This Truth Can't Run
Disclaimer: Grimm is definitely not mine, although I would like to nurture and protect it.
Rating: R
Pairing: Monroe/Nick Burckhardt
Warnings: Sex and possibly disturbing imagery
Summary: A Grimm's dreams can be very revealing. Sometimes too revealing.
This Truth Can't Run
Nick was running. He just wasn’t sure why.
He knew this forest. The trees looming in the dark and the unnaturally crushing stillness that was broken only by the sound of his feet pounding into the dirt were familiar. This wasn’t a forest from his home, though. There was something wrong with the woods here. The trees were more gnarled and the occasional star peeking through the canopy of branches was brighter. It was an old place. Humans didn’t belong in these woods. So running made sense. Juliette had run -
Oh, God. Juliette. She was in the woods. She was running, too. Nick could remember now. He’d seen her here.
It was as though his remembering was the key to breaking the silence. A gust of wind made the branches above him groan. Now he could hear sounds of running up ahead. Juliette was close. He could get to her if he just ran faster.
“Juliette!” he shouted. Nick was afraid his voice hadn’t carried. What would happen if he didn’t get to her in time?
A howl echoed through the forest. Nick stumbled to a halt, suddenly petrified. He knew at his core that that hadn’t been a wolf. In his mind he could see stained pointed teeth and flashing red eyes. Worst of all, the howl had come from directly ahead of him. Juliette was running towards the monster. “Juliette! Come back to me!” He didn’t wait for an answer. He started running again as hard as he could. Not Juliette, he thought desperately. Please God not Juliette. I can’t lose her to this.
“Nick!” a sweet, panicked voice screamed in the distance. Then there was a crashing sound, snapping twigs and crushed leaves. “Nick!”
“I’m here!” His lungs were burning. He couldn’t run any faster. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he could run for much longer.
Then, like a miracle, there she was. Nick’s heart froze in his chest. Beautiful Juliette, fallen and helpless on the ground, was wearing a shining red silk dress. She was dressed like a sacrifice. Or a target.
“Nick, help me,” she whimpered, frightened tears staining her face.
“It’s all right,” he reassured her. Nick stooped down and wrapped his arms around her shaking body. “I’ll get you out of here. I promise you’ll be safe.” He needed to cover the red. Its eyes would be drawn to red.
“I shouldn’t even be here. Why did you bring me here?” Juliette pulled out of his arms and stared at him with sharp, accusing eyes. “Marie told you to let me go.”
Nick flinched. “I love you.”
“You put me in the middle of all this. You made me a target.”
“No, no, I’m going to keep you safe,” Nick insisted. He shrugged out of his black leather jacket then wrapped it around Juliette, covering the red as best he could.
“It wants you, Nick.” She stood up, clutching the jacket close to her body. Nick stood with her and as he watched the red fabric of her dress slowly turned black. “You want it, too.”
“Of course I don’t!” Nick snapped, shocked and defensive.
“Then why are you wearing that?” Juliette asked, pointing a damning finger at his silk shirt.
It was a bright, bloody red.
“But I didn’t… I don’t remember…” Nick trailed off as he smoothed a hand down the material. The red dye welled up as he touched it, staining his hands. He stared at it dumbly. “That’s impossible.” The shirt was dripping with red now. Thick, bloody rivers slid down his dark wash jeans and dripped onto his shoes. He was soaked in the color red. “Juliette, don’t touch me. It’ll stain you.” There was no response. Nick looked up. Where Juliette had stood was now just empty space. He was alone in the forest except for the thing that was still hunting in the shadows. And he was dripping with the color that would get him killed.
A low, harsh voice growled out of the darkness. “Grimm.”
“Stay back,” Nick commanded, eyes scanning the trees for movement. “I’m armed.” He wasn’t but no one else had to know that. The voice in the dark chuckled.
“I can see you, Grimm. I know you brought nothing with you on your hunt for me.”
Nick shook his head as he turned slightly, keeping an eye on a shadow that he could see separating from one tree and prowling smoothly to the next. The beast was circling him. “You’ve got it backwards. You’re hunting me.”
“Am I? Wasn’t it you who came into the forest?” The voice made Nick pause. He hadn’t known why he was in the forest. Juliette had been here but then she’d vanished. And she’d said it was his fault she was there in the first place. Maybe he was hunting this thing. The only problem was he couldn’t for the life of him think why he’d go on a hunt unarmed. The beast continued to talk, confusing Nick all the more. “You pursued me in my home. You pinned me down and made demands. Have you any idea what that means to a blutbad?”
