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Language:
English
Series:
Part 5 of diagonal fall
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Published:
2013-06-07
Completed:
2013-06-15
Words:
2,729
Chapters:
13/13
Comments:
28
Kudos:
10
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132

Rise over Run

Summary:

They can't go on like this. Something has to change.

Chapter 1: Morris: Withdrawal

Chapter Text

The ninth hour, he gets up, prepares the table for the day, and remembers that he is alone
The thirteenth hour, he asks if he has any visitors, but the fiend knows what he really wants to know and says no
The fortieth hour, he pulls himself up from the grass with a whimper and does the dishes without her
The fifty-first hour, he wakes up with her name on his lips and sinks back into blankets that do not keep him warm
The sixty-second hour, he closes his eyes against the cupcake swirl of pink-blue-gold humanity that does not have enough violet, and tries to stave off his headache
The eighty-eight hour, he accepts a fumblingly awkward apology because it’s so much better than begging for forgiveness he probably doesn’t deserve
The ninetieth hour, he kicks someone out of the tea party for the first time because that sort of behavior is completely unacceptable
The hundred and fourth hour, he wakes up early because something in his midsection aches too much to sleep
The hundred and eighteenth hour, he gets wrapped up in the warmth his own body radiates and sinks to the ground
The hundred and thirty-first hour he wakes up in his own bed but the sun hurts his eyes
The hundred and forty-seventh hour, he is no longer able to count time because the whorl of smeared shades gets in the way of his internal clock.

Chapter 2: Hatter: Relapse

Chapter Text

He’s still upset and it’s killing him. She is the one who’s killing him, even when she tried to stop. She let the poison that was herself fill the tea, so why isn’t this better?
Maybe, she reasons, something else has made him ill. But it doesn’t matter the cause because she is already packing to go to him. Even if he hates her for it, she can’t just stay here while he’s hurting and she might be able to do something to help him.
She’ll be doing something at least. That must be better than sitting here waiting to die or for a card to come tell her she’s been replaced. And if she goes to him – well, she’ll be going to him. And she knows that in the long run it’s not going to be good, this constant return to something she can never have, but all she wants is him, if only for a while.
Even if it means she only makes him well enough to realize that he hates her after all.

Chapter 3: Morris: Delusion

Chapter Text

“Love me, Hatter,” he says through the purple mist that is her. It is a plea and an order and a question.
So she kisses him and her lips say “yes.”
His heart stops because it is impossible for him to have heard what he so desperately needed. He starts it again, coaxing it back to life with the rhythm of “I want I want I want I want I want…” and as long as he keeps repeating the words he won’t need to finish them.
Her hands dance across his body like the spirals of frost that appear on windowpanes when a boojum stalks by. “What is it, what do you need?” He trembles into the fingertips as they tap out the message.
He breathes out “Don’t!” and breathes in “leave” out “don’t” in “stay” out “don’t” in “run” out “don’t” in “stop”
She stops touching him at all and all he knows is the impossible chasm between himself and everything that could make him feel like he doesn’t want to die.

Chapter 4: Hatter: Ministering Angel

Chapter Text

A week after Hatter arrives, his skin is almost normal to the touch and she lets herself stop hovering so close to him because he’s getting better, he’s going to be better and she needs to get used to leaving him alone again. She’s in the next room making tea, but she still knows the moment he opens his eyes and she’s by his side in an instant.
“Hatter,” he croaks and it sounds awful but it doesn’t matter because he’s saying something.
“I’m here.” Even she can hear the smile in her voice and she closes her eyes against the possibility of doing anything more with her lips. He’s going to be fine which means he won’t need her or want her.
“So I’m dead.” He does not ask, he says it like the only conclusion he can draw. “I killed you and now I’m dead.”
“No, not that, never that” She needs to get out of here before she can do any more damage. She stands up abruptly and he catches at her sleeve.
“Where you going?” He sounds like a tiny abandoned child.
“I’m just.” She can’t lie to him. “Making some tea.”
“Oh!” His smile is too beautiful. “Thank you, Hatter.”

