Monsters, inc. fic
Title: An Apology
Fandom: Monsters, inc.
Characters: Randall, Celia
Pairings: Randall/Celia, sortof
Disclaimer: Totally not mine, but I think this pairing might be.
Author's Notes: Seriously, nobody's written this pairing? Also, not sure if I corrected my spelling of 'Randall'.
She’d turned her back for just a second and then there they were. Daisies, tied up with a little purple ribbon.
With a twinge of guilt, Celia quickly picked them up and brought them under the desk- anxious to make sure nobody saw them, though she was working alone anyway, and the whole foyer was deserted with everybody busy working.
She sighed, and the noise filled the room.
The day that Randal had kissed her had been the day that Mike had forgotten her birthday, and the day Fungus had proposed to his girlfriend (they had been dating for just a couple of months; she was plain, but fairly pretty, worked in a pet shop (but had allergies)) - whom Randal hated.
Personally, Celia thought that it all spoke volumes.
As she ate her lunch late, well into the afternoon shift, (at her desk that day, alone again) she thought about it- and was thinking about it when she heard a shattering crash. It was Randal, kicking over a potted yucca. It upset her, the needless destruction and carelessness, and it had been a horrible birthday, so she began sniffling angrily.
‘Hey!’ she’d shouted, waving her fork, ‘Calm down!’
He froze, his lithe body shaking with anger. He scowled and whipped his head around to look at her. ‘I’ll calm down when I’m good and ready!’
The two stared at each other warily. Though not strictly friendly, they had always been on speaking terms. That being said though, everybody was on speaking terms with Celia- you didn’t get in the building without speaking to her.
When tears began to fill her eyes, Celia looked away and stabbed dejectedly at her fruit salad. There wasn't much of it left.
After a little while she heard soft footsteps, and out of the corner of her eye saw a streak of purple heading over towards her.
‘Jerk forgot your birthday, huh?” he asked, not exactly unkindly, as he drummed his fingers awkwardly on the desk between them. Celia nodded. ‘Screw him,’ he’d sneered.
Randal continued along that vein for a while- awkwardly insulting Mike and telling her she could probably do better. The slights on her other half annoyed her a little (though she couldn’t deny that, in this instance, she agreed with them), but it had stopped the tears. Celia looked up, and found Randal to be a lot closer than she had expected him to be. He leant over the desk with his bottom arms, and moved away in badly concealed embarrassment when their eyes met.
Celia wasn’t sure what to do. She wanted to ask him what had happened that was so bad he was kicking over her potted plants, but didn’t want to risk it. She waved her bowl of rejected fruit chunks at him instead, and, tentatively, he took one.
‘I do love him, though,’ she’d said then, wanting to redeem herself after agreeing with so many bad words said about him. Randal had rolled his eyes, shook his head.
‘Oh, stop it,’ she’d said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that- being in love.’ Randal said nothing, so she persevered. ‘Well, you love Fungus. Don’t you?’
He began to laugh bitterly. ‘Love him!’ he’d scoffed, green eyes narrowing. ‘I don’t even like him.’
And then he’d kissed her. And Celia still felt terrible about it.
But, she thought, there was no taking back things that already happened. Mike didn’t know and she wasn’t going to tell him, and she could live with doing that but it had only happened last week and she was still carrying it around with her. She was afraid people could tell something was the matter and, well, it was obvious that someone could.
Annoyed, she wondered how long he’d stood there watching her, camouflaged, waiting for her to look away so that he could ditch the gift and run. Or if he had left at all- there was no way for Celia to tell either way.