As Long As You Are Mine 2/2 (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.
"Just got out of the airport. You still staying at the last place?" Sebastian hefts his bag (light, carrying only things that could get past airport security) over one shoulder as he waits in the queue for a cab.
"Hmm," Jim says thoughtfully. "No."
"Okay?" Sebastian asks. There are two people in front of him. As he watches, one shoves her suitcase into the waiting cab and climbs in after it. "Then where are you?"
"Hmm," Jim says again and nothing else.
It occurs to him that maybe Jim doesn't want him to come over.
"Nevermind," Sebastian says. "I can go back to mine. I couldn't be arsed to end the lease when I left anyway, so it's still there."
"Don't be stupid," Jim says immediately. "Stop thinking, if you're only ever going to be wrong. I'm in a place right now that's being provided for and monitored by the Ice Man. I'm trying to figure out if it's safe for you. It might be. Then again, it might not! Want to find out?"
Sebastian thinks about it. "What can he do? Shoot me in front of witnesses?"
"Well," Jim says, and then more pointedly, "well."
Sebastian wouldn't put it past him either. But at the same time, he hasn't seen Jim in nearly a month and he misses him. Misses him in a bunch of stupid ways he tries not to think about. "Just give me the address. I'll take my chances."
The address leads him to a posh-looking penthouse roughly half a mile away from Baker Street. He walks in into the building and is quickly flanked by two well-dressed men who are wearing dark glasses even though it's overcast outside. They're both wearing wireless earphones hooked over an ear. Sebastian hates them on sight. Wankers.
"Colonel Moran," one of them says pleasantly. He matches Sebastian step for step towards the lift and when they turn together, Sebastian catches sight of the gun-shaped bulge beneath his jacket. "How was your trip?"
"Fine, thank you," Sebastian says as politely as he can. Jim says that when he speaks like that, it makes him sound like he's got a massive stick up his arse. "Are you going to be escorting me to Jim?"
His guards exchange glances.
"For now," the other one says.
They join him in the lift. In all honesty, Sebastian's a little surprised he doesn't catch a beating or the barrel of a gun pressed into his face in the time between when the doors close and when they open again. But they stay a precise several inches to the side and behind him and don't say a single word.
Jim's waiting for him.
"Sebby!" he exclaims exuberantly and throws himself into Sebastian's arms. He's beaming brightly, too brightly and too excitedly to be actually sincere. "I've missed you so much!"
Sebastian catches Jim around the shoulders. Jim's belly, large now and noticeably pregnant, presses against him firmly, but Jim doesn't pull away. Sebastian's not quite sure what's going on, but there are at least two pairs of eyes on them and he knows how to take a hint.
"I missed you too," he says, loud enough for their guards to hear, and buries his face in Jim's neck and his familiar scent. It's hardly a hardship. He runs his hands down Jim's back, then up his front, until he has Jim's face cupped between his palms. "How are you feeling?"
I really did miss you, he thinks and tries not to let it show on his face.
Jim's smile is wicked. "Oh, you know," he says airily, hands on Sebastian's chest. "I've had worse. I'll tell you about it inside. Sherlock's," and Sebastian spares himself a moment of resentment at the way Jim's voice sounds, curling comfortably and affectionately around the alpha's name, "trying to convert the second bedroom in Baker Street to a nursery. What a laugh. I'll tell you all about it when we're inside."
Sebastian's tails try to follow them in. Jim blocks them bodily. They seem unwilling, at least for now, to press the matter. They hover in front of him instead, glowers of displeasure on their faces.
Jim's smile is gratingly false in the moments before he closes the door. "I'm sorry, boys. You can't come in here. The landlord doesn't allow pets. You know how it is."
Jim's mask drops the moment the door closes. It's subtle, but Sebastian's used to subtle. It's in the angle of his shoulders, the balance of his hips, and the way his smirk makes him look like a predator again, despite the vulnerable swell of his pregnant belly. It makes him look familiar again.
Sebastian wonders, briefly, if people stare at Jim now when he goes out. They would, of course. Omegas are rare, pregnant people are rare, and pregnant omegas rarest of all. He wonders if it bothers him.
It must.
But Jim looks happy still, and smug, like a cat who'd just tipped over a fish bowl. He insinuates himself into Sebastian's personal space again, this time sliding an arm around his waist. He tugs on a lock of Sebastian's hair and comments, "Brown? Could be worse."
He presses his lips to Sebastian's cheek, then tilts his head and murmurs casually, "Sweep the place for bugs. I took care of the bedroom, but couldn't be bothered with the rest of it. Pay extra attention to places I wouldn't be able to reach."
Sebastian finds three in the living room - two audio ones and a small camera tucked inside the bookshelf, two in the kitchen, and another two in the bath. He double-checks the bedroom and finds none, then drops the lot on the table in front of Jim, who is lying on the sofa. He's got a laptop (an unfamiliar one Sebastian doesn't recognize) propped on his belly.
Jim glances at the small pile, then sweeps them all up and drops them into a glass of water. They sink slowly to the bottom. "Thanks. Maybe now I'll have some privacy."
Sebastian nods at the laptop. "Is that safe for the baby?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "Do you think I'd be doing it if it weren't? It's perfectly safe. It'd burn my skin before it got hot enough to hurt her. Come sit with me."
Sebastian does. Jim promptly uses him as a backrest, eyes still on his screen. He's writing an email from an account Sebastian doesn't recognize. Sebastian catches the words 'cargo' and 'drop-off'. He is somehow not surprised.
"I did miss you," he offers after a moment's hesitation. He trails his hand lightly over Jim's arm. "I wasn't just saying it."
"Hmm," Jim answers. "Things are boring without you too."
Even though the Moriarty identity is on hold, Jim continues to work. He's revived an older one - one from before Sebastian had joined him. Sebastian watches with some bemusement as he arranges a meeting between two people, then promptly emails the date and time to someone else.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm bored," Jim says. He glances at the bookshelf where Sebastian had removed the camera. "But I happen to know some people in several influential organizations who might be working for the British Government. Tsk, tsk. Organized crime usually gets so bent out of shape about that."
"It doesn't sound like you'll be knowing them for much longer," Sebastian comments. He rests his chin on Jim's shoulder to read the screen.
"Well," Jim says, sounding pleased with himself. "I was going to save the information for a rainy day, you know how it is, but I just decided I was so bored being pent up here all day that I just had to talk to someone. I don't like being forced to stay in one place. Let's see how the Ice Man feels having his pawns thrown off the board."
"He'll know it was you."
"That's the point. What's he going to do, arrest me? Even if he could, Sherlock would never allow it and if Mycroft Holmes has one weakness, it's his baby brother. It must burn him up inside, knowing that Sherlock's preventing him from doing his job. Again."
"Where are you going?" Sebastian asks.
Jim pauses with his hand on the door. He stares, just long enough for Sebastian to start feeling uncomfortable, long enough for Sebastian to know Jim's considering not answering him. Then he says, "Baker Street."
"Why?"
Jim raises an eyebrow pointedly. "Because he's my mate and we're bonded." He grimaces slightly at the word 'bonded'. Sebastian is reminded of how he'd looked before when talking about his heats, when he'd been handling them by picking anonymous alphas off the street and letting them fuck him unconscious.
"Do you want to be bonded to him? I thought - I thought you didn't like him."
Jim looks at him blankly. "Of course I don't. We're still bonded. That's just how it works." His expression changes, becoming light and airy, like he really is the empty-headed omega he sometimes pretends to be. "Anyway, his brother insists on turning the second bedroom in Baker Street into a nursery for the baby."
"Why?"
Jim's hand splays protectively over his stomach again. "Sherlock intends to keep her," he says quietly.
That's something Sebastian hasn't heard before. It has him halfway out of his seat before Jim makes a curt cutting motion with his hand. Sebastian sits back down. "He wants to keep her? Does he even know what the fuck to do with a baby?"
