Note: Written for the MXmas 2014 Almost Human Advent Calendar on tumblr.

1.

The problem is that Sandra told them, “I don’t want to hear anything about decorations.”  It was a specific directive.  Too specific for half a roomful of very literal synthetics.  So although their human partners took the order in the spirit it was intended, no one told the MXs that seeing is the same as hearing.

The next day, there’s a tiny red bow on the back of John’s chair.  He glares around suspiciously, but all the other chairs have bows on them too, so he tears it off and stuffs it in a drawer.  A surprising number of bows remain at the end of the day, and no one says a word about them.

Candles appear next.  Miniature electric candles, no taller than his phone, tucked into a corner on the top of everyone’s desk.  John holds up the one on his desk with his best, “You believe this?” face, but Dorian just shrugs.  John throws it in the drawer with the bow.

His desk is clear the day after that, and John thinks the annoying decorating spree is over.  Until Dorian’s curious expression makes him turn around.  At the top of the stairs they just came down, Wilkens is holding the door for Esposito.  They’re both grinning like they’ve gotten away with something.

Above them is a single sprig of mistletoe.

“Oh no,” John says aloud.  “That’s where I draw the line.”

“You should keep your voice down,” Dorian says.  “Captain Maldonado said she didn’t want to hear about it.”

John stares at him incredulously.  “Are you kidding me?”

Valerie stops beside his desk and leans in between them.  “I complained about my bow,” she says quietly.  “I got two candles.”

“John hid his bow,” Dorian offers.  “And the candle.”

“Well, whoever’s doing it probably doesn’t like John.”  Valerie smirks at him, and John has to smile back.  “Just be careful what you complain about, that’s all.”

“If you think getting more of this crap is a sign of affection,” John tells her, “I’m gonna alienate every person in this office.”

“As a matter of record,” Dorian says, “who do you think is left?”

“Can’t seem to get rid of you,” John grumbles.

“I’m not the one decorating,” Dorian says.  “Alienating me won’t have the desired effect.  Who else?”

“I thought we decided whoever it is already doesn’t like me,” John says.

“Doesn’t narrow it down much,” Valerie agrees.  “We could just check the cameras.”

“Kennex!” Sandra shouts from the upper deck.  “Why are there two MXs handcuffed to the break room bioprinter?”

“What are you looking at me for?” John yells back.  “I don’t even have an MX!”

She’s already turning away.  “Uncuff them before I put you on weekend mall duty!”

John grimaces.  He bangs on his desk as he walks around the corner, heading for the stairs.  “Back in a minute,” he says over his shoulder.

On Friday, there are tiny wrapped presents on every chair.  Even the random communal chairs have them: little cubes the size of John’s thumb, clearly meant to be displayed as they are. Just to be contrary, John unwraps one.  There’s a spherical yellow smiley face inside.

He recycles the wrapping paper and gives the smiley face to Dorian.  “Reminds me of you,” John tells him.

Dorian looks at it suspiciously, and John figures they’ll turn him into a grinch yet.

2.

The mistletoe is still there on Monday.  John successfully ignores it all day.  Everyone else seems to have the same idea: it can’t hurt them if they don’t acknowledge it.  Married couples aside, anything that even suggests kissing in the workplace is a fast track to a harassment complaint.

John has no idea why Sandra’s letting it go until he sees the bowl of candy in the break room.  It’s filled with the three things Sandra loves most: peppermint, chocolate, and butterscotch.  She’s being bribed, and John wishes he’d thought of it first.  He probably could have gotten away with the bioprinter trick long enough for a lot more pictures to show up on the department network.

The next day there are holly ringlets around the base of everyone’s desk light.  John tries to disentangle his for a minute and a half before giving it up as a lost cause.  It’s not in his way.  He can pretend not to see these things as well as anyone.

“I see you’ve given up,” Dorian says, when he doesn’t glare for more than a few seconds at the paper snowflakes that appear in the middle of the week.  “Does this mean you’ve figured out who it is and decided not to antagonize them, or you’re planning some sort of elaborate revenge?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John tells his screen.

“Revenge,” Dorian says, taking a step back.  “It must be revenge.”

“Where are you going,” John says, not looking away from the screen.  He can see Dorian heading for the stairs out of the corner of his eye.

“Forensics,” Dorian calls back.  “I’m telling McGinnis not to take your calls for the rest of the month.”

John snorts.  It’s far too late for that.  On the plus side, McGinnis is going to get a great holiday bonus from her secret santa.

“What’s this?”  Rudy’s voice is distinct enough to carry through the bullpen from the top of the stairs.  John scrolls through another page of tinsel advertisements and autoplay holograms that want to be three dimensional.  “A perfectly good opportunity going to waste, that’s what it is.”

