Blueberries

[wanderamaranth]

Disclaimer: I do not own the recognizable elements in this story, and no profit or compensation is being given to me as a result of publishing and/or writing this story.

Summary: Alice never particularly cared for blueberries. Their Underlandian name, squimberries, seems much more appropriate.

Rating: M+

Written for just_a_dram 's aiw_porn_battle 

Author's Note: Yes, more fruit. And yes, it's blueberries, but when I read this prompt I felt like I HAD to write this. I had a few notes, but most of this was pounded out tonight, (damn my procrastination!) so disjointedness or typos? Please let me know.

 

*~*~*~*

The stains on her hands were the same color as his jacket, as the flowers in her hair, as the surprisingly soft lace that comprised the gloves that stretched across the back of her hands.

 

Alice had never particularly cared for blueberries. Their dark skins reminded her uneasily of blood under skin, transported by veins that appeared, at least when filtered through her skin, to be the same color as the fruit.

 

Thus, biting into one always conjured the image of herself as a carnivorous beast, rending flesh and bone in her quest to quench her hunger. (She could still recall the mild surprise she'd felt when she'd finally acquiesced to the harping of her peers to 'just try one' and, when bitten, the juice that burst forth had not been red.)

 

Here in Underland, though, they were apparently called something else—squimberries. It was a name, Alice decided upon first hearing it spoken, that infinitely suited the fruit more than the innocuous term 'blueberries'. What could you tell of them (aside from their color) with such a name? Now squimberries...

 

Yes, that was a much more descriptive name. Much better suited to how the berries made her feel, too.

 

They were, at the moment, living up to their name (the Underlandian and the Above names, both) in a whole new manner. She was still feeling squimish, but not as she had when thinking about the berries in the past. They were still blue, but now she could see that their flesh stained hers the same color that they were, not the shade of fresh blood.

 

The blue was visible in the handprints firmly pressed on the backside of Hatter's cream-colored trousers. The squimish feeling could have been a result of the way he continued to look at her after her impulsive action and not the berries, yes, but the berries and squimishness and now Hatter were so intertwined in her head that Alice didn't know if she'd be ever able to untangle them all. How to explain this to him? How could she say that the blueberries and their squimish-causing properties were the reason for her bold and rash behavior? Would he understand that she had been curious as to whether they tasted the same or (maybe, hopefully) better when shared? Lips and tongue doubled could halve the vague feeling of guilt from rending their delicate skins, she'd thought, as hands had enjoyed the spirit of investigation and grasped and pulled him closer, close enough to feel his response to her squimishness pressed hotly against her abdomen.

 

She'd wanted a way to enjoy the fruit that all around her seemed to be able to eat without internal castigation. Alice found that she enjoyed his kiss far more.

 

“Tarrant, I--”

 

“Nay, lass,” he said, green eyes bleeding into that same shade (would she ever escape it?) that dotted both their persons, “do not use that name. I am no longer that man.”

 

This made no sense, even to one as mad as she, who imagined that eating blueberries was somehow naughty and shameful. His deviation from the topic that plagued her unbalanced the young woman, and she responded out of ingrained habit rather than anything else.

“But it's your name,” Alice protested.

 

Shaking his head, he said, “Not anymore. Not for...a long time. And never for you.”

 

Pain rippled through her chest, making her short of breath. “You...don't wish for me to call you by your given name?” Perhaps her impulsive squimberry investigation had damaged more than her preconceived notions of the fruit.

 

“No, Alice. I don't.”

 

“I...I see,” Alice said, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, the lace of her gloves scratching the lobe. “I see,” she repeated, even though she, in fact, did not. All she was able to see, it seemed, were the stains upon his formerly pristine clothing, which were beginning to look like blood to her after all, despite the color being all wrong.

 

“Please, Alice,” he stepped forward, a warm hand grasping her under her elbow. He squeezed it softly as he said, “Let me continue to be the man I am for you, and not him. He's of no use to anyone, least of all us. Please, let me remain the Hatter.”

 

Encouraged by this plea, Alice raised her face to his once again, but his eyes were still that blue, so she lowered it again. “But 'Hatter' is not a proper sort of name, is it?” she pressed.

 

“Who is to say what is proper?” he rejoined, and Alice's world tilted as she felt a sense of deja vu. She must have made a face, because he sighed and said, “If it bothers ye that much, we can rename me. Tomorrow, though. Because tonight...” he trailed off, fighting with words as his brows twitched until he was finally able to finish, “Tonight, Alice, please allow me to be your Hatter.”

 

“Hatter,” she began, falteringly, wondering at her own logic even as she asked, “what do squimberries taste like to you?”

 

A smile, bright, brilliant and all-encompassing, split his features. “Now?” he said. “Now, my Alice, they will taste like you.”

 

She nodded, took a deep breath, then said timidly, “Your eyes are the colors of their skins.”

 

“Are they?” Hatter breathed, taking a step towards her.

 

Alice could no longer speak. She nodded again, wishing that the lump in her throat were not so persistent in choking off her voice. In the end it didn't matter, though, because then he was lowering his mouth to hers, and talking was set aside for something newer.

