Anyway, so happy! And I was kind of wondering if this would be a good thing to share with Chuckleheads since it's not quite as... acquired taste as HHMB and HoH are.
That can come a bit in the future, though. Voila!
"I wonder if there's a way to climb down Alice's roof."
"Hatter! We can't get out of here! Just accept it!"
"Maybe if we throw enough stuffed animals down there we can just sorta... land on them," he thought aloud, not taking Hare's negative talk into any consideration.
"I don't think Alice would be very happy with you if you did that-"
"And you can take the bedsheets and tie 'em up into knots, just like in the movies!"
"Hatter! In any other situation, where only our physical and social safety were being compromised, I would be all for this, but this is Alice's world and I don't think it's right!"
Hatter paused.
"...But. But we'll be just like the spies."
"I... I know... but.."
Hatter gave him a pleading stare that seemed to melt the poor bastard into a puddle.
"Well... I would like some tea... I mean it's not like..- okay!"
"Really?!"
"We'll be careful!-"
"Well naturally! When have we not been careful?!"
"Never!"
"And since when have we noticed that even at our best, we're not competent enough to evade disaster?!"
"Never, as well!"
They rejoiced in the moonlight.
Part 2 – Bed Time
INT. ALICE'S ROOM. 7:30 PM.
Alice, as contently as possible, laid on the bed doing her math homework. A top hat and a pair of ears were visible next to her. Her hand paused on the paper before she leaned to the side.
“Do either one of you know what 25 x 11 is?”
The crouching men began counting on their fingers.
“It's probably a big number...” Hare mumbled. Hatter looked undedicated too.
“Don't you have a calculator or something?”
Alice rolled her eyes.
“I do, but I lent it to Paulina today and she didn't give it back to me...” She sighed raggedly. “Oh well... it's not even due tomorrow.” She slammed the book shut and stuffed it in her bag.
“Well, it's bath time.”
Hare poked his head out.
“What about us?”
She stopped at the door.
“...What about you?” Neither said anything. “...Oh. ...Sorry, you're going to have to stay there.” She gave them her best sympathetic face, flipped off the lights, and exited.
Hatter and Hare propped their arms up on her bed and frowned at each other.
“...Okay, this was a really dipshitted thing to do.” Hatter finally admitted. Hare dropped his head as Hatter patted him a little on the shoulder. There was silence in the dark.
“...Hatter, I'm hungry.”
“You know, I haven't thought about it, but I am too... In fact, I could really use some tea...”
“... I sort of assumed that when we came, Alice would take us places and bring us stuff, and... have us meet people... You know, like we do for her.”
“...I did too.” Suddenly Hatter looked just as depressed as Hare. “...Who knows when we'll get tea again!”
“Well we've gotta do something about this!”
“What? Go down there and ask her parents to make us tea?!” Hatter asked sarcastically.
“...W...Why not?”
The hand over Hare's shoulder suddenly swatted him.
“Hareee, she told us nobody can see us!”
“...Do you think she's embarrassed of us?”
“No. We're too freaking awesome to be embarrassed of.”
Hare thought about it a moment. He didn't seem convinced. Suddenly Hatter stood up and tip-toed towards the door.
“Hatter, what are you doing?!” Hare covered his mouth after he uttered it, slowly dropping his hands afterwards. “...What are you doing!” Hatter gave him 'the eye' and turned the knob. He then leaned fully out into the hallway. He could hear the hum of the running water in the bathroom, but nothing else. Gingerly, he approached the balcony and overlooked the downstairs living room, astonished with its size, its harmonious design, and the family pictures hanging on the wall.
“They even have their own Krystal...”
Instinctively, his own two feet brought him closer to the start of the stairs, allured by the glow of the television screen, unhindered by the possibility of being spotted. The second his shoe tapped the first step, Hare poked his head out from the darkness of Alice's room.
“Hatter, you get back in here right now!” Hatter froze, then sagged his shoulders
"But. But Hare."
"Don't you 'but Hare', me. You just said we can't be caught!"
"But they've got Krystal! We can check up on Rabbit or somebody and tell them we made it okay!"
"I've got Rabbit's number on my cellphone! Now get back in here!"
Hatter lips rolled down his chin in deflated enthusiasm and tiptoed back. He closed the door and stood there a minute looking depressed.
"...Hare, I've gotta use the John." He finally said.
"I... I don't know what to tell you." Hare replied, lifting up his hands and shrugging.
"There's gotta be some way to get outside without going through the house..."
"I... I don't..."
Hatter reached the window and thrusted it open. He stuck his hat-clad head out for a moment and brought it back in.
"I wonder if there's a way to climb down Alice's roof."
"Hatter! We can't get out of here! Just accept it!"
"Maybe if we throw enough stuffed animals down there we can just sorta... land on them," he thought aloud, not taking Hare's negative talk into any consideration.
