Pulse
As much as Sebastian enjoyed following Jim’s commands and wishes, (sometimes conveyed by nothing more than a look or a curl of a finger, a tiny nudge or pull) occasionally he enjoyed resisting just as much. Or simply staying put, letting, for a tiny moment, the world be run by the simple laws of physics instead of Jim’s. Like now, when Jim hooked his ankles around him to drag him closer, but only succeeded to pull himself closer, chair and all.
Sebastian chewed with ostensible concentration to keep a straight face, but then he allowed himself a smile as Jim grudgingly conceded he was marginally good, foregoing any further specification as to at what or for what.
But Sebastian did notice the somewhat uneasy look on Jim’s face, the slightly miffed vibe, and the savaged sandwich Jim had entirely picked apart before ingesting the pieces.
“You didn’t have to kill it you know,” Sebastian pointed out. “I already did that for you.” But it was a very gentle tease, and to underline that, Sebastian amicably resettled into the now more confining space between Jim’s legs.
~
Jim tried to ignore the betrayal of physics and simply acknowledge that Seb wasn’t entirely awful, but Sebastian’s face was having none of it. He was far too smug for a man who was at the mercy of Jim’s moods. Or perhaps that was why Sebastian could not fight the urge to look amused: his punishments usually ended with Jim’s come in Seb’s arse, and they both liked the rough stuff that usually preluded that.
Still, Sebastian was not entirely amused. He was bright, and he noticed things, and he didn’t miss the tension in Jim’s limbs or the agitated way Jim ate.
And what a waste it was, not to entirely savour the food. It was the meal Seb made that Jim most associated with home, and with so much up in the air Jim should make the most of the moments he had left, but it was not easy to do so.
Still, Jim smiled weakly when Sebastian raised the issue of the food in the unthreatening shape of a joke. Sebastian might not be a genius, but he was cleverer than most when anticipating and navigating Jim’s moods.
Sebastian could even take the reins of those fickle moods sometimes. He settled comfortably between Jim’s legs and it felt so right that Jim could feel himself settling. His muscles and nerves shifted from anxious high alert to something more playful, even docile.
Jim mouthed Sebastian’s throat. The angle wasn’t quite right and Jim took Seb’s skull in his hands, his fingers finding the same purchase they would to snap a neck, because that was a familiar grip. He shifted Seb instead, exposing more throat to his lips and teeth.
Sebastian liked the pressure and threat of force that came from Jim’s more vicious kisses, but he didn’t like to simply be mauled either. He might like to be called a toy in certain circumstances, but Sebastian’s pride didn’t permit him to be that alone.
Perhaps that was why Sebastian liked the gentler kisses too. Or perhaps it was the contrast, or a genuinely pleasant sensation. Jim didn’t think Seb was merely smug to be that rare creature who experienced Jim’s affectionate nuzzling, because Jim didn’t think Sebastian realised just how rare he and Jim’s treatment of him happened to be.
Jim attacked Sebastian’s neck attentively, paying attention to everything that made Seb sigh and groan in pleasure. Jim had mapped Seb’s favourite zones what felt like a long time ago, but now Jim analysed and compared how much Sebastian tolerated gentleness and pain. The points at which each turned to pleasure, then back again.
And how Jim felt about it all. He liked that Sebastian enjoyed the rough things he did, and it was rare enough to play with someone who enjoyed it all the way Seb did, but it was new to have a partner Jim had to maintain. To protect from too much damage.
One he cared about pleasing, not merely torturing. Although those too could be paired.
Under Seb’s clothing, Jim grazed his nails along the man’s skin. He ran the rough skin of his fingers over Sebastian’s nipples and teased them roughly and gently, alternating the touches as he did with Sebastian’s neck and jaw and cheek and shoulder.
Jim found that Seb’s noises of pleasure and frustration and pain all went to his balls, regardless of how they were provoked.
“What do you like best?” Jim murmured. “How much do you like, tiger?”
~
Sebastian’s pulse sped up a tick under the familiar, instinctively recognised grip Jim used to get better access to his neck, and mouth, and throat … Sebastian groaned and didn’t resist. Apparently the risk of Jim killing him, without a warning and just on a whim, wasn’t part of the possible scenarios that Sebastian’s subconscious turned into reflexes.
Not any more anyway. It had been though, in the very beginning, when all Sebastian had seen and known about Jim Moriarty was that one layer of his personality Jim had pulled to the surface and wore like a cloak. It was the one that kept the world and everyone around him at bay and terrified: that unpredictable and psychotic streak of which Jim happily let the world believe it was him. Oh, it was there alright, but where Sebastian was concerned, it was but one thread in a rich, dark fabric. Yes, Jim was still the man who might be the death of him one day, one way or other, or maybe the man who kept him safe forever. The man who’d given him purpose and made him whole again when he’d been broken and drifting. Jim owned him, and calling him his pet had ceased to overly disturb Sebastian, maybe in a strange way the notion of a forever home had something to do with it…
And although all ration insisted that in Jim’s orbit, there was no such thing as safe … that’s how Sebastian felt. At least in certain moments, and definitely now.
Safe enough to savour every touch, regardless how gentle, tender even, or more insistent, or painful – each and every one of them was delicious, because… it was Jim. Sebastian’s let himself sink into the sensations, all of them, they almost put him into a trance, with his reactions entirely unguarded. A tiny sliver of his mind was still aware that Jim was probably taking notes, that’s what the mad scientist part of him always did, but then again – that was the reason Jim knew him like no one else did... and why would he want to if he didn’t …
Sebastian inhaled sharply through his teeth as Jim slowly drew his nails across his left nipple and yet he arched into the touch. Jim did it again and only now Sebastian realised he’d closed his eyes. And that he’d been asked a question, Jim’s voice low and thick like warm honey.
What do you like best? How much do you like, tiger?
“’vrything...” Sebastian, feeling almost drunk, tried again: “Everything.”
Uhm, not … a big help?
But it was true – he was in such a state Jim could do everything to him and it would make Sebastian’s eyes roll back in bliss. His cock was hard and trapped painfully inside his jeans, but Sebastian didn’t have enough dignity left to feel even a shred of embarrassment.
The only regret he had was that… he couldn’t reciprocate, because… Rules.
Also, their kitchen was brand-new and did not deserve another thrashing.
