#realized i hadnt written tammy at all and then this exploded from my wrists

[make-it-mavis]

Cousin-in-Law (part 1)

Wreck-it Ralph fic ('Mavis Lives' AU) 6006 words Drama Characters: Make-it Mavis, Felix, Calhoun, (Ralph and Vani briefly) Content Warnings: dirty jokes/language, brief violent imagery

Premise: Turbo died, Mavis survived. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in her old game. Felix and Calhoun are engaged to be wed, and Mavis is none-too-pleased about it. Following one of her chaotic whims, she decides to crash their date night and properly meet her cousin-in-law to be.

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It was late summer, with 2013 well underway. Gamers young and old were still braving the Californian August heat to come play their days away, bleeding quarters in Litwak’s inviting air conditioning. But there was a finality to it. Soon, September would rear its inevitable head, and with a large portion of the customers occupied with school and homework, daytime business would slow down, attracting mostly adults hoping to get some kid-free arcade time. Sprites who worked the arcade games had divided feelings on the season changing. Some preferred the kids, the hustle and bustle, the full work days. Others liked the quieter adults, the vacation from mayhem, the chance to relax a bit. Some honestly did not care either way.

For the most part, Make-it Mavis was in the third column. No longer being involved in gameplay at all, it hardly made a difference to her day-to-day. Slower business only really meant that her cousin, Fix-it Felix Jr., might have had more time between gamers to visit with her, which was both good and bad in its own right.

Really, as the year crawled on, her thoughts only turned more to the approach of November, and with it, the anniversary of her life crumbling around her.

Now imprisoned in her original game, a life sentence for a life of crime and cruelty, she made an effort to hang onto the last companionship she had. She and Felix might have been very different and not always seen eye to eye, but she believed he was the last sprite alive, or at least, the only one she could see anymore, who really loved her. Several times in her thirty years, life had made a point of teaching her not to take that for granted. While she may not have been ready to fully open her heart to someone again, she could at least spend time with him.

So, on a Thursday night, just a couple hours after the arcade closed, Mavis sat with Felix at a quaint, round table in his brightly lit, yellow apartment that barely seemed different from when she last saw it in the 90’s. They each had a plate of delicious cherry pie taken from a quarter-empty tin in the middle of the table, although Mavis had barely touched hers, and Felix had around half left, having slowed down to be polite. They had been talking -- that is, Felix had been talking. In their visits, Mavis had preferred to listen, only piping in now and again. There just seemed so little to say. They had lived in two worlds completely apart from each other for fifteen years, so they both had plenty of stories to tell. But at least Felix’s stories were not supremely awkward for Mavis to hear. She could not have said the same for the other way around.

Besides, any distraction from the grief was a good one. Even if he did tend to ramble.

“But, as it turns out,” he said to her, taking a moment to eat a single cherry, “as it turns out -- my toolbox? It was buried in Duck Hunt the entire time.” His brows raised and his fingers spread out a bit, putting extra oomph behind the underwhelming reveal.

“No way,” she flatly humored him, still managing a half-smile.

“I know,” he said, sharply gesturing at nothing. “By golly, I never would’a found it if Ralph didn’t confess. Needless to say, I unfortunately had to have Mr. Peepers banned--”

“Aw.”

“Yes,” he sighed, delicately picking up his cup of coffee with both hands. “But at least our ducks have felt a whole lot safer since. I don’t think they’ve ever forgiven Ralph for letting a dog in.”

Mavis would have liked to point out that the Dev-forsaken wrecking ball did not deserve forgiveness in any form, but she bit it back. There was no point.

Felix sipped his coffee and gingerly placed it back down on its coaster. “Anyhow, Mavy,” he lightly clapped his hands on his lap. “If you’d like to finish that pie, now’s the time. My lady-love will be arriving shortly.”

She smiled vacantly. Yes, his lady-love. His freshly caught towering beast of a woman. Tamora Calhoun, protagonist of the game where those metal insectoid hellspawn came from. Mavis would still have a life, if Calhoun’s game was never plugged in. Mavis was not a fan.

