fic: five times nick called monroe (and the one time he didn't but really should have)
five times nick called monroe (and the one time he didn't but really should have)
Grimm
nick-monroe
pg-13ish
I.
Juliette packs her pink-lined suitcase one Monday morning. She says she’s heading out to Omaha to do a little pro bono work in the city with a researcher she’s always wanted to work with. Nick thinks nothing of it: She’s done it before, travelled to odd little corners of the country in pursuit of knowledge that doesn’t come with working in the same town every day, so he smiles, gives her a lingering kiss, and makes a mental note to buy her flowers when she gets back.
Two weeks later, she asks him to send along a box of clothes she wants to wear. The weather’s getting colder, Juliette reminds him as he asks her why she needs five sweaters and seven pairs of jeans when she’s only meant to be gone another week or so. So he goes to the post office and picks up a blue and white box and stuffs in the clothes she asked for alongside a little note on pink parchment to make her smile.
A month after that, Juliette calls in the middle of the night and says that she and Doctor Reeves are close to a breakthrough. Nick means to ask what kind of breakthrough veterinarians specializing in small mammalian life can really make, but the last three times Juliette had called she ended up cutting his questions off with the dial tone. Instead, he picks up another box from UPS (bigger this time) and starts shoving things from Juliette’s top three bureau drawers in until his fingers ache from pushing too hard. He foregoes the note this time around.
One day, four months past that, he wakes up in a half-empty bed and realizes that everything Juliette is, was, is totally gone, erased from the home they once shared. Even the fancy blue soap she used to buy from the organic food store is gone, replaced by the cheap drugstore brand that he used to use when he was in college.
He calls her right before he goes to bed, and asks he what the hell happened to them. She laughs, bitter, and tells him that the fact that he thinks this has only been going on for six months is precisely why it’s going on at all. She says that it’s not so much that she fell in love with the researcher as much as she fell out of love with Nick.
---
Ten minutes, Monroe gets a call on his landline. He’s just about to snuggle into five blankets and a nightcap when he picks the receiver up.
“Can I crash on your couch tonight?”
Monroe can’t muster the simple cruelty to say no.
II.
Monroe gets home on an unseasonably warm afternoon and there’s a little orange, gift-wrapped box sitting in the middle of his kitchen table. There’s a big yellow bow tied to the middle of it, the ends of the ribbon curled to within an inch of their life, and a plain white place card on the top that says THANKS AGAIN.
Suddenly, the box starts buzzing, the entire table reverberating. Cautiously, Monroe picks up the package, shakes it once, twice, and rips the orange wrapping paper to reveal a small cardboard box. As it shakes, Monroe pulls the top open, and out drops a bright red cell phone.
“Hello?” he says with some uncertainty, placing the phone against his ear. “Please tell me you’re not calling from the cable company. I paid online this month.”
“You have a television?”
Monroe groans as Nick laughs on the other end. “Is there a reason you’re harassing me, or has it just become your favorite pastime?”
“Nothing like that. I just felt bad about what happened to your phone last week,” Nick replies, . “Remind me never to send you to a warehouse filled with bats alone again.”
“You pay for this thing?” Monroe asks. “Because I’ve seen your house, and you apparently can’t afford to paint it a color that wasn’t popular in the height of the disco era.”
“Requisitioned it off as a work-related expense at the office,” Nick swears. Monroe can hear the drone of Friday night television in the background. “As long as you don’t start making routine calls to Sweden, it won’t cost either of us a dime.”
“Clever.”
“Besides,” Nick adds with a low tone. “I still have to make amends for the night I puked on your couch.”
---
The phone looks ridiculously out of place on his nightstand, but Monroe sort of likes it.
III.
Monroe gets a text late on a Thursday morning with two words: HSPTL. NOWW.
Monroe tries calling back, but gets the same annoying voicemail five times in a row: Hi, you’ve reached Mister Nick Burkhardt. If this is a police emergency, please hang up and dial 911. If not, then leave a very brief message, and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible… When the message starts again for a sixth time, he pulls his coat off the door hook and heads into the misty evening air.
