We'll Burn Like Falling Stars Tonight 1/2 (Sherlock BBC)
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Title: We'll Burn Like Falling Stars Tonight
Pairing: Jim Moriarty/Sebastian Moran
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 11,800
Warnings: Omegaverse. Seriously, don't read if you don't know what it is. Some dubcon.
Content: Omegaverse, porn, pining
Summary: "Does it bother you to work with alphas? ...I mean because you're an omega."
"Does it bother you to work with men?" Jim asks guilelessly. He widens his eyes innocently. He's dropped his usual accent in favor of Sebastian's, making everything he says sound uncomfortably over-familiar. "I mean, because you're a homosexual."
Notes: Thanks to everyone who looked this over and enabled me. Because you're horrible, horrible enablers and I love you all to bits.
"Hmm," Jim says apropos of nothing. He sits back from his computer and rubs his hand against the back of his neck, then looks up at the ceiling.
"What is it?" Sebastian asks. "Did you hear something?" He drops his hand to the rifle at his hip, looking around. They're in a temporary safe house but it's a new one, borrowed from one of Jim's connections. It's not one he trusts yet. Someone could have found them. Someone could have betrayed them.
"What? No," Jim says scornfully. The hand moves around his throat then up, trailing all the way to the underside of his chin. He makes another thoughtful noise. A moment later, he inhales noisily through what sounds like clenched teeth. "Hmm."
Sebastian clicks the safety of his rifle back on and waits.
Jim shifts his weight in his chair, then looks at Sebastian, eyes calculating. "You're a beta male," he says.
Sebastian bristles. "I'm not a dog, if that's what you mean," he replies. He doesn't like being called "beta" anything, even if it is the technical term.
Jim's head tilts to the side, slow and reptilian. "I am," he says and flashes his teeth quickly at Sebastian. "Omega. I'm going into heat. I should do something about that."
Really.
Surprised, Sebastian examines Jim more carefully, looking for a hint that it's the truth, but he can't see it. He can't see any of the signs. There's no indication that he's anything less than masculine, his body in any way more fit for bearing a child than Sebastian's. There's no indication that several times a year he goes into heat, becoming so desperate for an alpha's cock up his arse that they can smell it even from across the room.
Even the thought of Jim with his legs spread wide and wanton, like any of the most desperate whores in a cheap skin flick, makes Sebastian cringe inwardly, as if Jim might find the image in his mind and gut him for it.
Jim's still looking at him in that way he has, where the humanity drains from his face. It makes him look like a lizard or snake. It's fucking creepy as hell. Sebastian's pretty sure Jim does it on purpose.
He coughs. "There're suppressants for that," he says. "To prevent it from happening."
"I know," Jim answers. He runs his fingers over the underside of his arm. Checking for something, maybe, because he doesn't even glance down when he does it. "I don't use them. They're boring."
Jim is more irritable than usual for the next several days, flushed and fidgeting whenever he has to be in one place too long when normally he's still enough to make Sebastian wonder if he's even human.
Because he's going into heat, Sebastian thinks and can't help but be curious. Omegas are rare and omegas who don't suppress their heats when they're unmated are even rarer. Jim's the only one he knows and Sebastian can't help but wonder why. It's not as if the suppressants are hard to get, or even expensive.
Not that Jim cares about "expensive", considering how much he'd dropped on a tailored suit for Sebastian simply because "the way you look offends me".
And then, a little while later, it's over.
Jim calls Sebastian to accompany him to a thing with a client who wants a personal meeting. When Sebastian shows up, Jim is back to normal, every movement deliberate and graceful. Even his rage, when Jim's temper snaps and Sebastian has to fire several warning shots (into the client's guards' thighs) is the way it usually is, flaring quickly and dying just as fast.
"Feel better?"
Jim grins widely at him. Sebastian spots a light-colored smear on the inside of his collar. There's a dark spot at the base of his throat, peeking out through the smudged concealer on his throat.
"Loads."
Sebastian finds out what Jim actually does to quench his heats more than a year later, when he comes home from an assassination abroad to find Jim literally passed out in his bed, naked and rumpled and covered in marks. He's pretty sure he spots a bite on Jim's shoulder in the middle of an ugly, vivid bruise. Jim looks like he fought a bear and lost.
They don't show that sort of aftermath in pornos.
Jim stirs.
"How long have you been here?" Sebastian asks, already looking around the flat. No signs of intrusion or forced entry. There wouldn't be. Jim has a key. No signs that anyone else, aside from him, had even crossed the threshold.
Jim's face pokes out briefly from a hole in the blankets. Sebastian gets a glimpse of a bare arm when he rearranges himself. "The 6th."
That was two days ago. Well, okay.
He'd already known about Jim being an omega. It shouldn't surprise Sebastian so much to see proof of that written on his flesh. But he'd never thought about it before, about what it means. Sometimes Jim lets someone hold him against a bed (or the floor or a wall or bent over a table, because omegas in heat are gagging for it) and shove their cock in his arse. Someone had touched him, held him hard enough to leave bruises, and Jim had - he'd probably begged for it.
Another rustle. Jim's eyes appear in a gap in the blankets. They're barely noticeable, except when he blinks.
Sebastian coughs. "You want something? Because this is my flat."
The gap in the blankets disappears as Jim covers his face with it. It's sweet, in a deranged sort of way. He has to strain to hear Jim's words, muffled as they are.
"Sorry, what?" he asks when he loses track of the sentence partway through, the syllables becoming too indistinct to decipher. "You did what?"
Sebastian smothers his laugh in his fist when Jim whips the blankets from his face. His hair is in complete disarray. His lips are more red than they normally are. They look swollen. "I said," Jim says, enunciating clearly, "I took him back to mine."
"And now you're here."
"Uh, yeah? Obviously." Sebastian's pillow is wedged under Jim's cheek. Sebastian's blankets form a nest around him, but with every movement Jim makes, Sebastian catches another glimpse of bare, pale skin. It's - distracting.
"But why are you here?" Sebastian asks, baffled.
"Well, Sebastian," Jim begins. He drags himself into an upright position. The blankets pool in his lap and Sebastian can see his chest in full, now. He looks claimed. Like property, and that had always been a turn-on when he'd seen it before on other people, but now it's just unsettling. "I took him back to mine and now my sheets are a mess." He makes a face. "I'd rather sleep here. It's much nicer."
Sebastian stares. "I'm not cleaning up after you," he states flatly. "I'm an assassin. I'm not your housemaid."
"I know," Jim says and quirks an eyebrow at Sebastian when his eyes drift, again, to the finger-shaped bruises on his sides. He flashes his teeth at Sebastian in a way that looks almost teasing. "Like what you see? Do you wish it was you?"
When night falls, Sebastian takes the couch.
"You're staring at me again. If you keep this up, I'll start to think you can't make the shot," Jim teases. His hand darts out towards Sebastian's rifle.
Sebastian bats it away easily, maybe even with more force than he'd intended, because Jim makes a face at him and rubs the underside his wrist where Sebastian had smacked it.
"Touchy, touchy," he chides.
Sebastian double-checks his gear but everything is fine. His sights are still trained on the window in which he can see their target. The target is holding a scantily clad woman on each knee and several cards in his right hand. There's a toothpick in his mouth. Sebastian's going to shoot it in two when he pulls the trigger.
"I can make the shot. Just say when." But he takes the criticism to heart anyway, looking away from Jim and focusing on the sights, letting his world narrow to a point.
"You have no flair for dramatic timing," Jim complains distantly. "Are you still bent out of shape because I'm an omega? I already said I was sorry for staying at your flat. I don't have to if it makes you squeamish."
"It's not about that," Sebastian mumbles. "You just don't act like one."
"Like what? A proper omega? You're not even an alpha." Jim leans close and blows a breath of air onto Sebastian's cheek. "You can't even tell. You don't know anything about it. You're surrounded by alphas and omegas, but you, you're blind and deaf. I know you've looked it up. Betas always do. Want to know a secret?"
