A/N: Hey all! Winter break is almost upon us! (And the crowd goes wild!) This here is a bit of a filler chapter, but I thought you'd all like to see some lighthearted interaction after the heavy conversation of the last chapter, so I'm postponing the second half of their conversation in favor for a bit of fun. You even get to meet Leah (Kim's roomie) and bear witness to some of the awkward bits of sharing a space with someone in college! I really do hope that you all enjoy!
Thanks to MisterMagic25, n255, Xeiros, Firelord515, farfrom7, Jaely, Magic Basher54986, Guest, Lhyaran, piecesofyourheart, zax850, gypsy069, Jay Shields, Kigolicious, Ponks (Didn't I tell you it would be soon?), Jim89, only-looking (You leave such wonderful reviews, just so you know.), and Guest. All of the support really helped me to get through finals week, so this chapter is dedicated to everyone named above. You're all wonderful. So please, read on!
Dear Diary: Chapter Nine
Sherwood Lioness
"Katherine Antigone Phillips!"
This was shouted directly into Kim's ear, startling her into the waking world rather unpleasantly. On reflex, her fist shot out in a wicked uppercut, but the person who'd woken her knew better than to fall victim to the move, much to Kim's secret annoyance. Disoriented, she fell from her bed on the couch and onto the floor with a distinct and healthy thud.
"Leah! What the fuck?" Kim demanded after taking a moment to register her position. Her roommate stood over her sleep-rumpled form, scowling blackly. She too looked to have just woken up, dressed in only a sports bra and a pair of polka-dotted pajama pants, her silky blonde hair puffy and mussed.
Leah -a rather petite blonde with large brown eyes and the attitude of a true redhead- jabbed a finger at her accusingly. "Don't you 'What the fuck?' me, Katherine Antigone," she hissed. "What's our roommate rule number four?"
Kim blinked sleepily. "'If you're fucking someone in the apartment, leave one of the blue sticky-notes on the front door.' I know," she recited with an immediacy and piousness born of endless repetition. "I learned my lesson last time. That was a month ago! Why are you yelling at me? When did you even get back?"
At this point, Kim made an effort to sit up, and gratefully accepted Leah's offered hand to haul herself to her feet, despite the fact that the blonde was still scowling blackly at her. "I got back about one thirty and went straight to my bedroom," she snapped irritably. "Why didn't you put the sticky up, Kat?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because I didn't get laid?" Kim sneered back.
"There's a strange half-naked woman in my kitchen, Katherine!" Leah shrieked. "You know it freaks me out when your flings show up randomly around the apartment! And this one was smirking. Smirking! Where was my blue post-it?"
Groaning, Kim ran an exasperated hand down her face. It was way too early in the morning for this kind of shit. It was just like Shego to start the day by being the cause of Kim's misery. "Look Leah," she sighed. "It's not what you think. Just calm your tits, let me get some coffee, and then I'll give you the sparknotes version, okay?" She didn't wait for her cranky roommate to agree before turning on heel and shambling into the kitchen, unable to function much beyond basic conversation without her morning shots of espresso.
Sure enough, Shego was lounging in Kim's usual chair at the table, dressed only in a blue plaid flannel shirt that she'd apparently stolen from Kim's closet (despite the fact that she'd had her own suitcase in the trunk of her car) and looking completely comfortable, not to mention rather smug. Kim took a brief moment to appreciate the sight of the woman's perfectly formed bare legs –because it was hot—before shooting Shego a dark look. It was meant to convey her opinion that Shego looked far too pleased with herself, though Shego seemed not to see it. She then summarily turned her attention to the coffee machine.
"Lover's quarrel, pumpkin?" Shego cooed, completely ignoring Kim's glowering and dragging a playful fingertip around the rim of her coffee mug.
Kim's coffee mug. It literally had her –well, Kat's—name on it.
"Bite me," Kim muttered, rummaging in a cabinet for the spare and running her hands through her hair agitatedly once she found it. It was chipped, but it'd have to do. The action didn't help her appearance, however. She'd showered before she'd gone to sleep, and slept on her hair while it was wet. If it was possible, her red and blue striped mop had taken the opportunity to grow even wilder than it had been previously, sticking out in odd directions and curling in strange places. Her brain still hadn't connected fully with her body either, and what with the large t-shirt she'd gone to bed in falling sloppily off one shoulder after her general aura of disarray after her up-close and personal encounter with the floor, she both looked and felt a little pathetic.
