Epic, A Grimm story by BymagaJones 17/?
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
The next few weeks were busy for both Blutbad and Grimm. Thanks to some helpful chat groups he’d discovered, Monroe found he was quite enjoying the challenge of running a diner. At first, he spent most of his time there, arriving before dark to accept the food shipment, training Tony, and working as cook for the evening shifts. He interviewed potential cooks during breaks throughout the day - the only breaks he seemed to take - and seemed to be close to making some decisions.
Nick found himself drawn into the Phillip Montrose murder case, spending hours with Hank and Wu down at the station. He continued to work with Maddy, his bailbondsman, and managed to run a Schakal out of town before his planned jewelry heist.
They saw each other sporadically, Nick sitting at the diner’s counter to scarf down a burger, Monroe keeping him company whenever he had a free moment. Monroe managed to stop by the precinct a couple of times with coffee and donuts, becoming one of the most welcome visitors in the place. They kept track of their ‘kids’ separately, Nick stopping by for quick visits, and Monroe treating them so often at the diner that they had their own special table.
Two months later, Monroe had finally hired his evening cook and was comfortable leaving him to run the place, and Montrose’s murderer been located and arrested (a Raub-Kondor that girlfriend Lana’s wealthy father had hired to keep Montrose away from her). The two found themselves draped across the sofa one Friday, staring unseeingly at some detective show on television.
“I’m so tired that even my toenails hurt,” Nick groaned.
“I know what you mean,” Monroe said.
Rolling his head so he could look at the Blutbad, Nick asked, “You do?”
“If I had the energy, I’d wave my fingernails at you.”
“That’s fantastic, man!”
“Yeah, give me a little time, and I’ll be chopping veggies without a knife.”
That actually sounded kind of cool. “You can do that?”
Monroe rolled his eyes.
They continued to stare at each other, the sound from the television muted in the background. Nick wanted to reach out, touch the shadows underneath Monroe’s eyes, run his fingers through the disheveled hair. And from what he could tell from the expression underneath Monroe’s fatigue, his actions wouldn’t be unwelcome.
They heard a knock on the door.
“I don’t have the energy to host tonight,” Monroe groaned.
“Just sit perfectly still,” Nick whispered. “Maybe they’ll go away.”
The knock sounded again, and they stared at each other, hope in their eyes that maybe the person would give up soon.
The door flew open, and they heard Barry shout, “Hey!”
“I thought you locked the door,” Monroe muttered to Nick.
“I was carrying the beers. I figured you’d done it.”
“We’re gonna ended up getting rolled one night by regular humans, and I’m never gonna live it down,” Monroe complained.
“Hey,” Barry said, walking into the living room, smile on his face, hands shoved in his pockets. “I knocked.”
“You sure did,” Nick said.
“Did you know that your door was unlocked?”
“We do now,” Monroe muttered.
“We stopped off at the diner, but you weren’t there, so we figured you’d be here.”
“We?” Nick rolled his eyes toward the door, although he couldn’t see much since he was still disinclined to take the effort to actually move his head.
“Yeah, the rest of the gang’re outside saying hello to the detectives.”
“A party. Hooray.” Monroe said unenthusiastically.
Barry looked at the two of them, frowning. “Are you guys okay?”
“Hello?” Hank’s voice called from the front of the house.
“They’re in here. I think maybe they’re broken or something.”
“We’re not broken,” Nick said, trying not to grin at Monroe’s eye roll. “We’re just tired.”
“It’s a good thing that we brought food then,” Hank said, strolling into view, hands filled with bags.
“Chinese!” Monroe said happily.
“And Wu has pizza for the kids,” Hank said.
Nick’s stomach rumbled. “That sounds fantastic. And we still have some beers in the fridge.”
“Awesome!” Barry said, heading for the kitchen.
Hank huffed out a laugh. “Don’t worry. He’ll be having soda like the rest of them.” He followed Barry toward the kitchen, and Nick heard more laughter as the others entered the house, Wu in the middle of a story.
