JE Fic: Akame in Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Bowl, Akame, R

[yamapod]

Title: Akame in Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Bowl
Rating: R for drug use
Pairing: Akame
Summary: If you combine KATTUN's Six Senses and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and recreational drugs and a few JE boys as American college students, you get something like this.
Warnings: drug use. like, lots of drug use.
Notes: Heavily inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Thank you to my beautiful, eager, ever-patient beta. This is one of the strangest things I've ever written and I'm not sure I like how it turned out.



Kame really wishes that Jin hadn’t dragged him along for this. He didn't really like it when Jin went out without him on the weekends, but he'd prefer Jin coming home after an hour, red-eyed and gluttonous, to sitting in a frat boy's bedroom, crowded around a coffee table with Jin's friends, dreading the moment that filthy, illegal pipe will get passed to him.

("Look!" Jin had said when they'd started packing it, "It's an upside down rabbit!")

Now that he's holding the thing, he can see what Jin means-it's crafted so that the rabbit's stomach is the bowl, and the rabbit's ears are the mouthpiece, which means the rabbit's-

"Hey," Yamapi, the frat boy grumbles, exhaling in the process. "You gonna hit that?"

Kame looks up from his careful examination of the pipe to find four pairs of bloodshot eyes on him. He's never been that fond of Jin's friend Yamapi, and this is a perfect example of why.

"Oh, I…" Kame clears his throat nervously and fumbles with the lighter Pi had pressed into his hand. It's black, with little glow in the dark clocks. "I don't… I…"

Yamapi sighs, but Jin just laughs softly, and Kame feels his face go red. Before he can excuse himself and leave, though, Jin's shifting beside him, leaning across Kame's lap to gently take hold of the rabbit pipe and the little black lighter. His fingers brush Kame's, cool and steady, and then he's pressing the little glass rabbit ears against Kame's lips and telling him to breathe, just breathe.

And down Kame goes, after that little glass rabbit.

one time

"Puff, puff, pass," someone drawls. It's Koki, one of Jin's other frat boy friends, though Jin's always saying that Koki's not really in the frat, he just tends to show up all the time and smoke their pot and flirt with their girlfriends. Still, Kame thinks, they have to like him or they wouldn't let him smoke their pot and flirt with their girlfriends. Kame blinks across the table at him, at the ridiculous puffy hat he's wearing, and coughs out a lungful of smoke as he thrusts the pipe to Jin.

"You okay?" Jin asks with some concern, but he must not be too worried, because he's already taking a hit.

Kame nods anyway, and sinks back in his chair, which feels like it's falling, like he's falling.

"Surely I'll stop eventually," he muses quietly, wondering how it is that he's falling when no one else seems to be moving, but he feels like he's fallen miles already, wonders if he'll fall straight through the floor and the frat house and the earth itself. He watches Ryo, Jin's other friend, calmly take the bowl from Koki, like this isn't strange at all, like no one is quietly falling in his chair, and he doesn't understand how it is that they're all still in the same room.

"Here," Pi says suddenly, gruffly, as he thrusts a bag of chips into Kame's hands.

And just like that, it seems, the falling sensation stops. Kame stares blearily down at the bag's label. "EatAme" it says, but Kame could swear it says "eat me, salt and vinegar chips". Still, the chips look like they might be the most delicious chips in the world, and before he realizes it, Kame has polished off half of the bag.

The chips seem to be getting smaller and smaller, like soon they will be nothing but crumbs, but that's when Jin tugs the bag from Kame's fingertips, and Yamapi is pressing the little glass rabbit back in his hand.

two times

It doesn't burn as much this time-Kame feels the smoke filling his lungs, but it doesn't hurt like he expected it to. He still coughs though, and he awkwardly tries to hide it with his hand. No one else coughs when they take a hit, and he feels like he must be doing it wrong.

Jin takes the pipe from him without comment, and Kame finds himself staring across the room at Ryo, who's perched comfortably on the end of Yamapi's bed, eating what seems to be a chocolate bar. Kame suddenly can't think of anything more delicious.

