Anger and disappointment.
Anger—
"FINE! Go if you hate it so fucking much!”
"Yeah? Maybe I will!”
"GOOD! I WON’T FUCKING MISS YOU!"
He couldn’t even remember what they were fighting about anymore. Sebastian had come home too late, or made some snarky remark, and now they were screaming at each other, and Jim was throwing things, and Sebastian had a split lip, and sometimes Jim just hated it that he wouldn’t hit back, that he just took everything Jim gave him without giving anything back in return but a little screaming.
It just made him angrier.
"FINE!" the sniper snarled at him, grabbing his leather jacket off a hook by the door and shrugging it over his powerful shoulders. "I’m goin’, Jim!"
"Good!"
Jim always conveniently forgot, at times like these, that Sebastian would always return. Always.
He forgot, and it just kindled his rage even further.
That night, he tore the flat apart. When Sebastian returned the next morning, hungover and full of regret, he found Jim curled up on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and staring steadily at the wall. His arms were cut in several places. Shards of glass were still stuck in his hands.
The sniper sighed and shook his head, crouching beside the mastermind as he raised his black eyes to Sebastian’s face.
"I thought you were gone," he murmured, voice hoarse from his screams.
Sebastian half-smiled at him. “Y’know I can’t stay away from ya, Jim. Come on, honey… Let’s get you cleaned up.”
———
Disappointment--
It was a process that repeated itself over and over and over again.
It was new teachers, usually. New and young and fresh and bearing none of the disillusionment of the older teachers, none of the frigid ignorance to his plight. They would see his bruises and start asking questions, start looking at him with big worried eyes, start suggesting he talk to a counselor or go see the nurse.
Jamie would always react the same way: with anger, with stubbornness, with an unmatched degree of cold indifference. He would push away and push away and push away. He would retreat, lash out, ignore.
Every time, every time, it ended in the exact same way.
They gave up.
They threw up their hands and they gave up, and they became like every other teacher in the school: jaded and resentful towards him, choosing to ignore the bloodstains on his clothes, choosing to ignore the occasional limp.
Choosing to ignore him.
And though there was a sense of relief when this phase came once again and his secret was safe, he couldn't help that faint, niggling feeling of disappointment.
No one will ever care about you enough to stay.
You will always be alone, honey. Always.
