Emily silently set the alarm on her cell phone and placed one earbud in her left ear. She was completely aware of tomorrow's date, and it was for that reason that she was going to force herself to get up at 11:55 PM, just to be safe.
Tomorrow's date was April 1, and although no one on the team had mentioned it, she knew that that certainly didn't mean anything.
For the agents of the BAU, April Fool's Day meant only one thing: war.
There was exactly one rule: 12:00 AM, to 11:59 PM. That's all. Not before, not after. And that resulted in one thing: twenty-four hours of constant vigilance and absolute paranoia.
So she wasn't really surprised when her alarm went off at 11:55 to see that JJ, Morgan, and Hotch were also stirring. Hotch pulled out some paperwork and began to fill it out. He rarely participated in the pranking war; he just didn't want to be pranked, and therefore he was awake as early as the others. JJ left with a mischievous smile towards the part of the jet where Blake and Reid were presumably sleeping.
With a wink, Morgan reached over to Rossi and carefully pulled out his earbuds, just a second before they emitted the whisper of a shrill alarm. Emily giggled quietly and gave Morgan a silent high five, while Hotch watched and chuckled softly. Then Emily and Morgan stepped quickly away from one another.
The only way to survive the war was to trust no one.
There was surprisingly little action on the jet that morning. By the time they landed at 3:00 AM, only one prank had occurred.
Rossi was now sporting a large, Sharpie-drawn handlebar mustache complete with a matching unibrow.
Which, JJ happily reported when they returned to the office at 8:00 for the work day, Rossi hadn't noticed until Henry had questioned him.
"So then," JJ said, giggling slightly, "Dave stomped off to the bathroom to try to get it off, and I explained to Henry what April Fool's Day is."
"What'd he say?" Morgan asked, his feet propped up on the table as he sipped his Starbucks latte.
"Nothing! He just gave us this evil giggle and ran upstairs. I have no idea what he thinks he's going to do."
"Aww, my little G-man wants to get in on the April Fool's day drama!" Garcia said happily, entering with a tray full of steaming Styrofoam cups of coffee. She placed it down on the table in the middle of all of the agents, and they each reached forward and grabbed the one with their specific order written on the side.
They all sipped at about the same time. And then, they all spit their coffee - or whatever it was that was actually in their cups - out at the same time, spraying their almost completed paperwork with purplish brownish liquid that smelled exactly like coffee.
Garcia, in the meantime, was rolling on the floor laughing.
Literally.
"Oh my God!"
"I'm gonna be sick -"
"What the actual fuck is that?!"
"BABY GIRL I AM GOING TO KILL YOU."
JJ had her fingers tightly pinching her nose shut and her tongue hanging out of her mouth, Morgan was scraping his tongue with his fingernails, and Emily was doubled over, gaging. The look on Reid's face was absolutely priceless - or it would've been, had anyone actually been watching.
Just then, Rossi, Blake and Hotch entered the Round Table room. They exchanged confused glances - which made Garcia laugh harder, because Rossi still had a moustache drawn on his face - and when Hotch reached for his cup on the table, Emily felt obligated to scream, "IT'S NOT COFFEE!"
Hotch gave her a grateful look.
"That," Rossi said, "Explains a lot."
After splitting up the files, they all headed back to their desks.
Emily and JJ giggled and Rossi sat down and his chair made a farting noise.
"A whoopi cushion?" he said, raising his eyebrows doubtfully. "Really? What is this, first grade?"
He tossed it into the trash can beside his desk.
"What the... hell..." Morgan said slowly and confusedly as he sat down at his desk.
His desk was covered in doilies, large vases of flowers, and an insanely large amount of pink items. Even his chair was replaced with a pink lace one.
"Morgan, your grandma called and she wants her chair back," Rossi called tauntingly.
"David Rossi, you son of a -"
Rossi left with a wink.
"Oh ho-ho, the famous David Rossi has got me..." Morgan mumbled creepily to himself, sliding opened his desk drawer to grab a pen. "Not today, sir, oh no, not today..."
JJ and Blake exchanged concerned looks.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Morgan shouted suddenly. Emily jumped and dropped her pen, and Reid nearly fell off of his chair.
"What the hell -" JJ snapped, startled, turning to Morgan.
Morgan was holding a flowery pink pen in his hand, and a cloud of glitter was settling around him.
Emily giggled, and Morgan gave her a look that could kill.
Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream echoed throughout the bullpen from the direction of Garcia's office.
JJ and Emily turned to one another and smirked.
"What did y'all do to my baby girl?" Morgan asked accusingly.
"WHO DARES DISRESPECT THE ORACLE OF KNOWLEDGE BY WRAPPING HER LAIR IN THIS EVIL SILVER STUFF?!" she shrieked, coming towards them as fast as her hot pink pumps would carry her, with a ball of tinfoil clenched in her left hand.
