Archive of Our Own

Sebastian never catches Jim watching him.

He knows Jim does – Jim must – those dark eyes never miss anything. But Sebastian never catches it. All the looks between them are one-sided, and Sebastian’s used to that. He’s memorized Jim facing away: Jim’s profile, Jim’s back, the curl of Jim’s hair at the nape of his neck.

Sometimes when they’re on a job Sebastian’ll watch Jim through the scope of his rifle, running the barrel of his gun down the line of Jim’s throat from three blocks away. He never thinks about pulling the trigger. Even when on the days when Seb hates Jim, even when he can feel Jim under his skin like fire and it makes him want to go mad, even when he wishes he was dead or had never met Jim at all – he stares at Jim's throat and he watches the rough skin there move when Jim swallows, and he thinks killing Jim would be like killing god. A good job, and Sebastian wouldn't be able to manage it.

He does think about the watching, though. Maybe too much.

They’re in Moscow, three hours after the first time Jim takes a knife to him. Sebastian can still feel the pulse of blood in his back, an aching throb that stabs through the wound just often enough to make the pain impossible to get used to. To be clear, Jim hadn't had something in mind, as far as Sebastian knew. It had been, come. kneel. take off your shirt. When he'd started cutting - what the fuck, Jim! - Sebastian had turned on him, and Jim had raised his eyebrows. Waited. Been clear, in the way that Jim is. And Sebastian had turned around and taken it.

Afterwards, Jim said, new weapons producer. We won't be buying from them.

He can’t move to take his strain off his muscles, because Jim’s meeting mafia and he'll know, somehow, if Sebastian looks at anything other than him. It’s cold enough outside that Sebastian’s toes are numb and his nose hurts underneath the thick wool of his balaclava. His gloves are heated; clever filaments woven into the fabric over his trigger finger so his hands stay ready no matter if the rest of him freezes. Sebastian doesn’t really appreciate it as much as he should. He hates the gloves. He hates the cold. He hates Russia, for fuck’s sake. Sebastian can feel the frost on the edge of his scope as it digs into his eye. Moscow’s hellish, this side of September, and he wants a hot drink and a bed so bad he can’t think about anything else.

Well. Almost anything else.

It starts idly enough; Sebastian’s bored out of his skull and Jim, through the scope, is sprawled out in an armchair with one ankle on his knee. It makes him look indolent, an emperor on his throne; and Sebastian wonders - cold, pain-distracted thoughts drifting -  what it’d be like to kneel in front of him. He knows Jim’s moods well enough, at that point, to know that Jim would be lazy and commanding; his eyes hooded behind his lashes, expecting obedience as a matter of course rather than a possibility.

He wouldn’t reward kneeling at his feet. He’d take it as his due. But he might, if it had been a good day, and he had whatever taste in Jim’s mouth passes for a good mood, be amused. He might smile at Sebastian. That catlike, sleepy, approving smile. That smile that whispers to Sebastian, haven't I been generous? And don't you wonder, what I might give you, if you were brave enough to ask me for it?

Sebastian scowls, mentally shaking himself. That’s a dark train of thought. The back of his knee is starting to itch, but he can’t move to scratch it. He’s been laying still for three hours now, and that’s not going to change until this meeting is over and he can go back to bed. My guardian angel, Jim calls him, deliberately mocking. The man Jim’s talking to - a big burly thing with tattoos crawling out of his collar up the back of his neck - has a gun shoved down the back of his pants. Sebastian can see it pressed up tight against the fabric. If the thug goes for it, Sebastian’s going to spatter him onto the carpet.

He’s not going to go for the gun, though. No one’s that stupid.

Not for the first time, Sebastian wonders why Jim hired him at all – bodyguard to the Shadow King isn’t a job as much as a practical joke. The last time someone took a swing at Jim it was Sebastian, and Jim had smiled at him, dreamy and unfazed, and sent him home. Sebastian woke up three days later missing a pint of blood.

Useless, Sebastian thinks; and then, a little more insistently, Bored. Home– tea – whiskey – bed. That order. Come on, Jim… Jim tilts his head back, looking at the Russian with an imperious smile curving his lips.

God, hasn't Sebastian earned himself a bit of indulgence? Hasn't he put up with Jim's shit long enough? He's shivering on a roof in the middle of a Russian winter. And Jim must want him to see this - why else insist Sebastian watch? And Jim's looking like a new sin that no one else has thought to invent yet, in his chair, ankle on one knee, amusement mixing with condescension on his face. The light from the fire licking over his smudgy black lashes and the pink skin of his lips. There's a prickle on the back of Sebastian's neck and he feels in his body, like a ghost, like an echo, what it would be to be in the room with that. Just slightly too hot from the fire, sweat beginning to bead on the back of his neck. Jim would look at him. He'd notice. He'd know. That thing that lives in Sebastian's stomach - he'd guess. He'd see it, finally. What it all was. He'd reach forward, card his fingers through Sebastian’s hair, his fingers cold and thoughtfully cruel. He’d tug Sebastian’s head back, baring his throat for Jim’s teeth.  Jim’s breath would be cool on Sebastian’s hot skin, and Sebastian would have to part his lips to breathe against the tension –

Sebastian pushes his tongue between his upper lip and his teeth, an old habit, and blinks hard to focus himself. Jim’s still speaking to the Russian, and his expression is back to a disinterested mask that says bad things for the person in front of him. When they first met Sebastian thought the little bastard didn't even have facial expressions. But he does, Jim. He has a hundred of them. They're just particular to Jim. Cold disinterest. Benevolent amusement. Capricious glee.

And the sharp, sparking focus he gets when he’s given a puzzle worth solving. Seb can imagine Jim watching him with that singular, focused curiosity, although it’s never happened. He can picture it perfectly. In the chair, maybe. Leaning forward, fist still wrapped in Sebastian’s hair, Jim’s head tilted slightly to the side as he concentrates. Insane, unimaginably brilliant, all centered on Sebastian – all narrowed down to a single point, holding Sebastian in place – I want to see, pet. I want you to show me –

Oh, hell.

Sebastian shifts uncomfortably, and tells his dick firmly that it’s too cold to get hard. Maybe once they’re inside he can rub out something about it. But Jim’ll know, if he does. Jim always knows. Jim doesn’t have even have to look at Sebastian to know. And it’s unbearable, isn’t it? The smooth amusement on Jim’s face – you can wank to me if you like, Moran, but it is a tad pathetic – as he stares down at keys of his phone instead of even glancing at Seb –

Through the scope Jim’s standing, offering his hand to the Russian to shake. Sebastian covers Jim as he leaves; all the way out the door and back into his car, until Jim pulls away from the curb and his red-tail lights disappear around the corner.

Then Sebastian finally sits up, unscrewing the scope from the barrel of his gun.

It’s a long walk back to the hotel, in the cold, and Seb’s legs are asleep and his wallet’s with his hotel keys in Jim’s car. He’s not angry, though. He expected Jim to leave him behind without thinking about it.

Everything between them’s one-sided.

Sebastian’s used to that.

++

Sebastian doesn’t get sloppy often - wouldn't be Jim Moriarty's kept dog if he was - but it happens.

He comes to when they throw a bucket of rank water in his face, sputtering and choking and pulling instinctively against the ropes at his wrists even though he knows from the first tug they’ll hold. He’s still blinking drops out of his eyes when the woman in front of him leans down to inspect his face. She’s expressionless and cold, although she doesn’t wear it half as well as Jim does.

When she backhands him her rings dig in to his cheek, tearing two sharp lines like brands into his skin, and Sebastian’s ears start to ring.

The extraction had been messy; he’d gotten Jim out, but it’d been far too close and there hadn’t been time for Sebastian to follow. He’d had to make that call, with bullets whizzing over Jim’s head, the car screeching around with a trail of burnt rubber like an earth-bound comet –

Run, I’ll cover you, go –

“I expect he trained you not to talk,” the woman says, over the ringing sound in Sebastian’s ears. Jim’s client. One of the extremists, specializing in car-bombs and chemical gas mailed to city officials. “So I’m not going to ask questions to start.”

For a very long time, she doesn’t.

++

He finally passes out when they break his wrist.

When he wakes up again he has no idea how much time has passed. The cell is dark and windowless, empty except for Sebastian’s chair and an iron bedframe. The bedframe is nearly rusted through in the center, but the important bits are solid: rigged with wrist- and ankle- cuffs. It looks depressingly like it was built for a purpose.

Sebastian tries to remember what the woman’s cause had been – liberation? Equality? Religion? – but he’s got nothing. It wouldn’t have been much leverage, anyways.

There’s blood crusted on his face. He can feel it when he grimaces, pulling against the skin on his temples and cheeks. His lip is split. His nose is probably broken. His cheeks feel swollen, hot with pain and inflammation, like someone’s pumping steam in under his skin. One of his eyes has long since swelled shut, and he can feel the dull pulse of his blood where what used to be his eyebrow presses against his face.

When the door creaks open he doesn’t look up. It’s not worth it.

“Awake again, I see.” The woman walks over the floor to him, boots hard against the concrete. She’s dragging something behind her. A chair, by the sounds of it.

Confirmed when she sits down in front of him.

Sebastian breathes, slow and steady, out of his mouth. He can feel the gaps where his teeth should be, the air whistling painfully over his exposed nerves. It’s still better than trying to choke in oxygen through the wreck of his nose.

The woman reaches out, turns his head from side to side with her finger and her thumb on his chin. Sebastian wonders if she's admiring her work. “Where does Jim Moriarty live?” she asks, with the practiced sound of recitation. “How do you contact him? When is he home?” Sebastian jerks his head against her grip. After a moment – a brief press of her fingers inward, to remind him that she doesn’t have to let go – she drops her hand and stands.

Sebastian doesn’t look up when she attaches the jumper cables to his fingers. Not fucking worth it.

++

“Do you think he’s coming for you?”

The question penetrates the fog in Sebastian’s brain slowly. He lets it settle there, mulling it around in his mind. In the military, hope is the first thing they teach you to give up. Torture Resistance 101 is fatalism:  All hope is gone. The victim has no religion. The victim has no friends, no nation, no family. The victim has no rescue. Escaping the pain does not matter. The pain cannot end. Even if the victim complies, the pain will not end. Compliance is meaningless and futile.

There’s a quiet place, in Sebastian’s head, that he used to be able to reach; that place of absolute surrender, where nothing mattered, not even animal instinct.

Now, when he reaches inside him, there is Jim; only Jim. Brilliant, insane Jim, who has never found anything impossible, not once in his life.

Do you think he’s coming for you?

No, Sebastian thinks, no, no, no, no, no. But faith is not rational. In the quiet place of his mind, there’s a whisper. Yes.

Sebastian pulls against his ropes again, and snarls wordlessly. His wrists are numb and useless, the fragile bones in them cracked or shattered. God knows if he'll ever use his hands again.

The woman smiles. “You do,” she says, softly. Sebastian’s heart hammers against his chest, animal-fast, like a rabbit in a trap. For the first time, he considers the possibility that he might break.

“Where does Jim Moriarty live?” the woman murmurs. “How do you contact him? When is he home?”

Sebastian says nothing. At the tips of his fingers, instead of nails, there’s a thick scabby mess of blood and pus. It feels like he’s been skinned; like someone’s started peeling him, strip by strip, tearing him open. The woman reaches forward and jabs her finger down where Sebastian’s thumbnail used to be, putting the weight of her arm behind it. Funny; if you'd offered Seb money, he might have said that his hands had gone numb at this point.

It’s like she’s hammered an inch-wide stake through his thumb.

Sebastian screams, fingers instinctively clawing at the arm of the chair and leaving damp smears behind. His brain is an electric mess of pain, like lightning shooting between his hemispheres. He writhes, tendons and muscles strained until he half thinks they’ll snap, until the pressure building inside of him is so unbearable he can’t breathe and he thinks he’ll go mad.