Sebastian grits his teeth. "No."
"When it happens, it's exactly like the pornos." Jim clicks his teeth next to Sebastian's ear. "When."
Sebastian pulls the trigger.
He misses the toothpick, but the target drops.
He gets good at telling when Jim starts going into heat. It comes on slowly at first, Jim getting more thoughtful, more quiet, and usually only takes a day to graduate into twitchy motion, as if there are fire ants crawling beneath his skin.
Then he disappears for a day or two, only to reappear sometimes in Sebastian's bed without asking. Sebastian would toss him out except for the fact that Jim invariably looks too hurt and tired for him to do so without feeling like an utter prick.
Sometimes Sebastian thinks Jim plays it up for sympathy. Other times, he doesn't.
Two days after that and Jim's normal again, at least as close as "normal" and "Moriarty" ever get.
Beginning to end in less than a week, once every three months, but it always feels like an eternity.
"Really, Seb, I think you know my cycle better than I do," Jim comments when Sebastian cancels their trip to Medina because it's the same month Jim's supposed to go into heat and he really doesn't want to know what will happen if they're there when he does.
"Yeah, well, if you get yourself killed, I'm out of a job."
"I'm touched."
"Come to my flat. I need you," Jim says. It's day four of seven, so Sebastian drops everything and goes. Jim's never called him like this before and he's never said need before. The combination of both is faintly terrifying.
Jim's given him a key to the flat (tossed it at his face and texted him the address without saying anything more), but Sebastian tries the door first. It's unlocked.
"Jim?" he calls cautiously, putting a hand on the gun he keeps at his waist. "Are you all right?"
"Bedroom."
Jim is, in fact, in the bedroom.
There's also someone else in the bedroom, in the middle of a spreading pool of blood. Sebastian recognizes his face even though the name escapes him. He's an enforcer for one of their rivals, trousers and pants pulled down to his knees. His shirt is soaked through with blood. His head lolls at an impossible angle.
"Antonin," Jim says. "I don't remember his last name."
A ring of hand-shaped bruises circles Jim's throat. His lip is swollen, split. He's naked from the waist down and the sleeve of his shirt is torn. Blood covers his shirt and hands. There's a red smear on his thigh from when he'd tried to wipe his hand clean.
"Blood's a biohazard," Sebastian says dumbly. "You should wash it off."
"People are biohazards," Jim complains. "And it was going so well, too. I think he dislocated my shoulder. Set it for me? I tried but I can't get it right."
Jim's head falls forward, eyes closing, when Sebastian grabs his arm and shoulder firmly. He barely flinches when Sebastian pops it back into place.
"Did you fuck him before you killed him?"
Jim presses his face to Sebastian's shoulder. He can feel it as Jim shifts more of his weight, until he's leaning on him. "Mmhmm, only once" he murmurs sleepily. "He tried to kill me first. I would have let him go, but he tried to strangle me, so I shot him."
"You still in heat? Did anyone hear the gunshot?" He works the shirt off Jim, then wrinkles his nose. He's adjusting to the smell of blood. It only makes the scents of sweat and semen stand out more. Gross.
"I was, but it's fading. The adrenaline helped. No one heard. I muffled the noise with his body. I twisted my ankle. It hurts to walk."
Sebastian pats him awkwardly on the back. Jim's skin feels unnaturally warm against his palm. "Are you okay?"
Jim looks up at him blankly. "Me? I'm fine. But the blood's going to smell soon. Smell more," he clarifies, wrinkling his nose. "Get rid of it. Speed dial six on my phone. I'm taking a shower."
Of course Jim has a cleaner on speed dial, Sebastian thinks, watching Jim hobble to the shower, stripping off his shirt and dropping it on the floor. They'll have to take that. The blood on it is evidence now that there's a corpse at their feet, staining the carpet.
There are bruises on Jim's back and on his hips (again) and Sebastian's not sure if all of Jim's limp is from his twisted ankle or if it has something to do with how he'd gotten the trail of semen currently leaking down the back of his thigh.
He hadn't used protection.
"You didn't use protection," Sebastian says.
Jim stops with one hand balanced on the door frame. He glances over his shoulder at Sebastian. He looks amused. "Alphas don't use protection when they mate."
He does the math. If Jim goes into heat four times a year, picking a new alpha each time, and he's been doing it for at least fifteen years, maybe more... "You've had unprotected sex with over fifty men? Why would you - how could you. That's -"
He's making a face, a disgusted one because that's reckless, it's dangerous (it's whorish, but if he ever says that out loud Jim will probably shoot him and he'd probably deserve it). He tries not to grimace but it doesn't work. He doesn't know how he looks right now but Jim's eyes go cold and hard. The dozen feet between them stretch out until they feel like miles.
"Well I don't have a mate now, do I?" Jim says, voice clipped.
Mate, not even a boyfriend, just an alpha that takes care of his heats when they happen. Hell, Sebastian realizes, he doesn't even know if Jim prefers men. All he knows is this, that several times a year Jim spreads his legs for the first alpha who'll have him, and now there is a corpse on the floor and bruises on Jim's throat.
He wonders how often it's happened before, with no one else to know.
Sebastian is not the only person Jim employs. He's just the most trusted one, the one Jim's found useful and competent enough to keep permanently on-call. Everyone else is expendable. When Jim hires others, they report to Sebastian.
Sebastian seems to be the only one that knows Jim's not an alpha, because one of the mercenaries (nothing special, one of the ones meant to be a distraction if anything goes wrong) has been talking about fucking omegas for the last twenty minutes to him.
Jim, for the most part, baits him into saying more and more outrageous things with well-timed questions. He seems to be enjoying himself, like a cougar toying with a house cat that thinks it's the most dangerous thing around.
"Does it bother you to work with alphas?" Sebastian asks when they get a moment alone.
"They're impulsive, but that's fine." Jim gives him a look. "We're not actually stealing anything."
"I'm not stupid. I know that," Sebastian says. Jim had dropped the blueprints to the office building on Sebastian's lap not a week before. His notes on the interior had been too sparse for him to actually care about getting into the basement he'd marked. "I meant because you're an omega."
"Does it bother you to work with men?" Jim asks guilelessly. He widens his eyes innocently. He's dropped his usual accent in favor of Sebastian's, making everything he says sound uncomfortably over-familiar. "I mean, because you're a homosexual."
Sebastian can't hide his involuntary wince at the word or the defensive denial that jumps to his lips. He bites his tongue on that denial only because he is. Jim knows it even though Sebastian's never told him. And nothing he says can take back his automatic reaction at having the word thrown in his face like that, blatant and open.
"Do they know?" Jim presses. Sebastian knows Jim's just teasing but that doesn't stop the words from hitting home and cutting.
Because they don't. Because they'd assumed Sebastian was like them and he hadn't even thought to correct them - not when it could put the job in jeopardy, not when it didn't even matter. He's not afraid anymore. It can't hurt him anymore. But it's easier, still, to look then they look and leer when they leer, to make the appropriate noises at the appropriate times and keep everything else about himself private.
It's not something he thinks about, anymore.
Some of the bite in Jim's smile eases off. "It's all right," he says, and pats Sebastian on the shoulder. "If they hurt your feelings, just come to Uncle Jimmy and I'll shoot one for you."
He doesn't actually shoot anyone. But every once in a while Sebastian remembers this conversation, wonders if Jim actually would have, had Sebastian asked.
"If I told you to find me an alpha, would you do it?" Jim asks on a warm Sunday afternoon. He lies on the sofa in Sebastian's flat as if he lives there. Sebastian's starting to get used to it by now.
Sebastian opens his mouth. But he doesn't know how to answer that, so what comes out is a strangled sort of noise. Jim's not - Sebastian's supposed to have a good month, maybe more, before he has to think about it. Sebastian's not sure why he's asking now.
