Whisper in my Ear |Complete|

[Desiré Alys]

Desiré Alys

Prompt List

• Mirror
  
• Autumn
  
• Break
  
• Stuffed Animal
  
• Last Hope
  
• Sacrifice
  
• Dread
  
• Tears
  
• Breaking the Rules
  
• Choose Your Own Adventure! - Luck

[Desiré Alys]

Stuffed Animal
This post takes place in the present.

He didn't even know why it was there.  Honestly.  It wasn't like he routinely kept little stuffed bunny rabbits in his room.  He remembered Dawn having it, but he'd thought she would have taken it home with her, but somehow, it had to have escaped from her backpack and ended up on his floor, out of plain sight.  Normally, he probably wouldn't have found it until she asked about it.  The absolute only reason he found it was because it was rather suddenly on his eye level.  Cats just aren't that big, usually.

Desiré certainly wasn't, which he wasn't exactly pleased about, but he could definitely get away with fitting in places that something like a lion or a tiger couldn't.  At least, that was what he told himself whenever he was feeling shitty for being stuck as a house cat, of all things.  That whole 'oh my god, he's ADORABLE!' thing was pretty damaging for the ego, he had to admit, at least to himself.  That didn't mean he wouldn't try it out, though.  He figured that he was able to do this, so he might as well get good at it, in case he ever wanted to use it for something.  He had no idea what it would ever come in handy for, but hey, why not?  Just around the house, it wasn't so bad, and he'd checked to make sure that Dirk wasn't home.  As long as his uncle wasn't around to pick on 'Sebastian's cat', Desiré was usually just fine. 

He also didn't feel as stupid for falling for things that normal cats fall for, like just about anything that hung and moved, including strings.  Suddenly finding himself on eye level with a bunny rabbit that was HIS SIZE and nearly having a kitty heart attack (complete with fur standing on end and back arching) was one of those things he'd have felt stupid for falling for if anyone had been there to see it.  He hissed at the thing, warning it away, before he realized that it hadn't moved.  Surely, it should have moved, just because he'd shown up out of nowhere.

That was when it occurred to him that it was stuffed.  Cue stupidity.

About five seconds of feeling like an idiot later, he tugged at the thing with his teeth, dragging it out into the open, where he left it sitting up and just stared at it for a few moments.  He didn't know why, maybe just to see if it would do anything, but he really wasn't expecting it to actually DO something.  It was stuffed!  So, when it moved (actually, fell over), he pounced it without a second thought, and proceeded to bite, grab it with his front claws, and kick at it with his back while they 'wrestled'.  He could feel stupid later, but he was rather enjoying himself at the present moment.

Wait, nix that.  He could feel stupid now, since there was a short knock on the door before it opened to reveal Dawn and his brother.  He dropped that rabbit like it was hot and hopped onto his bed like he totally wasn't doing that, but it didn't take a rocket scientist. 

Damn it.  At least cats couldn't blush.

[Desiré Alys]

Dread
This post takes place in the present.

It was happening slowly, but Desiré was still coming to understand exactly why Sebastian and Uncle Dirk didn't get along.  It was a simple thing, really, something that he'd just managed to miss somehow, but it was pretty clear right then.

Dirk was a raging psychopath with sadistic tendencies that surrounded Sebastian and anything owned by Sebastian.

Currently, Desiré fit into that category, since he was 'Sebastian's cat', and as he stared up from his corner at Dirk, who was holding the broom, he felt a wave of dread wash over him.  This was going to suck.  Bad.  He hissed up at the man, growling his most menacing growl, and knew it really wasn't going to do anything.  Dirk didn't care.

"Shut up, you little monster," the man muttered, and then the broom swung and Desiré braced himself mentally while he tried to back himself into the corner as far as he could go.  There was still a sharp sound as the harder upper part of the broom head impacted his poor little skull, and the bristles smacked him into the wall even harder than he was already stuck in there, but Dirk's back swing gave him enough room to bolt. 

