Title: Chinese Food
Author: LikeFlames
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own ^_^
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: None - GEN
Rating: FRC
Warnings: none
Summary: Reid goes to dinner with the rest of the team and decides he can't use his chopsticks..but for good reason.

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Spencer Reid had always, always been the 'genius'. Even in elementary school the teachers could tell. In middle school he was shunned. In high school he was beaten. College...well, college wasn't as bad as the others most of the time. But here, now, he had found people that accepted him in a way no other group had before in his entire life. And he didn't want to screw something as amazing as that - this - up.

In middle school, for one week, he had found something like this. But with one too many of his useless facts, even the people who had tried to understand him refused to look at him as they passed in the hall. Refused to sit with him at lunch. Stopped meeting his eyes.

In high school he had friends for exactly 2.43 classes. The group of four had the same first three periods as he had, and by the middle of the third, they hated him as well. One too many raised hands. One too many answers he shouldn't have known at his age. One too many of his startling displays of knowledge, and one hour after he'd had his first black eye. And his first broken bone.

In college all he had to do was keep his head down and not make eye contact with anyone, anyone. It was hard, but a handful of years, a beating or two, and three Ph.D.'s later, he was out. And now, he was here.

At the BAU. With people that treated him like a human being. A brother. Even a friend. He wouldn't make the same mistake.

He remembered where it had gone wrong in detail, even so many years ago. Eidetic memory, you know. He'd pinpointed it down to a single moment in each of his schools. Each of his lives. Why put extra pressure on the bonds with the first friends he'd ever kept more than ninety nine hours and thirty two minutes?

So, for once, Spencer Reid lied. Spencer Reid pretended that he could not do something, something well within his realm of knowledge. Spencer Reid, boy genius, swore that he could not use chopsticks.

Honestly, he was a little shocked when the team accepted this admission so readily. He was stunned that they wanted so badly to believe that he wasn't perfect. But he was okay with that, because they joked about it for a minute or two, and then let it drop. They stopped. They'd even convinced the waitress, with some stunning charades on behalf of Hotch and Morgan and Elle, to bring him a fork. And it was stupid, and he knew it, and he told himself that, but as he looked down at the metal utensil in his hand and listened to the friendly conversation all around him, he kind of wanted to cry a little. But he didn't. Instead, he just picked up his fork and ate his Lo Mein in the peace and...(perfect) not-so-quiet.

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