"Labels"

By Eoraptor

Rated T for adult situations. Kim Possible and related characters property The Walt Disney Company. I own nothing but the story and claim no profit by it.

Kim woke up to look at her partner, watching the faint sunlight through the curtains play across her pale features. She rolled that word partner around in her mind a bit as she studied the finer points of the woman's aristocratic cheekbones.

She was definitely more than a friend. Kim's moral compass said that one did not do the things they did with "just friends." And it seemed more than a simple experimentation. They had been going through these motions for several weeks now, and Kim's closest friends knew about them to some extent.

Sure it might have started as one college party too many where on she had not detected the spiked punch until she was a few glasses in, and her "friend" had offered to escort her home, where in she rather drunkenly kissed her friend just to see how it felt, and the other person did not object very strenuously… but it had been going on for a while now without further chemical enhancement.

But, what were they? They didn't "go out" together in the traditional sense. Though they often socialized in some of the same circles, as well as occasionally working together. And certainly Kim herself didn't have any other "partners," and she doubted that her partner did either.

Then again, how did she know? This pale woman was always such a mystery. The redhead didn't even know her birth name, just the one she currently went under; the only one Kim had ever known.

Shego, as though sensing she was being watched even in sleep, opened her eyes. On focusing past the sleep in them, she gave a coy smile.

It wasn't a big loving smile of warmth, but it wasn't the cutting smirk that she usually wore either. It was somewhere in between, "Mmmm, morning Kitten."

Kim ducked her head at the nickname, and at being caught staring, again. The taller woman reached over, and caressed her fingers along Kim's jaw while smiling.

When the redhead looked up, Shego slid her fingers lightly into her ginger hair, and quickly pulled her into a kiss. Kim murmured pleasantly into the embrace, enjoying the attention. This was something that had always been missing from her attempt with Ron; the passion. The desire and the faint longing.

The embrace ended after a moment and Shego grinned bit more overtly. She flipped up and over Kim on the heroine's firm mattress, rolling to a stop on the opposite side of her. Then she turned over and slipped out of bed, stretching up onto the balls of her feet and cracking her knuckles over her head.

The redhead knew that this had to be equal parts sleepy stiffness, and preening for her own benefit. She did not mind. Shego had a beautiful body, and an arrogant ego. Plus, Kim knew, times like this were one of the few times she'd known the ex-villainess to be comfortable going naked; alone in the safety of heroine's apartment.

It wasn't anything the paler woman had ever said, but Kim was fairly confident in her assessment. Shego seemed so rarely to show off her body. Even her slinkier outfits, like her green-and-black Gianni Fettuccini dress, were full length with opera gloves; and she wore a conservative one piece swim suit despite having the curves to pull of something far more daring.

'So why then, if she is so comfortable with me, do we never DO anything?'

The question came unbidden to her mind. Sex was good, and she enjoyed Shego's company most of the time… But suddenly it all felt a bit more shallow than it had a moment before.

As she interrogated herself in this sudden bout of uncertainty, Shego sauntered across the space of her floor, from the bed area of the studio apartment to the kitchenette. "Coffee, pumpkin?"

"Yes, one sugar, extra white chocolate creamer," the redhead automatically answered, before looking to see Shego standing next to the counter.

The beauty that was the alabaster woman once again distracted her for a moment. Statuesque and faintly muscular. The stuff of Greek art works, the redhead thought with admiration.

'So why is she here, having a fling with me instead of having a real… thing with someone?' Once again a nagging hesitation nibbled the back of her head, distracting her from morning-after-bliss.

She watched the pale woman begin the process of preparing drinks in her little French press, making a cup at a time to each of their tastes. Inside the ginger's mind, a war raged.

The attraction to Shego she'd had for weeks now, and admiration for her body, her skills, her sensuality, and her lazier fare attitude; against this new, niggling ambiguity to their relationship to one another.

Well, Kim Possible didn't shy away from things. Whether they were world-ending threats, or personal drama.