Shego -clearly more of a morning person than Kim was- just widened her smile, and Kim admitted to herself that the woman was possibly a diagnosable sadist. "Oh, not so nice in the mornings, are we?" the brunette tsked disapprovingly.
Kim flipped her off.
Laughing quite genuinely, Shego just shook her head and turned her attention to Leah, who was still glaring hatefully at the back of Kim's head. "I don't believe I had a chance to introduce myself earlier before you ran off to make Princess's morning just a little brighter," she said, surprising Kim a little with how pleasant her tone was. "I'm Mary Gordon."
"Leah Casey," Kim's roommate returned politely. "I'm sorry that you're going to have to watch Kat slowly asphyxiate to death on the blue post-it notes that I'm about to shove down her windpipe."
Growling in frustration, Kim took a long drag of her coffee, wincing as it scalded her tongue, before turning back around and facing the other two women. "Cool it, Leah," she instructed her roommate sternly. "No sex, no need for post-its. All right?"
Leah rolled her eyes. "Pull the other one, Kitty. You have a thing for her type. Unlike the men you drag through here, the women have a little consistency. Though the complexion's new," she added thoughtfully, and rather unnecessarily. There weren't too many green-skinned women running around the planet, after all.
Kim cringed inwardly as Shego returned her attention onto her, one sculpted eyebrow arched. "Been busy, Princess?"
"I had quite a few years of sexual repression to make up for, all right?" Kim squeaked, blushing furiously in her mortification. Sure, she was definitely a fan of the more carnal pleasures, but it wasn't as bad as Leah made it out to be. She didn't just sleep around for the heck of it. And why oh why did she have to point out that Kim had a thing for athletic women with long, dark hair? Shego was never going to let that go.
This was so the drama.
"Wait, so you didn't sleep with Kat? For serious?" Leah asked Shego, obviously confused.
"No, not this time, honey," Shego confirmed, her bright green eyes glittering in amusement.
The blonde whirled back on Kim. "Kitty! What have I told you about picking up straight girls? It's not nice to make them question their sexuality!"
At the moment, Kim idly wondered if she'd be lucky enough for the ground to open up beneath her and swallow her whole. She was blushing so hard now that it felt like her skin was on fire.
Shego, for her part, burst into paroxysms of laughter so great that tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes. "Oh my God, Princess. Tell me you didn't!" she hooted.
"It was one time, okay?" Kim whined. "I didn't know she was that drunk, and it's not like she was objecting, or didn't enjoy herself immensely!"
"Sounds like that was the problem," Shego shot back, still gasping a little. "You got her off more times than her boyfriend ever did, didn't you?"
"Of course I did," Kim huffed in an effort to save face. "I can do anything, remember?"
That just set Shego off again. She nearly fell off her chair.
"Look Leah," Kim finally sighed, doing her best to ignore Shego's laughter and curling her fingers around her mug in an effort to absorb the warmth it radiated and frowning at her roommate. "Mary's an old friend of mine who stopped by for an unexpected visit last night. It got a little late, so I let her sleep in my room while I took the couch. No blue stickies unless the clothes come off, remember? Besides," she threw in with an evil grin. "I'm not the one who has sex on the living room floor."
Now it was Leah's turn to blush. "That was one time!" she wailed in an uncanny imitation of Kim's earlier statement, blinking sad blue eyes at her. "And I've walked in on you, too!"
"And I was in my bedroom at the time," Kim retorted, sticking out her tongue. "You know, that place where most people go when they bring men home from the bar? If I recall correctly, that little not-knocking incident was the whole reason we came up with rule number four in the first place. No need to bitch at me."
To her credit, Leah did appear slightly sheepish at the reminder.
"I'm still mad at you for that, you know," Kim continued to goad her, smirking from behind the rim of her cup and giving out a dreamy sigh. "You wouldn't believe what Anthony could do with his—"
"Ahbuhbuhbuh!" Shego suddenly shouted, halting Kim mid-sentence and scowling at the redhead. "That is way too much information," she said firmly.
Kim just snickered at her.
