AN. And here it is! The next little chapter...or one-shot...or whatever. I hope you enjoy very much! Clinical year has just started for me, so my updating will be few and far between, but I will try to update whenever I can :) Set when Megamind is 8 years old and is another friendshippy Megamind-x-Minion thing. Enjoy!
The prison was dark and silent. The footsteps of patrolling guards were muted, their presence mostly ignored as they checked each cell. Looking in and seeing the double lump on one bed was enough to satiate their curiosity and they continued on their way. The tiny robotic prototype body in the corner just assured the guards further that they were still there.
These twin lumps were in fact several pillows (borrowed from other cell-mates) bunched up to look like a small child and a separate globe. The boy and his companion were not, in fact, inside the main prison building anymore, though they were still inside the grounds. They were lying on the hard stone of the roof of the prison, the boy stretched on his back, his companion in a globe by his side, both looking up at the twinkling stars scattered in the great black canvas before them.
"Sir, do you want to talk about it?" the fish asked, his eyes slipping sideways to eye the blue-skinned boy beside him.
"No."
That high voice was flat and low, signalling an end to the conversation. The fish was not quite ready to give it up, rolling closer so he could nudge the boy's side.
"Sir, please, you've been silent ever since we got back from school."
"Shut up, Minion," the boy known as Blue spat, turning away from the fish, his eyes focussing on the stars in the upper right quadrant of his vision.
There was a moment of silence where the boy pouted at the sky like a pissed off teenager and the silence coming from his left indicating that the fish wasn't moving either. Blue stared pointedly up, ignoring the way his vision blurred and his lips trembled. He felt nauseous just thinking about it.
A few minutes of silence dragged past, and then the fish nudged his side again, the glass globe clinking softly on the ground.
"Sir...Blue...please...just talk to me... Tell me what happened, why you're so mad?"
"You were there, Minion, you saw exactly what happened." Blue's tone was utterly furious, but maddeningly the fish didn't give up.
"To be fair, sir, most of it is just a blur to me. Please, tell me what happened. All I saw was spinning light and colours and heard them chanting..."
Blue closed his eyes, his hands lifting to cover his ears. He could still hear the voices, ringing around him as he had jumped and reached and stretched. It had done no good.
"It's a childish game they play here," he said softly, his hands still over his ears. "It's what they were chanting. I had to ask Warden what it was... It's called...Keep Away."
Keep Away? More like torture. Hadn't they seen the fear in his eyes, the tears on his cheeks? Hadn't they heard his pleas? Of course they had. And it had just made it all the more enjoyable for them.
"I'll kill them," he said finally, shortly.
"Sir!"
He heard the shock in Minion's voice, but found he didn't care. They had both been scared out of their mind, he had been driven half-mad with worry, and in the end he had gotten into trouble.
"Sir, really, I must protest."
Blue didn't listen, his mind replaying the events of that afternoon.
It had happened during their hour long lunch break. Blue and Minion had been playing together off to the side, playing a very limited version of hide and seek where Minion would try and find Blue who would try to hide in areas where the globe-bound fish to get to. During one celebratory end-game, Minion had been snatched by a boy called Joseph Winters, who at ten was two years older than Blue and nearly twice his size.
Blue had tried desperately to get Minion back, doing his best to be brave in the face of the taller, broader boy, but it had done no good. His cries of "Stop that!" and "Let him go!" and "Give me back my friend!" were met with scornful guffaws and a growing audience.
It was then that Joseph had decided to lob Minion over Blue's head and into the hands of his equally big friend Martin Danielson, who had easily caught the fish and started spinning him on the tip of one finger, showing off the reason he had gotten to this school for gifted children.
Blue had immediately tried to rush him, but before he could reach the older boy he had thrown it across the circle, laughing and shouting "Keep away!" into the alien boy's face.
Blue had chased Minion around the circle, the other children quickly getting the point of the game and chanting along, some clapping their hands until it was their turn to pass the fish along. Blue was not the fittest boy by any means, but he never dropped his speed, even putting on quick bursts whenever it seemed one child was going to hold onto the poor spinning fish's globe for more than an instant. At some point he had started to cry, that is his eyes had leaked tears, but he had been so focused on the complete injustice of what was going on that he hadn't even noticed.
