#dr. kelley and the warden

[setepenre-set]

Safe If We Stand Close Together: Star Sweater

Minion tries to help Sir learn to let himself be happy, and the Warden tries to convince Dr. Kelley that happiness is worth taking risks. 

K+ rating

Follows Terms of Endearment in the Safe If We Stand Close Together series, directly references events of my fic Given Names.

AO3 | FFN

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.

the Safe If We Stand Close Together series will continue.

ALSO! So my birthday is on February 12th, and there is a Megamind Valentine's Week event 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!

I hope you all enjoyed this installment of the Safe If We Stand Close Together series!

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2019) - #135: Women’s Prison (1955) - dir. Lewis Seiler

Available on a double-feature disc with another mid-50s drama directed by Lewis Seiler, Over-Exposed, the B-movie Women’s Prison is filled to the brim with recognizable faces from that era of Hollywood. The action takes place at a women’s prison that stands adjacent to a prison that houses only men, setting up some of the conflict that will arise halfway through the film. Warden Amelia van Zandt (Ida Lupino) is a sadistic taskmaster, punishing new inmate Helene Jensen (Phyllis Thaxter) for a variety of infractions that stem from the same source: acting out hysterically because jail is frightening for someone who has never been there before.

Joan befriends the prison’s population of female convicts, including repeat offenders Brenda Martin (Jan Sterling), Joan Burton (Audrey Totter), Mae (Cleo Moore), Dottie LaRose (Vivian Marshall), Polly Jones (Juanita Moore) and Sarah Graham (Edna Holland). Most of the women pass the time by playing cards or, in Dottie’s case, doing celebrity impressions, but Joan has an ulterior motive for being incarcerated in the first place; her husband, Glen (Warren Stevens), is imprisoned in the adjoining building.

Most of the workers in the women’s prison are apathetic to the collective plight of the inmates - Matron Saunders (Mae Clarke) doesn’t seem to hold an opinion either way, while Chief Matron Sturgess (Gertrude Michael) feels some guilt at the warden’s treatment of the women yet is reluctant to stand up to her boss - but at least there is sympathy to be found in Dr. Crane (Howard Duff), the lone medical professional on staff. When a potentially dangerous situation emerges that involves occupants of both prisons, neither Van Zandt nor Warden Brock (Barry Kelley) knows the right manner in which to resolve the problems, so it is up to Crane to help the afflicted parties. It’s pretty enjoyable seeing Ida Lupino and Howard Duff, who were married at the time (and would remain so for the next thirty years), as avowed enemies.

Like a lot of films produced by Columbia Pictures, Women’s Prison is a low-budget affair that shows its seams by featuring a minimum of cheap-looking interior/exterior sets for a narrative that is too easy to figure out. Still, the abundance of first-rate actors and a well-paced plot are enough to warrant checking the film out, even if only once.

[tipsycad147]

Famous Witches - Dr. John Dee (1507 - c.1608)

John Dee was a noted English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, occultist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. Although not a witch as such, he devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy, particularly in association with his rather less scrupulous "scryer", Edward Kelley. Over the centuries, he has come to be seen as the archetypal image of a magician, on whom many fictional magicians have been modelled.

He was born in London, and his great abilities were recognised when he attended St. John's College, Cambridge, and he was made a founding fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In the late 1540s and early 1550s, he travelled in Europe, studying at Leuven and Brussels and lecturing in Paris, and he met several of the great European scientists of the day. One of the most learned men of his age, he had been invited to lecture on advanced algebra at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties, and was an ardent promoter of mathematics, a respected astronomer and a leading expert in navigation, having trained many of those who would conduct England's voyages of discovery.

At the same time, however, Dee immersed himself in the worlds of magic, astrologyand Hermeticism, and he devoted the last third of his life almost exclusively to attempting to commune with angels in order to learn the universal language of creation. At his house in Mortlake, Dee amassed the largest library in England and one of the largest in Europe, including many important Medieval grimoires such as "The Sworn Book of Honorius".

In the first in a series of attacks and slanders that would dog Dee throughout his life, he was arrested and charged with "calculating" for having cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth (the charges were later expanded to treason against Mary), but was exonerated. When Elizabeth took the throne in 1558, Dee became her trusted adviser on astrological and scientific matters (as well as her spy in the often treacherous world of Elizabethan politics).

In 1564, he published the Hermetic work “Monas Hieroglyphica” (“The Hieroglyphic Monad”), an exhaustive Qabalisticinterpretation of a glyph of his own design, meant to express the mystical unity of all creation. By the early 1580s, dissatisfied with his progress in learning the secrets of nature, he began to turn towards the supernatural as a means of acquiring knowledge, specifically seeking to contact angels through the use of a "scryer" or crystal-gazer as an intermediary.

Although an intensely pious Christian, Dee was also deeply influenced by the Hermetic and Platonic-Pythagorean doctrines and the belief that man had the potential for divine power, which could be exercised through mathematics. His qabalistic angel magic (which was also heavily numerological) and his work on practical mathematics (navigation, for example) were simply the exalted and mundane ends of this same spectrum.

In 1582, he met Edward Kelley (then going under the name of Edward Talbot) and took him into his service as his scryer. The two began to devote all their energies to supernatural pursuits, conducting their "spiritual conferences" or "actions" with an air of intense Christian piety, always after periods of purification, prayer and fasting.

Dee maintained that the angels laboriously dictated several books to him this way, some in a special angelic (or “Enochian”) language. The Enochian magic (or "angel magic") performed by John Dee and with Kelley as his scryer and necromancer, was a form of Theurgy based around a hierarchy of spiritual intelligence's called "The Watchers", whose task it was to watch over humanity from the four Watchtowers at the corners of creation, and who identified themselves as the same angels that had instructed the biblical patriarch Enoch in the occult wisdom of heaven.

After a few years of a nomadic life in Central Europe, and some years of relative stability in Bohemia, during which time they continued their spiritual conferences, the two men finally parted ways in 1587 after Kelley tried to persuade Dee that the angel Uriel had ordered that they should share everything, including their wives.

Dee’s eldest son, Arthur Dee (1579 - 1651) accompanied him on his peregrinations across Europe and in Bohemia, learning elements of his father’s art. Arthur later became a physician to Tsar Michael I of Russia (founder of the Romanov Dynasty) and lived in Moscow for fourteen years, where he wrote his “Fasciculus Chemicus”, a collection of writings on alchemy.

Dee returned to England in 1589 to find his library ruined and many of his prized books and instruments stolen. From 1592 to 1605, he worked as a warden at Christ's College, Manchester, although his tenure there was far from happy and he returned to London in 1605. The new king, James, was much less sympathetic to anything related to the supernatural than Elizabeth had been, and Dee was forced to sell off various of his possessions to support himself and his daughter, Katherine, who cared for him until his death late in 1608 or early 1609, aged 82.

Dee's meticulous records of his angelic communications were discovered after his death and published in 1659 by Méric Casaubon, who was also responsible for the widespread idea that Dee was acting as the unwitting tool of evil spirits. Around the same time, members of the Rosicrucian movement claimed Dee as one of their number, although there is no evidence that Dee himself ever belonged to any secret fraternity. Contemporary descriptions of Dee as tall and slender, with a long white beard, wearing a long gown with hanging sleeves, has become the archetypal image of a magician, and many fictional magicians (including Prospero in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”) have been modelled on him.

Dee and Kelley "invoking the spirit of a deceased person" (from "Astrology" by Ebenezer Sibly, 1806) (from http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Sibly-Astrology/pages/edward-kelly/)

https://www.witchcraftandwitches.com/witches_medieval.html

[setepenre-set]

Safe If We Stand Close Together: Safety Instructions Not Included (chapter 4)

The Roxanne and Megamind are friends as children AU.

K+ rating

AO3 | FFN | chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3

(Follows Safe If We Stand Close Together and Happy Returns.)

There aren’t any guidelines for being best friends with an alien, no map key, no index, no safety instructions.

Roxanne tries, so very hard, to get it right in spite of this.

Dr. Kelley’s eyebrows rise steadily higher, and the Warden’s frown deepens, as Syx, Roxanne, and Minion explain.

