Work Text:
December 1st
“Happy first day of Christmas,” Amaro announces, pulling his scarf off as he walks in. Sonny looks up from the paperwork he had been filing; Fin gives nothing more than an acknowledging grunt from the coffee maker; Rollins rolls her eyes and pours another shot of creamer into her mug. It’s clear that whatever has Amaro smiling that wide so early in the morning is either a good sign or a warning of things to come. “Hope you’re ready for drunk Santas and a bird in a pear tree.”
“I can tell you where to put your pear tree,” Rollins grumbles under her breath. Sonny smiles to himself and resumes filing.
Amaro comes up behind him and pats him on the shoulder. “You know, squad tradition says that the new guy has to do the decorating.”
Sonny snorts at that; any other time, he would be annoyed at the continuous reminder that he is the low man on the totem pole—or high man, since the lower positions of a totem pole are more distinct—but it’s Christmas. Even if it means dealing with easy jokes, he can deal with it and enjoy something he loves. For now, he can play along. “Is that so?” He asks.
“True story. Amanda and I had to do it.”
Sonny looks over at Rollins, who shrugs and takes a sip of coffee. “I put up a wreath once.”
Amaro laughs. Sonny shrugs and closes the filing cabinet. “Well, if it’s just one wreath, I think I can manage it.”
“Do we still have the half-broken piece of mistletoe?” Fin asks, turning to Sonny for an explanation. “My old partner used to hide it in our desks. It’s the only Christmas celebration he ever had.”
“He’s Jewish,” Rollins points out. “And no, we don’t. That thing got tossed out.”
Amaro, brows furrowed, glances at her, arms crossed in front of his chest. “I thought Munch left it with you.”
“Nope.” She answers a bit too fast, Sonny notices, like she’s trying not to contribute any more to the conversation than she already has. She downs a big gulp of coffee as she strides over to her desk and resumes working. Amaro watches her quietly, but he goes to his own desk when she doesn’t spare him another glance or another sound.
A little while later, when he’s grabbing a snack to recharge, Fin comes up and puts in a dollar for the vending machine. He presses the button for a soda, and as he bends down, he whispers, “Mistletoe is in the star. Keep it safe.”
Sonny, confused by the almost warning tone and the words, says nothing and watches him leave. It feels like no one else was in the room with him, even as Fin cracks open the can and takes a swig.
With some help from the desk sergeant on where the storage closet is, Sonny finds the star and the mistletoe that’s clearly breaking apart. It must have been the one used in the old tradition Fin’s partner carried out. Only one red berry remains and the plastic leaves are all torn in some way or another. The whole events of the day startle him so much, he shoves the mistletoe in his pocket, returns the star, and dashes out of there as fast as he can.
December 4th
With the whirlwind of work, both as a cop and as a law student, Sonny forgets the mistletoe. It sits on his coffee table in his apartment, next to the snow globe of the Statue of Liberty and the advent wreath he lights at night. He doesn’t touch it or even look at it much but he keeps its location at the back of his mind for now, just in case.
That “just in case” comes in the form of a nearly whispered conversation in the hall leading to the interrogation rooms that Sonny overhears. To be sure he won’t be spotted, he stands at the opposite end of the corridor. He makes it look like he’s reviewing the cork board hanging on the wall in front of him and checking information from the papers in his hand. Undercover work had always been one of his strong suits.
“—only happen if you want,” Amaro says. “I’m in no rush.” There’s a different type of softness to his voice, one that isn’t typical in a discreet situation. It sounds closer to tenderness, but Sonny doesn’t look up to confirm it. All he knows is that they stand close to the room they use for lineups, facing the two-way mirror. They’re probably waiting on the defense attorney for the Johnson case and for Barba to descend from whichever palace he’s using today.
“That’s nice of you,” Rollins replies, equally as soft and a bit wispy. Like she’s remembering something long ago that’s still dear to her. “I think it might take me a while before then. I don’t wanna disrupt anything I’ve rebuilt with Liv.” A soft sigh, a beat of silence, then, “But that doesn’t mean it’s something I don’t want. I think we can eventually get there.”