"Because," Jim continues idly, as if they are talking about something as innocuous as the weather or what he's thinking of eating for lunch the next day, "it'd be useful. I can't be bothered, and now sometimes people recognize me," he says the word with deep distaste, "so it's not exactly safe. I mean, I come out of my heat about as soon as they try to kill me, but."
Sebastian opens and closes his mouth several times. "You want me to -" He stops, before he actually says whore you out aloud and gets his teeth knocked in, to think about it. Jim's an omega, but would it even be like that?
Everything he's read, everything he's seen, says yes. But he'd be the one to do it, to choose an alpha and deliver him to Jim. Like a present. Sebastian doesn't want to, would rather not. But would it be so bad, compared to whatever it is Jim does now? Because if he doesn't, Jim will - do something stupid, something dangerous, something that ends in bodies on the floor because that's what he does for everything.
Jim is talking again.
"-wouldn't normally ask, but you're basically my right hand man. You're the only one aside from me who'd recognize anyone who'd want me dead. And I trust you, for what it's worth." The corner of Jim's mouth quirks sideways; he's looking out the window.
"Fine," Sebastian bites out. "I'll - be your spotter or something. Just tell me when."
Jim's eyes flick to his. He grins. "That's what I always do."
"What's your type?" Sebastian asks, two weeks before Jim's heat is supposed to start. He drops in on Jim in his apartment mostly to see what happens when he does; Jim is disappointingly unphased.
He doesn't even look up from the screen of his computer. "Type of what? You're going to have to be more specific, Sebby."
He hates being called Sebby. But Jim doesn't do it often, only when he's feeling especially pleased or playful. Sebastian still can't be bothered to tell him to fuck off and stop.
"What's your type? What kind of alphas do you like?" There are, apparently, quite a lot of alphas eager to breed an omega during a heat. Sebastian's cautious post on the o4a section of Craigslist has already garnered enough responses, in a day, to be a little alarming. Now somehow he has to pick one.
Jim looks at him blankly. "The... alive kind?"
Sebastian rolls his eyes pointedly. "No, Jim, what kind of alphas do you like to have sex with? Height, age, build?"
Jim continues to look blank. "It doesn't matter. I'll be in heat."
"Yes, but what kind of alpha do you want? I have a dozen emails here from interested alphas. Which one do you want?"
Jim shrugs. "I don't care," he says and turns back to the computer. "Just pick one."
So Sebastian only bothers responding to the one alpha who doesn't refer to Jim as a whore, bitch, or slut.
On the day of, the alpha meets him in the hotel lobby. He introduces himself as Brian, shakes Sebastian's hand, and brings what he'd been told to bring - an ID and the results of a recent STD test. When Sebastian checks his ID, he finds that the alpha's even legally named Brian. Go figure.
Brian gives Sebastian a self-conscious grin. He smooths down his shirt with his hands. "I don't normally do this. It's a bit awkward, isn't it? Since I didn't get to meet him first or anything."
Sebastian shrugs. "He's in room 305. I'll let you in."
"Right."
The alpha jitters with nervous energy when they get in the elevator, stealing glances at Sebastian and then quickly looking away. He taps his fingers on his trousers. "So, uh, do you do this a lot?"
"No."
"And, um... Are you going to go first or did you want to share him at the same time, or? Whatever you want is fine, I'm not, it's just, I don't really know how this works." He laughs nervously.
"I'm not a dog," Sebastian says. "It's just you and him."
They stop at the door. Brian takes a deep breath, eyes closing. "I can smell him," he says, putting his hand on the door. He licks his lips, inhales again, drawing the air deeply into his lungs. "He's -"
Sebastian cuts him off. "I'll check on you tomorrow. Just one last thing," he says. He slides the key card through the reader and pushes the door open.
Brian turns slowly, already half a step past the threshold. His slack jaw goes even slacker (with shock, overriding the arousal) when Sebastian taps the barrel of his handgun on his forehead. His eyes cross to stare at it.
Sebastian enjoys his fear for several long moments. "If he tells me to, I'll kill you. Try not to forget that."
He goes home and tries not to think about it. He closes his eyes and pretends not to remember the way Jim had growled, "Finally," when Sebastian had let Brian in, or the way Jim had been naked. He'd been naked and hard when Sebastian had opened the door. They'd practically launched themselves at each other once Sebastian had let him in.
Jim had barely noticed him. But then, Sebastian's not an alpha.
So he cooks dinner and tries not to think about Jim. He eats dinner and tries not to think about Jim. He turns on the TV and tries not to think about Jim. He takes a shower and washes his hair and decides he can probably last another day or two without bothering to shave, then gives the fuck up on trying to not think about Jim.
He brings his laptop to bed with him and looks up omega porn on the internet. He watches them beg and moan and finger themselves. He watches an alpha mount an omega, positioned awkwardly to let the camera zoom in on the act itself, the bare cock sliding into his wet, slick hole, and thinks about Jim.
He thinks about Jim in heat, which he's never actually seen - not in the middle of it, not actually. He's only seen Jim right before and right after, where he is irritable or exhausted. He's never seen Jim needy. He's never heard Jim beg and he realizes with some surprise that he really, really wants to.
He wonders what Jim and the alpha are doing now, if they're still fucking, if Jim's as vivid and alive in bed as he is when he's at work. If he'd - the alpha would bite him, would mark him. And Sebastian wonders if he'd groan encouragement when the alpha sinks teeth into his shoulder, or digs his fingers into his hips.
Jim's hole would be slick, would be yielding, would stretch easily to accommodate Sebastian's cock. He'd want it. Sebastian would thrust into him and pin him to the bed and fuck him, and Jim would thrust back eagerly, begging him, "More, harder, like that, yeah, Seb, yeah."
The alpha in the video thrusts into the omega, then tenses, breathing heavily. The shot zooms in to his cock, buried in the omega's ass, watching as it swells, growing rounder and larger, stretching the ring of muscle clenched it. A third voice - not the omega whimpering or the alpha grunting, but the cameraman, murmuring encouragement, joins the audio.
The omega's muscles stretch further - his hole red and swollen, as the alpha pulls his cock partway out, freeing his knot, then forces it back in, slowly. They stay like that and the shot zooms out again, revealing the curl of the alpha's arm over the omega and his face nuzzling at his throat.
That's what they'd be doing now. The alpha would have knotted Jim by now, would have plugged his hole and forced him still. They'd be tied together, stuck at the point where the alpha's swollen inside him, and Jim would be lying there, sated, content to have the alpha's semen inside him, flooding him.
Maybe they'd cuddle. Maybe the alpha would suck a mark into his neck, a bruise that'd last for days. Maybe he'd cup Jim's cock and stroke him off while they're tied, making him thrust and moan and come, spilling onto the sheets.
Jim would be bruised and scratched, but in a way that if Sebastian asked him about it he'd grin, wide and bright, and say nothing. And when it stops, when the alpha's knot recedes, they'll drink some water and take a break and do it again, as soon as they're able.
Sebastian closes the video and shuts down his laptop, suddenly uninterested in watching further.
The room reeks of sex the next day when Sebastian comes to check on Jim, and they're still going at it. Or, the alpha is, pounding away at Jim with every sign of enthusiasm. But Jim's just lying on his stomach, arms crossed beneath his head, completely limp. There are a pair of pillows under him, propping his arse up. For a faintly horrified moment, Sebastian wonders if he's even conscious, but when he steps closer and the floor creaks beneath him, Jim's eyes snap open to meet his, dark and alert.
The alpha doesn't seem to care that he's there, might not even notice, as focused as he is on Jim. Sebastian frowns. Are you okay? he mouths.
Jim's shoulders shrug minutely. He raises a hand and makes a so-so motion, which doesn't mean anything, as far as Sebastian's concerned. He doesn't look like he's enjoying himself anymore. He doesn't look like he cares. He just lies there, perfectly still, perfectly passive, letting the alpha slam into him repeatedly with short, rough movements.