To make things even better, she would soon be her cousin-in-law.

“Loud n’ clear,” she sighed lowly. In one fell swoop, she took the piece of pie in her hand and shoved the entirety of it in her mouth, only missing a few crumbs and smears of syrup. As she swallowed parts whole and chewed the rest, she looked to Felix, who was now the one wearing a vacant smile.

“Is it good?” he asked quietly, passing her a napkin. She took it and wiped the mess from her mouth.

“Mm,” she grunted through a dangerously full mouth. “So good.”

She then stood, gulping down the contents of her mouth and straightening her clothes. “Well, I guess I’ll be takin’ my leave,” she drew her brush from its golden holster and stepped towards the window. Felix got up and strode over.

“Thank you for coming, as always, Mavy dear,” he sang, a real smile on his face.

Having trouble accepting the smile, she let her gaze wander from him. Still, she found enough manners in herself to smile back, at least a bit. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “Thanks for the pie. As always.”

“You take care of yourself, now,” he instructed. “Take it easy.”

“Felix, chill. I’ll be fine,” she said, hinting with a couple scoots toward the window. “Worry about your fiance, yeah?”

His smile showed a hint of uneasiness. “Of course,” he mumbled. There was a brief pause, and Mavis knew very well that this would have been the point where he hugged her. But by some miracle, he had learned to respect her boundaries. 

He, of course, did not know that she had overcome her touch aversion as Pyrite. But for whatever reason, hugging him was still hard, so she would reveal that fact to him later.

In lieu of a hug, she lightly punched him in the shoulder. He flinched a bit and rubbed it, but took the gesture with a strained grin. As she sat on the window sill, she nodded to him. “Seeya, Felix.”

“Bye-bye Mavy,” he waved a tiny bit. Just then, there was a knock at the door. He leapt up like a spring, suddenly fully beaming. “Oh! That’ll be her! I hate to shoo you off, Mavy, but--”

“I’m out,” she rolled her eyes as she swung her legs around to dangle them outside the window, off the height of Niceland that once seemed so tall, but after visiting the royal chambers of the candy castle so many times, it barely seemed a foot off the ground.

That was when an unsavory sound reached her ears, and movement caught her eye. Down below, on the massive expanse of bricks, rubble, and garbage, Wreck-it Ralph and his new friend Vanellope Von Schweetz were goofing off. It looked like they were rooting through the trash, pulling up random items and showing each other or throwing them at each other. They looked to be having a hell of a good time, as Ralph got up and started chasing the kid around with a big fistful of garbage. There were flashes of blue as she glitched and dodged. Their laughter and shouts seemed to echo through the whole game.

Mavis’ knuckles turned white as her fingers curled into claws under the windowsill. Deep, visceral hatred shook her insides, and instantly, she felt sick. It was their fault. It was all their fault. Almost nightly, she dreamed of taking revenge for the life they brutally murdered. She dreamed of the twig-like snap of that glitch’s puny neck, of letting that hulking ape bleed out slowly, feeling the warmth of his blood pooling at her feet.

Those dreams soothed like nothing else.

But, seeing as Sugar Rush needed a ruler, and seeing as Ralph could not die in his game, and seeing how being in the same vicinity as them, but unable to act, felt like psychological torture…

Felix’s voice called from inside the apartment, proddingly, “Goodbye, now, cousin-o’-mine!”

Impulse took over.

“Y’know what?” she said sharply, turning to crawl back inside. Felix had frozen just a few feet from the door. Mavis smiled with her eyes. “I’ll stay.”

“Wh-Wh-Wh-” he stammered, looking at her like she suddenly transformed. Mavis had no doubt that he secretly wanted her to leave so that he could have alone time with his ‘lady-love’ -- a perfectly reasonable thing to want. But he would just have to wait.

“I just figure it’s time I meet my future cousin-in-law,” she stepped fully into the apartment again, holstering her brush. Then she paused, and shrugged, aiming right for his weak spot. “Y’know, unless… you don’t want me here.”