“What’s wrong with you two?” Wu asked as he abruptly interrupted his tale. His eyes mimicked Barry’s as he looked between the two on the couch. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were exhausted.” He grinned, continuing with his story as he led Hanson and Gracie into the kitchen.
Holly remained, curling up on Monroe’s far side, burying her nose in his neck. “You smell better,” she said, quietly. “Tired, but better.” With a grin, she slid off the sofa and skipped into the kitchen.
Monroe groaned as they listened to cabinet doors opening and glass clinking. “The kitchen’s going to be a bitch to clean up.” He eyeballed Nick. “You think they’d leave if we asked nicely?”
“They have food, and I bet they’re going to bring it to us,” Nick reminded him. “We can’t even think of kicking them out until we’ve eaten.”
“Yeah, I was a little worried that they’d find us dead in a week, still lying here, too tired to get up and grab some food.”
Nick laughed, and even that tired him out a little bit. “Maybe we’ll get some energy once we’ve eaten.”
Their guests dragged in chairs and sat on the floor so everyone could eat comfortably in the living room. Finding a program everyone wanted to watch turned out to be an impossibility, so the kids and Wu got to watch their choice first (some teen show about werewolves that had Monroe’s eyes rolling so hard that Nick was afraid they were going to fall out, forcing them to pause the show while everyone searched for them in sofa cushions), followed by Hank, Monroe, and Nick’s choice (the new “Sherlock”, which the kids actually seemed to enjoy - the jury was still out with Wu).
Finally Nick’s bladder made a demand, and he forced himself toward the stairs. Hank volunteered to go with him (“I have to go too, and this way I can make sure you don’t fall asleep on the stairs or something.”).
“You didn’t show us up here the other night,” Hank called out curiously from behind the bathroom door.
“We haven’t really done much,” Nick confessed, standing back as Hank exited the bathroom so he could enter.
“You mind if I snoop?”
Nick didn’t bother to answer since he could hear a door opening. He wasn’t surprised. Hank was a detective; he detected. It wasn’t something they could discard and leave at the office; it was a part of their genetic makeup.
Finishing in the bathroom, he found Hank in Monroe’s room.
“I never picked Monroe for being a slob,” Hank said, eyes on a pile of dirty clothes in a corner.
Nick pulled his longing glance away from the comfortable California King and said, “Those are mine. It drives him nuts, actually.” He laughed and turned to face an inscrutable looking Hank. “What?”
“Your clothes are in his bedroom?”
Nick felt his face grow hot. “It’s not like that.”
“So you aren’t sleeping together?”
“Well, we are,” Nick conceded, “but that’s all we’re doing. Sleeping.” In fact, he thought to himself, the only time they’d managed to spend together actually physically close recently was when one of them climbed into bed with the other fast asleep, only to wake up alone. It had happened to both of them way too often for Nick’s taste.
“Really,” Hank said, using that tone usually reserved to entice a perp to talk.
“I know that tone,” Nick said.
“Hey,” Hank said, hands up, “you say you’re sleeping, then you’re sleeping.”
Nick held out for less than five seconds. “Monroe was having nightmares when he first got back, and my being there helped.”
“So he’s still having these nightmares?”
Silence.
“Shut up.”
Hank laughed, clapping Nick on the shoulder. “Man, I’m not judging. In fact, I’m surprised that you two haven’t already been sexing it up.”
“It’s not like that between us,” Nick protested, ignoring the fact that he’d kind of like it to be.
Hank eyeballed him, knowing what he wasn’t saying. “Why not?” He leaned against the doorframe, quickly glancing downstairs before returning his attention to Nick and whispering, “Look, it’s obvious that you two have a connection.”
“We’re friends,” Nick said staunchly.
“You two always had some kind of connection, even before everything happened two years ago. I’m not saying it would’ve gone anywhere then - you had Juliette; he had Rosalee. But things are different now. You two are different now. You’re sharing a house, sharing a bed… and you’re both a complete mess without the other one.”
