Title: Peculiar Institution
Rating: T, for some possible coarse language and the eventual inclusion of adult themes

Summary: In a world where the Scream Extractor is a name on every tongue and human children have become part of the workforce, Randall Boggs makes an irrational decision and has to deal with the consequences.

Disclaimer: All canon settings, concepts, and characters belong to the good people at Pixar and Disney who created Monsters, Inc. All original material, including characters and concepts, are otherwise mine.

Author's Notes: I think I must be the only person in the world who has less time to get on the Internet in the summer, rather than more. I do apologize for the (massive) delay in getting this chapter up. At least it's a long one…?

"Okay, I totally see why they banned this movie," Trip said, sounding disgusted as the end credits of 'Bloody Gory' began to roll. "Ugh!"

"And I here I thought you were the unshakable one," Randall commented, getting to his feet and stretching, bending over almost double on himself before he felt properly extended.

"Hey, I wasn't the only one who looked distinctly ill," Trip retorted, getting to her feet as well. She lifted her long arms over her head and stretched tall, fanning her narrow gossamer wings with a rustle. She was tall enough that her fingertips brushed his ceiling.

"Always have to one-up me, don't you?" he asked in mock-bitterness, looking up. "You're getting fingerprints in the stucco."

"Stucco doesn't hold fingerprints," she retorted immediately. "And besides, I didn't invent that machine thing." She spread her hands conciliatorily, and the two thin black antennae that rose from her head dropped slightly, indicating her deferral to him on that subject.

"Ah, you could have if you had wanted to," Gabriel piped up, ever his mother's advocate, from where he knelt by the disc player, ejecting the movie and tucking it away into a case. "You're tech-y like that, Mom." Trip beamed at that, flushing slightly and glancing away.

It was very easy to see that Trip and Gabriel were related. They both had identical, olive green skin and those black antennae. Their eyes were huge slanted ovals, almost gem-like, they were so red. Both were rail thin, with big heads and flat, smooth faces, and skeletal, tridactyl hands. They could have been twins, if not for a few key differences between them, the most noticeable being height. Trip was taller than Randall, and Gabriel a little shorter. Gabriel happened to look young—there was a certain innocence about him that wasn't particularly hard to see, and appealing. Trip, on the other hand, looked almost…wary, all the time. Even when she was at her most relaxed, there was still an edge about her, something that almost seemed to warn strangers away.

Trip chuckled, wandering away from the two males and into the next room, the big kitchen. She folded back the shutter between the two rooms so she could keep talking to the others, and pulled open the refrigerator.

"I'm getting a soda," she called. "Either of you want anything?"

"Hey, feel free to help yourself to my fridge!" Randall called with a laugh. "No need to wait for an invite!"

"Oh shut up," she snapped, chucking a can of cola at his head through the open 'window'. He caught it before it could hit him, and bounced it lazily in one hand.

"Hey, Ran, why don't you open that?" Gabriel joked as he straightened up, tucking the disc case in one of his pockets. "You must be thirsty!" That was one odd thing about the pair of them; they wore a lot of clothes. Trip even made a habit of wearing shoes—shoes!—boots with hard heels that clicked sharply whenever she walked. She was clicking again as she strode back into the living room, a soda in hand, and perched herself on the back of one of the couches.

"So, does anyone else agree that that movie had no plot whatsoever?" she asked in a conversational tone.

"I do!" Gabriel said enthusiastically, flinging his hand in the air.

"No plot, but gratuitous nudity," Randall agreed with a nod.

"Gratuitously gratuitous, even," Trip clarified.

"Best kind."

"Hah!"

"So…what do you want to do?" Gabriel asked after a moment. "Y'know…post-movie and all…"

"Well, it's kind of late," Trip said, tilting her wrist to check a watch she wasn't actually wearing. "And one young monster I know has school later today!" She grinned.

"I don't think it's that late," Randall protested, turning to look at an ornate clock mounted on the wall.

"It will be by the time we get home," Trip said, draining the rest of her soda and crushing the can absently in her hand. They lived deep in the heart of Monstropolis, so there was truth in that statement. She grabbed her son by the wrist, pulling him towards the door. "Sorry for the abrupt withdrawal before having made full abuse of all your resources, Randall, dear," she said, blowing kisses his way. "But some young monsters need their sleep!" She flung the door open, pausing a moment to survey the blackness before the big floodlights came on and hauling her protesting son through.

