Cold Fusion: Twelve Days, Ch 6
2 PARTS. LIVEJOURNAL. BUTTS.
The Comfy Mountain Motel is also a real place (but I changed the name because of reasons). So is the museum they stop at later, but I took a bunch of liberties with that one because (a) I couldn't find details on what it actually has there and (b) the scene was originally written for a different museum all the way back in Colorado. Oh, and credit where it's due, this scene was entirely Karen's idea. Brilliant! Brilliant, I say!
We finally get where we're going! Again, thank you, KarenBJones, for the car trouble ideas and the bit with the turquoise. So much fun. And we finally get to meet Drew, who is also so much fun. We get to meet Linda, too, but whether she is fun remains to be seen…We're also getting into the parts I have pre-written, so with any luck updates will be a little faster coming. ^^; Sorry to keep everybody waiting, I really am!
So I'm in the USA. And on Thursday, we had Thanksgiving! Abraham Lincoln declared it an official holiday back in 1863, and the general idea is that you try to get together with people you care about and think about everything you're thankful for. Also, for some reason, turkey has become the traditional main course at dinner. I'm not entirely sure why that is. Anyway, my point is! I'm thankful for you fine folks. Anybody who reads this, I'm thankful you're here on this planet (or if you're picking up Earth's internet signal from someplace else, I'm thankful for you, too) and I just want to say that whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you believe-I'm glad you're here and that we can share this together. Peace and blessings to you, and may it be that you and yours are safe and well.
As far as Megamind and this fic are concerned, I still own nothing. Well, I own Drew. But that's about it.
Chapter 6
Nevada
1:30 AM EST
10:30PM MST
He's seeing signs for Battle Mountain when the car starts making odd rumbling noises. The engine is half-combustible, half-hydrogen cascading, and he pulls over without a second thought because never the twain shall meet, or they shall meet and generate rather more shrapnel than is healthy for most creatures without titanium exoskeletons. As neither he nor his mate are currently in possession of titanium exoskeletons, he would much prefer that the two fuels remain separate.
Roxanne does not appreciate being woken up, but as soon as Megamind tells her there's something wrong with the car she's awake and asking questions. "Is it going to be okay? Where are we? Can you fix it?"
"I don't know, we're in Nevada, and probably." He shrugs. "If I can't fix it, I can disassemble the jet pack in the trunk and jury-rig it to the de-gun to get us to Austin, which according to the GPS isn't too far down the road."
She blinks owlishly at him. "Do you need any help?"
"No, I should be fine. If I need you, I'll come get you." He gives her an encouraging smile.
The smile is too optimistic. She can tell he's faking, and she groans and puts on her boots and fumbles around the floor for her gloves. "I'll come hold the flashlight for you."
Megamind's smile flashes white in the dark interior of the car; he leans over the console and darts his head forward, brushes dry lips against her cheek. "Thanks."
She keeps her jaw clamped tightly shut and one arm like a bar across her chest as she holds the flashlight high in the dark so that he can see while he rattles around under the hood. It's freezing outside, and unfortunately there is a breeze here that wasn't present back at the salt flats and the wind blows right through her. Her coat wasn't designed for this. Her gloves were not designed for this. It's all she can do to keep her teeth from chattering, but she manages because if she knows if she starts Megamind will try to insist she get back in the car and she doesn't feel like bickering with him right now.
And she won't complain because he left his scarf in the car and he's had to take his gloves off to tinker with some fiddly bits under the hood, and as cold as she is, as cold as he is usually, his hands must be freezing off right now.
They're out there for nearly ten minutes. Roxanne's arm has gone to sleep by the time Megamind slams the hood closed and says, "C'mon, let's get b-back in the car."
They jump back inside, both of them shivering, both sets of teeth now clicking freely, Roxanne with her hands in her pockets and Megamind cradling his against his chest and slamming the door behind him with his foot. She is deeply relieved to see him turn the key in the ignition. Less relieved that it takes him two tries to grip the key. "Your h-hands," she chatters. "G-give me your hands."
