December 8th
Gift: Fic: Up On The Rooftop
Rating: PG-13
Author: broomclosetkink
Notes: YIP-verse, ...Ah, that's all I have to say, I suppose.
Tarrant does not often become truly exasperated with Alice. He finds nearly everything about her entrancing, endearing, intriguing (he had been thinking of things that start with E, until the buggered it up with I...) entrancing, endearing, enjoyable (by Hats, there it was!) - but he is Aboveland in her childhood bed, she has taken the vast majority of the blankets, his toes are freezing, and he is exhausted. Aboveground makes Tarrant itch, because there is no connection to to anything. It is a very bland place, very little imagination, and Tarrant is eternally surprised that his Alice grew in the soil of Aboveland twice. As well as her father, brilliant Charles that soaks in every bit of Underlandian life or illogical that slips from Tarrant's mouth. Tarrant finds a kindred spirit in Charles Kingsleigh, and he enjoys every passing moment of Time he spends with the man.
“Up on the rooftop, click click click,” Alice is singing under her breath, hanging off the side of the bed as her blasted mobile phone (which Tarrant finds terribly unnatural, trapping someone's voice and tossing it out Somewhere Else - he had seen magic like that go very, very badly). That thing is singing the same song, and despite the fact it is two in the morning, Alice is positively cheerful to hear it going off. “Down through the chimney with Good Saint - hello, Hamish!”
“Are you sleeping?” Tarrant can hear Hamish asking her through the mobile, and Tarrant is forced to grit his teeth. He gives a mean, amber eyed glare. It slices through the dim room, cutting through darkness and space, and it came terribly close to setting it on fire. Tarrant promise to try harder next time, because if he can manage to break it, his life would be much easier. Alice ignores the glare and his huffing as he rolls onto his stomach, puts a pillow over his face, and begins cursing in Outlandish.
“No,” Alice tells Hamish, wide awake, jiggling her feet. Tarrant lets the edge of his pillow pop up, and despite the fact she is His Alice, his own Beamish Boy, he glowers directly at her. “Can't sleep.”
“I wonder what's in that big present? The red one?” Under the Ascot's Christmas tree is a present that comes to Hamish's waist, is wrapped in red paper with silvery snowflakes. Hamish has been obsessing over it for the past three days since they came for their visit Aboveland.
“Monkey?” Alice suggested, for what Tarrant knows for a fact is the ninth time that night, and he begins to loudly grit his teeth. “Space monkey.”
“Brilliant,” Hamish breathes loudly into the room, because Alice has clicked a button and now it sounds as though Hamish right there. Tarrant doesn't much like the red head in a room he is occupying with Alice, much less then they are in bed together, not that anything of any great interest is happening. No, because it's Christmas Eve (though technically Christmas Day), and Alice has visions of sugar plum fairies (Tarrant hopes to meet one in the morning) and candy canes and...whatever else dancing about her pretty little head. “Space monkey that knows sign language so we can talk to it.”
“Nah,” Alice disagrees, “We don't know sign language.”
“We can learn.”
“We could...”
“Ninja?”
“Your dad does know you love ninja's.”
“Bit small for a ninja, though. Midget ninja?”
“They can curl up,” Alice says very seriously, “Tie themselves into knots practically. It could have a ninja in there. Hope they've poked holes.”
“Oh my God, ninja space monkey!”
“We could write a show about it. Be on telly.”
“Space monkey ninja!” Hamish warbles, and then he breaks into the chorus of what Tarrant knows is a song called Kung Fu Fighting. He hates himself a little bit when he starts to sing along.
“Think I'll get a puppy this year?”
“Nah,” Hamish stops singing to shatter Alice's dreams, “No pets in the house, recall it?”
“I don't live at home, now,” Alice says most sensibly, “Tarrant and I can have a puppy at Marmoreal. I bet dad got me a puppy.”
“He didn't get you a puppy,” Hamish continues stomping on her dreams, “You're never going to get a puppy for Christmas from your dad. Not ever.”
“I hope your space monkey ninja dies of the plague.”
“Alice,” Hamish sighs in a most long suffering way, “Space monkey ninja's can't get the plague, he has the cure.”
“There is no cure for the plague, Hamish, now you're being stupid!”
“I am not being stupid, there is a cure for the plague!”
