Warnings: References to drug use, blood, gore, mentions of violence. Also, I know that it probably isn't nearly as bad as half of the stuff on this site, but this story does have one of the most intimate scenes I've ever written, so I'm just gonna warn you about that here.
Disclaimer: Don't own Sherlock
The intercom buzzed impatiently at her from the desk she was sitting at. Anthea looked up from her 'top secret' documents to glare at the noise that had broken her concentration. It buzzed again, the sign that this was important. She glanced up at her boss' empty chair and answered with a sigh.
"Mycroft Holmes' office," she said, holding her finger on the intercom button.
"I have a man here who says his name's Sherlock Holmes," the woman twenty stories below informed her. She sounded confused and slightly wary. "He claims to be Mr Holmes' brother and that he needs to see him at once. It's… an emergency."
Anthea sighed, placing her palm on her forehead. She had been working for Mycroft for a year now and was well acquainted with his self-destructive younger brother. He came to 'visit' the office often, but he would only ever turn up for one thing, and it wasn't a brotherly chat.
Anthea had been working for Mycroft for a month when he had told her of his true nature. He informed her that one of the reasons that he had hired her in the first place over all the other applicants was that she seemed to be someone who would be able to handle the secret he held; and he did not wish to keep secrets from his personal assistant. And so, one evening, her boss had sat her down in his office and told her that he was a vampire.
She had been inclined to not believe him at first, but then took from all that she had found out about him during her month of working for him, and inferred that if he was telling her this outrageous and seemingly random piece of information, then it could only have been because it was true. This was before he had shown her his fangs and the drawer in his desk that was actually a mini-fridge full of blood bags – this evidence had fully convinced her.
After this revelation, Anthea had resolved to find out all she could about the true nature of vampires; for Mycroft had informed her that most fiction on the subject was just that. She had scoured the Internet and physical resources – not wanting to waste any of the British government's precious time – and found that if he was a vampire then his brother, whom Anthea had met several times already, must be one as well.
The only problem was that the brother – Sherlock – was a drug addict, and a drug addict who was a vampire was a lot more dangerous than a drug addict who was a human.
Mercifully, however, Sherlock seemed to have the same moral code as his brother and so did not drag people off of the streets to acquire clean blood that would bring him down faster so that he didn't experience the worst symptoms of withdrawal. However, in the absence of humans to feed from, he raided the hidden mini-fridge in his brother's office.
Yet even this brought about problems of its own; the first few times he had tried to gain access to the office, Anthea had refused. He had responded by breaking in through the window. After the fourth incident of this happening, she had decided that her boss' brother's drug habit was no reason to keep spending the tax payers' money on new windows every few weeks, and simply chose to let him up.
"You can send him up, it's alright," she droned to the receptionist, ready to disconnect the intercom.
"Um," the receptionist hummed in a high voice. Anthea paused. There was a shuffling sound before the woman whispered, "I think he's high."
Anthea smiled sadly to herself. "Send him up." She lifted her finger from the intercom and returned to her work.
A few minutes later the door opened behind her and Sherlock Holmes strode in, his long coat waving dramatically behind him. He closed the door so that no one in the hall would see what was happening – for the glass that made up that wall and the door was one-way, so that those inside could see out, but those outside could not see in.
"Good afternoon…?" he greeted, leaving room for her ever-changing name.
"Atarah," she supplied in a monotone, not looking up from her work.
Sherlock walked around the desk and sat in the chair opposite Anthea. "Where is my dear brother?"
"He's at a lunch with the French Premier," she informed him. She still didn't look up at him. She heard the mini-fridge open.
"And you're in his office," the younger Holmes smirked.
"He lets me use it when he's not here," she said. "My office is tiny compared to this and there's 'no reason for me not to use it, if it is there'," she explained, quoting her boss.
From the other side of the desk came the unmistakeable sounds of blood being slurped from a blood bag, followed by a sharp slap as the amateur detective slammed it down on the table, empty.