"Who are you?" Ryo says suddenly, and Kame realizes that he's been staring.

"I'm… sorry?" Kame says, as the rudeness of the question sinks in. "Who am I?"

"It's not a difficult question," Ryo says, and Kame flushes as he hears Yamapi laugh.

"I'm… well, I'm not myself right now," Kame says slowly, still thinking this must be some sort of joke. He's met Ryo before, several times before in fact, and there's no reason for him to be asking Kame who he is right now.

"Who are you?" Ryo asks again, and Kame starts to feel annoyed.

"Who are you?" Kame says, sitting back in his chair and frowning.

"Why?" Ryo asks, and Kame finds himself at a loss. He watches as Koki passes Ryo the pipe, seemingly oblivious to the strange conversation-he's smiling around the room at anyone who will make eye contact with him. Kame steals a glance at Jin, and finds that he's watching Kame.

"Wait," Ryo says, exhaling. "Let me tell you something before you get distracted."

Kame flushes in embarrassment for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, wonders if Ryo is referring to the way that he sometimes watches Jin, hopes that Jin doesn't ever think it's weird.

Ryo seems to pause for what seems like forever, and Kame is just about to ask him what is so important when he finally speaks again, staring stoically down at the rabbit the entire time, as if he's talking to the pipe instead. "So you think you've changed?"

Kame glances nervously around the room. Yamapi is watching him, though his eyes are half open, like he might stop at any moment and take a nap. Koki is still smiling around the room like it's his birthday party and everyone is invited, and Jin is staring at him, half-smiling, like he's proud of Kame or something.

"I guess," Kame says, tearing his attention away from Jin to look back at Ryo. Ryo's passing the rabbit to Yamapi, and for a moment Kame thinks he's forgotten all about him. It's then that Ryo hands him the chocolate bar.

"Eat some," Ryo says quietly. "One side will make you bigger and the other will make you smaller."

Kame takes it, confused but pleased that Ryo's sharing his chocolate so generously, but the chocolate bar looks different than any that Kame has ever had, and the foil wrapper definitely looks like tin foil from someone's kitchen.

"What… what is it?" Kame asks, as he bravely breaks off a square.

"Mushrooms," Ryo says calmly, just as Kame pushes the square past his lips.

"Hey," Yamapi says, and Kame turns towards him, wide eyed, the chocolate covered shrooms melting away on his tongue, wondering what on earth he should do. Yamapi takes the foil-wrapped chocolates from his hand and presses the glass rabbit in its place. "Don't forget about this."

three times

Kame takes three hits this round, and the third one leaves something gross and chalky in his mouth, tainting the pleasant chocolate aftertaste he'd been enjoying. He winces at the taste as he passes it to Jin, and Jin smiles at him as he taps the belly of the rabbit against his palm.

"Cashed," Jin says, and Yamapi groans as he tosses Jin a ziplock bag.

Kame watches as Jin picks little chunks of marijuana from the bag, pressing them carefully into the belly of the rabbit. He's sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he does it, as if this requires great concentration, and Kame wonders if it does.

"Hey," Jin says, glancing up at Kame before returning his attention to the bowl. He carefully picks out what seems to be a stem, frowning as he sticks it in his mouth and continues, chewing on it as if it's a toothpick. "How are you doing?"

Kame's not sure. He's starting to wonder if Ryo played a joke on him with the chocolate, because he doesn't feel all that different, but it certainly felt and tasted like there could be mushrooms in it and he wouldn't be particularly surprised, but still-"Fine, I think. Do you think I should smoke more?"

"Well," Jin says, frowning a little at his handiwork, "that depends on whether or not you want to, I think."

"Well," Kame says, glancing around the room. No one seems particularly interested in their conversation-Koki is smiling at the poster Yamapi has of Katie Holmes ("Before Scientology," Yamapi had explained earlier, self-consciously. "She was so cute back then."), Yamapi is watching Jin pack the bowl as if he might screw it up, and Ryo is laying on his back on Yamapi's bed, staring up at the ceiling in wonder. "I guess I don't really care, either way. I'm already smoking, so I might as well just-"

"I guess it doesn't really matter then," Jin says with a smile.

