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The smashed-up bricks in front of Wreck-It Ralph's stump were as comfortable as ever, but he couldn't sleep. Maybe he was still a little keyed up about what had happened to RoadBlasters and Turbo Time that morning. Two games unplugged in the same day, and all because of the actions of one selfish character. Everybody was a little shaken. He had every right to a little insomnia.
Whatever the reason, Ralph was glad of the distraction when he heard a shifting in the brick pile not far away. Probably the rat who had been stealing his food these last few nights. Ralph stood up and began stalking uphill towards the noise.
"All right," he muttered aloud, scanning the bricks for movement, "where are you, ya little punk?"
Then he reached the top of the brick pile and stopped short. The noise evidently hadn't been a rat. There on the bricks just behind the summit, facing away from the apartment building and out towards the night sky and Niceland Forest, sat Fix-It Felix Jr. himself, a small speck of blue against the red. Felix had his hat off and was kneading it with his hands in his lap, staring down at his boots.
"Felix?" Ralph asked in surprise. "What are you doing in the dump?"
Felix started, sniffed and drew the back of his gloved hand across his eyes. He turned. "Ralph?"
"Whoa. Are you crying?" Ralph's eyebrows knitted; he was pretty sure heroes weren't supposed to cry.
Felix looked away and put his hat on. "Of course not." He stood up. "I should go. This is your dump. I just--I don't think I can face talking to the Nicelanders tonight, and I can't go to Tapper's, everybody there'll be talking about him, and--" His voice grew squeaky with repressed tears, and he swallowed. "Sorry to bother you. I'll go."
Jeez, this was pathetic. Ralph shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Hey, stay if you want. I don't care."
Felix looked relieved. "Thanks." He sat down again, pulled off his hat and stared at it. "I'll try not to be any trouble."
And Ralph should have gone back to bed; that should have been the end of the conversation. It was none of his business. But for some reason he couldn't bring himself to just leave Felix there, crying alone in the garbage. He casually punched at some bricks, trying to look busy.
"So," he said after a few seconds. "Shame what happened to RoadBlasters."
"A darn shame," Felix agreed without looking up.
"Yep." Ralph swung a fist at some more bricks and ambled over towards Felix. "That's what it is. A darn shame."
Another five seconds passed. Ralph spoke again. "So, how 'bout that Champion Baseball?"
"Those poor characters," said Felix, unhearing. So he really did want to talk about the RoadBlasters thing.
"Yeah," Ralph agreed.
"It's just awful. I can't believe--" Felix squeezed at his hat, and then suddenly looked up. "Say, Ralph? Do you want to come sit with me for a minute?"
Ah. Felix had said he'd come out here to be alone, but whether he realized it or not, he needed somebody to talk to. Anybody would have done. He probably would have poured his heart out to the rat, if it had found him first. But no, Ralph had. And he was too soft to refuse.
Ralph pummeled the bricks next to Felix and took the seat. "Eh, I've got nowhere else to be. You're right, Tapper's is gonna be a zoo tonight anyway."
Felix spoke again, only half-listening. "I can't believe Turbo's really dead."
"Yeah," said Ralph. The reports were the same everywhere. "Guess he never made it out of RoadBlasters."
"Jiminy," Felix murmured. "I know he wasn't a good person, but that's just awful." He paused. "Listen, the thing is... You should know that, a couple years ago, me and Turbo..." He hesitated, looking for the right word. "We were, well..."
"Dating," Ralph finished. "Yeah, I knew."
Felix blinked up at him. "You did?"
"The whole arcade knew. You gotta admit it wasn't exactly a secret."
"No," said Felix. "But I didn't know--I mean, I don't think I ever told you."
No, he hadn't. And yeah, it had been a little weird to get the news from Evil Otto, when it concerned Ralph's own good guy; even weirder, two years later, to hear the whole story of the messy breakup from one of the cowboys at Tapper's, while Felix had gone on smiling and fixing windows like nothing was even wrong. But then Felix had never talked to Ralph much. And Ralph certainly never went out of his way to say more than four words to Felix. They simply weren't friends--that was just the way it was.
