As Long As You Are Mine 1/2 (Sherlock BBC)
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Title: As Long As You Are Mine
Pairing: Jim Moriarty/Sebastian Moran, Jim Moriarty/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: R
Word Count: 12,100 words
Warnings: Omegaverse. Don't read if you don't know what it is. References to non-con.
Content: Omegaverse, mpreg, angst.
Summary: But outside the week or so surrounding Jim's heat, only one in every twelve or thirteen, he looks and smells and tastes just like any other man and a part of Sebastian forgets that he's an omega. He's just another bloke, one that Sebastian works for and fucks and sometimes wakes up with.
He can't forget it now.
He looks at Jim and his eyes are drawn to Jim's belly, to its slight curve and the protective caress of his fingers over it. There are moments now where Jim looks peaceful, content. Those are the moments where Sebastian looks at him and sees, omega.
Notes: Sequel to We'll Burn Like Falling Stars Tonight.
"I want a child," Jim declares. He drags a wet cloth over the bloody gash in Sebastian's arm. It stings like a bitch. Sebastian grimaces.
"What for?" he asks.
Jim's a surprisingly soft touch with the cloth. It barely even hurts when he uses the tweezers to dig bits of grit out of Sebastian's skin. Though that might be the alcohol he'd downed dulling the pain.
"I don't know," Jim answers thoughtfully. "Don't you think having a little human running around might be fun? It'd be like having a pet."
Sebastian thinks Jim's teasing, but he's not sure. "Maybe," he admits and takes another healthy swig from the bottle of whiskey he's holding in his other arm. He thinks of Jim with a kid, no doubt teaching it something awful or patting it on the head like a dog (he does that to Sebastian, so it's not even a stretch of the imagination). The thought makes him chuckle. "You really want one?"
The mask of Jim's playfulness falls away, sudden and unexpected. "I do," he says. When Jim's masks are gone he looks empty, dead inside like Sebastian feels sometimes when the air is desert-dry and every noise sounds like a gunshot.
Sebastian coughs uncomfortably. "We could get one," he offers. "There's a lot of places you can get a kid, no questions asked. Hell, it'd probably be better for them, because -" He stops because Jim is staring at him blankly.
"I meant," Jim says pointedly and the curve of his returning smirk brings humanity leeching back into his face, "I want to bear a child."
Sebastian carries the thought in his head for several days, turning it this way and that, examining it from all angles. Jim with a child. Jim, with child. A small, wriggling, little human bearing Jim's hair and Jim's laugh.
Jim as a mother. Jim pregnant, belly swollen and round.
He has trouble wrapping his mind around the idea but then, he's never understood the appeal of children. He's never looked at one and thought, I want one.
They say biological imperative is stronger for dogs.
"But who would the father be?" Sebastian asks. He can't. He's not an alpha. And Jim doesn't normally like alphas.
Jim doesn't need to ask what he's talking about. He's been thinking about it too and Sebastian wonders how long, how many months Jim has wanted this before telling him. Jim's impulsive, but never about the big things. For every plan, he has a half-dozen backup plans, a hundred different strings to pull to make sure things go exactly the way he wants.
There's no way he'd mention this to Sebastian until everything else was ready, until the only missing part of the puzzle was him.
"Sherlock Holmes. Aside from his brother, he's the only one that's ever been a challenge. And records say that Mycroft Holmes is a beta, so it can't be him. We'd have beautiful babies."
Sebastian sputters. "How does that - You want to have a kid with Sherlock Holmes?"
"Well. With is a strong word. I just need his genetic material. I'm not planning on keeping him around."
"How are you going to convince him?"
"I don't need to convince him," Jim says. "I was thinking of skipping my contraceptives during my next heat cycle and showing up in his flat. No chance of cross-contamination, either. Watson's a beta too, like you."
"Right, okay," Sebastian says. "That gives you a month."
Most of the time, Jim doesn't ask what Sebastian thinks. About anything, really. Half the time it's because he already knows and the other half the time Sebastian assumes that Jim genuinely doesn't give a fuck.
But sometimes, rarely, Jim does talk to him.
They're at Sebastian's place tonight. He's half-asleep, dozing on Jim's shoulder, when a finger prods him in the ribs. He turns his face into Jim's shoulder and tightens his arm around Jim's waist, grumbling in protest.
Jim pokes him again. "Seb," he says softly, then walks his fingers up Sebastian's side.
When Jim doesn't say anything more, Sebastian tilts his head to look up at him. "What?"
"If I had a child," he begins, then pauses again.
Sebastian props himself up on his arms. Even with his eyes adjusted to the light, Jim's face is a blur of shadows. He suppresses the urge to trace them with his fingertips. "Yeah?"
Jim takes Sebastian's jaw in his hand. He tilts Sebastian's head until they are eye to eye. "This is me," Jim says. "Asking permission."
"I didn't know you asked permission," Sebastian comments.
Jim lets go. "I might still do it if you say no. But I want to hear you say it. If you don't want me to, I want to hear you say it."
Sebastian lets himself fall back down, until he is half-lying on Jim's chest. Jim cups the back of Sebastian's head. His fingers toy with Sebastian's hair. Sebastian closes his eyes. Jim doesn't ask things of him. He gives orders and does whatever he wants. It's always up to Sebastian to follow or be left behind.
Except, apparently, now.
"I don't know anything about having kids. I never did," Sebastian says. "But if you want to, then sure. Why not?"
Sebastian knows what it means, when Jim says I want a child. He knows what it means Jim will be doing. He knows what it means when Jim disappears during the week his heat is scheduled. He has the dates marked in his phone because those are the dates Jim begs. Those are the days he writhes, sobs, yields to everything Sebastian does to him and comes back for more.
But it'd never made him feel the way it does now. Something dark and ugly and possessive unfurls in his chest because those were Sherlock's teeth on Jim's throat, Sherlock's prick in Jim's arse, Sherlock's hands all over Jim.
What he wouldn't give to shoot Sherlock fucking Holmes in the head right now, for taking something that shouldn't be his.
"Whatever you're thinking, stop it. You look like you're going to explode," Jim complains as he pulls off his coat. He drops it on the floor, then kicks off his shoes. Sebastian's eyes are drawn, once again, to the livid bruise that curls around Jim's throat.
"That looks like it hurts," he comments, nodding at it.
Jim cranes his neck for a second before realizing the futility of his actions. "Don't remember getting it," he says flippantly. "Teeth, probably. Alphas like to bite."
Jim turns down the hall. He's limping. Sebastian follows automatically, already bracing himself for what he knows he'll see when Jim takes off his clothes - the marks, the bruises. Not because they'd have hurt, but because it means someone else claimed him. Claimed him because Sebastian couldn't, because when Jim went into heat, he went to someone else.
He's brought up short when Jim whirls to face him. His masks are up, eyes flinty. His grin is as sharp as a razor blade.
"What is it? Can you smell him on me? Does it bother you? Do you want to do something about it?"
Sebastian fucking hates when Jim puts on an act at him, like he's just another mark, another client, another fool Jim plays like a fiddle. A part of him knows, deep down, that he probably is. But he doesn't like to be reminded of it.
But this is Sebastian's flat and he knows Jim's place is nicer. It matters, if only a little bit, that Jim came here instead of going to his own place, knowing Sebastian would be here, waiting for him.
