A Drakgo Lair

Drakgo fic is posted here. General fandom blog @MidnightCaptions [ Fic List | FFn | Ao3 ]

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Something that’s been mentioned more why are guys butts always a joke but not girls. Some viewers point out a few jokes with Kim’s in the show but guys are always fine. I get their funny but why is that

My sexual orientation is Dr. Drakken's sweet ass cheeks, I'm just not into a child's posterior.

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Thoughts on the nsfw side of fandom

Needs more Drakken getting pegged and less children's underwear

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I swear I'll remember how to write again someday lmao

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What's a story you've written that you wish got more attention?

Probably the TCYK story back when I could've used the support.

I'm trying very hard not to think about doing anything for attention. Writing solely for myself feels better than fearing/hoping for any interaction and the recurring disappointment by the silence.

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Where did you get the idea for your story? A partnership before the show is unique.

Hey, anon, thanks for asking! Mostly I wanted to explore possibilities and curiosities I had, finding any detail from the show to support theories. Given all the parallels with Kim and Ron, I also like the idea that they technically knew each other just as long. Even in early episodes, they don't seem like strangers to me. The tells were mostly in Shego.

Shego makes a leap of faith in one of the first episodes, trusting Drakken to catch her. (Would just a hired lackey really trust an evil scientist to not just let her fall once he'd gotten what he needed? Probably not!)

Shego literally puts up with so much nonsense lol and never really leaves to find a better gig, Drakken right there to back her up even that one time she took a side job to tutor Junior.

She "quit" but came back when she got irritated at him for wanting to break the contract protecting her DNA, Drakken having the gall to suck up to her and call her sweet pet names like "dumpling."

wasn't even all that mad when he put her under mind control (mostly inconvenienced and annoyed by being bored to death) which I would think would be grounds to quit on

seems to have been out of the hero game long enough for kids like Kim to not recognize, and a criminal long enough to be wanted in 11 countries at her introduction.

in Go Team Go said "After I quit the team, I went to work for a guy who wants to take over the world!" seeming to imply to me that she went straight from Team Go to Drakken

she basically blamed him in Stop Team Go when she approached Kim about being nervous about going on a date with Mr. Barkin, claiming, "I'm weak on the whole dating thing. All that Drakken business didn't leave a lot of time for socializing." (lol, she's green on dating. wonder why.) (also Barkin's a creep, fite me. but i love him)

Drakken seemed just perturbed and inconvenienced by her erratic behavior in Emotion Sickness episode. Uneasy by the mood swings yes, but not really too flustered or nervous by the love-struck focus of the episode. And maybe I live in the gutter, but I'm gonna take that almost prideful little "I never fit into a size 6" comment as a very subtle dick joke bc that's how i heard it when it aired, and that's how I STILL hear it. lol

Other things that drive me are factors like Team Go’s enemies, GJ and WEE, Shego with her one-piece bathing suits and never showing certain parts of her body COUGH, Shego’s adjustment to the glow that seems most volatile of all, why Shego would continue to call him Doctor even if they were a couple lol, explaining Hego’s dimwittedness (hello, concussion lol), Aviarius because aw snap i love birds and also that guy, why does everyone call Kim Possible by her full name? Was there another “Kim”?, exploring the whole henchperson thing, and just. Origins in general.

All that to say I can and will cling to every small detail to uphold my belief that they were long-standing partners by the time the show began, if not already a couple. And anyway I could probably ramble on forever about all the little things that give me the feeling they knew each other quite a long time but I'll leave it at that.

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Posting with great hesitation! I'll cut to the chase eventually.

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

51. Whose Side – 14

As could be expected, Dr. Drakken was none too pleased with her decision to hang at her apartment that night. He whined over the phone into her ear about blowing off the ride he’d sent, but she wearily assured him she could look after herself. Though she knew her plans were liable to change, Shego told the apprehensive rogue that she would be spending the night in watching television, seeing as he didn’t need her around for anything other than peace of mind.

Resolution aside, she held out the hope he would show up to whisk her away.

Unfortunately it wasn’t Drakken who rang her doorbell shortly after the phone call. With nothing better to do, a dangerous curiosity won over and she was lured out with the girl balancing between friend and foe.

Half of her wished she had pretended to not be home while the other half wanted to enjoy the frivolous activities. Her nails were evened out and now sported a glossy metallic green, and despite Miss Priss’s insistence on bleaching it, Shilo left the salon with all evidence of grey hairs eradicated. She had to turn down a shoplifting date to Smarty Mart, but a visit to the movie shack ended with Shilo hauling home a stack of stolen VHS tapes anyway, which Priscilla had courteously swiped as a peace offering.

During the entire outing, she was braced for something to go wrong or for the nuisance to press the wrong buttons. Though a relief, it was still an unpleasant surprise when nothing catastrophic happened by the time they made it back to the apartment. At least if they had gotten into a quarrel, they would have had good cause to part ways for the evening. With the girl’s confidence acting like she belonged, it was almost as if they’d never had a falling out. It was hard not to welcome the false sense of normalcy.

Having stopped at the 24-Seven convenience store for soda and snacks, Priscilla was ready to make herself right at home on the fuzzy rug in the space between Shilo’s bed and television. As they argued lightly over which to watch first, Shilo inwardly made a note to herself to return the stolen movies later. She agreed to one flick.

One became three and three became waking up to the doorbell instead of her alarm clock.

She was ready to disregard it, nodding off again just as soon as it ceased.

But then it rang again and she groaned. This time she cracked her eyes open, but only because something cold touched her shin. She jerked away from the chilly toes, shooting Priscilla a glare for having kicked a leg up onto her bed to nudge her.

“You gon get that?” grumbled the blonde crashed out on her floor, the fuzzy rug folded over her in place of a blanket.

Shilo could scarcely get out a groan before the front door swung open. The light flicked on, the little bulb leaving spots in her vision, and between that and the blurry blue figure in the doorway, she tumbled out of bed with a start right on top of her guest.

The room was shy of comfortably warm to begin with, but with the door wide open letting in the chill, Shilo quickly took into account her state of dress and yanked her blanket down over her bare legs. She scrambled to her feet, pulling the blanket around her waist. With Priscilla borrowing her pajamas, Shilo opted to wear the borrowed sweater to bed last night. She ground the heel of her palm into her tired eyes, wishing she hadn’t accepted Priscilla’s more traditional peace offering, the smell of which still lingered.

“Don’t you two look lovely,” growled Drakken from the doorway.

Before she could snap at him for barging in, a tug at the blanket made her catch it from slipping and tighten her grip. “Come back to bed, baby,” teased Priscilla. Glaring at her and giving her a kick was the least she could do.

Especially when, as Shilo stepped away, Priscilla gave the blanket a rough yank to strip her of it. She would have loved to send a blast of plasma her way for the dirty trick, but Priscilla had seen it coming and vanished, and Shilo was preoccupied tugging down the hem of the sweater for good measure anyway.

Her face warmed over and she whipped her head back around to snap at Drakken for intruding, but he was already turning his back.

“Quit fooling around. You’re late enough. I’ll meet you at the car,” he called back, shutting the door behind him.

Shilo felt herself burning with humiliation, her stomach topsy-turvy. She accepted defeat and made for her dresser to begin rounding up her things, trying not to pay too much attention to the sight of herself in Drakken’s sweater or sigh in relief that she’d had the presence of mind while high last night to put on shorts with it. The clock was much more concerning than the mismatched sleepwear which wasn’t even sleepwear to begin with.

It was after ten o’clock in the morning.

A rock sank in the pit of her stomach. She glared harshly to Priscilla, who had courteously reappeared to make her bed. “You snoozed it, didn’t you?” she accused.

“Well, duh,” scoffed her guest arrogantly. “You looked too peaceful to disturb.”

Shilo groaned as she rushed to the bathroom. She didn’t have long to brace herself for what remedial duties Buckley would have in store for her. At least Priscilla didn’t put up a fight when it came to getting her out of her apartment. She didn’t even demand a ride, though she did ask for a smoke before sauntering off the other direction, leaving Shilo in peace to hop in the van with Drakken.

“You smell like you had fun last night,” grumbled Drakken, and Shilo stole a peek at him glaring at the blonde through the mirror before they left the curb.

“I couldn’t get her out of my hair,” she said as she pulled out a comb to finish making herself presentable, subtly giving her own hair a sniff in hope the odor hadn’t lingered.

“Well maybe if you didn’t let it become such a rat’s nest,” Drakken criticized with a roll of his eyes. For the comment, she reached over to take a swipe at his untamed shaggy mop, her comb snagging and drawing a yelp of pain from him.

Shilo snorted but kept a cap on her amusement. “So we both gotta work on it,” she decided. “Maybe if you’d actually picked me up, I wouldn’t be left alone with her.”

“I sent a ride!” he whined in defense. “I was a little tied up.”

“What had you so busy?” she shot back.

Drakken gnashed his teeth and curled his lip, grinding out, “Sales rep.”

“What?”

The irritable man groaned and Shilo settled back in her seat to listen to him spiel bitterly about the string of phone calls he’d had with Henchco, remarking on subpar customer service and conmen for sales reps. By the time they reached Main Street, he sighed hugely and concluded that his order could take weeks to fill and groused it would be faster and cheaper to build his own security system from scratch.

“So why don’t you make your own, handyman?” Shilo shot over, her eyes locked on Buckley’s Brew as they approached.

“I have better things to do with my time,” he grumbled. “But I’ve sent the boys to Reno to pick up some supplies.”

“So Lux—?”

Drakken grunted. “I’ll be here when you need me,” he promised, raising a pinky in the air between them. “I give you my word.”

She eyed the silly gesture before returning it, sealing the pinky promise with a shake. “I’m holding you to it,” she warned as she popped the door a moment later.

“Good luck facing her wrath,” he quipped with a nod to the café before she could slam the door and turn away.

Despite the unpleasant start to the day and imminent chastising she was due to receive from Buckley, she couldn’t help smirking to herself as she entered the café several hours late.

Her smirk fell away the instant Buckley caught her eye. The woman made a rough gesture for Jenny to return to the back now that Shilo was in. “What kept you?” demanded the baker as Shilo rushed to take her place behind the counter. Buckley stooped as Shilo tried squeezing by, sniffing like a hound dog, and she hoped the woman could only smell the generous helping of body spray she’d made sure to put on before leaving her apartment.

Buckley hummed suspiciously and didn’t take her prying eyes off Shilo. “I had to call your boyfriend to go hunt you down,” she said with a nod to the storefront. Shilo flicked a glance up to Drakken idling on the street, still peering in with a look of worry, and narrowed her eyes at him. The attention he received was enough to ward him off, and the man holding up traffic finally floored it. “Since you’re so determined to be tardy, you can make it up for it this weekend.”

Her attention snapped up to the burly woman. By her tone, it was non-negotiable, yet Shilo still uttered a stupefied, “What?” Working weekends wasn’t part of the deal.

“Clear your schedule. The Smiths are having a little shindig at the lake this Saturday and I need you there,” explained the baker as she left Shilo to tend the counter. She reappeared in the window moments later from the kitchen, waiting for Shilo to finish taking a customer’s order before continuing, “You and Jenny will be working the food truck catering at the wedding.”

Gail dropped a mug then, barely catching it. “But that leaves me here alone!” she protested. Clearly, this arrangement was as much news to her as it was to Shilo, but that wasn’t what made Shilo’s brow furrow.

“What about Chester?” she blurted, but it was proven to be the wrong thing to say. The cold shoulder Abigail gave her then almost made her shiver.

“Chester won’t be here,” explained Buckley grimly. “She’s going to take a tour of the facilities in Lowerton. We are all very happy for her. Right, girls?”

“Yes, ma’am,” droned Gail and Jenny.

The gloom in the air at the coworker’s upcoming departure hung like a raincloud in the café, and though she tried her best to put on a smile and greet customers with false cheer, she knew her pep was lackluster. Shilo couldn’t shake off the sense of foreboding or that the girl willingly leaving to go train for the qualifications desired to join a villain’s obedient workforce wasn’t all that good a thing.

That afternoon in the alley, Shilo found the chance to ask Gail why Chester had decided to go – she probably should have broached the subject more delicately than bluntly asking her outright though.

Already looking pretty small, the stout girl only sank down to crouch with her back to the wall as she puffed her cigarette and gave a miserable shrug. A long moment passed and Shilo was ready to let it go when Gail finally spoke up. “What Hench offers is pretty tempting when you have nowhere else to go,” she said simply between drags. It would have to be enough of an answer for now.

Shilo didn’t get to respond before the battered utility van appeared at the end of the alley. She mulled it over as she climbed in and gave the sullen Abigail one last look. As Drakken asked if they needed to swing by the apartment for her things, she relaxed back in the uncomfortable old seat and silently appreciated the fact she still had somewhere to be.

She didn’t expect that somewhere to be a Comf-E-Girl furniture outlet an hour from the oasis.

At least the ride hadn’t been boring with Drakken in a good enough mood to sing to the second-hand mixtapes without the help of alcohol in his system. Between songs that piqued his interest, he regaled how he’d turned the rat loose in some innocent gaudy shop finally and begun designing his new home-made security system, content with his accomplishments for the day. He didn’t even let her disapproval of furniture shopping bother him when he finally revealed exactly where they were going as they pulled into the parking lot.

Shilo rolled her eyes as she followed him in, the blue madman giggling gleefully and practically bouncing through the entrance. “I can’t tell if you’re just childish or if trying out couches is actually exciting when you get old,” she gibed.

He didn’t let her dampen his mood. “Trying out furniture is one of life’s simple pleasures,” he chided back lightly with a grin, wagging a finger in the air.

“Yeah, well, tuck in your shirt and fix your hair. You look like a hobo,” she hissed over, backhanding his shoulder. “That salesman is already giving us an ugly look.”

Drakken did as suggested, unkempt ponytail pulled back neatly by himself before she could reach over to help. He looked a little neater and less rumpled at least as he scrutinized the first sofa of dozens, casting a cagey glance round before plopping down in it. He slouched back with his arms sprawled and let out a contented hum, his eyes falling shut.

“Feel good on your old bones?” she teased quietly, leaning down over the couch. Drakken harrumphed, still gauging the comfort of the couch. At least until Shego pulled at the price tag and made note of the four-digit number.

He hopped up then, deciding to move on.

She followed and tried to ignore the guilt in her stomach. He didn’t have to say it for her to know they were only there because of her and her hazardous nature. While Drakken scanned the showroom of ottomans and coffee tables and sofas and everything in between, Shego was crossing her arms and frowning at each candidate.

“You’re going to be using it more than me,” he finally sighed impatiently as he moved on to the fifth sofa to appeal to him. “So you might as well take a load off and try a couple.”

Maybe that was true, but he didn’t have to say it like they were couch shopping for her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snipped.

“You’re a couch potato,” he informed bluntly. “If there was a couch in the lab, you’d never leave it.”

“That’s not true!” Defensive as she was, she internally noted to make use of the gym more often.

“Yes, I suppose my desk, wheelie chair, and work tables are just as comfortable, hm?”

Shego frowned to herself. Maybe she did have a bad habit of loitering too much – but it was out of sheer boredom. “Well if we ever did anything—”

“We’re doing something right now,” he argued, frowning at the cold leathery texture of another sofa. “You were of great service helping me with the Bebes the other day. And we – uhm. When we went to Vegas—”

“We’re due to really do something though,” Shego sighed, moving to check out the couch across the aisle.

Drakken was close behind her, practically whining. “I can’t help it if the last exciting task I had for you was pushed aside so you could go on some date,” he groused, letting his irritation show. “We could have spent the weekend foiling Dementor, but no.”

She didn’t mean to pick up on the salt in his tone, let alone respond to it. “And how’d that night end?” she shot back, for a gentle reminder if nothing else – because it sure hadn’t ended on a couch. Reminding herself might have been a mistake, because she had to squeeze her fingers behind her back then to keep her nerves concealed.

Drakken’s frown vanished and he froze up briefly before the scowl came back uglier than before. “Oh, zip it,” he grumbled, and yanked off one glove to inspect the red corduroy of the couch they were both leaned over now before planting his butt in it. “You’re not going to put me off getting one just because my bed is so much comfier,” he warned, a suspicious note in his tone. His ears were turning a funny shade and he was overly interested in squishing the armrest.

His attention snapped over to her as Shego sank down beside him, finally testing out cushions for herself. “No,” she assured. “I don’t mind the couch for now.” She gave a small wiggle to really get comfortable and tried to imagine lounging for a movie.

The man beside her grunted, and after a moment she became hyperaware that his arm was resting on the back of the couch behind her as he sprawled out. “What can we do to shake out the ants?” he wondered thoughtfully, and elaborated when Shego made a sound of confusion. “What do you want to do? This weekend I mean. Seeing as you’re so restless and all.”

Anticipation spiked in her at the prospect of getting out for anything exciting, even if undecided, but just as fast Shego deflated. “I’m already booked,” she grumbled, head lolling back against his arm to glower at the ugly ceiling above.

Drakken’s fidgety fingers wiggled against her shoulder. “You don’t say.”

“Next weekend,” she assured with a sigh. “Next weekend, I’m all yours. Promise.” She held up a pinky as he had earlier and gave him a feeble smile.

He returned the silly gesture, but he was still pouting. “I hate sharing,” he grumbled before standing.

“Yet you’ll share the couch with me,” she reminded with a lilt.

The strange blue rogue pulled a face and gave the red corduroy couch a funny look before eyeing the rest of the showroom. “Shall we keep looking?”

Shego inspected the space on either side of her, from the arm rests to the squishiness of the cushion at her back, and finally to the cushion under her rear. “Hey, Doc?”

“Hm?” he grunted, already wandering away.

“Isn’t this the same model you have?”

He grunted and scrutinized it from a couple couches over, narrowing his eyes. “Hm. Yes, I suppose it is.” He turned then, pointing vaguely toward one corner of the store. “You try out a few. I’ll be over there.”

She watched him go before standing, casting a casual glance around to be sure she wasn’t being too closely watched before checking under the couch cushion. In her inspection, she discovered a fold out bed beneath it, and the fleeting curiosity crossed her mind if the old couch had one too. She’d never checked. But the fold-out bed didn’t matter. All that mattered was the cushion was removable.

Shego returned it and moved on to trying out two more couches but finding no brown corduroys before Drakken’s absence got to her.

When she found him, he was in the neglected corner for dining room displays. He was slumped in a hard wooden chair matching the long dark decorated dining table, designed for large families and get-togethers.

Shego leaned back against the table, testing its sturdiness, and studied Drakken for a moment. He hadn’t seemed to notice her, his attention fixed on a fake apple he was busy spinning idly. “What are you thinking?” she wondered, unable to decipher the pensive man.

“Plotting revenge against whoever manufactures wax fruit,” he said, though it didn’t sound like he was telling the truth. She had to guess though, by the spite in his voice, that he’d bitten into one before.

“Uh-huh. Why don’t you go get the van and bring it up front?” she suggested. “I’ve got it all worked out.”

Drakken’s sulking was interrupted by his confusion and he finally looked up to her. He jumped up and patted himself down, searching hastily for his checkbook and clearly finding it when he sighed. “Wait – did you already—”

“Remind me, Doc – is this the oasis?” Shego mused, shooting him a wily smirk. Drakken’s confusion was written across his face. “You’ve said it yourself. Don’t cause trouble in your own town.”

It took him a moment to catch her drift, but then he was standing closer, hissing, “You can’t carry a couch on your own—?”

“Let me take care of it, will ya?” she whispered back. She probably could drag out a couch on her own, but that wasn’t part of her plan. It might be petty, but if she couldn’t get her kicks with a high speed chase or news-worthy thefts, then it was the least she could do.

Drakken was still confused but he cast a wary glance around the showroom as he backed away. While he fetched the getaway van, Shego returned to the target.

Minutes later, she had a grin across her face and her heart was pounding in elation. She was much too quick for the security they’d had on duty and more agile than the random good Samaritan who reached for her, dashing out the door in long strides before any form of alarm could be tripped. She’d nearly walked out casually with the couch cushion under her arm, but a salesman had shouted at her that she couldn’t just take it.

She showed them.

Perplexed as he was, Drakken must have seen her coming and recognized her need for escape, because the passenger door was popped open and ready for her to dive into the van when she reached it. Burning rubber needlessly, Drakken hit the gas and the old van zipped out of the parking lot as fast as it could – which was fast enough Shego fell out of her seat and onto the cushion on the floor when he rounded the corner.

She lay there with her heart still pounding, staring up at the passing telephone poles through the windshield and Drakken’s scowl when he turned it down to her.

“What were you thinking?” he groused.

“Are we being followed?” There was surely too much real crime in the world for the law to be interested in chasing down a petty cushion thief – but then again those donut-loving oafs had surprised her before.

Drakken checked the mirrors. “Not yet.”

Shego relaxed. “Good.” The giggle rising up in her burst out with a laugh and she kicked her feet over her seat where her butt ought to be. Reaching up to ground herself by grabbing Drakken’s sleeve was all she could do to reel it in, and when he took his hand from the wheel to give her shoulder a small pat, she pushed herself up and held onto that arm. It was the best hug she could give him from her awkward position wedged between the seats.

“We have got to steal something better than a couch cushion next time,” Drakken bemoaned.

“I don’t care what we do next weekend,” said Shego, smothering her grin as she climbed back into her seat to buckle in. “But you’d better think of something big.”

“Big, huh? I can think of something big.” Drakken sounded so sure of himself even as he pursed his lips and tapped his chin pensively. “Piece of pie.” At her snort, he flashed her a toothy grin and she didn’t bother correcting him.

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This is it! The last chapter I have available to share. The rest are locked away, because I don’t really feel any motivation to update. Call me lazy.

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

50. Whose Side – 13

It could have easily been a day like any other, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Shilo could have done without Gail reminding her of the little blonde affliction on the oasis when she wondered if Shilo knew what had kept the new residents out so late. In reply, Shilo merely curled her lip and shrugged it off without voicing an answer. She didn’t need Buckley’s girls knowing Priscilla had gained access to the lair when they themselves had been interested in a tour since day one. She especially didn’t need them to know it was only because of a security breach that Priscilla had gotten in at all.

Aside from the brief interrogation, the day was ordinary.

Almost ordinary.

Abigail’s spirits seemed to be low, and Chester leaned through the order window to try to shoot the breeze in between customers more than usual. Suspended from school after her prank on the gym teacher, Jenny was grounded to the office for endless homework, only briefly making appearances to bus tables and wash dishes, voicing loudly her envy that Chester had been chosen as a candidate for LHU.

“Hench has contracts and quotas to fill,” Buckley chastised, shooing Jenny back out of the kitchen. “But he’s not getting your head until you’ve got a strong spine to hold it up.” Peeking through the window, Shilo caught a glimpse of the woman adjusting her teenage daughter’s posture, straightening her back and lifting her chin up to make her point.

Shilo couldn’t help checking herself to make sure she wasn’t slouching too.

The bell jingled and she spun away from the window, opening her mouth to greet the customer, as per protocol. “Welcome to Buckley’s Brew, what can I—oh, it’s you.” The forced smile fell from her face as she narrowed her eyes on Priscilla swaggering up to the counter, Mickey shadowing her.

“Hey, hot stuff,” sang Priscilla, leaning far enough across the counter for Shilo to feel justified in reaching out to unceremoniously shove her back with a palm to her face. She got the hint and leaned back to her side. “Two – oh, what was that you two call them? Chocolate moomoos?”

Hot stuff was right. Just like that, Shilo felt herself burning up with a rush of embarrassment, but she clutched her fists at her sides and glared at Priscilla standing before her with a smug smirk. Letting her flame burn freely wasn’t an option – but really, reaching for Jenny’s cup of decaf forgotten on the counter shouldn’t have been one either. Priscilla yelped in surprise and leapt back from the coffee splashed at her, narrowly avoiding stains on her white stockings.

“Why don’t you try black?” Shilo suggested.

“Hey! You’re cleaning that up!” snapped Gail, giving Shilo’s shoulder a rough shove. “Kill each other on your own time, will ya?”

“Oh, you can count on it,” laughed Priscilla wryly, stepping around the puddle of coffee spilled across the floor. Ignoring Shilo’s warning glare, she reached out to a basket of tiny creamers on the display case, peeling one open and downing it like a shot. “Hot chocolate, please. Two of them. Oh, and do that thing with the whipped cream on top. You know how I like it.”

Mickey stepped up to pay as Priscilla clearly had no intentions of it.

