Janitor? More Like Wrecker

[Deleted]

(ooc: September 8th. Closed to just Ralph and Vanellope.)

"Uraaagh... Come on, come on..."

This job sucked. He would have much preferred to be back in Niceland. Or would he? Ralph knew better than anyone that he would have just gotten the same treatment he had been getting for all that time. Still, he couldn't deny that being a janitor was not his field of expertise. At the moment, Ralph was trying his hardest to get a new lightbulb screwed in place. On the third floor of all places. Ralph knew this was a disaster waiting to happen, but he hardly had the time to care about the circumstances or whether or not he was any good at this. Time and time again as he attempted to screw the lightbulb into place, his giant fingers would make him fumble and he almost kept dropping the lightbulb. It was lucky he actually had as large hands as he did, because was able to keep the lightbulb from hitting the floor and managed to keep catching it.

"Why do I keep getting stuck with jobs like this? Are they trying t-"

And there went the lightbulb again. Ralph barely kept himself from gasping and scrambled to catch the falling bulb. It was tricky, keeping himself from getting too far down the ladder and catching the bulb at the same time, but somehow he managed it. The lightbulb landed safely in his large hand, and the wrecker gave a sigh of relief.

What else could possibly go wrong?

[Vanellope]

"Hey mister!"

It would be just Ralph's luck if he'd got to the most delicate part of the operation by the time Vanellope called out. The glitched girl hadn't planned it that way, but she'd been perched on the nearest windowsil for a while now, swinging her short legs as she watched the janitor work and wondering if she should make her presence known. This wasn't exactly Sugar Rush, where she made it her mission to investigate all strangers to her favourite haunt of the candycane forest; still, Angel was off elsewhere, her next class didn't start for a half hour or so, and there wasn't anyone else about; and so Vanellope really didn't have a lot else to do besides sit there, either twiddling her thumbs or fiddling with her uniform.

Or making her presence known to this guy.

It was the fact that the janitor looked like a fellow video game character that had finally prompted Vanellope to just go for it. No-one in the real world would have hands as freakish as his, she was certain. Or hair like that. Or a stink like that. After giving her shirt collar one final tug - her last class' teacher had insisted she wear it done up properly, and it chafed - the girl had leant back on her hands and had proceeded to call out.

"What's your name?" Regardless of whether she'd startled him or not, Vanellope pressed on anyway. She was aware the guy might just pack up his ladder and walk away, so she figured she'd make the most of his presence while he was here.

[Deleted]

Unfortunately for Ralph, he had just been trying once again to screw in the lightbulb when Vanellope made her presence known. Her sudden chirped greeting actually succeeded in startling the wrecker, and he lost his grip on the lightbulb once and for all. This time he wasn't able to save it, and it crashed to the floor below. It seemed that luck would be on Vanellope's side, though, because the bulb had crashed far enough away from her to prevent her being injured. Silently, Ralph cursed his luck. He would have cursed aloud if not for the fact that a child was present.

He glanced over at the glitched girl as he begrudgingly made his way down from the ladder, and inwardly he had to wonder about where in the world she was from. With that candy in her hair, she couldn't have been from outside of a game like some of the other students Ralph had seen. But what game could she have...? Oh. OH. Not that sugar-coated mess of a game near the Whack-a-Mole. Ralph had never been there himself, but he could take a wild guess that that was where Vanellope was from. Why was he even getting down from the ladder? ...Oh, right, he'd left the remaining lightbulbs on the floor. Because that was obviously the best idea imaginable. There was little time for actually belittling himself, though. Vanellope had asked his name, and even though he didn't quite know why a child would want anything to do with the lowly janitor he decided it might be worth his time to answer.

"Ah... Ralph. Wreck-it Ralph, kid," Ralph answered. He was soon on the floor and looking for just where he'd put the box of lightbulbs. He should have kept it closer to the ladder for easy access, but nope. He hadn't thought of that. Of course; no wonder everyone hated him. Ralph just wasn't the most intelligent of video game characters around. He could be if he really wanted to, but in times like this and with jobs he didn't like it was plain to see he didn't think some things through.

"What about you? What's your name, kid? ...Don't you have a class to be in or something?" Ralph asked. He wasn't sure of what time it was anymore. Ralph had been trying to replace this one lightbulb for so long that he'd lost track of time completely. For all he knew, classes could have been over by that point and Vanellope could have just happened to find him.

[Vanellope]

"Nope, don't have a class right now." Vanellope continued to swing her legs as she watched Ralph. Did she feel bad that she'd made him drop the lightbulb? Maybe a little. But mostly, the girl was just glad to have someone to talk to; even if her definition of talking to would more or less eventually amount to bugging the snot out of. She gave her collar one more tug, then shifted on the windowsil so that she was lying on her belly, propped up on her elbows, as she took in his answer.