He was sure to take a swipe at the man's foot as he passed.  Just to be an ass.

His little claws did their job, actually drawing blood on the top of the man's bare foot, and Dirk howled.  There was no way Sebastian wouldn't be able to hear that, but whether or not he'd come running for Dirk yelling was debatable.  Desiré wasn't waiting to be saved, and instead shot up the stairs towards his own bedroom with Dirk hot on his tail.  He was under the bed as soon as he entered the room, and was horrified to find the broom following him.

"You mangy little RAT!"

He growled again, trying to dodge the broom as the bristles kept shooting towards him, but he inevitably got knocked into the corner again.  SUCKAGE.  Dirk, I am gonna KICK YOUR ASS! he thought furiously, but there wasn't much he could do right then.  He was stuck until Dirk lost interest.

"What the HELL are you doing, you sick old bastard?!"

Or, until Sebastian came to the rescue.

Desiré was sure to yowl as plaintively and pathetically as he could, just to let his brother know that it was him under there and that Dirk was positively terrorizing him, and there was a short beat of silence before Sebastian absolutely exploded.

"ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL HIM, YOU SICK FUCK?  GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY CAT!"  And so on.  In the chaos of Dirk shouting back indignantly about his foot and just indignantly and Sebastian continuing his own tirade, Desiré took off again, this time headed for the bathroom.  He nosed the door shut as best as he could, shifted back to human, and finished shutting it and locking it.  He was going to kill that man. 

Now, he had to figure out how to get from the bathroom to his room without any clothes, while Dirk and Sebastian were both hanging around in there.

[Desiré Alys]

Break
This post takes place in the present.

Nobody older than Desiré was home, which was why this was the best time for him to make his point.  Dirk was supposed to be home any....second..........now.

Bingo.

Dirk walked in to find his oldest grand-nephew, his favorite, sitting at the kitchen table staring at the door.  He was wondering what was going on as soon as he saw Desiré staring like that, but once his eyes trailed down to the tabletop, he was more alarmed than curious.

The broom was broken in half and laying on the table between Dirk and the boy, its ragged, sharp edges standing out in his mind from the moment he saw them.  The broom didn't look as though there had been any hesitation or struggle in its breaking.  There was no indication that it had been broken mostly in half, then torn the rest of the way.  No.  It had been snapped in one harsh movement, and from all available evidence, Dirk was betting that Desiré had done it.  He wasn't sure why, but he instantly thought of Sebastian's cat, the fact that he'd seen the animal stare at him exactly the way Desiré was currently, and that the broom was his weapon of choice in chasing the little abomination to his household around.

He held Desiré's stare for as long as he could before he opened his mouth to speak, which was startling to him.  He'd stared down worse than his nephew in the past, but there was just something about this.  Desiré wasn't playing around.

The boy stood up so suddenly that the chair shrieked across the floor as it dragged, and Desiré scooped the two pieces of broom up as he strode purposefully around the table.  He shoved them into Dirk's chest until the man took them, and hesitated there, invading the man's space.

"Touch the damn cat again, and I'm breaking something you're more fond of."

That being said, he walked away without another word or glance, headed up the stairs, and hesitated as he passed Sebastian's room.  Much like he'd been waiting for Dirk, Sebastian seemed to be waiting for him, and he turned a gentler, more 'not in the mood for attitude' version of that stare on his brother.

"Smile.  I just cut up his favorite shirt, just in case the broom wasn't enough," his brother announced proudly.

Despite himself and his current mood, Desiré couldn't help himself.  He did exactly as his brother had told him to, and grinned.  Dirk so deserved it.

[Desiré Alys]

Sacrifice
This post takes place in the past.

"Okay, be careful, Sabby.  Don't get it all over your clothes, or Mommy will be really mad," Desiré told his little brother, giving the younger boy his most serious 8-year old face as he handed the ice cream cone to the 6-year old that was practically vibrating with happiness over the frozen treat.  Really, Desiré was probably too young to be making ice cream cones for them, but he was a good kid, and he knew that he had to clean up afterwards, so their parents didn't mind much.  How else would they learn except by doing?  Fortunately, Sebastian stopped looking like he was going to take off like a rocket when he had his cone in hand, and Desiré handed his own to his brother for 'safe-keeping' while he put everything away. 