He's not going to play this game.
"Stop it," Sebastian says. Jim doesn't resist when Sebastian turns him back around. Jim's shoulders feel nice beneath his palms. He gives Jim a light push. "Have you showered yet? Come on, go take a fucking shower, you're disgusting."
Jim laughs. It might even be genuine.
Jim takes the pregnancy test while they are in Russia waiting for several of their mafia contacts to come through with some things they'll need for a client. Sebastian doesn't even know he'd done it until the test drops onto the file he's reading.
"Negative," Jim says. Sebastian can't make anything out from his tone. "What do you think?"
Sebastian's mind goes blank. The question sounds dangerously loaded. "You can take another one to be sure?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "No, stupid. I already did that. Negative. It didn't take. I'll try again next time. What do you think about Durov?" He taps the file pointedly.
Sebastian lets out his breath in relief. Jim gives him a knowing, mocking look. Sebastian flips him off. "He acts like an informant. I don't trust him."
Jim nods. If Sebastian had seen it, Jim would have too, of course. "Anything else?"
"He used to run with a different crew. Art thieves. Don't know why he's a mercenary again. We should probably find out. There's leverage in the file if we need to use force." Durov has three living relatives - two sisters and a father. Whoever had compiled the file on him knew where they lived.
"Hmm," Jim agrees. "Find who he belongs to and what they're looking for. Maybe we'll be able to give someone a present."
Jim goes to Sherlock during his next heat and while he's gone, Sebastian doesn't think about it. He doesn't think about Jim out of control, submissive and needy. He doesn't think about Sherlock - cold, genius, alpha Sherlock - fucking Jim, tying with him, filling him with semen while he begs to be bred.
Sherlock wouldn't be gentle about it. He'd be heat-drunk, rough and possessive. They'd both be. But there's no love lost between them and Sebastian's not sure what to expect when Jim returns, if he'll be able to get away with having a tryst with Sherlock twice.
But there's nothing he can do about it so he shoves all that as far from his mind as possible and focuses on other things - on the work, on the telly, on the handful of things he can do that don't involve Jim.
Jim comes limping home after being gone for not even thirty hours this time, looking again like he could use a long, hot shower. He bares his teeth at Sebastian when he catches Sebastian staring. It's animalistic, rough still with the loss of control Jim normally exhibits right after a heat.
Sebastian rolls his eyes and pretends he isn't thinking, again, about Sherlock's cock in Jim's arse, splitting him open. About Sherlock and Jim and something dark and primal between them that Sebastian could never hope to emulate, no matter how hard he tries. He clamps down on the way he feels, the anger and frustration, and pretends - pretends he's someone else, someone who doesn't care.
It's safest, he's found, to pretend he doesn't care about Jim when Jim is in one of his moods.
"Whatever you're going to say, don't," Sebastian says. "If you want to be a bitch, you can do it at your own place."
Jim's mouth goes tight and ugly. "You're jealous," he says, staring at Sebastian as if he's a bug under a microscope. His head tilts and the motion is devoid of emotion, reptilian. "You pretend you aren't. You pretend you're more than that," and instead of being sneering or superior, instead he sounds like a computer. Sebastian can't tell if it's an act or not. "But we both know you aren't. You think you're entitled to me and now that you're finding out you aren't, it just makes you so angry, doesn't it? Does it help, the anger? Does it make you feel better?"
No. It really fucking doesn't, because when push comes to shove Sebastian knows that Jim's not afraid to lose him or throw him away if he stops being useful. But the reverse isn't true, for him.
I hate when you're like this, he thinks, but he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks off to the side and says, "Yeah. It makes me feel better. I'm gonna go to bed."
Jim checks his phone. "It's so late it's starting to get early. You stayed up."
"I wanted to make sure you weren't dead. It's Sherlock Holmes, remember? It's not exactly safe to go skulking around him so often. His brother's got him under watch."
Jim makes a dismissive gesture. "Easy to avoid. But even if I get caught, I'm sure he wouldn't kill me," he says breezily. "Where's the fun in that?"
Sometimes, a part of Sebastian wishes very quietly that Jim wouldn't talk so flippantly about putting his life in danger. "Night," he says pointedly and shoulders past Jim on the way to his room. Jim smells like sex; he tries not to think about it.
Later, Jim's bony elbows and knees dig into his back as Jim crawls over him on the bed. Half-asleep, Sebastian shoves halfheartedly at him. Jim shoves him back. His skin is damp and his hair drips cold water onto Sebastian's cheek, the sensation brief and unpleasant before Jim's thumb wipes it away.
He makes a low, disgruntled sound when the blankets are pulled away from his body, releasing a wave of cold air onto his skin, but it's only for a moment. Jim's body tucks comfortably against his side and the warmth returns when Jim pulls the covers over them both. As he falls back asleep, he hears, briefly, Jim's voice murmuring indistinctly to him in a language he doesn't recognize.
The thing - the mating, the heat, the breeding, Sebastian's never really known what to call it, sticks this time.
Jim is practically bouncing when he comes up to Sebastian at the shooting range. He's dressed in civvies - not a tourist this time, just blue collar, a little rough around the edges.
He lifts the earmuffs from Sebastian's head and says into his ear, "Just checked. Positive." His accent is flawless Midwestern because they're in America right now, waiting for Sebastian's current hit to arrive for a conference.
Sebastian glances at Jim out of the corner of his eye. Jim beams at him. Sebastian pulls the earmuffs completely off, letting them fall around his neck. "Yeah?"
His eyes drop to Jim's belly. It's completely flat. Jim rolls his eyes at him. "Don't be silly, I'm only a month along. You can't see anything yet. But I'm going to have a baby," he says, voice singsong. "A little bitty me. I'm so excited. Aren't you?"
It makes Sebastian grin even when he doesn't mean to. Jim's happiness is infectious, sometimes. "Congratulations," he says and starts to reach out, before hesitating. They're not alone; there are two others at the range today, and the attendant besides.
Jim notices Sebastian's sudden reluctance, of course. He reacts by throwing his arms around Sebastian's body (Sebastian's careful to hold his gun out of the way because the last time he hadn't, Jim had grabbed it from him) and giving him a showy, sloppy kiss.
"Mmm," he says when they break apart, licking his lips. His grin is feral. It's sexy as hell. Suddenly, finishing the half-clip Sebastian has left to shoot seems unimportant. "Gunpowder."
Jim oscillates between gleeful and brooding for the rest of their trip. He claps his hands when Sebastian kills their mark, then falls abruptly silent when they pass a family, the mother pushing a toddler in a carriage while they walk down the street. He makes obscene porn noises when Sebastian hits up an old contact to see what sorts of guns he has available for sale, then stops with a distracted frown.
Sebastian notices the way Jim's hand spreads out casually over his lower belly, casual and unnoticeable except for the fact that it's not a habit Jim's ever had before. Guns aren't safe to keep around children.
Nobody else notices.
He drags his thumb regretfully along the barrel of a real beauty, stealing a glance at Jim's pensive face reflected in its shine. "Maybe another time," he says and folds shut the case.
