Moriarty flicked his hair back from his eyes with long, delicate fingers. A villain such as himself, he mused, should really have someone to do these sorts of things for him. The last rays of a desolate sun shone through the mullioned windows of his hideout. He preferred industrial estates to burnt-out pubs, but you couldn't exactly pick and choose in these situations now, could you?
He rubbed his fingers along the dark wood of the table in front of him, and how good it was to feel texture, to roll the word around his mind and own it physically. After days spent sprinting through London in search of refuge, he let himself enjoy sensations surplus to survival. Man cannot live by bread alone.
They had reached a stalemate. He knew that even now his opponent would be planning his next move. It was a delicate equilibrium they found themselves in, and he would savour it until it was time. Time for the great play to be cast into the world like so many jagged dice. And then he would wait for the numbers to reveal themselves whilst fates spun around him.