Sebastian Moran was what most people consider a 'tough guy', even though most people didn't know that his longest career to date had been as an assassin. He wasn't usually the type to lose his temper and start mindlessly destroying the nearest people and objects to him. No, Seb was more the 'cool and calculated' type, much more dangerous than the aggressive idiots as he always got away with his crimes and always had fun with them. He kept his head. But when he saw that fucking face on his television screen, gaunt and haunted but still alive and back at home with his stupid little doctor, Seb lost it. He roared, hurling everything in reach at the screen and then sending the television itself crashing to the floor in a mess of broken glass and egg fried rice.
It had been three years since Sherlock Holmes had jumped off the roof of Bart's. Seb had been there, his gun trained on Doctor John Watson and his grin smug when his and Jim's plan worked. He had packed away his weapon and laughed as the good doctor ran to his companion's side, heartbroken. Seb couldn't wait for the phonecall from Jim, a moment of insulting eachother and sharing their victory from afar before Jim told him to get his arse over there. They would have Chinese and a beer, followed by what would probably be the best shag of their lives. It was their ritual after a job well done.
Only, the call didn't come. Jim didn't answer his phone. Seb had been the one who found him, running up to the roof as fast as his army-trained legs could take him and stumbling out into the open to see him sprawled there in a pool of blood and skull and brain matter. It wasn't right. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. The arrogant fuck wouldn't have taken his own life and it had to be a trick, blood packs and a bang, but Seb probed at that wound with his own shaking fingers. It was real, alright. Seb had knelt there and swore and cried and clung to Jim, because an arrogant fuck he might have been but he was Seb's arrogant fuck and now he was dead. Killed by a man who had been selfish enough to jump off the roof before he could be caught, saving his friends and removing Seb's chance at revenge. He couldn't make the little shit that was Sherlock Holmes suffer.
And then that little shit had the audacity to show up again, alive, claiming that unlike Jim's his death really had been some sort of magic trick, three years later and on the very night Seb had taken a deep breath and decided to finally purge his feelings for Jim one last time and be done with it. Rubbing it in his face. And then there was John Watson, accepting Shercock back into his life and standing by his side with a hard-set face that made it look as though he didn't really appreciate it. They didn't deserve it, that second chance at a life together, the chance to stand in front of the world and make themselves out as heroic victims.
James Moriarty had died – not for honourable means but to fulfil his own goals, to put the plan he had concocted with Seb into action, and for what? Nothing. Now his name was ruined again and Sherlock was back, alive and more honoured than ever.
On the plus side, at least that meant Sebastian Moran could finally make him suffer. That was an opportunity he would not waste.