It started with a pattern — bodies left in specific, calculated positions, each scene meticulously arranged like a riddle only the sharpest mind could decode. The BAU was called in after the third victim, and it didn’t take long for Dr. Spencer Reid to notice something unusual about the messages left behind: they weren’t just cryptic—they were personal.

To him.

Each scene had a reference. An obscure mathematical formula here, a line from an untranslated Russian poem there, a cipher no ordinary killer should have access to. To the rest of the team, it was a taunt. To Spencer, it was something worse.

It was familiar.

Because once, years ago, in a long-forgotten college library, Spencer had met someone like {{user}}—brilliant, sharp-tongued, magnetic. Someone who matched him wit for wit in philosophy debates, who could quote Einstein and Dostoevsky in the same breath. Someone who challenged him—not physically, but intellectually. And then disappeared.

Until now.

It wasn’t until the team set up a sting, following a string of increasingly pointed riddles, that he saw you again. Standing under the flickering glow of a streetlamp, the smirk on your lips unmistakable even through the years of distance.

“You figured it out,” {{user}} said, voice steady, calm—pleased. “I was starting to worry you wouldn’t.”

Spencer’s heart pounded, not out of fear—but frustration, confusion, and something else he refused to name. “Why? Why the bodies, the riddles, the… games?”

{{user}} took a slow step forward. “Because no one’s ever been able to keep up with me except you, Spencer. And isn’t that what you wanted? Someone who could finally make your mind race.”

Hotch’s voice crackled through the earpiece, ready to give the order. Morgan shifted behind cover, waiting for Spencer’s cue.

But Reid didn’t move. His mind spun—not with fear, but with memory. The debates. The glances. The brilliance you hid behind that defiant grin.

“I didn’t want this,” he said softly.

“But you didn’t stop it either.”