Chapter Text
When the Professor returns to their hotel suite, just off of the Place Vendôme, he is unsurprised to discover Moran pacing the carpet before the hearth in a state of great agitation. The Colonel's greatcoat, muffler and hat lie thrown untidily on one of the armchairs and, judging by the decanter and the empty glass set somewhat haphazardly on the side table, the Colonel has consumed a tumbler of brandy fairly briskly since returning to the hotel.
"Moran? Speak to me, Colonel. It could not be helped."
Moran turns to look at him, his face drawn and white with anger, his eyes reddened and blazing with passion. "It could not be helped? I know that, Sir. We know that this was a betrayal of the bloody worst kind, the worst kind, Professor, by one of our own, damn him!"
"And? Has the snake in the grass, the Judas in our midst, received his comeuppance, hmmmm?"
"Yes, Sir. After the damned Ambassador cried off and never arrived for the engagement, I knew the game was up. That little bastard blower's got his just deserts alright, Sir. If them gendarmes ever fish him out of the Seine, there ain't no-one goin' to be recognising him no more, damn his eyes."
The Professor touches his marksman's shoulder gently. "You did well, Sebastian. You have turned what could have been a disastrous breach in confidentiality, and you have smoothed it over and eliminated the breach himself. Well done indeed, Colonel."
He turns to the side table and pours them each a generous measure of brandy, handing one to Moran.
"But it is the bloody duplicity of it what gets me, Sir. I thought Pincher was a bloke I could rely on. He'd been an army lad and with you for how many years, Sir? For him to go and blow his bloody whistle about the Ambassador, well, I'd never have thought it of him, Sir."
Moriarty regards Sebastian with a barely repressed fondness. For all his violence, his viciousness, and his willingness to kill without remorse, Moran is very much an innocent, a bleeding heart where matters of individual loyalty and, above all loyalty to his employer, are concerned. The Professor knows that it is not the fact that Moran's long wait on the freezing Paris roof top for his mark ended in frustration, nor that he has dispatched a colleague of some year's acquaintance (after rendering the unfortunate man's body unrecognisable, it appears) which have left the sniper in such a fit of agitation.
No, it is the betrayal of a loyalty which Moran would have assumed was unshakeable, by a fellow former soldier, which has provoked this passion, and the Professor knows Moran too well by now to allow him to dwell on this episode, to allow him to sink into melancholy and false solace in the bottle. For too many years, before entering the Professor's employment, Moran was prone to do exactly that, after a blow like this, and Moriarty will not countenance allowing that to happen to him now.
"It is done. We do not know why, after several year's service, Pincher should take it into his head to pass on this information, Sebastian. But thankfully we do know that he did not know enough of my plans to jeopardise them. All he achieved was a delay in bringing about the good Ambassador's unfortunate demise. My stratagem is still quite, quite intact. All I have to do... is wait."
The Professor stands behind Moran then, before the fire, places his tumbler on the mantelpiece and begins to massage the knots from his sniper's tense shoulders. "So, we shall put this hiccough behind us, and we shall forget about the Ambassador for the time being and, in the interim, until the good fellow does end up on the wrong end of one of your splendid shots, my dove, we shall enjoy the myriad pleasures which Paris has to offer us."
Moran relaxes slightly at the Professor's touch, with a rather doubtful hmmmmm, but the tension thrumming through his lean body is still palpable. Moriarty caresses the side of Sebastian's neck, before opening the connecting doors to their right and stepping through into the bed chamber.
Removing his shoes and jacket, he sits on the edge of the bed. "Come here to me, Sebastian, come here to the bed and embrace me." Sebastian stalks through into the room, kicking his shoes aside, and stripping off his jacket, tie and collar. He kneels before the Professor, pulling his face down so that they are level, and touches his lips to Moriarty's.
Sebastian's lips are warm against the Professor's, and Moriarty presses forwards, hard, pushing Sebastian back under the force of his kiss, his tongue sliding between the sniper's lips, thrusting, opening his mouth up to him. Sebastian tastes vaguely of tobacco and strongly of the brandy he has just consumed. Then Sebastian's hands are in his hair, holding him tight as their tongues curl around each other, pushing back against Moriarty, forcing him down on to the counterpane so that Sebastian is sprawled across him, their mouths still crushed together. Sebastian pulls back momentarily to look down at his lover stretched back against the bed. Moriarty's eyes are closed, but flutter apart to stare up Sebastian, blue locked on blue, blown with arousal, his lips swollen and red.
