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Wolves (A Mormor Short Story)

It was a small flat in a big city. Half a cigarette lay smoking in a slightly chipped saucer. The blue and white pattern was dusted with ash, some of it spilling over, and scattering across the bedside table. The smoke drifted up, past an alarm clock which hit half eight and started to ring shrilly. A bare arm snaked out from under the safety of the duvet, hitting the alarm clock. Still, it didn't stop ringing, and a second arm reached over the first, picking up the alarm clock and throwing it across the room with such force that it smashed with a slight dinging noise, and was silent.

"Now I have to buy a new one." Sebastian muttered, looking at the smaller man lying against his chest, pale skin against Seb's tanned and scarred muscles. He had some scars from where he had been, but most of them were from Jim. Bright red lines covered his chest like a spider's web.

Blood. Their lives had been full of it.

There had been blood everywhere that afternoon. Pools of it creeping slowly out from bodies scattered across the street. The metalic smell of blood hung in the air, joined by the smell of fear, and burning flesh. Bodies with severe burns, parts strewn everywhere. Scattered like refuse across the streets. An arm, without a torso. A face so badly charred that all features were obscured.
He had just hoped that it had been enough.
He hadn't known then what it would mean for him.
He hadn't noticed a body dressed in an expensive suit.

Jim smiled, cat like. No, not a cat, Seb thought. Jim was like a snake about to strike. "You can afford it."

"But I can't afford three clocks a week." Seb laughed, picking up the cigarette and slowly breathing the smoke in. He smiled down at Jim, the corners of his mouth crinkling all the way to his eyes.

"Stop laughing at me." Jim hissed. "Else I'll pull out your ribcage and wear it as a hat."

"And you would look beautiful with a ribcage hat." Seb muttered, stubbing out his cigarette, and throwing his arm back over Jim lazily.

Jim shifted slightly, and leaned over to kiss him roughly.
Left hanging, Sebastian groaned, begging Jim to continue.
"You taste like an ashtray." Jim muttered quietly, his voice so distracting that Sebastian hardly heard his words.

"I'm sorry." Sebastian moaned.

"Then show it!" Jim hissed, and Seb felt the cool metal of a flick knife against his chest.

The flat was just how he had left it. There was a mass of glass and metal on the floor, the remains of an alarm clock. On the table was the remains of a simple lunch for two. Their last meal together, and it had been a quick sandwich and a drink. Beer for Seb, and wine for Jim. He always was posh like that.

They had eaten quickly, washing bread and meat down with alcohol.
"Car ready?" Jim asked.

"Have a bit of faith in me?" Seb laughed.

Jim smiled, before his face fell like a rock. "Faith didn't get us our country back."

"Aye." Seb nodded. "But this- this-" Sebastian was an ex soldier. A killer for hire. A right-hand man. Machine. But he was not as much as a psychopath as the man sitting opposite him.

"Is a good idea, so don't get second thoughts, soldier." Jim purred.
Sebastian nodded. Normally he was in charge. He was used to being listened to. Ruthless on occasion. But someone else was in control. Jim- Jim demanded to be obeyed. Both in bed and in this fight of theirs. He was not someone Seb wanted to cross. He was not an easy man to love.

Sebastian sighed, sitting down and quickly stripping his gun onto a tea towel. The familiar task was comforting, but it couldn't fill the hole Jim had left.
Meticulously, he cleaned each piece, and put the gun back together.

"Show me your best shot, Tiger."
They were outside, out of town for the weekend. They'd known each other for a week, then, and Seb could already see strains of the man Jim would become.
Seb looked at Jim's grinning face, pulled his gun out, and shot each can in turn. The metal cans spun, a metalic ringing sound in the air.

There had been a ringing sound after the explosion. He had been too close to the blast, and the pressure change had damaged his ears.
But he had been otherwise unharmed. He hadn't been standing as close as Jim.
Jim, who normal stayed clear, refusing to get his hands dirty.
Jim, who had been the brains, but not the brawn, behind their operations.
Jim, who was lying on the tarmac, his blood pooling around his head.

"I want to hire you." Jim had said, leaning against the bar.

"Why?" Seb had asked, looking into his beer glass. "I just got kicked out of the army." He had muttered. He was sad, but also angry. Something in him wanted to blow. He still needed an enemy. Someone to shoot. To kill. To deal with his pent up anger and frustration.

"I know." The unknown man had said. "'Sebastian Moran has issues with authority'. I've read your file. I liked the bit about the Abington gang ambush." He smirked. "So, I'm hiring you."

"What as?" Seb had asked.

"Well, you're good with a gun, so what do you think?" Jim had smirked again, holding a hand out to shake. "So, are you in?"

"What the hell." Seb had sighed, "I've already signed my life away." He reached over to grip the other man's hand.
Doing so had sealed his fate.

After finishing Jim's bottle of whisky, staring out of the window at the blood orange sunset over the Dublin skyline, he collapsed onto the bed, sighing. The blankets smelt like Jim. Aftershave and plotting. A terrible, amazing reminder of that morning. Before anything had happened. Before he had lost the person most important to him. He closed his eyes briefly, remembering.

He had pulled at the restraints, watching Jim smile, ready to strike. There was a knife in the pale man's hands, blood on its tip, the initials JM carved into Seb's chest over older wounds. Jim laughed at his face, his body shaking with the storm inside him, fuled by some insanity that scared Sebastian shitless. It also turned him on more than he cared to admit. Jim was intoxicating. He was the ocean, and Seb was drowning. But to him, drowning was no sin. He had Jim's life inside of him. The movement that shook Jim's body made its way up Sebastian's, until his brain was scrambled, and he only had one thought.
Jim.

But Jim was gone. Blown to pieces by the car they had used in the fight for independence.

His eyes shot open, the image of Jim still scarred onto his retinas.
Jim, when he had been mad, and madly alive. Insane and in control. Psychopathic, and obeyed. Quiet, plotting. Civilised and vicious. A mixture of eloquence and anger. The IRA's best asset. Sebastian's boss, master, and friend. His world.
His world would never be the same.
Jim was Sebastian's everything when he was alive.

Alive.
But that was no longer the case.

And tomorrow dawns like someone else's suicide.

- - -

"Blue mink Ford, I'm going to detonate and you're dead,
Blood in the house,
Blood on the street,
The worst things in the world are justified by belief,
Registration 1385-WZ.
...
If I open my eyes,
You disappear."

-U2: Raised by Wolves.

Songs of Innocence.

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