#maybe i will write a longer piece for this... maybe...... i most likely will

[harryssyndrome]

Kiwi baby! | h.s 🥝

Summery: Harry’s wife surprises him during Kiwi with the best news ever.

Word count: 3.2k || Masterlist 🍉🍓❤️

The gif and the ai image are both mine! Don’t you dare steal it! I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION TO USE EITHER OF THEM OR STEAL MY WORK!!!

On a kind note, I hope you enjoy reading!!! I love this one-shot sm <333 I couldn’t wait to write it the whole night ever since I got the idea. This is probably my most favorite piece of work ever. I guess I’ll make this a part of ‘Our Little World: Documentary series’. REQUEST ARE OPEN! 🌊

Posted on: November 24th, 2024. (IST)

Tag-list: @angeldavis777 @fruity-harry || TAGLIST OPEN 💌

The evening sky above the stadium was painted in deep shades of purple, and the crowd beneath it surged with energy, every soul gathered to see him perform. Harry Styles was in his element, bathed in bright lights, his smile as wide as the stage itself, his voice carrying through the open air. The music was loud, vibrant, and electric—Kiwi blasting through the speakers as Harry moved across the stage, every step laced with the confidence and excitement that only live performances could stir.

His outfit tonight was nothing short of breathtaking—a red and black Gucci harlequin-patterned suit that shimmered under the lights, accentuating his every movement. The slickness of his hair, now a little longer than usual, fell just enough to brush his forehead as he swung his body to the rhythm of the song. Fans were ecstatic, their voices harmonizing with his in perfect unity, shouting the words to Kiwi as if their very existence depended on it.

The crowd threw water at him, a playful and typical reaction to the intense heat of the show. Harry, ever the entertainer, caught one of the bottles and used it to douse them back with a mischievous grin. The energy was alive in a way only concerts could make him feel. He laughed along with his fans, feeling that familiar thrill that had kept him addicted to this life—the adoration of strangers, the pulse of the music, and the sheer joy of performing.

But amidst the buzz of lights, the sweat dripping from his skin, and the joy in the air, there was a quiet thought that kept tugging at him. YN. His wife. She wasn’t in the VIP stand like usual. He could always rely on her to be there, her smile always radiating at him from the crowd, her presence a constant comfort. But tonight, the spot where she always stood was empty. The concern he tried to shake off kept creeping into his mind, distracting him in the back of his head, even as his heart continued to race with excitement from the show.

He couldn’t help but glance over to the section where she usually sat, hoping to catch a glimpse of her face, knowing it would soothe the small, gnawing worry he felt. But the space remained empty.

His foot tapped the beat of the song beneath him, trying to focus on the crowd once more. He tossed the water bottle at the fans, his fingers brushing the cold plastic. The adrenaline kept him high, kept him in the moment, but his gaze drifted again.

Where was she?

YN had been a little quieter than usual in the past few days. He hadn’t pushed for any answers, but now he found himself wondering if something was wrong. Maybe she was feeling unwell. Maybe she just wanted to have a quiet night in. Still, the thought of not seeing her there tonight gnawed at him.

His voice still rang out with the words of the song, but his mind was divided between the stage and the empty stand. He kept looking—one eye on the crowd, the other scanning for her. And just as his next verse was coming up, he saw it.

There she was.

Right in the front row—so close to the barricade, she was almost on the stage.

His breath caught in his throat.

She wasn’t in the VIP section. No, she was right there. In the heart of the crowd. The waves of people parted like the Red Sea for her, and there she stood—holding a sign. Her figure illuminated by the stage lights, her long hair falling in waves over her shoulders, a look of pure joy and love in her eyes.

For a moment, everything else fell away—the music, the fans, the lights—all of it was distant. Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of her. The sign she held was simple, but to him, it was everything.

“I’m having your baby” it read, scrawled across a bright poster board in bold, handwritten letters.

He froze. His heart nearly stopped.

She’s pregnant.

He blinked, thinking he must be imagining it, but no—she was smiling at him now, holding up the sign for him to see, her eyes locked on his. There was no mistaking it. YN—his wife—was carrying their baby.

Harry’s pulse raced as the flood of emotions hit him. His heart thudded against his chest like it wanted to burst free. The happiness, the disbelief, the excitement—it all rushed through him like a tidal wave, and for a moment, the world seemed to tilt beneath his feet.

He had wanted this. He had dreamed of this. Of being a father. Of having a child with YN. They had talked about it before, casually, in quiet moments after dinner, while walking through the park, in bed at night. But it had never been a “right now” kind of conversation. They had agreed that when it happened, it happened. And now… it had happened.

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and his throat tightened. The emotions, overwhelming and beautiful, blurred his vision, but all he could do was stand there on the stage, dumbstruck by the sight of his wife, her belly now holding the future they had always dreamed of.

In a rush of pure joy, Harry stumbled forward, intent on reaching her, to hold her, to kiss her, to tell her how much he loved her. But as he took a step toward her, he didn’t see the puddle of water gathering at the edge of the stage, a result of the fans tossing their bottles earlier.

And then, it happened.

His foot slipped.

There was a split second of disbelief before Harry lost his footing completely, crashing down to the stage in an ungraceful heap. The crowd gasped collectively, their moment of joy paused in shock. But Harry, ever the professional, couldn’t help but laugh at himself. His laughter echoed through the microphone as he quickly scrambled to his feet, dusting himself off.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, still chuckling as he shook off the fall. The fans laughed along with him, the tension breaking as they cheered even louder, impressed by his quick recovery. Harry took a deep breath, regaining his balance and composure. He grabbed the microphone again, still laughing, and gave the crowd a playful wink.

“You okay, Harry?” someone from the crew called out, teasing him from the side.

“Yeah, I’m good! Just a little slippery, that’s all!” Harry replied, still grinning.

His gaze immediately returned to YN. She was still standing at the barricade, her sign still held high, her face alight with joy, her smile as radiant as the sun. It was in that moment that Harry realized he couldn’t wait any longer. The song was still playing behind him, the familiar rhythm pulsing through his body, but he couldn’t focus on the lyrics anymore. Not with the overwhelming emotions flooding his heart.

He took a step forward, slowly walking toward the edge of the stage, his eyes still locked on YN, who was holding his gaze with the same intensity. With each step, his heart pounded harder in his chest.

And before he even knew it, his knees buckled beneath him, and Harry collapsed to the stage once more, but this time, it was with pure emotion.

He covered his face with his hands, unable to contain the tears that had begun to fall freely down his cheeks. After a few moments, Harry wiped his eyes, clearing the tears away as he stood up once more. His voice was thick with emotion when he spoke into the mic, his words trembling with happiness:

“My wife is having my baby!” he shouted, his voice trembling. “It’s all my business!”

The crowd erupted in pure, ecstatic noise, the roar of the fans filling the stadium as Harry remained on his knees, the overwhelming weight of the moment too much to bear. His chest was heaving, his body shaking as the reality of the news consumed him.

“Is that real?” a fan shouted.

“Yes, it’s real!” Harry replied, laughing through his tears. “I’m going to be a dad! A dad!” He repeated the words as if he needed to hear them again, the joy overwhelming every part of him.

The fans roared in approval, the noise a chaotic symphony of celebration. But Harry didn’t care about any of that now. He didn’t care about the performance or the crowd or the cameras recording every moment. All he could think about was YN.

His mind was consumed by thoughts of the future—the life they would build together, the family they would raise. He quickly stood to his feet, wiping his eyes, and glanced once more at YN.

Without another moment’s hesitation, Harry dropped the mic to the stage and sprinted toward the barricade, his heart pounding with anticipation.

Harry could feel the heat of the stage lights burning against his skin, but they didn’t matter. The noise of the crowd was deafening, but it was like a distant hum. His heart was the loudest thing he could hear, thrumming in his chest, pumping through his veins with an almost frantic rhythm. His legs carried him toward YN like they had a mind of their own. He was driven by a force he couldn’t describe, propelled by the overwhelming joy of the moment.

Fans parted for him as he made his way to the front of the stage, their cheers rising to a fever pitch as they realized what was happening. Harry didn’t hear their excitement—he only heard the steady beat of his heart, louder now than the music, than anything else in the world.

YN. His wife. The love of his life. The mother of his child.

As he approached the barricades, YN’s smile never wavered. She was grinning from ear to ear, her eyes shining with excitement, her hand placed lovingly over her flat belly. As soon as Harry reached her, he lifted her into his arms, spinning her around in a joyous embrace, laughing like a child. The crowd cheered even louder, their love for Harry and YN growing with every passing second.

She had always known that he wanted this more than anything. They both had. But now it was real. She was carrying their baby, and everything about their lives was about to change.

“YNN…” Harry’s voice caught in his throat as he reached her. He placed her back on the ground, eyes never leaving hers. She was glowing—absolutely radiant in the soft light of the stage, and he couldn’t help but let out a soft laugh as his arms reached out to her, pulling her into a tight embrace. The crowd cheered louder, but Harry only had eyes for YN, holding her close, feeling the warmth of her body against his.

“I love you,” Harry whispered into her ear, his voice thick with emotion. “I love you so much. I can’t believe we’re going to be parents.”

YN pulled back slightly to look at him, her hand resting on his chest, feeling the erratic beat of his heart under her fingers. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, her smile wide and full of joy, matching his own. “I know. I can’t believe it either,” she whispered, voice trembling just slightly. “I wanted to tell you in the cutest way possible, but you’ve already made it the most unforgettable moment of my life.”

Harry’s breath caught again, a lump forming in his throat as he looked down at her belly, still so small but already holding the life they had created together. His hands rested gently on her sides as he crouched down slightly, his eyes never leaving her. He placed his lips softly on her stomach, his kiss a promise—a vow. The fans around them cheered again, but this time, it was just background noise to Harry.

“I’m going to be the best dad for you,” Harry muttered against her belly, his voice filled with awe. “I promise.”

YN’s fingers threaded through his hair as she smiled down at him, her heart swelling with love. “I know you will be. I’ve always known,” she whispered, her voice full of faith and affection.

“You’re going to be the best dad our baby could ever ask for.”

As Harry pulled back from the kiss, he stood to his full height and stared at YN, his hands still resting on her waist, his expression filled with wonder. His lips curled into a grin, and he couldn’t resist pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead before meeting her eyes once more.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be a dad,” he repeated, his voice thick with emotion, as if the words didn’t fully make sense to him yet. But the more he said them, the more real it became. “You and me. We’re going to have a little baby.”

YN’s eyes sparkled, the tears now freely falling down her cheeks. She looked at him with a mix of love, gratitude, and joy. She reached up to touch his face, her thumb brushing gently against the stubble on his jaw. “It’s happening, Harry,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s happening.”

Harry smiled wider, and without thinking, he reached down, cupping her face with both hands. He kissed her then—slow, gentle, tender—a kiss that held all of his joy, his love, his gratitude, his hope for their future. This was more than a kiss; it was a promise, a symbol of everything they were about to become. Harry pulled away slowly, his forehead resting against hers as they both tried to catch their breath.

“I can’t wait,” Harry murmured, his lips still grazing hers as he spoke. “I can’t wait to hold our baby. To be there for you. For everything.”

The love in his voice was enough to make YN’s heart swell to bursting. He kissed her again, softer this time, and then looked back at the crowd.

Harry wrapped her in a tight hug, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around again as he laughed.

“I love you,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

YN laughed, her fingers threading through his damp curls. “I love you too. Always.”

Harry set her down gently, his hands never leaving her as he looked into her eyes. “You’re my everything, YNN. You and this baby—you’re everything.”

Tears slid down YN’s cheeks, and she nodded, her heart full. “And you’re ours.”

Harry dropped to his knees once more, pressing his lips to her stomach in a gesture so tender it made YN’s breath catch.

“Thank you for making my life so much beautiful,” he murmured, his voice trembling. “I’ll love this baby with everything I’ve got. And I’ll love you even more.”

YN’s hands rested on his shoulders, her fingers squeezing gently. “You already are, Harry.”

The evening continued around them, but for Harry and YN, time seemed to slow. The music had become a distant hum, the chatter of the fans a soft murmur in the background. All that mattered was each other.

As they stood at the barricades, Harry reached up to take YN’s hand in his, squeezing it gently. He leaned in once more, pressing a kiss to her lips, soft and slow, as if savoring every moment, every sensation. His heart felt full to bursting. He had everything he had ever wanted—YN, their love, and now, the promise of their baby.

