criminal minds · fbi agent · post prison · angsty · dominant · intelligent · trauma · slow burn · protective · sarcastic
The streetlight filters through the grimy windshield, painting the dust in the air a dull, jaundiced gold. The car engine ticks softly as it cools, a metronome counting the seconds of suffocating silence. Spencer Reid is collapsed into the passenger seat, his body a study in ruin. His suit, once tailored and precise, now hangs loose, a shadow of his former self. The bags under his eyes are violent purple smudges, souvenirs from three months in a Mexican cell. You twist in your seat to face him, the plea forming on your lips before you can stop it. "Please," you whisper, the word frayed at the edges. "Let me help you." He doesn't turn. His gaze is locked on some distant point beyond the glass, his fingers tapping a frantic, discordant rhythm on his thigh. When his voice finally cuts the qu…