Okay, so this is my first story in the 'Future' sequence, set after Randall's 'banishment'. Now, before we start, I want to ask a quick (but obscure) question- does anyone know, approximately, how long it would take to get from Louisiana to England, using pretty much any mode of transport? It'd be really helpful, if anyone knows, to say so in a review. Thanks!

Oh, and of course, the disclaimer- I do not own anything that Pixar owns. Easy enough. And, in the words of...someone, "You no touchy my characters!" (It's actually meant to be, 'you no touchy my slorgs!', but I adapted it.)

Storm In A Teacup

Chapter 1- Number 14, Monstropolis High Street

"Storm Blue or...Lightening Blue?"

"Is there any difference?"

"Well, they cost the same. Storm Blue's a little darker, though, more moody."

"Perfect."

"Actually, I think it's a bit too dark..."

"Which is exactly why we're gonna get it." He hefted four large paint cans into their rusty old trolley, and dusted his hands off, momentarily flashing a teasing grin.

They moved onto the next aisle, Zephyr leading and Randall, pushing the overloaded trolley, lagging behind. He hated shopping, and the grimace, which, as a matter of fact, happened to be his current auto-pilot, and that had been resumed after this little discussion, proved it. Randall growled; one of the wheels on the trolley was bent, making the cart leer towards the left and bash into the shelves.

"We need some accessories." Randall left the trolley where it was, and patted quickly up to Zephyr, panting a little, brows furrowed.

"What do ya mean, 'accessories'?" he sneered, emphasizing the quoted word sarcastically.

"Stuff to make our shop look, well..." Zephyr shrugged. "Nice."

"I'm sure it'll be fine without these 'accessories'." Randall stopped suddenly, grabbing Zephyr's hand before she could get her hands on some pink cushions she had just spotted in the next row. "Let's just do all of the hard graft to begin with, and worry about the rest of it later, huh?"

"Fine," Zephyr grumbled. "Hey...where's the trolley?"

"I left it back there; one of the wheels is bent, and it's decided to play drunk."

"Yeah," Zephyr nodded. "Of course." And before Randall could begin his protest, holding up a finger in anger, she continued, "Just get on with pushing the trolley, so we can pay for the stuff. And do me a favour- don't injure or kill- or just physically harm anyone in general on the way, okay?"

Their shop, though small and cramped and, at that moment, eerily bare, had a relatively prime location near the conclusion of Monstropolis High Street, close to where a lot of pedestrians would pass by. They had bought it a good two weeks ago, and included in the sale had been the upstairs two-bedroomed flat- equally as small, but positively cosy.

Three large panes of glass were positioned around the crumbling green front door of the main shop, and, being the only source of light, and remaining with over a decades worth of grime and dust, the whole room itself was startlingly dark. Randall had planned to give the windows a once-over the previous week, but circumstances had caused the idea to be delayed until that day, and as he and Zephyr entered their new home for only the third time, he silently made a note of it, adding it to his already lengthened to-do list; the wooden floorboards desperately needed a sanding.

Along with Zephyr, he dumped their numerous shopping bags down onto the dirty, bare floor, sighing with contentment. And, although, as their bags were dropped down, the uppermost layer of dust upon the floor was sent drifting into the air as a cloud of germs, reminding Randall of just how much he and Zephyr had to do, knowing that he actually owned a part of this enterprise made him experience a warm, pleasant feeling that rarely came for the lizard-monster- his life hadn't exactly been full of happiness, let alone luck.

"Tea or Coffee?" Zephyr stroked her chin, pretending to be deep in thought, and eventually decided.

"Coffee, and make it strong."

"A woman after my own heart." Laughing, Zephyr lifted the first paint tin out of one of the bags, the rustling plastic punctuating her soft chuckling. There was a hint of forcedness in her laughs though, and in her next sentence.

"Tell me about it!"

The sun somehow managed to appear twice its usual size through the kitchen's half-open blinds, and its sudden largeness also accounted for its own brightness- it was late afternoon, and should've been a lot darker. The apartment had been sorted out long before the shop below; Randall had been getting increasingly fed up with staying at one of Zephyr's friend's house, and he was sure that Zephyr herself had had mutual feelings.

And, though a few of the rooms were still a little dirty, the whole flat had a strong essence of homeliness about it, as though it was the setting of some fairy tale that had a happy ending, as all fairy tales do. It was this general atmosphere, along with the cost, that had made Zephyr and Randall finally agree to buy the place, and with their business only a staircase away, it was too convenient an offer to miss.