Sebastian takes out his gun. He raises it inquisitively.
Jim looks at it, then over his shoulder at the alpha. He considers for a moment, head tilted, before he shaking his head. He shoos Sebastian away with his hand.
Sebastian frowns. He points the gun at the alpha and mimes pulling the trigger, then raises his eyebrows again in question. Are you sure?
Jim starts to speak, but his voice comes out a hoarse croak. He clears his throat. "There's no point. He'll be done soon."
When Sebastian lowers his gun but doesn't say anything, trying to stare without making it obvious that's what he's doing (looking but not looking at the slender muscles defined on Jim's bare back, and the way sweat has plastered locks of hair to his forehead), Jim rolls his eyes.
"Unless you're waiting for your turn, you can go now," Jim says. He looks pointedly at the door.
Sebastian smiles with his mouth closed. It feels like biting down on a mouthful of broken glass.
He leaves.
Jim doesn't show up in Sebastian's flat that night or the morning after. He calls the hotel after noon when Jim still hasn't arrived. The receptionist says he'd checked out the night before in the company of his boyfriend. Sebastian thanks her and hangs up before he can say anything rash, then calls Jim's phone.
He picks up on the 9th ring. "Hello?" His voice is bleary and soft, gentle in the way Sebastian only ever hears by accident, when Jim is still half-asleep.
"Sorry, I - did I wake you? Where are you?"
Cloth rustles in the background. "A bit. I'm at home. Why are you calling? What happened?" With each word, Jim's voice becomes clearer, more alert.
"Nothing. I was just -" Sebastian cuts himself off before he can embarrass himself. "It's nothing. Go back to sleep."
He can hear the fwoomp sound as Jim drops back onto his pillow. The cloth noise in the background is blankets rearranging around him. "M'kay. See you later."
"Yeah," Sebastian says, when the call clicks off. "Seeya."
But as far as "picking up an alpha and hand-delivering him to your in-heat omega boss" goes, it could have been worse. And Jim seems to be happy. At least, whenever he gets irritated or angry, it's about something that has nothing to do with his heat or being an omega.
"So, how was the alpha?" Sebastian finally asks, unable to bear not knowing any longer. "Was it... okay?"
Jim shrugs. "It was fine. He was an alpha, he mounted me, I'm not in heat anymore. Thanks for taking care of it. I knew I could count on you, Sebby."
"Don't call me -"
"Sebastian," Jim says sharply.
Sebastian stops mid-sentence. Jim doesn't say anything. The silence stretches out just long enough for Sebastian to glance around himself, wondering if there's something he's not getting. A beat later, Jim smirks at him.
"I'm sorry, were you saying something?"
"Yeah, fuck you," Sebastian mutters half-heartedly to hide his embarrassment. "Anyway, I've got his number. You want him for next time?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "Sebastian," he says. "I really don't care who you find for me, as long as you find someone."
Sebastian saves Brian's number into his phone and calls him the next time, and the time after that.
Between those phone calls, where Sebastian says "He needs you," and Brian says "Yes, yes, just tell me where to go," he and Jim rig elections and blackmail officials and spend six godawful weeks in the middle of nowhere just because Jim says, "No, it'll be fun. What's the point if you're not having any fun?"
And in those in-between times, which is most of the time, being around Jim feels a little bit like being around a wild animal because Jim's vicious. He's vicious and sharp and sometimes in Sebastian's dreams he's a shark, waiting for Sebastian to fall into the water.
Everyone's afraid of him. Everyone's afraid of Moriarty, who is brilliant and merciless and as quick to act as a striking snake. Everyone but Sebastian.
Because Jim spends seven days of every ninety being vulnerable, being needy. It gives Sebastian a weird, shameful, voyeuristic thrill each time, because when he's done - when it's over and the alpha's gone and it's just the two of them...
He doesn't know.
But sometimes Jim is vulnerable and content and not-quite-subdued, and it's fucking beautiful, is what it is, even though Sebastian knows that's not something Jim would ever want to hear him say. He knows he shouldn't like it when Jim's like that but he does.
Sometimes he thinks about it when he doesn't mean to, at the worst, most inconvenient of times. When Jim is scowling or raging or threatening someone in that terrifyingly inhuman way he has, he'll think about Jim in those post-heat moments, when he is as drowsy and content as a cat, curled up in bed as if he could ever be kept.
Sebastian feels like he ought to worry about the fact that they're neither of them alphas while meeting with an alpha supremacy group, especially one that's not afraid to go after omega's rights activists. When he brings it up, Jim just shrugs at him.
"Stay out of sight if you think they'll notice. They think I'm an alpha."
Jim had picked the meeting spot. Whenever he picks meeting spots (and even most of the time when he doesn't), there's a good corner for Sebastian to get himself situated. This time, it's the rafters. The beams are wide enough and near enough to each other that it's child's play to set up the tripod for his rifle and make himself comfortable.
They're early, of course.
Sebastian covers the entrances while Jim double checks the bag that holds his offer, cash and a briefcase of files in exchange for an introduction to the people Jim actually wants to meet, some shady group rumored to have the maps of dozens of networks of forgotten underground tunnels, granting access to key buildings in several major cities, London included.
Four men arrive, to their two.
To their one, because even when two of the three guards break apart to search the area, they forget to look up at the right time and miss Sebastian entirely. He wonders if they think Moriarty's stupid enough to be alone.
Jim shakes Coulson's hand, very briefly, then steps back. He says something, smiling. Coulson replies, then nods at one of his guards. Buzz Cut moves forward. He crouches and, at Jim's feet, opens the duffel bag.
There are three briefcases inside, none of them locked. Sebastian watches Coulson's face, wariness giving way to satisfaction.
And then it all goes to shit.
Something happens, something that makes Jim's expression shift between several emotions too quickly for Sebastian to follow, before settling on something that might be resignation. The four other men swivel in unison to face him, suddenly predatory, suddenly determined.
Sebastian sees Jim tense, his hands half-curling into fists. He glances, quickly, to the rafters in which Sebastian's hidden himself. Then he takes a step back and the guard - the thuggish one, the one with a nose that'd been broken and healed incorrectly, steps forward, expression ugly, reaching for Jim with a self-assured confidence -
and drops, collapses, before Sebastian even registers that his safety is off and his finger is on the trigger, fully depressed. But he's not one for half-measures and one down means three to go - means the meeting's gone poorly and now it's time to make sure they get out of it alive.
He's prepared for that. He knows what to do when a meeting goes arse-up, even if he doesn't know what to do when Jim's hands curl into fists, his eyes go flinty, and he takes a quick, jerky step like he wants to run but is afraid to.
Sebastian hesitates, for a half-second, on the last one. The others were guards, as expendable as he knows he himself is. But Coulson's their contact for the SKC and if Sebastian kills him, that means -
Jim looks at Sebastian.
Sebastian pauses, finger on the trigger.
Jim looks at Coulson, considering. Coulson says something. It makes something in Jim's face twist, makes him look bitter and unhappy and so fucking resigned for a second that it makes Sebastian want to cry.
Jim looks at Sebastian again, at where Sebastian's edged just barely out of the shadows.
Sebastian pulls the trigger.
Jim's waiting for him when he manages to get down - across the beams and down the stairs on the far wall. His hands are in his pockets and his shoulders curl slightly forwards, making him look a bit like a sulky teenager.
"I don't always know when it happens," he snaps once Sebastian's within earshot. "It's early."
Two weeks early, according to the reminder Sebastian had put in his phone.
"S'fine," Sebastian says. He hefts his bag over one shoulder, then crouches down and grabs Jim's too. "I didn't like them anyway. Someone else will turn up."
Jim looks at the corpses on the floor. He gives one a halfhearted kick. "I didn't tell you to kill the last one," he comments.
"My finger must have slipped," Sebastian answers in the same tone.
"My heat just started."
