Chapter Text
Arvis isn’t your average unemployed vagabond.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that life. Plenty of people went without homes, especially in the big cities. It was another layer of grime in the fucked-up system they all called their own. But Arvis wasn’t homeless because he was out-of-work and struggling. He was homeless because he had a mission, and he couldn’t settle down before then.
It was maybe the most typical story in the book. His distant, unaffectionate father up and walked out of their family when he was fifteen. There wasn’t really any warning, though maybe they all should have expected it. He’d never been the best father, and Arvis had never expected much out of him. Still, his sudden vanishing act shook his mother pretty badly, and it only made that house gloomier. There’d been a lot of weeping and a lot of cursing, and his sister had gone through the momentous task of throwing all his clothes into a bonfire after the first year. He’d left without a word, and no one was willing to forgive him for it.
That should have been the end of the story. Shitty dad walks out and isn’t heard from again, or maybe he is, only it’s ten years later and he’s stumbled back into their lives to find his place there obsolete. His wife and kids all moved on to greener pastures, and everyone was the better for his absence. Heart-warming, in the way only the wreckage of a broken family could be.
Life didn’t work out that way. For reasons he was still trying to figure out, Arvis had decided to chase his father around the world, trying to catch up with him. At eighteen he’d skipped town on the first bus he saw, and he’d never looked back. His mother was, understandably, upset about that. Arvis had stopped feeling guilty for that choice about six years into his hunt.
His dad was a slippery son-of-a-bitch, and trouble seemed to follow him. Everywhere he went, someone was trying to kill him or kidnap him or some other awful fate. He supposed that was just the fate of a Grimm.
Because that was what they were, the only thing he and his dad shared. They were Grimms, descended from the brothers of the same name, and they had a potent curse. They saw the world as it really was, the film peeled back to reveal all the dark and beautiful things lurking under the surface. For Arvis, this had been a fact of life since he was eight years old. His first Wesen had been a Fuschbau, the parent of his childhood playmate.
It hadn’t gone well. Arvis never spoke to his friend or their family again. After that, his father had sat him down in his study and handed him the books. Their family had three journals, passed down from generation to generation, detailing their encounters. The journals had a mix of languages- the oldest of his known ancestors (from their line, at least) wrote in what appeared to be high German. But they didn’t stay German- there was Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, even a few entries in French. All of them shared their family’s curse, and the Wesen within the journals were a fraction of what was out there. Arvis had always sort of wondered about other Grimms, and their families, and their journals. He had never met anyone else, but he was dying to.
But he didn’t have time for that kind of exploration. He had a father to track down. Seventeen years of searching had turned up basically nothing. Every time he got close, his father would vanish with the wind like a pale ghost. It was disheartening. And between all the Wesen he’d had to fight, and the loneliness, and his worsening relationship with the rest of his family… Well, Arvis was far too familiar with the taste of despair. And other things. There were a million and one ways to get out of your own head, and Arvis had tried quite a few of them.
He was done with all that now, though. He’d overdosed on a particularly desperate grim month of binging and ended up in rehab for a while, and after that he was pretty determined to stay clean. He couldn’t find his dad if he was dead, after all, and his sister had made it clear she’d never speak to him again if he didn't get his shit together. He didn’t blame her for the callousness. He’d put the family through hell when he pulled the second vanishing act in three years, and he wasn’t about to keep stirring that pot.
He was in Portland now; his father’s trail had led him to an associate of his living somewhere in the fair city, a Doctor Calogero Bernardi, and Arvis was determined to track him down. Maybe he could tell Arvis more about why he’d left in the first place- his research suggested they went way back., graduating in the same high school class and even spending a year in college together. If anyone knew what exactly his father was looking for, it’d be him.
But at that exact moment, Arvis wasn’t looking for Dr. Bernardi. He was looking for breakfast.
Normally he’d just be content drinking the cheapest coffee he could find and eating later in the day, but he’d been driving for sixteen straight hours and he was famished. Which was how he ended up at a local diner, waiting at the counter for his order. Coffee (which he aimed to drown in sugar and cream) and an omelet (mushroom, spinach, tomato) with hashbrowns. It was going to be damn good, if a little pricey. He’d have to pick up a job for a couple days while he was here. It’d be hard given his awful resume, but he’d find something. He always did.
He did a cursory glance of the building as he waited for his food. There weren’t too many people there; a family of six at the table closest to the entrance, a little old lady and what was probably her grandson sitting at the counter, messily eating pancakes, and an exhausted-looking woman half-asleep in a booth. And then, there were the two guys Arvis would bet money were cops by the window.
Arvis knew, roughly, what police detectives tended to look like. It was easy to spot them by the shoes- they were always the same damn shoes. Standard issue, and sturdy looking. Always black, and always that mix of professional and practical that told him the person wearing them was ready to run for a couple blocks should they need to. The second tell was the jacket. They all had these ridiculous looking leather jackets, like someone trying to not look like a cop on their time off while still being put-together enough that they could jump into a situation if needed. That look. Personally, Arvis wasn’t a fan.