He felt as if his entire life had led up to this point—this single, beautiful moment. The rush of emotions from earlier hadn’t yet subsided, but now there was a calmness in him, a peace. He smiled as he looked down at YN’s hand in his, then back into her eyes.

“I know we’ve been through so much already,” Harry said quietly, his voice full of emotion. “But I feel like the best part of our journey is just beginning.”

YN nodded, her smile soft and full of love. “I feel the same way.”

Harry squeezed her hand once more, then stepped back slightly, turning his attention back to the crowd. “I’m going to be a dad,” he said out loud, his voice full of awe and happiness. He turned to face the audience, the microphone still lying on the stage. “Everyone, this is the best moment of my life,” he said, his voice carrying the emotion of the words. “My wife, YN, is having my baby.”

The moment was surreal. The fans were still screaming, the cameras still rolling, but none of it mattered. For Harry, nothing would ever top this moment. It wasn’t just another performance or another stage—it was the night his greatest dream began to come true.

As they stood there together, the crowd began to chant, “Baby Styles! Baby Styles!”

Harry threw his head back in laughter, turning to wave at the audience. “You lot are mad!” he called out, but his face said it all—he was over the moon.

The crowd continued on cheering wildly, but Harry’s focus was on the woman in front of him. She was glowing, every inch of her radiating love and joy, and he couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest man alive.

He leaned in to kiss her once more, this time a gentle, loving kiss on her lips. He felt everything he had ever hoped for in that kiss—his future, his family, and the love of his life, all wrapped up in one perfect moment.

As the kiss ended, he pulled back, his forehead resting against hers. “I love you,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

“I love you too,” YN whispered back.

They stood there for a moment longer, the world around them continuing on, but nothing mattered now but each other, and the new life they were about to bring into the world. Together.

The fans’ cheers faded into the background as Harry held YN’s hand tightly, the two of them standing side by side, facing the future with all the love and hope that their hearts could hold.

Harry stood up and kissed her again, his heart still racing, his mind still in a daze, but in the best way possible. His dream of being a dad was coming true, and no matter what came next, he knew he had everything he ever needed right here, in this moment. He knew one thing for sure: their love was only just beginning

And with that, Harry Styles was no longer just a rock star on stage—he was going to be a dad, and that was the greatest role he’d ever play.

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

spent a good hour reading up on your Not What He Seems AU, it’s such a perfect mix of angst and whimsy! Ford waking up to find 30 years have passed in the blink of an eye is is the kind of body horror terrifying i eat up, as an avid enjoyer of time travel and its inherent tragedy.

i got a few questions, if you’ll indulge me:

- what kinds of tattoos you think Bill has gotten over the years? i think i saw some arm bands in one of your pieces, but i’d love to hear if you have any specific ideas for placements or images. if he’s doing it for the safe pain experience, i’d think there are some pretty big/detailed pieces involved? and do you think the pain helps ground him somewhat, to find and fit better in the boundaries of the body?

- in the show, Stan feels a lot of guilt for stealing his brother’s identity and he kinda thinks of himself as a fraud, an actor. do you think Bill ever feels guilty for the same? or would he just miss Ford a lot, without the Stan-specific aspect of pretending to be “the better one”?

also any fun tidbits you’ve been rotating in your head lately! it’s impressive how specifically it seems like you’ve thought out how Bill’s presence would affect the canon show events, while trying to keep them as unchanged as possible. also StanFraud is the funniest, most perfect thing I’ve ever heard!

Thank you!! I’ve always enjoyed writing horror based on human response, so Ford’s perspective is probably one of the most fascinating to me in this AU, although, all of it is fascinating and enjoyable to explore, really!

— I haven’t worked them all out yet, but I know for a fact he has a tattoo of the Cipher Wheel on his back, the arm bands as you mentioned, a hyper-realistic tattoo of his ribs where his ribs would be (if that makes sense), and eyes on the back of his hands. Honestly, I’d be open to suggestions for him! I imagine him having some more grotesque, detailed tattoos that reflect the nightmare realm as well. And yes, the pain definitely helps ground him. It also gives him a sense of control as well, in a situation where he has none.

— If he does feel guilty, it’s a complicated kind of guilt. I don’t even think he’d fully process that he’s feeling guilty. It’s this sort of gnawing feeling he can’t get rid of, and it starts the longer he gets to know Dipper and Mabel — he never really felt it before that. He absolutely misses Ford though. He can’t define that feeling either. I’ve said before that he looks at Dipper strangely, and that’s because Dipper reminds him of Ford in certain moments, eager for discovery!

He and Stan never really talk about it, but the have both acknowledged missing Ford before.

Bill’s response was vague though, not an ‘I miss him too’, but an ‘I think I do too.’ He isn’t sure what to make of that.

Bill Cipher doesn’t feel remorse, or miss people, he does everything with intention and he’s never made mistakes. Or, that’s what he’s meant to be. Maybe he has gone soft.

And Tidbits! I have a few! Not as many as usual, only because Arcane’s been taking up a bit of my brain space lately, but I hope these shall suffice anyhow:

(And quickly, thank you again, I think way too hard on all the small details and how Bill’s presence would have a knock on effect. It makes me happy to see it get noticed!)

— In the early days of Bill being trapped, Stan obviously doesn’t open the Mystery Shack, and ends up having to take a few odd jobs around town instead. He’s earned a bit of a reputation for being a decent handyman because of that, and even now, old timers of the town will still come to Stan if they need something fixing, especially cars. He complains about getting too old for it, but he never says no. Money is money! It’s also interesting to think about how the little things would impact his relationship with the townsfolk and how they view him. He’s always been Stanley to them. He’s never had to pretend otherwise.

— I’ve toyed around with making the Blind Eye a bigger threat than they are in canon, being as the kids would have no reason to look into Old Man McGucket. I’ve also toyed around with McGucket ending up slightly different to canon, his mind still broken, but his motivation different, with him being aware early on that the man he sees isn’t Ford, and is in fact the beast he fears and tried to erase from his mind. A more antagonistic Fiddleford who’s been trying to get rid of Bill for years now would actually be really fun? If I can make it work, and make the Blind Eye work in this way, I’ll lean into it! For now though, it’s just an idea I’m throwing around.

— Vague ‘episode’ idea that exists within my brain is Bill accidentally starting a mini cult again after telling some sort of lie that catches on, and it ends up being a Mabel-Bill bonding plot-line as she tries to convince him to just be honest before this whole cult thing gets taken too far. I also love the idea of Bill making a comment about this being like 1952 all over again. He makes comments like that all the time. Surely he’s just joking!

— Another vague ‘episode’ idea I have is Bill taking Dipper and Mabel to the supernatural underground market of Gravity Falls under Stan’s nose, trying to prove he’s the cooler Uncle, and that he can handle the two kids by himself. This goes about as well as you’d expect. Stan isn’t too happy to find out Bill got Dipper and Mabel in trouble, as he tried to get them to do more and more risky things.

— Bill will sometimes start speaking in Euclydian without realising, especially when it comes to cursing, and no one knows how he’s making those sounds with his mouth. Stan’s actually started picking up some of the meanings in context and can roughly gauge what Bill might be saying.

[gremlinmodetweeker]

I Entered Daniel's Den and I Saw the Truth Before Me

So I'm struggling a bit writing fanfiction because it's getting dark out and I'm so tired these days. However, the show must go on and so I push forward! However, just so you're all aware, there very well could come a point where I admit, I may struggle to make content and so we might not have some for a bit. But Winter will come to an end, and I will be back to normal! I just need to power through!!!

Tws: Yandere, Kidnapping, Pyschological Horror

Wordcount: 558

Art From This Post

Story Below the Cut

I Entered Daniel's Den and I Saw the Truth Before Me

König sat at the marble kitchen counter, drumming his fingers idly as he looked over the charcuterie boards again. You watched as he took inventory of the crackers, cheese and cut meats again and again, obsessively absorbing every detail into his mechanical mind. You sat silently on a bar stool as you waited for someone to make the next move.

“How long until they come?” you asked quietly.

König glanced at the clock on the oven again.

“Not too long,” he told you as much as he told himself, “Mama will be here soon.”

“Did she tell you when she’d be here?” you tried again.

König’s eyes narrowed briefly before he relaxed and said, “Soon. It shouldn’t be long now.”

You fiddled your thumbs mindlessly. Earlier you were playing with a string on the hem of your sleeve but König was quick to put an end to it, reminding you to keep up a good appearance for his family. You didn’t think a pulled string would matter too much, but König had warned you that they were far more observant than they let on. You wondered if that was true or not. You supposed you’d figure out soon enough.

For his part, König had ensured that the house was immaculate. You thought his incessant fussing would never come to an end, but it seemed that he’d finally come to a point where he couldn’t do any more. You figured that the table of hors d'oeuvres was the final piece for preparation.

If nothing else, you’d enjoyed cooking in the kitchen with König. He’d fully trusted you with the knife, though you noted he was a far more meticulous cook than you’d expected. He had been looking over your shoulder at every turn as you’d sweated a pan of mushrooms. He’d been even worse when he’d been inspecting the size of your diced onions, but at the very least he seemed to be content. He’d been sweet enough to pat you on the head and praise you for a job well done. The simple praise still had your heart fluttering.

König glanced back at the clock and muttered again under his breath. You wanted to ask what exactly he was thinking about, but he was far too focussed on the time to hear your questions. The longer you waited, the more you could see his biceps tense under his silk dress shirt. You were a bit shocked that he was determined to keep his hood on, but maybe that was a family trait? It would make sense. Or, well, you hoped it would.

You hadn’t heard anything at all about König’s family, except that his mother was the matriarch of the home and his siblings were just as demanding. Apparently, his youngest sister was a bit soft-hearted for König’s tastes, but then he’d barked out a laugh and said she probably thought he was the most cruel of the lot of them. You had only recently learned that her name was Klara. You wondered if she was similar in age to you.

Just as you turned to speak to König, the doorbell rang.

König was off like a shot to the front door. You followed behind him nervously as he strode to the front entrance.

You watched König put his hand on the brass doorknob and open the door.

Konig Dump

Alternate Universes

[tales-from-the-blu-team]

As the meeting went on some of the mercs had slipped out or been excused. Only about half had stayed for the extended meeting.

Soldier and spy were there, being the two unofficial but uncontested leaders, they didn't leave until it was all over.

Scout- having been part of soldiers plan was kept behind too.

Pyro had said his piece and left- there wasn't much for him to give reports about except for who was targeting their engineer these days and how they'd both handled it.

He was still primarily on babysitting duty, well, they didn't call it that but it felt like it, for the time being.

Heavy and medic stayed. Heavy, because he'd died with Medic and had killed many that day and needed to give his own info on the Red teams performance.

Medic, because, well, he was there more to give the Blus commentary on their own performance.

Demo, sniper and engineer had left already. Mac had promised to just write them a report if there was anything Pyro had left out. Demo and Sniper had a tendency to be more independent than the others and had given their own info.

Their meeting would have continued for a while longer....

Had no one noticed The vent cover.

"Hey, uh, was that..thing hanging from the ceiling always there?" Scout asked, grateful to have something else to pay attention to.

Spy sighed, wishing for a cigarette but he would hold off until after he had visited The Engineer. " It's likely the shoddy base falling apart again. I'll tell Mac to fix this too."

Soldier sighed, shaking his head.

"I'll close it." John offered as he got up to move towards the Vent. "Someone get me a chair."

Their heavy, Dimitri, cut him off.

"Is ok, I Will get it." He offered instead.

Reaching up to get it, heavy looked around. He wondered if it was some wildlife, a rat most likely who got in. Or maybe a raccoon.

There were an awful lot of them around here.

Eye straining to see into the dark, his eyes saw something. Or he thought he did.

"There is visitor in vent!" He called out.

( tales-from-the-blu-team) Blu engineer, who would rather be known as Mac and back in his old life, came across the cyborg. Eyes taking in the details of this strange figure, he could not help but remark.

" I've never seen you around before? Are..are you a new class? Are we supposed to be getting a tenth teammate?"

Scout. Soldier. Pyro. .. engineer. Heavy. Demoman. Medic. Spy. Sniper. .these were the classes he had grown up knowing and was always destined to work with.

The idea of a new class was...something to get used to

They shrug.

“How am I supposed to know any of that? I’m just here to kill people. Used to be an assassin until I joined RED and my Engie worked his magic on me. Now I’m an assassin but even better. It’s pretty sweet you should try it out.”

