Title: Hellfire

Chapter Title: The Place Faith Lies

Author: Harley

Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: M for the whole thing, only like T this chapter
Length: 2,871 words this chapter

Warning(s): A lot of references to religion, homosexuality, and violence in later chapters

Pairing/Characters: John, Lucifer, Michael, some Angels and Fallen and people, no pairings 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: Ok, as warning now: I'm not religious. So I apologize for borrowing the names of people from the Bible if you are religious. I know the characters in this aren't going to be how the Bible describes them, or how they act in the Bible. However, I am not going to change their descriptions or actions so if you are religious and offended by my use of people from the Bible either don't read or politely tell me. Despite that, if you are religious and want to give me constructive feedback or criticism I will gladly listen and use what I can. I thrive on comments and criticism, so please don't feel afraid to send me a review. So this was the prompt from D.A.V.I.D. : FallenAngel!John and Angel!Moriarty fighting over Sherlock's soul, Sherlock doesn't know until a prescribed date (I'd tell you but that just might ruin it). Last warning for this fic. I will deviate from the BBC Sherlock plot and story, I'm staying as close to Cannon as possible, but it's kind of hard when you've completely changed the nature of two characters. First time posting Sherlock fics, so I hope I don't disappoint. Anyway, enjoy the fic, and here is chapter one.

The first time John H. Watson died was sometime after 1880, he remembers because he'd been wounded rather severely during the Battle of Maiwand. They almost discharged him then. But he refused, they needed him there, in the war, not back on her Majesties doorstep, he was no use there. No bodies to mend, no sickness to cure. No, they needed him there, on the lines.

He doesn't remember the particular day, or time. Not even the month really. He does remember lying in a hospital bed somewhere in India, his fellow struck comrades lying about in the hot tent with him. Enteric fever, he remembers thinking. They'll send him back for sure this time. And he can't help but feel the pang of loss at the idea of being invalidated by some blasted illness. He closes his eyes to the sting of frustration, and gives into the exhaustion.

He doesn't wake up.

That's not entirely true though. He does wake up, but he just doesn't wake up alive.

The air around him is frothy and almost glows, bright and warm and pleasant. He feels light and calm, content with his position despite all the questions that crop up. They blow out his mind like clouds or sunlight and he finds himself walking. His feet don't touch anything, but he knows his moving legs are taking him somewhere. The air shifts around him, embraces him in cool sweet touches as he draws closer to wherever it is he's headed. As he walks people materialize into existence around him, shrouded in light and nothing and despite it all their bare bodies are obscured by the mirage following them.

A glint of the sun before them has him turning his attention back to his, to their, destination. It isn't a shining gold gate, like they describe in books or stories. It's a pulsing warm light that reaches past their physical bodies and wraps around their minds and very souls, pulling them enticingly forward. They don't ever actually reach the point on the horizon that feels as if it is getting bigger and brighter and hotter and infinitely more brilliant then anything they've ever seen. But the light catches hold of their mind and holds onto them and there is a collective sigh as they are all joined with this… entity and with each other and millions and millions of others hidden away in what John can only describe as clouds of existence.

This, he thinks to himself, must be heaven.

-v-v-

His memories of Heaven are foggy and are seen through a distorted filter that never gives him a clear picture and hurts his nonphysical head trying to remember. What he does remember is the fall. There is a pulsing energy in his grasp, a bright burning light warm and happy. But he has done something very wrong, something he wasn't supposed to. Michael stands before him, a ring of archangels and angels circling him from all sides. A golden lance was in Michael's grip and his fierce expression set as if in stone. The light in John's palm bursts forth, exploding in his fingers covering his body and burning him alive. Through the haze of pain and fire the lance pierces his shoulder, ripping through his soul and he's screaming and through the din of pure agony and sorrow and dear lord, I don't want to die again he heard Michael whisper to him.

"You are banished from this Holy Kingdom, John Watson. May your soul burn for your treachery." And he was falling then. And burning, god, the heat and the flames were too strong. He was screaming but the wind whipped it from his throat forcing the pain inward with no release. He felt his wings catch, as he entered the atmosphere of earth, burning away the feathers and flesh until blackened bone was all that was left and he couldn't catch any wind without the whole structure. And he was falling, and falling, and falling, and burning.

-v-v-

What he thought was death a second time, many called the Falling, rather obvious name, but it was what it was. Others called it a second death, just as John had. Lucifer called it a rebirth.