Still scowling, the older woman threw a cherry flavored pop-tart at her with slightly more force than necessary. Kim only just managed to catch it. "You," Shego said, pointing a finger at Kim. "Eat your breakfast and get dressed. You owe me a spar and lunch. You." This time, she pointed at Leah. "Do whatever you do in your spare time."
Obligingly, Kim took the pastry between her teeth and snapped a military salute to her old nemesis. Leah just muttered something about needing a shower and vanished into her bedroom. Kim just shook her head. She loved Leah. Really, she did. The girl was dangerously high strung though.
Once she'd left, Shego turned to Kim with mischief dancing in her eyes, but Kim cut her off before she could say anything. "Oh, no," Kim snapped. "Not one word from you! I'm a big girl now and I can do whatever and whoever I want to in the bedroom."
"Please. Would I ever openly mock you about you and your roommate's obvious intimacy issues?" Shego asked with exaggerated innocence, batting her eyelashes.
Kim lifted an eyebrow and looked at her pointedly. "Yes, you would," she noted drily. "Anything else you need to get out of your system?"
"Of course, thanks for asking," Shego responded cheekily. "I've been waiting for this one, actually. Of all the middle names that exist, you chose Antigone? Really?"
Kim blushed deeply. She was doing far too much of that this morning. "It's poetic!" she insisted in defense of her choice of middle name.
"Ah yes, Antigone!" Shego exclaimed dramatically in an announcer-like voice, pretending to swoon. "One of the first true female heroes, from the Greek Theban sagas! She, who defied the decree of her uncle the king in order to bury her traitor brother and save his eternal soul, choosing morality over law." In an instant, Shego snapped back to her casually bored mannerisms. "You do know she dies in the end after rotting in jail, don't you cupcake? Followed by the deaths of her fiancée and aunt?"
Kim took another bite of her pop-tart. She was reluctantly impressed that Shego was apparently so well versed in Greek saga, not that she'd ever admit to it. "Yes," she sighed. "But that's not the important part of the story!"
"Oh? Are you more interested in the fact that she was conceived when Oedipus and his mom got it on? Is there something you want to tell me about your parents, Kimmie?"
Kim blinked at Shego, debating throwing the last of her pop-tart at her, but decided against it in the end. Instead, she simply announced that it was way too early in the morning for Kim to deal with her sass, and proceeded to retreat back into her bedroom to get dressed.
With Shego, it was sometimes best just to pick your battles.
Thirty minutes later found both women exiting the apartment building and walking out into the parking lot. Kim had dressed warmly, but she still shivered as she was struck by the wall of cold November air and glanced jealously at Shego, who hadn't dressed warmly at all and seemed to be unaffected by the chill.
It was ferociously unfair.
"We're taking my car," Shego said suddenly, seizing upon Kim's elbow and dragging her off course. "I'm not riding in your piece of shit Civic."
Kim shrugged and followed without kicking up a fuss, even though she sort of wanted to- just to be an ass. Unfortunately for her, her car was a piece of shit, making Shego's point valid. "Is it as sexy as the convertible you had last time?" she asked instead.
Shego just smirked at her. "It's better," she promised before stopping in front of a flashy red Corvette and making a sweeping gesture with one hand as Kim's eyes widened.
It took a heartbeat or two for Kim to put her metaphorical tongue back into her mouth, but once she had, she broke out into a blinding smile. "Spankin!" she cheered, doing an excited little hop, forgetting about the cold for the moment.
"It's a wonder how no one's realized who you are in all this time, Cupcake," Shego muttered just loudly enough that Kim was able to catch the words, earning herself a halfhearted glare. Noticing this, the brunette gave her a little shove towards the front of the car. "What are you standing there looking stupid for? Get in!"
Kim wasn't about to argue. The car was legitimately a thing of beauty –inside and outside—and she wasn't about to risk Shego driving off without her. Once she'd settled herself, the older woman turned and gave her a toe-curlingly wicked smile. "Ready, Kimmie?"
Kim winked. "Do your worst," she challenged.
