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make-it-mavis · 5 years

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The Right Thing (pt 2 of 3)

Wreck it Ralph AU 3639 words Content warnings: drugs/addiction, mentions of death Characters: Turbo, Make-it Mavis, Maribo ( @nijimarii‘s OC )

Premise: After a harrowing evening, Turbo is finally allowed to join his sick, injured, unconscious friend in her hospital room. However, said friend’s unfortunate victim pays her a visit as well, and he faces some ideas he would rather not think about.

>Part 1<

Turbo had honestly lost count of the times he had accompanied Mavis to Dr. Mario’s hospital. That girl always had a bizarre appetite for things that no one should ever ingest, and too frequently needed something removed from her stomach or some sort of poison flushed from her system. He had become so accustomed to the routine that it eventually felt like nothing but a chore.

He never considered that he might someday be confined to the hospital waiting room, legitimately unsure if she would survive the night.

After a brief, infuriating encounter with the Surge Protector, the minutes dragged at a painful rate. Too restless to sit, he paced around, idly arguing with Fix-it Felix over things he lost track of. He hated to be stuck with Felix of all sprites, but he was at least grateful for someone to distract him a bit.

That is, until someone from another game came looking for Felix, going on about some big accident that urgently needed his fixing skills. Felix was loathe to go, but swore he would be right back when the job was done, and asked Turbo to relay that promise to Mavis if she woke up before then. Apparently, it was a big job, because he did not come back.

After a lonely, anxious wait that felt like forever, Dr. Mario appeared with good news, and he was finally allowed to join Mavis in her room.

She looked worse than he had ever seen her. The hospital gown, the IV drip, the tubes and wires, that much was routine. But if not for the monitor by her bed showing her heart rate and code stability, he would have pronounced her dead on the spot. She was unconscious and breathing so weakly that she was being fed oxygen through a thin tube under her nose. There were bandages on her head, and her pixels were discolored by this sickly, hazy blue tint. He almost believed he could see right through her if he squinted. It all just sent a nauseating burn into the pit of his stomach. He could not decide just what he felt, only that it was nearly too much to handle.

As he was taking his seat next to her bed, the volunteer nurse warned him not to touch her until she reached 65% code stability, and that she would be good to leave at 75%.

It was 57% when he came in.

So he settled in for another lonely, anxious wait that felt like forever.

By thirty minutes in, Turbo had developed quite the headache. A song recording had been playing for her all night to help keep her brain active, but he felt like his own brain was slowly melting. It was just the same boring, generic instrumental refrain again and again and again.

“Can ya believe this crap they’re playin’?” he muttered to her. “I mean, is this doin’ anythin’ for ya? ‘Cause it’s sure doin’ things to me.”

She gave no response.

His jaw clenched a bit. She was fine, according to the doctor. She was very much alive, and her code was stabilizing at a steady rate. She was fine. He was just having trouble believing that, from the way she looked. The urge to lean in and try to nudge her awake was so tempting, but she was still only at 60% stability.

“Hey dumbass… You’d better be okay, y’hear me?” he said lowly, and paused. “...And if y’can hear me n’ you’re playin’ dead to be funny, I’ll kick your ass through the wall socket.”

There was no sound from Mavis, but another sound stirred him to attention. A weak, wheezing cough came from the door, and he saw someone just before they staggered back into the hallway. It was… what was her name again?

The little orange potato with a hat and feather? The one Mavis tried to throttle?

He was drawing a blank.

Whatever her name was, he was not thrilled with the fact that she had been there without him realizing. Once he heard the coughing fit finally die down, he called, “Hey, you!”

There was a pause, but her cutesy little face soon appeared, sporting a tired, regretful glare. In a raspy voice that was barely even there, she replied, “What?”

“How long were you standin’ there?”

The potato stepped fully into the doorway and folded her arms with a shrug. “I’unno, like, two seconds? I didn’t hear whatever you were mumbling, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Ah,” he smiled, “nah, I was just tellin’ Mavis here how I dropkick little spuds that like to eavesdrop.”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping, dufus,” she spat. “I just didn’t wanna interrupt whatever sappy garbo you were telling your sick girlfriend.”

“She ain’t my girlfriend,” he groaned tiredly, those words just sounding like noise to him by that point.

“‘Kay. Then why are you here?”

He furrowed his brow. “I’unno. She ain’t your girlfriend. Why are you here?”

The little one opened her mouth to reply, but came up short. Tapping her foot a bit, her gaze fell to the floor. “I’unno, I…” she shrugged and held a breath for a second, “...don’t know. This is stupid. Nevermind.”

She turned back to the hallway, and he heard the tiny frustrated slaps of her feet wandering away. Leaving him alone with the music and catatonic Mavis again.

“Hey, hey-- uh-- lil’ spud! Wait!” he called out.

She may have tried to call back, but all he heard was another coughing fit. After a moment, she appeared again, eyes glassy from the effort of wheezing. She looked equal parts confused and pissed.

