Fic: Welcome to the Planet, PG
The Internet
Hatter had worked a lot of different jobs, often all at the same time. He was a Tea Seller, a thief, a smuggler, a Resistance fighter, and procurer of rare items; and that was just the titles he could claim to hold when he’d met Alice. He’d never considered his trade to be in goods of any flavor, though: he’d been a dealer of information, hording the latest gossip, the oldest history, and the freshest news and dolling it out only to those who could pay for it.
Mostly, though, he just liked knowing things. There was a comfort in knowing that had been difficult to find in Wonderland outside of a bottle of Security. The fact that it paid well was mostly just a bonus.
Which was why, rather than feeling a bit cheated by it, he’d quickly fallen in love with the Internet. He could find the answer to anything, read about any subject, for hours upon hours, and it was all free. It didn’t even matter that it was like this for very nearly everyone he interacted with; there was just so much information in this world that he could read about subjects that no one else even knew existed.
He was still a bit miffed about getting banned from Wikipedia, though. They’d opened themselves up to everybody editing their content, and all he’d wanted to do was correct a few of their misconceptions about Wonderland. That was gratitude for you.
Take Out
Restaurants were a part of Wonderland’s more prosperous past, when food wasn’t half as scarce and enough people had the resources to eat out. But he’d never heard tell of a place that would deliver hot, cooked meals to your front door before. He didn’t cook three meals the first month he lived in New York, choosing instead to sample the various offerings of the many menus he’d collected.
Eventually, though, he’d had to put an end to that. Eating out with Alice was just more fun than eating in, and cooking her breakfast never failed to earn him a very nice ‘good morning’.
Lack of Guns
The dive for the pavement and subsequent cursing of his lack of body armor was second nature to Hatter. The sound that had set it off merely being a car backfiring was not.
“Are you okay?” Alice asked, helping him to his feet.
“Yeah,” Hatter replied, trying to shrug off the curious glances passersby were sending his way. Thankfully, as this was New York, most people weren’t going to do more than that. “I was just-”
“You from the army?” asked a nearby chili-corndog vendor.
It was so out of the blue, that Hatter couldn’t help but spin around and reply: “Huh?”
“I said, are you from the army?” The vendor replied. “My husband’s from the army, and every now and again he still jumps when he hears something like gunfire, or the thunder gets too loud, or something like that.”
Alice gave him an evaluating look. Hatter could feel the blush creep up his into his hairline. “I just grew up in a rough neighborhood,” he said finally.
The vendor nodded her head knowingly. “You know what you need?”
“A chili-corndog?” Hatter guessed.
The vendor laughed. “With extra chili!”
In Wonderland, the only way anything even approaching this situation would happen was if someone felt the need to bribe him into forgetting a murder. Here though, he and Alice enjoyed their greasy treats with the understanding that if he wanted to talk about something that bothered him, he could, and he wouldn’t be any weaker for it.
Sometimes lack of armor could be a good thing.
The Dishwasher
He’d always hated doing dishes, so the idea that the Oy- the Earthlings had invented a machine to do them for him was inspiring. It broke down frequently, true, but as that more often than not resulted in both him and Alice getting completely soaked he wasn’t going to complain too much.
After all, he needed a reason to help a pretty girl out of a very wet dress.
The Holidays
Wonderland didn’t have many holidays. There were the ones celebrated by refugees from the North- St. Ciassa’s Day and the Brilliancy- but those were always muted by their celebrant’s conquered status and the celebration’s illicit one. The Queen would occasionally declared a day of celebration for her unbirthday, which paled in comparison for the ones she demanded for her birthday, but those were irregular, and Hatter had never much cared for them either. On Earth, however, they had holidays of one sort or another every month, normally preceded by several weeks worth of merchandizing and build up, followed by an explosion of atypical silliness, followed by discounts.
He loved it, both for the sheer frivolity and the fact that they gave him an excuse to shed some of the restrictions this world imposed upon him. He could coax Alice into dancing in the rain on May Day; afford to fill her apartment with flowers on February 15th; dress up in costume the last day of October. It was, at once, like being back home and nothing like it at all.
Maybe it was how home was supposed to feel.