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The clock was twisting leisurely towards 4 AM when Felix heard the knock.
It was a bit past his bedtime, but there were so many jobs to attend to after work, an unusual amount within his own building (the handiwork of his cousin, he suspected). He had only stayed up to record the day's events in his journal as he habitually did, and to have a chamomile tea for winding down, as usual. The nightly rituals had to be observed or sleep would not visit.
But that knock. His mug had almost reached his lips, but it remained suspended while he regarded the door quizzically. Surely, all the Nicelanders would have been in bed by then.
Knock knock knock!
The hand behind the door hit harder, impatiently, like time was of the essence. Fearing that it may have been an emergency, Felix bound for the door without bothering to put down his mug. He nearly dropped it the second he turned the knob.
The visitor did not wait to be invited in, or even greeted. They simply rammed their way right through, leaving Felix to catch his footing behind the door.
"Land's sakes!" he exclaimed, trying to catch up with the situation. "What's this all about?!"
But when he stepped out and saw the intruder, the rudeness made more sense. Turbo, dressed in plain pants for once, and a sleazy leather jacket. Before Felix could ask him what was going on, his sudden bark cut him off.
"YOU IN HERE?!"
Shaken a bit by his aggressive tone, Felix's voice squeaked. "Wh-Who? Me? "
Turbo ignored him completely, and merely threw himself into very thoroughly scouring the apartment, growling all the while. He shoved past the door to the kitchen, and Felix followed him in, his head buzzing with confusion. Turbo was looking everywhere, even unreasonable spaces for a sprite to hide in -- the fridge, the freezer, the cabinets, even the dishwasher. And just like that, he prowled out without so much as a glance at Felix.
Felix continued to watch him, barely managing to think over the bizarre situation. Why would Turbo be in his apartment? Although Felix did do his best to tolerate him, Turbo was Mavis' friend. Their connection had lasted over a year by that point, an impressively long time for Mavis. Felix was happy for her and all, but part of him wished she had picked someone a little less--
Wait.
Heart threatening to leap into his throat, Felix scurried closer, and squeaked, "Are you looking for Mavy?! Is-- Is she in trouble? "
"You bet your bits she is," Turbo snapped as he hopped onto the couch to peer behind it, leaving bits of dirt and grass on the cushion when he stepped down. After a quick glance under the dining room table, he stomped down the hall to the bathroom and nearly ripped the shower curtain, then made sure to check the washer and dryer. Felix tried to speak, but Turbo whipped around and shoved past him again, intruding into the bedroom.
Bounding after him, Felix insistently asked, "Wh-Wh-What's happened to her?! Turbo, talk to me! "
Checking the closet, Turbo growled, "Quit yer freakin' wailing already, will ya? The damn rainbow rat made off with my keys again."
"Your-- Your keys? "
Turbo threw all the laundry on the floor to check the hamper. Felix would have been horrified, if he had not been hit with a wash of relief. He touched his chest, sighing.
"Oh, thank Litwak," he breathed. "So she's not hurt at all?"
Turbo circled the bed and dropped to check under it. "No," he stood up and growled deeper, "but when I find her, she's roadkill ."
Felix's mouth twisted a bit as he watched Turbo storm back out. "Please tell me you're exaggerating."
He heard Turbo grumble flatly, "We'll see."
Felix followed Turbo back into the living room, who seemed to have slowed his momentum a bit, enough to merely pace angrily for a moment, sighing and combing his fingers back through his thick mess of hair. Felix himself seemed to gravitate naturally in the direction of the door, hoping it would prompt his uninvited guest to leave. He rubbed the warm mug still in his hands anxiously.
Turbo’s ‘roadkill’ comment was still nagging at him in a worrying way. He did not want to believe that Mavis’ friend was actually capable of hurting her, but… that temper . He was not sure just how to word it, but he could not leave it unsaid.
“Turbo,” he tried to say firmly, but found his voice trembling, “I don’t like you even joking about hurting my cousin. Why, if I ever catch wind of you takin’ that temper of yours out on her—”
He was cut short by Turbo hanging his head back and pointing a groan at the ceiling, one that seemed to escape the confines of his very code. “For Devs’ sake — I didn’t MEAN IT, ya dimwit, okay?! I ain’t that kinda guy! Now will ya get off my dick for one second?!”