At some point his right arm had slid around the back of Jim’s knee, probably to keep himself from sliding bonelessly to the floor, but there was no way that he in turn could find out what the soft dip behind Jim’s collarbone felt like, or how the hollow of his throat tasted or what sounds Jim would make if he …
Leaning his head back, Sebastian looked up at Jim from half-closed (and probably slightly glassy) eyes, a bit at odds with The Rules.
He also knew, if anything, it should be Jim who was getting spoiled, and also to be encouraged to rest, because he still wasn’t well. But, with the good excuse of his brain having turned to mush under Jim’s ministrations, instead of earning himself a grumpy scolding about mothering, Sebastian turned his head and slowly licked a toasted bread crumb from Jim’s naked thigh.
~
Sebastian’s slurred reply -everything- was predictable, but Jim enjoyed it anyway. He loved the pliant, pleased puddle he could transform his tough right hand man into, and to achieve that with merely above the waist touching was good for Jim’s overlarge but recently rather bruised ego.
That being said, Seb did seem a bit frustrated. Jim eyed the man with interest, then decided Sebastian was not suffering terribly enough that easing his frustration was the only acceptable thing for a responsible owner to do.
Sebastian looked up at him dazedly and Jim continued to regard Seb in contemplation of the next site of his tactile experiment.
Sebastian turned and laved the flat of his wicked tongue off of Jim’s leg. Jim released a laugh and pulled Seb back by his hair. Between that grip, Seb’s warm breath and warmer spit on his thigh, and the highly entertaining look Sebastian shot him, Jim was tempted to force himself into Seb’s grinning mouth right then. Like Sebastian, Jim was hard, but since Jim was only partially dressed, the shirt front in his lap was stuck to the growing ring of precome that had already worked through his underwear.
If it was anyone else, Jim doubted he’d be so hard from a bit of necking. He wouldn’t care about their enjoyment either.
But then, no one had ever kissed Jim the way Seb had that one time…
Jim told himself not to think about that. He tugged Sebastian’s hair instead. “Haven’t you had enough to eat?”
Even with so much of his skin reddened by Jim’s attention, Sebastian hadn’t lost the challenging tilt to his jaw that suggested he might try to gobble Jim right up if permitted off his leash. Which would be welcome, if Jim thought he had the energy to achieve anything practical with his day afterwards… or even make it back up the stairs.
Jim wanted very badly to take Seb’s face in his hands and kiss it soundly… but he also didn’t trust either of them to keep that safely merely carnal.
Jim released Seb instead and began divesting him of his clothing.
“You’ll have to wait your turn,” Jim said. “I’m not done with you.”
~
Sebastian let go of a deep breath as Jim wrenched his head back, and it carried a note of regret and deep appreciation both. Then corners of his mouth twitched.
“’s a rhetorical question, right?”
Of course he was still hungry. The measly if very tasty fried sandwich had neither sated his stomach nor quenched his desire for the delights right in front of his nose. And … those kisses. Of course, they were nothing like that kiss the other day, that had made the whole world come to a screeching halt (and doomed its vicinity to destruction, simply by association), but even further apart from those almost violent means of sheer domination Jim had used in… the early days. Today, they were… changeable, like the man himself, exploring and delicious. Still… purposeful, but so sensual and intimate to slowly make Sebastian delirious.
Maybe Jim could even sense Sebastian’s thoughts on turning the tables, again, and nipped them in the bud. Which he had the unique power to accomplish with just a few words. Like - I’m not done with you. And a tug on his clothes. Sebastian helpfully, eagerly complied, shrugging out of his shirt and wriggling his hips out of his jeans.
~
“Have I ever cared about your preferences before?” Jim scoffed in response to Seb’s pretty little comment about rhetorical questions. Then, lest the bastard communicate anything insubordinate and entirely accurate through his bright blue eyes, Jim promptly busied himself with stripping Sebastian down to his socks and nothing else.
Jim was uncertain whether undressing Seb was quite enough to distract Sebastian from recognising that for some insane reason Jim did give a damn about how Seb felt about a lot of things… hunger perhaps being the least amongst them. Still, Sebastian helped shed his clothing easily enough, which was just as fucking well for Jim’s ego and perhaps Seb’s welfare, after Sebastian how had responded to Jim’s sexual comment earlier.
Unfortunately Jim realised as he was throwing Seb’s trousers aside dismissively that he really ought have noticed how bad things were getting before India, and how fucking sloppy he’d been, letting such weaknesses go on show, because Seb had been wearing familiar denim. Sebastian usually wore jeans, or activewear, and usually only dressed properly when they were working beyond the walls of the main house or next door.
Jim was exacting in his preferences for how his live-ins dressed, and there was no fucking way he’d have made the quiet allowances he made for Seb for any of the man’s predecessors.
…Not that the allowances went without complaints, but Jim didn’t always feel the need to attack every little thing Seb did. Jim felt more comfortable, so lashed out and micromanaged less, and somehow that meant he’d just… accepted things he’d have probably mutilated someone else over. Like dressing in jeans on duty, or ever acting for even one second that they weren’t always on Jim’s clock.
Jim ran his rough hands along Seb’s back. Jim had no problem punishing most people for his own mistakes, but he resigned himself to Sebastian blindly escaping any consequences for this lapse in Jim’s good judgment.
…There might have been a bit of frustration in the belittling slap Jim gave the side of Seb’s leg.
“All fours,” Jim growled. He nudged at Seb’s side and brought his mouth to Sebastian’s skin before the bigger man could get any foolish ideas about resisting. That could be a fun game, but neither of them needed the reminder that Jim was feeling a little too run down for rougher games. The muscles of Seb’s back were tighter after the slap, but not by much, or at least he was so pliant after having his throat nuzzled that Jim managed to trace and mouth Seb’s shoulders and back without real resistance.
Jim ran his fingers along the red handprint he’d left on Seb’s leg. It was hot. Seb’s thigh was strong and his leg hair soft.
Jim gave him a fond squeeze and pushed down in the small of Seb’s back. “Lower,” he commanded, then dipped to nip Seb’s rear with his teeth.
Jim wriggled onto his stomach where he could conserve some energy during the task he was intent upon. Then he pushed his nose between Seb’s cheeks and grinned.
“As much as I love your cooking, darling, you are my favourite thing on the menu.”
~
Well. For Jim not caring about his preferences they were surprisingly perfectly met, Sebastian thought. Improved household maintenance, a phenomenon which had been extended to next door too, didn't quite suffice as an explanation. While that helped to make things function more smoothly, it was never taken as far as taking people's preferences into account. Or even making them feel 'special'.
