Home Remedies
Grimm fanfiction
Pairing: Nick/Monroe
Summary: Nick and Monroe are already on the same page, really; it just takes Nick having the flu for them to realize it.
Monroe
Monroe looked down at his watch, one of the only accurate timepieces in his house, when he finished the clock he’d been working on. He’d been working fastidiously, waiting for Nick’s knock on the door. He’d expected Nick to show up long before he finished and was rather surprised when he looked to see that Nick should have been over for dinner forty-five minutes earlier.
Nick almost always called when he got stuck at the station, and he didn’t usually spend too much time at his own house in the intervening time. It wasn’t that Monroe had timed it out or anything, it had just seemed that not long after they had started dating, Nick spent more time at Monroe’s house than his own. Monroe certainly wasn’t complaining, and, honestly, he wasn’t sure how Nick spent much time there anyway. Since Nick wasn’t really the decorating type, after Juliette had left, and all her knick-knacks with her, the house had felt sort of bleak. Monroe wanted to ask Nick to just move in with him, but he was terrible at that sort of thing, and with how crazy their lives usually were, it never felt like the right time.
Monroe dug his cell phone out of his pocket and called Nick’s cell first, which, to Monroe’s chagrin, eventually reminded him that Nick had not bothered to set up his voicemail (and honestly, considering the messages people might leave, that was probably for the best). He tried Nick’s house next and still got no answer. He didn’t want to worry overmuch, but God knows the guy was attracted to trouble. Monroe sighed and decided to call down to the station. He was surprised, but a little relieved when Hank answered the phone, “Hey Hank, is Nick still there? And how’d you pull the late shift?”
“Drew the short straw, I guess. And no, he’s not. He wasn’t looking so hot. We sent him home early. Had to have been... Hey Wu, when did Nick leave?” It sounded like he was shouting across the length of the office. “Yeah, Monroe, he left like 2 hours ago. He didn’t call you? He said you guys had a date.”
“We do...we did. No, he didn’t call,” Monroe said as he tried to stop his mind from creating worse case scenarios for what had happened in the past two hours.
“Maybe he just conked out on the couch; I wouldn’t send out a search party just yet,” Hank said with a knowing chuckle.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Monroe said as he grabbed his keys and pulled on his coat. “Thanks, Hank.”
Twenty minutes later, Monroe was slowly backing out of Nick’s driveway, looking again for any sign of light or life. As Nick’s truck was nowhere in sight, this was likely a lost cause. He hit the steering wheel in frustration as he drove towards the only other place he could think of that Nick could be, “Damn it, Nick. Where the hell are you?”
He was relieved, though frankly a little annoyed, when he found Nick’s truck parked alongside the trailer. He decided knocking be damned, as he’d spent the better part of his evening looking for his boyfriend, and took out his spare key.
He found Nick slumped over one of his aunt’s tomes, a faint trace of ink marking his cheek where it had turned up from the open page. Monroe rolled his eyes and walked up behind him.
“You know, you are free to fall asleep over your books in my living room. Save us both a lot of trouble,” Monroe commented dryly as he placed his hand on Nick’s shoulder, shaking it slightly.
“Mmm,” Nick moaned as he stirred in his sleep, but he didn’t wake up. Noticing that Nick’s hair was hanging limp against his forehead, and upon closer inspection appeared lank with sweat, Monroe brushed it back gently and pressed his hand against Nick’s forehead.
“Geez, you’re burning up,” Monroe hissed as he pulled his hand back. Then he began muttering to Nick, though he suspected his addressee was not listening, “Why didn’t you say something earlier? I wouldn’t have let you suggest dinner or would have made you come over earlier.”
The cool touch against his skin must have woken Nick up because his eyes blinked confusedly in Monroe’s general direction for a moment before meeting Monroe’s gaze, “Monroe? What are you doing here?”
“Dinner! Damn it!” Nick continued when Monroe gave him a pointed look. “I must have fallen asleep. I was trying to fight sleep off at work all day. Monroe, I’m so sorry.”
“Relax, I’m not particularly worried about dinner right now,” Monroe said as he put his hand up to gesture for Nick to stop talking. Then he offered his hand to pull Nick up, “Come on, let’s get you out of here. You’re sick, and this trailer isn’t particularly well insulated.”
“I wasn’t done...” Nick ignored the proffered arm, and appearing distinctly flustered, looked down at the book he’d fallen asleep on. “Actually, I have no idea what I was looking for.”