Shilo could hardly tear her glare off Priscilla even as she mopped up the mess she’d made. Mickey had taken his hot cocoa and sat at the furthest corner of the café while Priscilla had opted to sit at the back nearest the counter. She wondered inwardly if they had been in a fight. She almost hoped so, but Mickey was calmly watching out the window while Priscilla swung her feet and sipped her hot cocoa and read a brochure. Shilo did a double take once she recognized a logo on the front, but it wasn’t surprising the miscreant was looking over the same LHU pamphlet she had received during her interview with the headhunter.

A handful of customers came and went, but Prissy was still slowly working on her hot cocoa. Mickey had finally grown bored of watching traffic, because he heaved a huge sigh and stood.

“Where are you going?” called Priscilla. “Sit your ass back down.”

Shilo glanced up from reorganizing a stack of individually-wrapped muffins, watching the tendons in Mickey’s hands go taut as he balled up his fists. There was a moment he looked like he was about to follow her command and return to his seat, but he turned a blind eye and stalked up to the display case instead, tapping the glass above the fresh lunch items. “One of those to go,” he said, making a point to not acknowledge the daggers Priscilla was shooting him.

It would have been easy to stir the pot and question them or make a remark, but Shilo kept her lips zipped. She quietly bagged the turkey hoagie and rang him up. “Have a good day, Mickey.”

He grunted quietly and gave a small nod, but didn’t return the farewell. Priscilla was fuming, her nails drumming on the table as she glared at the young man’s back as he took his leave. When he paused, he failed to even cast the pink menace a glance, though he met Shilo’s eye and wondered, “Know where there’s a payphone around here?”

“Smoke shop across the street,” supplied Shilo.

“She’s not gonna answer,” twittered Priscilla.

Mickey grunted unappreciatively. “You don’t know that,” he shot back and ducked out quickly.

“Who’s he calling?”

“His granny.” That was no surprise, as Mickey had lived with his grandparents as long as she’d known him. Priscilla slouched back and let her head loll to peer across to Shilo. She tried not to look back at her, focusing on stacking up another variety of muffins instead. “His grandpa died last month.”

Shilo dropped a muffin, failing to catch it before it could fall to the other side of the display case. She swore in frustration and resigned herself to walking around and passing by Priscilla to get it. “Really,” she huffed. “So he left her all alone to tag along cross country with you?”

“He’s homeless.”

“What?”

“She went to live in an old folks’ home,” Priscilla went on. She put on an air of dismay then, though she’d win no acting awards with it. “Don’t tell no one, but I think he killed his grandpa by accident. I think his gran knows it too.” Some secret it was when Chester was eavesdropping through the window and Gail was at the far end of the counter polishing coffee mugs.

Shilo found herself rooted to the spot for a long moment before turning her glare down to the poppyseed muffin in her hands. “So that’s why he’s forced to slum it out with you,” she muttered, and made to stalk past Priscilla.

She plucked the muffin from Shilo and unwrapped it, taking a bite before it could be reclaimed. “I’m not forcing him to do anything,” she said confidently around a mouthful. “If he wants to come and help out a friend and run away from a crime scene, I’m not gonna stop him. What are friends for?” She spat out the bite into a napkin then, groaning. “This tastes like shit.”

“Maybe don’t eat shit off the floor,” remarked Gail, coming over to take the muffin from her.

Priscilla twisted in her seat to scowl at the stout young woman returning to her post. “What, are you gonna eat it, Miss Piggy?” she sneered back.

“Lay off, Prissy,” warned Shilo.

Despite the tension in the air, Gail almost playfully took a stance, fists raised. “If you’re that hungry, I can make you a knuckle sandwich,” she jeered with a certain excited gleam in her eye, as if she were genuinely excited for fisticuffs in the middle of work.

Buckley leaned through the order window then, only fitting her head out really as her shoulders were too broad. “Hey, you. You’re on the clock,” she reminded. “You can brush up on your kickboxing later.” She butted out of the near-quarrel then, the ringing of the telephone interrupting her.

The bell above the door jingled, signaling it was time Shilo return to her own post. She didn’t get to open her mouth for the rehearsed greeting this time, clamming up when she recognized the frowning mug of Miss Hatchet.

“I’ll take a cup of donkey piss,” growled the crass woman as she made straight for Priscilla, though Shilo had a hunch it was intended as an order.

She looked to Abigail in confusion, but it seemed even she had to pull out a cheat card for Jackass Joe’s secret menu to understand. Though Gail hurriedly whipped up a steaming cup of tea from Buckley’s own special blend, she pawned the mug off on Shilo to serve. It wasn’t so much an aroma as it was an odor that made her eyes burn, the steam wafting up from the mug as she hurried to set the order in front of Miss Hatchet.

Meanwhile, another customer arrived who needed tending to. Miss Hatchet said nothing for a long moment, giving the tea a stir and keeping an eye on the patron until they left. Finally she addressed Priscilla. “This had better be worth my time,” she said.

Priscilla must have been waiting to see the terse woman relax and sip her tea before beginning. “You told me I needed proof of experience,” she said casually, unzipping the fanny pack at her hip.

Shilo’s stomach curdled at the flippant air Priscilla exuded, and a spike of fear and curiosity had her wondering what proof she had that she was worthy of the headhunter’s consideration. The answer must have been on a tape recorder, as that was what she pulled out and set on the table. Priscilla sat back and her hazel eyes cast a sidelong peek toward Shilo, giving her a cheeky smile.

“Is there no one to vouch for you?” grunted Miss Hatchet, nodding toward the baristas.

“Nah. Don’t think I need it.” Priscilla sounded awfully sure of herself. “Well, I guess she can, if she opens her mouth as easy as her legs.”

The suggestion caught her by surprise – but really, this was Priscilla she was dealing with. She should have expected it. Still, the remark was uncalled for.

“What?” Shilo choked, her voice cracking. She wished she could blast off the thumb that was jabbed in her direction. She knew better than to let the comment get to her, but it was a little hard to recall the fluster now that her face was hot.

“Sheesh, Shi, you get your panties in a twist so easy,” Prissy laughed. “We all know you’re sleeping with the boss.” She flapped a hand dismissively.

“Can you back up that claim?” pressed Miss Hatchet, a note of disapproval and suspicion thick in her voice. Shilo felt her chances of acceptance into LHU were slimmer than ever now.

Priscilla shrugged. “I’ll bring a camera next time.”

“I am not!” Shilo barked in defense, the fire back in her urging her to dive for Priscilla to beat her to a bloody pulp herself. She felt herself burning up – quite literally. Fire in her hands crackled to life without her consent – and she almost whirled on Gail even when the coworker pushed against her back to shoo her into the kitchen where she could lose her cool out of view of potential customers.

Being in the kitchen wasn’t much better, except it put a wall between her and Priscilla. She stayed away from the order window, rooting herself in front of the sink to forcefully scrub her hands and arms free of plasma before the alien fire could eat holes through her shirt.

Still, she listened intently, leaning to glance out the window and standing on her tiptoes to catch a glimpse of Miss Hatchet taking the tape recorder and hitting play.

Shilo felt even sicker when, after a moment of shuffling and crackling against the receiver, she heard Drakken’s voice cutting clearly through the white noise.

“Shego? Is that – you!” The accusation in his voice was thick, fear dissipating and anger replacing it. “What are you doing down here? How do you keep getting in my lair?” She might not recognize his roar of frustration if she didn’t know any better.

She could recognize Priscilla Kimbley’s laugh anywhere too, even over a shitty tape muffled by the fanny pack it must have been in. “I saw the restricted area sign posted at the door and couldn’t help myself.”

“What is the point of all the signs that spell out danger if no one listens to them?” Drakken bellowed, his temper making Shilo flinch even over the recording. His indiscernible grumbles followed but stopped short. “And is that—,” he gagged and his rage turned to worry again. “Was that—?”

“Psh, no,” scoffed Priscilla’s voice. Shilo gravitated toward the window, her heart beginning to thud. When had she taken this recording? “I just threw his uniform on the transformer thingahoozit to freak you out. You lovebirds were making me sick. Someone had to do it.”

Shilo realized with a lurch of her stomach the recording was from last night during the power outage. She briefly hoped Drakken would cause a scene to put the headhunter off the idea she was using cheap tricks to keep her position as the rogue’s partner in crime.

“Lovebirds? Nng – then where is—? Oh. Why is Collins naked?”

A third voice, though not so much a voice as a muffled mumbling could be heard through the white noise. It must have belonged to Collins. Shilo couldn’t put a face to the name, but she was sure he must have been one of the newer men on the crew.

“Hey, I can’t help it if your henchmen are going commando under those pajamas.”

“That doesn’t answer—”

“I’ll give you a demonstration after you restore the power, how ‘bout that, Dan?”

“It’s Drakken – and don’t you touch me.”

The audio cut out to silence then, the rest of the tape blank.

“If you want more, I can get you more,” Priscilla offered the headhunter.

Shilo could hardly be pleased to see Miss Hatchet reach across to grab the pink-clad candidate’s face to forcefully turn her head back to attention when Priscilla made to peer smugly back at Shilo through the window. “Look at me when you’re speaking to me,” growled the headhunter in warning. Chair screeching, she stood abruptly and nodded to her. “When we’re done with you, manners will be first nature. See you around, kid.”

As soon as Miss Hatchet was gone, Gail was on Priscilla’s case. “If you’re done loitering, get outta here,” she badgered, practically pulling Priscilla’s chair out from under her and tipping it.

Reluctant to let her butt leave the chair, Priscilla finally groaned and stood. “Any of you crazy chicks wanna hang with me today?”

“Count me out,” said Chester.

“Ooh! Me!” piped Jenny, leaning out of the hall to the back to wave her hand.

Buckley was behind her to pull her back however. “You’re still grounded,” reminded the woman, turning the girl around to usher her back to the office for homework.

“And I’m not going if Chester’s not going,” Gail decided. She pulled up a stool and crossed her arms to make her point.

Which left Shilo glaring out the order window at the blonde blight, eyes narrowed. Priscilla was not deterred, batting her lashes and pulling on a sweet look made of imitation sugar. It wasn’t so much that the doe eyes weakened her resolve, but knowing the girl was liable to make her life worse if she didn’t comply, that made her sigh and grumble, “Fine. But only for a little while.”

Chester barred her way out of the kitchen when she made for the door. “You sure you wanna be alone with her?” she whispered.

“I can handle her,” Shilo muttered back. She cracked the knuckles as she ducked past Chester. “Just like old times.”

Thankfully Priscilla was one foot out the door as Shilo took her place behind the counter once more. “See you for our date!” she called, and swooped out as a new customer entered.

Needless to say, she wasn’t looking forward to it. She had no appetite for lunch, puffing away on a cigarette instead in the back alley, frustrated it did nothing to put her at ease. In between customers, the only thing Buckley’s girls had to talk about was henchschool this, henchschool that, how much everyone envied Chester’s upcoming tour of the place before her official enrollment, and warnings from Buckley that the glorified boot camp would be no piece of cake. Shilo couldn’t help wondering aloud why Chester – or anyone, for that matter – would want to go into the hench line of work, but Joanne Buckley intervened with some ambiguous answer that they each had their own private motives.

Shilo stewed on that answer. Her next question would be what Priscilla’s motive was, but none of Buckley’s girls knew enough about the stranger in town to shed any light. As Shilo left out the back for the day, she hoped at least one good thing would come from fraternizing with the enemy this evening.

She couldn’t tell if it was a good thing it was Lux who had come to pick her up in his Beetle. Had it been Drakken, she would have gladly hopped in to retreat to the safety of the lair. Priscilla wouldn’t take kindly to being stood up though.

It was surprising when Lux cut the engine and hopped out. He was in his henchman attire, sans mask and with an additional mismatched jacket. His messy sweaty hair stood up at every angle, and the body odor wafting from him from a hard day at work had Shilo jumping back out of his way as he made for the back door.

“Do you think she has any day-old cinnamon buns?” he wondered as he snuck in.

“No, but she’s got some oatmeal cookies,” Shilo supplied, watching the eager henchman with the big belly vanish into the café. Even from the alley, she could hear Buckley’s groan when the snack-scavenger arrived to collect stale goods unfit for sale.

With the chauffeur Drakken had sent distracted, Shilo was allowed to sneak away without an issue. She could only dread what Priscilla had in store for her, but as she clenched her fists at her sides, she reassured herself she could handle the nuisance.

Still, she couldn’t believe she hoped the headhunter would pick the blonde’s head to haul away soon.

[split-n-splice]

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

49. Whose Side – 12

“That’s enough fun for one evening,” sighed Drakken as he locked the door behind them. He made to head for the kitchen when he paused and called over with uncertainty, “Uhm. Shego? Does your friend know how to pick locks too?”

“How should I know?” Shego sighed as she flopped down on the couch. “I barely know her anymore.”

“You two seemed to know each other well enough,” grumbled the unhappy blue man. She almost thought he looked a shade bluer, and would have taken a closer look had he not glanced her way. “Do you think she would be so insubordinate if I took her on?” It sounded more like he was thinking aloud to himself, but Shego sat up and glared over the back of the couch at him.

“Do you need your head checked?” she shot. “One minute you don’t want her here, the next you want to keep up the charades with her?”

“So I’m conflicted!” he spat back, crossing his arms as he sat himself down in a bar stool to face her. “She would be useful…but I don’t need another hired hand to pay. And I don’t need you two killing each other—”

Shego’s lip curled in disgust and she snapped, “She’s just trying to impress.” But impress who? Her brow furrowed and she chewed a nail as she considered. Maybe Priscilla did want to get back on good terms. And maybe she did want to be in Drakken’s good favor. But if the rumors at Buckley’s Brew were anything to go on, she’d be leaving soon enough when the headhunter Miss Hatchet took Chester back to LHU.

“Shego?” She blinked up at him, realizing Drakken was standing beside her. His arms were still crossed and he was frowning to the door, nodding toward it. “Miss Kimbley—”

She groaned. There wouldn’t be a moment’s peace with Miss Priss around, the rapping at the door timed to an unsynchronized beat with both fists, making it impossible to ignore. “I don’t wanna give up the couch,” she grumbled.

“She’s not staying the night,” said Drakken sternly, standing by his decision.

“Don’t count on it. She has a way of getting what she wants.” Pinky nail between her teeth, Shego considered just how the girl might get her way. To begin with, Mickey had graciously brought beer along for the henchmen, who were now getting boozy on the hillside and unfit for driving or any other hench-duty to escort the interlopers away. She hadn’t seen the jeep either, now that she thought about it. She wouldn’t put it past Priscilla to make Mickey walk up the mountain or at least hide her wheels, and the pizza had been a little cold—

“If you two need some privacy, just say so,” laughed Priscilla through the door, interrupting Shego’s runaway train of thought. Her face burned, but at least her hands didn’t – not in reflex, anyway.

She glared at Drakken. “Answer that before she starts using her imagination,” she hissed.

“Do I have to?” he whined.

Maybe it was a mistake letting the release flare in a raised hand, the flames threatening to consume her as they were hard to recall once Drakken had jumped back and crossed the room to answer the door.

“I really need a chain on this,” he groused as he unlocked it.

Priscilla must have been leaning against it, because the second he twisted the handle the door came flying open, the young woman stumbling in head over heels with a shriek. A hint of a smirk twitched on Shego’s lips to see her blunder, but she smoothed it out and fixed a jaded glare on the unwelcome guest.

“Nice of you to drop by,” she sighed, and rose from the couch. “Guess you wanna hang out or something, huh?”

“That’s a start,” snorted Priscilla as she clambered upright. She dug into the fanny pack at her hip, pulling out a smoking pipe and giving it a wiggle between her fingers. “Let’s say we put aside our differences and call a truce,” she began.

Drakken plucked the paraphernalia from her hand as he headed out the door, announcing simply, “I’m confiscating this.”

Shego almost barked his name, displeased to be left alone with Priscilla. Both of them glared at the door before their gazes met, and Priscilla’s cross demeanor melted and she was perky again as she bounded up to the couch.

“Not like I didn’t bring a backup,” she laughed, procuring her so-called backup as she flopped down on the couch. “Light me up?”

“You’re not smoking a doobie in here,” Shego hissed.

“What is your problem?” Priscilla snipped back at her. “You’ll do it with Mickey and everyone else, but not me?”

Shego hugged herself and glared past Priscilla to the door. “I just don’t wanna get high right now,” she dismissed.

“You’d change your mind if you took a couple puffs.” Priscilla reached into her fanny pack, but it wasn’t to put her drug away. She pulled out a lighter instead, but before she could flick it, Shego had lurched forward and ripped it from her hand. “Hey!”

“Not in here, you don’t,” Shego snapped, scarcely refraining from destroying the lighter in her plasma lest it explode in her hand. Her own fire was one thing, but she wasn’t altogether impervious to other fires.

“If that’s how you wanna play, bring it,” challenged the blonde, jumping to her feet to glare up at Shego and make a show of gesturing to herself. She had to be joking.

“I’m not playing—”

Shego didn’t get to finish dismissing Priscilla before the pink-clad girl took an overdue turn to lunge at her. She was caught off guard by the body slamming into her, a knee in her gut and fingers clawing her hair to yank her head down. It was reflex to hold the lighter out of reach in a rough game of keep-away, and sure enough it was what Priscilla was grappling for as Shego tripped backwards over the coffee table. They came down with a clamor and frenzy of limbs kicking and shoving at one another, Shego’s head hitting against an end table and knocking the lamp off with a shatter.

She didn’t know where the lighter had gone, but she was sure Priscilla hadn’t gotten it or she would’ve let up. Using her size and training to her advantage, she flipped the squirming girl over onto her back, putting all her weight into pinning her.

It didn’t feel like a real fight in the slightest, not when the extent of it was a bit of hair pulling and shoves that might not leave a bruise. Priscilla’s bark was worse than her bite when it came down to a scuffle.

Faced with a situation so alike the many times before when roughhousing with her siblings and even Priscilla back in grade school, Shego didn’t really pause to think through her options – though in the back of her mind, she knew beating her up wasn’t one of them. She could blame it on growing up with a family of brothers, but it was hardly any excuse for snorting back phlegm and letting the string of consequential slobber ooze menacingly toward the squirming girl’s face.

The disgust was worth it for that brief moment, and hearing her scream almost made her laugh.

The door flew open with a bang.

Shego’s eyes cut up to Drakken.

She blanched. She wasn’t sure if she’d sucked it back up or if she’d lost it somewhere on Priscilla’s person, but either way she scrambled aside and wiped her mouth off on her wrist.

Drakken’s wide-eyed look of concern gave way to confusion. He took in the coffee table out of place and the busted lamp and the two young women putting distance between each other, and his eyes settled back on Shego before he turned back out the door. “I didn’t see anything,” he decided, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.

Shego realized she’d been tensed and her fists balled up when Priscilla cleared her throat. Her glare darted to her when she had the cheek to utter, “Uh…so where’s the broom?”

With a roll of her eyes, Shego skulked away to fetch it from the crevice it was tucked into between the fridge and wall, practically chucking the broom at Priscilla. She unplugged the busted lamp with a yank and scowled as the troublemaker began sweeping up the mess. She looked shamefaced enough, but Shego didn’t buy it that she was actually ashamed.

“Can’t you trash your own place?” Shego grumbled.

“Between you and me, that place is already a dump,” Priscilla laughed feebly. She leaned heavily against the broom, hands folded atop it and chin rested on her hands, and cast a sidelong glance toward Drakken’s entertainment system. “And there’s no TV, not that I had packed any tapes to watch.”

“You came here for the TV?” She didn’t buy that either.

Priscilla shrugged. “Well, I can’t let you have this all to yourself.” She finished cleaning up the mess, but was hesitant to approach Shego again. Her glance flicked to the collection of movies. “What do you say?”

“I say go fuck yourself—”

“That’s sweet, but you’re not getting rid of me,” said Priscilla with certainty as she flopped down on the couch. She reached over for the blanket Shego had used the night before, which Drakken had neglected to put away, and pulled it over her lap.

Shego didn’t like how quickly the intruder was making herself comfortable in her usual spot. “What about Mickey?” she blurted.

“We can get him in on this if you want.” Priscilla shot her a broad grin. “Make it a snuggle sandwich – unless you’re thinking of a threesome—”

The pillow on the armrest was smacked across Priscilla’s face to shut her up. “That’s enough out of you,” Shego decided. She weighed the consequence of popping in a movie to give the girl what she wanted and going back to the lab to linger near Drakken instead. She rubbed her temples, knowing the nuisance would only follow her to seek her entertainment wherever Shego went.

Going back to her apartment where she could just lock Priscilla out was sounding a lot more appealing now.

Dragging her hands down her face, Shego heaved a groan and turned for the door. She ignored the whine of protest behind her as she escaped into the lab, leaving Prissy unattended.

Drakken was slouched in his chair at the supercomputer, though not a single light on the mainframe appeared to be on. As the overhead lights dimmed briefly, Shego wondered inwardly if the backup generators couldn’t produce enough juice to power it.

He jumped slightly as Shego leaned against the desk, but grunted and looked back down to an address book, the entries handwritten and some scratched out in ink. She glanced to the door to his quarters quickly before whispering, “What are you looking for?”

“Henchco,” he grunted. “I need a new catalogue.”

She reached over to check his wristwatch, Drakken jerking in reflex when she made to push his sleeve up to check the time. “It’s late,” she noted. “Do they pick up after hours?”

He groaned and slumped back, not seeming too happy to have his plan thwarted so easily. “First thing in the morning,” he decided. “How’s the leech?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” chimed Priscilla unhappily, appearing on Drakken’s other side and mirroring Shego’s posture.

The man nearly fell out of his chair in alarm, his hand slamming down over his heart as if that could steady it. “Don’t do that!” he barked, and turned his glare to Shego. “And you! Stop leaning on that too. The computer is not for sitting on!” He shooed the both of them off, jumping up himself. “What are you doing in here? Aren’t you supposed to be painting toenails and nose-deep in magazines?”

Shego bit her lip, suddenly remembering the burnt magazine remnants she’d left in the sink during the blackout. She didn’t mention it though, not that she had the chance to anyway.

“Alright,” said Priscilla, hands up as if in forfeit. “I get the sense I’m stepping on toes here just trying to hang out with my BFF. I can take a hint.”

“You give yourself too much credit,” muttered Shego under her breath with a roll of her eyes. She ignored the frown Miss Priss shot her way.

“I’ll see you out,” announced Drakken, gesturing pointedly toward the door to exit his lab. Priscilla was reluctant to follow the silent command. He cast a glance toward Shego, giving a nod to indicate he wanted backup, or at least to not be left alone with the woman. She couldn’t say she wanted to leave him alone with her either.

Priscilla went abnormally quietly, walking along as if a prisoner behind Drakken. Shego stayed close behind her in turn, ready to grab her if tried to pull a fast one. She really expected the nuisance to vanish and bolt deeper into the lair to hide in it like the rat she was, and she only breathed easy once they were stepping out into the cool night air.

Shego pulled the collar of Drakken’s coat a little snugger under her chin. Distracted briefly as she breathed in the smell of him there, she found herself wishing they didn’t have guests and that she and Drakken were just going for a walk for fresh air. Sadly that wasn’t the case, and she wondered bitterly if they’d have a moment of peace again so long as Priscilla was apt to sneak into the lair.

She jumped and Drakken yelped when Priscilla raised her fingers to her lips for an ear-piercing whistle. Up on the hillside, the rambunctious men were still gathered at the picnic table. Shego squinted at the sight of henchmen huddled around Mickey above. She recognized bets being made when she saw it, money exchanged between the observing men when Mickey won against his arm wrestling opponent.

The behemoth Mickey had been pitted against rose and glared at his back when the guest hopped up to begin the hike down the trail in the dark. A line of henchmen followed after Mickey, the beanpole Bobby close by with the lamp.

Even at a distance, Shego could hear the jubilant shout of disbelief, “He beat Lars!”

“Whoa!”

“What a champ!”

“How is that possible?”

The excited babbling followed Mickey down the hill to the blacktop.

Drakken grunted and crossed his arms, shooting a quick scowl at Shego. “Nice to know your friends get along with my friends,” he grumbled.

“He totally cheats at arm wrestling,” whispered Priscilla with a note of resent, though Shego had her doubts he’d need to fall back on any special gifts against the average henchman. He’d seemed muscular enough anyway.

“Did he almost tear your arm off or something?” Shego laughed, taking Prissy for a sore loser. It would be just like her to overestimate herself in a match against him.

Priscilla rolled her eyes.

The gaggle of men reached the blacktop, Lars among the last of them. The man made a gruff sound to request attention, gaining it as simple as that. There was a brief moment Lars glared across at Mickey and the other henchmen stepped back from them just to be safe, but after sizing him up Lars thrust out an arm – not for another arm wrestle, but for a handshake. “Good match,” he said decisively. “If brawns was all you had, you’d make a good henchman. But you don’t seem the type.”

