fic: courting the ugly duckling [grimm, nick/monroe, pg-13]
Title: Courting the Ugly Duckling
Author:
hoosierbitch
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nick/Monroe, off-screen Nick/Juliette
Notes: This was originally posted on the
grimm_kink meme here!
rabidchild67 did a superfast beta for me. :-)
Summary: In which Monroe wins at flirting, and Nick loses at being flirted with.
*
"Monroe, do you need something from me?" Nick’s got his coat on, standing in Monroe’s foyer, hovering in the place between ‘I really have to go’ and ‘yes, a drink sounds perfect, I would like to stay for the evening and listen to some records and admire your clocks.’
"What?"
Nick scratches his head. “You’ve just been really hovery lately.”
Monroe surreptitiously hides the mug of hot chocolate he’d just made for Nick behind his back. Ever since Juliette had tipsily confided to him all of the details about how she and Nick defined their trust-based-polyamorous relationship, he’s been trying to feel out Nick’s interest level.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about,” he says, hot chocolate sloshing over his fingertips.
"It’s not a problem,” Nick says quickly. “I mean, the homemade candy canes that you gave me earlier are really nice, and I know Juliette's going to love the wreath, but you don't have to do all of this." Nick's smile is small and confused.
Monroe frowns. "Do you not like getting presents?"
"No, of course I do, it's just-" Nick shakes his head and turns towards the door. "Thanks, Monroe. I’ll see you later."
*
Nick hadn’t explicitly said that he didn’t want Monroe to give him any more presents, so Monroe figures he’s completely within his rights to buy Nick something for Christmas. And also to make him a fruitcake. Okay, two fruitcakes. And some peppermint bark, but come on, who doesn't appreciate a tin full of peppermint bark?
Nick gives him a scarf.
…huh.
“I didn’t buy it,” Nick says, literally scuffing his feet, standing on Monroe’s porch, tissue-paper wrapped scarf crinkling in his hands.
“Wait, what? You’re giving me a stolen scarf? You’re the worst cop I’ve ever met. Wait-is this entrapment? Am I being entrapped?”
“Paranoia is unhealthy, Monroe. And, I meant-Juliette made it. She knits in her downtime, and she wanted to thank you for, well, you know.”
“I don’t know…what?”
“She wants to thank you for helping me out. And keeping me safe. I wouldn’t be able to do this without you,” Nick says.
Monroe likes it when Nick talks to him like this, hushed and quiet, not making eye contact because they’re too close together for it to matter. “You’d be just fine without me.”
Nick laughs, pushing the scarf into Monroe’s hands and stepping back. “No, man, I really wouldn’t be. Anyway-Juliette’s a quick knitter, so she said if you don’t like the color, or if it’s not long enough, she can probably make you another one before New Year’s.”
“I love it.”
Nick grins at him, his face gold in the yellow porch light. Monroe wishes he had a camera or knew how to paint or could stop Nick from leaving and keep him right there, with that exact smile on his face, that exact crinkle in the corners of his eyes.
“Juliette’s amazing, isn’t she? I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
Monroe concentrates on not being jealous and waves Nick back to his car.
*
Later, Monroe will trace his realization back to that conversation and the soft maroon scarf in his hands, back to the lingering scent of peppermint bark and fruitcake wafting out of the kitchen.
He doesn’t figure it out right away, though. Not until mid-March, when they interview a woman who flirts outrageously with Nick-Nick, who seems completely unfazed by the attention.
“What was her problem?” Monroe asks, his hands clenched tightly on the steering wheel. “People these days have no sense of propriety.” Their interviewee had practically drooled on Nick. She probably would have, if Monroe hadn’t successfully glared her into submission. He can be scary when he wants to be.
“Who are you talking about?”
Monroe looks away from the road long enough to take in Nick’s expression of utter bewilderment. “The suspect we just interviewed.”
“Yeah? What was wrong with her?”
“She was all over you!”
Nick laughs, shaking his head and leaning back against the passenger side door, getting as comfortable as he can in Monroe’s front seat. If they tried to make out in the car, it would probably be really uncomfortable, but Monroe’s willing to make sacrifices for orgasms.
