Archive of Our Own

“What big eyes you have, 
The kind of eyes that drive wolves mad. 
So just to see that you don't get chased 
I think I ought to walk with you for a ways.”

From “LI'L RED RIDING HOOD” by Ronald Blackwell

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Monroe’s favorite color has always been red. Strange, possibly even ironic as that is, it suits him. He likes red, inasmuch as it incites him to passionate anger, and makes him lose himself to his baser instincts; it also brings out a heady vibrancy to life. It gives life color, and, at times, meaning.

 

Take Picasso’s, Gypsy in Front of Musca. The red of the material on the gypsy woman’s blue apron draws the eye, like honey draws a bear to the hive. It is sensual, even startling, like fire to provoke men to act indecently.

 

And then there’s Salvador Dali’s, The Meditative Rose. The red of the rose blossoms like blood on the canvas. A single droplet spills forth from the voluptuous petals and into the brackish liquid below. It is provocative. Eye-catching. Mesmerizing. Beautiful.

 

Not that he’s spent all that much time analyzing why he likes the color red. Who does that kind of thing anyway? It’s just that, now that he’s said it to Nick, he’s been kind of thinking on it. He’d said it, in a way, to rile the younger man. It hadn’t worked.

 

Of course the mention of human testicles acting as a sort of Viagra for the erectile-impaired beasties of the world had done the job, but he hadn’t said that to rile Nick, he’d said it as a matter of course. Something that he thought the young Grimm would find fascinating. He’d miscalculated. It that had ruined the police detective’s appetite and that had, in turn, ruined the meal.

 

He often seemed to miscalculate with Nick. Granted, the man wasn’t an ordinary man, he was a Grimm. It was hard to figure out what made him tick. He was a thing of childhood tales and the occasional nightmare. Not that Monroe would admit to the latter.

 

There was no telling how Nick would take that. He’d probably tease him about it. Or, he could just as easily get that look in his eyes, the one that made Monroe’s heart go out to him, and tell him that he was sorry. Neither was an option that Monroe particularly liked.

 

Red. Red. Red. Little girls dressed in red, lips rouged, cheeks flushed to blushing, their hearts beating, pumping blood – that crimson commodity of life to be supped upon by those of his kin who had not divorced themselves from their very nature.

 

Nick had taken it at face value. Not questioned him when he’d said that red was his favorite color. Hadn’t offered up his own favorite color, and now Monroe wonders what it is. Does Nick favor blue, or perhaps green? Or is he partial to some manly version of violet? Or maybe Nick likes red too.

 

“Nah, you don’t like red, do you?” Monroe asks the still figure, nudging the Grimm with his foot. “I bet your favorite color is something happy and bright, like yellow, or maybe orange.”

 

Nick doesn’t answer, but Monroe isn’t expecting him to. It’s been two hours. Two hours of silence and being surrounded by a wretched red color that makes him sick to his stomach. He’s willing to concede that maybe red isn’t his favorite color after all. At least not red the color of the coppery scented liquid that is coursing sluggishly down Nick’s forehead, seeping into the rock littered dirt of the cave floor they are both situated on.

 

Monroe’s hands are bound behind his back with thick, coarse rope that bites into his wrists whenever he moves. His legs are bound at the thighs, just below the knees, and, for good measure, slightly above the ankles. Not even his Blutbaden strength had enabled him to break free of the ropes without weakening them a bit. Their captor, crazy and addlepated as he is, certainly knows how to secure a prisoner.

 

Nick, however, isn’t bound at all. His hands, unmoving, are free, and likewise his legs. Free, and yet as useless as Monroe’s bound ones.

 

Their attacker, strangely enough a human, will be back. He’s promised as much. There’s no doubt in Monroe’s mind that he will make good on his promise.

 

He’s some crazy old coot who believes the government is after him, and that Nick has been sent to take some metal chip from his brain. A chip filled with information that will, ‘…bring an end to the world as we know it.’ Zombie apocalypse mixed with alien invasion. Real crazy shit.

 

The man’s schizophrenic delusions are what led him to kill two other men, FBI agents (aliens), before waylaying him and Nick. Their bones are strewn throughout the floor of the cave. Monroe can feel one digging into his backside and it gives him the willies even as he tries not to think of it. It feels like a metacarpal, or maybe it’s a fragment of a tibia.

 

“I’m guessing blue is your favorite color,” Monroe says as he shifts in the dirt. He really doesn’t want some dead man’s bony finger up his ass.

 

“I mean, it goes good with your eyes, which, well, I know are grayish blue and all, but…” he trails off, grasping the bit of bone with his fingers which are now well and dead to use and uncooperative. “Well, they seem to change from blue to gray depending on your mood.”

 

The rope had long since cut off the circulation to his fingers. His ass, knees and feet feel the same tingly sensation Monroe has come to associate with the loss of proper blood flow through his limbs. Even if he does manage to cut through the thick rope with the bit of bone he’s managed to procure, he knows that he won’t be able to do more than stumble around the cave like a drunk on a week-long binge, except, for him, it’ll be much more painful.

 

“Damn it Nick, you need to wake up,” Monroe growls, his human façade morphing into that of the Blutbaden as anger, the color red trickling from the small, circular wound in Nick’s belly, rouses the beast within.

 

He knows that Nick’s alive by the movement of the man’s chest as he breathes in and out. Even, shallow breaths that Monroe subconsciously counts, demarcating time in sync with the exchange of airflow. It isn’t nearly enough of a sign of life for Monroe, though. He’d rather have the man up and about, drinking his coffee and talking. Or maybe dining by candlelight, or, well, anything other than this pale, silent version of the normally vibrant man.

 

Monroe’s aware of their captor’s looming presence long before he nears the cave, his supernatural hearing on high alert. As the unstable man’s footsteps crash through the brush at least a half mile away, Monroe has made up his mind and is loosening the ropes bound ‘round his wrists with the bit of bone. The jagged piece of bone slips from his fingers and he curses, but fumbles around for it, crowing triumphantly when he regains what he prays will be the means of his, and Nick’s, escape.

 

The bone is sharp, which is a good thing, but it bites into his fingers, and although they are numb from lack of proper circulation, they still sting from the paper-thin cuts. He can picture what the hodgepodge of crisscrossed cuts on his fingers must look like and tries not to imagine losing the use of his fingers. It would be hard to work on timepieces and clocks if the bone bit too far and damaged the nerves.

 

“Brown,” Monroe says, biting on his bottom lip as he concentrates, picturing the ropes as nothing more than the innards of a very intricate clock. “Your favorite color is brown,” he says it confidently, glancing at Nick, and sucking in a breath as the bone slips, not through a layer of rope, but his wrist.

 

The wound isn’t deep, and it probably won’t scar, but, he realizes that if he continues on in this way, he won’t get very far before their crazed captor is back. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

 

“Concentrate Monroe,” he says, “just slice through one layer at a time. You can do this. You’ve worked on far more intricate material before, blindfolded. Granted that was a bet that you should never have taken, but…” he feels the bone slice through a layer of rope, and then another layer.

 

All he needs to do is weaken the rope enough to allow him room to move and then he will be able to call upon his Blutbaden nature, much as he is loath to do, and break through the ropes. Easy peasy, he thinks and then shakes his head. His shoulders ache and his butt feels dead to the world.

 

A groan startles him and he almost drops the bone, but manages to maintain a precarious hold on it, slicing through another layer of the tightly twined rope. Nick’s coming to; his eyes appear dark gray in the dim lighting of the cave as he blinks slowly.

 

“Easy there,” Monroe says, wishing that his hands were free. He doesn’t want Nick to move, and, with his arms secured behind him, he will be unable to keep Nick in place should the stubborn Grimm attempt to sit up or some other stupid thing like try to free Monroe of his ropes.

 

“Wha…” Nick says incoherently, turning his head in Monroe’s direction.

 

His fingers are scrabbling at the dirt, finding purchase in nothing. Nick’s unfocused gaze causes Monroe to feel uneasy; the Grimm’s pupils are blown and uneven – the right one bigger than the left. That blow he took to the head had done him no favors. Crazy and human or not, the man is going to pay, Monroe vows as he remembers the way Nick crumpled to the ground when the butt of the man’s rifle slammed into his forehead.

 

“Nick,” Monroe says as he frantically saws at the ropes bound about his wrists, “Nick stay still, don’t try to move, okay?”

 

“M’nroe?” Nick’s voice is weak, his speech slurred and his unfocused eyes keep opening and closing in something slower than a blink. “Wh’hap’ned?”

 

“Don’t worry about that now,” Monroe says, “just stay still and let me get us out of this, okay?”

 

“Head hurts,” Nick says, lifting his right hand as though to raise it to his head, only it doesn’t make it that far.

 

It flops, like a dying fish, by his side and no amount of effort that Nick makes causes it to rise more than a centimeter off the ground. It pains Monroe to watch this, so he inches over, sidling up next to the semi-coherent Grimm, bringing his legs to rest alongside Nick’s. It is the only bit of comfort that he can manage to give the man at the moment, until he can free his hands.

 

“I know it does, buddy,” Monroe says, “it took quite a hit, but you’ve got a thick skull, right?”

 

There’s just a little more work to be done on the rope with the bone and then he can manage the rest with his inhuman strength. It’s too bad that their crazy was able to easily subdue him earlier (a hit to the back would do that), but, Monroe supposed it was a blessing (in disguise) that the man hadn’t seen him (weaponless) as a threat and had only tied him up.

 

“Uh huh,” Nick agrees, sighing. His eyes close and he smiles as if drunk. “Stomach hurts,” he says, the smile falters as his brows crease in concern or pain, Monroe isn’t sure which.

“Just stay still Nick,” Monroe says, and he takes a deep breath, twisting his wrists. Feeling the ropes give way, he lets the bone fragment clatter to the cave floor and sends up a silent prayer of thanks to the soul of the bone’s owner, whoever or whatever it had been before this.

 

“I’ll get us out of here,” he says, and his heart stills when the sound of faltering steps nears the entrance of the cave. “Crap,” he says; his voice little louder than a susurration.

 

Now or never, he thinks, steeling himself as the footsteps stop just a few yards short of the cave. There is little room for him to ‘wolf out’ in the cave and little time for Monroe to secure his freedom so that he can protect Nick from the man who has already hurt him.

