Chapter Text
Some people cheat death. It’s always been said about Sebastian Moran. There have been so many instances where he survived improbable odds. He’s sometimes wondered if he actually can die. He’s come close more times than he can count, but never quite as far as he probably ought to have.
Sebastian is a little superstitious. He doesn’t think he’s unreasonable with it: he doesn’t walk under ladders because that’s stupid, and he doesn’t care about shoes on the table because any death around him likely comes from his hand, and it doesn’t matter which palm itches because Jim oversees the finances, and whichever days are unlucky to cut your nails are irrelevant compared to whatever Jim’s neurodiverse – or simply perverse – whims are on any given day. But Sebastian trusts that his gut knows the path through death, and usually he’s compelled to follow it. Even though he also runs towards danger whenever he can. Sleeps in its bed with a collar around his throat even.
Jim pretends that he’s not supersticious, but he is. He’s also obsessive compulsive, and putting his right sock on before his left can bring about a spiral that has a measurable death count. He’s intuitive, and claims it’s just his high intelligence subconsciously weighing deductions that gives him the Midas touch in business.
He’s had one foot in the grave more often than most people. And usually by his own hand.
He and Sebastian joke, sometimes, about their deaths. A lot of their business is death, so the gallows humour is unavoidable, but the in jokes they have are nothing like the ones Sebastian has had with his former colleagues in the SAS. Not even the ones with the biggest death wishes.
Sebastian’s from old money. So is Jim, technically, although he dresses like new money and speaks like tech money. Sebastian’s main ancestral home has a crypt waiting for him. As a boy, he’d suspected he’d find his way there when his career path had him sent home in a box. He’s not in the forces now, but it’ll likely be either his job or his employer that will kill him. Probably if he gets killed at work Jim will bring him back just to kill him himself.
Mostly Sebastian jokes that if Jim dies first, he’ll get the man stuffed so he can continue to fuck him. They argue about the different poses Seb will immortalise Jim in. Usually bent over his home office desk so his glassy eyes can reflect the glow of his devices wins out. Sebastian’s always liked to tear Jim’s attention away from work for a torturous fuck, so why should Jim’s death make a difference?
In truth, Sebastian wants Jim’s bones curled around his for eternity. If Jim dies first, he’s taking that stiff, little body to the Moran family crypts and he’ll snuggle Jim in the space always intented to be his alone, and then Sebastian will off himself. Because he’s never going to leave Jim alone.
Jim says if Sebastian dies first he’ll be furious with him. Turn him into piss-yellow diamond cufflinks and wear him to absolutey every event of the Season that would bore Seb to tears. ‘Lose’ him between Westminster floorboards so Seb’s hereditary lordship could have Sebastian’s attention forevermore.
Sebastian tells Jim more than once to go fuck himself. Jim usually smirks and puts a hand down his shorts and Seb quickly changes the order to not coming, but Jim never does as he’s told unless pinned down and forced. Or so they pretend anyway.
Privately, Jim fully intends to bury Sebastian in Ireland. The land has been in his family for a long time, and as far as he’s concerned, Seb’s family.
Which Seb sort of knows, even if he somewhat considers himself Jim’s pet. An exotic pet, more tiger than labrador, although Jim’s trained him to show his tummy and beg.
Sebastian is well-practised in begging Jim. He also begs on Jim’s behalf, to whoever is listening, far more frequently than is comfortable. Jim insists Sebastian would be bored to tears in a comfortable life, and Seb suspects the annoying fucker is right, but Seb would still gladly trade boredom for having his heart choking him everytime Jim feels like playing dead.
It’s more than a little too close to comfort this time, both of Jim’s feet reaching for the grave as he falls, blood and bone and brain matter spattering around him with a theatrical sense of finality.
Sebastian begs.
Sebastian begs and begs and begs, to whoever is listening, to whoever it is that never lets Sebastian die, to whatever darkness is in Jim’s blood that keeps him so tied to death.
Sebastian can hardly keep himself together, feeling less substantial than what’s pooling thickly out of Jim’s skull as he approaches.
Something listens.
Seb doesn’t dare believe it at first. Jim’s long, dark lashes flicker, and Sebastian thinks sickly that it’s just death twitches.
Then, in the most pitiful voice Jim has ever used, Sebastian hears Jim whimper, “Ow.”
“You bastard!” Sebastian says with feeling, but his heart pounds like he’s saying ‘I love you’.
