A New Life and Healing Ch 10
Disclaimer. I don't own Monsters, Inc or any of the characters in the movie.
And…a wonderful thank you to pitbulllady for beta reading and helping me out.
XXx
Randall woke up the next morning in the soft bed with Danielle wrapped contentedly in his arms. They'd tiptoed into the house very late the night before and snuck to their room, pausing only when they heard Liss's slow, rhythmic breathing hitch for a moment and then hear her mumble something about tacos in her sleep, making Randall and Danielle snicker. From there they had gone into the room and Randall had gently pushed Danielle back on the bed, feeling her smooth skin cold from the water. Kissing her, he began to show how romantic he could be when he tried.
He now smiled and pulled Danielle now warm and sleeping form tight against his chest and smelled her hair as he thought about last night. Though they would be leaving later today, he felt very relaxed and happy this morning. He smiled against her neck.
He slowly extracted himself from the bed without waking her and went to the bathroom and took a hot shower, enjoying the warm water running over his scales. When he was finished and had dried off, he padded through the cabin to the kitchen to start breakfast. He dumped some hash browns onto a cookie sheet and stuck them in the oven, and then he took two frying pans out and put them on the stove, one with sausages and the other for the eggs. The waffle batter only took a few minutes to whip up in a big bowl and he dumped big spoonfuls into three waffle irons that he had plugged in on the counter. He was just cracking eggs into a bowl when Liss walked in.
"It was supposed to be my turn to make breakfast," she said as she blinked, but then shrugged. She took some plates out of the cupboard and started setting the table.
"Yeah, I know," Randall responded. "I just felt like cooking."
She then giggled at him. "I don't get to hear too many guys say that."
Randall rolled his eyes. "Well, it's not like I'm cooking a gourmet meal here."
"Well…" Liss chuckled then, "I still don't know too many." She then walked over and took the bowl from him, saying, "here, I'll take over on the eggs, and began to whip them with a fork.
Randall nodded and went back to making the waffles. "Shit," Randall grumbled. "I forgot to put the coffee on!"
"I'll do it," Liss said going to the fridge to get some orange juice and grabbing the bag of coffee from the cabinet. "So how'd last night go?" she asked with a grin. She knew that he and Danielle had snuck out and back in.
Randall sent her a look as she giggled some more. "I'm not saying."
"Oooh, must have been good then." She winked as Randall rolled his eyes again. "So…I'm curious…why did you really come back with D?"
Randall blinked and then looked at her. "Well…. other than having no job and no family and no place to go…we had just agreed on trying the relationship…. that and the fact that I love her…." his voice had gotten a bit soft as if he couldn't believe that he still found someone to love after all this time.
"Uh huh…. and if you still had all that…. would you have still stayed with her?" Liss asked. She was blunt but she honestly wanted to know. She knew Danielle loved him and was willing to sacrifice and be bound to Randall, but she wanted to be sure on Randall's end. She couldn't let him hurt her best friend.
Again Randall thought and then looked up at Liss squarely in her black eyes. "I know what you are trying to do, Toots. Let's get it straight. Even if I had all that…I'd still leave it to be with her. I love her and I'll never hurt or use or leave her. Are you satisfied?"
Liss crossed her arms and stared at him and then smiled and nodded. "Quite, Randy."
He had turned back to the waffles but then his head swung around to look at her, but then didn't say anything as he flipped the waffles out with a fork before pouring more batter in.
As he did this and Liss poked the eggs around with the spatula they heard the shower start so they both knew that the coffee smell must have reached Danielle's nose.
"There are other things about her," Randall said, he wasn't sure why he was talking to Liss, they weren't close like she and Danielle were, but maybe he needed someone else to talk to- "Like... it's hard to describe, but it's a bit like having your own cheerleader."
Liss started pouring orange juice into glasses and she looked at Randall, one eyebrow up. "Oh?" she said with a widening grin.
Randall shook his head. "Not in the kinky porn kinda way... in an emotional way." He then snorted at her. "Is your mind always in the gutter?"
Liss acted like she had to think this question for a moment. "Yeah…. pretty much." She snickered. "So Danielle is like your personal cheerleader?"
He dumped the waffles onto a platter and set it on the table while Liss checked the hash browns. "She always encourages me, tells me how great I am, how proud she is. She makes me fell…loved, and appreciated. No one has ever made me feel like that before." He then added, as an afterthought, "at least, not anyone who actually MEANT it."
