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"I want a child," Jim declares. He drags a wet cloth over the bloody gash in Sebastian's arm. It stings like a bitch. Sebastian grimaces.
"What for?" he asks.
Jim's a surprisingly soft touch with the cloth. It barely even hurts when he uses the tweezers to dig bits of grit out of Sebastian's skin. Though that might be the alcohol he'd downed dulling the pain.
"I don't know," Jim answers thoughtfully. "Don't you think having a little human running around might be fun? It'd be like having a pet."
Sebastian thinks Jim's teasing, but he's not sure. "Maybe," he admits and takes another healthy swig from the bottle of whiskey he's holding in his other arm. He thinks of Jim with a kid, no doubt teaching it something awful or patting it on the head like a dog (he does that to Sebastian, so it's not even a stretch of the imagination). The thought makes him chuckle. "You really want one?"
The mask of Jim's playfulness falls away, sudden and unexpected. "I do," he says. When Jim's masks are gone he looks empty, dead inside like Sebastian feels sometimes when the air is desert-dry and every noise sounds like a gunshot.
Sebastian coughs uncomfortably. "We could get one," he offers. "There's a lot of places you can get a kid, no questions asked. Hell, it'd probably be better for them, because -" He stops because Jim is staring at him blankly.
"I meant," Jim says pointedly and the curve of his returning smirk brings humanity leeching back into his face, "I want to bear a child."
Sebastian carries the thought in his head for several days, turning it this way and that, examining it from all angles. Jim with a child. Jim, with child. A small, wriggling, little human bearing Jim's hair and Jim's laugh.
Jim as a mother. Jim pregnant, belly swollen and round.
He has trouble wrapping his mind around the idea but then, he's never understood the appeal of children. He's never looked at one and thought, I want one.
They say biological imperative is stronger for dogs.
"But who would the father be?" Sebastian asks. He can't. He's not an alpha. And Jim doesn't normally like alphas.
Jim doesn't need to ask what he's talking about. He's been thinking about it too and Sebastian wonders how long, how many months Jim has wanted this before telling him. Jim's impulsive, but never about the big things. For every plan, he has a half-dozen backup plans, a hundred different strings to pull to make sure things go exactly the way he wants.
There's no way he'd mention this to Sebastian until everything else was ready, until the only missing part of the puzzle was him.
"Sherlock Holmes. Aside from his brother, he's the only one that's ever been a challenge. And records say that Mycroft Holmes is a beta, so it can't be him. We'd have beautiful babies."
Sebastian sputters. "How does that - You want to have a kid with Sherlock Holmes?"
"Well. With is a strong word. I just need his genetic material. I'm not planning on keeping him around."
"How are you going to convince him?"
"I don't need to convince him," Jim says. "I was thinking of skipping my contraceptives during my next heat cycle and showing up in his flat. No chance of cross-contamination, either. Watson's a beta too, like you."
"Right, okay," Sebastian says. "That gives you a month."
Most of the time, Jim doesn't ask what Sebastian thinks. About anything, really. Half the time it's because he already knows and the other half the time Sebastian assumes that Jim genuinely doesn't give a fuck.
But sometimes, rarely, Jim does talk to him.
They're at Sebastian's place tonight. He's half-asleep, dozing on Jim's shoulder, when a finger prods him in the ribs. He turns his face into Jim's shoulder and tightens his arm around Jim's waist, grumbling in protest.
Jim pokes him again. "Seb," he says softly, then walks his fingers up Sebastian's side.
When Jim doesn't say anything more, Sebastian tilts his head to look up at him. "What?"
"If I had a child," he begins, then pauses again.
Sebastian props himself up on his arms. Even with his eyes adjusted to the light, Jim's face is a blur of shadows. He suppresses the urge to trace them with his fingertips. "Yeah?"
Jim takes Sebastian's jaw in his hand. He tilts Sebastian's head until they are eye to eye. "This is me," Jim says. "Asking permission."
"I didn't know you asked permission," Sebastian comments.
Jim lets go. "I might still do it if you say no. But I want to hear you say it. If you don't want me to, I want to hear you say it."
Sebastian lets himself fall back down, until he is half-lying on Jim's chest. Jim cups the back of Sebastian's head. His fingers toy with Sebastian's hair. Sebastian closes his eyes. Jim doesn't ask things of him. He gives orders and does whatever he wants. It's always up to Sebastian to follow or be left behind.
Except, apparently, now.
"I don't know anything about having kids. I never did," Sebastian says. "But if you want to, then sure. Why not?"
Sebastian knows what it means, when Jim says I want a child. He knows what it means Jim will be doing. He knows what it means when Jim disappears during the week his heat is scheduled. He has the dates marked in his phone because those are the dates Jim begs. Those are the days he writhes, sobs, yields to everything Sebastian does to him and comes back for more.
But it'd never made him feel the way it does now. Something dark and ugly and possessive unfurls in his chest because those were Sherlock's teeth on Jim's throat, Sherlock's prick in Jim's arse, Sherlock's hands all over Jim.
What he wouldn't give to shoot Sherlock fucking Holmes in the head right now, for taking something that shouldn't be his.
"Whatever you're thinking, stop it. You look like you're going to explode," Jim complains as he pulls off his coat. He drops it on the floor, then kicks off his shoes. Sebastian's eyes are drawn, once again, to the livid bruise that curls around Jim's throat.
"That looks like it hurts," he comments, nodding at it.
Jim cranes his neck for a second before realizing the futility of his actions. "Don't remember getting it," he says flippantly. "Teeth, probably. Alphas like to bite."
Jim turns down the hall. He's limping. Sebastian follows automatically, already bracing himself for what he knows he'll see when Jim takes off his clothes - the marks, the bruises. Not because they'd have hurt, but because it means someone else claimed him. Claimed him because Sebastian couldn't, because when Jim went into heat, he went to someone else.
He's brought up short when Jim whirls to face him. His masks are up, eyes flinty. His grin is as sharp as a razor blade.
"What is it? Can you smell him on me? Does it bother you? Do you want to do something about it?"
Sebastian fucking hates when Jim puts on an act at him, like he's just another mark, another client, another fool Jim plays like a fiddle. A part of him knows, deep down, that he probably is. But he doesn't like to be reminded of it.
But this is Sebastian's flat and he knows Jim's place is nicer. It matters, if only a little bit, that Jim came here instead of going to his own place, knowing Sebastian would be here, waiting for him.
He's not going to play this game.
"Stop it," Sebastian says. Jim doesn't resist when Sebastian turns him back around. Jim's shoulders feel nice beneath his palms. He gives Jim a light push. "Have you showered yet? Come on, go take a fucking shower, you're disgusting."
Jim laughs. It might even be genuine.
Jim takes the pregnancy test while they are in Russia waiting for several of their mafia contacts to come through with some things they'll need for a client. Sebastian doesn't even know he'd done it until the test drops onto the file he's reading.
"Negative," Jim says. Sebastian can't make anything out from his tone. "What do you think?"
Sebastian's mind goes blank. The question sounds dangerously loaded. "You can take another one to be sure?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "No, stupid. I already did that. Negative. It didn't take. I'll try again next time. What do you think about Durov?" He taps the file pointedly.
Sebastian lets out his breath in relief. Jim gives him a knowing, mocking look. Sebastian flips him off. "He acts like an informant. I don't trust him."
Jim nods. If Sebastian had seen it, Jim would have too, of course. "Anything else?"