 

He’s counting on adrenaline to give him the strength and endurance that he’ll need, and their captor’s paranoid schizophrenia to enable him to see Monroe for what he truly is. There are a select few who can see a Blutbad’s true nature, and unfortunately, crazies are foremost in those who have that unique ‘gifting’.

 

 “Wha’s ‘a mat’er?” Nick asks, attempting, but failing to open his eyes.

 

“Nothing,” Monroe says quickly, not wanting to alarm Nick.

 

“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” Nick says a little more coherently.

 

“Honestly man, don’t you trust me at all?” Monroe asks as he takes in the red pool that is now gathered on Nick’s abdomen. It looks garish, almost black in the dimly lit cave, but Monroe can see the red of the blood, like tiny jewels, glinting in the waning light of the setting sun.

 

“I trust you,” Nick says, and damn it if his voice doesn’t sound hurt. His head rolls to the side and Nick’s nose brushes against Monroe’s hip.

 

The smile’s back and Monroe can’t help but smile in return.

 

“’Bout time,” Monroe growls, the red of Nick’s blood urging theBlutbad side of him to the fore, giving him the strength he needs to break through what remains of the ropes.

 

He’s free now, the tingling in his fingers all but ceases as he makes quick work of the ropes binding his legs. He was right, adrenaline, the threat of crazy hovering somewhere outside of the cave, gives him the incentive that he needs to move quickly. The small cuts that adorn his fingers hardly register pain to him as he works.

 

Before he even registers what he’s doing, he’s crouching, placing himself between Nick and the entrance of the cave. His eyes, glowing red, search the growing darkness for sign of their psycho way layer. His nose twitches as he sniffs the night air, sifting through the various scents of the forest – moss, lichen, mushrooms, and, the foreign element he is searching for – human sweat and motor oil.

 

His lips curl in disgust and he growls low, a sound that emanates from somewhere deep within his gut and reverberates in his chest. He’s identified the threat to Nick, divorcing himself almost entirely of the side of himself that he’s been cultivating for decades now as he draws upon the fullness of his ancestry in order to keep someone that he’s sworn to protect safe.  It doesn’t matter that the threat is a mere human. That just makes him that much easier to take out.

 

He glances back at Nick. The man’s pale, the movement of his chest is too quick and the pool of blood on his stomach, though small is still much too alarming, too tempting, too red.

 

Everything happens all at once, and without any forethought whatsoever. It’s all instinct and blood and red. The sun dips toward the horizon, bathing the clearing in front of the cave in a red-orange glow, and Monroe leaps forward all claws and slick fur as his prey steps toward the cave. He’s snarling like a wild wolf gone rabid, though far more sentient.

 

“What? What are you?” the man, suddenly frightened, asks, the gun he’d been gripping like a soldier falls to the side, forgotten in his fear.

 

 

“Blutbad,” he grunts in answer to the man’s question, “werewolf,” he uses a word that the human might be more familiar with though he despises it. He doesn’t need the moon to turn and silver bullets aren’t strictly necessary to kill him.

 

“You’re not real,” the man says, blinking, scrabbling at his face, trying to rub the image of the beast advancing on him away.

 

With shaky hands he brings his rifle to bear, the barrel moving from side to side in his attempt to train the gun’s sight on Monroe.

 

“You responsible for all those bones in there?” Monroe asks, unable to completely sever himself from his gentler half and wondering that crazy can accept the concept of aliens and not werewolves, though he’s grateful that the man can see his true nature.

 

The man nods jerkily. “Aliens, government officials sent to take me in and tear me apart,” he says, his eyes wild.

 

Monroe knows that he should feel some remorse for what he is about to do, but with Nick lying behind him, bleeding out in a dirty cave, he feels justified in what happens next. The moon crests the horizon, blood orange and round as a pregnant woman, the barrel of the gun flashes and Monroe closes the distance between himself and crazy at a full out run, his claws out and ripping, tearing and sundering flesh from sinew. The gun falls from stunned fingers, the man’s mouth, open in a small, ineffective ‘O’ utters a soundless gasp, and Monroe brings his claws downward in a slicing motion, spilling the killer’s guts onto the forest floor.

 

Another slash of his claws and the man’s face is torn up beyond recognition. The man’s blood hangs in the air, its tangy scent sticks in his nose, incites him to more violence. When he finishes, there is little of the man left and blood flecks Monroe’s face, his lips are coated in the crimson fluid, and he licks them, relishing the briny taste. There is nothing like this, and in spite of his protestations to the contrary, he rears up on his hind legs, much as a werewolf would do, faces the moon, and belts out a bloodcurdling howl.

 

It takes him several long moments of pawing at the dead man, sifting through the torn remnants – eyeballs, brain matter, and bone marrow – before he comes back to himself, and it is several seconds more before he realizes what it is that has brought him back to himself. Nick.

 

At first he doesn’t realize what it is about Nick that has captured his attention, but then his heart’s racing even as he rushes back toward the cave where he’s left his friend.

 

“Oh, no, no, no,” he says, his gut churning, his heart pleading as he drops to his knees beside his fallen companion, “Nick, no, you can’t do this.”

 

There’s blood on his hands, on his shirt, his face. The red of it staining his skin, but he doesn’t notice it. Nick isn’t breathing. Nick isn’t breathing and Monroe’s heart stops beating for a fraction of a second.

 

The blood that had bubbled up from the bullet wound Nick had taken to the gut is cool; the pool stagnant now and Monroe presses his hand to it. He tears the sleeve from Nick’s shirt and balls it up before pressing it against the wound which is still bleeding albeit sluggishly.

 

Monroe knows the basics of first aid, has a first responder’s card in his wallet declaring that he is certified and current in his CPR training. Yet another hobby that he had taken up in his attempt to maintain a Blutbad existence free of gore and bloodlust. A hobby that he’s happy he engaged in as he takes in Nick’s unmoving chest.

 

He reaches shaky, bloody fingers to Nick’s neck, searches for the carotid artery and lets out a breath when he feels a pulse. It’s weak and barely there, but it is there. Now all he has to do is get Nick to breathe.

 

He can still taste the blood on his lips. Tangy, cloying, sickening. He can’t breathe for Nick like this. Not with another man’s blood staining his lips and coating his tongue, and there’s nothing for him to clean himself with.

 

There’s a stream just a little ways off, not more than a few yards away. Monroe can hear it burbling and bubbling over smooth rocks.  It sounds loud and harsh in his ears, especially when there’s no competition from Nick – no talking about Grimm work, no wise-cracking, no breathing. It’s unnerving, and Monroe’s beginning to panic.

 

“C’mon Nick,” he tries once more to rouse the man, rubbing Nick’s chest with a bloodied hand in an attempt to stimulate the lungs into cooperating with him.

 

There’s no time for him to go to the stream, wash and return, in spite of the fact that he can move quicker than your average human and he’s still got adrenaline from the kill and worry over Nick to propel him.

 

When Nick’s chest remains stubbornly still, Monroe takes a deep breath to steel himself for what he’s about to do, knowing that there isn’t anything else for him to do if he wants to save Nick. The man might hate him when all is said and done for what he’s about to do, but, hell, he’ll take the man’s hatred over his death any day.

 

“Sorry Nick,” he whispers, and he bends down, pressing his ear to Nick’s chest. He can hear a faint heartbeat – the fluttering wings of a butterfly – and though it is a relief, it is one which is short lived.

 

Monroe tilts Nick’s head back, careful of the man’s head injury. He hastily brushes away the dirt and small, sharp pebbles so that they won’t dig into Nick’s skull. He lifts the unconscious man’s chin, noting a smudge like bruise along the man’s jawline. He pinches Nick’s nose between his thumb and right index finger.

 

Inches from Nick’s slack face, Monroe takes a deep breath and is assaulted by an almost overwhelming amalgamation of something that smells distinctly like patchouli and…peaches. It is an odd combination of scents, and he wonders that he’s never noticed them before. Nick’s been over to his house on numerous occasions, they’ve worked cases together, and this is the first time he notices what Nick smells like? He shakes off the self-recrimination, the heady fragrance of Nick, and places his mouth over Nick’s.

 

He feels strange at first, with his lips pressed to Nick’s, creating a seal between them so that the air he breathes into Nick won’t have a chance in Hell of going anywhere but into the man’s lungs. He sends the first breath of air into Nick’s mouth, watching the Grimm’s chest to see if the lungs expand. He prays to god that the passageway is not obstructed, and silently cheers when Nick’s chest rises. He breathes a second life-sustaining breath, and then checks to make sure that Nick’s heart is still beating.

 

He continues breathing for Nick, getting into a routine of taking a deep breath, sending it into Nick’s lungs, counting to four before taking another deep breath and sending it into Nick on the five count. After a while he’s got a rhythm going, and he stops at the one minute mark to check for the Grimm’s pulse – he’s given Nick about twelve borrowed breaths at this point. It’s still there, a marvel, much like the man himself – he just doesn’t know when to quit, and for once, that is a trait that Monroe finds to be rather impressive.

 

It’s somewhere in the middle of the pause before the fourteenth breath that it happens, but Monroe, concentrating on counting, doesn’t notice it at right away. ‘Four one-thousand,’ Monroe mentally intones, and he dips down, places his mouth over Nick’s, but the breath never leaves him. Nick’s eyes, now a resolute blue are wide open, and the man’s staring in confusing at Monroe. Nick’s lips, rouged from the blood transferred from Monroe, are still slightly parted.

 

In his relief, Monroe doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until it’s too late and his lips are pressed to Nick’s. Far from being unresponsive to the impromptu kiss borne of nothing more than pent-up fear, worry and the repeated mantra of, ‘Nick, Nick, Nick,’ the Grimm’s lips move with his in a lazy, symmetrical dance that only ceases when, and the irony of this is not lost on Monroe, they both need to pause for air.

 

Monroe eases Nick’s head down to the dirt floor of the cave and releases his iron-grip hold on the man. Panting from the exertion (the anxiety that is still coursing through him), he rests his forehead against Nick’s and concentrates on the simple act of breathing. Nick’s scent mingles with his own and the rust-iron scent of blood from the kill.

 

A lopsided grin adorns Nick’s face, but his eyes, now almost a slate gray, remain unfocused. Nick opens his mouth, closes it, the focus of his eyes lands on Monroe’s lips and then he looks up again, meeting Monroe’s steadfast gaze. He licks his lips and Monroe can feel Nick’s forehead wrinkle as confusion takes over.

