(parenthetical) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
parenthetical) wrote2011-12-20 05:37 pm
parenthetical) wrote2011-12-20 05:37 pm
[going straight; monroe gen, 1248 words]
Title: Going Straight
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blindmadness
Word Count: 1248
Pairing: Mostly gen, but some mention of past Angelina/Monroe
Rating: PG-13 for some allusions to sex-like pasttimes
Fandom: Grimm
Summary/Notes: Written for this prompt on the Grimm kink meme. Basically, the process of Monroe's reformation to a big not-so-bad wolf.
It's difficult to think of that moment, the spark that began his decision that this wasn't the life he wanted anymore. Maybe there wasn't one -- maybe it was a series of little things. The fact that picking fur out of your teeth really was the most goddamn annoying thing, a quicker road to regret than the worst hangover, definitely not the way to spend a morning. The way he realized that he preferred the smell of coffee over the smell of blood. The slamming horror of finding out that sometimes, on the really bad nights, he would have moments of his memory missing -- hunts so intense he would black out, actually fucking black out and not be able to remember the whole night.
Maybe he's just a better person than the rest of them -- but no, that's not true. (He thinks of Hap, of his big damn heart and his big dumb smile, and he doesn't think it'll ever stop hurting.) He dismisses that idea whenever it so much as brushes his mind. Putting himself on a pedestal, thinking for one second that he's above the rest of the Blutbaden, that would be the end for him. The end is when he doesn't think he has to keep working, every single day of the rest of his miserable life, to be who he wants to be.
No, he thinks that it was a lot of small things, little frustrations, little bits of distaste and morality all snowballing together into one. He had the feelings all at once, and he had the opportunity. And for whatever reason, he had the sheer stupid stubbornness to stick it out, and for whatever reason, it's still hanging around.
He remembers the first time he saw a rabbit and thought that its crooked little fluffy tail was cute before he thought delicious.
He still feels the shift of his molars, the growl beginning as nothing more than a soft rumble deep in his chest, when he sees red, especially on someone young and strong. He can see it too clearly -- himself, teeth bared, face twisted into a snarl so vicious it renders his features completely unrecognizable, holding them down, a knee thrust savagely between their legs, the pounding of their chest and the throbbing of their jugular irresistible.
(He can still see her, the girl he almost mauled, the terror in her eyes -- he doesn't even remember what color they were, just the wide, dark pupil -- and she was just a kid, and he almost couldn't stop, he almost wasn't able to stop.)
It's no wonder he doesn't leave the house that often.
It took him three weeks of the month he spent outside with Angelina to realize that he actually kind of missed the indoors. Grass was all well and good when one was being spontaneous, but it got uncomfortable. Itchy. There was a lot to be said for a roof over your head and indoor heating when the temperatures dropped at night, or for blinds to close when the sun reached the top of the sky. And in a way, he felt more alone in the wilderness with her than he ever could in a room of his things all by himself.
He doesn't tell her this, ever. She knows he's unhappy, or at least mildly discontent (she's never been good at picking up the finer, more subtle emotions; it's always been all or nothing with her), but he never tells her why, the specifics, the feelings he can't quite articulate and doesn't want to try. There's no way she would ever understand, even if she wanted to.
He didn't recognize himself, some days. He would stare in a mirror and see not his unshaven face with wide eyes surrounded by a tangled mass of hair, but the red eyes of the predator, the beast, and he would think about what he'd done, and it seemed impossible. It just didn't seem real that this body, this person he'd been his entire life, that he knew better than anyone else, could do those things. He drank green tea. He listened to classical music. He liked poetry, for fuck's sake (not the pretentious bullshit, mind you; just the kind that sounded good when you read it out loud, softly, to yourself, the kind with words that stuck in your head long after you'd set it aside). Was that him? Or was he this -- this thing, this creature, this --
He doesn't think the word "monster." He doesn't want to attach it to himself, no matter how true it might be.
It took him months to realize why he was falling out of love with Angelina, and it didn't have as much to do with who she was as it did with who he was, and a large part of why he couldn't be with her was because he didn't like the person he was anymore, and he couldn't be the Blutbad that had wanted to run with her and kill with abandon and never be constrained, and it was just as much about falling out of love with himself.
The changes are small at first, subtle. He runs less. He stops killing. He cuts back on meat. He becomes more of a loner. But the questions begin, and so do the taunts (Angelina, furious because it's the only way she knows how to deal with hurt, lashes out at him most strongly, refusing to believe it), and finally he just has to go cold turkey. He isolates himself, he gives up meat, he starts the damn pilates (it seems ridiculous at first, and he almost stops more times than he can count, but he grows to love it), and he makes his way down the dubious path of the straight and narrow.
It's hard. He spends the first year slipping up -- carcasses of animals (never humans, thank god) strewn across his backyard, going through two pounds of meat in a day, letting the color red lure him miles from where he intended to be, a plan of attack fully in his head down to the detail of how he'd clean up the blood. But it slowly becomes habit. And even as he still turns his head longingly into the smell of steak, even as his muscles itch to run, even as he wakes up in the middle of the night breathing heavily and feeling constricted, like his walls are closing in on him until he just wants to howl and damn the cliche of it all, he stops slipping up.
It doesn't get easier. It's never going to be easy. He's going to be working on it until the day he dies.
But it's worth it. It's worth it every night he falls asleep with a full recollection of his day. It's worth finding beauty in creating rather than destroying, ripping, devouring, tearing apart. It's worth feeling cleaner, better. It's worth pretending that he can be normal, that he can stay away from the disputes and the death and the anger that once dominated his life.
Maybe it's just a weird twist of fate that got him where he is today, a streak of stubbornness that won't let him give up. But he clings to it every day -- I've come this far, I can't give up now -- and he keeps working. One day at a time. One day at a time, he'll survive.
