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There’s blood on the floor.
A lot of blood.
All the blood that could possibly be drained from the carotid artery of the unfortunate investor who was now hanging upside down from the ceiling, if you want to be precise.
Not that that’s anything unusual for a room that has recently been visited by one James Moriarty.
An ex-army colonel stands in the doorway of the room, the lit cigarette that dangles loosely between his lips releasing a smooth stream of smoke into the air.
“Goddamnit, Boss,” he mumbles, causing bits of ash to fall down into the bloody pool by his feet.
He adjusts his grip on the red tank of gasoline in his left hand and walks toward the pale stiff roped up from the rafters. He gives it a quick shove before squatting down to look it in its now disfigured and bloated face, swinging pathetically back and forth.
“I blame you for this mess,” the army man spits, putting his fag out on the layer of solid neck fat on the corpse.
It was true. If the man before him—dressed in an ill-fitting suit and obviously the victim of one two many fast-food meals—had done anything less than something unfathomably moronic, then the ex-colonel’s boss wouldn’t have paid him a visit. The mistake would have been simple to fix. One bullet through the skull, shot from a window that no one would bother investigating, and that would be that. Quick and painless, no mess to clean up.
But no, there had to have been something that went vastly wrong for the boss to make a personal call.
He gives the body a boot to the face, because you really can never take enough of a dead man’s dignity, and sets about coating every surface in the room with the delightfully flammable liquid.
Truthfully speaking, though, this wouldn’t have been necessary if Boss ever exercised any self control when he went into the field. But this is James Moriarty we’re talking about.
And when James Moriarty paid you a personal visit, you could be sure that he would want to play.
--
“Sebby...” an Irish whine echoes through the house as the ex-colonel closes the door behind him.
“Boss,” he replies curtly, climbing the stairs. All the man wants to do is shower and get the stink of decaying businessman and gasoline off his skin.
He makes an immediate turn to the left, toward the bathroom.
“Sebastian,” the voice, though it comes from the same source, couldn’t be more different. “Drop your case, don’t even think about washing up, and come here. Now.”
For a brief moment, Sebastian Moran pauses, considering the instructions. What’s the worst that could come of ignoring direct orders from madman James Moriarty?
Right. He had just finished cleaning up what happens when one ignores direct orders from madman James Moriarty.
He lowers his rifle case to the floor—there would be no dropping of a No 4. AS50 in this house, not under Sebastian’s watch—and begrudgingly turns around to look into the lounge.
“Surprise, tiger,” says the Irishman from the sofa, his voice back to its previous tone. He looks maddeningly calm, for someone who is naked and coated in blood. But that was James Moriarty. Able to keep terrifying levels of composure in the most insane scenarios. Also, able to turn his emotional dial from zero to a hundred in less than one second.
Sebastian sees that the blood has been drawn on deliberately, into patterns and letters, but he doesn’t really pay attention as to what. He walks toward the consulting criminal. James stands as he approaches.
“Boss,” Sebastian says, smirking. “Is there any particular reason for your -” he pauses, giving the man a once-over. “-artwork?”
“Now, now, Sebby,” James says, closing the distance between the men and grabbing Sebastian’s gasoline-coated lapels. “Someone appears to be seeing, but not observing.” He breathes into the two inches of space between his mouth and the ex-colonel’s.
Sebastian’s mouth furls into a kind of grimace. “You do know how I hate it when you quote that blasted consulting detective, right?”
James nods with a devious grin, crossing his wrists behind Sebastian’s neck, keeping enough distance so as to not smudge the design on his chest. “That’s exactly why I do it, Tiger.” He leaves one fast and hard bite to Sebastian’s lower lip before taking a step back. “Now,” he says, “How about you really take a look at my work, hm?”
Sebastian’s eyes wander along the swirls and patterns painted on James’ legs, arms, and everywhere else on his body, pausing briefly at his prick, on which he has oh-so-artistically left a bright red handprint.
But the thing that most captures his attention is the note in bloody handwriting across James’ chest.
My heart belongs to S.M.
Sebastian pauses. He and James had fucked before, in every possible location and position, with as many toys as one can imagine, but he never thought that the man before him was actually capable of comprehending anything outside of the physical. He is a psychopath, after all. Sebastian hadn’t once considered that his feelings for the madman would ever be reciprocated.
“Um, Boss?” he asks, tentatively.
“Yes, tiger?” responds James, a coy grin creeping onto his face.
“What are you playing at, here?”
“Oh, come now, Sebby,” James replies, running a hand along Sebastian’s chest and shoulders as he walks behind him. He stands on his tiptoes and places his lips on the nape of the ex-colonel’s neck. “You should have figured this one out by now...”
Just as Sebastian turns his head to look back at him, James skips around to his front. He grabs the sides of Sebastian’s neck and pulls him down so that they are staring one another directly in the eyes.
“You are mine,” James says, his voice dropping to a more terrifying tone than Sebastian has ever heard it. “No one else is allowed to have you. If you get hurt or killed, I will not stop until I hunt down and torture every last person who was even remotely involved. They will feel incomprehensible pain that will drive them to the brink of insanity, and just before I take the very last morsel of life left in their poor, weeping bodies, I’ll push them over that brink. Do you understand, Sebastian?”
Sebastian looks into James’ eyes, where his pupils so dilated that they’re practically nothing but black, and his brow crinkles slightly. There’s a brief silence.
“I love you, dishonourably discharged ex-Colonel Sebastian Moran,” James says.
The world seems to stop for a moment.
Sebastian’s face hardens. “Boss,” he says, his voice firm. “Don’t play this game with me. I will put up with all of your other shit that makes you the utterly brilliant and insane you, but don’t fuck with my mind on this one.”
James tightens his grip on the sides of Sebastian’s neck.
“Tiger,” he whispers both seductively and threateningly, a combination only James Moriarty could master. “This isn’t a game. Not this time.”
He pulls Sebastian down for an earth-shattering kiss that ends up being more teeth and tongue than anything else. Sebastian responds enthusiastically before moving his desperate kisses down James’ neck, where he bites down roughly.
“B- James. I never thought I’d hear you say that,” he murmurs against the Irishman’s cold, blood-coated skin. He runs his tongue along James’ collarbone and pauses to suck a lovebite onto his shoulder.
James chuckles. “Only to you, darling. Only to you.”
--
The two criminals are laying on the couch, a mess of exhausted, intertwined limbs. Sebastian’s clothes are strewn haphazardly about the floor, his shirt now nothing but a torn rag thanks to an impatient James. The smaller man has his head cuddled up into Sebastian’s neck, where he softly leaves the occasional kiss on the numerous cuts and bruises from their rather rough previous activities.
“Boss?” Sebastian asks, his voice scratchy. James hums in response. “What exactly did that man do today to earn him such a, er, messy fate?”
“Sebby,” James mutters condescendingly, nearly asleep in Sebastian’s arms. “He didn’t do anything. I just needed art supplies for your surprise.”
Sebastian smirks. “I love you, Boss,” he mutters quietly.
“I know,” James says, leaving far too long a pause for Sebastian’s liking before he speaks again.
“I love you, too.”