"Franklin, it's back!" Sherlock exclaimed suddenly, landing onto the blankets with a thud. Before the Aspiration could do anything, however, Father Franklin jumped into action, spraying it with holy water and making John hiss in disgust.
"Oh you disgusting priest, you'll pay for that!" the Aspiration screamed, launching John's body at the priest and sending him falling back into the closet. Sherlock ran to assist; grabbing both of John's flailing arms and pulling him back, trying to restrain him as much as possible. It fought fiercely, trying to use its incomparable strength to wrench itself out of Sherlock's grip, but he had a strong hold as well, and he wasn't going to let it slip out so easily. Sherlock held the creature's wrists as tightly as he could, holding onto them even though the Aspiration flailed and kicked and wiggled, trying to escape. Father Franklin got back to his feet, brushing off his jacket and flinging more holy water onto the possessed man. The Aspiration howled in pain, its flesh sizzling wherever the water touched it.
"Oh don't try to contain me Sherlock, don't try to beat me. I will kill you, I will kill you all! And I will return to my master with the souls of the sinners and of the saints and I will be rewarded beyond my dreams!" The Aspiration cried.
"Not if we beat you first." Sherlock hissed into the Aspiration's ear, feeling it shutter against him.
"Oh Sherlock, you give me chills." It muttered back, leaning farther into Sherlock's grip and not bothering to fight any longer. His arms stilled, but Sherlock didn't slacken his grip. He wasn't going to let it go that easily.
"Get him outside." Father Franklin instructed, grabbing the leather bound book from where it sat on the dresser and starting into the hallway himself.
"Oh, now it's just you and me Sherlock, just like before. We had such a lovely time, before, even when I was tucked away inside John's body I could see what he was doing, I could feel it. Oh Sherlock, your touch was just wonderful, and your skin, and your lips..." it whispered.
"Shut up, walk." Sherlock instructed, kicking out one of the Aspiration's legs so that it started its way to the door. But it wouldn't walk, it just stayed very still, leaning against Sherlock's chest and breathing heavily, its black smoke engulfing the both of them in a hellish fog.
"I know what you're going to try to do to me Sherlock, and it's not going to work." The Aspiration sung.
"We'll see about that." Sherlock snapped, beginning to drag the Aspiration to the door. It didn't help or anything, but then again, it didn't fight. Sherlock had expected a lot more fight from a ghost that was getting led to its place of exorcism. But instead it just started to laugh, cackling with a satanic humor and letting itself get dragged down the stairs and into the darkened front yard. It was laughing because it saw some humor in the fact that Sherlock thought he was going to beat it. It was laughing because it knew he was wrong. Sherlock had just managed to drag the Aspiration out the door when Mary's car pulled into the driveway, the headlights illuminating the gloomy twilight. She leapt out of the car without even turning off the engine, springing to her husband with a cry of horror.
"Don't touch him Mary." Sherlock instructed as she ran over, her purse dangling wildly from her arm.
"It's not him, oh, oh my god, it's not him!" Mary exclaimed, tears starting down her cheeks as she looked at the weak form of John Watson, slumped against Sherlock's chest as he dragged his limp feet across the lawn.
"Ah, the wife." The Aspiration laughed, its voice cutting through the darkness like nails on a chalkboard.
"You get out of him, you hear me, you leave my husband!" Mary exclaimed, throwing her purse onto the ground in despair. Sherlock just groaned, tightening his grip on John's wrists and tugging him to the middle of the front yard. Father Franklin was standing near the mailbox, reading over the Latin ritual by a light on his phone, muttering to himself to make sure he got the pronunciation correct. Sherlock only hoped the neighbors weren't out to see this; it might look very odd indeed.
"Mrs. Watson, can I tell you a secret?" the Aspiration wondered, it's voice dripping with grotesque amusement. A shiver went down Sherlock's spine, knowing that whatever the spirit had to say, it wasn't good.
"Don't listen to her Mary; she'll make things up to turn you against us." Sherlock warned, kicking out both of John's knees so that the Aspiration knelt in the cold grass, it's black smoke mixing with the darkness so that it looked like John was being dissolved into the night. But he was still very much solid, the beautiful man with the ugliness inside of him, it was a tragedy.
"He doesn't love you." The Aspiration said quietly, its yellow eyes fixed on Mary determinedly.
