Title: "Through the Looking-Glass and What Clark and Lex Found There"
Author: Not me. No, really. I wouldn't write something like this.
Archive: You've got to be kidding.
Rating: PG-13 (R for language if you want to be a stickler)
Disclaimer:
dis - claim - er [dis-kley-mer] (noun)
1. the act of disclaiming; the renouncing, repudiating, or denying of a claim; disavowal.
2. a person who disclaims.
3. a statement, document, or assertion that disclaims responsibility, affiliation, etc.; disavowal; denial.
Yeah. I'll deny I wrote it. To my dying day.
Spoilers: 4th season Smallville, pretty much any episode of Adventures in Wonderland.
Feedback: Is best served with whipped cream.
Warnings: This fic contains silliness, alliteration, anachronisms, bunny servitude, several interspecies friendships, physics-thwarting architecture, large quantities of contrivances, bad jokes, implied gayness, ungodly amounts of purple, human/animal hybrids, distrust, irregular capitalization, blasphemy, bad singing, an extremely large specimen of larva, hand holding, a magic mirror, puppets, voluminous amounts of tea, breaking noises, two dimensional characters, naked feet, onomatopoeia, stopped time, rubber duckies, not much of a plot
and a list of warnings this freaking long.
Summary: WTF?
Through the Looking-Glass and What Clark and Lex Found There denies responsibility for this horror: bipolypesca date of said denial: November 2007
Clark walked around it one more time, doing his best to be polite. "It's got, um... nice... lines?"
Lex was standing perfectly still, had his hands in his pockets, and was staring at Clark blandly. Clark recognized this stance as Lex's version of an eyeroll.
"It's more than a nice mirror, Clark. It's an antique." He approached the mirror reverently as Clark stepped out from behind it again. "It has an incredible history. Do you know that as recently as fifteen years ago, this looking-glass was purchased at a yard sale for a paltry three dollars and was kept by a family of five for nearly a decade with utter ignorance of its value?"
"Wow." Clark hoped he sounded impressed. He wasn't.
"This is an original Gibbons, Clark. One of his very first pieces—he was hardly more than a child, which explains its relative plainness to his later, better-known work."
"His better-known mirror work?"
Lex closed his eyes and sighed. "His wood carvings, Clark. He was the most talented wood carver of his age. Possibly ever. He did St. Paul's Cathedral...?"
Ignoring Lex's leading tone, since he had no idea what he was talking about, Clark reached out and carefully rubbed one of the smooth legs of the full-length mirror. "Early work, huh?"
Apparently willing to try to enlighten him once more, Lex pitched forward and pointed out the yellowish cylindrical pieces to each side of the mirror that broke up the legs. "Look at the ivory. This is hand-etched ivory, Clark. It quite possibly represents the first time he ever touched ivory."
"And that's... good."
"That makes it priceless, Clark. It's priceless."
"Right."
Clark shut his mouth and resolved to keep it that way.
The truth was, he didn't know what the hell he was doing here. His and Lex's relationship hadn't felt on solid ground since Lionel had given him that damn key, and even though he knew Lex was doing his best to make up for it, Clark couldn't get it out of his head. Lex had called him over to see the newest antique he'd added to his collection, and all Clark could think was, ‘I wonder if he's still collecting me like this.’
He wanted things to be back the way they were a year ago, but everything just felt off. He knew Lex had to have been able to feel it, too.
"You don't like it," Lex sighed.
Clark shrugged. "I just don't understand its importance, that's all. I'm not into antiques. I mean, Lex, my mom is even into antiques, and I've still never found it very interesting. I'm sorry."
"No, that's all right," Lex said, waving him off. "I suppose I realized it wouldn't be your thing. I just had to," he shrugged, "brag to someone."
Clark began to feel vaguely uncomfortable. Watching the crack in their friendship form had always made him feel guilty because he knew he shouldered quite a bit of the blame for it. But being reminded that he pretty much was Lex's only friend in Smallville really pushed the guilt home. It was kind of sad that when a twenty-something billionaire wanted to boast about a new acquisition to a friend, the only person he could think of to call was a seventeen year old farm boy who'd basically told him to go get stuffed only a few months previous.
Clark took a couple of steps forward and looked carefully at the frame and the mirror, trying to find something nice to say. "When did you say this wood carver lived?"
"Seventeenth century," Lex said, still sounding somewhat plaintive.
"Wow. So... it still gives a really good reflection, huh?"
Clark was looking at Lex's reflection instead of at Lex directly and watched his lips turn up. "It does. The completeness of its preservation is really quite remarkable. It's as if this looking-glass was built to last forever." He reached out and ran a single slim finger down the frame. "As it it was infused with magic."
Clark had just been about to say something about Lex not really believing in magic, right?, when the sun flared up like his dad's acid stomach after too much barbeque.
No one on the planet took much notice of these flares except the most dedicated of scientists, but Clark could feel every last one. The sun storm had been raging for days and for the entire time, he'd been oscillating between setting things on fire without trying and burning himself trying to put said fires out. Over the last twenty-four hours, he hadn't even been able to manage to single super-sonic speed trip up the stairs. Lately all he got was being completely normal or feeling completely like crap. At the moment, he was in the latter category.
He gripped his stomach, wincing at the cramps, tripped over his own feet and bumped into Lex hard. Lex fell forward and began to slide through the mirror, which Clark didn't have time to think was pretty weird because he was grasping at Lex's arm to help him not fall, but he was far too weak to keep anything more than himself up, so they both fell through the mirror, and then—
"What the hell just happened?"
Chapter 2: Darkness: A Definition
Clark wasn't sure if his stomach had stopped hurting or if he just wasn't paying attention to it anymore because the rest of him hurt. He spat out the dirt he'd managed to get into his mouth, hoping that metallic taste was just minerals and not blood.
"What—?" he tried, then spat several more times. "Blech."
"Clark," Lex breathed. "Clark—my god—get up."
"I'm trying."
Clark dragged himself to his feet, brushing off his jeans. He had turned to Lex to tell him it would have been easier with a little help when he got his first eyeful of where they were and forgot all about his snarky stalled comments.
It was a wood. They were outside in a wood. What's more, it was dark. It hadn't been dark just a minute ago at four o'clock in the afternoon, but now it was most definitely the middle of the night. There was no moon, and clouds covered the stars. It was dark.
"Did I pass out?" Clark asked in alarm.
"Not unless I did, too."
Light was coming from behind them, making large, bulky shadows on the ground, and Clark looked over his shoulder. His jaw dropped to find he was looking into Lex's study. He was, in fact, looking into Lex's study from the point of view of the mirror.
Clark squeaked.
This—predictably—got Lex's attention, and he turned. "What the hell?"
They looked at each other, they looked out into the dark wood, they looked back into—or out of—the mirror. In tandem, they reached for it.
It disappeared.
"Aw, shit."
Suddenly, there was nothing but the dark wood. Clark blinked and waited for his eyes to adjust. His heart was pounding in his chest in fear, his pathetically human-strength ears straining for the sound of Lex's breathing next to him as he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And—
"Lex, can you see?"
"I can't see my own hand in front of my face."
Frantically, Clark reached up and touched his own still smarting face, then shook his hand in front of his eyes until he could feel a breeze from it. Still everything was black.
"What happened? Where are we?" he heard his own panicked voice ask and couldn't bring himself to feel embarrassment.
"I don't know. We were... we were there and then... The mirror."
Clark longed for his x-ray vision. He wouldn't care at all about the darkness, wouldn't mind a jot about the human eye's capacity to only pick up certain waves of light. He'd just squint on the x-ray and manoeuvre about using that beautifully blue little section of the light spectrum that he knew so well, and have not a care in the world.
Unfortunately, the lack of sunlight—stormy or otherwise—wasn't doing anything for his absent powers.
"We fell through it, didn't we?" Clark asked. "I mean, we actually fell..."
"That's not possible."
"Screw possible! Look around, Lex!"
For a while, there was silence except for Clark's own ragged breathing. Then, suddenly, he heard shuffling to his right. He cowered instinctively toward Lex. Only Lex wasn't there.
"Lex!" Clark hissed.
"I'm over here."
With mixed feelings of relief and irritation, Clark realized the shuffling sound was coming from the same place Lex's voice was.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm... ‘looking around.’"
Clark did his best to bite back a snappy reply and swallow down the fear in his throat. "We should stay together!" he insisted.
"All right. Well, come on."
There was argument all but leaking out of his pores, but those sounds were moving farther away and the only thing Clark could think of that would be worse than being in an unknown, completely pitch black wood without his powers was to be in an unknown, completely pitch black wood without his powers and alone. He scurried after Lex's departing footfalls.
Chapter 3: Stone Shelves, Grass Beds, and Hydrated Azaleas
They hadn't been walking long at all by the time Clark gave in to his intense need to hold onto Lex so they would be sure to not get separated. At first he just gripped his sleeve, but that made him feel childish, so he graduated to gripping a wrist. Eventually, his fingers slid down farther and farther until he finally just figured the hell with it and took Lex's hand. Lex didn't say a word about any of it.
They had managed to find what might have been a path. It was harder and more solid than anywhere else they had been walking, and only occasionally threw an unexpected boulder in their way. There was actually a comparable amount of stumbling to walking.
It was still pitch and they hadn't perceived a damn thing with their eyes since the mirror had disappeared.
"Where are we going?"
"Like I know? Forward." Lex sighed. "There has to eventually be a house or lodge or something."
"Do you think we—agh!" Clark at least had the presence of mind to let go of Lex's hand as he flew headfirst over a big piece of stone that came up to his thighs. He landed in a crumpled heap on the other side of it, groaning piteously into dirt, leaves, and branches.
Clark hated being human. Hated it, hated it, ha—
"Clark, are you all right? Where are you?"
Clark groaned and spat out a leaf. "I'm all right. I'm... Watch out for the rock, Lex."
For a moment there was only silence, until Clark heard Lex's hands patting whatever he'd just tripped over. It was just Clark's luck that he'd managed to be the only person walking right there.
Then there was a sliding, scuffling sound, then shod feet hitting the ground, and then Lex's hands were feeling around for Clark's arm. He helped him to his feet. "Some kind of layered stone," Lex said.
Clark rubbed his bruised legs, muttering.
Once Lex had his hand securely again, they each took a few careful steps forward. They seemed to be on the path again.
"Oh, that's great," Clark groused. "Who puts a big piece of rock in the middle of a footpath?"
"Who builds a stone footpath without lighting?"
"Yet another valid criticism."
Carefully, feeling out around them with their free hands, Clark and Lex advanced forward. Five steps, six—
"Ah! Shit!"
Clark jumped, glad he didn't have to worry about how hard he was squeezing Lex's hand. "What is it?"
"More rock. Damn it, right into my hip..."
"We should stop," Clark said through the fear in his throat. "We could fall down into a ravine and not even know it was coming, Lex. We should stop until morning."
"Loathe as I am to sleep on the ground, I have to agree with you. Damn, that hurt."
Clark reached out, trying to find whatever it was Lex had run into, and collided with Lex's fingers feeling the edge of a smooth surface. "It sticks right out, doesn't it?"
Lex grunted noncommittally and let go of Clark's hands as he stooped down.
"What are you doing?"
"Feeling the ground. It's soft here."
Clark hunkered down with him, and leaned to his right until he bumped Lex's shoulder. They felt at the soft, springy ground underneath the smooth protrusion. "It feels like really thick grass."
"Yeah." Lex was leaning further forward. "It goes on for a while, I think. We could bed down here."
"In the grass? In your slacks?"
Lex might have huffed. "Where else are we going to sleep? On the stone shelf? It's time I got my money's worth out of my drycleaner anyway," he grumbled, and Clark listened to him crawl farther away. Eventually he stopped and made settling sounds that told Clark he was probably turning over and sitting or lying down. Clark crawled in after him.
"It is pretty soft," he conceded. He found Lex's ankles, then crawled up alongside him without leaning on him, and settled down next to him on his back. "What time do you think it is? I mean, how long do we have before it gets light?"
"I have no idea. You're the outdoorsy one."
"Yeah, well, a moon or some stars would help. I don't think I've ever seen a night so dark. I can't tell the difference between looking at the ground and looking at the sky."
Lex remained silent. After a few seconds, Clark's hand crept over to clutch Lex's through the tall, lush grass. "Sorry," he muttered. "When you're quiet, I start thinking you're not there."
"I know what you mean." He squeezed Clark's hand. "Jesus, it's so dark that if I was here alone, I would have already convinced myself I'm crazy."
"Yeah... I don't know that I can sleep," Clark whispered, not at all wondering why he was whispering.
"I know," Lex whispered back, also not seemingly concerned about it. "But even if we can't sleep, it's better we're still until we can see what we're doing."
Clark tried to steady out his breathing. He was gripping Lex's hand so tightly, he could feel the pulse thrumming through Lex's fingers, but Lex hadn't complained. "Lex," he whispered after a few minutes.
"Yeah?"
"I have to pee."
Lex laughed quietly. "Me, too."
Slowly, careful not to bang their heads on the shelf rock, Clark and Lex climbed down their bed of plush grass and back out to the path.
"We'd better count."
"Yeah, good idea."
They took cautious steps toward the layered stone, counting aloud, but very quietly. They came into contact with it on seven. After climbing over it, they found themselves on the path again and counted nine more steps until the ground under their feet became soft and pliant. They took another one, two, three steps into the wood.
"Here?"
"I hope this isn't someone's prize azalea bushes or anything."
Lex snorted and let go of Clark's hand.
Clark's ears felt as if they were trying to twitch, listening to Lex take two steps away and shuffle as if turning from Clark to give him privacy, though the extreme darkness was already providing that.
The sound of Lex's zipper reminded Clark of what they were supposed to be doing, and he turned slightly to his right as he opened his fly. He was standing there for a few seconds, paralyzed by the silence, until he realized he wasn't going.
He couldn't hear Lex breathing, couldn't feel the touch of his hand. Maybe Lex wasn't there. Clark could have been dreaming, or he could have been alone, only imagining someone was there with him making this completely incomprehensible experience slightly more bearable.
If he'd had his special hearing, he could have tuned right into Lex's heartbeat, or the sound of the air in his lungs, or the rush of his blood in his veins. But he couldn't. If Clark had turned and tried to find him right now, he could have walked right past him and never known it.
Then, almost startling in its suddenenss, Clark heard the sound of a stream of liquid splattering onto the ground. It struck him as ridiculous that Lex's piss stream was relaxing him, but the sound let his panic abate just enough that he was finally able to drain his bladder.
They stood there in companionable silence but for the sound of their urine hitting the ground until Clark found himself rushing to finish when Lex was done first and fastening his zipper again. Clark tucked himself away hurriedly, and wiped his hands on the seat of his pants, wishing he could wash them so it would be less gross that he was lumbering toward Lex with his hand outstretched.
But Lex didn't cower away when Clark gripped his fingers, he just turned back the way they'd come and started counting.
"One, two, three," brought them to the path. Nine more brought them to the layered stone. But apparently their steps had been smaller in the beginning or were getting bigger as they went on, because on step five—
"Ow! Son of a bitch, that's sharp!"
Clark winced. "Sorry."
Lex didn't respond, but his disgruntled expression was audible in his silence. They climbed back under the shelf rock onto their grassy nest and settled down, neither of them hesitating to grip hands again, though Lex's free hand was still massaging his abused hip.
"Do you think it's possible we're just in Frazier Woods?" Clark asked after a while.
"Clark, as far as I can tell, we fell through a mirror. At the moment, I'd be very, very open to something as familiar and close to home as Frazier Woods."
"Well, maybe we didn't fall through the mirror. Maybe the last thing we remember is the mirror, but in fact, the mirror was coated with some psychotropic substance that we both inhaled and in actuality, we either had a drug experience and forgot about all of it except the ending when the mirror disappeared, losing several hours and ending up in Frazier Woods in the middle of the night, or this whole thing is actually a drug experience."
Lex waited several seconds before he spoke. "You sound like Chloe Sullivan."
Clark's lips twisted wryly and he hoped Lex could hear it.
"Besides, if this is a drug experience, it's the crappiest one I've ever had. Where are the trippy colours? The euphoria? All I've gotten out of this is a sore hip and grass stains on my pants. I might equate those sensations with experiences, but they aren't drug experiences. At least, not primarily."
Clark felt his face burn red. He knew Lex couldn't see it, but wondered if it was audible in the awkward way he cleared his throat. "Well," he asked as casually as he could manage, "what's your theory?"
Lex sighed. "I have no theory, Clark. I fell through a priceless seventeenth century antique looking-glass into a wooded area that light and common sense forgot. I'm not feeling particularly scientific at the moment."
Clark fell silent, managing to glean with his surely superhuman powers of observation that Lex was crabby. He planned to try his very hardest to fall asleep, praying that when he woke the sun would be as bright as it had ever been—even if it was burping gases into the cosmos that tied his insides into knots.
But about ten minutes later, Lex's hissing voice made Clark's eyes snap back open. "Clark?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you snore?"
"Um..." he thought about it and shrugged. "I don't think so."
"All right." Lex paused. "Then don't let go of my hand."
Clark laughed softly, knowing exactly how he felt. "I won't."
Chapter 4: Willy Wonka and John Lennon
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"
"Looks like... sleeping people."
"Oh, I'd have to agree with you there, Hare."
Clark opened his eyes to the strange and unexpected sight of a madly grinning man with medium-length bobbed hair, very straight teeth, too much lipstick (even if he hadn't been a guy), bushy orange eyebrows, a purple suit, an oversized teal and black polka dotted bowtie, and a lilac top hat with a huge card stuck in the band that said ‘10/6’, squatting down and looking into his grass bed cave at him.
He lifted his head blearily.
"Johnny Depp?"
Lex also raised his head slightly, bringing it into Clark's vision again, which made Clark realize they had ended up spooned together in the night, their clenched hands resting against Lex's belly. Lex didn't say anything.
"Well, good morning, there, young lad!" Johnny Depp—or whoever—reached right in and picked up Clark's hand, which was still in Lex's hand, and pumped all three of their hands up and down crazily, making Lex's elbow bump Clark's forearm repeatedly, which rather hurt. "Good to meet you, good to meet you. I'm Hatter, and this is my friend Hare, there."
"Hello!"
"AGH!"
Lex's head probably would have slammed into Clark's chin if Clark hadn't been wincing away just as hard as Lex was from the freakish mixture of rabbit, gerbil, and John Lennon that was suddenly peeking in at them. With teeth like those, his smile was more threat than greeting.
Then, when the creature didn't immediately lunge at them for breakfast, Clark looked a little closer and found himself thinking that with clothes like those, maybe the guy was actually a bit more Elton than Lennon.
"Whoa!" Elton Lennon said, and backed up with a grin and his yellow-gloved hands up, as if to show they were empty. "A little jumpy, aren't they, Hatter?"
"Still sleepy I suspect."
"Hm."
Johnny D—Hatter jumped up on top of their cave suddenly and there was a horrible cacophony of clattering and banging and breaking noises, making Clark and Lex both wince, which they would have been doing anyway because Elton Len—Hare was reaching into their grass bed, taking Clark's hand in his left, Lex's hand in his right and then, for no discernable reason, switching them out and shaking them at once. His ears—his rabbit ears—bounced as he shook with the veracity of the handshake.