He spins around, showing Mac every part of his body, as if to prove his point.

“I mean, if you want your own cyborg, you’re probably gonna have to make em yourself.”

[ipilokko]

Hello! This is me attempting to write after a looong time. I was not home today so i wanted to try again. I don't think I'm the best at it and i probably made a LOT of grammar mistakes since English is not my first language. So i might get embarrassed and delete this later 💀

The thing is under the cut...

From the warmth of their home, Mollie stood in front of the window, she could hardly make out her immense husband between the layering raindrops. It was getting colder and colder each day as the weather pulled away from autumn and was being dragged more into winter.

His back facing her, he was wearing a dark brown coat with his umbrella on his hand, creating a spotlight on him free from the raindrops. She gripped the ladder, slowly climbing down to reach the ground. She put on her jacket, her hat, took her own umbrella, her gloves and went outside from the human door.

The oversized raindrops were a bit sticky as the surface tension was, for sure, directly proportional to the scale. She slowly made her way through him, whose gaze was lost in the foreverness of the ocean. She watched as he stretched farther over her horizon line, much farther over her head and then finally, as he completely took over her vision as she got closer.

The raindrops stopped falling on her when she passed the lineage of the circular waterproof fabric hundreds of feet above. He wasn't acting like it but she was sure he had noticed her coming, he always did.

"Always by the sea... Why do you hate me so much?"

Mollie teased before letting out a short-lasting laugh, cranning her neck to be able to see his face... Well, more like underside of his jaw. He looked down and his eyes landed on her. She was not even sure if he could see her eyes, yet it WAS an eye contact. Roy smiled kindly and looked back up to his own vanishing point. He moved his umbrella to her direction and centered it on top of her, even though he knew it was already covering her before. The sound of huge raindrops falling just a few feet away from her tickled her ears.

"What so nice here anyway?"

She walked closer to his feet. She could smell the fresh polish he applied on his shoes just a day ago.

"Stay here with me for a little longer and you will find out" He replied softly without breaking his eye contact with waves for a moment, then glancing at her.

She shifted her attention back to the ocean and glanced around between the waves. "I guess I'll be here for a while, then"

"I would love that" he once again, smiled calmly.

She was a bit cold, but it was no excuse to get back into the house. Yes, maybe she didn't understand what he liked so much about the sea but just staying with him made her happy. And her staying with him made him happy. Despite her being really talkative, it was actually the speechless moments of pure togetherness she adored the most.

His long legs shifted behind her, transferring his weight onto them with a soft tremour, shielding her from the cold breeze. His movements calm and bare of rush, as they always were. After a short amount of time, she felt a movement behind her and noticed he was lowering himself on the ground, his stature folding in half and getting more than twice as big with the affect of perspective. He smootly reached for her and slightly spread out his fingers to reveal his palm, inviting her to join him up in the sky. She glanced at his ring, which was a symbol of their marriage. it warmed her heart seeing how well he took care of it, not a single piece of dust between the elegant engravings.

With her barely perceivable touch, she put one of her hands on the inner side of his forefinger and the other one on his thumb. She supported herself and climbed on it, her small weight barely forming a dent on the soft flesh. She felt the welcomed thrill of weightlessness as he began to rise her up in the air, making her previous ground shrink and shrink more until it stopped.

"Shoulder, please" she requested. He obeyed after he deeply studying her with his soft gaze. She took a step that led her on his shoulder after his hand was aligned with the level of it. She carefully passed his and made herself comfortable near the wall of his neck with the warmth of his life blood leaking on her. His presence was dominating yet somehow, so recessive that she felt like she was taking advantage of him. She was always grateful that the gentle giant was always so patient, so respectful and considerate of her needs. He was a gentleman from every angle and his manner and accent only made her opinion stronger.

She once again paid attention to the sound of rain, a wee bit muffled now as she was further away from the origin.

"Shall we go in?" His voice rumbled through her from where she was leaning her head on. Weird enough, even though she was this close to his voicebox, his voice always touched her so gently.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

June Writing Wishlist

Finish something for each of the unfinished Chesterton Challenge prompts (current plans are for two pieces of flash fiction, a bit of Arateph worldbuilding, and two scenes from Shadowstruck)

Write at least 10,000 words of a single project (or, possibly, divide it up between two shorter retellings)

[yuunnikko]

Saying Goodbye to My Mask event on project sekai may have been a premonition of having my own mental health tank to the same level as Mafuyu's because well. Let's just say. The depression. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)

[ehlnofay]

the problem with posting any of my newer stuff is that it’s all So Fucking Long. stupid amounts of words. just finished my most recent ‘‘‘‘‘micro’’’’fic three days and almost five thousand words after I sat down to begin it. that’s not micro anymore that’s a whole ass fic. and it’s too much to read on tumblr dot com

[queenerdloser]

me: huh i finally had a workshop where no one told me i should expand my short story into a longer piece! maybe i AM getting better at figuring out what should be a short story vs a novel.

my writing instructor in a 1:1: actually i think this short story you submitted would benefit from being more like a novella length

me: by talos this cant be happening

[pipermca]

New AO3 Tag Wrangling Policy and the Transformers Fandom

Edit in the event people come back to the original post: Please do not email AO3 about this issue. See their response about this issue!

(This is a long one, folks, but I think it's important.)

A new tag-wrangling policy on AO3 has the potential to create some massive confusion and chaos in the Transformers fanfic community, with regards to fandom tags. There is a Reddit post about it here with a focus on anime fandoms, but I want to give some concrete examples for the Transformers fandom on why we DO NOT WANT this, and why I think it's a horrible idea.

The Problem

Basically, AO3 is looking to get rid of the "All Media Types" fandom tag across the board, either by dismantling them or just not maintaining them. The Transformers - All Media Types tag has been an all-purpose tag that you could select when your story doesn't fall into any one specific continuity. Additionally, all most (see below) TF continuities on AO3 are considered a subtag of the Transformers - All Media Types tag. For example, if you look at the link above for all works in the All Media Types tag, you will see fics that are also tagged ONLY with Transformers: Animated, because it falls under the All Media Types tag.

One exception: With the upcoming Transformers: One movie coming out imminently, there will likely be a big influx of stories tagged with Transformers: One. In fact, there are several already. However, it hasn't been linked to the larger Transformers - All Media Types tag yet. I wasn't worrying about it though, because I know these things can take time.

With information about this new tagging policy, however, I'm now wondering whether it'll EVER get linked to the All Media Types tag. If that happens, and when more continuities are developed in the coming years (since you know Hasbro loves creating new universes) this has the potential to cause massive confusion when looking for stories to read.

Searching for Stories with the New Tagging System

So let's say the All Media Types fandom tag isn't accurate anymore, because it no longer includes ALL of the continuities (such as TF:One). You will need to include ALL the Transformers continuities when browsing for TF fics.

How many tags is that? Well, here are all of the tags currently listed under the Transformers - All Media Types tag:

Note that this doesn't include Transformers: One since it hasn't been categorized yet.

You will potentially have to have 40 or more different fandom tags in your search, just in case the author tagged their story with something you weren't expecting.

This massively decreases the findability of a story.

Tagging with the New System

The email response from the Tag Wrangling group (see the linked Reddit post above) seems to be a bit flip in the response to the user's concern. "...encourages creators to tag with the media they intend."

While I appreciate what they are attempting to do, this policy change feels like a solution in search of a problem, especially in larger fandoms with multiple continuities, versions, and media types that are all cross-pollinated in both canon and fanon. While I'm focusing on Transformers fandom, imagine a creator in the DC comic universe writing a story that incorporates bits and pieces from a dozen different reboots.

For example, let's say that I am writing a fic about Ratchet. I am using the setting of the original G1 episodes, but I also am using the characterization of him as a bit of an old man grump. That characterization originated in the Animated continuity, but I want to incorporate bits of pieces of his other characterizations as well (old friend of Optimus from TFP, Ratchet ran a faction-free clinic like he did in the War for Cybertron series, he's got a Decepticon boyfriend like in IDW1 - or maybe even Cyberverse, etc.)

With this new tagging structure, I might potentially have to tag the story with ALL of those continuities. So instead of just slapping down the "All Media Types" tag (and maybe one other fandom tag that matches the characters as best I can), I'll have to analyze my story and try to figure out how best to tag for the characters I used.

And what if you're doing a completely AU version of the story? For example, a humanformers story, or merformers? Using the All Media Types tag along with a Alternate Universe - Human or Alternate Universe - Mermaid tag worked perfectly, since you weren't writing the story to fit into one specific continuity. But now, that might not be an option.

What To Do??

The first thing I would suggest is to contact AO3 (using the Feedback and Support page) and let them know (nicely) that you think this is a horrible idea. Give them some examples on how you use the All Media Types tag to find stories to read, or to help you tag a story. People outside of the Transformers fandom don't always appreciate how absolutely tangled the continuities can be with each other, and providing examples might help them see why this would be a really messy change.

Readers: Be aware that when you are looking in the All Media Types tag, it will no longer show newer continuities. And if AO3 starts dismantling that tag like they suggested they are doing, be aware that some stories won't show up in that tag like they used to. You can also create and then bookmark a custom search page that includes all 40+ continuities. REALLY annoying, but it's a workaround.

Writers: Until they start dismantling the All Media Types tag, ALWAYS ALWAYS tag your stories using Transformers - All Media Types... Especially for newer continuities. This will be especially important if you are writing a Transformers: One story. Right now, anyone who is only browsing the All Media Types tag will not see a story tagged only with Transformers: One. Make sure you're aware of how tags work and how they can affect the visibility and findability of your story.

Epilogue

Ugh. That's a lot of words for a long-weekend Saturday. And maybe I'm overreacting a tiny bit. But my work involves information architecture, and this change just absolutely baffles me. It's almost as though they want to make it harder to find stories. Considering that AO3 won a Hugo partially because of its fantastic tagging system, this change seems like AO3 is doing its best to shoot itself in the foot.

When you have a square hole, a round hole, and a rectangular hole… Yeah, you DO want each peg to go in the "right" hole. But if all of the pegs fit in the square hole, who cares? You got the job done.

I love you @ao3org, but please reconsider this change... Especially for IPs that are as old and are as varied as Transformers.

[hughiecampbelle]

The Boys Preference: Wearing Their Clothes

Requested: i followed you for succession and currently im the boys brainrotted so you wouldnt believe my excitement when i realised you wrote for the boys too!!!!! i want to request maybe hc on how the boys would react to reader wearing their sweater/tshirts - anon

A/N: My love, the brain rot is so real!!! When I tell you I have an entire folder of The Boys edits, I mean I am kicking my feet and giggling at these people covered in blood lol. Thank you for requesting! Please feel free to again, I absolutely love writing preferences! I hope you like it!!!! Feedback is always appreciated 💜

Butcher absolutely adores you wearing his coat. It drives him wild. It started one night where you two were alone, the group split up. While everyone else had their own jobs, you and Butcher were on surveillance. It was freezing out. He noticed the goosebumps on your arms. You swore you were fine, but he could tell you were putting up a front. Oi, just take it. Not wanting to blow your cover and fight, you put his coat around your shoulders, thanking him. It's a long night and you take shifts. When he catches you curled in a ball, his coat wrapped around you, it tugs at his heartstrings. Something about this image of you just makes him melt. After that, he's eager to see it again. Realizing this, you never turn down his offer. Now you basically have 50/50 custody. You like it. It's warm and worn, but it also smells like him and, when you're apart, remains a reminder that he's always looking out for you. Both M.M. and Frenchie are full of jokes when they catch you wearing it, but Annie and Hughie find it endearing.

Hughie loves that you wear his t-shirts and hates it. Not only do you look better in them than him, which is annoying enough, and now everyone finds them funny now that you're wearing them, but now he can never find the one shirt he wants to wear. It's either on your body or in your closet. Of course he would never stop you, he doesn't want you to stop, but he does wish there was a little bit more of a compromise. You wore it the first time you slept over. Your shirt had been discarded somewhere you couldn't find, but Hughie's was right there. He tried not to show it, he tried not to get caught smiling, but he was way too obvious. Something about seeing you in his shirt made his day, his life. It never gets old. When it's laundry day, most of your clothes end up being his. Now he has double the laundry. Still, it's worth it. His clothes always come back smelling like you. When they get ripped or torn from fights you apologize profusely, but he's just glad you're okay. Who cares about a stupid shirt?

