"Irene...Adler?" John muttered, pushing the copy of the newspaper towards his wife doubtfully. "Never heard of her." Mary admitted, looking back up at Sherlock and Molly curiously. They were sitting in the kitchen, listening to Rosie playing upstairs, talking about their game plan. Sherlock honestly didn't know what kind of approach he was going to take tonight, but being that it was already three o'clock he should probably get thinking.
"You'd think they'd mention a creepy old family and a murder when they sold us the house." Mary muttered, looking a tad bit disappointed with the dishonesty of realtors.
"Well maybe you just weren't paying attention." Sherlock offered with a laugh, taking the paper back and looking at the picture again.
"Rosie was up last night, she heard you John, she heard you saying "Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock" over and over again. Whoever this ghost is, it's after me." Sherlock said flatly.
"If it was after you then why would it chose us to possess? Why not someone you actually knew?" John wondered.
"I don't know, maybe I wasn't its original intention, but not that I'm in the picture it's...curious." Sherlock muttered. Molly nodded, munching quietly on a cookie the Watsons had set out.
"Curious indeed." John agreed.
"But why would Irene Adler be after you? Why would she have any interest?" Mary wondered.
"Well I don't know, maybe she knows that I can see her, she knows that I'm here to stop her." Sherlock suggested. Mary didn't look too convinced, in fact she looked inconvenienced, as if there were so many better things she could be doing with her time.
"Alright then, that's fair. So what do we do?" John wondered, leaning forward on his elbows and staring straight into Sherlock's eyes. Sherlock cleared his throat, trying to make it seem like he was looking for a cookie instead of simply avoiding those beautiful eyes. He really didn't want anyone to pick up on his attraction for Mr. Watson, not that it meant anything. To be honest Sherlock would fall in love with any man he spotted that seemed to have a semi organized facial structure, it's not like he had accidently stumbled across the love of his life. Would it be amazing if Mr. Watson were single and ready to mingle? Yes, of course. Would Sherlock cry and make a big fuss and stay awake at night with a bottle of whiskey because Mr. Watson was married? No, of course not. He was going to be mature, he knew that there were simply things in life he couldn't have. He accepted that.
"I'm thinking I need to be here. To observe." Sherlock decided.
"What are you going to do, sleep at the end of our bed?" Mary asked judgmentally, laughing a little bit.
"No of course not, I feel like before I stay the night I need to try to get in contact with whatever spirit is nestled inside our Mr. Watson." Sherlock decided.
"I thought it only came out at night?" Molly wondered, hastily wiping off the cookie crumbs that clung to the corners of her lips.
"No of course not Molly, we decided that it's always there, remember?" Sherlock whispered back.
"No, I do not remember, you probably decided this and just forgot to mention it to me." Molly hissed. Sherlock looked down rather awkwardly at the table, and John laughed a little bit above them.
"Most likely." Sherlock agreed. There was some amused silence, and finally Sherlock mustered up enough courage to look at Mr. Watson, just briefly.
"So how are we going to make contact?" John wondered.
"I'm going to need darkness. Artificial darkness preferably." Sherlock decided, getting to his feet so abruptly his chair skirted out from underneath him with a sickening grinding slide.
"What do you need for that?" Moly wondered, getting to her feet as well.
"Do you have a basement?" Sherlock wondered. The Watsons got to their feet nervously, walking into the kitchen and looking rather eerily at an old wooden door near the corner.
"Well, we do. If there's a ghost in this house, it's going to be down there." John muttered apprehensively. Obviously the Watsons weren't terribly fond of their basement.
"Perfect, it should feel right at home." Sherlock decided with a smile, walking right up to the door and pulling it open. The basement smelled like mold and mildew, a muggy old smell that stung against your nostrils but it was slightly pleasant to smell. It smelled like Sherlock's grandmother's basement, all of those years ago. The walls were made entirely of stone, some with moss clinging to the outside, others looking as if they had been chipped away at with some sort of blunt tool. Sherlock started his way down into the darkness, hearing others trying to follow. He stopped, holding up a hand to stop them.
"Only Mr. Watson if you will." Sherlock suggested, looking up to see a rather insulted looking Molly walking back up into the tiled kitchen.
"Oh ya, sure." John agreed, pushing past the small crowd to join Sherlock on the stairs. Sherlock smiled at him, holding out a hand to help him down the rather steep wooden steps. John just looked at him kind of oddly, and instead of taking Sherlock's hand he grabbed the wooden handrail and descended down into the muggy darkness of his basement.
