And in the end
I'd do it all again
I think you're my best friend
Don't you know that the kids aren't alright
I'll be yours
When it rains it pours
Stay thirsty like before
Don't you know that the kids aren't alright
- Fall Out Boy - The Kids Aren't Alright-
When she woke up, she had an instant of deep regret which passed quickly, calming herself down and rolling onto her back with a sigh, glancing over at the little clock on the nightstand. Christ. In a few hours she had her little appointment at the clinic. She dragged a hand over her face and rolled back into him, trying to find that zen feeling again.
He woke slowly, smiling as he realized she was still in his arms and holding her a bit closer, still not completely awake. "Morning..." he mumbled.
"Mornin'," she sighed, a little surprised and a little pleased he didn't pull away now that he'd woken. Maybe, after all the shit they'd been through, he would stop doing that. "You get decent sleep?"
He nodded. He was still tired, it was going to take more than a night to catch up on what he'd lost, but he'd certainly slept better than he had in a long time. He woke more fully and instinct told him to roll over, but he was lazy and comfortable, so he stayed put. "You?"
"Yeah," she murmured, leaning away from him just enough that she could bring her hand up from between them and rub her eyes. "Better than the last few days, probably. Got more than three hours, for sure," she yawned.
He glanced at the clock, and tried not to laugh. "Eleven, to be exact," he muttered. "Holy fuck."
"Yeah," she chuckled. She'd checked, after all. God forbid she somehow miss that appointment. "It's probably why I don't feel so much like death. Maybe I'm like, a quarter dead, not half dead."
"Hurray for being less dead," he sighed, closing his eyes again, before letting out a soft groan. "I need to report to Jim... Fuck..."
"That's not going to be fun," she muttered, grimacing. "I don't think he'll attack you with glassware again, though. What are the odds?"
"With Jim? Astronomical," he muttered wryly. He didn't want to let go of her. He was happy with her there, in his arms. Let's just stay here, let everything else go for a while.
She snorted. "Well, you know where I live if you need me to stitch you up again. Not that that wasn't fun last time, but let's not do that again. For one, I don't have alcohol anymore and I don't exactly carry prescription painkillers with me," she shrugged slightly. She didn't want to move enough to jostle him into moving away. "I should go change clothes. Eventually. I don't have anywhere to be for..." she twisted a little to glance at the clock. "Two hours."
"I'm probably just going to relax for a while and delay the inevitable. You're welcome to stay if you like. Gives me more of an excuse." He smirked.
"Well, I'm almost certain that your shower is better than mine, so I'm certainly not leaving before I've stepped in there," she grinned, shifting away from him enough to stretch, ignoring her body's various fading aches and pains. She was healing. She could be patient.
He laughed a bit at that. "First my room is colder, now my shower is better? Our rooms are essentially identical, Lorna. You're just paranoid."
"Bullshit. This room has a better view, it's only logical for it to be reserved for someone higher than the one across the hall. So better utilities, a more sensitive thermostat, probably paint that isn't lead-based," she smirked, serious up until the last part.
He laughed. "Fine, fine, you got me. Complain all you like. It's not like you don't have practically unlimited access to it anyway."
"Your door is locked with a print scanner," she retorted, amused, "Anyway, I haven't showered in here in months, it's hardly unlimited. You just have to stop digging yourself deeper into this hole of you being wrong."
"Oh shut up," he muttered, rolling his eyes. But some part of him was already considering ways to add her prints to the scanner.
Why the hell for?
Practicality.
Oh, no. No. This is not becoming a regular thing again.
Yes... yes it is. If I can help it. Shut up.
"Who, me? Never going to happen," she snorted, rolling over and burying her face in his pillow. She was just not ready for committing on getting up. Either way, that would mean breaking this little bubble of relative happiness they were in, and she was loathe to do so. She had to take good moments with him where she could.