Monroe looked over his shoulder at the open book, “Uh, Nick, you’re reading about blutbaden...territory marking. Do I want to know?”
Monroe figured he probably did, but he wasn’t sure Nick was cognizant enough to give him an adequate explanation. Nick didn’t respond, but he looked like he was blushing -- though that might have been the fever. Regardless of what his research aims had been, he closed the book and stood up shakily, grasping at the desk for support. “Do you see my backpack? The keys to my truck are in it.”
“Um....okay,” Monroe said as he eyed Nick skeptically before his gaze fell on the open backpack lying on the floor only a few feet away from Nick. “And you intend to do what with those?”
“Drive home,” Nick said as Monroe narrowed his eyes.
“And fall asleep at the wheel? I don’t think so,” Monroe said as he picked the backpack up and slung it over his shoulder. Then he wrapped his other arm around Nick’s waistline and pulled him to his side. “I’m taking you back to my house. Because I don’t really want to find out what kind of trouble you’d get into when delirious.”
“I don’t want to leave my truck here,” Nick protested as he shot Monroe a look of annoyance, pushing him away. He watched as Nick reached for the book still lying on the desk which only served to have him fall sideways into the sharp edge of the desk, and after giving out a slight gasp of pain, “Okay, you may have a point.”
“I will do something about your truck later. I promise,” Monroe said as he put the book in the backpack. This time, Monroe found Nick reaching for him, instead of the other way around. They walked in awkward tandem to Monroe’s car with Nick leaning heavily against Monroe’s side.
After Monroe helped Nick into the car, he leaned in to fasten the seat belt over him as Nick fell drowsily against the passenger seat, “Monroe, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I’d be afraid to find out,” Monroe said as he pulled himself back up and kissed the top of Nick’s head.
Nick
Nick woke groggily to the strong smell of hardwood and citrusy antiseptic. He could tell immediately he was not in his own bedroom from the light weight of the fuzzy, off-white coverlet. The familiarity of it was a surprising amount of comfort to him, though he’d not spent all that much timesleeping beneath it.
He wrapped the covers closer around him as he fought to remember how he had come to be there, and vaguely remembered Monroe half leading, half dragging him up the stairs as he tried, in vain, apparently, to suggest he just sleep on the couch.
I’m sure it would be less hassle. And you really don’t have to do this. I’m sorry,” Nick trailed off as began shivering against Monroe’s loose grip around his abdomen.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Monroe said as he pulled Nick closer to him in an attempt to warm him. “It’s you. Of course I do.”
“Besides, last time someone spent the night on my couch, he ended up dead. I’m not saying the couch is cursed, or anything, but I’m not taking any chances.”
Nick hadn’t had the energy to point out that technically he had fallen asleep there countless times; he just usually didn’t spend the entire night there when he stayed over.
After a few more seemingly endless steps, Monroe had just picked him up as though he weighed nothing and carried him the length of the hallway.
Monroe then deposited him on his bed and dug around for one of Nick’s sleepshirts, apparently giving it up as a lost cause, handed him an oversized one of his own. Changing out of his work clothes apparently sapped the last of his energy because he fell face first into the pillow after that. However, when Monroe pulled him back to a more natural sleeping position, he reached out for Monroe’s arm before saying, “Monroe...thanks.”
Monroe had ruffled his hair as he’d muttered something along the lines of, “Right where you belong.”
He tried to sit up, but this led to a wave of dizziness that had his head crashing back into the pillows with a soft thump. He glanced to the side of the bed and saw a large plush wolf lying where Monroe would typically be.
Nick was chuckling slightly at the absurdity that Monroe had a stuffed wolf, which he was covertly pulling closer to him, when Monroe pushed the bedroom door open.
Monroe set a tray with two bowls of soup down on his dresser before leaning down over Nick, running his hand over Nick’s forehead “How ya feeling?”
“Not great,” Nick admitted after a moment of reflection on his physical well-being as he propped himself up against the headboard. He was exhausted, his limbs ached, and he was freezing. Oh, and there had been that dizzy-spell a few minutes ago. Right.
The lack of his general well-being was confirmed when Monroe read out 102.2 degrees from the thermometer that he’d handed him.
“This will help some,” Monroe said handing him what he assumed was burdock root. “Just chew the ends. It tastes like an old tennis shoe, just as a warning. But it really will help.”
Nick made a face that suggested both repulsion and disbelief as he reluctantly put the ends of the roots in his mouth, “How would you know?”
