I forgot to mention last chapter - but Priscilla Kimbley was based on my question, "Why they always call Kim by her full name?" It's almost as if there was a "Kim" before... I know it was just cartoon logic, and probably normal for other people in other places, but it just came off as strange to me...anywho, that's my explanation for that. Personal OC's make me shudder, so forgive me. Mickey however, is less of an OC and more of a side character I decided to utilize. *SWEATS*
Enjoy maybe~

35. Aura of Others – 8

"If they're going to cause trouble, you have my blessing to take care of them," said Drakken, stealing a last peek out the door before Shilo shut and chained it. She shot him a grimace but he gave her a twisted smile in return. "I can even help with dispose—"

Shilo gave him a sharp jab in the chest, hissing, "Not another word out of you."

Drakken stepped back, a look of genuine surprise frozen on his face before melting into one of questioning. "Just a minute ago, it looked like you wanted that girl dead?"

"Yeah, well, wanting her dead and wanting to beat the ever-loving snot out of her are two different things," she spat.

She whipped around to skulk back toward her dresser, grumbling if he had the time so she could set her useless digital alarm clock. It wasn't all that late after all – in fact, it was barely even noon, not that it came as any relief. She nearly busted the clock into a hundred molten pieces when Drakken dared to open his big mouth again.

"Shego, who are those people?"

"Nobody," she snapped, heat threatening to spark from her fingertips.

"I beg to differ, if they know you and your family," Drakken muttered, almost as if he didn't mean for her to hear. He cleared his throat and raised the volume then, but it did little to mask the nervous waver in his voice. The nervous fidget with his fingers was enough of a giveaway. "Reassure me, please, Shego, that they aren't going to become a problem."

She couldn't promise him that. "How about that foosball table, huh?" she said instead, hoping to dodge the subject of her disowned friends from her old neighborhood.

"You're not staying the night," Drakken sternly warned before she could even begin to look about for her go-bag.

Blowing a raspberry, Shilo's shoulders slumped. She grabbed his elbow to tow him back toward the door. "Fine. I just wanna get outta here."

She breathed a sigh of relief, glad the street was free of any sign of old jeeps – and devoid of any other vehicle besides Drakken's sorry white van, for that matter. Her unwelcome guests were nowhere in sight.

"You sure I can't spend the night?" Shilo grumbled from shotgun as she hesitated to buckle in. It would be nice if she could pack the overnight bag.

Drakken hummed, words trapped behind zipped lips for a moment until he glanced her way. "My mother did do a fair bit of snooping and – don't be mad – she may have peeked into your room," he admitted hesitantly. "Shego, have you been having trouble sleeping lately? Shego?"

When he called her name again, she realized she was holding her breath. Her hands felt warm, and the sensation began running up her arms and burning in the pit of her stomach. "No," she said quickly, diverting her stare from him to look out the passenger window instead.

"And I suppose it's just normal for you to burn through a mattress a month?"

"Drakken," she said tersely.

"Yes?"

"Shut the hell up."

"No," he objected. "If I have to make special arrangements for you, I need to know."

She swallowed dryly. "It's no big deal. I'm over it now," she swore. Drakken cast an unconvinced glance her way. As if it were proof, she added, "I haven't caught the couch on fire. Or anything else! Have I?"

"No," he admitted with a grimace.

"See?"

"But the other night you looked like you were about to when you lit up like a bunch of fireflies."

"That just happens sometimes," she defended quickly, and extended a hand toward him, stifled glow bubbling around it. "Besides, it's not always hot." She could really only hope it wasn't. She was already feeling pretty flushed.

Drakken peeked at her, to the road, and back to her before carefully reaching out bare-handed to touch her fingertips to see for himself. "It is a little warm," he muttered. If it was only a little warm before, then it was definitely warm as he took her hand, face scrunching as he analyzed her plasma while keeping his eyes on the road. "Feels…interesting. Almost like electricity, or—"

Deciding suddenly that she didn't need yet another scientist analyzing her, she retracted her glow and her hand, stuffing her fingers in her armpits. "I told you. It's not hot. No biggie. I'm safe to sleep on the couch." She bit her lip then. She was really only safe when she was under the influence of the narcotic, yet calling herself safe still felt like an insult to herself. "You trust me, don't you?"

"I do," he said quickly, as if it was mere reflex. "I'd just rather you not stay over too late tonight."

