Part 10
Felix groaned as he stirred, feeling much like he'd been hit by a ton of bricks. Cracking his eyes open, he barely recognized his surroundings until a large figure leaned over him.
"Good morning, Sunshine!" Ralph spoke loudly in a mocking tone.
"Ugh," the handyman cradled his head and partially hid under the blanket draped over him. "What happened?"
"All I know is a couple guys from 'Hero's Duty' came knocking on my door at 3 o'clock in the morning, carrying your drunken butt home after you passed out… Have a little too much fun?" Ralph oddly enjoyed seeing Felix this way. He supposed it brought him comfort that even Fix-It Felix Jr. wasn't a goody-goody all of the time.
"I may have had a little too much to drink," the handyman admitted sheepishly. "Hit me all at once I guess."
"Do you remember anything?"
"Umm," Felix slowly sat up on the couch. "Last thing I remember is I was chatting with Tammy's men, having a few beers; one of them suggested I get a tattoo…"
Realization struck the fixer, and in a panic, he pulled up his shoulder sleeve, and then haphazardly peeled his white undershirt off of his torso.
"Ralph, please tell me I didn't get a tattoo!"
"Nope, looks like you're clear."
"Oh, thank goodness," Felix sighed, slumping back into the couch cushions. Then an entirely new feeling came rushing in. "…I need to use the toilet."
Moments later, Ralph stood against the wall just outside his bathroom, twiddling his thumbs.
"So uh—I guess that hammer of yours can't fix a hangover?" he asked, and winced when more retching came from beyond the door. "Guess I'll take that as a no…"
Once Felix finally felt well enough to emerge from the restroom, Ralph handed him a tall glass of water.
"Thank you," the handyman said miserably.
"The arcade opens soon," the wrecker frowned. "You gonna be okay?"
Felix nodded sullenly, sipping his water. "I think I got it all out of my system."
"Well, I'll try to go easy, just in case."
"Thanks, brother…"
Even with Ralph going light on the bricks, the fixer had a hard time keeping things together as player after player tossed him around. There were a few slip-ups here and there, but by some miracle, he made it through until closing time.
"Good job everyone!" Felix feigned his enthusiasm, holding the door for his tenants as they flowed into the apartment building from the roof access. Once the last of them were through, he grumbled, plopping himself down on the concrete.
"Still feeling like a bug on a windshield?" Ralph climbed up and leaned over the lip of the building beside his coworker.
"A bit," the fixer sighed.
"Fix-It?" The It-boys both heard Tamora's voice from a distance, and were both surprised when the sergeant flew to the top of the building on her cruiser.
"Tammy!" Felix sprung up from where he was sitting. "You sure got here quick."
"Hey Wreck-It," Tamora acknowledged Ralph, who saluted back. "Sorry if I interrupted anything, I actually have a favor to ask."
"O-oh—well what is it honeybadger?"
"My men decided to go on a drinking spree last night and made the shooting range look like a mini tornado plowed through it," she said with a huff. "I was hoping you had some free time to come by and repair the damage."
"It's that bad, huh?" Felix gulped, glancing back at Ralph. "Sure, I've got time! Ralph, you don't mind, do you?"
"Nope," a smug grin on the wrecker's lips. "Not at all, I was going to visit Vanellope anyway."
"By the way, you two enjoy yourselves at the Bad-Anon potluck last night?" Tamora asked. Felix turned to Ralph, silently begging his friend to go along with it.
"Oh yeah, had a whale of a time!" Ralph nodded. "I won't keep you with all the details, I'm sure Felix will tell you all about it! See you guys around!" And with that, Ralph dropped down the side of the building and out of sight.
Luckily for the handyman, most of the time spent traveling from his game to Tamora's was filled with her ranting about how irresponsible her soldiers were. While he was relieved he didn't have to spin some phony yarn about the "potluck," each time Tamora described the destruction her men caused, he felt a pang of guilt, absolutely sure that he had some part in the raucous behavior.
"I'm sorry, Fix-It," Tamora sighed. "Here I am babbling on in circles, and you haven't had the chance to talk about your evening," she leaned close to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as they sat in the shuttle that lead to 'Hero's Duty'. "How was your day? You look a little rough around the edges."
