This was originally going to be a single oneshot, but I just felt like splitting it into two parts. I've got the next part mostly written- and it might not even be as long as this one- but hey, I thought it was a great place to end a "chapter."
This is also posted on my Lunaescence account, under the name NuitNoire.
All characters and locations and such belong to QuinRose, and you own yourself. I only own the basic idea.
.: Choose Christmas Gifts Carefully ~ Part One ~ :.
"Nightmare! Would you do me the favor of shutting up for just one moment?!"
The head of the Clover Tower jumped when Alice shouted this, slamming her hands down on his desk and glaring rather intensely at him. Nightmare Gottschalk recovered in just a moment, however, to give her a reproachful frown.
"You're so mean, Alice…"
"And you're so annoying that I wonder how you think anyone can get their work done with your whining about how cold it is. But that's not the point!" She straightened, hands on her hips. "I have a present for you."
Nightmare blinked, and then paled- an astonishing feat for one with so pale a complexion already. "… Not more work…?"
Sighing, Alice shook her head, a smile now growing on her face. "No, I mean a real present," she replied as she reached for the basket over one arm. "Since you were going on about Christmas the other day, I figured that I'd be nice… so I baked you a treat."
"! Alice, you are… so very kind…!" Tears welled in the silver eye not hidden by his black eye patch; Alice was amused.
"I thought you were just saying that I was mean."
"Th- that's because- because you WERE being mean!"
"I was being mean because you were whining like a baby about how cold it is. And now that I have given you a gift, a very warm one I might add, you have no reason to complain about the cold. Just open it, okay?" So saying, she set the large basket she carried on his desk.
Nightmare wasted no time in undoing the linen cloth Alice had tied it in, happiness easily readable in his countenance at the sight of the steaming walnut pie. "Ah! It smells delicious, _!"
"… You only get that on the condition that you share it with Gray and Julius. And that you keep working."
"Nnngggh-!"
"It's still mostly yours, Nightmare. Oh, before I forget, look under the pie, I also gave you a pair of gloves and a scarf. They should also help keep you warm. So enjoy!"
"… I'd be happier if you hadn't planned this with Gray! You're just trying to get me to work!"
"Don't read my mind!"
"It doesn't sound like he enjoyed his present," came Gray's voice from the doorway, and, looking in his direction at the same time Nightmare did, you saw that he carried a cloth bundle rather than a stack of papers.
Nightmare twitched. "Sh-shut up, Gray! I'm very thankful for the presents! Even if it means I have to work, I'll do my work for Alice's sake!"
"It would be nice if you could do your work under normal circumstances as well…"
"Shut up!" Nightmare's attention was attracted by the bundle that Gray held, and he paused. "Gray… that is…"
"What IS that?" Alice wanted to know, trying to get a better view. "Don't tell me it's another cat…?"
Gray didn't meet her eyes as he replied, "W-well…"
"… At least this is the only one in the Clover Tower at this time. And at least it's not a bunch of flying squirrels… in Julius' room…"
"And at least I'm not locked in there this time!"
"Master Nightmare, this is actually a gift for you. Ah, not the cat, this sweater." Unfolding the bundle he held and allowing the cat that had been curled in it to jump to the floor, Gray held up a very warm-looking sweater.
Alice raised an eyebrow. "Ignoring the fact that it's now covered in cat hair- you couldn't have found a better place for the cat, could you?- that may just be the best thing he'll get this year. Aside from a good dose of the medicine that he refuses to take, at least."
"Bite your tongue, Alice! Gray… thank you!"
'Well, as long as you're warm and not so comfortable that you fall asleep, that's all that we need to do to get you to work, right?' Alice thought, knowing that Nightmare would hear.
He didn't deign to reply, to her surprise, although from the way his eye twitched, he did indeed catch that. "Finally, I can be warm!" Nightmare cried, wasting no time in pulling on the sweater and throwing the scarf around his neck. He also put the gloves on, but removed them on finding that they made it hard to hold his pen.
