~~Reflection~~

It had been unsettlingly easy to get hold of a gun, Adam thought. The new gun laws were supposed to stop people from owning hand guns but all he had had to do was go to one of the seedier areas of London and find a pawnshop. The shop owner hadn't asked any questions or for any identification and within minutes, Adam had left the shop with the gun weighing heavily in his pocket, and what had just happened and what was yet to come weighing heavily on his mind. Jack had been there of course. There was no getting away from Jack or his actions.
The cold steel of the weapon felt alien beneath Adam's fingers and contrasted strangely with the warm colour and texture of the wooden hand-grip. Adam slowly turned the cylinder of the revolver, his fingers brushing lightly over the head of each bullet in turn until he came to the chamber with the spent round in it.

"That's three hundred dollars well spent mate," the pawnshop owner had said as he handed the gun towards Adam and placed the money in his pocket. Adam had reached for the gun but Jack had picked it up.

"That's a forty five that is," he had grinned as Jack had slowly loaded the pistol. Jack thumbed in the last bullet and spun the cylindrical chamber.

"You hit someone with that mate and they won't cause you any more trouble". The pawnbroker had smiled. Jack had smiled too. Then he had raised the gun and fired.

"No more trouble." Jack had put the gun in Adam's coat pocket. Then he had recovered the money, now damp with the pawnbroker’s blood. "We should leave now," he'd said with a grin and had hurried from the shop taking Adam with him. All the way to the underground station and for the rest of the journey home to his flat Adam had listened for the sound of sirens telling him that Jack's crime had been found out but there had been none, and as the door or his flat had closed behind him he had finally relaxed enough to allow himself to think about what had happened. Jack's laughter had rung in his ears as he had leaned over the toilet retching.

Adam lay the gun down on the bedside table and walked across to the window. The darkness outside seemed to huddle in corners, away from the street-lights as if trying to shelter from the heavy rain falling upon the city. The water poured down to one side of the window where the gutter was blocked with muck and filth. Storm clouds gathered overhead as if promising that this was just a sample of the dark times ahead. Jack smiled as the first of the lightening cut through the sky.

"This is my kind of weather," he remarked with a grin. Adam closed his eyes on the scene.

"Why did you kill that pawnbroker Jack?" he asked-his voice no more than a whisper containing no emotion, just a great sense of weariness. Jack snorted in derision.

"You know exactly why I did it," he muttered. "I did it because you couldn't."

"But why Jack?"

Jack sighed in exasperation. "Because he was scum Adam! The dregs of humanity. All the stuff in that shop, all the rings, the watches, the televisions, were stolen. Either stolen directly and fenced through that slug or stolen by him for a pittance from people who couldn't afford not to sell. The man was a leech, a parasite. He deserved what he got!" Adam sighed. He found it so hard to argue with Jack sometimes. All too often when he looked inside himself he found that he agreed with the sentiments if not the methods.

Adam reached out and drew the curtains closed, blocking out the world outside for a while. Moving over to the bed he lay down and stared silently up at the cracked and crumbling ceiling above him. Slowly his mind sorted through the events of the day again, searching, questing, and probing for what? For something, for anything that he could hold up before Jack to stop what he knew was coming, but there was nothing. Jack was right. The pawnbroker had deserved it. And as he decided this, a tear gently rolled down Adam's cheek and he wept for his own morality. Sometimes he really hated Jack. Adam turned to look upon the gun-Jack’s instrument of retribution. It would be so easy he thought. So easy to reach out and take the gun-to take the gun and kill Jack. But he knew he would not. Adam knew that in Jack’s death lay his own demise. They were together now as they had been since Jack first appeared in Adam's life. That day would burn forever in his mind.

The jeers of the other children had rained down upon him with almost as much force as the fists and feet that struck him. He had tried to flee, to escape the torment but had been tripped and as his head had struck the concrete they had closed in with the eagerness of the ignorant. Then there had been Jack. Most of Adam's tormentors had fled with minor injuries. One had received a broken arm. Two others had been hospitalized. Adam had been expelled. Jack had gone with him to his new school though and again to the next after a similar incident. After that there had been no more trouble. Bad news like Adam tended to get around. And all the time Jack kept Adam safe from harm.

"They deserved it too, Adam," said Jack his voice perhaps a little softer for just a moment, then back to its normal harsh self. Adam sighed. Jack always knew what he was thinking.

"They were evil," yawned Jack turning toward the gun. Reaching out a hand Jack caressed the cold metal and smiled darkly as the weapon glittered in the light of the bedside lamp.

"That's what they said about you after what you did to them," accused Adam but with little conviction. This conversation had played through to often and he knew both sides of it by heart. But then, deep down, he always knew what Jack was going to say. Jack just laughed.

"That isn't what they said and you know it," Jack retorted with a wicked grin. Adam lowered his gaze from the gun.

"No," he breathed, his voice no more that a whisper. "They said that I was evil. No one ever blames you." Jack shrugged.

"Can I help that?" he asked with a smile. Adam fell silent.

For long minutes there was silence. Jack reached out and picked up the gun. "Time to get started," he muttered, his voice suddenly serious. Adam rose from the bed and walked over to the window and peering out through the crack in the curtains.

"Why us?" he whispered, staring out at the rain soaked streets as another peel of thunder rolled across the city.

"If not us then who?" growled Jack, his voice low and menacing. "The law doesn't work and the police can’t deal with the spreading evil." Jack raised the gun. "Only you and I know how to fight evil, and that is to fight it on its own level. Our evil against the evil out there." Jack gazed out of the window, his eyes pits of darkness in the shadows of the room.

Adam sighed weakly, again feeling the weariness of his spirit but knowing there would be no rest for him now. Slowly he moved over to the mirror and gazed at his reflection.

"I won't kill," his said his voice resigned but resolute.

"You won't have to," replied the reflection of Jack. "I'll do it for you."
"As long as we are clear on that," whispered Adam with a nod at his reflection. In the mirror Jack nodded back.

"Agreed."

Adam reached out with his empty hand and picked up his coat and he pulled it on. Jack removed a bullet from the pocket and replaced the spent round with a new bullet. Adam pulled up the collar. Jack put the gun in the coat pocket and smiled. Adam took one last look around the dingy flat. Then Jack stepped out into the night and Adam went with him in silence...