Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pure hops off their perch and uses their momentum to grasp onto the monster and wedge their nail into its ribs. A hissing shriek escapes the beast as it loses its grip on the tree and sends them both tumbling towards the forest floor. During the free fall, Pure twists them both in midair and uses the crash landing to dig their weapon into the lizard further. A small struggle is given in response, but enough time finds Pure dirty, and the beast dead.

Air now void of any nearby life, Pure lets themselves breathe and calculate the situation more thoroughly. The monster is scale-like in nature, with formidable claws and teeth to match. Appearance wise, it isn’t a new find, but it was weaker and smaller than the last they had faced. Do they spawn faster than Pure had thought? Could more information be found about such a thing? They drag their nail out of their corpse and sigh, already tired just thinking about the new avenue of research they now have to do. Damn beasts.

They kick the beast over and stab up through its jaw to give themselves a handle with which to drag the damn thing to the castle. They hadn’t been back to the castle in nearly two weeks, but that wasn’t too unusual. They had royal hunter duties to attend to. One cannot control as much territory as the king without needing at least a few hands occupied elsewhere.

Pure adjusts the settings on their metal prosthetic arm to handle more robust tasks. It reduces their speed, but it will make things more comfortable in the long run. The now jerky limb takes the flesh sheathed nail, hoists it and the lizard over Pure’s shoulder, and allows Pure to start heading to the castle.

They wished they didn’t have to use such annoying attachments, but Pure supposes this is what they deserve for losing their real arm. Pale King had been most displeased, despite the explanation. A couple moments of reminiscing has Pure wincing at the memory. Stupid. They were property. Pale King’s property. Of course the King would be mad at some egotistical idiot breaking his things. Pure should really know better than that. The vessel nods silently to them self to convince them self of their misbehavior. They should have known better, and they will-

A flash of red and a quick rustle of the nearby leaves has Pure on the defense. They stop moving and carefully listen to their surroundings. They can’t hear or see anyone, but the thought does little to relax them. A few more minutes of dangerous silence passes before Pure feels safe enough to skitter up the nearest tree for safety. It takes a bit and they don’t like such delays, but trusting their senses has yet to fail them and they refuse to start now.

They toss the lizard onto the branch, stick their nail into the trunk of the tree, then take out a knife. Their father- no. The Pale King. Pale King had once lectured them on the importance of tools. Multitasking is important in some ways, but if you get a tool that can do one thing perfectly well, then you should limit its usage to that task and that task alone. No use in using a nail for a dagger’s job.

They start cutting away at the beast’s flesh and take only the most useful parts before kicking the beast to the forest floor below. No use in attracting more company after all. They wait for the sound of something to crash into the leaves below, but no such sound comes. Anxiety starts to creep in. They pack away the meat with salt, then snatch up their nail from where it was stabbed to flee further upwards. More precious minutes pass.

Pure hasn’t slept all day. The previous day had been trying and they hadn’t wanted to risk any sleep, but today brings them no such luxury. Could they afford another all nighter, or would a nap be enough to bring them to the palace. Mind half distracted, they look back to the forest floor below. Another flash of red is seen. They worry more.

Once the next branch is reached, Pure wastes no time in gathering dead leaves and such for a small fire. It won’t give them much, but cooked meat will fare far better than something so raw. They keep their defenses up and cook the meat in such a way as to remove as much water as possible. As it sits, Pure keeps watch over their surroundings. Nothing is happening quickly, but Pure thinks they can hear... whispers? The wispy sounds weren’t noticeable at first, but as they grow in volume, they start to seem closer. Pure usually wouldn’t be scared in such a situation, but they can’t see whatever is making the sound. Blame it on the light of the fire, but outside of their camp, things seem darker then they should be.

Pure doesn’t like it.

Pure cooks up the last of their meat, packs it away, then slashes the fire off the branch they had planned to call camp. As sparks fly, the whispers quickly surround Pure and go from panicked shouts, to a dead silence. It’s eerie. Not for the fear of the effect, but of the silence itself. The kingdom is lush with greenery of all kinds with beasts to rival it. There is almost always something making noise, but now? Nothing.

