Fic: Why Sanity Isn't Overrated (1/2)
Title: Why Sanity Isn't Overrated
Fandom: Grimm
Rating: R (overall)
Pairing: Nick/Monroe
Summary: While on a case, Nick accidentally inhales a Wesen drug, leaving Monroe to deal with the wacky consequences and some rather unexpected advances.
Word Count: This part 4,513, total 11,316
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
Ah. The refreshing scent of Guatemalan roast brewing in the pot. Monroe didn’t usually drink a second cup of coffee mid-morning, but Nick had kept him up until 2:30am last night translating and helping him seek a mysterious bracelet hidden somewhere in his museum vault of a trailer. That place was incredible. They would have found the recalcitrant piece of jewelry sooner if there weren’t so many awesome things overflowing everywhere. Literally everywhere. Every little cranny was filled with some or other wondrous object that urged Monroe to break off his search and scrutinize each fascinating detail while regaling Nick with back-story and other important minutiae. Not that Nick appreciated Monroe’s freely given wisdom. Every time Monroe looked up, either Nick’s eyes were glazed over or he was flat out not looking at Monroe at all, his face buried in drawers and dusty corners. Granted, Nick had recruited him to find a bracelet, not explain the history of Western Europe, and he was tired, probably eager to get to bed, just like Monroe, and if it weren’t for all of Monroe’s tangents, they would have finished much earlier. He just couldn’t help himself sometimes.
His phone buzzing interrupted his excited reminiscing. Unknown number. Huh. Maybe it was a gig.
“Monroe,” he answered.
“This is Renard.”
Monroe’s pleasant buzz froze up, shrieked, and dove three feet into the ground. He set down his coffee on the kitchen counter, spine automatically jerking to attention. He’d only met Nick’s boss and discovered that he was Portland’s king a few weeks ago. Portland had a king. Who knew? He’d heard the rumors and a few more than rumors, but royalty had become a bit passé since the last century. Many were little more than mob bosses now. Not that that this didn’t make them worthy of the utmost consideration. Any of them could have Monroe murdered just for looking at them funny or not paying them the proper respect, like King Renard here, which is why he winced more than a little every time Nick referred to him simply as “the captain”. Even after he told Nick what Renard was, Nick still refused to call him anything royalty-related, saying that it felt silly to do so and that, technically, Renard was not his king, so he wasn’t obligated to do anything of the sort and would Monroe please stop cringing. I already checked your house for bugs. My boss is not spying on you.
Monroe didn’t buy it. Not for a second.
“Your Highness,” he replied to the captain. King Renard! Ah, hell, he’d been the captain or simply Renard in his mind for so long now thanks to oblivious Nick. Fuck it. As long as he didn’t slip in His Majesty’s face it wasn’t too atrocious, though of course, he couldn’t call him “Your Highness” in front of humans. That would create confusion and infuriate the king, and, although so far, Renard appeared to be a benevolent king, relatively speaking (he actually supported Nick in his Grimmhood, check that out), he was still very, very intimidating. Best not piss him off, ey?
“What can I do for you?” Monroe continued.
“Nick got into a bit of trouble with his latest case. I’m sure you’re aware of it. He’s not injured, but he was drugged by this powder on the scene. I need you to you pick him up and take care of him.”
“Drugged how, sir?”
Suddenly, Nick’s muffled voice popped up in the background.
“Hey, is that Monroe? Monroe!” Nick crooned into the phone. “You should be here. This room is awesome. It’s so... so… Glittery.”
Glittery?
“Nick, please sit back on the chair,” Renard said. “Detective, sit.” To Monroe, he said, “He’s high, as you probably noticed by now.”
“Yes, sir.” Oh, Nick, what fresh hell did you get into now? “I’ll leave right away, sir.”
As soon as he arrived at the residential area Renard sent him to, he called him so Renard could meet him outside. Renard emerged a few moments later, Nick held firmly under his arm while he escorted him to Monroe’s car, which was parked half a block south of the house that constituted the crime scene (murder within the family, very tragic), per Renard’s instructions. The knot in Monroe’s stomach tightened as he watched them walk toward him, for Nick kept trying to wriggle out from under Renard’s arm. He tried an odd sidestep, then crouched down reminiscent of John Cleese’s silly walks, leaving Renard’s arm hanging in midair for a second before the man yanked Nick back up with both hands, gripping him tightly even when Nick saw Monroe, his smile widening with childish glee.
“Monroe!” he cried so loudly that the whole street probably wondered what the hell was that bleating.
“Detective,” Renard hissed at him. “Keep it down.”
“But look, captain. It’s Monroe. He never visits me at work.”
When they were a few feet away, Renard let him go and Nick practically flew into Monroe’s arms, encasing him in a giant hug that blew the breath out of him, for Nick seemed determined to fuse their bodies together until they became a single, monstrous creature.
“It’s so good to see you,” Nick said, crooning as if he hadn’t seen Monroe in half a century.
“It’s good to see you, too,” Monroe said, reaching behind him to remove Nick’s death grip from his back. If it weren’t for his superior strength, he wasn’t sure he would have managed it.
“He’s been like that for the last forty minutes,” Renard said once Monroe managed to loosen Nick’s hold on him, though his friend insisted on leaning against him as if Monroe were a warm cushion. Not that Monroe minded that much now that he had renewed access to oxygen. Nick felt quite good against him. Very good, in fact. It was so rare to get to feel this much of Nick at once. Usually he just got Nick’s hand on his shoulder or arm, maybe a little more body contact to push each other out of harm’s way in the midst of a particularly violent case, but what fun was that? It wasn’t anything like the way that Nick was reclining against his chest now, body comfortably limp, his face resting just beneath Monroe’s neck, his soft hair brushing Monroe’s chin so pleasantly. Truth be told, if Renard weren’t right freaking there shaking his head at Nick’s over-enthusiastic display, Monroe might have let Nick indulge for an extra second or two.