“There is no cure for the bubonic plague, Hamish Charles!”
“You're a doctor now? Just because you're the Champion, it doesn't mean that -”
Tarrant plucks the phone out of Alice's hand, hits the glowing red phone to end the mobile connection, and stuffs the phone under his pillow. He glares at Alice, daring her to say something. She blinks at him, all startled eyes and soft pink lips.
“Tarrant,” she says in an obviously shocked way, “I was on the phone with -”
“Lad,” Tarrant rumbles at her, “S'late.”
“It's Christmas Eve, Hamish and I always -” Tarrant's bares his teeth when the mobile begins to ring, the cheery song muffled under his pillow.
Up on the rooftop, click, click, click, down through the chimney comes Good Saint Nick. First comes the stocking of little Nell, oh, dear Santa, fit it well! Give her a dolly that laughs and cries, one that will open and shut her eyes. There is a half second pause before the song begins again - up on the rooftop, click, click, click -
Alice lunges. They struggle, Alice prodding with her sharp elbows, Tarrant firm on the fact she isn't getting her hands on the wretched thing again. The song ends and Alice collapses backwards on her pillows, glowering at Tarrant.
“Christmas tradition,” she mutters, “You are ruining it!”
“Here's a tradition,” Tarrant grumbles, “Sleeping!”
“Says the man that likes to see how many weeks he can go without it!”
“It makes me tired being Up!” Tarrant defends himself sourly, and Alice gives him a rather tragic sort of look. Her lower lip wobbles delicately above her strong chin, and Tarrant sighs as he reaches out, patting her cheek with his abnormally bare fingertips. “Not that I don't want to be here, Alice. I'm quite happy to spend this holiday with your family.”
“You're a very good man, Tarrant Hightopp, did you know that?” Alice asks him, wriggling close to him, resting her head against his arm. Tarrant sighs, a bubble of happiness filling up his chest. He could -
Up on the rooftop click, click, click -
“Arugh!” He nearly shouts, jolting upright. Alice, quick as anything, darts her hand out, shoves it under his pillow, and snags her phone. She clicks it on, turns her back on Tarrant, and focus's on the most annoying tradition Tarrant has ever heard of.
“Did you hang up on me?” Hamish demands the second the mobile is connect. “Really? Really, Alice?”
“It was Tarrant,” Alice explains, “He's tired. We're keeping him awake.”
“Hightopp,” Hamish says in the way of a man long suffering, “No one sleeps on Christmas Eve. Ever. Everyone around the world is awake right now, because it is Christmas Eve, and there are presents. More importantly, I have a space monkey ninja in our parlor.”
“Space monkey ninja dying of the plague,” Alice corrects him, and the fight is on once again.
It is exactly seventeen minutes past four in the morning (Tarrant knows because Time is very important Aboveland, and he is displayed in glowing red numbers on Alice's beside clock) when Alice finally falls asleep. She is on the phone with Hamish, still; neither of them have spoken in quite some time; Hamish had actually began snoring nearly ten minutes before. Tarrant puts his head back under the pillow, and falls into the most thankful sleep of his life.
Up on the rooftop, click, click, click -
“Slurking urpal slackish scrum, barthlem melto -” Tarrant jolts upright, cursing so foully his own ears are about to shrivel, eyes heavily ringed and glowing a hateful yellow.
“Happy Christmas!” Alice shouts, not even yet fully awake, attempting to jump out of bed. She trips on the blanket and smashes into the floor, wiggles free, and hits her feet. “Ow! I'm alright! I'm fine!”
“Happy Christmas!” Hamish howls at her, and Tarrant can hear a door being swung open so hard it rebounds off a wall. “Stockings!”
“Stockings!” Alice shrieks back, before she turns off her mobile, and dances towards the door. “Come on, Tarrant! Stockings!”
Tarrant decides he is the fool of the worst kind, because within ten minutes he is downstairs in the Kingsleigh's lounge, wrapped in his dressing gown, hair sticking up on one side and pillow lines still on his face as Helen passes him a cup of strong tea. Alice, Margaret, and Charles are ripping into their stockings will the glee of small children. Lowell is laying across a chaise longue, eyes barely open, looking as though he had the same sort of night Tarrant did. It is the first time Tarrant has felt any sort of kinship for the arrogant boy (there is nothing there to make him a man, and despite what he my claim to Tarrant he is a wee boy with a spoiled whine and quick temper), much less a stab of sympathy. Not that Lowell could have been in any worse shape then Tarrant, because Margaret did not have a Hamish voice trapped in her mobile all night.
