Sticks And Stones
AUTHOR: The Humbug
DISCLAIMER: "Kim Possible" and all characters within © The Walt Disney Company and its related entities. Kim Possible created by Mark McCorkle & Bob Schooley. All rights reserved. No profit is being collected from the fiction contained within.
SUMMARY: This is a Kim/Shego pairing fan fiction, made seasonal for Halloween and mostly the killing of a plot bunny. This is set in my own personal "Who's Writing This Crap?' Kigoverse, however we all know that Kasy Ann and Sheki Go Possible are the sole creations of NoDrogs and I suggest you go read his story 'A Small Possibility' for their origin.
TYPE: Kim/Shego, Romance, Slash
RATING: PG-13 for intimations of a physical relationship and intimate contact between consenting adult females and should also cover some occasionally harsh language. I'm not certain how it will apply to farting or yelling at authority figures. If any of this will offend you, please read something else and then seek professional help.
Sticks And Stones / Four
The main door was unlocked and the release bar clanked when Kim leaned into it. There wasn't a Receptionist on duty at this time of the day so they ambled around the foyer of the school for a moment looking for guidance. Decorations in orange and black festooned the hallways and proclaimed 'Happy Halloween' with smiling ghosts and playful spiders.
"Why are spider decorations always purple?"
"Probably to make them look less scary."
"See, there's one. And another." Shego pointed. "That vampire's purple, too."
"Yeah, and that Frankenstein's Monster is dark green. So?"
"I'm just saying. What's wrong with green?"
"Nothing's wrong with my favorite shade of green." Kim winked at her. "Dark green isn't my favorite."
"Why, thank you, pumpkin!"
The original layout of Middleton Elementary had changed a bit since Kim's days as a student there; consolidation and expansion of rooms and the odd piece of new construction made her memories of little value. They'd both been at the school several times for shows and games but the offices were on the opposite side of the building from the auditorium and gymnasium.
Eventually they spotted some placards mounted on the tiled walls surrounded by colorful pictures made by the students using everything from crayons to finger paints, and these indicated that the offices they sought could be found at the end of a long hallway to their right. More handmade art plastered the walls of the hallway and the women casually inspected these as they walked towards their destination.
The sound of their footfalls on the linoleum floor left the hall much to quiet for their tastes. Hundreds of hand-cut pumpkin cards lined the walls around them.
"Barkin… Barkin…" Shego scanned the walls for anything by her daughters. "I think I remember this guy. Big, broad shoulders, crew cut?"
"That's him."
"What's your beef with him exactly?"
"You know this little problem I have called 'respect for authority'?"
"Yeah." Shego looked over and saw that Kim was grinning so she grinned back. "It's been a really hindrance in your social development. Almost as much as your overdeveloped sense of right and wrong."
"Mr. Barkin was THE ultimate symbol of authority when I was a teenager and THE most difficult teacher that I had to endure in high school."
"Where'd you pick up a word like 'endure' since you used to hang with Stoppable all day long?"
"Doy!" Kim scoffed but she didn't mean it. She was just glad that her mate was in a better mood. "I actually read an entire book last week. You'd be proud of me!"
"Ex-military, huh?"
"He ran every classroom like a platoon."
"Maybe that's the problem."
"What?"
"Him being military."
"Oh, please! I've worked side by side with every branch of the armed forces you can name, both domestic and foreign. They're some of the best folks I've ever met."
"Tough?"
"Very tough."
"Maybe he thought you were all a bunch of goldbricks."
"Please! My class had the best brain…"
"Justine Flanner."
"Check. And the best jock…"
"Brigg Flack."
"Brick Flagg."
"Whatever."
"… plus Bonnie, Monique… not to mention yours truly…"
"Oh, it's always about the 'girl who can do anything'!" Shego bumped her hip against the petite woman walking next to her. "We can't forget her!"
"… so our class was definitely NOT a collection of goldbricks."
"What'd he teach?"
"Everything! Or at least it seemed that way." Red hair bobbed as she shook her head in puzzlement. "I never quite understood why he always seemed to be teaching every class I was in."
"Anything else?"
"He seemed to absolutely hate Ron at first but that slowly warmed up to mild distain by the time we graduated. I felt as if Mr. Barkin went out of his way to make Ron look like a failure."
"Doesn't everyone?"
"Don't make me hurt you." Kim mock-glared while Shego giggled.