“Where does Jim Moriarty live? How do you contact him? When is he home?”

“Please!” Sebastian screams, too far gone to feel humiliated by it. “Please – please – “ His lips crack as they move, and another trickle of watery, blood-streaked saliva runs down his chin. He’s dimly aware that the pressure on his thumb has gone, but he’s still twisting, struggling hopelessly against the ropes. Involuntary reaction, he supposes.

God knows he can’t seem to stop. He starts taking deep, hyperventilating breaths, the kind that swell through his chest and make his eyes wide. There's a click at the base of his chair, and then the whole contraption tilts back, and Sebastian knows - Sebastian knows this - Sebastian knows this is coming -

A hand clamps fabric over his face and then the water comes, pouring into his mouth, up his nose, and he's drowning, he is going to die here. There’s no silent place inside him, nowhere to run, nothing but the pain and the horror and her thin voice like a song in his ear. “Where does Jim Moriarty live? How do you contact him? When is he home?” On repeat. The words are starting to lose meaning.

Jim, Sebastian thinks. It’s as close to a prayer as he’s ever come in his life. Please. God, please. Jim. Please.

++

In the end, Jim never comes.

One of their bombs blows during assembly, though, and it’s all the chance Sebastian needs. The woman standing over him drops a knife in surprise, and Sebastian – somehow – still has the presence of mind to grab it. She hits the ground with the explosion, hiding her face from the dirt raining down on them. The whole building is shaking. Something structurally important has been hit. Sebastian can’t think about it. He twists the knife awkwardly, sawing at the ropes over his wrists, and if he cuts himself doing it he doesn’t have enough sensation left to care.

Gripping the handle makes his nail-less fingers dig into his palms, and the sting of his sweat makes him want to scream. He can’t allow himself the luxury. The woman is already standing, brushing off her clothes, her expression tight and fearful. Sebastian gets his other wrist and bends for his ankles, working with feverish speed.

“What the fuck – “

He’s already up and on her before she can finish the thought. The knife pushes into her stomach with an effort, skin resisting. Sebastian grunts and puts all his weight into it, and something gives; with a pop and a sucking sound like mud clinging to your boots. Her blood is hot on his hands, like lava in the splintered ends of his fingertips, and he grits his teeth against the pain to keep from screaming. When she falls he stumbles, nearly overbalancing.

And then that’s it. Silence. She hadn’t managed to call out. The rest of the building is quiet, the cell closed off enough that he can’t even hear people scrambling after the explosion. Sebastian allows himself a minute to breathe, his head swimming, his vision passing in and out of darkness.

Move, something tells him, go, now, before they realize, because if you have to fight your way out you will not make it home -

++

Sebastian limps inside and fumbles for the hall light, smearing blood on the white walls. The house is dark, all the lights off, and utterly silent. As he leans down to pick at his laces, though, Sebastian catches a glimpse of the hall mirror, reflecting into the dark library.

Jim’s waiting for him.

Sebastian sucks his lips in over his teeth, too far gone to be surprised. Jim doesn’t say anything; doesn’t so much as move while Sebastian kicks his shoes off. A foul-smelling clump of blood and muck falls out of the treads as Sebastian puts them on the shoe rack, and Seb winces. He reaches forward, hoping he can wipe it off the floor with his sleeve before it leaves a mark.

“I wouldn’t waste time, dear,” Jim murmurs, “Not when you’re already late.”

Sebastian straightens up immediately, never mind the red-hot lick of pain it sends through his ribs. For a moment, he debates staying where he is. He wishes he had the balls to go upstairs without saying anything, leave Jim to rot down here in the dark.

“Didn’t know you were waiting up,” Sebastian hears himself say, his voice light but so rough from screaming he can barely force out the words.

Jim’s reply is warm and mocking. “I thought I’d reward you for keeping my secrets.”

Sebastian limps into the door of the living room and leans on the frame heavily. He can feel his shirt stick to the moulding, still wet with blood. He can’t see much; Jim is entirely in shadow, lounging back in an armchair in the darkness until all that’s left is his silhouette and the gleam of the light off his polished shoes. Fully dressed, then, Westwood-and-tie, which means that this is the Shadow-King Jim that Sebastian is dealing with, and not one of the other hundred thousand variants.

Still, Sebastian has very little sense of self-preservation. “Are you so sure I kept your secrets? When you left me to die?” He sounds haggard, even to himself.

“Didn’t you?”

Sebastian has nothing to say to that. Jim’s the first to give, unsurprisingly. He’s impatient when he allows himself to be. Sebastian’s still standing there motionless, staring into the dark, when Jim sighs. He raises one hand, enough that the diamonds of his cufflinks catch the light, and gestures Sebastian forward. It’s a tight gesture, frustrated. Sebastian would wonder what the fuck Jim has to be frustrated about, but he can’t. He’s too tired for that.

“She was going to cut off my fingers,” Seb says, finally, flatly, letting it fall onto the space between them. He doesn’t move away from the door frame. “Before she killed me. She said – ” – and nevermind what she did, but she said you think he's coming for you and I did. I thought you were going to find me, you were going to come for me, there was no way you were going to leave me to die in a hole like that- he'd pissed himself in the chair. And he'd hated himself for it, but he’d begged. He’d cried. He gave them everything he had to give, except his soul. He hadn't given them Jim.

Sebastian realizes he’s fallen back into that uncomfortable silence. His teeth grind, but he can’t bring himself to finish the thought. So he just repeats, “You left me there."

“Yes, I did.”

Sebastian can’t even tell if Jim is looking at him. Jim’s hand falls back to his lap. Sebastian can hear the quiet buzz of the fridge, humming to itself in the kitchen down the hall.  He feels drained. Empty. Not for the first time, he considers leaving; everyone knows the severance package is a bullet through the skull, but that wouldn’t be so bad, after everything. He can’t live without Jim, but surely, he can’t do this either. The wooden frame of the door is cool as he lets his head rest against it, reassuringly stable.

“Come here, Sebastian.”

Seb nearly jumps out of his skin. Jim gives him nothing; no expression, no emotion in his voice, nothing but the shadows. Sebastian hesitates for a moment, but in the end, it’s not really a choice. He crosses the floor to Jim, steps short and measured, until he’s standing on the soft carpet in front of the arm chair. His eyes are starting to adjust to the dark, finally. He can make out the line of Jim’s brow, the twist in the corner of Jim’s mouth.

Jim tilts his head back to look up at Sebastian. “On your knees.”

Why? Sebastian thinks, and Don’t, and, Not now, I can’t take the cruelty, not from you, not after everything else.

But he falls to his knees anyways, lacking the muscle control to do anything but slump bonelessly to the ground. The thick carpet muffles the knock of his bones against the floor. He curls his poor ruined hands in his lap. Sebastian expects – he’s not really sure. Jim’s foot on his collarbone, maybe, pushing in, reminding him of the consequences of disloyalty. He expects Jim to be cruel – thoughtlessly, naturally, because it’s what Jim is, at the heart of things. He expects, maybe, that Jim will finally break him.

He should know better.

Changeable, unpredictable, brilliant Jim. He leans forward, reaches out with his white hands like bone. His fingers are ice when he cups Sebastian’s face; so cold they nearly burn against Sebastian’s inflamed skin. He rubs his thumb over one of Sebastian’s bruises, feeling out the edge without pushing in. And he’s looking, now, into Sebastian’s eyes and straight down and through, like he can see all the way to Sebastian’s soul. Like there’s nothing in Sebastian that’s the least bit hidden from him.

Sebastian takes a slow breath, lets it out, trying to keep his heartbeat regular. He’d wanted this. He’d wanted Jim to look at him. He shuts his eyes.

“Sebastian,” Jim murmurs. His thumb strokes another slow, deliberate circle. “Tell me what happened.” His voice drops into a deep, playful purr, like a cat with a mouse between its claws. “I'll listen."

Sebastian is a child in Church, the hallowed silence hanging thick and heavy on his head. He forces his eyes open to meet Jim’s, trying to seem angry so he doesn’t seem weak. “You think I’m the one who needs to be forgiven?” he rasps. “After you abandoned me?”

There it is, again. As hard as Sebastian tries, he can’t keep the betrayal from his voice.

Jim. How could you?

“I think I’m the only higher power you believe in,” Jim tells him, amused. He doesn’t let go of Sebastian’s face and Sebastian doesn’t try to rise. Jim’s head tilts, a tendon in his neck catching shadows in a long, stark line. His eyes are nothing but black. “Confess to me, Sebastian.”

Sebastian’s eyes start to drift shut again. He can feel Jim’s fingers, tracing circles on his skull. The cracked skin on his lips breaks as they part. “I – “ His voice is painfully harsh. “They broke my wrists,” he manages. "My fingers."

“Yes.”

“I'll be useless now."

“No. Shh,” Jim interrupts, “You're very loyal to have gone there for me, Sebastian. You were the only one I trusted to buy me the time I needed.” His index finger traces Sebastian’s cheek, down to his jaw. “You’re injured,” he says, as if just realizing it.

Sebastian doesn’t want him to notice now. Jim’s touch is soft, almost gentle. He’s watching Sebastian like Sebastian is the only thing in the world; eyes wide and curious, the uncertain shadows catching on his lashes and the rough skin of his jaw. They make him look almost human. There’s a sweet, drifting feeling to the moment – lazy dust falling in front of stained-glass windows or honey-coloured, sun-warmed stone. Sebastian can feel the moonlight on his face. He doesn’t feel injured – not now, not like this. Not with Jim holding him steady.

It could almost be a religious experience.

“You’re going into shock,” Jim says distantly. Sebastian’s losing sensation by inches, until all that’s left the icy pinpricks of Jim’s fingertips and the warm, soft glow of the moon on his broken nose. It’s like falling in to a hot bath. “Did you tell them about me, Sebastian? Honestly, now. I won’t be cross with you if you did. But I need to know…”

Sebastian feels a smile tear at the ruins of his mouth. Imagine Jim, being uncertain. “Everything,” he whispers vindictively, “I told them everything.”

Jim’s fingers press like a kiss against his lips. “You’re a terrible liar,” Jim murmurs. The last thing Sebastian registers is the smile in Jim’s voice.

Then he falls into the warm, welcoming black.

++

When his hands work again, Sebastian goes back to work. “Good,” Jim says, when Sebastian calls. “I have a job for you.” Just that.

He never mentions the kidnapping again, or not that Sebastian hears. But it’s around that time that Jim starts watching Sebastian; Seb catches him out of the corner of his eye, while he's working. Sometimes the CCTV follows him, down the road.

Jim’s gaze is a hot, prickly thing against Sebastian’s skin. He fixates on Sebastian’s fingernails; the slow push of keratin over weeping red sores as his wounds heal.

And god help him, but Sebastian loves it.

++

Over by the billiards table Jim bumps into his target from behind – one petty arms dealer, a Marcus McCullough – and nearly makes Marcus spill his drink.

“Oi – “ Marcus starts, rounding angrily, his stubbled upper lip twisting into a snarl.

Jim’s face drops open into an expression of vacant-minded surprise. “Oh, sorry!” he yelps. “I didn’t...” Jim looks Marcus over and fakes a decent double-take, his eyes going wide.

He lays his hand on Marcus’s arm, manicured fingers shining. “Buy you another?” Jim’s tongue slides out and wets his lips, just quick enough to seem nervous. Still slow enough to still suggest sex.

Sebastian fights the urge to roll his eyes and shifts on his bar stool, getting comfortable. He can see them in the mirror in front of him, between the gleaming bottles of liquor. It’s quiet enough in the bar that he can hear the conversation clearly with only a little bit of lip-reading to make up the difference. Not a bad night to be working, all things considered: Jim’s scouted the place and picked a night busy enough that no one’s paying attention, but not so quick that Sebastian’s overwhelmed keeping an eye out. Not a bad pub, either. The bouncer is ex-military: If Sebastian wanted they might be able to get a deck of cards and a couple pints and trade war stories all night as Jim works.

