Chapter 11

John awoke to a screeching violin a meter away from his head. He cracked an eye open to see Sherlock in that ridiculous blue dressing gown (he doubted there was anything underneath it) swishing from side to side as he murdered the instrument.

"What. The. Fuuuuuuck," John groaned.

Sherlock turned around (John was right about the clothing, or lack thereof, and forced himself to look anywhere but Sherlock's smooth torso, or hipbones, or anything below that, fuck). "Excellent, you're awake" he replied, and the violin shifted to a beautiful classical piece. "I meant to tell you last night but you insisted on sacrificing your time to one of those dull human activities."

"Wha- you mean sleep?" John squinted.

Sherlock put down his violin. "And yes, I assume your next response is going to be 'it's too bloody early for this, Sherlock,' but that would be redundant after last night's excuse, now wouldn't it?"

John shut his mouth.

"While you were away," Sherlock began with a small frown, "another murder took place."

John sat up, fully awake now, going through names in his head. Sarah. Mike. Poor little Molly.

"Wh-"

"It was at Roland Kerr Academy," Sherlock continued, and John relaxed. He felt guilty for doing so. It was still someone's life.

"His name was Carl Powers. Average student. Nothing noteworthy. Oh and if you're wondering how this applies to us-" Sherlock grinned. "He was killed with cyanide."

Despite the early hours of the morning, John was quick to catch on. "So you think the killer took the materials from our school's lab to poison students at Roland Kerr? Unless there's a madman on the loose killing boarding school students at random."

"Precisely. I stand by my theory that Tilly Briggs was an unintentional target, just an obstacle. Our school's lab is far more equipped, as I've stated earlier... I believe the killer had a plan and it singled out Carl Powers. I don't know that he or she won't kill again. Now," Sherlock continued, "Molly asked that we meet her in the lab. She has some information she says could be of importance."

-x-

"So... remember how everyone thought I killed Tilly?" Molly asked nervously from the end of the lab table they were all seated around. "Because I didn't, but her murder could have been my fault."

"Tell us what you know," Sherlock spoke calmly.

Molly took a deep breath. "Over the summer... I met someone." She looked at the table, hesitating on her next sentence. "Online, actually. Over Facebook. He said he went to Roland Kerr Academy, the school you said that boy who was murdered went to.

"He seemed so nice, and I really just needed someone to talk to. It was after the diary incident, you know, and at that point I didn't have any friends.

"He messaged me a lot, it was sweet... and he was the only one who seemed to care about the same things I cared about. He asked me about home, and my cats, and- and the lab."

Sherlock stiffened. "What was his name?" he demanded.

She met Sherlock's eyes. "Jim. Jim Moriarty. And looking back, I was so stupid! I didn't know him, and I was telling him everything! And I should have known his interest in the school's chem building was suspicious. Anyway, I broke it off at the start of the school year because I realised I- I remembered there was someone else I cared about," Molly blushed, her eyes fell on Sherlock and she looked down.

And despite Sherlock's incredible mind, despite his particular talent for solving mysteries using explicit hints, John could tell Sherlock had no idea she was referring to him.

"Thank you, Molly," he announced casually, standing up. "I'll find out what I can about this Jim Moriarty. And don't blame yourself," he added, "people would be dead one way or another. You just gave him an excuse." Sherlock strode out of the room. John thanked her, and then followed suit.

-x-

"I asked Mycroft to do a background check on James Moriarty, and it came up blank. No student at Roland Kerr or any of the surrounding schools go by that name."

"So Jim was his pseudonym, that makes sense," John stated. "Did you ask Mycroft to track the IP address of his Facebook profile?"

"Tried it myself. He deleted the profile, which also makes sense. I suppose all we can do now is wait."

"For what? Another murder?" John exclaimed.

"We need to wait for him to slip up," Sherlock responded. "It all depends on if he plans on killing again."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then we can do some investigation. Ask around a bit," Sherlock answered in a clipped tone before getting up and walking out of the room, and John could tell he was hiding his annoyance under nonchalance. He knew Sherlock couldn't stand being left in the dark, with no way of getting information. It gave John an idea.

-x-

Not wanting to "give out our hard-earned information to the pathetic Scotland Yard," Sherlock had asked John in the beginning not to put anything relating to the murders on his blog, and despite floods of comments asking John to speculate on them, John abided by Sherlock's request

However, he couldn't stop himself from making a post later that day asking for help. It read:

If anyone knows anything about the name Jim Moriarty, please contact me immediately. It could be crucial to solving our latest case.

It wasn't too specific. And John knew the blog had generated enough power to spread the word.

Sherlock will thank me, he thought. What could go wrong?