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The first one appears in the early days of December.
Primož notices it when he comes home after a day with old friends he used to ski jump with, stomping the snow off his boots and leaving them in the entryway with his coat and beanie. He hears the kettle start to boil from the kitchen, and potters into the house on slippery socked feet, eager at the promise of hot tea and warm company.
It's hanging in the doorway between the sitting room and the kitchen. Primož looks up, sees the silver berries and grey-green leaves above him, and retreats. There's another door into the kitchen from the hallway, so he goes the long way around and makes it in just as the kettle clicks off. Tadej has two mugs in hand, and he jumps like he wasn't expecting Primož to come up behind him.
"Good day? How was everyone?" he asks, setting the mugs down - they're the tacky Christmas ones they only use a handful of times a year, red for Tadej and green for Primož, both printed like Christmas sweaters - and picking out a box of teabags.
"Same as they always are," Primož shrugs. Tadej nods, puts a teabag in each mug and wraps the string around the handle, then pours the hot water over.
The process of making tea is almost ritualistic for them - when one is undertaking the task, the other does not interrupt - and so Primož just watches as Tadej lets both cups steep while he fetches milk for his mug and honey for Primož’s. They don’t need to make small talk, content like this, the clink of spoons and the hum of the gas heater in the next room filling the quiet. Tadej knows that Primož likes to stir the last of the honey into his tea, and Primož is grateful for that small satisfaction and the warmth of the mug seeping into his cold hands.
“I’m going to charge my phone,” he says, a little white lie to avoid walking through the doorway at the same time as Tadej.
Tadej pouts slightly, but lets Primož take his mug with him down the hallway and return, free of the mistletoe.
The next day, another sprig is hanging over the other kitchen doorway.
It’s not that Primož has anything against Christmas - he’s usually a rather festive person, eager to decorate a tree and wrap presents and go out in the cold with travel mugs of hot coffee to see the lights strung up in the streets.
He does think the mistletoe is a bit much, though.
After all, Primož muses, if Tadej wanted to kiss him, he could just ask. The concept isn’t new to either of them.
Another sprig of mistletoe pops up over the doorway to their bathroom.
By the time the fourth and fifth sprigs go up - over their bedroom and balcony doors, respectively - the confusion has dissipated into paranoia.
He wonders what Tadej is plotting, because Tadej is definitely plotting something.
Mistletoe is parasitic - it grows on unsuspecting trees, planting roots from seeds carried on in bird shit. It leaches away nutrients from that branch, thriving while its host's leaves wither and weaken, until someone comes and cuts it off as an excuse to get a kiss out of someone in December. Its berries and leaves are poisonous to humans and their pets, causing what can politely be called gastrointestinal distress, which makes for an interesting week after Christmas.
What a romantic plant, Primož thinks upon learning this. Hopefully, Tadej's not trying to hint at anything.
It’s Christmas Eve, and there is so much mistletoe in their house that Primož is afraid to walk through any doorway. He irritably wonders where Tadej got it all from, and whether it’s even real, because that original one in the kitchen is still looking verdant - either Tadej is very good at swapping out dying mistletoe without him noticing, or it’s plastic.
He’s never been so anxious at Christmas, not even when trying to hide Tadej’s presents from him, and Tadej has this uncanny ability of being able to walk into a room as Primož is about to wrap a present for him.
He calls his parents that night, sitting as far away from the entrance to their sitting room as possible, keeping an eye out for when he might be able to make an escape and not cross paths with Tadej under the doorway.
As he hangs up, he hears Tadej call him from the kitchen, so he goes to investigate, and bumps into Tadej in the doorway.
Tadej looks up. Primož follows his gaze.
"Primož," Tadej says, eyes big and persuasive. "It's tradition."
Primož sighs, and begrudgingly pulls Tadej into a kiss. It's not the most romantic moment, shadowed by Primož's irritation at the mistletoe, but they've certainly shared worse kisses.
"You could've just asked, Tadej," Primož sighs. "You don't need to corral me with mistletoe to get me to kiss you."
"I wanted to make sure. Cover all my bases, you know?" Tadej says sheepishly, gaze flicking between Primož and the mistletoe.
"Jesus Christ, Tadej, can we at least take some of it down?"
And so they do - for the sole purpose of de-weaponising their house against Primož's fear of being jumped by Tadej.
Tadej fetches their slightly-unreliable stepladder from a store cupboard, and Primož holds it steady. They're just plastic, and Tadej has just taped them in place. Primož watches him carefully peel them off, hoping he won't have to repaint the door frames in the new year.
They go around, one by one, taking down the more inappropriate sprigs. Tadej nearly bumps his head on a light fitting removing the bathroom one. Primož has to simultaneously hold the ladder steady and prevent their soft-sliding balcony door from closing on Tadej's fingers with his leg.
Tadej insists Primož kisses him under each one before he goes up the ladder, and Primož obliges, feeling quite silly the whole time. They keep the one over their bedroom door up, because even Primož realises they can have a bit of fun with that, and the original one in the kitchen, but the rest go into a box.
"You'd kill me if I threw these away," Tadej points out as he stands on the ladder one last time to put the box on a high shelf in their store cupboard. "I know what you're like."
For all his ways, Primož would pay anything to see that box of mistletoe done away with, so it could never ruin his Christmas again.
The one in the bedroom doorway can stay, though - it works wonders when Primož stands under it, raises an eyebrow at Tadej, and says, "It's tradition."