Jim fell of the face of the Earth two years ago. Out of Seb's scope and effectively out of his life if he was going to try and be damn poetic about the whole thing. In all reality, Jim had shot himself in the goddamn head and left Seb to pick up all the bloody little pieces. An entire empire had fallen onto Seb's shoulders because Jim had built up a network of criminals all over the globe, and people like that had to be watched. So, Seb took orders and squared his jaw, learning how to threaten people to get exactly what he wanted and how to make a business deal in no less than fifteen goddamn languages. And honestly, he did a damn good job. He let Holmes believe that the Serbian side was the last piece of the puzzle, that he'd finally beaten Jim once and for all. In a way, Seb supposed he had. After all, it wouldn't be Jim rebuilding Rome from the rubble it had been reduced to. No, now that task fell on Seb, and that was most definitely a reason for a drink.
Seb had wandered into the pub around half an hour ago successfully navigating to an empty booth before a rowdy family of five could beat him to it. He winked at the mother who scowled at him before ushering her children away from the 6'4" man with eleven tattoos too many. Seb regretted drinking Jim's good liquor until the supply had run out when the whiskey he ordered barely burned the back of is throat. He downed two without even thinking and all before his watch even read noon. Tottenham was playing Chelsea on the bar's tiny TV in an already hopeless match that somehow still captured the attention of the lugs sitting at the bar. Jim would have scowled, would have sneered, at their sheer boringness and the way they probably all knew each others name only because they go to the same bar and sit in the same place week after week after week. Seb chuckled slightly at the idea as Chelsea scored yet another goal and Tottenham's goalie looked about ready to shoot the rest of his team because they couldn't even hold him solely responsible for the goals scored anymore.
The image disappeared into static for a brief moment capturing the bar's attention before returning to the game. The sun still shone outside and birds chirped as if nothing was wrong. Patrons checked their phones as if this was a motherfucking Stephen King book and Seb had almost stood up and left when Jim showed up on the TV screen. He stood in front of something cold, something metallic, and Seb couldn't for the life of him make out where it was. "Did you miss me" penetrated the unearthly silence that had fallen over the bar as they all stared at Jim's smiling face plaster on this TV along with every other screen in London. Before Seb could stop himself he chucked his half empty glass at the screen, spilling whiskey and glass over the bar floor. Several people turned slowly toward the direction the glass had come from, looking frightened as Seb abruptly stood from the table throwing down a wad of Jim's money before stalking out of the bar muttering something about "bloody Irish bastards" on his way out.
He slammed the door to Jim's luxury Audi before jamming the key into the ignition and crushing the gas pedal, tearing out of the parking lot toward Jim's house. No one set foot in the place in the two years that Jim had been dead, but not really dead. To be brutally honest, Sebastian Moran wasn't mad. He was fucking pissed. The edges of his vision went red and his knuckles turned white from grabbing at the steering wheel so hard. He ran at least ten different red lights and nearly crashed the car twice, and he didn't care one goddamn bit. It would serve Jim right, Seb wasn't a goddamn businessman he was a gun for hire, and that meant he stayed out of the drug deals and kept hidden in a building across the street, sniper rifle in hand. Unfortunately, Moriarty neither asked nor cared what Seb had wanted. Instead he'd shot himself in the head with a blank and let Seb tear himself apart trying to keep Jim's Rome above ground along with himself. Seb's phone rang, and for once he didn't pick up. Who gave a fuck if Jim's empire finally collapsed, let him fix it himself.
Seb pulled into Jim's obnoxiously large driveway with his blood pounding in his ears. He slammed the door shut not even bothering to lock the damn thing. The pounding only double when he saw Jim's favorite car glinting in the sunlight and Seb almost took his knife to it, but no that was going a bit too far. There would be hell to pay if he even thought about touching that car because Jim was ridiculously materialistic and didn't like it when people broke his toys something that he had proven time and time again. In the back of his mind Seb wondered why even cared as he stormed up the steps to the ostentatious oak door fumbling for the right key, for a criminal mastermind Jim didn't really seem to get the idea of staying inconspicuous, or at least that's what Seb had thought before the mad fuck had completely disappeared for two year. It took Seb nearly a minute to get the key into the lock, and he almost broke down goddamn door when he finally got it open.
Seb threw open the door and just stood in the frame listening to the sound of Bach blasting through Jim's speakers that would have stopped dead at the door by layers upon layer of sound-proofing. He closed the door not so gently hoping to God that Jim would hear him, or that Jim was even in the house at all. It suddenly seemed perfectly plausible that this was another elaborate stunt Jim created from whatever dark, twisted corner of his mind he kept hidden from the rest of the world if only to annoy the ever-living shit out of Seb. Seb had grown used to jumping through hoops in the past five or six year he'd know Jim, but this time Jim had sunk to a new low. He could handle killing nameless, faceless blokes that got in Jim's way even if he got no more than an approving glance from his boss in return, but this. This made him want to break every £1.5 piece of furniture in the house. Jim's schemes were saved for Sherlock Holmes and the people that he wanted dead, which come to think of it were essentially the same thing in the end, and Seb could only hope he hadn't managed to get himself on Jim's bad side no matter how dead his boss pretended to be. Jim could be blown to bits, all but dust in the wind, and he could still find a way or have planned a way to make his enemies' lives miserable, and maybe Jim had planned for this all along. Maybe he had calculated Seb's every last move down to the last breath he took. Maybe Jim had actually and this was just an elaborate ruse to scare the country into the submission of his ever-dwindling empire.
