After Rufus slapped-well, pawed-him for the thirteenth time, Ron realized that he was still in the building. In much the same manner as when he'd faced self-destructing nuclear silos, he was suddenly gripped with an urge to flee. Far from just leave, he had to book out of there.
He shuffled to his feet, pulling his hairless friend from his shoulder. His gait quickened from a shamble to a brisk power walk in around five seconds, though the walls were a blur at any speed. He was only vaguely aware of a change of surrounding when he felt sunlight slap his face. He'd have truly enjoyed the opportunity to take in the sights, and perhaps calm his thought, but damn all if his brain wouldn't stop talking.
Several things, to him, were sick and wrong. Monkeys, especially in people clothes. His grandma's proclamation last thanksgiving that she thought she was "foxy." Just about any item on the news that he happened to catch.
But this…event that he had witnessed, for the most fleeting of times, defied a name. It was beyond thought, almost beyond memory. Suddenly, forcibly, the image of glistening female bodies flashed into his head.
He wailed and threw his forehead at a telephone pole. Rufus, alarmed, chattered at him from his leg.
"You didn't see that, did you?" Ron asked without moving his eyes.
"Nuh-uh". The rodent responded, using actual human words.
Ron didn't know why he asked. What did it matter? Not like a hairless rodent would give him any help at all in handling this…this thing…it was amazing, he stopped himself. I can quip at a laser nearly lobotomizing me, but when I see two girls doing…it…especially when one is…
There was an unsettling tingle in his stomach. He couldn't, COULD NOT, picture that yet. He had to move his thoughts elsewhere. He looked around. He had somehow gotten a full mile from school. Only one to go till he was home. His head snapped from place to place. It was all the same stuff, the same things he had seen for three years. All so much more predictable than…no.
He didn't care. He'd find something. His eyes settled on a house that was actually made of brick. Well, that was uncommon in these days of faux-"wood" plastic. What kind of family lived in there, he wondered vainly. It was large enough, one could easily imagine a happy nuclear family living there, perhaps housing a doting old grandma in a side room. They probably ate dinner at the table, this family. Probably woke up early for Christmas, but pretended to sleep just to preserve the tranquillity. Yes, a happy family. Maybe even did breakfast-in-bed birthdays (no), where the birthday boy or girl (no!) would be granted a meal as they woke to the morning sun. The one day they'd walk into the daughter's room and find she'd already ate…NO!
He wanted to scream. He needed to. He always did when he was scared. Or worried. Usually it didn't make any difference if he was in a crowded street, like right now. But he couldn't. He couldn't even open his mouth.
Don't think. That was the only advice the world-class crying shoulder could think of. Don't think of water and bodies and rubbing and…just. Don't. Think.
So he didn't. He just walked. He turned the corners he always turned, and pressed the crossing buttons he always pressed. Only the slightest of notions or ideas floated through his brain.
Alas, it was not to be. He was at the last crosswalk, his brain only taking the time to tell the difference between red and green. The agent of his undoing sidled on up to him in five-inch heels.
He didn't know her, this mascara enthusiast. And, in the purest sense, she didn't know him. But she did have a TV at home. And she had, on her way to the mall, caught sight of a thirty-second news story highlighting the boy hero who had saved the greater East Side of Denver with the help of a rat. So, all told, it was probably just as well that it was only this sort-of stranger that stepped on a mental land mine.
She leaned over for a second to take in his features. Intrigued, she pushed her gum into her cheek.
"Excuse me, are you that R…"
"WHAT IN THE FUCK WAS THAT?"
There were precisely four seconds in which Ron stared at her face, not knowing what he said. Then the light changed. He sprinted the rest of the way home.
Judy Stoppable could only just reach the vanilla extract. She actually made a thump when she leaned back from the spice cabinet. This was what teen-aged sons were for.
She heard the door open. Speak of the devil…
"Hello, Ronnie…"
Another door positively assaulted its framing.
"…dear." She finished. She was sure that was a bad sign.
But what did she know? He was a teenager.