When he gets to the hospital, the entire place is crawling with uniforms. A female cop that Monroe doesn’t know is standing next to a nurse, taking down notes. A couple pedestrians wait down the hall, looking shaken as they get interviewed by a young man who reeks of rookie. Monroe barely scrapes by three plainclothes who all look like they’re out for blood in his search for the Grimm.
When Monroe finally stumbles upon him, Nick is in the corner, looking shell-shocked. He’s gripping a cup of coffee so hard that his hand is shaking, the brown liquid from the cup threatening to fall over the edge. Monroe follows his steady gaze to the hospital bed across from Nick, and holds back a gasp.
Hank’s entire left side is wrapped up in thick gauze. His right eyelid is so swollen that his browline has virtually disappeared from that side of his face. Monroe can smell from the other side of the room all the blood matter in the air, sickeningly sweet and disgusting to his nostril. There are at least four doctors in the room, all shaking their head at different paces, beyond bewilderment.
He sinks down to the bench. “What was it?”
Nick’s eyes shift. “Just your average scumbag with an entourage.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
Nick bites his lip. “Next few hours are crucial. He’s got a couple surgeries on his chest coming up.” The coffee starts sopping over the top of the cup onto the floor. “God, Monroe, he won’t stop bleeding.”
Monroe takes the spilling coffee cup from Nick’s hand and puts it on the ground. “You sounded like a doctor there for a minute.”
Nick doesn’t look at him. “Doing the job can make you feel invincible. Like nothing can hurt you. You hear doctors stay shit like this all the time. It never means anything until you’ve got somebody you care about lying on a slab in the morgue.”
Monroe doesn’t really know what to say to something like that, so he just pats Nick awkwardly on the back and situates himself as the world stumbles around him.
---
Three days later, Hank turns the corner on his arrhythmia and the doctors agree that he’s doing well enough to be removed out of the ICU. When the cardiologist goes to tell Hank’s friends and family, Nick is sleeping, slumped in a chair with his head nestled neatly under Monroe’s left arm.
IV.
It’s almost two in the morning when he hears the telltale beep of a text on the nightstand next to him. Groaning, Monroe sits up and seriously considers throwing the yellow cell out the window into the little koi pond he installed last month.
He slides his finger along the edge, and the screen lights up: PICK UP YOUR BOYFRIEND.
He doesn’t recognize the text’s author (Nick has never sent a text that didn’t employ some semblance of poor grammar or spelling), but he immediately recognizes the address of the shady dive bar that follows. Grabbing his leather jacket and keys from the countertop, he heads to his car.
Nick looks like shit when Monroe finally gets there, and stumbles when he steps off his barstool in his rush to leave. The bartender, a blonde with legs that go on and a rack to brag about follows, smoothing down her short skirt as she helps balance Nick’s gait.
“Your boyfriend’s cute,” she starts as Nick slumps against her shoulder. “Tried getting his number a couple times but he wouldn’t shut up about you.”
Monroe shakes his head. “Not my boyfriend. So not my boyfriend.”
She laughs. “Oh trust me, honey. He’s your boyfriend whether you know it or not.”
Monroe debates whether the argument is worth having and, after a cursory check at the , foregoes the theatrics and lifts Nick’s arm around his shoulder to hoist him up. Slowly, he makes his way to the front entrance, Nick drooling slightly on his neck.
Curiosity bites him right as his hand makes contact with the brass knob on the door.
“How did you know to text me?”
She smirks. “You’re the only number in his cell that he’s called more than once in the last month. Didn’t want to go barking up the wrong tree, you know what I mean? Besides,” she continues. “Who better to pick him up than his boyfriend?”
Monroe sighs, and hands the bartender some crisp bills from Nick’s wallet.
---
Nick pukes on his couch again. Monroe holds head over the toilet when he gives a repeat performance twenty minutes later.
V.
Monroe is about three seconds away from truly blissful REM cycle when the phone he unwittingly left on the opposite pillow starts blaring.
“I hate you,” Monroe hisses as he clicks the on switch. “So much.”
“Monroe?” Nick’s voice is shot at the other end of the line. “Monroe, are you there?”