It’s just that Sebastian doesn’t want that.

Right now he wants to grab Jim by the scruff of the neck, shake him until the condoms fall out, and yell at him to shape the fuck up and stop playing around. It’s not like Jim needs this stupid fucking gay act to find out if Marcus has been selling his empire's secrets to the police. All he has to do is saunter up, suit and tie, the way he should be dressed, and say: Hi. I represent Jim Moriarty. Want to live until tomorrow?

Sebastian watches as Marcus gives Jim a once-over and a concomitant look, as if he’s summed Jim up and couldn’t care one way or the other. Jim’s expression shifts; a calculated transformation, all that wide-eyed stupidity flowing into affable, puppy-dog gullibility. He looks like he’d suck your dick for a pat on the head, and the man’s demeanor immediately changes.

“Sure,” he tells Jim, the start of a smirk curving his lip. “I’m Marcus. You’re –“

“Jimmy,” Jim chirps, just the right amount of flushed. “What are you drinking?”

Sebastian’s going to be sick. Jim’s enjoying this, of course. Sebastian can see it in the curve of his smile, the way Jim’s eyes crease up at the corners, bright and interested. There’s nothing Jim likes better than being in control. Marcus is practically gift-wrapped for him.

“Unless you’re here with someone,” Marcus is saying, throwing a glance around the bar. Sebastian looks hurriedly down at his drink so he doesn’t get caught watching. If he spoils Jim’s game, he’ll never hear the end of it.

He’d take a knife to me again – scar me up so every time I saw the lines I’d remember the lesson – None of this playing –

“No,” Seb hears Jim purr, over the sounds of the bar. “I’m all alone, little old me. No one to take me home – “

“Don’t know about that,” Marcus finishes, nearly on cue. Sebastian wishes he had someone to exchange exasperated looks with. Or more than two fingers of whiskey sitting in front of him. He’d buy another drink, but he doesn’t think Jim would stand for it during a job.

Don’t know why I’m even here –

Not like Jim needs any help. Marcus is practically sucking his cock already. Sebastian watches the mirror contemptuously as Marcus reaches out and fingers the collar of Jim’s shirt, like he has every right in the world. It’s too easy, it’s pathetic, and Sebastian is burning. He tosses his whiskey back and watches as Jim giggles, tugging Marcus backwards across the bar to the bathroom.

Not even five fucking minutes, Sebastian thinks with disgust. If it were me I’d at least -

He doesn’t finish the thought.

“Let me give you a preview,” Jim breathes, shoulders to the men’s room door, sweet and empty and enticing. In the mirror his expression is distorted, subtly inhuman. There’s something scorching a hot dark hole through Sebastian’s stomach, like if he tries to stand up now all his insides will pour out over his shoes in a thick molten rush. He hates Jim, fiercely, hates himself more when he pictures Jim hitting his knees on the tiles of the bathroom floor.

Because it’s not Marcus standing over him in that picture. It’s Sebastian.

Seb raises his fingers, gestures the bartender to refill his glass.

Sebastian falling back against the bathroom wall, the wood hard on his shoulder blades, as Jim shifts forward on his knees – Jim licking his lips, all-seeing eyes pinned on the tremble in Sebastian’s stomach, like he’d looked that night when he told Sebastian to confess – the sweet pink flesh of Jim’s lips, stretched wide and lewd around Sebastian’s cock –

The door to the men’s swings open and shut. Sebastian doesn’t catch the click of the lock, but he knows it’s slid into place. Poor Marcus. There isn’t even a dent in the crowd to mark his passing. Sebastian tosses back the second whiskey, stands, and straightens his suit jacket. Dove-gray, today, black tie to match his leather gloves and onyx cufflinks because Jim had insisted on dressing him.

 – You’ve got to look the part, Sebastian. He’d slid his hands down Sebastian’s lapels. Like death itself. Do you see?

Like I give a fuck what I look like. Sebastian had shrugged Jim off to check his holsters, adjusting the fall of his jacket until they were hidden, and Jim’s lip had curled in begrudging amusement.

You’re lucky you’re pretty.

Sebastian shakes his head, although that doesn’t do much to clear it. He’s in fine fucking form tonight, and he knows it – but it’s like an ache, all through him, too sharp and insistent to ignore.

Ever since Moscow, he thinks, but that’s not exactly true.

He shoves his way out of the bar into the cold and makes his way around to the back door - the janitor’s door - that opens into the bathroom. His crisp black oxfords crunch frost against the pavement. As he walks he pulls a pistol out from his jacket, screwing the silencer on with quick, sharp twists of his wrist.

Jim knows, of course.

Sebastian puts his shoulder to the janitor’s door and listens. Silence, inside, although that doesn’t mean anything. Jim should have Marcus on the ground by now – gagged with his own tie or one of his socks. Sebastian gives the silencer another twist, making sure it’s secure, and tries the knob. It’s locked, of course, because bad things don’t come in threes – they come in fucking dozens.

Sometimes Sebastian thinks Jim likes it. Likes having Sebastian panting after him. It’s the sort of thing he’d enjoy, the conceited little fuck.

Sebastian grunts and ducks his head before he puts his weight into the door, schooling his expression into cold, closed-off lines.

Like death itself, Sebastian, do you see?

Inhuman. Emotionless. Just another one of Jim Moriarty’s tools.

++

A slow line of red runs down the space between tiles towards Sebastian’s foot. He steps out of the way, watches as Marcus McCullough drains down a hole in the cheap floor. The corpse slumps under a broken mirror, limps twisted and splintered like it’s been crushed.

Jim’s shoulders are rigid with anger as he bends down and stabs his finger at the bullet-hole in Marcus’s forehead. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he hums, his tone light. “You really should – not – “

Sebastian unscrews the silencer and tucks the gun back in its holster. “Just because you cut his vocal chords doesn’t mean we have unlimited time. We can’t stay here - ”

“Don’t TELL me what I can DO, SEBASTIAN!”

Jim’s voice is a harsh snap like the crack of a whip. He rounds on Sebastian with an ugly snarl, his face contorted with rage until he barely looks human. “You,” he hisses, “Are just a toy soldier, dear. Don’t ever think you know what I’m capable of.”

Sebastian stares back at him impassively. He’d be scared, only for once he happens to be right: Jim has to leave here, as fast as possible, before the cops get his scent. Nothing else matters.

After a moment, Jim’s face settles again. He exhales loudly through his nose, and turns back to Marcus.

Sebastian doesn’t realize how tense he’s been until he relaxes. Every muscle in his body was wound tight, waiting for the inevitable consequences of denying Jim anything.

But Jim’s already moved on. He squats down and pokes his fingers into the thick pool of blood on the floor, bringing them up slick-red and gleaming. Sebastian watches a drop of blood run down to Jim’s palm as Jim straightens.

On the wall, he paints CAREFUL, BOYS – and he doesn’t hurry, but he doesn’t take his time either. They’re out of the back door before the cops show up, Sebastian herding Jim towards the car with his body strategically placed to catch a bullet if anyone tries to shoot Jim in the back. In the car, Jim stares at the blood on his hands as if he’s not sure where it came from.

++

Jim's fingers twitch, starting to curl inwards to his palms, then relax. There’s blood caught in his finger-prints, defining each line.

Sebastian sets his bag down at the door slowly, keeping his movements smooth and simple because he’s not sure if Jim’s going to startle. There’s an X-Acto knife on the ground between Jim’s bare feet, silver blade slick with blood. There's droplets going back down the white tiles of the hallway, to wherever Jim thought to play this little game with himself.

"Ever get curious?" Jim says, voice absolutely bland.

“Nick anything important?” Sebastian asks, forcing the tone of his voice light.

Jim looks up, eyes hollow and huge in his gaunt face. “Don’t be stupid, Sebastian.” In his pajamas he looks innocuously small. Sebastian's not certain that he's ever seen Jim this undressed before. He's wearing a white t-shirt and the hollow at the bottom of his throat is visible, and Sebastian is trying not to fixate on it, because Jim called him about this.

He doesn’t move as Sebastian crosses the floor towards him. Against the pale skin of his arms his blood seems impossibly dark, like spilled ink. There's so much of it that Sebastian can't tell immediately where the wounds are. Sebastian licks his lips and reaches out slowly, ready to jerk his hands back if Jim moves to stop him. But Jim’s frozen. He can see Jim’s pulse in the steady leak of liquid from under Jim’s skin. He can see the pool on the floor and the drops on Jim's feet. Jim watches, expressionless, as Sebastian tries his best to figure out what's happened.

"It's all yours," he says, in surprise, and then Jim does yank back.

"I called you here for stitches, not an opinion," Jim snaps at Sebastian. He inclines his chin towards the desk, where there’s a first aid kit already set out. There’s a curved needle already threaded, and Sebastian’s stomach lurches.

“You expect me to – “ He can imagine it already, the resistance of Jim’s skin as he pushes through. He pushes his tongue against his teeth and swallows, hard. Wondering if Jim will kill him afterwards, just so nobody ever saw this. Wondering if you're even allowed to speculate that Jim ever might need medical care.

“Who else?” Jim asks, soft and unwontedly gentle.

“Jesus, boss.”

Jim stares at him for a moment, then blinks, slow and deliberate. “If you can’t do it…” There’s a threat in his voice, delicate and cold as thin flechette blades.

“I can do it,” Sebastian snaps. He shoves past Jim and snatches up the needle, focusing on the anger in his stomach so he doesn’t have to think about anything else. Think about how much he wants this. Think about how much fucking blood there is.

Jim laughs. “Look at you,” he mocks. Thin trickles of blood circle down his fingers like rings, still slowly dripping to the puddle on the floor. “Are you worried about me? What if I leave you, baby boy, what would you do…”

Changeable Jim. Sebastian grits his teeth. “My life’d be a fuck of a lot easier.”

Jim’s grinning, now, wide and manic and just a little bit insane. “Admit it, Chicken Little,” he leers, pushing his face forward into Sebastian’s, his breath hot on Sebastian’s cheek. “You’d die. You look at me covered in blood and you think, the sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

Sebastian shoves the needle into and through the edge of Jim’s wound with more force than accuracy.

"Tell me you'd die without me," Jim says, suddenly. "Tell me you saw me injured and you thought your whole world was over. Tell me you can't decide whether to jerk yourself off because I let you see me vulnerable or cry because I might kill myself." He pitches his voice into a magpie-imitation of Sebastian - "Brilliant, unpredictable Jim - " Sebastian looks up, startled, and Jim's eyes are feverish. "Tell me," he demands. "Tell me when I die, you die."

Sebastian's mouth is dry, when he swallows, and Jim does not stop staring.

++

Jim glides into the boardroom like he owns the place, and for all intents and purposes, he does.

There’s a long glass table down the center of the room, mottled dark and bright with reflections from the long bay windows. As Jim breezes past the bankers to his seat at the head of the table they exchange glances, frustrated from waiting but too scared to show it. Sebastian fights down a quirk of amusement as he steps inside after Jim, and shuts the door behind them. He leans back against it, hard metal against the rough wool of his suit, letting the gun on his back dig in to his spine.

It’s been a long day, but that’s nothing new. Jim’s got something up his ass and he isn’t hiding it – he keeps giving Sebastian these long, unfriendly looks when Sebastian dares to open his mouth. Sebastian’s thought about bringing it up, but he isn’t suicidal. It’s been six days since the X-Acto knife, which is nearly a week, which is far too long for Jim to stay reasonable. Pissing him off today is somewhere between stepping on a land mine and pulling a tiger’s tail, and as much as Seb gets off on the danger –

Well. He’d like to keep his head, and his place beside Jim.

