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Charlie once swore that for Flippa, he would change the world. That for her, his egg, he would tear down civilisations brick by brick if he had to.
Everything he does, everything Charlie plans to do, is for her. They’d had their accidents, gone literally through hell and back, and fought legal battles over the issue but Charlie finally had Juanaflippa back.
And in perfect condition too!
“Charlie, she’s becoming a code.” Foolish says, rather bluntly if he was being honest.
“Who? Flippa?” Charlie asks. He looks over towards her, watching as she showers a phantom with bullet after bullet.
Juanaflippa had always had a love for shooting things and in Charlie's opinion, nothing seemed out of the usual with her. She came back from death with a different accent, sure, but that was nothing to worry about. Hell would do that to a person!
He watches as she lines up the gun very precisely, squinting in focus and biting her lip. Maybe he should get her a little scope that she can push down for her glasses. That would be cool.
She hits the shot with expertise and the phantom screeches, swirling up into the air and racing off into the distance. She fires a lot more shots loosely in its haste.
Pride swells in his chest and he shoots a confused look towards Foolish who stares blankly at him. How could anything be wrong with Flippa? She was the same as ever.
“Who else?! Slime, look at her!” Foolish waves a hand and sure, Juanaflippa looked a little bit more green than usual and yes she did come back from hell with the ability to teleport, but he wasn’t that concerned.
“I just haven’t done any parent tasks yet,” Charlie says, pointing to her green colour. “And she’s getting pretty good at teleporting.”
“Slime, she’s glitching.” Foolish tries, desperation creeping into his voice ever so slightly. Charlie places a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.
“Foolish, she’s fine. Flippa would tell me if something was wrong!”
“I don’t think you could see wrong if it was standing right in front of you.” Foolish mutters and Charlie ignores him as Flippa runs over. She stretches a hand up and Charlie takes it immediately. Flippa raises the empty gun and Charlie nods, a silent promise to get her more ammo, before turning to Foolish and insisting they need to get going.
There was something about how Foolish was looking at him that should have stopped Charlie.
Something about how his eyes seemed to linger for far too long and there was as dull look like he knew something Charlie didn’t.
But Charlie didn’t stop. He took Flippas hand, felt a rush of energy go up his own, and they left.
That’s when it went downhill.
Charlie clambers down the ladder to his base, turning to Flippa and offering a smile when he sees her sitting cross legged on top of her bed expectantly.
His hand has started hurting recently and Charlie doesn’t feel like it’s a ridiculous claim to say he looks more… green than usual?
There’s black too. Like his hand has been dunked in an inkwell and little green symbols are appearing on top and through it.
“Hey, Flippa, is going to hell…” Charlie turns his hand over, frowning as little neon green 1’s and 0’s fizzle away, “contagious..?”
Flippa shot him a funny look and shook her head.
“No, I didn’t think so.” Charlie hums to himself, shaking his hand as if it’s water he can just fling away. “Weird.”
Are you sick?
The sign appears by Juanaflippas bed and she points to it insistently. Charlie shakes his head.
“No, I don’t think so. We’ve just been spending so much time together, you’re rubbing off on me.” Charlie looks at his hand and feels the buzz of energy. Literally rubbing off on him.
“Charlie?” Phil asks, closing the distance they had between them. The waystone Phil came through was still buzzing with energy, static zaps flying off it in every direction. Charlie stops in the door frame to let him leave so he could head back to eggxile to meet back up with Flippa.
“Oh, Phil! I haven’t seen you in ages, man. How’re you doing?”
“Uh,” Phil hesitates, looking him up and down. “Yeah, mate. Good.”
“Nice!”
“Charlie, are you—” Phil pauses, staring at him. “Are you code?”
“What?”
“Your arm.” Phil says and he grabs it tentatively, examining the skin. “What the fuck, Charlie?” He says it with no real malice, just a light hearted tone and wheezy laugh, but for Charlie it cuts deep. In a twisted kind of way, that part of him felt like a physical connection to Flippa.
Like all his love for her had manifested into a little mark. A little piece that he could carry around with him anywhere and anytime.
“I’m not turning into anything.” Charlie responds, taking his arm back and rubbing at the blackened skin. “It’s just… just the sun rays in eggxile are really bad.”
“You’re blaming a bad tan on turning into code?” Phil says incredulously. “Mate, look at it!”
“Yeah, well, it’s—” Charlie stutters, blindly looking for any kind of excuse to come to him with awkward little waves. “I just need to wear more sunscreen!”
Phil’s face sets in a worried expression and Charlie excuses himself but his eyes catch on the little movement Phil makes to the communicator on his belt.
A little voice in Charlies head screams danger. It screams jealousy.
They’re going to take Flippa away.
Charlie leaves much faster than he’d like to admit and the next few days are spent bouncing his leg nervously and teaching Flippa to fight just so he knows they both have a blade on them at all times.
