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[cool-like-dom.livejournal.com]

title- "chasing the dragon"
author - eri
rating - hard R for drug use, graphic violence, CHARACTER DEATH (edit-sorry if you read and were pissed. my bad.)
pairing - AU monaboyd
disclaimer - gimme the proof that this happened, and i'll do a little dance.
feedback - better than morphine. cheaper, too.

author's notes - this came about whilst watching from hell, and more or less rips it off completely. except that it's got billy and dom. also inspired by nakeno and her fic Just This Side, which unleashed all my pent-up psychoses. blame her. and septentrio for suggesting i write this in the first place. not very specific, written late at night and that sort of thing. was more interested in the details than the descriptions. so if it reads weird, tough.

x-posted to monaboyd






This was not the first time he had been forced to come here. And most likely, it wouldn't be the last. It still didn't make it any easier.

Inspector Boyd waved off the "Emperor," of the den, and walked calmly through the room, stepping around the bodies of those already in pursuit.

A young man was laying across a pile of cushions, eyes closed, one hand clenched at his side. The other was outstretched, towards a young Chinese boy who was sitting at his side, next to a still-smoking pipe. Boyd waved the lad off, and stood over the unconcious man.

"Wake up," he said loudly.

There was no response.

"Wake up, sodding bastard," Boyd said, smacking the other man across the face.

A pair of hazy eyes blinked open, pupils slowly focusing on the figure above him.

"Hullo, darling," he muttered.

Inspector Boyd sighed, and pulled him up.

---

"I don't know what's gotten into you," the Captain was saying, "but you had better start taking this seriously, Monaghan. This is the third death we've had in two weeks. The people want this killer caught."

"And who's to say that I don't?" Monaghan muttered, lighting a cigarette.

Captain Bean gave the young man a piercing glare. "You could have fooled me. You've got no interest in the case when you're here, and when you're not here, you're unable to be found. I've sent Boyd out looking for you too many times, when he can actually serve some use to me here."

The young man said nothing, just stared at the smoke rising from his cigarette.

"If this unpredictability continues, you will find yourself with much more free time on your hands." Bean turned away from him. "You are dismissed."

"Yessir," Monaghan said, rising unsteadily from the chair, and making his way to the door.

---

Boyd looked across the desk at his partner.

"So. Did ye see anything?"

Monaghan raised his head, eyes dark. "I saw... a scarf. Covered in blood. Lying next to a woman's body."

He blinked as his mind recalled the images, flashing behind his eyes.

Boyd shook his head, and sighed. "I cannot condone this."

The other man rolled his eyes. "It's not yours to condone."

"Your health is at stake. You're dying, Dominic, at the expense of these visions."

Monaghan took a drag off his cigarette. "We all die sometime, William. At least I'll go for a worthy cause."

"I'd rather have ye alive than catch this bastard."

"You don't really mean that."

"No, ya'er right. Ya'er a fool." Boyd rose from his chair. "Let's see if this vision of yaer's stands up."

---

A black scarf lay next to the body of the young woman, partially covered in blood, which had slowly pooled around her. The woman's throat had been slit. Her eyes were open to cloudy skies.

"Ya'er a madman," Boyd muttered, as Monaghan bent down to inspect her wound.

His fingers brushed the cheap material of her dress, moving the collar out of the way. "She was strangled. Her throat was cut afterwards. There's bruising around her neck."

"Just like th' others," Boyd replied.

"Why bother slitting her throat, then?" a young sergeant asked.

"Paint for his canvas," Monaghan explained, throwing back the woman's torn skirt.

The sergeant turned away, retching.

The word "whore" was drawn all over the woman's abdomen in blood.

Boyd closed his eyes, sighing. "He's carved this one up, as well."

Monaghan stood, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. "Sergeant Wood, have this body taken to the examiner. We need to see what he's taken."

The grey-faced young man coughed, and signaled for the others.

---

"This has gone on long enough," Monaghan said, throwing his coat onto the floor.

"I agree. But we cannae do anything about it for now. We need to go back and question th' witnesses, maybe..." Boyd sighed as his partner walked out of the room.

"Dominic."

"I've been right so far, William. I've seen them. I've seen everything so far," Monaghan called from the other room. "His face will come to me. I just need the right persuasion."

"I won't let ye do this," Boyd replied, turning the corner, seeing the other man crouched on the floor, searching under his bed.

Finding what he was looking for, Monaghan stood and faced him, wooden box in his hand.

"Join me," he said.

Boyd saw the glint in his eyes, and every nerve in his body screamed at him to run from the room.

Instead, he nodded.

---

Monaghan set the metal plate across the glass delicately, sound resonating quietly through the small room.

Boyd watched with trepidation as the liquor filled the glass, swirling dark emerald and husky.

A drop of a vial from the box, and the light of a match, and Monaghan held out the drink to him.

"Trust me," he said.

Boyd took the glass from his partner, and downed it without flinching.

---

Light. Color. Sound. Enhanced and folded and brilliant.

Boyd sighed, eyes fluttering, as he lay back on the bed. He turned and saw Monaghan sitting near him, holding something in the flame of a candle. Watching as he lit the pipe, drawing in the smoke and closing his eyes, and Boyd was hypnotized by the patterns the smoke made in the air.

His partner exhaled, smirking slightly, and moved onto the bed next to him.

"William," he whispered. "Let me show you."

Boyd lifted his hand to the pipe, unable to look away from the other man's eyes. He could swear that his own reflection glittered in them.

He drew in the burning smoke, tried to hold it in his lungs. Warm lips caressed the side of his jaw, and he exhaled with a moan.

"Dominic."

The pipe was taken from his hands, and he was pushed back down, Monaghan's weight settled over him, and arched up to meet his mouth with his own.

---

He saw.

The flash of a knife.

The spray of blood.

A woman's eyes rolling back in her head, ends of a scarf knotted tight around her neck.

Fingers dipped in blood, tracing over pale skin.

Green eyes burning with anger, with malice, with death.

He saw it all.

---

"Why?" he asked.

They sat facing each other. Monaghan couldn't meet his partner's eyes.

"Why did you kill them?" he asked.

"Because of her," Boyd answered. "Ah loved her. And she left me. She fucking left me, with nothing but my own pity."

Monaghan said nothing.

"Ah couldn't take it, knowing what she had become. So." A pause. "Ah didn't want anyone else to have to end up like me. Falling for a whore."

"You didn't have to kill them."

"They're not real people, Dominic. They're fucking creatures. Rutting ehn disease and filth. No one deserves to live like that." He sat back. "Ah did them a favor."

Silence.

"Ya'er going to turn meh in?"

Monaghan looked up. "No. Just stop."

Boyd blinked at him, nodded, and said nothing else.

---

Monaghan lay sprawled on the cusions, both arms on his chest.

Boyd walked over to him, sighing.

"Wake up," he said.

There was no response.

Boyd put his hand on Monaghan's forehead, and his eyes grew wide.

The pipe lay beside the young Inspector, no longer smoking.

His grey eyes were open, visions trapped forever inside.

Boyd turned away.