On the plane home, they fly economy class. Sebastian would normally spend the flight alternating between boredom and white-hot rage except for that fact that Jim has one of Sebastian's hands between two of his smaller ones and is playing with his fingertips.
Jim sucks his lower lip into his mouth. One of his fingers runs over Sebastian's nails. "Do you think I'll need to kill Moriarty?"
Sebastian's watched him burn lesser, more temporary identities in the past. Each time, he'd destroyed them completely, cutting off all contacts and abandoning all his resources as if he were really dead. But Moriarty's the biggest identity he knows about. He's the one Jim spends most of his time as and the one Sebastian's openly associated with.
"You're thinking about burning him?" His fingers curl around one of Jim's hands, unintentional. Jim smirks at him, just for a moment, before the expression is wiped away.
"Don't worry. If I did switch things up, I'd take you with me." Jim twists one hand lazily in the air. "And I could always bring him back. Maybe in a few years, after it's born." The hand slices downwards. "Or maybe not."
"Not sure how you'd raise a kid otherwise," Sebastian admits. "It wouldn't be a good idea to let people know Moriarty's an omega."
"Hmm." Jim brings his hands to his lips and with it, Sebastian's hand as well. A man several seats over gives Sebastian a dirty look. Jim doesn't seem to notice. Not that he needs Jim to defend him. Sebastian glares at the man, who drops his eyes, but not before sneering. "I can't be seen while I'm showing, so at the least I'll have to disappear for half a year."
"That going to be a problem?"
Jim's eyes flick to his. "Don't be stupid. Of course not. It's not like anything I do is important. It's just to pass the time and I'll have other things to pass the time, by then." He looks off into the distance again.
His lips part automatically when Sebastian strokes his fingertips over them.
Soon after that, Moriarty stops responding to client communications and Sebastian, too, does the same. It wouldn't be enough to convince someone like the elder Holmes, or even the younger one, but Jim dismisses that casually.
"Yes, yes, I know," he says, "but it's close enough for the rest of them. And I'm not afraid of them."
Sebastian trails his hand down Jim's side, from his shoulder to hip. He doesn't mean anything by it, except maybe the unspoken admission that Jim feels nice to touch, but it makes Jim press against his side with a smug smirk as if he's given something away.
"Shouldn't you be?" Sebastian asks. "They've both been gunning for you for months, even since before you set Adler on Sherlock and fucked up that thing with the plane. It sounds like they'd jump to get in the way of your plans."
"And that, my dear Sebastian," Jim says into his ear, flicking his tongue against Sebastian's earlobe, "is because you are a beta and not an alpha. Biological imperative. He doesn't have any other get. He's never bred before. But he wants to."
Jim rolls his hips against Sebastian's and rakes possessive fingers down his chest. "Oh, how he wants to," he murmurs into Sebastian's ear. His voice shifts. "And now that he's finally succeeded, now that he's finally managed to knock someone up, he wouldn't dare risk anything happen to his unborn child."
Sebastian turns into Jim's embrace. He curls his arm around Jim's waist, holding their bodies together. Jim smells like Sebastian's shampoo. "So it's about Sherlock, then," he says, unsurprised. "Insurance against him."
Jim bites him on the cheek, hard.
"Ow, you fucking bastard!" Sebastian snaps immediately. He shoves Jim away from him. Jim catches his left wrist, then twists. Pain explodes up and down his arm. "Fucking hell! What'd you go and do that for? I think I'm bleeding!" He brings his free hand to prod gingerly at his face.
Jim lets go. "You're not bleeding. And it's not about Sherlock. It's because I want to have a baby. Sherlock's just... a perk."
Sebastian rubs his arm but there's nothing wrong with it - it just hurts like hell. When he doesn't say anything further, Jim rolls his eyes.
"I don't want to hear about this again," he warns and lets go.
The problem Sebastian has with Jim is that Jim has - is that there are walls around him, ones that Sebastian can't see, in the most unexpected of places. Every once in a while, regular-like, he'll walk right into one and get rebuffed - sometimes kindly, sometimes not.
Then, Jim will look at him, but he won't doing anything. He won't offer an explanation or change things or even say if he really wants Sebastian to back off. He will pad naked around Sebastian's flat or hold his hand in public or curl sweetly against Sebastian's side when they watch a movie together. But if Sebastian cups Jim's face between his hands too gently or gives any other hint that what's between them might be something more than casual, Jim draws back and the shields slot into place, layer by layer.
He stretches out the distance between them until Sebastian is reminded, again, that even if he might be Jim's, Jim isn't his.
And the worst of it is, every single time it happens, Sebastian doesn't know what to do, what to say, how to change it, because all Sebastian wants is to know him. The real him, whoever he is when he isn't playing a part.
He'd tried to bring it up, once. The aftereffects of that short-lived conversation had been enough to hurt for weeks.
Jim doesn't go into heat at the end of his cycle. It's confirmation.
"So," Sebastian says. He presses his hand to Jim's flat stomach and tries to remember everything he knows about pregnancies, omega pregnancies in particular. It's not much.
Jim puts his hand over Sebastian's and twists their fingers together."Yes, I know," he says. "Pregnant, knocked up, bun in the oven, breeding, et cetera. We've been over this already, Sebastian. You're not normally this slow."
"So? What are you going to do?" They've been lying under the radar for weeks now and Jim still hasn't told him what to do next.
Jim laughs and moves Sebastian's hand lower. "I have a few ideas. I'll tell you more later."
Jim's 'few ideas', apparently, involve telling Sherlock Holmes about the baby. It makes sense, if Sebastian forces himself to think about it. There's no insurance if Sherlock doesn't know.
But it bothers him, still. Which is stupid. He knows it's stupid. But he'd liked how things were before, when it was a secret kept by just the two of them. When there were things Sebastian knew about Jim that even the might Sherlock Holmes didn't.
"You're different when you're doing something for him," Sebastian comments, watching Jim practically bounce in excitement as he works. Jim's always excited when Sherlock Holmes is involved - he's actually a challenge, Jim says.
"No," Jim corrects. "I'm different when it's just you. I'm Moriarty for him. Do you think he's told John he fucked me? Ooooh, do you think Mycroft knows?" He pronounces Mycroft's name with sadistic glee.
"Doubt it," Sebastian answers. "I thought they were both betas."
Jim snaps his fingers. "Right. They'd never understand so there's no point trying to explain. He'd know that. Well. Good for me, then. That means I get to tell them."
His grin is feral.
"Do you think I'm starting to show yet?" Jim's pulled his shirt up. He turns this way and that as Sebastian looks at him.
"I don't know," Sebastian admits finally. Jim's belly is rounder now than it used to be, he thinks, but he sees Jim on the regular so it's hard to tell. He looks the same as he did yesterday. "Maybe. It looks like you might've put on a couple pounds."
"Close enough," Jim declares and lobs his phone at Sebastian, who catches it. "Sherlock will be able to tell. Take a picture."
Sebastian does so. The first captures the look on Jim's face as well, smug and mocking, but for the second, he zooms in until the curve of Jim's belly fills the screen. "I thought he didn't do anything when you sent him the first message."
"That's why I'm going to send it to John. Won't that be fun. The cold, untouchable Sherlock Holmes explaining to his doctor that he got - what do they call it? Heat drunk? And just couldn't stop himself."
