Why Nick is not allowed to drive (Ever again)

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Why Nick is not allowed to drive (Ever again)
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"Get out of the way, you old hag!" Nick screamed at the poor old lady in her equally old car as he passed her, nearly shoving her out of the way in his hurry. "You can't park in the middle of the road!" he hollered and sped past her, ignoring the startled yelp of Monroe in the backseat.

A sharp turn to the left at the last possible moment had Monroe falling from the seat onto the floor with a curse.
"Hey, what are you doing down there?" the detective asked. "Maybe you should wear a safety belt? They are made to keep you in your seat, you know. Because I don’t think the floor is comfortable."

The poor Blutbad seemed to hyperventilate for a moment, before he could drag himself back on the seat with a huff.
"I would, but the damn thing snapped at the second turn you took. Maybe you should try to slow down a bit. Just a suggestion, you know."

"I'm not that fast! I'm just a little bit over 75 mph!"
"You call 25 mph a little bit!" Monroe shrieked again. In his panic he couldn’t control his form anymore, and he woged back and forth, his eyes quickly changing from brown to red to brown, and a low growl built in his chest.

His head hit the window, again, and Nick, that insane stupid Grimm actually turned around to look at his friend!
"You alright? You seem a bit off, usually you don’t get motion sick..."
"The lamp post! Nick, the lamp post!" Nick calmly swerved past the mentioned lamp post without really looking at it. There couldn’t be more than 2 inch between the passenger door and the lamp.

Sean Renard, who had the bad luck to be sitting in the passenger seat, turned from the pasty white he was up until now, to a sickly green.
His nails actually left deep dents in the leather of his seat, and he tried to shut his wide eyes in horror. But he couldn’t even move that much, the shock freezing him to the spot; he couldn’t even scream in terror.

Then again, Monroe was screaming enough for the both of them.

Especially when they nearly hit a bus while Nick changed lanes by simply driving from one side to the other without looking at the other drivers behind him.
"Nick, look ahead. Please, just look ahead and keep your eyes on the street, you insane, stupid Grimm, before you kill us all off!"

Nick turned back around to his friend, actually leaning over the back of his seat, and promptly drove over the curbstone and onto the sidewalk.
A newspaper box, which was just sitting there, was hit and flew in a high curve, hitting the wall of a building, and landed with a loud clank and a deep dent, raining paper in all directions.
Monroe watched it roll away behind them as they sped down the busy street.
People had to jump out of the way and some were shaking their fists at the seemingly crazy driver.

"Then get your lazy ass out of my way when I'm driving here!" Nick yelled back at one of them, and a trashcan was the next, and thankfully only victim to be run over by him. "And take your damn trash with you before I put you in jail for soiling the streets!"

Monroe gave a sigh of relief when Nick put his ass back on the seat and the car back onto the road.
Where he promptly ignored a red light, barely avoided a crossing truck and insulted another driver who nearly scraped his rear bumper.

"What, did you win your damn driver's license in the lottery?"
"I wonder the same about you..." the Blutbad murmured from his seat, but no one heard him over the loud honking.

"Yeah, fine, the horn works, now try the headlights!" again his ass left the seat so he could lean out of the window, making Monroe's heart nearly stutter and stop when a motorbike nearly hit the cop.
Really, that Grimm had more luck than brains; it's a wonder he hadn’t killed himself with one of his stupid stunts so far.

"Hey, don’t just stop in the middle of the road, some people are trying to drive here!" Nick nearly jumped out of the window to yell at another car which for some reason stopped at a stop sign.
Really, why would they do that...
Renard let go of his seat for long enough to grab Nick by his belt and drag him back into the car, just in time to round another corner at high speed, the tires smoking, and then cling to his own seat again.

"Please, sit down." he whispered, and Nick took one hand from the steering wheel to pat his thigh. "Don’t worry, we will be there in no time." Renard took the caressing hand from his thigh and laid it back on the steering wheel, closing the fingers around it.
Nick grinned back at him as if he made a joke.

He cut the corner so short, Monroe could touch the wall if he put his finger out of the window, it is a wonder that both side mirrors are still there with the way he drives.
Nick ignored the screeching of his wheels with a happy hum, and Monroe felt like tearing his own hair out in frustration.

