Moran watched through his scope, and nodded slightly to himself as he watched Watson's reaction. He was done here. He stood, packing his scope as he touched his earpiece. "Harrison, it's done. I'm coming back in. Tell the boss he went to Baker street as predicted."
Harrison couldn't help letting out a whoosh of breath, relieved that they'd played it right. It had been a narrow thing at the hospital, and she imagined that getting in and out to place the paper in position had been a logistical nightmare. And if she needed to talk to the Boss about anything, she'd rather it be good news. "Understood. There's a pot of coffee waiting for you when you get back," she replied, already walking down the hall for Moriarty's office.
"Appreciated." He headed for the street.
James Moriarty stood by the large, tinted window of his office, looking out over the city below him, in quiet thought. He didn't flinch at the knock. "Come in, Harrison."
She slipped in as unobtrusively as possible, shutting the thick door behind her with a soft click. He looked like he was deep in thought, but she didn't doubt that a portion of his attention was on her. "Watson went to Baker Street, sir, as you predicted. Moran is on his way back."
"And the papers?" he asked, finally turning around to look at her, expression unreadable.
"He found them," she nodded, clasping her hands together behind her back. She did it to keep from fidgeting under his gaze.
"Excellent. Moran's done well," he said, nodding slightly. He glanced at a few papers on his desk, as if checking a list. "Do you enjoy fucking him, Harrison?"
She managed to keep herself from blushing out of pure shock, which was a miracle she didn't remember earning. She steeled herself. "He's rather good at it, sir, yes."
He nodded a little, glancing up at her again. "Do you anticipate it ever affecting your performance?"
She raised her eyebrows slightly. "No. If I did, I don't think I'm dumb enough to sit around and wait for it to happen."
He nodded slightly, studying her face. "You're confident in that. Good. Do you think you can replace Moran should that become necessary?"
At that, she just couldn't help fidgeting. "At this moment? No, sir," she shook her head, shifting her weight uncomfortably. "I'm a little too specialized at the moment. It's my understanding that he plans to change that... May I ask why, Boss?"
"No, you may not," he said with a nod. "That will be all, Harrison," he said, waving her off and returning his attention to the window.
She was not foolish enough to linger. She left swiftly and quietly, shutting the door behind her and heading to meet Moran. Anything to put some distance between herself and that conversation.
Moran looked up from where he was nursing a cup of coffee in the lounge. "He happy?"
She sank into a well-worn armchair near him, her face conflicted. "I'm... Not sure. He started asking me a lot of questions about you."
"Like what?" he asked, taking another long sip and sighing quietly.
"Well, first he asked if I enjoyed fucking you, but that wasn't the concerning part," she shook her head, sinking back into her chair a bit. "Then it was more along the lines of 'would that interfere with your job' and 'could you replace him'. If you want my advice, and you probably don't, I'd be stepping very carefully," she murmured, looking over at him neutrally. She didn't want him to think she was telling him what to do.
"You're right, I probably don't," he returned, seemingly unruffled as he took another sip, But his mind was racing, turning over every move he'd made in the past weeks, analyzing it carefully. He'd done well with the Watson job. He knew he had. So the question became did he challenge Jim and ask him what the fuck he was on about, or did he let it be?
Lorna let the conversation drop, figuring she'd done her moral duty of telling him what was going on, and that involving herself further would not make him happy with her. Which was the reason she did a lot of things these days, to her chagrin. At least the thing with Malcolm had blown over pretty smoothly, although she wasn't sure she'd heard the last of it. She shook the thought from her head. It was too superficial to waste energy on, when things were moving around her so fast. Who knew when the Boss would send her out on some little errand?
After a moment, he looked over at her. She was his only link to the situation. "Did you get a read off of him? Did he seem pissed?"
"I wouldn't say pissed is the right word," she hedged, folding her hands together in her lap. "What I mostly got off him was vague dangerous intent, but isn't that what usually comes off him?"
He nods slightly, sighing, and stands. "I'm going to talk to him."
"Are you trying to get me killed, or?" She raised her eyebrows at him. "Where do you think he's going to think that came from."
"He wanted me to know," he said quietly. "I'm your superior. He wouldn't have asked you otherwise."
