[centre][color=89352C]𝗡𝗜𝗖𝗢𝗗𝗘𝗠 𝗞𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗞𝗜[/color]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/8CP8nm8.png[/img]
[sup][img]https://i.imgur.com/fy6vJWC.png[/img][/sup][/centre][right][sup]Opening the Fox up for business, ready for any of its employees to arrive; [@MiddleEarthRoze][@Write][/sup][/right]
Vampires don't sleep, not even in coffins, despite what folklore and cinema have to say on the subject. Particularly fashion or image conscious Vampires might keep a coffin or two around the place just for the look of the thing but they have no need to shut down for eight-to-ten hours of maintenance and stress relief like humans do. The undead get their rest, revitalisation and relaxation far more efficiently by drinking deeply of human blood. Or, in a pinch, animal blood.

Some Vampires, often the more eccentric or older ones, do enjoy putting their heads down though. True sleep is impossible but most immortals see the value in closing their eyes to be alone with their thoughts, if they've got the patience to lie still for long enough. Younger Vampires often eschewed the practise, preferring to burn the candle not just from both ends but from both sides as well, and generally didn't pick up the habit until the sheer wait of constant consciousness bore them down, often to an early grave. Or a late grave, if you want to get technical.

Nicodem had been in the habit of getting three hours of 'unconsciousness' a night for more than two hundred years and found it as refreshing now as he had back then, in an uncomfortable bunk in a Napoleonic stockade. There had been so many hours in each day of captivity that he'd needed to find something to start whittling them down while he waited for the firing squad. That hadn't worked out particularly well for them or anyone in the surrounding area but the habit had stuck with him, one of the many small things that had slowly built towards his current rigid and meticulously maintained schedule.

Three hours was enough though, he mused, as your own thoughts could become deafening if you listened to them for too long. He was currently going through his morning routine and carefully considering the day ahead, the pale light of dawn just barely peaking over the rooftops outside. Nicodem's flat was directly above his pub, The Slye Fox, and had a similarly dark, old and well maintained look to it. Well aged bookcases with heavy loads of mature tomes shared the space with polished mahogany tables and venerable arm chairs. The decor was antiquated, to be sure, but comfortable and homely.

At least, it was if you could see well in the dark, Vampires generally don't see much need for lamps.

Currently, Nicodem's attention was on his shoe. It was a hard working thing and appropriate for many occasions, black and formal enough for a funeral but with thick enough soles for a back alley brawl. It's only flaw was a large scuff down one side that Nicodem didn't remember getting there. Might've happened when he was taking the Fox's bins out the night before, though it equally could've gotten there during a scuffle he'd had with a pair of the Methuselah Court's pawns the night before that. The latter was much worse because not only would it mean the jumped-up half fangs had marked him, it'd mean he'd been walking around for a full day and night with marred footwear.

He only hope Loki hadn't noticed, the old bastard never missed a chance to poke fun.

With a muttered curse in Estonian, a language Nicodem took particular pleasure from swearing in, he set to work with the polish and brush to restore the shoe's former glory. The rest of his outfit was, of course, immaculate. A grey silk shirt with Swiss tabs to facilitate rolling up one's sleeves, a thick woollen waistcoat with deep pockets over that and a pair of slate trousers to round out the colour scheme. He was occasionally accused, normally by Eve, of dressing far too nicely for running a pub. She said he should open a fancy uptown restaurant so that his wardrobe finally matched his occupation but he paid her no mind.

It was, after all, a modern pleasure to dress well. In times past, you'd make do with whatever you got and hope it kept you warm. Fashion was a far off concern, far down the hierarchy of needs for anyone not of the upper crust and Nicodem's only interaction with crusts had been eating them. But over the last few hundred years, clothes that fit well, looked good and kept the weather out had become not only available and affordable but ubiquitous. If anything, it baffled Nicodem whenever he saw someone [i]not[/i] taking advantage of it.

When he was fully prepared for the day, shoes polished to within an inch of their lives and a charcoal coloured tie Windsor knotted around his neck, Nicodem went downstairs, put on his coat and took off at a brisk walk towards the off-license, the only place open at this point in the morning. The man behind the counter looked up from his phone and nodded to Nicodem, silently receiving payment for a newspaper and pack of Silk Cuts, a cheap and foul brand of cigarettes. He knew the bar owner of old, as had his father before him, and both had carefully never asked him how it was that he never seemed to age.

Paper in hand, Nicodem returned to his abode, his eyes travelling over a particularly forlorn young things slowly stumbling along the pavement. His sense of smell, an experienced and well honed sense, told him she smelled off nothing but the component smells of her outfit, all perfume and no sweat, all alcohol and no breath. This allowed him to file her under the heading 'GHOST' in his lexicon of faces in Edgetoun, a category that seemed to have doubled in size over the last year or so. People were surely not dying more, so perhaps there was some sort of backed up pipe over on the other side?

The thought put the subtlest of smiles on his face.

Nicodem spent the next several hours quietly smoking his way through half the packet of cigarettes, enjoyed alongside a cup of black Keemun tea, and reading the paper. Never having really bothered to catch up to the digital age, Nicodem got his news from word of mouth or from the printed word. Both were taken with a hefty pinch of salt, few having had as much experience of being misled and lied than an old Vampire, but it paid to keep even a vague idea of what was happening in the world because you never knew when it might suddenly start happening to you.

Most of it seemed about what he had expected, further fear mongering about the Other on the front page while the pages within experimented with more curious and often salacious thoughts about the unknown. Mortals did, in his experience, react to new information with base emotions such as fear, lust and anger so things were simply proceeding as he'd expected. The trial for that werewolf with the garish name was coming up and every other page seemed to feel the need to bring it up and rail about the police's failures to stop him or discuss the pressure on the state to get a successful conviction.

Still, Nicodem wasn't the one behind bars and the day was wasting while he read so, eventually, he cleared away his tea cup, ash tray and paper and made his way downstairs. After a few moment's fiddling with the radio to find the Russian Classical Station, he began taking the chairs down, replacing the coasters and generally preparing the Fox for another day of servicing Edgetoun's needs in the areas of company, camaraderie and, of course, alcohol. On particularly busy days, he would grumble about how many people flowed through the Fox's door to Eve or Loki, but even for a millennia old monster of the shadows with scars older than most royal families, it was secretly nice to feel wanted.

Like everything else in his life, Nicodem had the opening of the fox down to a well oiled routine and was done within a handful of minutes. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was now five minutes to ten, not a time that most bars opened at. But then, most bars didn't serve alcohol to dhampires, ghosts and other members of the undead. At least, not to their knowledge.

Nicodem slid back the bolts, flipped the sign on the door and settled down on a seat behind the bar. Anatoli Lyadov was playing on the radio behind him, the sun was now properly shining through the heavily obscured windows and he had the crossword in front of him. A good start to the day, he thought, as he bent down to look at the first clue.

[i]1 Across: Sign of good or evil for the future (4)...[/i]

An easy one. Nicodem's pen scribbled in the letters; O, M, E, N.