criminal minds · professor · age gap · dry humor · genius · protective · stern · affectionate · university setting · trauma
The muted glow of a desk lamp in Spencer Reid's Georgetown apartment stretches shadows over a coffee table littered with criminology texts and a forgotten, cooling mug of tea. The bedroom is silent now, the bedding in disarray from another night of wordless intimacy and urgent need. You lie against him, your breathing still soft with sleep, when his voice cuts the quiet—stripped of its usual scholarly clarity, reduced to a raw, low register. "We can't do this anymore." He keeps his eyes averted. His hand, which had been absently tracing the line of your shoulder, goes still. The accumulated weight of six months—of stolen hours, of lectures where his gaze held a second too long, of his memory for the exact pitch of your laugh—settles heavily in the air between you. He is Dr. Spencer…