(Reading my three-shot prologue "Don't Bite The Hand That Feeds You" is recommended, but not entirely necessary if you want to read this. Basically "Don't Bite The Hand That Feeds You" explains how Randall got back to Monstopolis in the first place, and has a lot of Boo. c:
Anyway, a few notes~!
Chapters of this fic are going to be longer than my previous prologue, and thus, I won't be updating every day. I'm hoping once a week, maybe twice if I'm lucky. I don't have a definite length yet, but I don't think it will be much more than ten chapters. There are NO shipping in this other than the canon Celia and Mike. Everything in this fic is strictly platonic, so please no comments about shipping or asking me to make it shipping.
Lastly, the title is probably going to change. I found another fic with pretty much the same title, but right now I can't think of a new one, so it'll stay the way it is.
Also, follow this fic's tumblr at thescalypurplemonster on tumblr~! There will be lots of art
Without further ado, let us begin~!)
Sneaking around was easy when you could turn invisible, or blend into the foliage. Once in a while his tail accidentally brushed against something, but it was hard for any of the employees to blame the air for it brushing against their leg. He was pretty sure by now several of them thought the building was haunted.
He had made it three days without being sighted in the building. That had to be a record if anyone even played this warped game of hide and seek before. He probably would have made it longer if it weren't for the damn painter that tripped and fell off his ladder. Well the red paint splashed down on him, in the middle of the Laugh Floor, and anyone could guess what had happened next.
Sulley threw up several resumes he was looking over in fright as the alarm suddenly blared. He had no idea what it could be. There was no longer any chaos if by some chance a child did manage to wander into the factory. That had happened once in the past year. More or less rather than a city-wide panic, the child would just be taken back to their room and life would go on.
He felt a bolt of fear at the possibility that there could be a fire somewhere. And the first two things on his mind were Mike and Boo. Mike had taken her down to the caffe only fifteen minutes ago. He sniffed around for smoke, but the only scent he found was wood shavings (the door shredder was just down the hall).
"PRESIDENT SULLIVAN!" a bee-like monster shrieked—a new recruit named Marley, "PRESIDENT SULLIVAN, SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED!"
"Where is Mike and Boo?" he instantly demanded, his voice high with panic. She shakily pointed an antenna down the hall and Sulley took off without another word.
The three year old hoisted over his shoulder, Mike was in hot pursuit, following the trail of red paint, and the very distinctive foot prints left from it. Panicked, Randall bolted down the hall. His camouflage was futile covered in so much red paint. Trying to shake it off did very little; it stuck to him like glue.
"Mike?" Sulley called from the end of the hall, seeing his friend bolt toward him in a blind panic. Boo was the only one that remained calm, if not a a little dizzy from being shaken so much in the run.
"Sulley, he's coming right towards you!"
"Who is-oh." The larger monster could only stand there for a moment, his hands falling to his sides as he stared on in utter disbelief. But he knew he needed to act fast.
Randall slammed his several limbs down onto the tile to stop himself, but all that did was make him gain speed as his paint-wet feet slid across the slick floors, towards Sulley. Before Randall had a chance to attack the brute or slam into him, there was a flash of silver, a sharp pain, and suddenly all went black as he was once again vanquished by probably his worst foe on earth:
The shovel.
"Deep breaths, Mike," Sulley encouraged soothingly, even as his own voice shook with fear. He felt the urge to rip that paper bag from his assistant's hands. Gods knew he needed it just as much.
"Deep breaths!" Mike laughed, his tone high pitched and hysterical. "Deep breaths you're telling me? Is there supposed to be a WAY I'm supposed to stay calm with that...that...CREATURE back into our lives?" he spat.
"Mike," Sulley snapped. "Calm down, you're scaring Boo."
The green monster looked over to where Boo was hiding behind Sulley's leg, peering out with nervous, brown eyes. "Well isn't that ironic, the nightmare that tried to kidnap her is back and I'm the one she's scared of."
"Mike," Sulley groaned. "Just...calm down. We need to stop and think, and gather ourselves, and-"
"Michael!"
Sulley groaned again. So much for keeping calm.
"Oh, Smoochy-Poo!" Mike practically blubbered out, his eye quivering and nearly tearing as he ran to her. Sulley rolled his eyes.