Jim laughs. "That's what he asked me when I told him he couldn't. Anyway, I -" he stops. "I'm playing along, for now. The Ice Man's not so cold when he's thinking about his niece. He complicates matters. I need more information."
"You're not - you're not going to let him, are you?"
Jim gives him a look of withering scorn. "Of course not. I wouldn't let anyone take her from me."
They say a bonded omega needs to submit to his alpha. Like he's a pet, like he's property. That it's just how things are and that once they're mated, they can't be separated. They say it's stronger and more all-encompassing than love. They say a lot of things.
"Okay," Sebastian says. "When are you going to be back?"
One of Jim's shoulders rises and falls. "Some time tonight. Doctor Watson..." Jim bares his teeth. He sounds darkly pleased. "Disapproves."
Jim doesn't return until past noon the next day, hair still damp from a shower. Sebastian spots a bite mark on his throat again. Sherlock seems to have a thing for throats, maybe Jim's in particular. Or he knows just what to do to make Sebastian feel the way he feels now - hot and angry and unhappy and tense. His skin feels like it's pulled too tightly over his body.
"What happened to getting back last night?" Sebastian asks. He winces inwardly at the challenging thread in his voice and the way Jim picks up on it instantly, shoulders straightening as the mask comes back on.
"John," and he's John now, "was there," Jim says darkly. "I decided to give him a show. I gave him a taste of what his alpha boyfriend really wants in a mate. We'll see how long he follows Sherlock around like a lost puppy begging for scraps of affection after that."
"Sure," Sebastian says. Heat prickles in his face and throat. "Just taunting the doctor. I bet it has nothing to do with -"
"Sebastian!" Jim interrupts sharply. "I want you to think very carefully about the next words that come out of your mouth."
Like a lost puppy, Sebastian thinks helplessly, painfully, but he snaps his mouth shut and counts to ten before realizing he has no idea what to say. What can he say that Jim doesn't in some way already know he's thinking?
And it just, he just fucking hates this, all of it. He hates that Jim's pregnant and it's because of Sherlock. He hates that Jim keeps going to see him, that half his thoughts are about bothering Sherlock or fucking him or whatever the fuck he fucking does when he goes out and leaves Sebastian behind.
He hates that Jim's going to have a fucking baby and it's got nothing to do with him. He's just dead weight, tagging along even though Jim dropped the Moriarty identity months ago, even though Sebastian should be getting out of Britain instead of letting Mycroft Holmes' noose grow ever tighter around his neck.
But he doesn't have the words for that. He can't say that. It wouldn't matter even if he could, because Jim's expression is shifting again. Instead of looking angry or mocking or scornful he just looks tired and unhappy.
"I just want to know one thing," Sebastian says finally, carefully. The anger and frustration he'd been feeling before has disappeared at the sight of Jim's startling weariness. Now he just feels the way Jim looks, like he wants to curl up somewhere quiet and peaceful and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. "If I was an alpha, would you still - would she be mine instead?"
Jim meets his eyes. "Yes."
They don't talk about it afterwards. They don't talk about a lot of things but some days later, Jim admits quietly to him in the middle of the night, "I didn't mean for it to happen like this. I wanted something different. For us," and kisses Sebastian silent before he can speak.
"Give me your hand," Jim orders out of nowhere. He snaps his fingers then holds his hand out, palm up. "Just for a minute."
Sebastian puts his hand warily in Jim's. Jim adjusts his grip, his palm against the back of Sebastian's open hand. Then, he lifts his shirt and presses Sebastian's palm to the round swell of his belly, brows knit together in thought. He shifts Sebastian's palm a couple times before stopping.
"Here," Jim says. "Feel."
Sebastian is confused for a moment, feeling only the warmth of Jim's skin and the rough line, under his fingertips, that marks an old scar whose origins Sebastian still hasn't figured out. Then, something else. He starts to jerk his hand back automatically but Jim stops him, fingers tightening around the sides of his hand.
It happens again. This time Sebastian's prepared for it and he recognizes it for what it is - a brief push against his palm. It's so light that it's practically a tap. He tries and fails to keep the smile from his face. "So that's her, then?"
Jim nods. He looks pleased, more smug and happy with himself than Sebastian's ever seen him before. "That's her. She's been kicking me for weeks but I couldn't feel it from the outside until recently. Congratulations, you're the first to feel her. Besides me, obviously."
Sebastian moves his thumb lightly over Jim's belly. The first to feel her kick, before even Sherlock. He feels it again - another kick, right against the center of his palm, followed by two more. He raises an eyebrow. "Active, isn't she? She's already strong."
Jim preens. "Yes. She is." He strokes a hand protectively over his stomach. His fingers brush against Sebastian's. "Do you hear that, little one?" he asks her, and the gentleness of his voice, the open tenderness with no trace of mockery or deceit, is another thing Sebastian's never heard before. "You're going to be strong."
Jim can't sleep.
Sebastian finds this out because Jim kicks him awake to complain about it. His feet against Sebastian's shins are cold. "What?" Sebastian grumbles.
"My back hurts and she's kicking me again. And this is the third time I had to get up to piss tonight," Jim says. "Talk with me until I fall asleep."
Only he could make such a sweet request sound like an order. Sebastian rolls halfway onto his side and wraps an arm over Jim's chest, still in that pleasant halfway point between sleep and wakefulness. "Can't you talk to yourself instead?"
"I already know what I'd say." Jim starts to turn towards him, then stops with a frustrated growl when his belly gets in the way. Sebastian kisses his shoulder soothingly.
"Do you know what we're doing yet?" he asks. "When she's born?" How can we keep her? he wants to know, but he doesn't ask because he knows Jim's been thinking that too.
"With the Ice Man in the picture," Jim says, "Not yet. It'd be easy if it were only Sherlock, but with him involved, I don't know. But I won't let him take her from me."
"You'll figure it out," Sebastian says. "You always do."
"What are you doing today?"
Sebastian looks up. "Probably going for a run." He'd been idly wondering how hard it'd be to lose the tail that follows him every time he leaves the penthouse. Today is as good a day as any to find out. "Why, is today something special?"
"I have to see the doctor and then I'm going to Baker Street. You're coming with me."
Sebastian stares. "To the doctor?"
"To the flat, but you can join me at the doctor's too if you want." Jim sighs when Sebastian continues to look blankly at him. "I want you to paint something for me. For the nursery."
"I don't know how to paint."
"You'll be painting dots on the ceiling. It doesn't take skill." Jim holds up a sheet of paper from the table. Sebastian had seen him working on it before. It's a circle circumscribing square with a bunch of small numbers written inside it
Sebastian frowns. "What is this? Is it a puzzle?"
"Stars for her ceiling. It's a map of what the sky over London will look like when she's due." Jim flashes him a grin that morphs into a sly smile. He begins to trace shapes in the numbers. "This is Lyra. Lacerta, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Aquila." He frowns. "I'm not as partial to the other ones."
Sebastian rolls his eyes and takes the paper. He folds it and sticks it into his jacket pocket. "You can't call her any of those. People will tease her at school."
"But I like them."
"Make one her middle name. Not Lacerta or Aquila. And give her a normal first name."
They argue over names in the car (because of course there is a car waiting for them, already running and knowing their destination) until they reach the hospital and Jim says, "Fine. Lyra or Andromeda? Which do you like more?"
"It's your choice," Sebastian answers. "Those are the best of the ones you wanted."
"No, stupid, which do you like more?"
"Oh," Sebastian says. Jim smirks at him mockingly for being slow on the uptake. "Andromeda. She can call herself Andy if she hates it."
Jim nods. "Andromeda. Okay."
The doctor tuts when Sebastian follows Jim into the examining room. "Are you the father?"
"Yes. He just got back from a business trip," Jim answers. He hops onto the padded table and cranes his neck to examine the doctor's clipboard. "More blood work?"