"Yeah, well." Sebastian shrugs. "We'll figure something out."
Continue
Title: We'll Burn Like Falling Stars Tonight
Pairing: Jim Moriarty/Sebastian Moran
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 11,800
Warnings: Omegaverse. Seriously, don't read if you don't know what it is. Some dubcon.
Content: Omegaverse, porn, pining
Summary: "Does it bother you to work with alphas? ...I mean because you're an omega."
"Does it bother you to work with men?" Jim asks guilelessly. He widens his eyes innocently. He's dropped his usual accent in favor of Sebastian's, making everything he says sound uncomfortably over-familiar. "I mean, because you're a homosexual."
Notes: Thanks to everyone who looked this over and enabled me. Because you're horrible, horrible enablers and I love you all to bits.
"Hmm," Jim says apropos of nothing. He sits back from his computer and rubs his hand against the back of his neck, then looks up at the ceiling.
"What is it?" Sebastian asks. "Did you hear something?" He drops his hand to the rifle at his hip, looking around. They're in a temporary safe house but it's a new one, borrowed from one of Jim's connections. It's not one he trusts yet. Someone could have found them. Someone could have betrayed them.
"What? No," Jim says scornfully. The hand moves around his throat then up, trailing all the way to the underside of his chin. He makes another thoughtful noise. A moment later, he inhales noisily through what sounds like clenched teeth. "Hmm."
Sebastian clicks the safety of his rifle back on and waits.
Jim shifts his weight in his chair, then looks at Sebastian, eyes calculating. "You're a beta male," he says.
Sebastian bristles. "I'm not a dog, if that's what you mean," he replies. He doesn't like being called "beta" anything, even if it is the technical term.
Jim's head tilts to the side, slow and reptilian. "I am," he says and flashes his teeth quickly at Sebastian. "Omega. I'm going into heat. I should do something about that."
Really.
Surprised, Sebastian examines Jim more carefully, looking for a hint that it's the truth, but he can't see it. He can't see any of the signs. There's no indication that he's anything less than masculine, his body in any way more fit for bearing a child than Sebastian's. There's no indication that several times a year he goes into heat, becoming so desperate for an alpha's cock up his arse that they can smell it even from across the room.
Even the thought of Jim with his legs spread wide and wanton, like any of the most desperate whores in a cheap skin flick, makes Sebastian cringe inwardly, as if Jim might find the image in his mind and gut him for it.
Jim's still looking at him in that way he has, where the humanity drains from his face. It makes him look like a lizard or snake. It's fucking creepy as hell. Sebastian's pretty sure Jim does it on purpose.
He coughs. "There're suppressants for that," he says. "To prevent it from happening."
"I know," Jim answers. He runs his fingers over the underside of his arm. Checking for something, maybe, because he doesn't even glance down when he does it. "I don't use them. They're boring."
Jim is more irritable than usual for the next several days, flushed and fidgeting whenever he has to be in one place too long when normally he's still enough to make Sebastian wonder if he's even human.
Because he's going into heat, Sebastian thinks and can't help but be curious. Omegas are rare and omegas who don't suppress their heats when they're unmated are even rarer. Jim's the only one he knows and Sebastian can't help but wonder why. It's not as if the suppressants are hard to get, or even expensive.
Not that Jim cares about "expensive", considering how much he'd dropped on a tailored suit for Sebastian simply because "the way you look offends me".
And then, a little while later, it's over.
Jim calls Sebastian to accompany him to a thing with a client who wants a personal meeting. When Sebastian shows up, Jim is back to normal, every movement deliberate and graceful. Even his rage, when Jim's temper snaps and Sebastian has to fire several warning shots (into the client's guards' thighs) is the way it usually is, flaring quickly and dying just as fast.
"Feel better?"
Jim grins widely at him. Sebastian spots a light-colored smear on the inside of his collar. There's a dark spot at the base of his throat, peeking out through the smudged concealer on his throat.
"Loads."
Sebastian finds out what Jim actually does to quench his heats more than a year later, when he comes home from an assassination abroad to find Jim literally passed out in his bed, naked and rumpled and covered in marks. He's pretty sure he spots a bite on Jim's shoulder in the middle of an ugly, vivid bruise. Jim looks like he fought a bear and lost.
They don't show that sort of aftermath in pornos.
Jim stirs.
"How long have you been here?" Sebastian asks, already looking around the flat. No signs of intrusion or forced entry. There wouldn't be. Jim has a key. No signs that anyone else, aside from him, had even crossed the threshold.
Jim's face pokes out briefly from a hole in the blankets. Sebastian gets a glimpse of a bare arm when he rearranges himself. "The 6th."
That was two days ago. Well, okay.
He'd already known about Jim being an omega. It shouldn't surprise Sebastian so much to see proof of that written on his flesh. But he'd never thought about it before, about what it means. Sometimes Jim lets someone hold him against a bed (or the floor or a wall or bent over a table, because omegas in heat are gagging for it) and shove their cock in his arse. Someone had touched him, held him hard enough to leave bruises, and Jim had - he'd probably begged for it.
Another rustle. Jim's eyes appear in a gap in the blankets. They're barely noticeable, except when he blinks.
Sebastian coughs. "You want something? Because this is my flat."
The gap in the blankets disappears as Jim covers his face with it. It's sweet, in a deranged sort of way. He has to strain to hear Jim's words, muffled as they are.
"Sorry, what?" he asks when he loses track of the sentence partway through, the syllables becoming too indistinct to decipher. "You did what?"
Sebastian smothers his laugh in his fist when Jim whips the blankets from his face. His hair is in complete disarray. His lips are more red than they normally are. They look swollen. "I said," Jim says, enunciating clearly, "I took him back to mine."
"And now you're here."
"Uh, yeah? Obviously." Sebastian's pillow is wedged under Jim's cheek. Sebastian's blankets form a nest around him, but with every movement Jim makes, Sebastian catches another glimpse of bare, pale skin. It's - distracting.
"But why are you here?" Sebastian asks, baffled.
"Well, Sebastian," Jim begins. He drags himself into an upright position. The blankets pool in his lap and Sebastian can see his chest in full, now. He looks claimed. Like property, and that had always been a turn-on when he'd seen it before on other people, but now it's just unsettling. "I took him back to mine and now my sheets are a mess." He makes a face. "I'd rather sleep here. It's much nicer."
Sebastian stares. "I'm not cleaning up after you," he states flatly. "I'm an assassin. I'm not your housemaid."
"I know," Jim says and quirks an eyebrow at Sebastian when his eyes drift, again, to the finger-shaped bruises on his sides. He flashes his teeth at Sebastian in a way that looks almost teasing. "Like what you see? Do you wish it was you?"
When night falls, Sebastian takes the couch.
"You're staring at me again. If you keep this up, I'll start to think you can't make the shot," Jim teases. His hand darts out towards Sebastian's rifle.
Sebastian bats it away easily, maybe even with more force than he'd intended, because Jim makes a face at him and rubs the underside his wrist where Sebastian had smacked it.
"Touchy, touchy," he chides.
Sebastian double-checks his gear but everything is fine. His sights are still trained on the window in which he can see their target. The target is holding a scantily clad woman on each knee and several cards in his right hand. There's a toothpick in his mouth. Sebastian's going to shoot it in two when he pulls the trigger.
"I can make the shot. Just say when." But he takes the criticism to heart anyway, looking away from Jim and focusing on the sights, letting his world narrow to a point.
"You have no flair for dramatic timing," Jim complains distantly. "Are you still bent out of shape because I'm an omega? I already said I was sorry for staying at your flat. I don't have to if it makes you squeamish."
"It's not about that," Sebastian mumbles. "You just don't act like one."
"Like what? A proper omega? You're not even an alpha." Jim leans close and blows a breath of air onto Sebastian's cheek. "You can't even tell. You don't know anything about it. You're surrounded by alphas and omegas, but you, you're blind and deaf. I know you've looked it up. Betas always do. Want to know a secret?"