Sure enough, his long fingers are like ice. She presses them between her own-which aren't that much warmer than his at the moment-and rubs her palms quickly back and forth, uses friction and her slightly higher temperature to bring the circulation back. It helps dispel the numbness in her own hands as well, and when she brings their joined hands to her mouth to exhale hotly against them before resuming rubbing, he hums gratefully.
"I know sometimes y-you're a little too warm for me," he mumbles at her, "but I've decided that may in f-fact be a good thing."
"So what happened to the car?" she asks. "Are we okay?"
"Something happened to the hydrogen component, but nothing's broken. I've disabled it for the time being; she'll be good to get us down the road to Austin," he says, crawling across the seat to cuddle fully into her shoulder; she lifts an arm and he ducks under it so he can turn and lean back against her chest. She doesn't let go of his hands. "Shouldn't be m-more than an hour, but I want to take it slow. We can't take her higher than two thousand RPM. Mm. Thank you."
This when she shoves her nose into his half-frozen neck. "I'm not starting a-anything."
"I know. I'm just cold, and you're very warm, and. And, in general, thank you."
She hugs him hard against her, using his body weight like an extra blanket because he may not be as warm as she is but he's still a darned sight warmer than the air around them. "What's in Austin?"
"A hotel with a vacancy, if we're lucky." He pauses, and she knows him well enough to know he's scowling. "I'd wanted to drive straight through, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. I'm sorry."
She cranes her head around and kisses his ear. "Car trouble isn't your fault."
"Yes, well, I built this accurséd machine, so that may not be entirely accurate." He makes a grumbling noise and scoots back into the driver's seat, puts the car in gear. "The bad news is that if it starts making that sound again, we'll have to turn off the heat."
"Oh, that'll be fun."
They get about a half-hour out of the car before he reaches out and switches the dial to zero. He doesn't say anything, but Roxanne reaches in the back and pulls the extra blanket into the front seat, prods him to lean forward so she can bundle it around his shoulders.
Their shoulders, he realizes when she unbuckles her seat belt and snuggles in against his side, tugging the blanket tighter around the two of them, and he takes a hand off the wheel so he can wrap his arm around her waist and tuck his fingers tightly between his cooler thigh and her burningly warm one. He knows he should tell her to put her belt back on, get back on her own side; he's too cold for her and she should keep as much body heat as she can to herself and driving unbelted isn't safe.
But she really is warm and he's very certain that he'll never get tired of snuggles as long as he lives, and this whole thing is so completely beyond everything he'd even dared hope to find in life until about a year ago that he can't help but be a little selfish. He turns his head without looking away from the road and kisses her hair, and she wriggles her shoulders and burrows in and hums and shuts her eyes.
They crawl hopefully towards the possibility of a motel.
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Austin, Nevada
4:02 AM EST
1:02 AM Pacific Time
The Comfy Mountain Motel certainly lives up to its name, although at this point both Megamind and Roxanne are ready to sing the praises of anything warm no matter how small the rooms are. The motel is made of what looks like three mobile units placed in covered wagon configuration facing the road, but despite Roxanne's sleepy mumbled aspersions their room is immaculately clean and the bed into which they crawl is surprisingly comfortable. Megamind awards the motel bonus points shortly before he passes out.
In the morning, he wakes to the sound of high-pitched laughter and a chittering laugh track, a lispingly enthusiastic child's voice and over-done sound effects. Roxanne has the television on.
He sniffs and sits up, but what's on TV looks like a G-rated acid trip in addition to sounding like one. Roxanne has her knees drawn to her chest and is hugging her feet with a nostalgic smile on her face. Megamind blinks at her and scrubs his hands down his face. He's slept longer than he usually does: nearly six hours. "What are you watching?"
"Sesame Street. You ever watch this as a kid?"
Megamind gazes for a moment at the little red monster capering around on the screen. "I think they tried to get me into this once. It didn't take. Is that man washing his elbows?"
She smiles. "That's Mr. Noodle. He's supposed to make kids think they're smarter than grown-ups."
"Wow," he says, staring. "Is he ever going to find his hands?"
"This is like the fourth time-"
From the next room over, a deep, masculine voice lets out a frustrated yell. "Goddammit, Mr. Noodle!"
