Justin was lazily sitting against a tree; bored out of his mind while he waited for…well he wasn’t exactly sure what he was waiting for. Suddenly something caught his attention. It was Ted, wearing fake, white, bunny ears. He was also wearing a waistcoat, looking at a pocket watch.

“Ted?” Justin asked, but Ted walked past him. Justin could swear he heard the man muttering about being late. “Ted, wait,” he called after the man.

Ted did not stop, in fact he carried on passed to a bigger tree than the one Justin was sitting at. It was then Ted got on his hands and knees and crawled into a big rabbit hole.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Justin groaned.

But because there was nothing else to do, he followed Ted into the rabbit hole. One minute he was crawling, the next he was falling…and falling…and falling. It felt like he would never reach the bottom. Then he thought about when he did. He would go splat on the bottom and no more Justin Taylor.

Finally, he landed on a pile of leaves and twigs. Surprisingly, it hadn’t hurt, not at all. As he looked around he saw Ted again. “I’m definitely, going to be late,” he said morosely.

“Ted, stop!” Justin yelled.

He chased after Ted, who was still wearing the silly white bunny ears and holding a pocket watch. Ted ran out of sight when he turned a corner. As he turned the corner, it was a hallway of doors, many doors. He tried each and every one. They were all locked. Looking around he saw a round, glass table. On the table was a small gold key. Justin snatched it up but it wouldn’t fit any of the doors. It was then he noticed a small door, he got on his hands and knees. Then he slid the small key into the small locked door. It clicked and he pushed the door open. He leaned down more and peered inside, he saw a beautiful garden. What the fuck was this? Did Brian give him some of his stash?

Well, he couldn’t fit through the small door. Standing up, he turned back around. This time there was a bottle on the table, it had a tag that read ‘Drink Me’. That was…odd. It hadn’t been there before. Shrugging his shoulders, he went to drink it before he stopped.

“Wait a minute, this is familiar,” he said to himself. “This is like Alice in Wonderland. That meant Ted in those stupid white bunny ears is…The White Rabbit.”

He had never had a LSD hallucination before, but it’s what he guessed it felt like. He must be dreaming, he placed the bottle down on the table and pitched his arm. “Oww!”

Alright, he wasn’t dreaming, or that was a myth. Anyway, he first grabbed the bottle then the key. He held on to the key and he sipped from the bottle. Soon, he was small enough to walk through the small door. It opened without any problem and he walked through.

“Justin-1, Wonderland-0,” he said, smirking to himself.

Just outside in the beautiful garden, someone else caught his eye.

“Blake?”

Blake looked back at him, on his head was mouse ears. Not even real looking ones. No, the kind you get at Disneyland. “Umm…what the hell is going on?” Blake asked.

“Don’t you know?”

“I know I just watched Ted run away wearing some idiotic looking bunny ears.”

“I don’t think you’re really one to judge,” Justin said, pointing to Blake’s mouse ears.

Blake’s hand shot up and grabbed the ears. He started yanking on them, but they wouldn’t budge. “I can’t get them off,” he said hysterically.

“Maybe, I could help,” Justin said, stepping close to him.

“I’m a mouse. What if there is a cat nearby? What will I do? I’ll be eaten alive.”

“Blake, you’re not a real mouse.”

It was no use, Blake had run off screaming. Well…that was enlightening. Instead of looking around the garden, he followed in the direction Blake was running.

He found himself on a beach, looking at several different kinds of birds. Well, they really weren’t birds. They were men, looked like the men who frequent the gym more than Brian did. They all had different colored feathers stuck in awkward patches on their arms. In the center was Ben, who Justin guessed was the Dodo, by his misuse of the English language.

Deciding it wasn’t worth it to talk to Ben and his disciples, Justin turned and walked away. As he walked he saw Ted again. This time, he at least knew what was going on…mostly. It had been a long time since he read Alice in Wonderland…like not since he was ten. As he followed Ted, he heard him griping about the Duchess.

Soon Ted turned around and saw Justin. “Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here?”

Justin’s eyes widened. “Do I look like a fucking Mary Ann?”

Ted seemed to either not hear or not care. “Run home quick and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan,” he demanded.

“Get your own damn gloves and fan,” he growled. It was very uncommon for him to get upset about something like that. But lately, there had too many jokes about him looking like a girl at the diner. He was getting fed up.

