"Just be quiet, just stop." Sherlock insisted, pulling his face closer once more, keeping his eyes shut, trying to trap this moment forever in his heart because he knew it was going to be the last time. He knew that the precious lips of John Watson wouldn't be preserved for long. 

"I knew you couldn't." whispered the voice once more, the Aspiration, muttering his voice through Sherlock's parted lips. Sherlock just shook his head, feeling John's body temperature drop, feeling his soul go cold as the Aspiration took control once more. He was filled with a feeling of helplessness, of despair, why couldn't he just have John to himself, why did this all have to end so destructively? But he didn't pull away, he just froze, his lips still glued onto John's as though he couldn't do anything to remove them.
"I knew you were too sentimental." The Aspiration whispered, pulling his lips away ever so slightly, but staying perched on Sherlock, keeping him close and wrapped in his arms like a cage.
"Why didn't it work?" Sherlock whispered weakly, his lips trembling and his heart starting to break into fragments in his chest.
"Sherlock you can't just assume things, you can't just make blind guesses in the dark. You need to consider the impossible, and realize that it is indeed probable." The Aspiration muttered. Sherlock could still feel its fingers tracing its way across his back, leaving bloody trails wherever it pressed against the fabric.
"Nothing is impossible." Sherlock whispered weakly, keeping his eyes shut determinedly. He didn't want to have to look into this thing's eyes; he didn't want to be reminded that it was no longer John Watson who sat so close.
"No indeed, my love." The Aspiration agreed carefully, running a finger through Sherlock's curls and across his hairline.
"What do you want from me?" Sherlock whispered apprehensively, feeling the ghostly finger running down his cheek and across his jawbone. He still didn't open his eyes, but he could feel the breath of the Aspiration getting closer, getting quicker. It was excited, it felt...powerful.
"Only everything you have to offer." The Aspiration purred. Sherlock felt tears threatening to burst from his eyes, but he held them back, he didn't dare open them.
"And if I give it to you?" Sherlock wondered in a weak voice. His words didn't want to escape; he didn't want to have to say them.
"Oh Sherlock, are you trying to sacrifice yourself to me? Are you trying to be the hero?" The Aspiration wondered, sounding intrigued all the same.
"I know you want me; I know...I know that you want to take me down to hell with you. And if I truly belong there, then I'll go. You just need to leave John and his family alone, you take only me." Sherlock demanded. The Aspiration simply laughed, its hand now trailing across Sherlock's chest, its breath dancing off of the side of Sherlock's face, but he wouldn't dare see it.
"It's not that simple Sherlock, all of you pesky little humans must come." The Aspiration whispered.
"But you only need me." Sherlock protested, sitting there obediently as the Aspiration only laughed.
"What makes you think you're so special?" the Aspiration wondered lovingly, its lips hovering very close to Sherlock's ear, pressing itself up against Sherlock's chest and sighing in satisfaction. It was almost as though it simply longed to be this close, as if it had crawled from out of John's body just so sit here on the pavement with Sherlock and breathe his presence in.
"You told me, you said that I came from Hell." Sherlock pointed out.
"But it's not just you! It's humanity! They all must burn, you along with them! They're all sinners, they all deserve the pit!" The Aspiration exclaimed, drawing back so suddenly that Sherlock's eyes flew open, suddenly worried that the spirit would kill him in the same manner as he did with Father Franklin.
"Why do you hate humans so much?" Sherlock demanded, seeing once more the black fog surrounding the both of them.
"Because I was one, and I loved one. And there has never been a feeling so painful than that of a broken heart." The Aspiration whispered, and with that it tore itself away, leaving Sherlock trembling and alone on the blood soaked pavement. He couldn't do anything to stop it, or to even try to move. He was sitting there, paralyzed and numb, watching as the Aspiration got to its feet and looked across the development for a moment, a wide smile stretched across its morbid face.
"Sherlock if you know me you'll find me. If you really want to return to your maker as a hero, then you'll come alone. Accept yourself Sherlock, accept me. It will be easier that way." The Aspiration insisted, and with that it turned and ran down the street, running at an almost inhuman speed before it disappeared into the suburban darkness, leaving Sherlock to lie back down onto the pavement and tremble helplessly next to Father Franklin's cold, dead body. 

