It's frustrating, Morgan imagines, being so incredibly smart and having such a detrimental communication system. Reid's hands are a flurry of movement and symbols, trying desperately to explain his logic both quickly and concisely.

It's a challenge to say the least. But they all learned more quickly than he had expected, striving for clear communication. It's not always very clear, but it always gets through somehow.

It was worse in the beginning; Reid had joined the team and only Hotch had any experience in understanding sign language, everyone else just had their overeager agreeableness. But they all learned and, for the most part, can comprehend all the motions and signs that Reid works into his speeches.

Still, Reid gets excited and becomes a whirlwind of hand gestures and words that Morgan isn't entirely sure are real, and it seems that he's best suited to figuring out what the genius is saying. They tease him and say that Morgan knows half the things Reid is thinking just by the look on his face. The funny thing is, though, that they're not exactly wrong.

"Pardon?"

Reid signs the phrase again, slowly and impatiently, obviously having spent awhile going over this. JJ's brow furrows as she tries to puzzle out the practiced movements to little avail.

As Morgan goes to walk by Reid grabs his wrist before signing to him fast and sloppy, running a hand through his hair when he's done. "He wants you to pull the paperwork from the last case, he says something's not sitting right."

JJ nods her head, first at Morgan and then at Reid. "Of course, I'll have it to you this evening."

Reid smiles at her with a quick thank you, pushes his hand into Morgan's shoulder and signs something that has the older profiler lightly nudge the genius, "Sure thing, Pretty Boy." before they both leave; Reid to his desk and Morgan to their small staff room. Sure, Reid's managed to find family in all of the team, even as they lose and gain new members, but Morgan is something special, at least, he likes to think he is.

For someone with an apparent lack of vocal ability, Reid is impossibly loud. He goes on signing tangents that all consist of "do you know"'s and "actually it's…"'s. Morgan is trying to finish up some last minute paperwork from their last case and Reid is there, signing away from the corner of Morgan's desk like it's nothing.

It would take more concentration than Morgan has to spare right now to fully understand what Reid's on about when he's this excited, but it's something to do with part of the original Star Trek cast coming to Quantico's comic book convention and, while Reid doesn't get excited over a lot of his extracurricular activities, Star Trek is something he's always held dear.

"Sounds fun, man. You going?"

Reid gets silent and Morgan understands. They can plan whatever they'd like and whenever they'd like to, but the wicked never seem to rest and, thus, they can't afford to either.

"Hey, if we can, I'll go with you to see them, okay?"

The desk jerks at Reid's sudden movement, but the younger man is smiling, his face lit up like Christmas came early because no one willingly wants to go to conventions with him, and Morgan can't bring himself to mind the unprofessional pen line through his paperwork or that he's written maybe half a sentence in the last five minutes, there's a warmth in his chest that settles itself deeper at Reid's smile.

The warmth stays there for the rest of the day and helps lull him to sleep at night and Morgan thinks that he would love to have Reid look at him like that for the rest of his life and then thinks –

Oh

It kind of makes his chest ache and he swears he's the dumbest profiler on the planet, but he chooses to ignore it for now.

It's been a long week. It's been a long couple of weeks. Morgan doesn't know what's gotten into the world but it's been such a long while that he can't be sure when it even started, but it's been back to back cases in the immediate past and it seems like it's going to carry on over to the immediate future and the team is tired.

They go out to eat, even after spending so much time together they need free time with the only other people who understand their position understand that they're sluggish not because their work has physically exhausted them, but has been wearing on them mentally.

Hotch picked out a nice restaurant and the company is picking up the tab, so they all sit down and are idly chatting about anything other than the news or their recent slew of cases; Prentiss is asking him something about his favourite Vonnegut book and it's taking all of his concentration to hear her over the din of the crowded restaurant.

The waitress comes around and everyone only half stops their conversation to order. Reid signs something to JJ who, Morgan is sure hasn't slept in the last 48 hours, and she's half asking Reid and half telling the waitress the food items he wants. It's all wrong, but Reid has a soft spot for JJ and has always been too nice to correct someone about something so trivial.