Pure stands still for as long as it takes for their eyes to adjust, before striking the first thing that moves. A high pitched raspy hiss rewards them for their accuracy.

“It stings!” Pure quickly rears up to strike again, but as their arm pulls back, it’s stopped. A branch? No- a claw!?

“Why does it sting!?” Urgency peaking, they look back to try and pull their arm back, but more arms and claws grab at them with every movement.

“You said it wasn't one for poison!” Pure kicks away the claws on their legs enough to take a step forward, but they feel more resistance on their last surviving arm.

“Some nightmare king you are. Can’t even steal decent information!” Pure does a complicated twist to release their limb at the cost of broken metal. Was that the prosthetic!? No! That can’t break! Not so soon!

“Divine darling, you know it’s harder to find information when the victims don’t sleep.” In a fit of rage, Pure tosses whatever non speaking bug is behind him far enough to slash at the rest of them and take another step forward. Into empty air. Frantic, they reach behind themself to grab whatever item touches the shell of their palm.

“How many times have I- oop!” Desperate to have any leverage whatsoever, Pure pulls the deep voiced man down with them as they start to fall many stories down. They try to secure their grip to use the fall to their advantage, but the broken mechanisms of the prosthetic do little to offer them graceful grip.

“So it does fail.” Pure jerks their head to the source of the noise, vision too altered to see the face of their assailant. “Ha.” Pure makes to utter a confused note, but their question is quickly interrupted by the man who turns them over, grabs their face, then tilts it down to the rocks below.

“May god help you if you survive.”

A sharp crack echoes through the trees.

Chapter Text

Hours later, Pure is still settled on the leaves, unmoving save for a twitch or groan here and there. Grimm feels, a little bad about it maybe, but not too bad to attempt to speed up Pure’s healing process. The vessel meant to kill him for goodness sake. In all honesty Grimm should just finish the damn hunter off and call it a day, but this was one of Wyrm’s vessels, and a good one at that.

Grimm usually wasn’t the most distractible of creatures, but this was just too tempting an opportunity to leave be! Could this vessel tell him of Wyrm’s experiments? Maybe he could learn what was the deal with all the vessels? Wyrm wasn’t a rare god by any means, but they were as private as any other. For too long they had been partaking in strange experiments and even stranger kingly tactics. Grimm himself wasn’t allowed inside the palace walls of course, but still! The information to be had!

“Master.”

How much has this one’s mind and personality been warped to fit into the strange boxes of their majesty’s whims anyway? Were they as well behaved as they looked? Or was there something else lingering on the surface? He wants to know. He so desperately wants to know… but the troupe!

He shouldn’t be prattling on about the mysteries of Wyrm’s life when he had performances to take care of. What kind of troupe master would he be if he just left the members of his troupe to take care of and appease the nightmare heart? Would the heart allow that? Would he be violating some sort of rule? The heart needs to be fed to keep up their strength alongside the presence of dreams and such, and that process takes quite a bit of effort, but Grimm had been experimenting! Just as the sun highlights the power of a dream, maybe the moon could enhance the power of a nightmare?

“Hello? Grimm?”

If he could just finish his experiments with the moon this entire process would be streamlined! The fire shows could be enhanced and they would be able to focus more of their energy into the fine tuning of it all. No more would Grimm have to settle for misunderstandings of his craft, no more would the spirituality sound be forced to only choose one school of learning. Progress could be made. But, he, still can’t figure out the mix of soul and void. Wyrm said he did it. But how? How!
The echoing sound of a slap echoes throughout the forest. Grimm almost stumbles into the grass.

“Grimm!”

“What! What? What was that for!?” Grimm looks over to where his assailant is stood beside them, fully expecting to see the faces of the rest of the troupe. To his surprise, however, his eyes only catch Brumm. “Huh?”