"Poor poor thing. Poor poor Angel John. You were such a good Angel, weren't you? Just couldn't stand to let someone die. So they ripped out your feathers. It's alright. I don't mind what you did at all, it was very noble. All who enter my domain are welcome." A soothing deep crackling of fire reverberated in John's mind. Upon opening his eyes his blurred vision caught sight of something that was stroking a hand through his ash dyed hair, and scorch marked flesh while John rested in its lap. John had to blink several times, as its body had the effect of a movie reel skipping, flickering in and out of proper clarification. Its structure changing shape and appearance as if it couldn't settle on one. For a moment the being looked like a large snake like creature, with dark red slitted eyes. The next a young girl with flowers in her pleated blonde hair, the next an old man, withered and bent with time.

It decided to rest on a dark massed figure, fissures running through its skin, separating with every unnecessary breath it took to release sparks of embers and a view of bubbling fire under the black cracked flesh of its body, which turned the blackened flesh around it red in the half-light of low burning fire pits. Where eyes should be were smooth sparkling black unblinking surfaces. They caught the light like obsidian and reflected in a manner close enough to eyes you could convince yourself that they were, the shine giving the impression of which direction it was looking. When it opened its mouth to speak there were no teeth they melted with ever flick of his long burning forked tongue, licking at cracked lips, sealing the fissures to make it easier to speak. Its mouth was a dim blue color inside, hot and bright burning every time it sucked down what John assumed was oxygen.

This, he realized rather quickly, was The Devil.

-v-v-

John didn't get much time in hell, not as much as he had in heaven, but it's not like he really remembers anything of his time there. Other fallen said it was universal, most of them didn't bother trying, so when he'd shrugged and said he rather liked it down here anyhow, they'd smiled mischievously at him and continued their card game, using feathers for chips. But life was relatively peaceful, unlike what he could remember of his angelic existence, it was like a giant community down below. Everyone got along in this strange way, like a family almost. A very weird, doomed for eternity family. But none the less family. He spent most his time with the other fallen. Comrades in familiarity, he supposed, rather than living arrangements. There were others like him, that hadn't really done anything wrong, had just refused to do their angelic duty. And others who had purposefully gone against God's wishes. And then there were the few that had gone around murdering people for the fun of it, until ending their spree with killing a couple other angels. "Some of Michael's favorite little boys and girls," he'd winked at John while retelling the tale, and despite the horror John couldn't help but smile and come back again the next day to hear more stories of what the others remembered.

Then there were the Unholy, the ones who in living had killed children, and murdered families, and ruined lives. Surprisingly, they were rather friendly too. They pat John on the back, avoiding his mutilated wings, told him that a good soul like him didn't deserve to be down here. He was often a little morose though, a little jealous, that they had wings that worked, large leathery beautiful things. They differed depending on the power of the person, and their horns jutted at different parts of their heads curling in different ways, making everyone unique. And like many fallen, it made John subconsciously ashamed of his rattling useless wings and wish to hide them behind black cloth, and capes.

In the deeper older parts of hell, where it was quieter and fewer beings meandered about, trying to find something, anything, to hold their interest, there were others that hid in the crags and the shadows. Very few wandered that far, but John was curious and bored and the other Fallen were lazing about today and John had never been able to sit still for long. Down here, where the fires burned hottest and strongest and even the Unholy avoided, lived The Old Ones. The ones that had once been fallen like himself, the ones that had fallen into hell with Lucifer. They were taller than the other residents, their horns large and menacing jutting and curling, some had a few rows, one had a crown of them circling his head. Large bony wings jut from their backs, some had more than one pair, some had grown black shadow like things that when they flapped blew out the flames around them. When John had wandered into their domain a few stepped out from their holes. Others who had wandered this far called their power oppressing, the presences of such awe inspiring creatures making the others flee and never come back.

But being surrounded by them, John didn't feel any of that. In fact he felt welcomed and an appreciation for his arrival. Some sat down, to be closer to his less than average height, without speaking John clambered up on a jagged rock so they wouldn't have to bend so far to be at eye level. One reached behind John, moving the cloth that hid his shameful wings and without moving his lips told him he shouldn't be ashamed of them. From then on John returned a couple days, hours, weeks, years, time was an abstract here, but he would return and sit with The Old Ones, telling them about his time on earth, and of what he could remember of heaven. They found his stories fascinating, having long since avoided the surface world, being unable to blend in with the humans of the world above. In return they told him stories of old, in deep rumbling thunder that echoed in the small corner of hell they dwelled in without once moving their lips. They told him of the heaven they had known, back when God would grace the angel's with the ability to see him rather than "hiding like the coward he is." They told of the wars, and the fall and how much more it burned and they showed John what the underworld had taught them through the millennia of waiting. Hellfire was something that Unholy only dreamed about, and Fallen were too afraid to think on. It was a mystical ancient thing, having existed far before they had that could only be mastered by those granted the privilege by the land around them. In general, The Old Ones or Lucifer himself were the only ones to use it.