"He used to run with a different crew. Art thieves. Don't know why he's a mercenary again. We should probably find out. There's leverage in the file if we need to use force." Durov has three living relatives - two sisters and a father. Whoever had compiled the file on him knew where they lived.
"Hmm," Jim agrees. "Find who he belongs to and what they're looking for. Maybe we'll be able to give someone a present."
Jim goes to Sherlock during his next heat and while he's gone, Sebastian doesn't think about it. He doesn't think about Jim out of control, submissive and needy. He doesn't think about Sherlock - cold, genius, alpha Sherlock - fucking Jim, tying with him, filling him with semen while he begs to be bred.
Sherlock wouldn't be gentle about it. He'd be heat-drunk, rough and possessive. They'd both be. But there's no love lost between them and Sebastian's not sure what to expect when Jim returns, if he'll be able to get away with having a tryst with Sherlock twice.
But there's nothing he can do about it so he shoves all that as far from his mind as possible and focuses on other things - on the work, on the telly, on the handful of things he can do that don't involve Jim.
Jim comes limping home after being gone for not even thirty hours this time, looking again like he could use a long, hot shower. He bares his teeth at Sebastian when he catches Sebastian staring. It's animalistic, rough still with the loss of control Jim normally exhibits right after a heat.
Sebastian rolls his eyes and pretends he isn't thinking, again, about Sherlock's cock in Jim's arse, splitting him open. About Sherlock and Jim and something dark and primal between them that Sebastian could never hope to emulate, no matter how hard he tries. He clamps down on the way he feels, the anger and frustration, and pretends - pretends he's someone else, someone who doesn't care.
It's safest, he's found, to pretend he doesn't care about Jim when Jim is in one of his moods.
"Whatever you're going to say, don't," Sebastian says. "If you want to be a bitch, you can do it at your own place."
Jim's mouth goes tight and ugly. "You're jealous," he says, staring at Sebastian as if he's a bug under a microscope. His head tilts and the motion is devoid of emotion, reptilian. "You pretend you aren't. You pretend you're more than that," and instead of being sneering or superior, instead he sounds like a computer. Sebastian can't tell if it's an act or not. "But we both know you aren't. You think you're entitled to me and now that you're finding out you aren't, it just makes you so angry, doesn't it? Does it help, the anger? Does it make you feel better?"
No. It really fucking doesn't, because when push comes to shove Sebastian knows that Jim's not afraid to lose him or throw him away if he stops being useful. But the reverse isn't true, for him.
I hate when you're like this, he thinks, but he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks off to the side and says, "Yeah. It makes me feel better. I'm gonna go to bed."
Jim checks his phone. "It's so late it's starting to get early. You stayed up."
"I wanted to make sure you weren't dead. It's Sherlock Holmes, remember? It's not exactly safe to go skulking around him so often. His brother's got him under watch."
Jim makes a dismissive gesture. "Easy to avoid. But even if I get caught, I'm sure he wouldn't kill me," he says breezily. "Where's the fun in that?"
Sometimes, a part of Sebastian wishes very quietly that Jim wouldn't talk so flippantly about putting his life in danger. "Night," he says pointedly and shoulders past Jim on the way to his room. Jim smells like sex; he tries not to think about it.
Later, Jim's bony elbows and knees dig into his back as Jim crawls over him on the bed. Half-asleep, Sebastian shoves halfheartedly at him. Jim shoves him back. His skin is damp and his hair drips cold water onto Sebastian's cheek, the sensation brief and unpleasant before Jim's thumb wipes it away.
He makes a low, disgruntled sound when the blankets are pulled away from his body, releasing a wave of cold air onto his skin, but it's only for a moment. Jim's body tucks comfortably against his side and the warmth returns when Jim pulls the covers over them both. As he falls back asleep, he hears, briefly, Jim's voice murmuring indistinctly to him in a language he doesn't recognize.
The thing - the mating, the heat, the breeding, Sebastian's never really known what to call it, sticks this time.
Jim is practically bouncing when he comes up to Sebastian at the shooting range. He's dressed in civvies - not a tourist this time, just blue collar, a little rough around the edges.
He lifts the earmuffs from Sebastian's head and says into his ear, "Just checked. Positive." His accent is flawless Midwestern because they're in America right now, waiting for Sebastian's current hit to arrive for a conference.
Sebastian glances at Jim out of the corner of his eye. Jim beams at him. Sebastian pulls the earmuffs completely off, letting them fall around his neck. "Yeah?"
His eyes drop to Jim's belly. It's completely flat. Jim rolls his eyes at him. "Don't be silly, I'm only a month along. You can't see anything yet. But I'm going to have a baby," he says, voice singsong. "A little bitty me. I'm so excited. Aren't you?"
It makes Sebastian grin even when he doesn't mean to. Jim's happiness is infectious, sometimes. "Congratulations," he says and starts to reach out, before hesitating. They're not alone; there are two others at the range today, and the attendant besides.
Jim notices Sebastian's sudden reluctance, of course. He reacts by throwing his arms around Sebastian's body (Sebastian's careful to hold his gun out of the way because the last time he hadn't, Jim had grabbed it from him) and giving him a showy, sloppy kiss.
"Mmm," he says when they break apart, licking his lips. His grin is feral. It's sexy as hell. Suddenly, finishing the half-clip Sebastian has left to shoot seems unimportant. "Gunpowder."
Jim oscillates between gleeful and brooding for the rest of their trip. He claps his hands when Sebastian kills their mark, then falls abruptly silent when they pass a family, the mother pushing a toddler in a carriage while they walk down the street. He makes obscene porn noises when Sebastian hits up an old contact to see what sorts of guns he has available for sale, then stops with a distracted frown.
Sebastian notices the way Jim's hand spreads out casually over his lower belly, casual and unnoticeable except for the fact that it's not a habit Jim's ever had before. Guns aren't safe to keep around children.
Nobody else notices.
He drags his thumb regretfully along the barrel of a real beauty, stealing a glance at Jim's pensive face reflected in its shine. "Maybe another time," he says and folds shut the case.
On the plane home, they fly economy class. Sebastian would normally spend the flight alternating between boredom and white-hot rage except for that fact that Jim has one of Sebastian's hands between two of his smaller ones and is playing with his fingertips.
Jim sucks his lower lip into his mouth. One of his fingers runs over Sebastian's nails. "Do you think I'll need to kill Moriarty?"
Sebastian's watched him burn lesser, more temporary identities in the past. Each time, he'd destroyed them completely, cutting off all contacts and abandoning all his resources as if he were really dead. But Moriarty's the biggest identity he knows about. He's the one Jim spends most of his time as and the one Sebastian's openly associated with.
"You're thinking about burning him?" His fingers curl around one of Jim's hands, unintentional. Jim smirks at him, just for a moment, before the expression is wiped away.
"Don't worry. If I did switch things up, I'd take you with me." Jim twists one hand lazily in the air. "And I could always bring him back. Maybe in a few years, after it's born." The hand slices downwards. "Or maybe not."
"Not sure how you'd raise a kid otherwise," Sebastian admits. "It wouldn't be a good idea to let people know Moriarty's an omega."
"Hmm." Jim brings his hands to his lips and with it, Sebastian's hand as well. A man several seats over gives Sebastian a dirty look. Jim doesn't seem to notice. Not that he needs Jim to defend him. Sebastian glares at the man, who drops his eyes, but not before sneering. "I can't be seen while I'm showing, so at the least I'll have to disappear for half a year."