Jim straightens his suit and settles back in his chair. “Hello, boys,” he drawls to the bankers, curling his fingers around the edge of the armrests. “Have you been good?”

“Mr. Moriarty,” one of the men in front of him replies stiffly, leaning forward in his seat. He has a sheaf of papers on the table in front of him, all neat black and angry red. “As you’ve no doubt heard, the profit margins for this year are – ”

“Low,” Jim finishes for him, shaping the o deep and round in the hollow of his mouth. They can’t tell it yet, but he’s furious. “Did my little tricks not get your job done for you fast enough?” Sebastian shifts at the door, catching the scent of Jim’s anger, and Jim’s eyes flick up to him.

Jim looks like the devil himself. Sebastian goes still.

One of the men at the table has the bad sense to follow Jim’s gaze, and mistakes it for weakness. “Don’t worry,” he says dismissively, “You won’t need the security. We’re not thugs. Even though your results have been disappointing, considering what we paid for you – ”

Sebastian shuts his eyes. Aw, fuck.

“What you paid for me!” Jim sounds delighted. “What you paid for me.”

He drags the words out, tasting them on his tongue, and when Sebastian opens his eyes Jim is grinning. His death’s-head grin, skin stretched tight over his bones until he’s no more than a skull. “Did you think,” Jim continues, his eyes still on Sebastian, “That this was a transaction? You pay me, I fix your little bank, we all go to our graves rich little black-hearted sinners.” He stands, so slow it’s melodramatic. “I fail to deliver, and you make threats?” All eyes on him, now. The bankers shifting uncomfortably in their chairs. Jim’s gaze slides from Sebastian and pick them out, one by one, holding each one’s eyes just long enough that it comes off as a threat. He pulls his bottom lip in under his teeth, scraping the soft flesh as he shakes his head. “My security isn’t dumb blondes with guns, boys. It’s poor little Wendy – “ singling out one of the bankers with a slender figure – “Your boyfriend – “ at another – “That little bit of tax evasion, shall we call it?” to a third. Each of them goes pale under Jim’s stare. "And I never fail. I work when I decide to."

There’s a feeling like a thunderstorm in the room and Sebastian has a moment – just a moment – where he thinks Jim’s forgotten about him, and has time to relish the scene. Jim’s at his best like this, after all, when you can see through that thin playful veneer to the killer underneath.

But Jim doesn’t forget.

“Sebastian here isn’t my security,” he finishes, still smiling that unnerving smile. “In fact, boys, he’s just like you! He’s my little bitch.” He looks up and Sebastian is frozen, caught in the full weight of Jim’s attention. “Isn’t that right, Mor-ran?” Jim purrs, slow and seductive, dragging out the r until it’s nearly rolling in his mouth.

All of a sudden that thunderstorm in the room isn’t directionless anymore. Sebastian feels the connection between them snap into place like lightening hitting ground, all of the banker’s breathless attention sliding down the table and fixing on to him.

He doesn’t have time to consider what he’s going to do, and there’s a thin scream of warning going off in his brain, so he just inclines his head like he knows Jim wants him to. “Anything you say, Boss.”

Jim’s smile goes from crazy to bedroom, a sweet private curve of the lips that wouldn’t look out of place on Sebastian’s mattress. “Dear, darling, Sebastian,” he murmurs. In any other situation, Sebastian would be jerking himself off to that smile for a month afterwards. But here – he has an inkling of what Jim’s about, and it makes his gut roil.

Jim extends a hand above the table and crooks his fingers. “Come.”

Sebastian steps forward. There’s no way not to; not with the whole room staring at him. Jim might find Sebastian’s disobedience funny, in private, but this is a performance. There’s enough reminders on Sebastian’s skin – written in the ragged, gaping lines of keloid scars – of what happens when his insolence gets in Jim’s way.

As he walks the endless length between the door and the head of the table, Jim turns his attention back to the bankers. “You don’t pay for me,” he tells them. “You don’t pay for my services. I consult. And in return, I own you.” As Sebastian gets closer, Jim plants one foot on the floor and uses it to push himself back from the table. “You all belong to me,” he says evenly. “You’ll do whatever I say, whenever I say it, because you’re too afraid to do anything else. That’s the thing with you people. You’re predictable.”

Sebastian goes to walk past Jim and take his usual position at Jim’s shoulder – giving himself a clear shot down the table – but Jim holds up two fingers to stop him. It’s a slight motion, but it sends cold fear pouring down Sebastian’s throat to his shoes.

Some part of him knows what’s coming. It’s the point Jim’s making, after all.

“Take Sebastian here,” Jim says. Sebastian’s stomach is glacial. His heart’s somewhere down between his knees.

Don’t, he thinks, but he doesn’t say anything.

“How long were you in the military, Moran?” Jim asks, tilting his head back to look up at Sebastian. This close, Seb looms over him. Jim’s short enough to begin with, and seated he barely clears Sebastian’s navel. He has to crane his head way back to meet Sebastian’s eyes, baring his throat. It doesn’t make him look vulnerable.

“Ten years of active service,” Sebastian replies. His voice is clipped. He sounds angry rather than scared, but Jim’s grin widens anyways. Little freak always sees through that.

“And what did you do after that?”

Jim’s toying with him. He knows all the answers, of course. He’s just establishing Sebastian’s credentials for the crowd. Sebastian sucks his lip in over his teeth, wishing he could shut the farce down, but Jim’s right. He’s just like the rest of them: too afraid to do anything but obey.

“A year of mercenary work. Mainly in the Middle East and Africa.” He stops, hoping that’s enough, but Jim raises his eyebrows so Sebastian grits his teeth and continues. “A year of contract-killing, and three years of exclusive work for you.”

The men in the room are exchanging glances, wondering where Jim’s going with this, but they don’t interrupt. Sebastian can feel a hot, angry flush creeping up his neck. He knows where this is going.

“How many people do you think you've killed? Too broad. How many people have you killed that looked like me?”

Evil. Sebastian eyes Jim, lifts his gaze enough to see the expressions of the men around the table. They’re scared, of course. Off-balance. A few of the slower ones just look confused. But they’re all watching, and they’re all listening. Sebastian grinds his teeth so hard together he tastes flaked bone, and looks back at Jim. “Is it even worth listing?” he asks, not bothering to keep the rough hatred out of his voice.

Jim breaks into a wide, cheery grin. He’s enjoying this even more because he knows how much it will kill Sebastian, the bastard. “I suppose not. Moran?”

“Yes, Boss?”

“Lick my shoes clean.”

Sebastian was expecting humiliation, but it still manages to bring him up short. He founders, for a moment, his chest cold and his mind blank. It seems surreally quiet in the room. Only the sound of Sebastian’s breathing is audible. Jim twists his neck to the side until his spine pops. There’s a creak as one of the bankers leans back in his chair. The moment draws out, long and awful. The smell of cheap linoleum and ozone from industrial printers is plastic and nauseous in the close air.

Jim’s getting impatient. His eyes narrow, just a fraction, like an elbow to the ribs.

Sebastian lowers himself, slow and careful, to the ground. Jim’s left Sebastian enough room between the chair and the table to get to his hands and knees if Seb worms in tightly, but bespoke suits weren’t made for worming in. It’s awkward, fabric bunching and pulling tight until it almost seems like restraints. Sebastian’s face is burning, now. He must be bright red. His stomach keeps flopping between burning-hot and ice-cold, shame and frustration turning him over and over inside. Damn Jim. Damn him to hell. Damn him and his bankers and his stupid fucking games – Sebastian’s expensive silk tie whispers on the carpet. Jim’s shoes smell richly of shoe-polish and leather, an expensive smell, crisp and overpowering.

Sebastian has never wanted anyone as much as he wants Jim in that moment.

He screws his eyes shut and laves his tongue, flat, over the toe of Jim’s shoe.

The leather tastes exactly like it smells, which Sebastian thinks he should be surprised by, and isn't. My first time licking boot. Dad would be so proud. Something hot moves deep in Sebastian's stomach, just above his cock. He's not thinking about that. Above him, he can hear Jim start talking again; reinforcing his point to the bankers, somehow, using Sebastian on his knees as little more than a prop. Sebastian can taste bile in his mouth. He should be thanking Jim that the shoes are at least clean – but down here, with the smell of leather clouding his nose and his suit tight and confining, he’d rather die. He hates this – hates the ease with which Jim forces him to be little more than a dog.

Hates the way that heat in his stomach will leave him strung out and wanting for days.

He licks again, up the side of Jim’s shoe, leaving a shining swath of black behind and coating his tongue in ash.

Jim knew, Sebastian thinks, clear and vicious in his head like a lightbulb flash. He planned this, this is punishment for seeing him vulnerable. It’s a lesson for me as much as the bankers.

The other side of the shoe, now, the outside, and there’s a spatter of mud from the pavement outside that Sebastian tastes as he licks it into his mouth. Christ, can you imagine what he might have stepped in?

“I don’t have time to play around with you,” Jim finishes through the glass of the table, leaning back in his chair. The hair on Sebastian’s neck prickles. Jim’s watching him, again. Sebastian makes a face, but he doesn’t dare stop now. He licks over the top of Jim’s shoe, over the bone, and tries not to think of how his head is going dizzyingly light.

“You answer to me, gentlemen, and don’t worry your pretty little heads. I’ll make sure you all have enough gold to go swimming in.” There’s a pleased, possessive purr in Jim’s voice, and Sebastian can’t help but wonder if it’s meant for his benefit. Probably not. Jim gets off enough just on ruling the world, without deigning to bother with teasing Sebastian. “Are we all clear? Good. You can go.”

Sebastian doesn’t trust Jim enough to stop as the bankers leave. He leans forward, bracing his weight on his hands to get around the side of the leather. The linoleum digs in to his palms until he can feel it leaving pink stinging marks, and the rough wool of his suit grinds hard against his knees.

When I get out, Sebastian promises himself, I’m going to get stinking fucking drunk. Mouth-numb, brain-numb, dead to the world.

He barely hears the rumble of chairs rolling over the floor as the bankers file out until the door clicks shut and there’s a cold brush of fingers over Sebastian’s hair. “You too, Scooby. That’ll do.”

Sebastian instantly jerks his head back, so fast he cracks it in to the back of the table and a white line of pain explodes forward over his vision. The pain is so hot and vivid Sebastian expects to feel blood trickling down through his hair. “Fuck!” He gets one foot under him, and starts to clamber out from under the table.

Jim laughs, leaning back in his chair. “Not so fast, Moran. Stay there.” He’s still got a cruel, contemplative look on his face; like he’s considering a dissection. Sebastian eases himself back to the ground, on his knees.

They’re there in silence, for a moment, staring at each other. Jim looks – well, Jim looks like he always looks, flawless and painfully cold. Like black ice. Like if you touched him, your skin would freeze, and you’d have to rip it off to pull away. He tilts his head, hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights. Sebastian feels like there’s words bubbling around inside of him – angry things, curses, things he couldn’t take back. Like his stomach is boiling and all that’s coming up is the dredges at the bottom, the things he could never say without breaking something forever.

My head and my place at his side, Sebastian reminds himself, and forces his eyes shut. Christ, I need…

“Turn around,” Jim murmurs. “Let me see your head.”

When Jim reaches out and lays his hand on Sebastian’s head, Seb can’t help a flinch. It makes Jim laugh, soft and delicate in the silence. Jim’s cold fingers stroke through Sebastian’s hair, feeling each strand. The pads of his fingertips are gentle, but he still manages to find the tender spot and push in, until Sebastian hisses against the burn.

“Don’t act so put out,” Jim says, calmly. There’s a creaking sound as he leans back in his office chair and his fingers trail to the nape of Sebastian’s neck. “You liked it.”