She sighed, settling down again. "Alright. As long as you're not setting up my funeral..."
"Would I do that, Harrison?" he asked dryly, heading for the elevator.
"I don't know, would you?" She called back, smirking.
"That's for you to worry about, not me," he shot back as the elevator doors closed.
She sighed and settled back, bringing out her phone and trying her best to just forget about it.
The ride up the elevator seemed longer than usual, but he knew it was just nerves. He took a slow breath, then a few more, slowing his heart rate and getting his body back to a calm state. It wasn't difficult. He had practice. He stepped out and headed down the hall, knocking crisply on his employer's door.
Jim was having a rare glass of liquor, his hand warming the cool glass as he stood by the window and looked out onto the street. He'd been expecting the knock. Had gotten out the scotch for precisely that reason. One more rung up the ladder to separate himself. "Come in."
He opened the door, stepping inside and closing it quietly. He noted the bottle with a raised eyebrow. "Breaking the dry spell, sir?" he asked casually, careful to keep any hint of actual interest out of his voice.
"Thought it was about time. December is in a few weeks, and the holiday season after that. I can't stand eggnog without rum, but I'll certainly not start back up that way." He turned, taking a sip from the scotch and moving to sink into the leather chair behind his desk. "Sit."
He raised an eyebrow. A long conversation then. Phenomenal. "I take it I made the correct judgment call coming to speak with you, then."
"There wasn't a wrong answer, but if thinking that helps you sleep at night.." Jim shrugged, setting his glass down on the cherry-wood desk. "We're going to have a talk about your behavior, Tiger. You have been pushing."
"No, I don't suppose there is a right way to respond to a carrier pigeon. And have I?" he asked, gritting his teeth slightly at the patronizing tone but not letting it into his expression.
"Don't play innocent, Moran, it's unbecoming of you," Jim snapped, having been pushed past the line of tolerance for days now. "I'm telling you that it stops. Now."
"I'm sorry, sir, did I miss a memo of some sort? Last I checked, it was part of my job description to challenge you and keep you safe and sharp. Unless that's changed somewhere, I've been doing my duties, sir." His eyes were cold, unafraid.
"WHAT did I JUST SAY?" Jim snarled, standing, bringing his hand down hard on the glass as he tried to smack the desk and shattering it, wet shards scattering everywhere. He didn't break his eyes away from Moran, fury throbbing in his head, the need to control making him see red. "What. Did I. Say."
"You said, sir," he said, enunciating each word carefully, not flinching at the crash "That I've been performing my duties exactly as I always have, and is outlined in my contract." He stood. "Now seems like a bad time. Maybe I should come back later."
The insolence was just too much. Before the sniper could take a step towards the door Jim had rounded the table, face set in stone, a shard of glass in his hand, and as he brought his free hand up to curl into Moran's collar, the other came across his face. He just wanted the insolent son of a bitch to bleed.
That, if anything, surprised him. There was sharp, blinding pain across his face, and he let out a bellow, hand coming up to grip Jim's arm. Had he had any less restraint he would have broken it. "What the fuck?!" he yelled, struggling to break the other man's grip on his collar without injuring him.
"What else will you UNDERSTAND, if not PAIN?" He screamed, struggling viciously to cut him again. "I will not tolerate this."
"What the fuck did I do, Jim?!" he shouted back, growling as the glass cut into him again. They were both splattered in blood and he wasn't sure if it was from his face or Jim's shirt. "What, this about what Magnussen said? You trying to draw the line?" He grit his teeth, finally managing to rip his collar enough to get Jim's claws free on that side, pinning that arm to the desk.
"This is about your lack of respect, your insolence, your delusion that you're allowed to be familiar with me," he spat, baring his teeth in a grimace as Sebastian started to get the upper hand. "That you feel you have the right to ask me such questions is only proof of how much I have let you get away with."
"So your solution, you, the epitome of elegance and planning, is to attack me with a bit of glass," he retorts. He knew he was sailing deadly waters, but it was hopefully calmer in the eye of the storm.
"Get out," he growled, "Get out before I feckin' kill you, Sebastian." His accent became so much more pronounced when he was in a rage. He tried to rip out of the grip that the sniper now had on him, furious beyond belief, at the sniper, at himself. "I better not see hide nor tail of you until I feckin' call."