“You can’t honestly tell me that you didn’t notice the way that woman was throwing herself at you.”
“I think she had her eye on you, dude. She kept staring at you while I was trying to talk to her.”
She had indeed been looking at Monroe, but only because he’d been not-so-subtly trampling her herb garden at the time. And also he may have been growling a little bit.
“She was totally hot, why would she be looking at me?” Nick asks. “Especially with you around.” What’s weird is that Nick really doesn’t sound like he’s joking. Monroe glances over at him. Nick is-Nick’s really not joking. Monroe does a double take and then forces himself to focus on the road. Nick wins the oblivious award of the year.
He spends the rest of the drive mulling over the other cases he’s worked with Nick, the other interview subjects who Nick’s awkwardly danced around, and the way he’d been so embarrassingly confused when Monroe had started giving him presents.
Nick looks over at him suspiciously, when the silence on his side of the car had gone on too long. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah. I just, uh-feeling a little under the weather. I think my allergies are acting up.”
“Her garden did smell kind of funny.” Possibly because Monroe had been grinding dill and mint plants to death under the heel of his boot, but Monroe stays mum about that.
*
After that, he maybe, a little, sometimes, takes advantage of Nick’s obliviousness. He doesn’t get to have a ton of fun, as a solitary Blutbad with no social life, so teasing Nick becomes part of his routine. He buys Nick coffee when they go out together, and holds open doors, and compliments his shirts (those compliments, Nick deflects to Juliette, who he credits with the quality of his wardrobe), and he makes Nick dinner and lights candles and gazes at him over their wine glasses.
Nick starts treating him like a crazy person, but he blushes whenever Monroe flirts at all, and it’s so adorable that Monroe’s willing to put up with the suspicious glances and vague questions about strains of mental illness common among Wesen for the chance to see Nick’s cheeks flush pink.
It’s all fun and games, until the night that he says how beautiful Nick’s eyes are in the moonlight (which, okay, maybe went a little bit overboard).
“Stop it,” Nick says, his body stiff and his voice angry.
They’re outside in a clearing, watching to see if some tiny white potentially-magically-potent flowers turn blue when the moonlight hits them dead on. The crickets are irritatingly loud. They’re giving him a headache. He hates them almost as much as he hates the hurt in Nick’s eyes. “Stop what?”
“Stop teasing me,” Nick says, his shoulders hunching forward. “It’s not funny anymore. We all get the joke, okay? So cut it out.”
“Okay, wait, rewind for a minute-”
“Stop it, Monroe.” The pain in Nick’s voice is making Monroe’s whole body ache. “I’m obviously into you, which is stupid, but I’m working on getting over it. So if you could just-just leave it alone for a while, I’d appreciate it.”
Monroe has never felt more helpless than he feels right now, standing in a peaceful glade at midnight, trampling magical fairy flowers, while Nick Burkhardt pushes him away. “I’m sorry, I thought-I thought I was flirting. I didn’t mean to be…mean.”
“I get it,” Nick says softly. “It’s funny. I’d laugh at me too, if I was you.” Monroe can’t think of anything to say. His frantic thoughts are running into each other, cliché after cliché, confused apologies and frantic questions. “I talked to Juliette about this,” Nick continues, “and she agrees with me. You and I are friends. She says that I deserve-I deserve your respect. At the very least. So stop teasing me.”
“I’m not teasing you,” he says quietly.
“Yes you fucking are, Monroe! I’m not an idiot.”
“I like you, Nick,” Monroe says, laying his metaphorical cards out on a nonexistent table. Nick stiffens and Monroe steps back, holding his hands out in front of him, treating Nick like a skittish pup who’s afraid of getting kicked.
“Yeah, you like me as a friend, I get it.”
“No, I-at the risk of sounding like a twelve year old-I like you like you.”
Nick stares at him like he’s lost his whole damn mind. “Why?”
“I don’t know! Probably for all the same reasons that Juliette likes you.”
Nick scoffs at him. “You’ve got a soft spot for maladjusted supernatural cops with a death wish and attachment issues?”
