This is what happens when I watch too much Once Upon a Time and Despicable Me. Character study about villains!

People say that villains are created through a multitude of ways. One of which is that the person wants to do good or to get revenge, and goes about it the wrong way. Another way to become a villain is to fall in love with power, or with fear. Maybe the person is so scared that they jump headfirst into making sure they don't get hurt. There's a mindlessness to villainy, the sort that makes the person not realize how far they've gone until it's too late.

But no matter what, there will always be sympathy for the devils that are created like this.

People will look for goodness where there isn't any, and blindly hold onto that little sign without letting go, even if the evidence of evil is overwhelming. Everyone can be saved, they think. After all, villains aren't born, they are made. Perhaps it's a way to deal with the guilt that it's the people themselves that create evil. People are so cruel to one another, to those that are different, to hide insecurities, to buffer what's been done to them. Vicious circles. Around and around and around and around we go.

Evil has its own elegance, its sad stories that justify its means and motives. Forgive me, it screams.

Unless the person is in complete control, as I am. I know what I do to people, I know what I do is horrible, and I laugh, because it's just too funny! People try to find a sign that I have a heart, that I do what I do for some psychological reason. Someone hurt me, so I hurt others. There's a proving of myself that I'm not worthless. Vengeance, power, need, lust, greed, gullibility, mental illness. Insanity. Supremacy. There are so many words for weakness.

Chaos, however, isn't weakness. Chaos was made from humans just like everything else, but chaos is the ultimate pain, the ultimate fear and the ultimate evil. I play with it like a pet dog.

The world is so predictable, so boring. Villains dance in this world because they hold influence over a population that is weak, just like the villains themselves. Weakness seeks weakness. But I play a completely different game, one that scares the puny villains to their cores, because I am not like them. I am not weak!

Oh, now the people wonder if I was once weak. Of course I was, everyone is. The only difference between me and them is that I overcame it.

My life was a mess of blood and pain and I wanted out, but I didn't have the way as a ten-year-old boy. Carl Powers (aptly named I thought long ago) was my personal villain. He tortured me, broke me down. I was different, a little boy with the ability to see through people's minds, calculate risks. I knew how bad it was long before even Carl himself. The trauma; that's what the people want me to say. A simple reason for a complicated problem. Well, I'm more than that.

I found a way to dispose of Carl, a gloriously ironic downfall for the person who was my Hell. It was so beautiful: my mind put to the purpose of using weakness to build my own throne in the Pit. Of course, I had much work to do before I earned it.

Now, this is where the people wonder if I'm mad. There's something fundamentally wrong with me, I reply. That's been the general consensus. I don't believe that villains can't be born. All I've wanted to do is to make others feel the pain I felt, to let them bask in the fires of fear. There is a passing down of what was known. History repeats itself, always.

But then, I needed a hero, didn't I? I couldn't just live in Hell unopposed; I had to shoot someone off the throne. The truth is that heroes are just like villains, with their petty insecurities and weakness for show. Even hiding in the shadows, heroes and villains are on equal ground. The reason that villains often lose is that their faults get the best of them in an obvious way that is easy to pick apart. Heroes lose their humanity slowly, minds falling into darkness, the need to defeat getting the best of them.

My hero is different. Sherlock Holmes was always different. It's funny how much humans hate diversity, and yet, I can't help but loving it. Well, however much I can love.

He knew from the beginning that dear Carl was a murder, at as young of an age as me, but no one listened to him. No one acknowledged his genius, his beautiful difference. I shall never tire of it, I think, not until I die. I did my best to get him to see the chaos I had in store for him: the cabbie with the pills, the Chinese gang, Irene, that game by the pool. Sadly enough, I put him on a pedestal that he has no right to take from me. I, James Moriarty, can not admire a hero, especially not a sentimental one.

Sentiment is just as much of a weakness as power, it's just that people don't realize that.

Sherlock has a sort of grudging, unwanted sentiment relating to Dr. John Watson. No matter the horrible things I do to him, it doesn't matter, because as long as John is alive, Sherlock will be there to protect him. If I threaten John Watson, I threaten Sherlock's sanity, turn him into the broken hero that all of them eventually become.

But I don't want to let my hero go.

I've long left reasoning, because in the end, it's just excuses. Sense is a construct made by those who wish for order, and I have no use for order. There is one set of reasoning that knocks through the madness whenever I wonder about villains.

People find goodness in the villains that have redeeming qualities.

If I have no redeeming qualities, does that mean I can never be seen as more than them? Loneliness doesn't just affect the normal ones, but also the ones that have been alone their whole lives and should be used to it. If I have no goodness, does that mean I will rule Hell alone, spiraling into madness?

