The team were at the local bar on their second round of drinks after returning from a long case in South Carolina. Despite spending the last ten days in close confinement with each other, there wasn't anywhere that any of the team would rather be than together. They needed each other, it was as simple as that. It was nice to see the team being able to relax and just hang out, share jokes and make each other laugh. God knows this job wasn't exactly laugh-a-minute.
Emily returned to the table with the third round of drinks and handed them out. Hotch was distracted by his phone and didn't take the bottle from Emily until she huffed at him in frustration.
"You better be looking at porn if you're going to ignore me." Hotch rolled his eyes at her.
"No Emily, returning some emails that's all."
"Because they couldn't possibly wait until the morning could they?" She didn't expect a reply, so turned away and started a conversation with Spencer about the new series of The Big Bang Theory on tv. She could understand why he liked watching it, she had guessed that in some ways he related to the character of Sheldon; a genius among the humans.
Every so often Emily would look over at Hotch who seemed to be permanently attached to his phone, if it wasn't emails it was phone calls or texts. That piece of plastic technology was definitely going to just give out from exhaustion one day. Emily even guessed that when that happened Hotch would probably demand giving it a proper send off for its service. The combination of alcohol and her own mischievous mind can up with a plot to rid Hotch of his phone adoration, and it would be hilarious. She laughed out loud to herself, which made the others look at her like she was insane.
She needed to firstly get his phone away from him and out of his reach to be able to do this. An impossible task in itself. Emily watched him and his damn phone, just waiting for him to put it down. Finally he put it in his pocket. She got up from the table, saying she was just going to the bathroom, although 'accidentally' falling into Hotch, he grabbed her arm to steady her while she sneakily pulled his phone from his pocket and hid it behind her back. Emily practically ran to the bathroom knowing she wouldn't have much time to do this before he noticed it was missing.
She locked herself into a stall and flicked through the phone until she found the call settings. 'After this he won't want to be anywhere near his phone.' She decided to give everyone on his speed dial a personalised ring tone, which meant Jack, the team members and Strauss. He has Strauss on speed dial does he? Creepy. She quickly took out her own iphone to send the new songs from.
Jack – The theme tune to Dora the Explorer. Emily hoped that he would never find out that she used her playlist for this, no one should know she listened to this. She liked it on the way to work, it made it feel like an adventure. 'Yep, no one should find this. Ever.'
Emily – It surprised her that she was next after Jack, and listed as 'Emily' and not 'Prentiss', she smiled at that. For herself she chose 'I love you like a love song' by Selena Gomez, no harm in leaving a hint while she was at it, is there?
Dave – 'The bad touch' by the Bloodhound Gang seemed to suit Dave to a tee, and that song would be more than enough to get Hotch's cheeks red hot.
JJ – Emily went with the upbeat sound of Geri Halliwell's cover of 'It's raining men'.
Garcia – Ah the classic 'Barbie Girl' by Aqua was more than perfect for the bubbly tech wizard.
Morgan – Due to the release of the Mamma Mia film, Emily had the entire soundtrack and chose to put it to a good use other than shower sing-a-longs, and went with 'Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight.'
Reid – This game was in dire need of some Britney Spears, so for Spencer she chose 'No t yet a woman'
Strauss – 'Guilty Pleasure' by Cobra Starship. 'This would certainly raise some eyebrows'
Emily was pleased with her choices and was pretty sure that any of them would be enough to send Hotch running from his phone. She returned to the table and carefully slid Hotch's phone back into his jacket pocket and sat back to enjoy the rest of the night.
The next day at work.
They were all sitting in the conference room putting together a profile to give over the phone later that day, since it was a low risk series of killings, their presence was not needed at the scene. Emily was annoyed, he hadn't received a call on his cell all morning. 'Come on, just give me one call.' Emily took her own phone out and texted Dave who was sitting opposite her; 'Call Hotch's cell.' He raised his eyebrow at her, she nodded at him. Emily couldn't help the huge grin that appeared on her face when the lyrics to 'Bad Touch' started. The whole team looked around to where the song could be coming from, they were all aware of each other's ringtones by now, so were very confused when they heard the song. Dave chuckled and gave Emily a nod of approval. Reid was starting to blush at the song's lyrics, they were a bit too raunchy for his liking.
"Everyone check your cellphones." Morgan said. They all took their phones out of their pockets and put them on the table in view of everyone.
"What the hell?" Hotch said in shock as he saw that Dave was calling him despite sitting right in front of him. "I don't understand. I didn't..." Hotch's face was a mixture of confusion and embarrassment. When the others saw that the noise was coming from Hotch's phone they couldn't help but laugh. The man was more strict and straight-edge than most and he had that as a ringtone! Hotch ended the incoming call and put his phone down on the table. "I have no idea how that happened. Please can we get back to work." He was trying so hard to end his embarrassment, he even gave Morgan a Hotchner-glare to make him stop laughing. However, the ringtone had peaked everyone's interest.
Morgan so badly wanted to hear that song again, he had never seen Hotch so embarrassed in all the years working with him. This was brilliant! He reached for his phone and hit the speed dial for his boss. Expecting to hear the same song again, he was more than surprised that a new one was heard. The sound of ABBA was echoing around the room as Hotch sat glaring at his phone again.