It only took a few minutes, but Sebastian wasn't exactly being patient with his ice cream cone, nor was he paying enough attention to what he was doing.  He was still standing in the kitchen, but that was only because their parents had a 'no food in the living room' rule, and stood totally transfixed by the television and the episode of 'Are you Afraid of the Dark?' that was on as he licked his ice cream cone.  He licked it, licked it and kept licking, all on one side, and Desiré turned to take his cone back just in time to see the ball of ice cream tip over the other side of the cone, and Sebastian's face registered confused shock for an instant at its sudden disappearance before both of their eyes turned to where it had fallen.

Right in Dirk's shoe.

Desiré just stared for a moment, then caught Sebastian's guilty look as his younger brother glanced up and met it with his own horrified expression.  That was Uncle Dirk's shoe...he was going to go NUTS.

"Uh, oh...DEZ, I DIDN'T MEAN TO!"

Oh, this wasn't good, but he was the big brother, so he was going to make it work out.  Somehow.  Maybe he could clean the ice cream out?  Yeah, that was what he'd do. 

"I told you to be careful!" he said quickly, unable at his age to resist the 'told you so', but he walked over and picked up the offended shoe.  "Don't worry, Sabby, I'll clean it up.  Go watch TV."

"But...my ice cream!"

"Have mine.  It's gonna melt while I'm doing this, anyway.  I'll have some later."

That seemed to be all that was necessary, that and a smile to assure Sebastian that it wasn't a big deal, and then the kid was settled at the table licking his new ice cream cone with a little more care while Desiré had Dirk's shoe in the sink. 

What did he know about cleaning shoes?

Obviously, not enough, since his mother came home while he was doing it, and basically freaked.  She could almost hear what her uncle would say when he saw that mess.  "Desiré, what are you doing?!"

He shot her a deer in headlights look, but it was nothing like the look Sebastian shot HIM, and he couldn't rat his brother out.  "I spilled my ice cream, I was cleaning it up!" he explained quickly, and she swept in to attempt saving the shoe.

Sebastian was good enough to split his dessert with his brother for the rest of that week.

[Desiré Alys]

Last Hope
This post takes place in the future.

Some people complained about the running (some people complained about all of it), but Desiré didn't really mind it.  He'd expected running, stress and pushing himself when he signed up for this, and he'd always been the athletic sort.  Since becoming a shifter, he was even better equipped to deal with the rigors of training in Quantico, and he loved it.  When he'd first become a shifter, and found out that it wasn't even a cool kind but a housecat, he wasn't exactly pleased, but he'd had years to get used to it.  Now, he sometimes wondered how he managed without it.  He didn't for a second believe that he couldn't have done this as a human, since countless humans did it, but he knew that he was excelling as he was because he had an extra edge to push him further along.

Actually, he couldn't have done this as a human, not with the way things worked out.  Before that car wreck, he could have, but the only reason he was even there was because of Sebastian.  His brother had managed to draw up a miracle, whether Desiré had been willing to fully admit it at the time or not, and it was the only way he could have ever made it here.  His brother had preserved his future.

He wondered if he'd ever really manage to properly thank Sebastian for that.  Usually, giving his brother credit for something wasn't too difficult, but this was one of those things that the guy seemed to prefer leaving unsaid.  Desiré didn't get it, but there were some things about his brother that he thought he'd never really understand, like just how little credit the guy gave himself, but he still tried.  Hopefully, being a lawyer would help Sebastian out in that area.  Sebastian liked arguing, and he liked winning arguments.  It was a perfect match.

And, as Desiré ran along the path outside of the training facility, he knew that this was a match.  All thanks to Sebastian's quick thinking and ability to fight what Desiré had thought to be inevitable.  Sebastian had kept hope in a miracle to the last.

