12106/Wonderland: All The Mimsies

Wonderland: All The Mimsies
Date of Scene:	22 July 2022
Location:	April and Harley's Apartment.
Synopsis:	April and Terry share a moment in Wonderland.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, April O'Neil

---

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Tumble out of bed and then stumble to the kitchen
Pour yourself a cup of ambition
And then yawn and stretch and try to come to life,
Jump in the shower, the blood starts pumping
Out on the street the traffic starts jumpin'
It's folks like Ape on the job from Nine to Five.

This is not an ordinary April dream. It might be because the Channel Six News offices look more like the sets in a musical theater production than a real television station. There are rows of women typing away ... on thin air, and their high-heeled shooes clakity-clak-clak-clak away at the floor in intricate tap routines to simulate the cadence of typewriters... that offices stopped using decades ago. April doesn't have a cubicle, but a desk like all the other women, and one of them leans in her general direction to hiss, "Honey, you're falling behind!"
tip-tippy-tippy-tap
"Didn't they teach you how to type?"
tippy-tippy-tippy-tap.
"The boss is going to notice!" says another, with a nasal and annoying tone to her voice.
"Better get moving!"

April O'Neil has posed:
April, passed out on her sofa in her apartment, with Bud and Lou, and Gerti the Turkey all laying around her on it too, the Hyenas lining her side, Gerti sleeping on her stomach, and an tablet computer laying over her chest. She's just outcold snoring, with the tv on playing a re-run of Two and a Half Men...

In her dream, she's at her shitty desk in the back corner of the C6 offices. The desk closest to the bathroom doors...

Typing away on her computer, April is just peering at the screen, because in a dream you can never really read that easily... But then the voices near by draws her eyes and she looks over at them, with a dumbfounded look on her face.

"What?" She asks softly.

April looks toward Bernadette's office door, then back to the source of the voices. "She can wait a little longer." She grumbles out while her stare goes back to her monitor...

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The cadence of tapdancing feet dies away as all of the women stare at April in horror after what she has said. April's screen flies away, turning into nothing more than set-dressing, cardboard with painted numbers on it.

And the door to Bernadette's office slams open, revealing a black void beyond it, and a stentorian voice shouts:

"O'Neil. In my office. Now!"

April O'Neil has posed:
April sits back from her computer quickly when she sees what her monitor has become. "Oh come on..." She grumbles out before that office door calls out to her so ominously. She looks up with concern strewn across her visage, and hesitantly rises up from her squeaky, uncomfortable, office chair. "Uh... Be right there!" She calls out before gathering up her water bottle off the desk, putting her phone in to her desk drawer, and then stepping over the random skateboard with a piece of pizza on it beside her desk. She starts to scurry across the office floor, stepping around some of the rude women she works with, smiling to one of the handsome Anchors who is a total asshole, but he lets her get some air time now and then if she covers for him.

"Bernie...." April says upon approaching her boss' doorway then.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
But it isn't a doorway at all. It's a hole!

And the world /tilts/, so that April is no longer standing up, but the entire news station seems to have tilted ninety degrees, tossing her into that deep, dark hole.

And she falls, and falls, and falls. Throughout her fall, she can see things on the walls of the hole as she falls: televisions showing some of her best airtime moments. A clown mallet. A set of regular turtles with primary color markings on their shells sitting on a table playing poker with pizza slices instead of cards, and a few other odds and ends here and there.

Until she finally hits the bottom of the hole. But the fall doesn't hurt. In fact, she has landed on a rather comfy chair in what appears to be an antique office, with a beautifully elaborate wooden desk in front of her, and there's a pair of feet propped up on the desk.r
They're not human feet. The person sitting across from her on the large wooden chair is her cousin, Terry, in his Cheshire Cat form.

"Miss O'Neil, you are fired!" he says, and then he laughs and shakes his head. "Psych! I just always wanted to do the evil firing boss character at some point or another..."

April O'Neil has posed:
April is just about to say something else when the world goes tumbling, sending her down the hole of despair! She has her eyes shut for most of the start of it, before she finally opens them up to see the flashing of memories flying by. "What the heeeelllll!" She cries out as the fall continues onward to an almost awkward timescale!

When she finally lands though, she is squeezing her water bottle causing the water to pour out over her hands, and down over her lap making it look like she peed herself.

She is looking around the office she landed in wildly, until she centers on the voice speaking to her.