Sebastian shrugs helplessly at her and tries to look appropriately like a father-to-be. The doctor asks a series of questions as she examines Jim. The questions are about the baby, about his eating habits, his health -
"You didn't tell me your back was hurting," Sebastian interrupts without thinking, at one point.
Jim looks at him. His expression, momentarily blank, is quickly replaced by a giggle and a simper. "Oh, sweetie," he says. "You're always so busy, I didn't want to bother you. It only hurts when I stand for too long."
"Try not to spend too much time on your feet," the doctor advises, then continues on. Behind her back, Jim makes a face at him.
"He gave you a key to his flat?" Sebastian asks.
Jim shrugs. "It's not as if I couldn't break in."
The room Jim leads him to is already painted the color of the sky, a soft, pastel blue. He sees a bed and half-assembled crib tucked neatly in the corner. Jim catches him looking at it.
"The bed belongs to the doctor. Everything in the drawers too. Feel free to look through it. I did."
Sebastian does so but doesn't find anything interesting. Clothes, mostly, and a locked box under the bed that he leaves alone. The supplies for the ceiling are already there, tucked in a corner of the room - ladder, brushes, a sealed can of paint that glows in the dark and a half-finished can of the blue, for fixing any mistakes. Jim makes himself comfortable on the floor in a nest of blankets he drags from the bed and directs Sebastian's actions as precisely as any computer, lying on his back to get the proper perspective.
They start with Polaris, the brightest star and thus the largest dot, and move outwards from there. Sebastian still has the sheet with the plan that Jim gave him but he doesn't need to take it out because Jim knows them all from memory.
Sebastian takes a break after the second hour and nudges Jim's ribs with his shoe. "Budge over and let me sit for a bit," he says. Jim shifts until there's enough a space in the blankets for Sebastian to join him. They're not quite halfway done.
"It'll look better when the lights are off," Jim says. He is a warm presence against Sebastian's arm. "I'll show you after the sun sets."
They're still working when Sherlock Holmes and his doctor arrive. Sebastian distantly notices them talking downstairs but he's too focused on the task at hand to care until he hears footsteps coming up the stairs.
"Act natural," Jim says just as Sherlock reaches the open door.
Sebastian carefully paints a smallish (the third-smallest size) circle on the ceiling.
"What are you doing?" Sherlock asks. Sebastian watches out of the corner of his eye as Sherlock walks inside the room. He comes to a stop in front of Jim and looks down at him, then at Sebastian. Sebastian gives him a little wave.
"You're blocking my view," Jim complains. He makes a shooing motion with his hand. "Be a dear and go away for an hour, will you? We're almost done."
Sherlock looks at the drying paint on the ceiling. "Circles on the ceiling. You're lying on your back to look at it all at once and the colonel's undoubtedly just drawing what you tell him to. You could do it yourself, even in your state, but -"
"Yes, yes," Jim interrupts impatiently. "You're very clever. I'm down here to make sure he's got his distances right and he's up there because I don't want to stand on a ladder for hours and make my neck sore. The paint glows in the dark, so it has to be stars. You know it glows in the dark because that shade is only used in paint that glows and oh, right, the label's right there. Very impressive, congratulations, you can go now."
Jim claps sarcastically. Sebastian is gratified by the way Sherlock seems to deflate at Jim's complete lack of being impressed. He glances at Sebastian.
Sebastian shrugs. "He does the same thing, but he doesn't bother to explain it." To Jim he asks, "Where's the next one?"
Sherlock looks at Sebastian again, eyes narrowed. Sebastian grits his teeth and stares back. He pretends he doesn't care or want to punch Sherlock in the face.
Jim interrupts them by snapping his fingers. "Right, well, Sherlock, go away or I'll tell John how naughty you're being. Seb, three inches southeast of the last one, a two."
Sebastian obediently draws a magnitude two star three inches southeast of the last one, feeling Sherlock's eyes on the back of his neck the whole time.
"You didn't tell me you wanted to paint the ceiling," Sherlock says to Jim in an undertone.
"Why would I tell you that?" Jim asks, then gives Sebastian directions to the next star.
"Because I'm your alpha and she's mine too. I have a right to know how you want her nursery."
"Why?" Jim asks again.
"Because she's mine. And so are you." There is a noise, the brief, swift sound of footsteps and clothes rustling as Sherlock grabs for Jim and Jim dodges away, circling behind Sebastian and the ladder so that they're between him and Sherlock.
"Maybe," Jim says. "But I don't care."
Sebastian gets through another quarter of a square meter of the ceiling, in between a hissed argument between Jim and Sherlock that Sebastian only hears bits and pieces of, before Sherlock finally leaves. "I thought you were bonded to him," Sebastian comments.
"Careful, the room's bugged. And I am. That doesn't mean I have to like him." Jim frowns. "In fact, he was more fun when he was running all over London looking for us and interfering with all my games."
"You always did like bloodshed," Sebastian agrees.
"We could just run," Sebastian says later, as the baby in Jim's belly grows larger and larger and his due date draws nearer and nearer. Jim still hasn't come to him with a smug smirk and a sheaf of printed instructions for how they're going to extract themselves. But Sebastian knows he's been thinking about it, serious and silent and still, sometimes for hours. "We can go somewhere they'll never find us. We have the means."
There are passports, papers, cash, all stored in a safe deposit box under an assumed name neither of them has touched in over a year. And once they're out, Jim has enough cached away under numerous enough aliases, Sebastian's sure, to make things like money and jobs problems for lesser people.
Twelve hours, that's all it'd take. Maybe six if they grease the right palms. They could be on a plane to anywhere else in the world.
Jim shakes his head. "It won't work. There's no way he won't find me, the way I am now." He motions at his belly. The corners of his mouth turn downwards. "I'm too noticeable like this. The Ice Man has everything locked down tight. And where could we go if we took her with us? She needs - if we ran, he'd have us running forever. We'd be scared little rabbits, going to ground every time we see a shadow. She'll need stability when she's young."
Sebastian traces his fingers down the side of Jim's face. It is a testament to Jim's dark mood that he barely reacts, not even to roll his eyes or call Sebastian uselessly sentimental. "What if we killed him first?"
"Think harder," Jim says. He leans into Sebastian's palm. "What happens when we do?"
Okay.
Sherlock would be angry, livid. He wouldn't hurt Jim but he'd chase them and Sebastian already knows his own safety isn't guaranteed. John would go with Sherlock. And Mycroft - Mycroft was important enough that if they did this, coming back to Britain wouldn't be easy, especially not with a little girl in tow. She'd have to grow somewhere else. They'd be on the run indefinitely.
There has to be a trick, something he's not clever enough to think of that Jim's already put into play. Except - except there isn't. There can't be because he's been watching Jim for months, for years, and he's been happy sometimes but never gleeful, not in the way he is when he has a plan.
"We're trapped here, aren't we?" Sebastian says. "We can't leave with her."
"Not if we want to keep her. And I'm not leaving her to Sherlock." Jim's eyes flutter closed and for a second, a split second, his expression changes in a way that makes Sebastian's chest hurt. Then Jim opens his eyes and it's gone, leaving him inscrutable. "I'm sorry."
"How long have you known?" Sebastian asks.
"Eighteen weeks, but I've only been sure for three." Jim's mouth twists unhappily. "I can't outsmart them both and even if I did. She's blood.They'd never give up."
Then what do we do? Sebastian thinks. What will they do to you, when she's not inside you to keep you safe from them? What are we doing here?
Jim refuses to get a C-section.
Sebastian overhears him on the phone about it, coy and stubborn in turn. He complains about scars and his girlish figure. He calls the procedure barbaric. He cites mortality rates and recovery times and statistics for complications.
He argues about it with Sherlock for an hour and a half (who puts Mycroft on at one point, but Jim refuses to speak to him and gets Sherlock again) before he hangs up, wearing a smug grin of victory. Sebastian makes room for him on the sofa. He runs his fingertips down Jim's belly and asks carefully, "What's the real reason?"