"That going to be a problem?"
Jim's eyes flick to his. "Don't be stupid. Of course not. It's not like anything I do is important. It's just to pass the time and I'll have other things to pass the time, by then." He looks off into the distance again.
His lips part automatically when Sebastian strokes his fingertips over them.
Soon after that, Moriarty stops responding to client communications and Sebastian, too, does the same. It wouldn't be enough to convince someone like the elder Holmes, or even the younger one, but Jim dismisses that casually.
"Yes, yes, I know," he says, "but it's close enough for the rest of them. And I'm not afraid of them."
Sebastian trails his hand down Jim's side, from his shoulder to hip. He doesn't mean anything by it, except maybe the unspoken admission that Jim feels nice to touch, but it makes Jim press against his side with a smug smirk as if he's given something away.
"Shouldn't you be?" Sebastian asks. "They've both been gunning for you for months, even since before you set Adler on Sherlock and fucked up that thing with the plane. It sounds like they'd jump to get in the way of your plans."
"And that, my dear Sebastian," Jim says into his ear, flicking his tongue against Sebastian's earlobe, "is because you are a beta and not an alpha. Biological imperative. He doesn't have any other get. He's never bred before. But he wants to."
Jim rolls his hips against Sebastian's and rakes possessive fingers down his chest. "Oh, how he wants to," he murmurs into Sebastian's ear. His voice shifts. "And now that he's finally succeeded, now that he's finally managed to knock someone up, he wouldn't dare risk anything happen to his unborn child."
Sebastian turns into Jim's embrace. He curls his arm around Jim's waist, holding their bodies together. Jim smells like Sebastian's shampoo. "So it's about Sherlock, then," he says, unsurprised. "Insurance against him."
Jim bites him on the cheek, hard.
"Ow, you fucking bastard!" Sebastian snaps immediately. He shoves Jim away from him. Jim catches his left wrist, then twists. Pain explodes up and down his arm. "Fucking hell! What'd you go and do that for? I think I'm bleeding!" He brings his free hand to prod gingerly at his face.
Jim lets go. "You're not bleeding. And it's not about Sherlock. It's because I want to have a baby. Sherlock's just... a perk."
Sebastian rubs his arm but there's nothing wrong with it - it just hurts like hell. When he doesn't say anything further, Jim rolls his eyes.
"I don't want to hear about this again," he warns and lets go.
The problem Sebastian has with Jim is that Jim has - is that there are walls around him, ones that Sebastian can't see, in the most unexpected of places. Every once in a while, regular-like, he'll walk right into one and get rebuffed - sometimes kindly, sometimes not.
Then, Jim will look at him, but he won't doing anything. He won't offer an explanation or change things or even say if he really wants Sebastian to back off. He will pad naked around Sebastian's flat or hold his hand in public or curl sweetly against Sebastian's side when they watch a movie together. But if Sebastian cups Jim's face between his hands too gently or gives any other hint that what's between them might be something more than casual, Jim draws back and the shields slot into place, layer by layer.
He stretches out the distance between them until Sebastian is reminded, again, that even if he might be Jim's, Jim isn't his.
And the worst of it is, every single time it happens, Sebastian doesn't know what to do, what to say, how to change it, because all Sebastian wants is to know him. The real him, whoever he is when he isn't playing a part.
He'd tried to bring it up, once. The aftereffects of that short-lived conversation had been enough to hurt for weeks.
Jim doesn't go into heat at the end of his cycle. It's confirmation.
"So," Sebastian says. He presses his hand to Jim's flat stomach and tries to remember everything he knows about pregnancies, omega pregnancies in particular. It's not much.
Jim puts his hand over Sebastian's and twists their fingers together."Yes, I know," he says. "Pregnant, knocked up, bun in the oven, breeding, et cetera. We've been over this already, Sebastian. You're not normally this slow."
"So? What are you going to do?" They've been lying under the radar for weeks now and Jim still hasn't told him what to do next.
Jim laughs and moves Sebastian's hand lower. "I have a few ideas. I'll tell you more later."
Jim's 'few ideas', apparently, involve telling Sherlock Holmes about the baby. It makes sense, if Sebastian forces himself to think about it. There's no insurance if Sherlock doesn't know.
But it bothers him, still. Which is stupid. He knows it's stupid. But he'd liked how things were before, when it was a secret kept by just the two of them. When there were things Sebastian knew about Jim that even the might Sherlock Holmes didn't.
"You're different when you're doing something for him," Sebastian comments, watching Jim practically bounce in excitement as he works. Jim's always excited when Sherlock Holmes is involved - he's actually a challenge, Jim says.
"No," Jim corrects. "I'm different when it's just you. I'm Moriarty for him. Do you think he's told John he fucked me? Ooooh, do you think Mycroft knows?" He pronounces Mycroft's name with sadistic glee.
"Doubt it," Sebastian answers. "I thought they were both betas."
Jim snaps his fingers. "Right. They'd never understand so there's no point trying to explain. He'd know that. Well. Good for me, then. That means I get to tell them."
His grin is feral.
"Do you think I'm starting to show yet?" Jim's pulled his shirt up. He turns this way and that as Sebastian looks at him.
"I don't know," Sebastian admits finally. Jim's belly is rounder now than it used to be, he thinks, but he sees Jim on the regular so it's hard to tell. He looks the same as he did yesterday. "Maybe. It looks like you might've put on a couple pounds."
"Close enough," Jim declares and lobs his phone at Sebastian, who catches it. "Sherlock will be able to tell. Take a picture."
Sebastian does so. The first captures the look on Jim's face as well, smug and mocking, but for the second, he zooms in until the curve of Jim's belly fills the screen. "I thought he didn't do anything when you sent him the first message."
"That's why I'm going to send it to John. Won't that be fun. The cold, untouchable Sherlock Holmes explaining to his doctor that he got - what do they call it? Heat drunk? And just couldn't stop himself."
"But he couldn't," Sebastian points out. It's not even a lie. That's what the heat is to alphas.
Jim looks at him. "Seb, I'm sorry I had sex with Sherlock. But I was in heat and he's an alpha and I just couldn't help myself. He just showed up and my body took over and the next thing I knew, I was naked and his knot was inside me and we were tied. It didn't mean anything, I promise, even though he's an alpha and you're a beta and you and I will never have what -"
Sebastian chucks Jim's phone at his face.
Point taken.
It'd be a lie to say Sebastian doesn't find the whole thing a little weird now that Jim's pregnancy is a reality and not just another one of his crazy plans that don't make sense until the very last piece falls into place.
He never expected this to be a part of his life. He never expected pregnancy to be a part of his life. Because he's a beta. Because he's gay (and even if it's not something he admits aloud, he hasn't fought with himself about it since uni) and that means he's never going to have a child. He's never going to raise a little human being that he's had a part in creating.
He came to terms with that years ago. He let the door swing shut on that part of his life when he realized he was never going to marry and have a wife.
So now, having this, it's strange. Unfamiliar. He'd never thought about it before, the fact that Jim being an omega means Jim can have children. Means that Jim wants to have children, wants it badly enough to go to Sherlock Bloody Holmes and offer himself up like a - like a dog to be bred.
He doesn't understand it.
He's not an alpha. He might have had friends who were alphas before, but it's not the same as being one. He's never done the things alphas do. He's never mated, he's never bonded. He's never felt the hunger they talk about, the way pheromones and hormones turn them into little more than animals. He doesn't know when Jim is in heat until the man's practically crawling out of his skin with frustration and need, and even then he doesn't feel it.