“Well…yeah. And I like you because you’re smart,” Monroe says, and Nick doesn’t dispute that; Monroe knows how much pride Nick takes in being able to do his job so well. “You’re strong-”
“Compared to you, I’m nothing.”
“Compared to me, most humans are nothing. And strength manifests in more aspects than just the physical.”
“Don’t feed me that spiritual crap tonight. I’m not in the mood for it.”
“You’re strong, and smart, and funny, and good looking, and I like you. I haven’t been teasing you-or, well, I was, but there’s nothing wrong with flirting. I thought you thought it was fun. You’re-you’re really pretty when you’re flustered.”
“You think I’m pretty?” The dry sarcasm in Nick’s voice is insulting.
“Yes, I do. Jackass.” Monroe steps closer and Nick starts shaking his head, so slowly that Monroe wonders if Nick even knows he’s doing it.
“Don’t play with me,” Nick whispers.
“I’m not.”
Nick tenses when Monroe gets close enough to touch him. “I’m not kidding, Monroe. This isn’t funny anymore, and I don’t-”
Nick’s lips are soft. His lips are soft, and they part when he gasps against Monroe’s mouth, they close with surprise and tense when Nick starts to push him away. Monroe catches Nick’s bottom lip in his teeth and tugs on it.
Monroe can smell what Nick had for dinner and feel the acidic burn of the toothpaste he’d used that morning and taste the faint stale edges of air when Nick lets all of his breath out and groans into Monroe’s mouth. It shivers through his body, that sound that he’s never heard from Nick before, rides the proprietary rush of having brought that easy pleasure out of Nick’s body. Nick tastes divine, and Monroe wants nothing more in that moment than to strip Nick bare under the moon and lick every inch of his skin, so that even if Nick disputes his own beauty he’ll never be able to deny Monroe’s desire for him.
Nick draws an unsteady breath through his nose and tilts his head to the side, pressing his body against Monroe’s, a barely audible whimper escaping his mouth when Monroe releases his bottom lip to lick his way into Nick’s mouth.
He thinks he could have Nick, right then, in the field the way he wants him, begging and needy and desperate. He can smell Nick’s arousal and feels the stirring of Nick’s erection against his thigh.
But he doesn’t just want Nick now. He wants Nick tomorrow, too. He wants Nick to come over for dinner, wants to take him out to nice restaurants and order fancy wine and make him blush in front of waiters, he wants to hold Nick’s hand in public and show him off.
So he lets Nick go.
“Sorry,” Nick whispers, turning away, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
Monroe grabs the back of Nick’s neck and forces him to meet his gaze. “I want you,” he says, letting his eyes flash red, his voice scraping the deeper registers. Nick might be able to deny a lot, but he’s learning to trust what he sees as a Grimm. “I’m serious about this, Nick. And I want to…I want to take things slow. This is too important to rush.”
Nick lets out a soft exhalation that sounds almost hurt.
“Juliette-” Monroe loosens the hand he has wrapped around Nick’s neck. “She said that she thought you liked me. When I told her about what you were doing.”
“You should have listened to her,” Monroe says, hoping the fact that Nick isn’t protesting, merely explaining, means that at some point during that conversation, Juliette also said ‘Go for it! Climb him like a tree!’
“I just never thought…” Nick’s pupils are expanded, and when Monroe takes a deep breath he can smell a rich earthy scent, he can smell Nick’s arousal and need; it goes straight to his cock. “I have to talk to her. Before I can-before anything else.”
He forces himself to let Nick go. “Okay. You two talk it over. And whatever your decision is, I’ll respect it.” It would be hard, it would hurt, but he’d stop, if Nick asked. “Just don’t say no to me because you think I don’t want you.”
“You’re insane,” Nick says, his body swaying towards Monroe’s again.
“I’m surprisingly okay with that.”
When Nick steps forward and kisses him again he can’t hear the crickets, or the pounding of Nick’s heart, or the faint hum of cars on the highway a few miles away. He can hear Nick’s breath and taste the sweet bitter taste of toothpaste and coffee, and he can feel Nick’s smile pressed against the matching curve of his own.