Felix had no idea what to say to that, but he supposed it was a comfort. “...Oh... kay .”
Dragging his hands down his face, Turbo heaved another heavy, wet sigh. He rubbed his cheek, and let that hand snake behind his head. His eyes closed and his brow furrowed, and he seemed to hold his breath for just a moment, before releasing it and dropping his arm to grope around inside his jacket. “That woman, I tell ya…” he grumbled. “Remind me why I let her near me.”
“Because… she’s your friend?” Felix suggested weakly.
At that, Turbo simply curled his nose with a clipped, flat snort. He pulled something out of his jacket, and Felix’s brows raised when he recognized it as a pack of cigarettes. Knocking the nasty little rolls to jut out of the package, he seized one with his teeth and pulled out a lighter. It chuffed repeatedly as Turbo casually lit up, the light glowing back on his face as his other hand guarded the flame.
It took Felix just a moment to process the sheer level of rudeness, but he quickly shook it from his head. He had put up with a lot in the last ten minutes, but this just tore it. It was time to put his foot down.
“No, no. No, that is quite enough. Turbo,” he began with as much force as he could use while remaining polite, “you know you’re welcome to visit at a decent hour, but barging in at four in the morning to ransack my apartment, badmouth my cousin, and— and now, you’re smoking? No! No, I’m afraid I have to ask you to take it outside. This is a non-smoking building. You can’t smoke that in here!”
Suddenly, for the first time that night, Turbo’s gaze locked onto Felix. A touch of regret curled in Felix’s stomach, as if he had just antagonized some wild animal, and Turbo’s warning glare sure befitted one. The demon boy took in a long drag, the glow of his eyes cutting through the hazy plume he exhaled. Before Felix knew what to do, Turbo was already advancing on him with steady, threatening steps. All he managed to do was shrink back until his back hit the wall by the kitchen door, trapped by Turbo’s presence. He was standing just a touch too close for comfort, close enough for the smell of ash to burn Felix’s nostrils — mostly from the cigarette, although his jacket had been wafting the scent of smoke all over the apartment since he arrived. Felix guessed that its leather had seen more than its fair share of cigarettes.
The tension in the silence was palpable. Felix could have stepped aside, but he felt frozen, somehow, seized by that rock-hard, commanding look. Turbo scrutinized him, reading his face. He took another drag, and exhaled the foul smoke through his nose. Frozen as he was, Felix could not keep from coughing into his glove. Turbo watched, just waiting for him to catch his breath. Once he did, his voice rumbled out lowly.
“Did I hear you tell me… what I can’t do?”
Felix stammered, “I— Well, I meant m-mostly to—”
“ Do I LOOK ,” he snarled to interrupt, before his voice dropped again, “like I’m in the mood … to be told what I can’t do?”
Really feeling that regret, Felix quivered and tried to save himself without caving. Eyes shifting around the apartment, he stuttered, “W-Well, n-no, it’s just that-that the smell of the smoke— Well, it clings, you know, and-and I can’t really— I can’t really fix smells, so, so the curtains, and-and the upholstery, they’d— oh, it’d be a trial to get the smell out...”
“And?”
Felix blinked. “It’s… It’d just be really inconsiderate to do that… to s-someone’s house.”
Turbo squinted. “ And? ”
“Uh—”
“Lemme make one thing perfectly clear, Choir Boy,” Turbo stepped in even closer, seriously intruding on Felix’s personal space, and hissing out a whisper. “I. Don’t. Care . About your upholstery .”
Felix gulped. “I— I know—”
“See, I don’t know if you got the memo,” he muttered, “but I do whatever I want. And when someone tells me I can’t, I do it even harder. So right now, I’ve got half a mind to come back here every night until I’ve smoked that entire pack, ‘til every last inch of this place reeks of my smoke, and you can’t so much as inhale without seein’ THIS ,” his lips snarled a bit with the word, flashing his jagged teeth, “every wakin’ moment. You get me? ”
It really was an upsetting prospect. Felix nodded, finding it hard to speak. Turbo was just around the same height as him, but somehow, he felt towering. Felix did not want to feel so intimidated by such a… well, by someone like Turbo , but right then, he… sort of did. ‘Intimidated’ may not have been the right word, not even ‘scared’. His aura was just so strong, his stare so forceful, unflinching. It seemed challenging, even, like it was daring Felix to fight back, but threatening to flatten him if he did. It was… dominant. That was the word. Dominant .