"Nick! Nick, you are driving on the wrong side of the road!" Nick laughed. He actually laughed at him, while his friend clung desperately to the car door.
"I'm the first Blutbad who will die of a cardiac arrest, I just know it. Or we will end up plastered to a wall. We will die, and it is all your fault! You hear me, Nick? I'm blaming you for my death! I should have never set foot into this car, but I did, and now I'm going to die, and your boss is going to die, and you are going to survive because you are too stupid to die properly!"
"Monroe, calm down. No on is going to die."

Does Nick really think it is calming when he smirks like that?
Yes, the little bastard does!

"No, we are all going to die. You take one more corner like this and my heart will simply stop. My grandfather got his head cut off by a Grimm, and I die because a Grimm gave me a heart attack. Really great way to go, my brothers will laugh their ass off. Nick!"

"Look, I'm back on the right side of the road."
The detective nearly hit another car to get there, and promptly rushed through a small gap between a bus and a truck, before he set in front of the big truck.
The Blutbad whimpered softly, already seeing the heavy thing crushing their little car like a tin can and rolling over their dead bodies without even noticing.

But thankfully he noticed, and he had very good breaks.

Nick only shook his head with a look in the rear view mirror.
"Someone should confiscate his driver's license before he kills someone with his truck. That guy is homicidal, just stopping like that. He can't even see if someone is behind him!"

"You!" Monroe gasped, but couldn’t say more when Nick ignored another red light to drive wavy lines between the other cars, causing them to break sharply, nearly colliding with each other.
"Out of the way, get out of the damn way!"
"Nick! Trees don’t jump out of your way! They stay where they are!"

"Stop distracting me, Monroe! Don’t you see that I'm driving!"
"I thought you were trying to kill us!"
"Don’t be stupid. I know what I'm doing!"
Monroe wondered for a moment if it could get any worse if he strangled Nick while 'driving'.
Another sharp turn, and Monroe nearly said no. Nothing could be worse than this. It only could get better.

"I don’t know why they put all those trash cans in my way."

"Just a few more minutes, and it's over. Everything will be all right..." came the repeated murmur from the passenger seat as a wall rushed right in their direction. Nick hit it with the rear bumper, and one of the stoplights stayed behind.

Monroe wished he could do the same...

Finally, finally they arrived at their destination without dying or killing someone.
The tires screeched and smoked one last time, the car slid sideways into a parking spot that was barely big enough for the car, Monroe hit his head one last time on the window, and then it was finally, thankfully over.

The Wieder Blutbad opened his door as soon as they stood still, and scrambled out as quickly as he could, halfway lying on the sidewalk and panting.
Maybe that’s why the pope always kissed the ground after landing with a plane.
He must have a pilot like Nick...

He crawled over the dry ground to slump down on the grass under a tree, one they barely avoided to hitting with that last stunt, as Monroe had noticed with growing horror.
His face was still changing, his claws and teeth growing and shrinking, his eyes switching between red and brown every time he blinked.
He had his elbows braced on his knees and his face hidden in his hands as he leaned against the tree behind him and tried really hard not to throw up his breakfast, and maybe last night's dinner, too.
It was a really, really hard fight.

He was not a dog, he didn’t get motion sick...
One look at the car, and he had to close his eyes and remember breathing.  

The captain on the other hand got out of the moving death trap quickly, still green around the nose, but more dignified than their Blutbad.
For a moment he just leaned against the car, before he noticed his detective jumping happily out of the driver's seat, grabbing the keys, and looking around for the suspect they had come looking for.
The captain really wished he had sent Wu, or Hank, or anyone else, really to bring that suspect in.
As soon as Renard saw the keys he nearly jumped over the hood of the car and grabbed the younger man's arm before he could run off.

"The keys." he wheezed, "I want them."
Nick just blinked at him in surprise.
"Detective Burkhardt! Don’t make me make that an order!" there was no way he would let the younger man drive them back. Or let him drive anywhere ever again.
Not even on a bicycle!

"Okay." Nick threw the keys to his boss with a smile, not really knowing why he wanted them, before he spotted their suspect coming out of his house into his front yard from the corner of his eye.

With a gleeful: "Stop, don’t move! PPD!" he quickly jumped over the small fence, and sprinted after the man, who had turned tail and run away as soon as he caught sight of the smirking Grimm.
Before his companions could stop him, Nick was out of their sight, and they had to wait for him to come back on his own.
Because Monroe was sure if he tried to get up to follow his sent trail he would get sick again, and his stomach had just begun to settle back into its proper place...