“I know my remedies and my plants; I studied horticulture, dabbled a little with the idea of becoming a professional gardener,” Monroe said.
“No, I mean, how would you know what an old tennis shoe tastes like?” Nick asked, cautiously nibbling at the end of one of the roots. “Have you taste tested them?”
“Because when I’m not doing my job or your job , I’m a shoe gourmand,” Monroe said as he rolled his eyes.
“What other footwear have you tasted?” Nick asked, stopping to hold his hand over his mouth as started coughing. “Do sandals taste like sandalwood?”
“You’re not funny,” Monroe said, though he was smiling. He picked up the bowls of soup and handed one to Nick as he sat down at the end of the bed. “You don’t mind that I brought you here, do you?”
“Mind? Monroe, you could have taken me home and left me to fend for myself until I got over this cold, flu, or whatever this is. And we both know I’d be lucky if I own cough syrup. Why would I mind?” Nick asked unsure why Monroe would ask what he considered a completely absurd and unnecessary question, but he currently lacked the brain-power to overthink it. As he waited for the apparently tongued-tied Monroe to respond, he raised a spoonful of soup to his mouth, realizing what it was,“This is chicken-soup.”
“So?” Monroe said raising his eyebrows at Nick. “And this is not a cold. You don’t get a fever with a cold.”
“So, you don’t eat chicken soup. It has chicken in it,” Nick said, ignoring Monroe’s diagnostics, as he glanced at Monroe’s bowl, curious why the vegetarian blutbad was eating chicken.
“I had, in fact, noticed that,” Monroe said as he started eating his own soup which Nick leaned over to look at more closely. “Okay, what are you doing? Stop that before you spill soup all over my bedspread or fall off the bed.”
“You’ve never minded when I’ve stained the sheets before,” Nick said teasingly.
When Monroe just rolled his eyes, Nick continued his previous line of inquiry, though he was starting to feel like a petulant child, “Why are you eating chicken soup?”
“I’m not, okay,” Monroe said with an exasperated sigh. “I made the soup sans chicken and then added the chicken in for you.”
“Oh. Why?” Nick asked. He knew it didn’t really matter why Monroe had gone to so much trouble, just that he had, but he was trying to distract Monroe from the fact that he wasn’t eating. The first spoonful had suggested that the soup was delicious, as most of Monroe’s concoctions were, but he wasn’t hungry. However, the soup bowl was warming his freezing hands so he was reluctant to set it down.
"One of my grandma's recipes, figured it shouldn't go to waste. It always made me feel better anyway. And chickenless soup just doesn’t have quite the right ring to it," Monroe said between mouthfuls of his own soup. Then as he glanced over at Nick, “Dude, if you aren’t hungry, you don’t have to eat or, you know, pretend to.”
“It’s not that. I mean, I’m not hungry. It’s just, I’m really cold,” Nick said as he set the bowl down on the bedside table and pulled the covers up to his chin. “The soup can only help so much.”
“Well, I think actually eating it would actually help more,” Monroe said with a hint of sarcasm as he walked over to his closet. He returned a moment later carrying a red and brown patterned sweater that Nick thought hadn’t made it through the rotation particularly recently, “Here. See if that helps.”
Nick pulled the sweater over his head drinking in as much of the sweater’s scent as he could. It smelled homey and earthy and just like Monroe. He was instantly warmer and felt drowsy. **
“Better?” Monroe asked as he put the bowls back on the tray, Nick assumed to take them back downstairs.
“Much,” Nick said as he slumped down against the pillows. “Thanks for bringing me home.”
Nick saw Monroe run his hand through his hair the way he seemed to when he was anxious about something before his eyes fell closed.
He slept on and off for the rest of the day, with Monroe checking in on him intermittently. Each time Monroe looked more and more displeased that his temperature was not going down and that he still hadn’t eaten anything.
When Nick had noticed it was getting darker out, despite his better judgment because he knew it would ultimately lead to Monroe having whatever he had, he asked Monroe to just sleep with him.
He woke up in the middle of the night to Monroe hovering over him, the thermometer in hand, looking concerned, “What?”
“You were shaking in your sleep,” Monroe said as moved so that he was sitting against the headboard.
“I’m fine,” Nick mumbled, mostly to reassure Monroe because he actually felt worse, as Monroe pulled his head into his lap and started stroking his hair.
“I think I’ll be the judge of that,” Monroe said as he handed the thermometer to Nick. To neither of their surprise, his temperature still hadn’t gone down.