But he was, damn it all, and Monroe couldn’t risk giving himself away, although, if Renard did in fact bug his house or his car or both, he probably knew already. And surely the king wouldn’t object? Would he? Why would he object? His and Nick’s lives were none of his business, not that royalty ever cared to stay out of their subjects private affairs, although this was a very informal kingdom Renard had set up.
“Have I ever told you,” Nick mumbled into Monroe’s shirt, “that you are like a giant teddy bear?”
“Okay,” Monroe said, unwrapping Nick’s arms from around him. “Time to get off.”
He straightened out Nick, taking a step way back, but as soon as he let go, his friend dove toward him again, so Monroe grabbed his wrists and held them fixed in front of him, his own arms fully extended.
“Which is weird,” Nick continued. Why was he still talking? “Because you’re a wolf, not a bear. You’re a teddy wolf.”
He giggled at his own horrible joke, his head dropping forward, shoulders shaking with laughter. Monroe glanced at Renard, who was watching them with an amused expression that made Monroe want to duck his head, crawl into a tiny burrow, and die of embarrassment.
“Please tell me there’s a way to fix this,” Monroe said. “Um, sir.”
“I’ve called a friend of mine,” Renard said, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket. “Her name is Sara Vigoreaux. She will know how to rectify this situation. This is her address.”
He handed the paper to Monroe, who, unfortunately, had to release one of Nick’s hands to take it. Nick, of course, took advantage of this by rushing toward Monroe again and reclaiming his chest as a pillow. Why did he keep doing that? Monroe couldn’t be that comfortable.
“I also have the powder Burkhardt inhaled,” Renard continued, giving Monroe a quarter size Ziploc bag of blue-black powder. It was double bagged, the interior bag rolled up as if to ensure that the contents wouldn’t be spilled accidentally. Monroe held it gingerly in his hand, hoping for Nick’s sake that it wasn’t toxic beyond the obvious loopy effects.
“Be careful with that,” Renard said. “Apparently, it was lying open on a shelf and Nick sneezed while standing too close to it, getting some of it up his nose.”
Nick got this bad just from that little? What sort of evil drug was this?
“Call me when you know what this thing is,” Renard continued.
“Yes, sir.”
Renard returned to the crime scene, leaving Monroe with the task of stuffing Nick into the car all by himself, but Monroe felt weird about asking His Majesty to help out. However, getting Nick into the car turned out to be easy. As soon as Monroe opened the passenger door, Nick dove inside like an excited child rushing into his favorite ride at the amusement park.
“I love this car!” he practically shouted, opening the glove compartment. Monroe closed it, only for Nick to open it up again and start taking things out.
“Nick, would you please leave those in there?” Monroe asked, trying to pry his car license and insurance card out of Nick’s hands.
“But it’s your stuff. I like your stuff. Hey, it’s a map of the US.” He dropped the documents to grab the map. Monroe snatched them up and slipped them into his pocket. “I only have maps of Oregon and Washington State in my car. But we could drive across the whole country with this one. Yeah, I know. It’s a little crazy. But let’s do crazy. Crazy can be good sometimes. Crazy is how I met you while looking for little red riding hood. Now that is crazy. I got to be the huntsman. Isn’t that cool?”
“Uh huh. You can hold on to that map there. Just let me put your seatbelt on ‘cause I know you’re not going to do it.”
Monroe felt like he was coddling a child as he pushed Nick back on his seat to slip the seatbelt across his chest, tugging his arms out of the way in the process. This friend of Renard’s better have a solution for this, for if Nick was stuck in this ludicrous state forever or if the powder was poisonous…
Monroe’s chest clenched, a sudden fist clutching every muscle in his torso, stealing his breath. Best not think in those terms. Vigoreaux was going to fix Nick. She had to. If she was friends with Renard, she had to be the best, right?
Nick kept rambling as Monroe looked up her address on his iPhone.
“And I met the Pied Piper. Well, he’s not a piper. He’s a violinist and he doesn’t wear pied clothing. Yes, I did look up the definition of ‘pied’ all by myself. I do actually do some of my own research.”
“That’s great. Good job.”
Vigoreaux lived across town. Not so great. As he pulled into the street, Monroe prayed that whatever has messed up Nick wasn’t time sensitive.
“That was sarcastic, wasn’t it? I can do some things on my own, you know? And I started learning German. Had I told you that? I don’t know if I’d told you that.”
“Yes, you did. Last week.”
“Oh, I did. Awesome. That doesn’t mean I’m going to fire you from your translating duties. This language is so complicated. It’s unbelievable. So I’m still going to need you to do that You know how much I appreciate that, right? You are the most wonderful friend in the whole world. I really don’t know why you put up with me sometimes. I’ve put you in danger so many times. I almost got you killed.”
Halfway through that ramble, Nick’s tone had started to wilt. The map book clattered to the floor as Nick slumped into his seat, dropping his head on the headrest, former bliss fading into sadness on his face.
“But I’m okay,” Monroe said, quick to reassure Nick with a comforting smile. “I wouldn’t take any of it back, Nick. I helped you out of my own free will. It’s not like you held a gun to my head. Well, that first time with the missing girl you kinda did. I mean, I didn’t know what you would do to me if I said ‘no’. And you kept barging into my house. But we’re friends now!” Monroe added, his voice lightening to an almost manic level when Nick covered his face with his hands, shoulders slopping forward. “I wouldn’t let you not let me help even if you tried.” That sentence could have gone better. “Consider now, for example. You enter a Wesen’s house without me for backup and look what happens to you.”
