Craw101 prompted: playing cards

The-red-priestess prompted: about unicorns and lullabies

This is the LAST CHAPTER in Glass Houses. May it bring you joy. After Sunday, I'm sort of tenuously planning for a continuation fixed on Hatter called Pots and Kettles. But we'll have to see how that turns out.

The Long Argument

Belle points the Cadillac towards the cabin and flies. It's the only place they'd be. The two of them are just the same, riddled in all their fucking poetry. Gold and his flowers. Hatter taking the van, bringing him to the place Gold brought her father. It's the only way he'd do it—symmetry—Hatter and his fucking mirrors.

The drive takes too long.

The drive takes ten minutes.

And Belle doesn't bother to hide her approach. Knuckles like ice, melted metal in her palm cutting rivets in the leather-cased wheel, she takes the corners as fast as the car will go, pulls up the drive in a shower of gravel and screeching tires.

But even as she steps out and strides for the cabin, she hears Hatter inside. He's shouting, his shadow rough and wild, silhouetted on the window, "Her name is Alice. And you will stay the hell away from my little girl!"

Belle's palm clinks and clatters against the door handle, but the bloody stupid thing will not turn. Locked. Fucking locked. Wishing hard, Belle clenches the fairy wand in a white knuckled fist. She tries the door again.

Locked. Still locked. And she is going to fucking kill him.

She will kill them both.

Breathe, she thinks. Like Archie says.

So Belle enchants herself instead.

"Huff puff," she snarls, and kicks in the goddamned door.

Hatter stops midsentence—something about all the queen's horses and all her dead men—and his eyes fly to hers. Gold is already looking her way, though his eyes are hazy, fluttering, threatening to roll back in his head. A playing card sticks to his forehead—the suicide king—and it's slowly killing him.

Belle does not stop to think. She doesn't even consider. Crossing the room in an instant, she rips the card from his skin. And it hurts, sends a broken shard of bitter magic all the way up her arm. Tendrils try to clench and clutch around her heart, but Belle burns—she burns—and its roots find no home in her.

She crumples the card in her metal stained fist and sends it to the floor. Ashes to ashes, dirt to dirt.

Hatter stands very still. Cold as masonry, he looks so courtly, though his jacket falls loose at his sides, unbuttoned. His scarf is gone, lost on the floor, and fat red rope of a guillotine's passing catches the light when he turns his head to grin at her.

A golden crown perches on the brim of his lavender top hat.

"Whatever are you doing here, mutton?" he says.

And he is not himself. This, she knows abruptly, is not the man she loves.

"This is too much, Hatter. You're going too far."

"I rather think I'm being gentle, personally. Do you think maybe you could wait outside?"

"You need to stop."

Eyes very dark and too, too warm, Hatter smiles and she sees all the lullabies—all the whispered midnight stories of phoenixes and unicorns—festering in his earth.

"Belle," he says and he sounds so reasonable, so fucking reasonable and not broken at all. Not broken, though she can see the cracks, the wrong, and Belle clenches her fists so hard they hurt.

Hatter doesn't seem to notice. Hatter only smirks. "Mutton, he's working for the queen. He's a rabid dog. He's the start of another gods damned war and I think—and here's a novel concept; you might like it—that for once in our frumious lives, Belle, it's time to bring the war to her."

He is broken. He is hideous, monstrous and wrong.

He is changed.

Hatter goes nowhere without his scarves. Even in the night, he wears his shirts with high collars, every button locked. If ever her fingers brush his neck, he flinches, pulls away. Hatter does not wear his wounds. Hatter never wears his wounds.

"What happened?" she asks. "What's wrong with you?"

But he only smiles. Open and lovely, he smiles the way he smiles when he offers her a present—all pride and darting eyes and fidgeting magician's hands. "My sweet, you'll just have to trust me. This is for the best, I promise."

Belle swallows. It would be so easy to step back, to let him take care of things, to twin each other the way they always have. But the world feels as though it's falling from beneath her feet.

This is not Hatter.

Or, at least, this Hatter does not belong to her.

"I told you," she says, voice very nearly steady. "He is not working for the queen."

He snorts and scoffs. "Why," he grins, sharp at the edges, suddenly slightly less than civil. "Because he said so?"

