Stepping up onto the roof to retrieve Jim's seemingly lifeless form has to be the most difficult thing he has done so far in his life, Sebastian thinks. Still. Finding a pulse, getting the man medical attention - under a false name, just in time - is more than he could ever have asked for. Yet, when Sebastian realizes that Jim remembered nothing about being the revered Moriarty, it makes the moment in the rooftop pale in in comparison.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When he first brings Jim back to their flat he expects him to drop the act and scold him endlessly, even for a split-second, doubting him. Nothing of that kind happens.
Richard, as the man wishes now to be called, walks through the penthouse flat like he is seeing it for the first time, too out of place to touch anything, which is so completely unlike Jim that makes Sebastian want to hurt someone.
Recovery had been a lengthy process and six months in the hospital left the criminal skinny and weak, so Sebastian keeps himself from acting on the feeling. Jim has to be hiding somewhere inside that ridiculous head, because why would he choose to remain Richard Brook of all possible personas? The criminal playing an actor who plays a criminal had been fun for a while, but at the end of the he could always be sure to find Jim in his bed.
Not now.
It is not Jim Moriarty whom he brings home, but Richard Brook. Richard, who is is sweet and loving and nothing like Jim at all and Sebastian is no longer sure if surviving a bullet to the head is truly worth the aftermath. Maybe, he thinks while watching Richard carefully exploring the place he had lived for the last two and a half years, it would have been easier for everyone if he had died. That is, after all, what people normally do after swallowing a bullet. But when did Jim ever do anything the way ordinary people did?
Richard slowly walks around the living room, cautiously examining each and every piece of furniture, like they might offer him insight into his past. They don't. He looks lost.
When he awoke from the artificial coma, he remembered his (not) name and that he preferred cats over dogs but not his address, the names of his parents, Sebastian's face.While he slowly learned to regain control over his limbs, Sebastian kept looking for the Jim he had known.
But this was Richard, the persona he helped Jim create, not the man himself.
The first night after this realization, Sebastian went home to get blackout drunk.
Richard looks out of the balcony door, one hand against the glass as if to steady himself.
"This is where I will be staying?" he asks without turning around, looking frail against the pale sunlight that filters in through the big windows.
"Something wrong with it?" Sebastian asks, still hoping for Jim to remember.
"Are you sure this is where I lived? I... I don't remember ever visiting before," Richard confesses and Sebastian clenches his fists. Jim would remember. His voice stays calm, fortunately.
"This is where you lived as long as I have known you, boss", he explains and flinches at Richard's next words.
"I am not your boss."
"You are."
They already had this discussion, but old habits die hard, especially with the other man standing amidst their home, surrounded by furniture his interior designer picked out.
"I can't be your boss, because I don't have any money to pay you with," Richard says while finally walking away from the window. He stops next to the couch, tracing the slightly rough material with his fingers. Jim had deemed leather too uncomfortable, Sebastian remembers.
"You have more than enough to spare; money will never be an issue. Don't worry, I am taking care of everything, boss."
"Please. My name is Richard."
Calling him 'boss' is a habit he needs to get rid of, he knows, but it seems nearly impossible.
The doctors say Jim will probably never recover his memory. He will never remember being a brilliant criminal who enjoyed toying with other people's minds. Accepting whoever he now remembers to be will help him. If he can't be who he used to be, he is supposed to support whoever Jim now thinks he is. Richard, in this case.
The sniper takes a deep breath.
"I will show you your bedroom, Richard. Come on, right over there."
Sebastian will move back to the guest room he can't remember ever sleeping in. Jim had been too possessive to ever let his sniper sleep away from him, but Richard is not Jim and he doesn't want to spook him.
Sebastian has slept there for the past several months, pretending the sheets still smelled of Jim, but he will cope. There is still his old bedroom to retreat to, after all.