“Yeah? You think so?”
“That’s why I brought it up in the first place.”
Whatever is said after that, past a gentle laugh and a suspicious pucker, Sonny doesn’t know. He feels like he’s stepping on a frozen pond and is two steps from falling in. He backs away instead and bumps straight into Barba, who stops the bag of pretzels from falling out of his hands by clutching it to his chest. Sonny comes to terms with who he bumped into quickly, but Barba is quicker to come up with a proper response.
“I know it’s been a few months since you got here, but come on, Carisi,” he frowns. “The baby giraffes at the Bronx Zoo have better control of their legs than you do.”
“Sorry,” Sonny laughs sheepishly. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
Barba relaxes and lets out a long breath. “Well. I wasn’t trying to be snippy, for the record. It’s been a long morning.” He holds out the pretzels in a silent request, and Sonny cups his hand out to catch the tiny nuggets. “I’ve been arguing with defense attorneys all day and have three different cases in session one after another.”
Sonny tries to rein in his smile, only managing a small quirk of his lips in the process, at the mere suggestion of casework that wasn’t police-related. He loves being a cop, but there’s something that fascinates him about practicing law. “Anything I can help with?”
Barba scoffs, a bit kinder than his typical dismissals. “If you can, you’ll be the first to know.”
Well. That would explain why. Maybe he was feeling a bit more generous than usual. Sonny nods and lets his smile loose, taking note of the way Barba swallows roughly and throws a handful of pretzels back. “You know where to find me.”
Barba nods and turns to walk down to the lineup. The defense attorney is already there, and Rollins and Amaro are still keeping a breath’s length between their elbows. Barba rolls his eyes and groans. “Dammit, the lovebirds are working on this? I thought they were off it.”
“You know something I don’t, Counselor?” Sonny asks, looking from Barba to the detectives at the end of the hall.
“Only that those two have been ogling each other for years now. Probably before I even stepped foot on Manhattan.” Barba pauses, then leans in close as if he wants only Sonny to hear him. “There was a mistletoe prank pulled on them a few years ago. Nearly got them in the same bed.”
Sonny’s interest peaks instantly. There’s no way it can’t be the same decoration currently in his apartment. If it was, this squad had a mistletoe problem. “The same mistletoe Fin’s old partner used to have?”
Barba straightens up. “He told you?”
“A little bit. I know that he used to hide it in their desks. Fin said I should keep it safe.”
At first, Sonny isn’t sure what’s happening, but he realizes quickly that Barba is squeezing his shoulder and getting closer. He can see the twelve different shades of green in his eyes, each one more spectacular than the last. A sudden rush of attraction flows from his gut and to his toes. “He’s right. Trust me when I say this,” his hand drifts to his upper arm and squeezes, “it could be the only way they admit to each other.”
Sonny doesn’t mention that the two of them may already be together. He doesn’t even get the chance to answer when Barba turns and heads to the end of the corridor. It takes a few shakes of his head, but Sonny gathers himself again and heads to his desk. He has a bit of planning to do.
December 7th
The perfect chance comes up when the squad arranges an undercover stint for the night. Before they leave, Sonny heads back to the squad room under the pretense that he forgot something and runs back in to nestle the mistletoe into Nick’s top drawer. He doesn’t think they’ll be out for long, but at least it’s ready for when they come back.
As it turns out, they don’t make the arrest until one in the morning and end up processing until two-thirty. Sonny feels like his head is going to implode, but he gets through fingerprinting as fast as he can. It feels like hours before he’s allowed to sit down for more than two minutes. Rollins sits at her desk and presses the soles of her palms into her eyes.
“Thinking ‘bout taking a nap, Rollins?” He teases lightly.
Rollins snorts and slouches back in her chair. “Hopefully soon,” she says. “They’re staying here overnight, so we don’t have to worry about them until tomorrow.”
“By ‘tomorrow,’ do you mean the morning or Wednesday?”
