A/N: Trigger warning, again, for panic attack/meltdown.
Red's Descent
Wonderland is unrecognizable. A world so distorted that Red's perceptions and understanding of reality tremble. It's like a dream. Disjointed. A place hazy and senseless- it doesn't make sense. There is a fragmented dream logic to it that suggests it can't be real.
Red stares out the window of the car as it slowly maneuvers down the road. People are unhurried to get out of the way, smiling widely when they spot the telltale red vehicle, waving at the tinted windows. So happy to see her.
There are so many people. Red didn't know Wonderland had so many people. She's never seen them all out on the streets, going about their day as if there is nothing to be fearful of. Their heads aren't down, rushing from one point to another, only out and about because of necessity, and desperate to get back before curfew.
When they pull up into the courtyard, Red's eyes train on a particular spot, a spot that, for as long as she can remember, has held the chopping block for public executions. A spot that has always been stained red no matter how desperately the servants scrubbed.
There is nothing there now, just smooth stone the same color as the rest of the courtyard.
Red's hand is constricted, and she glances away from the windows to meet soft brown eyes. Chloe's lips lift into an encouraging smile, and Red's eyes linger, before her door is pulled open.
Roses. She smells roses.
She doesn't let go of her friend's hand as she gets out of the car, Chloe just slides along the back seat after her, thanking the chauffeur for the both of them as she passes him. Red's eyes immediately fix on her mother, waiting just a couple meters away with a blinding smile.
This time, she's anticipating the hug and braces for it before her mother even drags her forward. It's fine. Everything is fine.
Her hand is still linked with Chloe's, which drags her into the embrace as well, which Red would feel bad about if it wasn't the only thing encouraging her to remain calm. It was fine.
"Sweetheart! I'm so glad you could make it!"
Red had plugged her phone back in and reluctantly started taking her mother's calls, which happen at least once a week. Each one is awkward and stilting, and Red just doesn't know how to talk to this version of her mother.
She wasn't that great at talking to the other version, either.
Chloe offering to come with is the only thing that got her to agree to this weekend trip home.
A torpedo of pink, white, and black tackles her from the side, ripping them free from the embrace. The Red Queen chuckles as Red looks wearily down at the child that is supposed to be her brother.
His bubblegum pink hair curls charmingly around his ears as he smiles up at her.
"Hey there," she says uncomfortably. Should she give him a nickname? Kids, get nicknames, right? "...Munchkin."
Chloe snorts, which she quickly smothers when Red turns a glare on her. She's never had to deal with kids before. Or met one. People in Wonderland hid their kids in their houses for fear of them upsetting the Queen in any way.
Her mom didn't typically have children beheaded, but there were still harsh consequences. Being young didn't protect them. Being her daughter only protected Red so much. Best to steer clear if you're able. Most of Red's childhood was spent alternatively in states of boredom and terror.
Before Red can figure out what to do with her arms, Bishop pulls away and attaches himself to Blue.
"Mom and I made cookies, you want some?"
Chloe's reactions seem much more natural. She returns the hug easily, even going so far as to lift him into the air and spin, making him giggle. She glances at Red as she sets him down, ruffling his hair.
"Maybe in a little bit. Let your sister and I put our bags up and get settled first."
"Okay!" he cheers happily, and then darts back through the castle doors, making a few maids have to jump out of the way as he races past.
The Queen of Hearts clicks her tongue, starting after him. "That boy. I better go stop him before he bowls over some of the staff. Come find us in the kitchen when you are ready, dears. Bishop! No running in the halls!"
"Yes, mother," Red dutifully replies, staring after her disappearing skirts. And then she and Chloe are left alone in the courtyard except for the chauffeur and staff lifting their bags out of the trunk. Red doesn't recognize any of them. They were probably executed years ago.
Red hurriedly relieves them of their things. She doesn't need ghosts carrying her bags.
