"Hastie, if you don't bring me at least one Christmas pudding next time you come over, I will go outside and hit someone but not enough to do any real damage, but enough to confuse them and they'll wonder if they did something they forgot and that would make their holidays weird for them. Is that what you want, Hastie? To be the reason why instead of being holly jolly, someone is out there having a weird time?"

"What the devil are you talking ab-"

In his defence, Lanyon, who had literally just walked in the door before getting bombarded by annoying words, did actually have the full intention of offering a more verbose reply than he did. Unfortunately, whatever words he was planning to say were promptly lost the moment he had turned to actually face the man in question. Instead, he let out a laugh that did not quite have the dignity that he was usually a little bit better at maintaining.

Edward Hyde was always a series of surprises (somehow, Lanyon felt, the fact that Hyde and Jekyll being one and the same was not the most drastic, though that might have said more about his opinion towards Jekyll than anything) and yet he still managed to get him, even after a year. Attached to the shorter fellow were several silvery baubles, one hooked over each slightly pointed ear, and an unfortunate amount tied roughly into his hair, as if it were possible that the mess could somehow get messier. The overall effect of this left Hyde looking quite like a Christmas tree that might bite someone.

"Don't worry," Utterson, the island of normalcy in sea of ridiculousness, called, poking his head out from the other room, a warm mug snug in one hand, "He's just excited for the holidays. You know how he can get sometimes."

"You really shouldn't mollycoddle him so much, Gabe," Lanyon remarked, "He is a grown man after all."

"As are we, and perhaps we all ought to have a little fun every now and again," came the measured reply, "After all, we can see the unfortunate repercussions that can come from denying ourselves even that."

"Yes and the unfortunate repercussion is literally right here and can hear you both." Hyde remarked in what he was sure was a perfect deadpan, despite proceeding to completely miss the mark in every single possible way.

With precisely no warning whatsoever, Edward decided this was the perfect time to relocate Hastie, even if the doctor in question was not the most fond of the idea. Not that he really had a say in the matter. For such a little guy, Hyde really did have all of the strength and none of the reservations or restraints that a regular person would have.

So, somehow with both too much and not enough fanfare, Hyde dragged the other man into the study.

There was a pleasantly spiced sort of scent hanging heavily in the air, a smell that Lanyon had been briefly aware of when he arrived, but it was amplified significantly upon entering into the room the aroma was wafting out from. Crisp pine, something distinctly citrusy, and a healthy amount of cinnamon. Thankfully the pleasant scents were nice enough to almost completely mask the scent of burnt bread (a fond memory of Jekyll's mother making yule bread meant Hyde was determined to perfect it before the actual celebration, which left poor Utterson having to deal with several loaves of questionable bread the more the fellow tried to practice the recipe, leaving at least one of them with the belief that cooking out to be left to Jekyll who at least had an appreciation of the science behind it) that had been picked at more from a place of sympathy than anything.

"You are late, you know! We-"

"I never agreed to come in the first place," Hastie interrupted, "So do know that my being here is out of the goodness of my heart before you finish that thought."

"I was just going to say that we had to get started without you," Hyde huffed with an audible pout in his voice, which was an impressive feat to be able to make one's expressions audible, "But you are here now, so now you've just got to catch up on all that terribly missed time that you, well, missed. Missfully. Missingly? Mystifyingly. No, wait, that's already a thing. Anyways, tree."

Anyways, tree indeed. The tree in question was a modest pine, already wearing a few more little glass baubles than Hyde was, a handful of red and gold bows tied neatly (thank you, Utterson, for going back and making the ones Hyde tied more even than he had) about the branches. Hyde had clearly just thrown an apple into the tree at some point, as the poor piece of fruit was slowly and actively sinking into the branches the longer it sat there.

The glance that Utterson offered the final member of their strange little trio as he was unceremoniously planted in the room was very close to apologetic.