"What do you mean, he? Do you mean John?" Mary asked nervously, stepping closer so she could hear better.
"Don't' listen to it Mary, it's lying." Sherlock snapped, extremely apprehensive to hear what Irene had to say next. Surely it was lying; surely it didn't actually experience everything from a third person point of view, hidden away in John's body? Surely it didn't know what had happened that night; it must have just been making things up.
"Do you know why I was able to take hold; do you know what your husband did? The one you claim to love?" the Aspiration shouted, saliva dripping down from the corners of its crooked lips. Oh it was just loving this, the look of nervousness on Mary's face, the fear radiating off of Sherlock's skin, it fed on the emotions of the inferior humans, it lapped it up like a dog.
"Do we have a gag or something?" Sherlock wondered nervously, almost inclined to just manually force the Aspiration's mouth shut. No one heard him, of course, and Mary ventured even nearer, intrigued beyond the state of caution.
"What did John do?" Mary wondered anxiously, falling to her knees right in front of where the Aspiration knelt, its yellow eyes ablaze with excitement.
"Mary, don't listen to it!" Sherlock insisted, yanking John's body back so that they couldn't stare into each other's eyes. He knew that the thing inside that man was going to give the whole thing up; he was going to break Mary's trust in Sherlock and shatter their marriage with a few simple words.
"I need to know!" Mary exclaimed, getting to her feet in protest as the Aspiration sank against Sherlock's legs.
"You don't need to know anything, it's going to lie!" Sherlock defended, and Mary clenched her fists in rage, looking at the Aspiration once more, a panic stricken look in her eyes.
"He sinned, didn't he?" Mary wondered flatly, trembling in rage as she pieced together the Aspiration's excitement and Sherlock's denial.
"Oh, he sinned, and he liked it." the Aspiration agreed, breaking into a fit of laughter as Mary's face screwed up in absolute rage.
"With you!" Mary shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at Sherlock while tears flowed down her face. Sherlock just froze, his grip on the Aspiration slackening as he was met with Mary's broken expression, with her blind rage and betrayal. Somehow he felt as though he had just been stabbed, somehow he felt that Mary's sadness attacked him with more force than it attacked her, and suddenly he was left nearly paralyzed in the darkness, trying to make up some sort of excuse for his wandering heart.
"No, no Mary you need to listen to me, it wasn't..." Sherlock started.
"Oh how he ached for you Sherlock, how he needed you. And you didn't do anything to stop him, you encouraged it, you needed him too." the Aspiration breathed.
"Shut up, just SHUT UP!" Sherlock exclaimed furiously, releasing one of the Aspiration's hands and smacking him right across the face. But it was John's face that got hit, and it was John's head that rolled uselessly on his neck. As soon as Sherlock drew back his hand he regretted it immediately, and Mary just gasped in horror.
"How dare you Sherlock, I trusted you, how dare you!" Mary exclaimed.
"Mary, alright, alright, we had an affair but we can settle that later!" Sherlock insisted, grabbing the other one of John's limp wrists and watching as a bruise already started to form on the side of his beautiful face. Sherlock's heart ached with guilt, and he just wanted to press a kiss onto the discoloration and see it fade back to normal. Mary just shook her head, squeezing the last of the tears out of her eyes.
"I knew it, I don't know how, but...I just knew it. You disgust me Sherlock." Mary snapped.
"Now is not the time!" Sherlock exclaimed defensively. "I'm sorry Mary." He added. Mary just shook her head once more, sitting down heavily in the cold, darkened grass and staring at it blankly. As much as Sherlock pitied her he wasn't going to let it distract him from the real job here. This Aspiration was going to get removed, tonight, right here on this very lawn. Mary's dramatics didn't have anything to do with the situation at hand, and they couldn't dare let her personal problems let their minds stray. Of course Sherlock felt bad, he knew that his own actions were going to cause the Watsons a lot of trouble down the road, but of course he had to make sure John was alive to make it there. There couldn't be a divorce if John was dead.