"But he couldn't," Sebastian points out. It's not even a lie. That's what the heat is to alphas.
Jim looks at him. "Seb, I'm sorry I had sex with Sherlock. But I was in heat and he's an alpha and I just couldn't help myself. He just showed up and my body took over and the next thing I knew, I was naked and his knot was inside me and we were tied. It didn't mean anything, I promise, even though he's an alpha and you're a beta and you and I will never have what -"
Sebastian chucks Jim's phone at his face.
Point taken.
It'd be a lie to say Sebastian doesn't find the whole thing a little weird now that Jim's pregnancy is a reality and not just another one of his crazy plans that don't make sense until the very last piece falls into place.
He never expected this to be a part of his life. He never expected pregnancy to be a part of his life. Because he's a beta. Because he's gay (and even if it's not something he admits aloud, he hasn't fought with himself about it since uni) and that means he's never going to have a child. He's never going to raise a little human being that he's had a part in creating.
He came to terms with that years ago. He let the door swing shut on that part of his life when he realized he was never going to marry and have a wife.
So now, having this, it's strange. Unfamiliar. He'd never thought about it before, the fact that Jim being an omega means Jim can have children. Means that Jim wants to have children, wants it badly enough to go to Sherlock Bloody Holmes and offer himself up like a - like a dog to be bred.
He doesn't understand it.
He's not an alpha. He might have had friends who were alphas before, but it's not the same as being one. He's never done the things alphas do. He's never mated, he's never bonded. He's never felt the hunger they talk about, the way pheromones and hormones turn them into little more than animals. He doesn't know when Jim is in heat until the man's practically crawling out of his skin with frustration and need, and even then he doesn't feel it.
He wonders, sometimes, how Jim could possibly want a kid right here, right now, even though Sebastian knows it's just a thing omegas need to do. They call it breeding. Mating, mounting, breeding. Heats, knots, claims. Like animals. That's where the slur comes from - dog.
But outside the week or so surrounding Jim's heat, only one in every twelve or thirteen, he looks and smells and tastes just like any other man and a part of Sebastian forgets that he's an omega. He's just another bloke, one that Sebastian works for and fucks and sometimes wakes up with.
He can't forget it now.
He looks at Jim and his eyes are drawn to Jim's belly, to its slight curve and the protective caress of his fingers over it. There are moments now where Jim looks peaceful, content. Those are the moments where Sebastian looks at him and sees, omega.
Jim's belly grows rounder and rounder with each passing day. He seems content to remain in London, occupying himself with - well, Sebastian's not sure exactly.
"Doctor's appointments, research, planning," Jim says, ticking each point off on his fingers, when Sebastian asks. "Incubating a fetus is hard work and that's hardly going to change once I have it. Nothing you need to worry yourself over, of course. And needling Sherlock. That's always fun." He looks at Sebastian. "You're bored. You don't have anything to do."
Sebastian rocks on his heels. "Haven't had a job since Moriarty disappeared." He's had queries, of course. When Jim had abandoned the Moriarty identity, the first thing everyone had done had been to go to Sebastian. But he doesn't have a response for those, if he doesn't want to give anything away. "It's been a bit too quiet."
Jim looks at him, expressionless, for long enough that Sebastian starts wondering if he said something wrong. Maybe he should have sucked it up or (and he thinks this with a sense of mild alarm) focused instead on helping Jim with his plans for the fetus and doing whatever it was prospective fathers did when their wives were pregnant.
Not that he was really a part of this, was he?
A grin, sharp and amused, cracks Jim's face. He snaps his fingers in front of Sebastian's nose. "We can change that." His grin slants sideways. "Jim'll fix it. Let's play a game."
Jim provides him with a list of files, old files, people who needed to one day die but weren't important enough or hadn't gotten in his way enough to have it actually happen. Easy pickings. They'd be beneath Sebastian's pay grade under normal circumstances but he hasn't got the resources to arrange anything more elaborate right now.
Jim has extra identities for him too, ones they'd had lying around in a storage unit for years. "You might as well use them if you have nothing better to do," Jim says carelessly.
So Sebastian does.
Sebastian's not stupid. Not a single one of the targets he's been given are based in Great Britain. He's being sent away and it's certainly not just for his own benefit, because there are a dozen other tasks he could be doing now that wouldn't take him so far away. Jim has something up his sleeve and whatever it is, it doesn't involve him.
But it doesn't matter what Jim's planning. A mission's a mission.
Four of the lower-security targets are staying in Mexico City. Sebastian dyes his hair brown and flies there as Richard Kincaide, dirty police officer turned hired muscle. He can't bring his rifle on the plane so he leaves it with Jim and picks something up after landing. Then, he gently, gently insinuates himself into the existing criminal network.
He feels like he's slumming. He is slumming it, because Rick Kincaide doesn't have a reputation yet and only barely exists on paper. Rick Kincaide's got a police officer's training and maybe a few years' experience on the wrong side of the law, while Sebastian has over a decade served as SAS and can hit a mark in the heart from half a street away in a crosswind with one arm tied behind his back.
Literally. They'd tested it, once.
Rick Kincaide can't get access to anything challenging, but he knows the right places to be to hear the things Sebastian wants to know.
To: sholmes@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk
BCC: rkincaide@hushmail.com
From: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
Subject: Congratulations, it's a girl!
Attachment: ultrasound-01.png
xoxo,
Jim
To: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
From: rkincaide@hushmail.com
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Numbers 8, 9, and 10 have been taken care of. Someone turned Cooper so I took care of that too. Most people who know Moriarty's disappeared think you're dead but a few think it's a trick to see who's really loyal.
How you feeling? Any other updates?
To: rkincaide@hushmail.com
From: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Loyal? Why would they be loyal if I'm gone? I'm expecting permanent damage. Well, not permanent. Substantial. We'll probably lose North America entirely once they realize all existing arrangements are null and void.
Anyway, John Watson's out for blood, but that's hardly new. He and Mycroft both found out. Sherlock's in hot water. It probably doesn't help that I've been paying him visits in person. Oh well! Sherlock will protect me if anything gets dangerous.
I had another appointment today. The doctor says she's healthy and developing normally. What do you think of Bellatrix for a name? Bella for short.
To: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
From: rkincaide@hushmail.com
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Harry Potter is stupid and if you call her Bella everyone's going to think you named her after the girl in the vampire series. Elizabeth, Sophia, Anna?
I'm moving in on 4 sometime this week and that will end all the easy ones in Mexico. When do you want me back in London?
To: rkincaide@hushmail.com
From: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Don't return back for two weeks, at least. The situation's unstable. Don't worry, though! I'm perfectly safe.
Bellatrix is a star in the Orion constellation, philistine. It's his left shoulder. Andromeda? Lyra, Faye, Aurora?
Sebastian worries himself sick, of course, but he stays away (and vetoes all of Jim's dumb ideas about literally naming his kid after a star or something). Jim's good at handling things on his own, better by far than Sebastian is. In those two weeks he burns the Kincaide identity and uses another in the execution three more easy targets.
No one he talks to has any idea what happened to Moriarty. Sebastian can see his power weakening as the rumors spread. He died, he got caught, he left the business. It's a trick, it's a trap, it's an opportunity.
All are more plausible than the truth.
