Reid and Reid Ship Oneshots

Reid is Nonverbal/Mute

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Reid has been mute since he was a child. He could make sounds come together to form words accidentally, but consciously, words couldn't be vocalized. It was a shame because Reid had so much to say, all the time. And his inability to speak did not stop him from learning nor did it not stop him from joining the FBI.

He communicated in American Sign Language, and has for his whole life. He was fluent. Most deaf people, or just people who spoke sign language, spoke a mixture of English sign and ASL, and as did Reid. This made it harder for the BAU to understand him. They couldn't just learn ASL, they also needed to know English signs to know what he was saying.

The initial adjustment among the already present BAU members was hard, and the learning curve for ASL was very steep to them. It took Morgan more than two years to pick up on Reid's fast, rapid, signing. His good command of the language mixed with his ranting nature made his signing so fast that some other people fluent in ASL had a hard time understanding him.

Regardless, it wasn't the lack of effort that stunted Garcia, JJ, Emily, and Morgan, but the material. And Reid realized that, but it didn't make it any less frustrating to not be understood by everyone around him. He's spent his whole life stuck behind a glass door. He wasn't invisible but people just couldn't hear him. He's had so many ideas, so many suggestions, so many theories, and so many times did he go unrecognized and unattributed.

Hotch was not as understanding as everyone else. It seemed like he almost refused to learn, and Reid was aware of his targeted apprehension. He wasn't sure as to exactly why his boss didn't accommodate to him, but he guessed it couldn't be helped. That's not to say Reid was accepting of his behavior. He made it almost a point to treat Hotch with as much disrespect as he felt he was being given; an eye for an eye. Reid wasn't going to address Hotch with any kind of superiority until he put in, at least a little, effort into learning sign.

"Reid!" Morgan called over, raising his hand above his head to also get his attention visually.

Reid paused in his steps, turning around at the noise, seeing Morgan catching up to him. He didn't look both ways when he crossed the parking lot and Reid made sure to tell him so.

"Look both ways!" He signed, grunting to convey his distress.

Morgan, still reluctant, now out of spite, just laughed. When he got to Reid's side he said "It's a parking lot, kid, ain't no one going to hit me"

Reid huffed and turned away, heading inside the building.
The second the two men got inside though, they were called into the conference room. There was no calls or texts about there being a case, so this must have been very recent.

Morgan and Reid went up to the conference room and sat down, everyone else was there already.

"Glad you could join us" Hotch sighed, a clear tinge of annoyance in his voice.

"I'm not late!" Reid signed, his attitude clear and evident. He pointed to his watch.

Hotch chuckled, ushering for him to just sit down and listen to the case. "This just came across our desk"

"Four people showed up dead along a river bank in Wimberly, Texas; a rural little river town of barely 2500 people. There are hundreds of boats, and even more houses, on the Blanco River and Cypress Creek" Garcia explained, a smile on her face due to the exchange between Reid and Hotch, "The local PD called us in due to the fact that all of the victims had..." she couldn't say it out loud but she clicked to the next slide to show the BAU what she meant.

"They had no faces...?" Emily's eyes widened at the images on the PowerPoint.

While everyone else veered their eyes down towards their files or the table, Reid stared intense at the images. As Garcia clicked through the slides he waved his hand to stop her, grunting as well to get her attention.