Ted just glared at him, Justin groaned and turned. He headed down a little path and came to a small house. On the door, a plaque was engraved W. Rabbit. “This must be the place,” he muttered.

He went upstairs and found a neat little room. Locating the gloves and fan was easy. A bottle caught his eye. It had a tag that read ‘Drink Me’. “Not on your life,” he said before going downstairs.

As he got downstairs Ted came into the house. “Mary Ann, where’s my gloves and fan?”

“Here,” Justin snarled, handing them to the other man.

On his way out, he noticed a little cake, since it didn’t have any writing on it. He ate it.

It was the wrong thing to do because he started shirking. “Damnit, never eat or drink anything in Wonderland. Justin-1, Wonderland-1.”

It took longer than he thought to get out of the house, and he ran from a puppy. The only good thing was Ted wasn’t calling him Mary Ann anymore. Soon he come upon a scattering of mushrooms. “I know this place. This is where the Caterpillar is,” he said, smiling to himself.

Standing on his tiptoes, he looked over a mushroom. “What the hell?” Justin demanded.

His father was sitting on the mushroom, smoking a long hookah.

“Who are you?” Craig asked with derision.

Justin decided not to argue with his father. He remembered this part. He grabbed a part of each side of the mushroom. Walking away as his dad got mad, crawled away angrily.

He bit one, it made him grow huge. A smaller bite of the other, he was normal height again. He would call this one a draw between him and Wonderland. He stuck the leftovers in each pocket.

After a very rude conversation with a pigeon, that was really Kiki, he left. Soon, he found a sweet little garden and a small house. He was much too big to go and visit. He took a small bite of the shrinking and became nine inches tall.

As the footman ran out of the woods, he knew where he was. The Duchess’ house. He really didn’t remember what happened here. At first, he thought about turning around, but it was his hallucination. Why not go all in. Justin recognized him as Kip Thomas, the snake. The footman ran to the door and knocked. It was opened by another footman. This was surprised even him.  

“Ethan,” he gasped.

Justin watched Kip give Ethan a huge envelope, then Kip was off. Ethan was staring stupidly up at the sky; Justin walked meekly over to the door and knocked. It was important that he did this, he wasn’t sure why though.

“There’s no use knocking. I’m out here, and there’s too much noise inside for anyone to hear you.”

“How can I get in?”

“There’s no point in it. I’ll just sit here.” He went back to staring at the sky.

Suddenly, the door was opened and a platter was thrown out, hitting Ethan a little. Instead of talking to the idiot again, Justin just opened the door and walked in.

It opened right into a smoke-filled kitchen. Sitting on a stool was Lindsay, nursing a baby. ‘She must be Duchess than,’ he thought to himself.

“Oh no, Mom. You’re the Cook,” he said out loud. His mother was leaning over a large cauldron, stirring. This part of the story was very fuzzy to him.

He started sneezing. “There’s too much pepper.”

The baby starting crying and sneezing. The poor baby didn’t have a moments rest with all that. Surprisingly, the cook wasn’t sneezing.

Justin turned and saw Brian leaning up against the window. Why hadn’t Justin seen him before? Brian smirked devilishly at him. He had on little black cat’s ears. Unlike with everyone else. They were sexy as hell on him.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Justin asked.

“He’s smiling because of that. Pig!” Lindsay said, looking at the baby.

Justin turned just as his mother started throwing everything she could reach at the Duchess and the baby. Justin didn’t remember any of this.

Lindsay stood up and threw the baby at Justin, who barely caught it in time. “I must get ready for croquet with the Queen.”

Justin had to get the baby away from these horrible people. Why couldn’t he remember this part? As he snuck out the door, the baby started making snorting sounds. Outside, he moved the blanket covering its face. He jumped, it was no baby human. It was a fucking baby pig. He had been thinking it was baby Gus or baby JR, not Babe: Pig in the City.

He sat it down, and it ran off. Anywhere it went would be better than that hellhole. As he started to walk, he saw Brian. The man was causally straddling a limb on a tree. Damn, the man could make anything look erotic.

“Where should I go?” he asked Brian.

“Where do you want to be?”

“Anywhere you are.”

“Sorry, Sunshine. Have to play by the rules.”

“Alright, then I don’t care much where I go.”