“I don’t understand. I was following Juliette. I-I don’t know what any of this means,” Nick said desperately, gesturing to the forest with his arm. Red droplets flew from his arm and splattered across the dirt. He was still dripping red for no reason he could see. “I shouldn’t be here.” Two firm, clawed hands clamped down on his shoulders.
“Wrong. This is exactly where you should be,” the beast’s voice whispered into his ear, reverberating down his spine. Nick struggled and twisted out of the beast’s hands. His foot caught on an exposed root as he turned to face his attacker. It caused him to fall back onto the ground, knocking the wind from his lungs. His vision blurred for a moment and obscured the creature leaning over him.
“Get away,” Nick rasped.
“Lighten up,” said a friendlier and far more familiar voice. “I’m just making a point.”
“Monroe?” Nick asked as he gaped up at the supposedly reformed blutbad crouched over him. He propped himself up on his elbows but he couldn’t stand without pushing Monroe away. Something instinctive told him not to try that.
“Man, you have a serious death wish. How about the next time you want to hang out with me you just call instead of blundering around the woods hoping to find me?” Monroe suggested wryly. His warm brown eyes contained nothing of the beast that had stalked him not five minutes ago. Nick didn’t know what to make of that given that he was practically smothered in a color guaranteed to inflame a blutbad’s hunger.
“Maybe you should give me a little space. My clothes are sort of, er, leaking red dye.” God, he sounded like an idiot when he put it that way. Monroe certainly looked amused as he glanced down at Nick’s shirt.
“Jeez, what a mess,” he remarked lightly. “We should get you out of that.” Before Nick could agree, Monroe straddled the Grimm’s thighs and hooked a suddenly clawed finger under the top button of his shirt. He casually popped it off, flinging the stained red button into the shadows.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Nick demanded.
“Don’t be such a baby. It’s not like you would be able to wear this thing again,” Monroe pointed out as he continued to rip off buttons. Each button allowed him to peel back the damp fabric and reveal clean skin. Somehow the dripping shirt hadn’t stained the flesh beneath it. How did that work?
Then Monroe’s hand slipped under his jeans to clutch at the tucked fabric and Nick stopped being curious. “Whoa, hands off!” he shouted as he attempted to push Monroe off of him. This didn’t go as well as he could have hoped. An instant after he started pushing Nick was suddenly pressed flat against the dirt by a growling, red-eyed blutbad. This was the beast that had hunted him and he had been a moron to forget that in favor of only seeing mild-mannered Monroe.
“You need to be more careful,” the blutbad snarled. “This is not as easy for me as I make it appear.” All that curling dark hair on Monroe’s head was thicker as was his facial hair, which was bristling along his jaw with anger. Nick tried not to stare at the sharp teeth now only a few precious inches from his throat.
“I’ll be careful,” Nick promised. He did his best to project a sense of calm. The Grimm stayed still and relaxed against the blutbad’s much stronger body. He could feel the tension ease out of his friend. Monroe’s face went mostly human again. The red eyes remained. Nick wasn’t sure what that meant.
“God, you have no idea what it’s like,” he panted roughly.
“You could explain it to me,” Nick offered, trying not to shiver as Monroe shifted and the material of his green plaid shirt dragged against his mostly exposed chest. Apparently he wasn’t successful as Monroe’s eyes darted down to where Nick was nearly half-naked. A deep, possessive growl sent tremors across the Grimm’s flesh. To Nick’s shock, he could feel his cock give an interested twitch against the wet denim.
Oh, no. That couldn’t be where this was heading. Oh, no, no, no.
“To be faced with you,” Monroe murmured, leaning into Nick’s arched neck and breathing deep. “What a tender young creature.” He dragged his tongue from the base of Nick’s throat up to the edge of his jaw. The Grimm whimpered. His skin had turned feverish and he clawed helplessly at the ground, unsure what to do with his hands. Surely he couldn’t participate in this.
Monroe’s mouth hovered over the ear of his prey and when he spoke his voice was all blutbad. “What a nice…” he paused to playfully nip at Nick’s ear. “…plump…” His hands stroked all that vulnerable skin before one tugged open the fastenings on his jeans. “…mouthful.” Monroe closed his lips around that tender lobe of Nick’s ear, proceeding to suck, lick and taste.