He wonders, sometimes, how Jim could possibly want a kid right here, right now, even though Sebastian knows it's just a thing omegas need to do. They call it breeding. Mating, mounting, breeding. Heats, knots, claims. Like animals. That's where the slur comes from - dog.
But outside the week or so surrounding Jim's heat, only one in every twelve or thirteen, he looks and smells and tastes just like any other man and a part of Sebastian forgets that he's an omega. He's just another bloke, one that Sebastian works for and fucks and sometimes wakes up with.
He can't forget it now.
He looks at Jim and his eyes are drawn to Jim's belly, to its slight curve and the protective caress of his fingers over it. There are moments now where Jim looks peaceful, content. Those are the moments where Sebastian looks at him and sees, omega.
Jim's belly grows rounder and rounder with each passing day. He seems content to remain in London, occupying himself with - well, Sebastian's not sure exactly.
"Doctor's appointments, research, planning," Jim says, ticking each point off on his fingers, when Sebastian asks. "Incubating a fetus is hard work and that's hardly going to change once I have it. Nothing you need to worry yourself over, of course. And needling Sherlock. That's always fun." He looks at Sebastian. "You're bored. You don't have anything to do."
Sebastian rocks on his heels. "Haven't had a job since Moriarty disappeared." He's had queries, of course. When Jim had abandoned the Moriarty identity, the first thing everyone had done had been to go to Sebastian. But he doesn't have a response for those, if he doesn't want to give anything away. "It's been a bit too quiet."
Jim looks at him, expressionless, for long enough that Sebastian starts wondering if he said something wrong. Maybe he should have sucked it up or (and he thinks this with a sense of mild alarm) focused instead on helping Jim with his plans for the fetus and doing whatever it was prospective fathers did when their wives were pregnant.
Not that he was really a part of this, was he?
A grin, sharp and amused, cracks Jim's face. He snaps his fingers in front of Sebastian's nose. "We can change that." His grin slants sideways. "Jim'll fix it. Let's play a game."
Jim provides him with a list of files, old files, people who needed to one day die but weren't important enough or hadn't gotten in his way enough to have it actually happen. Easy pickings. They'd be beneath Sebastian's pay grade under normal circumstances but he hasn't got the resources to arrange anything more elaborate right now.
Jim has extra identities for him too, ones they'd had lying around in a storage unit for years. "You might as well use them if you have nothing better to do," Jim says carelessly.
So Sebastian does.
Sebastian's not stupid. Not a single one of the targets he's been given are based in Great Britain. He's being sent away and it's certainly not just for his own benefit, because there are a dozen other tasks he could be doing now that wouldn't take him so far away. Jim has something up his sleeve and whatever it is, it doesn't involve him.
But it doesn't matter what Jim's planning. A mission's a mission.
Four of the lower-security targets are staying in Mexico City. Sebastian dyes his hair brown and flies there as Richard Kincaide, dirty police officer turned hired muscle. He can't bring his rifle on the plane so he leaves it with Jim and picks something up after landing. Then, he gently, gently insinuates himself into the existing criminal network.
He feels like he's slumming. He is slumming it, because Rick Kincaide doesn't have a reputation yet and only barely exists on paper. Rick Kincaide's got a police officer's training and maybe a few years' experience on the wrong side of the law, while Sebastian has over a decade served as SAS and can hit a mark in the heart from half a street away in a crosswind with one arm tied behind his back.
Literally. They'd tested it, once.
Rick Kincaide can't get access to anything challenging, but he knows the right places to be to hear the things Sebastian wants to know.
To: [email protected]
BCC: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Congratulations, it's a girl!
Attachment: ultrasound-01.png
xoxo,
Jim
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Numbers 8, 9, and 10 have been taken care of. Someone turned Cooper so I took care of that too. Most people who know Moriarty's disappeared think you're dead but a few think it's a trick to see who's really loyal.
How you feeling? Any other updates?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Loyal? Why would they be loyal if I'm gone? I'm expecting permanent damage. Well, not permanent. Substantial. We'll probably lose North America entirely once they realize all existing arrangements are null and void.
Anyway, John Watson's out for blood, but that's hardly new. He and Mycroft both found out. Sherlock's in hot water. It probably doesn't help that I've been paying him visits in person. Oh well! Sherlock will protect me if anything gets dangerous.
I had another appointment today. The doctor says she's healthy and developing normally. What do you think of Bellatrix for a name? Bella for short.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Harry Potter is stupid and if you call her Bella everyone's going to think you named her after the girl in the vampire series. Elizabeth, Sophia, Anna?
I'm moving in on 4 sometime this week and that will end all the easy ones in Mexico. When do you want me back in London?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: re:Congratulations, it's a girl!
Don't return back for two weeks, at least. The situation's unstable. Don't worry, though! I'm perfectly safe.
Bellatrix is a star in the Orion constellation, philistine. It's his left shoulder. Andromeda? Lyra, Faye, Aurora?
Sebastian worries himself sick, of course, but he stays away (and vetoes all of Jim's dumb ideas about literally naming his kid after a star or something). Jim's good at handling things on his own, better by far than Sebastian is. In those two weeks he burns the Kincaide identity and uses another in the execution three more easy targets.
No one he talks to has any idea what happened to Moriarty. Sebastian can see his power weakening as the rumors spread. He died, he got caught, he left the business. It's a trick, it's a trap, it's an opportunity.
All are more plausible than the truth.
"Just got out of the airport. You still staying at the last place?" Sebastian hefts his bag (light, carrying only things that could get past airport security) over one shoulder as he waits in the queue for a cab.
"Hmm," Jim says thoughtfully. "No."
"Okay?" Sebastian asks. There are two people in front of him. As he watches, one shoves her suitcase into the waiting cab and climbs in after it. "Then where are you?"
"Hmm," Jim says again and nothing else.
It occurs to him that maybe Jim doesn't want him to come over.
"Nevermind," Sebastian says. "I can go back to mine. I couldn't be arsed to end the lease when I left anyway, so it's still there."
"Don't be stupid," Jim says immediately. "Stop thinking, if you're only ever going to be wrong. I'm in a place right now that's being provided for and monitored by the Ice Man. I'm trying to figure out if it's safe for you. It might be. Then again, it might not! Want to find out?"
Sebastian thinks about it. "What can he do? Shoot me in front of witnesses?"
"Well," Jim says, and then more pointedly, "well."
Sebastian wouldn't put it past him either. But at the same time, he hasn't seen Jim in nearly a month and he misses him. Misses him in a bunch of stupid ways he tries not to think about. "Just give me the address. I'll take my chances."
The address leads him to a posh-looking penthouse roughly half a mile away from Baker Street. He walks in into the building and is quickly flanked by two well-dressed men who are wearing dark glasses even though it's overcast outside. They're both wearing wireless earphones hooked over an ear. Sebastian hates them on sight. Wankers.
"Colonel Moran," one of them says pleasantly. He matches Sebastian step for step towards the lift and when they turn together, Sebastian catches sight of the gun-shaped bulge beneath his jacket. "How was your trip?"
"Fine, thank you," Sebastian says as politely as he can. Jim says that when he speaks like that, it makes him sound like he's got a massive stick up his arse. "Are you going to be escorting me to Jim?"
His guards exchange glances.
"For now," the other one says.