“Sir,” A world weary sigh. “You’ve been standing over the body of this weird thing for far too long. Divine took the rest of the troupe home because it’s getting closer to daytime, but I didn’t want to leave until I got your attention enough to say farewell. It took ages.”

“Seems like that slap only lasted seconds to me-“

“Sir. It’s been three hours. Three. Hours.”

“What? No. I can’t stand still for that lon-” Grimm’s jaw is gently grabbed and jerked upwards to the light of the sky. It isn’t much, but it’s far brighter than the dead of night. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Brumm rubs at his face, mood past irritation, fatigued. “Look, if you really want to spend all day looking at a near dead body, that’s fine, but can you please tell me if you’re going to go home or not first? I need to start making dinner.”

“Then why didn’t you slap me earlier I could have told you then! We can go home. It's fine. I’ve got too much work to do anyway,”

“Then,” Brumm crosses his arms. “Why were you so interested in the vessel?”

“Because my mind was wandering, it’s fine. Was nothing important.”

“Grimm.”

“Really. It was a stupid idea to begin with.”

“So it was an idea?”

“No!” Grimm waves his arms in denial. “Forget I said that. It’s nothing. Let’s go home.”

“Grimm, wait, no.”

“You can make dinner.” Grimm starts packing up his things. “I can do more practice.”

“Just wait a minute.”

“It’ll be a perfect day, like any other day, because that’s the job.” Grimm shoves his water into his pack with more force than he intended. “We do the same thing, every day, all day.”

“...” Brumm removes Grimm’s hand from his bag, then takes it in his own. As he stares into Grimm’s eyes, all he sees is stress and confusion. Brumm smiles. “I was playing Grimm.”

“I know. I know, I’m sorry.” A sigh. “I just. I had a whole plan planned out for this month but then this vessel came and gave me ideas and- I don’t want anymore ideas! I want results. I want something to change. For once.”

”So you’ve said.” Brumm rubs circles on the back of Grimm’s hand. “Was this one all that different from your other ideas?”

“Maybe? A bit? Yeah. It's a lead if anything, but I can’t confirm its effectiveness. I don’t know how Wyrm handles his business and I’ve not had the chance to in a long while. If I could just manage a peek at his papers all of this might get easier for all of us, but…” Grimm looks over at the body on the floor with a look of distraught rage.

“But?” Brumm places a hand on his master’s face, desperately hoping to smooth away the worry.

“But I can’t get in! Their mind, it’s... Blocked? It’s as if there is a big mental gate barring me from the juicy details I’m trying to get at and it’s messing up the whole thing.”

“Sir…” Brumm takes in the words of his master and thinks for a moment. “Maybe you could use a break then? You have been working yourself into tempers as of late.” At this, Grimm immediately bristles and takes a step away from Brumm.

“No! Dear god, Brumm, I’m not dying. And I certainly don’t need a break. I’ve been handling the troupe just fine without partaking in your silly little vacation days and I don’t need to start now.”

“Grimm-”

“Besides! What if you all need me for something? What if something goes wrong? What if there were a certain line of events that could only be changed by my presence and without it you get dragged to your untimely deaths!”

“That’s... What?” Brumm tilts his head, confused at the sudden hysterics

“I’m saying. I can’t just abandon the troupe to go screw around with the latest mystery from Wyrm… I want to. Yes. But I should be past these days of trying to figure out what’s happening in that stupid little kingdom of his.” Grimm relaxes a bit and stares at Pure again. “This shouldn’t be a mystery to me anymore…”

“Sir.” Brumm’s expression softens before he crouches down in front of the man he has chosen as a leader. A protector, a savior. A man of many trades. For so long this individual has sacrificed endless time and energy to care for the many under their care. Brumm wonders if Grimm has been doing this so long they’ve forgotten how to relax. He knows that getting this man a hobby would be impossible at this rate, but maybe a change of scenery is just what Grimm needs to freshen up his life a bit. He tilts his head. “Have I ever given you bad advice?”

