fic: on the bright side
Title: On the Bright Side
Author: sinverguenza
Pairing: Hatter/Alice, from SyFy's Alice
Rating: Heavy PG-13 for a semi-descriptive sex scene.
Status: 2/2
Word Count: around 3000
Summary: “She looks up at him, and his dark eyes are so sincere, his face as intense as the day he came to visit her and told her mother that his name was David.” This is not a fluffy piece of perfectness, but it does have a happy ending.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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cont from part one
Alice does not cry, even though she thinks that it’s possible that this is all over. He never called from Wexborough, no email to let her know that he arrived safely. No bright voice on the end of her phone wishing her a Happy Christmas.
She eats roast lamb on Christmas day with her mother. Her mother asks after Hatter.
“Silly boy. He had to run off during your first Christmas together?”
Alice stuffs the rest of her roll into her mouth, like a child. “It couldn’t be helped,” she says. And then she jumps up and begins doing the dishes. Distractions. That’s what her life is about these days.
-----
It’s near dusk when she hears her mother’s voice, calling her name. Alice is in her room with the door shut. “Phone, dear,” she says. “It sounds urgent.”
Alice thinks of Hatter, and flies over the smooth tile of her mother’s apartment.
She gives no formal salutation when she lifts the phone to her ear. “What is it?”
“Alice? Is this Alice?” The voice is that of an older man’s, deep and tinged with some Germanic home of long ago.
“Yes.”
“This is Gert. I’m David’s boss at-“
“Yes, yes!” She knows all that. “Is he okay?”
“Well, it’s really quite out of character for him, and I frankly don’t know what to think. I would probably not have bothered, but-“
“Look, shut up,” she says pertly. “Just tell me, is Hatter okay? Is he harmed or lost?”
“No,” says Gert, and he sounds irritated. “He got roaring drunk late last night and for the better part of the today as well. He’s been sick all afternoon, and he’s been asking for you since midnight yesterday.”
She scribbles directions on an envelope and tosses a few clothes into her bag. It’s 4 hours by train to Wexborough, but less than half that if she takes her mother’s car.
-----
The hotel is beautifully modern, with white marble and leather sofas. Alice notices nothing as she heads straight for the front desk, her hair flying loose behind her.
Apparently Gert warned the bored girl at the front, and she is handed a key and a room number. Alice presses her palms hard against the bars in the elevator, wills the small box to move to the 12th floor more quickly. She pleads for height, something that she never thought would happen.
Room 712 is a suite, clearly, but when she opens it all she sees is mess. The couch is rumpled, the drapes haphazardly pulled shut. The flat screen shows a news station, the volume muted. It smells like must and stale air.
“Hatter?” She drops her bag at her feet. No one answers.
She heads for the nearest door she sees. The room is dark. She feels for a switch on the wall and flips it.
It’s a bedroom, relatively tidy compared to the one she just left. The bed is large and still made. He is lying in the middle of it in a pair of dark slacks and no shirt. His eyes are closed.
He groans. “Oh, Christ,” he says, and he throws his arms over his eyes. “Turn off the light, Gert!”
“No,” she says.
He sits up and says, “Alice!” with breath in his voice.
For a moment she just looks at him - unshaved face, hair still flipped from the hat at his side.
“What are you doing here?” he asks her. He runs his fingers through his hair and stands up from the bed.
“Gert called,” she says, as he slips a thin, white undershirt over his head. “He said you were sick.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not ill. Damn it.” He winces. “Just…recovering from last night. I imbibed, shall we say, a bit too much.”
The unfairness of it pushes against her ribs. “Drinking? Is that why we couldn’t have Christmas together? You wanted to come to some hotel and get plastered with your boss?”
He rubs his face and sits in a large leather chaise, doesn’t respond.
“If you want to get away from me that bad, I wish you’d just say”. She hates that her voice breaks in the middle.
He looks up at her, his eyes filled with dark anger. “Really. I should be blaming you, it’s your fault anyway.”
“My fault?”
“Yes!” He digs in the pocket of his slacks and pulls out the pearls. “What are you playing at, putting these in my pocket? Not very subtle, Alice.”
“I could say the same to you,” she says. “Why would you give me pearls?”
He seems incredulous. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it? I know I’m not totally up to speed with this place, but I’m pretty sure gifts for me girlfriend are appropriate.”
