We'll Burn Like Falling Stars Tonight 2/2 (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.
Part One
"Sometimes being around alphas can induce a heat," Jim says sulkily, when they're in the car. He has Coulson's phone in his hands, scrolling through the contacts on it, but with none of the focus he normally exhibits.
They have hotel rooms booked at two separate hotels. Sebastian looks at Jim. "You didn't think of this before we flew out to meet a bunch of fucking alphas?"
Jim scowls at him, cheeks flushed red. With anger, or the heat, or the actual heat, Sebastian has no idea. "It's never happened to me before. Shut up. Let me think." He closes his eyes.
His eyes are still closed when Sebastian pulls up to his hotel.
"Do you want me to call Brian? It'll take less than a day to get him here." He'll come, if Sebastian calls him.
Jim's eyes snap open. "Who?"
"Brian. Your mate?" Brian, who's sent Sebastian nearly a dozen emails, all of them about "getting to know Jim better" or trying to set up a date. Brian, who'd said, "I really feel like he and I have, you know, a bond between us", to Sebastian, even though he doesn't even know what Jim does when he's not fucking alphas in hotel rooms.
Jim chews on his lower lip distractedly. He glances out the window. "I don't have a mate."
"Well, he thinks he's your mate. He'd been your alpha for your last three heats."
Jim lights up with recognition. He fidgets in his seat. "Oh, him. So you have been using the same alpha. I thought you were."
"Yeah, him," Sebastian agrees, inordinately amused. "If I call now, I can probably get him a flight -"
"Don't bother," Jim interrupts. "He annoys me. It's fine when he's mounting me, but after, ugh. Boring. But I need -" He stops and shifts again.
"What do you need? Do you want me to find someone who -"
"I'd rather not," Jim says, apparently too irritable to let Sebastian finish a sentence. "We're being watched so if you go out and bring me an alpha..."
Then it'll get out that Jim's an omega. And that might be all right, but it also might not be, if word gets around that Moriarty is an omega.
They move the conversation indoors before it can start to look suspicious. Once they do, Jim throws himself face-first on the bed. Sebastian's not sure if he should be concerned or not.
"Orders?"
"I can't give orders like this," Jim groans. "Fuck." He rolls his hips against the mattress, then twists, flipping over as quick and agilely as a cat. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. Sebastian's eyes are drawn, involuntarily, to the bulge at his groin and the spread of his legs, open and inviting. "I just - I want - I need -"
Sebastian's mouth feels dry. He shoves his hands into his pockets and curls his fingers into fists, fighting down the urge to reach out, to touch, to drag his hands over the slivers of pale flesh revealed as Jim's shirt and the hem of his trousers ride up.
Jim runs a hand through his hair, managing only to make it look more disheveled. He makes a low, frustrated noise, eyes closed and face flushed pink. "I just need someone to touch me."
Sebastian wants to lick him. He wants to peel off Jim's clothes and pin him to the bed and suck on his throat. He wants to taste Jim's sweat and bury his face in his neck and fuck him. He wants to hear the sounds Jim makes, soft and needy and vulnerable, and know that they're for him.
His trousers feel uncomfortably tight.
"Right," he says, and at the sound of his voice Jim's eyes slit open, watching him. Sebastian pretends not to notice the hungry way Jim's eyes rake over his body or the way Jim eyes the evidence of his arousal. "I can find someone who's discreet. We can kill him after, or say -"
"I don't want someone else," Jim interrupts. He hooks his thumbs in his belt loops and shimmies out of his trousers with quick, wriggling motions. His cock is hard, outlined clearly against his pants, and Sebastian had never really thought much about Jim's cock before but it's all he can think of now, its taste and its smell and how soft the skin would feel against his cheek or on his tongue. "I want you."
Sebastian's not an alpha. He knows he isn't, because he's never been driven mad with lust before. He's never lost sense of who he is. He's never had his vision go red with need. Alphas call it going heat-drunk.
It's never happened to Sebastian before. It never will.
But something about Jim, like this, clumsily struggling out of his clothes and flushed with desire, fidgeting and making soft, animal noises, draws Sebastian to him like a moth to a flame. Sebastian's normally ironclad self-control stretches, frays, thens finally snaps as Jim displays himself in an open invitation.
Jim's skin is fever-warm. When Sebastian touches him, pressing a hand to his flat belly, Jim arches into the touch, sucking in a sharp breath.
"Yes," he hisses, grabbing Sebastian's wrist as quickly as a striking snake, jerking him onto the bed.
Sebastian spares himself a moment of surprise as he tumbles onto Jim and the bed. Their limbs tangle together. Jim moans at the contact, rubbing their groins together, tugging at Sebastian's shirt and only managing to tangle him up in his sleeves.
"Wait, wait," Sebastian says. He has to twist away to free himself. Jim paws at him the whole time, licking and biting at his face, his throat, sliding his hands down the back of Sebastian's trousers to grab his arse.
"Fucking hell," he swears, when their bodies finally slide together, skin to skin. Jim is warm and already damp with sweat. He tastes like salt, and skin, and when Sebastian licks his throat Jim hooks a leg around Sebastian's waist and turns his face away.
"Seb," he says, blunt fingernails scratching lines of fire down Sebastian's back. His cock digs into Sebastian's belly. "Seb, please. I need - I -"
"What?" Sebastian asks, rocking his hips against Jim's, rubbing against him. "What do you need?"
"Fuck. I need - I need you to fuck me, please. Please, I need you to -" Jim grabs one of the hands Sebastian had been using to hold himself up. He presses it between his parted thighs, below his balls, where Sebastian can feel how slick his hole is.
"You're so wet," Sebastian marvels, when he slides the first finger in easily. Jim's wet, slick between his legs, and soon Sebastian's going to -
He is taken by complete surprise when Jim cuffs the side of his face.
"Sebastian," and Sebastian's never heard that tone from him before. Jim's voice stretches his name out into a plaintive whine. "Come on." He twists easily away from Sebastian's hands, turning around to offer Sebastian his arse. "Please, please. I need you now."
Sebastian swallows. "Yeah, okay. " He bends over and nuzzles the back of Jim's shoulder, inhaling deeply, letting his breath out over the soft hairs at the back of Jim's neck. But Jim won't hold still. Jim twists and presses back against him, breath coming quickly. He makes a frustrated, desperate noise when Sebastian hesitates, then growls, a growl that turns into another needy, wordless whine.
Condom, Sebastian thinks for a second. But this is Jim's room and not his, and he knows Jim doesn't carry any. Which means he shouldn't. But he wants to. He wants to fuck Jim bare, wants to mark him, wants to come inside him. And he knows Jim wants it too, right now.
So fuck the consequences, he does it anyway, thrusting into Jim's slick, eager arse in a single motion. Jim's fingers dig into the sheets. He presses back against Sebastian's cock, until their bodies are pressed flush against each other.
"Harder," Jim demands, voice muffled against his forearm.