She chuckles and shakes her head. “I can’t tell the difference anymore.” Amaro strolls over, his clothes a bit disheveled from the scuffle he had gotten involved in when they had made the bust. Rollins glances over, looking at him almost automatically, and nods at him. “You holding up alright, Nick?”
Amaro looks up when she says his name and nods. “Yeah, I’m alright. Just a bit sore but nothing’s broken. You got the list of corroborating witnesses and the similarities in their statements?”
“Yeah, gimme a sec.” She rifles around the papers on her desk and picks up a notepad. She delivers it herself and goes to plop it down on his desk, but Amaro is already staring at his desk with a wild stare. Rollins follows his gaze to the desk and discards the notepad to slowly lift the mistletoe from the desk. Sonny plays dumb and tilts his head, posing as confused for the bewildered silence. “What the hell is this doing here?”
“Is that mistletoe?” Sonny asks.
Amaro keeps his eyes down and his hands clenched around the notepad. Rollins steps away, pacing between his desk and her own before she decides to drop it in front of Amaro. “I’m not—” She starts to say, but she clamps her lips together and starts over. “That’s not mine.”
“Well, it wasn’t mine,” Amaro frowns, spinning in his chair to look up at her.
“What do I have to gain from putting it in your desk?”
Amaro jumps to his feet. “I never said you did!”
Rollins thrusts it into his chest. “It was in your desk!”
“Wait—” Amaro holds the mistletoe in his palm and fully looks at it. The torn leaves and the single berry must ring some bells in his memory, judging by the recognition that flickers over his face. Sonny raises a questioning brow when he takes a step toward him. “Did you…”
Sonny flickers his gaze between them. Rollins looks like she’s just realizing what he’s done. “Did I what?”
“Who put you up to this?” Rollins demands. When he doesn’t answer, she and Amaro take a step in-sync with each other. Sonny rolls back in his chair and raises his hands.
“Look, it’s just a mistletoe! I don’t know anything about it!”
“It was Fin, wasn’t it?” Amaro scowls. He bumps Rollins on the shoulder. “I told you he wasn’t gonna let up.”
“Fin knows better,” she says. “It was probably Barba.”
“Barba doesn’t care about our personal lives.”
“Hypothetically,” Sonny pipes in, “if I was told about the possibility of you guys having a personal relationship, is it possible that—hypothetically—both of them asked me about it?”
Rollins kicks his chair and walks away. Amaro hands over the mistletoe and returns to his desk to review the notepad Rollins had given him. Sonny sinks into his chair and hopes that Fin and Barba don’t ask him to do anything else that would risk angering either of them.
“What are the chances of Carisi coming over after court?” Nick asks as Amanda slowly opens the door to Barba’s office. Carmen, Barba’s secretary, had given them permission to enter and place the mistletoe above his desk. She was just as fed up with the constant visits Carisi made to her boss’s office. Any more, she predicted, and they would be keeping their mutual interest bottled up and untouched.
“Every time Barba gets a verdict, Carisi practically runs him over here,” Amanda assures him. She pats his shoulder and he bends down on a knee so she can lift herself up and tape it over his desk. “If he doesn’t get his skinny giraffe ass up here, then Calhoun or Buchanan will have to make up for it.”
“I think Langan is more his type.”
Amanda chuckles as Carmen pokes her head in. “Verdict’s in,” she says.
“Guilty?” Amanda asks.
Carmen smirks and returns to her desk.
Nick sets Amanda down and keeps his arms wrapped around her. “Well, looks like they have some encouragement.”
Amanda hums and caresses the side of his face, grinning when he kisses her palm. “We don’t need any.”
“Nah. But let’s keep them thinking they do.” Nick kisses her, softly, and Amanda starts laughing into the peck. She thought the intense emotions and tender sharing of gestures would be overwhelming, but she only enjoys it more and more. Even when they butt heads, even when they hide their intimacy from work, she’s assured by the fact that when she goes home, she’ll have a warm text greeting her or a familiar body in her bed.
“Sounds fun to me.”