“Get fucked,” Sebastian growls, before he can help himself. He snaps his lips shut over the rest of what he wants to say, letting it burn through his stomach like a lit cigarette.

Jim doesn’t seem to care. “Oh, Moran. Don’t lie to me. You’re going to get yourself off to this later.” The pad of his index finger reaches the bare skin where Sebastian’s neck meets his shoulder and traces a slow, deliberate circle. “Would it have been better for you if I’d told you to suck my cock?”

Sebastian snarls, and for once, he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut. “Don’t fucking start with me, Jim. Humiliation isn’t – “

He can’t think of a way to end the sentence. Jim’s tugging the back of his shirt down, exposing the knob of bone at the base of his neck. Sebastian thinks of the guillotine, and of Jim’s mouth, and – distantly – a one-night-stand where a lover had buried his teeth in the back of Sebastian’s neck as he’d fucked Seb from behind, Seb arching into the pain as breathless and desperate and unselfconscious as an animal in heat.

No no no no no –

Not here, not now –

“It's not humiliation to lick my shoes, Moran."

Jim leans forward in the chair, curving over and down until his mouth is pressed at Sebastian’s ear. His breath is hot on Sebastian’s skin, and Sebastian has to shut his eyes involuntarily; riding down a hunger that surges up from his groin. “Don't you want to be the only boy here good enough to lick my feet?” Jim murmurs, “Don't you want the whole world to see that you belong to me?”

Sebastian’s breath catches in his throat. There isn’t enough air in the room, past the foul taste in his mouth and the smell of ozone and leather. “I don’t – “ he starts, trying to keep his head.

He should know better.

Jim doesn’t want to turn him on. Whatever the kiss was, it’s not sex, and it’s not an invitation.

Jim shoves Sebastian roughly, pushing his forehead against the unforgiving edge of the glass table. “You're smart to want it,” he drawls, holding Sebastian in place by the hair for a long moment. "Do you feel smart? Tell me you feel smart." He's grinning. Sick, fucking, evil, little asshole.

"I'm smart to want it."

"What are you smart to want?"

"I'm smart to want to lick your feet," Sebastian manages, through gritted teeth, hating Jim with his whole soul. He can taste blood in his mouth.

"Good." Like the flick of a switch Jim is impersonal again; cruel and implacable as glacial ice. He stands and straightens his suit, letting go of Sebastian as an afterthought; like he’s forgotten he was ever holding Seb to being with.

“Get up,” he says tersely. “We’ve got other things to do.” Sebastian opens his eyes and looks up at Jim, but Jim’s already tugged his phone out of his pocket.

He debates saying something.

Jim, whatever we are, I want more. Jim – you can’t pretend this isn’t –

I think about fucking you every night. Every night since Moscow. Since I met you.

Jim finally glances down at Sebastian, and whatever he reads in Sebastian’s face makes him click his tongue in disappointment. “Do I owe you something, pet?”

Sebastian feels his expression turn sullen, but he knows better than to respond.

Jim sneers. “You’re not the only one who belongs to me,” he tells Sebastian, cruel and mocking. “If I'm amused to have it, Moran, the least you can do is be grateful.” Sebastian glares at Jim, but he can’t think of an answer that won’t get him killed. Like always, Jim doesn’t seem to care. He snaps his fingers and strides off across the board room, expecting Sebastian to follow as a matter of course.

Sebastian means to get up, but he can’t seem to get his legs to work. He’s frozen, there, where Jim left him. Or maybe he’s melted in to the floor –

It’s the heat or the ice that’s going to kill me, and I can’t tell which –

I don’t know –

“You can pine when we’re not working,” Jim interrupts, his voice a brittle snap like ice shattering. “Control yourself, Sebastian, or I’ll do it for you. I can guarantee you won’t enjoy that.”

Sebastian staggers to his feet, hating them both. He never ends up saying anything: maybe there isn’t anything to say. There’s just the fire, and the ice, and the sway of Jim’s slim waist in his well-cut suit as Jim leaves Sebastian behind.

++

The next time Jim abandons him on a job, Sebastian doesn’t feel the sting of it; just a dull burning under his skin, like he’s exercised too hard and his muscles are reknitting.

They’re in Marseille, breaking an arm of the Milieu which has gotten too close to one of Jim’s projects, and Sebastian is as near to the end of his rope as he thinks it’s possible to be.

Jim slides into the Porsche Sebastian arranged for them, takes one look at Seb, and says, “I don’t think so.”

Sebastian’s covered in blood and six kinds of factory-floor filth, but it’s hardly his fault. He bites the inside of his cheek so hard he can feel a welt rising. If you hadn’t opened your fucking mouth – if you could have just once, just once, played scared to save your own skin – if you hadn’t put yourself in fucking danger –

“Don’t be stupid,” Jim interrupts, as if Sebastian had spoken out loud. “This is your job, Sebastian.” He’s still holding the car door open, blocking Sebastian’s access with his body. “Of course all of those men had to die. They’ve been very naughty, and daddy’s cross.” He tilts his head, watching Sebastian in silence for a long moment, while the engine hums to itself. “If you can’t keep yourself clean it is hardly my fault,” he adds, as an afterthought.

“You didn’t even take cover – “ Sebastian blurts out, before he can stop himself. He knows it’s a mistake.

Jim sighs so heavily Sebastian fights a wince. “Clean up,” Jim tells Sebastian, “And wash your mouth out with soap, while you’re at it. I don’t need to take cover. Not me. No one can touch me.” He shuts the door, but because he can’t resist having the last word, rolls the window down. Sebastian stands there dumbly, watching Jim’s face slowly appear from behind the tinted glass, his fists clenched helplessly at his sides. “You’re walking home,” Jim tells him. “And I’m serious about the soap. I’ll check. Don’t be late.”

Sebastian can see the muscle of Jim’s shoulder work as he puts the car in gear, and then Jim turns to the road, and the car squeals out of the parking lot.

Jim leaves a long trail of burnt rubber behind him and Sebastian thinks he knows how the tires feel. He hates Jim. Hates himself. He wants so badly it’s consuming him, eating him up from the inside out until he thinks there’s going to be nothing left of him but a hollow skin like a husk.

++

So he doesn’t go home.

He rents a cheap hotel room, little more than a bed with a shower and soap, and picks up a change of clothes and a disposable razor at the local Carrefour. Lube too; the whole point of the evening.

After a long shower, as he looks at himself in the warped hotel mirror, Sebastian thinks, Time to get over it. Jim’s a job. Nothing else. His reflection stares back without answering. The mirror is concave in the right corner, and when he moves, his face distorts like it’s melting.

++

“Hey – Comment t'appelle tu?”

The boy looks up from his drink and grins. He can’t be more than twenty-five at the oldest, which is young for Sebastian’s taste. He’s short, though. Dark-haired. Slender.

Perfect.

Sebastian has some thoughts about what he wants to get out of his system.

“Je m’appelle Nathan,” the boy replies. His grin gets wider. “Votre accent est très mauvaise.” Your accent is very bad.

Sebastian tries to seem good-natured about it. “Vraiment?”

“Très,” Nathan drawls, without losing his wicked grin, “But we could speak English. If you’d rather.”

His accent, on the other hand, is barely noticeable. Sebastian winces. “I think I’m a little outclassed,” he tells Nathan, which earns him another wide smile. Sebastian extends a hand. “I’m Sebastian.”

“And does this approach usually work for you?” Nathan teases, arching his eyebrow. He shakes Sebastian’s hand, then gestures to the seat next to him. His palms are wet from the condensation of his glass, and cool in the over-hot bar. “Have a seat, Sebastian. Here from London?”

“On business,” Sebastian replies, which is as close to the truth as he’s willing to get. He slides into the seat next to Nathan, and raises his fingers to the bartender. “Pelforth pour moi, et pour lui – “

“Une autre Pernod, s’il vous plaît.” He drains the first while the bartender takes Sebastian’s money, and reaches out to take the second from Sebastian’s hand. “So tell me, Sebastian – Why are you bringing your terrible accent around to this wonderful bar?”

Sebastian puts on a rueful smile. “I was hoping that wasn’t the most remarkable thing about me.”

Nathan hums. “Well, maybe not.” His eyes slide down Sebastian, and there’s an appraising glint in his eye. “Maybe not, indeed.”

“I’m counting on it,” Sebastian says, and thinks, Shooting fish in a barrel.

++

Sebastian doesn’t realize Jim is watching them until Nathan’s skull spatters across the door of the rented hotel room.

There’s no warning; there’s not even the courtesy of a little red light, like in the movies. One second Nathan is standing in front of him, hands on Sebastian’s lapels, leaning up to kiss him in front of the door because Sebastian wasn’t quick enough finding the key. His breath is on Sebastian’s lips; sharp with alcohol. He’s laughing, even, something Sebastian said that he’s forgotten before it even left his mouth.

The next second there’s a whip-crack sound that Sebastian would recognize anywhere, and he has enough time to think that’s – and Nathan is dead before he gets to – sniper fire.

If it was Sebastian’s first time watching someone die, he might be horrified. It happens an inch in front of his face, too fast for anything but blurred impressions; the side of Nathan’s head exploding outwards, the rictus of shock that stretches over his features, his hand sliding down Sebastian’s chest as he collapses to the ground.

But Sebastian’s seen it a hundred times before.

He spits blood onto the ground, and whirls, scanning the surrounding buildings. He doesn’t bother going for cover. Some part of him knows, the instant he hears the sound, what’s happening.

There’s a coiled wire of frustration in his stomach, white-hot and vicious. You can’t even let me have a substitute, he thinks. There’s no glint in any of the high-rises around him. Jim trains his men too well for that. On the ground at Sebastian’s feet there’s a spreading pool of blood, and the air is starting to smell of death; the unmistakeable mix of copper and voided bowels.

Cops’ll be here soon, a voice chimes, in the back of Seb’s head. Should get moving.

Hell with it, Sebastian snarls back. Jim can bust me the fuck out of jail. He turns his back on the street and starts digging in his pockets again, ignoring the dead boy on the doorstep. I know the key is in here somewhere… ah!

Sebastian pulls his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and the key-card falls out, flipping into the pool of blood at his feet. Sebastian makes a face and bends to fetch it. When he straightens, there’s two thin red crescents of blood under the nail of his thumb and index finger. He wipes the worst of the gore on the key card off on his thigh before sliding it in the door.

Nathan’s corpse puts enough weight on the frame to make the lock stick, so Sebastian kicks it roughly aside. He doesn’t bother shutting the door behind him, or hiding the corpse. They’ll be coming for him, now - the cops and the empire - and there’s only one smart money on who gets here first.

Sebastian is in the shower when Jim’s thugs finally show up. It takes them almost fifteen minutes – he’ll have to get on cutting those times, when he gets back to London.

They drag him out of the water, caught off-guard and sputtering, and shove a pair of thin silk boxers and some shoes at him before they drag him to the car. Sebastian would consider the clothing a kindness, only he knows that it’s orders.

Hot frustration flares up in him, like a flame, and it’s the only reason Sebastian knows there’s anything left inside him to burn.

++

Like always, Jim is waiting.

His hired thugs drag Sebastian to the door of his rented house in Marseilles and shove him through, slamming and locking the door behind him.

The house is a converted bed-and-breakfast that Sebastian is half-convinced Jim chose just because it’s bloody impossible to defend. There’s a million windows on the ground floor alone, great sweeping things to catch the sea-views. Even if someone didn’t pop one out of its frame to break into the house, the entire floor is open to sniper fire. Sebastian couldn’t find a single spot in perfect cover, and he’d checked. Twice.

The second floor isn’t much better; low enough to be accessible from the ground, and the same problem with windows. Even the roof of the fucking place is level enough to walk on, with plenty of skylights. Jim’s B-&-B is bright and airy, even at this time of night, and a bloody fucking security nightmare.

