csi_sanders1129 | Fic: Happily Ever After

Title: Happily Ever After
Chapters: 1/1
Author:

csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama, Hurt/Comfort.
Ratings: T
Word Count: 5471
Pairings/Characters: Will Grimm/Jake Grimm (Brothers Grimm 2005)
Synopsis: In which Jake falls ill and Will is sent on a quest to retrieve the one thing that can save him.
Comments: Okay, so I started this literally more than a decade ago and it's been languishing in a notebook since then. Finally finished it (though no idea how it was originally going to end) in response to a challenge prompt. Never written for Brothers Grimm before. Characters not mine (except the ones that are). Comments and kudos are awesome! Thanks for reading!

"Jake, come on," Will groans, waiting impatiently for his brother to stop lagging behind as they make their way along the well-worn paths leading to the newest monster in the newest town. He takes advantage of Jake's slow pace and wipes away the sweat from his face with a cloth from his saddlebag, baking in the heat of the summer sun beating down on them. "If we go any slower, it will be snowing by the time we make it to Zellingen."

Jake finally reins his horse up at Will's side and it's then that he notices just how pale and sickly his brother looks. Every little shifting movement his horse makes has him wincing in pain. "Please, Will." Jake begs him, lifting one hand to press against his temple, "Let's just stop here for the night and go on in the morning."

Will nods, there won't be any further arguments on his part given how bad Jake looks. "Very well. I think there's an inn just down the path a ways," he says, gesturing towards a side road that snakes off from the direction they'd come from, and spins his horse around.

They trek along in silence for several moments, the only sounds coming from the horses as they trot along the dirt road. Not long after they start down the path, however, Will hears a resounding 'thud' behind him, a noise that's followed by Jake's horse, Pepper, darting past him looking spooked out of her mind.

"Jake!" Will shouts, hopping off of his own mount to see what's happened. He finds his brother lying face down in the dirt, curled up in a ball and barely conscious. "Jacob!" He calls again, sheer terror in his voice. He grabs at Jake's shoulders, shaking the other man forcefully for a moment, but gets nothing in the way of a response aside from a pained groan.

"Mmrng…"

"Oh, no you don't," Will growls, before his brother can shift into an even more impossible position. With a grunt of effort, he manages to get Jake into his arms, at least partially and whistles for his own horse. How the hell is this going to work? Somehow, he has to get Jake onto the horse with him. He's not quite sure that's going to prove possible, but he'll have to find a way.

"Jake, Jacob. Come on now - just help me out here, will you?" he urges, trying once again to shake the other man awake.

His brother only stares up at him, eyes blinking up at him, bleary and unfocused, "…Hurts, Will."

"What hurts?" Knowing what hurts would be good, he thinks. That way, once he finally does manage to get Jake to someone who can help, they can maybe figure out what's wrong. "Hey, stay awake for me, alright? What hurts?"

"Mmm. Head."

Okay, that's not good anyway Will thinks of it. He moves one of his hands to support his brother's head more, hoping that will help him stay conscious long enough to get his ass on the horse, at least. Instead, he realizes that Jake's burning up – he can feel a noticeable difference between his own sun-warmed skin and his brother's fever. Damn it.

"Okay, move it," he demands, easing Jake closer to the horse.

Eventually, with a lot of awkward shifting and a very patient horse, Will finally gets Jake situated on the irritated equine. He climbs up behind him, one arm around his brother to keep him still and the other on the reins. Then he's off.

"Somebody!" Will yells, supporting his brother's weight as he attempts to get Jacob off the horse now that he's finally made it to the small town. "Excuse me! Somebody! We're in need of a doctor!"

A man steps out of the tavern just in front of him, several others following behind him, no doubt curious as to what the fuss is all about. "What's going on?" The man asks, and then he spots Jake, now on the ground with Will by his side. He turns to one of the other's and barks out an order, "Go send for Aldrich."

"My brother needs help," Will says, unmoving from Jake's side, as the crowd closes in. "There's a doctor in town?"

"He'll be right out," the man assures him. "I'm Otto, I run the inn here. You are?"

"Will Grimm," he supplies. "This is my brother, Jake."

