found a mail carrier who was clearly Eisbiber, obsessively organizing envelopes in her truck. A barista with unmistakable Fuchsbau eyes who flirted shamelessly with a human customer. A construction worker whose brief Löwen flare was triggered by stubbing his toe.
Normal.
Complicated.
Human.
He didn't pull a single card.
Not because he couldn't.
Because he was choosing not to.
In the afternoons, Monroe let him use the backyard.
"Preferably without summoning hellfire," Monroe had said dryly the first time.
"I don't have hellfire," Belfast replied.
"That you know of."
The yard was tidy, fenced, private enough.
Belfast trained hard.
Push-ups until his arms trembled. Sprint drills along the fence line. Balance work on the low retaining wall. Reaction exercises using tossed stones and falling leaves.
Grimm physiology adapted quickly. He could feel it already—the subtle strengthening of muscle density, the faster recovery. Scrapes faded within hours. Bruises barely lasted a day.
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
Literally.
But he didn't rely on that.
Between sets, he practiced control.
He would sit cross-legged in the grass, draw a blank black card from his pocket, and breathe.
The power answered like ink suspended in water.
He experimented carefully.
First: projection.
A thin rectangle of shimmering black would unfold in front of him—an empty two-dimensional plane, humming softly. Not activated. Just present.
Second: compression.
He would will it smaller, denser, until it snapped back into handheld form.
Third: release control.
He never released the Hundjäger.
But he would touch the word on the back of the card—Release—and hover at the threshold.
Inside, the Wesen's awareness brushed against him like a distant scream trapped behind glass.
It knew he was there.
He closed the channel every time.
No destabilizing.
No pain.
No experiments on sentient things.
He had agreed.
Instead, he tried something new.
He picked up a fallen maple leaf.
Focused.
The card flared faintly.
The leaf flattened midair—not violently, just gently—as if pressed between invisible pages. It settled onto the surface of the card, preserved in perfect detail.
Belfast studied it.
No consciousness.
No resistance.
He exhaled and reversed the process.
The leaf fluttered back into three-dimensional space and drifted to the ground.
Control.
That mattered.
Monroe watched from the kitchen window more often than he pretended to.
By day five, he stopped pretending altogether.
"You're not using it," Monroe observed one afternoon, leaning against the doorframe.
Belfast finished a set of pull-ups before dropping lightly to the grass.
"Using what?"
"The thing."
He gestured vaguely.
"The horror trading cards."
Belfast huffed quietly.
"Not unless I need to."
Monroe studied him.
"You could," he said. "There's enough trouble in this city."
"I know."
"And you're not."
"No."
Monroe crossed his arms.
"Why?"
Belfast grabbed a towel, wiping sweat from his face.
"Because power isn't the same as purpose."
Monroe blinked.
"That's… surprisingly thoughtful."
"I get that sometimes."
Monroe's gaze lingered, searching for cracks. Signs of obsession. Hunger.
Instead, he found discipline.
Belfast had started helping inside, too.
Cleaning without being asked. Learning how Monroe preferred ingredients stored. Fixing a loose hinge on the basement door. Even attempting to understand clock mechanisms—badly.
He listened more than he spoke.
He asked questions about Wesen culture instead of making assumptions.
He never once referred to any of it as "monsters."
By the end of the week, whispers began to circulate.
Not about him.
About something else.
Belfast heard it first at the butcher shop.
"Another one," the butcher muttered to a customer in low German. "Downtown. Human."
"Wesen?" the customer asked.
"Has to be."
Belfast kept his expression neutral.
Later, at a corner store, two Lausenschlange teenagers argued in hushed tones about someone "losing control" near the waterfront.
That night, while Monroe chopped vegetables with surgical precision, Belfast leaned against the counter.
"There's something moving," he said quietly.
Monroe didn't look up.
"I know."
"Rogue?"
"Probably."
They shared a brief glance.
Monroe's jaw tightened.
"This," he said carefully, "is where Grimms usually start making poor decisions."
"I'm not going out hunting randomly," Belfast replied.
"Good."
"I'll confirm first."
Monroe paused mid-chop.
"Confirm how?"
"Observation."
"And if it is rogue?"
Belfast held his gaze steadily.
"Then I stop it."
Monroe's eyes flickered gold for just a second.
"Kill it?"
"Only if I have to."
"And if you don't?"
Belfast's fingers brushed the edge of a blank card in his pocket.
"Then I won't."
Silence lingered between them.
"You're darker than you look," Monroe said finally.
"I know."
"But you're not unstable."
"No."
Monroe resumed chopping.
"That's… better than most Grimms."
Later that night, Belfast lay awake on the couch, staring at the ceiling.
He felt it sometimes—that pull.
The deck inside him.
The instinct to collect. To categorize. To contain threats before they fully formed.
It would be easy to justify it.
Preemptive protection.
Efficiency.
Control.
Instead, he breathed slowly and folded the power inward again, muting his Grimm presence until the house felt calm.
From down the hall, Monroe's breathing remained steady.
Trust wasn't built in declarations.
It was built in restraint.
And Belfast intended to prove, day by day, that whatever darkness lived in his blood—
It answered to him.
Not the other way around.