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Flaking, splintering red wood and a tarnished brass doorknob. The click of its turn as he steps quietly, catlike, into the flat and silently sheds his shoes at the mat inside.
A gentle tip-toe across the floor, this way and that to avoid the boards that creak as he rounds the right of the scratched glass coffee table and approaches the couch.
A flash of movement, lightning quick, and he carefully contains a gasp of surprise as a butterfly knife is pressed to his right carotid artery.
“I’m never going to be able to sneak up on you, am I?” Jim wonders aloud, tilting his head upward to meet the cool blue eyes nearly a foot and a half above him, hazy with sleep. A cigarette is sitting in the firm crease of his mouth, half-smoked but cold.
“Neighbor’s dog barks when people hit the third floor stairs.” Sebastian rasps in response.
Jim nods once, and the blade moves with him. It’s warm from the blonde’s pocket, and a gentle pressure from the larger man’s thumb gently pushes the sharp edge under a few layers of skin. No blood. A gentle threat, a promise. It does well to remind him that the broad chest in front of him belongs to someone who could easily snap him in half— and often wanted to a year prior.
“Business.” Sebastian decides out loud, and Jim nods once. He ought to get better at controlling his body language, but the knife does excite him so. He knows better now not to underestimate the man— Jim often took his silence as unintelligence in their first few weeks. The act the brute put on was astonishing in its flawlessness.
With a flourish and a little spin, the blade clinks back into itself and is set into a left jeans pocket. Jim rocks back on his heels as the sniper flops backward onto the couch, unbothered by his presence for now.
The man lounging ever reminds him of a big cat, head against one armrest and right leg flopped over the other. His left stays over the edge, as if leaving himself open. An invitation, leaving his throat and stomach exposed. Attack me, see where it takes you.
He fishes a lighter from between the back of the couch and the cushion closest to him, flicking it over the half-smoked cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
“Do you always fall asleep smoking?” Jim drawls, leaning down to run a single finger up Sebastian’s chest. Clad in a plain white t-shirt, as usual. His hand wanders, finding itself in too-long blonde hair, perfectly manicured nails gently scraping at his scalp.
Sebastian arches, playing his enjoyment of the touch off as a stretch. “Sometimes. I’m trashy like that.” he shrugs, eyes closing, but only for a second.
Jim grabs tight and wrenches Sebastian’s head back.
He growls, gritting his teeth and wincing as he crushes the filter between his canines.
Jim watches his rising anger with plain indifference, smug as can be on the inside as he watches the man seethe.
“Fuckin’ hell Jim-“ he scowls, pulling the smoke from his mouth and glaring upward. “It’s my fuckin’ flat, you princess.”
“You know I don’t like it when you smoke around me.” he replies flatly, wrinkling his nose.
Sebastian just glares, reaching over his shoulder without looking to snuff it out in the ash tray behind him.
Jim smiles. His perfect smile, the one with nothing behind the eyes.
“Waste. Spit it out, am I driving or walking.” The blonde grumbles, throwing his leg off the armrest to the floor and standing with a huff.
Jim meets him, chest to chest, head tilted up high as it can go to lock eyes again. He slides a hand up each muscled forearm, and the anger in those perfect blue eyes dissipates quick.
He’s so easy to manipulate. To push and pull, to anger and calm, to grab his thoughts like the harness of a rabid dog and send him rampaging in the right direction.
It’s beautiful, Jim thinks.
“You’re walking.” he says, and on cue, a gentle bout of thunder makes its presence known with a rumble. He presses a folded piece of paper into one wide, tanned hand.
Sebastian tears himself away from Jim’s gaze, stepping sideways into the kitchen to retrieve his guitar case. “Shoulda known you’d make your first visit to my miserable flat so you could tell me I gotta sit in the rain for a fuckin’ hour.”
“Oh but I thought it’d be a respite, if your flat is so dreadfully miserable, as you say.” Jim replies, sweeping his eyes across the space.
It’s a corner unit, four floors up, with none above it. The living room and kitchen are one, the only rooms with doors being the single bedroom and bathroom. Every papered wall is yellowed and peeling, and the floors show the wear of being replaced or repaired time and time again.
The living room houses a ratty olive coloured couch, a battered wooden end table, a dead plant, a dusty red rug, and the glass coffee table that came with the place. The kitchen fares much better, with a small island, new light fixtures, standard kitchen machines, and quite a bit of floor and wall cabinet space.
Not that Sebastian cares about counter space for cooking, since most of his meals come out of the microwave.
Jim settles elegantly into a barstool at the island, the old wood creaking slightly at his weight while he watches Sebastian get ready. The ritual is almost calming in its efficiency.
He sets the guitar case on the counter, the rifle inside no doubt cleaned that morning. Each article of clothing is shed and folded into the hamper near his bedroom door, exposing his scarred back for a moment before he disappears inside.
Jim can count the sounds, listening through the open door to each item being put on. Pants (no underwear), socks, shirt, jacket, the clink of his dog tags being removed, and the fumbling of a watch being slipped on. Oh, and as he exits, a blue baseball cap hanging from the back of the door.
“You look quite a bit younger as an American tourist.” Jim decides out loud, pointedly staring forward at the grocery list on the fridge across from him. Instant noodles, eggs, caffeine pills, frozen dinners. It’s an enigma how the man’s still alive.
Sebastian settles the cap over the worst of his untrimmed hair, predictably scowling forward. “Are you ignoring me because I did somethin’ tiny and you’re mad, or are you just bein’ an asshole?”
Jim doesn’t reply for a moment, letting the silence sit, before he spins around to meet the beast once again. Metaphorical teeth bared, wide awake, with a literal gun in a case over his shoulder. Danger lights up Jim’s body like a forest fire, and he suppresses a shiver. The push, now the pull.
“It’s two targets, I want you focused.” he drags his eyes up and over a broad chest, wide hands, landing on his mouth for just a brief second. A hitch in breath, his bait taken. The anger is gone, if only until Jim pushes it to the surface again.
“What’s the second?” Sebastian tilts his head, posture lax, in no way disguising how his lovely blue eyes like to wander while he talks. He’s so easy to read like this. An animal, eyes bright and willing, almost frothing at the mouth.
Jim grabs the harness, tugs, and points the ever-eager beast in the right direction.
“You tell me.”