“Not pearls,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes. She means to say more to him, to make him understand, but she’s choking back sobs and she feels her chest heaving.
He’s off of the chaise and walking toward her. She steps away from him when his hands reach for her. She sees the anger that sweeps through his body then, and the reality of it frightens her. She’s never seen him direct any sort of annoyance toward her. He has saved that emotion for other people, and now she’s terrified, so terrified that she’s upset him. When he speaks it is frustrated, his voice raised. “Dammit, Alice! I’m trying here, and you won’t speak a word to me!”
She doesn’t speak, she can’t speak, she can’t say what she wants to say around him. It all closes up inside of her, and its just easier to keep it in than it is to slog it out. She thinks about the way that he kisses her, tender and disconnected. She thinks about the way he bled for her in Wonderland, the way she couldn’t thank him, couldn’t even ask him to come with her, even for a short amount of time. She wants to tell him that though. She wants to say I love you, I love you, thank you for coming. Don’t go away. I’m afraid you’ll leave me too but what struggles out of her is something else entirely.
“I’m not an oyster!” she says, one great intake of breath cutting off her sob. “I’m not an oyster and neither was my dad.”
“An oyster-what?” Hatter seems honestly confused. “I never said-Oh, Alice.” He lets out a breath. “I didn’t even think. Oyster. I didn’t think about it. I just thought they were pretty. God, I’m sorry.” This time she lets him slide his arms around her for just a moment. One brief, beautiful moment.
Then she steps away, because it would be too easy to stay. “I am so afraid,” she says.
“Alice…what’s this?” He’s got this look on his face, like he can’t understand what language she’s speaking.
She takes one more breath, a step toward that edge of the cliff. “You don’t introduce me to your friends,” she says.
“I don’t have any friends,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Except for Gert, I guess, and he’s never around to introduce.”
“I mean those people that come up to you. On the street.” Gorgeous club kids, women with dark eyeshadow and pretty purses.
“Customers? Jesus, I don’t want to spend an extra second with them if I have to. I get enough of them at work.”
She takes another step. “I thought you were ashamed of me.”
His eyes darken from confusion to anger once more. “Now that’s the first time I’ve heard you sound stupid.”
Her voice rises. “Well, what was I to think?”
“Oh, I don’t know…you could have asked me!”
“How?”
He spreads his arms wide and booms “I’m right here, love!”
It all seems so easy, how he says it, but all she can think of is her twisted tongue when she’s around him, the way she wants to speak and never can. “I can’t,” she says. She feels accused by the anger in his eyes. “Oh, Hatter. Don’t be mad at me. Please.”
The ill humor drains from him like dark water. “I’m not mad. Truly. I’m just trying to understand. I want things to get normal between us. They never really have been, have they?”
She shakes her head. “Not really.”
He sighs. “Right. Well, that’s probably my fault. I don’t want to…push you. I’m trying to catch up on how things are done here. Still running a bit late.”
She can’t stand to see him take the blame for this. “No, it’s not you. It’s not you at all. I just…have a hard time talking to you sometimes.”
“That’s silly. You can say anything you like to me.”
She shakes her head again, and feels like a little kid for it. “I really can’t.”
“Nonsense, Alice.”
“It’s so hard for me to get the words out. And I don’t want to say something that might make you mad.”
He quirks his lips. “Do you think I’ll turn you into a pumpkin if you do? You made me plenty mad in Wonderland. Didn’t seem to put me off at all, did it?”
“No,” she says, and then she takes that final step toward the edge. “I just don’t want you to get mad…and to leave.”
“Leave you? I’m not leaving.” He’s genuinely perplexed. “Who ever said I was?”
She feels tears on her face, so she looks at the floor, away from him. “You say that, but sometimes things happen. Sometimes things beyond your control. And I just…don’t think I could handle you leaving.” She uses her fingers to wipe her eyes, and then she jumps. She calls the words from deep inside her and they burst out of her in one swell. “I’m scared that we’ll break up and you’ll go back. I’m terrified of that.”
Suddenly his arms are around her, and his hand is on her jaw, forcing her to look up at him. His face is so close and there is none of that safe space between their bodies. She breathes in shallow sips.
“Alice. I am not going to leave.” He grips her face with warm, steady pressure. “I need you to understand. I’m here with you now, and this is where I’m supposed to be. Leave? Hell, I can barely stand being away from you in the day.”