As Sebastian did, quite frequently. Well, maybe his infatuation with the little eccentric resulted in every tiny morsel of attention feeling like a treat? Whichever it was, there were moments, frequently, and not just in bed, when Sebastian felt positively spoiled. In a good way, not condescendingly, as Jim liked to act when on a daddy roll.
Luckily, at the moment Sebastian didn't have the capacity left to arch a doubtful eyebrow about Jim's statement, or, even worse, a smug one. Dazed as he was he found it much easier to comply with 'all fours' than he normally would. Intentionally or not, Jim had a knack for putting him in a state where indignation or embarrassment first faded, and had completely lost their meaning when Jim finally was 'done with him'.
The slap to his leg was more perfunctory than necessary, because Sebastian's knees and elbows seemed to obey of their own accord when Jim directed him lower. Jim settled down behind him, and the rough, barely healing skin of his hands reminded Sebastian of just what they were capable of... It added another hypnotic layer to being at the centre of Jim's atten - -
Sebastian gasped, the sound quite close to something undignified as a squeak. Like the first time, a few days ago, his brain was completely derailed. As Jim's breath ghosted hotly over his skin, Sebastian's own caught, until it broke free with a half choked, shaky exhale.
Ohdearsweetjesusfuckinghellplease… He could feel Jim's amused chuckle rather than hear it. Also, Sebastian's severely addled mind tried to examine Jim's words one by one and then the meaning of their combination. Jim's tongue very helpfully reiterated what it had just said, just not with words. Teasing and licking and pressing hotly against Sebastian's entrance, the sensation akin to a humming, low voltage current, that first made his muscles twitch and after a little while, gradually relax. Still a while later, Sebastian was breathing in low, needy rasps and moans, his hands and forehead pressed against the newly polished floor as though he needed something to hold on to.
~
Sebastian’s audible reaction was enough to make Jim laugh, except his face was pressed against Seb’s rump so there wasn’t really enough room for noise, just a sharp burst of his breath against Seb’s sensitive skin. And Jim’s lips curling upwards in an even bigger smile against that skin, which Seb was probably too overwhelmed to notice. Jim slithered an arm underneath Sebastian’s hip and curled it back, constraining Seb from flinching or squirming too far away.
Jim kissed and licked and gently nibbled Sebastian’s rear. He pushed the perfect cheeks further apart and admired the view, blowing teasingly on Seb’s wet skin to emphasise that he was being looked at.
“I could stay here all day,” Jim murmured. That was probably a lie; either being run down or somehow getting synced to Seb’s more nocturnal sleep pattern had Jim suspecting he’d be asleep before the sun set. But in his heart and bollocks he was willing!
He devoured Seb attentively, thrilling at Sebastian’s reactions and humming teasingly against the hot, moist, oversensitive skin. Seb’s nerve endings were clearly screaming, but he was doing a valiant job at keeping from doing so himself. His thighs shook like it was a close thing.
Jim soothed the familiar legs and kissed and licked Seb gently.
He patted, squeezed and kneaded Seb’s cheeks. With anyone else that would be possessive and condescending at best, but the smile on Jim’s face was far too fond. His touch was obscenely affectionate.
Horror washed across Jim as he drew parallels between his behaviour and how a demented toddler might clutch their well-slobbered favourite toy or blanket. Jim’s nose wrinkled and he drew back slightly. He’d been grown up long before he’d reached adulthood and the childishness of such sloppy, stupid feelings was so mortifying he refused to think on it.
Huffing, Jim bit Seb’s upper thigh firmly for good measure. Seb jerked and yelped, pulling Jim along the floor with him just a fraction.
Jim almost laughed again, despite himself, but used his shoulder and persuaded Sebastian onto his side a little. Seb looked at him questioningly beneath heavy eyelids, his pupils dark and blissful.
“Roll over, big boy. I’m sure this is nice, but if I’m being gentlemanly about not fisting you until my hands are healed, then you’re going to need a palm on your prick to come, aren’t you?”
Jim looked Seb over. “Or maybe not. But you put up with me, so I can at least treat you to a glorious orgasm, right?”
Jim bit Seb’s hip with exaggerated cheer then reached for Seb’s prick. It was flushed and dripping, as much of a contented mess as the rest of his tiger was, and Jim felt a surge of fondness that was still bewilderingly sexual. That was Seb’s dick, and it was thrilled. It loved everything Jim did to him. It liked what Jim liked, and that made it a rare friend indeed.
Jim’s fingers closed possessively around Sebastian. Jim didn’t care what anyone else liked, except for how he could use it. And he’d better stop wallowing in the joy of touching Moran, force him to come quickly, before there were any more uncomfortable revelations.
Still, Jim stroked Seb with focus and a genuine pleasure in the joy brought by his skilful touch. He touched Seb more attentively than he even stroked his fucking self, the pleasure was so addictive. And besides, Jim hadn’t had much reason to masturbate lately. Seb wasn’t just filling that quota but smashing it, making Jim spill himself with much more regularly than he usually bothered with.
Jim settled back to lick Seb in alternate time with his strokes. “Are you having fun yet?” he teased. “Or are you still thinking about your stomach?”
~
Sebastian more slumped to the side than roll when Jim nudged him, and he’d probably have done so just as willingly had Jim’s dark velvet voice told him not that he was going to give him an orgasm, but cut his throat. Sebastian’s brain and all his reactions had long gone from twitchy and shivering to dazed, like the motoric side of things was running out of transmitters because they were being all used up processing the overwhelming sensory input. He was beyond thinking, and he was certainly beyond pondering the utter contradiction named Jim Moriarty. How the man who on a bad day could send a suit back because of a piece of lint, or a cappuccino because the topping pattern disagreed with him, could have - on a worse day – the eyes of someone who’d looked at him wrong, in a jar on his desk. How the man using hand sanitizer after as much as using a lift in a public building, would go down on the kitchen floor and happily … devour Sebastian with total abandon and turn him into an incoherent, groaning mess. Adding the odd nip or bite to keep him from zoning out completely, or murmuring intriguing little threads – incentives – promises that cut through the haze enough to wring another breathy moan from his lips.