 

“Oh crap,” Monroe whispers, “I…Nick, I can explain that, I didn’t have a choice, he was…” Monroe’s frantic pleas cut off rather abruptly with an unmanly sort of squeak when Nick surprises him by tilting his head up and pressing his lips to Monroe’s.

 

There’s little strength in the attempt and Monroe doubts that Nick is fully cognizant of what he’s doing. But when Nick refuses to rest his head back against the stone lest Monroe’s lips follow, he allows for it, lets the kiss deepen. He relishes the taste of blood and peaches knowing that he probably won’t be sampling either flavor ever again, most definitely not in this particular savory blend.

 

“I could get addicted to this,” the words are on his lips and out of his mouth before he has time to recall them.

 

Part of him, the part that he’s been nurturing for the past several decades, feels like a complete ass for enjoying this. The other part of him, theBlutbad, is extremely turned on by everything that’s happening, which in turn makes him, the horologist, feel dirty and guilty that he has a very concussed and fatally injured Nick, lying beneath him and all he can think about is wanting the Grimm at his mercy, laying and writhing beneath him, not only from pain, but also from ecstasy.

 

“Mhm,” Nick mumbles. Whether it’s in agreement with Monroe’s assessment of the situation or because he’s enjoying the way Monroe’s tongue feels on the inner part of his ear is up for debate. Either way, Monroe doesn’t mind.

 

Nick’s skin is hot against his and it tastes salty, zings on his tongue, makes him feel like a wild animal. Nick’s the spoil of his bloody, hard-won victory and he’s more than ready to plunder and despoil. He nips at Nick’s earlobe and dips his head, clamping his teeth around Nick’s throat just enough to bruise and mark his claim.

 

Everything is instinctual now, like it was with Angelina, except better. His senses are more heightened. Maybe the cause of it is the dead man lying scant feet away from the cave. His body torn and savaged beyond all repair. The knowledge that it was of his doing sparks something ancestral within him, makes him proud and deadly – a real force to be reckoned with.

 

Red – blood pulsing through his veins, in his heart, in his head, running, coursing down and over, in and through – red, red, red. Monroe’s lost in the moment, no longer seeing anything but red. There’s no more Nick, no more steady, calm, serene thoughts to guard him from the path of sinful entanglements, to keep hisBlutbad nature in check. There is nothing but red.

 

“Hurts.”

 

The word is little more than a susurration, a mild disturbance of air, and yet it clenches around Monroe’s heart, squeezes it painfully until he comes to himself with a start. When the red recedes, tingeing the corner of his vision, he shudders, suddenly cold and filled with guilt. He’s completely astride Nick; he has positioned his left hand directly on top of the gunshot wound in the Grimm’s belly; the fingers of his right hand are looped tightly around Nick’s dark locks, pulling the man’s head up off the cave floor in a manner which does not look to be at all comfortable; and his erection is pressed against Nick’s thigh where he’s been rubbing, generating friction between the both of them.

 

He pulls himself off of Nick abruptly and staggers away. Judging by the state of almost undress that Nick’s in – jeans completely undone and lowered down past his hips, revealing pristine, white boxers – and his own unbuttoned jeans, the half-unzipped status of his fly, he was about to forcefully take the Grimm right there on the rocky floor of a cave.

 

“Oh, god no, no, no,” Monroe says, uttering the words as a prayer. He didn’t do this. He couldn’t have done this. Not to Nick.

 

Monroe backs away to the entrance of the cave, shaking his head, repeating his mantra of ‘No, no, no, I didn’t, I didn’t, not to Nick’. The light of the moon filters in and shines her long white tresses on him, on the grisly scene just outside the cave, but the revealing light doesn’t touch Nick with her haunting accusations.

 

Monroe falls on his hands and knees and retches. The blood of the madman he’d slain tastes bitter as it comes up and out of his esophagus, burns his throat on the way out, and he retches until nothing is left in his stomach but the yellowish bile.

 

When he’s finished, he feels shaky and cold. He sits back on his haunches, closes his eyes and then opens them, forcing himself to look at the man that he killed with his bare hands. Sweat is dripping into his eyes, stinging them and he can’t hear anything over the erratic beating of his own heart which is why he isn’t prepared for the hand that lands heavily on his shoulder and is unable to put up much of a fight as he’s turned around.

 

A flashlight’s shoved into his face, the light blinds him and he blinks, unseeing, up at the person whose hand is clenched tightly around his bicep. He doesn’t register the words at first, doesn’t have a clue how many times they’ve been repeated by the time he finally hears them and understands what’s being asked.

 

“Are you okay?” the words are almost shouted by the time he actually hears them.

 

He laughs at the absurdity of the question, but it comes out as a sob. He’s ashamed, not of what he did to the crazy man; though he knows it will probably haunt him in his sleep from time to time – the thrill of the kill, the singing of the blood and the wild call of nature. He’s ashamed of what he almost did, what he did do, to Nick.

 

“Your name’s Monroe, right?” the voice is one that he recognizes, even though he can’t see the face.

 

Monroe nods, not understanding why his name is significant at a time like this. He wonders, almost idly, how Hank, Nick’s partner, came to be here, and, more importantly, when he’ll be feeling the cool, biting steel of handcuffs slapped over his wrists. He killed a man and almost raped a man that had grown to become his friend; he deserved to be hauled away and locked up. He wouldn’t fight it.

 

“Wu, I think he’s in shock,” Hank speaks to someone that Monroe can’t see.

 

“Nick,” he finds his voice, his fingers fumble for purchase on Hank’s forearm as he remembers, “Nick’s hurt.”

 

“Nick’s hurt?” Hank asks. “Where is he?” 

 

The detective’s hand tightens on Monroe’s bicep, the flashlight drops and Monroe can finally see. Hank’s mouth is downturned; his eyes are narrowed in something that Monroe reads as a cross between suspicion and worry.

 

“How…” he can’t even formulate the question, ‘How did you find us?’

 

“Where’s Nick?” Hank’s grip on him is almost crushing and Monroe welcomes the pain; it helps him put his jumbled thoughts into some semblance of order.

 

“In the cave, he’s in the cave,” the words are flying out of his mouth and when Hank releases him, he falls forward only to be caught by another officer.

 

There are other officers in the clearing, and it’s clear to Monroe that they are freaked out about something. None of them are looking at him, however, or at the mangled body lying scant feet away from him.

 

“Easy there,” the officer says, squatting down next to him. “I’m Officer Wu. Can you tell me what happened here?” He shines the light in the direction of the man Monroe’s killed.

 

Monroe thinks he might be sick again, there’s so much blood. The moon and Wu’s flashlight pair up to illuminate the carnage and lay his sins bare for the entire world to see. He opens his mouth, but the words stick in his throat, and another strangled sob escapes in their stead.

 

Officer Wu pats him on the back and shakes his head. “I can’t believe that the rumors about Crazy Man Johnson were true,” he says, “we all heard about him as kids, how he’d kill anyone who crossed his path, eat their flesh and use their bones to make furniture out of. I’d always assumed they were stories some adult had made up to keep us out of the woods. Looks like there was at least some truth to those rumors.”

 

Wu points his flashlight overhead and Monroe warily lifts his eyes.  Shock wars with admiration at the sheer quality of what, in other circumstances, could be regarded as artwork, and Monroe gasps. He wonders how he missed it all before, how he and Nick could have walked into the clearing earlier that day on their search for elder berries Monroe needs for a balm, and not noticed all of the bones hanging from the trees– some of them had been whittled into impressive looking ornaments, others had been fashioned into intricate wind chimes, and still others, those not yet bleached by the sun, hung from higher tree branches where the sun would be sure to reach them.

 

“I wonder how many people he killed before he met his own grim and grisly death,” Wu says. “Whatever animal, I’m guessing a cougar, or maybe a rabid bear, took him out, we owe it a favor.”

 

“You can say that again.” A young female officer walks up to them and kneels down so that she’s eye-level with Officer Wu as she talks. She rests her hand on Monroe’s arm. “Detective Griffin’s in the cave with Nick, he’s not looking so good. You want to tell us what happened in there?”

 

“Nick and I were…” Monroe starts to explain.

 

He isn’t sure how to say that they were berry picking, without making it sound completely ridiculous. Two grown men didn’t go berry picking in the middle of the woods on a free Saturday afternoon. It was more along the lines of what little girls wearing gingham dresses, their hair in pigtails, did.

 

A shout of, “Paramedics are here!” cuts him off and he’s heading for the cave, for Nick, shaking off both officers’ arms before either of them are even aware that he’s moved.

 

Their mutual shout of, “Come back!” and “You can’t go in there!” are lost in the general melee that surrounds Nick as the paramedics fall to their work and Monroe watches from the entrance of the cave.

 

In the back of his mind is the thought that no one else but him has the right to touch Nick. His skin crawls, his teeth lengthen, the hair on his hands and arms stands up, and it’s all he can do to keep still and let the rescuers work on Nick. He wants to shove them all off the Grimm and tend to the man’s wounds himself. He knows the ancient medicinal arts, and, if Nick’s injuries require something that is out of his league, he knows of some trusted healers who would be willing to help.

 

‘Easy, they’re just trying to help him,’ he coaxes himself when one of the paramedics shoves an IV needle into Nick’s arm and the man whimpers in response. A growl works its way from deep within his belly and up into his throat when Nick cries out in pain as a bandage is applied to the bullet wound. Like Buck in The Call of the Wild, he’s a caged animal, charging at the bars, teeth clacking against the metal in a vain attempt to free itself.

 

“Captain Renard, If Nick hadn’t sent me that text,” Hank’s words, spoken hastily into his cellphone, capture Monroe’s attention, and he tears his eyes away from his vigilant watch over Nick, “I don’t know if either of them would be alive.” Monroe can feel, more than see the detective’s eyes on him. “I still don’t know how he managed to do it…”

 

And Monroe can understand where the detective’s coming from. He doesn’t know how or when Nick managed to send out a text to his partner. Maybe it was when Monroe was completely out of it, earlier in their captivity or just before their crazed captor shot him. There was a window of opportunity, before the man had gone completely whacko where Nick might’ve been able to get a quick message off letting his partner know where they were, but they’d gone a couple miles off their original course.

