Hotel California: 3/?
Title: Hotel California
Chapter Title: Grimms and Blutbaden Make Strange Bedfellows
Fandom: Grimm
Pairing: Nick/Monroe
Wordcount: 4000 for this chapter, 11,500 total
Fic Summary: When Nick hears word of another potential Ziegevolk, he and Monroe must go undercover as a couple at a cozy bed and breakfast to investigate. But what they discover during a long weekend spent there, however, neither could ever have predicted.
Chapter Summary: In which Nick and Monroe have a late-night picnic, make it through a few chapters of Game of Thrones (in addition doing a little real research), and end up in bed together...perfectly innocently, of course.
At the conclusion of the jam-making session, the guests had come to a quiet agreement that in light of Dorothy Vogel's violent outburst, each couple having an intimate dinner in their individual rooms was probably best.
So it was that eight o'clock found Nick and Monroe ensconced in their opulent suite, warmed by a roaring fire which Mrs. Sims had thoughtfully lit while they were out, a lavish picnic-style feast spread out before them on the bed.
"Can you believe Dorothy Vogel?" Monroe asked, gesticulating wildly with his fork. "I mean, she just tore into her husband, right there in front of everybody."
"And by the looks of those talons, she would have been literally tearing into him if Mrs. Sims hadn't stopped her," Nick said ruefully, taking a sip of his beer.
"Well, that definitely would have put a damper on the jam-making," Monroe remarked, only flashing his wolfish smile when Nick tilted his head to look at him incredulously.
"Gosh, I would have thought an old-fashioned limb-ripping would have been the perfect floor show for a blutbad," Nick said teasingly.
"Reformed blutbad," Monroe said with a sniff. "And as my fake boyfriend, I expect you to remember that."
"Oh, I'm sorry, honey," Nick said, schooling his face into an expression of utter contrition. "How can I make it up to you?"
"Well," Monroe said, leaning forward conspiratorially so his face was only a few inches from Nick's, "you could start...by letting me have the last slice of lemon meringue."
"You reformed blutbaden drive a hard bargain," Nick said with an impish grin, pushing the pie tin toward Monroe, "but all right. I accept your terms."
Monroe dug his fork into the piece in front of him and brought it to his mouth with a little moan of pleasure. "If Mrs. Sims is a Ziegevolk," he mused between bites, "I think we can trace the source of her power back to this pie - I feel like I'm falling in love."
"I don't remember the book saying anything about them using pie as an aphrodisiac," Nick said thoughtfully, as if seriously considering the possibility. "Clearly more research is needed." Nick quickly dug his own utensil into the pie and stole a large forkful before Monroe could stop him.
"Hey!" Monroe objected, slapping Nick's hand away and trying his best to look affronted, "Stop that!"
Nick merely grinned wickedly and took a long, slow bite, making a show of enjoying it.
Upon seeing the way Monroe began pouting at him, Nick rolled his eyes and grabbed the bottle of Bordeaux from the picnic basket Mrs. Sims had prepared for them. "Come on," he said cajolingly, "Have some more wine. Annie says it's an excellent vintage."
"Might as well," Monroe said after a moment, holding out his glass, "Someone should, and you're clearly determined to waste your taste buds on that beer."
"Hey, you stick to yours, I'll stick to mine," Nick insisted, clanking his bottle of Budweiser against Monroe's glass of Bordeaux.
It was in that instant, as he took another long sip of beer, that a strange thought flitted across Nick's consciousness. Not only did it occur to him to wonder whether Monroe's lips tasted like that Bordeaux, but he realized to his horror that, in that moment, he wanted nothing more in the world than to find out.
A few seconds of utter and complete panic later, Nick registered Monroe looking at him curiously and became conscious that he must have been staring.
"Well," Nick said with a nervous, little laugh, absently running a hand through his hair, "we should probably, um, get to the research. The sooner we figure out the truth about Dorothy Vogel, the better. "
"Yeah, okay," Monroe assented, a strange look passing briefly over his face before he continued, "What are we looking for exactly?"
"Anything related to birds of prey," Nick said, grateful for an excuse to put some space between himself and Monroe as he jumped off the bed and made his way toward his suitcase. He pulled out the pile of antique, leather-bound books, handing half to Monroe and depositing the other half on the small desk by the door.
"She could be a Spottdrossel," Monroe mused idly, paging through one of the books, "but they usually confine their criminal activity to forgery and impersonation. I can't remember ever hearing of one becoming that violent."
"What about a Seetaucher?" Nick asked a few minutes later, after he had seated himself a safe distance from his companion at the desk, holding up his own book so Monroe could see. "This seems vaguely like what I saw."
"Definitely not," Monroe said, shaking his head. "You don't find Seetaucheren this far north. The couple I met in Bermuda a few years back assured me they never stray from tropical climes."
"And what were you doing in Bermuda, hmm?" Nick asked teasingly, taking in Monroe's long-sleeved shirt and sweater-vest.
