#ch: winona maki | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

magpiewritingthing · 5 years

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grab a new lifeline / 1

Chapter: 1; they do not shred him

Series: traditionalist wesen, remixed

Overall Summary: Now that Rolan’'s got one foot in the proverbial door, he’s on the slow(, slow, realllly slow) path to forging a friendship -- or at least an acquaintenceship -- with Monroe The Blutbad. Wesen dynamics will be changing, baby!

Not that the Bauerschwein’s ever taken other factors into consideration, ever. Such as: traditional Wesen; his own housemates being their unpredictable selves; a Grimm, who is also a cop; a serial killer; Monroe’s other friends, both present and past.

Oh, and his Purely Hypothetical Crush blowing up into something a little too real. Life’s a shin-kicker like that.

Chapter Summary: Roland comes home from his walk in the woods, and comes to a revelation about his brief (and awkward) encounter with a Blutbad. His housemates are less than impressed. And a body is found.

Warnings: mention of domestic violence and child abuse (in the past) in the latter half of this chapter; mention of murder

Other notes: i am... winging this; also, i also took liberties with the multiple variation of Taureus-Armenta and my latin is like practically nonexistant but lmao :’); also-also, mild innuendo and sex jokes

The breath is still rattling out of him when he gets home, stumbling up the front porch with now-wobbly legs. Angel, while sitting in such a way on the porch rocker that’ll likely give his back grief later, gives him a funny look. Probably because Roland can't keep the goofy-ass smile off his face for a more than three seconds.

“What’s got ya?” Angel asks before Roland has a chance to escape inside and hide in his bedroom.

“Nothin’,” he mumbles at the door, out of reflex. No reason for it, other than the creeping sensation that he should be embarrassed. Because the whole thing’s ridiculous, he knows, but— “No it’s just—” He stumbles, licking his lips and huffing: getting his thoughts clear. “I… met someone.” He jerks his head in the general direction of where they'd met. “In the woods.”

Which he probably shouldn’t’ve said because now Angel’s got that look on his face. “Ohhhhh?” he drawls, left forefinger tucked into the junction between finger and thumb, right forefinger poised. “You mean like—” Right pointer, meet left vacuum; please get to know each other intimately. “‘Cooling off’ with the luckiest—”

Angel doesn’t get much further than that before Roland thumps his shoulder, and even though he laughs, it hurts like Hell because Roland for sure has razors in his knuckles and the hammering force of… mmm, yeah, a hammer. “No, not like that, you asshole!” Roland isn’t laughing, but he is grinning, cheeks and ears pinker at the suggestion. “You’re fuckin’ nasty, A.”

“Virgin.”

“Pervert.”

Angel tuts, wagging his finger in Roland’s face. “Touché, mon frère; you got me there.” They both laugh at that, too: their own little rhyming joke. And, at least in Roland’s eyes, it’s an affirmation of affection, even when they get in each other’s faces. He’s come to cherish it, quietly, and all the other small phrases and actions, because Angel is hardly ever… honest with himself, never full-on affectionate or willing to settle down for a heart-to-heart when things flare up. Like an argument over what would be the best way to approach an interview or questionnaire or no you should totally go for this vs. no i can’t—

“Earth to Roly-Poly!”

“Yeah.” He slaps his friend’s arm out of his face. “Fuck off, man.”

“You fuck off; I’m chillin’.” Then, contrary, “Who’d you meet out there if you weren’t getting’ it oooon?” Complete with awful, cheesy hip movements. Why’re they friends again?

Now Roland is self-conscious. Again. Because what if Angel freaks out over a Blutbad, even if he doesn't know where they live? “It— uh… Blutbad.”

When his friend’s eyebrows drop into a concerned frown (he doesn't ever do outright fear, too wrapped up in preserving his self-image), so does Roland’s stomach. “I mean I’m alive, so it’s not bad—”

“How.” Rising out of the rocker, he looms over Roland by a full head. Grasping the sides of Roland's face, he asks, “How’re you alive, man?” And although this concern is touching (to the point of being embarrassing because jeez, it’s like he’s never been hugged as a child), he can only blurt out, dumbly, “Wieder.”

“… Ah.” The relief settles over Angel’s face, relaxing it into the usual smile (or near enough, the momentary concern still lingering), dimples deepening. He lets go of Roland’s face. “Veggie-friendly wolfman.”

“Yeah. Rabbit-friendly, too. Cutesy sorta…” He shrugs, eyes to the side because Monroe flashes in his head again: Monroe holding the rabbit; Monroe in woge; Monroe in a more comfortable stance; Monroe walking towards him; Monroe walking away. “… thing.”

The smile turns into a cheeky grin, as though knowing. “Is he?”

“Awhh, dude, no—”

“Have you got like, a thing for dudes who can kill you? Is that your thing?”

“Fuckin’… maybe!”

“Awh, baby virgin has a death-wish crush on a veggie wolfman!”

“I do not!”

Before they can argue any more – Roland’s face growing pinker by the second and Angel’s grin growing wide enough to encompass his face – Winona’s car pulls up. It’s just after half-past seven, and only now are Kenna and Winona coming home. One would think a teacher and administrative assistant would be home sooner than that. “You’re late for dinner!” Angel calls, nudging past Roland to go inside.

