An Apartment for Two

A Monsters, Inc. fan fiction

“Yo, Sulley!” Mike called out. “You wanna set those boxes down in my room?”
James Sullivan, Sulley to his friends, heaved a pile of boxes over to the room claimed by his best friend and roommate, Mike Wazowski. “Sure thing,” he called out. The two were moving into an apartment in downtown Monstropolis so they could be closer to their workplace at the great Monsters, Inc. factory.
“You’re gonna handle your half of the rent, right?” Sulley called over to Mike, who was in the kitchen.
“When have I ever not pulled my own weight?”
“Well, let’s see, you still owe me money from when I treated you to the movies when we were ten, you never gave back that book I lent you when we were seventeen, and you still owe me from when I lent you forty bucks for your date with the secretary last night.”
“Her name is Celia, okay? And that’s what you’re gonna call her. Because I have a feeling that she is the ONE.”
“After one date? And, Mike, let’s not change the subject. You’re handling your half of the rent, or you’re sleeping in the car.”
“The car’s so ugly, though. You know what I’m saving up for next?”
“Paying your half of the rent?”
“A sports car. Something I can drive down the street so people will say, ‘Man, that guy’s classy’.”
“Sure, suuuure.”
“Hey, you done unpacking those boxes yet?”
“It’s YOUR stuff.”
“Okay, okay!”
Sulley sighed. He knew Mike wouldn’t be unpacking his own boxes. He started with the box labeled “Random Stuff From I Don’t Remember Where.” Obviously labeled by Mike.
He stopped. Lying on top of the junk Mike had haphazardly thrown into the box without looking at it was something he never thought he’d see again. He was surprised Mike had kept it. Most likely, Mike had forgotten he had it.
Sulley picked it up. It was a refrigerator magnet, the sort made at a carnival from a photo taken there, the sort that usually depicted friends goofing off.
He remembered the day that he and his two best friends at the time had taken it, back when they were thirteen…

“Come OOONNNNN,” Randall begged. “How else are we going to remember this moment if we don’t take a picture of it?”
“Commemorative friendship trinkets?” Mike scowled. “That’s so GIRLY.”
“It’s a refrigerator magnet,” Randall argued. “It’s not like it’s a friendship bracelet or anything sissy.”
“Let’s just take it,” said Sulley, usually the voice of reason of the trio. “It’s just a picture. There doesn’t have to be anything ‘girly’ about it. Besides, someday we might want to look back on our old friendship, and we won’t have anything to use to remind us. So the magnet’s a good idea.”
The more immature Mike and Randall stared at him with three wide eyes before bursting out screaming.
“Sulley, what’s WRONG with you?”
“Don’t TALK like that!”
“You’re making it sound all sad, like we’re going to split up when we’re older or something!”
“Well…” Sulley couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t get him yelled at more, but he knew nothing was certain…
“You know what we’re going to do?” said Randall. “We’re gonna go to the same college, graduate together, all go to work at Monsters, Inc., and live in an apartment for three. Then have a triple wedding.”
“Yeah, as though Sulley will ever get a wife,” Mike quipped.
“Hey!” Sulley protested.
“You’re such a stick in the mud, man,” said Mike. “You’re gonna end up with the most boring girl in the universe.”
“Don’t worry, though,” said Randall. “You’ll both get great promotions. I’ll make sure of that. I look out for my friends.”
“Um, Randall?” Sulley asked. “How are you going to make sure we get promotions?”
“Because I’ll promote you,” Randall said without missing a beat. “Duh.”
“So…you’re assuming you’re going to be the CEO.”
“Well, yeah! Think about it. Which one of us has the best grades? The most cognitive skills? The most talent with technology? Come on, guys. You KNOW I’m destined for the top.”
“Well…” Mike and Sulley exchanged glances.
“Mind you,” Mike pointed out, “Sulley is the only one of us who’s managed to make it through the whole school year without a single detention. And you…well, you managed to get a record amount of detentions for the whole student body. I’m just sayin’.”
“You’re just jealous because I’m going to be your boss,” Randall snapped.
“Well, you’re just jealous because I’m better looking than you!” Mike snapped back.
“Guys,” said Sulley, “can we just take the picture?”
That got the two of them to stop fighting. “Yeah!” They rushed over to the photo booth at lightning speed.