Her blue eyes narrow. "Terry?!" She calls out in a angry loud whisper! "What the heck is this?! Did you do this?" She asks then, looking up to see if the hole was still above her, but then she just shoots her eyes back at him and throws whats left of her water bottle at the Cheshire Cat! "You're worse than my actual boss!" She snaps back at him!

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry takes the soaking in good humor- after all, he did punk her dream. "I'm sorry! I tried to pull you in more subtly but... I guess I really don't do subtle." The cat rubs the back of his neck, and he glances around. "But I guess it worked, you're not in your dream anymore, but in mine."

He sits up, taking his feet off the desk and leaning his elbows on the smooth surface. "'cuz, I am afraid I kind of have bad news for you..."

April O'Neil has posed:
April looks down at herself and whines at the sight. She touches her jeans and then just looks back up at him. "Did I actually pee myself in reality? If I did, I'm going to tell your mother all your secrets... She won't leave me alone on Facebook ever since you brought her over back in..."

She trails off. She hears what he says and her eyes narrow at him.

"Oh god, what now?" She asks as she schoots forward in her chair, walking rapidly toward him on her feet, pulling the office chair along with her until she's close to the big fancy desk. "You're not like, stuck in space again, are you?" She has to ask, because well... her cousin gets in a lot of trouble!

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Geez, Apri!" Terry says, crossing his arms over his chest, "You make it sound like I just vanish up realities at the drop of a hat here."

And then there is an awkward pause, before he says quietly "Actually... um. Yes."

He stands up suddenly and says "Let's take a walk!", and the desk and chairs disappear. April, however, doesn't fall down, she remains suspended in midair until she decides to get up and walk. The office is now a rather lovely meadow with... enormous, people-sized flowers. Butterflies the size of small cars flit to and fro in multicolored splendor, occasionally sadowing the pair. Terry begins to walk down among the flowers, a cane spinning in his hand, occasionally touching down on the ground here and there, "It's a lovely golden afternoon..."

April O'Neil has posed:
April just tilts her head at Terry and watches him rise up. She takes a second, but then is up just before the chair vanishes. She looks around to see the scenery change, which has her gasping in surprise. "This is bonkers. I mean, I've seen bonkers, but this is... another level..."

She's a few paces behind Terry as he starts to do his cane twirling, which draws her eyes and has her shuffling rapidly to catch up with him. Her eyes then start to dance around at the various sights, especially the giant flowers.

"Is this... Wonderland?" She asks him next. "This is where you are?" She then asks further. "Terry. You got a power to open portals to seemingly anywhere. How the hell do you keep getting /stuck/?!"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry stops to face his cousin, hands on the cane's handle and the tip of the cane between is feet. "It's... not that easy, 'cuz. The Titans, we found out what was driving the Jabberwock, what was threatening Wonderland. And we defeated it!" He brightens up, "You should have seen them, they were wonderful!" He turns around and guides April to a copse, just a little bit aways.

"Wonderland was the dream of the Red King. He escaped here to dream away and run away from the memory of his daughter's death. Wonderand was spun up from his subconscious trying to bury that memory with whimsy and absurdities. But when little Alice Liddel fell into the dream, she asked questions, was inquisitive, and she awoke all of those memories that he had suppressed." He sighs, "And those suppressed memories, all of /that/, became the Jabberwock. And all of that anger... just wanted to tear the king apart, and stop the dream."

They are close to the copse now, a bee the size of a hawk perches on his arm for a moment, before buzzing off again, "But you see... The Titans and Jonathan Sims and Nick Drago helped solve it. The King is no longer in danger... but he is also no longer dreaming the dream."

April O'Neil has posed:
April has had the fortunate chance to travel to Themyscira, a wonderland like she had never expected to get to visit in her life, but this? This is different. She walks with Vorpal, and looks over to him as he tries to explain, but a lot of it it doesn't really make sense to her. She sees the trees up ahead, then the arrival of the bird, but ultimately her attention is on that of her cousin in apparently another state of peril... somewhere.

"I don't get it." April says to him with a slow shake of her head. "You're stuck somewhere, but... your friends... they helped you solve a problem?" She asks next.

"Your friends are gonna figure it out, I'm sure, and get you outta..." Her eyes sweep around the madness that was made to help someone cope with the loss of their child. "Outta this?" She looks back to Terry then.

