Collision; Larry

8.

Louis thinks they must be in Wonderland, because he kind of feels like he's on drugs.

That, and the fact that they're lying under a huge mushroom, which. Yeah, that tips him off pretty well, too.

Liam gasps after air, hair ruffled and eyes widened from the overwhelming trip. His head snaps around to get a grip of where he is.

"Where are we?" he asks almost frantically. "What is this?"

"Calm down," Harry huffs, brushing a couple of chocolate curls from his forehead and follows Liam's example of looking around, if only with a bit more emotional stability to it. He n arrow s his eyes thoughtfully. "Cloudy skies. Trippy colors. No sense of rationality regarding whether size, form or environmental development. This must be Wonderland."

"You don't say?" Louis raises from his spot , too , scratching his neck and leaning against the mushroom to not lose balance.

"I do," Harry replies indifferently. "We should probably be careful."

"What?" Liam looks slightly panicked. "What's dangerous about this place?"

Harry and Louis can't help but exchange a look. Harry straightens out his black t-shirt and decides to answer Liam since Louis makes it clear with a defiant raise of his eyebrows that he won't. Louis isn't really good at breaking possibly bad news gently -h e's more into lightening someone's mood after receiving them. That's his forte.

"Wonderland..." Harry starts, pouting his lips and biting the lower one thoughtfully, not entirely sure how to put the rest.

(Louis doesn't stare at the way the lower lip plumps out redder than Snow White's apple after that. He most certainly does not. Who even cares about stuff like that? Not Louis. That's for sure.)

(So what if he did anyway. It doesn't make Harry any more enjoyable as a person.)

"Nothing makes sense here," he settles for at last. "It's built on solely the imagination of the right half of a brain. You know how our brain halves function and control different areas, yeah? The right half is what makes you emotional, creative and intuitive, the left one makes you organized and analytical and logical. To be able to think rationally and work properly as a living creature, one side of the brain can be dominate, but you always need a mix of both. They need to balance each other."

Liam swallows frailly . "Yeah?"

Harry smiles gently, but his eyes are serious. "Wonderland does n't have any left brain thinking. Nothing is logical. Nothing is organized. We're living inside one big dream right now, and it tends to fuck with your brain, to not be in an environment accommodated for both parts of it. Wonderland confuses you. It makes you lose grip of what's real and what's not. You can feel it in the air already, yeah? "

"Yeah," Liam almost whimpers. He looks sort of pale.

"Long story short, we need to be careful down here, because this place dims the part of your brain where you can think rationally. And do you know when you need to be able to think rationally? When you need to stay out of trouble. Which is what's we need to do, because nothing about Wonderland will work in our favor. It'll work in the creatures who live here's favor."

Harry looks pretty unbothered by this fact. Liam doesn't.

Louis guesses this is where he steps in.