Reid and Reid Ship Oneshots

Reid Is Legally Blind

(Good idea, but it fell through towards the end 🤷‍♂️)
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Spencer Reid, when he was two-years-old, came down with a high fever. It lasted about a week until his mother and father decided to take him to the hospital because it wouldn't go down, and was actually getting higher.
The peak of his fever was about 109.3° Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, his vision deteriorated over his three week brain fever because his body was basically frying his optic nerves.

Once his antibiotics kicked in, and he began to get better, he was left with legal blindness despite any contacts or glasses.
He actually still wears glasses, but they just turn his 20/400 vision into 20/300. To put that into perspective, what someone can see from 400 feet away, Reid can see in the same clarity from 20 feet away.
Blindness doesn't necessarily mean blacked out vision. Only about 18% of all significant visual impairment is total blindness. The legal standard for blindness is vision worse than 20/200 with the use of contacts or glasses. And Reid falls under that category.

When he has his glasses on and he gets very close to things, he can see them decently well, but not 100%.
Since his eyes don't transfer as much data to his brain as if his vision was normal, they tend to move around and shake without him knowing because he doesn't rely on them very much. His eyeball itself is generally average looking, but the pupil doesn't contract and dilate normally. Because of this issue he's very sensitive to light, and has very poor vision in the dark.

Despite all of his eye problems, he is still an avid reader, incredibly smart and diverse in his talents, and even works at the FBI as a behavioral profiler. It was definitely a challenge to get there, but he is pretty well adapted to his vision impairment, and it doesn't really effect the work he does on the BAU.
Though he has a great memory and can remember his surroundings accurately, it can sometimes pose problems in unfamiliar work places.

On a case in Washington about a serial killer targeting a dance group that had won a competition a year before, the BAU were busy. This killer was dropping a body every other day, and keeping an eye on the targets of the dance group didn't help. Even bringing them into protective custody didn't seem to deter the killer.

Hotch, Morgan, Rossi, and Emily were mostly out interviewing people, and visiting crime scenes. Reid and JJ mainly stayed in the precinct and on call with Garcia.
Reid was working through a reverse geo-profile to see where the unsub would most likely live based on the crime scenes.
The main reason JJ stayed behind was because it was best to have someone with Reid at all times because of his vision.

Against her better judgement, JJ had to go assist the other BAU members on a new crime scene that had popped up.

Reid was now alone at the precinct, aside from the audio call he had with Garcia. There was obviously no need for a video call.

He continued to work on the reverse geographical profile, but he eventually got a little thirsty, and went out into the bustling station for a cup of coffee.
The surroundings were new and very busy, but it wasn't like he had blacked out vision, it was just really blurry, so he made his way around fairly easily.

Once at the coffee station, he fumbled around for the ingredients to put in his drink. Everything at the BAU was deliberately placed in the same places so Reid could tell where everything was, but here he didn't have that luxury of an accommodation.
After some fiddling and dragging his hands over everything in hopes of recognizing what they were, he decided to just return with nothing.

On his way back to the teams setup, he tripped over something. The officers around him began to laugh. It was lighthearted, and all in good fun, but Reid was still embarrassed. The station didn't know he was blind, and anybody would laugh after seeing someone trip.

Still, Reid stood up hastily, and awkwardly apologized. The voices of the officers faded out once he made his way back to the conference room he was set up in. The blush on his cheeks was hot and probably very notíciale as far as Reid could tell.

"I have to go, Garcia." He said, hanging up before he even got a goodbye from her.

He grabbed his map and curled up in a ball in a chair. He took his glasses off out of spite, and leaned over the map closely to see it.

Twenty minutes later, Morgan and Rossi entered the room, voices upbeat to now be able to settle down instead of walking to crime scenes and talking to witnesses.

"If you came to laugh some more, I get it." Reid groaned, not aware that who entered the room were his coworkers.

"Huh?" Rossi replied, sitting down in chair at the center table.

Reid recognized the voice.

"Rossi? Oh, sorry. I thought you were someone else." Reid smiled, looking back down at his map.

"Who'd you think I was?" He asked, now curious.

"Just some of the police officers." Reid answered casually, leaning farther into his map. Without his glasses he couldn't make out any of the maps features. He was no more than an inch away from it now.

"Why would they laugh at you?" Morgan asked, having taken his seat a while ago.

"It was nothing. I just tripped when I was walking back from getting some coffee." Reid said, his blush spreading on his face again.

Morgan chuckled slightly, all in good fun, but still laughed.
"Did you spill anything?" He asked with a smile.

"No." Reid replied, "I didn't even get any because I could find anything!" He swiped his map off the table, partially out of rage, partially out of annoyance that he couldn't focus on it, and partially out of embarrassment from having fallen earlier.

"Woah, calm down, Bambi." Rossi smiled nervously.

"Reid-Reid, what's gotten into you?" Morgan asked, calming him with his hands on his shoulders, and eventually retrieving the map from the ground.

"I just get...frustrated, when I can't do things." Reid confessed, putting his head in his hands and sighing.

"That's fine, but you can't let it out as anger, man." Morgan said, standing next to him as he gave this advice.

"If you need help with stuff, just tell us and we'll help." Rossi chimed in.

"But some things only I can do." Reid sparked up some more anger. "Like geo-profiles."

"But that's why we need you, Reid. Only you can do this kind of stuff. Without you, we'd be lost on every case." Morgan ruffed his hair.

Reid smiled weakly, and left it at that. He just hoped he wouldn't trip in the middle of the precinct again.