| Needlework by Holly |
| Chapter #12 - Take Me To A Place So Holy |
Take Me To A Place So Holy She awoke curled in warmth. Strange. As a vampire, warmth was not supposed to exist. And yet, for everything, the comfort of Spike’s embrace provided something she had never touched in life. More so at this waking than all the others she had shared with him. The blessed few days she had spent with him. He was breaking her barriers, one by one. Everything she had thought of vampires for so long had been replaced with the more startling reality of her nature. She knew that most of her kind were soulless monsters. That most would just as soon kill her as look at her, whether or not she was one of them now. The title of Slayer deified the Chosen in the ways of fear and hatred. She was a symbol of reverence and terror, and she always would be. Buffy, the Immortalized Slayer. Buffy, the girl that was Chosen in the last of the twentieth century, and fell in love with two vampires before being sired by the most famous vampire of popular culture. Spike’s head was pillowed at her breast, his right arm curved over her abdomen. His cock was hard against her leg, and a blissful look of serenity graced his sleeping face. No one had ever made her feel the way he did. Not only for what he did to her, how effortlessly he aroused her with his touch, but for everything else. The small things. The way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. The way he would brush kisses against her forehead or her hand when she was distressed. The way he shared her pain without losing his fortitude. She was in love with him. She had known it the night before and still hadn’t surpassed that idyllic euphoria that came with realization. It was a slow coming love. Slow because it was the first time she had had ever truly felt it. Warmth that came without fear or doubt. Kindliness that wasn’t clouded with misguidance or riddled with angst that had dominated her previous relationships. Real love wasn’t like that. She had been a fool to ever think it was. That losing Angel had been the worst pain she could endure. That he was her pinnacle of love, when in the face of actual despair, he was the last person she could ever turn to. Spike was curled around her. He had reintroduced her to magic the night before; magic she had thought she was too jaded to feel anymore. He had given her love when she had thought the concept something distant, if not wholly made-up. Had given color to a heart worn with blacks and grays. God, yes, she loved him. In just a few days, she had come to love him so much. The future terrified her, but she felt she could bear it if he was with her. If that was what he wanted. Buffy released a sigh and ran her fingers through his peroxide locks, surprised at the softness that greeted her touch. He moaned a bit, his eyes fluttering open. It took a few seconds, but he found her gaze with sleepy adoration, the light that flickered across his face sending warm tremors through her body. “Mornin’ baby,” he purred, tweaking her nipple. “Morning,” she replied, arching slightly beneath him. “Sleep well?” “Very.” He smiled. “Good.” He brushed his lips across her forehead, mouth dipping to her throat. “Never thought I’d wake up like this…with you,” he murmured, peppering kisses across her collarbone, then further south until his mouth engulfed her breast, suckling at her sweetly. “You’re so gorgeous like this.” “Panting and moaning?” Spike flashed a wicked grin. “Well, I was talkin’ about naked, but I’ll take pantin’ an’ moanin’.” “Are you ever not horny?” His eyes flickered dangerously. “Around you?” She grinned shyly and glanced away. “I never thought…I dunno, I just never thought I’d wake up like this, either.” “Like this?” he retorted challengingly, licking her nipple again. “Or…” Her eyes went wide at the suddenness of his invasion, two fingers sliding effortlessly into her sodden passage. “This?” She released a trembling sigh and clutched him tighter. “Either or both.” “You’re so wet.” “Mmm…well…what can I say?” Buffy wheedled a hand between them and took hold of his wrist, easing his touch out of her. A confused, hurt look flashed over his face—brief, but she decided in that split second that she never wanted to see it again. That sort of wounded countenance that gave her the impression that he felt he wasn’t good enough for her. Time to put that fear to rest. Her legs wound around his waist and she flipped them over in half a second, pinning him to the mattress with a wicked smile. “You bring it out in me,” she concluded, enjoying the smoldering look that flashed across his face. Her eyes flashed teasingly, her mouth dropping to his chest. Spike’s gaze widened in surprise and he threw his head back, a low, tangled moan erupting from his lips. “Buffy—” “Turnabout,” she retorted with a cheeky shrug, teeth scraping delicately at one of his nipples. He whimpered and thrust his hips into hers. “And