[Desiré Alys]

Choose Your Own Adventure! - Luck
This post takes place in the present.

Lady Luck.  Desiré hadn’t totally believed Dawn when she said that she was just lucky.  Sure, he’d believed that a person could be lucky, but not like this.  Dawn was impossibly lucky, which was why he’d eventually taken to calling her ‘Lady Luck’.  Things just went her way, all the time, and even if they didn’t, she always lucked out and made it through.  Always. 

It took awhile, just because he chalked it up to coincidence a few times, but it really wasn’t long before he started suspecting that she was right, and he’d finally just given in on the subject.  Strangely, Dawn’s sister was the exact opposite, which didn’t really make sense to him.  It was like Dawn just absorbed the luck from the people around her or something.  He’d seen Darci trip over her own two feet, and he actually only thought that he didn’t because it was hard to trip a cat up.  As much as he hated to think about it like that, it was the truth and he was grateful for it.  He couldn’t ever be sure if she was really ‘borrowing’ the luck of the people around her like a little luck sponge, but he knew that he was probably better off than most people if she was.  He just had to worry about the things that even feline grace and reflexes couldn’t get him out of.  He certainly knew that he’d avoided getting hit by footballs and Frisbees on the campus more often when he was around her. 

He just generally ended up having to pay more attention whenever she was around, because he seemed more prone to doing something stupid if he wasn’t paying attention, just due to circumstances.  If it wasn’t him not paying attention, it was him stepping in the way of a football to take the hit on his back rather than let Dawn herself be hit with it.  It stung, but shifter healing took care of any bruise he might have had within a moment or so, whether Dawn wanted to hear that or not.  Maybe she just WAS lucky, since he’d certainly just ensured that she didn’t get hit with it.

“Oh my God, Dez!  That had to hurt!” she argued, having already proven that she had a much better grip on the whole situation for arguments’ sake than he would have liked by reminding him that she understood that healing quickly didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when it happened.  That didn’t change a thing, but it made brushing it all off a little more difficult.

“Relax, it’s fine.  That could have broken your nose or something, and that would have been worse,” he told her, shrugging, and she smiled up at him before reaching on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” 

He’d never exactly say that getting hit by footballs in her presence, or anything for that matter, was really ‘bad luck’.  Actually, she might almost be rubbing some of that luck of hers off on him.  He’d have to see how many more kisses he got out of these situations before that got added into his theory.

[Desiré Alys]

Mirror
This post takes place in the future.

Everyone has a definition of reality, an understanding of exactly what fits and what’s supposed to be ‘normal’.  For most people, that doesn’t change.  They don’t have their definition of ‘normal’ trashed, totally blown away, in their lifetimes.

Then, there were people like Desiré.  He stood in a dank, dark basement under the light of a single bulb hanging in the middle of the room.  There were officers bringing floodlights in even as he stared at a mirror that was part of what one might have considered a bathroom if there had been walls separating it from the rest of the basement.  If someone had planned to finish the space and make it into something nice, they’d given it up to the dark and mold long ago.  The basement itself wasn’t so surprising, considering the scenario, but the mirror looked almost like the one in Desiré’s own bathroom.  It looked so familiar and normal, like something he’d face upon waking, that the horror of the situation was just more surreal.

He stepped up in front of it, watching the dark basement behind him and the officers walking around the scene to set up the floodlights, the forensics technicians searching for any evidence they could find, the circus that this was becoming, and then turned his focus to the face looking back at him.  He didn’t look old by a long shot, shapeshifter genetics working in his favor since he was 19 years old and keeping him at a graceful rate of aging, but he certainly looked tired.  This case was wearing on him, and that was perhaps because of just how personal it was.  He was heading the investigation, not his first, but it was the first that this had happened on.  The killer was slick, and he was doing what he could to hit home on the man hunting for him.  No matter what Desiré did, he seemed to be a step behind the guy, and his opponent knew just how frustrating it was.  He was doing everything in his power to make it worse, leaving comments for them.  The newest one was useless for the investigation, but it was an ominous hint as to just how much the sicko had discovered about his pursuers.