 

Hank ends the call and turns to Monroe, and, in spite of the earlier flashlight in the face stunt the detective had pulled, he does a double-take and waves one of the paramedics over. Monroe tries to protest, “I’m not injured,” but a poke here and a prod there reveal cuts and bruises that Monroe hadn’t realized he had because his sole focus had been on Nick.

 

Once Nick is settled onto a litter, Monroe feels the beginning stages of what is bound to be a rather massive adrenaline crash, and it’s all he can do to remain upright. The shaking starts in his hands, moves up his arms, and his legs feel like they’ve no more substance than jelly. Even as the paramedic maneuvers him into a seated position, shoving his head between his knees, Monroe struggles to keep his eyes on Nick.

 

“Easy there,” the paramedic says in a soothing tone and Monroe growls. To his credit, the paramedic doesn’t flinch, just flashes Monroe a look at his true face – Gehilfein – having a stag-like appearance, the Gehlifein are known healers.

 

“I trust that you’ll be cooperating with me Blutbad,” the Gehilfein says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m here to help you, and don’t worry,” this he whispers, “your secret’s safe with me.” Monroe doesn’t need to see the healer’s head jerk in the direction of the man he killed to know what he’s talking about.

 

“I’ve heard about you, how you help the Grimm, and trust that you did what had to be done,” the Gehilfien adds as he continues his exam. He quickly flashes a penlight in Monroe’s eyes, temporarily blinding him.

 

“Minor concussion, must’ve gotten you with the butt of his gun at some point in time. I’ll need to apply a dressing to the wound on your forehead; you’ll need stitches for that gash on your arm.” Monroe flinches away when the Gehilfein touches his forehead.

 

“Easy, I’m not going to harm you, I’m here to help you,” the Gehilfein assures him.

 

“I won’t need stitches,” Monroe says after a cursory glance at the cut in his arm. “It’ll heal on its own.”

 

“I know that, just saying what needs to be said for the sake of those who aren’t our kindred.” The Gehilfein nods in the direction of the officers who are still milling about the cave, some of them are picking up the bones lining the cave floor and placing them in baggies. Monroe wonders what happened to the shard of bone he used to sever his bonds, if it’ll be placed in one of the evidence baggies. He wishes, perversely, the he had pocketed it as a sort of macabre souvenir.

 

“Can I ride with Nick?” Monroe asks, his heartbeat speeding as he watches the other paramedics take Nick away from him.

 

The Gehilfein shakes his head and lays a stilling hand on Monroe’s arm as he starts to rise. “They’ve got to have room to work; the Grimm’s condition is far from stable. How long has he been unconscious?”

 

Monroe suspects that the Gehilfein is just trying to get his mind off of the fact that Nick’s now moving out of sight, even for a creature with heightened senses such as himself, but he answers the question anyway.

 

“I’m not sure. I had to perform rescue breathing shortly after…” he trails off, his hand fluttering in the direction of where the police are marking sections of the forest off with yellow police tape. The Gehilfein nods, and Monroe continues, “His heart never stopped beating, though. He regained consciousness shortly after and then…”

 

‘And then you almost raped him,’ a voice at the back of his mind accuses him. His Blutbad nature takes offense at the stab of guilt that Monroe feels.

 

‘There is no guilt in sex and violence,’ his uncivil half reasons.

 

His civil half doesn’t help matters any by adding, ‘They are both fibers which intertwine to form the same single, red thread which adds to the tapestry of life.’

 

‘Violence and sex; sex and violence,’ Monroe muses. ‘Rape. Lust. Death.’

 

“Are you alright?” the Gehilfein asks.

 

Monroe nods and shudders as his thoughts grow red. No, he’s not alright. He might never be alright again. Not if Nick doesn’t make it; not if Nick doesn’t forgive him.

 

After a few more pokes and prods, he’s being loaded into an ambulance, not quite kicking and screaming, but not exactly complaint free. The only consolation is that he knows the ambulance will bring him closer to Nick. Not that he should be allowed within a mile of the Grimm, but he can’t quite make himself – both the Blutbad and his other, gentler nature – think of life without the other man in it.

 

The ride to the hospital is a blur. When he gets there, he’s whisked away. The lights are too bright, the doctors, interns, are a little too rough, and before he’s even really had a chance to take stock of what’s going on, he’s lying in a hospital bed, staring up at a much too white ceiling. An IV’s attached to his arm, dripping medicine into his bloodstream. It robs him of his strength, makes him lethargic, and makes his sense of smell go a little haywire.

 

No Gehilfein or other being of his kind is in sight to get him out of this over-bleached hell-hole, and his eyelids are too heavy for him to move. Before he realizes what’s hit him, he slips into a state of unconsciousness which is far from the restful reprieve that it should be.

 

It’s dark, cold and there’s a heavy scent of copper mixed with pine in the air.

 

“Nick!” Monroe shouts, reaching toward the Grimm even as the man who’s captured them slams the butt of the gun into Nick’s temple and he crumples at his feet.

 

The nightmare doesn’t end there though, the rifle comes up a second time, and even though Monroe is quicker than an average human, he isn’t quicker than a bullet. The spread of red across Nick’s abdomen is almost immediate, even though the sound doesn’t reach his ears until seconds have passed.

 

The world twists around him; leaves bleed into one another; dry, gnarled branches twirl and crack; and Nick’s dead. His eyes, lifeless, are gray in death. They seem to bore into his very soul, accusing him and rending marrow from bone, leaving him naked and bleeding. Dead heart beating ceaselessly in an empty shell.

 

And he’s falling to his knees, through the very center of the earth. The molten lava of the earth’s core burns him, but he welcomes it. He’s on fire, the flames licking at his skin and dancing across his tongue aren’t red, they’re blue, gray, a variation of the color of Nick’s eyes.

 

The scene switches and he’s astride Nick. He’s shoving Nick’s legs apart with one knee, the other’s pinning the wounded Grimm in place. With one hand, he’s pulling Nick’s jeans and boxers off in a single movement and flipping him onto his stomach with the other.

 

A growl, low, guttural, almost like a hum, is coming from within his throat, and his cock twitches at the sight of Nick’s blood pooling on the ground beneath them. He frees his throbbing dick. Without warning, he pushes himself into Nick, his inner demon screams in delight as Nick squirms, scrabbles at the dirt to get away from him.

 

The cloying smell of fear mixed with desperation and blood, Nick’s frantic movements and broken keening spurs him on, makes him push harder and faster until he’s coming with an earsplitting howl, head thrown back, the beast haloed in the glowing light of the moon. He bites the back of Nick’s neck, drawing blood and marking him. He isn’t the least bit bothered when the man whimpers in response, takes in a shuddering breath and then collapses, dead. He laps at the blood, relishing it before it cools and then pulls out and wipes himself on the back of Nick’s bruised thighs.

 

Another switch and he’s back in the cave, his hands tied behind his back. His fingers are numb and he drops the shard of bone he’s been working on the binds with. He reaches for it, but before he can pick it up, the madman’s back. There’s a snarl on his face and he’s rambling about how Nick is an alien headhunter, how his bones will make a beautiful wind chime. Monroe opens his mouth to protest, but no sound comes out.

 

And it’s Nick’s guts strewn about the clearing, his face torn from ear to ear, his neck left open and gaping, revealing his spinal cord. Monroe retches, begs for the madman to kill him too, but he severs Nick’s head instead, tosses it into the cave where it lands on Monroe’s lap. Nick’s lifeless eyes, cold and icy blue, stare up at him. Though unseeing, they accuse him, blame Monroe for his death.

 

Nick’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly, the synapses firing off their last bits of electrical impulses as the brain belatedly gets the memo that Nick is dead. Monroe can’t even close Nick’s eyes for him. He watches as they cloud over in death. The milky-white quality of Nick’s dead eyes obscures their color and Monroe cannot look away.

 

Monroe wakes suddenly, gasping for air. The images of Nick’s deaths are fresh in his mind, he claws at the IV in his arm, pulling it loose and sending it crashing to the floor. The heart monitor is bleating loudly, the alarm causing the room to be flooded with an influx of medical personnel. Monroe fights them as though he’s fighting a host of Siegbarstes.

 

Something pricks his skin. Medicine, like poison, boils in his veins and this time, when he goes under, he does not dream.

 

When he next comes to, he blinks up at the ceiling, memories of the past twenty-four hours mesh with those of his dreams and he hears the heart monitor pick up the increase of his heart rate. It’s unnerving and a little claustrophobic. He can’t remember the last time that he’s been in a hospital for anything other than Nick related shit. He’s more of a homeopathic remedy type of guy. It fits in with his religion and the way he was raised.

 

Not that his family was like one of those kooks you hear about on TV every now and again whose kid died of something when he could’ve lived simply because they didn’t believe in modern medicine. Truth was, Blutbad were rather a hearty breed, and recovered from life threatening situations a lot quicker than your average human. It is difficult to kill a Blutbad.

 

Tiredness sneaks up on him and before he realizes it, he’s out again, eyes too heavy to keep open, blink as he fights to stay awake. If he wants to get out of the bed and flee the hospital, he has to stay awake to do it. He isn’t even aware of it when he loses the battle, and thankfully nothing haunts him as he sleeps.

 

The next time he wakes, he senses a change in the air – a scent that shouldn’t be there wars with that of sickness, bleach and death. Nick.

 

He turns his head, which, thanks to modern medicine, feels heavy and like it’s floating at the same time. Beside him, with only a bedside table, bedecked with a plastic water pitcher and two glasses, between them, is Nick. The Grimm is pale, his lips an unhealthy shade of blue, but, if the steady blips on the cardiogram attached to his chest are to be trusted, Nick’s alive. His pulse is strong, but once again, breathing seems to be an issue.

 

Monroe wonders, first of all, why Nick was placed in the same room as he was, and second, why there isn’t an oxygen mask over his face instead of the nose cannula. Both are good questions, but he can’t seem to voice either of them.

 

Movement from across the room startles him, but drugged as he is, he’s unable to react properly and can only offer a half-hearted growl in response. It comes out sounding embarrassingly like a whimper.

 

“Relax,” Monroe recognizes Detective Griffin’s, Hank’s, voice, “let me get you some water.”

