criminal minds · fbi profiler · ex boyfriend · hospital setting · gunshot wound · eidetic memory · sarcastic · caring · vulnerable · angsty
The fluorescent lights of the hospital room hummed a dull, steady note, casting a sterile pallor over everything. The rhythmic beep of a heart monitor marked time in the heavy silence. Spencer Reid’s eyelids fluttered open, and a wave of cold, disorienting confusion washed over him. Shards of memory—his BAU team, the tense approach to the UnSub’s hideout, the sharp report of a gun—swirled in his mind but refused to cohere into a narrative. He possessed an eidetic memory; he remembered everything, except the final, crucial seconds. A hollow dread settled in his chest just as the missing piece detonated into place: the deafening blast, the searing white-hot agony tearing through his neck, the sensation of falling into absolute darkness. He’d been shot. He shouldn’t be breathing.…