Fic: To Darkness Promote Me
Title: To Darkness Promote Me
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC), His Dark Materials
Pairing: Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, War, Fantastical Dub-Con
Summary:: Exactly no one was surprised when Sebastian's daemon turned out to be a tiger.
A/N: His Dark Materials fusion. Beta'ed by the wonderful percygranger, for whom no idea is too cracky.
‘It isn’t exactly subtle, is it?’ Sebastian said critically.
Grainne swished her tail. ‘Who cares about subtle? It fits us.’
It did. Grainne had been favouring feline shapes since as long as Sebastian could remember. And it only made sense that she would settle on the greatest and most powerful of them all.
‘And you’re sure?’
‘Yes. I don’t think I could change now, even if I wanted to.’
This would make him one of the first children in his class with a fixed daemon. But in a year or so, all the others would be stuck with their boring shapes, the little dogs and birds, and he would still have Grainne, majestic, terrible, beautiful.
Sebastian grinned. Grainne bared her teeth.
***
The recruitment officer had been throwing curious looks at Grainne for the entire interview. Not that surprising: even in the army Grainne stood out. She was by far the largest of all daemons, although there was someone in a different regiment with a bear. But it was more than that.
Most daemons would show some kind of submissiveness when in an interview, for example. But Grainne’s tail was waving slowly, and it was getting noticed.
The interviewer put down questionnaire and peered at Sebastian over folded hands. ‘Can you control yourself?’ he asked, frankly. The questions didn’t matter, after all. All they wanted to know was if he was soldier material or just a run-of-the-mill psycho.
Sebastian reached out and cuffed Grainne around the ears. Both the officer and his daemon winced in reaction, and Sebastian grinned. And Grainne’s tail curled between her hind legs in surrender.
‘If needed, yes,’ Sebastian said, meeting the officer’s eyes calmly.
He got recruited, of course. With a demon like that, who else was going to take him?
***
He ducked behind the barricade and checked the surroundings.
‘We’re alone,’ Grainne said. She met his eyes.
Their enemy was proving difficult. The daemon was a bird, too quick for Grainne to catch, and the man himself was clever enough to stay in cover while his daemon did the work.
‘Teamwork,’ Sebastian said softly. Grainne nodded and crouched, ready to pounce.
The next time the bird flew over, Grainne swept at it with a claw. It wasn’t enough to get it, but it slowed down just enough for Sebastian to lunge and grab it by the throat. He folded his hand over the wings and stood up straight.
The soldier came out of his hiding place, pale, shaking, shocked. ‘You can’t - ‘ he choked.
‘This is a war, you idiot,’ Grainne snarled.
Sebastian cocked his head and tightened his grip. The man went to his knees.
‘It’s in bad taste to play with your food,’ Grainne said drily.
Sebastian smirked and twisted, breaking the daemon’s neck. It disappeared in a puff of golden sparks, and the man collapsed.
‘Well,’ Sebastian said thoughtfully. ‘That was interesting.’
***
He got the sack, unceremoniously and without any explanation. He wasn’t very surprised by it, but it left very few viable career options.
No office jobs, that’s for sure. Sports? He snorted. Following the rules had been hard enough in the army, and at least those made some kind of sense. He made a habit out of not playing fair, after all.
He stared off in the distance. Grainne was chasing ducks around the pond, and a lot of people were surreptitiously staring. She was impressive, of course, and between her claws and Sebastian’s proficiency with firearms, they’d make an ideal pair of bodyguards.
Thugs for hire. He fancied it about as much as being a fucking midfielder.
Grainne noticed his gloomy mood and padded over. She settled down next to him and he absently buried his fingers into her fur.
‘You’ll just have to suck it up,’ she said, unconcernedly. Not one for sentimentality, his Grainne. He pulled at her fur and she extended her claws, growling softly.
‘I don’t like following orders,’ Sebastian said.
She gave an odd feline version of a shrug. ‘Like I said, you’ll have to learn to suppress your urges. Who knows,’ and she glanced up, yellow eyes gleaming, ‘We might encounter something interesting along the way.’
***
'Hi-i!'
Sebastian turned and Grainne bared her incisors.
This was supposed to be just an ordinary job, follow some small-time criminal around and make sure he doesn’t get killed, but then Seb’s boss had suddenly pulled over, pushed him out of the car, and told him to wait inside the warehouse.
Presumably for the a small, neat man in a suit, a black moth fluttering around his shoulder, standing at the other side of the room.
'Jim Moriarty,' the man called cheerfully, voice echoing off the walls..
Sebastian knew that name. Hell, everyone know that name. That explained his boss’ terrified expression though, only a small percentages of those who came in contact with the infamous consulting criminal lived to tell the tale.
Was this a set-up? Had he messed up, was he being punished, was he a fucking sacrificial lamb?
The man stepped closer. Grainne padded forward, stopping a couple of yards from him, and growled low in her throat. Most people got very unnerved when she did that, but not Moriarty. He strolled closer as if nothing had happened.
'And you have been head-hunted!' he sang.
'Head-hunted,' Sebastian repeated dully, hand on his gun.