"Clock-makers' conference," Monroe said, adding defensively, "and don't laugh! I swear, you get a couple of mai-tais in those guys and suddenly it's every man for himself."
Nick did Monroe the courtesy of hiding his grin behind the book he quickly raised to the level of his eyes to continue his search for the truth behind the mysterious bird-woman.
Two hours of painstaking research later, Monroe gave up entirely and switched to reading Game of Thrones off Nick's Kindle. Nick, meanwhile, kept at it until his patience was finally rewarded on page three hundred and forty of volume four.
"Monroe, Monroe!" he exclaimed excitedly, jumping up to sit beside Monroe on the bed. "I think I really found her this time."
"Falkefrauen," Monroe read aloud, shifting his attention from the reading device to the yellowed pages, "An exclusively female race whose members prey on weaker males and slowly drain their life force over a period of years. They respond to any perceived challenges or slights with violence. Proceed with extreme caution."
"Yep," he said decisively, "Sounds like our girl all right."
"I suppose the only question now is," Nick said, resting his head on the backboard, "what do we do about it?"
"Gotta ask, Nick, is it really our place to do anything?" Monroe asked, turning to look at him. "I mean, aside from some minor assault, you've got nothing on her you can take to your cop buddies...assuming that you're continuing with this whole "cop first, Grimm second" thing, that is."
Nick let out a frustrated sigh. "God, I'm starting to hate this double life thing more and more. I mean, I find out through my Grimm duties that Dorothy Vogel is literally sucking the life out of her poor husband little by little every day, but there's nothing I can do within the bounds of the law to stop her."
Monroe slid his hands over Nick's shoulders in a gesture of sympathy which Nick found both soothing in all the right ways and stimulating in all the wrong ones. Before Nick could continue to analyze his reaction or mentally replay the incident with the Bordeaux from earlier, Monroe removed his hands and spoke again.
"You know, come to think of it," he said slowly, as if something had just occurred to him, "Mrs. Sims seemed to be able to control her almost effortlessly."
"Is that a Ziegevolk thing?" Nick asked with interest.
"Not really," Monroe said, sounding puzzled. "She's exerting influence, all right, but it's not sexual. In fact, now that we're discussing it, I've seen very little evidence in our time here that Mrs. Sims is a Ziegevolk at all."
"Oh come on," Nick scoffed, "she has to be! How else do you explain all the strange things that have been going on around here?"
"Oh, strange like what?" Monroe asked skeptically.
"Well, like...like..." Nick started, surprised at how difficult he was finding it, not to find events that would be construed as strange, but rather to locate ones that were traceable to Mrs. Sims. "Okay, how about the fact that we're staying in the equivalent of the Presidential Suite at the Four Seasons, yet the Vogels are stuck in a room out of a Stephen King novel?"
"That is a bit odd, I grant you," Monroe said, "but it can be accounted for by simple favoritism. I mean, if you worked at a hotel desk, would you really want to give Dorothy Vogel your nicest room?"
"No, I suppose not," Nick admitted, "but it still doesn't explain the control Mrs. Sims has over her. The entry on Falkefrauen made it clear they were extremely dominant, yet our landlady was able to quell her complaining with a well-placed look and call off her attack with a few words."
"Fine, let's say she is supernatural," Monroe said, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "The fact is, what few powers we can attribute to her are not consistent with her being a Ziegevolk."
Nick considered this for a moment before letting out a sigh and saying, "You're saying we have to do a whole other round of research, aren't you?"
"No," Monroe said pointedly, "I'm saying that you have to do a whole other round of research, if you are convinced that Mrs. Sims poses a danger to the guests here. I, on the other hand, have already discharged my research obligations to you for the evening and am going to return to reading my book in peace."
"Well, first of all, it's my book," Nick pointed out automatically. "Second of all, isn't the whole reason we came here to find out the truth about Mrs. Sims? Dorothy Vogel was a necessary digression, I grant you, but that doesn't change the fact that the only reason we've been pretending to be a couple all day is to investigate our supposedly friendly hostess. If you give up this easily, then what was the point?"
A strange look passed over Monroe's face, and he opened his mouth to speak, but apparently thought the better of it afterwards and closed it again as. Finally, he said, "I'll make you a deal - if we see anything in the next twenty-four hours to indicate that sweet, old lady downstairs might actually be dangerous, I'll spend all of tomorrow night figuring out what she is with you. But for now, I am spending the evening in Winterfell." His subsequent flopping on the bed, Kindle balanced in his hands, made it clear the discussion was officially finished.
Nick sighed and returned to the desk, cracking open a dusty book once more, a treacherous voice inside his brain whispering that he'd have much more fun curled up beside Monroe on the bed reading something escapist.
The next couple hours passed like this, with Nick poring over the tomes of Grimm lore to no avail, and Monroe giving him a running commentary of what was happening in the Seven Kingdoms as the fire burned to cinders in the grate.
Consequently, it was nearly midnight when Nick's head snapped up as he heard Monroe making a whimpering sound from the bed. "What's wrong?" he asked, more concerned than he had any reason to be.
