Work Text:
Jim collects things now. It’s never big things, but it’s enough that Sebastian can tell. Empty jam jars go missing, only to reappear a month later full of paper clips, or soda tabs, or yarn from who-knows-where. If there’s a ticket stub or a scrap of paper in the flat Jim will find it. No one but the madman himself knows where everything is hidden (and he delights in not telling). If something is misplaced Jim knows where to find it.
If only he could find the missing bits of his mind.
When pillows, jumpers, duvets and blankets go missing Sebastian has learned to look under the baby grand piano, where Jim will have bedded down in a nest of soft things. When clothes disappear from dressers all Sebastian has to do is look in the nearest closet and once again Jim will have made a nest and is taking a nap. Anything less obvious than that and Sebastian has stopped looking because he knows it will turn up before long. Every now and again there will be a note in Jim’s new messy handwriting stuck to a mug or mirror or something of the like. Sebastian tries to keep every one of them by sticking it in his pocket, but when he goes back for the disjointed notes they are always gone. He suspects that Jim forgets he wrote them only hours earlier.
Jim Moriarty is not the same, but some things still are. Sebastian hopes that the Irishman never stops playing games- they are one of the few shreds of the brilliance he used to be that haven't changed.