Before my eyes even open, I see an Oreo. Wow how fucked up am I? I can't make mental pictures! I shush my inner workings to focus on the image. White, surrounded by black, in a background of white: what the fuck is it? An angel?
I broaden my horizon by separating my lids, hoping for inspiration to speed up the gap-filling process. I see nothing but a light blue curtain. Nothing except Shego slumped in her seat looking like she just came out of a car crash and into a lobotomy. I could kick myself: it's Shego! An angel indeed.
I shake my head briskly to rid the conflating notions of 'Shego' and 'creamy sweetness' to encounter regret at my actions. "Ugh, my head."
Space-case aroused, she piques "What are you, hung over now too?"
"What? So not. What happened?" And why am I hospitalized?
"Well Boozy, you got poisoned and now you're not!" Shego shifts uncomfortably in her seat, "Sorry 'bout that by the way. She's really a good companion to have, she was just scared." Like a parent making excuses for her child's misbehavior. Amused, I chuckle. Oh yeah, Shego would make an awesome mom.
I calm and shrug, "Meh, I'm alive. I take it that's also your doing?" Predictably enough, she mutters about a rotting cadaver in her living room being unappealing.
"It was solely out of selfishness. Besides, I'd appreciate it if you left at some point."
I smile in earnest, "Thanks anyways Shego, you could've flew my corpse halfway around the world. If not taken it to the dumpster."
She feigns an skeptical look, "Have you seen your ass?"
"I hate you."
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"You love it."
My dear human friend ignores my taunt, faking a deep interest in the drape around us. "How long was I out?"
"18 hours. It's now a shiny Friday 8-is-too-early morning. Your mom came by yesterday 'round 7. I hid under your bed. The doctor treating you told her you could go pretty much right after you woke up."
"Oh." She thinks a moment. "So why a whatever-kind-of-snake-she-is anyway?"
I smirk, "Sri Lankan Viper." As for why… My bravado wavers in an uncertain breath. "Out of irony I suppose." I don't know if I want her to take an interest in my past or let me hide behind my cloistering walls. Of course she would pick the former. It would've been a shame to have let my walls down, to bring them back up, then let them down again, kill her, bring 'er back, and then put them up. Just stop thinking. "I got her a few years after that rainbow-colored comet. Hego showed you the video right?
"I was barely a teenager," I continue without her reply, "one who just finally got used to getting her period. I'm not familiar enough with it to tell you exactly how it works, but between the sensitive time of my hormones and the unchecked radiation still boiling through my cells." My monologue stumbles and I pause for a breath. "I got my baby hatchling a few weeks after my sweet 16, a present to myself, kind of like a consolation prize." I stop hedging the topic, raising my eyes to lock onto olive. "That's about the time I stopped getting my period altogether."
She gasps in dismay but I don't want her pity. "So you mea-"
"I'm sterile. Doc Jay confirmed it soon after I started with 'Drakken', medical premiums and all. Eggs are all sunny-side up." I rub my lower belly self-consciously. "When you asked how I knew so much stuff about pregnancy and I told you I was bored? That was only partially true. I mean I learned some from my mom when she had Wegos 'cause I was her only daughter, wanted me to be prepared." I chuckle humorlessly. "At least she never found out I'm an empty nest." Confusion brewing in her eyes, I answer her questions before they're aired. "Died of space radiation - cancer - some 5 months later; Dad too. I was still sort of having my cycle so I pretended it was irregular. Birth control wasn't so popular for regulatory practices at that time so she just let it rest. My brothers and I never got cancer because we were in the center of the blast and it burned itself out for the most part."
Stunned to silence, I wonder if I should tell her horror stories to shut her up more often. I would totally run out of stories, I'd have to make up new material and she'll figure something's not kosher when the same thing happens several times over in very different ways. She breaks the eye contact and shuffles on her cot. "Thus began my rebel stage. I wasn't green most of the time at first 'cause the plasma would discharge itself so it never really stored, which probably didn't help matters any. I got the hang of it, more or less, around 15 so when I started charging up, everyone just assumed I was using freaky body paints more often. Probably didn't help my ovaries much either." I shrug, lo que será, será.
"I'm sorry…" she whispers and I'm unable to wave it off. "I didn't know." I hold her gaze once more. Well, that's because I never told you, doy. "But why a pit viper?"
"Oh, right. The irony part: I'm barren, but if I choose to bring in a mate for her, my reptile would bear live offspring. Therein lies my sardonicism."
"Alright, now I think you're just playing me. Snakes have eggs." She's cute when she's confused.
"So do we, Princess." She's about to protest, but I trod on. "Viper is derived from Latin words for I live and I give birth." I groan as I stand and work knots out of muscles that cramped from slouching in one spot for too long. "Don't worry, I won't tell your mom you overlooked the egg thing. She's coming in a while so I'm gonna take off."
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And so I let her leave. I can't believe my mom scared Shego away. Maybe it's because of her own parents…
I grab the glass of water to stifle the thoughts, knowing Shego wouldn't appreciate the connections I'm implying. I have no right to pry. Of course I do! I'm her friend, and that's just what friends do - they pry! I hope we're friends again: she wouldn't have saved me if we weren't. Right? I… kind of don't want to know the answer to that one.