"Fuck," Sebastian swears again. Jim's so sexy like this, impaled on his cock, arse up and begging for more. Most of the time he's buttoned up in suits that make him look untouchable, and even when he isn't, he's still got a shield around himself, some aura of confidence and danger that's basically the same thing.
But not now. Now, Jim's stripped bare of everything but the need, of the heat. His breath hitches with every thrust, his whole body rocking with the force. Sebastian wants to wreck him. He wants to hurt him, enough that Jim will remember this tomorrow and the day after. He wants Jim to see himself in the mirror and see marks that Sebastian put there. He tightens his grip on Jim's hips to hold him more securely and Jim's hands scratch at the sheets, fingers clenching and unclenching. Sweat beads on his back.
"More," Jim begs, face still buried in his arm. The knuckles of his hand, buried in the sheets, are white.
Except, Sebastian knows, that Jim can't actually come like this. He can fuck Jim all night but Jim won't come. Not like this. He needs to be knotted.
Jim makes muffled whimpering sounds, gasps and moans against his arm. He presses back against Sebastian with each thrust and can't seem to stop moving, twisting and writhing like he needs -
"Here," Sebastian says. He spreads his open hand over the small of Jim's back, pressing him against the bed. Jim twists when Sebastian pulls out of him, makes an incoherent yearning sound that only stops when Sebastian replaces his cock with his fingers, sliding three of them at once into Jim's body, easy because he is already stretched loose.
Jim's fluids are thick and slippery around his fingers. Sebastian draws his fingers free, adding his little finger. Four and now Jim's shoulders twist and his muscles twitch, under Sebastian's hand on his back. He takes deep, gasping breaths when Sebastian presses his hand in further. The ring of muscle around Sebastian's fingers stretches slowly, tight around his hand until Sebastian can tuck his knuckles just inside Jim's hole.
He brushes his thumb around the edge of where Jim's body yields for him. Jim's inner muscles clench and unclench around his fingers.
"Do you want more?"
"Please. Please, more, please." Jim begs. His voice is thick, choked. His hand scratches at the sheets. Sebastian runs his other hand up Jim's back. He pushes down on the spot between Jim's shoulders, palm flat against his sweat-slick skin, then stares at the sight, at his hand on Jim's back, open and possessive.
"Okay," Sebastian murmurs, mostly to himself. He takes a deep breath. "Okay, I've got you."
Thumb now, added to his other fingers. He presses them into Jim's greedy, eager hole, fascinated at the way Jim just takes it, muscles stretching to accommodate him, passage slick and welcoming, tight around him.
Jim's breath comes in harsh, noisy gasps as Sebastian presses inside him. He stops only when his hand is fully inside, when the heel of his hand disappears and Jim's hole closes around the skin of his wrist. Jim makes a noise - it sounds like he's in pain and Sebastian would worry, except that Jim rocks backwards, fucking himself - slowly, carefully, on Sebastian's hand, curled into a fist within him.
Sebastian rotates his hand and Jim lets out another gasp, pushing up against Sebastian's palm holding him down. "Good?" he asks, but he already knows the answer because the noises Jim makes are pornographic, are sex, go straight to Sebastians groin and make him want.
Jim nods anyway, the back of his head bobbing up and down in Sebastian's vision, until he goes still with a final shiver, rippling down his muscles. He's coming, from just this, his cock twitching and jerking, spurting onto the bedspread. His body tenses and his muscles spasm around Sebastian's fist, squeezing and relaxing and squeezing again.
If Sebastian were an alpha, it'd be his cock there and Jim would be milking it, coaxing thick spurts of semen into him, encouraging Sebastian to flood his arse with his seed. He isn't. They can't. But they can still do this - Sebastian's fist in his arse and Jim's body open to him, vulnerable and willing.
Jim's breathing slows from its frantic pace. His muscles relax around Sebastian's hand after several more minutes pass. Sebastian runs his fingers through the hair on the back of his head, stroking gently. Jim makes a soft, contented sound. A sated sound that turns into a whimper when Sebastian finally, carefully, withdraws his hand. Jim's hole is loose now when Sebastian presses his thumb to it, still slick with arousal.
Now that Jim's done, Sebastian takes himself in hand. His cock jumps eagerly when he wraps his fingers around himself. His own desire, banked earlier by his concentration, flares when he shifts his focus, making himself comfortable.
He lies down on the bed next to Jim, who shifts closer to him and slides a hand over Sebastian's hip, warm and affectionate and easy, like it's something they have been doing for weeks, for months, for years. They are close enough to be sharing the same breath, close enough that the back of Sebastian's hand brushes against Jim's belly with each stroke.
Sebastian mouths Jim's jaw, his throat, his bare shoulder. He inhales deeply until Jim's smell and taste and warmth fills the entirety of his awareness. He brings his own pleasure higher and higher until his orgasm finally rocks through him, face buried in the space where Jim's throat meets his shoulder.
His hand on Sebastian's hip feels like a brand.
Sebastian wakes to Jim practically mauling him. He is all hands and all mouth, fingers raking over Sebastian's torso with just a hint of nail. His teeth are on Sebastian's throat. It's much more sexy than it should be.
"Sebastian," Jim moans, sliding his thigh between Sebastian's legs. "Please. I need you." He sucks on Sebastian's throat, humming pleased against the skin when Sebastian grabs his arse.
"I love it when you beg," Sebastian says. Jim's wet again when Sebastian slides two exploratory fingers down his crack. He makes an eager noise when Sebastian presses the tip of his index finger inside him, considering.
"Do it," Jim says, so Sebastian does.
Jim wakes him three more times, after that.
Jim is asleep in his arms. He is warm in the way only other living creatures can be warm. Sebastian kisses the back of his neck and tightens his arm around Jim's waist when he begins to stir, idly stroking his fingers down Jim's belly.
Jim tenses in his arms.
Sebastian freezes, uncertain.
Jim's head turns slowly as he takes in his surroundings. His eyes flicker briefly to Sebastian's arm, then away. "Hmm," he murmurs softly. He taps his fingers on the sheets, then smooths them after several seconds.
"Are you okay?" Sebastian asks awkwardly. He'd never, before, with an omega. He's not sure what's supposed to come next. He's not sure what Jim remembers or if there's anything he should do, now that it seems to be over.
"Hmm," Jim says again. He twists to face Sebastian. His forearms brace him against Sebastian's chest. It puts several inches of space between them. "Interesting."
"What is?"
Jim looks thoughtful. "I've never fucked a beta during a heat before."
Sebastian isn't sure how to respond to that. Luckily for him, Jim doesn't wait for him to say anything. He pushes Sebastian's arm off him with no hesitation at all and gets off the bed.
"Don't forget to reschedule the flight we missed for sometime after tomorrow," he says, heading naked to the bathroom. There are bite marks on his shoulders and throat, and several small bruises on his hips. This time, Sebastian's the one who put them there. He's the one who pressed his open mouth against Jim's throat, who dug his fingertips into his hips, who fucked him open and raw and made him beg for more.