The main halls look remarkably similar to what she's used to. Long, empty, stretching walkways, fancy tables with unique vases. The halls are clean, and lit, but Red still feels like she should be sneaking through them, hiding from the guards to not get caught out after curfew. Bags slung over one shoulder, she grips Chloe's hand and drags her into a secret passageway, wanting to just get to her room as quickly as possible.
It's when she comes to a door that she realizes that her room is probably different, too. She has a door. She didn't have one before, and now it stares her in the face where an open heart doorway should be, because her mother has the freedom to go anywhere without being delayed or blocked.
Red lets go of her friend's hand to shakily reach for the handle. The double doors push open to a dreamworld room.
It looks like her room. Only there are things laying around that she'd never had before. Personal effects. Nicknacks she can't determine the purpose of. Pictures. On every surface, every wall, are pictures. It's unnerving seeing herself in photos that never happened, with people she doesn't know.
Red never had her picture taken as a kid, but there are dozens of her with her still pink hair, smiling wide for the camera. Pictures with her mom, with Ella, with Chloe, with her baby brother (and a man she doesn't know, but must be her dad). Her walls are a collage of happy memories, telling a tale of a girl who grew up unbelievably loved and supported.
Red feels struck. She's never seen her face look like that, so… happy. Carefree. She doesn't know how to make her face look like that.
The wavering, floating, wrongness in her head finally fully overwhelms her, and her brain suddenly goes static.
Chloe steps toward a wall, reaching out with gentle fingers towards her own face. "Oh, wow. This is so stra-"
Red sweeps her arms across the desk, throwing everything. Pictures, bobbles, stray clothes. She reaches blindly, anything that her hands bump into, and yanks them off the wall, off every surface, and throws them with everything wrong bubbling in her body.
"Red!"
"Red!"
A weird, strangled, choking sound comes from her, and she can't see, but she keeps ripping at things, ripping until she's suddenly on the floor in a pile of glass, and she's fisting shards in her hand and throwing those too, making smaller shards.
When her fumbling, numb, hands can't grasp onto anything else around her, they come up to her face, gripping it, trying to stop the hitching, panicked, sounds still escaping. It heaves her shoulders and makes her panic more, because she has very little control of it.
And then Chloe is on the floor in front of her, prying Red's hands away and pulling her forward, and Red collapses against her friend with an anguished, mournful, sound.
That's when her awareness returns, engulfed in her friend's arms as she's rocked and she cries. She doesn't know why she's suddenly crying, she hasn't in years and everything is fine now. They made it fine.
So why can't she stop?
Her hands hurt. And her face stings a little. It's these thoughts that make her sit up, probably before she's ready, even though she still can't control the sniffling or coughs that collapse her diaphragm every few seconds.
That's when she sees the mess of a room and the blood on her hands, and when she slowly uncurls her fists, more glass falls through her fingers, though a few remain lodged in her skin. Her hands are trembling. Red winces at the sight and uses the back of her hand to wipe at her tears, and it makes her face hurt more as more fragments are brushed away along with the tears.
What happened? What did she do?
"B-blue? I'm… I'm sorry, I didn't-" She broke her promise? "I'm sorry, please-"
Chloe touches her wrist as her airways hitch again. "Wait here." She stands and disappears into Red's ensuite bathroom. She's eerily calm as she comes back with a first aid kit. Completely different to the last time she found Red covered in blood.
"I'm sorry," Red begs again. Is the princess mad at her? She can't stand the silence. It's ringing next to her erratic breathing.
"Stop it," Chloe says, catching Red's hand and cutting off another plea. "Relax your hand." Red immediately does when she realizes that she has clenched her hand around the glass again.
Red bites her lip and just watches as her friend carefully picks every shard out of her hand. She tries to hold still, but every now and then her shoulders would suddenly seize again out of nowhere, making her whole body jerk.
By the time Chloe moves onto wiping all the cuts with alcohol soaked cotton, Red finally has her breathing under control and she's gone kind of numb. She watches as the pile of bloody cotton gets larger and when her friend starts carefully wrapping her hands with gauze.
