Post by linnellisgod on May 12, 2007 18:11:48 GMT -5
Hello!
This is a little plot bunny I've had rampaging madly about my mental garden for weeks now. I hope you enjoy it.
Summary: AU, set before the movie. Randall has what might be called an emotional breakdown... at the worst possible time and place.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in Monsters, Inc., even if I might privately wish to. After all, if I did, there'd be a sequal!
On with the show!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Walls Come Crashing Down
St. Ptero's day was a sort of holiday at Monsters, Inc.
the floors were open, but any moster who chose to was welcome to take the day off. And almost all of them did. The only exceptions were the few monsters who really cared about their numbers.
Sulley and Mike were there because they had a record to beat. And besides, what would they have been doing otherwise, playing charades?
And Randall, well, was Randall. Despite seeming to have a nasty cough, he'd shown up right on time, to the displeasure of all. He'd managed to terrorize Fungus into coming as well, and the four of them were the only monsters on the floor.
It was December, and Christmas was rapidly approaching. In fact, it was almost all the two top scarers could think about.
Sulley slipped out of his twenty-third door for the day, tired out from a morning's work and looking for an excuse to slow down. "So, you going to be spending any time with Celia's family over the holidays?" he asked Mike.
"Yup," Mike replied, grinning hugely, "The day before Christmas Eve, and then for another three days after boxing day. But the rest of the time I'm with my family."
"Isn't your aunt coming down from Fang Springs?" Sulley asked happy for his friend.
Mike punched a fresh door code into the keypad. "How do you know about that?" he asked curiously.
"I heard the message on the answering machine," Sulley replied with a shrug. Then he charged into the next door.
Mike leaned carelessly on the door frame, waiting for Sulley, and glanced over at Fungus, who was doing the same for his own own scarer at the station beside theirs. "How 'bout you? You got any Christmas plans?" he asked.
Fungus pushed his glasses further up his face. "I'm going to South Spookvale to visit my parents," he confided, glowing with excitement.
Sulley reappeared through the portal, slamming the door behind him and wiping his brow. "What was that?"
Just then Randall bolted out of his own door, and Fungus, giving a little gasp, quickly busied himself with bringing up a new one.
Mike, with a dirty glance at Randall, kindly explained for him. "Fungus is goin' to South Spookvale to see his parents."
Randall scowled and looked away, tapping his foot as the new door slid across the overhead tracks.
Sulley grinned. "Great! Got anybody else coming down?" he asked in his friendliest voice.
"My sister and her husband are bringing their new baby," Fungus said shyly.
Sulley and Mike vocalized their congrations, enthusiastic as only they could be. Fungus beamed with pride.
"I'm going to rent a winter cottage so my family can all meet up in Tentacle Lake," Sulley explained, taking a few minutes' break to chat. "There's about forty of us in total," he added with an embarrassed laugh.
"Forty?"Fungus asked in an awed voice.
He shrugged. "What can I say? We're Irish."
Randall, who had thus far not said a word since the last time he'd threatened Fungus, snarled in disgust. His eyes narrowed at their corners. Then he bolted through the next door.
Mike rolled his eyes, handing Sulley his cup of now-cold coffee. "What's he got against the Irish?" he demanded.
Fungus suddenly looked troubled. "Nothing. He's Irish himself," he said in a small voice, as if worried Randall would hear him.
"Really." Mike muttered.
Sulley scratched his kneck. "I guess "Boggs" is an Irish name," he said vaguely. Funny; he'd never really thought about Randall's ethnicity before. "Reptile" was all he'd really noticed.
Randall scuttled out of the door, the scowl etched even deeper into his face.
"Speak of the devil," Mike muttered under his breath.
Randall didn't seem to have heard him, and turned to Fungus, brushing distractedly at his fronds. "Get me coffee," he demanded. Fungus nodded frantically and scrambled over to the nearest coffee machine, about half the floor away.