"I just don't think I should get like… you know, high," Kame says.

There's a pause, and Kame wonders if he used the wrong terminology or something.

"Oh, you can't help that," Jin says finally, tossing the baggie back to Yamapi with a flourish. "We're all high here. You're high. I'm high."

Kame's not sure how he feels about that. "How do you know that I'm-"

"You must be," Jin says, as he lifts the rabbit. "Or you wouldn't have asked."

"Well," Kame says, feeling too embarrassed to acknowledge Jin's accusation. "How do you know that you're high?"

Jin laughs as he exhales, and then Koki laughs, and then Yamapi laughs, and soon everyone is laughing, even Kame, even though he's not sure why.

"Well," Jin says, grinning as he passes the rabbit to Kame. "I think it's time to switch the rotation."

The pipe is warm when Jin slides it into Kame's hand, and his fingers linger there for a moment, pressing against Kame's palm. Kame feels them there long after Jin's hand is gone, imagines he can see Jin's fingertips resting there against his hand even when they're nowhere to be seen.

four times

It's about this time that Kame feels the shrooms kick in.

He's surprised by how tangible it is, how he suddenly just knows that they're there, that they're working. It's like someone has suddenly flipped a switch somewhere, and as Kame presses the rabbit into Yamapi's hand, he wonders where all of the light came from.

He has noticed, suddenly, the thin beams of light that seem to be connecting everyone, watches the way they cross over each other as everyone shifts and talks and laughs, and he's amazed at the way they are all so connected.

"Hey," Koki says suddenly, "Kame."

Kame looks up in surprise. Koki's hardly said a word to him all night, and generally doesn't say much at all to Kame, aside from occasional bizarre leering, so it's weird when he does. "Hey," Kame says, hesitantly. "Koki."

"You should cut your hair," Koki says.

"You should mind your own business," Kame says back, feeling a little annoyed. He just had his hair cut last week, and Koki's hair always looks like a disaster.

"Do you know what time it is?" Koki asks, and Kame shrugs, glancing at the clock on Yamapi's wall.

"It's almost ten," he says, and Koki shakes his head.

"Two days off!" he proclaims, as Ryo passes him the rabbit and lighter, and Kame stares at him.

"I don't understand you," Kame says slowly, his gaze drifting up to Koki's impressively fuzzy hat. The hat seems to shift even as Kame looks at it, changing shape and height and consistency.

"There's a surprise," Ryo says, but no one pays him any attention.

Koki only thrusts the lighter excitedly towards Kame. "Read the clocks," he says, and Kame does.

He's amazed to find that the glow-in-the-dark clocks decorating the lighter are actually moving, full of spinning hands as they shift around the surface of the black lighter, disappearing and reappearing every which way, proclaiming different times on each side at every second.

"I don't understand," Kame says as he stares, mesmerized, at the clocks.

"They shouldn't be off, I just oiled them," Koki continues. "I told you only yesterday."

"But I wasn't here-" Kame says as he looks up, only to find that Koki is talking to someone else, someone who, as far as Kame knows, has only just joined their party. Nakamaru is sitting quietly between Koki and Jin, holding an abnormally large mug, wearing a hat almost as ridiculous as Koki's, and pretending as if he's been there the entire time.

"The oil isn't supposed to go on the outside," Nakamaru says, frowning at the lighter in Kame's hand. "You just made everyone drop it."

"Asshole," Ryo mumbles.

"Hey," Jin says suddenly, "Koki, pass."

Koki pointedly passes the rabbit over Nakamaru's hat, directly to Jin, and Kame looks nervously between the three of them as he tries to decide where to hand the lighter, and anxiously waits for Nakamaru to object to being skipped.

He doesn't.

"He fell asleep again," Nakamaru says, staring across the table at Yamapi.

Yamapi shakes his head at this, mumbling, eyes still closed, that he was just about to say the same thing. Ryo bursts into laughter at this.

