Right Where She Needs Him [Rated T+]
Inspired by niphuria ’s story: Right Where He Wants Her
Synopsis of Right Where He Wants Her: OK, if you don't feel comfortable reading a fan story that's rated "M", here's basically what happens in Niphuria's story: Stayne figures out "Um" is Alice and ties her up in the dungeon in full view of where Tarrant has been chained up. Stayne forces her to drink Pishsalver so that she's her normal size and intends to sexually assault her while making Tarrant watch the whole thing. Mally arrives and frees Tarrant while Stayne isn't looking. Tarrant stops Stayne before he can actually rape Alice (although there's a fair bit of dress-tearing, touching, and oral "attentions"). Tarrant kills Stayne, gives Alice his jacket and they flee to Mamoreal on the Bandersnatch with the Vorpal Sword. [Niphuria's story is waaaaaaay better than my crummy summary, though, with excellent suspense and subtleties and implications regarding the characters! So, if the synopsis doesn't turn you off, go and check out her story!]
*~*~*~*
Right Where She Needs Him
by Manniness
Summary: The ordeal in the Red Queen's dungeon results in more than just the death of the Knave. It calls forth a Champion.
Warnings: Brief reference to non-consensual sexual situations, brief reference to character death and gore
Rating: T+
Pairing: Alice/Tarrant
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Romance
Disclaimer: Alice in Wonderland and its characters, storyline, setting, and other concepts are the property of Walt Disney Studios, Tim Burton, and Lewis Carroll. No copyright infringement is intended and no compensation was given to the author for creating this work.
*~*~*~*
“Mallymkun...”
The Dormouse looks up from the water glass she’s pushing toward the edge of the tabletop. The tabletop beside Alice’s bed. Alice’s bed in Mamoreal. The bed upon which Tarrant had laid her following their arrival. The bed in which he had tucked her in, had gently smoothed back her hair, had watched her sleep, had asked Mally without ever taking his gaze from the girl’s face, “Watch o’er her fer me?” And that single question, asked in the softest of burred whispers, had told her the Truth.
She is still struggling with it.
She stops pushing the glass and, without looking over her shoulder, turns toward the water pitcher. “Yah ough’tae drink some water. Good for yah.”
Especially after the night Alice had had. Mally can’t say she likes the girl, but she wouldn’t have wished Stayne on anyone. Reluctantly, she allows that Alice has every right to indulge in hysterics. And she had: tears, screams, compulsive washing. But now the girl looks... calm.
“I’m fine. Can I pour you some?”
Mally is surprised by the offer. She looks over her shoulder at Alice and, for the first time, she thinks she Sees...
“Tha’d be lovely,” she hears herself say.
Alice pours a few drops into the cup Mally keeps on her belt for occasions such as this. Mally doesn’t drink, however. She stares at Alice. Alice who is... who could only be...
“Thank you, Mallymkun. I owe you a great debt.”
“Aw, no yah don’,” Mally replies, uncomfortable with the idea. “I didn’ save yah. Tha’was th’Atter who-”
“No, no, you saved him.” Alice glances down at her hands, at the red welts on her still-swollen wrists. “You saved Tarrant from hurting himself. You saved him from having to... watch.” The girl looks up, her expression more fierce than Mally has yet seen, and she wonders if Bayard’s report could be true... about this girl commanding him to take her to Salazen Grum, this girl crossing the moat of blood and lost heads... She’d known it must be true, for how else could Alice have gotten to and then inside the castle? But Mally hadn’t believed it...!
“Thank you,” Alice says. “For saving him.”
“I didn’do i’for YOU,” Mally answers, bristling.
“No, you didn’t. You could have sliced open the Knave’s throat yourself. I don’t doubt that you have the courage and fortitude for that. But if you had...”
The moment stretches, thick with implications.
“Aye,” Mally finally agrees.
“Thank you,” Alice repeats. “For giving Tarrant his vengeance.”
“I’d do it again, if I had tae!”
Despite her defensive tone, Alice smiles. “I think...” She bites her lip. Shivers with memory. “So would I.”
Mally gapes.
Alice reaches for the water pitcher, pours a bit into the glass Mally had been attempting to move within her reach, and then holds it out. “A toast. To the bravest dormouse, the best friend, in all of Underland,” Alice says.