Jim looks at him like he's an idiot. "If it's planned, it'd be too easy for his brother to arrange for an 'accident' to happen during the operation. He'll be able to decide which doctor I see and where. I'm not letting that happen. When she comes, we're taking a cab to a public hospital."
"You'll be there for hours," Sebastian points out. "He'll still have time to make a move."
"Maybe," Jim says. He winks. "But that's why I have you."
When it happens - when Jim's water breaks in the middle of the afternoon and the contractions come, making him gasp and swear, Sebastian does as he's told and gets them a cab. He calls the hospital while they're still on the way and when they arrive, the staff are ready and waiting. They take Jim from him with brisk, efficient motions.
"Wait," Jim says. His hand shoots out and grabs Sebastian's wrist in a painfully firm grip. "Stay."
At minute fifty-four on a timer in Sebastian's mind that's been ticking ever since they rushed out of the flat without having the time to bypass the surveillance, Sherlock Holmes finally shows up, full of frenetic energy.
The doctor is busy with Jim, but one of the nurses snaps his head up and moves to intercept him. "I'm sorry sir, you can't be in here."
"The hell I can't!" Sherlock snaps. He barrels past the nurse to rush to Jim's side. "He's my mate, which you'd realize if you paid any attention at all to the fact that he," and Sherlock motions at Sebastian, "isn't even an alpha. Sherlock Holmes, I called ahead. I'm the one who told you he'd be coming."
He takes a place on Jim's other side, across from Sebastian. This time, no one tries to stop him. He smooths his palm over Jim's belly. "I'm here," he says tenderly and Sebastian can almost forget that Jim and Sherlock were once mortal enemies because Jim turns to him like a flower drawn to the sun.
Sherlock takes Jim's hand in his. Sebastian watches Jim squeeze it as another contraction ripples through his body. He bares his gritted teeth and makes a pained, animal noise that turns abruptly into panting when the contraction ends and his muscles relax. Sherlock lowers his head to Jim's face and says something to him that makes some of the tension in Jim's face ease.
Sebastian wants to hit something.
"Good, good," the doctor says encouragingly to Jim. "You're doing great, Mr. Holmes. Just -"
"Excuse me, sir," the nurse says. He puts a hand on Sebastian's elbow. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but only the father's allowed in the room during the birth."
"Right, yeah. Sure," Sebastian says dully and lets himself be herded gently but insistently out the door. He feels a small, petty joy at seeing John Watson standing in the doorway, staring at Sherlock with a pained, agonized expression.
"Sorry mate," Sebastian snarls when he brushes past him, "This is a private party. People like us aren't allowed."
He spends hours two, three, and four by taking stock of the building. He checks the exits, walks the perimeter, and keeps an eye on the staff, as he'd do if this were a job. He spots several doctors who don't move like a doctors some time during hour three and memorizes their faces.
Then he walks down the street and buys a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He chain smokes them all down to their filters and when he still doesn't feel better, when he still can't shove the image of Sherlock and Jim together out of his mind, he slams his fists into the wall over and over, until the skin of his knuckles splits open.
A man he doesn't recognize recognizes him first ("Good evening, Colonel Moran," murmured when they pass each other, and it's as good a threat as he's ever gotten). Sebastian's unarmed. He's got a rifle stashed in the basement if he needs to get to it, but that hardly matters when they don't have an extraction plan.
The rope around his throat tightens another notch.
At hour eight, minute fourteen, the door to Jim's room opens. He and John (who has been steadfastly not looking at him and vice versa) both look up.
"Sebastian?"
Sebastian shoots to his feet. "That's me. Is everything okay?"
The doctor smiles at him. "Everything's fine. Mother and baby are both perfectly healthy. He's asking for you. Do you want to see him?"
Sebastian's inside the room and at Jim's side nearly before the doctor finishes asking his question. Sherlock's and his eyes meet; Sebastian glowers and curls his hands into fists but Sherlock just looks at him like he's a lab rat before twirling on his heels and swooping out.
"Seb," Jim says, and when Sebastian comes close, grabs his hand. His face is streaked with sweat and involuntary tears, expression cracked wide open, vulnerable and raw and desperate. "Don't let them take her from me. They're going to try. Please, don't let them take her."
"I won't," Sebastian says. "I promise." He wipes his thumb across Jim's cheek and Jim's face cracks into a rare, radiant smile.
"Did you see her yet? I made her. I made her and she's perfect."
"Not yet," Sebastian says. "But I will."
There are four omega births in the newborn ward but Jim's is the only girl. She's in the second row. Sebastian can read the label on her bed. Sarah Andromeda Holmes. She doesn't look any different from the other lumps bundled in colored blankets but then Sebastian remembers that this time yesterday she was inside Jim, that when they'd fallen asleep the night before, she'd just been a round bulge in Jim's body.
Sebastian touches his fingertips to the glass window between them.
She looks so small, even compared to the other babies.
"Omega births are usually smaller than female ones," a smooth, cultured voice says from his right. "Women are better-equipped for childbirth."
Mycroft Holmes. He smiles pleasantly when Sebastian looks at him. Sebastian looks back at the baby (at Jim's daughter). She's fast asleep. "Yeah, I know."
So small and so vulnerable. The only thing Jim had asked of him was, don't let them take her from me. Well, he hasn't failed a task yet.
Sebastian turns. Mycroft is already watching him.
Sebastian gives him a brittle smile and, when Mycroft just raises an eyebrow at him and waits, he grits out, "I know you're planning on taking her. I might not be a genius, but I'm not stupid."
Jim can't protect her, not now, when he is so tired and so open. All his shields and masks and layers of protection have been smashed open by something Sebastian never could have given him. Mycroft purses his lips and doesn't answer, so Sebastian continues.
"It'll work. You'll get her, but there's no way you can trick him. Whatever you try to do, he'll figure it out and when he does, he'll be furious. Everything he's been doing up until now has just been playing. He gets bored so he plays games and sometimes people die. But he's more dangerous than that and we both know it. If you do this, he'll level Britain. Neither of us want that."
"I assure you, Colonel Moran," Mycroft says pleasantly, "I can be just as dangerous. I won't be cowed by a madman with impulse control problems."
"That's not what I'm saying. I'm not threatening you," Sebastian says. He takes a deep breath. "There's another way. He'll - he's willing to retire for her. He can go legit. Moriarty's been missing for months. He doesn't have to come back. If you let him keep her, he'll go legit. Wouldn't that be good? She gets both her parents and Moriarty stays gone. And I'm sure Sherlock wants to keep his omega."
Mycroft looks at him - the way Jim looks at him sometimes, the way Sherlock had looked at him, the way that Sebastian hates. He peels Sebastian open and takes him apart with his eyes. He finds, removes, and scrutinizes all the things Sebastian would never say out loud.
Then he asks, "And where does that leave you?"
Where does it leave him, when there is a cell in a secret prison with his name on it? When the hospital is crawling with MI5 and he's just finished telling someone who might as well be their leader that Jim will drop everything and throw himself right into their jaws, if it means he'll get to keep his child?
Sebastian laughs hollowly.
"Nowhere. Isn't that right, Mr. Holmes? But I knew it'd happen sometime. Might as well be now." He inclines his head. Mycroft does the same. "Congratulations."
He sees John Watson on his way out. Sebastian stops and John does too, hands in his pockets. They eye each other warily. Sebastian breaks the silence first.
"Is it worth it? Following him around like you're the one who's a dog, letting him fuck around and mate with someone you hate? Standing by while they have a kid together because he wants it so much and you'd never be able to do that for him? Why do you stay? Don't you ever want more?"
"Shut up!" John shoves Sebastian roughly in the chest. The force of it is strong enough to make Sebastian stumble back. "I don't care what you say or what sick game Moriarty's playing at. I'm never going to abandon Sherlock. Nothing you do can change that. You'll never break us up. Do you hear me? I love him and he loves me back. "
Huh, Sebastian thinks as John storms furiously off. That must be nice.