Part 2
Title: As Long As You Are Mine
Pairing: Jim Moriarty/Sebastian Moran, Jim Moriarty/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: R
Word Count: 12,100 words
Warnings: Omegaverse. Don't read if you don't know what it is. References to non-con.
Content: Omegaverse, mpreg, angst.
Summary: But outside the week or so surrounding Jim's heat, only one in every twelve or thirteen, he looks and smells and tastes just like any other man and a part of Sebastian forgets that he's an omega. He's just another bloke, one that Sebastian works for and fucks and sometimes wakes up with.
He can't forget it now.
He looks at Jim and his eyes are drawn to Jim's belly, to its slight curve and the protective caress of his fingers over it. There are moments now where Jim looks peaceful, content. Those are the moments where Sebastian looks at him and sees, omega.
Notes: Sequel to We'll Burn Like Falling Stars Tonight.
"I want a child," Jim declares. He drags a wet cloth over the bloody gash in Sebastian's arm. It stings like a bitch. Sebastian grimaces.
"What for?" he asks.
Jim's a surprisingly soft touch with the cloth. It barely even hurts when he uses the tweezers to dig bits of grit out of Sebastian's skin. Though that might be the alcohol he'd downed dulling the pain.
"I don't know," Jim answers thoughtfully. "Don't you think having a little human running around might be fun? It'd be like having a pet."
Sebastian thinks Jim's teasing, but he's not sure. "Maybe," he admits and takes another healthy swig from the bottle of whiskey he's holding in his other arm. He thinks of Jim with a kid, no doubt teaching it something awful or patting it on the head like a dog (he does that to Sebastian, so it's not even a stretch of the imagination). The thought makes him chuckle. "You really want one?"
The mask of Jim's playfulness falls away, sudden and unexpected. "I do," he says. When Jim's masks are gone he looks empty, dead inside like Sebastian feels sometimes when the air is desert-dry and every noise sounds like a gunshot.
Sebastian coughs uncomfortably. "We could get one," he offers. "There's a lot of places you can get a kid, no questions asked. Hell, it'd probably be better for them, because -" He stops because Jim is staring at him blankly.
"I meant," Jim says pointedly and the curve of his returning smirk brings humanity leeching back into his face, "I want to bear a child."
Sebastian carries the thought in his head for several days, turning it this way and that, examining it from all angles. Jim with a child. Jim, with child. A small, wriggling, little human bearing Jim's hair and Jim's laugh.
Jim as a mother. Jim pregnant, belly swollen and round.
He has trouble wrapping his mind around the idea but then, he's never understood the appeal of children. He's never looked at one and thought, I want one.
They say biological imperative is stronger for dogs.
"But who would the father be?" Sebastian asks. He can't. He's not an alpha. And Jim doesn't normally like alphas.
Jim doesn't need to ask what he's talking about. He's been thinking about it too and Sebastian wonders how long, how many months Jim has wanted this before telling him. Jim's impulsive, but never about the big things. For every plan, he has a half-dozen backup plans, a hundred different strings to pull to make sure things go exactly the way he wants.
There's no way he'd mention this to Sebastian until everything else was ready, until the only missing part of the puzzle was him.
"Sherlock Holmes. Aside from his brother, he's the only one that's ever been a challenge. And records say that Mycroft Holmes is a beta, so it can't be him. We'd have beautiful babies."
Sebastian sputters. "How does that - You want to have a kid with Sherlock Holmes?"
"Well. With is a strong word. I just need his genetic material. I'm not planning on keeping him around."
"How are you going to convince him?"
"I don't need to convince him," Jim says. "I was thinking of skipping my contraceptives during my next heat cycle and showing up in his flat. No chance of cross-contamination, either. Watson's a beta too, like you."
"Right, okay," Sebastian says. "That gives you a month."
Most of the time, Jim doesn't ask what Sebastian thinks. About anything, really. Half the time it's because he already knows and the other half the time Sebastian assumes that Jim genuinely doesn't give a fuck.
But sometimes, rarely, Jim does talk to him.
They're at Sebastian's place tonight. He's half-asleep, dozing on Jim's shoulder, when a finger prods him in the ribs. He turns his face into Jim's shoulder and tightens his arm around Jim's waist, grumbling in protest.
Jim pokes him again. "Seb," he says softly, then walks his fingers up Sebastian's side.
When Jim doesn't say anything more, Sebastian tilts his head to look up at him. "What?"
"If I had a child," he begins, then pauses again.
Sebastian props himself up on his arms. Even with his eyes adjusted to the light, Jim's face is a blur of shadows. He suppresses the urge to trace them with his fingertips. "Yeah?"
Jim takes Sebastian's jaw in his hand. He tilts Sebastian's head until they are eye to eye. "This is me," Jim says. "Asking permission."
"I didn't know you asked permission," Sebastian comments.
Jim lets go. "I might still do it if you say no. But I want to hear you say it. If you don't want me to, I want to hear you say it."
Sebastian lets himself fall back down, until he is half-lying on Jim's chest. Jim cups the back of Sebastian's head. His fingers toy with Sebastian's hair. Sebastian closes his eyes. Jim doesn't ask things of him. He gives orders and does whatever he wants. It's always up to Sebastian to follow or be left behind.
Except, apparently, now.
"I don't know anything about having kids. I never did," Sebastian says. "But if you want to, then sure. Why not?"
Sebastian knows what it means, when Jim says I want a child. He knows what it means Jim will be doing. He knows what it means when Jim disappears during the week his heat is scheduled. He has the dates marked in his phone because those are the dates Jim begs. Those are the days he writhes, sobs, yields to everything Sebastian does to him and comes back for more.
But it'd never made him feel the way it does now. Something dark and ugly and possessive unfurls in his chest because those were Sherlock's teeth on Jim's throat, Sherlock's prick in Jim's arse, Sherlock's hands all over Jim.
What he wouldn't give to shoot Sherlock fucking Holmes in the head right now, for taking something that shouldn't be his.
"Whatever you're thinking, stop it. You look like you're going to explode," Jim complains as he pulls off his coat. He drops it on the floor, then kicks off his shoes. Sebastian's eyes are drawn, once again, to the livid bruise that curls around Jim's throat.
"That looks like it hurts," he comments, nodding at it.
Jim cranes his neck for a second before realizing the futility of his actions. "Don't remember getting it," he says flippantly. "Teeth, probably. Alphas like to bite."
Jim turns down the hall. He's limping. Sebastian follows automatically, already bracing himself for what he knows he'll see when Jim takes off his clothes - the marks, the bruises. Not because they'd have hurt, but because it means someone else claimed him. Claimed him because Sebastian couldn't, because when Jim went into heat, he went to someone else.
He's brought up short when Jim whirls to face him. His masks are up, eyes flinty. His grin is as sharp as a razor blade.
"What is it? Can you smell him on me? Does it bother you? Do you want to do something about it?"
Sebastian fucking hates when Jim puts on an act at him, like he's just another mark, another client, another fool Jim plays like a fiddle. A part of him knows, deep down, that he probably is. But he doesn't like to be reminded of it.
But this is Sebastian's flat and he knows Jim's place is nicer. It matters, if only a little bit, that Jim came here instead of going to his own place, knowing Sebastian would be here, waiting for him.