Mally sniffs, blinks back sudden tears, and raises her much smaller cup.
“Tae The Alice, may she finish th’ job.”
Alice doesn’t ask which job - they both know what it is. “I... don’t know if he’d... if I could... if I can...”
“Yah can slay the Jabberwocky. I know it.” And she does. Know it. And she also knows that That isn’t what Alice had meant. The girl seems glad for a change in topic, however.
“With your help, maybe I can, Mallymkun.”
Alice smiles, their cups clink, they drink.
And Mally marvels: here she is, having a drink with The Alice.
Tarrant had been right all along.
*~*~*~*
Tarrant flexes his hands, rotates his wrists. Winces. They’re still sore, but they’ll do. For battle, anyway. For slaying.
After all, Alice doesn’t slay, and there’s slaying to be done on the morrow.
Tarrant heads toward the castle armory. He’ll need a sword - a large-ish one! - if he’s to volunteer to face the Jabberwock. It’s strange that he’d never imagined himself raising a knife to anyone or anything, but watching Stayne touch...
He shakes his head. He won’t think of it. No. He won’t. There will be no thoughts of Alice’s bare skin, her desperate shivers, her pleading gaze.
“Tarrant!” Help me Save me Stop him Please!
Tarrant stops in the middle of the hall, takes a deep breath, and determinedly thinks about something else. He thinks about Alice, dressed for bed. He thinks about laying her down, watching her sleep. He thinks about how, in that moment, he’d accepted the fact that he would do anything for her.
Hence this small but necessary trip to the armory. He selects a claymore simply because he likes the look of it. It’s heavy but feels significant in his hands. He takes it with him to the yard where the Queen’s Guard are run through their paces.
“Keep yar guard up!”
That voice, he realizes, could only belong to Mally. But... hadn’t he asked her to watch over Alice...?
Tarrant frowns as he approaches the archway leading to the yard. There’s a crash - steel-on-steel - and the sound of shuffling footsteps.
“Watch yar left, Alice!”
He startles at the sound of her name, hurries forward, and stares at the scene:
Alice has donned the shining Champion’s armor, is lifting a sword very much like the Vorpal blade, is minding Mally’s shouted instructions as she spars with a rook.
Alice.
The Alice.
Tarrant lowers the claymore, resting the tip on the marble floor. Smiles.
“There’s your Muchness,” he murmurs.
For a moment, he watches her move and then he picks up the claymore and descends the stairs into the yard.
“You look like you could use a break,” he says to the weary-looking rook. He raises the sword and advances on Alice.
“What-about-me?” she pants.
He grins. “A Champion must earn her rest.”
Her eyes flash. Her chin lifts.
Tarrant counters the first swing of her blade.
Yes, they have their Champion.
He blocks a thrust and his heart aches. Alice should not have found her Muchness this way. She should not have been forced to endure... what she had. Tarrant should have been the one to touch her, if she would have had him.
Yes, Underland has found its Champion, but Tarrant fears he’s lost his Alice in the process.
Still, he keeps fighting, for somewhere beneath this armor, is the young woman he is fighting for. It’s not too late, he tells himself.
Although he hardly dares to believe it.
*~*~*~*
Knowing she’s destined to slay a hideous beast and believing she can, Alice discovers, are two very different things.
She stands on the balcony and looks up at the stars. Her body aches but the draught the queen had given her has eased the majority of the pain away.
Tomorrow is Frabjous Day.
Mally had pronounced her ready. Tarrant had declared her Muchy.
She supposes that’s really all she can ask for.
Alice sighs; she wants more.
She wants Mally to tell her she’s brave. She wants Tarrant to ask her what she wants. Oh, she knows it’s the right thing to do - this battle. She’d known it since she’d witnessed the cruelty and callousness of the Red Queen and her court. Alice loves this land, so she will fight for it. But... after that? If she somehow manages to defeat the Jabberwocky... what will she do then? Will she even be given a choice?
Does she want one?
The soft brush of footsteps on the stone floor interrupts her musings gladly. The gait is hesitant, yet somehow she thinks she knows who it is. Looking up, she sees him - Tarrant - approaching with a smile that’s endearingly anxious. His shoulders are tense and his hat is tucked under his arm.