"So!"
Clark and Lex jumped over onto their backs toward Hatter's voice, as he was now on the other side of their cave, which... which, as Clark could now see the ‘ceiling,’ wasn't actually a cave at all, but a table. They were sleeping under a big, long table. That was mildly embarrassing.
"Are you here for the tea party?"
There was another awful clatter and Hare dropped down beside his companion along with a few dishes. "Because you're a little early."
"Oh, just by a day or two."
"Which is all right, because we're kind of in the mood for a tea party anyway."
"So we'll just throw one!"
Before Clark or Lex could get a word in, Hatter and Hare reached under the table, got hold of their hands, and dragged them out into the light.
In the second or two Clark had before anything else weird happened, he was able to see that the edge of stone shelf Lex had kept banging his hip on the previous night was actually the edge of the table they'd been sleeping under, the layered stone Clark had fallen over that they'd thought was in the middle of the path was actually a boundary border that cut the private property they were on off from the path, and the path in question was not straight at all, but quite meandering, which explained why ‘boulders’ had kept getting thrown into it as they'd walked.
He also had time to realize that as it was no longer dark at all, but that the sun was shining brightly, and as the wood was much less sinister than had originally been assumed, he had no viable reason to still be gripping Lex's hand like a lifeline. He flushed and let it go.
But then his seconds of normality were all used up. Music began to play from all around them. It was very up-tempo, simple music with a good beat. Clark couldn't see the source of the music, but that didn't bother him so much.
However, when their two new acquaintances suddenly burst into song and what looked like a carefully choreographed yet utterly crazy dance routine, Clark began to worry. He shuffled closer to Lex. Lex's hand reattached itself to Clark's.
Nice to meet you!
Nice to see you!
It's always nice to make new friends.
We can feed you
Pour you tea, too
Hope that you'll come back again!
It might have been catchy if it was being played over a radio instead of sung in stereo right into their faces. It could also have conceivably been more enjoyable if Hatter and Hare hadn't been acting it out, including shaking Clark's hand, shaking Lex's hand, shaking their joined hands, offering them crumpets and tea, then throwing them over their shoulders carelessly when they reached for them, and then leading them out the swinging gate and back in again. It was all very, very confusing.
Make yourself at home
In a chair or under our table.
You can even join our song
If you'd like and you are able.
Sorry, we didn't catch your name.
Would you like to play a game?
The games we play are lots of fun
For you, for me, for everyone!
Grab a woeboot, learn how to play.
Not your game? We'll switch to croquet!
Nice to meet you!
Nice to see you!
It's always nice to make new friends.
We can feed you
Pour you tea, too
Hope that you'll come back again!
Nice to meet you!
Nice to s—
"Wait. Wait. Wait!" Clark wrenched his hand out of Hare's grasp, still quite freaked out by his rabbit gerbil face and long pink and black ears, though the very concept of being ‘freaked out’ was becoming more and more relative by the minute.
At his shout, the music wound down like a record being turned off without the needle having been lifted.
Hatter and Hare were watching him with rapt attention, but they hadn't lost their scarily enthusiastic grins. Clark glanced at Lex and saw him wearing an expression Clark had never seen on him before. It was possibly an expression he'd never seen on anyone before. It was almost certainly the same expression Clark himself was wearing.
It was utter consternation layered with a liberal amount of outright terror. Lex, like Clark, might have actually been in fear of loss of life through weirdness.
Is there such a thing as death by eccentricity?
"Look, you don't understand," Clark said carefully. "We're not here for tea. We're not here for anything. We don't even know why we're here. We don't even know where here is!"
Without moving their heads or losing their grins, Hatter and Hare looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes, then back at Clark. "Well, if you don't know where you are—" Hatter started.
"—then how did you get here?" Hare finished.
Clark looked at Lex, but Lex only shook his head minutely. He still looked pretty thrown off by the singing and dancing and was eyeing Hare's strange face and furry ears with caution.
"Uh... well, see... there was this... mirror."
Hatter and Hare jumped back from them in tandem, leaning back at a sharp angle as if Clark had just said something astonishing. "You don't mean—" Hare started.
"—Alice's mirror?" Hatter finished.
Clark blinked hard. He wished they would stop doing that. "I don't..."
"A little girl, about yea-high," Hatter held his hand out by his ribs, "blond hair, grey eyes—"
"—very fond of blue?"
Clark looked at Lex. Lex glanced over at him, then spoke quietly toward their strange new acquaintances. "I... can't be sure. I bought the mirror at auction. It did used to be owned by a family. They could conceivably have had a daughter named Alice."
"Hm, yeah. She was a nice girl."
"Strange."
"Oh, yes," Hatter nodded. "But nice. Haven't seen her in a long time. Ever since she met that... what was his name?"
"I don't quite remember. Hm. Steve? Sam?"
"Peter? Jacob?"
"Christopher?"
"Sebastian?"
They shrugged. "Some boy she met at school," they said together.
"Well," Hatter sighed, "she just didn't seem to have time for us anymore after that."
"So... someone else used to come here through the mirror?" Clark asked hopefully. If the girl had eventually stopped coming through, then that meant she'd been able to get home.
"Oh, yes indeedy-do! We'd see Alice—what?" he glanced at Hare.
"I'd say about once a week."
"Approximately."
They nodded in agreement.
Clark tried to stop blinking blankly. "Right. Um... well. Right. So—so... where is here, exactly?"
Hatter and Hare looked at each other, then at Clark as if he was nuts. "Here is where you are."
Hare snorted. "Obviously."
Sighing as steadily as he could, Clark closed his eyes, waited a moment, then tried again. "What... city is this?"
"Wonderland."
Lex scoffed softly next to him while all Clark could do was stare at the two of them and wait for them to say it was a joke. But they didn't. They moved to the long table and started noisily setting out an afternoon tea... at what must have been eight in the morning.
"Wo—... Wonderland?"
"That's right," Hare said matter-of-factly. He glanced into a cup, made a displeased face, and threw it over his shoulder and over the short stone wall into the path, where it shattered.
"I... see." He glanced at Lex, but Lex was only looking down at his shoes, shaking his head continuously and now and then closing and opening his eyes very wide as if to clear his vision. "Well, all right. Um... what county is it?"
"Oh, Wonderland," Hatter said, smiling pleasantly up at him for a moment.
Clark felt his head fall forward a notch. He asked his next question cautiously. "...Country?"
"Wonderland, of course," Hare said, sounding as if Clark should surely have known that.
Which, Clark supposed, perhaps he should. Still, he felt obligated to go on. "What continent is this?"
"W—"
"Let me guess," he broke in. "Wonderland."
Hatter rolled his eyes dramatically. "Well, there's only one continent, so where else would it be? Sheesh."
Clark's gut turned to stone as effectively as if he'd actually eaten one of those sadly mistreated crumpets. Hatter and Hare were surely mad. He knew this already. But he and Lex had fallen through a mirror into a land where people lived in bright yellow houses shaped like top hats (yeah, he'd just noticed that with a bit of a start), had faces like rodents with the ears to match, planted grass beds under their outdoor tea tables, and broke into song and dance at the drop of a—pardon the expression—hat. It was somehow not completely inconceivable that they were stuck in some otherworldly dimension which offered no simple path between itself and home.
Clark swallowed roughly as Lex squeezed his fingers rather harder than he would have liked. Clark missed invulnerability.
With a struggle, he managed to extricate his hand from Lex's, and he stalked several steps toward the south. He pointed out into the distance. "If we go a thousand miles in that direction, where would we end up?"
Hatter and Hare stopped clattering dishes and looked up at him. "What's a mile?" Hatter asked.
Clark clenched his jaw. "Okay," he said as steadily as he could manage. "A thousand kilometers, then."
Hatter and Hare looked at each other, shrugged, then back at him. "What's a kilometer?" Hare asked.
A mouse standing on its hind legs and wearing glasses popped its head and shoulders out of a teapot on the table and quickly explained that a kilometer was a distance of measurement equal to about three thousand two hundred and eighty feet, then disappeared back into the teapot.
Clark staunchly decided that he'd just had an hallucination.
"If we went," he continued in an off-pitch voice, "a really, really... really long way in that direction—like if we drove for two days or something—where would we be?"
"Well," Hatter shrugged, "I suppose it would depend on what type of vehicle you were driving."
Hare nodded in agreement. "That's right. If it was a croquet cart, then after two days, you wouldn't be very far at all."
"A croquet cart?"
"But," Hatter added, "if it was a Wandangle's Wonderful Winged Wander-Board, you'd be... oh, I suppose over the ocean long before the two days had gone by."
"Yeah, assuming you didn't crash into a tree or a bridge or something."
"Oh, righty-roo! Those Wandangle's Wonderful Winged Wander-Boards are notoriously dangerous."
"Fast, though."
"How true that is."
"Yeah."
Arms nearly trembling, Clark walked toward the east. Everyone turned to watch him go, Lex included. He pointed out into the distance. "And that way?"
Hare shrugged. "About the same."
Clark pointed northward. "And that way?" he could hear the desperation in his own voice. His forehead was wet with nervous perspiration.
Hatter placed a considering purple-gloved finger over his lips, his tea party apparently forgotten for the moment. "You know, I don't think even a Wandangle's Wonderful Winged Wander-Board could get you to the ocean in two days if you went that way."
"Oh, most certainly not." Hare walked around the table and nodded at Clark seriously. "If you want to get to the ocean as quickly as possible, I'd recommend going south."
"Indeedy-do," Hatter said, climbing over the table with a clatter to join him. "I'd have to agree with Hare."
"But we don't want to get to the ocean," Clark whined, because whining was a better choice than ripping all of his hair out and rending his garments, "we want to get to another city! We want to get home!"
"Ohhhh!" Hatter exclaimed.
"Well, why didn't you say so? That's easy!"
"Perfectly easy!"
"Simplistic!"
"Absolutely elemen—"
"HOW?"
Hatter and Hare startled back with a comically loud duo of gasps, cowering into one another and looking terribly scandalized. "Well," Hare breathed. "I never!"
"No, neither have I," Hatter agreed. "What manners!"
"You know," Hare said, waggling a finger back and forth between himself and Hatter, "we're trying to help you."
"But if that's your attitude, we have half a mind to—"
"No!" Lex interrupted.
Clark had been wondering if Lex was even here with him in this situation, he'd been so quiet. But as soon as their one possible chance to get out of this insanity started making for the top hat house, Lex seemed to slide right into form. If Clark had been any less wound up by the impossibility of this discussion, he might have relaxed.
"No, please." Lex approached them carefully, his hands out as if in offering. "He's... under a lot of stress."
Clark scoffed and tried very hard not to say anything.
"We really do appreciate your help very much."
"Oh," Hatter said, still looking vaguely hurt. "Well..." He looked at Hare. "I suppose it would be a shame to end our new friendship so soon..."
"Quite a shame," Hare agreed.
They shrugged, and then the grins were back as if they'd never been gone. "Oh, well, all right."
"So please tell us," Lex continued in his most diplomatic of voices. "How do we get home?"
"The mirror," Hare said simply.
Clark's head dropped forward, then back. He clenched his fists at his sides just as hard as he could.
"Ah. Yes. Well." Lex cleared his throat. "You see, we tried that. But the mirror disappeared almost the moment we came through it."
"Oh, it does that," Hare said flippantly. He and Hatter turned back to their setting up of the tea. "But it'll come back."
Clark jetted forward, no longer able to keep out of the conversation. "It'll come back?" he asked excitedly. "When?"
"Well, hard to tell," Hatter said. "When Wonderland decides it's time for you to go."
Clark forced a smile onto his face. "And when do you think that might be?"
"Could be about an hour," Hare said.
Clark looked at Lex. They smiled and sighed in relief, and Clark felt tension drop from his shoulders that had probably been there since 1993.
"Could be years."
It all came back and ratcheted up another notch. Lex's head dropped forward in dramatic defeat.
"It was always easy for Alice," Hare continued.
Hatter turned toward him quickly, pointing. "Oh! How true that is!"
"Yeah, she would be able to get right back through just as soon as whatever little problem she was having in her world when she came here had been solved by something she'd found or seen or learned here in Wonderland." He said all of this very flippantly and eventually joined Hatter at one corner of the table, sipping tea out of a mismatched pair of massive cups.
"That's right," Hatter said, tea steam all but obscuring his face. "So as soon as you've got all of your problems worked out, I'm sure the mirror will pop right back into existence."
"And you can't have all that many problems, right?" Hatter and Hare looked at each other and laughed delightedly.
Clark and Lex looked at one another and... despaired.
"Oh, god."
Chapter 5: Cabbage, Capotain, and Other Mad Subjects
Clark and Lex stood there in silence for a while, both contemplating the enormity of the task before them. Hatter and Hare talked in hushed voices between themselves as if they had no company for a bit, but eventually Hatter addressed Clark again.
"You know, I don't mean to be rude, but your face is—"
"—kind of a mess."
Clark flushed, remembering quite vividly falling face-first into the dirt the previous night. Twice. "Yeah. I, uh..."
"We have a sink."
"How true that is. It's a lovely sink, too."
"Thanks," Clark said sheepishly. He walked toward the blue door marked In.
"Thanks for what?"
Paused in reaching for the door knob, Clark turned to eye them in confusion. "Um... for... letting me use your sink?"
Hare made a tsk sound with his lower lip and impressive buck teeth. "Well, that's silly. You're supposed to ask to use the sink and then get permission to use the sink before you thank us for letting you use the sink."
"Honestly, you seem to be all backwards this morning."
Clark's hand dropped to his side numbly. "But... I thought..."
"Not that we'll stop you from using the sink," Hatter added.
"Of course not. It just would have been nice if you'd asked first. I mean, what if we hadn't even had a sink for you to use and you went charging through the house looking for one?"
"Good point, Hare. After all, politeness starts with ‘please.’"
Then, to Clark's utter horror, music once again began.
Hatter and Hare jumped out of their chairs, over the table, and grinned in Clark's general direction. They opened their mouths and took deep breaths.
"Please!"
The music wound down with a plaintive sound.
"Please. Please, please, may I use your sink to clean the dirt off my face? Please."
"Oh."
"Well."
They both sounded quite disappointed.
Hatter waved a hand flippantly. "Go right ahead."
Clark let out a sigh of relief and reached for the door again.
"Not that door!" Hatter exclaimed.
Hare pointed frantically toward the other. "That door."
Clark looked up at the door he was beside, then over at the other. Pressing his lips tight together to avoid saying a word, he headed for the blue door marked Out and went inside.
It wasn't until he was in and had heard the door click behind him that he became awash with guilt over the realization that he'd just left Lex alone out there with that madman and his... gerbil friend with the ears. But then he remembered that Lex had been doing better talking to those people than Clark himself had, so he just decided not to take too much time. Lex could take care of himself for a few minutes, and it wasn't as if Clark had any helpful special powers at the moment or anything anyway.
The top hat house, incidentally, was quite weird. But Clark had been expecting that.
There was junk everywhere, most of it made up of many very bright colours. Hats littered every corner. Some of them didn't even look like hats, and Clark never would have pegged them as hats except that they were on hatstands with lots of other hats under signs marked with various hat names: Fedoras. Derbies. Trilbies. Homburgs. Cabbage tree hats.
Cabbage tree hats?
Clark did not try to figure it out. He already had a headache. He just looked around as discreetly as possible for the bathroom. He found a closet, a small bedroom, and what he could only describe as a hatroom (predictably) before he managed to find the door that led up a flight of seven very crooked stairs, which was the oddest setup of a bathroom he'd ever seen.
He walked in, not needing to flick on a light because of the bonnet-shaped windows near the ceiling, and changed his mind: This was the oddest setup of a bathroom he'd ever seen.
The shower curtain was purple and covered with little top hats and little teacups. The floor was uneven, with this block of floor four inches higher than this block of floor, and this other block of floor at a twenty degree tilt and three inches lower than that other block of floor and so on and so forth. All of the blocks were designed differently and shaped irregularly. He imagined it made for a very dangerous situation when a person was getting out of the shower. The toilet was... Clark didn't even want to think about what hat the toilet was shaped like. That was just wrong.
At first, he didn't even see a sink. He wondered for a bit if there was a separate room for the sink. But then he realized that the odd upside-down conical shaped thing to his right was actually the sink. He could have fit almost his entire arm into it, straight down. He wasn't even sure how a person could possibly get to the drain to unclog it or the bottom of the sink to clean it.
The faucet fixtures were shaped like various hats (of course), and, what's more, there were sixteen of them. He read the inscriptions incredulously.
"Toothpaste... Soap... Shaving Cream... Hair Cream... Cream... Half and Half?"
There was also Tea, Hot Chocolate, Marshmallow Cream, and, thankfully, Hot and Cold. However, there was also Pleasantly Warm, Tepid, and Icy. Shrugging, Clark went for the Pleasantly Warm. It was.
He figured he'd wasted enough time already and, still feeling guilty for leaving Lex alone, he hurriedly scrubbed the dirt off his face, of which there was much. The Soap faucet was quite helpful, but first he accidentally used the Soup faucet, which was just frightening because it was tomato soup, though he hadn't realized that at first when thick red liquid came pouring out into his hands. While he was rinsing it off with a shudder, he considered that the Toothpaste faucet also sounded like a great idea, but look though he might, he couldn't find any new toothbrushes.
Hands finally soaped up (rather than souped up), his pride stung when he looked in the mirror and saw how everyone had perceived him all morning. But it didn't sting near as badly as his lip did when his scrubbing opened up the cut on it. It bled a little, making him wince (he hadn't yet gotten used to the sight of his own blood), and when his face was clean, the bruise colouring the skin underneath his lower lip was plainly visible. It had swollen a bit, too.
He gingerly patted dry with a violet towel and didn't notice until he was done that the towel had the words ‘The Mad Hatter’ embroidered upon it.
"The Mad Hatter?" He laughed aloud at the appropriateness of the name. Glancing down at the funky plastic yellow rack, he looked at the other towel hanging there. "The March Hare. Hm." He had to think about it for a minute before he realized that a hare in March is supposed to run amuck because March—spring—starts breeding season.
Thinking of the term ‘breeding season’ and the gerbil—okay, hare—face of Hare with his buck teeth, pink rodent nose, and long black cat whiskers gave him an ugly little chill and he put Hatter's towel back where it had been with a mildly disgusted look on his face. "Something I really didn't need to know," he muttered, and carefully made his way across the blocks of floor, down the weirdly placed stairs, and out the bathroom door.
He was headed for the front door marked Out when he remembered himself and went out the In door, as he figured Hatter and Hare would prefer.
Clark was already shuffling his feet in apology when he came back outside, hoping to show his regret at leaving Lex alone without having to say it and offend their insane hosts. But to his surprise, Lex was calmly sitting at the table with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, talking politely and drinking tea with them out of... well, out of half a cup. As in, a cup that was cut vertically in half and yet was still holding tea. What the hell?
Everyone turned toward him at the sound of the door closing behind him.