"I don't think Alice would be very happy with you if you did that-"
"And you can take the bedsheets and tie 'em up into knots, just like in the movies!"
"Hatter! In any other situation, where only our physical and social safety were being compromised, I would be all for this, but this is Alice's world and I don't think it's right!"
Hatter paused.
"...But. But we'll be just like the spies."
"I... I know... but.."
Hatter gave him a pleading stare that seemed to melt the poor bastard into a puddle.
"Well... I would like some tea... I mean it's not like..- okay!"
"Really?!"
"We'll be careful!-"
"Well naturally! When have we not been careful?!"
"Never!"
"And since when have we noticed that even at our best, we're not competent enough to evade disaster?!"
"Never, as well!"
They rejoiced in the moonlight.
"Okay! I'll toss you the stuffed animals! You send them down! And make sure they all land in about the same place!"
"Got it!"
And so Hatter began plucking stuffed bunnies, bears, and ducks from around the bedroom. Hare caught them, very carefully might I add, in his arms and sent them on a fun ride down the roof to the front lawn. When the whole room seemed completely evicted, Hatter sauntered towards him.
"I think that'll do it."
"Yeah, but some of them are stuck. See?" Hare pointed to a pink Valentine's Day monkey and a Kermit the Frog plush clinging for dear life at the end of the gutters.
"That's fine. Once we get out there, we can throw them overboard.
Hare nodded. "Let's do the sheets now."
They paused a moment, then headed whimsically towards Alice's bed. Both grabbed the sides of her comforter and hurled it to the side. Together they tore off the top sheet, then struggled with the snugness of the bed liner. Hatter seemed incapable of yanking it free without pulling up the mattress along with it. Hare came around to his side of the bed, impatiently leaning over him from behind.
"Here. I'll hold to the bottom of the mattress, you pull it off." Hare began tugging, bouncing a bit to loosen the sheet's grip. "Man, whoever makes this bed must have the jaws of life for hands-"
"Aghgh! I can't get it!"
"Well pull harder! Harder!" By Hatter's last word, Alice entered the room and dropped the damp towel in her hands. Hare's jerking motion behind the bending Hatter came to a mortified halt.
"......What are you doing?!"
"We... wanted to be spies," Hare tried.
"What are you doing to my bed?!" Alice asked, realizing a second later her voice was too loud. Hatter was about to speak but she continued. "...Why does it look like some of my things are missing?"
"W-eh, whb-we-" Hatter blabbered.
"It was hi-"
"W-we kind of thought we'd be gone by now."
Alice sighed raggedly. "You guysss..." She whined. They stood up straight next to her bedside table. Alice discontentedly hovered around her pile of bed accessories when she noticed her window was open and her eyes flashed over something bright pink outside of it. She hurried forward and covered her mouth with her hand as to prevent screaming.
"HATTER!" Hatter wrung his hands a little and came towards her.
"Alice! We just needed them for a landing pad. Once we get down there, you can send us a basket on a string and all of your stuffed friends will be fiiine."
Alice breathed heavily and rose her hands to her temples.
"You're not, going out there," she ordered, quite unbecomingly, but you could tell she was not used to speaking to her Wonderland friends in such a tone.
"But Alice," Hare tried, landing a hand on his buddy, "Hatter needs tea. You... wouldn't like him without tea."
"I'll bring some godamn tea."
"Really?!" Hatter's face lightened up. He clapped his hands together a little.
"For both of us?" Hare asked, just to be sure.
"Yes. For both of you." The two shared gleaming expressions and cupped each other's hands.
"Do you want anything to eat?"
"Yeah! That would be nice. Could you make us some... umm..." They silently agreed to turn their backs a minute and mutter to each other. They turned back to Alice and gave her twin smiles. "Would lasagna be okay?"
"I can't make you lasagna, it's past 8:00. I don't even know how to make it."
"Well that's okay. Hare has a recipe." Hare dug around in his coat with a grin and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He offered it to her but she just stared at it.
"I can't make it for you." She repeated, a little annoyed. "My parents would have no idea what I was doing."
They frowned. "I'm just going to bring you some snack food. You know, fruit and chips and stuff."
"D-Do you have any cake?" Hare tried.
Alice paused. "Anyway, I'll be right back. And please, put my sheet and my comforter back on my bed." She walked out the door grumbling to herself.
Hare and Hatter solemnly obeyed. Once her pillows were all straightened, they came to the window.
"...We might as well get those back," Hatter mentioned in reference to the stuffed animals at the end of the second story. "Here. I'm longer than you are... You hold on to my ankles and I'll slide on out."
Hare nodded a little nervously and watched as Hatter positioned himself on top the cushions under the window. "Alright hold on." Hare removed his curling hand from his mouth and grabbed Hatter. The daring man crouched into himself as much as possible and leaned out onto the sand-papery tiles. It was at this time that he remembered just how afraid of heights he was.