They join him in the lift. In all honesty, Sebastian's a little surprised he doesn't catch a beating or the barrel of a gun pressed into his face in the time between when the doors close and when they open again. But they stay a precise several inches to the side and behind him and don't say a single word.
Jim's waiting for him.
"Sebby!" he exclaims exuberantly and throws himself into Sebastian's arms. He's beaming brightly, too brightly and too excitedly to be actually sincere. "I've missed you so much!"
Sebastian catches Jim around the shoulders. Jim's belly, large now and noticeably pregnant, presses against him firmly, but Jim doesn't pull away. Sebastian's not quite sure what's going on, but there are at least two pairs of eyes on them and he knows how to take a hint.
"I missed you too," he says, loud enough for their guards to hear, and buries his face in Jim's neck and his familiar scent. It's hardly a hardship. He runs his hands down Jim's back, then up his front, until he has Jim's face cupped between his palms. "How are you feeling?"
I really did miss you, he thinks and tries not to let it show on his face.
Jim's smile is wicked. "Oh, you know," he says airily, hands on Sebastian's chest. "I've had worse. I'll tell you about it inside. Sherlock's," and Sebastian spares himself a moment of resentment at the way Jim's voice sounds, curling comfortably and affectionately around the alpha's name, "trying to convert the second bedroom in Baker Street to a nursery. What a laugh. I'll tell you all about it when we're inside."
Sebastian's tails try to follow them in. Jim blocks them bodily. They seem unwilling, at least for now, to press the matter. They hover in front of him instead, glowers of displeasure on their faces.
Jim's smile is gratingly false in the moments before he closes the door. "I'm sorry, boys. You can't come in here. The landlord doesn't allow pets. You know how it is."
Jim's mask drops the moment the door closes. It's subtle, but Sebastian's used to subtle. It's in the angle of his shoulders, the balance of his hips, and the way his smirk makes him look like a predator again, despite the vulnerable swell of his pregnant belly. It makes him look familiar again.
Sebastian wonders, briefly, if people stare at Jim now when he goes out. They would, of course. Omegas are rare, pregnant people are rare, and pregnant omegas rarest of all. He wonders if it bothers him.
It must.
But Jim looks happy still, and smug, like a cat who'd just tipped over a fish bowl. He insinuates himself into Sebastian's personal space again, this time sliding an arm around his waist. He tugs on a lock of Sebastian's hair and comments, "Brown? Could be worse."
He presses his lips to Sebastian's cheek, then tilts his head and murmurs casually, "Sweep the place for bugs. I took care of the bedroom, but couldn't be bothered with the rest of it. Pay extra attention to places I wouldn't be able to reach."
Sebastian finds three in the living room - two audio ones and a small camera tucked inside the bookshelf, two in the kitchen, and another two in the bath. He double-checks the bedroom and finds none, then drops the lot on the table in front of Jim, who is lying on the sofa. He's got a laptop (an unfamiliar one Sebastian doesn't recognize) propped on his belly.
Jim glances at the small pile, then sweeps them all up and drops them into a glass of water. They sink slowly to the bottom. "Thanks. Maybe now I'll have some privacy."
Sebastian nods at the laptop. "Is that safe for the baby?"
Jim rolls his eyes. "Do you think I'd be doing it if it weren't? It's perfectly safe. It'd burn my skin before it got hot enough to hurt her. Come sit with me."
Sebastian does. Jim promptly uses him as a backrest, eyes still on his screen. He's writing an email from an account Sebastian doesn't recognize. Sebastian catches the words 'cargo' and 'drop-off'. He is somehow not surprised.
"I did miss you," he offers after a moment's hesitation. He trails his hand lightly over Jim's arm. "I wasn't just saying it."
"Hmm," Jim answers. "Things are boring without you too."
Even though the Moriarty identity is on hold, Jim continues to work. He's revived an older one - one from before Sebastian had joined him. Sebastian watches with some bemusement as he arranges a meeting between two people, then promptly emails the date and time to someone else.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm bored," Jim says. He glances at the bookshelf where Sebastian had removed the camera. "But I happen to know some people in several influential organizations who might be working for the British Government. Tsk, tsk. Organized crime usually gets so bent out of shape about that."
"It doesn't sound like you'll be knowing them for much longer," Sebastian comments. He rests his chin on Jim's shoulder to read the screen.
"Well," Jim says, sounding pleased with himself. "I was going to save the information for a rainy day, you know how it is, but I just decided I was so bored being pent up here all day that I just had to talk to someone. I don't like being forced to stay in one place. Let's see how the Ice Man feels having his pawns thrown off the board."
"He'll know it was you."
"That's the point. What's he going to do, arrest me? Even if he could, Sherlock would never allow it and if Mycroft Holmes has one weakness, it's his baby brother. It must burn him up inside, knowing that Sherlock's preventing him from doing his job. Again."
"Where are you going?" Sebastian asks.
Jim pauses with his hand on the door. He stares, just long enough for Sebastian to start feeling uncomfortable, long enough for Sebastian to know Jim's considering not answering him. Then he says, "Baker Street."
"Why?"
Jim raises an eyebrow pointedly. "Because he's my mate and we're bonded." He grimaces slightly at the word 'bonded'. Sebastian is reminded of how he'd looked before when talking about his heats, when he'd been handling them by picking anonymous alphas off the street and letting them fuck him unconscious.
"Do you want to be bonded to him? I thought - I thought you didn't like him."
Jim looks at him blankly. "Of course I don't. We're still bonded. That's just how it works." His expression changes, becoming light and airy, like he really is the empty-headed omega he sometimes pretends to be. "Anyway, his brother insists on turning the second bedroom in Baker Street into a nursery for the baby."
"Why?"
Jim's hand splays protectively over his stomach again. "Sherlock intends to keep her," he says quietly.
That's something Sebastian hasn't heard before. It has him halfway out of his seat before Jim makes a curt cutting motion with his hand. Sebastian sits back down. "He wants to keep her? Does he even know what the fuck to do with a baby?"
Jim laughs. "That's what he asked me when I told him he couldn't. Anyway, I -" he stops. "I'm playing along, for now. The Ice Man's not so cold when he's thinking about his niece. He complicates matters. I need more information."
"You're not - you're not going to let him, are you?"
Jim gives him a look of withering scorn. "Of course not. I wouldn't let anyone take her from me."
They say a bonded omega needs to submit to his alpha. Like he's a pet, like he's property. That it's just how things are and that once they're mated, they can't be separated. They say it's stronger and more all-encompassing than love. They say a lot of things.
"Okay," Sebastian says. "When are you going to be back?"
One of Jim's shoulders rises and falls. "Some time tonight. Doctor Watson..." Jim bares his teeth. He sounds darkly pleased. "Disapproves."
Jim doesn't return until past noon the next day, hair still damp from a shower. Sebastian spots a bite mark on his throat again. Sherlock seems to have a thing for throats, maybe Jim's in particular. Or he knows just what to do to make Sebastian feel the way he feels now - hot and angry and unhappy and tense. His skin feels like it's pulled too tightly over his body.
"What happened to getting back last night?" Sebastian asks. He winces inwardly at the challenging thread in his voice and the way Jim picks up on it instantly, shoulders straightening as the mask comes back on.
"John," and he's John now, "was there," Jim says darkly. "I decided to give him a show. I gave him a taste of what his alpha boyfriend really wants in a mate. We'll see how long he follows Sherlock around like a lost puppy begging for scraps of affection after that."