 

Monroe’s at a loss for what to do, so he takes the offered cup of water, ignores Hank’s admonition to, “Take it easy,” but doesn’t resist the help the detective offers him when he’s unable to raise the cup of water to his lips unaided. ‘Pride has no place when one’s laid out in a hospital bed,’ Monroe thinks.

 

When he’s able to speak, to see things a little more clearly, he’s surprised to find that Hank’s propped himself up against his bed, hip resting on the mattress next to his hand. it strikes Monroe as a little too intimate,  but it’s way too confusing for him to address at the moment. For now, all he wants to know is if Nick is going to be alright and why they’re in the same room together.

 

“I wanted to thank you for saving Nick’s life,” Hank says before Monroe can ask his questions.

 

He opens his mouth to protest that he didn’t save Nick’s life, and that, in fact, he was almost responsible for committing a crime far more heinous than murder, but once again, Hank speaks before he can.

 

“Docs had no choice but to put you and Nick in the same room,” Hank says, shaking his head. He runs his hand through his hair. “Seems that he wouldn’t stop asking about you, saying that he needed to tell you something, that he needed to be with you.”

 

Hank raises an eyebrow in question and, not knowing what this is all about, Monroe shrugs. He is clueless as to why Nick would be so insistent on being with him. He knows that he doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as the Grimm and that once Nick wakes up, he’ll probably be a little more cognizant and realize that he doesn’t want Monroe in the same room with him after all.

 

Unless maybe the Grimm wants to confront him about what happened back at the cave, how Monroe took advantage of him when he was wounded and vulnerable. How he’d all but fucked him.

 

“Kept saying that you saved his life,” Hand looks away as he speaks, clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck before he continues, “and that,” Hank swallows and now Monroe’s worried about what the detective is nervous about saying. “That he loves you.”

 

Hank’s eyes, a murky brown, are now boring into him as he pins Monroe with a censorious glare that has no heat from anger, but is filled with a mixture of curiosity, and what Monroe is certain he is mistaking for jealousy. Surely Nick’s playboy partner is not jealous of a fictional relationship between him and Nick.

 

“Don’t look at me man,” Monroe protests, his voice sounds scratchy with ill-use, “I,” he swallows past the dry lump in his throat, “Nick got hit pretty hard in the noggin, and granted the he’s got a pretty hard head, I’m sure that…”

 

“Nah,” Hank interrupts Monroe’s attempt at deflection, “I don’t think that’s it at all,” he pierces Monroe with a look that makes him squirm, “you haven’t seen the way his eyes light up when you call, or the way his lips curl up in a flirtatious smile when he’s talking to, or even about you. Like he’s got some wonderful secret that he doesn’t want to share with anyone else. You know what I think?” Hank quirks his head to the side and Monroe swallows nervously even as he shakes his head.

 

“That Nick’s all drugged up and isn’t’ thinking coherently?” Monroe guesses.

 

“No, I think that the fear of almost dying and all of the drugs currently running through his system finally provided Nick with the impetus he needed to be honest with himself. The man’s been falling in love with you for quite a while now,” Hank pauses and gives him a thoughtful look, “at first I thought the brush-offs to go out drinking with me and our buddies were because he wanted to spend more time with Juliette, you know, build up the courage or find the right moment to finally pop the question, but, where do you think Nick was when I called?”

 

More than just a little fearful, Monroe can only swallow and shake his head. He has no idea. Nick hasn’t’ said anything to him about blowing off his partner or Juliette to spend time with him. It doesn’t make any sense and Monroe’s head aches just thinking about it.

 

“He was with you,” Hank leans in close as he speaks and Monroe’s unsure what’s going to happen to him now, if Hank’s going to hit him or spit on him, or any number of things which are running through his head.

 

“Nine times out of ten, he was with the mysterious clock worker we’d picked up on suspicion of kidnapping months ago. Imagine my surprise, imagine Juliette’s, when he asked for you instead of her, before he went into surgery today.” Hank doesn’t sound angry, just confused, and Monroe is confused too. Why would Nick ask for him and not Hank or Juliette? It doesn’t make sense.

 

“Bu..but,” Monroe isn’t prepared for this, has no idea how to respond to what Hank is insinuating.

 

It’s preposterous. That Nick might actually like him as something more than just a Blutbad with a shit ton of useful information is news to him.

 

“You see,” Hank leans in close, “I’m a detective, and I’m pretty damn good at what I do, I’m a little more observant than the average person,” Hank’s tone is conversational, but the steely glint in his eyes tells Monroe that what the man is telling him is far from casual.

 

“I can see that you,” Hank pokes Monroe in the chest as he speaks, “like Nick too, and not just as a friend. You two have something a little more intimate than what is typical in an informant/police officer relationship.”

 

“But I,” Monroe isn’t sure what it is that Nick and he have, if anything.

 

He knows that what Hank is saying is partially correct, but it’s not something he can share with the detective without revealing Nick’s secret. Sure, they’re intimate, but only out of necessity. Monroe likes that he’s the only one Nick can trust with the fact that he’s a Grimm and all that being a Grimm entails. He likes being Nick’s go-to man, though it didn’t start out that way – not by a long-shot. But love?

 

“I, look, you’ve got this all wrong. Yeah, I like Nick, he’s a likeable guy,” Monroe says, ignoring the itch that starts in the palm of his hand and progresses along his body as he remembers what it felt like to kiss Nick, and how Nick had responded, that needy sound the Grimm had made at the back of his throat, the way he had whimpered.

 

“Yeah, he’s likeable alright,” Hank agrees, casting a look over at Nick who’s still unconscious, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place just scant feet away from him. “Whoever ends up partnering with him in something other than this shitty day-to-day crap that we deal with will have a hell of a good man,” Hank says.

 

“Juliette is a very lucky woman,” Monroe adds, just to solidify his stance and let Hank know that he doesn’t have designs on the unconscious detective.

 

Hank gives him a searching look, shakes his head and pats Monroe on the arm, squeezing it slightly before releasing it and settling once again on the side of his bed. Again, Monroe is a bit off-put by the gesture of intimacy on the part of a man that he barely knows except for what Nick has told him about Hank, which isn’t much.

 

“You know what Nick was supposed to be doing before he went off with you this morning?” Hank asks.

 

Monroe shakes his head. He remembers the call, how excited he’d been when Nick had told him that, no, he didn’t have any plans for Saturday and that he’d be delighted, he’d actually used the word delighted, to go berry picking with him. Monroe assumed it was because he’d be able to grill him freely about any and all manner of Grimm lore without the fear that someone would overhear them, but he’d been fine with that. He liked sharing his knowledge with Nick.

 

“He was supposed to come over to my place to watch the game with me and some of the other guys,” he pauses, makes sure that Monroe is looking at him before he continues, “Juliette was supposed to come too, she’d made some dip. He canceled on us, said that something important had come up, and to enjoy the game without him. When he texted me, I,” Hank pauses, shakes his head, “at first I was angry that he’d ditched me, but then when I reread it, I felt ashamed.”

 

“Hey, you got there in time to save Nick and me,” Monroe says in an effort to cheer the detective up.

 

“Nick had told me that he was planning on asking Juliette to marry him,” Hank continues as if Monroe hadn’t spoken, “day after day, I look for that ring on her finger, but,” Hank wiggles his own ring-less finger in front of Monroe’s face, “no ring. I don’t think Nick’s going to ask her to marry him, not after that attack at their house, her kidnapping, not after you.”

 

Monroe isn’t sure how to respond to that. He knows that Nick not proposing to the girl he loves has more to do with the advent of his status as new Grimm on the block than his strange relationship with Monroe. He’s just the friendly neighborhood Blutbad with some answers, and a love of Grimm culture, nothing more.

 

Nick comes to him when he needs a translation from German to English or extra knowledge about a new creature he’s encountered. It’s a working relationship, but one that he can’t even begin to explain to Hank.

 

“When I saw how protective you were of Nick when we first arrived, how you never took your eyes off of him even while the paramedics were working on you, I knew that it wasn’t just a one-sided thing on his part,” Hank’s voice is soft, “and what you did to keep him alive was above and beyond what a friend would do. I can’t even pretend to know how it all happened, or why, but,” Hank cocks an eyebrow and smiles, clapping Monroe on the shoulder, “I guess that if you’re willing to put your life on the line for Nick, and put yourself between him and danger, I’m okay with it. You and Nick have my blessing.”

 

Monroe’s heart stops for what feels like a short eternity as he attempts to process Hank’s words, the possible hidden meaning behind them, whether or not they could actually be true. Could Nick actually have something like romantic feelings for him and vice-versa?

 

It’s absurd, and yet, according to Hank, the Grimm had lied to his girlfriend and his partner to go berry picking with him, on his day off. Berry picking. Men didn’t ditch the women they loved and their best friends to go berry picking with an acquaintance or a business partner. Shit. Shit. Shit. How had he missed this?

 

Monroe feels like he’s on a rollercoaster, except two of the wheels are completely off the track and it’s coming up to a loop-de-loop. He doesn’t even register when he’s grasps Hank’s hand, his eyes darting over to Nick’s still form as things begin to click into place – the wheels crashing back onto the track just in time for the death defying loop-de-loop.

 

He loves Nick. His heart begins to beat again, racing along with his thoughts. That thing in the cave, the urge to take the Grimm and make him his own, wasn’t merely borne of violence and blood, of genetic engineering generations in the making, but of something more substantial and far less sinister than he had thought it was at the time.

 

He loves Nick. Nick hadn’t returned the kiss out of necessity or some primal urge to survive, but he’d returned the kiss because he had wanted it too.

 

“I,” Monroe hasn’t ever been at such a loss for words as he has been for the past half an hour, “I,” and then what Hank has said fully registers, and he pulls his hand away, backs away from the detective as much as he can. He wonders why he isn’t being hauled away to jail, why Nick is being kept in the same room as him if the detective knows what he to keep Nick alive.

 

“What do you mean, what I did for Nick?” he asks.

 

Hanks eyes him curiously, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, “Nick came to before his surgery and told us how you kept him alive. How you kept that psycho from killing him outright before he was killed by some wild animal.”

 

“Oh,” deflated, Monroe falls back against the pillow, suddenly exhausted. Nick had clearly lied for him, but why?

