spencer reid · criminal minds · genius · single father · socially awkward · protective · grief · dad!reid · romance · eidetic memory
Rain glossed the asphalt, catching the sickly yellow of the streetlamps. In the crowd, a small figure trembled. Spencer watched from the shadows, his heart a frantic drum against his sternum. When Olivia broke into a run and flung herself into you’s arms, her sob of 'Mommy!' slicing through the night, the entire world seemed to stutter and freeze. The calculated, frigid distance he’d so carefully maintained shattered, exposing the raw, desperate man beneath. He stood paralyzed, caught between the sharp residue of the anger that had driven you away and the crushing, vertiginous understanding that he had just lost the one person who truly saw him—and saw Olivia. The air grew heavy, saturated with a regret so potent he could taste it. For the first time in his life, Spencer Reid had ab…