"Sure," Sebastian says. Heat prickles in his face and throat. "Just taunting the doctor. I bet it has nothing to do with -"
"Sebastian!" Jim interrupts sharply. "I want you to think very carefully about the next words that come out of your mouth."
Like a lost puppy, Sebastian thinks helplessly, painfully, but he snaps his mouth shut and counts to ten before realizing he has no idea what to say. What can he say that Jim doesn't in some way already know he's thinking?
And it just, he just fucking hates this, all of it. He hates that Jim's pregnant and it's because of Sherlock. He hates that Jim keeps going to see him, that half his thoughts are about bothering Sherlock or fucking him or whatever the fuck he fucking does when he goes out and leaves Sebastian behind.
He hates that Jim's going to have a fucking baby and it's got nothing to do with him. He's just dead weight, tagging along even though Jim dropped the Moriarty identity months ago, even though Sebastian should be getting out of Britain instead of letting Mycroft Holmes' noose grow ever tighter around his neck.
But he doesn't have the words for that. He can't say that. It wouldn't matter even if he could, because Jim's expression is shifting again. Instead of looking angry or mocking or scornful he just looks tired and unhappy.
"I just want to know one thing," Sebastian says finally, carefully. The anger and frustration he'd been feeling before has disappeared at the sight of Jim's startling weariness. Now he just feels the way Jim looks, like he wants to curl up somewhere quiet and peaceful and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. "If I was an alpha, would you still - would she be mine instead?"
Jim meets his eyes. "Yes."
They don't talk about it afterwards. They don't talk about a lot of things but some days later, Jim admits quietly to him in the middle of the night, "I didn't mean for it to happen like this. I wanted something different. For us," and kisses Sebastian silent before he can speak.
"Give me your hand," Jim orders out of nowhere. He snaps his fingers then holds his hand out, palm up. "Just for a minute."
Sebastian puts his hand warily in Jim's. Jim adjusts his grip, his palm against the back of Sebastian's open hand. Then, he lifts his shirt and presses Sebastian's palm to the round swell of his belly, brows knit together in thought. He shifts Sebastian's palm a couple times before stopping.
"Here," Jim says. "Feel."
Sebastian is confused for a moment, feeling only the warmth of Jim's skin and the rough line, under his fingertips, that marks an old scar whose origins Sebastian still hasn't figured out. Then, something else. He starts to jerk his hand back automatically but Jim stops him, fingers tightening around the sides of his hand.
It happens again. This time Sebastian's prepared for it and he recognizes it for what it is - a brief push against his palm. It's so light that it's practically a tap. He tries and fails to keep the smile from his face. "So that's her, then?"
Jim nods. He looks pleased, more smug and happy with himself than Sebastian's ever seen him before. "That's her. She's been kicking me for weeks but I couldn't feel it from the outside until recently. Congratulations, you're the first to feel her. Besides me, obviously."
Sebastian moves his thumb lightly over Jim's belly. The first to feel her kick, before even Sherlock. He feels it again - another kick, right against the center of his palm, followed by two more. He raises an eyebrow. "Active, isn't she? She's already strong."
Jim preens. "Yes. She is." He strokes a hand protectively over his stomach. His fingers brush against Sebastian's. "Do you hear that, little one?" he asks her, and the gentleness of his voice, the open tenderness with no trace of mockery or deceit, is another thing Sebastian's never heard before. "You're going to be strong."
Jim can't sleep.
Sebastian finds this out because Jim kicks him awake to complain about it. His feet against Sebastian's shins are cold. "What?" Sebastian grumbles.
"My back hurts and she's kicking me again. And this is the third time I had to get up to piss tonight," Jim says. "Talk with me until I fall asleep."
Only he could make such a sweet request sound like an order. Sebastian rolls halfway onto his side and wraps an arm over Jim's chest, still in that pleasant halfway point between sleep and wakefulness. "Can't you talk to yourself instead?"
"I already know what I'd say." Jim starts to turn towards him, then stops with a frustrated growl when his belly gets in the way. Sebastian kisses his shoulder soothingly.
"Do you know what we're doing yet?" he asks. "When she's born?" How can we keep her? he wants to know, but he doesn't ask because he knows Jim's been thinking that too.
"With the Ice Man in the picture," Jim says, "Not yet. It'd be easy if it were only Sherlock, but with him involved, I don't know. But I won't let him take her from me."
"You'll figure it out," Sebastian says. "You always do."
"What are you doing today?"
Sebastian looks up. "Probably going for a run." He'd been idly wondering how hard it'd be to lose the tail that follows him every time he leaves the penthouse. Today is as good a day as any to find out. "Why, is today something special?"
"I have to see the doctor and then I'm going to Baker Street. You're coming with me."
Sebastian stares. "To the doctor?"
"To the flat, but you can join me at the doctor's too if you want." Jim sighs when Sebastian continues to look blankly at him. "I want you to paint something for me. For the nursery."
"I don't know how to paint."
"You'll be painting dots on the ceiling. It doesn't take skill." Jim holds up a sheet of paper from the table. Sebastian had seen him working on it before. It's a circle circumscribing square with a bunch of small numbers written inside it
Sebastian frowns. "What is this? Is it a puzzle?"
"Stars for her ceiling. It's a map of what the sky over London will look like when she's due." Jim flashes him a grin that morphs into a sly smile. He begins to trace shapes in the numbers. "This is Lyra. Lacerta, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Aquila." He frowns. "I'm not as partial to the other ones."
Sebastian rolls his eyes and takes the paper. He folds it and sticks it into his jacket pocket. "You can't call her any of those. People will tease her at school."
"But I like them."
"Make one her middle name. Not Lacerta or Aquila. And give her a normal first name."
They argue over names in the car (because of course there is a car waiting for them, already running and knowing their destination) until they reach the hospital and Jim says, "Fine. Lyra or Andromeda? Which do you like more?"
"It's your choice," Sebastian answers. "Those are the best of the ones you wanted."
"No, stupid, which do you like more?"
"Oh," Sebastian says. Jim smirks at him mockingly for being slow on the uptake. "Andromeda. She can call herself Andy if she hates it."
Jim nods. "Andromeda. Okay."
The doctor tuts when Sebastian follows Jim into the examining room. "Are you the father?"
"Yes. He just got back from a business trip," Jim answers. He hops onto the padded table and cranes his neck to examine the doctor's clipboard. "More blood work?"
Sebastian shrugs helplessly at her and tries to look appropriately like a father-to-be. The doctor asks a series of questions as she examines Jim. The questions are about the baby, about his eating habits, his health -
"You didn't tell me your back was hurting," Sebastian interrupts without thinking, at one point.
Jim looks at him. His expression, momentarily blank, is quickly replaced by a giggle and a simper. "Oh, sweetie," he says. "You're always so busy, I didn't want to bother you. It only hurts when I stand for too long."
"Try not to spend too much time on your feet," the doctor advises, then continues on. Behind her back, Jim makes a face at him.
"He gave you a key to his flat?" Sebastian asks.
Jim shrugs. "It's not as if I couldn't break in."
The room Jim leads him to is already painted the color of the sky, a soft, pastel blue. He sees a bed and half-assembled crib tucked neatly in the corner. Jim catches him looking at it.
"The bed belongs to the doctor. Everything in the drawers too. Feel free to look through it. I did."
