The Truth of Tequila Part 1
Drakken was working in his lab. It was fairly late, but that was when he worked best. He'd actually forgotten that Shego was taking off early for the weekend, which he was frustrated by at first, but she had seemed off since the incident with her brothers. She'd explained everything about how she'd gotten her powers from a rainbow comet. He would have made a remark about aliens again, but chose to let it go. Besides, he'd been too intent on piecing together what had happened with Aviarius, her brothers, and with Possible to make a crack about a rainbow comet. Instead, he'd made a crack about her being a marshmallow... The ride home had been far too breezy for him... But not so breezy that he didn't leave bags of marshmallow candies outside her door as both a skewed apology and a dig. He smirked to himself at the thought, but it was pulled back as he pinched his finger trying to loosen a bolt.
"Son of a... Shego!" he turned to where she normally sat, and groaned as he got up to get a different socket. "I have issues with my family too, don't see me taking extra time off."
Out of habit, he glanced around him quickly, expecting Shego to jump down from the rafters and make a smart remark, or...considering her mood of late, toss a few blasts his way. She'd been withholding information when she'd told him about the comet, though it was probably to avoid him sharing stuff about his past again. He wouldn't without being asked, because the eye-rolls would not be received well. He heard a knock at the door and glanced up as he worked on yet another cheaply made HenchCo product. Hector, one of the henchmaids—Drakken rolled his eyes as he quoted Shego in his head—night henchmen, came in.
"Ohm, Dr. Drakken?" asked Hector. He looked uneasy. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Sir."
"What is it?" asked Drakken, continuing to fiddle with the bolt that still wasn't turning.
"There seems to be an issue in your office with Shego, and we didn't want to disturb her," said Hector. "Mostly because she told us not to and blew up our trash can."
"Then don't disturb her, grab a new one from the storage room. The office can wait till next weekend," said Drakken. He continued working.
"Right, so, okay," said Hector, but Drakken saw him shift out of the corner of his eye and make no moves to leave.
"What is it?" asked Drakken, throwing down the ratchet and rubbing his wrist, his eyes narrowed.
"It's just that...our stuff's still in there and..." said Hector. Drakken glared.
"Are you kidding me?" snapped Drakken, his aggression at HenchCo's faulty design turning on Hector.
"It's just that..." Hector glanced back down the hall as a loud noise sounded. Drakken got up with a groan and began walking out of the lab. "She's scary."
"Of course she is, that's why I employ her," scoffed Drakken. He grumbled to himself as he marched past the henchmen who fled towards Hector. Drakken rounded the corner into his office, ready to start yelling at his side-kick for causing him to be interrupted.
The scene was different than he thought it would be. He imagined a moody Shego just causing issues for the sake of boredom. Not the complete mess that had formerly been his office. Drakken kept a liquor cabinet in his office for the sheer purpose of aesthetics. If another villain and he had a meeting, it looked more suave in his eyes. The bottles were always left untouched, and that's what confused him. The cabinet was open, scorch marks on what had been the lock and handle. A shame really, because it didn't really lock so there was no need. Shego was in his chair, legs draped over the arm as she drank from what looked like a third bottle of tequila. She seemed not to notice him standing there, as the chair was turned slightly and she was staring at the fire, which she'd clearly lit with her powers, scorch marks aplenty upon the hearth. Mail was scattered all over the ground, along with his papers, and a blasted trash-bin sat in the doorway.
Drakken felt a wave of anger wash over him all over again. It was one thing to terrorize the henchmen, but quite another to dismantle his office for no good reason. He slammed the office door in an attempt to get her attention, but she didn't even flinch at the sound. He rolled his eyes and started picking up the stuff on the ground. He wasn't in the mood to engage in conversation with a drunk Shego, who was clearly in a violent mood. He glanced at the mail. One envelope was addressed to a Sheila Go, and it held an elaborate wax seal that had 'Go' in it. Drakken raised a brow and looked at it again. Clearly a letter from her brothers, and unopened.
"So, it's Sheila," said Drakken, a faint smirk on his lips. He looked up at her. His smirk fell.
"Who knows. Maybe," said Shego. She spun in the chair to look at him, her face tinted a color that looked like the cause wasn't just alcohol. "Maybe it was a long time ago, until a meteor fucked up my life... You know what? No... Until my parents fucked up my life. 'Cause you know, they had to be all goodie goods and decide to get killed because helping a stranger seemed like a good idea."
