#fan pathogen

[jediknightjameslunagazer23]

I've been back at it again, creating a new pathogen for my fan-made Trauma Center virus, which was originally called the Zeta Virus, but I decided to change the name to Chimaera, as I'm considering the idea of the pathogens belonging to this virus being kind of fused concepts of previous pathogens from G.U.I.L.T/NEO-G.U.I.L.T and possibly even Stigma depending on where I decide to set the story of this virus.

Also added some technical details of this pathogen, sort of treating it like it's a researcher making notes of the observations made, whether its the main villans who created it or Caduceus is up to you to decide.

Haven't fully come up with a treatment plan for this thing yet, as I'm still developing it as I go, but I might go into more detail, should I expand on the shadowy body under the main body...

Haven't named this thing yet, as I kinda wanted to deviate from the Greek mythology that Trauma Center is known for with the naming scheme, but couldn't find that many options other than the ones that I thought sounded cool, nor what the overall theme will be for the pathogens, including how many there'll be.

As for the pathogen, it would be treated more as an Early or Mid-Game major boss to end off a particular act of the game, with it having possibly two or three phases, with one requiring the Healing Touch or alternatively, James' Soothing Choir ability.

If this were a game, I'd imagine it being like New Blood with selectable characters, bit instead of it being limited to two, you'd probably have 4 or 5 characters to chose from depending on where you are with the plot, as this would be with the Switch or PC in mind, and this could have a gameplay mechanic of certain characters preferring one or the other as you can chose your assistant nurse at certain points as well, and it can lead to various benefits of better synergy or better tool effects.

However, for certain story operations, you're stuck with the surgeon that's best suited against major boss fight pathogens, kinda like Markus and Valerie's introduction operations for their Healing Touch abilities, in this case it will be James Lunagazer and whoever you chose to be his assistant nurse or surgeon in that chapter for example.

I'm also considering the idea of the Pathogens having one of the Villains of the Bio-terrorist organisation possess the power of Healing Touch or some other Greek theme related power to make it more challenging and personal, kind of like the X-Missions where the villains taunt the player, but having a more active role, and less extreme in difficulty.

However, as a result, these pathogens are much more aggressive, not counting the fact that due to their fused concept nature, they are highly unstable to the point that they can even attack the operating surgeon, such as knocking a tool away or possibly infecting them.

Anyway, I think I've gone off on enough of a tangent, I'll probably make a follow up to this where I explain a major mechanic in my ideal James Lunagazer story involving his Soothing Choir ability and by extension how it affects similar powers to the Healing Touch.

[rxttenfish]

in similar bitching, theres a horror post floating around that i'd LOVE to reblog except one of the fucking memes on there is just bitching about "elevated horror" that i swear does SO much worse. like, yeah, sure! just casually imply that fucking CRONENBERG movies have no themes to them! theres no deeper meaning to the thing! clearly nightmare on elm street has no deeper meaning going on beneath the surface and youre clearly stupid for pretending so!

[deathbringer]

[muttering under my breath while scrolling the fandom blogs of strangers] what if I start a support group for people who don't want to see Ford Pines get pregnant. what then

[theloverstomb]

‘Fragile Microbiomes’ by bio-artist Anna Dumitriu

1. SYPHILIS DRESS- This dress is embroidered with images of the corkscrew-shaped bacterium which causes the sexually transmitted disease syphilis. These embroideries are impregnated with the sterilised DNA of the Nichols strain of the bacterium - Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum - which Dumitriu extracted with her collaborators.

2. MICROBE MOUTH- The tooth at the centre of this necklace was grown in the lab using an extremophile bacterium which is part of the species called Serratia (Serratia N14) that can produce hydroxyapatite, the same substance that tooth enamel is made from.

The handmade porcelain teeth that make up this necklace have been coated with glazes derived from various bacterial species that live in our mouths and cause tooth decay and gum disease, including Porphyromonas gingivalis, which can introduce an iron-containing light brown stain to the glaze.

3. TEETH MARKS: THE MOST PROFOUND MYSTERY- In his 1845 essay “On Artificial Teeth”, W.H. Mortimer described false teeth as “the most profound mystery” because they were never discussed. Instead, people would hide the stigma of bad teeth and foul breath using fans.

This altered antique fan is made from animal bone and has been mended with gold wire, both materials historically used to construct false teeth (which would also sometimes incorporate human teeth). The silk of the fan and ribbon has been grown and patterned with two species of oral pathogens: Prevotella intermedia and Porphyromonas gingivalis. These bacteria cause gum disease and bad breath, and the latter has also recently been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

4. PLAGUE DRESS- This 1665-style 'Plague Dress' is made from raw silk, hand-dyed with walnut husks in reference to the famous herbalist of the era Nicholas Culpeper, who recommended walnuts as a treatment for plague. It has been appliquéd with original 17th-century embroideries, impregnated with the DNA of Yersinia pestis bacteria (plague). The artist extracted this from killed bacteria in the laboratory of the National Collection of Type Cultures at the UK Health Security Agency.

The dress is stuffed and surrounded by lavender, which people carried during the Great Plague of London to cover the stench of infection and to prevent the disease, which was believed to be caused by 'bad air' or 'miasmas'. The silk of the dress references the Silk Road, a key vector for the spread of plague.

5. BACTERIAL BAPTISM- based on a vintage christening gown which has been altered by the artist to tell the story of research into how the microbiomes of babies develop, with a focus on the bacterium Clostridioides difficile, originally discovered by Hall and O’Toole in 1935 and presented in their paper “Intestinal flora in new-born infants”. It was named Bacillus difficilis because it was difficult to grow, and in the 1970s it was recognised as causing conditions from mild antibiotic-associated diarrhoea to life-threatening intestinal inflammation. The embroidery silk is dyed using stains used in the study of the gut microbiome and the gown is decorated with hand-crocheted linen lace grown in lab with (sterilised) C. difficile biofilms. The piece also considers how new-borns become colonised by bacteria during birth in what has been described as ‘bacterial baptism’.

6. ZENEXTON- Around 1570, Swiss physician and alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus coined the term ‘Zenexton’, meaning an amulet worn around the neck to protect from the plague. Until then, amulets had a more general purpose of warding off (unspecified) disease, rather like the difference today between ‘broad spectrum’ antibiotics and antibiotics informed by genomics approaches which target a specific organism.

Over the next century, several ideas were put forward as to what this amulet might contain: a paste made of powdered toads, sapphires that would turn black when they leeched the pestilence from the body, or menstrual blood. Bizarre improvements were later made: “of course, the toad should be finely powdered”; “the menstrual blood from a virgin”; “collected on a full moon”.

This very modern Zenexton has been 3D printed and offers the wearer something that genuinely protects: the recently developed vaccine against Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.

[miedei]

hi lovey!!!!! youve given me roommate spencer brainrot and after you mentioned it in that blurb im obsessed with the thought of him going to reader for touch/physical intimacy whenever hes burnt out from a case or something because hes so reluctant to accept touch from anyone else???

love you!!!

hihihi angel!! you're sooo real roommate!spence has taken over my brain recently i loveee this prompt so i wrote a drabble

had to inject a whole bunch of oblivious idiots who are in love because I'm nothing if not predictable <3 hope you like it!

roommate!spence fic | blurb 1

When you first met Spencer, he'd refused to shake your hand. To be fair, he'd given you a very convincing argument as to why, and you never held it against him. But it's very difficult to reconcile the memory of that Spencer, with the one you find yourself on the couch with now.

The length of his right arm is pressed up against yours, his tall body slumped down against the cushions so he can rest his head on your shoulder. The curling ends of his too-long hair tickle the sensitive skin on your neck, but you don't move away. You'd never move away from this.

He'd come home half an hour ago, late at night. You had been curled up on the couch, and you could see the exhaustion rolling off him in heady waves. The moment he shut the door behind him, he was shedding his coat and bag, thrusting them haphazardly somewhere near their allocated spots as he shuffled slowly towards you.

“Hey. All good?” Your own sleepiness was reflected in the short sentences, but you’d hoped that your eyes conveyed your concern adequately enough. 

It seemed like it worked, his hooded eyes raising to smile weakly at you. As he padded closer to where you sit on the couch, he nodded at the spot next to you in question. You shifted over, freeing up the space for him to crash, leaning heavily against you like he’s trying to meld himself to your side.

Which brings you to now. Whatever sitcom you were half-watching drones on in the background, the glow of the television splayed out over the delicate features of his face. His eyes are closed, eyelashes fanning over his cheeks, but you know he’s not asleep by the way he periodically presses himself closer to you. 

You’d questioned him once on his willingness and active initiation of physical contact with you, after you’d lived together for over a year. “I like it,” He’d said simply. “It’s comfortable. And it’s not that I dislike physical touch, I just can’t get over the thought of all those foreign pathogens on me. But, with you, I don’t have to worry about it. We spend so much time together. Did you know that living with someone for an extended period of time causes your microbiomes to change to share lots of traits? So you and I would share a lot, like-”

He’d continued to ramble for fifteen minutes. You’d taken it as an excuse to admire him openly. 

You’re taking this as another opportunity. Your head is bent at an awkward angle, but it provides you the best view of his exhausted visage, soft breaths ruffling the thin fabric of your shirt. 

He looks especially unguarded, an expression you’ve learned to value in the time that you’ve known him. It’s comfortable and soft, the feeling in your chest so warm that it entreats you to rest your eyelids for a second.

Spencer never expected to feel this comfortable with someone. He wonders what the him of five years ago would think of this— him, resting against someone, and them trusting him enough to lean just as heavily against him. It sends a spark of giddiness down his spine, one that he works very hard to not let shudder into the rest of his body, lest it disturb you.

Because of the angle at which his head is tilted, a lock of his hair slips down his forehead, finally falling to cover his eye. His nose wrinkles in response, but he’s not going to do anything. Not when you’re pressed up against him, leaning on his upper arm in a way that makes his heart squeeze in his chest. He’ll endure it. 

But he doesn’t have to endure it for long. As if you’ve heard his thoughts, he watches as your eyes flutter open slowly, pupils swivelling over to his face immediately. An easy smile tugs at your lips, and his breath hitches when you raise a hand to his face, gently capturing the hair and brushing it back to the top of his head. 

And as if that action wasn’t mind-boggling enough, your hand stays there, fingers tangled in his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. 

Spencer can hardly hold in the pleased sigh that slips out, the feeling sending a rush of calm through his limbs. His eyes can’t tear away from yours, and he makes a mental note to read up on sirens, make sure that the attraction he feels to the depths of your irises isn’t supernatural in nature.

Either way, the two of you are not moving any time soon. The little bubble you find yourselves in is impossibly quiet, and yet it feels as though you’re saying more than you could in hours, through soft touches and bewitching eye contact.

The contact is slow, moving steadily across the crown of his head, and he feels like he could fall asleep right there. Or kiss you. Who knows.

[dyli-dadi3]

Kinktober

Day three: Aphrodisiacs

Unlike other airborne pathogens that make you sick, this one just makes you incredibly horny for a man you met today. Thankfully he's incredibly horny for you, too. Spores not included.

Summary: After inhaling spores, you become overwhelmed with desire. Who else better to scratch that itch deep inside of you than an attractive man who you've been fighting off zombies with? Tags: Smut (p in v), aphrodisiac, begging, mentions of death

“It’s going to be okay, agent. I got you…” Leon mumbled, holding onto your arm as he bent to your level. “I’m going to find an antidote or something.” He said, biting his lip as he watched your sweat bead on your brow, your eyes sipping closed as your parted lips let a pained groan slip out.