"There's a light bulb somewhere down here." John muttered, moving around for a moment and leaving Sherlock alone to savor the blackness, breathing in the damp air and watching John's beautiful shadowy shape move around in the darkness. He didn't feel the least bit scared down here, even though he knew there was a murder on the front lawn. If there was a spirit it was inside John, not wandering around in the basement, as creepy as it was. Finally there was a click, and a single light bulb illuminated a couple of feet away. The basement was empty for the most part, there were boxes up against the walls and a large boiler in the back corner, but except for pipes and mice it seemed to be empty.
"We don't go down here much." John explained, as if he knew exactly what Sherlock was thinking.
"You could close the door please!" Sherlock called back up, noticing the stream of light coming from up the staircase. He heard some muttering from the women left upstairs, but finally there was a snap and the light disappeared. There were no windows down here, so the only source of light was this little bulb, trying its hardest to illuminate the entire cellar.
"So uh...what are we doing down here? Alone?" John wondered. Sherlock just raised an eyebrow, curious as to what John thought his intentions were.
"Well if you were to take a guess, what would you say?" Sherlock asked, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and eyeing John curiously.
"Well you said we were going to try to contact the spirit, but I don't understand why we need a basement to do that." John admitted. Sherlock couldn't help but smile, shifting his weight onto his left leg and laughing a little bit at the floor.
"We need silence Mr. Watson, uninterrupted time of...mediation per say." Sherlock muttered, looking around rather suddenly for something to sit on.
"Meditation. A paranormal yoga circle?" John suggested with a bit of a laugh.
"I'm really starting to like you Mr. Watson." Sherlock admitted with a laugh, walking towards the back of the basement and grabbing two wooden crates for them to sit on.
"That's good I suppose. But I may not even be me, so you've got to keep that in mind." John pointed out.
"Oh yes, maybe it's the young Ms. Adler I am speaking with." Sherlock agreed.
"I don't really like the sound of that, thinking there's someone else inside of me, an accused witch." John admitted, poking at his chest doubtfully.
"Oh well, it's no surprise the Devil is tied up with all of this, back then everyone was an accused witch, it was almost like a trend." Sherlock pointed out.
"But the Devil made them stronger right, the spirits?" John wondered curiously.
"You read my mind." Sherlock agreed, setting down the two crates right underneath the lightbulb and seating himself on his own.
"What if it's the Devil himself inside of me?" John asked apprehensively, sitting on his own crate and looking at Sherlock through the shadows.
"Then you'd be dead already. It's not the Devil John; he wouldn't bother with someone like you." Sherlock assured. John raised an eyebrow curiously, and Sherlock just cleared his throat, trying to spin that positively.
"I mean that in the nicest way. I mean, if I were Satan I would try to possess someone who had more...firepower." Sherlock decided.
"I have firecrackers somewhere." John muttered, pretending to look around and making Sherlock laugh once more.
"Not exactly what I meant." Sherlock admitted. John just nodded, running his hand absentmindedly through his hair.
"Ya, I know." He agreed with a little chuckle. Sherlock watched him in silence for a moment, getting lost in the mere presence of this man. But then again, there was business to get to, this relationship was strictly professional.
"Alright John, so what I'm going to try to do is call this spirt out, try to get it to talk to me." Sherlock decided.
"And how are we going to do that?" John wondered. Sherlock sighed; he actually didn't know how to do that. The dead people he always talked to usually found him first.
"Well...first you're going to get a little bit closer." Sherlock decided, making all of this up as he went.
"Oh...alright." John muttered, not sounding too excited to get any closer to Sherlock than he had to. It was almost like he was nervous, like he knew of Sherlock's true feelings. John scooted ever closer, leaning in so that he was a mere foot away.
"And now I'm going to turn off the light, okay? We need total darkness." Sherlock decided. A shiver went down his spine for a moment, realizing just what he was proposing. John felt it too, that little apprehensiveness, that little curiosity.
"Alright." John agreed in a small voice. Sherlock nodded, looking up and finding the dangling cord of the lightbulb, reaching up and pulling it, finally plunging them both into darkness. For a moment he couldn't see anything, for a moment he could only hear John's nervous breathing as his eyes adjusted.
"Are you still there?" Sherlock whispered.