"You could sit in his chair, you know," he teased; Anthea could hear the taunt in his voice.
Anthea considered a sarcastic retort, but decided that it was simply best to ignore it.
She worked on for ten minutes listening to the cycle of slurps and slaps from her boss' seat. She tried to tune it out as best she could, but was incredibly relieved when he had finished and rose from his brother's seat.
"Tell Mycroft I said 'thank you'," he nodded, and made to leave.
"You can show your gratitude by getting rid of them." Anthea gestured to the empty blood bags on the desk.
There was a soft growl from behind her, but Sherlock did as he was told and left just as dramatically as he had arrived.
Anthea did not need to check to know that the mini-fridge was empty.
~{G}~
As always when Mycroft let her use his office, Anthea was back in her own pokey workspace by the time he returned. She had tidied away her things at ten to two and gone back across the hallway to her own office. She only had one more file to sort through when she saw her boss arrive through the glass wall.
She observed him open the door across the hall and pause, so slight that it was almost imperceptible. She guessed it had taken him one – maybe two – seconds to work out what had occurred in his absence.
Sure enough, a minute after she had seen him disappear behind the glass door, her intercom buzzed.
"When?" Mycroft sighed. The intercom between the two offices was the most secure method of communication in the world – it was unhackable due to its primitive technology, yet was protected by enough state-of-the-art software to make sure that no one could hear what was being said on it.
"About an hour ago," Anthea replied. "I ordered some more, they should arrive first thing tomorrow. I trust you are well-fed?"
"Thank you, I am."
The intercom clicked off and Anthea had no further contact with her boss until that evening.
There was a polite knock on her office door and she didn't need to look up to know who it was; the umbrella made a very distinct sound against glass. She pressed the button to open the door and stood.
"My meeting with the head of MI6 is in half an hour, yes?" he asked. He knew, but he also knew that Anthea liked to feel in control of all his affairs; that was, after all, her job.
"Roger is waiting for you downstairs," she nodded.
He smiled. "Thank you. I'll be back by eleven. Feel free to use my office."
"Thank you, sir," she said, and waited for him to close the door behind him before readying to move again.
~{G}~
As usual, she packed up her things ten minutes before he was due to return to the office. She kept one eye on the glass door so that she could see him come back.
The minute hand ticked closer to eleven o' clock. Still no sign.
Anthea began to feel slightly nervous, but not too nervous; he had been known in the past to arrive at the exact time that the clock chimed his promised hour of return. Maybe he was still downstairs, on his way up…
She delved into another file – a complicated one that would take much time and effort to finish. She paid close attention to the clock.
At ten past eleven the nerves had increased tenfold. Where was he? Her concentration was slipping. She usually always knew his whereabouts, but now she was drawing up a blank.
Half way through the file – now twenty past eleven – and he was still not back. Maybe something had happened, something that meant he couldn't get in touch to request help…
She finished the file at ten to midnight; longer than it should have taken, but she was finding it very hard to focus in the absence of Mycroft.
Once the clock read midnight, she had had enough and – leaving her unfinished work on her desk – went across the hall and into her boss' office. She wasn't expecting Mycroft to be there – after all, she would have seen him arrive – but the emptiness of the office still made the situation seem more real.
Anthea had never been one for nerves. She usually was cool and collected in times of crisis – another reason that Mycroft had hired her in the first place. Yet she had a niggling feeling that something was not right.
Something was not right at all.
Indeed, at ten past midnight – seventy minutes after he had promised to be back – Mycroft opened the door of his office. Anthea sighed in relief as she turned to him, but when she took in the sight before her properly, she froze in disbelief.
The hand curled around his umbrella was holding too tight; his knuckles were absolutely colourless as he leaned on the brolly for support. His other hand was clutched over his abdomen, holding tightly with fingers strained with crimson.