“I’m not picking you up from a bar again,” Monroe grunts, touching tableside clock and scowling. “Not even for free drinks.”
“No.” Nick’s voice fades. “It’s…my house.”
“Somebody break in?” Monroe reaches for a light that isn’t there. “Aren’t cops supposed to deal with that stuff?”
There’s a pause. “They burned it down.”
The air is heavy with ash and the street is littered with firefighters when Monroe parks. All of the neighbors are sitting on their front stoops in varying states of undress. Three houses down, a little kid in Power Rangers pajamas is taking pictures with his cell phone and his mom is on her phone undoubtedly calling a friend down the street to come watch the spectacle.
“The explosion was too precise to be an accident,” Nick murmurs from behind him, shuffling in his tattered bathrobe. “Forensics found traces of C4 on the west side of the house.”
“Nick…”
“A couple kids who were out late said they saw two people running away from the house about ten minutes before it happened.”
“Nick, get in the car.”
Nick shakes his head. “No, really, I’ll just check into a hotel or something.”
“Nick…”
“Really, I’m fine, it’s just…”
“Just get in the car, Nick.”
They drive back in silence. Nick doesn’t bother ask for help when they get back to Monroe’s place, just opens the linen cabinet and pulls out a duvet before slumping onto the couch and pulling the blanket over his head.
---
When Monroe wakes up and pads downstairs in the morning, Nick is wide awake and staring at the wall.
“Come here.” It’s a demand, not a request, and Nick obeys wordlessly.
It’s quick and messy and it takes all Monroe’s patience not to do something truly obscene when Nick starts suckling on the side of his neck and groping the front of his pants. They end up in a heap near the bottom of the stairs, and Monroe thinks about how long it’s going to take to get the stains out of the carpet.
They sleep in the same bed that night. Nick finds out that Monroe snores. Monroe finds out that Nick hogs the covers.
VI.
Nick’s down in the dirt, bleeding again, because this Hell is his life now. Somewhere, maybe a mile and a half away, a tall creature with a wicked smile and even more wicked intentions sharpens a metal stake and begins to sprint across an open field, toward Portland proper.
Nick trips the first time he tries to get off the ground. The faint crack he hears probably means his right leg is broken. Given the odd angle that it’s at, Nick’s not particularly surprised. Blood gushes from his left hand, and he can’t feel his right arm anymore.
A part of him wonders if this is it, everything his life has been reduced to: A dangerous hunt or two a month that leaves him with doctor’s bills he can’t afford to pay on his frozen salary and a dysfunctional personal life that has him sharing a bed with somebody who, by all accounts, he would never look at twice on the street. He doesn’t go out anymore, doesn’t even try to be friendly with his coworkers who all look at him like he’s carrying the plague, and, by all accounts, he’s the most miserable he’s been in his entire existence.
He looks at his phone in the mud, and ponders calling Monroe, who is undoubtedly doing something along the lines of burning incense or teaching Tai Chi in the park. Hypothetically, he knows that Monroe will drop whatever and come to pick him up, but something in the back of his mind nags, and he puts the phone down again.
He doesn’t end up making the call after all. Instead, he forces himself to rise from the moss-covered pit and scramble against the nearest tree until he can make a run for it.
---
Hours later, when he gets home from the hospital in a dirty yellow taxi (driving a car isn’t really an option with a broken leg and two fractured wrists), Monroe’s sitting on the front porch with a banjo and a bottle of Corona.
“You didn’t tell me you played the banjo.”
Monroe winces when he sees Nick’s casts. “You should have called,” he says, placing the banjo on the damp stoop and hopping to his feet, throwing Nick’s arm over his shoulder. “I wasn’t doing anything important.”
“I don’t like bothering you,” Nick murmurs, wincing as he puts weight on his left ankle.
“Right,” Monroe replies. “So that’s why I get ten texts from you everyday, most after socially acceptable hours.”
Nick smiles. “Something like that.”
Monroe’s hand is hot against the back of Nick’s neck. “You should have called.”
Monroe leans in, brushes his mouth against Nick’s. It’s not really a kiss, not like the one in the kitchen, but Nick leans into it until he can’t breathe.