"What can I do to help?" She asks finally. "I'm not so useless, ya know..."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"You are far from useless, Ape. But I don't think there's a fix to /this/. You see... if Wonderland was the Red King's dream to escape his trauma... he no longer can dream it if he faces his trauma. And that's what he did- what we helped him do. So he woke up."

He glances around, "And Wonderland started to fade away. All of the people- the Hatter, the Hare, the Tweedles... everybody would just fade away as the dream collapsed."

"You are my family. But there's also another side of me that comes from here. And these people are my family too..."

Entering the copse, the light is unusually dimmer, even though the canopies are nowhere near as thick to block out the sun.

"As Wonderland was falling away, I did the only thing I could think of at the time."

There, beneath a large tree, there are three people sleeping. One is unmistakably the Mad Hatter, and on the other side the famed Caterpillar, both of them are asleep, side by side with a third figure: Terry. The Cheshire Cat is also asleep, hands crossed over his chest. One hand clasps a red scepter, and on his head there is a red crown.

The Vorpal that is talking to April turns to look at her, and perhaps now it might seem to April that he occasionally looks slightly transparent. "I am now keeping Wonderland alive by dreaming it. It had to be someone with the same magic as the Red King-- and I was born of his magic. Wonderlanders /can't/ dream by themselves, but I am half human, and my human half can dream. So with the Caterpillar and the Mad Hatter as my fetters... I took the Red King's place."

He looks at the three figures on the ground, and then back to April, sadly.

"I'm not coming back home, cousin."

April O'Neil has posed:
Watching this world she's in fade away as they start to venture further in to the trees, has April feeling light headed, woozy even. She keeps up with Vorpal though, walking with him as she lets her eyes roam around the copse of trees. She sees the three slumbering figures, and recognizes them all... though she's clearly gotta brush up on this tale a little more since it seems to be growing in importance to her cousin's well being. Literally.

She shoots a look over at him when he finally says that last part, her eyes able to see through him now, which gives her more context as to the nature of this conversation.

"So that's what this is?" She asks him. "You brought me here to tell me that you're taking over... what... ruling this place?" She asks, motioning with one hand before it drops back down to her thigh, as she stands there in wet pants.

She shakes her head side to side. "That's not gonna fly, ya know... You may be half... this place. But you're half... our place too. If that means we only get you every other weekend, and on Wednesdays.... so be it. But if your Titan friends can't get you back, I'll find someone who can. Harley and I aren't gonna settle for anything short of making sure we don't lose you." She says with a little more emotion in her voice.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Not ruling," Terry shakes his head, "The Red King merely existed. Kept the dream alive. Let the creatures of his land just carry on with their lives without bothering them." The Cheshire grins. "... actually, when you think about it, he was a pretty good king by most standards." Except for the land being beset by his suppressed trauma, but nobody's perfect.

"I can't be away, Ape, I'm sorry. The dream needs to be dreamt. I can't really step away. It's why I had to drag your dream in here with me, because I can't go to you. I've been trying to drag mom in here as well but... it's tricky. It has to be at the right time, when I can spare the attention. This place..."

He spreads his arms and makes a full turn, "It's kind of dizzying. I lose myself a lot. Sometimes I am not sure if I am me or someone else's dream. Sometimes I'm the land, sometimes I'm a brook, or the chink in a cup sitting on the Mad Hatter's tea party table, full of cobwebs by now. And then I occasionally remember I'm me, and that's when I know I can reach out and touch someone's dream." He looks at April, "Because Wonderland isn't requiring my full being at that moment. I wanted to pull Harley in with you... but she must be awake somewhere. At whatever ungodly hour it is... because that's Harls."

He smiles suddenly, "Did she tell you that she pulled a political coup and overthrew the Queen of Hearts? Hah! Classic Harley."

April O'Neil has posed:
April starts to cross her arms over her stomach as Terry goes on to twirl himself around his magical sleepy world. She gives another look around it before she puts her eyes back on to his spectral form and just stares..

That blue eyed stare lingers a few more moments before she looks to the 3 slumbering figures by the base of the tree again. She shakes her head a bit as she chews on her bottom lip.

Her eyes trace back over to the ghostly Vorpal, and she nods remorsefully to him. "She mentioned it." April says quietly. "She's out selling tacos with her taco truck..." She speaks of Harley. "Late night bars and drunken taco buyers... makes money." She says with a teary laugh.

