Grimm fic: "Breathing Easy" J/M/N/R OT4, h/c (parts 1-8/9)
This one was for a prompt by laylabinx on the Grimm Kinkmeme. She asked for Nick with pneumonia, and was generous enough to let me run with an OT4 story on a M/N prompt.
I don't own them; I just get them dirty.
“You sound hoarse, babe,” Juliette said when she called Thursday night, from her hotel room.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a cold,” Nick dismissed. “I’ve been taking stuff. How’s the conference?”
“It’s been good so far; there was an oncology panel today that had some really promising research. What do you mean you’ve been taking stuff; what kind of stuff?”
Nick had been trying to quietly clear his throat to avoid a cough. “Y’know, over- the- counter- stuff. It’s just a little congestion, hon; it’s fine. So, is the guy with the James Brown hair speaking this year?” The cough broke loose, but he managed to stifle it. More or less.
“Yeah, but he’s got a crew cut now.”
“Aw, bummer!”
“It’s very distracting. He has freakishly tiny ears.”
“Define freakish.”
“Like a baby’s. I’ll see if I can get a picture during the lecture tomorrow. Nick,” her voice changed timbre just slightly, and Nick winced. “By ‘over-the-counter,’ do you mean cough drops and SunnyD, because neither of those is medicine.”
“I’m getting my vitamin C. Boosting my natural immunity.” He coughed into his arm, moving the phone away.
“Nick.”
“Honey, really, it’s just a cold.”
“I’d feel better if Rosalee gave you something. And more importantly, you’d feel better.”
“Well, then I’ll talk to Rosalee.”
“You’re having dinner with them tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you ask her, or do I need t--”
“Call our Fuchsbau lover to make sure I ask her to ply me with stinky herbs of questionable origin? No, no, I’m on it.”
He could hear Juliette’s smile though the phone. “I love you, Nick.”
Those words were sweeter to him now than they’d been even a year before. Then, he hadn’t known what it would feel like to live without them. “I love you, too.”
“You let them take care of you ‘til I get back,” she cajoled tenderly.
“I will. And Juliette really, don’t worry about me. It’s just a cold.”
~~
Come Friday morning, Nick wished Juliette were with him to say “I told you so.”
He woke, aching and coughing, almost an hour before his alarm was due to go off. Nick pushed himself upright, feeling choked and bound in his covers, his spasms shaking the whole bed and leaving his eyes tearing. The breath he managed to suck in felt hot moving through his lungs, and the tightness there showed no sign of loosening, even as he felt himself hacking harder.
When he finally got a respite from coughing, he was breathless and flushed, his throat raw, and he couldn’t will himself out of bed to go for the drink of water he desperately needed; he could barely swallow.
He eventually rolled onto his stomach, bracing his hands against the mattress and his forehead against the pillow, and stayed in that position for an indeterminate number of minutes, until the pain in his throat and joints finally overruled his exhaustion.
Nick stumbled into the bathroom and got a few mouthfuls of cool water to his mouth from the faucet by way of a cupped and not-so-steady hand. He leaned on the vanity counter, gulping water in the dark, and when he finally reached over to flip the light switch up, the sudden illumination made his head feel as if his eyes were trying to abandon ship. He flinched and quickly turned the light back off, though not quickly enough to avoid a glimpse of his own paper-colored face in the mirror, and sank down to sit on the lid of the toilet, trying to decide if he would fall and die, naked, wet, and bleeding from his head, if he tried to take a shower.
This was one mean bitch of a cold.
Eventually, he felt steady enough that he didn’t think Juliette would come home from her conference to find his waterlogged corpse in the tub if he dared a shower, and the hot water felt so good he stayed under it for much longer than it actually took him to wash. The steam soothed his lungs, and he thought he felt like he was breathing a little easier by the time he got out.
Breakfast was the most unappealing idea he’d come up against in a long time, but he chased the majority of a piece of toast down with a small glass of apple juice, because Juliette’s sweetly worried voice was still playing back in his head. She hadn’t really wanted to go to her veterinary conference; her memory had come back almost four months ago, and still she was loathe to let Nick out of her sight, like if she didn’t lay eyes on him often enough, he would disappear from inside her again. Nick hadn’t exactly been thrilled with the idea of Juliette leaving town, either, but he’d encouraged it, not wanting her life disrupted any more than it already had been. Their anxiety about the whole thing had set off something fierce and protective and territorial in Monroe, and if Rosalee hadn’t stepped in and kept the whole thing from going nuclear by gently pointing out that Nick and Juliette needed to make sure not to get phobic about such things, they might all still be corralled in the Blutbad’s house.
Now, what he really wanted was a cup of Monroe’s coffee, on Monroe’s couch. With one of Monroe’s flannels wrapped around him, he added mentally as a chill swept through him. He was regretting, now, turning down the offer to spend both nights Juliette was out of town at Monroe’s house. He’d thought Monroe and Rosalee might like a little time to themselves, before it was the four of them again.
Now, that selflessness seemed a lot more like stupidity.
With a groan, Nick strapped on his service weapon, tugged on his jacket, and grabbed his keys.
Just a few hours. That was all he had to get through.
~~
“Jeez,” Monroe breathed, as the entire house creaked in the latest gust of wind the evening’s changing weather had brought. The gloom outside was lost to the reflection of the kitchen and dining room lights in the window, where the glass was fogging up in the steam from Monroe’s risotto.
“Looks like this is supposed to get worse,” Rosalee called, walking in from the living room, where she’d been watching the weather report. She leaned a shoulder against the doorway, swirling what remained of her wine idly in the glass, watching Monroe with bright brown eyes. “We might lose power.”
“Then I finished this just in time,” he said, with a pleased little smile. “We can always eat in the dark.” He cast a wicked glance up at the Fuchsbau, and was rewarded with a lusty little smirk.
“Fire’s going,” she offered in response, and stepped into the kitchen long enough to snatch the bottle of wine from the counter, moving close enough to graze his arm with her shoulder, then turned and strode back out of his space with a toss of her hair.
Vixen.
Monroe plated his dinner and Rosalee’s, leaving the third plate empty beside the stove for the time being. Nick often ran late on Fridays, and Monroe had learned - for the most part - not to get irate or freaked out when the Grimm didn’t call with an ETA on those nights.
Rosalee was curled up on the couch, her long, ivory, knit wrap spilling prettily around her on the cushions, and her bare toes - painted a rich, metallic amber - peeking out from beneath the fringed hem. It made Monroe cold, but it didn’t bother Rosalee; she almost always went barefoot at home. She set her wine glass on the table and reached up to take the plate he offered, fork balanced on the edge, and shifted her weight against his when he sat down. “Mmmm, smells wonderful,” she breathed, blowing delicately on a forkful before closing her lips around it. Her eyes closed, the tip of her tongue darted out, and she chewed like it was one of the seven deadly sins.
“Oh, yeah,” she ruled approvingly after a few seconds.
Monroe, who had rather forgotten to eat watching her, beamed.
They had made it through their first helpings and were just getting ready to go for seconds when, almost simultaneously, the lights flickered, and the sound of a car door closing out front penetrated the house.
“Nick’s here,” Monroe said, at the same time Rosalee piped up with, “We’d better grab some candles.”
She hopped up on light feet and headed to the kitchen for emergency candles, taking the plates with her for more risotto on the way, as Monroe headed to the front door.
He opened it to find Nick with one hand on the porch railing, coughing into his arm and all but doubled over.
Monroe’s face fell. “Nick,” he said worriedly, going to the Grimm and wrapping a hand around the back of his neck. His touch found an unexpected, wicked dry heat in the soft skin at Nick’s nape, and Monroe sucked in a breath. “God,” he murmured, bringing his hands up to feel Nick’s cheeks and forehead. “Nick, you’re burning up. Come on.” He tucked Nick under his arm, into the curve of his body and away from the raw wind, keeping one hand curled gently around the younger man’s head where it leaned against his chest. “Come on inside.”
“I have a cold,” Nick mumbled, shivering into Monroe’s side.
“Yeah, I’m thinking that’s not it, man. Come on.” He pushed the door shut behind them and walked Nick to the couch. “Sit down,” he said, urging Nick into his own vacated seat with a hand on the Grimm’s collarbone. Nick started coughing again, eyes squeezed shut and pressing a hand to his chest. It was a barking, croupy sound that made Monroe’s chest hurt just to hear, and in the light from the lamps and the fire, Monroe could see how pale Nick really was, his eyes swollen and sunken, an insalubrious flush across his cheeks. “How long have you been sick, man? Is this why you didn’t want to come over last night? You should have called, Nick; we could have come to you.”
Nick couldn’t answer him, the coughs rattling his body getting worse by the moment, leaving him all but choking, and Monroe’s face darkened. He sat next to Nick and braced a hand on his back. “Jesus, Nick, that is not what a cold sounds like.”
Rosalee came swiftly back into the room, hands and arms full of emergency candles, and one silver Maglite heavy enough to crack somebody’s skull. Her face was pinched with concern. “He’s sick?” she asked Monroe.
He nodded, eyes flickering to her before going immediately back to Nick. “He said it’s just a cold, but he’s burning up. Easy,” he soothed, rubbing Nick’s back.
Rosalee set her burden down on the coffee table as gently as possible, and moved to flank Nick on his other side. She slipped light fingers underneath the mussed fringe of Nick’s hair to feel his temperature for herself. Her gaze went to Monroe, and he didn’t like what he read in the furrow that formed between her brows.
“Thermometer?” she queried.
“I’ll get it.” It would be quicker and easier than sending her hunting for it.
As Monroe swiftly ascended the stairs, Rosalee coaxed Nick out of his jacket, which she draped over the arm of the couch. “Turn and face away from me,” she urged with a hand on his shoulder. She hunched over, laying her ear against his back. “Take a deep breath ,” she directed. Nick obeyed, as best he could, but set off another fit of coughing. “It’s okay, Nick.” She rubbed circles on his back, waiting for him to quiet, then leaned in to listen again. “Let’s try that again, okay? Just breathe as deep as you can. Don’t force it.”
Nick sat, slumped over, his hands braced on his knees, dragging in a breath that felt like it caught halfway to where it needed to be. Rosalee listened, then quietly directed, “Again.” Closing his eyes, Nick did as she said.
Rosalee’s eyes narrowed at the faint, almost imperceptible crackling sound she heard, at the deepest limit of Nick’s inhalation, which wasn’t as deep as it should have been. “Give me one more, Nick,” she said, and the Grimm suppressed another cough, and did so. “Okay, my love, that’s enough. Relax.”
Nick sagged sideways, into the back of the couch, and Rosalee reached up to stroke his hair back. “That’s it. Don’t worry; we’re going to take care of this.”
“Juliette told me…I should tell you I was sick.”
“That’s because Juliette has common sense.”