Morgan cuts in, explains his order properly and turns back to Prentiss to ask her opinions on Time Quake and Vonnegut's usage of Kilgore Trout. He has trouble getting through his next sentence when he feels Reid's hand come to rest on his knee and give it a light squeeze in thanks.

Reid is smiling, happy, ridiculously pleased that Morgan would, could, with so little effort, understand, translate, and convey everything he wanted to say with such ease. And Morgan can't find anything better to respond with than to grasp Reid's hand with his own and squeeze it in response.

They're on a case, and if that's not the single most frustrating thing in Reid's life Morgan isn't sure what is; no one takes him seriously, firstly because of his age, and secondly because Reid carries around a tablet or notepad to communicate with the locals. It's something that often upsets the local police department, but Reid hurriedly scratches out explanations when no one else can and it's the most effective way he can communicate to anyone outside of the team. They still thinks it makes him under qualified.

So when they're out of Quantico Morgan takes it upon himself to be Reid's translator, twisting Reid's obscure terms and fast explanations into something that doesn't require further confused conversation, even if it does get Reid to furrow his brow in the way that says No, I meant moot. Moot is the more correct term.

Sometimes, however, it earns Morgan a soft smile, one that Morgan has learned, comes from the older profiler having learned something from Reid, science or literary terms or even the way Reid demonstrates certain codes. These times make it worth knowing that the little swirly thing Reid does with his forefingers means he's talking about String Theory and that, when talking about differences in writing, Reid changes the fluidity of his hands to physically get the variances across.

Not everyone is as accepting as the team and Morgan tries to protect Reid from the ignorance of small towns as well as the harm from unsubs. Reid does the same, trying to protect the team intellectually instead of physically. Neither way works 100% of the time.

By the time they get Reid out of the house with the unsub and his latest victim, he's covered in blood. "You okay?" Reid nods, the police blanket around his shoulders make him look small and fragile though Morgan knows the look in the kid's face and can tell that it's anger at himself that's making him quiet.

"There was nothing you could have done." The look Reid gives him is not an impressed one. "You saved a lot of people."

I couldn't save her.

Morgan doesn't respond, they both know that you can't always save them. Instead he wraps an arm around the genius. "Time to get you cleaned up."

The truth is if it had been anyone else that had wandered into the secluded back house they would have been dead, the traps in the secret basement all being riddles using the theories of a rather new and relatively obscure scientist the unsub was trying to frame. Reid won't forgive himself for being too late to save Gail O'Neil's life but Morgan's just glad he made it out alive.

Reid gives the arm around his shoulders a look before turning it onto Morgan himself. He doesn't say anything, neither of them do, but they've always been good like that; Reid always in his head, reading his thoughts, and Morgan, always there to understand and say what Reid can't get across. Morgan muses, sometime later when the team is sleeping on the plane back home, that he's kind of awful at communicating and is lucky enough to have found a friend who doesn't mind. It works for them, and that's enough.

Morgan has a horrible migraine and he's not sure if has to do with the recent pressure change or the amount of work they've been doing recently, but there is not enough medication or coffee in his system yet to deal with the way Reid is throwing about scientific terms at him.

"Great." Morgan supplies when necessary, trying to sound encouraging as he fixes himself his second coffee of the day.

He gets entranced, as the pot percolates, by Reid's hands and how he never quite noticed how graceful they are when he talks, all precise movements and elegant fingers. Morgan is a little put out when they stop moving, only to find that it's because he's grabbed them, Reid looking at him a little concerned, but also put out that he didn't get to finish the explanation why this scientist's work is groundbreaking.

And Morgan decides he can do nothing but kiss the genius. They've both known that it was bound to happen, but it seems to make Reid freeze in place anyway and maybe Morgan was wrong, maybe this wasn't where the apex of this tension was, but then he responds, pushing a hand into Morgan's chest and signing three quick words that make both of them stop, Reid refusing eye contact.

"Of course," Morgan responds, smiling broadly. "me too."

A/N: Happy Easter, all!

-R