Lucifer was another strange one, an odd fixture in all their afterlives. He would wander among them, play cards with the Fallen, cause natural disasters on earth with the Unholy, sit in the crags with his brothers The Old Ones. He joined John for one of his story sessions with them, listening to John tell the story of his fall, and why God had banished him. When he spoke Michael's name, the others roared and snarled. Lucifer glowed a burning hot white flame in his rage and stood, recanting his battle with his brother Michael. It was spectacular display of power, control, and grace and John was never to forget it. Blue and orange Hellfire swirled in Lucifer's palms, changing into the shapes of Michael and their leader, flinging them into the air to reenact the battle as he continued the prose in a hiss of steam.

But other than that one time, Lucifer was calm, a little strange and overbearing, but he was good to all his "children and siblings" as he called all of them. Accepted everyone as he had first told John. It was thousands of years later, but only five human ones, of John being in this peaceful existence that Lucifer slithered up to his side.

"John! Good proper, John!" He'd said looping a cracked arm over John's burned shoulders, careful to avoid the blackened charred bones of John's wings. "I have an errand for you, one you'll like. It won't be too hard, not for you. Doctor John, Mr. Watson, are going to keep someone safe for me. Keep his soul intact. We need him alive. The Angel's aren't too happy about that though and want him dead, tutut, don't ask questions, no time. You have to save him, protect him, keep him from their dirty… pure… glowy touches. If anyone can do it, it's you John Watson!" His face contorted into a smirk, or the closest thing living lava could form of a similar nature. It cracked and popped at the edges, like fire embers in a pit. Didn't make it easier for John to catch exactly what the man, demon, Lucifer, was saying but he knew he was being led somewhere sacred as he passed the corner of hell The Old Ones slept in. By the lack of entities and the hushed silence that had fallen amongst the crags and pillars of hellstone it had to be somewhere Lucifer normally didn't take others.

They came to a great hanging ledge, out over a deep canyon that stretched for miles and dropped into nothing. A bright dot could be seen over the nothing somewhere in the distance, somewhere in the top of Hell.

"That's where I fell, you see, that? That's where I fell through the earth, cracked through into my own domain. But enough about me, no more dawdling, stop side tracking me." He hissed at himself, and at John, as if both were irritating and doing it on purpose, not that it made sense either way. Which was a strange habit, but those that lived with him got used to it. "I'm sending you through it. Only strong ones and Fallen can, but you're strong, strong enough to disobey god, strong enough to get through. Once through everything will fall into place for you, you'll meet up, you'll find him. It may take a bit though, I'm not sure when I'm dropping you." He was rambling again, and John just nodded numbly unsure exactly what he was to do. Metal tags were dropped rather suddenly around his neck and a pain scorched through his body as his bony wings cracked and broke and folded in under his skin. It hurt, like when he'd fallen, the burning of his feathers and flesh from the long limbs. John's legs wobbled, Lucifer steadied him against his chest, a sizzling hand running down his shoulder blades where the bones had disappeared, sealing the skin together and leaving scars as the only proof that there had been anything there to begin with. Another of those crackling smirks spread across Lucifer's face.

"Dear John. Keep him safe and protected. It's the only way to end this. To end all this." His voice trailed off. As his empty face turned out towards the canyon. "A gift, oh yes, a gift would be a lovely thing to give." A twist of his free hand and in a blaze of black flame a shining gold apple appeared in his grasp. His voice gained a snake like tint to it as he passed the fruit over to John's waiting hands. "Eat thisss." Glancing down at the small golden orb in his hands, John felt uneasy, or as close to it as he could get. He figured dying twice was the limit and there really was no way he could die a third time. His jaw tingled, and his teeth ached with the motion he hadn't used in so many years. And when he swallowed a distant thump jolted against his ribs. He ignored it, taking a second, and a third bite, and finishing it, core and all, by the fourth. The thump grew louder and stronger, harder and faster as his brain began firing signals and showing him glimpses and images and colors. He had to clutch at the skin over his chest to realize that his heart was beating, and his brain was pouring buckets full of information into his mind. He didn't see it coming, and nor did Lucifer give him warning. Except the whispered "and for protection…" before a fiery hand rested over his now beating heart and he felt a swell of heat and fire in his veins he'd never known and suddenly he was burning and blazing and it hurt and felt like pure bliss all at once.

"Hellfire," Lucifer cackled, "feels good, don't it?" And John was falling, staring up at Lucifer's fading face over the side of the ridge as John was falling and falling and falling.