“And a nice ass.” Nick mumbled into the cushion.
“That too.”
“I really miss her.”
Rosalee slid up against his back, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I know, Nick. But she’ll be home soon. And you’re with us now.”
Nick snuggled back against her. “Sorry.”
She shushed him, and brushed a kiss over his flushed ear. “No need for that.”
Monroe reappeared just then, brandishing a digital thermometer triumphantly. “Got it. Open up, Nick.” He caught Nick’s chin on the tips of his fingers, and slid the thermometer under his tongue.
“Fig’red y’d use merc’ry,” Nick mumbled around the instrument, rallying enough to look up at the Blutbad with much-diminished mischief in his tired eyes.
“Shut it, smartass,” Monroe retorted, dropping a kiss on Nick’s head, then sliding onto the couch in front of him and sandwiching the Grimm gently between his body and Rosalee’s.
“I don’t like how his breathing sounds,” Rosalee said softly, her chin on Nick’s shoulder and her eyes on Monroe. “There’s crackling in his right lung.”
“Oh, man.” He looked down at the top of Nick’s head. “Hey Nick, you having any pain in your chest?”
The bowed, dark head nodded against Monroe’s chest.
“Bad?”
A negative shake this time.
“Are you lying?”
Another shake.
The thermometer beeped then, and Monroe tilted Nick’s face up with a finger beneath his chin to retrieve it. “One oh two on the dot,” he reported, and sighed. “Definitely not a cold.”
“Yes it is,” Nick insisted, hoarse and insistent.
“Nick, this is most likely a touch of pneumonia,” Rosalee said, reaching up to press a cool hand to the back of his neck. Nick sighed and leaned back into the touch.
“Does he need a doctor?” Monroe asked.
“No,” Nick grumbled.
“I didn’t ask you, jackass.”
Rosalee shook her head, massaging Nick’s neck. “It shouldn’t be necessary. We caught it early enough; my father had a treatment that did the trick for Freddy and me when we came down with it. But I am going to go to the shop tonight; I don’t want him to go the night without it.”
“Rosalee, no,” Nick groaned. “It’s awful out.”
“It’s a twenty-three minute drive in some wind, Nick. I’ve spent the night under a bridge in worse.”
Nick craned around to look at her, and ended up tipping into Monroe, who wrapped one arm around the Grimm and reached out to cup Rosalee’s face with his other hand. “Drive carefully, and call me when you get there, all right?”
She leaned over Nick to brush a kiss over Monroe’s lips. “Will do. I’ll bring everything back here. It won’t take me long to round it up. I know this one by heart.”
~~
Monroe tucked a moss green throw blanket over Nick’s bare legs. “Why would you pack sleep shorts, Nick; it’s winter,” he groused.
Nick, wearing a threadbare grey flannel that Monroe had retrieved from the back of his closet over his pajamas, looked up at him with heavily-lidded eyes and a thin smile. “Knew the bed would be plenty warm,” he said, accepting the small bowl of risotto Monroe had dished up for him. He raked his fork through it lightly. “This smells really good.”
“Just eat a little, Nick,” Monroe urged, pressing the backs of his fingers gently to Nick’s too-warm cheek.
He knelt to feed another log into the fire, and Nick took a tiny bite of risotto. He continued to pick halfheartedly at his dinner as Monroe settled onto the couch beside him, the news on low. Nick slumped sideways, his head against Monroe’s shoulder, holding his bowl in his lap with slack fingers.
“Not hungry?” Monroe sighed.
Nick shook his head. “Sorry. It’s good. I just…”
“Don’t worry about it. Here.” Monroe took Nick’s bowl from him and traded it with a mug of tea. “I want you to sip at that, if you aren’t gonna eat. It’ll soothe your throat and help with the body aches.”
Nick wrapped his hands around the mug and breathed in the steam rising from the tea. It smelled of something almost - though not quite - minty, but his nose wasn’t telegraphing an “abandon ship” to his taste buds, so he tried a sip.
It was drinkable. And warm. And Monroe had brewed it for him painstakingly, blending the leaves in a tea ball and heating the kettle on the stove while talking to Rosalee on the phone about the medicines she’d driven across town to gather so they could treat Nick’s pneumonia at home. That chased back the illness and made him feel a little better all on its own, whether the tea would or not.
He drank, leaning into Monroe’s side, the Blutbad’s arm a welcome weight across his shoulders. They watched the news, Nick sitting up to cough so he wouldn’t rattle both of them, until about the third fit, when Monroe held him in place and rubbed a hand over his chest, and told him to just rest.
Eventually, the tea was gone, and Nick found himself staring at the television sideways, stretched out on the couch, his head on a pillow in Monroe’s lap. Monroe’s hands stroked his hair and his side, adjusted the blanket, and were somehow warm on his arm and cool on his face all at once.
Monroe was rubbing Nick’s spasming back through a particularly rough coughing jag when Rosalee came back in, a satchel over her shoulder and a medium-sized paper bag in one hand. “Oh, Nick, you sound terrible,” she fretted as she closed and locked the door behind her.
Monroe gently lifted Nick off his lap and slid out from beneath him, lowering him and the pillow to the couch, and intercepting Rosalee to take her burden off her hands. “Those can go in the kitchen,” she instructed, brushing her fingers over his wrist as she passed off the bags, but then halted him. “Wait a second--” she said, reaching into the satchel and retrieving a dark brown glass jar. “Okay.”
Rosalee went immediately to Nick, brushing his bangs back. “Nick, how are you feeling?”
He tried to give her a smile. “Been better. But I’m not alone tonight.”
“You shouldn’t have been alone last night, either,” Monroe’s voice called out from the kitchen, the sounds of him emptying Rosalee’s bags following.
Rosalee smirked affectionately over her shoulder. “Well, we’ll just have to make up for that,” she said, combing her fingers through Nick’s hair. “Monroe, that can wait. Come out here a moment, will you?”
Monroe emerged, an inquisitive look on his face. “What’s up, angel?”
Rosalee unscrewed the lid of the jar, and the scent of eucalyptus, camphor, and tea tree oil blossomed into the air. “Can you wet a cool washcloth and come sit with us?” she asked.
He did as she bid, and shortly they were all three back on the couch, Nick leaning back into Monroe as the Blutbad settled the washcloth across his forehead, and Rosalee turning down the blanket, parting the borrowed flannel, and lifting Nick’s t-shirt.
“This will help loosen everything up, and it’ll ease the chest pains, too,” she explained, dipping her fingers into the jar and bringing them out glistening with salve. She didn’t reach immediately for Nick’s chest; instead, she raised her fingers to hover just in front of Nick’s face. “Breathe deep, Nick,” she ordered placidly, and he obeyed. The vapors from the salve spread through his lungs like they were quenching a fire, and he felt Monroe’s fingers start to massage his temples, just past the edges of the cloth. Rosalee slipped her hand under his shirt, and started to rub the salve into his chest. Nick moaned, shivering not from chills, but from pleasure and relief.
He lay caught between his lovers’ hands, the discomfort of his illness slowly being banished closer and closer to the edges of his awareness. The long, exhausting day he’d battled through seemed like it belonged to another lifetime. There was only the firm comfort of Monroe’s thighs through the softness of the pillow beneath his head, the wonderful scent of Rosalee’s medicine, the Blutbad’s steady, gentle fingers moving in tiny circles on his aching head, and the Fuchsbau’s small, soft, strong hand on his chest.
All he was missing was Juliette.
~~
Monroe stirred the fire, the flames throwing ever-shifting shadows over the darkened living room. Candles glowed on the mantle and coffee table, but they had turned off the Coleman lantern he’d brought downstairs; its harsh white light had been bothering Nick, and neither Monroe nor Rosalee needed it to see in the dim house. Rosalee had used it for a little while in the kitchen, when the power had given up the ghost during the last stages of her brewing Nick’s medicine.
Nick lay across Rosalee’s lap now, her arm around his shoulders and her hand in his hair. His eyes were closed, but his face was tense with discomfort, and even beneath the fleece throw and the quilt from the guest bed, he shivered feverishly. It had been a little over half an hour since he’d taken Rosalee’s remedy, and she had cautioned that while it would work quickly once it took effect, it would take a while to get into his system.
Monroe folded his legs beneath him and sat by Rosalee’s feet and Nick’s head. He lifted Rosalee’s bare feet into his own lap, running a hand over her toes and finding them inexplicably still warm. She smiled down at him, and wiggled her toes against his touch. He began to massage her feet and calves, and she sighed blissfully. The room was dark and still, the cold outside clawing at the walls and windows, but here, they warmed each other. The fire crackled and murmured and hissed, the wind threw rain in occasional, noisy spatters against the big picture window, the emergency radio mumbled and sang almost imperceptibly, turned down low and set near the fireplace, and Monroe’s clocks kept up their endless cadence.
They were all three of them being lulled into drowsiness, and Nick’s next violent outburst of coughing startled everyone. He struggled to push himself upright, gasping for breath between spasms, his ribs feeling ready to tear apart, and something deep in his chest grinding hotly. Monroe and Rosalee quickly helped him sit, flanking and bracing him. Rosalee alternated between rubbing circles and drumming the heel of her hand lightly but firmly on his back.
“It’s okay, Nick,” Monroe soothed as the fit worsened, and Nick’s hand tightened on his. “It’s okay, man.”
Rosalee’s phone chose that moment to chirp; the screen displayed Juliette’s name and a picture of the veterinarian and the Fuchsbau in matching safety goggles, red hair and brunette bound back in messy ponytails, glancing up from a flask over a burner in the spice shop.
“Juliette,” Rosalee greeted.
“Rose, I just got out of a lecture or I would have called you back sooner. How is he?” There was an edge of something approaching panic in her voice, and Rosalee knew nothing in the message she’d left on Juliette’s voicemail had been dire enough to warrant it.
“It’s okay, Juliette, he’s with us, and I mixed up something for him that will help,” Rosalee replied, trying to calm the other woman’s anxiety. “He’s got a pretty nasty cough going, and a bit of a fever. He’s not feeling too great right now, but we’re gonna take care of that.”
“God, is that him?” Juliette asked, pained, hearing Nick’s hacking in the background.
“Yeah,” Rosalee sighed, keeping up her gentle drumming on Nick’s back, “it is. Jules, he’s got pneumonia, but he’s going to be okay. I’m treating him here. Please, honey, don’t worry. We’re keeping him here with us.”
The hiss of a tight, tense breath came across the line. “I knew I shouldn’t have done this,” Juliette said. “I should have skipped this damn thing. I should be there. Shit.”
“Juliette, you absolutely should have gone. This was important.”
“It could have waited.”