"Yessir," he says, his voice instantly cold and collected again. He carefully released the other man, the grip on the armed hand the last to go, only truly releasing once he could quickly get out of swinging range. Then he backed to the door, and stepped out.
Jim remained where he was minutes after the other man was gone, the glass still in his hand, the scotch dripping off his desk and soaking into the carpet, the rage slowly draining out of him. Finally, he set the bloodied shard down, turning to press the intercom. "Send cleanup."
Sebastian didn't respond, letting the next on the food chain handle it as he stepped into the elevator. He looked in the mirrored walls and grit his teeth. His face was a mess. Three lacerations streaked across his face. One was shorter, on the left side of his face where Jim had tried to start up, but one gash ran from just under his left eye, across the bridge of his nose, skipped a bit, and then picked up and continued across his right cheek. It was deep enough that he could see muscle. The last one followed the path of the first, a bit shorter but centered. A centimeter higher and he would have been blind in his left eye.
He should have gone to the med bay, and he knew it, but he had spent more than enough time there recently in his opinion, and had no interest in going there again. So instead he stopped on his floor, and after a moment's hesitation, knocked on Harrison's door.
She was at the door in seconds, having an increasingly sinking feeling in her stomach. The Boss's com, followed by Moran outside her door? When she opened it, though, she was still shocked. "Shit," she breathed, looking up at him with a slightly incredulous shake of her head. Then she remembered herself and stepped back, letting him in. "Let me get my first aid kit. You should probably sit."
He just nodded, walking in and moving to sit on a wooden chair that he wouldn't stain with blood. He ripped off a piece of his already ruined shirt, pressing it to his face to try and stop the bleeding.
She returned in a moment with the kit and a warm, wet hand towel, setting the first down at his feet and gently guiding his hand away from his face. She bent to make sure there was nothing that could harm him worse in his cuts and then set about carefully cleaning them. "What did he do this with? It's not a uniform cut, not a knife."
He hissed in pain, but grit his teeth and weathered through it. "Glass," he grunted. "He lost his temper." He closed his eyes, playing the conversation over again, trying to find the point when it had all gone to hell.
"Christ," she muttered, setting down the towel and crouching to open the medkit. "I think you might need a few stitches on the worst one. I can do it, and it will be awful, or you can go and get them from the infirmary, and it will be mildly less awful."
"If you give me a drink I don't give a flying fuck," he said, voice expressionless, breaths slow.
"Alright." A moment later and she was pressing a bottle of liquor into his hand, then crouching again to quickly sterilize her needle in antiseptic and fumbling with the stitches for a moment. Most of the practice she had was not on live people.
He took a long pull at whatever she'd passed him, noting somewhere that it was rum but for once not particularly caring. He watched her work, nervousness rolling off of her. "You know, for a grifter, you've got lousy bedside manner," he commented.
"Grifters are usually the ones causing the damage, if you remember correctly. It's been at least a year since I've had to sew someone back up," she sighed, standing up and looking down at him. "Lean your head back against the chair. I don't need you moving, too, I'm enough."
He glared a bit, but it was lost in the fact that his eye was swelling up anyway, so he just obeyed the instruction with a sigh. "I meant aren't you s'posed to be good at acting at least?" he took another long pull of the rum.
"I wasn't aware that you needed me to lie to you to get through this," she said coolly, leaning over him and bracing her elbow on his shoulder. She said a silent thanks to whoever might have been listening that the needle in this kit was curved, or she wasn't certain how close she could have gotten to his eye. "Alright, this is going to suck. Too bad I'm not still a heroin addict, right? That'd numb you," she muttered, half to herself, and then carefully started stitching.
He had a sarcastic response all pent up, but it was locked behind his teeth with everything else. The problem was that making expressions or flinching only made things worse, so he forced himself to keep his face blank as his eyes burned a hole in the ceiling, body tense.
She didn't say anything else as she worked, hoping that the little bit of anger she'd given him would at least distract him from the painful process. The deep cut took eight stitches to close. When she snipped him free of the needle and stepped back, she let out a long breath, shaking her hands. Fuck, it was hard to keep her hands that still for so long. "I'll get you an ice pack and some ibuprofen. Be right back."