“My name’s Maribo, you jerkwad,” she hissed.

“Whatever,” he waved his hand. “Just get in here n’ see Mavis already. I don’t care.”

Maribo looked thoughtfully at the bed, but she hesitated, anxiously squeezing her folded arm. There seemed to be an internal debate going on under that little plush-looking hat, one that Turbo had zero desire to be an audience of.

“Okay,” he said flatly, “are ya scared bitless of her now or what?”

That earned him a sharp look. “I’m not scared,” she growled, and continued to grumble as she determinedly strode into the room. The little potato was, in fact, so little that she was obscured by the bed as she came closer, but before long, a chair scooted itself a bit closer to the opposite side of the bed from Turbo, and Maribo hopped up onto it.

Once she actually saw Mavis, all the moody snark on her face seemed to run away. Turbo could not quite read the peculiar way Maribo was looking at her, but he got the impression that she would not soon forget what she saw. She was dumbstruck. In awe, confused, sort of repulsed, and a little… worried, almost.

“Yeah,” he sighed, fidgeting with his pant leg a bit. “She’s real pretty, huh.”

“Uh huh…” Maribo muttered absently. “Yeah, she’s, uh… she looks… hmm...”

“Don’t hurt yourself, kid,” he grumbled.

“Don’t call me ‘kid.’”

Aside from the annoying music and soft beeping, a long, tense silence settled between the two. The air was heavy and suffocating, so much that Turbo almost envied Mavis for her breathing aid. It took a long time of staring at Mavis’ haunting sprite before one of them piped up.

“Did she break anything, or what?” Turbo asked, just for the sake of talking.

“Huh? No, no. Just some… bruising. I feel like a million creds already,” Maribo wheezed weakly.

“Mmm,” he hummed boredly. “Yeah, well. I’unno what they did to ya here, but go bug Fix-it Felix to heal ya the rest of the way if you’re so inclined. Actually, I kinda wonder why they brought ya here at all. Your code didn’t get jacked up.” He paused. “Right?”

Maribo did not respond to that. She merely stared at Mavis, her crossed arms hugged tight to her body. It was clear that she was lost in thoughts that rode heavy on her shoulders. Once again, Turbo felt unjustly exposed to her emotional drama, but he felt too run down to even object. He just leaned his arm against the side rail of the bed and rested his chin on the back of his hand. His eyelids grew heavy quickly.

He had just fallen into a thick, muggy, half-asleep daze when Maribo’s voice snapped him out of it.

“Does this happen a lot?”

“Wh-- Huh?” he startled up a bit. “What?”

“I mean…” she still had not taken her eyes off Mavis. “Does she… Has she ever, well… attacked anyone else?”

Turbo paused to think.

“Define ‘attack.’”

Maribo slowly gave him an unimpressed glance.

“Arright, yeesh,” he half-rolled his eyes. “Uh… yeah-- well-- y’see, kinda? The gal likes to fight just for the fun of it, n’ she’s got a temper hotter than a fire flower sometimes, so, yeah, she’s thrown some punches. But this-- I mean, like this level of attack? Not so much.”

Maribo was quiet for a moment. She sat down, resting her elbows on her bent knees. “I guess I just… didn’t know she had it in her to do something like this.”

Resting his cheek on the rail, Turbo watched Maribo thoughtfully for a minute. He tapped his fingers idly against the bed sheet, debating whether or not to have that conversation. He would have been perfectly content to never go deeper than petty sass with Maribo, but… it seemed like she was about to buy into an unfair idea that too many already believed -- that Mavis was actually dangerous.

He would consider it a favor to his friend. She could owe him later.

“So, judgin’ by… everythin’ about ya,” he began with a low sigh, “I’m guessin’ ya never tried buffs before.”

Maribo cocked her head. “Buffs?”

Turbo’s brows raised. “Really? Y’don’t even know what they are?”

“Not really. I’ve heard the word before, but...” she shrugged.

“...Arright, well...” he tapped a finger against the bed and smacked his tongue. “It’s like this, kid. Y’know how, in games, there are power-ups that the Good Guy uses to do cool crap?”

“...Yeah.”

“Well, if ya take a power-up that’s not from your game, your code goes all, ‘Ahh, what the hell’s this, I ain’t built for this,’ n’ it gets all jumbled up n’ confused for a while. So ya feel some real weird crap. It gets ya high, s’what I’m sayin’.”

Maribo merely watched him, listening.

“Mavis likes ‘em,” he shrugged. “I do too. But sometimes, y’know, she goes harder than she oughtta. And… y’gotta get that buffs make ya feel, think, hear, and even see things all wacked out. If someone goes overboard, they can kinda… lose it for a bit. And, uh… I mean, I’ve seen her freak out and break stuff before, but-- well, hey, you’re roughly vase-sized ain’t ya?”

Maribo squinted. “...What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ugh,” he grunted, “what I’m sayin’ is, she wasn’t in her right mind. She could’a flipped on anybody at that point. I can pretty much guarantee that she didn’t know it was you.”

