forum Alice in Wonderland but With A Few Twists (OxO) (CLOSED)

Started May 12, 2020 by @Kie group

tune

"Don't be sorry. I guess I'm just stuck here for eternity. Dying in the woods won't be too bad I suppose," Alexander sighed dramatically, leaning back in his chair, "Ah! I've been meaning to ask, what's up with all the mentions of war between two queens? You're probably the first to not yell at me about it."

Alexander shoved a few more scones in his mouth- he was so hungry that he'd forgotten manners existed.

Addison blinked slowly. "The war…that is…yes." he said slowly, pressing his fingertips to his forehead and rubbing his temples for a moment. "The queens…" he didn't know how to talk about this. The war that had sparked. It had been hoped that the Alice would end it, but if the Alice was not Alice…how would it ever end?

Or was this the end? Was this the end of Wonderland? Would this be Addison's last round, would this grave be his last?

"Mmm, sorry," Alexander mumbled, "I suppose it really isn't any of my business. I should get going anyways, maybe I'll meet that Cheshire person you mentioned. Plus, I don't think I can much stand the snoring of that mouse anymore."

Alexander pushed his chair out and stood up, his joints loudly popping as he did so. "Any advice for my journey? Or am I about to happen across a wise old sage who will train me for years until I'm ready to face my greatest enemy?"

(alright lol)

Addison laughed a little bit at that, looking over at Alexander. "I do not think there will be a wise old sage, no. I am the closest to a "wise old man" that any of the Alices have ever encountered, and…I am not known for wisdom." here, his eyes flared a little, that spark of madness all too obvious in their depths.

Alexander was busy thinking, rather than listening. He'd just had a realization. "You… you're coming with me!" Alexander shouted at the hatter, simultaneously awakening the Dormouse, who didn't have much input to give.

"If you're wanting a story, I'm afraid I've not one to tell," it said, head drooping towards the table as it fell asleep once more.

"What a daft little thing that one is," Alexander muttered to himself before turning his attention back to the hatter. "Anyways, I've got a plan to get out of here without getting involved in any sort of war or whatever. It may not work, but it's the best idea I've had my whole life!" Which wasn't saying much, because Alexander was fairly stupid when it came to getting out of potentially dangerous situations.

Addison blinked rapidly. "Excuse me– what?" He raised his eyebrows, taking off his hat for a moment and running his hands through his hair. "Coming– no. Out of the question! I have…work to do! Hats to make, tea to drink, parties to organize. Absolutely not! I am not dashing off on some…some irresponsible adventure! My sanity can only take so much, young man, and a male Alice is quite enough for me, thank you very much!" This tirade over, he put his hat back on and took a decisive sip of tea, giving Alexander a sharp nod.

He let out a breath, shaking his head and muttering to himself for a moment. "Going with him indeed. Of all the preposterous notions."

Something unreadable shined in Alexander's eyes as a strange sort of melancholy crossed his face.

"Very well then. I suppose just be sure to bury my corpse in a nice spot," he said flatly, picking a bread knife up off the table. "Just know I might've decided to live had you agreed to accompany me." Alexander tested the weight of the knife in his hand and made a few quick motions with it in the air before turning the point of the knife towards himself.

"Goodbye, world. I won't be missed, I suppose," he spoke, getting louder with each word. "If I only I had a way to leave and see my family one last time. I will die all alone. All. Alone. Sad. And lonely."

Addison groaned, and leapt across to Alexander, snatching the knife away. "You daft fucking idiot, stop that! Do you want to doom all of Wonderland along with your sorry male ass?" he snapped, looking down at Alex with narrowed eyes. "This land needs an Alice, and goddamnit, if that's you, then you don't get to leave like that."

Reaching a hand up to grab Addison's shoulder, Alexander turned his eyes to the ground and sighed.

"I really don't see the problem with me being a guy, but either way I must say," he brought his gaze back up to meet Addison's eyes, "Doesn't every worthy protagonist have a trusty sidekick? I don't think I much belong here if I can't even secure myself a sidekick to help me with my schemes."