He's not going to play this game.
"Stop it," Sebastian says. Jim doesn't resist when Sebastian turns him back around. Jim's shoulders feel nice beneath his palms. He gives Jim a light push. "Have you showered yet? Come on, go take a fucking shower, you're disgusting."
Jim laughs. It might even be genuine.
Jim takes the pregnancy test while they are in Russia waiting for several of their mafia contacts to come through with some things they'll need for a client. Sebastian doesn't even know he'd done it until the test drops onto the file he's reading.
"Negative," Jim says. Sebastian can't make anything out from his tone. "What do you think?"
Sebastian's mind goes blank. The question sounds dangerously loaded. "You can take another one to be sure?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "No, stupid. I already did that. Negative. It didn't take. I'll try again next time. What do you think about Durov?" He taps the file pointedly.
Sebastian lets out his breath in relief. Jim gives him a knowing, mocking look. Sebastian flips him off. "He acts like an informant. I don't trust him."
Jim nods. If Sebastian had seen it, Jim would have too, of course. "Anything else?"
"He used to run with a different crew. Art thieves. Don't know why he's a mercenary again. We should probably find out. There's leverage in the file if we need to use force." Durov has three living relatives - two sisters and a father. Whoever had compiled the file on him knew where they lived.
"Hmm," Jim agrees. "Find who he belongs to and what they're looking for. Maybe we'll be able to give someone a present."
Jim goes to Sherlock during his next heat and while he's gone, Sebastian doesn't think about it. He doesn't think about Jim out of control, submissive and needy. He doesn't think about Sherlock - cold, genius, alpha Sherlock - fucking Jim, tying with him, filling him with semen while he begs to be bred.
Sherlock wouldn't be gentle about it. He'd be heat-drunk, rough and possessive. They'd both be. But there's no love lost between them and Sebastian's not sure what to expect when Jim returns, if he'll be able to get away with having a tryst with Sherlock twice.
But there's nothing he can do about it so he shoves all that as far from his mind as possible and focuses on other things - on the work, on the telly, on the handful of things he can do that don't involve Jim.
Jim comes limping home after being gone for not even thirty hours this time, looking again like he could use a long, hot shower. He bares his teeth at Sebastian when he catches Sebastian staring. It's animalistic, rough still with the loss of control Jim normally exhibits right after a heat.
Sebastian rolls his eyes and pretends he isn't thinking, again, about Sherlock's cock in Jim's arse, splitting him open. About Sherlock and Jim and something dark and primal between them that Sebastian could never hope to emulate, no matter how hard he tries. He clamps down on the way he feels, the anger and frustration, and pretends - pretends he's someone else, someone who doesn't care.
It's safest, he's found, to pretend he doesn't care about Jim when Jim is in one of his moods.
"Whatever you're going to say, don't," Sebastian says. "If you want to be a bitch, you can do it at your own place."
Jim's mouth goes tight and ugly. "You're jealous," he says, staring at Sebastian as if he's a bug under a microscope. His head tilts and the motion is devoid of emotion, reptilian. "You pretend you aren't. You pretend you're more than that," and instead of being sneering or superior, instead he sounds like a computer. Sebastian can't tell if it's an act or not. "But we both know you aren't. You think you're entitled to me and now that you're finding out you aren't, it just makes you so angry, doesn't it? Does it help, the anger? Does it make you feel better?"
No. It really fucking doesn't, because when push comes to shove Sebastian knows that Jim's not afraid to lose him or throw him away if he stops being useful. But the reverse isn't true, for him.
I hate when you're like this, he thinks, but he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks off to the side and says, "Yeah. It makes me feel better. I'm gonna go to bed."
Jim checks his phone. "It's so late it's starting to get early. You stayed up."
"I wanted to make sure you weren't dead. It's Sherlock Holmes, remember? It's not exactly safe to go skulking around him so often. His brother's got him under watch."
Jim makes a dismissive gesture. "Easy to avoid. But even if I get caught, I'm sure he wouldn't kill me," he says breezily. "Where's the fun in that?"
Sometimes, a part of Sebastian wishes very quietly that Jim wouldn't talk so flippantly about putting his life in danger. "Night," he says pointedly and shoulders past Jim on the way to his room. Jim smells like sex; he tries not to think about it.
Later, Jim's bony elbows and knees dig into his back as Jim crawls over him on the bed. Half-asleep, Sebastian shoves halfheartedly at him. Jim shoves him back. His skin is damp and his hair drips cold water onto Sebastian's cheek, the sensation brief and unpleasant before Jim's thumb wipes it away.
He makes a low, disgruntled sound when the blankets are pulled away from his body, releasing a wave of cold air onto his skin, but it's only for a moment. Jim's body tucks comfortably against his side and the warmth returns when Jim pulls the covers over them both. As he falls back asleep, he hears, briefly, Jim's voice murmuring indistinctly to him in a language he doesn't recognize.
The thing - the mating, the heat, the breeding, Sebastian's never really known what to call it, sticks this time.
Jim is practically bouncing when he comes up to Sebastian at the shooting range. He's dressed in civvies - not a tourist this time, just blue collar, a little rough around the edges.
He lifts the earmuffs from Sebastian's head and says into his ear, "Just checked. Positive." His accent is flawless Midwestern because they're in America right now, waiting for Sebastian's current hit to arrive for a conference.
Sebastian glances at Jim out of the corner of his eye. Jim beams at him. Sebastian pulls the earmuffs completely off, letting them fall around his neck. "Yeah?"
His eyes drop to Jim's belly. It's completely flat. Jim rolls his eyes at him. "Don't be silly, I'm only a month along. You can't see anything yet. But I'm going to have a baby," he says, voice singsong. "A little bitty me. I'm so excited. Aren't you?"
It makes Sebastian grin even when he doesn't mean to. Jim's happiness is infectious, sometimes. "Congratulations," he says and starts to reach out, before hesitating. They're not alone; there are two others at the range today, and the attendant besides.
Jim notices Sebastian's sudden reluctance, of course. He reacts by throwing his arms around Sebastian's body (Sebastian's careful to hold his gun out of the way because the last time he hadn't, Jim had grabbed it from him) and giving him a showy, sloppy kiss.
"Mmm," he says when they break apart, licking his lips. His grin is feral. It's sexy as hell. Suddenly, finishing the half-clip Sebastian has left to shoot seems unimportant. "Gunpowder."
Jim oscillates between gleeful and brooding for the rest of their trip. He claps his hands when Sebastian kills their mark, then falls abruptly silent when they pass a family, the mother pushing a toddler in a carriage while they walk down the street. He makes obscene porn noises when Sebastian hits up an old contact to see what sorts of guns he has available for sale, then stops with a distracted frown.
Sebastian notices the way Jim's hand spreads out casually over his lower belly, casual and unnoticeable except for the fact that it's not a habit Jim's ever had before. Guns aren't safe to keep around children.
Nobody else notices.
He drags his thumb regretfully along the barrel of a real beauty, stealing a glance at Jim's pensive face reflected in its shine. "Maybe another time," he says and folds shut the case.
On the plane home, they fly economy class. Sebastian would normally spend the flight alternating between boredom and white-hot rage except for that fact that Jim has one of Sebastian's hands between two of his smaller ones and is playing with his fingertips.
