December 7th: Stocking

There is a knock at her door. Amanda is busy lugging boxes of decorations into the living room.

"Carisi, just come in," she yells back at her front door.

He peeps his head in quickly and says, "That would be rude, Rollins."

Before she can even groan, he's ducked his head back out and closed the door.

"Ugh," she puts down the box she has in her arms and goes to open the door.

She pulls on the handle to let him in, but it doesn't give. He's holding it shut. "Carisi, what are you doing?"

"Knock knock."

Okay, he wants to play a little game. Fun. She can play along with that. She answers in a sing-song voice, "Who's there?"

"Tissue."

"Tissue who?"

He opens the door and grabs her by the waist. "All I want for Christmas 'Tis You!"

He spins her around and gives her a kiss that is even more dizzying than the circles he's moving her in. But then he stops the circular motion as he presses her somewhat roughly against the wall. Pictures hanging on it rattle. Breathing into the intimate kisses he's smothering her mouth with he says, "That's really all I want, Amanda. Oh God, I want you so badly."

His hands slide up from her waist.

Frannie barks. Loudly. She is alarmed.

Amanda reluctantly breaks off their passionate kiss. "Frannie, it's okay. I'm okay. It's just Carisi."

She whines a little, wagging her tail.

"Was mommy kissing Santa Paws too roughly for your liking, Frannie?" Carisi says, squatting down to pet and reassure her that everything was okay.

Amanda puts her hand on her hip. "Santa Paws?"

"Yeah, lemme show you." He bounds off back towards the front door, opens it, and pulls something from off of the floor outside. "In my haste, I dropped this. You were just too hard to resist there, Rollins."

He grins a little sheepishly and holds up a ridiculous looking green and red stocking with the word 'WOOF' on the top of it.

Amanda sucks it up and pretends it's not hideous for his sake. "Oh, Carisi, you didn't have to."

"Hey, what would a Christmas decorating party be without a stocking for Frannie?"

Amanda smiles carefully. She already had a stocking for Frannie. But he didn't know that. Best to keep it under wraps.

"Your sister gonna join us later?"

"Nope. She bailed. It's just us tonight."

"Just us, huh?" he smiles wickedly and leans in, wrapping his arms around her.

"And Jesse, don't forget Jesse." Amanda interrupts before he can kiss her.

"How could I?" He waggles some fingers at Jesse in her playpen and Jesse laughs back at him. "So, Rollins, I got one for ya. . ."

Is this going to be an innocently crass one like most of his jokes?

"Lay it on me."

"Why are women's boobs like the erector sets that Santa brings children for Christmas?"

Yes, yes it is.

"Erector sets? Oh my god." She tilts her head to the side and just shakes it. She knows him too well. Smiling at him she says, "Okay. Tell me why."

"Cause they're supposed to be for the child, but the father wants to play with them too." He grins and chuckles at his own genius.

"Are you not-so-subtly saying you want to play with my boobs, Carisi?"

"Your boobs. . . your t. . . "

He lists off a variety of innocently crass terms for a woman's breasts. Or maybe not so innocent ones. . .

"You're too much," she says tip-toe walking him back to the couch, laughing all the way. They fall onto it, not so innocently at all.


"Hey Amanda!" Fin calls out across the precinct. They'd been making Santa jokes all day. "Did you kiss Santa Claus last night?"

"No I just slept with him. Ho! Ho! Ho!" she chuckles in response and winks at Carisi.

"Hey!" Carisi objects. "I didn't see you making the two-backed beast with Santa Paws last night."

She just sits there laughing and shaking her head. "Santa Paws? No, I definitely didn't sleep with him. We were up all night playing with an erector set."

Carisi blushes a deep pink.

Fin is starting getting annoyed at the "secret" yet obvious relationship between Carisi and Amanda. "'Santa Paws' and an erector set? You two need to cut it out with your own personal lingo. There are other people in the world besides you two, you know."

"Ooooh . . ." Carisi decides to direct his energy at the older detective then - he seems to be asking for it. "I think I know what Fin wants for Christmas."

He gives Amanda a devious smile.

"What?" Fin grumbles.

"Santa's list of naughty girls."

"Bitch please, I got more Ho's than Santa."

"And that, my friend"- Carisi points a knowing finger up into the air – "is why Santa only leaves you with batteries and a note that says 'Toy Not Included.'"

"Or just a USB cord and a note," Amanda says sardonically. "If Fin ever decides to join us in the 21st Century."

"Oh, ganging up on me, I see?"