You led Leon to a cathedral, promising it would explain the horrible things happening to the United States, hell, the world. “I can’t explain… it’s just better to show it.” You had promised him, and he followed. He had doubts about you; if you had anything to do with it, he wasn’t letting his guard down anytime soon. He had dealt with betrayal enough times to be cautious around a pretty face.

The next moments went in a blur; fighting off the horde that prevented the two of you from entering the damn building in the first place, the strange trials the two of you had to complete to open the secret passageway to the basement of the cathedral, and then the rather unfortunate luck of a bioweapon emerging from the fog, threatening the lives of everyone in the vicinity. The two of you had managed to keep most of the refugees safe. Can’t help that some people don’t heed the lucid warning of “Stay back! This thing’s dangerous!” 

Don’t change the fact that Leon still mourns the loss of every citizen, every agent, or soldier who lost their lives to this unfair world.

Doesn’t mean that you weren’t hurt. Or, at least, that’s what he thinks is wrong with you. That… thing sprayed you with some sort of blue spore when you delivered the final shotgun bullet in point blank range, the particles being immediately inhaled into your lungs. Leon watched in horror as you coughed and sputtered, stumbling out of the cloud and towards him. “Are you okay?” He asked you, watching as your hand fanned the air around you. 

“Y-Yeah, i-it’s… fine…” You started, eyes widening as your knees grew weak and the start of something formed in the bottom of your gut. The feeling was strange, but it wasn't stopping you from pushing on—no need to worry Agent Kennedy!

Well, by golly, he was pretty worried now.

The two of you had gotten to an underground lab and you had immediately collapsed onto the floor littered with some fancy medical paper filled to the brim with notes from various experiments. He was sitting with you, hand on your forehead only to pull back in shock at the burning temperature of your smooth skin. 

“You're burning up…” Leon pointed out softly, only to get a whimper from you in return. “I know that. I feel like I'm wearing a sweater and fuzzy socks in the Sahara.” You huffed, only to cover your face. Your tummy turned, a ball of molten lava warming your core and addling your mind.

“Sorry, Agent Kennedy, I just feel all fuzzy and hot… I know that's not an excuse to talk back to my superior.” You apologized, and Leon just rolled his eyes. 

“Don't worry about that formality bullshit. Let’s just focus on getting you better.” Leon started, moving to stand up when your hand grasped him.

“No!” You gasped, the sudden feeling of despair and emptiness filling the pit of your stomach was alarming. As if the very thought of him leaving you left your pussy weeping.

Wait.

What?

By all means, you thought Leon was the sexiest, most attractive man you knew. The way he cared for everyone was admirable and wasn't lost on you. His kindness pulled you in like a magnet, but you stopped yourself from getting too delusional. After all, he'd hate you once he figured out why you led him to the cathedral.

But you were shocked by the sudden desire to throw yourself into his arms like a crying child to his mommy. You felt like crying.

This was embarrassing.

“I just me-mean that I don't want you to leave me… -Fuck.” You sputtered, hand flying back to your side as you flushed in embarrassment. You spiraled as your mind conjured up all the demeaning things Leon was probably thinking about your pathetic display of dependency.

Leon's eyes widened at your little moment, more concerned than offended. He needed to do something. You were glistening in drops of sweat, and now you were starting to lose coherency and your temperament. He saw how you squinted as if your brain struggled to form thoughts and even then, they were still words he would never hear you say in the right state of mind.  

He had no idea of the arousal that was wreaking havoc in your lower stomach, the inhuman mess that was beginning to wet your underwear. To him, you just looked like you had a fever.

To you, it was an overwhelming desire to have the man in front of you. You felt like some sort of bitch in heat as your mind drowned in need. Your body was taught as you desperately fought the urge to pounce on your higher-up.

A whine slipped past your trembling lips and Leon froze. What was that supposed to mean? He leaned in, trying to figure out why you were so squirmy. He wanted to find some sort of medicine for you. You guys were in a lab for heaven’s sake. Probably the same lab that made that abomination of a BOW straight out of a trypophobe’s nightmare, but you were adamant about him staying.

The proximity made your head spin, his scent invading your senses as your will dissolved like cotton candy in water.

“Please!” You begged, grabbing his shoulders and hanging your head in mortification as to what you had just said.

“What do you want me to do?” Leon strained, getting more and more worried by the second. His hands hovered over your waist, trying to keep some air of professionalism and respect despite your wandering hands.

Okay, that was confusing. Leon watched in concern as your hands slid down his arms.

You didn't say a word, too embarrassed to voice your need, so you just whimpered and squeezed your thighs. 

The relief was instant. 

A moan slipped past your lips as your thighs shook. If just this little movement was enough to get you like this, you were stuck imagining what it would feel like if you gave in, if he was the only thing allowing you respite. The thought brought on another wave of heat, and you struggled to imagine how you were going to get through this without losing the ever-growing battle of fighting your arousal. 

You already gave up on the struggle to not touch him, and look at you now. Your face hung in embarrassment as your hands felt the firm musculature of his arms, body leaning in to share his warmth, to smell his scent. Your mind swirled with a myriad of impure thoughts, and you nearly came when Leon finally touched you.

“What’s wrong?” Leon finally asked after he softly placed a hand on the small of your back, as if he’d hurt you, his eyes widening as he saw you shiver. You were making noises that he was trying to ignore, to rationalize… Something to explain why you were making the sounds that went straight to his dick despite his best efforts.

“It hurts.” You whimpered, practically sobbing through the first words you had said in a while. You were practically on top of him now, your arms had circled back up to wrap around his neck. His compliance made you needy, trying to milk this horse for all he’s worth. 

God, with how horny you were, milking him dry seemed necessary.

“What hurts, sweet girl?” He said softly, the lines of professionalism blurring like chalk on a rainy day. The walls he tried to put up throughout your brief partnership were virtually nonexistent. The sight of you in pain hurt him, too, and with the way you were clinging onto him like he was damn Mosiah himself, how could he not give you anything you wanted? Anything to help you feel better.

Call it the hero complex, but he couldn’t shake the thought that he was the reason you were like this. He didn’t shield you properly, turned to help steady a survivor instead of keeping his eyes on you. God, he never wanted to keep his eyes off of you, Raccoon City fucked up his underdeveloped brain and rewired it to be a fiend for women who could handle a gun. 

That name had you gasping, clambering onto his lap as you pressed your nose into his neck. Your lips brushed his skin as you breathed him in, gripping him so tightly that your knuckles turned white. “Everything…I need you, Agent Kenedy.” You begged, tentatively pressing a kiss to the column of his throat.

You had him groaning as he settled you down on his lap. “Is that right?” He whispered, mirroring your actions to the top of your head. The smell of blood and gunpowder was strong, but if he focused hard enough, he could make out the notes of your shampoo. 

“Mhm…” You slurred, panting into his skin as you pressed yourself to his bulge. Your eyes rolled back as you practically convulsed on his lap, so pent up that even that could bring you to ecstasy. You begged and begged for more as you began rubbing against him. 

Leon hissed at you and started moving, grabbing your hips to help you. “So needy, huh?” He said with a sigh, watching as you acted so desperately. He said he’d do anything to help, and if making you cum was the answer, then he was buckling up for a long ride. It’s the law, he thinks with a chuckle.

He watched as your face began to scrunch up. “Aww, need more, princess?” His voice dripped like honey. He didn’t need you to speak, he saw how you tried to nod through your haze. That was all the confirmation he needed to turn you around on his lap, unzipping your jeans and slipping a hand past the fabric of your underwear. 

“Fuck… You’re dripping, honey.” Leon moaned, wasting no time to finger fuck your tight cunt. “She’s just beggin’ for it…” He whispered, scissoring you. “Beggin' for my thick cock to stuff her full.” He rambled, working himself into a frenzy as he saw you babbling. So turned on you couldn’t even properly respond. 

You just nodded, moaning in hopes that he could tell how ready you were for him. You needed him, his praise, his touch, his dick. The latter making itself known as it twitched against your ass. You couldn’t take it, the spores a distant memory lingering in your nose as you were convinced you’d die if Leon didn’t breed you. You needed him rabbiting his load into you, you wouldn’t see straight without it.

You didn’t have to hope for long, since, just one desperate plea from you, Leon was opening up the front of his pants to slide into your sticky cunt. You sobbed, the feeling of his cock splitting you open was mind-numbing and clarifying at the same time. It made your mind spin, but the haze was already clearing, the aching in your entire being finally letting up. You needed more, needed him to fix you. With every bounce on his rigid cock, you were closer and closer to relief from the burning heat that consumed your body ever since that stupid BOW sprayed you. 

Squeezing his fat cock like a vice was instinctual, impaling yourself second nature, the haze making you seek your body’s most primal needs. You couldn’t think, mind wired to take his cock like a good bitch, and by golly you were good. Poor old Leon whined as you got him all wound up and ready to bust a load into you, balls scrunching in anticipation.

“Fuck, baby. Gonna breed this greedy pussy. That’s what she wants, isn’t it? This whole time she’s been beggin’ for my cum.” He huffed, bringing his index and middle finger to your aching clit. He rubbed tight circles onto the slippery nub, whimpering when you immediately clenched around him. 

“Yes, Yes! I need it… Need you to breed me.” You sobbed, creaming all over his length as he fucked you into oblivion. 

“Shit, couldn’t pull out if I tried.” Leon moaned, snapping his hips up into you in shallow thrusts until his balls tensed and he shot ropes into your pussy. You felt complete, the fog clearing for a moment until you felt empty again. 

You huffed, moving your hips again before Leon could say Sweetheart. He convulsed, too fucked out as his eyes rolled back.

“Fuck…”

[insanebookreader]

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝'𝐯𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐞𝐧, 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐝 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦! 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Pairing: S6 Spencer Reid x BAU fem!reader (no use of y/n)

Synopsis: One of the team’s rare nights off turns unexpectedly sour, for both you and Spencer. You show up with Richard, your new EMT boyfriend. He’s everything on paper…and everything Spencer knows you don’t need.

Key: 🖤★

Content warnings: Cheating but also kind of not? Reader's boyfriend is an asshole! Angsty, tension filled, there is no happy ending sorry! A little bit spicy? Not really. Spencer is YEARNINNGGG and hurting. YES, Haley is alive in this LEAVE ME ALONE. Both Spencer and Reader's POV's. I think that's all. Height difference briefly mentioned! And also hair length mentioned, the length isn't specified just the fact that reader has some.

A/N: I wrote a lot of this like..in the early A.M's. Sleep deprived. And hungry. I hope this is good and it may or may not be my first fan-fiction..(that I wrote). Also it's not a real goodbye (you'll see later) it's more so metaphorical? I listened to a lot of angsty music while writing this. As well as horny? Do with that what you will. (I recommend "Picture You" and "Do I Wanna Know?")

Word Count: 4.9k

𝜗𝜚

Enjoy! ^-^

He had to blink, remind himself to breathe manually to snap out of it. Seeing you walk through the bar doors with him left a sour taste in his mouth, more than the cheap liquor he forcibly had been drinking. As you approached the team with that wide smile of yours that was always paired with a twinkle in your eyes, greeting them with sweet hugs and laughs– he couldn’t help but think why?