"Grimm?" Someone pipes up from the crowd, but Will is beyond hearing them. He catches bits of their mutterings, things like famous and legendary, but all he cares about is his brother's feverish head in his lap.

"Out of my way, everyone," comes the voice of a well-aged man, and the crowd of townspeople separate enough for an elderly man to pass through. He looks the type of the typical town healer, wizened and sure. "My, what have we here?" The man inquires, looking over his patient.

Otto answers before Will can, "Aldrich, it seems the Brothers Grimm are in need of our assistance."

Aldrich eyes Will suspiciously, "The Brothers Grimm, you say?" He doesn't wait for an answer, just sets to work on Jake. He presses a hand to Jake's head, removing it just as quickly when he feels the intense heat of his fevered skin. He rests two fingers against the crook of Jake's neck and waits a moment. Then, he motions to two young men that bear a strong resemblance to him, his sons or grandsons, most likely, "Get him back to the house."

Having been ignored by the man thus far, Will speaks up, "Can you help him?" he asks, catching the man's arm before he can walk away.

"It won't be easily done, but I can," Aldrich answers the distraught brother of his new patient, "And I'll be needing your assistance."

"You've got to be joking," Will manages through closed eyes and gritted teeth, quite incredulous.

But the village doctor does not look amused, nor does he look the type for a sick and twisted sense of humor, either, even if he somehow knew just what he was asking.

Will's eyes fall shut, "You're not joking."

The man shakes his head, "You should get going. It's a long trip and dark will be coming on soon and you have a lengthy journey to make. You must get to the far side of the forest – look for the river, there will be a bridge you must cross," he instructs and Will listens intently, committing every word to memory. "From there, head south, and you'll find an old cottage and the old crone who lives there. Do what she asks of you and do not anger her and she will give you what you need to save your brother. I will keep him well as long as I can, but you should make haste."

"And you're sure it will work?"

"Are you doubting my wisdom, boy?"

Doubting the elder's wisdom - delusional as it must be if he thinks this will help Jake – does not seem to be the best of ideas. So, he stands, resigned to this cruel new twist of fate, "No, I… I'll go. Could I just sit with him a moment first?"

The man shrugs, standing to leave the brothers alone, "Do what you will, but time is of the essence."

"I know. I'll only be a moment," Will promises, waiting until the healer is out of earshot before he speaks to his ailing brother's unconscious form. "Looks like another of your nonsense fairy tales is coming true, Jacob." He leans down, running a hand through the elder's unkempt and sweat-damp hair, not sure any longer if he's trying to comfort Jake or himself. "I'll be back as soon as I can. And we'll hope this works," he says, as he presses a soft kiss to his brother's forehead before he takes his leave.

"MAGIC BEANS?" He cannot seriously be on a quest for magic beans, can he? But, he is. And Jake's life depends upon Will finding them quickly. The world is clearly out to destroy his sanity. First moving forests and ancient evil queens, and now this – the irony of all bitter ironies.

He's been gone nearly a day already. No way of knowing if Jake is okay or not, if he's still alive, even. Hell, he doesn't even know if he's going the right way anymore. Will had ridden through most of the night, only stopping briefly to allow his horse to rest – definitely not sleeping himself – and then started on again. It might not have been the smartest idea.

Once he reaches the far side of the forest, there should be a river, Aldrich told him, but he hasn't found either the end of the trees or any signs of the river yet.

"Damn it, Jacob. You'd better get through this," he grumbles, talking to himself not for the first time since he began this ridiculous search. "Of all the things that could possibly cure you, it would have to be bloody magic beans."

His eyes search for traces of green against the dense layer of dead leaves and dead branches and other forest detritus that would signal that a body of water is nearby, and still he finds none. He spurs his horse onward as the sun begins its descent again.

It's hard being away from Jake. They've been by each other's sides constantly for nearly five years now, practically living out of each other's pockets. Ever since the day Will had shown up at the university in Marburg to drag Jake away from his scholarly duties in favor of swindling various small towns out of their coin in exchange for ridding them of manufactured mysteries (and, in the case of Marbaden's enchanted forest, actually solving the mystery), they've been together. And, sure, they've had their arguments and all out fights, at times, but even then, they'd never parted ways. He finds, as much as his brother can get on his nerves with his not-so-make believe stories and hopeless optimism, that he rather prefers knowing that the other man is at his side, where he belongs.