“Our friendship -”
“Friends are great, but why miss out on a chance for something more?” Hank sighed. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” He pressed at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “You two complete each other.”
Horrified, Nick stared at him. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Hey, you made me,” Hank reminded him.
Sitting on the bed, Nick said, “I just… we’ve been friends for so long that I don’t know how to take that step.”
“Woo him.”
Nick blinked up at Hank.
“Woo. Him. I may not be able to sustain a marriage, but I certainly know how to rope ‘em in. You know this guy. You know what he likes, what makes him happy. Give him those things. And then, you know,” Hank waggled his eyebrows, “you go in for the sexing.”
Nick fell back on the bed, groaning. “Please stop saying that word.”
“What? Sexing?” Hank laughed as Nick groaned again. “And don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing. Get up. You have guests downstairs; it’s rude to fall asleep on them.” He grabbed Nick’s arm, pulling him back to standing.
Groaning, Nick rubbed a hand over his face. “What about when the guests invite themselves over?”
“Hey, we brought food,” Hank protested, gently pushing Nick downstairs. “I saw you two. You would’ve sat on that sofa all night, your stomachs fighting over which one was grumbling the loudest.”
G R I M M G R I M M G R I M M G R I M M G R I M M G R I M M
Monroe watched Nick head upstairs with Hank, wanting to ask them to take him with them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the company - despite himself, he’d grown attached to the kids and to Drew. But it was just, now that he’d eaten, all Monroe wanted was to curl up in bed beside Nick and sleep for a few days. He’d missed spending time with just Nick, missed going to sleep - and then waking up - with Nick in the house.
“Hey, they’re just going to the bathroom, not running away,” Drew said, nudging Monroe’s shoulder.
Jerking his focus from the stairs, where he’d probably been staring stupidly, Monroe shrugged a shoulder. “Nick’s probably up there figuring out a way he can fall asleep.”
“With guests downstairs? How rude!” Drew laughed, slurping down the last of his soda. He adjusted his straw and stood, calling out, “who needs more soda?” Shrugging at the choruses of, “I do!”, he muttered, “I’ll just bring all of the bottles in here, which is what we should’ve done in the first place.”
Monroe stared balefully at the pile of empty pizza boxes teetering on the edge of the coffee table, takeout Chinese containers shoved together on the opposite side, empty beer bottles creating sweat rings in the center. He’d bought the furniture knowing that everything was going to have to be durable. Their furniture had to be able to handle a Grimm, a couple of Blutbads, a Jägerbar, two police detectives, some human runaways, and a Reinigen who visited during school holidays. And of course there was the fact that more than half of that crew were rowdy young adults - including Drew, if Monroe counted maturity levels. Smiling smugly at himself, Monroe placed his now-empty bottle on the table next to the others and burrowed deeper into the sofa.
“Hey! No sleeping!” Monroe’s eyes shot open guiltily as Drew stood over him, his bottle pointed accusingly at him. “Bad host!”
Monroe handed him the remote, and Drew smiled. “Well now, that changes things.” He settled in the chair beside Monroe. “Okay, guys, let’s see what’s happening over on the CW.”
Monroe stifled a groan, because while he wasn’t quite sure what the CW was, he had the feeling that nothing on it was made with him in mind.
A push against him had him opening his eyes a crack to find Nick squished against him on the sofa, the entire other side completely empty. “If I don’t get to sleep, you don’t get to sleep.”
“Mmm,” Monroe agreed, eyes closing.
Another nudge. “I’m serious, Monroe!”
Sighing, Monroe forced his eyes open. They automatically shot to the television screen, where a man in a costume fell off a building. “What are we watching?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Realizing that he didn’t, Monroe looked at the rapt faces around the room, stuttering to a stop at Hank, who was just as engrossed. “Nick, we need to get out of here before that show takes over our brains too.”