When they’ve finished, Dr. Kelly and the Warden exchange a look.

“John,” Dr. Kelley says sharply. “You know this is a bad idea.”

“Going to have to do it sooner or later,” the Warden says, expression unchanged.

“We barely got away with it the first time!”

“Can’t let it go forever, Len,” the Warden says.

“It’s an unnecessary risk!”

“Seems like a bigger risk,” the Warden says, “to let it go.”

“John—”

“Len.”

The two of them look at each other for a moment without speaking, and then Dr. Kelley growls under his breath.

“Out!” he says, shooing Syx, Roxanne, and Minion from his office. “You kids wait in the hall.”

“But—” Syx starts to say, but Dr. Kelley closes the door.

Syx sits on the floor, his back against the wall and Minion’s ball in his lap. Roxanne presses her ear against the door, but, although she can hear both the Warden and Dr. Kelley’s voices, she can’t make out what they’re actually saying. Thwarted, she sinks down beside Syx.

“Do you think the Warden can talk him into it?” she asks.

“He talked Dr. Kelley into letting Sir go to school,” Minion says hopefully.

“He—he talked him into letting us spend the night at your dad’s house,” Syx says, chewing his lip.

Behind the door, the low sound of voices continues.

In the end, the Warden only halfway manages to talk Dr. Kelley into it. He agrees to file Minion’s sentience and citizenship paperwork, but he absolutely refuses to agree to Minion enrolling in school until after the paperwork has gone through. If the school denies him enrollment, he says, it might weaken their chances of getting Minion’s declared sentient.

Roxanne exchanges a frustrated look with Syx and Minion, but that, it seems, is the best they’re going to get.

Dr. Kelley drives Roxanne home.

He doesn’t drive nearly fast enough for Roxanne’s taste; her mother will be getting home soon and Roxanne really wants to be there before she does.

“So,” Dr. Kelley says, while they’re stopped at a light, “I take it this was your idea, then.”

Roxanne looks at him sidelong, trying to figure out if he’s angry or not. He doesn’t look angry—just sort of sardonically amused.

But, well, sometimes adults do look like that when they’re angry.

“Minion decided,” she says. Her voice sounds more defensive than she wants it to. “I didn’t make him.”

Dr. Kelley snorts.

“Tell me,” he says, “whose idea was it to set off a paint bomb in that first so-called school of yours?”

Roxanne frowns.

“—it was Syx’s,” she says.

(That was weeks ago; if Syx was going to get into trouble for it, surely it would have already happened?)

“You surprise me,” Dr. Kelley says dryly. “Oh—but no. Your ideas run more towards refusing to participate in gym class as a protest.”

Roxanne doesn’t know how to answer this, so she doesn’t say anything, just stares out the windshield. Dr. Kelley gives another snort of laughter. She looks over at him.

The light changes.

“This friendship is going to be eventful,” Dr. Kelley mutters.

“Haven’t you finished your homework yet?” Roxanne’s mother asks after she gets home.

Roxanne, who only let herself into the apartment five minutes before her mother arrived, pauses, her pencil hovering over the pages of her workbook.

“—not quite,” she says.

(it’s not lying. not really. it’s just—it’s just easier this way.)

School the next day is a bit of an ordeal.

Syx is twitchy and on-edge; Roxanne can tell he’s trying to suppress it, but he’s practically vibrating with nervous energy. Miss Anderson tells him that he’s disturbing the other students with his pencil-tapping, then tells him the same thing when he drums his fingers on the top of his desk, and then again when he bounces his leg so hard his chair makes a squeaky noise.

What makes it even worse is that all he has to do is fidget; as always, he finishes his work way before everyone else. Miss Anderson has a small bookshelf in the corner of the classroom; she lets him get a book to read at his desk, but of course Syx finishes that pretty quickly, too.

“May-I-get-another-book-please,” Syx asks, words running together the way they do sometimes when he’s agitated.

“Don’t you like that one?” Miss Anderson asks.

“It was enjoyable, but I’ve finished it now,” he says, and Roxanne sees the way he’s gripping the edge of his desk to keep his fingers from drumming.

Miss Anderson raises her eyebrows, but she lets him get another book.

He finishes that one, too, and has to ask to get another one. Miss Anderson’s eyebrows climb even higher this time before she gives him permission. Roxanne has completed her work by now, too, and she picks out a book as well. They’re not allowed to talk, but while they’re both at the bookshelves, Roxanne wraps her fingers around Syx’s wrist for a moment and he takes a shuddery kind of breath and leans his shoulder against hers.

Finally, mercifully, the bell rings for lunch. Miss Anderson, though, asks Syx to stay behind again, and this time when Roxanne lingers as well, she tells Roxanne that she should ‘go ahead and go down to lunch’, and she walks to the door to make sure Roxanne actually goes down the hall.

“What did she say?” Roxanne asks in an undertone, as Syx slides into the seat next to her at the lunch table.

“She didn’t believe I’d really finished the books,” Syx says in a low voice, “she said that I might be skipping things because I wanted to impress people.”

Roxanne makes a noise of outrage. Syx shrugs.

“So I started reciting the books to her,” he says.

Roxanne gives a gasp of half-fearful laughter.

“Did she get mad?” she asks.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” Syx says. “I hate this already.”

Roxanne squeezes his hand comfortingly.

“What are you two telling secrets about?”

Roxanne looks over, surprised. Monica, Nicole, Caitlyn, and—Roxanne doesn’t know what the fourth girl is called; she wasn’t in their class when Roxanne went here before—are all looking at her and Syx.

“You keep whispering,” Monica says.

“Secrets secrets are no fun unless you share with everyone,” Caitlyn says, sing-song and sanctimonious.

“—but if you share them with everyone, then they’re not actually secrets,” Syx says, looking at Caitlyn like she’s crazy.

“We weren’t telling secrets,” Roxanne says quickly, seeing the way that Caitlyn’s already looking offended.

“I hate shool,” Syx says, “it’s not a secret.”

“You mean ‘school’,” the fourth girl says, deftly inserting a straw into her chocolate milk.

“Please do not do that,” Syx says.

The girl blinks at him.

“What?”

“Please don’t correct his pronunciation,” Roxanne says. “It’s upsetting and sometimes he says things wrong on purpose.”

“English is a ridiculous and inconsistent language,” Syx mutters.

Roxanne nudges his sandwich towards him and he glares at it but picks it up and takes a bite.

The girl whose name Roxanne doesn’t know blinks at him for a moment.

“—oh,” she says. “Okay.”

Roxanne gives her a grateful look and the girl half-smiles back, shrugs, and takes a sip of her chocolate milk.

“That’s stupid,” Nicole says.

Roxanne turns a glare on her.

“Saying things wrong on purpose is stupid,” Monica adds.

Roxanne glares at her as well, shifting slightly, so that more of her body is shielding Syx from them.

“When did you guys get so mean?” she says. “You didn’t use to be so mean.”

“We’re not mean,” Monica says, looking down her nose at Roxanne. “You just think you’re better than us because you got picked to go to that fancy rich-kids school. You’re back here now, though; guess you weren’t so smart after all.”

Roxanne opens her mouth to say that’s not why I’m better than you, which—would be an extremely rude thing to say, so it’s probably best that Syx replies before she gets a chance to say it.

“Actually,” he says brightly, “our guardians removed us from that shool because we built a paint bomb in response to being bullied. And Roxanne is quite brilliant.”

There’s a pause, wherein they all gape at Roxanne and Syx.

“Whoa,” the fourth girl says.

“You built a bomb?” Caitlyn asks, looking both scandalized and terrified. “And they let you come to this school?”

“Just a paint bomb,” Roxanne says. “No one got hurt.”

“I don’t believe you,” Nicole says.

“—yeah,” Monica says, “there’s no way you know how to build a bomb. You’re just making it up.”

Syx frowns.

“It was a very simple bomb,” he says. “You’ve—seen those science fair project things, the volcanoes? Vinegar and baking soda, and then the volcano bubbles over, yes? What would happen if it didn’t have a hole to bubble out of?”

“Ohh,” the fourth girl says.

