Wreaths and Drummers

In between posters of rockstars and scribbled sticky notes, Lapis balanced precariously on the back of Syd’s couch with a wreath in his hands.

There wasn’t many places that the band got together without the paparazzi also finding out, so Lapis decided to spend his time decorating the apartment he shared with his band’s drummer. What had begun as a temporary housing endeavor quickly became Lapis’ new home, if only because he dreaded the thought of living with any of the other bandmates.

They were louder and more violent and they tended to sleep together in very good areas in their homes or so Lapis was told. Syd had the decency to never bring any of his dates home, if he had dates, Lapis still wasn’t still what he did when he wasn’t at the apartment.

“Almost got it,” Lapis mumbled to himself, stretching out far to hook the wreath to a nail in the wall.

It was when he tried to stand back up on the couch that his hoof got caught and he tumbled downstairs. “Woah!”

What should have been the hard wood against his back, was instead a pair of familiar arms. A gruff voice answered him, “What the fuck were you doing? Are you trying to hurt yourself?”

Lapis looked up, smiling as he did, “Syd! You’re back early, thank you so much for catching me.” He righted himself quickly back on his hooves but when he turned to hug the succubun, the drummer was already a few feet away.

“Seriously, what are you doing, Lapis?” He huffed, glancing at the wall behind the couch. He frowned when he saw a frame on the wall was missing, replaced with some weird plant, “And where the hell is my signed poster? What’s with the leafy looking thing?”

Lapis tilted his head, trying to hold back his laughter or Syd was sure to get mad at him. “It’s Cherubmas, I had to hang a wreath.”

Syd was silent for a moment, before he groaned, “Ah damnit, Minerva told me I was supposed to help you with that. She’s gonna be pissed off I didn’t.”

Lapis clapped his hands together then, smiling brightly, “That’s okay! I have a lot more to hang.”

Syd froze, his voice catching as he dared to look down at his coffee table. It was packed to the brim with a bunch of wreaths of different sizes, all made of holy holly. “Why… why do you have so many?”

Lapis laughed, his usual nerves forgotten in his excitement, “Because it’s to celebrate! Cherubuns have been here a whole year, that means I’ve been here with the band for almost that long.”

Syd was tempted to remind Lapis he hadn’t been that excited to be the band’s PR all those months ago, but he had the shaking feeling all of this would take a lot longer if he upset the other. “So what, we hang all of this everywhere?”

Lapis nodded, leaning down to pick up a hammer and a box of nails, “We can put one on the front door too, maybe all the doors in the apartment. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Yeah fun.” Syd sighed heavily through his nose, it’s not that he disliked living with Lapis, but when that cherubun wanted to do things, why did he always have to help? “Get the wreaths, I’ll use the hammer.”

Syd grabbed the hammer and box of nails out of the cherubun’s hands, walking over to an empty part of the wall. “The second this holiday is over, you’re taking all this crap down.”

Lapis nodded again as he grabbed an armful of wreaths, “Got it!”

The sloth bun gave him another look, before he fished out a nail and held it up against the wall. He raised the hammer and gently hit the nail until it was third quarters of the way in. “Okay, this one is good, go on and put up the wreath.” He took a step back.

Lapis practically pushed him aside in his haste to hang up one of the smaller wreaths. “This one is my favorite, it has a little mercia figurine. I wanted the other virtues to match mine, but I couldn’t find them.”

Syd took a deep breath, living with Lapis was a testament to how well he could control his anger around the cherubun. Still, he didn’t exactly hate seeing him this excited and Syd was sure the rest of his band wouldn’t let Lapis do whatever he wanted in their apartments.

It could be worse.

So Syd swallowed his pride and continued helping Lapis hang wreaths all over their apartment. He figured maybe that was the spirit of the holiday or something, being glad to know the cherubun in his life. He didn’t plan to ever tell Lapis that, but he did think maybe he’d be annoyed if the cherubun wasn’t here.