Sebastian L. Moran, 38, Chief of Staff for J. Moriarty
Jim closed his eyes tightly, as though blocking out the answer. Was it a good answer? It seemed an answer that Sebastian Moran had almost choked up, unwilling and true. He exhaled through his nose. It was a short, succinct answer, with not enough to it to give any explanation. Leaving too much grey area for imagination to fill in.
“Don’t worry. I’d leave a trail of breadcrumbs for you,” he said, trying to lighten the situation. It was a shitty joke, and fell flat immediately after he’d said it. He leaned over to go through the bag Sebastian had handed him. “Ah…shoes.” Trainers, to be exact. “I’m like a fucking fashion plate. Manchester hoodie, plaid pyjama trousers, and trainers.” He was quiet a moment. “I look like I’m back at uni.”
The cab took a sharpish left and Jim allowed himself to slide on the slippery seat, body crushed against the sniper’s. Even when the car was going straight, he didn’t move away.
“Lost…”
Sebastian didn’t respond as Jim complained about the hot mess he looked like. To be honest, Seb didn’t care at all, knowing full well that it would just make the man more partial to taking everything off later. When the cab turned and Jim slid into him Sebastian instinctively put an arm around the mans shoulders.
His eyes were downcast but he couldn’t help the slight jump of his heartbeat when Jim repeated the word he had used to describe how he would feel should he ever lose the man. It was true. Completely lost. After dedicating so much to Jim; his time, expertise, his every waking minute, his every sleepless night (for various reasons), for so long, Sebastian couldn’t even comprehend an existence without James Moriarty. It wouldn’t last long, he supposed.
Leaning over he pressed a light kiss to Jim’s temple, then his jaw, before moving to the man’s ear. “Terribly lost,” he said, only slightly sarcastic, smirking a bit, teasing Jim, “My days would be empty and bore-ring.” he said, his voice low and slightly gravelly as he returned back to sitting straight, his hand clenched a little tighter on Jim’s shoulder.
When Sebastian continued to hesitate, Jim suddenly started to rethink the decisions for the past eight years. The decision to choose Sebastian, to take him in, to make his sniper. The sex, the dinners, the fights, the blood… all of it. Was it really all boiling down to a pathetic man who couldn’t follow an order?
“Bastard.” Jim said, pressing his forehead into the gun. “Pull the fucking trigger, Sebastian. Do it!” He shouted and then glared at him, his nostrils flaring slightly. “Kill me.” There was a seriousness in his voice, challenging the other to even think about defying him. “It’s an order, you worthless coward. Pull the trigger. Now!”
His voice suddenly got loud as he looked at Sebastian, still hesitating. “Didn’t you hear me?” He let out a trail of slurs in numerous languages, all attacking Sebastian and his cowardess. Jim shook slightly, his eyes tearing, but not from sadness, from frustration. “J-just do it.”
The hitch in his voice was small, but apparent. “Sebastian… pull the trigger… the last thing I ask of you… pull the fucking trigger.”
Even though he knew this was what Jim wanted, it didn’t make it any easier. He had dedicated his every waking moment for the better part of a decade to this man, and here Jim was, pressing his head into the business end of the gun and telling Sebastian to pull the trigger.
“Bastard.”
What would he do without Jim? What would he be able to do? He could join the French foreign legion, he could go back to India, or he could start up as a body guard in Italy or someplace in a spanish-speaking country. He could still do something dangerous and risky, but without Jim… .
“Kill me.”
Without Jim Moriarty it would be torture. Sebastian was staring at the man who was getting slightly red in the face, who was yelling at him, raging. It would be the worst sort of feeling in the world, living without Jim. He’d grow old, and, even worse, comfortable. And then he’d probably start forgetting things.
Jim began to curse in Gaelic and Sebastian only caught about half of the other languages the man used. He’d forget those first; and be stuck with just English and Spanish. He’d quickly forget his military training and wouldn’t be able to tell a pistol from a rifle, much less be able to shoot either. He’d forget the war, and wouldn’t miss it. Next would be the jungle, and the feel of mud on his legs and blood on his hands. And then, like his father had done to him, so many years ago, asking for Jasper and not this scarred stranger, Sebastian would forget his name.