Mickey seemed awfully reluctant to shake the man’s hand, and even Shego picked up on the displeasure in his voice when he agreed simply, “I’m not.”

Priscilla groaned in disgust and impatience. “Let’s get a move on, Mickey!” she called, already stalking off for the gate. “Time to fly.”

The young man gave a curt nod to the crew and a wave as he turned away for the woman who seemed set on treating him as her own personal henchman. “Ciao,” he called back to the henchmen. As he passed by the duo waiting at the door to the lair, his eyes settled briefly on Shego before they darted to Prissy’s back. “See you around, Shi,” he muttered in lieu of a goodbye as he stuffed his hands safely in his pockets and shuffled off toward the woman.

They were barely out of earshot when Drakken looked to Shego and jabbed a thumb in their direction. “How tight are they anyway?” he wondered.

Shego grimaced and cocked her head. “What?”

“Are they inseparable?”

“Why—”

“I’m just wondering if they’re a packaged deal,” he said coolly, watching a pair of tipsy henchmen trail after them to let them through the gate and presumably guard it after.

“You’re not hiring Prissy.”

“No, but that man might make a good addition to the crew.” He gave his chin a thoughtful stroke.

“Didn’t you hear him? He’s not interested in becoming a henchman.” Shego rolled her eyes and turned away to retreat back inside.

Drakken’s musing chatter followed after her. She couldn’t help smiling as he playfully suggested areas a boy with a relaxing aura could aid in, like if he could charm a bubble bath or defuse tiffs between henchmen. She didn’t admit to it, but she liked the idea of Mickey Goldsmith joining his little legion a lot more than Priscilla Kimbley, even if Drakken was only entertaining the idea in jest.

As she lay back across her own bed that night, the idea of Prissy taking up residence at the lair still troubled her. She pulled the blanket over her shoulder, wishing she were sinking into the couch cushions instead, but was determined to keep her claim on the spare room. If Priscilla was signed on under Drakken, would she live at the lair? Meanwhile, Shego would still be stuck with the shabby studio apartment living as Shilo the barista, visiting Drakken in any spare free time.

She squirmed at the very notion of the other girl being around more than her, readily available to take orders and embark on whatever tasks Drakken may assign her.

As the clock on her nightstand ticked away, she made note to upgrade to a digital. Shego turned to her other side, but it wasn’t enough to shake off the dread weighing on her.

Priscilla didn’t have any training. She’d never even taken karate – as far as Shego knew anyway. She really wasn’t very good at fighting. But she didn’t need to be. She had invisibility to give an opponent the slip every time. She didn’t need to force entry to steal anything when she could just walk right in – just like she walked right into the lair time and time again.

Maybe she did have what it took to play the villain game.

Shego rolled over and stared up at the stalactites. She tried to exhale pointedly to breathe out her worries and quash them, but she still found herself shifting and groaning.

She didn’t dare look at the clock when she threw back her covers and rolled out of bed. Keeping her nerves contained beneath her skin, Shego navigated out of the room, relieved to find the dim lights in the hall on to light her way so she wouldn’t have to herself. Still, she wrung her hands as if it could keep her fire smothered as she made the walk across cold floors to Drakken’s quarters.

The door was unlocked. She hoped that meant he’d upped the security and wasn’t worried about any prowlers entering.

The room was dimly lit when she slipped inside. She would have been happy to sneak over to the couch to collapse in it and call it a night, but her attention strayed from the couch to the man in the recliner next to it. Drakken had replaced the lamp, which he read by now. The glare of the lamp reflecting off his lenses wasn’t enough to hide his glance up at her as Shego crept in.

She doubted he’d spread out the blanket and placed the pillow on the couch for himself, and tried not to let the flip of her stomach get the best of her as she took her regular place. Drakken went back to reading without saying a word, and Shego tried to make herself comfortable without uttering anything either, but eventually her gaze strayed back to him. He was reading no ordinary book, as it was a binder with many colored tabs, and what she could see of the contents were various degrees of worn.

She opened her mouth to ask what he was reading, but he answered without another glance up.

“Research papers,” he said simply with a flick of his wrist. He pulled another binder from the end table and opened it too across his lap, cross referencing and comparing and frowning deeply to himself. Shego realized she was staring when his gaze met hers briefly and he grumbled, answering her unspoken question again, “Botanical—”

Her chuckle cut him off and she saw his blush coloring his cheeks. “Still? With the flower things?” she mused. The strange capsule with the orchid growing inside came to mind. He hadn’t pulled that out of nowhere – it was something he had been tending to for a while. Where had it gone? Shego made a mental note to browse the storage rooms sometime.

She didn’t mean to go pushing buttons but evidently she’d pressed the right one to break the dam, because Drakken was suddenly talkative and overflowing with chatter.

“Oh, but there are a number of reasons to graft and hybridize and genetically manipulate!” said Drakken, enthusiasm winning out over any embarrassment for his interest in the field. “Even cloning! The properties I could extract and harness! Just consider it! Terror tomatoes and snapdragons that really snap – and it doesn’t stop with plants either, Shego. Fungus too! Among other organic matter. The sky’s the limit!”

“Alright, alright, tone it down, Doc,” chided Shego, subduing her own smirk before he could spiel off about beanstalks and world domination with noxious weeds or some such. “You’re gonna wake up the whole lair.”

He reeled in his own burst of energy and turned his attention back down to the papers with a shrug. “I’m just brushing up,” he said, putting a lid on his gusto.

Shego hummed and let her attention drift away from him. It was then that something caught her eye, peeking out from beneath the stereo system. She would have forgotten all about the lighter had she not spied the lost item, and she couldn’t help giving the rest of the room a subtle search from where she lay, almost hoping to spot the joint lying around too. Priscilla had likely picked that particular item up though, she decided with a small disappointed sigh.

She chewed her lip for a moment before a sleepy idle curiosity slipped out. “Hey, Dr. D?”

Drakken grunted and flipped a page.

“Would you ever wanna get high with me sometime?” She propped herself up on her elbows to study his reaction as Drakken’s brow furrowed and he lost focus on the papers before him. An uneasy swirl rose up from her belly and she felt stupid for even asking. He’d turned it down before, and hadn’t seemed enthused by paraphernalia. But she’d rather relax and share a few laughs with him than accept Priscilla Kimbley’s company or stoop to tracking down the junkie Nate and his dog.

Shego was fidgeting with a loose thread on the pillow case when a stupefied utterance cracked out of Drakken.

“Uhh…sure. Sometime,” he said. “When we don’t have anything better to do than sit around and get stoned.”

“We don’t have anything better to do right now—,” Shego began if only teasingly, but Drakken jumped to his feet, grappling for the binders full of research papers he nearly dropped.

“Goodnight, Shego,” he said quickly, spinning on his heel. He failed to find the correct spots for the binders in the bookshelf behind his chair, so stood them up on the edge instead to be placed later. He shuffled out of the room quickly.

Shego barely managed a goodnight to his back before she fell face-first into her pillow with a groan. Berating herself would have to wait until later.

Thankfully she didn’t remember later because she was out like a light and the new day began with Drakken yanking the blanket off her, same as yesterday.

“Come on, you couch potato,” he groused impatiently above her.

Shego already had her arm thrown up over her eyes and wasn’t budging.

Drakken sighed. “I didn’t want to have to do this.”

She didn’t know what she expected, but she knew in the next instant that should have gotten up at that final warning. It was the touch of something unfamiliar on her stomach that was distinctly not a hand – she would have much preferred Drakken’s hand – that made her jolt upright with a gasp when it began to crawl. The writhing thing sank tiny hooked claws into her shirt as it fell into her lap.

Her voice cracking as she shrieked in alarm wasn’t as humiliating as her graceless backpedal and tumble over the armrest to get away from the live rat Drakken had so kindly dropped on her. A ball of plasma was coiled in her palm and hurled at the rodent before she could stop to think better of it.

The rodent survived, scurrying to safety at the far end of the couch.

The couch cushion did not.

“Shego!” Drakken snapped, swooping in to scoop up the rat. It squealed and clawed in protest against his gloves. “What was that for?”

She heaved for breath, unsure what to do with herself now that this wasn’t a fight situation after all. Her hands were still hot with plasma desperate for release, and her eyes darted to the smoking hole left in the middle of the couch, beginning to really burn now as the residual heat turned the singed edges glowing red. She grit her teeth and stormed off for the kitchen. “You’re one to talk!” she shouted over her shoulder, and thrust her hands under a stream of cold water.

The remnants of the magazine in the sink from last night served as yet another reminder of the danger she posed. Accidents and reflexes happened, but she couldn’t help the wave of unease knowing she was having more trouble than usual controlling Lady Fate’s gift. She had to glare back at Drakken just to distract herself from internally listing off all the reasons she was a fire hazard.

“Where did you get that thing anyway?” she hollered as he made for his bedroom, toting the rat and the burning cushion. She knew he threw at least one into the moat in his room, because she heard the splash.

Rat in hand, Drakken returned to the kitchen to dig in the trash can, remnants of the busted lamp clinking around as Shego raised her brow in confusion at him. “One of the henchmen thought he’d keep a secret pet from me,” he explained. “Unfortunately I don’t know where this thing has been or where it came from so it’s of no use to me.” He pulled an empty pickle jar from the garbage and forced the struggling rodent into it. “Do you know of anyone who’d like a rat?”

“That needs air holes,” Shego noted with a shake of her head, but Drakken was already on it, pulling open a drawer for a dual-sided bottle opener to punch a few holes in the lid. Shego didn’t blame the rat for sticking its nose through the first opening for fresh air.

Fire finally recalled, Shego eyed the jar and the little black and white rat doomed to smell of dill pickles for the foreseeable future. “I could let it go at Prissy’s,” she grumbled, already wondering if it could survive in her backpack until after work when she could make the journey out to the trailer park. “Then again, place is such a junk heap it probably has enough rats running around for her to make friends with.”

Drakken hummed pensively and tapped the glass. A smile cracked across his face. “I think I know what to do with it.”

“You’re not throwing it in the river.”

His smile fell. “You just tried to obliterate it!” he balked.

“That’s different. That’s mindless violence, not premeditated,” Shego dismissed, heading for the door.

“For the record, I wasn’t going to kill it!” Drakken defended.

“Yeah, whatever,” she scoffed, waving it off. Maybe he was being honest. He could have disposed of the vermin already if he’d planned to. “Catch you at the van.”

“Lux is driving you,” he called before she could shut the door.

Shego paused and looked back to Drakken curiously, studying him up and down. She didn’t have to ask why he couldn’t drive her. He’d evidently had other things on his agenda, because he was back in his white lab coat, big ugly rubber gloves back on. But she glanced to the clock and decided she didn’t have time to question him on what he’d been up to this morning. She had to hurry or she’d be late – and Buckley had already let her off with a warning yesterday. And even if she wasn’t worried about Buckley, she couldn’t give the interloper the opportunity to take her place.

[split-n-splice]

A chapter in which someone tries too hard to get in the in-crowd...but why~? We'll find out eventually.

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

48. Whose Side – 11

Though going for one another’s throat was quickly becoming a form of greeting, Drakken was quick to pull Shego away from Priscilla. She wasn’t happy for his interference. She spat something venomous at him for taking Prissy’s side in the scrap instead of letting the two duke it out, but he pulled her back by the shoulders to hiss a warning in her ear that the woman was a guest in their lair. A guest they’d best not piss off. And unfortunately attacking her was a good way to piss her off.

Fortunately for the trespasser, she’d only sustained a bruise to her shoulder at the very worst. She brushed herself off and straightened the sleeves of her pink jacket. “You get worked up too easy,” she scoffed. “I was only having a little fun.”

“You blew a power cell,” growled Drakken. “That is going to cost me – uh – a lot! To replace that!” He gave up counting on his fingers, fuming too badly to calculate his expenses on the spot. “We’re lucky I just had that backup generator installed or this could have been worse.”

Shego quirked her brow at him but didn’t get to inquire on power cells or generators. She’d yet to see any, but it would account for the usual ambient hum throughout the lair she was deaf to unless she really focused on it.

“Ya sure that little light show earlier isn’t what did it, Frankenstein?” Priscilla shot, crossing her arms and giving Drakken a onceover.

Shego didn’t like the way her eyes scanned him up and down. She stepped between them. “How did you get in this time?” she groused.

“Oh, I have my ways,” she cooed. Of course she did. Shego didn’t need to be reminded of it when the girl reached out to pat her cheek and vanish as she swiftly ducked around her. She felt a shove at her back then and stumbled a step, whipping around in time to see Priscilla reappear, leaning against Drakken’s shoulder awkwardly for her stature and standing decidedly too close to the alarmed man. “You sure you don’t need a hand around here, Mr. Doctor? I’m worth my weight in—”

“You don’t weigh much,” Shego remarked, and Priscilla shot daggers back at her. It was Prissy on the thin side these days, as she was seemingly recovering from whatever she’d abused. Shego wasn’t guilty for gouging at the tender spot, still bristling at what the intruder was proposing and proximity to her boss.

At least Drakken didn’t seem to appreciate her being so near either, because he caught the young woman’s hand before she could rest it on his chest. Shego clenched her fists and didn’t worry about letting the plasma flare from them until she smelled the burning fabric and extinguished them an instant later.

“Thank you, no. I’m all set,” said Drakken through grit teeth. His eyes narrowed at Priscilla, her hand still caught in his clutch. He glanced quickly to Shego and back. “I have no need for your services, miss, so if you would kindly take your leave—”

“That’s not very hospitable of you,” whined Prissy with an exaggerated pout. “I thought I was a guest?”

“Nice try. Leave,” grunted Drakken, shoving the woman aside.

Shego felt herself cool slightly – at least until he grabbed her by the arm to tow her along. His grip was tight and his scowl ahead was practically set in stone. He was barely tolerating the trespasser’s presence, so she hoped. They had that in common at least.

“Only if she comes with me,” Priscilla called after them, following close behind. As if she was in any position to haggle.

“Fat chance,” Shego shot back.

“Suit yourself. Looks like we’re having a slumber party here then. This will be fun!”

“No, we are not,” said Drakken, mustering all the authority he had left. It was swiftly undermined.

“Why not? Shi’s already dressed for it.” Priscilla giggled gleefully to herself. “Say, do you have a shirt I can borrow, Shilo? Wouldn’t it be sweet if we matched?” Priscilla was beside her then, tugging at her other arm and giving the fatigued owl across Shego’s front an amused glance.

She wanted Priscilla out of the lair as much as Drakken did, but surrendering herself to the mercy of Priscilla back at the apartment to endure whatever the girl had in mind was asking too much. Her brow furrowed. Complying felt like being a pushover, but one had to know how to pick their fights. Priscilla was willing to hand villains a drug capable of extinguishing her glow – but was she really dangerous? Shego wasn’t keen on finding out just yet by leaving the lair with her.

Shego narrowed her eyes on the interloper. If Prissy had wanted to cause her any real harm, she would have done it already. Her persistence was a pain and she’d done unforgivable things in the past – but if not for giving Drakken her medication she wouldn’t have found herself dedicating that much more trust in him and she’d still have the damned things to tempt her. The fact some good had come from it didn’t mean she trusted her.

Head spinning, Shego rubbed her temples and grimaced.

“Yeah,” she grumbled, nodding. “I think I got a spare.” Sure her other night shirt was lightly burnt with plasma holes, but it was usable. If the tramp wanted her second-hand junk, she could have it.

“Say what?” uttered Drakken, blinking at her in a stupor before his glare hardened again. “No. Out of the question. I’m not allowing a couple of teenagers—”

“I’m not a teenager,” chimed Prissy, though she jabbed a finger into Shilo’s cheek. “But she is. Pervert.”

Drakken’s face changed hue, and it wasn’t anger that crossed his features. Shego tried not to consider it might be a look of shame. He let go of her arm as if she’d burned him – but she took the risk and seized his hand to give it a squeeze. She didn’t know what point she was trying to make by it, but was glad he didn’t shake her off and that she didn’t scorch him either.

“You’re one to talk, jailbait,” Shego hissed over.

“Yet you never arrested him for that, did you?” Priscilla spat back. Shego didn’t expect the icy disdain and glanced to the bubbly girl who’d suddenly gone sour. “No, you beat him up and threw him in jail for protesting. It was that bridge construction that was displacing nesting seabirds, remember?”

Shego’s brow scrunched, recalling her early foe’s first official offence. “He drove an excavator into the ocean—”

“That was me.”

“That makes sense,” she grumbled, nodding. No one had been sure how the bird geek had done it in broad daylight with witnesses, but blame had been pinned on him anyway. His initial style was more along the lines of getting the birds to defecate on everything anyway. “Did your supplier a little favor, huh?”

“No. I did that because I could,” laughed Priscilla.

Drakken’s groan interrupted before Shego could respond, snapping her back to the present. “What are you two yammering about?” he groused as they passed through his office.

“Nothing,” snapped Shego.

“Girl talk,” answered Prissy.

“Great. You can do that somewhere else on your own time,” he dismissed with a disgusted roll of his eyes. “I’ll get a henchman to take you into town—”

Before Drakken could finish telling them off for their chatter, one such henchman came stomping down the stairs hastily, practically flying down them. The three of them had just entered the stairwell themselves. Shego could practically see his eyes popping wide behind his mask at the sight of a stranger in the lair, and Bobby came crashing down the last few steps with a startled gasp and a clumsy flail of limbs. They all stepped aside and out of his way, flattening to the walls in the narrow stairwell.

The young henchman landed hard on the floor, surely scraping his chin, and scrambled back onto his butt to gawp up at the three staring down curiously at him.

“Where’s the fire, dude?” scoffed Priscilla.

“Hey, Bob,” greeted Shego.

“Oaf,” seethed Drakken. “Watch where you’re going, will you? What is the meaning of this?”

At the sound of the intruder’s snicker, Shego glanced up to Priscilla across from her only to follow her gaze down to see what was so funny. She realized suddenly she was still holding Drakken’s hand and quickly released him.

“Dr. Drakken, sir, there’s, uhm. Someone here to – you have a delivery,” panted Bobby as he quickly picked himself up to stand at attention.

“About time,” sighed Priscilla, peeling away from the wall and trotting up the stairs ahead of everyone. “I’m starved!”

“What?” blurted Shego and Drakken in unison. A glance to each other – Drakken’s gaze being more of a glare – and they hurried after her.

Shego didn’t know what she expected waiting for them in the lab upstairs. But the smell of pizza before they even left the hall gave her enough forewarning to not be surprised by the sight of Priscilla practically skipping up to Mickey with a pair of henchmen on either side standing poised with charged batons at the ready. He held a stack of pizza boxes – enough for guests.

“Thirty minutes or less,” chimed Mickey across the lab with a meek shrug.

“Why is he here?” snarled Drakken, looking down to Shego for answers.

Her heart thundered suddenly. She didn’t like the look of accusation bearing down on her. “Why do you think?” she snapped back, gesturing toward the pink rat with the knack for slipping in through the cracks.

Drakken groaned, dragging a hand across his face, and suddenly pulled out his notebook. Shego wondered inwardly how often it needed to be replaced. When she reached to try to take a look, Drakken answered before she could ask what he was jotting down, “Note to self, order security upgrades. New cameras, motion detectors, thermo—”

“You guys gonna come get some or not?” Priscilla called over then, mouth full. She’d already gotten into the first pizza, working on her slice. “We got a little of everything here. Goldilocks, what’d you get?”

Mickey’s teeth grit at the degrading nickname. “Cheese, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, pineapple, supreme, and…” He shifted the stack to hold with one arm and dug into a pocket, pulling out small cans. “Anchovies. For whoever wants them. I didn’t have cash for the whole menu. Sorry, PK.” Lux greedily pounced to take a can, forgetting he was on duty and supposed to be menacing the young man.

Shego was still shuddering and rolling her eyes at the thought of anchovies when Drakken stormed up to Priscilla and Mickey. “Both of you, out.”

“But – but pizza,” uttered Lux, crestfallen as the stack was pulled out of reach when Mickey took a step back.

“Oh, let the boys have a treat,” warbled Priscilla, stepping in front of Mickey, arms outstretched. “It’s on me.”

Lars must have taken the liberty of deciding neither of the intruders were a threat, because he powered off his staff and holstered it. “Allow me,” he said with a grunt, taking a few of the boxes from Mickey. He took a glance at the contents and passed back the topmost box Priscilla had already gotten into. “I don’t like pineapple,” he said curtly and strode off with the others.

“Damn,” muttered Mickey, looking a little crestfallen. “He got the cheese.”

“You can just give me your toppings,” Priscilla dismissed, ignoring Drakken’s steaming temper.

“We are not having a pizza party either!” he barked. “Get out!”

“Drakken.” He jerked away when Shego set a hand on his shoulder. He glared down at her. She couldn’t deny it herself, and neither could he when his stomach growled audibly. “Let’s just. Break bread, and maybe they’ll get bored and go away.” She patted his stomach as she stepped away to make her point, raising her voice, “Let’s take this outside, yeah?”

“Shego,” he practically whined after her. He didn’t put up much more of a fight though.

Minutes later, the four of them, plus the crew of henchmen, were hiking up the hill to the picnic table. It was dark, but Shego did her share by providing a source of light and Drakken still had his flashlight. Henchmen behind them had procured a lantern, deciding themselves to take their dinner break with their boss and his guests.

Reaching the small recreational area cleared on the mountainside, Shego let her glow go out to watch unhappily as the men in red jumpsuits crowded around the table, a couple sitting on boulders nearby beside the fire pit. One henchman was already trying to light the pile of sticks and charred wood leftover from some former visit to the break spot.

Mickey and Drakken were situated at the end of the table across from each other. Drakken was glaring at the young man who was keeping his eyes sheepishly downcast at his own slice of pizza as he flicked off pieces of pineapple.

Priscilla bumped her bony hip into Shego’s. “Looks like I’m winning them over,” she whispered with a nod toward the merry men now gorging on pizza and a supply of beer and cola. “So how long’s it gonna take to get you to like me again?”

“Depends. How many times do you plan to backstab me?” Despite the heat threatening to burn her palms, she cast a cold look down to Priscilla. She wasn’t especially happy to be drug outside after grabbing her sneakers, Drakken lending her his coat to retain some dignity and hide her goofy graphic nightshirt. This wasn’t how she would have liked to spend her night at all, but she didn’t let herself entertain any fanciful thoughts about lounging on the couch in Drakken’s private quarters.

Priscilla merely poked her tongue out at her and whispered with a lilt, “I can’t help it if anything you can do, I can do better.”

“We’ll see about that,” Shilo bit back and stepped swiftly away from her. She sent a mild blast down at the fire pit where the henchman was still struggling to light it, green licks turning their traditional hues within moments as the sticks went up in flames. The henchman shied back from it with a healthy respect for her.

Shego turned back for the table, and wasn’t pleased to find Priscilla had squeezed in at the very end beside Drakken. He was leaned away, not looking especially pleased with it, though Priscilla bore a smug grin when she caught her eye. Malice curled in her stomach threatening to ruin whatever appetite she may have, but Shego stalked up to them regardless and sat herself down on the end of the table itself. She snatched up a slice of supreme pizza before it was all gone and flicked a sausage at Priscilla’s face.

“Isn’t a food fight a little childish?” sneered Prissy, wiping sauce from her cheek. Suddenly Shego wished she hadn’t done it. Her mouth came open to reply, but she was short on words as Priscilla licked the back of her hand and fingers in a familiar teasing away Shilo knew was just to make her uncomfortable. And it worked. It also worked to catch a few eyes.

Like Drakken’s.

“Shego, I forgot something inside,” he blurted. He scarfed down a slice in three bites, packing it into his cheeks like a chipmunk, and jumped up. His words were too muffled to understand, but she had a hunch it was something along the lines of, “Come with me,” as he grabbed her by the wrist to tow her away.

She groaned and reached back to grasp for a second slice of pizza to go, Mickey helpfully passing it to her. She was sure she saw Priscilla kick him under the table for the gesture.

“That didn’t last long,” she grumbled between bites as Drakken led the way with his flashlight.

He answered once he’d finally choked down his mouthful. “It was feeling a bit claustrophobic.”

[split-n-splice]

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

47. Whose Side – 10

Drakken had a black eye – well, blacker than usual – but a smug grin on his face.

“That went well,” he said merrily, holding a Freezee to his eye as he strode out of the 24-Seven with his accomplice beside him.

“Yeah? Was it worth it?” Shego sneered over, glaring. “Are you proud of yourself?”

