He hadn't wanted this. He hadn't wanted this at all.
Of course it was rather late for such epiphanies, because now -whether or not he wanted it - he had it.
The boy lay very quiet and very still on his bed. Occasionally he would flinch or curl his hand further over his eyes, but he didn't wake. Silent in the dark, Drew watched him breathe; pale hands clutching one of Drew's gloves to his chest as though it was some kind of assurance.
He should have known. He should have expected things to blow up in his face long before this. Now he had a mess, and the mess was named Ron Stoppable. And Drakken couldn't even begin to decide how best to fix him.
And so he watched the boy breathing. And he had thoughts.
-
Drakken was a busy man as of late, trying to keep one step ahead of Possible and Dementor. If someone had invented a device that showed promise for a conquesting evil genius, he'd steal it. Why waste someone else's hard work, right? And he'd even gone for simplicity this time. The name 'Mindswitcher' gave clear enough indication of what the device did.
What? Well, he couldn't be bothered to know every small detail about how it worked. But he did figure it out rather quick and after studying its basic design notes, he believed he had learned enough to test it on a subject. The recently captured buffoon had proved less than willing of course, but there were solutions to problems like that, and those were called manacles.
-
It was absolutely brilliant. The look on Possible's face when Ron had shoved her off the edge of Drakken's hovercraft? Delicious. Stoppable even flipped her the bird as they escaped the scene of the latest robbery, leaving her with a precarious grip on the edge of the roof.
The boy was laughing delightfully at her struggle, one arm around Drakken's waist to keep his balance as he waved goodbye.
"Getting kinda brainless, isn't she?" Ron remarked, once she was far below them. "She doesn't need to catch me if you're the one doing the crime."
Drakken didn't yet know what the machine had done with Ron's memories of Kim Possible, but he liked it. The boy no longer had a soft spot for the pesky cheerleader. "You're a very good distraction," Drakken had replied over his shoulder. "The whole point is to keep her attention away from me, isn't it?"
"Yeah. But still." He frowned as if bothered by something, but let it go unspoken. He'd always let it go. Ron knew where he belonged now, and it wasn't with Possible.
-
And who knew the boy had so many clever ideas? Possible had been using him for all the wrong reasons. Distraction? Decoy? Pack mule? It was a complete waste of evil creativity. Drakken had to admit to himself that he'd gotten predictable through the years - enough at least to find something very refreshing about Ron's devious side. Not that he'd realized at first. Drakken and humble pie wasn't exactly love at first bite.
-
"You know, Dr. D," Ron had told him at the lair, after the third attempted heist had been interrupted by Possible. "Sometimes you make it way too easy for her to find out what you're doin'."
"I do no-!" Drakken automatically defended, then buttoned his lip. Ron might be clever, but that didn't make it any easier for Drakken to flatten his ego. Taking constructive criticism wasn't easy for him. He sighed. "What do you suggest?" he asked, keeping his voice calm.
From where she sat reading her magazine, Shego raised an eyebrow.
"Well . . . See, there's the whole thing with her detective work. She can figure out what you're doin' because you're never random enough. Whenever you or Shego break into a place, you only take what you need." Drakken made a slight noise, considering this. When the man nodded at him to continue, Ron was encouraged to continue.
"She always checks the inventory to see what's been taken. If you wanna throw her off, you should take a bunch of completely random stuff. Maybe even send Shego to steal something you don't need. And then there's the security cams too."
"Not bad," commented Shego, smirking. "So what about the security cameras?"
"There's usually security cams in the factories. Knock out the cameras you can see, but maybe not all of them. Kim will scan what's been taped before they got put offline, she'll know it was you. But you can still use them against her by giving her the wrong kind of information. Read blueprints or something. Fake ones."
"Where do you get these ideas?" Drakken asked, staring at Ron. The boy looked down again and shrugged, harboring a small grin at the unexpected praise.
"I've had way too much free time to wonder why comic-book villains didn't use common sense. You know, most heroes win because the villains just lay on the clues. They wanna mix it up with the good guys and they keep getting' beat."
"I know!" Drakken agreed, momentarily distracted. He too was guilty of free time and reading comic books. "You think after a while they'd nix it with the calling card thing and just take over the world while the hero's busy angsting about his date with Mary Jean or . . . whatever!"
Shego rolled her eyes. She'd had to threaten Drakken out of leaving 'calling cards' when they first started working together. "I dunno, Dr. D. These are pretty original ideas and all, but do you think we have enough time for all that work? What if she finds the lair before you do, er . . . " She made a vague gesture. "Whatever it is you're doing again."