She pondered that, watching Mavis again, processing it all. “...Huh.”

“Yeah…” he muttered. “This thing that happened with you? This doesn’t happen a lot. She might be an aggravating, nasty lil’ gremlin pest, but she doesn’t wanna actually hurt anybody.”

“She was just high,” Maribo stated quietly.

“Y’got it.”

“So, was that… I mean, was that why her eyes were all…” she gestured an odd circle around her face.

“Glowing? Yeah. That’s just another fun thing buffs do.”

Maribo fell silent for a moment, just looking at Mavis with an odd sort of melancholy. There was something about it that Turbo did not appreciate. He could smell some more skewed ideas wafting around in her brain. It was hard to say just why it bothered him so much. It felt almost like a backhanded insult to him and his own tastes that one would think badly of the sprite closest to him.

“Hey,” he said sharply. “Quit lookin’ at her like that.”

Maribo shot him an irritated look. “Like what?”

“Like she’s some pitiful addict or somethin’. She doesn’t have a buff problem, she’s just--” he stopped short, an ugly cocktail of emotions bubbling in his chest. He looked at his sleeping friend, giving her a sharp stare that he hoped she could feel. Even though it was the Surge Protector that put her in the hospital, and even though Turbo would never forgive him for that, it was her own recklessness that put her in the position to be shocked in the first place. Turbo would use any excuse he could to justify his belief that she did not have a buff problem. Seeing her nearly killed for attacking another sprite while buffed out of her head was starting to change his mind a bit, and that was never a comfortable sensation for him. He did not feel ready to face all that would come with admitting she had a problem. But what else could he do? Wait around for Surge to fry her to death again?

He finished in a low, unsteady voice, “She’s got a stupidity problem.”

“Ah,” Maribo raised a disbelieving brow. “I guess you’re well equipped to diagnose that, huh?”

He glared. “Yeah, ‘cause I’m fully immersed in a culture a’ complete morons every day.”

“Has anyone ever said to you, ‘Takes one to know one?’”

“Mavis, every other sentence. You ain’t clever.”

“Maybe you just ain’t even worth the brain power to diss cleverly.”

“Nah, your hat’s just blockin’ signals to that lil’ satellite brain you got under there,” he spun his hair around his finger.

At that, Maribo hopped to her feet and grasped the bed rail. “Alright, PAL--”

Mavis’ body glitched.

Both of them startled so hard, their chairs creaked against the floor. Turbo’s heart raced as he pulled himself up close, watching for any other movement. All seemed still for a while. He slowly let out a heated breath that he had been holding and settled back into his seat, his head reeling from the emotional rollercoaster he had been riding all night. When he looked at Maribo, he found her frozen, pressed to the back of her chair, gripping the side. Her breaths came in quick and shallow, and she almost seemed reluctant to blink.

“What the hell’s your problem?” Turbo growled miserably. “I thought you weren’t scared a’ her.”

Maribo swallowed and eased up her death grip on the chair. “I’m not. She just startled me,” she rasped. Then her eyes wandered to Mavis’ vitals monitor, and her brow furrowed a bit. “Uh… did that number just go down?”

Turbo’s heart stumbled. “Down?” He read the monitor -- she was at 63%.

“Yeah, that definitely said 64% just a minute ago,” Maribo mumbled, her voice so concerned, it was almost fearful. When Mavis glitched again, she audibly gasped.

The monitor read 62%, and Mavis stirred.

Turbo immediately grasped the side of the bed, watching her take in her first deep breaths in hours. Finally, finally, she was waking up.

But there was still a third wheel present. Maribo did not look like she particularly wanted to be there anymore, but she seemed to have trouble looking away. Her eyes were just screaming with conflict. Turbo went ahead and decided for her.

“Hey,” he hissed. “Beat it. You’re gonna freak her out or somethin’.”

She gave him a resentful, offended look, but there was a sad sort of understanding there, too. “Fine by me,” she wheezed before hastily hopping from her chair and scampering for the door. To his frustration, she paused in the doorway and looked back, craning her head to get one last look at Mavis, who was starting to grunt a bit.

“Go!” he snapped in a hushed tone. “Give us some privacy, will ya?”

Maribo rolled her eyes into her turn. “Fine, fine, go on n’ kiss your sick girlfriend!”

“She ain’t my--” he stopped as she disappeared into the hallway. “Ugh, whatever.”

“T?”

Mavis’ soft, weary voice snapped him to attention. She had only turned her head, and was watching him dreamily, her pupils still glowing brightly. He wanted so badly to continue being pissed at her, because she did deserve it. But in that moment, all he could think about was how he was not sure he would ever hear that voice again hardly over an hour ago.

It took him a long time to say anything, but eventually, he managed to breathe, “Hey.”

The corner of her mouth twitched for a second. As he pulled his chair up as close to her head as he could, she looked around the room slowly. Her breathing was a bit labored, and she winced weakly now and again, but she seemed more than calm. She would not be strangling anyone for a long time.

