Attention please: during this period of time (in which I had a lot to do so sorry if this chapter is not satisfying, I wrote it quickly) I thought about the plot. Since it wasn't entirely definited, it has been modified a little: don't worry there aren't big changes, but the most rilevant one is that there's no more smut, I'm sorry. I realized it made no sense in this fanficion and I decided to remove it from my original project. I think I will leave M rating because it's violent anyway, but there isn't smut anymore. If you want to read smut, I will surely write it in my other fanfiction "Reversed" in a few chapter or maybe more (it's not advertisement, if you don't want to read it just don't, I wanted to advise. I hope I didn't disappoint you and I hope you will enjoy. Thank you so much for following and reviewing! :)

As he found himself lying on the concrete, staring at the gray sky of the city, with throbbing pains all over his body, he realized that something had gone wrong. He sat up, growling as a glass sliver stuck on his left hip moved due to his movement, and he saw the helicopter in flames crashed against the entrance of a nearby building. His body was covered in burning and aching cuts and grazes: the smallest slivers were expelled with the healing, but the largest ones, which were three or four, remained firmly clung to his flesh. He extracted them one by one with his hands, leaving the skin free to heal, and once he completely recovered and freed his mind from pain, he realized what happened.
Surface-to-air missiles.
He cursed the bastard who had invented them, especially when he noticed that he was on the opposite side of Manhattan from his refuge. He felt strangely tired, but most of all pissed off: why get into all that trouble just for some food?
Oh right, the food, god knew how much it was messed after all that happened. He took the packages out of his pockets to check their state: they were quite mistreated, but certainly edible, the wrappers were intact.

Wait...why did he care so much? What made his prey so special to make him worry? The most probable reason why he was so irritated about this was that he hadn't worried about something for a long time and doing such things for stupid concerns made him vulnerable. And he hated being vulnerable.

He snorted, putting everything back into the pockets, and ran towards the refuge, exerting all his remaining strength, trusting the fact that no one would follow him: for what he knew, those idiots would have presumed him dead or simply wouldn't have found him anyway.

Desmond swore loudly against the window that didn't really want to open up: he was too weak for efforts and his stomach didn't stop its complaining. The tiredness was unbearable and he began to be seriously afraid of dying, because Alex had been gone since a lot of time, as always he didn't know how much, but it surely had been long. What if he left him there, without even food?
A shiver ran through his spine at the thought: he didn't want to die, not there, not for hunger, it would have been one of the worst deaths he could ever face. Had the window been made of glass, he could have easily broken it, but apparently Alex was really clever. He gave the last tug to one of the wooden boards that covered the window before leaning against them and sliding down to the ground.
What would have happened to him? He would have died or would have had to stay here forever? He closed his eyes and wrapped his knees with his arms, trying to think of nothing: he felt himself being surrounded by the darkness while he slowly fell to an uncertain sleep, temporary or conclusive, he didn't care.

He suddenly snapped his eyes open as an idea came to his mind: glass! It could be his way out, in the bathroom there was a mirror, he had seen it the first time he had been there. He stood up and headed to the bathroom, hoping that the precious mirror was still there: thanks to all the saints he knew, he found it, he just needed a way to break it. He grabbed an old and dusty towel nearby, shook it off from the dust and tied it around his hand to protect it from splinters: then he punched his own reflection, distorting it and sending the mirror into a lot of irregular pieces. That meant seven years of bad luck but he didn't care much because it couldn't get any worse.
He analyzed the pieces of glass and picked up the sharpest one, wrapping it in a piece of ripped towel and putting it in his pocket without risk of injury. He had a plan, but he wasn't sure of its success: for how good it seemed, he had a bad feeling about everything. He prayed to everything holy there was in the world, hoping that his plan would work despite the bad feeling that tormented him, and sat down at the table in the main room, waiting for the shape-shifter arrival.

He waited, and waited, and waited, and when he was almost certain that the man in question would have never come back, the door suddenly burst open, slamming against the wall and closing back on its own inertia. Alex stepped forward, blood dripping from his clothes, and slowly walked towards the table where Desmond was sitting. The younger man stood up and stepped back to maintain the distance, until the virus stopped exactly in front of the table and put an hand in his pockets. The assassin held his breath, clutching the glass piece in his pocket and expecting the worst, and then opened his mouth wide when tatty packets of sandwiches and crackers fell on the table.
-Eat.- the virus said in an ambiguous tone, that seemed something between an order and an advice.
Despite the incredible urge to take the food and gulp it all down like lions do when meat is thrown to them, Desmond had a precise thing in his mind.

-What does this mean?- he asked, with the tone he usually used to piss someone off.
-Weren't you hungry?- Alex blurted out irritated, he couldn't understand what kind of question the other one was asking.
Apparently Desmond had hit the target.
-You expect me to eat that? Have you poisoned them or what? Drugged, maybe? I'm not gonna eat it, I'm not a fool.- he said keeping the same tone, unrolling the glass from the towel in his pocket, trying not to get noticed.

-What are you trying to say?- the shape-shifter darkly asked. -If you knew what I've gone through to get that, you wouldn't even dare talk to me like that.-
-No one ever explicitly asked you to do it, so don't think you made such a venture and don't get your head up.- he spat right on the virus' face with the more nerves than he ever had in his whole life, certain that Alex would have attacked him right then.

Yet it didn't happen, because the man focused more on the first sentence and was strangely dumbfounded. That was right, it was his decision: indeed the young man didn't explicitly asked him, he didn't even beg and he didn't seem to be seriously starving. He could have ignored him or just put off the problem to another moment as he ever had done with the other preys (not that they had survived that long anyway). Then why didn't he do the same with Desmond?
He looked right in his eyes, revealing his own, and when their gazes met he felt it again, that shiver down his spine that had irritated him so much before. There, he could feel, again. He had unconsciously tried to keep that feeling alive, not much the man himself, but the feeling he gave. He wasn't sure what kind of feeling it was, because he didn't feel anything for a long time.

Drowning in his thoughts, he didn't notice that Desmond had approached him, taking advantage of his musing, and he was then facing him, without moving his gaze away, which had changed: it was scared, but at the same time challenging. Alex continued to stare at him a bit confused, trying to interpret his look.

He would have never imagined such a thing: Desmond's arm suddenly snapped towards him, pulling out of the pocket the bare glass sliver and pointing directly at the virus. Alex saw it with the corner of his eye, so shiny and threatening: but, since he had delayed reflexes due to the last battles, he shifted back too late and he couldn't avoid id.
The transparent and sharp tip sank into his throat, perforating carotid and trachea together and ripping out a strangled groan of pain from the shape-shifter. Alex fell to his knees, softening the fall with a hand on the floor, while the other one threw up to his neck, trying to identify the weapon. It hurt, a fucking lot, the irregularity of the blade just multiplied the pain.

Desmond stood there for a moment, staring right at him: he had to admit, just for a moment, that he pitied him, that wound had to hurt like hell, but then he ended up thinking that he just deserved it. He couldn't remain there. Certain of safety, he turned and ran towards the door, leaving the virus in agony on the floor.