---
fin
---
disclaimer: not mine
Grimm
nick-monroe
pg-13ish
I.
Juliette packs her pink-lined suitcase one Monday morning. She says she’s heading out to Omaha to do a little pro bono work in the city with a researcher she’s always wanted to work with. Nick thinks nothing of it: She’s done it before, travelled to odd little corners of the country in pursuit of knowledge that doesn’t come with working in the same town every day, so he smiles, gives her a lingering kiss, and makes a mental note to buy her flowers when she gets back.
Two weeks later, she asks him to send along a box of clothes she wants to wear. The weather’s getting colder, Juliette reminds him as he asks her why she needs five sweaters and seven pairs of jeans when she’s only meant to be gone another week or so. So he goes to the post office and picks up a blue and white box and stuffs in the clothes she asked for alongside a little note on pink parchment to make her smile.
A month after that, Juliette calls in the middle of the night and says that she and Doctor Reeves are close to a breakthrough. Nick means to ask what kind of breakthrough veterinarians specializing in small mammalian life can really make, but the last three times Juliette had called she ended up cutting his questions off with the dial tone. Instead, he picks up another box from UPS (bigger this time) and starts shoving things from Juliette’s top three bureau drawers in until his fingers ache from pushing too hard. He foregoes the note this time around.
One day, four months past that, he wakes up in a half-empty bed and realizes that everything Juliette is, was, is totally gone, erased from the home they once shared. Even the fancy blue soap she used to buy from the organic food store is gone, replaced by the cheap drugstore brand that he used to use when he was in college.
He calls her right before he goes to bed, and asks he what the hell happened to them. She laughs, bitter, and tells him that the fact that he thinks this has only been going on for six months is precisely why it’s going on at all. She says that it’s not so much that she fell in love with the researcher as much as she fell out of love with Nick.
---
Ten minutes, Monroe gets a call on his landline. He’s just about to snuggle into five blankets and a nightcap when he picks the receiver up.
“Can I crash on your couch tonight?”
Monroe can’t muster the simple cruelty to say no.
II.
Monroe gets home on an unseasonably warm afternoon and there’s a little orange, gift-wrapped box sitting in the middle of his kitchen table. There’s a big yellow bow tied to the middle of it, the ends of the ribbon curled to within an inch of their life, and a plain white place card on the top that says THANKS AGAIN.
Suddenly, the box starts buzzing, the entire table reverberating. Cautiously, Monroe picks up the package, shakes it once, twice, and rips the orange wrapping paper to reveal a small cardboard box. As it shakes, Monroe pulls the top open, and out drops a bright red cell phone.
“Hello?” he says with some uncertainty, placing the phone against his ear. “Please tell me you’re not calling from the cable company. I paid online this month.”
“You have a television?”
Monroe groans as Nick laughs on the other end. “Is there a reason you’re harassing me, or has it just become your favorite pastime?”
“Nothing like that. I just felt bad about what happened to your phone last week,” Nick replies, . “Remind me never to send you to a warehouse filled with bats alone again.”
“You pay for this thing?” Monroe asks. “Because I’ve seen your house, and you apparently can’t afford to paint it a color that wasn’t popular in the height of the disco era.”
“Requisitioned it off as a work-related expense at the office,” Nick swears. Monroe can hear the drone of Friday night television in the background. “As long as you don’t start making routine calls to Sweden, it won’t cost either of us a dime.”
“Clever.”
“Besides,” Nick adds with a low tone. “I still have to make amends for the night I puked on your couch.”
---
The phone looks ridiculously out of place on his nightstand, but Monroe sort of likes it.
III.
Monroe gets a text late on a Thursday morning with two words: HSPTL. NOWW.
Monroe tries calling back, but gets the same annoying voicemail five times in a row: Hi, you’ve reached Mister Nick Burkhardt. If this is a police emergency, please hang up and dial 911. If not, then leave a very brief message, and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible… When the message starts again for a sixth time, he pulls his coat off the door hook and heads into the misty evening air.
