Promise - Near X Vampire! Reader
Requested by (@Solargaming)
"Near, are you going to be working late again?" you called into the next room. Your boyfriend - well, actually your fiancé as of last week - had been working very late every night for the past few weeks, often well past midnight and into the early hours of the morning. You had hoped that becoming engaged to him might have found the two of you at least sleeping in the same bed but while you did actually share a bed now, Near was always there hours after you'd fallen asleep, and he woke up much earlier than you did.
At least, that was what you had said to him when he had asked you why you didn't like him staying up so late - and to some extent , it was true. But in actual fact, there was another reason you wanted Near to go to sleep earlier, and truthfully you weren't that bothered about which bed he chose to sleep in - that just gave you a seemingly valid excuse to complain.
There was something, though, that you hadn't told him. Something kind of life-changing, and therefore definitely something that you really should tell him. But you hadn't yet worked up the courage to broach the subject, and you had absolutely no idea how he would possibly react to it. Near was not a fan of anything that seemed at all illogical, and that was exactly what you were - illogical. You shouldn't exist according to his beliefs, or according to what your beliefs had been before a very strange event had happened to you. Once, you had shared his thoughts on these kinds of matters, but not any more - not when disbelieving meant not believing in your own existence.
This had all posed a difficult problem: you had a huge secret now, and it was highly unlikely that Near would listen to you seriously if you ever tried to tell him. But if you didn't, it would be hard to lead your life under the pretense that everything was normal, and as a to-be-married couple, you were supposed to share everything with each other; there shouldn't be any secrets between you, at least not any quite as massive as the one you were currently hiding.
The issue was...you were a kind of inhuman creature that really ought not to be. You hadn't always been like this, but as of several months ago, it had been who you were - who you lived as every day of your life, and who you always would be. Different stories called you different things, but the most commonly used name for what you were, was 'vampire'.
There were actually quite a few reasons why this was such a huge problem for you. For a start, well, you weren't even the same species as you once had been, and that took some getting used to. You had to go out at night to find - you hated saying 'food' but what else could you say? - which involved carefully sneaking out of bed once you were certain Near was asleep, and attempting not to wake him as you climbed out of the window. You couldn't simply walk out of the main door because although you had a key, there were security cameras everywhere and Near would inevitably catch you. You also couldn't eat a whole lot of food any more without feeling sick, but that one was fairly easy to deal with since Near had never really noticed when you ate your meals anyway, and had rarely eaten with you. Then, one of the things you most worried about: you had no idea how long you would live for. In many stories told about your kind, they often didn't age, meaning not only would Near eventually notice that you weren't growing any older, but you would also outlive him significantly.
In addition to all of this, you were also technically Near's enemy - because you were a criminal. Not in the traditional sense perhaps, if there was even one, but you still classed yourself as a criminal. You had to 'feed' in some way or another, and while you had never killed anyone and didn't ever intend to, you did assault people in order to get what you needed. They never seemed to remember what had happened, even immediately afterwards, and you were always certain to visit people at their homes so they would wake up in a safe place. But if assaulting them like you did wasn't bad enough, that meant you were also breaking in and trespassing on people's property. If Near ever found out what you were doing, he would have you put in prison without hesitation - duty came before personal feelings, after all, not that he would still care for you at that point. And so, you had promised yourself that you would attempt to deal with it all alone, and that you couldn't tell Near - at least not yet.
"I don't need to sleep tonight," Near replied.
You wandered into the room with a sigh. "Are you sure?" This wasn't the first time this had happened, and you still managed to sneak out and back into headquarters without being noticed - but it did make it a little more difficult.
"Yes, and I'd like you to stay up with me. There's a lot to work on, and I think you could help."
You froze. Now this was new. You rarely ever worked with Near, and had never worked through the night with him before. Then again, it had been a while since a case as puzzling as the current one had come up.
"Near- "
He turned to look at you. "Besides, I wanted to talk to you about something. But first: the case."
"Oh. Well..." You hadn't gone a night without feeding before, and you had no idea how it was going to affect you. But if you said no, after many times of offering to stay up with Near before you'd 'changed', it would only make him suspicious. "Okay."
"Good. Thank you." He paused, then picked up a document from beside him, passing it over to you. "I'd like you to read the case file, first. You'll need to know the information in it, to help me with this work, and it will tell you what we've got so far."