They weren't friends, and Ralph wasn't sure what they were doing now.
"I'm sorry," he said. What else was there to say? "So that's why you don't wanna be at Tapper's tonight, huh?"
"I just don't think I can stand to hear what everybody's saying," said Felix. "The way everybody's talking bad about him."
"To be fair," said Ralph, "he deserves it." Turbo may have been the player character of Turbo Time, but when push came to shove he'd shown himself to be worse than any bad guy Ralph knew.
"But he wasn't always--that way." He wasn't always turbo, they were calling it already, but Felix apparently wasn't ready to adopt the new slang. "He was one of us once. And now he's gone." Felix rubbed at his eyes again. "I saw him just last week," he confided.
This was one piece of gossip that hadn't reached Ralph's ears. He didn't even have to ask for details before Felix went on, apparently desperate to tell someone:
"He caught me coming out of Pac-Man. He said he had something important to talk about. He was acting all screwy and angry, he kept going on about RoadBlasters, he said he was going to be popular again... He wanted me to come to Tapper's with him--for old times' sake. I rebuffed him." Felix's breathing quickened, and he squeezed hard at his hat. "I had no idea what he was talking about, and now two games have been unplugged. I could have done something."
"Hey," said Ralph sternly, "you are not responsible for Turbo. That guy was a nutjob!"
"And I courted him for two years," said Felix. "I knew him better than anybody. I should have known." He pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his arms. "I of all people should have seen this coming."
Ralph looked down at the hero of Fix-It Felix Jr., curled up in a tiny ball with his hair ruffled by the breeze and his much-abused hat sticking out from one hand. He sighed and rested one huge hand on the ground behind Felix's shoulders, not quite going so far as to touch him.
"But you didn't," he said idly, staring out at the forest. "Maybe that's why you're the good guy. You see the best in everybody. It'd never occur to you to think anything bad about anybody, even when they really deserve it."
"I know!" Felix half-wailed. "I'm so worthless when it comes to judging people."
Ralph rolled his eyes. "Sheesh. Look, you know that's not what I meant. I just meant, what Turbo did isn't your fault. There's nobody to blame but him. You're a good guy, Felix. I mean, you're a good guy. What I'm saying is--"
"Hey!" came a faint voice from the other side of the dump. "Hey, Ralph, are you in there?"
Felix raised his head, looking panicked. "Oh, my land," he whispered. "Gene! Don't tell him I'm here."
Ralph sighed and stood up so that his head protruded above the summit of the brick pile. "What do you want, Gene?" he called, with his usual hostility in dealing with the smarmy Nicelander.
"We're looking for Felix," Gene called back. "Do you know where he is?"
Ralph glanced down at Felix, who looked back at him wide-eyed and waved both hands in a no, no, no gesture. "How should I know?" he replied. "What am I, his keeper?"
"Well, if you do see him," Gene spat back, "would you let him know he's wanted?"
Fitting turn of phrase. Of course Felix was wanted--not like some people Ralph could name. "Yeah, maybe if I feel like it," he called back to Gene.
Gene spun on his heel and walked back towards the apartments. Ralph sat down again and turned to Felix.
"You're gonna have to go back sometime, you know."
"I know. The Nicelanders need me. Everyone's awful nervous about the--the RoadBlasters thing. It's my duty to show them that everything's still normal here in Fix-It Felix Jr.."
Ralph looked down at him. "Is everything normal with Fix-It Felix Jr.?"
Felix looked down at his hat and slowly opened it to its original shape. He sat up straight and put the hat on. "Of course," he said. "Everything's fine." He glanced up towards the top of the brick pile, and then back at the forest. "But--well--do you mind if I stay here a little longer?"
Ralph put his hands behind his head and lay back against the bricks. "Yeah, go ahead," he said, without looking at Felix. "Whatever."