sniperwithasmoke:
he doesn’t see it at first. he isn’t looking for it. he isn’t looking for it. and maybe that should tell him more than anything. more than any of this. than the fish and chips cooling in the bag they were delivered in, the silent car ride and quieter flight, the unanticipated ( misplaced? yeah, probably ) jealousy directed at a stupid boat captain, the way he felt left out when o’conner and davis got to tie up the loose ends he’d caused. that fucking fight in a fucking alleyway in the middle of fucking amsterdam.
— more than a tinny voice over a shitty connection on a pay phone, on the run.
maybe it should, but it doesn’t.
his blood goes cold. anger evaporating into nothingness as if it had never existed. blue gaze bores a hole into black as basher straightens up, hands lifting, shifting as if to surrender but not quite making it higher than his belt. ❝ jim, ❞ he says as if those three little letters are choking him. as if he had swallowed them down and they are refusing to go without a goddamn fight. and, when he opens his mouth to say more, he finds himself at a loss.
but then the knife is on the floor as clean as it was as it pressed to the flesh of jim’s temple. sebastian crosses the room in three long strides all but falling to his knees at the other’s feet. fingers reach for the blade, pocketing it, all without having taken his eyes from him. ❝ forget it, ❞ he finally manages, ❝ forget all the shit. whatever happened a week ago or this morning, i’m here. i’m back, yeah? i can’t – ❞ – can’t what, moran? lose him again? that’s awfully selfish of you. ❝ i don’t know what made it all go sideways but, but my job here. now. is to want you safe. ❞ a breath, it comes out a sharp puff of air and, were the situation a lighter one, one might even consider it a half-hearted chuckle. ❝ even if i die trying keep you that way. ❞
Of course he isn’t looking for it. Jim could hide things in plain sight. Could make you just not see something until he drew your attention to it. It has something to do with his eyes. Hollow and dark and magnetic. You watch his eyes and not his hands--or what’s in them.
Jim. There’s almost a smirk on his face at the word. Because it’s funny. It’s just riotously funny to think a word can control him.
But somehow the knife does end up on the floor. And then somehow in Sebastian’s hands. Then his pocket. And Jim’s eyes land on the only thing left--Sebastian. He’s close by now, too close, and Jim puts up a hand, catching Sebastian in the chest.
“Forget?” The word comes out as a breathy laugh. Incredulous. Impossible. A sneer as the other continues, an expectant lift of his brows. But whatever that thread was, Sebastian stopped his desperate, uncertain pull on it and made it about the job. Jim’s lips curl back further, a foxlike, toying grin as he leans around Sebastian to take in the state of the flat. “Well, precious, both here and there, you’re doing a remarkable job.”
A pat to the other’s cheek and he moves around Sebastian like water. Wading back into the wreckage of the living room.