"Because I said so." She plants herself between Hatter and Gold. The metal burned into her palm begins to flow again, collecting like honey beneath her nails. "And you trust me. You know I'm right. So you need to put the gun down, and come home."

And she expects Hatter will listen, because her Hatter always listens. Hatter will do anything she asks. But today, he stands beside a roughhewn kitchen table, his top hat low over his eyes. And he says, "No."

He does not look at all like the man she remembers—a lavender suit and a skittish smile in the face of a raging mob. He looks wild and broken. He looks cruel.

"Hatter, I won't let you kill him," she says. "You don't want this war."

Outside, the muzzy sky breaks long enough to send a shard of sunlight through the dirty windows and dancing dust motes. A gun drops down from Hatter's sleeve and catches in his fingers, glinting in the light.

Her father's gun. He didn't press charges, no, but once upon a time, Moe French hunted monsters, and the skills of his youth never quite went stale.

Hatter follows her eyes and smiles. He never seems to stop smiling, and his gray eyes are so painfully strange, impossibly dark, and he holds his shoulders taut, his hands loose and ready at his sides. The gun points downward, at the floor.

Gently, so gently, he says, "I won't lose you, too, mutton."

Belle meets his eyes, though she wants nothing better than to look away. "You fire that gun, you sure as hell will."

His patience breaks, but his smile clenches wider. "Move, Belle."

She holds her ground. She holds her spells, her history, and her brand-new fairy wand.

Belle bears her teeth and says, "Fuck you."

Behind her, Gold laughs, a weak and breathy chuckle. "Fantastic powers of negotiation, my dear."

"Shut up." Belle does not glance at him over her shoulder, though she wants to. She can hear him stirring, tugging on his ropes.

Not long and he stills again, apparently exhausted. When he speaks, his voice is barely there, "By all means. Wouldn't want to interrupt you antagonizing a madman."

Hatter grins, grins, keeps grinning. And though his eyes should be summer gray, his pupils are huge, filled with an ancient, waiting black. He lifts the gun, aims it in the space between Belle's arm and hip. "I believe the lady told you to shut up."

Belle steps to her right, closes the gap. The gun points at her stomach. Hatter's narrows his eyes, but the gun does not drop.

It is an effort to keep her voice steady, but Archie taught her this. Once upon a time, Hatter taught her this.

Imagine them naked. Imagine them unarmed.

"You keep pointing that gun at me, Hatter, so help me I will break every single oneof your goddamned fingers."

She finds Hatter is somehow worse than naked without his scarf.

And though Belle is terrified, still, she stands. She has held the wall against ogres with little more than a borrowed bow. She has fought spiders large enough to ride. She has sewn a gaping stomach shut. She has healed grievous, impossible wounds.

She can do this, too.

And for a long moment, no one speaks. Hatter only watches her, gauging her with that hawker's stare. And despite the history on his neck, his eyes are bitter, cold and clear.

"You love this Jabberwock, Belle?" he asks at last. "You love him?"

Belle holds her ground. "Hatter, put the gun down."

And something in him breaks. His façade dissolves. Rage twists up his face. "I said, do you love this fucking monster, Belle?"

Belle brings up the wand, for all the good the nasty little thing can do. With her other hand, she clenches magic, brings to bear a shield. "Goddamnit, Hatter," she says. "Put the damn gun down!"

And he goes still. His face empties.

"You'd cast at me," he says, and it sounds like a realization, like wonder, like betrayal and goddamnit—how dare he feel betrayed. "You'd kill me. For him. Huh. Where'd you get that, anyway?"

"Belle," Gold manages. His breathing sounds as though it hurts. "You don't know what that's capable of. Perhaps put it down? There's a love."

Hatter grins. "Or point it at him," he says, jerks the gun in Gold's direction. He bites his tongue between his front teeth and laughs. "Shove it down his throat, mutton. Off with his fucking head."

Belle does not flinch. She does not move. She stares Hatter in his awful, wrong and newly ancient eyes.

"You can mirror-jump," she throws her gauntlet down. "The other night, I thought you had one of your turns. But you didn't. You didn't have a turn at all, did you, Hatter?

Abruptly, he stops smiling. "Ah. You noticed that?"