“Juliette, you can’t--” Rosalee cut herself off; now wasn’t the time. “I promise you, we’re all okay here. Nick’s got his first dose of medicine in him, and he barely bitched and moaned at all about taking it.” She reached out to ruffle Nick’s hair; the Grimm was leaning down over his own lap, trying to catch his breath. Monroe was rubbing his back, leaning with him, murmuring quietly.
“I want to talk to him,” Juliette said. “If he can’t yet, I’ll wait.”
“Okay. Hang on a second.” Rosalee laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Nick, it’s Juliette. When you catch your breath, she wants to talk to you.”
The better part of a minute passed before Nick, rasping breaths finally coming slower, took the phone from Rosalee and sagged sideways into Monroe, who settled them both back into the couch cushions. “Juliette?” Nick croaked.
“Nick honey, how are you feeling?”
The concern bleeding through the phone made something deep inside him ache unbearably, like a healed but still tender wound. “I’m okay. Tired of coughing.” I miss you. Please, please come home.
“Are you in pain at all?”
His chest felt like it was full of sand and nails, and his arms and legs ached abominably, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “I’m…a little sore.”
The hesitation had been an instant too long, but Juliette - this Juliette, his Juliette, who knew him inside out - heard it. “Baby, you tell Monroe and Rosalee when you’re hurting, understand me? You let them help you.”
“I will. I am.” As he promised it, Monroe’s hand moved over his hair.
“I love you so much. I’m so sorry I’m not there with you.”
“No.” He’d meant to say don’t apologize, but was suddenly too tired.
“I’m going to be with you before you know it, okay? You do what Rosalee says and you get some sleep tonight, and I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Love you,” he got out, feeling sapped, feeling like tomorrow might as well be next year.
“You rest tonight. Okay? And do what Rosalee says?”
“Yes.” The phone slipped a little, and Nick tightened his hold on it. “Don’t hang up.”
“I’m not,” she assured him. “I’m not, Nick.”
“Tell me about your day,” he got out in a failing voice, and he knew it sounded pleading. He didn’t care.
“Okay.” And she began talking, in soft, lulling tones, about the lecture she’d sat through. Rosalee knelt and lifted his legs back onto the couch, straightening the blanket over him, then circled around to seat herself on the arm of the couch by Monroe, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling his dark curls.
Nick listened to Juliette talk, and sank into sleep to the sound of her voice in his ear. When Rosalee’s phone started to slip out of his fingers and down his cheek, Monroe rescued it quickly, and he and Rosalee took up the conversation with Juliette, worry and reassurance flying back and forth in hushed tones.
“Rosalee, he’s running a fever?”
“Yeah. It’s up there, but it’s not getting any higher.”
Juliette sighed. “You’re in for a rough night.”
~~
When the power kicked back on, Monroe and Rosalee held a quiet debate on whether or not to try to move Nick upstairs to the bedroom. He’d been sleeping - steadily, if not exactly soundly - for the better part of an hour, and they were loath to disturb him. But the three of them weren’t all going to be able to sleep on the couch, and Monroe, in particular, was adamant that Nick needed to be in bed.
At about a quarter to ten, Nick solved the dilemma for them when he woke himself coughing, still violently, but looser now, the croupy bark easing, as Rosalee’s medicine began to kick in and break up the congestion deep in his lungs. Rosalee sat at his elbow, passing him tissues and starting up her gentle percussion on his back as needed, serenely vigilant and unfazed through the worst of his choking.
He was exhausted and aching when it was over, and he curled gratefully into Monroe’s embrace when the other man drew him close.
“Nick, I think it’s time for bed,” Monroe urged, nuzzling Nick’s temple, kissing the overheated skin there.
“I can sleep here,” Nick mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t want to keep you guys up.”
“No, Nick,” Monroe said firmly. “You’re sleeping with us.”
“We wouldn’t be able to rest if you were down here sick by yourself,” Rosalee reasoned when she saw Nick’s coming protest. Then she gave him a little wry half-smile. “Besides, we’d be able to hear you coughing just as clearly down here as up there. Just because your hearing’s lousy doesn’t mean ours is, too.”
Nick almost managed a smile at that, and finally nodded.
“You know you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you couldn’t cram your little ice-block feet against my leg, anyway,” Monroe added, and Nick huffed.
Rosalee stood and kissed each of them on the forehead. “Go on up,” she ordered softly, trailing light touches over Monroe’s jaw and Nick’s cheek. “I’ll take care of the fire.”
~~
Nick curled into a ball, burrowing into Monroe’s pillow, as the Blutbad drew the covers over him. He was shivering, and he hurt, in his head and his chest, his back and his legs, and when Monroe’s warm weight settled over him from atop the blankets, Nick moaned in relief.
“Relax,” Monroe’s voice rumbled against his ear.
“I’m cold,” Nick whispered.
“I know. Relax,” Monroe repeated, brushing his lips over the pulse point in Nick’s throat. “I’ll get you warm.”
The wind clawed at the house, rattling the windows and howling around the corners, and Nick could hear his heartbeat in his ears. His body drank in the heat of Monroe’s, heavy but held just so, with no pressure on Nick’s chest.
Nick felt the familiar tremor of the woge, and the flood of heat increased with the shift; Monroe was warmer in this shape, his blood faster-flowing. Lips and coarse fur pressed into the soft curve of Nick’s throat, and a clawed hand cupped his forehead. The kiss against his neck had fangs in it.
“You smell like pain and fever,” Monroe said, his voice a strange blend of croon and growl. “I wish you’d called last night. You should have been with us.”
Nick just nodded, his eyes closed. He heard the soft rustle of clothes being discarded, and then that long, lupine body curled around him, slid arms over and under him, caught his cold hands in warm ones, and held him gently, safely captive. Monroe nuzzled at the nape of his neck, breath ruffling his hair, mouthing too-hot skin, and Nick whimpered.
“Hush,” Monroe breathed, kissing the place where Nick’s fever and headache had lashed themselves together into a knot at the base of his skull. Nick’s chills wrenched another bout of shivers out of his exhausted muscles, and Monroe’s body tightened instantly around his.
They lay like that, surrounded by the ticking of clocks and the wailing wind, and little by little, Nick became more aware of Monroe’s warmth than of his own pain and discomfort. He grew sleepy with relief, his worry that he’d be a nuisance to his lovers already fading.
He was wanted here, welcomed here. He’d been an idiot not to seek this out the night before, when he’d known it would be waiting. He still felt unsettled and childishly forlorn at Juliette’s absence; there was a part of his mind that couldn’t settle itself and be still, couldn’t rest, without her. And knowing she was far away, worrying about him and without the comfort of their pack, only worsened that anxious ache.
But he felt loved. He was longing, but not alone; drained, sick, and hurting, but safe and cared for.
He heard Rosalee come into the bedroom, listened to the sounds of her shedding her clothes and retrieving her nightshirt, conversing in low tones with Monroe, drifting into the bathroom and performing her before-bed rituals.
She joined them in the big bed, sliding lightly under the covers and across the mattress, Monroe shifting to Nick’s side and leaving a space for her to fill. Nick felt Monroe lift himself to kiss her goodnight, felt her soft lips brush his, and opened his eyes in time to see hers turn the color of sun and honey, her delicate face blossoming with russet and silver fur.
“Go to sleep, Nick,” she whispered. “Tomorrow we’ll all be together.”
~~
In one of his short, exhausted, fever-tossed bouts of sleep, Nick dreamed that Juliette had never remembered him, and woke himself and his lovers sobbing so hard he choked. Lights snapped on and covers were untangled from limbs, and two worried voices filtered through the fog in his mind.
“Nick, sweetheart, calm down. Calm down now.” Rosalee’s small, cool hands touched his cheeks, wiping away tears and sweat, trying to make him look at her, see her, but the fever and the nightmare still clutched like strangler weeds at his consciousness, and Nick cried brokenly, inconsolable, ill, and heartsick.
“Hey, hey, hey, stop,” Monroe crooned, holding Nick from behind, rocking him. “Settle down, Nick. Settle down.” He pressed one hand to Nick’s breastbone, as if there was a wound there he could staunch, and met Rosalee’s worried eyes over Nick’s shoulder as the younger man’s keening was punctuated by ugly coughs. “Nick, it was a bad dream. It was just a bad dream. Shhhh, take it easy. Easy,” he gentled, still rocking, voice hushed. “It was just a dream. Breathe.”
Rosalee left them just long enough to retrieve a cool, wet washcloth from the bathroom, and then she was bathing Nick’s face and neck, a pensive little frown between her brows as she kept silent and let Monroe murmur and growl against Nick’s ear.
Slowly, so slowly, the guttural soothing chased the grief and panic from Nick’s eyes, and he sagged into Monroe’s hold, deep, wet, rumbling coughs heaving in his chest.
Rosalee gathered her hair back in one hand at the nape of her neck and leaned in to listen to Nick’s lungs. “I’m going to go get him another dose of medicine,” she announced, and pressed the compress into Monroe’s hand. “Keep that on him.”
She all but sprinted from the room, her light footsteps sounding down the stairs, as Monroe ran the cold cloth over Nick’s throat.
“You back with me, Nicky?” Monroe ventured to ask a few moments later, when Nick seemed as settled as the spasms behind his ribs would let him be. Nick nodded, the barest movement of his heavy head on Monroe’s shoulder. “Good.” Monroe pressed a kiss to the pulse point in Nick’s throat, lingering there, mouthing the hot skin over the slowing flutter. “What were you dreaming about?”
Nick swallowed, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have slept downstairs.”
“Would you shut up about that?” Monroe groused, kissing Nick’s jaw and nuzzling at him until the Grimm relaxed his neck and let his head tip to the side. “What did you dream?”
“Juliette,” Nick rasped. “She didn’t…she never…”
Monroe made a soft sound, and wrapped his arms tighter around Nick. “But she did, Nick. She did. And she wants to be with you as much as you want her back. She’s gonna be home tomorrow, man. We’re gonna have her back tomorrow, and then we’re just gonna hole up in this house together. For days, if we want.”
Nick found he had a small smile in him, for that. “I want,” he mumbled into Monroe’s arm. “Very much.”
“Me too,” Monroe whispered, looking up and holding a hand out to Rosalee as she came through the door. “How ‘bout you?” he asked her, pulling her close and snaking his arm around her waist.
“Sure. What am I agreeing to, exactly?” she asked, looking down at both her men.
“Hibernation. No one comes in or goes out once Juliette gets home.” He buried his face in her stomach, nipping lightly along her ribs through the soft cotton of her sleep shirt, making her giggle. “Vegetable lentil soup. All the Pink Panther movies.”
“Strip Trivial Pursuit,” Rosalee added.
“No way,” Nick butted in hoarsely. “You and Juliette cheat.”
“Says the sore loser,” Rosalee replied, smiling. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled a cork out of a brown glass bottle, pouring a measure of thin liquid the color of lilacs into the spoon she’d brought along. “Open,” she ordered, and Nick obeyed, grimacing a little at the taste. “Good boy,” she murmured, and kissed the tip of his nose.