“Hospital,” she whispered. “Uh huh… man, what’d I eat this time? I feel like crap.”

Turbo kept his hands to himself beneath the bed, fidgeting with his fingers. The anger started to bubble up in him again, but he found it hard to process just how much of it came from worry. He hoped that it would not show, but somehow, that felt impossible.

“Y’didn’t eat somethin’,” he said lowly. “Ya took somethin’.”

She looked at him and blinked slowly. “‘Kay… what the hell did I take?”

“You tell me,” he glared. “I sure hope ya had fun, because ya nearly corrupted for it.”

Mavis’ eyes just widened a bit.

“Yeah. Yeah,” he nodded tightly. “Y’almost died. For a buzz. Must’ve been real freakin’ good to risk your life over -- what was it, Mav? ‘Cause if you tell me it was GC, I’m pullin’ your plug.”

“GC?!” she tried to sit up, but her body glitched and dropped her right back down. Groaning a bit, she rubbed her brow. “I did GC?!”

“I dunno, did ya?” he asked.

“No,” she shook her head. “No, I don’t do GC. It can’t have been. I… don’t remember taking… but… wait-- wait-- I remember that I still had…” she pushed her hand over her face, squeezing her eyes shut in thought.

“Spells,” she whispered.

Turbo let that sit for a few seconds. “...Spells.”

“Yeah.”

“Y’were doin’ Spells. Alone.”

Her hand fell. She sighed, “Yeah, I guess I was, T.”

He dropped his open palm on the bed. “Why? Why the hell would ya do that?”

Mavis pondered that one for a long while, but ultimately shrugged. “I’unno. I felt like it. So what?”

“So wh--” he stammered, gesturing to the entire room. “Whadya mean ‘So what?!’ This is a big freakin’ deal, dumbass! You’re in the hospital! You nearly corrupted-- you almost died!”

To his disbelief, she actually smiled a bit. “Yeah… it’s pretty badass, huh.”

He wanted to rip all the linens off the bed and tear them apart with his teeth. That was so typical of her to just laugh all the way through it, to blatantly disregard how anyone else might have been affected. Granted, it was something he did himself, but being on the receiving end was infuriating.

“No,” he hissed wetly, “no, Mavis, it’s not. It’s really not. Dyin’ ain’t badass. Dyin’s dead.”

“But I didn’t die,” she slurred, rolling her head to smile at him. “It’s like I’m invincible.”

“There’s a real big difference between bein’ invincible and just countin’ on bein’ lucky.”

Maddeningly, she chuckled. “Maybe Easter Eggs really are good luck charms, after all.”

Something in him snapped. “That’s not ENOUGH!” he snarled, slapping both hands on the bed as he stood, nearly toppling his chair behind him. She watched him, eyes wider than they had been, as he loomed over her.

“Luck is nothin’, Mav! What happens when it runs out?! What happens when some stupid, reckless, ‘because-I-felt-like-it’ stunt gets you killed?! What happens when ya die?! Huh?! Y’gonna just laugh that one off, too, chucklenuts?!”

Mavis glitched twice in rapid succession. Turbo froze as his words ran dry, looking down at the sick, blue-tinted girl lying in a hospital bed, and he fully realized just how much of an ass he was making of himself. There was no fear in Mavis’ luminescent eyes, at least. She returned his gaze with a numb calmness, but her pixels still shifted and flickered, and he could not help but think it was his doing.

Automatically, he checked her monitor. She flashed, and it dropped from 64% to 63%.

Trembling with adrenaline, he pulled his chair up again and slowly sat down. He had no idea what to say, so he picked the usual route and said nothing. Mavis was good at reading his silences… when she was in her right mind.

Gazing at her feet uncomfortably, Mavis pulled her arms in close over her body. As if nothing had happened, she asked miserably, “Why didn’t they give me any blankets? I’m freezing.”

He mumbled carefully, “Y’got three.”

She sighed, closing her eyes. “Freezin’ cold…”

“Y’got a button to call a nurse if you want more.”

“Nah,” she breathed, falling quickly into sleep. “Nah, just come n’...”

She was out, just like that.

Turbo sat, watching her, waiting for her to move again. He was not sure how he felt -- she needed her rest, but he did not like the feeling that he may have upset her into unconsciousness somehow. But if she were asleep, she could stabilize without his big, hideous feelings getting in the way.

He draped himself along the bed rail, resting his cheek on his arm. As Mavis relaxed, one of her hands dropped back to her side again. The sight of it gave him an urge, but he checked the monitor first.

There was only 1% to go until he could touch her.

#wreck it ralph #turbo #make it mavis #maribo #fanfiction #oc #au #'turbo handles emotions gracefully' said no one

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make-it-mavis · 5 years

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Fire Flower

Sequel to Sunflower

WiR fic (INTERNET AU) 3904 words Characters: Make-it Mavis, Red (friendly Turbo duplicate) Content warnings: Self-harm mention

Premise: Following their awkward encounter at the dance, Mavis bucks up the nerve to call Red and explain things, but ends up explaining more than she had planned to, and gives the boy just a shred of truth about her past.