He feels the code spread to his chest first. Everytime he hugs Flippa, holding her protectively and reminding her that he’s here to stay and this time, nothing will hurt her, he can feel electricity buzz.
It doesn’t hurt at first but then he can feel it like muscle pulling on muscle.
Everytime he crouches down or sits, he feels the tension in his back.
Charlie will never say no to carrying Flippa, will never say she can’t have a piggy back, but everytime he feels a piece of him eaten away by a buzzing pain that never leaves.
“We’re just going on a vacation.” Charlie says once the stress and sleep deprivation start to eat away at him.
Really, it’s not a lie. Their house on a little island that Charlie had dubbed egg-xile was great and all, but it wasn’t exactly exile. People came and visited all the time, especially after Flippa came back.
He wasn’t going to keep risking Flippa by staying here. Especially not when so many people were telling him that she wasn’t real. That she was dangerous.
There was this pit building in the bottom of Charlie’s stomach that told him it wasn’t safe here anymore. A biting, gnawing feeling that was eating away at him and telling him that if he keeps staying, who knows what the other people on this server might do about the fact he got his daughter back.
He couldn’t tell if they were jealous that Flippa got more chances, genuinely worried after she came back from the dead, or if they truly, unjustly believed Flippa was code, but Charlie wasn’t going to risk it any longer.
(And if she was, does he care? If all the pains and aches were caused by his body turning into code, did it matter if he had his daughter by his side?)
Vacation? Flippa asks through a sign. Or something to that effect. It was getting harder and harder to figure out what she was writing through all the numbers and misspellings. His heart hurts just a little bit for what must have happened to her while she was dead. Something had scrambled her mind and Charlie hopes, almost everyday, that she’ll be okay by the end of it.
“Yeah!” Charlie says cheerily, hoping his worry doesn’t come through in his tone.
He gets them off the island and into a boat within the hour.
Flippa curls up against him, awake much later than her bed time, and Charlie holds her steadily and wraps her in a blanket like it’s him and this blanket protecting her against the world and nothing else.
Charlie’s whole body was unrecognisable. He could see bits of code floating up past his eyes and his hands tingle whenever he holds anything. He was changing to the point where he was just like Flippa. He was seeing what she saw. A darker world with flecks of green darting past, blurring like an unfocused camera.
He doesn’t know how far they go. He doesn’t know where they end up. Just that once he’s run out of ocean, he crosses biome after biome to keep them going.
New areas load in that Charlie would never have dreamed of seeing. Huge redwood trees and mulchy forest ground, then a swamp, a grassy plain, a flower hill that seems to stretch for miles, and then a cliff face where birch wood crowds around an opening and there’s a fallen log that seems too perfect for him to not bother setting up a camp.
His limbs feel heavy when he sits down on the fallen log. He could smell the sea below the face of the cliff, a cool salty breeze that brushed past them.
Their makeshift tent was off to the side and Charlie had every intention of bundling up nice and warm once the sun had finished setting, but for now it was nice to just sit with Flippa and watch the sky turn a golden, orange. Slowly shifting in a deep purple like it was reflecting the colours of a bruised mango.
“Flippa?” Charlie whispers and he can see his daughter, his beautiful daughter, smile at him.
Through a green tinted lens and a world that looks like it’s fraying at the seams. Charlie still thinks it’s beautiful.
Charlie still thinks he would change the world and still thinks he would tear down civilisations brick by brick for her.
“Flippa, are you real?” Charlie asks and in a heartbeat her face drops and she takes his hand. He feels his pulse speed up. She places a sign down.
What do you mean, papa?
He could read it perfectly now. Like there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. Like this whole time she’d been writing signs fluently and there was never a moment where Charlie could doubt any part of that.
Charlie takes a deep breath. Feels the world shake beneath him like he’s a part of it. Like he’s becoming apart of it.
“You’re not Flippa, are you?” Charlie whispers. “It’s okay.”
Juanaflippa hesitates and then another sign comes down.
No. Flippa writes. Charlie feels his heart sink and his stomach stir as she writes another one.
I’m not who you lost.
But I am still her.
She squeezes Charlie’s hand reassuringly and it’s all he needs. It’s all he needs in this world, where it’s always been him and his daughter against everyone else.
This might not be the original Juanaflippa, but that didn’t change all the memories he’d made with her and the fact that he’d been raising her.
That this is still Flippa, in a different way.
Are you okay with being like me? Flippa scribbles down and Charlie’s eyebrows knit together.
“Like what, Flippa?” Charlie questions and she looks him up and down. Charlie glances at his body. At the code covering him. “A code?”
Juanaflippa nods. He takes a soft breath.
“Of course I am.” Charlie says and he smiles, pulling her close. “I still get to be with you, don’t I?”
That pain in his bones from becoming code is nothing but a dull ache, really. One that he's certain he'll learn to live with and love because it's that very ache that's keeping him tied to his daughter.
His Flippa.