“This is what we’re going to do,” Nick whispered, his warm breath dancing along Monroe’s neck, waking him up and sending goosebumps down his body. “I’m going to pick up some of the pizza boxes, and you take the empties. We’ll put them in the kitchen and then sneak upstairs.”
“And leave them down here alone?”
Nick’s shoulder shrugged. “They’ll either duke it out over the sofa and spots on the floor or go home. Hank knows the alarm code.”
And that’s when it finally hit Monroe that all of these bodies in various reclined states in their living room weren’t guests, they were family.
“On the count of three.”
They lay in bed less than ten minutes later, Monroe’s bedroom door locked to keep out nosy cell phone cameras bent on future blackmail attempts.
Now that he was laying with Nick, Monroe found himself wide awake. Fatigue still pressed in on him, but he was able to push it back a little so he could enjoy this time he’d missed in the last month or so. They lay there, foreheads touching, eyes closed, like they’d done so many nights before. He’d missed this, so very much in the past three weeks.
“You know,” he whispered, “we could buy some used bed frames, find a good mattress sale, and maybe some dressers for the other bedrooms.”
Nick huffed a laugh. “Are you already moving them in?”
“No,” Monroe said, “but if they’re going to be here anyway, it might be nice to have them sleeping in actual beds rather than downstairs on the floor.”
“Are we including Wu and Hank in this?”
“We probably should,” Monroe said, reshuffling bedrooms in his mind.
“I think Hank’s still angling for the basement. We create a little adult cave down there where we can actually watch grown-up shows and where Hank and Wu - when he’s finished watching TV upstairs with the kids - could sleep if they needed, and they’d be set.”
“Even with Gracie and Holly sharing a room, we’re one bedroom short.”
Nick paused, and Monroe opened his eyes, watching his face in the moonlight, once again struck at the Grimm’s beauty. Eventually, he had to ask, “What?”
“We could double up the guys or just use my bedroom.”
Entry with links to each chapter
Chapter 17
The next few weeks were busy for both Blutbad and Grimm. Thanks to some helpful chat groups he’d discovered, Monroe found he was quite enjoying the challenge of running a diner. At first, he spent most of his time there, arriving before dark to accept the food shipment, training Tony, and working as cook for the evening shifts. He interviewed potential cooks during breaks throughout the day - the only breaks he seemed to take - and seemed to be close to making some decisions.
Nick found himself drawn into the Phillip Montrose murder case, spending hours with Hank and Wu down at the station. He continued to work with Maddy, his bailbondsman, and managed to run a Schakal out of town before his planned jewelry heist.
They saw each other sporadically, Nick sitting at the diner’s counter to scarf down a burger, Monroe keeping him company whenever he had a free moment. Monroe managed to stop by the precinct a couple of times with coffee and donuts, becoming one of the most welcome visitors in the place. They kept track of their ‘kids’ separately, Nick stopping by for quick visits, and Monroe treating them so often at the diner that they had their own special table.
Two months later, Monroe had finally hired his evening cook and was comfortable leaving him to run the place, and Montrose’s murderer been located and arrested (a Raub-Kondor that girlfriend Lana’s wealthy father had hired to keep Montrose away from her). The two found themselves draped across the sofa one Friday, staring unseeingly at some detective show on television.
“I’m so tired that even my toenails hurt,” Nick groaned.
“I know what you mean,” Monroe said.
Rolling his head so he could look at the Blutbad, Nick asked, “You do?”
“If I had the energy, I’d wave my fingernails at you.”
“That’s fantastic, man!”
“Yeah, give me a little time, and I’ll be chopping veggies without a knife.”
That actually sounded kind of cool. “You can do that?”
Monroe rolled his eyes.
They continued to stare at each other, the sound from the television muted in the background. Nick wanted to reach out, touch the shadows underneath Monroe’s eyes, run his fingers through the disheveled hair. And from what he could tell from the expression underneath Monroe’s fatigue, his actions wouldn’t be unwelcome.
