Work Text:
Mycroft sends him to India to assassinate the businessman
(“You want me to what?” Sebastian says, when they first meet. He's in an empty office building in Hong Kong. He's being vetted, in the rather rough sense of the term. His hands are creatively restrained. He is speaking in his finest, loudest, landed accent, like a lady with airs. “How barbaric. I thought these were enlightened ages.”
Mycroft is watching him with an old wiseman expression, unamused by Sebastian’s boyish antics but knowing it, too, will pass; aware, also, that he is speaking to a man who just spent twenty four hours locked in a box too short to stand in, too little to lay in. He props a cigarette between Sebastian’s lips, and lights it for him.
“Our business will always require a certain amount of footwork,” he says.
Sebastian sucks on the cigarette, thoughtfully, then breaks into a broad feral grin, it drops to the floor, “Footwork!” He sings, “We’re marchin’ on relief over Injia’s sunny plains.”
Mycroft frowns, the merest fraction. “You are failing this interview, do you know.”
And Sebastian shrugs, “Yes, yes, I shouldn’t be talking at all. You’re taping me. You could edit the video to make me say such terrible things.” He winks. “And what if the cigarette was laced? Never accept kindnesses, etcetera, etcetera.” He winks several more times, eyelid convulsing, and Mycroft reads something very rude in the morse. “But really,” Sebastian says, calmly. “Who cares? It’s all play acting.”)
and Sebastian never returns
(The businessman sits beside him.
Sebastian accepts this gracefully. He prepares for a long boring series of threats and pleas, please don't kill me, I can pay you more, I have kids (he doesn't). At best there will be a clumsy fight. Instead the businessman says, voice lilting, “How many names do you have?” And Sebastian smiles his most rakish of smiles, and leans forward, “Oh, many. Many more than you, I’d wager.”
The businessman is wearing an expensive and well-fit suit. He reaches into the coat pocket with such snake-like grace, Sebastian knows at that moment he's sold. Sebastian has always had a weak spot for confidence and egos bigger, even, than his own. The businessman slides a passport across the table, “How would you like another one?”
Sebastian sits back, “Offended. You must think I’m terribly easy."
The businessman looks at him with large black eyes, raised eyebrows. And Sebastian looks back, and what passes between them takes half a second but has no place in time.
“Darling,” the businessman says, and Sebastian puts his hand on the passport.
“True,” he responds, and pleasurably flips the passport open. “Sebastian Moran. Sexy, I like it. I’m Irish?”
The businessman is swaying, as if to music, but not the same music that is playing in the background of the bar, and Sebastian already has him pegged as a madman but that doesn’t really matter. They all are. “Yes,” he says, “that would please me.”)
Mycroft has him marked as MIA, possible dead, possible defector
(Several years later Mycroft passes a group of tourists gathered around a guide along Trafalgar Square, and there he is, standing in the middle of the crowd, six feet too tall for the earth, unmistakable red hair and half grin, staring straight through Mycroft at some imaginary joke standing behind him.
“Really,” Mycroft says, “I was convinced you’d gone native. Fell in love, settled down.”
Sebastian gives him an expression that reads: aghast. Mycroft checks his watch, “Yes. I was wrong.”
Sebastian snorts. Mycroft turns to make his meeting, “And I’m afraid I’ve got to go. Irish suits you, Moran. The Colonel bit is outlandish, though.”)