Chapter 5: Morris: Hanging On

Chapter Text

He’s still a little achy, but he’s well enough to run the Tea Party, and that beautiful crowd is what really gives him back his strength. He dreamed she was by him when everything was the coldest, but that was just wishing.
At some point, Hatter did arrive and it is all so much better with her in the center. He doesn’t know what he’ll do when she leaves again. He doesn’t know how the fiends will manage without her, since he’s not important enough to care.
Sure enough, a few days after his recovery she is suddenly by his side for the first time in months. “Hey,” she says, and scuffs her shoes in the dust, but why should she be shy? “I’m glad you’re better.”
“It’s nice to have a head that’s not full of concrete,” he admits and must look away when she giggles soft green.
“So I guess this is goodbye for a while. You’re doing a good job.”
It’s not about him, he reminds himself and then he calls out, “Hatter wait!” She looks over her shoulder at him, a question scribbled across her face. “I think you should stay. Because” He takes a shivery breath so he can say the real reason, the reason that she will listen to him. “The fiends, they need a united front so they can believe in something for once. The queen hasn’t been kind to any of us, but you and I, you and the Tea Party, I mean, will be able to overthrow her. And that’s – that’s why you shouldn’t go away,” he finishes lamely.
“Oh,” she says softly and sinks into whatever chair is closest. “You’re right, of course, I’d completely forgotten. I got so wrapped up in the life of two people when there are things much bigger than either of us.”
He doesn’t tell her that nothing could be bigger or more important than her because paying so much attention to her was what got them in so much trouble in the first place. She’s staying, that’s the main thing, and he’ll only have to pretend to be happy for a few hours each day. It’ll be easier with her around. And because it’s for the fiends, of course.

Chapter 6: Hatter: Tolerance

Chapter Text

She is a weight on him, keeps him from being as excellent as he should be, just by being around. He must resent her presence, she can see how he glares daggers at her and then mutters furiously to himself. But he made her see why she has to be here and so he tolerates her even when he can’t look at her. She has to do something to make him realize that she understands where his anger is coming from, and to tell him that she doesn’t blame him one bit.
“Morris,” she says once, “I know you don’t want me here and I’m so sorry that I ended up being the Hatter. You don’t deserve someone like me.”
“I know I don’t,” he says nastily, and it still hurts to see him look away.

Chapter 7: Morris: Wounded Bandage

Chapter Text

He knows this already. He always knew that she was better than him, because it’s not hard to be better than him and very few people can compare to her, maybe no one at all. But for a very long time she almost had him fooled. She treated him like an equal and acted like she valued his advice. He pretended it was true because he liked it.
He supposes he should be happy for her, because she’s accepted the way things are and doesn’t need a pitiful crutch anymore. She’s going to do better without him and he’s going to be – just fine without her. Yeah right. Fine like a bandage that’s ripped away after the healing is done and then gets tossed aside without a second thought.
He can’t stay here like this, not right now. He’ll be back, of course, because he doesn’t think he can handle abandoning the Party, but for now he spreads his coat and lets the wind catch him and send him fluttering out of here. And when the shifting currents of air have abandoned him too, he just runs, as long and fast and hard as his legs will allow him. He must be several miles from the table by the time the stitch in his side is screaming as loudly as the thoughts that even running can’t stop from circling through his mind.
He collapses into the dirt and when he breathes again it feels like choking and drowning and setting himself on fire. “Damn you,” he shrieks almost at too high a register to hear his own voice, and he’s speaking of himself who was a fool, of she who did this to him, of the Protocol that did that to her, of Franco who never shuts up, of the Family who wanted to replace her, of the whole damn charade.
He curls up, crying because no one who matters can see him here and he is so exhausted that he falls asleep to the lullaby of his coffee-stain sobs. When he wakes up it’s not quite nightfall and everything is shaded with blue. It makes him think of her, so he’s not going back just yet. So he does what he always does and climbs the nearest tree, getting higher and higher away from anything that can hurt him. Too late, he realizes the branches are covered with thorns and sometimes his arms get scratched through his coat. He shrugs himself to the next level – this can’t hurt him worse than anything else that’s happened lately.
After too long and not long enough he knows it’s time to come down. It’s not like anyone will miss him, but he understands the timing of these things better than anyone else. He doesn’t worry about getting lost – She and the teahouse are like a lodestone that will always pull him back, even if he isn’t wanted by either one. When he gets home, he’ll bandage up the scratchmarks. He even knows where to find the cedar box he’ll fill with the cloth once it has helped him get better.