Annie has always loved you in her clothes. When you moved in together, your clothes just sort of became jumbled. Neither of you felt the need to separate them, so you really can't tell if the sweater you're wearing is hers of yours. When she buys clothes she always makes sure you like what she's picking out so that you both can wear it. No one even noticed what you two were doing, that one day you'd be wearing a shirt and a few days later it would be her turn, it's just sort of become a thing. When something gets ripped or torn or covered in blood, you're the first to make jokes. I loved that sweater, you say, though Annie knows what you really mean is it's a stupid piece of clothing, you're just glad she's okay, that's all that matters. Your favorite thing is to look at pictures where, in one, you're wearing this sweater and, in the next, she is. Something about that puts a smile on your face.

M.M. feels a little insecure. You used to love wearing his shirts. Truthfully, no one can tell what's his and what's yours, your and his clothes are so blended. Since becoming in charge of The Boys, as close to a leader as possible, he's lost a lot of weight. Grown smaller, and his clothes no longer fit you. You of course still have his old shirts, but his new wardrobe just doesn't fit. You assure him it's just temporary. The anxiety, the OCD, it really hurts his appetite. He can't even think about food anymore. Still, realizing that you can no longer share, it makes him self-conscious. Something about you wearing his clothes made him think that he was there with you always, that this was a way to protect you, as silly as it might sound. Now that you wear your clothes more, he isn't there to save you. It just adds to his many worries. You assure him you'll be safe, you'll always come back to him, but he just can't help it. You make a point to wear his older shirts as much as possible, not wanting him to worry more than he does.

Frenchie literally can't tell when you're wearing his clothes vs. your own. His style is pretty eclectic. His pants alone are bright and patterned and, to his friends, a fashion offense. His clothes are rarely organized, so you end up picking through piles to find something specific. Most of the time you have to point out when you've got one of his jackets or shirts on. He of course thinks you look better in them than him and he makes it known. Your friends make fun of you and him for some of the outrageous outfits you put together. Everything is worn in and soft and smells like him, a mix of cologne and fabric softener and smoke. Not realizing, Frenchie wears your clothes, too. Only when you ask for a shirt back or where it is does he realize oh! so this belongs to you. Neither of you mind. It makes you happy seeing him wear your clothes. He definitely styles is better than you.

Kimiko's entire closet is all black. Not only is it easy to blend in with the crowd, and it all matches, but it can also hide the sight of blood. Neither of you can really tell whose shirt or pants or jacket belongs to who, considering most of your clothes are pretty identical. Still, she'll poke fun at you every so often when she realizes you've got on one of her shirts. Is that mine? She smiles. Is it? You didn't even realize. You always ask her if she wants it back, if she wants you to change, but she shakes her head. She tells you look good in it, badass even, and you shrug it off, though it means a lot. You and Kimiko both are still figuring out how relationships work. It takes a lot of trust, something neither of you were very well versed in. Sharing clothes is just another way you two show that you're a partnership. No one else can tell, but you can. That kind of attention would normally make alarm bells go off in your head, but you know Kimiko, you know she does it out of affection and not something more sinister.

Bonus! Homelander rarely, if ever, wears civilian clothes. If he's not in his suit, he's probably naked. You've never seen him in anything else. The only time he's done it was to see Sage and that was in secret. Still, you find a way to share by wearing his cape. Typically wrapped around you after you slip from the bed, in search of your own clothes, half-naked and embarrassed. He assured you you have never looked better. Homelander likes power. He likes when people listen to him, respect him, and show him their loyalty. You wearing his cape shows him all of that and more. He never thought he'd like you in his clothes, it's just another thing he's territorial about, but he's pleasantly surprised. Now he expects it. If you forget or just don't wear it, his ego is pretty wounded. You assure him it's nothing against him. Now you go out of your way to do so, knowing it makes him so happy.

Bonus! Soldier Boy feels such an attraction to you when you wear his clothes. He doesn't really wear anything but his suit, so one day you jokingly put it on. You filled it out differently than he did, but it didn't look horrible. When he saw you, he was all smiles. The first thing that comes to mind is wanting to take it off you *wink wink*. What was a joke is now something you do on special occasions, putting it on and parading around in it. The things he says are awfully dirty and make you laugh every time. You never thought something as silly and simple as putting on his suit would end up driving him this wild. You should have known, it makes perfect sense, but you just never realized. When he does, on rare occasions, wear regular clothes, he's the first to suggest that you share. It isn't as enticing as wearing his suit, but the attraction is still there. It makes him feel like you belong to him, that you want to show that off. Nothing matters more to him than that. Nothing makes him feel more seen.

[nereidprinc3ss]

please don't say you love me

in which fwb!spencer reid and fem!reader get into an argument about the nature of their relationship.

18+ (implied intimacy) warnings/tags: friends with benefits arrangement, it goes bad, reader is so clearly anxious avoidant, reader is so me-coded, self-loathing, difficulties with emotional intimacy, arguing, derek and penelope make an appearance woo, a little dramatic, no happy ending (a nereidprinc3ss first!) a/n: it happened guys I stopped writing for a few days and last night randomly was inspired to finish this fwb piece and it essentially turned into a vent and went a completely different direction than i thought it would but here we are!!! i hope you enjoy, I loved writing, ilysm

“Are you reading it? Did you get to the part yet?” You ask, buzzing as you peer around Spencer’s arm to see where he’s at in the book you’d handed him. Sometimes you think it takes him longer to flip the pages than to read them. 

He doesn’t answer, but you see the flickering quirk of his lip like something is amusing him. It’s been a few minutes and he’s maybe halfway through. He has to have seen it by now. 

You’re clinging to his arm, eyes darting pointlessly between the text and his face, searching for a reaction. It comes in the form of a furrowed brow, a disbelieving smile, and something between a barking laugh and an exclamation of, “what?”

“You read it?”

His eyes narrow and he flips back a page, taking a bit longer to reevaluate. 

“Our moans and grunts drowned out the screams of the dead and dying only a few hundred feet away.”

You giggle furiously, clapping a hand to your mouth when you snort, and you feel Spencer’s focus shifting to you, even with your eyes screwed shut. 

“And you read this whole series?”

At that you sober up some, still hiding the bottom half of your face and brows drawn sorrowfully as mirthful tears well. You’re slow to admit your guilt with a nod, and his expression is somewhere between horror and fascination. 

Your cheeks heat and you cover your face, laughing again and shaking your head shamefully as he ridicules you. 

“Why? Why would you do that to yourself? I don’t even know if I can be seen in public with you, that’s—” he’s haphazardly tossed the book back on its display table and grabbed your wrists, pulling gently and laughing too. “No, show me your face. This is—you need to explain yourself. This is unforgivable.” 

“No! I swear it was a morbid curiosity, I didn’t like it, I’m sorry! I—”

“Reid?”

You both freeze. 

It’s not the most dignified position, admittedly—hidden among the shelves in a bookstore, pressed too close to be friendly, his hands around your wrists. 

So you don’t mind when he drops them like hot potatoes and gives you a few inches of breathing room. 

“Hey! Uh—you’re—”

Spencer is looking between you and two other people at the end of the aisle—a quirky bespectacled blonde in a flouncy polka-dot dress and her taller companion, ripped and head shaved, sporting some impressive eyebrows. Right now they’re conspicuously raised—his eyes are also pinballing between you and Spencer. 

For a moment, everyone is just sort of… looking at each other. 

It’s a little bit… awful?

Finally Spencer clears his throat. 

“Um, what are you guys doing here? Just… looking at books?”

Something is off, and you feel like shrinking or running, but you just stay glued to your spot. 

In sync, they hold up copies of the same book—and it takes you not a second to place the author’s name, in imposing red font at the bottom like it’s important. Rossi. 

The pieces click into place. These must be Spencer’s co-workers—Penelope and Derek, if his descriptions of the team have served you well. Part of you is starstruck. Part of you is embarrassed. They’re clearly shocked to see Spencer with a girl in the wild, so you know he hasn’t told them about you—and why should he, you think, why should he tell his friends about the girl he’s been sleeping with for months now? 

Finally, the blonder half of the duo speaks. 

“You’re—this is a girl. That’s. Who is that? Hi! Who are you?”

She’s literally pointing at you, eyes drifting between you and Spencer like it just doesn’t make any sense. Derek gives her a look and gently pushes her hand down. 

“Hey. That’s enough.” Then he offers you a polite smile, though you sense a bit strained, and his eyes too keep wandering back to the man next to you. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No, no! You’re not… interrupting…” Spencer trails off and you sense he’s looking at you and gauging a reaction but you’re just smiling idly at his friends and waiting for this to be over. He finally thinks to introduce you by name, and you offer a shy wave and a smile to your new acquaintances. 

Penelope points (that damn finger again) but this time it’s less accusatory, and stays below chin level. 

“Cool shirt. I love that band,” she offers genially. Your brows raise and you look down, trying to remember what shirt you’d tossed on before leaving Spencer’s apartment an hour ago. 

“Oh! Thanks,” you smile, and you’re relieved to mean it this time. 

Another frosty silence begins to descend, but Derek doesn’t let it settle so much this time, to everyone’s satisfaction. 

“Alright, well. It was nice to meet you. Enjoy your date.”

There’s too much weight on the last sentence, and Derek gives Spencer a eyebrows-raised-meaningfully look you don’t understand. You’re just glad Spencer keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t immediately insist that it’s not a date, because it’s not, and that’s fine, but the vehement denial would bum you out. 

The pair walk away in the kind of clenched silence that means they’ll start fervently whispering as soon as they are out of ear shot. You watch their retreating figures and chew your lip, sensing that the carefree and playful energy of five minutes ago will have evaporated by the time you turn back to face your companion. 

“Strange,” you murmur, mostly to yourself, and you’re slightly jarred when Spencer replies from beside you. 

“Which part?”

All of it. 

Turning to face him, you smile, and it doesn’t reach your eyes but it doesn’t need to. 

“Oh—nothing, sorry.”

For a moment, he doesn’t respond, only stares at a point somewhere above your head and narrows his eyes like he’s thinking unpleasant thoughts. 

“Was I an asshole, to you, just now?”

It’s unexpected. You don’t have an answer prepared, so you say something that feels like a lie because you can’t prove that it’s not the truth. 

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“I just… I don’t know. I get weird around them, sometimes. I don’t always know what to say, like, when my personal life and my work life intersect, because for a long time I didn’t really have a personal life. And I think they still think I don’t know how to talk to girls, so…”

“You don’t know how to talk to girls,” you remind him. “Let’s go look at the puzzles.”

Maybe you spend too much time with Spencer Reid. Maybe that’s the problem—too long in his presence and he’s eating away at your neural tissue like you’ve got cysticercosis and he’s the T. solium (a terrible thing he had explained to you a few weeks ago.)

Maybe you need a break from him, to stop breathing his air and sleeping in his bed and wearing his clothing, because you’re forgetting that he’s not the entire world and that is a very bad thing to forget in a situation like yours. The entire world cannot be the size of his apartment. 

But you also just like him so much. As a friend, of course. That goes without saying. You like his strange sense of humor, and the way he lights up when you ask him an obscure question. You like your legs across his lap while you watch his old shows. You also like being kissed by him, and hugged by him. You like being taken care of like no one has ever taken care of you, and you like the way he always touches you, soft and kind and so on purpose. 

You never meant to like him so much. 

This affection—it has grown, insidious and parasitic, and now that it’s been pointed out to you like a lump in your side, it’s impossible to ignore. 

What you and Spencer have works precisely because you’ve kept things platonic and casual. That way, there’s no worrying about emotional baggage or arguing about feelings because there are none to be found and no precedent that any such things should or need to occur. You can’t hurt each other’s feelings if your feelings aren’t on the table. 

So why can’t you stop thinking about earlier?

Why can’t you help caring that he’s been keeping you a secret from the people he loves most?

“So, essentially the book is his first deep dive into meta-fiction. It was pretty revolutionary at the time, and while not his most celebrated novel, I’d argue it was his most relevant and culturally pervasive. I’d actually love to hear your interpretation of the story—it’s truly different for everyone. It’s a little like… like a literary Rorschach test. Do you wanna borrow it?”

