It's been a year, a year that's felt like a decade. Like a millennia. He must be at least a hundred by now. The seconds feel like centuries all by themselves, ticking along into oblivion. Sebastian has taken Jim's place at the center of the web, but he's no spider. He's a tiger. And no master sniper was meant to take the place of a consulting criminal.
He's watched as, one by one, Jim's men (or women) have been hunted down by Sherlock Holmes. Yes, they're still Jim's. Just like he is. Maybe if he were more like Jim, he could've stopped him. Maybe if he had half of Jim's brain, he'd have seen that the seemingly random attacks and losses were none other than Sherlock Holmes, back from the dead and letting nothing hinder him in his goal of wiping out every single threat to the life of that fucking doctor. Fucking John Watson, who the fuck was he to be so special? Jim had a pet, a live-in, and that didn't stop him from blowing his brains out.
But here he is, having watched what was once a truly brilliant, utterly terrifying criminal empire crumble at the hands of one man. Well, one man and his brother The British Government. He stands over the various sheaves of paper on the table, head bowed, back curved, arms and legs braced, feeling the verbal abuse Jim would subject him to if he were here. It feels like home.
He can almost hear him, but there's something missing. His mental version of The Boss lacks a certain creativity. Only Moriarty would threaten to make a woman into shoes. Seb's never been that creative. He's more of the straightforward, gets-off-on-pure-pain type. He misses the daft bastard, and admitting that is almost as painful as losing the arse all over again. Damn him to hell. If he wasn't already there.
Faintly, he hears the sounds of struggle from a few floors down. He should be concerned, but all he can do is feel tired. He's so fucking tired. He's been running this shit for almost two years now, and he was never cut out for it. He was made to take orders, not give them. He hasn't got the head for it. In the Army, almost every order had come down from on high. Sure, storm the hill is easy but kill him, blow up her car, send him a piece of his little girl every hour until he agrees are all much harder, so much more not his area. He's tired of being alone, tired of bearing the burden of the name, the word that means fear in every language. He's tired of being Moriarty when he'd give anything to have the real one back. He's tired of giving orders that even he questions. He doesn't eat anymore; he stopped sleeping for more than an hour or two at a time months ago. Now he goes 36 hours at a stretch without sleep. He's started to look gaunt, and people shrink back from his (rare) touch almost as often and as strongly as they did from Jim. The exhaustion, constant and grinding, set in about 5 weeks ago and never left. Now it's all he can do to push off from the table as the sounds of scuffling make their way ever closer. At most, it's two floors away.
He should've seen this one coming, really: how many snipers had been set on John Watson, the day Sherlock Holmes died? Just one. Just Seb. He'd almost welcome it, except that it means he failed Jim. Hell, if not for the network, if not for the name, he'd have done it himself. What else was there, after living in the flames of Jim Moriarty and having that fire extinguished before your eyes? He had consumed everything about Sebastian that he could have claimed as his own, eaten him up entirely, without so much as a by-your-leave. It should have been painful, but it was the most delightful ecstasy. Perfect torment, a privilege to die for. Better than Queen and Country.
He had known it was coming for a long time. He'd had time to prepare. Fuck it all, though, he'd have failed Jim. Who builds a criminal empire and then leaves it to someone better suited to silent elimination from afar, every target assigned, no decisions except which gun is best with which ammo from which position? Fucking lunatic bastard. And damn fool that Sebastian was, he had followed blindly. He was devoted to the man, and hadn't rested in months, couldn't rest, because of it. He'd worked himself to the bone, trying to be Jim, but who could be Jim? So death, death would be a sweet release, a pleasant rest, even if it meant he were napping in hell. At least he'd be with Jim again. Or maybe he wouldn't; he was going to hell, maybe they'd decide being with Jim made him too happy, was too much like bliss. Too much like his Heaven.
It only barely struck him that Colonel Sebastian Moran, most feared sniper in all of Europe, if not the entire world, was standing over a dinner table awaiting death rather than fighting off his assailant tooth and nail. Rather than being the predator, silent but lethal. Jim would be ashamed. And that's what it all came back to, wasn't it, how Jim would feel about it.
So when Sherlock Holmes, thinner and ginger and with shorter hair, but definitely the same man, bursts in, and Seb turns to face him, it should be no surprise to anyone that the words he's uttering even as his body shudders around a bullet and hits the floor are "I'm so sorry, James. I fucked up."