_______________________________________

It had been three days since the dance.

Mavis had spent that time restless, looking for any idle distraction that still left enough room in her brain for her to come up with a reasonable excuse for her behavior. She crept around the social media district, wandered aimlessly in the towering Google fortress, and hunkered down in Buzzztube, puzzling over some of the things gamers and admins found entertaining, but sometimes still finding a good chuckle or two.

And the whole time, she did not receive a single call from Red, thankfully. His brothers texted her now and then, asking where she was, if she was okay, and saying how she should contact Red, because he was worried. As bad as that made her feel, she had to take her time until she was ready.

On that third night, she decided that she was about as ready as she was going to get. So she sat down on her hotel bed, sitting next to the lamp on her bedside table, the only light source in the room at the time. Holding her weird little rectangle ‘phone’ against her bent legs, she stared at her contact list, eyes locked on Red’s name (with a little sunflower ‘emoji’ next to it). Heart squirming in her chest, she took a deep breath and tapped the icon for a video call.

It started ringing. At first, all she saw was her own tired face, the yellow light of the lamp casting half her face in shadow. She stared into her own eyes, a warning to not screw this up, until her face shrunk into the corner, and she saw Turbo’s face -- well, a Turbo’s face. Red appeared to be sitting mostly in the dark himself, but she could tell he had a window open somewhere, because just enough sunlight glowed off-screen to illuminate his face. His eyes were bright against the darkness, and they were cautious, concerned, and… guilty, she noted unhappily.

For a minute, neither of them spoke. It seemed that they had frozen up at the sight of each other.

Mavis managed to speak first. “Hey, Red,” she said quietly.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Mavis,” he muttered. “Hi.”

“Uh…”

“So…”

“I’m…”

They paused.

Mavis sighed, willing to get it over with. “Red, listen. About the other night, I’m… really sorry. And I can explain--”

“No,” Red interrupted gently. “No, don’t do that. Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be sorry, and I am. I really am. I should have asked you first. I don’t blame you for running off.”

“Well, I don’t blame you for trying,” she objected sadly. “It’s not like I tried to stop you. I should’ve said something, I just, I dunno, I just got--”

He said along with her, “--caught up in the moment.”

That threw her off track, and she stared at him. He was smiling kind of ruefully. “I guess we both oughtta take care not to lose our heads, huh?”

She chuckled, just once. “My head’s been gone for years.”

“Really?” he smiled. “Then whose beautiful face am I looking at?”

That threw her even further off track. Her insides protested at the tiny hint of adrenaline. He was just too sweet. So much so, that he was almost intimidating to talk to. Mavis had never been known for handling sweetness gracefully, but she wanted to try.

At her pause, Red’s smile faded, and he combed a hand back through his hair. “Gnah,” he grunted. “Sorry. You’re not interested. I’ll back off now, I promise.”

Perfect, she thought, this is perfect. You can let him down easy, and then the friendship can turn awkward and fizzle, and that will be the cleanest way out you could possibly ask for. This is perfect.

On impulse, she said, “That’s not it.”

Dammit, Mavis.

Red perked up a bit, his eyes cautiously hopeful. “...Really? So-- so you mean…?”

Ignoring the voice of reason in her head, she avoided his gaze and told him what was technically not a lie.

“It’s just that I… Well, I haven’t told you this before, but… I’ve got some, uh, baggage when it comes to these things.”

Red was silent for a moment, in thought. Just then, he looked horrified. “Oh, no,” he breathed, “Did I trigger something awful?”

“Uh,” she shifted, feeling put on the spot. “I-- I guess you could call it that. Yeah. But it’s not so much that you tried to kiss me, it’s that, um… I kinda… haven’t wanted that kind of thing in a long time. I didn’t think I could anymore, and, um…”

Mavis held her words for just a moment, debating what to reveal. She wanted him to know the truth, but the truth was too much. But if she spoke just right, she did not have to lie to him at all.

Red just listened, his horrified face slipping slowly into soft sympathy, almost like he knew what he was hearing.

“My… last relationship,” she forced out, “ended… really badly. And I, uh, never wanted to even give myself a chance to go through that again. So, when I almost let you, uh… I just saw this… inevitable pain. And I panicked.”

Red’s glowing eyes fell downcast, and she saw the ghost of a sad smile. “I’m sorry. That’s an awful thing to go through. I’ve been through it myself.”

She tilted her head.

Seeing her expectant look, he explained, “Uh… well, listen… I used to date a lot. Often casually, nothing too serious. Not that I was exactly afraid of commitment, I just… I’ve always had a lot of love to give, y’know? And everything always seemed to end just fine. ‘Til I met the first person I wanted a serious relationship with. And we had one, for a couple years. I really did love that guy. He was--” he breathed a short laugh, “--he was pretty great. But… then…”

His smile disappeared, and his eyes suddenly seemed so distant, and Mavis thought to herself, there it is. Right in front of her was a glimpse into the pain she knew he had been hiding. She listened intently, motionless.