Back to Part 1
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.
"Just got out of the airport. You still staying at the last place?" Sebastian hefts his bag (light, carrying only things that could get past airport security) over one shoulder as he waits in the queue for a cab.
"Hmm," Jim says thoughtfully. "No."
"Okay?" Sebastian asks. There are two people in front of him. As he watches, one shoves her suitcase into the waiting cab and climbs in after it. "Then where are you?"
"Hmm," Jim says again and nothing else.
It occurs to him that maybe Jim doesn't want him to come over.
"Nevermind," Sebastian says. "I can go back to mine. I couldn't be arsed to end the lease when I left anyway, so it's still there."
"Don't be stupid," Jim says immediately. "Stop thinking, if you're only ever going to be wrong. I'm in a place right now that's being provided for and monitored by the Ice Man. I'm trying to figure out if it's safe for you. It might be. Then again, it might not! Want to find out?"
Sebastian thinks about it. "What can he do? Shoot me in front of witnesses?"
"Well," Jim says, and then more pointedly, "well."
Sebastian wouldn't put it past him either. But at the same time, he hasn't seen Jim in nearly a month and he misses him. Misses him in a bunch of stupid ways he tries not to think about. "Just give me the address. I'll take my chances."
The address leads him to a posh-looking penthouse roughly half a mile away from Baker Street. He walks in into the building and is quickly flanked by two well-dressed men who are wearing dark glasses even though it's overcast outside. They're both wearing wireless earphones hooked over an ear. Sebastian hates them on sight. Wankers.
"Colonel Moran," one of them says pleasantly. He matches Sebastian step for step towards the lift and when they turn together, Sebastian catches sight of the gun-shaped bulge beneath his jacket. "How was your trip?"
"Fine, thank you," Sebastian says as politely as he can. Jim says that when he speaks like that, it makes him sound like he's got a massive stick up his arse. "Are you going to be escorting me to Jim?"
His guards exchange glances.
"For now," the other one says.
They join him in the lift. In all honesty, Sebastian's a little surprised he doesn't catch a beating or the barrel of a gun pressed into his face in the time between when the doors close and when they open again. But they stay a precise several inches to the side and behind him and don't say a single word.
Jim's waiting for him.
"Sebby!" he exclaims exuberantly and throws himself into Sebastian's arms. He's beaming brightly, too brightly and too excitedly to be actually sincere. "I've missed you so much!"
Sebastian catches Jim around the shoulders. Jim's belly, large now and noticeably pregnant, presses against him firmly, but Jim doesn't pull away. Sebastian's not quite sure what's going on, but there are at least two pairs of eyes on them and he knows how to take a hint.
"I missed you too," he says, loud enough for their guards to hear, and buries his face in Jim's neck and his familiar scent. It's hardly a hardship. He runs his hands down Jim's back, then up his front, until he has Jim's face cupped between his palms. "How are you feeling?"
I really did miss you, he thinks and tries not to let it show on his face.
Jim's smile is wicked. "Oh, you know," he says airily, hands on Sebastian's chest. "I've had worse. I'll tell you about it inside. Sherlock's," and Sebastian spares himself a moment of resentment at the way Jim's voice sounds, curling comfortably and affectionately around the alpha's name, "trying to convert the second bedroom in Baker Street to a nursery. What a laugh. I'll tell you all about it when we're inside."
Sebastian's tails try to follow them in. Jim blocks them bodily. They seem unwilling, at least for now, to press the matter. They hover in front of him instead, glowers of displeasure on their faces.
Jim's smile is gratingly false in the moments before he closes the door. "I'm sorry, boys. You can't come in here. The landlord doesn't allow pets. You know how it is."
Jim's mask drops the moment the door closes. It's subtle, but Sebastian's used to subtle. It's in the angle of his shoulders, the balance of his hips, and the way his smirk makes him look like a predator again, despite the vulnerable swell of his pregnant belly. It makes him look familiar again.
Sebastian wonders, briefly, if people stare at Jim now when he goes out. They would, of course. Omegas are rare, pregnant people are rare, and pregnant omegas rarest of all. He wonders if it bothers him.
It must.
But Jim looks happy still, and smug, like a cat who'd just tipped over a fish bowl. He insinuates himself into Sebastian's personal space again, this time sliding an arm around his waist. He tugs on a lock of Sebastian's hair and comments, "Brown? Could be worse."
He presses his lips to Sebastian's cheek, then tilts his head and murmurs casually, "Sweep the place for bugs. I took care of the bedroom, but couldn't be bothered with the rest of it. Pay extra attention to places I wouldn't be able to reach."
Sebastian finds three in the living room - two audio ones and a small camera tucked inside the bookshelf, two in the kitchen, and another two in the bath. He double-checks the bedroom and finds none, then drops the lot on the table in front of Jim, who is lying on the sofa. He's got a laptop (an unfamiliar one Sebastian doesn't recognize) propped on his belly.
Jim glances at the small pile, then sweeps them all up and drops them into a glass of water. They sink slowly to the bottom. "Thanks. Maybe now I'll have some privacy."
Sebastian nods at the laptop. "Is that safe for the baby?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "Do you think I'd be doing it if it weren't? It's perfectly safe. It'd burn my skin before it got hot enough to hurt her. Come sit with me."
Sebastian does. Jim promptly uses him as a backrest, eyes still on his screen. He's writing an email from an account Sebastian doesn't recognize. Sebastian catches the words 'cargo' and 'drop-off'. He is somehow not surprised.
"I did miss you," he offers after a moment's hesitation. He trails his hand lightly over Jim's arm. "I wasn't just saying it."
"Hmm," Jim answers. "Things are boring without you too."
Even though the Moriarty identity is on hold, Jim continues to work. He's revived an older one - one from before Sebastian had joined him. Sebastian watches with some bemusement as he arranges a meeting between two people, then promptly emails the date and time to someone else.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm bored," Jim says. He glances at the bookshelf where Sebastian had removed the camera. "But I happen to know some people in several influential organizations who might be working for the British Government. Tsk, tsk. Organized crime usually gets so bent out of shape about that."
"It doesn't sound like you'll be knowing them for much longer," Sebastian comments. He rests his chin on Jim's shoulder to read the screen.
"Well," Jim says, sounding pleased with himself. "I was going to save the information for a rainy day, you know how it is, but I just decided I was so bored being pent up here all day that I just had to talk to someone. I don't like being forced to stay in one place. Let's see how the Ice Man feels having his pawns thrown off the board."
"He'll know it was you."
"That's the point. What's he going to do, arrest me? Even if he could, Sherlock would never allow it and if Mycroft Holmes has one weakness, it's his baby brother. It must burn him up inside, knowing that Sherlock's preventing him from doing his job. Again."
"Where are you going?" Sebastian asks.
Jim pauses with his hand on the door. He stares, just long enough for Sebastian to start feeling uncomfortable, long enough for Sebastian to know Jim's considering not answering him. Then he says, "Baker Street."
"Why?"
Jim raises an eyebrow pointedly. "Because he's my mate and we're bonded." He grimaces slightly at the word 'bonded'. Sebastian is reminded of how he'd looked before when talking about his heats, when he'd been handling them by picking anonymous alphas off the street and letting them fuck him unconscious.
"Do you want to be bonded to him? I thought - I thought you didn't like him."
Jim looks at him blankly. "Of course I don't. We're still bonded. That's just how it works." His expression changes, becoming light and airy, like he really is the empty-headed omega he sometimes pretends to be. "Anyway, his brother insists on turning the second bedroom in Baker Street into a nursery for the baby."
"Why?"
Jim's hand splays protectively over his stomach again. "Sherlock intends to keep her," he says quietly.
That's something Sebastian hasn't heard before. It has him halfway out of his seat before Jim makes a curt cutting motion with his hand. Sebastian sits back down. "He wants to keep her? Does he even know what the fuck to do with a baby?"
