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raccoon-eyed-rebel · 2 days

Text

Part 24

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Part 23 🟣 Part 25

A reverse harem vampire AU ft. Mikey, Marshall, August and Sherlock

Series summary: Somehow, you've managed to live with your boyfriend and his roommates for months before finding out they're vampires, but the real shock first comes when they find out you have a special quality. A quality the guys would love to make use of...

Warnings: Fluff, ongoing vampire shenanigans, mentions of drug abuse, addiction, tragic backstory, August's completely unwarranted hatred of jellybeans.

Word count: 2.7k

A/N: Family trip!!!

@geralts-yenn @deandoesthingstome @ellethespaceunicorn @summersong69 @mis-lil-red

@sillyrabbit81 @livisss @itsrubberbisquit @ktficworld @proud-aroace-beastie

@plaidcat4815 @wa-ni @lovemusicpart2

“Tell me something,” you whispered to Mike, who was sitting in the way too comfortable chair next to you, reclining the seat — probably without feeling any guilt towards Marshall and Sherlock, who were sitting behind him. They had plenty of leg room left. “How are we flying first class right now?”

“August refuses to fly coach,” Marshall answered that question for Mike. The answer didn't surprise you. Like, at all.

“It’s not like we can't afford it,” August snapped from the seat in front of you. The one next to him was empty.

“Charles would be proud of you,” Mike taunted. You didn't see the smack that followed, but you heard Mike's pained grunt all too clearly.

“Please don't break him,” you laughed. Mike snuggled into your side, glaring at the seat in front of him and kicking it for good measure. “And you can stop this tantrum right now, or sit next to August.” It was a good thing he was so damn cute.

“He's not wrong, though,” Sherlock pointed out, a hint of amusement to his voice. “Charles is the only other member of our family with the same insistence on certain levels of luxury.”

“Do I count as a member of your family?” you chuckled. All of your guys looked at you as if you'd gone crazy. And it was a silly question; of course you were a member of the family. “Because I think I might just be learning to appreciate those standards.”

“And exactly how expensive are dates going to get now?” Mike asked with a smile. “Because… Just because they are all fucking loaded, doesn't mean I have unlimited access to those funds…”

“Mostly because an ungodly amount would be spent on Jelly Beans, and an even more ridiculous amount would be spent on videogames,” August sneered. Mike just shrugged — he could hardly deny it; the fact that your arrangement meant Mike didn't need his mountains of Jelly Beans anymore, hadn't exactly meant he wasn't still eating plenty of them, much to August's chagrin.

“August, just because you live a boring, joyless, Jelly Beanless life, doesn't mean I have to,” Mike sighed.

“How long has this been going on?” You asked Marshall and Sherlock.

“I'd say since the invention of the Jelly Bean,” Sherlock said, “but Mike wasn't around back then. I believe that happened somewhere in the late eighteen hundreds…”

“As long as Mike has been around, then?” you asked, not wanting to ask them too many invasive questions such as ‘how in the hell do you know when the Jelly Bean was invented?’

“At least for as long as they've known each other,” Marshall answered, explaining that that hadn't happened until about thirty years ago. Still, that was a long time to have a whole feud over candy, you pointed out.

“It's a long time to be addicted to candy,” August growled.

“Eh, I guess an “addiction" to Jelly Beans beats all of those other addictions I had,” Mike shrugged. “Oh…” His cheeks flushed when he saw the troubled look on your face. “I guess I never told you…”

“Much of anything, Mike,” you said softly.

“It's not the best story.” He tried to shrug it off, but you could tell something was bothering him. “It's, eh… It's not exactly a version of me I want you to know about, either.” He looked at you, the sadness in his eyes becoming more and more pronounced as time went by, and it took some serious effort to convince him you loved him for the man he was now, not who he was forty years ago.

“Alright, fine,” he sighed. “What do you know? So I know where to start…”

“That Marshall ran into you in the eighties and that you were hanging out with a bunch of goths and goth-adjacent figures,” you summed up quickly, eager to get to the rest of the story.

“Alright, well… What’s important is that you know we're talking about Berlin in the eighties. My dad got a job there, so we moved from here to Berlin when I was six or something. That went well for a few years, and then my dad died when I was fourteen. I didn't think much of it at the time, but over the years… Something about it doesn't check out, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if my mom killed him because he had an affair with his secretary, but whatever. Water under the bridge, I guess.”

“Mike! The fuck?” He said it so casually…

“Sweetcheeks, it doesn't matter, okay? Dad was gone, mom worked all the time to keep a roof over our heads, and I became completely unbearable—”

“And that never went away,” August said. You could tell he was smiling.

