This is a one-shot based on a prompt. My first Sherlock fic that isn't John/Sherlock, so please forgive me. My first fic with Jim or Seb in it, so please forgive me further. My first fic with anything military. I'm sorry, okay? It won't be great haha. But I hope you at least enjoy some dialogue? Thanks for reading, would love feedback as always! ~Cortni
"Don't think I don't know, either."
Sebastian's head whipped up from the newspaper. "Boss?"
"Yes, I know, Seb. It still doesn't change the plan."
What the fuck.
Sebastian threw the paper down and slammed the door behind him.
Jim smiled.
"Captain Watson," Moran saluted on the spot; Watson reciprocated.
"At ease, Sebastian, we all know you're playing to win." He raised his eyebrows. No betting in cards; this was the rule, always the rule.
"Yes, well, sir-" Sebastian swallowed and licked his lips involuntarily.
"I don't want an explanation, Colonel; I want you to deal me some damn cards." John smiled.
Sebastian let out a wicked grin.
"Yes, sir."
"Sir?" Sebastian sat up on the edge of the bed, gearing to stand and salute. John shook his head and waved his hand.
"Don't. I just wanted to see-"
But Sebastian stood anyway and saluted, standing still. John sighed.
"Seb, please." But Sebastian stayed where he was, rooted to the core by all things John Watson ad he had no plans of changing that. John finally returned the salute, looking into Sebastian's eyes. "I wanted to see how you were feeling."
Seb lied back on the bed again, picking up a cigarette and lighting it. "Like shit. But we're here, so what's the difference?" And John laughed, the laugh that always went straight through the barrel of Sebastian's heart.
John sat on the edge of the bed and felt Sebastian's forehead. Sebastian leaned into the touch unintentionally, a combination of the coolness of John's hand and the warmth it gave him making him shiver.
John whistled. "Fever's still up, another day?"
Sebastian shrugged. "It's boring here, just let me-"
"Hah! One more day then, you'll be fine tomorrow." John smiled down at him, making Sebastian's head fall back into the pillow. John stood and nodded once.
"I'll check on you later, yeah? Don't go anywhere."
Sebastian never disobeyed John's orders.
"I'm not-"
"Yes you are, you know it!"
"Seb, you're my best mate, we can't just-"
"Don't tell me you don't want it at all. That's complete bullshit."
John opened his eyes and they were pierced by Sebastian's immediately, blue on blue. His legs were entangled with the other man's, breathing hard from the last kiss they shared, their first one, actually; forty-three seconds of unexpected bliss John never imagined would be happening in a tent of all bloody well places.
Sebastian purred slightly, making John's breath hitch. "Go on; tell me you don't want it. I'll let you go, right now, if you don't. Swear on the Queen."
John's eyes rolled back into his head and he took a deep breath. "We can't. You know that."
"We already did, what does it matter?"
"Everyone will know, Seb."
"Like I said," Sebastian growled between his teeth brazing against John's neck, making John whimper with a blend of pleasure and worry, "What does it matter?"
"What does it matter?" Sebastian sat down and kicked his legs up on the desk, prompting Jim to roll his eyes. He swatted at them with the pen he was writing with.
"Get off my desk, Seb."
"Boss, come on! Adair can switch with me."
"Sebastian, I told you," Jim sneered, "You have to do it."
"What, so I can feel bad, or something?"
"Yes." Jim closed the book he had open and leaned back in his chair. "So you can suffer long after I'm dead."
Sebastian stared at him. "Wh-What?"
Jim sighed and crossed his right leg over his left. "Sebastian, you didn't really think I wouldn't notice, did you? Come now, darling, of course I knew. Your little plan fell through before it even began. You should have shown less care."
Sebastian growled. "You knew before you met me! I was doomed from the start, you bastard!"
"Yes, I agree, I am utterly terrible." Jim laughed. "But you'll do it either way."
"Or what, you'll kill me? I could care less-"
"Exactly, and that's why if you don't kill him, I will."
"Is that any worse? Either way, he dies."
"No no, I'm sorry." Jim leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk's surface and folding his hands below his chin. "What I mean to say is, if you don't kill him, I'll kill Sherlock either way."
Sebastian shook his head. "But that means your plan didn't work either way."
