Title: Love Songs - Skinny Love

Disclaimer: The usual. Sherlock belongs to BBC and ACD, I do not profit except for having lots of fun writing it.

Pairings: Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty

Word Count: 2176

Rating: T

Warnings: None

Summary: Love Songs is a series of one-shots depicting the relationships between different Sherlock characters and pairings. Each one-shot is based on a song.

Author's Notes: This is a continuation of the previous chapter, Turning Tables, so this is MorMor again, and it all gets better, I promise! This chapter is dedicated to AnakinSparta, and Aliens Made of Jelly, because they made me want to continue it. I hope you both enjoy it!

It took me such a long time to write it out, because of the hospital scene. The first attempt was too OOC and emotional for Sebastian, but this is better, I think.

Sebastian Moran stood outside Jim's hospital room. While others were hunched over in tears and worry, Sebastian stood tall, military posture etched in his person, keeping his vigil.

Crucial, they had told him.

This night was crucial for Jim.

Sebastian's lapis lazuli blue eyes hardly left the monitors, a series of different colored lines racing across the screen.

He had been Catholic, once.

It was a very long time ago, before he killed, before he was packed off to the army, before he was a disappointment.

Days in church were a distant memory, faded to pastels and his mother's dress, her pearls, and his father's suit and shiny leather shoes. He had been very small, and very blonde, his hair in an adorable cut, dressed in a little sailor suit, his own tiny shoes as polished as his father's own.

Then they went to Iran. His father was a very important man, an ambassador, and everything changed. From cool, rainy weather, he was thrown into an arid desert, where the sun blazed hotly. Pastels were made stark, and he was sent to school, where he learned Arabic and Farsi and remembered Persian poetry. Rumi had been a firm favorite of his.

The prayers fell easily from his lips as though he never lapsed from religion, never turned atheist after the first person lay dead, reduced to corpse, blood and brains. There was nothing holy about a dead body.

Nothing holy about humanity.

Sebastian thought of his mother, and how it crushed his father as she wasted away from cancer. How it changed him irrevocably and made him withdraw, too afraid of grief to love his own son.

Grief is the price we pay for love.

He was in Afghanistan when the Queen's speech to the September 11th survivors was televised. He had scoffed at it, but it stuck to his mind like shrapnel and blood and death.

"Mother." He whispered. "Mother, if you are in heaven." Fuck, he felt like an idiot.

"Mother, please- Jim- He-" He pressed a fist to the thin glass panel, rested his burning forehead to the ice-cold glass.

"Please, let him be fine." He gasped out, closing his eyes tightly.

Praying, speaking to an absent god, to an absent mother. A quarter of a century of distance lay between him and salvation, him and love. "Please, let Jim wake up, I can't live without him."

I can't live without him.

"I love him." His voice was a choked rasp, throat tight as though he might suffocate on his fear and grief. "I love him. He's the only one I've loved since – since twenty-five years ago. Mother, please."

Jim made it through the night. Morning found Sebastian Moran sat on the floor, knees folded, and hands clasped above his head, as though he had fallen asleep praying.

After the wounds had healed to an extent that an infection wouldn't be deadly, Sebastian was given the green light to sit in with Jim.

Sebastian didn't have anything to do, really. He didn't have to buy food to cater to Jim's exceedingly fussy palate. He didn't have Jim to bicker with, and pretend to be angry with. He didn't have anyone to kill. He didn't have anything.

So Sebastian found himself rediscovering an old hobby.

Books. He brought novels into the hospital room, and read them. Sometimes he read them out loud, even though Jim wasn't likely to hear him. Most of the time he read silently, his chair parallel to Jim's bed, their hands slotted together, as he waited for Jim to wake.

In that period of time, Sebastian lost himself in worlds of imagination, bathed in morning sunlight, then by the artificial florescent glow of the hospital lights. For hours he could just pretend that Jim was asleep, not fighting for his life.

