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The first time Alexander Mahone knows that he has utterly and completely lost any sense of objectivity when it comes to Michael Scofield is when he wakes up with his sheets stuck to him, sweat slicking his skin, heart pounding from an intense orgasm.
This is new.
Not the obsession. Obsession is part of the way Mahone works. The way he does his job. What makes him so good at his job.
The first one had been Stanley McCoy. Triple homicide. Escaped by walking through the twelve doors prisoners were brought in. It was a very masterful escape, or so Alexander had thought until Michael Scofield. The man spent over a year chatting up thieves, learning how to pick locks and pick pockets, making keys, getting clothes, arranging travel. He learned the schedule, learned which guards had their guards down and when, and took advantage of it all.
For three months, Alexander lived inside Stanley McCoy's head. Combing through his history, interviewing friends and family. Learning how he thought, how he moved, how he breathed. Everything.
In the end, finding McCoy was fairly easy. Alexander had woken one day and knew where McCoy would be. The man was in custody before lunchtime.
Releasing him from Alexander's mind was harder. It was almost a year before Alexander stopped dreaming of murders, girls with pink lipstick and short skirts, and an endless hallway of door with locks waiting to be picked.
It was during this time, Alexander met and married Alicia Barrett.
He'd just gotten Stanley McCoy out of his head when Peter Morris moved in. Morris had robbed twenty-three banks in two years. There'd been an off duty cop at the last one, who, along with the security guard, managed to subdue him. Morris had been tried, convicted, and sentences to fifty years. Morris, using his considerable charm and plethora of cash he'd stored away, had bribed a guard to smuggle him out in the trunk of his car. The guard was killed and dumped; the car was abandoned twenty miles in the opposite direction that McCoy took.
Morris, like Alexander, had grown up in a military family. His family lived on base in Long Island; Alexander's had lived in Clayton. They'd gone to the same college, although Morris had dropped out half way through his first year. They were both Mets fans, both only children, both raised by their fathers.
It'd been frighteningly easy to crawl into Morris's skin. Alexander moved in, caught the bastard in six months, and stayed there for two more years.
Alicia left him. Alexander started sleeping with men as well as women. He drank more. He dreamed of bank vaults.
And then there was Shales. Shales, who'd escaped. Shales, whose mind Alexander couldn't quite get into. Shales, who's evaded Alexander for longer than he wanted to admit.
Friends disappear. Sleep goes away. Anger becomes harder to control. Blood pressure rises. Doctors prescribe pills. Soon, the only things in the world that exist are work, the bar, and an empty apartment.
Until there is Michael Scofield.
Michael, with the most brilliant plan Alexander has ever seen. So wonderfully complex, planned out to the last detail. Even what came after. Not just money and get away, but wiping him and his brother off the face of the earth.
Michael. Who's own research held the key to capturing the others who escaped. Who was too clever for his own good, almost too clever for Alexander. But in a good way. A stimulating way. One that made him enjoy the chase again.
Michael. With the beautiful face and the deeply intense eyes. The full lips that Alexander dreams of nibbling on. The thin body that he dreams of stroking. The firm ass which he dreams of pounding.
Sleep is caught in snatches. At first, maps overlaid on skin, tantalizing clues buried in beautiful pictures was a welcome relief to Shales and his less refined mind. But then, it gave way to fevered flesh and blood pounding and slick tongues sliding against one another and bodies moving as one.
As Alexander slips into Michael's skin, he feels himself fragmenting. Haunted by past failures, but unbelievable frustrations. And he wonders if this will be the last, if this will be the case that finally breaks him.
And then, one day, there is an envelope waiting for him when he comes home.
In the envelope is an origami swan.
Inside that swan, is a letter.
This time, it is the world that shatters. And, this time, Alexander has a safety line to cling to.