When he gets to the hospital, the entire place is crawling with uniforms. A female cop that Monroe doesn’t know is standing next to a nurse, taking down notes. A couple pedestrians wait down the hall, looking shaken as they get interviewed by a young man who reeks of rookie. Monroe barely scrapes by three plainclothes who all look like they’re out for blood in his search for the Grimm.
When Monroe finally stumbles upon him, Nick is in the corner, looking shell-shocked. He’s gripping a cup of coffee so hard that his hand is shaking, the brown liquid from the cup threatening to fall over the edge. Monroe follows his steady gaze to the hospital bed across from Nick, and holds back a gasp.
Hank’s entire left side is wrapped up in thick gauze. His right eyelid is so swollen that his browline has virtually disappeared from that side of his face. Monroe can smell from the other side of the room all the blood matter in the air, sickeningly sweet and disgusting to his nostril. There are at least four doctors in the room, all shaking their head at different paces, beyond bewilderment.
He sinks down to the bench. “What was it?”
Nick’s eyes shift. “Just your average scumbag with an entourage.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
Nick bites his lip. “Next few hours are crucial. He’s got a couple surgeries on his chest coming up.” The coffee starts sopping over the top of the cup onto the floor. “God, Monroe, he won’t stop bleeding.”
Monroe takes the spilling coffee cup from Nick’s hand and puts it on the ground. “You sounded like a doctor there for a minute.”
Nick doesn’t look at him. “Doing the job can make you feel invincible. Like nothing can hurt you. You hear doctors stay shit like this all the time. It never means anything until you’ve got somebody you care about lying on a slab in the morgue.”
Monroe doesn’t really know what to say to something like that, so he just pats Nick awkwardly on the back and situates himself as the world stumbles around him.
---
Three days later, Hank turns the corner on his arrhythmia and the doctors agree that he’s doing well enough to be removed out of the ICU. When the cardiologist goes to tell Hank’s friends and family, Nick is sleeping, slumped in a chair with his head nestled neatly under Monroe’s left arm.
IV.
It’s almost two in the morning when he hears the telltale beep of a text on the nightstand next to him. Groaning, Monroe sits up and seriously considers throwing the yellow cell out the window into the little koi pond he installed last month.
He slides his finger along the edge, and the screen lights up: PICK UP YOUR BOYFRIEND.
He doesn’t recognize the text’s author (Nick has never sent a text that didn’t employ some semblance of poor grammar or spelling), but he immediately recognizes the address of the shady dive bar that follows. Grabbing his leather jacket and keys from the countertop, he heads to his car.
Nick looks like shit when Monroe finally gets there, and stumbles when he steps off his barstool in his rush to leave. The bartender, a blonde with legs that go on and a rack to brag about follows, smoothing down her short skirt as she helps balance Nick’s gait.
“Your boyfriend’s cute,” she starts as Nick slumps against her shoulder. “Tried getting his number a couple times but he wouldn’t shut up about you.”
Monroe shakes his head. “Not my boyfriend. So not my boyfriend.”
She laughs. “Oh trust me, honey. He’s your boyfriend whether you know it or not.”
Monroe debates whether the argument is worth having and, after a cursory check at the , foregoes the theatrics and lifts Nick’s arm around his shoulder to hoist him up. Slowly, he makes his way to the front entrance, Nick drooling slightly on his neck.
Curiosity bites him right as his hand makes contact with the brass knob on the door.
“How did you know to text me?”
She smirks. “You’re the only number in his cell that he’s called more than once in the last month. Didn’t want to go barking up the wrong tree, you know what I mean? Besides,” she continues. “Who better to pick him up than his boyfriend?”
Monroe sighs, and hands the bartender some crisp bills from Nick’s wallet.
---
Nick pukes on his couch again. Monroe holds head over the toilet when he gives a repeat performance twenty minutes later.
V.
Monroe is about three seconds away from truly blissful REM cycle when the phone he unwittingly left on the opposite pillow starts blaring.
“I hate you,” Monroe hisses as he clicks the on switch. “So much.”
“Monroe?” Nick’s voice is shot at the other end of the line. “Monroe, are you there?”
“I’m not picking you up from a bar again,” Monroe grunts, touching tableside clock and scowling. “Not even for free drinks.”