Alice wonders if the gesture has the same connotations here in Underland as it does in her home. She turns around and, daringly, seats herself on the balcony rail. “Hatter,” she greets him in a teasing tone. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
He stops in front of her, a proper distance away, and smiles. “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he admits, his gaze sweeping over her and his tension seeping away.
Alice marvels at his relief, at the soft gaze, the warmth in his smile. She’d said something right, but she’s not sure how so. She continues, “Perhaps some riddles are best left unsolved.”
“Yes, yes,” he agrees. “For instance, how Tumtum trees manage to waltz!”
“Or how the queen never manages to look tired, despite the...” Alice demonstrates, raising her hands to hover gracefully in the air on either side of her shoulders.
Tarrant giggles. “Yes, exactly.”
“Or how the Vorpal Sword is going to help me defeat the Jabberwocky,” Alice hears herself continue.
“It will. Have faith, Alice. The Oraculum is never wrong.”
“I’ll miss you,” she says, meeting his off-center gaze. “When this is over.”
Immediately, she regrets the words. Tarrant’s brows pull together in a frown of distress. His gaze flickers as he searches for something to say.
Alice slides down from the railing and boldly places a hand on his cheek. His expression clears immediately and he smiles.
She tells him, “Thank you. For looking after me. For believing in me. For everything.”
He sets his hat down on the rail and collects her hands in each of his. She misses the feel of his skin against her palm, but doesn’t protest.
“Alice, you must understand one thing: Belief. Some might say that’s all that is necessary to create the future. Regardless, it is a necessary starting point. The first step in success. Without it, there can only be failure.” His fingers tighten around her hands and he pulls them gently to his chest. “Alice, I must ask you to do one thing for me.”
Throat tight, she nods.
“Believe, Alice. Believe.”
She feels a smile stretch her lips. Her fingers grasp the edge of his jacket lapels and she pulls herself toward him until her lips brush his cheek. “I do now,” she replies. “Thank you.”
And when she leans back, she is startled by the unbridled joy in his expression. She wonders at the power of her words which had caused this emotion in him. She wonders at the power of belief.
She knows he’s right - without belief, there can be no victory. And she desperately needs this victory. Because, once the Jabberwocky is slain and the Red Queen removed from power...
She studies Tarrant - this man who has waited for her, welcomed her, guided her, saved her, trained her, remade her - and wonders if, once her destiny - as foretold by the Oraculum - is complete, perhaps he will... as Mally had implied, perhaps he...
Alice closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and clears her thoughts. One thing at a time, Alice, she chides herself.
When she opens her eyes again, Tarrant’s expression is pensive or, perhaps, worried? The image doesn’t sit well with her, not after he’d given her such a measure of peace. She reaches for his hat and settles it on his head again, although it’s more difficult to do now that she’s the proper size.
And there, his smile returns.
“Good night, Tarrant.”
“Good night, Alice.”
There’s so much more to be said, true, but now is not the time. Now is the time for rest, and thanks to him Alice believes she can. She will rest now, for tomorrow, she has a job to do.
*~*~*~*
The Jabberwocky has been slain. Belief and Destiny are the victors. Alice’s task here is done. And yet...
The job.
Finish the job.
To The Alice, may she finish the job.
Those are the first words to resonate in her mind as Tarrant settles his hat upon his head, looking dashing and nervous from his display.
Futterwhacken, Chessur had called it. And then had whispered, “Just as he promised you he would, dear Alice.”
And if Alice hadn’t loved Tarrant Hightopp before, she certainly does now.
To The Alice, may she finish the job.
But... can she? Numb, Alice accepts the blood of the Jabberwocky from the White Queen. She knows what she’ll see if she looks in Mally’s direction. Over the course of a day, they’d become sisters. By the blade. Without Mally’s untiring instruction, Alice doubts that she would have managed to slay the Jabberwocky, even with the bloodlust of the Vorpal Sword to guide her.
“Will this take me home?” she asks, but already knows the answer. No, what she seeks is...
“If that is what you choose,” Mirana replies with a tender brush of her white hand against Alice’s cheek.
Alice smiles: she’s being given a choice...!
“You could stay...”
Tarrant. She’d know that lisp anywhere.
Alice turns away from her friends, assembled not very far away, but far enough to miss a whisper. She asks in a soft voice, “Stay?”
He nods and his eyes are luminous with the dreams and heartaches of Possible things. Things Alice has complete control over in this moment. Things she could either crush or nourish with little more than a twitch of her lips.
“Stay in Underland,” he invites, his tentative smile widening.
She doesn’t answer. She waits for him to finish the question. Complete the invitation.
His smile turns a bit desperate. “In Mamoreal.”
She watches him. Will he...? Does he truly...? Despite what Mallymkun had said, she still finds it difficult to believe that he could...
“Stay... with me.” The final two words are said so softly that, if she hadn’t seen his lips move, she never would have caught them at all. His eyebrows twitch as he strains to keep his smile while he fights his anxiety and self-doubt.
“With you?” she confirms, mouthing the words and showing him the Hope she feels through her smile.
He beams. “If... ye’ll have me?” Again, she catches the words as she watches them fall from his lips.
Alice reaches out a hand to him and breaks the silence of the battlefield with her answer:
“I will.”
Her voice carries, strong and clear, and only three people - herself, a hatter, and a dormouse - realize that she had, in fact, answered two questions with one sentence.
Yes, she will stay.
And, yes, she will have him.
*~*~*~*
Tarrant fidgets.
He watches Alice place the last piece of armor - the breastplate - back upon the stand, lower her arms, and step away from it.
Somehow, that very simple motion soothes him.
“Where are we off to now?” she asks, turning toward him. He studies her: her Alice smile; her Alice hair, still loose around her shoulders; the slightly wrinkled - in an Alice-y sort of way! - tunic and breeches. She has never looked more lovely. And she’s agreed to have him!
“I haven’t the slightest idea!” he admits, grinning. He holds out a hand.
She takes it.
He shivers from the soles of his feet to the scalp on his head. “Perhaps,” he suggests, “we could simply follow your feet?”
Alice smiles back. “My feet don’t know many places. I suspect we won’t go far unless we follow yours.”
“And how far would you like to go?”
“How far is the edge of the world?”
“One million steps... or none at all,” he answers her riddle, gives her the choice as to which journey she prefers: one across Underland, or one through each other.
They follow Alice’s feet. And arrive at her room, upstairs.
The door closes behind them and Tarrant finds himself with Alice in his arms, burrowing her nose into his neck, her hot breaths seeping through his collar. “Alice,” he says while he can still think clearly enough to do so. “Ye ken I’m happy teh wait as long as...”
Alice leans away from him, but doesn’t step back. He would have let her, had she wished to do so. He would have dropped his arms. He believes he still would have been capable of that much restraint. But, she does not step back. She reaches behind her, gently grasps his forearms, and removes his arms from her person.
He takes a step back.
She follows him.
Tarrant frowns. “Alice? Wha’tis it ye’re wantin’ o’ me?”
He watches as she pushes back his lace cuffs and examines the reddened skin around his wrists. The queen hadn’t been able to heal him in one day, but it had been enough. Now he wishes he’d taken the time to visit her laboratory again this morning, but - this morning - he hadn’t expected Alice to be here with him now standing so close and touching him and looking at his skin and...!
“I’m glad you killed Stayne,” she tells him. “Not because he’d dared to... but because that was your vengeance to take.” Alice takes a deep breath. “I’ve thought about... what he did. I hated that I even... that it felt...”
“Stop, lass. Please, ye d’nae haf’tae speak o’it.” His heart breaks for her, for the vile memory of that monster’s touch, and he remembers how she’d looked up at him, across the dank and dirty gloom of hall. Her gaze had pleaded to him for rescue. He closes his eyes, grits his teeth. How could she welcome his touch with that memory still so fresh? How could he even think she would! “Ye d’nae need teh say anythin’...”
“I do,” she whispers to his scraped wrists. She looks up and into his eyes and he stares at-!
“I wanted to feel that with you.”
-at the Muchness in her expression, glowing from under her fair skin, and he feels utterly blasted open by it.
“I cried about it. I screamed. I bathed. Mally was there with me through it all. And then she told me something; can you guess what it was?”
He shakes his head, stunned breathless by her beauty.
“She told me that if it wasn’t worth remembering, then I’d best stop wasting my time on it. So I did.” Alice gently winds his arms around her again and he feels her soft breasts press against his chest, feels his knees tremble, his heart race...
“I’ve thought of something that’s worth remembering. I want to know how you would touch me. If... you’ll have me.”