Sebastian thinks he should feel something - some sort of triumph, maybe, or satisfaction, but he doesn't.
He wakes later from a light doze at the sound of Jim clicking his tongue at him. Jim's dressed again, in the clothes he'd worn the day before. The collar of his shirt hides the bruise on his neck. "I'm taking your hotel room, since the sheets in mine are filthy. Don't bother me for 24 hours unless you've killed someone."
He limps when he leaves, but only barely.
Sebastian spends the next twenty-four hours alternating between sleeping and trying to figure out if he ought to feel guilty, wondering if Jim is angry or upset or something worse, something related to the sometimes-bitter twist that comes to his mouth when he says the word omega. He wonders how things will change between them, if it means Jim's his now.
He reschedules their missed flight back to London for the next day and packs Jim's things for him. This he's done before. They've swapped hotel rooms in the past, just never for this reason.
Jim is himself when he shows his face again. He is confident and untouchable and ever so slightly mocking when he looks at Sebastian, as if he knows something about Sebastian that he himself doesn't.
"You have a little something on your face," he says, amused. He motions to Sebastian's cheek and throat.
"Yeah. I noticed." The 'something' is beard burn all over his jaw and throat. Jim had been the one to put it there. Jim, by contrast, is pristine. A part of Sebastian wants to tug down the collar of his shirt and rub his thumb down Jim's throat to expose the mark he'd left, but he doesn't. He wouldn't dare.
"Maybe if word gets out about this, they'll assume you're the omega," Jim comments. He's smirking. Laughter glitters behind his eyes. "Won't that be handy."
Sebastian rolls his eyes. Jim laughs and makes him drive so he can people-watch from the passenger's seat. And just like that, it never happened.
Everything goes on as normal.
The thing is, Jim actually pays Sebastian a rather generous retainer just to sit around and be at his beck and call whenever he does need him. But in all the times when he's not called, when he's not hanging around as Jim's guard-slash-assassin-slash-assistant, Jim never seems to care where he is or what he does.
Sebastian fills in the days by going shooting, by working out, by visiting the few friends he still has from his time in the army. At night, he goes to bars and drinks a couple cheap beers and pretends he isn't waiting for a call.
Jim calls and he comes, but when he doesn't, Sebastian waits. He's not sure when or how it happened, that this has become his new life - treading water and waiting to be summoned.
The worst part of it, he thinks, is that it's not the waiting that bothers him.
It's that two and a half weeks ago, Sebastian pressed Jim into the bed and fucked him. He put his fingers and his cock and his hand inside him, traced the path of his fingers with his tongue and marked it with bruises.
They haven't talked about it since. Jim hasn't talked to him since. That's normal when nothing's going on.
But he's starting to wish it wasn't.
Jim shows up eventually, of course. He lets himself into Sebastian's apartment without even an explanation, just a nod of acknowledgement, and makes himself comfortable. He's dressed young this time - well, casual, but casual makes him look young. He hasn't styled his hair. His fringe falls limply on his forehead in a way that makes him look easily confused and harmless.
The overall effect is a bit like looking into a tiger's cage and seeing a kitten. After having already thrown a deer in there and gotten back only scraps of fur and bone.
"Was wondering when you'd show up," Sebastian comments. It is as much a greeting as they ever exchange.
"Had to go somewhere. Family stuff," Jim says. He pulls a face and it seems sincere. Sebastian is surprised enough at the idea of Jim having a family (at the idea of Jim having a family and letting people know about it) that when Jim asks to borrow his laptop, he pushes it across the coffee table without comment.
"'Hey, Sebastian, it's about that time again but I haven't heard from you yet. Was just wondering how everything's doing. How's Jim? Let him know I've been thinking about him.'" Jim reads aloud. He's chosen a lower-class urban accent for the voice. "Really? And he's my mate."
Sebastian shrugs. He dials down the volume on the television a couple notches. "You never told me to change him. I think he's getting attached."
"Attached is right," Jim says, giving a low whistle. Sebastian peeks over his shoulder; he's brought up all the emails Brian's sent to that account, just over a dozen in total. "You didn't tell me about this. Maybe I should check my emails more often."
He clicks one at random.
"Sorry, I didn't think you cared. You don't -" Sebastian hesitates over the words. "He wants a relationship, but he doesn't know who you are. I figured he's not your type if all he has is a knot."
"Of course he isn't, don't be silly. What would I do with someone like him? Tie him to a stake and use him as bait?" Jim frowns at the screen. "Why would he want to give me a gift for my birthday? He doesn't even know me."
"He's spent your heats with you. Maybe that's enough."
"Now you're just being stupid. I'm barely human when I'm in heat." Jim looks at him. His eyes widen and he lets out a bark of laughter. "Are you annoyed? Why would you be annoyed?"
Sebastian scowls.
Jim laughs again. "Oh, Sebby, that's precious." He smothers more giggles with his fist. His shoulders shake with the effort to keep it in. "Really, it is."
Surprisingly, Jim's laughter makes something in Sebastian relax.
"Shut up," he says. "You want me to tell him anything from you?" He turns the laptop around to face him instead. "Maybe send him a picture?"
"No, of course not. Stop being stupid." He kicks Sebastian in the ankle, but gently.
They share a hotel room on their next job. They do, sometimes. It's harder to overpower two people at once and a shared room means half as much effort needed to make sure they're secure.
"Are you ever going to say something about it?" Sebastian asks, in an evening of downtime between threatening people with guns and trying not to get threatened by people with guns. They've been living in each other's pockets for three days now and aside from the few times Sebastian's caught Jim looking at him, quiet and thoughtful, Jim has made no indication that he even remembers what happened.
He thinks Jim does but he's not sure, and how pathetic is that?
Jim looks blank for a moment. His expression clears, but not fully. "Oh, the heat thing? What is there to talk about? I went into heat when it was inconvenient and you helped me." He tilts his head. "You want to do it again."
Of course he does. He covers it with a nonchalant shrug. "Maybe."
Jim's eyes slide away from Sebastian's. He shrugs. "It doesn't matter to me. If you don't want to bother with another alpha and you don't mind, you're welcome to take care of my heats for me. I like you more than the other one."
That's not what Sebastian meant.
But it answers his question, at least.
Sebastian gives in and calls, this time, when he finds himself cut loose and adrift again, unsure of what to do.
"Is anyone important dead?" Jim asks.
"Uh, no."
"Someone unimportant?"
"No."
"Oh." Jim pauses. "Sooooo?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm at home. Why?"
Jim sounds confused at the idea of Sebastian calling him when no one's dead or in need of killing, which only makes it harder for Sebastian to take a breath and say, "I've got nothing on. You mind if I come over?"
Another pause. Sebastian would give anything to know what Jim's thinking.
"You have a key. You can let yourself in."
Jim is wearing sweats and an ill-fitting T-shirt when Sebastian comes over, and again Sebastian's struck by how utterly harmless he looks when he's not working. He glances at Sebastian when the door opens. "Don't let the neighbors see how you look," he warns. "They think I'm a writer."