“Very.” He took a sip and returned the icy drink to his eye, but Shego pulled it away to check the swelling before letting go with a scoff of frustration.

“That was so underhanded.”

“If she can cheat, so can I,” argued Drakken calmly. “Besides, it was hardly cheating compared to her methods. I was merely having a conversation with you.” An invisible ball was an unconventional way to cheat, but so was egging on his opponent into making a foul the way he had – he liked to think he was within limits, however.

“Mid-game. About who owes who a favor,” hissed Shego, still peeved. “You insinuated we – that I – that the loser—”

Drakken waved a finger in her face before Shego could ramble on in her own fluster. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I only said that if you lose, you owe me a favor.” He shrugged nonchalantly before adding, “And that I’d tell you once we were in private.”

“You winked,” grumbled Shego. She crossed her arms and glared away from him, but Drakken leaned over to take a peek at her flushed face before stepping away to get into the van.

“My apologies. I thought we were in the same book.”

“On the same page,” corrected Shego bitterly. She slammed her door shut, taking up the driver’s seat since Drakken’s vision was impaired with skewed glasses and a Freezee to his eye.

He dismissed the correction with a grunt. “If that pink parasite loses it over a little flirting, then what’s the harm in using that to my advantage?” It had been the girls’ conversation about their friend’s bloody lip that had given him the idea. The pink one seemed to be awfully envious, but in hindsight he probably shouldn’t have tested that theory.

It wasn’t hard to pinpoint the moment fire rose beneath Shego’s skin, crackling traces of her agitation seen on her hands and even her blushing face seemed to take on a greener hue. She took a deep breath and the glow ebbed, her fire recalled before her own Freezee could do more than steam a little. “The harm is she’s going to spread rumors about what it is I get up to with my boss,” she retorted. “That might hurt my chances of getting into—”

“I thought you weren’t going?” Drakken interrupted, his attention and concern snapping back to her.

Shego fidgeted with her hands and her drink. “I’m keeping my options open,” she grumbled.

Drakken was silent for too long, too preoccupied studying her through blurry vision. “That school is for henchmen. They’re beneath you,” he finally said. As if she didn’t know that already.

She gave a meek shrug and grumbled something about courses. Then her frown hardened and she turned on him. “So what was so private, huh? What do I owe you that was worth embarrassing me like that?” she snapped.

He flinched back from the venom in her tone. Pulling the Freezee back to his eye and slouching against his door, Drakken frowned at the dash. “The favor I wanted to ask was if you could test the Bebe sisters in combat. I only wish to see how they fare.”

Shego was sour for another moment before turning the key in the ignition and rolling her eyes. “Sure, but don’t hold it against me if I plasma blast the creepy things to bits.”

“Please control yourself,” sighed Drakken. “They’re still learning.”

“Learning?” The look she shot him was met with a sheepish smile. She groaned and shook her head. “Whatever.”

As she navigated back to the lair, Shego convinced herself to look on the bright side. Drakken had irritated Priscilla into throwing the match herself and in doing so they were able to leave sooner. The less time spent with Miss Priss, the better.

Drakken had fixed his glasses and forgone pressing ice to his sore face when they pulled up into the hangar. He was composed and ready to face his crew shuffling about inside, if not for his lips stained bright red from the tropical punch beverage he’d been nursing. Out of petty spite for embarrassing her on the court, Shego debated letting him leave the van looking as though he were wearing lipstick, but she caught him by the shoulder and flipped the visor down to show him his reflection in the mirror instead. Drakken’s face twisted and he grunted and began to wipe desperately at his stained mouth to clear away the fruity dye.

Shego caught herself staring too long at his lips and hopped out of the van before she could need a new Freezee. She slung her go-bag over her shoulder, ready to stay the night with all of her own provisions. It was tempting to pull on the stifling gloves she’d brought along, but she feared it would give away her lack of control. She wondered if there would be time to burn off some excess energy out back before Drakken was ready to test his robots.

She might have asked if she could go out for target practice first, but when she turned to speak to Drakken, the friendly henchman Lux was behind her instead, easy to recognize from the rest for his shorter stature and plumper figure.

“I believe these are yours,” he said, holding out her jacket from last night and the stack of tapes she’d forgotten in his Beetle.

“Uh. Thanks,” muttered Shego, taking her belongings.

The red-clad henchman spun without another word and returned to the crew working on the final stage of disassembling her family jet, parts separated and catalogued neatly with the senior henchman Lars overseeing. Drakken had swung by to have a word with the behemoth, grunting and nodding and checking the papers on the clipboard, taking inventory as he inspected them briefly before hurrying back to Shego’s side.

Shego cocked her head at him. “What was all that about?”

“Hm? Ah. It’s good to know what I have on hand to work with.”

“That’s not all going in a storage room, is it? I don’t think there’s even any room left—”

“Let me worry about that,” he cooed, patting her shoulder and stepping on ahead. “You get changed. I’ll meet you in the gym.” It didn’t sound like there’d be time for target practice.

“Why the gym? Why not—”

Drakken flapped a hand. “If they go rogue, I’d rather they do so in the gym where they can’t hurt anything more valuable than a treadmill.”

He had a point there, she decided. As she passed through the tech lab, which she noticed was increasingly cluttered with boxes and crates of materials along with the completed incinerator canon, she couldn’t help stealing a glance toward the elaborate round work table on which Dr. Drakken regularly operated on his trio of robotic sisters. To her surprise, all three were fully assembled, not a single spare screw left out of place.

The man was humming happily to himself, despite squinting from taking a basketball to the face earlier, as he circled the table connecting what looked like jumper cables to elements inside androids’ open chest cavities.

Distracted with looking over her shoulder at the giddy madman, Shego tripped over a stray pipe on the floor. She heard his curious grunt but hoped she’d swung around the corner before he could see her stumble, and no sooner had she breathed a sigh of relief, sure he hadn’t seen, did his low laughter come to her attention. It didn’t sound like was laughing at her.

She’d just been about to hazard a peek back around the corner when a white light flared from the lab. Even from her position of indirect exposure, Shego raised an arm to shield her eyes from the flash, the tell-tale buzz and crackle of electricity arcing felt in her very bones.

She didn’t return to the lab lest another power surge finish blinding her. Regardless of the racket that sounded like a disaster, Drakken’s explosive laughter echoed after Shego until she shut her door behind her, still blinking away spots as she found privacy in her own quarters.

Sitting on the edge of the bed to rub away the spots that had been seared into her vision from the flash, she barely noticed the mattress had been replaced. It was only after a few moments had passed did she realize the bed wasn’t as firm and crispy beneath her. Her eyes flew open and she turned her gaze down to study the bed, which had been made up just as she’d left it, with plain white bedding and a simple teal throw she’d left behind.

Drakken must have ordered for the mattress to be replaced, Shego realized with mild disappointment. She sighed to herself, unsure if she should take it as a kind gesture or a sign he didn’t want her crashing on his couch anymore and potentially scorching it.

Her cheeks heated at the memory of how close she’d been to scorching his couch earlier.

With a disgusted groan at herself, Shego upturned her go-bag and shook out her uniform to get dressed.

It was as she was buckling up her boots that she heard a peculiar sound passing outside her door. Drakken’s voice was distinguishable from the grind of mechanical components accompanying the shuffle of heavy feet unlike any henchman’s. She paused to listen, a chill sweeping through her at the very idea his robots were up and operational. It wasn’t until the rogue doctor’s delighted yammering had faded away along with the inhuman footsteps did Shego resume preparing herself.

She stood before her mirror for a moment to tie back her hair and mentally prepare. She’d seen the robots lying dormant and in varying states of assembly, and she had once seen one flick its eyes open and twitch its fingers as though it were trying to overcome the nature of its own programming – but that wasn’t the same as facing a trio of active androids.

Strolling through the lair to the gym within its depths, she wondered if the imminent encounter would be like meeting them for the first time. She’d been around enough – would they recognize her? And how much data did they have in the fighting department of their programming? It wasn’t just a ruse to gather data on her fighting ability, was it? She hoped she was only overestimating the risk artificially-intelligent robots might pose.

Shego was scowling as she crossed the rattling metal catwalk through the gym.

Drakken was below, pointing and giving orders for the robotic sisters to clear an area of the floor. They seemed to be following commands well enough until one of the robots clearly decided it was more effective to pick up a hefty barbell off the floor and fling it into the vicinity of the rest of the workout equipment, leaving a dent and a crack in the earthen wall where it struck. Drakken squawked his disapproval, fearlessly storming up to the android, but it remained unblinking and unapologetic to his chastising.

The other two androids ceased tidying and turned to him. Shego’s nerves spiked with the suspicion they weren’t merely coming to stand with him and their sister, but advancing on him with hostile intent.

Without thinking, Shego hopped over the railing, leaving her stomach behind as she dropped. She landed in a crouch near Drakken and sprang to her feet, ready to fight if need be.

Drakken was reasonably startled, jumping back from her. “Shego! What are you—?”

“At your service, Dr. Drakken,” she shot back wryly, throwing an untrusting glance around at all three robotic sisters. They had halted, and though each bore a perfectly blank metal face incapable of expressions for Shego to read, she was certain they were sending silent messages to each other. On the ride back to the lair, Drakken had spieled about his modifications – upgrades – to the hive-mind programming they’d stolen back in Go City, which he’d used as a building block in their coding. Now instead of assisting a swarm of robotic insects, the filched tech allowed his androids to orchestrate their individual movements to work with each other as one toward their collective goal.

Which right now seemed to be Shego.

A metal grip wrapped around her wrist, cold and pinching where the plates met. It was reflex to curl her free hand into a fist and draw it back, but before she could slug the android, another had appeared before her to catch her fist. The stainless steel fingers locked around her knuckles and refused to budge when Shego tried yanking free, the android’s carapace giving a metallic rattle.

“Ladies, ladies, calm yourselves,” chided Drakken as he stepped up to defuse the potential fight, practically brushing the robots away and shooting a glare past Shego at the third which must have still been calculating its part in the confrontation. He rubbed his chin and glowered over Shego’s shoulder at the unmoving robot, muttering, “There’re still some bugs to work out. I’ll need to get on that.” When his eyes dropped to ponder on it and do his own mental calculations, he must have realized how far in Shego’s space he’d been standing because he jumped away with a choked noise of apology and made for the benches against the wall.

Shego realized then that she should move too, shaking out of her stupor and inwardly chastising herself as if it would help force the heat from her cheeks. She took a few strides towards Drakken, but stopped short and set her hands on her hips. “So, where do you want me to start?” she asked as the rogue doctor sat himself down and crossed his legs.

Drakken pulled his little notebook from a pocket and skimmed it. He tapped his pen on his chin and hummed. “Try knocking them off balance,” he suggested.

“You can’t test that in the lab?” Shego’s brow furrowed.

He was hesitant to reply, chewing on the end of his pen for a moment. “I could…but there’s more to it than standing them up and pushing them over,” he explained as Shego turned to the nearest. “You see, they don’t want to be—”

Shego made the mistake of finding out the hard way when she made to give the android a shove. For something with such a jittery stride, the Bebe managed to duck before she could lay a hand on its carapace, stooping into a wide stance – and Shego let out a yelp in the same instant as a bruising grip nearly pulled her arm out of socket. She was yanked off her feet and thrown overhead only to crash down on the robot’s other side.

Taken by surprise, she’d landed flat on her back, wincing as she struck the stone floor. She hissed and swore and rolled over, reaching for her shoulder to make sure everything was still in place. It was, but she’d be feeling it in the morning. For a split second, she missed the physical therapies that came as perks to the hero gig.

Drakken groaned wearily and was kneeling beside her then. “As I was saying. They don’t want to be knocked over.”

She shot him a hostile glare. “Coulda told me in private instead of giving them that nice little heads up,” she spat.

“Yes, well, no one’s perfect,” he grumbled, and suddenly Shego’s gaze snapped up to the robots as she realized he’d been holding out a hand to signal them to stay back. She barely heard the blue man having the audacity to ask, “Are you okay, Shego?”

“What do you think? Your robot just attacked me—”

He stuck up a finger to correct her. “No, she defended herself. It’s part of the self-preservation.” He hefted himself up and offered Shego a hand, but she ignored it, thinking twice about swatting it away lest the robots see it as another threat to Dr. Drakken. Her displeased groan as she held herself earned an apologetic smile from Drakken. “Do try again,” he pleaded sweetly. “I know you think they’re just hunks of scrap metal but please don’t underestimate them, Shego. I worked very hard on these beauties.”

“Not my definition, but beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,” grumbled Shego with a shrug.

She heaved a sigh and rolled her shoulders, ready to take on the robotic triplets in earnest. Now that she’d had a taste of them, she knew for herself not to underestimate the rigid androids. Knocking one over without resorting to her alien fire was easier said than done, the frustration bringing to mind a rigged carnival game. As inhuman beings, the robots had no need to worry about stamina – meanwhile Shego had worked up a sweat, annoyance over the impossible task fueling her inner fire, and in the end she was left breathing heavily and glaring at the infallible Bebes.

Which Drakken was ecstatic over.

She tried not to be so irked by it – it meant he’d done his job well after all. He’d better have, considering how long he’d supposedly been developing the things.

“So they aren’t just hunks of junk,” admitted Shego, straightening up. She had to give him that. Each of the robots had managed to dodge her or otherwise work together to intercept her, doing whatever it took to stay poised and on their feet. Either they were pretty decent or she was rustier than she thought. She hadn’t liked Drakken repeating an order for the Bebes to remain in defense mode however. She wondered if he hadn’t, if they would merely go into a neutral standby mode until given orders or begin making their own decisions to deal with the situation at hand. She had the sneaking suspicion of the latter.

Drakken ordered the Bebes to stand down when Shego approached him. She didn’t like that he had to remind them again, but she accepted the bottle of cool water he held out for her. “If you’re tired, we can finish this some other day,” he offered. She wondered what more there was left to finish.

Shego sucked down half the bottle quick and gasped for air before reaching out to snatch his notebook. His finger had still been in it to hold his place, and she quickly opened it up to take a look at his notes. “Mobility, reflexes, self-preservation, balance, compliance, Bebe Three’s processing speed,” she listed off points he’d made to himself to watch for in his diagnostics of the Bebes in action. She looked back at the three androids standing stock-still, indistinguishable from one another, and wondered which was Bebe 3 and if its lag had made much of a difference.

Shego shoved the notebook back at him. “What’s left to test?” she snorted. “Only way I’m gonna get the upper hand on one of these is if I fight dirty.” She sucked down the last of her water and tossed the bottle for the nearest receptacle, barely making the basket. “I don’t get it. If you have these around, why do you need me too? They seem capable.” She didn’t realize how bitter she was until she tasted it on her own tongue at the sight of Drakken recoiling from her words.

“Well…” He fidgeted a moment but held up a hand as if to tell her a secret, whispering, “They aren’t…perfect. Yet.”

“You mean you just haven’t gotten around to installing that feminine touch, right?”

It took him a moment to catch her drift, but then Drakken grimaced and blushed deeply, a glare quickly replacing his discomfort. “Everyone assumes that – I understand why, I do – but believe me, I’m not that desperate and that isn’t their purpose.” She’d heard him sing that tune before.

“Yeah? Then what is their purpose?” challenged Shego at his back as he skulked away to leave the gym.

Drakken flinched, his shoulders hunched, but then he composed himself and stood tall. He swept his hair back and gave her a level look. “I’ll show you,” he said evenly, before barking harshly at his robots, “Bebes, with me.”

The robots standing around with their cybertronic eyes trained on her suddenly turned away from Shego to follow their master up to the catwalk in a single-file line. Shego wondered if the robot taking up the caboose, walking a step behind the rest, was number three. She wondered what other defects hadn’t come to light.

“Those things give me the heebie-jeebies,” she decided, finally following after them. The weight of a new dread growing in the pit of her stomach couldn’t go ignored. Drakken’s robots seemed fully functioning – too good to be true, as far as home-made robots went. So what was the catch? And if they were so exceptional and nearly-perfect, then what did he need her for? There had to be a drawback.

As she reached the top of the staircase leading from Drakken’s office, she hollered down the hall that she was going to shower and change. He grunted and waved to acknowledge her, though the Bebe at the tail of the line rotated its head to watch Shego duck through her door.

She didn’t like that the same blank robot was still at the end of the hall when she appeared a moment later, a fresh change of clothes in hand. Shego was braced for it to attack as she neared it, but the Bebe merely watched her silently until she slipped into the bathroom. She heard Drakken call for it, sounding none too pleased that it had hung back.

As she was showering, she swore she heard the sound of music unlike any she was used to hearing playing softly through the lair or over car radios. She swore to herself that it was her imagination, that the water pipes or ventilation system was playing tricks on her, but when she was dried off and dressing into a comfortable change of pajamas to call it a day, she was sure she heard the distinct tooting of horns.

The symphony grew louder.

She hurriedly smoothed out her top and shook out her hair, practically storming out of the bathroom as the volume rose. The thought crossed her mind that while she didn’t know the difference between Bach and Beethoven, she was sure her mother did, and it was enough to kindle a fire she wasn’t expecting. If she knew the location of every loudspeaker the man had throughout the lair, she might hunt every one of them down to blow them out herself.

Shego made a beeline for his computer mainframe, the clear source of the music, and though tempted to destroy it or at the very least close the program playing the waltz, she cranked the volume down to a more bearable level.

She whirled then to glare around the lab, finally spotting Drakken moving among his Bebes. For a split second she feared the possibility of them turning on him, considering maybe she shouldn’t have left him alone with the androids, but then the sight before her sank in. A pair of Bebes were practically interlocked, hands on each other’s waist and shoulder and held together and feet shuffling to the melody. Drakken meanwhile was occupied with the third Bebe sister, happily waltzing along with it and smiling broadly as he seamlessly exchanged dance partners.

His feet never stopped moving, though he pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket and adjusted something in the shoulder of his present dance partner. “All better,” he muttered to himself, tenderly caring for his robot and sending it to another dance partner while he observed and evaluated the next. He dipped the android and briefly rested the back of his hand against its forehead as if checking for a fever before sighing and standing the android up. Shego heard him mutter something about overheating and coolants.

Shego realized her fists were clenched and she must have been wearing a terribly ugly look of disgust on her face. He’d been so near to knocking down the android, and she’d barely been able to knock one off balance enough for it to need to catch itself. She felt foolish now, knowing something like dancing with them could have done the trick. Then again, if the gloves were off, the androids would have been toast. She held on to that scrap of reassurance.

“Dancing? Really?” she scoffed as she crossed the lab. The Bebes ceased their fanciful little waltz and turned to face her. Drakken held up a hand to signal them to stand down. “That’s what they’re for?” She still had her doubts about his silly pet project.

Drakken’s face was flushed and he was fidgeting and shrugging. “Yes, well, no one else ever wants to dance with me,” he grumbled, choosing then to clean his glasses to avoid looking at her.

“How do you know? Ever try asking nicely?” Shego shot wryly as she paused within a safe distance of the mad scientist and his metallic robot dancers.

Drakken paused. His face flushed a deeper shade. “O-oh. Uhm.” He pushed his glasses back on quickly and looked to his androids all standing ready and honed in on Shego before looking back to her himself and extending a hand with a flamboyant roll of his wrist and a polite bow. “Would you…please…care to dance?”

Suddenly realizing she’d put her foot in her mouth, Shego’s smug smirk fell. Her arms dropped to her sides and she glanced back around the lab to be sure they were alone. If a henchman walked in now, would there be gossip? There was already gossip – so what did it matter? Still, she felt watched. She brushed it off as the optics of the Bebes on her.

Eyeing Drakken’s outstretched hand, she stepped toward him without consciously intending to, criticism on the tip of her tongue. But before she realized what had happened and that it in fact was not an attack launched by the Bebes, he’d pulled her up to him – or maybe he’d stepped up to her, she wasn’t sure. Lips zipped, Shego held her breath to keep a lid on it as Drakken fearlessly and unthinkingly pulled her hand to a rest atop his shoulder and slid his own to her waist without pausing to consider repercussions. It was staggering how bold he could be sometimes for someone so easily flustered into incoherent sputtering.

Her lips came unzipped. “I don’t dance,” Shego blurted suddenly. She had half a mind to jerk away and storm off to her quarters to put space between them – before she could burn him, if nothing else. She could do without the heat sweeping over her at least as Drakken took her bare hand in his.

“Don’t be a pill,” dismissed the man as he began to lead, whether she liked it or not. She wasn’t sure if she disliked it but, she wasn’t sure if she liked it either, too tense to go with his flow just like that. “I’ve seen you bounce to a beat.”

“That’s different than. Uhh.” She swallowed dryly, staring down to their feet. She felt ridiculous in her pajamas suddenly while Drakken wore his usual blue suit and spiffy shoes that tapped and slid rhythmically with the music playing low now. The thought crossed her mind with a chill that this was the first time since Lady Fate that she’d had a chance to engage with anyone in such a way. But really – did it have to be when she was wearing some goofy sleepy-time owl pajamas? Her face burned and she worried she might burst into flames and ruin her silly PJ’s then and there.

Drakken didn’t help when he hummed pensively as he led her in a dizzying little circle. She’d been thrown around like a ragdoll in a fight before, yet this was a different kind of dizzy, one that had her weak in the knees and short of breath. She could do without that. She was lightheaded and stumbling after him enough, barely keeping her cool as it was. She didn’t need him smirking at her the way he did or unthinkingly popping off, “I didn’t expect you to have two left feet.”

She was tempted to cease humoring him then and simply return to her room. Instead her nails dug into his shoulder at the sharp reminder she hadn’t been to a school dance since she was in braces. So she was out of practice. Big deal. It wasn’t like she’d ever had any practice to begin with. “I didn’t expect you to go through so much trouble just to build yourself dancing partners,” she retorted. She bit her tongue, wishing she’d had something better to fire off.

“They’ll serve me beyond that,” he assured. When Shego dared to glance up into his face, the unfocused malicious look cast over his features was hard to miss. It was unnerving. She was relieved that he snapped out of it quickly enough and turned his attention back down her, swaying her side to side to make up for the momentary pause. She liked to think she was keeping pace with him.

“Yeah?” she pressed. “How so?” She had to wonder what his plans were with the androids. The distracting thoughts at least staved back the fire roaring beneath her skin and kept the heat out of her hands.

That spiteful look was back, but it wasn’t fixed on her. Drakken relaxed again and gave her a brief twirl she barely complied with before returning her close to him.

“I skipped a few grades,” he mused sadly. “So no one wanted to dance with a little twerp like me at shindigs – hoedowns, Sadie Hawkins, prom, you name it. If I wasn’t too short, I was too young or too geeky. No one ever danced with Drew Lipsky except to make fun or pity him. It wasn’t much different at MIST.”

Shego wondered inwardly as he spun her around again how long he’d been dying to let this particular wound breathe, because he barely stopped to take a breath for himself. She could only nod and listen and ignore the fact they were out of time with the music.

“Impressing with scientific inventions was the name of the game, so it made sense to me at the time when I got shafted with finding my friends dates to some mixer. They were going to make fun of me no matter what, but I was true to my word and brought them dance partners.” Drakken looked past Shego then to the Bebes and sighed. “They weren’t impressed.”

Shego nodded back toward the robotic onlookers. “I wager they’re not just for dancing now, huh?”

“No,” he confirmed. “Once I was made a laughing stock, I made a promise that…well… When I find those men, it’s all over for them.” He set her hand on his shoulder so he could gesture to his neck and he beamed. “I’ll show them what for.”

She definitely didn’t like the insinuation, but despite her heart fluttering like a bird she couldn’t help mirroring his grin. “I don’t play into this little vengeance plot, do I?” She couldn’t say she wanted to have much to do with the robots anyway. She didn’t know if she could stand to be there if he had intent to kill anyone either – and she wondered inwardly if having the stomach for it was a requirement in villainy. Murder certainly couldn’t be off the table, but what was the villain etiquette on the subject? Those were probably things one would learn at LHU.

She almost didn’t hear Drakken grunt in confirmation to her spoken question. “No.” That was a relief.

She couldn’t believe she was letting her hands slip over his shoulders to link her fingers safely behind his neck. It brought her too preciously close – but she swallowed those nerves. She’d handled lounging the couch with him earlier just fine. She could handle a silly little dance. “And once you’ve had your fun with that, you won’t need them anymore?” she ventured, hopeful.

“No,” answered Drakken like a broken record, but then his face scrunched. “Wait – yes? Maybe? No – why?” It was hard not to laugh that such a simple question could trip up the so-called genius. She hoped she understood him correctly though that once he’d followed through that scheme, the robots would be gone.

