How could he have forgotten about her so easily like that? He had gotten caught up in the moment and kissed his old—whatever. And then, when he realized what he'd done, he kissed him again! Ever since it had happened yesterday, he couldn't stop dwelling it, torturing himself with the thought of it and the guilty feeling that followed.
"Oh," Felix groaned, combing his hair for the umpteenth time, frowning at himself in the mirror. "Tamora would have a fit and a half if she knew about my latest shenanigans."
Felix and Tamora didn't get to visit much. He was busy with the goings-on in his own game, and she even busier. They had to schedule their dates at least a week in advance to synchronize their free time.
One of which was happening in about ten minutes. He was wearing his normal attire, though not by choice. Tamora made it clear after their first date a few weeks ago, when he showed up in a suit and tie, that she had no intention whatsoever of wandering outside her own game without armor on. So he may as well not waste his time fancying up, she'd told him—because she wasn't.
He put his hat back on his head and gave himself a once-over in the mirror. He nodded to his reflection in approval.
The lush bouquet of orange tulips and heart-shaped box of chocolates he'd bought for her sat on the edge of his bed. He scooped them up in his arms and hurried out the door.
{*}
"You were nearly late, weren't you, Fix-it?" Tamora said, smirking. She eyed the box of chocolates and bundle of flowers hidden very poorly behind Felix's back. "Whatcha got, there, soldier?"
"These are for you, ma'am," he said, thrusting them up toward her. Even with his arms extended as far as they'd go, Tamora still had to bend down to pluck her gifts from his hands.
"A bouquet of flowers," she said. "Nothing I love more than watching something die a slow and meaningless death." She smiled. "Let's get these babies in some water."
Felix didn't know if the comment about the tulips was a good one, or a bad one. He decided not to ask. He watched as Tamora fetched a beer mug from her cabinet and filled it half-full from the kitchen tap.
She pulled the cellophane away from the flowers and dunked the stems in. "There we go. Now let's see what we got in here…"
She removed the lid from the box of chocolate. "Been awhile since I've had one of these." She picked two at random and shoved them in her mouth. "Want one?" she said through her mouthful, proffering the box toward Felix.
He felt obligated to, so he took one gingerly from the plastic mold and placed it in his mouth, trying hard not to grimace at the surprise coconut texture inside.
Tamora pawed five more candies out of the box before she shut the lid and sat it on her kitchen cabinet. "I'll just grab some for the road. We better get a move on, so we can try and beat the crowd."
"Well, there's always a crowd at Tapper's on a Saturday night," Felix said brightly, "but I'm sure it won't be too bad."
Tamora holstered her laser pistol at her hip. "Just as long as we get there before it's standing room only. Otherwise we may have to arm-wrestle a couple people for a seat."
Felix could hardly look her in the eye, and it was even harder to make himself laugh at her arm-wrestling comment. It went without saying that he hadn't told her about his trips to the Sugar Rush dungeon to visit…A Certain Someone, and he was thinking it was best if it stayed that way. Tamora was quick to anger. He didn't know who she'd kill first, him or…A Certain Someone.
She stuck the candy in her pocket, where it would surely melt, but Felix didn't have the heart to tell her. "Let's move out," she said, ushering him out the door.
"Y'know, I actually haven't found the time to make it over to this Tapper's, yet," Tamora said as they walked. For every step she took, Felix had to jog three of his own. "They have real beer there, or just the kiddie stuff?"
"Root beer by default, but most people order something, well, stronger."
"You much of a drinker?"
He blushed. "When the mood calls for it, I suppose."
"Let's see who has to carry the other home," she said. Felix made a mental note to go easy on the sauce that night to keep a close watch on her.
{*}
Candlehead hopped off of the tram leading out of Dance Dance Revolution X2, a small plastic bag full of her CD purchases clutched in her hand. She'd bought three new albums, and she was eager to get back to her game to give them a listen.
She made her way through Game Central Station, the contents of her bag clacking together with her every step. As she went, she caught a glimpse of a denim work shirt out of the corner of her eye.
"Hmm," she muttered, scanning the crowd. Walking through the Tapper's tunnel off to her left, she spotted Turbo's sweetie, Felix…and he was holding hands with a lady she didn't recognize.
She gasped.
Well, the only thing to do now was to follow them, of course.
Candlehead had only been to Tapper's once before, and she hadn't been back again because she felt so out-of-place. Kids her age were allowed in, so long as they ordered a fountain drink, but it was definitely more of an adult hangout spot. She wasn't too keen on going back there, but the need to know what was going on between Felix and the mystery woman was too strong to keep her away.
