Valentine's Day had never really been a big deal to Sebastian, all he'd do was send a text to Jim and make sure his daughter had heart-shaped pancakes for her breakfast. Simple, easy, all things Seb could manage in less than an hour. Jim would usually take the day off to spend with the two of them, sleeping in for some cuddling—not that the master criminal would ever admit to being the little spoon—and curling up on the couch with Thalia in his lap as they watched a John Wayne movie.
That's why Seb was so confused when he woke up that morning to find himself alone in bed. Jim's side was already cold, the blanket and sheet tucked neatly beneath the silk pillow. Furrowing his brows, Seb reluctantly leaves the warmth of the bed and pads across the room to the dresser, digging out of a pair socks to put on before yanking a tee over his head and heading out of the room.
The house was quiet and that put him on edge, used to hearing bickering first thing in the morning over whether cartoons or the morning news was more important. Seb moves down the hall and pops his head into his daughter's room, finding it empty and the bed made with her stuffed elephant toy sitting perfectly in the middle of a pink, frilly pillow. More confused than ever since his daughter was never awake before seven, he moves into the living room.
That's where he found them, huddled together over something on the low coffee table, still in their pajamas with tousled hair. It was always weird to see Jim wearing something other than a suit, but to see him in bunny slippers was completely baffling. "Uh," he manages, head tilted to the side," Boss?" Jim turns to look at him, then follows his gaze to the slippers with a lazy smile.
"They were a gift," he answers. "Honeybear forced her mother to order them for me." Well, that explains why Kelsey had called two weeks ago to ask about Jim's shoe size. And of course Jim would be wearing them proudly, he was always happy when the two year old bought him something.
"What are the two of you doing up so early?"
"Working on a project." Seb moved to see what they were working on, but Jim gave him a warning look. "Uh-uh, you go make breakfast and we'll bring this to you when we're finished, Tiger." It wasn't exactly reassuring, but Thalia was grinning excitedly and Seb figured it couldn't be anything too awful if it caused that reaction in his little girl.
With a shrug, he moved into the kitchen and got to work. He mixed the pancake ingredients together and poured the batter into an old bottle, squeezing it out into a skillet in the shape of a heart. It was a tradition that he and his ex-wife had started once Thalia could eat solid foods, though the pancakes had been baby-sized back then with just a dollop of whipped cream. At two, Thalia had graduated to larger pancakes and enough whipped cream to spell out her name.
It didn't take long for the food to get done, Seb moving them to plates and working with the syrup and whipped cream as he waited on the coffee. He was careful not to put too much syrup on Jim's pancakes, knowing all too well how the man hated getting his hands sticky. It was something that Thalia was beginning to pick up as well, having a small meltdown if she got too dirty, though baby wipes had saved the day on more than one occasion.
By the time he had coffee set on the table and a small cup of juice out for his daughter, the pair in question were making their way into the dining room. Jim had her securely in his arms, but what really caught Sebastian's attention was the bulky card that Thalia was waving around. "Daddy helped," she says around a smile.
"Daddy did more than help," Jim retorts, but his voice was playful. Seb takes the card, smiling at the childish scribbles on the front that were meant to be hearts and Jim's immaculate cursive spelling out Happy Valentine's Day Tiger. He flips the cover open, his smile replaced with a frown. The writing inside was as perfect as the writing on the front, the cheesy lyrics from that Nat King Cole song about love, but what was sewed to the paper left Seb wondering how scarred his daughter will be by the time she's three.
Because only James Moriarty would sew an actual human heart to a Valentine's Day card.