"Shego?" Drakken began, but froze as she threw an empty bottle in the fire and began pacing the room.
"Then you know what... Left us alone...alone! Five kids, alone. But we weren't going to be split up... No, they could try. Even the meteor tried to split us up when we hid, you know. Like, what are the odds... Oh, I'm sorry. I meant comet... Comet my ass, it was space shit with radiation." She looked in the cabinet again and pulled out another bottle. "Sorry I didn't introduce you to my brothers, Dr. D."
"It's fine," said Drakken, though he felt like he wasn't actually being addressed, more just a side note.
"Hego, the blue idiot that Possible had powers from... He's a real piece of work, you know. After Go City took pity on us and we saved its sorry ass all the time, they let a sixteen-year-old muscle-bound jock raise a bunch of kids with superpowers. The ignorant, stupid, idiot. You know what his idea was... We're superheroes now...so like a comic book... Train, train, fight, fight. Oh, a social activity...school...prom... Who needs that Shego, we're heroes!"
She stumbled a bit. Drakken grabbed her for a second to steer her back to a chair as she continued.
"Shego this, and Shego that... Shut up Henry, you didn't even know how to tie your shoes until twelve. Idiot. He's an idiot."
"Got it," said Drakken as Shego flopped down. He made a motion to take the drink from her, but her hands flared.
"Don't you..." Shego looked at her hands. Something in her expression worried Drakken, not sure what was racing in her intoxicated head. "Do you think these powers are a good thing?"
"Well..."
"They're not," said Shego. She took a swig of the tequila. "Sure, they're useful, but they're cursed... Oh, Mego! Mego, he's my other brother. Purple, you saw him. He shrinks, which is weird, like how is that even a power?"
"Sneaking into a top-secret Area 51 would have been much easier," said Drakken in his own lament. Shego didn't hear him.
"He never cared about getting out of the tower, like the Wegos," said Shego. She rolled her eyes. "They have names you know, they're actually two people... So stupid... Speaking of stupid, you know our villains could see in the tower? Seriously, that's like..."
Drakken watched as Shego began pacing again. He was trying to piece her rants together, but with her constant moving and muttering, he was more focused on making sure Shego didn't throw a tantrum like she clearly had earlier with the henchmen. She wasn't making any sense at the moment, muttering about her brothers, about Go City, about riding a bike and scraping her knee, about going fishing and Hego falling in because he was, as she stated, a clumsy idiot.
"We had a curfew," said Shego. "Not like a kid's curfew. Hego said 9:00 p.m. because early mornings to save the city from villains. It doesn't look good in the papers, teenage hero out at night. Pft, see...see Drakken, this is why villains are better... We don't have curfews... We don't have to do anything we don't want to."
"True..." Drakken took a step back as Shego came uncomfortably close to him, causing him to fall back in Shego's normal chair. "Shego?"
"You know I couldn't go to school. And dating? Pfft yeah right... Wait, did I tell you that I dated the chief of police? Shhh, don't tell Hego." Shego burst into a fit of laughter. "Well, dating is a loose term, you know... He was a creep though."
"Shego, I think you're good," said Drakken, his hand on the bottle as it was loose in her hands.
"I don't listen to anyone!" snapped Shego. Her hands flared and Drakken slammed back into the chair to avoid how close the glow was. "Not Hego, not Go City, no one!"
"Shego!" yelled Drakken. He heard the concern in his own voice, but he didn't know if it was for his own safety or the redness in Shego's eyes that caused it.
"That's right... That's right," she muttered to herself, and took another swig. She lingered and circled the chair he sat in. "They tried...even the other day. No one locks me inside, no one tells me where to go and what to do... Scripts... We wrote scripts so we knew what to say and to whom. Kids don't do that... Normal kids don't have to do that, do they? No...just us... It wasn't always like that though... We were happy once, you know. I think."
"I'm sure you were," said Drakken, glad she seemed less aggressive, but her face was sullen now. "Shego, you're not stuck at Go Tower, you know..."
"Before the comet...before the funeral...we went fishing where Go Tower is now... I hated it, I complained about wanting to go home, wanting to go ride my bike with my friends. We stayed longer because I made a scene... We made s'mores..." Shego sat down on the arm of the chair Drakken sat in, a dreamy look in her eyes. He was finally able to slide the bottle away from her without notice. "That's why I can't be around them... I think of that time...and I can't always remember."