“Oh, God,” Nick groaned, resistance forgotten. He felt almost dizzy with need. The damp, musky smell of the forest combined with whatever gorgeous, hot and earthy scent Monroe was exuding acted like a drug. He was writhing under the blutbad, clutching at Monroe’s curly mess of hair, and his cock had long passed the point of casual interest. If the rock hard pressure against his thigh was anything to go by, Monroe was feeling the same.
“I want to taste you,” his friend rasped against his skin.
“Yes, yes, please yes,” Nick agreed hastily, turning his head to meet the blutbad’s hungry lips. Monroe thrust his tongue into his wet, willing mouth. Nick eagerly licked and stroked at the other man’s tongue. Then Monroe’s hand closed around his newly freed cock and Nick completely lost the plot.
Monroe pulled back an inch to stare down at the Grimm with smug red eyes. “This is where we were always headed, Nick. The minute you saw my true face all you wanted was to pin me down.”
“There was a kidnapping,” Nick protested weakly. The blutbad gave him a long, firm stroke and he bucked desperately into the other man’s fist. The red dye had made Monroe’s hand slick and so, so good. His grip on Monroe’s shirt was so tight he was probably about to tear it. “Okay, maybe it was you.”
“Maybe?” Monroe asked skeptically as he twisted his hand and stroked his thumb over the head of Nick’s cock.
The Grimm let out an embarrassingly wanton moan. “Yes,” he panted. “Yes, it was you. I’m always coming after you.”
Monroe leaned down as he continued to stroke and push Nick closer to the edge. “Where do you belong?” he whispered against his swollen mouth. The only sound Nick could make was a choked whimper. Monroe sucked tenderly at his bottom lip then dampened it with his tongue. “Answer me, Grimm. Where do you belong?”
“Wherever - ” Nick had to gasp for breath as Monroe’s slick palm cupped his balls. “Oh, fuck. God, I belong… I belong… Please don’t stop,” he pleaded when Monroe’s hand went still. Monroe just stared intently into his eyes and waited. Nick groaned again and finally said, “Wherever you are. I belong wherever you are.”
A pleased, sharp-toothed grin flashed in darkness. Monroe moved his hand and all it took was one more stroke for Nick to come utterly undone. The blutbad pressed a sweet kiss to his mouth.
“My Grimm.”
When Nick finally woke up, he couldn’t remember ever feeling more terrified in his life. But the worst part was that he couldn’t remember ever feeling more aroused, either.
Being a Grimm had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.
Rating: R
Pairing: Monroe/Nick Burckhardt
Warnings: Sex and possibly disturbing imagery
Summary: A Grimm's dreams can be very revealing. Sometimes too revealing.
This Truth Can't Run
Nick was running. He just wasn’t sure why.
He knew this forest. The trees looming in the dark and the unnaturally crushing stillness that was broken only by the sound of his feet pounding into the dirt were familiar. This wasn’t a forest from his home, though. There was something wrong with the woods here. The trees were more gnarled and the occasional star peeking through the canopy of branches was brighter. It was an old place. Humans didn’t belong in these woods. So running made sense. Juliette had run -
Oh, God. Juliette. She was in the woods. She was running, too. Nick could remember now. He’d seen her here.
It was as though his remembering was the key to breaking the silence. A gust of wind made the branches above him groan. Now he could hear sounds of running up ahead. Juliette was close. He could get to her if he just ran faster.
“Juliette!” he shouted. Nick was afraid his voice hadn’t carried. What would happen if he didn’t get to her in time?
A howl echoed through the forest. Nick stumbled to a halt, suddenly petrified. He knew at his core that that hadn’t been a wolf. In his mind he could see stained pointed teeth and flashing red eyes. Worst of all, the howl had come from directly ahead of him. Juliette was running towards the monster. “Juliette! Come back to me!” He didn’t wait for an answer. He started running again as hard as he could. Not Juliette, he thought desperately. Please God not Juliette. I can’t lose her to this.
“Nick!” a sweet, panicked voice screamed in the distance. Then there was a crashing sound, snapping twigs and crushed leaves. “Nick!”
“I’m here!” His lungs were burning. He couldn’t run any faster. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he could run for much longer.
Then, like a miracle, there she was. Nick’s heart froze in his chest. Beautiful Juliette, fallen and helpless on the ground, was wearing a shining red silk dress. She was dressed like a sacrifice. Or a target.
“Nick, help me,” she whimpered, frightened tears staining her face.
“It’s all right,” he reassured her. Nick stooped down and wrapped his arms around her shaking body. “I’ll get you out of here. I promise you’ll be safe.” He needed to cover the red. Its eyes would be drawn to red.