"Ah, blessed warmth! I shall get to work immediately! … As soon as I have a piece of this pie…"
"I'll cut it," Alice offered, as she had plates, forks, and a knife prepared already. Nightmare was more than happy to take her up on that, although his displeasure when she cut slices for Gray and Julius as well was obvious.
"You don't have to take anything to that recluse Clockmaker!" he protested as Alice headed for the door connecting the two Towers. "He's fine on his own!"
"Maybe, but I'm taking it because I feel like it," Alice called over her shoulder.
"Taking a piece of MY pie?!"
"I told you, it was for sharing!"
At that point, she was too far down the hallway to catch Nightmare's reply, and so only sighed when his muffled shout followed her. 'Some days, I wonder how Gray can have put up with him for so long… no wait, I wonder that every day.'
Alice only knocked twice on Julius' door before turning the handle and entering. Expecting to find him hard at work as usual, she was pleasantly surprised to find that he was sitting back in his chair and sipping his coffee, eyes closed and glasses sitting on the work desk he sat at.
"… Ah, Alice," the Clockmaker said as she walked in, nodding once in her direction. Indifferent as always, he was; as Alice was long since used to this, she just smiled.
"I brought some pie, if you want a slice," she offered, holding out one of the two plates you carried. "It's very sweet, I promise. Didn't you say a while back that sweet things are best when you're tired?"
"I may have. Thank you, I shall accept." Julius set down his coffee cup to take the plate Alice offered. She sat down in the only other chair in the room that didn't have a pile of something-or-other sitting on it already, making herself comfortable to eat her own piece of pie.
There was silence for several comfortable minutes; then, "… Why are you still here?"
"Why are you asking me? Haven't you gotten used to me hanging around by now?"
"Perhaps, but not during your work hours. I wouldn't have thought that you had the time at this hour to take a break, unlike a certain dream demon always thinks he does."
Ouch. That one got her, and even though Julius was also on a break, he couldn't be blamed. "… I'm actually trying to avoid said person's whining. In theory he's doing his work properly for once, since he should be comfortable, but… well, with Nightmare, who knows." Alice paused. "But you don't mind me being here."
"Don't say that like it's decided," muttered Julius, and Alice grinned.
"But it's true."
"…" He couldn't retort, not with his mouth full of pie that sticky.
₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪
As she'd hoped, Alice later was reminded that a warm and comfortable Nightmare did indeed work a lot harder than an unhappy and cold Nightmare. The amusing part was that the cat Gray had rescued had, after being fed, decided to curl up in Nightmare's lap as he worked; it was less of a distraction for him than she'd have thought.
"If you fall asleep like last time, we're waking you rather harshly," Alice told him in a light tone as she gathered a stack of papers to move elsewhere; Nightmare gave her a hurt look.
"I never mean to fall asleep. And you don't have to wake me harshly, you know!"
"Sometimes it's the only way. As long as you're not escaping into dreams, though."
"I wouldn't!"
"You would," corrected Gray as he placed yet another stack of paper on Nightmare's desk. Neither the remark nor the addition to his workload went over well with Nightmare.
"Gray! This is too much!" he complained, slamming his hands down on his desk as if it settled things.
Gray just raised an eyebrow and stared at Nightmare.
… It would have been more effective of a look if he hadn't actually been staring at the cat, and in a decidedly dazed manner to boot. Nightmare's forceful action had startled the cat, to which it let out a complaining meow.
Alice sighed. 'Listen, Nightmare, we're giving you a lot here. You have a warm sweater- an early Christmas gift- hot cocoa, a cat on your lap, and less work than usual. Not to mention that you didn't even taste your medicine in your cocoa this time-'
"You put medicine in my cocoa?!"
'Listen to me when I'm trying to get a point across!' she yelled mentally while ignoring the question mark floating over Gray's head. Sometimes talking to Nightmare in her head was more effective than talking aloud. 'Today, at least, you have it made! So why not use your good fortune to get ahead and maybe get a little REAL free time for when you DON'T have it so well?'