Scrawled across the mirror in a woman’s lipstick, his victim’s, was a message that Desiré had no doubt was for him.

Follow me into the rabbit hole, Alice.

He frowned even further than he already was when the agent he was working with, Wilkes, stepped up beside him, scrutinizing the message with an obvious lack of understanding.  “What’s that supposed to mean?  ‘Alice’?”

“Not ‘Alice’.  Alys.  It’s a challenge.”  It wasn’t a challenge he wanted to take up.  The freak had already been more gruesome and interested in mind games than anyone Desiré had ever been after in the past, and he didn’t like it.  He was just glad that his brother and parents were far enough to be out of the line of fire.  At least, for the time being, and if he got any indication that the situation had changed, they’d be moved immediately.  He wasn’t risking this getting any more personal than the guy knowing his name.  Being asked into the ‘rabbit hole’ didn’t sound like anything he wanted.  He knew that Carroll’s Wonderland wouldn’t be what he found.

[Desiré Alys]

Breaking the Rules
This post takes place in the future.

He’d known it could get this far.  He’d known, and still he’d played into the sick freak’s game.  Hell, he knew that it was he who’d unwittingly given the guy his ‘theme’.  The first three kills hadn’t followed a theme.  They’d just been grisly, depraved, everything Desiré had joined the FBI to prevent.  It had been when the killer had discovered the name of the agent heading the case that he’d also discovered his theme.  He was leading ‘Alice’ through a dark, demented Wonderland, just as Desiré had been afraid of when he’d found that message scrawled on the basement mirror.  The kills had gotten worse, the messages confirming what the scenes suggested about his decision to take up a theme.  The ‘Mad Hatter’, as the papers had taken to calling him, was upping the stakes and bending the rules more with each murder.  This one was the kicker, though.

Desiré hit the scene early, taking in the horrors of a beheading fit for a Queen (which was the point being made), but it was the note sticking out of the girl’s mouth that made the difference.  Since the theme had been decided upon, the Mad Hatter had been showing Desiré all the possibilities for death that ‘Alice’ had along the way.  He’d never been much of a fan of Carroll’s work, but he’d found himself reading the material religiously since the Hatter had started this mess, and he had to say that he thought it was all nonsense.  Ridiculous, but that only made it more possible for someone to interpret and twist it as they wanted.  He personally thought that this killer should have gotten the title of ‘Jabberwocky’, but the papers went with what stuck. 

Speaking of ‘stuck’, the thick paper that was rolled and placed into the victim’s mouth was so bloodied up that he didn’t think he’d be able to remove it himself without damaging the scene, but it finally came free into his gloved hand.  Even through the plastic of the disposable glove, he could feel the sticky dampness of the drying blood, and his jaw clenched as he unfurled the paper.

Is she a flower or a weed?

He almost didn’t think it was going to be of any use, even though he knew the scene that the killer was referring to, until he realized there was an address at the bottom of the paper.  He took a few seconds to determine if he knew it, decided that he didn’t (though he worried that he should, because it was the first address the Hatter had given them, and he would have expected it to be something personal), and had Agent Wilkes and a few officers following him to their individual cars within a few moments.  He called the address in on his cell, looking for information before they arrived, as well as local police for a perimeter to keep anyone from potentially escaping, but he knew that was a lost cause.  The Hatter was smarter than that.  If he’d left the address, he was long gone from it.

“It’s residential?  Who lives there?” he demanded over the cell, keeping his tone as calm and low-key as he could, despite the growing sense of dread.  It was an apartment building, but he’d expected that from the fact that there was an extra number in there.  He relayed that to the woman on the other end, and got silence as he drove while she in turn relayed it to the building superintendent on another line. 

“According to his records, one Dawn Phillips resides in that apartment.”