Sean Renard used the time to get a better look at Nick's car. Of course he had noticed all the scratches and dents in the dark thing, but he hadn’t thought much of it at the time, there are enough Wesen out for their Grimm, after all.
Now he understood better why the thing looked like it would fall apart at any moment...
It looked like it was held together by paint and prayers, and not much more.

A few minutes later Nick came back to them, dragging their suspect in handcuffs behind him. The man tried to struggle a bit, but Nick just ignored it and shoved him over.
His hair was sticking up in all directions, a few twigs and leaves tangled in the dark mass, and his jeans had green stains on the knees.
It seemed that he had tackled the suspect, rolling around on the ground for a bit before finally overpowering him.
Then he put handcuffs on the guy and dragged him back to show him off like a shiny new toy...

Nick was panting a little, and grinning proudly, with a flush on his face, while his victim grumbled about overeager Detectives trying to kill him by jumping at his back and crushing his kidneys.
Nick just waved him off, the next time he should not run away, then no one would have the urge to chase after him.

Because cops always feel that urge to chase people if they try to run away.
(Or was that Blutbader?)

"I've got him. We can go home now." and he held his hand expectantly out to his boss, who just starred at him blankly. Did Nick really think he will be trusted with a car ever again?
Really?
The Grimm shook his hand a little, but Sean still didn’t hand the car keys back.

"You will not drive us back, detective." he said with his best 'I'm-your-boss-and -you-do-what-I-say' voice.
That rarely worked with the ever-oblivious Nick.
"What? But why?" he asked honestly confused. He got their suspect, he had him in handcuffs, and if he drove just a little faster they could be back at the police station to hand the man over and be back home in time for lunch.
No problem.
Now if only the Captain would give him his keys!

But before Sean could answer, Nick blinked at him with wide eyes as something else occurred to him.
"No! Don’t tell me you lost the keys! But how could you lose the keys, you barely moved two steps! Are you sure they are not there?"

"I refuse to get anywhere near that thing if you are in the driver's seat! I refuse to even be in the same part of town if you are in the driver's seat!" Monroe protested loudly, while Nick cuffed his victim to the car door in order to have his hands free to search for the lost keys.

The Grimm finally noticed the still pale Blutbad sitting on the ground, and he skipped over to him to pat his shoulder comfortingly.
"Are you all right? You don’t look very good, did you eat something bad?" Monroe glared at him darkly, or as darkly as you could after getting 10 years of your life violently and permanently scared out of you.

"I bet it was all the green stuff you insist on cooking. So many vegetables can't be healthy!" he stroked the scruffy hair and over his back to calm his friend down.
"Don’t worry, we'll get you back quickly, and then you can lie down until you feel better."

"Are you crazy? I will feel better if you step away from that death trap and promise to never drive again!" But all Monroe got for his sarcasms was another pat on the head as Nick stood up from the ground.
He decided that Monroe's well-being was more important than finding the keys, and it's not like he absolutely needed them anyway.
He turned back to his boss with a smile: "Don’t worry, we can still get back, no problem." and with that he laid over the driver's seat and opened something under the steering wheel.

"You are going to hot-wire the car?" Monroe shrieked disbelievingly, jumping up and finally coming over, looking worriedly from Nick to Renard.
"You are a cop, Nick, and your boss is right beside you, and you are going to hot-wire the car?"
"It's mine, so I can hot-wire it as much as I want. I also can paint it pink with green polka dots, if I feel like it. It's mine." he explained matter-of-factly, blinking at his friend as if he were stupid for not knowing that.

But Sean dragged him back up by his jacket before he could do more than get the wires out of their place:
"Why do you even know how to hot-wire a car?"

Nick blinked innocently back at him, really not understanding what their problem was. They needed to get back, they didn’t have the keys, and Nick was making sure that they didn’t need them.
It wasn't hard to understand, but maybe Monroe was sick with some virus, not just bad food, and now the Captain also had it.
Come to think of it, both of them had looked a bit shaken up and pale or green when he parked the car 10 minutes ago...

But they had both been okay in the morning, more than okay. What had changed since than?

"Look, Aunt Marie was a little scatterbrained sometimes. She kept losing her car keys all the time, so she learned how to hot-wire it so she could drive back home until she got new ones made. And she also taught me her little 'short-cut', in case I need it sometimes.
I remember mum often doing the same to her own car, so I think it is something that runs in the family."
Nick scratched the back of his head absently. "You know, it's weird. My Aunt never had a problem at home, she always knew where she put them all the time.
But then when she got out, to work or shopping, or something, and she would lose them somewhere on the way, for no reason. She just couldn’t find them anymore..."