"…" He didn't have a reply to that.
With a satisfied nod, Alice turned away from the sulking dream demon to walk to the door. "If that's settled, I'm going out for a while," she said over her shoulder. Seeing Nightmare open his mouth, Alice added pointedly while turning her head to look forward, "And believe it or not, I'm actually on my break time, so you have no right to complain."
"Then take care of that pesky knight in the hallway before he breaks something," Nightmare threw back.
Alice stopped. "… Ace is lost trying to find Julius' room AGAIN?"
"What do you expect?"
"Nothing less from him… Fine, fine, I'll drag his directionally-challenged rear to Julius' room while I'm at it."
"Thank you, Alice." This grateful thanks was from Gray rather than Nightmare, who, muttering under his breath, had set to work once more. Then again, everyone at the Tower of Clover knew how much Gray disliked Ace "training" with him.
'There's a difference between people who want to do their work and those who have no work,' Alice thought with a mental sigh as she left the room. Then, in a moment of mischief, 'As well as those who keep skipping out on their work.'
"Oi! Alice!"
The shout from behind her made her laugh, as she had intended for Nightmare to catch that particular thought. Ah well, it should help to get him to do a little more work.
Refocusing her attention ahead of her, Alice kept an eye out for the red coat that would belong to Ace. Not a minute later, she'd spotted him- after he saw her.
"Nice to see you, Alice!" Ace greeted on catching up to her, trademark grin wide as ever. "You always pop up in the most unexpected of places!"
She gave him a flat look. So said the one who'd literally stepped out of a closet after she passed it.
"Um, yeah… Anyway, Ace, you're in the wrong part of the building. Julius' room is two floors up and on the other side." Thank goodness she'd caught him before he'd set up camp and a fire inside the Tower of Clover again…
Of course Ace just laughed when Alice told him he wasn't in the right place. "Oh, am I? Ahaha, I did get lost again! Can you give me a hand then?"
"That's what I came to do…"
At least "delivering" Ace to Julius wasn't the work of more than a few minutes, during which time Alice decided that she was VERY GLAD that Julius was around again; Ace had been a little too unhinged without his "trainer" [1] around. Now she was free to do as she had originally planned, which was to purchase a few things she hoped to use for other Christmas gifts.
₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪ Ҥєдятϩ ₪
It had been about two hours by the time Alice returned to the Tower of Clover, by her reckoning; thankfully the time of day hadn't changed in that time. 'Hopefully I won't get stopped for any reason by Nightmare before I put these things away,' she thought as she arrived back at the Tower. It wasn't that more than one thing she had purchased would be given or used to make a gift for him, but he'd blackmailed her in the past about this sort of thing…
There were few people about as she walked into the Tower once more, as most people were inside trying to keep out of the cold. Not a surprise, although right now it was sunny rather than cloudy, so at least the sun provided a LITTLE warmth if one was standing in it. Silently, Alice wished them luck, for in a world where the temperature was usually perfect the indoor heating was so rarely used that it kept breaking.
She wasn't ten steps from the main entrance when, out of nowhere, a snowball hit her in the shoulder.
"?! …" After starting initially, Alice very deliberately brushed the snow off of her shoulder, looking around with narrowed eyes for the source of the snowball. That had rather hurt; whoever had thrown it had a good arm, so it probably hadn't been a child.
"Okay, wherever you are, come out right now!" she called. "I owe you a snowball!"
… Silence. Of course. Anyone throwing a snowball with the intention of not getting caught wasn't exactly going to reply to a challenge like that.
Not that Alice was bothered by this. After around a minute of getting nothing more than a few odd looks from people walking in and out of the Tower, she gave up and turned again for the front doors-
Only to get hit once again, this time on the top of her head.
Now Alice spun around in a full circle to look in all directions of the source. "That's not funny!" she exclaimed, before stopping.
"The top of her head"? Alice ran that thought through her mind a few times, trying to fathom how a snowball had landed on the very top of her head, unless it had been lobbed.