“When they were children,” Helen says after she takes a sip from her own warm, heavy mug, “Alice would sleep in the lounge, on the sofa, because we didn't have mobiles back then. She and Hamish would talk all night! I suppose that's why you look so tired? Alice and Hamish, I mean.” Helen gives him a sideways, amused look, perhaps thrilled with the fact the man she does not want for her son-in-law (a man she does not, the vast majority of the time, entirely believe is real) was tormented all night by that red haired demon Ascot.
“Aye,” Tarrant agrees, clearing his throat and then drinking quite a bit more tea, because he always tries his bet to keep all hints of Outlandish upbringing from Helen Kingsleigh. It alarms her when his eyes change shades and he snarls curses in Outlandish, though Charles asks - out of ear shot of his wife - to know all foulest words. “Yes. They were talking all night.”
“You're a brave man,” Helen says very softly, “Coupling yourself with a woman who has such strong, strange relationships already.”
“Good friends are wonderful gifts,” Tarrant answers as delicately as Helen had spoken, watching Alice as she waves some sort of little doll in her sister's face, cackling gleefully. “Much better then what you can pull out of a stocking. Though I must admit, I have several I could put into a stocking and take out whenever I wished.”
“Nothing alive in there,” Helen heaves Tarrant's stocking off the floor, where Alice had lain it before she dove into her own, dropping it on his lap. She smiles, and it's the nicest she's ever given Tarrant. “But happy Christmas all the same, Tarrant.”
He blushes so vividly he is tinged lavender, and he sets aside his tea to explore the gifts his new family has tucked inside the stocking.
“What do you think of Christmas?” Alice asks after they have eaten two Christmas meals and opened more presents then Tarrant thinks he has ever seen in one pile in his life. Alice is under his arm, against his side with her head on his shoulder. She doesn't quite look at him, and Tarrant can easily see she is a bit nervous. “With my family, I mean?”
“It was most interesting,” Tarrant says honestly, because as he and Alice are curled together on the love seat, Jeremy Ascot is snoozing in an arm chair. Charles cheerfully sings O Christmas Tree while wrapping a long string Christmas lights around both his old friend and the chair. “Is this another of your traditions? Tying Lord Ascot with lights?”
“Ah,” Alice hedges, blinking, “Well. Sometimes. Last year Jeremy tied dad up with garland and force fed him Christmas pudding - dad hates Christmas pudding. Mum and Prudence swear Hamish and I act just like them.”
“I believe it,” Tarrant answered, earning himself a sharp pinch. He laughs, kissing the crown of her pretty golden head. “It's a good thing, lad.”
“Good thing,” Alice asks with an overly innocent eyes, “Even when my mobile is playing Up On The Rooftop and Hamish is wishing for a space monkey?”
“Space monkey ninja,” Tarrant corrects in a fine imitation of sternness, “Please do get it right, Alice, dear.”
“Space monkey ninja, how could I forget?” Alice rolls her eyes and sighs, all in a very put upon way, but Tarrant knows she wouldn't trade Hamish for a bag of gold or good tea. She nudges him gently with her elbow, peering at up him once her eyes have finished turning silent but sarcastic circles. “Really, though, have you enjoyed yourself?”
“I haven't had this much fun in ages,” Tarrant promises her, his chest warm and full. Even though he would lie to keep his Alice happy - because she is his Alice, and her happiness is his happiness - Tarrant speaks the truth. Despite the fact the Kingsleigh and Ascot families are not entirely sure how to take him, because his Cleverness much less Madness are not very common traits Aboveland (Hamish and Alice are rare creatures, Tarrant knows), they have done their best to be welcoming. And they have succeeded. It isn't Yule with the Hightopps, but it is a new tradition, a new life, and one with Alice - for that Tarrant is more thankful then he could ever imagine.
“I love you, you know,” Alice tells him rather softly, giving him a tender little Alice-smile that Tarrant knows is his and his alone. “I'm glad you've enjoyed Christmas. I'm glad you came with me and Hamish for it.”