Oh God.  He hung the cell up and floored it, probably giving the patrol cars that were his escort a start, but they knew better.  The sirens went up, and they broke every speeding law possible on the way to Dawn’s apartment.  The whole ride, all he could think about was the message.  A flower or a weed? 

A flower.  Absolutely.

[Desiré Alys]

Tears
This post takes place in the future.

Desiré really thought that if he found a total horror scene at Dawn’s apartment, he might snap.  That was likely the purpose of the attack, but the last thing he needed was to make that known to Agent Wilkes.  Brad wasn’t a bad guy, but he would follow the rules enough to call in such a personal turn of events, and Dez really didn’t want to be pulled from the case if something happened to Dawn.  He wanted to get hold of the guy and crush him just like he’d done to those girls.  Desiré hadn’t found a grisly scene, though.  He found a mess, but no blood.  There were signs of struggle, but if she was dead, it hadn’t been done there.  He found another message, though.

You’re late, Alice.  Your flower won’t sing much longer.

In retrospect, it was obvious that this was all part of the Hatter’s plan, but he hadn’t gotten it then.  Having a picture of himself and Dawn stuck to the wall just under the message, which had suggested that they were closer currently than they were, had been enough to get Wilkes on the phone and Dez temporarily removed from the case while they established whether or not he was capable of keeping his head with someone he had history with at risk, and the address at the bottom of the huge wall message wasn’t a place that Desiré would be going.  He’d be talking to someone first thing in the morning to fix this, but that didn’t help right then, and neither did his rather LOUD attempt at arguing his case.

He’d still played it stupid, though.  When he got home and found a typed letter in his mail, he should have reported it and let the people he usually worked with handle it, but he didn’t exactly try too hard.  He’d left a message on Wilkes’ voicemail with the information, but he was betting Wilkes was so excited with the seemingly approaching capture and too busy giving out orders over sirens that he didn’t even hear it.  Desiré went alone to the address he was given, which was stupid and he knew it, and even feline hearing and senses hadn’t prepared him to walk through a booby-trapped doorway.  He was expecting a human attack, which he could have heard coming, but the whoosh of something heavy set to swing down at him hadn’t been enough warning.  He took a shot to the back of the head, landed just about on his face on the dirty floor, and that was when he heard human movement.  The Hatter had apparently been expecting him to go down completely with just that hit, so making eye contact was slightly startling to the guy.  Then, the fallen agent took a boot to the face, which he failed to avoid, and he was out.

He woke up faster than a human would have, his wounds healing with shapeshifter speed, but it had still been long enough that he was tied to a chair at a table set for…tea.  He couldn’t have stayed unconscious any longer than he had, however, considering the stench of death in the room that was practically embedding itself in his sinuses from the instant he became aware enough to realize what it was.  He glanced around instantly for the source, the feline instincts regarding death smells already putting him on edge, and he realized that the table wasn’t only set for him.  There was an empty chair at the table, one that had a woman’s body propped into it that had to be a victim they hadn’t yet found, and another with a young woman tied to it, much like him.  She was staring at him with wide, frightened eyes, and he recognized her instantly.

Dawn.

“Dez!”

“Dawn, you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.  He’s a creep, but he hasn’t really hurt me,” she explained, even though the tremor in her voice suggested their captor was more than a ‘creep’.  “When he brought you in here like that, I thought…”

“I’m fine, but we have to get out of here.  How long has he been gone?”

“Awhile.  I don’t think he’ll stay gone much longer; he said that the ‘party’ would have to wait until ‘Alice’ was here.”

“Yeah, well, I’m here,” Desiré muttered, pulling with his hands at the ropes.  He was wondering if he could shift out of this mess, or if he’d just end up hurting himself with the ropes pulling his arms the way they were.  Dawn gave him a questioning look when he suggested that the killer meant him when he said ‘Alice’, and he rolled his eyes.  “It’s a play on my last name.  He figured out who was working his case, and he’s been leaving me Alice messages ever since.”