“Hey, thanks!” Mike replied, rolling his eyes. “Anyway. I'm a completely unmanageable teen at this point, and Berlin in the eighties was not the place for that. Like, it goes wrong shockingly quickly. I think I was sixteen when it really started going south. Like I said; Berlin in the eighties was something else.”

“There were two things the government couldn't exactly get a handle on,” Marshall interjected. “One was vampirism, the other heroin. The two went hand in hand, more or less.” He looked down at his hands, clearly not at ease.

You had just decided not to press the matter when Sherlock offered an explanation. “Junkies were… not simply easy targets, although it would be hard to deny that they were.” It actually took you a while to notice that Sherlock and Mike had switched place, and that while you were looking straight at Sherlock, who was now sitting next to you. “Back in the day, addicts and vampires were connected by the mutual illegitimacy of their existences — although the vampires naturally had several advantages over humans from marginalized communities—”

“Anyway,” Mike cleared his throat and appeared next to you again. “The thing about a junkie is that they'll do pretty much anything for a fix. Including volunteering to feed vampires in exchange for some cash. Now, those were not the people you've heard us talking about up until now…”

Apparently, the goths you'd heard about had been the ones who took Mike in, the ones who tried to get him clean. “And they succeeded,” Mike said with an apologetic grin on his face. “Several times, even. My mom had stopped caring at that point, and then when I was nineteen — a few weeks before Julia, my ex, ran into Marshall — mom died, too…”

“He found out what I was not much later,” Marshall said.

“How?”

“I walked in on them, after Julia and I broke up, except I didn't walk in on what I at first expected to be walking in on, if you catch my drift.”

“Went about as well as you'd expect from the guy who's pretty much okay with everything,” Marshall laughed. “We did really well for a few years.”

“We'll spare you the lengthy, boring part with all the domestic bliss,” Mike swooped in before Marshall could elaborate. “When I was… twenty-two? Fairly sure I was twenty-two, yeah… Anyway, I met a girl—”

“Of course you did,” you blurted out before you could help it, immediately looking up at Mike with what must have been the guiltiest look of your entire life so far on your face.

“I don't blame you for that. Anyway… She was in trouble — the kind of trouble I'd been out of for years, at that point, and I thought I could be to her what Julia and Iris had been for me, but—”

“You relapsed?” you tried. Right on the money.

“Yep… Even years later, Hedwig — that was her name — pulled me right back under. Wasn't her fault, of course. It's not like she put a gun to my head and forced me to stick a needle in my arm or anything. Can't even say it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't met her. Anyway, the point is; it happened… Not a great time. I—” He nervously fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. “I’m happy to tell you the rest, but… later?”

You took his skittish look at the other passengers to mean he’d prefer a more private setting. Deal.

A left turn and the change from smooth asphalt to crunching gravel beneath the tires of the car startled you enough to let out a loud, disapproving hum and lift your head. You hadn’t been asleep, per se, but definitely dozing off a little, your head resting comfortably on Marshall’s shoulder. Mike’s hand was on your thigh, eerily — vampirically — still ever since you’d asked him for the third time if he could stop moving it because it tickled. He enjoyed tickling you, you were not a fan.

“We’re here, princess,” August said from the front seat, and you leaned over to look out the window, seeing nothing but forest, forest and more forest.

“We’re where?” you asked, surprised at the absence of the house you’d expected to see.

“The estate,” Marshall noted calmly. And exactly how big was this estate? “Big enough.”

“Charles likes his privacy,” Mike noted. His fingers were tapping a gentle rhythm on your knee now, and his legs restlessly bounced up and down with excitement. “You’ll love this place!”

The car finally pulled into something that actually looked like a driveway — that is to say, it was the same gravel, the same road, but you could finally see that there was a house attached to it. Mansion. Villa. Actually it was closer to something resembling a small castle, but this wasn’t Europe, so…

“Charles also likes extravagance,” August snarled his answer to your unasked question.

“I can see that,” you muttered breathlessly as you followed Mike out of the car when it came to a halt in front of the stairs that led to a pretty grand front door. “Where is Sherlock?”

“Right here, darling,” he called from the top of the steps, where August was also already standing — holding both of your suitcases and your backpack.

“Wait, how did the three of you travel so… light?” And how had it not occurred to you to ask that question before now?

“We have everything we need here,” August explained. “Mike, get her up here!”

One of the heavy wooden doors opened the second Mike put you down, and a small woman stumbled through it. She was a little older than you, with long, black hair down to her waist, and she looked absolutely exhausted.

