A/N: This chapter... was really really hard to write. I'dve kept working on it if I hadn't wanted to get it out today.

Chapter 13: Talking

Ralph bolted out of bed suddenly and wiped a hand over his face and neck. Geez, what a way to wake up.

"Is there any reason to knock me to the ground every time you wake up?" Vanellope asked sarcastically from the floor.

"I dunno, is there any reason to crawl all over me when I'm asleep?" Ralph asked.

"Not really I guess. Except you're pretty darn cozy." Vanellope answered as she got up.

Ralph humphed at that. Surely that's all he could aspire to. To be 'cozy' to a ridiculous teenager.

"So, before I was so rudely knocked to the ground..." Vanellope started.

"No." Ralph interrupted.

"No what?" Vanellope asked. She sat on the bed.

"No, I would rather not talk about... that." Ralph clarified.

"Well suck it up stinkbrain. Because we clearly need to." Vanellope replied. She leaned back on her arms and crossed her legs.

"Nnngh." Ralph replied.

"I've talked to Tammy, I've talked to Taffyta, and even Felix has has something to say about this. But I want to talk to you." Vanellope pleaded. "This is about you. I want to know what you think."

"About me?" Ralph asked. Incredulity all over him.

"This all started because you started to treat me differently when I got older." Vanellope reasoned.

"That's just because that's what you do!" Ralph argued.

"I know that. But you weren't treating me the same as everyone else. Everyone else was happy for me. Even random guys I didn't know would smile at me. But you could hardly look at me." Vanellope complained.

"They weren't happy for you. They were flirting." Ralph said in frustration. He'd noticed it too, that first day when they'd went to Tapper's. Not a single guy in the place hadn't cast leering eyes in her direction. Vanellope, being a very friendly girl, was almost a natural flirt. If only she'd understood what they'd actually wanted then... It'd bugged him for several reasons, most of which he'd refused to think about.

"Flirting?" Vanellope asked in disbelief.

"Yes, flirting!" Ralph shouted.

"You don't need to yell!" Vanellope shouted back.

Ralph just growled and scrubbed at his face with his hands.

"I was hoping we could have an actual conversation about this." Vanellope said quietly.

Ralph sighed. He could tell when he was being unreasonable, and now was one of those times. He was just upsetting her for no good reason. He went over and sat next to her on the bed. He looked at her with a self-deprecating smile.

"I'll try my best. I just..." Ralph paused. "It's a really difficult subject." He said in a sigh.

"It's not just me then?" Vanellope laughed.

"Says the girl who just plopped down on me and said 'hey let's talk about dating'." Ralph said mockingly.

"Oh, just... forget about all that for a minute, kay?" Vanellope said dismissively. "Ralph, more than anything else, all I really want to know is one thing. Why is it that the one person in the whole world I was closest to when I was little is the only one who seems to can't stand me now? Especially when everyone seems to think we should be closer than ever." Vanellope put plainly.

Ralph fidgeted and rubbed at his neck.

"Ralph..." Vanellope warned.

"Gimmie a minute. It's not as simple a question as it seems like." Ralph defended.

"Yeah, well you're the only one equipped to know." Vanellope said, not giving him much leeway. She scooted close and leaned on his shoulder, wrapping her arms loosely around his.

Ralph pointedly ignored her while he thought about the question. What could he say? He felt like he didn't really know the answer himself.

"I guess you just... make me uncomfortable." Ralph said finally.

"Uncomfortable? Why?" Vanellope asked. Ralph really didn't want to answer that.

"You're very inappropriate." Ralph said.

"Oh, I am not." Vanellope pouted.

"Normal girls do NOT just crawl into a bed with a guy. No matter how well they know him." Ralph pointed out.

"They do so, if they really like him. And I used to do that all the time when I was little." Vanellope said.

"You're just not... following the social guidelines I'm used to. It was perfectly fine to do that when you were little. You were little. Now you're all..." Ralph looked at her and gestured with his free hand.

"Are we on this again?" Vanellope whined.

"It's just that when a little girl snuggles up to a guy it's like 'awww, look at her. She's treating him like a big teddy bear. So cute.' But when a full grown one snuggles up to a guy it's got... completely different implications. Ones that I'm not sure you actually understand and ones I'm not sure I'm really ready to deal with even if you do." Ralph said in a panic. Trying to veer away from where they got stuck last time.

Vanellope got quite excited about this.

"Now we're back to where we were." She pointed out. "Dating. Those were the kinds of implications you were talking about, right?"

Ralph felt somewhat talked into a corner. There wasn't a lot of argument, at this point, about what Vanellope was getting at.

"It's the way you've been acting that makes people think that we're already dating, y'know." Ralph decided to point out.

"That's kind of your fault too." Vanellope countered.

Ralph thought about what Felix had told him. He had to concede that he wasn't really holding up his end of the deal when it came to finding a more platonic balance to the relationship. He was just as bad at this as Vanellope was.

"Mmm... I told you the way you acted needed to change, but I didn't think about how I should be treating you differently." Ralph mused.

"I don't want you to treat me different Ralph, that's the point!" Vanellope howled. "We should be dating. If it wasn't a good idea everyone else wouldn't have already thought we were."

"Where's that line of reasoning coming from?" Ralph asked. He'd never heard of something so ridiculous.

"Crowd sourcing. You can almost always tell whose going to win a race by the crowd favorite. Ralph, we're the crowd favorite! Definitely a winning pair." Vanellope said, sounding very sure of her logic.

"You're weird." Ralph deadpanned.

"Doesn't mean I'm not right. C'mon Ralph, just give it a good think. You know I'm right." Vanellope coerced.

"How about..." Ralph started. Vanellope clutched at his arm tighter. "We just keep doing what we're doing, no matter what anyone else wants to call it, and see how that goes?" Ralph asked hesitantly.

He wasn't ready to commit to anything. He was too conflicted. But even with his weird sensibilities he didn't see anything wrong with what they'd been doing. As far as he was concerned that was just two friends hanging out. Until such time that he could figure himself out, if that was ever gonna happen.

Vanellope squealed and absolutely pounced on him.

"That's a yes! That's a yes! That's a yes!" She yelled, hugging him around the neck.

Before Ralph could even think to protest she'd grabbed his head and kissed him so fiercely his eyes crossed.

A/N: You guys probably didn't care all that much for this chapter. But you're liking me a lot more than you would've if I'd done what I originally planned to do with it. I was gonna have him just say NO. And then where would we be? Anyway, I thought this was funnier.

Review Response:

newstorymaster213 - While that is a really good idea... it's just not gonna happen. Manga's are a ridiculous amount of work to do. Also I haven't even tried to draw Ralph. So... yeah. I like the idea, I just could never actually get it done.

CraftyKeronian - No, the upgrade didn't get rid off the glitch. I'm of the opinion it's her special tech. But I also have the idea that she can't do it out of her own game. I dunno why. I just think that's how it goes.