The Blutbad immediately thought about a hunt in the woods in the dark of the night, fighting with fists and weapons, Wesen being thrown into trees and keys falling out of pockets while the owner of the pockets was butchering someone up with dark, empty eyes and a sadistic grin.
"Yes, I'm sure she was just scatty, she sure was not hunting Wesen."

He really couldn’t believe that the young Grimm had never thought about that!
"Let me guess, she is also the one who taught you how to drive."
He wouldn’t put it past the old hag to use the car to run innocent Wesen over. Maybe she even made it a game, and awarded points.
Like, 5 points for every Reinigen, 10 for a Eisbiber, and 50 for every Blutbad the child could hit.
Just like in one of those computer games.

Monroe shuddered for a moment, he could picture it so clearly in his mind, could nearly hear scary Aunt Marie laugh at them every time her nephew drove.

"Well, no, it was my mother, you know..." Now both Renard and Monroe stared at the cop, who just shrugged his shoulder.
"Nick..." Sean didn’t want to say it, but clearly the Blutbad was thinking the same. "You were about 13 when she left, right?"
"Yes? But I'd been driving for a few years by then. I started early. I told you I know what I'm doing."

"No wonder you drive like that! Do you even have a driver's license, or did your mother teach you how to fake that, too. Because dude, that would explain everything, really!"
"Hey!" Nick protested with a pout, "I passed my driving test at the first try!"

"What did you do, bribe him?" Monroe snapped, staring down at the smaller man, their noses nearly touching. "Or did you scare him to death and you made up the paper work yourself?!"
"No, I simply asked him if I made it, but the guy just stared at me and refused to answer me. I think he found it funny to make people wait and wonder!
After he sat there for a while, just staring at me and shaking, I asked him if I failed and should try again, and suddenly he jumped out of the car, screamed that there was no way that I failed, and that if we never meet again it is still too soon.
So you see, clearly I did everything perfectly right, or else he would have made me take the test again!"

By now, Renard had taken the driver's seat, and Monroe had shoved their favorite Grimm in the backseat while he was distracted with his tale, together with a terrified criminal who wondered if they were all insane, before he himself sat down in the passenger's seat.
"You!" the Captain said and pointed at Nick, "You will never drive again!"
"Yeah, man, for the safety of Portland you are banned from the driver's seat for the rest of our lives! I never want to see you behind a steering wheel again!"

"You know, Hank said exactly the same after that one high speed chase over the highway after that guy from the biker gang.
And I still don’t know what his problem is, I mean, we got the bad guy, and we only jumped over that one small hole in the bridge. Sure the other guy landed himself in the river, but I told him we could make it on the other side, and we did."

Monroe began to nervously move around in his seat as he heard that. Why did he never hear about this before?
Why did no one warn him that sweet little Nick turned into a monster when he was allowed to drive? That it is suicide to let him drive.
There should be a law that says Nick Burkhardt is not allowed to drive for any reason.

Suddenly Nick's head was right beside his, those grey eyes blinking into his brown ones.
"You know, you look exactly as Hank did after that, too. Do you also get nervous in a car when you are not the one driving it? Because a lot of people do, you know. Wu is the same."

"Really?" Renard asked curiously, while slowly turning around a corner and stopping at a red light.
He had never heard of such problems in his department before, but then again, after that trip he had a feeling people only got nervous when Nick was driving.
He knew he will be, from now on.

But he was still going to give them a dressing-down they would never forget the next time he got his hands on them.
They should have warned him that there is a very good reason they never let the young man drive, instead of letting him find it out for himself!

And they had seen him getting in in the passenger seat in front of the station!
And he was sure that bet he had seen was for how long they could survive with Nick as the driver, or if they would come back alive and in one piece, or something like that!

Oh, Hank and Wu were going to do paperwork until their eyes bled and their hands fell off, that was for sure!

"Yes, they insist that they want to drive, but then they move so slowly, it sometimes makes me wonder if we're moving backwards. There is a gas pedal for a reason; they always take four times longer than I do.
And they always stare really horrified at me when I ask them if I should drive for a change.
As if I'm a bad driver."

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End
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This is my first post for Grimm, and I have never seen them in English, so I'm sorry if I got Blutbader or wogen and such stuff wrong.
I couldn’t find an age for when aunt Marie took Nick in, or maybe I didn’t search hard enough, it all just says he was little. So because I am the one writing this I say he was about 13!