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Spencer Reid is most definitely something.
He hadn’t wanted to presume and, as Jason hadn’t elaborated other than the man being a genius, hadn’t asked. The flustered manner in most conversations can easily be a result of being fast-tracked through school; the confidence overwriting it when he begins to talk about a subject that interests him – Aaron’s quickly realising that constitutes most topics – is hardly irrational. Keen to prove his worth, no doubt exacerbated by his young age, Reid’s eager to make a good impression.
The exaggerated edge to his facial expressions and the little movements Reid’s forever engaged in – never can he sling his bag over his shoulder without fiddling with the strap, nor sit straight on a chair without spinning, and that’s what Aaron has picked up on just a fortnight in – are harder to explain without wishful thinking. Sure, maybe he’s anxious and it’s the accumulation of nervous energy and Aaron is overthinking it here. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The signs start to really stack up after they’ve been on their first few cases with him. Reid misses the sideways glances from the others when he’s been speaking for a long time. Jokes go over his head, not all the time but enough for Aaron to notice. He catches himself focusing on Reid and kicks himself each time. Reid is eccentric because he’s a genius. He talks so much because he knows so much and talking with his hands is simply a product of trying to get it all out so fast.
There’s nothing more to it and, frankly, he can’t help but feel a little guilty for considering it; it’s not his business. Aaron has almost convinced himself of this by the time an unsub mentions the autistic leanings of Dr. Spencer Reid.
The insult (as it undeniably is) isn’t even directed at him but Aaron’s heart skips a beat. Not a good thing to be called in front of everyone. Reid frowns. As soon as he notices Aaron looking at him he dips his head and breaks the eye contact, staring down at the pencil he’s spinning in his hands. Embarrassed is his best guess.
And it begs the question whether that’s because he isn’t autistic or because he is.
As he watches the team carefully for any kind of disdain, disgust, Aaron pushes the question to the back of his mind and focuses on the case. They have an unsub to catch and a teenage girl to find—the rest is secondary.
Jason hangs up on the man and from there things are a practiced blur.
“…think he is?” JJ says.
“Nah, he’s awkward,” Derek says. “He’s a genius, he’s bound to be a little out there.”
Aaron moves to let a local officer through the door and stays where he is, barely within earshot. There’s a quiet unease in his chest.
“Would he—” Elle hesitates. “Would he still have a 187 IQ if he was?”
Why would it matter?
Derek shrugs. “They say it’s the brain wired differently. He’d still be like that, just more different.”
“Shyer doesn’t even know him,” JJ says. “And he can’t be, anyway.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve seen how much he feels things.”
Well.
At least it’s not intended maliciously, though the intent does little to dull the sting. It’s a shame he can’t correct them, not without coming across as suspiciously defensive. Aaron puts his hands in his pockets and goes to find Jason; if anyone does know, it’ll be him. The conversation quiets down as he walks past and he doesn’t care to stick around to hear if they continue.
They continue. They’ve at least got the grace to wait for Reid to fall asleep – Aaron’s almost certain he’s genuinely asleep – before they pick it up again.
“How are you supposed to profile if you don’t understand facial expressions?” Derek says. “It doesn’t even make sense for him to think that.”
You learn, Aaron doesn’t say, because you’re neither clueless nor able to survive without learning. Instead he tries to blot out their discussion as he works on the paperwork. The jet’s a privilege, yes. It’s also very small.
“It would explain why he reads so much,” Elle says.
“He can make eye contact,” JJ adds.
Aaron clenches his jaw. It’s not as if having to hold his tongue is new to him but it’s something else when it comes from the team, and he glances over at Reid. Hopes he’s not a convincing faker. You’d be surprised.
“Hey, Hotch,” Derek says.
He tilts his head.
“It really doesn’t make sense what Shyer said. What do you think?”
Aaron stops writing and chooses his words carefully. “I think Reid would appreciate it if we weren’t speculating.”
“We’re not,” Elle says quickly. “It’s just that if he was, it wouldn’t make him any good at profiling.”
He sends an imploring look at Jason but the man gives him a faux quizzical look back. For god’s sake.
“How come?” Aaron says. He shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t, but something inside him is wound up tight and tense.
“Well, eye contact and everything,” JJ says.
“And he’d look like it,” Derek says. “I don’t have a problem with it—” How charitable, he thinks, irritated. “—but some people wouldn’t really… trust him.”
“Theory of mind,” Jason adds. “It’s lacking in autistic brains but it is vital for empathy and social interactions. He’d struggle to understand unsubs.”
Aaron likes his team. He values their inputs. He also wants nothing more than to tell them to please shut the hell up.
