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Damaged Goods (FIC!!)

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Calhoun's basic day plan had changed a lot since Felix...happened. She still ran a tight ship - military-style, overly-strict regime; up, armored and ready to bash the crap outta a load of cybugs by 0500. Drills, training, practice shooting etc until the arcade opened at 0900. Then when it started for real, it got chaotic. Breaks between quarter alerts were few and far between, but in those rare spaces, the full-time players had a little time to rest, eat, regenerate and heal. Then since the game had been plugged in they had gone back to how the day started (strenuous training, target practice and the like) by 2100 when the arcade closed and the quarter alerts stopped. But that had changed recently; now she had allowed her troops to flood out into Tapper's or wherever else they felt like (Calhoun had a strong suspicion that Kohurt had been killing time in Sugar Rush,) just like any others once the arcade closed its doors, she herself heading out for Fix-It Felix, Jr - Felix generally had the same plan to get out to Hero's Duty and the pair generally met somewhere in the middle.

But today wasn't normal; not at all. Hero's Duty was a risky game to play; the incompetence of the first-person shooter was perhaps the most common cause of injuries amongst Calhoun's troops and of course herself, but today it had been one of her own that had been dubbed single-handedly responsible. Private James Choke, to be precise. The young whippet of a soldier unfortunately had no considerable brainpower, nor any kind of decent aim. These qualities added up had Calhoun paying the price right now.

The darn idiot had done all that was completely taboo in Hero's Duty. First up, he had taken out the first-person shooter within minutes. Then he had accidentally (well, at least he claimed it was an accident) shot Calhoun herself. Then it had just been unfortunate that the sergeant had crash-landed on a baby cybug.

Calhoun didn't know what was harder to hide; her embarrassment or her pain as she limped out of Hero's Duty, one eye badly swollen and seeming to be weeping blood, various enormous gashes to her arms, legs, face and torso and her right arm, which she had taken a shot to in her bicep, heavily bandaged and in a sling. That had been the last game of the day. Partly a good thing as even with the ability to regenerate, it would've taken hours to heal fully but partly a bad thing as she didn't regenerate unless she was back in her own game. And though it would've closed her wounds far quicker, she wasn't sacrificing the possibility of a cozy night with Felix for her hard, freezing cold bunk in the barracks back at Hero's Duty.
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Felix, on the other side of things, hadn't had an amazing day either, though it was comparatively easier than being mauled by cybugs. First of all Vanellope and Taffyta had turned up in his game, the pair masquerading as Nicelanders, almost putting their own game out of order. Felix had found this quite funny, however, as though they had actively despised each other, a few months of Taffyta having her memories of Vanellope back had the pair of them as thick as thieves. Following this, Felix had barely gotten more than six quarter alerts all day - it appeared that Sugar Rush, Hero's Duty and Super Mario Bros seemed to be proving the day's most popular; Felix knew that at the end of the day he'd have a bit of snuggling with a wiped-out Calhoun to look forward to at least. But at the end of the day, the somewhat unthinkable happened. No, cybugs didn't gamejump into Fix-It Felix, Jr. Nor did anyone/thing die or anything of that dreadful sort. But Felix had somehow managed to drop his hammer off of the side of the apartment complex just as Ralph was being thrown; the ham-fisted good 'bad' guy had proceeded to land on top of it and thus either lost it or gotten it stuck up his backside and not noticed. But as the shout of 'Closing time!' had been heard, Felix had been too desperate to get out of the game to meet up with his 'dynamite gal' the same way he did every day after closing up shop to really care. They'd find it eventually...
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Clawing at her face in an attempt to clear her sight a bit by shifting her hair out of her line of vision before accidentally raking her nails through a couple of deep scratches in her cheek and grimacing, moaning in pain slightly, Calhoun had given up her walk to Felix's game altogether once a gash in her shin had caused her leg to completely seize up and refuse to move. She lowered herself after eventually finding a free bench and allowed herself to sit and groan the way she wanted to, investigating her wounds in greater detail; thank mod cybugs didn't work like vampires or zombies where a bite caused you to become one of them. All she knew was that she hoped that Felix didn't turn up now, because she knew from experience that he couldn't stand seeing her in pain-
"Oh my land! Tammy, what in the name happened to you?" She heard Felix when he was about ten meters away from her before he upped his pace and eventually sat down by her side, gasping when he noticed the exact state she was in. "Jiminy jaminy, my lady, you're hurt! Who did this to you?"
"A combination of an idiot private and a larval cybug," Tamora sighed as Felix rubbed a supportive hand up and down her back. She had to admit that her clothing choice wasn't too smart; her sleeveless tank top and ripped combat trousers may have allowed her wounds to breathe, but it did make her look a state. A tear slowly slipped down her cheek as an involuntary spasm in her wrist shot pain through the whole of her bandaged arm.
"You're crying," Felix brushed away her one silvery tear droplet, though he was sniffing himself.
"No, I'm not. I think my tear duct might be playing up," she gestured to her injured eye. "It isn't, my lady, you don't have to be tough with me. Does it hurt badly, Tammy?"
"No...Yes. Stupid question. And stupid answer. I...It isn't fair that you have to see me like this. It's hurting you too, I can tell. And this isn't me...I hate being injured, it makes me feel too vulnerable..."
"Well, that's okay. I can...wait, no I can't fix it," Felix looked rather defeated as he put his head in his hands and started sobbing. "I-I lost my hammer today...I'm sorry..."

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Tamora sighed as she tried to brush away his tears the way he had with her. "Shortstack, these things happen, you gotta calm down a little," She couldn't help but notice more tears slip her husband's eyes as his gloved hand gently caressed her bandaged arm, the pair of them perched uneasily on the bench in Game Central Station, the injured Sergeant and small, blue-clad builder with an annoying habit of coming out with the phrases 'Jiminy jaminy!' and 'I can fix it!' all too often, attracting a fair bit of unwanted attention from Q*Bert, Princess Peach and Vanellope von Schweetz to name but a few.
"S-sorry," Felixrepeated. He still hand't calmed down fully and he was still gasping fervently every few seconds. "Just...Tammy, I can't stand this. I'm supposed to be able to fix anything, but the one thing I can't is the one thing I want the most to be okay."
Tamora's free hand dabbed tentatively at her blackened left eye, the tears in her trousers and shirt exposing various grazes and wounds steadily oozing blood despite her own and just about everyone else within Hero's Duty's best yet futile attempts to stem her bleeding. Sighing through her pain, she said quietly; "What's that then?"
Tracing the lines of her cheekbones with his thumbs and softly touching his nose to hers, he murmured; "You."
Just a wee heap of absolute fluff featuring our favourite Hero's Cuties! Should I continue? Let me know!!
Based on this drawing; [link]
© 2013 - 2024 Prosper-the-XVIII
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bugsbunnyfan123's avatar
please continue i want to see if tamora will be okay :-D