Liss smiled softly then. "It's because she loves you. She's only had those two boyfriends of hers. The first was okay, but…. they both still needed to grow up, the second only used her. Then she had that dry spell before you." Liss poked the sausages with the fork, turning them a little. She decided that they were done and scraped them off onto a platter with the eggs and speared one and bit into it. "You know Randall…. you are her first real love."
Randall had grabbed an oven mitt and pulled the hash browns from the oven, dumping them into another big platter. He then looked up at Liss. "Really?" His eyes widened.
"Yeah…. she 'loved' the first one as the same with the second. But I have never seen her as happy with any of them as I have seen her with you." Liss then pulled down coffee mugs and looked over at Randall.
Randall had been slightly shocked. Danielle never really talked about her ex's, but then again, neither had he. But to hear all this…Liss telling him that Danielle was happy with him…. Liss DID know Danielle a lot longer then he have.
It made him feel warm inside.
Danielle stumbled sleepily into the room and headed straight for the coffee. She poured her a cup and then blinked at the layout on the table. "Wow…. you both went all out…" she then tipped her head to kiss the bottom of Randall's jaw. Randall wrapped an arm around her and gave her a quick squeeze.
"Yeah, guess we did. Be leaving this afternoon…might as well make it a bit special." Randall said as he let her go and sat down at the table on a stool, Liss sitting across him and Danielle down beside him.
"Oh yeah…time flies when you're having fun," she sighed as she ate a bit of egg.
Liss nodded. "Yeah…but maybe we can come back in the fall. That'll be fun." She said as she began to eat as well.
Randall stared down at his food and then looked at Liss. "I know we said it before…but…. thanks again for inviting us."
"No problem Randall. Now…let's eat! This all looks so good!"
After breakfast, Randall and Danielle washed the dishes while Liss finished packing and loaded her car. Everyone noticed that each seemed to be a little sad that they were leaving and no couldn't blame them. Danielle felt reluctant to leave, too, and it surprised her. She had thought that she'd be busting to get back home. It seemed a shame to end it when they were all so happy.
"So whatcha gonna do about your folks?" Randall asked, nudging her with his elbow as he dried the plates she'd finished washing. The question took her a bit off-guard; she and Randall had talked about it, but she'd been trying to avoid thinking about it too much, especially when they were supposed to be relaxing and enjoying their get-away.
"Well," she sighed, passing him a plate, "I think my Mom's easy... she's grew up with those stories that I told you."
"Oh yeah…the Tainted Kitre…what was it again?" Randall tapped his lips.
"The LeTiche," Danielle nodded. "You could fit right in with the legends…. other than your accent." She grinned a little.
Randall rolled his eyes and he grabbed a fresh dishcloth and snapped it out, "again with the accent thing?"
Danielle giggled as she flicked soapy water at him "says the one that says, 'warsh'!"
Xxx
Liss dropped Danielle, Randall, Bread and their things off at the little house early that evening. The trip home hadn't been as fun as the first drive, since everyone was a little sad to be leaving.
After Danielle let Butter out of his carrier and fed both the cat and dog, she and Randall carried the two bags to the bedroom and began to put things away. After fooling and playing around a little, both were too tired to really cook, but they both hungry, so they moved off to the kitchen to make sandwiches for dinner. As Randall dug through the fridge for some ham, cheese, lettuce, mustard, and pepperoni to make them sandwiches, Danielle pulled down a bag of chips and two sodas. She sat down and handed Randal one and then opened the bag of chips.
Randall opened his soda and took a drink and then snickered at her hair. Her thick, soft normally- only- slightly- wavy hair was now even wavier and no longer all the same length as it was before. They had been making s'mores outside on the deck a few nights ago and Liss had cracked a sick joke and Randall had tossed a marshmallow at her. She had tossed it back...then Danielle had gotten in on it and all three started tossing marshmallows at each other and then one thing just led to another…and they found out that chocolate syrup, melted marshmallows, peanut butter and caramel topping was really hard to get out of hair! It had gotten into both girls' hair; Liss hadn't had too much trouble getting it out of her hair, but Danielle had gotten the worse of it, forcing Liss to resort to cutting off some of Danielle's hair, trying to give her a layered look, but it had ended up waving out and curling. It was now just past her shoulders again. Hearing Randall's snicker, Danielle sent him a look. "Don't start…."
"I thought I was the one that did start it?" he snickered as he ate a chip.
"That's my point. YOU started it."
"Liss did really…. it was a bad joke…"
" Must not have been TOO bad; YOU laughed!"
"It was a bad joke. At least we know not to do a food fight with anything sticky…." Randall laughed again.
