A/N: Holy mother! Talk about a schedule slip! I promise daily updates and then here we are 2 months later with Chapter 6...seems life got in the way, which sucks. First my original layout for this story got deleted in a PC crash, then my router kicked the bucket, so no internet , then I got that fixed just in time for a car accident. :( But now I'm back, I'm rested, and I'm gonna give this town a wedgie again! Haha. So hopefully this story can get back on schedule, starting today.
Anyway, enough about me, and lets resume this story for my ever-patient readers!
Disclaimer: Kim Possible and affiliated licenses do not belong to me.
The Strange Life After
Chapter 6: Mysterious
Ron slowly became aware that Shego was NOT on a course leading back to the firm.
"Um, Shego?" he asked, confused. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the firm back toward the east? I mean, if we need to deliver the chip, that makes sense, but isn't it an odd hour for that?"
"We're not a delivery service, we're private security" Shego stated flatly. "They can pick it up on their own time, as per my usual policy on retrieval jobs. As for where we're headed now, that would be to a good place I know for drinks."
Ron was briefly taken aback until he remembered the inherently more adult nature of his newfound position, as opposed to the mission days. "So, celebrating a job well-done?"
"Call it whatever you want" she responded with a cynical sweep of her hand. "I just wanna take the edge off."
After her landing of the helicopter on the roof of an upscale-looking club, Ron watched as his employer withdrew a keycard from her pocket and slid it through a corresponding slot on the roof-access door. "Uh…Shego? Correct me if I'm wrong but, don't people usually walk into a building using the front door?"
Shego flashed him a sly grin. "Not when you're a VIP." So saying, she opened the door and made a beeline down the stairs.
Following, Ron was amazed at the sudden change in his surroundings from a barren roof-access corridor to a flashy neon lounge separated only by the aforementioned stairs. He quickly spotted his companion at the bar to his right, but became sidetracked by the sheer scale of the club. A giant neon sign emblazoned with the word "PURGATORY!" hung over a stage on the lower-level, which was itself easily observable from the huge overhanging balcony which contained the VIP lounge Ron now found himself in. Snapping himself out of his trance with a quick shake of his head, Ron returned his attention to the nearby bar. He pulled up one of the rather gaudy-looking stools (also neon-lit) and hesitantly took a seat next to Shego.
"So…I don't know what you expect me to do here" Ron began tentatively. "I'm underage and in any case, the last thing I need to be doing is drinking after what happened last time. You office can vouch for me on that."
"Cool it, Stoppable" Shego replied, gulping down her shot of bourbon. "Everything will be fine. You're here with a VIP, no one is going to care who you are, much less what your age is. Order what you like."
Ron was shocked at her supposed generosity before a thought struck him. "Is this gonna add to my debt?"
"Of course" Shego replied, lips pursed. "But it isn't gonna be enough to make a difference. You'd have to order enough drinks for ten guys your size before it would impact the figure in a meaningful amount."
Ron accepted this explanation with a nod, but held back for a moment. "I don't know if I'm comfortable with this. I mean, we barely know each—"
He was silenced with a withering glare. "Just shut up and drink, Stoppable."
Ron gulped instinctively at her stare before his brain caught up enough to process what she'd said. "Alright then" he conceded, turning to the waiting bartender. "I'd like a Jack and coke, please. Extra ice." He turned to Shego, who continued looking at him expectantly, now also sporting a raised eyebrow. He nodded and turned back to the bartender again, who was preparing his beverage earnestly. "Actually, make it a double."
It was the early hours of the following morning when a very inebriated pair of individuals stumbled out of the club known as 'Purgatory', and caught a cab back to Shego's security firm.
In between ridiculously frequent, obnoxious bouts of giggling, Ron managed to speak. "Chu know, chu know, chur really eh, eh, eh…lovely-*burp* woman!" he began, eyes travelling lecherously over his employer's…endowments.
For her part, Shego was nowhere near as intoxicated as her companion, so she simply chalked up such things as the profound effects of the young man's low alcohol tolerance. "You know, Stoppable, I've been called many things, but never-*hiccup* 'lovely'…I might-*hiccup* have to keep you around." 'Okay, so maybe I'm feeling it a little more than I thought…Still, he's kinda cute when his walls are down. In a "lost puppy looking for praise" sort of way. And anyway, what's a little harmless flirting between drunks?'