"Why?" she scoffed, hopeful for a change in subject. "You expecting another guest?"

His grin was feeble and his grip tightened on the wheel. "No. I'd like my me time, thank you. I have some experimenting to do and I don't need you laughing when it goes awry." He sounded certain it would.

"What kind of—"

"How about some Chow, hm?" Drakken interjected with a meek laugh.

Shego rolled her eyes and sighed, sinking back in her seat, which he must have taken as a yes. She didn't object.

Soon enough, all discussion of her little issue was put on the back burner. She was feeling right where she belonged, slouched in the computer chair in the lab with her feet kicked up on the desk of the mainframe, slurping on a strawberry milkshake and flipping through a magazine, soaking up the calm of the cave lair.

Occasionally she did peek across to Drakken running some sort of diagnostic tests on a newly built cannon, inwardly curious what he hummed or cursed about every few minutes. No sooner did she suck up the last drop of her ChowShake did Drakken peel off oily gloves to bounce up to her and request the empty cup. No man in his right mind should have giggled and run off with her garbage, but he was a self-proclaimed madman after all.

Curiosity again had her gaze straying from the magazine, only this time she'd swiveled the chair around to watch him gleefully set the cup atop an empty crate across the lab and hurry back to the polished cannon painted in hazardous stripes of black and yellow. "You might want to cover your ears," he called from across the lab, spinning the cannon about on its stand to aim at the paper cup.

Shego grimaced as it whirred to life, the hum of the device not unlike the buzz of a swarm of bees. Palms to her ears and magazine forgotten in her lap, she watched as Drakken twisted dials and pulled a couple levers, and she had to guess by the raised fingers that he was counting down from three.

He'd warned about the sound but he should have warned of the light too, though she should have expected that much. No respectable villainous contraption was complete without a showy blinding flash.

The cup was gone in the blink of an eye. All that stood in its place was a drifting mote of fine ash, and mere feet behind where it had stood was now scorched stone, the crater in the wall proving the flimsy paper cup was no match for the cannon.

Clearly Drakken was no match for it either, as he'd been knocked flat by the kickback. He sat up, a little wobbly, and reached for what was sure to become a welt from his head hitting the floor.

"Doc?" she called over. "Dr. D."

He didn't respond, though he did mutter a winded, "Gee whiz! What a doozy."

After a second of hesitation, she stood, tossing the magazine to the chair and crossing the lab to where the rogue engineer sat shaking his head.

"Dr. Drakken," she said one more time, taking a knee beside him.

He didn't seem to notice her at all until she set a hand on his shoulder, and finally he jolted and shot a surprised look in her direction. He was blinking rapidly and making a stupid face, probably trying to blink away the spots in his vision, and the cupped hand around his ear gave her a clue his ears were probably still ringing.

"You alright?" she asked, raising her voice.

He cracked a grin. "Never been better!" he chirped, his volume a little on the high side. He wasted no time digging in his coat pocket for his notebook, flipping it open and scratching down illegible notes as he muttered to himself, "Locking castors...turret...earmuffs, goggles...decrease the…"

Rolling her eyes, she tuned him out and left him to his note-taking. "Fantastic. Now you don't have to pay for trash service," she quipped, only a little disappointed he couldn't hear the remark.

Still blinking away the spots in her vision, Shego snatched up her magazine from the chair, deciding to retreat to the living room before he could give her hearing damage too or bring stalactites raining down on them.

No sooner had she plopped herself down on the couch and kicked her feet up on the cushions did she hear the door creak open. She waited for Drakken to tell her to get her shoes off his couch, but the disgruntled order never came. She peeked over the top of her magazine, and over the spine of the couch, but he was nowhere in sight, though the door had come open.

Several minutes passed before Drakken came shuffling in. "Door stays closed, Shego," he groused, kicking it shut behind him. Scowling at him, she half expected it to bounce back open to prove she wasn't at fault. "If the boys know you hang out in here, they'll all want to hang out in here."

She scoffed. "Dude, they already know." She could do without certain rumors, but it was frankly no big secret among the crew.

Drakken froze on his way to the kitchen. He reached to fidget with his fingers, that nervous tell of his again. "They do?"

"Doy. They're pretty dumb but they're not that dumb," she jibbed, leaning over the back of the couch as she watched him practically squirm. "But hey, I'd be happy to hang out with the boys instead if you want."