 

The kiss was just as perception-altering as their first had been. In less time than with that one, though, she felt him pressed against her, felt the proof of his ardor pushing insistently against her corset-less bodice. Somehow, in the time she was lost in the slide of their mouths against one another, Hatter had lowered her to the ground. Another bout of lost time, and her skirts were around her waist, his fingers were inside, fluttering, stretching. Then he was filling her, hard and insistent.

 

She arched into him, eyes rolling into the back of her head as her back bowed upwards to meet him. A strangled moan erupted from her throat, and either this or his next rolling movement atop her caused her eyes to unstick from their heaven-ward position, and the world came back into focus.

 

The Hatter was above her, palms flat against the ground on either side of her head, and it occurred to her that he did that so as to not crush her under his weight. His hat was gone; she could see the blueberry (squimberry!) bush above them as a result. She cried out again, wrapped her legs around him, and locked her ankles together, the heels of her walking boots digging into his lower back.

 

“Ungh!” the Hatter groaned, ferociously biting down on his lower lip. The emotions flickering across his face, his tightly clenched eyes, and the hint of gap-teeth digging into his own lip caused a volatile, shattering reaction. Alice shouted inarticulately. Her arms flailed outward, gloved hands scrabbling desperately at the ground. Her fingers caught on crushed berries, pebbles, dirt and twigs, and she knew that the delicate lace she wore was now completely ruined.

 

She didn't care. Instead of clasping her own eyes tight as the pleasure crashed through her trembling body, they remained wide open, and she was able to see as the Hatter experienced the same shattering. He gasped, throat swallowing convulsively, jerked against her erratically several times, then withdrew with a sound that made it seem as though doing so was killing him. Almost as soon as he was free from her body he released, hips still twitching helplessly in her direction.

 

Hatter's green, green eyes (no longer squimish!) opened slowly, languidly. Wet open-mouthed kisses were placed against her throat, and Alice would have moaned appreciatively if she'd been capable of it. Instead she simply breathed, relishing the feel of his mouth against her.

 

All too soon, the kisses stopped, and the Hatter was whispering in her ear, “Thank you, Alice.” A handkerchief was pulled out of his jacket sleeve, and he turned his attention downward, urging her to open her legs again via a gentle nudge with his knee. She obliged, spreading wide. There were no barriers between them now, she mused, still floating.

 

The gentle touch she expected did not occur, though. Forcing her eyes open, Alice found (to her consternation) that the Hatter was staring intently at her nether regions, brows tilted.

 

“Hatta?” Alice asked, self-consciously beginning to close her legs. He stopped her with a hand on her left knee.

 

“It's red,” he said, sounding perplexed.

 

“I'm sorry?”

 

In response, the gentle touch she'd been expecting before occurred then, and he carefully wiped her clean. When he was done, he moved out from between her legs and held the handkerchief aloft. “It's red,” he said again.

 

Her blood, Alice realized. Hatter was referring to her blood, which was now smeared on his handkerchief.

 

“What color ought it to be?” she asked, equally puzzled.

 

Setting the used handkerchief aside, the Hatter pulled another (from his opposite sleeve) and began to tend to himself as he said, almost absently, “Blue, of course.”

 

Blue. Of course.

 

Alice looked up at him, the man-who-was-no-longer Tarrant, now her Hatter, her lover. She looked just beyond him to the squimberries perched temptingly on the bushes, their skins and the juice staining the ground now the perfect color of guilt. It had seemed silly when blood was supposed to be red, to be fussing about blue juice. Now that blood was supposed to be blue, would be blue in this land that she adopted, the guilt made perfect sense. She'd bloodied the Hatter when she left him to go Above, as a child and again as an adult on Frabjous Day. She'd bloodied them all, her Underlandian friends and family. The guilt sprang from the enjoyment gained from doing so, the burst of sweetness on her tongue as she split the fruit the moments of happiness she'd had in London while Underland raged in war and uncertainty.

 

She began giggling. Then she began laughing. The laughs morphed into guffaws, which became more and more hysterical, until at last, they dwindled down to sobs. The Hatter held her in his arms the entire time, not speaking a word, just rocking her and pressing kisses into her hair.

 

“Hush,” he murmured, comfortingly. “We never blamed ye for leavin', Alice.”

 

Had she spoken her crimes aloud? She must have. “You should, Hatter. You should blame me for a great deal. I kept you waiting for so long, you're not even whom you were when you started waiting anymore.”

 

“But if I weren't whom I was now, you would not be whom you are, and I like you a great deal, Alice.”

 

Sniffling, Alice looked up at him and said, “You do?”

 

The Hatter laughed. “I should think that would be obvious, my dear.”

 

“So you forgive me?” she confirmed, hardly daring to believe that he wasn't mad at all, not in the slightest over behaviors that only became clear to her due to seemingly innocent fruit.

 

“Forgive you? I would say that I never felt the need to forgive you, but even though I didna blame ye, I still thought you did wrong by leaving, so...aye. I've forgiven ye, Alice. Almost as soon as yer decision was made.”