They heard a knock on the door.
“I don’t have the energy to host tonight,” Monroe groaned.
“Just sit perfectly still,” Nick whispered. “Maybe they’ll go away.”
The knock sounded again, and they stared at each other, hope in their eyes that maybe the person would give up soon.
The door flew open, and they heard Barry shout, “Hey!”
“I thought you locked the door,” Monroe muttered to Nick.
“I was carrying the beers. I figured you’d done it.”
“We’re gonna ended up getting rolled one night by regular humans, and I’m never gonna live it down,” Monroe complained.
“Hey,” Barry said, walking into the living room, smile on his face, hands shoved in his pockets. “I knocked.”
“You sure did,” Nick said.
“Did you know that your door was unlocked?”
“We do now,” Monroe muttered.
“We stopped off at the diner, but you weren’t there, so we figured you’d be here.”
“We?” Nick rolled his eyes toward the door, although he couldn’t see much since he was still disinclined to take the effort to actually move his head.
“Yeah, the rest of the gang’re outside saying hello to the detectives.”
“A party. Hooray.” Monroe said unenthusiastically.
Barry looked at the two of them, frowning. “Are you guys okay?”
“Hello?” Hank’s voice called from the front of the house.
“They’re in here. I think maybe they’re broken or something.”
“We’re not broken,” Nick said, trying not to grin at Monroe’s eye roll. “We’re just tired.”
“It’s a good thing that we brought food then,” Hank said, strolling into view, hands filled with bags.
“Chinese!” Monroe said happily.
“And Wu has pizza for the kids,” Hank said.
Nick’s stomach rumbled. “That sounds fantastic. And we still have some beers in the fridge.”
“Awesome!” Barry said, heading for the kitchen.
Hank huffed out a laugh. “Don’t worry. He’ll be having soda like the rest of them.” He followed Barry toward the kitchen, and Nick heard more laughter as the others entered the house, Wu in the middle of a story.
“What’s wrong with you two?” Wu asked as he abruptly interrupted his tale. His eyes mimicked Barry’s as he looked between the two on the couch. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were exhausted.” He grinned, continuing with his story as he led Hanson and Gracie into the kitchen.
Holly remained, curling up on Monroe’s far side, burying her nose in his neck. “You smell better,” she said, quietly. “Tired, but better.” With a grin, she slid off the sofa and skipped into the kitchen.
Monroe groaned as they listened to cabinet doors opening and glass clinking. “The kitchen’s going to be a bitch to clean up.” He eyeballed Nick. “You think they’d leave if we asked nicely?”
“They have food, and I bet they’re going to bring it to us,” Nick reminded him. “We can’t even think of kicking them out until we’ve eaten.”
“Yeah, I was a little worried that they’d find us dead in a week, still lying here, too tired to get up and grab some food.”
Nick laughed, and even that tired him out a little bit. “Maybe we’ll get some energy once we’ve eaten.”
Their guests dragged in chairs and sat on the floor so everyone could eat comfortably in the living room. Finding a program everyone wanted to watch turned out to be an impossibility, so the kids and Wu got to watch their choice first (some teen show about werewolves that had Monroe’s eyes rolling so hard that Nick was afraid they were going to fall out, forcing them to pause the show while everyone searched for them in sofa cushions), followed by Hank, Monroe, and Nick’s choice (the new “Sherlock”, which the kids actually seemed to enjoy - the jury was still out with Wu).
Finally Nick’s bladder made a demand, and he forced himself toward the stairs. Hank volunteered to go with him (“I have to go too, and this way I can make sure you don’t fall asleep on the stairs or something.”).
“You didn’t show us up here the other night,” Hank called out curiously from behind the bathroom door.
“We haven’t really done much,” Nick confessed, standing back as Hank exited the bathroom so he could enter.
“You mind if I snoop?”
