Chapter Title: Children of Sin and Light
Chapter Rating: T
Chapter Length: 3,084 (don't know why I buther)
Warning(s): A lot of references to religion in this chapter, some talk about violence, Lucifer being Lucifer, and some pain on John's part
Pairing/Characters: John, Lucifer/Octavious, Sherlock, Mycroft, mentions of Moriarty/Michael, no pairing this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock, or Sherlock Holmes, they belong to Sir Doyle, Mark Gatiss, and Steven Moffat. Nevertheless, I do own the story and the descriptions of people in the story, I don't claim however to own the names of the people I'm describing.
A/N: I'll let you know, this fic has the weirdest list of inspirational music. Seriously, I asked D.A.V.I.D. for a song to listen to while I was writing about Lucifer/Octavious and she gave me a link to Teeth by Lady Gaga. So… now when I hear the song… I think of Lucifer, and his big ass fire grin. And then there is the later chapters and me listening to the ONLY good song from Moulin Rouge, El Tango de Roxanne. Don't look at me like that, it's a good song. I like it. Anyway, so those are just two of the songs I listened to while writing this fic. But yea, chapter four, finally revealing why the Denizens of Hell are protecting Sherlock, I hope it doesn't sound stupid :c
Mycroft pulled a face, the kind of face one would give that says "I don't believe you but seeing as I'm staring at a man with the remains of wings jutting from his back I have no choice but to listen to you." While Sherlock, looked about ready to dose up on something strong that would make all of this feel more logical. John wanted to reach for him, pat his hand in reassurance, instead he curled further into his corner of the couch as far from Sherlock as he could physically move. Octavious' body seemed to flicker, cracks running down from his eyes as he turned his attention to John, as if Lucifer's true body was trying to burn through, and a hiss emitted from somewhere in his chest.
"John." The fire in the hearth behind him blazed a little brighter and bigger catching John's attention. "Astaroth has missed your stories." He smiled and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together. "Wonders when you will return with more." His head tilted slightly, white curls dripping from his head like fire. John could only think of him as being Octavious in this human form, but he met his slightly inhuman gaze still rubbing at his wrists.
"Not for a while." As if he had passed a test, Lucifer made a motion with his hand and John tossed him the metal dog tags.
"Sherlock Holmes, this is a lot to take in within such a short time, yes? I do apologize for all this, it's not really your fault, blame me if you must." He ran his fingers over the metal chain of John's tags, fusing the metal back together with liquid fire. "You see, many lifetimes ago, there was a war, none of you youngsters would know of such an ancient battle, even in the small hidden animal part of your child brains." He pointed at the temple of his human head and smiled up at Sherlock. "I fought the legions of heaven with my own faithful servants. God had made me a perfect being, infinitely wise and infinitely powerful. But he was such a flawed creature, and so imperfect and so much more arrogant and cowardly then I. It's obvious in the way he hides. The scriptures of man say I was cast out, no, I battled my way to the throne room and showed him I was stronger, I was powerful and he was playing us like children's toys and I would not let him do that to my brothers. Michael was enamored with our Lord, and would do anything that was asked of him. So, God granted him the power to wield a Golden Lance with the power to banish others from heaven. And I was banished, with my brothers we fell through the Earth and broke into our own realm." He tossed the metal chain to John, who deftly caught it and laid it out in his lap, knowing Octavious would frown on him for hiding his wings.
"This happened so many millennia ago I cannot count, there is no sense of time in Hell, no need for it, it all blends together really." He turned his attention back to Sherlock who was slowly extracting himself from the corner of the couch he'd shoved himself into. A sparkle of fire lit in Octavious' eye as he leaned forward on the chair. "A piece, just a small piece, of my soul fractured from me when he banished me. I've searched a long, long time for it. It's been hiding, in the flaws of the Earth where I couldn't sense or find it. So I call to it, and I look for it, and when it finally pulls itself from where it has crashed, low and behold, it's fused into the soul of a human, still growing in the womb. I should have taken it back, ended this petty war between myself and God, but unlike our Holy Father, I don't believe in killing without purpose. Plus, I wanted to see what kind of human would spawn from me, even if it was by accident." Sherlock seemed completely uncurled from his contemplative state as Lucifer inched his way forward. "I watched as my soul fused with the human's to create a child of brilliant human parents, I watched him grow, and find his place, he was so bright and shining and perfect, and I felt as if you really were my son." None of them were sure how or when they got so close but Lucifer reached long fingers out and barely brushed the dark curls from Sherlock's forehead causing the pale eyes to flit closed. Burning of hellfire under the skin, Octavious' fingertips skimmed against Sherlock's face as he pulled his hand away to rub some dust from his own cheek, out of the cracks that were slowly spreading to his chin.