Damn if it was not about to make Felix turn up his belly and submit.
It was wrong. Somehow.
Maybe.
At that point, Turbo’s snarl began to fade, but he did not smile. “I’m not gonna do that,” he muttered, “because this place is a total drag, and I’ve got better things to do. So there’s me bein’ considerate of you. Enjoy it. It won’t come often.”
Felix did not move. He merely clutched his mug to his chest. The tea had gone cold by then, but he felt strangely warm, and… sort of light-headed. Returning Turbo’s stare, he became caught up in one little detail. There was red in his irises. He had never gotten close enough to see before.
Those eyes narrowed, and Turbo turned his head a bit to peer at Felix suspiciously. “ Question ,” he murmured. “I don’t waste a lot a’ my time lookin’ at you, so tell me…”
A smirk suddenly broke out over his face, and he half-purred, “Is your face always this red, or is it just me? ”
“Huh?” Felix snapped out of it, with the feeling that he should have been horrified. “What? It’s not red! Is it?”
His insides twisted as he realized just how hot his ears had become, and his cheeks were practically sizzling at their peaks. Although he was gloved, he touched his face in alarm. There was no way. There was no reason! No sense at all!
He had made it to ‘horrified’.
“Well— Well—” he stammered, only feeling his face glow further, “I have been known to get a lil’ red in the face now n’ then, ‘cause that’s, well I’m just a really red fella, y’know, it’s not uncommon for us peachy-skinned folks—”
In a blink, Turbo slammed his fist against the wall above Felix’s head, and despite himself, Felix jolted with a squeal. That just about did it. Breathing deeply, staring at the demon’s intrusive glare, he… mostly wanted to crumple down to the floor.
A small wheeze in Turbo’s throat preceded a delighted, barking laugh that at last led him a few steps back from Felix. As Felix caught his breath, holding his forehead, Turbo granted him a few claps to accompany his nasty cackle.
“Oh, Devs above,” he shook his head, swiping a tear from his eye, “I guess one thing runs in the family, huh?”
“Wh… What?” Felix had far too much to keep up with in that moment.
Turbo leaned in a bit again, that grin as smug as ever. “Listen, lover-boy, I hate to break your heart like this, but, ah,” he pointed a thumb at himself, winking with a tongue-click, “ girls only. ”
Felix blinked. He sure seemed secure about it. “Oh. Well, that’s lovely,” Felix said uneasily, but pleasantly. “I support you. Thank you for— But wait, WAIT, THAT’S NOT— THAT’S NOT RELEVANT TO WHAT JUST— I WASN’T—”
“ Hey, hey, hey, ” Turbo stepped in, pulling in one last drag of his cigarette that burned an impressive length, and just spoke through the smog, “No shame in wantin’ a piece a’ this. Anyone would. I ain’t about to make out with ya, sorry to say, but, y’know, if y’wanna spoon with a pillow tonight n’ pretend it’s me? You do you.”
With that, he dropped his cigarette in Felix’s tea, and pat him briskly on the very warm cheek. “‘Cuz y’ain’t gonna do me .”
And he left. Just like that, he opened the door, and he left. Felix’s brain was a map of criss-crossing roads covered in ten-car pile-ups, but Turbo’s voice echoing “Sweet dreams!” as he left down the hall spurred him into action. He thrust his head out the door and saw the dastardly racer press the elevator button.
“Turbo!” he called desperately. “It’s not what you think!”
Turbo gave him a cheery side-glance, brows high.
“IT’S NOT!”
A door creaked as Deana poked out of her nearby apartment, giving Felix a sort of annoyed, but mostly alarmed look. Chastising himself for yelling, he grinned sheepishly and waved her down. But as he saw Turbo strolling into the elevator, something very important occurred to him, and he had to get it out before the elevator doors closed.
“Wait—” he yipped, “ WHAT RUNS IN THE FAMILY?!”