"Oh, just kill yourself. It's a lot less effort."

The way the man in front of Sherlock said the words was so matter of fact, so noncommittal, that for a brief moment the detective wasn't sure he was speaking to a consulting criminal at all. The phrase and the logic behind it were so simple minded, so mundane, so prosaic. The words hit Sherlock in the gut, and he only had to wonder for a brief moment why they disturbed him more than anything else he'd heard in the past months.

Jim Moriarty didn't say things like that. Jim Moriarty was eloquent. He designed puzzles and crimes like an architect, building a structured web that no one, save for possibly Sherlock, could translate and understand. But this…this phrase was something the detective could have heard from anyone; a schoolmate or a stranger. It was anonymous, utterly stupid, and coming from James Moriarty, that made it all the more terrifying. The consulting criminal had murdered a child because he had laughed at him, and now he was telling Sherlock to kill himself? The detective was beginning to wonder if perhaps he had overestimated Jim. And if so, how had he still managed to be so remarkably outwitted? Sherlock could feel himself coming apart at the seams; thoughts splitting and dividing like cancer cells as he tried to think, simply think, and calculate his next move.

"Go on. For me."

There had to be something. Something that he had overlooked. Was he simply overthinking? Had Sherlock come full circle—thoughts scrambled enough from excess of knowledge that he was, in reality, of average intellect? Jim was waiting, watching his every panicked move with what the detective could only imagine was deep satisfaction, and Sherlock could feel the pressure pushing down on him, heavier and heavier until he had to gasp for breath.

"Pleeeeeeasseeeee?"

That did it. The detective, on a basic, primal impulse, did the only thing he could think of as a plausible option at the moment. Sherlock grabbed the criminal by the collar and swung him out over the roof's edge, giving him a semi satisfying shake. As long as they were behaving like children, the detective supposed, this was perfectly appropriate behavior. He only felt more frustration, however, as Jim stared up at him glassily with an infuriatingly convincing bored expression.

"You're insane," Sherlock panted. There were many insufferable people in the world, he supposed. In his life he had always been surrounded by stupidity, ignorance, and general ineptitude. It had always vexed him, and there had been times he'd wished—no, he'd borderline prayed, for someone, anyone, who was different. Now that he had it in front of him, in the form of this twisted, alien mind that was Jim Moriarty, he understood a bit why people tended towards normalcy. He'd known he was different, but this…this was madness personified.

"You're just getting that now?"

The detective couldn't risk another, harder shake; this was quickly becoming too much. He could feel himself getting angry at Jim, and could barely enjoy the criminal's startled exclamation and scrambling hands through his disgust. It was almost a moment of humanity, seeing the man startled; off guard and panicked. Only further proof to Sherlock that Jim was ordinary—he wore a mask of algorithms and complex crimes but when it came down to it, it was all for destruction. He didn't possess true intellect; only what he needed to further his own agenda.

The detective's blood went cold for a moment as he wondered if, perhaps, Jim saw him the exact same way.

"Okay," Jim looked almost offended as he glared up at the man holding him, "Let me give you a little extra incentive." Sherlock felt like he was in a play as he listened to the criminal talk. This was a script, only one actor had come to the final performance unprepared. "Your friends will die if you don't."

Briefly, Sherlock cocked an eyebrow. This was such a cliché that he felt almost disappointed in the criminal. This sealed it. Jim was ordinary. He was a common lunatic and Sherlock had been a fool, a desperate fool, to think he'd actually found an adversary worth acknowledging. All he'd done by playing Jim's games was ensure a fate for himself that, if he'd stayed isolated, would never have emerged. The detective's anger was quickly turning into a wave of crushing, familiar depression. This monster is actually going to beat me.

"John…"

"Not just John," Jim clarified, ever the storyteller, "Everyone."

"Mrs. Hudson-"

"Everyone."

"Lestrade."

"Three bullets, three gunmen, three victims," Jim breathed, "There's no stopping them now."

He was excited. Sherlock could see that. At least, when he'd started the speech it had looked that way. Now the criminal's eyes looked strangely empty; like he'd wanted to see a different reaction from his favorite toy. The detective wasn't sure what Jim had been expecting to see on the face of a man who was about to sentence either himself or his friends to death.

