Perfect? (2008)


The lace itched.

Shego let out a deep annoyed growl as she looked at what felt like the hundredth wedding dress she had tried on... a nearly flawless beautiful cream colored gown. Off the shoulder woven in lace with ethereal translucent sleeves and a slit so high it could be deadly... but it itched... and just like others... it wasn't her. She felt like she had stepped out a perverse medieval fairytale.

She looked at her skin in the bright light of the dressing room.

Elf or whatever else is green?

She rolled her eyes.

I am spending too much time talking to my nerdy brothers.

She let out a sigh and grabbed another dress handing from her try on cart and hung it back up before looking back at herself in the mirror. She had tried on mermaid, and A-lines, even ballgowns. From silk to tulle, and from lace to patterns. The colors had varied from traditional to colored to darks and mixed... and nothing. Every dress she wore, modern or dated, expensive of sale... it didn't feel like her.

What do I want...

A thought that had plagued her sense they'd chosen to have a big wedding rather than simply skipping off to a court room... Drakken had taken care of mostly everything she'd wanted... the foods... guest list... decorations... and then had begrudgingly made the henchmen change it all when she'd changed her mind after not being able to sleep and spending too long dwelling on it. They both wanted it to be a spectacle... otherwise why have a lavish wedding... it was both for them and too irritate the people in their life by flaunting their good fortunes and happiness in their faces.

Her eyes fell down to her engagement ring, unique and specifically made just for her... large enough to shove in people's faces, delicate enough not to be obscene. A reminder of the fact her wedding was two weeks away and no dress had even made her feel little more than playing dress-up. When she'd voiced her concern about the dress to Drakken, who had already found the suite he'd planned on wearing three days after the wedding plans started... had looked concerned... and while she knew both were secure in their relationship, she did notice his careful wording of if she wasn't ready.

But she was. She was so ready to be married... it wasn't as if she hadn't hinted at it for months as Drakken prolonged his proposal to make sure it had been perfect... that she'd almost just told him they were getting married over a breakfast... but she hadn't... and she was glad she'd waited for him to do so.

So the though of postponing anything was out of the question... she just need to pick a dress and be done with it.

Taking a deep breath she began rearranging her rack from least annoying to absolutely not and held up one she'd tried on hours ago. It had been a more modern take on traditional. Thing embroidered lace on ivory with an off the shoulder look with a high pearl and lace collar. The sleeves a three teared bell from large to small and elegant V-shapes that hugged her hips and flurried out in an A-line bottom... she rolled her eyes and cringed.

What had she been thinking with such a modest and yet nearly sheer look.

Who was I even trying to be?

She snorted but the sound faded away as she looked at the dress... then the one she still wore... then back to the mirror.

Who am I trying to be?

Her eyes glanced over the dresses as she tore her eyes back from the mirror. Taking in the looks of each dress more carefully... there were some with asymmetrical features, high slits on some, more modest and full covered ones, two that were split and showed leg and midriff, four or five that had varied plunging necklines... none of them looked like the same bride was trying them on... not including the varied colors. Some even looked like she'd completely went with a princess theme and cut which paired horribly with what looked like a handful of sixties housewife with a veil.

Swiftly she began rearranging them again by style as if trying to find some sort of similarity... but nothing. As she let it sink in... a thought that had toyed with her over the years, more as of late if she was honest, began to surface. Outside of superhero, outside of villainy, outside of the public image she had cultivated carefully over the years... who was she really? Who was she trying to be?

A vintage white gown with a modest collar and long sleeves.

Ms. Go?

She held up a one sleeves two piece gown in a swirl of smoke gray and pale green.

Shego the Villain?

An asymmetrical dress with a ball gown bottom and a veil that thickly covered her face and framed it.

Shego the Superhero?

A low-cut mermaid gown that had fit her like a glove.

A Sexy vixen?

The fifties and sixties ones that looked more akin to office work or a Sunday brunch with a veil flitted through her fingers along the rack.

She found herself sitting down on the platform she had previously stood on, finding this dress no longer just itchy, but the lack of material on the skirt made her aware of the chilled the platform held even with the multitude of lights.