“You know I love you, right?”
Monroe’s foot jerked down on the accelerator, bumping his speed up by eight miles per hour before his brain quit short-circuiting long enough for him to release it. His hands, however, appeared to have fused to the wheel.
“What?” Monroe asked, his voice sounding like a strangled chicken.
“I love you, man,” Nick hugged Monroe, burying his face into Monroe’s shoulder. “You are the best friend anyone could ever have.”
Oh. That kind of love. Right. Not that Monroe had been hoping for any love other than… that..
“Thanks,” Monroe said, beating down the painful lump that had heart had squelched into. He steered with his left hand, using his right to pat Nick on the head. “I love you, too, buddy.”
And that was the last time he would probably ever speak those words to Nick, who was too befuddled to understand what Monroe truly meant by them.
“Um,” Monroe said after a while during which Nick had yet to let go. “Nick? Could you get back in your seat, please? Well, you are in your seat, but could you also not be trying to get into mine? It’s a little tricky to drive with you glued to my side.”
“But you’re so comfy.”
Okay. Monroe wasn’t certain what to make of that.
“I’ve also almost hit you with my elbow twice shifting gears. Your head is in the way of my arm.”
Nick just snuggled closer, the little imp.
“Nick, I’m sorry, but you really have to move. Maneuvering is kind of an important element of driving, in case the drug fried your driving skills from your brain. Not that you should be doing any driving at present or even be thinking about it in case you get any ideas. How about you just slide back into your seat, huh?”
Monroe reached up to pat Nick’s head, but wound up smacking him with his elbow when a jackass in front of him decided that breaking at the last minute to make a turn, without even announcing his intention to make said turn, was a good idea, forcing Monroe to shift into neutral.
“Ow!” Nick exclaimed.
“Sorry! But I did warn you just now.”
“Alright, I’ll move,” Nick grumbled, unwrapping himself from Monroe, which didn’t prove to be as welcome as Monroe expected, for his side now felt cold and bereft and strangely lonely.
“Where are we going?” Nick asked, grabbing the map book again. “Boston? San Francisco? Death Valley? Ooh, I hear that a museum in Chicago has a skeleton of a T-Rex named Sue. Wouldn’t it be cool to climb on top of it and roar from T-Rex’s head?”
Oh, crap. Nick was giddy again.
“They’d cart you off to jail before you got as far as its knees,” Monroe said, cringing in horror at the very notion of desecrating such a valuable paleontological treasure. “Which would be terribly embarrassing. You’re a cop. You can’t get arrested. None of your coworkers would ever let you live it down.”
“Alright, I won’t try to climb it,” Nick said, surly. My God, he really did sound exactly like a seven year old child. What kind of evil drug was this?
“So where are we going? Are we going to your house? Because there is some really fun stuff we could do at your house.”
Like what? Well, Monroe always found fun stuff to do, but Nick seemed to have different opinions about stamp collecting and being hunched over a telescope waiting for the right star to show up.
“Or we could go to the woods,” Nick continued. “I haven’t been to the woods with you since that one time with Holly. Now that would be something.”
What the hell was Nick going on about? However, as much as Monroe wanted to know, he knew better than to ask.
“We’re going to visit someone who will make you feel better.”
“But I feel great. I haven’t felt this good since… Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this. Have I ever felt like this? No, I don’t think so. Is it me or am I talking really fast? I am talking really fast. Have you ever heard me talking this fast? I should have tried this sooner. This is fun.”
This exasperating insanity continued for the remaining twenty minutes it took to drive to Vigoreaux’s house. By the time Monroe finally pulled up into her driveway, the dormant desire to run wild and destroy was pushing at the forefront of his consciousness. The house’s location didn’t help. They were out in the sticks where the houses were far apart from each other and bordered by woodland at the rear, woods that would be filled with deer and hares, all yummy and squishy and so very easy to rip into and-
Stop!
No no no, he could not be having thoughts like this. He had been reformed for eight years and had not given in to temptation save for that one time with Angelina, and he was not going to relapse again just because he wanted to murder the man he loved for being an insufferable twit for the last half hour. Stepping outside of the car to escape Nick’s blathering, he sucked in a deep, cleaning breath. When that didn’t help, he tried another.
And another.
By the time he finally managed to re-bury his homicidal tendencies, Vigoreaux had noticed their arrival and went up to the car to greet them. She looked to be in her early thirties, had dark, brown hair hanging down to her waist around her shoulders, and wore a green long-sleeved shirt with a curling flower pattern at the bottom that wouldn’t be amiss for a night out.
“Hello,” she said, smiling, tone pleasant. “Monroe, I take it?”
“Yes,” Monroe said, rushing to the other side of the car to control Nick, who had just discovered the locking mechanism and was scurrying out of it as quickly as a cat.
“Hi,” Nick said, grinning at Vigoreaux and holding out his hand. “I’m Nick. It’s super nice to meet you.”
Vigoreaux took this exuberance in stride and shook Nick’s hand, which shook on for far too long in a cheap imitation of a comedy routine.
“Hi,” she said, allowing this abuse. “I’m Sara.”
She pronounced her name with a Spanish language stress.
“Was he this cheery on the ride over?” she asked Monroe, who almost broke down into hysterical laughter at the mention of that nightmarish drive.
“You have no idea,” Monroe said. “This looks mild by comparison. Though he did get serious for a moment. That was weird. Nick, you can let go of her hand now. You can’t take it home with you.”
Did that come out weird? It sounded weird. Well, he was having a trying day. That excused him, right, even if he had just met Vigoreaux-Sara-who didn’t know him or his quirks? At least Nick finally let go of Sara’s hand, a sheepish smile on his face.