(Nobody’s ever questioned his ability to get into unsubs’ heads but the lacking in empathy… they might be able to see him like that. Is that what they think of him? Unfeeling, unempathetic?)
“Whether or not it would affect his profiling abilities,” Aaron says, “it’s a personal matter and if Reid did want us to discuss it, he would let us know. Until then, leave it.”
All of them. Even Jason.
Aaron flicks his thumb over his fingers absentmindedly as he picks up his pen again and reminds himself not to question whether he’d made the right choice. He has. It proves itself every damn day.
(And pattern recognition and an atypical perspective and an ability to be a better interrogator if the deviation from social norms doesn’t bother him would make him better, actually—)
Reid never mentions it again. The rest of the team might, but not within Aaron’s earshot and presumably not within Reid’s. Stamping down on the speculation too hard will only have the opposite effect so he settles for that, hoping he’s done the right thing. Hoping they’d think he agreed with them.
His list of ASD traits in Reid gets longer. The idea has taken root and it’s growing with the more time he spends around him. Reid’s odd socks he is insistent upon. His leg bouncing and chair spinning and pen drumming. The clumsiness which makes Aaron understand the childhood nickname. Learning to shoot frustrates Reid, because it’s a dexterity-based task, and Aaron, because he can’t let on that he understands why Reid is so frustrated in case he’s misjudging it. He offers to take over from the guy teaching him (and receives a grateful, if slightly disbelieving, look and a grumpy ‘good luck’ which makes him dislike the man immediately) and talks Reid through the process step by step. Reid needs to know why he does things, needs to know the mechanism. Aaron is more than happy to oblige. His brain works the same.
He's glad Reid has integrated so well with the team. Really, he is.
It’s just strange.
Though Reid doesn’t explicitly mention autism, he doesn’t need to. It’s there if someone knows the signs—and someone had—and Aaron can’t understand why he puts in no effort to hide it. Not even a case of masking it badly, Reid… doesn’t.
Aaron hates the feeling with a passion but some small part of him is jealous that Reid gets away with it. That Reid doesn’t have to worry about seeming strange or out of place or autistic, because it’s all explained by his intellect. It’s irrelevant.
And if it’s irrelevant in Reid, what makes it so important in everyone else?
He’s happy for him beyond what he could express, for the step forwards that’s evidently been happening around him over the years to make it acceptable. The bad days, though, when Aaron can hear too much and smell too much and think too much and has to rethink everything he says before he says it so he’ll be normal, those days the jealousy is an ache in his bones.
Blaming Reid is unfair. Reid had no hand in this. It’s not his fault that Aaron has trapped himself here, unable to stop masking and, frankly, exhausted with doing so. He didn’t build up those walls, those expectations, that personality. That’s all on him.
The knock comes about half a second before Derek barges into his office anyway and says, “Hotch?” in the same tone he’d use to tell him there’s been a major incident or something of the sort.
“What is it?” he asks, out of his seat already.
“Reid’s freaking out,” Derek says, “and we can’t figure out how to help him.”
That’s better and worse than what he’d expected. Aaron hopes he’s wrong. “Freaking out how?”
“He was crying when I left,” Derek says, “and he was trapped where he was, kind of? He wouldn’t move and he keeps saying stuff back to us that we said to him.”
Aaron lets Derek’s hurried footsteps lead the way. He hasn’t told anyone else about his thoughts and somehow it feels like his fault regardless.
They’re holed up in a conference room a little way along the hall from the bullpen, where the ambient sound is muffled and there’s less of a likelihood of new people coming by. He doubts that’s much of a benefit to Reid given that their whole team is also here, well-meaningly crowding him.
Reid himself is standing with his eyes screwed shut and his hands alternating between picking at his clothes and flapping. He feels sick at the secondhand embarrassment that it gives him to see him like this in front of everyone.
“Thank you, Derek,” he says. “Can you – yes, all of you – give us some space, please?”
Light bothers Reid even more than it does him—that’s easy, lights off and sunglasses if he needs them—and it had taken him quite a while to get over the sound when shooting, even with the ear defenders, so noise level probably factors in. Aaron’s not very fond of that aspect of field work either; it leaves him with a headache most of the time. There isn’t as much he can do about that but getting the team out is a good step. Other sensory issues aren’t his forte, though he’s not sure if Reid’s clothes are actually bothering him or the fidgeting is an outlet for his stress.
The others are hesitant to leave so Aaron turns to Reid. “Would you like any of us to stay, or would you rather be alone?”
He can’t see any visible injury and he trusts that Derek would’ve mentioned it if there is, so Aaron is all right, if not completely comfortable with, leaving Reid to calm himself down.
“Stay,” Reid says.
“Who do you want to stay?”
“Stay.”
“Me?” Aaron confirms. Reid nods.