Sebastian does so but doesn't find anything interesting. Clothes, mostly, and a locked box under the bed that he leaves alone. The supplies for the ceiling are already there, tucked in a corner of the room - ladder, brushes, a sealed can of paint that glows in the dark and a half-finished can of the blue, for fixing any mistakes. Jim makes himself comfortable on the floor in a nest of blankets he drags from the bed and directs Sebastian's actions as precisely as any computer, lying on his back to get the proper perspective.
They start with Polaris, the brightest star and thus the largest dot, and move outwards from there. Sebastian still has the sheet with the plan that Jim gave him but he doesn't need to take it out because Jim knows them all from memory.
Sebastian takes a break after the second hour and nudges Jim's ribs with his shoe. "Budge over and let me sit for a bit," he says. Jim shifts until there's enough a space in the blankets for Sebastian to join him. They're not quite halfway done.
"It'll look better when the lights are off," Jim says. He is a warm presence against Sebastian's arm. "I'll show you after the sun sets."
They're still working when Sherlock Holmes and his doctor arrive. Sebastian distantly notices them talking downstairs but he's too focused on the task at hand to care until he hears footsteps coming up the stairs.
"Act natural," Jim says just as Sherlock reaches the open door.
Sebastian carefully paints a smallish (the third-smallest size) circle on the ceiling.
"What are you doing?" Sherlock asks. Sebastian watches out of the corner of his eye as Sherlock walks inside the room. He comes to a stop in front of Jim and looks down at him, then at Sebastian. Sebastian gives him a little wave.
"You're blocking my view," Jim complains. He makes a shooing motion with his hand. "Be a dear and go away for an hour, will you? We're almost done."
Sherlock looks at the drying paint on the ceiling. "Circles on the ceiling. You're lying on your back to look at it all at once and the colonel's undoubtedly just drawing what you tell him to. You could do it yourself, even in your state, but -"
"Yes, yes," Jim interrupts impatiently. "You're very clever. I'm down here to make sure he's got his distances right and he's up there because I don't want to stand on a ladder for hours and make my neck sore. The paint glows in the dark, so it has to be stars. You know it glows in the dark because that shade is only used in paint that glows and oh, right, the label's right there. Very impressive, congratulations, you can go now."
Jim claps sarcastically. Sebastian is gratified by the way Sherlock seems to deflate at Jim's complete lack of being impressed. He glances at Sebastian.
Sebastian shrugs. "He does the same thing, but he doesn't bother to explain it." To Jim he asks, "Where's the next one?"
Sherlock looks at Sebastian again, eyes narrowed. Sebastian grits his teeth and stares back. He pretends he doesn't care or want to punch Sherlock in the face.
Jim interrupts them by snapping his fingers. "Right, well, Sherlock, go away or I'll tell John how naughty you're being. Seb, three inches southeast of the last one, a two."
Sebastian obediently draws a magnitude two star three inches southeast of the last one, feeling Sherlock's eyes on the back of his neck the whole time.
"You didn't tell me you wanted to paint the ceiling," Sherlock says to Jim in an undertone.
"Why would I tell you that?" Jim asks, then gives Sebastian directions to the next star.
"Because I'm your alpha and she's mine too. I have a right to know how you want her nursery."
"Why?" Jim asks again.
"Because she's mine. And so are you." There is a noise, the brief, swift sound of footsteps and clothes rustling as Sherlock grabs for Jim and Jim dodges away, circling behind Sebastian and the ladder so that they're between him and Sherlock.
"Maybe," Jim says. "But I don't care."
Sebastian gets through another quarter of a square meter of the ceiling, in between a hissed argument between Jim and Sherlock that Sebastian only hears bits and pieces of, before Sherlock finally leaves. "I thought you were bonded to him," Sebastian comments.
"Careful, the room's bugged. And I am. That doesn't mean I have to like him." Jim frowns. "In fact, he was more fun when he was running all over London looking for us and interfering with all my games."
"You always did like bloodshed," Sebastian agrees.
"We could just run," Sebastian says later, as the baby in Jim's belly grows larger and larger and his due date draws nearer and nearer. Jim still hasn't come to him with a smug smirk and a sheaf of printed instructions for how they're going to extract themselves. But Sebastian knows he's been thinking about it, serious and silent and still, sometimes for hours. "We can go somewhere they'll never find us. We have the means."
There are passports, papers, cash, all stored in a safe deposit box under an assumed name neither of them has touched in over a year. And once they're out, Jim has enough cached away under numerous enough aliases, Sebastian's sure, to make things like money and jobs problems for lesser people.
Twelve hours, that's all it'd take. Maybe six if they grease the right palms. They could be on a plane to anywhere else in the world.
Jim shakes his head. "It won't work. There's no way he won't find me, the way I am now." He motions at his belly. The corners of his mouth turn downwards. "I'm too noticeable like this. The Ice Man has everything locked down tight. And where could we go if we took her with us? She needs - if we ran, he'd have us running forever. We'd be scared little rabbits, going to ground every time we see a shadow. She'll need stability when she's young."
Sebastian traces his fingers down the side of Jim's face. It is a testament to Jim's dark mood that he barely reacts, not even to roll his eyes or call Sebastian uselessly sentimental. "What if we killed him first?"
"Think harder," Jim says. He leans into Sebastian's palm. "What happens when we do?"
Okay.
Sherlock would be angry, livid. He wouldn't hurt Jim but he'd chase them and Sebastian already knows his own safety isn't guaranteed. John would go with Sherlock. And Mycroft - Mycroft was important enough that if they did this, coming back to Britain wouldn't be easy, especially not with a little girl in tow. She'd have to grow somewhere else. They'd be on the run indefinitely.
There has to be a trick, something he's not clever enough to think of that Jim's already put into play. Except - except there isn't. There can't be because he's been watching Jim for months, for years, and he's been happy sometimes but never gleeful, not in the way he is when he has a plan.
"We're trapped here, aren't we?" Sebastian says. "We can't leave with her."
"Not if we want to keep her. And I'm not leaving her to Sherlock." Jim's eyes flutter closed and for a second, a split second, his expression changes in a way that makes Sebastian's chest hurt. Then Jim opens his eyes and it's gone, leaving him inscrutable. "I'm sorry."
"How long have you known?" Sebastian asks.
"Eighteen weeks, but I've only been sure for three." Jim's mouth twists unhappily. "I can't outsmart them both and even if I did. She's blood.They'd never give up."
Then what do we do? Sebastian thinks. What will they do to you, when she's not inside you to keep you safe from them? What are we doing here?
Jim refuses to get a C-section.
Sebastian overhears him on the phone about it, coy and stubborn in turn. He complains about scars and his girlish figure. He calls the procedure barbaric. He cites mortality rates and recovery times and statistics for complications.
He argues about it with Sherlock for an hour and a half (who puts Mycroft on at one point, but Jim refuses to speak to him and gets Sherlock again) before he hangs up, wearing a smug grin of victory. Sebastian makes room for him on the sofa. He runs his fingertips down Jim's belly and asks carefully, "What's the real reason?"
Jim looks at him like he's an idiot. "If it's planned, it'd be too easy for his brother to arrange for an 'accident' to happen during the operation. He'll be able to decide which doctor I see and where. I'm not letting that happen. When she comes, we're taking a cab to a public hospital."
"You'll be there for hours," Sebastian points out. "He'll still have time to make a move."
"Maybe," Jim says. He winks. "But that's why I have you."
When it happens - when Jim's water breaks in the middle of the afternoon and the contractions come, making him gasp and swear, Sebastian does as he's told and gets them a cab. He calls the hospital while they're still on the way and when they arrive, the staff are ready and waiting. They take Jim from him with brisk, efficient motions.
