S2 finale spoilers in-thread

[searchingfordistraction]

The key to Jim's room in Milliways seems to have disappeared.

Curious, that.



[OOC: Warnings for drug addiction and abuse, consent issues, and talk of suicide.]

Comments

[searchingfordistraction]

"Hmm. I seem to remember you thinking that cowardly."

Sherlock is getting closer to the safe, which will impart a painful jolt to anyone other than Jim who tries to touch it.

Jim decides not to mention this.

[consulting_detective]

"Still do," he says. He's also still laughing. Apparently it's both.

"He just..." He mimes Jim's suicide, complete with sound effects.

[searchingfordistraction]

"Why?"

He leaves the question open-ended. Why is it funny? Why is it cowardly? Why does he do it?

All of the above, or maybe something else altogether.

[consulting_detective]

"Because he was bored," Sherlock says. "He won. Apparently. Although I'm pretty sure that Holmes faked his own suicide by putting Moriarty in his coat and just chucking him over the edge."

He finds the safe, and tries to play it cool when he gets zapped. He sort of... fails.

[searchingfordistraction]

Because he was bored.

That's always the answer, with Jim. Why does he do anything? Why does he run a crime network, play consulting criminal, antagonize telepaths or furnish drugs to low-rent versions of Sherlock or research his own canon the roundabout way?

Because he's bored.

And one day, he'll get tired of being bored. He's always known that.



". . . oops," he says, not even pretending to mean it. "Mind that, it's trapped."

[consulting_detective]

"It bit me," he says, looking at his fingers.

[searchingfordistraction]

Jim laughs.

[consulting_detective]

He forgets about the safe and moves on.

"Are you actually that Jim Moriarty, or just another one, like me?" he asks.

[searchingfordistraction]

"I am him," he says. "More or less. I've stepped outside the narrative, as it were."

He has access to information his other self doesn't, and he is going to enjoy using it.

[consulting_detective]

"You've split the time stream," Sherlock says.

There's a small bowl of change that gets emptied out onto the floor.

[searchingfordistraction]

The coins are everything except any currency Jim might find useful anywhere at home.

"It seemed shameful to have this place and not take advantage of it."

[consulting_detective]

"I come here to get away from John sometimes. His friends come over and get drunk and be boring."

Apparently, time doesn't freeze on the other side for him. Which means John's probably noticed him missing by now.

[searchingfordistraction]

"Tedious."

The sympathy in Jim's voice is as genuine as he's capable of. He loathes having boring people in his space.

He doesn't have guests often.

[consulting_detective]

Hopefully Sherlock's not being boring.

"I know. I like the dog, but the dog doesn't get drunk and shout at the telly over nothing."

The room has been deemed boring, so Sherlock returns to the bed.

[searchingfordistraction]

Not yet.

"I don't keep anything interesting here," he lies, twenty minutes too late for a few of his possessions.

[consulting_detective]

"Ugh. Boring."

Jim does keep one interesting thing here though, and Sherlock knows it. He just doesn't know where Jim put it.

[searchingfordistraction]

He shrugs, unconcerned with Sherlock's judgment.

"I don't use it very often," he says. "Just to change. People get so hostile when they hear the name Moriarty."

He sounds vaguely annoyed by this. He's made his peace with not being able to control the reputation his name carries here, but that hasn't made it any more convenient.

[consulting_detective]

"What name are you using?" asks Sherlock, still looking for the rest of the cocaine. "Not Rich Brook. You might be too early for that."

[searchingfordistraction]

Jim chuckles. He does like a bilingual pun.

"I switch around," he says. "Staying in one skin for too long gets boring."

[consulting_detective]

"Mmm."

Where the hell did Jim put it? He leans over him to check along the other side of the bed.

[searchingfordistraction]

"Lose something?"

Jim watches him, unmoving.

[consulting_detective]

"No. Yes. Where'd you put it?"

He's about five seconds away from searching Jim.

[searchingfordistraction]

He smiles.

"It's no fun if I tell you."

[consulting_detective]

It takes Sherlock a moment to work out all the possible meanings of this sentence.

He settles on the meaning that could be taken in a sexual context, since it's the sort he hears most often, and goes for Jim's trousers.

[searchingfordistraction]

It's in his left pocket.

No one ever said anything about a particularly unusual or creative hiding place.