"Claaaark!" Hatter and Hare said happily in unison. They raced forward to shake his hand crazily one after the other as if they were just meeting again for the first time. Clark gathered that Lex had done some explaining while he'd been gone, including finally giving their odd hosts his and Lex's names. With rather some force, he was led to a chair next to Lex and crashed down into it.
"Tea?" Hatter asked, holding the teapot up with a huge grin on his face.
Lex leaned slightly closer to Clark and wiped his lips to cover his muttered, "Don't ask for half a cup."
Clark tried to smile, but knew he was just sort of grimacing. "Uh... a small cup, please."
"Righty-roo!" Hatter placed a cup slightly smaller than a thimble in front of Clark and put three drops of tea into it.
Clark raised an eyebrow and looked at Lex. Lex was... actually doing an admirable job of not laughing into his half cup. "Uh... actually, now that I think about it: Can I get a medium cup?"
"No problem," Hare said, and put what Clark and anyone sane would have called a normal cup in front of him. Hatter poured tea into it from a dangerous height, making Clark lean back to avoid getting splattered.
The talking mouse popped its head out of the teapot in front of Clark. "I'll take the small cup, please," it said.
"AGH!" Clark jumped out of his chair and spilled his tea all over the table.
Lex looked up at him in confusion. Hatter, Hare, and the talking mouse looked at him with concern. Hatter and Hare leaned slightly closer together. "You know, I think he might be mad," Hatter said, speaking out of the corner of his mouth as if only Hare could hear him, which wasn't at all the case. Hatter and Hare both smiled and laughed awkwardly in Clark's general direction.
"I thought you saw him before," Lex said gently.
"I did! I... thought I imagined it."
"Uh," Hatter leaned over next to the talking mouse. "Clark, this is the Dormouse. Dormouse, this is Clark." He spoke out of the corner of his mouth again, "He's mad, you know."
"Hiii, Clark!" Dormouse said, seemingly not at all bothered by Clark's apparent madness. "Could you hand me that small cup of tea? You didn't spill it, did you?"
"Uh..." Clark chanced a look at the thimble cup. "Uh, no. I don't think so." Everyone was watching him curiously, so, blushing, he hurried forward to pick up the tiny cup and hand it over to the talking mouse. Its little furred hand brushed Clark's fingertip when it took the cup and it was all Clark could do not to jerk back and make a fool out of himself yet again.
"Thanks!"
"Y—uh." The Dormouse was back in his teapot with the lid closed before Clark was able to get a single word out. As he cautiously got back into his chair, Hare swept the mess in front of him, as well as a selection of cups and saucers next to him, all onto the ground with a tea towel.
"Would you like another cup of tea?" Hatter asked happily.
Clark almost said he hadn't had even one yet, but changed his mind and just nodded dumbly.
Hatter went about pouring the tea—from an even greater height than before—and before the cup was half full, Clark's stomach made a horribly embarrassing sound.
Clark ducked his head, feeling his face burn, and looked sheepishly at Lex.
Lex was smirking at him at first, but then lost his smile rather abruptly, and when Clark tried to look forward again, Lex's hand shot out to yank Clark's chin roughly toward him.
"Hey!"
Lex was staring quite openly at Clark's lip. "You're bruised," he said as if mystified.
"Yeah, you're telling me." Clark tongued self-consciously at the split in his lip.
Apparently taking Lex's rough examination to heart, first Hare and then Hatter also grabbed Clark's chin, forcing his head to jerk this way and that as his lip was eyed.
"Hm. Looks swollen," Hare said.
"Yes, but it's a lovely shade of purple."
Hatter and Hare nodded at one another with satisfaction.
"Clark, how—?"
"So! Hungry, huh?" Hare asked.
"I haven't eaten in what feels like a whole day," Clark answered in a hurry, not at all interested in getting into a conversation with Lex that started, ‘How can you be bruised? You never get hurt.’
"Well, then what are we drinking tea for?" Hatter cried.
Clark was about two inches from actually getting to have a sip of tea when it was swiped out of his hand and clattered onto the floor along with yet more of the many dishes on the table, including Lex, Hatter, and Hare's teacups.
"Let's have breakfast!"
For a terrifying moment, Clark was sure they were going to break into song over it, but they didn't. They just got to rushing around like mad (appropriately), covering the table with food in a very short amount of time as they hurried in and out of the top hat house. First the last of the crumpets made an appearance, then scones, something purple that looked like pancakes, halved potatoes, plates of fresh vegetables, meatballs, fruit salad, pepperoni pizza, Belgian waffles, cookies, birthday cake—no, wait, it said Happy Unbirthday—sour cream tarts, gumbo, pretzels, an eighteen inch high stack of buttered flapjacks, and a gigantic turkey.
Clark had never seen a more beautiful sight in his life.
"Dig in!"
Chapter 6: Crystal Clear
After filling his plate and getting started on the meatballs, Clark finally managed to get his first sip of tea. It was the strangest, tastiest tea he'd ever had. He tasted black tea leaves and cinnamon and vanilla and honey and walnuts and cranberries and—well, suffice it to say the taste was quite varied. Hatter and Hare beamed at his compliments, piling more food onto his plate than even his mother would have.
His plate, in fact, was still (or again) full by the time he was. Satiated, Clark glanced over to Lex, who was still working on the same small scone and bowl of fruit salad that he'd started with.
"That was great," Clark said sincerely.
Hatter and Hare nodded in agreement. "Yes, wasn't it?"
Chuckling, Clark stretched out slightly and felt the ground under his shoes change from stone to the springy grass he and Lex had slept on the previous night. "Hey, how come there's grass under your table?" he asked, peeking under at the miniature lawn. "Won't it die without sunlight?"
"Well, it won't be there long."
"Yes, that's just for our theme party."
"Theme party?"
"Mm-hm," Hare nodded. "We wanted to throw a barefoot tea party, but the ground here is so hard." He stamped his foot to prove his point.
"Mm, and not at all comfortable for the tootsies."
"No, not at all. So we decided to plant some soft Wondergrass in preparation for the occasion."
"A... barefoot... tea party?"
"Not just any barefoot tea party!" Hatter jumped to his feet, Hare right behind him. "It's Hatter—"
"—and Hare's—"
"—Fabulous Footloose and Fancy-Free Tea Party!"
Then, in a moment Clark realized he should have seen coming long, long before now, music began to fill the air yet again.
But he was in the middle of sipping his tea and Lex didn't seem amenable to saying anything around the fruit in his mouth, so Clark just let them go.
And go they did.
Footloose and fancy-free!
We're footloose and fancy-free!
Come to our special tea
You'll be happy as can be
We're footloose and fancy-free!
We've invited all our friends
(Even the Queen? That depends.)
To join us for some class
Put your feet in the grass.
Don't take it just from me—
Try it, then you'll see,
And you'll be footloose and fancy-free!
Hatter and Hare were actually very good dancers. Clark would have guessed, had he been asked, that they worked these things out far ahead of time and practiced constantly—if the songs didn't keep coming up so spur of the moment about pretty much any subject.
At least this time, Clark and Lex didn't seem to need to participate, so they just sat there finishing their breakfast tea and talking quietly while Hatter and Hare danced and sang themselves silly.
"What do you think we should do?" Lex asked calmly, smiling whenever either of their hosts looked his way.
"I have no idea. You don't think what they said is right, do you? About the mirror?"
"Do you see any other way to get home?"
"Well, no. But I just don't understand what we're expected to do."
So leave your shoes by the door
Don't even worry about the floor
Give your toes some relief
And they won't give you any grief
It's relaxing and soft
Once your shoes, you have doffed
Clark winced at the contrived rhyme.
"Well, I guess we have to solve whatever problem we were having just before we came here."
"So: What? You have to get me to understand the value of antique wood carvings? We're gonna be here a long time, Lex."
Lex cleared his throat quietly. "I'm not sure that's the kind of problem they mean."
And you'll be footloose and fancy-free!
Footloose and fancy-free!
You'll be footlooooooooose
and faaaaaaancyyyyy
Freeeeeeee-eee-eeeeee-eee-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
When they were done and the music had ended, Clark and Lex leaned back from each other and clapped politely while Hatter and Hare found their way back to their seats.
"How do you do that?" Clark asked when they were settled.
"What, dance?"
"Or sing?"
"It's pretty easy. You just—"
"No. No. I mean... whenever you guys want to... break into song and dance, music that fits your song seems to come out of nowhere. How do you do that?"
"Ohhh!" they said in unison. "Crystal!"
They turned and pointed something out to Clark that not only could he not believe he hadn't noticed before, but that he was quite certain hadn't been there before. It was a gigantic screen posted on a gigantic purple pole and encased in a gigantic purple frame. Who could miss that?
The screen clicked on with a pleasant blooping sound and musical notes began travelling across it.
"That plays the music?"
"Oh, Crystal can do all kinds of things," Hatter said vaguely.
"Yeah, she's kind of a super-computer."
"If you want to sing, she'll play the music you're thinking of, if you want to watch television, she'll turn to the channel you want, if you have a question, she can answer it—"
"—in widescreen, surround-sound, high definition video!"
"How true that is."
Hare leaned over the table conspiratorially and spoke to Clark in a low voice. "Wanna try it?"
"Uh... okay. What do I do?"
"Just ask her a question!" Hare said excitedly.
"Any question!"
"Anything at all."
"All right." Clark wiped his palms on his pants, glanced at Lex, and went for it. "Crystal?"
The screen blee-blooped at him.
"How do Lex and I get home?"
Hatter and Hare groaned as if Clark was wasting his question.
Crystal showed the mirror glowing out of the middle of the wood Clark and Lex had been deposited into. He'd been expecting that. But then, to his surprise, representations of himself and Lex—who looked exactly like him and Lex—walked into frame, hugged, and walked through the mirror one after another, holding hands. Then it disappeared. Crystal showed the empty wood for a few seconds before fading to black.
"Well, we already told you that," Hare said in a disgruntled tone.
"That's okay," Clark said with a sigh. "I just wanted to see if she had any other suggestions."
Hatter looked at Hare and they both rolled their eyes.
Chapter 7: The Banality of Daily Life In a Top Hat House
Helping Hatter and Hare put all the uneaten food away was a surprising experience. This was partly because Clark had fully expected them to swipe it all onto the ground, and partly because he and Lex were led into a large, crazy kitchen, through it, and into a walk-in refrigerator and freezer combination that went on and on and... The top hat house seemed considerably bigger inside than out.
"We really appreciate your hospitality," Clark said.
"Yes, you've been more than generous."
Hatter and Hare waved them off, looking embarrassed. "Everyone helps everyone in Wonderland."
"Yeah. That's kind of the basis of our society."
Hatter's face soured moderately. "Except for the Queen, of course."
"Hm. Yeah."
Hare closed the extremely large, extremely heavy door behind them all when they'd gotten the last of the food into the fridge. Clark and Lex watched with quirked eyebrows as he fastened all six of the locks. Incidentally, there was no lock on either of the front doors.
"The Queen?" Lex asked. "You're under a matriarchal government?"
Hatter and Hare laughed. "No!"
"Of course not!"
"How silly."
"We're just subject to an ever-changing set of rules and regulations set down by The Red Queen whose domain is all of the city of Wonderland and to whom we are all loyal."
"How true that is."
Clark glanced over at Lex, who was biting the inside of his cheek. It was all he could do not to laugh at the desire obvious in Lex's posture to inform Hare that he'd just defined matriarchy. But he showed admirable self-restraint and said only, "I see."
"You know," Clark said, still only barely controlling his laughter at the expression on Lex's face, "I'm surprised to hear that you have rules here. Everything seems pretty... um... casual."
"Well, of course we have rules," Hare said.
"How could we get along without them?"
"Yeah—for instance, there's the rule that you aren't allowed to play croquet on anything but grass."
"And the rule that you have to stay out of the quicksand patch."
"And the rule that there's no swimming allowed at the water hole unless it's at least twenty degrees Fahrenheit outside."
"And the rule that Brussels sprouts—"
"—which the Queen hates—"
"—aren't allowed within the boundaries of Wonderland at any time."
"Not to mention the no catsup in the ice cream rule."
"Oh, that's a good one, Hare."
"Thank you."
Clark massaged the back of his neck as he'd been watching the exchange much like one watches a tennis match. "Those all sound like... very sensible rules."
"Shh!"
Hatter and Hare gathered close to him and he struggled not to back away from their strange faces, though he was getting a little more used to them by now.
"Don't let the Queen hear you say that!" Hatter whispered.
"She prides herself on all her rules being as unsensible as possible."
Clark found himself looking into Hare's earnest big brown eyes, and then the little man twitched his rat nose in a comically concerned fashion. For the first time, Clark thought that maybe he wasn't all that ugly after all. He kind of looked like a man-sized stuffed animal. And he had freckles.
Clark bit his lip to keep from laughing.
"Ow!" He tounged at his abused lower lip as Lex glanced over at him sharply. "Uh... I meant unsensible, actually," he said, rubbing a finger gently over the bruise. "I misspoke."
"Well, it's no wonder with all that swelling."
Hare shot him a sympathetic look. "You really should quit using your face to stop."
Hatter and Hare backed up a step and held their hands out as if to stop Clark from coming any closer. "Try that," they said.
Clark's lips twisted wryly, and Lex was clearing his throat to cover what sounded suspiciously like a snort. "Thanks."
"Oh! I have a great idea, Hare!"
"What's that, Hatter?"
Hatter blinked with incomprehension at his friend. "Well, it's when you think of something that you hadn't been thinking of before, and it seems to you like a good thought to be thinking."
Hare's nose twitched. "I meant... what was the good idea that you had."
"Oh. Oh! Well, just this: They should come to the Queen's garden party with us!"
"Oh! That's good—that's good!"
They looked at Clark and Lex expectantly.
Clark felt his jaw go slack. "Wait... you mean you actually know the Queen?"
"The Queen of Hearts? Of course!"
"Would you let someone set the rules and regulations you had to live by if you didn't know the person?" Hare asked incredulously, and Hatter laughed along with him.
Clark exchanged a look with Lex. It was maybe a little scary that these two individuals had a tighter grasp on political involvement than pretty much anyone back in Smallville and probably America. Not to mention that ‘Queen of Hearts’ sounded to Clark vaguely like an early ’90s Madonna song.
"Well, I guess that's a good point, but... I mean, you actually talk to her? She even invites you to her parties? I mean, the Queen? Of, like, this place?"
Hare leaned closer to Hatter. "Are we mumbling?"
"I don't think so."
They grinned at Clark.
Lex laughed softly. "I think what Clark means to say is that where we're from, it's not at all common to know your monarch personally."
"Well, that seems kind of strange," Hatter mused.
"How do you manage to avoid meeting her at garden parties?"
Clark and Lex sighed in unison.
"Never mind," Lex said. Then, "We'd be honoured to attend the garden party and meet your Queen."
"Lex!" Clark hissed in disbelief.
Lex looked over at him blandly. "Clark, it's not as if we've got a busy schedule, here."
Clark sighed sharply at Lex's irritating logic. What the hell did he know about mixing with royalty? Lex had probably met half a dozen kings and queens in his time, but the closest Clark had ever gotten to that was standing in a line with twenty other kids and shaking the sweaty hand of a senator for being on the honour roll all year. "Fine," he muttered. "But we can't go like this!"
Everyone looked down at Clark and Lex's wrinkled, dusty, grass-stained clothes, then back up at one another.
"We'll wash them!" Hare exclaimed.
Before Clark or Lex could think to say another thing more, they were being rushed out of the kitchen and up the seven crooked bathroom stairs. They were being hurried along backwards so quickly that they didn't have a chance to even look where they were going, and Lex tripped on the first too high, too crooked block of bathroom floor.
Clark, used to his speed and strength, hurried to catch him, lost his balance, and fell on his butt on a different block of floor, Lex's shoulders in his lap. Neither Hatter nor Hare seemed to find this unusual.
"Just throw the clothes down the chute!" Hare said, pointing out a diamond-shaped door on the far wall.
"Towels and scrubbers in the cupboard," Hatter pointed out the door Clark's shoulder was pressed against.
"Toothbrushes in the make-up locker."
Clark looked over his head where Hare was pointing: At a big, yellow first-aid-kit-like box on the wall that said ‘MAKE-UP!’ in crooked red letters. Yeah, he'd never thought to look there.
"Toothpaste in the faucet."
Clark nodded. Lex looked confused.
"See you later!"
Hatter and Hare made for the door, but Clark hurried to his feet, pulling Lex with him. "Uh, wait. I'll go with you guys. Lex can have the shower first."
They turned to give him an utterly perplexed look, looked at one another, then back at him. "Sorry?" they said.
"I..." he glanced at Lex, but Lex was too busy looking at the insanity of Hatter and Hare's bathroom to be of any help. "I just mean that I'll shower... last."
Again, Hatter and Hare exchanged looks. "Doesn't that waste water?"
"Uh..."
"Water is our most precious natural resource."
"It's good to drink, it's good to make tea with, it's good for laundry washing—"
"—so you shouldn't waste it."
"No!" Clark exclaimed, feeling a song coming on. "No, we won't waste any." He shook his head seriously. "We'll take very short showers."
Lex's attention had finally been acquired when he'd apparently realized Hatter and Hare were suggesting it was better he and Clark shower together. He gestured vaguely at his head. "Very short: I don't even have any hair to wash."
Clark looked quickly down and covered his face with a strategically placed hand over his brow. He turned slightly to look at Lex, letting him see that he was all but guffawing.
Lex grinned lopsidedly back at him.
"Oh."
"Well."
Hatter and Hare looked at one another, obviously unsure. "All right," they said cautiously. They went down the stairs and left the door open behind them so Clark could follow.
Clark turned to Lex before he left. "They were serious about the faucet. The third from the left has toothpaste in it."
Lex's eyebrows climbed his forehead as he got an eyeful of all sixteen of the options. "Jesus."
"Yeah. And be careful when you get out, ’cause this floor is..."
"Insane?"
Clark laughed. "A bit."
Lex smiled back and, to Clark's surprise, started pulling his soft grey long-sleeved shirt over his head. Clark turned to leave, but was stopped by a word from Lex.
"Wait. Take these with you," he said, folding his shirt and placing it in Clark's hands. "I'm vaguely terrified to drop my only available clothes down that chute."
Clark averted his eyes as Lex opened his belt. "Don't worry," he said steadily. "I'll see if they'll let me do the washing myself. I have this odd feeling they use tea or something."
Lex chuckled. "There," he said, placing his folded slacks on top of the shirt. "I'll do my own underthings, thanks."
"Sure." Knowing his face was red, Clark did an admirable job of not looking—not even a peek—as he turned his back and headed out of the bathroom to leave Lex at the mercy of Hatter and Hare's equally mad interior designers.
Their hosts were not a quiet pair, and Clark was able to find them easily once he'd entered the main room again. They were deeper into the house—and how deep did this house go?—in a back room that he figured must have been the laundry room.
He was surprised to see them filling a large tin tub with water. Resting inside it were several old time washboards and at one side was a hand crank ringer for squeezing the water out of newly cleaned clothes. Somehow he'd expected something automatic with at least two dozen gadgets to operate and thirty-plus odd wash cycles to choose from, possibly including orange, grapefruit, and cranberry juice washes.
Hatter noticed him first. "Well, that's not going to do."