John picks the most obnoxious hologram he can find: a singing reindeer with a customizable heart.  It might be worth turning around to see Dorian try to pass Rudy under the mistletoe, but he's learned to take his Dorian-free moments where he can get them.  They come less and less frequently lately.

"Hey, Rudy."  Dorian sounds like he does in the lab, which should make John look up if anything will.  Dorian never sounds that relaxed when there's other people around.

John takes the moment to type "hey look it's bleeding" into the heart instead.  It's something about the stillness that gets his attention, and he finally looks around in time to see Dorian whispering something to Rudy.  Then Dorian kisses Rudy on the cheek and keeps walking.

Rudy looks irritatingly pleased with himself.  John rolls his eyes, sending the singing reindeer to Dorian and waiting for a response.  He isn't disappointed.

An electronic card comes back exactly eight seconds later, with a picture straight off the bullpen cameras.  John's image is edited in instead of Rudy's, and the words "you're welcome" are printed underneath.  There's a halo above Dorian's head.

3.

A tree appears over the weekend.  The kicker is that it’s a real tree, not holographic, which means someone had to physically transport it into the precinct.  Or a team of someones.  Stupidly strong someones with a face no one would stop.

John can only assume Santa hats will be next.  Or maybe glass balls.  What do you even put on a real tree?  Popcorn chains?

"That's farther than I thought they'd go," Dorian says.

John looks sideways at him.  He can't decide whether Dorian knows who it is or if he's just using a neutral pronoun to be polite.  He can obviously hack the cameras; there's no reason he wouldn't have seen them.

"I thought we weren't talking about it," John says instead.

"Captain Maldonado isn't here today," Dorian says.  "Although they may need more than candy to get away with this one.”

“It’s pretty obvious,” John agrees.  It feels weird to be discussing it in a normal tone of voice after weeks of pretending he doesn’t see anything.

“It’s operationally inefficient,” Dorian says.  “It restricts traffic flow and contributes a new source of contaminants to the environmental filtration system.”

“Wow,” John says, folding his arms.  “Did I really turn you into a grinch, or was it always there inside you, waiting to come out?”

Dorian doesn’t miss a beat.  “You could try being more positive and see what happens,” he says.

John scoffs.  “Don’t hold your breath.”

“I won’t,” Dorian says.  It’s hard to tell if he means it or if he’s just being literal.

Dorian starts going through his desk, which John pretends to ignore.  It’s not like he wants the stuff they’ve been finding the last couple of weeks, so if Dorian wants to take the bows and snowflakes and put them on the tree John’s not going to stop him.  By the time Dorian’s twist-tied the candle to the top branch, Valerie’s bringing her decorations over, and that seems to convince everyone else it’s safe too.

John goes out at lunch and buys Sandra a fancy bottle in a gift box and leaves it on her desk.  He takes a picture of the tree--now covered in snowflakes and holly berries--from her office, then sends it to her with a picture of the gift box.  “On the plus side,” he writes, “no MXs were handcuffed to anything today.”

She doesn’t answer.  She also doesn’t say anything about the tree when she comes in the next day.  Everyone gets star stickers, except for Sandra, who gets star stickers and a label that reads, “Best Boss.”  It’s stuck to her coffee mug the next time John sees it.

Wednesday the gift is jingle bells, most of which migrate to the tree.  On Thursday the tree has tinsel on it, and on Friday there’s a thin but quilted tree skirt underneath it.  John frowns at it, because he’s seen that tree skirt before.

It isn’t until Richard walks in that he makes the connection.  His memory is still weird sometimes, and it’s a very generic tree skirt.  It’s also identical to the one they had at the Christmas party in Vice three years ago.

“What are you doing to my jacket?” Dorian asks.

“Nothing,” John says.  It’s Dorian’s own fault that he left his jacket on the back of John’s chair.  Recreating the department logo out of star stickers on the front pocket is both festive and work-appropriate.  

“Just figured it could use some sprucing up,” John adds, getting up and clapping Dorian on the shoulder.  “Let’s go.”

Dorian eyes the jacket dubiously, but he puts it on.  The starry logo lasts the rest of the day.

4.

John doesn’t come in early the week of Christmas.  He doesn’t have to, because he’s still there from the weekend.  He gets called out on Sunday, Dorian gets busted up in the ensuing firefight, and John falls asleep in the lab.  It's not comfortable, but it’s not the first time, either.

His phone reads 3:38 when he wakes up.  Rudy is gone, Dorian is charging, and the closest place to get a donut is the break room outside the bullpen.  He spends the trip there trying to decide between having coffee and raiding the bottom drawer of Valerie’s desk.

The first MX with a tiny white ornament hanging from every finger makes him blink, but he’s awake enough to look the other way when he sees another one.  It’s still hours before shift change.  At least that answers the question of whether or not the night shift detectives are helping them.