Seb walked forward, sleek black shoes clicking on Jim's marbled floors. He'd refused to step foot in the house since Jim had "died", leaving everything exactly how it was incase he could ever man up enough to collect his things from Jim's closets. Despite this fact, Seb could still navigate the place with his eyes closed, which was probably a good thing seeing as he was more going through the motion than actually paying any attention to his surroundings. He stepped into Jim's living room to see the man standing on his £900,000 coffee table eyes closed, waving his arms as if conducting an orchestra. Upon Seb's entrance Jim opened his eyes as if he could fucking sense that Seb had entered the room, and broke into a broad grin. Hoping down from his conductor's stand and clicking a remote to turn off the concerto, Jim started towards Seb who had remained stiff in the entrance to the room.
"Hello, Tiger, did you miss me?"
Jim's familiar singsong way of saying things drifted through the house bringing back a flood of memories Seb just didn't want to have to deal with. As soon as the man came close enough to him, Seb punched Jim squared in the jaw causing the smaller man to stumble backwards.
"Should I take that as a no?"
"Should you take that as a no? Should you take that as a fucking no? No. What you should take it as is a where the ever-living fuck have you been you complete and utter lunatic!"
"Seb, your insults are so public school, please do try and step it up. I know you haven't had the best company recently, but honestly it's like you've forgotten me completely."
Jim feigned hurt at the seething man in front of him as Seb tugged a hand across his face, as if by shielding his eyes from Jim he could completely ignore the consulting criminal stood right in front of him for the first time in two years. But, of course he couldn't. Jim's presence seemed to have set the entire room on edge, forcing even the usually still air to buzz eagerly at attention. Seb opened his eyes to see Jim was still looking at him, and even though the man stood flesh and blood right in front of him those eyes could have fooled Seb because they shined with a dead glint just like they always had. It seemed Jim hadn't given up his staring in his two year absence and it continued to set Seb on edge as if he had a knife pressed against his throat or a gun pushed against his back. And he hadn't admitted it, but he missed that. He had missed the way Jim could set every nerve on edge by just walking into a room, but he couldn't tell Jim that, not now because that's something a lunatic would say and he was currently trying to teach Jim that being a lunatic was not okay.
"You let me believe you were dead for two mother fucking years."
"You can't spell believe without a little lie, Seb"
"Two years, Jim! You let me pick up your goddamn empire, no fuck that you made me pick our your goddamn grave, while you went and played fucking hide-and-seek with Holmes because it never was about anything other than the goddamn chase, was it Jim?
Seb struggled to keep his voice under control, and struggled even more to keep himself for taking the knife out of his back pocket and making sure the fucker actually died this time.
"Oh come now, Seb. Don't be so cruel."
"No, Jim, I get to be cruel because for two years you let me think that you were dead. That I had to be there to pick up your mess. That I would have to keep going knowing that I had fucked up the only goddamn thing you actually trusted me with. So don't just sit there and tell me not to be cruel because I fucking deserve this, at least, don't you think?"
"No, I think you're just as insane as I am. Honestly, Seb," Jim sighed turning away from the sniper, "do come find me once you've finally controlled yourself." And with that Jim walked down the hallway whistle a macabre tune under his breath.
Seb took five minutes sitting on the couch before getting up to follow Jim. He dragged his hand along the smooth wall as he walked down the hallway's of Jim's house remembering exactly how many times he had punched a hole in it only to have Jim force him to plaster over it. He debated on breaking through it again, just for kicks, but decided against it because even tough Jim managed not to lose his temper around Seb, nothing protected him from the very real threat of one of his boss's temper tantrums. He pushed open the door to Jim's room finding his boss pacing the room shouting into his phone in a language Seb didn't even recognize before Jim hung up throwing himself onto his bed face first because "people are so stupid, Seb". Seb laughed quietly before throwing himself onto a leather chair in Jim's room.
"Glad your back, boss."
"I know you are, Moran. Come now, we have work to do."
In true James Moriarty style, Jim strode over to his desk pulling out fie different files from his briefcase before launching into a very detail explanation of Seb's next job not pausing for a moment to check if Seb actually decided to pay any attention, and true to his, Seb pushed up from the leather chair walking over and placing his hands on Jim's shoulders as he listened but not really listened to the expansive plan. And Seb supposed they were both fucking insane, but what can you really expect when you fall in love with a psychopath.