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Title: Surrender 6/7
Fandom: Grimm
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nick/Monroe
Summary: Just when Nick's life is changing, Monroe is attacked by a Grimm, mixing up their lives further.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5
Chapter 6
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The Grimm called Nick at 8:34 the next morning. Nick’s thumb flew to the green button on his cell as soon as he saw Monroe’s name on the caller ID. Taking advantage that Monroe was in the bathroom, he ran up the stairs into his room to minimize the chance that Monroe would overhear.
“Why the hell are you calling me?” he practically growled.
“I thought I’d hear you out before going after your pet again. Of course, this would entail you hearing me out as well, and not with your gun pointed at me.”
“Nothing you say is going to convince me to let you kill my friend.”
“You trust this blutbad an awful lot. Yet surely you can’t know everything about him. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to tell a Grimm that.”
“What?”
“Oh, now you want to know. Well, I’m not telling you over the phone, because you’ll just call me a liar and blah blah blah. I noticed you didn’t have backup when you showed up to save the blutbad two days ago, so I’m hoping you’ll be equally smart this time.”
“You want to meet up? And you expect me not to arrest you?”
She scoffed. Nick could practically see her shaking her head in disgust.
“Police Grimms used to be so much better than this. You’re an embarrassment.”
Fury spiked in Nick’s core, curling his free hand into a fist.
“I am doing my job.”
“You’re following rules like a little tin soldier when the rules don’t even fit the circumstances. What self-respecting Grimm would kill a Mellifer who’s trying to help you over a Hexenbiest who wants to harm you?”
Queasiness bubbled in Nick’s stomach. Of all the conflicts he’d had to deal with between his two jobs, this was the one that most made him doubt himself. He didn’t know if the impulse that pulled the trigger that day was born of the instinct his aunt told him to rely on or his police training, his false step in the quicksand that had once been reliable ground. Every time he saw a bee, he rubbed the patch of skin between his thumb and forefinger where that bee has stung him after the case. After 34 years of never being stung once, a bee showed up at his window to imprint its fury over his killing its queen in his flesh. Five more bees had stung him since then. It had gotten to the point where he couldn’t hear the tell-tale buzz without looking around everywhere like a frightened child.
“I’m doing the best I can with what I know,” he said.
“That’s my point. You don’t know much of anything.”
“Then stop insulting me and tell me already what is so important for me to know.”
“How about we make this simple and meet up at the park in front of your blutbad’s house? Now, I know you’re already mapping the place in your head for where you can set up your colleagues to take me down, but if the police take me, they will also take what I have on me. It’s all evidence, right? And that you really don’t want them to have.”
“I suppose now you’re going to terrify me into letting you go with this scary item.”
“They’re police files that could very easily land your friend in jail on multiple homicide charges.”
Nick’s pacing froze mid-step, right leg still bent behind him.
“You’re bluffing.”
“You’re finally paying attention. And no, I’m not bluffing. There was an eight year old girl in a little town in Washington State called Cashmere, a fourteen year old in Morton, another girl—“
“Fine, I’ll go,” Nick blurted out before she could continue listing more victims. He knew Monroe had killed people. He’d said so when they met, but that was before. He was reformed. Nick trusted him. His instincts told him to trust him and Aunt Marie had been very explicit about trusting his instincts, so it had never come up again. Monroe hadn’t mentioned it and Nick was certainly not going to. He didn’t want to think about Monroe being anything less than the disciplined, good natured blutbad he’d fallen in love with.
They arranged to meet in thirty minutes. Nick met Monroe in the kitchen, where he was making some coffee, which Nick had said he would make himself back before the phone rang, when Monroe was only his…Boyfriend? Partner? Lover? Some denomination that didn’t include murderer. And he still was. This woman was just trying to emotionally manipulate him.
“You were taking a while on the phone,” Monroe said over his shoulder, “so I just went ahead.”
“You heard the conversation?” Nick asked, tried his damndest not to reveal the panic rising in his throat at the thought that Monroe knew what they’d been talking about.
“No, just that you were talking to someone. I assumed you haven’t started hallucinating people. What’s wrong? You look ill.”
“The Grimm called me.”
Coffee spilled on the countertop as Monroe turned too quickly, fear widening his eyes.
“What did she want?” he asked, plopping the coffee pot back on the countertop.
“To meet me.”
“And you said ‘yes’?”
“If there’s any chance of catching her, I have to take it,” Nick said, feeling guilty for withholding the truth from Monroe, but he didn’t want to ask, as if she was making it up, there was no point asking at all. “In case she’s using it as a ruse for me to leave you alone so she can come after you, I can drop you off at a public place first. Maybe the library. Or the station. It’s probably safer there.”
Monroe shook his head. “There’s always creatures getting arrested who like to pick fights with blutbaden. Library’s better. I’ll just keep away from anyone who comes near me.”