As the gloaming settles over the dense forest, there is the sound of running water somewhere nearby. He finally finds there is an end to the trees that had seemed to go on forever, and the edge of the forest is in sight. Slowly, traces of green begin to appear on the forest floor, slowly growing more lush and verdant as he nears the river.

Now, to find the bridge.

It isn't in sight in either direction, but he opts to head south, hoping he hasn't ended up too far south already in his search for the river. If time weren't of the essence, he would stop, let the horse rest, let himself rest, but that isn't an option. He rides on as darkness falls.

When he does happen upon it, he thinks that calling it a bridge is a bit too generous. It is less a bridge and more a few wooden planks haphazardly spread over the banks to allow for a cautious crossing. He dismounts the horse and leads it across. Somehow, the bridge holds, and they continue on.

Onto the cottage, then.

It comes into view a short time later, only lit by the faintest of firelight in the deep darkness of a moonless night, but the soft glow from the windows draws his eye. He realizes then just what the healer has sent him off to. Aldrich had called her an old crone, and, when he sees her in the doorway of her ramshackle abode, she certainly is that – short and stout, with long and scraggly grey hair – but she is, Will is sure, also a witch. A regular witch, at least, he thinks, and not the kind that spend 500 years rotting in a mysterious tower and abducting young girls for spells of eternal youth. This one seemed more interested in drying herbs and flowers along the rafters of her porch, and the smoke emanating from her chimney smells more of spices and oils than of anything nefarious.

"Madam, I entreat you," he tries, laying on his thickest charm as he makes his approach, hands raised to show her he means no harm, "please, my brother is quite ill and is in need of magic beans. I was told by the village doctor, Aldrich, that you could help me obtain them."

She looks him over the way one would look over livestock intended for purchase and 'harrumph's in dismissal at what she sees. It is not a reaction Will is used to receiving. She moves to close the door on him and he thrusts an arm out to stop her, wary of the warning Aldrich had given him about angering her.

"Please," he starts again, "My name is Will Grimm. My brother, Jacob, he needs the magic beans or he will die of some mysterious sickness. I will do whatever you ask of me if you'll help. Please."

"You do not believe the beans will save him, so they will not," she tells him, "And I will not waste them on you when you have already thrown them away once."

Will flounders. Surely she can't mean Jacob's magic beans from back when they were children – the beans that signed Lotte's death warrant. The man he'd gotten them from had merely swindled them out of a cow. Those beans weren't magic.

…Were they?

The old crone smirks at him, and Will is more than a little disturbed at how well she can figure out what's going on in his head. "They would have saved your sister, yes, if you had believed even half as much as he believed. If you wish them to work now, you'll need to believe enough for the both of you." With a resigned sigh, she gives up on getting him out of her doorway and steps outside, walking around her property to the small paddock containing a few goats, one elderly horse, and one vaguely familiar cow.

"No," Will says, "It can't be."

The cow Jake had gone to market to sell had been old already, nearly ten. She'd barely given milk at all, and they'd expected selling her to the butcher would barely net them enough coin to pay for Lotte's medicine, maybe some firewood and a scant bit of food. The chances of that cow still being alive, fifteen years later were slim – who would keep a dry cow?

"She milks just fine," the old crone tells him, "just as she always has, since the day my late husband brought her here, after he bought her off your brother for a handful of magic beans."

Will sits down hard on an old tree stump by the fence line before gravity does it for him. His whole worldview is shifting in ways that even the moving trees of the enchanted forest hadn't managed. For years, he's mercilessly taunted Jake about the beans, brought them up at every available opportunity as a means to win arguments and discourage crazy theories. The magic of the forest had proved him wrong to some degree – magic was real, but the beans still weren't. And now they were. Now Lotte could have lived. Now it's his fault and not Jake's that she's gone. Jake believed and he didn't and isn't that always the case?

He thinks of the woodsman's enchanted ax, how it worked when Jake used it, warding away the vines, but not when he tried to do the same. Had Jake believed in that, too?