He smirked at her response, and as she curled back up closer. They stayed like that for a long time, and despite the growing hunger for a hit, he felt relaxed. Finally, though, he knew he couldn't put it off any longer. "If I don't go now, He'll put a hit out on me anyway," he sighed.
"Mm. Okay. Good luck. I'm going to use your shower and then go do the things I have to do," she sighed back, sitting up and pushing her hair out of her face. Good, it looked like he didn't remember what she'd said last night. "I'll lock up on my way out."
He nodded, sitting up. "I've got to shower first, but then you're welcome to it," he grunted, vaulting out of bed and heading for the bathroom.
"Okay," she agreed, sliding out of bed and starting to gather her things from where she'd tossed them the night before. Normally, she'd probably just don a shirt and head back to her flat, but she wanted to spare herself the awkwardness of meeting O'Hare in the hall while she was half-naked.
He stepped into the shower with a sigh, washing off quickly. He was nervous now, about what Jim was going to do to him. He didn't spend long in the water, drying off and pulling on a fresh change of clothes. He glanced in the mirror, taking a breath, and deciding he was looking about as good as he was going to and heading for the door. "Wish me luck..." he sighed.
"Good luck. Hope you don't die," she called after him, already halfway through the door to the bathroom. She didn't need to watch him go. Worrying about this wouldn't help anything.
He headed out the door to the elevator, and hit the button to call it, taking a slow breath. He stepped in as soon as it arrived, eyes closing in meditation as the car rose, working to quell the hit-starved tremors in his hands. Finally the elevator dinged, and taking a final breath he walked out, down the hall, and knocked.
Jim, as always, knew who it was. He'd been waiting, in fact, pacing in front of his desk and doing his best to stem the boiling anger trying to take over. It was always better, in the long run, to think clearly around Moran. He wasn't an average employee, wasn't easily cowed with harsh words, and he certainly didn't learn his lesson that way. No, it would be so much more fun if he kept a lid on this. So as soon as he was finished knocking, Jim opened the door in a brisk, sharp motion, immediately turning and heading for his desk. "Sit."
He was startled when the door opened for him. That hadn't happened in the entirety of his time working for Moriarty, and he was immediately on edge. He entered carefully, heading for the chair and sitting slowly, senses heightened by adrenaline.
Jim sat down behind his desk, already staring the sniper down. He looked like shit. He was almost surprised. He hadn't expected Moran to be the one of the two of them who broke first. Well. Maybe he had. O'Hare had been hired for a reason, after all. And yet... he didn't look as awful as he could have. He suspected Harrison's influence. It was obvious they'd fucked again, but he wasn't psychic, he didn't know how precisely the woman had kept Moran from melting in his chair. "What the fuck were you thinking, Moran?"
He sighed, set his teeth. "I was thinking I wanted a hit, sir. Nothing complicated about." There was a lot complicated about it, but very little he wanted to admit to his employer. "Once I got my head back, I realized I was being an idiot and came back."
Moriarty made a snide, generally frustrated sound. "Tell me, then, how I can properly motivate you to stay confined to your fucking floor, the next time I ask. Mr. O'Hare obviously didn't do the trick. And for God's sake, keep control of Harrison. She's starting to take on your trait of violently punishing the next person to get in her way. Get cleaned up. Do you understand me?"
"Understood, sir. That was already on the agenda." He straightened his back a little. "I'll admit, O'Hare took me by surprise. But I have everything under control."
"Prove it," he snapped, beginning to drum his fingers impatiently on the desk. He had to take a moment to remind himself that he was trying to be calm about this. "If you... break out again, there will be no grace period."
"How would you like me to prove it, sir?" he asked, trying to keep his voice passive. "I haven't done anything like this in the past. I would suggest it was a reaction to extreme circumstances."
"However you damn please," he sneered, a look of disgust on his face. "I don't care what you have to do. Show me you're not going to crumble into a billion little pieces the next time I toss some obstacle in your path. If you don't, well... I'm sure you'll regret it. Dismissed."