There was another knock. Felix screamed a bit inside his mouth.

“No, no, that sounds fine and dandy, Mavy,” he said, rushed, through gritted teeth. He then elected to not keep his love waiting, and bound over to open the door. Mavis rested a hand on the back of her previous chair, quietly observing the exchange.

The woman was so damn tall, she had to duck her head a bit to see inside. Of course, her eyes were immediately on Felix, who opened his arms enthusiastically.

“Hello, Tammy-darlin’!”

Calhoun smiled and crouched, letting her shortstack fiance hop into her arms for a tight squeeze. “Hiya sweetums,” she purred. The two pulled apart enough to share a quick peck on the lips, and Mavis audibly cringed under her breath. There was something so wrong about seeing anyone kiss her cousin. She had never even taken into account that he could ever have been in love. Not that he did not deserve it. There was just a grossness to it.

When they separated, Calhoun stepped into the apartment as she stood. Somehow, she still managed to avoid seeing Mavis. Felix was, apparently, just too captivating. Mavis shook her head.

As Felix closed the door, Calhoun asked him, “So, how’d your day go?”

“Uhhh, well,” he smiled nervously, obviously in anticipation of the awkward meeting about to happen. Her head tilted a bit as he looked up at her, wide-eyed, and then his eyes darted over to Mavis. Calhoun followed his gaze. Once she saw Mavis, she stood a bit straighter, merely looking confused.

“Oh.”

Mavis flashed her a split-second smile. Calhoun gave her a small nod, and glanced down to Felix questioningly.

“Tammy, my dear,” Felix began, voice a bit wobbly, “you know my cousin, Mavis.”

Calhoun glanced at her again, and lifted a hand briefly. “Hey, Mavis.”

“Hey,” she nodded back.

The couple then began muttering to each other. Mavis could not fully hear them (her ears not being what they used to be, having worked with fireworks and explosions her whole life), but she gathered that Calhoun wanted to know what was up, and Felix explained that his cousin wanted to meet her. She did not seem to think it was a good idea, for reasons Mavis could not hear, but Felix reassured her.

Mavis yawned.

Finally, the two fully faced her. Felix prompted Mavis with shaky hope in his voice, “C’mon Mavy, come meet your… cousin-in-law!”

“Future cousin-in-law,” Mavis muttered. Calhoun squinted at that just the tiniest bit.

“I’m not gonna bite ya, kid,” Calhoun said, putting her hands on her hips.

“‘Kid,’” she gave a falsely sweet smile. “I’m thirty years old. How old are you, again? Ten months?”

The snark did not quite break the skin on the toughened military woman. She frowned, but her brows raised, and she nodded slowly. “Uh huh…” she said deeply, looking down at Felix, who looked like he could have started shaking. “You sure you two are related?”

Growing tired of being spoken of as if she were not there, Mavis quickly painted feathers on her heels and rose up to be at eye-level with Calhoun. Even if this woman had not played a part in the destruction of her life, she never liked meeting anyone at hip-level, or having them crouch down to talk to her, as if she really were some kind of kid. She was a grown-ass woman and would meet everyone eye-to-eye.

She floated over to hover at arm’s length from Calhoun and really get a good look at her. The first time Mavis saw her, she had been staring down the barrel of her oversized gun. Calhoun was, after all, the first to find her slinking around the reaches of Sugar Rush a couple weeks after the incident, during a routine patrol to make sure all the Cybugs were really gone. Since then, Mavis had made a point of avoiding her, of avoiding even seeing her. She just triggered some truly terrible memories. However, seeing her outside of her armor was just a little different. That night, she looked… pretty normal. White tank, camo cargo pants, shiny dog tags. She looked… almost approachable, even with her formidably muscled frame.

Mavis stared into her warm brown eyes that were partially obscured by her messy, yet somehow perfect blonde hair. Calhoun met her gaze with no ounce of fear, no nerves. There was a challenging look in there somewhere, and Mavis met it readily.

Smirking a bit at Mavis’ floating and its obvious intention, Calhoun extended her hand between them.