“Incredible,” Kenna mutters, “the house hasn’t burned down.”

“It’s probably microwave meals, let’s be honest,” Roland joins in.

“Fuck y’all,” is the welcoming indignant noise to all three as the file in the front door and towards the kitchen/dining room.

“Fuck me running a marathon, I’m starving,” Winona says, immediately swinging open the pantry door and squinting at tins upon tins of beans, corn, baby carrots, baby potatoes, and garden peas. “We got anything else?”

“Pizza,” Angel says as he cranks the oven on.

“Fuck’s sake—”

“Couldn’t be assed buying anything else today so we’re gobbling on shit. Again.”

Further half-hearted squabbling over food washes over Roland as he begs silently for Angel not to bring up the topic of Monroe up anytime soon. Or at all. Neither prayer seems at all likely – having lived a year and six months with the other man, Roland knows what to expect by now – but it never harms to at least try. Kenna, for her part, is quiet. Tired from another day of kids and keeping them engaged, he supposes. He’s not asked yet, and can't find a way that doesn't come off as right-out odd, but he hopes the kids like her as much as she enjoys teaching them.

“So, anyway,” Angel starts, and yes Roland knew it was inevitable but he’s rolling his eyes anyway, praying that Angel is only leading into this with that teasing vibe only to swerve onto something completely different— but he doesn’t. Natch. “Didja hear about Roly’s iddy-diddy crush?”

Winona leans back, mock-gasping, “No!” while Kenna leans forward, elbows on the table, asking, “Really? Aww.”

“Yep – on a Blutbad.”

The girls choke; Winona bangs the table and shakes her head while Kenna splutters, “what! what! are you shitting me! what!” At least it’s perked her up a bit; makes her look lively and less likely to fall face-first and full-asleep into her food.

Then Angel has the gall to be placating, and Roland can only muster up so much energy to glare at him. Panache: Angel’s got it in spades. “Now, now, ladies, it’s A-OK – the dude’s Wieder. Veggie reform.”

Both women scoff; Winona slaps the table again, and Kenna mutters, “Fucking Hell, but a Blutbad? Roly, honey… really?” Her eyebrows scrunch together in her confusion, and she only turns her head when Winona excuses herself from the table. “’m tired, g’night, y’all, Blutbad-fuckers and none alike.” A garbled chorus blesses her winddown-to-actual-bedtime way (“G’night babe.” “I'm not even—” “Nighty-night, lamb.”), and she waves as she trudges upstairs to her and Kenna's bedroom, either to read or translate a book.

Dishes are cleaned and dried and put away, and the remaining three perform their own winddown rituals: Kenna scampers up to one half of the attic, having claimed the eastern half of it as her “study” room (the other half belongs to Leopoldo); Roland drags out his sketchbook from his bedside drawer, along with pencils and pens, and sets to doodling on the fold-out couch he’s got squashed in one corner of his boxy bedroom; Angel watches a How It's Made episode, and he almost considers calling the others down, because they all share a casual interest in this sort of thing, but as it is, he's settled down and far too comfy to move.

Angel considers ignoring the knocking at the door, too, even when they call out that it’s the police, and it is rather urgent. Now, not that his friends have much of a clue, but the memory of a blue boy’s (or blue girl’s) knock is ingrained into his memory – father and mother being the reason that they came in the first place, upsetting and scaring the neighbours (and him) with all sorts of noises. It doesn’t bother him at present, not just because he’s done nothing wrong (might’ve… broke a girl’s heart, once or twice or thrice, but he’s always smoothed it out before) (and not recently, anyway), but because he has nothing to fear. He could probably charm the pants off any person if he were actually human, he’s sure.

Still, there’s no need to irritate, so with great reluctance he heaves himself up off the sofa (that’ll probably end up in the basement in five years’ time), and heads towards the door, noting Roland’s hesitant presence at the top of the stairs before he hides behind the wall again. Nothing to think of, as Roland likes being ‘sneaky’ and an eavesdropper, so when Angel opens the door, he’s not expecting much of anything. Probably the only thing that's ‘urgent’ is that there’s been another string of robberies.

“Evenin’, y’all. What can I do you for?” Off the bat, it sounds ridiculous to hear from his own mouth, but he liked the idea of it rolling off of his tongue so easily. Just some chipper dude enjoying the last dregs of the evening before tuckering off to bed to fetch his sleep before the long work day ahead of him.

At least, as chipper as he can be considering the cop in front of him is a Grimm.

Cold blue, then cold darkness, infinite, stretching long like visible neurons and only his face, his real face is staring back and it is like that old Nietzsche saying, isn’t it?

The cop barely reacts, his face only steeling with realisation. Angel’s only vaguely aware of Roland trotting down the stairs (thumpthump, thumpthump, thumpthump) when the cop – Detective Burkhardt – tells him there’s been a suspicious death in the woods. His partner, Detective Griffin, stands a few feet behind him.