Jim sucks his lower lip into his mouth. One of his fingers runs over Sebastian's nails. "Do you think I'll need to kill Moriarty?"
Sebastian's watched him burn lesser, more temporary identities in the past. Each time, he'd destroyed them completely, cutting off all contacts and abandoning all his resources as if he were really dead. But Moriarty's the biggest identity he knows about. He's the one Jim spends most of his time as and the one Sebastian's openly associated with.
"You're thinking about burning him?" His fingers curl around one of Jim's hands, unintentional. Jim smirks at him, just for a moment, before the expression is wiped away.
"Don't worry. If I did switch things up, I'd take you with me." Jim twists one hand lazily in the air. "And I could always bring him back. Maybe in a few years, after it's born." The hand slices downwards. "Or maybe not."
"Not sure how you'd raise a kid otherwise," Sebastian admits. "It wouldn't be a good idea to let people know Moriarty's an omega."
"Hmm." Jim brings his hands to his lips and with it, Sebastian's hand as well. A man several seats over gives Sebastian a dirty look. Jim doesn't seem to notice. Not that he needs Jim to defend him. Sebastian glares at the man, who drops his eyes, but not before sneering. "I can't be seen while I'm showing, so at the least I'll have to disappear for half a year."
"That going to be a problem?"
Jim's eyes flick to his. "Don't be stupid. Of course not. It's not like anything I do is important. It's just to pass the time and I'll have other things to pass the time, by then." He looks off into the distance again.
His lips part automatically when Sebastian strokes his fingertips over them.
Soon after that, Moriarty stops responding to client communications and Sebastian, too, does the same. It wouldn't be enough to convince someone like the elder Holmes, or even the younger one, but Jim dismisses that casually.
"Yes, yes, I know," he says, "but it's close enough for the rest of them. And I'm not afraid of them."
Sebastian trails his hand down Jim's side, from his shoulder to hip. He doesn't mean anything by it, except maybe the unspoken admission that Jim feels nice to touch, but it makes Jim press against his side with a smug smirk as if he's given something away.
"Shouldn't you be?" Sebastian asks. "They've both been gunning for you for months, even since before you set Adler on Sherlock and fucked up that thing with the plane. It sounds like they'd jump to get in the way of your plans."
"And that, my dear Sebastian," Jim says into his ear, flicking his tongue against Sebastian's earlobe, "is because you are a beta and not an alpha. Biological imperative. He doesn't have any other get. He's never bred before. But he wants to."
Jim rolls his hips against Sebastian's and rakes possessive fingers down his chest. "Oh, how he wants to," he murmurs into Sebastian's ear. His voice shifts. "And now that he's finally succeeded, now that he's finally managed to knock someone up, he wouldn't dare risk anything happen to his unborn child."
Sebastian turns into Jim's embrace. He curls his arm around Jim's waist, holding their bodies together. Jim smells like Sebastian's shampoo. "So it's about Sherlock, then," he says, unsurprised. "Insurance against him."
Jim bites him on the cheek, hard.
"Ow, you fucking bastard!" Sebastian snaps immediately. He shoves Jim away from him. Jim catches his left wrist, then twists. Pain explodes up and down his arm. "Fucking hell! What'd you go and do that for? I think I'm bleeding!" He brings his free hand to prod gingerly at his face.
Jim lets go. "You're not bleeding. And it's not about Sherlock. It's because I want to have a baby. Sherlock's just... a perk."
Sebastian rubs his arm but there's nothing wrong with it - it just hurts like hell. When he doesn't say anything further, Jim rolls his eyes.
"I don't want to hear about this again," he warns and lets go.
The problem Sebastian has with Jim is that Jim has - is that there are walls around him, ones that Sebastian can't see, in the most unexpected of places. Every once in a while, regular-like, he'll walk right into one and get rebuffed - sometimes kindly, sometimes not.
Then, Jim will look at him, but he won't doing anything. He won't offer an explanation or change things or even say if he really wants Sebastian to back off. He will pad naked around Sebastian's flat or hold his hand in public or curl sweetly against Sebastian's side when they watch a movie together. But if Sebastian cups Jim's face between his hands too gently or gives any other hint that what's between them might be something more than casual, Jim draws back and the shields slot into place, layer by layer.
He stretches out the distance between them until Sebastian is reminded, again, that even if he might be Jim's, Jim isn't his.
And the worst of it is, every single time it happens, Sebastian doesn't know what to do, what to say, how to change it, because all Sebastian wants is to know him. The real him, whoever he is when he isn't playing a part.
He'd tried to bring it up, once. The aftereffects of that short-lived conversation had been enough to hurt for weeks.
Jim doesn't go into heat at the end of his cycle. It's confirmation.
"So," Sebastian says. He presses his hand to Jim's flat stomach and tries to remember everything he knows about pregnancies, omega pregnancies in particular. It's not much.
Jim puts his hand over Sebastian's and twists their fingers together."Yes, I know," he says. "Pregnant, knocked up, bun in the oven, breeding, et cetera. We've been over this already, Sebastian. You're not normally this slow."
"So? What are you going to do?" They've been lying under the radar for weeks now and Jim still hasn't told him what to do next.
Jim laughs and moves Sebastian's hand lower. "I have a few ideas. I'll tell you more later."
Jim's 'few ideas', apparently, involve telling Sherlock Holmes about the baby. It makes sense, if Sebastian forces himself to think about it. There's no insurance if Sherlock doesn't know.
But it bothers him, still. Which is stupid. He knows it's stupid. But he'd liked how things were before, when it was a secret kept by just the two of them. When there were things Sebastian knew about Jim that even the might Sherlock Holmes didn't.
"You're different when you're doing something for him," Sebastian comments, watching Jim practically bounce in excitement as he works. Jim's always excited when Sherlock Holmes is involved - he's actually a challenge, Jim says.
"No," Jim corrects. "I'm different when it's just you. I'm Moriarty for him. Do you think he's told John he fucked me? Ooooh, do you think Mycroft knows?" He pronounces Mycroft's name with sadistic glee.
"Doubt it," Sebastian answers. "I thought they were both betas."
Jim snaps his fingers. "Right. They'd never understand so there's no point trying to explain. He'd know that. Well. Good for me, then. That means I get to tell them."
His grin is feral.
"Do you think I'm starting to show yet?" Jim's pulled his shirt up. He turns this way and that as Sebastian looks at him.
"I don't know," Sebastian admits finally. Jim's belly is rounder now than it used to be, he thinks, but he sees Jim on the regular so it's hard to tell. He looks the same as he did yesterday. "Maybe. It looks like you might've put on a couple pounds."
"Close enough," Jim declares and lobs his phone at Sebastian, who catches it. "Sherlock will be able to tell. Take a picture."
Sebastian does so. The first captures the look on Jim's face as well, smug and mocking, but for the second, he zooms in until the curve of Jim's belly fills the screen. "I thought he didn't do anything when you sent him the first message."
"That's why I'm going to send it to John. Won't that be fun. The cold, untouchable Sherlock Holmes explaining to his doctor that he got - what do they call it? Heat drunk? And just couldn't stop himself."
"But he couldn't," Sebastian points out. It's not even a lie. That's what the heat is to alphas.
