READ: Now before you all chew me out for starting a new Mash fic without having finished the other two, have no fear. I work at an office at my school and we're not open again until August, so that and only night classes gives me an excuse to dodge the bright sun by staying inside and writing.

This fic is not like my other two. This one is dark, and so is Bash (he's a vampire, not a fairy) and rated M for that reason. So if you're reading this and you're under 16 or whatever is the age limit on fanfiction, then don't tell me. This first chapter is Bash becoming a vampire. He is also older- mid to late 20s, while Mary is young, 18-20.

Disclaimer: I do now own Reign, the characters, France, or vampires. I blame tumblr's winter-rose and mrsariayoureakiller for encouraging this.

France-December 6, 1560

She was dying. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. His heart wished to take the pain from her, but it was not God's will for her to live.

"Find the light," she breathed. "Find it, my son."

"Please," he begs her, holding her hand. "Please do not go."

The woman smiles at him, the strength leaving her body. "Do you promise?"

"I promise," he whispers, clutching her hand harder than ever. "Mother..."

Her smile is weak now. "Find her but quench your thirst until there is a thirst inside her as well - for you," she coughs, her son holding her as she does. "Take care, my brave son, or you will bleed for a girl who will never be yours."

"What does that mean?" he asks her as she closes her eyes. "Mother, what does that even mean?!" His voice is louder now, hoping she opens her eyes, just so he can see her green orbs one last time. He searches her face, hoping for any sign of movement.

There is none.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He buried her shortly after her passing. He buried her next to the wife he had lost to the same illness days before he had lost his mother.

The mother he had never told about his illness. It seemed to be God's will that he go to.

There was very little time for him to live, he knew this. And yet, he did not care. Why should he? His mother was gone, his wife was gone; a life taken in the blink of an eye. Images of his mother on her deathbed haunted him as he buried her.

Find the light.

She was crazy. There was no light that day, nor any other day of this winter.

Find her.

Find her. A girl who was the light. He had had a wife, how could he find another one to bring the light back? How could his mother have asked him to move on days after her death? Bitterly, Sebastian separated the snow from the dirt and placed the dirt on his mother's grave. There were no flowers this time of year, only blankets of snow and branches from dead trees to place around her grave.

So he went into the forest near the cottage he and his wife had shared with his mother.

Night was falling. The forests were known for the danger hidden in them, but Sebastian did not care. Let them kill him. He was close enough to death as it were.

Find her but quench your thirst until there is a thirst inside her as well- for you.

That made the least sense of all. Was there a girl who would have such a thirst for a sickly man like himself? His mother had spent her last minute spewing rubbish because of her illness.

Take care, my brave son, or you will bleed for a girl who will never be yours.

He was never going to bleed for anyone, not while he lay in his grave.

Sebastian reached up the smallest tree and picked the last living leaves off the branch that hung above his head. He followed his footsteps back to the cottage.

And he walked. Until a twig snapped.

Sebastian looked around.

"I will be dead shortly, if that is what you wish!" He called out into the mist. His throat hurt. "So you may come out and face me!"

His mother had always said he was rash.

Silence greeted him.

Perhaps it was the illness getting into his head.

Sebastian returned to the two graves. The one of his wife was no longer covered in the leaves he had lain days earlier. Snow covered every inch of her grave. He placed one leaf on the snow of his wife's grave, and placed the other two leaves on his mother's.

"Time to start my own grave," he muttered to himself.

He took the shovel that he had placed inside the house and began to dig. It began to snow again when the darkness fell.

Sebastian went inside and fell to the floor. It was no use.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Two Days Later

Sebastian lay in the bed he had shared with his wife, experiencing the exact final moments that she had been through nearly a week ago. Only this time, nobody was around to say good-bye. He refused to go through it again. Death in the woods seemed more appropriate, as he had loved to hide there as a child. His mother humored him as much as she could and only the words "no supper if you do not come out!" would have him running from the woods into their home.

Sebastian sat down next to his favorite tree. In the Spring, it would grow the pink roses that his mother would take and place on the table. His mother told him the roses were to be treasured and only taken to ensure that the beauty around them was preserved.

But now it was as dead as everything around him.

Night was falling.