"Sir?" Anthea asked, her voice uncharacteristically hollow. She had never seen him like this; he was so calm and powerful, she had begun to believe he was invincible.
He walked into the office, his expensive shoes scuffing on the lino, and hobbled to the front of his desk. Anthea rushed to close the door so that no one would see – not that there was anyone to see, but she took the precaution nonetheless. When she turned, she was met with a sight that she never thought she would see as long as she lived.
Mycroft had collapsed with his back leaning against his desk, his eyes closed and brow furrowed in pain. His umbrella – still in his hand – had slipped so that it lay against the floor next to his outstretched leg.
Anthea took a tentative step forward, unsure how to proceed. "Sir?"
Mycroft opened his eyes and looked up at her, giving her a small smile that he guessed was supposed to be reassuring, but painted against his pasty complexion it failed in this respect. Vampires were always pale – but this was a new level of wan. She walked slowly forward, as though any sudden movement would break him, and knelt down by his umbrella.
"What happened?" she asked, her eyes unable to look away from the blood seeping through his fingers.
"I was shot," he explained. He sounded tired. "It would appear that the head of M16 was a target this evening, and an assassin was due to carry out his job as we left the restaurant. Fortunately for him, the assassin missed. Unfortunately for me…" He sighed, looking down at the wound in his abdomen.
Anthea felt like she was in a dream. Surely this couldn't be happening, not when Sherlock had taken all of the blood bags that afternoon…
Blood!
"Sir, you need blood!" she exclaimed, feeling as though she was stating the obvious but far too worried to care.
"I have sent Roger to collect some more," Mycroft explained.
"How long-" she began.
"Atarah," he interrupted. His voice was soft, but still full of authority. "Before he gets back, I need you to do something for me." Anthea nodded. Mycroft took a deep breath, as though it was becoming difficult for him to speak. "I need you to get the bullet out. Please."
Anthea froze in shock. "I-I'm sorry?" she breathed.
Mycroft licked his lips. "After I drink," he whispered, "I will start to heal. The skin will grow over the bullet, and I will need surgery to recover it. It will be much easier if the bullet were to be removed before then. Now."
Anthea felt herself begin to tremble. This had not been in the job description. Then again, the job description hadn't explained that she was going to have a vampire for a boss.
"Yes, of course," she found herself saying, and her body seemed to take control as she stood and made her way over to where the medical supplies were kept.
"You'll need…" she heard Mycroft gasp behind her, "those… pliers."
She searched frantically for the items on the list that her boss reeled off, listening to the shuffles and groans of pain from behind her. When she had collected everything, she slipped on a pair of medical gloves and turned back to Mycroft. The shuffling, it transpired, had been him removing his jacket and waistcoat, and unbuttoning his shirt. She considered feeling embarrassed at being confronted with her boss' bare chest, but then saw the ugly bullet hole that was oozing crimson and prioritised her concerns.
She swiftly made her way over to him and knelt down where she had been before. When she got closer, she noticed that he was shivering slightly, and his forehead was shiny with sweat.
"What do I do?" she asked, desperate to keep the fear out of her voice.
Mycroft gulped before speaking. "Just… pull the bullet out. The blood will do the rest."
Anthea sighed, and readied the sterile medical pliers. She took a deep breath and reached forward, but she was stopped before she could begin.
"Atarah." She turned to Mycroft. "Ignore any protests I make. I know this will hurt. But it must be done."
This having not calmed her in the slightest, Anthea resumed her task. The bullet hole was nasty, but almost invisible because of all the blood. She gently placed her forefinger and thumb either side of the bullet hole. Mycroft exhaled in pain.
Anthea, feeling like she needed to constantly apologise, opened the wound further. Mycroft gasped, and more blood poured out. She couldn't see a thing, let alone the bullet, but searched continuously for any sign of the spent ammunition. It didn't help that her 'patient's' breath had deepened considerably, and the area where the wound was kept moving slightly beneath her fingers.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, squeezing his eyes shut. She ignored it as best she could as she delved deeper and deeper and searched for the bullet.