Randall leaned against his assistant's desk, taking a slow breath. Sulley could understand him wanting to take a break; he'd been working full throttle since that morning, despite occasional coughing fits. Being the only scarer in the building seemed to bring out his competativeness.
"So, Randall," Sulley said conversationally, "What about you? You going to visit your parants?"
Randall seemed to stiffen, his jaw tensing. "No," he said thickly, eyes narrowing.
"Why not?" Mike asked, in a mildly challenging way.
It was perhaps the strangest reaction either of them had ever seen from Randall. The lizard monster's entire body froze, stiff and tense. His many hands shook slightly, and his fronds, too, quivered and lifted. An odd expression crept onto his face; His barely-visible nostrils flared and his eyes tightened at their corners, pupils darting from the wall, to the floor, to their confused faces.
Then, in one motion, he turned away and slithered towards the door, fading swiftly from view as he did so. A second or so later, the door leading to the locker rooms opened and closed with a bang.
Mike glanced warily at Sulley. "What was that all about?"
Sulley had no answer; he could only blink in surprise.
Fungus trotted over from the coffee machine, having abandoned his mission for coffee at the first sign of Randall's... reaction. His pokey face grew sombre. "You shouldn't have asked him that," he murmered, chewing uncomfortably on his lip.
Something was wrong here. Sulley could tell.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the deserted locker room, Randall shifted back into view, breathing hard, and glanced frantically about him to assure himself that he was alone.
By now his entire frame was shaking, and his breath caught raggedly in his throat. His eyes had gone bloodshot, angry pink forming a corona around each stunningly emerald iris. His chest ached and heaved.
He felt as though he might collapse at any second, and his rapid, shaking, frantic movements brought him to the sink counter. He propped himself up on his bottom hands and tried to make the world settle.
Looking up, he caught a brief glance of his face in the mirror. Then he leaned over and vomited into the sink.
Whether it was the acid in his throat, or the effort of puking, or simply the horrible emotion that had erupted in his chest, he'd never know. But hated tears began to leak from his eyes.
He took a shaky, half-aware gulp of water, sputtering and coughing, and then stood in place, bowed over the counter, panting for breath, for what seemed like ages. He blinked and clawed at them, but tears continued to snake down his face.
And now he cursed himself, his weakness and stupidity. He hadn't had a... meltdown like that, for months.
He looked up again at his sullen red eyes and scoffed. Pathetic. Nothing had even triggered it. Just one meaningless little question about his...
He choked on a sob, pushing it back down his raw throat.
It didn't make sense. He could stand to do into children's bedrooms, creep through the toys their parents had bought for them, hear them cry for their mothers, and it was never like this...
But his rivals' questions had pulled a plug somewhere. And now, now all he could see was the empty bathtub, his own miserable, friendless, loveless, pathetic, bitter existance. Look down at his hands and he'd see the roughened fingers of a slimy, jealous, orphaned creep.
Part of his was screaming to get it together, get things under control, prove who was the real weakling. But it didn't seem to matter anymore, not to the rest of him. Not compared to the mind-boggling, crushing emptiness he now felt.
How can emptiness be crushing? It has no weight. Gravity can't exist inside a vacuum.
Oh, shut it, his reflection seemed to snarl back at him.
Taking another long, shaky breath, he splashed water over his face and rubbed at his reddening eyes. That would have to be good enough; at least it hid the tearstreaks.
The sounds of conversation came to his ears, and then padding feet- far off but seeming to be closing in. Someone was coming. Taking a panicked breath, he cast about for anything that might reveal his presence and then swiftly vanished from sight. Then he scrambled for the back exit, the only hint of his presence a slightly blurred patch high in the air, the water that dripped off his face.
Still invisible, rubbing vainly at his leaking eyes, Randall darted through the hallways with unsteady, hurried steps. There was only one place he could think of going.
Reaching the end, or what appeared to be the end, of an obscure hallway, he revealed himself and fumbled for a few seconds with his tail before yanking on the hidden lever. The lair door creaked open before him.