Anytime now. Bash closed his eyes and tried to remember the memories he had of his mother and his wife. The wedding day had not been a cause for a celebration as it was a marriage they had been forced into. Of course, they had grown to admire and respect one another, but it had not been that way in the beginning. Her father was passing at that time and wished for nothing more than to see his daughter married, with a fortune in her name. She had done as he wished when he decided upon Sebastian to be the husband to his daughter. The fortune was gone in seconds, when her family's estate burned to the ground. Sebastian had him and his wife live with his mother, much to his wife's displeasure.

Despite the many disagreements between him and his wife that had followed when it happened, he and his mother had been at her bedside when she passed.

A twig snapped. Just as it had two days earlier.

Sebastian opened his eyes. He tore off a branch from the tree and stood up. He was weak, but he was not going to go down sitting quietly.

"I know you're there!" he yelled, the pain in his throat preventing his voice from rising as much as he wanted it to. He knew he was not imagining anything. Hallucinations were not caused from the illness.

The only sound he heard was the struggled breathing he could muster.

Another twig snapped. This one was much closer.

Sebastian took a deep breath and turned around.

All he saw was a younger man with blonde locks and red eyes before darkness overtook him with blunt force.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Where is he?"

"In there."

"Unspoiled, I hope?"

"I do not know how unspoiled one can be when they are mere minutes from death."

"I told you, I wanted him unspoiled," the deeper voice belonged to an older man. The other belonged to a younger man. Both were getting closer.

"He wanted to fight."

"A man who wants to fight when he is so close to death? I do believe we have a winner."

"He did tear off a branch when he was calling to me."

"And you could tear off his arms and legs so easily, it would make the King's best men look like small mice," the older man snarled.

Sebastian struggled to open his eyes. The pain. . .

"Look Father!" the younger man cried out. "He is waking!"

Sebastian was able to open both his eyes. How dare those two men take his last minute's of peace away from him. He felt too weak to stand. Whatever he had been hit with did some good. He couldn't fight back.

The two men stood around the bed they had placed him on (how kind of them to put him somewhere comfortable). The younger man had been the one Sebastian had come across in the forest. Blonde locks framed his face, the redness is in his eyes, replaced by blue.

Sebastian knew he had not imagined the redness that had been in the young man's eyes.

The older man had lost most of his hair, his eyes were brown and cold.

"Francis, get me a towel with water," the older man snapped his fingers. "Quickly! His head is heating up."

Sebastian was also covered in sweat.

The younger man ran out of the room, faster than any being Sebastian had ever seen before, faster than the largest animal in a pack. He blinked hard to make sure he had not imagined it. But the younger man ran back in as quickly as he had gone.

The older man put the wet towel on Sebastian's forehead. "There we go, son. Better?"

"You cannot save me from death," Sebastian gasped out the words.

The two other men merely glanced at one another.

"We can," the younger one said to Sebastian.

"How?" Sebastian raised an eyebrow and tried to raise his head to look at the boy in his eyes. "By placing a towel on my head, you wish to heal me of the illness?" Sebastian placed his head on the pillow. "Have you never seen death?"

"Seen death?" the younger one repeated. "I conquered it."

"What?" the words replayed in his head.

I conquered it.

"Conquered death?" Bash's laugh was fading. "You talk as if death is a game."

"A game?" the chair he was holding onto broke into pieces. He started shaking and his eyes turned to the color Sebastian had seen in the forest. " Sword play is a game. And what do we use for war but swords and axes?"

"Francis," the older man interrupted calmly. "If you cannot control yourself, then I would ask that you leave the room."

The red left Francis's eyes. "I apologize, Henry."

"Your eyes," Sebastian said, coughing as he did so. "They are as if blood has been spilled onto them. Why?"

"That is a long story," Henry answered as Francis opened his mouth to speak. "Would you rather we show you instead?"

"No, that is quite all right," Sebastian told them, grinding his teeth in pain. "I do not have time for a demonstration."

"Demonstration?" Francis asked, amused. "Who said anything about a demonstration, when you can be the one to show the people?"

"Now now, Francis," Henry said, calmly, turning his head toward Francis. Bash's eyes widened. "Let us not scare him so soon." He looked back to Sebastian. "Tell us, what is your name?"

"Sebastian," he struggled to speak. There was no sense in lying when Death was at his door. "Sebastian de Poitiers."

"Fancy name," Francis said dryly. He bowed. "Francis Angoulême," he stood up from his bow, "though you must not call me that in public. You see, Francis Angoulême is dead."