“You mean besides the chocolate bar, and the prank on Divine, and-” His ramble is gently stopped by Brumm’s hand to his lips. Brumm’s eyes show delight and joy at the memories, but his voice stays calm.

“With life choices Grimm. Have I ever given you bad advice for your life?” Brumm waits a moment for the words to sink in before taking his hand away. Grimm answers slowly, quietly.

“I wouldn’t doubt you for all the geo in the world.”

“Then do what you have to do with this vessel of Wyrm’s. I can take care of the troupe while you're gone and Divine can handle the finances. Of course your absence will be noticed, but-”

“A day.” Grimm looks to the ground below them, then at Pure.

“Hm?”

“I’ll be gone for a day at most. Maybe half that, probably less, then I’ll return.” A pause of thought. “Is that- That’ll be fine, right? Just a bit to, uh, see different scenery. Be, almost alone for a bit.” Grimm looks away and worries at their lip, mind already getting irritated at himself for asking for such a big favor out of the blue. He expects derision, frustration, even a change of mind, but to his surprise he hears laughter. He jerks his head back at the sound. “Wh-?”

“Sir. I was ready to let you leave for a week or month. A day is more than fine. You’re the master of this troupe anyway. You have the freedom to do what you wish, so don’t worry about it too much. Okay?” Before Grimm can respond, they hear a loud groan for the body beside them. Both troupe members swiftly ready themselves, then relax when the immediate threat passes. Brumm doesn’t bother looking at his master as he speaks.

“Boss, I’m going to let you take care of this.”

“Wh- Really?”

“Yup!” Brumm happily pats Grimm on the back, then starts to leave back to the troupe’s camp.

“Don’t die!”

“I won’t! Not this time at leas- woah!” Grimm dodges the dagger thrown at his head, then leaps away to make distance between him and the heavily injured vessel before him.

“You’re awake!” Pure grumbles out a scathing response and shakily brings themselves to their feet. The stance is more crouched, but it works.

“I was wondering when you might wake up.” The large crack on their mask oozes out a black like substance, but Grimm tries not to be too alarmed, even as Pure quickly grabs the crisp stem of a leaf just to swing at Grimm’s face. The hit only barely misses. This may be a weakened vessel, but weakened does not mean weak.

Pure tries not to think about the searing pain rushing across their face at every strike. They are fully aware that this could be a close to death situation. They don’t have time to waste with resting up for a better day. Their better day must be stolen back to them by force. Through whatever means necessary.

They swing another wide arc with the woody stem and hear a pained whine leave their throat. Damnit! Where was their nail! And why can’t they comprehend what this weird creature is saying! Were they speaking a foreign language or was something terribly wrong- Black ick drips over their eye enough to half blur their vision.

Ah. A head injury. Fantastic.

Pure takes in the appearance of their strange rival. Tall, black, red… friendly? The face is white, so, maybe a ghost? They weren’t attacking and hadn’t taking them out during their lapse in consciousness, which might have been around, uh. They look at the sky, then back down at Grimm. A couple hours. Hm.

Pure takes their eyes off the stranger long enough to look for their nail. The ground is frustratingly blurry, but after a few minutes of struggle, the stranger taps their shoulder. Nerves already frayed, Pure makes to lash out at them before stopping halfway through the action. Oh.

“I do pardon the rudeness, but I believe this belongs to you?”

Pure stares shakily at the offered nail, then gently takes it from the other’s hand. Grimm will be seen as friendly for now, but hopefully not for long. They instinctively wipe the blade, noting its clean polish, then sheathe it. They don’t remember cleaning it, but at this point they can’t find it in them to care. They nod in thanks to the sword cleaning apparition, then quickly turn to start walking in a random direction. The ghost follows.

“So…” Pure twitches at the sound, as if aborting an action to glance back at Grimm. Grimm takes this as a good sign. “Do you speak?” Pure does not reply, and instead shifts their nail from their real arm to their prosthetic. Shaking off any shakiness in the real one, they bring their hand up to start signing with the kingdom’s default one armed sign language.