…on the other hand…

Shego was dangerous and wildly volatile when provoked. And the redhead knew now, after a few weeks of sharing a bed with her on an intermittent basis, there was a deeply hidden insecure streak beneath the surface. Again, nothing the mercenary woman had ever given voice to; but a probative glance here, an unsure look there when dealing with Kim's inner circle, especially Ron, her lifelong BFF and former BF.

Always well hidden. But Kim and Shego had genuinely tried to hurt or kill each other for long enough that each could tell the other's moods and cues. Possibly part of the reason this thought had never occurred to the redhead before this morning; they stayed at ease around each other, or at ease and playful… So Kim never thought to question beyond the moment.

"Hey, what's going on behind those plasma green eyes?" Shego prodded her partner out of deep thought as she offered the heroine her flavoured coffee.

Kim smiled as she came round from thought. That was a new one. "My eyes are nowhere nearly that green."

"They're exactly the same shade as mine, Kitten," Shego sat, still nude, on the bed next to Kim while sipping her own hazelnut coffee.

"Oh?" Kim grinned curiously, "That sounds rather definitive."

"My eyes used to be as sky blue as that bitch who tortured you in high school, Kimmie," Shego nodded past the lip of her mug. "I spent a lot of time studying them in a mirror after the comet came along and changed them."

"And you studied my eyes too?" the redhead probed curiously after a sip of her morning libation.

"Oh," Shego made a considering sound as she looked at the ceiling. Then a smirk solidified on her lips, "Only every time I tied you up or pinned you to the ground."

The heroine ducked her head at that, partly in flattered embarrassment, and partly in humiliation at the obvious opportunities she had never noticed to do the same. "Smarty butt."

Shego wiggled said body part on the sheets in front of her bedmate, "Smart Ass. Use your grownup words, Pumpkin."

The redhead huffed at the occasional chastisement of her rather clean language. It wasn't that Shego cursed prolifically or with aplomb, but she certainly did so more than Kim did.

Sitting up, drawing a sheet around herself against the morning chill that Shego didn't feel, Kim realized that she did know more about the pale woman than she often gave herself credit for.

So again, why could she not put a label to what they had become to one another? Maye be she didn't want to, because she suspected what that term would be and her moral compass didn't swing in that direction.

But did that mean that it couldn't become something else, something more palatable to her? Or that she was correct at all?

"You've got that look again, Pumpkin…" Shego again prodded her, whilst watching the redhead over the lip of her coffee mug. "What's going on inside that jack-o-lantern head of yours? Did I blow your mind last night?"

Kim giggled in spite of herself. Then she poked a toe playfully at Shego's hip, "Jack-o-lantern?"

"Orange and always smiling… maybe lit from within by some weird otherworldly light." Shego supplied with calm smugness as she sipped her coffee. "So, spill. What is going on in there?"

The redhead sighed. Shego was a flighty villainess. If Kim asked the questions on her mind, would the older woman decide to cut fence and dash, ending this strange thing they had been sharing?

Then she hit on a way to get her answer in an end run, as Ron would call it with football talk. "How about we go see a movie tonight? Maybe get dinner?"

"Mmmm?" Shego tilted her head, watching the ginger heroine as she nursed her cuppa. "What movie?"

The redhead made a scrunched up face. She hadn't bothered to think about that in her nascent plan.

Then again, what might Shego suggest at this point? She knew that the retired villain had occasionally watched Bricks of Fury… would she suggest action fair, or something more… date'y? "Well, what's playing?"

The ashen woman arched a carefully plucked onyx eyebrow. In this moment, both women exchanged a pointed glance. Each knew what was really being asked here.

"I don't think you want to see a movie with me, Princess." Shego demurred. "I yell and throw candy at the screen. I've been kicked out of more theaters than countries I've been arrested in."

"I'm sure you'd be on your best behavior." Kim tried to encourage the naked woman sitting with her on the bed. "After all, why waste good chocolate on imaginary characters?"