Morgan, JJ, Emily, Blake and Reid all looked at one another. To the profilers, it was quite obvious that Emily and JJ were guilty, but Garcia couldn't tell. She simply glared at each person for about ten seconds, waiting for someone to crack.
Eventually, Morgan sighed, rolling his eyes. "Alright, mama, let's go get your office de-tinfoiled."
"It was you?! Derek Morgan, how could you?!"
"What? No, no, sweetness, it wasn't me -"
"Clean it up!" she shouted, grabbing his ear and dragging him back towards her lair.
As soon as they were out of sight, Emily and JJ burst out laughing, and Blake chuckled quietly, shaking her head at them. Reid sat, smirking a little while reading his report.
Two hours later, the BAU gathered together around the little table in the cafeteria that they frequented when they were at headquarters and when their paperwork wasn't too overwhelming - which wasn't very often.
The table was a small circle that they somehow managed to squeeze eight chairs around, elbows bumping as left handed people and right handed people ate beside one another, knees knocking together underneath the table as they crossed and uncrossed and stretched their legs, the fragrances of various different take-out food items mixing, causing Emily's nose to wrinkle as her stomach turned.
Everyone talked and laughed happily, only slightly on guard, since lunch on April Fools' Day was usually relatively uneventful.
The real drama came afterwards.
For now, Blake was scribbling happily on a crossword puzzle, Garcia was flirting with Morgan, JJ was arguing with Rossi, Reid was spewing facts to Hotch, who was staring at Emily, who was quietly eating her usual lunch of pineapple and Mentos.
Just like any regular day.
"God damn - JJ, is this your idea of some type of a sick joke? This isn't funny!"
Rossi sat with a raw egg cracked open and oozing everywhere.
JJ was doubled over laughing. "Oh my God! It wasn't me! I think I know who it was, though! Remember Henry this morning?"
"You're telling me your sweet, innocent five-year-old is capable of this type of sick joke?" Rossi accused doubtfully. "This is twisted! He would never think of this!"
"Oh, yeah? Guess who asked Mommy if he could help make 'Davey's lunch' this morning? I've raised a monster!"
The walk back to the office are later was silent. After lunch was danger time - each of the agents had crept off at some point during their lunch break, and their absences hadn't gone unnoticed.
Emily and JJ reached the door first, and like a gentleman, Morgan leaned forward to open it for them.
He quickly withdrew his hand. "Aww, God!" he said, disgusted as he wiped his hands on his jeans. "What is that?"
Emily reached forward and touched the doorknob, and then looked at her fingertips. She rolled her eyes. "It's just lotion, Morgan. Calm your tits." She rubbed the lotion in.
"Ooh," JJ squealed excitedly. "Is that cucumber melon?" She took a large amount of the lotion off of the doorknob and rubbed it on her hands. Realizing there was too much there, she leaned forward towards Morgan, and wiped it all on his jacket.
"Aww, come on, JJ!" he said, quickly trying to wipe it off. "Now I smell like a woman!"
Reid sniffed exaggeratedly. "Wow, Morgan, I think that's a definite improvement," he smirked.
"Oh-ho," Garcia laughed, slapping hands with Reid, and earning a glare from Morgan.
Once enough lotion was removed from the door handle to allow it to open, the team filed in to their respective desks and sat down to work on more case reports.
Emily opened her desk drawer and sighed. "Really, JJ?"
"Hmm what?" JJ asked, looking up with an expression of false innocence.
"Don't play dumb, I know you're in the middle of re watching The Office," she accused as she pulled her stapler out of the drawer. It was in a mound of Jell-O.
Morgan looked up. "Damn, Jayje, that actually works and you didn't tell me?"
Three minutes later, Hotch came back down the stairs into the main room of the building.
"Okay, where'd you guys put it?" he asked, barely stifling a smile.
"Where'd we put... what?" Morgan asked, leaning back in his chair and sipping his coffee.
"Seriously, guys. Who has it?"
"Who has what, Hotch?" JJ asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
Hotch gave them an are-you-kidding-me-look.
"Okay, does anyone know what he's talking about?" Emily asked, turning to her fellow profilers. "Reid, Blake?"
Reid shook his head.
"No idea," said Blake as she continued to scribble on her crossword puzzle, beginning to grow more and more frustrated with it.
"SON OF A BITCH," suddenly echoed throughout the bullpen, causing them all to jump, and Reid to drop his pencil.
Morgan instantly began to chuckle.
"What'd you-" Hotch began, but by that point, Rossi was already storming into the room from the men's bathroom.