He nodded, grunting in response and taking another swig of rum, grabbing the bloody cloth to press against the oozing cuts again.
She disappeared and swiftly returned, the promised ice pack cradled in the crook of her arm, her hands occupied with a glass of water and a couple of the dull red pills. He'd have his hands full without messing around with the bottle. She handed him the water first. "You can sit on the couch, you know. I didn't pay for it, I don't care if you get blood on it."
"Habit," he mutters, working to move his face as little as possible, not arguing, standing and walking over to flop onto the couch. "Been cleaned up in a lot of places. Blood on the couch is either evidence or expenses." He set the bottle aside but close within reach, reaching out for the pills.
She handed them over, sinking to sit on the arm of the sofa. "Why did you come here? Instead of being cleaned up in the infirmary, I mean," she asked quietly, a troubled frown on her face. He looked like a right mess, but no one would think it was a weakness to be attacked by the Boss. But he had come here.
"Been there too much lately," he said calmly as he downed the pills. "I need to maintain of being untouchable, especially now."
She nodded, deciding to accept that without comment, just watching him for a minute. A small, isolated corner of her brain was more concerned than was warranted. She beat that back with a mental switch. He never took well to too much kindness. "Do you want food or something?"
He shook his head a little, barely perceptible as movements go. "No." He took the ice pack and pressed it to his face with a bit of a hiss. "I didn't expect him to blow up like that. Stupid mistake."
"To be fair, I don't think you could have predicted him physically attacking you with, what, a shard of glass, was it? He's not exactly in your weight class. I'm having trouble picturing it at all," she snorted, honestly trying to picture anyone Jim's size going after anyone Sebastian's size. They'd have to be crazy. Well. She supposed he was.
"Seems you might need to start learning the tricks of my trade, Harrison, if today's events escalate at all. First rule: Never underestimate James Moriarty. Second rule: Always assume you are underestimating him." He smirked.
She groaned, pulling a face at him. "God, please don't get yourself killed. I can not afford to have the scars you're going to have in a month."
He shook his head. "He's more logical that that, usually. He wouldn't take out your best asset." He let out a laugh. "I'm not sure you've ever come face to face with the truly demonic side of Jim. It's a sight to behold." The alcohol was definitely starting to set in now.
"That's because I have never been more afraid of a single person in my life," she scoffed, sliding herself off the arm of the sofa and onto the cushions. "If he asked me to spit on a cat and do the tango, I would without question."
He nodded a little at that, smirking. "And I wouldn't, which is why I think I'm all striped up now."
She chuckled. "Yeah, you think? Jesus. What a mess. Try not to rip out your stitches while you're asleep or something. I don't know if I can do that twice."
"Got any tape? I'll cover them up," he said, reaching for the rum again.
"I'll assume you mean the kind sitting in the kit over there," she snickered, standing up to cross the room and retrieve it for him. "You want me to do it or are you pretty confident you know where they are on your face?"
"Not a damn clue. Go ahead," he muttered, waving for her to continue. He worked on holding still as she worked uncomfortably close to his eye. "Going to be an interesting few days."
She didn't actually trust herself to speak until she was further away from jabbing him in the eye, only then replying, "Tell me about it. Want to start making bets on who's going to say the smartass comment that will get their asses kicked? I'll put twenty on Malcolm. He's been waiting for an excuse. Or Johnson, just because he's a stupid upstart."
"Can't bet on Malcolm 'cause I agree with you there," he murmured, sighing slightly and trying not to twitch his face too much. "I dunno... I like to hope that no one'll bring it up, but that probably's wishful thinking, hmmm?"
She laughed, taking the rum from where it leaned against his thigh and screwing the cap back on. He was starting to get a bit drunk, and it was hardly noon. A habit for her, maybe, but not him. "Yeah, I think that's wishing for a miracle. Everyone loves hearing injury stories."
He glared, reaching for the bottle, but she pulled it out of his reach. "That's keeping me civil," he muttered.
"Believe it or not, your inebriation will not disappear the second you stop drinking," she grinned, setting the bottle on the floor by her feet, on the side furthest from him. "Anyway, I hardly see what there is to be uncivil about."