Roxanne bursts into peals of mirth, probably at the look on Megamind's face as much as their neighbor's outburst. "He's why I started watching this in the first place."
"Yes, and since when do you wake up before I do?" he asks. "Did you sleep all right?"
"Are you kidding? I slept great; this bed is amazing. We need to find out what's on it and get one for the Lair." She pats the mattress fondly, then shoots him an amused glance and frowns in mock reproach. "But I wasn't the only one who got a good sleep. Someone-and I won't say who-was purring really, really loudly for what I think might have been a couple hours." She grins at him. "I had an absolutely amazing dream about motorboats, thanks to you. Whirrrrrr."
Megamind snorts in the middle of a yawn and ends up sounding like he's about to cough up a hairball, which starts Roxanne laughing again. He sniffs and colors, then swings out of bed to hide his embarrassment and blinks down at his boots. Apparently he hadn't even taken off his shoes before falling asleep. Since when does he just lose consciousness like that? "Well, I'm going to go see about the car, see if I can fix it."
His girlfriend stretches and smiles at him. "I went and looked at it a little while ago. I think the hydro exhaust valves got stuck; there was a bunch of gunk built up around-"
He goes rigid, his faintly good mood extinguished. "You opened the hydrogen section of the engine?"
"I relubricated them, though, so they should be okay now. I think the problem was mostly that we didn't let the car warm up before we got back on the highway after the salt flats, so the congealed-"
"That is dangerous," he says without turning around. "You could have been killed."
There's a pause. "I was careful."
"Careful doesn't cut it!" he snaps, twisting around and staring at her in alarm. "Breaking the seal without electrocuting yourself is almost impossible if you don't know exactly what you're doing!"
She raises her eyebrows and puts a calming hand over his. "Who fixes your brainbots?"
He pulls his hand away, irritated and confused. "What does that have to do with-"
"And how are they sealed?"
Comprehension dawns. She sees it and nods. "Right: the same way you seal everything. Face it, Megamind," she says, and pokes him gently in the chest with a finger, "you're predictable."
He grabs the finger before she can pull away, smiling reluctantly. "Not so predictable that you should stake your life on my designs. Please."
"If I hadn't recognized your design, I wouldn't have opened it," she tells him. "I do actually know what I'm doing."
"Please," he says again, urgently this time. "Don't think I'm not impressed, because I am. Very impressed and proud that you troubleshot a modified hydrogen fuel cell without dying. You are smart, you're brilliant; I am the luckiest man alive-" He lets go of her finger, then surges forward and clunks his head against hers hard enough to make a noise. "-But for my sake, for my peace of mind, please ask before cracking open or disassembling stuff that you know can kill you if you didn't at least help me put it together."
She sits back, rubbing her forehead and frowning a little at him. "Okay. Also, ow, Megamind, what gives?"
He winces and flutters a hand towards her before dropping it into his lap and opting for an overly-apologetic facial expression instead.
"No, it's okay, just…" She tilts her head, peering at him curiously. "Does the forehead thing actually mean something to you, then?"
"What-you started that, I thought you knew." His face turns puzzled.
"I did not."
"You did!" he insists. "After that really bad day we had a couple months ago, remember? I didn't want to leave but you said you'd be okay, and you initiated-I wasn't going to do it at all, it's…I thought it would be too weird, I thought maybe Minion said something to you about it."
Roxanne just looks blank.
"You've-picked that up on your own, then?" he says, openly stunned, and the look on his face answers her question perfectly well: yes, the forehead thing does mean something, it means a lot. She's seen him look lost like that before, but he's never been so stiff about it. "It's-I mean it's personal," he says slowly. "Why did you…is it a human thing, too, then?"
"Seemed like the right thing to do, I guess," she says, frowning. "I don't remember. No, I think it's just you, I think I might have picked it up watching you and Minion? I suppose I haven't really thought about it." Which, she thinks, might be kind of terrible because it's obviously important and she's just been taking it for granted. But it's his head, it's so much of who he is. It hadn't really occurred to her that touching foreheads with him would be anything but normal. "Sorry."