“Just…I’unno.” She fidgeted with her fingers and consequently his hair at the nape of his neck and wished their feet were still moving. “Making sure you’re not gonna kick me to the curb once your robo-chicks are perfected.”

Drakken’s confusion melted away after a moment and a low laugh shook him. “No,” he said once more with a big crooked grin that he had to battle into submission. “There is really no substitute for human company or assistance.” He might have been choosing his words with utmost caution, yet it was a foolhardy thing to do to reach up to her cheek. The stroke of his thumb was almost probing, and Shego felt an unsettled flip of her stomach at the realization he was studying her. She hoped she was better than any robot.

Shego gave a meek laugh that failed to take the edge off the awkwardness. “Sounds like we’ve both had shitty luck with friends, huh?”

“Yes. I suppose so,” agreed the rogue somberly. “But luck can change, right? I’m due.”

Another moment passed of Drakken quietly examining her, his fingers soft on her warm cheek. With how fast her heart was beating, it felt like it was one moment too long. She felt like popping up on her toes just to give him something else to study so he’d quit looking at her like a subject under observation, but she kept her feet flat on the ground.

She didn’t have to do anything anyway it seemed, because it was Drakken who leaned down to her.

A rush of nerves took the helm and she leaned back involuntarily in the same moment the gentle melody of the symphony was suddenly interrupted by jarring hip-hop from the top 40. Drakken’s face twisted in confusion as he looked to the mainframe, and irritation quickly masked the flush in his cheeks as he pulled Shego’s arms away from his shoulders.

She barely had the chance to be disappointed when a Bebe stepped between them, a hand coming down as if karate chopping an invisible board. Shego’s blood chilled when its stiff jaw slackened and a cold electronic voice over a small speaker crackled, “May I cut in.” It was scarcely a question and more of a command.

Shego willfully disengaged from Drakken, backing off lest she find out how the android would take a rejection. If she didn’t know better, she’d say the thing was jealous.

“I am done dancing,” dismissed Drakken clearly, attempting to step around the robot as he glared at the mainframe.

His words did not seem to compute. In jolting mechanical motions, the android began to move in dips and twists the only other way Shego could imagine a robot dancing. She didn’t know what it was doing. It wasn’t quite doing the robot, but the moves were unfamiliar and unnatural.

“Uhm. Drakken, I think it’s glitching out,” Shego noted, trying not to laugh at the jittery android.

“No, she just – she doesn’t have enough data. Bebe only knows how to ballroom dance and tango…and the can-can.” He stood and rubbed his chin curiously as he surveyed the android encroaching on him with bizarre moves like a bird of paradise without the fanciful plumage. “But she can learn. I wonder – could you teach her—?”

A tap at Shego’s shoulder made her jump. “Care to dance?” droned a second Bebe.

“No way in hell,” she dismissed, taking a swift step away from the dance-prone robot.

“Care to dance?” echoed the third, to no one in particular it seemed, as it had no partner to direct the question at.

“Care to dance?”

“Care to dance?”

Shego’s fists clenched, unsure what was happening as the robots sounded off and began to all move in confused jerking movements out of time with the beat. The one nearest her stepped closer, and the one targeting Drakken reached for him.

Drakken barely jumped back before it could catch him. He gnashed his teeth and covered his ears against the droning question now drowning out the vulgar hip-hop, their voices not quite in unison once their voice boxes began to glitch too.

“No!” he roared, storming toward the Bebe’s table after smacking the mute button on the mainframe. He clapped loudly for the Bebes’ attention, ordering in a booming voice, “Stop dancing! The party is over!” At his command, the Bebes all went still. With Drakken giving explicit orders, they headed for the table where they belonged to power down and recharge. It took ordering the third Bebe twice before it obeyed, and Shego was still frozen in place as she watched Drakken take down another note in his notebook before snapping it shut and stowing it back in his pocket.

She realized her heart was thudding. On top of the alarming encounter with malfunctioning androids Drakken had barely managed to put to bed like children, another concern sent a swirl through her stomach and spurred her heartbeat to kick up a notch again. She warmed over again at the very thought.

Biting her lip and feeling like an idiot suddenly, she wondered just what he’d been thinking when he’d been staring at her. He hadn’t really just been about to kiss her, had he? It had to be her imagination. He’d been lost in his own head, and it was hard to tell his motives and intent when he was like that. She didn’t like the idea he was probably thinking of ways to give the Bebes flesh and skin. Still, fire-prone as she was, she liked to think she was more kissable than a robot.

Shego quickly shook the notion from her head.

A deep breath and she crossed the lab again to meet him. Drakken was busy plugging in his precious robots to the specialized power ports on the table. She leaned back against it as he worked, watching over her shoulder as he popped open the robots’ chest cavities to let their overworked motors cool while quickly hitting power buttons before any could awake from their dormant states to interfere.

Shego breathed a small sigh of relief, reassuring herself. The robots were in no way shape or form going to replace her. They were merely part of a personal vendetta against some former classmates he had a beef with. Their creation and his obsession with perfecting the androids had nothing to do with loneliness, but rather because he had pride and a point to make.

That’s what she consoled herself with anyway.

Exhaling hugely, Shego dropped back across the table, almost as if she were just another of the Bebes. Drakken was working on the last robot, having just made his way around it back to her other side. Bebe number three seemed to be in need of some maintenance, because he hovered over it longer than the rest. She watched him work, practically unblinking.

“It’s rude to stare,” he noted without looking up from his task of tightening bolts and taking some sort of electrical or thermal readings within the robot’s power unit built into its chest.

Shego scoffed. “Says you.” She looked away though when she caught his ears tinge. She sat up then with a groan. Being thrown on the floor and knocked down a few times herself earlier in the gym was catching up to her. “So. Done with me for the evening?”

He waved her off. “TV’s all yours.”

“So I can take it back to my room then?”

Drakken grunted and flicked her a disapproving glare. “Har har, Shego. You go ahead. I’ve got my hands full here. And then I have to go check on the boys, and go downstairs to—”

“Busy night, huh?”

“Well if we hadn’t stopped to fool around playing basketball—”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what’s got you backlogged.” Shego snorted. “Besides, you made sure that game was over pretty quick.” She leaned to take a closer look at his eye once more. It had only been a few hours, but most of the swelling had gone down.

She felt a little sick to her stomach suddenly, and not because she was inspecting his face too closely again. Her involvement with an eye injury years ago made her shudder, but she didn’t apologize. The scar made him scarier.

“I take it I’m stuck with cafeteria gruel,” she said, accepting that fate as she slid off the table. She would have liked to see what the man could whip up, but he seemed terribly busy suddenly.

Drakken opened his mouth to object, as she knew he would.

No sooner had he uttered something choked did a loud clang announce the lights abruptly shutting off. A few blinking dots of light from the mainframe quickly blinked out of sight, and Shego heard the clatter of tools beside her being knocked off the worktable.

“Shego?” yelped Drakken, bumping into her and earning a rough shove back to arm’s length.

With her free hand she lit up her glow to shed a little light. “What did you do?” she snapped over, heavy on the accusation.

Drakken waved both hands in front of him, sputtering nervously in defense, “I – nothing! It wasn’t me! S-something must have blown. I – you – wait here. I need to check on something.” He pried her clutch from his shirt and stepped back quickly before pausing and striding off into the dark in another direction. Shego stepped forward to follow him, to give him a little light at least as he slammed drawers in a filing cabinet hidden behind crates until he located a flashlight.

“Drakken—?”

“Stay here, Shego.” Suddenly his tone was much more stern, not unlike the tone he used to boss around the Bebes or his henchmen. She recoiled back from it. “That’s an order.” His furrowed brow relaxed and he spun away to head down the hall, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll be quick!”

She wasn’t sure about the rogue’s dodgy behavior, and was tempted to follow him despite his order. She sighed and stayed put in the lab though, leaning back briefly against the worktable and extinguishing her hand to cross her arms in the dark. After a moment, she thought twice about remaining so close to the Bebes. She relit a hand and watched the slumbering robots with distrust as she retreated back to Drakken’s quarters to put safe distance between her and them. She had a sense Drakken was barely in control of them – she wasn’t keen to meet them in the dark without him there to mediate.

Shego flopped down on the corduroy couch, careful to keep her glowing hand away from the upholstery. She grunted in discontent and kicked her heels up on the coffee table, knowing Drakken didn’t appreciate the disrespect for his furniture. The clock on the wall was battery-operated and tick-tick-ticked the seconds away, grating her nerves with each that passed.

It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds before she leaned forward to grab a magazine and a half-spent cigarette out of the ash tray, lighting up a smoke to distract herself as she peeled open the pages to read by the light of her glow. The green cast over the pages made musing over any of the photographs a sub-par experience. Still, she took a stray pen from the coffee table and made a few circles and crossed out a few accessories, going as far as drawing a mustache on a woman and idly doodling a facial scar on a man advertising hiking boots.

Something was off.

She didn’t notice it at first. She really should have. She’d made the mistake of letting her guard down, comfortable in Drakken’s homely quarters despite the power being out, her mind elsewhere, like on jewelry and if Drakken needed any help.

She tasted it when she brought the cigarette to her lips for the last time.

Cherry.

Shego dropped the cigarette at the sudden realization she could taste fruity lip-gloss on the filter. The glowing cherry of the cigarette scorched a hole in the magazine in her lap, and without thinking Shego slapped her hands down onto it to put it out. Her own glow hadn’t extinguished before acting on the reflex, only worsening the situation.

She swore, leaping up with a magazine being engulfed with licks of green and yellow flames. Shadows danced around the room as she sprinted with the flaming magazine to the kitchen. Throwing it in the sink and under the water, Shego cursed at herself and then glared around the dark room as if she could really see Priscilla snooping about in the dark any better than she could in the light. She groaned in disgust with herself and rinsed her warm hands.

The lights flicked on finally, making her jump, and she gave the room a last look before storming out. “I know you’re here!” she shouted as she left Drakken’s quarters, just in case Priscilla was elsewhere by now. She was fuming though dread curdled in the pit of her stomach. How long had she been snooping about this time? Had she been spying on them earlier? Was she responsible for the power going out?

Shego gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, hoping bitterly the trespasser had had a mishap with the lair’s wiring – but then she shuddered at that thought. She didn’t really hope that. She just wanted the girl out of her hair. She swallowed bile though, wondering what could have gone wrong to cause the outage.

Down in Drakken’s office, Shego checked the CCTV. Half the camera feed was offline, but from what she gathered half the lair was still without power. Everything was calm though. The henchmen in the cafeteria and lounge looked reasonably confused, just beginning to disperse now that they could see. Drakken must have been in a blind spot, she surmised, and shoved away from the desk to go find him.

She didn’t like the thought of Drakken running into Priscilla in the dark.

She’d just rounded a corner and was passing by the gym toward the darkened hall ahead when Drakken’s voice called to her. She paused and whipped around to face the sound of his footsteps.

There were blackened smears staining his previously clean white shirt and he wore a pair of gloves he quickly shoved into a pocket as he reached her. “What are you doing? I told you to wait—”

“Priscilla’s here,” she said with certainty, though suddenly she had her doubts about how long that cigarette had been sitting in that ashtray. Could it have been leftover from last time she’d snuck in?

Drakken shut his trap, whatever lecture he had prepared cut short. His lip curled instead and he almost glared back over his shoulder. “I’m aware,” he said curtly, crossing his arms. Before Shego could utter anything in surprise, he glared about the hallway and snapped, “Why don’t you quit playing games and come out?”

And just like that, the new least-welcomed resident of the oasis stepped out from around Drakken, showing herself and giggling gleefully as if this were all just some funny joke. “Man! I wish I could have seen your faces when the lights went out,” she chortled. Shego didn’t mean to indulge her when she gawped at Priscilla, and swatted the hand away when Prissy pointed at her. “Yeah, like that! It must’ve been great. Serves you right for ditching me.”

“Do you have any idea the damage you caused with that little practical joke?” Drakken ground out. His fingers curled in the air as if he wanted to throttle the headache invading his lair.

“Hey, no one got hurt, right?”

“Oh, someone’s gonna get hurt,” shot Shego before throwing herself at the girl fist-first.

[split-n-splice]

I really gotta remember to keep updating. May be a slight overindulgence on the Drakgo here. Sorry not sorry. More chapters found on FFn & Ao3.

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

46. Whose Side – 9

It was during the ride back to the lair that Shego swore off drinking or doing anything ever again. Drakken scoffed at her, not buying it for a moment. She didn’t believe herself either. The one good thing that had come of her endeavors that night was having the audacity to ask what she’d needed to – and find out he may have the same concern. It had been reassuring.

Despite how easily the night could have ended terribly, Shego found herself smiling contentedly to herself in her bathroom mirror, pulling the drawstrings tight on a pair of cotton pajama pants that weren’t her own. The tee she pulled on hung loose around her and she wore it triumphantly, pleased with herself for once again bringing out the rogue’s hospitality. So long as it was in her favor, she didn’t mind a soft side.

She tried not to consider how far the man would get in the villain game if he kept up the niceness though.

When she left the washroom and crossed paths with a henchman on cleaning duty, she held her head high and ignored the raised brow at her unprofessional attire. Upon rounding the corner into the lab, she broke into a quiet sprint on her tiptoes, reaching the door to Drakken’s quarters in record time. She considered she could have used his own bathroom or just changed in his closet but – she shook her head at the idea of stripping down in his domain again. She was too sober for that now.

Drakken was found slouched on the couch, channel surfing.

She sat down at the far end and couldn’t help noticing him tense or the way he kept tabs on her in his peripheral. A minute or two passed before she sighed, “Relax. I’m not going to jump you again.” Her face heated at the recent memory, but she still lacked the added tingle of her glow to turn the situation precarious.

“I wasn’t worried about that,” he blurted quickly in defense. He tossed the remote over to her as commercials droned on the late-night programming. “Do you need a pillow? I’ll grab you a pillow.”

“Or I can just use you, you big softie,” she jibed, and watched him jump up as if he’d sat on something hot.

A pillow and blanket were soon dropped in her lap. Instead of depositing the bedding and leaving, Drakken leaned back against the spine of the couch. Shego watched him linger from the corner of her eye as she situated herself to nestle in for the night, and only after she’d flopped down comfortably with a huff did she turn to look back up to him.

He noticed. He’d been peeking at her too, it seemed. “So that headhunter woman…she was interested in you and your friends?” he wondered reluctantly.

Shego sighed. “Isn’t it, like, two in the morning?” she said, stifling a yawn.

“It’s only—”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I don’t think she’s dragging me back with Chester just yet. I haven’t proven my worth, I guess.” She adjusted her pillow. “Working for Global Justice and Buckley got me points for being able to take orders, but without you to vouch for me, I don’t think they’re gonna let me in.”

There was a long pause. Shego thought he’d been about to leave when he asked instead, “Do you want to go?” He sounded a little sad.

Her eyes had fallen shut. Shego gave a small shrug. “Let me sleep on it.” The thought of going away to endure more rigorous training and an impossibly full schedule wasn’t appealing, but it was his idea she have a contingency plan in the first place. College would be no walk in the park, but if she were to go to any, it might as well be one appropriate for her chosen path.

She heard him shift. The room went dark – a welcoming kind of dark, with a dim lamp on near Drakken’s recliner to shed a little light. It was enough to bring her a sense of peace and comfort despite the day she’d had. She could have dozed off right then and there, but after a long moment just when she’d thought she’d fallen asleep, she heard Drakken’s door as he finally left the room.

++X++

Too soon, the room was well-lit with the bright lights that kept Drakken’s houseplants thriving. Though green as well, Shego on the other hand was not thriving. She pulled the blanket up over her head and groaned, her own skull welcoming her back to the waking world with each painful throb.

Announcing a nice sunny week as if dry weather was just what Nevada needed, the voice of the weatherman alerted her that it was morning. She could hear Drakken humming happily from the kitchen.

She hadn’t realized she’d groaned to give away her state until Drakken fell silent, if only briefly.

“Ah, you’re awake,” he called from the kitchen. Before she knew it, he was at the couch, pulling off the blanket she failed to keep hold of. “Rise and shine.”

Shego covered her face with her hands and curled up, giving him the finger as she lay there. She let out a muffled groan. “Can I call in sick?”

“I only have so much to bribe Buckley with,” said Drakken, sounding a little disappointed himself by the fact. “So no. Up and at ‘em, Shego.”

When she didn’t budge, he came for her pillow next. She was willing to fight for it, first clinging to it with all her might, but soon grappling with his hands and arms to fend them off. Despite the pounding of a headache, a laugh crackled out of her. It felt childish but that didn’t stop her.

Shego grabbed at his sleeves, grappling for purchase, for a secure grip on anything, and instead of fighting him off she turned the tables to tug him down. Drakken was caught off guard, yanked down to brace against the couch, and whether it was swift moves to get the best of him or if he’d gone willingly, he was soon joining her, resting awkwardly in the tight quarters the cushions had to offer, though still teetering on the edge of the couch.

Her grip rumpling his shirt loosened and she let go of his belt as though burned when she realized she’d used it to rein him in. It did nothing to treat a hangover, but Shego now held her breath as she considered what she’d gotten herself into. She warmed over, the heat in her hands back and barely contained as she squeezed them together, tucked against her chest.

Drakken shifted cautiously. She snuck a breath and held completely still, as though breathing alone would give her alien fire oxygen to burn. She almost wished he hadn’t simply made himself more comfortable, but was glad he didn’t run away either. The silent worry in her head that he was still carefully braced with his hands pressed to anything but her resounded in her head until he moved again. She stared at his throat as he gulped and she waited to combust as a hand settled harmlessly on her shoulder.

So far, so good.

After a long moment, he cleared his throat lightly. “This is nice,” he muttered whimsically against her hair, a note of confusion and surprise in his voice. It was enough to spark a reaction in her, and very nearly a dangerous one.

“Villains aren’t supposed to be nice,” she mumbled back in reminder.

His hand came to a rest at her waist and he sighed, oblivious to the live wires of her nerves reacting. Shego squeezed her eyes shut and saved back the rising heat. She couldn’t blow it now. “Good – because I’m not forfeiting another recipe.” It wasn’t a very evil threat, though it did promise they’d have to leave soon.

Or maybe they wouldn’t. He was making no move to disengage. She contemplated handling Buckley on her own. The woman wouldn’t be happy with her, but so what? It was no big deal. She’d faced worse.

Shego shrugged at the prospect as nonchalantly as she could.

Finally unfrozen, she tried to convince herself to rest her hands on Drakken in turn, but she almost couldn’t unfold them. She was aware the medication had worn off and her touch was warm as she tried to find a place to set her hands, daring herself to experiment and push her limits while she had the chance. She swallowed and fidgeted with his tie instead, just in case she got too hot. She was already pushing her luck.

“I slept on it,” said Drakken after a moment. “Well, I didn’t really sleep – but – I don’t want you to go.”

“I don’t wanna go either,” Shego mumbled, resigning herself to burying her face in the crook of his neck to block out the accursed light. Her hands finally spread over his chest. She felt his breath hitch and his body tense. She liked that feeling. And she liked how he smelled too. She might even like to stay in place all day if she could, even if she was barely keeping her fire in check.

“You don’t?” He sounded confused. “But last night…”

It clicked then that they weren’t on the same page. “You don’t mean to Buckley’s, do you?” she groaned in defeat. Of course he’d still make her go. He wouldn’t get buttered up that easily…would he? She realized that was exactly what she was doing as she snuck a hand around to rub his back and stopped herself.

Drakken drew a deep breath through his nose – she knew he was sniffing her hair, he wasn’t that slick – and she sensed as well he was steeling himself to say something tough. She suspected it had to do with LHU. He deflated, asking apathetically instead, “How long do I have to stay cute and cuddly?”

A laugh she herself wasn’t ready for burst out of her. It was better than plasmic flames at least. Nails digging into his back, she squeezed him tight in reflex to stifle her laughter and ignored his displeased harrumph. “Is that what this is?” she chortled into his shoulder. She found herself hoping there was more to his actions than appeasing her. Was he trying to butter her up to sway her into staying?

Her not-very-evil rogue doctor recoiled and started to sputter in a nervous fluster. His incoherent sounds grew impatient. He shoved away suddenly, loudly complaining of burnt toast as he sprinted back to the kitchen, the source of the smell suddenly permeating the air.

Undeniably awake now, Shego sat up and smoothed her hair as she peered back at him over the spine of the couch. Her face was warm and she found squeezing her hands between her knees didn’t help a new heat that had arisen in her. She couldn’t say she objected to it, but it was hardly the time to poke at that kindled fire. There’d be chances to stoke fires and test her limits later, she decided as she approached the kitchen island, watching Drakken’s back.

She tried not to think about the faint marks the inadvertent release of her alien fire had left in the fabric of his shirt when she’d cracked up moments ago. He knew he’d been taking a risk by cozying up to her – he could have taken caution and gotten up whenever he wanted – so she tried not to feel too bad for the scorch marks. She noted the tinge of his ears now and wondered if he’d been blushing and nervous too. She liked to think so.

Drakken buttered new slices of toast and finally turned to set breakfast before her. He didn’t look at her, too busy frowning at the smiley face he’d made up with his bacon and eggs.

“A quarter till eight,” Shego sighed with a glance to the clock. “I’m already late.”

“Well, you’re not lounging around my lab all day,” chastised Drakken.

She chewed her toast slowly, a wry thought crossing her mind that brought a new flush to her face. “We could—,” she choked on nerves and her toast, pausing to take a gulp of his coffee and clear her throat, ignoring his glare on her for helping herself to his mug. “We could, uhm. Pick up. Where we left off.” Her voice cracked as she nodded back toward the couch. Her heart gave a nervous stutter, and she tried to tell herself it was only a joke. She wasn’t even entirely sure what she was suggesting, but decided she’d cross that bridge when she got there.

Drakken’s eyes darted from the couch and back to her – and then away just as quickly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh please,” she scoffed. “As if you hadn’t just been copping a feel.”

“If I wanted to cop a feel, you’d know it.”

“Why don’t you show me then, huh?” she goaded before she could stop to consider her words.

Drakken barked a single bitter laugh. “And give you a reason to blast me?” he accused, sounding so sure of himself.

She was suddenly feeling awfully foolish. Her wily smirk faltered and she looked down to her plate. Maybe he had just been humoring her. “So you didn’t want any part of that just now?”

“No,” he said shortly, almost stubbornly, and scooped a bite of breakfast into his mouth.

“Wow. That does a number on the ego there, Doc.” She leaned on her fist and poked at her scrambled eggs. “Real charmer, you are.”

“I heard that,” he groused unappreciatively. “I’m not trying to charm you.”

“Yeah. You’re right. You sure weren’t laying on the charm when you took me from Go City either.”

Drakken grunted, and she knew she’d struck a nerve when the cat got his tongue and he started sputtering again. “Shego, that’s not – we – what do you want from—?” A loud noise of exasperation tore out of him and ruffled up his hair with fingers raking through it in frustration. “We’re not having this conversation,” he said firmly. By the evidence of the color in his cheeks, there was certainly a conversation left to be had, whether now as the time for it or not.

It would have to wait anyway.

A knock came at the door then. Drakken heaved a sigh and muttered his relief under his breath before calling across the room with a crabby tone, “What is it? Come in!”

The door cracked open and a henchman carefully stepped inside, one hand on the knob and ready to make a quick escape should anything be launched at him. “The van’s all fixed up, boss,” said Bobby. Shego narrowed her eyes on him as he seemed to be straining to keep his attention on Drakken. “Should run good as new this time.”

“It should have run good as new the first time,” spat Drakken, teeth bared in disdain. “Now get out!”

The scrawny messenger boy Bobby scrambled to hurry out the door, slamming it in his haste.

Shego rested her cheek back on her fist, admiring for a moment the ugly snarl that vanished as Drakken’s features relaxed. She couldn’t help smirking back at him. “Keep that up and maybe the rest of the crew will respect you, bad boy,” she teased.

He grunted and inspected the remains of his coffee before knocking it back. “Then allow me to be the bad guy,” he said, retaining the same coarse tone of voice as he stood and gestured to the door. “Hurry up and let’s go.”

Shego stuck her tongue out at him and quickly finished off her plate, though she wasn’t too eager to start her day as Shilo.

After swinging by her own dismal apartment for a decent change of clothes up to Buckley’s code that weren’t borrowed, the scrappy van was coasting down Main Street, purring like a kitten. Drakken suggested picking her up at the usual time, but she snorted. She realized she was still salty about the last time when she suggested he’d be better off playing with his flowers. She could handle Priscilla on her own anyway. She didn’t need to run and hide like Priss had done these past few years.

