Before I start this chapter, I'd just like to say this to one reviewer in particular:
m (Guest): Thank you! Your reviews always make me feel like I'm getting exuberantly hugged so they always make me so very happy.
As for the rest of the reviewers, I thank you too. There should be more 80s boyfriends in this fic soon, I just have to get Turbo out of the Fungeon first.
As soon as the next game-day ended, Felix headed for Sugar Rush. Normally it was Ralph who headed straight from Fix-it Felix Jr to Sugar Rush, but today Felix beat him to it. He just had to see Turbo, still having some unanswered questions.
"Rancis? What are you doing here?" he asked the male racer standing at the door to the Fungeon. This was one of the last places he expected to find such an image-conscious character.
"The president ordered me to guard the prisoner," he replied. "I'm just doing what she asked me to do. Oh, and she said not to let anyone see him."
"Rancis, please, I'm not going to do anything bad," Felix pleaded. "I just want to see an old friend and keep him company, that's all."
"And you're sure you won't let him out?" Rancis tried to clarify. The handyman nodded.
"I couldn't even get myself out so what makes you think I could possibly break him out?" he replied, and the racer nodded before stepping aside to let him pass.
"Hey there buddy, how are you holding up?" Felix asked as he approached the door to Turbo's cell.
"Not very well," Turbo replied somewhat sourly. "It'th boring in here. I'd brush my hair if that'd make the time path fathter."
"Stop mumbling," Felix chastised him, "It makes your lisp worse."
"Hard not to when I'm tho bored," Turbo muttered, running his fingers through his hair and wincing as they caught in a particularly nasty tangle.
"I have an idea," Felix told him, and walked back towards the racer guarding the Fungeon. "Stay here."
"Not like I have any alternative," Turbo called after him, and the sound of a fist hitting a wall could be heard, followed by a few choice words.
"Excuse me, Rancis," Felix greeted him, interrupting him as he looked at himself in a small compact. "You wouldn't happen to have a brush with you, would you?"
"I generally use a comb," Rancis informed him. "But you can go up to Vanellope's room and get one of her brushes if you want."
"Well, a comb might be a little too rough," Felix mused. "I'll be right back."
Vanellope's bedroom was pinker than the rest of her castle, but it was also so messy that Felix wondered how she could find anything in here, let alone move around. He gingerly tiptoed around any piles of clothes, fearing something fragile beneath them, and made his way over to the dresser where he could see a few hairbrushes. Surely she wouldn't mind if he borrowed one of them, and he'd bring it back...
"Hey, Felix!" the handyman jumped as Vanellope suddenly ran into her bedroom and jumped onto her bed. "What are you doing?"
"I was just getting a hair brush," he replied, trying to slow his racing heart. "You gave me quite a fright!"
"Well, it is my room," she reminded him. "What do you need a hair brush for, anyway?"
"Turbo wants his hair brushed," Felix admitted, cursing his honesty as he saw her expression turn cold. "I just want to help out a friend, you see? You understand, don't you?"
"No," she replied, coldness seeping into her voice. "He's supposed to be in the Fungeon to suffer, not get his hair brushed and have servants attending to his every want. He had that when he took over my game."
"You are a marvellous orator, did you know that?" he observed. "It's a good quality for a president to have."
"Get out," she ordered, pointing to the door. Her eyes were downright icy. So Felix hung his head and slowly walked out of the bedroom, the hair brush tucked safely away inside his toolbelt. At least he'd got what he'd come for.
He was stopped at the Fungeon by the president herself. He'd never seen her look so cold or threatening.
"I said get out," she reminded him, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're not going in to see the bastard who took over my game."
"Language," he chastised her, but she simply growled.
"Fuck off," she snapped, so Felix left the castle, vowing to ask Ralph to please stop taking Vanellope to Tappers.
Around the side of the castle, where the windows to the Fungeon were, Felix stopped and looked up at one window in particular about two metres above him. Was that hair hanging out the window?
"Felicth," he heard Turbo hiss. "Climb up my hair."
"Turbo, this is ridiculous," he replied in a whisper, but jumped anyway and grabbed hold of the matted black hair. He heard a muffled 'ouch' followed by muffled curses and discovered the source of the muffling only when he scaled the wall and heaved himself over the window. Turbo was there and pulled him in, leading them both to spill onto the ground in a heap. After spitting his glove out, Turbo grinned at his former lover.
"Did you get the hair brush?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head which was quite tender after his hair was used as a rope.
"Sure did," Felix replied, extracting it from his tool belt. By some miracle, it had survived the journey into the cell. "But I want to look at your hand first." As he'd expected, the hand that Turbo had freed of its glove was the one he'd punched the wall with- swollen and slightly purple, as well as painfully misshapen.
"Ficth it, Felicth," Turbo giggled slightly. He'd always loved getting the chance to say that. With one tap of his golden hammer, Turbo's hand once more resembled a hand and the racer stretched his healed limb before slipping his glove back on. "Now brush my hair."
It seemed to take forever to rake the brush through Turbo's unruly mane, but unsurprisingly he lapped up the attention.
"There is so much sugar in here," Felix commented after being sprayed with sugar crystals from freeing a large knot.
"I know," Turbo replied with a sigh. "It'th tho annoying. Wortht thing about thith plathe."
"I wish we didn't have to whisper," the handyman lamented. "I know you hate your lisp."
"Too bad you can't ficth it," the racer muttered. "You can't ficth broken people, only broken things."
"Now, that's not true. I can try to fix people, Turbo. I tried to stop you from going into Roadblasters, I warned you what would happen!" Felix emphasised, taking his frustrations out on Turbo's hair.
"I know, I should have listened," Turbo replied, raising his voice a little in pain and defence. "I was stupid and didn't listen to you and now I'm in the Fungeon and it's all my fault."
"It's not just you who's in the Fungeon anymore." Felix looked to the door of the cell and saw Vanellope standing there fuming. He attempted to smile at the president but that didn't make her throw him into the cell next to Turbo's any less hard.
"Hello, neighbour," Turbo greeted him mockingly, grinning as he pushed out a brick that he'd clearly been rubbing to wear the sugar down since he'd first woken up there. "Now we can talk."
"She'll have to let me out by morning," Felix reasoned. "She can't have my game unplugged, not when her best friend is also from that game."
"And then tomorrow you can climb up my hair and see me again," Turbo suggested. "It might be a little harder now that it's brushed, though. It's so long." He began to feed his hair through the small window caused by the missing brick, which gave Felix an idea.
"I think I can fix that problem," he suggested. "Turn around and I'll plait your hair. It'll make it easier to climb."
"And where did you learn that, Boy Scouts?" Turbo snickered.
"Mary, actually," Felix corrected him, and began to plait Turbo's long hair which was actually quite smooth now that it was brushed and free of any residual sugar. "Do you think Vanellope's promise to let you out will still hold up now that I've snuck in to see you?"
"Doubt it," Turbo replied with a shrug. "I'm probably stuck in here for good now. You should've tried to break me out of here."
"I'll work on it," Felix promised. "Surely Vanellope will see reason eventually. Would it be alright if you had to promise to never come back into this game?"
"Hell, I'd like nothing more!" Turbo replied cheerily, whipping around to grin through the hole at him after Felix had tied off the plait with a strand of hair.
"Well then, maybe we can come to a compromise," Felix decided, and he could see from Turbo's bright grin that this was good news for all involved.