He thinks of true love's kiss, how Jake's love revived the evil queen's victims when all seemed lost. Will's found himself wondering more than once since then if it really was love for Angelika that saved them, or if it was Jake's love for him. After all, he'd told Will that the reason he wanted to rescue her was because she was part of the story. He thinks of Jake's drunken ramblings back in Karlstadt, after the mill-witch – going on and on about how nothing could come between the two of them, not witches or beasts or queens, not even death. Maybe he was right to believe in that, as well.

"If you want anything from me, I'll need you to do something for me first."

"Of course," Will concedes, without a thought, "What would you have me do?"

He doesn't know what to expect of her request. Will she demand he slay some other mythical beast – perhaps a troll living in the caves nearby, preventing her from gathering some much needed herb? Or something simpler – will she send him to do the gathering himself, fetching some wild plant that only grows somewhere wildly inconvenient for such an old woman? Or perhaps she'll want something from him more directly – a lock of hair, a memory, she could ask for a limb or for his life for all he knows and he'd probably give it to her if it meant saving Jacob.

"I would have asked for your heart, young man," she starts, sparking an edge of fear in Will that she might actually ask for his life or something vital to it, "but it is no longer yours to give away and I would not ask you to surrender the one you carry with you. I will settle for your hands, instead." The fear is still there, but it turns out that the only thing she plans to extract from him is merely a promise. "Swear to it that, when your brother is well once again, you will return to my cottage for a fortnight. I have need of someone more capable than I of doing certain tasks around the place these days. If you do not return, I will curse you and your brother, and no magic will save you, then."

"I swear it," he says, easily. It's a much better deal than he'd dared hope for, especially since she said 'when' Jake is well, not 'if' Jake is well, as if it were a guarantee. "I will return as soon as he can travel with me," he promises, and she offers a hand, which he accepts, sealing their compact. When she releases him, there are ten small beans left behind in his hand. They look identical to the ones he'd thrown away as a child. With a sigh of relief, he manages a quiet, "Thank you," as he carefully pockets them.

"He doesn't have much time left," the old crone tells him, and Will doesn't ask how she knows. "Your horse is exhausted. You may take mine," she gestures to the old mare in the paddock, "She may be old, but she is fleet of foot and knows the way to the village better than you do. Trust her and she will get you there in time."

The old mare, much like the old cow and the old crone and the old cottage, doesn't appear to be in the best condition, but Will swaps his saddle over to it all the same, putting his faith in the witch's promise the same way Jake put his faith in magic beans as a child. He thanks her yet again and takes his leave, urging the shaggy black mare into the fastest gait it can manage as the sun begins to rise.

The village comes into view when the sun is low in the afternoon sky. He's made much better time than he'd made on the way out to the witch's cottage, thanks to his borrowed mount. He leaves the old mare with a stable hand, offers up a few extra coins to ensure she is treated well, and then he's racing off to Aldrich's home.

One of the doctor's sons allows him entry and tries to tell him something, but Will isn't listening, he's desperate to see his brother, to make sure he isn't too late. And he isn't, but whatever warning the young man had tried to offer probably would have helped because Jake looks as close to death as it is possible to be and Will is entirely unprepared for it.

Jake is a ghostly shade of pale, his lips almost blue. The blankets on the make-shift bed are sweat-soaked, but when Will reaches out for him, a hand landing on Jake's chest in search of a heartbeat, his brother's skin is cool and clammy to the touch. There is a heartbeat there, beneath his fingers, but it's slow, too slow, and he can feel a deep rattling in Jake's chest that shouldn't be there, one that he remembers from the sickness that hit Lotte hard in the middle of winter fifteen years ago.

"I trust you managed to obtain the magic beans?"

Will spins around to find Aldrich behind him, "I did," he says, handing them over, "What now?"

Before the doctor can answer, Jake begins to convulse, shaking so violently that he nearly rolls himself off the bed. Will is acts quickly, grabbing hold of his brother before he can injure himself any further. He holds tight as the seizure persists.

"What now?" He asks again, his voice desperate.

Aldrich sets to work without delay, using a mortar and pestle to grind several of the beans into a smooth paste. "Hold him still," he tells Will, who does his best to keep flailing limbs from any unfortunate impacts. The doctor applies the paste to Jake's bare chest, tracing out elaborate patterns on his skin, none of which mean anything to Will. He never would have been able to figure this out on his own. "There," Aldrich finishes, setting the bowl aside when the last lines are carefully painted. "It shouldn't be long now."