"Yes of course." John replied through the shadows. There was a bit of a pause, and Sherlock had the strangest urge to just get to his feet and pull John into his arms, to hold him there like he was his and just...cherish him. But it was ridiculous, and as soon as that thought popped into his head he knew he had to push it away.
"Wonderful. Now, I'm going to put my fingers on your head here, one moment." Sherlock muttered, sitting a little bit closer and feeling through the darkness. He felt John tense at his touch, and a shiver was sent down his spine as soon as John's skin made contact with his own. He had very soft, very wonderful skin. Sherlock placed his hands on the sides of John's face, holding his head in place and closing his eyes, breathing deeply.
"To the spirit that possesses the body of John Watson, I wish to speak to you." Sherlock whispered, his fingertips pressed up against John's throbbing temples. There was silence, and John cleared his throat a little bit, nervously.
"My name is Sherlock Holmes, you seem familiar with me already. I only want you to identify yourself." Sherlock insisted. "I only want to help."
"Sherlock I don't think..." John started.
"Shush John. Quiet. You are a mere vessel, don't interrupt your guest." Sherlock whispered. John nodded; Sherlock could feel his anxiousness, his tenseness. He didn't want to be touched by Sherlock; he didn't want to be talked to as if he were nothing more than a puppet.
"Irene Adler, are you there?" Sherlock whispered, putting his face very close to John's, so close that he could feel the man's breath escaping his nose. And suddenly John's eyes flew open, but instead of the warm chocolate brown, they were glowing yellow. This was not John anymore.
"He is mine!" John exclaimed in a voice that wasn't his own, flinging Sherlock's hands away from his face and grabbing Sherlock's forearms, pulling him closer very violently. Sherlock tried to pull free, but its grip was strong, it was possessive. It was powerful.
"HE IS MINE!" John shrieked, pulling Sherlock up from off of his crate and closer ever still. Those glowing yellow eyes shone through the darkness like spotlights, and Sherlock could see an energy, a swirling black mist rising up from John's previously luminous skin. This was dangerous, this was evil. Sherlock shrieked, trying to pull away from John's strong grip, trying to push the demon away. But he was being pulled ever closer, the demon's strength would soon out last his own, and what might happen when he was finally pulled in?
"MOLLY HELP!" Sherlock screamed, pulling away from the iron grip of the demon, who was still trying to pull him ever closer.
"He is mine, forever and ever, the gates of Hell will open and we shall forever walk the earth side by side, in the name of Satan he is mine!" John exclaimed. Sherlock broke into horrified tears, squirming in the demon's grip, crying out in pain as his fingernails cut into his skin.
"HELP ME MOLLY, HELP ME!" Sherlock screamed. The basement door suddenly flung open, casting the staircase in light as the women ran desperately down the stairs. As soon as the demon realized they had an audience it collapsed, leaving Sherlock to go stumbling away, suddenly free of his grasp. John collapsed to the floor and Sherlock fell into the crate on which he had been sitting, falling to the stone floor in a terrified heap.
"Sherlock, oh Sherlock are you alright?" Molly exclaimed, pulling him to his feet desperately. Sherlock fell into her arms, shaking in fear, tears still falling down his face as he saw those glowing eyes still staring back at him.
"He was here Molly. He was here." Sherlock whispered in horror, craning his neck to see Mary leaning over her husband's limp body, trying to wake him up.
"Who was?" Molly wondered, trying to comfort him in any way she could.
"The Devil." Sherlock whimpered, breaking down into tears once more at the very thought. 

Entry #4, October 24th, 2017: I thought they were being dramatic, I thought they were trying to scare me. I didn't know what I had done that afternoon; I didn't know what happened in that basement. They said that I started to scream about someone, that I tried to pull Sherlock closer to me, that I nearly scared him to death. But I don't remember any of it. The last thing I remember is Sherlock sitting real close to me, I remember gazing into his eyes in the darkness, his fingers on my temples and a determined look in the sea of blue and green. I remember not being able to catch my breath because of the closeness; I remember feeling awkward yet intrigued. I had never been close to another man, not like that at least. I have never wondered just why I was close; I had never longed to get closer. He was curious, that Sherlock Holmes. I remember his smile in the darkness of the basement, and the next thing I know I was on the floor, and he was white as a sheet, crying in Molly Hooper's arms like a scared child. They said that the Devil had been here, and I was left wondering how I had missed something so exciting as the Devil. Then I remembered it had most likely been inside of me, that pure evil resided in my chest. It wasn't so exciting after that. End Entry.

n