“Sergeant Tamora Calhoun,” she said in that gruff voice of hers.

Mavis paused, staring at her hand for a moment before locking eyes with her again, stone-faced.

“Oh,” Felix piped in quietly. “Tammy, dear, Mavy really doesn’t like touch--”

Cutting him off, Mavis clasped Calhoun’s hand tightly, and felt a firm squeeze grind the bones in her hand in return. “Make-it Mavis,” she smiled flatly, shaking her hand. “Formerly known as Pyrite, who was formerly known as Make-it Mavis.”

“Pleasure,” Calhoun smiled with her teeth. Mavis noticed that she was not letting go, and decided that she would not let go, either. As their handshake carried on an inappropriate length of time, she noticed the cold touch of metal in her hand. Calhoun was wearing an engagement ring -- simple, elegant, with small diamonds laid into the band. Mavis would have expected Felix to get her a ring with a diamond the size of a skating rink, but she supposed that would be impractical under armor.

A quick glance at Felix revealed that his jaw was slack, staring at the effortless skin-to-skin contact she was making. She snickered at him. 

Once the handshake really had gone on for a frighteningly long while, Felix threw his hands up and exclaimed, “OH, mercy me, the pie’s gettin’ cold! C’mon you two, let’s chow down!”

After just another moment of intense eye contact and painful squeezing, they moved to pull away from each other. But, to Mavis’ surprise, Calhoun actually caught her hand for one last second, turning it over to look at it.

It would have been hard to miss the abnormalities on Mavis’ left hand. Fairly young-looking, horizontal pink scars scored her hand and palm, slicing rows that disappeared up into her sleeve. Most notably, out of her fingers that were also speckled with smaller cuts, the last knuckle of her ring finger was missing, cut off in the middle of the second digit. 

Acid simmered in Mavis’ stomach as she yanked her hand away, but she gave Calhoun nothing more than a sharp look of warning. She saw Calhoun’s eyes narrow before she turned away to approach the table.

As they continued to eye each other, Felix had somehow already cut each of them a slice of pie, and he was nervously babbling to himself.

“One for you, dear-- and one for you, dear-- Oh, seems it really has gone cold, I can go microwave-- Ooh, no, wait, I should get some ice cream to go with-- Oh, no, that’s right, I’m out of ice cream-- Oh, but I’m certain Mary will have some and be happy to share. I should go see-- Oop, nope, nope, I should definitely not do that…”

“Honey,” Calhoun reached to touch his shoulder and gently direct him into his seat. “Sit. You’re fussing.”

Felix smiled nervously and shifted around in his seat, trying to settle in. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear, it’s just that I’m…” he clasped his hands together on the table, “...so excited… for my fiance to be meeting my… lovely cousin properly… I’m… so happy…”

A dreadfully awkward silence fell over the three of them as they ate their pie. Mavis sort of relished in it. She was still unsure of her motive as far as staying went, but at the very least, inflicting an uncomfortable situation on Calhoun was enjoyable.

“So!” Felix piped in, startling them both. “Did you two see that sunshine comin’ in today? Oh, it was gorgeous, but talk about blinding! I gotta tell you, it’s a good thing the gamers were tellin’ me where to go, because golly, I could not see a thing!”

Calhoun grunted. “That’s nice, dear. Too bad for me, I don’t see any of that through the first person shooter.”

“Yeah, Felix,” Mavis jabbed, meaning to mock Calhoun’s tone. “Don’t you know anything about Hero’s Booty?”

Calhoun shot her an unimpressed look. “Duty.”

Mavis cocked her head. “Doodie? Please, Tammy-dear, we’re eating.”

Before Calhoun could react, Felix interrupted with loud, anxious laughter. “HA-Ha-ha--!! Oh, Mavy, what a kidder you are!”

“I’m not kiddin’,” she smiled, pointing at him with her fork. “I think she’s gonna ruin your appetite.”

There was a clang as Calhoun put her fork down on her plate. She placed her elbows on the table and laced her hands together in front of her chin, looking at Mavis the way a parent would look at a difficult child.