He could pretend that they were normal. Jim would be a mathematics professor, or maybe an astrophysicist. Sebastian would be a literature professor, or a publisher. A different world where Jim wasn't dying and Sebastian wasn't a traumatized wreck.

He was traumatized. He couldn't sleep. He saw Jim whenever he closed his eyes, heard the report of the gun. He probably would never hold another gun again.

Not after seeing Jim blow his brains out.

And suddenly all the corpses weren't just blood and bodies and brains. They were people. People who had families, had lovers that maybe loved them as much as he loved Jim. Loved desperately, loved obsessively , loved in a beautiful excruciating poignant way.

Everything dies.

Sebastian just didn't want to let go, after all.

Sometimes he wondered if it was some sick divine retribution. Jim was the criminal mastermind who couldn't think. Sebastian was the sniper who couldn't shoot. There was something beautiful and ironic and twisted about it all.

Whenever he finally closed his eyes (sometimes it was 5 am, other times it was 8 am), he wondered if the next time he opened his eyes would be the time when Jim would be awake.

Maybe in a disgusted manner at how Sebastian was holding Jim's hand tightly, the chain of his dog-tags would around both their hands to keep them bound.

Maybe in anger at how Sebastian still dared to come crawling back after deserting Jim; "No one walks away from me, Sebastian."

But it was the cold of the dog-tags and a warm hand stroking his hair that woke him. When he opened his eyes, Jim was watching him.

It was like it always had been, Jim awake first, Sebastian lounging in until noon (or when Jim finally lost his patience).

Jim's voice was cracked with disuse, but his syllables were clear enough. "Mor-on."

Sebastian smiled, and he said softly, "If I was not so pitifully in love, I wouldn't then be standing at your door.Don't say, "Go away, don't stand at my door!"I wouldn't exist, my dear, if I didn't stand here."

"Rumi. Persian poetry." Jim murmured, and shifted. Brown eyes regarded blue, and Jim said, "Get me a glass of water."

Sebastian smiled, and stood, tension draining from him.

They lived for a period of time closeted from the world, Jim still manipulating the threads of his web to keep Sherlock busy and away from them, but not in a discernible way to the other genius. Jim let it slowly crumble, directing things from his bed, dressed in pajamas and curled up with Sebastian. The web had served its purpose, letting Jim challenge Sherlock and he was now bored of it, every bit as disdainful of the criminals he was forced to deal with as Sherlock was.

They were all so simple.

Sebastian stroked his hand gently with a thumb, and Jim knew he was nervous. "Spit it out, Sebastian." He said, then snorted, "You don't have to keep swallowing." His lips quirked into a bit of a smile at the innuendo.

"I can't- I can't shoot anymore." Sebastian said. Jim rolled his eyes, sighing. He had known. He had known for a long time. The Sebastian of old had been obsessive with his weapons, unable to go without polishing his guns or shooting for more than a week.

It had been months, and the revolver by their bedside was covered in a fine layer of dust.

"I know." Jim said, squeezing Sebastian's hand. "Don't be obvious."

Sebastian nodded, and silence descended again.

It took Jim a while to start walking, his muscles all atrophied from disuse during his coma and recuperation. But when he did walk, he took off running. Suddenly there was a name change. Suddenly there were new jobs. Suddenly there was a new house. Suddenly a new life. Jim was pulling on all his contacts to give them a brand new start.

"We've got new identities." Jim announced one evening, when Sebastian was doling out pasta. Sebastian had gotten rather good at cooking, thanks to Jim's picky palate and unceasing criticism.

The other man froze, then said calmly, "Let's have it then. What are we up to now?"

"James Allister." He gestured to himself, and pointed his fork at Sebastian, "Sebastian Allister."

"Oh, is it?" Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "And what's the relationship?"

"Boring, Sebastian. We've been married seven years, of course." Jim said, lazily. Sebastian felt his heart stutter a little. Seven years- That means they had been "married" the entire time that they knew each other.

What the bloody hell.