“See?” said Randall. “Fridge magnet. NOT girly. And one for each of us, so in case this worrywart’s right and we stop being friends, we’ll be able to remember each other.”
“I’m not a worrywart,” said Sulley.
“Then what are you?” Mike asked.
“Practical.”
The magnet showed the three tweens on a white background. Sulley, in the center, put on a professional smile, just like he did for his school photo every year. Mike was trying to put rabbit ears on him, but his height was causing him to fail. Randall had his eyes crossed and was sticking his tongue out at the camera.
Mike tapped Randall’s picture on the magnet. “Classy.”

The three had earned the moniker “Terrible Trio” in school. Really, it was a misnomer, as Sulley really didn’t do anything that terrible. Mike and Randall, on the other hand, liked pranking teachers and talking out of turn, and they often landed detentions.
“Why, why, why,” moaned the monster in charge of running detention. “Why can’t you two be more like James?”
Mike and Randall just shrugged.
It was okay, because Sulley was always faithfully waiting for them as soon as they broke free of detention, and the trio went out for ice cream or to play mini-golf together.
Well, that was before they stopped playing sports or games of any sort together, seeing as Randall was an extremely sore loser and would go silent on his friends for the rest of the day if they beat him at anything.

They grew older, and things went mostly according to plan. They attended the same university, but things were changing.
Of course, the Terrible Trio reputation disappeared, for they all knew they had to have cleaner records and better grades if they wanted to graduate. But that wasn’t the only shift.
Randall just wouldn’t let his quest for greatness go. He was convinced that success and superiority were his birthrights, and made that clear at every opportunity. He bid for president of every club, chatted up any young lady that either Mike or Sulley found attractive, and found any and every reason to be jealous.
“How did this happen?” he screamed, ripping up an exam with disgust.
“You got a ninety-three,” Sulley pointed out.
“And YOU got a ninety-four.”
“So? Maybe—“
“No MAYBES. Ninety three isn’t good enough for me, and goodness knows ninety-four is way too good for you!”
“That…that was rude!”
“What would you know about it, stickler? Worrywart? Gah, I can’t believe YOU bested me…”
“How can you say that? We’re best friends!”
He never offered a valid explanation.

So Mike and Sulley drifted away from him, not wanting to put up with his arrogance and hissy fits.
The three became employed at Monsters, Inc., and what was once a friendship became a feud.
There was an incident, laughable to passerby but not so much to those involved, in which a billboard for the company, posted above Monstropolis’ Main Street, depicted a shot of the Scarefloor with CEO Henry Waternoose in the foreground. Those with an acute eye—or ten acute eyes—could see, in the background of the shot, Randall and Mike trying to brain each other with scream canisters.

When Randall and Sulley were promoted to the top ranks of scarers, they were rivals, and this was not questioned.
Perhaps the situation wouldn’t have elevated as quickly as it did if Sulley hadn’t been just a BIT superior to Randall. He always finished a scaring job faster, collected a little more energy, filed his paperwork with handwriting that was a little neater…
It drove Randall nearly INSANE.
Sulley and Mike became known as the Dream Team. Mike was Sulley’s assistant, and though it wasn’t clear, none of Sulley’s success would have come without Mike’s help with the quick changing of doors and replacing of canisters. Other scarer/assistant duos had quick reflexes and talent, but Mike and Sulley had friendship on their side, and it made their work all the more efficient.
The bond between the two grew. It began to look like Mike and Sulley would end up getting an apartment for two and having a double wedding (provided that Sulley could find the most boring woman in Monstropolis).
They did move into that apartment for two, not three.
And of three refrigerator magnets from long ago—one was casually thrown into the garbage on a collection day. One was violently ground into dust by various power tools.
The third ended up in Sulley’s hand on the day he unpacked his housemate’s boxes on the first day of moving in.

“Sulley, what are you doing in there?” Mike yelled. “You’ve been working on that same box for thirty minutes!”
“Huh?” Sulley shook his head. “Oh, yeah.”
The magnet went back to the bottom of the box. Later it would find its way to the bottom of a drawer and never come out.
“You know, Mike, you should really think about unpacking your own boxes.”
Mike skipped into the room with a camera.
Sulley sighed, and smiled. “What’s that for?”
“How else we gonna remember the moment?” Mike asked. He stretched out his arm and snapped a picture of himself and Sulley that would develop so Mike’s excitedly smiling face would be halfway cut off and Sulley, completely unprepared to have his picture taken, would appear to be sick.
“Maybe we can get it framed or somethin’,” Sulley suggested.
“Are you kidding?” Mike scowled. “That kind of thing is so girly!”
“Whatever.”
The Dream Team, Mike Wazowski and James Sullivan, returned to decorating their apartment for two.