"Wait," Jim says. His hand shoots out and grabs Sebastian's wrist in a painfully firm grip. "Stay."
At minute fifty-four on a timer in Sebastian's mind that's been ticking ever since they rushed out of the flat without having the time to bypass the surveillance, Sherlock Holmes finally shows up, full of frenetic energy.
The doctor is busy with Jim, but one of the nurses snaps his head up and moves to intercept him. "I'm sorry sir, you can't be in here."
"The hell I can't!" Sherlock snaps. He barrels past the nurse to rush to Jim's side. "He's my mate, which you'd realize if you paid any attention at all to the fact that he," and Sherlock motions at Sebastian, "isn't even an alpha. Sherlock Holmes, I called ahead. I'm the one who told you he'd be coming."
He takes a place on Jim's other side, across from Sebastian. This time, no one tries to stop him. He smooths his palm over Jim's belly. "I'm here," he says tenderly and Sebastian can almost forget that Jim and Sherlock were once mortal enemies because Jim turns to him like a flower drawn to the sun.
Sherlock takes Jim's hand in his. Sebastian watches Jim squeeze it as another contraction ripples through his body. He bares his gritted teeth and makes a pained, animal noise that turns abruptly into panting when the contraction ends and his muscles relax. Sherlock lowers his head to Jim's face and says something to him that makes some of the tension in Jim's face ease.
Sebastian wants to hit something.
"Good, good," the doctor says encouragingly to Jim. "You're doing great, Mr. Holmes. Just -"
"Excuse me, sir," the nurse says. He puts a hand on Sebastian's elbow. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but only the father's allowed in the room during the birth."
"Right, yeah. Sure," Sebastian says dully and lets himself be herded gently but insistently out the door. He feels a small, petty joy at seeing John Watson standing in the doorway, staring at Sherlock with a pained, agonized expression.
"Sorry mate," Sebastian snarls when he brushes past him, "This is a private party. People like us aren't allowed."
He spends hours two, three, and four by taking stock of the building. He checks the exits, walks the perimeter, and keeps an eye on the staff, as he'd do if this were a job. He spots several doctors who don't move like a doctors some time during hour three and memorizes their faces.
Then he walks down the street and buys a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He chain smokes them all down to their filters and when he still doesn't feel better, when he still can't shove the image of Sherlock and Jim together out of his mind, he slams his fists into the wall over and over, until the skin of his knuckles splits open.
A man he doesn't recognize recognizes him first ("Good evening, Colonel Moran," murmured when they pass each other, and it's as good a threat as he's ever gotten). Sebastian's unarmed. He's got a rifle stashed in the basement if he needs to get to it, but that hardly matters when they don't have an extraction plan.
The rope around his throat tightens another notch.
At hour eight, minute fourteen, the door to Jim's room opens. He and John (who has been steadfastly not looking at him and vice versa) both look up.
"Sebastian?"
Sebastian shoots to his feet. "That's me. Is everything okay?"
The doctor smiles at him. "Everything's fine. Mother and baby are both perfectly healthy. He's asking for you. Do you want to see him?"
Sebastian's inside the room and at Jim's side nearly before the doctor finishes asking his question. Sherlock's and his eyes meet; Sebastian glowers and curls his hands into fists but Sherlock just looks at him like he's a lab rat before twirling on his heels and swooping out.
"Seb," Jim says, and when Sebastian comes close, grabs his hand. His face is streaked with sweat and involuntary tears, expression cracked wide open, vulnerable and raw and desperate. "Don't let them take her from me. They're going to try. Please, don't let them take her."
"I won't," Sebastian says. "I promise." He wipes his thumb across Jim's cheek and Jim's face cracks into a rare, radiant smile.
"Did you see her yet? I made her. I made her and she's perfect."
"Not yet," Sebastian says. "But I will."
There are four omega births in the newborn ward but Jim's is the only girl. She's in the second row. Sebastian can read the label on her bed. Sarah Andromeda Holmes. She doesn't look any different from the other lumps bundled in colored blankets but then Sebastian remembers that this time yesterday she was inside Jim, that when they'd fallen asleep the night before, she'd just been a round bulge in Jim's body.
Sebastian touches his fingertips to the glass window between them.
She looks so small, even compared to the other babies.
"Omega births are usually smaller than female ones," a smooth, cultured voice says from his right. "Women are better-equipped for childbirth."
Mycroft Holmes. He smiles pleasantly when Sebastian looks at him. Sebastian looks back at the baby (at Jim's daughter). She's fast asleep. "Yeah, I know."
So small and so vulnerable. The only thing Jim had asked of him was, don't let them take her from me. Well, he hasn't failed a task yet.
Sebastian turns. Mycroft is already watching him.
Sebastian gives him a brittle smile and, when Mycroft just raises an eyebrow at him and waits, he grits out, "I know you're planning on taking her. I might not be a genius, but I'm not stupid."
Jim can't protect her, not now, when he is so tired and so open. All his shields and masks and layers of protection have been smashed open by something Sebastian never could have given him. Mycroft purses his lips and doesn't answer, so Sebastian continues.
"It'll work. You'll get her, but there's no way you can trick him. Whatever you try to do, he'll figure it out and when he does, he'll be furious. Everything he's been doing up until now has just been playing. He gets bored so he plays games and sometimes people die. But he's more dangerous than that and we both know it. If you do this, he'll level Britain. Neither of us want that."
"I assure you, Colonel Moran," Mycroft says pleasantly, "I can be just as dangerous. I won't be cowed by a madman with impulse control problems."
"That's not what I'm saying. I'm not threatening you," Sebastian says. He takes a deep breath. "There's another way. He'll - he's willing to retire for her. He can go legit. Moriarty's been missing for months. He doesn't have to come back. If you let him keep her, he'll go legit. Wouldn't that be good? She gets both her parents and Moriarty stays gone. And I'm sure Sherlock wants to keep his omega."
Mycroft looks at him - the way Jim looks at him sometimes, the way Sherlock had looked at him, the way that Sebastian hates. He peels Sebastian open and takes him apart with his eyes. He finds, removes, and scrutinizes all the things Sebastian would never say out loud.
Then he asks, "And where does that leave you?"
Where does it leave him, when there is a cell in a secret prison with his name on it? When the hospital is crawling with MI5 and he's just finished telling someone who might as well be their leader that Jim will drop everything and throw himself right into their jaws, if it means he'll get to keep his child?
Sebastian laughs hollowly.
"Nowhere. Isn't that right, Mr. Holmes? But I knew it'd happen sometime. Might as well be now." He inclines his head. Mycroft does the same. "Congratulations."
He sees John Watson on his way out. Sebastian stops and John does too, hands in his pockets. They eye each other warily. Sebastian breaks the silence first.
"Is it worth it? Following him around like you're the one who's a dog, letting him fuck around and mate with someone you hate? Standing by while they have a kid together because he wants it so much and you'd never be able to do that for him? Why do you stay? Don't you ever want more?"
"Shut up!" John shoves Sebastian roughly in the chest. The force of it is strong enough to make Sebastian stumble back. "I don't care what you say or what sick game Moriarty's playing at. I'm never going to abandon Sherlock. Nothing you do can change that. You'll never break us up. Do you hear me? I love him and he loves me back. "
Huh, Sebastian thinks as John storms furiously off. That must be nice.