"A five dollar box of $1 Senior Mints is not 'good chocolate', Pumpkin." Shego shook her head dismissively.

Frowning, the ginger wiggled her toes beneath the sheet, looking at them. "Dinner then?"

Sighing, the pale mercenary looked at her suddenly bitter coffee. "I am not a 'dinner and a movie' kind of girl, Pumpkin."

"Then what kind of girl are you?" the heroine huffed, trying not hurt at the direction things were suddenly taking.

Forcing herself to drink her coffee, the one-time evil lieutenant restrained herself from either verbally or physically spearing the college girl. She wasn't sure if she did this out of consideration for what they had been having with and for each other; or if it was because, unlike Drakken, Kim could fight back.

"Why do you want to know," She finally managed to ask without irritation in her voice.

"Because," Kim exhaled, "I want to be something other than just your bed buddy. I would like to have a serious, adult relationship."

"Why?" the mercenary snorted, "I've got by just fine with never having one."

Kim was about to press on with her explanation and entreaty when the flippant way Shego had said what she had said caught her attention. "Wait, what?"

After considering the arrogant beauty a moment, the ginger tried to articulate the disconnect that she was experiencing, "How is that even possible? You've been a hero AND a villain. You're mature, and worldly… you're like th-,"

"Ahbububu!" Shego made a snapping gesture with her fingers and glared. "Don't talk about my age."

Sighing, Kim tried to keep calm as she processed this… revelation.

Shego hunched her shoulders over her coffee cup and sniffed with affront, "Seriously Princess, when you think of me, are the words serious, adult, or relationship the first words that come to mind? Are they even in the top fifty?"

The redhead huffed at that, "I just called you mature and worldly, what do you think?"

"I think you're delusional." She supplied casually, flicking some imagined dust off her bare breast and illusory lapel, "I've been called a lot of names over over the years, but mature, worldly, adult, and serious; not among them."

"…and your evidence for my delusional state?" Kim probed irritably at the dismissal.

"My developmental psychology degree."

The redhead was about to snap at the dismissive diagnosis when a couple of things clicked in her mind. Shego was being very sheltered, rather than getting her own hackles up for an argument or a fight. And psychology. The emerald-eyed woman was USING psychology on her.

Kim knew something of psychoanalysis herself. And she knew Shego at least this well. The pale woman was trying to wind her up and trigger a fight, even though she wasn't looking for one herself. And she had almost succeeding, knowing exactly which buttons in Kim to push.

But Kim was in mission mode. Shego couldn't… wouldn't win when Kim Possible was on the case. And that included putting walls up around herself.

And Kim knew how to push certain buttons on Shego too.

"So you're telling me," Kim asserted, getting up off of the bed with her coffee, sipping it and standing confidently in front of Shego, naked as day herself and freckles on display, "That the big bad Shego has never been on a serious date?"

Shego sneered at the insinuation, "I never said that."

"No," Kim clarified, sipping her coffee again, putting on a show of self-assurance, turning her show of sexual coolness on Shego, "You said you'd gotten by just fine without a serious adult relationship. Which I believe includes dating, in public, without worrying about how other people think or feel about it."

The redhead grinned as she felt the heat around the bed rise very faintly. Now Shego's hackles were actually up. She kept up the pressure, "She, possessed of an advanced psychology degree and wanted on warrants in eleven countries, never mustered the courage to hold hands in a bucket of popcorn?"

"Now wait just a minute! I've seen movies befo-,"

Kim cut her off, needling further, "Never looked into the eyes of another person over the light of a fire that wasn't neon green and inspired by rage?"

"Oh now that's just low-," the pale woman tried to counter.

"That the great and powerful Shego," the redhead chided, carefully schooling her face as she sipped her morning coffee, pontificating over it, "runs scared from the idea of dinner and a show?"

"I run scared from nothing."

"Prove it."

The mercenary glared daggers. "I'll pick you up at twenty-hundred hours, bring heels."

The redhead had the good sense to wait for Shego to jerk on her clothes and storm out before bursting into a triumphant grin.