-Ahem- I'm still pretty new to the fandom and I keep thinking I'm going to get the guts to post fic for Alice by Heart one of these days, but the fandom feels small enough that I'm worried about "doing it wrong" if that makes sense. I fell hard in my love for the show and the vagueness of the characters had me craving more so I've spent the last couple of months fleshing out my versions of the characters and a story-within-the-story plotline of the show and working on character designs but I'm nerrrrrvooooous. But I saw a post earlier that made me want to ramble on about my feelings for Angus, so have some cast interpretations I'm just throwing out there.
I actually haven't seen much about Angus other than love for the original actor, but I read a fic a while back that had him as a former dock worker and my mind just ran with it.
In my head, Angus actually was originally from Portsmouth which got attacked pretty badly earlier in the year. He had been living with his fiance, Cheryl, until they heard about how close Germany was getting to the UK, so she left to stay with her sister in London just to stay safe. He knew the danger in staying, but as many ships of sailors as he had seen leaving port, he always figured they'd see when enemy ships were coming in. Nothing had prepared them for the level of aerial fire they'd see when it hit. Angus managed to surive the fallout, and helped search for the wounded and the dead in the aftermath for some time before finally slipping away to head for London. He figured if anyone was looking for him, they'd probably think he died. By the time he reunited with Cheryl and Tabitha, the attacks had moved inland as well.
Tabitha never forgave herself for not being home when it was hit. She was running against the crowd trying to get there while the sirens wailed and there was the glimmer of hope when she couldn't find anyone in the rubble so it seemed like no one had been home actually, but it was hours later when she finally saw Angus return with Cheryl slumped over his back. It's debatable if he even knew she was dead or only stopped long enough to acknowledge she was gone when Tabitha had him set her down.
If they had just stayed together, he wouldn't have lost her. Tabitha was unscathed so if they had all just stayed together, she would have survived. The two agreed that even if Angus and Tabitha hardly knew each other outside of Cheryl's letters, she would have wanted them to look out for each other.
Angus already smoked before, but with supplies getting hard to find and his own nightmares over the faces of friends, coworkers, and even Cheryl keeping him up at night, he started taking whatever he could get his hands on. Tabitha knows that's not good for him, but with the world in the state it's in, she can't blame him. In fact, she'll sometimes take the pipe for herself after a hard day. She doesn't see any harm in helping him acquire what he needs to get by since she's not doing much better. She doesn't want him to know she worries about him still going out with the volunteers to dig through the rubble after every strike. It just feels like he's ripping open the wounds again and again, and she can't really understand it. It won't change what happened. Does he feel like he's making any difference? Honestly, he's not sure why he keeps doing it either. He can tell her it makes him feel like he's making up for his failures, he can even tease that if nothing else the volunteers get a hot meal, but honestly he isn't sure what else to do with himself at this point. And it makes the nights very long since he has nothing to distract himself after sunset except hope he passes out somewhere on a pipe dream. One puff makes the world go away...
Once they get to Wonderland, it's kind of funny. Angus legit has NO IDEA what's going on 90% of the time. He's heard of the book, sure. Never read it, never had much interest in it. He follows the soft call of the Caterpillar to his post and is pleasantly surprised and confused to find a Hookah with his name on it. (Or technically, the tag just says Puff Me like most Wonderland ingestibles, but still.) Sure. Why not? Things are weird and he could use a smoke break. Cue Tabitha stumbling across him some time after her own explorations to find him high off his rocker. And she has GOT to try this stuff because it is magic! She laughs because okay? He must have found the ~good stuff~ which while true, isn't what he was trying to show her. Look, he found Cheryl! And yes, while Tabitha can believe it's just a hallucination, there's something.... different about all this. Something wrong yet beautiful in this.
And that's about the time Wonderland goes from funny to dangerous for Angus. It's not just Cheryl hanging on him and supporting him as Caterpillar 2, but the caterpillars themselves are made up of numerous phantoms he's surrounded by. They carry him, and support him, and it's so uplifting it's like floating really. Every thing is Good and Fine and Before and he is H A P P Y. Tabitha, Alice and Alfred all get a glimpse at that euphoria in both the feeling and for a moment getting to join their families again, but the pair wind up moving on and Tabitha at least gets curious enough to break away and see what's going on with them. But she returns to find Angus is still in deep. And for the first time, she's not just worried about him, but worried for him. Even if he can't always see these phantoms, they are a part of him. In the real world, this is what he carries with him, but Tabitha never realized it was that bad since he often seems to be holding up better than her. But here, where it seems to have physically manifested into these extra limbs and him mentioning the ~whisperings~ to her, it's impossible to ignore anymore. He may not know the story but sometimes he knows things because he was told what's supposed to happen next. Does she not have that too?