“Boom!” Syx says, gesturing with his sandwich. Strawberry jelly drips down his wrist. “Like that. But with paint in it, too.”

“…seriously?” Monica says, looking at Roxanne, her eyes round.

“Yeah,” she says, thinking it best to avoid mentioning the fire extinguisher addition to the explosion.

She has a feeling it’s probably prudent to try and downplay the whole bomb thing as far as possible.

The table was silent for a long moment, then Monica cleared her throat.

“I’ve got M&M’s,” she says. “You guys want some?”

She offers the bag to Roxanne first, which is as close, Roxanne knows, to a real apology as can be expected from Monica.

The six of them manage to snag the swing set before anyone else can get it first when they go out to recess. There are only four swings, but the six of them switch back and forth, taking turns pushing each other. When Syx and Roxanne are on the ground together, they make it an informal competition; whoever can get both of the people they’re pushing to the top first wins.

The physical activity is a good distraction for Syx, Roxanne thinks; he looks more calm than he has all day.

There’s math after they get in for recess; a review sheet on addition and subtraction before they move on to multiplication tomorrow. Syx finishes first, Roxanne second, but almost everyone else finishes fairly quickly, too.

The kid who sits in front of Roxanne, though, Gary, is struggling badly.

It’s horrible to have to watch.

Gary always did have trouble, even last year, when they were just doing addition. Subtraction seems to have made things exponentially worse.

When Miss Anderson is called out to the hall by another teacher to talk, Roxanne can bear it no longer.

“Stop trying to count down,” she bursts out.

Gary turns around to look at her, frowning. Roxanne makes a frustrated sound and gets out of her seat to stand next to his desk.

(there’s a murmur of shock from the other kids in the classroom; she ignores it.)

Gary looks up at her, his expression bewildered.

“You keep trying to count down,” she says impatiently. “But you keep getting lost when you’re counting backwards. Stop counting down. Count up.”

“—but it’s subtraction,” Gary says, looking even more confused.

“Here,” Syx says. Roxanne looks up to see him standing beside her, on the other side of Gary’s desk. “Look. This problem. Thirteen minus seven. You’re starting with the number thirteen, right? And then counting down until you reach seven?”

Gary nods.

“And you’re losing your place while counting down,” Syx says.

Gary flushes dully but nods.

“But you don’t have to count down from the higher number to the lower number,” Syx says. He taps the problem with his finger. “You can count up from the lower number to the higher number instead.”

“…but it’s subtraction,” Gary says again uncertainly.

“Subtraction is just the opposite of addition!” Roxanne says. “You can turn it into addition if you want to and then it’s easier!”

“Here, I’ll show you,” Syx says. He taps the problem again. “We start at seven. Eight,” he holds up a single finger, “nine,” he holds up another, “ten,” he holds up a third finger, “eleven,” he holds up a fourth finger, “twelve,” he holds up his thumb, “thirteen,” he holds up his other thumb. “And now you just count the fingers!” He waggles the fingers he’s holding up at Gary. “Six!”

Gary’s mouth shapes itself into an O of astonishment. He scrawls a six at the bottom of the problem.

“You try one now,” Roxanne says.

Another gasp goes through the room; Roxanne wonders briefly what they find so shocking now, but ignores them again.

“—nine minus five?” Gary says. “So you start at five.” He looks at Syx, who nods encouragingly. “Six,” Gary says, holding up a finger, “Seven. Eight. Nine.” He looks at the fingers he’s used to count. “Four?”

“Exactly!” Syx says.

“But what about, like, this?” Gary asks, pointing at another problem. “A hundred minus three.”

“Those you will have to count up for,” Roxanne says.

“It’ll still be easier if you use your fingers, though,” Syx says. “Start at a hundred. Ninety-nine,” he says, holding up a finger, “ninety-eight,” he holds up another finger, “ninety-seven,” he holds up a third finger.

“Three,” Gary says, and writes it down.

“Syx; Roxanne,” Miss Anderson’s voice takes the three of them by surprise; they all jump and look over at the doorway, where she’s standing now. “I need everyone to stay in their own seats while I’m out of the room.”

Roxanne flushes but goes to sit down again; Syx does as well.

She’s expecting it when Miss Anderson asks the two of them to stay a few minutes after school.

“Gary didn’t ask us to help him,” Roxanne says, as soon as the other students are gone. “And we didn’t give him the answers. He shouldn’t get into trouble, too.”

Miss Anderson, who had been opening her mouth to speak, closes it again, looking at faintly puzzled.

“…I see,” she says.

She looks between Syx and Roxanne, a slight frown appearing between her eyebrows.

“You know you’re not supposed to get out of your seats while I’m out of the room,” she says.

Neither Syx and Roxanne answer, but they both nod.

“Why didn’t you wait until I’d come back?” Miss Anderson says. “Why didn’t you just ask permission?”

Roxanne stares at her, and then looks over at Syx. He looks back at her, his expression as shocked and confused as she’s feeling.

“Because you’re a teacher,” Syx says, speaking for both of them. “You would have said no.”

Miss Anderson blinks, and then her frown deepens.

“Where was it the two of you went to school before this?” she asks.

“‘Lil Gifted,” Roxanne and Syx say at the same time, in identical tones of loathing.

“—ah,” Miss Anderson says, “‘Lil Gifted.”

Roxanne looks at her, surprised at her tone. There’s a lot of disapproval and dislike in it. Possibly she knows Miss Simmons personally.

Miss Anderson shakes her head and gives the two of them a small smile.

“Not all classrooms are the same,” she says. “And not all teachers are the same. I don’t mind you helping out your classmates if they’re having trouble, as long as you’re not disruptive about it. No helping during tests, of course, and no simply sharing answers—but I think the two of you understand about that, don’t you? And no being out of your seats while I’m gone unless I’ve given you permission. All right?”

She smiles at them again.

“She was nice,” Syx says later, in tones of shock, the two of them sitting on the bus. “Are—are teachers usually that nice?”

“I don’t think so,” Roxanne says cautiously. “I mean, none of my other teachers were that nice. But none of them were as mean as Miss Simmons, either, so.”

Syx makes a thoughtful kind of noise, and then the two of them lapse into silence.

The next day, when Syx and Roxanne finish their reading assignment early, Miss Anderson gives them a hall pass and lets them go to the actual library to pick out books. Which keeps Syx occupied for a longer period of time, so there’s less of the fidgeting, and they have longer, more difficult books in the library, which also helps keep him occupied longer.

“—can I sit with you guys?”

Roxanne looks up, blinking. Gary is standing next to their lunch table, holding a tray and shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Nicole and Caitlyn giggle and Gary goes red, but doesn’t leave.

“Yes,” Syx says, after exchanging a quick look with Roxanne.

Gary drops down onto the seat across from Syx.

“Thanks,” he says. “Did you guys get in a lot of trouble yesterday?”

“Oddly enough,” Syx says, “no.”

“Miss Anderson says we’re allowed to help each other,” Roxanne says. “We’re just not supposed to get up while she’s out of the room.”

Gary looks between them, wide-eyed.

“Wow,” he says. “So. Uh. Either of you guys…know anything about multiplication?”

“We haven’t even started multiplication,” Monica says. “Miss Anderson hasn’t even explained it; why are you worried already?”

“Yes,” Roxanne says, “we both know multiplication.”

Gary lets out a long relieved breath.

“Oh, good,” he says. He takes a bite of hamburger. “I mean,” he says, words slightly muffled by hamburger, “I’ve just got a bad feeling about it,” he swallows “You guys really get it?”

“Yes,” Roxanne says. “It’s not that bad. You can turn it into addition, too.”

Gary blinks at her, looking confused.

“That’s what times means,” Syx says. “One number tells you how many times you add the other number to zero.”

“Wait, really?” Gary says. “That’s all it—but—how do you know which one’s which?”

“Which one’s which what?” Roxanne asks.

“You know,” Gary says, “which number is the one you’re supposed to add to zero and which number is telling you how many times you’re supposed to add the other number to zero?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Roxanne says. “You can do a problem either way and you’ll still get the same answer.”

Gary frowns, clearly confused.