When she finally showed her face at the café, Abigail was abnormally pleased to see her. “About time,” she greeted, her posture relaxing. “I thought something had happened to you last night.” The warm welcome was quickly replaced with complaints for being tardy and leaving her to deal with customers alone. She did grumble once or twice that she’d rather be stuck with her than the new girl however.

From then on, all day at the café there had been whispers of the potential new recruit. Rumor was Miss Hatchet had taken a shining to the new girl for reasons even Buckley didn’t know, and certainly none Priscilla herself would divulge. It had to be her special talent. Shilo learned the girl had been there earlier in the morning to press Buckley about any openings, which had concerned Chester and Gail at least when Shilo was late and unreachable. Maybe it was an instinctual judge of character that had them ill at ease around the new girl, but Shilo was just glad they trusted her even less than she did.

Once the drudgery of smiling for customers was over with, Shilo was pleasantly surprised by who was waiting for her in the alley. Despite declining the ride offer earlier, Drakken was on time for a change. He must have been loitering awhile, because he shoved away from the wall as she stepped out. His displeased eyes darted to the cigarette she was ready to raise to her lips, and she found herself stowing away the coping mechanism for later when she needed it.

“What’s the occasion?” she asked as they walked.

He grunted but otherwise didn’t answer her.

They nearly reached the van without incident.

Shilo was just within reach of the passenger door when it happened.

After all day of seeing neither hide nor hair of the girl, Priscilla materialized beside the van, leaned casually against the metal. In the same moment, Shilo heard the blips and beeps of a GoBoy as Mickey wandered into sight from around the van as well.

“Look fast!” chirped Priscilla before Shilo could demand she get out of the way, and the next thing she knew a basketball was shot at her, losing its aura of invisibility the instant Priscilla released it.

Caught by surprise, it hit her point blank in the stomach and she grit her teeth as she dug her nails into the offending ball. “What was that for?” she barked over at the disowned friend snickering before her.

“You never were good at dodge ball,” giggled Priscilla dismissively.

Shilo tossed the ball down the alley and shoved the girl out of her way. In her peripheral she noticed Drakken finally make a move to round the van to take his place behind the wheel. She was climbing in, but Priscilla caught the door.

“Oh, come on,” she warbled. “Don’t dodge me, Shi. What are you so afraid of?”

She kicked out at her with a foot to force her back, wishing she could have shot a ball of plasma at her instead. “Afraid? I’m not afraid of you. I just don’t like you.” She slammed the door and locked it.

Priscilla blew a raspberry. “Are you gonna hold that grudge forever? We had to break up, Shi! Do you think I wanted to be drug down with you? Look, I even brought Mickey all the way here to vouch for me,” she said, tugging him over by an arm and gesturing at him as if he were living proof. He looked up from his game just long enough to give a small unconvincing nod. He shrugged away then and went to fetch the ball, clearly not keen to be caught between the two.

“Shego,” growled Drakken, and Shilo didn’t miss Priscilla’s scoff at the name.

She wasn’t sure who to snip at, but her attention turned to the man. “What?”

He didn’t get the chance to answer her – not that his displeasure with her associations wasn’t written across his face clearly enough.

Priscilla seized an opening. “C’mon, Shi!” she sang through the window, persistent as ever. “You’re free to be Shilo again, so let’s start over. What do you say?” While the passenger door might have been locked, it didn’t stop Priscilla from reaching aside and popping open the other before Shilo could twist around to lock it too. The girl climbed in despite Drakken’s bark for her to get out. “One round of basketball. Boys versus girls. There’s a court at the park.”

While she knew Drakken was something of a pushover for her, she didn’t expect him to allow Priscilla to walk all over him as if she could do whatever she pleased. Shilo could say the same for herself, though. The man shot her a glare and a nod toward the intruder, ordering, “Get rid of her.”

She rolled her eyes and exited the van. “One game and you leave me alone,” she bargained, though she really ought to have fired at the girl. She could do that at the park, she decided, and not where a fight could draw undue attention to Buckley’s Brew.

“Shego—”

“You wanna join me, Doc?” she challenged over her shoulder.

“Get back in the van.” He flicked a glance toward Priscilla who made no move to leave. She didn’t need him to say it. He didn’t trust her alone with the chick. She didn’t even trust herself alone with the chick – yet it was hard to heed his warning glare.

“Are we going to play?” wondered Mickey innocently as he returned, leaning into the back of the van to toss Priscilla the ball and peer curiously around.

Even being in close proximity, Shilo felt herself relax.

“How long is this going to take?” groused Drakken as the van shifted beneath Mickey’s weight.

Shilo rolled her eyes and climbed back in as well. She leaned across toward Drakken, and he took his cue to lean toward her with a scowl shot back toward the uninvited passengers. “As soon as we get there, we throw the match and go home,” she whispered.

“Oh no,” interjected Prissy, butting in between them. “Don’t flake out on me. I want a real game.”

Drakken snorted. “We can’t all have what we want.”

Shilo was surprised he was swayed so easily. She had the sneaking suspicion Mickey’s presence had something to do with his compliance, whether he intended to have an effect on them or not. She kept an eye turned back on the two nonetheless. Mickey sat holding the ball in his lap, looking especially reserved, and Shilo couldn’t help noticing Priscilla reach for his arm to simply rest her hand atop it. What could she be scheming that required she keep her cool, Shilo wondered.

She didn’t ask. Instead she noted, “It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah,” agreed Priscilla, and jabbed a thumb toward Mickey. “Remember that time your brother gave him a bloody nose?”

Truth be told, she didn’t. She’d barely twisted her face in confusion when Mickey spoke up, “Actually that was you,” he noted down to Priscilla. “And it wasn’t a bloody nose. My braces cut my lip.”

Priscilla narrowed her eyes up at the gorilla beside her. “Well, whatever,” she dismissed. “He totally deserved it for flirting with you that day.”

Recollection ghosted across Shilo’s face then and she nodded. “Wasn’t I doing the flirting and you got jealous?” she shot back, grinning smugly to catch the girl’s cheeks going rosy. And then it was her turn to blush, realizing what she’d admitted to.

The pink intruder took the opening. “You still got a thing for blonds, Shi?” she pried, leaning unnecessarily heavily against Mickey.

Scoffing in lieu of an answer, Shilo rolled her eyes and sat back in her seat with arms crossed. She flipped down her visor and the mirror with it to keep tabs on the passengers in the back.

Priscilla wasn’t done pressing buttons however. “Hey, mister,” she called up in her attempt to keep idle chitchat going. “What do you have a thing for?”

“I plead the fifth,” said Drakken curtly, but Shilo didn’t miss flick of his eyes as he glanced her way. She took a deep breath to shove down whatever feeling was trying to rise in her chest.

A few more crude attempts to reminisce and one assault in which the girl had tried to wrangle cigarettes from Shilo’s pocket, and they finally arrived at the riverside park. Shilo could see the building tension in Drakken the whole way and finally the slight sign of relief when he unclenched his jaw. “Alright, everyone get out of my van,” groused the man just as soon as he’d pulled up to the curb.

In her elation, Priscilla didn’t see through the ruse. Even Shilo had been about to climb out, having unbuckled her seatbelt, when Drakken’s hand shot out for her wrist to halt her. Priscilla had already flown out of the van, bouncing the ball hard on the sidewalk. Mickey on the other hand looked up to Shilo and then to Drakken before ducking out quickly as well. There wasn’t a word exchanged.

Shilo felt a little bad to be leaving him with the girl who would soon be none too pleased to realize they’d been ditched.

Drakken gunned it almost before Mickey had courteously slammed the door shut. He looked especially cross as he glared at the road, his fingers drumming thoughtfully on the wheel.

Shego tried casting him a wily smirk and suggesting, “We could go burn down her new digs?” The man only curled his lip in displeasure at the notion. She deflated with a puff. “Look, I’m sorry she followed me here, but I can’t get rid of her without really crossing some criminal lines here, Doc.”

“That pain in the neck can ruin everything,” he grumbled. “What if she goes back to them – your brothers – and tells them all about us? Nngh! I mean – about me? Me and my goings-on?” Shego almost reached over to silence his sputtering herself when he clammed up and ran a stop sign, much to the disapproval of those who honked at him. She could practically see gears turning in his head then, but couldn’t speak up in time to stop them when he asked, “You say she’s a candidate for LHU?”

“Y-yeah – but – what?” She blinked in a stupor when he cut the wheel and she realized they were turning around. They couldn’t possibly be heading back to the park. What was he thinking?

“If we must keep up the charades to stay in her good favor until she leaves…” Drakken’s lip curled again and he growled, scoring his nails across his scalp in frustration. Whatever he had in mind looked like it pained him.

“Drakken, no,” snapped Shego, her heart starting to thud as she realized what he was suggesting. “I’m putting my foot down on this one. I’m not going to—”

“Neither of us will be alone with them,” he said as if would be reassuring. “If it can be helped, anyway.”

“What happened to just offing them, huh?” she argued, but he shot her a look as if it were too dirty a deed to sully his hands with. He wasn’t wearing gloves anyway to hide his fingerprints. “You’re insane if you think—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” he chastised with a waggle of a finger, and tapped his noggin. “I prefer mad.”

Associating with her foe for self preservation sounded so wrong, but she bit her tongue. She groaned in disgust and clutched her hands together between her knees to subdue the itch to let her loathing burn. The park was back in view and Priscilla was dribbling the ball into the street, hazel glare on the van.

“Yeah, yeah. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Shego drawled as if she’d heard it a thousand times, though she’d never utilized it to her advantage in the hero business. But times had changed and so had her career.

She cast a look over to Drakken when he sighed. “At least there’s a silver lining,” he said, though he sounded unhappy. Shego arched an eyebrow in questioning as he cut the engine. “We get to play a game together.”

“It’s boys versus girls,” she reminded.

His brow scrunched and he pouted briefly before grunting in acceptance and shrugging to himself. “Makes no difference to me. I’m still going to show you I’m better than that brute.”

She couldn’t help the small laugh of disbelief at his confidence.

Whatever moment of peace and reassurance she’d had while looking at him was quickly wiped away at the resounding ping of the ball dribbling closer.

[split-n-splice]

ahhh sweet indulgence uwu As of posting, there are more chapters on Ao3 and FFn!

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

45. Whose Side – 8

Fears running rampant in his mind, Drakken didn’t know what he expected to find. He’d been braced for the worst but he couldn’t believe what he was greeted with when he arrived.

Gawping in dismay, he caught sight of none other than Shego, soggy and disheveled and diving behind her broad-shouldered friend as though suddenly bashful. He hadn’t seen much, but he’d seen enough to tell she was showing too much skin for his liking. The golden boy sat with his eyes covered – either out of courtesy or to shield from the lights shining on him – as he passed back articles of clothing to Drakken’s unruly accomplice.

He’d expected some kind of trap when a stranger rang him up in the dead of the night not half an hour ago. He’d been prepared to hang up, but the words, “Come get your girlfriend,” had stopped him. Given only the briefest of instructions, he hit the road without a moment to spare to so much as correct the caller.

Now Drakken stepped out of the borrowed Beetle, unsure if he was ready to storm over just yet. When he glimpsed his accomplice’s legs as she struggled to get her sneakers on sans socks, he decided she must be decent enough for him to approach – not that she’d given much regard to her appearance before he’d arrived, considering she’d clearly just come crawling out of the lake in her undergarments, her stark black hair plastered against fair skin—

He blinked away the image from his mind and wrung his hands behind his back as he circled the fire pit. He ignored the drunken twittering greeting of the girl still crouched in the water.

Drakken cleared his throat and staved off exasperated sputters to clearly ask, “Just what is going on here?”

Shego paused, struggling to lace a sneaker. She leaned against the unhappy golden boy’s back, and just as soon as a look of fright flashed fresh and bright in her eyes, she leaned even heavier into the big brute and her gaze softened. “Uhm. Ch-chillin’?” she stuttered, and jabbed a finger over her shoulder and past the Mickey boy to a near-empty case of beer. “Ya want one?”

“Shego,” Drakken ground out in both disapproval and disappointment.

“Oh, what?” she snipped, clumsily picking herself up. He didn’t expect her to trip forward and jab a finger hard into his chest, pressing with sarcasm, “S’alright for me to drink with you but not my friends?”

He balked. “Friends?” That had been a fast turnaround.

His tipsy accomplice turned to give the young man’s hair a tousle with a drunken chuckle. “Yeah. Friends. Right?” she asked down to Mickey for affirmation.

Drakken narrowed his eyes down on the quiet fellow who didn’t so much as give a nod. His lip curled in disdain but he spared him the benefit of the doubt, barely. After all, the brute had been the one to call him practically pleading for him to retrieve Shego. But that didn’t mean he trusted him. In more ways than one, the phone call had sounded like a threat, or maybe a warning.

Before Drakken could remark, Shego’s whole soggy body had come lurching forward, forcing him to take half a step back to brace himself as one arm curled around his waist and sticky wet raven hair tickled beneath his chin as she slumped into him for support. With her other hand she waved with wiggling fingers down to Mickey. Drakken couldn’t say he entirely disliked the feel of her contented hum with her cheek pressed above his heart.

“Alright, see ya,” she said to the young man finally daring to peek out from behind his hand. “Looks like I’ve got better places to be.”

Mickey grunted in lieu of a goodbye. “Good catching up.”

Drakken realized he’d been frozen in place. Blinking out of his stupor before his intoxicated companion could change her mind, he pulled an arm around her shoulders to guide her back up the hill to the Beetle while she mumbled about clown cars.

It was up to him to reach over and fasten her seatbelt as she was too busy trying to fog the window with her breath, her brow scrunching. Dissatisfied, she rolled the window down instead while Drakken cast one last heated glare at the two interlopers left by the campfire, the soaked troublemaker shrouded by the young man’s coat now watching them go. Shego flipped the girl the bird out the window, which was returned with playful enthusiasm.

She sat back then with a loud huff and a pleased grin on her face. “She’s a bitch,” she said decisively.

“You can say that again,” he muttered to himself, and she did. If he’d been in a better mood, he might have found it funny. Instead he rolled his eyes, and before pulling out onto the highway he had to pause to scrub his face, grumbling into his hands, “I don’t know what you were thinking.”

His tipsy passenger grunted something indignant and pulled a handful of cassette tapes from her coat pocket then only to clumsily drop them across her lap and curse under her breath while she collected them again. “Chester’s leaving,” she announced, though Drakken hadn’t the faintest clue which of her friends Chester even was. He frowned deeply at the thought she was out making friends while he’d resigned to her as his only friend. He wondered fleetingly if he’d only been overestimating how much of his friend she really was – but she was quickly derailing his train of thought as she popped a tape in.

Before she could turn the volume up, she became distracted with reaching across for his ungloved hand on the wheel. Drakken flinched at the brush of her chilly fingers. Her hand over his on the wheel brought back the not-too-distant memory of Shego taking control of the van by force while he’d still been driving it. Hopeful to deter her from trying a similar stunt in case she steered them into the lake, he shifted his hand to hold hers, discreetly relocating it back to her own side before letting go. He didn’t miss her smirk at him as he did.

Suddenly she wiped the look off her face and turned to stare out the reservoir the highway was now skirting around. “We should go swimming sometime,” she suggested between yawns, breaking the short silence between them. “It would be like going to the beach. I miss the beach.” She wiggled her feet and mumbled about sand between her toes before stealing a glance back up at him. “Anywhere you miss?”

He was too tired for this. “I don’t know,” he grumbled, stroking his chin as he reigned in a temper that just couldn’t come to boil. “My lab?”

“I thought you said he was a beagle?”

Drakken grimaced at her mumbled curiosity and shot a peek at her. “Shego, if I may ask? What have you indulged in tonight?”

Her wry smirk fell and a sheepish look overcame her as she fidgeted, combing at her damp hair idly. “Just the beer. They weren’t even that good. I only had a couple.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She chewed her nails next.

He grunted again, studying her out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t forgotten about the sneaky infiltrator handing him strange medication like it was no big deal, and especially not her suggestion of what he ought to do with the pills. With Miss Kimbley wishing her ill, he couldn’t shake the suspicion.

“Shego,” he called again, and she hummed in reply, her frown on the reservoir fading from view. “Can I bum a smoke off you?”

She seemed caught off guard, blinking over at him with a perturbed squint.”You sure?”

He beckoned for her to hand him a cigarette, and after a moment of fishing in her pockets, she procured one and reluctantly forked it over. He scrutinized it. “Would it be too much a bother to ask for a light?”

Her jaw fell open and all she could mutter was, “Uhh…” But nonetheless she raised a hand, a fingertip pressed to the end of the cigarette as her face twisted in concentration. After a moment, a realization flashed in her eyes and she balled her hand into a fist instead, striking the door with a curse.

“That’s what I thought,” muttered Drakken in grief, dropping the cigarette in the center console. He found himself wondering what could have happened had the Mickey fellow not called him requesting he pick up his delinquent companion – but stopped the thought with a shudder.

“I only got one s’more,” was somehow Shego’s only complaint, coming out in a grouchy whine. “I should eat something. I’m hungry.”

Drakken sighed, wondering inwardly if food could take the edge off the effects. At least she was lucid this time around. Meanwhile she grumbled as she evaluated herself, sounding hopeful she hadn’t had a full dose and muttering about a bug in her last drink.

At the first glowing sign promising a bite to eat, he swung into the parking lot and cut the engine. It was just after midnight, but Pancake Palace was open ‘round the clock and they weren’t the only patrons tonight.

“It’s cold,” grumbled Shego as she popped the door after him. The cold hadn’t seemed to bother her during her little dip at the lake, but Drakken bit back that comment. She tugged at his sleeve as they crossed the parking lot and he glanced over to her. She’d shed her own damp jacket. When had she lost that? Her shirt sticking to her form hadn’t dried yet, and he quickly averted his eyes.

Drakken paused with a grunt of frustration, glancing back to the Beetle and then back to her briefly before shrugging out of his jacket hurriedly and tossing it at her. He smoothed his sleeves and stalked for the entrance as she pulled it on over herself with a satisfied smirk, and he ignored her contented mumblings as she related the shearling jacket to a baked potato.

He soon found himself holding his head slumped over a table at a booth at the breakfast-specialty hub for late-night diners. Shego sat across from him, happily putting away a plate of flapjacks topped with whipped cream and strawberries. She hummed and swung her feet, kicking his shins twice unintentionally and once intentionally to get his attention.

“Regretting me yet?” she called over almost jokily.

He took a deep breath and a long gulp of his coffee, grimacing as the horrid taste aided in waking him a little. “Do you think you ought to stay at the lair—uhm, with me for a while?” he asked rather than answer her question.

She reached over to pull an especially delectable strawberry from his plate onto hers, as though she didn’t have enough of her own. He didn’t argue. He didn’t have much an appetite at the moment anyway, though it reminded him to take a bite. Shego savored the strawberry with a pleased hum. “I’unno,” she muttered around a mouthful. “Tonight, sure. If I get the couch.”

Drakken dropped his fork to reach across the table. “Deal.” He wasn’t sure who had the syrup on their hands responsible for sticky fingers now, but he grunted and grimaced. “You’re not going to see them anymore, are you?” He hoped not, but he had the sense it was unavoidable.

Shego slowed her chewing, looking thoughtful, and her eyes cast from the window down to her plate. “Can’t guarantee that one, Doc.”

He didn’t like the prospect of that. “Why?”

“I think she’s gonna replace Chester,” she said, sounding reasonably unhappy about it. He wasn’t sure who Chester was or the significance. Shego glanced up to see the confused arch of his brow and her eyes darted back down. “There was this…recruiter or something earlier at Buckley’s,” she explained. “For LHU. She picked Chester, Buckley’s kitchen hand.”

His frown lingered on Shego a long moment more before he remembered to take a bite of his own flapjacks. “Well, congratulations to Chester.”

“Do you want me?” blurted Shego suddenly, and Drakken dropped his fork as his wide-eyed gaze snapped back up to her blushing face staring back at him. He noticed her hands gripping the table but no plasma sneaking out, and no glitter of green to accompany her blush. “I mean – uh – if you – if I – fuck.” She hissed and shifted, sinking down in her seat and running her fingers through her damp hair as she glared out the window instead to avoid looking at him. “If I went…there? Would you still be interested in me?”

Drakken’s face had warmed over as well, and he tried to quit gawping at her like such a fool. “Uhm…what?” he practically squawked. What was she getting at? His heart hammered as he reeled at possibilities he found himself swearing were off the table. Perhaps this was a conversation better had when she was sober.

“If I went for this henchschool thing. You said I should go and get an education for a backup plan, right? But it doesn’t happen overnight. It would be a few years. Would you still want my help by then?”

He continued to stare, puzzled until the pieces fell into place as he determined what she was asking of him. The answer was obvious enough to him.

Shego said nothing for a long moment but finally looked back to him.

Drakken picked his fork back up and grimaced down to his meal and glanced back up to her staring at him, waiting for an answer. He wasn’t sure how to answer her. Truthfully he hadn’t thought too thoroughly that far ahead. Of course he wanted her help long-term – he rather liked having her around too, so much that not having her around was already disheartening even if he was still barely getting to know her – but he had his own question weighing on his mind.

“In a few years, will you still be interested in humoring me?”

The young woman across from him bit her lip and scrunched her brow in thought. He didn’t miss the way she hugged his coat tighter around herself and his heart dared to thud a little louder. “I think it’s entirely possible.” She flashed him a smirk. “I wanna see what you can do, bad boy.” Her nervous smirk wavered as she glanced down. “You gonna finish that?”

Drakken sighed and pushed his plate across to her. He’d already had dinner earlier and she’d eaten more than he had off it already anyway. “We’ll put a pin in this LHU thing,” he said decisively, and she grunted in agreement as she was hardly paying attention to him, still a touch high from her medication and lost in savoring mouthfuls of sugary breakfast foods.

He checked his watch and rubbed his eyes. As tempting as it was to show her some bad boy misbehavior by dining and dashing, he stayed put just long enough to pay.

[split-n-splice]

Long chapter! Bear with me. Side note, GoBoy is a play on the words/concepts of the Game Boy, Z-Boy, and my headcanon of Team Go having merch. lol

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

44. Whose Side – 7

Shilo slurped at her chocolate milkshake. It wasn’t her preference, but with Priscilla nursing a strawberry shake of her own, pink was decidedly not her color this evening.

As they left Cow-n-Chow, Priscilla pointed to the nearby motel across the street from the Westinger. More specifically, the parking lot where the old jeep was parked. Shilo couldn’t believe herself when she nodded and agreed on accepting a ride. She shook her head to dismiss the memories of all the times she’d gladly jumped in the back seat as a kid, and took an extra suck on her straw to focus on the brain freeze rather than the lump trying to form in her throat as she took shotgun in the old jeep for the very first time.

“You know where I live,” said Shilo begrudgingly as she slumped back. She didn’t have much of an appetite for the simple cheeseburger she’d bought, so she lit up a smoke instead. She shot Priscilla a glare when she pulled onto the road to head in the wrong direction, and from the corner of her eye she barely saw a stray white feather catch the breeze and float out the window with the cigarette smoke. By the time she turned to look, it was gone.

She narrowed her eyes back on Priscilla. “Hey,” she called over. “My place is that way.”

“We’re not going to your place, babe,” giggled Prissy lightly, flashing a wily smile. One look at Shego, and she wiped the smirk off her face. “Your girl friends wanted you come hang out tonight, didn’t they?”

“There’s still time,” Shilo argued, not keen to get there early. “You gotta let me get ready.”

Priscilla looked as if she were trying to roll her eyes out of her skull, but she yielded with a drawn-out, “Fiiine.”

“Turn here.”

“Who died and made you boss?” Priscilla shot back. A glare from Shilo was met with another smirk cracking across the bubbly girl’s face. “I’m kidding. You gave Hugo a pretty good bump though when you ran off though, huh?”

Now that she knew about Prissy’s comet-given gift, Shilo had to wonder just how many private things she was privy to.

Before Shilo could demand answers, her former friend explained briefly, “It was all over the news.”

To stop herself from grinding her teeth in frustration, Shilo took another sip of her milkshake and dug into the bag in her lap for her burger. Her cigarette was discarded out the window without a care. “Don’t think we’re suddenly besties now just because I haven’t kicked in your teeth yet,” she warned.

“I never said we were,” said Priscilla, putting on some tunes as Shilo directed her through town to locate her neighborhood. The area must have become familiar, because eventually Prissy quipped, “So we’re not going to your boyfriend’s?”

