A/N:
NEW (SIDE) SERIES!
I apologize, as a writer I am being schizophrenic at best, but the idea struck me. I don't expect huzzah's from my normal audience because it's not what they expect out of me, but what you don't know is that most of my fanfiction has been prohibited by the canon author the be posted on the internet. Like Anne Rice, for example. This could be seen as a crossover or just an extremely NOT canon Criminal Minds fic. It's just that stuff like what I'm about to write doesn't happen on the show. If you want to leave, go ahead. However, if you'd like to keep an open mind, you might find it pleasantly good.
The events that transpire after Blood is Thicker do not transpire in this storyline. It is completely different.
One
Dr. Spencer Reid grabbed his thick wool coat around him and pulled the scarf tighter against the biting December wind as he took large strides out of the BAU and made his way to the subway station. Night was settling in and the clear, navy sky yielded no stars due to the light pollution of Quantico. He slid his card through the gates and entered the station where huge steel tubes roared through the platforms, blowing wind and paper through the throngs of unimpressed people, all shivering.
He took quick steps to his train once it opened up and hopped in just before the doors opened. He obliviously walked in and sat near the middle, pulling out some of his case files to go over. Perhaps get a jump start on his "homework" as Haley liked to call it. He grinned to himself at the thought of his little sister coming home for Christmas this year. It was only a matter of days until she got there.
He looked up, noticing the entire train was empty. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He closed his eyes tightly and exhaled as he turned around. In the corner slouched an extraordinarily pale man with a ratty hoodie covering his eyes. Spencer didn't have to see those, he just knew that the man was watching him, and it seemed he had been watching the genius for some time now.
Spencer gave a nod and a casual wave to the shady character in the back. Why did he pick this section of the subway? Why at this time? Why to this place? Why?
He sat and pondered the meanings of his actions until the train came to a halt at his stop. He immediately hopped up and rushed out. He began to walk briskly down the sidewalk toward his apartment building and made it to the door, quickly entering and nearly sprinting up the stairs to his hallway to his room. Spencer promptly locked every bolt on his door and armed his security system. Why was he so freaked out?
Safely in his apartment, he shook it off as one of his many why's and went to take a hot shower and get some rest. As he did these things, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, the prickles on the back of his neck never went away. He turned his bedside lamp off.
--
4:30 AM, Spencer's alarm clock went off in its usual way, but the man himself groggily slapped it silent and rubbed his temples, trying to rub away the migraine that had come to him overnight. He felt his forehead and ran his hand through his sweaty head as he realized that he had an extraordinarily high fever.
He sat up carefully and began to crawl out of his bed in a feeble attempt to check just how high the fever was with a thermometer. Carefully, he stood shakily and tried to take another trembling step. The young doctor blacked out.
Three hours later, he woke and looked at the red numbers of his clock. 7:30, late for work, of course. Instead of trying to stand again, he reached up and grabbed his cell phone from the bedside table, pressing his speed dial.
"Reid," said Hotch on the other line, seemingly relieved. "Where are you?"
"Sick," Spencer managed to croak as he tried to shake Hotch's resonating voice out of his head. "Don't talk so loud…" he muttered.
"Get some rest; you've been working yourself a little hard lately, all right? I don't want to see you back here until you're completely well again, got it?"
"Yeah," Reid rasped. "Bye." He snapped the phone shut, reaching to put it back on the side table. Shivering due to the fever, he literally climbed back into the bed and pulled the covers over his head. Every part of him was sore. It must be the flu. He thought as darkness crept into his vision and carried him to sleep.
--
A beep from his phone woke the young genius as he sat bolt upright. He could tell that the fever had left him, he was still a little cold, but it might be the AC that he left on when he had fallen asleep. He felt great, albeit starving. He looked at his clock, 8:00 PM. Again the phone beeped and he picked it up, flipping it open and stopping at the date. He had been asleep for two days. "What?" he whispered. He listened to his messages, all the team wondering where he was, how he was doing, get well soon, the whole nine yards.
Why had he not woken up? Was he sick? Yes, it was coming back to him now, he was very sick just a day ago. What had happened?
Flashes of the night he had come scared back to his apartment: the man in the hoodie attacking him, clawing and scratching at him. Biting him?
His hand flashed to the nape of his neck and he felt a slight lump. It was swollen, but seemingly in the last stages of that and decreasing rapidly. Even now he could feel it return to its normal state. "That's not normal," he furrowed his brow as he stood up and got out of bed. Walking briskly to the bathroom and turned on the light. He stopped dead as he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
He zoomed up to it, looking at his hyperdilated eye. There was no color left, just blackness with a slight redness around the rims. His face had become harsher, whiter, much whiter. He hated to be vain, but he was extremely attractive, and he felt it now too, rather than enduring Garcia's insistence on the niceness of his looks. He ran a hand through his hair. "What the hell?" he asked his reflection and half-expected it to talk back. But wait, what was this? As he had asked the reflection, he noticed something funny with his teeth. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut again. Were those fangs? Those weren't fangs. They couldn't be fangs. He opened his mouth to examine once more. Good God those are fangs.
That didn't matter now, though. He was ravenous, starving. In fact, Spencer felt like he was completely wasting away. The feeling had just hit him and he nearly doubled over with it, the pain in his belly stretching to every nerve of his body as he cried out and gasped, knocking himself against the bathroom wall. Suddenly, he found himself at the front door, but too hungry to wrestle with the locks. He was suddenly at his fridge, ripping it open and going for the raw hamburger meat. He just took handfuls and handfuls, shoving them into his mouth, savoring the taste, but never getting enough. When his senses returned to him, he found himself sitting on the floor, licking the Styrofoam tray that the meat once sat in and threw it to the ground, screaming, backing into the kitchen's walls. "What's happening to me?"
He didn't know what to do, he didn't know what he was, or at least, he didn't believe in what he was. As a small child, he wasn't afraid of vampires and zombies, but pathogens released into the air. Natures very real and very lethal killers.
But this? He didn't know what to make of this. He stood and made his way back to his bedroom, absentmindedly putting normal clothes on and feeling slightly awkward doing it. He felt vicious and powerful, such a normal activity didn't seem right at the moment. He found himself grabbing his wallet and his phone. "Garcia," he muttered to himself. "Garcia'll know what's happening."
She was the most accepting of the group, he hated to admit. His female confidant, she would understand more than Morgan would, he was sure. He knew she loved the fantastic and surreal, maybe she would know what was going on with him? He slipped his shoes on and made his way out the door. Garcia would know.