He played me like a fiddle.

Now, Sherlock thought, Jim really did look disappointed. His dark eyes searched the detective's face for something, and for a blink, the criminal looked more forlorn than Sherlock would have ever thought possible. He seemed oddly heavy, suddenly, and when the detective pulled his adversary away from the edge, he felt hot breath on his face.

"Unless my people see you jump."

The criminal tugged his suit down curtly, and continued to watch Sherlock, whose mind had suddenly gone mysteriously quiet. Jim was breathing heavily, and from the corner of his eye the detective could see a grin of triumph slowly fade, in what once again looked almost like disappointment.

"You can have me arrested," the criminal continued his onslaught, "You can torture me. You can do anything you like with me, but nothing's going to prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die. Unless-"

"I kill myself. Complete your story." Sherlock finished. I get the point, the detective wanted to say, I understand it, just shut up, please. I know you're winning.

Jim nodded, looking proud of himself and invading Sherlock's space again, "You've gotta admit that's sexier." The detective could smell aftershave, the two were so close.

"And I die in disgrace," Sherlock clarified, defeated.

"Well, of course. That's the point of this," the criminal said matter of factly, as though they were discussing something other than suicide. The detective ignored Jim's gaze on him, despite its ever present weight. Ever since he had walked out onto the rooftop, it was as though he carried two massive rocks on his shoulders, black like the criminal's eyes. "Oh. You've got an audience now," he continued casually, "Off you pop. Go on."

It was so disappointing, Sherlock thought, that all their games were ending in such an unspectacular way. That it all was ending like this. So many cases were unsolved. There were so many things he had never said to John. Even his rivalry with Mycroft seemed trivial, now.

"I told ya how this ends!" Jim continued taunting as he stepped out on the ledge, "Your death is the only thing that's gonna call off the killers. I'm certainly not gonna do it."

"Would you give me one moment, please? One moment of privacy?" Sherlock asked, swallowing his pride, "Please?"

There was a short pause, and he could perfectly picture Jim's smirk, without needing to look behind him, "Of course."

As the detective's eyes searched London's skyline, he marveled at the criminal's babbling. It was like he was high off of his own success; so pleased with himself that he was actually repeating things. Though Sherlock supposed Jim wasn't exactly the criminal mind he'd once thought, so this wasn't so surprising.

Unless he was, and simply had a weakness for bragging.

Sherlock grinned, feeling hysterical laughter bubbling up inside of him. Jim was revealing the flaw in his plan and he didn't even realize it. Though that was the problem with genius, he supposed. It needed an audience and where there was fame, it was all too easy to get cocky, and careless.

"What?" the criminal exclaimed, incredulous. To the detective's satisfaction, he sounded slightly concerned. "What is it?" Sherlock turned around and gave him the biggest, smuggest grin he could muster. "What did I miss?" Jim shouted, volume increasing.

With a hop, the detective removed himself from the ledge and took a step towards his adversary, "You're not going to do it?" he repeated, strutting towards the disbelieving criminal, who stood there and blinked, "So the killers can be called off then. There's a recall code, or a word, or a number," Sherlock started circling him, and Jim remained silent, clearly uncomfortable, "I don't have to die if I've got you." He sing songed the last part, giving his opponent what he hoped was a taste of his own bitter medicine.

"Oh," Jim laughed cruelly, "You think you can make me stop the order? You think you can make me do that?"

"Yes," Sherlock answered simply, an eerie idea developing within his mind, "So do you."

"Sherlock," the criminal started condescendingly, "Your big brother and all the king's horses couldn't make me do a thing I didn't want to."

"Yes, but I'm not my brother, remember?" the detective breathed, now face to face with his enemy once more, "I am you. Prepared to do anything. Prepared to burn. Prepared to do what ordinary people won't do. You want me to shake hands with you in Hell? I shall not disappoint you."

