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When Jim realises what he has to do, his heart breaks.
I’m not going to do it. He couldn’t resist throwing in that one little comment. He couldn’t. It was a dead giveaway, and he knew it, but he had to test Sherlock. One last chance to see if you’re special, to see if you’re like me. Part of him hadn’t expected Sherlock to notice it, part of him thought that Sherlock was a braindead moron, just like everybody else, that he’d miss the implications of the comment completely, and swan dive from the roof of St Bart’s to his death.
But then there was a part of Jim that dreaded it, a part that feared Sherlock finding the little loophole in his plan, because of what would mean for Jim.
Death.
He never valued his own life that much. It never really mattered to him because if he did lose it, then he wouldn’t be around to be unhappy about it. Death didn’t scare him, in fact, he found it rather exciting. No more coping with the mind numbing tedium of everyday life, no more drugs, no more ordinary people. He’d get to be at peace. Finally, he could be quiet inside.
It had never occurred to him how his death might affect the people around him. Never once had it crossed his mind that anyone would be remotely affected by his death, because until now, no one would have.
You’re not going to do it?
But then, in those last moments, he thought of someone. Someone who had been there for him since the day they’d met. Someone who he’d always trusted, someone who held Jim’s life in his hands and protected it on a semi-daily basis, a man who had peeled him off the bathroom floor when he’d taken too much smack - which certainly wasn’t in his job description. Someone who patched him up whenever he lost control and found himself too close to his own destruction, and ended up getting himself burned. A man who Jim was, in all likelihood, completely and hopelessly in love with, despite having little-to-no concept of what ‘love’ actually was. A man who returned those feelings wholeheartedly, even if he regularly berated Jim for being a careless moron. A strung out junkie. A crazy little bastard. A nasty little fucker.
Even if Jim “didn’t pay him enough for this horseshit”, because Sebastian never left him. Never betrayed him. Never hurt him (too much). He was always there, right by Jim’s side, ready to shoot down any fucker that dared to threaten his life. It had stopped being about money a long time ago, and they both knew it.
He blinked as he regarded Sherlock, taking in every last word. His eyes stung with tears of redemption, of a sick and twisted kind of joy, because at very last, he was no longer the only one. Tears because it was finally over, and he could rest now. No more struggling, no more rebellion, no more burning the world because it wasn’t even close to good enough. Tears because Sebastian. Sebastian. Sebastian.
Prepared do to anything. Prepared to burn. Prepared to do what other people won’t.
What he was aboout to do to his… Body guard, friend, lover? It was awful. It was the worst thing Jim had ever done to anyone. He would never get to see Sebastian again. Never argue with him about trivial things such as where it was and where it was not acceptable to keep guns stashed, or why it was not okay to play piano in the middle of the night. He’d never get to experience their funny little lives again, where every other word was ‘fuck or ‘shit’ and toast was always getting burned. Jim would never feel Seb’s arms around him, his hot breath whispering sweet words against his ear, his lips ghosting over his own…
And oh god. Jim’s biggest fear isn’t death, it’s being without Sebastian.
Suddenly, he doesn’t want to go.
“While ever I’m alive, you can still save your friends…”