He stumbled through the woods that had already gone dark in the late afternoon, following the scent of home as the actions that he had just gone through with became a blur in his mind. The trees and the sky above them were spinning out of control in his mind, and as hard as he tried to concentrate on getting back to the house, the smell of fresh blood that was covering his hands and staining his teeth was overpowering his memory of what home even smelled like.

The distance between his current location and the back door of his house seemed to be growing with every step he took, his heart pounding in his chest as he slowly began to realize what he had done, his thoughts turning into nothing but a series of 'no no no.' Somehow, through the heart attack that it felt like he was having, he made it back to the house, climbing the steps up to the back door and pushing inside before collapsing on the hardwood floor. It felt so cool, so relaxing, and the smell of home washed over him but he couldn't calm down. Unwilling to get up, he stayed like that for god knows how long, willing time to just stop all together.

"Monroe!" The sound of his name, the feeling of strong hands rolling him onto his back, those were the things that brought him back into the cold reality of what had taken place. He opened his eyes to see Nick standing over him, his black hair in need of a comb and the look on his face clearly showing how worried he was.

"Nick." Monroe's voice sounded awful, like he had been yelling for hours, but he almost felt like he had. He said his companion's name because it was the only thing he could get his lips to form, the only thing he could think of clearly at that moment. "Nick."

"What happened? Monroe, come on, tell me who did this to you," Nick demanded, as he pulled Monroe up into a sitting position.

"No," Monroe muttered, the way that Nick flinched telling him that his breath smelled like blood and raw flesh, the way he had been afraid that it would. "Nick, Idid this."

"Tell me what happened, now."

"I don't know. I don't know what went wrong. I lost control. Nick, I…I killed an innocent man."

"Monroe…no." Nick let go of Monroe, walking into the kitchen to get a towel, Monroe's world going back to spinning in circles the moment that Nick wasn't there anymore.

"I watched him suffer, took an innocent man from his backyard and ripped him apart. But I didn't kill him then, because having him ripped open wasn't bad enough. He was still alive, barely conscious but he knew what was going on when I dragged him into the woods and-"

"Stop it. Just stop talking about it, okay? I don't want to hear another word about what happened unless I ask you directly." Nick had returned from the kitchen, getting down on his knees in front of Monroe as he wiped him down with a damp towel, trying to remove the evidence that the killing had actually taken place.

Monroe followed Nick's orders and kept his mouth shut, not uttering another word about what he had done, but his mind went right back there and it felt like he wasn't in his own home anymore. The agonizing pain that the man was in would have been obvious to any sane person who could hear him, his horrible cries of unbearable pain and pleas to just make it stop. But there wasn't a sane person within hearing distance of the crime, just a Blutbad who had lost control of himself.

The blood that fell from the man's wounds started out thin and red at first, then grew thick and black as Monroe tore deeper, ripping away more of his flesh. The man's face was lost in tears, blood that had splattered everywhere, and his constant begging for his carnivorous murderer to just put him out of his misery already. But Monroe wasn't sane enough to make the pain stop for the man, he might as well have been a wild animal at that point, the poor young man watching as his flesh was literally eaten away. And that's when his blood started to run thin and red again, because there wasn't much left of it, what little of it that had been left behind was now just pumping out into the open. It wasn't until nearly his entire skeleton was exposed that Monroe finally put the long-since unconscious man out of his misery, ripping his throat out with his teeth.

The man was nearly just a skeleton with his organs when Monroe left him, nearly all of his flesh but that on his face had been eaten, leaving a horrified look on his face, his eyes still open and blown wide. That's when Monroe started to come down from his high, when he began to realize that after years of keeping himself in check, he had eaten an innocent man alive and listened to him scream and beg.

"Where is it, where's the body?"

"In the woods, about two miles back." It took Monroe awhile to realize that the incident was in the past and there wasn't anything that he could do to stop it anymore.

"Hank is probably going to get assigned this body when it gets found, I'll probably get called on it too. They are going to trace the body right back to our house, Monroe. We have to figure something out quick before he gets found."

"Let them have me."

"No. We are going to think of something."

"I don't think you understand. I ate a man alive. Listened to him scream and beg but I wouldn't let him out of his misery. I deserve to rot in prison if I don't die before I get there."