It’s a relief in some ways – the others don’t need to see more than what they have already – and very much not in others. He hasn’t dealt with Reid’s meltdowns before and he doesn’t know what helps. Hell, if this isn’t a meltdown but something else, he’ll be utterly unprepared.
Once the team has left, Aaron flicks the light off and some of the tension in Reid’s face lessens immediately.
“What do you need?” he asks quietly.
Reid’s skinny arms wrap around himself as he rocks on his feet, ball to toe. “Stay,” he repeats. “Please can you stay?”
“I’m here, Reid.”
Aaron gives him his space but Reid stays where he is, seeming to hug himself harder each time he adjusts his arms, glancing periodically over at him then dropping his gaze.
“What is it?” he asks the fifth time Reid does it in a minute.
“Nothing,” Reid murmurs. “It’s nothing, I’ve just got a blanket at home – a weighted one – and that helps and I won’t be home until six and it’s a bad day and I wish I had it.”
He says weighted blanket like it’s something Aaron should know what it is, and he’s alarmed, slightly, that Reid is so openly giving him that information. That leverage, if it was in the wrong hands. It’s good to know pressure helps him.
“Can I do anything to help?”
Reid bites his lip and edges closer. He’s talking with his hands again, even if his eyes stay fixed on the floor. “I, uh, before I had that, I’d get pressure sometimes from, um. Hugs? But that’s – stupid, can you forget I said anything, never mind. I’m okay.”
And again, Reid’s so open with it all. Aaron is certain he’d have to have his own needs pried out of him to ever actually reveal them but the man in front of him has no such qualms.
“I… I can,” Aaron says, and there’s no way to say it which doesn’t sound awkward but he supposes they’re both past the point that’s a concern. Mainly he’s hoping for Reid’s sake he says no because he’d like to be able to look him in the eye – so to speak – after this.
Reid moves tentatively, like he’s not quite sure he’s really meant to be doing this, and maybe they’re not; god knows what it’d look like, the two of them embracing in a dark room where Reid’s obviously been crying. Still, Aaron pulls him in and wraps his arms around him, feels hands grasp the back of his jacket.
“Tighter? Looser?”
“’S good,” Reid says, his head turned and words muffled into Aaron’s shoulder.
“Good.”
Despite the strangeness, it does seem to help Reid calm down faster and it’s not long before he pulls away and wipes his face. Colour rises in his cheeks as he laces his fingers together, fidgeting with them.
Reid clears his throat and, for the first time since Aaron has walked in, forces himself to make eye contact. “I’m sorry.”
Oh, this part he’s more familiar with, the shame and the guilt—for all the jealousy, he’d hate to be in Reid’s shoes at this moment in time.
“You have nothing to apologise for,” Aaron says. Despite it being the truth, it feels like a lie on his tongue. There really isn’t cause for it. But something in him is just as embarrassed for Reid’s sake as Reid is. He pushes it away. “Nothing.”
“I can explain,” Reid says, giving him a wide-eyed pleading look, slipping back into the larger than life calibre his expressions can sometimes take. He’s already got countless explanations, no doubt. “Preferably not this instant but if you wanted, I, um, I could.”
“I’d like to know if we can prevent this from happening, but not because I’ve forced you to tell me. It’s so that you don’t reach this point in the future,” Aaron says. Lets Reid hear the assumption in it, that ‘this’ is not a one-off like some people might think, that it’s something they can manage with adjustments. That it’s perhaps a condition.
“I won’t,” Reid assures him, a beat too quickly.
“For your sake,” Aaron clarifies. He still looks thoroughly unconvinced. “You’re not in trouble.”
(Aaron can’t imagine what this kind of thing would’ve earnt him way back when. Certainly more than just embarrassment. He’s not sure what punishment he’d even give Reid for it, if he was going to be vindictive about it—he’d like to think he couldn’t but he’s not optimistic about the policy for incidences like this.)
Reid drags a hand across his forehead and massages his temple.
“Go home and rest,” Aaron says.
He opens his mouth.
“I’m not sending you home officially, you’re ill.”
Though the faint glimmer of suspicion in Reid’s face is nothing personal, Aaron feels a twinge of guilt.
Two weeks later, Reid comes into his office in the morning and spends a painful five minutes – for both of them – beating around the bush. When they truly exhaust all other reasons for his being there, he lowers the papers he’s kept held to his chest and slaps them on Aaron’s desk.
“I’m autistic,” Reid announces, his leg bouncing.
This is not news to Aaron. This is probably not news to half the BAU. There is no reason why it should catch him off guard as much as it does, yet hearing Reid outright state it gives the atmosphere between them a strange tension.
Reid shouldn’t have told him.