"I just got attacked in the face. That's cause for uncivil...ity," he muttered grumpily, making to rub at his face but stopping just in time, sighing and crossing his arms.
"And I just stitched you up and lost-" she leaned over to check, "- almost a quarter of my best rum to the cause. Plus, I'm pretty much the nicest thing to look at in this entire building. There's no need for grouchiness. I got ice cream in the freezer. D'you want some?"
He considered her for a moment, then nodded slightly. "I'll get you more rum," he said as an afterthought. Then- "No, fuckit, Jim'll get you more rum. I'll buy you the best damn rum I can find and expense it. Fuck 'im."
"Don't actually fuck him," she snorted, standing and heading for the small, open kitchen. "If he did that to you in a business meeting what would he do in the sack? Do you actually know if anyone's survived?" She snickered, getting out the frozen treat and elbowing the freezer door closed. "How much you want?"
"Why not fuck 'im? Maybe it'd do 'im good. I can hold my own s'long as he's not jumping me. He's probably phenomenal, all that power. Bound t' be." He looked over at her, stretching slightly. "Some. I dunno. Whatever. Just gimme some."
She choked down a laugh at his stumbled words, turning away to hide her face and scooping them a bowl each. Don't comment on his drunkenness, don't comment on his drunkenness, don't comment on his drunkenness...
He took a breath, sitting up a little, wishing he could rub his face. It ached and stung and itched. "He used t' like that I questioned him. Why doesn't he wan' me doin' it anymore? Bastard."
Suddenly his inebriation was less funny. Was he... opening up? She kept a straight face as she brought him his ice cream, handing him a spoon and then sitting beside him. "I don't know. People are strange and unpredictable. Jim more than most," she sighed, "But I'd suggest that you don't ask him."
He snorted, taking a bite of ice cream and smiling just a little, nodding at her. "I know better than that," he muttered.
"Well, as long as we're clear," she hummed, starting up on her ice cream before pausing and considering the rum at her feet. She picked it up, opened it, and splashed a healthy amount into her bowl before taking a swig right from the bottle. "This is probably going to be awful, but I hate being sober when someone else isn't."
He just shook his head, holding his bowl out as well. "There's rum cake, right? Same thing, ish."
She sighed, but did the same for his bowl, then set the bottle between them again, resigning herself to the fact that she was going to get plastered in the middle of the afternoon with a man who'd just had his face stitched up by her. "And everything was going so well this morning."
"Yeah, well, sometimes you've got to say 'fuck' as much as possible and get drunk on alcoholic ice cream," he muttered.
"Not a sentence I thought you would ever be saying before me, but I'll agree," she shook her head, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting the bowl on them so she could scoop the slightly-melted mess straight into her mouth. "Guess you're not plannin' on doing anything else today, huh?"
He shook his head a little, swallowing his own scoop. "I need t' keep a low profile for a few days, so I'm using a bit of vacation time. Effective now."
"Mm, that's probably a good idea," she nodded, drinking straight from the bottle again. "I'm hoping I won't be called in for anything and I can just take a drunken nap or a bath or something. Peons can handle shit, right? Why else would have them?"
"You're a peon, too, shrimp, by your own protestation, don't forget that," he muttered. "Though admittedly a peon with booze and stitching skills, which ranks you slightly higher on the peon totem-pole..."
She groaned, pushing at his arm in protest. "Moran, the nickname, c'mon," she huffed, scraping up the last bit of ice cream in her bowl and setting it on the side table. "I'm like, so high on the totem pole. Like, who's above me besides you and Crazy?"
He was eating his own ice cream lazily, watching it drip off of his spoon. "I'll use the nickname when it suits me. You were being uppity," he retorted smoothly. "An' all the time you're arguing you don't want any position, and now you're arguing you do?"
"I didn't say I didn't want any position, I just said I don't want yours. Yours fuckin' sucks," she laughed, becoming a little more horizontal on the couch and pulling the rum a little closer. "I llovvee staring down at all the little people in my department, wondering how long it's going to take them to get up to my level. And yeah, I'm totally bragging, but I fuckin' earned it."