“I love you,” Tarrant answers her gently, eyes a bright, happy emerald green. “I'll look forward to this all of next year.”
That assurance that there will be another Christmas, Tarrant thinks it is the best gift he could have given Alice. The way her eyes light up and her mouth stretches into a pleased smile makes even the itch that Upland gives him worthwhile.
“Charles!” Jeremy roars when he wakes up, turning bright red. “Let me go at once!”
“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, much pleasure thou can'st give me! O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree -”
“Alice! Alice! Get your mad father away from me! Let me go!”
“Plug him in!” Hamish cheers from the sofa, and Charles gives Hamish a thumbs up as he pulls Jeremy and the chair a bit closer to the wall socket. A few moments later and Jeremy is lit up, lights twinkling all around him.
“How often has this Christmas tree, afforded me the greatest glee?” Charles sings in his pleasant tenor, taking up his new digital camera - a gift from Lowell and Margaret - to snap several pictures. “O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree - big smile, mate! Come on, now!”
“Oh, get one of us!” Hamish pleads, practically tripping over his own feet to get to his father.
“Normal families aren't like this,” Alice admits, “Tying people up with lights and that incident with Prudence and the fire place poker. We're a bit mad.”
“We're all mad here,” Tarrant says wisely, before he blinks. “Aren't we?”
“You're the Mad Hatter, shouldn't you be the judge of it?”
“Seems quite normal to me,” Tarrant assures Alice, watching as Hamish poses behind his father's chair, thumbs high in the air. “Not mad at all.”
“What do you think you're doing?” Prudence shrieks from the door, exasperation writing heavy lines across her face. She rushes forward, snags the fire place poker, and brandishes it warningly at her son. “Hamish Charles, you naughty boy!”
“That's right, Hamish Charles,” Charles bellows, waggling a finger at his godson, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“Charles,” Prudence hisses, swinging around, “Do you think I am stupid enough to believe you had nothing to do with this?”
“Ah,” Charles says rather hesitantly, “Well, you see -”
“Discretion is often the best part of valor. Or something like that,” Alice and Tarrant hit their feet at nearly the same time, and manage to edge their way out of the lounge before Prudence starts prodding people again.
Rating: PG-13
Author: broomclosetkink
Notes: YIP-verse, ...Ah, that's all I have to say, I suppose.
Tarrant does not often become truly exasperated with Alice. He finds nearly everything about her entrancing, endearing, intriguing (he had been thinking of things that start with E, until the buggered it up with I...) entrancing, endearing, enjoyable (by Hats, there it was!) - but he is Aboveland in her childhood bed, she has taken the vast majority of the blankets, his toes are freezing, and he is exhausted. Aboveground makes Tarrant itch, because there is no connection to to anything. It is a very bland place, very little imagination, and Tarrant is eternally surprised that his Alice grew in the soil of Aboveland twice. As well as her father, brilliant Charles that soaks in every bit of Underlandian life or illogical that slips from Tarrant's mouth. Tarrant finds a kindred spirit in Charles Kingsleigh, and he enjoys every passing moment of Time he spends with the man.
“Up on the rooftop, click click click,” Alice is singing under her breath, hanging off the side of the bed as her blasted mobile phone (which Tarrant finds terribly unnatural, trapping someone's voice and tossing it out Somewhere Else - he had seen magic like that go very, very badly). That thing is singing the same song, and despite the fact it is two in the morning, Alice is positively cheerful to hear it going off. “Down through the chimney with Good Saint - hello, Hamish!”
“Are you sleeping?” Tarrant can hear Hamish asking her through the mobile, and Tarrant is forced to grit his teeth. He gives a mean, amber eyed glare. It slices through the dim room, cutting through darkness and space, and it came terribly close to setting it on fire. Tarrant promise to try harder next time, because if he can manage to break it, his life would be much easier. Alice ignores the glare and his huffing as he rolls onto his stomach, puts a pillow over his face, and begins cursing in Outlandish.
“No,” Alice tells Hamish, wide awake, jiggling her feet. Tarrant lets the edge of his pillow pop up, and despite the fact she is His Alice, his own Beamish Boy, he glowers directly at her. “Can't sleep.”