No one had ever done anything like this to Sebastian before, let alone insinuated there were even more intimate, more complete ways to utterly take possession of him. Ways that even thinking about would have normally made Sebastian pale, but now it merely sent a more distinct shiver along his limbs. He breathed heavily, his hips moving in a poorly coordinated, reflexive attempt to rut into Jim’s knowledgable hand without hampering the utterly delicious things his tongue did to him.
Sebastian uttered a barely intelligible agreement that he was having fun - Jim was in a mood for rhetorical questions tonight, wasn’t he? “Yes,” Sebastian re-articulated with an effort, his tongue heavy. “No…” His stomach… wait – what...?
“Don’t think you can reach that far?”
For a beat there was a pause, and hearing an amused noise that sounded like he shouldn’t be too sure about that, Sebastian vaguely realised he’d been even slower to catch up than usual – Jim had meant their dinner.
~
Jim scoffed. “If you can still think right now I’m going too easy on you.”
He reluctantly pulled away from between Seb’s legs, gave the head of Sebastian’s dripping cock one last, fond, circle of his thumb, then pushed Seb onto his back entirely.
“I could, you know,” Jim said. Leaving Seb’s dick alone, Jim trailed his wet fingers up Sebastian’s naval.
He placed his arm parallel to Seb’s straining prick, rocking upwards towards the underside of Seb’s ribs and curling his fingers seductively.
“I could slick my hand up, work my fingers up inside you, one by one,” Jim said. “My wrists are narrow and you’re a big boy; I could make you take my whole hand. Open and close my fist inside you, see how tough you feel then. Twist my arm and let you feel this jutting bone of my wrist against your internal walls - no one else has ever done that to you, have they?”
Jim straddled Sebastian’s lap. “I could slither my arm deep inside you. I’m thin, but before we even reach the swell of my elbow, I’d really have to push.”
Jim took hold of Seb’s prick again, curled his thumb affectionately over the wet head and stroked down once.
“If I didn’t think so highly of you,” Jim said, “I could punch my way up. Or I could take a blade in my fist, work it all the way up inside you. Create a new path to your stomach. That’s be a shortcut you wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Probably the last thing you’d remember.”
Jim met Sebastian’s gaze and stroked up. Down. Up.
“But why stop there?” Jim asked. He released Seb and finger-walked up his chest, crawling after himself like something both predatory and otherworldly.
Jim tapped the ribs that protected Sebastian’s heart.
“I could work my way up to here,” Jim said. “Carve my way right through you, and grab you in my fist. Hold your life in my hand -the last of it, surely- and feel every last kick of you, more personally than anyone would ever know you. You’d know then, who owned you, wouldn’t you darling, if I held your beating, red heart in my hand? Our size difference wouldn’t mean a thing if I was squeezing that big, strong heart of yours in my fist, controlling the most personal things about you, whether you breathe or bleed or die.”
Jim dragged his nails down Sebastian’s chest. “But I already control your heart rate, don’t I? A word or a touch and you respond exactly as I want you to, because deep down past all that puffed up naughtiness you are my good boy, aren’t you?” Jim reached back and stroked Sebastian, his other hand still scratching the blond’s chest the way he knew Seb liked.
“Such a good boy for me,” Jim said. “Not just your heart rate, and whether it speeds or slows or skips a beat, but where the blood flows,” Jim gave Seb’s cock a teasing squeeze, “and whether any reaches your mind at all. I decide when you get to think, don’t I, and when all you need to do is feel my touch.”
Jim smirked, keeping his tone on the softly threatening side of seduction, because Seb was in no fit state to absorb his every word. “You enjoy when I touch you, don’t you?” Jim purred. “And you like knowing that you are entirely mine, body and soul. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it, to be owned so completely, to be understood so completely, to be wanted, for you, for exactly who you are. And who you are is mine.”
Jim felt Seb’s balls tightening, and the telltale changes in Seb’s pulse under his curled fingers. Jim squeezed a little, holding Seb back, just to be wicked.
“I could harm you horribly,” Jim said, stroking the most delicious unintelligible noises out of Sebastian. “But I won’t, will I? Because you are far too perfect a toy to ruin. I demand the best, and that’s you, isn’t it, my clever, handsome, naughty, masochistic tiger.”
Jim admired Sebastian quietly.
“I’m so very proud of you,” Jim murmured. “And good boys like you deserve to be rewarded, don’t you? Cut, and whipped, and fisted, because that’s fun, for both of us, but you get pure pleasure too, don’t you? Because you are mine, my favourite, and I take such good care of you…”
Jim’s voice dipped. “That’s why you’re going to come for me, Sebby. Right now, because you’re my good boy and you want to do as you’re told…”
~
It was recklessly dangerous to give Jim Moriarty a challenge … - not that Sebastian had meant it as such. Jim picked it up of course, and soon, compellingly, inadvertently, turned what had been a feeble little joke into something different, something dark, and took Sebastian to a place where things lurked you wouldn’t dare to look at, not even out of the corners of your eyes, … not if you were in your right mind.
But Sebastian’s mind hadn’t been quite right, not even before it had turned into mush altogether. And Jim’s … - well. It harboured unspeakable fantasies, that, when he spelled them out in such hypnotic detail, his eyes wide and mesmerised, sounded like temptations that might be impossible to resist. For him and Sebastian both.
Who vaguely grasped maybe half of what Jim was saying, but it was enough to make him sink deeper, further down than he’d ever been. Shivers ran across his skin in the wake of Jim’s trailing fingers. Other than that he'd gone still, his breaths shallow, in a trance where every fragment of Jim’s description his brain still processed, translated into things he could feel. Spiralling down…, following a siren's song towards the Deep, where chasms yawned, boundaries dissolved and horrors... ceased to exist. Like pleasure and pain could morph into one, the same seemed to happen on a still more fundamental level to the terror and beauty of ultimate surrender. Those few, precious, final things even Jim did not know about him… yet…
Oh, the lure to give them to him… And to feel Jim taking them.
Later, when, and if Sebastian's mind ever managed to regain more than the consistency of treacle pudding, would he be shocked how much something as dark and twisted had turned him on? Probably not. If he could even remember.
Because he was quite far gone, rushing headlong towards the point of no return. Jim's intervening hand squeezed a half protesting half pleading sound from him, which he desperately tried swallow back down, because it threatened to drown out what he was hearing now … God, he’d gotten praise before, but this was… utterly unprecedented, and Sebastian wanted to catch every word and roll in in it. Wanted to devour them and treasure them for all eternity. To secretly take them out every now and then and roll in them once more … (The fact that this blissful litany of reasons also meant he’d live, seemed merely a secondary bonus.)