Nick settled into Monroe’s lean, warm solidity, and the Blutbad tipped them both back to recline against the pillows, keeping Nick elevated enough to make breathing easier. Rosalee lay down beside them, stretched against the length of their legs.
Nick heard her breathing even out after a long while, and Monroe reached down to stroke a lock of dark hair back from her closed eyes. They rested in the quiet, still and very much awake, Monroe’s clocks, Nick’s coughing, and the occasional gust of wind at the eaves the only sounds.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Monroe finally murmured, when he was sure Rosalee was well and truly asleep.
Nick shook his head. “It wasn’t…nothing was clear. Nothing was happening. It was just…a feeling. I was in the house, and she was walking away…and I knew she didn’t remember me.”
Monroe combed his fingers through Nick’s hair, stroked a hand over Nick’s chest and stomach, and said nothing.
Nick swallowed thickly. “It just…”
He didn’t go on. He didn’t need to, he knew. Two of Monroe’s long fingers found their way under Nick’s chin and tipped his head back, brushing a kiss over the corner of his mouth. Nick turned into it, then looked up into gentle dark eyes.
“She’s back, Nick. You have her back. You know that, right? You know that.” Monroe gave him the faintest of shakes, and Nick nodded. “Do we need to call her?”
“No,” Nick protested immediately. “Let her sleep.”
Monroe had his doubts about how much sleep Juliette was getting, but he kept them to himself. Nick wouldn’t rest any easier for hearing them. “All right.” He reached back to stack some pillows, and shifted Nick onto them, smoothing the covers over him and stealing a section for himself, settling down on the mattress beside the Grimm, head cushioned on one arm. He didn’t close his eyes, though, keeping them on the younger man’s face, smiling softly when he caught Nick’s tired gaze. “Try to sleep,” he ordered in a near-whisper.
“You too,” Nick replied, his lids heavy and drooping. He fumbled a hand towards Monroe’s face and brushed his knuckles over the Blutbad’s cheek.
Monroe watched Nick fade into sleep, joining Rosalee, his breathing rough, but undisturbed, for now, by coughing. He was pale in the light from the bedside lamp. After a moment’s consideration, Monroe decided to leave it on. He had a feeling they’d need it again before morning.
~~
Rosalee padded downstairs just before seven, barefoot and bundled in Monroe’s flannel robe, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth as she yawned. The wind had died off sometime during the night, and the rain coming down now fell heavy and straight, veiling the world beyond the windows in drenched grey.
She made her way drowsily to the coffee maker, going through the somehow meditative process of water-filter-beans, then leaning against the counter, letting her eyes drop shut, listening to the gurgle of brewing coffee and the susurrus of pouring rain. The rich, warm smell filling the kitchen around her was comforting.
She’d left Monroe and Nick in bed, both of them fast asleep, Nick’s fingers curled around the hem of Monroe’s t-shirt, his breathing thick and rough. Nick had fallen asleep some time just after five, but Monroe had only followed about half an hour ago, fatigue finally besting worry.
None of them had slept well. Nick hadn’t had any more nightmares, but he’d been restless, fretful, and uncomfortable. He’d been too congested to stay asleep for more than an hour or so at a time, and as the night wore on, his increasing exhaustion had left him ragged. Around three, he’d woken coughing so much he was sick to his stomach, and Rosalee had sat with him on the floor of the bathroom while Monroe paced outside. She and Monroe had led him back to bed, and the three of them passed the rest of the night chasing sleep.
Rosalee was spooning sugar into her cup when the front lock clicked. Her drooping head snapped up, and she moved down the hall to the front of the house, the little frown on her face giving way to shock and delight when the door swung open and an overnight bag appeared from behind it, followed by a messy red bun atop a head that was muttering mild profanities at the key currently refusing to come out of the deadbolt.
“Juliette!”
Startled storm-colored eyes turned towards her, and then Juliette abandoned the key and dropped her bag, and stepped into Rosalee’s outstretched arms.
“I thought you weren’t getting in until noon,” Rosalee exclaimed into the side of Juliette’s neck, pressing a soft kiss to the skin beneath her ear.
“I got an earlier flight; I couldn’t wait.” Juliette tightened the hug, then stepped back, and Rosalee saw the tired shadows under the other woman’s eyes. “How is he?”
“Asleep now, finally.” Rosalee sighed. “You weren’t wrong about him having a bad night.”
“Bad dreams?”
Rosalee nodded. “Just once. But it was a rough one.” She reached out and caught Juliette’s wrist gently. “He told Monroe he dreamed you didn’t remember him.”
Juliette caught her breath. “I shouldn’t have left him. It was too soon.”
“Juliette,” Rosalee soothed, stepping in and laying a hand on the small of the other woman’s back. “The first time one of you had to go away was going to be too soon no matter when it happened. It was just bad luck that Nick got sick at the same time. You didn’t do anything wrong, honey.”
A little of the strife bled out of Juliette’s face, and she cupped Rosalee’s cheek lightly. “I don’t know what any of us would do without you, y’know that?”
The corner of Rosalee’s mouth quirked up. “Well, the job does have its perks.”
The smile that broke out on Juliette’s face was small, but it warmed the whole room. Then she turned a look so full of longing up the stairs that Rosalee couldn’t even bear to take the time to update her on Nick’s symptoms.
“Go to him--”
“I need to--”
They laughed, tiredly, comfortably, and Juliette nodded, toed her shoes off, and took to the stairs with an urgency bordering on flight.
~~
Her heart leapt into her throat at her first glimpse of him, curled loosely on his side and breathing hoarsely through parted lips. There was a tightness to his face, something that spoke of sleep less restful than it should have been.
Juliette sat carefully down on the edge of the bed beside Nick, throwing a quick glance at Monroe, relieved when the movement didn’t wake him.
She brushed Nick’s sweat-lank hair off his warm forehead, ghosting kisses over each eyelid, then over his temple, lingering.
“I’m here, baby, I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m home. I’m not leaving you.”
He made a small noise, and she cupped the back of his neck in one hand, putting her lips to his ear. “Shhhh, baby. It’s okay. Sleep.”
He went still after a moment, a little shiver passing through him. Juliette held him a while longer, then moved away just long enough to slip out of her clothes and onto the bed beside him. Without waking, he turned into her, wrapping an arm around her waist, and she drew him close, cupping his head where it rested on her chest and stroking his too-warm back, palm and fingers mapping his spine and ribs as they moved with his breathing.
She didn’t sleep, though she’d expected to, and although the fatigue that had been dogging her all morning didn’t abate, it faded into something else, a blurriness at the edges of her consciousness that didn’t need to be resisted now that the hurried flight and cab ride were done, and her world consisted of the sweet weight of Nick in her arms, soft skin and fever heat, in the bed they shared with their friends and lovers, in this safe, warm, strong house with a hundred little heartbeats of its own.
Juliette cradled Nick close, breathed in the scent of his hair, and rested.
~~
He drifted just shy of wakefulness. Opening his eyes, focusing on the world beyond his body, was just more than he could manage. The aches were less, but not gone, and he didn’t know how long he’d slept, but he knew it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired.
Voices murmured around him, and he soaked up the sound of them. Sick or not, it felt wonderful to be taken care of, to know that the speakers were hushing themselves but staying close to him.
Nick shifted, burrowing closer to the body he rested against, and the curves and scent that met him resonated even before the beloved voice, speaking to rouse now, could form words.
“Waking up for me, Nick?”
His eyes snapped open and he sat up so fast the room swam around him, but even as he crumpled into her, he never lost sight of Juliette’s face.
“Hey, hey, easy, baby. Easy.” She tightened her hold and pulled him back down, anchoring him.
“Juliette,” he rasped out, and realized absently he had almost no voice left. He didn’t care. He clung to her, and tilted his head back at an angle that threatened to start his neck throbbing again. “Juliette, what are you--”
“Shh, honey, your poor throat.” She leaned down and stilled his lips with hers, stroking her thumb up and down the line of his throat as she kissed him, as if she could fix his voice with a touch. “I was worried about you. I didn’t want to be away from you anymore.”
Relief and elation washed over him. He pressed himself closer to her, as close as he could, and closed his eyes, breathing her in. He wanted to tell her about his nightmare, about how miserable he’d been, sick and without her, about how much he’d missed her and how much he loved her. But his voice was gone, and he thought she knew the most important parts, anyway.
“It’s okay to go to sleep, Nick,” she murmured, swaying gently where she sat, rocking him, urging him back towards slumber. “Go to sleep. I’m gonna be here when you wake up, I promise.”
He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to lie in her arms and feel her, smell her, bask in her. There was no way he was going to fall asleep now.
But her fingers were buried in his hair, massaging his scalp, her thumb somehow finding the knot just behind his ear without direction, and the soft curve of her breast was beneath his cheek. He wanted to stay awake and just be with her, but he was still so tired, and the rhythm of her rocking was short-circuiting his willpower.
He sank, and drifted. He didn’t know for how long, but suddenly he was startling himself awake. “Juliette,” he choked out, but she was still there, still rocking him.
“Shhh, baby. Shhh.” Cool, soft lips touched his ear as she whispered and kissed. “I’m with you.”
A large hand rubbed over his back, and he realized there was weight on the bed behind him, too.
“How’s his fever?” Rosalee’s voice asked softly, from somewhere else not far behind him. The hand on his back moved up and around to his cheek, and Juliette dipped her head to press her cheek to his brow.
“Still pretty warm,” Monroe’s deeper voice supplied.
“That’s why he can’t stay out,” Juliette added in a murmur. “He never sleeps well when he’s feverish.”
Nick wanted to protest that he was okay, better than okay, now, but the switch in his brain that enabled him to speak - or, for that matter, to care about speaking - seemed to be stuck firmly in the “off” position.
There was movement on the bed, and discussion that Nick didn’t follow, but a few moments later, the covers were being turned down and he was being shifted to lie on his back. His face crumpled in distress at being moved out of the cradle of Juliette’s arms, and he was hushed immediately. A damp cloth moved over his forehead and down his cheek to his jaw, then stroked down his throat, lingering over his pulse point, Juliette’s lips following along cooled and moistened skin. From his other side, he felt Rosalee’s hands stroke a second cloth down his arm, pressing it to the inside of his wrist, then sliding it up to the inner curve of his elbow, taking his hand in hers as she did so.
His eyes made it about halfway open, and Monroe caught his glance from where he sat draped against Rosalee’s back, his chin on her shoulder. The Blutbad smiled down at him, eyes warm, and reached around her to tousle Nick’s hair.
Nick knew several more minutes of blissful, gentle touching, and then he was losing himself to sleep. He was breathing rhythmically, his body loose-limbed, long before his lovers joined him beneath the blankets, making a fortress of covers and bodies around him.