His fingers clench in the fabric of her tunic. He feels a tremor run the length of him like cascading water. He gasps, “Alice. I will. If ‘tis what ye truly want, I will.”
She leans closer, her lips but a thought away and he thinks he’ll lose his mind completely if she removes his arms from around her now. “Then do.”
He does.
*~*~*~*
The life of a Champion is not an easy one.
Mally is a little surprised by the observation, and the regret that accompanies it. She had never wanted to see her friend, Tarrant Hightopp, become a killer. And, even more shockingly, she wishes her blade-sister, Alice, had never been asked to slay the Jabberwocky.
Glittering fame and senselessly shallow adoration follow the both of them everywhere: Dispatcher of the Red Knave, will you grace us with an account of your victory? Slayer of the Dreaded Jabberwocky, won’t you tell us how you brought down the beast? And on and on and so on and so forth...!
Is it any wonder that they’ve come here? To this wretched place, where it all began?
No, perhaps it isn’t. She supposes the only surprising aspect of this visit, this choice, is that it had taken them two months of dodging courtiers, lords, ladies, and emissaries at Mamoreal to come up with the idea, this idea.
Mally stands on the brim of Tarrant’s hat. Alice stands at his side. Tarrant keeps his arm around her.
They stare down the dark and dingy hall at the remote section of the dungeons in what had once been the most feared structure in all of Underland: the Red Queen’s castle.
Stayne’s body is gone. Even the blood stains have been completely absorbed into the black, dusty muck on the floor - if there is a floor under all that grime! - and only a few shreds of fabric and rope, clinging to snags in the iron bars of that particular door, remain.
From the doors they’d left open in their wake, a slight breeze tumbles down the corridor and stirs these lingering scraps of ghosts.
Alice leans into Tarrant. His arm tightens. But neither of them shiver.
“I wish this could be the first thing to go,” Alice says and although Mally can’t see her sister’s face, she hears the Glare.
“Why can’t it?” Tarrant asks her.
“When tearing something down, it’s best to start at the top and work one’s way down,” she replies.
Mally snorts at the absurdity. “Yah’ve fargotten again, Alice: this is Underland.”
“It’s home,” she adds. “So it’s easy for me to get confused, I suppose.”
“That’s entirely understandable, Alice. I’m confused often and I haven’t your excuse,” Tarrant replies.
“Your confusion is just an act,” Alice replies smartly. “Unfortunately, mine is genuine.”
“No, yours is merely, muchly... Alice-y,” he rebuts.
Mally rolls her eyes. This argument could go on for hours. “Le’me down, ‘Atter. I’ll go ge’th’ crew so we can ge’started down’ere.”
He places her on the grubby ground and Mally is glad for her new shoes and gloves, standard issue with the Queen’s Guard uniform. As she scampers toward the stairs, trying not to notice the stench that emanates from the floor, she hears Alice whisper, “I never thanked you, Tarrant.”
“Fer wha’, my Alice?”
“For being here. Right here. When I needed you.”
There’s a slight pause, heavy with meaning. And then there’s the whispering of fabric - the sound of an embrace - and just before Mally moves beyond earshot, she hears his reply:
“An’ fer my part, I woul’do i’tall o’er again, lass.”
Mally sniffles, glares at the grimy floor that, thankfully, she doesn’t have to touch directly, and blames the fumes of rot and waste for her smarting sinuses. She turns the corner, and bounding up the stairs calls out to the chess pieces under her command:
“Oi, yah lot! Ge’down ‘ere! We got oursel’s a castle tae bring down!”
And, she adds, her thoughts on two killers embracing in the ashes of their innocence, something better to build.
Yes, it’ll be a busy time.
Mallymkun, Lieutenant First Class, is looking forward to it!
*~*~*~* The End *~*~*~*
Acknowledgements: I owe the ending of this story to two people:
First, I must give credit to niphuria because the title of her work (Right Where He Wants Her) inspired a bit of wordplay that resulted in Right Where She Needs Him and I felt I had to do that title justice as it was too good of a match to waste. Hence, the end that ties it all together.
Second, I have to thank Icka M Chif (a.k.a. mischif) for writing and posting Blood on the Sword to Archive of Our Own. The idea of going back to Crims was cemented after I read this beautiful piece! If you decide to read Blood on the Sword, please mind the rating and warnings! It is Explicit!