DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO GRIMM OR THE CHARACTERS OF GRIMM. I ONLY OWN MY OWN ORIGINAL CHARACTER AND MY STORY LINE.
(There is not enough RenardxOC fiction, so here is one I hope you enjoy. This will probably get edited again, so this is kind of a rough draft.)
When I had driven to Portland, I had no idea what to expect. I had been traveling around for some time now, just trying to stay out of trouble. It followed me everywhere, despite my tries to avoid it. The monsters were seemingly everywhere one could go, but why was I the only one to see them? The question plagued me.
Parking at my hotel of choice, I stepped from my Subaru WRX and stretched. I had been in the car for the last six hours and it felt amazing to move my stiff body around. The day was warm, beautiful, and I could tell it had rained not long ago. Opening the trunk of my car, I grabbed my Army duffel bag and put the strap over my shoulder. I had found the bag about six months ago at a military surplus store, and it was great.
I stepped into the cool hotel lobby and sighed. Not a bad place. Upon reserving a room, I took the stairs to the fourth floor. They had an elevator, yes, but it was important for me to stay fit. I wasn't even out of breath at the top, and I smiled as I entered the room. It was small but nice, perfect for my needs. I dropped the duffel bag on the bed and sighed. My stomach was growling so I figured that I needed to go and eat somewhere.
Leaving the hotel, I decided to check out Portland on foot. My Nike's were great for walking and for running, in case that was needed. Hitting up a burger joint that looked good, I got my food to go and ate the delicious burger as I explored the town. It really was beautiful.
After finding a garbage can in which to toss my trash, I was about to head back to the hotel when an unmarked police car, followed by a black SUV, pulled up at a house a block or so away. I decided to check it out. Two men, both pretty good looking, stepped from the car, hands on their weapons. A much taller, much better looking man stepped from the Tahoe, and looked around. He was wearing a suit, unlike the other two, and he looked very professional. Regal, even. I walked across the street with the crowd, and moved to the front so I could see.
Two cops entered the house and soon came back out with a man in handcuffs. He was yelling, loudly, and that was when it happened. The angry man's face shifted into some sort of reptilian creature. I gasped, but no one else seemed to notice. The tall man in the suit, another cop I assume, was standing close enough to hear me and his head whirled in my direction. My blue eyes widened and I glanced between him and the man who was still looking like some sort of reptile. The tall man narrowed his eyes at me and then stepped in my direction.
Not knowing what else to do, I pushed my way through the crowd and ran. I heard him tell the other officers that he had it, right before I turned a corner around a building. My feet slapped the pavement, and I figured that wearing tennis shoes gave me the edge. He couldn't possible run that fast in leather dress shoes.
I heard him round the corner behind him so I took the next left. Not knowing Portland well, I had run straight into a dead end. Also unsure if he was a cop or why he was chasing me, I turned on my heel and my fist connected with his face as soon as he rounded the corner. He groaned and bounced back a bit, but it was only mere seconds before he had recovered. The man had a good punch that made me see stars.
My hand slipped the knife that was hidden in my pants and I swiped at him. I managed to slice through his suit and I saw blood leak from the cut on his arm. It was then that his face changed too. So he was a monster too. He got stronger and threw me against the side of whatever brick building that happened to be. My wrist smacked hard and knife dropped from my grasp. He was on me before I could move and his strong body pinned me to the wall. "Stop." He growled, his face shifting back to normal. "I'm not going to hurt you."
He let go and backed away, hand on his gun. I glanced down at it and saw a badge too. Great, now I would be arrested for assaulting an officer. I held my hands up in surrender than used one to wipe blood from my busted bottom lip. "Sorry. But you're a…a…" I didn't really know what to call it.
"Zauderbeist. Half, actually. But I'm also the Captain of the Portland Police Department. Why did you run from me? I was merely going to ask you why you gasped at the sight of the cuffed man. But I have my answer now. You're a Grimm." He was watching me intently, not at all concerned by his bleeding arm and the cut near his eye where my fist had split the skin open.
"A what?" I asked, slowly lowering my hands. We were both still on guard, though.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "A Grimm. You've never heard that term?"
The term was almost completely unfamiliar. I had heard several who had attacked me mutter it, but it met nothing to me. The only Grimm I had ever heard of were the fairytales from my childhood.