"What's wrong with how I look?" Sebastian looks down at himself self-consciously.
"You look like a hit man and you're carrying a gun," Jim points out from his loose sprawl on the sofa. He sets the book he was reading face-down on his chest, still open. His feet are bare and his shirt has ridden up, exposing pale skin. "They'll think I owe someone money."
Sebastian huffs a soft laugh. It's always the other way around, with Jim. Sebastian would know; he's had to make the threats, before. And burn down the buildings, before.
"I don't have anything for you," Jim continues, picking up his book. "But if you want to be here, you can. What are you doing for dinner? Do it twice, once for me too."
So, Sebastian hangs around. He drops by when he feels the urge and sometimes Jim is home and other times he isn't. It makes him feel a little pathetic - like a dog waiting for its master, but Jim's the only one who knows him now, really. Jim's the only one who can read him at a glance, can know, without needing to be told, whether he needs to be left alone or needled until he can lash out and relieve some of the pressure that builds inside him.
None of his army mates know what he's been up to, these past years. None of them know that his dishonorable discharge was the beginning, not the end, of the blood on his hands.
He only gets caught by Jim's neighbors once - by a sharp-eyed elderly woman who'd looked at him with narrowed eyes until he'd held up his key, plastered a dumb grin on his face, and said, "We're friends. He lets me stay at his place sometimes."
Then, she'd baked him a pie and called him a nice boy. When Jim found out, he'd laughed so hard he'd turned blue in the face.
Jim doesn't tell him to fuck off, except that he sometimes does. But he never sounds like he means it, like he minds ordering takeaway for two or having to budge over to let Sebastian sit next to him on the sofa.
They are at Jim's flat when his heat hits - cutting it close, because they'd been in Tokyo just a couple days before, recently enough that Sebastian's still trying to shake off the jet lag.
Sebastian mentions it first. "You're in heat," because Jim has been fidgeting on the sofa for several minutes now. He can see the outline of Jim's hard prick against his trousers.
Jim licks his lips and tilts his head back. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. "Not yet, I think," he says. "Without an alpha, I still have time. I'm still in control. For now, anyway."
"Oh. Do you want me to...?" Sebastian reaches out but stops before his hand makes contact with Jim's shoulder.
Jim starts to shake his head, then pauses, as if something's occurred to him. "Do you want to? You don't have to. I can wait."
But Sebastian doesn't want to wait, so he curls his fingers over Jim's shoulder and kisses him. Jim meets him halfway. He slides his hands under Sebastian's shirt and kisses him back, rough and demanding.
It starts differently, this time. Jim is no less desperate, no less urgent, but he doesn't beg. He doesn't mewl or whimper or plead for Sebastian to fuck him (he orders the last and the bite in his voice sends a shiver down Sebastian's spine). He runs the pads of his fingers instead of their nails over Sebastian's back, sucks on his throat instead of bites it. His eyes, when Sebastian meets them, are alert and aware.
Sebastian fucks him over the arm of the sofa, then turns Jim around and sucks him off. Jim comes in his mouth and pets his hair, then snaps his fingers next to Sebastian's ear. Sebastian looks up, still licking the taste of Jim's come out of his mouth.
"While I can still -" Jim's lips twist for a moment, "think. I have a toy in my room. In the box on the floor. For when I'll need you to knot me."
Sebastian swallows thickly. "Okay," he says.
They move to the bed. Sebastian can't chart the exact moment that Jim's heat comes to the fore. He can't detect the moment his desire changes from wanting to needing, the moment he loses control, but he can see the signs after it happens, when Jim opens his mouth and instead of saying "hmmm, that's nice," or "do that again, but harder," he says "please, I need you."
Sebastian fills Jim with his cock and then the thick dildo when his cock's not enough. The whole time Jim buries his face in his arms and begs, muffled, "Please, please I need you to mount me, please." He pins Jim to the bed with his body and Jim scratches lines of fire into his shoulders, wraps legs around his waist, twists to let Sebastian inside.
This time, when Jim's heat breaks and he wakes under one of Sebastian's arms, Sebastian pulls away to give him space. He watches Jim reach between his legs to take hold of the dildo Sebastian had left inside him, deflating the knot as he pulls it out.
Jim looks at him. There's a bruise on his neck that Sebastian had put there. He doesn't pull away when Sebastian touches it then spreads his fingers, letting them curl around Jim's throat.
"Don't squeeze," Jim warns. He laughs when Sebastian lets go.
"You okay? Heat over?"
Jim pokes at the bruises on his hips. He fits his hand over them; they don't fit, of course. His hands are smaller than Sebastian's. At Sebastian's question, he takes a deep breath, then licks his lips. "Yes, thank you. You were very solicitous."
Sebastian wants, very badly, to kiss him.
Something about that must show in his face, because Jim is suddenly there, too close to focus on, their foreheads pressed together. His eyes bore into Sebastian's.
"I hate when you look at me like that," Sebastian complains, fighting the urge to cringe backwards. He looks away when Jim puts a hand on his chest, then knocks Jim's hand away when he tries to measure the pulse at Sebastian's throat. "Don't. I'm not one of your toys."
"Are you sure?"
Sebastian doesn't answer. Jim is looking at him curiously when he turns back.
"Do you want to be?"
With Jim, silence is as good as a confession. Sebastian knows he knows when his expression shifts to one of genuinely surprise. "Why, Seb." Jim slides his arm around Sebastian's waist. "You could have just said," Jim says, and kisses him.
This time, everything changes.
Now, when Jim stretches and catches Sebastian watching out of the corner of his eye, he grins and beckons Sebastian closer. He lets Sebastian trace his fingers over Jim's back, his sides, the delicate bones of his wrist. He presses Sebastian into walls and licks his way into Sebastian's mouth, his hands on Sebastian's shoulders to hold him still.
The first time someone catches them together, Sebastian on his knees for Jim in the middle of a job while they're waiting for more intel. The man who catches them spits at Sebastian and calls him a disgusting pervert. Jim shoots him in the face without a moment's hesitation. When the intel arrives, he finishes the meeting as if he hasn't noticed the spray of blood on his shirt or the bled-out corpse on the floor.
That night, Jim works two fingers in and out of Sebastian's arse - stretching him, while Sebastian twists and swears and tells him to stop teasing, you fucking bastard. He presses a kiss to the side of Sebastian's throat and promises, as he pushes into Sebastian, "No one but me is allowed to hurt you. I'll kill anyone who tries."
They work out of warehouses and rented offices still, to keep the evidence and their current civilian lives separate. But when Jim finishes for the night, closing folders and shutting down his computer and leaving notes to himself in an unreadable, messy shorthand, Sebastian is there, waiting for him.
Jim pickpockets his keys or hooks his fingers in Sebastian's belt loops or just bumps their shoulders. He tilts his head to the door and grins with one side of his mouth and both his eyes, and asks, "Coming?"
And Sebastian says what he always says - with the tilt of his eyes and the set of his shoulders and now, newly, the drag of his fingers and mouth across skin, which is, "Always."