"They think you're the Anti-Christ." Octavious whispered conspiratorially into the still air. Sherlock stared at him, blank and confused. "In all honesty, you probably are. They want to kill you, stop you from rising to power, but they can't let you die normally. If you die naturally, with my soul fused with yours you'll rise higher and stronger than Gabriel and Michael. You could rival mine and even our Lord's power. So of course, he assigned Michael to make sure you didn't live, make sure you didn't die of natural causes. And if so, that it was before your power reached its peak. John here, is my dear, dear friend, he got along so well with everyone. And of course there was that… one little deed. So compassionate, and so loyal to human kind, and to me before he even knew it. And he paid the price with his wings." His bones shuttered at that, drawing closer to his back as if that could hide them from the burning that they had already been subjected to. Sherlock turned his attention to his only real friend, boring holes into John's soul in a way that was all too similar to Lucifer's gaze he is surprised he never saw the resemblance.
"What did you do, kill someone?" Sherlock's eyes narrowed, as if they could extract the information without John having to speak.
"No." John whispered, picking at his shirt sleeve, trying to remove invisible ash. "I was an angel, on their side. I was pretty good at it too. Angel's save lives, but they also help those along who are waiting to die. I had been a doctor in my life before, so it wasn't a big change really. And I kind of liked it, felt like I was doing something good. But we had never been asked to kill someone before. So when Michael gave me the order to do so I wasn't quite sure what to do. And when it came time I just… couldn't. Something about this human told me that he needed to live, he was too important to let die. So I returned to heaven and I refused. And I was banished…" John touched a hand to his shoulder, where the lance had pierced his very existence and couldn't be washed out, even while wearing a human's life.
Mycroft and Sherlock scoffed in unison, obviously more similar then either liked to admit. Lucifer suppressed a snicker behind an odd childish pout and twirled the oddly shaped cufflinks that John were sure looked like lighters despite the dark obsidian color to them. More cracks were scattering across Octavious' face with each twist of his face.
"Who was so important you'd get yourself thrown out of heaven for?" Sherlock lounged back onto the couch cushions, giving him a critical, almost mocking look. All back to his usual snarky self as if finding out your father is Lucifer is a normal occurrence. "If it's such an amazing place, why argue with the righteous hand of your Lord?" John glared at him, wings flaring, the tips of clawed bone scraping the ceiling and showering them with paint chips. Sherlock's lips tightened into a thin line, obviously his confidence over the situation had been lost to his fear of exactly what John was.
"It was about five years ago, in a dingy abandoned motel room. The sky so dark you almost couldn't see, and I was told to kill one man, one insignificant tiny human being. Told to squash him underfoot and make sure to scrap off the mess." John's teeth flashed and his eyes blazed yellow, Hellfire sluggishly building in his veins. He was standing, looming above Sherlock, wings flared out prepared to strike or protect depending on the situation. "But what I found was a strung out worthless bag of flesh. Slowly killing himself on the drugs he couldn't kick. He was too stupid to realize everything he would lose and didn't know about what was to become of him. And despite his shallow emptiness, this man could not see me, and inches from death wouldn't have believed in me even if he did, spoke to me. Not with words, or conventional means but something deeper and I knew he had to live, that if I killed him there would be nothing left of anyone. That night I saved him, blessed him with the Holy Star I had been given instead of killing him with it. I saved his life at the risk of my own soul." All the fight suddenly drained from John, his wings falling limp behind him, careful to avoid Mycroft and Octavious. He looked so very small and human under the grim and ash stained into his skin.
"That man, Sherlock Holmes, was you." Sherlock's eyes flashed with something of awe and confusion and the closes to affection he'd probably ever get. "I fell, quite literally, for you. I burned for you, Sherlock. You were that important." John turned then, wings drooping against the floor again, careful to drag the curves of his claws rather than the points. He moved back to his side of the couch, perching on the arm rest this time, kicking off his shoes as he sat to dig clawed toes into the crevice between the cushion and the arm. Lucifer sighed, happy and gushy, though it was starting to lose its human quality and sound more like fire and burning earth. He bounded up onto his toes, clapping his hands again, a chip of skin flaking off a spot on his jaw close to his ear.