“Alright.” Nick didn’t like a single thing about this, but what else was he to do?
Once they were at the library, before exiting the car, Nick grabbed Monroe and pulled him into a deep kiss, his mouth seeking to imprint upon Monroe how much he loved him and swearing to himself that he would not stop loving him, no matter what this woman showed him. Monroe responded in kind, but his eyes were soft with confusion when Nick forced himself to let go.
“Just come back to me, okay?” Monroe said when Nick walked him to the library entrance, taking no chances. “I doubt she’d hurt another Grimm, but don’t take chances.”
“I won’t.”
||||
He found her near the southern entrance of the park where he and Hank had first started searching for the little girl all those months ago. She had a satchel slung across her torso, but no visible weapons, though there were probably plenty of invisible ones just waiting for a cross word from him.
“You’re late,” she said. She stood at the centre of the main trail, hands in her jean pockets, terribly nonchalant as if they were only meeting up for a nice walk through the woods.
“Is that another flaw in my Grimm record?” Nick asked, keeping a defensive distance between them.
“I’m not evaluating you.”
“Yeah? Cause it damn well feels like it.”
“I was just wondering if a fifteen minute drive took forty because you were dropping off the blutbad somewhere safe in case this meeting was a ruse.” Nick’s surprise must have shown in his face, because she smiled in amusement. “Don’t look so startled. I haven’t been spying on you. It’s just what I would do.”
“But you were spying on him. For how long? Why did you wait until Tuesday to attack him?”
“I haven’t been watching him this whole month. I do have other things to do.”
“Like go on a creature killing spree.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t be a righteous moron. You’ve killed creatures, too..”
“Only when there was nothing else I could do.”
“All of those creatures had killed people.”
“Monroe said Keller was reformed.”
“Right. So reformed that he killed a teenage boy three months ago.”
Nick’s jaw tightened. She could be lying so easily.
“And who’s Monroe supposed to have killed? Where are those files you were so eager to show me?”
She shot him a pitying look.
“You still think I’m making it up, don’t you?”
He stiffened when she reached into her bag, his hand flying to his gun, ready to draw it if necessary, but she only took out the damn files she’d been harping on about. She held them out to him, a half inch thick stack of paper that could change his view of Monroe forever. Monroe had no record. No police files could have anything on him. But that wouldn’t make any victims less real. His hand was steady as he took the files, but his pulse was far from it. They looked legitimate. Four cases were spread out across three different departments, all in Washington State, where Monroe grew up. He didn’t recognize any of the names, but she was quick to correct his ignorance in one regard.
“Leavenworth is where he’s from,” she said. “The two oldest cases are from there. I think you can do the math.”
September 8th and November 29, 1982. Monroe would have been seventeen. Blutbaden adolescence was just as volatile as the human one, Monroe had told him once, only with more blood. He probably had no hope of controlling himself. The first case didn’t mention Monroe at all. The second, however, listed him as a person of interest.
“Person of interest doesn’t equal suspect,” Nick said.
“His family moved away in December. They didn’t bother selling their house nor getting another one before doing so, just fled as quickly as they could. That’s at least suspicious, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was.
“Look, I know what Monroe is. I know he wasn’t always reformed. But he is… now.”
His voice weakened at the last word when he stumbled upon the pictures, garish streaks of crimson and mangled body parts. The first showed only a severed hand, like that girl at the park. The second, a mangled girl’s body, her ribcage ripped open. Bile rose in his throat and he grew lightheaded as his mind rejected what he was seeing, barely managing to turn over the photograph to reveal a similar one, this one of the second girl.
“You haven’t proved to me yet that Monroe did this,” Nick said quickly, before his voice gave out.
“There’s more evidence than this. You just need to connect the dots. But I’m sure. Privilege of being a Grimm. You don’t need to follow protocol to get at the truth. Besides, you can just ask him. He’ll probably deny it, but you should be able to tell if he’s lying or not. Though I’m amazed you’re friends with him if you already know he killed people. You don’t seem like the type who would extend the same courtesy to human murderers.”
Nick shut the file. He couldn’t look at it anymore.
“He’s reformed,” he said.
“So was Keller. And he’s not the only reformed blutbad that slipped off his leash. Your Monroe went after a girl on Thursday.”
The files almost fell to the ground when his grip loosened.
“What are you talking about?”
“So trustworthy he didn’t even tell you that.”
All Monroe had said about the prelude to the attack was that he felt like going to the park, but his face had scrunched in the oddest way, his head turning the slightest bit away.
“I’ve only been back in town a few of days,” she continued. “That was the second time I saw him walking down the street. The first time that was all he did. This time, he wolfed out and followed a girl in red for over a block. He only stopped when a friend invited her into her house. The friend’s parents were there, too. Not ideal blutbad hunting grounds.”