"Not the original one, no. But as you know, I never only have one plan. Especially concerning out Consulting Detective. If he doesn't jump, I'll find some other way to do it. And your Good Doctor will watch. And that will kill him."
Sebastian scoffed. "So? He'll be alive."
"Not for long. I know for a fact John Watson has only loved two people. And one of them is plummeting to their death in a few hours." Jim looked at his watch. "So why would you want to watch him suffer for Sherlock Holmes? Because we all know what happens when Johnny suffers."
"I'm here to see John Watson?"
"412, to the left." Sebastian ran down the hall and opened the door. John smiled.
"Seb, I thought you-"
"What the hell were you thinking?"
John sighed. "It wasn't supposed-"
"Damn right it wasn't, you asshole. Why would you do that? Why would you even try?" Sebastian shut the door and went to the bedside.
"It hurt too much, Seb. I told you."
Sebastian dropped into the chair. "I thought you were joking."
"Yeah, I wish."
Who knew John Watson was so weak?
Sebastian sighed. "All the work I did, I can't believe you'd drop me to their level. After everything I did for you."
Jim leaned back in the chair again. "Were you really expecting me to treat you any better?"
Sebastian glared.
"Go ahead, puppy, let the anger take over. Just make sure it hits the right target." Jim checks his watch. "In fact, why the hell are you here when you could be preparing a sniper rifle? Go on, then, ta-ta." He waved his hand and Sebastian automatically stood up, moving to the door.
"Oh, and Seb?"
He stopped but didn't turn.
"I never pegged you to be weak, love. So don't do anything stupid."
"You don't love me." Sebastian put his arms behind his head and lied back in the bed, John's turned body facing him.
"Hard to be sure, I've never said it before."
"I am hardly an example for a first love, John." He turned his head and looked into the ocean of blue. "You've never said it before? Really?"
John shrugged. It was cold outside and the cot wasn't nearly big enough for them. But neither of them were complaining.
"How can you tell if you love somebody?" Sebastian mused, blinking to get the dust out of his eyes.
John hummed a note full of thought, and laughed.
"You'd kill someone for them."
Sebastian rolled his eyes. "You'd kill for anyone out there."
"Not true, I'm just a medic. Smaller gun." John smiles. "It only took one shot."
"I would have gotten him," Sebastian argued.
"Yes, but I wanted to get him first."
Sebastian grinned.
"Dishonorable discharge," Sebastian spat, throwing the paper down on John's bed. "That asshole-"
John interrupted. "What you did was wrong!"
"How is what I did wrong, when we do the same thing every damn day?"
"It wasn't our fight, and you threw yourself into it, Seb."
"Shut up!" Sebastian pocketed his hands. "Now what?"
"You get to go home, at least," John tried. Sebastian scoffed.
"If you can call it that." He sat down. "At least the tour's almost over. You can come see me." Sebastian sat on the edge of the cot.
John didn't say anything. He shifted in his chair and reworked the laces of his boot, criss-crossing to avoid those eyes. Sebastian looked at him.
"That's the part where you say 'Yeah, it'll be great, Seb', or 'That's true, it won't be too long', John."
John sighed and stopped tightening the laces, sitting back up and facing him. "Seb." He tilted his head in a way that made Sebastian feel smaller than he already felt. Which is saying a lot, considering the day's events.
"Ohhhh, I get it." Sebastian scoffed and then laughed. "It's different when we're not held up in a tent together. This isn't the real world, I remember you saying that once."
"No, it's not that-" John tried, but Sebastian was ready to roll, all of the anger swelling.
"No, no, I get it! Totally understandable, wouldn't be caught dead dating me out there. But tell me, is it because you're going back into the real world as the straight man you left as? Or is it because it was me that changed you?"
John looked at the floor. Seb stood.
"Both, how nice." He shook his head and looked at the ceiling, disbelieving. John sat back up.
"Or neither. I told you not to go out there and you did. You disobeyed my orders." He spoke sternly, pointing a finger.
"So it's power? It's because I didn't follow you? What about me being different? I'm different from them."
"No, you're not!" John stood up. "You're different, yeah, but it's not about us being together, it's about the fact that I told you not to do something and you did it anyway, because you felt it was a good fight to try out. Because your need for conflict rose to the challenge that was set up specifically for us."