"Right." You flipped through it, inwardly sighing as you scanned the pages. There was surprisingly little to read, considering the amount of information Near usually had for a case, but you still felt bored at the thought of tediously reading through it before you could help, despite knowing that you were no use if you didn't.
"Let me know when you're done," Near said, as you got up to take the file to your room to read.
It took you less time than you originally thought to read the file through, and when you returned to the room where Near was, your head was buzzing with the new information. It almost distracted you from the familiar burn in your throat that reminded you that you had yet to feed tonight. It wasn't exactly painful, but definitely somewhat uncomfortable, and since you had never let it go on without satisfaction before, you weren't sure if it would get worse as the night wore on.
As it turned out, it did get worse. Nearly four hours later, your mind desperately trying to concentrate on the work you were supposed to be helping with, but your hunger vying for attention, it had become painful to the point that you couldn't think about anything else. You glanced over at Near, wondering if he would mind if you disappeared for a short while. Or perhaps you could convince him that you felt sick and needed to rest, so he might let you return to your room without suspicion.
Your gaze had been lingering on Near for too long, you suddenly realised, just as he turned to look over at you. And in that same moment, you also realised that you weren't just staring at him because you were thinking whether he would let you leave. You were hungry - and there was a seemingly good source of your desired food right in front of you.
You knew before it happened that you weren't going to be able to stop yourself.
You moved faster than you'd ever thought yourself capable of. Lunging, it took a split second for you to reach Near, knocking him off his chair as you collided with him and sending you both into the floor. In the fraction of time that you saw his face before your mouth met his neck, he looked visibly shocked, and it was the first time you had ever seen him look anything more than very mildly surprised
Two elongated teeth touched his skin as your lips parted, and you inhaled slowly, savouring the smell of him. The human part of you resisted, knowing that you were about to hurt the person closest to you. But the desire within you was not to be stopped, and you pressed gently with your teeth, piercing the soft flesh beneath them and tasting the first drops of blood on your lips. Near lay, eyes closed and unmoving underneath you, as did every one of your victims - you didn't know why, but thought it could be shock, or perhaps something in your teeth that temporarily paralysed them. Whatever it was, it made life easier for you.
You drank until you were satisfied, the burning sensation in your throat gradually fading away. Pulling back a little, your teeth and lips stained red, you wiped away the smear of blood on Near's neck with your finger, before wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.
The shocking realisation of what you had just done hit you, flooding through your mind in a wash of guilt. You moved away from Near, kneeling on the carpet facing him, but averting your gaze. It felt like a long time before he finally woke and moved again - he reached back to push himself so he was sitting up, looking, if possible, paler than he usually did. "Near..." you began, but from there you didn't know what to say apart from, "Sorry."
"It's...it's okay." He looked as though he might faint at any moment, but somehow he maintained composure. "That," he said slowly. "Was exactly what I wanted to speak to you about."
You stared at him. "What?"
"I already knew, (F/N)," he continued. "What you are...I knew."
"I don't understand." You couldn't fathom it. Near had known...but why hadn't he done anything? You felt scared suddenly - what was he going to do now?
"It's all right," he assured you. "I found out a while ago, via Anthony Rester," he explained. "He saw you out one night...'visiting' someone, after I asked him to follow you because i noticed that you kept sneaking out. Reported it straight back to me immediately."
"And you didn't act on that?"
"What would I have done? I could barely believe it - seemed like nonsense. But it was Rester's word, and I had to take account of that. He wouldn't lie to me." He paused, seeming a little out of breath, before adding, "As my fiancée, I thought you might have told me."
You had to ignore the thrill that went through you at hearing him refer to you as his fiancée. "I didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't believe me," you told him. "Besides, I would have assumed you'd put me in prison. After all, I'm technically a criminal, and I'm dangerous. Duty comes first; our relationship would've had to stand aside."
Near shook his head. "I would not have done that to you, and still won't. (F/N)...I'd have thought you know me well enough to realise that with your case, duty would not have come first."
You felt a rush of warmth at his words. "Oh, Near..."
You were cut off by his thumb tracing your lips, and then gently slipping past them to touch your teeth - or rather, your fangs, as you should probably call them. "Remarkable," he murmured, running his thumb over one sharp, white point, before dropping his hand. "I must say, though, this does present a variety of problems. But," he added as you opened your mouth to speak, "We will deal with them. I promise."
"You can't promise that," you argued.
"Don't be pessimistic," he said. "We will get married, (F/N), and then we will deal with whatever issues this brings to us. I promise."