"Why?"
"No."
"No?"
"No, Sherlock," he sighed. "After all of this, you don't get to ask boring questions. "I know you can do better."
From the ground, London could almost be called beautiful. The winding streets of cobbles interspersed with the chill of urbanisation was just the juxtaposition needed for such an eclectic people. From above however, it was magnificent. A spiderweb of information and the dainty cross stitch of old and new stretched out into the darkening clouds. All of it stood as a riddle to be solved, the greatest game; and every last inch of it bowed down to the man before him now. London was enigmatic, Moriarty was impossible.
"All this so you could kill me," he suggested. Obvious. Perhaps such ignorance would smoke him out. The statement only seemed to rouse anger in the smaller man. He shook his head in exasperation as Mycroft once had at him.
"Tell me about him," Moriarty asked as though this were a polite conversation and the gun in his hand wasn't angled just so.
"Magnussen."
"Wrong."
"Mycroft?"
"Try again," he hissed.
Sherlock said nothing.
"Try again."
"John."
He nodded slowly, wide eyed fascination taking over his features.
"There is little to tell that you don't know already. Ex-army doctor, invalided from Afghanistan-"
Moriarty put his finger to his lips. This was the calmest Sherlock had ever seen him. He almost could pass for serene.
"He loves you," Moriarty said in a whisper.
Sherlock remained silent.
"He shot a man for you."
"Sebastian hasn't?"
He seemed to suck in a breathe between his teeth then before chuckling.
"Good boy, Sherlock. Very good."
He bristled from that comment, feeling an imaginary leash between them as Moriarty pulled him this way and that.
"Sometimes," he said. "We do things we shouldn't, things that are naughty, if we think the one we love would be happy."
An uneasy silence stretched from one comment to the next, the consulting criminal deep in thought, weapon lowering slightly.
"Wouldn't you agree, Sherlock?"
He stayed silent.
"We even do it when the person we love doesn't love us back."
"You wouldn't know what love is."
"Don't I? Hmmm. Maybe not. Maybe...not. No, I wouldn't. Wouldn't know the thrill of finding someone who understands, someone brilliant and life-altering," he emphasised almost every syllable, rage seeping through. "Sacrifice and loss. Wouldn't know at all."
"Make your point or shoot me, either way I'm getting rather bored."
"Don't you think it funny, Sherlock. Don't you?"
"What exactly?"
"John. John Watson. Dr Watson. How he loves you. All your...flaws, little insecurities. That's the part he loves, right? Those parts- the drugs part and the...unmentionable things," he smiled conspiratorially. "He would never be ashamed of you for those things, make you feel bad about those things. Would he?"
Sherlock looked away. He wasn't sure he liked this game.
"He would stay long after the brilliance faded because he loves you like that," he sneered. "John Watson sees you as a battlefield," he shook his head sadly. "And what happens when we peel away the shrapnel and wipe away the gunpowder?"
He motioned something drifting away.
"Ta-ta."
"Your obsession with me is your own doing. You love the game, the chase."
"Oh Sherlock," Moriarty walked towards him, bridging the gap of the London rooftop.
"I thought we were the same, you and I. But it isn't you, is it," he reached up to smooth aside a stray curl that ruffled in the breeze. "It's him. We try to love you but we don't know how."
"John knows how."
Moriarty shrugged.
"You'll see it, soon enough. All those deductions will show. John loves you. I love you. But it's the same love."
Moriarty slipped away through the door leading to the stairs and Sherlock pulled his coat tighter, feeling himself trembling.