'I want you to work for me,' Moriarty said, leaning in confidentially. The moth landed on his shoulder. It was just a tiny thing, one good swat from Grainne's claw and it would be mush, no threat there. The only question was if Moriarty was armed.
'And why would I want to do that?'
The moth took to the air again and fluttered down to sit on the floor, only a few inches away from Grainne. She raised a threatening paw.
Sebastian looked back up to see Moriarty grinning.
'Oh dear,' he said lazily. 'Looks like they're going to fight.'
Sebastian looked back at the daemons, because that wouldn't be a fight, that would be an execution. But Moriarty wasn't stupid, so what -
And the moth twisted and changed shape.
Sebastian felt bile rise to his throat. Wrong. He was not squeamish, not by any standard, but this? He watched as the daemon dropped to all fours and became a black panther, and all he could think was wrong, on every possible level. Twisted. Sick. Perverted.
The newly-formed panther circled Grainne, and Sebastian’s instincts kicked in. He opened his mouth to warn her, call her back, something, but what he said didn't matter, because Grainne had already rolled over, baring her fluffy white belly in the ultimate sign of submission.
The panther bit her lightly in the neck, and Sebastian felt the ghost-pressure of teeth.
'I like her,' Moriarty's daemon said, as cheerfully as the man himself. Sebastian's hands started trembling.
'They make a rather adorable picture, don't they?' Moriarty said. He walked over and crouched down next to the two big cats. Sebastian watched wide-eyed as he reached out, because he couldn't -
He could. Sebastian's eyes fluttered closed and he rocked back on his heels with a desperate little moan as Moriarty scratched Grainne's fur.
'Enjoy that, do you? Funny, most people get a bit uneasy when I touch their wee pets.'
Grainne sensed his discomfort and swiped at Moriarty's hand. He ducked back, but not in time to avoid the sharp claws. He held his bleeding hand up in front of his face, looking at it with delight.
'Well, I can see how that can come in useful,' his daemon said. She licked the blood of his hand. Grainne was watching them both, tail waving, and Sebastian felt like he was frozen to the spot.
'Doesn't say much, does she?' Moriarty said. He reached out again and scritched Grainne behind the ears. Sebastian's knees buckled, and the palm of his hand hit the concrete floor hard. Two shocks like that in just a few minutes, no-one would blame him for going a little weak. He still couldn’t get that image out of his head, of Moriarty’s daemon transforming, and the man himself, smiling like it was the most normal thing in the world.
He raised his head and glared at Moriarty, who was still fondling Grainne. And why the fuck wasn’t Grainne fighting back? 'Stop that,’ Sebastian growled.
'Or what?’ Moriarty’s eyes glittered in amusement. ‘You'll hurt me?'
Sebastian forced himself up again, ignored that horrific background shiver of someone else touching his daemon (except horrific wasn’t quite the right word for it, was it?). He pulled his gun and strode over to Moriarty's daemon, pointing it unerringly at her head. It took a lot of willpower just to keep his aim steady.
'Oh,' Moriarty said softly. 'You don't play by the rules, do you, Sebastian? Is that why they kicked you out?'
'We did what we had to to survive,' Grainne said.
'I have no doubt.'
'And that's why we want you,' Moriarty's daemon added, rolling onto her back.
'You're insane,' Sebastian said.
Moriarty rolled his eyes. 'People keep saying that. Like it means something. So, what are you - oh.'
Grainne had come closer to where Moriarty was crouched, ears forward, tail high.
'Grainne, what the hell do you think you're doing?' Sebastian hissed.
The daemon didn't reply. Moriarty offered his fingers. The tiger sniffed them curiously, and then she licked his palm and nudged her head against his knuckles.
Sebastian's gun fell from his hand. He curled his hands into fists, burying his nails into his palm, trying to focus on the pain instead of this, this other feeling.
Moriarty's daemon rolled back up and started circling Sebastian. Meanwhile Moriarty himself had sat down cross-legged, with Grainne's head in his lap. He was petting and cooing and the damn creature was purring like there was no tomorrow, and in all their years together she’d never betrayed him like this. They’d always been on the same side, never had a single argument in public, and now this.
'Aren't you just adorable?' She snapped playfully at Moriarty’s fingers and he tapped her on the nose. 'You beauty. Such a pity your Sebastian doesn't want to play, hm?'
'Oh, I think he does,' Moriarty's daemon said. 'He just doesn't want to admit it yet. Do you?' The daemon raised her head, as if to butt her head against Sebastian’s leg, and he took a reflexive step back to avoid touching her.
'Come here,' Moriarty said. The daemon padded over to the other two and Sebastian followed, unable to do anything else. Moriarty took his hand and pulled him down. He laced their fingers together and reached out to his daemon. Sebastian made one last effort to pull away.
'I can't just - '
'Stop whining,' Grainne growled.
'Well said. See, we're agreeing already.'
He closed the last distance and Sebastian's fingers touched soft dark fur. Moriarty closed his eyes in delight and the air was alive with twin purring.
'One big happy family,' Moriarty breathed.
And as Sebastian felt the powerful muscles under his hand, he couldn't help but agree.