He paced around the room several times, dropping his backpack without much thought. Doing a lot of things without much thought. He put Rufus on his desk and pulled off his sweater from under his shirt. He stopped for a minute to consider calling someone, anyone up. Now was not the time, the twinge in his stomach told him. He looked out the window, not seeing any thing. Then he just stood for a while. He noticed his legs were the slightest bit tired. He sat.
"Um." He thought profoundly. "I wonder if it's okay to think again?"
He tried it. He was almost certain that he was on a tangent about sweaters. His brain, however, was not.
Try as he might, the only thing occupying Ron's Stoppable's mind was the sight of Kim Possible engaged in lesbian sex with Bonnie Rockwaller.
"Yep. No thinkee for me."
He lay back and stared at the ceiling. It held no images.
Evil took a break that day. And so it was that Kim only called once, around five. Two hours later, Ron noticed horribly.
"Ronnie, it's Kim!" his mother's voice came from downstairs. He sat up. Was he up to this? His mother's footsteps could be heard coming up the steps. "She's on the phone!" She felt she had to clarify.
Oh, yeah. I'm Ron Stoppable. No problem at all. He poked his head out from the door and took the phone before his mom could make eye contact.
"Hey KP!" Nothing was wrong at all.
"Hey Ron. Sorry I was late"
Oh, don't worry. You were only sticking your hand in another girl. "Oh, don't worry KP."
"Yeah, had one of those, y'know locker room days."
"Well, we all have our things." Ron recalled that Kim had been having "locker room days" since seventh grade and nearly threw up.
"So, you aren't mad? 'Cause I kinda blew you off."
For sex. With a girl. "It's no big, seriously. If I freaked out every time you did something weird, I'd have had a heart attack by now." Or yelled at a totally undeserving person in the street.
"So, you wanna hang out?"
And NOT talk about Bonnie? That'd be just ducky. Sadly, his survival instincts kicked in.
"Sorry, Kim, big assignment," he blurted, "gotta do a fourteen pager for grammar, you know, so I'm gonna be busy, what with the writing and the re-writing and the brain rotting, so you'd best call tomorrow." He beeped the phone off, and fell back on his bed, likely thinking the same thing Kim was.
He hadn't had a grammar class for four years.
Dinner went by easily enough. His dad asked how Ron's day at school was, and Ron, in turn, didn't drop one double entendre. He hadn't actually said much of anything, but they really didn't seem to mind, as his dad was excited about a shift in middle management that day and spent the whole time talking about it.
Ron supposed that was lucky, but then he was really reaching for silver linings tonight.
He passed the rest of the evening in his room, claiming simply "homework." This was actually a common hang-up for Ron, so nobody got suspicious. Nobody human did.
Rufus, on the other hand, was a bit confused when Ron took him out of his backpack when his fur-less friend started digging for this supposed homework. "Don't bother, little buddy."
Rufus made a questioning little squeak.
"I don't have any homework. WHO would give me homework three weeks before summer, anyway?"
He puffed his chest out and tried his best to bury his eyes with his forehead.
"Well, yeah, there is Barkin. But he's been a bit overloaded with the whole 'school budget/emergency jet thing. '
"Cheap." Rufus cheeped.
"Yeah, I know! He's been on a mission before! He should know how busy Kim gets!"
His mind stopped again. Busy. Getting busy. He put his head in his hands and sighed.
Rufus placed a paw on his hand and made a concerned sound.
"It's nothing, man. Just… you know how I'm prone to freaking out?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, today I saw something that, I'll be honest, really bears freaking out over."
Rufus mimicked Ron's gait as he ran across the desk.
"Yeah, that's why I was doing that."
"Ah-ha." He responded. Then he waited for the rest.
Ron blinked. Then he realized what he was getting at. "I'm not gonna tell you! It's…private!"
Like that would work. Rufus lived in his pants.
"Fine, fine just don't…don't tell anybody." He stopped to actually chuckle. Couldn't get through that with a straight face. This part, however…he took a deep breath.
