A/N: Okay, okay. I don't know about you but Ralph's just not being put through the ringer enough for me... I'm so mean.

Chapter 25: The Afterparty

The shouting, as it turned out, was a call for a speech from the hostess. The party was starting to trickle to a close and everyone wanted some sort of send off. Vanellope wasn't really feeling up to it, but she begrudgingly agreed.

"Well. I don't know about you, but I've been having a great time." Vanellope said, nodding her head a little. There were cheers from the crowd. "But I've noticed, and I'm sure you've noticed too, that we've been going for a while now."

"Twelve hours!" Someone from the crowd yelled.

"Oh gosh, have we really?" Vanellope asked. "No wonder I'm so tired." She scratched the side of her head absently.

"Anyway, my point was, it's about time to call it a night. It's about... ten hours? Til the arcade opens again? And we've got a ridiculous amount of clean up to do -"

That elicited a chorus of boos from the crowd.

"Well we're not gonna make you do it!" Vanellope protested. "Well... not if you get out fast enough." She joked.

"Anyway, you don't have to go home but-"

"You can't stay here!" The crowd shouted.

"There ya go!" Vanellope shouted back, pumping her fist with a little twirl.

At that, the crowd started to disperse. Ralph had finally gotten himself cooled off enough to be presentable, just in time to see that people were leaving. He couldn't say he was disappointed. Vanellope spotted him from her place on the stage. She hopped down and made her way over to where he was.

"You're gonna stay after and help with the clean up, right?" Vanellope asked innocently. She turned pink when Ralph raised an eyebrow at her.

"I'm sure clean up is on your mind." Ralph said dryly. Vanellope just pouted, which Ralph made a point of ignoring.

Ralph DID end up staying later and help clean up, as it turned out. Unfortunately a lot of other people did too. Felix and Calhoun, lots of the other racers, Tapper, and a few people from DDR. The racers were an obvious choice, but she had to question Tapper and the DDR crew about it.

"Well, you're not the only one to throw a crazy party. We know all about how much the clean up sucks." Yuni explained. "We always wish people would stay and help, so..." Vanellope could understand that. Even with all these people helping is still seemed like it was taking a while. Or maybe Vanellope was just impatient.

Vanellope pitched in some too, feeling guilty about just standing admiring Ralph. Mostly just because he kept calling her on it. Not out loud or anything, but with a few knowing looks. He'd guilted her into going elsewhere. She went to hang out with Taffyta, who was sort of helping by cleaning out some of the antechambers.

"What happened to your shirt?" Felix asked. He'd noticed the rip as Ralph reached up to pull the decorations off the wall. Ralph quickly smoothed his shirt down in a failed attempt to hide the giant tear.

"Umm..." Ralph struggled for an answer. Calhoun grinned.

"Does it have anything to do with how Vanellope bolted out of here in such a hurry after her big number?" Calhoun asked.

"What makes you say that?" Ralph asked innocently. Calhoun, who was close enough to do it, pulled Ralph's shirt up by the flap.

"There's glitter all over your chest." Calhoun answered. Ralph yelped and jerked his shirt back down, blushing bright red. Calhoun laughed at his reaction.

"Nice washboard ya got there." Calhoun teased.

"Would'ja cut it out?" Ralph complained. Calhoun waved him off, consenting to stop.

"So, I take it you and the pipsqueak are getting' along okay?" Calhoun questioned as she went back to work. Before Ralph could answer, Felix chimed in with an opinion.

"Oh, you two are so cute. It just tickles me so much to see you and Vanellope getting along so well." Felix beamed.

"What do you mean?" Ralph asked.

"Oh, just how I see you two walking arm in arm all the time. You guys go out almost every night, and you're both always all smiles lately. Everyone's noticed." Felix said, still smiling benignly as he picked trash up off the floor.

"What do you mean everyone's noticed? Why are people noticing? What right do people have to notice?" Ralph asked, feeling like he was starting to panic.

"Well... I dunno. It's just that both of you draw so much attention." Felix tried to explain. "What with you being so big and Vanellope being so... so..." Felix stopped and scratched his chin as he tried to think of the correct word.

"Vivacious?" Calhoun supplied.

"Right." Felix agreed. "So between the two of you you're hard to miss. And when everyone sees something then people will talk..."

"People are talking too?" Ralph moaned.