“Dr. Drakken is not my boyfriend,” Shilo grumbled, her cheeks warming over. She’d gone over this with Buckley’s girls before, not that they believed her. Her hands heated around the large melted milkshake she grasped like a lifeline. It was taking everything she had to keep her cool the whole ride.

“Uh-huh.” Prissy sounded skeptical. She giggled and Shilo tensed. “I meant the other one.”

“What—?”

“Tom, was it?”

The wave of humiliation had her skin crawling with plasma threatening to erupt on its own accord. “He’s not my boyfriend either,” she answered quickly before sucking down the last of her useless melted milkshake.

Prissy knew exactly when to stop prying, and Shilo steeled herself against the continued attempt. “Don’t tell me. One of those girls from the café?” She barked an obnoxious laugh and drummed on the wheel in twisted delight, giddy as could be. “Which one? Have I met her?”

Shilo made to backhand Priscilla but stopped short, satisfied enough the blonde flinched away ever so slightly. “Mind your own business.”

The girl hummed as she pulled to the curb outside the shabby apartments, still amused by the blush on Shilo’s face. “Remember when we used to share everything?” she said when she cut the engine. Shilo made a hasty escape from the jeep, but Prissy’s voice followed as the girl reminisced. “Clothes, dolls, secrets, our first kiss—”

“Passing a kiss to Mickey to give to me doesn’t count.”

“I borrowed your dress—”

“You stole my dress.” Shilo swallowed against the lump in her throat as she crossed the lawn. “And for the record, you still owe me for it.”

“Your grandma made it.”

“Yeah, the dead grandma. I can’t replace that.”

“It’s not like it was worth anything,” scoffed Prissy, following behind Shilo much too close. Oh, how badly she yearned to kick her down the flight of stairs. “Besides, that comet destroyed practically everything anyway.”

“Yeah, well, what if it hadn’t? What if I’d wanted to pass that down to my kids someday, huh?” Shilo retorted, shooting a heated glance down at her.

“Pink’s not even your color,” argued Prissy, gesturing to herself clad in pink, as if she were such a perfect model for the color. She arched an eyebrow up at Shilo then, meeting her on the landing. “Since when did you want kids anyway? I thought you had enough of changing diapers.”

She nearly broke her key off in the lock. “That was then,” she grumbled quickly and stepped inside. She didn’t shut the door quickly enough, Prissy already slipping in before she could slam it in her face.

Curling a lip and rolling her eyes, Shilo surrendered, gesturing toward her sorry excuse for a dining table. “Pull up a chair, make yourself at home,” she suggested with dry sarcasm. “Just sit there and don’t touch anything.”

“Sure thing, toots,” promised Priscilla.

Shilo knew it was an empty promise.

She showered quickly and toweled off in a hurry, watching the steam in the bathroom for any suspicious movement through the vapor. At any moment, Priscilla could do something obnoxious, like flip off the light switch unseen or twist the shower knobs to give her an icy blast. Shilo felt a little foolish for being so on edge when nothing eventful happened.

As she exited, dressed and damp, she found Priscilla reclined in her bed, watching television. “These stations are shit,” she declared. “You can’t get that genius to hook you up with some good cable?”

“It’s not like I sit around watching TV all day,” Shilo snapped back.

“So what do you do all day?” wondered Priscilla innocently. “C’mon. Let me in on it a little, Shego.”

Shilo paused as she searched her drawer for a headband. Through the mirror, she narrowed her eyes on the former friend. “Don’t call me that.”

“Dr. Draco calls you that.”

“Drakken.”

Priscilla rolled her eyes, grumbling, “Whatever,” and stretched hugely. She shifted until she had her head hanging off the edge of the bed, no care at all to the fact her shoes were muddying the sheets. “Is he hiring?”

“He’s not hiring you.”

“You sound pretty sure of that, but who are you to say?”

Shilo’s fist nearly crushed the handle of her hairbrush. “So where’s Mickey?” she asked tersely, hopeful to change the subject.

“I left him at the trailer. He’s got a bucket of cheese puffs and a GoBoy to keep him busy,” she said, raising her hands and wiggling her thumbs as if playing an invisible game herself.

If she’d been banking on Priscilla leaving anytime soon to catch up with Mickey, hope was all but lost now. Still, she grabbed onto the thread, refusing to let go. “You two really hit it off, huh?”

Priscilla heaved herself upright. “Why do you ask? You interested? I’ll trade ya.”

Shilo tried not to let a frown skew her face, and shook her head instead. That was one thread of hope she’d already let go of. “Nah. Just wondering why you two pal around so much now.”

By the sudden look that crossed Priscilla’s face, Shilo had touched on a sore spot. She didn’t miss the way Prissy scratched at her arm and tugged at her sleeve as if it would further hide her track marks. “Same as you,” she muttered. “He really helps, y’know?”

“You know rehab’s always an option.”

Priscilla snorted and came to stand beside Shilo, leaning against the dresser. “You think my folks didn’t try sticking me there before I flew the coop?” She patted Shilo’s shoulder then and nodded to the door. “You look gorgeous – now c’mon, let’s go!”

Before Shilo could finish grooming herself to satisfaction, she was being all but towed out her own door. She barely had a chance to grab her keys, let alone lock up.

Stalling before climbing into the jeep once again, Shilo cast a glance back wishing for Mrs. Landlady to poke her head out and ask a favor of her – she’d even take walking the pack of yappy little poodles – but no one appeared to spare her from making a potentially terrible decision.

She buckled in and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat, as if she needed to double-check that the cell phone was still there in case she needed to call for backup. She held onto it with one hand, hidden safely out of sight, as she pulled out a smoke and lit up yet again in the vain hope to soothe herself. It didn’t do her any good. The bad habit was decidedly not for her today when Priscilla eyeballed the cigarette and asked for a drag.

Priscilla needed a little help navigating out of town – which Shilo refused to give, finding it amusing and familiar watching her struggle same as she had on her first night at the oasis. Even if being no help meant she had to share the same air a little longer, it was worth it to watch Priscilla’s bubbly mood shift to frustration over a dead end.

“I don’t see why you’d wanna live here,” grumbled Prissy, turning the jeep around and knocking over someone’s trash can in the process. “This is such a crappy town.”

“It wasn’t exactly my first choice.”

“So why’d you choose it?” Prissy fired back.

Shilo had almost been smug a moment before, but the trace of a smirk was gone now. She frowned instead and waved vaguely to a turn ahead. She bit her lip but after a block or two her lips came unzipped. “I really didn’t know where I was going,” she admitted. “I caught a ride out of town and wound up here.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was true enough. She pointedly sat on her hands for a while, both to hide the signs of nerves and refrain from giving Priscilla any more directions.

“So how’d you meet him?”

“Hm?”

“Your doctor. Did you get a referral?” quipped Priscilla.

Shilo kept her deadpan fixed out the windshield. “You could say that.” She almost smirked at the distant memory of the scoundrel impersonating a doctor sent to evaluate her some years ago. She rubbed her hands together now, her palms left tender and soft from the plasma use, and inwardly wondered what might have become of her had the man left her in that research facility at the mercy of Global Justice. Would she have ever been reunited with her family?

“How much does he pay you?” Priscilla’s question snapped Shilo out of her reverie.

“It’s none of your business, okay?” she snipped. “So buzz off – and stay away from Drakken.”

“Sheesh, Shi. Defensive, much?”

Shilo leaned forward to flick on the radio and crank up the volume. Even deafening static was better than conversing with Priscilla.

The right road out of town was finally located, and Priscilla’s exasperated relief was noticeable even over the radio. Before much longer, a rather slummy trailer park came into view through sparse timber amid acres of thin yellow grass tinged green in places with new growth thanks to the unusual rainfall.

“I heard there’s a lake around here,” piped Prissy, turning the volume down low. “We could go skinny dipping sometime. Bet that’d be fun. Just us girls – unless you wanna invite the guys along.” She flashed a sly smile.

Shilo fought a blush at the very idea. “Not a chance,” she grumbled, and nodded up to the array of mobile homes lined up on the hillside. “So which tin can is yours?”

Priscilla’s haughty attitude fell away. “Uhm – ugh – that one,” she grumbled reluctantly, pointing ambiguously toward the far end up the hill. It was a long and bumpy ride up the rocky driveway.

Given the lived-in look of the surrounding trailers, Shilo took a wild guess. She couldn’t stave off the smirk now. “The camper with the toilet and tires for flower pots?” There was nothing but weeds growing out of them now, but she supposed they were intended to be planters at one point.

“Let’s be clear,” Priscilla chuckled anxiously. “It was not my first choice.”

“No. Really?” Shilo crooned as Priscilla parked on the uneven slope and put on the e-brake. She climbed out of the jeep and scrutinized the slum that sufficed as Prissy’s new digs. With the water damage, moss, and rust, the rundown old camper trailer had to be temporary. “Man, if I knew you needed a shoebox so bad, I could have just given you one.”

“I’ve had worse,” grumbled Priscilla meekly as if in defense, but Shilo didn’t question her.

When Shilo took a step toward the crooked door and rickety single metal step, Priscilla jumped in front of her, arms out. “No way,” she said firmly. “I mean – Mickey’s probably, uhm. He might be in the buff or something. Let’s go see your friend, huh?”

Shilo tried to take the upper hand by flashing a wily grin down to Priscilla. “Oh, as if I wouldn’t like to see that?” she shot back in jest.

The door behind Priscilla swung open then. Mickey had kicked it open and took one heavy step out to land with a thud beside Priscilla, his thumbs twiddling away as his focus remained glued to a tiny golden GoBoy in his paws. “Like to see what?” he wondered between biting his tongue in concentration on the game. He almost glanced to Priscilla as she slammed the door shut. “We’re going to the lake, right?”

“Later.”

“I never agreed to go to the lake,” Shilo protested as Priscilla dared to put her hands on her shoulders to push her away down the hill.

“Just think about it,” cooed Priscilla. “Your friend already offered to buy the beer.”

“What?”

“Fine, I’ll put in an order for some cola if you’re that big of a prude.” Priscilla rolled her eyes and all but skipped past Shilo.

Mickey was slow to follow, pausing every other step. Shilo was inclined to linger close to his side, and she peeked over at the tiny screen of his GoBoy in time to see the GAME OVER scroll across it accompanied by a sad defeated blipping. Playing and following Priscilla at the same time was too much trouble, and with a groan he finally stuffed it in his deep coat pocket.

“Fun game?”

Mickey jumped, finally seeming to realize exactly who was walking next to him. “Uhm. Yeah. Where’s, uh…?” His glance darted away from Shilo to scan the unfamiliar trailer park for Priscilla.

“Number three,” Shilo grudgingly informed, nodding to the collection of trailers near the foot of the hill.

The young man grunted and walked with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Shilo didn’t miss him casting an uneasy sidelong glance at her. “Nice weather we’re having,” he muttered with feeble sarcasm, and chuckled uneasily. He stopped in his tracks suddenly, blurting, “Are you sure you wanna be here?”

Shilo crossed her arms over her chest and gave a shrug. “Do I look like I wanna be here?” she scoffed and shook her head. “I got drug along for the ride. You know how Miss Priss is.”

Mickey wore a brief grimace but nodded in understanding. “You and me both.” He took a couple long strides then to put some space between them.

“What’s that mean?” Shilo pressed, practically jogging to keep up. “She’s blackmailing you to make you come along, isn’t she?” She tried to voice the suspicion lightheartedly, but she knew it came out as an accusation.

By the miserable look in Mickey’s eye, she’d bet money she’d hit the nail on the head. He cracked a forced smile though and wagged a finger. “Don’t make me use this on you.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she quipped. She almost elbowed him playfully but stopped herself. She found herself staring at his arm as they walked the rest of the way down the hill in silence, a curiosity growing with each step. Was it any touch infected that a person with his gift, or did it have to be intentionally activated? After the last run-in with Mickey Goldsmith’s golden touch, she wasn’t too eager to be rendered defenseless.

Nonetheless as she reached out to touch his elbow with her fingertips, she made note of a distinct lack of knee-buckling relaxation. That, and Mickey hastily sidestepping to evade her.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he said quickly, and began to stammer and scratch at his neck. “I mean, if we’re going to hang out – I’d like to hang out – but not if you’re, uhm—”

“Under the influence?” she supplied.

Shilo didn’t miss the look of guilt flash in the young man’s eyes as he clammed up and spun around. She took his grunt to be a yes, and then he was nodding to the small trailer with a rusted number 3 hung on the front.

“Yeah, I had a garage sale too over summer,” Priscilla was saying to Chester in a falsely understanding tone.

Chester didn’t look amused as she sat on her front steps nursing a bottle of coke. “Didn’t sell off all the doll clothes though, I see,” she shot back, remarking on Priscilla’s bright pink attire no doubt.

Prissy’s eyebrows pinched together, and by the way she kicked the ground, Shilo knew she’d wanted to aim the blow at the sour woman. “So how ‘bout it?” Priscilla pressed, changing the topic.

With a roll of her eyes, Chester held out a hand, palm up. “Fine. But I don’t want to hear any pansy whining if you don’t like it,” she said, and Priscilla completed a deal by depositing a meager sum of cash in her hand. She counted the cash quickly before stuffing it in the breast pocket of her flannel and rising to her feet, grabbing a small stack of cassettes from the steps.

As Chester thrust them into Shilo’s hands, she leaned close, casting a narrow-eyed glower back at the newcomers. She didn’t bother to hide her suspicion of them and Shilo read the question in her eyes.

“I’ll keep them out of trouble,” Shilo assured, though she couldn’t be sure she could keep her word.

The dreary future henchwoman cast another look over the hood of her truck. “You sure you don’t want a ride back into town?” she offered.

Minutes later, Shilo deeply regretted not taking Chester up on the offer. She walked down the road with Priscilla hanging off her arm, wishing she in turn could be holding onto Mickey’s – if only so the contact with him could soothe her loathing for Priscilla’s so-called “nostalgic” babbling in her ear.

The good old days Priscilla regaled all seemed like bad memories in retrospect – and Shilo didn’t know what would make this trip to the lake any different. There’d been a time they’d gone swimming at the beach only for a rip current to tow Shilo far from shore, a jelly fish Priscilla had once thrown at her that had left an embarrassing mark, and of course the first time Shilo had braved wearing a two-piece bathing suit which Prissy found humorous that a seagull had relieved her of when it had decided the strings looked appetizing.

Shilo was accused of having pink cheeks as Priscilla pinched one for good measure. She inwardly blamed the nippy air and swore to herself that she was impervious to Priscilla’s teasing and attempts to humiliate her. Two could play dirty, but Shilo bit her tongue to keep what dirt she had on Priss to herself.

“I thought this was supposed to be a popular spot,” complained Priscilla as she frowned ahead to a lakeside park. She finally relaxed her secure lock around Shilo’s arm though she still kept a hand on her elbow, careful to keep her close. Earlier she’d tried putting Shilo nearest the fog line, but considering crude tricks of the past, she knew better.

Studying the occupants of the park – two fishermen on the shore and a young nuclear family on the playground – Shilo answered with a small shrug. “I’m sure the riffraff will show up soon,” she jibbed, and shrugged free of Priscilla’s grip once and for all.

A park picnic table was located, away from the family and the fishermen, in the shadow of eerie bare trees that clattered in the breeze rippling across the surface of the lake. Shilo sat at one end, thankful the old wood wasn’t too soggy, and eyeballed Mickey at the other end of the bench. She’d just lit up a cigarette and opened her mouth to ask him something – anything – to get the unusually reserved young man to open up, but Priscilla leaned over the table then to make a beckoning motion and ask for a drag.

Unused to the residual plasma burning a green cherry at the end, Priscilla choked on the smoke and quickly passed it back. “Shoulda invited one of your boyfriends,” she croaked, fighting off a grimace. “Coulda made this a lot more fun.”

“I don’t have boyfriends,” Shilo reminded with a roll of her eyes.

“Oh right.” Priscilla nodded as if she understood everything perfectly. “You’re one of them.” Brow quirked, Shilo grunted in confusion only for Priscilla to crack a wry smile as she made a crude attempt to explain. “You know, birds and the bees – only you dig the birds and birds, right? I mean you hang with them all day.”

Shilo scowled and made to kick Priscilla under the table, but the girl was sitting on her knees so there were no shins to kick at. “I’m not—”

Suddenly, Mickey intervened. “Do you think bussing at Cow-n-Chow is worth it if I can take home leftovers?” he blurted in a poorly concealed attempt to change the subject.

“I told you to go with Smarty Mart,” Priscilla snapped just as abruptly. “You get discounts there, you retard.” By the gesture she made at the air, Shilo didn’t doubt she would have backhanded him – perhaps even hard enough to hurt by the way Mickey flinched even from across the table.

“Hey!” Shilo snapped in reflex.

“What?” Prissy snipped back. “Not all of us have a sugar daddy to fall back on.”

Biting back a retort and the bitter aftertaste of her old hero lifestyle of defending the public, Shilo rubbed her temple and took a drag to try to placate herself without resorting to reaching out to Mickey. “So how long have you two known you were…affected?” she wondered. She was hesitant to call the powers bestowed on them by Lady Fate a gift.

“Almost immediately,” grumbled the sour little blonde, shifting to lean back against the table and glare out at the lake.

“And you?” Shilo urged Mickey.

He was reluctant to look up from the wood grain he was carving into with a fingernail, but at least gave a shrug. “Still figuring it out, actually.”

“Aren’t we all,” Priscilla sighed apathetically, legs crossed and foot bouncing in the air. She cast a look over her shoulder between them, though her gaze settled on Shilo. “Birds of a feather gotta stick together though, right?” The trace of a smile pulled her lips.

“I wouldn’t say that’s a rule,” Shilo dismissed.

“Well, maybe not a hard one, but—”

“Rules are made to be broken.” Shilo stared back into the hazel gaze hardening on her, taking a puff to stave the smirk from her face.

Something behind her became of greater interest suddenly, and Priscilla’s face split with a grin Shilo hadn’t been expecting. “Alright. Let’s break some rules then, babe,” she twittered as she leapt up and patted Shilo’s shoulder in passing.

Approaching tires left the gravel parking lot with a rattle and clunk before rolling across soggy grass. The vehicle doors slammed nearby, only slightly muffling the thumping beat emitting from the cab.

Shilo was careful not to look back so hastily, instead casting a leisurely glance over to Chester approaching with a case of beer and Abigail in tow. “If anyone asks, you didn’t get this from me,” said Chester, thrusting the box at Priscilla.

“And you got the marshmallows too?”

“Hey, if you wanted me to do your grocery shopping—”

“I got ‘em,” piped Gail, pulling out a bag from her purse. It was already open, a sure sign she’d been snacking on them the whole ride. The purse was large enough it wasn’t surprising when Gail pulled out chocolate and graham crackers too, likely shoplifted.

Priscilla plucked a marshmallow from the bag and practically purred around the fluff, “Oh yeah. Now it’s a party.”

“This is your idea of a party?” teased Shilo.

Chester set herself down on the table between Shilo and Mickey. “We can show your big city friend a real party later,” she assured.

“Like a going away party?” Prissy chimed.

Gail wasn’t bashful about reaching a foot out to trip her for the remark. The crude attitude toward her friend’s inevitable departure may have been the reason the first beer Prissy took the honors of cracking open foamed across the table.

Relaxing now with Chester and Gail for additional company may have been a mistake on Shilo’s part. A little voice of reason at the back of her head telling her to go was soon muffled by the louder curiosity wondering what it would be like if – for just one night – she were to pretend there was no bad blood. Priscilla seemed to be willing enough to put it behind them anyway, seeming like her old self with rude jokes and boisterous behavior. Come nightfall, Shilo found it hard to convince herself there was still any bad blood there at all as she sat around a fire making s’mores with her friends, old and new.

She should have known, for her own wellbeing if nothing else, to leave with Chester and Gail some hours later that night when the pair announced they were heading back. Shilo sat on a log, comfortably warm beside a campfire with Mickey to her left and Priscilla to her right. She might have had more than her share to drink as she’d warmed up to the lukewarm cans of regret, but Mickey was just coming out of his shell and Priscilla had let up on her teasing. Shilo was amazed to realize she was enjoying herself – thus she dismissed an offer once again for a ride home.

Even so far from the home she’d known in Go City, the night was feeling a kind of normal she hadn’t known in years and it was hard not to ride that wave for as long as she could.

No sooner had Buckley’s girls gotten back in their truck and drove off did Shilo begin to consider she’d made a mistake, the safety of slightly-more-trustworthy individuals gone just like that. But just as quickly, her qualms were gone. Blaming the alcohol in her system, she was growing altogether too warm, and sparks of plasma had already burned pinpricks through her jeans as she’d tried to rub the heat away.

Priscilla giggled and made a suggestion, elbowing Shilo in the ribs and nodding to the lake. Mickey grabbed Shilo’s arm and recommended she call for a ride instead, but it didn’t stop her from shedding her jacket to slip out of his grip and relieve some heat. She tripped out of her sneakers and stumbled after Priscilla toward the water, inwardly – or maybe out loud – wondering who would get the better of the other this time.

The dark lake was cold around her shins. Shilo wished she had worn more into it, even if extra layers might not have helped keep her warm. Priscilla’s scream was shrill when Shilo pounced on her, knocking her in and herself along with her. It was all fun and games, harmless splashes and shoves and shrieks, until hands were pushing on Shilo’s shoulders until she choked on lake water. She flailed and scrambled for her footing to knock Priscilla off her back.

Despite the mock drowning attempt, when she surfaced again gulping for air she couldn’t help joining Prissy in goading Mickey from the shore to join them. Their efforts were in vain as Mickey was too busy talking into a cell phone. As far as she could tell, he didn’t spare them even the slightest interested glance. He even seemed to be avoiding looking at them, a hand up to block his view.

She noticed then the water growing ever colder as the night chill began to sink in all around her. Alien fire wasn’t enough to keep her warm anymore – and in fact, Shilo almost had half a mind to applaud herself for keeping her cool as she opted to wade out of the water toward Mickey despite Priscilla trying to tug her back in. She merely swatted the girl’s grabby hands away from her bare legs and ignored her calls to come back.

Crawling and stumbling up the sandy bank to find the rest of her clothes, she draped herself over the log and reached for her can instead of her dry shirt. Mickey jerked suddenly, kicking the can over, and Shilo whined her displeasure. He said something about a bug in her drink.

The campfire was bright enough after spending so long splashing around in the dark lake, but it was nothing compared to the pair of headlights soon glaring her in the face.

[split-n-splice]

I'd like to take this time to mention Aviarius is my other favorite villain because I like birds, and yes I will abuse this power. More chapters found on FFn and Ao3!

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

43. Whose Side – 6

Shilo resumed her barista duties that day, but at every lull she found herself pulling out the pamphlet from under the counter. She’d already accepted she wouldn’t be attending anytime soon, so long as her brothers were on her back, but the possibility of being considered incited a curiosity.

Lowerton Hench University offered a “promising career path” and boasted an impressive range of courses, both conventional and otherwise. What better way to get on an evil overlord’s good side than by becoming one of their faithful lackeys? With several henchschools in operation across the globe and an entire corporation founded on servicing the evil community, Shilo had to draw the conclusion that the Hench family had made out like a bandit in the niche market.

Every time the thought, Why hasn’t Team Go heard of this? reared its ugly well-meaning head, Shilo stamped it down. The answer was simple: because Team Go were merely pawns Global Justice kept on reserve, keeping them in the dark unless needed for some publicity stunt or to tackle nutjobs out of the police’s jurisdiction.

As per usual that afternoon, Shilo loitered behind Buckley’s Brew, waiting several minutes just to see if her getaway driver would show up despite her warning over breakfast. Getting her nicotine fix in the meantime did nothing to ease her mind.

Henchmen could be bought, Buckley had explained earlier. It was how most inevitably paid for their so-called “education,” and how a good many wound up bound to the villains they served. It sounded like some form of human trafficking, but even Buckley’s reminder that they signed up for it when they enrolled didn’t silence Shilo’s qualms over the matter.

Another long drag to fill her lungs with smoke and her head thumped back against the brick wall. The pamphlet had been folded up in her pocket, her fingers dug down in it to make sure it was still there.

Even if the headhunter picked her head to drag back to LHU, could she count on Drakken to buy her out of it? That would be years down the road. Buckley warned her of the grueling process, especially the first year to weed out the weak. It was entirely possible she wouldn’t get to leave the site in that time, much less get visitation with Drakken.

Her fingers curled around the pamphlet, crushing it in her fist.

She’d have to talk to him about it.

Biting her lip, she had to wonder how badly he wanted her. By the time she graduated, would he still want her?

He certainly hadn’t wanted her last night.