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.
Part One
"Sometimes being around alphas can induce a heat," Jim says sulkily, when they're in the car. He has Coulson's phone in his hands, scrolling through the contacts on it, but with none of the focus he normally exhibits.
They have hotel rooms booked at two separate hotels. Sebastian looks at Jim. "You didn't think of this before we flew out to meet a bunch of fucking alphas?"
Jim scowls at him, cheeks flushed red. With anger, or the heat, or the actual heat, Sebastian has no idea. "It's never happened to me before. Shut up. Let me think." He closes his eyes.
His eyes are still closed when Sebastian pulls up to his hotel.
"Do you want me to call Brian? It'll take less than a day to get him here." He'll come, if Sebastian calls him.
Jim's eyes snap open. "Who?"
"Brian. Your mate?" Brian, who's sent Sebastian nearly a dozen emails, all of them about "getting to know Jim better" or trying to set up a date. Brian, who'd said, "I really feel like he and I have, you know, a bond between us", to Sebastian, even though he doesn't even know what Jim does when he's not fucking alphas in hotel rooms.
Jim chews on his lower lip distractedly. He glances out the window. "I don't have a mate."
"Well, he thinks he's your mate. He'd been your alpha for your last three heats."
Jim lights up with recognition. He fidgets in his seat. "Oh, him. So you have been using the same alpha. I thought you were."
"Yeah, him," Sebastian agrees, inordinately amused. "If I call now, I can probably get him a flight -"
"Don't bother," Jim interrupts. "He annoys me. It's fine when he's mounting me, but after, ugh. Boring. But I need -" He stops and shifts again.
"What do you need? Do you want me to find someone who -"
"I'd rather not," Jim says, apparently too irritable to let Sebastian finish a sentence. "We're being watched so if you go out and bring me an alpha..."
Then it'll get out that Jim's an omega. And that might be all right, but it also might not be, if word gets around that Moriarty is an omega.
They move the conversation indoors before it can start to look suspicious. Once they do, Jim throws himself face-first on the bed. Sebastian's not sure if he should be concerned or not.
"Orders?"
"I can't give orders like this," Jim groans. "Fuck." He rolls his hips against the mattress, then twists, flipping over as quick and agilely as a cat. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. Sebastian's eyes are drawn, involuntarily, to the bulge at his groin and the spread of his legs, open and inviting. "I just - I want - I need -"
Sebastian's mouth feels dry. He shoves his hands into his pockets and curls his fingers into fists, fighting down the urge to reach out, to touch, to drag his hands over the slivers of pale flesh revealed as Jim's shirt and the hem of his trousers ride up.
Jim runs a hand through his hair, managing only to make it look more disheveled. He makes a low, frustrated noise, eyes closed and face flushed pink. "I just need someone to touch me."
Sebastian wants to lick him. He wants to peel off Jim's clothes and pin him to the bed and suck on his throat. He wants to taste Jim's sweat and bury his face in his neck and fuck him. He wants to hear the sounds Jim makes, soft and needy and vulnerable, and know that they're for him.
His trousers feel uncomfortably tight.
"Right," he says, and at the sound of his voice Jim's eyes slit open, watching him. Sebastian pretends not to notice the hungry way Jim's eyes rake over his body or the way Jim eyes the evidence of his arousal. "I can find someone who's discreet. We can kill him after, or say -"
"I don't want someone else," Jim interrupts. He hooks his thumbs in his belt loops and shimmies out of his trousers with quick, wriggling motions. His cock is hard, outlined clearly against his pants, and Sebastian had never really thought much about Jim's cock before but it's all he can think of now, its taste and its smell and how soft the skin would feel against his cheek or on his tongue. "I want you."
Sebastian's not an alpha. He knows he isn't, because he's never been driven mad with lust before. He's never lost sense of who he is. He's never had his vision go red with need. Alphas call it going heat-drunk.
It's never happened to Sebastian before. It never will.
But something about Jim, like this, clumsily struggling out of his clothes and flushed with desire, fidgeting and making soft, animal noises, draws Sebastian to him like a moth to a flame. Sebastian's normally ironclad self-control stretches, frays, thens finally snaps as Jim displays himself in an open invitation.
Jim's skin is fever-warm. When Sebastian touches him, pressing a hand to his flat belly, Jim arches into the touch, sucking in a sharp breath.
"Yes," he hisses, grabbing Sebastian's wrist as quickly as a striking snake, jerking him onto the bed.
Sebastian spares himself a moment of surprise as he tumbles onto Jim and the bed. Their limbs tangle together. Jim moans at the contact, rubbing their groins together, tugging at Sebastian's shirt and only managing to tangle him up in his sleeves.
"Wait, wait," Sebastian says. He has to twist away to free himself. Jim paws at him the whole time, licking and biting at his face, his throat, sliding his hands down the back of Sebastian's trousers to grab his arse.
"Fucking hell," he swears, when their bodies finally slide together, skin to skin. Jim is warm and already damp with sweat. He tastes like salt, and skin, and when Sebastian licks his throat Jim hooks a leg around Sebastian's waist and turns his face away.
"Seb," he says, blunt fingernails scratching lines of fire down Sebastian's back. His cock digs into Sebastian's belly. "Seb, please. I need - I -"
"What?" Sebastian asks, rocking his hips against Jim's, rubbing against him. "What do you need?"
"Fuck. I need - I need you to fuck me, please. Please, I need you to -" Jim grabs one of the hands Sebastian had been using to hold himself up. He presses it between his parted thighs, below his balls, where Sebastian can feel how slick his hole is.
"You're so wet," Sebastian marvels, when he slides the first finger in easily. Jim's wet, slick between his legs, and soon Sebastian's going to -
He is taken by complete surprise when Jim cuffs the side of his face.
"Sebastian," and Sebastian's never heard that tone from him before. Jim's voice stretches his name out into a plaintive whine. "Come on." He twists easily away from Sebastian's hands, turning around to offer Sebastian his arse. "Please, please. I need you now."
Sebastian swallows. "Yeah, okay. " He bends over and nuzzles the back of Jim's shoulder, inhaling deeply, letting his breath out over the soft hairs at the back of Jim's neck. But Jim won't hold still. Jim twists and presses back against him, breath coming quickly. He makes a frustrated, desperate noise when Sebastian hesitates, then growls, a growl that turns into another needy, wordless whine.
Condom, Sebastian thinks for a second. But this is Jim's room and not his, and he knows Jim doesn't carry any. Which means he shouldn't. But he wants to. He wants to fuck Jim bare, wants to mark him, wants to come inside him. And he knows Jim wants it too, right now.
So fuck the consequences, he does it anyway, thrusting into Jim's slick, eager arse in a single motion. Jim's fingers dig into the sheets. He presses back against Sebastian's cock, until their bodies are pressed flush against each other.
"Harder," Jim demands, voice muffled against his forearm.