"Hey, call me!" Randall shouted as the door shut, sealing silence in the house. Randall found himself suddenly tired, and realized that it really was later than he had thought it was. Not bothering to suppress a yawn, he crossed into the kitchen, pausing to replace his unopened cola in the refrigerator before flicking off all the lights and heading for the nearest staircase. The thought of his bed was becoming very inviting, but he remembered suddenly the human girl locked in the extra room at the end of the hall. He had forgotten about her over the course of the movie, taking it for granted that she was asleep, and realized now that that may not have been so wise a move. What if she had woken up and made a racket or gotten out somehow? Trip and her son may have been unorthodox in the world of monsters, but he didn't think that even they would condone what he had done…

Resolving to put more thought into the issue over the course of the night, Randall slipped silently up to the door, pausing to listen for the even breathing of sleep before unlocking it and pushing it open. The girl was still sleeping, but she must have awoken at sometime, because her head was cradled on a pillow and she had wrapped herself in a blanket. She murmured in her sleep and turned away from the bright light he was casting into her semi-dark room, but other than that, showed no sign of awakening. He shut the door and locked it again. It was with an unfounded feeling of relief that he retired to his opulent bed that night

"Er, Mom…?"

"Yes, Gabriel?"

"You sensed her, right?"

A pause. "Sensed who, Gabriel?"

"Don't be stupid, Vivica."

"Don't use that tone with me, young man." An evasion.

"You're being stupid, Vivica."

A sigh.

"I know."

Silence.

"So did you?"

"Did I what?"

Another pause. "Oh, forget it.

"Hey kid, are you hungry?"

Corinne groaned, rolling onto her stomach and willing the voice to go away and leave her to sleep. Probably David, trying to wake her up in time to catch the bus to school—like she ever rode the bus anymore anyway. If she didn't walk, she just got one of her classmates to give her a ride. They were always willing to, if she was willing to part with the right payment.

"Hello? If you don't get up and come get something to eat with me now, human, you're not going to get anything until I come back from work, and that's, like, eight hours from now."

The voice protruding into her pleasant dream of Captain Jack Sparrow and Legolas—again—was enough to stir her more this time, and she sat up groggily, rubbing at her eyes.

"Huh?" she asked, blearily beholding the purple figure lounging against the doorway, watching her. The wholly inhuman purple figure. Suddenly, it all came rushing back to her at once—the fight with David, the abduction, the…ah…second abduction, and the dream. "Scheisse" she cursed unhappily, scratching at the back of her neck with slightly ragged fingernails.

"It awakens," Randall remarked from the doorway. "Come on, kid, you've got to be hungry."

"I have a name," Corinne sighed, looking up.

"What?"

"I said, I have a name," she repeated. "It's 'Corinne'. Not 'kid'."

"Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "Come on, Corinne, you've got to be hungry."

"Well I'm not," she said rebelliously, crossing her arms and turning a deaf ear to the unruly rumbling of her stomach.

"Perhaps I should put it this way," Randall said slowly, spacing the words out as if considering them while he talked. "Either you come willingly downstairs with me and eat something of your choice from what I've got, or I'll pick the most rancid left-over from the back of my fridge, come up here, and force it down your throat." Corinne's eyes narrowed as she mulled that statement over for a minute, before she made up her mind and hurried to her feet. "I figured you were hungry," he remarked, turning from her and stalking away without a backwards glance.

She growled, low in her throat, and followed, fists clenched stiffly at her sides. She paid more attention to where they were going this time around, trying to orient herself somehow, though she wasn't sure exactly what good that would do her. The kitchen area he led her into looked eerily human, and she felt a chill shiver up and down her spine at the sight of all sorts of very familiar implements.

She hovered uncertainly in the doorway while Randall crossed over to the refrigerator, opening the door and peering critically inside. "I don't know what you humans normally eat," he remarked, "so I don't know what you'd find appetizing. Come and look." Corinne lingered a moment more, before squaring her shoulders and marching across the patterned linoleum to stand at his side. It was with an even more critical eye that she looked everything over, wondering if it was even safe for her to eat anything in this world anyway.

She wondered how much she would care if it turned out there weren't.

As with the kitchen itself, many things in the fridge were uncannily similar to things she ate at home—not the produce, so much, as the processed things. She reached inside, poking hesitantly among the food and wondering at what she saw. The can of soda she passed her hand over, unbeknownst to her, was the same one that had been thrown at Randall's head last night; it was good she didn't know, or she might have been tempted to imitate the action. Suddenly, she chose something at random and pulled it out. It looked like a pineapple, only with slightly longer spines on its rind, and she suspended it delicately between her fingers.

"What's this called?" she asked.

"It's a pineapple," Randall informed her, looking faintly amused. She felt a flare of anger—this didn't seem very amusing to her.

"This? This is so not a pineapple. Pineapples aren't quite so…venomous looking."

"I don't know what kind of pansy pineapples you eat, then," he said, waving one of his upper hands dismissively and reaching for something of his own in the fridge at the same time. "I like this kind—you're welcome to it, if you can handle it."

Corinne eyed him warily for a moment, before shrugging and following as he made his way into a smaller room adjoining the kitchen, this one with the far wall made up entirely of windows that looked out upon the lands behind the house. There was a table, and it was at this Randall sat, finding a couple of plates in a side-table full of them first. He slid one across the expanse of highly polished wood, and she stopped it absently with one hand, setting the fruit on it with the other. The monster didn't say a word as she seated herself carefully on the edge of her seat, poking at the fruit wonderingly. It was…harder than the pineapples she was used to.