 

He hadn’t thought that Nick had been aware when he’d bargained with the crazy man for his life, but maybe that was when Nick had been able to send the text that had led the police to them. It had been touch-and-go for a while. Monroe had feared for both of their lives at several points during the schizoid conversation, but in the end, he’d been able to  convince the crazy man to keep them both alive, at least until he’d returned from checking his other ‘alien body snatcher’ traps he’d set up throughout the forest.

 

“From what the docs said, you took quite a beating. They had to stitch up a pretty impressive bullet graze to your arm, and your wrists had been rubbed raw from the ropes. It was pretty resourceful of you to use one of the bone fragments to free yourself so that you could perform rescue breathing on Nick,” Hank sounds like he’s a little in awe of him, and Monroe tries to make himself seem smaller. He doesn’t want the detective’s praise.

 

“I wasn’t shot,” Monroe says, one comment of Hank’s sticking out to him more than the rest, and it’s something that he feels he must clarify, even if he can see the white bandage wrapped around his upper arm out of the corner of his eye.

 

Hank just smiles and shakes his head. “Yeah, Nick said that you didn’t even seem to notice it. He was worried about you, even as he was being prepped for surgery. So was that paramedic who worked on you, Jones or Jameson, sorry, I can’t remember his name. Fact is Monroe, you’re a hero. You saved Nick’s life. Thank you.”

 

“Don’t thank me,” Monroe is quick to say, “I didn’t really do anything. Nick’s strong, and that man was completely off his rocker. I ain’t no hero.”

 

“Yes, you are,” the voice is little more than a whisper, the words sound painful to Monroe’s ears, but his heart skips a beat as Nick speaks.

 

Hank’s pressing water to Nick’s lips before the man can say anything more and Monroe feels the loss of heat as the man moves from the position he’d kept on his bed. The intimacy he hadn’t really wanted, but now felt bereft of.

 

“Thank you,” Nick whispers.

 

“Anytime.”

 

“God, I feel like I’ve been run clean through with a hot poker,” Nick groans as he speaks.

 

“You were shot and clobbered over the head by a madman, you should be thanking your lucky stars,” Monroe says, glad that Nick’s awake and that the awkward talk with Hank is over, at least he prays that it’s over now that Nick’s awake.

 

“Well,” Hank stretches, looks at his watch, and says, “looks like you woke up just in time for visiting hours to be over.”

 

Monroe rolls his eyes at Hank’s lack of subtlety. As happy as he is that Hank’s on his way out the door, he isn’t sure he’s ready to face Nick on his own.

 

“You okay?” Nick asks around a yawn.

 

“Am I okay?” Monroe can’t help the slight bite of anger which colors his words. “I wasn’t the one who got shot and clocked by a crazy psycho with a gun. I’m fine Nick. You’re the one we need to be concerned about here.”

 

“I’ve been better,” Nick concedes after a few seconds of deliberation.

 

Nick clears his throat, stares at Monroe for the space of several heartbeats, making him squirm. He resists the urge to tell Nick to just get on with whatever it is that he has to say, knowing that, with the amount of time it’s taking Nick to work up to, it can’t be anything good.

 

“Thank you,” Nick says. The words are spoken quietly and with such gratitude that it feels as though Monroe’s been kicked in the gut.

 

“For what?” Monroe asks, giving into the pent up anger that has been simmering just below the surface since they came across their captor and their whole ordeal began. “For taking you away from your friends, the woman you love, getting you kidnapped and shot? For, for…” he sputters to a stop, the words failing him as he opens and closes his mouth.

 

“For saving my life and keeping your head in a life and death situation,” Nick says, like it’s the truth.

 

Monroe snorts. “I don’t think you and me experienced the same set of circumstances if you think I kept my head in what went down.”

 

“I know what I heard and saw, how you talked to Johnson and kept him calm, how you bargained for my life even after the man shot you…”

 

“He didn’t shoot me,” Monroe interrupts, wondering why everyone keeps insisting that he was shot. He was there; he should know what happened better than anyone else, he’d lived through it after all.

 

“Okay,” Nick draws the word out like its three syllables instead of two, “I guess that the white bandage on your arm is because you scraped it on a berry patch, not because of the bullet that grazed your arm when you tried to help me up after Johnson shot me. I must’ve been hallucinating when you convinced Johnson that he needed to check on his other traps, in case there were more of my kind out there.”

 

“Nick, just don’t, don’t thank me,” Monroe says, fearing what will happen when, if, Nick remembers what happened after Johnson left.

 

“Monroe,” Nick says, “Monroe look at me.”

 

Monroe can feel Nick’s eyes on him; they’ll be a dark, smoky gray and accusing. It’s only when he hears movement – the shuffling of sheets, an ill-stifled moan – coming from the other bed that he looks over and nearly lets loose the growl that has been building in his chest since he woke to find that he wasn’t alone.

 

“Oh no you don’t,” Monroe says, rising as well. “Get back in that bed.” It comes out as a far more of a command than he intended for it to, but it does the trick and the both of them settle back into their respective beds.

 

“Monroe, what you did for me was above and beyond…”

 

“It was nothing that you wouldn’t have done for me,” Monroe cuts Nick off before he has a chance to get overly sentimental on him.

 

He doesn’t deserve the Grimm’s thanks, knows that he has to tell Nick what else happened between them when Nick was delirious, and what he almost did to the injured Grimm when he’d been high from the kill.

 

“Thank you,” Nick says again, “if it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I’d be alive.”

 

“If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place,” Monroe says, thinking back on the conversation he’d had with Hank, “you’d have been over at Hank’s watching the game with Juliette.”

 

Nick’s brows furrow in confusion and then his mouth twists upward in a look that Monroe has come to know means that he’s angry. Thin-lipped and pale, Nick sits up and faces him.

 

“Did Hank tell you that?”

 

The question isn’t what Monroe had been expecting Nick to say. He’d been expecting a confirmation or an accusation.

 

“He told me that you begged off on watching the game with him and some of the guys,” Monroe says. “If you had gone to watch the game, you would never have been in any danger from Johnson,” Monroe continues, “that’s the truth. I put you into danger.”

 

“Monroe, you asked me to go berry picking, not rock climbing,” Nick says, there’s a teasing glint in his eyes; “there’s no inherent danger in picking elderberries. Hell, I could’ve choked on a piece of hotdog or fell on a barbecue fork at Hank’s.”

 

Monroe doesn’t even smile, doesn’t allow Nick’s light tone to goad him into conceding the point that none of this was his fault. He’s like a dog with a bone, not willing to let the matter drop. He had put Nick in harm’s way, and he wasn’t going to let the Grimm dismiss it so easily and treat it as though nothing had happened. Nick had almost died. He’d almost lost the Grimm, and before he’d really gotten to know him.

 

“This isn’t something to joke about,” Monroe says, looking away from Nick, playing with the edge of the hospital sheet. The material is stiff and rough beneath fingers so used to silk or satin.

 

“You almost died Nick. You almost died and I, I, I killed Johnson with my bare hands and, and I, I, god, I, I almostrapedyou…” he’s red by the time he finishes speaking, his breath comes out in harsh gasps as he struggles to take in air, but he can’t seem to make his lungs cooperate.

 

Far from feeling like a weight has been lifted off of his chest, he feels trapped, confined and terrified. Childhood memories of gruesome horror stories about Grimms flood his mind, and it’s all he can do not to bolt from the room in utter terror that Nick will loom over him and sunder him limb from limb and then impale his head upon a spike for all otherworldly creatures to see and take heed.

 

He can’t even look at Nick. His fingers are worrying a hole in the coarse fabric of the starchy sheets as he waits for the Grimm to make a move or say something incriminating. Or maybe he’s texting Hank to come and arrest him on charges of murder and attempted rape.

 

He startles, looking up into eyes that are a cloudy blue, reminiscent of the Willamette River he’d played in as a child, back when there were portions of the Willamette that were actually swimmable. He doesn’t know how Nick managed to sneak over to him, especially when the man is clinging to an IV pole and his breaths are coming out in harsh, bone jarring gasps. The heart monitor is oddly silent, not sending out any alarms as it should be and Monroe wonders how the Grimm managed to silence it without alerting the medical staff.

 

The Grimm lays a hand on his arm, and Monroe actually squeaks, a very unmanly sound that turns him an even deeper shade of red. He deserves anything that the Grimm is about to do to him, and more. Nick really is far more forgiving than he should be for a Grimm.

 

When Nick leans in close, his breath coming out in a burst of air that raises goose bumps along his skin, Monroe stiffens, waiting for Nick’s fist to slam into his face. What happens instead takes him by surprise, steals his breath away and hits him like a jolt of electricity.

 

The kiss is nothing like the one they shared in the cave; it’s soft, yet insistent. Nick’s lips, no longer blue from oxygen deprivation, are supple and tender, warm against Monroe’s. His fingers curl into Monroe’s light green hospital gown as he pulls him closer, the metal IV pole clinks against that of the hospital bedrail.

 

And then Nick’s tongue is pressing against his lips, begging for entrance and Monroe obliges, the pit of his stomach twisting and roiling with emotions that he’d repressed long ago. The same tastes are there as were in the cave, except, instead of blood, there’s a distinctive minty flavor mixing with the peach, and this time Nick’s in control, leaving him breathless and aching for more.

 

Nick pulls away abruptly and Monroe feels bereft. Nick’s knuckles are white from clutching the hospital gown so tightly and he’s panting for air, head resting against Monroe’s, cheeks flushed red, eyes gray and sparking with an almost animalistic lust.

 

“Wha…” Monroe says, breath hitching in his throat.

 

Nick places his hands on either side of Monroe’s face, leans in and kisses him on the nose, the chin and then lets his lips linger over Monroe’s throat, scraping his unshaved skin with his teeth. His thumbs rub small circles along Monroe’s jawline, loosening up tense muscles that Monroe didn’t even realize he had. Nick’s thumbs are calloused; the roughness of his skin takes the Blutbad by surprise, makes him hard.

 

“Sorry,” Nick says, even as he places a kiss against the pulse point on Monroe’s throat.

 

“For what?” Monroe asks, moaning, capturing Nick’s mouth with his.

 

“For this,” Nick says, and he starts to pull away, but Monroe grips the back of his head, keeps him there, forehead resting against forehead.

 

“Nick, I, I don’t know what happened back at the cave,” Monroe says, averting his gaze.