Sebastian grits his teeth. "No."
"When it happens, it's exactly like the pornos." Jim clicks his teeth next to Sebastian's ear. "When."
Sebastian pulls the trigger.
He misses the toothpick, but the target drops.
He gets good at telling when Jim starts going into heat. It comes on slowly at first, Jim getting more thoughtful, more quiet, and usually only takes a day to graduate into twitchy motion, as if there are fire ants crawling beneath his skin.
Then he disappears for a day or two, only to reappear sometimes in Sebastian's bed without asking. Sebastian would toss him out except for the fact that Jim invariably looks too hurt and tired for him to do so without feeling like an utter prick.
Sometimes Sebastian thinks Jim plays it up for sympathy. Other times, he doesn't.
Two days after that and Jim's normal again, at least as close as "normal" and "Moriarty" ever get.
Beginning to end in less than a week, once every three months, but it always feels like an eternity.
"Really, Seb, I think you know my cycle better than I do," Jim comments when Sebastian cancels their trip to Medina because it's the same month Jim's supposed to go into heat and he really doesn't want to know what will happen if they're there when he does.
"Yeah, well, if you get yourself killed, I'm out of a job."
"I'm touched."
"Come to my flat. I need you," Jim says. It's day four of seven, so Sebastian drops everything and goes. Jim's never called him like this before and he's never said need before. The combination of both is faintly terrifying.
Jim's given him a key to the flat (tossed it at his face and texted him the address without saying anything more), but Sebastian tries the door first. It's unlocked.
"Jim?" he calls cautiously, putting a hand on the gun he keeps at his waist. "Are you all right?"
"Bedroom."
Jim is, in fact, in the bedroom.
There's also someone else in the bedroom, in the middle of a spreading pool of blood. Sebastian recognizes his face even though the name escapes him. He's an enforcer for one of their rivals, trousers and pants pulled down to his knees. His shirt is soaked through with blood. His head lolls at an impossible angle.
"Antonin," Jim says. "I don't remember his last name."
A ring of hand-shaped bruises circles Jim's throat. His lip is swollen, split. He's naked from the waist down and the sleeve of his shirt is torn. Blood covers his shirt and hands. There's a red smear on his thigh from when he'd tried to wipe his hand clean.
"Blood's a biohazard," Sebastian says dumbly. "You should wash it off."
"People are biohazards," Jim complains. "And it was going so well, too. I think he dislocated my shoulder. Set it for me? I tried but I can't get it right."
Jim's head falls forward, eyes closing, when Sebastian grabs his arm and shoulder firmly. He barely flinches when Sebastian pops it back into place.
"Did you fuck him before you killed him?"
Jim presses his face to Sebastian's shoulder. He can feel it as Jim shifts more of his weight, until he's leaning on him. "Mmhmm, only once" he murmurs sleepily. "He tried to kill me first. I would have let him go, but he tried to strangle me, so I shot him."
"You still in heat? Did anyone hear the gunshot?" He works the shirt off Jim, then wrinkles his nose. He's adjusting to the smell of blood. It only makes the scents of sweat and semen stand out more. Gross.
"I was, but it's fading. The adrenaline helped. No one heard. I muffled the noise with his body. I twisted my ankle. It hurts to walk."
Sebastian pats him awkwardly on the back. Jim's skin feels unnaturally warm against his palm. "Are you okay?"
Jim looks up at him blankly. "Me? I'm fine. But the blood's going to smell soon. Smell more," he clarifies, wrinkling his nose. "Get rid of it. Speed dial six on my phone. I'm taking a shower."
Of course Jim has a cleaner on speed dial, Sebastian thinks, watching Jim hobble to the shower, stripping off his shirt and dropping it on the floor. They'll have to take that. The blood on it is evidence now that there's a corpse at their feet, staining the carpet.
There are bruises on Jim's back and on his hips (again) and Sebastian's not sure if all of Jim's limp is from his twisted ankle or if it has something to do with how he'd gotten the trail of semen currently leaking down the back of his thigh.
He hadn't used protection.
"You didn't use protection," Sebastian says.
Jim stops with one hand balanced on the door frame. He glances over his shoulder at Sebastian. He looks amused. "Alphas don't use protection when they mate."
He does the math. If Jim goes into heat four times a year, picking a new alpha each time, and he's been doing it for at least fifteen years, maybe more... "You've had unprotected sex with over fifty men? Why would you - how could you. That's -"
He's making a face, a disgusted one because that's reckless, it's dangerous (it's whorish, but if he ever says that out loud Jim will probably shoot him and he'd probably deserve it). He tries not to grimace but it doesn't work. He doesn't know how he looks right now but Jim's eyes go cold and hard. The dozen feet between them stretch out until they feel like miles.
"Well I don't have a mate now, do I?" Jim says, voice clipped.
Mate, not even a boyfriend, just an alpha that takes care of his heats when they happen. Hell, Sebastian realizes, he doesn't even know if Jim prefers men. All he knows is this, that several times a year Jim spreads his legs for the first alpha who'll have him, and now there is a corpse on the floor and bruises on Jim's throat.
He wonders how often it's happened before, with no one else to know.
Sebastian is not the only person Jim employs. He's just the most trusted one, the one Jim's found useful and competent enough to keep permanently on-call. Everyone else is expendable. When Jim hires others, they report to Sebastian.
Sebastian seems to be the only one that knows Jim's not an alpha, because one of the mercenaries (nothing special, one of the ones meant to be a distraction if anything goes wrong) has been talking about fucking omegas for the last twenty minutes to him.
Jim, for the most part, baits him into saying more and more outrageous things with well-timed questions. He seems to be enjoying himself, like a cougar toying with a house cat that thinks it's the most dangerous thing around.
"Does it bother you to work with alphas?" Sebastian asks when they get a moment alone.
"They're impulsive, but that's fine." Jim gives him a look. "We're not actually stealing anything."
"I'm not stupid. I know that," Sebastian says. Jim had dropped the blueprints to the office building on Sebastian's lap not a week before. His notes on the interior had been too sparse for him to actually care about getting into the basement he'd marked. "I meant because you're an omega."
"Does it bother you to work with men?" Jim asks guilelessly. He widens his eyes innocently. He's dropped his usual accent in favor of Sebastian's, making everything he says sound uncomfortably over-familiar. "I mean, because you're a homosexual."
Sebastian can't hide his involuntary wince at the word or the defensive denial that jumps to his lips. He bites his tongue on that denial only because he is. Jim knows it even though Sebastian's never told him. And nothing he says can take back his automatic reaction at having the word thrown in his face like that, blatant and open.
"Do they know?" Jim presses. Sebastian knows Jim's just teasing but that doesn't stop the words from hitting home and cutting.
Because they don't. Because they'd assumed Sebastian was like them and he hadn't even thought to correct them - not when it could put the job in jeopardy, not when it didn't even matter. He's not afraid anymore. It can't hurt him anymore. But it's easier, still, to look then they look and leer when they leer, to make the appropriate noises at the appropriate times and keep everything else about himself private.
It's not something he thinks about, anymore.
Some of the bite in Jim's smile eases off. "It's all right," he says, and pats Sebastian on the shoulder. "If they hurt your feelings, just come to Uncle Jimmy and I'll shoot one for you."
He doesn't actually shoot anyone. But every once in a while Sebastian remembers this conversation, wonders if Jim actually would have, had Sebastian asked.
"If I told you to find me an alpha, would you do it?" Jim asks on a warm Sunday afternoon. He lies on the sofa in Sebastian's flat as if he lives there. Sebastian's starting to get used to it by now.
Sebastian opens his mouth. But he doesn't know how to answer that, so what comes out is a strangled sort of noise. Jim's not - Sebastian's supposed to have a good month, maybe more, before he has to think about it. Sebastian's not sure why he's asking now.
