As usual if this isn't your ship get off my boat, if you find an error you get one free fic! (1,000 words or less, any fandom that I know of). Eh…. Corse language in this chapter. I happen to be someone who cusses a lot so expect that. Also I should probably warn you that there will be mild/moderate levels of Nick/OC sort of. It's hard to explain the OC's purpose without giving away too much of the plot and the one cardinal rule of literature is, to me at least, don't spill the beans.

Also I'd like to thank the two people who reviewed the first chapter:

TV Centric Universe: Another review! How encouraging! What are you trying to do to me? Eventually they will meet. Heh. I will say though that one of my goals with this story is to crush all the joy and make small children and elderly ladies weep. I'm just that evil. Thanks for calling that last chapter awesome even though it wasn't. That one, like the first, was mostly there for my entertainment. I live in St. Louis and absolutely detest Archon so Monroe's love of it is basically the same as mine. Though, of course, I don't know of anyone who would have a great love of a place at which one has been offered a handle of whiskey for a glance at one's tits. Also a lot of that was a giant in-reference to things basically no one who would read this would know about. The whores, the lady whose name might be dude or might start with T, and the midget all happen to be pretty much based off of my friends. What can I say? I'm a narcissist.

ShoelessKayla: Aren't you sassy! You'll know more, that I promise. Whether you'll be satisfied with it or not I do not guarantee.

Chapter Three: Hope: A Common Skin Irritant and Other Grimm Matters


Three thousand shallow cuts and I claw at myself; this hope purls through me like acid on skin; leaving me wrecked with a charnel flesh on fire.

It's Saturday when Monroe sees Nic. Usually when he see's him he knows better- not every dark haired man with a leather jacket is the grim of Portland who once was- but this time the sight is combined with the needle prickling scent of thing-that-can-kill-me.

Nick's eyes flick easily from person to person until Monroe stands. His eyes settle on him. The familiar duel of unease and welcome churns through him as he meets those colorless eyes. The sensation gets stronger and stronger until Monroe flinches sideways. His eyes instinctively fix on a man with mud colored hair and black eyes. The man smiles at him in a way that does more to display his canines than his good will.

A grimm? He's very young; doesn't look much past his mid-twenties.

Monroe tracks the man wearily through the crowded hall, his eyes flicking from the Nick-a-like and back. The two meet and begin to walk away together.

The grimm drapes his arm across the Nick-a-like's shoulder and leans into him.

Monroe feels three thousand shallow cuts like one spark of foolish hope that catche fire in his chest. He asks the woman in the booth next to him to watch his stuff and takes off in the direction Nick (it has to be him, it just does) and that grimm left in.

Numerous times Monroe thinks he smells them, though he gets confused often. Late into Saturday and mostly all he can smell is unwashed bodies and buckets of frustration and sex. With a rising gorge, Monroe returns to his booth and begins to clean up.

He probably just imagined it, anyway. He really hoped he hadn't though.

Of course it wasn't over. Nick should know better. It was never going to be over. Nick rubbed his tired eyes and scanned the crowd again for Warren. A movement stands out in the corner of his eye and he looks over to a booth covered in clocks. A part of his brain feels that uncomfortable tightness he gets around creatures as his eyes zero in on the man who had been obscured by the display of clocks and watches.

Monroe.

Nick stands, paralyzed and in denial. There is no way Monroe is in St. Louis. There is no reason for him to be. Monroe was a man of hard habits and strict life. It would be completely out of character for him to fly halfway across the country. To a convention, no less, where people rushed about in costumes. Nick's mind stutters at the recollection of the Little Red he passed to get to this hall. Why would he be here?

Monroe flinches to the side and looks at someone else. Warren. Nick feels a surge of relief. He smiles at Warren as he approaches and Warren gives him his best sly grin.

Nick has too much to do still to be distracted by thoughts of Monroe.

Warren clasps Nick's shoulders and steers him down the hallway. Nick relaxes into the touch. Something about being near and touching his own kind made him instinctually feel better. Nick wrapped his arm around Warren's waist and let himself relax a little. Soon they'd be up in Nick's hotel room planning what to do next.

If Warren's hand wandered down and hooked his thumb in Nick's waistband he wasn't going to deny the companionship. It was a lonely life being a grimm.