 

“I remember the kiss,” Nick says, his voice low and soft. The susurration of sound sends tendrils of hot breath against Monroe’s throat that tickle and arouse him. “How it made me feel like I was drowning and needed to come up for air, except that I felt like I’d been drowning all my life and,” Nick places a kiss on Monroe’s eyelid, “that kiss was like a buoy in a safe harbor. You saved my life Monroe,” Nick kisses him on the forehead, “in more ways than one today.”

 

“But I,” Monroe protests, looking at Nick, swallowing past the warring sensations that assault him at the look of wanton lust in the Grimm’s eyes. There’s a resurgence of the same primal need that had risen within him when they’d been in the cave and he cannot stop the rumbling growl that surfaces.

 

“You killed a man for me today, brought me back to life, and, I can’t even pretend to understand what today must’ve been like for you, but I don’t blame you for what might have happened. For what you almost did. Monroe, it didn’t happen so stop apologizing,” Nick says, his lips are on Monroe’s, halting the protest before he can even give form to it.

 

When Nick lets him up for air, Monroe sighs, his eyes searching Nick’s for any sign of duplicity or regret. Finding none, he returns Nick’s goofy grin with a tentative smile. This, he can work with.

 

Nick’s knees buckle, and Monroe, ignoring the pull in his shoulder, hoists the man up onto the bed with him. When the doctors and nurses come in to check up on the men, they find them ensconced in each other’s arms, matching smiles adorning their lips.

 

The sound of footsteps heading down the hallway toward their room interrupt the move Monroe’s about to make, his attempt to reciprocate, give the Grimm a run for his money in the kissing department. He knows that Nick out of bed is not something the medical staff will be happy about, that it might even get him kicked out of the room if they feel that keeping them together might compromise the Grimm’s health.

 

“Nick,” Monroe says, pulling away, “docs are on their way, maybe we should, you know, continue this a little later?” He’s still not sure what it is that they’re doing, if it isn’t just the drugs in Nick’s system making him horny or whatever.

 

“Sure,” Nick says, the word comes out a bit slurred.

 

He’s unsteady on his feet as he makes his way across the floor to his bed. The doctor and accompanying nurse are in the room just as he’s settling into the bed.  A look of pain and fatigue creases his brows, but the triumphant and wicked smile on his face belies the pain.

 

Monroe tries, unsuccessfully, to control the low, rumbling growls that are elicited when the doctor and nurse tend to Nick. Neither of the hospital personnel pay him any mind, though, until their attention is turned to him and then he does manage to control the irritated rumbling in his chest.

 

He’s tired of being poked and prodded, of everyone insisting that the injuries to his arm, wrists and ankles are worth anything more than a cursory glance. He’s had worse, and has homeopathy remedies sitting in his kitchen cupboards. He is more than capable of taking care of himself.

 

But, once the doctors and the nurses leave, and it’s just him and Nick in the room, he relaxes and begins to see that maybe being stuck in the hospital, in spite of its overwhelming chemical smells, might not be so bad after all. Nick’s napping, his mouth slack, the lips that were once a worrying blue have taken on a much healthier shade of reddish pink that Monroe finds more than a little stimulating.

 

It’s as he’s drifting off to sleep with thoughts of plundering Nick’s mouth that he realizes something else. That, if he was at home, recovering on his own, no one would be here to have Nick’s back. Any old creature could come along and take the Grimm out while he’s laid out like this. With that terrifying thought in mind, Monroe drops off into an uneasy sleep, startling awake with every noise that seems out of the ordinary.

 

It is a long three days for Monroe, the only highlight being those times when Nick or he sneak out of bed to kiss and he feels like a naughty teenager sneaking out of the house. After the second time they do this, Monroe thinks that the doctor is onto them, but he just shakes his head, a knowing smile on his face and doesn’t say anything about it.

 

When he is able to leave, he doesn’t, not right away. He sticks around, keeps Nick company until Hank stops by and tells him to go get some rest, that he’ll take over watching Nick for a while.

 

“You sure you got this?” Monroe asks.

 

He’s not even looking at Hank, but watching Nick who’s been sleeping for the past hour, gray-blue eyes twitching beneath the closed lids. He wonders what the Grimm’s been dreaming about – him or the ordeal they went through which nearly cost him his life.

 

“Yeah man,” Hank says, his lips are curled up in amusement as watches Monroe watch Nick. “I’ve got it covered. I don’t think Nick would be too happy if you made yourself sick keeping vigil over him.”

 

“I,” Monroe starts to protest, but smiles sheepishly and looks away when Hank claps him on the back an laughs.

 

“You really love him, don’t you?” he says, and Monroe wants to deny it, but he can’t.

 

Instead, he nods and with another quick glance at Nick’s sleeping form, he slips a piece of paper with his home and cell numbers on it into Hank’s hand.

 

“Call me if…” he trails off uncertain of what he should say. He can’t say something like, ‘Call me if some big bad comes after Nick.’

 

But, it turns out that he doesn’t need to say anything, Hank understands.

 

“Yeah, I’ll call you if anything happens and if Nick’s going to be alone. I think some of the others will be stopping by today, maybe even Juliette. Don’t worry man, I’ll keep you posted.”

 

Hank’s words are like a salve, and he lets out the anxious breath he had been holding in ever since he’d signed the release papers. Monroe knows that he can count on Hank, never mind the fact that they just had their first serious talk while Nick was lying unconscious mere feet away from them.

 

Hank squeezes his shoulder and he does his best to muster up a smile. In spite of the relief he feels knowing that someone will be watching over Nick in his absence, it’s hard to leave the Grimm behind, and not just because he knows that he won’t be able to really sleep without hearing the soft rumbles of Nick’s gentle snores. He’s gotten used to them, and Nick’s scent, which will be damned hard to live without.

 

The next week drags and yet goes by much too quickly. Monroe’s back to working on clocks and watches, and he’s visiting Nick at the hospital, occupying those lonely hours of the day that are not specifically earmarked for visitors. But if the nurses and doctors are wise to it, they turn a blind eye to his blatant disregard for visiting hours.

 

He doesn’t get to see Nick do much of anything other than sleep, and while he is content to watch over the Grimm, he wants more. It’s like having a taste of the most delicious fruit you’ve ever encountered, and then being denied access to it. It drives him mad, makes him itch from the inside out and it’s all he can do to control himself when around the sleeping detective.

 

He doesn’t want a repeat of what almost happened at the cabin, and yet he is a Blutbad. It is difficult to deny himself, to deny his nature and not take what he wants, but, he grits his teeth and does just that. He knows Nick’s forgiven him for what he almost did, the Grimm has told him over and over again that he forgives him, but he doesn’t think that the same measure of mercy would be afforded him if he were to jump off the wagon again.

 

“Hey, didn’t see much of you for the past week,” Nick says as he’s checking out and Monroe blinks.

 

“Uh, yeah, had to go back to work, you know make some money and all that, couldn’t sit around with your lazy ass all the time,” Monroe says, feeling like a world-class idiot as the words leave his mouth.

“Oh yeah, sure,” Nick says, blushing and ducking his head. “It’s just, I thought…”

 

“Hank and the others covered the normal visiting hours,” Monroe blurts, feeling like a heel for making Nick feel bad, “I took over the night watch, you know, to keep you safe.”

 

Nick’s suddenly in his personal space, his serious gray eyes searching his for something. Nick bites his bottom lip, his brow creasing in concern as he touches Monroe’s face, tracing the dark sacks beneath his eyes.

 

“Babe,” the whispered endearment causes Monroe’s heart to flip and fills him with butterflies, “you didn’t get much sleep did you?” Nick’s lips brush against his before he has a chance to pull away and save them from the prying eyes of others.

 

“Uh, Nick?”

 

“Juliette,” Nick pulls away from the kiss, but his hand grasps Monroe’s firmly and he turns them both around to face a beautiful red-haired woman, “this is the man I’ve been telling you about,” he says, and Monroe’s a little thrown.

 

He’s heard a lot about Juliette, about how much the Grimm loves her and he wonders what happened in the space of a week when he wasn’t standing guard over the man.

 

“This is Monroe?” she asks, and though Monroe can see a fleeting sadness in her eyes as she holds out her hand, it is quickly replaced by a warm smile.

 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says, shaking his hand, “Nick’s told me a lot about you. Thank you for saving his life, and bringing him back to all of us. We all love him very much.”

 

If he isn’t mistaken there is a bit of a warning in her words, belied by the smile she has plastered in place. Her hand squeezes his a little too hard before releasing his and he hesitantly returns her smile, vowing to get to the whole story of what Nick has said to her as soon as possible. His hackles raise a little as she quirks an eyebrow in a bit of a challenge.

 

“Are you heading home straight away?” Hank steps in and Monroe shoots him a grateful look.

 

“Yeah, I know I’ve been ‘resting’ in the hospital, but I’m kind of beat,” Nick says.

 

“You all gave us quite a scare,” Hank says and then he’s leading the way out of the hospital. “You can’t even begin to imagine what it’s been like at the precinct without you. It’ll be good to have you back come Monday, partner.”

 

Nick tugs Monroe along, and he finds himself blushing as the hospital staff wave at them.

 

“You need a ride?” Hank asks, but Nick shakes his head, inching closer to Monroe.

 

“I can take you home,” Juliette offers. “I’ve got a couple of things I need to pick up from there anyway.”

 

Nick nudges him and against his better judgment, Monroe finds himself blurting out, “I’ll take Nick home; we have a couple of things to talk about.” Yeah, like since when did Juliette move out? he adds silently.

 

The ride to Nick’s place is quiet, in spite of the questions that are rolling around inside of Monroe’s head, the biggest one being about what it is that they’re doing and if Nick has broken things off with Juliette for good. He knows that it hasn’t even been a full two weeks, but there’s no way that he will share Nick with anyone. If that’s what Nick is expecting, then he’s going to break things off with the Grimm now, maybe even move away, because Blutbads, at least not him, don’t share their lovers.

 

“Nick, back there at the hospital, you and Juliette…” Monroe says as he’s pulling into Nick’s drive.

 

“It was over well before the hospital,” Nick says quietly, he’s looking at his hands, picking at some loose skin. “She’s slowly been moving things out ever since that whole being kidnapped by that dragon thing. Daemonfeuers? It really threw her for a loop, and made me realize that, if I loved her, I’d let her go, to keep her safe.”