"I've heard it a few times, but always from people who were either attacking me or running from me. People like you, I suppose."
His hand left his gun and he stepped around me, picking up the knife. "Sheath?" He asked, holding out his hand. Rather reluctantly, I pulled the sheath from the waistband of my jeans and handed it to him. He slid the knife inside and then put it in his suit pocket. Great, yet another weapon I needed to replace.
"What's a Zauderbeist?" I asked him, curious.
"A male Hexenbiest." He told me. Seeing the blank look on my face, he sighed. "Looks we have a lot to talk about. But first, let's go and get patched up." He turned and started walking away before he realized I wasn't following. "Are you coming?"
"I should be in handcuffs. Everyone saw you chasing me, and if we both go back looking beat up, I should be in handcuffs. I did just try to kill an officer of the law." This was true and he knew it. Taking a pair of cuffs from the back of his belt, he walked toward me. "Can I look at your arm first?" He watched me for a minute, then nodded.
I stepped closer and used my fingers to spread the large slit in his suit coat and both shirts underneath. There was actually a significant amount of blood, but it was slowing. "I'm sorry." I told him, wiping my now slick fingers on my jeans. Then I turned around and he cuffed me.
It was a rather short but annoying walk back to the crime scene and thankfully most of the crowd had dispersed. The Captain walked me toward the two plain clothes cops that had led the reptilian man from the house. Seeing both of us bleeding, the cute one raised a brow. "Well, you definitely had that under control." He told his Captain, smirking slightly at the glare he received.
"The cuffs are just a formality. It appears she's a Grimm, Nick." The Captain said, letting go of my arm.
Nick looked genuinely surprised. "Really? Wow." He then looked to me. "I'm Detective Nick Burkhardt. I'm also a Grimm."
"Would someone please tell me what the heck a Grimm is?" I asked, frustrated at all the unfamiliar terms.
I felt the cuffs being removed. "Come on." The Captain headed toward his SUV and I glanced at Detective Burkhardt.
"You should probably follow him."
"Right." I hurried to follow the tall man and I quickly entered the passenger side of his black SUV. Neither of us said anything as he drove, so it all felt a bit awkward. He eventually pulled in the driveway of quite a nice house. "Um, I thought we were going to get patched up?"
"We are." Apparently he was a man of few words. So, I just followed him inside and sat down at his bar as directed.
He disappeared and returned with a large medical kit. I raised a brow. "You realize they have these places that this stuff for you? They are called hospitals."
The Captain just narrowed his eyes at me. "You already made enough of a scene, so I figured we could patch each other up. Hospitals are for actual injuries."
"Fine." I wasn't sure I liked this guy. No one had talked to me like that since I was a child. "Can you at least tell me your name?"
"Sean Renard. You?"
"Finley Kooper."
Since he clearly had the worse injury, I volunteered to play nurse first. He removed the three layers of clothing that my knife had cut through, and when I turned around it caught me off guard. His chest and torso were pretty much perfect. Definitely the best looking shirtless man I had ever seen. My face warmed and I pulled my gaze quickly away but not before I caught sight of the scars that appeared to be from bullets. Three of them, spread over his torso, white against his cappuccino colored skin. From what she could tell, those bullets should have killed him.
"Have you ever stitched a wound before?" Captain Renard's gaze slid to mine, his greenish eyes burning into my own icy blue ones. It took a second before I could pull my gaze away from his own intense one. There was something about the way he looked at me that made me uncomfortable and I didn't like that feeling in the least.
"I can probably manage. How hard can it be?" I didn't bother telling him that I had been a Paramedic who was also working her way through nursing school. It was none of this man's business and I almost hoped the thought of my lack of training would make him a bit nervous. I had yet to see the stoic man rattled and I couldn't help but wonder what that would look like.
He was still staring at me as I grabbed the suture kit from his medical bag. "Could you stop that, please?" I asked, pretty nicely I thought. He just blinked and then looked away. I disinfected his wound and he winced, every muscle in his arm contracting. He did have nice arms, not that I was noticing such things. I began to stitch the now clean cut, and he sucked in a breath. Even though I wished to appear as if I didn't know what I was doing, I couldn't help but use the skills I had once learned.