“Sorry,” he said, ducking his head for a second. Dear God, that was adorable. Oh, no. Nick was not going to soften him up by being adorable. Stop thinking about how adorable Nick is!
“No worries,” Sara said, holding her hand out to Monroe. “I know we’re already acquainted with each other’s names, but…”
“We’re still missing the handshake,” Monroe said, taking her hand for the polite amount of time while Nick bounced on his toes beside him. “I don’t usually beg so soon after meeting someone, but please tell me you have a way to fix him. I have the powder that did this in the car. Just give me a sec.”
“Fix who?” Nick asked. “You’re not talking about me, are you? Because I feel fantastic.”
“I’m sure you do.”
After taking the bag out, he handed it to Sara, whose eyes flashed with recognition as soon as she saw it.
“When he had his serious moment,” she asked, “did he seem more drunk than drugged?”
“Yes. That was exactly it. He had the whole ‘tortured soul’ thing going. I thought he might have crashed, but then he pepped up again as if nothing happened.”
“Tortured soul?” Nick asked, frowning at Monroe.”I didn’t sound like that. Wait. What are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you later, okay?”
“Hey, this is really out in the woods. Could we go for a run?”
No man’s mouth should be allowed to look so devilishly sexy when they grinned. And Nick didn’t even know that a run in the woods was the Blutbad equivalent of dinner and a movie.
“Not now, Nick. We need to talk to Sara first.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Why don’t we sit down on the porch?” Sara asked.
“That would be great,” Monroe said. “Thank you.”
It was a lovely porch, the same type that Monroe had at home, only without the trees for concealment and actually set up with comfortable rocking chairs that faced the tree-lined street. Monroe tried to seat Nick in one of them, but he wouldn’t stay down for more than a second, his legs fidgety and aching to move. He preferred to pace around the porch instead, gawking at the flowers hanging beside the windows. Monroe gave up and sank into a chair, but he couldn’t get comfortable with the stress of watching Nick tensing his spine, so he leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs.
“Normally,” Sara said, “I’d be offering you drinks now, but I’ll put it off for now since I figure you would want to know what this is first.”
“How horrible is it? It’s not poisonous, right? I mean, other than turning people into babbling madmen.”
“No, it’s not poisonous.”
Thank God.
“It’s not addictive, either, so you don’t have to worry about him hunting down this bag and snorting it all. Nor are there any other repercussions except for the crash. That, though, does get pretty ugly.”
“That doesn’t sound as good. How ugly are we talking about?”
“Basically, it’s the worst hangover you’ve ever had.”
Oh, yay. Why did Nick have to sneeze at the worst possible time?
“Expect him,” Sara continued, “to be curled up in bed all day tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? It’s not going to die down today?”
“Well, there’s no telling exactly when it will fade, but since it’s already 2 in the afternoon and he inhaled it about an hour ago, the deadline won’t be any earlier than 10pm. Maybe.”
“Ten? I’m going to have to deal with this craziness until then? Isn’t there anything you can give him to make it go away faster?”
“Faster?” Nick asked. He plopped down on a chair and started rocking maniacally. “No, don’t take it away faster. I don’t want this to ever go away. I feel fantastic. Except for that second before I hugged you in the car. But that was a fluke. Hey, this rocking chair is fun. Why don’t you get a chair like this? This would be right up your alley. Not that I’m saying you have old man tastes. Or you, Sara. Crap, this thing is interfering with my thought processes a bit.”
“A bit?” Monroe asked.
“Okay, a lot, but no more than being drunk. Which is a lot. Okay. But it’s drunk with energy. And I have the day off. It’s not like I need to write up paper work or hunt down a Spinnetod. It’s like a mental vacation.”
If you were utilizing the word “mental” in the British sense of “total batshit insane”.
“Oh, you were saying something, weren’t you?” Nick asked, frowning between Monroe and Sara, who was squeezing her lips together to suppress laughter as if this were all somehow hilarious. Alright, maybe it was to an outsider who didn’t have to suffer through Nick’s repetitious ramblings for the next eight hours.
“Sorry for interrupting,” Nick said. “Carry on. I mean, you don’t need my permission to carry on. I don’t mean to sound like a judge instructing the counsel to-“
“We get it,” Monroe cut him off before he could say “mean” one more time.
“Well,” Sara said, smiling at Nick with all the patience of Mother Theresa. “The good news for you,” she turned toward Monroe, her smile slipping into chagrined apology, “and the bad news for you is that there isn’t anything that can quicken the process. Just like any other drug, it needs to work its way out of Nick’s system on its own.”
Oh God no. Monroe slumped into the chair, rocking back a full foot, awash in misery. He resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands and weep, although not doing so meant that he had to suffer watching Nick jerking back and forth on that damn rocking chair like a demented bunny. Nick was lucky Monroe loved him so much, because else Monroe might be inclined to throw all his hard-earned Wieder training off a cliff and maul him to death.
“Can we go for a run now?” Nick asked.
“This is private property, Nick,” Monroe said, shutting his eyes when he started getting dizzy.
“Oh. Forest Park, then? Or Mt. Hood? We’re close to Mt. Hood, aren’t we? Come on, my legs need to move.”
The chair smacked against the porch railing as Nick jumped to his feet.
“Sorry,” he said, chagrined, stabilizing the chair with a shaky hand before rushing down the stairs and pacing around the front yard.
Sara leaned in close to Monroe, speaking in a low voice so Nick wouldn’t hear.
“I’m not necessarily advocating the forest run,” she said. “But he does need to burn off some of that energy.”
Of course he did.
Monroe was so screwed.
°°°°°
AN: I noticed that Rosalee could have easily taken the place of my OC, but I wrote this before Rosalee first appeared on the show, so, oh well.