He bolted down the darkened tunnel, pulling the door closed behind him. The tunnel was so long... it seemed as if he'd never reach the end. But at last he found himself in his familiar, quiet lair. The room he'd spent so many hours in, planning, assembling, working for something better. Something he felt sure now would never come.
He shivered, flopping over the work table onto the precious blueprints he'd agonized over for days. The only light in the room was from the tiny one-way window in the far corner, a weak sliver of December light.
Then the sobs thickened, rising up like sour wine, making his throat tighten and his body shake with effort.
Randall knew he had to pull himself together. He knew he couldn't stay in the lair all day, that soon enough he'd have to face up to the three monsters on floor F. Pick himself up from the rubble. Rebuild the walls that had come crashing down.
But the temptation to just lie there and cry was so strong... Give up, give in, curl up around the base of the half-finished Scream Extractor and just... just let it wash over him and cry until he fell asleep, and maybe it would look a little better when he awoke...
Some hope.
And so he slumped to the floor, and lay there, coughing and wheezing, desperately trying to choke back the gasping sobs. His whipcord body writhed across the cement floor.
Pathetic.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sulley's brow furrowed, in confusion. "Fungus, what's wrong? I just asked-"
Fungus shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't- I can't tell you."
"What?" Mike sputtered.
The little monster continued to shake his head, almost frantically. "I can't- but you shouldn't have asked-"
Mike grabbed him by the shoulders. "Fungus, what are you talking about?" he demanded.
Fungus quivered, and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he repeated, "He made me promise. I found out by accident, and- he made me promise I wouldn't tell anyone," he finished with an anxious swallow.
"Randall made you promise?" Sulley asked.
A nod from the little assistant. Mike gave him a slight shake. "C'mon, Fungus, are you gonna do everything that jerk tells you for the rest of your life?" he demanded.
Fungus shivered, but said nothing.
If Sulley hadn't been so curious himself, he would have wanted to punch Mike in the face for trying to manipulate Fungus with such a shameless bait. But he did want to know what was going on, so he gave his friend a sharp glare. Mike let go of the assistant's shoulders, and Sulley nodded chastizingly. Then he turned to Fungus.
"Listen," he said gently, "I just want to know what's wrong." He shrugged. "I've been working with the guy for almost two years, and I've never seen him act like this."
Fungus drew in a breath, looking briefly to Mike, then up at Sulley in earnest. "I'd like to tell you. You-you'd understand things a lot better. But I can't. I promised. He'd kill me.
"Besides," he added, as if trying to convince himself, "It's none of y-your business anyway."
Sulley sighed. "Please, Fungus, we just want to know so we can avoid this happening again. I swear I won't tell him you told us."
"Yeah, we won't even act any different! He'll never know!" Mike exclaimed, picking up where Sulley left off.
Fungus shook his head, looking at the ground. "But if you don't act any different then what's the point?" He said in a low murmur. Then he looked up at them. "Alright, I'll tell you. But you really mustn't let him know. Just- just think about it and don't talk about his parents ever again."
Mike looked mildly surprised, but it only confirmed Sulley's theory- that it had something vital to do with Randall's family. He bit his lip slightly, focussing attentively on Fungus.
The bespectacled monster took a deep breath. "Randall's an orphan," he said in a hushed tone.
Sulley's mouth fell open slightly. Mike's one eye opened very wide.
"You're surprised. He doesn't want anybody to know. I didn't even know until about a month ago," Fungus added, an echo of ruefull unease in his voice.
"How'd you find out?" Mike asked cautiously.
"I, um, He- got me to help him look for something in his college notes and I found a registration form that said he was a ward of the state."
Mike looked mildly confused. "So is that why he.." He gestured to the hallway door through which Randall had fled.
Fungus nodded. "It wasn't a good question. He's never even met his parents. They left him on the orphanage doorstep."
Sulley winced slightly, surprise robbing him of his voice. He'd never have imagined. And Randall, who he'd always thought to be such a nasty creep- had he simply misjudged him? Was his proud, diffident, caustic personality merely the result of years of...who knew?