People say that love is a strength, not a weakness. Connection makes others work together to achieve more, to beat the evil. People say love fixes all injuries, heals all maladies, softens all blows. Nothing can replace the hole love lost leaves in someone except love itself. People fall headfirst into it. There's a mindlessness that love brings, not alerting the person to it until it's too late.

This is why I hate reasoning. Love and villainy are similar enough that I can't get it out of my head.

If I have goodness, it means someone can love me, but if I have none, than I have gained a weakness. Longing is a fault, after all, a very human one, and I hate it.

But, what villain doesn't long for the hero? What villain doesn't love the hero no matter how illogical and without chaos it is?

The rooftop is quiet as I relive the minutes that we spent here. Sherlock rose his head, eyes full of tears, barely registering my body on the ground before saying his final goodbyes to John and dying. I remember he told me that he was me, and how strong I felt. I shouldn't have orchestrated his downfall, mainly because he deteriorated just like all the other heroes. He had beautiful eyes, I know. Changing, just like chaos in an iris.

I miss him every day. Since the moment I put the gun in my mouth and broke the bag of fake blood and pretended to die, I've known that I wouldn't survive the final encounter, not really. I've become predictable and boring, and I watched it happen without doing anything about it. Missing the hero is what all villains do once the hero is gone. I'm just like them now.

I'm not chaos personified anymore. I'm just another villain with psychological reasons for hurting other people, and an unhealthy love for the person that will be their end.

But no one really loves a villain back, do they? It's not the way of things.

I look over the edge of the building, wondering if it hurt for him to jump and smash against the sidewalk. Placing my hands on the stone, I watch the people on the ground with their ordinary lives and their weakness, but I'm no better than they are. I could just step up onto the rim of the roof and end it all for real. My last hurrah would of course be just like his. Matching.

"Don't be a fool, James," a voice scolds lightly.

"Why would I do that?" I ask, not turning around. "I'm much smarter than you, darling."

"That doesn't mean you and I can't make the same mistakes. Dying can't solve problems."

"And obviously, you would know, Sherlock." I look him in the eye. "I'm not killing people anymore."

Sherlock shrugs. "You've never had to explain yourself to me. There is no reason for your mind to change, it just does."

I laugh. "I should have known you weren't gone. The signs were all there, especially with my web being destroyed."

He smiles and replies, "But I didn't know you wouldn't stop me. According to Molly, you learn new things every day."

"Molly Hooper is a moderately intelligent woman. That's why I dated her instead of some other woman you came in contact with. She's interesting, despite being just as normal as John." I sit down on the stone, dangling my feet over the rim of the building. Sherlock sits next to me without prompting.

"John's getting married, you know," he says after several minutes of silence. "I can't just walk back into his life. I probably could have before he proposed, but now, he's well and truly gone. It doesn't matter anyway."

"I'm sorry. He was your sentiment." And I mean my apology, which is quite strange, but the feeling isn't too bad.

"Thank you, James, but you didn't need to. I was going to have to move on whether or not John got married. He doesn't need me messing up his life."

"It's just chaos, dear. Chaos has never been a bad thing really. People choose to make it bad because so many villains use it. They're such hypocrites, don't you think?"

Sherlock looks at me in surprise. "Yes. They are."

I grin, swinging my legs back and forth over the several-story drop. "I tend to be right."

"I have my moments as well," Sherlock says, a smirk spreading across his face.

"Enlighten me, my darling Mr. Holmes."

"I was correct in stating that I am you." I can't reply to that, so Sherlock keeps talking. "You killed for no reason, and I killed for a reason. I loved for a reason, and you love for no reason."

"Reasoning has no meaning," we say at the same time, and Sherlock smiles at me.

"If we forget about reason, than aren't we just the same?"

I think about that. If we were the same all this time... "How does someone say hello to their mirror?"

"How about: 'Hello. It's nice to meet you'?"

I shake my head. "How about: 'Is that a Browning in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me'?"

Sherlock grins back. "Perfect."

We fall silent for a little while. "How are we going to go on?" I ask. "We're both done killing, and we're both done dying. What now?" If I wasn't a villain anymore, and he wasn't a hero anymore, what's left?

"We could always be Sherlock and James, for once. We've never been that before."

I nod. "Nice to meet you, Sherlock."

"Nice to meet you as well, James."

It turns out, all my beliefs about villainy were true, but I will deviate from them, because a hero is the reason I'm happy. But I don't really have to justify myself, do I?

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