If Sebastian wanted to run, there’s no way anyone could stop him. Not even Jim.

“Se-bas-tian…!” Jim sings, from somewhere upstairs.

Sebastian sighs. He’s not going to run. As bad as it gets with Jim, being without him is worse. He kicks his shoes off in the entry and climbs the stairs like they lead to a gallows. The house is small enough that there’s only three rooms on the top floor; Jim’s bedroom, and Seb’s, and a giant master bathroom that doubles as a spa.

Sebastian half expects Jim to be waiting in the bathroom, if he’s upstairs – after all, the shower’s got a hell of a drain, and Sebastian’s obviously in for a punishment tonight. But there’s only one door open when Sebastian reaches the top of the stairs. Jim’s standing in his bedroom, all the lights blazing, his arms crossed over his chest.

Jim’s fully dressed and impeccable, suit and tie, even though he’s been home alone since the job this morning. His hair is slicked back, perfectly in place, and his suit-creases are so sharp you could cut yourself on them. Sebastian wonders if Jim got dressed special for this performance, before he told the team to bring Sebastian in boxers.

Seb wouldn’t put it past him.

It’s cold in Jim’s fucking house, but Jim makes no move to offer him clothes. Sebastian grits his teeth. He’s damned if he’s going to be the one to speak first. They stare at each other in silence, Sebastian leaning on the bannister, Jim framed in the doorway.

Finally, Jim breaks. Sebastian feels a petty surge of triumph as Jim lifts his chin a little, staring Sebastian down, and asks, “What time do you call this?”

Sebastian scowls. “I’m a grown fucking man, Jim.” He leans back on the bannister stubbornly, refusing to be cowed. Under the harsh lights of the bedroom, Jim’s eyes glitter dangerously.

“And here I thought we’d agreed you were my little bitch,” he shoots back at Sebastian. “Did you not get the message?”

Sebastian remembers the boardroom with a kind of stomach-churning humiliation that makes him want to snap Jim’s neck, not least because he’d enjoyed it. “Fuck you.”

“Perhaps you need reminding what ‘I own you’ means. Here’s a hint, Moran: other little boys don’t play with my toys without asking.”

“I’m not your damn possession, Moriarty – “ Sebastian starts, furiously.

Jim interrupts him in the cold, monotone drone that he only uses when he’s really, truly angry. “Yes, Moran, you are.”

It trips Sebastian up. Sebastian is used to watching Jim like a lit fuse, trying to gauge how much time there is before Jim goes off. This… this is different. Sebastian’s lips are dry. He wets them, but it doesn’t seem to help.

When he doesn’t speak, Jim continues. “Did you really think it was that easy?” He takes one step towards Sebastian, a short angry movement like he can just barely hold himself back. His voice gets louder, again, lilt getting thicker as he stops pretending to hold his anger back. “Do you think - " he cuts himself off, with a click of his teeth that might be a bad sign for his tongue. When he starts talking again, his voice is level. "Get in here, Moran."

Sebastian hesitates on the stairway just long enough to make Jim’s eyes narrow, but at the end of the day he doesn’t have much of a choice. He steps forward, and into the bedroom with Jim.

“What were you going to do,” Jim jeers, as he shuts the door behind Sebastian, “Have him put on one of my suits? Play pretend? Did you really think it would get me out of your system, if you fucked him from behind, if you shut your eyes?”

“Does it really fucking matter what I – “ Sebastian rounds on Jim, snarling.

Jim’s standing closer than Seb thought. As soon as Seb turns around he’s up in Sebastian’s face, teeth bared and breath hot on Sebastian’s lips. “Was he going to love you?!” he simpers, a sweet and deadly lie like fake sugar for lab rats.

Something in Sebastian’s heart freezes.

Before he can think of anything to say Jim hits him – no love-tap, no slap, a closed-fist blow that knocks Seb off balance and sets his ears ringing. Sebastian stumbles backwards, hands raised instinctively in defensive and Jim hits him again. This time the back of Sebastian’s knees hit the bed and he sits down, hard. Jim’s third strike is rough and quick. It snaps Sebastian's head back. He can't seem to manage to raise his hands to defend himself.

“Is this what you wanted?” Jim asks venomously. There isn’t an inch of mercy in his voice. “Is this what you were craving, little soldier boy?” Before Sebastian can answer, Jim hits him again. And again. Over and over, in the cheekbones, in the face, in the mouth. Sebastian feels his lip catch on his teeth and blood floods through his mouth and he's reeling and dizzy and he thinks he might die.

Whatever this is, Sebastian is officially way out of his depth. The air in the room is cool, not uncomfortable, but Sebastian half thinks it’s ice and fire. His skin prickles as his hair rises. “Boss, I…” he mumbles, between blows, and is rewarded by an open-handed slap that cups his ear and whites out all sound in a haze.

In that ringing silence Sebastian watches Jim turn away. He feels numb. The lights of the room cast everything too-bright, all bright whites and deep black shadows. Jim unbuttons his jacket and lays it neatly on top of the dresser. In just his shirt and trousers he looks smaller, but no less lethal; like as he strips he’s condensing, narrowing himself down to just his most dangerous parts. Sebastian feels incongruously naked. When he turns back, Jim's eyes are so black Sebastian imagines he could drown people in them. Like still water. “Talking isn’t your strong suit," he says, and that's when Sebastian realizes his hearing is coming back.

He stays silent.

“You want me to fuck you,” Jim continues mercilessly. His voice is even and calm. It's not a question. He's barely paying attention to Sebastian at all. "You want me to watch you. You want me to find you worthy." Then his eyes flick up and his face twists and he looks murderous as ever. “Or is it that you just want me to bend over, beg you, need you, let me take your cock, Moran, please.” He’s sneering now, cold and mocking, and some part of Sebastian is writhing in shame for ever daring to want him.

But Seb can’t help it, and that makes him furious. What was I supposed to do? Anger is a hot, red tide in the back of his mouth. It tastes bitter. “What do you want me to say?” he snaps back, ignoring what feels like an order not to speak. “Don’t pretend you didn’t fucking know. If you’d wanted me you could have fucking – ”

“I want you to say the same thing I always have,” Jim says flatly, stalking towards the bed. "I want you to say yes to me. I want you to say yes to me, no matter what I want. If I want to mock you, say yes. If I want to kill you, say yes." Sebastian stays where he is, watching Jim loom over him. “If I say, you belong to me, you say yes. If I say, wash your mouth with soap, you say yes.” Jim’s face is closed-off, that blank inhuman mask he wears in the worst of his rages. Sebastian considers briefly that he might have miscalculated – might finally have gone too far. Fear stiffens his spine, raises his chin defiantly to stare Jim down. Jim’s eyes are black holes in the shadow.

"That is what you agreed to," he says, softly. "Isn't, it, Moran?"

Maybe this is the night Jim finally kills him.

Sebastian can’t bring himself to care, anymore. Better dead, he thinks. Better dead, better to never have met him at all – and then, slowly, his whole heart in his throat, he swallows. Knowing that if the next thing out of Jim’s mouth is, go fetch a gun, I want to shoot you myself, he’ll say the same thing. “Yes.”

Jim’s eyes glitter. “Lie down.”

Sebastian lays himself back down on the bed, and for a second he’s just staring up at the bright light on the ceiling, wondering what it’s going to be like to die. Then the bed moves and Jim is leaning in over him, shoving his knee in between Sebastian’s legs so his weight rests on the bed treacherously close to Seb’s groin. Sebastian takes a sharp breath in and tries to turn his hips defensively, putting his thigh between him and Jim’s hard bone. Jim clicks his tongue, just once, and Sebastian can hear the threat in it. He goes still. Sebastian’s heart is racing in his chest, the blood rushing through his veins so fast he almost feels light headed.

“Shut up,” Jim tells him again, even though Sebastian didn’t say anything. “Move back on the bed.” He leans forward, putting dangerous pressure on Sebastian’s balls. “If you say a word other than yes, Sebastian, I will leave. And we will be done here.”

Sebastian shoves his tongue in between his lip and his teeth, feeling the sharp edge of bone. There isn’t really a choice, in the end.

He moves back.

Jim stays where he is, at the edge of the bed, his white shirt almost the same colour as his skin. Sebastian can feel Jim’s gaze as it trails down Sebastian’s body, limning his scars and the hard lines of muscle on his stomach in heat like Jim’s eyes have a physical touch. Whatever hair Sebastian has that isn’t already standing up rises, a thin cold tingle that runs from the back of his neck to the base of his spine.

“I don’t let anyone touch me,” Jim murmurs, half to himself. His eyes dim, looking somewhere inside himself that Sebastian can’t follow. Then he seems to shake, and his eyes refocus on Sebastian; that all-consuming, omniscient gaze that makes Sebastian’s stomach go hollow. “Well then,” he says, slower and a little bit amused, like he’s telling some private joke. “You wanted me to see you, Sebastian. You wanted me to watch. So show me.”

Sebastian almost can’t believe it. But Jim raises an eyebrow, and nods meaningfully at the front of Sebastian’s pants, and it all snaps into dazzling, unbelievable clarity.

Sebastian forgets to be angry. This is happening. This is – why is this –

Does it matter?

He takes a breath – not that it helps him to focus – and slowly lifts his hand from the sheets. Even as he does it, he’s still not entirely convinced. It’d be like Jim, after all, to laugh at this point; to get up off the edge of the bed and throw his jacket onto his shoulders, did you think it was going to be that easy, Moran, please.

But Jim’s still got that amused look on his face; it’s gone self-consciously ironic and slightly quizzical, like he’s wondering what Sebastian will do and hasn’t decided yet if he’s above caring.

Sebastian lets his thumb drag over the skin of his stomach as he reaches down to his pants, less for theatricality and more just to feel the sensation: the warmth of his skin under his own hands. It feels smoother than it should, and more sensitive, his nerves lighting up in a fire-fly trail following the path of his fingers.

Jim must notice, of course. And it’s that – it’s Jim knowing.

I’m so fucked, Sebastian thinks, dimly, and shuts his eyes. He wraps his hand around his cock – half-hard, already, goddamn Jim – and fists it, slowly, letting the fabric of his pants rumple and bunch with the stroke. The rough pull of the weave against his over-sensitive skin makes him catch his breath. Jim can see that, too, Sebastian knows – can probably trace the moment when air ceases to hit Sebastian’s lungs from the flinch that passes over Sebastian’s face.

It’s like nothing else, but Sebastian knew it would be. There’s a wild, senseless rush in his brain that tells him – fast, now, you could get yourself off in seconds, you could lose yourself with him watching so easily – but he beats it down, forces himself to long, tight strokes because he can’t lose this. Not yet. He’s rapidly growing harder in his own hand; his cock filling out, firming, until he can feel the moisture of precum start to bead at his tip. Rough friction starts to build, the fabric of his pants rubbing over the skin of his cock, and the pleasure’s better than the pain. Sebastian’s hips start to jerk up unconsciously, rocking himself into his fist, so he slows his strokes. There’s an aching almost to it, a frustration, like the sensation is so close to being perfect Sebastian wants to sob. But he can’t let himself have more. He won’t.

His expression tightens, like a wince, screwing his eyes tighter shut. Jim makes a soft sound above Sebastian; there’s a slight shift in the mattress, like he’s started to move and stopped himself. Sebastian hears himself echo the noise before he realizes he means to, and opens his eyes.

Jim is still watching. Not mocking, anymore. Not amused. With the way he’s sitting, Sebastian can’t tell if he’s aroused, but his eyes are glued to Sebastian’s face with a focus that on anyone else would look insane. It is insane. He’s insane.

Sebastian can’t breathe.

“Stop,” Jim says, roughly. Sebastian stops moving. Jim’s voice gives away more than his face, and without thinking, Sebastian opens his mouth. You want this, he starts to say, in amazement, me, you’re getting off on this, you want more –

Just in time, he remembers Jim’s admonishment, and shuts his mouth. He could be wrong, after all.

