"Someone told me that there was a rule on inter-team profiling," Rossi complained.
The BAU's "top" profiling team just grinned at him. Well, except Reid who was just looking anxious and sympathetic. Privately, Rossi thought that the kid couldn't grin dangerously if his life depended on it.
"We were just saying-" Prentiss said, looking not so innocent at all.
The more innocent she looked the more chaos she caused; Rossi had come to learn.
"Well, don't," Rossi stopped her bluntly.
Unfazed, Prentiss shrugged and motioned to Morgan.
"It's not like we can turn it off," the man pointed out for her, eyes twinkling in a way that made Rossi suspect that they'd practiced this.
"Try."
Which was incredibly hypocritical of him because he was well aware that he couldn't just turn it off even after all the years he'd been doing that. Or maybe that was his problem...
"It's not exactly that easy," Reid piped up (Rossi thought that the kid was on his side). "Because we use out skills every-"
"Try harder."
Rossi refused to feel any guilt about Reid's crestfallen face. Nope. Not guilty. Even 9f he did look incredibly pathetic and heartbroken with those large Bambi eyes and-
"We just have concerns about your recent spending," Prentiss tried again.
Rossi could ignore her sly grin this time because she thankfully stopped his rather embarrassing internal monologue before he did something drastic. Like apologise to the kid.
"That's none of your business." Rossi said stubbornly.
His younger teammates began to snicker at him. And, of course, this was the moment Hotch decided to enter his office. Because, you know, what was one more to the party? Where was he when these crazies invaded? But maybe he would get a little bit of peace now. He always found it amusing how they all scurried away at Hotch's stern looks.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, what happened was that Hotch stopped in his path and his eyes darted between Rossi and the team. Rossi could almost hear him internally debate whether to turn tail and ignore this to to question what was happening. Either one was liable to bring forth more craziness.
Rossi had no sympathy for him and decided to not give him a choice in the matter. Hey, he was the team lead. He was supposed to deal with these sorts of things.
"I am getting harassed."
"Technically, this doesn't meet the requirements of harassment."
And, yes, that was Reid. Of course, it was Reid.
"Yeah, we're not amusing you any physical or emotional distress," Morgan added.
He begged to differ but he was not going to argue with them. You didn't argue with crazy people, other people won't know who is the crazy one.
"Held hostage then."
"We're not stopping you leaving," Prentiss told him, gesturing to the door.
Ha! As if they would just let him leave.
Hotch, looking like he was going to deeply regret what he was about to start, asked, "Why is no one working?"
"Rossi is using money to solve his problems," accused Prentiss quickly, pointing a finger at him.
Hotch blinked then directed his response at Rossi, "Are you bribing someone?"
"No, no!" Rossi responded hastily, hoping that no one outside his office heard that. He did not need that rumour circulating the building. "Nothing like that."
Hotch raised his right eyebrow.
"I'm not doing anything illegal!"
Hotch continued to look at him.
"I'm not!" He reiterated, crossing his arms.
Reid, unable to restrain himself any longer, burst out, "Someone's stalking him and he's trying to put a stop to it."
Again?"
Rossi didn't think that he had ever heard that much exasperation coming from Hotch before and the man got exasperated quite easily. Well, at least he no longer looked suspicious.
"Can I really help it if I am well-loved but my fans?"
Hotch pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.
"So, what is this particular one doing?"
"Nothing physical," Rossi quickly assuaged any fears he had. "Just being obnoxious about him wanting me to look at his work."
"So, he just wants you to look over an idea he has for a book?" JJ asked curiously, only catching the tail end of the conversation as she slipped in.
"Feeling left out?" Morgan teased which earned him a swat on the arm.
Rossi snorted. "I wish. Though, I've had to stop doing that because of my return to the BAU and the sheer volume of rubbish I was getting."
"Be nice," JJ admonished. "I don't want a copycat of your books to be our next unsub."
Everyone shuddered at the thought. Rossi had written about some of the worst of the worst. Nope, they didn't need anything like that. They got enough horrible people to deal with.
"Don't worry, my editor does those responses she much nicer," her reassured her.
"So, what's the problem?" Hotch asked, veering them back onto the topic at hand.
"He wanted me to see why he wasn't getting, and I quote, 'millions of sales'," Rossi said with a sigh, running a hand over his face at the memory. Then he gave them a sheepish look. "So, I-" he paused to figure out how he could make himself look like the sane one in this story.
"He bought one hundred of his books," crowed Prentiss, having no such qualms.
"I thought if I bought loads that he'd see that he was getting sales and leave me alone," Rossi defended himself.
"Why," Hotch paused to visibly gather his thoughts. "Why did you think that that would ever be a good idea?"
"I was sleep deprived." Rossi admitted.
No good decisions ever came out of being sleep deprived. Like that awful cooking wine, he once bought himself. Eurgh. It wasn't even fit for pigs.
Hotch ran a hand down his face a breathed deeply. Everyone else looked far too amused by this.
Prentiss smirked and said in a children's TV presenter's voice, "Throwing money at your problems doesn't help."
Rossi shot her a glare and said loudly, "Wrong. Coins are actually great projectile weapons." He even jingled his pockets threateningly.
"Agent Rossi, are you threatening another agent with physical assault?" Strauss demanded because of course she was walking last at that exact moment.
Rossi decided that now was a good time to smack his head off his desk.
Why did he ever come out of retirement?