Part 2
Fandom: Grimm
Rating: R (overall)
Pairing: Nick/Monroe
Summary: While on a case, Nick accidentally inhales a Wesen drug, leaving Monroe to deal with the wacky consequences and some rather unexpected advances.
Word Count: This part 4,513, total 11,316
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
Ah. The refreshing scent of Guatemalan roast brewing in the pot. Monroe didn’t usually drink a second cup of coffee mid-morning, but Nick had kept him up until 2:30am last night translating and helping him seek a mysterious bracelet hidden somewhere in his museum vault of a trailer. That place was incredible. They would have found the recalcitrant piece of jewelry sooner if there weren’t so many awesome things overflowing everywhere. Literally everywhere. Every little cranny was filled with some or other wondrous object that urged Monroe to break off his search and scrutinize each fascinating detail while regaling Nick with back-story and other important minutiae. Not that Nick appreciated Monroe’s freely given wisdom. Every time Monroe looked up, either Nick’s eyes were glazed over or he was flat out not looking at Monroe at all, his face buried in drawers and dusty corners. Granted, Nick had recruited him to find a bracelet, not explain the history of Western Europe, and he was tired, probably eager to get to bed, just like Monroe, and if it weren’t for all of Monroe’s tangents, they would have finished much earlier. He just couldn’t help himself sometimes.
His phone buzzing interrupted his excited reminiscing. Unknown number. Huh. Maybe it was a gig.
“Monroe,” he answered.
“This is Renard.”
Monroe’s pleasant buzz froze up, shrieked, and dove three feet into the ground. He set down his coffee on the kitchen counter, spine automatically jerking to attention. He’d only met Nick’s boss and discovered that he was Portland’s king a few weeks ago. Portland had a king. Who knew? He’d heard the rumors and a few more than rumors, but royalty had become a bit passé since the last century. Many were little more than mob bosses now. Not that that this didn’t make them worthy of the utmost consideration. Any of them could have Monroe murdered just for looking at them funny or not paying them the proper respect, like King Renard here, which is why he winced more than a little every time Nick referred to him simply as “the captain”. Even after he told Nick what Renard was, Nick still refused to call him anything royalty-related, saying that it felt silly to do so and that, technically, Renard was not his king, so he wasn’t obligated to do anything of the sort and would Monroe please stop cringing. I already checked your house for bugs. My boss is not spying on you.
Monroe didn’t buy it. Not for a second.
“Your Highness,” he replied to the captain. King Renard! Ah, hell, he’d been the captain or simply Renard in his mind for so long now thanks to oblivious Nick. Fuck it. As long as he didn’t slip in His Majesty’s face it wasn’t too atrocious, though of course, he couldn’t call him “Your Highness” in front of humans. That would create confusion and infuriate the king, and, although so far, Renard appeared to be a benevolent king, relatively speaking (he actually supported Nick in his Grimmhood, check that out), he was still very, very intimidating. Best not piss him off, ey?
“What can I do for you?” Monroe continued.
“Nick got into a bit of trouble with his latest case. I’m sure you’re aware of it. He’s not injured, but he was drugged by this powder on the scene. I need you to you pick him up and take care of him.”
“Drugged how, sir?”
Suddenly, Nick’s muffled voice popped up in the background.
“Hey, is that Monroe? Monroe!” Nick crooned into the phone. “You should be here. This room is awesome. It’s so... so… Glittery.”
Glittery?
“Nick, please sit back on the chair,” Renard said. “Detective, sit.” To Monroe, he said, “He’s high, as you probably noticed by now.”
“Yes, sir.” Oh, Nick, what fresh hell did you get into now? “I’ll leave right away, sir.”
As soon as he arrived at the residential area Renard sent him to, he called him so Renard could meet him outside. Renard emerged a few moments later, Nick held firmly under his arm while he escorted him to Monroe’s car, which was parked half a block south of the house that constituted the crime scene (murder within the family, very tragic), per Renard’s instructions. The knot in Monroe’s stomach tightened as he watched them walk toward him, for Nick kept trying to wriggle out from under Renard’s arm. He tried an odd sidestep, then crouched down reminiscent of John Cleese’s silly walks, leaving Renard’s arm hanging in midair for a second before the man yanked Nick back up with both hands, gripping him tightly even when Nick saw Monroe, his smile widening with childish glee.
“Monroe!” he cried so loudly that the whole street probably wondered what the hell was that bleating.
“Detective,” Renard hissed at him. “Keep it down.”
“But look, captain. It’s Monroe. He never visits me at work.”
When they were a few feet away, Renard let him go and Nick practically flew into Monroe’s arms, encasing him in a giant hug that blew the breath out of him, for Nick seemed determined to fuse their bodies together until they became a single, monstrous creature.
“It’s so good to see you,” Nick said, crooning as if he hadn’t seen Monroe in half a century.
“It’s good to see you, too,” Monroe said, reaching behind him to remove Nick’s death grip from his back. If it weren’t for his superior strength, he wasn’t sure he would have managed it.
“He’s been like that for the last forty minutes,” Renard said once Monroe managed to loosen Nick’s hold on him, though his friend insisted on leaning against him as if Monroe were a warm cushion. Not that Monroe minded that much now that he had renewed access to oxygen. Nick felt quite good against him. Very good, in fact. It was so rare to get to feel this much of Nick at once. Usually he just got Nick’s hand on his shoulder or arm, maybe a little more body contact to push each other out of harm’s way in the midst of a particularly violent case, but what fun was that? It wasn’t anything like the way that Nick was reclining against his chest now, body comfortably limp, his face resting just beneath Monroe’s neck, his soft hair brushing Monroe’s chin so pleasantly. Truth be told, if Renard weren’t right freaking there shaking his head at Nick’s over-enthusiastic display, Monroe might have let Nick indulge for an extra second or two.