He flaps his hands at her wildly, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water until he manages to stammer, "D-don't be sorry! It's good! It's just…complicated." His species doesn't have very many weak spots, physically, but the few he has center on his head. His neck, strong though it is, is still comparatively thin and vulnerable when it comes to fighting; his head weighs a ton and whiplash is something he has to worry about a lot. His skull itself is relatively thick but still, his brain is in there. Over the course of his life, he's had to watch not only his back but his head and neck. It's his namesake, for crying out loud; his mind is his most valuable asset. His verbal recognition of other people's intelligence is a huge compliment for a reason.
It's also what sets him apart from the rest of the sentient beings on this planet; but for the size of his brain, he might have been able to manage some kind of cosmetic that would allow him to pass as human without needing to use a hard-light overlay. In that sense, Roxanne's ease around his head holds even more significance than her unconcern with skin-to-skin contact. His skin is just a funny color, but his head is actually malformed by human standards. It's a tangible reminder of who he is and where he's from. Forehead-to-forehead contact is more than just a cute gesture; initiation on his part is a nonverbal expression that she's unbelievably important to him. Initiation on her part is…what? He doesn't know.
Roxanne has been sitting quietly and watching his face move while he thinks. "I guess I did know that it held significance for you," she says after a little while, and he glances up at her. Thinking back, she can remember a few times that he and Minion had touched foreheads through the glass of Minion's dome. It was usually times that one or both of them was emotionally agitated-the first time had been after Titan, as Minion had been going into the sphere one of the brainbots had brought to the fountain. "I figured out that it calms you down pretty quickly, and if you're already calm it makes you smile. But I'm not sure I ever figured out what kind of significance it was."
"It's kind of like I love you," he says, troubled, "but it's different. It's…hugging, except not really, but it isn't kissing or holding hands either."
She raises an eyebrow. "It isn't sex, is it?"
"N-no," he stammers, focusing on her for a moment. "Although I suppose you could make the argument that making love is a similar gesture, no, it's more…personal. I don't know how to explain it." He grimaces. "It's…
"No, wait, hold on," he says, his expression suddenly clearing as a thought occurs, "I was wrong before, it's actually a very simple concept. At least from a…from a me standpoint. There isn't a good equivalent in your culture."
"Try," she says. It's obvious how much she really does want to understand.
"Okay. Okay um." He bites his lip, pulling his mouth down at the corners and frowning in nervous inarticulate frustration before letting out an exasperated noise and squinching his eyes closed. He waves a hand, blushing all sorts of lavender and pink. "It's-mostly-your brain and mine are equally important to me."
Her heart flips over and jumps into her throat. Coming from literally anybody else that statement would be comical at best, but coming from him? No wonder he'd been upset about her opening the engine.
He grimaces again and rubs a hand over the top of his head before letting it drop down to his side again. "Yeesh, that sounds so corny."
"Oh," she says blankly. "Oh. That's. Sort of what I was also trying to say?" Dammit, why is he always the adorable emotional one in this relationship? He's supposed to be the smart, logical one. "Except not the brains part, exactly. You're just very important to me and I love you."
He smiles at her. "Then I guess we're on the same page, солнышко моё," he says, and she does a double-take.
"Okay, what language was that?" she asks. She's getting better about placing them, but she doesn't think she's heard that one from him before.
"Solnyshko moyë," he says again, and now that she's ready she can make out words instead of just a jumble of sounds. "It's Russian, idiomatic. Means sweetheart." Among other things. He stands up and stretches, then pulls Roxanne to her feet. "Okay, let's get this show on the road. Maybe we'll get to your parents' house before dinner."
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"So...Russian, huh?" she says as he starts up the car. "You don't use that very often." Still, he must be fairly fluent; he doesn't throw around phrases from languages he isn't at least conversational in. And he's never used them for pet names before, at least not that she can remember.
"No," he agrees. "No. That one is…special to me. Like isiZulu, but Uncle Guduza was never the verbally affectionate type so I don't have many terms of endearment in that language. We never really focused on romance, you know? He was pretty reserved."
She tilts her head. "So why is Russian your romance language?"
"I…" His eyes are distant and he's laughing, shaking his head. "Her name was Gala."
"Oh?" Roxanne sits forward, smiling expectantly at him. "Do tell?"
