It's early winter, and Sir is ten, when he asks.

The change of the seasons from autumn to winter is always—difficult for Sir, Minion knows. Sir gets quieter, then, and sadder. Minion isn't sure how much of that is because of the cold and the lack of sunlight, and how much is because the memories of M'ega and its destruction are stronger for Sir at that time of year.

"Minion," Sir says uncertainly, and then stops.

The two of them are sitting on Sir's bed; Minion is working on homework, and Sir has been reading. He puts the book down now, though, and looks down at his hands.

"Sir?"

"What Roxanne was wearing today," Sir says. He picks at a loose thread on the bedsheets. "The sweater with the stars, and the—corduroy trousers, with the—raised line texture…"

"Sir?" Minion says again.

"—I liked that," Sir says.

He looks up at Minion, who frowns slightly, and gives Sir a quizzical look.

Sir bites his lip.

"Minion," he says, "do you think—would it be bad if I—if I wanted to wear something like that? Now, I mean, before the—adolescence choice time?"

Minion blinks, surprised.

"Oh," he says.

"I don't want to—to forget about M'ega," Syx says wretchedly, "or—say it wasn't important, or do things wrong but I—"

"Oh, Sir," Minion says.

Sir looks down at his hands, at the loose thread, again.

"No, I don't think it would be bad."

"…even though I want to wear human clothes?" Sir asks in a small voice, without looking up.

"Sir," Minion says gently, "I hate to break it to you, but you're already wearing human clothes."

"Oh, you know what I mean!" Sir bursts out, looking up and gesturing at Minion. "Clothes like—like normal humans wear, clothes that look less like—" he plucks at the orange prison jumpsuit he's wearing, "—this, less like what I'd be wearing on M'ega! Don't you think that's bad?"

Minion reaches out the hand of his robotic body and places it on Sir's shoulder. He sighs, looking at Sir's bowed head and unhappy face.

"Sir," Minion says gently, "remembering M'ega—it shouldn't be about making yourself unhappy. You enjoying things here isn't bad, Sir."

"…are you sure?" he whispers.

"Yes," Minion says, voice firm.

Sir looks up at him again, tears in his eyes.

"Then—then why do I feel like I'm doing something bad?" he asks. "Why—why do I feel like I'm bad?"

Minion sighs.

"I don't know, Sir," he says.

And he doesn't know; it's really very frustrating, not knowing, not understanding. Minion's mourning for their planet has never held the note of despair and guilt that Sir's does.

Minion doesn't know if that's where this idea comes from, this idea of being bad that Sir returns to again and again—or if Sir's periodic insistence that he's bad stems from something other than grief. It comes back like a weed; sometimes Minion will hope it's gone for good, only to find that they have to tear it out again.

"You're not bad, Sir," Minion says firmly.

"—are you sure?"

"Yes."

Sir chews on his lip, for a moment, looking as if he might try to argue, but finally he nods.

"—okay,' he says.

"You haven't done anything bad, Sir," Minion says. "And we'll talk to Doctor and the Warden about the clothes tonight."

"Here," Doctor Kelley says, dumping a sweater into the shopping cart.

The Warden winces internally at the rather garish pattern of maroon, yellow, and green diamonds on the garment, but says nothing. He'd had known how it would be when he convinced Lenard to help him shop for sweaters for Syx. John has pragmatically and quietly put a few sweaters of his own choice in the cart as well—tasteful, simple, single-color ones, to make up for the ones that Len's chosen.

Len has the most extensive collection of violently hideous sweaters that John has ever seen; he's always wearing them. It's why John had figured sweater shopping for Syx would be right up his alley, really. But Len has been twitchy and on-edge ever since they walked into the store.

John sighs.

Len is—difficult. Hard to read. Frustrating. One minute John will think they're finally getting somewhere, and then the next Len will have retreated back into his shell of gruffness and sarcasm.

A woman with a cart goes past them, the wheels ratting. She briefly glances at Len and John as she goes by, and Len grimaces.

"I think we should pick out a few more," John says. "For Minion, too. And we haven't got one like the kid asked for. With the stars."

Len makes an annoyed noise, but he doesn't argue.

Finding clothes to fit the large robotic body Minion uses most of the time now is even more difficult than finding clothes to fit Syx—the collars of the clothes for Syx have to be wide enough to fit over his head, but for Minion, the collar has to be wide and the shoulders have to be extra broad as well. John and Len do manage to find a handful that should fit, though.

They find the sweater with stars on it, too, finally, although a complication immediately arises upon finding it, because—

"Think it's okay?"

"Do I think what's okay?" Len asks.

"Think we should still get the sweater?" John says.

"We spent twenty minutes looking for the thing, and now you don't know if you wanna buy it?"

"Well," John says, "it is from the girls' section."

Len gives him a deeply unimpressed look.

"It's a sweater."

"You don't think he'll have trouble at school about it?"

Len sighs, his shoulders drooping. He rubs a hand over his face.

"Maybe," he says. "But—hell, John, you know what the kid's like when he's got his heart set on something. Do you wanna go back and tell him he can't have the one sweater he asked for? Just get him the damn sweater and let him be happy."

John puts the star sweater in the cart.

"Worth the risk, then, you think," he says. He gives Len a sidelong look, "having what you want. Being happy."

Len goes very still. For a long moment, the two of them are silent, just looking at each other. The canned department store music plays faintly.

"You want to let me buy you dinner after this?" John asks.

Len's breath hisses through his teeth.

"God damn it, John," he says. "Why did you have to ask?"

John waits. The department store music plays on.

"Yes," Len snaps. "Fine. Yes, all right, John."

Len jerks the handle of the cart and begins to walk rapidly down the aisle. John follows.

"This is a terrible idea; you do know that, don't you?" Len says, when John catches up with him.

"It's a risk," John says mildly.

Len gives a snort of laughter.

"Did you just compare me to a sweater?" he asks, and John can tell that he's only trying to sound offended.

"You like sweaters, Len," John says.

Len shoots him a glare, but his lips are twitching like he wants to laugh. John hides a fond smile of his own, and follows Len to the checkout line.

notes: the Safe If We Stand Close Together series will continue; the next story in the series will be titled Changing Times.

ALSO! So my birthday is on February 12th, and there is a Megamind Valentine's Week event on tumblr from the 12th to the 18th, and I wanted to write fic for both of those things...and then I got a bit carried away, so I'm going to do a BIRTHDAY FIC MONTH! And I'm going to post something for each of the 28 days of February 2018!

I am very excited, and I hope you are all excited, too! And I hope you enjoyed this installment of the Safe If We Stand Close Together series!