Dear Esther: I tried. Happy holidays, everyone!
The Rocheste Bar was packed from wall to wall with several dozen mercenaries feasting on a hearty Christmas meal and drunk on cheap alcohol, and the various drunkards sprawled about exploded into a cacophony of noise and off-key caroling every few minutes.
When the door to the Bar burst open with a bang and several crashes, Kai spared the sudden entrance a single glance as he calmly took a sip of his ale. Then, when his brain caught up to his eyes, he did a double take and coughed violently as the amber liquid almost burned a trail back up his throat.
The hood drawn over his head cast his face in a deep shadow and the archer was thankful for it as nobody could see that his eyes were watering slightly from the burn of alcohol. He forced himself to casually chug down half of his tankard. Kai wasn't sure if he was going to be able to rid himself of the image of Evie and Karok, in nothing but Christmas-themed underwear throwing snowballs at some unfortunate mercenaries in their immediate line of sight, through the use of copious amounts of alcohol. The sight was horrifying enough, so he figured might as damn well try.
"Excuse me, but is this seat taken?" Kai turned to look to his right and the first thing he saw was a chiseled six-pack and a pair of ridiculous green and red polka-dotted shorts.
...What?
Kai had to take a moment to formulate a reply, as the polka-dots were quite… distracting.
"...No." Kai busied himself with decidedly not looking in the direction of the almost-naked merc sitting next to him and signaled for the overworked bartender to send another mug of ale down to his dark little corner of the bar. The three tankards of alcohol he had already consumed made him feel warm from his toes to his fingertips, but he wasn't drunk in the least. Just a little more… relaxed, for the moment.
"Ay, don't pull the long face! Look, I've even brought you a present!" A small box wrapped inexpertly with snowflake-patterned paper slid over next to Kai's drink.
Somewhere in the raucous background, several people cheered as two unlucky mercenaries were caught under the mistletoe hanging under the Bar's main doors and were forced to kiss amidst all the wolf-whistles and jeering.
Kai stared at the box for a moment before looking back at the merc, his eyebrow arched as if to say are you kidding me?
Hurk's toothy grin was probably the brightest thing Kai's seen the whole day, and the archer snapped his gaze back to his mug before either an equally stupid-looking grin or an embarrassing flush could crawl over his face. "…Thanks."
Hurk flagged down the bartender for a mug of spiced rum, and the sound of jingling made Kai look back at the other man. Kai almost wished that he hadn't, seeing as Hurk reached up to adjust the silly reindeer antler headband on his head and Kai saw that around the proud merc's neck was a collar of jingling, silvery sleigh bells.
The long-awaited mug overflowing with spiced rum sloshed some liquid over the counter and Hurk wasted no time in taking a hefty swig. He caught Kai's wandering look and winked; Kai raised an eyebrow, but he couldn't help the smirk that appeared on his face. He liked what he was seeing, no doubt about it.
Hurk leaned in close enough so that he didn't have to shout over the noise and wrapped his arm around Kai's shoulders, who surprisingly didn't shrug it off like he usually did. "I'd definitely let you join in my reindeer games, eh?"
Kai nearly spat out a mouthful of ale. "What the f—"
"There's much worse, trust me. I've got some more." Hurk laughed as he took another swig of his rum. "No, that's not a candy cane in my pocket, I'm just glad to see you."
"Stop it." Kai hid a smile behind his tankard.
"You're the reason why Santa even has a naughty list?"
"Seriously."
"That some nice wrapping you got there, but I think I'd like to give it a closer inspection later."
"Stop."
"Interested in seeing the North Pole?"
"…really?"
"I must be a snowflake because I've fallen for you." At this, Hurk grinned and leaned in close enough so that he and Kai were face-to-face with fewer than three inches of space between. "There might not be mistletoe hanging over us, but can I still kiss you?"
Uncharacteristically giddy, Kai couldn't hide the smirk on his face as he hooked two fingers in the loose collar of sleigh bells and tugged the other man even closer.
Hurk laughed, bright and carefree with holiday spirit, and leaned in for a kiss.