"Not the face! Not the face!" She lowered her arms from a defensive position. "I hate to burst your bubble, Princess, but you've just about described every teacher out there, at least from the perspective of the average student."
"Trust me, not this guy. To know him was to loathe him."
"Really bothered you, huh?"
"So did. When I was younger and a student I thought it was how most teachers were supposed to be. Now that I'm grown-up…"
"A bit of advice, Pumpkin. Grown-ups don't refer to themselves as 'grown-up'."
"Now. That. I'm. An. Adult." Kim's enunciation only made the tall woman beside her grin even wider. "Now that I'm not a student, hopefully a little wiser and definitely older, it really bugs me at what a… a… dickweed he was."
Shego stopped dead in the hallway.
"Dickweed?" She stared at the petite redhead and Kim blushed, embarrassed.
"Yeah."
"Dickweed?"
"Yes! So?"
"Giant robots, huge blenders, lasers, marauding grass and monkey ninjas and 'dickweed' is the best you can muster?"
"SHH!" The hero was scandalized. "He might hear you!"
"Kimmie, 'grown-ups' can use foul language if'n they want."
"I know!" Kim didn't look quite as confident as she sounded. "I could've called him worse if I wanted too but I didn't!"
"Why not?"
"Because I was always taught not to curse when I was a kid, that's why!"
"S'funny… I happen to know for a fact that you know ALL the best words."
"Geez!" The blush deepened to crimson and Kim covered her ears. Shego shook her head sadly, her mass of midnight-black hair flowing down her back. She started walking again and a sputtering Kim Possible followed.
"It's not right to use those words and I don't want the girls to hear their parents cursing! It'd be wrong!"
"But here, now, just between the two of us, you could call Barkin anything you wanted."
"Well, sure!"
"You could casually refer to him as being an assho…"
"Shego! SHH!" Kim glanced up and down the hallway. "There could still be other teachers here!"
"Ok, howzabout an idle comment on what a bastar…"
"Cut it out! We'll have to enroll the girls at another school!"
"Or even nonchalantly point out that he's a motherfu…"
"GHAA!" Kim flashed a bright red and scurried down the hall, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the woman with the mischievous gleam in her eyes.
The thing was that she did get the point that her spouse was making and certainly did know how to handle herself with greater confidence now that she was, as her wife reminded her, an adult. In Truth, Kim was only in her mid-twenties and still found it difficult to interact with people as a peer and an equal if they were older than she. Even Shego was older, albeit by only a few years but the former thief often made cultural references that were meaningless to Kim or spoke of events that the hero either barely recalled as ever happening or occurred when she was so young as not to care.
It made Kim feel stupid and, while her mate would never have wanted her to feel that way in a million years, being the child and sibling of family members that each held multiple collegiate degrees was more than enough to make her undervalue her own intelligence. It was ironic that Shego was the one to carry so much self-doubt as to her parenting skills, because Kim had come to rely on her spouse heavily for logical solutions to their day-to-day challenges.
"Hey, Kimmie. We're here."
"Hm? Where?"
Kim turned away from the wall she's been looking at; she had also been searching for any artwork by her children and had become lost in thought. She quickly focused on the polished wooden door that Shego was standing next to, cocking a thumb at the words painted on the frosted glass.
"Here. It says, 'Principal Dickweed'."
"Very funny. Not!" Kim huffed in frustration. "Well, are we ready?"
"Yep." Shego steadied her nerves and grasped the knob, twisting it. "Because I suspect that two little Munchkins would like to see their parents right about now."
88888888
"Momma! We're…"
"… really sorry, Mommy! We didn't do..."
"… anything! And we…"
"… won't do it again! And besides…"
"… it wasn't our fault!"
"Hey, I'm convinced." Shego moved aside to let her wife enter the room and stand beside her in the doorway. "Can we go home now?"
"No, sweetheart." Kim's tone was resolute. "We've been over this already."
She automatically reached out to her daughters and let them grip her hands while she inspected the anteroom to Barkin's office; this was where Mrs. Manders kept her desk and where the middle-aged executive assistant had apparently been keeping the twins occupied for the past several minutes. She saw nothing more punitive than simple cursive drills and colorful exercises involving matched sets. She noticed her taller spouse scrutinizing the small office as well, and only broke away from her daughters after the girls shifted their attentions towards their Momma.
"C'mere, Team Possible."
"Momma, we…"
"We'll talk about this when we get home, Ok?" Shego cast a quick glance to her spouse before the official conversations began. Kim nodded to show her support and Shego winked back before continuing. "Let's stay out here while Mommy talks with Mr. Barkin."