He takes two donuts and finishes an entire cup of coffee before he gets to his car.  He didn’t want to go out, but he figures less than half the people on right now want to be there at all.  If dogwatch is going to take care of day shift, someone should probably be taking care of them, too.

John brings back noodles, vegetables, brownies, and cookies.  He figures that covers most of the bases, plus breakfast for him and a thank you gift for Rudy.  When a pair of white paper birds mysteriously appear on his desk, Dorian isn’t there to point out that everyone else only got one.  John puts both birds on the tree before he goes back to the lab.

Rudy’s nowhere to be found, but five of the cookies are gone and Dorian’s aware enough to talk.  John entertains him for the rest of the morning.  Valerie shows up around lunchtime and promises to keep Dorian company if John goes home and gets some sleep.  Dorian seems fine with it, and John’s leg is shooting warnings at him every fifteen minutes, so he lets himself be replaced.

There’s a message on his phone when he wakes up that evening.  It’s Dorian.  “Rudy and I are going out,” he says.  “Come with us if you feel like drinking when you wake up.”

Just for that, John buys pizza for the night shift and leaves it at the precinct before he goes looking for them.  They’re at a different bar now, which screams “pub crawl,” or maybe just “Rudy didn’t like the music at the last one so we had to keep moving.”  He doesn’t ask.

He does ask what the hell Richard is doing at Leo’s, and what he means is, why the hell are they sitting with him.  Dorian makes room for John but doesn’t empty the pitcher for him.  Rudy ostentatiously orders him an orange juice instead, which means Dorian’s been talking, so John ignores it and Richard pretends they’re the only ones at the table.

“Someone had to keep an eye on your sorry bot,” he tells John.

“Hey,” Rudy objects.  “That’s my job!  I mean,” he adds quickly, “not that you’re--”

Dorian is smiling at him, so John lets it go.  “I miss anything at work?” he asks.

“Just Sandra kissing Stahl under the mistletoe,” Richard says.

The worst part is, John can’t tell if he’s being had.  Rudy nods vigorously, but he could be in on it.  John looks at Dorian, who looks calmly back at him.  “You’re kidding me,” John says.

“You asked,” Richard says.  “Pretty sure she was trying to make a point about something.  Couldn’t tell you what, though; everyone was too busy taking pictures to notice.”

“So I’m going to see this,” John says.  What was his information network doing while he slept?

“Surprised you haven’t already,” Richard says.

John frowns.  “Is the mistletoe still there?”  Maybe it was a point about disruption of the workplace, or fire safety, or something boring.

“Yeah,” Richard says.  “Just goes to show, you never really know what your coworkers are up to.”

John considers that and decides he’s not going to get a better opening.  “That reminds me,” he says, pulling a small bottle out of his coat pocket.  He sets the sealed container of olive oil on the table in front of Dorian.  “Merry Christmas.”

Dorian beams, one private moment away from laughter.  “Thank you, John.”  There’s the slightest hesitation and John wonders if he’ll run with it.  He does.  “What a self-serving gift.”

Rudy looks like he can’t decide whether to be appalled or impressed, but Richard just snorts.  “I don’t want to know,” he tells them.

They’re saved by the return of the server delivering John’s orange juice.  John says “thank you” instead of “there’d better be something in this,” so he counts that as a victory.  Leaning over to clink the glass against Dorian’s bottle, he adds, “Here’s to many more.”

5.

It doesn’t get completely dark in John’s bedroom, even without the muted glow of holiday lights left on in the other room.  Now, though, the heavy shadows are faintly colored and the sheets are washed in green and gold.  He turns his face into the pillow, inhaling the lingering scent of olive oil, and smiles when he feels a tickle against his skin.

“I got you a present, too,” Dorian whispers.

“Mmm?”  He’s too tired to move.  The lights will just have to stay on, because he’s not planning to let Dorian push him off.

“It’s on the floor,” Dorian says.  His fingers are running over John’s arm, idly soft and comforting.  They sparkle blue when John lifts his head to watch, and he resettles his weight against Dorian’s body.  “On your side of the bed, next to the crate.”

Within easy reach, were either of them still inclined.  John smirks as he asks, “Toys or holos?”

“Olive oil,” Dorian admits.  “I got it last week.”

Before he knew John had bought him the same thing.  John presses a kiss into his skin and murmurs, “Great minds think alike.”

“I don’t see how we’ve proven that,” Dorian says, cupping the back of his head.  His fingers are gentle on John’s scalp as they card through his hair.  “Unless a great mind told you what to get me.”

John’s breath huffs out in a lazy laugh.  He doesn’t bothering telling Dorian to shut up, because he doesn’t want him to.  Instead he just closes his eyes and lets Dorian have the win.

He has Dorian, so he thinks he comes out ahead in the end.