He'd never though of Randall as damaged. But perhaps he should have known.
It expalined his reaction to the questions. How he'd frozen, how his face had tightened with what Sulley now recognized as agony. As hurt. And then...
Where was he now? Was he okay? Hurriedly he cleared his throat. "Uh, Fungus, maybe... you'd better go and see if he's..." he trailed off. He couldn't think of an ending to that sentance that wouldn't have been patronizing, that wouldn't have incensed and embarrased Randall hugely had he been there. Since suddenly the idea of joking about him behind his back seemed unbearably wrong.
Besides, Fungus seemed to get the idea. He glanced anxiously at the hallway doors. "Oh. Right. I'll, um, bring him his coffee," he said nervously, glancing at the rapidly-cooling mug in his hand.
Sulley nodded. "Er-good idea."
Mike didn't seem to have gotten the message. "You really think coffee's gonna be a big help right now?" he asked.
A smile stretched Fungus's mouth slightly. "You don't know Randall very well. Coffee always helps." Then he turned and trotted away.
A few long seconds later the double doors leading to the hallway closed with a soft clunch, and the floor was silent. Wordlessly, Sulley and Mike glanced warily at one another.
Then Mike typed in the code for a new door, and they reutrned silently to their work, though neither of them had their mind on the job.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fungus padded anxiously down the hall. The most obvious option was the locker room; Randall often splashed water on his face when he was particularly stressed. It was a coping method.
Approaching the locker room entrance, he paused to listen. Yes, there it was- the faint sound of running water. Taking a deep breath, he made his way inside.
The faint sound was gone, the room deserted. Fungus glanced about and scratched his chin, puzzled. Then he padded over to the sink counter, extending his legs fully to reach it.
The sink was still wet. Randall must have heard him coming. Turning, he shifted the coffee to his free hand. There was only one other place he could think of to look.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, there you have it, folks! Second chapter shoud be up in not too too long. Rehearsals are crazy right now in the play I'm in, but I'll get to work on it this weekend.
This is a little plot bunny I've had rampaging madly about my mental garden for weeks now. I hope you enjoy it.
Summary: AU, set before the movie. Randall has what might be called an emotional breakdown... at the worst possible time and place.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in Monsters, Inc., even if I might privately wish to. After all, if I did, there'd be a sequal!
On with the show!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Walls Come Crashing Down
St. Ptero's day was a sort of holiday at Monsters, Inc.
the floors were open, but any moster who chose to was welcome to take the day off. And almost all of them did. The only exceptions were the few monsters who really cared about their numbers.
Sulley and Mike were there because they had a record to beat. And besides, what would they have been doing otherwise, playing charades?
And Randall, well, was Randall. Despite seeming to have a nasty cough, he'd shown up right on time, to the displeasure of all. He'd managed to terrorize Fungus into coming as well, and the four of them were the only monsters on the floor.
It was December, and Christmas was rapidly approaching. In fact, it was almost all the two top scarers could think about.
Sulley slipped out of his twenty-third door for the day, tired out from a morning's work and looking for an excuse to slow down. "So, you going to be spending any time with Celia's family over the holidays?" he asked Mike.
"Yup," Mike replied, grinning hugely, "The day before Christmas Eve, and then for another three days after boxing day. But the rest of the time I'm with my family."
"Isn't your aunt coming down from Fang Springs?" Sulley asked happy for his friend.
Mike punched a fresh door code into the keypad. "How do you know about that?" he asked curiously.
"I heard the message on the answering machine," Sulley replied with a shrug. Then he charged into the next door.
Mike leaned carelessly on the door frame, waiting for Sulley, and glanced over at Fungus, who was doing the same for his own own scarer at the station beside theirs. "How 'bout you? You got any Christmas plans?" he asked.
Fungus pushed his glasses further up his face. "I'm going to South Spookvale to visit my parents," he confided, glowing with excitement.
Sulley reappeared through the portal, slamming the door behind him and wiping his brow. "What was that?"