She took that without question, watching instead what he was doing, and he may have been a bit out of touch with her, but he got the feeling she was wondering why he wasn’t shifting. 

God, this was awkward.  He could have thought of a million different ways to get in touch with her again, but tied up at a psycho’s take on a tea party really wasn’t one of the ways he had in mind.  Maybe this would still be salvageable, if he could just get them out of here.

He was making his attempt at slowly shifting out of the bonds when the psycho himself walked in, and it didn’t work, anyway.  As soon as his body tried to change shapes, his arms were pulled in ways that the ropes simply wouldn’t allow, and he had to reverse it or pull one or both of them out of socket.  That’d make him pretty useless, which wasn’t much of an option.  It wasn’t like it mattered, since their ‘host’ had arrived and really shouldn’t see him shift, but having the man present wasn’t exactly a good idea, either.

“So you’ve finally fallen in, Alice, congratulations,” the Hatter said, grinning rather pleasantly.  If Desiré hadn’t known who the man was, he had to admit that he wouldn’t have ever guessed.  He looked…normal.  Completely and utterly normal and able to fit into any crowd.  Non-descript was the term they used, and this man fit it.  Not really in-shape, but not particularly overweight, mousy brown hair, brown eyes,  not exactly pale or tanned.  Not tall, but not short.  Desiré would have put him at about 5’10”, if he had to guess.  With a description like that, the Hatter would never be caught if he wasn’t caught tonight.  Even just an escape really wasn’t an option.  This man would just disappear.

“I have to admit that this is just a little depressing.  Exciting, but still sad.  It means that our game is coming to a close, and I have been enjoying it.  I hope you don’t mind that I’ll have to keep playing without you,” the Hatter told him, and he almost thought he heard a note of sincerity there.  The guy really was sorry that his game was ending.  “I’m sure a new young agent will be assigned to take your place, but I doubt he’ll be as interesting as you’ve been.”

It wasn’t surprising that his opponent had already made up his mind about their fates, and Desiré found that he really didn’t care about what the man had to say.  He was almost disappointed, in all honesty.  He’d expected more of a monster on the outside to reflect the monster on the inside.  Someone more impressive, more threatening.  This man just kept talking, almost as though all he wanted was to hear himself talk, while he poured something that definitely wasn’t tea into the cups in front of Dez, Dawn and the dead girl.  There was another pot that he poured actual tea from into the cup in front of the empty chair, and he took a few sips from his own cup as he talked.   Desiré was working at his ropes again, trying to wriggle his hands loose enough to shift without pulling them from their sockets, but he hesitated as the Hatter pressed a tea cup to the dead girl’s lips.  He let the fluid pour over her lips, down her chin, and seemingly into her mouth, and both Desiré and Dawn stared as the acid, since that was what it was, started burning her.  At first, there was nothing to suggest that anything was wrong, but it only took moments for them to see results.  He saw Dawn’s eyes flick to the cup in front of her, and it didn’t take a genius for either of them to understand what was going to happen.  Not good, at all.

“As you can see, I’ve brewed up a special tea for my guests.  You’ll have to tell me what you think of it,” he told them, launching himself into more talk, but more importantly, approaching Dawn and her teacup.  Desiré had to admit that he was impressed with her ability to keep her composure thus far, but he couldn’t blame her for starting to crack as their tormentor obviously chose her to suffer and die first.  He didn’t think that the Hatter would listen, but leaving her to deal with that first just wasn’t right.  He once more found himself wondering just what shapeshifter abilities could handle.  He’d never tried drinking poison before, nevermind acid.  Fortunately, it looked like it was a fairly slow-acting acid, though that would suck for Dawn if he couldn’t get them out of there.  It might allow him to survive, albeit in a lot of pain, due to healing capabilities.  He couldn’t let Dawn go first.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped, looking at the Hatter, whose head shot up in surprise at his 'Alice’s' tone of voice.  “You’re going to focus on her first?  I thought I was the guest of honor?”

Honor, right. 

