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Sebastian comes home and there’s something lying on the kitchen table. He has to go back and do a double take; what?, but then he has a flashback to last year and it all make sense. Last year Sebastian came home only to realise that there was something on his kitchen table that he hadn’t put there, picked his baseball bat up, and stalked towards it cautiously. He had thought it was a bomb, but it wasn’t. It turned out to be an engraved silver cigarette case. A birthday gift, from Jim.
It only makes sense that this is a birthday gift, too. He goes up to it unarmed, knows that nothing can get in here undetected anyway and since there wasn’t a corpse waiting for him on the doormat this time (that had been a mess and a half) he assumes it’s from Jim this time as well.
It turns out to be a dog’s leash and collar. Sebastian leans over closer to inspect the items; that’s really surprising. The leash is made of black leather, and smelling it, Sebastian confirms that it’s genuine, too. The bit closest to the fastening and the actual collar are both chain link, and they look very sturdy. There’s a little brick on the collar, too; he picks it up.
“To Tiger
with love.”
He turns it over.
“xxx”
He smiles, turns it over in his hands, tries it on. The size is adjustable to three settings; digging tightly into his throat and making it just this bit harder to breathe, resting just against his jugular notch, and long enough to hang unseen under his shirt. He pockets the leash and leaves the collar on. The weight of it makes him feel safe and loved, and, after pausing a moment, he pulls his dog tags off and puts them into his pocket, too.
*
They’re watching a movie that Jim likes because of all the creepy mind-twisting plot turns, and that Sebastian likes because the main character is a sexy woman wearing next to nothing. Jim is lying down over the sofa with his feet in Sebastian’s lap and Sebastian rubs them slowly without even reflecting over it.The main character is having a fight with her mum.
“I take it you liked your little gift,” Jim says without taking his eyes off the screen.
Sebastian doesn’t say thank you, or comment on the fact that it’s been custom made, or ask when Jim got the measurements of his neck. He doesn’t have to.
“It’s beautiful.”
Jim nods, he probably already knows it is. Surely that’s why he chose it. If it hadn’t been for the little badge, it could probably have passed for a normal necklace. It’s not as heavy as most collars are, and as follows not as clumsy, but it’s still sturdy enough to be of service if he should ever need it to be. The thought that it will is a fairly pleasant one.
“Beautiful enough for you to take your tags off,” Jim remarks. Sebastian swallows. Yes. Jim knows; of course Jim knows. Jim always knows. Sebastian doesn’t know what to say so he says nothing.
“Where are they?” Jim asks after a moment, and Sebastian pulls them out of the pocket, watching as the leash spills out onto the couch alongside them. Jim dives for the items almost at once, picking both up and holding them, one in each hand. After a long moment of studying Sebastian’s tags, he hands them back to him, and puts the leash down into his lap. The act makes Sebastian’s whole body tingle with anticipation, even as he puts the other chain back in his pocket.
Jim scoots closer to Sebastian and drops his legs to the floor, turns over, and tightens Sebastian’s collar up enough to make sure he’s painfully aware of it. The gesture is strangely comforting, and, much as the collar did when he first put it on, it makes him feel comfortable. Safe. Loved. And, he notes, a fair bit aroused, even though that hardly seems to be the point.
“It really is beautiful,” Jim breathes, which does nothing at all to lessen the tingling of his skin, and as Jim fastens the collar Sebastian is already growing hard. Then Jim sits back and shifts his attention back to the movie as he settles into his original position, except now he’s got Sebastian’s leash in hand. It’s a very casual gesture, and Sebastian has a feeling that it shouldn’t affect him this way, but he bets that living with Jim for the last 6 or so months has affected him more than he would like it to. The curve, how he was at first horrified with Jim’s demands, and then accepted them, and has apparently grown to like them, is also much too steep for his liking, because if his tolerance keeps increasing the way it has, that means that before long he will be the one to initiate these things.
They keep watching the movie silently, and eventually Sebastian’s arousal settles down and disappears completely. The other feelings, however, do not; the comfort and the sense of safety, and, most confusing of all, love. Sebastian should not feel this intense affection towards Jim just because he’s been put in a collar, but he does, and so he supposes he might as well embrace it completely as he has with everything else up until now.
The prospect of doing so scares him a little, but he’s already taken his dog tags off so what is there to lose, really. He fingers them in his pocket and thinks about how they for so long were the only constant in his life, that, if he was found dead, at least he would give his father the displeasure of turning up in his house once more. It’s been a while since they had that function as well; Jim has told him enough for him to know that the tattoo on his back would bring him straight here, after having been properly cremated, of course. That doesn’t change the fact that the tags are all he has left of the man he was before he met Jim Moriarty; he’s got a whole new set of mannerisms, new guns, a new wardrobe and a new world view. They really are the only bit of him that Jim hasn’t gotten to yet, and he supposes that he ought to watch them like a hawk and guard them with his life.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he slides over the sofa to Jim and, as Jim turns to face him, he hangs the chain around his neck gently. Jim looks down at the tags with something approaching surprise in his eyes, and that isn’t something that happens all too often so Sebastian decides to embrace that, too.
“Are you certain?” Jim asks him, with a gleam in his eye that says that this is something very big and completely irrevocable that’s about to happen. Sebastian only nods, because the man he used to be looks perfect hanging around Jim’s neck.