He wanted to retort, angrily, tell him that he should go through what they had and walk away fine, and then he could talk. But that wasn't his place or his job, and he didn't get where he was by being an idiot. He stood. "I won't disappoint you, sir," he said calmly.
"I should hope not," he snorted, turning his attention to his desktop without further ado, and starting up work again. He'd had a little more in the past few days; he knew he couldn't give everything Moran did to Harrison, not if he wanted it done right.
He exited quickly. Part of him was relieved that he's alive, the other part wished that Jim would just kill him and get it over with. He hadn't exactly made it clear if Sebastian was back on duty, but he assumed he was, and headed back to his apartment to begin catching himself up on what he'd missed.
Lorna was back in her flat, sitting on the floor of her kitchen with her back against the cabinets, staring up at the ceiling. Fucking positive. Of all the luck. They'd given her something for it, of course - something that would make her miserable for about a day - but that didn't change the revulsion she felt. Positive. She was going to string DeWitt up in the middle of the lobby and field gut him.
He was going to head towards his apartment, but decided to stop at Lorna's for a moment. He knocked, and called in "Just letting you know, not dead."
"That's a pleasant surprise," she called back, aiming for cheerful and falling a bit flat. God, but this was a hard thing to just pretend was okay.
He smiled a moment, though it was hesitant. She sounded off... "You alright?" he called after a moment. He'd been low last night, almost lost himself in the withdrawal, and he knew she still had her bad points.
"No," she laughed, raising a hand to rub her eyes. I haven't been fine in weeks, anyway. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about it."
"Right... I'll just leave you to it, then," he said, nodding a little, shifting from where he was leaning against the door. "If you want to be not fine at my place, door's unlocked. I'll be reading several thousand emails." He didn't wait for her reply, just headed across the hall and scanned in, disengaging the lock as he passed.
She didn't move for a few minutes, unable to find the will to get up and follow him. After a good ten minutes she finally got herself up and crossed the hall to his flat, slipping inside and immediately walking to collapse on his sofa. She didn't say anything, but she didn't doubt that he'd heard her enter.
He gave her a few minutes before he looked up from where he was seated in the armchair with his laptop, raising an eyebrow. "Want to tell me what's wrong, or should I fuck off?" he asked casually.
She just pulled a mostly empty pill bottle from her pocket and tossed them to him, the rattle indicating that there weren't more than two or three pills in the container. "Guess what those are for."
He caught it easily, glancing at the label, and winced, eyes tightening just slightly. "Don't have to, I know my drugs..." He tossed them back her way. "How're you doing?"
"Kinda shitty," she replied honestly, catching them one-handed and slipping them back into her pocket. "I hoped I was wrong. I'm only proving the consistency through which my hoping doesn't work."
He sighed and nodded, setting his laptop to the side for the time being. "We'll find him," he said quietly, firmly. "We'll find him and you can go to town."
"Yeah, we will. I'm not hoping, either, that's just going to make it impossible," she snorted, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm going to make him pay for this. That's a fact."
He nodded firmly. "Jim did request that I ask you to stop killing people for using the elevator, though," he said, smirking just a little.
"I'm sure 'request' is one word for it," she snorted, though not completely without amusement. A month ago he wouldn't have softened that any. A month ago she might not have cared. "I didn't have anyone else on my list, though. Don't sweat it."
He smirked just slightly. "Of course. Nothing to worry about. How silly of me," he sighed, leaning back, and grabbed his laptop again, getting back to work, though he kept an eye on Harrison as he did so.
She let him work in silence, eventually rolling over a half hour later and burying her face in the cushions to try and catch up on some more rest. Unconsciousness might help her forget.
He worked for a few more hours, smiling a bit as Harrison dropped off. It was oddly... relaxing... to have her here, even just sleeping. He gave up on work when the withdrawal started to hit again, and headed into the kitchen to start cooking up some greasy food. It worked for hangovers, might as well try it now. And judging from the lump on his couch, enough for two was in order.
