A/N

A stream-of-consciousness type of fic from the perspective of a very confident (but not very consistent) BAU "employee". Based on a prompt I found on creativewritingprompts . com a while ago, which apparently had percolated enough today.

I have worked at the BAU for almost four years, and it's definitely not a job for the weak or lazy, I can tell you that. I have one of the most important jobs of the entire Bureau. It's almost a 24/7 job and you're always on standby in case something comes up, but hey, it's great to be needed, right?

So what do I do, you wonder?

I, my dear friends, am the coffeemaker.

No, I'm not a person making coffee. I am the actual machine making coffee.

See, I told you my job was of outmost importance. I swear these people run on coffee the way cars run on gasoline. Or diesel. Or electricity, whatever floats your boat. Heh. Runs your car, I mean. Anyway. Some coffeemakers in my position would be jealous of the fancy takeout coffee some of these people bring with them in the morning, but I know that before lunchtime they've already come crawling to me at least twice for more. They can complain all they want about the quality of my drinks; the truth is they can't go without me for one day.

Only today they'll have to, muhahahaha!

Okay, it's not on purpose. I had a short-circuit incident last night and now I can't seem to power up that ol' brewing magic to please the needy and the greedy. It's going to be interesting to see which one of them loses their temper first, though. I'll think of it as a psychological evaluation. What? If I can't do the job I'm here for, I need to do something else to keep me occupied until someone fixes me.

So, who would be the most likely? One of the more extreme coffee drinkers I'd say, but which one?

On one cup I'd say Reid. He was so happy when I was new, praising me constantly for being so much faster than my predecessor. Of course, he's not as vocal about my superiority nowadays, but I know he loves me dearly, and I know the free coffee is one of his favourite things about the job. But I have to admit, as crazy as he'll be when he finds I'm on involuntary vacation, he probably won't throw a hissy fit over it.

On the other cup, Blake is such a coffee addict I sometimes wonder if she sneaks extra caffeine pills into her cup instead of sugar to get a quicker fix. That woman is practically vibrating sometime in the early afternoon. The agent she replaced, Prentiss, was the same for quite a while, but then she quit coffee and started drinking tea at work instead. Tea, huh? Guess she was preparing for her move to England. Tea… oh, beans, that is one smug beverage. Acting all innocent like it never had anyone hooked or caused riots, and it thinks it's so refined and sophisticated. Pah!

Speaking of tea, Garcia tends to prefer that vile drink over what I have to offer. Not all the time, she's seeking out my contributions at least a few times a day as well, but not with the frequency and – dare I say it – frenzy, that the others demonstrate. So she's an unlikely candidate for the great Coffee Deprivation Tantrum that we are expecting as today's big show. That I am expecting. Excuse me. Sometimes I'm so overwhelmed by my own importance that I speak of myself in majestic plural.

JJ isn't all that big on coffee either. More so than Garcia, but she's nowhere near displaying the madness that the good doctors Reid and Blake would if robbed of her coffee. A bit grouchy, but I doubt she'd even admit that's due to lack of coffee.

Ah, Morgan. No. He gets his morning coffee to go from one of those Starbucks places – did I say tea is smug? Oh, that is nothing compared to Starbucks coffee! I hate that stuff, always looking down on my creations as if it's dirt… But I digress. Morgan likes his fancy label bean juice and only comes to me when he's desperate. But guess what? Today he can be as desperate as he wants! He he he…

But neeeh. He might give me a smack hoping that'll do the trick, but he probably won't throw a fit if I still refuse to work.

Hotch? Hm. He is a dedicated coffee drinker, and he is a perfectionist who is not going to like it when there's a glitch in the smooth running of this place (as if the days here are ever smooth running, but you know, everything's relative…), but he is also extremely in control. Sometimes I wish I could add a splash of scotch to his beverage and see if he'd loosen up a bit. Heh, scotch for Hotch. I'm a poet and I don't know it.

Rossi? He can have quite the temper sometimes, but he's also much like Morgan in that I'm not quite fancy enough to please his palate. What can you expect from a man in handmade shoes, though? He'd probably just go and get himself a nice, hot, snooty cup of coffee from the Italian café down on the corner, where he usually gets it.

So maybe I'm wrong. That would be a first. Maybe I've been too confident about my importance. What if they don't even notice that I'm here, completely not functioning? That would be the greatest insult of all time. That would be…

Oh, hello there, Spencer Reid! Pushing my buttons, are you? Well, let's see what you say when I stand here not processing your request.

Someone's not happy…!

Ouch, those are harsh words, my good man. Quite harsh words. It's not like I can respond with any well-constructed insults on my own, but if I could...

Ah, look, here's Mrs Coffee Addict, right on cue. Good luck getting a different outcome, ma'am.

Holy crap. I didn't think linguistics professors used that kind of language.

…

But COME ON guys! I am an inanimate object, don't expect me to work just because you shout at me! Besides, if you give me that attitude, I wouldn't even if I could...

… wait.

Oh. It wasn't a short-circuit, someone just forgot to plug me in.

I bet you feel really stupid now, huh?

Well, I guess it's back to work then. But I'm going to make the first pot so watered-down it's undrinkable. I think that's a fair punishment.

I am, after all, of outmost importance.