Just then Randall bolted out of his own door, and Fungus, giving a little gasp, quickly busied himself with bringing up a new one.
Mike, with a dirty glance at Randall, kindly explained for him. "Fungus is goin' to South Spookvale to see his parents."
Randall scowled and looked away, tapping his foot as the new door slid across the overhead tracks.
Sulley grinned. "Great! Got anybody else coming down?" he asked in his friendliest voice.
"My sister and her husband are bringing their new baby," Fungus said shyly.
Sulley and Mike vocalized their congrations, enthusiastic as only they could be. Fungus beamed with pride.
"I'm going to rent a winter cottage so my family can all meet up in Tentacle Lake," Sulley explained, taking a few minutes' break to chat. "There's about forty of us in total," he added with an embarrassed laugh.
"Forty?"Fungus asked in an awed voice.
He shrugged. "What can I say? We're Irish."
Randall, who had thus far not said a word since the last time he'd threatened Fungus, snarled in disgust. His eyes narrowed at their corners. Then he bolted through the next door.
Mike rolled his eyes, handing Sulley his cup of now-cold coffee. "What's he got against the Irish?" he demanded.
Fungus suddenly looked troubled. "Nothing. He's Irish himself," he said in a small voice, as if worried Randall would hear him.
"Really." Mike muttered.
Sulley scratched his kneck. "I guess "Boggs" is an Irish name," he said vaguely. Funny; he'd never really thought about Randall's ethnicity before. "Reptile" was all he'd really noticed.
Randall scuttled out of the door, the scowl etched even deeper into his face.
"Speak of the devil," Mike muttered under his breath.
Randall didn't seem to have heard him, and turned to Fungus, brushing distractedly at his fronds. "Get me coffee," he demanded. Fungus nodded frantically and scrambled over to the nearest coffee machine, about half the floor away.
Randall leaned against his assistant's desk, taking a slow breath. Sulley could understand him wanting to take a break; he'd been working full throttle since that morning, despite occasional coughing fits. Being the only scarer in the building seemed to bring out his competativeness.
"So, Randall," Sulley said conversationally, "What about you? You going to visit your parants?"
Randall seemed to stiffen, his jaw tensing. "No," he said thickly, eyes narrowing.
"Why not?" Mike asked, in a mildly challenging way.
It was perhaps the strangest reaction either of them had ever seen from Randall. The lizard monster's entire body froze, stiff and tense. His many hands shook slightly, and his fronds, too, quivered and lifted. An odd expression crept onto his face; His barely-visible nostrils flared and his eyes tightened at their corners, pupils darting from the wall, to the floor, to their confused faces.
Then, in one motion, he turned away and slithered towards the door, fading swiftly from view as he did so. A second or so later, the door leading to the locker rooms opened and closed with a bang.
Mike glanced warily at Sulley. "What was that all about?"
Sulley had no answer; he could only blink in surprise.
Fungus trotted over from the coffee machine, having abandoned his mission for coffee at the first sign of Randall's... reaction. His pokey face grew sombre. "You shouldn't have asked him that," he murmered, chewing uncomfortably on his lip.
Something was wrong here. Sulley could tell.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the deserted locker room, Randall shifted back into view, breathing hard, and glanced frantically about him to assure himself that he was alone.
By now his entire frame was shaking, and his breath caught raggedly in his throat. His eyes had gone bloodshot, angry pink forming a corona around each stunningly emerald iris. His chest ached and heaved.
He felt as though he might collapse at any second, and his rapid, shaking, frantic movements brought him to the sink counter. He propped himself up on his bottom hands and tried to make the world settle.
Looking up, he caught a brief glance of his face in the mirror. Then he leaned over and vomited into the sink.
Whether it was the acid in his throat, or the effort of puking, or simply the horrible emotion that had erupted in his chest, he'd never know. But hated tears began to leak from his eyes.