Sebastian was shaking with arousal, but there was an intensity that had turned this from the purely sexual into… into... He had no idea. Whether Jim’s grip tightened around his cock, or his heart, just like he’d described… It hurled Sebastian over the edge, writhing and gasping with the excruciating, breathtaking, blinding… perfection of it.
His release hit Sebastian like the ground when all ripcords had failed, just not quite as agonising, or as final. Jim held him tight, stroking him through it. Slightly harder than strictly necessary, wringing every last drop and every last, exhausted spasm from Sebastian, and that was perfect too.
When the white noise of oblivion had come and gone, Sebastian groggily realised he was clinging to ... something. Someone, of course. Not with his left hand - kitchen tiles underneath that, with deep gouges probably, if that was possible. But his right… Had he stuck to the rules of below waist only? But to be honest, if he hadn't ... there wasn't an ounce of energy left in him to feel alarmed about it.
“By you only,” he mumbled after a while, sluggishly, eyes still closed, and after another while he felt compelled to reiterate, finally cracking his eyes open. "Only by you, I'll be told what to do."
~
Jim was so enraptured by Sebastian’s release that he barely registered the hand gripping him as though he was the only thing between Seb and a deadly fall. Jim stroked Seb through it, even -perhaps especially- when Sebastian grew too oversensitive for the attention to be pleasurable alone, and when Jim finally took pity on Sebastian they stayed in dazed silence for a while. Jim palmed himself absently a couple of times over his underwear but it didn’t occur to him to do anything else: even while resting, Sebastian captured Jim’s entire attention.
It was like Sebastian was the only person in the world when he eventually spoke, but what he said was entirely self-evident. By you only… Only by you I’ll be told what to do.
“Obviously,” Jim whispered. Somehow after the roar of Sebastian’s release everything was subdued except the weight of their words. Perhaps neither of them had energy it would take to speak at normal levels.
Jim met Sebastian’s gaze. “What would be the point if you submitted to just anyone?”
Jim dropped his gaze and dipped his fingers in the still warm seed Seb had spilt.
“I value your spine,” Jim said, “and that you have your own mind.” His fingers paused briefly, and didn’t continue until he added, “Your smart mouth I’m less enamoured with.”
Although that was a lie, wasn’t it, because Seb’s backchat was such a big part of Sebastian’s personality and that was the reason for the letters spelt across Seb’s torso: MINE.
Jim rapped Sebastian’s knuckles lightly then peeled away Sebastian’s right hand. He muttered a soft threat about what might happen to pretty boys who continued to break Daddy’s rules, but his heart wasn’t really in it right then.
Jim rolled off of Sebastian and onto the kitchen floor beside him, their sides still touching. He was exhausted, and still hard, so perhaps that was why Jim reached over and dropped a possessive hand over Sebastian without thinking better of it.
“You’re mine and no one else’s,” Jim said quietly, his words not softened by his low voice. Besides, to Sebastian’s sensitive ears, even Jim’s softest whisper commanded attention.
Jim closed his eyes. “No one else was good enough for you,” he murmured barely above the sound of thought. Jim wasn’t good though, just… better. At reading Moran, at being ahead of everyone else. The man was his prize but… that didn’t necessarily make him, Jim, worthy, did it? He hadn’t cured Seb yet, because he didn’t have the traits the old stories valued. He wasn’t capable of love, despite the strange, softer feelings that coincided with the ferocious possessiveness Jim felt for his tiger.
Worthy of good things or not, Jim wouldn’t -couldn’t- give up Sebastian for anything.
So he’d have to cure Seb in the way he did everything else: with hard work, unwavering research, and the brilliance that Jim founded himself on. He’d go start back to that shortly. But his eyes were closing heavily.
A thought flickered through his mind and Jim’s voice slurred with approaching sleep as he said, “Don’t try to cook more until your coordination comes back online. Don’t want you getting hurt… damaging what’s mine…”
~
“I won’t. Try to cook.” Sebastian hummed in agreement. “Luckily I’m still capable to pick up a phone and ring a delivery service.” Or next door. Body and mind heavy and content, and blissfully aware of the bold letters Jim had scrawled into the warm mess on his chest and stomach, Sebastian found enough strength seeping back in to turn his head towards Jim. “Well… while in my human form anyway.”
Jim grimaced slightly. Right, the amusement this topic held was limited. Sebastian heaved himself up onto one elbow. Fine bodyguard he was (Jim would skin him alive if he’d even think ‘caretaker’, wouldn’t he), considering Jim had been supposed to stay in bed because he was seriously unwell! How had they ended up like this, with Sebastian receiving a most memorable orgasm and Jim lying on the bloody kitchen floor in his underwear and a rumpled shirt, as floppy and boneless as a gutted fish? Well… uhm… almost.
“But-”, Sebastian wriggled into a better position to investigate, “even though I’m not allowed to cook, I am allowed to eat, yes?” The last words were slightly muffled, by the damp fabric straining over Jim’s only body part stubbornly defying exhaustion. He’d be happy to… “help wi’ that?” And yes, he promised, his coordination had recovered enough to not pose a threat.
When no instant rebuke came, he rubbed his cheek against the enticing hardness, then gripped the fabric between his teeth with a questioning little tug.
Yes, he also promised to carry Jim up the stairs and to his bed, should his legs be unable to support him… afterwards?
~
Jim’s lips curled but he didn’t feel the need to open his eyes. “If you’re still able to lift a phone to your mouth and speak, then I haven’t been wicked enough to you,” he murmured in soft, lilting amusement. He just about found the effort to curl his fingers to drag playfully across Seb’s skin.
Sebastian made a noise of enjoyment, then ruined the mood by bringing up the tiger thing.
Jim grimaced but didn’t have the energy to swat at him. Besides, Seb had thought Jim capable of teaching Cat the Dog to read and write; surely training a tiger in use of the telephone couldn’t be much more difficult?
Sebastian got up onto one elbow. Jim considered whether he had energy to turn his head and decided he didn’t. He generously opened his eyes a crack.
Sebastian kept on moving. If he was looking for a phone he was dead. In about a hundred years when Jim felt able to stand up. And if he’d finally rid himself of the unhealthy attachment to his tiger by then.
“Even though I’m not allowed to cook, am allowed to eat, yes?”
