Three's a Crowd

The escape pod barreled through the game tunnel for another world that wasn't their own. Felix and Ralph were both shouting and struggling and trying to pull apart this mechanical creature.

Whoever designed these pods didn't make them very efficient. Neither of them could breathe, let alone sit comfortably.

Well, whoever used them must have needed them for a quick escape, not sightseeing.

"Hold still!" Felix commanded and when Ralph finally complied, he tapped the creature with his hammer. The bug regressed back to its egg shape. "There! Finally!"

The pod soared through some thick clouds high up in the sky and slammed straight into a hard surface. Once everything seemed settled, Felix sighed heavily with his hand holding his chest.

Then another alarm went off in the pod and the seat was ejected, forcing both him and Ralph up into the air.

"AH!"

Felix landed in a pool of some sorts, but it wasn't water he was swimming through. It was thick and creamy to the touch. And he couldn't open his eyes without stinging his poor eyeballs. He could hear a muffled voice at the surface but he couldn't tell whether he was swimming down or up.

A pair of strong arms reached into the pool and yanked him up.

"Felix! Are you okay?" Ralph asked him.

"Chocolate!" Felix squealed and rubbed the liquid from his eyes, and coughed and spit it out from his mouth. "I landed in chocolate!"

Ralph nodded. "Yeah, I'm not real fond of it, either."

Ralph gently placed the little man on the ground and cleaned off his arms. Felix removed his hat and shook as much chocolate out of his hair as possible.

"I could really use a shower right about now - ah! Ralph!"

The big man shook his entire body to get as much liquid off as possible, like a wet dog wringing itself out. Felix was drenched.

"Sorry about that," Ralph told him as he smoothed his wet hair back. "You get used to it after a while.

He grazed his big hand over his chest and his eyes widened. "Oh no!"

Felix smacked the side of his head to get the chocolate water out of his ear. "What's wrong?"

"My medal!"

Ralph searched around the perimeter for it. He could hear the sound of a young feminine voice singing in the air - the game's theme music, he assumed - and various colors decorated the ground and the landforms in the distance.

Natural landscapes would have been created with rocks or trees, but these ones looked like pastries.

From where they landed, Ralph could see long pink and white-striped trees towering over him. The atmosphere was sweet and sugary, and hundreds of meters ahead, he could see the game's title spelled out in a large, empty space.

SUGAR RUSH.

"Oh, great, Felix," He turned to look down at the little handyman. "We've landed in that candy-themed go-kart game right across from us."

Felix was still trying to clean off the chocolate on his clothing. "Well, at least it doesn't sound too dangerous."

"Let's just find that medal and get out of here before any other surprises catch up to us."

They searched through the pink frosted candy-cane forest, but couldn't see where it had dropped. It couldn't have gone far, considering they were ejected not too far away from the broken down escape pod.

"It's gotta be here somewhere." Felix's eyes started at the bottom of the biggest candy-cane tree he could see and up the trunk. "Ralph! There it is!"

He pointed to a thin branch at least twenty feet from where they stood, where the shining object was hanging.

"Great!" Ralph's hands were on his hips. "So... how do we get up there?"

The way up to it was to climb these unstable-looking branches, but Felix didn't trust that they could sustain Ralph's weight long enough for him to reach it. Felix looked at Ralph with his brows furrowed in determination. "Give me a boost."

The big man turned his head up to the branch. "That's pretty high up."

"Just trust me."

Ralph was hesitant for a moment but he clasped his hands together and lowered them down to the ground. "After you, my good man."

Felix came over, stepped into Ralph's connected palms and Ralph lifted him high up. Felix landed on the striped narrow surface and balanced his body on it. He kept his eyes from looking down. The last thing he needed was for vertigo to overcome him again. He slowly inched towards the medal and stretched out his arm. His eyes were closed for a second and when he opened them again, it was in his hand.

"Got it!"

Ralph released a long sigh. "Good job, Felix!"

Once he realized just how high he was, Felix whimpered slightly. "Oh, wow..."

"Don't worry. If you fall, I'll catch you!"

Felix nodded, placed the medal around his neck, and slowly lowered himself down from the branches. What he didn't realize was that neither of the two were the only ones here in this candy-cane forest. Seemingly out of nowhere, the high-pitched sound of a child's voice distracted him. And he yelped, slipped off the branch, and landed on the one below it with both hands gripping it tightly.

"Hey, misters!" The child said.

Ralph called out to his friend. "Felix!"

Felix let out the air from his lungs, which he didn't realize he'd been holding. "I'm okay, Ralph!"

Ralph turned to see who it was that surprised them. "Where'd you come from?"

It was a little girl with raven-black hair and a pale, smiling face. It was more like a mischievous smirk as she stared down at the big man. She was lounging across one of the branches like a cat observing the ground for its prey.

Ralph didn't need to know who this girl was, or what her intentions were, to know that she meant trouble. Whereas Felix was glad the thing that suddenly appeared before them was only a child.

"Never seen programs like you two here!" The little girl claimed, sounding proud and arrogant. "You boys out here on a date, or something?"

"What?" Felix almost lost his grip on the branch. "No!"

Ralph concurred. "No way! We're here because we... we're..."

"We're from the Candy Tree Department!"

The girl eyed them both suspiciously. "Oh, yeah?"

She positioned herself to sitting atop of the branch while her legs hung over the side of it. "If you're from the Candy Tree Department, then where's all your equipment?"

"Uh..." Felix's voice trailed off.

Ralph pointed towards her. "We left most of our gear at the station!"

"Hmm," The girl hopped up on the next branch and leaned her back against the trunk. "Sounds like a load of baloney to me!" She looked down at Ralph. "Hey, Jumbo, are you a hobo and that little guy hanging off the tree is your hobo pet?"