  "Sherlock, Sherlock come on, please, just wake up!" Molly's voice exclaimed above him. Sherlock kept his eyes shut, feeling as though if he opened them it wouldn't be Molly standing above him. The very fear of being conscious settled deep into his bones, and he knew that when he did open his eyes he was have to face what lay in front of him. What he had to do, what had to be done by his hands alone.

"Sherlock please, I know you're awake!" Molly growled, shaking Sherlock's shoulder so roughly that his eyes flew open in response.
"Molly, come on, that hurts!" Sherlock defended, smacking her hand away irritably and collapsing back into his pillows. He was on the Watson's couch, how he got there he had no idea, but he was laying under a very thin blanket, his skin feeling cakey and his brain pounding in his skull.
"Thank God, I thought you died." Molly admitted, taking a deep breath of relief.
"I'm not dead." Sherlock grumbled. He wished he was, honestly.
"Where's John?" Molly wondered nervously, her feet tapping on the wooden floors beneath her chair.
"I don't..." Sherlock sighed in grief, rubbing his tired eyes and grimacing at the ceiling. "I don't know!" he exclaimed, shaking violently as the events of that night came flooding back at him. Molly swept in like the mother she aspired to be, pulling the blanket up to Sherlock's chin and shushing him gently.
"It's alright, it's alright." She assured. "We just thought he might've told you."
"It didn't work...Father Franklin..." Sherlock breathed heavily, feeling his chest heaving up and down rapidly, going into a panicky state of hyperventilation.
"The cops were here, and the coroner. They took pictures, they carried him away, I think they're still cleaning up. It's bad Sherlock, it's bad. They don't believe us." Molly admitted shamefully.
"They have to believe us, John's not a murderer, it's that thing, IT'S THAT THING INSIDE HIM!" Sherlock exclaimed, tears welling up out of his eyes as he started to understand the severity of this situation. The Aspiration was gone; it ran off with John's body to unravel its horrible plan of burning all of humanity. That was what it had said, right, that it intended on taking all of the world down with it in the fires? Sherlock should've shot, oh why didn't he just fire that gun when he had the chance? What was going to happen to John, to Mary, to the rest of this little town?
"Where's Mary?" Sherlock wondered nervously, peering around the house, almost expecting Mary to be lying in her own puddle of blood on the kitchen floor.
"She's upstairs, I don't know what she's doing, only that she needed some alone time. I'm on babysitting duty." Molly admitted, nodding to where Rosie sat in the dining room, scrawling with large crayons on pieces of construction paper.
"I'm sorry Molly, I should've shot it when I had the chance, I was weak...it let John have control just long enough for me to decide against pulling the trigger." Sherlock admitted.
"She's furious at you, that much was sure. When we found you on the sidewalk she was very much inclined to run you over with her car. I assume she found about your little...well...thing?" Molly wondered.
"She's being dramatic." Sherlock decided heavily, sitting up against the armrest and messaging his temples. Dispute his attempt on pressure point therapy, his head still pounded, a headache most likely caused by stress and anxiety.
"She's not being dramatic, Sherlock you had an affair with her husband!" Molly exclaimed.
"But why does that matter now? Why can't that matter next week, if we all make it that far! What does it matter that we had an affair, John's missing, he's possessed, and Father Franklin is dead! He was the only one who could do the ritual, the only one who could read Latin, the only priest out there who will believe this ridiculous story!" Sherlock exclaimed hopelessly.
"There's another way, certainly." Molly assured softly, only now she was obviously starting to understand the severity of the situation. They both knew that there was another way, they both knew that way, and they were both much too scared to use it. But of course, as soon as Sherlock brought up that bloody alternative he noticed that the revolver was lying on the coffee table, its metal plates shining innocently in the light of the moon.
"Well the ritual didn't even work, so I suppose we don't need a priest anyway." Sherlock mumbled grumpily, pulling his knees to his chest and curling into a little ball on the couch, the blanket falling from his legs.
"You said it was complicated, maybe he just mispronounced something, and it didn't work?" Molly suggested apprehensively, obviously searching for some way to preserve the dead Father's memory.
"The Aspiration wasn't affected at all, it didn't even flinch. It was laughing. There was something wrong, maybe it was the ritual, maybe it was the spot that we had it in, I don't know. But something was wrong." Sherlock muttered, staring into the darkness that surrounded the warm circle of lamp light as though it held the answer.
