#early years adrifires bc they're so.... KEJNRMH

[sunlessea]

🌿🍒 adrifires <3

standing under a mistletoe ... / @londonfallen

he doesn't know what to make of the neath's holidays, and truthfully never has. he doesn't celebrate with them, beyond the fact none would allow caitiffs into their societal circles to do so in the first place, not even the brujah or revolutionaries were fond to take on his kind into their own traditions. the castle sometimes splits up into their own little groups, but he doesn't, not so big on friends and the like. still, he finds the neath's traditions to be pale imitations of what the cultures above would be, were they not tainted by the bazaar.

sacksmas lacks the genuine cheer that holidays on the surface have, though he hadn't ever been keen on them, either. the lights down here are more ghastly than charming, and like is he to be worried trees or lacre bite or poison rather than anything else.

he's surprised caminus is decorated at all, if he's being honest. but he isn't the only scrooge who shows up for work these days.

"you didn't decorate all this, did you?" he rolls his eyes, making gestures to the gaudy lights and garland strung all around. even its office has been infected, but he can't find it in himself to imagine that mr fires had ordered anyone to decorate this place of any free will of its own. its jovial persona is a lie, and london knows it. "this isn't santa's workshop. we all come here to be miserable, there's really no need for all this."

he walks 'round its desk, past it in fact, to slap down the stack of papers he carries onto the mess of paperwork it already has scattered around, neglected, behind it among filings. he doesn't even stir when he hears it scrambling to get up to him, licking his finger instead to pass through the pages. evaluations. yeah, merry sacksmas, here's the deciding factor on whether mr fires kills you or keeps you around. what great prospects for the future, in their holiday season.

fires is purring in his ear before he even gets a chance to whip around and quip at it, its hands at his hips making his posture stiffen and his jaw set. as it's murmuring against his shoulder, he whips around to shoo it off with his hand. in doing so, he finds what he teases — the beautifully discreet mistletoe strung up 'round them. his nose scrunches. "i hope this means you're kissing all your neddies when they flood in to do your dirty work," he comments dryly, ignoring its pouting.

it isn't subtle, and he doesn't have a patient bone in his body.

"surely you don't want to kiss me, sir?" through narrowed eyes, he glares at it, before picking up one of its binders of paperwork and thwacking it into its chest. "stop waiting around and get back to work. you have better things to do than moon at a caitiff all day. your reputation's already in tatters as it is."