Collision; Larry

10.

Liam has positively never been put in a more lavish situation ever before.

The chair he's been provided with is clad in dark red velvet and the cushions are soft and plush. The shoes he's been given are made of the smoothest leather, and they fit perfectly around his feet, the woollen insides brushing comfortably against his ankles. The jacket hanging on his shoulders is capacious and warm, and the fabric smells of roses. It's absolutely unreal.

Still, Liam has never felt more uncomfortable in his life.

It's not that the Queen's being cruel to him-she's on the contrary very nice, chatting on about golfing and tea parties and the countless other wonders of Wonderland. Liam should maybe even dare to enjoy himself a little bit.

It's just that his head is so light. He feels like he's one single thought away from floating out of this chair and up into space, that's how light his mind is, and it's so confused. He's been trying to do math in his head for the past five minutes, but he can't even remember what numbers look like. He doesn't know what the alphabet looks like. He can't remember anything of substance, all he knows are shapes and emotion, and he detests it.

The Queen of Hearts gradually lets her story fade out as all the responses she's getting from Liam are nods and nervous smiles, and she decides to go for a different approach.

"This must be a lot to take in," she smiles kindly. "Where are you from?"

"Uh. Grimm. So, it's. Yeah. It's a lot," Liam stutters out breathily. He forces a reassuring smile onto his face to not upset the Queen, though. Partly because he's a nice person, and partly because he's scared her temper will completely flip like a switch the second he says or does something wrong. Everything's unpredictable and he cannot afford to relax for even a second.

"It's alright," the Queen promises. "You should be glad. I saved you from those two-" she frowns in disgust, "-criminals you came with. That's not the company you want."

Liam's pretty sure that's exactly the company he wants, especially right now, but he's not dumb enough to say it out loud. "Why... Why did you send them away but kept me here?"

He crosses fingers and toes that that's an acceptable thing to ask. Luckily for him, the Queen just grins happily, so it must be alright. "Oh, hun. You're kind. The other two had obvious problems with pride and superiority. Even the little one, yes, despite looking modest and gentle he thinks very highly of himself, and people like that are not to be trusted. Besides," she leans backwards to rest her oversized head against the gentle velvet, "I've needed a new favorite for a while."

A new favorite? Meaning, there had been other favorites before Liam?

Liam gulps. "What-what happened to the others?"

The Queen waves her hands dismissively. "They proved to be unreliable in the end. Luxury and fortune can get to anyone. So I got rid of them. Don't pay it any mind."

Got rid of them.

As far as Liam knows by now, he won't be able to escape from here. The only thing he could possibly come up with is to just get up and run for it, but he's still rational enough to acknowledge that that plan lacks both intelligence and safety. His only hope for now, is that Harry and Louis are having more luck than him. Which, unfortunately considering the circumstances, is highly unlikely. Liam sighs and wonders for the thousandth time how the hell he ended up letting these two weird creatures pull him into whatever dysfunctional adventure this is supposed to be.