There was so much blood obscuring the wound that Anthea was beginning to worry that she was causing Mycroft unnecessary pain in her attempts to locate the bullet. But then…
There was a glint of gold within the crimson, and Anthea chuckled in triumph and relief. She placed a finger on the gold that she could see and wiped away the blood so that the edges of the bullet were visible.
"I've found it!" she gasped, and chanced a look up at Mycroft.
She instantly regretted it. The small smile he had given her when he had first sunk to the floor had disappeared, replaced with a look of pure agony on his face that had gone beyond pale and through to grey. His eyes, now open, had dulled, as though the pain had taken something from them.
She turned back to the task at hand, and carefully inserted the pliers into the wound.
Mycroft screamed.
Anthea almost stopped, but she knew she couldn't. Whispering apologies again and again, she inched the pliers nearer to the bullet until she could grab the metal with the sterile implement. She made sure that she only had the bullet and nothing else, before slowly bringing it back through Mycroft's flesh. As the bullet reached the outside world, she heard a sound from her boss that she never thought would pass the invulnerable man's lips: a whimper.
The sound was so shockingly unexpected that her hand slipped, and the bullet slid out of the pliers' grasp. Mycroft cried out, and the apologies began again.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" Anthea repeated the phrase until she was unaware that she was still saying it, and reached forward with the pliers to grasp the bullet once more.
Please, God, don't let that happen again, Anthea prayed, wishing that she had her cross with her. The pliers grabbed hold of the bullet once more and she pulled back, slowly. The bullet was sliding out of the wound, closer to the outside, closer, closer…
It was out! Anthea let out a shaky laugh as she held up the bullet between the pliers. She retracted her fingers from the hole and placed her palm over it, applying pressure to – hopefully – stem the bleeding.
"Thank you," Mycroft gasped, still trembling slightly. She didn't like how weak he sounded.
"I'll send it to be analysed," she explained, placing the pliers and the bullet on the floor. "Maybe we can find out what gun it was fired from." She watched him carefully, concerned. His breathing was slow and deep, and he seemed to be blinking a lot. His eyes were unfocussed, his pallor sickly.
They sat in silence for a few moments, and Anthea's hand slipped from the bullet wound. She risked a glance at the clock. It had taken fifteen minutes to find and remove the bullet, and they had been sitting there for another five. Where was Roger? Where were the blood bags?
While her gaze was still fixed on the clock face, she heard his breathing quicken. She turned round to him to see his eyes squeezed shut and his hands balled into fists.
"Sir?" she asked, not daring to move.
"No!" Mycroft gasped, as his fangs extended.
Anthea had seen them before; inch-long canines that were a perfect pearly white. They never ceased to amaze her; yet now, amazement was only a tiny portion of the torrent of emotion that she was feeling; for in there was sympathy, helplessness, and – above all – fear.
The vampire was losing control.
He needed blood.
"Go," he rasped, his throat sounding dry.
Anthea blinked at him. "I'm sorry?"
"Go," he repeated, almost begging. "Please. I don't wish to hurt you, but if I don't get blood soon…" He paused, his eyes filled with despair, "I will," he whispered.
Anthea shook her head absentmindedly, completely unconvinced that Mycroft would ever hurt her – vampire or no.
She couldn't ignore the situation: a vampire injured and in that much pain was bound to lose control at some point, and when that happened not even Anthea would be safe. But this wasn't just any vampire. This was Mycroft. Mycroft, who loved poetry and the Queen and Britain. Mycroft, who worried about his brother constantly. Mycroft, who trusted her enough to tell her his greatest secret.
There was one thing that would make her friend – for at this point, she honestly considered him a friend – better, and Roger was just not reliable enough. She would have to take matters into her own hands.
"Take my blood," she said simply.