"You do humour him far more than he deserves," Hastie remarked, considering the excessive disorder that was supposed to be decorations, "Is there a theme to all this business, or are we just making a mess of a perfectly good room?"

"I think it is just a bit of fun, really," Utterson replied measuredly, "Anyhow, if it does come off too disagreeably, I can imagine that, come morning, Harry could set some sort of order to it all. He's always been quite good at making disorderly things presentable."

"Can I help you?" Hyde exclaimed in a way that was just shrill enough that it would be a surprise if anything but dogs could hear him, "Oh, ye of little faith! Just because you cannot comprehend the spectacular vision I have for all this, that does not," he paused to wave a hand about in the air erratically as if this was somehow supposed to help prove his point, "Mean I do not I do not have one!" He clapped oh so very dramatically to punctuate this, but clearly underestimated his own strength and had to take several moments of dramatic hopping about while shaking his hand, hissing up a storm that a war of alleycats could only dream of. "Okay, quit looking at me and grab a bauble or something already! Go go go!"

Lanyon did not, in fact, go go go. Instead, and to no surprise whatsoever, the doctor let out several long sighs, each more withering and dramatic than the last. Then he accidentally met Utterson's eye, who raised an eyebrow pointedly. This did win another sigh, but Lanyon did trudge over to where Hyde had dumped out what appeared to be every single thing that he could find in the house directly onto the floor. The fact he did not sigh once again did not have anything to do with him tolerating the idea all of a sudden but did have everything to do with the fact none of his previous sighs had done all that much when it came to freeing himself from the ordeal.

So, he relented and scooped up an oddly stiff crimson ribbon off the floor (and if he happened to grumble something along the lines of "We're all far too old for this," then that was rather his own concern), pondered it with the intensity of one who was wanting to make sure that he was seen pondering ribbons, the turned his gaze down again. There was one single bell, cheerily golden and decidedly functual, sitting amidst the chaos. He could only imagine how much more annoying Hyde could be if he had access to a readily accessible bell (actually he didn't need to imagine it. Hyde had once clambered in through his window and clearly had some bell hidden in some pocket of his clothes because he was making even more annoying sounds as he ran about explaining what Lanyon could only have assumed was a story of the evening but it had almost enough random unnecessary tangents that did not add to the story to rival this very story) and so he made the smart decision.

Looping the bell onto the riddon, he tied a neat, polite looking bow on one of the highest branches. Not only did this make it look as if he was willing to participate but also keep the bell out of Hyde's arm's reach. While he wouldn't be too surprised to find that Hyde had tried to jump up and hit the bell, crashing into the tree and destroying things, but at least it meant he had to do the funny thing of him possibly getting stuck in a tree about it too.

Thankfully this went over Hyde's head, who threw his hands into the air and cheered. Utterson was not quite so oblivious, but he was nice enough to pretend he didn't see it and busied himself with placing a sparkly silver orb on a branch.

By the time Lanyon had placed the third random ornament on the tree, he made the mistake of wondering if he had actually just been catastrophizing a little, but then he was left with the most glaringly obvious reminder that Jekyll was very annoying and this was amplified significantly through Hyde. The apple that Hyde threw smacked directly into the wall just a little too close to his head for his liking. Which does imply that there was an amount of apples exploding near him that he did like, which was not true. Unless one were to consider no apples at all to be an amount of apples, but even then, it was a very random thing to have pondered enough to create a scale in advance.

"Aww, I missed." Hyde lamented sulkily.

"The tree or me?" Hastie returned dryly.

Hyde, who was very good at just not shutting up ever, conveniently seemed to have decided that this was the perfect time to try and see how that whole silence business was.

"Edward Hyde, did you mean that you missed the tree or me?"

"My lawyer has advised me that I am under no obligation to share my testimony without a judge present," came the reply in another deadpan that was, in his mind, flawlessly executed. After a moment of letting this hang in the air, he looked over to Utterson, bending over backwards in the sort of way that he definitely did not need to do. "Was any of that even remotely right?"

