December 10th: Snow Man

They are sitting in front of that warm fireplace, rum-spiked eggnogs in hand.

He had taken a sip of his after she had said, "Never have I ever been in love."

He had.

She hadn't.

"Wait You have?" she says.

"Wait? You haven't?" he says.

"No never," she confirms.

Then they both say "How is that poss –?"

Amanda's phone rings loudly. It's her building superintendent. Why is he calling?

"Hold that thought, Carisi." She turns her attention to the phone. "Yes, Bud. This is Amanda. What's up?"

"Thanks for coming with me, Carisi," Amanda says as they walk back to her place.

"No problem Rollins."

"I have a feeling I'll need back up."

He just smiles. She probably won't. He knows she doesn't usually ask for help . . . so the only conclusion he can come to is that she wants his company – and that makes him happy.

They can hear the crazy loud music coming from down the hall. Bud is waiting for her.

"She's not answering the door. Can't hear it I suppose. And your next door neighbor is pretty pissed."

"I bet," Amanda muses.

"I would have just let myself in, but frankly I'm a little scared of what may be going on in there," the superintendent shakes his head. "Really weird noises."

They hear one of them. It sounds familiar to Carisi.

"I would have called the police . . ."

"But we're the police," Carisi finishes for him.

"Yeah."

"Okay, thanks Bud," Amanda says. "We've got this covered."

She and Carisi enter the apartment to see green paint all over her light colored couch and a man and woman practically copulating against one of the walls nearby. He is naked and she has pieces of some skanky green and gold costume practically falling off of her. The wall is smeared with green paint as well, likely from her green body being smushed against it. There's a song playing at full-blast, heavy with notes from the rarely heard theremin instrument. Carisi would have recognized it anywhere - it was most often used in scores for science fiction shows.

"Vino!" he yells at the same time Amanda screeches, "Kim!"

Jesse is screaming, still in her car seat, but can barely be heard over all the noise. Carisi shoots his friend a vile look of disgust and goes over to shut off the stereo. Jesse abruptly stops screaming and whimpers instead. Amanda picks her up.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Vino?"

"Uh, getting laid man. You're spoiling my game."

"Get off of her, Vino," Carisi growls.

"I thought you were supposed to be my wing man," he whines as he steps away from Kim, who is giggling in amusement.

"I've never been your wing man," Carisi says firmly.

"Gawd! Way to spoil the evening, Sonny," Kim pouts.

"Spoil the evening?" Amanda sputters and points behind her. "You destroyed my couch!"

"And your wall," Carisi interjects with a wry smile twitching at his lips.

"Thanks for pointing that out," Amanda tilts her head and looks back at him with her own wry smile.

"No guys. No we didn't," Vino protests, putting up his hands briefly before he grabs a pouch from the coffee table. "Look!"

Carisi recognizes his buddy's "overnight pack" – complete with condoms, skimpy alien costumes, and body paint.

"See?" he says, drawing out a big green tube. "It's easily removed with water."

"Is it?" Carisi asks testily. "Why don't you read the fine print for us, Vino? As I recall, your green paint isn't –"

"Uh oh," Vino says as he looks at the tube more carefully. He still hasn't even bothered to put on any clothes – he is buck naked as he stands there with his mouth open.

"Thought so," Carisi grumbles and points a stern finger at his friend. "Yeah, and you know what else, Vino? Now you're going to have to foot the bill to get all of this paint off Amanda's couch, the wall …"

"What a party pooper . . ." Kim says and comes up to Carisi, putting a green streaked arm around his shoulder. The body paint that had been hastily applied is now dry enough that it only deposits a few stray flecks on his coat.

Amanda puts Jesse down in her playpen and takes a good look at her sister glomming onto Carisi like that. She is high - on something. And before she knows it, it turns nasty. "Never knew you were such a cock blocker, Sonny."

"Kim . . ." Amanda says with a warning tone.

"What can't figure out is what my sister's even doing with you. I mean, Amanda . . . She's such a good time girl and all. Why would she want to be with a prude like you? Such a good boy . . . such restraint." She laughs at him, stopping suddenly to give him a condescending smile. "Frankly Sonny, you're not her type."

"Kim!" Amanda becomes alarmed that her sister seems to have found about them. And what did she just say about Carisi? Does she know he's never - ?

"My sister used to be so much FUN. She would never even consider anyone like you." Kim leaves Carisi's side and flounces about a little, losing even more pieces of her costume in the process. "She even used to be the Snow Man's girl once . . ."

"Kim." Amanda says, a deadly tone creeping into her voice. "Shut up."

Carisi is stunned. If Kim is talking about the crusty old drug runner who had been in business since Pablo Escobar's days, Amanda's in trouble. Deep trouble. And so is he.

The notorious Snow Man had come into his own running cocaine from Miami to Boston for Escobar - up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard. He was one of Escobar's main distributors and they had been tight.

The Snow Man had had to change his business strategy somewhat after Escobar and the operation he had been running out of Columbia was taken out in the late eighties. But he was still running drugs, among other things. . . Everyone knew about him. And his jealous temper.

"Did you know she slept with the deputy chief back in Atlanta, too? Her captain wasn't good enough for her. She turned him down - embarrassed the hell outta him. Got herself in a little bit of trouble. . ."

"Kim, that's enough!"

Amanda doesn't notice the look of hurt that has formed on Carisi's face – she's too focused on her sister.

"I did that for you, Kim. And you know it."