"Shego... " Drakken froze as Shego began to cry. What had triggered it, he had no idea.
Drakken looked around the room, uncertain what to say or do. He feared the wrath she might inflict if her mood shifted, but he hesitantly moved his hand to rub her back in comfort. Suddenly a new problem occurred as she turned towards him, sliding off the chair arm and to squeeze halfway onto his lap and half in the chair, crying on his shoulder now. He was glad more than ever he'd closed the door, because the henchmen would gossip like mad and Shego, when she got sober, would be livid at him.
"I ever tell you why I left?" She gave a tearful grin and Drakken wondered what exactly was in that tequila, "College. Years ago. I graduated and my brothers came... And you know what? Go City was in danger. They came because we needed to save the city...not because I bettered myself. Oh no...no...no... Not for me. So I saved the city... Had a little fun.. and I...never...looked...back."
"They didn't come to your graduation?" asked Drakken. His brow furrowed, a tinge of anger hitting him at the idea of it. "Years ago?"
"Yeah," she said with a deep sigh, nestled into sitting half on his lap now. It was silent and Drakken wondered if Shego had passed out, until a new sound came out of her. "Heh heheh."
"Ohm, okay," said Drakken as Shego laughed. In a swift movement she shifted to look at him, her face uncomfortably close and overwhelmingly tequila scented. "Are you okay, Shego?"
"You want to know a secret?" she grinned wildly.
"You've told me a lot already," said Drakken, and he was both confused and concerned at the moment.
"But it's a good one," said Shego. She suddenly froze and went silent, looking at him. "You came to save me?"
"Huh... Well...I thought you were in trouble." Drakken was taken aback by the abrupt topic change. He suddenly felt put on the spot as her brows furrowed.
"Where did you get that armor?" asked Shego. "Where is it now...are you keeping secrets?"
"No...no." Drakken was about to rant, but Shego shrugged and flopped back to her spot leaning against him without any more questions, staring at the fire.
"You know why the chief was a creep, Dr. D.?" asked Shego. Her voice didn't make it easy to figure out his emotion. "I looked like a child when he put the moves on me. I wasn't... No, no... The comet did that too. You know my brothers... Westley and Wheaton... They look like they're ditching gym class to try to save the city. They're nineteen. Creep. Creep... Creeper. I was old enough, but I didn't look it... Chief of pedos, more like it... He was my first you know... We arrested Electronique and Hego was having a moment so Chiefy and I... It was horrible... It was in a cell... I wasn't stupid, but I felt like it... Have you ever scaled a fish?"
Drakken sighed as he listened to her begin to rant about catching a fish and how to cook it. Drakken's mind wandered on its own now, trying to piece together Shego's rantings and story. He also was trying to scoot away from her as she was half-sitting on him. Despite Shego's many drinks, she always seemed to sober up fast. Based on her rant, he wondered what that comet had actually done to the siblings on a physical level. The scientist in him began mentally listing tests that should have been run on them, but he doubted it had ever occurred. Because Shego's blurry accounts made it seem like anyone who could have never got a chance to.
The image of a violent and emotional little green girl with plasma blasts flashed in his head, especially violent if social workers might have tried to separate the orphans. He had so many questions... What other effects did the comet have... Why was Shego snuggling up to him again? He'd just made leeway in getting enough room to get off the chair. As he tried to paint a picture in his head...grieving children...two life-changing events back-to-back... No socializing outside of being heroes...curfews...a child taking care of children... It sounded like chaos. He could have lived without Shego's account of her first lover, and was glad it was a drunken vague overshare instead of a detailed one because...he had a lot of concerns about her description of the event. But his mind fell on something else. He'd glimpsed Wes...the Wegos...at the tower. They looked like teenagers.
"Shego?" asked Drakken. She started. He cringed as her hands glowed. Apparently she'd been about to pass out.
"What? Who? Possible...no... I don't feel good," said Shego. She made no movement, but instead fell back against his shoulder, her hands diminishing as she did so.
Drakken sat there, unable to move in fear of startling Shego again, but as she drifted off, he sighed in defeat. He clearly was not making it back to the lab that night. His office would remain in shambles, and when a hungover Shego woke up, he was going to deal with a whole new level of chaos. He moved a little just to make himself more comfortable. He could be doing worse things with his evening than being a drunk Shego's pillow.
Curious... Very Curious →