He sounds so sincere that she wants to believe, wants to believe so badly. He runs his thumb over her face, wipes the corner of her eye. “I didn’t leave you in Wonderland, did I? Followed you like a right creeper, didn’t I?”
That makes her laugh, and she rests her head on his shoulder. “And as for the talking, well…we’re just going to have to practice at that, I think. We’ll talk. Lots of talking. Lucky for me, I happen to excel at it.” He presses her body against his. “Sorry, love. You’re mine until you tell me to get lost. And even then you’re gonna have to beat me away from you.”
It sounds so idiotic, so real and right and so him that she can’t do anything but believe him. She feels herself smile. “I mean, you can go back if you want to. I don’t want you to think that you can’t-“
“Hey. Missy. I’m not going back. Maybe on holiday with you., but not alone. Hear?”
She looks up at him, and his dark eyes are so sincere, his face as intense as the day he came to visit her and told her mother that his name was David. She remembers that feeling, what it was like to see him in her living room and know that he was there for good. The way she’d thrown her arms around him and told him how happy she was that he was there. She remembers and then she rocks up on her toes, leans her lips onto his and it’s like that first breathless kiss all over again. Except this time it’s different and there’s a stronger pulse between them, she can feel it rising from her legs and pooling in her stomach. He pulls her against him, harder this time. She puts her arms around his shoulders and squeezes.
“I love you,” she whispers against his lips. “I’m so glad you came. Thank you.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” He kisses her again. “Well, I love you too, Alice. Thanks for saying it.”
Then he kisses her in a way that doesn’t feel safe, with his body rocking against hers. He kisses her harder than he ever has before, and she’s so happy and just a little bit scared but she trusts him so she lets it wash over her. One kiss goes on for ages, so long that she feels like she might lose her balance but his arms are still around her as he lifts her up just an inch or two, just enough for the toes of her flats to drag on the ground.
She’s learning the rhythm now, and any lingering bits of fear have burned out between the two of them. She gives back as good as he gives her, matching each long stroke of his tongue with her own. She can feel his muscles underneath his shirt, and she feels his hands on her back, her waist, her arms. His hands are everywhere and they feel like fire. She presses herself against his body, and hears him inhale quickly.
His hands are on her shoulders now; he’s trying to push her thick wool coat off of her arms. She feels his frustration but she’s too involved in the kiss to help him, the kiss that is growing stronger and stronger. Finally he yanks the thing down, hard, but one long lock of her hair is wrapped around a button and she yelps.
“Oh my god,” he says, pulling back from her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sh-- just shut up,” she says, wriggling out of the coat. He laughs. She leaps back into his arms. He takes a step or two back, tries to steady them, and then sits down heavily onto the bed.
The growing pulse makes her feel like she is burning all over, everywhere he puts his hands. She’s following it, pushing her hips against his until he gasps and drags his mouth from hers. She can feel his hesitation - she knows now that he didn’t want to push her. So silly. She’s annoyed that they’ve waited this long.
She loves the way his warm mouth tastes, not caring if he can tell that she’s unpracticed. He doesn’t seem to mind when she kisses his mouth hard enough that their teeth click. If anything it spurs him on. He rolls her over and covers her body with his.
She keeps trying to move things forward, but she feels him slowing down. He’s trying to slow them down but she won’t let it happen. The pulse between them is so strong now that it’s painful, and the only way that she can calm it is if she can feel his skin. She runs her fingers underneath his shirt, over his stomach. He takes in a breath. It’s good, but it’s not enough.
He manages to draw away from her and pull the shirt off of his body. While he’s there he looks down and she sees the hesitation. She pulls on the flippy fronts of his hair. “Come on, then,” she says, and then his hands are all over her and he has surrendered to it now, she hopes.
It’s not perfect, and at first it’s a little awkward but she forces herself to laugh it off, to trust him as he fiddles with the button of her jeans. She lets herself just feel it, feel his hands on her legs, her thighs. His lips on her torso and breast. Just when she feels like the pulse is going to carry her off, he is right there and the movement stops between them. He’s just looking at her and she can see that he’s glad and scared and so is she. She moves her legs underneath him, to give him the space that he needs.
She throws her head back as he moves over her. He presses his cheek against her neck and prays for breath.