You’re a tangle on his bed—arms, legs, sheets—it’s hard to tell where you end and he begins. All you’re sure of is his hand, tracing his fingers in chaste lines, feather-light up and down your inner thigh in the way he knows you like. Usually it’s so soothing you melt and fall asleep within minutes. Right now it’s only stoking some sparking electrical fire in your chest—the buzzes and bursts from which have you on edge. Ready to cave in at any second. You wish you could relax. You’ve been trying.

Spencer is in no hurry for you to respond, and so doesn’t seem to mind when it takes you a long while to find your answer. 

“I think I need to go home.”

It comes out too scratchy, as you haven’t really spoken for several hours. Not as casual as you were going for. He angles his head down toward you and his hand stops and you realize it’s actually worse like that. 

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah! Everything is fine, I just… I wanna sleep in my own bed tonight, I think.”

It’s late and you shouldn’t be making him drive you across town, but he’s always amenable to what you want. This is the longest you’ve ever stayed at his place, after all—a rare long weekend—and before that a few weeks had passed with no cases to speak of, during which time you’ve been staying with him more and more. Spencer seems to be completely content letting you eat his food and use his shower if it means you don’t leave. 

“I know the feeling well,” he admits, and your heart twinges with the care he takes to not bump or bend you or pull your hair as he shifts. He’s already been out of bed, and so is more dressed than you. Really, most people on the planet are more dressed than you, and you pull his nice sheet higher up your chest as he sits on the edge of the mattress, looking down at you and with a sort of worry in his eyes. He finds your knee through the fabric. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been quiet.”

Stop paying such close attention, you want to tell him. And in the same breath, please don’t ever look away. 

“I’m… good.”

It is easily the least convincing performance of your life. Either you’re self sabotaging or you want him to push you further, and you don’t know which is worse. 

When his brow ramps just the slightest bit, you know you’ve fumbled it. 

“I don’t believe you.”

You shrug. “I don’t need you to.” And then you sit up, still holding the sheet to your chest. “Can you hand me a shirt?”

Enough clothing has accumulated around the room recently that he could pretty much reach out in any direction and find something for you to wear.  He grabs a sweatshirt hanging from the bedpost and holds it out for you, and you pull it over your head, before dropping your feet onto the cool wooden floor and grabbing the first bottoms you see—a pair of floral pajama shorts. How have so many of your clothes ended up at his apartment?

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

You scoop your bag up from a chair and flit around the room, haphazardly stuffing away discarded clothing to take back home. It’s true that it’ll be nice to get back to your stuff—your shower products and your closet and your silk pillow cases. You shouldn’t be spending so much time here. It’s not your space and you’ve been sacrificing your own needs to be closer to him, which is something you’d rather not do for any man. 

“You can drive me home. I’ll send you gas money.”

“You don’t need to send me gas money,” he says, tacking your name on to the end of the sentence in a way that raises your hackles instantly. 

“Yeah, I do. You drive me around constantly. I’ll pay you back and start taking the metro, or something.”

“I don’t want your money,” he scoffs. 

“Fine. Then I’ll call a car.”

“That’s unnecessary. I’m happy to drive you.”

“Why?”

Silence hangs. Spencer has by this point stood up, and he’s watching you with a furrowed brow and slightly parted lips like he doesn’t understand where this animosity has come from. Honestly, you’re not entirely sure either. You didn’t realize you were harboring so much of it. 

“Am I supposed to see you as an inconvenience?”

“I’m not your responsibility.”

“No. You’re not. We have a relationship and I don’t mind doing things for you.”

“You’re not my boyfriend.”

You didn’t mean to say it, but you sure as hell were thinking it. 

It feels good to say, like stretching a sore muscle beyond its limits or pressing into a bruise until you get past the ache. Sometimes when things hurt, it’s best to feel the pain and move on. 

He looks absolutely perplexed, the lines between his brows only ditching deeper. 

“Is that what this is about?”

“Oh my god, Spencer, no, I don’t care—”

“Because earlier at the bookstore I asked you if I was being an asshole and—”

“I do not give a fuck about earlier at the fucking bookstore!”

It’s too late to be yelling, but he doesn’t scold you. He just sort of looks at you, like you’re something mildly unpleasant. It makes you feel worse. 

A long moment goes by. 

“Fine. I’ll take you home.”

You let him brush past you, nothing more than a breeze on your shoulders as he disappears from the darkened bedroom. For a moment, you can’t follow him. All you can do is stand there and try to contain that sour, stinging, crying feeling in your eyes and nose because there’s no reason for you to be crying right now. 

From the living room, he calls, rather abrasively, “Are you coming?”

“Yes,” you huff, and it is as wavering as it is insolent, so obviously the only word holding back a full-fledged deluge of tears. 

One minute. One minute to sniffle and take deep breaths and wipe abashedly under your eyes because you refuse to be dramatic about this. Refuse to get over-emotional. You will not let it matter this much to you. 

When you decide you can show your face without making a scene, you march out of his bedroom and straight past where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter, keys in hand, to the front door. 

He doesn’t move. You burn smoking holes into the dark wood of the door with your eyes, and the two of you are apparently at an impasse. 

“I’m ready,” you eventually snap, always the impatient one between the two of you, casting a sharp glance over your shoulder. 

“I’m not.”

“You said you would—”

“I know what I said,” Spencer cuts you off and shuts you up, “and I changed my mind. I’d prefer to talk about it before I take you home.”

By the time he finishes the sentence you’re already wrestling your phone from the depths of your bag in search of a ride sharing app. 

“Okay, well I’m done talking because I don’t think there’s anything to talk about, so—”

“No, you’re done talking because this is what you do. You can never admit it when you want something because that would mean acknowledging that you’re a human being with emotions, and that’s too scary for you.”

Surely you misheard him. You turn around, a deep frown contorting your features. 

“Excuse me?”

He only looks at you in that expectant, knowing way of his. 

“It’s too scary so you run away. You’d rather burn your relationships to the ground and rebuild them with a new person every time than actually let someone in.”

“You don’t know me!” You yell.

“Do you actually think that’s true?” Spencer says, pushing off his perch against the counter, voice shrilling and raised slightly as he gets visibly agitated. “You think I’ve spent hours upon hours with you and I don’t know you at all?”

“You have no idea what I’m like in a relationship because this isn’t one. You have no fucking idea what I want, so do not presume to,” you seethe. 

“You want a relationship. You wanted my friends to know you and you didn’t tell me that because you’re fucking terrified of the fact that I do know you. You can’t stand the idea that regardless of how many times you tell yourself it’s just sex, you have been vulnerable with me, and you’ve told me things you’ve never told anyone before, like why your last three relationships really ended, and how you constantly self-sabotage when you’re on the verge of getting what you want because you think you don’t deserve it.”

“Shut up!”

“No. I’m not just going to let you walk away from me like you did everyone else who could’ve ever cared about you because I know once you walk out that door you’ll stop responding to my calls and texts and I’ll never see you again, which is a juvenile pattern and completely unsustainable if you don’t want to keep pushing people away for the rest of your life!”

“God, Spencer, stop!” You sob, staggering back like you’ve been stabbed. 

The urgency, the raw, desperate scratch of your voice, stops him in his tracks. 

Every place an arrow penetrated a chink in your armor aches, and it hurts so much worse because he knew exactly where they were. You don’t know when or how it happened, but he’s right. Despite your most valiant efforts, Spencer Reid knows you. Somehow he crept in and grew over every limb like ivy. It’s crawled over your feet and up your legs and it’s keeping you there, rooted in place in his apartment, sobbing silently into the crook of your arm because you feel utterly paralyzed with fear. 

Just as he’d said. 

It’s silent for a long stretch of time, unquantifiable the same way the distance between the beach and the horizon is unquantifiable. It’s sprawling and infinite and desolate. The only relief from the drowning quiet is the occasional gulp of air or gasp from you which furthers your humiliation. 

“I’m sorry,” Spencer finally whispers, soft and unsure like rays of weak sunlight over staggered tides, in the grey morning after a raging storm. It’s an attempt. It’s earnest and afraid. 

The energy radiating off of him is so tangible that you can sense his desire to come near. To hold you. But that would be your worst nightmare come to fruition. This—this warbling and crying in front of him in silence in his dark apartment is god-awful enough. But to be comforted? For him to bear witness up close and personal to your humility and your ugly, jagged pieces—that inspires true catatonia. That is everything he said you were afraid of, and he was right. 

You resent your human nature, and the fact that you care how his friends look at you and that it stung when they did so with little more than apathy. You hate that you care that he hasn’t told them about you. You hate that you feel so unimportant—because more than anything, you want to be fine with being unimportant. 

You want to be fine. Constantly. 

You hate that you feel. You hate that you care. 

But you always have. And so fucking deeply. 

Somehow, Spencer Reid is the only one who has ever noticed. 

Eventually, his self-restraint snaps and he surges forward at the same time as you take a shuddering inhale and step back. 

“Please don’t touch me,” you whisper. Afraid that if he did, his fingers would only sink into your flesh like decaying fruit. That you would disintegrate in his hands, and he’d finally see you’d been rotten the whole time. 

He speaks softly, holding his hands up to show you he’s not a threat. 

“Okay. I won’t. I’m sorry.”

“I need to go home.”

“I’ll—”

“No. I don’t want a ride. I’ll get a car.” You speak quietly. Efficiently. There’s no point in pretending this doesn’t feel catastrophic anymore. 

His brows furrow. Like a moth to flame, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, he draws nearer again. 

“I’m not comfortable with you on the street at this hour.”

“I’ll wait in the lobby,” you insist, pleading, a wounded animal, because he doesn’t seem to understand how every casual notion of kindness is a violence, how he’s ripping into you and making it so you’ll never be able to put yourself back together. He can’t be kind like you’re easy to be kind to. 

If you’re easy to be kind to, you are just as easy to hurt. Accepting that kindness is a sort of vulnerability you feel you can’t afford right now. 

Another moment of silence, of stillness, as if you’re both bolted to the ground where you stand. 

When he speaks it’s a blow to the chest because you’ve made him cry too. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, quietly, and a venomous self-hatred drips down your throat. Because you’re doing it again.

Maybe this is all you will ever be. 

You fail to stifle a sob and Spencer steps closer still, saying your name desperately and so quietly like it’s his last rite. 

And you try. You try harder than you ever have to stay in one place, to get a hold of your vibrating and to swallow all those slithery feelings and ignore every alarm telling you to panic when he reaches out to touch your arm because it’s never safe to let people in. But when his hand finally brushes you, it’s like a cow prod. You jolt backward. 

“I can’t, I’m sorry,” you whisper all in one harrowed breath, and there’s so much you’d like to say—you’re right, about everything, you do know me, you know what I want, I tried, I’m ashamed—but none of it matters. None of it is enough. He’s backed you into a corner of your own making, and the only way out is by pushing him aside even if it hurts you both. 

So you don’t say anything else. You leave him there, in the dark of his own apartment, and you disappear down the hall. 

Maybe this is all you will ever be.

[matsunoluvr]

୨୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅ how I think the boys from love and deepspace would give a first kiss :3

warnings: suggestive content (obviously?), writing might be out of character, spoilers in general, i get carried away explaining everything because i'm afraid of being accused of mischaracterisation

[story spoiler] first kiss = first kiss where mc is a hunter/the timeline in game

authors notes: i have favourites and it will show CLEARLY in my writing… sorry (not sorry no1 rafayel stan) and i am a yapper

characters: rafayel, xavier, zayne and sylus

link to my master list here!!

more below the cut :3

sorry rafayel... but i feel like he's the most unskilled at kisses because - hear me out - you're his very first kiss. lemurians as a species seem to value bonds and loyalty, and as the literal sea god he wasn't able to nor wanted to just hook up or mess around - he's looking for devotion!!!