Nick didn’t bother to answer since he could hear a door opening. He wasn’t surprised. Hank was a detective; he detected. It wasn’t something they could discard and leave at the office; it was a part of their genetic makeup.
Finishing in the bathroom, he found Hank in Monroe’s room.
“I never picked Monroe for being a slob,” Hank said, eyes on a pile of dirty clothes in a corner.
Nick pulled his longing glance away from the comfortable California King and said, “Those are mine. It drives him nuts, actually.” He laughed and turned to face an inscrutable looking Hank. “What?”
“Your clothes are in his bedroom?”
Nick felt his face grow hot. “It’s not like that.”
“So you aren’t sleeping together?”
“Well, we are,” Nick conceded, “but that’s all we’re doing. Sleeping.” In fact, he thought to himself, the only time they’d managed to spend together actually physically close recently was when one of them climbed into bed with the other fast asleep, only to wake up alone. It had happened to both of them way too often for Nick’s taste.
“Really,” Hank said, using that tone usually reserved to entice a perp to talk.
“I know that tone,” Nick said.
“Hey,” Hank said, hands up, “you say you’re sleeping, then you’re sleeping.”
Nick held out for less than five seconds. “Monroe was having nightmares when he first got back, and my being there helped.”
“So he’s still having these nightmares?”
Silence.
“Shut up.”
Hank laughed, clapping Nick on the shoulder. “Man, I’m not judging. In fact, I’m surprised that you two haven’t already been sexing it up.”
“It’s not like that between us,” Nick protested, ignoring the fact that he’d kind of like it to be.
Hank eyeballed him, knowing what he wasn’t saying. “Why not?” He leaned against the doorframe, quickly glancing downstairs before returning his attention to Nick and whispering, “Look, it’s obvious that you two have a connection.”
“We’re friends,” Nick said staunchly.
“You two always had some kind of connection, even before everything happened two years ago. I’m not saying it would’ve gone anywhere then - you had Juliette; he had Rosalee. But things are different now. You two are different now. You’re sharing a house, sharing a bed… and you’re both a complete mess without the other one.”
“Our friendship -”
“Friends are great, but why miss out on a chance for something more?” Hank sighed. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” He pressed at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “You two complete each other.”
Horrified, Nick stared at him. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Hey, you made me,” Hank reminded him.
Sitting on the bed, Nick said, “I just… we’ve been friends for so long that I don’t know how to take that step.”
“Woo him.”
Nick blinked up at Hank.
“Woo. Him. I may not be able to sustain a marriage, but I certainly know how to rope ‘em in. You know this guy. You know what he likes, what makes him happy. Give him those things. And then, you know,” Hank waggled his eyebrows, “you go in for the sexing.”
Nick fell back on the bed, groaning. “Please stop saying that word.”
“What? Sexing?” Hank laughed as Nick groaned again. “And don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing. Get up. You have guests downstairs; it’s rude to fall asleep on them.” He grabbed Nick’s arm, pulling him back to standing.
Groaning, Nick rubbed a hand over his face. “What about when the guests invite themselves over?”
“Hey, we brought food,” Hank protested, gently pushing Nick downstairs. “I saw you two. You would’ve sat on that sofa all night, your stomachs fighting over which one was grumbling the loudest.”
G R I M M G R I M M G R I M M G R I M M G R I M M G R I M M
Monroe watched Nick head upstairs with Hank, wanting to ask them to take him with them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the company - despite himself, he’d grown attached to the kids and to Drew. But it was just, now that he’d eaten, all Monroe wanted was to curl up in bed beside Nick and sleep for a few days. He’d missed spending time with just Nick, missed going to sleep - and then waking up - with Nick in the house.
“Hey, they’re just going to the bathroom, not running away,” Drew said, nudging Monroe’s shoulder.
Jerking his focus from the stairs, where he’d probably been staring stupidly, Monroe shrugged a shoulder. “Nick’s probably up there figuring out a way he can fall asleep.”