Why did you have to look so good tonight? (Though you always did) There was something particular about how your hair framed your face so perfectly though effortlessly, how you could have barely any makeup but your beauty still rivals Aphrodite’s, and how–

“Spencer?” The sweet, almost hesitant sound of your voice pulled him from his spiraling mind– and sent his heart racing at an ungodly speed at the same time. The way you gazed at him made him do two things, one, feel like his heart was in his throat and he was about to puke it up, and two, question the intensity behind it. He questioned how you could look at him like that with your new boyfriend next to you– how your eyes held this evident softness that felt meant only for him, yet also carried that blazing intensity that always reeled him in. But then he quickly reminded himself: no, there was nothing behind those breathtaking eyes of yours for him. Right?

“Right. Sorry, I was uhm..” His brows knit together in the middle tightly, a tell of his own inner turmoil that you were able to pinpoint though didn’t know the exact reasoning behind. He cleared his throat, forcing a tight almost painful smile at you and only you. He didn’t dare to look at your boyfriend. “What were you saying?”

“I was saying this is Richard. My boyfriend.” Because he cared oh so much about you, he gave this Richard guy a polite nod and one of his awkward tight lipped smiles as he introduced himself, though sticking to his no hand-shaking personal rule he always abided by even when Richard tried to shake his hand. “Not one to shake hands, huh?” Richard’s annoyingly smooth and gravelly voice echoed back to him, wearing an almost amused smirk. 

Again, Spencer tightly pressed his lips together as he nodded, tapping his fingers against the tops of his thighs absentmindedly. “Yes, I uh..actually the number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering…It's actually safer to kiss.” He finished his sentence with a proud toothy grin and small breath of air, nodding as he looked between you and Richard.

He felt his palms get clammy as his smile slowly fell, starting to realize the odd phrasing of his words. He fumbled for a save, but the weight of the silence ripped the words from his throat first. A long silence. An awkward one at that. “I uh- I meant–” but then thanks to Derek–who put an arm around his shoulder and slid him away swiftly, he was saved from that suffocating weird tension. “Alright, pretty boy. ‘Nough of that, let’s get you away from whatever that was.”

Spencer could feel your lingering and searing gaze as he and Derek walked further away, his shoulders sagging in shame as he allowed Derek to sit him back down.

~

Some time had passed since then, everyone was now gathered together in a booth in the corner of the bar. He tried his best to keep his gaze off you as he half-heartedly listened to the other’s chattering and laughter. But how could he, when you were draped over Richard’s arm like some trophy on display. He knew you hated that. Being paraded around, being looked at like you were someone’s possession. He knew you–he used to know you, at least. You two had once been glued at the hip.

“Soooo..,” Penelope with her perky and bubbly tone paired with her enthusiastic smile cut into his thoughts as she referred to you and Richard. “How did you two meet? How long have you two been together? Oh! And–what’s his Hogwarts house?!”

JJ chuckled as she placed a hand on the former’s shoulder, smiling at her amusedly while she stopped her inevitable bombardment of questions. “Alright, Garcia– we don’t want to overwhelm her.” 

He saw how you nervously smiled and laughed, looking around the booth with a slight sheepish expression. “We met at the library. I was..” And he didn’t hear the rest of your story about you and stupid Richard. Are you serious? You two met at a library? That guy looks like he lives at the gym and checks himself out in the mirror. That and he didn’t want to hear about your guy’s “meet cute” as Garcia put it. 

His attention suddenly was drawn back to the conversation when he heard Richard speak, his gaze lifting as he tilted his head in confusion and his brows furrowed in disbelief. “I mean..isn’t she just so gorgeous? I always tell her she could be making way more money modeling instead of running around catching bad guys. I mean, with that face and body?”

You shifted uncomfortably as your gaze averted to the side, the booth table’s sudden silence reflecting your now rigidness and set jaw. Oh, he had it now. Spencer suddenly cut in, sharply and with a newfound boldness. 

“Do you even know her middle name?” Spencer scoffed, incredulous. “How she always sneezes at least three times? Or her first cat’s name? Her calendar or favorite rom-com? No– you don’t know her. You see her.” 

Again, there was a long and heavy silence with Spencer’s ragged breathing being the only thing to break it. Everyone shared knowing glances, no one daring to say a word. The tension was easily interrupted when you abruptly got from your seat and walked away, rushing to the restroom, even pushing past some people. 

The moment you rushed into the restroom, you beelined for the sink, leaning on it as you let your head hang for a moment before you frustratedly turned the faucet on and splashed your face with water. Your head spun no matter how hard you tried to pull yourself together. What were you doing? What was Spencer doing? And why was everything so confusing right now? You had, for the past near year, tried to push down your achingly strong feelings for boy genius back there. For so long, you felt like there could be something between you two only until you eventually came to the realization that he didn’t feel the same. He never made a move, never said anything, did anything. So why did it feel like his eyes hadn’t left you all night? Like that gaze– the one that always pulled you in– was finally doing so on purpose? 

You didn’t care about the lingering and judgemental stares you got in the restroom from the other passing women as you took your time to gather yourself. You couldn’t calm your heart, couldn’t stop it from pounding like it wanted out from your chest. Couldn’t soften the etched furrow in your brows, nor least of all stop questioning everything. You wanted to believe that the “accidental” brush of your hands meant something, or how he knew your exact Mcdonald’s order by heart despite how he always bugged you about its toxins and preservatives. Or how he knew how you took your coffee, how you cry because you can’t adopt every animal in the animal shelters. 

And you definitely couldn’t forget how he does that one nose scrunch, how he drowns his coffee in sugar, how you loved how much he cared for and loved his mother, his mismatched funky socks, and– god, just stop. You needed to reign yourself in and go back out there. 

It had already been almost 10 minutes when you walked back out to the booth, though you noticed a now empty space, your head tilting in confusion. Richard. “Where’d..” You stared, but Emily beat you to it, a slight edge to her voice though she held a sympathetic gaze whilst looking at you. “He left 5 minutes ago. Said he needed to “urgently get to his friend’s house.” For what? He didn’t say.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence passed as you sank back down into your seat, avoiding gazes as you brought your drink back to your lips. You especially avoided Spencer’s gaze– burning into the side of your face. You couldn’t tell whether or not your heart was racing from nerves or the fact that it was him staring at you. Though, the slow, smooth, sensational shiver that ran down your spine answered for you.

Haley, from Hotch’s side, spoke up– looking at you kindly with a warm gaze as her head tilted. “Don’t think about him. Just have fun with us,” She said with that sweet yet careful tone. She was always so kind. If only she knew you weren’t thinking about Richard, instead thinking about the man across from you who had an eidetic memory and 187 IQ. One of the many things you admired about him. I mean, come on. He’s kind, unintentionally charming, intelligent, and so incredibly handsome.

Your gaze drifted to Haley then Hotch before nodding with a faint smile, bringing your glass down from your lips. “Thank you, Haley. I’m okay.” You made a mistake of letting your eyes meet Spencer’s, who was already eyeing you like a goddamn hawk. And unlike usual him who would look away awkwardly, he held it. Almost unblinking. Like he was challenging you, pushing you, daring you.  

Some time later, the group had split into smaller clusters– of course Haley and Hotch dancing together while staring at one another like no one else was in the room, Penelope and JJ sipping on their drinks while gossiping about who knows what, and..Spencer and Derek in the corner. 

You sighed as you turned your head back to Emily, confusion and almost frustration clearly etched on your face with the way it tightened. “Okay, it’s not just me who’s noticed Spencer’s been staring all night..right? Or am I crazy?”

The raven-haired woman smiled almost smugly as she laughed gently, shaking her head in amusement. “You’re not crazy. I’ve noticed it, too. And..so has everyone else I’m pretty sure.”

Your eyes widened slightly as you looked around wildly and quickly before looking back to your best friend of years, tilting your head. “I– what? No..okay. But..why? Why has he–” She immediately interrupted you with a sigh, gently rolling her eyes before she looked at you like the answer was written on her forehead. 

“Because he’s terribly in love with you and you brought your asshole boyfriend to drink with us tonight. Which, no offense, I’m glad he left. What he said about you was uncalled for.” 

It was almost, almost comedic how you stared at her like she just said the world is flat. Mouth agape, eyebrows furrowed so tightly you would definitely get a wrinkle there, and utterly silenced. After a moment, you huffed an incredulous laugh, a dry smile adorned on your lips. “What?”

“And,” she pointed a finger at you, raising her brows with that one Emily expression she always had. “..It’s not helping how you’ve so obviously been avoiding him all night.” She followed her statement with a sip of her drink to hide her smirk, subtly nodding her head in the direction of Spencer and Derek.

An incredulous but unconvincing scoff left your lips as you looked at her with a pointed finger and shake of your head. “Uhm..no. I have not. I literally talked to him when I first got here. So.” Reflecting her from just a moment ago, you emphasized your own statement with a sip of your own drink and shit-eating expression.

And as soon as she spoke, that expression was wiped  off your face in an instant. “Go talk to him then if you’re not avoiding him,” She said, following it with a shrug as she set her now empty glass down. She knew just which buttons to push and how to push them.

“Fine. I will.” You narrowed your gaze at her, downing the rest of your drink before setting the glass down as well. You told yourself you were an adult, not some immature child. So you can do this. And with that, you turned on your heel before you could change your mind, heading in the direction of the man you definitely were avoiding all night. 

Spencer’s eyes met yours as you made way to him, to which Derek patted his shoulder with a nod and small “Good luck, man” before walking away, probably going to pick up some girl on the dance floor or at the bar. Leaving him alone. With you.

Once you approached, you cleared your throat, looking up at him with a faux confident demeanor. You weren’t. Why were you even scared to talk to him in the first place? You two used to be, as stupid as it sounded, two peas in a pod! So what gives?

“So..about earlier..” You started, though he cut you off. Which caught you off guard, something he seemed to be doing a lot tonight. “I heard you and Emily.” Another win for Spencer for catching you off guard. Since when was he so confrontational?

You looked at him shocked for a long moment, your brows furrowed as your lips parted– your gaze drifting to where Emily once was, hoping for some silent help. She wasn’t there anymore. Fuck. You cleared your throat, looking back up at him with a shrug and fake oblivious tilt of your head. “Heard what exactly?”

He looked at you for a long silent moment, his brows furrowing as his mouth opened and closed–grasping for words, though left speechless. Hurt, confusion, and even anger swirled in those deep brown eyes of his, evaporating any of the softness they usually held with you. Since when did you two play cat and mouse like this? That seemed to be a question that silently lingered in the air, like you two were telepathically speaking. 

“I’m going to the restroom,” He said before abruptly turning away and leaving you there alone. His voice before he departed was tight, sharp, almost devoid. And it left you with your heart clenching and a sudden nauseating feeling that wasn’t from the alcohol you had been consuming priorly. Your head turned to watch as he went, swallowing the knot that had formed in your throat. You started to drown in your thoughts, what was going on with you two? When did it become so cold between you? When did you let it? You let yourself start to reminisce about how you two would stay late nights at the office together, how he’d smile when he realized you were actually listening to his rambling instead of dismissing him, and those few times he’d grasp your hand tightly in times that you needed comfort.

You jolted when you felt a hand on your shoulder, having been completely zoned out and unresponsive, only to see it was Penelope who had pulled you out from that pool of never-ending thoughts. 

“Come on! We’re doing another round of shots!” Penelope said this while already pulling you behind her. She is small but strong, you had to give it to her. And so, you slid back into the booth beside the perky and tooth-achingly sweet blonde, ready to drown your disorder and misery.

