Work Text:
A quiet calm settles over the room. It's the sort of calm you get before a storm. The kind of calm you can't enjoy in fear of the grey looming over you. This calm was not a welcome one. In fact everyone would rather the chaotic stress of a case over this.
As the team waited for the inevitable hell that was yet to come the tension in the room raised. Every set of eyes lay on Reid as his features became a mask they were more familiar with Hotch wearing. The cold distance that he applied in order to cope with the grotesque realities of his job. A look that they all swore to themselves they would do everything to stop Reid ever wearing it again.
Watching as the usually open and excitable Spencer Reid becomes someone they can not recognise scares them. Without even being told they understand they went too far this time.
As if to make matters worse the plane seemed to hit some turbulence worsening their already fried nerves.
—
Before
“So, while most people believe that St Patrick drove physical snakes out of Ireland, which couldn’t be the case as Ireland’s climate is inhospitable to virtually all species of snakes, there were never any actual snakes for him to drive away, it was actually him driving a religion away that now is a basis of most of our celebrations. Really, if you think about it he isn’t someone we should be praisin-”
“You were right,” Rossi whispered to Morgan as he handed over the ten bucks, “he really can lecture about anything you mention. As long as he has a start up point. Now how do we make him shut up?” As they began to laugh they realised Reid was no longer talking, instead staring at them.
Silence settles over them, sheepish as they see the hurt on Reid’s face. He looks down at his hands not finishing what he was saying.
---
Present
“I don’t get it.” Reid finally breaks the silence, his voice void of any emotion.
“You don’t get what, Reid?” Hotch prompts, hoping that Reid will elaborate.
Reid looks up, making direct eye contact with Hotch before turning to look out the window. “I don’t get how I’m the one who doesn’t understand people.” Reid replies, continuing quickly before anyone could interrupt, as if scared he won’t be able to finish, “All my life, everyone has told me that I don’t understand people, I don’t get their motives, I don’t have the ‘normal’ amount of empathy.”
The team waits, wondering where Reid is going with this. “I’m the abnormal one, the broken one, the defect. But how is that right? I’ve spent my life trying to prove to everyone that I’m a good person, not broken. I studied psychology, sociology and philosophy, to get a better understanding of how people operate. I’ve read research paper after research paper on the autistic brain versus the allistic brain. All I have found is that you don’t make sense to me.”
Reid remains the same volume but his emotions start to invade his voice, tightening his vocal cords, betraying his mask. “You speak in riddles, which, believe me, I love riddles but these ones are illogical, designed to trip up anyone who isn’t able to catch onto every subtle nuance included. To out someone as socially inept just because you won’t say what you mean.”
“If I’m the person who is untrustworthy and inherently bad, then why is it always people like me who get bullied. Why is it normal for allistic children to abuse the weird kids. How is that part of natural development. You all struggle to empathise with anyone who doesn’t fit your cookie cutter world. While autistic people are the ones who are told they lack empathy and morals because they tell you the truth instead of telling you what you want to hear.”
Reid took a breath, noticing that everyone was giving him their undivided attention for once. “There was a study that gave autistic people and allistic people two scenarios. They could accept or refuse to fund a good cause at the expense of their own funds or they could accept or refuse to support a bad cause in exchange for individual monetary benefit. In private allistic people chose the bad cause but in public they refused it. It showed their moral standings, sometimes, were just a performance for those around them. Autistic participants, on the other hand, didn't change their answers. They also were more likely to refuse the second scenario. They showed that their moral beliefs would be largely unswayed by any perceived benefit they would get and didn’t depend on how people viewed them. When I look at that study that’s what I conclude, autistic people have a strong moral compass.”
“That’s not what the researchers concluded. This experiment went against what they were trying to say about autistic people. It made it seem as though we weren’t defective. So, they concluded that the autistic participants “over-evaluate the negative consequences of their actions” which is why they refuse to support the bad cause in both settings. Hu said ‘Here, we show that ASD individuals are more inflexible when following a moral rule even though an immoral action can benefit themselves, and suffer an undue concern about their ill-gotten gains and the moral cost.’ They pathologized our integrity away because they didn’t like what it said about them.”
Reid felt weird, this was the longest he had been allowed to talk without being interrupted since he was young. “My incessant talking seems to bore you. You think I can’t tell. You interrupt and belittle me because you perceive what I'm talking about as unimportant or annoying. In your view what you want to talk about is more appropriate. You seem to misunderstand what I’m doing. I talk about things that I enjoy, things that fascinate me, because I view you all as safe. Because I want to share the knowledge that makes me happy when I learn it. I am attempting to connect with you in a way that makes sense to me. Each of my attempts to connect are shot down, because it's not the correct way to connect.”
Reid looks up making eye contact with each person on the plane, “Do you understand how isolating that is? I’m treated like a child, a common practice with autistic people, because you view me as someone who knows less about the ‘real world’ than you. I’m not a child, I have been raising myself for most of my life. If you can’t treat me with the respect I treat you with then maybe it's time I move on. I won’t deal with it anymore.” As he finishes he gets up and moves to the seat furthest from anyone, putting on headphones and isolating himself from them.
The team all exchanged looks, ashamed but unsure how to begin to apologise. They knew they had a lot to make up for. As soon as they got to the ground they knew they had to discuss how to.