If I don't update next weekend, it probably has something to do with an ugly wildfire. *shrugging*
Anywho. This one's a little… *waves hand in a so-so way* ...but I promise I have my reasons.
36. Aura of Others – 9
She really should have argued, she decided, thumping her head back against the headrest of her seat as they reached her neighborhood. "Keep driving," she groaned. "Please." She didn't want to be at the lair with the henchmen cracking jokes and whispering shady rumors, but she didn't want to be at the crummy apartment either – particularly when there was a familiar jeep just now pulling up to the curb.
"Why?" asked Drakken, oblivious.
Shilo scowled at the jeep parked under the streetlight ahead, narrowing her eyes on the single occupant. After a suspicious glance around, up toward her apartment, down the sidewalk, and in the mirrors, she finally deemed it safe to pop open her door.
"Mickey came alone," she muttered to herself, and took a deep breath for confidence as she disembarked from the van. She opened her mouth to bid Drakken a farewell when he cut the engine, and instead she quirked her brow back at him as he stepped out onto the street. "What are you doing?"
Drakken met her on the sidewalk and frowned at the jeep at the end of the block before his dark gaze slid back to her. "If you're going to get up to trouble, I'd like to stay informed," he said quietly, and shrugged as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "But if you need privacy with the pretty boy over there, just say the word and I'll take my leave."
Mickey was climbing out from behind the wheel of the jeep now, brandishing a pizza box that steamed in the autumn chill.
Shilo decided then to grab Drakken by the elbow to pull him toward her apartment. Not because she needed backup should she find herself in another fight today, but so her getaway driver couldn't leave without her in the event she really needed to avoid her old neighborhood friends.
"Mickey's...alright," she tried to promise, daring not to glance back at the pretty boy calling her by name. Even among her own family, she'd been all too frequently called by her hero alias. Hearing her name from an old friend made her throat tighten. She wasn't sure if she liked the sound of it or not.
"If he's so alright, how come you don't stop and see what he wants?" reasoned Drakken.
She made the mistake of shooting back over her shoulder, "Because whatever it is, Prissy put him up to it." She caught a peek of Mickey past Drakken, curled her lip, and turned for the staircase. While Mickey had never been as close a friend as she would have liked, he'd been close enough, and Priscilla was rubbing salt in a wound sending him to act as some kind of a mediator.
"Wait up a minute, will ya?" called Mickey from the bottom of the staircase, and Shilo couldn't help gritting her teeth. "I just want to talk. I brought pizza! No anchovies!"
She fumbled to find her keys, but didn't wrench the door open in time before Mickey reached the landing. Drakken was the only thing standing between them, and he paled in comparison – literally. Tanned, broad, and brawny, Mickey could toss Drakken over the railing single-handedly if he so wished, but tossing her chosen company out of his way wouldn't be the best way to get back on her good side.
Drakken shrank back from the strapping young man with the build of a henchman, but in doing so he took Shilo by the shoulders and practically pushed her inside. "No solicitors today, please, thank you," he said in a hurry. He didn't seem that keen anymore to meet Mickey now that he had an up-close look at him.
Planting her feet stubbornly, Shilo twisted to glower back at the old friend trying to get a foot in the door. She didn't have a chance to shake Drakken off or shove him safely inside the dark apartment when chilly fingers caught her by the wrist, and her eyes popped wide as a tingle was left in the wake of pursed lips on her knuckles. She half-expected her visitor to drop her hand and reel as if he'd been shocked by static – or maybe burned by fire – but as always, good ol' Mickey only stood straight and smiled, her hand gently held in his paw.
She gawped at him until Drakken's voice cut through, calling her name, but even as he hit the lights and tried to pull her away, she found herself tightening her grip on the young man's hand and taking him with her.
"Good thing I got the large, huh?" said Mickey with a contagious smile and a nod toward Drakken. The warm smell of pepperoni wasn't the only thing that had her pulling him inside, but she couldn't put her finger on it – which was nothing new, strange as it was. Mickey had a certain special charm to him.
"Yeah," she muttered, and once Mickey was inside her apartment and had nudged the door shut behind him, she shook her hand free of his and unappreciatively shrugged Drakken's claw-like grip from her shoulder. "What is it you want?" She could barely muster the willpower to be suspicious, and a voice of frustration was muffled at the very back of her mind.
"Just wanna talk," he said. "Nothing else." It sounded like a lie, but he could sell her a bridge with a voice like his.
Her heart beat an unsteady rhythm and she shuffled past Mickey setting the box on the table, barely distracting herself with finding paper plates. "Uhm. Doc, Mickey. Mickey, Doc," she introduced, back to the two men in her apartment. She couldn't keep busy with plates for long, but she kept her eyes down as she deposited them on the table, as if that alone could really save her from Mickey's spell.
"We were neighbors," provided Mickey. "And we used to be friends. Right, Shi?" He cast an almost puppydog look toward her as he pushed the pizza box her way to take the first slice. He didn't sit down. No one did, for that matter, all three of them choosing to stand awkwardly around the table.