"It would not hold up in court, but it was not wholly incorrect," Utterson offered with more patience than Lanyon felt was deserved, "But do try to avoid wasting any more apples, if you can. Do you remember how difficult it was to find these at this time of the year. Do you think you could just place them in the tree?"

"Still a grown man." mumbled a Lanyon who was pointedly not looking at either of them.

"That does not mean he doesn't deserve a little patience when he is unwell." came the measured reply.

"I can still hear you! Just because you're talking over my head does not mean I can't hear! You know I have better hearing than either of you do!" Hyde, for some reason, managed to put the wrong emphasis on his exasperated exclamation and accidently implied that the accusation was that he had good hearing rather than the fact they were talking about him like he wasn't there. "I can throw as many bloody apples wherever the hell I want to whenever the hell I want to!"

This ended in a little grumble that he hoped the others did not hear.

"What was that?" Hastie asked specifically to annoy him.

"I said that I won't throw them now though. Not because you said not to but because I don't want to now."

With several huffs, Hyde shoved one of the apples into the tree with more force than necessary. It was rather safe to assume that the moment the group left the room he would forget that it was there and left the very unfortunate Jekyll to have to deal with an unpleasantly shrivelled and squishy apple at some point. Which was a tragically appropriate summary of their existence.

Now, one would imagine that between all of the chaos there was very little time for any actual decorating being done, but, to an immense amount of surprise to anyone involved, they actually did manage to take the tree from vaguely pathetic to something a little chaotic but still radiating that specific sort of festive cheer that made it easy to overlook the chaos of it. While it was hardly going to be winning any awards for its stylish grace, it felt far more real and that was far more important.

"Edward, do you think you could run ahead and set the kettle on for us, please?" requested Utterson with a smile.

With a salute that made it very clear that Hyde didn't know how to salute, he scampered off in the general direction of the kitchen. If the thump that carried through the air was anything to go by, he'd taken a very direct route and so had needed to leap over whatever dared get in his way.

Lanyon moved to follow him, but Utterson caught him, urging him to wait with a gentle touch to the arm.

"There is no need to be so harsh with him, Hastie. He's simply excited," Gabriel began gently, "It would not hurt you to try and be a little kinder."

"You," Lanyon began pointedly, "Should not let him walk all over you. I know you're terribly fond of him, regardless of the name he chooses to wear at any given time, but you cannot let him use that against you." He flashed a grin. "But really, if you're to be so terribly kind to him, somebody has to keep things even for him. He's enough of a mess with no stability at the best of times, so it would not serve him as well as you hope to start changing things now."

"I know," came the reply, not entirely relenting but not completely unyielding, "But you do know he has never been so very strong, so he could do with a little more kindness than most. He's delicate. Sensitive. Do you think you could try? At least for the holidays?"

Hyde was never one to live up to everyone else's expectations of him (obviously, as Jekyll had taken it upon himself to live up to every single expectation no matter and it had ruined him so there was no way he was going to make the same mistake again now that he had been given the chance to start over) and so, as if to respond to being called delicate, there was an almighty crash from the kitchen.

"For god's sake, if I have to patch you up after you've gone and injured yourself doing something stupid-" Lanyon shouted out the door, vaguely in the direction the noise had come from.

Even Utterson's emotions themselves had always managed to come across as polite, but even then there seemed to be the faintest note of victorious smugness to the look he gave the doctor.

"What? I'm not going to let himself go and get himself hurt."

As if in reply, there was a secondary crash from the kitchen. Smaller, but no more reassuring for it.

"For god's sake!" Lanyon repeated, "Edward, stop touching things until we get in there!" And with this said, he stomped off to inevitably save the man from whatever mess he had managed to get into. While, of course, Utterson followed along to salvage whatever inevitably fell apart in the first attempt because they really did need the three of them together to make anything actually work.

Ah, and the holiday season had only just begun. Howsoever it was that anyone survived them was a surprise every year.