- Ah.
'That xxxx dream demon!' she swore in her head, incensed. [2] 'I'm going to hit him so hard-!' Why he had decided to chuck snowballs at her from his office window was beyond her, but it may well have been payback for… any number of things. At least it explained why the snowballs had hit so hard.
Storming up to the Nightmare's office, Alice slammed open the door and stomped into the room. "Explain to me why you felt the need to toss snowballs at me?" she asked in a syrupy sweet voice to the not-so-startled Nightmare.
"Wha- what on earth are you talking about?" replied Nightmare, as if he were stuttering just from being caught off guard.
As if. Alice knew him too well to tell when he was actually surprised and when he was just having trouble coming up with a good reply. "You know full well, oh great boss of mine. Why else would I have melting snow dripping from my hair?"
"Someone threw a snowball at you? For shame!"
"You're not going to get out of it by feigning innocence and condemning this imaginary other person whom you're implying tossed snow at me rather than you!" That concerned expression Nightmare was wearing was just adding fuel to Alice's ire.
Of course, he was getting worked up now too. "And you immediately blame me? There are dozens of people in this Tower, and-"
"And not one of them would throw a snowball me besides you," Alice interrupted.
"You never blame the Clockmaker for this kind of thing, always me!"
"Because it's always you! And the only person Julius ever does anything to would be you, especially when you deserve it!"
At that point, while Nightmare spluttered his protests, something caught Alice's eye, that being a pair of mittens that were fairly familiar to her. She had bought them herself just a week ago, had given them to this troublesome boss of hers even more recently… and right now they were lying on the floor beside his desk, wet.
Without even thinking about it Alice decided on her next course of action. As if nothing were out of the ordinary, she walked over and picked up the mittens, reciting the multiplication table in her head to avoid giving away her plan.
Nightmare's expression betrayed his unease. "Hey, what are you thinking of…? Multiplication…? Wh- what are you planning, Alice…? You only do this when you're trying to keep your thoughts hi- higyaaaaa!"
His scream was understandable, for, in a swift motion, Alice had grabbed his collar and stuffed the wet and cold mittens down the back of his jacket. Or at least tried to, because he managed to interfere soon enough to keep them from properly getting shoved there.
But Alice wasn't going to give up anytime soon. "Slacker! Jerk! Throwing snowballs at me for no reason, you deserve to be shoved in a snowdrift yourself!"
"C-c-c-cold! Th-that's c-c-cold, Alice! S-s-stop it!"
"Not on your life!"
At that point the door opened, Gray entering. "Master Nightmare, here are some more-" He stopped, understandably caught off guard by the sight that greeted him.
"G- Gray! Help me out here!" Nightmare wailed, one arm flailing for help while he tried to fend Alice off with the other, not doing a very good job of it. "She's trying to kill me!"
"A wet mitten won't kill anyone unless they're suffocated with it!"
"…" Gray stepped back out the door and closed it again. He really didn't want to know. And sometimes, it was best to just let Nightmare take what was coming to him.
Particularly when it involved Alice.
[1] In Ace's ending in Joker, Alice tells Julius he's her and Ace's "trainer." Julius is just like, "Good gods…" xD I couldn't resist putting this in there.
[2] No swear word or inappropriate content word (too gruesome or not meant for the public) is said. It's literally x'd out and you hear a —BEEEEP- in the games XD It's in the manga too.
… I just started writing. This thing wrote itself xD~ That's in part why it's so… random. But really, Nightmare's very random. His route in Joker has so many "you've gotta be kidding me" moments that I gave up smacking my head. It's also utterly adorable and the fluffiest route I've seen.
The trouble with writing Nightmare outside of dreams is that you can't NOT write Gray as well. I don't mind, personally, since I admit to being rather a fan of Gray, but these two are kind of stuck together. If you don't know Gray, this fic may have given you an idea why. Nightmare would be nowhere without the man.
Part two should be up soon. Look out for it!
