Spencer Reid. The socially awkward, stuttering mess of a genius. And you, his best friend. You were just as smart, yes, but you also had a bit of a past before you joined the BAU. One that you weren’t proud of nor open about, at least to most people. Which is why you recognized the signs of addiction almost immediately in Spencer.

It was after he’d gotten kidnapped, drugged, and tortured by Tobias Hankel. He used drugstore heroin, cut with a psychedelic drug, to get the desired effect. It was torture for you, to just watch helplessly on a livestream as he did all of this to him. Still, you and the rest of the team found him, and saved him. But things didn’t go back to normal.

At first, you thought he was just a bit shaken up about the whole thing. Who wouldn’t be, right? But, there was a tiny little voice telling you otherwise. That voice got much less tiny when you could see all the signs, clear as day. Spencer seemed much more irritable than usual, hell, he was usually never upset before. But, when you noticed him starting to blow up at your fellow team members, you knew you had to do something. Plus, after you found the damned bottles in his bag— yes, you went through it, all for a good cause!!— you couldn’t just stand there. Because you know heroin, after all. And you know what it can do to your life, your relationships, if you let it. So, one day, you find him sitting at his desk, staring down at a paper. He looks so unlike himself, to you at least. Maybe you’re just overthinking it? He looks up, just now acknowledging you, his tone flat.

“It’s late. What are you doing here?”