Jim laughs. "That's what he asked me when I told him he couldn't. Anyway, I -" he stops. "I'm playing along, for now. The Ice Man's not so cold when he's thinking about his niece. He complicates matters. I need more information."
"You're not - you're not going to let him, are you?"
Jim gives him a look of withering scorn. "Of course not. I wouldn't let anyone take her from me."
They say a bonded omega needs to submit to his alpha. Like he's a pet, like he's property. That it's just how things are and that once they're mated, they can't be separated. They say it's stronger and more all-encompassing than love. They say a lot of things.
"Okay," Sebastian says. "When are you going to be back?"
One of Jim's shoulders rises and falls. "Some time tonight. Doctor Watson..." Jim bares his teeth. He sounds darkly pleased. "Disapproves."
Jim doesn't return until past noon the next day, hair still damp from a shower. Sebastian spots a bite mark on his throat again. Sherlock seems to have a thing for throats, maybe Jim's in particular. Or he knows just what to do to make Sebastian feel the way he feels now - hot and angry and unhappy and tense. His skin feels like it's pulled too tightly over his body.
"What happened to getting back last night?" Sebastian asks. He winces inwardly at the challenging thread in his voice and the way Jim picks up on it instantly, shoulders straightening as the mask comes back on.
"John," and he's John now, "was there," Jim says darkly. "I decided to give him a show. I gave him a taste of what his alpha boyfriend really wants in a mate. We'll see how long he follows Sherlock around like a lost puppy begging for scraps of affection after that."
"Sure," Sebastian says. Heat prickles in his face and throat. "Just taunting the doctor. I bet it has nothing to do with -"
"Sebastian!" Jim interrupts sharply. "I want you to think very carefully about the next words that come out of your mouth."
Like a lost puppy, Sebastian thinks helplessly, painfully, but he snaps his mouth shut and counts to ten before realizing he has no idea what to say. What can he say that Jim doesn't in some way already know he's thinking?
And it just, he just fucking hates this, all of it. He hates that Jim's pregnant and it's because of Sherlock. He hates that Jim keeps going to see him, that half his thoughts are about bothering Sherlock or fucking him or whatever the fuck he fucking does when he goes out and leaves Sebastian behind.
He hates that Jim's going to have a fucking baby and it's got nothing to do with him. He's just dead weight, tagging along even though Jim dropped the Moriarty identity months ago, even though Sebastian should be getting out of Britain instead of letting Mycroft Holmes' noose grow ever tighter around his neck.
But he doesn't have the words for that. He can't say that. It wouldn't matter even if he could, because Jim's expression is shifting again. Instead of looking angry or mocking or scornful he just looks tired and unhappy.
"I just want to know one thing," Sebastian says finally, carefully. The anger and frustration he'd been feeling before has disappeared at the sight of Jim's startling weariness. Now he just feels the way Jim looks, like he wants to curl up somewhere quiet and peaceful and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. "If I was an alpha, would you still - would she be mine instead?"
Jim meets his eyes. "Yes."
They don't talk about it afterwards. They don't talk about a lot of things but some days later, Jim admits quietly to him in the middle of the night, "I didn't mean for it to happen like this. I wanted something different. For us," and kisses Sebastian silent before he can speak.
"Give me your hand," Jim orders out of nowhere. He snaps his fingers then holds his hand out, palm up. "Just for a minute."
Sebastian puts his hand warily in Jim's. Jim adjusts his grip, his palm against the back of Sebastian's open hand. Then, he lifts his shirt and presses Sebastian's palm to the round swell of his belly, brows knit together in thought. He shifts Sebastian's palm a couple times before stopping.
"Here," Jim says. "Feel."
Sebastian is confused for a moment, feeling only the warmth of Jim's skin and the rough line, under his fingertips, that marks an old scar whose origins Sebastian still hasn't figured out. Then, something else. He starts to jerk his hand back automatically but Jim stops him, fingers tightening around the sides of his hand.
It happens again. This time Sebastian's prepared for it and he recognizes it for what it is - a brief push against his palm. It's so light that it's practically a tap. He tries and fails to keep the smile from his face. "So that's her, then?"
Jim nods. He looks pleased, more smug and happy with himself than Sebastian's ever seen him before. "That's her. She's been kicking me for weeks but I couldn't feel it from the outside until recently. Congratulations, you're the first to feel her. Besides me, obviously."
Sebastian moves his thumb lightly over Jim's belly. The first to feel her kick, before even Sherlock. He feels it again - another kick, right against the center of his palm, followed by two more. He raises an eyebrow. "Active, isn't she? She's already strong."
Jim preens. "Yes. She is." He strokes a hand protectively over his stomach. His fingers brush against Sebastian's. "Do you hear that, little one?" he asks her, and the gentleness of his voice, the open tenderness with no trace of mockery or deceit, is another thing Sebastian's never heard before. "You're going to be strong."
Jim can't sleep.
Sebastian finds this out because Jim kicks him awake to complain about it. His feet against Sebastian's shins are cold. "What?" Sebastian grumbles.
"My back hurts and she's kicking me again. And this is the third time I had to get up to piss tonight," Jim says. "Talk with me until I fall asleep."
Only he could make such a sweet request sound like an order. Sebastian rolls halfway onto his side and wraps an arm over Jim's chest, still in that pleasant halfway point between sleep and wakefulness. "Can't you talk to yourself instead?"
"I already know what I'd say." Jim starts to turn towards him, then stops with a frustrated growl when his belly gets in the way. Sebastian kisses his shoulder soothingly.
"Do you know what we're doing yet?" he asks. "When she's born?" How can we keep her? he wants to know, but he doesn't ask because he knows Jim's been thinking that too.
"With the Ice Man in the picture," Jim says, "Not yet. It'd be easy if it were only Sherlock, but with him involved, I don't know. But I won't let him take her from me."
"You'll figure it out," Sebastian says. "You always do."
"What are you doing today?"
Sebastian looks up. "Probably going for a run." He'd been idly wondering how hard it'd be to lose the tail that follows him every time he leaves the penthouse. Today is as good a day as any to find out. "Why, is today something special?"
"I have to see the doctor and then I'm going to Baker Street. You're coming with me."
Sebastian stares. "To the doctor?"
"To the flat, but you can join me at the doctor's too if you want." Jim sighs when Sebastian continues to look blankly at him. "I want you to paint something for me. For the nursery."
"I don't know how to paint."
"You'll be painting dots on the ceiling. It doesn't take skill." Jim holds up a sheet of paper from the table. Sebastian had seen him working on it before. It's a circle circumscribing square with a bunch of small numbers written inside it
Sebastian frowns. "What is this? Is it a puzzle?"
"Stars for her ceiling. It's a map of what the sky over London will look like when she's due." Jim flashes him a grin that morphs into a sly smile. He begins to trace shapes in the numbers. "This is Lyra. Lacerta, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Aquila." He frowns. "I'm not as partial to the other ones."
Sebastian rolls his eyes and takes the paper. He folds it and sticks it into his jacket pocket. "You can't call her any of those. People will tease her at school."
"But I like them."
"Make one her middle name. Not Lacerta or Aquila. And give her a normal first name."
They argue over names in the car (because of course there is a car waiting for them, already running and knowing their destination) until they reach the hospital and Jim says, "Fine. Lyra or Andromeda? Which do you like more?"
"It's your choice," Sebastian answers. "Those are the best of the ones you wanted."
"No, stupid, which do you like more?"
"Oh," Sebastian says. Jim smirks at him mockingly for being slow on the uptake. "Andromeda. She can call herself Andy if she hates it."
Jim nods. "Andromeda. Okay."
The doctor tuts when Sebastian follows Jim into the examining room. "Are you the father?"
"Yes. He just got back from a business trip," Jim answers. He hops onto the padded table and cranes his neck to examine the doctor's clipboard. "More blood work?"