When I was done, I put a bandage over it. "Done." I cleaned the cut above his eye and just let it be. It was small enough to not matter. He was watching me again and it made me nervous. Thankfully, his gaze left mine as he slid on another button up shirt that he had brought along with the medical kit, doing up all but the top three buttons.
"Your turn." He stood, his tall frame towering over my smaller one. I stepped back and shook my head. "I'm good, thanks." His large hands settled on my shoulders and he gently forced me to sit on the seat he had just vacated.
His green eyes looked me over and his gaze settled on my bruised wrist. Before I could pull away, my wrist was in his very warm hands. The Captain looked it over, maneuvering it in certain directions to check for a fracture. He decided it was only sprained and wrapped it with an ACE bandage from the med kit. "So the scars. You were shot?" I wanted to talk about something to take my mind off of the feeling of his fingers on my skin.
"I was."
"Considering their placement, you are extremely lucky that you didn't die." I told him, glancing up. He was focused on my wrist and his lips were parted slightly in concentration.
"I did. Stand up." I was confused by his answer so I stood up while trying to figure it out. I was quickly jolted out of my thoughts when his hands began to run along my body. They were firm and his touch, even through my clothes, caused a sensation that I was unfamiliar with. I grabbed his wrists tightly and his movements ceased.
"What are you doing?" My voice held both surprise and annoyance. I wasn't used to being touched, especially by someone that looked like he did.
His gaze met mine. "When I woge, or shift as you probably call it, into a Zauderbiest, my strength increases. I slammed you into that wall pretty hard, so I'm checking to make sure you're okay."
"It feels like an excuse to feel me up." I was kidding, but he apparently didn't take it that way. His hands slid to my hips and he pulled me against him.
"If I were feeling you up, you would know it." The Captain's voice was low and close to my ear. It made me shiver a bit and I saw amusement flash in his eyes when he pulled back. He spun me to face to opposite direction and resumed his ministrations. His nimble fingers prodded a very sore spot on the back of my rib cage and I sucked in a breath and flinched away from his touch. He just responded by lifting my shirt to examine the spot. It was almost reflex to turn and punch him or something, but I kept in check.
Apparently, even though there was bruising, he deemed it to be okay. "We done?" I asked, turning around, my shirt dropping back into place.
"With that, yes. But we have some things to talk about." He steered me toward a large living room and pointed to a couch. "Have a seat." I did as he asked. He seemed like a man that was used to giving orders, and he probably didn't get told no very often. "First things first. I'm half Wesen. Wesen is what I shift into, and what you've seen others shift into. There are many kinds of Wesen, but I will let Nick explain that later." He lowered his tall body into a chair across from me. "A Grimm is someone who can see the Wesen, even when they don't want to be seen. For centuries, Grimm's have killed Wesen."
"But they attack me, not the other way around." I said, confused. I'd never tried to kill anyone who hadn't first attacked me. The first time someone had shifted, I had frozen in terror. That was three years ago in Miami. I was a paramedic and our patient had been stabbed. He was angry and his face had turned into some sort of wolf or something. My partner had to basically slap me to get me to snap out of it.
"Because you look fairly easy to take out. Killing a Grimm is a pretty high honor, and we Wesen prefer to kill rather than be killed." He leaned his head back and rubbed the bruise that was now forming on around the cut above his eye.
"Are you okay, Captain Renard?" I asked, leaning forward. Despite the fact I didn't like him for some reason, I was concerning about his well being.
"Just fine." He straightened and the cool, professional manner had returned. His eyes met mine again but I quickly looked away. I didn't like the feeling he gave me. It was dangerous and new, unlike anything I'd ever felt. "Nick has a trailer full of information about Wesen, so you will definitely need to spend some time with him."
"Hopefully he's more fun." I said with a slight tilt of my head. Not sure why I enjoyed pushing his buttons, but I did.
"Depends on what your definition of fun is."
It had been a long time since I had used that word. Fun was no longer in my vocabulary. Words like survival and fleeing had replaced words like fun and party. I was twenty-six years old and I had been on the move for three years and four months. I hadn't had any of what I used to call fun for a very long time now. I hadn't had a friend or a confidant in so long I had almost forgotten how to interact. "I don't know anymore…" I murmured, not even sure he could hear me.
When I finally looked up, Captain Renard was studying me. This time I held his gaze and allowed myself to feel whatever it was I was feeling.