"They killed the wolf!" Monroe exclaimed, his expression caught between outrage and heartbreak. "All my blutbad friends said, 'Oh yes, read Game of Thrones, lots of pro-lupine messages there' and less than a hundred pages in, bam!, innocent wolf murder!
Entirely unsure as to the proper response to such a declaration, Nick was giving some serious thought to going over to give a thoroughly broken-up Monroe a hug when there was another soft knock at the door.
Getting up from the desk, Nick settled instead on sending Monroe a look of support and affection before turning away to answer the door. This time, he was thoroughly unsurprised to find Henry Vogel on the other side of it, though the little man's utterly terrified expression made it impossible for Nick to feel anything other than sorry for him.
"I'm s-so s-sorry to bother you th-this late," he said nervously, his gaze catching Nick's only briefly before darting once more to the carpeting.
"Henry, it's fine," Nick said, making an effort to look non-threatening, "really. What's going on?"
"It's just..." Henry trailed off, glancing nervously behind his back as if someone might be lurking there. "Oh, this was a b-bad idea. F-forget I was here."
As he turned to go, Nick looked back helplessly at Monroe, who waved him forward with both hands. "Henry, come on," Nick called out, placing a hand lightly on the other man's shoulder. "You're obviously upset - why don't you come in and tell us about it?"
"I w-wouldn't want to...to interrupt," Henry said, swallowing nervously.
"You aren't interrupting a thing," Nick assured him, using the hand already on Henry's shoulder to lead him inside. "Now, what is it?"
"Well," Henry started, pacing back and forth in front of the bed, "It's j-just...after everything that h-happened tonight, I f-figured Dorothy wouldn't be...I mean I'm af-fraid to..." he trailed off before blurting out, "Can I stay here tonight?"
Nick had just begun to think of a plausible reason why that couldn't happen when Monroe said, "Of course. You're welcome to the couch in the other room."
"Oh, thank you," Henry said, looking unbelievably relieved. "I promise I'll be as quiet as...er, well, I'll be very quiet indeed. You won't even know I'm there." Henry had just begun to shuffle off to the spare room when he turned around, seemingly on impulse, laid his hand on Nick's arm and said, "Really, thank you."
"You're, uh, you're very welcome," Nick said, the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him that he now had no way of extricating himself from this situation.
The second Henry had closed the door to the other room, Nick whirled on Monroe and demanded in a heated whisper, "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking about saving that poor, scared, little man from the terrifying falkefrau he married," Monroe shot back defensively. "She was on the verge of clawing his eyes out for getting a little jam on her dress. Do you really want to see what humiliating her in front of a group full of people gets him?"
"I suppose not," Nick admitted begrudgingly, "but that doesn't change the fact that you gave him my bed for the night. Where am I supposed to sleep?"
Monroe tilted his head and let his eyes skim briefly over the rest of the spacious, four-poster he was laying on before shooting Nick a look that said, "I really have to explain this to you?"
"But really, Monroe, I can't, it wouldn't..." Nick started, trailing off when he found, to his alarm, that he could not think of a single believable reason why he and Monroe shouldn't share a bed - that is without bringing up the whole "casually considered kissing him" incident from earlier, which he was spectacularly unwilling to do.
"Are you seriously telling me you've never shared a bed with another guy before?" Monroe asked skeptically as he shut off the Kindle and returned it to the nightstand.
"Not for sleeping, no," Nick replied automatically, a blush creeping into his cheeks the second he realized what he'd let slip.
Monroe arched his eyebrows incredulously at this semi-accidental announcement, but he chose to say nothing. Instead, to Nick's utter surprise, Monroe swiftly pulled off his sweater-vest and set to work unbuttoning his shirt.
"What are you doing?" Nick asked, bewildered.
"Gee, I don't know, Detective," Monroe said, stripping the shirt from his shoulders before draping it over a padded hanger in the closet, "what possible reason could I have for getting undressed at one in the morning, the night before we have a mandatory nine o'clock couples' breakfast? That's going to be a tough case to crack."
Nick would have responded with an appropriately sarcastic retort had he not been too busy gawking at a shirtless and shockingly ripped Monroe. He was very grateful the other man had been forced to turn away from him to hang up the shirt, or he would've gotten a good look at Nick's jaw hitting the floor as he took in the blutbad's sculpted chest.
Nick's tongue managed to recover just enough function for him to say, "Ah, well, yes...right," before he purposefully shifted his attention to the far safer object of his leather, travelling case.
By the time Nick had located the pair of worn, standard-issue PPD sweatpants he'd been using for sleepwear since his Academy graduation, he was both relieved and disappointed to see that Monroe had already donned a faded Brown University sleep-shirt and flannel sleep pants.
Knowing that Monroe would never let him live it down if he excused himself to change in the bathroom, Nick stripped off his stiff, button-down and blue jeans only to replace them with the sweatpants in record time, purposefully banishing from his mind the kinds of things daily Pilates had apparently done to Monroe's torso.