Until the fog in Red’s eyes cleared, and he smiled at her again. “Well, anyway… Point is, you’re the first person I’ve had any interest in since that relationship. You’re the first in… almost five years, by now.”

Mavis blinked, unsure whether to be flattered or guilty. Probably a bit of both. “...Huh.”

His smile grew, and that adoration showed in his eyes again. “There’s just somethin’ about you. You just-- You… wandered in from another world, and you… got this spark that just-- it makes me feel so…”

“Alive?” she suggested.

Red looked a little surprised for a second, but then he grinned just enough to show his teeth. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Exactly.”

Mavis could not fight a genuine smile. “Yeah, well. Right back at’cha, Sunflower.”

A small glow shone through the hot, black ache in Mavis’ heart, but it was not enough. It was all sweet, and in another life, it could have made her very happy. But for this one, it was just too late.

After a heartfelt pause, Mavis’ smile disappeared, and she spoke mournfully. “But, Red… you know that fire and flowers don’t mix.”

“What…?” he asked. “What about fire flowers? Just ask Mario.”

She might have smiled at that, if she felt better. “Don’t step on my analogies,” she told him.

“Sorry.”

“But seriously, Red,” she insisted, “you shouldn’t like me.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said, “and I can’t really help it.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I like what I know,” he told her. “I’d like to know more.”

“No,” she shook her head, “no, you really wouldn’t. It’s too much. You deserve better than me. That’s not self-loathing, that’s fact.”

“I deserve better than you?” he asked incredulously. “Are you kidding? Y’know what scares me about liking you? The fact that you deserve better than me!”

Mavis froze. “What? Seriously? How could you possibly think that?”

Red turned his gaze away from the screen, looking like he had backed himself into a corner. He was silent for a minute, only managing to utter, “I… just…”

Mavis took a deep breath. She could feel her insides quivering with emotion. Red could not be allowed to think that he was beneath her. He had to understand just what sort of rotting garbage he would be stepping down into if he messed around with her. She could hardly hold it in.

“No,” she began, her voice shaking. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t deserve someone like you -- I’ve never deserved someone like you, and you know why? I hurt people like you. I hurt everybody. That’s what I do. I hurt, and I steal, and I lie. That’s been my entire life. Thirty-seven years of hurting, stealing, and lying. You can’t even begin to imagine what I’ve done. If you get too close to me, I could take your heart in my hands and crush it into mush, do you understand that? I will hurt you, I will take what I want from you, and I will lie to you! And I don’t want--”

A lump in her throat choked her, and she trembled with the effort of suppressing the surprise flood of tears waiting behind her eyes. “I don’t-- want-- to do that!”

Before Red could respond, she threw the phone to the middle of the bed and tossed some of the blanket over it. Frustrated and sort of disgusted by her own emotions, she leaned back against the pillows and turned her face to the ceiling, gritting her teeth and pushing the heels of her palms against her forehead. The whole situation felt even more overwhelming than ever. She had sworn to herself over and over again that she would not let anything romantic take root. It would have been the worst thing she could possibly do. But then he tried to kiss her, and he confessed his feelings, and she sort of, maybe, confessed hers. Like an idiot.

All this time, she had her guard up. But she had been guarding against the wrong things. She knew that him being a Turbo might have made her weak to developing some level of feelings for him. She never expected to develop feelings for him because he was Red.

That just made things a thousand times more complicated.

From under the blanket, she heard, “Uh… Mavis? Hello? You okay?”

She sighed. “I’m fine.”

He was quiet for a second. “Mavis… you really think you’re a horrible person, huh? I mean, I know we’ve talked about before, but… that really is a problem for you, isn’t it?”

“I am a horrible person,” she corrected him. “By conventional standards. I’m nothing that a sweet ray of sunshine like you oughtta be messing around with.”

There was one small, modest scoff. “I’m no ray of sunshine.”

“You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met,” she told him plainly. “And I’ve lived nearly four times as long as you.”

“Wow, um,” he breathed, “thank you for saying that. It means a lot.”

She shrugged. “It’s just true.”

“But I’m not sunshine,” he told her. “I’d rather be called ‘Sunflower.’ Sunshine is always clean and perfect. I love flowers, but they are dirty. Hell, they grow out of dirt. They’re full of bugs. That’s a bit more like me. I’m not perfect, Mav. You only think I am because you don’t know the dirt yet.”

Mavis was absolutely burning with curiosity, but she left it. It was not the time to press him on it. “Okay, maybe not perfect. But you’re a good person. You oughtta be interested in good people.”