“Three times two is the same is two times three,” Syx says. “Three times two means add three to zero two times,” he holds up three fingers on one hand, then three fingers on the other hand. “It’s six.” He wriggles his upraised fingers at Gary, then drops his hands. “And two times three means add two to zero three times,” he holds up two fingers on one hand, then two more, holds up two fingers on his other hand, and wriggles his upraised fingers at Gary again. “It’s still six.”

Gary’s jaw drops and Syx shrugs, a sharp twitch of his shoulders.

“Whoa,” Gary says.

Sys shrugs again, another of those jerky, twitchy movements, and drops his gaze to the tabletop.

“You guys are really smart.”

Roxanne makes a noise of vague agreement—Gary’s right; Syx is really smart—but to be honest, she’s not really paying that much attention to Gary.

Syx is glaring at the tabletop, gritting his teeth, fingers drumming. When she touches his wrist lightly, he stops, and looks at her. She glances down at his lunch, and he follows her gaze, then sighs, picks up his spoon, and takes a bite of jello.

“I’m sorry,” she says in a quiet voice.

Syx gives her a strained smile and waves his spoon in a sharp, dismissive motion.

“Well,” he says, “things—could be a lot worse.”

He means it as a reassurance, Roxanne can tell, but she frowns in discontent and frustration as she turns back to her own lunch.

Of course things could be worse; of course they could, but they could be so much better, too, and—

It just isn’t fair.

...to be continued.

Happy day six of my Nine Days of Megamind! 

Thank you all so much for continuing to like, reblog, and review! I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

[setepenre-set]

Given Names

K rating, gen/pre-relationship

(Prequel to Code: Safeword and to the Safe If We Stand ‘verse.)

The warden and the prison doctor fill out the governmental paperwork for the blue infant, and discuss names. 

AO3 | FFN

“How’s it going, Len?”

Dr. Kelley looked up and regarded Warden Wilson, who was standing in the doorway of his office, with a baleful glare.

“Just wonderful,” Dr. Kelley said with biting sarcasm, gesturing at the paperwork on his desk, “I’m only half through with all this and half of what I have put down is just guessing.”

The Warden frowned and moved closer.

“How do you mean?” he asked.

Dr. Kelley rolled his eyes and flipped to the very first page.

“Age,” he said, and waved a hand at the file cabinet drawer (hastily converted into a crib), and the blue infant inside said file cabinet, who was watching the two of them with a disconcertingly clear gaze. 

(The fish—Dr. Kelley assumed it was a fish; it looked like a fish and appeared to be a fish upon examination—as much examination as he could perform with the fish encased in that ball that didn’t have any visible opening—the fish slept in its ball in a corner of the drawer/crib.)

“You know how old he is? I don’t know how old he is! Cognitive and behavioral development tells one story, size tells another; no saying what any of the developmental norms actually are for his species—”

“He’s a boy, then?”

Dr. Kelley’s glare became even more baleful.

“Hell if I know,” he said. “X-rays and sonograms show an internal structure that differs significantly from that of a human; I’m not entirely certain what’s digestive and what’s reproductive—it’s got one orifice that appears to be for excretion, basically a cloaca—there’s a ventral slit near where a human’s genital structure would be located; that opens up into a small cavity in the abdomen filled with these sort of—bud-like polyp-y things; no idea what those are. The ventral slit might be roughly analogous to a vaginal opening, and the cavity in the abdomen might be something like a human uterus—or it might be a marsupial pouch—or it might be a vestigial structure like an appendix—or it might, for all I know, be a flesh pocket used for storing snacks!”

He threw his hands up in frustration.

The Warden frowned down at the paperwork.

“But you wrote down ‘male’,” he said.

Dr. Kelley snorted.

“John, look at him. Blue skin, over-intelligent, giant bald head—he might get hair later, but I doubt it—the kid’s gonna have trouble enough with all that. How much worse is all that gonna be for a girl?”

The Warden blinked, and then nodded slowly.

“You—didn’t name him yet, did you?” he asked.

Dr. Kelley rubbed a hand over his face.

“No,” he said, “I figured you’d want to help with that. How do you feel about ‘John’?”

The Warden blinked.

“…John,” he said, “not—Doe, right? I mean, I guess we could—Wilson? John Wilson…Jr.? We could call him Johnny. Or—or John…John Kelley.” he said, looking carefully past Dr. Kelley, not meeting his eyes.

Dr. Kelley’s chest tightened in an entirely unnecessary and ridiculous manner.

“I was thinking ‘John Walker’,” he said, refusing to acknowledge the heaviness of the moment. “And we could call him, Johnny.”

John looked up at him, frowning a little in confusion. Dr. Kelley saw the second that he got it.

(Johnny Walker Blue)

Dr. Kelley gave a crack of laughter at the offended expression on John’s face.

“We are not naming the kid after your favorite alcohol, Len!”

Dr. Kelley shrugged.

“Suit yourself.”

The Warden glared at him.

“Ssssss,” the baby said, making that odd sibilant hissing noise it—he—seemed to favor. “Ssssss.”

He looked between the Warden and Dr. Kelley with a worried expression in his too-large eyes.

“What’s wrong, kid?” the Warden said coaxingly, picking the kid up.

“Mind his head,” Dr. Kelley said, standing so he could correct the Warden’s hold.

“Sssss,” the kid said again, looking between the two of them and smiling suddenly, his face lighting up. “Ssssss! Sssyx. Syx.”

The Warden’s eyebrows raised. Dr. Kelley, realizing that he still had his hands over the Warden’s, let go quickly.

(John, evidently, had been too preoccupied with the baby to notice.)

“Syx?” the Warden repeated.

The baby laughed.

“Syx! Ssyx! Syx!”

“He’s been making that sound all day.” Dr. Kelley said.

“Syx?” the Warden said, bouncing the kid carefully, much to the baby’s evident enjoyment. “What’s syx? What’s that mean, huh?”

“Syx,” the baby said again, still laughing.

“—are you Syx?” the Warden said. “Is that you?”

“Sssss! SSSyx!”

The Warden looked at Dr. Kelley pointedly, his eyebrows raised even further. Dr. Kelley groaned.

“Oh, come on, John; we can’t name the kid Syx,” he said, “that could—it’s probably just baby-talk; just babbling, probably not even a word—”

“Ssssss,” the child said, reaching out and grabbing hold of Dr. Kelley’s nose. He regarded Dr. Kelley with sudden solemnity. “Ssss. Syx.”

“He says it like a word,” the Warden said, looking stubborn.

Dr. Kelley tried to glare at him with dignity, which was rather a lost cause, since the baby was still holding on to his nose.

“Even if it is a word,” he said begrudgingly, “it could mean anything. It could mean ‘mother’ or ‘hello’, for all we know—”

“Ssyx,” the said, smiling again, holding on to Dr. Kelley’s nose.

The Warden snickered into his moustache.

Dr. Kelley rolled his eyes, recognizing a lost cause when he saw one.

“All right. Fine. Syx it is,” he agreed with a put-upon sigh. “What last name do you want me to put down?”

(Syx Wilson-Kelley was a perfectly absurd name, and of course, and there were a hundred reasons why they couldn’t name the child that. But—)

“No last name,” the Warden said, looking at the baby, not looking at Dr. Kelley. “Just Syx.”

notes: The prison doctor’s full name is Dr. Leonard Kelley. He’s named after Dr. Leonard McCoy (played by DeForest Kelley) from Star Trek: The Original Series. His character was developed in discussions with @lynati about how Megamind came to be classified as male.

The bud-like structures that Dr. Kelley describes are the prepubescent forms of Megamind’s tentacles; they develop fully during adolescence.

(this is a prequel to both Code ‘verse and Safe If We Stand ‘verse, but Dr. Kelley’s storyline proceeds differently in each of these universes following this story.)

"Syx" is a term of endearment in the language of Megamind's people. It means "my love/my dear". Megamind tells the warden and Dr. Kelley that his name is "Syx" because that's what his parents called him.

[setepenre-set]

So were Dr Kelly and the Warden actually in a relationship or did they bury their feelings for each other in their respective vices- alcohol and work?