"We can't wash your clothes while you're still wearing them."
"Couldn't you find the towels?"
"Uh..." Clark looked down at himself.
"It's more efficient to wash all the clothes at once, you know," Hatter said.
"Remember that water conservation we were talking about?"
"I remember!" Clark said hurriedly. "Uh—uh—I'll go get a towel right now. I'll be right back." Lex's clothes still in his hand, and all-too-real threat of a song behind him, Clark fled back to the bathroom. He let out a sigh of relief when no music followed. A guy had to really keep on his toes around here if he wasn't a Broadway musical fan.
He tapped tentatively on the bathroom door. "Lex?"
"Yeah."
"Lex, can I come in?"
There was a pause. Then, dryly, "Come on in, Clark."
Clark climbed the crooked stairs to find Lex still dry, standing with a lavender towel around his waist in the middle of one of the larger blocks of floor near the pulled back shower curtain. Clark tried not to notice that the lavender towel was embroidered with dozens of yellow rubber duckies. He theorized that it was probably the most dignified one Lex had been able to find.
"You all right?"
Lex said nothing, but he gestured at the inside of the shower where he was gazing with a rather chagrined look on his face.
The shower was set up oddly—of course—which the shower curtain had covered. The curtain had gone from what Clark had assumed was shower wall to shower wall, but in fact, what looked like walls were just partitions. The shower continued past where the rest of the bathroom ended, in both directions. It was nearly ten feet long in total, with the last three feet or so of each end being pretty much enclosed by the partitions.
He had to step near to Lex and lean slightly to the side to be able to see what Lex was staring at on the far wall.
"Oh... my god!"
Now Clark knew where all the missing washing machine dials had ended up. The entire wall—all of it—was covered with knobs and levers and nozzles.
At first, Clark was relieved to find that they weren't labelled with things like ‘tea’ and ‘marshmallow cream’, but instead were labelled with temperatures and forces of water. But then he realized that having that many nozzles—there literally must have been a hundred—of temperatures and forces of water made for a very difficult decision-making process.
There was no Hot or Cold this time, but there was Pleasantly Warm, Tepid, and Icy. There was also Spring Shower, Bucket On the Door, Thunderstorm, and Mist. Chilly, Sheet Rain, Hail, and Ice Chips were on one edge while Scalding, Steam, Slightly Hotter Than Pleasantly Warm, and Humid graced the other.
There did actually seem to be a rhyme and reason to the way the choices were arranged, but Clark couldn't quite put his finger on it.
He could hear Lex drumming his fingers on the wall behind him. "It's the same on the other end," he said.
Clark's head swiveled that way. The options were just as many and as varied, but they weren't at all in the same order, and though he saw both Morning Dew and Fog on that side, he couldn't seem to find either on the first side, so he was sure not all the choices were the same.
"Well," Clark mumbled without thinking, "at least now it makes sense why they wanted us to shower together."
He glanced at Lex and found him wearing a quirked eyebrow.
"I'm not saying we should! I just mean it makes..." He sighed. "Never mind."
Lex shook his head as if it didn't matter. "I'll be standing here all day. Help me choose something, will you?"
Clark eyed the choices for a minute longer, then rolled up his sleeve, reached in and turned on Slightly Hotter Than Pleasantly Warm and Thunderstorm.
They jumped and gasped when rolls of thunder and flashes of lightning seemed to fill the bathroom.
Clark hurriedly reached in and shut off Thunderstorm.
"Um... right." Cautiously, he tried Drenching instead.
To his considerable relief, a normal shower began pouring from the ceiling on that side of the enclosure. Lex reached in with an open hand and nodded at the temperature. "Perfect. Thanks. Now get your towel and get out of here before I get sung to about wasting water."
Smiling sheepishly, Clark reached into the cupboard and pulled out whatever was on top. "I'll turn my back and you get in, okay? I have to take my clothes off so I can wash them."
"All right."
He listened to Lex's towel being slid onto the towel rack, staring down at his own towel—bright yellow with three different colours of carrots embroidered into it (must have been Hare's)—until the shower curtain was pulled closed.
Then he quickly got out of his clothes and tied the towel around his waist, in a hurry to get out of the room as it was fast filling with steam.
He was surprised to get back to the laundry room and find that Hatter and Hare had made themselves scarce. But then again, they did seem to have pretty short attention spans, so he figured the wait had given them ideas of other things to do.
Clark was rather glad to have the laundry room to himself anyway, being that he was wearing nothing but a childish towel and carrying his own dirty underwear and socks.
He crossed to the tin tub and tossed in his own stuff, stopping to check the labels of Lex's clothes to make sure they weren't ‘dry clean only’ (and if they had been, he had no idea what he was going to do), which they weren't. He started with scrubbing his own shorts, then moved on to shirts, Lex's slacks, then his jeans, and finished off with his socks, which he let soak for a while as he rinsed the soap out of the rest of the clothes using the other, smaller tin tub behind the washing tub.
Soon everything was clean and run through the hand crank ringer and Clark found himself wondering if all of this stuff was going to have to hang-dry, which meant he and Lex were going to be wearing multi-coloured carrots and yellow rubber duckies for quite a while.
He had just been about to go try to find Hatter or Hare when he noticed a large metal box, which looked more like a microwave than anything else. It sat alone on a wooden shelf and he might have disregarded it altogether except that he noticed that rather than having buttons that said things like ‘potato’ and ‘defrost’, they said things like Fluff, Furnace Heat, and Kid Glove Treatment.
Clark grinned, feeling rather proud of himself as he crossed to the micro-dryer.
"Let's see," he mumbled, checking over the buttons. He found the Door Open button rather easily, and decided to start with his own underwear, since he knew he could do without them if he managed to screw this up really badly. After placing the shorts inside, he took a minute to think about it and pressed Kid Glove Treatment.
A light came on inside and he watched in astonishment through the clear door as a mechanical hand came out of the side of the micro-dryer and stuck Clark's boxer shorts on its fingers. Then it began to wave madly while another mechanical hand pointed a small hair dryer at it.
Clark pressed Stop.
The hands retracted and the light switched off.
"They both wear gloves," he muttered to himself. "Should have realized..."
Holding his breath and wincing, he chanced pressing Fluff.
The same two mechanical hands came out. Each hand took one corner of the band of his boxers, and they began to fluff repeatedly, their mechanical wrists moving with a roll-snap, roll-snap motion. A sound like a vacuum cleaner started, and Clark watched as an occasional piece of lint got dislodged and was spat out the side of the micro-dryer into a waiting bin on the floor.
He stood up straight, smiling with accomplishment.
Wonderland really wasn't all that complicated once you got used to it.
Chapter 8: Rabbits, Rappers, and Royalty
After Lex got out of the shower, Clark showed him how to Fluff his briefs and Swing Dry his socks, then took his own shower using the Hot as Hatter Can Handle and Downpour settings. Turned out that he and Hatter's shower temperature tastes were rather similar. Who knew?
They were clean and dressed and looked and felt considerably better than they had when they'd met Hatter and Hare.
After more tea, dish washing (which consisted of throwing a lot of breakable dishes into a large stone fountain and swishing around whatever held up to the violence), and watching a very quirky musical show (of course) on a station called Hat TV using Crystal, Hatter and Hare said it was time to get going to the Queen's garden party and the four of them started down the stone path.
The walk was pleasant and mild, the path being much easier to traverse when one could see it. Hatter and Hare were deep in conversation about some kind of combination ice cream and pizza machine they were apparently in the midst of building, so Lex and Clark fell back a little to engage in their own dialogue.
"What am I supposed to do when I meet her?"
Lex shrugged fluidly, looking eminently comfortable in his clean clothes. "Just be deferential."
"How do I do that?"
"You've seen me around your father?"
"Yeah..."
"Do that."
Clark thought about it silently for a minute or two, envisioning Lex's usually slightly bowed or tilted head, his soft words, the unthreatening roll of his shoulders, and the way he seemed to make himself slightly shorter in Clark's dad's presence. It was not unlike how Clark himself acted when he knew his dad was mad at him. He could do that.
"Why do you think they call her the Queen of Hearts?" Clark eventually asked.
"Hopefully because she's kind and equitable."
"Kind and equitable enough to try to help us get home, do you think?"
Lex was silent for a few seconds, then sighed. Clark looked over at him. "Clark, they've already told us how to get home. We've got to deal with whatever problems we were having when we came through the mirror."
Clark's shoulders slumped and he looked down to watch his feet drag. "We're not twelve year olds with assignments due, Lex," he said quietly. "Our problems are complicated."
"Well, then I hope there's a Wonderland Hotel that takes Visa, Clark, because we're going to be stuck here a while."
Clark kept his mouth shut, feeling petulant. He didn't look up again until they'd walked quite a ways farther and Lex said, "These roses are gorgeous."
He glanced up to see where Lex was looking, then followed his line of sight and was presented with so many bright red rose bushes, it actually made him gasp. They were all blooming and perfect and covered every square inch of land to the right of the path. He was so distracted by them, in fact, that he almost ran into Hare when he and Hatter stopped just in front of them.
He stumbled to a stop and snapped his head forward at the sound of roller skates—
"AGH!"
Lex made a quiet noise that almost sounded like ‘stop’ and grabbed Clark's arm as if to steady him.
Hatter, Hare, and a man-sized white rabbit wearing a black and grey waistcoat and elbows pads and standing unsteadily on black in-line roller skates were all staring at him.
"S-Sorry," he stammered. "S-Sorry, I... uh..."
"He's under stress," Hare explained sympathetically to the huge rabbit.
"Oh," it said primly, eyeing Clark with concern. "Well, er..." he looked back to Hatter and Hare. "Let me introduce you." The rabbit wheeled off toward the party.
He was English. Somehow, this made Clark more comfortable with the fact that a giant skating rabbit wearing a bowtie was going to be introducing them to the guests at the Queen's garden party. At least the guy was English. But still...
"Presenting," he said with a flourish around the Rs, "The Mad Hatter and The March Hare!"
Hatter and Hare walked into the fray arm in arm, and were politely applauded by the guests inside. From where Clark stood, he caught a glimpse of a flowing red satin dress.
"It's a huge rabbit, Lex," he said quietly while Hatter and Hare made their entrance. "And it's skating."
"Steady..."
But Clark wasn't feeling at all steady, especially not when the huge rabbit started skating toward him. He, in fact, took two very unsteady steps backwards. The rabbit stopped, looked at him curiously, and skated toward him again. Clark took two more steps backwards. The rabbit stopped, put its furry fists on its hips, and scowled.
Lex put a hand on the small of Clark's back and nudged. Clark leaned backwards. Lex pushed.
Stumbling rather embarrassingly forward, Clark only barely managed to not smack into the giant rabbit on roller skates.
"Your name, lad?" the rabbit asked regally.
Clark squeaked. But at least it started with a C.
"Eh?" The rabbit looked at Lex. Lex nudged Clark's back.
"Clark."
The rabbit leaned closer. Clark bent back at an uncomfortable angle. "Clark, is it?"
"Clark... Kent."
The rabbit cleared his throat rather importantly and turned back to the party. "Clark... Kent!" he announced. Everyone began applauding.
Clark took two more steps backwards.
"Clark," Lex whispered, and gave him a good shove.
He took only enough steps to get past the huge rabbit and into the main area, then sidled off to the side to wait for Lex's entrance. They must have been early, because there was hardly anyone there.
The area he was standing in looked like a mixture of a throne room and a courtyard all rolled into one open-air room, which seemed a bit odd to Clark. But since it wasn't any odder than any of the other odd things he'd seen in Wonderland thus far, and since he didn't actually have any idea what would constitute odd for the Queen of such an odd place as Wonderland, he gave it very little thought.
"Lex... Luthor!" the rabbit announced, and everyone applauded politely.
As soon as he was past the threshold and had thanked the rabbit, Clark glued himself to Lex's side.
"Small party," Lex said quietly.
"Yeah."
Lex nudged his arm and tilted his head toward two young men dressed like hip-hoppers from the 1990s standing together near the buffet table. "They look human."
"Yeah, from the back," Clark muttered.
"Hatter? Hare?" called a rotund woman who was wearing the red dress Clark had glimpsed earlier. "Aren't you going to introduce us to your new friends?"
Hatter and Hare turned from the food they were admiring and came walking over, grinning. "Of course, Your Majesty!"
Clark's breath caught in his throat. Her? She was the Queen of Hearts? Oh, god, he'd been looking right at her! He wasn't supposed to do that, right? He hurriedly snapped his head down to stare at the ground in front of his feet.
"Clark, Lex," Hatter said, "this is The Red Queen. Your Majesty, Lex and Clark."
There was silence and Clark did his best to smile at the ground, but he was sure he was grimacing. He also couldn't have taken his hands out of his pockets to save his life.
Thank goodness Lex was there. Without even a thought, it seemed, he walked forward from Clark's side, bowed deeply, and took the Queen's hand in his own.
"Your Majesty," he said, using that same soft tone Clark had imagined, and he kissed the ring on the Queen's hand.
She squealed with delight at this and laughed rather heartily. "Welcome to Wonderland," she said, and curtsied for him.
Lex stepped back to Clark's side and placed a hand at the small of his back. Clark hurried forward before he could be pushed.
"Uh..." he bowed as well as he could with his hands in his pockets. "Nice to meet you, Your Majesty."
"It's nice to meet you, too, Clark," she said cheerily and offered her hand.
Clark kissed the ring awkwardly and backed away.
"Well!" she said, clapping her hands together with undisguised glee. "You must tell us all about how you came to be at my garden party." But before either of them could open their mouths, she cried out, "Rabbiiiit!"
The huge rabbit on roller skates fell on his tail in startlement, tossing some hors d'oeuvres and the tray they'd been on high into the air. They landed in the rose bushes.
"Bring our guests some punch!"
"Uh, er—y-yes, Your Majesty." He nodded and hurriedly wheeled off to do her bidding.
So the name of the huge rabbit on roller skates was Rabbit. Why hadn't Clark seen that one coming?
"Your Grace," Lex said softly, tilting his head in that deferential way, "I'm afraid we haven't much of a story to tell to amuse Your Majesty."
The Queen laughed and sipped her punch. "Oh, do try, Mr. Luthor, do try."
"As you wish, Your Majesty."
Though Clark still felt utterly terrified to be in the presence of both a Queen and a gigantic rabbit on roller skates, he did manage to notice that she seemed a little unspoiled for a Queen. That is to say, she appeared to be flattered and rather tickled pink by the way Lex was treating her like... well, like royalty—as if she wasn't used to it. He also noticed that everyone else was looking at and talking to the Queen less like she was their ruler and more like she was their friend. But, then, ‘everyone’ consisted of Clark, Lex, Hatter, Hare, and the two hip-hoppers. It might have been that the only people invited to this party other than the two outsiders were her closest friends.
"You see, Your Grace, it all started with an antique mirror purchased at auction."
Hare leaned in to mutter into the Queen's ear. "Alice's mirror."
She gasped theatrically. "You don't say! Alice's mirror! Why, how extraordinary!"
"Yes, Your Eminence."
She tittered and waved for him to go on.
"I'm afraid we fell through the mirror quite on accident, having no knowledge of your great and beautiful land, Your Majesty."
"And now that you've seen it?"
"It is... beyond description, Your Highness." Those words could have sounded like a thinly veiled insult, but the way Lex said them, with a slight bow, and a small smile, made them sound absolutely fawning.
Thank god Lex was here. Clark would have been so lost right now.
The Queen made a delighted sound and gestured he should go on.
"When we arrived in Wonderland, Your Majesty, it was quite dark and we stumbled around quite a lot. Your Highness can see that my friend took rather a nasty fall."
Everyone stared at Clark's bruised face, and he felt it go pink.
"Then we found our way to the Hatter and Hare's property and... well, slept under their tea table, I'm afraid, Your Majesty."
There was a pause, and the corner of Lex's mouth twitched as his eyes practically sparkled at the Queen with humour, and then she laughed uproariously.
"The tea table?" she exclaimed. "How wonderful! And then Hatter and Hare found you in the morning?"
"Your Majesty is wise."
They went on like this for quite a while, the Queen encouraging Lex to tell her about the auction and Smallville and Kansas in general, and Lex doing all the high-quality ground-scraping he could, which only spurred her interest in his conversation all the more.
But as they talked, a din grew from near the buffet table, where the two hip-hoppers were talking, and then arguing, and then yelling.
Eventually, Lex's most recent story was cut short as the Queen shouted over to them, "Dum! Dee! What are you carrying on about?"
"Uh... nothing, Your Majesty."
"We're just talking."
"Well, talk quieter! You're ruining Mr. Luthor's stories!"
They mumbled apologies and turned away again, though Clark wished they would come over and join their group. When they'd turned around, he'd gotten to see that they were human from the front, too. The Queen looked perfectly normal, but he had no hope of being able to talk to her without stammering. So the two hip-hoppers, though Clark knew slightly less than nothing about hip-hop, were his most likely choices for normal human conversation. But he was afraid to walk away from Lex and end up in yet another situation he wasn't prepared for, so he stayed put.
"Now," she said regally, "what were you saying, Mr. Luthor?"
"I am sorry, Your Eminence, but I had reached the end of my story."
"Oh, that's a shame," she pouted momentarily, then brightened again. "But what a lovely story it was! Metropolis sounds like a city fit for a Queen!"
"Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but Metropolis's city streets can't hold a candle to the beauty of this wondrous land Your Majesty rules with such a delicate hand."
Clark rolled his eyes. Deference was one thing, but this was getting kind of sickening. Clark decided he was going to avoid meeting any more royalty in the near future. He could never bring himself to talk like that for any length of time.
He happened to glance over at Hatter and Hare, who were looking at Lex with an expression of mild confusion. "Uh... right," Hare said.
"Your Majesty," Hatter said, stepping slightly in between the Queen and Lex, "isn't the Walrus coming to your garden party?"
The Walrus?
"Oh. No, I'm afraid not, Hatter. It seems that Pinniped has come down with a cold and Walrus has decided to stay home and keep him company."
"Aw, that's such a shame!" Hare said. "Hadn't we better take him some chicken gumball stew, Hatter?"
"Righty-roo, Hare. We'll have to whip up a batch and send it over."
He had barely gotten the sentence out and Clark hadn't finished shaking his head over the concept of chicken and gumballs when Dee and Dum's conversation had gotten too loud to talk over again and the Queen went stalking their way.
"What is the meaning of this?" she shrieked. "Your arguing is ruining my garden party!"
Clark swallowed and took a step back. There was the intimidation he'd been expecting.
"Sorry, Your Majesty," Dum muttered. Then he pointed a finger in the other, taller man's face and raised his voice again. "But Dee lost my favourite deck of playing cards, and he won't admit it!"
"I did not! I gave them back to you when I was done with them! You lost them yourself!"
"You're lying! Don't you see, Your Majesty? He's trying to make excuses so he doesn't have to admit what he did!"
They got to arguing all over again and the Queen practically had to pull them apart. "What's the matter with the two of you? Is a silly pack of playing cards really worth all this fighting?"
"You don't understand," Dum whined. "If I can't trust my own brother to tell me the truth, who can I trust?"
"What if he is telling the truth?"