“I shouldn’t even be here. Why did you bring me here?” Juliette pulled out of his arms and stared at him with sharp, accusing eyes. “Marie told you to let me go.”
Nick flinched. “I love you.”
“You put me in the middle of all this. You made me a target.”
“No, no, I’m going to keep you safe,” Nick insisted. He shrugged out of his black leather jacket then wrapped it around Juliette, covering the red as best he could.
“It wants you, Nick.” She stood up, clutching the jacket close to her body. Nick stood with her and as he watched the red fabric of her dress slowly turned black. “You want it, too.”
“Of course I don’t!” Nick snapped, shocked and defensive.
“Then why are you wearing that?” Juliette asked, pointing a damning finger at his silk shirt.
It was a bright, bloody red.
“But I didn’t… I don’t remember…” Nick trailed off as he smoothed a hand down the material. The red dye welled up as he touched it, staining his hands. He stared at it dumbly. “That’s impossible.” The shirt was dripping with red now. Thick, bloody rivers slid down his dark wash jeans and dripped onto his shoes. He was soaked in the color red. “Juliette, don’t touch me. It’ll stain you.” There was no response. Nick looked up. Where Juliette had stood was now just empty space. He was alone in the forest except for the thing that was still hunting in the shadows. And he was dripping with the color that would get him killed.
A low, harsh voice growled out of the darkness. “Grimm.”
“Stay back,” Nick commanded, eyes scanning the trees for movement. “I’m armed.” He wasn’t but no one else had to know that. The voice in the dark chuckled.
“I can see you, Grimm. I know you brought nothing with you on your hunt for me.”
Nick shook his head as he turned slightly, keeping an eye on a shadow that he could see separating from one tree and prowling smoothly to the next. The beast was circling him. “You’ve got it backwards. You’re hunting me.”
“Am I? Wasn’t it you who came into the forest?” The voice made Nick pause. He hadn’t known why he was in the forest. Juliette had been here but then she’d vanished. And she’d said it was his fault she was there in the first place. Maybe he was hunting this thing. The only problem was he couldn’t for the life of him think why he’d go on a hunt unarmed. The beast continued to talk, confusing Nick all the more. “You pursued me in my home. You pinned me down and made demands. Have you any idea what that means to a blutbad?”
“I don’t understand. I was following Juliette. I-I don’t know what any of this means,” Nick said desperately, gesturing to the forest with his arm. Red droplets flew from his arm and splattered across the dirt. He was still dripping red for no reason he could see. “I shouldn’t be here.” Two firm, clawed hands clamped down on his shoulders.
“Wrong. This is exactly where you should be,” the beast’s voice whispered into his ear, reverberating down his spine. Nick struggled and twisted out of the beast’s hands. His foot caught on an exposed root as he turned to face his attacker. It caused him to fall back onto the ground, knocking the wind from his lungs. His vision blurred for a moment and obscured the creature leaning over him.
“Get away,” Nick rasped.
“Lighten up,” said a friendlier and far more familiar voice. “I’m just making a point.”
“Monroe?” Nick asked as he gaped up at the supposedly reformed blutbad crouched over him. He propped himself up on his elbows but he couldn’t stand without pushing Monroe away. Something instinctive told him not to try that.
“Man, you have a serious death wish. How about the next time you want to hang out with me you just call instead of blundering around the woods hoping to find me?” Monroe suggested wryly. His warm brown eyes contained nothing of the beast that had stalked him not five minutes ago. Nick didn’t know what to make of that given that he was practically smothered in a color guaranteed to inflame a blutbad’s hunger.
“Maybe you should give me a little space. My clothes are sort of, er, leaking red dye.” God, he sounded like an idiot when he put it that way. Monroe certainly looked amused as he glanced down at Nick’s shirt.
“Jeez, what a mess,” he remarked lightly. “We should get you out of that.” Before Nick could agree, Monroe straddled the Grimm’s thighs and hooked a suddenly clawed finger under the top button of his shirt. He casually popped it off, flinging the stained red button into the shadows.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Nick demanded.
“Don’t be such a baby. It’s not like you would be able to wear this thing again,” Monroe pointed out as he continued to rip off buttons. Each button allowed him to peel back the damp fabric and reveal clean skin. Somehow the dripping shirt hadn’t stained the flesh beneath it. How did that work?