He needs a drink.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When Richard asks his permission to get a cat two weeks later, he agrees, because that is what he does, when the boss wants something: get it, whatever it is, make the impossible happen. Only that this is not his boss anymore, but an alien, soft-spoken man who wears his face but acts nothing like him. There is nothing that is not wrong about this. Jim never asked permission for anything. He hated cats.
They pick up a gray tabby from the nearest shelter and stop on the way home for Sebastian to stock up on whiskey.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
It has been three months since Richard was allowed out of the hospital and Sebastian has no idea how Jim ever managed to run his empire. Maybe he could only do it because he had already lost his mind a long time ago. Maybe, Sebastian thinks, he could cut off all the consulting business and use the contacts to concentrate on arms- dealing. There is still enough money hidden away to keep living comfortably and at least it is something he knows how to handle.
He won't do it. He still has not given up hope for Jim to regain his memories, despite the doctors said.
Richard still has to follow through with physiotherapy and that keeps him busy for a few hours every day, but the rest of the time Sebastian has to watch him. The first time he left him alone, the other man wandered off and got lost in the still unfamiliar streets. He does not remember what Jim did for a living, nor what the nature of his and Sebastian's relationship used to be. That is okay, the sniper keeps telling himself.
Running a criminal empire while babysitting a grown man who sometimes forgets that the edge of a knife is sharp is even harder than it sounds. He had to lock the drawer with the kitchen knives after Richard cut himself while preparing a sandwich. He never found out if it was an accident. His movements still were shaky due to both the bullet and the medication, but still.
Sebastian tries to keep calm as much as he can, even with an annoying cat added to the mix. Richard named her Desdemona, but Sebastian sticks to calling her Demon when the other is not around to hear him.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Sebastian works through his unread emails when he hears a loud crash from the en-suite adjoining the master bedroom. The sniper bolts from his chair and runs towards the sound without even thinking.
"Jim!" he shouts but of course it is Richards he finds, standing in front of the shattered mirror and staring blankly at the blood dripping from his right hand. He doesn't seem to realize that Sebastian is in the room until he grabs his arm and forcefully pries his hand open.
"Let go, Richard!" he demands and finally the shorter man reacts to let Sebastian take away the mirror shard.
"Sorry, I..." Richard looks down at his bloody hand and whimpers. "God, I'm so sorry, Bastian. I don't know..."
Sebastian sighs.
"Sit down, let me clean your hand. Be careful where you step," he says, leading Richard to sit on the edge of the tub. His heart still pounds like crazy, but he would be a shitty sniper if he could not control himself, even if seeing the blood on Richard's skin is too much like seeing the blood pool under it on the rooftop.
Cleaning the wound takes a few minutes and Sebastian ends up placing a few crooked stitches. He concentrates on his task, doesn't even look up when he hears Richard sob silently every time the needle pierces his skin. Finally he wraps the trembling hand in a clean bandage.
"Bastian..."
Sebastian rises from his crouch but keeps his eyes fixed on the stark white bandage. He can't stand to look at Richard right now. He misses Jim.
"Take some ibuprofen and go to bed, Richard," he suggests and turns to clean up the mess on the floor. He picks the shards up with a towel.
"Bastian, I..."
"Go to sleep," Sebastian interrupts him. "Get out before I do something that I will regret."
He wants to punch Richard. He wants to curl up next to him in bed until the smaller man stops shaking. More than everything else he wants Jim back.
Finally, Richard walks out. Sebastian waits until the light in the bedroom is turned off before he leaves the bathroom himself and walks through the darkened room out into the hallway.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The next day is a Saturday, which means that Richard has no physiotherapy. Sebastian has finished his shower and starts making breakfast when the other man exits his bedroom and sits down at the small table. He pulls a face when he sees the half filled glass of whiskey next to the stove, but quickly averts his eyes and stays silent.