Mycroft's brow furrowed, as though he was uncertain he had heard right in his aching. "I'm sorry?"
Anthea gulped. "T-take my blood," she repeated, her voice now slightly shaky.
"Don't be ridiculous," Mycroft chuckled weakly, though his gaze dropped to the pulse point on her neck.
"I'm not," she told him, peeling the bloody gloves off of her hands and placing them with the bullet in the pliers on the floor.
"I would never ask you to do that," he murmured, still staring at her neck.
"I know," Anthea agreed, moving closer. "That's why I offered." She brushed the hair over her shoulder to expose her neck, and the vampire gasped.
Mycroft shifted slightly.
There was a complete silence in the office, as the vampire weighed up his options.
"There is a name," he murmured, "for a person who willingly lets a vampire feed off of them. A volens."
"Okay," Anthea nodded, unsure as to why he was telling her this.
"There would be… a change in our relationship. My vampire nature would forever see you as one who let me feed off of you." He lifted his eyes – seemingly with difficulty – to meet her gaze. "I wouldn't wish to make you uncomfortable with that prospect."
Anthea shook her head. "It wouldn't make me uncomfortable."
He gulped, and Anthea could see the cogs turning in his head: was it worth this so-called change in their relationship, if it meant that he survived this injury? An agonisingly long silence followed, until Anthea almost felt like shouting at him to make a decision.
Finally, he nodded.
Anthea, nerves building, moved forwards. He reached up to her shoulders and pulled her closer.
Anthea was shaking as he leaned into her neck, his breath ghosting her skin. Mycroft's lips brushed against the alabaster flesh; just over her pulse point. He traced his nose up until his lips reached her ear.
"Are you sure?" he breathed.
Unable to speak, she nodded sharply. His hand slipped from her shoulder and stroked down her arm. He lifted their hands, so that their palms were touching, and intertwined their fingers.
"Squeeze my hand when you want me to stop," he instructed. She nodded in understanding, starting to feel dizzy.
He traced his nose across her skin back to the pulse point, and there was a pause.
Then, almost without warning, the vampire dug his fangs in.
She was quite unprepared for the pain that followed. Choking back a scream, she almost raised her free hand to push him off, but she knew that she wouldn't be strong enough.
The fangs felt like small serrated knives embedded in her flesh, and the surrounding skin throbbed as her heartbeat pushed blood through the puncture marks. She hissed in pain.
"You're hurting me," she gasped, but the vampire was far too gone to really hear it. She desperately wanted to squeeze the hand in her grip, but she knew that he would need more blood and she was not yet feeling weak enough to ask him to stop. She settled instead for reaching up to the back of his head with her free hand and pulling at the hairs there as hard as she could.
She held on for several more minutes, until her eyes started to feel wet and she knew that she couldn't handle it anymore. She squeezed Mycroft's hand, and breathed a sigh of relief when the vampire retracted his fangs. She shivered when he ran his tongue along the wound, but she remembered from her research that it was to stop the bleeding. When he sat back, he looked better but still in pain.
"Thank you," he smiled, his voice stronger. Yet the smile melted off of his face when he looked up at her. Anthea felt a tear run down her cheek.
"I hurt you," Mycroft mumbled, reaching up and gently brushing the tear away with his thumb. Anthea didn't reply, too in shock from what had just happened. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she smiled weakly, dropping her gaze to the gunshot wound. She frowned; it was just as nasty as before. "You're not healing," she commented, looking back up at Mycroft.
"It takes some time," he explained. "I told you that the fiction of this world exaggerates the abilities of vampires. While feeding allows us to heal more quickly than our human counterparts, it does not happen in a matter of minutes." There was a pause.
"Atarah," he began cautiously, "I… I understand if you would rather not, but I will require a bandage. I would only ask you to retrieve one for me from the medical supply, and I can apply it myself. I realise that, after my rather callous display…" He looked guiltily at the marks on the side of Anthea's neck.