Monroe had been so worried about not being able to follow his regime properly that he’d taken to climbing up the stairs sooner than Nick was comfortable with, but he insisted that he had to tire out his body somehow. And those dreams he kept having, so intense that Nick would wake up in the middle of the night with his growling. Some were nightmares, twisting his face in pain and distress, but others, no less lupine, were marked, not with whimpers, but with delighted rumblings much akin to the ones that had shivered against Nick’s skin as he took him last night.
“But he didn’t attack her, did he?” he said, clinging to that last shred of hope. “His control slips sometimes, but he doesn’t let it take over. That’s the best he can do. My aunt told me to trust my instincts. That’s what I’m doing. I’m not going to let you kill him, no matter how many pictures you show me.”
The way she regarded him was a cross between curiosity and what felt very much like pity. He would have been more offended if his stomach weren’t so lopsided.
“Alright then,” she said. “As biased as you are, I’ll leave him to your responsibility. There are too few of us Grimms left for me to bother fighting you over one blutbad.”
She started walking into the woods.
“Wait,” Nick called.
He should arrest her without even considering otherwise, but if she hadn’t been bluffing, if she had enough evidence against Monroe to even make him a suspect…
“I don’t suppose you’d tell me your name,” he finished, his shoulders hunching forward, the files so heavy in his hands.
“Not a chance. Sorry.”
Part of Nick thought she might have meant it.
||||
Monroe couldn’t manage to read a single whole paragraph the entire time he was mired at the library, his nose working on overdrive as he struggled to parse the slightest scent of Grimm from the humans surrounding him. All he could think about was,
Is that her? No, she smells okay. What if she has accomplices? That guy’s too odorless to be normal. Don’t come near me don’t come near me.
There were a couple of other creatures there, but they mutually ignored each other. After ten minutes of neurosis during which he came this close to attacking a 50 year old man who smelled like gunpowder, he planted himself in front of a computer and started googling funny pictures to try to distract himself with something, but he barely cracked a smile.
Slightly over an hour after he left, Nick texted him that he was on his way back, but he took over half an hour to show up at the door. He looked like a building had imploded on him, his shoulders hunched, his head lowered, but the scariest part was that he barely glanced at Monroe, never meeting his eyes for more than a second.
“What’s wrong?” Monroe asked as they walked to the car. “What happened? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”
“No. I’m fine.” Like hell he was. Distress was oozing out of his pores. “I convinced her to leave you alone.”
“How?”
“We agreed that since I’m the one who actually knows you, my instincts should trump hers in this case.”
And that was all he would say about that. Monroe wasn’t surprised he hadn’t arrested her. It would be a sad Grimm who let herself be caught by one with half her experience, but Nick just give up on it. It went against his sense of duty, his pride, even. Yet now he was acting as if pursuing her would be a bad idea? Why? Did she threaten him? Blackmail him? What? And why wouldn’t he say?
When they got home, Nick hurried into the kitchen and took out a frying pan, the loud clank of it on the metal cooker jarring Monroe’s nerves.
“Are you hungry?” Nick asked, burying his face in the fridge. “It’s past lunchtime. I should make something. We finished off nearly everything this morning. There’s nothing but half a bowl of pasta left. I’ll just cook up some chicken or something.”
Random bits of food and cooking supplies landed on the counter as the words rattled out of his mouth with the urgency of denial. Monroe placed his hand atop Nick’s as he grabbed the cutlery drawer handle, halting his movements, but not the frenetic worry reeking off of him.
“Nick, stop,” he said, grabbing him by the shoulders to turn him toward himself. “I know something’s wrong. Just tell me what it is.”
Nick whole body collapsed on itself as he dropped against the kitchen counter, his hand squeezing the back of his neck, head lowered, as if he were afraid to look at Monroe.
“I really didn’t want to ask,” he said, still not looking at Monroe. “I really didn’t. I’ve thought about it once or twice, but I always pushed it to the back of my mind.”
Nick’s breath faltered, his eyes shutting for a second. Fear slithered into Monroe’s stomach and wound itself around his insides. His palms grew sweaty as he rubbed Nick’s shoulders, seeking to stroke the fear out of him. Nick leaned into him, seeking his comfort, but his body was as stiff as the counter holding him up, tensed away from Monroe, and this is what scared him most of all.
“You can ask me,” he said. “Please, just tell me what’s wrong.”
Nick inhaled as he sought to swallow all the oxygen in the room.
“I need to get something from the car,” he said, disentangling himself from Monroe. “Need to show you something.”
Monroe followed him to the door to make sure he truly was picking up something and not taking off. Nick returned with a sheaf of files in his hand. He dropped them on the table, then leaned over the back of a chair, gripping it so tightly that it looked like his fingers might break.