*
Comments are appreciated! :D http://hoosierbitch.dreamwidth.org/44053.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth
Author:
hoosierbitch
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nick/Monroe, off-screen Nick/Juliette
Notes: This was originally posted on the
grimm_kink meme here!
rabidchild67 did a superfast beta for me. :-)
Summary: In which Monroe wins at flirting, and Nick loses at being flirted with.
*
"Monroe, do you need something from me?" Nick’s got his coat on, standing in Monroe’s foyer, hovering in the place between ‘I really have to go’ and ‘yes, a drink sounds perfect, I would like to stay for the evening and listen to some records and admire your clocks.’
"What?"
Nick scratches his head. “You’ve just been really hovery lately.”
Monroe surreptitiously hides the mug of hot chocolate he’d just made for Nick behind his back. Ever since Juliette had tipsily confided to him all of the details about how she and Nick defined their trust-based-polyamorous relationship, he’s been trying to feel out Nick’s interest level.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about,” he says, hot chocolate sloshing over his fingertips.
"It’s not a problem,” Nick says quickly. “I mean, the homemade candy canes that you gave me earlier are really nice, and I know Juliette's going to love the wreath, but you don't have to do all of this." Nick's smile is small and confused.
Monroe frowns. "Do you not like getting presents?"
"No, of course I do, it's just-" Nick shakes his head and turns towards the door. "Thanks, Monroe. I’ll see you later."
*
Nick hadn’t explicitly said that he didn’t want Monroe to give him any more presents, so Monroe figures he’s completely within his rights to buy Nick something for Christmas. And also to make him a fruitcake. Okay, two fruitcakes. And some peppermint bark, but come on, who doesn't appreciate a tin full of peppermint bark?
Nick gives him a scarf.
…huh.
“I didn’t buy it,” Nick says, literally scuffing his feet, standing on Monroe’s porch, tissue-paper wrapped scarf crinkling in his hands.
“Wait, what? You’re giving me a stolen scarf? You’re the worst cop I’ve ever met. Wait-is this entrapment? Am I being entrapped?”
“Paranoia is unhealthy, Monroe. And, I meant-Juliette made it. She knits in her downtime, and she wanted to thank you for, well, you know.”
“I don’t know…what?”
“She wants to thank you for helping me out. And keeping me safe. I wouldn’t be able to do this without you,” Nick says.
Monroe likes it when Nick talks to him like this, hushed and quiet, not making eye contact because they’re too close together for it to matter. “You’d be just fine without me.”
Nick laughs, pushing the scarf into Monroe’s hands and stepping back. “No, man, I really wouldn’t be. Anyway-Juliette’s a quick knitter, so she said if you don’t like the color, or if it’s not long enough, she can probably make you another one before New Year’s.”
“I love it.”
Nick grins at him, his face gold in the yellow porch light. Monroe wishes he had a camera or knew how to paint or could stop Nick from leaving and keep him right there, with that exact smile on his face, that exact crinkle in the corners of his eyes.
“Juliette’s amazing, isn’t she? I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
Monroe concentrates on not being jealous and waves Nick back to his car.
*
Later, Monroe will trace his realization back to that conversation and the soft maroon scarf in his hands, back to the lingering scent of peppermint bark and fruitcake wafting out of the kitchen.
He doesn’t figure it out right away, though. Not until mid-March, when they interview a woman who flirts outrageously with Nick-Nick, who seems completely unfazed by the attention.
“What was her problem?” Monroe asks, his hands clenched tightly on the steering wheel. “People these days have no sense of propriety.” Their interviewee had practically drooled on Nick. She probably would have, if Monroe hadn’t successfully glared her into submission. He can be scary when he wants to be.
“Who are you talking about?”
Monroe looks away from the road long enough to take in Nick’s expression of utter bewilderment. “The suspect we just interviewed.”
“Yeah? What was wrong with her?”
“She was all over you!”
Nick laughs, shaking his head and leaning back against the passenger side door, getting as comfortable as he can in Monroe’s front seat. If they tried to make out in the car, it would probably be really uncomfortable, but Monroe’s willing to make sacrifices for orgasms.