The drive that followed was probably the most exciting thing to happen to Kim in months. It was a small miracle that they hadn't instigated a full-scale car chase with the highway patrol, given all the traffic laws that had been violated within the span of ten minutes. By the time Shego whipped dangerously into the parking lot outside the dojo Kim preferred to frequent, she thought that there was a strong possibility that she might actually explode from the joy and thrill that had built up inside of her. Shego drove her little red sports car much like James Bond drove his tricked-out Aston Martin, and though it wasn't exactly a safe experience for anyone involved, the pair of them were grinning like loons long after the engine shut off.
It was amazing, Kim mused, how easy it was for them to have fun together doing the simplest of things when they weren't trying to hit each other.
"Kitty-Kat!" a short man dressed in a black gi, straightening from his pose, called out to her as Kim pushed through the front door of the building. Shego walked in on her heels, casting an appraising eye over the facility. "Cutting your Thursday morning philosophy class again? Naughty of you!"
Kim waved her hand airily at dark-haired man who stepped across the mat in her direction, smiling cheerfully. "Come on, Mark. Know your Pereboom!" she teased, doing her best impression of her haughty professor. "I'm merely choosing to adopt a determinist viewpoint and accepting the fact that my free will doesn't actually exist. Hence, it's perfectly correct to say that I'm not cutting the class. The universe is making me do it."
Mark just shook his head at the redhead, who was inspecting her fingernails with an air of self-satisfaction. He then noticed the other woman standing strongly at Kim's side with an air of passivity. "Who's your friend, Kitty?"
"She's the person you'll be worshipping by noon," Kim said casually, already walking towards the back of the dojo where the lockers and showers were situated. Shego followed without comment, as Kim had promised to let her borrow the spare outfit she kept in her locker.
"Worshipping?" Shego questioned once they'd entered the area set aside for women and lounging herself across the wooden bench in between the lockers and showers as Kim fiddled with the lock on the locker she'd claimed as her own. "I mean, I'll give you I'm fabulous, but isn't that a little much?"
Kim snorted inelegantly, but didn't turn around. "Undefeated," she replied matter-of-factly, poking herself in the sternum. "Not one person here has ever come close to beating me, and I've not exactly been nice when putting spar partners down. It's lead to a bit of passive-aggressive frustration. You'll be the Robin Hood to my Sheriff of Nottingham once we're done here."
Sitting up straight, Shego snatched the gi out of the air that Kim tossed in her general direction, looking unbearably smug. "What can I say? Green is my color."
"Just shut up and get dressed."
"As the Princess commands."
The pair of them summarily faced away from each other and slipped out of their clothes before pulling on the significantly looser sparring outfits. Fortunately for Shego, she and Kim were close enough in size that hers fit reasonably well on her. She hummed in approval and strode from the room and back onto the main floor of the studio, Kim following closely. It was a fairly large sparring area, which was the reason Kim preferred this dojo over others in the neighborhood. Her style of combat was largely dependent on acrobatic maneuvers that simply allowed her to be where her opponent's strikes were not, and a more open space allowed her to get more creative. Normally, six to eight people would be spaced out over the red mat that covered the floor and protected the practitioners of the martial arts from injury, but it seemed that Kim's comment about Shego to Mark had aroused the curiosity of those who had been sparring when they'd entered.
They'd cleared the floor. Like Hell they were going to miss what promised to be a clash of Titans, if Kim wasn't exaggerating.
Seeing the sparring area ready and waiting for them sent Kim's pulse skyrocketing in anticipation, and she possessed a distinct bounce in her gait as she and Shego made their way to the center of the floor before they stopped and faced each other, disregarding any warm-ups or stretching by a silent, mutual agreement. When Kim looked into Shego's bright eyes, they held a spark that made her shiver. Memories of hundreds of fights nudged at her mind, and she dropped into her well-worn defensive stance with a fluidity that spoke of how comfortable she was with both the action and situation.
This, Kim decided in that moment, was how she and Shego were meant to interact. Talking was all well and good, but nothing would ever compare to the physical action that they were about to indulge in. Even after two years going without, her blood still sang with anticipation for the coming moments.
Shego, it seemed, agreed. She rolled her head loosely on her shoulders and smiled languidly at her before dropping into her own ready stance. "You know, Princess," she said as they began to circle each other, bare feet making next to no noise as they moved. "I'll confess that I had some serious unresolved issues with you when I came to see you, and we could have sat down and talked them all away; but you have to admit that this is the fun way to work things out."