He had cried out, "Please stop! Give him back!" when one of the older boys had fumbled his catch and dropped Minion to the ground with a terrible crash, the specially designed globe bouncing twice before coming to a spinning stop. Blue had leapt onto it, his arms and legs wrapping around it protectively as it had pushed into his stomach, his large head down in anticipation of the beating that must surely follow. No, they hadn't actually used physical violence on them before (beyond a few brief but vicious struggles when they'd tried to put him into places he didn't want to go; only one of which had resulted in any actual serious injury to the alien boy), but this was a far more serious altercation than those which had proceeded it and he didn't know what to expect.
Then he had felt water beneath his hands, spilling slowly from the ball clutched tightly to his stomach. He had pulled back, horrified, only to see Minion still spinning slowly in the globe which was opened just a crack. It wasn't broken; the globe had obviously fallen on the invisible hatch Blue used to clean and change the fish's water, so that wasn't what pulled a red veil of utter fury over his eyes and made him shoot to his feet and attempt to attack Joseph Winters, punching him three times in the gut (to little or no effect except to make the older boy laugh) and then once properly in the nose (making it bleed but otherwise not causing much damage) thus condemning him to the naughty corner for the rest of the afternoon and a trip to the Warden's office the second he got back to the prison.
What had caused him to go temporarily mad, for all intents and purposes, was the trickle of pinky-purple blood that was spiralling down the swirling water from his best friend's side.
Now they were back in the prison, and Minion was daring to try to talk him out of a proper revenge.
"They hurt you," Blue said, still staring at the sky, though the stars were nothing but glimmers in his blurred vision. Tears slid down his temples towards his ears, following the natural track of gravity.
"It was nothing, sir!"
Blue turned, grabbing the globe in both hands, pulling it before his eyes as he sat up. The fish swirled inside slightly (nothing compared to what had happened that afternoon) and the boy got a perfect view of the scratch running down his side.
"That is not nothing!" Blue said, furious again, one long finger jabbing at the long purple scratch. "That is the most you've ever been hurt ever! If they dare think they can do that and get away with it they've got another thing coming!"
Minion righted himself, his brown eyes worriedly searching the blazing green ones in front of him.
"Sir, compared to some of the scrapes they've given you over the years this is nothing!"
Blue waved that off with a wave of one hand, the other clamping tight to the globe and twisting it up so it never shifted, the movement swift and sure.
"Those were all accidents. They never wanted to hurt me, at least not physically..."
"That Winters boy broke your arm last year. You lied to the Warden about it, you begged me to stay quiet about it... Why? How is that any different to what they did to me today? Sir, please, don't let your anger get away with you."
"I'll kill them," Blue said stubbornly, now avoiding the fish's eye. "I'll kill them for daring to hurt you."
"I...I don't know what's happened. You never even wanted to hurt them before, you even wanted them to respect you and your gifts..."
"They'll never respect me," Blue said. "They hate me and I hate them and they'll all suffer for what they've done."
"This was just another attempt to try and hurt you," Minion continued, ignoring what Blue said entirely. "Because we're friends. They took me to hurt you and it's working. Please, sir, don't let your hurt get the better of you. Don't let them win..."
Blue was silent for a moment, staring at the fish with wide eyes, before saying softly, "Took you...to hurt me..."
"Y-yes, sir." Minion looked very confused, his eyes searching the young alien's face. "Sort of like a hostage..."
"Hostage?" Blue's eyes light up and he hugged the globe to his chest, "Oh, Minion, you fantastic fish, you!"
"Sir?"
"I've just had the best idea! They want to hurt me? I'll get them back where they least suspect it!"
Minion's eyes widened slightly with shock. "Sir...you don't mean... You wouldn't hurt people...would you, sir?"
Blue's expression darkened a little bit, but Minion recognised it as confusion instead of malevolence and was slightly comforted.
"Not the hostages," Blue said finally, before a wide smile broke out on his face. "But they don't need to know that."
Minion was silent while Blue began to lay out his newest plan, one that wouldn't come to pass for another ten years when Roxanne Ritchi first showed up on his radar. He wasn't sure how he felt about it (there was something about this that made him feel profoundly uncomfortable), but so long as his young master wasn't talking about murder he was happy. Anything was better than that.
AN. So there's the next thing. I hope you enjoyed it. The ending feels a little bit rushed in my opinion but I wanted to get it out before we went to see Spring Awakening tonight because I know I'll forget when I get home and it should be out there. Hope you enjoyed. I do accept anonymous reviews, so if you want to tell me what you thought don't be worried, I take constructive criticism pretty well :P Let me know what you thought!