"Right. Occupations?" Sebastian added more cheese to Jim's pasta, knowing the other liked it that way. He could barely keep the silly grin off his face.

"James is a professor in computer science of course, specialization in ethical hacking." Jim's eyes gleamed with humor, and continued, "Sebastian is fresh back from army and doing further studies on Literature."

Sebastian laughed. "Alright, where are we going?"

"Hmm, North, I'm afraid. Leeds University." Jim said, starting on his meal. "Tiny little flat in the campus, not much. We have money, but sometimes it's best not to be conspicuous."

Sebastian nodded. It was a crazy plan, to start an entirely new life, leaving everything behind. He had first known Jim as the entity named Moriarty, and now they were left with Jim and Sebastian, instead of Moriarty and Moran.

"Moron!" Jim yelled from the kitchen where he was sitting, cross-legged, typing irritably at his laptop.

"Shit, Jim, why do you always call me that?" Sebastian emerged from the study, where he was holed up with his books, stretching, a leather book held in his hand.

"Because that's who you are." Jim said, a thin rimless pair of glasses perched on his nose as he scowled at the screen. "Moron."

"Yeah? What do you want now, genius?" Sebastian said, tossing the book and catching it, lazily. A year and half after Jim had woken from his coma, they were now a year into their new, married life. It was idyllic, relaxing.

Sebastian would even call it therapeutic. The nightmares and the wounds were faded away into the monotony of university life. Even his dreams of war and hunting became less frequent, and his temper mellowed. Jim even slept regular hours now, though his regular hours were something like 2 am to 6 am. Still, Sebastian couldn't complain.

Just a week ago he picked up his old gun, cleaned it, polished it, and fired off some rounds.

Jim knew, of course. He had known the instant Sebastian returned, reeking of gunpowder, hand stained with the residue, his posture straight and proud, and a smile on his face.

"Welcome home, tiger." He had said, and left it at that.

Three days ago, Jim's old phone (the one he had used for his "job") came alive in the middle of the night with a soft tune that was familiar. The Scissor Sisters' I Can't Decide, the ringtone that Jim had programmed for John's RSS feed.

Sebastian had reached to turn it off, but hazel eyes met blue, and they both froze.

James Allister never stood a chance. That façade was instantly crumbling, and Jim's eyes gleamed, wild and fierce. Sebastian grabbed the phone, handing it over, and said simply, "Here, Boss."

Jim kissed him on the tip of his nose, purring, "Good boy."

"Moron, look." Jim said, drawing his attention back to the present, pointing to the screen, taking off his glasses. The book stopped in its movement, before Sebastian leaned over Jim's shoulder.

Sherlock Holmes was alive. They had always known of course, but the prey had resurfaced.

Sebastian felt the burn of adrenaline through his veins, and the hunter woke.

"What do you think?" Jim asked, looking up at him. His eyes weren't crazed and wild like the sleepless, maniacal Moriarty. The fact that Sebastian was being asked was evidence of huge change in their dynamics.

Sebastian looked at Jim and images flickered through his mind of a body swamped in the white of a hospital bed, and prayers that probably wouldn't work twice. He tamped down on the hunter.

"I rather like being married." His voice was bland. "And you're awful to work with. I also have a report to finish by next week, if I don't want to be thrown out of your Bee-Eff-Eff's office." The literature professor had struck up a friendship with Jim, and Sebastian teased Jim endlessly for it. "Settle down, we're playing a new game now, and I'm comfortable in it." His hand rested warm on Jim's lower back, and he leaned down to give Jim a kiss. "Besides, I actually hate London."

"Lazy beast." Jim said lazily, and the glasses went on. The website closed, lines upon line of computer codes replacing it. "Don't know why I keep you around, Moran. Must be because I love you so."

Sebastian looked down with a smile, then glanced up and said, "Through having only eyes for you I fear to lose, I lose to keep, and choose Tamer as prey." He scooped up the book, and returned to the study to struggle with his thesis.