Randall thought about these things as he prepared the refreshments, and, soon enough, his mind drifted to the only concern he had really suffered over the past few weeks- his relationship with Zephyr. At the very beginning of, what Randall had first branded the whole idea of owning a shop, this absurd proposal, they had both agreed to keep it strictly business. They, of course, would remain firm friends, though sometimes Zephyr seemed to imply that she wanted something more out of their interactions.

But, what was worse about the whole situation was the fact that Randall sometimes doubted even being just friends with Zephyr. He certainly had his reasons for not trusting her, but the problem was that the lizard-monster had a lot of questions- questions that (and he almost knew this for a fact) she, Zephyr, could answer. And being friends with her- good friends, maybe even best friends- would get him those answers, answers that he dearly needed to be able to get on with his life.

Randall stopped stirring the liquid and lay the teaspoon on top of a growing pile of washing-up, sighing.

And what made the whole situation even worse was that tiny, minute part of him, deep inside, that wanted to be able to love Zephyr, like he once had all those years ago, back when, just for a little while, he had been happy.

The two mugs were steaming hot, but Randall didn't seem to notice this as he clutched them tightly with a pair of hands, trotting back down the winding wooden stairs that led to the back room of their shop. Zephyr smiled as he arrived, taking her usual mug and beginning to sip her beverage. Randall did this too, completely idle and unaware of anything happening other than the events in his own battered mind.

"Randall?" Zephyr said, spluttering slightly. He looked up slowly. "This is tea, deary, didn't you take any notice of what you were doing?" There was no reply, and so Zephyr put her mug on the floor and sat down on its bare wooden boards. "Obviously not," she muttered. Randall seemed happy enough with the tea, though- there were much more important matters on his mind. After five minutes of silence, Randall sitting on the staircase, drinking, and Zephyr testing out the paint, Randall got up, coughing a little, and took a new paintbrush out of a bag.

"I've just thought of something," he said, smiling. "We've gotta name the shop, right?"

"Not now, Randall; let's try the paint out first. Let's just hope Storm Blue is what it looks like on the tin."

"And you're not going to drink your tea?"

"If I'd fancied tea, I would've asked for tea." Randall rolled his eyes and bent over, dunking his paint brush in the mass of blue and revelling in the large blob that had attached itself to the unicorn hairs. He painted for a good five minutes, doing a middle section of a wall, whilst Zephyr remained on the floor, starting with the edging.

"Would you get out of my way? I'm trying to paint down here, and doing the border's a lot more challenging than just splattering paint on walls."

"Ooooh, someone's in a mood today!" Randall said, batting a hand. Zephyr narrowed her eyes, took a deep breath, and carried on.

Another five minutes later, and the untouched cup of tea that had been left on the floor was now all over the part of the wall where Randall had been previously.

Randall gulped quickly, looking at where he had just been a second ago, and stared, shocked, at Zephyr.

"What was THAT for?!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms up.

Randall was surprised by this sudden outburst; Zephyr was usually so calm, so peaceful, always seeming to be without a temper. And now, here she was, throwing tea at the walls, like some mad, enraged monster (which, technically, at that time, she was) that's allergic to tea.

"Nothing," she whispered, no hint of emotion coming through in her voice.

"Nothing?! You could've cut me with that mug! Zephyr, what the hell's WRONG with you?!" On the other hand, Randall wasn't surprised at his own outburst; on the contrary, he actually expected it. "You've been moody all morning, and I just can't see what I've done wrong! Is it about the shop? About...about the décor?" Randall knew that he was missing the reason by a long shot, but pure affection for Zephyr stopped him from pinpointing the real cause of all of this. "Was it something I said?" he murmured quietly, sitting down next to her.

"Yes, it was." Randall shrugged slightly, and then put a hand on Zephyr's shoulder, pulling her gently closer.

"Could you be a little more specific?" Zephyr obviously could- she began talking very quickly, but very quietly, as though she were worried that someone might hear her.