It starts slow but it doesn’t take him long to find the right timing. She moves herself underneath him, searching, searching. His arms are around her head, he whispers to her, things that she can’t understand but she gets the meaning. When she finds the right angle she gasps and she hears him answer.
It’s not perfect but it’s as close as she ever hopes to be. And with him, it’s as perfect as she ever wants to get.
After, he sleeps and so does she, exhausted and sated in one another’s arms. Alice sleeps like the dead, and she dreams only of beautiful things.
It’s hours later when she is awakened by the soft buzz of a phone. She looks through her purse but its not her phone - it must be his. She finds it in the pocket of his pants. It’s maybe a little nosey but she wants to make sure he’s not needed somewhere else.
The phone is flat and modern, and the screensaver is a picture of her at the coffee shop, taken during some unsuspecting moment. She smiles. The message lights up blue and it is from Gert.
I’m counting this as vacation time, you wanker. You owe me.
She laughs as she slips the phone on the nightstand closest to Hatter. She finds her way back into the bed by the soft glow of his phone.
She tries not to wake him as she climbs back into the bed, but as soon as she pulls the covers over herself, she feels his hand on her waist, pulling her closer to him.
His voice is soft with sleep. “Thought you were taking off.”
“Liar,” she says, and kisses his forehead, his cheek.
“Who was it?”
“Gert. He says you owe him.”
“Mm,” he says. “I’d say I owe him a fruit basket.”
“Just a basket?” She kisses along his jaw, behind his ear.
“Maybe two. Three. How about a bushel?”
“That’s not showing very much gratitude to your boss.” She’s got her hand underneath the covers now.
“I’m willing to buy the silly sod an orchard at this point.”
She’s still smiling when he kisses her.
In the quietest part of night, the air outside of the hotel stands almost still. There is just the faintest smudge of moonlight underneath the curtains. Just enough for him to see the fine line of her chin, the sweep of her lashes, the curve of her lip.
He remembers thinking about her as a young boy in his bed. He thinks about the first time he’d heard of a girl named Alice, this girl who was destined to turn everything upside down in his world. He thinks about how true that is.
He touches her chin and her lips but he no longer has to wonder. He pulls her closer to him and finally sleeps.
/end
Author: sinverguenza
Pairing: Hatter/Alice, from SyFy's Alice
Rating: Heavy PG-13 for a semi-descriptive sex scene.
Status: 2/2
Word Count: around 3000
Summary: “She looks up at him, and his dark eyes are so sincere, his face as intense as the day he came to visit her and told her mother that his name was David.” This is not a fluffy piece of perfectness, but it does have a happy ending.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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cont from part one
Alice does not cry, even though she thinks that it’s possible that this is all over. He never called from Wexborough, no email to let her know that he arrived safely. No bright voice on the end of her phone wishing her a Happy Christmas.
She eats roast lamb on Christmas day with her mother. Her mother asks after Hatter.
“Silly boy. He had to run off during your first Christmas together?”
Alice stuffs the rest of her roll into her mouth, like a child. “It couldn’t be helped,” she says. And then she jumps up and begins doing the dishes. Distractions. That’s what her life is about these days.
-----
It’s near dusk when she hears her mother’s voice, calling her name. Alice is in her room with the door shut. “Phone, dear,” she says. “It sounds urgent.”
Alice thinks of Hatter, and flies over the smooth tile of her mother’s apartment.
She gives no formal salutation when she lifts the phone to her ear. “What is it?”
“Alice? Is this Alice?” The voice is that of an older man’s, deep and tinged with some Germanic home of long ago.
“Yes.”
“This is Gert. I’m David’s boss at-“
“Yes, yes!” She knows all that. “Is he okay?”
“Well, it’s really quite out of character for him, and I frankly don’t know what to think. I would probably not have bothered, but-“
“Look, shut up,” she says pertly. “Just tell me, is Hatter okay? Is he harmed or lost?”
“No,” says Gert, and he sounds irritated. “He got roaring drunk late last night and for the better part of the today as well. He’s been sick all afternoon, and he’s been asking for you since midnight yesterday.”
She scribbles directions on an envelope and tosses a few clothes into her bag. It’s 4 hours by train to Wexborough, but less than half that if she takes her mother’s car.
-----
The hotel is beautifully modern, with white marble and leather sofas. Alice notices nothing as she heads straight for the front desk, her hair flying loose behind her.