"Best lock the door," Monroe suggested. "I'm sure between the two of us, we could take Dorothy Vogel, but I think I'd sleep better knowing there was something sturdy preventing her from bursting in during the night."
"Probably a good idea," Nick said, crossing the room to comply with Monroe's request and switching off the light while he was there. "God, here less than a day and we've already uncovered at least two supernatural creatures, prevented an assault, and promised to protect a witness. At this rate, I'll have everyone in the place in lock-up by Sunday night."
"It's not as bad as all that," Monroe said comfortingly, settling himself in the bed. "Just take it as a sign that you are clearly very good at your job."
"Ah, but which job?" Nick asked, slipping under the covers next to him, momentarily distracted enough to forget his worries about the sleeping arrangements. "The one I get a paycheck for or the one I'm supposedly destined for?"
"Both," Monroe said firmly, turning his head to look at Nick, "And I don't want to hear you say that being a cop isn't your destiny. If it weren't, you wouldn't be tearing yourself up inside to follow the law, even when your Grimm instincts tell you not to."
The compassion equally evident in Monroe's expression and his voice sent twin currents of warmth straight through Nick's body, which was good considering the strangely sudden drop in the room's temperature.
"I'm sorry," Nick said with a sigh, "Ignore me - I'm just feeling sorry for myself. God, I must be just a barrel of laughs to spend the weekend with."
"Oh, I don't know," Monroe said with a smile, "this is a walk in the park compared to blutbaden family reunions, which usually end up as, well, massacres in the park..."
Nick supposed he shouldn't be laughing, but he couldn't help it. Something about Monroe's matter-of-fact treatment of the strange, horrific world he had been plunged into a few months prior always managed to make him feel better.
"So," Monroe asked, clearly exerting the effort to be casual, "will Juliette be getting all the particulars of this weekend, or just the pertinent ones?"
"Neither, I should think," Nick said, not looking at the other man, "considering we broke up a month ago."
"A month?" Monroe exclaimed, propping himself up on his elbows, "Geez, Nick, why didn't you tell me?"
"Just didn't get around to it, I suppose," Nick said with a shrug. "Besides," he added glumly, "Nobody likes admitting they were dumped."
"She...dumped...you?" Monroe asked incredulously.
Nick couldn't help but smile at the utter disbelief in Monroe's voice before he continued, "She said she didn't know who I was anymore. Too many secrets. Too many lies."
"I'm sorry," Monroe said quietly. "That can't have been easy, letting her go."
"Perhaps it was for the best," Nick said reflectively, "We'd been sort of running on auto-pilot for awhile now; it just took all this Grimm business for things to finally boil over."
It was in the seconds of silence that followed his confession that Nick suddenly realized just how cold the room had truly gotten. A violent shiver ran through his body, and though he tugged the covers up to his neck, it did little to warm him.
Monroe looked at him quizzically and, after placing a hand on his shoulder, exclaimed, "Nick, you're cold as ice! I thought cops were supposed to have common sense! Didn't you bring anything warmer to sleep in?"
"I figured it was California, and that meant it would be, you know, warm," Nick said defensively, realizing in hindsight this was, indeed, a ridiculous assumption.
"Not this far north," Monroe said with a roll of his eyes, "although I must admit, even taking our latitude into account, it is unseasonably cold in here."
When Nick merely shivered harder in response, Monroe let out a put-upon sigh and said, "Come on, then, get over here."
"What?" Nick asked, sure the cold was affecting his brain function.
"As your fake boyfriend, I would feel responsible if you froze to death," Monroe deadpanned. When Nick continued to stare blankly at him, Monroe rolled his eyes and explained, "Body heat is the one of the best sources of warmth there is, and blutbaden tend to run a good six degrees hotter than your average human. So if you would prefer to not become an icicle, I would suggest you get over here before I change my mind."
Nick thought briefly of protesting, but in his current, chilled state, the idea of snuggling up to Monroe was far too tempting to pass up.
He shifted a foot to his right, intending to only establish as much contact as was strictly necessary to avoid hypothermia. This well-intentioned notion was forgotten entirely, however, the second he felt for himself the heat radiating off the blutbad, and before he knew it, Nick found himself clinging to his companion as if he were some sort of life-size teddy bear; his head was buried in Monroe's neck, his right arm slung around his waist, his right leg wedged in between Monroe's own.
To his credit, Monroe made no comment on the Grimm's octopus-like cuddling tendencies, choosing instead to wrap his arms tightly around Nick and begin rubbing his warm hands over the cold, exposed skin of his back.
Though he would deny it later, Nick was fairly sure he made a sound disturbingly close to a purr upon feeling Monroe's hands chasing the chill away, inch by inch, minute by minute.
"Idiot," Monroe murmured, though there was no bite in his tone. "I swear, I don't know how you've made it this long without having me there to make sure you don't get yourself killed."
"Well, then," Nick said sleepily, snuggling in closer, "I guess that means you'd better stick around."