It had been another hour– maybe two? You didn’t know exactly how long it had been, but all you did know was you couldn’t handle the muggy thick air in that bar anymore. It was both from the body count in the space and the inexplicable pull between you and Spencer. You also couldn’t stand the spinning of your head or the twisting of your stomach. Which is why you had slipped outside the bar, thankful for the refreshing air that immediately hit your face when you stepped out. 

Your mind drifted back to earlier– everyone buzzing with laughter and liquor. You’d been quiet, sipping your cocktail and observing, when Spencer had leaned in, voice low beside you. “I, um… I just wanted to say you look really beautiful tonight. And I noticed you’re wearing different earrings. They, uh..they suit you.”

His words had struck something tender. Your stomach did that flip thing – the kind you thought only existed in novels or corny movies. How did Spencer always notice the small things about you, when your own boyfriend couldn’t even recall your middle name? Maybe Spencer’s earlier words were right. 

Your eyes softened without your permission, a small smile inevitably pulling at your lips. “Yeah. I did. I didn’t think anyone would notice. Thank you, Spence.” You felt silly, almost– that such a small thing could hit so deep. But there it was. The reminder of why you used to be so close. Along with the sting of wondering how you’d let it all fall apart. 

He nodded, his shy smile mirroring yours. Then he gestured to your ear. “You’ve been fiddling with them all night. That’s actually why I noticed. You do that when you’re focused..or nervous. But mostly when you’re anxious. Or in your head.”

Your heart melted – wax under a match. Speechless, you blinked. You got lost in your head thinking he noticed that? You hadn’t even noticed you’d been playing with them. But he had. He called your name again, voice soft but more alert this time. Concerned. You blinked back to the present – once, twice – and then on the third call, your head turned. It wasn’t the memory anymore. Spencer now stood beside you outside the bar, a careful expression on his face.

That’s when you realized he had followed you out. Your gaze met his, and you had to suck in a deep breath before clearing your throat and looking away. “So..you needed air too, huh?” The low and slightly weakened state of your voice was foreign to your own ears. As you both leaned back against the wall, his gaze glued to you while yours stayed fixed on your shoes.

“Yeah. It was getting to be too much for me. You know how I get.” His voice held that softness again– a breathless edge to it, like the words had to push through everything he wasn’t saying. 

As you lifted your gaze to look up at him again, you could see a faint smile pulling at the corner of his lips, his eyes deep and hesitant. Confliction and gentleness graced your own expression as you caught your breath from it being taken away by the sight of him. “I,..yeah. I do.” Your tongue darted out to moisten your suddenly dry lips, which was followed by a thick gulp.

You caught the flicker of his eyes dropping to your lips just after you licked them, his brows furrowed before he cleared his throat, meeting your eyes with his own once more. “What are we doing?”

It was your turn to have your brows furrow together, only for you it was confusion. You leaned off the wall, fully facing him– which was both a good and bad idea. Good because it made it easier to fully engage in the conversation and bad because now you could see every detail clearer. You could see how the dimmed lights of the bar shadowed his angled jawline, how his hair was messily run through yet so perfectly him. 

“What do you mean?” Your voice came out even quieter than before, a contrast to his strong and abrupt tone. His gaze seemed to pierce you while you struggled to keep your own on him. What was it that clenched at your chest so tightly and heavily? Guilt? Longing? You didn’t know. And you didn’t know how to rid it.

His words came in sharp and cutting, leaning off the wall like you and stepping closer once. “You know exactly what I mean. This. Us. You’re acting and have been acting like a stranger for who knows how long. And another thing, why are you with him? With that..asshole. You’re being distant, you’re avoiding me, and I’m sick of it because I know you feel it, too. This..thing between us. So what’s going on?” Your heart stalled at his words – you should’ve been dead, is what you thought. That couldn’t be real. What did he just say?

You wish you could say you had a quick response, a comeback, that your words bit him back. In reality, you just stared at him with no words at all, face scrunched in disbelief and sorrow. You shook your head as you looked away again, stepping to the side in means of getting past him. “I don’t know what you mean or what you’re talking about. This conversation is over.”

Before you could even get past him, you felt his hands firmly grab your shoulders and turn you to face him. His face was twisted in frustration, anger, and something else. His following words only tightened the knot in your throat and weight on your chest. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend.” His grip tightened, eyes searching yours. “Stop running. What happened to us being able to talk?”

It was now your gaze that dropped down to his lips, taking in the pink fullness of them. You forced yourself to look back into his eyes, your throat bobbing as you thickly gulped before speaking, like the words had to claw their way out. “We stopped being able to do that a while ago, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I know that. But why?” He breathed, his eyes tracing your features as his hands slowly–gently– came up to cradle the sides of your face. “Why are you putting up a wall? I thought we..”

Your jaw instantly clenched, brows pulling tight as you wrapped your hands around his wrists– bringing them down from your face. Your voice came out tight, steeped in incredulousness and long-suppressed hurt. “Why am I putting up a wall? Why did I— you know what, maybe it’s because I got tired. I got tired of hoping, of thinking, of  believing that you felt something for me, only for you to act like it was nothing. For you to not feel how I do. So I’m sorry if I’m protecting my own feelings and distancing myself.”

He was stunned, staring at you with that deep, unreadable conflict behind his eyes. His shock wasn’t disbelief, it was heartbreak. That you didn’t know. That you couldn’t see it. “Are you serious?” His question hit like a bark, sharp and staggering. His face twisted to mirror your own— brows tight, eyes stormy.  “You know..” He breathed out a dry, breathy laugh, shaking his head. “For someone who is so smart, you’re being pretty stupid right now.” 

A bitter laugh of disbelief left your lips as you shook your head, eyes now narrowed and sharp with pique and hurt. “Excuse me? I’m what?” 

His hand came back up to your jawline, tilting your head up to make sure your eyes stayed locked on his as he leaned in close, voice low and certain. “You heard me. You’re being stupid right now.�� You noted how his gaze drifted down to your lips again, how his adams apple bobbed with a gulp. “You’re stupid if you can’t see how much I need you. How I can never keep my eyes off you. How I always want to be with you.” He met your gaze again with his own, only this time it held something different.

Your own gaze drifted to his lips again as a heavy breath left yours. You were in a limbo of your own thoughts swirling about what it’d feel like to have his mouth on yours and listening to him do what you’ve always wanted him to. Pour his heart out to you.

“You can’t tell me you’ve never noticed how I’ve always wanted to be your person. The one you confide in. Like we always used to.” His voice now teetered on desperation, delicate and nearly a whisper. He pulled you closer, both your faces inching closer. Your breath mingled with his, your gaze flitting back up to meet his pleading one.

“No. No,..you can’t just.” Your voice was hesitant and almost broken. You shook your head as you licked your lips again. “If that’s true..why have you never said anything? Why did you..”

He nodded as his hand moved from your jawline to cup the side of your face, thumb brushing against your skin soothingly and slowly. His voice was a soft whisper, matching his gaze. “I know..I know. Trust me, I do.” He swallowed thickly, unable to stop himself from leaning closer, like your lips had a magnetic pull. The turmoil and desperation in his eyes were impossible to miss. “I’ve thought about it time and time again. But I just..I was scared. And unsure. And I didn’t want to risk losing you.”

Your gaze stayed glued to his lips as you let out a shaky breath, heart pounding, hands trembling. Your lips parted as you listened to his whispered words, like it was a secret between you both. When you come to think about it, isn’t it?

You felt his lips brush against your own with his breath on you sending a sensual shiver down your spine. “God, I couldn’t imagine losing you.” And before you could even register it– his lips were on yours.

The kiss started soft– hesitant, sweet, and tender. But the moment he felt your hands grasp his face and kiss him back, something inside him flipped. He moved his hand from your cheek to the back of your hair, his fingers tangling in it as he tilted your head and his own, molding his lips with yours.

He couldn’t get enough, how could he? He finally had you in his arms, your lips on his. Not Richard’s. His. All of the times he imagined what this moment would be like still didn’t live up to how it truly felt. The way both your lips slotted together in time felt like you were fated for one another. Like your lips were molded, crafted, and detailed just for him. 

His free hand slightly trembled as it reached for your waist, gripping it tightly like his touch on you would ground him. He could feel his skin tingle, stomach warm, and head spin as he continued to pour every ounce of everything he’s ever felt for you into this very kiss. His mouth enveloped yours needily and deeply, not caring to pull back for breath.

One of your hands slid into his own hair, and he swore he almost lost it right then and there. He could feel every ounce of emotion you poured into him, into this kiss, like it was bursting from every fiber of your body. He leaned you back against the cold concrete wall behind you, thankful for the shadowed space and quiet atmosphere. 

He carved this moment into his memory like a lifeline– something he could revisit over and over when everything else fell apart. He was so relieved to have his lips on yours that he couldn’t help but smile against them.

But then he felt you start to pull away, to which he tried to chase your lips but you placed a hand on his chest to deter him. “Spencer..” God, the breathless way you said his name was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

“Yeah?” His gaze lifted from your lips to your eyes as he gulped,  catching his much needed breath. He had that puppy-eyed gaze he always did. Looking down at you through his lashes with wide soft but worshiping eyes. 

“Spencer, we…we can’t.” His heart instantly sank to the pits of his stomach, his body going stiff as he stared at you with confusion and tragedy. “You can’t just..” You continued, taking a deep breath. “You can’t just drop all of this on me now– not when I’ve finally started trying to move on. When your feelings get hurt because I’m with someone else. Or..or.” You sighed, meeting his gaze– and god did he want to stare into those soft eyes forever.

“..just. It’s not fair. And I’ve wanted this for so long but..this isn’t how I saw it happening. Not now. Not when it’s already too late.  Not when I’m with someone else. And..yes, he’s a dick but..that’s my situation to deal with. Not yours. Not anymore. I don’t think it actually ever was. And..You don’t get to suddenly decide when and if I’m yours.”

Oh.

That’s all he could think. That and the fact that..you were right. He didn’t get to do this. Not now. It was unfair to you. And it was even unfair to him. 

He was an idiot. Not only did he think it but he felt it. “I,..uhm.” He cleared his throat, hands reluctantly slipping from you as he stepped back. “I’m sorry.” That’s all he could muster up at the moment. But really, what else could he possibly say? He couldn’t beg, he couldn’t explain more, and he certainly couldn’t take it back.

The way you looked up at him – sorrow written across your face, tragedy carved into your brows, that small frown trembling on your lips– it would haunt him forever. “I just wish you would’ve said something sooner.”

And like that, before he could even get another word in, you had already turned on your heel–retreating back to inside the bar to join the others. The taste of your kiss would linger – but so would the sting of your goodbye.

©2025 INSANEBOOKREADER

[reiderwriter]

Hii! Could you write a Spencer x fem reader, she's extremely confident & forward and Spencer gets all flustered, shy and overwhelmed at how forward she is with flirting with him and complimenting him (even tho he loves it), thank you:-)

A/N: This was such a cute request, thanks for sending it in! I love shy and oblivious Spencer he's so silly and cute ㅠㅠ

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Genre: pure fluff

Word Count: 2k

Summary: Spencer Reid is a genius. But if he hasn't noticed you've been flirting with his for a week straight, he must be an idiot. Non-BAU!Reader.

Warnings: Alcohol intake. Kissing. Slightly suggestive ending.

Here's my masterlist, requests are open! 🎉

Working with the FBI as a consultant on a case was practically a dream come true for you, but what was even more dreamy was the man you got to work with whilst consulting. You’d arrived bright and early, really eager to help with the case you’d been called in for. On the phone, Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner had asked for your help decoding some documents that the team thought had something to do with the Literature you were teaching as part of your course at a local university.