“I wonder what's in that big present? The red one?” Under the Ascot's Christmas tree is a present that comes to Hamish's waist, is wrapped in red paper with silvery snowflakes. Hamish has been obsessing over it for the past three days since they came for their visit Aboveland.
“Monkey?” Alice suggested, for what Tarrant knows for a fact is the ninth time that night, and he begins to loudly grit his teeth. “Space monkey.”
“Brilliant,” Hamish breathes loudly into the room, because Alice has clicked a button and now it sounds as though Hamish right there. Tarrant doesn't much like the red head in a room he is occupying with Alice, much less then they are in bed together, not that anything of any great interest is happening. No, because it's Christmas Eve (though technically Christmas Day), and Alice has visions of sugar plum fairies (Tarrant hopes to meet one in the morning) and candy canes and...whatever else dancing about her pretty little head. “Space monkey that knows sign language so we can talk to it.”
“Nah,” Alice disagrees, “We don't know sign language.”
“We can learn.”
“We could...”
“Ninja?”
“Your dad does know you love ninja's.”
“Bit small for a ninja, though. Midget ninja?”
“They can curl up,” Alice says very seriously, “Tie themselves into knots practically. It could have a ninja in there. Hope they've poked holes.”
“Oh my God, ninja space monkey!”
“We could write a show about it. Be on telly.”
“Space monkey ninja!” Hamish warbles, and then he breaks into the chorus of what Tarrant knows is a song called Kung Fu Fighting. He hates himself a little bit when he starts to sing along.
“Think I'll get a puppy this year?”
“Nah,” Hamish stops singing to shatter Alice's dreams, “No pets in the house, recall it?”
“I don't live at home, now,” Alice says most sensibly, “Tarrant and I can have a puppy at Marmoreal. I bet dad got me a puppy.”
“He didn't get you a puppy,” Hamish continues stomping on her dreams, “You're never going to get a puppy for Christmas from your dad. Not ever.”
“I hope your space monkey ninja dies of the plague.”
“Alice,” Hamish sighs in a most long suffering way, “Space monkey ninja's can't get the plague, he has the cure.”
“There is no cure for the plague, Hamish, now you're being stupid!”
“I am not being stupid, there is a cure for the plague!”
“There is no cure for the bubonic plague, Hamish Charles!”
“You're a doctor now? Just because you're the Champion, it doesn't mean that -”
Tarrant plucks the phone out of Alice's hand, hits the glowing red phone to end the mobile connection, and stuffs the phone under his pillow. He glares at Alice, daring her to say something. She blinks at him, all startled eyes and soft pink lips.
“Tarrant,” she says in an obviously shocked way, “I was on the phone with -”
“Lad,” Tarrant rumbles at her, “S'late.”
“It's Christmas Eve, Hamish and I always -” Tarrant's bares his teeth when the mobile begins to ring, the cheery song muffled under his pillow.
Up on the rooftop, click, click, click, down through the chimney comes Good Saint Nick. First comes the stocking of little Nell, oh, dear Santa, fit it well! Give her a dolly that laughs and cries, one that will open and shut her eyes. There is a half second pause before the song begins again - up on the rooftop, click, click, click -
Alice lunges. They struggle, Alice prodding with her sharp elbows, Tarrant firm on the fact she isn't getting her hands on the wretched thing again. The song ends and Alice collapses backwards on her pillows, glowering at Tarrant.
“Christmas tradition,” she mutters, “You are ruining it!”
“Here's a tradition,” Tarrant grumbles, “Sleeping!”
“Says the man that likes to see how many weeks he can go without it!”
“It makes me tired being Up!” Tarrant defends himself sourly, and Alice gives him a rather tragic sort of look. Her lower lip wobbles delicately above her strong chin, and Tarrant sighs as he reaches out, patting her cheek with his abnormally bare fingertips. “Not that I don't want to be here, Alice. I'm quite happy to spend this holiday with your family.”
“You're a very good man, Tarrant Hightopp, did you know that?” Alice asks him, wriggling close to him, resting her head against his arm. Tarrant sighs, a bubble of happiness filling up his chest. He could -
Up on the rooftop click, click, click -
“Arugh!” He nearly shouts, jolting upright. Alice, quick as anything, darts her hand out, shoves it under his pillow, and snags her phone. She clicks it on, turns her back on Tarrant, and focus's on the most annoying tradition Tarrant has ever heard of.