Chapter Title: Grimms and Blutbaden Make Strange Bedfellows
Fandom: Grimm
Pairing: Nick/Monroe
Wordcount: 4000 for this chapter, 11,500 total
Fic Summary: When Nick hears word of another potential Ziegevolk, he and Monroe must go undercover as a couple at a cozy bed and breakfast to investigate. But what they discover during a long weekend spent there, however, neither could ever have predicted.
Chapter Summary: In which Nick and Monroe have a late-night picnic, make it through a few chapters of Game of Thrones (in addition doing a little real research), and end up in bed together...perfectly innocently, of course.
At the conclusion of the jam-making session, the guests had come to a quiet agreement that in light of Dorothy Vogel's violent outburst, each couple having an intimate dinner in their individual rooms was probably best.
So it was that eight o'clock found Nick and Monroe ensconced in their opulent suite, warmed by a roaring fire which Mrs. Sims had thoughtfully lit while they were out, a lavish picnic-style feast spread out before them on the bed.
"Can you believe Dorothy Vogel?" Monroe asked, gesticulating wildly with his fork. "I mean, she just tore into her husband, right there in front of everybody."
"And by the looks of those talons, she would have been literally tearing into him if Mrs. Sims hadn't stopped her," Nick said ruefully, taking a sip of his beer.
"Well, that definitely would have put a damper on the jam-making," Monroe remarked, only flashing his wolfish smile when Nick tilted his head to look at him incredulously.
"Gosh, I would have thought an old-fashioned limb-ripping would have been the perfect floor show for a blutbad," Nick said teasingly.
"Reformed blutbad," Monroe said with a sniff. "And as my fake boyfriend, I expect you to remember that."
"Oh, I'm sorry, honey," Nick said, schooling his face into an expression of utter contrition. "How can I make it up to you?"
"Well," Monroe said, leaning forward conspiratorially so his face was only a few inches from Nick's, "you could start...by letting me have the last slice of lemon meringue."
"You reformed blutbaden drive a hard bargain," Nick said with an impish grin, pushing the pie tin toward Monroe, "but all right. I accept your terms."
Monroe dug his fork into the piece in front of him and brought it to his mouth with a little moan of pleasure. "If Mrs. Sims is a Ziegevolk," he mused between bites, "I think we can trace the source of her power back to this pie - I feel like I'm falling in love."
"I don't remember the book saying anything about them using pie as an aphrodisiac," Nick said thoughtfully, as if seriously considering the possibility. "Clearly more research is needed." Nick quickly dug his own utensil into the pie and stole a large forkful before Monroe could stop him.
"Hey!" Monroe objected, slapping Nick's hand away and trying his best to look affronted, "Stop that!"
Nick merely grinned wickedly and took a long, slow bite, making a show of enjoying it.
Upon seeing the way Monroe began pouting at him, Nick rolled his eyes and grabbed the bottle of Bordeaux from the picnic basket Mrs. Sims had prepared for them. "Come on," he said cajolingly, "Have some more wine. Annie says it's an excellent vintage."
"Might as well," Monroe said after a moment, holding out his glass, "Someone should, and you're clearly determined to waste your taste buds on that beer."
"Hey, you stick to yours, I'll stick to mine," Nick insisted, clanking his bottle of Budweiser against Monroe's glass of Bordeaux.
It was in that instant, as he took another long sip of beer, that a strange thought flitted across Nick's consciousness. Not only did it occur to him to wonder whether Monroe's lips tasted like that Bordeaux, but he realized to his horror that, in that moment, he wanted nothing more in the world than to find out.
A few seconds of utter and complete panic later, Nick registered Monroe looking at him curiously and became conscious that he must have been staring.
"Well," Nick said with a nervous, little laugh, absently running a hand through his hair, "we should probably, um, get to the research. The sooner we figure out the truth about Dorothy Vogel, the better. "
"Yeah, okay," Monroe assented, a strange look passing briefly over his face before he continued, "What are we looking for exactly?"
"Anything related to birds of prey," Nick said, grateful for an excuse to put some space between himself and Monroe as he jumped off the bed and made his way toward his suitcase. He pulled out the pile of antique, leather-bound books, handing half to Monroe and depositing the other half on the small desk by the door.
"She could be a Spottdrossel," Monroe mused idly, paging through one of the books, "but they usually confine their criminal activity to forgery and impersonation. I can't remember ever hearing of one becoming that violent."
"What about a Seetaucher?" Nick asked a few minutes later, after he had seated himself a safe distance from his companion at the desk, holding up his own book so Monroe could see. "This seems vaguely like what I saw."
"Definitely not," Monroe said, shaking his head. "You don't find Seetaucheren this far north. The couple I met in Bermuda a few years back assured me they never stray from tropical climes."
"And what were you doing in Bermuda, hmm?" Nick asked teasingly, taking in Monroe's long-sleeved shirt and sweater-vest.