Sebastian stared at John, making him more furious than he let on earlier. "They died, Seb. They died, and you can go on all fucking day saying it's because they're not a crack shot like you, or because they weren't prepared. But they died because you led a forage into a battle you knew we'd lose anyway."
"We didn't lose!"
"Yes we did!" John hit the makeshift table then, making it fall over. "That's the problem, Seb, you don't see it as a loss because the enemy stood down. It was a loss because of the three men that were killed! How can you not see that? You don't regret that?"
"They went in on their own account-"
"Because they were stupid twenty-somethings with something to prove to the world. But unlike you, Sebastian Moran, they have a family at home that is unknowingly waiting to be told that they're dead."
Sebastian started breathing hard.
"Closest thing you've got to that is me, Seb. And a gravestone." John regretted the words as soon as they slipped out. Sebastian inhaled.
"Well, I guess it's just the gravestone, now, isn't it?" And with that he left, leaving the papers on John's cover. John put his head in his hands.
He wasn't paying attention the next day.
When the bullet hit his shoulder, it felt less painful than he thought it would.
Sebastian sat on the stair and twisted the cap from the tripod. His hands were steady, surprisingly. It wasn't until Sebastian felt the shaking that he thought he was nervous. It wasn't his body. It was inside of him. That kind of cold that has no explanation, like a war of chills and anxiety going on between your molecules. He set the rifle in its stand, looking out of the window.
He couldn't decide what he wanted to happen, yet.
Then John stepped out of the cab, and Sebastian's heart stopped. John looked up to where Sebastian knew Sherlock and John were, and the look on his face made Sebastian want to throw up. Sebastian looked into the crosshairs and tilted, trying to see too.
It didn't look good, although what did?
Holmes was holding Jim over the edge of the building, and then somehow they switched. And switched again. Sebastian almost rolled his eyes. Boss always was the dramatic. He held everything for as long as he could. Including orgasm denial (How ironic, Seb thought to himself, the only person he fucked after John and it was a role-reversal).
Then there was a shot, and Sherlock moved away from Jim quickly. The shot made it nowhere important this time. Sebastian wanted it to be over, wanted the time to accelerate and wanted Holmes dead. He nearly pulled the trigger out of sheer frustration. But then boss would kill him. Maybe even literally.
Five more minutes pass, and Jim's yelling now. A real eyeroll came this time simply for the situation. Jim could be so childish sometimes. Sebastian almost sat back on the stair to just wait for a big sound before he noticed something.
That wasn't Jim.
The hair. His part.
"That bastard." Seb swore under his breath. He didn't even tell him. Fucker. He won anyway.
Jim (not Jim, Seb corrected himself), held his pistol to his mouth and pulled the trigger. Sebastian still had to look away; it looked too much like Jim for him not to feel a pain in his chest.
This wasn't supposed to happen, he thought. Jim was supposed to make Holmes jump. Why did that "Jim" kill himself? What was the point?
And then Sherlock Holmes stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down at John. Seb looked too, wondering if the look John was giving Holmes was the same as he used to give Sebastian, or if he was going crazy.
He was going crazy.
Sebastian waited for a fall. But it never came. Holmes pulled his phone from his pocket and John picked up on the other end. Sebastian waited for the right moment, crosshairs pointed over John's head. But it didn't feel right at all. None of it did. And the look John gave Holmes made Sebastian smile. John loved the dangerous ones. This proved it.
Sebastian knew there was no right time. He closes his eyes and pulled the trigger. And, being the crack-shot he was, he still hit the target dead-on.
He opened his eyes and refused to look at John, swinging the rifle to Holmes' shocked face.
Sebastian couldn't decide who he blamed for it all; Holmes for causing Jim's plans to bloom, or Jim. For lying.
He pulled the trigger out of a combination of anger for both theories. Because if Jim wasn't going to treat Sebastian any better than his prey, why wouldn't Sebastian return that favor?
Holmes did fall from that roof, and Sebastian smiled. Because Jim wasn't going to be happy. And while that usually made for great sex and a new brilliant plan, Sebastian could have cared less. The only one equal to Jim, in his own standards, was dead. The plan meant nothing now. Jim hated ruined plans.
Sebastian pulled out his pistol and killed himself too. He'd like to think Jim liked him almost as much as he liked Sherlock Holmes. But that was a far-fetched theory, and at this point Seb could have cared less.