Celia ran to her googybear and scooped him up into a hug, covering his face in candy kisses. Her hair did as well. "Michael, I was so worried!" She brushed a loving hand across his face. "Are you alright, Googly Bear? I heard what happened, and..."
"Oh Celia, it was awful!" Mike cried, throwing the back of his hand to his forehead dramatically. "I thought I was done for! A goner! He rushed at me, and he—he tried to jump on me! He tried to strangle me!" Celia gave a gasp of horror and Sulley snorted. "but I grabbed a shovel, and-"
Sulley interrupted Mike's theatrics."You grabbed the shovel?"
"Well..." Mike rephrased. "Sulley may have actually hit him, but I was the one who cornered him, and I told him-"
"Yeah," Sulley snorted again. "Thanks for that, hero. I'm gonna go see if our hostage is awake yet." This got Mike's attention.
"I'll come with you! Can we bring the shovel?"
"No. Celia, watch Boo for us please?"
With the three year old safely in the care of the female monster, Sulley and Mike made their way cautiously down to the boiler room.
Captured. Again. Immobilized and bound—this time way worse than before. At least back in that filthy circus wagon he was able to move around, be it only one step forward, and one step backwards. He had even had the freedom of climbing onto the ceiling.
Chained like the criminal he was to the boiler pipes below the factory, the only wiggle room the reptile had was the ability to kick his feet up and down. Four sets of his six legs were cuffed to the metal (a sloppy job by a panicked Fungus), and a large rope had been slipped around his neck like a leash, tied to another one of the pipes. It was tied expertly, lax just enough to allow him to breathe, but tight so that he couldn't pull away from the pipe.
The hot air radiating from the boiler felt nice on his skin. Being a reptile, he always preferred working down here as opposed to the highly air conditioned floors above. It was almost a blessing to be working down here on the contraption instead of the climate upstairs. To everyone else it was air conditioned, to him it was freezing cold.
He'd been here for hours, at least two, and his limbs were stiff and sore by the time footsteps finally thudded down the stairs. He heard two sets. Heavy, unfortunately familiar feet, and smaller, skinnier feet. Probably green.
"Lizzy!" came a sudden voice from behind. Sulley whirled to find Boo, groaning. Celia must have been going out of her mind with worry right now.
"Young lady, what are you doing down here?" he scolded her. She shuffled guiltily on her feet, trying that timid little smile that always melted his heart. He sighed and plopped her into Mike's arms. "Alright fine, if you want to stay down here you need to stay on these steps. Understand me? No going near Randall. Stay with Uncle Mikey." She nodded her head in understanding.
"I'm a reptile, you know," Randall said dryly to Sulley as the grim faced monster approached him. "If this is your idea of torture, you might want to try a little harder than just put me down in a warm room."
Sulley snorted. "We're not like you, Randall, and we don't do that. " Though I might not mind making an exception for you...
"Me? When have I ever tortured anyone?"
The larger monster's lips pulled back in a snarl as he glanced pointedly over to Boo.
"Oh yes, that," Randall began. "That wasn't torture, Sullivan, that was just drastic measures taken necessary for our world's survival."
"It would have killed her!" Sulley hissed back.
"Maybe and maybe not! I never got a chance to test it, and it doesn't really matter anyway, does it?"
Mike scowled at his enemy, his one eye narrowing furiously. "It would have killed me, Lizard Boy! You were going to test it on me! I saw what it did to Fungus! You would have suffocated us both!"
"Oh trust me, I would loved to have suffocated you for sure," Randall snapped back at the annoying, two legged pea. "Never mind the kid, as long as I could finally get rid of-" Sulley finally let out a warning roar and took a step toward the lizard. A loud cry of "No!" from Boo was all that kept him from tearing him apart.
Randall lowered himself to the ground, biting back the many things he wanted to say to the brute. He wasn't in the position to be issuing threats right now.
"No..." Boo whispered again, pleading brown eyes staring up at her Kitty. Randall looked at her. It had only been a few days since he'd seen her, and even though he was well aware he'd probably end up seeing her everyday when he got back here, he at least hoped for more of a break than this.
Sulley growled and stepped protectively in front of the three year old, even though she was far away from him and he was bound.
"Oh please, what am I gonna do to her? I don't even have my scream extractor anymore thanks to you. You think I'm just gonna put her in a giant industrial blender or something?"