Jim frowns weakly and his eyeslashes quiver a bit and he reaches wildly, blindly, for Sebastian.
Sebastian’s knuckles turn white in a death grip as he grabs him tightly.
Jim winces, but squeezes back. Not hard enough. He sighs heavily. “Ow,” he moans again. “Hurts, Sebastian,” he accuses, finally opening his eyes, and he’s not talking about Seb’s bonecrushing grip.
“Don’t shoot yourself in the head then!” Sebastian scolds.
Jim grimaces, looking a bit pathetic but also like he deserves a good slap. “Not so loud. My head’s bursting.”
“Leaking, at this point,” Sebastian says, eyeing Jim’s expelled brains with rare squeamishness. “Should I try to gather that up? Does that need cleaned and put back in there, or is it dead?”
“I don’t know,” Jim complains. “It’s rather difficult to think with part of my brain missing. I think what’s left is one entire bruise.”
“Good,” Sebastian says, and uses all of his kindness to stop himself giving Jim’s wound a hard poke. He sighs. “Can I move you? We really shouldn’t stay here in the open.”
Jim waves his free hand weakly. “If you want to pick me up, be my guest. But if jostling me hurts more, I am going to complain the entire way.”
“Like that’s new,” Sebastian scoffs, although this is new, disconcertingly new. He’s emptied Jim’s stomach and sewn up his limbs, but this is a level of uncanny even for them.
Sebastian had suspected, the time Jim drank bleach, that something about Jim wasn’t normal. But when Jim survived, Seb had told himself Jim just hadn’t managed to consume much, and put the thought firmly aside.
It’s kind of hard not to wonder what the fuck Jim is when he’s weakly trying to push himself up with a fraction of his head blown open.
Sebastian sighs again, a few times, rhythmically, and tries to get a grip of himself. Then he scoops up what he can of Jim’s brain, forces it into Jim’s palms, and tries not to look when Jim plays idly with it.
“It’s still warm,” Jim comments.
“Your arse is going to be too warm to ever sit again,” Sebastian retorts.
Jim scoffs. “You’re not going to beat me when I’m half-dead.”
“We’ll see,” Sebastian grumbles. He picks Jim up bridal-style since it seems the position least likely for brain matter to spill from the hole. “You are so fucking dead, James.”
“Well, no,” Jim says annoyingly, although he’s much limper than his usual bratty self, “clearly not.”
Sebastian forces a kiss onto Jim because he can’t help himself. “Thank fuck. You are in so much fucking trouble.”
Jim gives the stupid little whine he uses when someone else shoots or stabs him for disregarding Sebastian’s safety directions and he somehow still aspires to illicit sympathy. “I’m an invalid. You can’t be mad at me when I almost died, Sebastian.”
“I am very much fucking mad at you for dying,” Sebastian snarls. “But I am glad you came back.”
Jim goes the rare sort of quiet when he’s actually a little sorry following a telling off. He doesn’t try to explain himself, and he certainly doesn’t apologise yet, but he presses an uninjured part of his face into Seb’s chest in an effort to make peace. And he makes another little pathetic noise of pain to ellicit undeserved compassion.
“I hoped you enjoyed your last blowjob, because I am never sucking your cock again,” Sebastian scolds.
Jim shows the sense not to scoff.
Sebastian sets Jim down in front of a food vendor, taking ownership of a slushee station to commandeer a tall paper cup of ice. He wraps Jim’s soggy brain remnants in a few napkins for fear of frostbite killing the cells any further, and nestles the bundle in the ice chips.
“Do you need a doctor?” Sebastian asks Jim. “Will your brain grow back?”
“I don’t know; stop asking me questions,” Jim complains. “Call Slowan. And Fucker.”
Sebastian glowers the vendor into silence and carries Jim to their waiting car. He’s got Jim buckled in and already scrolling for Slowan’s number when he pauses. Frowns. Slowan’s one of Jim’s most valuable underlings. She’s intelligent and has been around long enough for Jim to trust her to manage things in the rare instances he acknowledges as ‘emergencies’. Or when Sebastian makes the executive decision that despite Jim’s insistence, the little wanker cannot work with a fever from undisclosed sepsis or whatever other unnecessary bollocks Jim tests him with. It absolutely makes sense to call Slowan.
But ‘Fucker’ Farquharson? Sebastian narrows his eyes further at Jim. Fucker used to be someone Sebastian didn’t actually mind much; he’d met Fucker first, in the forces. The big brute is how he met Jim. Fucker, unfortunately, has a strong jaw and piercing eyes and shoulders like cannonballs. He is physically very much Jim’s type. He’s formerly of Jim’s protection detail, and Seb knows firsthand that Jim fucks his bodyguards.