"Well, everything is settled, I'm sure the three of you can work everything out from here, hmm? Mycroft Holmes, I'm sure you'll have questions." He twisted his wrist and in the same manner he had materialized the apple for John months (weeks, days, years) ago a plain black business card appeared between his index and middle finger. He flicked his hand out in Mycroft's direction. Though the elder Holmes' face hadn't fallen from of his mask of indifference, the hesitation in taking the offered card was hard to hide. He turned it in his fingers, the card blank except for the dark empty void it seemed to create in the very fabric of the world.
"Don't worry, it'll come of use." He winked at Mycroft, sly suggestive smile playing on his human lips. His hair was starting to curl more, spinning and moving around his head, like flames slowly unfreezing, coming to life, and his eyes had a black edge to them. Small chips of skin flaking off and turning to dust in the air. "Pity I have to go already, I can hold this form only so long." Octavious fiddled with his cuff links again staring off into a distance beyond Baker Street's window as his body quivered, trying to keep its human shape. Turning his blue eyes back on John, he gave him a grave look. "Before I go John, I must know…" He searched John's face briefly before running his hands down the front of his suit. "Your honest opinion, how does this body look?" His face almost split in two when he grinned. "It's rather gorgeous I have to say." He tilted his head back, running a hand through his twisting hair, the other running down the buttons of his jacket. "It took some time, but I love it. It's nice to have skin again." John almost smacked his palm to his face. But it was nice of him to lighten the mood a bit.
"You look excellent your highness. Now don't you have somewhere to be?" Octavious pouted shuffling his feet a bit.
"Yes, yes, the wife needs tending, but do you have to spoil my fun?"
"Yes, now go to Hell." Was John's instant response and Octavious grabbed at his chest.
"Oh, dear wonderful John! You may have dosed my Hellfire." He stumbled, a complete accident from the looks of it. "John, you do tease. But it seems I have to leave now, don't get into too much trouble without me darling." He twisted his fingers around the cufflinks again, giving John a sly grin that murmured of "watch what I can do."
"Cause a mess and I'll-" he never finished his sentence. In a blaze of brimstone and black and blue and white flames Octavious burned into a pile of dust that oddly looked like crushed obsidian on their rug. "Well…" John grumbled, "could have been worse."
-v-v-
That night the three of them didn't sleep.
Mycroft had questions, needed reassurances that his brother, no matter how supposedly powerful he was or would be, was safe with John.
Sherlock had questions, needed reasons and evidence on how he hadn't seen any of this sooner, despite his lack of knowledge on the human condition.
They talked about what happened with Moriarty-Michael- and what the official reports Mycroft was going to have to write up and lock away were going to be, and what they were going to tell Lestrade the official report was. Mycroft had called 'Anthea' to the pool, asked her to dispose of the explosives quietly and to gather the dust. He is sure that Sherlock was going to want to experiment on it, Mycroft would send him some samples before sending some off to the labs.
And of course, both insisted on watching John put the restraining tags back on.
"Take the shirt off." Sherlock tapped his foot impatiently, arms folded pulling his imitation of a petulant child rather well as he stood a safe distance behind John who stood in the center of the living room.
"Why the bloody hell should I take off my shirt? Isn't enough I'm letting you watch at all?" John snarled, the closest he would ever get to sounding demonic . Mycroft moved to stand closer to Sherlock, leaning on his umbrella giving John a once over.
"Apologies John, I'll agree with Sherlock on this one. Shirt, off. It'll be easier on you I am sure, and it's an obstruction for our viewing." He reasoned, which was far better than Sherlock's "because" just a second ago.
"Shirts ruined anyway…" John sighed unbuttoning the top buttons on his shirt and sliding it and the sweater over his head, easy seeing as the wings had ripped long lines down the back. He dropped the ruined articles at his feet and flexed the bones of his back. "Better?" He glared over his shoulder, but neither were looking at him. They were looking at the hideous charred flesh around where his wings grew from his back. John looked away, feeling a wave of self-consciousness roll through his stomach.
The Fallen all looked the same on their backs. The fall wasn't so bad to them in general, they kept a human shape, they were eternally marked by the fires they fell into, but they retained some of their flesh. Their backs though, their backs where their wings had burned in the atmosphere, scraping away at their angelic power and burning them away to the very bone, was another reason they hid from the other residents. It spread out from the protrusions, down the back. Closest to the bone, it looked like crumbling earth, if you touched it the whole of their back could fall apart. John had seen it, the skeletal insides and empty nothing that was what made up his eternal body. A gaping nothing. As the destruction radiated further from the greatest impact cracks and fissures rattled across his back and up just barely over his shoulders. And then there was the gold pulsing scar in his left shoulder, that still hurt on occasion, holy power still evident in the mark of his banishing.
