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Abolish knocked on the door softly, carefully, almost like he didn't want to be heard. Despite that, it only took a few seconds before the door was swinging open and Drift was standing in front of him with a bright smile.
"There you are!" they said, tossing their long near-white hair over their shoulder as they glanced Abolish up and down. He really hoped his outfit was alright, given that it wasn't much different from what he usually wore, since he had absolutely no clue what he was supposed to be wearing to their… friendly situationship Christmas shopping date thing. It had no idea what their relationship was, seeing as they had hardly spoken in centuries up until recently.
"Hello," it said slowly, pushing its hands deeper into its pockets. It was wearing a simple band t-shirt, matching his baggy black jeans and combat boots. He'd tried to do something with his hair, tying some of it back in a short ponytail, but he didn't know how successful that'd been. "I hope I'm not late."
"No, you're right on time." Drift glanced back into the apartment, announcing, "I'll be back later!"
"Stay safe!" Shelby's voice called back to him from a room Abolish couldn't see.
Within a few moments, Drift was shutting the door behind himself, shoving his hands in the pockets of his hoodie as he walked down the hallway. Abolish followed close behind for a second or two before settling into pace beside him.
"How have you been?" Drift asked as they got to the elevator. It'd only been a week since they'd last spoken to each other, although Abolish's days tended to be pretty boring when there weren't any huge missions for him to go on.
"I've been alright." He let out a quiet hum, taking a moment to glance Drift up and down. They were wearing a white and brown hoodie along with pale blue skinny jeans, shoes being the same beaten up orange and white sneakers they'd been wearing every day for the past several years. Abolish had half a mind to think those shoes were indestructible.
"That's good," Drift said as the elevator doors opened. "Boring as usual, I assume?"
"Yeah." The vampire let out a little laugh, smiling as the two of them stepped into the elevator.
"Honestly, same here," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I still can't get over how everything changed so fast. I mean I know you and I weren't talking years ago, but man, just a few decades ago everything was honestly more similar to what it was like back in Oakhurst than it is to now. When it comes to my job, at least."
"Your job, yeah?" Abolish hummed, letting his head tilt to the side slightly. He was aware of what they claimed their job was, the same thing it'd been years ago in Oakhurst, although he'd hardly kept up with all that much. It'd been too focused on keeping track of Scott - who had only recently really started behaving. It wondered if that had anything to do with it hanging around Drift more.
"Yeah, me being a detective and all," Drift said, nodding. "With the internet and all the security stuff people have made it's like… I can't really investigate stuff anymore. Can't go from state to state without it being a huge hassle- Can hardly even fake your death anymore!" They said that last part with a laugh. "There's barely anything to investigate in real life anymore, and I'd probably just get arrested if I tried anyways."
Abolish paused as a memory came flooding back to him. "Didn't you get arrested one time?"
"Oh, yeah." Drift tapped his chin as he stepped out of the elevator. "God, that was forever ago though. And that was back when it was super easy to just skip town and no one would ever know where I went."
It couldn't help the quiet chuckle it let out as it followed Drift out the door and into the parking lot, Drift flashing it a bright, fanged grin.
"Your car or mine?" they asked, gesturing over to where their bright white car was parked. The car was almost blinding in the cold winter sunlight.
"We can take mine, it has more room," Abolish said after a moment, turning and walking towards where his own black car was parked. Drift practically skipped along behind him as he opened the passenger door for them.
"Alright!" They slid into the car and Abolish quickly got into the driver's seat. "Where did you want to go first?"
"I probably need to stop by Walmart," he hummed as he started up the car. "I have a few things I need to grab, then we can go wherever else you want."
He turned up the heat and then pulled out his phone, letting the car warm up as he tried to find a good playlist. He honestly hated most Christmas music, and he knew that'd be the only thing any radio stations were playing, and he wanted to put that off as long as possible. He settled on a playlist he hadn't listened to in a while before finally pulling out of his parking spot and starting to drive.
It only took a few minutes before he was pulling into the Walmart parking lot, immediately wanting to slam his head into the steering wheel at how crowded the parking lot was. It was the middle of December, so that wasn't surprising, with people doing last-minute shopping and all, but it was still annoying.
"What do you need to get exactly?" Drift asked as Abolish finally found somewhere to park, even if the truck next to the spot was definitely at least a few inches over the line.
"Some food, mostly." He gave a slight shrug as he turned his phone off and slipped it back in his pocket. "I was thinking about trying to make cookies that vampires can eat, my dad's made them before and I figured I'd give it a try. Now that I actually have people to give them to."
"Oh, that's possible?" Drift gasped, his eyes a bit wide. "I haven't had cookies in forever."