"You was also the one that started with the chocolate syrup," Danielle pointed out.
Randall then grinned and winked at her, "I was only doing that so I could imagine licking all the sweet toppings from you."
Danielle froze in mid bite of her sandwich and she felt her cheeks burning, "Randall! You lecherous lizard!"
Randall threw his head back and laughed before he leaned over and kissed her hot blushing cheeks. "Guilty as charged."
XXX
Violet eyes narrowed in concentration as a large- muscled form slipped into a bedroom that belonged to twin six year-old boys. He had been pulling two shifts a day now for the past three weeks, and he was tired and his nerves were fried.
He didn't know who was more hard-headed and prideful…. his boss, his father or himself. They had the "Employee of the Month…perhaps they needed the "Stubbornness of the Month" award.
Laugh Energy…. Did NOT make him laugh.
They were not clowns or dogs to perform circus tricks for human kids.
They were monsters…their livelihood revolved around scaring…. not making those things laugh.
But.
It seemed that this time-honored livelihood was dying.
Most of the Scarers had left. Some had moved on to smaller factories that were recently formed and growing and using Laugh Energy as well, but most had swallowed their pride and moved to Monstropolis…to Monsters Inc. Surprisingly, Scream Industries were still hanging on better then Fear Co. but then again, they had better, newer equipment, not the glitchy old, out-dated equipment of Fear co; word was getting to back to them that monsters were leaving Scream Industries for greener pastures, too.
He and a few fellow holdouts, whom he liked to think of as "traditionalists", however were still sticking with Fear Co. He would be damned if he would give in that easily. He was a monster! He would show them…even if he had carried this factory himself…even if he had to take another pay cut…he'd show them what it means to be a monster…show even HIM.
His round purple eyes went to the sleeping twins in their little twin beds. He took a deep breath, the air in the room seeming too hot for his lungs, though he could hear the air conditioner running in the background.
Seeing that the two boys were still fast asleep, he dropped down on all-fours, muscles rippling under his thick, sleek fur. He made his way to the bed and once between the two beds, he slowly raised back up onto two legs, allowing his claws to scrape, waking the two kids, who stared at him wide-eyed with terror. He stared back intently for a few seconds before he dropped his heavy fang- filled jaw and let out a deep rumbling ROAR.
The two boys nearly shrieked their lungs out as they crawled back against the heads of each bed, clutching their teddy bears. Pleased, he turned and hurried back over to the closet door and pulled it open.
Nothing….no Scare Floor. The same as last time…and the time before that…
How many times before he got trapped?
Setting his jaw as a determined look crossed his face, he slowly closed the door and looked back over at the still screaming kids. Snarling at them in case they somehow got it into their heads to come near him and they screamed again and then went tearing out of the bedroom. He turned back to the door and opened it again.
Nothing. Just the interior of a kid's closet-toys, clothing, shoes…but no Scare Floor.
Breathing hard now, sweat began to gather under his fur, making it damp, and as if things could not possibly have gotten any worse, he could now hear the voice of an adult male, no doubt the boys' father, down the hall from the direction in which the two kids had disappeared.
"There's no monsters…. how many times have I told you-" the door opened and bathed the huge purple-furred monster in the warm glow of a hallway light.
Both human and monster froze, silently contemplating one another for what seemed like an eternity. It was the human that moved first, calling for his wife to bring his shotgun.
He wasn't a stranger to firearms. Ever since he was a little boy, he'd been able to out shoot his old man, making his grandfather howl with laughter and pride at his grandson showing up his own 'White collar businessman' son, making his father grind his teeth in anger. If there was one person in his life that he strove to make proud it was his Grandfather…his "Paw-Paw".
But now… a seasoned hunter as he was…he would not want to wind up on the receiving end of a double dose of a human's triple-000 buckshot, like some unfortunate monsters had.
Not wanting to be one of those monsters, he desperately flung open the door again and once more, he saw nothing but a closet. Slamming it close, his anger and frustration at the situation made him slam a fist through the flimsy wooden door, but he froze when he heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being loaded.
He whipped his head back around and his eyes widened as the Human raised the shotgun.
Instinct and survival took over. He couldn't wait for the power to come back on, he had to leave…. NOW!
It all seemed like slow motion. The purple-furred monster dropped once again to all-fours and ran for the window, lowing his horns and smashing through the window in a shower of glass shards, falling forward and tumbling out onto damp grass just as time caught up with him and he heard the loud BOOM of the shotgun. He jumped up, and simultaneously pulling curtains off of his horns with a swipe of one clawed hand, he took off running into to the night.