"No!" she gasped, holding her palm against the marks. Her neck was still a little sore. "Don't be silly, I don't mind." She chuckled slightly to herself; of all the things she thought she would ever have to warn Mycroft Holmes against, she never thought that being silly would be one of them.
She stood and made her way over to the medical supplies, and found a bandage long enough to circle his waist. He would probably claim that she would need to find a longer one and start mumbling about his diet. Anthea constantly reminded him that he had no need for such a diet, but he never listened.
Bandage in hand, she moved back to her previous spot on the floor and asked him to remove his shirt. She was far too beyond embarrassment at this point.
He obeyed without question, and she began applying the bandage. He made no noises of pain or complaints; Anthea wondered with a sickening feeling if this was because he felt he didn't deserve to voice his discomfort.
"There," she mumbled as she patted the bandage down. Red was seeping into the white where the wound was, but the bleeding was already stemmed slightly.
"Thank you," he breathed. He shifted, pushing himself into a more upright position. "Atarah, I'm terribly sorry, but I must ask one more thing of you."
She nodded instantly. "Of course, sir. What is it?"
He exhaled slightly as though in relief. "I will not be able to make it home tonight. I believe you know the entrance to my in-office bedroom?"
Anthea nodded. Mycroft hardly ever made it home due to his incredibly time-consuming job, and therefore hid a bedroom off of his office so that he could still rest without wasting valuable time journeying to his flat in Park Lane. The door to the bedroom was hidden behind the bookcase to the right of his desk, and could only be opened by moving the copy of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels the correct number of millimetres out from its place.
Anthea nodded in understanding, hearing the weariness in Mycroft's voice and knowing that it was using more energy than he had at that moment in time to speak. She stood and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, helping him to his feet.
"Atarah, I don't know what I've done to deserve such a wonderful and understanding assistant."
Anthea felt a small, proud smile tug at the corners of her lips. "Thank you, sir, but I would ask one thing of you in return for this." They shuffled over to the bookcase – Mycroft making small protests on the way – and the British government spoke before she reached up to the political philosophy tome.
"Oh? What is that?"
Atarah looked up at him. The brightness had returned to his eyes, and he could already manage a sincere smile.
"Sir, since my parents died, you are the only one who knows my real name. Just for tonight, can you call me by that? Please?"
Mycroft gave her a warm smile. "Of course. Ruth."
Anthea grinned; after so long, she had almost forgotten how her name sounded. She reached up to the book and pulled it out.
The bookcase opened inwards to reveal a simple bedroom decorated with only what was needed: there was a large double bed with plain bedding, a modest bedside table with a single drawer atop which stood a dull lamp, and a single light on the ceiling that made the room incredibly bright when Anthea switched it on. In the corner of the room was a small stand, big enough to fit only a single umbrella.
Anthea helped him over to the bed and lowered him on top of the covers – he declined to being 'tucked in' – and straightened herself up again.
The sight that she was met with was a strange one. Mycroft was still pale and visibly in pain. He had a small drop of blood in the corner of his mouth – Anthea's blood – from his messy feeding. The bullet hole was still leaking onto the bandage, though the bleeding did seem stemmed. Yet his eyes were still full of rarely-seen emotion as he looked up at her with a smile, a genuine smile.
He made no sound as he reached up to the side of her neck and gently brushed his fingertips against the marks. She sighed.
"There are bandages," he explained, and Anthea was glad that his voice sounded a lot stronger, "to cover the marks with."
Anthea nodded, reaching up to his hand and curling her fingers around his. "Are you… okay now?"
"I will be," Mycroft smiled. "Thank you."
"Goodnight, sir." Anthea lowered their hands to his side and let go as she turned to leave. She was almost at the door when he spoke again.
"Goodnight. Ruth."
She grinned.
UPDATE 30/12/13: The third part of the Volens!Verse, Involuntary, is up now.