Even with Seb’s smug and seductive tone, it took Jim a beat to parse Sebastian’s meaning. Then Seb’s mouth was pressed over his cock, and somewhere within Jim released a shocked and eager jolt of his hips.
Jim looked at the ceiling for a moment and tried to ignore Seb’s hot breath on him. His dick was promising to find energy from somewhere, but it was a liar and could not be trusted. Once it had started burying itself into Moran’s orifices it had inexplicably gotten itself and Jim attached.
And besides, if Jim had any energy left at all, it should go towards researching, obviously.
Sebastian’s teeth grazed Jim’s underwear and Jim bucked again, weakly.
“I thought you were afraid of eating me?” Jim muttered. Maybe reminding Seb of that fear would distract him from the fact that he’d gotten Sebastian off without having the energy to finish himself. Again. Christ, that was becoming an appalling habit.
Jim’s pride told him that was unacceptable, and to take the orgasm just to keep the scores appropriate. But being sucked into unconsciousness wasn’t going to make Seb feel any less smug about himself, was it?
And the research was important. Jim rarely used to let his libido get in the way of his work, and this was more important than anything he’d ever done.
…Because no one had harnessed were creatures as tools yet, obviously.
Jim clenched his fists. “Darling I don’t have time for this.” Or energy. “I have work to do.”
Sebastian’s breath over his groin made Jim’s stomach tense. His fingers tightened even further in an attempt not to reach for Seb’s skull and push.
~
“I’m not generally afraid of eating you,” Sebastian mumbled without looking up, his teeth releasing the fabric of Jim’s underwear, “only once in a blue moon.” Full moon, to be precise. He revelled in the sudden instinctive twitch of Jim’s hips and kept nuzzling Jim’s clothed cock, his tongue rasping over the soft damp fabric and the hardness underneath and Jim juddered again. Almost as though Jim’s body had an opinion all of its own for once, and it was decidedly different from what his mind tried to impose on it. Lizard brain trumping reasonable brain, and didn’t Sebastian know a thing or two about that particular conflict. Just that with Jim, his freakishly reasonable brain usually prevailed. Not this time though – well, not if Sebastian had any say in it. And, not that Jim would admit it, but it was quite ludicrous how he tried to insist he had work to do.
“Uh-hm,” Sebastian agreed with a little hum that had an unmistakable ’as if you could’ undertone. Not smugly, but softly coaxing Jim into accepting that therefore no work of any importance would get done tonight anyway. Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian glanced at Jim’s hand balling into a fist. It’s knuckles whitened when Sebastian stealthily hooked his fingers into the waistband of Jim’s underwear.
“After all, tomorrow is another day,” he purred.
~
“Well given what that supernatural jaw of yours did to the gag, perhaps you should be a little wary when you’ve got got me in your mouth,” Jim grumbled, but he didn’t kick Sebastian away. Not that he’d have managed to even if he had the energy or inclination.
Jim quivered as Seb kept his face where it was. Nuzzling him, like he was a cat marking his human. Which… perhaps he was. Sebastian was Jim’s pet after all.
Jim tried to set boundaries with said pet, but Seb merely agreed and continued as he pleased, as he often did, his tone somewhere between humouring and coaxing. It was difficult to correct him when… well, when his talented mouth was right there, and Jim was already so worked up from how beautifully Seb had come apart before.
Sebastian tugged at Jim’s underwear and Jim didn’t say anything. Then Seb… quoted Scarlett O’Hara?
Jim scoffed, suddenly broken out of his moral quandary (a new feeling!) in amusement. “Since when are you the sort of gay to quote ’Gone With The Wind’ when you’re making advances, Seb? I’m taking your man card awa-“
Sebastian Moran ungenerously did something that made Jim’s voice catch. Jim squinted at him dryly for a moment.
Then he summoned the effort to lift his arm and flick Seb’s forehead.
“London can wait, but if you want a cure any time soon I don’t have time for all of this frivolity. Your STD is doing a number on me and I don’t have energy for both research and… this, entertaining as you may be.”
Which Sebastian was, thoroughly. Jim was so hard his balls hurt. Jim’s fingers twitched with the urge to grab Seb’s head and fuck his face. Not that he had energy to spare for such enthusiasm.
Jim wriggled his hips weakly in frustration.
“I’m not very good at denying myself what I want, so you’d better move,” Jim muttered.
~
This time Seb’s agreeing noise had a decidedly whatever inflection - ‘whatever will get me into your pants’. If it meant quoting Scarlet O’Hara – no skin off his nose, and before Jim could get downright insulting, Sebastian reminded him of the jaws of death with a little pressure of his teeth. It was the sweetest second that it took Jim to get his voice back, and even sweeter was the slightly breathy sound of it. All pleased satisfaction about it, Sebastian felt a sudden jumble of emotion – a pang of surprise, an almost overwhelming… he struggled to grasp what it was. Incredulity? Gratefulness? A rush of tenderness that hit him so suddenly it took his breath away too. In a situation like this, Jim was still stubbornly clinging to the notion he had to work … but not concocting a scheme to take over the Chinese mafia, plotting the downfall of a government, tripping up Mycroft Holmes or whatever else was in the many pots he had stewing at the same time, but… to do research. For a cure. For… him.
“Just making sure you have the best night’s sleep,” Sebastian murmured and renewed his persistence to free his prize from its wrapping. Jim bucked feebly again and this provided all the help Sebastian needed.
But even in a state of exhaustion where he could barely lift a finger, his hips, or even just his voice, of course Jim made this about him telling Sebastian what to do, keeping up their dynamic of domination and obedience. And as much as this had by now seeped right into the very core of Sebastian’s being, as much as it turned him on when Jim simply used his mouth and throat, he would not let this opportunity pass. To do this his way. Oh yes, sure, he’d move. He’d not deny Jim what he wanted, never, but this time he would set the pace. He’d savour every second and every glorious inch, and slowly… unravel Jim. Whether Jim would love it, or made him bleed for it, or both. He got to work, not lightly teasing, but matching the firmness of his licks and strokes to the straining hardness. Not aiming for torture or to incite frustration as Jim loved to do, but not rushing him to the edge either. Impatient Jim was intoxicating, and even more so, to curb that impatience and turn it into focus on what Sebastian was doing, until he was sure every last thought of work and cures or even the existence of a world outside that particular spot on their kitchen floor had vaporised from Jim’s brain.