"No – no, I'd rather you not," he mumbled, making for the kitchen again.

"They're not a bad bunch," she defended lightly, only to grimace a second later at her own words. "Wow, that really doesn't sound right."

"Uhh, Shego?" called Drakken, concern in his tone as he drummed his fingers on the counter. "Where's my, uhm. My recipe?"

"Your what?"

"My recipe," he repeated, tapping the counter deliberately now. "I left it right here—"

"I haven't seen it."

He laughed nervously as he began searching the kitchen top to bottom. "You're not going to get brownie points from Joanne for this, Shego," he warned, though it sounded like a big fat lie. "It needed improvements and – and don't tell my mother that!" He even began opening the cabinets.

"I'll keep my eye out for it," she promised halfheartedly, though she wasn't particularly up for a wild goose chase of finding a lost recipe for oatmeal and maple pastries written on a simple slip of lined paper, according to Drakken's description.

The man was just kicking his complaints up a notch when she decided the season's fashion could wait. He was searching through a bookshelf full of cookbooks now, flipping through each page and griping that he was sure he left it on the counter, and in his frantic search he spilled a collection of hand-written family recipes he'd kept stored in one of the books.

She crouched to help gather them up as the purple-faced rogue haphazardly crammed as many as he could back into the book. "You have time to make all these?" she criticized.

Drakken snatched a few slips from her hand. "No, but I might eventually."

"Shrimp scampi?" she scoffed, looking one over. "Sounds pretty basic. That's gotta be in a cookbook already."

He shrugged. "One of my cousins swears by it," he grumbled, and snatched it too from her fingers.

"Sounds good. You should make it sometime. I haven't had it in forever."

"Well, maybe next weekend if we go to California, we can stop in at some seafood shack on the coast."

"You don't have to go to the coast for seafood."

Drakken balked, sputtering something incomprehensible before arguing, "Then what's even the point of seafood if you're not going to eat somewhere with fishnets on the walls, and, and, and those glass floaty things that go with them?" His brow knit and his patience waned, made clear when he snapped at her, "Nnng, Shego! You're distracting me. Go. Just go. Go play with the foosball table or something."

She didn't let him shoo her off so easy. She scooped up the last three loose papers, and barely caught the big letters scrawled across the top of one. "Hey. Oatmeal Maple Bars?" she read aloud.

"Let me see that!" Drakken practically scrambled toward her on his knees and made a grab for the slip. "How did – what?" Scowling, he ran his hand through his hair to scratch at his scalp as if it could help jog his memory. "I didn't put it here. I left it on the counter."

"Then why were you checking the bookshelf?"

"Because!" Drakken whined, not unlike a child in need of a nap. He looked like he could use one. "It was the last place I could think to look!"

"I didn't see you check your pockets," she noted.

He glowered. "Shego," he ground out, wagging an accusing finger at her. "You planted it there, didn't you?"

"What?" She was glaring at him now. "I didn't do shit."

"Well, it got there somehow."

"Maybe a ghost did it," she snorted, crossing her arms to be of no help as he stuffed everything back in place on the shelf.

He paused. "Maybe…no, that's absurd," he muttered with a shake of his head. "Well. Uhm." He cleared his throat and glanced back to her. He tried to force an awkward smile but it fell just as quickly. "Maybe it's time for a break," he said decisively. "How about a round of foosball?"

She agreed, if only to sate a curiosity and figuratively kick his butt for unfounded accusations.

The henchmen's rec room was deserted, which didn't say much for the entertainment the new table offered. Shego found the remote in the couch cushions – along with a handful of loose change and old popcorn – and flicked on the television, flipping to a channel broadcasting the top 40's in favor of a wrestling match.

"So. What do I get when I beat you?" Shego wondered as she met her blue companion gleefully spinning knobs.

His smile fell and a scowl hardened in its place. "A ride home," he answered bluntly and smacked another knob to send the figures pinwheeling in a blur. "But don't get ahead of yourself. You're going down, missy."

"So if I throw the match, I can stay?" she quipped, taking her spot across from him.

The man sputtered for a moment. "No!" he finally barked. "It just means you aren't walking home."

"How chivalrous."

Drakken gave a pensive hum as he positioned the ball. "If I win, what do I get?"

"Whadda ya want?"

He hummed thoughtfully again and shrugged halfheartedly. "Shrimp scampi at some tacky restaurant on the coast," he grumbled, fiddling a little too intently with the ball. He muttered something about his unprecedented seafood craving.