“What are those?” Monroe asked when Nick failed to disclose anything.
“She gave them to me. I know she might just be messing with my head with them, but, um. I’m honestly not sure if I want to know.”
Picking up the files, Monroe opened the top one. Half the papers in it crashed onto the table when he saw the name written at the top below the police department’s name.
Sara Jenkins.
Over the top of the document, he saw the crimson edge of a crime scene photo. He hadn’t left much of her to find, not after his father had taken care of it, but that one arm had gotten lost and then that jogger had come by with his dog and they didn’t get a chance to search for it.
The chair screeched as Nick pushed himself back and started pacing around the room, covering his face with his hands.
“Oh shit, it’s true,” he murmured to himself.
“Nick.” Terror seized Monroe’s throat. This couldn’t be happening now, not after what they did last night, not after they’d become mates. This wasn’t him anymore. It shouldn’t matter. “Nick, you know I—“
“I know. I know. You told me when we met: I don’t kill anymore. There’s no way to misinterpret that. It’s not like I thought you were hunting deer. That’s what the word reformed means, right? You can’t be reformed if you haven’t done anything to reform from. Look.” He stopped at the other end of the table, his hands clasped together in front of him. “I know I can’t hold you to the same standards as a human. I know it’s your nature to…” He waved his hand at the files. “And I know how dedicated you are at fighting that and that this was over fifteen years ago and—There wasn’t anyone after fifteen years ago, right?”
Monroe almost said no, but as much as it nauseated him to make himself appear worse to Nick, a lie right now would be the worst he could do.
“Actually, it’s thirteen. But it was only one person. I know that’s not any better and I’m so, so sorry. I was young and my instincts were leading me by the nose. No one in my family is reformed, so even after I started hating myself for it, they told me to ignore it, that it would go away. They kept goading me. But I didn’t felt any less like shit about it. I couldn’t sleep for days afterwards. I know these all sound like excuses, but—“
“I get it.” Nick raised a hand to stave off any further words, his eyes scrunching shut. “Alright, I don’t get it. But like I said. And thirteen years, well. From what I know of blutbaden now, it’s a great run. It’s amazing. And it didn’t bother me before, but knowing it while trying not to think about it and seeing it, it’s just-- Can you just tell me if the other three were you, too?”
Trepidation trembling in his gut, Monroe opened the other files, praying those weren’t his fault, but that forlorn hope sank in his gullet when he looked at the names.
“Yes,” he said, not knowing how else to defend himself.
Nick took a deep breath.
“Okay. I’m not going to ask how many more there were. I don’t want to know that much.”
He sat at the table, his head dropping into his hands. Nick was going to leave him. He wouldn’t stay with Monroe after seeing these photographs, no non-psychotic human would, and certainly not a homicide detective. You didn’t even need to add Grimm to that list. Monroe should have lied back and let the Grimm kill him. There was nothing he could say or do that would restore the four deaths lying on the table, and no less than that would make Nick happy with him again. This is why blutbaden weren’t meant to mate with humans. Outside of those cursed dreams, Monroe couldn’t think about his killings without feeling his last meal back up on him. Didn’t that count? Nick had said he knew how hard it was to cage those urges, but he was probably only saying it to make Monroe feel better, but if he wanted Monroe feel better that meant he cared, save that it wasn’t a question of whether he cared or not. He wouldn’t look like his soul was crumbling if he didn’t. But caring didn’t meant staying. If Monroe offered his neck now and cried out that he loved him, it would be no less than emotional blackmail. Even if Nick went along with it, he wouldn’t be staying with Monroe purely of his own volition. It wouldn’t be real.
Monroe sat down, also at the opposite end of the table.
“Whatever you want to do,” he said, his throat hurting, “I’ll respect it.”
Nick didn’t speak for a while. He didn’t even move.
“I need some time,” he said, not looking at Monroe.
Monroe shut his eyes.
“Okay.”
Nick got up, grabbed his jacket and keys, and headed for the door, but he stopped halfway through to look back at Monroe.
“I’m not kicking you out,” he said, meeting Monroe’s eyes for the first time in an age. They were filled with regret. “I wouldn’t. That’s not what this is. I don’t want you to leave. I just need to be alone right now. I’ll be back later.”
The door shut behind him, followed soon by the car rumbling down the street and taking his mate far, far away from him.
Twenty minutes later, he was packing a bag, wincing every time he jostled his shoulder.
“Mom,” he spoke into the phone. “Can I come up for a few days?”
Chapter 7
Fandom: Grimm
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nick/Monroe
Summary: Just when Nick's life is changing, Monroe is attacked by a Grimm, mixing up their lives further.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5
Chapter 6
||||
The Grimm called Nick at 8:34 the next morning. Nick’s thumb flew to the green button on his cell as soon as he saw Monroe’s name on the caller ID. Taking advantage that Monroe was in the bathroom, he ran up the stairs into his room to minimize the chance that Monroe would overhear.