The first tram, along with the pair she was trying to spy on, departed down the tunnel before she could get there. But that was probably a good thing. That way, Felix would have less of a chance at spotting her. She waited for the next one to arrive and hopped on.
When she arrived at the bar's entrance, she almost changed her mind about snooping, almost got back on the tram without giving Felix and the mystery woman a second thought. It was way more crowded than she expected, and everyone was so much taller than her, she was honestly scared of being smooshed.
Then again, she knew she'd never be able to sleep that night if she didn't find out more.
The crowd quickly swallowed her, and she had to weave her way through an endless sea of legs to even make it through the entrance. Once inside, she looked around, trying to spot Felix again. It was no use. There were simply too many people around her. She—
"There!" she hissed, finally eyeing the handyman she was after. He and the woman he'd walked in with were seated at the second bar counter from the front. She clambered up a barstool at a counter two bars behind theirs.
She'd unknowingly wedged herself between two shady-looking Street Fighter characters. Her candle glowed a nervous blue as she tried not to look at them.
She could just barely see Felix from where she was sitting. If she could just crane her neck a little bit more, she could see—
"Hey, watch where yer pointin that thing, kid!" the fighter to her right barked.
Candlehead's flame had grazed the side of his arm. "S-sorry!" she stammered. She straightened herself back up in her chair. Now the only thing she could see was a part of Felix's shirt.
It was no use. She wasn't going to be able to see anything from where she was. She'd have to sneak up closer if she wanted to get a good look at the mystery woman. After all, the place was crowded enough, and she was small enough, that she could probably go unnoticed. She slid off of the barstool and crept over to the bar counter just behind where Felix sat. She peeked her head round the corner.
Candlehead bit her lip when she saw the woman up-close. Oh, no, she thought. She's smokin hot!
The woman's features looked very ladylike, but she didn't act it. She downed the rest of her beer and slammed it on the counter, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Felix winced at the noise, but smiled up at her nonetheless.
Then the woman reached over and kissed Felix on the cheek. Felix accepted her offer graciously, tilting his head upward.
Ugh! Candlehead thought. That—that—!
Honestly, she didn't know what to think. It wasn't that Felix was doing anything wrong. Then again…she wondered if that lady he was with knew he'd visited Turbo two times in one week. Either way, he wasn't being totally honest with someone, right?
She hung around a little longer. There was no more cheek-smooching to speak of; she mainly just watched them talk. At one point Felix put a hand over the woman's, very briefly, but the woman hadn't seemed to really notice. You could almost mistake them for friends, if they weren't sitting so close together, and Felix wasn't blushing and smiling so hard. Not to mention the kiss on the cheek she'd witnessed.
I think I've seen enough, Candlehead told herself. She threaded her way back through the mob, departing Tapper's as quietly as she had arrived.
{*}
"So…she was pretty?"
Turbo watched from his cell door's window as Candlehead nodded sadly. She'd made a special trip down to the dungeon, it seemed, to depress him.
"Really pretty," she mumbled.
"Tall? Blonde?"
She nodded.
"What game's she from?"
"I dunno," Candlehead shrugged. "She was kinda dressed like she might be from that new shoot-em-up game. She had armor and stuff on. And a gun."
What would Felix be doing with somebody like that? Turbo thought with disgust. But he pushed that thought aside for later. "Tell me what ya saw again. From the top. Don't leave anything out."
She repeated everything, starting from when she'd seen Felix walking hand-in-hand with the woman as they entered Tapper's and ending with her sneaking out when nothing particularly juicy had happened. Turbo sighed.
But he definitely didn't want to be talking deep relationship matters with Candlehead. She was a tad too young for the complicated stuff. In his own roundabout way, he thanked her for doing some snooping for him (without actually using the words "thank you"), and sent her on her way.
"Sorry," she mumbled as she left.
"Don't be," he called after her. "Nothing either one of us can do about it, right?" he tittered. But there was no mirth in the sound.
Turbo hopped off his helmet and put it back on his head. He stood there, frozen. He didn't know what to do with himself.
It was times like these when he usually began talking to himself. So that's what he did.
"Well, on the one hand, I can't fault him," he said. "I mean—can't expect somebody to wait around thirty years for ya, right?" More joyless laughter. "And he probably thought I'd kicked the bucket anyway, like everybody else did, y'know?"
He walked over to the corner of his cell and sat down, picking up his deck of cards. He fished them out of the box and began to shuffle them. "And plus, that might not be his girlfriend. Just maybe a…a date. A date he had. And he didn't mention her to me, cause she was just…a date he was going on, and he didn't want me to overreact. That must be it."