“With guests downstairs? How rude!” Drew laughed, slurping down the last of his soda. He adjusted his straw and stood, calling out, “who needs more soda?” Shrugging at the choruses of, “I do!”, he muttered, “I’ll just bring all of the bottles in here, which is what we should’ve done in the first place.”
Monroe stared balefully at the pile of empty pizza boxes teetering on the edge of the coffee table, takeout Chinese containers shoved together on the opposite side, empty beer bottles creating sweat rings in the center. He’d bought the furniture knowing that everything was going to have to be durable. Their furniture had to be able to handle a Grimm, a couple of Blutbads, a Jägerbar, two police detectives, some human runaways, and a Reinigen who visited during school holidays. And of course there was the fact that more than half of that crew were rowdy young adults - including Drew, if Monroe counted maturity levels. Smiling smugly at himself, Monroe placed his now-empty bottle on the table next to the others and burrowed deeper into the sofa.
“Hey! No sleeping!” Monroe’s eyes shot open guiltily as Drew stood over him, his bottle pointed accusingly at him. “Bad host!”
Monroe handed him the remote, and Drew smiled. “Well now, that changes things.” He settled in the chair beside Monroe. “Okay, guys, let’s see what’s happening over on the CW.”
Monroe stifled a groan, because while he wasn’t quite sure what the CW was, he had the feeling that nothing on it was made with him in mind.
A push against him had him opening his eyes a crack to find Nick squished against him on the sofa, the entire other side completely empty. “If I don’t get to sleep, you don’t get to sleep.”
“Mmm,” Monroe agreed, eyes closing.
Another nudge. “I’m serious, Monroe!”
Sighing, Monroe forced his eyes open. They automatically shot to the television screen, where a man in a costume fell off a building. “What are we watching?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Realizing that he didn’t, Monroe looked at the rapt faces around the room, stuttering to a stop at Hank, who was just as engrossed. “Nick, we need to get out of here before that show takes over our brains too.”
“This is what we’re going to do,” Nick whispered, his warm breath dancing along Monroe’s neck, waking him up and sending goosebumps down his body. “I’m going to pick up some of the pizza boxes, and you take the empties. We’ll put them in the kitchen and then sneak upstairs.”
“And leave them down here alone?”
Nick’s shoulder shrugged. “They’ll either duke it out over the sofa and spots on the floor or go home. Hank knows the alarm code.”
And that’s when it finally hit Monroe that all of these bodies in various reclined states in their living room weren’t guests, they were family.
“On the count of three.”
They lay in bed less than ten minutes later, Monroe’s bedroom door locked to keep out nosy cell phone cameras bent on future blackmail attempts.
Now that he was laying with Nick, Monroe found himself wide awake. Fatigue still pressed in on him, but he was able to push it back a little so he could enjoy this time he’d missed in the last month or so. They lay there, foreheads touching, eyes closed, like they’d done so many nights before. He’d missed this, so very much in the past three weeks.
“You know,” he whispered, “we could buy some used bed frames, find a good mattress sale, and maybe some dressers for the other bedrooms.”
Nick huffed a laugh. “Are you already moving them in?”
“No,” Monroe said, “but if they’re going to be here anyway, it might be nice to have them sleeping in actual beds rather than downstairs on the floor.”
“Are we including Wu and Hank in this?”
“We probably should,” Monroe said, reshuffling bedrooms in his mind.
“I think Hank’s still angling for the basement. We create a little adult cave down there where we can actually watch grown-up shows and where Hank and Wu - when he’s finished watching TV upstairs with the kids - could sleep if they needed, and they’d be set.”
“Even with Gracie and Holly sharing a room, we’re one bedroom short.”
Nick paused, and Monroe opened his eyes, watching his face in the moonlight, once again struck at the Grimm’s beauty. Eventually, he had to ask, “What?”
“We could double up the guys or just use my bedroom.”
Entry with links to each chapter