In all honesty, you were a massive fan of detective novels, an early love for Agatha Christie and the Golden Age of mystery making you entertain an idea in law enforcement before you decided that really wasn’t for you, so you were eager to help out in anyway you could fathom.

“One of our Special Agents, Doctor Reid, has decoded most of it, but he says there are some key areas he may be missing and he wants to pick your brains, to see if you can help him come up with something,” he said, guiding you into a small sideroom.

Having previously heard that Doctor Spencer Reid had achieved no less than three PhDs and three additional Bachelor's Degrees in varying subjects, you weren’t quite sure to expect when walking into the room. You certainly weren’t expecting one of the prettiest men you’d ever seen in your life to be sat reading through a pretty thick tome at an incredible speed.

“Reid, this is Professor Y/L/N, she’s here to help you decode the cypher. Professor, this is Doctor Spencer Reid.” Hotchner introduced you, but as soon as you picked your jaw up off the floor, you instantly stepped forward.

“Please, call me Y/N. It’s an absolute pleasure to meet you… Spencer was it?” You smile and stick out your hand. You notice the flush on the man's face and your grin grows even wider as he hesitates to take your hand.

“I’m sorry, I don’t really shake hands, the number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to kiss.” He stutters through the words, almost struggling to get them out, but you don’t falter for a second.

“Kiss me then,” you say smirking up at him and you realise that the other agent had since left the room, leaving you alone with the object of your affections. Ignoring your response, but face tinged such a bright shade of red that you knew he was effected by it, he dives into the facts of the case.

“We think that he’s using some kind of cypher based on some books you’ve been researching recently at the University, which means we think he could possibly be a student of yours. I read through your PhD thesis this morning, and there are certain commonalities that suggest you could be the key to solving some of our unknowns.”

“You read my thesis? What did you think of it?” you ask, moving to sit in the chair directly next to him, scooting it a little bit closer than was polite.

“I don’t have a degree in Literature of the Renaissance Period, so I’m not sure how much value my opinion really holds in this scenario,” he looks at you and you’re pleasantly surprised at how genuine he’s being.

“Well, you’ve seen mine, can I see yours?” you allow the cogs in his brain to keep turning for a few seconds then continue. “I’m sure with three PhDs to your name, you’ve probably got a few research papers floating about, right?”

“Oh….” he blushes again, turning his eyes away from you and doing his best not to make eye contact. “I’m sure I could send them to you after we’ve completed this case if you think they would allow you a deeper insight into any of my fields of study.” He coughs a little to hide the way his voice pitched up as he spoke and kept his eyes trained on the book in his hands.

This consulting role was going to be the most fun you’d had in weeks.

–X–

A week later, you found yourself sat at a bar, surrounded by the members of the BAU team celebrating another case closed, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to fully partake in their merryments exactly. You’d assumed, after an entire week of flirting very openly with Reid, that when he’d asked you to the bar that evening to celebrate wrapping up the case, he’d meant just the two of you. Alas, you had discovered over the week that not only was he the most adorable man you’d ever met, he was also the most oblivious. Impressive for a man with an IQ of 187.

You couldn’t complain too much. Your help on the case had meant the rescue of two young girls, two of your students in undergrad courses nonetheless, so you’d at least made a difference. You had nothing against the rest of the team either, having become fast friends with Garcia, and enjoying your twenty minutes of small ltalk in the morning at the coffee station with Prentiss, Morgan and JJ as well. Hell, you even loved Rossi, who gave off the fun Uncle vibe that you found rounded out the team well. But you couldn’t curb your disappointment still, so you distanced yourself from the table a bit and removed yourself to the bar to grab yourself a new drink. You stayed there for a few minutes to nurse it.

“Hello, beautiful,” the man sat at the barstool next to you leered down at you, “you looking for some company in the bottom of that glass tonight?” He winked at you and your skin crawled. It wasn’t just his creepy smile, and the disgusting way he dragged his eyes over your body, it was that he was also very likely older than your own father. Some people were into that, but you certainly weren’t

“Not today, thanks,” you said, hoping that would be enough to get him to leave you in peace, but of course it wasn’t.

“Hot piece of ass like you, you need a real man to take care of you.” He pushed his hand out and for a split second you were convinced he was going to make an attempt to smack your ass. Before he was able to make contact, and, perhaps more importantly, before you could be arrested for aggravated assault, a hand was wrapping around your hip and pulling you away from the man, your back colliding with a firm chest behind you.

“Y/N, Special Agent Hotchner is about to leave and he wanted to thank you for coming to consult for us. The FBI is always really grateful for conscientious citizens like you willing to help us keep the streets safe.” Spencer turned you around and said, emphasising words to make it clear what his job was, speaking loudly enough that you knew the words were only for the creep behind you who’d thought to lay a hand on you.

“Thanks, Spencer,” you said as the man downed the rest of his drink and made to leave the bar, obviously embarrassed and threatened by Spencer’s arrival. He made to loosen his grip on you as the man left, but you through your arms around his neck, not letting him leave. If this was your last opportunity to make him realise what you wanted, you absolutely weren’t going to let it get away from you.

“I wanted to thank you for this week as well, Spencer. Hotch said it was you that recommended me for the consulting role.” He blushed and stood there a little awkwardly, but made no move to leave, his hands unmoving from your hips. It reminded you of your middle school prom, in all honesty.

“Oh that’s no big deal. It worked out pretty well in the end, though, right, with your students and everything.” You nodded and thanked him again, but you were still pretty reluctant to see him walk away, back to the table filled with his closest friends and colleagues.

“So, are you looking forward to going back home? I’m sure your boyfriend or husband or whatever will be really glad to see you again.” He mumbled and you felt your heart stop for a second.

“Spencer, I don’t have a boyfriend. Or a husband, or any kind of partner for that matter. I’m sorry if I made you think I do,” you saw his eyes widen in panic a little, and you relaxed a bit yourself as he started to talk again.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I just assumed that someone as pretty as you couldn’t be single.” He stuttered every single word out, and you didn’t quite register his words for a second.

“You think I’m pretty?” you ask looking up at him and he gapes down at you, realising this conversation is just him shooting himself in the foot over and over again.

“Shit… what I mean is…Y/N you have to know you’re gorgeous, right?” It was your turn to blush then, feeling the sincerity in his words.

“You know, I thought you were asking me out on a date tonight.” You tell him, watching his entire face crumple again in distress.

“But I told you we were going out to celebrate finishing the case!” He spoke in his defence.

“Spencer, what were your exact words?”

“Y/N, do you want to grab a drink tonight? It would be nice to celebrate now that the case is closed and- oh. OH.” The realisation dawned on his face, and you enjoyed the little look of devastation that played out there as his blush deepened.

“It’s fine, Spencer, really. If you’re not interested in me, you’re not interested, I get it.” You sighed, finally moving to let him go, resigned to your fate now.

“Wait, Y/N, that’s not what I meant!” He grabbed you by the hand gently, not quite as close as you were the moment before but still standing notably close. You realised you probably had an audience for this.

“I didn’t realise that you’d want to go on a date with me, you’re so beautiful and smart, I just never thought you’d be interested.” Your brain almost exploded with that, and you had to make a conscious effort to not have your jaw drop to the floor, but apparently the man wasn’t finished. “I just assumed you had a flirty personality, and like, really look at you and then look at me-” you absolutely had to cut him off before he said anything else, so you did.

Crashing your lips up into his was the most sensible thing you’d done since stepping into the bar that evening. He was statuesque at first, unmoving while your lips pressed against him, but he warmed up to it and began kissing you back with equal fervor. You moved the hands that were holding yours to your waist, then moved your own hands up to tangle in his hair, playing with a few curls at the base of his neck.

After a few minutes, you finally pulled away to see a dumbstruck expression on his face.

“Oh. Oh, I see now,” was all he could get out, unable to form more words as he panted into the space between you,

“Yeah? That’s good. I’ve been flirting with you all week, so it’s nice of you to finally notice.” You giggle up at him slowly, and he tightens his grip on your waist.

“What should….what should I do now?” He asked, obviously a little bit unsure of himself, and happy to let you take the lead.

“Well, you can either take me back to your place now, or you could start with asking me out on that date?” He looked like he was seriously weighing up his options for a minute, before he looked you in the eye again.

“Can I do both?”

--X--

🏷️ @w-windyy @multifandom-on-the-side @reidandhotchsgirl @babybluecakes @bluecandycake @hugyourlungs @prentissesredtanktop @reidscaffeine @bethanyhaas01 @average-sunflower @lover-of-books-and-tea @star0055 @daddy-dotcom @zaapsite @anniewhalelover @abbyshmaby @isabel-ffl-xoxo @sujan39 @frxcless @bluestuesday @busy-buzzing @breadbrobin @maxinehufflepuffprincess @l0v3cam @booksandwonderlands @myescapefromthislife @kat453 @ferrjulie @scoobydoopoo @aelinismyqueen @littlesingingbean @xohoneybun @anchovy89freya @dysphoricsanity @alyssaxstan @ghostheartbeat @beguiling3lavender @Casss2111 @zatannas-wand @rebloggiest-reblogger @kspencer34

[unequivocallyreid]

Stay With Me Till Morning

hi guys! another fic for you :) i got a little carried away at the end, but you know how it goes. this is for any munch!spencer fans 🤗

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader

summary:

Spencer and you are co-workers, strictly co-workers, despite your feelings for him. A few nights sharing a room won’t change that, right?

warnings: mentions of body-specific insecurity, fluff, smut, oral sex (fem receiving)

wc: 3.2k

if i missed anything let me know!

One of the worst things about being a newbie, at any job, is coming into a place where connections have already been made. Working at the FBI, more specifically the BAU, was no different.

Now don’t get the wrong idea, working there was a dream for you, but there was no doubt that you were severely lacking in personal relationships compared to others. Derek and Reid had a sort of brotherly bond, JJ and Emily’s like sisters, and Hotch and Rossi’s went unspoken but still glaringly obvious. You existed in their orbit, and while you had all grown to love each other, you still felt a bit like an outsider sometimes.

Unfortunately for you, this feeling intensified whenever the topic of room sharing came up. Sure there were benefits, like having a room to yourself on occasion, but usually it just served to worsen your imposter syndrome.

The case that you were working currently, sans Rossi (he was on a book tour following his latest release), pushed this feeling to surface even more.

You all were in Upstate New York investigating a series of homicides that seemed to mimic a string of murders that had occurred 20 years ago. The town you were in was on the smaller side, so the only place you could find accommodations was a small bed and breakfast.

Said BnB did not have enough rooms available for anyone to ride solo, and with Rossi gone, Hotch and Morgan were buddied up, leaving Emily and JJ and Reid and you. Naturally, Emily and JJ bunked up together, leaving you to share a room with the boy wonder.

It’s not that you didn’t like Reid, quite the opposite actually, you liked him too much. You’ve always had a propensity for falling incredibly deeply incredibly fast, and when you met Spencer for the first time you proved you reputation correct.

Your first impression probably put him off slightly, but he was gracious enough not to show it. When Hotch introduced you, the first thing you thought was how ridiculous attractive the man in front of you was. His high cheekbones and big, brown eyes drew you in immediately. To make matters worse, he was fucking adorable. After snapping back to reality, you offered Spencer your hand, which he declined citing the pathogens and it being safer to kiss.

In one of your more impressive displays of cluelessness you said, “I think we could make that happen.”