During the action of Given Names, they are not in a relationship (thus the part where Dr. Kelley pulls his hands away from the Warden’s quickly.)

however! spoilers for both Code: Safeword and the Safe If We Stand Close Together universe beneath the cut:

In the Safe If We Stand Close Together universe, they do get together soon after Given Names. Roxanne meets Dr. Kelley when she’s a kid; he and the Warden are in a relationship at that time. I have this planned for an upcoming chapter of Safety Instructions Not Included.

In the Code: Safeword universe, they don’t get together after Given Names. This should eventually be implied in some upcoming dialogue I have planned, but, in case this turns out to be less obvious than I’d like–Dr. Kelley and the Warden hooked up once. I think this probably happened the first time Megamind ran away as a teenager; they were both worried; emotions were high, things happened. Only they didn’t talk about their feelings, and so that Went Badly. 

Dr. Kelley and the Warden’s relationship in SIWS is meant to be sort of reflective of Syx!Megamind and Roxanne’s eventual relationship–best friends who have some difficulty recognizing that the pining is mutual and acting on their feelings, but who eventually get together. 

And Dr. Kelley and the Warden’s relationship in C:S is meant to be a demonstration of the necessity of Talking About Things Damn It.

[setepenre-set]

HELLO YES. Your writing is so masterful I liked it before I read it and you have me shipping the Warden with an OC within three sentences. I LOVE IT.

Ah, thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoyed Given Names, and that the shipping worked for you!

[setepenre-set]

Safe If We Stand Close Together: Safety Instructions Not Included (chapter 7)

The Roxanne and Megamind are friends as children AU.

K+ rating

AO3 | FFN

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6

(Follows Safe If We Stand Close Together and Happy Returns.)

There aren’t any guidelines for being best friends with an alien, no map key, no index, no safety instructions.

Roxanne tries, so very hard, to get it right in spite of this.

Syx and Roxanne linger outside the doorway of the classroom that day after school until everyone but Miss Anderson is gone.

As the last of their classmates disappears down the hallway, Roxanne glances over at Syx. He looks pale, but when his eyes meet hers, he nods.

Roxanne takes his hand and gives it a quick squeeze, then lets go of  him and ducks back into the classroom, leaving Syx hidden in the hall.

Miss Anderson is at her desk, sorting through papers; she looks up when Roxanne comes in.

“I just wanted,” Roxanne says, moving to Miss Anderson’s desk, “to say thank you. For letting Syx do the demonstration with the Read-Write today. At our old school…” she trails off, making a face.

“You both had a rather rough time of it there, it seems,” Miss Anderson says with a sympathetic smile.

“Yes,” Roxanne says. “Especially Syx. Miss Simmons—she didn’t treat him like a person.”

Miss Anderson frowns, her head tilting slightly; she clearly doesn’t completely understand.

“Because he doesn’t look human,” Roxanne says. “She didn’t treat him like a person because he doesn’t look human. She called him ‘it’.”

Miss Anderson sucks in a sharp breath, looking horrified. She shakes her head—a small movement, more an expression of abhorrence, rather than disbelief, Roxanne is pretty sure. For a small moment, her mouth works as though she might say something.

“And she’s not the only one,” Roxanne says, before she can. “When Syx was little, a bunch of people from a government lab tried to get him classified as non-sentient.”

Miss Anderson looks pale, and rather as if she might be sick.

“They said he was like a parrot,” Roxanne says. “Some kind of—a trained animal. They made him take tests. There was a hearing and everything before the judge finally said he was sentient.”

“I’m so sorry,” Miss Anderson says faintly.

“Yes,” Roxanne says. “Well—Syx did fine with the tests, of course, but—that’s why Syx is so worried about his brother. Because—reading and stuff like that doesn’t come easy to him, the way it does Syx, and what if he doesn’t do so good on the tests?”

“Oh,” Miss Anderson says, “but—if Syx has already been classified as sentient, then surely his brother—”

“They’re not blood relatives,” Roxanne says. “And he isn’t the same species as Syx. He looks less like humans than Syx does. That’s why he doesn’t go to school.”

“—I’m so sorry," Miss Anderson says again.

Roxanne swallows.

“Yeah,” she says. “Me, too. They turned in his brother’s sentience paperwork, but it’s going to take a while. And his brother really wants to go to school.”

Again, Miss Anderson seems to be trying to find the words to say. Syx, though, comes into the room now, just as he and Roxanne planned.

“Roxanne?” he says, hovering in the doorway. “The bus is going to be leaving soon.”

“Right, sorry,” Roxanne says. She puts on her backpack and starts to walk to the door. “I was just—we were talking about the Read-Write, and your brother’s paperwork.”

(it’s important that Miss Anderson knows Roxanne’s not telling her this behind Syx’s back)

Syx makes a noise of understanding, and nods.

“I hope your brother’s paperwork gets approved very soon, Syx,” Miss Anderson says. “I look forward to him joining us here at school.”

“Yes,” Syx says, and bites his lip. “If he does get to come to sh—school—would you let him use the Read-Write for class?”

Miss Anderson blinks.

“I certainly would,” she says slowly. “And���your brother…it sounds as if he has some form of dyslexia? The Read-Write is an assistive technology device. Schools are legally required to allow students with disabilities to use their assistive technology devices.”

The sheer and utter relief on Syx’s face is almost painful to look at.

“Thank you,” he breathes.

“You really should patent the device, you know, Syx,” Miss Anderson says, “it’s quite amazing; I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Syx looks as if Roxanne could knock him over with a feather. She takes his hand; he glances down at their joined hands, then up at her face.

“—ah!” he says, “I—yes, right; we should—the bus—”

Roxanne leads him to the door, and out into the hall.

“So?” she says in an undertone. “That went good, right?”

“Yes,” Syx says dazedly. “Yes, it did.”

Roxanne squeezes his hand. He gives a breathless kind of laugh, shakes his head, and squeezes back.

“Phase two of the plan tomorrow,” he says.

“If Minion is ready,” Roxanne agrees as the very impatient bus driver motions them onto the bus.

“I wonder if you could adapt the Read-Write for other people,” Roxanne says thoughtfully, as the bus pulls out of the school driveway.

Syx looks at her questioningly.

“Like—the scan part of it, instead of having it in cursive, you could have it in bigger print, for people who have trouble seeing. Or if you added a voice to it, then it could read it out loud to you…”

Syx’s face lights up.

“Oooh, I like that!” he says. “What else?”

“Oh—” Roxanne frowns, considering. “Well, you could—”

The next day, Syx’s backpack looks very full again, and he puts it very carefully on his lap when he sits down next to Roxanne on the bus. Roxanne looks at him sharply and he nods.

She gulps, her stomach flipping over with nerves.

Syx tightens his hold on the backpack tightly. Roxanne puts her hand on top of his and takes a deep breath.

Okay.

Okay, they can do this.

They can do this.

Roxanne’s nerves wind themselves tighter and tighter; by the time the lunch bell rings, she’s almost ready to scream. And if she’s feeling like this, she can’t imagine how Syx must feel.

The other kids file out the door and into the hall; Roxanne and Syx move aside into the Science Corner and wait for them to go. Miss Anderson, seeing them waiting, looks at them questioningly.

“Miss-Anderson-may-we-please-talk-to-you-about-something-important,” Syx says, words running together.

Miss Anderson blinks.

“Yes, of course,” she says.

“Is it okay if I close the door?” Roxanne asks. “It’s—we don’t want anyone else to overhear.”

“All right,” Miss Anderson says slowly.

Roxanne closes the door and goes back to stand beside Syx.

“You remember we told you about Syx’s brother,” Roxanne says.

“Of course, yes,” Miss Anderson says.

Roxanne glances at Syx; he’s looking pale again, and clutching his backpack so tightly his knuckles have turned white.

“You remember the first day of shool,” Syx says.

(he doesn’t even try to pronounce the word correctly; Roxanne can tell he’s fighting simply to get the words out.)

“You remember—what you told me,” he says, voice tight, “about show and tell.”

Roxanne shifts her weight so that she’s closer to Syx, presses their shoulders together. He takes a quick, uneven breath and, like he’s tearing off a bandage, unzips his backpack.