“So, Mavis,” she said calmly, “why don’t you tell me about yourself. What’d you do before becoming a murderer and stealing Sugar Rush so you could crush a child’s dreams?”

Picking up her cold, nearly full coffee, she only took a second to consider that. “Buffs, mostly.”

Felix whined.

Calhoun squinted. “...Buffs.”

After taking a sip and being weirdly delighted at how gross the cold coffee was, she continued, “Yeah. Buffs, booze. Vandalism. Petty theft. Destruction of stolen property. I used to play music as a job. I liked dancing. I really liked sex. Rough sex. Quite often in public places. I was really into masochism -- for a long time, my favorite thing was getting choked--”

“HAha--!!” Felix interrupted with a horrified, wobbly laugh.

Mavis looked at Calhoun. She was still just squinting through her bangs, and Mavis could not have been sure what reaction was coming. She was surprised to see her burst into barking laughter. She slapped the table hard, rattling their plates as she leaned back in her chair.

“Felix,” she said, grinning at him. “You didn’t tell me she’s funny.”

For a second, Mavis gave her cousin a sharp look. “You didn’t?” 

Felix flinched, and Mavis fully processed what Calhoun said. She looked at her, raising a challenging brow. “Y’think I’m joking?”

“Oh, no, I believe you,” she scoffed. “It’s just that you’re sayin’ all that to try n’ shock me, or make me think you’re some kinda grisled old badass, but all that’s coming out of such a pretty little face. It’s like having a kitten tell me its shanked five guys. It’s just funny.”

Mavis could feel her hackles rising, but she put on a lovely smile anyways, and batted her lashes. “You really think I’m pretty?”

“Yeah,” Calhoun leaned forward again, her voice flat and sarcastic. “You’re drop-dead gorgeous.”

“In that case, why don’t we go splay out on one of the picnic benches and I can find a few more ways to make you laugh?”

Calhoun sputtered and wheezed, once again giving the table a good slap. “Oh, wow,” she chuckled, before looking at Felix, who looked built purely out of anxiety. “I like her.”

“You could say that to me,” Mavis muttered quietly behind her teeth, not loud enough for them to hear. They were still looking at each other, smiling sweetly, the anxiety on Felix’s face being soothed just a bit. Something awful churned around in her insides, and it only spiked when Calhoun reached over to tweak his cheek slightly. The amount of love shared between them was truly palpable, and it was more than she could bear. A horrid hybrid of grief and jealousy rose up in her throat.

“Speakin’ of looks bein’ deceiving,” she said loudly, snapping them out of their gross staring contest and leaning her elbows on the table to mimic Calhoun’s previous position, “what is the deal with you two, huh?!”

Calhoun spoke, “Uh--”

“I mean, we got this skyscraper of a woman here sniffin’ around a guy nearly a third of her size -- what’s the problem, sweetheart? Not up to giraffe beauty standards, so you gotta go around beggin’ field mice for a piece of action?”

That got her. The sergeant snapped to attention, straightening up, her eyes hostile. “...You sure you wanna do this, pint-size?”

Mavis just laughed insincerely and turned to Felix, who was trying to find a subtle way to wave his hands in a ‘STOP’ motion. “And you! C’mon, man, what the hell? A sergeant from an FPS who shoots bugs all day? I have literally seen you cry over accidentally stepping on a butterfly. Is it ‘cause she’s hot?”

“M-Mavy--”

“Come to think of it, that marriage does seem to be comin’ up quick, don’t it?” she hissed a laugh. “You’ve known each other, what, ten months-- Oh! Wouldn’t ya believe it! That’s just about as long as you’ve been plugged in, ain’t it, Tamora?”

Calhoun’s fist was clenching the blue tablecloth hard, her eyes practically on fire. A nasty grin grew on Mavis’ face. It was just as she thought -- the otherwise steely sergeant was a bit touchy when it came to her relationship with Felix.

She was almost completely sure that Calhoun would not hurt her, because hurting her would hurt Felix. With nothing to lose but teeth, she decided to continue to push that theory.

