"I give up." Ron wheezes between ragged breaths. It feels as though somebody has poured kerosene down his throat and set his lungs ablaze. With the last of his fading energy, Ron ambles into the shallows. He leans back and supports himself on his palms, water whipping around his abdomen.
At the sound of his defeat, Shego turns around, delicately wiping a wet strand of hair away from her eyes. Ron searches her face for some sense of fatigue, practically digging through her expression for it. Her breathing is as measured as ever though. Disappointed, Ron wonders whether Shego had been a swimmer in high school. Maybe there's a crutch somewhere in her past that he can use to prop his damaged ego up on.
"Well, you tried." Shego says in response, not even crowing. To Ron's surprise, her expression is open with light sympathy for his bruised ego.
Abruptly, Shego paddles forward, her arms drawing small lines through the water. Her wet hair is framing her face with loose ringlets; her big green eyes are focused on him. She closes in on him, first smirking and then slinging an arm around his shoulder.
"Maybe next time, tiger." She says.
Ron stiffens, turning to stare at Shego. He feels his jaw beginning to swing loose. It's with great difficultly that he managed to avoid gaping at Shego. She pays him no mind, shifting her arm and pressing her palm insistently against his back. When Ron blinks at her in confusion, Shego points toward her hovercraft. It's upstream, only a few minutes walk.
Jerking his head into a nod, Ron makes to push off his palms. A weight on his shoulder very nearly pulls him back down. Ron turns his eyes back to Shego. She's draped herself over his shoulder again, a self-satisfied smirk perched on her lips. Shifting his gaze away from her, Ron pushes off his palms with more force. She's evidently decided to hitch a ride with him.
After some careful navigation, Ron extricates himself and Shego from the water. Even then, with their feet beneath them, Shego's hand lingers on Ron's shoulder. He feels grateful that the night's long shadows make it almost impossible to tell that he's blushing.
Shego steps forward and Ron lurches along with her. She's watching the water ahead, eyes roaming across it in search of debris. It's rare that she's ever anything less than vigilant. They take several more steps forward. Ron shoots another anxious glance in Shego's direction. Though she's the one using him as a kickstand, he's still bracing himself for some kind of judo throw.
"So, we've eaten, we've gone swimming, I've stubbed my foot on a rock. What's next, Stoppable?" Shego punctuates her question by drumming her fingers across this shoulder.
All of a sudden, Shego's inexplicable proximity makes more sense. He's a friend and an acquaintance; he's also a crutch. A hollow feeling accompanies that realization. He ruthlessly smothers that bleak emotion and everything that it signifies.
When the wind blows a chill through Ron's bones, he's almost grateful. It gives him something to focus on and something to say.
"Drying ourselves off and setting your hovercraft's AC to hotter than the sun?" Ron suggests, shoulders jumping with a shrug. The motion jostles Shego's arm from his shoulder. He immediately misses the line of warmth she'd drawn against his back. The empty feeling in his chest returns, deeper and more profound this time. He briefly debates whether or not to volunteer to be Shego's crutch again.
"Eh." Shego's response to that particular course of action is fairly ineloquent. It drags a short, real burst of laughter from Ron.
Unshackled from Ron's shoulder, Shego wanders toward the edge of the river. She hoists herself up onto it, Ron's eyes trained on her the entire time. As much as he'd like to play the part of a gentleman, Ron can't tear his gaze from Shego. She grins down at him. Satisfaction edges across her lips in response to his dumbfounded blinking. Ron is more relieved than he would like to admit to see that Shego isn't scrutinizing him with a furious expression.
"We could – um, do you have any food in your ship?" Ron asks, dipping his hand beneath the surface and stirring the water in front of him.
"Stoppable … are you telling me that you want to roast weenies on an open fire?" Shego leans back on her rock and watches Ron through her eyelashes. Her tone is flat and her left eyebrow is raised. She's being sardonic as he often expects her to be.