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

“Brian, jeez, just tell me where the fucking Mad Hatter is. I didn’t remember the baby being a pig but I know that the Hatter comes after that and this.”

“Fine, that way,” he said, pointing over his shoulder. “What happened to the baby?”

“Turned into a pig.”

“Thought it would,” he said before disappearing.

Justin headed to the Mad Hatter’s, suddenly Brian appeared again. “Did you say pig or fig?”

“Pig. Stop all this appearing and disappearing Brian. You’re making my mind go to bad places.”

Brian disappeared, only leaving his smile. It was very creepy. Damn, even that Justin thought was sexy. The man was under his skin.

He continued to the Mad Hatter’s. He saw them at a table in front of a house. “Could this get any worse?” he asked himself. “That’s got to be some kind of child abuse.”

At the table Michael and Mel sat, JR was laying down on the table fast asleep. Michael was clearly the Mad Hatter, with the ugly hat. And Mel with even worse bunny ears than Ted had on.

They looked up at him. “No room. No room.” It was a huge table and they were squashed together.

Tired from being on his feet all day, he growled. “There’s plenty of room.” Before sitting down at the other side from them.

“Have some wine,” Mel said.

Justin looked around, there wasn’t any. He knew this is where they would try and get under his skin. Well, he wasn’t Alice, and Wonderland was going to lose this round. 

“You’re not the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, that is not a dormouse, that is your daughter,” he snarled as they prattled on.

“I don’t have a daughter. If I did, it wouldn’t be a mouse,” Mel said, looking at JR with horror.

“She is your daughter, you two are her parents, along with Ben and Lindsay.”

“He’s madder than hatter,” Mel said.

“No, I’m not. She’s your daughter, your four-year old daughter. She shouldn’t be sleeping on a table. Why is she so tired? Have you given her alcohol?”

Did Wonderland have Child Protective Services? Who would he call? Where would she go? Not Lindsay…no absolutely not. Ben the Dodo didn’t seem like a very good choice either.

Justin got up, the sooner he got to the Queen, the faster this would be over. He just hoped this was a hallucination and he wasn’t abandoning JR to her demented parents.

After he bit the mushroom, he was back to normal height. He wasn’t surprised when he found the gardeners painting the white roses red. What did surprise him was, they were three tricks of Brian’s that stuck out in Justin’s memory. The Zucchini guy, Hotlanta and Reverend Tom, were singing and painting roses. They were arguing over splashing paint, then one said the other one should be beheaded. That was enough, Justin decided to cut in.

“Excuse me, why are you painting white roses red?”

“The Queen, of course,” Hotlanta said.

“These bushes should be red, not white,” Reverend Tom added.

“If the queen comes out and finds it, it’ll be off with all of our heads,” Zucchini guy said.

“The Queen. The Queen,” Hotlanta said suddenly.

Justin turned and saw Debbie all decked out in a hideous dress, way in the back. Guards were ahead of her, all tricks from either his or Brian’s bed, sometimes both. Next followed people he had met in passing, dressed in royal clothing.

Finally, Ted showed his face. Justin almost jumped for joy when his saw Gus, the seven-year-old was carrying the king’s crown on a red cushion. Then bringing up the rear was the Queen and King themselves, Debbie and Carl.

Debbie neared, when she was close to Justin she stopped. “Who is this?” she asked Gus.

Gus didn’t reply, he just smiled. “Idiot,” she said. Justin didn’t like that one bit, he was going to have problems with her. That was a fact.

“What’s your name, child?”

“I’m no child,” he said haughtily.

“Off with his head,” Debbie yelled.

“Now dear, he’s just a child,” Carl said.

“He said he wasn’t a child,” Debbie said, looking at Justin suspiciously.

Thankfully, the attention was taken up by Debbie screaming about the roses. Justin groaned. In the story, Alice hid the card-men, it would be impossible with three grown ass real men. Instead, he cut her off at the punch. “Do you play croquet, My Queen?”

“I-I yes I do. Would you like to play a game?”

That was it, the guards led them to the field. “How’s the Duchess?” he asked Ted.

“Shh…Don’t dare speak her name. She’s to be executed.”

“Good,” Justin replied as they kept walking.