“Why the hell are you calling me?” he practically growled.
“I thought I’d hear you out before going after your pet again. Of course, this would entail you hearing me out as well, and not with your gun pointed at me.”
“Nothing you say is going to convince me to let you kill my friend.”
“You trust this blutbad an awful lot. Yet surely you can’t know everything about him. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to tell a Grimm that.”
“What?”
“Oh, now you want to know. Well, I’m not telling you over the phone, because you’ll just call me a liar and blah blah blah. I noticed you didn’t have backup when you showed up to save the blutbad two days ago, so I’m hoping you’ll be equally smart this time.”
“You want to meet up? And you expect me not to arrest you?”
She scoffed. Nick could practically see her shaking her head in disgust.
“Police Grimms used to be so much better than this. You’re an embarrassment.”
Fury spiked in Nick’s core, curling his free hand into a fist.
“I am doing my job.”
“You’re following rules like a little tin soldier when the rules don’t even fit the circumstances. What self-respecting Grimm would kill a Mellifer who’s trying to help you over a Hexenbiest who wants to harm you?”
Queasiness bubbled in Nick’s stomach. Of all the conflicts he’d had to deal with between his two jobs, this was the one that most made him doubt himself. He didn’t know if the impulse that pulled the trigger that day was born of the instinct his aunt told him to rely on or his police training, his false step in the quicksand that had once been reliable ground. Every time he saw a bee, he rubbed the patch of skin between his thumb and forefinger where that bee has stung him after the case. After 34 years of never being stung once, a bee showed up at his window to imprint its fury over his killing its queen in his flesh. Five more bees had stung him since then. It had gotten to the point where he couldn’t hear the tell-tale buzz without looking around everywhere like a frightened child.
“I’m doing the best I can with what I know,” he said.
“That’s my point. You don’t know much of anything.”
“Then stop insulting me and tell me already what is so important for me to know.”
“How about we make this simple and meet up at the park in front of your blutbad’s house? Now, I know you’re already mapping the place in your head for where you can set up your colleagues to take me down, but if the police take me, they will also take what I have on me. It’s all evidence, right? And that you really don’t want them to have.”
“I suppose now you’re going to terrify me into letting you go with this scary item.”
“They’re police files that could very easily land your friend in jail on multiple homicide charges.”
Nick’s pacing froze mid-step, right leg still bent behind him.
“You’re bluffing.”
“You’re finally paying attention. And no, I’m not bluffing. There was an eight year old girl in a little town in Washington State called Cashmere, a fourteen year old in Morton, another girl—“
“Fine, I’ll go,” Nick blurted out before she could continue listing more victims. He knew Monroe had killed people. He’d said so when they met, but that was before. He was reformed. Nick trusted him. His instincts told him to trust him and Aunt Marie had been very explicit about trusting his instincts, so it had never come up again. Monroe hadn’t mentioned it and Nick was certainly not going to. He didn’t want to think about Monroe being anything less than the disciplined, good natured blutbad he’d fallen in love with.
They arranged to meet in thirty minutes. Nick met Monroe in the kitchen, where he was making some coffee, which Nick had said he would make himself back before the phone rang, when Monroe was only his…Boyfriend? Partner? Lover? Some denomination that didn’t include murderer. And he still was. This woman was just trying to emotionally manipulate him.
“You were taking a while on the phone,” Monroe said over his shoulder, “so I just went ahead.”
“You heard the conversation?” Nick asked, tried his damndest not to reveal the panic rising in his throat at the thought that Monroe knew what they’d been talking about.
“No, just that you were talking to someone. I assumed you haven’t started hallucinating people. What’s wrong? You look ill.”
“The Grimm called me.”
Coffee spilled on the countertop as Monroe turned too quickly, fear widening his eyes.
“What did she want?” he asked, plopping the coffee pot back on the countertop.
“To meet me.”
“And you said ‘yes’?”
“If there’s any chance of catching her, I have to take it,” Nick said, feeling guilty for withholding the truth from Monroe, but he didn’t want to ask, as if she was making it up, there was no point asking at all. “In case she’s using it as a ruse for me to leave you alone so she can come after you, I can drop you off at a public place first. Maybe the library. Or the station. It’s probably safer there.”
Monroe shook his head. “There’s always creatures getting arrested who like to pick fights with blutbaden. Library’s better. I’ll just keep away from anyone who comes near me.”
“Alright.” Nick didn’t like a single thing about this, but what else was he to do?
Once they were at the library, before exiting the car, Nick grabbed Monroe and pulled him into a deep kiss, his mouth seeking to imprint upon Monroe how much he loved him and swearing to himself that he would not stop loving him, no matter what this woman showed him. Monroe responded in kind, but his eyes were soft with confusion when Nick forced himself to let go.
