[CM] THE CASE

Only when we are free from fear can we truly begin to live. —Dorothy Thompson

"The alarm has signaled!"

"Damn it, I still haven't stopped them!"

"Positioning... They turned right and deviated from the planned route!"

Reid sat in the surveillance car, not saying a word.

According to Gideon, he shouldn't have come. Hotch insisted that he follow, but he was not allowed to act without authorization.He is like a family member outside the operating room, who can only listen and wait. As for the news of safety or a notice of critical illness, he seems to be resigned to fate.

In his hand, the name belonging to another person glowed coldly.

Griffith opened his eyes in a daze, and subconsciously said, "Walker?"

The person opposite him smiled with a familiar voice: "You're awake."

Griffith was awake in an instant, his limbs in a defensive posture for a moment under his control. Jason got close enough to see his reaction.He stretched out his hand and rubbed it around Griffith's eyes: "Can you see? It's a pity... I really don't want you to see me like this, with no identity and only living on someone else's face."

Griffith held his breath and stared at him blankly. After a long time, he whispered, "So, it's always been you."

When Walker and I met alone, was it you?

"I heard that you committed suicide, so I came here specifically to find you." Jason asked without answering, "In the end, is this a trap?"

Griffith twitched the corners of his mouth in a specious smile.

"No, I want to see you."

"Oh?"

"I'm here to tell you that I'm not like you," Griffith said quietly. Jason looked like he was about to say something, but Griffith held up his hand and stopped him, "Do you think I'm going to pamper you like James? James spent his life making it up to you, and you're just squandering—yes, you're the opposite." Social personality, you don't understand normal emotions, so why are you holding on to me? Is it because of loneliness?"

Griffith gave a sarcastic smile: "—is antisocial lonely?"

Jason's hands clamped down on Griffith's neck quickly, Griffith had to look up, and the sense of crisis rushed back and forth in his body several times along his spine.From behind his wheelchair, John Walker yelled nervously, "Jason!"

"Lonely? Yes, I've always been lonely." Jason looked grim, but his tone was still gentle, "Didn't I find you? Why did you reject me? Aren't you lonely?"

Are you lonely?

He wakes up alone in an empty room, with no trace of the person who took him to a foreign land.He was forced to learn to live alone, to understand an unfamiliar field, endure the torment of nightmares every day, and then bury his pain deeply to help others.

Countless sleepless nights, he is alone.

But someone who was just as lonely hugged him.

"No, I'm not alone." Griffith looked straight into his eyes. "That's the difference."

The hand that was holding him tightened suddenly, and the air couldn't enter the windpipe, Griffith let out a groan. John rushed forward immediately: "Jason! Let go!"

"Why?!" Jason completely lost his composure, and Griffith looked at him coldly, like he was looking at a madman.

"You'll kill him like this! Let go!"

"Why aren't you alone!" Jason yelled and asked, "We are the same! We are obviously the same!"

So many years of loneliness and resentment have been buried in his heart, like a poisonous poison, corroding his soul to the point of being riddled with holes. When Walker was in front of him occasionally, it felt like he was looking in a mirror.

It wasn't Jason and Griffith that were alike, it was Jason and him.

The phone in his pocket vibrated three times, which was the agreed signal. Walker's consciousness was pulled back to reality, he squeezed the syringe in his pocket, and slowly clenched his teeth.

Jason was completely out of control.

This is the best time.

If there is no oxygen for 3 minutes, people will undoubtedly die. Griffith's grip on Jason was weakening, the tinnitus caused by the blocked blood mixed with the screaming, the fragments of memory merged into a river before his eyes, gurgling away, and he only caught one image.

The big brown-haired boy has a pair of good-looking eyes and a sunny smile.He looked so gentle, so firm, standing in the middle of the river, as steady as a rock.

Griffith's lips moved, silently spelling out a name.

"Reid..."

Then a large amount of air poured into his lungs, and life grabbed his hand again, dragging him back to the world from the other side of death. Griffith coughed violently, and Walker whispered something in his ear, Griffith just tilted his head in confusion.

He was then pushed out of the car door.

Suddenly falling from the moving car, Griffith hit his head hard.The bare skin rubbed against the rough asphalt, and Griffith realized something, trying to look up at the ordinary van.

In his partially recovered vision, only the outline of Walker's face could be seen, as if staring at him. Griffith's heart suddenly sank, and at this moment, he hated this vague world for no reason.

——Because no one will know what kind of expression this man showed at the last moment and what he was thinking in the future.

Before Griffith got up, he watched the car collide with another car, and the flames painted brutal colors in front of his eyes.

"Foster!"

He was held in someone's arms, and the man's bones hurt him a little.

"……How are you?"

Griffith grabbed his clothes subconsciously: "Wait a minute!"

Reid unreasonably picked him up and sent him to the ambulance.

"Reid!" Griffith hugged him tightly around his neck, fearing he would throw himself, while he was still looking back.Firefighters were putting out the fire urgently, and search and rescue personnel were stopped outside to stand by at all times. Griffith stretched his neck, but he couldn't see anything.

"Walker he..."

"Let's talk about it later, you do a checkup first." Reid put him down, stretched his arms, and began to seriously consider Morgan's proposal for fitness.

"Reid!" Griffith grabbed his hand, and he froze for a moment at the cold touch, and then Reid squeezed back lightly and let him go.

"Check first," Reid paused, then comforted, "I'll be with you."

Doctors took care of the bruises and made sure there were no broken bones.There was an uncomfortably silent silence in the ambulance, except for the doctor and nurse talking, Griffith just staring at Reid's face in a daze.

Walker was looking at him just now.

"Don't." He said suddenly, "Don't look at me."

Reid noticed something was wrong with him: "Foster?"

Griffith moved, and Reid stepped closer so he could see his face: "Foster?"

Griffith watched him closely, as if they were meeting for the first time.

Reid was annoyed.The alarm for Griffith has a bugging function. When he heard Griffith say "I want to see you", Reid felt the anger starting from the heart and bursting into every part of the body.The anger burning in his blood reached its peak when Griffith fell off the car, and was easily extinguished by him with a single sentence.

"I really can't do anything about him." Reid thought bitterly.Then he took Griffith's hand—for some reason, Griffith seemed to love holding hands and hugs—and looked into his eyes to say something reassuring, drawing attention to his too-long hair.

Reid blurted out, "It's time for you to cut your hair."

Griffith didn't respond. "What?"

"I mean," Reid cleared his throat, trying to give a good lecture on his adventure, but couldn't help pushing back the hair on his forehead, his tongue hijacked by insignificant things, "I can talk to you Let's go get a haircut together."

"……puff."

"Do not laugh!"

Griffith didn't take his exasperation seriously, he just laughed heartily for a moment, buried his head in Reid's chest, and murmured, "I hate this."

"Ok?"

"I hate not being able to see clearly."

Griffith leaned against his left chest, and Reid had the illusion that he was leaning on his heart.

"I hate being in the hospital, I hate not being able to sleep, I hate being alone."

Reid's hesitant hand finally landed on the back of his neck, like soothing a coquettish cat.

"Well, I'll be with you." Reid planted a kiss on his temple. "Then, what should you call me?"

"…Spence," Griffith said, "I've got you."

The author has something to say: Guess if there is an update on May [-]st?