“Nick, if it isn’t one hundred or lower in the morning, I’m taking you to the doctor,” Monroe said. Nick wasn’t particularly happy about the suggestion but figured it was probably fair. “Let me find you some more burdock root in the meantime.”
Somehow, though the cloudiness of his mind, it occurred to Nick that that might be the problem, “Monroe, want to make a bet?”
“On?” Monroe asked, looking puzzled.
“I bet you two cases of beer that If I took some Tylenol instead of chewing on that plant, we can curl up on the couch and watch movies all day tomorrow, no unnecessary doctor visits in the middle,” Nick said.
“Does betting on your well-being usually seem like a good idea to you?” Monroe asked skeptically.
“Only when I know I’m right,” Nick said smugly as he pulled himself off the bed. “I’m going to find some Tylenol.”
“You are not,” Monroe sighed as he pushed Nick back onto the bed. “Unless you had other reasons for getting up, I’ll go find you some.”
“I’m only, you know, going along with this because I know that the Tylenol won’t hurt any less than it helps,” Monroe said when he returned a few minutes later. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d realize this was a terrible idea. Then again, if you knew what was good for you, you’d probably realize that Grimms and blutbaden don’t usually sleep together. So, maybe, I don’t really want you to come to your senses.”
“Well, you shouldn’t, because that’s sort of the best thing for me,” Nick said as took the glass of water and the Tylenol that Monroe was offering him.
Monroe
The next morning, Monroe woke up to Nick’s head and arms resting on his chest. Uncertain how the extra weight had failed to wake him up, he carefully disentangled himself. He ran his hand over Nick’s forehead, and finding it to be cooler to the touch than it had been, got up to go do pilates. He looked back at Nick’s still form and smiled at the thought of waking up to him being there everyday.
When he was nearly through his routine, he heard the sound of drawers being open and shut in the kitchen. When he went to investigate, to his surprise, he found Nick pulling eggs out of the refrigerator, “Uh, what are you doing?”
“Making breakfast,” Nick said as he set the eggs on the counter next to the stove where Monroe saw he had already placed bread and butter.
“Nick, you, uh, didn’t eat anything yesterday. I think this would be, you know, stretching it,” Monroe said as he steered Nick, who still looked flushed, to the kitchen table before deciding to take over.
“I was making it for you,” Nick said as he rested his head on his arms and watched Monroe with half lidded eyes. “To thank you for yesterday. And the day before.”
“Because nothing says thank you like burning down a man’s kitchen,” Monroe said as he cracked two eggs into a skillet. “And Nick, you don’t have to do anything. In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t since I’m thinking you should, you know, still be in bed, or at least on the couch.”
“We’re camping out on the couch all day today then. I’m tired of being in bed,” Nick said, though it was looking more and more likely that he was going to fall asleep right there on the table. But when Monroe finished buttering the toast, Nick did trail him slowly into the living room.
After determining, much to Monroe’s frustration, that he now owed Nick two cases of beer, Monroe decided that they could begin to work their way through his collection of Hitchcock movies.
“Maybe it only works on Blutbaden,” Nick said as he picked at a piece of toast before setting half of it aside uneaten.
“Or, uh, maybe your fever just broke because it’s been two days,” Monroe said as he put Strangers on a Train into his DVD player. “And one hundred isn’t that much better.”
***
“Stop grumbling and get back over here, so I can use you as a pillow,” Nick said. Monroe complained about how he couldn’t tell what sort of train the main characters were on at the beginning as he pulled Nick’s head into his lap.
Although Monroe wasn’t sure that Nick was paying attention to the movie, about ten minutes in, he jerked his head up to matter-of-factly inform Monroe, or perhaps the characters questioning it, that, “Murder is illegal.”
“You would know, huh?” Monroe said as he pulled Nick back to his shoulder. “Big bad Grimm detective and all.”
Nick simply nodded before kissing Monroe’s collarbone as he settled against it. Then he stayed quiet for awhile.
“Wait, why didn’t he leave the cigarette lighter behind?” Nick asked as he looked up at Monroe. “I mean, if he’s trying to frame the guy.”
“He’s not trying to frame him. He’s murdering his wife for him. They’re switching murders,” Monroe tried to explain. “Well, Bruno thinks they’re switching murders, anyway.”
“Why?” Nick asked blinking in apparent confusion. Monroe decided that giving him cough syrup while he still had a fever and expecting him to still follow the plotline had perhaps been asking too much.