‘Palace.’ They sign.

“Palace? Like that of the Pale King?” Pure nods in affirmative. “But, isn’t the castle to the south?” Pure sighs, then nods again. Grimm tilts their head and moves forward to step into Pure’s forward view, walking backwards now. “Don’t you need to head south then?” Pure can feel their eye twitch, slightly jealous of the others easy swagger.

‘I am.’ They sign, irritated. Words nearly interrupted by Grimm’s quiet laughter and sudden stop. They are nearly nose to nose now. Pure would step back, but their current dexterity and focus won’t allow it. Grimm seems unbothered.

“Darling,” Grimm leans millimeters closer to whisper. “You’re heading north.” Pure takes a long quiet moment to process the information. The sounds of the forest fade away, and the rustle of large leaves can be heard, before they suddenly jerk back and away. Damnit! No! They got turned around!? Where the hell were they!? Pure shoves the now laughing apparition back and stomps away.

“You’re just as injured as you look!” Grimm stifles their chuckles enough to speak with a more genuine tone. “Why do you insist on pushing through this injury when you could just rest a day to get your senses back together? Are not you tired?”

‘I slept.’

“Passing out does not count as sleep. Especially when you pass out with an open wound.”
‘Sounds like quitter talk.’

“Wrong.” Grimm huffs. “It sounds like trying to stay alive talk. Besides, how do you think they’re going to let you into the palace if your cape and sweater are stained with your own… blood? Innards? Actually, I have no idea what you would call that stuff seeping out of you.” Pure clicks at Grimm in annoyance, they don’t bother looking back, even as Grimm’s voice moves around more than it should. “Sorry sorry, I know, rude, but still. You’re going to bleed out at this rate.”

‘I have bandages.’

“Where?”

‘Bag.’

“This bag?” Suddenly Pure is stopped by Grimm hanging down from a vine in front of them. It startles Pure enough for them to take out their nail and pull a fighting stance. Grimm, for his part, looks entirely unaffected. He’s too busy going through Pure’s things to care about some silly old nail about to impale him. “Wow you have a lot of stuff in here, is this geo?” Pure’s eyes sharpen in alarm. They quickly make to snatch the bag, but Grimm is faster. A quick flip and spin has them back on the nearby branches above, to which Pure watches from below, amazed at the sudden show of dexterity.

“Woah, you’ve even got a compass in here?” Pure groans. “People still use those?” Pure sheathes the nail, crouches down, then hops over to grab the vines the stranger had been hanging from. They lack the graceful showmanship of Grimm, especially now, but they make up for it with sheer power. As they pull themselves up, Grimm practically skips to the end of the branch they’re on.

“I mean, I figured someone as fancy as you would have memorized the woods around you by now, but I guess not.” Pure makes to step over to where Grimm is, using the thin nature of the branch to bounce Grimm up and down with it. Pure would have figured the man would be at least a bit unnerved, but he’s unphased. It’s odd, and irritating. Right as Pure is about to get more aggressive, Grimm uses one of Pure’s particularly forceful movements to gracefully launch themselves to another branch. He even winks at Pure as he does it. Disgraceful.

“I can do this all day y’know.” Grimm grins happily. Pure flips him off. The laughter Grimm gives afterwards makes Pure regret the action immediately.

“Look at you go! I would have figured a royal such as yourself would have had more manners! What a pleasant surprise.” Pure ignores their own wobbliness and moves back a fair bit. They then starts running towards Grimm. Grimm stops his preening and quickly starts to look concerned. “Hey wait none of that.” The branch starts to bend under Pure’s weight. “Wait wait! I’m not done questioning you yet- oh!” Pure hops heavily onto the last bit of the branch before using its rebound to leap through the air and land onto the branch Grimm is on. It’s not the neatest landing, but it will do.