“You can’t honestly tell me that you didn’t notice the way that woman was throwing herself at you.”
“I think she had her eye on you, dude. She kept staring at you while I was trying to talk to her.”
She had indeed been looking at Monroe, but only because he’d been not-so-subtly trampling her herb garden at the time. And also he may have been growling a little bit.
“She was totally hot, why would she be looking at me?” Nick asks. “Especially with you around.” What’s weird is that Nick really doesn’t sound like he’s joking. Monroe glances over at him. Nick is-Nick’s really not joking. Monroe does a double take and then forces himself to focus on the road. Nick wins the oblivious award of the year.
He spends the rest of the drive mulling over the other cases he’s worked with Nick, the other interview subjects who Nick’s awkwardly danced around, and the way he’d been so embarrassingly confused when Monroe had started giving him presents.
Nick looks over at him suspiciously, when the silence on his side of the car had gone on too long. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah. I just, uh-feeling a little under the weather. I think my allergies are acting up.”
“Her garden did smell kind of funny.” Possibly because Monroe had been grinding dill and mint plants to death under the heel of his boot, but Monroe stays mum about that.
*
After that, he maybe, a little, sometimes, takes advantage of Nick’s obliviousness. He doesn’t get to have a ton of fun, as a solitary Blutbad with no social life, so teasing Nick becomes part of his routine. He buys Nick coffee when they go out together, and holds open doors, and compliments his shirts (those compliments, Nick deflects to Juliette, who he credits with the quality of his wardrobe), and he makes Nick dinner and lights candles and gazes at him over their wine glasses.
Nick starts treating him like a crazy person, but he blushes whenever Monroe flirts at all, and it’s so adorable that Monroe’s willing to put up with the suspicious glances and vague questions about strains of mental illness common among Wesen for the chance to see Nick’s cheeks flush pink.
It’s all fun and games, until the night that he says how beautiful Nick’s eyes are in the moonlight (which, okay, maybe went a little bit overboard).
“Stop it,” Nick says, his body stiff and his voice angry.
They’re outside in a clearing, watching to see if some tiny white potentially-magically-potent flowers turn blue when the moonlight hits them dead on. The crickets are irritatingly loud. They’re giving him a headache. He hates them almost as much as he hates the hurt in Nick’s eyes. “Stop what?”
“Stop teasing me,” Nick says, his shoulders hunching forward. “It’s not funny anymore. We all get the joke, okay? So cut it out.”
“Okay, wait, rewind for a minute-”
“Stop it, Monroe.” The pain in Nick’s voice is making Monroe’s whole body ache. “I’m obviously into you, which is stupid, but I’m working on getting over it. So if you could just-just leave it alone for a while, I’d appreciate it.”
Monroe has never felt more helpless than he feels right now, standing in a peaceful glade at midnight, trampling magical fairy flowers, while Nick Burkhardt pushes him away. “I’m sorry, I thought-I thought I was flirting. I didn’t mean to be…mean.”
“I get it,” Nick says softly. “It’s funny. I’d laugh at me too, if I was you.” Monroe can’t think of anything to say. His frantic thoughts are running into each other, cliché after cliché, confused apologies and frantic questions. “I talked to Juliette about this,” Nick continues, “and she agrees with me. You and I are friends. She says that I deserve-I deserve your respect. At the very least. So stop teasing me.”
“I’m not teasing you,” he says quietly.
“Yes you fucking are, Monroe! I’m not an idiot.”
“I like you, Nick,” Monroe says, laying his metaphorical cards out on a nonexistent table. Nick stiffens and Monroe steps back, holding his hands out in front of him, treating Nick like a skittish pup who’s afraid of getting kicked.
“Yeah, you like me as a friend, I get it.”
“No, I-at the risk of sounding like a twelve year old-I like you like you.”
Nick stares at him like he’s lost his whole damn mind. “Why?”
“I don’t know! Probably for all the same reasons that Juliette likes you.”
Nick scoffs at him. “You’ve got a soft spot for maladjusted supernatural cops with a death wish and attachment issues?”