"Mr. Holmes, Mrs. Watson, could you please hold him down." Father Franklin instructed, finally coming away from the mailbox with the book and a vial of holy water in his hands. Mary glared at Sherlock hatefully, but got to her feet, helping Sherlock hold John on his knees so that they could perform the ritual. But there was something wrong, there had to be, it wasn't fighting like Sherlock had assumed it would. It wasn't doing anything to resist their weak hands, they all knew that the moment it decided to fight back that it would, but it wasn't even bothering. It was as though it knew this ritual wouldn't work, and it wasn't scared of a bunch of Latin mutterings. It left Sherlock feeling very apprehensive; it left Sherlock wondering if this was even worth all of the effort. Father Franklin cleared his throat, staring down at the Aspiration while it stared right back up at him. Sherlock's hands trembled as they grasped at John's wrists, and Mary was simply holding down his shoulders uselessly. Maybe she wanted to do something, maybe she wanted to feel as though her presence here was needed. Sherlock could still hear her sniffling, as though she were crying even before this ritual began.
"Whenever you're ready father." Sherlock insisted, not really in the mood to wait around for this thing to start. Father Franklin nodded, and finally he splashed John's body with holy water, making his skin hiss and his teeth clench. But yet no sound escaped his lips, almost as though he had been through worse. Father Franklin started to talk in Latin, saying the words very clearly yet they meant nothing to Sherlock. He chanted for a while, spraying holy water once and a while, and Sherlock could feel the Aspiration squirming underneath. Father Franklin spoke even louder, the light of his phone flashlight illuminating the three of them as they crouched on the yard, and the Aspiration let out a shout of agony. Or at least, Sherlock assumed it was agony, he hoped it was. Sherlock tightened his grip, but he felt the Aspiration's arms slacken, he felt it start to kneel over, as though it were falling over to the grass. And yet the black smoke never faded, it never soaked back into the group from which it came. Father Franklin finally sprayed it with holy water one more, time, finishing off the ritual with a very aggressive bout of Latin, and finally the Aspiration let loose a terrible howl, falling over in the grass and bringing its two captors with it. It stayed there silently, motionlessly, and Sherlock slowly released his grip, rolling John over onto his back so that he could see his closed eyes once more. The black smoke still engulfed his beautiful form, but it was as if the Aspiration had gone dormant for now.

    "That was a bit...anticlimactic." Sherlock decided in a rather disappointing voice. Mary was still breathing heavily, stumbling away from the limp form of her husband, shaking her head in horror.
"It's still inside him, isn't it? It's still there?" she whispered in horror.
"I don't know." Sherlock whispered, staring at the idle form of John Watson, expecting it to jump to life and remind them all that it was still very much alive. Father Franklin closed the book, hovering ever closer to John's body and staring at it from above.
"Do you think it worked Mr. Holmes?" he wondered hopefully. Sherlock shook his head slightly, but before he could get any sort of word in there was a scream of amusement that erupted from John's lips, and before any of them could react the Aspiration sprang to its feet and jumped at Father Franklin, grabbing both sides of the priest's head and bringing him crashing down into the street.
"DID IT WORK FATHER? DID IT WORK?" the Aspiration exclaimed, digging its thumbs into the priest's eye sockets, making the poor man scream in agony, his legs kicking and his arms flailing, but there was nothing he could do to fight it. Mary screamed, running towards the house in horror, and Sherlock couldn't do anything else but watch it disgust as the Aspiration covered the man's screaming face in his own blood, grabbing his skull and smashing it over and over again into the concreate.
"WHERE IS GOD FATHER? WHERE IS HE NOW? WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO TO SAVE YOU?" the Aspiration shrieked, bringing the priest's head down onto the pavement over and over again, his skull cracking against the stones and leaking blood over John's possessed hands.
"Stop it Irene, stop it!" Sherlock exclaimed, finally jumping into action and flinging himself onto the Aspiration's hunched back. However the spirit was stronger than Sherlock was, and with a simple bat of its arm he sent Sherlock skidding into the middle of the road. Sherlock lay there for a dazed moment, the stars above spinning in the darkness as he tried to pull himself to his feet. The Aspiration was laughing in glee, digging through the mutilated skull of the priest as if he were looking for something special. His nails were caked with blood, his fingers covered in brains and fragments of skull, his face shining with amusement and laughs escaping his lips one at a time. Sherlock felt his stomach jerk violently, but he dragged himself to his feet, grabbing the gun from his pocket and sitting up just enough to aim it at John's body, crouched just above the priest.
"Stop it." Sherlock demanded, lining the barrel up with the side of the Aspiration's head. He could see a smile start to curve along his twisted lips, and finally the spirit paused, his hands straying from Father Franklin's head and pressing down onto the blood soaked pavement.
