Secrets of a Former Evil Genius

Fandom: Lilo and Stitch

Pairing: Jumba/Pleakley

Rating: PG

Warnings: Uhm...slash between unattractive individuals. Discussing gay romance with five year old girl. Cross-dressing.

Archive: Just in case anyone cares enough. :) I'd be honored.

Little girl, can you be keeping secret?

626 will laugh, I think. Your sister, she is busy. You, I think I trust.

All right, all right. I'll tell you.

I did not expect this. I find it very strange. But I...am not homesick. I do not miss my planet. My lab, my experiments. I do not even think of it, more than now and then.

Yes, yes, little girl. We have o'hana. Strange o'hana, yes, but o'hana. Yet I wonder how I am part of this...strange family.

You and older sister are great fun, yes. 626 is...almost better as Stitch than how I made him. Certainly better behaved. More useful, more manageable. But I did not live with you and older sister. Heart did not get soft like his did through visions of...love and tenderness. I did not see family until very end.

I did not live with you. I crept in hidden shadows or under stolen human clothing, watching 626 become your Stitch. I lay under blanket, under stars. With Pleakley nearby.

Pleakley!

...I am sorry. I did not mean to be yelling. But I still do not understand.

If I was...if I *am* spending so many days with...this hysterical creature. Strange, shrill little one-eyed one. Why is it, I am then becoming this? It is making no sense to me.

I called him that, first day I met him. 'My little one-eyed one.' From moment my eyes set on him, and my shadow eclipsed him. He looked up at me, scared. A...little intrigued, maybe, as I am very dangerous evil genius. And I enjoyed striking fear, as I always do. Enjoyed that little bit of awe, too. Maybe.

And while I am still thinking of 626, back then, finding 626, catching 626...it seems Pleakley and I are instant pair. Not seen apart. I did not try to...ditch, as I think you say, irritating though he was. As little concern as I had for law, for being stuck with him.

I laughed. I was amused. I stayed.

And he stayed.

And when we were fired, from job of catching 626, I stayed. He stayed.

It seemed...obvious, to me. I did not even question. As easily as the nickname had come, so did our place together.

And then we fight you, little girl, and then you are captured. And then I talk to big sister. And suddenly, I am *caring*. I try, 626 times, to make chaos across universe. But life of little girl like you, I care.

*Why?* It could not just be watching you. In part, maybe, but not all. And it could not be...could NOT be Pleakley. Could it?

He is always whining, crying, voice like off-key singsong. Clutching stupid wig and dress, as if he looks like woman. Heh, women on my planet are big, broad. Many curves. They are *scary*, women on my planet. I am still glad to be rid of ex-wife, shrieking about "commitment" and "real job".

Pleakley is tiniest woman I've ever seen, when he try to be one. Shrewish, but so frail, so quickly broken. Turning one eye more than I turn all four, nervous about rules and ecosystems, mass panic we might cause when other humans get wise.

Still nervous around me, when we are alone. I wonder why that feels wrong now.

Friends? You are right in part, I think. But friends are not like rubber bands when alone together, like something waiting to snap.

He plays wife when we are out. "Mr. and Mrs. Jukiba", when we guard you out of doors. You saw, the costumes on Halloween...all couples. Except when he tried to be bullfighter. Maybe he thought I would be Carmen.

I tell myself it is just that he likes his wigs and dresses, but it feels natural. Like how we are together each day. Like he is my little one. Like we are breathing.

I remember once, he say...

"I wanted to be adding theft, endangerment, and insanity to list of things I did today."

And he did not mean it, I know. But I laugh...a real laugh, from somewhere deep in me. And said "You, too?"

I do not want that, anymore. I do not want anything I used to want.

Because if Pleakley is in danger...I do not want him hurt, you see.

I...am settled down. Ha! Settled down!

Three steady girlfriends and ex-wife try, all of them fail. And who does not? My little one. My little one does not fail me.

And he still looks at me, when no one else in room, like...waiting for me to understand. His costumes and couplings and all of this like begging me. As if I do not know! As if I am not...terrified.

Can you keep this secret, little girl? Just for now. Just until...

Until we are alone again, and I can let him know. How he is so small. So fragile. And he has done all this, to me. He has made me so happy and afraid, all at once. But I must go to him, or I will drive myself crazy, with this thinking and waiting.

That, I think, is why I am not homesick. Why I never began to be. Because you do not get homesick, you know, when you are home.

-fin-