Apparently Gert warned the bored girl at the front, and she is handed a key and a room number. Alice presses her palms hard against the bars in the elevator, wills the small box to move to the 12th floor more quickly. She pleads for height, something that she never thought would happen.
Room 712 is a suite, clearly, but when she opens it all she sees is mess. The couch is rumpled, the drapes haphazardly pulled shut. The flat screen shows a news station, the volume muted. It smells like must and stale air.
“Hatter?” She drops her bag at her feet. No one answers.
She heads for the nearest door she sees. The room is dark. She feels for a switch on the wall and flips it.
It’s a bedroom, relatively tidy compared to the one she just left. The bed is large and still made. He is lying in the middle of it in a pair of dark slacks and no shirt. His eyes are closed.
He groans. “Oh, Christ,” he says, and he throws his arms over his eyes. “Turn off the light, Gert!”
“No,” she says.
He sits up and says, “Alice!” with breath in his voice.
For a moment she just looks at him - unshaved face, hair still flipped from the hat at his side.
“What are you doing here?” he asks her. He runs his fingers through his hair and stands up from the bed.
“Gert called,” she says, as he slips a thin, white undershirt over his head. “He said you were sick.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not ill. Damn it.” He winces. “Just…recovering from last night. I imbibed, shall we say, a bit too much.”
The unfairness of it pushes against her ribs. “Drinking? Is that why we couldn’t have Christmas together? You wanted to come to some hotel and get plastered with your boss?”
He rubs his face and sits in a large leather chaise, doesn’t respond.
“If you want to get away from me that bad, I wish you’d just say”. She hates that her voice breaks in the middle.
He looks up at her, his eyes filled with dark anger. “Really. I should be blaming you, it’s your fault anyway.”
“My fault?”
“Yes!” He digs in the pocket of his slacks and pulls out the pearls. “What are you playing at, putting these in my pocket? Not very subtle, Alice.”
“I could say the same to you,” she says. “Why would you give me pearls?”
He seems incredulous. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it? I know I’m not totally up to speed with this place, but I’m pretty sure gifts for me girlfriend are appropriate.”
“Not pearls,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes. She means to say more to him, to make him understand, but she’s choking back sobs and she feels her chest heaving.
He’s off of the chaise and walking toward her. She steps away from him when his hands reach for her. She sees the anger that sweeps through his body then, and the reality of it frightens her. She’s never seen him direct any sort of annoyance toward her. He has saved that emotion for other people, and now she’s terrified, so terrified that she’s upset him. When he speaks it is frustrated, his voice raised. “Dammit, Alice! I’m trying here, and you won’t speak a word to me!”
She doesn’t speak, she can’t speak, she can’t say what she wants to say around him. It all closes up inside of her, and its just easier to keep it in than it is to slog it out. She thinks about the way that he kisses her, tender and disconnected. She thinks about the way he bled for her in Wonderland, the way she couldn’t thank him, couldn’t even ask him to come with her, even for a short amount of time. She wants to tell him that though. She wants to say I love you, I love you, thank you for coming. Don’t go away. I’m afraid you’ll leave me too but what struggles out of her is something else entirely.
“I’m not an oyster!” she says, one great intake of breath cutting off her sob. “I’m not an oyster and neither was my dad.”
“An oyster-what?” Hatter seems honestly confused. “I never said-Oh, Alice.” He lets out a breath. “I didn’t even think. Oyster. I didn’t think about it. I just thought they were pretty. God, I’m sorry.” This time she lets him slide his arms around her for just a moment. One brief, beautiful moment.
Then she steps away, because it would be too easy to stay. “I am so afraid,” she says.
“Alice…what’s this?” He’s got this look on his face, like he can’t understand what language she’s speaking.
She takes one more breath, a step toward that edge of the cliff. “You don’t introduce me to your friends,” she says.
“I don’t have any friends,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Except for Gert, I guess, and he’s never around to introduce.”
“I mean those people that come up to you. On the street.” Gorgeous club kids, women with dark eyeshadow and pretty purses.
“Customers? Jesus, I don’t want to spend an extra second with them if I have to. I get enough of them at work.”
She takes another step. “I thought you were ashamed of me.”
His eyes darken from confusion to anger once more. “Now that’s the first time I’ve heard you sound stupid.”