Carisi and Rollins exchange sly grins.

"Well, it sounds like you might just be on Santa's naughty list, Fin. You know, with those ho's and all." Carisi says in mock seriousness, raising an eyebrow at him.

Amanda continues with mock sensitivity, "And you may not be aware of it, given your age there, good buddy . . . but Santa doesn't leave coal in stockings anymore."

"Yeah, it's bad for the environment," Carisi adds with a wicked smile.

Amanda just loves his snark.

Fin grumbles at the two of them. "Go back to work."

Rollins and Carisi exchange high fives.


Carisi is back at her place the next night. Kim has conveniently left them alone again.

"Hey Rollins!" he shouts to her as he looks through a box of decorations. They needed to finish up what they had started the previous night. They had been too distracted by each other to get very far and most of the Christmas decorations hadn't gotten put up yet.

"Yeah?" she calls back from the kitchen.

"Where is the – " He spots something unexpected in the box he is sorting through and stops. "Oh, never mind."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

He sees a Christmas stocking with 'Frannie' embroidered upon it. It's old and looks like Amanda's had it for years. He deflates a little. He's such a dumbass. He should have asked. But then he looks up at the mantle and notices –

Amanda strides out of the kitchen, holding two mugs of freshly heated hot cider.

"Oh, so I see you've mastered the art of heating up liquid in the microwave." he says to her teasingly.

"Don't be a dick."

"I'm not!"

She laughs.

"Okay, got one for you, Carisi."

"Shoot."

"Why is Santa's sack so full?"

"Hey, I thought I was the only one who was allowed to be crude around here!" Carisi protests.

"Please." She takes a sip of her burning hot cider. She had over-nuked it. She notices that Carisi had put his down right away.

"Okay Rollins. Why?"

"Because he only comes once a year."

"Or never." Carisi mutters quietly without thinking, not looking at her.

Amanda hears the touch of bitterness in his response and sets her mug down. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine." His mouth was always getting him into trouble - he shouldn't have said that. He waves dismissively and forces himself to smile. "It was nothing. Funny joke there, Rollins."

She thinks for a moment, then approaches him differently.

"Got another one for you, Santa baby." She comes up to him and purrs, walking her fingers up his chest nice and slow, fire burning in her eyes.

"Hey there," he says softly and reaches out to stroke her soft hair. He likes where this is going . . .

"I've heard that Christmas should be about what's in your heart." She stops and places a warm hand flat against his chest and looks deep into his eyes.

"Agreed." He bends down to kiss her.

When he pulls away he notices she's donned an evil grin. Devil and Angel, indeed.

"Not about what's in your pocket," she says coyly, and draws her hand down from his chest, over his waistband, and then . . .

"Hey, where you going there, Amanda?" He says nervously and finds that she has her hand in his pocket before he has even finished his sentence . . . and she is –

"Amanda!" he says a little more sternly than he intended, roughly pulling her hand out of there. He shakes his head in a 'no.' He realizes that he needs to make sure she knows how far he is willing to go and puts his hands on her shoulders. "Look, your stocking isn't going to get stuffed this Christmas – I wanna make sure you understand that."

"I figured at as much." She says and shrugs casually as if it's no big deal, turning down the heat that she had been trying to stir up.

"And you're okay with that?" he asks. "Cause it doesn't seem like it – "

"I get it, Carisi," she says, bringing a hand up to his cheek and saying gently, "I understand."

"Do you?"

"I think so," she says and then buries her head in his chest. Her words are muffled, but he can still hear them. "You can explain it to me further if you'd like –"

She feels his chest heave uncomfortably.

"- when you're ready," she says firmly as she pulls back to look at him.

He lets out the breath that he'd drawn in, utterly relieved, and they nod at each other.

He pulls her close and rests his cheek on the top of her head. Silent and still. Looking over at the mantle, he sees Frannie's stocking hanging there. The old one is still in the box - the stocking he bought had supplanted it. It's just one more way that she has let him into her life. They begin to sway in each other's arms.

Thinking about Frannie's stocking, Carisi knows that he'll want to share all of himself with her too … someday.


Based on the OTP Advent Calendar fic prompt list posted by yankeecountess on Tumblr. Thank you so much!

Many of the jokes I used (but not all) were variations on Christmas jokes I found at the Jokes 4 Us website. But some were actually mine, I swear! (or Carisi & Amanda's -however you want to interpret it)

Stay tuned for tomorrow's Santa Claus! (or is it Santa Paws?)