"He can't be. There's no way I can be wrong."
With that, Dum crossed his arms, turned his back, and looked as if he never wanted to speak to his brother again. Dee almost looked as though he was going to plead, but then he imitated his smaller brother and turned his back on him as well.
Clark glanced over his shoulder at Hatter and Hare, who were shaking their heads at the scene. Rabbit was rolling by, but he stopped what he was doing and came over to stand beside Hare and watch as well.
"I don't believe this," the Queen said, putting her fists on her hips. "Don't you know that when two people are as important to one another as you two brothers are, you should make an effort to work these things out?" She walked toward them and put a hand on each man's shoulder. "Don't you know that a close relationship like yours is a gift that's hard to come by?"
"How true that is," Hatter said quietly, Hare nodding beside him.
Rabbit actually sniffed.
Clark shot Lex an amused look, but Lex was already looking over at him and not at all with amusement. Clark felt his brow tighten in confusion, then turned his attention back to the Queen and the brothers where, predictably, a song was starting.
The Queen danced backwards, taking Dee and Dum's hands in her own and pulling them, sans enthusiasm, along with her. Clark was somehow not all that surprised to see Hatter, Hare, and Rabbit hurrying by him and Lex to join in the dance.
"God," he whispered. "They all do it."
Lex laughed quietly. "Was there ever any doubt?"
Trust in your broth-a!
Trust in your friends!
They'll be there for you
If you're there for them.
Everyone has disagreements.
It's no reason to fret.
If you try to work it o-out,
You'll get along, I bet
The Queen had quite a set of pipes.
"What did he say he lost?" Clark asked as the four made complicated movements around Dee and Dum's still nonparticipating forms.
"Deck of cards, I think."
"Can't they just buy a new deck?"
"Maybe the one who says he didn't lose it doesn't think he should have to."
"Huh."
So listen to me, Tweedles.
Listen to me now.
If you want to end this fi-ight
Look, I'll show you how!
Just take his hand in yours
And shake it up and down.
Tell him that you're sorry
And then you'll lose that frown.
You gotta
Trust in your broth-a!
Trust in your friends!
Dee and Dum were starting to get into the music now and the dancing became even more complicated than it had been. Despite this, it all continued to flow together as if someone had spent days choreographing it.
"If these guys ever came over to our side, they could be famous on Broadway."
Lex snorted softly. "If these guys ever came over to our side, they'd be in Belle Reve before they could blink, Clark."
"That's... a really good point."
Finally the Tweedles had taken the song to heart, and they took over the main singing from the Queen.
I'm gonna
Trust in my broth-a!
Trust in my friends!
They'll be there for me
If I'm there for them!
Sorry if I lost your cards,
I didn't mean to.
That's all right, Dee.
I might have lost them, too!
Clark dropped his face into his hand, shaking his head. Lex laughed quietly next to him.
"It's simplistic, I'll give you that. But at least they seem sincere."
"Doesn't everyone seem sincere when they're singing and dancing in a musical?"
I trust in you, broth-a!
I trust in you, too!
I know you'll be there for me
And I'll be there for you!
You gotta
Trust in your broth-a!
Trust in your friends!
They'll be there for you
If you're there for them!
That's right, just
Trust in your broth-a!
Trust in your broth-a!
Trust in your broth-a!
And truuuust
In
Your
Frieeeends!
They ended the song in a group, Dee and Dum each on one knee and gripping one another's forearms, the Queen standing behind them with her arms raised in a flourish, and the rest of the participants scattered around them like a crazy, happy frame and using their jazz hands.
Clark and Lex put their punch down and applauded.
The crowd broke up, everyone going off to their own thing, the Queen coming back toward Lex, the Rabbit heading off for more hors d'oeuvres, and Hatter and Hare going to check out the buffet. Only Dee and Dum stayed in the main area, talking.
"I'm sorry I didn't believe you when you said you didn't lose my cards. I'm sure if you knew you had, you would have told me."
"That's all right, Dum. After all, maybe I lost them and I just don't remember it."
They shook hands once, firmly, and started toward Lex, Clark, and the Queen.
"Sorry we didn't introduce ourselves," Dee said.
"We were having a stupid argument."
"Uh... that's all right," Clark said politely.
"I'm Tweedledum."
"And I'm Tweedledee."
"Together," they turned and pressed their shoulder blades together, striking a predictable hip-hopper pose, "we're the Tweedles."
Clark very nearly asked him that if they were the Tweedles, shouldn't they be Dee Tweedle and Dum Tweedle rather than the other way around, but then he remembered he was talking to Wonderlandians and decided to keep any and all sensible comments to himself.
"I'm Clark," he said, shaking hands as they were offered. "This is my friend Lex."
As soon as they'd all met, the Queen was dragging Lex off to talk with him undisturbed, leaving Clark with the Tweedles. He would have felt more comfortable with Lex there, but they didn't go very far, and he felt better talking with Dee and Dum than he had talking to anyone else. In fact, compared to everyone else they'd met, Dee and Dum were downright normal.
After a few minutes of getting to know one another, Dee and Dum and Clark started exchanging Smallville stories and Wonderland stories, and Clark was pretty proud of the fact that his weird hometown with all its super-powered inhabitants actually put him on an even keel with Dee and Dum's descriptions of life in nonsensical Wonderland.
He was really starting to get the hang of this place.
Chapter 9: How to Evade Even a Naïve Allegory: A Lesson
After lunch and a terrifying game of badminton—which the Queen won without even the slightest hint of real competition—Hatter and Hare began to lead Clark and Lex back toward the top hat house, saying they wanted to take them a different way and introduce them to another Wonderlandian.
Lex was explaining to Clark some of the things he'd learned in his long discourse with the Queen of Hearts, such as that Wonderland really was a complete matriarchal society, run solely by the one monarch, the Queen, and that no one challenged her authority. Clark was even listening a little bit.
"Whatever she says actually goes. There's no Prime Minister—no Ministers at all, not even any Royal Advisors as far as I can tell. Although, I think that rabbit might have some influence on her. Can you imagine? Someone with that kind of absolute power, and this place is still as clean and pure as it is. And people say totalitarianism is a bad thing."
Clark stepped over a gigantic leaf. "Bit of a jump there from simple monarchy to totalitarianism, isn't it, Lex?"
Lex was silent as they tramped through the odd, oversized forest, and Clark eventually looked over at him. Lex was staring at him in surprise.
"What?"
"You were listening."
Clark snorted.
"Hhhhhellooooo."
"Hello, Caterpillar!"
Clark peeked around Hatter to see who he was talking to, but was only presented with a pair of hands sticking through some greenery. Then he noticed a second pair of hands a bit higher.
Then he noticed the greenery was breathing.
He followed it up... up... up—
"AGH!" Clark fell on his butt in the dirt.
But this time, this one time, his pride took slightly less of a bruising than his coccyx.
Because Lex also said, "AGH!" and fell on his butt in the dirt.
Hare and Hatter turned around and looked down at Lex curiously. "Are you under stress, too?"
"Arrre theyyy allll rrrrright?" the giant worm asked, rolling and elongating every letter he possibly could.
"Oh, don't worry," Hatter said over his shoulder as he helped Hare get Clark and Lex to their feet. "That's just how they say hello."
"Hm. Strrrange wayyy to sayyy hhhhelloooo."
"Yeah. Well," Hatter strained, pulling Clark up as Clark tried to back away—far, far away. "They're not from around here."
"Clark, Lex," Hare said when they were finally persuaded not to run in the other direction. "This is Caterpillar."
"Of course it is," Lex mumbled.
Carefully, cautiously, slowly, Clark and Lex followed Hatter and Hare out into the clearing to meet... a gigantic caterpillar that wore white gloves on all six of its hands.
Clark had thought Rabbit was big. He even recalled referring to him mentally as ‘the giant rabbit.’ But Rabbit had nothing on this guy. This guy was about ten feet tall and five feet around.
"It'sss nicccce to meeet yoooou, Clllaaaaarrrrk." Three of the six gloved hands extended toward him.
Clark was still standing several feet away. Lex nudged his lower back. Clark elbowed him in the ribs. Lex groaned and moved slightly away from him.
Caterpillar's constantly rolling eyes rolled to Lex, then back to Clark, then he made a funny face that might have been a smile.
Going as slowly as his feet could take him, Clark inched closer and closer to the massive insect until he could lean way, way over and take the middle hand in his own, shaking it quickly, then pulling back. He fell on a squishy seat that he only belatedly realized was a gigantic mushroom as Lex shifted forward and took the same hand.
"Llllllexxxxx."
"Good day, sir," he said, and moved back as quickly as was polite. He plopped down onto the mushroom next to Clark.
Hatter and Hare watched this entire exchange with something like fondness. Clark realized with a bit of a self-conscious start that he and Lex were beginning to become somewhat of a pet project for them.
"Clark and Lex came through Alice's mirror, Caterpillar."
"You don't saaayyyy. Do you knooow Alice?"
Clark and Lex shook their heads mutely.
"Then hhhhow did you come by her mirrorrrr?"
"Her family must have sold it," Lex said, much more steadily than Clark had expected. "I bought it at auction."
"Hmmm. We hhhhaven't ssseen Alice in a loooong timmmme."
"How true that is. Well, you know how Alice's mirror worked, Caterpillar."
"Oh, yesss."
"That's right," Hare said. "These two have got to work out their problems before they can get back home."
Clark shot Hare a suspicious look at the way he emphasized the word ‘problems’ as if there was some hidden meaning in it.
"Oh, rrrrrrreallyyyy? And just what aaarrre your prrrroblems?" he asked.
Lex looked at Clark. Clark looked at Lex, then away. He crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "We can't imagine," he muttered.
He heard Lex sigh quietly beside him.
There was silence for a few seconds, and when Clark happened to look up, he saw Hare whispering something as close to Caterpillar's ear as he could get, which wasn't very far since he was only about five foot nine and Caterpillar was nearly twice that and wasn't all that bendy.
When he was done, he and Hatter hurried over to a mushroom not far from Clark and Lex's, and sat down with barely contained excitement.
"You know," Caterpillar said to Clark and Lex, "I think perhaps you'd better listen to this storrryyy."
Clark watched with interest as a book he hadn't noticed before was picked up by the lowermost hands, and passed up from one gloved pair to the next until the uppermost pair had hold of it and opened up the pages.
Caterpillar then launched into a simple children's story, rolling his Rs whenever possible, and otherwise speaking as if he was talking to a first grade class at story time. Despite this, it was all rather interesting.
"Once there was a dog named Sharon," he started. "Sharon was a very run-of-the-mill, ordinary dog except for one thing: Sharon wasn't really a dog. She was a monkey! When Sharon was a baby, she had been found by a family of dogs and they raised her to be a dog just like them. She learned how to run like a dog, how to bark like a dog, and how to wag her tail like a dog. Sharon the monkey was so good at pretending to be a dog that no one ever suspected she was really a monkey.
"Sharon had a dog friend named Paul. Sharon and Paul were the best of dog friends. They played fetch together, they ate lunch together at school, they even chased cats together. One day, Paul got on the wrong side of a group of bigger dogs, and they were chasing him. Sharon happened to see him running in her direction. Quickly, Sharon ran to the nearest tree and up it. As Paul began to run by, she reached down and pulled him up into safety in the tree. The dogs that were chasing Paul never thought to look up the tree because everyone knows that dogs can't climb trees.
"When Paul had caught his breath, he looked at Sharon in amazement! ‘How did you do that?’ he asked. ‘Everyone knows dogs can't climb trees!’ But Sharon was afraid to tell Paul the truth because she didn't think Paul would want a dog friend who was really a monkey. So Sharon made up an excuse and said she didn't know how she climbed the tree, but it must have been because she was so afraid of the bigger dogs.
"Paul was so grateful to Sharon for saving him that he accepted the excuse and thanked her. But later, when Paul tried to tell their other dog friends what Sharon had done to save him, Sharon was afraid that if she admitted to having climbed the tree, some of the other dogs might begin to suspect that she was really a monkey! So Sharon lied. She said that she had never climbed a tree at all. She said that Paul had only been scared and so must have been exaggerating. This made Paul very confused.
"‘Why don't you tell the truth?’ he asked Sharon. ‘Now everyone thinks that I am lying. And if they knew what you had done, they would say you're a hero!’ But Sharon insisted that she had never climbed a tree and that everyone knew dogs can't climb trees.
"Paul was very grateful that Sharon had saved him, and so for a while, he continued to be her friend even though she had lied. But every time they passed a tree, Paul was reminded of Sharon's dishonesty. ‘Why don't you tell me the truth about why you can climb trees?’ he would sometimes ask. ‘I won't be angry. If you don't want me to tell anyone else, I promise I won't.’ But Sharon was afraid to tell him the truth because she had never told anyone that she was a really a monkey. So Sharon said to Paul what she had said to everyone else, that she didn't know what Paul was talking about and that she didn't have any secret. Then she repeated the story she had invented to tell everyone about how they had escaped from the pack of dogs. She said that they had jumped over a fence and hidden in a short bush. But Paul remembered very clearly what had happened, and there hadn't been any fence or any bush.
"Eventually, Paul became angry enough to say that even though Sharon had saved him, he didn't want to be her friend anymore if she was going to lie to him all the time. He knew that the truth was Sharon just didn't trust him—even though they had been friends for a long time and Paul had told Sharon all of his secrets.
"So, for a while, Sharon and Paul were no better than enemies. Sharon had other friends at school, but none were as great a friend as her old best friend Paul. She missed him very much and they were both very sad.
"One day, Paul decided to try one last time. He went to Sharon and said, ‘I know that you can really climb trees. And I know that you don't want other people to know that you can climb trees. If you tell me the truth, I promise I'll keep it a secret, and then we can be friends again!’
"Sharon was scared. But she was tired of keeping her secret and lying to her friends. She was tired of having no one to confide in. So she decided to tell Paul all about not really being a dog at all, but actually being a monkey.
"She told him about being found by the family of dogs and raised by the family of dogs, and just to prove her point, she climbed the nearest tree all the way to the tip top branches, and then came back down. ‘Why didn't you tell me?’ Paul asked. ‘I was afraid that you wouldn't want to be friends with someone who wasn't a dog at all, but really a monkey.’ ‘I don't care if you're a monkey,’ Paul said. ‘You're still the best friend I ever had! And don't worry, I won't tell anyone that you're not really a dog.’
"Paul felt much better now that Sharon had trusted him with her secret. From then on, Paul and Sharon were the best of friends again. And Paul never did tell anyone else that Sharon wasn't really a dog... at all."
By the time Caterpillar finished the story and closed the book, Clark was finding the dirt floor underneath his shoes to be quite captivating. He, in fact, had no desire to look up from it at all.
Hatter and Hare were clapping excitedly, complimenting Caterpillar's story telling skills.
"Oh, great story, Caterpillar! Great story!"
"Yes, it was very nice," Lex added softly.
There was silence for a moment and then, just as Clark had been dreading, Caterpillar asked, "And whhhhat did yooouuu think of the ssstoryyyy, Claaaaarrrk?"
Clark winced.
From the corner of his eye, he could already see Lex looking at him, and when he raised his head, he found Hatter and Hare leaning forward just past Lex to watch him, too, so that Lex looked like he had two extra heads sticking out of his chest. Caterpillar, predictably, was also looking at Clark.
Clark's face felt hot. "Um... it's a very nice story."
The only response was Caterpillar's raised eyebrow—or, whatever that brownish design above his eye was that looked like an eyebrow. Though he knew it wasn't possible without his enhanced hearing ability, he would have sworn he heard the other three raise their eyebrows, too.
"Um," he cleared his throat. "I mean, I'm not sure why you wanted to tell it to us... but it was a good story."
Caterpillar sighed, which was very impressive, because he had quite a lot of himself to expand. "Myyy missstaaake," he said rather deliberately.
"Well," Hatter said, slapping his thighs and getting to his feet. "Thanks anyway, Caterpillar."
"It was a really well told story," Hare added.
"Thhhank youuuu."
Everyone got up and bid Caterpillar good-bye, and then they were tromping down the meandering path through the aptly named Mushroom Forest again, listening to his rolling ‘Goooooood-byyyyye, aaaallll’ at their backs.
Clark waited until Hatter and Hare had gotten enough ahead that he thought he could whisper to Lex without them hearing. "That was definitely the creepiest so far. Compared to that thing, Hare's a prince."
"Hm," Lex grunted noncommittally.
Clark glanced over curiously at his lack of response. Lex wasn't smiling. He wasn't scowling, either, but was wearing a bland, dismal kind of expression.
Sighing, Clark shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked a stone out of his path.
It was that stupid story. What was that about, anyway? And what had Hare whispered into Caterpillar's ear — antenna — tentacle — whatever! — to get him to tell that particular story? It was weird: Like they already had a basic grasp on Clark and Lex's problems without either of them having had to mention it.
So now Lex was reminded of why their friendship wasn't going so well, and the pleasant camaraderie they'd built up during their day and a half together in this strange place was suddenly gone. It was like they were on the other side of the mirror all over again.
No one said another word all the way back to the top hat house. In fact, as Clark watched Hatter and Hare set out yet another tea (and how did Hare's big buck teeth stay so white if all he ever did was drink tea, anyway?), he wondered if anyone was going to say another word all night long.
That was when Lex said, "I hope you gentlemen won't mind taking your tea without us. Clark and I would like to go for a walk ourselves, maybe see a few parts of Wonderland we've only experienced in the dead of night."
To Clark's surprise, Hatter and Hare lit up like a couple of high wattage light bulbs. "Oh, sure!" Hatter said enthusiastically.
"That sounds like a great idea," Hare added.
Clark lifted an eyebrow at them, all but asking if they were trying to get rid of him and Lex, but because he had a pretty good idea what he was going to be in for on this walk, he wasn't feeling light-hearted enough to actually say it.
Hatter and Hare hurriedly packed them up two travel cups of tea and a picnic basket full of varied foods. Clark and Lex each tried to beg off, Lex insisting they weren't going to be gone that long, but in the end, they relented and walked away from the top hat house and down the meandering path with their hands full.
"Do you remember hearing water running last night?" Lex asked a good fifteen minutes later when they found themselves standing on a bridge over a picturesque babbling brook.
"No," Clark said, putting down the ridiculously heavy picnic basket. It felt like it was full of a stack of ten pound weight plates. Still he wasn't enjoying the human thing. "But then, I was busy trying not to have a heart attack or fall on my face again, so that doesn't mean much."
"Hm." Lex's hum didn't seem to mean anything at all, but the pause that followed was rife with nuance.
Clark sighed, Lex sighed, and then they both put their large plastic travel cups of tea down beside the picnic basket.
"As interesting and different and... enjoyable, I suppose, as this place has been, I would very much like to get home sometime soon."
"Lex, I personally wouldn't mind leaving right this second if we knew how to get home."
"Right." Lex swallowed, sliding his hands into his pockets. "They said that we have to solve the problem we were having before we came through the mirror in order for it reappear."
Clark sighed sharply. "How are we supposed to magically solve all of our problems at one time in..." he rolled his eyes, "Wonderland? I mean, this is impossible!"
Lex tilted his head in mild concession. "Just the same. I very much would like to get home."