“I’d like you to meet my brother,” he says. “Minion.”

Minion squints slightly when Syx takes his sphere out of the backpack—adjusting to the light after the darkness of being inside the bag. His eyes meet Roxanne’s, and she gives him the most reassuring smile she can. Minion turns towards Miss Anderson.

“um—hello,” he says, voice nervous. “It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you.”

Miss Anderson’s eyes go very wide.

“Oh,” she says faintly, “oh.”

She swallows hard, shakes her head.

“—and I assumed you were a pet,” she says, “I am so sorry.”

Minion flutters his fins in a surprised motion..

“Oh,” he says. “That’s—thank you?”

Syx puts his ball down on the desk.

“But, really,” Minion says, “we were—I do pretend to be a pet mostly; we figured it would be safer, but—”

He hesitates, and rolls the ball so he can glance at Syx, who touches the tips of his fingers, quick and light, to the sphere. Then Minion looks again at Miss Anderson.

“—but I want to stop doing that now,” he says. “I want—I want to go to school with Sir and Miss Roxanne.”

This time, when he rolls the ball, it’s Roxanne Minion glances at. She touches her fingertips to the glass the same way Syx did.

“And we thought,” Roxanne says, “that maybe you would help us make that happen.”

Miss Anderson swallows visibly, and then she nods.

“Yes,” she says, “yes, of course, I will.”

Beside Roxanne, Syx lets out a shuddery breath, the tense line of his shoulders relaxing. Roxanne takes his hand and holds it tightly.

“Oh,” he says, sounding near tears. “Oh.”

He can’t seem to say anything else.

Things do get a bit—messy—after that, but, then, they always knew that was going to happen if they used the plan.

Miss Anderson has Minion rest on her desk until the end of school, and then she asks Syx to stay after school. She doesn’t ask Roxanne to stay, too, but she doesn’t seem surprised when Roxanne does.

And then the phone calls start—first Miss Anderson calls the office and has the superintendent, principal, and the school’s special education teacher all come to her classroom, and then she calls the Warden and Dr. Kelley, and they both come down to the school.

The Warden is glowering and gnawing at his mustache, and Dr. Kelley looks—well, Roxanne always thought that hopping mad was just a weird thing that people said, but Dr. Kelley looks mad enough to start hopping at any moment.

The adults all send Syx, Minion, and Roxanne out into the hall, close the door, and argue. Luckily, the classroom door is thin enough that when Roxanne tries to eavesdrop, this time she’s able to hear some of it.

“—even without citizenship and sentience documentation—”

“—legally required not to share that information about our students, Dr. Kelley; they’d have to have a warrant—”

“—called an Individualized Education Program; all children who receive special education will—”

“—wanting to speak to you concerning Syx as well; he’s very gifted; an IEP for him would—”

Roxanne doesn’t hear who it is who decides to call her dad, and she’s not completely sure if he’s there as her dad or as a lawyer.

By then, the whole thing’s gone on long enough that it’s almost time for Roxanne’s mother to be home from work, so Roxanne’s dad calls her, and she comes down to the school, too, and joins in the—by now very heated—discussion. Roxanne’s still out in the hall with Syx and Minion, but they can all hear the upraised voices.

Eventually, it’s over, and the adults all come out into the hall. Roxanne’s mother takes her wrist in a very tight grip.

“Does Minion get to go to school?” Roxanne blurts out, as he mother starts to walk quickly down the hall.

Her mother doesn’t answer, so she glances back at the rest of them. She catches Miss Anderson’s eye, and Miss Anderson gives her a very small nod.

Roxanne grins and lets her mother pull her the rest of the way down the hallway.

Not even her mother’s angry lecture, after they get home, about respecting authority figures and not interfering with Syx and Minion’s parents, can’t dampen Roxanne’s spirits. She doesn’t even try to argue, but just lets her mother go on until she’s finished.

Even when her mother insists that she write the Warden and Dr. Kelley each an apology note, Roxanne doesn’t argue.

The notes she writes are as full of lies as the apology note her parents once made her write to Miss Simmons, but she writes them with a light heart.

The next day, Minion, wearing his robotic suit, stands at the front of the classroom and introduces himself.

Miss Anderson writes his name on the board—in print, first, and then after that she writes it again in cursive.

And then Minion sits down at his own desk.

“I’m grounded for a month,” Roxanne tells Syx, grinning.

“Oh, us, too!” Syx says happily, and Roxanne laughs.

Her mother drives her to the prison after she gets home from work, and marches Roxanne up to the Warden’s office. She hovers angrily in the doorway as Roxanne hands the apology note to him.

His eyebrows go up when he takes it, and his mustache moves thoughtfully, as if he might speak. Finally, though, he just nods.

So Roxanne takes that as her cue to leave, and to let her mother march her down to Dr. Kelley’s office.

Dr. Kelley’s eyebrows snap down when he takes the letter, and he actually reads the whole thing in front of her.

Then he looks up at her, wearing that expression of sardonic amusement.

“You,” he says, “didn’t mean a damn word of this, did you?”

Roxanne hesitates only a moment.

“No,” she says honestly, “I didn’t.”

Behind her, in the doorway, her mother makes an angry noise.

Dr. Kelley glowers at her silently for a long moment.

Then lips twitch, and, to Roxanne’s surprise, he suddenly bursts out laughing.

“Oh, go away, you awful child!” Dr. Kelley covers his face with one hand and  waves her out the door.

After Roxanne, Syx, and Minion are all finally un-grounded, Roxanne helps Syx work on creating additional assistive technology features for the Read-Write.

When Syx patents it two months later, he puts her name down on the form as co-creator, and refuses to listen when she tries to convince him to take it off.

Minion does get one of those things the adults were talking about, an IEP. He’s still able to stay in their classroom with them most of the time, but sometimes he goes to see the special education teacher for help with reading and writing. And he’s allowed to use the Read-Write, which really is helpful.

Syx gets one of the IEP things, too; him being allowed to work on other things after he’s finished with his classroom work is one of the things that gets written into his.

Minion is very popular with the other kids—and with the parents of the other kids, too, although it usually takes the adults a little longer to get past the whole fish-and-prosthetic-suit thing than it did the kids.

A month after Minion joins their class, Gary tells them excitedly at lunch that his parents finally are going to let him be in special ed for math.

“They said they didn’t want me getting made fun of,” Gary says, waving a french fry, “but I told them Minion is in special ed, and nobody makes fun of Minion!”

Gary and Minion also join a extra tutoring group for children with learning disabilities at the community center.

When Syx and Roxanne make several more Read-Writes with various experimental features, Minion gives them to the other members of the group so that they can test the devices and suggest improvements.

Minion’s sentience and citizenship paperwork is approved that summer.

Nobody even attempts to contest his sentience.

Roxanne, wearing a nice dress and new shoes that pinch her feet, sits beside Syx during the hearing, holding his hand tightly. When the judge signs the papers, they both jump to their feet excitedly, bouncing up and down and hugging each other.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Roxanne says, as Syx laughs joyfully.

“Sir! Miss Roxanne!”

Minion, robotic suit clanking, moves swiftly towards them, and the two of them pull him into the hug.

the end.

HAPPY DAY NINE OF MY NINE DAYS OF MEGAMIND!!! o<{}( :D~

A big thank you to @siadea for giving me information about special education (during the holidays too!) 

Thank you for continuing to read, like, reblog, and comment; I’m so glad to have you guys as my readers! I hope you enjoyed the conclusion to Safety Instructions Not Included!

The Safe If We Stand Close Together universe will continue! The next story in the series is the already-published Terms of Endearment. Following that will be a story called Changing Times (yet to be published as of 12/25/17). While waiting for that fic, you can re-read my story Given Names, which serves as a prequel to it (as well as to Code: Safeword)!

(I plan to continue the Safe If We Stand Close Together universe after that as well; my current outline has it going on through their high school years and into their first year in college!)

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR READING! <3

[setepenre-set]

Safe If We Stand Close Together: Safety Instructions Not Included (chapter 3)

The Roxanne and Megamind are friends as children AU.