Jim looks at him. "Seb, I'm sorry I had sex with Sherlock. But I was in heat and he's an alpha and I just couldn't help myself. He just showed up and my body took over and the next thing I knew, I was naked and his knot was inside me and we were tied. It didn't mean anything, I promise, even though he's an alpha and you're a beta and you and I will never have what -"
Sebastian chucks Jim's phone at his face.
Point taken.
It'd be a lie to say Sebastian doesn't find the whole thing a little weird now that Jim's pregnancy is a reality and not just another one of his crazy plans that don't make sense until the very last piece falls into place.
He never expected this to be a part of his life. He never expected pregnancy to be a part of his life. Because he's a beta. Because he's gay (and even if it's not something he admits aloud, he hasn't fought with himself about it since uni) and that means he's never going to have a child. He's never going to raise a little human being that he's had a part in creating.
He came to terms with that years ago. He let the door swing shut on that part of his life when he realized he was never going to marry and have a wife.
So now, having this, it's strange. Unfamiliar. He'd never thought about it before, the fact that Jim being an omega means Jim can have children. Means that Jim wants to have children, wants it badly enough to go to Sherlock Bloody Holmes and offer himself up like a - like a dog to be bred.
He doesn't understand it.
He's not an alpha. He might have had friends who were alphas before, but it's not the same as being one. He's never done the things alphas do. He's never mated, he's never bonded. He's never felt the hunger they talk about, the way pheromones and hormones turn them into little more than animals. He doesn't know when Jim is in heat until the man's practically crawling out of his skin with frustration and need, and even then he doesn't feel it.
He wonders, sometimes, how Jim could possibly want a kid right here, right now, even though Sebastian knows it's just a thing omegas need to do. They call it breeding. Mating, mounting, breeding. Heats, knots, claims. Like animals. That's where the slur comes from - dog.
But outside the week or so surrounding Jim's heat, only one in every twelve or thirteen, he looks and smells and tastes just like any other man and a part of Sebastian forgets that he's an omega. He's just another bloke, one that Sebastian works for and fucks and sometimes wakes up with.
He can't forget it now.
He looks at Jim and his eyes are drawn to Jim's belly, to its slight curve and the protective caress of his fingers over it. There are moments now where Jim looks peaceful, content. Those are the moments where Sebastian looks at him and sees, omega.
Jim's belly grows rounder and rounder with each passing day. He seems content to remain in London, occupying himself with - well, Sebastian's not sure exactly.
"Doctor's appointments, research, planning," Jim says, ticking each point off on his fingers, when Sebastian asks. "Incubating a fetus is hard work and that's hardly going to change once I have it. Nothing you need to worry yourself over, of course. And needling Sherlock. That's always fun." He looks at Sebastian. "You're bored. You don't have anything to do."
Sebastian rocks on his heels. "Haven't had a job since Moriarty disappeared." He's had queries, of course. When Jim had abandoned the Moriarty identity, the first thing everyone had done had been to go to Sebastian. But he doesn't have a response for those, if he doesn't want to give anything away. "It's been a bit too quiet."
Jim looks at him, expressionless, for long enough that Sebastian starts wondering if he said something wrong. Maybe he should have sucked it up or (and he thinks this with a sense of mild alarm) focused instead on helping Jim with his plans for the fetus and doing whatever it was prospective fathers did when their wives were pregnant.
Not that he was really a part of this, was he?
A grin, sharp and amused, cracks Jim's face. He snaps his fingers in front of Sebastian's nose. "We can change that." His grin slants sideways. "Jim'll fix it. Let's play a game."
Jim provides him with a list of files, old files, people who needed to one day die but weren't important enough or hadn't gotten in his way enough to have it actually happen. Easy pickings. They'd be beneath Sebastian's pay grade under normal circumstances but he hasn't got the resources to arrange anything more elaborate right now.
Jim has extra identities for him too, ones they'd had lying around in a storage unit for years. "You might as well use them if you have nothing better to do," Jim says carelessly.
So Sebastian does.
Sebastian's not stupid. Not a single one of the targets he's been given are based in Great Britain. He's being sent away and it's certainly not just for his own benefit, because there are a dozen other tasks he could be doing now that wouldn't take him so far away. Jim has something up his sleeve and whatever it is, it doesn't involve him.
But it doesn't matter what Jim's planning. A mission's a mission.
Four of the lower-security targets are staying in Mexico City. Sebastian dyes his hair brown and flies there as Richard Kincaide, dirty police officer turned hired muscle. He can't bring his rifle on the plane so he leaves it with Jim and picks something up after landing. Then, he gently, gently insinuates himself into the existing criminal network.
He feels like he's slumming. He is slumming it, because Rick Kincaide doesn't have a reputation yet and only barely exists on paper. Rick Kincaide's got a police officer's training and maybe a few years' experience on the wrong side of the law, while Sebastian has over a decade served as SAS and can hit a mark in the heart from half a street away in a crosswind with one arm tied behind his back.
Literally. They'd tested it, once.
Rick Kincaide can't get access to anything challenging, but he knows the right places to be to hear the things Sebastian wants to know.
To: sholmes@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk
BCC: rkincaide@hushmail.com
From: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
Subject: Congratulations, it's a girl!
Attachment: ultrasound-01.png
xoxo,
Jim
To: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
From: rkincaide@hushmail.com
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Numbers 8, 9, and 10 have been taken care of. Someone turned Cooper so I took care of that too. Most people who know Moriarty's disappeared think you're dead but a few think it's a trick to see who's really loyal.
How you feeling? Any other updates?
To: rkincaide@hushmail.com
From: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Loyal? Why would they be loyal if I'm gone? I'm expecting permanent damage. Well, not permanent. Substantial. We'll probably lose North America entirely once they realize all existing arrangements are null and void.
Anyway, John Watson's out for blood, but that's hardly new. He and Mycroft both found out. Sherlock's in hot water. It probably doesn't help that I've been paying him visits in person. Oh well! Sherlock will protect me if anything gets dangerous.
I had another appointment today. The doctor says she's healthy and developing normally. What do you think of Bellatrix for a name? Bella for short.
To: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
From: rkincaide@hushmail.com
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Harry Potter is stupid and if you call her Bella everyone's going to think you named her after the girl in the vampire series. Elizabeth, Sophia, Anna?
I'm moving in on 4 sometime this week and that will end all the easy ones in Mexico. When do you want me back in London?
To: rkincaide@hushmail.com
From: wQjmt8Dvr376@hushmail.com
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Don't return back for two weeks, at least. The situation's unstable. Don't worry, though! I'm perfectly safe.
Bellatrix is a star in the Orion constellation, philistine. It's his left shoulder. Andromeda? Lyra, Faye, Aurora?
Sebastian worries himself sick, of course, but he stays away (and vetoes all of Jim's dumb ideas about literally naming his kid after a star or something). Jim's good at handling things on his own, better by far than Sebastian is. In those two weeks he burns the Kincaide identity and uses another in the execution three more easy targets.
No one he talks to has any idea what happened to Moriarty. Sebastian can see his power weakening as the rumors spread. He died, he got caught, he left the business. It's a trick, it's a trap, it's an opportunity.
All are more plausible than the truth.
Part 2