“Did you hang up on me?” Hamish demands the second the mobile is connect. “Really? Really, Alice?”
“It was Tarrant,” Alice explains, “He's tired. We're keeping him awake.”
“Hightopp,” Hamish says in the way of a man long suffering, “No one sleeps on Christmas Eve. Ever. Everyone around the world is awake right now, because it is Christmas Eve, and there are presents. More importantly, I have a space monkey ninja in our parlor.”
“Space monkey ninja dying of the plague,” Alice corrects him, and the fight is on once again.
It is exactly seventeen minutes past four in the morning (Tarrant knows because Time is very important Aboveland, and he is displayed in glowing red numbers on Alice's beside clock) when Alice finally falls asleep. She is on the phone with Hamish, still; neither of them have spoken in quite some time; Hamish had actually began snoring nearly ten minutes before. Tarrant puts his head back under the pillow, and falls into the most thankful sleep of his life.
Up on the rooftop, click, click, click -
“Slurking urpal slackish scrum, barthlem melto -” Tarrant jolts upright, cursing so foully his own ears are about to shrivel, eyes heavily ringed and glowing a hateful yellow.
“Happy Christmas!” Alice shouts, not even yet fully awake, attempting to jump out of bed. She trips on the blanket and smashes into the floor, wiggles free, and hits her feet. “Ow! I'm alright! I'm fine!”
“Happy Christmas!” Hamish howls at her, and Tarrant can hear a door being swung open so hard it rebounds off a wall. “Stockings!”
“Stockings!” Alice shrieks back, before she turns off her mobile, and dances towards the door. “Come on, Tarrant! Stockings!”
Tarrant decides he is the fool of the worst kind, because within ten minutes he is downstairs in the Kingsleigh's lounge, wrapped in his dressing gown, hair sticking up on one side and pillow lines still on his face as Helen passes him a cup of strong tea. Alice, Margaret, and Charles are ripping into their stockings will the glee of small children. Lowell is laying across a chaise longue, eyes barely open, looking as though he had the same sort of night Tarrant did. It is the first time Tarrant has felt any sort of kinship for the arrogant boy (there is nothing there to make him a man, and despite what he my claim to Tarrant he is a wee boy with a spoiled whine and quick temper), much less a stab of sympathy. Not that Lowell could have been in any worse shape then Tarrant, because Margaret did not have a Hamish voice trapped in her mobile all night.
“When they were children,” Helen says after she takes a sip from her own warm, heavy mug, “Alice would sleep in the lounge, on the sofa, because we didn't have mobiles back then. She and Hamish would talk all night! I suppose that's why you look so tired? Alice and Hamish, I mean.” Helen gives him a sideways, amused look, perhaps thrilled with the fact the man she does not want for her son-in-law (a man she does not, the vast majority of the time, entirely believe is real) was tormented all night by that red haired demon Ascot.
“Aye,” Tarrant agrees, clearing his throat and then drinking quite a bit more tea, because he always tries his bet to keep all hints of Outlandish upbringing from Helen Kingsleigh. It alarms her when his eyes change shades and he snarls curses in Outlandish, though Charles asks - out of ear shot of his wife - to know all foulest words. “Yes. They were talking all night.”
“You're a brave man,” Helen says very softly, “Coupling yourself with a woman who has such strong, strange relationships already.”
“Good friends are wonderful gifts,” Tarrant answers as delicately as Helen had spoken, watching Alice as she waves some sort of little doll in her sister's face, cackling gleefully. “Much better then what you can pull out of a stocking. Though I must admit, I have several I could put into a stocking and take out whenever I wished.”
“Nothing alive in there,” Helen heaves Tarrant's stocking off the floor, where Alice had lain it before she dove into her own, dropping it on his lap. She smiles, and it's the nicest she's ever given Tarrant. “But happy Christmas all the same, Tarrant.”
He blushes so vividly he is tinged lavender, and he sets aside his tea to explore the gifts his new family has tucked inside the stocking.
“What do you think of Christmas?” Alice asks after they have eaten two Christmas meals and opened more presents then Tarrant thinks he has ever seen in one pile in his life. Alice is under his arm, against his side with her head on his shoulder. She doesn't quite look at him, and Tarrant can easily see she is a bit nervous. “With my family, I mean?”