As far as Ralph was concerned this was terrible news. He didn't want to be noticed. He didn't want to be a central figure in people's gossip. Why couldn't they just mind their own business? Why did they care if he and Vanellope were dating?

"They're not saying anything bad about either of you Ralph." Felix was quick to assure. "Well, I mean for the most part." He amended. "Every once in a while there's a-"

"No!" Ralph interrupted. "I really don't want to know." Ralph insisted. The fact they were talking at all was bad enough. Knowing any bad thoughts at this time would just... completely derail the whole venture.

"Oh Ralph, you shouldn't let that discourage you. There was all sorts of talk when me and Tamora got together." Felix said, dismissing the issue.

"Some of the boys gave me all sorts of flak... Before I set them straight, that is." Calhoun said with an evil grin.

"Yeah, but if I did that it'd just make things worse." Ralph said, not feeling any better about it.

Ralph really didn't want to talk about this anymore. It was just making him uncomfortable. Why was this sort of thing always on his head? He glanced around the room, wondering where Vanellope was, but he didn't see her.

Vanellope, somewhat predictably, was goofing off in one of the antechambers with Taffyta. They'd snuck some drinks in and were sitting on the couch going over the highlights of a party well done.

"And you're ending speech!" Taffyta giggled.

"What? What was wrong with it?" Vanellope protested.

"You should've seen yourself. You know you weren't fooling anyone." Taffyta confided.

"What?" Vanellope whined.

"Your make up was all smudged, an your hair. You and Ralph were totally fooling around before we found you, don't lie." Taffyta said with confidence. Vanellope blushed to her roots.

"Omigosh, did everyone know?!" Vanellope squealed.

"Everyone knew. You were such a hot mess." Taffyta answered with a laugh.

"Oh no..." Vanellope said with a grimace. How embarrassing. Ralph would never let her hear the end of it if he found out. He'd probably be mortified too, come to think of it. He was sort of easily flustered.

"So level with me." Taffyta said, readjusting herself on the couch, "Ralph's really good isn't he?"

Vanellope's brain locked up as it tried to digest the question.

"You... Did you really just ask what I think you asked?" Vanellope questioned. Taffyta snickered.

"No, I'm serious. I wanna know. The way you looked coming out of that room... You don't have to give me any details or anything." Taffyta explained.

Vanellope leaned back and thought about what Taffyta was asking. 'Good' could mean a lot of things. She supposed maybe that meant his actual actions. Her eyes went a little unfocused as she thought back to what Ralph had actually done. How he'd pressed against her, how his hands moved, his mouth on her neck...

Taffyta giggled, snapping Vanellope out of her musings. Vanellope realized she was blushing really hard and buried her face in her hands. That set Taffyta off into a giggle fit.

"You know, I was wondering what you saw in him, but now..." Taffyta said, sounding terribly amused.

"Oh sto~op!" Vanellope whined. "I wasn't going to know that at the time!" Vanellope pointed out. She sighed as she calmed down, thinking about what she actually saw in Ralph.

"He's really nice you know." She told Taffyta softly. "And... maybe he's not that nice looking on the, on the immediate surface. But he's so strong, and he's got soooo many muscles." She smiled slyly, her eyes half-lidded, as she thought about how all those muscles felt.

Taffyta got a far away look as she thought about what Vanellope was saying. She blinked and looked over at Vanellope, then she smiled.

"You've got it so good Vanny." She said, nudging Vanellope with her shoulder.

Vanellope brought her knees up and put her chin on them. She smiled almost impossibly wide.

Yeah... she really did have it good.

A/N: Yep... I just have to do what I'm about to do. Just couldn't stand it. No hints if you don't already have a guess.

Review Response:

jeh-nee - The danger of using the Sugar Rush theme in the last chapter was that I was listening to it all through writing, so now I've got it stuck in my head again. Also, Ralph is a hot mess all the time. It's just a little more of an outward thing in the last chapter.

Zorua - That's quite the undertaking. I've only ever done that for one fanfic myself. I feel so complimented. You'll forgive me for not responding to every single one, I hope.

sassybutt32, rangers123 - I find reading fanfiction in class is, in general, very dangerous. Especially since it's very likely that the author will pull something like that, completely by accident, on the chapter update you just can't wait to read long enough to wait til after class.

Nunyeahbusiness - I thought really hard about putting some of that in. I wrote out some of that, but decided I wanted to go a different way with it. I thought underscoring that would just make Ralph a little too insecure to do what he ended up doing next.