Author:
blindmadnessWord Count: 1248
Pairing: Mostly gen, but some mention of past Angelina/Monroe
Rating: PG-13 for some allusions to sex-like pasttimes
Fandom: Grimm
Summary/Notes: Written for this prompt on the Grimm kink meme. Basically, the process of Monroe's reformation to a big not-so-bad wolf.
It's difficult to think of that moment, the spark that began his decision that this wasn't the life he wanted anymore. Maybe there wasn't one -- maybe it was a series of little things. The fact that picking fur out of your teeth really was the most goddamn annoying thing, a quicker road to regret than the worst hangover, definitely not the way to spend a morning. The way he realized that he preferred the smell of coffee over the smell of blood. The slamming horror of finding out that sometimes, on the really bad nights, he would have moments of his memory missing -- hunts so intense he would black out, actually fucking black out and not be able to remember the whole night.
Maybe he's just a better person than the rest of them -- but no, that's not true. (He thinks of Hap, of his big damn heart and his big dumb smile, and he doesn't think it'll ever stop hurting.) He dismisses that idea whenever it so much as brushes his mind. Putting himself on a pedestal, thinking for one second that he's above the rest of the Blutbaden, that would be the end for him. The end is when he doesn't think he has to keep working, every single day of the rest of his miserable life, to be who he wants to be.
No, he thinks that it was a lot of small things, little frustrations, little bits of distaste and morality all snowballing together into one. He had the feelings all at once, and he had the opportunity. And for whatever reason, he had the sheer stupid stubbornness to stick it out, and for whatever reason, it's still hanging around.
He remembers the first time he saw a rabbit and thought that its crooked little fluffy tail was cute before he thought delicious.
He still feels the shift of his molars, the growl beginning as nothing more than a soft rumble deep in his chest, when he sees red, especially on someone young and strong. He can see it too clearly -- himself, teeth bared, face twisted into a snarl so vicious it renders his features completely unrecognizable, holding them down, a knee thrust savagely between their legs, the pounding of their chest and the throbbing of their jugular irresistible.
(He can still see her, the girl he almost mauled, the terror in her eyes -- he doesn't even remember what color they were, just the wide, dark pupil -- and she was just a kid, and he almost couldn't stop, he almost wasn't able to stop.)
It's no wonder he doesn't leave the house that often.
It took him three weeks of the month he spent outside with Angelina to realize that he actually kind of missed the indoors. Grass was all well and good when one was being spontaneous, but it got uncomfortable. Itchy. There was a lot to be said for a roof over your head and indoor heating when the temperatures dropped at night, or for blinds to close when the sun reached the top of the sky. And in a way, he felt more alone in the wilderness with her than he ever could in a room of his things all by himself.
He doesn't tell her this, ever. She knows he's unhappy, or at least mildly discontent (she's never been good at picking up the finer, more subtle emotions; it's always been all or nothing with her), but he never tells her why, the specifics, the feelings he can't quite articulate and doesn't want to try. There's no way she would ever understand, even if she wanted to.
He didn't recognize himself, some days. He would stare in a mirror and see not his unshaven face with wide eyes surrounded by a tangled mass of hair, but the red eyes of the predator, the beast, and he would think about what he'd done, and it seemed impossible. It just didn't seem real that this body, this person he'd been his entire life, that he knew better than anyone else, could do those things. He drank green tea. He listened to classical music. He liked poetry, for fuck's sake (not the pretentious bullshit, mind you; just the kind that sounded good when you read it out loud, softly, to yourself, the kind with words that stuck in your head long after you'd set it aside). Was that him? Or was he this -- this thing, this creature, this --
He doesn't think the word "monster." He doesn't want to attach it to himself, no matter how true it might be.
It took him months to realize why he was falling out of love with Angelina, and it didn't have as much to do with who she was as it did with who he was, and a large part of why he couldn't be with her was because he didn't like the person he was anymore, and he couldn't be the Blutbad that had wanted to run with her and kill with abandon and never be constrained, and it was just as much about falling out of love with himself.
The changes are small at first, subtle. He runs less. He stops killing. He cuts back on meat. He becomes more of a loner. But the questions begin, and so do the taunts (Angelina, furious because it's the only way she knows how to deal with hurt, lashes out at him most strongly, refusing to believe it), and finally he just has to go cold turkey. He isolates himself, he gives up meat, he starts the damn pilates (it seems ridiculous at first, and he almost stops more times than he can count, but he grows to love it), and he makes his way down the dubious path of the straight and narrow.
It's hard. He spends the first year slipping up -- carcasses of animals (never humans, thank god) strewn across his backyard, going through two pounds of meat in a day, letting the color red lure him miles from where he intended to be, a plan of attack fully in his head down to the detail of how he'd clean up the blood. But it slowly becomes habit. And even as he still turns his head longingly into the smell of steak, even as his muscles itch to run, even as he wakes up in the middle of the night breathing heavily and feeling constricted, like his walls are closing in on him until he just wants to howl and damn the cliche of it all, he stops slipping up.
It doesn't get easier. It's never going to be easy. He's going to be working on it until the day he dies.
But it's worth it. It's worth it every night he falls asleep with a full recollection of his day. It's worth finding beauty in creating rather than destroying, ripping, devouring, tearing apart. It's worth feeling cleaner, better. It's worth pretending that he can be normal, that he can stay away from the disputes and the death and the anger that once dominated his life.
Maybe it's just a weird twist of fate that got him where he is today, a streak of stubbornness that won't let him give up. But he clings to it every day -- I've come this far, I can't give up now -- and he keeps working. One day at a time. One day at a time, he'll survive.