Disclaimer: I am incredibly disheartened to inform you that I am unable to say, truthfully, that any of these characters are mine.
I open my eyes to near silence, only broken by the sound of dripping across the cavern. I'm assuming a couple of hours have passed... there's no way to tell how much time passes down here, because there's no sun, and I haven't seen any clocks. Enough time, however, has passed that the dripping from the stalactites informs me that I need to relieve myself. Again. To the bathroom I go, then.
As I'm leaving, I remember to grab the rough map Shego left me... might as well check out some of the rooms that are on the way back from the bathroom, I guess... The bathroom was... right, then left, then right again... or was it two rights, then left... crap. I should have been checking the map... Ah, it was two rights... Well, no harm done. I don't have to relieve myself so severely; I can check out this highlighted room that's just down the hall. Third door... there.
I push the door open to see a small room with a massage table surrounded by unlit candles and a hot tub in the corner. There's something... I see a little inscription on the leather of the massage table, "To Cam, from Shego, with love. Happy Anniversary!" Something warm and fuzzy crawls into my belly, and a smile creeps, unbidden, across my face... that's decidedly cute. I'm guessing I like massages? I kind of want one now...
I look around the room for something more telling, but I don't see anything else, besides massage oils and bath salts, so I double back for the bathroom, and finally relieve myself.
The bathroom is the same as before, with its subtle opulence, but I suddenly wonder how we managed to get indoor plumbing underground... that seems like a difficult endeavor, to say the least. One that would require drills, and lots of obvious tools. Somehow, underground lairs seem like they would be really difficult to set up surreptitiously.
I shake my head, amused, wondering slightly if that ever popped into my head before I lost my memories. If authorities just looked for building equipment that was done without a permit, it'd be much easier to capture villains that built lairs, underground or otherwise... I shake my head, scoffing. Thank goodness I'm not on the side of the good, then, I guess. I finish washing my hands, and step out.
The next room that's close is... two doors down, to the right. The door's slightly stuck when I push on it... I think, in my coma, I must have lost some muscle mass or something. It definitely seems like it. Wait, if I remember correctly, something about mass and acceleration and force... Since I can't really change the mass, if I increase my acceleration... I run and leap into the door, and it bursts open with a bang, causing me to fall remarkably onto the ground. F=ma, right, gotcha. Also, I should try to remember that ground is hard, especially when stone. It was remarkable how I could fall without hurting myself, though...
I get up and brush my palms off
The room is small and dark, but there's a television set playing soundlessly... it seems to be a sex tape. The grainy footage shown is moving erratically, and there's Shego there, blindfolded and handcuffed to the bed. The holder of the camera is hidden, but... I turn up the volume, only to hear Shego's breathy gasp of "Cam, God, yes," and my face is now on fire. Off, please... oh my.
The screen is dark, and it's silent in the room again, but the few seconds of Shego's moans and gasps I just heard echo in my mind... I feel a warmth trickling down my stomach, pooling and tingling in my loins, and quickly run out of the room.
Yes, that's... yes. Wow... I'm... okay! That was... just... yeah. Wow. Who knew the old me would do something like that? Freaky... but incredibly, incredibly sexy... Though I swear, every time I hear her say my name, it sounds kinda different... kinda like Kim.
Next room then... This one's bigger, and it has a sunlight! Oh, that's nice! That, and a fireplace, apparently... there's some photos on the wall... pretty artistic, I must say.
There's one of me on a bed... though I have no idea where this is. There's another of me by a window. It seems, at one point, I had longer hair... that's interesting. There's a bunch more, all over the place, and it's really quite exciting to see snapshots of my life, even if it's confusing, seeing as I don't actually remember it anymore...
The next room is a ways away, near the kitchen, and has a box full of little nauseatingly sweet notes from me to Shego... Apparently I'm the less badass one in this relationship, unless we're in bed. Like, much less.
Shego = love, all night long? Really? Or... I just saw you ten minutes ago, but I miss you already? That's so incredibly sappy! It's all in that loopy cutesy writing... Was I some sort of goody before meeting Shego? I'll definitely have to ask her when she gets back.
I'm actually decently hungry, so it's fitting that, on my odd path through the cavern, the next place for proof of my relationship with Shego is in the kitchen. I can see she wasn't kidding about not touching the appliances... There's colourful post-it notes on everything.
Don't touch anything, you'll blow it up.
You're not to use the waffle iron. Just... no.
Do NOT touch the blender; last time you did, it took me forever to clean, and I'm not doing that again.
I giggle at that, because, really, the marked difference between our notes to each other is really telling; our personalities are remarkably different. I'm learning more about myself each room I go to.