~
It had… been a very long time since anyone had dared use their teeth on Jim there. (Honestly before Seb and their frantic post work couplings it had been a rarity in its entirety.) Jim might have threatened to knock Sebastian’s teeth down his throat for the infraction if not for his inability to hide the telling catch in his voice at the novel sensation.
Jim did his best to keep his restraint and keep his voice even as he pointed out the much more important work he had to do. It made Sebastian’s expression flicker… but he didn’t move away. Apparently he couldn’t even obey when it was in his own best interest, and the transformation had sounded much more painful than anything Jim had ever done to Seb.
Instead Seb’s voice was low and warm as he came up with his own foolish reason for continuing: Just making sure you have the best night’s sleep. Jim quivered and tensed reflexively, feeling raw and unsettled at the reminder of his earlier nightmare.
He couldn’t point out that it was far too early for bedtime, because that sounded childish and entirely moot given that they’d been sleeping at increasingly erratic times to accommodate Seb’s new nocturnal nature and everything else. And besides after this if he didn’t die from exhaustion or dehydration Jim definitely would want a nap. If he didn’t simply black out after orgasm.
Sebastian took Jim’s silence as an opportunity to better free Jim from his underwear. Seb’s confident determination did things to Jim. Most people didn’t look at him like that, not least because they were too afraid of him and he was entirely unlikeable.
Resolve frayed to snapping point, Jim canted his hips with energy he ought to have been directing to his brain, helping Sebastian to expose him completely. This was a terrible idea, but Jim was selfish at his core, and… it was hard to resist, being wanted like this. Jim shivered a little more and Sebastian crawled over him, body heat radiating off him and some of the smeared lettering on his stomach dripping down.
Seb didn’t directly put his weight on Jim, but he pinned him just a little to get a stable grip on Jim’s straining interest. Jim wasn’t certain if that was a conscious action, and it made his nerve endings and his brain misfire. Who had been the last person to hold Jim down… and want him? Jim felt dizzy.
Seb’s blown gaze was determined, but not predatory. And when he touched Jim, it wasn’t… wrong. Or threatening. Just confusing, and… not awful.
Jim’s knees drew up as Sebastian stroked him firmly, and when that hot, smug mouth lowered itself over him Jim didn’t know what noise to make.
This wasn’t like with the others. Seb set the motion and pace, regardless of Jim’s increasingly strained demands. Despite ignoring all orders, Seb’s attention was oddly worshipful and commanding… and Jim had no idea how to process that except to hope - or perhaps mutter - for it not to stop.
Dimly Jim noticed Seb grin around him.
“I hope this is worth it for you, you prick,” Jim hissed, teetering precariously on the edge of dropping into his youthful accent.
Sebastian hummed in content - and suspiciously, infuriatingly smug - agreement. “Fuck,” Jim whispered.
Seb hummed again in playful agreement. Jim gave his blond hair a helpless but spiteful tug.
“Feckin’ hate you,” Jim mumbled, arching his back reflexively and baring his teeth at his inability to thrust upwards into Sebastian’s hot mouth.
~
“It’ll pass,” Sebastian breathed against the hot, glistening skin, pausing briefly in what he was doing, then he mapped it out with his tongue, before he took Jim into his mouth again, deeper this time, tightening the pressure exquisitely by swallowing. He would never force Jim into things he didn’t want (not least because that would be the last thing he’d be doing), but the signals he got right now were anything but unambiguous, right? Yes, one could accuse him of taking advantage, but deep down he had no doubt, that even on the brink of death Jim would manage to make himself clear, or even bash his face in, if that’s what he truly wanted. If he really hated him.
Also, even if it had been something Sebastian even remotely contemplated, force wasn’t really necessary, it was simply Sebastian’s almost reverential, gentle insistence versus Jim’s which was beautifully slipping, along with his accent. And Sebastian promised he’d have the decency (and self-preservation) never to mention how cute he found the uncoordinated tugs at his hair, Jim’s futile little attempts to take over the proceedings, and him seething when he couldn’t.
Oh yes, this was absolutely worth it, whatever Jim would decide ’it’ would be.
Although Sebastian revelled in this new and precious experience to have Jim at his mercy, and despite his refusal to budge even a little bit and give up control, he was very attentive. Flat out refusing to obey, he still took his cues from every shiver and every twitch and every sound Jim made. The demands were not met outright but wishes favourably taken into consideration, and to hear Jim finally cave and plead to not stop was enough to make him feel dizzy. Although he nearly lost focus when he imagined himself to finally allow Jim to come, as the little tyrant was want to do when their position was reversed…
Then there was that gorgeous moment, when Jim stopped griping, demanding this and that, and became almost still… that delicious, quivering tension mounting …. Sebastian savoured it, as it might not only the first but also the last time he was ever allowed doing something like this. He held on to the moment for a bit, held Jim in the balance for a little while longer… He'd do it forever if he could, just wallow in the experience, but he very well knew the danger of weird physical reactions, of crashing on the wrong side of good - into frustration instead of ecstasy. (Jim had shown him a while back, and, Sebastian was certain, very much intentionally. Fucking infuriating little bastard). Sebastian didn’t want that. Oh, he wanted Jim to crash, but very much on the good side of this tightrope walk.
And he did, as Sebastian let him enter his throat, after the last few measured strokes, and a nice, firm swipe of his tongue.
~
Jim didn’t know how to respond to Sebastian’s assertion that his ‘hate’ would pass. Seb seemed so certain, like all the doubts and concerns and frustrations Jim had about whatever the hell was going on between them - not just the odd dynamics of this blowjob, although that was certainly part, but all of it - were inconsequential. Of course Seb wasn’t talking about the feelings that had been plaguing Jim for (more than) a month, but it kept Jim speechless anyway.
Which was fine, because he was getting his cock sucked, and that was a good thing. Or at least Jim’s toes were curling like it was a good thing; his chest was fluttering panic and something worse because Seb had him pinned down and was telling him how to think.
Burned out as he was, Jim hadn’t felt this helpless even as a skinny, inexperienced teenager. And Seb had him held down and wasn’t listening to him, was doing whatever the fuck he wanted to Jim’s body, and that was alarming.
But… it was Seb. And he was making Jim feel good. And Jim did feel safe, sort of. Alarmingly not in control, but not afraid that Seb might hurt him. Even though Jim had hurt Sebastian plenty, including the times when it wasn’t the sexual stuff they both liked.