The weight falling on her pushed that concern aside as she sat there... her eyes focused on the women in the mirror. Long dark haired in waves, piercing green eyes, sharp features, and skin an unpleasant hue in this light. She did what she hadn't done in years and closed her eyes, imagining who she would have been without powers, without the path she'd chosen... if she'd just been able to exist... no deaths and no commits. Pulling back memories of who she had a vague recollection of who she was as a child. Full of love, and dreams, and snark that was less mean and more tease. Tried to imagine growling up with normal school, and friends, and simplicity. Pushing forward to imagine that women sitting here and choosing a dress.

Would she be here?

Shego opened her eyes and looked down at her hand. Attempting to weave a world where this would be the ring on her finger and the man tied to them would even be there. She could weave her own story to make it happen, but to make it possible... it would mean changing Drakken's path too... changing him.

While sometimes she wanted to scream at him for doing something so nerve wrackingly idiotic or roll her eyes at his long tangents she'd hear three more times that week... she didn't want to change him. She liked how chaotic he was at times and spontaneous... was amused how expressive his features became when he would ramble the third speech he'd already spoken... imagining him having become a successful engineer or something mundane just seemed to feel like crushing him in a way.

The same way she knew she would have felt if she wasn't putting herself through this thought of make believing she wasn't who she was. She shook her head and waved off the rack, instead taking to searching for her own dress. The shop was closed save for a few attendants whom had been hired to wait on her so she could have her choice of designer dresses at her will.

She paused at the long line of halls filled with dresses and took a deep breath.

Shego didn't know what she wanted but she was determined to find a dress that was hers and hers alone.


She wasn't even sure her shoes were even in the hovercar and she had no immediate plans to look for them as she and Drakken sprinted down the hallways of resort they'd just reached. It wasn't their official honeymoon destination but since it was late and they needed a place to lay low... it would have to do. Whether there was any BOLO's for two people in wedding attire on a chaotic spree... neither knew, but as they spun around the corner still holding hands... she knew neither wanted to spoil their fun evening.

The wedding had gone off perfectly and elaborately... or at least as far as she was aware. There had been some questionable things they'd both noticed during the reception, but that had been earlier and this was now.

Both laughing mischievously as Drakken fought with the keycard fighting back the laughter that wanted to burst. The door opened and Shego went to step through.

"Wait," Drakken blocked her, "I believe there is a custom?"

Pausing for a moment, she smirked and moved swiftly to try and knock Drakken off his feet.

"This is not what I meant," Drakken protested as he fought against her picking him up.

Their tussle had resulted in both dropping each other, a solid collision of their heads, and eventually a Flower appendage yanking both of them into the room with a loud slam. In which they hurriedly tried to hush their words and noise at the sound of doors in the hallways opening. It had lasted several seconds before the two made eye contact and the laughter resumed.

"You know, it's still our wedding day for another hour... shall we continued our spree in the resort?" snickered Shego.

"Whose car are we placing in trees this time?" he retorted.

"Choose a color and wing it?" she suggested.

There was a series pause as they looked towards the closed window as if trying to see through it to the parking lot.

"The pool did seem rather empty without a center piece," mused Drakken.

They looked at each other with mirrored amusement before another bout of laughter erupted. Shego knew they were not going to continue their petty antics of revenge and amusement now that they had reached their place for the night, but the idea still lingered. The tears slipping out of her eyes from all of the cheer was sure to have ruined any remaining makeup, water proof or otherwise. Drakken looked a mess with his hair half pulled back and sticking out more than usual, and given the volume of the now unpinned hair on her own head, she knew the hairspray and gel had broken loose. Her once perfectly white dress made of lace was now dirty and smelled of chlorine and green grass stains ran along the bottom... and Drakken's attire had been beaten a fair-share and was singed in some parts.

Perfect.

Her thoughts about the ordeal of needing everything a way she herself hadn't figured out... returned... but there was no unease or concern anymore. It as she lay laughing in their honeymoon bed about the antics of their chaotically criminal evening... it clicked as Drakken's arms wrapped around her as their laughing began to fade... it hadn't mattered the turmoil of the dress she'd struggled to choose... nor the decorations... not the elaborate expense of their over-the-top wedding hours prior... there was no expectations of what either of them now had to be or what they should be... and definitely the dress hadn't mattered.

"Have I ever told you have breathtaking you are?" the coy smirk across his lips made her smirk.

"At least several times today," she hummed, "But a few more are always welcome."

With a snort of amusement his lips found hers and it wasn't long before the dress and the evening became a far off thought and worry that had never needed to be.

She was her. He was him.

It was how it was perfectly meant to be.


A little wedding snippet for future stuff...