Of course, it became an all-out war. This was his team after all, Hotch should have known better than to underestimate their capacity and apparent need for causing mischief. Not that he had. He was just too optimistic in their ability to remain professional. Normally he was eternally grateful that he had been blessed with agents of good critical thinking skills, sound knowledge of a variety of subjects and a willingness to go above and beyond. Just not in situations like this. All of those highly admirable qualities translated far too easily to causing inexplicable levels of chaos. As the almost admirable amount of confetti in his office currently proved. How the confetti got there, he didn't want to know. That didn't matter. What did matter was the identity of the culprit so he could punish them appropriately. And make them tidy his whole office of course. Confetti really did get everywhere after all and he didn't even want to see one scrap of it remaining. If it had the useful side-effect of removing the dust from his shelves then so be it.

Hotch knew that it wouldn't take much investigation to find the culprit. He wouldn't have to do any investigation at all actually. This was a part of a prank war which meant that the culprit would have to own up to prove their superiority. To prove his point, there was a brief knock on his door.

"Enter," he said sharply, feeling miffed that his office had been used for these shenanigans.

There really ought to be an unwritten rule that his office was off limits for prank wars. He knew Rossi's was for reasons that the man refused to explain. His door opened and it was who Hotch expected.

"Thought you might need this," Reid said with a sheepish smile holding a small, portable vacuum cleaner. Of course, Reid had one of those.

Hotch raised an eyebrow and settled a stern expression in his face. It wasn't hard, confetti wasn't fun in his mind it was just a mess. Also, he did not appreciate being involved in this prank war nonsense.

"I meant I, I will need this," Reid hastily corrected himself, deciphering Hotch's look immediately.

"Yes," Hotch said firmly, leaving no room for argument. Not that he would have gotten any from Reid. Morgan, maybe, and Prentiss, definitely, though she might not have admitted to it in the first place.

While Reid busied himself ridding his office of confetti and bits of burst balloon, Hotch returned to his reports. Strauss had dumped a load on him quite viciously earlier, probably suspecting his team had something to do with the incident earlier. She wasn't exactly wrong but she had no proof and certainly no need for all these reports. He sighed and got on with it. They would need to be done.

"So, what's happened so far?" Hotch asked as the noise of the vacuum died down when Reid had to stretch from crouching down.

The man blinked at him confusion, his more messed than usual hair adding to the slightly insane look.

"The prank war," Hotch hinted.

Reid gave him a very familiar guilty look as he tried to judge if Hotch actually wanted to know the score so far and, if so, what exactly to tell him.

"I'll take no action as long as it's tidy out there and Strauss doesn't get wind of it," Hotch assured him.

That was enough to convince Reid as he launched into his explanation.

"Clingfilm across doors, removal of chair wheels and every third book of mine turned upside down," Reid rhymed off. "Emily did that one."

Of course, she did, Morgan didn't exactly have the subtlety to do something like that and preferred bigger reactions to Reid's eye twitching. Emily seemed to take great pleasure in it. They hadn't done as much as he thought they would, though there was plenty of today left.

"Hmm," he said non-committedly and Reid returned to removing confetti.

About twenty minutes later, though Hotch was sure that Reid knew the exact time down to the second, Reid fled his office with a vacuum filled with confetti. He appeared to have got all of it but Hotch didn't trust the stuff. He'd probably be finding it in his shoes or some other such nonsense.

"I can't believe you got Hotch," Morgan said in admiration as Reid returned to the bull pen.

"You dared me," Reid pointed out in complaint.

Hotch smiled and shook his head, Reid really couldn't resist a dare. They all should really know that by now, it was one of his, rather unfortunate, weaknesses.

"And you pulled it off," Morgan cheered. "Like I knew you would."

Hotch frowned at that, he might need to have a word with the larger agent. He really shouldn't be encouraging that sort of insubordination, no matter how mildly Hotch viewed it.

"You got Hotch?" Emily's awestruck voice joined the conversation. "Seriously, you actually pulled it off, Reid?"

"Yes," Reid grumbled, obviously a bit insulted that she thought that he wouldn't.

"A balloon explosion again?" she asked knowingly.

Hotch could almost see his youngest agent's smug look. It was an effective part of Reid's prank arsenal - if he had the ability to hide it as he had to blow a water balloon up quite large for the prank to be effective. It was Hotch's own fault he got caught out by it, everyone was usually on the lookout for it when Reid was involved in a prank war (which just meant he had gotten better at hiding it - Reid could be sneaky). Not that Hotch had been expecting to be dragged into this one.

"You always do that one," Morgan complained.

"And you always replace the sugar with salt," Reid retorted.

"You always fall for it," Morgan chuckled.

Obviously, that particular prank had already been pulled.

"And the balloon also always works," Reid told him.

"Yeah, but on Hotch? Thought he'd have a sharper eye than that."

Hotch grumbled at that. He usually did, especially when he knew mischief was afoot. As stated before, he was usually left out of it but not always. It was good to be on your guard in this sort of situation away. There was no need to accidentally fall victim to a prank that wasn't intended for you.

"I needed a challenge," Reid explained.

"You got that," Morgan replied which was followed by a yelping noise as the man more than likely messed with Reid's hair.

"Does that not mean that he gets to retaliate?" JJ pointed out.

The sudden horrified silence answered that for her. Hotch allowed his lips to curve into a smirk. Oh, he hadn't thought of that.

"Hotch wouldn't do that," Morgan said unconvincingly.

"Yeah, he wouldn't stoop down to our level," Emily added in an unsure tone of her own. "It would be demeaning."

Hotch was at just the right angle to see JJ raise an eyebrow at her friends. All three of them gulped.

"I think I'm going to go hang out with Garcia," Morgan decided.

"And I'm-" Emily looked at JJ hopefully

"-not going to lock yourself in my office, " JJ warned her, folding her arms."

Good, it looked like at least one of his agents was trying to be a mature adult around here. Emily visibly deflated at this statement; her plan foiled.

"Wait, does this mean that he'll go for me?" Reid asked worriedly.

"I hope so," Emily replied unassuredly.