Wreck-it Ralph? Yeah, that sure was a game character's name. Even though Vanellope knew very little of any of the other games in the arcade, his name was so blatantly not a real-world one; there was no question at all that he was from somewhere in the arcade, even if she hadn't the slightest clue where. Though she'd been certain enough of that before anyway. His gigantic hands couldn't have been natural; and nor could his stench which she could pick up a whiff or two of from all the way over here.

"'S Vanellope." She continued to observe him as she answered his question. Honestly, she wasn't sure she'd been expecting him to show even that much interest; usually she was the one left asking all the questions of the - very rare - newcomers to her part of the game. Then again, she supposed that she didn't look quite so much like a homeless butt while she was wearing the school's uniform; maybe that was the difference? Still, she didn't expect him to pursue any further questions, regardless; so Vanellope supposed she'd better fill that gap by asking a bunch more of her own.

"How come you're not back in the arcade? You got a game there, don'cha?"

[Deleted]

If she didn't have class, why didn't she have some friends to be with or something? Surely talking to the huge, admittedly smelly janitor wasn't the height of children's entertainment. In spite of this, Ralph couldn't be bothered to ask. He was having it rough enough as it was dealing with this stupid lightbulb problem. The last thing he needed was a kid questioning him at every turn. It seemed unlikely that Vanellope was going to go away any time soon, though, and Ralph couldn't be bothered to tell her to go away. Not yet, anyway.

He'd made it to the floor and finally managed to find where he had put the spare lightbulbs when Vanellope asked the next question. Why wasn't he in his game? Well, for one, the Nicelanders were convinced they didn't need him. He wasn't a big part of the game, at least according to them, in spite of the fact that he was the bad guy. The other reason was more apparent. Felix had left out of nowhere, and without him the game might as well have just been unplugged. He didn't say this much straight away, though. Ralph instead went about climbing back up the ladder with the fresh lightbulb and attempted to begin screwing it in again.

"Our game's good guy... Hnngh..." A pause. Ralph really hated having such large hands at times like these, but there was nothing he could do. He'd have to keep trying to screw in the damn lightbulb. The sight of it had to be amusing, too. Ralph could only imagine the enjoyment Vanellope was potentially getting out of all this.

"He just left one day. Then I get this letter, it tells me to come work here, and... Oh, come on!" Ralph groaned. The lightbulb still wasn't going in right. Ralph tried to tighten his grip on the thing, just so he wouldn't have it drop out of his hand again, but the end result was him squeezing too hard and the bulb breaking. Thanks to his tough hands, though, he wasn't quite in danger of being injured. Just irritated by the glass that fell to the floor as a result of his impatience and his attempt at getting a better hold on the stupid lightbulb.

"Lousy bulb..."

[Vanellope]

"Soooo why are your hands so freakishly big anyway?" Vanellope, who had been sniggering behind her hands for a while now, had actually chortled aloud when he'd managed to shatter the second bulb all on his own, rolling onto her back again and dangling half off the windowsil in what anyone else might call a precarious manner as she laughed. Vanellope didn't think it was, however; though coming from the girl who routinely dangled upsidedown from candy trees by her legs, it was doubtful that Vanellope would imagine any position to be a precarious one. Now, she had propped herself up again, and as she spoke, one hand pointed at his own; as if he actually needed her to draw his attention to them.

As soon as Ralph started back down the ladder for another bulb, Vanellope seemed to defy all laws of physics as she was one moment on the windowsil, the next on the top of the ladder once he'd vacated it. The girl hooked her legs around the top rung, and now dangled the wrong way up, watching him from a significantly nearer distance. Her tie flopped down into her face while she hung like this, she found - Vanellope hadn't tried it in uniform before - but she didn't seem to make any attempt to push it aside, simply watching Ralph from around it and wondering how long it would take him to notice where she was.

For as long as he wasn't looking at her, though, Vanellope wrinkled her nose. He certainly did pong up close.

"Are you a hobo? Back in your game?" she enquired, not caring if the question sounded rude. He certainly looked like he could have been, to her eyes - and she should know, she was as close as anyone came to being homeless herself back in Sugar Rush.

[Deleted]

So it was that Ralph made his descent again and went to retrieve another fresh bulb. He was beginning to run out, he noticed, and that would mean another trip all the way back to the first floor to retrieve more... Assuming he ran out, that is. Ralph didn't miss Vanellope's question regarding his hands, either. It resulted in a roll of his eyes and a grunt before he thought of a more coherent answer.

"I dunno. Why are you so freakishly annoying?"