"Clock-makers' conference," Monroe said, adding defensively, "and don't laugh! I swear, you get a couple of mai-tais in those guys and suddenly it's every man for himself."
Nick did Monroe the courtesy of hiding his grin behind the book he quickly raised to the level of his eyes to continue his search for the truth behind the mysterious bird-woman.
Two hours of painstaking research later, Monroe gave up entirely and switched to reading Game of Thrones off Nick's Kindle. Nick, meanwhile, kept at it until his patience was finally rewarded on page three hundred and forty of volume four.
"Monroe, Monroe!" he exclaimed excitedly, jumping up to sit beside Monroe on the bed. "I think I really found her this time."
"Falkefrauen," Monroe read aloud, shifting his attention from the reading device to the yellowed pages, "An exclusively female race whose members prey on weaker males and slowly drain their life force over a period of years. They respond to any perceived challenges or slights with violence. Proceed with extreme caution."
"Yep," he said decisively, "Sounds like our girl all right."
"I suppose the only question now is," Nick said, resting his head on the backboard, "what do we do about it?"
"Gotta ask, Nick, is it really our place to do anything?" Monroe asked, turning to look at him. "I mean, aside from some minor assault, you've got nothing on her you can take to your cop buddies...assuming that you're continuing with this whole "cop first, Grimm second" thing, that is."
Nick let out a frustrated sigh. "God, I'm starting to hate this double life thing more and more. I mean, I find out through my Grimm duties that Dorothy Vogel is literally sucking the life out of her poor husband little by little every day, but there's nothing I can do within the bounds of the law to stop her."
Monroe slid his hands over Nick's shoulders in a gesture of sympathy which Nick found both soothing in all the right ways and stimulating in all the wrong ones. Before Nick could continue to analyze his reaction or mentally replay the incident with the Bordeaux from earlier, Monroe removed his hands and spoke again.
"You know, come to think of it," he said slowly, as if something had just occurred to him, "Mrs. Sims seemed to be able to control her almost effortlessly."
"Is that a Ziegevolk thing?" Nick asked with interest.
"Not really," Monroe said, sounding puzzled. "She's exerting influence, all right, but it's not sexual. In fact, now that we're discussing it, I've seen very little evidence in our time here that Mrs. Sims is a Ziegevolk at all."
"Oh come on," Nick scoffed, "she has to be! How else do you explain all the strange things that have been going on around here?"
"Oh, strange like what?" Monroe asked skeptically.
"Well, like...like..." Nick started, surprised at how difficult he was finding it, not to find events that would be construed as strange, but rather to locate ones that were traceable to Mrs. Sims. "Okay, how about the fact that we're staying in the equivalent of the Presidential Suite at the Four Seasons, yet the Vogels are stuck in a room out of a Stephen King novel?"
"That is a bit odd, I grant you," Monroe said, "but it can be accounted for by simple favoritism. I mean, if you worked at a hotel desk, would you really want to give Dorothy Vogel your nicest room?"
"No, I suppose not," Nick admitted, "but it still doesn't explain the control Mrs. Sims has over her. The entry on Falkefrauen made it clear they were extremely dominant, yet our landlady was able to quell her complaining with a well-placed look and call off her attack with a few words."
"Fine, let's say she is supernatural," Monroe said, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "The fact is, what few powers we can attribute to her are not consistent with her being a Ziegevolk."
Nick considered this for a moment before letting out a sigh and saying, "You're saying we have to do a whole other round of research, aren't you?"
"No," Monroe said pointedly, "I'm saying that you have to do a whole other round of research, if you are convinced that Mrs. Sims poses a danger to the guests here. I, on the other hand, have already discharged my research obligations to you for the evening and am going to return to reading my book in peace."
"Well, first of all, it's my book," Nick pointed out automatically. "Second of all, isn't the whole reason we came here to find out the truth about Mrs. Sims? Dorothy Vogel was a necessary digression, I grant you, but that doesn't change the fact that the only reason we've been pretending to be a couple all day is to investigate our supposedly friendly hostess. If you give up this easily, then what was the point?"
A strange look passed over Monroe's face, and he opened his mouth to speak, but apparently thought the better of it afterwards and closed it again as. Finally, he said, "I'll make you a deal - if we see anything in the next twenty-four hours to indicate that sweet, old lady downstairs might actually be dangerous, I'll spend all of tomorrow night figuring out what she is with you. But for now, I am spending the evening in Winterfell." His subsequent flopping on the bed, Kindle balanced in his hands, made it clear the discussion was officially finished.
Nick sighed and returned to the desk, cracking open a dusty book once more, a treacherous voice inside his brain whispering that he'd have much more fun curled up beside Monroe on the bed reading something escapist.
The next couple hours passed like this, with Nick poring over the tomes of Grimm lore to no avail, and Monroe giving him a running commentary of what was happening in the Seven Kingdoms as the fire burned to cinders in the grate.
Consequently, it was nearly midnight when Nick's head snapped up as he heard Monroe making a whimpering sound from the bed. "What's wrong?" he asked, more concerned than he had any reason to be.