But he was, damn it all, and Monroe couldn’t risk giving himself away, although, if Renard did in fact bug his house or his car or both, he probably knew already. And surely the king wouldn’t object? Would he? Why would he object? His and Nick’s lives were none of his business, not that royalty ever cared to stay out of their subjects private affairs, although this was a very informal kingdom Renard had set up.
“Have I ever told you,” Nick mumbled into Monroe’s shirt, “that you are like a giant teddy bear?”
“Okay,” Monroe said, unwrapping Nick’s arms from around him. “Time to get off.”
He straightened out Nick, taking a step way back, but as soon as he let go, his friend dove toward him again, so Monroe grabbed his wrists and held them fixed in front of him, his own arms fully extended.
“Which is weird,” Nick continued. Why was he still talking? “Because you’re a wolf, not a bear. You’re a teddy wolf.”
He giggled at his own horrible joke, his head dropping forward, shoulders shaking with laughter. Monroe glanced at Renard, who was watching them with an amused expression that made Monroe want to duck his head, crawl into a tiny burrow, and die of embarrassment.
“Please tell me there’s a way to fix this,” Monroe said. “Um, sir.”
“I’ve called a friend of mine,” Renard said, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket. “Her name is Sara Vigoreaux. She will know how to rectify this situation. This is her address.”
He handed the paper to Monroe, who, unfortunately, had to release one of Nick’s hands to take it. Nick, of course, took advantage of this by rushing toward Monroe again and reclaiming his chest as a pillow. Why did he keep doing that? Monroe couldn’t be that comfortable.
“I also have the powder Burkhardt inhaled,” Renard continued, giving Monroe a quarter size Ziploc bag of blue-black powder. It was double bagged, the interior bag rolled up as if to ensure that the contents wouldn’t be spilled accidentally. Monroe held it gingerly in his hand, hoping for Nick’s sake that it wasn’t toxic beyond the obvious loopy effects.
“Be careful with that,” Renard said. “Apparently, it was lying open on a shelf and Nick sneezed while standing too close to it, getting some of it up his nose.”
Nick got this bad just from that little? What sort of evil drug was this?
“Call me when you know what this thing is,” Renard continued.
“Yes, sir.”
Renard returned to the crime scene, leaving Monroe with the task of stuffing Nick into the car all by himself, but Monroe felt weird about asking His Majesty to help out. However, getting Nick into the car turned out to be easy. As soon as Monroe opened the passenger door, Nick dove inside like an excited child rushing into his favorite ride at the amusement park.
“I love this car!” he practically shouted, opening the glove compartment. Monroe closed it, only for Nick to open it up again and start taking things out.
“Nick, would you please leave those in there?” Monroe asked, trying to pry his car license and insurance card out of Nick’s hands.
“But it’s your stuff. I like your stuff. Hey, it’s a map of the US.” He dropped the documents to grab the map. Monroe snatched them up and slipped them into his pocket. “I only have maps of Oregon and Washington State in my car. But we could drive across the whole country with this one. Yeah, I know. It’s a little crazy. But let’s do crazy. Crazy can be good sometimes. Crazy is how I met you while looking for little red riding hood. Now that is crazy. I got to be the huntsman. Isn’t that cool?”
“Uh huh. You can hold on to that map there. Just let me put your seatbelt on ‘cause I know you’re not going to do it.”
Monroe felt like he was coddling a child as he pushed Nick back on his seat to slip the seatbelt across his chest, tugging his arms out of the way in the process. This friend of Renard’s better have a solution for this, for if Nick was stuck in this ludicrous state forever or if the powder was poisonous…
Monroe’s chest clenched, a sudden fist clutching every muscle in his torso, stealing his breath. Best not think in those terms. Vigoreaux was going to fix Nick. She had to. If she was friends with Renard, she had to be the best, right?
Nick kept rambling as Monroe looked up her address on his iPhone.
“And I met the Pied Piper. Well, he’s not a piper. He’s a violinist and he doesn’t wear pied clothing. Yes, I did look up the definition of ‘pied’ all by myself. I do actually do some of my own research.”
“That’s great. Good job.”
Vigoreaux lived across town. Not so great. As he pulled into the street, Monroe prayed that whatever has messed up Nick wasn’t time sensitive.
“That was sarcastic, wasn’t it? I can do some things on my own, you know? And I started learning German. Had I told you that? I don’t know if I’d told you that.”
“Yes, you did. Last week.”
“Oh, I did. Awesome. That doesn’t mean I’m going to fire you from your translating duties. This language is so complicated. It’s unbelievable. So I’m still going to need you to do that You know how much I appreciate that, right? You are the most wonderful friend in the whole world. I really don’t know why you put up with me sometimes. I’ve put you in danger so many times. I almost got you killed.”
Halfway through that ramble, Nick’s tone had started to wilt. The map book clattered to the floor as Nick slumped into his seat, dropping his head on the headrest, former bliss fading into sadness on his face.
“But I’m okay,” Monroe said, quick to reassure Nick with a comforting smile. “I wouldn’t take any of it back, Nick. I helped you out of my own free will. It’s not like you held a gun to my head. Well, that first time with the missing girl you kinda did. I mean, I didn’t know what you would do to me if I said ‘no’. And you kept barging into my house. But we’re friends now!” Monroe added, his voice lightening to an almost manic level when Nick covered his face with his hands, shoulders slopping forward. “I wouldn’t let you not let me help even if you tried.” That sentence could have gone better. “Consider now, for example. You enter a Wesen’s house without me for backup and look what happens to you.”