"You went to Wonderland."

"Belle," he tries to laugh, but it comes out something closer to a wheeze. He tries a winning smile instead. "It's not what you think."

"You've been going to Wonderland. Haven't you? You had to smash the mirror because something was chasing you. Something followed you back."

He takes a step forward. The gun disappears back into his sleeve and he holds out his hand to her, head cocked, fixing her his very best puppy-dog eyes. "Dearest I'll explain later, I promise—"

But they are absolutely the wrong eyes. Belle slaps his hand away with a broken spell.

"Now," she barks.

And Hatter's smile folds into a pained frown. He glances, once, over her shoulder, lifts two twisted fingers to the shell of his ear in the signal that means: we have company listening.

"I love you," Belle says and her voice does not waver. "I want to trust you. But you could mirror-jump—you could have taken us home—and you didn't tell me. I deserve to know why."

He smiles, tight. "Not in front of the Jabberwock, dear."

"Damnit, Hatter. You brought the fucking Jabberwock here!"

Belle's fires rise and boil towards him, but bend back long before they can touch. She cannot hurt him. Even now, she cannot hurt him.

"I stood with you," she shouts, until her flames touch the ceiling, licking holes in the roof for the sun to shine through. "When the worst happened, I was there. I saved you. I got you out!"

"You did. My Mary Ann, you absolutely did," he creeps forward, both hands spread, offering an embrace. "That's why you have to trust me now. You have to trust I'm saving you."

Belle slams her fist into his chest—the one with the wand—and Hatter staggers back. She barely notices. She cannot breathe. The heat is killing her. Her heart throbs in her chest. She cannot breathe. She cannot breathe. The whole world is splitting at the seams.

"If you're saving me," she chokes as her peach pit grows branches and leaves, "why didn't you tell me?"

Hatter grabs her by her shoulders. He finds her eyes, he takes them and holds. He says, "I couldn't."

And abruptly, Belle goes cold.

Gold snorts, half-laughs, though it sounds as though it hurts. "He's working for the Queen of Hearts."

Hatter snarls, "No! You shut the hell up!"

Blindly, Belle pushes away his arms. The soft cotton of Hatter's shirt slides under her fingers, but she can barely see it. She can only see dirt, dirt, dirt in every direction, can only smell blood and sod and desperation.

Once upon a time, Hatter went to his grave.

Once upon a time, Belle dug him out.

"He's right. That's where these cards came from," she whispers, seeing for the first time the army of hearts and clubs scattered across the floor, pain riddled rune-marks decorating their crimson and ermine robes. "This isn't the old deck. It can't be. We lost those in the Western Pass."

He tries to grab her arm again, but Hatter cannot reach her. She is another world away. "Your Jabberwock has a load of things in his shop—" he starts and Gold coughs, bitter and rough.

"If I had a deck like that, boy, you'd never have found it."

"Hatter, why?" Belle demands.

Spitting curses, Hatter tosses up his hands. He spins, heaves a wooden chair into the fire place and snarls when it explodes in a shower of green butterflies and leaves. "I had to do something!"

And Belle breaks. She breaks. Because, well, why not? What is there left to stand for? Hatter needed her support, needed her, but he is gone.

"About what?" she asks. She smooths the creases in her skirt, and her voice is cold and still. "This isn't about Alice, Hatter. You can't pretend that little girl set you to this. Don'tyou put your damned foolish war on her."

For a moment, his bowed shoulders lift. He turns, eyes bright, something like hope. And Belle can't help but think how normal this all seems. Outside, the rain clouds have broken. She smells wet grass and sodden wood, hears the birds singing the first few notes of spring. Sunshine pours through the crooked little windows, draping like wings—like hurtful, bloody memories—over everything.

This is war, Belle thinks. This is the end of her family. It shouldn't be like this.

She should be wearing armor. Or, at least, it should have the decency to rain.

But Hatter smiles. Really smiles. And he looks so goddamned beautiful. He looks fifty years younger. He looks like a boy she knew, once upon a time, all hope and mischief and quick, dirty fingers.

"It's about us, Belle," he says and grinning, twines his fingers through with hers. "All of us. We can be a family."

"We are family, Hatter. What are you talking about?"