“Oh,” is Angel’s empty reply as he slides in to fill the frame of the front door, trying to block Roland from seeing the Grimm at their door, and keep the Grimm from knowing that there’s more than one Wesen living in the house. They’re all of the harmless variety anyway, so even if he weren't a cop, he’d have no business messing with them. Yet the panic doesn’t leave, only intensifying with the gasp and strangled, “Oh, shit.” At least Roland’s trying to keep his shit under wraps, even if he is now visible and motionlessly panicking under the Grimm’s eye.

Burkhardt, for his part, is acting professionally while the two of them freak out. “Have either of you heard or seen anything?” They both answer in the negative. When Griffin asks how long they’ve been home (suspect list suspect list suspect list), Angel says that he was home since four in the afternoon after finishing up some handywork in the inner city. Roland struggles to remember when he came home.

“I think it was a bit before Kenna and Winni, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Angel agrees, “you came back from…” He spares Burkhardt a glance, “From the woods after your walk.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Roland bites his lip, and adds, mouth running a thousand miles a minute, “I took a walk earlier after we’d gone over some job applications.”

“We?” Burkhardt repeats. Behind him, Griffin shifts his stance, glancing at his partner; the tone was perhaps too sharp for just a simple door-to-door inquiry.

Roland squeezes into the frame, gesturing helplessly at his friend. “He helped me because I get stressed out when going through paperwork.”

Both Wesen are now sure they’ve fallen into the trap of over-explaining themselves: methinks the suspect doth protest too much. In any case, Burkhardt isn’t giving anything away.

“Alright, so what time did you leave, Mr…?”

“Uh, Hoffmann.” Pause, glance at Angel. “Roland.” Clears his throat. “Uh, I think it was… was it around four?”

“No, that’s when I came back, dot-on. You and me went over that paperwork and questionnaire stuff and you went and cleared your head about… five? Ish?”

Another quick look at the Grimm; not a thing from him.

“So yeah, and you came back about seven thirty – wow, you were gone long.”

This time, a trickle of interest on both of the detectives’ faces, and Roland panics.

“I was just walking, man,” he protests, shuffling a quarter-inch further into the house, “I didn’t do anything.”

“Was there anyone else you bumped into who looked suspicious?” Griffin asks, his tone more casual than his partner’s.

“No—” Roland shrugs and frowns. “No-one I thought was suspicious.” A sort-of lie: Monroe The Blutbad sticks out, but… he let the rabbit go. He let the frigging rabbit go, and for fuck’s sake the dude’s Wieder. “I just met one guy in the woods.” He tries for joviality: “I think he’s more the rabbit person than a killer, though.” Of course, it falls flat.

Griffin nods slowly, as if deciding that it’s time to call it a night before Burkhardt can ask any more questions, which is just as well because if he asks anything about their other housemates, there’d be chaos: Winona would break down blubbering under the scrutiny of a police officer even when innocent, and Kenna would stonewall them at every turn; Leo and Elham might be more cooperative, wary as they might be (being no better than the girls, really); Charalampos and Sophia would… well, they might be better with the police, but only if it weren’t posed as some sort of challenge, because they were must stubborn (natch, as Taureus-Armentum).

“Alright, if there’s anything else,” Griffin reaches forward with a number on plain card, “call us.”

“Will do,” is Roland's automatic answer.

Once the two detectives leave, the door is locked and the ground floor is double-checked to make sure the windows and back door are also closed and locked; their other friends have their own keys, so they’ll be able to get in without struggle. The looming promise – “There’ll be someone to come and take your statements tomorrow morning.” – leaves a bad taste in Roland’s mouth.

“Who died?”

Kenna hangs back on the stairs, Winona staying on the landing; it’s likely that she barricaded the bedroom if she ever looked out of the window and saw the cop car, or even so much as heard the word police when they first knocked.

“Dunno,” Angel says, and he instantly sounds more like his usual self – less strung-out, more so-laid-back-he's-horizontal. “We didn't ask, and they just said it was a suspicious death.”

“One of ‘em was a Grimm,” Roland blurts out, and Kenna swears while Winona moans lowly and sags against the wall.

“Oh fuck me fucking sideways, then.”

“Babe,” Winona whines, half-hiccuping, half trying to laugh.

“TMI, hon,” Angel says. Again, lightheartedness falls flat, and dies.

The panicked buzz over the ‘suspicious death’ and the new knowledge of a Grimm blankets them as they retire to bed. The promise of someone on the police force coming over tomorrow to take their statements feels more like a threat, something to trip them up and wrangle a confession out of them.

But it’s not the police, or the death of a person yet unknown, that take precedence in Roland's mind once he’s pulled the covers over his body. It’s the woged face of Monroe The Blutbad, and a rabbit in his hands. More than the panicked dread over the next morning that’s threatening to drag his body into a sleepless, restless night, his head is light with stupid, optimistic hope.

Wieder Wieder Wieder Wieder Wieder--

He dreams of teeth. They do not shred him.

#mine #my writing #mw: grimm #wc: 2000 – 3000 #series: traditionalist wesen; remixed #ch: roland hoffmann #ch: angel krastev #ch: winona maki #ch: kenna allaway #sft

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