Fucker does sometimes get pulled in to help out with protection stuff when Jim’s feeling vulnerable for whatever reason though. He’s a trusted favourite, and capable, and right now Jim’s got a hole in his head. He does need people around who won’t question that Jim’s not in a hospital.
“Fine,” Sebastian snaps. He’s not happy, but he can hardly deny Jim anything when the little cunt is holding a fraction of his own brains in a slushee cup.
Jim’s lips curl. “You’re so stupid,” he says fondly.
“Fuck you, Jim,” Sebastian growls. He calls Slowan on speaker and makes arrangements. Which are apparently to wash out the brain bits carefully with cooled boiled water in a sieve, and then slop them back into Jim’s skull with a wish and a prayer or several, and slap a bandage over the opening. Then get Jim on a ferry.
With fucking Fucker Farquharson.
Jim continues to find Sebastian’s displeasure amusing. Slowan insists that Danny and Brucie can manage Sebastian’s other duties between them, and she is right, but Sebastian stays frustrated. The horror and anxiety from earlier, when watching from too far away as Jim grinned and swallowed a bullet, festers under his skin, no matter how grateful he is that Jim is not dead. Every time Sebastian catches sight of Jim’s bandaged skull he feels a wave of nausea that threatens to have him on his knees wretching.
Jim’s in a weird mood, despite his smirking. He always is after an attempt to seriously harm himself, but this time feels different. Perhaps it’s singularly sobering to hold your brains on your lap whilst there’s a breeze in your skull you’ve never felt before.
Sebastian hugs Jim close and refuses to look at his head and Jim tolerates the prolonged physical contact without many complaints or jibes or jokes. The smell of a discharged beretta lingers, and even though Seb had very carefully cleaned the stomach-churning wound, Jim still smells strongly of wet blood and worse things.
Sebastian’s pretty sure the dust from bone fragments – from Jim’s skull fragments – are in his pores and clinging to his eyebrows and lips and the hairs inside his nostrils, tainting every breath he takes. He’s always wanted to feel exceptionally close to Jim, but not like this.
Seb looks down and finds Jim patting his hand. Jim’s pale even by Irish standards, his skin translucent and showing every vein. He looks ghostly against Sebastian’s heavy tan, and he’s never weighed a worldly amount either. All pale skin and pale bone and near-bottomless spite.
It’s fucking weird to look down and see Jim trying to comfort him like this. Although the prat’s always liked to pet Sebastian’s hair and he can’t reach from here, so perhaps the contact is a form of self-soothing.
Sebastian lets out a long sigh.
Then he gets word of Fuck’s imminent arrival and sighs even more bitterly. He’d hoped Fucker was off stalking around his ancestral home of Balmoral or better yet abroad, but he’s only been pratting about in Harrowgate. It only takes him a few hours to join them.
“Don’t fuss,” Jim warns.
Sebastian wants to scream and yell and almost does, because Jim fucking shot himself. Jim almost left him. Mybe did leave him, however briefly. But Seb doesn’t want to be seen throwing an emotional tantrum during Fuck’s arrival, lest his professionalism compare poorly to his rival’s. So he holds his tongue but nakedly seethes and one of the first things out of Jim’s mouth to Farquharson is about Sebastian: Ignore him.
“No wonder he’s stressed after your latest misadventure,” Fucker comments.
Jim rolls his eyes and maybe that aggravates something internally because he winces and grimaces and complains, “It’s done now.”
“Well let’s try not do it again, hmm?” Fucker says, and Jim makes a dry noise of agreement. Sebastian resents them both quite a bit in the moment.
Fucker continues, “Have you both eaten anything? You should probably get some fluids into you.”
Sebastian wants to tell Farquharson to go fuck himself, but Jim probably does need more water. People are mostly water, and the red spray from Jim’s skull wasn’t unlike that of a ruptured water balloon. Plus all of the geletanous bits.
Sebastian wants to be sick again. He’s always been a resilient traveller, but he fears he’s going to get seasick on the ferry. He’s so queasy. But he can’t be dehydrated because his eyes keep glassing over with residual panic and everything else.
“Slowan got our tickets, but it would be helpful if you could get us some bottled water, thanks,” Jim says, and Sebastian feels even more aggravated because Jim is not a man to casually say a ‘thank you’. Jim continues, “And try to get the closest equivalent to some saltine crackers, will you?”
