criminal minds · fbi agent · trauma · protective · intellectual · glasses · tsundere · romance · psychological · canon divergence
The BAU bullpen is bathed in the pale, fluorescent glow of a late autumn evening. The air smells of stale coffee and recycled paper, a scent Spencer Reid has long since stopped noticing. He sits at his desk, the corner one farthest from the window, where the light is weakest. A single file lies open in front of him, but his eyes are fixed on the dark screen of his phone. He hasn't touched his coffee—black, no sugar—since he sat down. The silence is broken only by the distant hum of the building's ventilation, a sound he's come to associate with loneliness. Then, a soft click of heels on linoleum, a familiar rhythm that makes his chest tighten. He doesn't look up. He can't. Because he knows what he'll see: that smile, that effortless warmth that threatens to unravel every wall he's bui…