There's ham sandwiches in the fridge (I guess I'm not Jewish, then), along with turkey, chicken, egg salad, and roast beef ... Way too many, really, for how long she said she'd be gone. I grab a random sandwich, pour myself a cup of milk, and sit at the counter, eating.
I wonder when Shego's coming back from wherever she is. I never asked what she did at her job... maybe I should have. She couldn't have had a steady job as a thief while also taking care of me, so it had to be something different. From what I can ascertain, our thieving days needed a lot of moving around, so she couldn't be doing that and caring for me consistently...
The map, however, seems to have a lot of rooms unmarked... it seems like there are many more rooms than the ones I've visited today. I actually wouldn't put it past Shego to lock most of them for until she gets back. It'd be cool if I could get into one of the locked rooms, though I have a feeling that's something I won't be able to do now, no matter how awesome I was at one point. Exploring the underground mansion seems like a good thing to do right now... Keeping the map handy should be useful as well I think.
The halls in the area I'm wandering right now are entirely uninviting, completely unlike the halls by the bathroom and the room I'm sleeping in. They're blank, dimly lit, and narrow, and they smell kind of like mold. There aren't very many doors in this area, and all of them thus far have been locked. It's kind of discouraging, but intriguing at the same time. I'd attempt a lock picking maneuver (how hard can that be?), but they're all code-locked automatic sliding doors, and I have no idea what the code could possibly be.
The door in front of me, however, is different from the other ones, with strange engravings on the front, and there's no keypad, just a button, so it doesn't seem very locked. That, and buttons are always tantalizing... just asking to be pushed, really.
The door suddenly flies open, and Shego walks out. I greet her as the door hisses closed again, and she turns to me with a slight scowl on her face. "Why are you here?" I shrug, and tell her something about exploring, and her scowl deepens a little. "Don't do that down here... it's dangerous. Asbestos or something." My eyebrow just broke the record for fastest eyebrow-up-forehead climb, but she just walks back the way I came. When she notices that I'm not following, she turns around. "Coming?" I nod, and scuttle after her.
"That didn't take as long as you thought it would..."
"What do you mean?" She's not slowing down much, and I jog a little to catch up. "I was away for quite a while!" I slept more than I thought, then... "I'll give you the rest of the day off, but tomorrow we start intensive training." She slows considerably, but I can still see her, tense and more than a little on edge.
"Hey..." I touch her lower back, and she flinches slightly. "Did it not go well or something? Your boss not take it well?"
Her hair hides her face, despite me being right next to her. "You could say that... But Blue Boy doesn't matter, really. I'm out, and that's all that matters." A pause, then she turns to me with a smile on her face. I relax, unaware I was even tense in the first place. "Wanna watch TV?" I shrug, and smile.
"Sounds like a plan."
Apparently going through the back hall instead of the side hall had been a bad idea before, because now that I've walked down the side hall and into the entertainment room, I don't want to leave. Big screen TV, amazing sound systems, and just... the furniture is luxurious and soft. I see Shego sit on one couch, and I vault over it, and snuggle into her side. "I missed you today..."
I feel side shake as she chuckles. "Did you now..."
"Human contact is important, you know... especially for convalescing patients." There's a full on laugh now as she reaches for the remote, and the television pops on to reveal a short and curvy older redhead in front of many microphones, cameras snapping into her face. I see two twin boys standing beside her, as well as a much older version of the two boys standing behind her, hands on her shoulders. They all seem distressed, and the redhead is crying. Before the sound system can kick in, Shego changes the channel.
"I hate watching the news," she deadpans. She keeps flipping the channel until it's on some random movie, and turns to look down at me. "So how was your day?"
"Decent... was I really that nauseatingly sweet?" She nods, chuckling. "Oh, wow... that's lame."
She shakes her head. "It's okay, you brought that side out in me too... I just hid it better most of the time. Still do, apparently." Her hand is running through my short hair, and I move closer, completely content. Pretty soon, the incredibly boring movie coupled with her hand in my hair lulls me to sleep, but not before I hear her whisper, "I'm sorry..."
A/N: Hi! Remember me? I'm writing for another fandom, as well as this one for KP, so it's a little... ya.
But, I haven't forgotten this fic. I do want to finish this one, because it feels like a magnum opus or something... because I prefer this writing style, even if it's much harder to write. This is my practice piece for, like, my future. So it will not be forgotten.
Also, my editor (Batman, aka Albrecht Starkarm) is awesome, and deserves all kinds of accolades. His writing is all kinds of magnificent. Also, his wife is magnificent, and just sent me the most hilarious doodle. I died of laughter, just so they know. Legitimately.
Here's hoping you enjoyed this chapter!
In the next chapter: Time skip! Planning, onwards and outwards ahoy!