Her voice rises. “Well, what was I to think?”
“Oh, I don’t know…you could have asked me!”
“How?”
He spreads his arms wide and booms “I’m right here, love!”
It all seems so easy, how he says it, but all she can think of is her twisted tongue when she’s around him, the way she wants to speak and never can. “I can’t,” she says. She feels accused by the anger in his eyes. “Oh, Hatter. Don’t be mad at me. Please.”
The ill humor drains from him like dark water. “I’m not mad. Truly. I’m just trying to understand. I want things to get normal between us. They never really have been, have they?”
She shakes her head. “Not really.”
He sighs. “Right. Well, that’s probably my fault. I don’t want to…push you. I’m trying to catch up on how things are done here. Still running a bit late.”
She can’t stand to see him take the blame for this. “No, it’s not you. It’s not you at all. I just…have a hard time talking to you sometimes.”
“That’s silly. You can say anything you like to me.”
She shakes her head again, and feels like a little kid for it. “I really can’t.”
“Nonsense, Alice.”
“It’s so hard for me to get the words out. And I don’t want to say something that might make you mad.”
He quirks his lips. “Do you think I’ll turn you into a pumpkin if you do? You made me plenty mad in Wonderland. Didn’t seem to put me off at all, did it?”
“No,” she says, and then she takes that final step toward the edge. “I just don’t want you to get mad…and to leave.”
“Leave you? I’m not leaving.” He’s genuinely perplexed. “Who ever said I was?”
She feels tears on her face, so she looks at the floor, away from him. “You say that, but sometimes things happen. Sometimes things beyond your control. And I just…don’t think I could handle you leaving.” She uses her fingers to wipe her eyes, and then she jumps. She calls the words from deep inside her and they burst out of her in one swell. “I’m scared that we’ll break up and you’ll go back. I’m terrified of that.”
Suddenly his arms are around her, and his hand is on her jaw, forcing her to look up at him. His face is so close and there is none of that safe space between their bodies. She breathes in shallow sips.
“Alice. I am not going to leave.” He grips her face with warm, steady pressure. “I need you to understand. I’m here with you now, and this is where I’m supposed to be. Leave? Hell, I can barely stand being away from you in the day.”
He sounds so sincere that she wants to believe, wants to believe so badly. He runs his thumb over her face, wipes the corner of her eye. “I didn’t leave you in Wonderland, did I? Followed you like a right creeper, didn’t I?”
That makes her laugh, and she rests her head on his shoulder. “And as for the talking, well…we’re just going to have to practice at that, I think. We’ll talk. Lots of talking. Lucky for me, I happen to excel at it.” He presses her body against his. “Sorry, love. You’re mine until you tell me to get lost. And even then you’re gonna have to beat me away from you.”
It sounds so idiotic, so real and right and so him that she can’t do anything but believe him. She feels herself smile. “I mean, you can go back if you want to. I don’t want you to think that you can’t-“
“Hey. Missy. I’m not going back. Maybe on holiday with you., but not alone. Hear?”
She looks up at him, and his dark eyes are so sincere, his face as intense as the day he came to visit her and told her mother that his name was David. She remembers that feeling, what it was like to see him in her living room and know that he was there for good. The way she’d thrown her arms around him and told him how happy she was that he was there. She remembers and then she rocks up on her toes, leans her lips onto his and it’s like that first breathless kiss all over again. Except this time it’s different and there’s a stronger pulse between them, she can feel it rising from her legs and pooling in her stomach. He pulls her against him, harder this time. She puts her arms around his shoulders and squeezes.
“I love you,” she whispers against his lips. “I’m so glad you came. Thank you.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” He kisses her again. “Well, I love you too, Alice. Thanks for saying it.”
Then he kisses her in a way that doesn’t feel safe, with his body rocking against hers. He kisses her harder than he ever has before, and she’s so happy and just a little bit scared but she trusts him so she lets it wash over her. One kiss goes on for ages, so long that she feels like she might lose her balance but his arms are still around her as he lifts her up just an inch or two, just enough for the toes of her flats to drag on the ground.
She’s learning the rhythm now, and any lingering bits of fear have burned out between the two of them. She gives back as good as he gives her, matching each long stroke of his tongue with her own. She can feel his muscles underneath his shirt, and she feels his hands on her back, her waist, her arms. His hands are everywhere and they feel like fire. She presses herself against his body, and hears him inhale quickly.
