The crook of Max's eyebrow was enough to send the entirety of Manticore scrambling to its knees in fear. And yet in no way did it seem to affect the cocky blonde currently stood in front of her. Alec just grinned one of his infuriating little smirks and leaned forward to ruffle her hair. Quickly batting him away, her eyes flashed with enough of a warning to dissuade him from doing it again.
"Hey, I asked you what you wanted for Christmas, and your very words were 'whatever you think Alec, you know best'."
An expressive roll of her eyes met Alec's explanation. In fact, Max seemed to spend the majority of her time in Alec's presence rolling her eyes. "Weren't we in a carchase at the time? And I'm pretty sure my words were 'Not now Alec, I'm trying save both of our asses from a life threatening situation here'."
Even her outright denial failed to wipe the cheeky smile from his face. It only grew as Max surveyed her recently unwrapped present. The crumpled brown paper which had previously protected her eyes from the exact details of the monstrosity lay scattered on the floor. There just weren't words to describe beastly thing.
It was a sweater, at least that much was clear. A massive red and green sweater. Thick enough to make a sleeping bag out of. Plastered on the front was a gigantic blaring snowman, complete with skewwhiff eyes and a wonky smile. The true pièce de résistance, however, was the obnoxiously large 3D carrot nose poking out from the middle. Practically hell on earth.
She held the present at arm's length, hoping that the bright colours and horrendous clashing design would disappear without a trace into oblivion, or at least not infect her with its gaudiness.
Unfortunately Logan seemed quite happy to take Alec's side for once. Anything for a good wind-up, she thought with another eye roll.
"Aww no Max, I think it's adorable" Logan declared after a disgruntled glance at the Christmas sweater. His eyes sparkled with mischief as he booped the massive 3D carrot nose.
"Well you're in luck then, cause I got you one too big boy" Alex sent Logan a wink as he dumped another brown package into the other man's arms. This time Max found herself joining in with Alec's smirk. Maybe it was funnier when it happened to someone else.
"Wow Alec you shouldn't have." No one had the ability to hit quite the same dry note as Logan could. The sarcasm practically washed off him in waves. "What's the problem, thieving skills a little rusty? Couldn't even manage to scare together a bit of knockoff jewellery? Having to resort to granny presents instead?"
Alec clasped his hand to his chest in a dramatically wounded gesture, one hand resting back against his forehead in a mock faint. "You wound me. Do you know how much time and effort it cost? Not to mention how expensive wool is, post-apocalyptic world and everything."
Max clapped her hand across the back of his head in a solid thump as she moved to dump her well-cherished Christmas present as far away from her as was physically possible.
"You got them on the market stall at the bottom of the road for $7 each. I saw you going to get them about five minutes ago."
Their bickering, which was likely to continue unchecked for another few hours, was interrupted by a loud knock at the door. Alec just happened to be stood in the doorway as she moved to push past him
He leant forward, wiggling his eyebrows until her gaze caught on the mistletoe dangling above them. She leaned ever closer, ghosting her lips against his cheek as she went to whisper in his ear. "In your dreams!"
She pulled back, savouring the confused expression on his face. It didn't last for long as he soon grinned and gave an amicable shrug. "Can't blame a guy for trying."
Max opened the door to be immediately greeted by an armful of Joshua as he grabbed her and swung her round. Not expecting it, she may have let out a rather embarrassing yelp, but that was quickly forgotten as she tried to position herself more comfortably.
"Hey lil fella" The gentle giant muttered.
"Hey big fella" She replied, eventually escaping from his grasp and allowing him to move into the flat.
She reached up with lithe limbs to pluck the mistletoe from its place on the doorframe and stood on her tiptoes to wave it as close to Joshua's head as she could. Leaning up, se dragged him down a little and planted a little kiss right on the tip of his snout.
Joshua's face turned beetroot red as he tried to get a coherent sentence out. A friendly smile was all he got before Max turned to give Alec a more teasing one. The mistletoe was promptly binned before he got any more ideas.
It didn't take long until the four of them were settled in Logan's swanky living room ready for the festivities to begin.
The next morning Max woke up to an uncomfortable lump pushing against her chest. She groggily blinked open her eyes, trying to shake the fuzzy remnants of the blackmarket eggnog from her head (damn was that stuff vile).
The cushion on the edge of the sofa was digging against her back and a heavy pressure was preventing her from moving further forwards. Brushing her hair out of her eyes revealed that Logan was half collapsed onto her. His head was cradled against her stomach, one arm unshakably wrapped around her as he let out little snores. She was highly amused to see that at some point he had donned his newly acquired Christmas sweater. His had a decidedly wobbly Christmas pudding as its main motif. There was also something extremely satisfying about seeing her specially-worn-for-Christmas lipstick smeared round his mouth in a bright red smudge.
She looked down to ascertain the source of an itching sensation on her arms, only to catch sight of the giant snowman jumper. Great. Well that at least explained the uncomfortable lump; the back of Logan's head had been poking the obnoxious snowman nose against her skin. It looked even more hideous in the daylight.
Across the other side of the room Joshua and Alec were snuggled up surprisingly cosily. She could barely tell whose limbs were whose. Joshua had also donned his own sweater, although he was so proud of it that Max would be surprised if it would be removed before the end of January. Alec, having obviously cut the antlers off a Rudolf sweater, had declared it was a Christmas dog. Of course the dogman had fallen for it hook line and sinker and Max hadn't had the heart to break the news to the little puppydog face.
Following that Joshua had been glued to Alec's side all night. Which might explain how the two male mutants had ended up tangled together. Max just about managed to supress a giggle when she saw that Alec was drooling onto the shoulder of the prized dog sweater.
Some of Joshua's doglike tendencies seemed to bleed through into his sleeping consciousness as he jerked about, sometimes thrashing his arms and legs as if he were chasing something. Every time Joshua made a particularly violent move Alec would unconsciously reach his arm out in an uncoordinated patting motion, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously close to "Shhhh" as they both settled down again.
Max couldn't decide whether it was more funny or cute, but she decided either way that she needed photographic evidence. She stealthily retrieved her phone, careful not to disturb anyone, before pulling it out and angling it toward the snuggling pair. Snap. Perfect. At least she had some retaliation if Alec ever dared to bring up the Christmas sweaters again.