Childish? Probably so, but Ralph didn't care. The whole escapade with the lightbulbs had been frustrating him to no end and now he had a little girl with apparently nothing better to do bugging him on top of that. Could things get any worse? Well, he found out the answer almost straight away. When Ralph looked up from grabbing a new lightbulb, he saw Vanellope magically on his ladder. Brown eyes were blinked in confusion and it gave Vanellope plenty of time to ask her question. Was he a hobo? Might as well have been given the life he lived, but Vanellope didn't need to know that.

"...No. I am not a hobo," Ralph answered. "Now would you get down from there? I need to try again to fix this. ...How the heck did you get up there anyway?"

He probably shouldn't have been asking. For all he knew, Vanellope would just go out of her way to give him a vague answer. Ralph wouldn't have expected anything else from a kid, though.

[Vanellope]

"Well, why are you so freakishly smelly?"

Perhaps it was a low blow, to call attention to his stink; Vanellope didn't really care. She fidgeted with her tie knot for a moment - she could have loosened her collar again now, but since she'd probably only be told to do it up again in her next class, Vanellope wasn't sure it was worth the bother - swung back and forth where she hung for a moment, and then smirked as Ralph noticed where she now was.

"What's that? Didn't hear ya! Your breath is so bad, it made my ears numb!" She cupped a hand behind her ear to emphasise the point, and continued swinging slightly by her legs. No, she didn't have any intention of letting up on bugging Ralph; he was amusing her, and she was having way too much fun with this. And besides, with Angel off elsewhere and no other friends to speak of, Vanellope really didn't have any place else to be. A huff of breath was given in the direction of her tie as she tried - usuccessfully - to blow it out of her face, before once again leaving it be. It wasn't like she really cared all that much where it chose to hang, anyway.

[Deleted]

"Well, why are you so freakishly... Okay, that was just rude," Ralph said once he'd realized she'd drawn attention to his smell. Honestly, he didn't even know why he was bothering with Vanellope. He could have very easily picked her up and removed her from the ladder by himself. Why he wasn't doing that right then was something not even he could provide an answer to. Maybe it was because Vanellope had dealt a second low blow by commenting on his bad breath. It wasn't his fault that he had to live in the garbage and junk of Niceland. He didn't have a choice but to be smelly and otherwise unhygienic.

Ralph could have easily made a comment about the mishmash of candy in Vanellope's hair, but he restrained himself. He had to try and continue being nice. There was only so long that he could do that before he got plain frustrated, though. He was frustrated enough with the lightbulb situation. The last thing he needed was to take it out on a kid. Doing so would probably land him in a mess of trouble, anyway. So, Ralph tried to remain as professional and nice as he possibly could manage.

"Listen, kid, I'm trying to be nice here-"

(ooc: Feel free to start mimicking him here, Vanellope. xD PS: I'm having way too much fun with this.)

[Vanellope]

(ooc: That's exactly what I was planning XD And yes, so am I.)

Okay, really, this was just way too much fun. Vanellope didn't care that she was being rude; and it escaped her entirely that as this was a school, she was liable to get in trouble for talking to a member of staff in this way. Vanellope almost felt as though she could have been back in Sugar Rush, hanging out up the candy trees and bugging any strangers to the game unfortunate enough to wonder into her part of the world. If not for the incessant pressure against her throat reminding her that she was in an outfit other than her usual hoodie, she might well have forgotten where she was completely.

"I'm trynna be nice here."

Folding her arms across her chest, Vanellope modulated her voice deeper in what may or may not have passed for a decent imitation of the wrecker. She tried to school her features into something resembling his current grouchy facial expression, but given that she was still smirking, that part was only partially successful. Still, she figured it should have the desired result on Ralph; whatever that result even was beyond getting on every nerve he possessed.

[Deleted]

...Had she just done what he thought she had?

Now it was apparently a mimicking game, and Ralph wasn't all that sure he liked it. His eyes narrowed slightly and a frown presented itself upon his face. This kid was succeeding in pressing just about every button she could manage to find. What would the other bad guys say if they knew he was being bested by a small child, anyway? They'd probably laugh him out of those silly Bad-Anon meetings. Ralph simply couldn't let Vanellope get the better of him. It was far too late to actually be saying this, though. The little girl had managed to do that already and it didn't seem like she was going to let up any time soon.

In spite of this, Ralph decided to speak up again. What was the worst that could happen? It wasn't like she was going to keep on mimicking him, right? She'd have to get bored with doing that sooner or later, wouldn't she? It made sense to the wrecker turned janitor, at any rate.

"...You're mimicking me."

[Vanellope]

"Yer mimicking me!"