But Jim was safe, because this was Seb. And Seb kept Jim safe. Even if he was currently surpassing insubordination and enacting all out mutiny.
Jim’s prick didn’t seem to mind. Quite liked it, actually. It was hard to think about anything other than Sebastian, and there was no point trying to direct him because he was fucking ignoring all commands, so… Jim could just lie there, and feel. Seb was ignoring verbal directions, but he was reacting to physical responses. He was in an intense, genius dialogue with Jim’s dick and Jim could only lie there and bite his tongue as the pair frolicked and flirted.
Slowly, Jim stopped resisting. He panted instead, then moaned, then pleaded, and he only noticed he did it because Seb chuckled, hot breath in tickling bursts against Jim’s wet cock.
Jim had just pleaded with Seb to not stop. As in: yes, Sebby, hold me down and do what you want with me. Jim felt a wave of fright and self loathing.
But he was too far gone to stop now. Jim’s scabbed heels scrabbled at the new floor. He tried to hold his words inside, whining instead, and even to his own ears he could hear that even that was accented.
Jim whimpered and cursed as Seb kept him on the edge. When Moran finally deigned to let him finish, Jim was a shaking mess, exhausted and desperate. He curled both his thin arms around the back of Seb’s head as Sebastian took him deeply and swallowed masterfully.
The corner of Jim’s eyes were wet and his arms were cramping and his thighs were burning. He came with a yell that wasn’t words at all but still communicated far more than he wanted to share. His vision went white, and then black, and his head fell back against the kitchen floor.
~
Sebastian wondered – fleetingly – whether his newly heightened senses had a part in how intoxicating this was… All of it. If giving a blow job had ever catapulted him into such a sensuous delirium – of taste and smell, the delicacy of soft skin and hard flesh, the sounds Jim uttered… Sebastian was indulging himself just as much as he indulged Jim. The other version – Jim indulging himself, simply using Sebastian’s mouth, was a very different flavour of intoxication, just as delicious, usually more brief, and a lot rougher, naturally. And he never pleaded, he just took what was rightfully his. Now, Sebastian gave it to him, just in smaller increments, and at a different pace, but with the same gratifying ending of course. And Jim… let him. Begged him even, before he turned completely incoherent and Sebastian would not have been able to decide which was sweeter. Briefly he wasn’t sure whether he wished or feared Jim would remember that… afterwards.
While Jim clutched his head, and definitely not to pull him back, but closer, Sebastian eagerly, drunkenly soaked up every bit of that beautiful shattering orgasm, every spasm and twitch and shudder, until he sobered very quickly and suddenly when the delicious sounds ended rather flatly with a thump.
Oh sweet fucking Jesus, never before meeting Jim he’d so frequently been compelled to feel someone’s pulse after having sex – either his own or his lover’s - to make sure everybody was still alive. He pushed himself up to nuzzle the side of Jim’s neck with a gentle, questioning sound, as if he too was beyond human speech. Only after he’d gotten a similar inarticulate noise back, more an affirmative exhalation than a word, he slipped back down to clean up the rest of the warm, messy… mess, there wasn’t much left that had escaped his attention in the first place. But - Jim was very particular about sleeping in sticky sheets, right? His own exhaustion crept back in, and to fall asleep on the kitchen floor curled up around Jim was quite tempting, but of course, the decent thing to do was to keep his promise and carry Jim to bed. Not least because he started to feel a bit guilty, as the protective creature inside him resurfaced from the deluge of lust and hormones.
Jim just lay there, light, almost frail, just breathing quietly when Sebastian pressed a lingering kiss into the side of his groin, where his femoral artery thudded heavily underneath soft, almost translucent skin. Sebastian leaned up, stroking the side of Jim’s neck – it seemed like a very small thing to add to the tally of all the sins and transgressions he’d already committed tonight.
He did not regret a single thing, no matter what it might earn him, but he felt also far beyond making sassy comments. Or any comments regarding the obvious: Jim belonged into bed, they both did, and he’d get them there.
On his knees, he gently scooped Jim up and slowly, carefully got to his feet.
~
Jim was present enough to gasp weakly back to Sebastian’s questioning (even his vocal chords were exhausted) but other than that he wasn’t aware enough to process anything else. He only had energy left for the most vital functions, like breathing.
His head was empty. So blessedly empty he didn’t even notice the silence.
He wasn’t really aware of anything. His eyelids fluttered softly when Sebastian kissed that sensitive spot that he’d never told anyone he liked.
Jim didn’t even have energy for confusion when Seb lifted him up, never mind to protest. He dangled limply in Sebastian’s grip like a sleeping child. The effortless way Sebastian was able to bear Jim’s weight suggested that he might as well be an infant.
Or perhaps that was just the awed care with which Jim was carried.
Sebastian poured Jim into bed and all limbs lay wherever they flopped. Carefully, Seb adjusted Jim into a position that didn’t look like it would hurt in the morning, and Jim remained doll-like in exhaustion. He couldn’t even lift his eyelids, but it was alright to be this vulnerable, the last whisper of Jim’s brain said. Sebastian would never harm him.
~
Sebastian lay beside Jim, flattened with bone deep exhaustion and satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment. Beneath which lurked a pinch of guilt and worry, naturally. It kept him recalling that there had been a reaction from Jim… afterwards, and he kept assuring himself that Jim was just very fast asleep, not passed out our paralysed or in some other freaky way permanently ... impaired. Now that would be a story for posterity: the most dangerous crime Lord of the Empire not brought down by enemy fire or treason or tax evasion, but by a blowjob from his trusted bodyguard, while they were celebrating their refurbished kitchen no less.
Wouldn’t it be better to … call a doctor? But, if Jim hadn’t had a stroke yet, that would surely bring one on, so – same result. Besides, a few reflexes Sebastian checked inconspicuously – or so he thought – still worked just fine, so he’d cling to that.
Also, the question whether Jim wanted him to stay afterwards was completely moot, Sebastian would not leave him alone like that if he wasn’t told to. Well, not even then. Not unless he’d be physically removed from the bed, and fat chance of that. He rolled around onto his side, and made another, tiny adjustment to Jim’s floppy limbs, just so he could rest his hand where he could feel the light but steady pulse on Jim’s wrist.
Finally he fell asleep too, but even then his sensitive ears and the increasingly nocturnal part of his brain stayed attuned to Jim’s breathing.