K+ rating

AO3 | FFN | chapter 1 | chapter 2

(Follows Safe If We Stand Close Together and Happy Returns.)

There aren’t any guidelines for being best friends with an alien, no map key, no index, no safety instructions.

Roxanne tries, so very hard, to get it right in spite of this.

“Okay,” Roxanne says, trying to sound as confident as possible. “So—if we’re going to come up with a plan, I need to understand some things.”

“What things?” Syx asks.

“Well—I mean, I know that Minion isn’t anything like your pet, and I know he isn’t a servant, but—Minion, you always call Syx ‘sir’, and I don’t completely understand what you guys are to each other.”

“Oh!” Syx says, “it’s—”

He frowns and looks over at Minion, who is also frowning.

“—I’m not sure how to describe it,” Syx finishes slowly.

“Family?” Roxanne says.

“Family, definitely,” Syx says.

“Brothers? Cousins?” Roxanne asks.

“Something like that, but not exactly,” Minion says. “I—help Sir. I look after him.”

“…like—a babysitter?” Roxanne asks hesitantly, sure that can’t be right, but still not understanding.

“Oh, no!” Minion says. “It’s a lifelong thing. Sir and I are bonded.”

“Bonded?”

“Yes, it’s a kind of—pheromonal, emotional—link between a M’ega and a Mnyn,” Syx says.

“A Mnyn,” Roxanne repeats the word. “That’s what Minion is? Why—” she cuts herself off, shaking her head.

“What?” Syx asks.

“I—” Roxanne hesitates, “—well, I mean—why is his name Minion, then? That would be like—naming me ‘Human’ or Syx ‘Mega’.”

Their reaction isn’t as negative as she feared, though; Syx laughs and Minion makes a scoffing sound.

“Bipeds,” Minion says, rolling his eyes. “You and your—morbid insistence on names!”

“Morbid?” Roxanne says, “Wait—the—Mnyn—don’t have names?”

“We have use-names!” Minion says, “Nicknames. Given to us by people we spend time with! But we don’t have fixed names until after we die and we’re added to the History Song.”

“That’s what I meant,” Syx says, “about written language being completely foreign to Minion’s physical, social, and intellectual structure. They didn’t even use writing; their history was oral and gestural.”

“Names,” Minion mutters, giving a shudder, “so creepy! I don’t know which is worse, getting a fixed name assigned to you as an infant, the way that humans do it, or making people choose their own, the way the M’ega did it.”

“You chose your own name, Syx?” Roxanne asks.

“Not yet,” Syx says, shaking his head. “I’ll do that when I hit adol-e—adolescence.”

“So…‘Syx' isn’t—your real name?”

“It’s what my parents called me,” he says. “It means—‘my love’ or ‘my dear’.

“—that’s why you call him ‘Sir’!” Roxanne says, understanding striking. “And that’s why you call me ‘Miss Roxanne’! Because you think using our real names would be morbid!”

Minion makes a face.

“Talking about you like you’ve already died,” he says.

“So you don’t ever use people’s names?” Roxanne asks.

“Well—you can,” Minion says, waving a fin. “But it would be—almost like profanity.”

“That,” Roxanne says, “is so interesting! Do you think it’s weird that humans get names when they’re born, Syx?”

“I—honestly, yes,” Syx says. “Like—telling someone what their favorite color has to be! It doesn’t seem fair.”

“…huh,” Roxanne says, “yeah. I never thought of it like that. It is kind of unfair. But—” she shakes her head and waves a hand, “—the bond thing. That’s—what the Mnyn and the M’ega do? When you’re born, you get assigned to someone? That seems even more unfair than choosing someone’s name for them.”

“No, no!” Syx says, gesturing, “No, it’s—the bond doesn’t work unless the Mnyn and the M’ega both want it to. You couldn’t ever force a bond.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Roxanne says. “But what if—what if you never find the right person to bond with? Would you guys be stuck wandering around alone forever, unbonded?”

Syx frowns.

“Well, I mean—most people were unbonded.”

Roxanne tips her head curiously.

“Only some Mnyn want to bond with a M’ega,” Minion says. “It’s a calling. Others do other things.”

“And only some M’ega are bonded?”

“Yes,” Minion says, “the ones who are—”

“—different,” Syx says, just as Minion says, “—special.”

“Different how?”

“Exceptional intelligence,” Minion says.

“Difficulty caring for themselves,” Syx says, voice quiet. “In—one way or another.”

“You’re smart even for your species,” Roxanne says, eyes going wide. “Wow.”

Syx gives her a look that’s half embarrassment and half shy pleasure.

“Yes, he is,” Minion says proudly.

“…yes,” Syx says, “but—it wasn’t just—I mean, I was very small when my parents sent me in the escape pod; they knew I’d need a caretaker then, but also—oh, you know!”

He makes a distressed face and gestures, both hands fluttering agitatedly before falling into his lap.

The fact that she doesn’t actually know what it is he thinks she knows must show in Roxanne’s expression because he winces, looking off towards the bookshelves.

“I don’t exactly—function at maximum efficiency,” he says. “People—social things—emotional—you know. That’s not—that’s not because of me being M’ega. It’s because I’m—me.”

“And Minion helps you with that,” Roxanne says.

“Yes.”

Roxanne bites her lip, frowning at the bookshelf in front of her without really seeing it. For a long moment the three of them are silent.

“��have you thought of a plan?” Syx asks.

She blinks and turns back to him and to Minion.

They’re both watching her; even Minion looks a little hopeful, now.

Her stomach turns over with sudden nerves at the realization that they’re both counting on her to come up with something.

“Maybe,” she says, “I’m—I’ve got a couple ideas—I don’t know if they’ll work, though; I don’t want to get your hopes up if—I need to think some more.”

“Okay,” Syx says. “Do you want to—”

Minion clears his throat.

“I think,” he says, “that the planning can be postponed slightly. You and Miss Roxanne both need to eat.”

“Oh,” Roxanne blinks, realizing, for the first time, that she’s hungry. “I mean—we could still—”

“—we could skip—” Syx begins.

“It’s time for lunch now,” Minion says firmly. “Planning can wait until after school.”

Syx and Roxanne exchange a look of frustration.

“After shool, then,” Syx says begrudgingly.

“Yes,” Roxanne says, almost as begrudgingly as Syx, “yes, after school.”

Technically speaking, Roxanne is actually supposed to go to home after school. Her mother isn’t home from work yet, but Roxanne has a house key. She’s supposed to get off the bus, let herself in, and start working on her homework.

But she needs to be with Syx and Minion so they can talk this over, and the Warden is waiting at the prison for the two of them to come home; he’ll notice if they don’t.

So Roxanne stays on the bus when her stop comes up, and waits to get off with Syx and Minion.

Hopefully she’ll be able to get a ride home from the Warden or Dr. Kelley and she won’t have to tell her mother about this—but even if she does end up getting in trouble—this is necessary.

Syx and Minion’s room is an actual prison cell, which is…well, neither of them have ever said anything about it bothering them, but it’s always struck Roxanne as—wrong.

Unfair.

It’s definitely inconvenient; there isn’t any real privacy. Syx turns on some music, though, something without any lyrics but with lots of everything else, especially electric guitar. He doesn’t turn it up really loud, but it’s loud enough to cover the sounds of their voices.

And the three of them make a quick blanket fort—they take the mattress off of the cot and prop it up on its side, one end resting against the wall, the other end leaning against the cot, so that they’re enclosed in a three-sided space. Then they drape the blanket over the top and prop the pillow up under the cot, blocking the last opening.

They sit in a rough circle; Minion’s ball in front of the mattress; Syx sitting crosslegged next to the edge of the cot and the pillow, and Roxanne’s back to the cold concrete wall.

It’s dim under the blanket; Syx takes the power source binky out from the dehydration gun he made last week and puts it in the middle of the circle.

“All right,” Roxanne says in a low voice, under cover of the music, and in the safety of the blanket fort. “I’ve got a couple of ideas.”

Syx and Minion nod, their gazes focused on her face.