Except it is. There's no change in Jake's condition in the next few minutes. The convulsions continue, not getting any worse but not getting any better, either.

Will glances up at Aldrich and finds a concerned look on the old man's face. "What?"

"We should be seeing some improvement by now," he says, checking Jake's weakening heart again, frowning with whatever result he finds. "It's not working."

"It has to work," Will counters, "she told me it would work if I…" believe.

She'd told him that they could have saved Lotte if Will had believed, but even if Will had believed as Jake had believed, the two of them never would have come up with grinding the beans up and doodling on their sister until she got better. It had to be something they would have thought to do when they were kids, if it was meant to work back then. Something simpler.

He eyes the beans Aldrich didn't use, finds three left. He takes one.

By now, Aldrich's sons have come to help, and with their aid, Jake's restrained enough that Will has a free hand to force his brother's jaw open. He presses the bean into Jake's mouth and forces him to swallow. When he's sure it's gone down, he repeats the process a second and third time.

And waits.

Nothing happens. Jake is impossibly still. The sluggish heartbeat beneath Will's hand on Jake's chest slows even further, until it stops completely. It didn't work. The magic beans didn't work. Maybe he didn't believe enough or maybe that wasn't the answer or maybe he didn't use enough or maybe…

… The 'maybe's don't matter.

It didn't work.

Jake is gone.

A sob racks through him without his awareness of the sound and he curls over Jake's body as the doctor and his assistants leave him to mourn. "Damn it, Jacob," he laments, "You and your bloody magic beans!" Twice those beans have stolen people he loves from him – first Lotte and now Jake. Why hadn't he asked the old crone for instructions – how much to give, how to give them?

He holds tight to Jake's hand as it begins to grow cooler despite the warmth of his own.

And then, a thought occurs to him. There's still one last thing he can try. Never mind the beans. A kiss. True Love's Kiss.

It had saved Will's life once already, maybe now it could save Jake's.

He gently cradles his brother's head in his hands and presses his lips to Jake's in what, in another life, might have been the simple love of one brother for another, but in this life is something more. Something that makes his heart not his own.

The thought reminds him of the old crone's words, that the heart he carries is someone else's. Jake's.

Another idea, just as hopelessly desperate as the kiss, has him scrambling in his pockets, hoping that one bean somehow evaded use. By some miracle, he finds one there, tucked away in the depths of it, and with a silent plea to whatever magic it contains, he swallows it himself. If he has Jake's heart...

But, for another long, long, long moment, Jake remains still and silent.

The doubt starts to creep in again, that he hasn't done enough, that he hasn't done it right, but he shoves it back down. It will work. It will. There is no other option. Will believes with everything in him – Jake's heart included – that it will work.

And there's no telling what does it, not really, which aspect of Will's cobbled together plan snatched Jake back from Death's icy hold – the magic beans Will had given him, True Love's Kiss, the magic bean Will had taken himself – maybe even some combination of them all, mixed with Will's desperate hope and desperate faith.

Ultimately, Will doesn't care what does it, only that something does.

Because Jake comes to with a desperate gasp for air, his eyes wide and terrified and confused. He chokes out a frantic, "Will?" as he tries to sit up and Will has to press him back down – no one so recently dead should be moving that much just yet. "Will, what…?"

Will just holds tight to his brother's hand, revels in having him back. He's suddenly overwhelmed with the loss of adrenaline and the physical toll of days without rest in the search for the magic beans. He's exhausted, and relieved beyond words and it's all he can do to answer, as best he can, "it's a long and unbelievable story, brother," he manages, can't stop the laugh that escapes him at the absurdity of the story itself, all of the realizations that had come with it.

Aldrich returns before Jake can respond, likely at the sound of Jake's voice, and is not as surprised as Will thinks he should be to see Jake alive and well again given the state he was in when he took his leave from the room – maybe it was meant to be Will who did the saving in this case. "Nicely done, Grimm," the doctor says, "You used the magic beans wisely."

Jake's eyes dart from the old man to Will, incredulous, "Oh, now I've got to hear this story."