"Yeah, they're not super good for you but they taste good and they're edible for you." Abolish had always been glad that being a half-vampire meant that he could eat both human and vampire food. Not that he ever drank much blood, it always made him feel odd in a way that maybe scared him a little.
"I'd love to try them if you wanted to give me some!" Abolish got out of the car, stretching a bit.
"Yeah, who else do you think I'd give them to?" he questioned, giving a quiet laugh as Drift got out of the car as well.
Drift paused, then laughed, saying, "Right, right, I forgot, Abolish 'no friends' Veylocke."
"Hey, I have friends," he huffed, waving a hand dramatically. "I do now, at least."
"Oh, of course." Abolish couldn't help but think that they were cute when they were giggly like this, although he worried about them slipping on the ice with how much they were bouncing around. The two of them made it into the store just fine, thankfully.
Abolish sighed when he was hit in the face with loud Christmas music, grating in his ears. Part of him wanted to make this as quick as possible, but unfortunately he knew that no matter what store he went to he'd have to hear Christmas music, so there was no use. He simply headed towards the baking aisle and tried to remember which brand his father had told him to buy.
"Abolish, they have a ton of plushies over here," Drift said suddenly, and Abolish looked up from where it'd been glancing through all the different kinds of cookie mix. He waved at it from the end of the aisle, gesturing somewhere else.
After a brief moment of hesitation, Abolish set down the box he'd been holding, following Drift towards where all the stuffed animals were. There were about a million Christmas-themed stuffed animals, from reindeer to kittens with Santa hats, as well as plenty of regular plushies. Drift was looking through all of them with wide eyes, and Abolish couldn't help but look through them as well.
Loving stuffed animals had always been sort of a little secret Abolish had. It was immature, really, to fall asleep holding a black and white kitten plushie to his chest every night, but it was fine as long as he never told anyone. He was pretty sure he'd die if anyone ever found out.
Drift spoke up beside him as they picked up a little lamb plushie. "This one reminds me of Avid."
The mention of that name made Abolish's heart nearly stop, but he had to admit that they were right. Something about the brownish fluffy fur and almost purplish blue eyes just screamed Avid. He could only look at it for a few moments before tearing his gaze away.
"Yeah." He took a deep breath as a surge of jealousy suddenly bubbled up in his chest. Drift and Avid had always been so close, Shelby along with them, far closer than they'd ever allowed Abolish to get. He supposed it was partially his own fault, but even when he'd tried to get closer, Drift and Avid had forgotten about him the moment he'd turned around. He hadn't thought the memories would still hurt this badly.
"I should probably apologize." Drift slowly set the lamb back on the shelf, while a cold wave of shock went through Abolish. "I know it happened forever ago now, but I don't think I ever told you I was sorry for abandoning you. And… Avid would probably be sorry too, if he was still here."
Abolish took a deep breath, staring intently at the stuff animal in front of him. A large reindeer squishmallow with a dumb smile on its face. He'd never particularly loved the look of squishmallows, but they were always wonderful to cuddle with. Not like Abolish had much to compare them too.
"It's alright," it said finally, closing its eyes for just a moment. "You don't need to apologize, I know you didn't mean to. Everyone was panicking back then, it was all so chaotic, there was no way we could've gotten closer back then."
"And I know that no matter what you say you're still sad about it," Drift countered, patting his shoulder a couple times. "Because you have no friends and I can see right through all your talk about how all of this is just work. I'm a detective, Abolish, I know things."
Abolish paused, then let out a quiet, humorless laugh. "Okay, okay, I get it." It shook its head. "I'm fine now, though. Thank you." It was telling the truth, somehow - Drift saying all that to it had cleared up something in its chest that'd been there for a very long time, so long that it'd almost forgotten how it'd felt before.
"You don't need to thank me." Drift glanced around, then grabbed a large calico cat squishmallow off the shelf. "Here, to make it up to you, why don't I buy you this?"
The idea of a stuffed animal making up for anything was a little ridiculous, but that somehow made it feel infinitely better already. It shook its head but murmured, "Alright, sure." Drift grinned at it and pushed the squishmallow into its arms. "I do still need to buy some stuff, though."
"I can pay for it," Drift said with a shrug, turning and starting to walk out of the aisle. Abolish couldn't help but snort at that.
"I have money."
"And so do I!" Drift giggled as they turned to him and did a very terrible bow, extending their arm dramatically. "Let me be a gentleman. It's almost Christmas, after all."
Abolish laughed, shaking his head, even though his heart was pounding at how sweet Drift was suddenly being towards him. "Alright, okay, whatever you say."