Outside, the rain drummed down unrelentingly, but inside, their pack rested, peaceful and whole.
~~
I don't own them; I just get them dirty.
“You sound hoarse, babe,” Juliette said when she called Thursday night, from her hotel room.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a cold,” Nick dismissed. “I’ve been taking stuff. How’s the conference?”
“It’s been good so far; there was an oncology panel today that had some really promising research. What do you mean you’ve been taking stuff; what kind of stuff?”
Nick had been trying to quietly clear his throat to avoid a cough. “Y’know, over- the- counter- stuff. It’s just a little congestion, hon; it’s fine. So, is the guy with the James Brown hair speaking this year?” The cough broke loose, but he managed to stifle it. More or less.
“Yeah, but he’s got a crew cut now.”
“Aw, bummer!”
“It’s very distracting. He has freakishly tiny ears.”
“Define freakish.”
“Like a baby’s. I’ll see if I can get a picture during the lecture tomorrow. Nick,” her voice changed timbre just slightly, and Nick winced. “By ‘over-the-counter,’ do you mean cough drops and SunnyD, because neither of those is medicine.”
“I’m getting my vitamin C. Boosting my natural immunity.” He coughed into his arm, moving the phone away.
“Nick.”
“Honey, really, it’s just a cold.”
“I’d feel better if Rosalee gave you something. And more importantly, you’d feel better.”
“Well, then I’ll talk to Rosalee.”
“You’re having dinner with them tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you ask her, or do I need t--”
“Call our Fuchsbau lover to make sure I ask her to ply me with stinky herbs of questionable origin? No, no, I’m on it.”
He could hear Juliette’s smile though the phone. “I love you, Nick.”
Those words were sweeter to him now than they’d been even a year before. Then, he hadn’t known what it would feel like to live without them. “I love you, too.”
“You let them take care of you ‘til I get back,” she cajoled tenderly.
“I will. And Juliette really, don’t worry about me. It’s just a cold.”
~~
Come Friday morning, Nick wished Juliette were with him to say “I told you so.”
He woke, aching and coughing, almost an hour before his alarm was due to go off. Nick pushed himself upright, feeling choked and bound in his covers, his spasms shaking the whole bed and leaving his eyes tearing. The breath he managed to suck in felt hot moving through his lungs, and the tightness there showed no sign of loosening, even as he felt himself hacking harder.
When he finally got a respite from coughing, he was breathless and flushed, his throat raw, and he couldn’t will himself out of bed to go for the drink of water he desperately needed; he could barely swallow.
He eventually rolled onto his stomach, bracing his hands against the mattress and his forehead against the pillow, and stayed in that position for an indeterminate number of minutes, until the pain in his throat and joints finally overruled his exhaustion.
Nick stumbled into the bathroom and got a few mouthfuls of cool water to his mouth from the faucet by way of a cupped and not-so-steady hand. He leaned on the vanity counter, gulping water in the dark, and when he finally reached over to flip the light switch up, the sudden illumination made his head feel as if his eyes were trying to abandon ship. He flinched and quickly turned the light back off, though not quickly enough to avoid a glimpse of his own paper-colored face in the mirror, and sank down to sit on the lid of the toilet, trying to decide if he would fall and die, naked, wet, and bleeding from his head, if he tried to take a shower.
This was one mean bitch of a cold.
Eventually, he felt steady enough that he didn’t think Juliette would come home from her conference to find his waterlogged corpse in the tub if he dared a shower, and the hot water felt so good he stayed under it for much longer than it actually took him to wash. The steam soothed his lungs, and he thought he felt like he was breathing a little easier by the time he got out.
Breakfast was the most unappealing idea he’d come up against in a long time, but he chased the majority of a piece of toast down with a small glass of apple juice, because Juliette’s sweetly worried voice was still playing back in his head. She hadn’t really wanted to go to her veterinary conference; her memory had come back almost four months ago, and still she was loathe to let Nick out of her sight, like if she didn’t lay eyes on him often enough, he would disappear from inside her again. Nick hadn’t exactly been thrilled with the idea of Juliette leaving town, either, but he’d encouraged it, not wanting her life disrupted any more than it already had been. Their anxiety about the whole thing had set off something fierce and protective and territorial in Monroe, and if Rosalee hadn’t stepped in and kept the whole thing from going nuclear by gently pointing out that Nick and Juliette needed to make sure not to get phobic about such things, they might all still be corralled in the Blutbad’s house.
Now, what he really wanted was a cup of Monroe’s coffee, on Monroe’s couch. With one of Monroe’s flannels wrapped around him, he added mentally as a chill swept through him. He was regretting, now, turning down the offer to spend both nights Juliette was out of town at Monroe’s house. He’d thought Monroe and Rosalee might like a little time to themselves, before it was the four of them again.
Now, that selflessness seemed a lot more like stupidity.
With a groan, Nick strapped on his service weapon, tugged on his jacket, and grabbed his keys.
Just a few hours. That was all he had to get through.
~~
“Jeez,” Monroe breathed, as the entire house creaked in the latest gust of wind the evening’s changing weather had brought. The gloom outside was lost to the reflection of the kitchen and dining room lights in the window, where the glass was fogging up in the steam from Monroe’s risotto.
“Looks like this is supposed to get worse,” Rosalee called, walking in from the living room, where she’d been watching the weather report. She leaned a shoulder against the doorway, swirling what remained of her wine idly in the glass, watching Monroe with bright brown eyes. “We might lose power.”
“Then I finished this just in time,” he said, with a pleased little smile. “We can always eat in the dark.” He cast a wicked glance up at the Fuchsbau, and was rewarded with a lusty little smirk.
“Fire’s going,” she offered in response, and stepped into the kitchen long enough to snatch the bottle of wine from the counter, moving close enough to graze his arm with her shoulder, then turned and strode back out of his space with a toss of her hair.
Vixen.
Monroe plated his dinner and Rosalee’s, leaving the third plate empty beside the stove for the time being. Nick often ran late on Fridays, and Monroe had learned - for the most part - not to get irate or freaked out when the Grimm didn’t call with an ETA on those nights.
Rosalee was curled up on the couch, her long, ivory, knit wrap spilling prettily around her on the cushions, and her bare toes - painted a rich, metallic amber - peeking out from beneath the fringed hem. It made Monroe cold, but it didn’t bother Rosalee; she almost always went barefoot at home. She set her wine glass on the table and reached up to take the plate he offered, fork balanced on the edge, and shifted her weight against his when he sat down. “Mmmm, smells wonderful,” she breathed, blowing delicately on a forkful before closing her lips around it. Her eyes closed, the tip of her tongue darted out, and she chewed like it was one of the seven deadly sins.
“Oh, yeah,” she ruled approvingly after a few seconds.
Monroe, who had rather forgotten to eat watching her, beamed.
They had made it through their first helpings and were just getting ready to go for seconds when, almost simultaneously, the lights flickered, and the sound of a car door closing out front penetrated the house.
“Nick’s here,” Monroe said, at the same time Rosalee piped up with, “We’d better grab some candles.”
She hopped up on light feet and headed to the kitchen for emergency candles, taking the plates with her for more risotto on the way, as Monroe headed to the front door.
He opened it to find Nick with one hand on the porch railing, coughing into his arm and all but doubled over.
Monroe’s face fell. “Nick,” he said worriedly, going to the Grimm and wrapping a hand around the back of his neck. His touch found an unexpected, wicked dry heat in the soft skin at Nick’s nape, and Monroe sucked in a breath. “God,” he murmured, bringing his hands up to feel Nick’s cheeks and forehead. “Nick, you’re burning up. Come on.” He tucked Nick under his arm, into the curve of his body and away from the raw wind, keeping one hand curled gently around the younger man’s head where it leaned against his chest. “Come on inside.”
“I have a cold,” Nick mumbled, shivering into Monroe’s side.
“Yeah, I’m thinking that’s not it, man. Come on.” He pushed the door shut behind them and walked Nick to the couch. “Sit down,” he said, urging Nick into his own vacated seat with a hand on the Grimm’s collarbone. Nick started coughing again, eyes squeezed shut and pressing a hand to his chest. It was a barking, croupy sound that made Monroe’s chest hurt just to hear, and in the light from the lamps and the fire, Monroe could see how pale Nick really was, his eyes swollen and sunken, an insalubrious flush across his cheeks. “How long have you been sick, man? Is this why you didn’t want to come over last night? You should have called, Nick; we could have come to you.”
Nick couldn’t answer him, the coughs rattling his body getting worse by the moment, leaving him all but choking, and Monroe’s face darkened. He sat next to Nick and braced a hand on his back. “Jesus, Nick, that is not what a cold sounds like.”
Rosalee came swiftly back into the room, hands and arms full of emergency candles, and one silver Maglite heavy enough to crack somebody’s skull. Her face was pinched with concern. “He’s sick?” she asked Monroe.
He nodded, eyes flickering to her before going immediately back to Nick. “He said it’s just a cold, but he’s burning up. Easy,” he soothed, rubbing Nick’s back.
Rosalee set her burden down on the coffee table as gently as possible, and moved to flank Nick on his other side. She slipped light fingers underneath the mussed fringe of Nick’s hair to feel his temperature for herself. Her gaze went to Monroe, and he didn’t like what he read in the furrow that formed between her brows.
“Thermometer?” she queried.
“I’ll get it.” It would be quicker and easier than sending her hunting for it.
As Monroe swiftly ascended the stairs, Rosalee coaxed Nick out of his jacket, which she draped over the arm of the couch. “Turn and face away from me,” she urged with a hand on his shoulder. She hunched over, laying her ear against his back. “Take a deep breath ,” she directed. Nick obeyed, as best he could, but set off another fit of coughing. “It’s okay, Nick.” She rubbed circles on his back, waiting for him to quiet, then leaned in to listen again. “Let’s try that again, okay? Just breathe as deep as you can. Don’t force it.”
Nick sat, slumped over, his hands braced on his knees, dragging in a breath that felt like it caught halfway to where it needed to be. Rosalee listened, then quietly directed, “Again.” Closing his eyes, Nick did as she said.
Rosalee’s eyes narrowed at the faint, almost imperceptible crackling sound she heard, at the deepest limit of Nick’s inhalation, which wasn’t as deep as it should have been. “Give me one more, Nick,” she said, and the Grimm suppressed another cough, and did so. “Okay, my love, that’s enough. Relax.”
Nick sagged sideways, into the back of the couch, and Rosalee reached up to stroke his hair back. “That’s it. Don’t worry; we’re going to take care of this.”
“Juliette told me…I should tell you I was sick.”
“That’s because Juliette has common sense.”
“And a nice ass.” Nick mumbled into the cushion.
“That too.”
“I really miss her.”
Rosalee slid up against his back, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I know, Nick. But she’ll be home soon. And you’re with us now.”