"Got a gun, do you Sherlock? Does it make you feel powerful?" it wondered. Sherlock cocked the gun with his thumb, pushing himself to a sitting position and holding the weapon in both hands, making sure his fingers didn't shake. The Aspiration slowly turned its head, the yellow eyes shining through the darkness.
"Are you going to shot him?" The Aspiration wondered, slowly climbing over the dead body and crawling towards Sherlock in the moonlight.
"Yes, I will." Sherlock insisted, his voice trembling weakly as John's face came closer. But it wasn't John; he had to tell himself that it wasn't John. Even if John's spirit was buried away inside of there, he had to do this. It was a murderer, it deserved what it was going to get. Death.
"Can you really kill John? Will you really do that?" the Aspiration wondered.
"I'll kill you." Sherlock assured, shaking the gun warningly, but the Aspiration just shook its head, closing its eyes for a moment and pausing, crouched on all fours for a while. Sherlock looked at in confusion, holding the gun with more confidence. Was it submitting, was it just going to let him shoot? And finally the Aspiration opened its eyes, but when it did, they weren't yellow. The black smoke faded from the skin and for a moment it wasn't the Aspiration, but John Watson, crouching there blood soaked in the middle of the road. Suddenly it was John Watson that Sherlock held a gun to.
"Sherlock?" John whispered, his voice back to normal, his voice flowing wonderfully from his sweet lips.
"John..." Sherlock breathed, his fingers slackening when John's voice finally returned. But he didn't let the gun fall; he didn't dare let his guard down just yet.
"Sherlock, Sherlock I'm so sorry!" John exclaimed, rushing at Sherlock and throwing his arms around his neck, pulling him close and breaking down into sobs against Sherlock's shirt.
"John it's not...it can't be you." Sherlock whispered nervously, but nevertheless he let John's trembling body press itself to him, looking for forgiveness, looking for comfort.
"It is Sherlock, it is, I saw it, I saw all of it!" John exclaimed, grabbing at the back of Sherlock's shirt and burying his distraught face into Sherlock's neck.
"Don't...don't look back." Sherlock suggested, letting the gun fall from his hands as he carefully wrapped his arms around John's trembling body. He knew that he shouldn't be comforting him; he knew that this was just a trick, but it was working, and he was just playing along with the Aspiration's game.
"Sherlock it didn't work, he's still in here, the ritual didn't work." John muttered desperately, his tears leaking onto Sherlock's skin from through his thin shirt.
"I know, but you're back, for now, keep it suppressed, keep it at bay." Sherlock assured, holding his face against John's head for a moment and pretending that nothing was wrong. He tried to convince himself that they could just sit here in the road for the rest of their lived, huddled together right where they were supposed to be, in each other's arms.
"I'm not here for long, it gave up for now, it was scared." John whispered quickly, his voice stricken with panic. "It's here, it hurts Sherlock, it's breaking me down."
"But keep it away." Sherlock repeated, pulling away from John for a moment so that he could look into John's crying, bloodstained eyes. They were still beautiful, just as he had remembered.
"I have no control, it will take over again, Sherlock just know that I love you. I don't want to hurt you but if you have to kill me, do it!" John demanded.
"I'm not going to kill you." Sherlock said flatly, rubbing his fingers against John's tear stained cheeks lovingly, carefully.
"Don't let me kill someone else, don't let me kill you. Put me down, there's no winning this battle." John demanded, tears leaking more and more out of his eyes and falling down his cheeks, carving channels through the matted blood that stained his skin.
"I can't do that." Sherlock mumbled weakly, feeling a tear fall down his face as he stared into John's helpless eyes.
"You can." John insisted, leaning forward and pressing a kiss onto Sherlock's cheek quickly, desperately, as if he wanted to do that one last time before he was taken over once more. There was a very final feeling to this conversation, as if the two of them suspected it was going to be the last one ever shared. Sherlock kissed him back, dispute the blood, despite the Aspiration stirring inside, dispute the audience they had from Mary, staring through the screen door weakly. Sherlock kissed John fiercely, pulling his fingers through John's tangled hair and muttering apologies through his lips, the gun lying discarded on the pavement next to them.
"You need to kill me Sherlock, you need to." John insisted, pulling his lips away for a moment just to get a quick word in.