"I guess," she grumbled, taking a slice of pizza that never made it to her plate. She took a bite and spoke around it, Mickey's charm wearing off as a glare finally worked its way onto on her face. "Until you quit talking to me too."
"It wasn't us," Mickey defended. "It was—," his eyes darted to Drakken and back, and he shook his head. "It was your new group of friends."
"They were not my friends," she hissed back. She wished she had some soda to gulp down. "You guys knew that. You were the only ones who knew that!" She'd scream it if only she could find the rage to blow up with. The inexplicable calm she felt in his presence was enough to infuriate her all on its own.
"You know what I mean. Once you got involved with them, you didn't have time for us anymore," grumbled the man frowning sullenly at his pizza. He nodded to Drakken suddenly, and wondered, "Does he know about them? I mean, he's gotta, right?"
"Them?" inquired Drakken. He just couldn't keep his mouth shut. Shilo suddenly wished he weren't here after all.
"Those yahoos with Global Justice," she answered with a roll of her eyes.
"Ah." He tentatively reached for a slice of pizza and inspected the toppings as if expecting to find it laced with poison. A half-smile almost made it onto Shilo's face, watching him check the food over suspiciously with the same distrust she'd had of his cooking when she'd returned from Go City some weeks ago.
"It wasn't our fault we drifted apart," Mickey went on. "When you came back, you had a new name, you had no time for us, and you had people watching your every move. You turned into a nark."
Drakken snorted on an incredulous laugh and Shilo shot him a glare that silenced him.
"I was not a nark," she defended. She realized the old friend had stepped closer, but she couldn't bring herself to step back even as she struggled to glare up into his eyes.
"When we found out you weren't Shego anymore, we figured it was safe to come see Shilo," said Mickey, standing decidedly too close. She nearly dropped her plate, but he set it aside, one heavy hand landing gently on her shoulder and a soft hypnotic smile on his face.
Dr. Drakken's arched brow in her peripheral was barely enough incentive for her to push the paw off.
"It doesn't change anything. What she did was unforgivable," she barely stuttered out, barely holding fast to her resolve. Before Mickey could open his mouth in the girl's defense, she vehemently added, "You don't know the half of it." Priscilla Kimbley had done Shilo Gough more wrong than she cared to recount – much more than moving in on some playground crush and abandoning her when she needed a friend the most. She couldn't prove it, but Shilo was positive the girl had played a part in dragging Shego's name through the mud and putting her family in undue peril on more than one occasion. Just thinking about it was almost enough for fire to flare in her palms without her say-so.
"We just want a chance to be friends again," swore Mickey, hands up as if in peace. "We're trying to make up here."
She didn't want to buy into it, even if irrationally compelled to. "What?" she croaked, and swallowed and tried again, skepticism barely rising to the surface. Just want to be friends again – what a load! She wracked her brains for some other reason and scoffed. "What did my brothers promise you? Participation trophies? A pat on the back for convincing me to go home? Give it up."
The appeasing look on Mickey Goldsmith's face dissolved quickly, replaced by a frown. "Hey, if they wanted me to bring you back to Go, they'd have to cough up the dough first, babe. Plus, I wouldn't have to waste time bringing you pizza to sucker you into anything when I could do it with one finger," he arrogantly claimed. His single raised finger wagged in her face wasn't the least bit threatening.
She felt like she was only going through the motions when she snorted and set her hands on her hips, barely mustering up an inkling of the alien heat that so often came hand-in-hand with the anger she could really use right about now. "What's that supposed to mean? Think you can just throw me over your shoulder or someth—" Her trap shut, and it wasn't entirely because Mickey placed his finger over her lips, leaving her mouth tingling.
Before she knew what had happened, her knees were weak. Everything was weak. Or maybe she wasn't weak, but rather incredibly relaxed. Practically fainting on the spot, her legs buckled and she slumped forward, her limbs too useless to even catch herself, so Mickey did that for her, wrapping her up in his arms as if to bear-hug all objections out of her. Resisting was the last thing on her mind as the blissful warm tingle engulfed her. There was no better judgment left to be had. She let out a contented sigh and melted comfortably against the chest of the once-friend sweeping her off her useless, useless feet. It should have been concerning at the very least, but there was something profoundly calming about Mickey Goldsmith that worked wonders every time. She'd never given it much thought before. There'd always been other factors involved.
Drakken's furious demand, "What did you do to her?" didn't belong in the same room. It couldn't possibly when she was this blissfully at ease.
"Don't worry about it," answered Mickey calmly, not a care in the world. As it should be. "She's perfectly fine."
Shilo felt gravity working against her to pry her from his grip, but she was stronger than gravity and stubbornly held on tight enough to defy it. Mickey sighed and sat with her in his lap instead, her bedsprings creaking protest beneath his weight.
A very distant fear of being drugged ragged at the very back of her mind, but she couldn't keep a clear head long enough to recall if Mickey had eaten a slice of pizza too or not, or if Drakken had, but those worries soon dissipated. She was more concerned with the dopy laugh she couldn't keep from bubbling out of her, and though she swore it should have humiliated her, she didn't burn up with alien fire.