"Fuck," Sebastian swears again. Jim's so sexy like this, impaled on his cock, arse up and begging for more. Most of the time he's buttoned up in suits that make him look untouchable, and even when he isn't, he's still got a shield around himself, some aura of confidence and danger that's basically the same thing.
But not now. Now, Jim's stripped bare of everything but the need, of the heat. His breath hitches with every thrust, his whole body rocking with the force. Sebastian wants to wreck him. He wants to hurt him, enough that Jim will remember this tomorrow and the day after. He wants Jim to see himself in the mirror and see marks that Sebastian put there. He tightens his grip on Jim's hips to hold him more securely and Jim's hands scratch at the sheets, fingers clenching and unclenching. Sweat beads on his back.
"More," Jim begs, face still buried in his arm. The knuckles of his hand, buried in the sheets, are white.
Except, Sebastian knows, that Jim can't actually come like this. He can fuck Jim all night but Jim won't come. Not like this. He needs to be knotted.
Jim makes muffled whimpering sounds, gasps and moans against his arm. He presses back against Sebastian with each thrust and can't seem to stop moving, twisting and writhing like he needs -
"Here," Sebastian says. He spreads his open hand over the small of Jim's back, pressing him against the bed. Jim twists when Sebastian pulls out of him, makes an incoherent yearning sound that only stops when Sebastian replaces his cock with his fingers, sliding three of them at once into Jim's body, easy because he is already stretched loose.
Jim's fluids are thick and slippery around his fingers. Sebastian draws his fingers free, adding his little finger. Four and now Jim's shoulders twist and his muscles twitch, under Sebastian's hand on his back. He takes deep, gasping breaths when Sebastian presses his hand in further. The ring of muscle around Sebastian's fingers stretches slowly, tight around his hand until Sebastian can tuck his knuckles just inside Jim's hole.
He brushes his thumb around the edge of where Jim's body yields for him. Jim's inner muscles clench and unclench around his fingers.
"Do you want more?"
"Please. Please, more, please." Jim begs. His voice is thick, choked. His hand scratches at the sheets. Sebastian runs his other hand up Jim's back. He pushes down on the spot between Jim's shoulders, palm flat against his sweat-slick skin, then stares at the sight, at his hand on Jim's back, open and possessive.
"Okay," Sebastian murmurs, mostly to himself. He takes a deep breath. "Okay, I've got you."
Thumb now, added to his other fingers. He presses them into Jim's greedy, eager hole, fascinated at the way Jim just takes it, muscles stretching to accommodate him, passage slick and welcoming, tight around him.
Jim's breath comes in harsh, noisy gasps as Sebastian presses inside him. He stops only when his hand is fully inside, when the heel of his hand disappears and Jim's hole closes around the skin of his wrist. Jim makes a noise - it sounds like he's in pain and Sebastian would worry, except that Jim rocks backwards, fucking himself - slowly, carefully, on Sebastian's hand, curled into a fist within him.
Sebastian rotates his hand and Jim lets out another gasp, pushing up against Sebastian's palm holding him down. "Good?" he asks, but he already knows the answer because the noises Jim makes are pornographic, are sex, go straight to Sebastians groin and make him want.
Jim nods anyway, the back of his head bobbing up and down in Sebastian's vision, until he goes still with a final shiver, rippling down his muscles. He's coming, from just this, his cock twitching and jerking, spurting onto the bedspread. His body tenses and his muscles spasm around Sebastian's fist, squeezing and relaxing and squeezing again.
If Sebastian were an alpha, it'd be his cock there and Jim would be milking it, coaxing thick spurts of semen into him, encouraging Sebastian to flood his arse with his seed. He isn't. They can't. But they can still do this - Sebastian's fist in his arse and Jim's body open to him, vulnerable and willing.
Jim's breathing slows from its frantic pace. His muscles relax around Sebastian's hand after several more minutes pass. Sebastian runs his fingers through the hair on the back of his head, stroking gently. Jim makes a soft, contented sound. A sated sound that turns into a whimper when Sebastian finally, carefully, withdraws his hand. Jim's hole is loose now when Sebastian presses his thumb to it, still slick with arousal.
Now that Jim's done, Sebastian takes himself in hand. His cock jumps eagerly when he wraps his fingers around himself. His own desire, banked earlier by his concentration, flares when he shifts his focus, making himself comfortable.
He lies down on the bed next to Jim, who shifts closer to him and slides a hand over Sebastian's hip, warm and affectionate and easy, like it's something they have been doing for weeks, for months, for years. They are close enough to be sharing the same breath, close enough that the back of Sebastian's hand brushes against Jim's belly with each stroke.
Sebastian mouths Jim's jaw, his throat, his bare shoulder. He inhales deeply until Jim's smell and taste and warmth fills the entirety of his awareness. He brings his own pleasure higher and higher until his orgasm finally rocks through him, face buried in the space where Jim's throat meets his shoulder.
His hand on Sebastian's hip feels like a brand.
Sebastian wakes to Jim practically mauling him. He is all hands and all mouth, fingers raking over Sebastian's torso with just a hint of nail. His teeth are on Sebastian's throat. It's much more sexy than it should be.
"Sebastian," Jim moans, sliding his thigh between Sebastian's legs. "Please. I need you." He sucks on Sebastian's throat, humming pleased against the skin when Sebastian grabs his arse.
"I love it when you beg," Sebastian says. Jim's wet again when Sebastian slides two exploratory fingers down his crack. He makes an eager noise when Sebastian presses the tip of his index finger inside him, considering.
"Do it," Jim says, so Sebastian does.
Jim wakes him three more times, after that.
Jim is asleep in his arms. He is warm in the way only other living creatures can be warm. Sebastian kisses the back of his neck and tightens his arm around Jim's waist when he begins to stir, idly stroking his fingers down Jim's belly.
Jim tenses in his arms.
Sebastian freezes, uncertain.
Jim's head turns slowly as he takes in his surroundings. His eyes flicker briefly to Sebastian's arm, then away. "Hmm," he murmurs softly. He taps his fingers on the sheets, then smooths them after several seconds.
"Are you okay?" Sebastian asks awkwardly. He'd never, before, with an omega. He's not sure what's supposed to come next. He's not sure what Jim remembers or if there's anything he should do, now that it seems to be over.
"Hmm," Jim says again. He twists to face Sebastian. His forearms brace him against Sebastian's chest. It puts several inches of space between them. "Interesting."
"What is?"
Jim looks thoughtful. "I've never fucked a beta during a heat before."
Sebastian isn't sure how to respond to that. Luckily for him, Jim doesn't wait for him to say anything. He pushes Sebastian's arm off him with no hesitation at all and gets off the bed.
"Don't forget to reschedule the flight we missed for sometime after tomorrow," he says, heading naked to the bathroom. There are bite marks on his shoulders and throat, and several small bruises on his hips. This time, Sebastian's the one who put them there. He's the one who pressed his open mouth against Jim's throat, who dug his fingertips into his hips, who fucked him open and raw and made him beg for more.
Sebastian thinks he should feel something - some sort of triumph, maybe, or satisfaction, but he doesn't.