For a second he thought about dealing a hand of solitaire, but he knew he'd never be able to concentrate on it. He flipped through the cards absently, putting the black cards in one pile, the red in another.
"But that would explain why he ran out on me so fast the other day," Turbo said. "I mean, if he has this—this lady, or whatever, he might not've…might not've meant to…kiss me like he did."
Turbo finished sorting his cards, shuffled them, started over. His hands moved on their own. He wasn't paying much attention to the cards.
"Not to mention," he said bitterly. "Why wouldn't he mingle around, get a girlfriend or a boyfriend or somethin? There's no reason for him not to, I mean, sure, he's figured out that I'm…well, alive, but that doesn't make a damn. Because when he comes down here I'm all chained up and I can't touch him or hug him or—"
A few of the cards slipped from Turbo's shaking hands.
"It's funny," he said, his face twisted up into a forced grin. He scooped all the cards up and shuffled them. "It's so funny how I thought I might actually…"
He wouldn't allow himself to say it out loud: It's so funny how I thought I might actually have a chance. Saying it aloud made it real. He reshuffled the deck and started sorting them again.
"But when he comes back—if he comes back—I will be asking him about this. I want him to tell me all about his tall blonde girlfriend. I wanna hear all about her, yes I do."
But his mind—as minds are wont to do—slipped back into the memory of Felix's split lips on his own, but his probably didn't feel much better, but when had that ever mattered? And that wasn't one of his old memories conjured from the 80s, that was recent. Recent. Felix had come in here, into his dungeon cell, without Turbo even asking him to, and he'd—he'd—
"I hate you, Fix-it!" Turbo yelled, the cards falling in a spray around him. "I hate your guts! I wish you were here right now, just so I could tell you how much I hate you!"
Turbo scrambled to his feet. He needed to move. Sitting still was something he could not do whilst angry.
"I thought you were supposed to be the Good Guy, huh?" Turbo said, pacing. "Well, guess what? You aint doing so hot, pal!" He kicked the wall halfheartedly. "You just—you just—"
The pool on the roof of Felix's apartment building was empty, save for the two of them. The night air was just a touch chilly against Turbo's wet skin. He attempted to jump, but he wasn't much of a jumper like Felix was. What he'd wanted to be a cannonball was more of a belly flop than anything. The slap of the water stung his entire front as he surfaced for air.
The wave of water upturned Felix's inner tube, and he tumbled headfirst into the pool. Turbo spat a mouthful of water at him as the handyman gasped and spluttered.
"You did that on purpose," Felix coughed, but he was grinning anyway. His inner tube was floating away from him, down to the shallow end. He watched it go as he raked his wet hair back and out of his eyes.
Turbo tried to look at him in a discrete way, out of the corner of his eye; he didn't want to make it obvious that he was ogling. It was really strange, he thought, how one person could stay so positive and good-natured and happy all the time. That was a rare trait to find in someone, and it was a trait he definitely didn't have.
Felix caught his eye. For a fleeting moment Turbo wanted to look away, but he couldn't. Felix was smiling that smile of his, that smile that blossomed across his entire face. A few stray hairs stuck to his forehead, the ambience bulbs at the bottom of the pool turning his skin a cool blue.
Their kiss was a strange wet one, and the taste of chlorine filled their mouths.
This was a time when Turbo dearly wished he could just jump into his kart and go. Somewhere, anywhere. It was one of the very, very few things that would soothe his frazzled nerves. But he seriously doubted he'd ever get to drive again.
That was another thing to be mad about. He clambered into his bunk and shrank himself into the corner, pulling his knees up to his chest. He curled his hands into fists.
Quite simply, he was disgusted with everything—everything in general, but mainly himself. There was such a thing as cause and effect, and deep down, he knew this, but he didn't like to admit it.
So he lie in the silence of the sweet-smelling cell, trying to forget everything.
Author's Note: It actually didn't take me that long to write this chapter, so I'm hoping the next one'll come to me just as easily. Also, I called Calhoun by her first name because she and Felix are on a first-name basis, of course, and I figured it would be weird to switch between her first and last name in the same story. And I sneaked a lil sentence in there, that you might have breezed right on over, that Felix and Calhoun have only been dating for a couple weeks. In other words, they're not married in this story.
And I tried not to write Turbo like a total sap. Y'know? Anybody would be really sad in his situation, don't you think? But people deal with situations differently. I tried to write Turbo as getting angry, then simply shutting down-as opposed to, say, bawling his eyes out and lamenting his wrongdoings, which I really don't think he would do. So, hopefully, I did all right with that part.