Just as Shilo let out a disgusted groan with herself, the back door opened beside her and she shoved away from the wall to leave.

If anyone called out to her, she would have expected it to be Abigail, so a small, “Hey,” from Chester was a surprise. Shilo turned with a raised eyebrow at the quiet woman. The gunslinger stood awkwardly, rubbing one arm. She wasn’t in her smock anymore. Instead, she wore her flannel and beanie, a sure sign she wasn’t on kitchen duty anymore. Which was all the more unusual. “You wanna come over tonight? I got some tapes you can have.”

The look on Shilo’s face must have said enough because the girl looked off down the alley and shifted her weight to the other foot.

“I’m getting the axe,” sighed Chester. “I’m not gonna need ‘em where I’m going.”

The way she said it sounded like a death sentence. But Shilo knew better than that – just barely. “You got in,” she stated, and waited for the small nod. Something in her gut wrenched, but envy couldn’t possibly be right. “Shouldn’t you be happy about that?”

“Gail wasn’t up to snuff.” She cracked a small sad smile. “There’s always next time. You’ll make sure she’s got enough credit though, right?”

Shilo tried to take a drag but laughed a little instead. “Yeah,” she said, discarding the cigarette to stuff her hands in her pockets. She shrugged. “We’ll be the menace of the town.”

“I’ll pick you up tonight?” Chester offered, already stepping away in the other direction.

Shilo nodded in agreement and gave the baker’s assistant the alley to herself.

Leaving behind the worrisome thoughts of the shady university and the coworker on her way to bigger and better things, Shilo sought out the refuge of the public library. “Hi there, Granny Smith,” she greeted as she passed the front desk, slowing her pace. Politeness, she’d learned through observation, earned forgiveness when it came to late fees – not that she ever checked out anything.

The senior librarian looked up from her stack of books she was sorting and stamping. “Oh! Hello, dear,” she replied, sweeter than any Granny Smith apple ever could be. “It’s good to see your pretty face again.” A peculiar frailty in the old woman’s voice and something out of the corner of her eye caught Shilo’s attention, and she did a double-take before backtracking a couple steps.

Something had changed about the old woman since she’d seen her last. The oxygen tube up her nose and her wheeze as she persevered through her librarian duties was a pretty big tip-off.

“Are you—?” Shilo began reflexively. The woman didn’t look to be in any condition to be working.

And, apparently, her son agreed. The middle-aged man looked worn out as he came ambling out from between rows of books, eyes flying wide when he spotted his mother hard at work. He came rushing up to her side, gently chastising her for being out of her rocking chair. It was then that Granny Smith turned ornery and took out a grabber to shake at her son, telling him off for telling her what to do.

Shilo backed away, safely out of the small family quarrel. She glanced over her shoulder as she left, wondering silently to herself what could have happened to the old woman. Well, besides being old. The elderly librarian was kind to everyone – except of course to her son, who took a quiet verbal lashing on the regular – and seeing her health on the decline in any way was concerning.

Shilo’s hands were stuffed in her pockets again, the pamphlet crumpled in her fist. If she was still having thoughts and sentiments like caring about some old librarian lady approaching Death’s doorstep, then she wasn’t ready to join some henchschool. Was she even ready for villainy?

She caught herself making a beeline for the children’s corner – specifically, to the comfort of familiar picture books she’d once read with her little brothers – and turned instead for the YA section. She still found herself gravitating toward the heroic Captain Constellation novels her big brother obsessed over. She’d never known what was so great about them until she’d come to the oasis.

She selected one of the paperbacks, the spine creased beyond recognition and held together with layers of tape, pages worn and soft at the edges from years of being lovingly read front to back. In the reading nook, she sank down in one of the beanbag chairs to flip through and find where she’d last left off on her last visit to the library.

She wasn’t sure how long it had taken her to notice a misplaced odor in the air – no more than an hour. At the fragrance of cherries, she lifted her eyes from the compelling novel in time to spy the shift of the beanbag chair next to her just before the air shimmered and Prissy materialized, perfectly relaxed and spreading open a book of her own.

“Come here often?” chimed Prissy without looking up.

Giving an exasperated roll of her eyes, Shilo stood. “How many stalkers do I have to deal with this year?” she hissed to herself as she left to find somewhere else to read. She cast a wary glance across the library, spying old Granny Smith. Avoiding a fight here was for the best, as much as Shilo’s fists itched for action.

If only Priscilla was inclined to let her escape so easily.

“Stop following me,” Shilo ground out through her teeth, sensing the girl a step behind her.

She felt a lock of her hair being twirled and took a sharp sidestep away as Priscilla heaved a feigned dreamy sigh, “I love when you play hard to get.”

“What do you want from me?” A glare shot over her shoulder confirmed Priscilla was still following her.

Pink lips quirked upwards. “I want a slice of your life, Shego,” she whispered with an elbow in the ribs.

Shilo paused to scrutinize the girl, brow furrowed as the bubbly young woman took a step around her to continue toward the study tables Shilo had been headed for. “Yeah, well, I’m not sharing,” she said, at a loss.

“I’ll win you over,” Priscilla giggled with a warm smile back at her.

The familiarity was almost enough to make her give – but she shook off the sensation and willed her resolve to hold fast. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but leave me out of it,” she hissed venomously at Priscilla’s back before taking a step in another direction.

Though Prissy didn’t choose her table, Shilo still felt the girl’s eyes on her every so often from a couple over. At one point, she almost snapped at Prissy to sit in her chair right and get her feet off the table, but instead she grit her teeth and chose to mind her own business.

Focusing on the heroic sci-fi novel was easier said than done, but for the sake of her pride, Shilo forced herself to stay put for twenty-odd minutes, casting glances toward the nearest clock whenever she was sure Priscilla wasn’t watching her.

Once sufficient time had passed, she decided it was time to leave, returning the book to its correct spot on its shelf and waving goodbye to Mr. Smith and his sleeping mother. She wasn’t leaving because of Priscilla, Shilo told herself. Reflexively holding the door open for a woman entering the library, her eyes narrowed on Priscilla tailing just a few steps behind her.

Prissy barely made it out before the door swung shut on her. “You’re too nice,” she cooed sweetly regardless, but Shilo could hear the sharp edge of criticism.

“Keep it up,” Shilo jeered back. “You’ll see how nice I am.” She ground her teeth at the sound of the girl’s bubbly giggle. Once off the library premises, the temptation to sock her made her fists itch and tickle with plasma. She’d love to ask if Priscilla still found things quite so humorous with a broken jaw.

“What do you say we grab some Chow?” suggested Prissy, practically skipping along beside her.

“Bite me.”

“Maybe later,” dismissed the thorn in Shilo’s side. “I think we’ve got milkshakes calling our name.”

Shilo’s fists clenched tighter as she tensed. “Remind me. How attached are you to your teeth?”

There was a pleasant hum in reply, but when Shilo spun to swing a punch at the girl, her fist sailed through empty air. The invisible girl egging her on must have seen it coming. Shilo grit her teeth and spun, spotting Priscilla reappearing several steps ahead of her and stifling laughter. The urge to throttle her was unbearable and drove her to follow Priscilla through town.

“Quit screwing with me,” Shilo snapped as Priscilla finally paused for traffic. “What are you doing here?”

“I want to reconnect,” said Priscilla, pressing a finger to Shilo’s temple to push her out to arms length.

Shilo scoffed and slapped her hand away. “Yeah. You have a hell of a way of showing how much you care.” At the first hint of a shimmer, she snapped her hand out to grab Priscilla by the arm, her grip tight enough for the shimmer to dissipate and Priscilla to look genuinely worried and maybe a little pained at the bruising squeeze. “What was that shit you pulled last night all about?”

The strained look on Priscilla’s face didn’t smooth out completely though she tried to remain casual. “Just giving your boss a sample of my skill, that’s all.” Her bubbly giggle was faked. “Why? You scared I’m gonna take your place, Shego?”

She didn’t expect her heart to jump with a jolt of fear at the very idea.

Priscilla took her chance to slip out of her grip, stepping into traffic and vanishing for a moment only to reappear on the other side of the street. Shilo glared both ways before making a dash through the flow of traffic.

“You’re not threatening,” she snapped as she jogged up behind the pink-clad woman. “You’re not taking my place – because Drakken’s not hiring you.”

Before Shilo could grab her once more, Priscilla disappeared yet again in the blink of an eye. Hands rested on Shilo’s shoulders, the warm cherry-scented body pressing in from behind her. “You act like you have a say-so in it. It’s cute,” giggled Priscilla, and she left a sticky kiss on Shilo’s cheek before slipping away and resuming her visible position in the lead on the way to Cow-n-Chow.

“I liked it better when you stayed out of my business,” Shilo spat.

“Au contraire, I’ve always been in your business. You know, you scared me when you ran away from home.” The hand over her chest and saddened look shot back at Shilo was all part of some heartfelt act even a fool could see through.

“Yeah, like you’re so worried about me, handing out my medication like candy to crackpots and villains.”

Looking back from her spot safely ahead and out of reach, Priscilla raised an eyebrow back at Shilo, looking her over head to toe. An amused scoff and she turned her back to Shilo once more. “So that boyfriend of yours did the right thing, huh?”

All at once, Shilo felt sick at the idea of Drakken being a lesser man and yet relieved he was better than that. He could have chosen to test the effects to see for himself. Shilo’s eyes narrowed on the interloper’s back. “Prissy, if you ever try that shit again—”

“What are you gonna do about it?” Priscilla snapped back at her, her words bitter for a change with no sugar to coat the hostility. “Tattle on me to big brother? I’m sure they’d love to know all about that blue freak you eloped with.”

Priscilla wasn’t watching where she was walking, too busy glaring back at Shilo. So when a simple crow scavenging fries off the sidewalk fluttered out of the way with a caw of alarm, Priscilla jumped a foot in the air and consequently crashed into Shilo, nearly knocking them both to the ground in Prissy’s haste to take cover behind her.

Had it not been for Priscilla’s wide eyes and the fearful grip on Shilo’s shoulders as she hid behind her, Shilo might have shoved her away and told her off. Instead she paused, eyebrow quirked curiously as she followed Priscilla’s frightened gaze to the crow fluttering away over rooftops. She pushed her back then – not hard enough to knock her down as she would have liked – and held Priscilla out with a grip on her arm so the woman couldn’t disappear on her.

The connection between her old friend and her newfound aversion to birds became a little clearer. Without thinking, Shilo blurted simply, “What did Aviarius do to you?”

Priscilla shrugged out of her grip, still a little shaken and tense. She raised a lip in disgust, but whether it was aimed at her or the avian vet, Shilo wasn’t sure. “A lot more than he’s done to you.”

Shilo didn’t like that answer. She almost disliked getting Chow to go with Priscilla even less.

[split-n-splice]

I'm adopting certain canon characters and running away with them, don't mind me. I'm behind on updating here on tumblr, but check FFn or Ao3 for most recent updates!

[Chapter Guide | FFn | Ao3]

42. Whose Side – 5

Though Drakken hadn’t protested, Shego could see he wasn’t jazzed by her announcement. She didn’t owe him an explanation though, so she did nothing to make up for the brief moment of disappointment that had flashed across his face.

After breakfast, she was instructed to meet him in the garage. She combed out her hair as she waited and double-checked the buttons of her blouse a couple of times, slouched in one of the seats that had been stripped from the Go Jet.

She recognized his footsteps but still turned to be sure it was truly Drakken who finally entered the garage. She held herself, suspicious of the very air in front of her. With Priscilla in town, knowing what she did now, it was hard not to be jumpy. Shego took comfort in knowing she wasn’t a ghost haunting the lair after all though. Unlike a ghost, she could at least punch the girl.

That knowledge hadn’t made falling asleep last night any easier. The evening had been a disaster, one right after another, but Shilo resigned herself to accepting that she couldn’t blame it all on the disowned friend. She’d certainly misread Drakken when she’d made a foolhardy move on the man when the movie failed to take her mind off things, and the fact she hadn’t disposed of the medication before anyone could get their filthy hands on it again was another mistake she was responsible for.

She rubbed her eyes with a fist and stifled a yawn, still fatigued having been up the better half of the night. She knew it was bound to be a long day when she spotted a jeep parked on Main Street, not far from Buckley’s Brew.

Head lolling back, she called over with a sweet lilt, “Drakken?”

His brow quirked curiously and he grunted, flicking a quick glance her way.

“I changed my mind. I wouldn’t mind hanging out at the lair today.”

The somber blue man’s stony face shifted with a grimace. “Give it up. I’m not surrendering another family secret so you can get a day off.”

“Please?”

“Shego,” he growled, parking at the curb.

Shilo glanced into the café, through the golden-lit windows. The shop was still closed, yet Priscilla was inside, although Abigail didn’t seem especially pleased with her presence.

“Fine,” she sighed, grabbing her go-bag from the bench between them. She hesitated, hugging the bag to her chest. “If I need a getaway driver back to the lair, I can count on you, right?”

He grumbled something unhappy about the van, but the second she popped the door, he blurted out, “Yes! Yes, of course.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said with a pleased smirk as she climbed out and shouldered her bag.

“You’ll be alright?” called Drakken before she could shut the door. “With… her?” His distrust as he glanced behind Shilo was almost on par with her own.

She heard the jingle of the doorbell then and grit her teeth. Her fist tightened on the strap of her go-bag, but she gave the apprehensive man a playful salute as she turned about on her heel. “Catch ya later, Doc,” she declared.

She didn’t care so much that she practically turned right into Priscilla, and didn’t bat an eye as she gave the girl a rough shove out of her way. Without sparing a goodbye, Drakken burned rubber in his haste to avoid the troublesome blonde. Priscilla gave Shilo a wry smirk from outside the storefront, and she hoped it would be the last she saw of the girl.

“I don’t like her,” were the words Gail used to greet Shilo that morning, slipping behind her uninvited to retie Shilo’s apron extra tight as the day began. “She’ll fit right in.”

“Yeah, neither do I – wait, what?”

“She starts as soon as there’s an opening.” The stout young woman thumped Shilo on the back as if consoling her. “But don’t worry. You’re not getting sacked. Yet.”

“Buck says I could be getting a promotion,” came another voice from the window to the kitchen. Chester leaned through it, arms folded. The slender woman with the shaven head and a few extra piercings smiled warmly over to Gail. “Better catch up, sugar.”

“Oh, I’m way above you and you know it,” chastised Gail, wagging an empty mug at the other girl. “That oven’s fried your brain. You’re too busy kneading dough to rack up points.”

Promotions? Points? A question died on the tip of her tongue when Shilo caught a glimpse of a regular strolling past the storefront. “Look alive,” she snapped over, backhanding Gail in the hip before the girls could continue arguing.

Chester vanished back into the kitchen then, Gail returned to her post, and Shilo stood behind the counter ready to figuratively tackle the first customer of the day.

Over her weeks at the café, she’d learned Jackass Joe’s work ethic was practice for henchhood, positioning would-be henchwomen in the least compatible positions. While Chester and Gail had their own personal challenges to power through, Shilo was doomed to wear a fake smile for hours on end that cramped her cheeks, forcing pleasantries for each customer to keep them coming back.

The one who had it easiest of all was Buckley’s own daughter, who, according to Gail, was bound to be out a job soon if Priscilla joined their ranks. Unsurprisingly, the teenager had been suspended from school. Buckley wasn’t especially happy about it – she had wanted better for her child – but clearly, the girl was happier on the drudgery of dish duty than having a half-blind gym teacher checking her out.

At nine o’clock on the dot, a heavyset woman Shilo had never seen before came stalking in off the street, her footsteps as heavy as her mug was surly. She wore a suit straight out of the ‘60s, complete with a plaid pencil skirt, which all looked rather itchy. Maybe that was why she scowled so fiercely at Shilo when she gave the rehearsed greeting, “Welcome to Buckley’s Brew—”

“Cut the horsecrap,” growled the woman, whipping out a card from her breast pocket to flash Jackass Joe’s donkey logo. “Where’s Joanne?”

Shilo’s jaw fell open and a bewildered, “Uh,” fell out. She cast a quick glance across to Gail for guidance, but the girl was frozen in place, facing the nearest coffee maker and back to the woman she’d been indifferent to until now.

“Well?” snapped the impatient woman, smacking the service bell on the counter to demand attention. Shilo noticed her pull a clipboard out from under her beefy arm then, grunting disdainfully as she scribbled on it. “Each second you make me wait is a point off.” It sounded like a warning.

Though still white as a sheet, Gail bolted without ever turning to face the woman. She was no help to Shilo.

“I – uh – who are you?” she uttered, perplexed as the bitter lady crossed her arms to wait.

“Who am I?” She arched a thick eyebrow at Shilo before shaking her head and scribbling again on her clipboard. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and get me one of those…” She waved her pen around to point at the fritters.

“That’ll be—,” Shilo began but bit her tongue at the withering scowl the cross woman fixed on her again. Something told her the woman wouldn’t be paying. Left alone and unsure what to do about her, Shilo merely complied, handing over the snack and muttering, “On the house.”

The woman, who had still yet to introduce herself, grunted in lieu of thanks and went to the table in the far corner, nearest the hall leading to the back. Shilo had come to recognize those who sat at that particular table, set apart from the rest, usually meant business. Given the guest was scrawling words across another sheet of paper that looked like a form, Shilo got the hunch that this woman meant serious business.

Aside from the scratching of pen on paper, the café had gone deathly quiet. The tick of a clock plucked at her nerves.

Before long, Shilo found herself blurting out, “How do you know Buckley?”

Looking something like a gargoyle and just as pretty, the woman went still for a moment. Shilo swore she heard her neck creak as she turned her everlasting sneer back up at her. “Are you girls always this chatty?”

Shilo almost answered, but instead pressed her lips into a flat line, zipped shut.

Evidently not talking was not the response the woman sought. She stood, squaring her shoulders, and her glare bore down on Shilo with a severity and authority she wasn’t used to. She nearly caved under it. “If you want to make it in this field, you will answer to your superiors, woman,” ground out Buckley’s visitor.

“Look, lady,” Shilo snapped back, stamping down her rising nerves. “You aren’t the boss of me. I don’t even know who you are.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” scoffed the woman, gesturing curtly to the storefront. “Joanne gave you a call, but you were too busy out gallivanting around with some boy, so I’m told.”

Her cheeks warmed a little and she gripped the counter. She didn’t dignify it with a response though.

A moment later, Buckley’s old pickup truck pulled up out front. At the hasty parking, Shilo would have expected the woman to be in a foul mood, as had been the case when Dr. Drakken had first brought Shilo to the café, but she was only dumbstruck now as the giant woman came barging in with a broad smile and open arms.

“Hatchet!” she boomed, her warmth filling the room.

“I’m not a hugger,” the visitor quickly shot down in a reminding tone, one hand up to halt the larger woman – though not by much – and Buckley dropped her arms. “Joanne, I thought you were more organized than this—”

“I know, I know,” sighed Buckley, waving dismissively as she swooped around the grumpy woman. “I wasn’t expecting you until noon, that’s all.”

“The early bird gets the worm,” said Hatchet. “But it looks like all you have for me today are maggots.”

Buckley’s warm home-baked smile fell. Shilo had never seen such a worried look flash in her eyes before. It was hard to imagine anything could scare Buckley, as big and gutsy as she was, but maybe Shilo was wrong about her. The former henchwoman cleared her throat lightly and gave an ear-piercing whistle that gave Shilo a start.

After a moment, she heard the whisper of Buckley’s girls in the back, hissing amongst each other as one shoved another, and finally the girls came strolling out, backs straight and faces blank. Shilo realized then that all three had been hiding from the guest – leaving Shilo to face her alone. She should have expected as much from them, leaving a comrade to fend for herself. Henchfolk weren’t known for their high moral standards, after all – even if teamwork was a desired trait.

With a grunt, Hatchet strolled over to the lineup of women, circling them once like a vulture. She patted Abigail’s chubby cheek, commenting, “You’ve been working in this café a little too long. We can take care of that. And you.” She turned a glare on the spindly sharpshooter, Chester. “Do yourself a favor and smack it from her hand and take it for yourself if you catch her snacking.” Buckley took a step forward when the guest roughly grabbed her daughter, Hatchet pulling Jenny’s hands in front of her. “Too soft,” she scoffed before shoving the tender hands away.

Shilo watched as the girl mouthed a small desperate plea to her mother as if begging the woman to defend her, but Buckley remained silent.

“Someone is missing here,” said Hatchet, tapping her chin as she studied the girls. “One, two, three…”

With a jump of her heart, Shilo realized she ought to get in line.

The perplexing bitter visitor glared sternly at her before shoving her chin up roughly to stare deep into her eyes. Resisting the impulse to smack her out of her personal space and spit something obscene in the face of the woman in presumed authority over the henchgirls, Shilo measured her breath and held still. She didn’t so much as blink until Hatchet backed away from her face, only to snatch her by the wrist instead with a grip strong enough to leave a bruise.

Her beady eyes narrowed behind her gaudy glasses as her grip tightened.

Shilo had never imagined her hand could feel choked, but that might have had something to do with her fingers turning color from the cut circulation. The woman didn’t have to verbally command it of her – her eyes conveyed it clear enough.

Sparks crackled from her palm before licks of plasmic flame crawled up her fingers.

“That’s what I thought,” growled Hatchet, holding Shilo’s arm out like a torch.

A yelp caught in her throat as she was yanked away and into the back. She threw a baffled glance over her shoulder at the wide-eyed women staring after her, Jenny mouthing, “Good luck!”

Before she could demand answers, she was all but thrown into one of the two seats in front of Buckley’s desk. “Watch it!” she snapped instead, smoothing her hair and scowling as the pushy Hatchet woman plopped down in the other chair.

“No, you watch it,” ground out the woman, wagging her pen at her. She licked a thumb and flipped a page on her clipboard. “You have no idea why I’m here, do you?”

And so began Twenty Questions. It felt like more than that.

She asked basic age and health questions almost like a doctor would before moving on to harder questions, like when she quit heroism, how long was she a hero, her opinion on heroes – and while some were easier than others, the fact she had associated with heroes at all in a former life clearly displeased Miss Hatchet.

She moved on to more villainous questions, requesting notable achievements as a miscreant. There was the 24-Seven robbery Buckley’s girls could attest to, but when Shilo mentioned the first task Drakken had given her, it began a slew of other questions regarding the local villain. How long had she been working with him, how professional was their relationship, and other questions that left Shilo flustered and on edge. Special skills and what she thought she had to offer as a henchwoman were squeezed into the interrogation.

Miss Hatchet warned her that she was on thin ice and had a snowball’s chance in hell, but promised with a grin to put Shilo through the wringer regardless if by some miracle she was granted admission. It was only because Buckley vouched for her that the headhunter bothered interviewing her at all, determining whether she was cut out for henchwork.

When the quizzing was all said and done, Miss Hatchet stood and handed Shilo a pamphlet for Lowerton Hench University. “If you’re serious about henchwork, prove it. Get some experience under your belt,” she advised. “I’ll be checking in.”

Glaring at the recruiter’s back, Shilo felt a little arrogant for scoffing to herself. She almost burned the pamphlet but crumpled it in her fist instead. She wasn’t cut out for henchwork. She was better than that. Who did this woman think she was?

With the door held open and the professional henchwoman gesturing her out, Shilo took her leave, steeling herself to keep from jolting when the bitter woman barked out, “NEXT!”

She did, however, jump to the other side of the narrow hall when the air before her rippled with a faint shimmer and Priscilla Kimbley shoved her aside as she made for the office, the odor of cheap cherry body spray making Shilo’s nose crinkle. “Present!” sang Prissy. The sugar-coated warble couldn’t have belonged to a future henchwoman, and yet Miss Hatchet checked her clipboard and grunted with a nod to the office.

“And I thought you’d be a no-show,” said Miss Hatchet with a note of humor. Shilo thought she even heard her guffaw as she slammed the door shut.

[split-n-splice]

Write a Drakgo fic of exactly three sentences that contains the phrase "the floor is lava." ;DDD

The bang of the door blowing open and colliding with the wall was the only warning Drakken had before a squealing bundle of limbs dropped on top of him, effectively waking the man.

The child bounced on him, letting out another playful scream as he cracked his eyes open in time to see the door swinging open with another slam against the wall, now bearing the weight of a grown woman beaming down at him in her bed.

Shego hung from the door with a heel on the knob, and in lieu of a good morning, she explained simply, "The floor is lava."

[split-n-splice]

“I wasn’t going to let them have whatever I have.” “They would have still had your cadaver.”

- Bad is Good and Good is Bad, chapter 2 [Tumblr | Ao3 | FFn]

Sometimes those who are bad do good while who are good do bad with good intentions~