When he finished speaking, Alexander moved to pick up a second bread knife off the table, his grip on this one much tighter than it had been on the previous. Dropping his hand from Addison's shoulder, a sadistic sort of grin crossed his face as he twirled the bread knife in his hand. "Your call, dude. I'll have you know that if you make a move for this knife I am a very fast runner, and you wouldn't want me to trip and fall on it, would you?"

Alexander was by no means an expert at messing with people like this, but in some cases, it worked in his favor, as did the abundance of sharp objects on the table.

"I'm not a fucking sidekick!" Addison snapped, throwing the knife aside, disgusted. "What is wrong with you? You're supposed to…this isn't how this is supposed to go!"

At the second threat, his eyes flashed. "What, you think I care about that? I don't give a shit if you off yourself, just don't want you doing it at my table. I'm the Mad Hatter, darling, you really think I care for a stranger?" He cocked his head, his grip on his sanity starting to slip again and he knew it, he knew it, but after all this years it was so hard to hold on, so hard to keep from slipping into that abyss where nothing mattered anymore.

Alexander didn't respond right away, just slammed the knife in his hand down on the table before leaning back against it, humming as he fidgeted with a bracelet on his wrist.

"Do you think that I give a damn about what happens to you or your friends? I do believe your worries extend beyond me ruining your ugly table, darling" he sneered, eyes trained on his own shoes.

"Look at me when you're talking to me and I might believe you." Addison replied. "I have seen too many Alices come and go. I'm the side character, not the sidekick or the wise old man. I am the Mad Hatter, and that means I'm here for a laugh and a joke, or maybe a scream and terror. I'm not a companion, and I'm not someone you should be bullying." He narrowed those mismatched eyes.

Alexander scoffed, still keeping his eyes on his shoes.

"Whatever," he replied, "Maybe I'll just hunt down that stupid fucking rabbit and kill it after it tells me how to leave. It's none of my business what happens here after I'm gone and haven't done my job. It's that thing's fault that I'm here after all and I doubt I'll ever get back home without it telling me."

At this point, Alexander had chosen to ignore Addison's existence and turned to face the table. "How does one trap a rabbit, though? There's always a foot trap but there're also more practical options such as a cage trap. I could…" Alexander trailed off, taking notice of fresh fruits on the table, "Do rabbits even eat fruit? Ah, what am I saying, of course they do, I've received many a lecture from my neighbor on the care of rabbits. Impossible to forget half of what I've heard in relation to the beasts."

Addison snorted. "You aren't listening." He said simply, sitting back down and shaking his head. "You say you want to know why you're here, but then you don't listen when people tell you. Now sit down and shut up, the grownups were talking." He took a sip of tea, crossing his legs and looking at Alexander with raised eyebrows.

"What grownups? All I see at this table is a rabbit, a mouse, and a pompous jackoff." Alexander replies sharply, casting a glare towards Addison and snatching two red apples from the table to examine.

He holds them up towards the light of the sun, turning them in his hand to check for bruising, rot, and potential worms before cramming them in his pant pockets.

"March Hare, and Dormouse, and they are my friends. As for pompous jackoff…child, you have no idea where you are or what is going on, so don't start that with me." He shot back, eyes narrowed at this boy that had invaded their party and fucked everything up.

"I'm not a child," he mumbled, a prominent frown on his face as he fell back into a chair, "God do I feel fuckin' sick. The sooner I get that damn rabbit the better because then I'll be able to-" Alexander cut himself off when he saw a flash of white from the corner of his eye and lunged for a bread knife, "Speak of the devil!"

He was quick in his movements towards the direction of the rabbit but was also unfortunately clumsy and tripped over a rock. By the time he had scrambled up off the ground the rabbit had to have been long gone and the ground wasn't wet enough for it to have left prints. Alexander's breakdown happened quickly. It began with him dropping the knife to the ground, followed by his lip trembling which set off the shaking of his body, and then he began flat-out sobbing.