"Kame," Jin says, and Kame looks up in surprise. Jin's staring at him and smiling, and Kame feels weirdly warm and nervous all at once.

"Hurry up, hurry up," Nakamaru says. "It's always six o'clock here, hurry up."

"But it's ten," Kame says.

Jin laughs at that, and Kame wonders if it's the shrooms that make it sound sort of musical, or if he's being sort of ridiculous. He wonders this for a while, it seems, because soon Jin is saying: "Kame, Kame," again, and Kame's flushing and fumbling for the pipe in Jin's hand.

Really, he's not in any hurry, not in any rush to skip to the part where Jin's hand leaves his, but then it happens, and Kame's stuck with the little glass rabbit again.

five times

"Let's play a game," Yamapi says, just as Kame holds the rabbit out to him. Yamapi ignores him, and after an awkward moment, Kame gives up and sets the pipe on the table between them.

"What game?" Jin asks, though his attention seems to be on Koki and Nakamaru, who are busy swapping hats and making faces at each other.

"I don't know," Yamapi says, stretching and yawning. "Poker?"

"Poker!" Koki repeats, more loudly than strictly necessary, and then he's fumbling with the pockets of his jeans. The movement is making Kame a little dizzy-Koki's making the lights all weird with his frantic little movements, and it's hard to keep up with it-but then he's settling himself down again, tossing a pack of cards on the table triumphantly.

It takes Yamapi a moment to stretch across the table and open the pack, but when he does there's an awkward, horrible pause.

"Eh… Koki?" Yamapi says slowly. "What… what did you do to my cards?"

"I told you," Koki says, though he looks nervous. "I told you I'd fix them! I painted them pink."

"You…you…" Yamapi seems at a loss. "You painted them… pink?"

Koki nods, and the light swirls around him. "I thought you'd like them."

"Koki," Yamapi says, spreading the cards across the table. They're all the same-blank expanses of thick pink paint. Nakamaru bursts into laughter. "I think you should both leave."

"I'll deal," Jin says, as Koki nervously backs away from the table, tugging Nakamaru away with him. Kame watches this in mild confusion, wondering if Yamapi is actually serious, and if Jin actually thinks they can play cards like this.

"Idiots," Ryo says, as he picks up his hand. Kame glances around nervously as he picks his up. Surely they aren't serious…

Ryo drops two cards, blank pink sides up, and lifts another two from the pile.

"Where are the chips?" Yamapi mumbles, studying his hand seriously. There's a rustling noise, and then Jin shoves the bag of salt and vinegar chips across the table at him. Yamapi pours a small pile on the table in front of him, and then pours progressively smaller piles for Ryo, Jin and Kame.

"Um," Kame says, but no one pays him any mind. Yamapi tosses two potato chips in the center of the table. Ryo and Jin follow suit, and then Kame finds that all three of them are looking at him, waiting.

Tentatively, Kame slides two chips across the table, but before they can reach the others, Jin reaches out, catching them mid slide, and pops them both into his mouth.

"Hey!" Kame says, indignant.

"Hey," Jin says with a smile, through a mouthful of chips.

"Kame," Yamapi says, impatiently, "hurry up and bet."

The game is looking more and more impossible to play, let alone win, and Kame's ready to give up. Carefully, he lifts two of his chips and drops them in the center of the table, with the others.

"Show," Yamapi says, and Jin and Ryo drop their cards triumphantly on the table.

"Royal flush," Jin says, promptly stealing a chip from the center and popping it in his mouth.

"Four of a kind," Ryo says, staring darkly at Jin. "Aces."

Jin juts out his lower lip, and Ryo starts sliding the chips towards him, but Yamapi clears his throat.

"Five of a kind," he says, throwing down his hand. "Kings."

"You can't have five of a kind," Ryo says, hands still on the chips. "It's not even possible."

"Too bad," Yamapi says, "because I do."

"Whatever," Ryo says, sitting back on Yamapi's bed. "It's a dumb game anyway. And you all look weird."