The abrupt bloom of warmth threatened to burn the grips on her side of the table, and she had to set her hands on her hips to be safe. "Are you asking me out?" she shot, a little more suspicious than intended. Suddenly her mouth was dry and her heart jumped into her throat, but she kept a critical scowl on her face and willed herself to keep her cool.

Drakken was dismissive. "Oh, no, I just want to get out of cooking shrimp. The whole heads and legs and looking like an insect thing really—," he shuddered. "Eugh. No thank you."

"Gee, now you've ruined shrimp for me too," Shego grumbled. Letting it go, she rolled her eyes and gave her little wooden soccer guys a dizzying spin. "So how's this work? How do you play this thing?"

Drakken paused and flicked a glance up at her past the rims of his glasses and back down again. "Um…I was hoping you'd know."

She gave him a withering look. "Way to pass the buck."

"Well, it's pretty straightforward. I think. We'll figure it out or make up rules as we go." A smile flickered across his face, the very idea of being in a position to make his own set of rules seemingly enough to delight him.

A man of simple pleasures, she almost mused aloud.

Maneuvering little men on sticks to knock a ball around wasn't necessarily tricky, though it gave Drakken trouble for the first few minutes – enough that his smile vanished and he grunted and grumbled irritation each time the ball got past his "army," as he called it. By the time Shego had made three goals – not counting the initial three that had proven to be an effortless straight shot – Drakken had his game face on and was beginning to put up a fight.

"I'll pay you to pretend I let you have that one," he grumbled across the table at her when the ball sailed past his last line of defense.

"Maybe it'll give you more incentive to win if we raise the stakes," Shego mused. "If you lose, I stay the night." Far, far away from those dreaded pills.

"And if I win, you tell me what's going on with you," he bartered.

Shego cocked her brow at him curiously. She didn't like the sound of that. She didn't have to ask him to clarify.

"You didn't light up last night," he explained with a nervous stutter. "You usually do. And then after finding your sheets all burnt to a crisp – well – if there's something wrong – or if there's anything I can do to help—"

"You can help by shutting the hell up about it," she snapped, fixing him in a heated glare. "There's nothing wrong with me, Doc. I'm fine." Suddenly the old fear of being reduced to a subject under observation in some shady lab came back to the forefront, but she held fast to her resolve to stay far away from the prescription she'd left at home. If he wanted to help her, he could just throw the match and get it over with.

Starting another round, Shego pressed, "If you win, you can pick the movie tonight. But I still get to stay. Capisce?"

The man grit his teeth, his stare locked on the ball being knocked every which way. "Nnng – yes, fine."

Shego made the mistake of glancing from the table to the glasses slipping off his nose, because the second she did, he seized an opportunity with a flick of a knob. Just as she made to kick the ball from her goal, her rod jammed, goalie stuck uselessly horizontal for a split second too long. That was all the opening he needed.

Drakken let out a triumphant hoot that dissolved into a cackle. "Ah-hah! What's the score now? Five to six?"

Suddenly she was inclined to count her first three goals after all. "As if! Try eight to six," she retorted, and watched his face fall.

His brow scrunched and he practically whined, "Wha—?"

"I play winner!" piped the voice of henchman Bobby.

Shego snapped her attention away from her opponent in time to see more henchmen filing into the room, and just like that, it was terribly stuffy. She barely convinced herself it was the stink of the men in overripe jumpsuits packing in.

One of the newer goons cracked a crusty grin and chuckled, "I think the winner's gonna take their winnings elsewhere, if ya catch my—"

Though he was a beanpole of a henchman, Bob shoved the brutish new guy a moment too late to shut him up. Even with his mask, Shego could see his eyes go wide as he realized it may have been a mistake to push one thug into another, because it began a chain reaction in the form of a brawl. One man slugged another, some bully grabbed Bob by an ankle to shake the change from his pockets, and Shego barely slipped by them all with a burning face and glittering hands hidden in her armpits. She didn't know how Drakken made it through the scrap unscathed, but he was winded when he caught up to her in the hall.

After a moment of silence and barely matching her pace, Drakken blew a raspberry and rubbed at his neck. "I think you ought to go home," he suggested, though it sounded like an order.

She didn't argue, agreeing, "Yeah," in reflex before she could remember why she'd wanted to stay at all.