“Take your pants off. Get on your hands and knees.”

This is, statistically speaking, where he’s most likely to get hurt.

Sebastian uncurls his fist from his cock and lifts his other hand from the bed, planting his feet to tilt his hips off so he can slide his pants off. There’s a wet stain where the head of his cock was – the fabric so damp with precum it’s soaked through. Jim makes a face – ever the neat-freak – as Sebastian kicks his pants over the side of the bed to crumple on the floor. But he doesn’t look away. Sebastian’s cock rests on his stomach, and he can feel the cold of the air on the damp stripe of precum it leaves over his skin.

Jim’s still watching. In his black-within-black eyes it’s hard to tell, but Sebastian thinks his pupils are blown. He moves back, to allow Sebastian space, and Sebastian flips himself over, braces himself on his elbows and knees. It leaves him horribly exposed; his ass shoved up in the air, cock visible between his legs, on display for Jim like he’s presenting. Sebastian feels that hot-ice-and-fire mix of humiliation and desire churn in his stomach, but it doesn’t feel an inch like objecting. It just makes everything else seem in starker contrast; the heat of his skin, the cold of the air, the prickle of Jim’s gaze and the burning, demanding desire in his stomach.

“You cleaned,” Jim says, amused again. “Look at you, Moran. So polite.” Sebastian is forced to remember the awkward-hopeful-awkward moment in the shower, when he’d decided to shave and wash a little more thoroughly than usual, and wishes he’d known this was coming – wishes he’d had a chance to think about this, Jim seeing him, wishes he’d shoved two fingers inside himself and come thinking Jim’s name.

The hungry, clawing desire in Sebastian’s stomach pushes a little further upwards, until he thinks his whole body is hollow and wanting. He needs to say something like the words are forcing his mouth open. He needs more – just Jim’s voice would be fine, he could do the rest himself, Jim could even pull out his phone and type while he talked, and it would be better than any lover Sebastian’s ever had.

He should know better. He can almost hear Jim’s voice, frustrated with him for suggesting they take the easy way out. Doing something halfway is wasting all of my effort, Moran.

Jim’s hands on his ass make Sebastian jump, only half expecting it, but he hardly gets the chance to look over his shoulder. Something wet trails down the skin of his ass, towards his hole, and then there’s a light puff of breath so close against him it can’t be anything but –

Oh god. Oh god.

“Has anyone ever tasted you here, Moran?” Jim asks, his cat-voice silvery smooth.

“No,” Sebastian gasps. Sebastian’s fists grab the sheets and twist, like digging in deep will give him some sort of anchor to hold on to. He can’t think. He can’t breathe. His cock is painfully hard between his legs, and this is –

This can’t be happening, I –

“Good.” Jim’s tongue flicks over Sebastian’s asshole, light, teasing strokes that barely make contact long enough to register. It feels like lightning. It feels sinful, so filthy and perfect that Sebastian doesn’t know whether to tense or go limp. The muscles in shoulders clench until he can feel them burn, and Jim’s breath huffs in amusement; making the slick trails of his saliva go cold. He works his way in a circle around Sebastian’s hole, still those brushing little flicks of sensation that teeter on the edge of not-quite-enough. Sebastian can feel his skin go hot as he flushes.

Jim makes a sound in the back of his throat and curves his tongue around the top of Sebastian’s entrance, tracing a crescent shape that curls his tongue just inside Sebastian’s body. His fingers dig in to the meat of Sebastian’s ass, holding him in place, gripped tight until Sebastian can feel the bite of Jim’s nails.

Sebastian can’t hold back a moan. He feels his hips jerk, but Jim’s grip on him tightens again; fixing him still, holding him in to the slow, steady movements of Jim’s tongue. He traces slick spirals, circling Sebastian’s hole, teasing around the tight muscle, and Sebastian feels like he’s going insane.

Oh god. Oh fuck. I – I can’t say anything.

Sebastian buries his face in the sheets and groans helplessly. His cock is aching, but he doesn’t dare reach down to touch himself. He’s going to go mad. He knows it. He’s going to die. Jim’s tongue writhes and squirms over his skin, and it’s dirty and maddening and horribly, impossibly intimate.

Jim laps at Sebastian like a starving man and Sebastian can’t help but writhe, pushing himself backwards into the vivid wet heat of Jim’s mouth. The flat of Jim’s tongue presses over his asshole, a slow, hard press. Then again – this time, faster, rolling upwards, a rough quick flick that drags Sebastian’s skin and makes heat spark through his body to his toes. Sebastian’s hips grind forward, instinctively seeking friction, and he nearly sobs – losing the heat of Jim’s breath on his skin, the feel of his tongue. Before he can move back Jim’s hands dig in and he jerks Sebastian back upwards, so hard it feels like he bruises Sebastian’s bones.

Sebastian is trembling. He can’t seem to tell exactly what’s happening, anymore; at some point he’s squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in the blankets. At some point he’s torn the sheets from the bed, twisting and gripping at them until it’s all a hopeless mess. He’s burning.

Please, he thinks, desperate and crazed, please, Jim, Christ, please –

As if in answer, Jim bites. Sebastian yells, startled, as Jim’s teeth clamp down just below his asshole, hard enough to feel like the skin is going to snap under them. There’s a flash-flood fire of pain outwards and Sebastian feels his body jerk forward, abruptly, but it only pulls him against Jim’s teeth harder. He’s being shredded. He’s being torn apart from the base upwards, Jim is tearing him. Sebastian pushes back instinctively against the pain of pulling forward, rocking himself against Jim’s face, and buries his head in his hands to muffle the sounds being dragged out of his throat.

When Jim releases him Sebastian collapses to the bed.

“Don’t move,” Jim says. The mattress dents under pressure, and Sebastian hears Jim’s bare feet cross over the floor to the ensuite bathroom. The water starts to run, a quiet rush in the background. When Sebastian opens his eyes, and looks over his shoulder, still feeling half-dizzy, Jim’s standing in the bathroom, splashing water on his face. Sebastian watches with a dreamy lethargy as Jim pulls out a toothbrush from the cupboard and calmly brushes his teeth – as if nothing’s happened. As if he’s just getting ready for bed.

Was it just – Sebastian starts to think, as the pain starts to subside – some form of horrible punishment, just another joke, were you – but surely this is going too far for a joke, even for Jim.

Jim leans over the sink and spits toothpaste neatly into the drain. “I said don’t move,” he reminds Sebastian, without looking over. He grabs a washcloth and dries his face, then his hands, all with a tidy precision that makes him look unaffected.

But he’s not. His eyes are dark and so feverishly bright they look like they’re lit from within, and he’s staring at Sebastian. “Come here,” he says. Sebastian moves to the edge of the bed, to sitting. Jim reaches a hand down, presses it against Sebastian’s cheek. His thumb strokes Sebastian’s lips. The skin there feels like fire – it must be bruised. Sebastian knows for a fact from the wet that Jim smears over him that his lip is bleeding. He must look a mess, he thinks, distantly. He’s staring up at Jim and Jim is staring back down at him, wearing an expression that Sebastian has never seen on his face. A possessive, curling delight. A delight in what he could ask for. Sebastian thinks he’s looking at Jim, in the moment that Jim feels a complete absence of resistance.

It makes Sebastian’s chest go hollow.

“Tell me what you agreed to, Sebastian,” Jim murmurs.

Sebastian knows he should know the answer to this, but his head feels light and curiously distant, and his body is throbbing and aching. “You,” he says.

Jim’s lips jump towards a surprised smile, like Sebastian’s gotten a correct answer Jim didn’t know was there. “Me. You agreed to me.” His face full of a smooth, possessive joy, he leans in and down, until his lips are almost touching Sebastian’s. Just his thumb between them.

“Yes,” Sebastian agrees, breathlessly.

“You’ve felt owned by me,” Jim says, as a statement of fact, “For two years, now. And it will mean something different if I agree to accept this from you.”

Sebastian has only the faintest, foggiest idea what that means. The man picks his clothes. His movements. His preferences. Jim says drop everything and come at two am and Sebastian – well, Sebastian’s phone only rings if it’s Jim’s number that’s calling.

So.

“I won’t become kinder,” Jim continues. “I won’t take care of you. I’ll use you through to the blood and bone. I’ll take from you things you didn’t know anyone could take, and, when you want recompense for them, I’ll laugh at you. I’ll mock you.”

Par for the course. “Yes.”

“And I’ll use you, Sebastian. Your mouth. Your ass. Your cock. Cruelly. When I want it.”

New. New and good. New and yes. “Yes.”

Jim leans back to look at Sebastian’s face. “Swear blood to me. Swear bone. Swear your immortal soul.”

Sebastian shrugs a shoulder, realizes it looks dismissive, and stammers – “Already, I already – yes. Yes, of course. Yes.”

This makes Jim smile. “Sweet boy. You’re not done.” He pads to the bedside table, next, draws out a cigar cutter, and holds it up like the key to a riddle. Sebastian can’t manage anything in response but a soft sound like a whimper. He licks his lips, wanting to ask, and then hesitating.

Ever the psycho-mindreader, Jim grins. “Will knowing change anything, Sebastian? Will you stop me, if you don’t like what I’m going to do?”

Sebastian doesn’t want to say You know I won’t, so he just glares at Jim instead.

A smile quirks at the corners of Jim’s lips. “Ah. See?” Jim holds his free hand out, and slowly, Sebastian puts his hand in Jims. Jim presses on the palm, spreading Sebastian’s fingers. “I want your hands. I want your fingers.”

“Yes,” Sebastian says, breathless.

“You will not be able to take this back,” Jim says. His voice sounds measured, careful. Like he’s warning Sebastian. “You will not be able to leave me. If you want to leave me, I’ll change you. So you don’t want to anymore. Or I’ll cut off your legs. Or I’ll cut out your eyes.” He shrugs one shoulder gracefully, light glinting off the cutter in his hand.

“Yes.”

“I am not offering you a trade.” His grip on Sebastian’s hand twitches, squeezing tigher for a moment. “I am not going to be obligated to you. I am not offering to owe you anything. Only accept what you’ll rightfully give me.”

“Yes.”

Jim fiddles the cutter back and forth, like he’s doing card tricks. Then he demands, bluntly, “Tell me you want this.”

“I want it.”

“Tell me it’s already mine.”

“Everything.”

“Everything, Sebastian?” Jim’s mouth twists like he wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. The cigar cutter slides down over Sebastian’s finger, fishsilver bright like a wedding ring. It shines in the harsh light, and Sebastian thinks, of course. Of course this is what it was always coming to. He takes a deep breath, and he feels something – something huge inside him. Something bigger than anything he’s ever felt. It’s solid, and certain. “I will take it. I will take it and I will owe you nothing back.”

Jim is warning him. Jim is saying, last stop on this ride. The last stop was years ago. The last stop is so far in the past Sebastian is just eager for Jim to know that, too.

Sebastian says, “Yes.”

“Put your hand flat on the table,” Jim says. He’s breathless, like there’s no space in his mouth for both his words and the thing Sebastian is giving him. He’s staring at Sebastian with those fever-bright eyes, like Sebastian is the best thing that’s ever existed. Like he’s the only thing that’s ever been worth looking at in the whole world. “I’ll need to use my weight to get the guillotine through your bone. Put your hand there.”