"Yeah," Clark said quietly. "Me, too."
"All right." Lex finally turned to him, meeting his gaze instead of staring off into the distance over the brook. "So we should try this." He took a deep breath. "Well, what are our problems? Maybe if we just try to define them, this will be simpler."
Clark couldn't stand Lex's eyes boring into him, and quickly found himself looking down at the lacquered, uneven bridge they stood on.
"Okay," Lex said. "I'll start." The seconds ticked by, and Clark felt his shoulders moving farther and farther northward with every one. "All right. Trust." Clark finally gave into the wince. "I think we have trust issues. Quite a lot of them. All right? Your turn."
Clark tried to shrug, but as his shoulders were already up by his ears, it wasn't very effective. "You, um," he finally dropped his shoulders if just to show he had been shrugging, "you stole mine," he said through a half-hearted laugh.
Lex gave him a half-hearted smile back. "All right," he nearly whispered. "Well, let's just both try to think of another one, okay?"
Quickly, Clark nodded, knitted up his brow and stared down at the bridge planks. They thought in silence.
There was of course the issue of— No. No, that was kind of the same thing.
Then there was always— Hm. No, that was kind of the same thing, too.
There was maybe— No.
Sometimes when— Nope.
Well, they certainly had—
"You know," Lex said through a wry smile, "everything else I can think of goes back to the trust issues."
Despite his morose mood, Clark snorted with mirth. "Yeah," he said through a quickly fleeting grin. He swallowed uncomfortably when he met Lex's knowing eyes. "Yeah, same here."
Lex stared at him, gazed at him, peered into him. Clark wanted to look away, but he couldn't. Lex's heart was naked there in his eyes, and that was terribly startling. "You don't trust me," he breathed.
"You don't trust me!" Clark countered.
"Only because I know you're lying to me all the time."
Finally he couldn't not look away from Lex's gaze, and found himself staring at the toes of his boots and swallowing harshly. He wanted to say, ‘No, I'm not,’ but couldn't bring himself to stand there and prove Lex's accusation only seconds after he'd made it.
"You lied to me too, Lex," he breathed instead. He knew he was deflecting, but felt he had little choice in the matter. If Lex was going to put him on the spot where he couldn't possibly have any give, there was nowhere else to go but down, and he felt pretty damn low down at the moment.
"Clark, I never meant—"
"What about that room?"
That quickly, he had Lex on the defensive, and he hated himself for it. But this was just what it was. And the truth was, how could he trust someone who had lied to him? It was a double standard, he knew, but for Lex to receive what he was asking for, he had to be gold first. It wasn't fair—Clark knew it wasn't fair—but that was how things had to work with him. His nature and the nature of others gave him no other options but this kind of fanatical caution and secrecy.
Why couldn't Lex see that? Why couldn't Lex play the game to win instead of trying to take the shortcut? Why couldn't Clark tell him all of this without exposing himself all the more? Why couldn't it be fair?
Lex's eyes became pleading, his expression pained. "I dismantled it, Clark. You've got to believe me."
"It doesn't matter!" He was angry now, much more at the situation than at Lex, because there was no true way to make him understand without giving away what Clark couldn't. "You created it. And then you stood there and you tried to say that it wasn't even about me?"
"I know." It was Lex's turn to look down at his shoes, wincing.
"Did you really think I was dumb enough to believe that?"
Lex winced all the harder. "No," he breathed. Slowly, he looked back up and caught Clark's gaze, all but begging with his eyes. "I was grasping at straws," he said in a pathetic voice. "I didn't want you to... to walk out in anger. I was trying to find something—" he stopped, shook his head slowly and started again. "I was terrified when I walked by and saw you standing in that room. I'd always meant to tell you about it some day, and then you were just standing there, seeing it, with no background, no—no warning. I just... I said whatever I could think of to make it seem not so bad." He scoffed as if at his own thoughts. "I knew as soon as it was out of my mouth that it was ridiculous, that you wouldn't buy it and shouldn't buy it. But I didn't say it to insult your intelligence or offend you, Clark. I just wanted you to stop—"
Clark had to clench his jaw tight when he saw Lex's eyes rimming in red. He had the strong position and he wanted to keep it, but making Lex hurt had always torn Clark down, and it did so no less now. All he wanted was to say it was all right and he understood, because he did understand. What Lex had done made sense. But it couldn't work like this.
"I just wanted you to stop looking at me like that," Lex finally finished. "That's why I took it all down, why the room no longer exists. It wasn't worth it: To have that room and to have you looking at me that way. I'd rather forget everything I know—or think I know—than to ever have to see that look on your face again, Clark. That... that disappointment. That accusation. And knowing that I—" he sighed, "—that I deserved it."
Clark not only winced, he actually had to take a step back. It couldn't have hurt any more if Lex had pulled back and punched Clark right on his split lip.
"I'm sorry, Clark."
Clark took another step back and leaned against the bridge railing.
"Clark," Lex took a step closer to him, showing his fear that Clark was about to walk away. "Clark, you've made mistakes, haven't you?" he asked, as if it was possible Clark might actually say no, he hadn't.
Clark felt a small smile crawl across his face and away. "Millions."
"Well, my mistake, Clark, was reacting to your distrust with more distrust. It's like violence begetting violence: It doesn't help anything, it just keeps getting worse. The more you hid from me, the more I felt I needed to hide from you." He paused and took a deep breath. "But it's out there now, Clark. You know about all of it. I gave you everything in that file. I swear to god, I didn't hold a scrap of it back: Not a paper, not a punctuation point."
Slowly, Clark looked away from his boots to meet Lex's wide open, honest eyes. His lips were parted and he looked on the verge of saying please, but never began to speak. Clark didn't know what to say to that expression. If Lex was honest now, that was great. But it didn't erase the past lies any more than if Clark should tell him the whole truth one day it would magically erase the fact that he'd lied endlessly since they'd met. It was all still there and the consequences were all still real. Lex might be honest right now, but Clark still didn't know that he could trust him—not in the long term.
Something must have shown in his eyes, because Lex deflated, his eyes going dim, his shoulders going lax, his posture suffering. "But you still don't trust me, do you? You don't believe me."
"I don't know what to believe, Lex," Clark said, which might have been the most honest thing he'd said throughout this conversation. "Maybe what you say is true, but like I said, you still created it. You maintained it. For three years, Lex, it was there and I didn't know. For three years, you looked at everything I said and did as if it might be evidence to support your theories."
"I know," he whispered, leaning his forearms onto the railing and looking out over the brook, though he didn't seem to be seeing anything at all. "I know."
"Three years of lying is—" he broke off, swallowing when he hadn't meant to, tripping over the layered meaning in his words, "—is a... lot to get over."
Lex laughed softly. "Yes, it is," he said to the brook, nodding very slightly. The layering apparently wasn't lost on him, either.
Clark shrugged, feeling exposed even though he hadn't actually revealed anything, and spoke to the bridge railing. "So where do we go from here?"
"Well," Lex sighed, "at least the problem is nicely defined. I suppose that's a start."
Clark snorted softly. "So now all we have to do is solve a problem that's existed in some form for the last three years and we're home free, right?"
Smiling, Lex straightened and finally turned to look at Clark again. He reached out and clapped him on the shoulder, holding his hand there for just a second too long. "Piece of cake."
"Maybe there's one in the picnic basket," Clark muttered, as it was the cleverest thing he could think of to say.
Lex chuckled. "I'd be willing to bet there's an entire cake in there, Clark. Maybe two. Let's heft it up here and throw some of it to the fish so at least it looks like we touched the thing."
Chapter 10: Hare's Hair Here, and Hear
"What about Clark in mine, Lex in yours?"
"Hm. Perhaps—oh! Or what about Lex and you in mine and me and Clark in yours?"
"That's an interesting idea. But how about if Lex was in yours and you were in mine and Clark was—"
"You guys?"
Hatter and Hare stopped mid-negotiation and turned to Clark.
"How about you guys sleep in one of the beds and me and Lex will sleep in the other bed?"
Hatter and Hare glanced at one another out of the corners of their eyes. "Well," Hatter said, "I don't see how your idea is any better than any of ours."
"Well, it's not better so much as... uh..."
"You see," Lex continued, "Clark and I have known one another for longer and you and Hare have known one another for longer than the four of us have all known each other. As such, it might be more conducive to sleep if the more familiar people shared beds rather than if we mixed."
"Yeah. That's what I meant."
"Hm. I... suppose that makes sense."
Hare's nose twitched. "Of a kind."
"I call my bed!" Hatter exclaimed.
"Oh!" Hare groused. "I was just about to say that." His ears and shoulders drooped for a moment in defeat, then he perked right back up. "Come on, guys, I'll show you where you're sleeping!"
Clark and Lex were led from the table of bedtime tea (really, a bedtime tea) into the top hat house (through the Out door, of course) and straight into the small downstairs bedroom Clark had found before when he'd been looking for the washroom on his first trip through this Hatter and Hare branded insanity.
The room itself was actually quite normal in comparison with the rest of the house. It was cluttered, but recognizable. The floor was solid and at one altitude, the bed was rectangular, the bright yellow sheets were peppered with small pictures of vegetables, the lamp was shaped like a teapot—well, it was comparably normal.
But after a massive dinner and a grueling indoor version of a game of Meewalk, which seemed to consist mainly of breaking knick knacks and changing the rules mid-play, Clark could have slept anywhere. Even the Wondergrass under the tea table would have been inviting at this point.
Hatter had loaned both Clark and Lex their own pair of his pyjamas. Hare was too short for either of them while Hatter was smack in the middle of Lex and Clark's height, just as slim as Lex, and far too slim for Clark. So while Lex looked as at home as he could in bright purple cotton pyjamas embroidered with teacups and saucers—which, frighteningly, was very at home, indeed—Clark couldn't close his soft lavender teddy bear print top and had to settle for his boxer shorts as bottoms.
"Here it is!" Hare announced through a goofy laugh. "Home sweet home." He hurried over to the pillows and picked up a worn stuffed rabbit, holding it close to his breast and petting its threadbare head. "Well," he said, seemingly not at all embarrassed by the toy, "the night-light's over there," he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, "if you want it. See you in the morning!"
He bounded out with his stuffed animal, looking disturbingly like an overgrown child from the lost pages of the The Island of Doctor Moreau, and closed the door behind him.
Clark and Lex looked at the closing door, down at the bed, and at each other. "My feet are going to hang off the end of this bed."
"Clark, I'm wearing teacups. Indignity is part of the Wonderlandian experience."
Despite pressing his lips as tightly together as he could, Clark snorted very, very loudly. But the pressing of his lips hurt his cut and bruise, so he also immediately winced. "Ouch."
"Serves you right." Lex was smiling, though, as he pulled back the covers and started to get into the bed. He hadn't gotten far at all when he stopped and leaned closer with a furrowed brow. "What the hell?"
Clark leaned down to get a closer look, too. He reached out and picked a mat of fur off the fitted sheet. It was black, very soft, about an inch long, and a quarter inch thick. Clark was only barely not laughing as he and Lex locked gazes. "Do you think they have a cat?" Clark asked shakily.
"I wish I could say yes."
They snickered as quietly as they could, not wanting their hosts to hear them and come bursting back in. Quickly, they checked the bed for anymore Hare hair, threw away what they found, and began to get into bed together. It was a combination of the extra voice and the new purple and lavender blob that had nothing to do with their pyjamas that appeared in the middle of the bed that made them both jump back.
"A—" Clark squeaked, and immediately covered his mouth with his hand.
Lex shot him a quick look and approving turn of his head as if to say, ‘Hey, congratulations on the whole not screaming like a little girl thing.’
"Did someone say... cat?" the creature purred.
It did, in fact, look like a cat... sort of. It was lavender with purple stripes, a white beard and belly, black paws, black-tipped ears, and a black tuft of fur—or perhaps hair—sticking out of the top of its head. However, it also was talking, wore a toothy grin that was more human than animal, was floating in midair, and had a bit of a puppet-look about it. Whether it was actually cat or not was anyone's guess, really.
Uneasily, Clark raised his hand to indicate it had been him.
The cat disappeared.
Clark looked at Lex. Lex looked at Clark.
The cat appeared by Clark's head.
Clark jumped and dove rather comically for the bed, hurrying over it and to Lex's side.
The cat-like puppet thing laughed somewhat insanely. "Jumpy, aren't you?" He floated a few inches closer. "Wait... I know you. You're the Hatter and Harrre's new prrrroject."
"I'm Lex," Lex said rather calmly. "And this is Clark. And you are Mr...?"
"Cat. The Cheshire Cat, to be precise." He didn't wait for Lex to say anything further, just floated a little closer and went on. "Didn't I see you two by the Blabbering Brook earlier?"
"Don't you mean the babbling brook?" Clark asked tentatively.
"Hm." The Cat seemed to think about it. "No... no, I'm quite sure it was on the bridge over the Blabbering Brook."
He should have known. Nothing had a normal name in this place. Nothing.
"And earlierrr," he went on, "didn't I hear the Caterpillar telling you one of his ssstorrrrriiiiiiessss?" He did quite a horrible imitation of the Caterpillar, and yet it was still plainly obvious whom he was imitating.
Clark could only nod dumbly. After everything he'd seen, maybe it shouldn't have been surreal to be having a conversation in a Hare's bedroom with a floating purple cat-like puppet thing, but it still was. It really, really was.
"You know, I think I figured out your prrroblem."
Lex tilted his head slightly and arched an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Mm-hmmmm. Want me to tell you?"
"Oh, please do."
The Cat took a breath and paused self-importantly. "Prepositions."
Clark and Lex exchanged indulgent looks, then rolled their eyes together on cue. It was possible a song was forthcoming.
"You don't believe me," the Cat said in an offended tone.
"No, really," Clark said as soothingly as he could manage. "That could be it. We'll give it some thought, okay? Thanks a lot for your help."
"Hmmm. I think you need an explan-aaa-tiooon," he sing-songed.
"Oh, god." Here it came. Clark could feel it. A Wonderland song always started with a piercing pain in his right temple.
"Ready?"
"If I said no, would you stop?"
Lex either snorted or cleared his throat, or cleared his throat to cover a snort.
"Here goes," the Cat went on as if Clark hadn't spoken.
Clark felt his whole face screw up in anticipation. Maybe it would be a short song. Two stanzas at the most. Was he that lucky?
"Friends are supposed to keep secrets for each other, not frrrom each other. You two have got them mixed up. See? Just a simple prrreposition problem."
There was a long, quiet, pregnant pause.
Slowly, Clark's expression went slack and he felt his eyes harden. He would have much preferred a song.
Lex had gone rather stiff next to him.
"It was nice," Clark said icily, "to have met you."
"Tsk!" the Cat exclaimed, glancing back in the air as if offended. "Don't bother to thank me or anything." And then he disappeared. And then pink paw prints appeared on the floor, one after another, and went right under the door, disappearing not long afterwards.
"Maybe it's time," Clark said as jovially as he could manage, "to rethink my psychotropic drugs on the mirror theory."
"Hm." Lex's response was bland. He climbed into the bed silently, leaving Clark to trek back around to his original side and slide in beside him.
Clark sighed when his head hit the pillow, but it wasn't in comfort. Now would have been a good time to find a Hare fur mat if they hadn't done that already. It would have been a nice break in tension.
"Are you finding it as annoying as I am," Lex asked, "that freakishly mutated animals keep telling us about our own problems? First that massive worm and now a floating purple cat puppet."
"Or how about the fact that Hatter and Hare think we need so much help, we've actually become their project?"
"And let's not forget the Tweedles little argument and song. A bit convenient, if you ask me."
"Yeah. And did you notice that those two looked nothing alike? Brothers, my foot."
They laughed quietly, the tension at least lessening, until they fell silent again and it seemed to thicken right back up as the seconds ticked by.
Finally, Lex softly said, "It is rather sad that everyone we meet thinks we need so much assistance."
Clark glanced over to find Lex watching him carefully, openly.
He shrugged a shoulder. "They can't all be wrong."
Clark swallowed against a dry mouth, wondering what he was going to say to that even as he began to speak.
But Lex's name got cut off by a strange bumping sound coming from over their heads. Gaze still locked, Clark and Lex's brows furrowed in confusion.
Voices began to leak down through the ceiling.
"Oh. Oh, that's excellent."
Lex's eyebrow quirked up. Way, way up.
"Hatter, you're so good at this!"
There was another bump as if of a headboard against a wall.
Clark's jaw dropped. Lex's other eyebrow joined the first.
Finally, Clark found his voice. "Oh. My. God."
Squeaking bedsprings sounded through the ceiling.
Lex curled in on himself, hand going over his mouth to hold in the massive laughter that was trying to get out.
"No way," Clark said, not quite believing it yet. "There's no freaking w—"
"Oh! Hare! Fantastic!"
But that did it.
Hurt his lip as it might, Clark slapped both hands as tightly over his mouth as he possibly could. He and Lex laughed hysterically through their noses, their eyes filling with water.
"Ooh. I never would have thought of that." More squeaking.
Clark thought he might have been about to undergo apoplexy. All of his blood was in his head and if he didn't laugh, he was going to die.
Lex was biting the side of his hand, his eyes closed tight, his head shaking slowly in the negative. His whole body was shuddering with silent laughter.
Finally, Clark couldn't take it anymore, and he guffawed aloud.
"Shh! If we can hear them..."
Clark flipped over and shoved his face into his pillow, hearing his own muffled laughter join the sounds of squeaky bedsprings and pleased exclamations from the room above them.
Lex turned to face him, literally snickering by Clark's ear.
"I don't believe it," Clark mumbled into the pillow. "I can't even—"
"But did you see his teeth?" Lex whispered in a strained voice. "All I keep thinking about is his teeth and how the hell would—"
Clark lifted his face quickly from the pillow. "Don't even say it!"
"I won't! But... Jesus. They must be two inches long!"
Clark laughed as silently as he could until tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and he was sure he was going to suffocate. But finally, eventually, he got hold of himself enough to speak. "Come on," he said shakily. "We're being incredibly immature."
"That's true," Lex snickered.
"I mean... they're adults. Sort of. There's really no reason they wouldn't be... sexual... people."
"P—" Lex snorted. "Perhaps. Yes."
"We're even sort of intruding on their privacy. We should just ignore it."
"Right."
They watched one another, their faces slowly going overly serious and frowning.
"Hatter, you really are the best."
It was a lost cause.
They did their best to keep the sound they made to a minimum (unlike their energetic hosts), covering their mouths or laughing breathily through their noses until exhaustion started to overtake them and they fell slowly to sleep despite the noise.
Clark did think it was a bit odd that even though they were safe and warm and had light at their fingertips and the greatest danger they were currently in was the possibility of pieces of ceiling plaster dislodging and fluttering down into their eyes, he still wanted to reach over and hold Lex's hand as he slept.
Chapter 11: Invisibility, Miscommunication, and Revelation
It turned out that Clark and Lex had only been a day and a half early for Hatter and Hare's Fabulous Footloose and Fancy-Free Tea Party, as mid-afternoon the following day, they found themselves recruited after their morning showers and clothes washing to help make and lay out a staggering variety of foods (and tea, of course)... barefoot.