“Mav, I think I’ve told you this before, but it bears repeating. I don’t believe anyone’s innately good or bad. You think I’m good because that’s how I decided I want to be. Anyone can decide to do better. No matter how horrible they think they are. It’s never too late to start.”

That spiel was familiar. It was one she had mulled over several times already, leading to imaginings of what her new life could be like if she changed the set of rules she lived by. But always, it seemed impossible. He said it was never too late, but it sure felt that way.

Murderers did not suddenly become good people by smiling at strangers more.

“Ain’t enough good deeds in the world to tip my scales,” she said tiredly. “Honestly, it’s never bothered me before, and the only reason it bothers me now is ‘cause I--” she sighed. “‘Cause I know I’m just gonna hurt you. And lie to you. I actually give a shit about you, and I’m not used to that anymore. But I don’t think anyone can change enough to undo decades of bad.”

“Well… you don’t have to.”

“What?”

“Leave the past alone. All that matters is right now, and the future. And right now, and moving on, you can make choices you feel good about. Like, you don’t want to lie to me? Then don’t. Choose to be honest. Only you can make that decision for yourself.”

Mavis hugged her knees tightly. “...You want me to tell you the truth about something?”

“It’s not about me. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“What if I…” she spoke slowly, her heart pounding, “...told you that I’ve lied to you already? To hide ugly things?”

He paused. “Well… it’s not like we’ve known each other that long. It would be fair of you to not feel ready to share with a stranger.”

“We’re not strangers anymore.”

“That’s true.”

There was a pregnant pause as Mavis wrestled with herself. She felt steam swirling in her brain. Honesty was so dangerous. It could ruin absolutely everything, and traumatize the poor boy, and even herself. But the lies were growing heavy, and she was weary. If only she could have shed some weight, even just a bit… She searched and searched inside herself for something she could bear to reveal. Some honesty that still functioned in a carefully cut fragment.

She found it. It was risky, but she found it.

“Okay,” she said to him, feeling her heartbeat in her throat. “Do you want to know the truth about something?”

“Only if you’re ready.”

“I am.”

Mavis reached over the bed to uncover the phone and pick it up. She settled back in by the lamp, and looked at Red’s attentive, but tired face. After a pause, she showed him her left hand, specifically her stump of a ring finger.

“My finger was not amputated due to an incurable viral infection.”

She began running a finger down her rows of neat scars that ran sparse on her fingers, closer on her hand, and crowded down her forearm. “These were not self-inflicted,” she told him, before pointing to the scar on her cheek. “This one was.”

Red just watched, listening with a growing look of concern. She could see the questions piling up behind his eyes.

“What, uh… actually happened to my arm…” she told him slowly, “was… well, back in my arcade, there was this game called Hero’s Duty.”

“Okay.”

“And this game had-- It’s main enemy was this huge, mechanical bug thing. And there were thousands of them at a time, ‘cause they were constantly laying eggs, and, uh… Well, point being, around seven-ish years ago, someone accidentally brought one of those bugs into my game, and they multiplied, and multiplied, and just-- just ate everything.”

She could feel her heart beating faster and faster as the story went on. It was harder to recount than she thought.

“And-- and just before a beacon was put up to draw them away, well…” she looked at her striped arm. “One of ‘em kinda… bit me.”

Red waited. “Bit you?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Yeah. All this is one bite. Inside their mouths was nothin’ but rows n’ rows of spinning saw blades. So, you see here…” she pointed out a set of thicker, angrier scars just past her elbow. “Teeth.”

She swept her finger down the rest of the scars. “Saw blades.”

And she pointed to her stump finger. “Casualty.”

Red seemed at a loss for words. He just stared at the scars he could see, his eyes far away as he obviously pictured the attack. “God,” he breathed, “I’m so sorry you went through that. That’s horrifying.”

“Yeah, it was pretty wicked,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I lie to everyone who asks. Normally I love a gory story, but, ah, this one’s a bit hard to talk about. That was… not a good day.”

“No kidding,” he said gently. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to tell me. That’s gotta be a tough thing to remember.”

“Yep.”

His expression softened. “But… thank you for telling me. Seriously.”

Mavis scoffed the tiniest bit, her heart beat slowly beginning to calm down. “Ch’yeah. Almost like I trust you, or somethin’. Think a’ that.”

He smiled. “That makes me happy. I trust you, too.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna tell me some painful truth about your dark past, too?” she asked with a smirk.

Red’s brows raised. “Uh-- Well, I--”

She laughed, and it came out easy. “I’m kidding. Whatever. We’ve heard enough tragedy tonight, right?”

“Uh,” he chuckled nervously, “sure. Listen, I… I will tell you, someday. Just not yet. I don’t think I’m ready. Not-- not that I don’t trust you or anything, no, it’s just, um…” his gaze fell for a moment, “it really is tough to talk about.”

“Hey, it’s cool,” Mavis said quietly. “You know I get it. Whenever you’re ready, right?”

He smiled warmly, sighing through his nose. “Exactly.”