"Hysawkimanbuniedoot" He rushed.
"Huh?" That was less intelligible than anything the pink one had ever managed, and that was saying something.
Ron tried again. "I…" Okay, okay stop. Breath. Go. "Saw Kim. And Bonnie…you know Bonnie, right?" Rufus faked a runway walk, invisible Gucci bag and all. "Okay. Well they, Kim and Bonnie, who hate each other, and who I was almost certain wanted to kill each other, they…they…"
Rufus gasped. He ran a mole-rat finger across his throat in the "kill" sign.
Ron faltered. How to explain? "They were doing it." That was pretty good, he figured.
"…It?"
Or not. "It's complicated."
"Guess so." Rufus squeaked.
It was complicated in more ways than one, Ron discovered later. After flipping through an old magazine and then trying to find something decent on the radio, he decided to go to bed a half hour early. After all, sleep might've made this whole thing easier to figure out.
He pulled the covers over his body, and about ten minutes after falling asleep, he turned onto his face, an unconscious habit. It was not a habit for him to shoot bolt upright afterwards.
"Ow! What the hell?" Sitting up, he readjusted his pajama bottoms. Then he realized what he had rolled over on.
He couldn't.
The sheets flew aside. He did!
Almost like a reflex, he punched the ignorant organ. "Dammit!" he cursed in the dark. Not one of his smartest moves, he had to admit.
But not an undeserved one!
"That was so not sexy!" he whispered to himself, "it is the opposite of sexy! Negative sexy!"
He rolled back over, whimpering just a little. How could this be? You weren't supposed to get erections from things burned into your brain! If anything, this was something that should've killed his sex drive!
He searched his brain for something to put the blood back in his head.
Grandma? Monkeys? Gill? Gill's grandma who was a monkey?
That nearly worked, but the wrinkly-scaled monstrosity just morphed into a naked Kim, who went right back to kneeling under Bonnie…
This isn't happening, he told himself. I don't care how much of a pervert my subconscious is, I am a man, and I have self control. And I refuse to picture my best friend in any kind of sexual situation!
…again, he added without thinking about it.
Letting loose an aggravated half-shout, he got out of bed. He would find some way to keep his mind off the subject if it killed him.
He brazenly marched down the stairs, not totally concerned about his parents waking up. Sleeping like a rock was an understatement in their case, as the several times he'd been dropped off by helicopter, hovercraft, or a truck on its rims attested.
He arrived in the kitchen and flung open the refrigerator. The only things he had to work with were a half-bottle of chocolate syrup, four, maybe five cups of Mountain Dew, some whip cream in a can, and a slice of pie, possibly cherry, wrapped in tin foil. The pantry wasn't much more help, offering only garden variety sugar, cake frosting mix, and no more than a milligram of sprinkles. He swayed on his feet a little and resolved that he'd have to make due. His bed was a battlefield, and his hormones would be the enemy if he dared return. He gathered what he needed and spread it on the table.
Rubbing his face, he tried formulating a recipe. The image of Bonnie's tongue flashed in his mind twice. No time for cooking. The blender was his only hope. He plugged it in and hastily gathered his supplies before stopping himself. Think, mister Home-Ec! You need something for all these additives to add to, idiot!
He looked in the back of the freezer for some ice cream. A forgotten carton of vanilla sat near the back. It was old enough, it could've been frostbitten. Thankfully, there were a few scoops left. He quickly popped them in, and added the rest in careful, methodical fashion. Somehow, as the idea of adding vinegar came up, his mind foolishly observed he had gone nearly ten minutes without picturing Kim and Bonnie naked, which of course led to him picturing Kim and Bonnie naked. He panicked and hit the frappe button.
You're not helping! he cursed to his brain.
So it was that he leaned over the blender and expectantly observed the swirl and churn of the coagulating mixture. When he felt the looming presence of a Kim, Bonnie, or even female-related thought, he began to hum a few bars from a random Tenacious D song under his breath.
It would be to his eternal gratitude that he only had to run through "Wonder Boy" ten times.