"Because," Jim continues idly, as if they are talking about something as innocuous as the weather or what he's thinking of eating for lunch the next day, "it'd be useful. I can't be bothered, and now sometimes people recognize me," he says the word with deep distaste, "so it's not exactly safe. I mean, I come out of my heat about as soon as they try to kill me, but."
Sebastian opens and closes his mouth several times. "You want me to -" He stops, before he actually says whore you out aloud and gets his teeth knocked in, to think about it. Jim's an omega, but would it even be like that?
Everything he's read, everything he's seen, says yes. But he'd be the one to do it, to choose an alpha and deliver him to Jim. Like a present. Sebastian doesn't want to, would rather not. But would it be so bad, compared to whatever it is Jim does now? Because if he doesn't, Jim will - do something stupid, something dangerous, something that ends in bodies on the floor because that's what he does for everything.
Jim is talking again.
"-wouldn't normally ask, but you're basically my right hand man. You're the only one aside from me who'd recognize anyone who'd want me dead. And I trust you, for what it's worth." The corner of Jim's mouth quirks sideways; he's looking out the window.
"Fine," Sebastian bites out. "I'll - be your spotter or something. Just tell me when."
Jim's eyes flick to his. He grins. "That's what I always do."
"What's your type?" Sebastian asks, two weeks before Jim's heat is supposed to start. He drops in on Jim in his apartment mostly to see what happens when he does; Jim is disappointingly unphased.
He doesn't even look up from the screen of his computer. "Type of what? You're going to have to be more specific, Sebby."
He hates being called Sebby. But Jim doesn't do it often, only when he's feeling especially pleased or playful. Sebastian still can't be bothered to tell him to fuck off and stop.
"What's your type? What kind of alphas do you like?" There are, apparently, quite a lot of alphas eager to breed an omega during a heat. Sebastian's cautious post on the o4a section of Craigslist has already garnered enough responses, in a day, to be a little alarming. Now somehow he has to pick one.
Jim looks at him blankly. "The... alive kind?"
Sebastian rolls his eyes pointedly. "No, Jim, what kind of alphas do you like to have sex with? Height, age, build?"
Jim continues to look blank. "It doesn't matter. I'll be in heat."
"Yes, but what kind of alpha do you want? I have a dozen emails here from interested alphas. Which one do you want?"
Jim shrugs. "I don't care," he says and turns back to the computer. "Just pick one."
So Sebastian only bothers responding to the one alpha who doesn't refer to Jim as a whore, bitch, or slut.
On the day of, the alpha meets him in the hotel lobby. He introduces himself as Brian, shakes Sebastian's hand, and brings what he'd been told to bring - an ID and the results of a recent STD test. When Sebastian checks his ID, he finds that the alpha's even legally named Brian. Go figure.
Brian gives Sebastian a self-conscious grin. He smooths down his shirt with his hands. "I don't normally do this. It's a bit awkward, isn't it? Since I didn't get to meet him first or anything."
Sebastian shrugs. "He's in room 305. I'll let you in."
"Right."
The alpha jitters with nervous energy when they get in the elevator, stealing glances at Sebastian and then quickly looking away. He taps his fingers on his trousers. "So, uh, do you do this a lot?"
"No."
"And, um... Are you going to go first or did you want to share him at the same time, or? Whatever you want is fine, I'm not, it's just, I don't really know how this works." He laughs nervously.
"I'm not a dog," Sebastian says. "It's just you and him."
They stop at the door. Brian takes a deep breath, eyes closing. "I can smell him," he says, putting his hand on the door. He licks his lips, inhales again, drawing the air deeply into his lungs. "He's -"
Sebastian cuts him off. "I'll check on you tomorrow. Just one last thing," he says. He slides the key card through the reader and pushes the door open.
Brian turns slowly, already half a step past the threshold. His slack jaw goes even slacker (with shock, overriding the arousal) when Sebastian taps the barrel of his handgun on his forehead. His eyes cross to stare at it.
Sebastian enjoys his fear for several long moments. "If he tells me to, I'll kill you. Try not to forget that."
He goes home and tries not to think about it. He closes his eyes and pretends not to remember the way Jim had growled, "Finally," when Sebastian had let Brian in, or the way Jim had been naked. He'd been naked and hard when Sebastian had opened the door. They'd practically launched themselves at each other once Sebastian had let him in.
Jim had barely noticed him. But then, Sebastian's not an alpha.
So he cooks dinner and tries not to think about Jim. He eats dinner and tries not to think about Jim. He turns on the TV and tries not to think about Jim. He takes a shower and washes his hair and decides he can probably last another day or two without bothering to shave, then gives the fuck up on trying to not think about Jim.
He brings his laptop to bed with him and looks up omega porn on the internet. He watches them beg and moan and finger themselves. He watches an alpha mount an omega, positioned awkwardly to let the camera zoom in on the act itself, the bare cock sliding into his wet, slick hole, and thinks about Jim.
He thinks about Jim in heat, which he's never actually seen - not in the middle of it, not actually. He's only seen Jim right before and right after, where he is irritable or exhausted. He's never seen Jim needy. He's never heard Jim beg and he realizes with some surprise that he really, really wants to.
He wonders what Jim and the alpha are doing now, if they're still fucking, if Jim's as vivid and alive in bed as he is when he's at work. If he'd - the alpha would bite him, would mark him. And Sebastian wonders if he'd groan encouragement when the alpha sinks teeth into his shoulder, or digs his fingers into his hips.
Jim's hole would be slick, would be yielding, would stretch easily to accommodate Sebastian's cock. He'd want it. Sebastian would thrust into him and pin him to the bed and fuck him, and Jim would thrust back eagerly, begging him, "More, harder, like that, yeah, Seb, yeah."
The alpha in the video thrusts into the omega, then tenses, breathing heavily. The shot zooms in to his cock, buried in the omega's ass, watching as it swells, growing rounder and larger, stretching the ring of muscle clenched it. A third voice - not the omega whimpering or the alpha grunting, but the cameraman, murmuring encouragement, joins the audio.
The omega's muscles stretch further - his hole red and swollen, as the alpha pulls his cock partway out, freeing his knot, then forces it back in, slowly. They stay like that and the shot zooms out again, revealing the curl of the alpha's arm over the omega and his face nuzzling at his throat.
That's what they'd be doing now. The alpha would have knotted Jim by now, would have plugged his hole and forced him still. They'd be tied together, stuck at the point where the alpha's swollen inside him, and Jim would be lying there, sated, content to have the alpha's semen inside him, flooding him.
Maybe they'd cuddle. Maybe the alpha would suck a mark into his neck, a bruise that'd last for days. Maybe he'd cup Jim's cock and stroke him off while they're tied, making him thrust and moan and come, spilling onto the sheets.
Jim would be bruised and scratched, but in a way that if Sebastian asked him about it he'd grin, wide and bright, and say nothing. And when it stops, when the alpha's knot recedes, they'll drink some water and take a break and do it again, as soon as they're able.
Sebastian closes the video and shuts down his laptop, suddenly uninterested in watching further.
The room reeks of sex the next day when Sebastian comes to check on Jim, and they're still going at it. Or, the alpha is, pounding away at Jim with every sign of enthusiasm. But Jim's just lying on his stomach, arms crossed beneath his head, completely limp. There are a pair of pillows under him, propping his arse up. For a faintly horrified moment, Sebastian wonders if he's even conscious, but when he steps closer and the floor creaks beneath him, Jim's eyes snap open to meet his, dark and alert.
The alpha doesn't seem to care that he's there, might not even notice, as focused as he is on Jim. Sebastian frowns. Are you okay? he mouths.
Jim's shoulders shrug minutely. He raises a hand and makes a so-so motion, which doesn't mean anything, as far as Sebastian's concerned. He doesn't look like he's enjoying himself anymore. He doesn't look like he cares. He just lies there, perfectly still, perfectly passive, letting the alpha slam into him repeatedly with short, rough movements.