Sebastian kisses him again, then, his passion turning almost to savagery as he bites at Moriarty's lips, forcing his tongue hard into his lover's mouth, claiming it in a snarling clash of lips and teeth and tongues, relishing the burn of moustache and beard against moustache and beard, whilst all the while the barely repressed mantra of violence and domination beats at the hinterland of his consciousness: take, hurt, devour, mine.
The Professor struggles back against him, managing to get an arm up and a hand tangled into Sebastian's hair, wrenching his head upwards and twisting him away and to the side until Moran has no option but to roll off of him. For some moments they struggle together on the bed, both striving for dominance, both attempting to overpower and subdue the other.
"You forget, Colonel, my boxing prowess. I am no mere weakling for you to crush and conquer. If you want a tussle, by God I shall give it to you. You think yourself a scrapper but, believe me, I shall bring the scrap to you, my boy."
With this, Moriarty lands a glacing blow on Moran's cheekbone, snapping his head to the side, before kicking a leg in between those of his sniper and bringing his knee up between his thighs. Sebastian's eyes sparkle with arousal as he relishes their struggle, relishes the opportunity to release the violence and frustration which have been been thrumming through him since he left the bitter roof top that morning.
He crosses his legs and turns, twisting the Professor's leg between his, eliciting a cry of pain from Moriarty as his thigh and knee are wrenched by the sudden movement. He straddles the Professor, forcing his wrists above his head with one head, and holding his face in the other, his fingers splayed against his cheek and temple, his thumb curling under Moriarty's jaw.
"A scrapper? Oh, yes, Sir, you know me too well, by God. But I shall have you, Sir. I shall take you, hard, and fill you, and you shall be mine."
Moriarty struggles in his grasp, but is unable to free his wrists or his head, as Moran digs his thumb harder into the underside of his jaw. He gasps, his eyes glittering jet black ringed with sapphire blue in arousal, and Sebastian can feel his lover's manhood stiff and warm against his thigh through his clothing.
"Fill me? Oh, I know that you can do that, boy, just as I have done to you, on so, so many occasions. But can you really take me, really fill me, open me up so that I am stretched out beyond endurance, begging for mercy as you impale me on your arm? Can you do that, boy? Do you have the courage to truly master me?"
Sebastian stares at him, the red mist of anger and sexual arousal clouding his vision vying within his consciousness with his deep, unswerving wish to protect this man, to do nothing that might hurt him beyond that which he can endure. He knows that Moriarty is no fragile flower, yet every instinct within him clashes with the passionate wish to take his Master, to use him as he has said. Despite himself, the thought, the vision, of the Professor totally taken apart, stretched out beneath him, totally opened up to him, has his manhood throbbing painfully in his crisp linen underclothes. But he knows the Professor's games, his stratagems, as the Professor likes to term them.
He growls into Moriarty's face. "Do not manipulate me, Sir! You shall not twist me in this way. I can't have it, Sir!"
Moriarty grinds up against him, then, rubbing his erection against Sebastian's, letting forth a low moan of arousal.
"Oh, Sebastian, my dove, my good boy, I know that I cannot make you do that which you do not truly wish to do, just as I would never make you do anything you did not truly wish to do,. No, no, boy, in this case I know that you want this. You want to dominate me, punish me, open me up to such a sensation of being truly taken. Of being utterly yours, stretched out as you decide whether I am pleasured or punished. And I want you to do it. I want to feel the force of your passion as you use me. So, my dear, brave, fearsome tiger, I dare you. I dare you to do this."
Sebastian breathes hard through his open mouth. A dare? Bloody bastard Professor, damn him, he knows that he is quite, quite unable to resist the lure of a dare, to resist the temptation not to do something that he shouldn't, when he wants to, but doesn't want to. He cannot resist. "Very well then, Sir. You provoke a tiger, then on your head be what ensues. Remove your clothes."