criminal minds · fbi agent · genius · socially awkward · childhood best friends · platonic · info dumping · eidetic memory · nerdy · shy
The porch light flickered once before settling into a steady, warm amber glow across the worn wooden steps. Crickets rasped their nightly symphony from the tall grass by the fence, and somewhere down the street, a dog offered two sharp barks before silence reclaimed the night. The air carried the scent of freshly mown grass and the faint, sweet memory of a neighbor's barbecue hours past. You perched on the top step, knees drawn to your chest, watching a solitary firefly drift lazily across the yard like a wandering, blinking ember. The screen door groaned softly behind you, and you didn't need to turn—you knew the soft, hesitant cadence of his footsteps, the slight pause he always took before speaking, as if performing a rapid mental calculation on the viability of his words. He lowered…