A/N: Based on "Snuff" by Slipknot

"Bury all your secrets in my skin.

Come away with innocence and leave me with my sins.

The air around me still feels like a cage

and love is just a camouflage for what resembles rage again."

Rating: K

Trigger Warnings: None

Their subordinates considered them to be boss and employee, titles which were technically correct. Moriarty supervised, handling business and money, while Sebastian handled...whatever Jim told him to. If those things happened to involve guns and a lot of bloodshed, it didn't change the fact that he was still, always, following Moriarty's orders. He knew better than to ever disobey, or botch a job. In that way, they were truly boss and employee.

Some of their more dim-witted clients considered the two of them to be partners. Moriarty never attended a business meeting without Sebastian present – both for protection and intimidation. The large man would make anyone reconsider any ill-conceived plans of betrayal. And contrary to what his looks might convey, Sebastian was an intelligent man, and could discuss business just as well as Jim could, when the need arose. Sometimes, when he didn't have the time, or just couldn't be bothered, Jim did send Sebastian to his meetings. So they may have been partners, in an odd sense.

Those who didn't know them even sometimes considered them friends. On the rare times that Moriarty could be bothered to eat, he and Sebastian dined together, usually in the fanciest restaurants in town. They never needed a reservation – Moriarty's name cleared half the patrons, anyway. The two spoke as though they were friends, asking for each other's opinions and advice, and sharing jokes (even if the jokes were a lot more morbid than what would be considered normal).

But no one ever considered the two of them to be lovers. They shared the same flat, and often the same bed, but 'lovers' just wasn't the right term. Lovers implied roses and anniversary presents, sticky notes on the fridge and goodnight kisses. Jim and Sebastian had none of those things. This wasn't love. This was destruction. This was bloody lips and broken jaws, screamed words and thrown knives stuck to the bedroom wall. They made war, not love, and it would probably eventually mean the death of both of them.

They may have been lovers in the broadest sense of the word, but really, it felt far more like hate.