It had been going well; it had been going really well, with the perfect amount of press and pull and skin and friction, and Seb had begun to meander his mouth downward when the hand landed in his hair.
He froze, staring up at Jim, who blinked the lust out of his eyes and then tilted his head before moving his hand to Sebastian's shoulder, pushing him further down and saying nothing at all.
Which was perfect, because Seb hated talking about it, and he moved downward more than willingly, and the moment passed.
It didn't take too long for Jim to notice certain things about Sebastian Moran; no one else noticed, but no one else ever noticed anything, and Moran was very good at hiding.
The problem was that Jim was very good at maths, and joining the dots, adding up all the tiny things to equal a whole picture, but Sebastian remained a mystery. There was no whole story that accounted for the many quirks of the sniper.
He had a list; some of his favourite points to muse over were:
* don't put your hand in his hair; he hates it. No one else would notice, but his muscles would lock and his pupils shrink to mere pinpoints.
* don't put your hand on his neck. A man had done this once at a bar and Sebastian had seemed to entirely relax under the touch before his eyes had shot open like he realised what he was doing, and a moment later the man's wrist was snapped.
* he never seemed to need to trim his always-neat, sniper-short nails; he should have been doing it once or twice a week, but he didn't even seem to own a nail trimmer, and his nails didn't have the right cuts for knife trimming.
It was the little things, like the way he responded to direct eye contact, or the way his muscles tensed just the slightest bit when teeth were bared, even in a friendly smile. (The whole first week Jim had actually worked with the sniper in person, he'd played with these two reactions until Moran had caught on and consciously corrected his responses so he was no fun anymore.)
It was things like how he stiffened when they'd gone to talk to a client ( a ranlittle old lady who wanted her husband and godson dead, bless) and she offered them "milk or juice, boys? Only we've jurunout of tea."
Things like how when the boys had started calling him Stripes, he had viciously denied the nickname, and nearly killed one of Jim's sorry minions before Jim had burst out laughing and told him that it wasn't about the number of stripes on his uniform, it was his ever-increasing scars. And then he'd backed off quickly, murmuring apologetically, though at that point it was hard to tell what had scared the boy worse: Moran's anger or Jim's laughter.
On the other hand, Jim loved problems. He worked in problems: solving some (Dear Jim, can you fix it for me) and causing others (that deardetective inspector did hate him so). So instead of being bothered (often frustrated, but hardly bothered) he found himself enjoying the fact that he wasn't sleeping with an entirely dull creature just for the sake of his cock.
Today, however, he had another set of issues. Namely, a group of small-time thugs that had no real idea of who he was, but had managed to get a fair amount of manpower and gunpowder, and had simply wonderful fashion taste. Noting his suit and correctly guessing that the man who wore it must be a man of considerable means, they'd hit him over the back of the head (inelegant) and trussed him up like a rather angry turkey.
They were going over his phone now, trying to decide who to call for a ransom note. Unfortunately they actually did have quite a lot of guns, and Jim really didn't want to waste the energy required to get shot and crawl home.
He was calculating how much money his network would pay, and how he would get it back after he was released, and watching what little dark night sky he could see above the next building through the high warehouse window, when a familiar silhouette came into view on the ceiling of said building. Just a small splotch of darker black against a black sky, but then it stood and Jim could make out the outline clearly. Moran, and his favourite rifle. Jim was going to give that rifle a promotion when he got home.
Moran set up efficiently, though Jim couldn't see it well, his black figure crouching and barely moving. A moment later, Moran flopped onto his stomach, and Jim braced for the sound of a shot... But nothing came.
Okay, so maybe the rifle wasn't getting a promotion. He saw Seb stand, and then a foot lashed out and kicked the rifle gear off the roof. The men in the corner were getting annoyed, and a light appeared near Moran - oh, his phone.
The light got tossed onto the roof, and Jim sighed. Getting shot after all, then. At least Seb could help him get hom-
A crash, and Jim blinked, as a - a tiger, an actual tiger, what the hell - broke through the ceiling, leaping from box to box and finally onto the first shouting gangster with a snarl. The men in the room were scattering, some firing guns wildly (missing, of course, morons) and the big cat turned on one after another, clawing out hamstrings and biting through jugulars without stopping to look over the corpses left behind.
A moment later and all was silent, and Jim was left shackled to a pillar, staring at a huge, panting cat, blood dripping from a fang before a rough tongue swiped out to catch it.
And then, the tiger padded away. A swipe at the doorknob and it turned easily, and a sweeping tail disappeared from view.
Fifteen minutes later and a couple of very shaky minions came to break the cuffs and chains, saying they'd got a text, and they really didn't know what had happened, sir, and they really didn't want to know, thanks so much, should they ask the body disposal crew to come by?
Jim said yes and went home.
There was no Moran. His passport was gone, his favourite guns were gone (Jim would later find that the rifle that had jammed on the roof had also been picked up), his comfiest (most hole-ridden) clothes were gone. Jim tapped his foot. Well, this would never do.
Seb took a seat and looked around the small bar. There were several things he loved about India: the culture, the look of a sari on a pretty lady, the food (oh fuck the food).
He wasn't so much a fan of the liquor choices, though, and he thought of his local with a small sigh, wondering what his chances were of finding a decent lager here.
Footsteps approached from behind him, and he reached for his coat, before a lazy Irish drawl interrupted.
"Buy you a pint, tiger?"
Sebastian stopped, and blinked once, and took a deep breath.
"No petting me," he started.
"Wouldn't dream of it," the bastard agreed with a grin.
"No bringing me into meetings to intimidate people," he checked off on his fingers, "no trying to make me purr in this form, no trying to use the tail as a sex toy, I don't want milk."
"I bring you into meetings to intimidate people already," Jim pouted, and Seb had to concede the point.
"Not like that, though," he insisted, and Jim nodded. "And finally," he finished, "don't call me kitten."
Jim blinked, a light came into his eyes, and Seb knew he'd made a mistake.
"Course not, baby cub," he said, entirely straight faced, and sat next to Sebastian's stool at the counter. "So," he asked, "do they sell Guinness here, kitten?"