"No Monroe, that isn't how this is going to go. It was an accident, you know it was. You just lost control. We'll never break your diet or anything again, this is the only time that this will ever happen."

"We might be able to stop it from happening again, but that doesn't change anything, I still did it just now."

"Just…go get in the shower. Stay in there until there isn't a drop of blood left on you and get it off of your teeth. I'm going to burn every last thing that you're wearing, now go."

Monroe let the warm water wash over him for such a long time that it was beginning to turn cold, the blood long gone from his skin, yet he didn't want to come out. The moment that he stepped out of the shower, he'd be back to the real world, the one where he ate an innocent man alive, and that was the last thing he wanted. So he stayed like that, leaned against the cold tile, the water completely drained of all warmth before it just turned off completely. He looked up to see that Nick had turned the water off, the look on his face a cross between disappointment and worry. Just the idea of Nick being disappointed in him hurt almost as badly as the reality of what he'd done.

"I'm sorry."

"No, it's…Monroe, everything's gonna be okay," Nick assured the other as he handed him a towel. "I burned everything in the fireplace, really the only evidence left is the body."

"You can't do this, Nick. Once they find out that I did it and you've been helping me, you'll lose your job."

"I'm not going to lose my job, because nobody's going to find out what happened. We'll get out of Portland, take a week of vacation time, let them label it as a wild animal attack and then everything will be okay. Pack up for a week and we can leave right away, okay? This will blow over soon, I promise."

"Alright," Monroe muttered, his voice still sounding horribly worn out.

Nick left Monroe to get ready to leave, heading down the stairs to grab a glass of water when his cell phone started ringing on the counter. He grabbed a glass out of the cabinet, using the water dispenser in the fridge to fill it up as he grabbed his phone to see that it was Hank calling him.

"I was just about to call you."

"Oh, do you need something?" Hank asked on the other end of the line.

"I need to leave town by tonight, a family member of mine is really sick," Nick explained, going with the first lie that came to mind.

"Do you think you have time to cover one more case before you head out?"

"Well that depends on how far out the body is."

"Actually…it's right in your back yard."

# #

When Nick had imagined how badly the man would have been torn up, it wasn't anything compared to his actual condition. The flesh of his face was still completely intact save a few cuts and scrapes and splatters of blood, but that was pretty much all that was left of his skin. Nearly all of his flesh was gone, pieces of muscle ripped out to reveal the bones underneath.

"Monroe, what have you done?" Nick muttered to himself, the smell of the corpse hitting him before he could even see it clearly.

"This doesn't look human." Hank held up the tape that was blocking off the murder scene to allow Nick past as they analyzed the body.

"No," Nick agreed, "Definitely not human."

Trying to avoid having to get too close to the body, Nick stood a few steps behind Hank as he crouched down to get a closer look at it. Nick's stomach tried to crawl up into his throat at the thought of Monroe dragging this innocent man into the woods, listening to him scream and ripping him to shreds, eating the man's flesh away while he watched.

"Nick, you okay?" Hank had taken notice of the sick look on Nick's face, the way that he was staying a couple steps back.

"Um…yeah. Yeah, I just forgot to grab my badge. I'll just go back and get it real fast, I'll need it when we have to start asking questions."

"Alright…you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, really. I'll just…be right back."

Nick couldn't get away from the crime scene fast enough, following the same steps back to the house that Monroe had taken a few hours before, and the world seemed to be spinning for him too. His arms and legs had gone weak and we was really close to losing his lunch as he started to sweat and his heart raced.

"Monroe?" Nick made his way up the stairs once he managed to make it back to the house, headed towards their bedroom where his badge would be sitting on the dresser.

He wasn't surprised to be met with silence like he was when he came home from work after Monroe was in bed, as the other had been pretty shaken up about what he had done. Nick grabbed his badge, slipping its attached dog chain around his neck before checking around for Monroe.

The bathroom light had been left on and the floor was still slightly wet from when Monroe had stepped out of the shower, the closet door was sitting open and the contents of it had been pushed around, but there was no sign of Monroe anywhere in the house. Both of their sets of keys were sitting on the kitchen counter and both cars were parked in the driveway, so wherever he had gone it couldn't have been very far.