"Well maybe Irene died in the house? Maybe she was torched on the front yard and ran into here, or maybe she was taken to a hospital? The librarian was very vague about what really happened." Molly pointed out. Sherlock nodded thoughtfully, his brain churning with every little detail that the Aspiration had presented.
"What if it's not Irene at all? This house is old, the property even older, she couldn't have been the only death on the property." Sherlock pointed out.
"Didn't you say they had to die by the Devil's hand? That they had to burn?" Molly wondered. "That rather narrows it down."
"Maybe this house burned down, or the one next to it! Or maybe John just strolled through the area where they burned witches centuries ago. I don't know, there has to be something, something!" Sherlock exclaimed, jumping off of the couch so abruptly that Molly jumped.
"What did it say to you, before it left? It likes you Sherlock, it wants to kill you, obviously it wouldn't hide from you forever." Molly insisted.
"If you know me you'll find me, if you know me....you'll find me. Then that's it, it's not Irene!" Sherlock exclaimed, clutching his head and spinning around in a thoughtful circle.
"Oh, well now of course, we need to go to the library, we need to research the witch burnings, there must've been one around here, it's a female, it's got to be, and it's umm...sentimental! A Satanist but one with a heart, one that wants to preserve the ones it loves, someone who wants to bring its loved ones down to Satan as companions, as equals! Accept yourself, and accept me. It will be easier that way..." Sherlock's voice trailed off, and his breathing deepened, his brain working on overtime, trying to put the pieces together, trying to make them all fit...
"Where's Mommy?" Rosie's voice asked from right beside him. Her little footfalls had been so silent that she had sneaked up on him, and Sherlock jumped horrendously, stumbling into the couch while Rosie looked up at him innocently.
"Upstairs, don't bother her." Sherlock snapped. "Don't bother me." he added, and made his way back around the couch, his train of thought having been interrupted. Disgusting children, so terribly inconvenient.
"Rosie come here, what do you need mommy for?" Molly wondered, summoning the child with outstretched arms. Rosie tottered over, her pigtails flapping as she carried the construction paper over.
"I wanted to show her my drawing." She mumbled timidly. Sherlock growled, shaking his head and pacing around the couch in a small circle.
"Oh well I'd be happy to see. Mommy needs some alone time right now." Molly explained.
"Shut up! Just be quiet." Sherlock begged, clenching his fists irritably and receiving a very disproving glare from Molly.
"Where's daddy?" Rosie wondered, obviously not heeding Sherlock's words. Sherlock groaned, again, tapping his fingers in annoyance against his leg while he waited for this idiotic exchange of useless words to be over.
"Daddy went away for a little bit." Molly admitted.
"Oh." Rosie muttered. "Where?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out!" Sherlock exclaimed, jumping silently in place while Rosie just folded over one of the corners of the paper nervously.
"Do you want me to look at it? I'd be happy to tell you my opinion." Molly offered, kneeling down so that she could be at Rosie's height.
"Okay." she agreed in a little muttered.
"Okay." Molly said with a smile.
"Hurry up if you will." Sherlock snapped, and Molly shushed him once more.
"It's a house." Rosie mumbled, observing her drawing once more as if making sure that it was okay to be judged.
"A house? Your house?" Molly wondered. Rosie just shook her head, turning the drawing around for Molly to see. Molly's face fell when she saw it; even she couldn't keep that smile plastered onto her face for long. It wasn't her expression but her silence that caught Sherlock's attention, the very noiseless peace he craved was now the very thing that made him turn around in the first place.
"Molly?" he muttered nervously. 
"Sherlock, come here." Molly muttered.
"Is it bad?" Rosie wondered nervously, looking at Molly worriedly, her little hands holding the paper determinedly.
"No, no it's wonderful." Molly assured. Sherlock walked slowly over to where Molly was kneeling, looking down at the paper and feeling his heart skip a beat.
"It's on fire." Rosie explained as soon as he got his first good look at the house. The house nestled in the woods, its magnificent rooves and beautiful painted walls surrounded with flames, streaks of red and gold in zigzagging lines of crayon. There was black smoke rising up into the night sky, swirls of the gray crayon disrupting the speckle of white dots that lined the top of the paper. He knew that house; he's always known that house, the very house depicted in crayon on this rough piece of construction paper.
"Victor." Sherlock whispered under his breath, staring in awe at the little girl, who just smiled at him, as if happy that he appreciated her drawing.