"Ah-ah-ah," Kim crooned, crinkling her nose slightly. "You're going to have to work harder than mere fun to beat me, Mary. Do you think you can handle it?"
Shego sneered at her and tossed her mane of beautiful waist-length tresses out of her face. "Your ass is mine, Katherine," she shot back, tone sugary-sweet in the dangerous sort of way.
"Talk dirty to me," Kim purred in response before leaping across the space separating them with her fists poised to strike.
And just like that, the fight had begun.
Though each woman fought similarly in that their styles were mish-mashes of various fighting styles cobbled together to form unique and deadly sets of movement, both had distinct 'flavors' to their styles that set them apart. Despite the fact that Shego wasn't able to use her plasma powers at the moment due to a desire to remain as incognito as a green-skinned human could possibly be, her fighting style was catered to take advantage of her deadly hands. She fought like a lioness, striking quickly and aggressively to make full use of her extraordinary strength and dexterity to take her enemy down hard and fast. Kim's strengths, on the other hand, lay with her superior speed and stamina. She fought like a snake, staying well out of reach of her opponent before striking quickly and pulling back just as fast. She had an uncanny knack for slithering away from any counterattacks with enough skill to avoid taking many hits, which she could not withstand as well as Shego, who only let any pain she experienced fuel her ferocity.
They were a good match for each other, and much to Kim's delight as she made the discovery, they could still push each other to their very limits just as well as they could (if not better than) before their hiatus. They fell into their established rhythm of fighting almost immediately as if they were performing a particularly violent dance. She laughed breathlessly even as she was slammed fiercely into the ground by her opponent and delivered a fierce kick to her stomach in response. Shego landed on her back and redirected her momentum to flip herself back into her feet in the same motion, charging before Kim could blink. They met in a flurry of punches and kicks, and Kim had never felt lighter.
It was wild. It was regretful. It was painful. It was angry. It was joyful. It was sad. It was everything that they could never quite articulate to each other aloud, and never needed to.
Kim honestly wasn't sure how she'd survived without this since before the Lorwardian invasion.
In the end, it was Kim who was the winner of their spar. Shego was at a disadvantage without her plasma glow, and Kim had the better stamina between the two of them. They'd been fighting for a little over an hour straight, and by the time she pinned the older woman on her stomach, twisting her arms behind her and straddling her back, they were both breathing raggedly, sweating, and trembling.
"I win," Kim whispered hoarsely, leaning forward to speak in Shego's ear, who was still pinned below her.
Frustrated, Shego squirmed a little in Kim's hold, but soon relaxed beneath her and exhaled somewhat forcefully. "Fine," she growled.
Relieved, Kim immediately allowed her body to go limp and rolled off of the brunette so that she lay exhaustedly on her back just next to her. "Oh. My. God," she panted. "I thought I was going to die."
Shego snorted, and Kim lolled her head to one side so that they were facing each other. The loser of their little battle had her face pressed into the cool plastic covering of the mat and her eyes closed. "I've gone soft without you to annoy me, Princess," she complained softly. "I feel like a green bruise with two legs."
"Ditto," Kim said, and then hesitated. "Well, except for the green part," she amended, eyeing her red-flushed skin before grinning and giggling to herself. "That was amazing!"
Shego opened her eyes and winked. "Better than sex," she agreed, chuckling lightly. She sat up then, and helped Kim to her feet, who gratefully accepted. They both jumped slightly, however, when raucous applause suddenly erupted from around them as their audience picked their jaws up from the floor and recognized that the fight was over.
Kim gave Shego, who was blushing slightly, a sheepish glance. "See?" she pointed out. "Worshipping."
It took a moment for Shego to recover her original color, but once she did, Kim found herself the recipient of a smile so radiant and genuine that she stopped breathing for a moment, stunned by how beautiful her ex-nemesis was in that moment.
"Spankin," Shego said, with no small amount of wicked humor.
Kim blinked, stunned, then simply threw her head back and laughed.
A/N: A cheerful chapter from a cheerful authoress! Don't worry though, drama-lovers. Next chapter will have all the angst that you've been missing and more details on the main problem that our heroines will be facing. (And just as a side note, the blue stickie note thing is something that the girls living next door to me started doing because they kept walking in on each other. It was just too funny not to include!) Until next time, darlings!