"I was thinking maybe marshmallows." Ron replies, hauling his body onto an undersized looking rock. It looks even less impressive beside Shego's monolithic stone throne. Situating himself, Ron looks up at Shego again in anticipation of an answer. She's staring down at him, several thoughts quite obviously circling around in her head.
"Marshmallows, you say?" Shego muses after a moment. She pulls her knees up under her chin and looks out over the water speculatively. "Pretty sure we passed a sign that said no open fires, sport."
"You saw that?" Ron's voice brims with incredulity, but surely he's smiling as well. Shego's senses have always been sharp, but this is kind of ludicrous. They'd passed a warning sign about open fires, but it had been little more than a blur. Ron had only recognized it due to a comprehensive lecture on fire safety by his father in the past.
"I see everything, Stoppable." Shego favors Ron with a half-hearted sneer. She looks over her shoulder and then a smile creeps across her lips. "Also – doy! It's a park. Of course there is a fire ban."
"Oh. Uh, yeah." Ron cringes at his outstanding ability to leap to conclusions. He scratches at the back of his neck and chuckles, because really, what else can he do?
Shego snorts in amusement, but doesn't acknowledge his response otherwise. There's a break in conversation after that, but it isn't rigid with an awkward silence. To Ron's surprise, it's more companionable than anything. He's spent a great many years worrying about Shego. He's worried about her intentions and worried about her powers. Yet now, at the edge of this river, that all seems so distant. He feels at peace and it isn't in spite of the woman beside him.
"I'm guessing you're getting cold?" Shego speculates after some time. She's eyeing Ron from beneath her long eyelashes again.
"N-no. I'm good." Ron says, teeth chattering in disagreement. "I could definitely go for some clothes though."
Shego offers a muted nod. She holds Ron's gaze as she scoots backward, further onto the rock - her rock. When Shego vaults to her feet, she's fluid in ways that make the river envious. Ron watches her climb over the rocks, a little bit in awe, before he realizes he's being left behind. Also, he realizes that he's been staring at Shego's departing form for longer than is probably polite. He may have memorized the contours in her backside by now.
Lurching into action, Ron works his way over the rocks. He's very studious as he moves, eyes fixed to the ground. Shego's state of undress had seemed to pass him by while they were swimming. But now, back on dry land, it's become a serious obstacle between Ron and his ability to think straight.
For a moment, Ron thinks he's got things under control. He's wrangled his thoughts and shoved them into a manageable order. But then, when Ron comes over the rocks, he sees Shego again. She's bent at the waist, hands sifting through her pile of clothes. She takes her time and Ron gets to see it all. The slope of her breasts, confined to a bra that is lacier than he would have expected. The athletic lines of her shoulders and the endlessness of her legs. He feels very much like a pervert until Shego looks up and winks at him. After that, well, he's not really sure what to think.
Shego untangles her clothes, lifting her letterman jacket from the pile. The jacket is huge, swimming around her shoulders as she pulls it on. Shrugging it into a more comfortable position, Shego leans down again. She collects the remainder of her clothes, but doesn't bother to but them on. She sets off toward the hovercraft and as she turns, Ron feels his pulse begin to thrum.
Ron takes a step forward, making to follow Shego. In his frightened excitement, his eyes stray from the terrain ahead for a moment. But because Ron has luck that could only have come from the depths of hell, that's all it takes.
He trips, he stumbles.
Shego pauses, turning just in time to see Ron blunder to a halt.
Shego snickers, her face crinkling with amusement. She sets off for the hovercraft once more, a spring in her step. In her wake, Ron deflates with a sigh. With less enthusiasm, he shuffles toward his pile of clothes.
Ron shakes his jeans as he liberates them from the pile. The t-shirt that had been clinging to them rides the breeze to the ground.
"Hey Stoppable, I like your superhero underwear." The catcall is Shego's. The sadistic joy in her voice is unmistakable. Also – you know, the isolation. She's only one that could be catcalling him. Doy.
Ron looks up, eyes swinging in the direction the voice had come from. Shego's standing in the hovercraft's cockpit. The wind has picked up again and it's whipping her hair into a frenzy. Projected against the moon, Shego looks otherworldly.