Not only did she mimic his words, she mirrored - an albeit exaggerated version of - his frown too. Ralph was going to be waiting an awful long time for Vanellope to bore herself of this game. With the obvious exception of the time she'd spent playing with Angel over the weekend, this was proving itself to be some of the most fun the glitched girl had ever had. The wrecker was just so easy to wind up, and Vanellope was enjoying every moment of it. There was no fear at all in Vanellope's mind of what would happen if she pushed him too far, despite the fact that he could probably crush her in one of his gigantic hands if he set his mind to it; not only did she doubt he'd hurt a kid, Vanellope was fairly confident she'd be able to dart away before he did anything she'd regret.

She flashed him a cheeky little grin as she hung there, which probably did nothing at all to endear her to the big man. But that was okay, it wasn't meant to; rather, it looked more as though she was daring him to say something else for her to immitate. All told, Vanellope was more interested in amusing herself than in anything else, and the janitor was the best victim she could have asked for.

[Deleted]

It was only lucky that Ralph was restraining himself from doing anything he might regret. He really should have known better than to expect a kid to grow bored of this supposed game. Yet, there he was silently hoping that maybe Vanellope would get tired of mimicking him and try to find something else to do. Of course it would happen on a Monday. It just gave the wrecker all the more reason to hate Mondays. Oh well... It wasn't as if he was going to make Vanellope magically disappear just by thinking about it as hard as he could. All he could do was make a grab for her and try to remove her from the ladder.

"Okay," Ralph began, half expecting Vanellope to mimic him again, "that is rude, and this conversation... Is... Over!"

Just as soon as he said that, Ralph went to try and grab Vanellope with his free hand. If he could just take her down from the ladder and put her on the floor, maybe he'd have a chance of actually fixing the stupid thing that was causing him so much trouble. He didn't, however, take into account that Vanellope was small and probably had a fair amount of agility on her side. Given the way she was hanging from his ladder rung, it should have been a fair assumption that she'd have been fast. He hadn't even seen her get onto the ladder in the first place.

He may have ended up regretting his decision, though. Ralph wasn't sure how he might regret it, but there was a distinct possibility that he could wish to take back this particular action.

[Vanellope]

"Okay. That is rude andthisconverbuhbuh is- hey!"

She saw the hand coming for her in plenty of time to avoid it, of course; the exclamation was more disgruntled about the fact that she had been grabbed for at all than anything else. The girl flipped back right way up in an instant, so that when Ralph's grasping hand passed through the space where she had been hanging a moment ago it found nothing but empty air. She was gonna have to be a little more careful here, Vanellope realised; she still didn't think he'd hurt her, but that didn't mean she wanted to be grabbed by the smelly wrecker. Rather than just sitting atop the rung to give him another shot at her, Vanellope jumped to her feet, where she balanced with relative ease.

"Hey, grabbing's not fair!" she chided, now eyeing the big man warily. Not that fair really had much to do with anything, least of all the way she was taunting him; still, Vanellope heartily disliked the idea of ending up in his hand. Again, she tugged at her too-tight collar as she pondered how to antagonise him next without putting herself at further risk from his hands.

The obvious option, of course, would be to just get out of his way, but Vanellope didn't feel inclined to do that. Until inspiration dawned, she figured, she'd just keep taunting him from where she was.

"Hey, what happened to your hair, anyway? Looks like it got on the wrong end of a leaf-blower!"

[Deleted]

Oh, Ralph wouldn't hurt her. He may have been irritated completely, but did that warrant hurting Vanellope? Not at all. He'd only wanted to take her down from the ladder. Apparently, though, the girl was fast enough to get higher up. It wouldn't have been a problem for Ralph to deal with, as he was fairly tall, but he didn't want to try and grab her again. There was only so much ladder Vanellope could go up before there would be a problem. So, Ralph took in her complaint about his attempted grab not being fair. His attempt wasn't fair? An exasperated expression appeared on his face and a huff of a breath escaped him.

"And it's fair for you to take over my ladder?" Ralph asked. He'd shifted his weight to the side a bit and pocketed the bulb for the moment. It looked like he wasn't going to get anywhere with fixing the present problem, so he'd just have to roll with going back and forth with her. Vanellope had decided to actually go for a different route and, thankfully, wasn't playing the mimic game anymore. She was, however, going back to poking fun at his appearance. Ralph could do that, too. He hadn't wanted to make fun of her hair, but since she'd questioned his spiky hair he felt he had the right. So, as soon as Vanellope had asked about his hair, Ralph went on to ask about hers.

"I suppose you think yours is any better? Your hair looks like a piñata exploded all over it, Ms. Candylocks," Ralph said. He pointed a big finger at Vanellope's hair, but he made no further moves beyond that. As much as Ralph hated to admit it, he was kind of... Sort of... Having fun with this. Not that his expression made that clear, but somehow he kind of liked poking fun at Vanellope. It wasn't all that harmful, either. It wasn't as if he'd called her a bad name or anything.