Taking this as his license to proceed further with his newfound boldness, Ron continued. "Ah mean it! Chur really-*hiccup* uh, uh, uh, pretty! Ah've always said thaht…Gee, who woulda thunk it? One day ahm-*burp* gettin' fooled around on by KP, the next ahm sharing drinks-*burp* and a cab weth a beautiful temper…no, that's not raht…tempt—temptress!" he finished loudly, triumphant in completing his thought.
Had she been sober, Shego may have picked up on the information unknowingly given in that statement and started a line of questioning, but as things stood, she chose simply to snicker quietly, an evil smile playing across her features at his choice of descriptor. "Temptress, huh? Well I don't know about that one, kid. The last person I 'tempted' was a freak like me, one—"
"Don't call yourself thaht!" Ron cut her off. "Chur a good-looking woman, chu got drive, chu can handle churself, chur not high maintenance, and chur mysterious! Ahm sure any numbah of gahz would count themself lucky to hahv chu."
"Flatterer!" Shego responded with a lopsided grin, before settling back more comfortably in her seat, lost in thought. 'Is this kid for real? I've never gotten this many compliments in row…if he wasn't so pathetically naïve, I'd think he wanted to get into my pants. Wait a second…that gives me an evil idea…' She grinned to herself before turning back towards Ron, putting on her best 'offended to the point of murder' face, and setting her plan into motion. "Are you trying to fuck me, Stoppable?"
The look on Ron Stoppable's face at this moment in time, whether drunk or not, was worth trading every Kodak moment in history for a chance to see. So stunned was he, that he nearly managed a full spit-take despite the fact that he didn't currently posses a beverage. 'Just play it cool Ronster…Oh, who am I kidding? Cool? How the hell do I answer that? If I say no, she'll think I'm calling her ugly, if I say yes…well, it's obvious what happens if I say yes. Think Stoppable, THINK! Okay, there is no right answer, so…I guess I'll just go for a happy medium.' The funny thing about the mind of a drunk is that the percentage of stupid ideas perceived by the thinker as good ones shoots up by a whopping 200%. Thus it was recorded as the number one dumbest drunk-response in human history when Ron Stoppable answered his employer's question with one word that would change his world forever.
"Maybe…"
Shego looked at him as he had just jumped in front of a semi. "You wanna run that one by me again, kid?" The bite in her final word made especially clear her feelings on the matter.
Once again, the drunken mind of Ron Stoppable chose to fail him in spectacular fashion, as his curiosity reared its head. "'Kid?' What happened to 'Stoppable'? Or are chu juss usin' my age to justifah not sleepin' weth me?" To say that his choice of phrasing (to say nothing of timing) was poor would be the largest understatement of the last decade. However in his drunken state, Ron failed to notice that his employer was already flaring her hands through clenched fists…
When Thomas 'Tommy' Basaar, employee of 'Go City's Friendly Cabs' was flagged down by a green woman outside Purgatory, he didn't expect anything too wonderfully eventful about the fare. Even her skin tone didn't faze him too much, cabbies being regularly exposed to both the mundane and the fantastic, especially in Go City.
Tommy's surprise was immeasurable then, when it appeared, at least from where he was sitting, that a warzone had erupted in the back of his taxi. He scarcely had time to stop before the aforementioned green amazon shoved three Benjamins in his face and beat a hasty retreat, her companion, looking very much worse for wear, in tow by the back of his shirt collar.
As Tommy drove away slowly, counting his money and wondering if perhaps he could end his shift early tonight, his fare and her companion traveled further eastward.
As she entered the door to her security firm, Shego violently tossed her deadbeat 'partner' inside, listening with no small amount of satisfaction as the nearby wall halted his momentum. For his part, Ron felt no pain, being more intoxicated than he had ever been in his life. He was however, aware of the strange, inexplicable sensation that he had done something very, very wrong, and was soon to pay for it. As he contemplated what he could possibly have done to raise such ire from his employer, the individual in question picked him up by the collar, placed him into a chair and gave him a plasma infused slap.
"Wakey wakey, moron!" Shego said with immense satisfaction. "Do I have your attention?"