Sebastian shrugs helplessly at her and tries to look appropriately like a father-to-be. The doctor asks a series of questions as she examines Jim. The questions are about the baby, about his eating habits, his health -
"You didn't tell me your back was hurting," Sebastian interrupts without thinking, at one point.
Jim looks at him. His expression, momentarily blank, is quickly replaced by a giggle and a simper. "Oh, sweetie," he says. "You're always so busy, I didn't want to bother you. It only hurts when I stand for too long."
"Try not to spend too much time on your feet," the doctor advises, then continues on. Behind her back, Jim makes a face at him.
"He gave you a key to his flat?" Sebastian asks.
Jim shrugs. "It's not as if I couldn't break in."
The room Jim leads him to is already painted the color of the sky, a soft, pastel blue. He sees a bed and half-assembled crib tucked neatly in the corner. Jim catches him looking at it.
"The bed belongs to the doctor. Everything in the drawers too. Feel free to look through it. I did."
Sebastian does so but doesn't find anything interesting. Clothes, mostly, and a locked box under the bed that he leaves alone. The supplies for the ceiling are already there, tucked in a corner of the room - ladder, brushes, a sealed can of paint that glows in the dark and a half-finished can of the blue, for fixing any mistakes. Jim makes himself comfortable on the floor in a nest of blankets he drags from the bed and directs Sebastian's actions as precisely as any computer, lying on his back to get the proper perspective.
They start with Polaris, the brightest star and thus the largest dot, and move outwards from there. Sebastian still has the sheet with the plan that Jim gave him but he doesn't need to take it out because Jim knows them all from memory.
Sebastian takes a break after the second hour and nudges Jim's ribs with his shoe. "Budge over and let me sit for a bit," he says. Jim shifts until there's enough a space in the blankets for Sebastian to join him. They're not quite halfway done.
"It'll look better when the lights are off," Jim says. He is a warm presence against Sebastian's arm. "I'll show you after the sun sets."
They're still working when Sherlock Holmes and his doctor arrive. Sebastian distantly notices them talking downstairs but he's too focused on the task at hand to care until he hears footsteps coming up the stairs.
"Act natural," Jim says just as Sherlock reaches the open door.
Sebastian carefully paints a smallish (the third-smallest size) circle on the ceiling.
"What are you doing?" Sherlock asks. Sebastian watches out of the corner of his eye as Sherlock walks inside the room. He comes to a stop in front of Jim and looks down at him, then at Sebastian. Sebastian gives him a little wave.
"You're blocking my view," Jim complains. He makes a shooing motion with his hand. "Be a dear and go away for an hour, will you? We're almost done."
Sherlock looks at the drying paint on the ceiling. "Circles on the ceiling. You're lying on your back to look at it all at once and the colonel's undoubtedly just drawing what you tell him to. You could do it yourself, even in your state, but -"
"Yes, yes," Jim interrupts impatiently. "You're very clever. I'm down here to make sure he's got his distances right and he's up there because I don't want to stand on a ladder for hours and make my neck sore. The paint glows in the dark, so it has to be stars. You know it glows in the dark because that shade is only used in paint that glows and oh, right, the label's right there. Very impressive, congratulations, you can go now."
Jim claps sarcastically. Sebastian is gratified by the way Sherlock seems to deflate at Jim's complete lack of being impressed. He glances at Sebastian.
Sebastian shrugs. "He does the same thing, but he doesn't bother to explain it." To Jim he asks, "Where's the next one?"
Sherlock looks at Sebastian again, eyes narrowed. Sebastian grits his teeth and stares back. He pretends he doesn't care or want to punch Sherlock in the face.
Jim interrupts them by snapping his fingers. "Right, well, Sherlock, go away or I'll tell John how naughty you're being. Seb, three inches southeast of the last one, a two."
Sebastian obediently draws a magnitude two star three inches southeast of the last one, feeling Sherlock's eyes on the back of his neck the whole time.
"You didn't tell me you wanted to paint the ceiling," Sherlock says to Jim in an undertone.
"Why would I tell you that?" Jim asks, then gives Sebastian directions to the next star.
"Because I'm your alpha and she's mine too. I have a right to know how you want her nursery."
"Why?" Jim asks again.
"Because she's mine. And so are you." There is a noise, the brief, swift sound of footsteps and clothes rustling as Sherlock grabs for Jim and Jim dodges away, circling behind Sebastian and the ladder so that they're between him and Sherlock.
"Maybe," Jim says. "But I don't care."
Sebastian gets through another quarter of a square meter of the ceiling, in between a hissed argument between Jim and Sherlock that Sebastian only hears bits and pieces of, before Sherlock finally leaves. "I thought you were bonded to him," Sebastian comments.
"Careful, the room's bugged. And I am. That doesn't mean I have to like him." Jim frowns. "In fact, he was more fun when he was running all over London looking for us and interfering with all my games."
"You always did like bloodshed," Sebastian agrees.
"We could just run," Sebastian says later, as the baby in Jim's belly grows larger and larger and his due date draws nearer and nearer. Jim still hasn't come to him with a smug smirk and a sheaf of printed instructions for how they're going to extract themselves. But Sebastian knows he's been thinking about it, serious and silent and still, sometimes for hours. "We can go somewhere they'll never find us. We have the means."
There are passports, papers, cash, all stored in a safe deposit box under an assumed name neither of them has touched in over a year. And once they're out, Jim has enough cached away under numerous enough aliases, Sebastian's sure, to make things like money and jobs problems for lesser people.
Twelve hours, that's all it'd take. Maybe six if they grease the right palms. They could be on a plane to anywhere else in the world.
Jim shakes his head. "It won't work. There's no way he won't find me, the way I am now." He motions at his belly. The corners of his mouth turn downwards. "I'm too noticeable like this. The Ice Man has everything locked down tight. And where could we go if we took her with us? She needs - if we ran, he'd have us running forever. We'd be scared little rabbits, going to ground every time we see a shadow. She'll need stability when she's young."
Sebastian traces his fingers down the side of Jim's face. It is a testament to Jim's dark mood that he barely reacts, not even to roll his eyes or call Sebastian uselessly sentimental. "What if we killed him first?"
"Think harder," Jim says. He leans into Sebastian's palm. "What happens when we do?"
Okay.
Sherlock would be angry, livid. He wouldn't hurt Jim but he'd chase them and Sebastian already knows his own safety isn't guaranteed. John would go with Sherlock. And Mycroft - Mycroft was important enough that if they did this, coming back to Britain wouldn't be easy, especially not with a little girl in tow. She'd have to grow somewhere else. They'd be on the run indefinitely.
There has to be a trick, something he's not clever enough to think of that Jim's already put into play. Except - except there isn't. There can't be because he's been watching Jim for months, for years, and he's been happy sometimes but never gleeful, not in the way he is when he has a plan.
"We're trapped here, aren't we?" Sebastian says. "We can't leave with her."
"Not if we want to keep her. And I'm not leaving her to Sherlock." Jim's eyes flutter closed and for a second, a split second, his expression changes in a way that makes Sebastian's chest hurt. Then Jim opens his eyes and it's gone, leaving him inscrutable. "I'm sorry."
"How long have you known?" Sebastian asks.
"Eighteen weeks, but I've only been sure for three." Jim's mouth twists unhappily. "I can't outsmart them both and even if I did. She's blood.They'd never give up."
Then what do we do? Sebastian thinks. What will they do to you, when she's not inside you to keep you safe from them? What are we doing here?
Jim refuses to get a C-section.
Sebastian overhears him on the phone about it, coy and stubborn in turn. He complains about scars and his girlish figure. He calls the procedure barbaric. He cites mortality rates and recovery times and statistics for complications.
He argues about it with Sherlock for an hour and a half (who puts Mycroft on at one point, but Jim refuses to speak to him and gets Sherlock again) before he hangs up, wearing a smug grin of victory. Sebastian makes room for him on the sofa. He runs his fingertips down Jim's belly and asks carefully, "What's the real reason?"
