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“Felix, I don’t think that’s a good idea—”
But before the Vicar could get any further, Felix had dumped his entire bag of Rizzo’s Purpleberry Crunch into his cup of Zero Gee Brew. The concoction turned an alarming shade of purple and fizzed. Felix shook it around for good measure before tipping it back and taking a healthy, crunchy swallow.
“Law preserve you…” Max looked horrified as Felix enthusiastically chewed. “I don’t know how you’re able to stomach that kind of sewage.”
“It’s great! Well, actually, it is making my tongue tingle in a kind of burn-y way, but I think I just need to get used to that.” Felix triumphantly held up his cup and shook it around some more. “Now I’ve got a free hand, and I’m able to get both my drink and my snack in one bite. That’s what I call – working smart.”
Max pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long-suffering sigh. Felix drank-chewed happily, peering over the stands to see the game kick back into action. It was the Rizzo’s Rangers serve and their 1st back was winding up. The Rangers were down twenty points, but the game was still only in play in the Thursday zone, so Felix was hopeful they would make a comeback.
“I don’t know why I keep feeling surprised whenever I encounter a new level to your idiocy. You keep saying the Rangers will win the series after all. And I think you even believe it.”
Scowling, Felix looked back and glared at the Vicar. “Seriously, Max, just because you’ve got a hard-on for the Hammers, doesn’t make you smarter than me.”
Max shrugged, a smug look on his face. “No, the fact that I’m smarter than you, makes me smarter than you.”
Felix almost tossed his cup into the Vicar’s face, but stopped himself because that would have been a Lawful waste of Rizzo’s Purpleberry Crunch. He settled for kicking Max’s seat and making the Vicar startle. “Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep better at night. Because that’s all some Board brown-noser knows how to do – you go around judging everybody and thinking you’re so much better than everyone. Well you aren’t better than me.”
Felix moodily slumped back over the railing of the stand. He had missed watching the Rangers serve. Auntie Cleo’s Darlings had somehow already taken possession and were headed towards the goal.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Felix.”
Felix grumbled into his sleeve, refusing to look back. “It’s true. You judge me all the time. You don’t approve of a single thing I do. And I don’t care!”
“You said that a little too loudly for me to believe you.”
Frustrated, Felix finally turned around so he could give the Vicar a piece of his mind. “Why are you always such a prick! Why do you hate me? I didn’t do anything to you!”
A troubled look came over Max’s face, and then he finally said, “I don’t hate you, Felix.” Felix snorted in disbelief, and Max continued. “Law as my witness, it’s true. You frustrate me, and maybe I’m a bit too hard on you. I suppose there is a reason the Captain made us go to this tossball game together.”
Felix frowned. “Cap said it was because they got the tickets for free, but had to go work on the engine with Parvati.”
Max’s face twitched and it took him every ounce of strength to let that slide without further comment. He tried to say as gently as he could, though it still came off as slightly snarky, “No, Felix, the Captain just said that, but really they hoped we would… bond. Or something.”
“But you hate the Rangers.”
It seemed that was the end of Max’s patience as he let out another disgusted sigh and shook his head. “This – This is exactly what makes it so hard. You are a naïve fool, Felix Millstone. You have no understanding of how the world really works, but you’ve got a head stuffed full of lofty ideals and not enough sense. You have no idea what you actually believe, you just get taken in by whatever doomsayer happens to attract your attention, and you parrot back their nonsense.”
“Spoken like a true Board drone,” Felix fired back. “Any idea that isn’t ‘Board approved’ you think is crazy or stupid. But you’re the one who isn’t being open-minded, and that’s a kind of stupid. What would you know about the real world anyway? You just stay safe behind the walls of your church!”
“I’ve been to prison, Felix.”
Max stared at him with hard, stormy eyes. There was a pained edge to his voice, a shadow of vulnerability that Felix had never heard before. “You never have. Or you wouldn’t be so cavalier.”
Felix opened his mouth wanting to protest, but something made him stop. It might have been that this was the first time Max was being direct and honest with him, instead of sneering at him from some lofty position. Quietly, he asked, “What was it like?”
“It was hell. They named it Tartarus for a reason.” Max sucked in a deep breath, his temper cooling as he grew pensive. “It’s not torture chambers or some kind of elaborate punishment. It’s the boredom. It’s the fact that day in, day out, you’re stuck. No matter how big, how old, how strong you are – nothing you do matters in a place where nothing happens. You don’t matter. Your life means nothing. You have no idea what it really feels like to be truly forgotten.”
Max crossed his arms against his chest, a faraway look in his eyes. “Playing tossball in the prison yard was the only thing that kept me sane in that place. It wasn’t my books, my faith, or even the research that had gotten me locked up in the first place. It was this stupid game…”
Max fell silent after that, locked in whatever private hell his memory recalled. Felix looked from Max, to the tossball field where the Rangers were making a run for the Thursday goal. He hadn’t realized how much the game had mattered to Max, or that the uptight Vicar was maybe a bit of an asshole because he had scars that still twinged.
“I think I get it…” Felix started, and laughed when he saw the look on Max’s face. “No, really! Not the prison part, you’re right, I don’t know a thing about that. But the first tossball game I ever saw was the Rangers against the Rocky Mountain Soldiers – you know, when the Soldier’s pitcher got decapitated in the Saturday zone?”
Max lifted an eyebrow. “You mean the game where the Rangers lost 107 to 10?”
Felix laughed good-naturedly. “Yeah, they got whooped real good. But I watched it in a bar the first time I ran away from the orphan facility. And I noticed that the Rizzo’s fans cheered the loudest, and every game after that, they were still there. They taught me about the game, bought me snacks – we were like the losers club.”
“They were your first sense of family…” Max murmured softly.
Felix shrugged, now feeling bashful. “Anyway, I’m a Rizzo’s man for life.”
“You have a surprising amount of depth to you, son.”
Felix thought that was the nicest thing the Vicar had ever said to him, and that maybe the grumpy old bastard was alright company after all.
“The Rangers are still going to lose today though, you know that right?”
In small doses.