"They killed the wolf!" Monroe exclaimed, his expression caught between outrage and heartbreak. "All my blutbad friends said, 'Oh yes, read Game of Thrones, lots of pro-lupine messages there' and less than a hundred pages in, bam!, innocent wolf murder!
Entirely unsure as to the proper response to such a declaration, Nick was giving some serious thought to going over to give a thoroughly broken-up Monroe a hug when there was another soft knock at the door.
Getting up from the desk, Nick settled instead on sending Monroe a look of support and affection before turning away to answer the door. This time, he was thoroughly unsurprised to find Henry Vogel on the other side of it, though the little man's utterly terrified expression made it impossible for Nick to feel anything other than sorry for him.
"I'm s-so s-sorry to bother you th-this late," he said nervously, his gaze catching Nick's only briefly before darting once more to the carpeting.
"Henry, it's fine," Nick said, making an effort to look non-threatening, "really. What's going on?"
"It's just..." Henry trailed off, glancing nervously behind his back as if someone might be lurking there. "Oh, this was a b-bad idea. F-forget I was here."
As he turned to go, Nick looked back helplessly at Monroe, who waved him forward with both hands. "Henry, come on," Nick called out, placing a hand lightly on the other man's shoulder. "You're obviously upset - why don't you come in and tell us about it?"
"I w-wouldn't want to...to interrupt," Henry said, swallowing nervously.
"You aren't interrupting a thing," Nick assured him, using the hand already on Henry's shoulder to lead him inside. "Now, what is it?"
"Well," Henry started, pacing back and forth in front of the bed, "It's j-just...after everything that h-happened tonight, I f-figured Dorothy wouldn't be...I mean I'm af-fraid to..." he trailed off before blurting out, "Can I stay here tonight?"
Nick had just begun to think of a plausible reason why that couldn't happen when Monroe said, "Of course. You're welcome to the couch in the other room."
"Oh, thank you," Henry said, looking unbelievably relieved. "I promise I'll be as quiet as...er, well, I'll be very quiet indeed. You won't even know I'm there." Henry had just begun to shuffle off to the spare room when he turned around, seemingly on impulse, laid his hand on Nick's arm and said, "Really, thank you."
"You're, uh, you're very welcome," Nick said, the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him that he now had no way of extricating himself from this situation.
The second Henry had closed the door to the other room, Nick whirled on Monroe and demanded in a heated whisper, "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking about saving that poor, scared, little man from the terrifying falkefrau he married," Monroe shot back defensively. "She was on the verge of clawing his eyes out for getting a little jam on her dress. Do you really want to see what humiliating her in front of a group full of people gets him?"
"I suppose not," Nick admitted begrudgingly, "but that doesn't change the fact that you gave him my bed for the night. Where am I supposed to sleep?"
Monroe tilted his head and let his eyes skim briefly over the rest of the spacious, four-poster he was laying on before shooting Nick a look that said, "I really have to explain this to you?"
"But really, Monroe, I can't, it wouldn't..." Nick started, trailing off when he found, to his alarm, that he could not think of a single believable reason why he and Monroe shouldn't share a bed - that is without bringing up the whole "casually considered kissing him" incident from earlier, which he was spectacularly unwilling to do.
"Are you seriously telling me you've never shared a bed with another guy before?" Monroe asked skeptically as he shut off the Kindle and returned it to the nightstand.
"Not for sleeping, no," Nick replied automatically, a blush creeping into his cheeks the second he realized what he'd let slip.
Monroe arched his eyebrows incredulously at this semi-accidental announcement, but he chose to say nothing. Instead, to Nick's utter surprise, Monroe swiftly pulled off his sweater-vest and set to work unbuttoning his shirt.
"What are you doing?" Nick asked, bewildered.
"Gee, I don't know, Detective," Monroe said, stripping the shirt from his shoulders before draping it over a padded hanger in the closet, "what possible reason could I have for getting undressed at one in the morning, the night before we have a mandatory nine o'clock couples' breakfast? That's going to be a tough case to crack."
Nick would have responded with an appropriately sarcastic retort had he not been too busy gawking at a shirtless and shockingly ripped Monroe. He was very grateful the other man had been forced to turn away from him to hang up the shirt, or he would've gotten a good look at Nick's jaw hitting the floor as he took in the blutbad's sculpted chest.
Nick's tongue managed to recover just enough function for him to say, "Ah, well, yes...right," before he purposefully shifted his attention to the far safer object of his leather, travelling case.
By the time Nick had located the pair of worn, standard-issue PPD sweatpants he'd been using for sleepwear since his Academy graduation, he was both relieved and disappointed to see that Monroe had already donned a faded Brown University sleep-shirt and flannel sleep pants.
Knowing that Monroe would never let him live it down if he excused himself to change in the bathroom, Nick stripped off his stiff, button-down and blue jeans only to replace them with the sweatpants in record time, purposefully banishing from his mind the kinds of things daily Pilates had apparently done to Monroe's torso.