She woke up when the smell of something frying reached her nose, sitting up blearily, with a couple lines across her cheek from the cushions. "What am I smelling?"
"Garlic bacon, probably," he called back, dishing a few thick slices out onto a waiting plate and adding some more. "Either that or hashbrowns. It seemed like a breakfast food sort of evening."
She pushed herself up off the couch and shuffled into the kitchen, stifling a yawn into the back of her hand. "I can be on board with that. I mean, I assume you're sharing, not just dangling the carrot in front of me," she chuckled quietly, leaning against the counter out of his way.
"Plenty to go around," he snorted, nodding to the toaster. "Put some bread in there, will you? This needs accompaniment."
She nodded, turning to his breadbox to do as he asked, careful not to burn her tired, clumsy fingers. "How's the return to work, going? Got a backlog that will last a century?"
"Oh, at least," he snorted, flipping the bacon slices over and tossing in a little more garlic in with the potatoes. "But I'll plod through."
"I'd offer to help, but I've had just about all I can take from your job," Lorna rolled her eyes, thinking idly that it was nice to have breakfast made for her, at the usual time or not. "God, I'll be so pissed if you die and it becomes my job. Don't do that to me."
He laughed. "It's not all that bad once you've gotten a pattern going," he smirked. "A lot of it can be delegated or ignored." He plated the rest of the bacon and potatoes, picking up the butter and sliding it over to Lorna for the toast.
She gingerly retrieved the bread from the toaster and started scraping on a liberal amount of butter. "True. I guess it's easier once you're used to it. Plus, I could kill anybody I wanted and I wouldn't get a slap on the wrist for it."
"Chief of staff does have its upsides. Just be glad all you got was a wrist slap. It could have been a lot worse, you do realize. You have incredible luck." He took a piece of toast and grabbed a plate. "C'mon. I'm hungry."
"My luck is up for debate," she rolled her eyes, grabbing her own and loading it up with bacon and hashbrowns. "Perhaps I have incredible luck with Jim. That I might concede to. I have escaped unscathed an extraordinary amount of times."
"Maybe he likes you," he snorts, sitting at his table and starting to dig into the potatoes, using the toast as a utensil.
She smirked, sitting across from him and eating the bacon with her hands. "Uh huh, sure. I'll believe that when he sends me a Christmas card with, in his handwriting, and printed neatly on the bottom, 'I like you, Harrison,' inscribed in it."
"At this point, I wouldn't be too terribly shocked," he grunted, rolling his eyes. "You're like the fucking miracle child over here. It's startling what shit you get away with."
She shook her head with a smirk, digging into her hashbrowns. "I have a relatively clean service record, for the most part. That helps."
"So do I. But fucking Christ, I go on a bit of shore-leave and he's up in arms," he muttered, deadpan.
She raised her eyebrows, pausing with her fork halfway to her plate. "I wouldn't call sneaking out of the building to get high in an alley for a few days 'shore leave' but I guess that's none of my business."
He looked up, kept the deadpan for a few moments, before snorting with laughter. "Your face," he muttered, returning his attention to the potatoes. "You almost looked like you were trying to be the responsible adult for a moment. It was adorable."
Lorna smirked, returning to eating. "Almost? Damn. I guess I didn't quite manage it," she chuckled, shrugging lightly. " Oh well. You'll just have to continue to be the adult."
"Oh, christ, I'm the adult. We're fucking screwed," he chuckled, running out of toast for the potatoes and moving on to the bacon.
"If it's not you or me, god knows who is. Jim, maybe? That's probably bad for our health," she snorted, pushing her plate forward a little, full. He could have whatever was left.
He glanced up at her for a moment, but didn't argue, taking the plate and dumping the contents onto his plate and working to down the rest. The food was helping his stomach, at least. "How're you feeling?"