Nick snuggled back against her. “Sorry.”
She shushed him, and brushed a kiss over his flushed ear. “No need for that.”
Monroe reappeared just then, brandishing a digital thermometer triumphantly. “Got it. Open up, Nick.” He caught Nick’s chin on the tips of his fingers, and slid the thermometer under his tongue.
“Fig’red y’d use merc’ry,” Nick mumbled around the instrument, rallying enough to look up at the Blutbad with much-diminished mischief in his tired eyes.
“Shut it, smartass,” Monroe retorted, dropping a kiss on Nick’s head, then sliding onto the couch in front of him and sandwiching the Grimm gently between his body and Rosalee’s.
“I don’t like how his breathing sounds,” Rosalee said softly, her chin on Nick’s shoulder and her eyes on Monroe. “There’s crackling in his right lung.”
“Oh, man.” He looked down at the top of Nick’s head. “Hey Nick, you having any pain in your chest?”
The bowed, dark head nodded against Monroe’s chest.
“Bad?”
A negative shake this time.
“Are you lying?”
Another shake.
The thermometer beeped then, and Monroe tilted Nick’s face up with a finger beneath his chin to retrieve it. “One oh two on the dot,” he reported, and sighed. “Definitely not a cold.”
“Yes it is,” Nick insisted, hoarse and insistent.
“Nick, this is most likely a touch of pneumonia,” Rosalee said, reaching up to press a cool hand to the back of his neck. Nick sighed and leaned back into the touch.
“Does he need a doctor?” Monroe asked.
“No,” Nick grumbled.
“I didn’t ask you, jackass.”
Rosalee shook her head, massaging Nick’s neck. “It shouldn’t be necessary. We caught it early enough; my father had a treatment that did the trick for Freddy and me when we came down with it. But I am going to go to the shop tonight; I don’t want him to go the night without it.”
“Rosalee, no,” Nick groaned. “It’s awful out.”
“It’s a twenty-three minute drive in some wind, Nick. I’ve spent the night under a bridge in worse.”
Nick craned around to look at her, and ended up tipping into Monroe, who wrapped one arm around the Grimm and reached out to cup Rosalee’s face with his other hand. “Drive carefully, and call me when you get there, all right?”
She leaned over Nick to brush a kiss over Monroe’s lips. “Will do. I’ll bring everything back here. It won’t take me long to round it up. I know this one by heart.”
~~
Monroe tucked a moss green throw blanket over Nick’s bare legs. “Why would you pack sleep shorts, Nick; it’s winter,” he groused.
Nick, wearing a threadbare grey flannel that Monroe had retrieved from the back of his closet over his pajamas, looked up at him with heavily-lidded eyes and a thin smile. “Knew the bed would be plenty warm,” he said, accepting the small bowl of risotto Monroe had dished up for him. He raked his fork through it lightly. “This smells really good.”
“Just eat a little, Nick,” Monroe urged, pressing the backs of his fingers gently to Nick’s too-warm cheek.
He knelt to feed another log into the fire, and Nick took a tiny bite of risotto. He continued to pick halfheartedly at his dinner as Monroe settled onto the couch beside him, the news on low. Nick slumped sideways, his head against Monroe’s shoulder, holding his bowl in his lap with slack fingers.
“Not hungry?” Monroe sighed.
Nick shook his head. “Sorry. It’s good. I just…”
“Don’t worry about it. Here.” Monroe took Nick’s bowl from him and traded it with a mug of tea. “I want you to sip at that, if you aren’t gonna eat. It’ll soothe your throat and help with the body aches.”
Nick wrapped his hands around the mug and breathed in the steam rising from the tea. It smelled of something almost - though not quite - minty, but his nose wasn’t telegraphing an “abandon ship” to his taste buds, so he tried a sip.
It was drinkable. And warm. And Monroe had brewed it for him painstakingly, blending the leaves in a tea ball and heating the kettle on the stove while talking to Rosalee on the phone about the medicines she’d driven across town to gather so they could treat Nick’s pneumonia at home. That chased back the illness and made him feel a little better all on its own, whether the tea would or not.
He drank, leaning into Monroe’s side, the Blutbad’s arm a welcome weight across his shoulders. They watched the news, Nick sitting up to cough so he wouldn’t rattle both of them, until about the third fit, when Monroe held him in place and rubbed a hand over his chest, and told him to just rest.
Eventually, the tea was gone, and Nick found himself staring at the television sideways, stretched out on the couch, his head on a pillow in Monroe’s lap. Monroe’s hands stroked his hair and his side, adjusted the blanket, and were somehow warm on his arm and cool on his face all at once.
Monroe was rubbing Nick’s spasming back through a particularly rough coughing jag when Rosalee came back in, a satchel over her shoulder and a medium-sized paper bag in one hand. “Oh, Nick, you sound terrible,” she fretted as she closed and locked the door behind her.
Monroe gently lifted Nick off his lap and slid out from beneath him, lowering him and the pillow to the couch, and intercepting Rosalee to take her burden off her hands. “Those can go in the kitchen,” she instructed, brushing her fingers over his wrist as she passed off the bags, but then halted him. “Wait a second--” she said, reaching into the satchel and retrieving a dark brown glass jar. “Okay.”
Rosalee went immediately to Nick, brushing his bangs back. “Nick, how are you feeling?”
He tried to give her a smile. “Been better. But I’m not alone tonight.”
“You shouldn’t have been alone last night, either,” Monroe’s voice called out from the kitchen, the sounds of him emptying Rosalee’s bags following.
Rosalee smirked affectionately over her shoulder. “Well, we’ll just have to make up for that,” she said, combing her fingers through Nick’s hair. “Monroe, that can wait. Come out here a moment, will you?”
Monroe emerged, an inquisitive look on his face. “What’s up, angel?”
Rosalee unscrewed the lid of the jar, and the scent of eucalyptus, camphor, and tea tree oil blossomed into the air. “Can you wet a cool washcloth and come sit with us?” she asked.
He did as she bid, and shortly they were all three back on the couch, Nick leaning back into Monroe as the Blutbad settled the washcloth across his forehead, and Rosalee turning down the blanket, parting the borrowed flannel, and lifting Nick’s t-shirt.
“This will help loosen everything up, and it’ll ease the chest pains, too,” she explained, dipping her fingers into the jar and bringing them out glistening with salve. She didn’t reach immediately for Nick’s chest; instead, she raised her fingers to hover just in front of Nick’s face. “Breathe deep, Nick,” she ordered placidly, and he obeyed. The vapors from the salve spread through his lungs like they were quenching a fire, and he felt Monroe’s fingers start to massage his temples, just past the edges of the cloth. Rosalee slipped her hand under his shirt, and started to rub the salve into his chest. Nick moaned, shivering not from chills, but from pleasure and relief.
He lay caught between his lovers’ hands, the discomfort of his illness slowly being banished closer and closer to the edges of his awareness. The long, exhausting day he’d battled through seemed like it belonged to another lifetime. There was only the firm comfort of Monroe’s thighs through the softness of the pillow beneath his head, the wonderful scent of Rosalee’s medicine, the Blutbad’s steady, gentle fingers moving in tiny circles on his aching head, and the Fuchsbau’s small, soft, strong hand on his chest.
All he was missing was Juliette.
~~
Monroe stirred the fire, the flames throwing ever-shifting shadows over the darkened living room. Candles glowed on the mantle and coffee table, but they had turned off the Coleman lantern he’d brought downstairs; its harsh white light had been bothering Nick, and neither Monroe nor Rosalee needed it to see in the dim house. Rosalee had used it for a little while in the kitchen, when the power had given up the ghost during the last stages of her brewing Nick’s medicine.
Nick lay across Rosalee’s lap now, her arm around his shoulders and her hand in his hair. His eyes were closed, but his face was tense with discomfort, and even beneath the fleece throw and the quilt from the guest bed, he shivered feverishly. It had been a little over half an hour since he’d taken Rosalee’s remedy, and she had cautioned that while it would work quickly once it took effect, it would take a while to get into his system.
Monroe folded his legs beneath him and sat by Rosalee’s feet and Nick’s head. He lifted Rosalee’s bare feet into his own lap, running a hand over her toes and finding them inexplicably still warm. She smiled down at him, and wiggled her toes against his touch. He began to massage her feet and calves, and she sighed blissfully. The room was dark and still, the cold outside clawing at the walls and windows, but here, they warmed each other. The fire crackled and murmured and hissed, the wind threw rain in occasional, noisy spatters against the big picture window, the emergency radio mumbled and sang almost imperceptibly, turned down low and set near the fireplace, and Monroe’s clocks kept up their endless cadence.
They were all three of them being lulled into drowsiness, and Nick’s next violent outburst of coughing startled everyone. He struggled to push himself upright, gasping for breath between spasms, his ribs feeling ready to tear apart, and something deep in his chest grinding hotly. Monroe and Rosalee quickly helped him sit, flanking and bracing him. Rosalee alternated between rubbing circles and drumming the heel of her hand lightly but firmly on his back.
“It’s okay, Nick,” Monroe soothed as the fit worsened, and Nick’s hand tightened on his. “It’s okay, man.”
Rosalee’s phone chose that moment to chirp; the screen displayed Juliette’s name and a picture of the veterinarian and the Fuchsbau in matching safety goggles, red hair and brunette bound back in messy ponytails, glancing up from a flask over a burner in the spice shop.
“Juliette,” Rosalee greeted.
“Rose, I just got out of a lecture or I would have called you back sooner. How is he?” There was an edge of something approaching panic in her voice, and Rosalee knew nothing in the message she’d left on Juliette’s voicemail had been dire enough to warrant it.
“It’s okay, Juliette, he’s with us, and I mixed up something for him that will help,” Rosalee replied, trying to calm the other woman’s anxiety. “He’s got a pretty nasty cough going, and a bit of a fever. He’s not feeling too great right now, but we’re gonna take care of that.”
“God, is that him?” Juliette asked, pained, hearing Nick’s hacking in the background.
“Yeah,” Rosalee sighed, keeping up her gentle drumming on Nick’s back, “it is. Jules, he’s got pneumonia, but he’s going to be okay. I’m treating him here. Please, honey, don’t worry. We’re keeping him here with us.”
The hiss of a tight, tense breath came across the line. “I knew I shouldn’t have done this,” Juliette said. “I should have skipped this damn thing. I should be there. Shit.”
“Juliette, you absolutely should have gone. This was important.”
“It could have waited.”
“Juliette, you can’t--” Rosalee cut herself off; now wasn’t the time. “I promise you, we’re all okay here. Nick’s got his first dose of medicine in him, and he barely bitched and moaned at all about taking it.” She reached out to ruffle Nick’s hair; the Grimm was leaning down over his own lap, trying to catch his breath. Monroe was rubbing his back, leaning with him, murmuring quietly.