The two of them were eating together, clearly in deep conversation about something. They seemed like good friends. God, Arvis kind of envied that. Watching one of the cops, the darker one with the manicured nails (good nail-care wasn’t police standard, so he was probably meticulous about his appearance if Arvis had to guess) made some terrible joke, and the other one nearly choked on his bagel. It was one of those scenes that a bad movie would use to establish camaraderie in the opening scene. It made Arvis feel kind of sick. Thankfully, his order arrived before he could lose his appetite.
He tucked into his food with gusto, demolishing his omelet like a man starved. The coffee was mediocre, but passable, and he was pretty sure he was going to have a stomach ache later. But that was a problem for the future. While he ate, he pulled out his phone to check his email. Honestly, what a technological marvel the cell-phone was. He still remembered when phones had to be attached to a wall with cords. Kids these days had no idea how good they had it.
He was just about finished with his omelet when he heard a door slam open. He turned just in time to see a panting figure burst into the room. “There’s a fight happening outside!” they shouted. Arvis watched as the news immediately prompted one of the men at the table to rise from his seat. It was the dark-haired, pale one. He saw him reach into his pocket, pulling out something shiny and unmistakably badge-shaped, and Arvis had to bite back a grin. Yep, definitely a cop then.
Normally Arvis kept his nose in his own business, at least in a public space, but he was curious. So he rose from his seat and followed the cop out of the building. He figured it was probably just two guys getting into a dick-measuring contest outside, but maybe there’d be a fun surprise. He liked the occasional surprise- it made the tedium of his day to day life bearable.
He found the cop outside, standing between two loud, angry douchebags, who had clearly been about to kill each other before the cop had interrupted. The witness had run back into the building, and so Arvis just stood, observing. He ought to have brought his coffee with him. It looked like it was about to get interesting.
“I need both of you to calm down,” the cop said, his hands on both of the mens’ chests to keep them a healthy distance from one another.
“That bastard scratched my car,” one of the men spat out. Arvis snorted quietly to himself. Ah, car problems. The age old classic. Honestly, he was pretty sure crime rates would plummet if they just outlawed the damn things.
“I wouldn’t have scratched your damn car if you weren’t parked like a moron!” the other man said, gnashing his teeth. He attempted to lunge forward, but the cop kept a firm grip on his shirt, pushing him away.
“Come on, guys. I don’t want to have to take you both down to the station, but I will,” the cop said. “Knock it off.”
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do,” the man who’s car had been scratched shouted. He wrenched back, fists curled. The cop immediately reached for his gun, presumably anticipating that the man was about to get violent. Arvis began to backpedal, sensing this encounter was about to veer from interesting to dangerous much quicker than he’d like.
Then, two things happened at once.
- The man yelling at the very calm police detective Wogte. He was a Scalengeck, from the looks of it, and he was a real nasty one. Arvis didn’t like to judge the appearances of Wesen, but he had a particularly sour look to his face. His angry face translated particularly well to the scaly, fanged expression he was staring at. Honestly, if the situation wasn’t so tense, Arvis might have even appreciated it from a purely technical perspective.
- The man who had wogte was staring right at him. Which did not bode well for Arvis’s immediate chance of survival.
Arvis immediately made the wise decision of attempting to book it. Unfortunately, he had forgotten the number one rule of surviving being a Grimm- watch where you step. He ran straight into the column of the small diner, hitting the wall with a sound that would be scary if he wasn’t used to hitting his head by now. Behind him, he could hear the Scalengeck hiss out ‘Grimm’, like it was the foulest curse in the history of mankind. Maybe it was. Certainly it hadn’t done Arvis any favours.
He was just quick enough to pull himself off the ground before the Scalengeck was on him. He slugged the man in the stomach, wracking his brain for what he remembered. When it came to Wesen, these were the kind that could seriously fuck him up if he wasn’t careful. Not to mention, there was a cop right there. He couldn’t afford to use lethal force. He didn’t want to end up in the station wagon.
The man lunged for him again, but this time Arvis was fully prepared. He slid the knife from its strap on his forearm and slashed, aiming mostly to keep the Scalengeck on the backfoot. He’d have to apply pressure to do real damage with a blade like that, and for that he needed to get the man backed into a corner. Just out of his sight-line, he could hear the cop wrestling with the other man. Probably also a Wesen then; another Scalengeck, if Arvis had to guess. They could get seriously aggressive with one another. It was probably a territory thing.
He grappled with the man just long enough to get him against the wall, and then slammed his knife into the man’s side- he had aimed for a non-lethal area, since there was a cop right there , but it seemed to do the trick. Howling, the Scalengeck pushed away, hands moving to tug at the buried knife. Arvis immediately began to retreat; you had to pick your battles, after all, and he was not picking this one.