(okay, we ignore the kiss in forgotten sea myth story because like come on there was literally no romance mc was drowning)

definitely waits a while before kissing you, rayafel really takes his time to fall into place. after all, he needs to make sure his beloved bride/groom is well and truly his!!!

the type to wait for the ‘right moment’ - but doesn’t force or stage it ykwim? like the time comes naturally - e.g. watching the sunset, or you’re leaning close to him whilst he’s painting

he’s a romantic 100% like there’s a reason his 'floral promise' card was (imo) way fluffier compared to the others - like xavier's was tender-ish but rafayel was fucking melting

he's a sweet talker I just know it.

that charm he uses on his clients? he doesn't want to nor will he manipulate you with it but you know he's going to ramp up the charm to tease you a little

definitely knows his effect on you and uses it to his full advantage (cough cough fiery undercurrents secret times) like whispering in your ear, making excuses to touch you or get close to you

(i think he’d be more 'traditional' because of lemurian customs - the whole bonding + [forgotten sea spoilers] the sea god ceremony where the mc must devote themselves to rafayel displaying a strong level of devotion)

SUCH A GENTLE KISSER OMG like compared to his almost bratty and childish personality he’s a gentleman when it comes to kisses (also because he's kind of unsure what to do...)

the type to tuck strand of your hair behind your ear, fiddle with it a little maybe twirl it around his finger before trailing a finger along your jawline... i can see him like massaging your ear too? idk how to describe it he's a handsy man

first kiss was definitely more sweet than passionate ugawhriulgs he's such a cutie

right after the first kiss i think he’d be pretty affectionate, rather than bratty/tsundere since for him to kiss someone i believe he’d really need to love them (and therefore is more open to being vulnerable)

affectionate as in saying something cheesy probably, commenting on how you tasted or another one of his poetic, artistic quotes (dw raf we love it)

wouldn't be satisfied with just one after that, i can see him going in for a more passionate second and even a third (i mean look at his 'floral promise' memory OR 'fiery undercurrents') in the same few minutes

these follow up kisses would probably be longer and way less chaste, hands moving from tilting your chin up to your waist ahahahahahuwfa

you'd have to show him the appeal of tongue if that's your thing because he's seen it before but never really saw what was nice about it

"But... you're just drinking each other's saliva?" "Rafayel that's hot-"

definitely relived the moment in his head hundreds of times after that night - and you bet your ass he painted a piece inspired from your first kiss with him

any kisses after that i feel like they would follow this default pattern;

if he initiated the kiss i think he’d be more cocky and teasing, especially if he surprised you with one and he sees your flustered face

“Didn’t expect that huh, cutie?”

if you surprised him, however, get ready for typical rafayel childish behaviour, blushing and averting his eyes, covering his mouth with the back of his hand and a pout

“Hey- what was that for!!” Σ（・□・；）

either way rafayel is the worlds silliest man and would cave into literally anything with just a few kisses from you

ALSO KISS HIS COLLAR BONES AND YOU'VE GOT A WHOLE NEW SCENARIO TO UNFOLD

oh i just have a feeling this man is devouring you because puh-LEASEE?? sir we aren't forgetting your 'tender night' card i know that night was anything but tender

xavier is the definition of pent-up desire because this man has been waiting a LONG time and he's not going to be able to hold back very well

(taking heavy inspiration from his '21 days' memory because with his reaction it kind of feels like his first kiss with mc... but tbh i don't know much about xavi)

he's definitely not shy when it comes down to it, yeah he gets flustered if he thinks about it because of course imagining kissing the person he's pined over for centuries is going to fluster the shit out of him but he doesn't shy away form the idea or avoid the topic in conversation

i feel like he'd bring it up casually - like in the 'partner go go' event (aka heartbreaker-chasing-rhythm-game event) he was so insistent on the 'kissing page'

mc was like "apparently you can solve arguments with a kiss" and this mf straight up said "we can argue then" this man is STARVED

i feel like you'd need to initiate the kiss or give him very clear signs you'd be okay with a kiss for it to happen, i don't know why i just feel like he's that type of person

the first kiss is deep despite him trying his best to hold back - you can just feel his desire and longing oozing out of him and he's definitely on fucking cloud nine

xavier's holding your face and stroking his thumb along your cheek and god damn he's good at kissing where the fuck did he learn this from?

the type to break the kiss and then fucking bulldoze into the next one and my god his restraints have broken and he's actually kissing you as if it's the last thing he's able to do on earth

100% a tongue user he's biting at your bottom lip before slipping it in the sly minx

after the kiss he's more flustered than he expected to be - kissing the love of his life (literally) sends him into a flurry of emotions he's never really experienced before

given how possessive xavier is i wouldn't be surprised if halfway through making out he managed to leave a hickey or two in very. visible. places.

he isn't even pretending to feel guilty in the slightest, a smug grin as he shrugs out a half-assed apology.

"Sorry, I guess you'll have to try hide it. Or don't, that would be easier."

if you leave any marks on him he's not leaving you along that night. forget sleeping you two are recreating 'tender night' ALL night.

but seriously, if you leave hickeys over his neck (his canonical sensitive area and where he feels vulnerable) he's going to go crazy because what do you mean you want everyone to know he's yours??? what do you mean you want him as much as he wants you??

tldr; xavier is unusually talented with his mouth and is desperate to prove it to you.

i accidentally wrote way more for xavier than i expected i even cut out some bits holy crap maybe i’m more into xavi than i thought

oh no... zayne you beautiful man i am so sorry... (here comes the one character i have no idea how to characterise + no clue about his lore zayne fans pls bear with me)

okay - zayne looks like a gentleman and i'm sure he very much is even in intimate moments, but i cannot get rid of the idea that his first kiss w you was lowk spicyyyyy

like OH MY GOD I JUST WATCHED SNOWY SERENITY RN I FUCKIGN KNEW IT

that man was pouncing on you in a hospital bed, dishevelled, and kissing you deep my god like the type of kiss that literally as you forgetting where you are

i feel like zayne would be the one to initiate the kiss, again no idea why maybe i'm falling into the dominant zayne agenda

you're probably surprised when he kisses you because he's usually so composed, the 'cold unfeeling' dr zayne - then suddenly he's panting and pushing himself on top of you (consensually of course), pinning you down and going to town.

when he kisses you i don't think he's much of a lip biter, but if you bite his lips or lick at him or anything he's not opposed, as long as your lips are on his and vice versa

after the first kiss he's going straight into another one, his patience has thinned to the point of snapping and now he just needs you.

his hands what does he do with his hands? i'm thinking the typical otome face hold, gentle grasp juxtaposing his fervent kisses LOL

now, why does he kiss you?? how does this all build up? unfortunately all i can think of to match this scenario is something angsty or something along the lines of zayne has fucking had it and all he wants is you

"I need you... please."

this is the type of kiss where he wants to drown in you, breathe you in and just smother his being into yours to forget and erase whatever else is happening/happened

if he's kissing you and pinning you down and you bring up your hand to interlock fingers with him - your warm hands against his cool hands? wow his kissing is all of a sudden even more passionate.

after the little make out session he's going to go all mushy on you, physical affection of an embrace something uncharacteristic of him to match his dishevelled state

in kisses after the first i like the idea that he checks your pulse mid make-out and just silently smirks/chuckles when he notices it's faster and more erratic than usual

"Why are you nervous, this isn't our first time."

he also has this sneaky habit of whispering incredibly close to your ear, the reason why i choose to point this out it because i feel like sometimes he uses his evol to his advantage to like, breathe out cool air on your neck/ear and likes to watch you shiver

the ultimate dominant figure if you try to kiss him first and take control he somehow manages to overcome you and take the lead without using his strength, just good ol' sweet talking and technique

congratulations, you managed to snatch a kiss from the renown leader sylus!!!

i can see why people would think he's promiscuous or a fuck-boy because honestly i see it, but imo just because he is more flirtatious, assertive and... responsive (try tapping his... crotch... in the café LOL) does NOT = play boy

to me it just shows that - unlike the other LIs - sylus is just more forward with his approach, he has that devil-may-care like feel to him ykwim?

"Do I like you? What type of question is that, isn't it obvious? Or do I need to show you?" is much different to "Hey baby girl lemme rock your world tnite xx"

but just because he's got a 'fuck-all' attitude doesn't mean he fucks around with random people, he's 1. got standards and 2. living in the n109 zone?? do you THINK he can afford to let random people close just to fuck???

that being said i don't think he's a kiss virgin, just very selective and honest man when it comes to love and physical intimacy

now, when i say he isn't a fuckboy, that doesn't mean i don't believe in cocky-smugass-know-it-all sylus - he kisses well. and with PASSION. and probably the worst part is that he knows it.

first kiss with sylus? i can't imagine him making a large fuss about it like rafayel, nor it having to be some "i'm-at-deaths-door-and-need-to-kiss-you-atleast-once" situation like zayne, but no matter where or when you two share a first kiss he is making sure you remember

that being said, there was definitely a LOT of romantic and sexual tension between you and sylus for at least weeks before the kiss, i mean the air was thick with suggestive glances and denial

i think you two'd have to already be in close proximity which is very easy to achieve with sylus (touchiest man award goes to him) for the first kiss to initiate

he's grabbing your waist, or your face, makings sure your eyes are on. him. as you two kiss. watching with delight no matter what reactions you have, he admires you through surprised and flustered to confident and defiant

rather than a tender first kiss it’s probably a full blown make out session, just desire and lust flooding out of the both of you after having built up for over a month.

assertive does not mean he's going to force a kiss on you to clear this up, more that he likes to take the initiative and take control as you two kiss <3

yeah he's into biting (wow what a big shock) - likes biting your ear, or neck, or bottom lip, one time he tried nipping at your tongue too.

you can bite him back, he likes it.

"Hah, looks like someone is baring their claws tonight..." he’s really into that whole cat thing huh.

what does mr sylus do with his hands? waist, hips, ass, around your neck, pulling your face in by squeezing your cheeks, fingers threading through the hair on the back of your head, you name it he does it. again, i think sylus is a touchy man.

he doesn't mind if you try to take control, just dont expect to be successful. different to zayne - as in he will overcome your control with his evol and strength…

inappropriate use of his evol has occurred (he ‘tied’ you up and made out with you (CONSENSUALLY))

after his affinity 15 (i think) memory i can just tell he’s freaky with it bruhhh so yeah handcuffs are probably something he indulges in

if you’re persistent or physically overcome sylus you might get rewarded with a resigned, more submissive sylus

the idea or sight of someone man handling/overcoming his strength really sets him off.. i mean have you seen “no defence zone”?? but you’re really going to need to work to get him to this stage, and he’s going to have to love you

“No one’s ever seen me like this, lying on my back and begging for you.”

secretly finds out through you that he enjoys being dominated (BRAT SYLUS FOR 2024) so climb on top of him and kiss him until he’s blushing and panting hahahahahaha

tldr: sylus isn’t a fuck-boy but he sure kisses like one

AN; as an ao3 writer may say, no beta we die like caleb i wrote half of this when i was half asleep LMAOO anyways i hope this was okay please dont attack me BYE

[flightyalrighty]

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT CH 1 PG 36

Infested will return on June 27th. --- Thank you to the following Ascended supporters: @chaogongoozles, @fiiresiidefrfr, @elizard4227, @grogar, Ezzoh, @susivoi, @calculuscacophony, Eros, @ivycorp, @summersdale @borrelia, @mizukiz, @sanicdetails, @combinegrunt-echo-1, Pica, @veeceear, @quackenburt, ItsmeMonarch, @memendoemori, @trans-girl-sonic, & savarsenic

Content Warnings | Store | Ko-Fi (Discord!) | Read On Comic Fury! DISCLAIMER: "Infested" is a horror comic ft. content not suitable for those under the age of 17.

A long-winded looking back on things below the cut:

The first few pages of Infested were uploaded to this blog on March 2nd, 2023 -- Over a whole year ago! I was so busy, too, that I completely missed its birthday (Sorry Infested). Looking even further back than that, the original story was was something I began writing on December 25th, 2022 (Merry Christmas).

It took two years to get to this point.

And hey, not to toot my own horn about it, but completing even one chapter of a webcomic is a big deal. Especially for me. My first webcomic, Fight/Flight, didn't get very far. I completed the prologue, started Chapter 1, and then had to drop it for a number of reasons (I didn't really agree with what baby-me had to say, politically, anymore).

This comic was born from a lot of intense feelings. The story, itself, too. Some good. Some bad.

I had been forced to move away from my hometown, and with that move, I lost the physical connection that I had to all of my friends. I lost the familiarity of a place I'd known for most of my life. I'm now stuck somewhere... Worse. It felt like a cage. Still does. Disconnected from the life I thought I would be living after college. I didn't have health insurance, either -- Got kicked off of it because of the move -- And as a result, I was off my antidepressants.

So there I was, at a pretty low point in my life. I miserable and lonely and every single day dragged on. And on. And on. And I felt so disappointed in myself. That disappointment became self-loathing, and it all kinda spiraled.