"Brutto figlio di puttana! Che cazzo? Si pensa che questo sia divertente? Non è! Questo è così sbagliato!" Rossi was screeching in Italian. "Tu sei un stronzo!" he yelled, jabbing a finger in Morgan's direction.
Morgan looked slightly frightened, having no idea what Rossi was saying.
Emily and Blake, who were fluent in Italian, doubled over laughing.
Rossi took a sudden turn to the left and wasn't seen for the rest of the day.
"What'd you do?" JJ asked Morgan, tears in her blue eyes from laughter.
"I put syran wrap over the toilet," Morgan said, laughing at his own trick. "I suggest you men use a different bathroom for the rest of the day, cuz-"
"Okay, that's disgusting, but seriously," Hotch interrupted. "Who has my chair?"
"Your chair?" Emily repeated, confused. "What do you mean?"
"I mean my chair is missing and one of you took it."
The team exchanged glances. Hotch knew immediately that none of them were guilty.
"Was it Rossi?" Reid suggested.
"I doubt it," JJ said. "That's not his style."
"Maybe Garcia?"
"I'll check with her," Hotch said, "But I kind of doubt it."
Once he was gone, the agents immediately exchanged glances again.
"No one here did it?"
"No."
"Wasn't me."
"Not me."
Soon Garcia came rushing back into the room with Hotch on her tail, trailing behind her like a lost puppy.
"WHO DID THIS?" Garcia roared angrily as she stopped in the room, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at them.
"Garcia, I need my chair back-"
"Shut up!" she said dismissively. A look of shock crossed her face and she turned around to look at Hotch, who had an almost identical expression on his face. "I'm so sorry. I meant, please silence yourself, Sir."
Before Hotch could respond, she turned back towards the group. "Who sent me this?" she asked, shoving a sheet of paper towards them.
It was a picture of her favorite Dr. Who mug shaped like a tardis, with a note that read, "I have a hostage."
"I've never seen that before in my life."
"Wasn't me."
"I bet it was Kevin," Morgan suggested, turning back to his report.
"Oh, yeah. Probably."
"Totes was Kevin."
"KEVIN LYNCH YOU WILL FEEL MY WRATH!" Garcia shrieked, running towards the FBI elevator to get to the floor where Kevin worked.
After a moment of ringing silence, Hotch looked back towards the team. "I need a chair."
"Take Rossi's," Blake suggested absentmindedly.
Hotch stared at it for a minute, picked it up, and carried it back to his office.
When Hotch sat down on the chair, he took a moment to be grateful that no one from his team had been there to hear the Whoopi cushion.
An hour later, Cruz walked into their office area. Each agent immediately straightened up, and Morgan attempted to sweep some of the glitter that was still on his desk into the drawer.
They all saw Cruz raise a skeptical eyebrow at Morgan's feminine desk, but he didn't comment on it.
"Sorry to bother you, agents," he began, "But my printer ran out of paper and there isn't any more in the supply closet. Do you mind?"
"We wouldn't," Morgan said. "But there isn't any in ours either. We've all been printing to Anderson's office."
"Alright, thanks," he said, walking down the hallway towards Anderson's office.
The clock dinged announcing that it was five o'clock, time to go home. The agents packed up their purses and briefcases and pulled on their jackets. They were all getting onto the elevator when they heard the splash.
"Oh, no," Morgan said as they heard Cruz's responding enraged cry.
"What did you do?" JJ asked, her blue eyes wide in horror.
"Get in the elevator," Morgan said quickly, pushing Blake in, and then pushing JJ in. He herded Reid and Emily in as they heard footsteps squishing towards them from the direction of Rossi's office.
"Close the door," Morgan instructed no one frantically.
"It'll close, give it a -"
"CLOSE THE DOOR," he said, slapping the close button repeatedly and frantically.
The door slid shut, and the agents fell silent.
"What was that about?" Emily asked, confused.
"I put a bucket of water over Rossi's office door," said Morgan, his expression of horror slowly being replaced by one of amusement. "Anderson must've run out of paper, and sent Cruz to Rossi's."
"You dumped a bucket of water onto our Section Chief?" Hotch asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I was trying to dump it on Rossi!" Morgan said defensively.
"Okay, guys... I think this got a little out of hand this year. Let's tone it down a bit for next year, alright?"
"Alright, Hotch," they all agreed.
When they got out of the building and into the parking lot, the first thing they saw was Garcia standing there in the cold, simply staring at the top of the building.
"Penelope Garcia, what are you -" Morgan began, following her gaze. "Oh, damn."
The team turned to stare at the twelve story high roof, where Hotch's chair sat in all its swiveling glory.
"Hotch, man," Morgan began, turning to Hotch.
"You know what?" Hotch said calmly. "I don't even care. Goodnight." He got in his car and drove away as the rest of the agents watched in amusement.