Sebastian takes out his gun. He raises it inquisitively.
Jim looks at it, then over his shoulder at the alpha. He considers for a moment, head tilted, before he shaking his head. He shoos Sebastian away with his hand.
Sebastian frowns. He points the gun at the alpha and mimes pulling the trigger, then raises his eyebrows again in question. Are you sure?
Jim starts to speak, but his voice comes out a hoarse croak. He clears his throat. "There's no point. He'll be done soon."
When Sebastian lowers his gun but doesn't say anything, trying to stare without making it obvious that's what he's doing (looking but not looking at the slender muscles defined on Jim's bare back, and the way sweat has plastered locks of hair to his forehead), Jim rolls his eyes.
"Unless you're waiting for your turn, you can go now," Jim says. He looks pointedly at the door.
Sebastian smiles with his mouth closed. It feels like biting down on a mouthful of broken glass.
He leaves.
Jim doesn't show up in Sebastian's flat that night or the morning after. He calls the hotel after noon when Jim still hasn't arrived. The receptionist says he'd checked out the night before in the company of his boyfriend. Sebastian thanks her and hangs up before he can say anything rash, then calls Jim's phone.
He picks up on the 9th ring. "Hello?" His voice is bleary and soft, gentle in the way Sebastian only ever hears by accident, when Jim is still half-asleep.
"Sorry, I - did I wake you? Where are you?"
Cloth rustles in the background. "A bit. I'm at home. Why are you calling? What happened?" With each word, Jim's voice becomes clearer, more alert.
"Nothing. I was just -" Sebastian cuts himself off before he can embarrass himself. "It's nothing. Go back to sleep."
He can hear the fwoomp sound as Jim drops back onto his pillow. The cloth noise in the background is blankets rearranging around him. "M'kay. See you later."
"Yeah," Sebastian says, when the call clicks off. "Seeya."
But as far as "picking up an alpha and hand-delivering him to your in-heat omega boss" goes, it could have been worse. And Jim seems to be happy. At least, whenever he gets irritated or angry, it's about something that has nothing to do with his heat or being an omega.
"So, how was the alpha?" Sebastian finally asks, unable to bear not knowing any longer. "Was it... okay?"
Jim shrugs. "It was fine. He was an alpha, he mounted me, I'm not in heat anymore. Thanks for taking care of it. I knew I could count on you, Sebby."
"Don't call me -"
"Sebastian," Jim says sharply.
Sebastian stops mid-sentence. Jim doesn't say anything. The silence stretches out just long enough for Sebastian to glance around himself, wondering if there's something he's not getting. A beat later, Jim smirks at him.
"I'm sorry, were you saying something?"
"Yeah, fuck you," Sebastian mutters half-heartedly to hide his embarrassment. "Anyway, I've got his number. You want him for next time?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "Sebastian," he says. "I really don't care who you find for me, as long as you find someone."
Sebastian saves Brian's number into his phone and calls him the next time, and the time after that.
Between those phone calls, where Sebastian says "He needs you," and Brian says "Yes, yes, just tell me where to go," he and Jim rig elections and blackmail officials and spend six godawful weeks in the middle of nowhere just because Jim says, "No, it'll be fun. What's the point if you're not having any fun?"
And in those in-between times, which is most of the time, being around Jim feels a little bit like being around a wild animal because Jim's vicious. He's vicious and sharp and sometimes in Sebastian's dreams he's a shark, waiting for Sebastian to fall into the water.
Everyone's afraid of him. Everyone's afraid of Moriarty, who is brilliant and merciless and as quick to act as a striking snake. Everyone but Sebastian.
Because Jim spends seven days of every ninety being vulnerable, being needy. It gives Sebastian a weird, shameful, voyeuristic thrill each time, because when he's done - when it's over and the alpha's gone and it's just the two of them...
He doesn't know.
But sometimes Jim is vulnerable and content and not-quite-subdued, and it's fucking beautiful, is what it is, even though Sebastian knows that's not something Jim would ever want to hear him say. He knows he shouldn't like it when Jim's like that but he does.
Sometimes he thinks about it when he doesn't mean to, at the worst, most inconvenient of times. When Jim is scowling or raging or threatening someone in that terrifyingly inhuman way he has, he'll think about Jim in those post-heat moments, when he is as drowsy and content as a cat, curled up in bed as if he could ever be kept.
Sebastian feels like he ought to worry about the fact that they're neither of them alphas while meeting with an alpha supremacy group, especially one that's not afraid to go after omega's rights activists. When he brings it up, Jim just shrugs at him.
"Stay out of sight if you think they'll notice. They think I'm an alpha."
Jim had picked the meeting spot. Whenever he picks meeting spots (and even most of the time when he doesn't), there's a good corner for Sebastian to get himself situated. This time, it's the rafters. The beams are wide enough and near enough to each other that it's child's play to set up the tripod for his rifle and make himself comfortable.
They're early, of course.
Sebastian covers the entrances while Jim double checks the bag that holds his offer, cash and a briefcase of files in exchange for an introduction to the people Jim actually wants to meet, some shady group rumored to have the maps of dozens of networks of forgotten underground tunnels, granting access to key buildings in several major cities, London included.
Four men arrive, to their two.
To their one, because even when two of the three guards break apart to search the area, they forget to look up at the right time and miss Sebastian entirely. He wonders if they think Moriarty's stupid enough to be alone.
Jim shakes Coulson's hand, very briefly, then steps back. He says something, smiling. Coulson replies, then nods at one of his guards. Buzz Cut moves forward. He crouches and, at Jim's feet, opens the duffel bag.
There are three briefcases inside, none of them locked. Sebastian watches Coulson's face, wariness giving way to satisfaction.
And then it all goes to shit.
Something happens, something that makes Jim's expression shift between several emotions too quickly for Sebastian to follow, before settling on something that might be resignation. The four other men swivel in unison to face him, suddenly predatory, suddenly determined.
Sebastian sees Jim tense, his hands half-curling into fists. He glances, quickly, to the rafters in which Sebastian's hidden himself. Then he takes a step back and the guard - the thuggish one, the one with a nose that'd been broken and healed incorrectly, steps forward, expression ugly, reaching for Jim with a self-assured confidence -
and drops, collapses, before Sebastian even registers that his safety is off and his finger is on the trigger, fully depressed. But he's not one for half-measures and one down means three to go - means the meeting's gone poorly and now it's time to make sure they get out of it alive.
He's prepared for that. He knows what to do when a meeting goes arse-up, even if he doesn't know what to do when Jim's hands curl into fists, his eyes go flinty, and he takes a quick, jerky step like he wants to run but is afraid to.
Sebastian hesitates, for a half-second, on the last one. The others were guards, as expendable as he knows he himself is. But Coulson's their contact for the SKC and if Sebastian kills him, that means -
Jim looks at Sebastian.
Sebastian pauses, finger on the trigger.
Jim looks at Coulson, considering. Coulson says something. It makes something in Jim's face twist, makes him look bitter and unhappy and so fucking resigned for a second that it makes Sebastian want to cry.
Jim looks at Sebastian again, at where Sebastian's edged just barely out of the shadows.
Sebastian pulls the trigger.
Jim's waiting for him when he manages to get down - across the beams and down the stairs on the far wall. His hands are in his pockets and his shoulders curl slightly forwards, making him look a bit like a sulky teenager.
"I don't always know when it happens," he snaps once Sebastian's within earshot. "It's early."
Two weeks early, according to the reminder Sebastian had put in his phone.
"S'fine," Sebastian says. He hefts his bag over one shoulder, then crouches down and grabs Jim's too. "I didn't like them anyway. Someone else will turn up."
Jim looks at the corpses on the floor. He gives one a halfhearted kick. "I didn't tell you to kill the last one," he comments.
"My finger must have slipped," Sebastian answers in the same tone.
"My heat just started."
"Yeah, well." Sebastian shrugs. "We'll figure something out."
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