The man was starting to tear up and Sebastian knew it wasn’t because he was sad. Jim was just angry. Angry at him.
He would forget Jim too, and that realization hit him harder than anything else. He couldn’t do that to Jim, whose biggest fear was being forgotten. Couldn’t live knowing that slowly, surely, his Alzheimer’s would eat at his brain, steal away his memories and leave him a shell, empty and complacent in a world that would provide him anything he wanted, and in the end all Sebastian would remember was that there was something terrible about living so comfortably. A man is only truly dead when his name is said for the last time.
“Sebastian.”
Sebastian looked, really looked at this man in front of him, and he understood something awful about himself; he was a coward, he was weak, and most of all, he couldn’t live without James Moriarty.
He took a deep breath and in a second he had stepped forwards, pulled Jim to him, held the other man close, Jims head tucked neatly under his. He shut his eyes, swallowed, pushed the barrel cruelly underneath Jims jaw, his other hand holding Jim tightly to his body as he pulled the trigger, releasing the bullet that tore through Jims and then his brain.
The last thing he thought of in that infinity of a second as the gun seared through his shattered skull was flashes of the jungle. The tight knit trees were large and imposing, dark and inviting and warm, dangerous and enticing and echoing with a need that said to Sebastian, you are mine, and you belong to me.
And then, Sebastians mind went dark, and he became only a memory that would surely be forgotten, as the only one who would have bothered to remember Sebastian Moran was dead by his own hand.
As Jim looked at Sebastian and the gun, he smiled some. This wasn’t how he wanted to go out. He wanted it to be a special death, in triumph, knowing that he’d been the one to kill Sherlock Holmes. He could pretend. Pretend that it was him who poisoned him, or something… but pretending was for children and Jim Moriarty was no child.
His eyes trained on Sebastian’s and he could see the way the other hesitated to pull the trigger. Stepping forward, Jim reached up and touched the barrel of the gun. Cool dark metal. How he loved watching Sebastian shoot; the sound that the gun made when it went off would ring in his ears for hours, but he always loved it, because of who was shooting it.
Though, any sentiment that Jim had held onto, was gone now. Jim pressed his forehead to the barrel of the gun, feeling the cool metal, and looked at Sebastian. “Go ahead, pull the trigger. You’re the only person who can do this for me, Sebastian Leander Moran. I just wish you could come with me… I’ll save a place for you in Hell.”
Reaching up, Jim pulled the hammer back on the gun and then nodded slightly. “Do it.”
This was ridiculous. It was absurd that this was happening to him. Sebastian wanted to ask why, wanted more of an explanation than; ‘I would be so bored!’ That wasn’t an explanation, but he had seen the way Jim looked, any semblance of feeling had long since left his face, and he recalled the way that animals looked once they were on the earth, just after the gun rang out. It was a look that said there is nothing left.
One of Sebs feet slipped backwards as Jim came right up and pushed against his gun. Sebastians eyes widened a little as Jim reached up to his gun (shaking, only a little bit, for the first time in his life) and pulled back on the hammer. This was it. Safety off, Gun cocked. All it would take was a little bit of pressure from his index finger and goodbye Jim.
“Do it.”
He couldn’t put this off. If he was going to do it he would have to do it now. He knew Jim was serious - Jim would flirt with danger but he’d never actively court death like this, he would never beg to die unless it was what he well and truly wanted. This was it. This was going to be the end of Jim Moriarty, and Sebastian knew that if he didn’t kill him someone else would and Sebastian couldn’t handle that, didn’t want to think about anyone else being responsible for Jim but him, because this man had been his life for the past eight years.
His scar was less purple and his hand wasn’t shaking as much as he stared at Jims dead eyes. How could Jim ask this of him? It was his last act, and, so like Jim, god damn it, it was completely selfish of him.
“You son of a bitch.” Sebastian muttered, swallowing despite his dry throat.