“Priya!” Sherlock said, grasping her elbow to steady her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Holmes,” she replied before turning to you and reaching out her hand. “Hi, I’m Priya. I’m—”

“Dinner.” Oh, for the love of god, why did you have to snap at her? You didn’t even know the woman, but the thought of her feeding your vampires was entirely too much. “Sorry! I—”

“I get it,” she chuckled. “My sister, Nalini, has your… talent. She’s protective of her family as well. And you’re not wrong, just a bit impolite.” You deserved that.

“I don’t know what came over me,” you said. “I’m so sorry.” Not to mention how rude you would have been if you had been wrong… What if this woman hadn’t even had any idea she was visiting vampires?

“Are you sure you’re okay, Priya?” Mike asked, his brow furrowed, and his voice concerned.

“I’m alright, guys,” she laughed — but it took a lot of effort to do so. “I’ve been sick before, I always survived.” With the back of her hand, she wiped the sheen of sweat from her brow, and you noticed an intricate reddish design on her palms. She caught you as you tried to get a better look. “From my eldest sister’s wedding,” she said. “I can show you pictures later this week, but I really have to go. The sooner I get home, the sooner I can start sleeping off this cold, or whatever it is.”

“Please let us know when you get home,” Sherlock said as he walked her to the cab you’d just stepped out of.

“That was unnecessarily rude, princess,” August snapped when the car drove off.

“I said I was sorry,” you muttered quietly, not daring to look August in the eye. “I… You’ve all known her for a while, haven’t you?”

“She’s been coming here for years. About a year before Sherlock and Mike moved away,” Marshall explained. “Now, what’s really bothering you about this?”

“I thought you’d never been in this kind of… arrangement before,” you muttered, also avoiding Walter’s eyes.

“And we haven’t. You heard her; she’s not like you.” Marshall ushered you into the hallway, where the others were already waiting. The sound of the door falling shut behind you made you jump. “Charles was willing to pay a small fortune to drive her out here. Once a month, just as usual. And all the rules of the Bank still applied, just as usual. So, if you’re worried for so much as a second that you’re not special to us, you can stop that now.”

“Did she say she would be back later this week?” you asked softly. Part of you hated the thought of anyone but you feeding your vampires — even the ones you hadn’t met yet…

“She’s a friend of the family, not just… dinner.” The unfamiliar voice behind you startled you more than the closing door had, and you spun around as quickly as you could — but not quicker than the owner of the voice, who had apparently already walked around you, and was now standing behind you. “Would you stand still and let me do the moving, please?”

Two hands descended on your shoulders and gently turned you around, so that you were now face to face with the ‘new’ vampire. He was handsome, his face all angles and edges, with kind eyes and a charming smile. Judging from the sour look on August’s face, this had to be Charles.

“Charles Brandon, pleasure to meet you,” he said softly as he took your hand in his and shook it briefly. Perhaps too briefly? The charm of his smile almost made you overlook the sadness behind those kind blue eyes. Almost.

Next to you, Mike was swaying back and forth on his feet, waiting for introductions to come to an end so he could— Before Charles had even fully let go of your hand, Mike lunged forward to hug the man. “Alright, kid,” Charles laughed, “you’re home. It’s okay.”

“Where’s…” Mike asked as he let go so the others could subject Charles to similar treatment of warm ‘glad to be back’-hugs. Of course, the one between August and Charles was short and tense, but other than that, it was a perfect display of warm familiarity.

“Right behind you,” another unfamiliar voice spoke. This time, you didn’t bother to turn around — a wise call, as a split second later, another man appeared before you.

“Melot,” he said as he reached for your hand, raising it to his lips and pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles. For some reason, it made your heart skip a beat. Melot looked much younger than Charles, or any of the others — younger than Mike, even — and you were fairly sure it didn’t have much to do with the dark, shoulder-length curls that framed his face. “I’m glad you’re finally here.”

“He’d ask you how your trip was, but… he already knows,” Charles noted, adding to your confusion. “I see she hasn’t been told much about him? Does the same apply to me?”

“She knows enough,” August growled, followed by a grunt as Marshall kicked him in the shins.

“August, that’s enough, go to your room!” Sherlock snapped. It was absolutely hilarious to hear those words from him, but what really had you in stitches was the fact that he actually walked away — presumably to the aforementioned room.

You only stopped laughing when Mike gently nudged your side with his elbow, at which point you looked at the others in the hallway, who were all looking at Sherlock in bewilderment. After a strange, tense silence that lasted far too long, August joined you again.

“Would someone fucking explain to me why he got to do that, here?” he sneered.

Melot chuckled softly. “It would seem that our hierarchy changed with the coming of our queen.”