For a minute, they just looked at each other. Mavis was admittedly not sure what to say. She had already said a whole damn lot.

“So…” Red said carefully, “how do you feel? After getting all that out?”

Mavis considered that. She was shivering, and her heart still burned behind her ribs, but even though all she wanted to do was pace briskly around the room to burn off the adrenaline, she really did feel like some weight was taken off the massive load on her shoulders. She was not free of the mountains of secrets she had to keep, but she was more free in that moment than she had been ten minutes prior. It was a good feeling.

And, whether it was a good thing or not, she felt a bit closer to Red.

“I feel… lighter,” she told him.

“Yeah,” he sighed, almost in relief. “Feels good to get stuff off your chest.”

“Feels better when the memory’s less of a bitch to touch upon,” she smiled awkwardly.

His face perked up with concern. “Oh no,” he said sadly, “I’m sorry. You gonna be okay over there?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she waved him off. “I’m like, a billion years old. I’ve done this song and dance before. I’ll be fine.”

“If you say so,” he relaxed on the outside, but she was not so sure about the inside. “But you’re gonna take care of yourself, right? Order a sundae and watch videos of cars slipping on ice-- or-- what have you been watching lately?”

“No, yeah, I’m still into that.”

Red chuckled.

She added with a smirk, “And I was gonna do all that anyway, for your information.”

“Good. Sounds like a good night.”

They fell quiet. She looked at him there, all alone in the dark, probably super warm, probably smelled really good, as usual-- Ahem, she thought, mentally clearing her throat and getting back on track. She wanted to keep talking, but felt like she ran out of things to say. He seemed to be in the same boat. But neither of them made any move to hang up, either. Eventually, Red was the one to break the silence in a low, sincere voice.

“Wish I was there with you.”

Mavis felt her brain stutter. “Um… yeah, I, uh, kinda do, too.”

“Really?” he asked. “‘Cause I can be there in--”

“Not-- not tonight, though. But we should hang out again soon. I’ve had enough of this weird hiatus we’re on.”

He grinned. “Amen to that.”

“Tomorrow?” she proposed. “We haven’t toured obscure Tumblr tags in a while. Probably new stuff up.”

“That-- Yeah, that sounds great. I can’t wait.”

“Meet outside the site at midnight?”

“Uh,” he squinted. “I dunno if I can make midnight. Our admin’s been putting a lot of notes in Google Docs, so I think we’re in for a history paper tomorrow night. Three in the morning is usually their cut off, but I can give you a call if they turn off the computer sooner. That sound okay?”

“Sure,” she shrugged. “I got nowhere to be.”

“Awesome,” he grinned, and paused. “Okay. Yes. Great.”

Mavis smirked. “You excited?”

“To see you?” he laughed a bit. “Now, why would I be excited about that?”

“I bet I could guess,” Mavis snickered. “Lookin’ forward to seein’ you too.”

“Good!”

“Good.”

“Okay.”

“Okay!”

“Um--” Red stammered through a smile, “So, if you say you’re okay, I’m gonna go, ‘cause, ah, I think the bros wanted to go for a run--”

“S’all good,” Mavis interrupted. “Go, go do your nerdy exercise.”

“Okay, Mav. Um-- look-- thank you for calling me. I was getting kinda worried.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And, and thank you for being so open and honest with me. I really, really appreciate that.”

Mavis felt a small dart pierce her chest. “And thank you for listening,” she said, smiling uneasily.

“Any time,” he said. “Any time at all.”

She just held her smile as long as she could.

“Okay, I’m gonna go,” he said, sitting all the way up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “And a bunch of times after that.”

“Can’t wait,” he grinned, combing a hand through his hair. “Okay, I’m gonna let you go. Goodnight, Mav -- take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. G’night, Red,” she paused for just a second. “Oh, and Red?”

He perked up. “Yeah?”

“How ‘bout…” she squinted through a sheepish smile. “Maybe next time… You let me make the first move. Yeah?”

Red’s eyes seemed to cloud over in this eager, love-struck sort of way at that. She had to think he got caught up in the images that request produced. Although he looked almost unbearably cute, her heart was already pounding from what a stupid decision it was to say that.

“‘Next time’, huh?” he asked dreamily. “You got it.”

“Cool,” she breathed. “Okay. Alright. G’night, for real, Sunflower.”

“See you soon, Superstar.”

She hung up.

For a few minutes, she merely stared at the black screen, glaring daggers at her own reflection. Dammit, dammit, dammit Mavis, she thought, thirty-seven years and you’re still the most monumental dumbass that’s ever lived.

“Ugh,” she groaned, tossing the phone into a nearby chair and flopping to mash her face into a pillow. It was definitely time to order that stupid sundae, even if she definitely did not deserve it. That usually made food taste better, anyway, in her experience.

At the very least, the ball was in her court now.

But knowing her luck, she would just fall in love with it.

#fanfiction #internet au #make it mavis #turbo (red)#just thought i'd tack something on the end #and it ended up longer than the first #oops

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