It's a Holiday!
Monroe cringed, literally cringed, at the knock on his door that night. He paused in whipping the homemade icing he had in the bowl in his hands, looking towards the front window. Really? Really? It was Easter, for cripe's sake!
"Were you expecting someone?"
Monroe looked to the female Fuchsbau crouched by the fridge, offering up a weak smile to her.
"No. But I know who it is." He looked back away from Rosalee to the icing bowl, and sighed. There was another knock.
"Do you want me to get it?"
"No, it's fine. Could you just..."
"Finish the icing?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah." She took the icing bowl from him.
"All the sugar's added, so you just need to add milk, one teaspoon at a time, until you get two tablespoons. Mixer'll be on medium."
"I know, Monroe," Rosalee replied, the hint of laughter in her voice. "I've made homemade icing before. Your exact recipe."
"Really?"
"It's a good recipe." The doorbell chimed. Monroe almost jumped. "Just go calm your visitor or I think he may resort to knocking the door down," Rosalee continued, smiling condenscendingly at Monroe before flipping the mixer on again.
"It would not surprise me..." Monroe muttered as he took his leave of the kitchen. He wiped his hands on his apron before wrenching the door open, his carefully controlled mask of happiness melting. "What the hell, man? It's a holiday! Why are you working on a holiday? Why are you bothering me on a holiday?"
Nick glanced up, looked back at the black book in his hands, which Monroe had come to dub The Artbook of the Grimms, before abruptly looking back at Monroe.
"You're cooking?"
"Well, I'm not right now. C'mon, man. Can't this wait?" If it was Easter aside, Monroe also had a very interesting girl in his kitchen, baking the dessert that he had planned on baking for her and not the other way around.
"Crime never takes a holiday. What're you making? It smells good." Nick had brushed past him before he could stop him.
"Nick!" he hissed, grinding his teeth together as he shut the door and flipped the lock. "Nick, now is really not a good time."
Nick came to a standstill in the doorway of the kitchen.
"Monroe, I think it looks fine, but I wanted you to concur with..." Rosalee turned, trailing off when she spotted Nick. "Nick," she smiled, looking at Monroe with a look of slight confusion.
"I did not invite him," he replied, holding his hands up. "He'll be leaving... now," he added, throwing a glare at Nick. Crash his Easter-dinner date, will he...
"No, it's fine. I was just surprised... Do you guys, you know, do this often...?"
"Do what?" Nick replied, walking into the kitchen and lifting a lid off of a pot on the stove. "Oh, looks good. I could go for this."
Monroe heard the laughter in the Grimm's voice. "No- No, you could not." He took the lid from Nick and set it back on the pot, pivoting around the Grimm to join Rosalee again. "More often than I would like... Oh yeah, that looks great, Rosalee." He grabbed a discarded spoon off the counter and ran it along the edges of the icing bowl. "It's good and light. Fluffy. This'll be great for the cupcakes." He licked the spoon before placing it in his mouth, looking away from Rosalee and back to Nick. "'ell?"
"Well?"
Monroe removed the spoon again, licking his lips. "Well, what do you want?"
"Oh! Right. Well, I ran across this case-"
Monroe noticed Rosalee looking at him. "What?" he muttered, deviating his gaze from the Grimm and to her.
"-and I'm just kind of wondering if it's Wesen involvement-"
"You have icing," she whispered back, touching a spot by her mouth, "here."
Monroe made to wipe it away, but Rosalee's nimble fingers were quicker than his. He felt himself literally freeze up when her fingers wiped away the icing.
"And I just... figured... that you'd know more about it..."
Monroe was suddenly hyperaware of Nick's voice trailing off. Rosalee's fingers dropped, she turned back to the fridge to put the milk away, Monroe felt his face flush, and he turned back to the icing all within five seconds of one another.
"It's definitely Wesen involvement. It sounds like a Tränke..." he muttered, brushing by Rosalee to place the icing in the fridge.
"I'll be right back..." Rosalee stated, in passing, to him. Monroe nodded, watching her walk out of the room. When she was gone...
"What are you doing?" he hissed to Nick, rounding on the Grimm with a sense of irritation that he hadn't felt before around Nick. It was an odd feeling. His instincts were demanding that Nick leave, right now, even moreso than usual. Monroe didn't understand why, but he was getting increasingly more put off with the Grimm right now.