He took a shaky, half-aware gulp of water, sputtering and coughing, and then stood in place, bowed over the counter, panting for breath, for what seemed like ages. He blinked and clawed at them, but tears continued to snake down his face.
And now he cursed himself, his weakness and stupidity. He hadn't had a... meltdown like that, for months.
He looked up again at his sullen red eyes and scoffed. Pathetic. Nothing had even triggered it. Just one meaningless little question about his...
He choked on a sob, pushing it back down his raw throat.
It didn't make sense. He could stand to do into children's bedrooms, creep through the toys their parents had bought for them, hear them cry for their mothers, and it was never like this...
But his rivals' questions had pulled a plug somewhere. And now, now all he could see was the empty bathtub, his own miserable, friendless, loveless, pathetic, bitter existance. Look down at his hands and he'd see the roughened fingers of a slimy, jealous, orphaned creep.
Part of his was screaming to get it together, get things under control, prove who was the real weakling. But it didn't seem to matter anymore, not to the rest of him. Not compared to the mind-boggling, crushing emptiness he now felt.
How can emptiness be crushing? It has no weight. Gravity can't exist inside a vacuum.
Oh, shut it, his reflection seemed to snarl back at him.
Taking another long, shaky breath, he splashed water over his face and rubbed at his reddening eyes. That would have to be good enough; at least it hid the tearstreaks.
The sounds of conversation came to his ears, and then padding feet- far off but seeming to be closing in. Someone was coming. Taking a panicked breath, he cast about for anything that might reveal his presence and then swiftly vanished from sight. Then he scrambled for the back exit, the only hint of his presence a slightly blurred patch high in the air, the water that dripped off his face.
Still invisible, rubbing vainly at his leaking eyes, Randall darted through the hallways with unsteady, hurried steps. There was only one place he could think of going.
Reaching the end, or what appeared to be the end, of an obscure hallway, he revealed himself and fumbled for a few seconds with his tail before yanking on the hidden lever. The lair door creaked open before him.
He bolted down the darkened tunnel, pulling the door closed behind him. The tunnel was so long... it seemed as if he'd never reach the end. But at last he found himself in his familiar, quiet lair. The room he'd spent so many hours in, planning, assembling, working for something better. Something he felt sure now would never come.
He shivered, flopping over the work table onto the precious blueprints he'd agonized over for days. The only light in the room was from the tiny one-way window in the far corner, a weak sliver of December light.
Then the sobs thickened, rising up like sour wine, making his throat tighten and his body shake with effort.
Randall knew he had to pull himself together. He knew he couldn't stay in the lair all day, that soon enough he'd have to face up to the three monsters on floor F. Pick himself up from the rubble. Rebuild the walls that had come crashing down.
But the temptation to just lie there and cry was so strong... Give up, give in, curl up around the base of the half-finished Scream Extractor and just... just let it wash over him and cry until he fell asleep, and maybe it would look a little better when he awoke...
Some hope.
And so he slumped to the floor, and lay there, coughing and wheezing, desperately trying to choke back the gasping sobs. His whipcord body writhed across the cement floor.
Pathetic.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sulley's brow furrowed, in confusion. "Fungus, what's wrong? I just asked-"
Fungus shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't- I can't tell you."
"What?" Mike sputtered.
The little monster continued to shake his head, almost frantically. "I can't- but you shouldn't have asked-"
Mike grabbed him by the shoulders. "Fungus, what are you talking about?" he demanded.
Fungus quivered, and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he repeated, "He made me promise. I found out by accident, and- he made me promise I wouldn't tell anyone," he finished with an anxious swallow.
"Randall made you promise?" Sulley asked.
A nod from the little assistant. Mike gave him a slight shake. "C'mon, Fungus, are you gonna do everything that jerk tells you for the rest of your life?" he demanded.
Fungus shivered, but said nothing.
If Sulley hadn't been so curious himself, he would have wanted to punch Mike in the face for trying to manipulate Fungus with such a shameless bait. But he did want to know what was going on, so he gave his friend a sharp glare. Mike let go of the assistant's shoulders, and Sulley nodded chastizingly. Then he turned to Fungus.