“What, you get plugged in, and right outta the code space, you’re on the hunt for some shrimp dick? Or did ya just hop on the first guy who was nice to ya? You ain’t even a year into the world, n’ still, here you are, engaged?” Sick grin still wide, she looked to Felix and pointed towards his fiance. “You really gonna sweep a gal up before she even knows what marriage is?”

Calhoun reacted quicker than Mavis had thought. She leapt to her feet, her massive frame nearly tipping over the table, sending Mavis’ fork tumbling to the floor. Her stance was poised forward, ready to reach over and grab the offending little shit, but Felix sprang out of his seat and braced his hand against her hip.

“Tammy,” he said hushed and quickly, “Tammy, darling, it’s alright. It’s okay. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know. Please, sit down.”

Mavis, of course, did not know what it was that she supposedly did not know. Although she was curious, it came completely from a place of nosiness. No part of her really cared.

“Aw, now look what you’ve done to my fork,” Mavis scolded Calhoun boredly.

Calhoun remained standing, but bent over the table to lean one outstretched arm against it. The table was far too low for it to be an intimidating gesture, but she owned it anyway. With a deep breath and a testy smile, she pointed one finger at Mavis. “Okay, pipsqueak,” she growled. “You’d best take a hike right about now, if you know what’s good for you.”

Mavis held Calhoun’s burning gaze for a few long moments, emanating nothing but spite. Beside the sergeant stood her cousin, watching her with clasped hands and pleading eyes that just begged her to comply. But, over the time of her life, she had made an art of letting Felix down. 

She feigned a yawn. “Y’know what? Nah.”

“No?”

“Nah,” she shrugged as she tilted her chair back to cross her dirty shoes on the side of the table. Putting her hands behind her head, she said, “This my game. In Hero’s Booby you can try to boss me around all you like, but in here, you can’t make me do boo.”

Felix gasped.

“I don’t feel like leavin’,” she continued. “We were havin’ a conversation, weren’t we? Like, I get why this gal rushed into the marriage, y’know, bein’ a lovestruck ignorant dumbass, but you, Felix? Ain’t you grown outta that crap yet? Or-- or, no, I get it. I get it. You’ve always been a wait-until-marriage kinda guy. You’re just real eager to get into her armor, huh? Which, I mean, really? Look at you two, how good could it possibly be? Are y’all even gonna feel anythin’ when you consummate, or is it gonna be like tossin’ a hotdog down a hallway?”

That just tore it. In a blink, Calhoun lunged and roughly seized Mavis’ collar.

“Woah--!!” Mavis yelped a bit as she was yanked out of her seat with more force than she was expecting. Felix shouted in protest, but before he could take any action, Calhoun had dragged Mavis right across the tabletop, knocking all of its contents to the floor, to hold her right up close and try to pierce through her skull with a single look. Feet dangling high off the floor as Calhoun held her at eye-level, a smile slowly crept onto Mavis’ face once again. Maybe Calhoun really was going to hit her. If so, she could not help but look forward to it.

The two were grinding their teeth, ready to rip into each other at any second.

“TAMORA!!”

Felix’s raised voice smacked them both in the side of the head. They paused, and both heads turned to look at him. He was standing close by, red in the face, breathing hard, body shaking, looking and sounding ready to cry. He shouted again in a volume he saved only for dire emergencies, “DON’T HURT HER! PLEASE! SHE’S MY FAMILY!”

Calhoun stared at him, and her shoulders relaxed a bit as her expression turned apologetic… at least to Felix. Mavis, however, knew she had hit the nail on the head. The big, scary sergeant could not harm a hair on her head, not so long as she loved Felix. This was a delicious fact, one that would no doubt serve her well.

“Tch,” Mavis scoffed a bit, singing in a hushed voice, “trouble in paradise…”

“AND YOU!!”

Mavis startled. She never liked it when Felix really got shouting. It was weirdly eerie.

He stomped over, pointing a trembling finger, his voice still high and frightful. “Can you just-- just-- ju-- sh-- sch-- SHUT UP FOR ONCE?! THERE! THERE, I SAID IT!”

