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“James - move over. You’ll never be able to hit him from that angle -”
“I don’t need an exact line of fire, Thomas, now be quiet and help me build up this pile -”
“...James, you can’t seriously mean to -”
Creeaak. Clunk.
Footsteps moved through the entryway, and then -
“Got you,” James murmured gleefully. He pushed on the snow in front of him, face set in a grin and -
Schiiiiiick
Thomas had always loved the sound of snow falling off of something. He loved the gentle silence of it. He loved the sound it made when it landed on more of itself, but most of all -
“Gah!”
He loved the sound of James’ laughter, and he was most assuredly laughing right now. In fact, Thomas was distinctly worried that he might roll off the roof in his mirth - he was all but gasping for breath.
“James, you’re a fiend,” he murmured. He peered over the edge, and could not help but grin himself. “Alright, sir?” he asked, and Hennessey glared up at him, still covered in snow, a small pile of it stuck beneath the collar of his coat, and more in his serviceable winter hat.
“James, I know you’re up there!” he said, still attempting to shake snow out of his clothing. He succeeded only in allowing the pile of snow to go down his back, and gave a squawk of indignation at the cold. James laughed harder.
“You look - like one of those dancing monkeys,” he gasped. “Flailing - exactly like them -”
Hennessey removed his hat, tapping it out, and then used it to brush snow off of himself, his white wig appearing oddly off-color against the brilliant white snow.
“You boys,” he said casually, “will have approximately two minutes to vacate the area, after which I shall assume that you are volunteering to be thoroughly trounced. I hope that you’re wearing warm clothing.” He stooped toward the ground -
He looked up, and Thomas felt his eyes widen. There was a ball of snow in the older man’s hand, collected from the small piles by his feet.
“James - James he means it -” Thomas started to warn, and then ducked as the snowball went whizzing past his head. Another went flying by, and then they were moving, scrambling for the ground.
“This was your idea -”
“The roof was yours! Why are we giving up the high ground?”
“Because -”
Paff
The snow hit James just as he started to explain, and he shook his head, red hair emerging again under a fresh layer of snow.
“Don’t argue, just move!”
Snow splatted against Thomas’ neck, and he squawked, and ducked.
“He’s got wicked aim,” he remarked, and James grinned.
“So have I.”
*******************************************************
“Do you yield?” Hennessey asked, twenty minutes later. The admiral, Thomas thought, looked entirely too satisfied with himself. Then again - he had a right to be, skewed wig, lost hat and all.
“If I come down,” James said, “I want a guarantee that I won’t be pummeled completely senseless.”
“Only a little, on my word,” Hennessey said solemnly. The mirth in his tone was contagious - Thomas, who had given up the fight perhaps five minutes earlier, could not help but laugh. He was covered in snow, had ice trickling down the sides of his face, and his hands were freezing, and he sat in the snow, tired and yet still amused. James, on the other hand -
“No more head shots,” he warned from his position, and Thomas still could not quite understand how James had ended up in one of the large elm trees near the house, but there he was, and Hennessey seemed quite as perplexed as Thomas, if a trifle more amused and less worried.
“‘Pon my honor as a gentleman,” Hennessey answered, and James paused in the middle of making his way down.
“Oh no,” he said suddenly, climbing back upward. “It’s not going to be quite so easy as all that.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Hennessey asked, and suddenly, Thomas recalled. The admiral, for all his status and position, was nothing like a gentleman, and yes, sure enough, there behind his back, was -
“James!” Thomas started to warn, and then Hennessey was moving and James was scrambling back up into the branches of the tree.
“You have no bloody honor as a gentleman!” he yelped, climbing higher and cursing inventively as snow hit him from behind.
Hennessey cackled.
“Language, young ma-” he started to say, and then his eyes widened as James’ arms wrapped around one of the tree’s branches. Its snow-covered, nay, snow- laden branches. “James Edward don’t you dare -!”
He dared. The tree shook, and Hennessey swore, and James howled with laughter, scampering down from the branches of the tree to arm himself anew.
“Do you yield?” he asked, eyes dancing with mirth.
“Mercy!” Hennessey begged from the ground, voice weak with laughter. “Look at my wig you devilish child -”
“It’s a monstrosity anyway,” James opined, satisfied at last. He released the snowball and, still laughing, helped Hennessey back to his feet.
“True enough,” Hennessey admitted. He shook the snow from his head and, in the process, dislodged the wig entirely - he caught it, and looked ruefully down at the bedraggled article of head wear.
“There’s to be no salvaging it, I’m afraid,” he said. “Just as well I’ve a new one coming - oh you fiendish thing, you knew, didn’t you?”
“Wouldn’t have ruined the old if I hadn’t,” James confessed, and Hennessey rolled his eyes fondly.
“Of course not. My own foolish fault for stepping out of doors, is that the lay of the land?”
“Well, you did tell us your schedule for the day,” Thomas pointed out. He had also risen from the ground, and now stood grinning at Hennessey as well. “You know better during this season by now, sir, surely.”
“So I do,” Hennessey acknowledged. “Alright. To the kitchen with the pair of you - go and get warm, go on, before I decide that idle hands are the devil’s plaything and the reason for this mischief. Go on - pair of rascals. And tell Phipps that I shall need to change as well!”
*******************************************************************
“He took that rather well, I thought,” James said later. Thomas snorted - they were both sitting in front of the fire in James’ rooms, sipping warm milk and wrapped in blankets, bundled, James had snickered, like a pair of old men, or perhaps old women. Thomas was not about to complain - he was warm and dry and far, far away from the midshipmen’s barracks for the furlough, and glad of it.
“Much better than my father would have,” he answered. “I’d give good money to see that, though. Do you think -?”
“What was the last thing he wrote in his letter?” James asks again, and Thomas shudders and huddles closer.
“You know damn well,” he answers. “Two years, James! Two bloody years and he still can’t seem to grasp that I’m not his to control any longer.”
“Well you’re not, so there’s an end of it,” James says firmly. “Good riddance to him. If you still wanted, though -”
He raised an eyebrow suggestively, and Thomas gaped.
“You wouldn’t!” he gasped, and James grinned.
“I’ll need help with the planning,” he answered. “If we do it right, I can hit him with so much snow he’ll think there’s been an avalanche -”
******************************
Alfred Hamilton indeed did not know what had hit him exactly one week later. Hennessey did, though, and he did his very best not to look to the rooftop from whence had come Alfred’s snowy surprise, or give his two wayward charges any sign that he was vastly amused until he had sent Alfred on his way once more.