Richard, Sebastian notes, looks even paler than usual, with dark circles under his eyes. He looks like Jim would after staying awake for three days straight, but the edge is missing and somehow this is more than the sniper can stand at the moment. He pointedly stares at the pan with the scrambled eggs in front of him. He knows drinking before breakfast is not healthy, but swallowing another mouthful of whiskey gives him something to do.
"Sorry for yesterday," Richards starts finally, barely audible above the sizzling from the butter in pan. "I never meant to make you worry. Should have known better... I..."
"Shut up!" Sebastian suddenly shouts and Richard flinches.
"I'm sorry!" he bursts out reflexively and that is when Sebastian's fist collides with his face.
"Stop it. Stop doing this, stop apologizing. You never apologize, for fuck's sake!"
The punch is hard enough to make the smaller man topple over with his chair. Sebastian grows still at the sight, Richard curled up on the floor, arms protectively raised above his head and feels suddenly very guilty. You don't hit people who only recently recovered from a head injury. Or grab into glass shards without thinking. His moral standards might be fucked up as hell, but this is wrong.
"Fuck, Richard, are you okay? Did you hit your head?"
He crouches down next to him and grows dizzy with the sudden movement. He should never have done this, loosing his temper was bad, so fucking bad, especially around here. Richard shivers, but doesn't flinch when Sebastian clumsily pulls his arm down to check him for injuries. There is already a bruise forming on his left cheek. Sebastian curses himself when he scrambles to his feet to retrieve an icepack from the freezer. He never felt like being a threat to Jim, despite being a killer, but Richard seems so much more fragile while making him feeling angry and helpless at the same time. A dangerous combination, he thinks.
He wraps the icepack into a tea-towel and turns off the stove before he sits back down. "Here." Richard nods and presses the icepack against the forming bruise.
They sit in silence for a while, neither of them knowing what to do. This time it is Sebastian who speaks first.
"Why did you break the mirror yesterday?" he asks calmly, eyes fixed on some point on the wall next to Richard.
"Sometimes I dream about things. There are people screaming, and there is so much blood and... you are also there. It scares me," Richard confesses. Sebastian nods.
"What else do you remember?"
"Mostly you. Covered in blood and..." Richard stops and bites his lip.
"And?"
"You and Jim... You were lovers, weren't you?" he asks hesitantly.
Sebastian swallows. "'Lovers is pushing it a bit as far as labels go. We had sex, that is all there was," he tries, but the words taste like ash. Maybe Jim never felt anything for him, but he did, otherwise he would have moved on from his eccentric boss by now.
"I think I love you," Richard states without looking up and Sebastian feels like someone kicked him in the gut. He probably deserves it.
"You don't. You only think you do, because I am taking care of you, but you don't, believe me. Jim never loved anyone," he says instantly and catches Richard's eyes for the first time this morning.
"I am not Jim," the man says and Sebastian smiles bitterly.
"No. No, you are not."
Jim died on a rooftop more than nine months ago. Richard was born with a hole in the back of his head.
"Did you love him?" Richard asks and Sebastian bites his tongue.
"What does it matter? Like you said: You are not Jim."
Richard shifts on his spot on the floor to better look at the sniper. He is nervous, even more than usual.
"What if I will never fully remember being him again? Will you still let me stay?" he goes on. If he was any less drunk Sebastian would be impressed with how much courage is has to cost the other to actually ask. Right now he wants to drink some more and get back to bed. Or to shoot something. Whatever.
"This is your home, I can hardly throw you out of your own property." Richards eyes grow wide. If in fear or hope, Sebastian can not say. What does Richard even expect from him? He once was a soldier, then a killer, now he tries to keep a dying empire alive that Richard doesn't even know about. He has nothing to offer, not for someone as harmless as Richard.
"Will you stay then? Or will you leave one day?"
The question is a surprise. Leaving never occurred to Sebastian, not in the hospital and not now. "I know you don't remember, but you once told me, I would never leave without your permission. That I would stay until you send me away. I am not planning on breaking that promise."