"Congratulations," Nick grinned, squeezing his shoulder briefly as he walked by to pull a beer from the fridge. Monroe might have growled, if he wasn't too busy fishing for a response through the redoubling of warmth on his face.
"What? What? Congratulations for what?"
"You asked her out."
"I asked her here; I didn't ask you here!" he hissed back in an abashed whisper, busying himself with checking on the scalloped corn and potatoes au gratin. "Anyway, it's not so romantic when there's a Grimm looming over us."
"That's harsh. You know I wouldn't do anything."
"I do. I don't think she does."
"I would say I'd win her over," Nick mused slowly, "but seeing as how that's what you're trying to do..." he trailed off, grinning again. Monroe didn't know if he wanted to just walk away or face the Grimm. He had two conflicting emotions, and the one on the winning side was embarrassment.
Instead, he huffed quietly and spun the large, empty bowl on the countertop towards him, drying it out briskly. He went to the fridge and grabbed a container of Cool-Whip, breaking the seal and popping the top. He spooned it out into the bowl.
"Well, considering how you're ignoring me now," Nick said slyly, "I'll be on my way. Enjoy your dinner date." He laughed before walking out of the kitchen. Monroe would just have to trust him to actually find his way to the front door because he was currently measuring out two and a half cups of shredded coconut and it was not going so well.
"Oh!" Nick called, in another room. "Hoppy Easter!"
Monroe groaned, adding the coconut and brushing his hands off. "Happy Easter to you too, Nick!"
"Bye, Nick!" Rosalee called as she walked back into the kitchen.
"Bye, Rosalee! Have fun with Monroe!"
"We will!" Monroe cut in quickly. He and Rosalee both paused to listen for the closing of the door and the start of an engine. They only moved after they had heard both. "I am so sorry about that," Monroe added, opening the cans of fruit cocktail, pineapple, and mandarin oranges, respectively. "He does that a lot." He drained and added the fruit into the bowl with the whipped cream.
"You two are... very close, aren't you?"
"I wouldn't say that. We really don't know much about each other. I'm just more of a..." he paused, "consultant for Nick."
"I think you're friends," Rosalee replied. Monroe glanced back at her slightly. She smiled.
The sad thing was that it felt wrong to deny it.
"Yeah... Yeah, maybe. I know that's really stupid- do you like cherries?"
"Maraschino? Of course."
Monroe nodded, adding a jar of drained cherries. "Now I need walnuts, marshmallows-"
"I think it's admirable."
"What?" Monroe looked back at her again, pausing in grabbing his pre-chopped walnuts and the bag of marshmallows.
"You and Nick. You're not afraid to be his friend. That's admirable."
"Um. Okay. I mean, I can sort of see what you mean." He felt embarrassed all over again; this time he really didn't know why. He guessed that it was because he was getting praise from her, of all people. "Not that it hasn't given me trouble."
"Trouble comes with the package, doesn't it?" Rosalee joked as Monroe mixed in the other two ingredients. "You stil need nutmeg and cinnamon."
"Oh! Right, thanks. Wait, how did you know what I was making?"
"Well, it's obviously ambrosia, right?"
"It is... Don't tell me you use this recipe, too?"
Rosalee laughed. "Well, ambrosia's ambrosia, but I won't tell you, anyway."
Monroe smiled to himself as he added the spices. He didn't know how he had ended up here, sharing maybe one of the best Easters with one the most interesting people he'd met in a long time. Wait, yes, he did know. It was Nick. Nick had asked him to come to the shop, to sort through drugs of sorts, and he had met Rosalee that way. So, he had Nick to thank.
He paused in placing the bowl of ambrosia in the fridge. He had to thank Nick...?
... Nah. The Grimm had owed him one, anyway.
Bam! Hoppy Easter! (Yes, Monroe, I said Hoppy Easter!)
This is my Easter oneshot, naturally. And I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. I adore MonRosalee... even though it's only been two episodes. xD
Reviews are encouraged, welcomed, wanted, sought for... I don't know how else to put it. xD Thanks for reading, and please just, you know, review.