"Physically?" she sighed, leaning back in her chair, one arm slung over the back. "I don't know. Probably better than you. I'm putting on a little weight again, so just sitting on something wooden doesn't make my ass hurt quite as much. But I don't trust myself to leave the building. I don't want to start feeling bad out there and go looking for a solution."
He nodded in agreement, standing to toss the empty plates in the sink. "Glad your ass is better," he said, smirking a little. "That's the important part."
"Well, considering you benefit from it, I should hope you think it's important," she snorted, running a hand through her hair to try and tame it a little from her cat nap. "Anyway, it's nice not being in constant pain. I don't want to starve again."
"Agreed. Starving is never fun. I've been doing my best to undo the damage, but we're both still scrawny." He started rinsing of the dishes, glancing over his shoulder at her. "At least we both got some decent sleep."
"Yeah," she agreed, rubbing her forehead. "That was a nice change. I wish I was the kind of person who could sleep deeply alone after something shitty happens to me. Unfortunately for both of us, that's not the case," she shrugged, keeping her tone neutral. She didn't mind being closer to him, but it probably grated on his nerves.
He shrugged, setting the plates in the rack to dry, debating his response. He should just shrug it off, crack a joke, end this here.
"I slept better, too. I'm used to hearing you snore at this point, and it's too quiet otherwise." Smirk, pass it off. Not quite a shrug, but close enough.
"I do not snore," Lorna retorted with exaggerated shock, placing a hand on her chest and putting on her best offended look. "I'm completely silent when I sleep, thank you very much."
"Mhm," he said, nodding. "Whatever helps you sleep at night," he retorted, grinning at his own pun.
"Fuck off, I see what you just did there," she scoffed, smirking against her best intentions. How easily they'd fallen back into their old banter. Four, five days ago he'd nearly killed her (she admitted that she'd pushed him to it, but still) and now they were friendly again, sleeping in the same bed again. Christ, he was like a frighteningly untested roller coaster. "If I snored, it wouldn't be light, cute snoring. It'd be like a goddamn yeti. You would never sleep, you're such a light sleeper. You look pretty well rested to me."
"I'm a light sleeper, but I can tune things out as well," he smirked. "Otherwise I'd never have been able to sleep in that cell. You're like a congested moose." She was smiling, and it made him happy. He was an idiot for admitting it, even to himself, but it did. That smile was the only goddamned thing that made him feel better right now, at least the only thing that wasn't heroin or a gun to his head. So he chased it.
"Unbelievable. You're stooping to comparing me to hoofed mammals, now? God, that's the last time I get captured and tortured with you," she laughed, deciding it was no longer worth it to pretend she was anything other than purely amused. "I wish I could complain about some noise you make, but you're like a cotton ball. You are incapable of making sound."
He scoffed. "At least moose are dangerous. A cotton ball? I think that is the least dangerous thing I have ever been compared to. I'm fucking insulted." He flicked sudsy water her direction with a mock glare.
She grinned, shrugging. "I thought it was a good way to poke you back. Fucking moose. I'm better than a moose."
"Better than a moose, check. Sound like one when snoring? Also check." He dried his hands off.
"How intimately familiar are you with moose if you know what they sound like when they snore?" she teased, reaching out with her legs under the table and propping her feet up on his chair.
He walked over, examining his chair with a sigh, before picking up her feet and sitting down, dropping them back on his lap. "I'm using my imagination."
"Mhmm. If that's what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night," she smirked, tossing his words back at him. Christ, why was this so easy?
He rolled his eyes. "Oh, very clever. That was blatant plagiarizing, that was. I thought you were supposed to be the witty, well-spoken one?"
"References to earlier bits of the conversation is an art, Moran," she grinned, smug. "I'm still the witty one, no worries there. I don't know about well-spoken, though."
"Cheeky," he grumbled, sighing and leaning back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. His hands found one of her feet, rubbing absently.
