Breathe

Alex's POV

God he's beautiful.

I know that beautiful is not really an appropriate word to use in conjunction with Walter S Skinner but right now, no other word comes to mind.

I watch him as he sleeps. He is curled up on his side, one hand resting lightly on the pillow. His chest rises in and out as he breathes deep in slumber.

I cannot be sure of how long I have been sitting here for, watching him while he sleeps. I am aware of the risk I am taking. If he should wake to find me sitting here watching him...

Still I can't help it. Coming back here, to this apartment-to him. It has become an addiction, stronger than any shit that you can push into your veins. The need is stronger, I will die without my fix just as surely as any junkie on the street. But this is worse. At least with some drug, there is brief satisfaction, a short sweet release from the pain of desire. But for me, there is only pain-and longing.

He's dreaming now, I see the way his eyelids flicker, the sudden harshness of his breaths. I can feel my body tense and I become alert. Will he wake? And what if he does?

He will kill me.

I shouldn't come back here, I know it but the heart wants what the heart wants. And I have learned that there is no denying it.

Walter's breathing has smoothed out and he is still once more. The dream has past.

Wake up/don't wake up. An insane prayer from the lips of a man being driven insane. A whisper of despair.

Wake up and look at me. Don't wake up and see me sitting here beside you so weak with wanting you.

Wake up and love me.

Don't wake up and I know that you won't hate me...

A soft moan and I watch as he rolls over, snuggling into the pillow that he's clutching. His face is so innocent, all the lines and cares of the world are soothed away and I see the vulnerability of the man underneath.

His lips are parted now, how I long to lean forward and press my own against them. I know how they would taste.

I run my tongue over my own cracked dry lips. It's been awhile since I've eaten, being on the run like this plays havoc with my living standards. I allow myself a grim smile at that thought.

Having fucked Spender and his cronies over once to often, they have finally grown tired of me. The price on my head is quite considerable really and the economy being how it is, I should be quite flattered.

I'm not though, for the first time in my life I really have no where to turn, no bolthole in which to hide. All my so called colleagues seem almost obscenely enthusiastic about the prospect of being able to collect a large reward for my head.

I have no where to go Walter I think sadly to myself. That's why I keep coming back here-to you. Even though I know you hate me, at least when I am with you, I feel like I am actually alive.

It's no good. He sleeps blissfully unaware of my presence and I haven't the courage to face him while he's awake.

I breathe out heavily but still he does not hear me. Finally I turn and leave the apartment, knowing that I will be back.

Walter's POV

He comes here night after night. I hear him enter my apartment as stealthy as a cat. Every night he sits in the same chair an watches me. He thinks that I am sleeping and I don't disabuse him of the illusion. So I lie here night after night, every muscle in my body tense. Oh I have learned to feign sleep well. I make sure that my breathing is deep and regular, that I roll over as though dreaming.

Pretending has become a force of habit now and I must say, I do it well.

Well enough so that he comes back night after night.

I hear him as he sits in the same chair night after night watching me. I can hear him breathing, the air moving in and out of his sleek slender body.

A body that I have come to desire. A body that can cause me to become hard at the mere glimpse of it in a darkened room.

I know what brings him back night after night. I know the desires that drive him...because they are echoed in me. The desires that burn in both our souls, and god they burn bright indeed.

I open my eyes now, knowing that he is gone. I sit up, wiping the light sheen of sweat that moistens my skin. I notice how my hand is trembling.

I remember the first time he appeared in my apartment. I had been falling into a light doze, hovering on the verge of real sleep when I had sensed rather than heard him enter my bedroom.

Fear had made me feign sleep, hoping that he had come to steal something rather than kill me. I had tensed, waiting for a bullet or a knife blade, ready to spring out of bed and fight him to the death. But none of that had happened. Instead he had sat in the chair near the doorway and had...watched me.

Curiosity had taken over from fear by this time and I had pretended to sleep, wondering what he would do next.

After a while he had left as silently as he came. Leaving me shaking and bewildered. But even more so when he returned the next night. And the night after...and the night after that.

All the time I waited, my confusion and curiosity growing. Then one night it hit me, the realization almost making me laugh out loud. He had nowhere else to turn. No one else that he could go to. He was completely alone.

As was I

Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year. The words of one of my favourite songs had drifted across my mind. That was what we were, two lost souls simply drifting.

I knew that there was a price on Alex's head. I had heard that he had screwed his bosses over once too often and that they were done with him once and for all. I had no idea how much longer Alex would be able to survive out there all alone. No contacts, no friends, no more luck-good or bad. Now for him it was simply a matter of time.

And time was running out.

If he survives another night, he will be back. He can't help himself, it's a compulsion with him. A pure driven need, raw enough to make the heart shrivel. He will be back again tomorrow night, and this time I don't plan on letting him leave.

After all, it's not as though I have anyone else in my life and I grow tired of being alone.

Settling back against the pillows, a plans begins to formulate in my mind.

It's time to capture and tame a rat.