This caused Spencer to flush and a ghost of a smile to grace Hotch’s face. Thankfully, in the last few months you had redeemed yourself slightly, developed a rapport with the doctor, and stood by hopelessly as you crush developed into a nasty little monster.

So, no sharing a room with Spencer wasn’t really an issue, but still, might just be the thing that breaks you.

~

“There’s only one fucking bed?”

You’d spoke far too soon.

After assuring Spencer you were completely fine and not at all uncomfortable with sharing a room with him, you and him walked together to your room, only to find a scene straight out of a shitty romance novel.

When Spencer heard you and noticed that there was in fact, only one bed, he immediately said, “I can sleep on the couch.”

Maybe you should’ve just agreed and saved yourself from a week of sexual frustration, but you couldn’t.

“Spence, that couch is maybe five feet long. I don’t even think I could sleep on it.”

You looked at him then to muster up some courage, “We can share the bed. We’re both adults.”

He looked slightly pained, which panicked you a bit. God, how fucking embarrassing.

“Or I can take the couch. I wont let you, but if you’re uncomfortable I can. I’m a bit shorter.”

Spencer hurried to speak, “No!”

His outburst took you by surprise but he quickly went on.

“I mean, no. I’m not uncomfortable. I just don’t want you to be at all or feel like I’m forcing you to sleep with me. Fuck, or I mean next to me-“

You cut him off before he could fall into a tailspin.

“We’ll share then.”

~

Sharing the bed had actually not been that bad for you at first. You were on your third day in New York, and you were making steady progress on the case. Hopefully, it would be wrapped up in a day or two.

Aside from the fact that you barely spent any time in the room, you had managed to stay on your side bed. The only spot of trouble was the dreams you were having, dreams about the person next to you that would turn even the worst sinner’s cheeks red. Still, Reid was acting no different, so at least you were confident you weren’t talking, or, god-forbid, moaning, in your sleep.

It had been an incredibly hard day. Not only was it freezing, but you had been outside and away from temperature controlled environments for far too long. Immediately once you got back to the Inn you were staying at, you asked Spencer if he’d mind you taking the shower first.

“I’m freezing my ass of right now. You don’t mind do you?”

“No, of course not. You know it’s kind of a superstition, but there’s some actual evidence that being cold can make you sick. I just read a study which showed 10% of people exposed to-“

You cut him off before he could finish.

“Spence, I’d love to hear about all that, but please just wait till I’m out of the shower.”

“Oh! Yeah, of course. Sorry.”

You shook off his apology as it wasn’t needed. That was one thing you didn’t get about the rest of the team; you loved hearing all the little tid bits of information that Reid let out. Yeah, he was like a literal encyclopedia at times, but it was never annoying. If anything it made you like him more. You loved the way he lit up when he told you about something he’d just read about, or read about 15 years ago. It was cute.

Getting into the shower was like a blessing. The water rolled over your cold skin and helped to loosen the muscles you’d been stressing all day. If you were bolder, or clueless to Spencer’s aversion to touch, you’d ask him to give you a shoulder rub. Your mind wondered off to where else he might touch you, but that was just wishful thinking.

After spending a near gratuitous amount of time in the shower, you shut off the water and reached for a towel. Only once you’d started drying off did you realize in you haste to warm up you’d forgotten to bring your sleep clothes into the bathroom with you. Now, you had to walk out in a tiny, hotel towel right in front of Reid. Sure, it was the start of a few of your fantasies, but in real life the idea seemed mortifying.

As quietly as possible, to not draw attention to yourself, you opened the bathroom door. With one hand gripping the point where the towel connected with itself, you tried to tiptoe unnoticed to your suitcase.

“Y/n?”

You looked up to see Spencer watching your frame like a hawk. As he took in your damp, barely covered figure, you wished to yourself that the lights in the room weren’t so fucking bright.

“I, uh, forgot to bring my clothes in,” and with that, you raced back into the bathroom to change.

After taking a minute to collect yourself, you make your way out of the bathroom again. The room is, thankfully, much darker and you see Reid tucked into his side of the bed. You climb in next to him.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. That was weird. I, I won’t forget my clothes again.”

“It didn’t, Y/n, don’t worry.”

With that, you both tried your best to fall asleep and put the day behind you.

~

When you wake up, it’s decidedly not light out and you are decidedly not alone on your side of the bed. One of Spencer’s arms is over your waist, holding you against his body. Still, you don’t know why you’ve woken up.

You tend to be a pretty heavy sleeper, and you know that some light spooning wasn’t enough to wake you up. As you lay awake, trying to figure out why you are up and what to do next you feel Spencer move behind you.

Now, you definitely know what woke you. Spencer, who could barely look you in the eye after seeing you in a towel, was grinding into while you slept. Obviously, he was asleep too, but that didn’t stop the shock of it all from hitting you like a fucking bus. He was silent aside from the occasional whimper, which sent shockwaves straight to your core each time he let one slip.

Despite this, again, being the start to a few of your own wet dreams, you were pretty literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. You felt like you’d be taking advantage of Reid if you didn’t wake him, but if you did you know he’d just about die from embarrassment. Or, worse, he’d think that you somehow executed all of this in a sick ploy. Not likely, but still a source of anxiety.

It took you a few minutes to get your head on straight, what with the burning feeling brewing in your abdomen, but eventually you realized that waking him up was pretty much the only thing you could do.

“Spence,” you said while gently shaking his shoulder.

“Spence, love, you gotta wake up.”

You were turned toward him now and saw his eyes open a crack, “Y/n? What’s wrong what’s goin-“

The realization of your situation also hit him like a truck, which was sort of comforting because at least you weren’t alone in the feeling.

“Oh my god, Y/n. Fuck, I’m so sorry. Jesus, I, I can’t- Fuck I’m so sorry.”

He went to spring out of bed, but your hand grabbed his arm before he could.

“Spence, it’s okay I promise. Honestly I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier.”

“No, no it’s not. You don’t even like me that way and I was all over you-“

You cut him off when you heard this, “Spence, what do you mean I don’t like you like that?”

“You heard me right? I said your name?”

The world stops spinning, “What?”

“Oh, oh no. Look, I’m so sorry. I’ll go sleep in one of the cars. Fuck, I’m so-”

“Spencer stop. Please stop apologizing.”

It’s like an old Western showdown for a moment, the two of you staring at each other without making a move.

“Were you dreaming about me?”

He nodded, about to speak and likely offer more apologies. But, before he gets the chance you push your lips to meet his.

The kiss is soft and gentle. At first, his lips don’t move against yours, and you start to pull back, worried you read the situation wrong. Fortunately, before your lips could even part from his, he’s pulled you back in. His hands find the side of your face and his lips pressed into yours with a bruising intensity. Slowly, his hands moved to your waist, holding you in place.

The feeling rushing through you was unlike any you’d ever experienced. His lips molded to yours so perfectly it was almost unbelievable. If you’re hands weren’t so preoccupied by his hair, you’d pinch yourself to make sure you weren’t dreaming. With a move you didn’t think he’d possibly pull, Spencer bit into your lip, making you gasp. He took the opportunity to press further into the kiss, tracing your tongue with his.

Before you could fall completely into the kiss you pulled away to ask, “Spence, are you sure this is what you want?”

“I’ve been thinking about it since the day we met, Y/n.”

With that, he pulled you back in. His hands moved more surely on you, dipping below your shirt. The feeling of his skin on yours sent shockwaves through your body. You moved to take off his shirt in turn, desperate to feel even more of him. He was relentless, breaking free from your lips to drag his mouth down your neck and over your exposed collar bone.

You felt needier than ever, and evidently so did he. In another move you didn’t expect (maybe you should throw your expectations out the window at this point) he grabbed your hips and pulled you into his lap. With you straddling him, he moved to take your shirt off. Insecurity grabbed hold of you before you could push it away.

You stilled his hands in yours, “I haven’t let anyone see me like this in a long time. Just, please don’t be disappointed by what you see.”

His face morphed into one so full of love that it made your teeth ache.

“You’re my dream, Y/n. You’ll never, ever disappoint me.”

You let go of his hands and they resumed their previous journey, pushing up your shirt and letting that part of you be bare to him. Admittedly, you had to fight the urge to cover yourself, but when you saw his face you knew it was pointless. He was ogling you, not offensively, but more like he couldn’t believe you were actually in front of him.

“You’re so, so beautiful.”

His words didn’t erase the thoughts you had, but they certainly made them easier to ignore. Moving up from your waist, he went to cup your breast, fingers playing with your nipple which made your back arch into him. He took the opportunity to flip you over so you were laying underneath him. The weight of his body over you was heavenly. You felt him press himself into your center through his sweatpants. There were just thin layers of clothes between you now.

“Will you let me taste you? I’ve been dying to.”

You’re stunned from words but you manage to nod your head. As he moved down your body, he took your shorts and panties with you, leaving you completely exposed. For the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel scared of the feeling or his reaction to you. With Spencer, you felt completely at home.

You felt him kiss down your things, teasing you in a way that made you feel completely crazy. His breath ghosted over your core, but he still hadn’t made contact with where you needed him most.

“Spencer, please.”

Hearing your voice must have broken his resolve. He dove in like a man starved. In the past, you hadn’t found yourself enjoying the presence on a man’s head between your legs. Not that you had much experience, but the men who had you in that way always seemed to treat it as a means to an end. One of the two boyfriends you’d had refused to go down on you at all, and the other wouldn’t unless you were completely shaved. Safe to say you didn’t feel like you were missing much.

Everything was different with Spencer. He licked into you there was no place he’d rather be. His tongue over traced over your cunt as he tried to find all the places that drove you wild, and god did he. The noises in the room were obscene, from the moans falling from your lips to the sound of his driving you to an orgasm.

You locked your hands in his hair, grinding into his face without even noticing that you were. You were so close, and you found the final push in his fingers. God, his beautiful fingers.

His mouth was on your clit as he pushed two digits into you, curling in before pulling out, over and over until your legs begin to shake. His unoccupied hand pressed on your lower stomach, building up the feeling until you burst.

You repeated a mantra of his name as you came harder than you can ever remember coming before. The sensation took you out for a minute, but when you came back down and looked down at Spencer, you saw him staring at you in awe and completely soaked.

“Fuck, Y/n. Have you, have you done that before? I think that was the sexist thing I’ve ever seen.”

You were confused for a moment, wondering why he’d think you hadn’t orgasmed before. That was before you felt the damp fabric of the bed beneath you.

“Oh! Oh god, uh, no I haven’t. I’m sorry I didn’t-“

“Don’t apologize for that, Y/n. Fuck, I’d spend the rest of my life between your legs if it meant I could see that again.”

The constat praise falling from him had you noticeably riled up, and you pulled him up, back on top of you.

“Spencer, please. I want you. I want you inside me.”

“Fuck, Y/n.”

He made incredibly quick work of his own pants, freeing himself. Your mouth dropped open as you took him in. He was big, the biggest you’d been with, and he was pretty. You would have drooled if it wasn’t for his lips pressing into yours. He ran his middle finger through your folds before grasping himself. He followed his own path and ran his member through your dripping cunt.

“Fuck, baby, you’re so perfect.”

The pet name made you even more desperate, “Please, Spence. Fuck, please.”

He put you out of your misery, sinking into you in one motion. You had to adjust to his size, but the feeling of him inside you, as close to you as possible had you reeling. You bucked your hips up, urging him to move.

He gave you exactly what you wanted, pushing into you at a perfect pace as he whispered sweet nothings in your ear.