"Okay."
"… ok…"
"Mrs. Manders? Kim Possible." The two shook hands, pleasant if a bit formal. "I'm here for that appointment regarding the… um…"
"The incident?" The older woman nodded knowingly. "Of course, and I'll let Mr. Barkin know you're here." She made a half-turn back to her desk. "I let the children work on their homework assignments while they waited."
"I hope that they didn't give you any trouble."
"Heaven's no! Not at all." The woman smiled. "They're ever so well behaved young ladies. I was about to read them a story if you'd been a few minutes later."
"Oh. Well, thank you." For some reason Kim had been envisioning a prison camp or detention hall, not homework and story time. Maybe I'm the one who gets too defensive and not Shego, she thought.
Remembering her words in the car, the redhead glanced at her wife and their daughters; all three were sitting in the stiff, plastic chairs that lined one wall. Shego was murmuring calmly while Kasy fired back defensive responses with characteristic fervor. Sheki was oddly silent and only had eyes for the floor. This made Kim all the more pensive and the woman at the desk seemed to read Kim's mind.
"Is this the first time you've been called to speak with the Principal?"
"No. There were a few times back in my sophomore and junior years that…"
"I didn't mean as a student, dear. I mean as a parent."
"Oh." Kim mentally kicked herself but was grateful that the secretary chose to downplay the faux pas. "Yes, this is the first time I've ever gotten a call for something like this."
"Well, you shouldn't be too concerned. This sort of… interview is always scheduled immediately following altercations between students. Anything from one child calling another child a 'boogerhead' to that time when little Jimmy Stevens kicked Donnie Landry right square in the…" Mrs. Manders caught herself and shrugged. "Anyway, it will all be ok. Nothing to worry about." She left her desk and walked to an inner door. "I'll just announce you."
"Please and thank you." Kim sighed and watched the older woman disappear into the office. She added her own purse to the pile of book bags and jackets that her daughters had placed on the remaining chair and focused her attention on the three most important people in her life.
"How're we doing?"
"Well…" Shego looked up from where she sat next to Kasy and with Sheki seated one chair down. The raven-haired girl was still being unusually silent but the little redhead wore an expression of supreme defiance and their Momma was looking considerably more relaxed and in control than before. "We've been discussing the problem, right?"
Twin nods, one expressive and one subdued.
"Apparently this girl Missy wanted to share her vocabulary with the girls again."
"Oh, no. Not the 'carpet thing'?"
"Mmm-hmm." The older woman pursed her black glossed lips and nodded. "It seems that… despite being only six… Missy has formed an opinion of our marital sitch and decided that she should express it to the girls."
In spite of this minor crisis, Kim couldn't pass up the joke.
"And how did that go?"
"Not too good." Shego suppressed a grin. "What Missy said was decidedly rude and impolite and allegedly…"
"I socked her one!"
"… our own Kasy Ann Possible shoved Missy backwards…"
"I pushed her right on her butt!"
"… onto her well-padded keister. Young lady, shush. I'm telling Mommy what happened."
"Yes, Momma."
Kim sighed again and rested her hand on the head of her silent daughter; she was glad for once that Sheki had apparently been her usual reserved self and hadn't joined her sister in their little ruckus. Simple playground shoving match was one thing, but two ganging up against one would be unacceptable.
"I did it! It was me!"
"Sweetheart, it's nothing to be proud of. When we get home, we'll all sit down…"
"When we get home, Pumpkin," Shego's look was meaningful, pointedly intense. There was something unspoken in that expression, but Kim couldn't quite read it. "We'll all sit down and talk about this in more detail, ok?"
Shego looked as calm as before but Kasy was looking more desperate than confidant now. The way that she was leaning forward in her chair almost blocked access to her sibling, protecting her.
Shielding her.
"Ok?"
The door to the inner office opened and Mrs. Manders returned.
"Mrs. Possible? The Principal will see you now."
"Ok, Kimmie?"
Puzzled but satisfied in Shego's apparent belief that, whatever else was going on it could wait 'til they got home, Kim leaned down and planted a quick kiss on the foreheads of her children
"Ok. We'll have a nice talk over some cocoa moo." Kim turned to the patiently waiting executive assistant. "Thank you, I'm ready."
They walked to the open door together.
To Be Continued…
Author's Notes: Hm? What? Oh… sorry, I don't have anything to add right now.