things you said after it was over
[written for @mormorproposal 's prompt request]
It takes every ounce of Sebastian's self control to keep his pace measured as he beelines through the crowded streets of the City. It's a long walk from the hospital; by the time he reaches the parking garage, there simply isn't any left.
He turns the corner off the pavement and breaks into a sprint, tightly controlled facade crumbling until he's bolting through the carpark at full speed, dignity be damned.
The hollow click of dress shoes rings through the structure as Sebastian descends, down and down again, trying to identify which floor Jim is parked on. A swell of frantic rage is washing over Sebastian. He has to be here, waiting for him. He fucking has to.
Why? Because you need him?
Because Jim has ever, in his life, done anything he didn't want to?
Sebastian's throat seizes. He should have asked for a floor number. Should've replied to the text at all, but he'd been so fucking tired.
Concrete and empty cars blur past, interspersed by spotlight bursts of sickly yellow light in a repeating pattern. Simple and uncaring as computer code, there's a ramp and a curve and a long stretching corridor, and a ramp and a curve and a corridor, and another, and another.
It feels like a hallway dream, like a sick fucking nightmare. Running until his legs start to falter but not getting anywhere, heart pounding in his ears.
Sebastian hates the trend of his thoughts, hates the growing doubt in the back of his mind, but Jim's always been unpredictable, and these days Sebastian barely knows him at all. The last half-year would've been enough to shake the faith of a saint, and Jim isn't appearing, no matter how close he gets to the end of the line.
With no Jim there's no future. No meaning, again, and Sebastian can't go back to his old life, not after he's had this.
There's nothing he can do to close the space between them or the rotten festering wound the flat has become.
No time left to fix things, to break first, to embarrass himself with it if that's what it fucking takes, okay, he'll degrade himself that far, to at least claw back whatever violent, fucked up, dysfunctional slice of happiness they had before Holmes, before Jim's big mad fucking brain started to gnaw itself into a pulp.
Today is the day it ends. It's supposed to be over.
It's supposed to be over, now.
Sebastian stumbles. He's down to the sub-basement. There aren't any levels left. He turns the final corner, and Jim-- Jim isn't there.
But the car is. Sebastian stops dead, staring. The windows are tinted dark as sin, impossible to see through.
It's only a few short feet to the sleek automobile. Sebastian walks across them on numb legs and reaches for the rear door, because Jim never sits shotgun, never drives.
Jim doesn't even look up from his phone.
"Come on, then."
Sebastian feels simultaneously a hundred years old and only five, learning about God for the first time. He gets in, hands trembling. He doesn't say anything. He can't trust his voice.
They leave London for the last time in silence.