He smirked, reaching over for the handle of rum. "We can't both be completely smashed, Harrison."
She stubbornly moved to hold the rum further away from him, sliding onto her back and planting her foot on his side. "Sure we can. We've done it before, haven't we?" she stuck her tongue out at him.
"Yes, and it ended badly... didn't it? If it didn't we were lucky. C'mon, I'm in charge and an invalid, hand it over," he muttered, trying to reach for it.
"Please," she scoffed, keeping him back with her foot, "You have eight stitches on your face, you're hardly mortally wounded. And I think we played poker and I lost a lot. What d'you think we're goin' to do, mess up my apartment?"
"One of us'll get called up to do something and we'll both be passed out on the couch, that's what I think," he muttered. "And I'm still in charge."
"You just said you were on vacation, you can't be on the job and in charge on vacation," she retorted, now just grasping at straws. "Anyway, I'm a seasoned alcoholic, I hardly ever pass out."
"Fine," he huffed, too drunk to care anymore, tilting the bowl back to down the rest of his melty ice cream.
She couldn't keep the pleased surprise off her face. She'd have to keep sheer stubbornness in mind for the future. "Y'ever gonna use up those dares from the Italy trip? It's been.. months, right? Haven't found something worth it yet?" she chuckled, carefully taking another sip of rum, as she was now flat on her back, scrunched up in the space between Sebastian and the arm of the couch.
"What should I use 'em on? I mean, let's be honest here... We've already done most o' the stuff I'd use it on," he pointed out.
She snickered, resting the bottle on her chest. "You got me there. If you want t' waive them, I'll certainly accept," she chuckled, struggling to keep hope out of her voice and failing.
"M'not that drunk, Harrison," he said, raising an eyebrow slowly, grinning.
"Fuck. Had t' try," she shrugged, getting annoyed with holding the bottle up and putting it back down on the floor with a little fumbling. "Guess'll just have to hope you can't think up anything too bad, mm?"
"Oh, I'll think of something halfway decent," he muttered. "Could dare y' t' take over f'r me once I'm dead, but that seems like a waste of a good order."
"'Course its a waste, I'd have t' do it anyway," she pointed out, nudging him with her foot. "Eugh. Please don't die. I don't want your job and I like the sex a lot. Plus, you'd never get to dump Mycroft Holmes in a vat of flesh-eatin' beetles."
"All valid points," he agreed with a sigh. "Think the new scars'll be sexy or scary? Got to figure out which angle I'll be playing. Could be both I suppose."
"Everything about you is both, Seb'stian," she mumbled, curling onto her side and burying her face in the couch. "I've changed my mind, m'gonna pass out."
"Boring," he muttered, poking her with his foot a little as he worked his way to his feet somewhat unsteadily.
"Y'gonna keep me up with somethin' interesting, then?" she asked, her voice muffled in the couch cushions.
"Dunno yet. I'm considering." He leaned against the wall.
She rolled over with a huff. His considering always came up with something interesting, Best not to let herself pass out before he spat something out. Beyond that, all she could think about was that she hoped he didn't scuff her wall.
"Pissing Jim off further strikes me as a probably bad idea," he muttered almost absently.
"No, no, there's no probably there. There's noooo probably."
"Right, okay," he sighed, standing and starting to pace again, before shaking his head a little. "I'm too pissed- in both senses of the word- to make any good decisions. I'm going to sleep."
"Who's boring now?" she mumbled without any real sting, rolling back over. If she was any drunker she would have asked him to stay. "Don't rip out yer stitches."
"Yeah, I'll work on that." He headed for her door and out, across the hall to scan into his place, heading over to his bedroom. He changed carefully out of his bloodstained clothes, wiped most of the mess off of his skin with a damp cloth, and turned the intercom up to full blast before flopping onto his bed and falling asleep almost instantly.
She wasn't even awake to hear the door close behind him. Maybe she had been drinking less lately. Hardly ever was she so affected.
A/N
Sorry for the formatting weirdness - editing twice when I put it on AO3 and then transfer it here is a huge pain in the ass. If you want to read the best version with the attached songs and all, try reading it there! Hope you enjoy it, either way!
/works/11295936/chapters/25272693