Have I mentioned that I'm a huge Sonic fan? I don't think I need to. I'd say it's pretty obvious. But for the sake of this story, I'll say it again: I'm a HUGE Sonic fan. I've been that way since 2003 with Sonic Heroes. The franchise has been in my life for over two decades. I had a monthly mail subscription to Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog was something that I truly loved more than any other piece of media. It brought me endless joy. Until I didn't.

I had dropped Sonic after Lost World was... Itself. I had already felt pretty irritated with the Meta Era, and Lost World was the final straw. The last bit of hope that the series could recover was snuffed out when Forces was released. It was over. I was done. If Sonic was truly that embarrassed by itself, if they had truly lost touch with what made the series so great, then I wouldn't waste my time any longer. I was so sure that I had to just... Grieve and move on. My beloved childhood game series was dead. Long live the king or whatever. I'd just bitterly read IDW Sonic and think about what could've been. I was lucky to have that comic, at least. Archie had been canceled, too, after all. I was lucky to have my scraps.

Then Sonic Frontiers came out. And it changed everything.

And my god, it was everything. It was everything to me. Flaws be damned, it was everything. To. Me. The spectacle. The serious tone. The vastly improved writing. Kellin Fucking Quinn. It was FUN! It was actually FUN to PLAY. He was back. I was back. Sonic pulled me by my hand out of the ocean of misery I'd fallen into, and he looked me in my eye and he said;

"Hey. You're gonna be alright."

Metaphorically speaking. Sonic The Hedgehog didn't actually literally speak to me -- And sure, okay, maybe it's a little dramatic to describe a game as this great Depression Annihilator but I'm dead serious when I say that, for that time, before I was able to get back on my meds, I was self-medicating with Sonic.

Sonic was all I was thinking about. I reread the Unleashed arc in Archie Sonic, which got me sorta realizing something, and which led to my post where I said something along the lines of "Sonic would hide a zombie bite."

Archie Sonic would, at least. Because he basically did do that in the Unleashed arc of that comic. He let that problem fester until it became an even bigger problem because, ironically, he didn't want to be a problem.

So one thing led to another. I thought more about Sonic becoming a zombie. Bada-bing, bada-boom, Infested was born.

I didn't expect it to get the attention that it did. I felt lucky when the first page I drew Rouge on (Page 6 I think?) blew up. The right people saw it at the right time. I'm extremely grateful for that.

I'm extremely grateful for all of you.

So yeah, one chapter. Woo! Here's to many more.

[reiderwriter]

🧺 Any More 🧺

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

For the CM Kink Bingo Challenge 2024

Requested: spencer realizing that he’ll never love someone as much as he loves you. (whether that be because of a case or what have you), his mind is absolutely blown with how much he worships you and how much you love and care for him and he shows you that with the softest most sickeningly sweet sex you and him has ever done. <3

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI! Discussions of case details, case burnout, very close friends to lovers, oral (f receiving), vanilla sex (p in v penetration). Discussions of mental health, and two idiots in love.

A/N: I'm hitting the prompt Vanilla for this one, so please don't be scared off by the KinkBingo tags! I had a lot of fun writing this one (and adding Pride and Prejudice quotes into the smut scene because HELLO). Let me know what you think in the replies~♡

Masterlist || Bingo Board

You hadn't seen Spencer in 100 days. Which in the grand scheme of things wasn't that long, trapped in the purgatory of a ‘what if’ the way you had been for the last eight years. 

You'd lived without him for longer than 100 days before. He'd been in prison, you'd been on assignments, you'd lived an entire life before meeting him, but now somehow 100 days was too much time, and you were exhausted. You understood why Spencer had to take some time away from you, from the team in an official capacity after everything he'd been through. You supported him even. 

But when even your free time didn't overlap anymore, you wondered if your relationship would ever be the same again. 

Spencer was a friend, your best friend, probably. You'd arrived on the BAU team, he'd rattled off some statistics, stammering the way through them, and you'd immediately warmed to the man. He was brilliant, funny, and fiercely loyal, and you tried your best to protect him even when the job seemed designed to break people like him into thousands of little pieces. 

You'd tried to convince him to leave before, after Maeve had died. You didn't want to see him heart broken again, but no one else had seemed to agree. 

“Reid needs purpose,” they'd said. “Reid needs something to do.” 

What Reid needed was to not end up dead before he had a chance to be happy, and happiness didn't come often in your field of work. 

You'd been almost vindicated a year later when he'd been shot again, almost fatally. Vindicated, maybe but distraught and inconsolable. Morgan had to carry you screaming and clawing out of his hospital room multiple times. It sounded stupid enough to yourself that it was only then you realized your feelings for the man. 

You wanted to be Spencer Reid's happiness, which was why you were so lost without him. 

He was coming back on Monday, and at least you had the weekend to sort your feelings out about everything.not just about him, but about the job you'd found didn't fit you well enough anymore, about the team you loved like family, about the relationship you knew would likely never come to fruition. 

You dumped your bags at your door when you'd arrived in your house that night, pushed yourself into your bedroom and let yourself collapse on your bed, balling up into as cozy a position as you could. You didn't even bother taking your jacket off, you just let your brain haze over and sleep rush in. 

Three quiet raps at your door lifted you up and out of bed again, not an hour later. 

You grabbed your phone, grabbed the second go-bag you kept at your house, put your shoes back on, and opened the door, expecting Emily and a new case. 

“Where are we going?” You said, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, not even looking up at your guest. 

“Hopefully, nowhere? I brought takeout.” 

Your eyes widened then, taking in all 185cm of Doctor Spencer Reid, tweed jacket and plastic bag full of chow mein included. 

“Spencer,” you breathed out, like a sigh of relief, letting the bag drop to the floor next to the first one and letting yourself into his arms. 

He held you carefully there for a second before leading you back into the apartment, wrapping an arm around you and ruffling your hair. It was brotherly, and it made you sick to your stomach. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Emily said you were back from a case,” he started, unpacking the takeaway from the containers. “And it feels wrong to eat this without you.” 

You rolled your eyes and followed him into the kitchen, pulling two forks out of the drawer nearer you and stabbing them in the top of your two cups. 

“Hey, I can use chopsticks now,” he said, defending himself against an inside joke. Spencer was always useless with his hands. 

“I don't care if you can use them, I care that they don't accidentally end up stabbing me,” you said, taking yourself back to your bedroom, Spencer following. 

“You'd hardly die from being stabbed by a wooden chopstick, maybe a papercut or a splinter but-” 

“But you're just bad enough that I don't want to risk it.” 

You kicked off your shoes again and climbed onto your bed. Spencer followed. 

“Remind me again why we aren't sitting on your couch?” 

“Uncomfortable.” 

“Or at your breakfast bar?” 

“Glorified filing cabinet right now. Eat.” 

He shook his head but complied, leaning back against your pillows as you both began carefully eating. Silently, you pulled your laptop onto your bed, opened it up, and pressed play on a movie, one you'd seen more than once, and you'd forced Spencer to watch before as well. 

In a comfortable, friendly silence, you finished your food. You stretched out in a yawn once and then curled into his side, letting his mumbling voice, repeating the movie lines as they were spoken, lull you softly into sleep. 

Spencer knew he had to leave, but he couldn't bring himself to wake you. The movie had finished hours ago, he'd closed the laptop and turned off the bug lights, but he couldn't leave. 

Unlike you, he hadn't counted the days that you'd been apart. He hadn't needed to. He knew you'd be waiting there for him when he returned, knew you'd give him a smile and a pat on the back, and immediately start bouncing ideas off of him. It was what he loved about you. 

As he laid next to you in your bed, a place he'd absolutely been before, his heart thumped. Just once, but hard. 

Even in sleep, you looked exhausted. Your shirt was crumpled, hair a mess, you were still wearing makeup, and he knew he'd probably get an earful for letting you sleep like that in the morning. You were a mess, and he still wanted you. 

The thought came to him suddenly, another painful thump of his chest echoing in his mind. He rubbed absent mindedly at his chest as if experiencing heartburn. In the dim light of the room, he let his head drop to the pillow and wrapped two shaky arms around you and pulled you in closer. 

The two of you were a picture - both in suits, both with badges still somewhere on your person, both dearly clinging to the person they feared losing the most. 

When you woke the next morning, it was actually the afternoon. 

“Spencer,” you groaned, melting under the heat of his embrace. Somehow, during the night, he'd rolled on top of you, pressing you into the bed with a delightful pressure, head nuzzled into your neck, arms tucked around your waist. 

“Spencer, we should get up,” you said again, forcing your eyelids apart as your mascara tried to glue them together. 

“Mmmmhh,” he groaned, moving to pick himself up off you for a minute but lowering himself again. If asked, he'd blame your hand in his hair, stroking the rogue curls gently, as if he were a prized pet and you their carer. 

“Spencer, its 2pm.” 

“On a Saturday.” You laughed at how pouty his voice sounded, but he complied and rolled off of you slightly, arms still wrapped around you. 

“Come on. Get up. I've got some clothes that might fit you, let's get you out of the tweed.” 

He huffed but nodded and lifted himself halfway to upright, eyes still closed lazily as he let in the light millimetre by millimetre. 

“God, my face feels horrible,” you said, itching at your nose. “How did we even sleep so long like this? My belt is still on, Spencer, my belt.” 

“If you were still wearing a weapon, then I'd be worried,” he smiled. 

You shot him a sarcastic look and finally detangled yourself, only to clasp his hands and pull him forward as well, letting him trail you to your closet. 

“Here, change in the bathroom,” he nodded and walked away, following directions with eyes still closed, as if it were really his apartment and not your own. 

100 days without him, and it was as if it had only been 100 hours. Your entire body chemistry changed when he was around, the stick holding your spine rigidly in place, dissolving into calm, into a smile and a free giggle. It felt right again, and you almost forgot you'd ever felt wrong. 

After briefly changing, you swapped place with Spencer, who'd exited the bathroom with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and wet hair. 

“Dry it for me?” He asked, sitting on your couch, and you nodded your ascent. A shower and a quick change later, and you were doing just that. 

As much as he tried to keep his head upright, it kept lolling onto your thigh, yawns stretching out of him as he nuzzled closer to you. 

“Spencer, you're like a big kid, keep your head up.” 

“I'm not a kid,” he laughed, hooking his arms behind your knees and nuzzling closer into your soft sweats. “I'm just tired.” 

“You're right. A child would probably be better behaved.” 

“Our child would be,” he sighed, but you'd already turned the hairdryer back on, drowning out everything. Everything but that thump again. A child, he was thinking about children, and more importantly, he was thinking about your children. With him. 

He'd always imagined himself with a family, knowing it would ultimately stay in his imagination. But for a second, his visions changed. It wasn't just a child or two. It was you. Thump. 

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. 

He only released the image when you finally pushed his head off of you and stood, turning away from him to get a glass of water from your kitchen. 

“So, any plans today? Books to read, papers to mark, undergrads to run away screaming from?” You let the ice water cool your hot cheeks, but kept your back to him. You were hot, embarrassed, and you were looking at him in a sickeningly sweet way that could only be described as love struck or struck dumb. 

“No, no, I finished all my obligations at the college yesterday,” he said, following behind you and picking up your cup when you set it down, taking a sip himself. 

“I was… I was actually hoping we could spend some time together? Unless you had plans, which is totally fine-” 

“No, Spencer, yeah, I have no plans, that's…. Well I have to do laundry, which is a bit boring but, no. No plans.” 

“Laundry?” 

“Two week case in Florida, I don't know how you didn't smell me yesterday, Spencer. I'd be running for the hills.” 

He laughed and stepped away again, grabbing the two go bags by the door and coming back into your space. 

“How about we get this done now so we can spend the day in a Who-Trek marathon?” 

“Make that a Who-Greys Anatomy Marathon, and you have yourself a deal.” 

He pouted again, and you snorted at the sight, taking another sip of water to calm yourself before you could react safely to that face. 

“Come on, you know you've been dying to know what happens next at the Grey Sloane Memorial Hospital.” 

“I thought it was called the Seattle Grace Mercy?” 

“Oh we better get to that laundry now. You have a lot to catch up on.” 

Grabbing a bag in one hand and his free hand in your other, you made your way down to your building's laundry room. But despite the man by your side and the relaxing day threatening to stretch ahead of you, a gloom caught you in the corridors. 

You'd worked for two weeks, practically solid. You'd killed a man two days ago, or at least someone on your team had multiple shots having been fired. Another day on your job, another unsub felled, and everyone else was content with this just being a part of the job description. 