“Just come back to me, okay?” Monroe said when Nick walked him to the library entrance, taking no chances. “I doubt she’d hurt another Grimm, but don’t take chances.”
“I won’t.”
||||
He found her near the southern entrance of the park where he and Hank had first started searching for the little girl all those months ago. She had a satchel slung across her torso, but no visible weapons, though there were probably plenty of invisible ones just waiting for a cross word from him.
“You’re late,” she said. She stood at the centre of the main trail, hands in her jean pockets, terribly nonchalant as if they were only meeting up for a nice walk through the woods.
“Is that another flaw in my Grimm record?” Nick asked, keeping a defensive distance between them.
“I’m not evaluating you.”
“Yeah? Cause it damn well feels like it.”
“I was just wondering if a fifteen minute drive took forty because you were dropping off the blutbad somewhere safe in case this meeting was a ruse.” Nick’s surprise must have shown in his face, because she smiled in amusement. “Don’t look so startled. I haven’t been spying on you. It’s just what I would do.”
“But you were spying on him. For how long? Why did you wait until Tuesday to attack him?”
“I haven’t been watching him this whole month. I do have other things to do.”
“Like go on a creature killing spree.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t be a righteous moron. You’ve killed creatures, too..”
“Only when there was nothing else I could do.”
“All of those creatures had killed people.”
“Monroe said Keller was reformed.”
“Right. So reformed that he killed a teenage boy three months ago.”
Nick’s jaw tightened. She could be lying so easily.
“And who’s Monroe supposed to have killed? Where are those files you were so eager to show me?”
She shot him a pitying look.
“You still think I’m making it up, don’t you?”
He stiffened when she reached into her bag, his hand flying to his gun, ready to draw it if necessary, but she only took out the damn files she’d been harping on about. She held them out to him, a half inch thick stack of paper that could change his view of Monroe forever. Monroe had no record. No police files could have anything on him. But that wouldn’t make any victims less real. His hand was steady as he took the files, but his pulse was far from it. They looked legitimate. Four cases were spread out across three different departments, all in Washington State, where Monroe grew up. He didn’t recognize any of the names, but she was quick to correct his ignorance in one regard.
“Leavenworth is where he’s from,” she said. “The two oldest cases are from there. I think you can do the math.”
September 8th and November 29, 1982. Monroe would have been seventeen. Blutbaden adolescence was just as volatile as the human one, Monroe had told him once, only with more blood. He probably had no hope of controlling himself. The first case didn’t mention Monroe at all. The second, however, listed him as a person of interest.
“Person of interest doesn’t equal suspect,” Nick said.
“His family moved away in December. They didn’t bother selling their house nor getting another one before doing so, just fled as quickly as they could. That’s at least suspicious, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was.
“Look, I know what Monroe is. I know he wasn’t always reformed. But he is… now.”
His voice weakened at the last word when he stumbled upon the pictures, garish streaks of crimson and mangled body parts. The first showed only a severed hand, like that girl at the park. The second, a mangled girl’s body, her ribcage ripped open. Bile rose in his throat and he grew lightheaded as his mind rejected what he was seeing, barely managing to turn over the photograph to reveal a similar one, this one of the second girl.
“You haven’t proved to me yet that Monroe did this,” Nick said quickly, before his voice gave out.
“There’s more evidence than this. You just need to connect the dots. But I’m sure. Privilege of being a Grimm. You don’t need to follow protocol to get at the truth. Besides, you can just ask him. He’ll probably deny it, but you should be able to tell if he’s lying or not. Though I’m amazed you’re friends with him if you already know he killed people. You don’t seem like the type who would extend the same courtesy to human murderers.”
Nick shut the file. He couldn’t look at it anymore.
“He’s reformed,” he said.
“So was Keller. And he’s not the only reformed blutbad that slipped off his leash. Your Monroe went after a girl on Thursday.”
The files almost fell to the ground when his grip loosened.
“What are you talking about?”
“So trustworthy he didn’t even tell you that.”
All Monroe had said about the prelude to the attack was that he felt like going to the park, but his face had scrunched in the oddest way, his head turning the slightest bit away.
“I’ve only been back in town a few of days,” she continued. “That was the second time I saw him walking down the street. The first time that was all he did. This time, he wolfed out and followed a girl in red for over a block. He only stopped when a friend invited her into her house. The friend’s parents were there, too. Not ideal blutbad hunting grounds.”
Monroe had been so worried about not being able to follow his regime properly that he’d taken to climbing up the stairs sooner than Nick was comfortable with, but he insisted that he had to tire out his body somehow. And those dreams he kept having, so intense that Nick would wake up in the middle of the night with his growling. Some were nightmares, twisting his face in pain and distress, but others, no less lupine, were marked, not with whimpers, but with delighted rumblings much akin to the ones that had shivered against Nick’s skin as he took him last night.