"There's nothing to tell, I was in eighth grade!" he exclaims, still laughing embarrassedly. "She was the new girl. Her father was a diplomat, and…and she would sit with me at lunch so I could check her math. That's all."
"Come onnn," she whines at him, "I know there's a story in there somewhere. It's written all over your face."
He sighs. "I'd already learned the basics of the language so that I could thank Niko properly after an altercation in the cafeteria went bad. He took a knife for me, and-"
"Whoa whoa, someone tried to knife you? Weren't you just a kid?"
"Hardly," he snorts. "I was already twelve or thirteen at the time. The Aryan Brotherhood had it in for me from day one," he says shortly, then grins and nods at the bandage he's still wearing on his arm. "Told you I've had worse than this. Anyway, I learned some Russian then as thanks. He saved my life; trying to give him someone who spoke his language was the least I could do, and he earned me some friends in the Solntsevskaya further down the line."
Roxanne doesn't ask what that is. Experience and common sense have taught her that when Megamind talks about things in prison that earned him 'friends' in groups with funny-sounding names, he usually means organized crime.
"I didn't know if Gala spoke English, so the second day she sat with me I tried to tell her that she should sit somewhere else if she ever wanted friends. She just passed me her homework and asked if she'd done it right. A day or so after that, she told me that I talked like a convict and I had to explain that the only native speaker I'd been able to practice with was an arms dealer."
Roxanne winces. "I bet she took that really well."
"I was scared to admit it, but she didn't even bat an eye." He shrugs. "Anyway. I think that was right about when I started getting angry with the world. Up until that point I'd pretty much convinced myself that the reason everyone avoided me was because I was an alien, not because they hated me personally or anything."
"But then this girl comes in and doesn't seem to care where you were from?" Roxanne says, nodding. "I can see how that would make things difficult for you."
"Well, after that I couldn't really deny that the other kids were picking on me because they wanted to, instead of it being my fault for breaking some kind of unspoken social rule." He grimaces, drums his fingers nervously on the wheel. "A little while later somebody tried to tease her about her clothes or something, something stupid, and…well, I came down kind of hard on them. And it just went downhill from there, if anybody came after me or her…I mean even if they just looked at us the wrong way, I retaliated. Entirely disproportionate retribution."
"What…"
"Eh, just threats and blackmail, mostly," he tells her with another shrug. "But pretty heavy stuff when you consider that it was middle school. And I wasn't afraid to follow through. First lesson of villainy: never threaten to do anything you can't or won't deliver. But Gala was smart, she figured out what I was doing and cornered me about it a few weeks later. I told her the score, told her I'd had enough of people constantly belittling me, and that I'd had enough of them doing it to her, too. She nodded, thanked me, and then said that she could handle herself and if I was dead set on being hateful and mean then she wasn't going to associate with me either. I told her I was, we expressed our regrets and went our separate ways. The end."
Roxanne settles back in her seat, frowning contemplatively. That wasn't the kind of story she'd been expecting when he said 'her name was Gala,' but she always enjoys hearing about Megamind's past. "You were a really different person, huh?"
"Oh, yes. Vastly. I am extremely glad you never met him." He sends her a sheepish smile. "I know you said it was too bad we didn't go to the same shool, but it's probably a good thing we didn't."
She looks at him for a long moment, trying to imagine him slouching and surly, bitter and hateful. It just doesn't work. "Well, who you are now is a love."
"I just hope I don't backslide," he says abruptly. "Being a villain in self-defense was so much easier."
"Honey," she says firmly, "listen to me. When people start giving us grief, feel free to pull whatever you want on them as long as you're sure it won't get you sent to jail." He doesn't look away from the road, but his eyebrow slides up in a silent question. She quickly adds, "I'd prefer it also not damage your new reputation, but that's up to you, to a point. Just because you're a good guy now doesn't mean you can't defend yourself!"
His brow furrows. "I suppose you're right," he murmurs. "Libel, slander…I'm not a lawyer, myself, but I'm sure we'll be able to work out some kind of…of something if we have to."
She laughs. "Oh, don't worry about lawyers. Between Peter and Wayne? We are set."