"Dead? Have you taken a dead boy's name for your own?"

"I am the dead boy. Francis Angoulême died a year ago, and you are looking at him right now. Let me be the one to tell you that faking death to your family is no simple task."

"Pardon?"

Francis sighed. "Henry," he pleaded to the other man to explain.

"I saved Francis from an infection," Henry turned the towel on Sebastian's forehead to the other side. "He was in the same state as you- lying in his bed, with no hope for a future. You are much more quiet than he was. He never shut up about it."

"You try having excruciating pain in your ear, see how you get along with it," Francis muttered bitterly.

"I gave him hope," Henry continued, ignoring Francis's protests. "I gave him more than hope. I gave him life. A new one. How has this new life fared for you, Francis?"

"It was better than my first."

Sebastian could not believe what he was hearing. He was spending his last moments with two men who spoke as if they were in a second life on the Earth.

"You see," Henry stood up to stand beside the small window, watching the snow fall. "I pick those who deserve another life. You," he turned from the window and looked at Sebastian straight in the eyes, "deserve the best. Take it," he clutched his own fist as if to show him. "Take it into your grasp and hold onto it with everything in your power."

"What are you?" Sebastian finally asked the question that had been plaguing his mind.

"It is not what we are, but who we are."

"This is a load of pigs wallow."

He had believed Francis to be the one ill-tempered. But that was before Henry was at his bedside before Sebastian could blink. His eyes turned red the way Francis's had. Except instead of gripping the chair, he pulled Sebastian up by his shirt.

"Pigs wallow?" he spat in Sebastian's face. "What do you know about what we go through? Can you imagine what it's like?" the grip on his shirt tightened. "To never being able to see the light? His mouth opened, showing few teeth as sharp as a spear. "Would you like me to describe the torture of being one of the very few that is damned to live such a life? Or would you like me to allow you to live the life, to see it for yourself?" The sharp teeth went back to their smaller size as Henry released his grip on Sebastian and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"What do you say?" Francis appeared calm, next to Henry's rage.

"Will it hurt?" Sebastian's voice was but a whisper.

"Yes," Henry's voice dropped. "But will it not be worth it? Mere minutes of pain, for a life free of it?"

Sebastian did not want to be involved in such madness. He did not even know what Francis and Henry were, just what they had- sharp teeth, red eyes, and fast speed. But before he knew what he was agreeing to, he nodded.

"Very good," Henry lifted his head up from the pillow.

Sebastian gasped in shock when Henry bit down on his own arm. "Have you ever eaten a sheep that was killed by a wolf?"

"N-n-no," Sebastian answered, still staring at the blood coming from Henry's arm.

"That is one way to do it," Francis said to him. "It would make this much more easier if you had eaten sheep killed by wolf. Henry only has one other choice."

"Drink," Henry offered his arm to Sebastian.

"W-what?" had he heard correctly?

"Fine!" Henry was becoming angry once more, putting one hand (the one that was not bleeding) behind Sebastian's head and resting his other arm at Sebastian's mouth. "Drink!"

How had it come to this? He had only asked for one last gift before his death, and even that could not be granted. Now he would die with a stranger's blood in his body and two men giving him death by their hands.

It was over in seconds. Blood was coming down Sebastian's lips in waterfalls. He started coughing, part of it due to the illness and part due to the wish of removing the blood from his mouth. How much had Henry given him?

"I will make this quick," Henry promise.

"We will be here when you awake," Francis added.

Henry placed his hands around Sebastian's neck.

Snap.

Night carried on. Before the sun was rising, Henry and Francis moved Sebastian to where they called home. It was dark, cold, and wet. In the day, Henry would sleep in his coffin while Francis watched over Sebastian. Then they would switch out and it was Francis sleeping as Henry waited for Sebastian to awaken.

"Henry, this is starting to bore," Francis said as night fell. "When will he open his eyes?"

"Soon. The night has just begun," Henry smiled at his "Son." But it was not a gentle smile. Rather one that belonged to a cruel man with death on his mind. "Would you like to help me train him? It was most fun when I taught you how to feed and use your abilities, but all the excitement wore me down. Besides, why not share that excitement?"

They had just turned their backs when they heard a loud gasp.

Sebastian opened his eyes.

Francis and Henry were at his side in a second.

"Is that what I looked like?" Francis asked Henry, his brow furrowing. "I looked like a monster."