Fucker casts Sebastian an oddly sympathetic look. “He get seasick?” he asks Jim.
Sebastian squares his shoulders, aggravated. “No, I don’t get fucking-”
“Sebastian!” Jim barks.
Sebastian’s words dry up at Jim’s tone. And, horrifically, his eyes begin to sting, because the last thing he can take right now is a public telling off.
“He knows you don’t get seasick,” Jim snaps at Sebastian. “He’s trying to be mindful of your feelings while he asks me how you’re coping with the shock.”
Sebastian deflates a little. “He could ask me,” he protests. “I’m a fucking adult.”
“You look like a slight breeze might finish you off,” Jim says tartly. Then he snaps his fingers at Fucker. “Please.”
That just pisses Sebastian off more. “You never say please to me! Not in public.”
“You’re not a dominant,” Jim says.
“WHAT,” Sebastian demands.
“I don’t have to tell you please,” Jim says like that’s at all reasonable.
“You don’t have to tell him please either!” Sebastian insists.
Jim gives him a look Seb does not understand. “I do when he’s looking after you.”
“I don’t need looking after!” Sebastian exclaims.
Jim's silence is offensive.
Fucker clears his throat nearby. He has returned with ridiculous speed, holding a bag out of which he pulls a packet of salted Discos. He hands them to Jim.
Who opens the packet of crisps, lifts one out, and orders Sebastian to hold out his tongue.
“Fuck off!” Sebastian insists.
Jim and Fucker exchange a look.
“I’m not a child!” Sebastian snaps.
“No, but it’s probably best not to stress your man out right now, hmm?” Fucker says in a faux-soothing, aren’t-I-reasonable voice that makes Sebastian want to punch him hard. Although at least he acknowledges that Sebastian is Jim’s man, not him.
Jim looks annoyingly amused again.
Fucker narrows his eyes a little at Jim in warning and tells Seb, “It’s probably best that you humour him, just for a bit, yes? It-”
“Fuckssake,” Sebastian growls. He snatches the packet and-
“No!” Jim commands.
Sebastian pauses.
Jim gestures firmly and Sebastian swallows, jutting his chin before obediently kneeling on the ground. “Tongue,” Jim orders.
Sebastian reluctantly sticks out his tongue. Jim sets a round, thick crisp on it and Seb’s nose crinkles at the uneven, salty taste.
“Do not swallow,” Jim warns.
Sebastian gives him a look, but Jim answers with one of his own. Sebastian obeys with displeasure. He’s not too happy about being on his knees at the waterside either.
Jim pets him anyway. “Good boy. Hold it just like that for me, yes?”
Sebastian sighs pointedly out of his nose but does as told.
“Focus on how it tastes, yes?” Jim says.
Sebastian rolls his eyes but nods. He knows this game.
“Notice the texture,” Jim says. “Starting to soften in places, isn’t it? That salt taste is diluting and travelling along your tongue?”
Sebastian hums a soft, still surly noise of agreement. But the task is focusing him.
Fucker checks the time and nods at Jim.
“Alright, tiger: you can spit or swallow,” Jim says.
Sebastian swallows with as much attitude as he can muster, which is less than before.
“Feel calmer?” Jim asks almost kindly.
“Fuck you,” Sebastian says.
Fucker tisks. Jim forces another crisp into Seb’s mouth.
They repeat this cycle a few times, even on the ferry. Sebastian is exasperated to find he is calmer, and he doesn’t feel quesy anymore. He casts Jim an annoyed look with little heat in it.
He’s fucking tired.
“You can both nap on the drive,” Fucker says, opening Sebastian’s water and handing it over. “I’ll wake you when we get there.”
Sebastian considers hitting the other man with the bottle but he can’t find the energy. He’s too tired even to shout. His adrenaline is finally crashing and he feels like curling up for a cry.
“Sebastian,” Jim sighs. He takes the bottle and puts it in Seb’s hand. “Sip, please.”
Sebastian sips the water, but only because Jim told him to and it’s steadying having something to do. And it’s easier not to cry if he’s actively drinking.
“You too,” Fucker says, and Jim sneers softly but takes another swig from his own near-empty bottle. Sebastian watches him, marvelling at Jim managing such a task when earlier he’d feared he’d never see Jim do anything ever again.
It’s been a long fucking day, and it feels like it’s going to be even longer.