“I’m here when I need tae be.” He says absently, too amused with the wrapping paper to delve deeper into it. It’s been nearly a year and the flat is nice, it’s not too spacious, it has a great view, but aside from the second bedroom that he’d converted into a darkroom and his closet, the place was too pristine to feel lived in. Briefly, he wonders what Casper and his lass’s place must look like, he’ll have to drop by for once instead of meeting out in public or at his flat. Something makes him think that the Halloween decor stayed up year round and just the thought has his the corner of his lips quirking up just a little. He steps aside to let Casper inside and he’s too curious to not carefully rip into the present as his foot slides the door shut behind them. It’s too sweet really, the gold bangle is beautifully crafted, the year stamped on the inside. He’s seen the dark haired lass at the market with all of her jewelry and it hits him as he slides the bracelet onto his wrist that he fits into Casper’s life somehow. “Thank ye, that’s very sweet.” And it’s just the slightest bit sheepish as he moves from the entryway to the bedroom and back all too quickly.
“There used tae be a wee bit of a tradition.” He explains as he hands Casper the black velvet ring box he’d retrieved from his dresser drawer. “First gift Gav really gave anybody, whether he was their sire or nae, he always got them something.” And he’d had varying reactions to it throughout the years, he’d been too jealous for his own good. But if Gavyn would have still been there, he would have done something for Casper and the silver signet ring stamped with a thistle was a little piece of home. Jamie’s got that same thistle tattooed underneath the left side of his collarbone and Gavyn had it on things all over the estate. It was the gentlest and least awkward way to welcome the younger vampire to what was left of his little found family. “An’ there’s something else but it warrants a drink an’ a serious discussion.”
It’s exciting to watch another receive and open a gift, even if you already know what is inside, emerald hues latching onto Jamie’s stormy blue’s as parts of his face bit back childlike eagerness. Casper understood the look well, often displaying that in his own features and found familiarity in it. Soon he was mimicking the behaviors and felt that jitter as the wrapping came apart, and noticed how delicately Jamie removed the gold bangle from its boxing. Marcella’s signature mark reflected in the slow light as the fellow vampire slipped the jewelry on, becoming almost a part of him as if the bangle had always been there. “Suits you,” he states in a way that shows his own surprise before eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the slinking way leaves and reenters the room, “-and what’s all this for?” Sure, Casper dished out gifts but there was never any expectations in return and it suddenly dawns on him that this black velvet box had been planned despite his own inclination.
There is also a realization that this would be their first holiday without him. And by their, he wouldn’t be including himself, but Dianna and all the other vampire’s that Gavyn had taken under his wing. At times, the whole experience of being adopted so late into the family was as if he was arriving at the final stages of a long party. ‘This was’ and ‘Would have’ are common phrases that gave Casper an ache deep in his belly, often leaving him to feel like a child asking an older sibling about their dead parent.
But instead of asking questions, the shine of the ring and the stamped thistle pull him back to the sounds of adopted children littering the floors of his parents home in New Orleans. The smell of the swamp mixed with all the holiday aroma’s of his mother’s baked goods— home. “This is really exceptional,” his emerald hues are soft as he looks to Jamie before slipping it onto his finger, securely next to the one Marcella had continued to adjust over the years. The other vampire might have been disguising the gift in all the traditions of Gavyn, Jamie hardly needed to keep with it and that detail was not lost on Casper. When he looked upon the ring in the future, it wouldn’t be Gavyn’s face he would see but the one who passed the velvet ring box in the first place. A cheshire grin molds from the soft one it held before as he listens to the fellow vampire, rhetorical question flooding from his lips, “Isn’t there usually something else?”