“But he didn’t attack her, did he?” he said, clinging to that last shred of hope. “His control slips sometimes, but he doesn’t let it take over. That’s the best he can do. My aunt told me to trust my instincts. That’s what I’m doing. I’m not going to let you kill him, no matter how many pictures you show me.”
The way she regarded him was a cross between curiosity and what felt very much like pity. He would have been more offended if his stomach weren’t so lopsided.
“Alright then,” she said. “As biased as you are, I’ll leave him to your responsibility. There are too few of us Grimms left for me to bother fighting you over one blutbad.”
She started walking into the woods.
“Wait,” Nick called.
He should arrest her without even considering otherwise, but if she hadn’t been bluffing, if she had enough evidence against Monroe to even make him a suspect…
“I don’t suppose you’d tell me your name,” he finished, his shoulders hunching forward, the files so heavy in his hands.
“Not a chance. Sorry.”
Part of Nick thought she might have meant it.
||||
Monroe couldn’t manage to read a single whole paragraph the entire time he was mired at the library, his nose working on overdrive as he struggled to parse the slightest scent of Grimm from the humans surrounding him. All he could think about was,
Is that her? No, she smells okay. What if she has accomplices? That guy’s too odorless to be normal. Don’t come near me don’t come near me.
There were a couple of other creatures there, but they mutually ignored each other. After ten minutes of neurosis during which he came this close to attacking a 50 year old man who smelled like gunpowder, he planted himself in front of a computer and started googling funny pictures to try to distract himself with something, but he barely cracked a smile.
Slightly over an hour after he left, Nick texted him that he was on his way back, but he took over half an hour to show up at the door. He looked like a building had imploded on him, his shoulders hunched, his head lowered, but the scariest part was that he barely glanced at Monroe, never meeting his eyes for more than a second.
“What’s wrong?” Monroe asked as they walked to the car. “What happened? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”
“No. I’m fine.” Like hell he was. Distress was oozing out of his pores. “I convinced her to leave you alone.”
“How?”
“We agreed that since I’m the one who actually knows you, my instincts should trump hers in this case.”
And that was all he would say about that. Monroe wasn’t surprised he hadn’t arrested her. It would be a sad Grimm who let herself be caught by one with half her experience, but Nick just give up on it. It went against his sense of duty, his pride, even. Yet now he was acting as if pursuing her would be a bad idea? Why? Did she threaten him? Blackmail him? What? And why wouldn’t he say?
When they got home, Nick hurried into the kitchen and took out a frying pan, the loud clank of it on the metal cooker jarring Monroe’s nerves.
“Are you hungry?” Nick asked, burying his face in the fridge. “It’s past lunchtime. I should make something. We finished off nearly everything this morning. There’s nothing but half a bowl of pasta left. I’ll just cook up some chicken or something.”
Random bits of food and cooking supplies landed on the counter as the words rattled out of his mouth with the urgency of denial. Monroe placed his hand atop Nick’s as he grabbed the cutlery drawer handle, halting his movements, but not the frenetic worry reeking off of him.
“Nick, stop,” he said, grabbing him by the shoulders to turn him toward himself. “I know something’s wrong. Just tell me what it is.”
Nick whole body collapsed on itself as he dropped against the kitchen counter, his hand squeezing the back of his neck, head lowered, as if he were afraid to look at Monroe.
“I really didn’t want to ask,” he said, still not looking at Monroe. “I really didn’t. I’ve thought about it once or twice, but I always pushed it to the back of my mind.”
Nick’s breath faltered, his eyes shutting for a second. Fear slithered into Monroe’s stomach and wound itself around his insides. His palms grew sweaty as he rubbed Nick’s shoulders, seeking to stroke the fear out of him. Nick leaned into him, seeking his comfort, but his body was as stiff as the counter holding him up, tensed away from Monroe, and this is what scared him most of all.
“You can ask me,” he said. “Please, just tell me what’s wrong.”
Nick inhaled as he sought to swallow all the oxygen in the room.
“I need to get something from the car,” he said, disentangling himself from Monroe. “Need to show you something.”
Monroe followed him to the door to make sure he truly was picking up something and not taking off. Nick returned with a sheaf of files in his hand. He dropped them on the table, then leaned over the back of a chair, gripping it so tightly that it looked like his fingers might break.
“What are those?” Monroe asked when Nick failed to disclose anything.
“She gave them to me. I know she might just be messing with my head with them, but, um. I’m honestly not sure if I want to know.”
Picking up the files, Monroe opened the top one. Half the papers in it crashed onto the table when he saw the name written at the top below the police department’s name.
