A/N: This is my first - and probably also last - try at Prentiss/Reid. I love Reid dearly, but unfortunatelly I am not really good at writting him. I always feel like I make him sound totally stupid and out of character. This piece is written for the challenge over at the Chit Chat Corner in the Forums. I hope you like the result ... This is pure friendship.
There were a lot of things Spencer Reid was good at. Like mathematical equations. Or remembering whole pages of books and quoting them without even stopping once. Talking facts and quoting statistics. He could read books within minutes, skimming pages and remembering every word. He also was good at magic tricks, something the girls of the BAU team loved him for. In a lot of ways he was gifted, with an IQ of 187 and three doctor titles. But there were certain things he wasn't great with at all. Things like knowing when better to not say anything any longer or girls.
When it came to girls Spencer was rather … clumsy. He used to ask Morgan once or twice before, but never did any advice from Morgan get him any further. But then again it wasn't as if Morgan and Reid were similar. Morgan's tricks certainly wouldn't work with him. So he switched to Emily. She was a girl after all, and probably had a better perspective on things that Morgan. He also shared more similarities with her than Morgan.
"But isn't there like a general plan to follow?" Reid asked her once during lunch, making Emily wonder whether he ever had have a date before or asked out a girl.
"What do you mean plan? You are talking about picking up a girl, meeting them, getting into a conversation. There is no plan. Either it works and she is interested or it doesn't. If it doesn't you forget about it and move on. Never do the mistake and think you can still convince her that you are the real deal."
"The real deal?" he asked, looking at her confused.
"Ye- ... just ... back of once you get the feeling of things not going how you have it planned," Emily kept on with her advice.
"I thought there is no plan…," Reid all of a sudden argued, looking even more confused.
Emily looked at him for a moment, returning the confused expression.
"There isn't. It's just … when you approach a girl you obviously have a certain … intention."
"That I want to date her," he just answered, making Emily smile. Sometimes he was just too cute.
"Yeah, you might want to not say it like that though."
"Why not?" he responded, the confused expression not changing.
"Well, because it sounds rather … serious. Too serious if you just met someone in a bar. Someone you need to get to know a bit better. You just have a normal conversation, see how things go," Emily advised, just noticing a moment later that she was talking to Reid, someone who couldn't have normal conversations, unless they included some strange statistics and words most people would need dictionaries for understanding. "Just ... talk about interested. And buy her a drink," Emily continued, stopping for a moment before adding "And maybe don't mention you're interested in murder cases, serial killers and such things. Just … don't tell her anything job related and you should be fine."
Spencer just got up after she was finished, looking as if he still wasn't sure how to go about things. And maybe she should just be at that bar tonight, seeing how he did, because that certainly could be interesting. It was after all rather certain that one could witness Dr. Spencer Reid with something he wasn't good at. Not that this was anything bad or funny, it just made him seem a bit more normal for a moment. Not that they didn't like him just fine the way he was in his strange way and being the socially rather uncomfortable genius. Or maybe she should just go to be his support in case things went wrong. Either or she knew where she would be found tonight. And if all went wrong, they could just get drunk and laugh about it tomorrow. Or she just underestimated his skills. Or affect on girls. And he would completely surprise her, like he always did.