As the effects began to ebb ever so slightly, there was something increasingly familiar about the sensation. "You did this before," she said, or maybe slurred. "Back when we used to veg out at your place." The effects were wearing off that much quicker. "I thought it was just the weed." Granted, she couldn't recall being this sedated before.
Mickey had gone tense, too tense for her liking. He cleared his throat lightly, and a hand was rubbing her back. "Uh, yeah. It's relaxing though, isn't it?"
She hooked her chin over her friend's shoulder and tried to nod. "It is," she agreed. How could she not?
"What is?" sputtered Drakken nearby. "What's relaxing? What just happened?" The concern in his tone was unwarranted in her opinion, but no one was asking her.
"You should lie down for a bit," Mickey suggested, and it was the last thing she heard before her head hit the pillow. Lulled by the soothing warm tingle Mickey's hand on her shoulder left behind, her eyelids slid shut before she knew it.
When flickering light and muffled sound pulled her back from the vulnerable state of unconsciousness, she cracked her eyes open to the television playing some space documentary, the drone of the narrator almost enough to put her back to sleep. On the rug nearby sat a man disappointingly smaller than Mickey, but Drakken's familiar shoulders and unkempt hair was a sight for sore eyes nonetheless. She reached futilely out to him before letting her hand drop and hang over the edge of the bed. Green sparks glittered down to her fingertips when the wish to pull him up to her crossed her mind.
She must have groaned or something because Drakken tried to cast a glance back, although the television had him fixated. "Have a nice nap?" he asked anyway.
"The best," she answered wryly, though truth be told, she couldn't say it hadn't been. She rubbed her eyes with a fist until she saw more stars than the television offered. She froze mid-yawn and propped herself up on an elbow, a scowl fixing on Drakken suddenly. "What are you doing here?" she blurted.
"Making sure that guy doesn't come back," he grumbled. "I don't trust him."
She had no idea why she was inclined to mumble, "I do."
Drakken turned an incredulous look back on her. "After what he did?"
"What'd he do?" She raised her brow at him, and the longer he stared at her, the stupider she felt. Heat returned to her cheeks, and she flopped back in her bed, hands tucked in her armpits just to be on the safe side.
"I don't know! He just started shining – and then you collapsed and started babbling like you'd just had laughing gas," Drakken explained, and she could only grimace at his hand-flailing exasperation. He crossed his arms suddenly and slumped, back against the edge of the bed. "The guy said he didn't mean to overdo it. I don't know what he did, but I think he did mean to."
Shilo didn't bother trying to understand him. A trace of the high still hummed pleasantly through her veins. Instead she stretched hugely, from her fingers to her toes, and was too at peace to think twice when she sighed, "He's golden."
"Not what I would call him," grumbled Drakken. "More like very strange and not to be trusted. Not if he can – if he can do whatever it was he did to you."
She scoffed. "You mean help me relax?"
Suddenly Drakken was leaping up. She didn't miss his ears tinged purple. "Whoa! Alright, I don't need to know the details on that front," he announced decidedly, flapping a dismissive hand back at her. He stalked across the apartment to peek through the kitchen window. "I think you ought to come back to the lair tonight. You can crash on the couch, I don't care. Just whatever, until they go away, or we can figure out how to counter whatever it was he did." He stroked his chin and to himself he added in a mumble, "Adrenaline, maybe…"
"Don't overthink it, Doc," she called over, grudgingly hefting herself up. "The dude's just really chill to be around." She'd rather subject herself to Mickey than become a test subject again. The neighbor boy had helped her through some rough patches in her early days as Shego. She'd been under too much pressure back then to stop and consider the calm she felt with him in his basement might not have had anything to do with lavender candles or sharing a smoke.
Drakken frowned her way. "I'm going to have to trust your judgment on this, aren't I?"
"Yup," Shilo popped, her stare diverting away from him. She couldn't help noticing the time and sighing. "You should get going, busy man," she decided. She'd surely kept him long enough.
The idea didn't seem to appeal to him as he frowned toward the door. Nonetheless, he stepped towards it. "I'll swing by for you in the morning?"
Already seeking out pajamas in her dresser, she stifled another yawn and agreed, "Sounds good."
"Last chance to come home – I mean, back to the lair," stuttered Drakken, unlocking her front door. "Going once…twice?"
"I'll be fine, Doc," she swore, rolling her eyes and casting him a withering look. "Now beat it, before I blast you out." In an empty threat, she raised a hand oozing with plasma. Whatever determination to stay at the lair she may have felt earlier was gone now, but she didn't let it worry her the way it perplexed Drakken.
He peered back one last time before reluctantly leaving – only to step back in a second later to make her jump just as she'd been about to swap tops.
"What is it now?" she griped.
He pointed to the television. "Can I just finish watching this program?" He wore a sheepish grin, but she wasn't sold. One last withering look from her, and he ducked back out, forfeiting without a fight, "Okay, okay, I'm going. Goodnight."