"They're limited edition." Ron grumbles, head rattling back and forth in disagreement. He suppresses the faint flush of embarrassment that's threatening to spill onto his cheeks.
"Oh yeah, I can tell. They're probably vintage." Shego hums in what could be mistaken for agreement. She also leers at him a little bit. It's strange to be objectified.
Having sufficiently insulted Ron's undergarments, Shego ducks out of view after that. Grumbling to himself, Ron slowly kicks one foot and then the other, through his pant legs. He pushes his head through the neck hole of his sweater, nursing a vague sense of triumph. He's succeeded in getting his pants on – maybe in record time – without tripping over.
During his final struggle with his sweater, there's a delicate thud. When he pulls it the rest of the way on and blinks the world back into focus, the first thing Ron sees is Shego. He watches Shego walk towards him, a precarious stack of food cradled against her abdomen.
"I just wiped out my entire food stash. There had better be something here you like." Shego gripes, peering at Ron from around a loaf of bread. Ron bites back a laugh. She looks ridiculous and not at all menacing.
"You know, I think we're okay. What you have looks pretty good."
Shego's amusement is magnified as closes in on Ron and dumps her cargo on him. She traipses off and he feels like his shoulders are going to pop out of their sockets. It's moments like this when Ron is reminded of how inhumanly strong Shego is. Outside of battle, without the specter of death hovering over him, Ron knows he can't compete with her. Without his Mystical Monkey Powers, he isn't really inclined to try, to be honest.
Ron isn't very skilled in the art of balance, but he's gotten better. Honestly, just making it the thirty feet to the river is a moral victory. That achievement, feeble and very surmountable to others, feels like scaling Everest to Ron.
Ahead of him, Shego's ducking around the rocks, peering into crevices. Watching her stalk around, Ron supposes it's hard to shake ten years worth of criminally induced paranoia. But then again, Shego might just be looking for the best place to start their – oh god, she is a bad influence – illegal fire.
It's then – exactly when Ron is most deeply embedded in his thoughts – that Shego comes to an abrupt stop. He takes one step too many and collides with the backs of Shego's shoulders.
"Way to tailgate, Stoppable." Shego says, regarding Ron from over her shoulder. Her eyes sweep over him, but she doesn't say anything else. Instead, she rises to her tiptoes and plucks a blanket from the summit of the mountain Ron's buried under.
Shego unfurls the blanket with practiced ease. With surprising carelessness, she flops onto the ground. Ron cringes, although he's always suspected Shego possesses an uncommon durability.
Brushing a rogue wave of hair away from her face, Shego looks up at Ron. Her green eyes are big and bottomless as she pats the space beside her. Normally Ron wouldn't dare to entertain the thought, but looking up at him as she is now, Shego is cute. Cute. He knows it isn't normal to assign that label to a woman who'd once fought to take the world for a madman. He also knows it isn't normal to have been a teen hero. He also knows that – Moses and Buddha and whatever - he knows a lot of things that aren't strictly normal. Circling to Shego's left, Ron abandons his train of thought drops down beside her.
"So." Ron crosses his legs and scratches at the back of his neck. "I guess I should go and find us some firewood?"
Shego throws her head back and cackles. It's that that Ron knows he's said something stupid. "Oh god. Really? You are so clueless." She splutters, mostly amused, but with an edge of exasperation.
"Okay Stoppable," Shego begins, emerald eyes holding Ron's as she fights to take back her composure. "So the thing is – I shoot plasma from my body. What are you getting firewood for?"
"Doesn't fire require a fuel of some sort?" Ron asks, brow furrowing.
Shego laughs again, but it's less mocking and more rueful this time. She pulls her knees up until they're just beneath her chin and stares up at the starry sky. It's nice out here amid the wilderness, so Ron is content to wait for Shego's response to coalesce. At peace for a fleeting moment, she looks so beautiful with the moonlight all tangled up in her hair. In that moment, with less than a foot between them, the possibilities are endless. Ron's throat tightens and he feels the restraints he's put on his relationship with Shego creak ominously. It sounds like a death rattle. The resolve he'd been so fanatical about – friends and nothing more – begins to waver.