“I thought of the first idea,” Roxanne says, “after you said that Minion—that part of what he does, part of what he’s meant to do for you, Syx, is help you with—social things and emotional things. And that you’re—” she swallows, “—that most people of your species wouldn’t need that. So—”

She looks between the two of them, wondering which of them is most likely to be hurt by the suggestion she has to make.

“So I know Minion isn’t anything like a pet,” she says, “and he’s a person, he’s not an animal. And Syx, you’re—but—but what if we explained it like Minion was something like—not like a seeing-eye dog, but one of those—dogs that people get to help them—remember medication and things like that, and stay calm while they’re panicking? That way Minion could still be there at school, even if he couldn’t be a student.”

“That…doesn’t sound so bad,” Minion says.

Syx nods slowly.

“I’d need a doctor’s note,” he says. “And a—a diagnosis. I don’t know—I don’t know what they would call—whatever it is that’s wrong with me, but—”

Roxanne’s breath hisses though her teeth. Whatever it is that’s wrong with him. This is exactly what she was afraid of, making this suggestion!

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” she says forcefully.

Syx blinks, then frowns.

“—but there is,” he says, “I told you. I’m weird even for my—”

“—Sir—”

“Different,” Roxanne says. “You’re different, but different isn’t bad, Syx—”

Syx makes a dismissive noise, waves a hand.

“Anyway,” he says. “we could get that from Dr. Kelley. This is absolutely a workable plan! Why didn’t you think this plan would work?”

“I do think it would work,” Roxanne says. “It’s just—I’ve got another plan that I think would be better. But I don’t—I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

“I’m not going to like it?” Syx asks, “Or Minion isn’t going to like it?”

“—I don’t think either of you are going to like it,” Roxanne says. “But I—I really, really think it’s a better plan.”

She looks uncertainly at them both.

“You can tell us, Miss Roxanne,” Minion says, voice soothing.

“I just—” she hesitates, “I don’t want you to feel like I’m being—like I’m acting like it wasn’t a big deal for you, because I know it was, Syx,” she says in a rush, “but I think we should have the Warden and Dr. Kelley turn in the paperwork for Minion, to get him declared sentient. And I think we should try to get the school to enroll him as a student.”

Syx jerks back as if she’s shoved him.

“Wh—but I told you how dangerous that would be!” he says, voice rising in agitation. “We told you! If Minion starts talking to people, if people start noticing Minion, he’s going to be in danger! He’s going to be in danger of them taking him away like they tried to do to me—”

“I know,” Roxanne says, “but, Syx—he already is in danger.”

She gestures, quick and sharp and distressed.

“If he’s not legally sentient, if he’s not legally a person—then they could come and try to take him away at any time. And if you keep things that way, if you never file the paperwork, never make people see him as a person—then he’s always going to be in danger of that. Always, forever, for—for the rest of our lives. He’s never going to be safe.”

Syx looks at her with wide, stricken eyes, his breathing shallow. Minion rolls his ball closer to Syx; Roxanne can’t tell if he’s trying to give comfort, or needing it himself.

“Later,” Syx whispers. “We can—we can do it later—when it’s safer—”

“Syx,” Roxanne says, fingers twisting together in her lap, “it’s never going to be safer if we don’t do something about this. And—I’m sorry. But I think we are going to have to do it sooner or later. And doing it now—getting them to admit he’s a person now, at the school at least, even if the paperwork hasn’t gone through, even if he hasn’t—been officially declared sentient—getting the school to recognize him as sentient will—set a precedent.”

She moves her hands, remembering the way her father explained the concept to her.

“It—when something happens once,” she says, “it makes it easier for it to happen again. If we let the school treat Minion like an animal, it makes it easier for other people to treat him like an animal. If we make the school treat him like a person, the next time we make people to treat him like a person, it’ll be easier. If—if he has to have a hearing, him being in school is going to help make people see people that he’s sentient.”

There are tears in Syx’s eyes, but he gulps and doesn’t actually cry.

“A precedent,” he repeats. “You—you really think so?”

“Yes,” Roxanne says, “yes, I do, and—and I actually think—that maybe your sentience hearing set a precedent, too, Syx. Even—even if you don’t get the same judge. It’s still on record. It’s still a precedent. There’s a precedent for aliens being ruled sentient.”

Syx bites his lip hard; Roxanne swallows. Her fingers twitch in her lap—she wants to reach for him, wants to reach for Minion, but doesn’t know if she should.

She sees Syx’s fingers twitch, too, and she takes a sharp breath, reaching for his hand. He lets her take it, laces his fingers tightly with hers. Syx touches the top of Minion’s orb with the fingertips of his other hand.

Roxanne reaches out for Minion, too, but doesn’t quite touch the ball, not sure if Minion will want her to.

Minion rolls the ball just slightly, so that her fingertips rest on it as well.

She takes a steadying breath.

“So,” she says, “what—what do you guys think?”

“Sir?”

Minion looks up at Syx, who swallows and shakes his head.

“I—I can’t make this choice for you, Minion,” he says. “It—you have—you have the right to decide for yourself.”

Roxanne squeezes his hand.

Minion flutters his fins in an agitated way and rolls his ball from beneath their hands—rolls it back and forth, back and forth, as if he’s pacing.

He’s silent for several minutes; they all are. Then he stops rolling, looks at both of them.

“I still can’t really read,” he says.

Roxanne’s heart gives a hard thud against the inside of her ribcage.

“We’ll work with you,” she says.

She glances over at Syx, whose face is pale.

“Yes,” he says, “and—I’ll—build you another body, too. Something our size—if you look more like the humans, they’ll—be more likely to accept you as a person.”

Minion nods, his sharp-toothed mouth set and determined.

“—are we doing this, then?” Roxanne asks.

“Yes,” Minion says. “Let’s do this.”

Syx lets out a shuddery breath.

“We—we should go talk to Dr. Kelley and the Warden about the paperwork, then,” he says.

...to be continued.

This is day five of my Nine Days of Megamind; I hope you are enjoying the them!

And I very much hope you all like the update to this story.

[damienthepious]

HECK YEAH HECK YEAH HECK YEAH

The brainbots are SO cute I love love LOVE all the costumes, the Warden and dr Kelley were HILARIOUS and mother hen Minion is my absolute FAVE

This is SO SO GOOD HAPPY HALLOWEEN

💙🖤💙🖤💙🖤💙🖤💙

Trick Or Treat

Megamind/Roxanne, K+ rating

The brainbots have their own version of trick-or-treating, which they enjoy after the annual Halloween plot each year. This year, though, the evil plot is cancelled due to Miss Ritchi being ill, and, in an effort to cheer up Megamind, the bots persuade him to join them. Little does Megamind know just how many tricks—and treats—are in store for him tonight.

AO3 | FFN

Roxanne blew her nose yet again and then added the tissue to the growing pile beside her couch. She coughed, then resettled back more comfortably into her nest of blankets. She glanced down at the book on the cushions beside her—no. Her head hurt too much to read any more right now. She’d have to wait until later to find out what happened to the feisty Miss Felicity Day after Lord Vincent Valentine discovered it was she he had kidnapped in place of her wilting lettuce of a sister, Wilhelmina.

Keep reading

[setepenre-set]

vairablogs replied to your post: Safe If We Stand Close Together: Star Sweater

Ah! I never got the feeling that they were possibly an item from your other fics (or I’m dumb) what made you choose to do that? Love it!

Len and the Warden being possibly an item is actually one of the first things that I decided when I came up with Dr. Kelley! But I tried to keep the hints very subtle up until now, because Len is very nervous and prickly about it.

Which-- is not without reason. When Megamind’s pod crash-landed on earth, it would have been around 1980, and homosexuality was still classified as a mental disorder in the united states. It wasn’t declassified until 1987. The AIDS crisis, moral panic; this was not a good time to be queer in the US.

In Code: Safeword, we hear that Len didn’t want the two of them to try adopting Megamind because he was afraid people would think they were queer and use that as an excuse to take Megamind away from them, which was a reasonable fear at that time. 

Made more reasonable by the fact that they are, in fact, queer. The Warden is gay, and Len is bisexual--his ex-wife actually divorced him because she found out that he’s bisexual. 

Which probably doesn’t help his general state of not trusting people especially in relation to them knowing that he’s queer.