“So that neither of them would get caught. No one’s ever, um, pulled something like this in Portland?” Monroe asked. When Nick just shrugged, Monroe thought that it perhaps wasn’t worth it, “Oh, never mind. We’ll just have to watch this again when you’re not sick.” *
“Okay, sounds good,” Nick mumbled. “I do love hanging out on your couch.”
“More than on your couch?” Monroe asked, feeling like he was possibly putting his foot in his mouth but he figured Nick was going to be more open now than he might be otherwise.
"Just maybe,” Nick said as he pushed himself up and picked up the remote and paused the movie. “Can I ask you about what I was looking up the other day?”
“I don’t think my saying ‘no’ is going to stop you. And I’m kind of curious why you were, um, looking up blutbaden territory marking,” Monroe said as he watched Nick, who looked really anxious for some reason, carefully.
“Monroe? Can non-blutbaden...” Nick sounded hesitant as he trailed off for a moment. Monroe smiled briefly as he gestured for Nick to go on. “Oh this is ridiculous. Can non-blutbaden live with blutbaden? Or does it mess up the territory marking system?”
“I mean, it would have to do with whether or not the, uh, blutbad in question was in a pack. Is this for a police case or is this Grimm work?” Monroe asked as he wondered what other blutbaden Nick could have encountered or if this was about them.
“Neither,” Nick said as his cheeks grew more red than they already were. “The other day, when I asked for us to have dinner, I wanted to ask...”
“Oh?” Monroe prompted, though he strongly suspected, and hoped, he knew where this was going.
“To ask if I could move in. I mean, it would make more sense, I think. But I was just afraid that if I asked, that I’d find out that a Grimm couldn’t live on blutbad territory or something. At least not more than temporarily,” Nick said all of this in a rush and then just sat back and stared at Monroe.
“Well, that is ridiculous,” Monroe said as Nick’s face fell. “No, not that you want to live here. That you thought that you couldn’t.”
Monroe paused a moment before saying softly, “I want you to, you know.”
Nick didn't say anything, he just leaned in and kissed Monroe full on the mouth. He pulled back a minute later, "Oh! I really shouldn't have done that. I don't want to get you sick."
"Somehow I think that ship has sailed," Monroe said as he kissed Nick again before pulling back himself, "But we should probably quit while we're ahead because you are not up to going further than this."
Nick looked put out for a moment before pressing play on the remote and then repositioning himself on Monroe's chest, “Let’s watch the movie then while I plan what I’m going to bring over here.”
“You aren’t really, uh, a stuff, kind of guy. I have to ask, what, aside from your clothes, your kitchenware, some books and movies, were you planning on bringing?” Monroe asked, full of genuine curiosity as he tried to mentally catalogue the contents of Nick’s house. There really didn’t seem to be much there. “I mean, there’s probably a lot we’ll have to, uh, go through, but I’m just wondering specifically.”
“My record player and record collection,” Nick said as he nestled further into Monroe’s side.
Monroe tried to stifle a laugh at the absurdity that Nick, of all people, owned something so old-fashioned, “How have I never seen that?”
“I had it in the attic because I never really had time to dig it out and listen to it and Juliette didn’t think it fit in anywhere in the house,” Nick explained.
“Well, we’ll have to do that sometime then,” Monroe said as he grinned and turned back to the movie.
“Yeah, definitely,” Nick murmured. “And now I really am going to have to cook something for you to say thank you. I can’t just move in without doing something like that. You can’t let me.”
“Fair enough,” Monroe laughed. “But definitely not today and probably not tomorrow. But I look forward to it.”
They spent the rest of the day curled up on the couch watching the rest of Monroe’s Hitchcock collection discussing what they were going to need to do for Nick to move in, both content that this was exactly where they were meant to be.
Notes:
*If you haven't seen Strangers on a Train the basic plot is this: Bruno thinks that Guy, a fellow he met on a train, has agreed to swap murders with him. This is not the case. But Bruno goes ahead and kills Guy's wife anyway, and almost leaves Guy's cigarette lighter at the scene of the crime by accident.
If you need more, watch it because it's a good movie or look it up on Wikipedia. Sorry if this was confusing.
**The part with the sweater was inspired by this lovely fanart found Here
*** As far as I can tell, from an internet search, I don't think burdock root was ever meant to be used as fever reducer. If anyone finds out otherwise, do let me know.