...and his face protrudes forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion. Sebastian remembers the very first "meeting" Jim brought him to, the first where he was to stand in the corner and be the menacing tall man, the way Jim would get in people's faces, the way his tongue would flick out for no reason other than some sort of childish intimidation, the way those brandy-colored eyes looked dead, absolutely dead behind the mask; Sebastian had expected the other's blood to be cold when he felt it on his fingertips that night.


"I need this for a job." Jim said to him, held up the USB in two slender fingers, placed it in Sebastian's rough ones. "It's very important. Guard it with your life." So when it had fallen out of his pocket and met the bottom of his shoe with a resounding crack, Sebastian had paused, frozen in what had just happened, and sighed, grabbed his coat, decided he had to go find something even dirtier, and a new USB.


"So dreary in London," Jim drawled as he looked out the window, propped his legs up on the arm of the couch. "We should take a vacation, shouldn't we, Sebby? We could go to Vegas again, but the last time we did that you lost a lot, didn't you? Made a mess in the bank account. Or we could go to France and eat ourselves sick again." He nodded to himself and turned to see Sebastian on the other side of the couch. "You'd like to go back to India, wouldn't you?" Sebastian wasn't paying attention, never really did when his boss rambled. Jim shrugged, figured that out, turned back to the raindrops on the window. "Get myself a fine tiger coat in India, wouldn't I."


"Move." Sebastian prodded the new recruit's back with the butt of his rifle, pushed the man-boy, rather-forward, suppressed a smile when he stumbled, let it fall to a frown when the boy stopped once more. "I said move, goddamnit." Sebastian reached over for the rifle in the boy's hands, made sure he had a tight enough grip on it, glared daggers when the boy turned around to scowl at him. "I know how to hold the goddamn gun." Sebastian prodded him again. "Then go to your station and stop bumbling around like a sod." That seemed to be the boy's breaking point, what with their on-and-off fighting throughout the week Sebastian knew it was coming, just hoped it wouldn't during a job for god's sake but all this kid seemed to be good at was stirring up trouble when it really wasn't needed - the taller man stopped the boy's fist with his forearm and deftly reached over to grab his neck, made a soft sound when he realized exactly how hard his grip was, stared down when the boy's body fell limp on the ground. Well, shit. Sebastian picked up his cell phone and pressed the speed dial, sighing into the dial tone. "Boss, we're down one."


"Be a dear and clean the mess in the kitchen" was the first thing Sebastian heard when he woke up that morning, he looked up at the doorframe to see Jim standing there, ridding his hands of some stained plastic gloves. Jim gave him a little smile and turned on his heel out of the room, Sebastian listened to the footsteps click against the floor, turned his head to check the time on his bedside clock. He yawned and pushed himself out of bed, he really wanted to go make some breakfast but he figured that would have to wait until after he had cleaned up whatever Jim had left there for him. That was okay. Normalcy was not something he missed, he noted, as he picked the knife from last night up so he could bring it back into the kitchen.