He couldn't see Sherlock move, but he could feel the air shift as Sherlock's trembling hand reached to run long white fingers over blackened bone wings. John jerked them out of reach, pulling them as close to his crumbling back as possible.
"Don't, Sherlock. You saw what I did to that Angel." His heart was pounding, frightened of what, exactly, hellfire would do to the detective.
"Don't be ridiculous John." Sherlock derided. "Lucifer said himself, I have a piece of his soul, I'm sure it won't do any such thing."
"Sherlock. You're human, despite what you might think. Your soul is powerful but it's trapped in a human vessel. I could very well kill you." Mycroft's umbrella came into play after that, crossing Sherlock's chest and pulling him back a few steps.
"Please proceed, John." He nodded at the glinting chain in his loose hand. John bit his lip, keeping his attention on the wall opposite him. It was going to hurt, he remembered that much. The chain fell around his neck and-dearLucifermotherofHell- it burned hotter and brighter than it had the first time. His human heart stuttered in his chest, and he's sure he died at least twice during the process. His bones cracked and groaned, collapsing in on themselves and ripping through the crumbled flesh of his back. His claws withdrew into his fingers, his vision fluctuated as his eyes changed shape and color. He doesn't know when it happened but somewhere during the process he had collapsed onto aching knees, and hellfire was scorching across his wounds, sealing the flesh together as Lucifer once had, but from the inside. John was gasping, sweating, and shaking by the time it was done, the new bones in his back shifting to find a comfortable position under the constraining skin.
Both brothers were silent.
-v-v-
John slept after that, asking Mycroft to stay long enough for him to rest, to wake him if something happened. The older Holmes' only nodded in agreement, Sherlock didn't argue, having busied himself with the Bible, seeing if he could find what truths lay in the scriptures compared to what Lucifer had told them.
Crawling into his human bed had some sort of comfort. The soft, familiar blankets cool and soothing around his overheated flesh. He closed his eyes, just as rays of the morning sun bounced off a neighboring window and into his room.
It was 3:06 the next morning, according to John's clock and the lack of light outside his window. The room was silent, and surprisingly the only sounds from downstairs were the quiet whispers of Mycroft and his assistant. John blinked, contemplating the darkness, trying to decide what had woken him. At about this time in the morning, Sherlock was either just waking up or causing a ruckus right before sleep. The first couple weeks it used to wake John, every night without fail. But as he stayed with Sherlock, got used to his schedule, he was easily able to sleep through the noise.
Tonight it was quiet. John listened harder, and that's when he moved. His dressing gown swishing about his legs as he slid closer to the bed. John lay on his stomach, face turned away from the window, as he usually did. A hand hovered over the skin of his back, debating what its next move was.
"Did you need something Sherlock?" The hand snatched away, and he stood still, as if hoping John would think it was all his imagination and go back to sleep. His skin had already returned to its normal pinkish tone, the glow of hellfire having dimmed once he awoke from sleep. "Sherlock, I know you're there." Hesitantly, Sherlock shifted again, perching himself on the edge of John's bed, near his hip. John shifted slightly, just to get more comfortable, his wings shifting under his skin. His legs had managed to hold onto the blankets, but they had slid down his body, as they usually did, almost as if to give his skin more room. Sherlock's fingers finally tipped forward again, stopping inches from skin, before resting a palm flat in the dip between John's shoulder blades, purposefully avoiding the hidden wings.
"No, I don't need anything, I just…" his fingers trailed down John's spine, before slowly sliding back up. "Does it… do they hurt?" He ran the tips of his fingers over the skin of one of John's shoulders, careful to avoid the bones.
"Sometimes." John hummed, closing his eyes to the sensation.
"What about this?" His voice was soft, but scientific in its method. As he spoke, his fingers ran over a shoulder blade, down John's back, tracing the bones of his wings. The skin shifted under his touch.
"No… just different." He could hear Sherlock nod, before an arm folded across John's back, fingers cupping his shoulder blade, his other hand still caressing John's bones.
"Go back to sleep John." Sherlock whispered, his curls tickling John's skin as the detective rested a cheek against his forearm. John sighed and complied, the fire under his skin slowly built into a warm glow, heating Sherlock's cold skin as the Fallen Angel fell back into comfortable sleep.