“Well…yeah. And I like you because you’re smart,” Monroe says, and Nick doesn’t dispute that; Monroe knows how much pride Nick takes in being able to do his job so well. “You’re strong-”
“Compared to you, I’m nothing.”
“Compared to me, most humans are nothing. And strength manifests in more aspects than just the physical.”
“Don’t feed me that spiritual crap tonight. I’m not in the mood for it.”
“You’re strong, and smart, and funny, and good looking, and I like you. I haven’t been teasing you-or, well, I was, but there’s nothing wrong with flirting. I thought you thought it was fun. You’re-you’re really pretty when you’re flustered.”
“You think I’m pretty?” The dry sarcasm in Nick’s voice is insulting.
“Yes, I do. Jackass.” Monroe steps closer and Nick starts shaking his head, so slowly that Monroe wonders if Nick even knows he’s doing it.
“Don’t play with me,” Nick whispers.
“I’m not.”
Nick tenses when Monroe gets close enough to touch him. “I’m not kidding, Monroe. This isn’t funny anymore, and I don’t-”
Nick’s lips are soft. His lips are soft, and they part when he gasps against Monroe’s mouth, they close with surprise and tense when Nick starts to push him away. Monroe catches Nick’s bottom lip in his teeth and tugs on it.
Monroe can smell what Nick had for dinner and feel the acidic burn of the toothpaste he’d used that morning and taste the faint stale edges of air when Nick lets all of his breath out and groans into Monroe’s mouth. It shivers through his body, that sound that he’s never heard from Nick before, rides the proprietary rush of having brought that easy pleasure out of Nick’s body. Nick tastes divine, and Monroe wants nothing more in that moment than to strip Nick bare under the moon and lick every inch of his skin, so that even if Nick disputes his own beauty he’ll never be able to deny Monroe’s desire for him.
Nick draws an unsteady breath through his nose and tilts his head to the side, pressing his body against Monroe’s, a barely audible whimper escaping his mouth when Monroe releases his bottom lip to lick his way into Nick’s mouth.
He thinks he could have Nick, right then, in the field the way he wants him, begging and needy and desperate. He can smell Nick’s arousal and feels the stirring of Nick’s erection against his thigh.
But he doesn’t just want Nick now. He wants Nick tomorrow, too. He wants Nick to come over for dinner, wants to take him out to nice restaurants and order fancy wine and make him blush in front of waiters, he wants to hold Nick’s hand in public and show him off.
So he lets Nick go.
“Sorry,” Nick whispers, turning away, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
Monroe grabs the back of Nick’s neck and forces him to meet his gaze. “I want you,” he says, letting his eyes flash red, his voice scraping the deeper registers. Nick might be able to deny a lot, but he’s learning to trust what he sees as a Grimm. “I’m serious about this, Nick. And I want to…I want to take things slow. This is too important to rush.”
Nick lets out a soft exhalation that sounds almost hurt.
“Juliette-” Monroe loosens the hand he has wrapped around Nick’s neck. “She said that she thought you liked me. When I told her about what you were doing.”
“You should have listened to her,” Monroe says, hoping the fact that Nick isn’t protesting, merely explaining, means that at some point during that conversation, Juliette also said ‘Go for it! Climb him like a tree!’
“I just never thought…” Nick’s pupils are expanded, and when Monroe takes a deep breath he can smell a rich earthy scent, he can smell Nick’s arousal and need; it goes straight to his cock. “I have to talk to her. Before I can-before anything else.”
He forces himself to let Nick go. “Okay. You two talk it over. And whatever your decision is, I’ll respect it.” It would be hard, it would hurt, but he’d stop, if Nick asked. “Just don’t say no to me because you think I don’t want you.”
“You’re insane,” Nick says, his body swaying towards Monroe’s again.
“I’m surprisingly okay with that.”
When Nick steps forward and kisses him again he can’t hear the crickets, or the pounding of Nick’s heart, or the faint hum of cars on the highway a few miles away. He can hear Nick’s breath and taste the sweet bitter taste of toothpaste and coffee, and he can feel Nick’s smile pressed against the matching curve of his own.
*
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