A one shot. I might do more, regardless of reviews. The help, of course, by letting me know you actually like it. I own nothing but my head cannon :)
A Silence That Cannot Go Away
Once, when he was very little, Granddad taught him about silence. It was a virtue, he was told, to be quiet and calm. Reserved. Silence, when used correctly, could stem any storm, calm the sea, and break a women's heart. A silent man could give a wailing child a look, and the brat would choke on his tongue. A silent man was a strong man. Sebastian wanted to be a strong man. He wanted to be the kind of man who could take a punch in the gut and still have enough air to laugh in his attacker's face. Who would not whimper or cry as his father snubbed his cigarette on his arms. Yes, Sebastian wanted to be like his virtuous Granddad.
Granddad didn't tell him about the other silences, however. He had to discover them on his own, after Mummy left him and Father. He learned quickly about moving silently; on the stairs, on the porch, opening the fridge. Father didn't like to be woken after a night of drinking and crap telly. He didn't like knowing his son had returned from a friend's house or if he had a girl on the porch. Sebastian was fine with that; years of childhood abuse had taught him that noise equaled broken noses and ribs. Being too slow, whether it was while fetching more beer or escaping to his locked room, resulted in tender and swollen purple eyes. He learned how to live silently. He didn't realize it then, but Sebastian had become the strong man of his youth. He had been in enough fights to know how to tense his stomach just right, and how to take a broken arm or minor burn with little more than a grunt. He had bloodied his fists and bruised his wrists against enough faces to know how to break noses and disarm potential attackers. He didn't know how far he was from Granddad's vision.
Just before graduation, after a night of drink, drugs, and loose women, Sebastian, 'Bastian to his 'friends' now, was introduced to the silence of a corpse. His father lay draped across the kitchen table; forehead missing and brain splattered across the island. It was quiet in the large flat. There were no drunken mutterings, no stumbling footsteps, and no mouth breathing. To Sebastian, it was a calm silence. A safe silence. Even when the police came with their blaring sirens and loud voiced questions, it was silent. He was safe, or he felt like it. Never mind why Father was shot, or by whom. There was no one in the flat to hurt him now. He could eat properly, like when he would visit a friend's house as a child, and he could watch the good programmes on telly. The police had different ideas, however. It was no secret there was no love lost between the Moran men; most of the neighbours had heard every argument and the police knew the fastest route to the flat and just how long they could let them deck it out. The brought him down to the Yard and questioned him for hours on end about his 'difficult' relationship with his father. He hadn't done anything, of course. Sebastian and never even touched a gun at that point. They were forced to let him go. He didn't feel safe now, though. Not in the expensive flat filled with Fathers things and so few of his own. The police had shattered that feeling rather quickly. He finished his time at Eton, though. Figuring that, since Mummy was still paying the money, he might as well try and do better so he could leave. He didn't know if she'd heard about Father. They hadn't talked since she skipped town.
He learned a few different kinds of silence in the following years; the silence of loneliness at Oxford and the silence of passion with Tamsin in the commons then with Lukis in a hidden corner of the library. He had his first brush with quiet disappointment when he left the University to join the military.
The military taught him about deadly silence. The silence that comes before combat. That second of quiet before all hell broke loose and the world was thrust into screams and pain and the pop, pop, pop of guns and bones beneath scrabbling fingers. He loved the silence that followed the smell of guns and blood. It was almost peaceful, like when he found Fathers body in the kitchen. No one moved for a few minutes, not trusting the sudden lack of sound. Then slowly, gracefully, the survivors would move out of their makeshift shelters, weapons up and ready. They would walk around gathering fallen comrades and friends, even helping the enemy if any were not too bad off. They would. His fellow soldiers. Sebastian would go off on his own, saying he thought he saw Johnny or Bobby Something run down the alley after an insurgent. He'd find someone, ally or otherwise, leaning against a wall or skip, blood slowly seeping out of wound to trace little rivers on the ground. He would stand there for a while. Just looking. Taking in every bullet hole and torn skin marring the person below him. They would look up at him and smile out of relief or resignation, whisper a little 'Thank God' or 'Help me' and hold up their arm. He would stare them in the eye, wonder when he stopped caring, and put a bullet through their eye or heart. He quickly became the best shot among his peers, superiors included. The promoted him. He became a sniper and learned that he loved the silence of laying in dust or mud, waiting for his target. He didn't always take the fast, easy kill. Sometimes he played with them. Sometimes, not long before he was dishonourably discharged, he would sit back on his heels and watch them bleed out. He would watch as they realized he wasn't there to help them, their eyes widening in surprise and fear before their life slowly bled away. The silence of death followed him.