"I wouldn't put it past you," Sulley snorted.
"What could I possibly have to gain from that?"
"What did you have to gain from your scream extractor?"
An unreadable expression crossed Randall's face; it was conflicted between bitterness and pain. "A lot more than you think," he muttered. "You have no idea..."
Mike eventually rolled his eyes, fed up with this. He set Boo down on the bottom step and stormed over to his best friend and foe. "Look, Sull', I don't know why we're wasting time here. Let's just throw him in another door and be done with it!" He smirked at the lizard. "Hey, you like the heat, scaly. How about a volcano?"
The spotted monster growled. "What, just so he can show his ugly face back around here in another year? No way, we need to find something else to do with him. Banishment is out of the question, he'll just sneak into some other kid's door."
"Not if we throw him into a volcano," Mike muttered. "The longer we keep him here the more it's jeopardizing the other kids, especially Boo." He glanced over at the toddler, who he noticed, didn't appear overly shocked at the monster's appearance, nor very nervous. Well she is three.
"Look, I never had anything against the kid," Randall snapped. "I wasn't just capturing her for the sake of capturing, or killing her for the sake of killing her. She was just a convenient tool at the time, and a guinea pig for my machine."
"Actually, I believe I was the guinea pig," Mike snapped back. Randall ignored him.
"The kid...Boo is safe from me," the lizard promised sincerely. "I'm not gonna hurt her."
"That's right you're not because you're never going near her," Sulley growled. "And if you're not here for her, what are you here for?"
Randall's lips turned down in a furious scowl. "I'm here because this is my home!" he barked. "I'm here because it's where I live, this is my job, and-" He shuddered as images flashed through his mind of deranged hillbillies and shovels "-and humans are psycho!"
"Well good, you should fit right in," Mike snipped. "If you hate humans so much, banishing you to a volcano would work perfectly. There's no civilization there!"
"Mike, just stop," Sulley snapped. He was at the end of his rope with the both of them.
"You don't even have the right to banish me," Randall snapped. "You never did—there was no trial, no anything. You just threw me out into the wild to die, and convicting monsters isn't even up to you!"
Sulley bit his tongue in annoyance, but there was guilt in his eyes, and defeat, because this was true. And even now, president of the company, he still didn't have the authority to banish Randall—at least not without CDA's consent (which he was quite certain they'd give). The only thing he would be able to do would be to fire him, but since the deranged monster wasn't even an employee... He was in a bind.
"Let's go, Mike," Sulley suddenly said, turning from Randall. He knew if he stayed much longer he'd probably do something to the monster, and Boo, strangely enough, didn't seem to want that. It struck him oddly how calm the little girl had been through all this. He knew she wasn't afraid of him anymore, but she wasn't even surprised.
"What, we're just gonna leave him here?" Mike asked incredulously.
"Yeah, we are. He can't go anywhere, not the way he's tied up. I just...need time to figure out what to do."
Randall scowled, perturbed he was going to be left down in the dark boiler room all night, but at least relieved they weren't tossing him back out into the human world—at least right now. His eyes fell on Boo, who had used the few seconds Sulley and Mike were distracted to come a little closer.
She gazed at him, more in curiosity than anything. It irked him to the ends of the earth that he couldn't scare her anymore (gods, maybe he was losing his touch). He stared at her, glaring more in annoyance than anything. He didn't feel the burning hatred he did back in Louisiana. He at least begrudgingly appreciated the shrimp was the only one that tried to show him any care.
Still, it didn't mean he liked her. "Beat it," he hissed to the girl. She stayed there, of course.
"Boo!" Sulley shouted fearfully, waving her over sternly. "Get away from him!"
"Oh yes, you don't want me to accidentally eat her," Randall deadpanned. Sulley gave a final, quiet snarl before disappearing back up the stairs with the two of them.
"So what are we doing, Pal?" Mike asked as the two walked up the steps back to the main floor. They kept their voices hushed, not many of the other employees knew Randall was back and they didn't want to start a panic. "How long are you going to pretend to think about what we'll do before you just chuck him in another door?"
Sulley shook his head. "You know we can't."
"Well fine," Mike sighed, the kind he always did when his best friend chose to make things exceptionally difficult. "So we'll tell the CDA he's back and they'll throw him through a door. Or prison." He shrugged. "Hey, either works for me."
