“I give you orders Moran and I expect you to follow them.”
“But I thought….”
“I don’t pay you to think. You pull the trigger my dear, that’s all. Do you think you can do that?”
manic-intent’s tags:
and then chris burst into peals of delighted laughter
and also gleeful clapping
I WILL FOLLOW YOU INTO THIS DARKNESS, SY
Sebastian is absorbed in the careful disassembly of his favorite rifle, a custom CheyTac Intervention chambered for the .408 CheyTac ammunition, fitted with a Leica scope with a standard crosshairs engraving on the reticle. He sits cross-legged on a sheet stained with old grease marks and gunpowder, the suppressor cylinder already carefully set to one side, the ammunition to another. His mind drifts, locked into comfortable routine, an old hunter preparing to lick its claws.
Music pulses in a drubbing rhythm that his mind has relegated to background noise, some sort of vaguely Germanic caterwauling. The rifle doesn’t require anything more than a quick clean, and he carefully removes the bolt, then the scope, each item placed carefully within their own space. He’s threading a cleaning patch through the jib at the end of the cleaning rod when the music mulls down, to a dim heartbeat, and then Sebastian nearly bites down on his tongue when dead weight sprawls over his back.
It takes him a sharp, tight breath for the logical part of his mind to override the instinct to twist back and away and make a grab for the pale neck pressed against the back of his skull.
“Don’t do that,” Sebastian mutters, and adds, “Sir,” as an afterthought, when Moriarty tsks at him, skinny arms pushed over Sebastian’s broad shoulders and the old gray Army shirt stretched over his biceps.
“I’m bored,” Moriarty declares petulantly, jaw pressed over his scalp, and Sebastian sucks in a slow breath as he steadies his hands, soaking the patch in solvent. ”Entertain me, Seb, that’s what you’re paid to do, aren’t you? Well? Well?”
“I’m paid to kill for you, sir,” Sebastian corrects him, carefully inserting the rod into the muzzle of the rifle.
“Oh come on. You’re a soldier, my dear. Soldiers listen to orders. Extrapolate. Use your initiative. Go on.” Moriarty’s clearly had a good day - he only gets bored when all the pieces are falling into place. Sebastian steels himself for patience. Eventually, Moriarty will tire of needling him and slink away to snip or tug at a few more threads in his web, or spy on that private detective that he’s become so obsessed with.
Had Sebastian been slightly more uncommon, had Moriarty been a fair degree more common, it was entirely possible that Sebastian might have long disregarded orders and put a bullet through Sherlock Holmes’ head, by now, out of tactical repositioning if nothing else. But he still retains a streak of rationality within him that had been bored deep by military discipline, and Sebastian knows that Moriarty’s undivided attention, howsoever framed by Moriarty’s definition of affection, would almost always prove fatal to its recipient in the end.
“Give me orders, then.” Sebastian decides, carefully, and adds, “Sir,” when Moriarty clucks his tongue, squirming over to press the edges of his bony knees against Sebastian’s trousers.
Moriarty hums, cheek pressed against his short-cropped hair, as Sebastian pushes the cleaning rod out and into the receiver, removing the soiled cleaning wad and pulling the rod back out. As he fits a fresh wad through the jib, Moriarty purrs, “I want to hear about the tiger.”
Sebastian goes as far as to try and shift to glance up at Moriarty, eyebrows arched, but knees dig against his thighs and he stops, and soaks the cleaning wad in solvent, instead. As before, he finds it easier to simply assume that his strange, latest benefactor-employer knows everything by some sort of voodoo head magic. Sebastian has seen stranger things over the course of his military service.
“There’s not much to tell. I was in Kumaon, passing through to Nepal. A man-eater was terrorising a village. I wounded it, it tried to hide down a drain, I followed it down and killed it.”
It had broken the canines on the right side of its jaws, an old injury that had prevented it from killing its normal prey. Sebastian had made its death clean, at least, a courtesy from one old hunter to another.
“A Bengal?”
“I suppose. I don’t know.”
“How did you lure it? Or did you track it to its lair?” Moriarty’s queries are clinical, but his arms shift over Sebastian’s shoulders; he’s straightening up onto his knees, his breathing going a shade quicker.
“Tethered a young goat to a tree. Waited at a good vantage point.”
“Tiger’s learned not to fear humans,” Moriarty muses out aloud, “It comes out during the day, doesn’t it. It smells you, but the kid goat’s better prey, it goes to take it, but it spooks at something. How did you miss?”
“A boy from the village came up the path. The tiger moved.”
“You must have hit its foreleg instead,” Moriarty continues idly. ”It flees the scene instead of staying to fight an unseen enemy. You follow it. You leave the rifle in the tree, it’s too heavy, and you know you won’t get another shot again, not like that. You use your pistol instead. You follow it to an old storm drain, one that the tiger knows - it won’t go anywhere new, not when it’s wounded and afraid. It’s dark down in there, the tiger has an advantage. You can hold a pistol, or a torchlight-“
“Small torchlight, held it between my teeth.”
“The tiger breathes loudly, you can hear it, smell the animal stink of it. You know that it’s desperate, angry and afraid. But you’re not, so the game goes to you. You see the gleam of its eyes, and you brace your wrists, you fire,” Moriarty continues dreamily, as though he hasn’t interrupted. ”Quick double tap, between the eyes. It goes down. Superior nerve, training and weaponry carry the day.”
Sebastian doesn’t comment, sliding the cleaning rod into the muzzle again with the ease of practice, and eventually, Moriarty lets out a loud sigh. “Let’s have dinner,” he decides, with his usual seemingly abrupt impulse. ”We’ll go somewhere predictable. The Savoy, maybe, or Ramsey’s. And later you can watch the kid goat that I’ve tethered out in Baker Street for me. Drop any of the tigers that get too close.”
Sebastian breathes in, and the hunter breathes out. ”Understood, sir.”
“Good,” Moriarty murmurs, warm breath trailing down to his ear, as pale palms slide up his arms to press lightly over his throat. ”Good.”
/shriek of pure joy and delight
I tell you this is how it goes:
Certain corners of Sherlock fandom: Moriarty / Moran is awesome!
Chris: … not sure if want.
Certain corners of Sherlock fandom: Moriarty / Moran is amazing!
Chris: … still not sure if want.
manic-intent: nooo not Michael Fassbender as Moran gdit
Chris: I WILL FOLLOW YOU WHEREVER YOU WILL GO
manic-intent: *writes fic*
Chris: WHEREVER YOU GO I WILL FOLLOW YOU.
this is an “I love the tags these people put on their posts” reblog
Reblogging because dat fic. Unf.
Not keen on the fancasting of Fassy as Seb, but. Well.
(via noshitdoctorsherlock)
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Don’t love the fancasting, but...find I am categorically compelled to reblog Suddenly Seb...
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sebmoranandfuckyousir reblogged this from liquoricecharms and added:
Reblogging because dat fic. Unf. Not keen on the fancasting of Fassy as Seb, but. Well.
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beingevil reblogged this from fassabendover and added:
this is an “I love the tags these people put on their posts” reblog lol chris I BLAME YOU BEINGEVIL and whoever evil...
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obsessedobsesser reblogged this from bracefacefreak and added:
as Michael Fassbender playing Moran. I’m sort of…getting convinced though.
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Oh god, I see phallic symbols hover around.
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Sebastian is absorbed in the careful disassembly of his favorite rifle, a custom CheyTac Intervention chambered for the...
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