Coffee, Tea // Spencer Reid

Chapter 13 - Smiles and Chopsticks

Spencer

Lilith was crying of laughter as she saw the doctor struggling with his chopsticks. She wiped away a tear, and asked,

"Do you not know how to use them?"

"Don't judge me! I have an IQ of 187 and I still have no clue how to work with these things." He pouted, repressing a laugh.

Lilith softly chuckled.

"I'm not judging you, everybody needs to learn. Look, hold them like this..."

She placed a chopstick between her index and her thumb, and the other one between her thumb and her middle finger.

"So, you use this finger to action the chop- no, not like that..."

The young woman chuckled at Spencer's struggle, and approached him in the booth, so that she was next to him.

"Look..."

Lilith looked at him before touching his hand, as if she was waiting for his approval. He nodded, and she took his finger to place it at the right spot on the wooden stick.

Somehow, Spencer wasn't uncomfortable. He usually didn't appreciate coming in contact with other people, but there was something special about the softness of her touches or her patience. Lilith was never rough, and considerate about Spencer's repulsion to touch.

Seeing that he was a lost cause with chopsticks, he started saying,

"Chopsticks are usually wooden in countries of eastern Asia, such as Japan or China. One of the exceptions is South Korea, where the chopsticks are made of metal. This is actually more environmentally friendly, as around 1 billion disposable wooden chopsticks are thrashed every year in China alone."

"Are you trying to distract me from the fact that you can't use chopsticks?" Lilith grinned.

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I tend to ramble when I'm nervous."

"I like it."

"What?"

"I like it when you ramble. What you say is interesting."

Spencer felt his face burn. Nobody usually appreciated it when he spouted facts. She probably sensed his nervousness, as she changed the subject.

"Why did you decide to become a profiler? You're quite smart, so you'd be an asset in any field of work."

"It's a weird story, actually..." he paused, and saw that she was listening attentively. "Well, when I was a kid, there was a murder of a little boy in my neighbourhood. I was around 3 or 4. That case was never closed, and I think that, subconsciously, I developed a strong sense of justice because of that. Maybe all I wanted was justice for Riley."

"Riley... so that was his name. And did he ever get any justice?" She asked.

"Yeah, a few years ago I went to Vegas and cracked the case with my team. It really helped get some weight off my shoulder. But after that, I still wanted to stay in the BAU, so maybe being a profiler really was my calling."

"I believe it was. You work so hard, and you're so focused... maybe that was your destiny."

Spencer considered this.