Only then does Chloe look directly at her, studying her face. She wets another cotton ball and starts wiping it along Red's cheeks, cleaning it of tears and more blood.
Red leans desperately into the hand on the other side of her face, steadying her. "Do you hate me?" she asks more calmly. She's at least not blowing snot bubbles anymore.
The fuck is wrong with her.
Chloe leans forward and places a lingering kiss on the cheek she just cleaned, and then presses their foreheads together. It calms Red immensely, and her eyes fall closed, suddenly exhausted. "No, Red, I don't hate you."
"I didn't mean to."
"I know. Everything will be okay. Eventually, it will be okay. I have you." And then Red loses consciousness after that.
….
Red wasn't allowed friends growing up. She wasn't allowed attachments. Attachments allowed for weakness. Attachments made you vulnerable- got you hurt.
The guards used to play with her when she was little. They'd smile at her, bend down to talk to her, sometimes offer her a wildflower that they found on one of their patrols and picked just for her. She always looked forward to seeing them, because they were kind to her. Until the queen caught them, and it was off with their heads. Treason, she said, for putting foolish ideas into her daughter's head. The new guards ignored her after that.
She cried, then, watching their heads roll across blood soaked stone. " See," her mother said. " Attachments make you weak. Now pull yourself together or I'll give you something to cry about." (She hadn't managed to control herself that time, either).
Red jolts awake, jaw clenched so tight her teeth ache, and she sees the red of her walls and blanket, and she just knows she's home. And then something touches her cheek, brushing the hair back from her face, and Red flinches.
"Hey, it's okay. I'm here. You're okay."
Red twists around, coming face to face with blue, blue, blue. "But I thought-" she cranes her neck, taking in her room, her old room, and finally remembers the pictures and the glass and the crying. Chloe must have cleaned it all up while Red was out. Now it looks… the way it always has (aside from the door).
"Fuck," she mutters, rubbing at her sticky feeling cheeks. When they burn, she's reminded of her cuts as well. "How long was I..?"
"Only about an hour," Chloe says. "Your mom came looking for us earlier, but I told her you weren't feeling well."
"Do you think we can get away with hiding up here the rest of the weekend?" Red asks hopefully.
"Even if we could, I don't think we should, Jabberwock." Chloe lifts one of Red's bandaged hands and presses a couple kisses across the gauze on her palms and fingers. She continues after she sees Red's desperate, pleading, look. "Maybe if you see more of your mom acting like Bridget, it won't be so hard to reconcile the two. This is who she is now. It's not going to suddenly go away."
"I know that," Red snaps, despite waking up a couple minutes ago and being sure that it had.
"I can't-" Chloe's voice breaks. "Red, I can't keep-"
Red's irritation quickly seeps away when her friend leans forward and gently kisses her nose. Then her cheek. Then Red turns her head so it's her lips that take contact next. She sighs into it, hand coming up to hold her friend there a little while longer.
She's discovered that she likes kissing her friend a lot. A lot a lot.
Chloe makes a noise in her throat. "This isn't going to get you out of it," she mumbles, but Red just presses closer, slipping her hand into blue waves and deepening the kiss, and the last lingering emotions of her dream fall away. She hadn't realized they were still clinging to her until they aren't.
She's undoubtedly attached.
"Fuck," she whimpers when Chloe pulls back. Blue bumps their noses chidingly.
"Language," she rebukes softly, even though she hadn't said anything a minute ago, the first time she said it.
"Shit, damn, ass, fuck-" Chloe rolls away, right out of the bed, and Red laughs even though she immediately reaches out after her. "Wait, wait, I'm sorry, Princess, please come back."
"Get up," Blue says, throwing Red's jacket at her, eyes sparkling. "You promised to eat your brother's cookies, so let's go eat some damn cookies."
Red sputters at the blatant hypocrisy, stomach flopping about inside her. Was Chloe teasing her?
Red starts to smile. She really likes it when Chloe curses. She suddenly becomes determined to get an earnest one out of her.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think.
~Silver~