A short thing I thought of in the shower. This is just fanfiction, no profit gained, I have no life etc etc etc. Posting this before work in a hurry. As always, if you find a typo or an error and you tell me about it then you get one free fic just for you, whatever you request.
This is an AU, obviously. I think it's pretty easy to figure out what happened before the start of this but I have a habit of over-estimating my clearness.
Warnings: Sort of! Character death, uh….. sort of confusing?
Nick/Monroe- if that's not your ship get off this boat.
No one noticed it; not that he had expected anyone to. It just hung there near the door, next to the first clock Monroe had ever made. Surrounded by the careful ticks of clocks, Monroe worked silently; lived silently. The only noise aside from the ticks and clicks of clocks was the slow movements of music from his cello.
Every few weeks the monk's silence was broken. Monroe would have an evening where no clocks needed repair, no orders needed making, and no activity was appetizing enough to keep his attention. Monroe would have a few beers and, momentarily, be driven to madness by the silence of his home. His stereo the only solution he could bear, Monroe would set the volume a little higher than he liked and pick it up off the rack.
Crouched on his couch, he'd press the soft black material to his cheek and close his eyes. The rough warbles of loose guitars and the bitter, low tones of lyrics would wash over him and he'd inhale sharply, pretending.
Pretending that the jacket still smelled like him, pretending he had just left it here accidentally on a regular day, pretending that Monroe would be able to hand it to him the next day with a snarky comment about the state of his mind.
Pretending that life was like the movies; like Van Helsing or any of the numerous other werewolf movies Nick had had a perverse amusement in making Monroe watch. Pretending that it was as easy as it was in the movies; that a shot or a potion or a few simple words or the kiss of one's true love could fix it and that it was that easy, that simple to stop someone from becoming a monster. The music stuttered, the guitar picking up and crooning out a bitter lusty solo, jerking angrily, loose and rough. The string instrument scratching out those things without words that Monroe pretended for; lived for.
Two and a half thousand miles away a black haired man hesitated to a stop in front of a pawn shop and pressed three fingers against the glass between the bars. The display showed off an antique clock, the wolf motif was a little cheesy, sure, but it still struck the movement in his chest.
Maybe one day, he told himself. Maybe once this was all over he could go back.
He shook his head, a grim smile on his face, and say what? Sorry, I lied; I'm not dead.
There is no coming back from this, no return, no forgiveness. He didn't deserve it and Monroe didn't deserve to suffer anymore.