"You, me, Alice—"

Belle pulls away. She takes a step back. Then another.

"Her name is Gracie, Hatter. Gracie. She's been Gracie since you lost her."

"So? She's still my daughter."

This is not right. This is not right. Rumpelstiltskin let himself be tied to a kitchen chair. He is weak and wavering, and Belle is the only thing standing between the strongest creature in all the kingdoms and her mad, hatted friend.

She is a tin solider. She is an old and useless clown. And when the tremors start, she cannot seem to make them stop. The ground shivers beneath her feet. In the chest behind Gold's back, some kind of porcelain set rattles and cracks.

"You have no right to her!" Belle snarls. The light bulb bursts above her head. Silverware explodes, sending shards of metal in all directions.

Nothing hits him. Nothing can hit him. But Hatter turns his head as though he has been struck. Slowly, painfully, he murmurs, "No."

He holds his head low, legs stiff, like a dog about to bite. Insists, like deep dungeons, "She is my daughter."

"You don't know what kind of hellfire you're playing with, boy," Gold says from his chair.

Hatter stops and smiles, smiles so wide it hurts.

"What part of shut your fucking mouth did you have trouble with?"

Cards whip from his pockets, too fast to follow—clubs, all of them clubs. Belle tries to catch the cards, tries to burn them up before they reach him, but they avoid her groping fingers, dance off the dripping metal of her palms. The cards find their target and Gold's head snaps around as each blow falls.

And Hatter grins. "Warning shot. Next one's an ace. I think I'll put it through your fucking knee."

"No," Belle says and she shakes down to the foundation. The stones that anchor the wood in the earth begin to tremble. Bits of ceiling come flaking down.

And she holds her ground. She holds her ground, her body locked between her friend—her brother, her chosen twin—and the man she used to love.

This is not a man she knows. This is a stranger wearing Hatter's face.

"Hatter, stop. Put the gun down. Walk away."

He grins at her, all teeth. "Make me."

"Hatter—"

"Well? Come on, if you love him so damn much. What's the problem mutton? Hit me. Or—wait," he stops and grins, flicks a finger to his chin. "Is it not true love?"

"Stop!" she shouts. Cracks shatter outward from the stone beneath her feet.

But Hatter lunges. He grabs her by her blouse, pulls her close until they are nose to nose and even now—even bloody now—his breath smells sweet, like the candies from his pockets.

"Make me, Belle. Make me! Put me down!"

"The Queen of Hearts—"

He throws his head back and laughs, dances away in an old saunter she half remembers. When he sobers, his teeth are bared. In the light between the rain and the trees, his mouth is far, far too red.

"The Queen of Hearts," he says, "is dead."

Nothing but cold, the words filter through Belle's head in a storm of jagged angles and awful realizations.

The broken mirror. Hatter's crown.

"Oh gods, Hatter. What have you done?"

He bows—a court bow, very old, from long lost kingdoms back home—and when he rises, he is smiling, his awful, too-dark eyes fixed to hers.

"The Queen of Hearts is dead. Long live my queen."

Grinning, Hatter holds out to her a hand. Belle has only ever seen half-missing cats with smiles quite that wide.

"It was meant to be your birthday present," he says and sighs. "But, ah! Such is life. Long live Belle. Long live Rose. Long live my Mary Ann. Tell me, my dear, who are you on your crowning day?"

Never in her life has she wanted to touch anyone as badly as she wants to hold Hatter now. She thinks, if only her father's heavy watch is sturdy enough, if only she is heavy enough, maybe she can weigh him down, ground him, keep him whole before he dies, another lost phoenix, and sets the world aflame.

But Belle doesn't move. She feels as though roots span from her toes and sink into the soil beneath the cabin floor. In a hundred years, she will still be here, her crevices filled with horror and moss.

She stares at Hatter's offered hand. Her eyes cannot seem to move. Flaking brown still stains his coat cuffs and his black leather gloves.

"Dead," the word rings hollow. Somehow, she manages. She asks. "When?"

Hatter shrugs. His mouth twists and he jerks a thumb in Gold's direction. "While you were off fucking him. Not that I'm bitter, it's just…" he sighs. "Would you at least let me approve of them first? I much prefer the cricket to this conniving bastard."