His hands are on her shoulders now; he’s trying to push her thick wool coat off of her arms. She feels his frustration but she’s too involved in the kiss to help him, the kiss that is growing stronger and stronger. Finally he yanks the thing down, hard, but one long lock of her hair is wrapped around a button and she yelps.
“Oh my god,” he says, pulling back from her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sh-- just shut up,” she says, wriggling out of the coat. He laughs. She leaps back into his arms. He takes a step or two back, tries to steady them, and then sits down heavily onto the bed.
The growing pulse makes her feel like she is burning all over, everywhere he puts his hands. She’s following it, pushing her hips against his until he gasps and drags his mouth from hers. She can feel his hesitation - she knows now that he didn’t want to push her. So silly. She’s annoyed that they’ve waited this long.
She loves the way his warm mouth tastes, not caring if he can tell that she’s unpracticed. He doesn’t seem to mind when she kisses his mouth hard enough that their teeth click. If anything it spurs him on. He rolls her over and covers her body with his.
She keeps trying to move things forward, but she feels him slowing down. He’s trying to slow them down but she won’t let it happen. The pulse between them is so strong now that it’s painful, and the only way that she can calm it is if she can feel his skin. She runs her fingers underneath his shirt, over his stomach. He takes in a breath. It’s good, but it’s not enough.
He manages to draw away from her and pull the shirt off of his body. While he’s there he looks down and she sees the hesitation. She pulls on the flippy fronts of his hair. “Come on, then,” she says, and then his hands are all over her and he has surrendered to it now, she hopes.
It’s not perfect, and at first it’s a little awkward but she forces herself to laugh it off, to trust him as he fiddles with the button of her jeans. She lets herself just feel it, feel his hands on her legs, her thighs. His lips on her torso and breast. Just when she feels like the pulse is going to carry her off, he is right there and the movement stops between them. He’s just looking at her and she can see that he’s glad and scared and so is she. She moves her legs underneath him, to give him the space that he needs.
She throws her head back as he moves over her. He presses his cheek against her neck and prays for breath.
It starts slow but it doesn’t take him long to find the right timing. She moves herself underneath him, searching, searching. His arms are around her head, he whispers to her, things that she can’t understand but she gets the meaning. When she finds the right angle she gasps and she hears him answer.
It’s not perfect but it’s as close as she ever hopes to be. And with him, it’s as perfect as she ever wants to get.
After, he sleeps and so does she, exhausted and sated in one another’s arms. Alice sleeps like the dead, and she dreams only of beautiful things.
It’s hours later when she is awakened by the soft buzz of a phone. She looks through her purse but its not her phone - it must be his. She finds it in the pocket of his pants. It’s maybe a little nosey but she wants to make sure he’s not needed somewhere else.
The phone is flat and modern, and the screensaver is a picture of her at the coffee shop, taken during some unsuspecting moment. She smiles. The message lights up blue and it is from Gert.
I’m counting this as vacation time, you wanker. You owe me.
She laughs as she slips the phone on the nightstand closest to Hatter. She finds her way back into the bed by the soft glow of his phone.
She tries not to wake him as she climbs back into the bed, but as soon as she pulls the covers over herself, she feels his hand on her waist, pulling her closer to him.
His voice is soft with sleep. “Thought you were taking off.”
“Liar,” she says, and kisses his forehead, his cheek.
“Who was it?”
“Gert. He says you owe him.”
“Mm,” he says. “I’d say I owe him a fruit basket.”
“Just a basket?” She kisses along his jaw, behind his ear.
“Maybe two. Three. How about a bushel?”
“That’s not showing very much gratitude to your boss.” She’s got her hand underneath the covers now.
“I’m willing to buy the silly sod an orchard at this point.”
She’s still smiling when he kisses her.
In the quietest part of night, the air outside of the hotel stands almost still. There is just the faintest smudge of moonlight underneath the curtains. Just enough for him to see the fine line of her chin, the sweep of her lashes, the curve of her lip.
He remembers thinking about her as a young boy in his bed. He thinks about the first time he’d heard of a girl named Alice, this girl who was destined to turn everything upside down in his world. He thinks about how true that is.
He touches her chin and her lips but he no longer has to wonder. He pulls her closer to him and finally sleeps.
/end