Justin knew from the beginning the game was gonna be fixed. But it didn’t make losing so horribly any easier. But soon it didn’t matter because everyone was just playing, not taking turns. Finally, he walked to the side, they didn’t even notice he was gone.

Feeling eyes on him, he looked around. It didn’t take long before his eyes locked on Brian, still in those damn cat ears.

“How do you like the queen?”

“I don’t,” Justin said simply.

“Who are you talking to?” Debbie asked coming close.

“My friend, the Cheshire Cat,” Justin said.

“I don’t like the look of him,” Carl said. “Kiss my hand.”

“Put that hand anywhere near my mouth and lose it,” Brian snarled, very catlike.

“Off with his head,” Debbie yelled.

The executioner was brought but Brian’s body disappeared, leaving just his head…and those ears.

“He’s the Duchess’ cat,” Justin said, worried they would try and behead Brian. “You need to ask her about him.”

“She’s in prison,” Debbie said.

They sent the executioner to get her out, Brian had fully disappeared by that time.

Once the game resumed, Lindsay was able to escape. Justin didn’t care one way or the other, just as long as she didn’t get her hands on the baby pig again.

Soon, Debbie was back in front of him. “Have you met the Mock Turtle?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“Come, he can tell you his story.”

As they walked, Justin could see Daphne running at them, she had feathers taped to her arms, she was flapping them as she ran.

“Ah, the gryphon, take this young man to see the Mock Turtle,” Debbie said before leaving.

“Hope on my back,” Daphne said.

Daphne had always been smaller than him. And she still was here, and NOT a gryphon. “I can’t get on your back. You’re a person, Daph. You couldn’t carry me an inch.”

“I can fly, you saw me just now,” Daphne said, incredulously.

“You were running, and you’re not any better at it now than you were freshman year.”

“Fine, I’ll walk you over there. Would’ve been faster if you rode on my back,” she grumbled.

After a bit of a walk, they made it to where the Mock Turtle was, or should he say Emmett.

Justin could see how sad he looked, it must be the ugly green felt shell on his back. “Why is he sad?”

“He has nothing to be sad about. He’s just extravagant.”

As they neared Emmett looked at them. “This guy wants to know your story,” Daphne said.

“Then I shall tell both of you. No talking. Aunt Lula used to take us all down by the pond.”

Justin looked at him curiously, this wasn’t the Mock Turtle’s story, he did remember that. For the next however long, Justin got a whole story about Emmett and the neighbor boy skinny dipping and being caught by his Aunt Lula. It was fucking strange.

Back at the castle, Justin’s heart leapt into his throat. Little Gus was before the King and Queen of Hearts in shackles. As the trial began, Justin wished he could rush through it, Gus looked so frightened. All because of tarts. That was his accused crime. Stealing the queen’s tarts.

Justin couldn’t stand it anymore. He bit into the mushroom and grew. As everyone was yelling, pushing and off-with-his-heading, Justin grabbed Gus gently.

“Don’t be scared. I’ve got you.” And he ran out of the courtyard. He could hear Gus sniffling, and it broke his heart. “Shh. I’ll make it better, I promise.”

Brian looked up when someone tapped on the hospital door ever so gently. Jennifer gave him a sad smile. “How was today?” she asked, sitting down in the other chair.

“Gus wanted to read him Alice in Wonderland. We took a break and when we came back we found Emmett regaling him with some of his homespun stories,” Brian said, rolling his eyes.

“Justin used to love that story. I had to stop reading the part about the Duchess when he was four or so. He would get so distressed about the how the baby was a pig, and how they treated it.”

“Sounds like Sunshine.”

“Have the doctor’s said anything?” she asked hopefully.

Brian knew how hard this was on her, hell on everyone. It had been a week since Justin was putting up Christmas lights around Britin because Gus wanted them so much. They had Gus for all of Christmas break and were trying to make the best of it. Justin fell, hitting his head. Gus was the one that called the ambulance. Too much for a seven-year-old but Brian had never been prouder.

“He’s showing signs of waking up. Has been for the last two days, they said there was no more damage, all he has to do is wake up. I think it’ll be any time now. Fitting since it’s Christmas Eve.”

Gus started to cry in his sleep.

“Shh, I’ll make it better, I promise,” Justin’s weak voice said.

“Justin!” Jennifer cried.

Brian ran over to Justin and saw his blue eyes open. He knew everything would be alright then.