"It was not me who asked that of you. I don't remember..." His voice shakes.
"Doesn't matter," Sebastian says and is surprised by his own answer. It really doesn't.
He stands up again, extending a hand to help Richard to his feet. "Are you hungry? It is only slightly burned, should still be good enough to eat," he offers.
"I... Yes, thank you."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
One day, when Richard is with his therapist, Sebastian packs Jim's suits from the bedroom up into boxes and shoves them into the farthest corner of the closet. Richard surely had better use for the space.
Neither of them mentions the suddenly empty wardrobe, but Richard smiles. It is okay.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Things start to get easier afterwards, if only fractionally. Richard makes progress with the physiotherapy and grows less clumsy with every week. Sebastian can even risk to leave Richard unsupervised for few hours during the day.
He can no longer pretend at being able to continue Jim's work the way he did. As far as everyone is concerned, Jim Moriarty never existed and the empire falls apart on his own. Some people die, others take their places and Sebastian keeps whatever parts he still deems useful.
Jim would have his head for it, but Jim has also been dead for nearly a year. It still hurts, but life goes on.
When he comes back home one evening, Richard is curled up on the sofa with the cat, telly playing in the background. The scene is peaceful and Sebastian lets out a breath he had not been aware of holding. He lets his boots by the door and walks on socks around to sit down next to Richard.
"Snuggling with the house demon?" he asks. "I never guessed she makes good company for drinking. Too noisy."
There are two bottles on the coffee table: one whiskey, one coke. He is not sure what to think of that, but Jim had always been able to hold his liquor and even if Richard remembered nothing, his body should still have the same level of tolerance.
A smile tucks at the edge of Richard's lip.
"Oh, we were doing just fine," he says and takes a sip from the blue plastic cup in his hand. "Look, no sharp edges this time. No need to worry."
"That is good, really good, Richard."
It really is because they could use a little piece and quiet. Sebastian allows himself to relax into the cushions. After a while he reaches out to the whiskey and takes a swig right out of the bottle, too comfortable to get up to fetch a glass. The alcohol still burned in his throat, but the warm and fuzzy feeling in his stomach was so worth it. Even better with Richard in arms reach.
He lets the telly wash over him, not really catching his attention, but the low murmuring of some replaceable celebrities makes for a tolerable background noise. It is nearly soothing.
They simply sit and drift, each of them caught up in their own thoughts, now and then taking a sip from the shared bottle; Richard mixed with coke and Sebastian straight and it is nearly enough to make him think of Richard as someone else than Jim. It is something he manages more and more frequent nowadays. It is not like he forgets about Jim, but both of them are too unlike each other. They even look different. Where Jim was all well composed, he thinks, Richard is unkempt and adorably askew.
He doesn't expect it at all when Richard lifts Desdemona up and sets her on the floor in order to crawl across the cushion separating them and settle straddling the sniper's lap.
"Richard..."
"Please. Let me", he nearly begs and Sebastian swallows. He wants him, he really does, but Richard is hardly able to care for himself.
"You are drunk. Rich. You don't know what you're doing," he tries while forcibly keeping his hands still. He wants to grab Richard, throw him onto the cushions and ravish him right here, but keeping himself in check for so long is hard to let go all of a sudden. Richard squirms on his lap, rubbing against his already half hard cock.
"I... I know what I want. And I know how you look at me. Please."
"Rich..." he says and Richard presses a finger against his lips.
"You can pretend I'm Jim. I won't be mad if you do, I promise."
And if that doesn't break his heart, because he wants too much. Dear, sweet Richard who knows nothing of bombs and blood and intestines all smeared across some anonymous warehouse floor. He still wants him. He never stopped, not really.
His hands shake as Richard rests them on the sniper's shoulders
"You never touch me, so I thought... I want you to touch me. Please. I love you, Seb, I told you I love you. I am not Jim but I do love you. Don't push me away, Bastian."