"Gods save us," she breathes.

"Fuck 'em. I'll save us. Just take a few steps to your left, precious lamb, and it'll all be over."

"How? How could you possibly…"

"I jumped through the looking glass and took off her head!" Hatter crows and grins so wide Belle can only see his face splitting, ripping from side to side and slowly, somewhere in the future, the rest of him disappears. "Gardening shears. Bit rusty, but then, so am I. Twenty eight years box will do that. Tell you the truth, I thought it'd be harder. But then, regicide does have a tendency towards the anticlimactic."

Once upon a time, she couldn't sleep for the sound of dogs at night. Could stop waiting for the mobs to come, the inn to burn, the curse to fall, the spells to hurt. Couldn't close her eyes, couldn't dare risk it, because what if she woke and Hatter wasn't there? Worse yet, what if she woke—what if she woke, but Hatter didn't?

And now.

Now.

Hatter dragged that nightmare back again. On purpose. Because he missed it.

"They'll be hunting us," she whispers. Trembling coils of smoke drift from her lips. It tastes of phoenix ash. Of loss. A vast and terrible, unspeakable loss.

But Hatter smells nothing. He sees nothing. He sees only the world he's building for himself, and he's putting her in it—he's stealing her away—and he's smiling the while, saying, "Not if they can't get through. The queen is dead, long live you. I own the mirrors. Wonderland is ours."

Belle shakes her head. It is the only part of her that moves.

"You can't hold that much magic. It'll kill you, Hatter. It'll drive you mad. Can't you see it? It'll devour you. You have to let it go!"

And Hatter.

Hatter rolls his eyes at her.

"No. I have to tie up some uffish loose ends. I have to fetch my daughter back. I have to rebuild… oh, about a third of the Card Castle—and oh, of course, there's the army of living briars that will want cutting—but then—then, I'll have only tobring my family home."

"No."

"Come on, Belle," he snarls and the gun is in his hand again. "Two left and straight on 'till morning!"

"No."

"I'm cleaning the cups, mutton. It's time to move the hell down."

She shakes her head. For all the good it does, she shakes her head, while around her, the cabin crumbles. Her spells escape her. Bits by bit, they nibble the wood until it flakes away entirely, outward into the grass, like the curling peel of a rotting fruit. If Belle cared to look, she could see the blue sky sprawled above her.

And oh, it is a beautiful day.

And this… this thing requires a different kind of strength. Because she can rot this cabin into dust, she can set the forest aflame. But Hatter will still stand, with all the cards of a kingdom in his pocket, and magic swirling around his head and hands. Even if she can, even if she can make him stop, how can she destroy what she loves best?

"There are crumbs in your works," she whispers. Then, at last, desperate, "Andy Lee—"

Hatter snarls, brings his fist down hard on the still-standing mantle piece. The stone shatters like an eggshell and crumbles into the hearth.

"That is not my name."

"It is. You know it is. Before the hats, before the first mirror. We were friends. We were always friends. Hatter, you were my only friend. When my mother died, do you remember?"

"That wasn't me."

"Do you remember?" Deliberately, Belle presses forward. Now, she is the one with an outstretched hand. "The castle was such a mess, with all manner of people and doctors, and everyone was looking for me to say how sorry they were and I just wanted to be left alone, and Hatter, you found me."

Hatter flinches. He backs away. "Some Andy Lee bloke found you, you mean."

Belle takes another step. She barely breathes. She counts her paces to keep calm—remembers once, so long ago, doing the same.

Once upon a time, she saved Hatter that day.

"You took me somewhere where they couldn't find me, even though they searched for hours," she whispers and her hand does not waver. "A few times, the guards walked right past us. We could see their feet, but they didn't think to look under the ledge. Hatter, do you remember?"

But Hatter will not touch her. He backs away, as if she is poison and death and dogs in the night and all those things from which they've ever run.

"It wasn't me," he insists. His eyes are wide and nearly summer gray. "I'm Hatter. I'm Hatter."

And Belle does not cry. She says, "We painted the roses red that day. For my mother. We painted the roses red."

Hatter breaks. He sobs, though no tears fall from the storm clouds in his eyes. He turns his face away. "That wasn't me!"