Sara Jenkins.
Over the top of the document, he saw the crimson edge of a crime scene photo. He hadn’t left much of her to find, not after his father had taken care of it, but that one arm had gotten lost and then that jogger had come by with his dog and they didn’t get a chance to search for it.
The chair screeched as Nick pushed himself back and started pacing around the room, covering his face with his hands.
“Oh shit, it’s true,” he murmured to himself.
“Nick.” Terror seized Monroe’s throat. This couldn’t be happening now, not after what they did last night, not after they’d become mates. This wasn’t him anymore. It shouldn’t matter. “Nick, you know I—“
“I know. I know. You told me when we met: I don’t kill anymore. There’s no way to misinterpret that. It’s not like I thought you were hunting deer. That’s what the word reformed means, right? You can’t be reformed if you haven’t done anything to reform from. Look.” He stopped at the other end of the table, his hands clasped together in front of him. “I know I can’t hold you to the same standards as a human. I know it’s your nature to…” He waved his hand at the files. “And I know how dedicated you are at fighting that and that this was over fifteen years ago and—There wasn’t anyone after fifteen years ago, right?”
Monroe almost said no, but as much as it nauseated him to make himself appear worse to Nick, a lie right now would be the worst he could do.
“Actually, it’s thirteen. But it was only one person. I know that’s not any better and I’m so, so sorry. I was young and my instincts were leading me by the nose. No one in my family is reformed, so even after I started hating myself for it, they told me to ignore it, that it would go away. They kept goading me. But I didn’t felt any less like shit about it. I couldn’t sleep for days afterwards. I know these all sound like excuses, but—“
“I get it.” Nick raised a hand to stave off any further words, his eyes scrunching shut. “Alright, I don’t get it. But like I said. And thirteen years, well. From what I know of blutbaden now, it’s a great run. It’s amazing. And it didn’t bother me before, but knowing it while trying not to think about it and seeing it, it’s just-- Can you just tell me if the other three were you, too?”
Trepidation trembling in his gut, Monroe opened the other files, praying those weren’t his fault, but that forlorn hope sank in his gullet when he looked at the names.
“Yes,” he said, not knowing how else to defend himself.
Nick took a deep breath.
“Okay. I’m not going to ask how many more there were. I don’t want to know that much.”
He sat at the table, his head dropping into his hands. Nick was going to leave him. He wouldn’t stay with Monroe after seeing these photographs, no non-psychotic human would, and certainly not a homicide detective. You didn’t even need to add Grimm to that list. Monroe should have lied back and let the Grimm kill him. There was nothing he could say or do that would restore the four deaths lying on the table, and no less than that would make Nick happy with him again. This is why blutbaden weren’t meant to mate with humans. Outside of those cursed dreams, Monroe couldn’t think about his killings without feeling his last meal back up on him. Didn’t that count? Nick had said he knew how hard it was to cage those urges, but he was probably only saying it to make Monroe feel better, but if he wanted Monroe feel better that meant he cared, save that it wasn’t a question of whether he cared or not. He wouldn’t look like his soul was crumbling if he didn’t. But caring didn’t meant staying. If Monroe offered his neck now and cried out that he loved him, it would be no less than emotional blackmail. Even if Nick went along with it, he wouldn’t be staying with Monroe purely of his own volition. It wouldn’t be real.
Monroe sat down, also at the opposite end of the table.
“Whatever you want to do,” he said, his throat hurting, “I’ll respect it.”
Nick didn’t speak for a while. He didn’t even move.
“I need some time,” he said, not looking at Monroe.
Monroe shut his eyes.
“Okay.”
Nick got up, grabbed his jacket and keys, and headed for the door, but he stopped halfway through to look back at Monroe.
“I’m not kicking you out,” he said, meeting Monroe’s eyes for the first time in an age. They were filled with regret. “I wouldn’t. That’s not what this is. I don’t want you to leave. I just need to be alone right now. I’ll be back later.”
The door shut behind him, followed soon by the car rumbling down the street and taking his mate far, far away from him.
Twenty minutes later, he was packing a bag, wincing every time he jostled his shoulder.
“Mom,” he spoke into the phone. “Can I come up for a few days?”
Chapter 7
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Please let them have a happy ending.
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I'm still hoping for a happy ending though!
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But I demand that you fix it. Fix it now with fluff.Can't wait for the final chapter.From:
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ones I'm certain the show will eventually bring to light as well
I'm hoping we'll see that, too. They started in the last episode, but they stuck to just him killing bunnies (those poor bunnies), but it must have gone deeper than that for him to looked so guilty in the pilot when he said "I'm done with the bad" (I may have watched that scene way too many times).
I'm really glad you liked my take on this! I will fix it, I swear, it's just that angst always finds a way to creep at every opportunity in my fics.