Clark had tried to argue that since the Footloose and Fancy-Free Tea Party didn't actually start until three o'clock, they didn't need to be barefoot just to put it together, but both Hatter and Hare insisted that doing it this way made it ‘more authentic.’
Clark had then opened his mouth to argue that as this was the first Hatter and Hare's Fabulous Footloose and Fancy-Free Tea Party, there was no such thing as ‘authentic’ because the traditions hadn't been set yet. But Lex, probably wisely, put a stalling hand softly on Clark's arm and suggested he just keep mashing the purple potatoes.
They had woken up in a rather awkward position, with Clark's body apparently taking his sleepy desire to hold Lex's hand a few steps farther and wrapping the whole of itself around Lex in sleep, and he was still a bit embarrassed by the memory. Lex's touch on his bare arm quieted him quite effectively.
Clark was also pretty terrified of getting his feet trod on or stubbing his toe (he'd stubbed his toe for the first time in his life three days ago when the sun storm had started and it had hurt. It had hurt a ridiculous amount. Why should that hurt so much? It was just a toe, not a life-threatening injury to an important internal organ!), so he found himself scuttling out of Hatter and Hare's way on a regular basis, just in case. Besides that, they were always breaking things, and he hadn't experienced the fun of shards of glass or ceramic in his soles just yet and hoped to keep it that way.
What's more, Lex's bare feet were... distracting. They were pale—even paler than his hands and his face, which were pretty white to begin with. And they looked impossibly soft. And his ankles were delicate. And Clark... had forgotten what he was doing.
Clark's distraction notwithstanding, by two thirty they had run out of tea table, so Hatter and Hare announced that it was now time to stop cooking. Everyone put away the eggs and vegetables they'd taken out of the fridge to make omelets with.
"Well!" Hatter exclaimed, rubbing his gloved hands together. "Time to go get ready!" He looked at Hare, they both nodded, and then they took off out of the kitchen and up the seven crooked bathroom stairs. Together.
Clark and Lex were immediately bent double with laughter.
"With all these horrible images running around my head," Lex said when his laughter had settled somewhat, "I think the first thing I want to invest in when we get home is a thorough brainwashing."
Clark did his best to stand up straighter and stop cackling like a madman. "It's just so wrong!" he exclaimed, then fell right back into his crouch. His sides were killing him! Why did hard laughter hurt so bad? And why couldn't he stop laughing to get the pain to go away? God, humans had it rough.
"Shh! Shh, shh!" Lex chastised until Clark slapped a hand over his mouth, took a deep breath, and managed to stand up straight, only shaken by the occasional bursting laugh. "Come on," Lex said, doing a remarkable job of keeping a straight face. "Let's get all of this cleaned up before they come back down and break it all."
Guests began arriving right at three o'clock, just as Clark and Lex were finishing the mountain of dishes and Hatter and Hare came out of their rooms looking... exactly as they had before, though they seemed to feel all spruced up, so Clark and Lex offered their compliments.
Arrivals began with the Tweedles, and then Rabbit, who announced the arrival of the Queen. While she made a beeline for Lex, Clark did the same toward the Tweedles. He still felt most comfortable talking with them, even if they weren't really brothers.
He was, in fact, still conversing with them, and Lex had managed to slip out of the Queen's clutches for a few minutes to join him, when Hatter said, "Clark. Lex. Let me introduce you to the Walrus. Uh—and Pinniped."
Clark and Lex excused themselves and turned at the same time to—
"AGH!"
Clark cowered into Lex, who was gripping his arm so hard that Clark thought he might actually develop bruises.
To his surprise, rather than stare at him blankly as everyone had every other time he'd screamed at the sight of some strange creature, the entire party rushed toward him with their palms out, exclaiming, ‘No, no, no,’ and, ‘It's all right, really!’
The Walrus, who wore a bowler hat and gold-trimmed navy blue tails, carried a cane, had a big bushy blond moustache, and sported two white tusks the size of overgrown jalapeños, looked at first vaguely hurt, then sympathetically understanding. He took a step back from them and smiled calmly while everyone else tried to explain.
"We know what you've heard about Walruses," Dee started.
"But none of it's true!" Dum said.
"The Walrus has lived with us in Wonderland for a long time," the Queen added.
"Y-yes! And he's never been anything but kind," Rabbit said.
"Walruses don't really lie all the time—" Hatter started.
"—or smell bad—," Hare interjected.
"—or have bad manners—"
"—or even play that old your-shoelaces-are-untied trick."
"So there's nothing to be worried about!" Hatter finished, spreading his arms wide and grinning.
Everyone else continued to nod at him and look encouraging. Clark exchanged confused looks with Lex before it hit him that everyone at this party had basically just assumed that he was some kind of raging racist against walruses. As ridiculous as that sounded, he was getting used to the ridiculous having meaning here, and it made him feel rather guilty and embarrassed. He almost wanted to say that he'd never heard any of those things about walruses, and wouldn't have believed them if he had, and that he'd in fact never even met a walrus before now. But he wasn't at all sure that would make him look any better for having had screamed, so he kept quiet about it.
"I'm sorry," he said instead, and stood up straighter, dislodging his fingernails from Lex's arm, where he hadn't realized they'd been. "You, um... you startled me." He cleared his throat awkwardly and stuck out a hand. "Uh, pleased to meet you."
The Walrus looked at Clark's hand, then met his gaze, and his whole leathery face lit up with pleasure. He moved forward and took the proffered hand, shaking it rapidly. "Capital! Capital! We're so pleased to meet you, Mr. Clark!" he exclaimed. He pulled his white gloved hand back and offered it to Lex, who took it with only slight hesitation. "And you, Mr. Lex! How nice it is that you've come to visit Wonderland!"
"Nice to meet you... Mr. Walrus," Lex said softly.
"Ah, capital! Capital!" The Walrus inhaled deeply as if satisfied and tapped his cane hard on the ground in front of him.
Clark glanced downwards and caught sight of two wrinkled, three-toed feet sticking out of the Walrus's black pants, before he looked quickly away for fear of either being caught staring, or screaming again.
"This," the Walrus said, tilting his head to his left, "is my friend Pinniped."
Determined to not scream, gasp, or otherwise show botherment of any kind, Clark looked to the Walrus's left and found... nothing.
Just to make sure, he looked down, then up, but still found nothing.
Hatter slid forward, and leaned over so his mouth was positioned between Clark and Lex's ears. "Pinniped is Mr. Walrus's invisible friend."
Clark's head snapped to the left to stare incredulously at Hatter, who only tilted his head and rolled his eyes slightly as if apologizing, then backed away. Clark found himself gazing into Lex's too wide eyes.
Lex blinked slowly, cleared his throat, and faced the empty space to the Walrus's left. "It's very nice to meet you, Pinniped," he said calmly, and outstretched his hand. Clark watched, gaping, as Lex moved his own hand up and down as if someone was shaking it. The Walrus made a happy sound somewhat like laughter.
Clark was still gaping when Lex pulled his arm back, and he got elbowed in the side for his lack of action.
"Uh! Right." He stuck out his hand. "Hi... Pinniped." As expected, he felt nothing, so after a second, he just moved his own hand up and down to mime shaking hands with someone. Feeling ridiculous, he pulled it back shortly thereafter.
"Is Pinniped a seal?" Lex asked the Walrus casually.
Clark slowly turned to look at him in disbelief, but Lex appeared perfectly sincere.
"Why, yes! Yes, he is! How did you know that?" The Walrus leaned slightly closer as if in secrecy. "Can you see him, too?"
"Uh, no. No, I... took a wild guess."
"Well, capital! Yes, yes, Pinniped is indeed a seal."
A quiet ‘ohh’ went over the rest of the party-goers. Hare tapped at the Walrus's shoulder until he got his attention.
"You never told us that," he said.
"You never asked," the Walrus countered.
Hare's nose twitched.
"How true that is," Hatter said, nodding sagely with his hands clasped before him. Then, after a pause, "Yeah—well, now that everyone's here, why don't we all take our seats and we'll serve the tea, all right? Okay..."
There was some chatter and shuffle as everyone found the seat they wanted, the Queen looking a bit put out when Lex sat next to Clark and offered the seat on the other side of him to Pinniped before the Queen could get there. The Walrus naturally took the seat next to Pinniped, and then it was the head of the table, which was Hatter, and Hare was on the other side of him (although it was more like they were sharing a corner, since they always seemed to have their shoulders pressed together even as they took tea). The Queen then tried for the seat across from Lex, but the Tweedles got there before her, so she ended up regulated to the seat across from Clark, only diagonal to Lex, and stuck between Rabbit and Dum. Though she looked miffed at this, she didn't say anything, which Clark thought was rather odd for royalty—not that he had much experience with royalty.
Everyone got settled down and was chattering as they filled their plates and enjoyed their tea and complimented Hatter and Hare on their Wondergrass and how pleasant it felt between the toes. Clark wasn't paying much heed to any of it, as he found himself rather distracted by Lex's interaction with Pinniped.
Knowing no one's attention was on him at the moment, Clark gazed at Lex unselfconsciously, alternating between watching his expression and watching his bare feet and delicately crossed ankles adjust in the tall grass.
"We've heard that you haven't been feeling well, Pinniped," Lex said. "How are you doing now?"
"Oh, Pinniped is much better, thanks to the Hatter and Hare's chicken gumball stew!" the Walrus answered for him. "Why, he ate nearly the entire pot in one day!"
"Is that so? Well, I'm very glad to hear it helped."
Clark shook his head in bewilderment. How did Lex handle such odd happenings with such grace and charm? He was amazing: He was actually sitting there in hand-tailored clothes, barefoot, and conversing in all seriousness with the invisible friend of an anthropomorphic Walrus, using said Walrus-man as an interpreter. He looked utterly ridiculous and vaguely... beautiful.
A piano flourish came from Crystal, which was behind Clark's side of the table, and the entire complement became hushed. Extremely sappy music began wafting across the party.
Clark and Lex exchanged looks, then turned their attention to Hatter and Hare.
But Hatter and Hare were watching Clark.
As a matter of fact, the Tweedles were watching Clark, too.
Actually, as Clark looked down both sides of the table, he found that everyone (except perhaps Pinniped) was looking at him. Eventually, even Lex was looking at him.
That was when he realized that everyone thought that he had caused Crystal to burst into such a sentimental tune! He was on the brink of vociferously denying any such thing when he remembered what he'd been thinking just as the music had begun, and what kind of mood he'd been in and it hit him like a tree in the chest that he very well might have caused this music without meaning to.
He felt all the blood drain out of his face and began to feel a bit lightheaded. "I don't want to sing," he blurted.
The guests all exchanged confused looks, then continued watching him. Lex's eyebrows were arched so severely in surprise, Clark wasn't sure they were ever going to come down.
All of the blood rushed back into his face and he began to sweat. "I don't want to sing," he insisted. "I don't want to dance, either—I can't dance." He leaned toward Hatter. "Can't you just turn it off?" he pleaded.
Hatter glanced at Hare, and they both scoffed. "You're the only one who can turn it off, Clark."
"Yeah, it's your song."
"It's not my song!" he insisted—too loudly—and getting more and more embarrassed by the second. The music was swelling with emotion, reminding him vaguely of the happy, romantic end of some Disney cartoon. God, he wasn't that sappy about it, was he?
A concerned murmur cascaded across the table. Hatter and Hare began to look a bit sympathetic, but helpless.
The Walrus leaned forward, presumably over Pinniped, and said quietly, "Mr. Clark, if you don't want to sing, just think about something else instead."
Mortified beyond measure, Clark clamped his eyes shut against the sight of Lex still staring at him in surprise, and thought very, very sharply on the most boring, banal thing he possibly could: Stall mucking.
After a few seconds, the music went off-key, then faded away regretfully.
Clark let out a sigh of relief, relaxed his shoulders and opened his eyes. Everyone was still staring at him.
"Well," the Queen said awkwardly. "Uh—uh, Hatter, Hare, these crumpets are, um... quite delicious!"
They didn't take their eyes off Clark. "Yeah, erm—thanks, Your Majesty," Hatter said dismissively.
Lex placed a gentle touch on Clark's wrist. "Clark—"
He couldn't take it. He stood up and dropped his napkin on the table, excusing himself with a mumble, and went into the top hat house, using the Out door without even having to think about it.
He wasn't inside for a full minute, leaning against Hare's bedroom door, muttering and wishing he'd thought to grab his shoes rather than left them outside against the stone wall along with everyone else's, when Hatter and Hare came in after him, looking far more sympathetic than they needed to.
Clark rolled his eyes, crossed his arms even tighter, and tried to hunker farther down into himself.
"Oh, Clark," Hare said.
"Clark, Clark, Clark."
They advanced, arms open, and jerked back when Clark yanked away the first shoulder that was touched and shot them a warning look.
"Tsk. You should have told us you didn't know how to sing—"
"—or dance."
Hatter nodded. "We would have taught you."
Clark's lips parted in astonishment. "I'm not upset because I can't sing!"
"Or dance."
He scowled.
Hare cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Uh... sorry."
"Weren't you listening? To the song?"
"Uh..." Hatter and Hare exchanged blank looks. "It was a very nice song, Clark," Hatter said soothingly.
Clark rolled his eyes all the more. "No. It was sappy. Don't you get it? You—you guys—" He sighed sharply and fell quiet.
"What is it, Clark?" Hare asked with a sympathetic pout.
"Whatever it is, you know you can talk to your old friends Hatter and Hare, right?"
Clark glanced up from the sight of Hare's remarkably un-furry feet to find Hatter smiling close-mouthed at him for a change. It highlighted dimples in his cheeks that Clark hadn't noticed before, what with the sparkling white teeth, pink blush, and dark red lipstick he was always wearing. He shook his head quickly to clear it. The last thing he needed was to start thinking of make-up on a guy as normal.
"See, it's so easy for you guys," he sighed. "You live here together and you're... I mean, you... you know."
Hatter and Hare were nodding as if waiting for him to go on.
"You're—I mean, the two of you actually, you know, want..."
"A new snow cone machine?"
"Oh! I know!" Hare exclaimed. "To finally perfect our ice cream pizza!"
"Ice cr—" Wait, so... it wasn't an ice cream and pizza machine they were building, it was an ice cream pizza machine? Would Wonderland ever stop shocking Clark with its eccentricities? "No. No. I'm not talking about—I mean the way you guys are. With each other."
Hatter and Hare stared at him. "Help us out here, Clark," Hatter said blandly.
Frustrated, Clark sighed harshly and tried again. "I mean that you're together, you know? I mean that you desire—that you have... you know..." He scoffed when they continued looking at him blankly. "I mean that you guys are, like... romantically involved. You know, that you... have sex," he hissed quietly. "That's what I mean. It's easy for you."
Hatter and Hare both gasped comically loud and turned to one another with accusatory looks on their faces.
"You have sex and you didn't tell me?"
"You—!" Hatter closed his gaping mouth in confusion. "I don't have any sex." He turned to peer at Clark. "I don't even know what sex is."
Hare looked at Clark in confusion as well. "Well, I don't know what it is."
Clark gaped and blinked. Then he blinked a little bit more and then he threw some gaping in just for variation. "Uh... it's... what you guys were... doing? You know? Last night?" He was gesturing circularly with a hand, but they were only watching him blankly. "In bed?"
"Oh!"
"Ohhhh!"
"Making noises remarkably like those," Clark muttered too lowly to be heard.
"So it's a gaaaame!" Hatter cried happily.
"We don't know that game!" Hare jumped in. "Will you teach us?"
Clark felt his head drop forward a notch. "Sex... games?"
"Right!" They nodded encouragingly.
"I, uh..." If his ears got any hotter, his hair might have burst into flame. "I don't... understand."
"Well, you just said that Sex is like what we were doing last night in bed."
"Righty-roo. And last night in bed, we were playing Wonderland Tiddlywinks."
"Yeah." Hare laughed awkwardly. "Sorry if we kept you up. We get a little excited."
Hatter leaned slightly forward. "I won," he stage-whispered.
Hare rolled his eyes. "He always wins." His ears drooped.
"So! Sex must be a new game you brought with you."
"Yeah! Alice never taught us that one."
Clark choked.
"We love new games!"
"Will you teach us how to play?"
Clark stuttered for an embarrassingly long time before he was able to say an actual word. "S-So w-wait. You mean—you're not—you guys aren't—I mean—"
They watched him, grinning and nodding.
Suddenly, Clark felt ridiculous, like he was the butt of some elaborate cosmic joke. "Oh, come on!" he said with irritation. "You live together in this house! You throw tea parties; you cook all the time! For god's sake, you actually shower together!" he shouted. "You can't seriously expect me to believe that you're not—you're not—... together?"
"Oh! No, no, no! Of course we don't expect you to believe that!"
Clark sighed with a modicum of relief.
"Yeah—we're together all the time." Hatter threw an arm over Hare's shoulders and they both smiled winningly. "Best friends!"
Clark clenched his jaw hard enough that it hurt. "Best friends," he ground out through clenched teeth. "You're best... So you're not... I mean, you aren't even... You don't even know what—"
The Out door squeaked. "Clark, are you all right in here?"
"Oh, god."
He fully intended to beg Hatter and Hare with everything he had in him to please not mention the last two minutes of their conversation to Lex in any way, shape, or form. But he didn't even get a word out before they were advancing on him.
"Lex!"
"Old buddy, old pal!"
They had their arms around him, causing him to still rather suddenly and arch an eyebrow.
"Do you know about Sex?"
Lex choked.
Clark did his best to melt into the floor.
"Uh..." he cleared his throat. "Well, yes. Yes, I do."
"Will you teach us?" Hare asked.
Lex actually blushed. "Uh..." he trailed off into a soft laugh. "Um, I'm flattered. Really. But, uh, no. No, thank you." With quick, deft movements (even in bare feet), he manoeuvred his way out from between Hatter and Hare and approached Clark who, unfortunately, had not managed to melt. "Clark? What the hell's going on?" he whispered.
Clark only had about two seconds in which to stammer nothing before Hatter and Hare tried again.
"Are you sure you won't teach us?"
"We're fast learners."
"And we're very good at games."
Lex shot them a charming but uncomfortable smile and looked back to Clark with even wider eyes.
"Look, no one can teach you that, okay?" Clark said, knowing how flustered he sounded. "I didn't mean—I'm sorry that I brought it up. Will you please just forget I said anything? Just forget it, all right? I'm really sorry."
Both Hatter and Hare seemed to deflate, then popped right back up again. "Oh, well! Let's go see if we can get a game of Barefoot Meewalk started!"
They left the top hat house excitedly, the In door banging shut behind them.
"Clark... what in the hell were you saying to them?"
Clark closed his eyes and stopped just short of chanting, ‘There's no place like home, there's no place like home...’ Because if this wasn't a bad dream, he wasn't sure he still wanted to live. "Can we just chalk it up to a lapse in judgment?" he tried.
Lex was silent until Clark opened his eyes. Then he tilted his head quickly, a smirk climbing the corner of his mouth. "Do I want to know...?"
"No. You most emphatically do not want to know, Lex."
"Huh." He turned and looked curiously at the place Hatter and Hare had last been. "If they don't know what sex is, then what—?"
"Tiddlywinks."