The women said together, “Wow.”

“And look! Look what your fighting’s done!” He stepped back and gestured widely to the gore of their cherry pie dessert, splattered over the carpet, oozing out from under overturned plates. What was left of their coffee spread wide, dark stains across the floor, and the tablecloth and placemats were almost entirely tossed off the table. “The pie! The carpet! Our EVENING!”

Weirdly enough, Mavis actually did feel kind of bad. The pie did not deserve that. Neither did Felix, really. She had long since retired from intentionally causing her cousin genuine distress. Calhoun, however, seemed to have never even been in the business at all.

Calhoun let go of Mavis’ collar, but instead of dropping to the floor, she elected to continue floating in place. She watched as the other woman crouched next to the very distressed Felix, her aggression dying down as she whispered what must have been apologies and reassurance. Felix was slowly soothed, taking deep, steadying breaths as he held both her hands.

Even if she did feel bad, Mavis was not stable enough to ignore her deeply-rooted nature. Folding her arms and crossing her legs, she cleared her throat.

Calhoun did not look at her, not fully. She merely turned her head towards her shoulder for a moment, and growled, “Just go. Get out.”

“Hello-o?” Mavis sang. “We were havin’ an altercation, here?”

Turning a little more this time, Calhoun barked, “I said, get out!”

Felix leaned to peer around Calhoun at Mavis. He looked a little calmer, but no less red. “Mavis, it’s okay,” he said softly, but insistently. “We’ll talk later, I promise. We just need a little space right now.”

Mavis’ muscles seemed to go rigid just from pure stubbornness and spite. She hardly felt like she could have moved, even if she wanted to. So, she just let her eyes fall nearly shut, and replied, “If ya want me gone, get rid of me.”

It did not take Calhoun any convincing. In a blink, she was upright again, and she stormed back to yank Mavis by the shirt again and drag her through the air to the window. “I can’t believe--” Calhoun hissed under her breath, before fully growling, “What is your major malfunction?!”

Mavis grunted as she was shoved backwards towards the window, but she braced her hands and feet inside, shaking as she pushed against the strong hand of the sergeant trying to force her back through the gap. “My malfunction?!”

“YES!” Calhoun yelled with a hard shove. “Your PROBLEM! What is your PROBLEM!?”

Mavis could almost physically feel a sharp sting inside her as the frayed cloth holding everything back was punctured. As things began to tumble out, the hole only expanded, and she could feel everything about to crash down at once. It was not going to be pretty.

At least there was a chance Calhoun would be buried in the landslide.

“My problem?” Mavis hissed breathlessly through a quivering, joyless smile. “My problem?! You wanna know what my problem is?!”

“YES! Enlighten me!”

“My problem,” she spat, volume growing, “is that I should be at home, eatin’ dessert n’ makin’ eyes with MY partner right now, but I can’t, because thanks to YOUR game, I can never go home again, and my partner is dead! He’s DEAD! I had to watch one of YOUR monsters EAT him, and turn him into-- into a-- a--”

Trying to access the thought, horrible pain spiked through her head and red static crackled through her ears and vision. She really was falling apart, so much that her body was having trouble keeping her pixels together. The glitching grew so intense that her senses were all but gone. Eyes squeezed shut, she fought hard to push her voice from her throat, until it burst out in furious screams that she could barely hear.

“--a NIGHTMARE!! And he died! He burned up in that Dev-forsaken volcano! And-- and YOU--”

She hoped she was looking at Calhoun. She could not tell anymore.

“My problem with YOU, is that every time I see you, I hear him scream, and-- and I hear the-- the METAL, and I see him turning into-- and-- and I think of those BUGS and EVERYTHING they took away from me-- but here you are! Muscling in on the only family I have left, as if you didn’t take enough of my life already! And I’m supposed to be fine with this?! I’m supposed to be civil?! You’re askin’ what’s wrong with me-- YOU’RE what’s wrong with me! You n’ your MONSTERS that murdered the man I’ve loved for THIRTY YEARS!”