"Do it like Spiderman..." He reassured himself, stretching out his purple body and reaching for Kermit. He squinted his eyes and swatted for him blindly, then grabbed the monkey by the tail. "Okay, pull me in, pull me in, pull me in!" Hare leaned backwards with all his weight and slid the Hatter back to safety. He let his legs fall with a thud and hovered around him, taking note of the stuffed animals and trying to retrieve them, but Hatter's hand seemed to be stuck to them like ice.
"Hatter, let go of the monkey and the frog."
"I... I... Igihg..." Hare removed them from Hatter's death grasp just before he flopped to the floor and breathed heavily. When they were placed neatly back on her bed, Hatter was still lying there. Hare came down to brush the roof dust off his shirt.
"Come on, get up."
The door opened again and both perfunctorily froze until they realized it was Alice. She was holding a single cup of tea, two fruit snacks and a bag of something.
"Here you go." She weakly presented the cup to them.
"...One cup?" Hare asked, looking up to her with his other hand still patting the traumatized Hatter.
"Yeah. I had to pretend it was mine. Drink up." Hare took the cup of tea as Hatter sprang upwards to inspect the bag Alice had thrown next to his feet.
"Doritos! All right!" He chirped. Hare took a large gulp of the tea and swallowed with a grimace.
"This isn't tea!"
"Yeah it is." Hare didn't know quite what to say. He lent it to Hatter, who skeptically sipped.
"Nope. This isn't tea." Hatter confirmed. He set the cup down dismissively and they munched on the chips as Alice rolled her eyes.
"It's black tea with lemon." Alice insisted. "And it has a teabag if you haven't noticed." Hatter caught the little paper hanging outside the cup in his index and thumb. It read "Lipton".
"...I've never heard of it."
"Well that's the only kind of tea we have."
Hatter and Hare frowned to each other. They seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.
"Now we know why you come to Wonderland-" Hare offhandedly uttered.
"Okay, you know what, you guys?! I'm just gonna be frank. ...You're kind of pissing me off." They dropped their eyes to the floor. "I don't have to be nearly as hospitable for you when you've come into my home without being invited and done nothing but cause trouble. I don't have lasagna. I apparently don't have good tea! We can't go out and play! But that's what happens when you throw consideration out the window!"
"Well actually, it was your toys that we threw out there-" Hare began before Hatter nudged him.
"-What he means is we're sorry. We weren't trying to be picky. The tea is fine!" He lifted up the cup high enough to make it look like he was taking a sip, but all he was doing was letting the liquid run over his closed lips. He set the cup down and smiled at Alice.
Alice thought a moment and exhaled.
"Okay. But could you move to the other side of my bed?"
They scooted behind the toy chest with their fruit snacks and Doritos in hand. Alice eyed the solitary tea cup.
"You forgot your tea."
"Oh yeah! How could we?! Send it over. Alice picked it up, leaned over her bed, and set it on the corner table.
"...I need to take care of one more thing," She said to the pair of ears and the top hat when she reached the door.
When no one was looking, she seeped out the garage door and came to the front of the house. She quickly gathered all the stuffed animals and shoved them into a wicker basket sitting on the porch. When she came inside, her mother almost ran right into her on her journey back.
"Alice? Are you still up and about?"
"Yeah, heh, just... getting something I thought I left in my coat." She reached for one of the jackets on the rack in the door way swayed her hand in the empty pocket like she was looking for something. Her mom, satisfied with the answer, roamed into the kitchen. "Don't stay up too late..."
"I won't!" Alice let go of the jacket after reasonable time "searching" and hurried back upstairs.
She entered the room and pounced on her bed, grateful that she had made it through so much shit without giving away who was using their house as a hotel that night. However, upon peering to her right, there was nothing but stirless darkness. She turned on a lamp.
With the empty Doritos bag and fruit roll-up wrappers at their sides, Hatter and Hare were fast asleep with their legs bent in uncomfortable positions and heads leaned into each other. She smiled with something akin to a mother's adoration and came to the toy box to pull out a blanket. She carefully wrapped it around their shoulders and paused a minute at their level to stare at Hare's whiskers and Hatter's polka-dot bowtie popping out. The fact that the two, one of them which defied evolution all together, came from a place scientifically unexplained, and were here in her room, made her wonder what kind of meaning Wonderland would have for her at an older age. Which was quite a thought she had never had before on the subject. The two things just didn't cross paths. She was content visiting for a few hours and leaving a place that, if mentioned to anybody else, would make her look like a schizophrenic patient. But none had ever had such a problem as their delusions suddenly existing one day and having to take care of them because they were dumbasses.
She turned off the lamp and crawled into bed. Hoping... so strongly hoping, that she would not wake up to a new mess.
P.S. I'm voice-acting for this!
good