"Do you like it?" she wondered. Sherlock sank to his knees, grabbing the picture out of her hands and staring the child right in the eyes, trying to emphasize the severity of the situation to this little girl.
"Rosie, where did you see this house?" Sherlock asked seriously. Rosie looked terrified, her little eyes widening as she stumbled a couple of steps back. Obviously his sudden change of tone made her think that she was in trouble or something.
"I'm not going to yell at you, I need to know, when did you see this? Was it in the newspaper, on the TV?" Sherlock wondered. That was farfetched of course, this tragedy had happened when Sherlock was in high school, long before Rosie would've ever been alive.
"Daddy brought me." she mumbled nervously, wringing her tiny hands together.
"When, when did he bring you? Please Rosie, this is urgent, I need to know." Sherlock pleaded, holding the drawing carefully with shaking fingers. It felt like there was a bubble of anxiety rising in his throat, and he felt as though it wasn't going to pop unless Rosie gave him all the answers he needed. Otherwise he was going to suffocate.
"After daycare, he picked me up and we went to the house. He said he needed to see someone, but there was no one there. It was dark, and he went into the house for a long time. And I waited in the car. I heard him screaming." Rosie said simply. Sherlock jumped to his feet, letting the picture flutter out of his hands, landing carelessly on the floor as he dove for his jacket.
"This is it, Molly, it's not Irene, it's Victor, it's..." Sherlock cut his own words off, his throat closing as he tried to wrap his head around all of this.
"That makes sense!" Molly exclaimed in excitement, jumping to her feet as well.
"He loves me, he wants to keep me forever, he died in a fire, and...he's using John to get to me." Sherlock whispered.
"MARY!" Molly yelled, running past Sherlock and up the stairs desperately.
"No, no, don't come, he said to come alone." Sherlock called after her, grabbing his trench coat and running past the very confused Rosie towards the door. He dug around in the pockets of Mary's coat, finally unearthing her car keys.
"We're coming Sherlock, of course we're coming!" Molly exclaimed from upstairs. Sherlock just shook his head, grasping at his pockets and finding that one of his pockets was empty. He dashed back to the coffee table where the revolver lay, sitting much too close to Rosie, who was watching the adults run around for no apparent reason.
"It was a lovely drawing." Sherlock added as he grabbed the gun from the table, switching the safety on and shoving it into the deep pocket of his trench coat. He was half inclined to pop the tires of Molly's car, just to make sure the two women wouldn't follow, but he didn't have time. Victor could be there already, he could be in his house, planning his revenge...Victor. Sherlock just shook his head, jumping into Mary's slick white car and turning on the engine, backing radically out of the driveway and past the men in white suits, spraying some sort of substance over the road where the blood stained the pavement. Thankfully they didn't pay him much attention, and he was able to speed down the road, pushing seventy as he raced down the roads of suburbia. This made sense, oh how could he not have realized this before? Victor's obsession with death, with Satan, with him? This Aspiration shared all the same qualities; it even talked like Victor, acted like Victor, right before his death. He had become possessive, obsessive, almost to a point where Sherlock didn't feel safe being alone with him. Sherlock wouldn't have put murder past him back then, and he certainly wouldn't now, knowing that he had just taken the life of Father Franklin in the most gruesome way imaginable. The very idea that a mere presence of Victor Trevor still lingered on the earth gave Sherlock the chills, but it made sense. Victor had been an Aspiration since he had died, that was why Sherlock couldn't see his spirit lingering around when he went back to look. Both Victor and his parents were killed in the fire; they were probably thrown right down to hell. Victor wasn't accepted, the parents probably went right to heaven, or to the pit. Of course he would be obsessed with Sherlock from the moment he saw him, of course he would scream his name in the middle of the night, watch him while he slept, and kiss him in every way possible with the little time they had. Victor had seen Sherlock through John's eyes and fell in love over and over again with the heart of John Watson. That boy had crawled out of hell to be reunited with his love, and he wanted to drag Sherlock and the rest of humanity back down with him. Sherlock turned down the driveway erratically, the car running over multiple ditches and sticks at full speed, but he didn't care about the car maintenance, or scratching the paint, he cared about what lay ahead of him, in the charred remains of the Trevor household. John, possessed by the most despicable boy Sherlock had ever loved.