He looks at her in open surprise. "Peter? Are you still in contact with him?"
"Occasionally, not often," she shrugs. "Birthday and Christmas cards, mostly, although we did meet for lunch a couple months ago and I got to meet his new daughter." She blinks, suddenly concerned. "Is that a problem? I can't remember if I told you about that or not, it was kind of a busy week."
"You didn't mention it, but it's not a problem. Why would it be a problem?" It's a rhetorical question; they both know why. They also both know that it isn't.
"I just meant is it a problem that I forgot to tell you," she elaborates, and his puzzled expression clears.
"Oh! Well, of course I like to know what's going on in your life," he shrugs, "but it's not like you're actively hiding anything from me. No problems here."
Roxanne starts to reply, then promptly loses track of what she'd been about to say when he pulls onto a side road. "Where are we going now?"
"There was a sign for some kind of historic museum. Can we go? We went to that place in Colorado."
She grins at him. "Oh, why not? It's a road trip, after all."
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They spend over an hour there, but neither of them really minds. It's a fascinating little place, less of a museum and more of an old restored village complete with church, general store, schoolhouse, and barbershop. They end up trailing after a group of schoolchildren for a while, listening in on their tour until Roxanne finally gets tired of Megamind muttering about 'historical inaccuracies.'
They're browsing through the gift store on their way out when she loses track of him. Confused, she wanders back towards the exit and finally finds him crouched in front of small display of turquoise jewelry. "What'd you find?" she asks.
He jumps nearly out of his skin, letting out a startled yelp. "Nothing!" he exclaims, hiding something behind his back.
Amused, she swats his arm. "What's that in your hand?" she grins. "I wanna see!"
"I-I-I," he says, then clamps his mouth closed, clearly having decided to shut up. "Pick a hand."
"The right," she says immediately, because she knows he's ambidextrous but his left hand is stronger; he probably wants her to pick that one instead. Shifty-eyed, he shows her an empty palm. She gives him a dirty look. "You switched them."
He aims a scowl at her that would have made another woman back away, but it only makes her cock an eyebrow and smile. "Miss Ritchi, you know me entirely too well," he grumbles, and dumps something small and round into her hand.
Roxanne blinks down at the little silver ring, then back up at him. He's standing very still with a weird flinching expression painted across his face, and she hides a grin. The silver wire detail around the turquoise stone is rather pretty…
She slips it onto the ring finger of her right hand, smiling when it fits. "You like this one?" she asks lightly. "I like this one. I think it might actually match my boyfriend."
Megamind huffs a relieved laugh. "It might. Do you want it?"
"I do," she says, and laughs at how that makes his expression twist; they're both thinking the same thing. "But I will say this," she adds, and he raises his eyebrows, "if you do propose to me I am probably going to expect more than a fifteen dollar ring from a tourist attraction."
He blushes to the tips of his ears but manages a pretty convincing scoffing sound. "Are you kidding? You're getting the Hope Diamond if I ever propose."
She frowns at him, but she's grinning. "Isn't that supposed to be cursed?"
He shrugs. "There's a necromancer-here in Nevada, actually-who I know would be willing to take a look at it. Even if he can't do anything about it, he's sure to have connections."
"Look at this one," she says, and he blinks down at it. It's a man's ring, heavy and broad, with a large oblong stone inlaid with straight silver lines. He glances at Roxanne; she gives him a pointed smile. "The silver looks a little like lightning."
Megamind is getting a lot better at picking up on and dropping hints. He takes it from her and puts it on, following her lead in terms of finger placement. His hand flickers for a second as the disguise generator incorporates the new overlay, then settles with the image of the ring blinked into existence over his finger. He looks at it, amazed. "Whoever makes these things must have tiny hands. I can't imagine there are very many men's rings in size five."
"I guess we're just lucky."
"It's not luck," he says, with the ghost of his old evil smile. "It's desssstiny."
I think there must really be something wrong with me, Roxanne thinks as they walk back out to the car, hand in hand. Matching rings? I hate all this sappy mushy stuff. Or I used to. So why do I feel so happy?
He squeezes her hand and she looks over at him, already smiling.
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