And he supposes he can understand that it’s easier than when he joined, that the culture has changed and being more open has less of a chance to damage Reid’s career, but less of a chance is nowhere close to zero. On a more personal level, Aaron can’t imagine ever admitting it to any of his higher-ups and expecting them to regard him as just as competent as he was before.
But Aaron wants to ask him what the hell he was thinking, didn’t he have the faintest sense of self-preservation? Warn him that it’s not something he wants to be common knowledge, and that the secrecy is a necessary evil. Just something to help him reconsider. He doesn’t think everything has changed enough to take that risk. Reid evidently does, and there’s the pull of jealousy and relief all again.
In all the time he’s thought about Reid being autistic he’s never thought of Reid actually telling him, or what his response would be, and he realises belatedly he’s probably been silent for a little too long.
“Right,” Aaron says, feeling surreal. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
Reid’s shoulders drop and the tension bleeds out of him.
“It wasn’t on your personnel file,” he says. “Would you like it to be? You’d need a formal diagnosis—”
“I don’t,” Reid says. “I wanted you to know in case I had another meltdown. That’s what the other day was – the triggers can vary from person to person but mine are mostly set off by sensory overload, and it’s not usually that bad, I can keep it under control.”
“I’m not concerned about your ability to do your job, Reid,” Aaron says. “Like I said, if there’s anything I or anyone else can help you with to stop it getting to that point, let me know.”
“You can do that?” he says.
“Accommodations?”
“None of my teachers ever listened until I got my IEP,” Reid says. “And even that was only so I could skip grades.”
“I’m sure unofficially we can find ways of managing it,” Aaron says, “but if you did want access to official accommodations you would have to have ASD on file.”
“What would the accommodations be?” Reid asks.
It occurs to Aaron that he’s never checked, not even for himself.
“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he says. “If you don’t want that, it’s perfectly fine to keep it between us. I’m assuming it is between us?”
“I think I do want the others to know,” Reid says, surprisingly certain. “Just not right now.”
Aaron nods. He’s torn between encouraging him and letting him know that it may not be the best idea, all things considered; not wanting to hurt him but not wanting to hold him back. Reid is an adult and responsible for his own decisions. He just can’t understand how Reid doesn’t see the other side of it all, doesn’t seem to care about the consequences of being so exposed. Autistic. Walks around as if the burden of judgement isn’t a weight on his shoulders at all.
Perhaps Aaron has it wrong. Reid might not care about judgment because he doesn’t mask—he’s set no precedent for himself other than who he is. Hell, he’s walked in here and told his boss he’s autistic. That has to count for something.
Reid does it when they’re together after a case. Derek’s been watching him wind the blanket through his hands for a good ten minutes, unmoving.
“You okay, kid?”
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he says. The sudden break in the silence has drawn the attention to them, briefly, and he glances at them. Meets Aaron’s eyes for a second. Says, like ripping off a bandaid: “I have autism.”
The stunned silence shatters just as quickly.
“Congratulations?” JJ says, sounding more sure of herself with each syllable she doesn’t get interrupted on. “Sorry, I don’t know what I’m meant to be saying but that’s – it’s a good thing, right?”
“Yeah, thanks for sharing,” Derek says.
Little by little, Reid relaxes, continuing to savour the texture with a bashful smile.
“Good to know,” Elle says.
And he’s not jealous, he’s not, he’s proud of Reid and happy for him but you’ve seen how he feels things and some people wouldn’t really trust him and none of this is about Aaron, so he forces a small smile and gives Reid a polite nod and that’s that.
Things have changed.
It’s in the little habits they’ve acquired, mostly accidental: Derek tossing Reid something to fiddle with when he’s wringing his hands anxiously. How Elle tips him off to the rhetorical questions he’s not entirely sure about being real or not. JJ switches from brushing him off to asking if he can tell her about his special interests later – and Reid comes out of his shell even more, regaling them on the jet with the sheer depth of his knowledge on the most obscure of things. Jason doesn’t mention it but he’s known Reid for the longest so it’s hardly surprising.
Reid has a list of good books on the topic he’s happy to talk about; Aaron skims one that he already owns a copy of, pausing to read the pencilled observations and corrections, glimpses of his thoughts. The astuteness manages to surprise him even after months of working together.
Aside from keeping an eye out for potentially overwhelming situations, Aaron finds he doesn’t need to do much for Reid at all, that the team have so effortlessly slotted into place accommodating him. And when, at Reid’s request, he filed his condition and accommodations as official he’d even gotten away without any comment from Strauss.
Reid’s got leeway for his genius and Aaron isn’t any closer to willingly letting people know about him but… well, it’s better than it used to be. A damn sight better. No small part are the people. His team. They’re more than he could’ve ever asked for and he’s never been so proud of them for learning.