He loves the liquid black in his eyes which somehow look so much sweeter than Jim ever managed and it makes him feels sick for the briefest moment. Wanting someone who is not exactly Jim is something from another life. Maybe it is time to rediscover the possibility.
"Please, Bastian. Please."
"Oh, fuck it," he finally snaps, and pulls Richard in for a kiss. He tastes of sugar and alcohol and lovely wet heat.
Richard's fingers tighten on his shoulders as he presses against him and Sebastian pulls him close by his hip. It is the same. It feels completely different. He wants Richard as much as he ever wanted Jim and has no idea when that ever came to be. He misses Jim like an amputated limb, but Richard still feels right against him.
Sebastian groans against the others throat, teeth scraping against tender skin and sucks to leave a bruise.
"Richard..."
The sniper sneaks a hand between their bodies to open Richard's fly and push both jeans and pants far enough down to free his cock, Richard whimpers, hips moving on their own.
"Please, please, please..."
If Sebastian was a better man, maybe he would stop, but who cares anyway? He yanks down his own jeans and captures both their cocks in his fist. Their erratic movements soon become slick with precome. The whole deed is quick and lacks subtlety but has them panting within minutes nonetheless.
He never even hopes to last long, not after abstaining from touch for too long, and neither does Richard.
"J... Rich... fuck!"
He comes first, lips hot against Richard's neck. The other man follows shortly after.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
They take time to catch their breath, Richard breathing quietly against his chest. It feels good. Better than Sebastian had felt in months, actually and he can't force himself to let go.
"What if the memories do come back one day? Will I simply stop existing?" Richard asks out of the blue and Sebastian allows himself to think about the question. In the end he can not come up with a satisfying answer.
"I don't know," he simply says and Richard shifts to look up at him.
"Will you miss me, if I do?"
"I guess."
Richard nuzzles closer. "I would rather not, you know? Vanish, I mean."
"I know."
"What would you do?"
"If Jim ever comes back, I am a dead man," Sebastian says and Richard hides his face against the crook of his neck. "Why?"
The sniper sighs. "For a lot of reasons, Rich. For seeing you. For making decisions he would not like. There is more than enough."
"I would never-"
"You not, but Jim would. Don't worry, I won't leave you because of that."
To his own surprise he actually means it.
The telly is still running by the time Richard drifts off to sleep.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Somewhere during the night Sebastian carries Richard off to the master bedroom and settles with him into the bed he used to share with Jim.
Sebastian keeps stroking his hair, now and then carefully tracing the scarred patch of skin where a piece of metal seals the hole the bullet left. Touching that place feels strangely intimate.
He suddenly thinks of some half remembered story a medic told him back in the army. About how psychiatrists used to lobotomize people to cure all sort of stuff and how the patients would become calm afterwards. What if the bullet did the same thing? But if cheap horror movies are any kind of reliable source, it was the wrong part of the brain and the medic was an idiot anyway.
Jim killed himself to prove a point. He is gone.
The sniper nuzzles into Richard's soft stomach. He still smells like Jim, mostly, but prefers another brand of shower gel. No mint and lemon scent any more. The thought has him stifle a laugh.
"Maybe you are more like Jim than I thought. Manipulative little shit," he murmurs and hides a grin in the folds of the other man's t-shirt.
"So you would miss me?" Richard asks sleepily, sounding as if he only woke up moments ago.
"A little bit," Sebastian finally says.
This is not Jim, but it is also not the same Richard Brook, that Jim created for his games with Holmes. There is a little bit of Jim in him, just the tiniest, slightly manipulative thing and that is something Sebastian can live with, even if it means he has to share the flat with a cat. It is not like Jim had ever been honest with him when he still remembered who he was. There were worse possible scenarios than having Richard around.
Thanks to DreammasterLoki on AO3 for betareading :D