She briefly thought about telling him he was lucky she didn't have ticklish feet, but reminded herself that pointing things out to him always went bad, and she kept quiet about it. "How are you feeling? Any better?"
He shrugged. "A bit. I'm jonesing something terrible, but I know better than to go after anything. And I'm just not thinking about everything else. As best as I can, anyway." He looked over at her. "You?"
"I want a hit. It's not as bad as it was last time, though. Maybe because I know I've already done this before?" she shook her head. "Whatever. As long as I don't break and go get it..."
"A course of action I do not recommend," he snorted. He looked over at her. "What are you up to tonight?"
She gave a noncommittal shrug. "I don't know. I was figuring I'd just take it easy. Watch a movie or something. What about you? Catching up on work or trying to.. heal, I guess?"
He shrugged. "Probably turn something on on the television and delete a couple dozen emails at a time," he sighed. "Try to keep myself sane. Nothing thrilling."
She nodded, falling back into silence for a moment, wondering how long this period of calm would last before one of them said something the other couldn't ignore. Hell, the fact that she'd gotten away with last night - last night's comment, in particular - was shocking. She reached up a rubbed her forehead, sighing. "Shit, you might as well count me down and out for tomorrow. Apparently the pill they gave me makes you just absolutely miserable."
"Sounds like fun," he said, glancing at her. "You going to be level enough not to go hit-hunting?"
"Yeah. I expect that I'll be on my sofa all day, not moving," she sighed, dragging a hand down her face. "If I do get it into my head to go out, though, I'll text you. Just. Lock me in my room."
He shrugged. "Could just stay here again. We can keep an eye on each other and I can tell you not to be stupid and make sure you eat something every once in awhile."
Lorna hesitated for a moment, automatically looking for the catch. She had to force herself to stop being so suspicious. Overall, he'd looked out for her well-being. "Okay," she agreed, rubbing the back of her neck a little self-consciously. "If I'm not going to be in your way."
"Worst case scenario I can lock you in the closet," he said dryly, shoving her feet off his lap and standing, heading for the living room.
She put her feet right back where they had been, feeling too lazy to move. Anyway, if he had work to do she'd probably be less distracting in the kitchen.
He flopped down in his chair, returning to his laptop. He wasn't sure why he'd asked her to stay. It was a dangerous move. They were both dancing around the inevitable and they knew it.
Lorna remained where she was, wondering when they'd blow up at each other again. Not that she wanted it to happen, she didn't. But it was bound to happen, eventually, in some way or another. It was a depressing thought.
A few hours later she emerged from the kitchen, a little stiff from sitting in the same place for so long, but she hadn't wanted to come out and disturb him. "So.." she hedged, from the doorway, "I figure if I'm going to stay overnight I should get some actual clothes for my awful day tomorrow..?"
He glanced over at her, and smirked. "That might be a wise move, yes. I mean, I'm fine with you wearing nothing but pants, but you might get annoyed with me ogling your ass constantly." It was crude, but necessary to relieve a little of the tension.
She snorted, rolling her eyes and turning towards the door. "I'm hardly ever annoyed with you 'ogling my ass', but tomorrow may be a special circumstance, you're right," she replied, resisting the urge to let out a relieved sigh that he hadn't tried to pick at that, as he was wont to do at unexpected times.
He rolled his eyes and returned to his work.
He was expecting the explosion at any moment, they both were. But moments turned into hours, and then days, and by the fifth morning of waking up with her in his arms, he was beginning to question his judgment. Not because so much time had passed, but because the tension, slowly but surely, was fading.
It was unnerving.
Lorna got up on the sixth day feeling... good. Finally. Not shitty, or tired, or achy. Good. There was still a quiet part of her that was nagging her that she could feel better, if only she got a hold of a needle, but she was doing her best to ignore that voice. She rolled onto her back, shifting away from Moran, who she was fairly certain was still out, but it was hard to tell with him. She didn't know how this had become such a regular routine. The first couple days they'd had good reasons, but as the week wore on their excuses had kept getting weaker. Last night, they hadn't even bothered to come up with one. She sat up, running a hand through her hair. What to make of the situation, she didn't know, but she sure as hell wasn't about to bring it up first.