Three steps. Four. Five.

"And you said you'd never be Andy Lee again. You said you were going away. You'd been apprenticed, but you didn't tell me until then. You waited—" The words catch and crumble. Belle sobs.

But she walks.

Six steps. Seven.

Hatter's face crumples. Finally, he meets her eyes. "Until the very last second. I wanted every second."

Eight steps. Nine.

Belle whispers, "You left me the day my mother died."

"I came back." He swallows, tries to smile. With his hand, he forms their sign—I love you. Then, lambs. "I heard you taming monsters. My Mary Ann."

For a moment, he's Hatter—he's Hatter—and Belle chokes on tears, half laughing.

"You liar. You were picking pockets in farming towns."

"I was doing that, too."

And then, Gold ruins everything.

"As charming as this is…" he starts and Belle purses her lips at him.

"No, you shut up," she says. "You're supposed to be clever. First rule of the road—always feed strangers; never accept their food. What were you thinking?"

Gold does not look like a man who has been close to death. He smiles and Belle sees his gold tooth is back. "I was thinking he wasn't a stranger."

"You got cocky."

Gold shrugs. The ropes that bind his hands fall loose and coil on the floor.

"Perhaps true," he says and stands. He seems utterly himself again. "Or perhaps, I only needed certain information… confirmed."

And though he must keep one hand on the back of his chair to steady himself without his cane, Gold is strong. He is not ill or marked by cards. He arches an eyebrow at her and holds out a hand.

"My wand, if you would, my dear."

Without quite meaning to, Belle pulls away.

Ten.

In an instant, Hatter is at her side. His fingers lock in hers. He does not say, "I told you so." Instead, he glares at Gold, he snarls, "I can kill you. I can squeeze until your head comes off."

Gold rolls his eyes. "The latter, certainly, but not the former. There's only one way of killing me, boy, and a little strategic pressure isn't it."

Belle looks between the two of them, both bristling with their armory and battalion of stolen spells over the wreckage of a cottage no one really owns. The air crackles and reeks of magic, of dark places and so many thing better left forgot.

And suddenly, Belle realizes, "You cheated. Both of you."

Gold frowns. He can see everything. Or, at least, Rumpelstiltskin always could. Anything but her. Whatever happened, he never expected her. "Pardon?" he says.

Belle staggers back.

Eleven.

"I don't know you. Either of you," she whispers. "What are you playing at? Why? Starting more wars, as if we haven't had enough already. I'd expect it from you—Gold, Rumpelstiltskin, whatever the hell you call yourself. But Hatter… Hatter, why?"

Hatter folds his mouth in a solemn, darkened line. The gun drops from his sleeve again, into his hand for the last time. "It has to be done. Mint and mutton," he says so gently. "Not much further now."

The walls of the cabin have long since rotted into dust and mud. Belle backs up right over the remnants of the door.

Twelve.

She thinks, suddenly, she understands what it was Archie tried to tell her.

"I want no part of this," she demands, her shoulders squared. "I'm not fighting anymore. I am done. I lay down my sword."

"Belle, don't go," Gold starts. He would cross the empty floor to her, she sees, but his knee will not bear his weight.

Hatter, on the other hand, lurches forward, "Mary Ann," he pleads. He tries to smile and it warps his face. "Mutton. All my lambs and ivy, please."

But Belle understands.

This is why Archie's eyes drop when she speaks Hatter's name. This is why post traumatic scratches paths and crossroads on her charts. This is why Archie called and called and left so many messages on the tiny, blinking machine, until late one night when Hatter thought she couldn't hear, he picked up the phone, and Archie never dialed back again.

This is why she's broken. This is why she catches fire in the middle of the streets, in a new world where there is no magic, but still so many monsters to defeat.

Let Emma hunt them. Belle is an old dragon. She has flown once with phoenixes.

Today, she lays down her wings.

"No," she breathes. "No more. I'm done."

Thirteen.

Belle steps over the threshold and into the world. Slowly, she lifts her hand and twists her fingers at them both in a cantrip for honor and good luck.

She drops the wand. Let it rot.

She turns.

And lighter than she's felt in thirty years, Belle walks into the woods.

She does not reemerge.