"Fine. If you're happy with this, then I'm happy for you. But I'm still gonna try some stuff, talk to some people. There's always a way... I don't know your friends that well either, but I don't think they're gonna accept this either." She confesses to him then. "But if you gotta be here for awhile, at least you got this weird ass way of getting ahold of me..."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I'm not happy, Ape," Terry says quietly. "I miss you and mom. I've got two guys who are crazy about me that I just had to leave behind. And my team, they're like another family for me." He looks down, and rubs at one of his eyes. "I'm not happy /at all/."

He takes a slow, measured breath, and raises his head, "But it's what I have to do. I've been trying to learn what it is to be a hero for two years. And Donna and Diana and Gar and all of them and you, you all have taught me that you have to do the right thing regardless of how much you might not want to do it."

He leans against a tree, and only sinks slightly into it, "Leo taught me about what it means to have honor. What kind of a student would I be if I turned back on all of my teachers simply because I wanted to spend a weekend with my boyfriends... when an entire world was in danger of collapsing?"

He sighs, and looks down. "No. I'm not happy doing this. But it's got to be done. And right now, it's got to be me." He looks up.

"Remember that time mom took us to that mall that one time to get pizza and I got lost and thought I was never coming back, so I started building a fort to 'tough it out' in the camping section at SEARS?"

April O'Neil has posed:
The admission that her cousin isn't happy with this situation just quietly steels April's desire to help get him out of this place. But she knows this mode he's in, she knows she's not going to talk him back from it. She just nods her head softly several times, and then his story of his survival in Sears has her releasing another light laugh.

"We thought you were ready to kill the first person who came across your camp, and cook them up." She says to him as she walks toward him where he's leaning, her arms going to fold over her stomach again. She gives another look around the trees surrounding them before she regards him once more.

"You're not doing a good job of convincing me that this isn't just a overreaction too..." She tells him before taking in a deep breath again through her nose.

"Those people you just mentioned... they're all going to fight for you to get free of this, you know it, I know you know it... I just have to keep pointing it out."

She looks down then before shaking her head, causing her auburn hair to wave on either sides of her face before she bounces her eyes back up to him.

"I'll talk to your mother..." She quietly says as she tries to hold back the tears. "I'll tell her you made sure to point out that you have to boyfriends, and I can't even find one." She says with another strained laugh.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry smiles for a moment, and for an instant the world around them almost shifts into that SEARS store, but then it returns to being the copse. "I am sure you all will have ideas. But... just don't get your hopes up. And well... if you guys can't get me out, I can always invade your dreams now and again to catch up. Hey, who knows..." he leans forward to give April a gentle nudge, "Maybe I'll introduce you to the man of your dreams. I could run a speed-dream-dating service here in Wonderland. Pull you and a couple of bachelors every week or so, who knows?"

He purses his lips, "But your hold is fading. I think you're about to wake up. But... if it helps any, I don't think you actually peed yourself." He pauses, and seems to be sensing something, "Well, at least, if you wake up soon, that is."

April O'Neil has posed:
April just tilts her head, ever the teasing one of her cousin. She gives a look around the copse once more, including a lingering stare at the trio beneath the tree... Part of her wants to walk over and start kicking them to see what would happen, but it might be a terrible idea!

It's the nudge that draws her eyes back to Vorpal, and she uncrosses her arms then to wrap them around TErry to hug him. "I love you." She says to him then with her head beside his. "I'm going to be right here for you, reachable every night... except the ones where Harley has me staying up to watch some weird Tank Girl movie, or something." She says with another emotional laugh escaping her. When she pulls back, she glances down at herself then. "If I didn't pee myself, it sure as hell better not be one of the Hyenas...." She states next before looking up to him again.

And that's when she stirs in reality, and suddenly does sit up on the sofa! A slumbering turkey suddenly is brought back to wakefulness too, and starts flapping its wings as it lunges from the stomach of April toward the floor.

Bud and Lou, however, both just keep snoring as they lay butt to butt on the sofa beside her.

"God, damnit." April says, seeing that her drink had spilled after she'd fallen asleep with it between her legs. She reaches a hand up to her head, moves the tablet computer to the side and starts to crawl over the Hyenas...

"Terry. You're gonna be the death of me..." She grumbles sleepily as she reaches for her phone...