“You know I love you, right?”
Monroe’s foot jerked down on the accelerator, bumping his speed up by eight miles per hour before his brain quit short-circuiting long enough for him to release it. His hands, however, appeared to have fused to the wheel.
“What?” Monroe asked, his voice sounding like a strangled chicken.
“I love you, man,” Nick hugged Monroe, burying his face into Monroe’s shoulder. “You are the best friend anyone could ever have.”
Oh. That kind of love. Right. Not that Monroe had been hoping for any love other than… that..
“Thanks,” Monroe said, beating down the painful lump that had heart had squelched into. He steered with his left hand, using his right to pat Nick on the head. “I love you, too, buddy.”
And that was the last time he would probably ever speak those words to Nick, who was too befuddled to understand what Monroe truly meant by them.
“Um,” Monroe said after a while during which Nick had yet to let go. “Nick? Could you get back in your seat, please? Well, you are in your seat, but could you also not be trying to get into mine? It’s a little tricky to drive with you glued to my side.”
“But you’re so comfy.”
Okay. Monroe wasn’t certain what to make of that.
“I’ve also almost hit you with my elbow twice shifting gears. Your head is in the way of my arm.”
Nick just snuggled closer, the little imp.
“Nick, I’m sorry, but you really have to move. Maneuvering is kind of an important element of driving, in case the drug fried your driving skills from your brain. Not that you should be doing any driving at present or even be thinking about it in case you get any ideas. How about you just slide back into your seat, huh?”
Monroe reached up to pat Nick’s head, but wound up smacking him with his elbow when a jackass in front of him decided that breaking at the last minute to make a turn, without even announcing his intention to make said turn, was a good idea, forcing Monroe to shift into neutral.
“Ow!” Nick exclaimed.
“Sorry! But I did warn you just now.”
“Alright, I’ll move,” Nick grumbled, unwrapping himself from Monroe, which didn’t prove to be as welcome as Monroe expected, for his side now felt cold and bereft and strangely lonely.
“Where are we going?” Nick asked, grabbing the map book again. “Boston? San Francisco? Death Valley? Ooh, I hear that a museum in Chicago has a skeleton of a T-Rex named Sue. Wouldn’t it be cool to climb on top of it and roar from T-Rex’s head?”
Oh, crap. Nick was giddy again.
“They’d cart you off to jail before you got as far as its knees,” Monroe said, cringing in horror at the very notion of desecrating such a valuable paleontological treasure. “Which would be terribly embarrassing. You’re a cop. You can’t get arrested. None of your coworkers would ever let you live it down.”
“Alright, I won’t try to climb it,” Nick said, surly. My God, he really did sound exactly like a seven year old child. What kind of evil drug was this?
“So where are we going? Are we going to your house? Because there is some really fun stuff we could do at your house.”
Like what? Well, Monroe always found fun stuff to do, but Nick seemed to have different opinions about stamp collecting and being hunched over a telescope waiting for the right star to show up.
“Or we could go to the woods,” Nick continued. “I haven’t been to the woods with you since that one time with Holly. Now that would be something.”
What the hell was Nick going on about? However, as much as Monroe wanted to know, he knew better than to ask.
“We’re going to visit someone who will make you feel better.”
“But I feel great. I haven’t felt this good since… Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this. Have I ever felt like this? No, I don’t think so. Is it me or am I talking really fast? I am talking really fast. Have you ever heard me talking this fast? I should have tried this sooner. This is fun.”
This exasperating insanity continued for the remaining twenty minutes it took to drive to Vigoreaux’s house. By the time Monroe finally pulled up into her driveway, the dormant desire to run wild and destroy was pushing at the forefront of his consciousness. The house’s location didn’t help. They were out in the sticks where the houses were far apart from each other and bordered by woodland at the rear, woods that would be filled with deer and hares, all yummy and squishy and so very easy to rip into and-
Stop!
No no no, he could not be having thoughts like this. He had been reformed for eight years and had not given in to temptation save for that one time with Angelina, and he was not going to relapse again just because he wanted to murder the man he loved for being an insufferable twit for the last half hour. Stepping outside of the car to escape Nick’s blathering, he sucked in a deep, cleaning breath. When that didn’t help, he tried another.
And another.
By the time he finally managed to re-bury his homicidal tendencies, Vigoreaux had noticed their arrival and went up to the car to greet them. She looked to be in her early thirties, had dark, brown hair hanging down to her waist around her shoulders, and wore a green long-sleeved shirt with a curling flower pattern at the bottom that wouldn’t be amiss for a night out.
“Hello,” she said, smiling, tone pleasant. “Monroe, I take it?”
“Yes,” Monroe said, rushing to the other side of the car to control Nick, who had just discovered the locking mechanism and was scurrying out of it as quickly as a cat.
“Hi,” Nick said, grinning at Vigoreaux and holding out his hand. “I’m Nick. It’s super nice to meet you.”
Vigoreaux took this exuberance in stride and shook Nick’s hand, which shook on for far too long in a cheap imitation of a comedy routine.
“Hi,” she said, allowing this abuse. “I’m Sara.”
She pronounced her name with a Spanish language stress.
“Was he this cheery on the ride over?” she asked Monroe, who almost broke down into hysterical laughter at the mention of that nightmarish drive.
“You have no idea,” Monroe said. “This looks mild by comparison. Though he did get serious for a moment. That was weird. Nick, you can let go of her hand now. You can’t take it home with you.”
Did that come out weird? It sounded weird. Well, he was having a trying day. That excused him, right, even if he had just met Vigoreaux-Sara-who didn’t know him or his quirks? At least Nick finally let go of Sara’s hand, a sheepish smile on his face.