You were overcome and all you could mutter was “thank you, thank you, thank you” in time with each of his thrusts. When he started to push into you harder, you couldn’t help but squeeze down on him.

His hips stalled, “You’re gonna make me come, Y/n. You’re so fucking tight”

You let your hands take down his back, “Please, Spence. Want you to, want to feel you come in me.”

His pace picked up, and you could feel how close he was. Still he wasn’t done. His fingers again found your clit and rubbed circles on it.

“Need to feel you come on me first baby. Need you to come.”

His words made your head spin. It only took a few more thrusts before you were coming again, just as intense as the first time. You pulsed around him and it pushed him over the edge. You felt him come inside you, filling you completely.

“I love you.”

You couldn’t stop the words from spilling out, but you froze immediately after saying them, worried that you had ruined everything. But, just as he had done before, Spencer quelled your worries.

“I love you too. God, I love you.”

~

The next morning was bliss. You woke in Spencer’s arms, and let him into you again. The sex was slow and you each let the three words spill uninhibited.

When you went downstairs, ready to finish the case, you were met with the sheepish faces of your team.

Derek spoke first, “I’d say congratulations if you both weren’t so loud last night.”

While you were mortified, watching the rest of the team hold back their chuckles, you couldn’t help but agree that this was all a moment to celebrate.

End

let me know what you think!!

[cymae-mesa]

you trigger my unskippable cutscene

Guys Divorcesteal is really good in a way that's destroying my sleep schedule!

Divorcesteal is a Minecraft SMP made by fans of the Lifesteal SMP (including a couple of my friends) with similar mechanics and more gay divorce.

On the server killing another player takes a heart from their healthbar and gives it to you. Which means you can only lose so many fights in a row before you're on zero and get banned. So you need to spend a bunch of resources either crafting new hearts or reviving dead players.

But unlike Lifesteal these aren't some of the best and sweatiest Minecraft PvPers in the world, they're… tumblr fandom dweebs. Which means there are fun fights, but mostly there's psychosexual torment, angst, and queerbaiting. Roleplay is king with everyone playing at least a heightened version of themselves, and so falling in love getting married and having an angry divorce is often a more significant kind of plotline than the combat.

But the really fun things from a viewer pov is the roleplay is just as competitive as the combat. Characters in the story keep secrets to advance their agendas, which means the players keep secrets from the other players. Because many people livestream their perspective or record it for youtube this means strict no stream-sniping rules. Players can't watch streams/videos marked :3 without permission and fans are told not to leak what they see.

Which is great!!! Because it means i get to talk to my good friend Will and say I'm so excited to see the next stream! And tell everyone else that I'm excited because :3 I know that next stream the person she trusts most on the server is going to murder her, which Will doesn't know!

^ Actually happened on Tuesday it was fucked up and beautiful!

The macro scale plot atm is the season ends in 2 weeks and various teams are firing off their endgame plans. Pathogen are building monumental architecture for obscure and sinister purposes. 1000 Suns formed with the plan of escaping to the End dimension and blocking access to it using advanced chunk banning tech so they could be safe. Pathogen found out by misc sneaky shit and they moved first. So now the server has no End portals at all and the whole dimension is inaccessible.

I'm currently fixated on Will's smaller team/polycule called Elysium, with Angel and ChipsEclipse. Will had secretly planned to join 1000 Suns in the End, but due to a combination of irl timing issues and personal (in character) beef it wasn't clear if Chips would be welcome. The plan became impossible due to not having an End to run away to, at which point Chips found out, felt hurt and abandoned, and decided to betray the team by joining pathogen and killing Will and Angel. Hence the :3 situation on Tuesday.

But of course being fucked up tumblr/ao3 kids everyone has decided to yes-and this situation to produce even more heartbreak and angst. Especially from the pov of Angel who wasn't involved in the murdering but was in the polycule and remains in love with both of them!

If you want to join me in experiencing this the tumblr tag is pretty active. There's lots of streams on these acounts:

https://www.twitch.tv/sundialseraph

https://www.twitch.tv/chipseclipse

https://www.twitch.tv/bettyisbaffled

https://www.twitch.tv/arceoptryx

https://www.twitch.tv/ravathedemondragon

https://www.twitch.tv/marshmarrowed

https://www.twitch.tv/leoonine

https://www.twitch.tv/gaysetokaiba

https://twitch.tv/vacillantvoid

But there's vods channels and other stuff I'm forgetting.

[authorsleepy-girl]

Hello fellow Maze Runner fans. Today I offer you my headcanon on how exactly the Flare works.

What we are told (pulled from the Maze Runner Wiki on Fandom.com):

"The virus eats away the brain, turning anyone who was in contact with the virus into savage beings. The mutation rapidly increased the mortality rate of uninfected humans." 

"Symptoms (mood swings, paranoia, poor balance, headaches that get worse as time goes on, irrational anger, and aggression *) gradually worsen as the virus rapidly infects the cerebral cortex, resulting in suffering from dementia, temporarily memory-loss, and Alzheimer's-like symptoms. The rapid decaying of the brain causes psychotic mental disorders to appear from the infected, stripping the victim of their humanity, and turning them into a demented, cannibalistic, zombie-like lunatic."

"An extremely active brain, especially if by stress, will quicken the rate at which the virus does its damage."

*In the films, the symptoms differ from the novels. The Flare starts with swelling blood vessels and angiitis-like symptoms, and necrosis of the infected skin area. If an individual is infected but retains most of their intelligence, some will have strange vine-like bones protruding from their bodies which is the result of mutation growing from the virus.

That is all we are given, a general description, symptoms, and an addendum. I wanted to know how exactly the Flare works in the body. What does the virus do inside? How does it interact with the immune system, the nervous system, etc.? I couldn't find anything so I took my textbooks and notes from my Human Physiology classes and my Psychology classes and tried to figure at least some of it out. And so I now present:

How I think the Flare works specifically (WARNING: some pseudoscience at work here):

The virus presents itself as a low level threat that enters via injury (injection, bite or scratch to begin spreading) and when the wound heals it traps the pathogens inside.

The pathogens will then begin an incubation period within the infected and seep into the white blood cells and attach itself to the nuclei.

 When the cells divide and double, so does the Flare.

On the outside the infected will start behaving “off”, they will present with mood swings, paranoia, affected balance, headaches, irrational anger, increased aggression (This period lasts about 2-4 months however high levels of stress will make things worse)

After a few months of dividing and multiplying within the infected the Flared white blood cells will start attacking red blood cells and nerve endings (This is why Cranks and other Infected don’t feel pain as strongly). The virus will also attack Glial Cells, which are the cells that mediate immune responses, support the nervous system, insulates neurons, and lines neurons up to communicate.

On the outside black veins may start to appear originating from the initial infection site (Like in the movies)

Once the Glial cells are affected, the Myelin Sheaths of the brain start to shrink (now braincells start to fry), and the brain starts to flip its excitatory and inhibitory responses to ideas and stimuli (whereas normally you wouldn’t attack your loved ones, under the Flare you would). The affected area is mostly the cerebral cortex.

This results in dementia, mild amnesia, and Alzheimer-like symptoms. The outside of the body may also show signs of necrosis near or on the initial infected area

Eventually the affected area will rot/fry away and the infected will be a true “Crank” that’s beyond the “Gone”

[wisteriagoesvroom]

For the trope mashup thing whatever: arranged marriage and neighbors 👀 - CX

again not one i would've picked but thank you for prompting it !! this also uh, got longer than i thought.

(from the prompts mash up - still taking submissions)

--------

“What do you mean your visa’s running out?” Lando asks.

“I’m Australian. Not a magician. Commonwealth only gets you so far.” 

“I thought you were here on a scholarship.”

“Well. Yeah. But scholarships stop. Once you graduate.” 

Lando toes the doorway rug. It feels weird to be talking about this in the middle of the hallway, though the only other person who would be listening might be Mrs. Kapoor, and half the time it’s only because she sticks her head out to ask if Lando or Oscar would take one of her mystery vegan curries. Lando is neither a huge fan of vegan food nor curry, and he trusts Oscar’s word for it that it’s good because they eat it while playing Gran Turismo at Lando’s place. But Lando always accepts the curries nonetheless, because his parents raised him to be polite, and he wasn’t raised in a barn. (Even if he technically grew up in converted farmhouse in the countryside, but that was besides the point.)  Either way, this is slipping away from him much quicker than he’d anticipated. Late night hangouts, dropping mail and post-it notes, text messages about the community garden. The most inane smalltalk about things big and small from the origins of moths to whether aliens were out there or just chose to ignore the +44 area code. Oscar always laughing in the right places when Lando regales him about tales of his terrible online dating stories, Oscar always picking the pickles out of the roast beef bagels before he passes one to Lando. The corner of Lando’s sofa that Lando has started to think of as Oscar’s because he’s there so often, reading one of his books or trying to speedread a JSTOR article about the lifecycle of urban pathogens while Lando worked on artwork for his upcoming store launch. 

Lando’s synapses are firing too fast. His brain did that most days, and that was what made him exceedingly good at his job, and today in particular - it doesn’t feel like there’s any logical way out. 

Lando remembers that movie they watched once though. As a joke. The one they both pretended not to enjoy, with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in Alaska. The one they watched when Oscar sat next to Lando on the sofa, and they both pretended the entire night that their knees weren’t touching. 

His therapist said he had a tendency to get ahead of himself when under stress. But it’s a joke, it’s not serious, there’s no way—

“We could just like, get married.”

Lando shoves his hands in his pockets. That came out way more calm and cooler than he thought it actually would.  And to his credit, Oscar doesn’t drop his mug of tea. Lando knows that’s his favourite one, because Lando got it for him, and it says Science is my superpower. Oscar does, however, slightly shift his grip on the mug.

“I feel like it’d be complicated to explain to my mum why I randomly married my upstairs neighbour?” 

“But it’s not a no.”

Oscar tilts his head. There’s a glimmer of something focused, maybe even hungry in his eyes. Oscar gets like that when his mind turns, when he’s working on an especially difficult thesis, when the pieces are forming and he can lock into the crucial details.

Lando is a little alarmed at how much he already recognises it, and how much more often he’d like to draw that reaction out. 

“If the facts don’t fit the theory, then reexamine the facts. Right?” Oscar says.

And Lando is there, in the doorway. Conscious that Mrs Kapoor might’ve heard everything, but all the more conscious that there’s a hammering in his heart that he can’t tell is nervousness, or anticipation. 

What’s the stress limit for a joke you’re probably already pushing too far? Lando thinks.

He isn’t sure.

But maybe it’s a thesis worth testing out.  

-------------

(and ok maybe i cheated a little on arranged marriage but i think this is the closest i could get with the contemporary context. thank you @cx-boxbox for the prompt <3)

[sunshine-theseus]

Photo Roulette | Chloe Kelly x Reader

Words: 1.6k Summary: Media day has Chloe finally revealing her relationship. Warnings: Angst, fluff, suggestive themes (I know degrees like PhDs take super long but for the sake of this story please either pretend they don’t, or that she is super smart and managed to cut the time in like half.) Requested by - @charligrantismygirlfriend

After graduating from Oxford with a bachelor’s degree and PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biochemistry, I made the move to Manchester as a clinical biochemist. Falling in love with a professional footballer was not on my list of things to do when I moved, but when a new work colleague insisted I take their extra ticket to a “derby match” as they called it, I took the chance to broaden my non-existent Manchester social circle.

And somehow, I caught the eye of the blonde forward. The number 9 jersey found it’s way into my hand with a signature and phone number and by 7pm that night, I had a date set up.