“Oh.  You’re absolutely right, Alice.  You should get your tea first,” the madman agreed, and he set Dawn’s cup down to instead approach Desiré.  His nerve faltered for just a moment, but she had erupted into a plea for the man not to kill them, not to kill Dez, and he knew that cracking at this point would just make things worse for her.  Amazing, how he could keep it together just to try to help someone else keep it together.  This put him face to face with the man he’d been chasing, however, and this was an opportunity he’d been wanting for a long time.  He just would have preferred to avoid the whole acid situation when he did it. 

“You know they’re going to catch you, right?”

“Maybe they will, but it will be long after you’ve been swallowed up by our Wonderland,” he was assured, and the man was raising the tea cup.  This was his last chance, since even if the acid didn’t kill him, the Hatter would probably wait around to see it do its job, and that wouldn’t help an escape attempt.  Screwing up his arms was better than dying with a mouthful of mystery acid, that was for sure.

He was shifting, slowly so as to avoid rushing into a situation where his arms suddenly became forelegs and useless, and trying to force the process in a specific order.  Getting his arms free was the goal.  It wouldn’t happen before the cup reached his mouth, but the psycho was focused on his face instead of what he was doing with his hands.  The cup reached his lips and was tilted back, his eyes in constant contact with the Hatter’s, and he pushed the shift to the point of pulling his arms wrong just as the burning started.  The pain that flashed over his face wasn’t noticed as anything unusual, and for obvious reasons, he didn’t swallow.  Even as it burned, he healed, and the man couldn’t know that he wasn’t swallowing to save his mouth that pain.  It burned like liquid fire, but he was finally able to slip his hands out of the bonds, even if he could hardly move his arms at this rate.  The cup was withdrawn as he (mostly) pretended to choke, and he immediately spit the foul liquid at his captor.

That went over like a lead balloon.

The man shrieked, pushing away from Dez hard enough to knock his chair over, and he cried out at the impact on his shoulder.  Dawn was yelling, but he had to ignore her in favor of maneuvering, and pushed against the floor to force his shoulder back into place.  That hurt like hell, but he did it more quickly with the other and jumped to his feet in time to see the guy going for Dawn.  This was where shifter speed came in handy and years of football games just made life better.

Yes, he tackled the freak.

By the time Wilkes had realized that there was nothing but a ‘ha ha ha’ message at the location they’d been sent to and thought to check his voicemail, then arrived at the location Dez had told him about, the Hatter was unconscious and Desiré’s shirt was being stained by tears as he held onto Dawn.  This time, he didn’t feel so much like letting her go.

[Desiré Alys]

Autumn
This post takes place in the future.

It wasn’t like Desiré hadn’t wanted to be around for the election, merely that he’d gotten busy pretty regularly.  He’d shown up when he could to help out wherever Sebastian needed it, but his schedule had been pretty limited.  He’d promised that he’d be there tonight, though.  He’d promised, and he was sitting in traffic staring at the back of a boxy little car that he would have thought would have been given up on years before.  When he thought ‘classic’, he thought of the REAL classic cars.  Not pieces of junk that shouldn’t have lasted more than ten years.  An old lady had probably owned it and never driven it.

He didn’t arrive until the election was almost over, pulling into the Bethesda hotel’s parking garage and practically racing up to the 12th floor.  He could guess with a decent amount of certainty that the bodyguards inside the door were expecting a wacko from the way he knocked, but he gave the little peep-hole an excited smile and there was only a short hesitation before the door opened and he was let in.  Everyone else was already there, waiting and talking nervously with the TV on. 

“Do we know yet?” he asked quickly, taking his place amongst his family.  It was Sebastian’s wife that moved to answer him.

“Not officially, but everyone is guessing that Sebastian’s going to win.”

He looked at his watch, then turned his eyes on his younger brother.  Sebastian seemed to be torn between a grim seriousness and a growing excitement.  An hour.  Just one more hour, and it looked as though Desiré would be staring at not just his younger brother, but the President.

Holy shit.