Lex snorted and looked back over his shoulder at Clark. "Seriously?"
Clark nodded very slowly. "They were playing... Wonderland Tiddlywinks... in bed. Hare said they," he cleared his throat, "can get a little excited."
Lex laughed a laugh so real and unexpected, Clark couldn't stop himself from joining in.
"So not only were we being immature," Lex said through chuckles, "we also had our minds in the gutter."
Clark shrugged. "Apparently," he said, and let his laughter die away. "It's amazing, though, isn't it?" he said when they'd both quieted. "That they don't even... I don't know, have the concept here?"
"Well, I don't know about that. Someone here has to know what sex is, Clark. There are still people around."
"No, but... I mean, look at this place, right? I mean, this place is not normal."
Lex snorted. "You'll get no argument from me."
"Well, what if isn't really a place, Lex? Or, I mean, like, it's a place, but it's not a place that adheres to any normal rules—and I'm not talking about rules of conduct, here. If you look at it..." Clark finally pushed off from the door, uncrossing his arms and approaching Lex, "it's a lot like some kid's fantasy world, isn't it? What if that's all it is? What if some kid—maybe even that Alice girl—created this place? If a child who didn't know about the concept of sex created this world, then sex wouldn't exist within it and wouldn't need to exist within it." He paused and considered a moment. "You said that mirror was with that family for ten years. Well, how long ago was that? Fifteen years? Lex, no one out there looks over thirty. Are they even aging? And if no one ages, what need is there for new people to be born?"
"The Walrus looks over thirty."
Clark's lips twisted wryly. "I think those wrinkles are just part of his general makeup, Lex."
Lex chuckled good-naturedly. "You could be right," he said. "Considering all of the strange things we've seen since we arrived, I wouldn't put it past the place." He paused and shrugged. "But why does it interest you so much?"
The burn started to come back into Clark's cheeks. "I don't know," he said morosely. "I guess I'm just thinking that... well, it makes the place so innocent. So carefree."
A little twinkle came into Lex's eyes. "Don't you mean Fancy-Free?"
"Oh, god." He grinned, then quickly became more sedate. "Seriously, though. Think about it. It would mean that no relationship here could ever be corrupted by physical attraction or sexual desire or sexual tension. It would just mean that there are people you get along with and people you don't. It's so simple. Their relationships, their friendships, they can go so deep, and they'd never have to worry about uncomfortable stuff like that rearing its ugly head."
Lex peered at him in confusion. "Clark, since when is something like sexual desire ultimately an ugly thing?"
Clark swallowed reflexively and found himself avoiding Lex's eyes and shrugging. "I-I don't mean that it always is. But sex... it complicates things. Don't you think?"
Lex shrugged fluidly. "Sure. I suppose it can. But complicated pleasures can be the most satisfying kind." Clark glanced up and Lex winked before he managed to look quickly away again. "And sex doesn't always complicate things, Clark. Sometimes it just makes things better. Sometimes it just enhances what you've already got. Imagine a marriage without sex."
"Imagine love," Clark countered immediately. "Imagine pure, clean love that can never be complicated or cheapened or dirtied. It's like there's just the most intense friendship that could ever exist, and that's love—and that's all there is, that's the pinnacle. You'd never have to worry about a friend pushing for something you don't want because it doesn't even exist. You'd never have to worry about wanting the wrong person because there'd be no want."
Lex smirked. "I don't know, Clark. Sounded to me like they wanted to learn all about it."
Clark didn't smile back, shook his head. "They thought it was a game. They didn't understand. God..." he trailed off. "If they did, it could conceivably corrupt this entire world."
"Corrupt?" Lex looked on the verge of saying more, but then his brow smoothed and he shrugged again without concern. "Well, look," he said as if the conversation was coming to a close, "we're not about to sit anyone down and give them a sex ed course, so it isn't anything we need to worry about."
Clark sighed, having more to say and yet realizing he was saying nothing. "No, I guess not."
Lex stepped forward, Clark's gaze on his bare feet, and squeezed at Clark's upper arm. "Why don't we get back out there?" he said gently. "You're missing out on lunch, and considering the fact that you only ate enough this morning for a small country to subsist on for a month, I'm sure you're hungry."
Clark snorted and rubbed his stomach. "Sadly, I actually kind of am."
Chapter 12: Better Wrap This Up. Dumbo's Circus Is On Next.
It was beginning to get dark by the time the party was over, and Clark and Lex were helping to clean up everything that hadn't been broken, which truthfully wasn't all that much. They'd managed to dodge Hatter and Hare's pleas to teach them Sex, distracting them occasionally by asking to learn a game instead, and eventually they had either decided to let the matter drop, or they had forgotten about it.
Thankfully, Hatter and Hare had decided it was okay to wear shoes to clean up, which Clark was very happy about since the ground was getting cold and his feet along with it. He was also not very happy about it because that meant Lex had put his shoes back on, too. But that was okay, because he'd already lost track of enough conversations and missed enough plays in enough games due to distraction by Lex's bare feet.
They'd had a very nice time at the party. Everyone had been polite about Clark's stalled song and hadn't mentioned it again after he'd come back out of the top hat house. They'd played games and talked and, of course, sung their own unrelated song or two.
But now that the guests had gone home and Hatter and Hare were inside rearranging the food in their massive freezer, Clark and Lex found themselves reflective and quiet as they stacked the dishes on the table and cleaned up various messes.
"I can't believe we're spending another night here," Lex said through a sigh.
"Yeah."
"Not that it's a horrible place—everyone is very kind. But I do miss my own bed. And I can't help wondering what's going on in our absence and how the hell we're going to explain it when we get back."
"Yeah, my parents are probably freaking out."
Lex scowled. "My father is probably trying to ruin me."
"What, from prison?"
"You'd be surprised."
Clark fell silent for a minute or so, finding a few dishes in the grass. "Well, I don't know what to do. I mean, we did talk about it. But it's just not something we can solve overnight. I mean, I don't even know that it's something we can solve here."
Lex sighed. "I know. You're right."
Clark stopped wiping the table top clean and sighed heavily. "I'm sorry about all of this."
"Come on, Clark," Lex said softly. "There's enough blame to go around."
"Yeah, but it starts with me, doesn't it? I mean, I'm the one with... I'm the one who..."
Lex only watched him with acceptance in his eyes.
"I have secrets," he muttered. He didn't miss the flare in Lex's eyes at the admission. "And I do want to—I mean, I want you to know them. I really do, Lex. But it's complicated."
Lex looked pained. "Because you feel you can't trust me. Because of the investigation."
He shrugged. "It is partly that, yeah. But it's also partly because I..." he glanced at the In door to the top hat house to make sure it wasn't about to open, "because I want it so much. I want us to be as close as those two crazy people are." He swallowed hard, knowing he was twisting the rag in his hand but unable to stop anyway. "Closer, maybe. I think that maybe messes with my judgment some."
Lex walked around the table to Clark's side, never breaking their eye contact. "Clark," he said, gripping Clark's upper arm as he so often did, "if you're not ready to tell me, I understand. Just standing there admitting to me that there are things you've been keeping from me is enough for now." He took his hand back and slid it into his pocket. "It's honestly always been that you treat the fact that you have secrets like a secret of its own that bothers me most."
Clark nodded, understanding that more than he could say. "I know. And I do have them. Maybe more than even you think. I'd like, maybe one day, to tell you all about them. But I've got to be sure, Lex. I can't just... I can't just blurt it out and hope it'll be okay. It's not like that."
"And you've never been very sure about me, have you?"
Clark swallowed uncomfortably. "I don't know. I've... never been sure about being sure about you." Lex shot him the mildly perplexed look Clark had expected, and he gathered up his courage and tried to say what he meant. "Something about you, Lex... it breaks down my common sense. I can't trust myself."
Lex watched him very carefully. His eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to say or ask something, but then visibly changed his mind. He smiled softly instead. "You tend to break down my common sense, too, Clark."
For a moment, a strange flutter of hope made itself at home in Clark's chest, then froze. He had no idea from Lex's words whether he was saying, ‘I like you back,’ or whether he was only referring to the insanity he'd indulged by building that room that was basically a shrine to Clark and the mystery he felt Clark represented.
Just as quickly, he realized it didn't matter. It was true that Clark had intense feelings for Lex, and the concept of finding out that Lex returned them was something akin to a dream come true. But what Clark missed and what he wanted most of all was what they seemed to have rediscovered for at least a short time here in Wonderland: Their friendship. Everything else, he realized, was secondary to that.
"But I'll let you be the judge," Lex said, his tone almost reverent.
"You will?" Clark whispered.
Lex nodded slowly. "I promise."
Clark felt his eyes fill with what he could only describe as tears of relief, and he rushed forward, dropping the rag in his hands as he took Lex into his arms in an enthusiastic hug.
Lex gasped as if surprised, then chuckled quietly and hugged him back.
Clark had been holding on for quite a while before Lex said, "You've never done that before."
Still unwilling to let go, Clark looked with confusion over Lex's shoulder. "What do you mean? We've hugged."
"Yeah, but you've never hugged me. It's always the other way around."
Clark felt a slightly pained smile cross his face as he grasped what Lex was saying, and he only hugged him tighter as if to make up for that very fact.
Lex made a small, pleasant sound and tightened his own arms around Clark's back.
Finally, Clark began to feel more embarrassed than relieved at their conversation, and he let Lex go awkwardly, leaning back to find him smiling up at him with sparkling eyes, though that only made Clark blush harder. He ducked his head and noticed his cleaning rag lying half on the stone ground and half in the Wondergrass bed.
Crystal blee-blooped behind him and let out a piano flourish.
Clark rolled his eyes and groaned. He spun around, insisting, "I really don't want to sing! Okay? Please?"
But then Lex's hand was squeezing his shoulder hard and Clark's jaw was dropping as he caught sight of what Crystal was trying to show them.
The mirror was back!
"Oh my god!"
"Thank fuck."
Clark's head snapped to the left to shoot Lex a scandalized look.
"Sorry. But I meant it."
Clark snorted and his attention was drawn to the In door as Hatter and Hare came out of the top hat house to help things along. "Well, what's left out here to—oh!"
"Well, would you look at that?"
Hatter and Hare stood at the other end of the table and looked up at Crystal in much the same way Clark and Lex were.
"Can you take us to where that is?" Clark asked excitedly. "We came here in the dark, we're not sure—"
"Sure, sure!" Hatter said dismissively.
"Don't worry," Hare said. "It'll stay there till you use it."
"Yeah—it never disappears a second time in the same trip."
Clark sighed with mild relief.
"Except for that one time."
"Well, that was what they call an anomaly, you see, Hare. Because—"
"Actually," Lex interrupted, "if you wouldn't mind, we'd very much like to get going right away. It feels particularly anomalous out here this evening."
Hare held his hand out and looked up as if for rain. "Does it?"
"It really does," Clark said, nodding with as much convincing power as he could muster.
"Well, then. Let's get going!"
"To the forest!" they shouted together and began to lead Clark and Lex down the meandering path.
It was on the way there that Clark began to realize what it was, exactly, that they were about to leave behind. Home sounded fantastic, what with his own bed and his parents and not meeting too many people that forced him to scream like a little girl.
But at the same time, there were no gigantic turkeys served with breakfast, no crazy top hat house showers with lots of interesting options to choose from, and no hot chocolate nozzle in the sink. There was no Hatter, no Hare, no nonsensical tea parties, and no incredibly soft, plush Wondergrass.
However, there was also no breaking into song and dance on a whim. That rather settled the matter.
It seemed to Clark that they had reached the mirror much sooner than they should have, but then he realized it was quite possible that he and Lex had been walking in circles the first night, making the trip seem longer than it really was.
The mirror portal shined brightly in the middle of the wood, Lex's study plainly visible on the other side of it.
"Well, there it is," Hare said with a sigh.
"We appreciate everything you've done for us," Lex said sincerely, though Clark noticed he was having a hard time keeping his eyes away from the portal. Clark was having similar trouble, as he was rather terrified it might close on them again, regardless of Hatter and Hare's ‘it was just that one time’ assurances.
"Oh, p-shaw!" Hatter said, waving him off. "We enjoyed having you!"
"And remember, you can come back whenever you want."
"Oh, indeedy-do. Wonderland will always be here."
Music floated over the trees.
"Oh, god."
Hatter leaned closer to Clark and held a hand by his mouth as if speaking in secret. "Just a quick one, we promise."
With that, Hatter and Hare broke into a very active show-stopping type number that was really quite amazing considering it was apparently unrehearsed. They both had excellent balance and were very, very light on their feet.
While we're sad to see you go
There's still something we think you should know
Wonderland will still be here
If you should need a friend, then don't you fear
Come see us anytime!
Go on, throw in a rhyme!
We don't want you to fret
'Cause we never will forget
You've got friends here
And you're welcome every year
(Or sooner!)
Just come to us when you have a problem!
Tap that looking-glass and step on through!
Drop on by for tea and conversation
We'll do everything we can... to help you!
There's food to eat and a place to sleep
And you can ask Caterpillar for a story, too!
So come see us anytime!
Go on, throw in a rhyme!
We don't want you to fret
'Cause we never will forget
You've got friends here
And you're welcoooooooooome
Eeeeeeeeeveryyyyyyy
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeear!
(Or sooner!)
They ended with their usual grins and jazz hands, and Clark and Lex applauded loudly. The lyrics, as always, needed a little help, but the rest of it was really quite spectacular.
Still, Clark was glad it was the last song and dance number he'd be seeing in real life for a while. "Well," he said with a sigh, inching toward the portal. "I hope you'll say good-bye to everyone for us."
"Oh, of course!"
"Yes. Please tell Pinniped I'm sorry I didn't get to see his sea rock collection after all."
Clark shot Lex a mildly incredulous, mildly adoring look, and shook his head.
"We will."
"I'm sure he'll understand," Hare added.
"Yes. Well," Clark cleared his throat. "We'd better get going so we can call off the search parties," he said with a chuckle.
Hatter and Hare looked at him blankly. "Didn't we tell you?"
Lex took a careful step forward. "Tell us what?"
Hare nudged Hatter. "Hm? Oh! Well, time doesn't pass in Wonderland like it does in your world."
"Yeah, it doesn't matter how long you're here, you only lose a few seconds of time there."
"Indeedy-do."
"Oh." Clark and Lex looked at each other with a mixture of pleased surprise and relief. They wouldn't have to explain a two day absence after all!
"Well!" Clark said, feeling even more lighthearted than before. "Thanks again for everything! Good-bye, then." He smiled and shook each of their hands, then turned toward the portal.
"Oh—wait!"
He turned back to find Hatter and Hare's hopeful faces gazing at him. "Are you sure you won't teach us how to play Sex?"
Clark closed his eyes in exasperation. He opened them with effort and said, very politely, "I'm sure. Sorry."
Hatter sighed and Hare's ears drooped. Lex was watching them both with obvious amusement.
"Well, maybe next time," Hatter said hopefully, and waved.
Without bothering to correct him, Clark smiled, looked to make sure Lex was following, and stepped through the portal and into Lex's study.
~ ~ ~
Lex turned from the portal just before stepping through it. He looked back at Hatter and Hare, who stopped waving, watching him curiously.
"Hatter?"
Hatter took a step forward. "Yes?"
"Come here a minute, would you?"
Hatter and Hare exchanged a look, shrugged, and Hatter approached, smiling.
Lex indicated he wanted to tell him something secretively, and Hatter leaned down and offered his ear. Lex whispered into it for more than a minute as Hatter made encouraging sounds now and then.
"Hm. Uh-huh. Really? Uh-huh. Oh. Oh, my."
Finally he was done, and Hatter stood up straight again and looked at him, rather perplexed. "Are you sure?"
Lex tilted his head quickly and quirked his eyebrows. "Yeah, I'm sure," he said, and headed for the portal again. "But, uh... watch out for those teeth."
Hatter looked at Hare with wide eyes, Hare's head tilted in interested confusion, and Lex winked and stepped through the portal and into his study.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Umpteenth: And Now, the Obligatory Hopeful Conclusion
What Hatter and Hare had told them was absolutely right: No time at all seemed to have passed since they'd left Lex's study.
The moment Clark stepped back through the looking-glass, he found himself doubled over in the same sun flare pain that had caused him to knock them into the mirror in the first place.
It thankfully subsided rather quickly, but when he was able to stand up straight again, Lex still wasn't there. All he saw in the looking-glass was his own reflection—there wasn't even a hint of the wood he'd been in only seconds ago.
He waited and waited and waited, growing sweaty and nervous. He had actually begun to reach back out for the looking-glass when Lex suddenly stepped through it, knocking Clark's hand out of the way with his advancing chest.
He stopped just outside the frame, blinking in confusion. "You all right?"
"You took so long. I was about to try to come back through."
"Back through?" Lex looked around him, then back at Clark in confusion. "Back through what?"
Clark heard his swallow crack in his ears. "The... mirror."
Lex glanced behind him at the looking-glass, eyeing it critically as if he was sure he was missing something. "Through the mirror? Uh... I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean."
Clark's breathing sped up. His heart felt as if it was about to burst from him. It couldn't be. It couldn't be!
"Clark! Clark!" Lex stepped forward and took Clark's arms in his hands, which caused Clark to realize that he'd been falling backward, about to faint. "I'm kidding! It's a joke! I was there, too. Jesus, relax."
"Oh, my god, that's not funny!"
Lex was heroically not snickering, but he couldn't seem to help his grin. "I know. I'm sorry. But the look on your face, it was... priceless." He cleared his throat, obviously trying to force a frown, and patted Clark's arms. "Hey, are you all right?"
"I'm fine now. Jeez, don't scare me like that."
He did laugh, just the once, but then he looked appropriately contrite. "No, I am sorry. I never thought you'd believe me for even a second."
Clark finally gave in to a small smile, and had opened his mouth to respond when suddenly, the oddest feeling came over him. It was familiar, but distant. He felt... taller. Stronger. Healthier. His sore, swollen lip wasn't sore or swollen anymore.
Lex's eyes had widened to the size of walnuts.
Though he knew even before he did it that doing it was giving a little something away, he licked at his newly whole lower lip where the split and bruise had been. It was gone.
Lex's lips parted in surprise, and he looked toward the mirror. He pointed at it shakily. "In there!" he exclaimed, and looked back at Clark with his wide, wide eyes. "So in there, you're not—"
"No." Clark shook his head, trying to put apology into his eyes, but wanting to be stern at the same time. "No, Lex."
Lex's eyes dulled and his posture slackened. He laughed softly and nodded with understanding—understanding that he wasn't going to understand, and that he really shouldn't guess.
Clark wasn't at all sure that he agreed with the implication of the reappearance of the mirror that he and Lex's problems were solved. But he certainly felt that their visit to Wonderland had put them on more even ground. Lex didn't know, but he seemed to understand why he didn't know, and why Clark felt he couldn't tell him. He even seemed resigned to that. He certainly seemed dedicated to changing it—and the right way this time.
With their positions more clearly defined, Clark was hopeful that someday—maybe even someday soon—he would be certain that he could safely come clean with Lex.
Maybe in the end, he'd even find that Lex really wouldn't mind so much that Clark was only a monkey pretending to be a dog.
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