It's a relief when Shego speaks again. It's something else to focus on.
"Alright, Stoppable. So the thing with my plasma is … just check this out." Shego raises her arm and ignites her hand. She flicks her wrist and then a ball of plasma is dancing across the surface of the river. "Doesn't really look like fire, does it?"
Ron shakes his head and makes a vague sound of agreement.
"It's like … didn't you ever wonder how The Princess managed to avoid anything worse than some singe marks?" Shego pauses again, eyebrows meeting above her nose, as if the memories are causing her physical pain. She turns toward Ron and leans toward him. The space between them has significantly diminished. "You've seen me level buildings, Ron. You've also been hit by my plasma and lived to tell the story. What does this tell you?"
Ron shuts his eyes and pulls his knees closer to his chest, mimicking Shego's protective stance. A crease appears in Ron's brow as his mind works over the information Shego's given him. When it all slips into place, he sits bolt upright. Eyes widened, he looks over to Shego.
"Oh man, I feel so – the temperature of your plasma isn't constant, is it?"
"Ding ding ding, we have a winner." Shego states without much emotion. Her grin is sardonic and tight; maybe it's pained too. Shego's left arm floats into the air between herself and Ron. She balls her hand into a fist and waves it with apathetic joy.
"Anyway," Shego continues, lowering her arms and drawing out the word to catch Ron's attention. "The point of this little show and tell is that no, we don't need wood. My plasma is not going to burn down half of the state." Shego pauses, smirking viciously. "Well, unless you upset me somehow."
Ron swallows nervously and Shego laughs.
After she's done laughing, Shego extends her arm again. She ignites her hand and then a sphere of plasma is falling onto the ground. With a mind of its own, the ball of energy ambles forward, eventually easing to a halt between Ron and Shego. Ron looks down at the gently roiling flames. They're little less than a foot in front of him, seeming to be more demure than usual.
"I've never seen you do that before." A note of awe works its way into Ron's voice. He tears his eyes from Shego's plasma and looks over to the woman herself.
Shego glances at him side-long. Her eyes narrow in suspicion, but then she shrugs her shoulders and winks at him. "Never show the enemy your entire hand if you can help it, Ronnie. That was the first and funnily enough, least insane thing Dra- Drew ever taught me."
"So why are you showing me now?" Before Ron can stop it, the question leaps from his tongue. He's doing it again – treating Shego as if he can ask her anything that flits into his mind. He's supposed to just be hanging out with her and burning away a Friday night. He's ruining it. He isn't supposed to be badgering her about her past and having feelings and freaking out over every little thing.
"En – em – ey." Shego enunciates slowly, yanking Ron from his reverie. Of course Shego isn't being serious – he's come to know how much she relies on sarcasm to communicate.
Knowing this, Ron laughs. Shego looks briefly surprised and then pleased.
"You're pretty good company, Stoppable." Shego says, looking over at him wonderingly. "I was right about you."
"Right about what?"
"Right that you'd be tolerable if you could get over that whole oh Shego is evil, she's going to barbeque my organs phobia you had going on." There's something in Shego's voice that makes Ron's throat constrict. She seems to want him to laugh again though, so he does.
They eat after that. Shego leans over Ron and pushes aside several boxes, eventually taking possession of a bag of marshmallows and a skewer. Ron watches with interest as Shego hangs her marshmallow over the dancing ball of fire before them. He examines the flame, actually having the chance to marvel at what Shego is capable of conjuring. Eventually another thought shoves his awe aside.
"Is there any reason you have marshmallows and a skewer in your hovercraft?"
Shego doesn't move, but she does make a sound of acknowledgement. She looks at her marshmallow for a moment longer – waiting for it to finish browning. When she deems that it's done, Shego pulls it from the flames and swings her gaze in Ron's direction.