Ron stared up at her dumbly.
"Good. Now, just what the hell do you think you're playing at?" she spat.
Ron rubbed his chin for a moment before replying. "Chur gonna hahv to be more spef-cific."
Shego placed her palm on her forehead in exasperation. 'Why, oh why, did I buy this kid drinks? He's too drunk to come up with a thought, much less express it out loud.' "Okay, you obviously don't remember specifics. So I'll ask again. Do you, Ron Stoppable, want to sleep with me, Shego?"
Ron's answer was less than cathartic for his interrogator. "Well, duh. Who wouldn't?"
Shego threw up her hands in frustration, lighting them in the process, and putting a sizable hole in the ceiling. "That's on you, too…" she mumbled toward the blonde staring up with wide eyes at said hole. 'Okay, so that got me absolutely nowhere. Mister Literal over there isn't in a state of mind to come up with a coherent answer to anything…Wait just a damn minute! Why do I care? I was more than content to just let him keep flirting in the cab, cause I knew we were drunk…So why am I angry? It's not like he knew I was kidding earlier…' "Well, I gotta hand it to you, Stoppable" she said absentmindedly, "at least you're honest. Damn rare thing, these days."
Shego turned around to head up the stairs and crash, just in time to be assaulted by the intoxicated young blonde, who all but fell into her as reached out for a hug.
"Why you little—" she stopped short when she realized Ron was crying. She attempted to break free, but between her alcohol-induced fatigue and his tightening grip, she failed. "I am not amused" she stated simply, this time pushing him off successfully. She turned around to go upstairs, but was stopped by three words she hadn't heard in a very long time.
"Thank you, Shego."
She spun on her heel and walked back toward the distraught blonde, who was now staring at the floor and shifting his feet uncomfortably, as his tears began creating a tiny wet spot on the tile. 'He looks pathetic' Shego thought with a grimace. But in light of his last statement, her curiosity was piqued, and thus she lifted his chin up so he faced her before asking him to repeat himself.
"Ah said, thanks, Shego."
"Thanks for what?" she asked in puzzlement.
"Ah don't really know. For juss bein' there, ah guess."
Her frustration came to the surface once more, "You're not making any sense!"
"When KP leff me fer some dickhead, ah had-*hiccup* nowhere to go. Ah didn't know where to turn, and then ah got shitfaced and wound up here. Ah know a lotta people who woulda juss leff me here fer dead, but chu didn't. Chu saved my life, and ahm grateful. And then, chu gave me a place to stay, and-*burp* gave me somethin' to do with my life for a while. Chur awesome, like my own personal savior or somethin'."
Shego rubbed the back of her neck nervously, unaccustomed to such high esteem. "Well, I—uh, I mean—"
"And now chur here, tryin' to comfor me, too! Ahm sorry, ahm done. Chu don'needa hear about my problems. Thanks again."
With little warning, Ron pulled her into another forceful hug, although this one was not as unpleasant as the first. She tried to pull away, but he continued to sob, soaking through her clothes, and for some reason, she found herself running her fingers through his hair for a couple of seconds, before realizing her error and pushing him away violently. 'What the hell? I must be feeling it more than I thought' Shego frowned, lost in thought.
"C'mon, young blood" she started. "You've had enough for tonight. Time to force feed you some water and get you to a bed." She grabbed him by the arm and led him up to his sleeping bag, before pouring him a canteen of water and making sure he drank all of it. 'Ha. He's gonna feel like shit in the morning regardless. He's probably never gotten this fucked up before in his life.'
As she left the room and hit the lights, Ron's call of "Goodnight, Shego" did not go unnoticed, and so it was, with some reluctance, that she humored him.
"Goodnight, Ron." With that, she left the firm, walking briskly up the street to her apartment, never realizing that she had not, in fact, called him 'Stoppable'.
A/N: Out of all the chapters I've written so far, this is the one I'm least happy with. I feel like they were both out of character a tad. I don't know, I'm open to suggestions, otherwise I'll just chalk it up to their being drunk.
So now that we have the obligatory 'accruing a relationship' chapter out of the way, next chapter we get our first look at who set up our protagonists, and of course, the aftermath of this night. Until next time, then. Please R&R.