"Oh," Felix swallowed. "Well Ralph and I were out pretty late last night," He paused to find some sort of explanation. "Most of the folks at the potluck migrated over to Tapper's and we shared some drinks."
"Yeah? Have a little too much?" Tamora chuckled when her beau looked up at her with guilty eyes. "Hey, at least you're not like my marine's when they've been under the influence."
"Yeah," Felix stammered, almost inaudibly. He followed Tammy out of the train and into 'Hero's Duty.' To his shock, all of Tamora's men were kneeling along the stretch of the main hallway, cleaning and waxing the floors entirely by hand.
"Don't worry about them, Fix-It. It may seem like grueling work, but they love giving my floors a fresh coat of wax, isn't that right boys?"
"Yes ma'am!" the soldiers shouted in unison.
As Tamora rounded a corner to head to the shooting range, Felix turned around and locked eyes with corporal Kohut. The handyman pointed at himself with wide, questioning eyes.
"Don't tell her," Kohut mouthed back.
"Oh my land…" Felix gaped as he stepped into the range.
"That's one way to put it," Tamora grimaced as she leaned against a table.
As the handyman gazed from the hole in the back wall, and along the scorched gaps in the ceiling, everything from the night before came flooding back. He did this. And Tammy's men had taken the fall for it.
"Think you can fix it?" Tamora asked.
"Don't tell her," Kohut's grim face flashed in the back of Felix's mind as he continued to stand, dumfounded, in front of the wreckage.
"Fix-It?" Tamora asked again.
"Oh, fix it? Yeah I can fix it, no problems!" Felix smiled tensely and shuffled to a pile of debris and began tapping away with his hammer.
The sergeant came up behind him, worried. "Are you feeling alright?"
"No—I mean yes!" Mods above, he was so awful at this. "I just…I feel bad for your men. Don't you think you're being a little too hard on them?"
"No," Calhoun replied incredulously. "Felix, they wrecked half the shooting range, you're looking right at it! What on Earth would I go easy on them for?"
"Because…" Felix paused his work, unsure of what else to say. He couldn't stand it; he couldn't stand lying to her anymore. "Because it was me."
"What?"
"Because it was me," the handyman blurted, turning around and gesturing emphatically at the destruction. "This—this, all of this was my fault. I wrecked it." Tamora stared at him, wide eyed as he frantically explained.
"There was no potluck…your men invited me to have drinks with them. I got carried away, and—and they helped me get that big gun, and the last thing I remember before I blacked out was pulling the trigger..." Felix took in a shaky breath, and sighed.
Turning around, he fully expected his lady to be angry. Which made it all the more gut wrenching when he saw tears in her eyes.
"Tammy," his frown deepened. "I'm so sorry."
"It was you," she whispered.
"I—y-yes?" Felix replied, confused. "I wrecked the shooting range…"
"No, you—," the sergeant refrained from saying something in anger she would later regret. "It was you in my nightmare the other night. It was the wedding, but instead of Brad, you were the one to…" she stopped, tears flowing.
"Oh, Tammy," Felix reached out to her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You don't get to ask that question!" Tamora spat, rejecting his touch. The anger previously expected now boiling to the surface. "You went behind my back!"
"But —"
"I thought you took being here seriously. Now on top of worrying about you getting chewed up by Cybugs, I have to worry about you hurting yourself?" Tamora wiped her face, eliminating the evidence of her vulnerability. "Just…clean this place up and get out. You don't belong here."
"Tammy, wait," Felix pleaded as she walked away, the door gently sliding closed behind her.
Once Felix was done repairing the range, he stepped into the hallway. Looking to his right down the corridor, the soldiers visible from the adjunct hallway stopped scrubbing the floors and locked eyes. And when he approached, Kohut shook his head.
"You told her," the corporal said, the softest of smiles on his lips.
"I had to," Felix replied.
"And now you're in the dog house."
"Yep," the handyman hung his head, tears threatening to surface. He feared things were much worse than that.
"Well, can't say we didn't warn you," the nearby soldiers chuckled. "C'mon, lil' man, she'll come back around. I'm sure you know by now that T.J. just needs a good day or two to cool off. You two are gonna be just fine."
"Thanks Kohut," Felix managed a smile. "And I'm sorry I got y'all stuck with…all this," he gestured to the floor. "…Got an extra sponge laying around?"