Chapter 8: Hatter: Open Wound

Chapter Text

A few seconds of stunned silence later, she registers that he’s gone and then it rushes in at her – a huge aching hollow loneliness. Her heart is a gaping wound and she had come so close to not hurting so much anymore. But the bandage was pulled off too soon and instead of fresh new skin, it’s just a crisscross maze of barely-formed scar tissue that snags on everything. She seeps blood and something liquidy but horrible and viscous and doesn’t trust herself to make tea because her failure will infect everyone. But it’s not until she catches herself saying “Come back. Morris, I wasn’t finished with you” that it hits her exactly how selfish she has been. She mustn’t be here when he returns, her original instincts were right. As soon as the gloaming hits, she is gone; someone else can do the dishes tonight. Thankfully, the Looking Glass finds her right away – it has been almost a month; maybe it was lonely for her.

Chapter 9: Morris: Cycling

Chapter Text

When he’s finally walked back to the Tea Party, it is very dark. He notices right away that her house is empty and not just turned off, but he’s not surprised that she would leave again. It was only a matter of time. He also sees that the dishes have piled up in the sink again. He’s not quite tired yet, so he washes for a bit before he heads to bed.
He does them one set at a time, first a cup, then a saucer, then a spoon, and then he starts the cycle again. After a few rounds, he cleans out a cream pitcher and decides that he’s done for now. He takes the porcelain container into his house and cuddles it beneath the covers.

Chapter 10: Hatter: Prudent Pretense

Chapter Text

“So you remember that united front I mentioned,” he says quietly.
Of course she remembers. Why must he keep reminding her that the fiends are the only reason he lets her stay? “What about it?” she snaps, rather more sharply than she intended.
“Well, we’re not doing a very good job.” Here it comes. Now he’s going to say he’s better off alone. She waits. “We should at least pretend to like each other, no matter how much y—how we feel about the matter.”
“Yes, that sounds prudent.” She stumbles over the next words. “Pretending, I mean. What do you propose we do?”
He bites his lip and her heart does somersaults at what he doesn’t know. “For starters, may I have the absolute pleasure of preparing a pot of tea for your Hattress?”
It takes all her energy to clamp down on the joyful yes bubbling up inside her and she settles for a more reserved “If you don’t mind, Herr Hare.” Then, remembering who and what she is, she adds, “Just the tea, mind you.”

Chapter 11: Morris: Bridges

Chapter Text

Morris whistles to himself as he works. He is still washing this teapot alone and will probably continue to do so for the rest of his life, but it is a pot he shared with Her. It seems that he has done something right and is finally building bridges instead of burning them. Maybe next week, will be a pastry instead, something like peach or lemon (the thought of cherry centers still makes him queasy). It is not quite hoping yet, it’s still too early for that, but enough has changed that he is willing to wonder.

Chapter 12: Hatter: Hope

Chapter Text

Hatter smiles and licks powdered sugar from her lips. She doesn’t want to wash her hands, which still smell like lemon and hope. They’ll never be best friends, not like before, but she realizes that they probably shouldn’t be, after all she’s proven herself capable of.

Chapter 13: Morris: Crash Course

Chapter Text

He carries another stack of dishes to the sink. They’ve gotten back into a rhythm and he’s gotten so good at pretense that he can swallow the waves of guilt that come when he looks at her, before they drown him. That’s not a problem right now because she just doesn’t stay around long enough for him to avoid her. He’s alone in these hours after tea, but it’s a nice feeling.
Except not today, it seems “What are you doing here?” he says to the shadow that falls into the rinse sink.
“There’s something I think you need to see.” Something in her voice makes him turn and her smile is everything right about the Party. “You should come right away; it’ll be better before dusk hits.”
“What about the dishes?” It’s still the one thing he can be certain of.
“Don’t be silly, this is much more important.” She taps her fingers on an elbow and says “Oh, all right, you can finish what’s actually in the sink and then we need to go.”
Four and a half minutes later, he dries his hands and asks “Okay, what’s this all about?”
“We finished building the tank!” Her excitement is contagious and his heart bounces like an engine that was only half-complete the last time he saw it. “So I was wondering if you wanted to take it for a test drive.”
“What? You mean you want me to come with you?” Things can’t be turning around so quickly; he needs the confirmation.
“I need a second person to help me keep an eye on all the instruments.” He looks down. Of course it could have been anyone. “And you’re the best,” she continues, “I’d never trust anyone else with this.”

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