It seemed like the more Sherlock walked, the darker the blackness got. Every now and again there would be a torch flickering red, but they in next to nothing in parting the darkness. Finally, he came across a room that was brighter than all the hall, that somehow he hadn't seen before. Slowly, he stepped inside.
It looked like a fairly stereotypical dungeon, with a wide area and a stone floor, with a few weapons loaded in each of the corners. It was lit by torches on the wall that were much stronger than the ones in the hall, shining bright yellows and oranges instead of dim reds. In the middle of the room was an unnatural looking shadow like a suspended pool of black. He couldn't see any of the other side of the room, really. Although, in the front of the shadow, he could see the gentle glimmer of thick, metal bars.
Sherlock took a fearful step closer. "I know you're here." He said, softly. It was hard to speak in such an unbreakable silence. As soon as he had stepped in, the screams had seemed to stop. "There's no point in hiding."
He waited for what felt like hours in that dungeon, before a gentle, weak voice that still possessed so much fury replied. "Hiding?" It said. The voice came from the shadow, weary but ready to kill. A chill ran down Sherlock's spine as he heard footsteps clatter against the floor of the cage, and a figure that had been unnoticably tucked away in the corner stand and create a humanoid shape somehow even darker than the shadow it was standing in. Slowly it stepped forward into the light.
It was him. He looked human, (with the appearance of an about middle-aged man with blondish hair) but he couldn't have been. Even with his average clothes, such fire burned cold within his eyes so that you could peer into the inferno inside and it would look just the same as the place that surrounded Sherlock. He looked so old and tired but anything but weak; like one wrong step and he would snap your neck, which was probably an understatement. A chill ran down Sherlock's spine as who he knew was Lucifer spoke again.
"Why would I… be the one hiding?" He said slowly, his face brimming a murderously gentle smile. "I'm not the one who is talking to one of the most feared beings of all time."
Sherlock swallowed. "So it is you." He said. From where he was, he was about 5 feet from the cage, and he didn't plan on coming any closer yet.
"You knew that, Sherlock." he responded. "More importantly it is you?" He asked, seeming genuinely interested. Slowly, he wrapped a pale, decaying hand around the steel bar of the cage. "Sherlock Holmes. In the flesh."
Sherlock felt the wind knocked out of him when he heard his name said aloud by Lucifer. It swam off his tongue, like he was being ordered for execution.
"Yes. Is that name familiar?" He asked. The Devil chuckled softly to himself, his lip curling in amusement.
"You know… you're very important Sherlock." He said. Sherlock took a curious step closer.
"In what way?" He asked curiously.
"You're going to help me the way nobody else can."
Sherlock took another step closer, even more intrigued. "I plan to do no such thing."
"Oh, but that's because you don't know who you are yet, Sherlock. What honor you possess." Sherlock kept his face monotone as he took yet another step closer, right up to the bars of the cage.
"Then who am I?" he asked.
A smirk crossed Lucifer's face as a sullen shadow passed over his eyes. "You are my vessel," he said.
Sherlock's eyes widened in shock. No way. It couldn't have been.
"I…"
"You've been here before, Sherlock." The Devil interrupted, a little more loudly and casually. "You know you have. There's a certain…" he sniffed the air. "Smell here that no other place has got. You've smelled it before."
"No…"
"It's the truth, and you remember it." He continued. Slowly, he shook his head. "You couldn't survive a fall like that. And you didn't. You hit the ground so hard you went right through it… down here."
"No, that's not-"
"But then," Lucifer continued, beginning to pace back and forth through his cage. "I figured you were too important just to die, so you were lucky enough to have an angel save you." He returned to his place across from Sherlock, with his hand wrapped around the metal bar. "And then you went back to Earth like nothing had happened."
Sherlock stood there for a long time, processing and staring at the floor in shock. It all made sense. And thinking back, he did remember the certain smell that Hell possessed. Only for a moment, though, before he recalled a firm hand on his shoulder and the dirt against his skin as he was returned. He even remembered getting back and Mycroft not being at all surprised. He must have known. Or at least, some of it. All of it made perfect sense.
