For the few months that Randall had been with the mutant family and their human friends, he had relearned some old ways of some nice manners, and he still kept his wisecracking side, which some people weren't very crazy for, and some others were.
But he had also learned about true friendship. He was learning to trust. That it was good to have a good support system. Others on your side in times of extreme danger and trouble. And when you got hurt. He was learning to use his skills more for good than bad.
At the way he was being treated better here, he didn't really want to go back to the monster world anymore. He'd probably just be thrown in jail anyway. He didn't want to live the rest of his life in a cage.
Later on at one time, when Randall was helping Don in the lab, Don had to ask him, "Randall, I have to ask, the ones that banished you, what do you remember about them?"
Randall didn't like to talk about them, as it just stirred up more bad memories. He gave Don a serious look, but not an angry glare. He looked away and sighed.
"I didn't have many real friends back in my world. Mike Wazowski was a small green one eyed monster. He was my roommate in college and we were friends for awhile, at least I thought we were then. He was a workaholic. I joined a fraternity and that's where it ended us as friends. I thought they were the cool kids. I was always a shy one when I was young. But this fraternity, it was called ROR, short for Roar Omega Roar. They were the top fraternity on the campus. They had a hardness to them and didn't accept weaknesses. They taught me to be harder."
"Wazowski had also joined a fraternity called Oozma Kappa. He was the leader of it with his coaching skills. And another on his team was my strict rival all through our working years together as scarers. James P. Sullivan. I lost to Sullivan in the Scare Games. He embarrassed me greatly and my little mishap in the games did me no good for the rest of my college career too. My fraternity kicked me out just because of that. They didn't like to lose."
"I vowed I wouldn't lose to Sullivan again. But it turned out I was wrong. I went to join this factory that powered our world mostly, called Monsters, Incorporated. I had made it to the top at one point, before Sullivan joined the scarers. He took the top spot once he did and made me in the second top spot. We both were working to outrank the others in the numbers and break a scare record. I'm sure he's done that by now since I haven't been there."
Don was seeing what had made Randall sad about his earlier years and why he had had that small hardness to him.
"What did this Sullivan look like?" Don asked.
"You know the man I killed?"
"Yes."
"He might be around his size, but he was blue with purple polka dots on him. He had a short tail. Some spikes on his back. He was hairy. He had curved horns on his head. Big paws for hands and feet." Randall tried his best to describe him. "He was the one that everyone loved. He was such a suck up. Even the boss favored him."
"What was your boss's name?"
"Henry J. Waternoose."
"And how did he look?"
"From what Michelangelo has shown me from some of your Earth animal shows, like a spider and a crab really. He had about six legs, seven fingers, and five eyes. Just thinking about him still creeps me out to this day. He was not a very nice guy. To others, he had this father like role model look, but behind that, he was a harsh, mean guy. He would try to work you to the ground. He did it with me for two years trying to get that machine made." Randall said.
"I know I get carried away on my own projects at times, but no one forces me to do it but me. I just like to get them done before I rest." Don said. "And as much as I would love to have a job working for someone if I could do what I love to do with machines, I know I can't, but I wouldn't want to work for someone like that either."
"I thought Waternoose was a nice guy there when I first started there, but just because of my degree in engineering and no one cared about me, he also thought I was expendable at the time the machine was made. I'm sure he knew that I was going to get into trouble and he would have placed the blame on me with the authorities, if we were found out, and Wazowski and Sullivan were sure to reveal it." Randall said.
"You guys seem to have a habit of calling each other by the last name."
"Yeah."
"Were you called Boggs a lot?"
"At my job, I made sure people called me by my first name. But I was called Boggs by my fraternity and some others in college."
Don would have been curious to see Randall's world and see it's possibilities. Especially it's technology from what Randall described.
"Would you know how to get back to your world if it was the better thing to do if it would keep you safe from our world?"
"Yes. Finding a young child's room, getting in and waiting during the night for a monster to come in and scare it. Sneaking through the open door."
"That simple?"
"Yes."
"It's amazing you haven't tried it since you've been here."
"I just think that I would be put in jail if I went back. There's nothing there for me. No family, no friends, no job."
"But if they could see how much you've changed."
"I don't think I've changed that much. They'd still hate me. They would still find a reason to put me in jail or banish me again."
"But did they know where they were banishing you the first time?"
"I think they just selected some random door and wouldn't have cared if I was put into a frozen wasteland. They just wanted to get rid of me. They had no idea that I was almost killed from where they threw me into." Randall began to growl, but there was some sadness in his voice too.
Don sensed the emotion in his voice. He walked over to the lizard. Clearly he had feelings on this too.
Randall was looking away from the turtle with his eyes closed. Tears were welling up. He couldn't help it. Then he felt a hand on his left shoulder.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine."
"No, you're not. It's better to let the pain out, Randall, then to bottle it up." Don said.
Randall grimaced. The tears were threatening to fall.
"It's alright. Just let it go." Don said. Then he quickly pulled him into a hug.
Randall was a little surprised, but his chin now rested on Don's shell. He didn't resist. The tears started to fall. His arms began to grip Don too. No one had ever held him like this. It felt, good.
Don let Randall cry on him for as long as he needed, which was at least a half hour. He led him over to the cot in the workshop.
"Are you feeling better now?" Don asked.
Randall was drying the tears. "Yeah. Getting there. It's just no one has ever cared about how I felt about something. No one's ever held me like that."
"It's what true friends do when their friends are hurting. Giving them a shoulder to cry on. I can see these memories hurt you. I won't press the issue. Let's get past this. But it is part of letting go of the past too." Don said.
"It's not easy to forget it." Randall said.
"I know. But we need to move past it too. It's best not to live entirely in the past."
"I know, and you see why I don't like to talk about it."
The two of them went on to talking about other things to change the subject before they went to bed that night.
…
It had been weeks since Randall had moved into the apartment in April's basement. With about $100 given to him a week, it was now two months since then and April waited till Randall had money before she did ask him for rent. She was being generous for him to have enough before asking for it.
Randall had still wanted this to happen. He wanted to pay his own way in some ways.
Randall gave April $150. It was cheap compared to what she would ask for a regular tenant. She still wanted him to have money of his own. But it would be monthly now, for as long as he stayed with her.
…
The Foot was beginning to get determined to find the creature that had killed Hun.
They doubled their search party. After hurting the lead turtle too, the turtles were more likely to be hiding out. But they would still get what they wanted.
When Stockman looked at the video that was shot, he was more than anxious to study this strange creature or lizard. But it was like no lizard he had ever seen before. Maybe it was another mutant? But where had it come from? So many questions about this lizard that needed answers.