"Uh boss, you wanna get that?" Morgan said waving his phone at Hotch. Everyone started laughing again. Emily was holding her stomach as laughing at Hotch was actually starting to hurt, she hadn't had this much fun in a while. 'I hope he doesn't find out it was me, he will kill me or worse transfer me to Alaska'.
"Oh god." Again Hotch switched off the incoming call. He tried to hide his face by looking down at the table. "I swear I don't use these ringtones."
This time it was JJ who called Hotch. 'It's raining men' started playing and everyone just laughed harder.
"Something you're trying to tell us Aaron?" Dave managed to get out between laughs. These tunes were making Hotch seem very gay.
"Very funny Dave. Guys come on, please stop calling me." Hotch pleaded with his laughing team. Yep, they were a lost cause.
JJ stopped the call from her phone then grabbed Reid's phone from next to her and dialled Hotch. "Let's see what you use for Spence here." As Britney Spears started to play, Hotch slowly tried to edge his phone away from him on the table. He didn't even want to touch the offending object. This move made JJ practically fall off her chair from shaking laughter.
"This is far too good to be true" Garcia commented, she had been utterly unable to speak before, this was the best prank ever! She was only sorry that she hadn't done it herself. She got hold of her own cell and pressed 'Boss-man' as soon as JJ hung up from Reid's. Garcia and JJ both squealed when they realised it was 'Barbie girl'. Garcia stood up and pulled Derek up with her, then they went on to sing duet along with the ringtone. They were pretty good.
"This isn't the first time you two have done that is it?" JJ asked, although already guessing that Pen had made Derek do that on a weekly basis,' for funsies', as Garcie called it.
"Great, now my team are doing karaoke." Hotch deadpanned, although they could all see the amusement in his eyes as he watched his team acting silly. It was moments like this that made Hotch realize that the team was a family. "Have you quite finished? And can one of you please fix my phone?" He asked sheepishly, he hated to admit to his less than brilliant technology skills.
"Yeah we're done man."
"No wait! We haven't done Em's phone." Garcia tried to reach over and grab her phone, but Emily was too quick for her and hid her phone under the table.
"Guys, I think he's been humiliated enough for one day. It isn't important." Emily was now regretting this particular song choice. All of the others had been plain funny, but this one she now realised would not be given the same reaction as the others. 'Oh crap. They can't hear this one.' They would know the whole thing was down to her, the girls and Dave at the very least were aware of Emily's more than friendly feelings towards their boss, they would all know she changed the songs, and Hotch would kill her.
"Go ahead, I think I can take one more song." Hotch said, surprising everyone. This is the playful Hotch that she liked to see.
"No it's fine, I think we're over it now. Anyway, I'm just gonna go to the ladies room." Emily stood up to leave, hoping to just avoid the whole situation entirely. Morgan and JJ were looking at her suspiciously. JJ seemed to guess then that it was Emily who had changed the songs and that hers would give it away, she smirked at her knowingly. 'Damn you JJ!' Before she knew what was happening Hotch had got out of his seat and grabbed her arm to stop her leaving the room and then quickly stole the phone from out of her hand. Emily froze, there was no getting out of it now.
"Something by Electric Six perhaps?" Hotch was actually smiling as he held up her phone with the hand that wasn't on her and hit 1 and call. Emily had stopped breathing, she just hung her head and stared intently at her shoes.
'I, I love you like a love song baby, I, I love you like a love song baby, and I keep repeating it..'
And there it was. JJ and Garcia burst into fits of giggles, Dave and Derek just snickered at Emily's choice of song while Reid just looked confused.
"Hmm, that one I may keep." Hotch said, which shut everyone up. Emily's head shot up at that and stared at him point blank.
"I didn't realise you were a fan of Selena Gomez Aaron" she smirked at him. 'He can't be serious'
"I didn't realise you knew of her at all Em" 'Crap, cover blown'
"You know it was me then?"
"Only you would dare to mess with my phone" The team were staring intently at the pair. "I'm sorry I ignored you"
"Well, now you know not to do it again" Emily blushed at the fact that he could pinpoint exactly why she had done it in the first place. Hotch handed her phone back to her and turned to the team.
"Okays guys, why don't you take lunch now, we can come back to this later, I see you're all too distracted to focus on crime scene photos right now." They all guessed that he wanted to speak to Emily alone...well alone with the team pressing their ears up against the door from the other side. Emily was worried now, he wanted her alone? Great, now he was going to shout at her, this was going to be bad. When the door finally closed behind Reid, Hotch put his arms around Emily's waist and pulled her to him, he saw the surprised look on her face and chuckled. "Emily, I'm not mad at you so you can stop looking so scared. What I wanted to say without everyone watching was that, I love you too."
"You do?"
"More than anything." He then leant down and kissed her, it was sweet and loving. She slid her arms up around his neck and kissed him back. They could have stayed like that forever.
"Can we come in now?" Garcia shouted through the door which made the couple finally break apart.
"You know what, let's all go and try that Italian place down the street, I'm in a good mood so lunch is on me." Hotch told the team, who were all now very happy, but he knew that they were nowhere near as happy as he was right then. He had his Emily.
"I love you. And I'm never going to stop telling you that." Emily whispered in his ear.
He kissed her forehead. "I love you." He kissed her cheek. "I love you." He kissed her lips. "I love you."
They then followed the team out of the BAU, leaving both of their cell phones sitting on the conference table.