Nick's heart was pounding in his chest as he picked up his pace on the walk back to the crime scene, because he had a pretty good feeling that he knew where Monroe had headed off to. The leaves on the floor of the forest silenced his steps, but a million screaming thoughts were running through his head at the same time, most of them sounding like 'Find Monroe, find Monroe, find Monroe.'

When Nick finally found his companion, it didn't do much to calm him down. Monroe was facing the crime scene, Hank and all of the officers looking at him as the words that spilled out of his mouth just sent Nick's pulse into an unhealthy beat.

"I did it. I killed him."

"Nick? Did you know about this?" Hank was the first one to notice Nick, as his hand subtly moved towards his handgun.

"Hank, I…" Before Nick could come up with any believable response, Monroe turned to face him and he had about two seconds flat to realize that something was horribly wrong before Monroe jumped on him.

Nick had time to register the feeling of rocks and sticks pressed to his back, the feeling of sharp teeth at his throat and then a sharp tug. He made out the sound of somebody yelling his name and an animalistic growl, before everything went black.

# #

The sound of soft footsteps on linoleum floors, voices muffled through the thick door, and the noise of his heart beating gently were the first things that Nick was able to register in his mind as he regained consciousness. The light above him seemed too bright, so he took a moment to slowly blink his eyes open, realizing that he didn't have the feeling in about half of his chest.

"Nick." Nick easily recognized Hank's voice from spending so much time working with him, and he carefully turned his head over until he laid eyes on the other. "My god, you're awake." Hank sounded truly shocked, and Nick could see tears trying to spill out of his eyes.

"What happened?" His voice sounded broken and so quiet that it surprised him when Hank heard him at all. His throat felt dry and rough, like he was in bad need of a glass of water, and it hurt a bit to talk.

"I don't know how, but Monroe ripped most of your throat out with his teeth in one clean swipe. He just barely missed taking your windpipe out, although the doctor said you still probably wouldn't live. But you're awake." The relief was evident in Hank's eyes at the fact that Nick was conscious again, but he seemed to be fighting back the smile that played at the edge of his lips.

"Monroe…where is he?" Nick tried to ignore the pain in his throat as he spoke, the well being of his companion being the first thing on his mind once Hank used the other's name.

Hank shifted nervously in his seat, keeping his eyes locked on his intertwined fingers as he bit down on his lip. Nick just laid there quietly and waited, watching as Hank avoided his gaze and his dull heartbeat picked up slightly.

"Nick…Monroe, um…he fell out of a tree."

"He what?" Nick started to wonder if the medication might be kicking in, making him hear things wrong.

"Right after he tried to rip your throat out he ran to the nearest tree and climbed faster than any person should be able to climb a tree. He got up so high that we could hardly see him anymore, then he yelled something and he fell. I don't know if he jumped or just lost his footing, but…"

"Hank, what happened to him?"

"His neck snapped clear out of his skin when he hit the ground. I'm sorry, Nick."

"What?" Nick wasn't sure if he had actually gotten that word out of his mouth or if it was lost in his head, tangled in the mess of 'No' and 'Monroe'.

It felt like his heart stopped beating in his chest altogether, and a flood of tears rushed to his eyes as he tried to blink them away. Monroe had voiced his worry about Nick losing his job, looked at him like he could never explain how sorry he was for what he had done, and then tried to take him out the same way that a wolf would kill its dinner. Everything that they had been through together in the past few years came flooding back to Nick. The way that they had built up a strong friendship, worked together, and slowly became more than friends, only to go spiraling out of control in less than twenty-four hours.

Never again would he stay up until the small hours of the morning as he did research on a case with Monroe at his side, he'd never again wake up in the morning to find himself wrapped in Monroe's strong arms, and he'd never even get to see the light in his companion's eyes one more time.

"I think…he was trying to kill you, Nick."

And that's when he lost it. The moment that Nick realized that Monroe had been trying to take him along with him, the dam that was holding everything back fell out of place and he lost it. He could no longer stop the tears from pouring out of his eyes, stinging his skin as he yelled. The noises that he was making couldn't have been good for his throat, but he would have given anything to have the thing ripped out for real this time around.