“I want to talk to him,” Juliette said. “If he can’t yet, I’ll wait.”
“Okay. Hang on a second.” Rosalee laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Nick, it’s Juliette. When you catch your breath, she wants to talk to you.”
The better part of a minute passed before Nick, rasping breaths finally coming slower, took the phone from Rosalee and sagged sideways into Monroe, who settled them both back into the couch cushions. “Juliette?” Nick croaked.
“Nick honey, how are you feeling?”
The concern bleeding through the phone made something deep inside him ache unbearably, like a healed but still tender wound. “I’m okay. Tired of coughing.” I miss you. Please, please come home.
“Are you in pain at all?”
His chest felt like it was full of sand and nails, and his arms and legs ached abominably, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “I’m…a little sore.”
The hesitation had been an instant too long, but Juliette - this Juliette, his Juliette, who knew him inside out - heard it. “Baby, you tell Monroe and Rosalee when you’re hurting, understand me? You let them help you.”
“I will. I am.” As he promised it, Monroe’s hand moved over his hair.
“I love you so much. I’m so sorry I’m not there with you.”
“No.” He’d meant to say don’t apologize, but was suddenly too tired.
“I’m going to be with you before you know it, okay? You do what Rosalee says and you get some sleep tonight, and I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Love you,” he got out, feeling sapped, feeling like tomorrow might as well be next year.
“You rest tonight. Okay? And do what Rosalee says?”
“Yes.” The phone slipped a little, and Nick tightened his hold on it. “Don’t hang up.”
“I’m not,” she assured him. “I’m not, Nick.”
“Tell me about your day,” he got out in a failing voice, and he knew it sounded pleading. He didn’t care.
“Okay.” And she began talking, in soft, lulling tones, about the lecture she’d sat through. Rosalee knelt and lifted his legs back onto the couch, straightening the blanket over him, then circled around to seat herself on the arm of the couch by Monroe, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling his dark curls.
Nick listened to Juliette talk, and sank into sleep to the sound of her voice in his ear. When Rosalee’s phone started to slip out of his fingers and down his cheek, Monroe rescued it quickly, and he and Rosalee took up the conversation with Juliette, worry and reassurance flying back and forth in hushed tones.
“Rosalee, he’s running a fever?”
“Yeah. It’s up there, but it’s not getting any higher.”
Juliette sighed. “You’re in for a rough night.”
~~
When the power kicked back on, Monroe and Rosalee held a quiet debate on whether or not to try to move Nick upstairs to the bedroom. He’d been sleeping - steadily, if not exactly soundly - for the better part of an hour, and they were loath to disturb him. But the three of them weren’t all going to be able to sleep on the couch, and Monroe, in particular, was adamant that Nick needed to be in bed.
At about a quarter to ten, Nick solved the dilemma for them when he woke himself coughing, still violently, but looser now, the croupy bark easing, as Rosalee’s medicine began to kick in and break up the congestion deep in his lungs. Rosalee sat at his elbow, passing him tissues and starting up her gentle percussion on his back as needed, serenely vigilant and unfazed through the worst of his choking.
He was exhausted and aching when it was over, and he curled gratefully into Monroe’s embrace when the other man drew him close.
“Nick, I think it’s time for bed,” Monroe urged, nuzzling Nick’s temple, kissing the overheated skin there.
“I can sleep here,” Nick mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t want to keep you guys up.”
“No, Nick,” Monroe said firmly. “You’re sleeping with us.”
“We wouldn’t be able to rest if you were down here sick by yourself,” Rosalee reasoned when she saw Nick’s coming protest. Then she gave him a little wry half-smile. “Besides, we’d be able to hear you coughing just as clearly down here as up there. Just because your hearing’s lousy doesn’t mean ours is, too.”
Nick almost managed a smile at that, and finally nodded.
“You know you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you couldn’t cram your little ice-block feet against my leg, anyway,” Monroe added, and Nick huffed.
Rosalee stood and kissed each of them on the forehead. “Go on up,” she ordered softly, trailing light touches over Monroe’s jaw and Nick’s cheek. “I’ll take care of the fire.”
~~
Nick curled into a ball, burrowing into Monroe’s pillow, as the Blutbad drew the covers over him. He was shivering, and he hurt, in his head and his chest, his back and his legs, and when Monroe’s warm weight settled over him from atop the blankets, Nick moaned in relief.
“Relax,” Monroe’s voice rumbled against his ear.
“I’m cold,” Nick whispered.
“I know. Relax,” Monroe repeated, brushing his lips over the pulse point in Nick’s throat. “I’ll get you warm.”
The wind clawed at the house, rattling the windows and howling around the corners, and Nick could hear his heartbeat in his ears. His body drank in the heat of Monroe’s, heavy but held just so, with no pressure on Nick’s chest.
Nick felt the familiar tremor of the woge, and the flood of heat increased with the shift; Monroe was warmer in this shape, his blood faster-flowing. Lips and coarse fur pressed into the soft curve of Nick’s throat, and a clawed hand cupped his forehead. The kiss against his neck had fangs in it.
“You smell like pain and fever,” Monroe said, his voice a strange blend of croon and growl. “I wish you’d called last night. You should have been with us.”
Nick just nodded, his eyes closed. He heard the soft rustle of clothes being discarded, and then that long, lupine body curled around him, slid arms over and under him, caught his cold hands in warm ones, and held him gently, safely captive. Monroe nuzzled at the nape of his neck, breath ruffling his hair, mouthing too-hot skin, and Nick whimpered.
“Hush,” Monroe breathed, kissing the place where Nick’s fever and headache had lashed themselves together into a knot at the base of his skull. Nick’s chills wrenched another bout of shivers out of his exhausted muscles, and Monroe’s body tightened instantly around his.
They lay like that, surrounded by the ticking of clocks and the wailing wind, and little by little, Nick became more aware of Monroe’s warmth than of his own pain and discomfort. He grew sleepy with relief, his worry that he’d be a nuisance to his lovers already fading.
He was wanted here, welcomed here. He’d been an idiot not to seek this out the night before, when he’d known it would be waiting. He still felt unsettled and childishly forlorn at Juliette’s absence; there was a part of his mind that couldn’t settle itself and be still, couldn’t rest, without her. And knowing she was far away, worrying about him and without the comfort of their pack, only worsened that anxious ache.
But he felt loved. He was longing, but not alone; drained, sick, and hurting, but safe and cared for.
He heard Rosalee come into the bedroom, listened to the sounds of her shedding her clothes and retrieving her nightshirt, conversing in low tones with Monroe, drifting into the bathroom and performing her before-bed rituals.
She joined them in the big bed, sliding lightly under the covers and across the mattress, Monroe shifting to Nick’s side and leaving a space for her to fill. Nick felt Monroe lift himself to kiss her goodnight, felt her soft lips brush his, and opened his eyes in time to see hers turn the color of sun and honey, her delicate face blossoming with russet and silver fur.
“Go to sleep, Nick,” she whispered. “Tomorrow we’ll all be together.”
~~
In one of his short, exhausted, fever-tossed bouts of sleep, Nick dreamed that Juliette had never remembered him, and woke himself and his lovers sobbing so hard he choked. Lights snapped on and covers were untangled from limbs, and two worried voices filtered through the fog in his mind.
“Nick, sweetheart, calm down. Calm down now.” Rosalee’s small, cool hands touched his cheeks, wiping away tears and sweat, trying to make him look at her, see her, but the fever and the nightmare still clutched like strangler weeds at his consciousness, and Nick cried brokenly, inconsolable, ill, and heartsick.
“Hey, hey, hey, stop,” Monroe crooned, holding Nick from behind, rocking him. “Settle down, Nick. Settle down.” He pressed one hand to Nick’s breastbone, as if there was a wound there he could staunch, and met Rosalee’s worried eyes over Nick’s shoulder as the younger man’s keening was punctuated by ugly coughs. “Nick, it was a bad dream. It was just a bad dream. Shhhh, take it easy. Easy,” he gentled, still rocking, voice hushed. “It was just a dream. Breathe.”
Rosalee left them just long enough to retrieve a cool, wet washcloth from the bathroom, and then she was bathing Nick’s face and neck, a pensive little frown between her brows as she kept silent and let Monroe murmur and growl against Nick’s ear.
Slowly, so slowly, the guttural soothing chased the grief and panic from Nick’s eyes, and he sagged into Monroe’s hold, deep, wet, rumbling coughs heaving in his chest.
Rosalee gathered her hair back in one hand at the nape of her neck and leaned in to listen to Nick’s lungs. “I’m going to go get him another dose of medicine,” she announced, and pressed the compress into Monroe’s hand. “Keep that on him.”
She all but sprinted from the room, her light footsteps sounding down the stairs, as Monroe ran the cold cloth over Nick’s throat.
“You back with me, Nicky?” Monroe ventured to ask a few moments later, when Nick seemed as settled as the spasms behind his ribs would let him be. Nick nodded, the barest movement of his heavy head on Monroe’s shoulder. “Good.” Monroe pressed a kiss to the pulse point in Nick’s throat, lingering there, mouthing the hot skin over the slowing flutter. “What were you dreaming about?”
Nick swallowed, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have slept downstairs.”
“Would you shut up about that?” Monroe groused, kissing Nick’s jaw and nuzzling at him until the Grimm relaxed his neck and let his head tip to the side. “What did you dream?”
“Juliette,” Nick rasped. “She didn’t…she never…”
Monroe made a soft sound, and wrapped his arms tighter around Nick. “But she did, Nick. She did. And she wants to be with you as much as you want her back. She’s gonna be home tomorrow, man. We’re gonna have her back tomorrow, and then we’re just gonna hole up in this house together. For days, if we want.”
Nick found he had a small smile in him, for that. “I want,” he mumbled into Monroe’s arm. “Very much.”
“Me too,” Monroe whispered, looking up and holding a hand out to Rosalee as she came through the door. “How ‘bout you?” he asked her, pulling her close and snaking his arm around her waist.
“Sure. What am I agreeing to, exactly?” she asked, looking down at both her men.
“Hibernation. No one comes in or goes out once Juliette gets home.” He buried his face in her stomach, nipping lightly along her ribs through the soft cotton of her sleep shirt, making her giggle. “Vegetable lentil soup. All the Pink Panther movies.”
“Strip Trivial Pursuit,” Rosalee added.
“No way,” Nick butted in hoarsely. “You and Juliette cheat.”
“Says the sore loser,” Rosalee replied, smiling. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled a cork out of a brown glass bottle, pouring a measure of thin liquid the color of lilacs into the spoon she’d brought along. “Open,” she ordered, and Nick obeyed, grimacing a little at the taste. “Good boy,” she murmured, and kissed the tip of his nose.