Jim paused, and Sherlock knew he had caught the criminal. Jim wanted a perfect adversary, but that was also the one thing preventing him from completing his plan. By telling him what he wanted to hear, Sherlock was ensuring that he remained 'not ordinary', and therefore worth keeping alive. The detective had spent the discussion marveling at how ordinary his opponent truly was—perhaps the criminal had intended that. Perhaps he had been trying to distance himself, to convince himself that boredom was truly an unavoidable thing, that he was alone. Now why he would want such a thing was beyond Sherlock—

"Just kill yourself. It's a lot less effort."

Hm. Did Jim have a death wish? Was Sherlock the last thing tethering him to life? Was it possible for someone as egocentric as Jim to feel something like the call of the void? The detective was no psychologist, but until this point, he hadn't assumed that the criminal was capable of feeling anything. If he felt some sort of…connection with his favorite toy that made life worth living to him, then a suicidal man would try to distance himself from that connection—in their case, convincing himself that Sherlock was nothing special.

Slowly, doubtfully, Jim shook his head, "Nah…you talk big…nah...You're ordinary. You're ordinary. You're on the side of the angels."

There it is, Sherlock thought smugly.

"Oh, I may be on the side of the angels," the detective said, "but don't think for one second that I am one of them."

The words were delivered like lines from a play, and Sherlock could tell from the change in the criminal's facial expression that they had hit their mark dead on. Slowly, as though he was seeing his nemesis for the first time, Jim searched the detective's face, mouth falling open slightly as he realized exactly what he wanted to.

"…No," he said quietly, "You're not," slowly his lips twisted into a smirk, and the criminal nodded slightly, still gazing up at Sherlock like he was a hero, "I see. You're not ordinary…no. You're me…" almost unconsciously, he leaned towards the stony faced detective, a hysterical wheeze of laughter escaping him as he examined this suddenly far more interesting toy, "You're me," Jim repeated gleefully, "Thank you!"

Sherlock fought to keep his eyes fixed on Jim's as the criminal brought a hand to his shoulder, barely enough so that the detective could feel him through the thick wool of his coat, and, after looking at it in confusion a moment, brought it back to his side.

That was…strange.

"Sherlock Holmes," Jim whispered, holding out a hand, still watching the detective as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Sherlock considered not completing the gesture—the criminal had proved that he wasn't above playing dirty, so who was to say he wouldn't try to pull something?

However, after a moment of indecision, he decided to give into the curiosity that was suddenly crackling inside of him. Slowly, ever so slowly, Sherlock extended his hand to meet Jim's. The detective took a brief moment more to hesitate, with their hands mere centimeters apart, before he finally clasped them together.

For a few seconds, there was nothing. In fact, the gesture was so simple, so finite, so mundane that Sherlock felt, in spite of himself, a tiny twinge of disappointment; even Moriarty shook hands, just like anyone else did. Jim's palms were cold; even more so than his own, in fact. The detective didn't have time to think of anything else before it hit him.

Washing over him like a wave, the pressure was instant and more extreme than anything he'd ever felt before. His skull felt like it was being caved in from all sides, it felt like he was being electrocuted and kicked in the stomach and set on fire all at once. Sherlock couldn't breathe.

With a useless gasp, the detective dropped Jim's hand like it was a hand grenade, stumbling back a few feet and still struggling to draw in a breath that satisfied his lungs. He should have known. He should have known that the criminal would pull something! Sherlock's skin was crawling and prickling and warm like someone was sticking him with thousands of needles, and the hand that had touched Jim's felt like it had been submerged in boiling water.

Drugged. Injection probably. Get away from him, gain the upper hand before he makes his move; before you're too sedated to fight!

Clumsily, the detective blinked his quickly blurring eyes, and foolishly tried to shake his head to clear it. Sherlock was lucky he hadn't eaten anything that day, because he was unable to stop himself from dry heaving a few times before he was able to somewhat get his bearings again.

Dizzy, suddenly exhausted, and with breath coming in short gasps, the detective fell to his knees. One shaking arm holding his body up, and one pressed against his throbbing head, Sherlock summoned all of his willpower to force himself to look up. If he was going to die, he was going to fight until the end.

The only bit of comfort the detective experienced before he blacked out came from a simple observation, and that was Jim Moriarty lying sprawled on the pavement, unmoving, a few feet in front of him.