He was just a little too slow, however, and the Scalengeck managed to rip out the knife and then lunge for him. His meager life flashed before his eyes, briefly, as he considered just how painful a bite from a man with a mouth that nasty would be, when he heard a gunshot go off. Blinking, Arvis took a moment to comprehend what he was looking at.
The Scalengeck? On his back with a bullet in his stomach. The other man? Handcuffed and sitting on the ground, thrashing. The cop? Standing there, holding the gun that had presumably just saved Arvis’s shitty life. Arvis coughed, recognizing the burn in his lungs from the adrenaline, and maybe also from getting punched a couple times. Damn, could those scaley bastards hit hard.
He and the cop stood there staring at one another for a moment. Arvis wondered briefly if he was about to get arrested. Before he could ask, however, someone else was exiting the diner.
“God damn,” a voice said, strangely calm for the situation. Arvis glanced over to see that it was the other cop that had been in the diner. “Nick, my guy. What the hell happened here?”
The cop, Nick, sighed. “Call it in, Hank,” Nick said. “The captain’s going to love hearing about this one.”
The other cop, Hank, looked between the two men who had started all this, Nick, and him. Then, with a sigh, he pulled out his phone. “There goes my quiet morning,” he said, glib despite the clear shock of the scene in front of him.
Arvis just closed his eyes for a moment. God, he was going to have to talk to the cops, wasn’t he? What a great day for him. It truly couldn’t get any worse.
It could, indeed, get worse.
He was at the station for three whole hours giving his report of the situation. It was excruciatingly boring. He didn’t get why he needed to go over it so many times. The situation was pretty damn clear to him. Two guys got into a petty argument, it escalated, they attacked an innocent bystander and a cop. End of story. But no, apparently they needed specific details and signed documents and all that nonsense. Not to mention Arvis’s information. That was the rough part. He hated talking about himself.
When he finally got done speaking to the cops, he'd expected to be permitted to leave. But no, apparently the cop who had shot that guy wanted to talk to him. So now he was sitting in a fucking interrogation room, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for the guy. Arvis was starting to get real tired of Portland, and he’d only been there for a couple hours.
Finally, Nick came in, sitting in the chair across from him. Arvis refused to wait for him to start speaking, barrelling forward. “So, am I being detained? Arrested? Or can I leave?” he asked.
“You’re not being charged with anything,” Nick said. “It’s a pretty clean-cut case of self-defense. I am supposed to warn you about skulking around police business, though.”
Arvis scoffed. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep to myself next time, don’t worry, officer,” he said.
“That's reassuring. But that’s not why I asked to speak with you,” Nick said. “Do you remember what that guy said before he attacked you?”
Arvis froze. Shit, right. The cops were probably curious about that. He didn’t have an explanation for it, but he supposed he’d always been great at making things up on the spot. “Yeah. Called me a Grimm,” he said.
“And does that mean anything to you?” Nick asked.
“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t,” Arvis responded. “Why? What’s it got to do with anything?”
Nick looked around furtively, as if he was a little nervous about what he was going to say next. Then he leaned over the table, a little closer. “I know what that word means. You could see them,” Nick said. “Am I right?”
Arvis frowned, briefly on edge. He wasn’t sure where this was going. “See what, detective? The ugly mugs of two probable repeat-offenders?” he asked.
“You could see that they were Scalengecks,” Nick responded. Arvis’s whole brain immediately froze. His blood turned to something akin to paste. The fact that he knew that word could only mean two things. A, he was alone in a room with a Wesen and a cop who knew he was Grimm, in which case he was dead, or B… Well, Arvis wouldn’t get his hopes up.
The words come out of his throat before he even has a chance to consider them. “If you try to kill me, I swear I won’t go down without a fight,” he said. He watched for the tell-tale sign of the woge, of the Wesen being caught out and snapping. Instead the cop just shook his head.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Nick said. “Look. I can see them too.”
Arvis paused. Then relief and anxiety in equal measures flooded his system. He… wasn’t actually sure what this meant. He’d never met a Grimm beside his father before. What were the chances there was one in Portland? “You’re a Grimm?” he asked.
“I am,” Nick said. “I haven’t actually met anyone else. Besides my aunt, that is. I mean, what are even the odds?”
“No idea. There aren’t that many of us,” Arvis said. “I’ve been traveling the country for seventeen years, and besides my old man, you’re the first I’ve met.”
“That sounds about right,” Nick said. “We shouldn’t talk here. Let’s get you out of here and then we can talk.”
“Cool,” Arvis said. He wasn’t sure where the hell Nick was thinking of taking him, and maybe he shouldn’t just agree to go with him to an undisclosed third location, but he’d done riskier things. And he was kind of excited. It wasn’t everyday he met another Grimm.
It might be nice to see how others in his shoes fared, after all.