thewebspinner:

mistersmoran:

[That’s fine. He can deal with silence. Not as well as he can deal with Jim’s anger, because then all he has to do is be angry back until they’re both beaten and bloody and most likely shagged-out as well, but he can.

Sebastian Moran is an assassin with a rifle and a goddamn first-class one at that, and most of a sniper’s job is waiting. So he will, he does, sets himself down in the armchair and says nothing. He doesn’t sleep or read or start tapping rhythms on his leg but merely waits. For exactly what, he’s not certain, but he will until it comes. ]

[But nothing does come. Not for hours and hours, and it’s unclear whether he’s thinking, or just staring at the wall ahead and not thinking at all. Jim doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make a single sound other than the very occasional hitch of breathing, a soft, shuddery intake like every so often, a breath catches in his throat and he has to shake it free. He takes these little precursory breaths as though expecting tears, but none ever come, or if they do, they’re so perfectly silent that in the dark room, there’s no light to see them by.

Jim himself is at a loss. It’s not a problem to be solved by equation, by logic or rationality. Rational thinking would suggest that he ought to either feel nothing at all, or react as any other person would. He doesn’t feel, but feels that itself in a sense of anti-feeling, and it makes not one iota of sense to even him when he tries to explain it within the confines of his own traitorous mind. Devoid of the catalyst in the methamphetamine, his logical mind clicks over just enough to suggest that swallowing a bullet is counter-productive, so he just sits there, mulls it over.

He draws a soft, sharp breath in through his nose, and squeezes his eyes closed like he can blot the world out that way.]

[Still, he waits. For hours. He’ll wait for days if he has to, in Jim’s living room, in the living room that’s theoretically been theirs for two days. Sebastian’s not about to consider it his though. He just happens to reside there, same as any hotel, until Jim decides otherwise.

Might be happening sooner rather than later, now. He does leave, just for a minute, to slide into the kitchen and come back with a pitcher of water, a glass, and all the dry, salty food he finds quickly. Because, knowing Jim, the man’s going to lie there until he’s too weak to move and Seb has to force-feed him.

But he’ll do it, if he has to.]