all that.” “You’re so bloody amazing,” he growled, eyes glazed over with passion. “Christ, Slayer…I want you so fucking much.” She hummed her approval and nipped at his skin, sliding upward to suckle at his throat over the mark her fangs had given him the night before. Spike mewled again, wandering hands palming her breasts reverently. She was startled at the shards of rapture that shot through her own body—elation like nothing else she had ever experienced. With every sweep of her tongue over her mark, she felt her insides tremble and a slow burn of orgasmic bliss seared through her skin. It was a bite mark, nothing more. Her bite marks had been a source of pleasure, yes, but nothing like this. And if a bite mark could elicit such euphoria from her, the gasps erupting from his mouth gave her preludes to ecstasy she had only read about. “God.” His hips surged forward again, his cock sliding against her sopping pussy, eliciting a shared moan between them. “You’re doin’ this to torture me, right?” “Uh huh.” Her voice didn’t sound controlled so much as needy, but she was still the one on top. And if Spike noticed, he didn’t reveal it. As alluring as it was, exploring the many venues of vampire eroticism, there was so much more of him that she wanted to taste. Her own sexual curiosity was breaking through after two years of being sexually active but similarly repressed. There were things she knew that two people could do together that she had never had the courage to try. Never with Angel, certainly not with Parker, and she had never felt close enough to Riley to do more than the basic ‘insert, withdraw, and repeat as needed.’ She had never had the nerve to take command in bed. To follow what she wanted more than what her bedmate thought she wanted. With Spike, those fears were nonexistent. And her comfort with him only served to fuel the new, very real love that warmed her cold blood. She could only be like this with someone she loved. She had never known love before him. Love that didn’t feel like this wasn’t love at all. Furthermore, vampiric intimacy still intimidated her. She wanted to know more about her demon’s nature before she pursued anything else with her fangs. Buffy leaned back and grasped his wrists, drawing his hands away from her breasts. He whimpered at that, his eyes wide and imploring. She merely smiled reassuringly, then began sliding down the length of him, enjoying the growing tautness of his body until she was face-to-face with his erection. The head of his need was beaded with drops of precum, his skin tremulous with promised anticipation. Spike panted a loud mewl and caught her chin with his fingers. “B-Buffy, you don’ have to—” She tugged herself free defiantly, indulging a long lap of his cock. “I want to.” “Oh Jesus.” He fell against the mattress in surrender and welded his eyes shut. “Bleedin’ fuck.” “I’ve never done this, just so you know.” A tense beat rattled through his body. “Buffy…” She cupped his balls reverently, suckling at the underside of his length. Her thumbs massaged circles into his sensitive skin. “Tell me if I do something wrong,” she murmured heatedly, tongue trailing his cock again until his belled head bobbed against her lips, and she drew him into the inferno of her mouth. “Oh my God.” Spike flexed and thrust forward involuntarily. Forcing himself deeper into her throat. Then he froze. “S-sorry. I can’t…you feel so good. Feels so fucking good. I’ll try to…not do that.” Personally, Buffy was impressed he was able to get a sentence out. She was so turned on at his eagerness that she doubted she would be equally successful. The view of him panting and writhing at her touch was one of the most empowering sights she had ever beheld. She nodded and he moaned again, his fingers tunneling through her hair, lovingly massaging her scalp. “Nothin’ wrong,” he said heatedly. “There’s no way you could do anythin’ wrong.” Buffy smiled around him, earning another whimper. Then she drew her mouth back to his tip, tongue swirling around his sensitive head. Her hand gave his sac a final squeeze before curling around the base of his erection, pumping him with rhythm natural to her body. As though she had opened a door to a world of new things she was already knowledged in. Her teeth scraped his skin just slightly, and she left his cock to the feel of her explorative fingers, placing a kiss against him before trailing her lips southward. Her hand continued a path back and forth, kneading him in time with his moans and half-coherent praises and vows of adoration. “Jesus,” he mewled. “Feels so good. Feel so bloody good. God, you’re so perfect. My hot li’l Slayer.” Her tongue enveloped his sac, suckling him into her mouth. “Oh God!” She drew her mouth away at the harshness behind his tone. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did that hurt? I didn’t—” Heated tenderness stormed his gaze. “No. God, no. You’re perfect, baby. You hear me? Like satin. Like milk an’ honey. Fuck…” Lust veiled his eyes when she lowered her head once more, capturing his length in her mouth and suckling delicately. Then her hands cupped him again, and she drew him into her until his head brushed against the back of her throat. Then she began swallowing around him. “Buffy…I can’t…” His hips thrust forward desperately. “Mmm?” “I’m going to…’m…” She nodded her understanding around him. And her compliance was all he needed. She didn’t rob him of her touch. Didn’t pull away, didn’t leave him to reach orgasm in the cold of the room. Her mouth remained on him, suckling him intently, welcoming his climax into her throat. “Oh fuck.” The impact of his taste overwhelmed her. Anya had described the earnings of blowjobs before with an air of aversion, and while Buffy couldn’t say it was the best thing she’d ever had in her mouth, she suspected she found him delicious because of the feelings she harbored for him. In the end, the taste itself didn’t matter. It was that she had made him do that. His pleasure was hers, and his thunderous roar of release sent tingles of anticipation through her body. He was panting as though he needed air. As though a hundred plus years of conditioning could be eradicated with a few minutes of euphoric intimacy. His cock slid from her mouth with a wet plop, and she placed a kiss across the head with a tender purr that surprised her. In her life, she had never purred. Not once. Now she was, and she had a distant feeling that her newfound vampirism had very little to do with it. Perhaps it was the happiness. She rested her cheek against his abdomen and wrapped her arms around his waist, waiting for him to come down. Happiness. Happiness as a vampire that she had never achieved as a human. Buffy was no stranger to having one part of her life going well while everything else was falling apart. The wailing of her demon for the death of her sire hadn’t bothered her for two days now. It ached still, sometimes sent sharp shards of pain through her body, but hadn’t really bothered her. She no longer felt broken. And it had happened so fast, she didn’t know how to catch up with herself. Spike had pieced her back together when she wasn’t looking. Had given her something that she didn’t know she needed. Had given her reason to smile once more when she thought all reason had died along with her body. But she wasn’t dead. For the first time, she understood that. Her body was dead; she wasn’t. She had never felt more alive than she did now. Not once in the long line of her weary existence had she begun to touch life as she had since Spike molded her into a new line of understanding from that shady form of herself that could have been her undoing. He had given her blood and made her realize it was okay to drink. If blood was what she needed, it was okay to drink. It was okay to be a vampire without being a demon. It was okay to love her savior. It was okay to love him even if he wasn’t. She loved Spike, and she had never loved anyone before him. And he had shown her that. Yes, she loved her mother and her friends and her Watcher, but there was a major difference between the love of family and the love of lovers. For so long, she had mistaken the love of family for the love of lovers. Spike provided a ground-shattering both. He was her family, but he was her lover, too. He was her friend and her equal. And she loved him wholly from all aspects. He made her not afraid, but similarly let her know that fear was natural. To not fear was to be truly inhuman. She was touching humanity for the first time, and it was because of him. “Buffy.” Spike tugged her back up his body until she was sitting in his lap. His cock was hard again and aligned temptingly with her pussy, but he made no move to enter her. Instead, he kissed her with tenderness no man had ever treated her with. As though every touch from her was a gift from Heaven itself. “You’re so amazin’.” She smiled gently and brushed her lips against his. “That was okay?” Spike gaped at her in amazement. “Kitten,” he whispered furiously, drawing her in for another heartfelt kiss. He plundered her mouth with his tongue, pouring the full of his feeling into the union of their lips. “You’ve blown the cap off my bloody world. That was…I’ve never felt anythin’ like that.” “I find that rather doubtful.” His eyes narrowed. “You callin’ me a liar?” he asked, fingers trailing along her abdomen, dipping between them. “Saucy li’l minx.” “I’m just saying, my zero experience next to the tons of experience by, oh say…” Buffy drew in a sharp gasp, her eyes squeezing shut. Spike’s thumb settled over her clit, rubbing her in slow, tortuous circles, two fingers exploring her tight passage. “Cheater.” “’m cheatin’?” She nodded, moving over him, welcoming the gentle thrust of his hand. “Uh huh.” “Jus’ thought you might listen to me ‘f I was doin’ this.” His mouth fell to her throat. “Plus the smell of you was makin’ my mouth water.” “Ohh…” “Yeh, oh.” He suckled gently on her bite mark. The one given to her by her sire. The one he intended to erase with his own fangs before long. “You’re amazing. You make me burn. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before. Things I…” He shook his head and raised his eyes to hers, his thumb massaging her sensitive button rapidly now, his fingers thrusting into her as though he needed her release as desperately as she did. “An’ when I say I’ve never felt anythin’ like that before, that no one’s ever done to me what you do, I bloody well mean it. This mornin’…your smell…your taste…everythin’ I’ve…this is beyond for me, what you might think it is. It means more to me than…anything. You hear me?” The sincerity in his eyes won her over, and she nodded with a sob of pleasure as he pushed her over the edge. Her insides rattled. Sharp shards of rapture spread through her body, and she touched the light of paradise before plummeting back to earth. Quivering in his arms as he held her through the delicious afterglow of her orgasm. As she tumbled from wonder back to reality, her cheek resting against his shoulder, soft sighs of completion escaping her lips. He held her, his words softening her fall, and she believed him. “Never,” he whispered again. Buffy didn’t say anything. She pressed her brow to his, quivering in his arms, but not of fear or uncertainty. Of something else altogether. She knew then. Without the words, she knew. He loved her. He’d just told her without saying it at all. And she didn’t know why. She didn’t know how. She had no idea how they had gotten here. All she knew was that he loved her, and somehow, she had known it all along. You know why, Buffy. You know why. She did. She’d known it that night, and she knew it now. Spike loved her. And for that, she felt perhaps there was no true reason to scream her pain again. She was in the arms of the one she loved, and she was loved in return. The words had yet to be said, but they weren’t needed now. There was a time for such confessions. Now was not it. But soon. Right now she knew. And that was all she needed. Just for now. “You don’t miss her, do you?” Spike handed her a glass of warmed blood from his newly purchased microwave. It had taken about an hour to set it up; eventually, they settled for hooking it up via extension plugs to the same outlet that powered his television set. It was a cheap microwave, but an effective one. Buffy felt strangely like the new girlfriend furnishing her man’s bachelor pad into a place where a woman could live. “Who?” Her eyes narrowed. “You know who,” she retorted, sipping at her blood. Definitely better when warm. “Drusilla.” She did her best to ignore the sharp pang of jealousy seized her stomach. “Yeah. I just…with what you said…before…” His gaze turned passionate and she glanced shyly to the ground. “I mean…you were so into her for such a long time. It’s just…I guess it’s hard for me to believe that you really…say Drusilla showed up and was over her Chaos Demon and wanted you back.” “Dru would be outta luck.” “Spike—” “I don’t want Dru. She’s my sire, yeh, but that’s about that.” He shook his head. “I got over Dru. Don’ know when, but I’m over her. An’ I’ve been over her for a long time.” “Long time?” Spike smiled softly. “Well, maybe not so long. A few months after a sodding century together…I thought she was it. But she wasn’t.” He reached for her then, guiding her chin upward so that she could see the sincerity burning his eyes. “She wasn’t,” he said again. “She was my firs’…well, pretty much everything, but that doesn’ mean she was it. She wasn’.” “How…I…” A trembling sigh escaped his lips. “She never loved me. I was a toy to her. Someone who’d give her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. Someone who loved her unconditionally an’ din’t rightly care if he was loved back. Someone who wasn’ smart enough to note when somethin’ wasn’t what he thought it was. An’ yeah, I did. I loved her. I loved her because she gave me freedom. She brought me this far. She also used me. She was never mine, an’ she was fine with that so long as I took care of her an’ pleased her, an’ it din’t matter what she gave back to me because a look from her was more than I deserved. That’s not love, Buffy. Not the kind’ve love that lasts as long as I thought Dru an’ I were s’posed to last. That’s…it was infatuation. I woke up one night an’ I was a vampire. She was my sire. That feelin’ you felt for Drac? I din’t know how to tell the difference between that an’ love, because I don’ have what you have.” A small grin crossed her face. “You?” He smiled softly. “A soul. Dru gave me somethin’ I never got in life, an’ I was fool enough to mistake that for actual affection. It wasn’t. An’ to be fair, she never tried to make me think otherwise. I jus’ kept seein’ what I wanted to see an’ justifyin’ all else. Angelus would shag her right in front of me, make her come screamin’ his name, an’ I’d forgive her. She’d beg him the chance to suck him off, an’ I’d forgive her. An’ it wasn’ jus’ Angelus. It was any vampire or demon or randy son of a bitch that thought she was as enchantin’ as I did. It wasn’ love. She toyed with me to toy with me, an’ she never gave me any reason to think she felt the way I did. She din’t love me.” A still beat settled between them. And suddenly, the barriers she had placed between them and the sacred words evaporated. Spike was standing there right before her, recounting something terrible in his past even if he wasn’t aware of it. She wanted something she was hesitant to name, even with her own love for him burning from within. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she bit her tongue for uncertainty she knew was foolish but needed anyway. She knew he loved her, too. He had not said the words, but he loved her. A man couldn’t look at any woman the way he looked at her without love being the driving factor. “And she wouldn’t complete the claim because of it,” she said, reaching out to cup his cheek. Bringing him back to her. “Is it bad that I’m not sorry?” His smile returned. “No, sweetling,” he replied, dropping a kiss across her palm. “Believe me; I’m not sorry, either. It needs to be real above all else, right? If I’d been mated to her, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be tied to eternity to someone who doesn’ love me. Someone I don’…no, I’m not sorry.” “You don’t miss her?” “I did for a long time. Then somethin’ happened.” “What?” Spike caught her eyes and held. “I moved on. I became wiser somewhere, though how that happened is anyone’s best bloody guess. I learned the difference between the sire connection an’ love.” She swallowed hard. “Oh?” “Yeh.” His gaze warmed with knowledge. That look that read he had all but told her and knew that she knew, but the words themselves remained out of reach. Unspoken. Dangling there between them. Palpable. A manifestation of feeling waiting to be expressed. Buffy cleared her throat and tore her eyes away. “How…ummm…to get mated to…someone, how does that work?” An odd grin stretched Spike’s lips. “’S simple, really. You wouldn’t think one of the most powerful, permanent bonds on the bloody planet could come outta somethin’ so simple.” “How?” “Why are you so curious?” She looked anywhere but him. “I-I…if I’m going to be a vampire, I need to…obey the three rules, right? And…say I do…meet someone. Someone that I want to…and I’m guessing the matey thing goes with…sex, and—” The room rumbled with a hard growl, and he grasped her wrist, yanking her to him. “No,” he barked. “No? It doesn’t deal with sex?” “No, there will be no sex.” Confidence was slowly leaking back. Buffy met his eyes teasingly. “At all?” “With anyone who’s not in this room, holdin’ you right now.” “Why, Mr. The Bloody,” she retorted cheekily. “Are you trying to tell me something?” “Told you enough last night.” “Did you?” “’F you don’ know what my mouth was sayin’…” He growled again and yanked her fully into his arms, their respective glasses of blood shattering on the floor. “Then I’ll jus’ have to say it over again. Slower this time.” “Spike!” He deposited her on the sofa without ceremony, tearing her slacks down her legs. “You should really go back to wearin’ those skimpy li’l skirts,” he observed. “Think I might’ve grabbed one or two when I got your stuff.” “Uhhh…” Her panties joined her slacks. Spike knelt beside the sofa and yanked her to his mouth, positioning her legs over his shoulders. “An’ as much as I love tastin’ your unmentionables, this…” He buried his face in her pussy, “is what makes my mouth water.” “Spike…I was…uhhh…trying to…ask you a question.” “Blood exchange,” he replied, suckling her clit into his mouth. “An’ words.” “What…oh, God!” Spike grinned up at her, sinking his fingers deeper inside her passage. “‘Mine,’” he replied. “That an’ the blood swap. ’S easy. See what I mean?” “That’s it?” “The full it. Now be quiet. I’m eatin’.” He licked up her slit. “Christ, you taste so good.” It was a while before they left the crypt that night. They were making the normal rounds tonight. And while there was nothing Buffy would have liked more than to curl up in Spike's arms and forget the outside world was there, there were several truths to be reckoned with. Eventually, with or without the warning Giles had been issued, her friends would come for her. Soon she was going to have to face her friends and the harsh realities of the life she had left behind. Soon she would have to make decisions as to the laying out the path of her future. A future she didn't want without the vampire at her side. And that was something her friends would not understand. Something some of them would never accept. But she couldn't think about that now. Tonight she was patrolling. Spike was beside her, squeezing her hand every few steps. Offering her