Thankfully, I'm interrupted by a knock. "I'm decent."
"Oh Kimmie! Thank the Lord you're okay." Mom rushes in and sweeps me into a bear hug. I mime sputtering until she loosens her hold to admonish me. "Stop that! I was afraid I'd lose you. I know your friend Serena said you were fine, but you were just so pale last night! I took your temperature and you were running a fairly high fever."
I narrowly stop myself from asking "Serena?" when I realize that Shego must've talked to her. "I'm fine Mom, can we go home now?" I miss my bed.
Ever the doctor, she grabs my charts and flips through the papers. "Hmm, I shouldn't say for sure. What do you think, mother-daughter-bonding today?"
My mom just set me up… I give the only acceptable response while she dashes off to find the specialist. Well-played Mrs. Dr. Possible. Well-played. I should probably see about picking up tricks like that. Or from Shego. I wonder when we'll next see each other.
After the resident toxin authority dismissed me without much fuss (except to tell me not to play with venomous animals), I got dressed in real clothes and ditched out of there quick. "What did you have in mind for bonding?"
"Well Kimmie, I checked my schedule and I'm booked up until 11 tonight… but it's a weekend so you don't school tomorrow, and I have a day off tomorrow. What do you say to a night out, just us girls?" My smile falls a little and I'm quickly looking down the barrel to a set of round puppy-dog eyes. And the lip. She really went all out. Trick number one: hard and fast, preferably by surprise.
I pull on an easy grin, "Spankin'! Don't you usually spend your days off with Dad?"
"Now Kimmie, don't pass me off so fast," she starts. "It's true, your father and I try to match up our off-time so we can see each other, sometimes pretend it's the good ol' days when we were kids your age or so and didn't have to work all the time; but because of how short-handed the Space Center has been lately, he's been working more hours."
"Ah-ha!" I tease indignance, "you're just trying to wiggle into my plans since yours fell through!"
"Something like that, did you have plans? We can do that."
"No, I was just gonna go clubbing or something."
"Great, I'll see you at home and then we'll hit the town!"
Me and my big mouth.
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I hail a taxi back to the homestead. It's been a whacked-out 24 hours. I need to get some sleep.
My world skews slightly to the left and from the look out that window, the rest of the world is slightly taller than it used to be. Great, I jinxed myself. I pay the driver for the ride so far, tipping big since the time it'll take to fix that tire is time not driving passengers. Time is money, and damn does it talk loud. I'm close enough to hoof it.
I'll admit it, I'm a little shaken up by everything. First, almost killing Kimmie. Then talking about my parents. I remember when I was in high school I just pretended I was a runaway. No family, just nothin'. Mikey had graduated the year before, not that it would've mattered. Far be it for him to acknowledge his little sister. Goddamn being middle child for so long ruined him. Still, it wasn't long until I was lost to the cesspool of teenage apathy: where nobody gives two shits about anyone but themselves. It worked for me: I didn't want to think about it. Everyone left me alone anyway, since I was such a bitch.
I hated high school. The only similarity between me and the other kids. Soon after I got the 'Stang runnin', I graduated early with marks worthy of valedictorian. I got my diploma in the mail, since there was no one to watch me walk. Started college in the spring at the tender age of 17. Paperwork for GU was horrid: I was a dependent and Harry was a mess. It would've broken his tiny, oafish heart if I asked to be emancipated. Team Go, which I had hoped to be nothing but a bad memory, blossomed in popularity and I missed more of my Freshmen year than I would've liked. 10 months and a major birthday later, I quit Hego's goons. And went on to be someone else's goon. But it paid better, which is to say at all. Besides, I was head-goon. I became fully independent.
Work was hard at first, and I regretted not wanting a mask for the team. But I ditched my good-guy image and slowly built my rep. 'Cause of how the team fell apart without me, and how selfish people are, I was old news in next to no time. I did small-time freelance work for a while, but then I did a job for "Dr. Drakken: Soon to be Taker-Overer of the world" and he found the success so startlingly pleasant that he hired me on with a full salary. My first obligation was to scrap the lame-o business cards.
I push my key into the lock, pushing back a considerably-flimsy door and closing it behind me. Time flies when you're stuck in the past. I trudge my way to the shower and proceed to drench myself in scalding water, nary a worry in the world. Except a thought hits me like a sack of bricks thrown by a wrecking ball.
I never caught Wisp…
My hot bath turns into an icy hell in the starkness of this realization. Shutting it off, I tear out sans towel to continue ripping the place to shreds. I'm about to give up when I check the first place I looked for her: her terrarium.
Crossing my fingers and closing my eyes, I gradually step my way to the room until I know I'm right at the glass. That bitch: there she is. I pull her out again, ready to scold the reptile for all the good it would do. However before I have a chance to open my mouth, she quickly twines around me in a hug-wrap, draping across the front of my chest to rest her head on my shoulder. "Aww, how can I stay mad at you?" She flickers her tongue against my cheek: a kiss or an agreement? "Just don't do it again."
Another flicker.
