In the Rough, chapter 17/40
Title: In the Rough (17/40)
Author: alittleoddish
Rating: Teen
Characters: Alice/Hatter, Jack/Duchess, Charlie
Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Syfy's Alice.
Summary: "But this is starting to sound like a quest! Quests are such a pain, Alice, they really are. All horseback and food rations and traveling in groups and no truly hot tea, with significantly less sex against trees.”
Author's Notes: This is my longest chapter to date. I tried to find a place to cut it, but it just wasn’t working. So, here y’all go! ^_^ My chapters seem to be getting longer and longer without my permission… lol This story is outta control!
Thanks so much for all of you who have given me such lovely feedback! ^_^ Again, thanks so much to my GORGEOUS betas, zombres and randombattlecry! They are simply fantastic, they always keep me on my toes to provide the highest quality of writing I can. Also, thanks to my amazing Official Fandom Soundboard abscondinabox, with whom I have spent many-a-Skype session discussing the ins and outs of characters and plot, and without whom this story would undoubtedly be a disaster.
Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five,
Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten,
Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Warning: This chapter contains sexually explicit content not necessarily reflected in the “Teen” rating.
***
The whole ordeal had only lasted about ten seconds, and she certainly had been through other situations where she had been more afraid, but Alice couldn’t ever remember feeling quite so panicked in her life as she did when she saw Hatter’s head swallowed by a man-eating Flower. As she felt the sword’s impact on the bluebell’s stalk tremble up her arm, she fervently hoped she never would again.
The satisfying thwack resonated in her ears. Shiny, greenish-white water-the plant’s blood, Alice assumed- was dripping down the blade of the sword and pooling on the hilt, cold and slippery in the crevices between her tightly clenched fingers. Out of the corners of her vision, she saw Hatter yank the now-decapitated bluebell off his head and breathe in a deep gulp of fresh air with a rasping noise. His head was drenched with the same stuff that was on Alice’s fingers and smelled strongly of freshly cut grass. He collapsed onto the ground, eyes wide and whole body trembling, chest heaving as he coughed and spluttered and took in lungfuls of air.
Alice threw Charlie’s sword on the ground, knowing by his footsteps that he was right behind her to pick it up, and she fell to her knees next to Hatter. Her fingers fluttered over his face and neck, partly checking for wounds and partly just making sure that he was really there and alive and there. “Hatter?” she nearly whimpered. “Hatter-“
“Lady Alice!” Charlie yelled from behind her, his voice huffing with exertion, and what was that horrible screeching sound in the background? “I’m afraid our rescue has been rather loud!”
Alice could almost hear the sound of the bottom dropping out of her stomach, the sudden weight of realization. She swiveled around to find every single Flower in the garden awake, ducking and writhing around each other like a humongous den of snakes rearing up to strike, hissing and spitting in outrage over the intrusion on their territory and the murder of their fallen comrade, teeth glistening on every side, absolutely overlapping each other in their eagerness to eat the three of them whole. Charlie had his sword brandished bravely defending himself, as well as Alice and Hatter as they lay prone on the ground, but he had only managed to harm a few and they were gathering courage as more of them kept waking up.
And, Alice couldn’t help but notice, they were completely surrounded. Walking this deep into the Garden, she couldn’t even see where their exit had been. They were completely surrounded and Hatter had almost died and she had no weapon.
She lifted Hatter to his feet, glad to see him holding his own weight, even if his balance was a little punch-drunk. A sudden movement out of the corner of her eye made her grab his elbow and pull them both backwards, just barely dodging the sucking jaws of a killer azalea. “Charlie!” she shrieked. “Throw me a weapon!”
“I don’t have another sword!” he yelled in return as he successfully beheaded an entire cluster of daisies blocking the path.
“Throw me ANYTHING!”
Charlie lunged for Guinevere, wrenched off the first thing that his hand landed upon, and slid it across the ground to Alice’s feet. He turned around just in time to catch the teeth of a rose with the flat of his blade, filling the air with the horrible screeching sound of metal on metal. Alice leaned down and picked up something black, metal, and heavy.
Charlie had tossed her a frying pan.
Oh, they would have words about this. But for now all Alice could do was throw herself up off the ground and backhand wildly the first blurred blue thing that came her way - she didn’t even have time to see what it was.
THWACK. There was Hatter, using that sledgehammer of his against a sunflower. THWACK. Alice stepped over the head of a neon pink pansy that looked like it had blue strings coming out of its mouth, but she didn’t have time to examine it closer. THWACK. Even Pat, Bill, and Guinevere were kicking as many Flowers in the face as they could. Good horses. THWACK, THWACK. At her feet, Alice spotted Hatter’s hat on the ground. She picked it up without even thinking about it. THWACK
It was absolute, senses-jumbling chaos. Alice was barely aware that they were moving as a group, trying to push forward, but all she could see were bright blurs of color endlessly moving and shifting in the darkness, broken up by the black smudge of her wild frying pan, and everything, everything was coated in slippery, iridescently shiny blood. It was in her hair, under her fingernails, she could feel it soaking through the fabric of her shirtsleeves. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Hatter covering her back, punching as hard and fast as he could, never leaving her side.
They kept pushing forward.
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
And then, abruptly, the colors vanished. Alice circled around, frying pan held outward and at the ready, eyes darting wildly trying to find her next target, but all she could see was blackness. It took her a minute to realize that all the flowers were hissing and snapping their jaws five feet away, straining at their roots but not able to stretch far enough to reach them.
“Oh thank the Maker,” Charlie moaned behind them, voicing what they were all thinking and sinking bonelessly to his knees.
But Alice wasn’t done. Anger and adrenaline still rushed through her veins in a way she hadn’t felt since… well, since she’d seen those two little girls get pulled from their homes through the Mirror. Her grip only tightened on the pan handle and she strode ahead, just far enough to be out of reach from the viciously snapping jaws. She stood there, strands of sopping wet hair plastered to her face, and she screamed.
Alice wasn’t really sure what she was saying - she couldn’t even be sure she was screaming actual words. It wasn’t a yell of victory or fear, it was just pure rage. Her senses were overloaded and she was tired and frightened and done, and she just screamed and cried directly into the Flower’s hissing faces, the terrible sounds ripping through her throat and one fist clenched to her belly and hot tears ran down her red, blotchy face as she yelled and roared and when she couldn’t stand any more she fell to her knees.
And Hatter was right there to catch her when she did.
She clung to him fiercely there in the dark, her face buried into the crook of his shoulder as she whimpered through her broken throat and ran her hands all over his arms and shoulders and neck without seeing, just to make sure he was still there and was still solid. He made soothing sounds into her temple and rocked her back and forth and just held her, tight enough to hurt but she didn’t mind in the slightest, the two of them clinging and exhausted and overcome with relief.
Charlie walked up to them after what seemed like an age, Hatter’s hat clenched in his hands from where Alice had dropped it while screaming. “Let’s go get cleaned up,” he said quietly.
Alice nodded, and upon standing up reached for Charlie and hugged him tightly as well. He was obviously surprised, but managed a smile and patted her shoulder a bit, leading her slowly away with Hatter and the three horses close behind.
***
Lory did not get mad. He got even.
He set the Flower Garden ablaze within minutes of the group’s departure, silencing their screams in his mind. He could always enchant some more flowers into Flowers later if he needed them. This batch was obviously not up to standard.
He didn’t even stay to watch them burn.
***
Charlie led them to a rushing, gurgling spring that would be just deep enough to wash themselves off in. He waded in, armor and all, but Alice just knelt numbly at the water’s edge and ran handfuls of water through her hair. Hatter took the more direct approach of just dunking his head in and shaking it off like a dog, sending water droplets spraying everywhere. Alice watched as he gripped his hat carefully in both hands, held it under the water for a moment, and gave it a firm shake. Then he just flipped it back onto his head, good as new.
“It’s clean,” she said with a note of surprise.
“Yeah.”
“I thought it’d be ruined.”
Hatter’s smile peeked back at her, a bit of that self-satisfied air coming back to him. “I told you this hat was built for action.”
“I spotted a clearing nearby,” Charlie said, interrupting whatever Alice had been about to say. “You two can wash your clothes while I go start a fire and get the horses settled for the night.”
“Can you leave our bags, Charlie?” Alice asked. He nodded. Alice knew he was really just giving the two of them some privacy, but she appreciated it nevertheless. She bent back down to the stream and ran a few more handfuls of water over her hair, running her fingers through the strands until the sounds of Charlie’s armor and the horses had disappeared.
She could feel Hatter’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes just yet. She was still so embarrassed over her freakout at the Garden - after everything he had just fought through, and Charlie too… what had given her the right… so DUMB, she mentally berated herself.
“Alice,” he said, and laid a hand over the back of her neck. “I’m okay.”
She leaned into the warm pressure of his hand and allowed herself a shaky breath.
“There was a moment when I thought you weren’t going to be, though.” Her voice was steadier than she had anticipated. Maybe that was how she finally made herself look up at him. She looked sadly at the bright red hickey, about an inch in diameter, completely circling his neck. It looked morbidly like a burn from a hangman’s noose. She reached out to touch it with tentative fingers. “There was a whole minute where I thought none of us would be,” she admitted.
He looked at her seriously for a beat before pulling her in for a kiss. Alice could feel his fingers on the back of her neck tighten the tiniest bit, and that more than anything told her that he had been scared, too.
When they parted, he wrinkled his nose comically. “You smell like grass,” he said. She laughed - it felt good to laugh.
“And to think I used to love that smell,” she said, reaching down to peel off the wet fabric of her shirt. She sighed in relief when the garment came off over her head, letting her skin breathe in the cool night air. “Now I think I never will again.”
Hatter snorted and followed suit, slipping off his jacket and letting it sit next to Alice’s shirt in the water. They peeled off the rest of their clothes until they were kneeling there, at the water’s edge, washing their clothes in only their underwear. Alice rinsed and wrung, rinsed and wrung, enjoying the simple, domestic motion. Her heart hummed with a quiet feeling of satisfaction, holding up a clean shirt at the end and laying it across a branch to dry. She started working on her jeans, which took longer given the dense material but also because she kept sneaking glances at Hatter out of the corner of her eye.
He was slower than Alice, partly because he wore so many layers and partly because he took more pride in the appearance and well-being of his clothes than any other man Alice had ever met. It afforded her plenty of time to watch his shoulder and back muscles bunch and ripple as he rubbed water into his shirt fabric and wrung out the extra droplets. He’d bend over to submerge his hands in water again and Alice would watch his arm muscles stretch, and he’d straighten up to wring it out and the muscles would tighten under his golden skin, drawing contoured lines down his whole torso. When he reached between them to grab another garment, Alice could feel the heat emanating from him, and when his eyes flickered to her face she didn’t miss the way that they darkened, catching her in the middle of her blatant ogling.
Alice flushed, but didn’t look away. After all, she wasn’t a teenager any more, and Hatter wasn’t Sam Jules in 8th grade Geometry class - he was Hatter, and he was hers.
And currently, she reminded herself, half-naked.
He didn’t protest when she took the wet, newly-cleaned shirt out of his hands and walked away with it, draping it over the tree branch with the rest of their clothes to dry. In the distance she could see the small pinprick of Charlie’s campfire - close enough to hear him if he called for help in the night. Good.
She turned around slowly and looked down at Hatter, still kneeling by the stream with the darkest pair of bedroom eyes she’d ever seen. She felt oddly on display like this - standing in front of him nearly naked, with him watching her so intently - but not uncomfortable. Never. Step by step, she walked toward him until she was close enough that he reached out and took her hands, pulling her down to his lap in a clinging embrace so quickly that she gasped into his shoulder. Her arms tightened around him like an anchor, breathing a sigh as he dotted warm kisses all over her shoulder and neck.
“Is this the part where we have thank-god-you’re-not-dead-and-we-got-away sex?” she asked good-naturedly as he sucked on her collarbone. He huffed a breathy laugh against her skin and kissed her ear.
“Your sleeping bag or mine?” he asked, and Alice could feel his smile, and she grinned in response and hugged him all the harder for loving him like her heart would burst.
“Yours,” she retorted. “I think mine has a hole in it, it’s kinda drafty in there.”
Hatter chuckled and reached for his sleeping bag, where Charlie had left it leaning against a nearby rock. Alice helped him roll it out and they crawled inside. It was a tight fit, two grown adults, but that was fine by her - she didn’t want to be apart from him tonight. Especially not the way he was kissing her like that, and the way his skin felt so smooth under her fingertips, and the way their legs tangled around each other so that she couldn’t tell where hers ended and his began.
Hatter’s hand was fisted in her hair, kissing her with such fevered intensity that it was almost overwhelming. Tendrils of hot desire twisted and exploded in Alice’s stomach as his slick tongue curled against hers, sucking on her upper lip even as she sucked on his lower one, both of them nipping and gasping for air and emitting small, greedy moans and whimpers of raw need.
Alice reached back and unhooked her bra, shoving it to the bottom of the sleeping bag to join both of their underpants that had come off some point earlier that she couldn’t remember. All she knew was that she needed him closer, and this wasn’t enough, he needed to be in every cell of her. She ground her hips against his, eliciting a loud groan from him that made her shudder. Emboldened by the reaction, she burrowed herself into the dark sleeping bag and reached around to find his cock and stroke it firmly, her toes curling in satisfaction at the sound of his strangled moan.
It was pitch black inside the sleeping bag, which heightened the experience in a way that Alice hadn’t anticipated - her senses to taste and feel were on overload as she licked up the side of Hatter’s shaft before plunging it into her mouth as deep as it would go. She held his hips down on either side to keep him from bucking as she slid up and down, swirling her tongue around the tip and sucking hard before each downward push.
When she wasn’t sure he could take any more, she crawled back up so her head poked out of the sleeping bag. She met his dark, predatory gaze with one of her own and slowly, purposefully licked her lips.
Hatter growled loudly and flipped her over so that he was on top. His heated chest slid over her exposed, sensitive nipples as he aligned himself with her opening. Alice arched her back with a whimper, feeling the slickness of her thighs as she tightened them on either side of Hatter’s waist. His thrusts were hard and fast, all tenderness gone with only the raw need to feel her remaining, to take her fully and cement what they both already knew. Alice laced her fingers behind his neck as he moved over her, moaned his name when they both shuddered in completion, whispered kisses into his temple as they lay tangled together for sleep. Their every effort was a promise to each other, a declaration to enforce their unspoken will upon the world around them.
They weren’t ever going to part. Not ever.
***
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Author: alittleoddish
Rating: Teen
Characters: Alice/Hatter, Jack/Duchess, Charlie
Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Syfy's Alice.
Summary: "But this is starting to sound like a quest! Quests are such a pain, Alice, they really are. All horseback and food rations and traveling in groups and no truly hot tea, with significantly less sex against trees.”
Author's Notes: This is my longest chapter to date. I tried to find a place to cut it, but it just wasn’t working. So, here y’all go! ^_^ My chapters seem to be getting longer and longer without my permission… lol This story is outta control!
Thanks so much for all of you who have given me such lovely feedback! ^_^ Again, thanks so much to my GORGEOUS betas, zombres and randombattlecry! They are simply fantastic, they always keep me on my toes to provide the highest quality of writing I can. Also, thanks to my amazing Official Fandom Soundboard abscondinabox, with whom I have spent many-a-Skype session discussing the ins and outs of characters and plot, and without whom this story would undoubtedly be a disaster.
Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five,
Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten,
Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Warning: This chapter contains sexually explicit content not necessarily reflected in the “Teen” rating.
***
The whole ordeal had only lasted about ten seconds, and she certainly had been through other situations where she had been more afraid, but Alice couldn’t ever remember feeling quite so panicked in her life as she did when she saw Hatter’s head swallowed by a man-eating Flower. As she felt the sword’s impact on the bluebell’s stalk tremble up her arm, she fervently hoped she never would again.
The satisfying thwack resonated in her ears. Shiny, greenish-white water-the plant’s blood, Alice assumed- was dripping down the blade of the sword and pooling on the hilt, cold and slippery in the crevices between her tightly clenched fingers. Out of the corners of her vision, she saw Hatter yank the now-decapitated bluebell off his head and breathe in a deep gulp of fresh air with a rasping noise. His head was drenched with the same stuff that was on Alice’s fingers and smelled strongly of freshly cut grass. He collapsed onto the ground, eyes wide and whole body trembling, chest heaving as he coughed and spluttered and took in lungfuls of air.
Alice threw Charlie’s sword on the ground, knowing by his footsteps that he was right behind her to pick it up, and she fell to her knees next to Hatter. Her fingers fluttered over his face and neck, partly checking for wounds and partly just making sure that he was really there and alive and there. “Hatter?” she nearly whimpered. “Hatter-“
“Lady Alice!” Charlie yelled from behind her, his voice huffing with exertion, and what was that horrible screeching sound in the background? “I’m afraid our rescue has been rather loud!”
Alice could almost hear the sound of the bottom dropping out of her stomach, the sudden weight of realization. She swiveled around to find every single Flower in the garden awake, ducking and writhing around each other like a humongous den of snakes rearing up to strike, hissing and spitting in outrage over the intrusion on their territory and the murder of their fallen comrade, teeth glistening on every side, absolutely overlapping each other in their eagerness to eat the three of them whole. Charlie had his sword brandished bravely defending himself, as well as Alice and Hatter as they lay prone on the ground, but he had only managed to harm a few and they were gathering courage as more of them kept waking up.
And, Alice couldn’t help but notice, they were completely surrounded. Walking this deep into the Garden, she couldn’t even see where their exit had been. They were completely surrounded and Hatter had almost died and she had no weapon.
She lifted Hatter to his feet, glad to see him holding his own weight, even if his balance was a little punch-drunk. A sudden movement out of the corner of her eye made her grab his elbow and pull them both backwards, just barely dodging the sucking jaws of a killer azalea. “Charlie!” she shrieked. “Throw me a weapon!”
“I don’t have another sword!” he yelled in return as he successfully beheaded an entire cluster of daisies blocking the path.
“Throw me ANYTHING!”
Charlie lunged for Guinevere, wrenched off the first thing that his hand landed upon, and slid it across the ground to Alice’s feet. He turned around just in time to catch the teeth of a rose with the flat of his blade, filling the air with the horrible screeching sound of metal on metal. Alice leaned down and picked up something black, metal, and heavy.
Charlie had tossed her a frying pan.
Oh, they would have words about this. But for now all Alice could do was throw herself up off the ground and backhand wildly the first blurred blue thing that came her way - she didn’t even have time to see what it was.
THWACK. There was Hatter, using that sledgehammer of his against a sunflower. THWACK. Alice stepped over the head of a neon pink pansy that looked like it had blue strings coming out of its mouth, but she didn’t have time to examine it closer. THWACK. Even Pat, Bill, and Guinevere were kicking as many Flowers in the face as they could. Good horses. THWACK, THWACK. At her feet, Alice spotted Hatter’s hat on the ground. She picked it up without even thinking about it. THWACK
It was absolute, senses-jumbling chaos. Alice was barely aware that they were moving as a group, trying to push forward, but all she could see were bright blurs of color endlessly moving and shifting in the darkness, broken up by the black smudge of her wild frying pan, and everything, everything was coated in slippery, iridescently shiny blood. It was in her hair, under her fingernails, she could feel it soaking through the fabric of her shirtsleeves. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Hatter covering her back, punching as hard and fast as he could, never leaving her side.
They kept pushing forward.
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
And then, abruptly, the colors vanished. Alice circled around, frying pan held outward and at the ready, eyes darting wildly trying to find her next target, but all she could see was blackness. It took her a minute to realize that all the flowers were hissing and snapping their jaws five feet away, straining at their roots but not able to stretch far enough to reach them.
“Oh thank the Maker,” Charlie moaned behind them, voicing what they were all thinking and sinking bonelessly to his knees.
But Alice wasn’t done. Anger and adrenaline still rushed through her veins in a way she hadn’t felt since… well, since she’d seen those two little girls get pulled from their homes through the Mirror. Her grip only tightened on the pan handle and she strode ahead, just far enough to be out of reach from the viciously snapping jaws. She stood there, strands of sopping wet hair plastered to her face, and she screamed.
Alice wasn’t really sure what she was saying - she couldn’t even be sure she was screaming actual words. It wasn’t a yell of victory or fear, it was just pure rage. Her senses were overloaded and she was tired and frightened and done, and she just screamed and cried directly into the Flower’s hissing faces, the terrible sounds ripping through her throat and one fist clenched to her belly and hot tears ran down her red, blotchy face as she yelled and roared and when she couldn’t stand any more she fell to her knees.
And Hatter was right there to catch her when she did.
She clung to him fiercely there in the dark, her face buried into the crook of his shoulder as she whimpered through her broken throat and ran her hands all over his arms and shoulders and neck without seeing, just to make sure he was still there and was still solid. He made soothing sounds into her temple and rocked her back and forth and just held her, tight enough to hurt but she didn’t mind in the slightest, the two of them clinging and exhausted and overcome with relief.
Charlie walked up to them after what seemed like an age, Hatter’s hat clenched in his hands from where Alice had dropped it while screaming. “Let’s go get cleaned up,” he said quietly.
Alice nodded, and upon standing up reached for Charlie and hugged him tightly as well. He was obviously surprised, but managed a smile and patted her shoulder a bit, leading her slowly away with Hatter and the three horses close behind.
***
Lory did not get mad. He got even.
He set the Flower Garden ablaze within minutes of the group’s departure, silencing their screams in his mind. He could always enchant some more flowers into Flowers later if he needed them. This batch was obviously not up to standard.
He didn’t even stay to watch them burn.
***
Charlie led them to a rushing, gurgling spring that would be just deep enough to wash themselves off in. He waded in, armor and all, but Alice just knelt numbly at the water’s edge and ran handfuls of water through her hair. Hatter took the more direct approach of just dunking his head in and shaking it off like a dog, sending water droplets spraying everywhere. Alice watched as he gripped his hat carefully in both hands, held it under the water for a moment, and gave it a firm shake. Then he just flipped it back onto his head, good as new.
“It’s clean,” she said with a note of surprise.
“Yeah.”
“I thought it’d be ruined.”
Hatter’s smile peeked back at her, a bit of that self-satisfied air coming back to him. “I told you this hat was built for action.”
“I spotted a clearing nearby,” Charlie said, interrupting whatever Alice had been about to say. “You two can wash your clothes while I go start a fire and get the horses settled for the night.”
“Can you leave our bags, Charlie?” Alice asked. He nodded. Alice knew he was really just giving the two of them some privacy, but she appreciated it nevertheless. She bent back down to the stream and ran a few more handfuls of water over her hair, running her fingers through the strands until the sounds of Charlie’s armor and the horses had disappeared.
She could feel Hatter’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes just yet. She was still so embarrassed over her freakout at the Garden - after everything he had just fought through, and Charlie too… what had given her the right… so DUMB, she mentally berated herself.
“Alice,” he said, and laid a hand over the back of her neck. “I’m okay.”
She leaned into the warm pressure of his hand and allowed herself a shaky breath.
“There was a moment when I thought you weren’t going to be, though.” Her voice was steadier than she had anticipated. Maybe that was how she finally made herself look up at him. She looked sadly at the bright red hickey, about an inch in diameter, completely circling his neck. It looked morbidly like a burn from a hangman’s noose. She reached out to touch it with tentative fingers. “There was a whole minute where I thought none of us would be,” she admitted.
He looked at her seriously for a beat before pulling her in for a kiss. Alice could feel his fingers on the back of her neck tighten the tiniest bit, and that more than anything told her that he had been scared, too.
When they parted, he wrinkled his nose comically. “You smell like grass,” he said. She laughed - it felt good to laugh.
“And to think I used to love that smell,” she said, reaching down to peel off the wet fabric of her shirt. She sighed in relief when the garment came off over her head, letting her skin breathe in the cool night air. “Now I think I never will again.”
Hatter snorted and followed suit, slipping off his jacket and letting it sit next to Alice’s shirt in the water. They peeled off the rest of their clothes until they were kneeling there, at the water’s edge, washing their clothes in only their underwear. Alice rinsed and wrung, rinsed and wrung, enjoying the simple, domestic motion. Her heart hummed with a quiet feeling of satisfaction, holding up a clean shirt at the end and laying it across a branch to dry. She started working on her jeans, which took longer given the dense material but also because she kept sneaking glances at Hatter out of the corner of her eye.
He was slower than Alice, partly because he wore so many layers and partly because he took more pride in the appearance and well-being of his clothes than any other man Alice had ever met. It afforded her plenty of time to watch his shoulder and back muscles bunch and ripple as he rubbed water into his shirt fabric and wrung out the extra droplets. He’d bend over to submerge his hands in water again and Alice would watch his arm muscles stretch, and he’d straighten up to wring it out and the muscles would tighten under his golden skin, drawing contoured lines down his whole torso. When he reached between them to grab another garment, Alice could feel the heat emanating from him, and when his eyes flickered to her face she didn’t miss the way that they darkened, catching her in the middle of her blatant ogling.
Alice flushed, but didn’t look away. After all, she wasn’t a teenager any more, and Hatter wasn’t Sam Jules in 8th grade Geometry class - he was Hatter, and he was hers.
And currently, she reminded herself, half-naked.
He didn’t protest when she took the wet, newly-cleaned shirt out of his hands and walked away with it, draping it over the tree branch with the rest of their clothes to dry. In the distance she could see the small pinprick of Charlie’s campfire - close enough to hear him if he called for help in the night. Good.
She turned around slowly and looked down at Hatter, still kneeling by the stream with the darkest pair of bedroom eyes she’d ever seen. She felt oddly on display like this - standing in front of him nearly naked, with him watching her so intently - but not uncomfortable. Never. Step by step, she walked toward him until she was close enough that he reached out and took her hands, pulling her down to his lap in a clinging embrace so quickly that she gasped into his shoulder. Her arms tightened around him like an anchor, breathing a sigh as he dotted warm kisses all over her shoulder and neck.
“Is this the part where we have thank-god-you’re-not-dead-and-we-got-away sex?” she asked good-naturedly as he sucked on her collarbone. He huffed a breathy laugh against her skin and kissed her ear.
“Your sleeping bag or mine?” he asked, and Alice could feel his smile, and she grinned in response and hugged him all the harder for loving him like her heart would burst.
“Yours,” she retorted. “I think mine has a hole in it, it’s kinda drafty in there.”
Hatter chuckled and reached for his sleeping bag, where Charlie had left it leaning against a nearby rock. Alice helped him roll it out and they crawled inside. It was a tight fit, two grown adults, but that was fine by her - she didn’t want to be apart from him tonight. Especially not the way he was kissing her like that, and the way his skin felt so smooth under her fingertips, and the way their legs tangled around each other so that she couldn’t tell where hers ended and his began.
Hatter’s hand was fisted in her hair, kissing her with such fevered intensity that it was almost overwhelming. Tendrils of hot desire twisted and exploded in Alice’s stomach as his slick tongue curled against hers, sucking on her upper lip even as she sucked on his lower one, both of them nipping and gasping for air and emitting small, greedy moans and whimpers of raw need.
Alice reached back and unhooked her bra, shoving it to the bottom of the sleeping bag to join both of their underpants that had come off some point earlier that she couldn’t remember. All she knew was that she needed him closer, and this wasn’t enough, he needed to be in every cell of her. She ground her hips against his, eliciting a loud groan from him that made her shudder. Emboldened by the reaction, she burrowed herself into the dark sleeping bag and reached around to find his cock and stroke it firmly, her toes curling in satisfaction at the sound of his strangled moan.
It was pitch black inside the sleeping bag, which heightened the experience in a way that Alice hadn’t anticipated - her senses to taste and feel were on overload as she licked up the side of Hatter’s shaft before plunging it into her mouth as deep as it would go. She held his hips down on either side to keep him from bucking as she slid up and down, swirling her tongue around the tip and sucking hard before each downward push.
When she wasn’t sure he could take any more, she crawled back up so her head poked out of the sleeping bag. She met his dark, predatory gaze with one of her own and slowly, purposefully licked her lips.
Hatter growled loudly and flipped her over so that he was on top. His heated chest slid over her exposed, sensitive nipples as he aligned himself with her opening. Alice arched her back with a whimper, feeling the slickness of her thighs as she tightened them on either side of Hatter’s waist. His thrusts were hard and fast, all tenderness gone with only the raw need to feel her remaining, to take her fully and cement what they both already knew. Alice laced her fingers behind his neck as he moved over her, moaned his name when they both shuddered in completion, whispered kisses into his temple as they lay tangled together for sleep. Their every effort was a promise to each other, a declaration to enforce their unspoken will upon the world around them.
They weren’t ever going to part. Not ever.
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