Sebastian puts his hand flat on the table. Jim – of course – has to adjust it. Has to get the angle just right, the positioning of it. Always the perfectionist, Jim. He looks at Sebastian, when he’s done. He drinks in Sebastian’s fear the way he drinks in everything else, gulping it down. Devouring it. He leans over to Sebastian and kisses him, slow and gentle. And thorough. So thorough! As if he is going to find every thing in Sebastian’s mouth with his tongue, as if he is going to slow and careful and absolute find every part of Sebastian there is. And there’s no need to rush, now. There’s no need to hurry. There’s only that yes. That big yes, that means everything. Jim moves back from Sebastian and looks at him, again. His eyes glowing with that feverish thing that’s bright as hell and inhuman. He looks at Sebastian like the Old Testament god. It’s cruel, the way he looks at Sebastian. But it's something else, too. Devouring and hungry and affection and lov –

And loving, Sebastian thinks.

Then Jim turns away. He places one hand on the cigar cutter, then his other hand over top. Sebastian takes a deep breath.

And Jim slams the cutter down.

There’s no sense in trying to describe the pain. There’s no reason to put words to it. There’s nothing about it, only it’s everything, it’s a rushing brick wall that hits Sebastian full force, it’s the white-hot end of the world. It’s like everything from the wrist down being in acid. It’s like he stuck his hand in a fire. It’s – his finger, is –

At first everything just happens in flashes. Sebastian sees the pale severed finger on the table, the falling cigar cutter. Jim’s hand snatches his wrist like an icy manacle. He feels himself yanked backwards as if he isn’t moving but being pulled on a wire. He sees a spatter-spray of blood go up the white of Jim’s shirt to the skin of Jim’s cheek bone. He sees his own hand raise in front of him, Jim’s fingers white, his grip bone-tight, his finger gone… They fall back together, tumbling into the bed, Jim pulled by his grip on Sebastian, and then Sebastian sees Jim’s mouth close over the ruined stump of his finger.

And he feels, impossible, impossible, Jim’s tongue run over the wound. Over his bone. He feels Jim swallow and gulp down mouthfuls of Sebastian’s blood.

And then Sebastian is screaming. Sebastian is screaming like it is the end of the world. Jim lets his wrist go, releasing Sebastian from the wet heat of his mouth. Sebastian hauls his hand back, cradling it to his chest. His poor, ruined, broken hand. He cradles it into himself, curling around it. Crying, now. Big, sobbing, toddler-in-a-Walmart tears. Grown-men-don’t-cry-like-this tears.

It hurts. Like shrapnel in slow motion. Like being eviscerated again. Sebastian catches his breath so he doesn’t make a sound, and tries to keep himself still. He can’t. Sebastian catches his lip in his teeth and bites down, hard, trying to ignore the scream of nerves. He curls around his broken hand. He feels, distantly, Jim’s hands move him over to his back. Gentle and easy, like Sebastian isn’t nearly twice his size.

There are thick wet drops running over Sebastian’s chest and down his side, staining the mattress red. There’s copper on the air now, so thick Sebastian can’t even smell sex. He shuts his eyes, hoping it will help, but it doesn’t. The rock of Jim’s body against his as Jim shifts him drives the pain into Sebastian’s bones like long, white-hot needles. It lances through Sebastian’s mind, pokes his thoughts full of holes. His body is starting to squirm – he can feel his feet kicking uselessly at the bed, somewhere far away, but Jim’s grip on his hips is solid.

And then – impossible – there’s a weight between Sebastian’s legs, pushing them apart. “No,” Sebastian sobs, brokenly, hating himself for it. There can’t be more. There can’t possibly be more. Jim presses against Sebastian’s ass. Sebastian hates himself for saying anything other than yes. Hates himself for promising so bravely that it would always be yes, and being proved weak, so soon after.

“There isn’t no, Sebastian,” Jim says, what passes for gently with him. “There isn’t no for you, anymore.”

Through the blind haze of pain, Sebastian can hear Jim stripping the rest of the way; the loud pull of his zipper, the soft whisper of fabric as he slides out of his shirt. There’s a hard sound as Jim pops the lube open.

“No,” Sebastian mumbles again. “No. Please.” His fists clench on impulse, and it drives the bloody stump of his finger into the sweat of his palm. It stings. Sebastian sobs and lets his hand open. He has a distant memory that this room used to smell of sex, of spit and wet skin. Now everything just smells like blood. Sebastian breathes heavily through his mouth, trying to calm down. Easier if I relax. If I can just  –

Jim’s fingers trail slick streaks down Sebastian’s flanks to his thighs, trail circles on the thin skin at the back of Sebastian’s knees. His touch is slow, almost painfully intimate; as if he’s discovering all the hidden spots of Sebastian’s body, one at a time, claiming them with his fingertips. He runs his fingers around the curve of Sebastian’s muscles, the soft crease where Sebastian’s thigh meets his ass. He traces the bone of Sebastian’s hip, the stark lines of Sebastian’s ribs. Sebastian’s stomach. The tense muscles just beneath his cradled hands.

“No.”

“Yes,” Jim says, lovingly. “There’s only yes, now.” Then, horribly – his hands. Jim touches Sebastian’s hands, running his fingers over the knuckles, gliding his finger around the rim of Sebastian’s amputated finger until Sebastian whimpers and flinches away from him. Then he laughs. “Put them at your sides, Sebastian.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

He waits. That’s patient, for Jim. And eventually, somehow, Sebastian does. He lowers his hand, shuddering, to his sides. He even manages to open his eyes, as Jim reaches up and touches his face. He’s rewarded by Jim over him, looking like the sun. Looking like a black hole, framed in the harsh white light. His fingers drift from Sebastian’s face down his throat. Jim traces each scar on Sebastian like they’re stars in a constellation. His fingers are so light they feel like the brush of a feather; almost ticklish, but the wetness they leave behind is cold enough to leave Sebastian shivering. Every inch of Sebastian feels hyper-aware. He’s light-headed. Not aroused – in too much pain, for that. But there’s a heat building in him, slow-burning this time rather than desperate. Jim runs his fingernails along Sebastian’s collar-bones, unhurried, continuing his deliberate possession of Sebastian’s body. He hasn’t said anything, and Sebastian doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s spoken. Jim presses closer, and his hand goes between Sebastian’s legs, and his fingers are at the puffy, spit-slick skin of Sebastian’s ass at the same time as his chapped lips brush the blood on Sebastian’s chest.

The fire in Sebastian’s stomach flares.

Jim’s fingers shove in with a filthy slick sound, pushing lube and spit up into Sebastian. His hole is still loose from Jim’s tongue, and he’s oversensitive and aching. “No,” Sebastian mumbles, more to himself than anyone. He can feel himself shaking.

“Yes,” Jim whispers, against Sebastian’s chest. Somewhere, Sebastian might be whimpering. He’s not sure. His hips jerk forward and back against Jim’s hand, helpless and wanting even though it makes him grit his teeth against the pain. Jim’s fingers push lube inside him, and Sebastian can hear the wet, slick sounds of his own hole loose and sloppy. The filthy sound of a helpless animal being fucked.

Sebastian hears himself keen, mindless and pained, still crying. “Please.” And please again because he can’t hold on to anything else. His mind seems to be scattered in every direction; like Jim’s fingers have carved him up, into a hundred different pieces, and he can’t seem to get himself back together. Like he’s shattering outwards from the stump on his hand.

When Jim’s cock pushes into him, there’s no fumbling, from Jim – no helpless stabs around in search of the right angle. He finds it as unerringly as if he’s done this a hundred times before, as if fucking Sebastian is just one of the hundred thousand things he can do better than anyone else. Whatever thoughts Sebastian might have gathered – whatever fragments of his mind were still functioning together – they’re gone. He can’t tell if he’s still oversensitive from Jim’s mouth. He can’t tell if it’s the pain in his hand or the pleasure in his ass making him sob. He couldn’t even tell Jim the colour of the sheets if Jim asked. All he can do is cling to them for dear life as Jim stretches him open – fucking into him so deep Sebastian is sure his body is never going to be the same. It hurts. Even stretched out and full of lube, Jim is big, and it hurts. He’s so deep. He’s so horribly deep. The feeling is always going to be with Sebastian. Sebastian thinks he’s going to come entirely undone at the seams; he wants to scream but he can’t draw enough air to do anything but sob.

“Please, no, oh, no. Please,” Sebastian hears himself gasp, from somewhere very far away. He’s distantly aware that he’s not supposed to be talking, but it all seems unimportant now. The only thing that matters is Jim. “Please, Jim, please – “

“Please?” Jim replies, sounding calm and unconcerned. “Please what?”

Sebastian’s not even sure if anything he’s feeling can be described, anymore. It’s agony, but it’s not as if such a small word can describe what’s happening to his body. He’s trembling again, like a fly-stung horse, his hips jerking in abortive movements as he tries to fuck himself on Jim and finds he doesn’t have the strength. There’s a short laugh and then Jim is folding himself down over Sebastian and kissing him. His mouth moves loose over Sebastian’s, sliding. His chest slips in the blood smeared over Sebastian’s skin.

And Sebastian can’t breathe. He’s suffocating into Jim’s kiss. Each thrust seems to drive the air out of his lungs and Jim’s mouth is fixed over his, and Sebastian is suffocating. He’s going to die like this. He’s going to die with Jim fucking him. Jim’s hands are exploring his body, one arm shoving under Sebastian to hold him up into the fucking. Sebastian tries to move his injured hand far away from the press of their bodies, tries not to think about it. Tries to make it not exist for both of them. On each thrust the head of Jim’s cock drags over Sebastian’s prostate, perfectly angled and painfully good. Sebastian makes a strangled sound. He doesn’t dare move, now, because it’s so close. He can feel climax building inside him, like an unbreaking wave towering over his head. Jim’s hand is moving through his hair, stroking over his shoulder, down his arm.

“Jim,” Sebastian gasps, wildly. “Oh god – “ He’s never heard himself so wrecked before. Jim’s hand reaches his wrist. His left wrist. Jim’s fingers gentle on his palm. Jim’s cock thrusting into Sebastian, so deep it’s not possible. “Please –“

Jim’s mouth, clamped over his. Cutting out the air.

And Sebastian feels himself teeter on the edge of that orgasm, feeling it build and rush up beneath him like a black pit he’s falling towards. But he doesn’t cum, not until Jim’s hand finds his, and Jim threads their fingers together, so the stump of Sebastian’s finger is pressed against Jim’s palm.

And squeezes.

++

When Sebastian comes to himself after what’s either an orgasm or a blackout from shock, Jim is sitting back, watching Sebastian, and Seb sees something flicker across Jim’s face. On anyone else, he’d say it was vulnerability. But this is Jim, and it’s not weakness; it’s recognition.

You belong to me, Jim said, and I couldn’t possibly let anyone touch me, but that part had been a lie.

Sebastian’s missing finger twitches, and he feels the sting of salt from his sweat drip into the wound.

“Don’t forget,” Jim tells him. “Don’t forget.”

++

The next time it comes up, it’s because of another stupid job, another fucking reckless call Jim makes because he can’t get it through his head that he’s only human.

Sebastian ends up having to knock Jim out and throw him over his shoulder in order to get them both out alive.

He takes his beating afterwards as a matter of course – because, after all, he knocked Jim out. When that’s over with, though, Jim comes around the kitchen table to watch Sebastian stitch his own wounds.

“You know,” he says, as Sebastian ties off the thread with one hand and his teeth, “You really should have learned. You’re not special, Sebastian. You try that again and you’ll find out just how easy it is for me to replace you.”

“Bullshit,” Sebastian says, more calmly than he feels, snipping off the ends of the knot.

Jim’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Excuse me?”

“You think I’m worth keeping forever,” he tells Jim flatly, daring Jim to protest. They stare at each other in silence for a long moment. Jim’s closed off and unreadable, his face so emotionless he might as well be a convincing wax doll. Sebastian hopes he looks the same way. His heart’s pounding somewhere up between his eardrums though, loud and a little bit too quick.

When the silence begins to be unbearable, Jim says, “I’d be careful what I did with my tongue if I were you, Moran. Someone might cut that off, too.”

But he doesn’t laugh.

And he doesn’t say no.