“It was most interesting,” Tarrant says honestly, because as he and Alice are curled together on the love seat, Jeremy Ascot is snoozing in an arm chair. Charles cheerfully sings O Christmas Tree while wrapping a long string Christmas lights around both his old friend and the chair. “Is this another of your traditions? Tying Lord Ascot with lights?”
“Ah,” Alice hedges, blinking, “Well. Sometimes. Last year Jeremy tied dad up with garland and force fed him Christmas pudding - dad hates Christmas pudding. Mum and Prudence swear Hamish and I act just like them.”
“I believe it,” Tarrant answered, earning himself a sharp pinch. He laughs, kissing the crown of her pretty golden head. “It's a good thing, lad.”
“Good thing,” Alice asks with an overly innocent eyes, “Even when my mobile is playing Up On The Rooftop and Hamish is wishing for a space monkey?”
“Space monkey ninja,” Tarrant corrects in a fine imitation of sternness, “Please do get it right, Alice, dear.”
“Space monkey ninja, how could I forget?” Alice rolls her eyes and sighs, all in a very put upon way, but Tarrant knows she wouldn't trade Hamish for a bag of gold or good tea. She nudges him gently with her elbow, peering at up him once her eyes have finished turning silent but sarcastic circles. “Really, though, have you enjoyed yourself?”
“I haven't had this much fun in ages,” Tarrant promises her, his chest warm and full. Even though he would lie to keep his Alice happy - because she is his Alice, and her happiness is his happiness - Tarrant speaks the truth. Despite the fact the Kingsleigh and Ascot families are not entirely sure how to take him, because his Cleverness much less Madness are not very common traits Aboveland (Hamish and Alice are rare creatures, Tarrant knows), they have done their best to be welcoming. And they have succeeded. It isn't Yule with the Hightopps, but it is a new tradition, a new life, and one with Alice - for that Tarrant is more thankful then he could ever imagine.
“I love you, you know,” Alice tells him rather softly, giving him a tender little Alice-smile that Tarrant knows is his and his alone. “I'm glad you've enjoyed Christmas. I'm glad you came with me and Hamish for it.”
“I love you,” Tarrant answers her gently, eyes a bright, happy emerald green. “I'll look forward to this all of next year.”
That assurance that there will be another Christmas, Tarrant thinks it is the best gift he could have given Alice. The way her eyes light up and her mouth stretches into a pleased smile makes even the itch that Upland gives him worthwhile.
“Charles!” Jeremy roars when he wakes up, turning bright red. “Let me go at once!”
“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, much pleasure thou can'st give me! O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree -”
“Alice! Alice! Get your mad father away from me! Let me go!”
“Plug him in!” Hamish cheers from the sofa, and Charles gives Hamish a thumbs up as he pulls Jeremy and the chair a bit closer to the wall socket. A few moments later and Jeremy is lit up, lights twinkling all around him.
“How often has this Christmas tree, afforded me the greatest glee?” Charles sings in his pleasant tenor, taking up his new digital camera - a gift from Lowell and Margaret - to snap several pictures. “O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree - big smile, mate! Come on, now!”
“Oh, get one of us!” Hamish pleads, practically tripping over his own feet to get to his father.
“Normal families aren't like this,” Alice admits, “Tying people up with lights and that incident with Prudence and the fire place poker. We're a bit mad.”
“We're all mad here,” Tarrant says wisely, before he blinks. “Aren't we?”
“You're the Mad Hatter, shouldn't you be the judge of it?”
“Seems quite normal to me,” Tarrant assures Alice, watching as Hamish poses behind his father's chair, thumbs high in the air. “Not mad at all.”
“What do you think you're doing?” Prudence shrieks from the door, exasperation writing heavy lines across her face. She rushes forward, snags the fire place poker, and brandishes it warningly at her son. “Hamish Charles, you naughty boy!”
“That's right, Hamish Charles,” Charles bellows, waggling a finger at his godson, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“Charles,” Prudence hisses, swinging around, “Do you think I am stupid enough to believe you had nothing to do with this?”
“Ah,” Charles says rather hesitantly, “Well, you see -”
“Discretion is often the best part of valor. Or something like that,” Alice and Tarrant hit their feet at nearly the same time, and manage to edge their way out of the lounge before Prudence starts prodding people again.