everything he had before, even with the intimacy they had shared. That was something she'd never had. Not even with Riley, who had been filling the role of her boyfriend for the past few months. There was always ingrained awkwardness in every thing after anything sexual. And granted, while she and Spike had yet to make love in the most rudimentary sense, that gracelessness was nowhere to be seen. He had done things to her in just the past twelve hours that easily surpassed her most stimulating sexual experience. Now they were left for the night. For patrol. For finding the evil things and killing them. And it was because she needed it, not because it was her job. Not because some old Watchers in England decided that patrolling was what she should do, or Giles thought there was a big demon rising that night and she was the only one who could stop it. No, she was patrolling now because she loved the hunt. She was a vampire as well as a slayer, and vampires loved the hunt. Now that she was no longer bound to her former duties, she had discovered her long-missing admiration for the night. “Looks like another slow night, pet,” Spike said with a sigh. “Sorry. Know you've been itchin' for a fight.” She shrugged. “It's not so bad.” “I really thought we'd've run into your mates by now.” “Well, there's every chance that they took your conversation with Giles seriously.” She threw up her hands at the look that comment earned. “I'm just saying. Anything's possible.” “The day the bloody Scoobies listen to me is the same day that...” He paused, frowning. “Well, no, that already happened.” “What?” He smirked at her. Buffy flushed and jabbed him in the side. “Pig.” “Oink bloody oink. There are worse things.” His eyes lit up, then slowly raked the length of her. “So good of you to have worn that skirt.” “After, oh, twenty minutes of a certain peroxide Cockney telling me to 'wear tha bloody skirt,' I'd certainly hope so.” He pouted. “Do not sound like that.” “Right. I was being generous.” “Oh, you're gonna get it, missy.” His wandering fingers tickled her sides mercilessly. A long giggle tore through her lips and she immediately leapt to the defense. It wasn’t long before the tickle attack transformed into something else entirely. In the graveyard, battling an age old vampire, she felt even more like herself. Back into the place she no longer wanted but could not completely desert. She had slaughtered a house of vampires only days before, had a few stragglers on patrol, but there was nothing like fighting Spike. Nothing like a challenge, even for she who was now beyond earthly challenges. Her strength was monumental, and quite frankly, terrifying. The possibility of what she could do now was beyond thought. Beyond all understanding. Slayer strength spliced with vampirism…Spike had told her sired slayers had never lasted. And she wondered if that was due to their own device, or because they hadn’t known the potency of their own strength. She suspected the first. None of the sired slayers before her had what she had. “Don’ hold back,” Spike panted, lunging for her again. “I won’t.” “Never do,” she retorted, meeting him with a kick. “Just tell me if I get too rough.” In all fairness, it was more what he saw that cost him, rather than the kick itself. But at that, Spike didn’t look too disappointed. “Naughty Slayer,” he drawled, wiping blood off his chin. “No knickers?” She smirked. “What’s the point?” “That’s my girl.” There was absolutely nothing else like this. Nothing like letting loose in the midst of a cemetery. Answering the call of her demon with the man she loved. There was no one in the world she enjoyed fighting more than Spike. He knew her every move, but she knew his much better. His eyes gleamed with anticipation every time she rushed him, even if it resulted in another tumble to the ground. There was hunger there that hadn’t been there before. Hunger for something more than blood. More than sex. More than anything she had ever experienced. Fighting Spike arose a primal calling from the place she had only dared explore with him holding her hand. Now they were in the heat of the moment, sparring in the middle of Sunnydale’s most visited cemetery, and the rules were different. Very different. Such to the fact that she didn’t recognize the heated growl that tore through her throat. Nor did the flash of surprise register as she tackled Spike to the ground. She straddled him, her skirt riding up her thighs, her pussy grounding into his denim clad erection. The demon within roared again. There was something about this. Something she recognized. Something innate even if it was new. Something celebrated. Spike’s eyes flashed ardently. “Buffy…” She was too forgone to hear him. Bent on her instincts. Nothing could stop her now. Her fangs broke through her gums and she tugged him to her. Then bit down. And drank. To be continued in Chapter Thirteen: Tear At The Darkness All Around Me… |