Finally, her words ran dry. Her heart was pounding painfully against her ribs, and she could feel herself shaking from the core. Slowly, the painful red static that numbed her senses began to fade, and she could hear… silence.

Vision back online, she found herself sitting on the floor under the window. Calhoun’s boots had backed up a few paces. Looking up at her, squinting at the overhead light, she saw a peculiar look on the sergeant’s face. She looked… shaken. But not exactly the sort of shaken she might have expected. There was shock in her eyes that did not feel right.

Body hot, head pounding, Mavis merely stared up at her, waiting for a response and trying to steady her breathing.

When Calhoun finally spoke up, her voice was raw, low… almost horrified. “He turned?”

Mavis swallowed. “...Yeah. He turned.”

“And…” she pointed a bit, “you saw it?”

“Yes.”

“And you were…” Calhoun’s eyes grew distant, and her voice shrank, “...in love with him.”

Mavis’ heart felt full of rattling gravel. After a harsh, painfully hot sigh, she said, “Okay, what the hell? Why don’t you know all this? Didn’t anybody tell you?”

After a moment’s pause, her gaze drifted over to Felix. Mavis could not see his face from where she sat, as it was obscured by the table, but she saw his feet flinch a bit.

Calhoun said quietly, “No. Nobody told me any of this.”

To Mavis’ surprise, Calhoun then turned and strode quickly towards the door. Shakily pushing to her feet, Mavis held onto the back of what was Felix’s chair and watched as he chased after her, spilling apologies.

“Tammy, Tammy, wait,” he pleaded, eventually grabbing a hold of her hand as she stood by the door. “Darling, I’m sorry, I-- I was going to tell you, I just didn’t want-- I-- I was waiting for the right--”

Calhoun sighed and crouched, pushing a finger to Felix’s lips. She spoke quietly, but Mavis managed to hear her say, “I know. It’s okay. We’ll talk about this later, I promise.”

She stood again, gently nudging Felix away from the door. As she opened it and walked through, she said, “I just need some time to think.”

The door closed, her boots clopped down the hallway, and she was gone.

Felix did not move from where he stood. Mavis could tell he was wringing his hands slowly, thoughtfully, anxiously. She frowned. With Calhoun gone, all she had left to look at was how much crap they had just dragged him through. For a moment, she wondered how she ever managed to be so routinely cruel to her sweet cousin… but she knew that her cruelty never exactly went away. It changed shape and moved on to new victims, but as much as Mavis was meant to entertain and enliven… she was also meant to torment and terrorize.

At least Felix was out of her cross-hairs. 

She crossed the room, carefully stepping over the gruesome mess of food on the floor. She approached Felix, and when he did not turn around, she gingerly placed a hand on his shoulder. He startled and turned quickly.

Before he could speak, Mavis said as softly as she could, “I ruined your night on purpose. I’m sorry.”

Taken aback by her hard-earned ability to apologize, Felix said nothing.

She continued, “Let me help you clean the floor.”

That shocked him even more. His face twisted up a bit. “...Really?”

“Yeah,” she half-smiled. “I know. I’m nice, sometimes.”

Felix half-sighed, half-chuckled, shaking his head. “Golly, Mavy… Thirty years and I’m still askin’ what I’m ever gonna do with you.”

“Well, for starters, you can show me how to clean a carpet,” she shrugged. “I don’t clean messes. I make ‘em… a lot.”

“Well okay,” he reached to give her shoulder an affectionate squeeze before softly trodding towards the kitchen. “I’ll get you some tissues, too.”

Her face screwed up. “Tissues?”

With a hand on the kitchen door, Felix merely gave her a kind, rueful glance over his shoulder before going in. After a moment of gear turning, she figured it out. Swiping her fingers over her cheek, she found them soaked. She sighed.

Of course she had been crying.

#fanfiction #wreck it ralph #make it mavis #fix it felix #calhoun #realized i hadnt written tammy at all and then this exploded from my wrists #im thinkin 4 parts? #keep getting more ideas #ENJOY