Jim found him quite literally in the gutter. He had no money, no weapon, and nothing to live for. He tutted at him in what seemed like disappointment. 'Seb, Seb, Seb,' he said in his lilting Irish voice. 'Look what's become of you. The best marksman in Europe, sitting in a gutter. Tut tut.' Jim gave him money and a place to live. He tested him. Gave him seemingly impossible hits, only to grin like a madman when Sebastian managed to match the absurd requirements.
'He must be in his bathrobe, Sebbie. Do you understand? Seeebbiee.'
'She has to have just eaten breakfast, bending down to give her disgusting brat a little kissy.'
'Kill him while he's laughing with his whore of a wife.' Sebastian met each condition Jim gave him. He never complained, even when Jim used pet names like Dear, Sebbie, or Darling. He said nothing when his boss snarled or sing-songed. He bit his tongue and did as he was told when Jim fisted his hands in his coat or his hair and demanded he satisfy him. The few times he did open his mouth were to say 'Yes, sir.' or 'Boss.' or to suck in a breath when Jim had him tied and submissive in bed, dragging Sebastian's sharp military knife across his back or chest. He didn't know why he allowed himself to be humiliated this way, maybe he got some sick pleasure out of the bondage and sex and pain, but he knew he would allow no one but Jim Moriarty to dominate him like that. Only Jim could call him Sebbie or Darling and leave him tied to the bed post for hours.
His boss had his own brand of silence. He would be snarky and cruel when his plans came together. Sebastian would come home to crap telly with a screaming Jim, or the Bee Gees and a dancing Jim if things were going well. If his schemes were falling apart, or some poor bastard disappointed the boss, he would come home to The Silence. The dangerously hushed flat seemed to warn him to run, to avoid the small dangerous man standing at the window. His eyes seemed to suck the light in. Sebastian knew how to deal with this side of Jim; stand to one side and ride it out. Rarely, he would be able to draw the smaller man to his chest, rub soothing circles on his back and swear to torture whoever angered his boss. In those moments, the silence would slowly fizzle away and Jim would go back to sing-songing and bouncing off the walls. He would look up at his sniper and grin a maniacs grin tell him to 'stop being so damn moody, Sebbie dear.' He would fist his hands in his hair again and bite and lick and bruise his lips and neck. That was rare, however. Those moments only happened if the rest of the week had gone well. If it hadn't, Jim would just stand there in his terrible silence. He would send Sebastian out to torture some poor sod, or call the offender into his presence. Those were the moments when Jim would get his hands dirty. The horrifying moments of dismemberment and gutting. Watching yet another person bleed out on the expensive Persian rug; the tangy liquid turning black and brown as it dried. Jim would be rougher than usual those nights, cutting him enough to require stitches but allowing him to lose enough blood to see the edges of his vision blacken. Sebastian thought he was most scared of that silence. Of Jim's Silence. He didn't know then that there was an altogether different kind of silence he would come to hate and fear even more.
He found this silence, the last to discover, on the fourth day after Jim's suicide. It was more than the silence of a quiet, strong man and of a corpse (his own, of course, because what did he have to live for now?). More than the silence of loneliness and, in a way, passion; a different passion than he found at Oxford, but grief was in itself a kind of passion. It was certainly more the silence of death and depression. It was the silence of a dead life. The silence that comes when a person's soul mate is brutally taken from the world. It was a silence that was felt in the flat, on the Tube, and in the convenience store. It permeated every part of his life, stealing the silence that came with his rifle and a difficult hit. It was, quite simply, a silence which could not, or would not, go away.