Kame's still staring down at his hand, wondering what the right thing to do is when Ryo shrieks.

"YOUR FACE!" he says, jabbing his finger towards Jin. "YOUR TEETH! STOP IT!"

Jin gasps and claps his hands over his mouth. "Muff monniffit?!" he asks, in some alarm, through his hands.

"MAKE HIM LEAVE, PI!" Ryo shouts.

"If you don't all stop yelling," Yamapi says loudly, "I'll throw all of you out!"

It's at this point that Koki saunters back into the room, with an even larger, even more ridiculous hat on his head. This one looks like a gigantic flamingo, and Koki has to duck as he passes through the doorway. His hat is so very large and so very ridiculous that Kame almost doesn't notice the person following Koki into the room until Jin sighs heavily, and Kame realizes that it's because Junno is sitting beside him now, in Nakamaru's seat.

"What the hell," Ryo says, gaze fixated on Koki's flamingo, "is on your head?"

"Still playing poker?" Koki asks.

"What's the…pot?" Junno asks, with an appreciative laugh.

Jin groans.

Yamapi looks accusingly at Kame. "Why haven't you taken your hit?"

Kame opens and closes his mouth, means to tell Yamapi that he already did, but Yamapi is already pressing the pipe into his hand, and Kame tries not to think about flamingos or spinning clocks or connecting beams of light as he closes his eyes, fumbles with the lighter, and takes his next hit.

six times

When Kame wakes up, it's dark, and someone's stroking his hair. He stirs slightly, shifting around in his bed and trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He has no idea what time it is, but it feels late enough to also be early, and as he turns over, he brushes up against someone, bumping knees and hips under the sheets.

It's Jin.

Kame's breath catches in his throat, and Jin smiles. "Wake up," he says, laughing. "You've been sleeping forever."

"Oh, God, I just had the weirdest dream," Kame says with a sigh, and he proceeds to tell Jin, about the rabbit pipe and the poker game, and the flamingo hat and everything, but the details are slipping away all the time, and there are already moments he's forgotten.

When he finishes, Jin kisses him softly on the forehead. "What a strange… dream," he says, and laughs. "Was it awful?"

"Well," Kame says, resting his head against Jin's shoulder and feeling like he might just go right back to sleep. He can't remember ever feeling so sleepy. "Not always. You were there."

Jin laughs, but doesn't say anything for a minute. "Forget the bad things," he says, finally.

Kame yawns, thinking that he already has, and just as he feels himself drifting off again, he smells something familiar… something like salt and vinegar potato chips.

"Jin," Kame says quietly.

"Mmm?" Jin says.

"Your friends are insane."

"Well," Jin says, "Koki wants his flamingo hat back tomorrow."

"I didn't," Kame says, sitting up. Jin looks like he's about to burst with laughter.

"It looks good on you. Makes you look much friendlier."

"It's a gigantic stuffed flamingo," Kame says, "I don't think friendly is the word."

"Also," Jin says, as if Kame hasn't said anything, "since you're a pledge now, they expect you at the thing tonight."

"A pledge?"

"Don't worry, it's just something like eating a bunch of chocolate or-"

"Chocolate?"

Kame's voice cracks a little, and Jin starts to laugh.

"Calm down, you didn't pledge."

Kame shoves him, and Jin mocks being offended so well that Kame almost worries that he has.

"Did I-"

But Jin doesn't give him a chance to finish.

"I've been waiting for you to wake up," he says softly, and Kame feels Jin's fingers brush his hipbone. "You've been sleeping for so long."

Kame flushes all over, and it makes him think of light and laughter and chocolate, and Jin beside him in Yamapi's room, Jin's fingertips on his palm, Jin waiting to get him home.

"Why did we ever go out?" Kame asks, voice soft and low.

Jin shrugs. "I don't know," he says, smiling a little. "You never have any fun, and I wanted you to."

"Oh Jin," Kame says. "I have plenty of fun right here, with you."

Jin kisses him, and they fall back against the pillows; smelling, tasting, hearing, seeing, feeling nothing but each other.