"Well, Dra - ew used to send me on reconnaissance missions every now and then." Shego recalls, idly bouncing the skewer on her knee. "As you might expect, I'd need food. I guess I just stayed in the habit of keeping food in the hovercraft. You never know when some miscellaneous dork might invite you into the woods either."
That comment shakes a real laugh out of Ron, one that he doesn't immediately feel weird or bad about.
"Hey, Stoppable." Shego's voice creeps into the space between them, more hesitant than usual.
"Yeah?" He responds with uncertainty.
"Do you have to like, check in at your dorm or anything tonight?" Shego's eyes spiral away from Ron with those words. She looks down at her marshmallow and pries it from her skewer. That's when Ron realizes that she's nervous and that Shego and himself are more alike than he'd thought. Ron's always made a habit of deferring to inanimate objects when he's needed to broach uncomfortable subjects with Kim.
Ron shakes his head. "Nah. As long as we aren't wandering around the campus destroying stuff, they just assume we're in our rooms. Why's that?"
"Kind of a nice night." Shego says, leaning back to look up at the stars. "It'd be a shame to waste it, you know? I've mostly been stuck in the city since …" Trailing off, Shego sighs. "Anyway, I miss nature a little bit. I suppose tonight has reminded me of that."
"Yeah, I haven't been out of the city in a while either. I haven't been here in years." Ron admits. He can see Shego's got something else to say, so he keeps his response brief.
"It's a good spot." Shego hums in agreement.
She leans back to rest heavily on her elbows. Ron stares over at her, unconvinced that she's finished speaking. Maybe she's still trying to arrange whatever it is into words. Ron shuffles so that he is sitting Indian legged and facing Shego.
"Are you uh, are you having a good time?" He blurts out.
Shego looks over her shoulder. Her eyes find Ron's, boring into them. She isn't glowering at him, nothing like that, but her gaze is intense nevertheless.
"I'm actually having a pretty great time." Shego admits, softer than Ron is used to. Her brow crinkles and she sits up again. Determination works its way into her expression. Something he's said seems to have knocked Shego's conflicting thoughts into agreement. "Sto – Ron, will you do me a solid?"
There's a sternness in her voice that both amuses and terrifies Ron. "Uh, sure." He offers, shrugging and turning his palms up.
"Okay. Good." Shego stares back at Ron, nodding. She's silent. Working towards whatever she's going to ask him, he guesses.
"So, I think that I'm getting used to all of this uh," Agitated, Shego waves her hand around. "You know, the nature and lack of morons." Shego continues, folding her arms corralling her still flailing hands. She inhales a deep breath and looks around. A chink in her expression reveals nervousness.
There's another break, but then …
"I want to camp out here." Shego eventually bursts out. She wrinkles her nose up in disgust, possibly because she's slipped and shown something besides snarkiness or disinterest.
Ron beams. "You don't happen to have any tents or sleeping bags in the hovercraft, do you?"
Shego jerks a nod in Ron's direction.
"I do." She mumbles in a very put upon way, shifting a hand to rest her chin upon her palm. Ron chews the inside of his cheek, fighting back a laugh. Shego looks every inch the dissatisfied teenager.
"Would …" Ron pauses, hoping he's taking the right tact. "Would you be willing to share your camping equipment with me?"
Shego seems to consider his words. Her teeth sink into her lips. "You're a good guy, Ron. Yeah. Yeah, I'll share." She says, shoulders jolting with a shrug. She looks pleased, more relaxed.
"Booyah."
Shego's lips press together and curve. It's not quite a smile. Actually, it more reminds Ron of a documentary he'd seen about lions on Discovery Channel. Shego's pink tongue darts out to moisten her lips. He's reminded even more of a lioness circling her prey.
"You should probably know," Shego says, very conversationally. Ron feels immediate vindication for his suspicions. "I only have the one sleeping bag. But like I said, I'll share."
Ron stares at her, completely blank.
Another chapter of Ron and Shego in the woods. The balls starting to roll now. Some big events / revelations in the next few chapters.
Also, thanks for all of the reviews/follows/favs over the past few chapters. Each and every one is appreciated :)