“You actually made it!?” Pure ignores the question, dots already threatening to swarm their vision, and instead takes this precious moment of confusion to dash towards Grimm. Grimm startles at the dash and tries to turn to run away, but as he remembers not to use his powers in front of others, he’s swiftly grabbed and shoved onto the bark of the floor. In a display of disoriented defense, Grimm holds the bag over the edge of the branch. Pure scoffs, crouching down to hold Grimm more firmly while they reach for the bag. It’s unreachable while Pure is using this particular takedown. A tense silence passes between them.

Pure slowly settles their head right behind the other’s head, letting a deep growl pour from their throat in a blatant threat. Grimm can feel his skin warm up in an unidentifiable emotion. He debates giving the bag back, but then Pure might finish him off anyway. Is there anything he can say? Something to either surprise or maybe distract- Pure harshly grips and pulls back on a few points in Grimm’s arm to make the man grip the bag strap and pull it in.

“Ow!” Pure snatches the bag from Grimm’s hand, then settles down to sit firmly upon Grimm’s back. Grimm splutters at the audacity. “Get off of me!” Pure scoffs. “Come now it was but a joke! Can not you appreciate a good bout of banter? And besides, I even got you to safer ground where you can properly attend to that oozing head of yours.” Silence. Grimm grumbles and starts struggling all over again. “I can’t even read your hands from this angle. How am I supposed to convince you to not be an idiot when I can’t even have a conversation with you.” Pure responds with silence for a long couple seconds until Grimm finds his hands being expertly tied behind his back. Grimm may be a being of great power, but that more lies with his magic, not his musculature; and he can’t let Pure know who he is just yet.

Pure drags the now tied up nightmare king to the trunk of the tree and stabs a dagger into said trunk before securing the stranger up to it. It’s a pretty okay form of bondage. Not the best form of containment, but it will do for now. Pure takes a couple steps away, then settles on the floor in front of their victim. Grimm kind of wants to kick them… No, he really wants to kick them.

“Hi there darling, good to see your face again. All that black ooze really highlights the white of your shell.” Grimm tests the dagger as he speaks, but it doesn’t give with unseen effort. Should he really bother with escape right now? Or wait? Maybe he should wait.

‘You too.’ Pure signs, to which Grimm looks confused.

“Are you really flirting with me? In here of all places?”

‘No.’ They quickly sign back, form stiffer in embarrassment. ‘Your mask. Dirty. I bled on it… Sorry.”

“YOU BLED ON MY MASK!?” Grimm wiggles around to try and get a hand free, if only to wipe their face clean of the vessel's contaminants. Pure, for their part, does little to stop Grimm, but they do take out a water bottle and a rag out of their bag. When Grimm catches sight of the objects, he immediately perks up. “Is that for me? Aww! You shouldn’t have- Hey!”

Pure starts cleaning their own mask and wounds. Grimm thinks they are surprisingly thorough. For a brute.

“I’m going to get you back for that y’know. I may not be able to move my hands now, but just you wait. I’ll raise hell on you, might even haunt your dreams.” Pure scoffs at that and proceeds to bandage their mask. “Yeah, real scared of that aren’t you? I’ll become the biggest nuisance you’ve ever seen.”

‘That so?’

“Of course! I’m not one to break my word, no matter the situation.” Pure shakes their head in dismissal and finishes up before stepping towards Grimm. Grimm makes to bite them at first, but Pure is quick to press the man’s jar closed so that they can clean off Grimm’s face properly. Grimm almost wishes to struggle more, just to annoy the hunter, but they let the actions slide just this once. They stay quiet. A certain peace passes between them, until Pure finishes.

‘That better?”

“... Maybe.”

‘Still going to annoy me?”

“... Yes.” Grimm stares directly at Pure, no malice in his eyes. Pure can feel their hand twitch in annoyance.

‘I will leave you here now.’ Pure packs their things. The care they have putting away the void stained rag is peculiar.

“Wait!” His eyes are wide with fake fear.

‘No wait.’ Pure scoffs at the other in amusement before starting down the tree. Grimm flusters in rage and starts wiggling in earnest.

“Hey no wait! Stop! Come back here!”