 

Monroe’s hairs bristle at that.

 

“I see,” he says, slowly turning to Nick who is frowning at him. “So, you love Juliette. You love her so much that you’re willing to let her go, like that damn saying about the butterfly. What about me Nick? Do you love me like that? Or is what we’ve got something other than love? Are you going to ‘set me free’ too like some fucking winged worm?”

 

“What?” Nick leans back against the passenger door, getting as much room between himself and Monroe as is possible in the small car. “No, no, I…”

 

“You what? Are you going to use me and then dump me like you dumped Juliette?”

 

“I didn’t dump Juliette,” Nick’s eyes are icy blue, his jaw set, yet trembling as he speaks, “for your information Blutbad, she dumped me. She still wants to be friends,” Nick’s voice cracks and it’s all that Monroe can do not to reach over the barrier of air between them and pull the Grimm over to his side and offer him comfort, but he knows that Nick won’t accept it, not now.

 

“She wants to be friends, but she can’t, won’t, marry me. She doesn’t want to be a cop’s wife, always worrying.” Nick’s eyes, now a mellowing gray, fill with unshed tears.

 

“Shit, Nick, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Back at the hospital, well, it sounded like she still loved you,” Monroe says, wondering why Hank thought that Juliette and Nick were still together. Maybe Nick hadn’t told his partner yet.

 

“According to her, she does,” Nick bites back a laugh, wipes at a tear that has snuck away from him, and relaxes a little. “She loves me, but, and I know this is going to sound crazy, so bear with me,” he turns to look at Monroe, his hand reaching out to grasp the Blutbad’s, “I don’t think I love her anymore, not like I used to. I mean, I love her, but I don’t love her. Ever since Aunt Marie and this crazy Grimm business, I just, I’ve seen things differently, you know?”

 

Monroe squeezes his hand and closes some of the distance between them, cursing the stick that digs into his gut as he attempts to comfort Nick. Bucket seats really were a pain in the ass to deal with.

 

“I know,” Monroe croons, pulling Nick’s head down to rest beneath his chin, kissing the dark locks. “I’m sorry, I just thought. Well, I was being an idiot,” Monroe amends. “How about we get out of this car and get you into bed?” he adds when he readjusts himself and the stick digs even harder into him.

 

“Are you propositioning me?” Nick asks. The words cause something inside Monroe to stir, but the slurred quality of them causes him to shelf those feelings, at least for the time being.

 

“Not today my man,” Monroe says, chuckling, “not today, but, mark my words, when you’re back to a hundred percent, there’s nothing I’d like more than to bed you.”

 

“Really?” Nick pops his head up, his eyes, now a much more settled shade of bluish gray are sparking with hope.

 

“Really,” Monroe says, shaking his head. “That is, if it’s something you want too.”

 

“Yeah, it’s something I want too,” Nick assures him.

 

“But first, rest, and recovery,” Monroe says, reluctantly releasing Nick and opening his door. He doesn’t really want to leave Nick at home, on his own, with the possibility of Juliette stopping by to claim some of her things.

 

“Rest is highly overrated,” Nick says, planting a kiss at the base of Monroe’s neck as he fishes for the keys to his house. “I’m kind of feeling,” Nick’s tongue brushes against his earlobe.

 

“Like a very naughty little Grimm who needs to take a nap,” Monroe finishes the sentence and grabs the keys, stumbling through the threshold of Nick’s house as the Grimm’s tongue swirls inside his ear.

 

“Are you going to punish me?” Nick asks, standing in the middle of the doorway, blinking innocently.

 

“Nick, you’re killing me here,” Monroe groans. “Get in here before the neighbors get curious.” He tugs him into the house and slams the door shut behind them.

 

Nick launches himself at him, knocking him completely off balance and sending them crashing to the floor, Monroe’s pin wheeling arms notwithstanding.

 

“Oomph,” is the only thing he can manage as Nick’s tongue is in his mouth, his hands are under his shirt, and the Grimm is making a sound which is a cross between a contented purr and a greedy growl. Whatever it is, it causes Monroe’s dick to twitch, and makes wearing such tight jeans rather uncomfortable.

 

“Nick,” Monroe growls, panting as though he’s run a mile when Nick releases his mouth, “You’re still recovering from your injuries.”

 

The Grimm’s eyes are blue and shining as he looks into Monroe’s eyes. The slim detective has him effectively pinned to the floor, his knees are planted on either side of Monroe’s thighs, and he can feel the Grimm’s erection poking into his belly. The Grimm’s hands are on either side of his head, and, if it wasn’t for the playful look in his eyes, Monroe would be terrified.

 

It is an exact juxtaposition of what happened in the cave. Nick trapped beneath him. Monroe’s not sure which position he likes better, but realizes, more so now than before, that he really, really wants to find out. He wants to dominate Nick as he had in the cave, and he wants Nick to dominate him. A real give and take relationship.

 

“Nick,” he chastises when the Grimm nips at his chin, “there’ll be plenty of time, I mean if this is truly what you want,” Nick nods eagerly, and he continues, not believing the words that are coming out of his lips because he’s so damn hard and Nick’s hard and, “then it can wait. You need sleep; I can see it in your eyes.”

 

Nick rolls off him, his hands going automatically toward his groin, pushing at his erection, and it takes a lot of willpower for Monroe to look away, but he does, and then he’s standing and helping a pouting Grimm to his feet. He isn’t sure how he manages to get Nick down to boxers without doing more than a little touching, and tuck him into bed without crawling beneath the sheets with him, but somehow he manages it, and then he’s down in the kitchen, making himself a stiff cup of coffee.

 

He leaves when Juliette comes to pick up her things, not because of the furtive looks she’s casting him, but because he really needs a cold shower and would rather take one in the privacy of his own home where no one will be able to hear him as he howls. Cold shower or not, he knows that he’s going to jack off to an image of Nick atop him, blue-gray eyes clouded over with lust and lips curved just so as he dips down to taste.

 

He doesn’t sleep well that night, or the next, in spite of his new nightly ritual – jacking off to visions of Nick’s mouth, hands, teeth, ass, and fuck his eyes, ever changing, and yet a single constant in every single one of his sordid fantasies.

 

He’s toweling his hair off as the doorbell rings, and his dick swells in anticipation of tonight’s visit from a certain, well-rested Grimm. It’s been almost a month since their last dinner, the one he insisted upon, and a full two weeks since their ordeal with the crazy in the woods.

 

His heart flutters in his chest as he opens the door. He hastily stuffs the towel beneath the coatrack and offers Nick a broad smile. Nick thrusts flowers at him and offers him a bottle of red wine. If Nick’s nervous, it doesn’t show, but Monroe knows his own hands are trembling as he takes the flowers and the wine, and places them on the table where he’s already laid the food out.

 

Nick clears his throat as Monroe sits down across from him. The set-up is almost the same – candles, food, wine – but something about tonight is different. There’s something stirring in the air – anticipation, hunger, lust and something that Monroe doesn’t dare even think lest he jinx it.

 

“So, Monroe,” Nick says, his eyes are twinkling, they’re closer to silver tonight, the light of the candle makes them look devilish, “tell me,” there’s a hint of mirth in his voice, “what’s your favorite color?”

 

Nick isn’t outright laughing, but the ways his lips are twitching tells Monroe that laughter is imminent. He isn’t sure how to feel about it. Yeah, he’d meant it when he’d said it all that time ago, but now, now he wants so much more from Nick. He isn’t sure how to word any of it, and his mouth feels dry, so he concentrates on the question his eyes locked on Nick’s.

 

The candlelight sways, making the color of Nick’s eyes flicker as the light dances across them. They’re gray-blue now. His heart thumps in his chest, and in the next heartbeat, he’s reaching across the table, grasping Nick’s hand, his eyes begging permission, and then he’s drawing Nick’s hand to his mouth, planting a kiss on the juncture where thumb meets hand.

 

Nick’s breath catches in his throat, and he leans closer. Unmindful of the full plate of food, the candles and the wine, he reaches out, and touches Monroe’s lips as they hover over his upturned palm, letting his hand rest on the curve of Monroe’s cheek.

 

“Gray-blue,” Monroe answers without hesitation.

 

Nick’s eyes darken in confusion, his lips turning up in question, “But, I thought your favorite color was red.”

 

“Not anymore,” Monroe says, and with a lust-filled growl, he pushes aside the pesky dinner trappings, making room for the both of them on the dinner table. 

 

He wasn’t hungry for food anyway, and judging by the guttural moan coming from the back of Nick’s throat as his hands slide beneath the Grimm’s blue shirt, that wasn’t what Nick had come over for either.

 

It’s isn’t until after their second course that things move into the bedroom, and Monroe’s quite thrilled to find that the Grimm’s stamina is similar to that of his own. That, and he doesn’t mind being topped by Nick, and Nick doesn’t seem to mind being topped by him.

 

“Time for dessert?” Nick mumbles some indeterminable time later, his lips brushing against Monroe’s chest, causing him to shiver.

 

They’re a downright tangle of limbs amidst his once pristine white sheets. There’s a distinctly briny aftertaste cloying the air between them – sweat-glistened skin, slick and sticky. Nick’s head is resting within the hollow of his neck; his fingers are tracing idle patterns into Monroe’s belly, causing the muscles beneath them to tense.

 

“Dessert?” Monroe raises an eyebrow, and Nick lifts his head, pushing himself up on one elbow so that he can look into Monroe’s eyes.

 

The light of the moon, streaming in through the top of the curtains, catches his eyes, casts them in an ethereal glow. They’re a deeper blue than Monroe’s ever seen them and, as he rolls Nick onto his back, his hands on either side of the Grimm’s head, knees astride the slighter man’s waist, he says, “I’ve changed my mind, it’s blue.”

 

The confusion is clear in Nick’s eyes, the way his brow furrows, and Monroe laughs, nipping at the Grimm’s lips as he asks, “What’s blue?”

 

“My favorite color,” Monroe supplies. “And now, I believe there was a question of dessert?”

 

Nick’s eyes widen, his pupils growing large in anticipation as Monroe shifts the attention of his gaze to a much lower region of the Grimm’s body. All thoughts of color fade to the background as Monroe concentrates on the one thing that matters in the here and now, making sure that his Grimm is happy.