"Best lock the door," Monroe suggested. "I'm sure between the two of us, we could take Dorothy Vogel, but I think I'd sleep better knowing there was something sturdy preventing her from bursting in during the night."
"Probably a good idea," Nick said, crossing the room to comply with Monroe's request and switching off the light while he was there. "God, here less than a day and we've already uncovered at least two supernatural creatures, prevented an assault, and promised to protect a witness. At this rate, I'll have everyone in the place in lock-up by Sunday night."
"It's not as bad as all that," Monroe said comfortingly, settling himself in the bed. "Just take it as a sign that you are clearly very good at your job."
"Ah, but which job?" Nick asked, slipping under the covers next to him, momentarily distracted enough to forget his worries about the sleeping arrangements. "The one I get a paycheck for or the one I'm supposedly destined for?"
"Both," Monroe said firmly, turning his head to look at Nick, "And I don't want to hear you say that being a cop isn't your destiny. If it weren't, you wouldn't be tearing yourself up inside to follow the law, even when your Grimm instincts tell you not to."
The compassion equally evident in Monroe's expression and his voice sent twin currents of warmth straight through Nick's body, which was good considering the strangely sudden drop in the room's temperature.
"I'm sorry," Nick said with a sigh, "Ignore me - I'm just feeling sorry for myself. God, I must be just a barrel of laughs to spend the weekend with."
"Oh, I don't know," Monroe said with a smile, "this is a walk in the park compared to blutbaden family reunions, which usually end up as, well, massacres in the park..."
Nick supposed he shouldn't be laughing, but he couldn't help it. Something about Monroe's matter-of-fact treatment of the strange, horrific world he had been plunged into a few months prior always managed to make him feel better.
"So," Monroe asked, clearly exerting the effort to be casual, "will Juliette be getting all the particulars of this weekend, or just the pertinent ones?"
"Neither, I should think," Nick said, not looking at the other man, "considering we broke up a month ago."
"A month?" Monroe exclaimed, propping himself up on his elbows, "Geez, Nick, why didn't you tell me?"
"Just didn't get around to it, I suppose," Nick said with a shrug. "Besides," he added glumly, "Nobody likes admitting they were dumped."
"She...dumped...you?" Monroe asked incredulously.
Nick couldn't help but smile at the utter disbelief in Monroe's voice before he continued, "She said she didn't know who I was anymore. Too many secrets. Too many lies."
"I'm sorry," Monroe said quietly. "That can't have been easy, letting her go."
"Perhaps it was for the best," Nick said reflectively, "We'd been sort of running on auto-pilot for awhile now; it just took all this Grimm business for things to finally boil over."
It was in the seconds of silence that followed his confession that Nick suddenly realized just how cold the room had truly gotten. A violent shiver ran through his body, and though he tugged the covers up to his neck, it did little to warm him.
Monroe looked at him quizzically and, after placing a hand on his shoulder, exclaimed, "Nick, you're cold as ice! I thought cops were supposed to have common sense! Didn't you bring anything warmer to sleep in?"
"I figured it was California, and that meant it would be, you know, warm," Nick said defensively, realizing in hindsight this was, indeed, a ridiculous assumption.
"Not this far north," Monroe said with a roll of his eyes, "although I must admit, even taking our latitude into account, it is unseasonably cold in here."
When Nick merely shivered harder in response, Monroe let out a put-upon sigh and said, "Come on, then, get over here."
"What?" Nick asked, sure the cold was affecting his brain function.
"As your fake boyfriend, I would feel responsible if you froze to death," Monroe deadpanned. When Nick continued to stare blankly at him, Monroe rolled his eyes and explained, "Body heat is the one of the best sources of warmth there is, and blutbaden tend to run a good six degrees hotter than your average human. So if you would prefer to not become an icicle, I would suggest you get over here before I change my mind."
Nick thought briefly of protesting, but in his current, chilled state, the idea of snuggling up to Monroe was far too tempting to pass up.
He shifted a foot to his right, intending to only establish as much contact as was strictly necessary to avoid hypothermia. This well-intentioned notion was forgotten entirely, however, the second he felt for himself the heat radiating off the blutbad, and before he knew it, Nick found himself clinging to his companion as if he were some sort of life-size teddy bear; his head was buried in Monroe's neck, his right arm slung around his waist, his right leg wedged in between Monroe's own.
To his credit, Monroe made no comment on the Grimm's octopus-like cuddling tendencies, choosing instead to wrap his arms tightly around Nick and begin rubbing his warm hands over the cold, exposed skin of his back.
Though he would deny it later, Nick was fairly sure he made a sound disturbingly close to a purr upon feeling Monroe's hands chasing the chill away, inch by inch, minute by minute.
"Idiot," Monroe murmured, though there was no bite in his tone. "I swear, I don't know how you've made it this long without having me there to make sure you don't get yourself killed."
"Well, then," Nick said sleepily, snuggling in closer, "I guess that means you'd better stick around."