"Listen," he said gently, "I just want to know what's wrong." He shrugged. "I've been working with the guy for almost two years, and I've never seen him act like this."
Fungus drew in a breath, looking briefly to Mike, then up at Sulley in earnest. "I'd like to tell you. You-you'd understand things a lot better. But I can't. I promised. He'd kill me.
"Besides," he added, as if trying to convince himself, "It's none of y-your business anyway."
Sulley sighed. "Please, Fungus, we just want to know so we can avoid this happening again. I swear I won't tell him you told us."
"Yeah, we won't even act any different! He'll never know!" Mike exclaimed, picking up where Sulley left off.
Fungus shook his head, looking at the ground. "But if you don't act any different then what's the point?" He said in a low murmur. Then he looked up at them. "Alright, I'll tell you. But you really mustn't let him know. Just- just think about it and don't talk about his parents ever again."
Mike looked mildly surprised, but it only confirmed Sulley's theory- that it had something vital to do with Randall's family. He bit his lip slightly, focussing attentively on Fungus.
The bespectacled monster took a deep breath. "Randall's an orphan," he said in a hushed tone.
Sulley's mouth fell open slightly. Mike's one eye opened very wide.
"You're surprised. He doesn't want anybody to know. I didn't even know until about a month ago," Fungus added, an echo of ruefull unease in his voice.
"How'd you find out?" Mike asked cautiously.
"I, um, He- got me to help him look for something in his college notes and I found a registration form that said he was a ward of the state."
Mike looked mildly confused. "So is that why he.." He gestured to the hallway door through which Randall had fled.
Fungus nodded. "It wasn't a good question. He's never even met his parents. They left him on the orphanage doorstep."
Sulley winced slightly, surprise robbing him of his voice. He'd never have imagined. And Randall, who he'd always thought to be such a nasty creep- had he simply misjudged him? Was his proud, diffident, caustic personality merely the result of years of...who knew?
He'd never though of Randall as damaged. But perhaps he should have known.
It expalined his reaction to the questions. How he'd frozen, how his face had tightened with what Sulley now recognized as agony. As hurt. And then...
Where was he now? Was he okay? Hurriedly he cleared his throat. "Uh, Fungus, maybe... you'd better go and see if he's..." he trailed off. He couldn't think of an ending to that sentance that wouldn't have been patronizing, that wouldn't have incensed and embarrased Randall hugely had he been there. Since suddenly the idea of joking about him behind his back seemed unbearably wrong.
Besides, Fungus seemed to get the idea. He glanced anxiously at the hallway doors. "Oh. Right. I'll, um, bring him his coffee," he said nervously, glancing at the rapidly-cooling mug in his hand.
Sulley nodded. "Er-good idea."
Mike didn't seem to have gotten the message. "You really think coffee's gonna be a big help right now?" he asked.
A smile stretched Fungus's mouth slightly. "You don't know Randall very well. Coffee always helps." Then he turned and trotted away.
A few long seconds later the double doors leading to the hallway closed with a soft clunch, and the floor was silent. Wordlessly, Sulley and Mike glanced warily at one another.
Then Mike typed in the code for a new door, and they reutrned silently to their work, though neither of them had their mind on the job.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fungus padded anxiously down the hall. The most obvious option was the locker room; Randall often splashed water on his face when he was particularly stressed. It was a coping method.
Approaching the locker room entrance, he paused to listen. Yes, there it was- the faint sound of running water. Taking a deep breath, he made his way inside.
The faint sound was gone, the room deserted. Fungus glanced about and scratched his chin, puzzled. Then he padded over to the sink counter, extending his legs fully to reach it.
The sink was still wet. Randall must have heard him coming. Turning, he shifted the coffee to his free hand. There was only one other place he could think of to look.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, there you have it, folks! Second chapter shoud be up in not too too long. Rehearsals are crazy right now in the play I'm in, but I'll get to work on it this weekend.