He wakes later from a light doze at the sound of Jim clicking his tongue at him. Jim's dressed again, in the clothes he'd worn the day before. The collar of his shirt hides the bruise on his neck. "I'm taking your hotel room, since the sheets in mine are filthy. Don't bother me for 24 hours unless you've killed someone."
He limps when he leaves, but only barely.
Sebastian spends the next twenty-four hours alternating between sleeping and trying to figure out if he ought to feel guilty, wondering if Jim is angry or upset or something worse, something related to the sometimes-bitter twist that comes to his mouth when he says the word omega. He wonders how things will change between them, if it means Jim's his now.
He reschedules their missed flight back to London for the next day and packs Jim's things for him. This he's done before. They've swapped hotel rooms in the past, just never for this reason.
Jim is himself when he shows his face again. He is confident and untouchable and ever so slightly mocking when he looks at Sebastian, as if he knows something about Sebastian that he himself doesn't.
"You have a little something on your face," he says, amused. He motions to Sebastian's cheek and throat.
"Yeah. I noticed." The 'something' is beard burn all over his jaw and throat. Jim had been the one to put it there. Jim, by contrast, is pristine. A part of Sebastian wants to tug down the collar of his shirt and rub his thumb down Jim's throat to expose the mark he'd left, but he doesn't. He wouldn't dare.
"Maybe if word gets out about this, they'll assume you're the omega," Jim comments. He's smirking. Laughter glitters behind his eyes. "Won't that be handy."
Sebastian rolls his eyes. Jim laughs and makes him drive so he can people-watch from the passenger's seat. And just like that, it never happened.
Everything goes on as normal.
The thing is, Jim actually pays Sebastian a rather generous retainer just to sit around and be at his beck and call whenever he does need him. But in all the times when he's not called, when he's not hanging around as Jim's guard-slash-assassin-slash-assistant, Jim never seems to care where he is or what he does.
Sebastian fills in the days by going shooting, by working out, by visiting the few friends he still has from his time in the army. At night, he goes to bars and drinks a couple cheap beers and pretends he isn't waiting for a call.
Jim calls and he comes, but when he doesn't, Sebastian waits. He's not sure when or how it happened, that this has become his new life - treading water and waiting to be summoned.
The worst part of it, he thinks, is that it's not the waiting that bothers him.
It's that two and a half weeks ago, Sebastian pressed Jim into the bed and fucked him. He put his fingers and his cock and his hand inside him, traced the path of his fingers with his tongue and marked it with bruises.
They haven't talked about it since. Jim hasn't talked to him since. That's normal when nothing's going on.
But he's starting to wish it wasn't.
Jim shows up eventually, of course. He lets himself into Sebastian's apartment without even an explanation, just a nod of acknowledgement, and makes himself comfortable. He's dressed young this time - well, casual, but casual makes him look young. He hasn't styled his hair. His fringe falls limply on his forehead in a way that makes him look easily confused and harmless.
The overall effect is a bit like looking into a tiger's cage and seeing a kitten. After having already thrown a deer in there and gotten back only scraps of fur and bone.
"Was wondering when you'd show up," Sebastian comments. It is as much a greeting as they ever exchange.
"Had to go somewhere. Family stuff," Jim says. He pulls a face and it seems sincere. Sebastian is surprised enough at the idea of Jim having a family (at the idea of Jim having a family and letting people know about it) that when Jim asks to borrow his laptop, he pushes it across the coffee table without comment.
"'Hey, Sebastian, it's about that time again but I haven't heard from you yet. Was just wondering how everything's doing. How's Jim? Let him know I've been thinking about him.'" Jim reads aloud. He's chosen a lower-class urban accent for the voice. "Really? And he's my mate."
Sebastian shrugs. He dials down the volume on the television a couple notches. "You never told me to change him. I think he's getting attached."
"Attached is right," Jim says, giving a low whistle. Sebastian peeks over his shoulder; he's brought up all the emails Brian's sent to that account, just over a dozen in total. "You didn't tell me about this. Maybe I should check my emails more often."
He clicks one at random.
"Sorry, I didn't think you cared. You don't -" Sebastian hesitates over the words. "He wants a relationship, but he doesn't know who you are. I figured he's not your type if all he has is a knot."
"Of course he isn't, don't be silly. What would I do with someone like him? Tie him to a stake and use him as bait?" Jim frowns at the screen. "Why would he want to give me a gift for my birthday? He doesn't even know me."
"He's spent your heats with you. Maybe that's enough."
"Now you're just being stupid. I'm barely human when I'm in heat." Jim looks at him. His eyes widen and he lets out a bark of laughter. "Are you annoyed? Why would you be annoyed?"
Sebastian scowls.
Jim laughs again. "Oh, Sebby, that's precious." He smothers more giggles with his fist. His shoulders shake with the effort to keep it in. "Really, it is."
Surprisingly, Jim's laughter makes something in Sebastian relax.
"Shut up," he says. "You want me to tell him anything from you?" He turns the laptop around to face him instead. "Maybe send him a picture?"
"No, of course not. Stop being stupid." He kicks Sebastian in the ankle, but gently.
They share a hotel room on their next job. They do, sometimes. It's harder to overpower two people at once and a shared room means half as much effort needed to make sure they're secure.
"Are you ever going to say something about it?" Sebastian asks, in an evening of downtime between threatening people with guns and trying not to get threatened by people with guns. They've been living in each other's pockets for three days now and aside from the few times Sebastian's caught Jim looking at him, quiet and thoughtful, Jim has made no indication that he even remembers what happened.
He thinks Jim does but he's not sure, and how pathetic is that?
Jim looks blank for a moment. His expression clears, but not fully. "Oh, the heat thing? What is there to talk about? I went into heat when it was inconvenient and you helped me." He tilts his head. "You want to do it again."
Of course he does. He covers it with a nonchalant shrug. "Maybe."
Jim's eyes slide away from Sebastian's. He shrugs. "It doesn't matter to me. If you don't want to bother with another alpha and you don't mind, you're welcome to take care of my heats for me. I like you more than the other one."
That's not what Sebastian meant.
But it answers his question, at least.
Sebastian gives in and calls, this time, when he finds himself cut loose and adrift again, unsure of what to do.
"Is anyone important dead?" Jim asks.
"Uh, no."
"Someone unimportant?"
"No."
"Oh." Jim pauses. "Sooooo?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm at home. Why?"
Jim sounds confused at the idea of Sebastian calling him when no one's dead or in need of killing, which only makes it harder for Sebastian to take a breath and say, "I've got nothing on. You mind if I come over?"
Another pause. Sebastian would give anything to know what Jim's thinking.
"You have a key. You can let yourself in."
Jim is wearing sweats and an ill-fitting T-shirt when Sebastian comes over, and again Sebastian's struck by how utterly harmless he looks when he's not working. He glances at Sebastian when the door opens. "Don't let the neighbors see how you look," he warns. "They think I'm a writer."