Sully wasn't listening to Mike. He was too busy throwing a worried gaze at the little girl with her head over his shoulder, gazing back at the boiler room with an unreadable expression as he carried her off.
"Boo's been acting really weird the past few hours."
Mike just stared at him with his mouth half hung open like he was going to say something, and his hands gesturing wordlessly. "Well...duh," he finally said bluntly. "The psycho creep that tried to kill her a year ago is back. How would you feel, Pal?"
Sulley narrowed his eyes. "I know that, but she...the way she's reacting is weird." He thought back to the boiler room, how the little girl had willingly wandered to Randall's side, without fear. "I didn't think if she saw him again she'd want to just...go up to him."
Of course, they've only had little Boo back for not even a week. Who knew what all had gone on in a year. Although, he kept trying to reassure himself, the likelihood that anything happened with her and Randall was very slim.
He remembered the child shouting a panicked "NO!" when he lunged for the reptile, and that really made him thunderstruck. "She acted like she wanted to help him." Mike could see the pondering expression on Sulley's face, and the inner turmoil.
"Sulley, look, I like the kid as much as you do, but are we really taking the judgement of a three year old here? She's three! She doesn't even know how to spell her own name!" He cringed as Boo blew him a raspberry. "You see what I mean? How can we trust someone that gives that as a rebuttal?"
Sulley had to laugh. Trust little Boo to ease the tension with her adorable antics.
He pulled down on several switches, watching as the factory slowly became dim. He remembered when he first became president of the company. There was so many stressful responsibilities, but ludicrous that the light switches had been one of them.
He could never figure out which one was connected to which light. He almost made a fatal error at one point, shutting off the lights when there was still a monster in the building—a monster that had the door shredder on.
"Wait, why are you shutting the lights off already? Shouldn't we get Boo back home before it's too late?" Mike narrowed his eye at his friend, unable to keep the amusement off his face at Sulley's sheepish little smile.
"Well, she fell asleep before we had a chance to read our story last night," the large monster mumbled, and Mike knew he was thankful that his fur prevented a blush from showing. "I mean, as long as I get her back before six, it's around the time her mother wakes up, I noticed. I'll just take her back when she's asleep."
Mike threw up his hands in exasperation, but the smile on his face was even wider as he affectionately shook his head at his best friend. "You're impossible."
"Granted."
They opened the door to the apartment, and Boo squealed as she immediately spotted the bookshelf. She clambered down from Sulley's large arms, and raced over to the shelf, hopping up and down until she gained enough momentum to spring up and bat the book she wanted off the shelf.
Sulley laughed as he sat back against his easy chair. "I could have gotten it for you, you know." He opened his arms, and Boo hopped back into them, snuggling into the crook. She shoved the book in his face.
Sulley read the title. "The Mean Little Monster..." He raised a brow at the girl, but she only nodded for him to go on reading. So he shrugged and adapted a pacifying voice as he began reading.
"There was once a mean little monster named Flit. He loved to growl, roar, and stomp. He loved to frighten the other monsters on the playground. He had no friends, he wanted no friends. He thought having friends was silly..."
Sulley flipped the page of the book, glancing down occasionally at Boo. She marveled at the pictures, a finger touching the illustration of the green, mean monster.
"The other monsters on the playground were fed up with his scaring. They decided they would just ignore him." His voice started going strange as he continued to read. Boo didn't notice, her eyelids were falling. "And the mean little monster realized he hated being alone. It wasn't any fun."
He was sure if the child was a little more conscious the way his voice was now would probably be freaking her out. "The other little monsters knew he had been mean, but they felt bad for him." This was the worst book he had ever read, and not just for its short narration. "They decided to give him a second chance...to prove he could be a better monster. It was the right thing to do."
His hands finally lowered the book to his lap, the babyish croon in his voice gone. "And The Mean Little Monster learned to be nice to the other little monsters. He made lots of friends." Slowly, almost mechanically, he shut the book. "And they lived happily ever after..."
Boo was asleep, her head slumped over Sulley's arm. He placed a tender kiss on her brow before sinking into the chair further and shutting off the lights, wondering what he was supposed to do. He couldn't get that story out of his head now.
Gotta love the wisdom in a child's picture book.