Moran woke to the insistent buzzing of the intercom, and grunted slightly, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes, before motioning for Lorna to be quiet. Not that she needed reminding.
"Hello, sir."
"Moran. My office, ten minutes," came the clipped reply.
"Understood, sir." He stood up, heading quickly for the shower, thinking over what reason Moriarty would have for calling him. Perhaps there was a mission that needed his attention.
Lorna moved a little more slowly, giving him a good lead before she started to get ready for her day. Getting in his way when the boss was waiting was just asking for trouble, from both of them. So she just got out of bed and meandered into the kitchen to make coffee.
He blew past her eight minutes later, showered, shaved and dressed. "Talk to you later," he called, tucking his gun into his holster and straightening his jacket as he headed out of the apartment towards the elevator.
She said goodbye into her cup of coffee and then he was out the door, and she was left to ponder about this alone.
Jim was in his office, eating a rare breakfast. Normally he didn't bother, but he was starting to see signs of wear on himself, and that was a good motivator to start trying to be a little healthier. Ugh. The sound of it made him want to gag. But he wasn't going to end up burnt out in his late thirties. He counted the minutes until Moran arrived, because Moran was always precisely on time, despite numerous other failings. When he judged it to be ten minutes, he cleared his throat, tossed the remnants of his breakfast, and called, "Come in."
He'd just raised his hand to knock, but didn't bother, opening the door and stepping inside. "Good morning, Sir," he said formally, coming to parade rest a few feet from the desk.
"Good morning, Moran," Jim said back, dryly. "Take a seat, why don't you. It's time for a little performance review."
He didn't argue, just walked over to sit across from his employer. He disliked that, the sitting. He'd never been asked to do it before everything had happened, and the change was inconsequential, but irksome. He didn't speak, just waited for Jim to continue.
"Your work leaves something to be desired of late, Moran," he started, his voice cool, calm. "You haven't exactly sprung back to your old self. What do I have to do to fix that? What's going to motivate you? I might have an idea."
He took a slow breath. "I apologize that I haven't been up to your standards, sir. I've been attempting to recover as quickly as possible." He tried to gauge how best to proceed, and finally just went for polite diplomacy. "I'm eager to hear any suggestions you may have, sir."
Jim's face split into an icy, cruel grin. "Oh, are you? I don't think you'll like it very much. Not like you like her. Don't think I haven't noticed. You've become attached, you poor thing. Here's my suggestion, Moran. You clean up your act. The longer it takes, the more danger I throw her into. Does that sound fair?"
He stiffened just slightly, but didn't do either of them the disservice of pretending he didn't know who Jim was talking about. "I think attached is a bit of an overstatement, sir... We've been keeping each other from going hit-hunting. Which is fulfilling your request that I clean up."
"Don't lie to me, Moran," he snorted, rolling his eyes. "This isn't up for debate. I'm telling you what's going to happen. You're going to comply, or something nasty might happen to our dear Harrison. Understood?"
His jaw stiffened, and for a moment he considered telling Moriarty to do it, then. Why the hell did he care? She was replaceable.
His own silence surprised and unnerved him. He stood.
"I understand, sir. Will that be all?"
"Yes, that will be all. I do hope it will be good enough motivation, I'd hate to waste Harrison's talent on something so trivial. Clean up your act. Dismissed," he waved off, the grin dropping from his face like a mask. He just didn't care enough.
He exited quickly, waiting until he was in the elevator to let his expression change, let his body move. At which point he landed several denting punches in the flimsy metal walls, letting out a roar of confused anger and frustration. When the elevator opened again, he was calm, and when he entered his apartment, it was with caution of the woman he might find still there.