"What's wrong with how I look?" Sebastian looks down at himself self-consciously.
"You look like a hit man and you're carrying a gun," Jim points out from his loose sprawl on the sofa. He sets the book he was reading face-down on his chest, still open. His feet are bare and his shirt has ridden up, exposing pale skin. "They'll think I owe someone money."
Sebastian huffs a soft laugh. It's always the other way around, with Jim. Sebastian would know; he's had to make the threats, before. And burn down the buildings, before.
"I don't have anything for you," Jim continues, picking up his book. "But if you want to be here, you can. What are you doing for dinner? Do it twice, once for me too."
So, Sebastian hangs around. He drops by when he feels the urge and sometimes Jim is home and other times he isn't. It makes him feel a little pathetic - like a dog waiting for its master, but Jim's the only one who knows him now, really. Jim's the only one who can read him at a glance, can know, without needing to be told, whether he needs to be left alone or needled until he can lash out and relieve some of the pressure that builds inside him.
None of his army mates know what he's been up to, these past years. None of them know that his dishonorable discharge was the beginning, not the end, of the blood on his hands.
He only gets caught by Jim's neighbors once - by a sharp-eyed elderly woman who'd looked at him with narrowed eyes until he'd held up his key, plastered a dumb grin on his face, and said, "We're friends. He lets me stay at his place sometimes."
Then, she'd baked him a pie and called him a nice boy. When Jim found out, he'd laughed so hard he'd turned blue in the face.
Jim doesn't tell him to fuck off, except that he sometimes does. But he never sounds like he means it, like he minds ordering takeaway for two or having to budge over to let Sebastian sit next to him on the sofa.
They are at Jim's flat when his heat hits - cutting it close, because they'd been in Tokyo just a couple days before, recently enough that Sebastian's still trying to shake off the jet lag.
Sebastian mentions it first. "You're in heat," because Jim has been fidgeting on the sofa for several minutes now. He can see the outline of Jim's hard prick against his trousers.
Jim licks his lips and tilts his head back. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. "Not yet, I think," he says. "Without an alpha, I still have time. I'm still in control. For now, anyway."
"Oh. Do you want me to...?" Sebastian reaches out but stops before his hand makes contact with Jim's shoulder.
Jim starts to shake his head, then pauses, as if something's occurred to him. "Do you want to? You don't have to. I can wait."
But Sebastian doesn't want to wait, so he curls his fingers over Jim's shoulder and kisses him. Jim meets him halfway. He slides his hands under Sebastian's shirt and kisses him back, rough and demanding.
It starts differently, this time. Jim is no less desperate, no less urgent, but he doesn't beg. He doesn't mewl or whimper or plead for Sebastian to fuck him (he orders the last and the bite in his voice sends a shiver down Sebastian's spine). He runs the pads of his fingers instead of their nails over Sebastian's back, sucks on his throat instead of bites it. His eyes, when Sebastian meets them, are alert and aware.
Sebastian fucks him over the arm of the sofa, then turns Jim around and sucks him off. Jim comes in his mouth and pets his hair, then snaps his fingers next to Sebastian's ear. Sebastian looks up, still licking the taste of Jim's come out of his mouth.
"While I can still -" Jim's lips twist for a moment, "think. I have a toy in my room. In the box on the floor. For when I'll need you to knot me."
Sebastian swallows thickly. "Okay," he says.
They move to the bed. Sebastian can't chart the exact moment that Jim's heat comes to the fore. He can't detect the moment his desire changes from wanting to needing, the moment he loses control, but he can see the signs after it happens, when Jim opens his mouth and instead of saying "hmmm, that's nice," or "do that again, but harder," he says "please, I need you."
Sebastian fills Jim with his cock and then the thick dildo when his cock's not enough. The whole time Jim buries his face in his arms and begs, muffled, "Please, please I need you to mount me, please." He pins Jim to the bed with his body and Jim scratches lines of fire into his shoulders, wraps legs around his waist, twists to let Sebastian inside.
This time, when Jim's heat breaks and he wakes under one of Sebastian's arms, Sebastian pulls away to give him space. He watches Jim reach between his legs to take hold of the dildo Sebastian had left inside him, deflating the knot as he pulls it out.
Jim looks at him. There's a bruise on his neck that Sebastian had put there. He doesn't pull away when Sebastian touches it then spreads his fingers, letting them curl around Jim's throat.
"Don't squeeze," Jim warns. He laughs when Sebastian lets go.
"You okay? Heat over?"
Jim pokes at the bruises on his hips. He fits his hand over them; they don't fit, of course. His hands are smaller than Sebastian's. At Sebastian's question, he takes a deep breath, then licks his lips. "Yes, thank you. You were very solicitous."
Sebastian wants, very badly, to kiss him.
Something about that must show in his face, because Jim is suddenly there, too close to focus on, their foreheads pressed together. His eyes bore into Sebastian's.
"I hate when you look at me like that," Sebastian complains, fighting the urge to cringe backwards. He looks away when Jim puts a hand on his chest, then knocks Jim's hand away when he tries to measure the pulse at Sebastian's throat. "Don't. I'm not one of your toys."
"Are you sure?"
Sebastian doesn't answer. Jim is looking at him curiously when he turns back.
"Do you want to be?"
With Jim, silence is as good as a confession. Sebastian knows he knows when his expression shifts to one of genuinely surprise. "Why, Seb." Jim slides his arm around Sebastian's waist. "You could have just said," Jim says, and kisses him.
This time, everything changes.
Now, when Jim stretches and catches Sebastian watching out of the corner of his eye, he grins and beckons Sebastian closer. He lets Sebastian trace his fingers over Jim's back, his sides, the delicate bones of his wrist. He presses Sebastian into walls and licks his way into Sebastian's mouth, his hands on Sebastian's shoulders to hold him still.
The first time someone catches them together, Sebastian on his knees for Jim in the middle of a job while they're waiting for more intel. The man who catches them spits at Sebastian and calls him a disgusting pervert. Jim shoots him in the face without a moment's hesitation. When the intel arrives, he finishes the meeting as if he hasn't noticed the spray of blood on his shirt or the bled-out corpse on the floor.
That night, Jim works two fingers in and out of Sebastian's arse - stretching him, while Sebastian twists and swears and tells him to stop teasing, you fucking bastard. He presses a kiss to the side of Sebastian's throat and promises, as he pushes into Sebastian, "No one but me is allowed to hurt you. I'll kill anyone who tries."
They work out of warehouses and rented offices still, to keep the evidence and their current civilian lives separate. But when Jim finishes for the night, closing folders and shutting down his computer and leaving notes to himself in an unreadable, messy shorthand, Sebastian is there, waiting for him.
Jim pickpockets his keys or hooks his fingers in Sebastian's belt loops or just bumps their shoulders. He tilts his head to the door and grins with one side of his mouth and both his eyes, and asks, "Coming?"
And Sebastian says what he always says - with the tilt of his eyes and the set of his shoulders and now, newly, the drag of his fingers and mouth across skin, which is, "Always."