Yet still, he shook his head. "No…" he insisted.
"Oh, come on Sherlock! It all makes sense and you know it."
"Yes… most of it…" Sherlock agreed, his eyes still drifting across the floor. "It makes perfect sense that I died and was returned. But… if you were the one to save me…" Slowly, he brought his eyes up to Lucifer's, fury and hatred starting to flicker behind his calm face. "Then by no definition was I saved by an angel."
Lucifer's cocky smile was gone in an instant. His lip curled into a sneer, and suddenly a hand burst out of the shadow, firmly grasping the collar of Sherlock's trench coat. His heart raced, as he pulled away from Lucifer's grasp.
"I am just as much an angel as any of my other brothers." He spat at Sherlock in a hushed whisper. "And don't you ever forget it!"
Sherlock put his hands on the bars and pushed himself away, taking several fearful steps back. He watched for a moment as the demon backed slowly away, vanishing like a shadow into the darkness of the back of the cage. His eyes were the last thing he saw, flickering red, before he seemed completely gone. Then, Sherlock turned on his heels and went out to meet up with his brother.
Once he was a few steps into the hall, he pulled out his phone to see if Sam had called him. It must have been nearing the time that the I.V. was finished, maybe a little early. Although, instead he found a voice mail from Dean. Not as though he hadn't expected it.
Most of it was boring, expected. You're fucking dead meat, I will find you, et cetera, et cetera.
But it was the second part that caught him off-guard.
"You're gonna miss the fact that humans had empathy." Dean said over the phone. Sherlock rolled his eyes and kept listening.
"Oh and by the way, I read that blog of your friend's." Sherlock creased his eyebrows. He had already figured that out, but why would he be bringing it up? He kept listening.
"Sounds like a nice guy. Shame he got such an asshole as friend. To be honest, I don't even want to imagine the disappointment in his eyes. What would John think, Sherlock? What do you really think he would say if he could see you here, killing and torturing innocent people?!"
As soon as the name John came up, a spark began lighting in Sherlock's stomach. How dare he say that, how dare he even say his name?! Fury rose up as he listened to the questions that were being demanded of him. Horrible amounts of anger rose up in his chest because that's how much anger you need to cover up horrible amounts of fear. He knew the answer to that question, and he didn't want to even think about it. He didn't want to know the disappointment in his eyes. He didn't ever want to think about him at all.
Slowly, his lip curled and his fists balled. He lowered the phone from his ear. He let his breath get heavier. Suddenly, with all the strength he had he threw the phone aside at the wall. He felt like he could kill someone. Then again, he felt like he could die himself.
Luckily, a distraction wasn't far off. He noticed as soon as he'd thrown the phone that it hadn't hit a wall, and instead continued sliding far across the ground. He peered intensely through the darkness. A hallway? It must have been. It was darker than any of the wall surrounding it.
To even more prove his point, he watched as the phone slid across the floor out of the darkness, back to his feet.
Nothing was more iconic of a trap, but how could he do anything else? With a look down both sides of the hallway, he went in to investigate.
"How long are we gonna be putting up protection, I mean, is there even a point?" Crowley, well-known king of Hell spread his arms in questioning to Mycroft Holmes, discussing the means of keeping Lucifer caged.
"We need as much protection as is demonically possible." Mycroft told him. "Check your stores. See what you have."
Crowley sighed. "Right…" He muttered, then walked off to see what weaponry they had. Out of the corner of his eye, Mycroft saw his brother walking up to him, and he gave a brisk smile.
"Ah, Sherlock. Discussed all you like with Lucifer?" Sherlock didn't reply. He only gave a gentle yet menacing smirk. Mycroft's face dropped as he looked down to see the iron bar Sherlock was holding. "No…" he said. "Not Sherlock…" Before he could move, Sherlock (or whoever was utilizing his body) swung the bar at Mycroft. Fear drifted in his eyes for a split second before he vanished into a puff of smoke, and the stranger was left alone, smirking at his own demise.