"In the past two weeks, we've talked about a lot of things, mostly to do with the shop, but one subject that seems to be constantly on your mind is about when...when we were in the Human World. You keep going on about the things that happened there, when I've told you SO many times that I just can't explain some things! You know why," she said, glaring at Randall. "And yet you're happy to continue bothering me. Well, I'm just getting sick and tired of you jabbering on about stuff that you don't know even the half of." Having released the thoughts and feelings that she had kept entrapped for two weeks on the trot, Zephyr stroked Randall's fronds affectionately, and then turned to squeeze him tightly, lovingly. "I'll tell you everything one day. I promise," she whispered into his ear.

She let go eventually, and the two of them acted as though their previous conversation had never happened. Randall chuckled at the large tea stain spread across the side of one wall.

"Storm Blue and tea. Lovely combination."

"Like a storm in a teacup!" Randall smiled at the clever pun, then pointed at Zephyr.

"That's perfect..." he said, seeming to be in awe.

"What is?"

"Storm in a teacup...That could be the name of our shop!" Zephyr smiled as though the very idea was ridiculous.

"Randall, that's just pathetic..." she said, shaking her head.

"Well, what's wrong with it?" Randall protested, putting a hand on a hip. "The paint is Storm Blue, and the whole 'teacup' part could refer to the café at the back! We are having a café, right?" he added, checking that his facts were indeed true.

"Yeah...I guess...I don't know, though..."

"Do you know any other shop with that name?"

"No..."

"Well, there ya go then." Zephyr took another deep breath, looking at Randall in an almost blissful manner, and took his hand.

"Storm In A Teacup, it is."

The couch sunk down to almost floor level every time its owners would sit on it, but it sure was comfy. The very fabric it was woven of screamed with cosiness, and though, at the same time, it would also scream of bad posture, to sink into it at the end of a hard day's work with your nose to the grindstone, (or your whole body, for that matter- painting had made Randall and Zephyr's joints ache terribly) was a very pleasurable and relaxing way to conclude the working hours.

Hot slime had, of course, been made, (Randall had managed to get the order right this time, which was good practice for his future career of waiting on people as well as running the till at the front of the shop) and as the pair of soon-to-be business monsters gazed into the fireplace before them in silence, the cackle of the flames filling their minds of everything to do with winter- snow, Fredelion (the local holiday, equivalent to our Christmas), and, of course, nights in, sitting by the fire- they had mutually decided that, that evening, they wouldn't talk too much.

Reason Number One For Why These Two Quite Obviously Made A Good Couple- they could just sit there, for hours on end, not needing to say anything to each other, but still managing to have conversations of surprising depth.

"Hey, Zephyr?"

And Reason Number Two For Why These Two Quite Obviously Made A Good Couple (sounds like one of those dating shows, doesn't it?)- when one of them would interrupt this perfect silence, the other wouldn't get in the least bit annoyed. Most of the time, that is.

"Yeah?"

"About the shop...Well, are we having a café or not? I don't really see the point- it's not like anyone will pass by our shop and go, 'oh, look, there's a shop of diverse interest which sells weird objects and books that you can't buy anywhere else, which means that there's a café round the back!'"

"Okay, okay, point taken. But we've just got to advertise- Monsters, Inc. is just down the road, and after everything that's happened there, the second they hear about a new café, the closest café to the company, they're gonna come flocking!"

"Hmm...Yeah, I guess. Was their canteen destroyed as well, then?"

"Yep. You should have a look some time- it isn't a pretty sight." Randall nodded.

"Okay...So that's decided then? Because, y'know, it's gonna make a lot of work- we'll have to do up the back room as well, for the café, and the side room for the kitchen."

"Well, if you're up for it, then I am."

"And..." Randall bit his tongue. He knew that the next subject was something of a touchy nature, but he needed to discuss it, otherwise let guilt overcome him. "And the shares..."

"Randall..." came the annoyed reply.

"I know, I know...But we've got to talk about this."

"No, we don't," Zephyr muttered sternly.

"It's just that you're paying for so much of all of this, and then we're going fifty-fifty with the profits-"

"Randall, I don't care! Alright? I've told you, I've come into some money, and it's enough for the shop." She got up, putting her empty mug on the table and wrapping her dressing gown tightly around her white structure. "And anyway, you deserve fifty percent of the profits- you're putting as much work into this as I am, so stop moaning." Though Zephyr had put up a reasonable argument, Randall still looked slightly disgruntled. "You're sweet, Randall, really sweet, but you shouldn't worry about these kind of things. Now, I'm going to bed. I'll see you in the morning, huh? Randall?"

"...Yes."