Corinne glanced up at him; that faintly amused look on his face was more pronounced

than before. That only made her more determined to crack this little dilemma on her own, and she pushed experimentally at one of the spines. It caused the pineapple- thing to roll over, so she steadied it with one hand before grasping the tip of one of the spines in her fingers and pulling. Much to her surprise, it came off in a neat little segment. She grinned triumphantly to herself, and promptly began to pull off all of the spines, laying them in a pile on the edge of her plate. Within a few moments she was done, and she was left with a venomously pink-looking, egg shaped inside of the fruit, which just happened to be oozing juice slightly. She stared at it warily for a moment—fruit was NOT supposed to be that color, especially not a fruit that was (nominally, at least), the same as a pineapple.

"Eat it," Randall suggested from across the table. She glared at him over the top of the fruit, before tentatively picking off a little bit of the pink flesh and popping it in her mouth. Instantly, her face puckered up; it must have looked funny, because Randall began to laugh. She didn't think it was very funny. She spat the little bit back out.

"It's sour!" she hissed unhappily. "Really, really sour." Candy companies would kill for a flavoring like that! she thought, then frowned.

"It's better than the rind," Randall remarked. Corinne poked one of the yellow spears speculatively. Who knew…? Reaching down, she picked one up and nibbled gingerly on the end. It tasted like a pixy stick, and even sort of had the texture of one too, after she got through the outer layer of it. She let out an incredulous laugh.

"Nasty?" she asked. "You're kidding! It's sweet!" She hurriedly bit off more, chewing on it and enjoying the flavor of something she had practically been addicted to back home.

Back home. The taste of the pineapple's rind soured in her mouth at the thought of 'back home,' where the last thing she had done before her kidnapping had been…

Fight with David. Oh gods, what if she never saw him again? What if it turned out the last thing she got the chance to say to him was in anger? The thought made her shiver, and she had to shove the thought out of her mind. She'd see him again; she had to believe that.

"You all right?" Randall asked, watching her warily.

"Fine," she grumbled, stuffing the rest of the hunk of rind in her mouth and masticating determinedly. "Just fine." He shook his head disbelievingly, but didn't offer a comment to that. She wasn't really hungry anymore, she realized, but she continued to eat the rind bits slowly anyway. She looked up once, catching him eyeing the flesh of the fruit, which she hadn't touched. Sighing, she swept the rind bits into her hand and pushed her plate his way.

She turned to look out the window, determined to look anywhere but at the creature across the table. There were some trees encompassed in the view of the window, landscaped to look artlessly wild. Behind the trees, there were open fields, and around the fields—

Corinne squinted her eyes slightly. Yes, fences. There were fences around the fields behind the house. She traced the line of one with her eyes until she found where it originated from; a spacious wooden barn carefully screened by trees so as to be hidden from sight of the house, given away only by the lines of fencing radiating out from it and the dirt path that she now noticed winding it way to the invisible entrance.

"What lives there?" she asked, gesturing at the barn with a spine. Randall looked out the window to see what she was pointing at.

"Ah. Just a couple of unicorns."

"What?"

"Unicorns," he repeated, turning his emerald gaze back on her.

"Bull," she snapped automatically. "Unicorns don't exist."

"They do here," he said, and his unruffled expression had turned a little strained. "I suppose I could show you, if you were interested, but not now."

"Why not now?" she asked, a trifle petulantly.

"I've got to go to work."

"Work? As in a job? You have jobs here?"

"Yes, we have jobs here," he snapped, sounding a little affronted. "We're not barbarians, you know."

"Could have fooled me," she muttered darkly.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

She looked up, repeating herself distinctly. An unidentifiable expression crossed his face, and Corinne felt a sudden stab of fear. What was she, stupid or something? I must be trying to get myself killed! Randall stood up so abruptly that the seat he had been in toppled over backwards, crashing loudly against the floor in the suddenly silent room. Corinne's face blanched and she didn't bother to try and disguise the expression of fear on her face as he stalked around the table towards her.

Instead of doing anything that could have been considered aggressive, though, he just hauled her up out of her chair as well, practically dragging her behind him as he led her out of the room with long, purposeful strides. She had to jog to keep up, and did not dare protest when he practically threw her into her room, slamming and locking the door behind him.

Author's Notes: And suddenly, Trip and Gabriel are more than just voices on an answering machine!

Thanks to Till My Head Falls Off, Pixar, jla2snoopy, Random Drifter, and SylverStrike for reviewing! (Thanks especially for the crit, Random Drifter. That's a valid interpretation, and one I'd take into consideration if Randall's reptilianness—or lack thereof—was a big part of the story. It's really not, though, so I hope you're not insulted if I choose not to act on your suggestion!)

I'd put in the usual spiel about next-chapter-up-inna-week here, except that I don't know when I'll be online next. All I can say is that, no matter how long it takes me to update again, I have not abandoned this story. (I'm too close to the end to give up now.) Thank you for your patience!

All feedback is welcome and appreciated. Thank you for reading!