Nick settled into Monroe’s lean, warm solidity, and the Blutbad tipped them both back to recline against the pillows, keeping Nick elevated enough to make breathing easier. Rosalee lay down beside them, stretched against the length of their legs.
Nick heard her breathing even out after a long while, and Monroe reached down to stroke a lock of dark hair back from her closed eyes. They rested in the quiet, still and very much awake, Monroe’s clocks, Nick’s coughing, and the occasional gust of wind at the eaves the only sounds.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Monroe finally murmured, when he was sure Rosalee was well and truly asleep.
Nick shook his head. “It wasn’t…nothing was clear. Nothing was happening. It was just…a feeling. I was in the house, and she was walking away…and I knew she didn’t remember me.”
Monroe combed his fingers through Nick’s hair, stroked a hand over Nick’s chest and stomach, and said nothing.
Nick swallowed thickly. “It just…”
He didn’t go on. He didn’t need to, he knew. Two of Monroe’s long fingers found their way under Nick’s chin and tipped his head back, brushing a kiss over the corner of his mouth. Nick turned into it, then looked up into gentle dark eyes.
“She’s back, Nick. You have her back. You know that, right? You know that.” Monroe gave him the faintest of shakes, and Nick nodded. “Do we need to call her?”
“No,” Nick protested immediately. “Let her sleep.”
Monroe had his doubts about how much sleep Juliette was getting, but he kept them to himself. Nick wouldn’t rest any easier for hearing them. “All right.” He reached back to stack some pillows, and shifted Nick onto them, smoothing the covers over him and stealing a section for himself, settling down on the mattress beside the Grimm, head cushioned on one arm. He didn’t close his eyes, though, keeping them on the younger man’s face, smiling softly when he caught Nick’s tired gaze. “Try to sleep,” he ordered in a near-whisper.
“You too,” Nick replied, his lids heavy and drooping. He fumbled a hand towards Monroe’s face and brushed his knuckles over the Blutbad’s cheek.
Monroe watched Nick fade into sleep, joining Rosalee, his breathing rough, but undisturbed, for now, by coughing. He was pale in the light from the bedside lamp. After a moment’s consideration, Monroe decided to leave it on. He had a feeling they’d need it again before morning.
~~
Rosalee padded downstairs just before seven, barefoot and bundled in Monroe’s flannel robe, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth as she yawned. The wind had died off sometime during the night, and the rain coming down now fell heavy and straight, veiling the world beyond the windows in drenched grey.
She made her way drowsily to the coffee maker, going through the somehow meditative process of water-filter-beans, then leaning against the counter, letting her eyes drop shut, listening to the gurgle of brewing coffee and the susurrus of pouring rain. The rich, warm smell filling the kitchen around her was comforting.
She’d left Monroe and Nick in bed, both of them fast asleep, Nick’s fingers curled around the hem of Monroe’s t-shirt, his breathing thick and rough. Nick had fallen asleep some time just after five, but Monroe had only followed about half an hour ago, fatigue finally besting worry.
None of them had slept well. Nick hadn’t had any more nightmares, but he’d been restless, fretful, and uncomfortable. He’d been too congested to stay asleep for more than an hour or so at a time, and as the night wore on, his increasing exhaustion had left him ragged. Around three, he’d woken coughing so much he was sick to his stomach, and Rosalee had sat with him on the floor of the bathroom while Monroe paced outside. She and Monroe had led him back to bed, and the three of them passed the rest of the night chasing sleep.
Rosalee was spooning sugar into her cup when the front lock clicked. Her drooping head snapped up, and she moved down the hall to the front of the house, the little frown on her face giving way to shock and delight when the door swung open and an overnight bag appeared from behind it, followed by a messy red bun atop a head that was muttering mild profanities at the key currently refusing to come out of the deadbolt.
“Juliette!”
Startled storm-colored eyes turned towards her, and then Juliette abandoned the key and dropped her bag, and stepped into Rosalee’s outstretched arms.
“I thought you weren’t getting in until noon,” Rosalee exclaimed into the side of Juliette’s neck, pressing a soft kiss to the skin beneath her ear.
“I got an earlier flight; I couldn’t wait.” Juliette tightened the hug, then stepped back, and Rosalee saw the tired shadows under the other woman’s eyes. “How is he?”
“Asleep now, finally.” Rosalee sighed. “You weren’t wrong about him having a bad night.”
“Bad dreams?”
Rosalee nodded. “Just once. But it was a rough one.” She reached out and caught Juliette’s wrist gently. “He told Monroe he dreamed you didn’t remember him.”
Juliette caught her breath. “I shouldn’t have left him. It was too soon.”
“Juliette,” Rosalee soothed, stepping in and laying a hand on the small of the other woman’s back. “The first time one of you had to go away was going to be too soon no matter when it happened. It was just bad luck that Nick got sick at the same time. You didn’t do anything wrong, honey.”
A little of the strife bled out of Juliette’s face, and she cupped Rosalee’s cheek lightly. “I don’t know what any of us would do without you, y’know that?”
The corner of Rosalee’s mouth quirked up. “Well, the job does have its perks.”
The smile that broke out on Juliette’s face was small, but it warmed the whole room. Then she turned a look so full of longing up the stairs that Rosalee couldn’t even bear to take the time to update her on Nick’s symptoms.
“Go to him--”
“I need to--”
They laughed, tiredly, comfortably, and Juliette nodded, toed her shoes off, and took to the stairs with an urgency bordering on flight.
~~
Her heart leapt into her throat at her first glimpse of him, curled loosely on his side and breathing hoarsely through parted lips. There was a tightness to his face, something that spoke of sleep less restful than it should have been.
Juliette sat carefully down on the edge of the bed beside Nick, throwing a quick glance at Monroe, relieved when the movement didn’t wake him.
She brushed Nick’s sweat-lank hair off his warm forehead, ghosting kisses over each eyelid, then over his temple, lingering.
“I’m here, baby, I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m home. I’m not leaving you.”
He made a small noise, and she cupped the back of his neck in one hand, putting her lips to his ear. “Shhhh, baby. It’s okay. Sleep.”
He went still after a moment, a little shiver passing through him. Juliette held him a while longer, then moved away just long enough to slip out of her clothes and onto the bed beside him. Without waking, he turned into her, wrapping an arm around her waist, and she drew him close, cupping his head where it rested on her chest and stroking his too-warm back, palm and fingers mapping his spine and ribs as they moved with his breathing.
She didn’t sleep, though she’d expected to, and although the fatigue that had been dogging her all morning didn’t abate, it faded into something else, a blurriness at the edges of her consciousness that didn’t need to be resisted now that the hurried flight and cab ride were done, and her world consisted of the sweet weight of Nick in her arms, soft skin and fever heat, in the bed they shared with their friends and lovers, in this safe, warm, strong house with a hundred little heartbeats of its own.
Juliette cradled Nick close, breathed in the scent of his hair, and rested.
~~
He drifted just shy of wakefulness. Opening his eyes, focusing on the world beyond his body, was just more than he could manage. The aches were less, but not gone, and he didn’t know how long he’d slept, but he knew it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired.
Voices murmured around him, and he soaked up the sound of them. Sick or not, it felt wonderful to be taken care of, to know that the speakers were hushing themselves but staying close to him.
Nick shifted, burrowing closer to the body he rested against, and the curves and scent that met him resonated even before the beloved voice, speaking to rouse now, could form words.
“Waking up for me, Nick?”
His eyes snapped open and he sat up so fast the room swam around him, but even as he crumpled into her, he never lost sight of Juliette’s face.
“Hey, hey, easy, baby. Easy.” She tightened her hold and pulled him back down, anchoring him.
“Juliette,” he rasped out, and realized absently he had almost no voice left. He didn’t care. He clung to her, and tilted his head back at an angle that threatened to start his neck throbbing again. “Juliette, what are you--”
“Shh, honey, your poor throat.” She leaned down and stilled his lips with hers, stroking her thumb up and down the line of his throat as she kissed him, as if she could fix his voice with a touch. “I was worried about you. I didn’t want to be away from you anymore.”
Relief and elation washed over him. He pressed himself closer to her, as close as he could, and closed his eyes, breathing her in. He wanted to tell her about his nightmare, about how miserable he’d been, sick and without her, about how much he’d missed her and how much he loved her. But his voice was gone, and he thought she knew the most important parts, anyway.
“It’s okay to go to sleep, Nick,” she murmured, swaying gently where she sat, rocking him, urging him back towards slumber. “Go to sleep. I’m gonna be here when you wake up, I promise.”
He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to lie in her arms and feel her, smell her, bask in her. There was no way he was going to fall asleep now.
But her fingers were buried in his hair, massaging his scalp, her thumb somehow finding the knot just behind his ear without direction, and the soft curve of her breast was beneath his cheek. He wanted to stay awake and just be with her, but he was still so tired, and the rhythm of her rocking was short-circuiting his willpower.
He sank, and drifted. He didn’t know for how long, but suddenly he was startling himself awake. “Juliette,” he choked out, but she was still there, still rocking him.
“Shhh, baby. Shhh.” Cool, soft lips touched his ear as she whispered and kissed. “I’m with you.”
A large hand rubbed over his back, and he realized there was weight on the bed behind him, too.
“How’s his fever?” Rosalee’s voice asked softly, from somewhere else not far behind him. The hand on his back moved up and around to his cheek, and Juliette dipped her head to press her cheek to his brow.
“Still pretty warm,” Monroe’s deeper voice supplied.
“That’s why he can’t stay out,” Juliette added in a murmur. “He never sleeps well when he’s feverish.”
Nick wanted to protest that he was okay, better than okay, now, but the switch in his brain that enabled him to speak - or, for that matter, to care about speaking - seemed to be stuck firmly in the “off” position.
There was movement on the bed, and discussion that Nick didn’t follow, but a few moments later, the covers were being turned down and he was being shifted to lie on his back. His face crumpled in distress at being moved out of the cradle of Juliette’s arms, and he was hushed immediately. A damp cloth moved over his forehead and down his cheek to his jaw, then stroked down his throat, lingering over his pulse point, Juliette’s lips following along cooled and moistened skin. From his other side, he felt Rosalee’s hands stroke a second cloth down his arm, pressing it to the inside of his wrist, then sliding it up to the inner curve of his elbow, taking his hand in hers as she did so.
His eyes made it about halfway open, and Monroe caught his glance from where he sat draped against Rosalee’s back, his chin on her shoulder. The Blutbad smiled down at him, eyes warm, and reached around her to tousle Nick’s hair.
Nick knew several more minutes of blissful, gentle touching, and then he was losing himself to sleep. He was breathing rhythmically, his body loose-limbed, long before his lovers joined him beneath the blankets, making a fortress of covers and bodies around him.
Outside, the rain drummed down unrelentingly, but inside, their pack rested, peaceful and whole.
~~