“Sorry,” he said, ducking his head for a second. Dear God, that was adorable. Oh, no. Nick was not going to soften him up by being adorable. Stop thinking about how adorable Nick is!
“No worries,” Sara said, holding her hand out to Monroe. “I know we’re already acquainted with each other’s names, but…”
“We’re still missing the handshake,” Monroe said, taking her hand for the polite amount of time while Nick bounced on his toes beside him. “I don’t usually beg so soon after meeting someone, but please tell me you have a way to fix him. I have the powder that did this in the car. Just give me a sec.”
“Fix who?” Nick asked. “You’re not talking about me, are you? Because I feel fantastic.”
“I’m sure you do.”
After taking the bag out, he handed it to Sara, whose eyes flashed with recognition as soon as she saw it.
“When he had his serious moment,” she asked, “did he seem more drunk than drugged?”
“Yes. That was exactly it. He had the whole ‘tortured soul’ thing going. I thought he might have crashed, but then he pepped up again as if nothing happened.”
“Tortured soul?” Nick asked, frowning at Monroe.”I didn’t sound like that. Wait. What are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you later, okay?”
“Hey, this is really out in the woods. Could we go for a run?”
No man’s mouth should be allowed to look so devilishly sexy when they grinned. And Nick didn’t even know that a run in the woods was the Blutbad equivalent of dinner and a movie.
“Not now, Nick. We need to talk to Sara first.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Why don’t we sit down on the porch?” Sara asked.
“That would be great,” Monroe said. “Thank you.”
It was a lovely porch, the same type that Monroe had at home, only without the trees for concealment and actually set up with comfortable rocking chairs that faced the tree-lined street. Monroe tried to seat Nick in one of them, but he wouldn’t stay down for more than a second, his legs fidgety and aching to move. He preferred to pace around the porch instead, gawking at the flowers hanging beside the windows. Monroe gave up and sank into a chair, but he couldn’t get comfortable with the stress of watching Nick tensing his spine, so he leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs.
“Normally,” Sara said, “I’d be offering you drinks now, but I’ll put it off for now since I figure you would want to know what this is first.”
“How horrible is it? It’s not poisonous, right? I mean, other than turning people into babbling madmen.”
“No, it’s not poisonous.”
Thank God.
“It’s not addictive, either, so you don’t have to worry about him hunting down this bag and snorting it all. Nor are there any other repercussions except for the crash. That, though, does get pretty ugly.”
“That doesn’t sound as good. How ugly are we talking about?”
“Basically, it’s the worst hangover you’ve ever had.”
Oh, yay. Why did Nick have to sneeze at the worst possible time?
“Expect him,” Sara continued, “to be curled up in bed all day tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? It’s not going to die down today?”
“Well, there’s no telling exactly when it will fade, but since it’s already 2 in the afternoon and he inhaled it about an hour ago, the deadline won’t be any earlier than 10pm. Maybe.”
“Ten? I’m going to have to deal with this craziness until then? Isn’t there anything you can give him to make it go away faster?”
“Faster?” Nick asked. He plopped down on a chair and started rocking maniacally. “No, don’t take it away faster. I don’t want this to ever go away. I feel fantastic. Except for that second before I hugged you in the car. But that was a fluke. Hey, this rocking chair is fun. Why don’t you get a chair like this? This would be right up your alley. Not that I’m saying you have old man tastes. Or you, Sara. Crap, this thing is interfering with my thought processes a bit.”
“A bit?” Monroe asked.
“Okay, a lot, but no more than being drunk. Which is a lot. Okay. But it’s drunk with energy. And I have the day off. It’s not like I need to write up paper work or hunt down a Spinnetod. It’s like a mental vacation.”
If you were utilizing the word “mental” in the British sense of “total batshit insane”.
“Oh, you were saying something, weren’t you?” Nick asked, frowning between Monroe and Sara, who was squeezing her lips together to suppress laughter as if this were all somehow hilarious. Alright, maybe it was to an outsider who didn’t have to suffer through Nick’s repetitious ramblings for the next eight hours.
“Sorry for interrupting,” Nick said. “Carry on. I mean, you don’t need my permission to carry on. I don’t mean to sound like a judge instructing the counsel to-“
“We get it,” Monroe cut him off before he could say “mean” one more time.
“Well,” Sara said, smiling at Nick with all the patience of Mother Theresa. “The good news for you,” she turned toward Monroe, her smile slipping into chagrined apology, “and the bad news for you is that there isn’t anything that can quicken the process. Just like any other drug, it needs to work its way out of Nick’s system on its own.”
Oh God no. Monroe slumped into the chair, rocking back a full foot, awash in misery. He resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands and weep, although not doing so meant that he had to suffer watching Nick jerking back and forth on that damn rocking chair like a demented bunny. Nick was lucky Monroe loved him so much, because else Monroe might be inclined to throw all his hard-earned Wieder training off a cliff and maul him to death.
“Can we go for a run now?” Nick asked.
“This is private property, Nick,” Monroe said, shutting his eyes when he started getting dizzy.
“Oh. Forest Park, then? Or Mt. Hood? We’re close to Mt. Hood, aren’t we? Come on, my legs need to move.”
The chair smacked against the porch railing as Nick jumped to his feet.
“Sorry,” he said, chagrined, stabilizing the chair with a shaky hand before rushing down the stairs and pacing around the front yard.
Sara leaned in close to Monroe, speaking in a low voice so Nick wouldn’t hear.
“I’m not necessarily advocating the forest run,” she said. “But he does need to burn off some of that energy.”
Of course he did.
Monroe was so screwed.
°°°°°
AN: I noticed that Rosalee could have easily taken the place of my OC, but I wrote this before Rosalee first appeared on the show, so, oh well.
Part 2