We went on a few before Chloe and I made anything official. And with making it official, came a set list of rules regarding our relationship and her work, number one was that it didn’t exist to fans. Well, it did, but no one would know who the mystery girl was. It was a tough rule to follow, it meant whenever we hung out, we had to be hyperaware of our levels of affection and what we discussed. Dates had to be at home or in a very secluded corner of a high-end restaurant with a name no one knows how to pronounce, because that means no one there would care who we are.

I was, and forever will be grateful that those places weren’t an issue for us. Both with rather lucrative professions, my starting salary slowly increasing the longer I stay, and her’s naturally growing with the popularity of the game. It also meant it was easier for us to find a more private area to buy a house, 1 ½ years without a single issue of fans knocking on the door or press waiting for some big news story to break. The perfect paradise.

No one knew who the famous Chloe Kelly is dating and had no way of finding out. Until media day.

-

“Have fun! I won’t be finished at the lab until late, so maybe we’ll get takeaway for dinner?” I kiss Chloe goodbye as I pick up my keys and bag from beside the door.

“For sure! Have a good day staring at cells. At least it’s not jail cells.” I chuckle and make my way out.

My day is in fact consumed with studying pathogens within blood and other bodily fluid. It’s nearly 6pm when Filipa taps me on the shoulder, breaking my concentration and reintroducing me to my surroundings. She helps me pack everything away, we say our farewells and I head home, picking up a vegetarian pizza on the way.

“How was media day?” I ask, plopping down on the couch next to Chloe, who rests her arm around my shoulders.

“Bloody weird as usual. I did this “go through your phone” thing, but it was all good fun. I did some mini games with Yui as well. She wants us to come over for dinner again sometime.”

“Absolutely. I miss her oh my god.” I take a bite of the pizza and rest my head on her shoulder, images on the telly flashing in front of us, neither one paying attention.

“How was your day at the lab Dr Spencer Reid?”

“You’ve been watching Criminal Minds again?”

“Mhm.”

“Spencer and I are two different types of doctors.”

“Mmhm.”

“I mean we both have the honorifics but his is like, not the same. Well it is but… never mind.” I can see Chloe’s lip twitch upward as I try to explain and lightly nudge her.

“I love listening to you get defensive about your title. You deserve it more than anyone in the world.” Her lips press gently to my hairline, then to my cheek, and finally land on my own lips.

“Plus, I love calling you doctor, it’s kind of hot.” My face flushes and I smack her arm.

“Behave!”

“Sorry… doctor.” To make it brief, the night didn’t end there. It ended much, much later, with both of us panting, the cotton sheets covering her soft skin while I splash my face with water in the ensuite.

~~~~~

I don’t give the results of Chloe’s media day another thought for a very long time. Until a month later when Fillipa, in similar fashion to the day of filming said content, breaks me from my work and places her phone on the desk in front of me.

I give her a rather confused look, but she just points to the screen and presses play.

“Well, the next part of Unlocked is one of my favourite bits; Photo Roulette.” The guy who sits next to Chloe explains the rules.

“Fillipa what is this?”

“Just keep watching.” I watch as Chloe scrolls through the thousands of photos stored on her phone, until he tells her to stop.

Her finger lands on a photo, one that no one can see yet, and she lets out a hearty laugh.

“’S it a good one?” he claps his hands together and waits to see the results. There are a few moments of silence before Chloe explains the picture, showing it to the host.

“It’s a picture of my girlfriend, Y/n. I was trying to teach her football and she comes out in this goofy old kit of mine that’s like 4 sizes too big for either of us, socks rolled all the way up with a huge grin on her face.” The smile that shines on Chloe’s face as she recounts that day makes it hard for me to feel the anger boiling in the pit of my stomach. The picture shows up on screen, taking up the whole space, and now the secret is revealed to everyone who we worked so hard to hide it from.

“Is this the secret girlfriend you’ve been hiding the identity of for over 2 years? You finally decided it’s time.” He lets out a laugh after the comment, but I can see the recognition in her eyes and the smile fades from her face. She doesn’t say anything.

It takes me 32 minutes on average, to drive home. On any other day. But when I get into the car, I have to decide whether I should take significantly longer, or cut the time in half, to confront my girlfriend with my findings.

I arrive home at 5:21. With the combination of leaving work a few minutes early, and the somehow blessed lack of traffic, it’s nearly 15 minutes earlier than usual.

“You’re home early!” a cheerful shout echoes down the hall, blissfully unaware of the rage bubbling beneath my skin.

“Just thought I’d get home before the fans tracked me down and swarmed me.” I seethe through my teeth as I kick off my shoes and make my way toward our bedroom.

“What d’you mean?” it’s almost precious, the confused look and the head tilt that greets me.

“Well now that everyone knows who I am, I didn’t want to risk being seen.” I see the moment of realisation.

“Oh fuck I completely forgot! I didn’t mean to I swear. I’m so sorry it just slipped out.”

“How do you slip up like that Chlo? That was our one agreement, our one rule. Fans would not know. God I’ve seen how cruel people are to player’s partners, I’ve seen couples break up because of fans. Chloe what the fuck!” I fall forward onto the bed and scream into the pillows.

“Well you never asked how I feel about having to hide my girlfriend from everyone! I get you want privacy and security of fans not knowing but I want to be able to celebrate with you after wins, or just rest in your arms after a loss, without worrying if someone will see. I want to be able to take you to big games and pull you onto the pitch and kiss you in front of everyone and show them how much I love you. It’s not fair that I have to pretend you mean nothing!” A tear leaks from my eye, and I soon start to sob. My shoulders shake and I can feel the puddle of tears get soaked up by the pillow.

I feel the dip of the bed beside me and Chloe’s arm wraps around me while her lips press light kisses against my back.

“I’m sorry. I want to be there for you too. Show the world I love you. I’m just scared. I’ve never really been seen by people outside of academics. I’m scared to just… be seen.” I roll over and pull Chloe down to rest her head against my chest, running my hands through her hair, untangling the small knots.

“I will love you no matter what. If you decide to continue keeping it private or if you, break up with me.”

“Chloe I will not fucking break up with you. I think- I think I want people to know. I want to love you properly.” Her head tilts up and I lean down, pressing a kiss to her lips.

~~~~~

“Chloe Kelly takes a shot… AND IT GOES IN. SHE SCORES THE WINNER IN THE 92ND MINUTE!!” I yell from the friends and family section as Chloe practices shots in front of me.

She turns dramatically toward me with a glare on her face, but I poke out my tongue and she breaks out into a smile. She makes the short jog over to me and pulls me into a kiss. A rather passionate one if you want to be specific. I grab her by the shirt and pull her close, kissing her harder as people around us jokingly cheer.

“See you after the game baby.” she pecks my lips once more before running back to her teammates who clap her on the back and tease her.

“That’s my girlfriend!” I scream and point, and the same people laugh along with me.

Thank god for media day.

[seikotakai]

some more old art I drew while i still had some brainrot for infection au's including Sonic Dark Gaia back in April. I also included some symptoms of this made up infection this time, and of course infected Obito has longer hair. There's some angsty doomed yaoi involved where Obito got infected by Heihachi, and then Kakashi is left with a choice on whether or not to kill Obito or leave Obito to turn into an abomination (kinda like that one scene from the Walking Dead game in the early 2010's, even tho I'm not the biggest fan of the Walking Dead in general). Obito gains the wood release as well, which is bad because that spreads spores which can infect more people with the parasitic pathogenic fungus (which the characters initially thought was a virus). Also Obito eventually uses the Rinnegan to visit New York where some Foot clan ninjas find him and take him to a lab for research (poor Obito is being used as a guinea pig for experiments but at least he can't infect or kill anyone right now).

Naruto and Obito Uchiha is owned by Masashi Kishimoto

[ratwithhands]

For those of you who saw the last post, this is who's responsible for Fuji's illness.

Kageguchiomi was Lower Moon 3 around the early 1700s, with the appearance of a dull but well dressed wooden doll with an uchiwa and tenugui wrap. In life he was a gossiping servant, often spreading rumours among the other servants of the house he served to entertain himself as he tended the gardens, which ultimately led to his execution. His blood demon art is a fine mist of his own blood, fanned through the air like a pathogen, relaxing the muscles (including the heart). He is also able to use his words to disorient opponents who breathe in the mist, namely through convincing them of barriers or targets that don't actually exist.

Fuji had first caught his "illness" in early childhood, carrying its symptoms through his life. Since it was not a true illness, the best solution he could get was staying bundled indoors, away from strenuous work, with wisteria incense flooding the room. The only true cure was to kill Kage, which he would do later once he'd grown and trained.

I made a sketch in class with Fuji and Kage, here's the cleaner digital revision:

[skaruresonic]

Retcons in Gerald's Journal

---

Retcon #1: Gerald's Diary is Digital

The author of the cover letter, T, also known as Professor Tori, tells the recipient, the Commander, that they have Eggman to thank for the recovery of Gerald's journal.

They found it in his stronghold, and T laments that the "original book" is missing pages:

Except that can't be the case, because the diary that Eggman gives Rouge is a disc:

Eggman does not mention transcribing anything when recounting how he found his grandfather's diary in the Iron Gate recap:

Consider the implications of "The diary looked like it was sealed inside the military research facility when it was shut down over 50 years ago."

Logically, if the diary had existed in paper form, it would have been easy for the military to destroy. This coupled with Tori's comment that the Commander's predecessor was "thorough" with the cover-up operation would suggest that Eggman shouldn't have been able to find the diary at all. Which begs the question of where and how he found it.

Therefore, it can only be surmised that Gerald's diary is digital.

---

Retcon #2: The Artificial Chaos' Rampage in Lost Impact

In Entry #..., Gerald attributes the Artificial Chaos' rampage to Gizoid's destruction of the ARK. He suggests he attempted to regain control of the rampaging Artificial Chaos by "inverting the polarity of the _________."

In ShTH Expert mode, however, he instead implies he has only now heard of the Artificial Chaos' rampage, and attributes their aggression to an accidental reversal of electrode connectors:

---

Retcon #3: Black Doom's End of the Deal

Recent promo materials such as the Shadow 101: A Brief History of Shadow the Hedgehog video, as well as Entry #616, claim that Black Doom desired a champion from Gerald, when in reality Gerald promised Black Doom the seven Chaos Emeralds. Shadow was only just a means of collecting the Emeralds.

Furthermore, Black Doom needed the seven Emeralds to perform Chaos Control to help the Black Comet bypass the Earth's atmosphere:

---

Retcon #4: The Eclipse Cannon

In Entry #650, Gerald claims the Eclipse Cannon "taps directly into the ARK's central reactor to produce an unethical degree of firepower":

However,

A.) Gerald claims in ShTH that he built the Eclipse Cannon to safeguard humanity against the Black Comet's return by using the Chaos Emeralds' power against the Black Arms. Therefore, the Cannon needs to be able to fire:

B.) This doesn't make sense because in SA2, Shadow claims "large amounts of energy are necessary" to reactivate the Cannon and that all seven Chaos Emeralds are needed to "unleash its full potential."

If the Cannon is able to produce firepower by drawing from the central reactor, what would it need Chaos Emeralds for?

---

Retcon #5: Low Gravity

Low gravity is stated to treat Maria's condition in Entry #428, whereas Shiro Maekawa contended in an answer to a fan question that she was kept aboard the ARK "to isolate her from Earth's pathogens." He says "low gravity" may have been "added" to the setting later, presumably without his knowledge or input: