Now with 20% more fic!
TITLE: Better Man
AUTHOR: amphetamine_47
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Parts 1 & 2
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, only playing with them! *pets*
AUTHORS NOTES: Companion piece, of a sort, to Moving Fast; this one deals with Hatter's issues.
I had a migraine this evening, had too much caffeine trying to get rid of it, and have now been typing for 3 hours while my newly re-functioning brain vomited. Hopefully this is more coherent than my explanation.
And big ups to thewritingbug for inspiration!
Knowledge is power, and though Hatter’s never heard the statement, he certainly agrees with the sentiment. That’s why he’d helped Dodo and the Resistance hide the Great Library, why he’d made nice with the Hearts and the Suits, why he had a hundred Wonderlanders of all sorts who owed him favors of one kind or another, why he knew all the quickest ways out of any building in the city.
So upon finding himself in Alice’s world, he starts the process all over again. It’s far easier getting a license and an apartment and a job than it was running dozens of schemes back at the tea shop. And decidedly easier than bearing the attentions of Mad March or Dodo or Doctors Dee and Dum. He watches a lot of cable news, he reads a lot of newspapers, he buys maps and checks out stacks of books at a time. Sometimes Alice will come over and put her feet in his lap after dinner, and he’ll read aloud to her about bread making, or the Byzantine Empire, or Keynesian economics or whatever he’s found interesting this week. Sometimes she falls asleep there, just listening to his voice, and he awakens her with a tickle or a kiss.
Alice trusts him. Trusts him enough to share the same bed all night and to be there when she gets home from work, trusts him not to get in to too much trouble, and trusts that the innocent puppy-dog expression he gives her when he arrives home means that he did get in to trouble, but handled it without a trip to the police station because her trust was not misplaced.
Alice’s mother, however, does not trust him. He can tell, because she looks at him sideways sometimes when she thinks he doesn’t see, and her smiles are occasionally just a little tight and hesitant in the face of his favored weapons of charm and charisma. He can’t blame her, really, because what’s he done but show up with a crazy story and fall in love with her daughter?
And when she must be comparing him to Jack Chase Heart, because he knows he comes up short.
“I don’t deserve you,” he tells her sometimes, lying in bed with one arm draped over her waist-casually, always casually, because Alice is not a possession and will not tolerate being held like one. Alice has little experience with pillow talk, so generally just chuckles and kisses him, or makes a joke with something like “I’ll bet you say that to all the oysters”.
Alice, he thinks, has no idea that he’s perfectly serious. He thinks about a thousand terrible things he’s done in the name of staying alive, crossing and double-crossing, and threatening and worse, and he looks at Alice and knows that he’s not good enough for her.
He tells her mother, too. “I know I’m not worthy of her. But I’m trying to be.” And Mrs. Hamilton softens and puts her hand over his and asks him to call her Carol.
Jack comes back once, with Duchess, and Hatter fidgets through their visit while Alice pretends not to notice. He clenches and unclenches his right fist convulsively as they have tea and get caught up on the goings-on in Wonderland, because Jack is smiling smugly as only a King can and it makes him want to stand up and yell “Yeah, well she didn’t choose you, now did she?” Instead he makes especially flippant conversation, and though he tries not to get terribly jealous when Alice hugs Jack good-bye, he can’t help putting an arm around her shoulders as he waves farewell. Even when she gives him a look that says clearly that she understands exactly what he’s doing and doesn’t like it.
The next morning after Jack’s visit is the first time he tells her that he loves her, and it’s not at all romantic. He’s made pancakes for breakfast, and they’re sitting down to eat, and he asks her to pass the syrup. She does, and instead of “thank you”, which is really what he meant to say-or anyway what he thought he was going to say-he says “I love you.” And Alice’s eyes go wide, and he thinks sadly that it was great while it lasted, and starts to babble: “I know I’m not a king, or rich, or successful-not here, anyway-and I’m not much to look at or...or anything, but I love you. I do. If that counts for anything.” And Alice’s eyes get shiny and she moves over to sit on his lap and whispers:
“Oh Hatter, that counts for everything.”
He doesn’t believe her, except he does, because he believes in her like he’s never believed in anything, so he says it again.
“I love you.”
And when she whispers back “I love you, too” something in him shifts, because he must’ve done something, somewhere, to have gotten this-his beautiful Alice on his lap with declarations of love.
And that’s more than enough for him.
AUTHOR: amphetamine_47
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Parts 1 & 2
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, only playing with them! *pets*
AUTHORS NOTES: Companion piece, of a sort, to Moving Fast; this one deals with Hatter's issues.
I had a migraine this evening, had too much caffeine trying to get rid of it, and have now been typing for 3 hours while my newly re-functioning brain vomited. Hopefully this is more coherent than my explanation.
And big ups to thewritingbug for inspiration!
Knowledge is power, and though Hatter’s never heard the statement, he certainly agrees with the sentiment. That’s why he’d helped Dodo and the Resistance hide the Great Library, why he’d made nice with the Hearts and the Suits, why he had a hundred Wonderlanders of all sorts who owed him favors of one kind or another, why he knew all the quickest ways out of any building in the city.
So upon finding himself in Alice’s world, he starts the process all over again. It’s far easier getting a license and an apartment and a job than it was running dozens of schemes back at the tea shop. And decidedly easier than bearing the attentions of Mad March or Dodo or Doctors Dee and Dum. He watches a lot of cable news, he reads a lot of newspapers, he buys maps and checks out stacks of books at a time. Sometimes Alice will come over and put her feet in his lap after dinner, and he’ll read aloud to her about bread making, or the Byzantine Empire, or Keynesian economics or whatever he’s found interesting this week. Sometimes she falls asleep there, just listening to his voice, and he awakens her with a tickle or a kiss.
Alice trusts him. Trusts him enough to share the same bed all night and to be there when she gets home from work, trusts him not to get in to too much trouble, and trusts that the innocent puppy-dog expression he gives her when he arrives home means that he did get in to trouble, but handled it without a trip to the police station because her trust was not misplaced.
Alice’s mother, however, does not trust him. He can tell, because she looks at him sideways sometimes when she thinks he doesn’t see, and her smiles are occasionally just a little tight and hesitant in the face of his favored weapons of charm and charisma. He can’t blame her, really, because what’s he done but show up with a crazy story and fall in love with her daughter?
And when she must be comparing him to Jack Chase Heart, because he knows he comes up short.
“I don’t deserve you,” he tells her sometimes, lying in bed with one arm draped over her waist-casually, always casually, because Alice is not a possession and will not tolerate being held like one. Alice has little experience with pillow talk, so generally just chuckles and kisses him, or makes a joke with something like “I’ll bet you say that to all the oysters”.
Alice, he thinks, has no idea that he’s perfectly serious. He thinks about a thousand terrible things he’s done in the name of staying alive, crossing and double-crossing, and threatening and worse, and he looks at Alice and knows that he’s not good enough for her.
He tells her mother, too. “I know I’m not worthy of her. But I’m trying to be.” And Mrs. Hamilton softens and puts her hand over his and asks him to call her Carol.
Jack comes back once, with Duchess, and Hatter fidgets through their visit while Alice pretends not to notice. He clenches and unclenches his right fist convulsively as they have tea and get caught up on the goings-on in Wonderland, because Jack is smiling smugly as only a King can and it makes him want to stand up and yell “Yeah, well she didn’t choose you, now did she?” Instead he makes especially flippant conversation, and though he tries not to get terribly jealous when Alice hugs Jack good-bye, he can’t help putting an arm around her shoulders as he waves farewell. Even when she gives him a look that says clearly that she understands exactly what he’s doing and doesn’t like it.
The next morning after Jack’s visit is the first time he tells her that he loves her, and it’s not at all romantic. He’s made pancakes for breakfast, and they’re sitting down to eat, and he asks her to pass the syrup. She does, and instead of “thank you”, which is really what he meant to say-or anyway what he thought he was going to say-he says “I love you.” And Alice’s eyes go wide, and he thinks sadly that it was great while it lasted, and starts to babble: “I know I’m not a king, or rich, or successful-not here, anyway-and I’m not much to look at or...or anything, but I love you. I do. If that counts for anything.” And Alice’s eyes get shiny and she moves over to sit on his lap and whispers:
“Oh Hatter, that counts for everything.”
He doesn’t believe her, except he does, because he believes in her like he’s never believed in anything, so he says it again.
“I love you.”
And when she whispers back “I love you, too” something in him shifts, because he must’ve done something, somewhere, to have gotten this-his beautiful Alice on his lap with declarations of love.
And that’s more than enough for him.