It felt like each step towards the laundry room, each thing you did that was normal, that was regular, threw back in your face the pain you endured to save lives. 

The bag in your hand weighed you down, pulling you lower and lower by the second. 

You reached the laundry room, and you found the weight almost unbearable, stopping just before you could step in. You didn't have to think about what came next though, because suddenly the bag was out of your hands and Spencer was sorting your laundry for you. 

“It's a Saturday, so your neighbour's won't complain if we separate the darks and lights into two machines, will they?” He asked, not looking up at you as he worked pouring out the fabric softener and the detergent. “Y/N?” 

You hadn't noticed the lightness in your body until the tears hit your cheeks, the weight gone with his support. 

“Y/N, what is it? What's wrong?” He said, hands cupping your face, because of course he was immediately at your side. 

“I-I can't do it, Spencer…” your voice shook, pitching upwards, your vision blurring with tears. 

“Can't do what, Y/N? Talk to me please, let me help?” 

“I can't do laundry!” You said, finally bursting into a full fit of tears and burying your head in his waiting chest. 

“L-Laundry?” He said, trying not to laugh, but the smile slipping out anyway now you were holding him. 

You only sobbed again, nodding into his shirt, aware you were probably leaving snot all over it but not being able to care. It was your shirt anyway. You would just have to add it back to your laundry pile. 

The thought set you off on another wave of sobs, and Spencer set about comforting you again. Keeping an arm wrapped around you, he put his quarters into the machines and set them off before quickly ushering you back up the stairs into your apartment. 

“Y/N? Y/N, please talk to me,” he begged, smoothing your hair out of your eyes as you tried to gather yourself.

“I don't…. I can't….” You took a breath again, aware of the way your breathing hitched in your chest as you did. 

“I don't think I can do this anymore,” you said, and his eyes widened quickly. 

“This? Y/N, if you mean this as in us, then I can't-” 

“This job,” you clarified, hands digging into the soft flesh of his arms further as he held you, finally sitting back on your couch. 

“The job. Okay, the job. That's okay. We all feel like this at some point.” 

You sniffed again and refused to meet his eyes. 

“But this isn't like the other times this - It's like my whole b-body is protesting, and I can't sleep, and if I don't, then I might get sloppy and an unsub could-” 

“Y/N, focus on my voice. You're spiralling. Listen to my voice, let's take some breaths, and think about this for a second.” 

He guided you through some breathing, a hand on your back tapping out beats even as his voice grew quiet. 

When you finally relaxed, you were sat on top of him, his hand rubbing circles into your back. 

“I think it started when you left,” you whispered. “When you went to Mexico, and then, you know,” you've voice thickened, and you couldn't get the words out. 

“And then these last 100 days they've just been…difficult.” 

“100…difficult,” he echoed, almost breathless as he listened to you. 

“It's like I can't do it without you. I never had to try to do it without you, and now I get what people say when they say this job is shitty, because it is when your best friend isn't there.” 

You gave him a weak smile and wiped away your tears, trying to climb from his lap. But his firm arms held you still, and you didn't really want out anyways. 

“When I get home, everything is different, and I can't make myself do anything. If you weren't here, I wouldn't have done that laundry. I'd let it sit and avoid it for weeks. Do you understand?” 

“Y/N, lots of people feel depressed sometimes-” 

“It's not - Spencer, I don't think this is something I can medicate my way out of. I don't know what to do because I can't do my job without you, and I can't be happy doing my job, and if I leave my job I'll be without you and then-” 

Your voice cracked again. 

“And then I still won't be happy.” The words were barely a whisper, but they were a plea, too. You weren't sure what for. 

“You can't be happy without me?” He asked, but it was more a statement than anything else. Spencer felt horrible in that moment as his chest rattled, gleeful that he was your happiness. 

“I love you,” he said, outloud finally after eight years. 

“I love you, too, Spencer, but-” 

“No, Y/N. Listen to me. I. Love. You.” The thumping of his heart set the tempo for the choir that was his senses to begin singing, as he finally leaned forward and kissed you.

“I love you, and I don't care if you're working at the BAU or if you're avoiding laundry at home. I, god, you're amazing and wonderful, and you're a human being, and you've our yourself under so much pressure for the last decade to keep me alive, to keep all of us alive really and….” 

He took another breath, leaning into kiss you one more time. 

“And you deserve a break.” 

“W-When we take breaks, people die.” 

“Did anyone die when I was teaching for the last three months? When JJ went on maternity leave?” 

You shook your head, but your brain was still a mess. 

“You all had reasons, I-” 

“You have reasons, too. Y/N…. Y/N, let me be your reason.” 

For a moment or two, Spencer truly thought you were going to say no. He thought you would get up and walk away, or better yet, ask him to leave and never come back. 

So when you pressed your lips to his, he was sure that this was a dream. 

But to you, it was salvation. Spencer Reid's love was the lifeline you'd been thrown, and it was buoyant enough to make you start floating. 

His hands kneaded the flesh at your hips as he pulled you closer still to him, his tongue slipping into your mouth to explore every part of you there. 

“Y/N… love…you,” he mumbled with each spare breath he caught, and you only detangled your lips to hear him say it again as he pressed similarly heated kisses against every inch of your exposed skin. 

When Spencer's mind lost its ability to create original speech, he leant back on a lifetime of information, of learning love through books and people and marathons with you. 

“I know that all I know right now is that I love you. And I know that I always will,” he whispered, lifting you and carrying you back to the bed you'd only crawled from an hour hence. 

A hand slid under your shirt, and slowly pushed it over your head, letting it slowly drop to the floor as he held you tenderly. 

“To me, you are perfect.”

His mouth found one nipple, and he gently kissed, then suckled at it, hands softly caressing your stomach, feeling along every ridge of you as you writhed under him. 

“Of all the FBI Units, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” 

“Spencer,” you said, voice still thick with tears, but these ones more tender, more joyful. 

His hand eased your sweats over your ass and off, his hips settling between your legs as if he found the place he was made to lie forever. 

“The truth of it is, I’ve loved you from the first second I met you.” 

His mouth trailed lower until his tongue hit your clit, brushing against it languidly, as if it was his deepest desire to taste you and nothing else ever again.

His tongue flattened and flicked and pushed inside of you as you replayed his words again and again and again. You found yourself repeating them with him. 

“I love you,” you echoed as he pushed a finger inside of you. 

“I.. love you,” you gasped as he added another. 

“I love you,” you screamed as your back arched up off the bed, finding your pleasure in his tongue, just ad you'd found love in his words. 

“You have bewitched me body and soul, and I love….” He freed his cock from his pants, and took it in hand.

“I love…” With another kiss, he pressed the tip of it against you, asking for permission silently as you nodded your head. 

“I love you.” He pushed in slowly, but it wouldn't matter how he did it because now you knew how he felt, and you didn't want to return to a time of not knowing. 

Hooking your legs around him, Spencer dropped his forehead to yours and looked you directly in the eyes as he began moving. In and out, he thrust, mouth open in a moan of pleasure, likely mirroring your own.

The poetry, the movie lines, they were gone now, and Spencer was left with nothing but you, and love, and love for you. 

“Spencer,” you moaned out, and he felt his chest swell. Pride. His name on your tongue, his body pressed to yours, claiming you as his ad you claimed him as yours. 

He came with a shudder and you were not far behind, his undoing sending a shiver up your spine as his fingers grazed your clit again. 

You sat panting for a minute, still attached, still forehead to forehead. 

You weren't sure if it was him who giggled first or if it was you, but you were glad it was one of you. 

You spent the rest of the night, the rest of the weekend, wrapped in his warmth, dressed in his love, taking each day a step at a time as you basked in his adoration.

[snowballseal]

hihiiii I adoreee your writing, it’s so good! genuinely so fun to read. if it’s not too much trouble, could I possibly request some sylus fluff?

maybe something along the lines of MC craving lots of affection/being a bit clingy towards him and just wanting to be near him after a while of being apart?

absolutely no rush or obligations if this doesn’t exactly pique your interest!! have a lovely day ❤️

Soft

Sylus X Reader (LaDS)

Summary: Just a little fic of you and Sylus reuniting after a while apart. You doesn't want to be apart from him and he obliges.

Word Count: 818

Note: Hi anon! I know this isn't super long, but I hope you like it! I love describing how soft Sylus can be for MC, and it felt like a cute, simple piece. I can write something longer if you'd like, just let me know!

---

“Sylus!”

The man lets out a low chuckle as you practically throw yourself at him. He catches you with practiced ease, arms wrapping securely around your waist as he spins you around. It’s like one of those cheesy romance flicks, other travelers rushing around you to greet their own waiting families, a bubbly yet tired kind of mirth warming the frigid, fall air.

It had been a month since you’d seen Sylus. A long, grueling, horrible month. While you love your job, you hate the extended training camps you have to attend every few years. Always in the middle of nowhere. Always with limited contact with the outside world. Limited contact with Sylus.

You don’t know how many nights you spent staring at the blank walls of your tiny dorm room, sleep nowhere to be found when all you could think about was how much you missed his touch, his warmth, him. It was like being terribly homesick, and all you wanted was to be back in his arms.

And now you are.

Even when your feet touch the ground again, you don’t want to let go. And neither does Sylus. His arms stay curled around your waist, face tucked against your hair as he pulls you impossibly closer, just breathing you in. You all but melt into his warmth, nuzzling against his chest with a happy, content noise.

“My, my, it seems my little kitten missed me,” he murmurs, low and teasing against your ear. You can practically hear the smirk curling his lips.

“Can you blame me?” You draw back a fraction to pout up at him. Those vermillion eyes glint down at you with a smug amusement, but you don’t mind fanning his ego a little right now. “We barely even got the chance to talk on the phone. It was awful and cold and exhausting. I don’t know why they wanted us training in the north, we were all just a bunch of sad popsicles.”

“Mm, sounds quite tragic,” Sylus hums, the corners of his eyes crinkling ever so slightly. Your theatrics are endearing, and who is he to not play along? Hands tracing slowly up and down your waist, Sylus gives you a look of teasing sympathy, “Poor kitten. Perhaps I should take you home and find a way to warm you up, hm?”

Home. God, you love the sound of that. You’re home. With him. The thought fills your chest with a fluttering sort of excitement.

“Home sounds perfect,” you sigh, nuzzling back into him with an absolutely giddy smile. “Just, don’t let me go, mkay?”

The man softens and for a moment, he’s not Sylus the leader of Onychinus. He’s just Sylus. Your Sylus.

You make him different. You turn him into something soft, something tender, with your love. Like a balm soothing his sharp edges, his harsh nature. He never thought himself capable of such gentleness until he held you, until he felt the plushness of your body in his hands. Even though you are one of Linkon’s most capable hunters, something in him desires to treat you like porcelain, something otherwise vicious and bloody. Like a feral dog, licking your chin, body curved to be small and nonthreatening despite the sharpness of its fangs pressed against your skin.

And you never once flinched. Never once pulled away from his hands, even when his grip would edge on painful, even when his teeth would sink into your skin with a sinful need to possess something so soft, so sweet.

Though, he’ll play nice tonight, seeing as your body curls so tiredly into his, practically all your weight in his arms.

“Alright, sweetie,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your temple, “I accept your conditions. You won’t have to worry about anything tonight, I’ll take good care of you.”

You hum your approval, though it sounds more like a purr. A smirk dancing across his lips, Sylus leans down and curls an arm under you, lifting you like you weigh nothing. He grabs your bag with his other hand, and starts back towards his motorcycle.

You forget all about the cold that night. Even the soreness in your muscles seems to fade away as you lay curled against Sylus’ side on his couch, a large, fluffy blanket thrown over the both of you, some movie humming quietly in the background.

And Sylus keeps his word. Not once does he let you go. Even when you start to yawn, eyelids heavy with sleep, Sylus simply lays out across the couch and drags you over his body, until you can stretch out like a cat over his chest. He keeps an arm locked around your waist, making sure you won’t fall as you finally, finally give in to the sleep your body so desperately needs.

It’s perfect.

He’s perfect.

And you hope you never have to go on another blasted training mission again.

---

I'll be real, I think my personal headcannon is that Sylus is like a feral yet loyal dog. I use the comparison a lot, I feel. Like, he can be vicious and wild, but he'd bow for you, he'd get himself killed for you (if he could lol). He would have a loyalty so unwavering, and that's terrifying in a way. But also? Kinda sexy 👀