Scattergram

Hey there. Thiswould be my first attempt at adult-ish themed fanfic. Not sure how good it is...

So, about the fic: this is a prologue. So you’ll probably going WTF?!? by the time you finish this part ‘cause, like most prologues, it’s crazy and makes no sense. -_- Just a warning.

Will probably contain slash of both varieties in later chapters. :) Because slash is good.

Now, onwards with the story.

Prologue: Define ‘Sane?

That takes the reason prisoner?

“Every time I go there, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to come back.

Alice absently wove the grass through her fingers, and decided it would look better blue. She whispered to it, and slowly it shifted beneath her hands, its piercing green melting into dusky, shadowed blue.

“The grass doesn’t do that back there, she continued vaguely, “I don’t like it.

“Then why do you go back? His voice, slow and deliberate, wormed its way down from the leaves above her head, and wound around her like the heavy smoke from his pipe.

Alice let the question roll through her mind and sit there. It sat for a while. “I don’t... I don’t have a choice... she said finally, plucking a blade of grass and staring fixedly at it.

“But don’t you? This time, a face followed in the wake of the voice, the Caterpillar’s figure slowly descending with a bobbing, steady weave as he crawled down the flower stem. His pipe, ever present, was held carefully aloft by a back leg, dangling and smoking steadily though the weightless summer air. Alice turned the smoke pink.

“There’s a pull." She disinterestedly watched his progress as he finally slid to the ground. “I can’t get away from it. There’ll be a tap here..." she pointed to her shoulder, “or here,"she pointed to her neck, “and then a yank. And then I’m there again. And they’re all staring at me.

“Whoooo" The word was exhaled with a cloud of bright pink smoke. Alice smiled as it descended on her and wrapped around her shoulders like a shroud.

Alice thought for a moment as she let the smoky scent of spices and sour cream drench her skin. “The doctors." She fell back into the grass with a sigh. It tickled her face, and she pressed her cheek into its springy surface. The smoke followed her, and spread across her body in a cloying, dense cloud. “They... poke. And prod. >And ask me where I am, who I am, what why when... questions questions questions.?" She wrinkled her nose in a manner oddly petulant for a fully-grown twenty year old. “Everything there is... white."

The Caterpillar sighed, and stretched four of his arms. “Sounds like a terrible place", he yawned.

“Yes. It is." They sat in silence for a while and listened to the sky-blue grass grow.

“So," Alice said finally, “What is your diagnosis? Am I insane?"

Alice waited for an answer, and didn’t receive one immediately. When she turned, she found that the Caterpillar was no longer there; she was faced only with a dented patch of grass and trails of pink smoke leading up to the sky.

“Insane?" his voice called from above her, “who can define sanity?"

Alice curiously craned her neck, sitting up as she sought out the blue figure bobbing among the monolithic flower petals waving idly in the summer breeze. If she squinted, she thought she could see his shadow through the translucent red curve of a poppy petal. Alice blinked again, and the shadow was gone.

“You are only insane," the Caterpillar continued, now leaning comfortably against the base of the poppy and refilling his pipe with swollen gold pollen, “if you decide you are insane."

“So this other world..."

“There is no other world," the Caterpillar interrupted, his words rolling over hers and squashing them with slow, heavy certainty. “It’s all in your mind. You of all people should know that the mind is a powerful thing."

Alice frowned. “But... that place... it’s different. The air is different, thicker. Heavier. And... it doesn’t smell of cloves. It’s almost familiar, in a way"

Alice stopped short when the Caterpillar’s bristling blue face suddenly filled her vision. As usual, she hadn’t seen him move, he was just suddenly there. His eyes, each burning blue iris as large as her fist, sparked and swerved and flared and bore into her like a fist to the gut. She watched calmly as his flat, thick face twisted and contorted into a snarling mask of hissing rage. He breathed sharp flecks of pollen into her face as his words poured from him in an uncharacteristic rush.

“My Queen", he snarled, “these imbalances of yours are correctable. They are nothing more than that- imbalances. There. Is. No. Other. World.

Alice’s blue eyes fixed vaguely on the seething face shoved so close to her own. “You said before that I’m only insane if I decide that I am. Does this mean that you are deciding for me hat I am?"

The Caterpillar blinked slowly. Then he exhaled, equally slowly, and gradually sank back into himself. Slumping back against the flower stem, he allowed his face to smooth and sag. He drew his pipe to his flat, rubbery lips and studied her. “Yes," he said finally, “Yes, I am."

“How interesting," sighed Alice, “to be insane in a universe in which there is no such thing as sanity.

Alice, the Queen of Hearts, believed him.

Alice shouldn’t have.