Then Monroe’s hand slipped under his jeans to clutch at the tucked fabric and Nick stopped being curious. “Whoa, hands off!” he shouted as he attempted to push Monroe off of him. This didn’t go as well as he could have hoped. An instant after he started pushing Nick was suddenly pressed flat against the dirt by a growling, red-eyed blutbad. This was the beast that had hunted him and he had been a moron to forget that in favor of only seeing mild-mannered Monroe.
“You need to be more careful,” the blutbad snarled. “This is not as easy for me as I make it appear.” All that curling dark hair on Monroe’s head was thicker as was his facial hair, which was bristling along his jaw with anger. Nick tried not to stare at the sharp teeth now only a few precious inches from his throat.
“I’ll be careful,” Nick promised. He did his best to project a sense of calm. The Grimm stayed still and relaxed against the blutbad’s much stronger body. He could feel the tension ease out of his friend. Monroe’s face went mostly human again. The red eyes remained. Nick wasn’t sure what that meant.
“God, you have no idea what it’s like,” he panted roughly.
“You could explain it to me,” Nick offered, trying not to shiver as Monroe shifted and the material of his green plaid shirt dragged against his mostly exposed chest. Apparently he wasn’t successful as Monroe’s eyes darted down to where Nick was nearly half-naked. A deep, possessive growl sent tremors across the Grimm’s flesh. To Nick’s shock, he could feel his cock give an interested twitch against the wet denim.
Oh, no. That couldn’t be where this was heading. Oh, no, no, no.
“To be faced with you,” Monroe murmured, leaning into Nick’s arched neck and breathing deep. “What a tender young creature.” He dragged his tongue from the base of Nick’s throat up to the edge of his jaw. The Grimm whimpered. His skin had turned feverish and he clawed helplessly at the ground, unsure what to do with his hands. Surely he couldn’t participate in this.
Monroe’s mouth hovered over the ear of his prey and when he spoke his voice was all blutbad. “What a nice…” he paused to playfully nip at Nick’s ear. “…plump…” His hands stroked all that vulnerable skin before one tugged open the fastenings on his jeans. “…mouthful.” Monroe closed his lips around that tender lobe of Nick’s ear, proceeding to suck, lick and taste.
“Oh, God,” Nick groaned, resistance forgotten. He felt almost dizzy with need. The damp, musky smell of the forest combined with whatever gorgeous, hot and earthy scent Monroe was exuding acted like a drug. He was writhing under the blutbad, clutching at Monroe’s curly mess of hair, and his cock had long passed the point of casual interest. If the rock hard pressure against his thigh was anything to go by, Monroe was feeling the same.
“I want to taste you,” his friend rasped against his skin.
“Yes, yes, please yes,” Nick agreed hastily, turning his head to meet the blutbad’s hungry lips. Monroe thrust his tongue into his wet, willing mouth. Nick eagerly licked and stroked at the other man’s tongue. Then Monroe’s hand closed around his newly freed cock and Nick completely lost the plot.
Monroe pulled back an inch to stare down at the Grimm with smug red eyes. “This is where we were always headed, Nick. The minute you saw my true face all you wanted was to pin me down.”
“There was a kidnapping,” Nick protested weakly. The blutbad gave him a long, firm stroke and he bucked desperately into the other man’s fist. The red dye had made Monroe’s hand slick and so, so good. His grip on Monroe’s shirt was so tight he was probably about to tear it. “Okay, maybe it was you.”
“Maybe?” Monroe asked skeptically as he twisted his hand and stroked his thumb over the head of Nick’s cock.
The Grimm let out an embarrassingly wanton moan. “Yes,” he panted. “Yes, it was you. I’m always coming after you.”
Monroe leaned down as he continued to stroke and push Nick closer to the edge. “Where do you belong?” he whispered against his swollen mouth. The only sound Nick could make was a choked whimper. Monroe sucked tenderly at his bottom lip then dampened it with his tongue. “Answer me, Grimm. Where do you belong?”
“Wherever - ” Nick had to gasp for breath as Monroe’s slick palm cupped his balls. “Oh, fuck. God, I belong… I belong… Please don’t stop,” he pleaded when Monroe’s hand went still. Monroe just stared intently into his eyes and waited. Nick groaned again and finally said, “Wherever you are. I belong wherever you are.”
A pleased, sharp-toothed grin flashed in darkness. Monroe moved his hand and all it took was one more stroke for Nick to come utterly undone. The blutbad pressed a sweet kiss to his mouth.
“My Grimm.”
When Nick finally woke up, he couldn’t remember ever feeling more terrified in his life. But the worst part was that he couldn’t remember ever feeling more aroused, either.
Being a Grimm had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.