Ralph raised his brow. "No-! Do I look like a hobo?"

Felix was starting to feel his arms ache from holding on. "Listen, little girl, we're very busy and we just need to figure out how to get to-"

The little girl gasped as she caught side of something that seemed to be important. "Sweet mother of monkey milk! What is that?!"

She hopped onto the next branch up and expertly swung from one to the next until she landed atop of the one Felix was attached to.

The force of her landing caused the branch to wobble violently and nearly shook the handyman off.

"Please, be careful!" He pleaded with his eyelids closed and his body trembling.

"Is that what I think it is?" She lowered her face closer to his. "It is! It's a gold coin! I'll be taking that off your handy hands!"

Felix opened his eyes and when he looked down at his chest, the medal was gone.

"Wait-!" He released one hand from the branch to try and stop the little girl but he was too late. She'd already hopped off the branches and down to the ground and Felix had lost the strength in his other hand to hold him up. "Wah!"

Ralph watched in dismay and shock at the thieving little girl and his attention redirected itself to the falling handyman just at the right time. He held out his large hands and caught the man's little body.

Felix looked like his head was spinning and his eyes were half-lidded. "I think I just saw my life flash before my eyes..."

Ralph gently laid the poor dizzy man on the ground and turned back to the girl. "Hey! You get back here with my medal right now!"

The black-haired girl skipped merrily off into the distance and stopped to wave the golden object at his face. "Only if you catch me first!"

Ralph stomped his foot against the ground. "You better hope those short little legs can carry you fast enough to get away from me!"

The girl waved her hands in fake terror. "Ooh, I'm so scared! Get over yourself, Chumbo. Your humble donation to a poor soon-to-be racer's dream is w-well acc...cept...ed."

At her last sentence, Ralph noticed her body began phasing in and out of existence, and blue pixels surrounded her tiny form that were gone in the blink of an eye.

"What the-?"

The little girl cleared her throat like she was trying to pretend that didn't just happen and turned around towards the path ahead of her. "Well, it's been fun, but now I've got a race to win! Ciao!"

Ralph growled and made as if to go after her, but he knew he couldn't have left Felix. And he certainly wouldn't have wanted to drag the little man with him while Felix was in this condition.

Ralph appeared at his side. "You okay, bud?"

"I'm fine." Felix said, softly, shaking his head out of his haze and attempting to stand. His body and mind had been through more stress in the past several hours than the three decades his game had been plugged in. He mentioned to Ralph earlier about his interest in having an adventure outside of their game.

And now he was getting one. Suddenly, he wished he said nothing about an adventure at all.

"Well, what a spoiled, rotten little girl that child was."

Ralph laughed. "Yeah, you're telling me. I can't believe I let my medal slip through my fingers like that." He sat down on the hard surface and punched his fist into it. "Now I'll never prove I can be good."

Felix felt guilty about not being strong enough to hold onto Ralph's treasure. "Well, golly, you saved me from possibly falling to my death! I can't think of anything more heroic than that."

"Thanks, man," Ralph sighed. "But there's no way Gene's going to take our word for it. You heard what that actual trash pile said to me. I don't even think a shiny gold medal will keep him or the others from criticizing me." He rested his elbows on his knees and held his head in his hands. "You're the only one who really gets it."

Although Felix was glad that he'd become close enough to Ralph to understand who he was underneath his code, Felix was still distraught over the fact that the others wouldn't get to see this side of him. They wouldn't be able to see just how much their harsh treatment was tearing him up.

Ralph was desperately seeking approval - even willing to endanger himself over it by game-jumping - but he still held a certain sense of pride within himself. And he kept his inner turmoil within. Felix was probably the only one, aside from those at Bad-Anon, whom Ralph had opened himself up the most to.

Maybe if the others could hear it, too.

"Ralph," Felix knelt in front of the big man and his shy, timid hands reached up and cupped the wrecker's face. "Gene's words mean nothing. All those people who run away from you don't know what they're missing. If you really want to go get that medal and use it to prove yourself, then I won't stop you. But it doesn't make you less than a person if we return to our game empty-handed."

Ralph was grateful for the sentiment, but he could clearly see that Felix didn't understand the depth of that gold medal. Felix had earned so many medals during his time, that he probably had no room left in his apartment to keep them. They probably had lost all meaning to him as time had gone by.

And Ralph refused to believe that they had suffered through this entire ordeal - and will most likely suffer through more - just to show up back at their game with nothing.

The big man gently took Felix's hands away from his face and looked at him straight in the eye. "Look, I know you mean well, but there's more to this whole medal-catching game than you think, brother. I'm not using it as a new way to define myself. I just want to prove to those people that I can beat the odds and earn myself the title 'hero'." He stood up. "If not to prove it to them, then to prove it to myself. I don't think that highly of me, either. I don't know if you fully understand, yet, but I can see that you're trying."

Felix looked as if Ralph's words had stung him a bit, but he rose from the ground, gave him a half-smile and nodded. "Alright. Count me in. Let's go get our prize back."

Ralph grinned and continued forward, with Felix right behind him. Then Felix stopped in his tracks as he remembered something important.

"Uh, Ralph? Did you see where that egg-thingy ended up after it got blasted from the ship?"

Ralph shook his head. "Nope. But it probably didn't survive that crash. We pummeled the ground ten times harder than I do whenever I get thrown off the apartment."

"I sure hope so."

AN: Ah, nothing like a little bit of inner conflict in a romantic story. I feel like Ralph would have a lot of insecurities when it comes to relationships. Romance and acceptance probably wouldn't be easy for him.

Have I mentioned that I really love these two? I know I'm not the only one, and I'm happy we all share this mutual feeling for our boys :3.

They just have great qualities and personalities. And I feel like they also have realistic flaws, too. That's what makes a great character.