"I hate this place! I want to go home and fall asleep in my warm bed without a care in the world but no, instead I'm stuck tending to whatever the hell this rabbit wants and of course nobody is even able to tell me what's expected of me because that's just a damn huge inconvenience! Y'know what, people are right, I am the wrong person because my father had to marry into a family of crazies! But at least being stuck here means I don't have to hear my stupid step-mother telling my even stupider step-sister about how she's going to meet a bunch of special people someday who will love and appreciate her very very much. I mean, I can totally see why she'd need that when she's already got everyone's attention all the time with her incessant whining over simple tasks." he ranted, his voice growing lower and quieter with each sentence until he sounded choked, "Why couldn't the special people have been distant family? I'd have loved to been shipped off to a foreign country but instead I'm hh-h-here because I decided to follow a rabbit."

Addison closed his eyes for a moment as the boy started to cry. Fuck. This is not what I wanted. He sighed quietly, getting up and cautiously approaching Alexander.

"Look, ki– whatever your name is. I…" he ran a hand through his silvery hair, taking off his hat and crouching by Alexander. "I'm sorry. It's just…Wonderland is complicated, yeah? The arrival of Alice or her descendants is…something that we all look forward to, but we were expecting…a sweet little girl. Not a…guy." he swallowed. Shit, I'm terrible at this. "So why don't we just…just sit down, okay? And we can…talk. Try to figure this out. You aren't the only one stressed about this." he reached out to touch Alexander's shoulder, but stopped just before his hand could touch him, unsure if the human male would be alright with that touch.

"I'm sorry." he said simply, looking away for a moment, then back at Alexander. "I haven't been a very good host, have I? It's just– Addison Quinn is not the person that Alice– that the visitors come to for…advice. I am the comic relief, or in some scenarios…the gibbering madman, the nightmare that haunts the dark. I am not…the advisor."

Alexander listened carefully as Addison spoke, and decided to fall backward so that he was lying on the ground where his tears would stream off to the side of his face rather than down it.

"I can assure you that you still wouldn't have gotten a sweet little girl if my 12-year-old step-sister had been the one to arrive. I've only got two things to say in regards to the rest of what you've just said," Alexander said, taking a shaky breath, "One: You're right, you've not been a very good host- you've been a prick, but so I have so it balances out. Two: You can't expect your role to always fall between the same few categories. It's like… having pets! You can't expect them to always need the same thing, even if you always have a female chihuahua or whatever, because their personalities are undoubtedly going to vary if that makes sense."

"One: arguably, I had every right to be. You crashed my unbirthday party." Addison replied, looking down at Alex carefully. "And Two: my role has always fallen in those few categories, just as Cheshire's has always been to be an enigmatic, shadowy shape in the trees. Which they enjoy, to be sure, but that has always been their role since time out of mind." he ran his hand through his hair again, shaking his head. "I am not…someone you would want to guide you around Wonderland. My sanity has always been…questionable at best. In this lifetime, it is not the worst it has ever been, but nor am I at my best. Sometimes my control is…non-existent. You have not seen me as a raving madman, but I am sure you will, if you insist upon my sticking near you."

"I really don't think you could be that bad of company," Alexander said, flipping over onto his front side and propping himself up with his elbows, "I'm constantly stuck with my step-family and no father to be seen because he has a job which requires traveling, meaning I'm surrounded by girls most of the time and all they do is argue about petty bullshit and attempt to drag me in- I saw one of my step-sisters try and rip another's hair out over a very ugly dress which would've made either one of them look like the virgin Mary. Besides, if you act up I can just punch you and run without getting in trouble."

Alexander was drawing random shapes in the dirt as he spoke. "Anyways, I'm more interested in this Cheshire weirdo- they sound shady as fuck. Do you think they'd be willing to fight me? Like, a sword fight! I could wear some cool-lookin' armor and have like, a longsword or something."

"You are not punching me, excuse you!" Addison exclaimed. He snorted. "Cheshire is a cat, so no, you can't fight him. What kind of Alice are you…" here he began mumbling to himself, shaking his head and saying something about "fighting the Cheshire Cat with a sword, what kind of idiocy…". He let out a breath, going quiet for a moment and then looking at Alexander.