Who would have thought that bartender would get that angry over a little wager? Granted, the value of the aforementioned wager had increased rapidly, but it had started out small and with good intentions. Just a little game of pool between the BAU and the local police. It was supposed to be fun. Have them all relax after a gruelling case. Which it probably would have been if Emily hadn't suggested the wager. But hey, what was a game of pool without a little bit of betting? Especially a game of pool that involved Morgan playing pool and Reid being his strategist. It wasn't her fault that the police officers bet more than they felt comfortable losing.

And yes, she absolutely engineered all of this, but she wasn't about to admit it. Look, it wasn't that hard to get Morgan to want to show off his pool skills. Seriously, all it had taken was her making sure they sat at a table where a few pretty female officers were in his direct line of sight, and then all he had wanted to do was show off. It was basically the law of being Derek Morgan. See a pretty girl, be all flirty and suave.

Hilariously, now that she thought about it, she was pretty sure that those two women hadn't paid him a bit of attention all evening. It also went without saying that if there was a game of pool on the go, then Spencer would drift to it like a moth to flame and start talking about the effectiveness of understanding triangles and angles. He simply couldn't help himself. She didn't even have to do anything. Well, not really. She may have made a comment on Morgan's technique, and that's all it really took for Spencer to go over.

Morgan knew to take advantage of this as well, hence the using him as his partner. The police officers didn't think anything of it except mocking the pair's size difference, which Morgan and Reid were used to and brushed off with predatory grins. Which the police officers did not heed. Honestly, it was their own fault.

Emily, not being stupid, did not immediately suggest the wager either. Oh no, that wouldn't have worked and would have probably made the locals a bit suspicious. They were a rather jumpy lot, after all, especially of outsiders. Well, she supposed that couldn't be helped considering the UNSUB responsible for the spate of arson in their town had been an outside, so she couldn't blame them for being jumpy. So, with that knowledge, she let the boys play a bit of pool and waited for the teasing between the two teams to ramp up, get a little boisterous, and then she suggested a wager. Just after the locals won a round. Which made it them winning one round to Morgan and Spencer's three. But the locals didn't care about ratios like that. All they cared about was the fact that they had won a round. Deliberately won a round because Morgan and Spencer weren't stupid and normally did this to make a crushing defeat. Emily simply took advantage of that.

Yeah, needless to say, it spiralled from there. In hindsight, maybe it hadn't been the best idea to tease them that much. Normally, Emily was much better at toeing the line, so she didn't get into (too much) trouble. This time, she hadn't been lucky. Hadn't read the signs. She would blame the amount of alcohol she had steadily consumed over the course of the game. But seriously, people got way too worked up over a little game of pool.

Of course, Emily completely ignored the fact that she was the one who had started one of the more vicious arguments of the night, only quelled by a sharp look from Hotch.

Unfortunately, Hotch had retired to bed shortly after that, or else what happened later in the night may not have happened. Yeah. That was it. She was going to blame Hotch. Sure, they were all adults with reasonably high levels of intelligence (and in Reid's case, extraordinary levels) but come on, they all knew that after a case, with all those endorphins riding on a high, the team didn't exactly make the best decisions. Case in point being this bet and subsequent shenanigans. Normally, these sorts of poor decisions were usually made on the way home on the jet where all they could do was annoy each other.

But they hadn't been on tbe jet, they had been in a bar. With a bet on pool game results. Fuelled by endless amounts of alcohol and pride. Something the locals didn't appreciate. Especially when they lost. Which they did. Spectacularly. And then denied it. And then got angry about it.

Of course, all of this ended up with the team being unceremoniously being thrown out on their ear. Or maybe a better way of putting that was "on their butts" because none of them had been sober enough to stay upright when shoved out of the door. Emily had landed on the edge of some steps and she was absolutely going to have a bruise on her butt tomorrow.

"Maybe we shouldn't have done that," she said after a loud hiccup, looking at JJ, who was obviously the most sober of all of them.

"No, we shouldn't have," JJ said after thinking for a bit too long for her response.

Yeah, she said that JJ was the most sober not that she was sober.

Spencer was looking up and down the street with wide eyes, pupils very much dilated. How much had he had to drink?

"Does anyone remember where our hotel is?"

"Cab. We need a cab," said Emily.

"Do you really think a local cab driver is going to get us?" JJ asked. "They've all probably been told about us."

"Is the ground supposed to spin?" Emily interrupted.

Everyone looked at her in confusion, which made her confused. It was a pretty simple question, right?

"That wasn't in English," JJ said gently.

"We're going to have to call Hotch, aren't we?" Morgan asked with a groan.