"You will," Will assures him, confident that he won't make it through the whole of the tale before his body gives out on him and demands some actual rest, "I promise to tell it to you, but not just yet."

Three days pass and Jake regains his strength, his color, his health. He's driving Aldrich mad by the end of the second day, asking questions and eager to write, to read, to move, to anything after days spent in bed. And so, Will, now rested up himself, finally agrees that it's time for them to move on - even if he still hasn't told Jake the tale of his rescue.

He gathers their supplies, pays their debts, saddles up Pepper and the old mare and together he and Jake take their leave of the little village.

"Not Zellingen?" Jake asks, when they turn toward the forest and away from the road that would have taken them on to their original destination.

"Not Zellingen," Will agrees.

He has a promise to keep, after all.

The summer sun beats down on him as he works to replace the battered shingles on the roof of the old cottage. He's been at it all morning, and he's in desperate need of a break so he makes his way down the ladder propped up on the sidewall and back to solid ground.

He spots Jake – sitting in the shade by the river with the old crone. He's frantically scribbling down her accounts of magical encounters of her own: the impressive tale of the time she bested a giant, the outsmarting of a water nixie intent upon stealing her animals, the time she lifted a particularly cruel curse from Aldrich's family, the precarious nature of dealing with the dwarves from the mines beneath the caves and so many more that Will fears Jake will need a new book to hold them all soon enough.

Jake passes him a mug of some cold, refreshing drink – the old crone seems to have countless recipes that make use of the native herbs and flowers that are quite delicious, this one is no exception – and scoots over so Will can join them on the shaded rocks.

"You can finish the roof tomorrow, if you'd like," the old crone tells him, 'tsk'ing at the sunburn he's already gained (she has something for that, too, it turns out), "It'll be cooler tomorrow."

"What if it rains?" Will counters, knowing full well there are places that would certainly leak in that case.

She's thoughtful for a moment before she decides, simply, "It won't."

Will believes her. "I'll finish it tomorrow, then, thank you."

"I'll just be tending to the animals, then," she says, excusing herself rather abruptly. As she hobbles off to the paddock, she calls back over her shoulder, "I believe you are still owed a story, Jacob. You might be able to wheedle it out of him now."

"I'll certainly try," Jake laughs, and Will can't help but smile at them both even if he feels, not for the first time, as though they may be ganging up on him. Jake and the old crone get on well and he's in trouble if they continue this alliance. When she's out of sight, Jake turns to look at him, curious, "How about it, you have a story to tell me?"

Even knowing this was coming, that sooner or later he'd have to share the details of what happened, it's not easy to do, but he nods, determined, and begins to tell the tale. He relays everything he can, every detail committed to memory and for once Jake doesn't reach for his book to record it all, just listens with rapt attention as Will tells him of the fever that fell so quickly, of the quest through the forest, of the old crone's impossible knowledge of their pasts. He apologizes for his disbelief, for the years of using the magic beans against Jake, claims the guilt that's racked his brother for years over the death of their sister because it wasn't his fault – it was never his fault.

He tells Jake of returning with the beans. Explains Aldrich's complicated method, and then his own frantic attempts to get the beans to work their magic when that didn't seem to do anything and how he doesn't quite know what did save him, in the end – magic beans or True Love's Kiss or their shared hearts.

Jake flushes as red as Will's sunburn at the implications therein. Maybe he's hiding some secrets, too. "So, once upon a time, we stole each other's hearts?" He tries, sounding just as anxious as Will feels about what all this means for them. "And then what? We… we live happily ever after?"

"You tell me, Jake," Will offers, knowing full well just what it is he is offering here. "You're the writer. Do we?"

There wasn't exactly a lot of distance left between them to start with, the two of them sitting so close together on the rock at the river's edge, but Jake takes a deep breath and seems to make his mind up on the matter. He moves in closer and one of Will's hands comes up to land on Jake's shoulder on instinct, "I think so," he finally decides, his voice low and quiet as he says the words, "I think fate may have had a hand in this ending."

Fate, Will thinks, or a meddlesome old crone.

But Jake has left it to Will to cross the last of the space between them – and he does. Will presses his lips to Jake's in an impassioned kiss. It's not True Love's Kiss – or maybe every kiss is True Love's Kiss – but it is a happily ever after.