Jim looks at him like he's an idiot. "If it's planned, it'd be too easy for his brother to arrange for an 'accident' to happen during the operation. He'll be able to decide which doctor I see and where. I'm not letting that happen. When she comes, we're taking a cab to a public hospital."
"You'll be there for hours," Sebastian points out. "He'll still have time to make a move."
"Maybe," Jim says. He winks. "But that's why I have you."
When it happens - when Jim's water breaks in the middle of the afternoon and the contractions come, making him gasp and swear, Sebastian does as he's told and gets them a cab. He calls the hospital while they're still on the way and when they arrive, the staff are ready and waiting. They take Jim from him with brisk, efficient motions.
"Wait," Jim says. His hand shoots out and grabs Sebastian's wrist in a painfully firm grip. "Stay."
At minute fifty-four on a timer in Sebastian's mind that's been ticking ever since they rushed out of the flat without having the time to bypass the surveillance, Sherlock Holmes finally shows up, full of frenetic energy.
The doctor is busy with Jim, but one of the nurses snaps his head up and moves to intercept him. "I'm sorry sir, you can't be in here."
"The hell I can't!" Sherlock snaps. He barrels past the nurse to rush to Jim's side. "He's my mate, which you'd realize if you paid any attention at all to the fact that he," and Sherlock motions at Sebastian, "isn't even an alpha. Sherlock Holmes, I called ahead. I'm the one who told you he'd be coming."
He takes a place on Jim's other side, across from Sebastian. This time, no one tries to stop him. He smooths his palm over Jim's belly. "I'm here," he says tenderly and Sebastian can almost forget that Jim and Sherlock were once mortal enemies because Jim turns to him like a flower drawn to the sun.
Sherlock takes Jim's hand in his. Sebastian watches Jim squeeze it as another contraction ripples through his body. He bares his gritted teeth and makes a pained, animal noise that turns abruptly into panting when the contraction ends and his muscles relax. Sherlock lowers his head to Jim's face and says something to him that makes some of the tension in Jim's face ease.
Sebastian wants to hit something.
"Good, good," the doctor says encouragingly to Jim. "You're doing great, Mr. Holmes. Just -"
"Excuse me, sir," the nurse says. He puts a hand on Sebastian's elbow. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but only the father's allowed in the room during the birth."
"Right, yeah. Sure," Sebastian says dully and lets himself be herded gently but insistently out the door. He feels a small, petty joy at seeing John Watson standing in the doorway, staring at Sherlock with a pained, agonized expression.
"Sorry mate," Sebastian snarls when he brushes past him, "This is a private party. People like us aren't allowed."
He spends hours two, three, and four by taking stock of the building. He checks the exits, walks the perimeter, and keeps an eye on the staff, as he'd do if this were a job. He spots several doctors who don't move like a doctors some time during hour three and memorizes their faces.
Then he walks down the street and buys a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He chain smokes them all down to their filters and when he still doesn't feel better, when he still can't shove the image of Sherlock and Jim together out of his mind, he slams his fists into the wall over and over, until the skin of his knuckles splits open.
A man he doesn't recognize recognizes him first ("Good evening, Colonel Moran," murmured when they pass each other, and it's as good a threat as he's ever gotten). Sebastian's unarmed. He's got a rifle stashed in the basement if he needs to get to it, but that hardly matters when they don't have an extraction plan.
The rope around his throat tightens another notch.
At hour eight, minute fourteen, the door to Jim's room opens. He and John (who has been steadfastly not looking at him and vice versa) both look up.
"Sebastian?"
Sebastian shoots to his feet. "That's me. Is everything okay?"
The doctor smiles at him. "Everything's fine. Mother and baby are both perfectly healthy. He's asking for you. Do you want to see him?"
Sebastian's inside the room and at Jim's side nearly before the doctor finishes asking his question. Sherlock's and his eyes meet; Sebastian glowers and curls his hands into fists but Sherlock just looks at him like he's a lab rat before twirling on his heels and swooping out.
"Seb," Jim says, and when Sebastian comes close, grabs his hand. His face is streaked with sweat and involuntary tears, expression cracked wide open, vulnerable and raw and desperate. "Don't let them take her from me. They're going to try. Please, don't let them take her."
"I won't," Sebastian says. "I promise." He wipes his thumb across Jim's cheek and Jim's face cracks into a rare, radiant smile.
"Did you see her yet? I made her. I made her and she's perfect."
"Not yet," Sebastian says. "But I will."
There are four omega births in the newborn ward but Jim's is the only girl. She's in the second row. Sebastian can read the label on her bed. Sarah Andromeda Holmes. She doesn't look any different from the other lumps bundled in colored blankets but then Sebastian remembers that this time yesterday she was inside Jim, that when they'd fallen asleep the night before, she'd just been a round bulge in Jim's body.
Sebastian touches his fingertips to the glass window between them.
She looks so small, even compared to the other babies.
"Omega births are usually smaller than female ones," a smooth, cultured voice says from his right. "Women are better-equipped for childbirth."
Mycroft Holmes. He smiles pleasantly when Sebastian looks at him. Sebastian looks back at the baby (at Jim's daughter). She's fast asleep. "Yeah, I know."
So small and so vulnerable. The only thing Jim had asked of him was, don't let them take her from me. Well, he hasn't failed a task yet.
Sebastian turns. Mycroft is already watching him.
Sebastian gives him a brittle smile and, when Mycroft just raises an eyebrow at him and waits, he grits out, "I know you're planning on taking her. I might not be a genius, but I'm not stupid."
Jim can't protect her, not now, when he is so tired and so open. All his shields and masks and layers of protection have been smashed open by something Sebastian never could have given him. Mycroft purses his lips and doesn't answer, so Sebastian continues.
"It'll work. You'll get her, but there's no way you can trick him. Whatever you try to do, he'll figure it out and when he does, he'll be furious. Everything he's been doing up until now has just been playing. He gets bored so he plays games and sometimes people die. But he's more dangerous than that and we both know it. If you do this, he'll level Britain. Neither of us want that."
"I assure you, Colonel Moran," Mycroft says pleasantly, "I can be just as dangerous. I won't be cowed by a madman with impulse control problems."
"That's not what I'm saying. I'm not threatening you," Sebastian says. He takes a deep breath. "There's another way. He'll - he's willing to retire for her. He can go legit. Moriarty's been missing for months. He doesn't have to come back. If you let him keep her, he'll go legit. Wouldn't that be good? She gets both her parents and Moriarty stays gone. And I'm sure Sherlock wants to keep his omega."
Mycroft looks at him - the way Jim looks at him sometimes, the way Sherlock had looked at him, the way that Sebastian hates. He peels Sebastian open and takes him apart with his eyes. He finds, removes, and scrutinizes all the things Sebastian would never say out loud.
Then he asks, "And where does that leave you?"
Where does it leave him, when there is a cell in a secret prison with his name on it? When the hospital is crawling with MI5 and he's just finished telling someone who might as well be their leader that Jim will drop everything and throw himself right into their jaws, if it means he'll get to keep his child?
Sebastian laughs hollowly.
"Nowhere. Isn't that right, Mr. Holmes? But I knew it'd happen sometime. Might as well be now." He inclines his head. Mycroft does the same. "Congratulations."
He sees John Watson on his way out. Sebastian stops and John does too, hands in his pockets. They eye each other warily. Sebastian breaks the silence first.
"Is it worth it? Following him around like you're the one who's a dog, letting him fuck around and mate with someone you hate? Standing by while they have a kid together because he wants it so much and you'd never be able to do that for him? Why do you stay? Don't you ever want more?"
"Shut up!" John shoves Sebastian roughly in the chest. The force of it is strong enough to make Sebastian stumble back. "I don't care what you say or what sick game Moriarty's playing at. I'm never going to abandon Sherlock. Nothing you do can change that. You'll never break us up. Do you hear me? I love him and he loves me back. "
Huh, Sebastian thinks as John storms furiously off. That must be nice.
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