Patrick Jane lay face down on the cot in his rooftop lair at the CBI. He was pouting.
Teresa Lisbon beat insistently at the door to said room, which Jane had deliberately locked several hours before in preparation for just such an eventuality. It was the holidays; no one was supposed be at the office anyway. But there was Lisbon, calling his name in that shrill voice of hers and preventing him from leaving to replenish his dwindling supply of scotch.
Just as he had decided that the best course of action was probably to yell at her, the noise stopped. Surprised but certainly pleased, Jane resumed drinking and sulking in alternations. He would give her ten or fifteen minutes to clear the building and then begin his quest to the liquor store two streets over. He counted the seconds in a slurred whisper, steady as a metronome even in his drunkenness. He had just reached five hundred when a knock came again.
"I come bearing gifts," came Lisbon's voice through the warped wood of his door. This gave Jane pause.
"Like the three magi, except there's only one of you. And you're not welcome." He thought on this reply of his and decided that there was nothing to be embarrassed for, given his state.
"Actually, there's four of us." Van Pelt's voice. He must have missed the extra footsteps (he would not admit to himself that he had heard no footsteps at all).
"Well, take your fourth musketeer and gallivant off into the sunset. I'm busy."
"It's alcohol." Cho.
"What?" Jane had been drinking for six hours and was struggling to process despite his rather impressive capacity for holding his alcohol.
"The gifts. We brought vodka."
"And tequila." (Lisbon and her unending sentimentality.)
"And whiskey." (Van Pelt's back-country sensibility.)
"Yeah, I just brought beer. Sorry." (Rigsby, of course.)
Jane thought on this for a long moment. Finally, he hauled himself off the bed and lurched toward the door, leaning on the frame as he peered at them through the crack he had opened. After a long moment of staring at the proffered gifts, he slid the door back, inviting them in by turning his back and walking away.
His team poured through the door like water as he lowered himself to sit on the floor with some difficulty. As Van Pelt shut the door behind them, they all settled in a ragged circle. Shot glasses were passed around and the remnants of Jane's bottle of scotch were wrested from him and donated to the communal pool. He stared at them in some confusion as the first round of drinks was poured.
"What, you think you're the only one who spends Christmas drunk and alone?" Lisbon tried to make light of it, but the uncomfortable shifting of Jane's colleagues was enough to attest to the truth of the statement. With a shrug, Jane raised his glass and downed it in one go. The rest followed.
For once Jane was almost matching the team as they drank, only holding back on every other round. He was still the most sober person in the room, but at this point that wasn't saying much. Lisbon was beginning to slump onto his shoulder while Rigsby and Van Pelt were glancing longingly at one another. Cho didn't move a muscle except to throw back another shot. The scotch and tequila were long gone, Rigsby's beer forgotten against the wall. The whiskey was disappearing fast and they had begun to eye the vodka, their last line of defense.
Outside, a clock somewhere began to bang out the midnight bell.
"Merry Christmas," Lisbon said sleepily. The well-wishing echoed around the circle. Jane was the last to express the sentiment, his throat constricting and cracking the words as he said them. No one seemed to notice except Lisbon, who put a quiet hand on his knee. After a moment of hesitation, he covered her hand with his.
The night only got quieter from there. They didn't quite make it to the vodka, Rigsby and Van Pelt slipping off first, almost but not quite curled up in each other's arms. Jane leaned against the bed with Lisbon's head in his lap, stroking her hair absentmindedly as she murmured in her sleep. Cho still sat perfectly still, his legs crossed and his back ramrod straight. Jane looked over at him as he fought against sleep.
"Do you even sleep, Cho?" Cho turned slowly to look at him.
"No."
Jane chuckled a little, his eyes falling closed for just a moment. "You deliberately cultivate this persona, don't you?" Cho blinked at him.
"Merry Christmas, Jane."
Jane chuckled again, turning his head away. "Yeah, I thought so."
The night was silent as Jane drifted into sleep.