A/N: Crafted parts of this a while ago; decided to finish and post. Hope you enjoy! I loved getting inside his brain…or trying to :)

Of course he knows who Sherlock Holmes is. That much is childsplay, or would be, if children were interesting at all (they're not).

But Sherlock Holmes's name rises up with aggravating frequency and almost amusing predictability—every time there's something just a little bit clever, he's there with his cheekbones and his coat collar and the biting little comments that ordinary people call witticisms.

He watches with growing intrigue. It's like the telly, only loads more fun.

Sherlock can't get to him. Let the precious little former junkie run around London, solving crimes. A few here, a few there? What does it matter?

It's just his way of getting high.

That's understandable.

That's what he does.

Jim Moriarty doesn't have an unimpeachable standard of immorality or a thirst to bring injustice to all the world, he just wants to play, and he knows that causing pain is the only thing that still gives him a rush. Maybe he would have gone in for the whole love-and-friendship game as well, if it still was what it had been a thousand years ago, or when Shakespeare wrote about passion like it still mattered. But love's dead now, just diamond chips and empty promises, ordinary holidays for ordinary people. There's nothing interesting in love anymore. And the justice system? What a farce—but no, not even that. Because he loves a good farce, a good show. And justice isn't even worth a matinee anymore. Its only intricacies are in its idiocies. He doesn't have time for that. No, the criminal world is the only one left with an edge.

So in the end, aren't they mirror images? That's what he wants to believe…believe that Sherlock Holmes just found the edge on the other side of the line. Too bad he's bored there.

Of course he's bored. He's not just bored, he's boring. Boring! The great Sherlock Holmes!

Because now, Sherlock cares. And that makes him weaker, doesn't it? Because caring is boring, it has to be boring. It isn't worth it.

But Sherlock, in all his wanderings in dark and light, must know what Jim Moriarty has—yet he doesn't want it.

That's what rankles. And Jim Moriarty takes pleasure in many things, but rankling isn't one of them.

Perhaps it's worth it, after all, to go back to where it all began.

He brushes an invisible thread of lint from the impeccable lapels of his Westwood, and opens the door to the pool.