"Do not," Henry took Francis by the throat. "Use. That. Word." He let go of his throat and looked at Sebastian. "Everything went perfectly."

"Can you see?" Francis asked Sebastian.

"Dark," his voice was quiet, almost too quiet for the others to hear.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Francis looked at the walls of their lair. The were of stone, cold and wet from years of use and uncared. "You need not worry. All of your senses will be heightened."

Sebastian nodded weakly.

"Can you hear us?"

Another weak nod.

"You must be hungry," Henry suggested. "Francis, I will go and get us some food. Wait here with him, and try to keep him under control."

"I will," Francis sat on the stone floor.

"Where am I?" Sebastian sat up, slowly.

"Home," Francis looked around. "Try to get comfortable, this is where we will be for a long time."

Sebastian's eyes were very red. "This place is dark, and yet-"

"You can see everything as if you were standing in the sun? We stay in the dark Sebastian, you cannot go into the sunlight. Do you hear me? Stay out of the light."

"What happens if I go to it?"

"You die."

Sebastian looked up at Francis. He could hear everything around him, from the rat on the other side of the lair, to the deer outside in the woods. If he could hear everything, then why could he not hear Francis?

"Do you not breathe?"

Francis gave him a faint smile. "As I said, Francis Angoulême is dead," He cocked his head to the side. "Besides, have you not noticed the change in you? No heartbeat, no breath."

"No light," Sebastian whispered.

"No light," Francis repeated.

They heard a sound above him. The door opened, and a man fell to the ground.

"Sebastian, this is your food," Henry said. "Try not to leave a mess," he told both Francis and Sebastian as he closed the door again.

"Where is he going?" Sebastian asked.

"To find his own," Francis answered. "Shall I show you how it's done?" He did not wait for an answer, his eyes reddening as he took the man by the arm and bit into it. The only sound was the man's screams of pain. "There!" Francis stood up, eyes returning to blue. "And now it is your turn."

"I cannot," Sebastian stepped away.

"You can," Francis frowned. "Use your teeth and have at it like a man would fresh meat."

"Do you hear yourself?" Sebastian asked, ignoring the hunger that was rising in him.

"I hear myself the way I hear everything, the way I heard you begging for your own life to end. If you so desperately want to end a life, end his. Put him out of the pain and misery he is in."

Sebastian looked at the man, who held his pwn arm in agony.

"Survive," Francis whispered.

Sebastian crawled over to the man and looked him in the eyes. "I am sorry," he whispered to the man. Then to himself, "survive." The teeth came out before he could stop it. He could hear the heartbeat of the man, beating rapids. The veins in his neck lighting up, calling out. Sebastian put his head to the man's neck and bit.

Henry came back in, this time with a woman. "There we go, son."

Sebastian showed no signs of stopping.

"Should we stop him?" Francis asked Henry. "Or did you intend to kill the man?"

"It is difficult for a man to live when he has lost so much blood," Henry kept his eyes on Sebastian feeding, his lips curling upwards. "Let Sebastian have at it for now." The two men watched.

"And the woman?" Francis looked to the woman, who crawled away from them.

Henry took her by her robes. "Shall we give Sebastian a feast? I dare say he has earned one." Sebastian stopped and looked to Henry, who smiled as a proud father would to a son. "I brought another treat for you." He showed her to Sebastian.

"No," he refused. "One was enough."

Henry frowned, and let go of the woman to look Sebastian in the eye. "I can take back what I gave. Do it," his voice was low.

Sebastian nodded and did the same to the woman as he had the man.

"What shall we call him?" Francis asked, watching with Henry.

"The Darkness. Let us call Sebastian de Poitiers The Darkness."

And so began his eternal damnation into hell.

Don't worry. I'll try not to mess up the Darkness storyline like the show did lol

So what do you think? They will be appearing in Scotland, centuries later (Victorian Era) and that is where Bash will meet Mary, a Countess. I should also mention that Diane and Kenna (the wife) died of tuberculosis. Francis is one of the vampire "children" but there will be no Frary, but we can all band together to dislike Mary's husband James. The Henry we know from the show is the Vampire "Father" and he's a little twisted, corrupting those he makes.

Bash became a vampire on December 8th. Does that date sound familiar to anyone? ;) And yes, that sheep thing was a way people used to believe could turn somebody into a vampire.