“No.” Nick’s voice fades. “It’s…my house.”
“Somebody break in?” Monroe reaches for a light that isn’t there. “Aren’t cops supposed to deal with that stuff?”
There’s a pause. “They burned it down.”
The air is heavy with ash and the street is littered with firefighters when Monroe parks. All of the neighbors are sitting on their front stoops in varying states of undress. Three houses down, a little kid in Power Rangers pajamas is taking pictures with his cell phone and his mom is on her phone undoubtedly calling a friend down the street to come watch the spectacle.
“The explosion was too precise to be an accident,” Nick murmurs from behind him, shuffling in his tattered bathrobe. “Forensics found traces of C4 on the west side of the house.”
“Nick…”
“A couple kids who were out late said they saw two people running away from the house about ten minutes before it happened.”
“Nick, get in the car.”
Nick shakes his head. “No, really, I’ll just check into a hotel or something.”
“Nick…”
“Really, I’m fine, it’s just…”
“Just get in the car, Nick.”
They drive back in silence. Nick doesn’t bother ask for help when they get back to Monroe’s place, just opens the linen cabinet and pulls out a duvet before slumping onto the couch and pulling the blanket over his head.
---
When Monroe wakes up and pads downstairs in the morning, Nick is wide awake and staring at the wall.
“Come here.” It’s a demand, not a request, and Nick obeys wordlessly.
It’s quick and messy and it takes all Monroe’s patience not to do something truly obscene when Nick starts suckling on the side of his neck and groping the front of his pants. They end up in a heap near the bottom of the stairs, and Monroe thinks about how long it’s going to take to get the stains out of the carpet.
They sleep in the same bed that night. Nick finds out that Monroe snores. Monroe finds out that Nick hogs the covers.
VI.
Nick’s down in the dirt, bleeding again, because this Hell is his life now. Somewhere, maybe a mile and a half away, a tall creature with a wicked smile and even more wicked intentions sharpens a metal stake and begins to sprint across an open field, toward Portland proper.
Nick trips the first time he tries to get off the ground. The faint crack he hears probably means his right leg is broken. Given the odd angle that it’s at, Nick’s not particularly surprised. Blood gushes from his left hand, and he can’t feel his right arm anymore.
A part of him wonders if this is it, everything his life has been reduced to: A dangerous hunt or two a month that leaves him with doctor’s bills he can’t afford to pay on his frozen salary and a dysfunctional personal life that has him sharing a bed with somebody who, by all accounts, he would never look at twice on the street. He doesn’t go out anymore, doesn’t even try to be friendly with his coworkers who all look at him like he’s carrying the plague, and, by all accounts, he’s the most miserable he’s been in his entire existence.
He looks at his phone in the mud, and ponders calling Monroe, who is undoubtedly doing something along the lines of burning incense or teaching Tai Chi in the park. Hypothetically, he knows that Monroe will drop whatever and come to pick him up, but something in the back of his mind nags, and he puts the phone down again.
He doesn’t end up making the call after all. Instead, he forces himself to rise from the moss-covered pit and scramble against the nearest tree until he can make a run for it.
---
Hours later, when he gets home from the hospital in a dirty yellow taxi (driving a car isn’t really an option with a broken leg and two fractured wrists), Monroe’s sitting on the front porch with a banjo and a bottle of Corona.
“You didn’t tell me you played the banjo.”
Monroe winces when he sees Nick’s casts. “You should have called,” he says, placing the banjo on the damp stoop and hopping to his feet, throwing Nick’s arm over his shoulder. “I wasn’t doing anything important.”
“I don’t like bothering you,” Nick murmurs, wincing as he puts weight on his left ankle.
“Right,” Monroe replies. “So that’s why I get ten texts from you everyday, most after socially acceptable hours.”
Nick smiles. “Something like that.”
Monroe’s hand is hot against the back of Nick’s neck. “You should have called.”
Monroe leans in, brushes his mouth against Nick’s. It’s not really a kiss, not like the one in the kitchen, but Nick leans into it until he can’t breathe.
---
fin
---
disclaimer: not mine