Who: Fairytales and Lewis Carroll What: catching up over coffee (Originally posted by Fairytales) When: Wednesday afternoon. Where: one of the Starbucks on Broadway
Fairytales fiddled with a napkin while she waited for Charles to show. She'd already been there an hour, sipping slowly at one hot chocolate after another, watching the people around her. There was a man in the corner her gaze kept being drawn to, with a ten-year-old daughter. They didn't speak much, and the girl looked unhappy. Fairytales couldn't help but speculate.
Thoughts like this had begun when that voice had whispered to her. Well, they hadn't, they'd been there before, but they'd been getting worse. The man in London had been followed by another in Queens, her trail broken because she could pass through space in ways that the police couldn't. Her sword was hidden safely, buried in stone. She rubbed her palms on her jeans.
She dressed normally today, or as much as the modern normal was when she wore it. Jeans and a big pink woolen jersey and mary-jane shoes with bows on. She licked the cream off her straw as she started on her fourth chocolate, foot tapping as she waited, growing anxious.
Charles didn't much like being in public, but he would deal with it for Alice. He was usually wary of females too nowadays, but Alice was immortal, just like Twee. It was different with them. Any unwelcome feelings he might have had with them were okay because they weren't young girls. He didn't have to punish himself and feel horrible for those feelings, unacted on as they would remain.
He stepped inside, spotting Alice immediately. He moved over to her and he smiled nervously, offering her a tiny wave as well. "It's been a while," he mumbled, glancing around the place.
She smiled back a little vaguely, not quite making eye contact, and waved at him to sit down. "I miss when things were less complicated. Now it's all violence and sexual awakenings," she said, putting her straw back in her drink, failing to quite draw the conversational line between the last time they'd properly spent time together and how things were a little simpler then. "How are you finding yourself these days?"
"I miss when things were less complicated too," he said, taking a seat across from her. "Back before...everything. These days I am finding myself uncomfortable in most settings. I prefer keeping to myself really."
Alice nodded. "I like being around people sometimes. I have a sort of family in my friends, people to go back to, when I remember. There is so much questing to be done, though. And slaying of jabberwocks." She glanced at the pair in the corner again, then closed her eyes and sipped her drink.
Charles arched his brow at that and he looked in the direction she had looked. "Jabberwocks?" he asked carefully, unsure he wanted to know. "How many of those have you...slain?"
Alice turned coy, shrugging a shoulder and looking up at Charles, eyes wide. "I do what needs doing," she said evasively. Those two since the wedding hadn't been the first, but they'd been the messiest. She brandished a teaspoon at Charles. "But I am being rude. I haven't asked you what brought you back to New York." She folded her hands neatly and smiled.
Charles left it at that, content not to pry. If she was doing what needed doing, then it probably wasn't his place to say a word.
"Mostly the desire to be around people I know," Charles replied. "It's been a lonely two decades. When was the last time I saw you, then? Had you just finished with Jacob Grimm?"
"Finished with? Perhaps. Peter Pan was on the stage, do you remember?" She smiled wistfully. "Such a tale. Mermaids and Indians and Pirates!" She was able to shake off her dark musings at the memories, and hugged herself happily. "I wasn't alone, I had people to keep me company, at the institution. I'm not sure if I'm alone even now. I'm worried about my third aspect. I don't think he is quite safe."
"I do remember," Charles said, smiling gently at the memories until she kept talking. "What do you mean, Alice? Who is he?"
"Do you know I can change my aspect at times?" she asked, contemplating going to buy a muffin. "I have a child aspect. Like, Hans feels awkward talking to women so sometimes I go to him like that to make things easier for him. At the place they talked to me about, um, Dissociative Identity Disorder. In a story, things have to be a little more literal than that."
She frowned then, and reached out to take Charles' hand, looking worried. "I can't choose the third one. They told me it was a defense mechanism. I don't know from what. I don't think I was ever treated badly. But so many girls are treated badly in the stories, you know? I know how crazy I must seem sometimes. When I was medicated I couldn't do anything magical." She was starting to get agitated, feeling penned in. "Please take me with you. Don't leave me alone."