Carisi's heart sinks. He can't believe what he's hearing. Did Amanda just admit to . . . ?

"No, you like to party. Just like me. You just won't admit it to yourself. You're so repressed."

"Amanda, is all this true?" Carisi says weakly. He isn't even heard.

"No, I'm not like you. I'm nothing like you. You're an addict, Kim."

"Like you're not?"

There is a moment of shocked silence that passes between Amanda and Carisi. Her eyes flitter to his briefly and he sees the shame in them.

Kim scoffs. "You and Daddy. Two peas in a pod. Only Daddy didn't get himself into a situation with Murphy. You still owe him what, Amanda? Like twenty-thousand dollars?"

What the . . . ? The bookie? What the hell is Kim saying?

"Amanda. What's going on? Talk to me." Carisi pleads.

She looks back at him with immense pain swimming in her eyes. "You don't want to know, Carisi."

But he needs to know.

"The Snow Man?" he asks quietly. "Did you actually sleep with him? He's bad news Amanda."

"I know," she says quietly.

"He even threatened Nick," Kim interjects with glee. "More than once."

"He did," Amanda admits.

"So it's true? It's all true?" Carisi demands.

Amanda just hangs her head in defeat. She has no reason to lie.

This is not the woman he thought he knew. Carisi can't abide secrets - not in relationships - and these are doozies. He thought she'd been opening up to him, letting him in - she told him she was. He'd been so honest with her . . . But obviously he had been so wrong. He doesn't know who she is anymore. He wonders if he ever did.

He feels like a fool.

The hurt rages in his heart as he comes to a decision. "That's it Amanda. I'm done."

He walks out the door.

"You just destroyed everything!" Amanda screeches at her sister, tears falling in torrents down her face.

"I didn't mean to, Amanda," Kim whines.

"You never mean to," Amanda says fiercely. "What are you on, Kim? Huh?"

"What?"

"What are you ON?" Amanda screeches at her.

Vino burps loudly and pukes all over himself.

Kim crosses her arms and looks over at him, "Obviously not what he's on."

Amanda now turns her attention to Carisi's friend. His FRIEND. What a disgrace. "You can leave now, Vino."

"But I need to - " He points to a pile of clothes on the floor.

"Get out!" she screams. "You can stand out in the cold naked until that vomit freezes on your chest for all I care. GET OUT!"

"Amanda," Kim reaches for her sister's arm once Vino has gone. "I'm not on anything – I swear."

"Yeah, right Kim. How am I supposed to believe you? There's a frantic look in your eyes – you're almost crazed. You can't tell me you're not high right now."

"Amanda, I'm not." Kim starts crying. "I've had trouble controlling it."

"What?"

"The mania."

Amanda crosses her arms. "So I've noticed. Have you talked to your doctor about that or have you just decided to throw caution to the wind and get high tonight? What did Vino bring over? What did he give you?"

"Just wine, Amanda - that's all he brought over. Just wine. That's all he drinks. But I didn't have any, I swear. Here, smell my breath."

She approaches her sister to show her.

"Eew! Yuck," Amanda protests and pushes her away. But Kim gets close enough to smell the strong scent of rum on her breath before she does. "Damn, Amanda. What have you been drinking?"

"You're unbelievable," Amanda grumbles, heads to her bedroom, and slams the door. She slumps against it in defeat and cries in earnest. The weight of the situation crashes down upon her. Her sister's using again and Carisi is gone. He's just gone . . .

She needs her father right now.

Carisi arrives home. His thoughts have troubled him the entire way. After Kathleen, he just couldn't . . . He had sworn to himself never again. The secrets from her past that she had kept hidden from him had destroyed what they had . . . and utterly shattered his heart. He never thought he could recover.

He slumps against the door, looking over at the partially empty eggnog glasses that he and Amanda had left on the end tables near the couch.

"I Never" my ass. He pushes away from the door and paces about his place, muttering bitterly to himself.

"I never slept with a drug kingpin."

"I never slept with my boss' boss." He thought about that one a moment. That would be Chief Dodds. Yuck!

"I never went TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS into debt with a bookie. Doing Lord knows what." He shakes his head.

"I was never a slut." He feels bad as soon as he says it out loud. But there it was.

He notices the rum bottle they had used to spike their eggnog. It is more than half empty. He remembers refilling their glasses several times. How much had they drunk that night?

He hangs his head and calls Fin, who used to work undercover in Narcotics.

"What do you know about the Snow Man?"

Amanda pulls her laptop onto the bed. Kim is pounding on her locked bedroom door, begging her not to do something she'll regret.

Amanda misses her father something fierce. He was the only man who had ever loved her. She was sure of it – even though he had done a piss poor job of protecting her from anything.

And she knew of only one way to be close to him. One way to make him proud. She looks through the spreads for all of the upcoming college bowl games. She cracks her knuckles. She can do this. She remembers the joy in her father's voice all those years ago. . .

"I'm so proud of you, Mandy – my little girl. Picking out the winning Keno numbers!" He gave her a side hug as they sat together in a deep booth covered in green vinyl in a restaurant in Atlantic City. They had made a very long and 'very special' road trip together.

"I'm gonna take you to the horse track next. Would you like that? Do you think you can pick out my lucky horse?"

"Sure, Daddy," she beams up at him.

"I love you, little girl."

Based on the OTP Calendar fic prompt list posted by yankee countess at Tumblr. Thank you so much!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's Reindeer!