Drakken smacked his forehead. "For the last time, Shego!" he snapped, "It's a mind sonar that will scramble the brainwaves of everyone on the planet and give them all the IQ of chickens!" A tap on the shoulder stopped him mid-cackle. "Yes, Stoppable?" he asked flatly.
"Remember when we talked about setting goals that were too high?" Ron chided gently.
No, Drakken couldn't remember having a conversation about that ever. He was too confused to protest when Ron launched into it.
"Ya gotta start small, Dr. D. If you turned all the geniuses and doctors and important people into chicken-brains first, starting with Wade, nobody's gonna know how to fix it."
Drakken's jaw dropped. "Why the hell didn't I ever think of that?" he lamented. Ron patted his back.
"There, there, Dr. D. I used to say the same thing every day in interpretive dance class," Ron commiserated, earning himself an odd look from Shego.
-
The boy laid down a wealth of information about Possible that could work to their advantage. How she got from place to place by calling in favors, her father's access to untested space craft - nothing that Drakken couldn't find use for in the future if this plan should fail. He'd told Drakken a while ago about his microchip, despite knowing the extraction wouldn't be a pleasant experience. Wade had more access than a ten-year old probably should to certain devices. It didn't take a lot of guessing as to whom helped get the chip into him.
And Possible thought *he* had issues?
Drakken had surrounded himself for years with an odd assortment of lackeys whom he had no contact with other than telling them what to do. With the exception of Shego of course, who didn't follow orders that easily. Shego just followed the ones she liked.
Small wonder Drakken was in no way prepared for the respect in Ron's eyes whenever the boy looked at him. Ron seldom went off alone into his own world of creative mayhem. The boy would tell Drew anything he wanted to know, stopping whatever he was doing to make the man feel involved. Drakken knew from personal experience how difficult and distracting that was while holding onto the tail of a vision. It meant a lot more to him than he let on.
Eventually Shego had asked him when they were supposed to 'ditch the sidekick' after they no longer needed him. Drakken stared at her for a good long moment, not really knowing what to say.
He'd begun treating Ron more and more like an equal. Ron's ideas, though a million times better than his own, no longer chafed at Drakken's ego. Ron's nature was more persuasive than pushy. It had away of relaxing the man enough for Drakken to let down his guard. When the boy made a mistake or asked a question, Drakken found himself explaining things - something he never found the patience to do for his henchmen. They made a remarkably good team, actually.
When he finally stammered his answer, Shego had looked at him flatly for a moment then walked away as calmly as she'd approached. Drakken oddly enough found himself wishing she'd yelled at him.
-
Fifth heist. Shego had robbed another place to draw Possible off, but somehow her pet nerd figured where Drakken would be next. With Shego gone, Ron filled his old role of distraction - a role Drakken didn't much care for though it was working.
Nothing could tear her away from Stoppable as he blocked her attempts to immobilize him, returning the blows that got through with interest. Kim tried talking. She spoke of Rufus, Friday nights, Felix, Bueno Nacho, champion wrestling, even his parents - any thing she could think of that would retrieve one spark of memory at how he enjoyed being her friend. Her words hadn't brought back those memories. They'd only served to agitate Ron and the boy's defenses became sloppy.
It wasn't long before he'd been backed into a corner. She moved too fast for him to kick at her from the ground, instead flipping him over on his stomach and settling her weight on the small of his back. Ron struggled uselessly, both arms twisted behind his back and Kim's face inches from his ear as she tried again to talk him down. Not one word she said faltered his cold glare or stopped him from trying to get free. His attempts became more panicked as he realized he couldn't throw her off. Kim had to apply more pressure on his back to keep him down.
Drakken's men were gathering what they needed uninterrupted since Ron was keeping Kim's focus away from them. They weren't close to finished and Drakken was shouting insults at them to hurry it up. Ron desperately tried to catch his attention.
"He's using you as a tool, Ron," Kim snapped, voice unsteady with anger and disappointment. "As long as he gets away, you're expendable. This is Drakken, remember?" Her hands had apparently tightened around Ron's wrists because he squirmed. "He couldn't care less about you!"
"Drew!" Ron cried sharply, trying to twist his body away from underneath her.
The sound of his first name got Drakken's attention. Ron hadn't been asked to refrain from calling him by that name outside of the lair, but he knew better. Drakken looked at him, then turned to survey the scene.
His henchmen were nowhere close to getting all they needed. The boy's ideas were good, but they had their drawbacks. Drakken agonized over it a moment longer before deciding they could get the rest of the loot somewhere else.
"Prepare for retreat! Take what you have and get out!" he yelled down to the scurrying sweaty red blobs he called henchmen. Drakken didn't wait for any questions. He flew the hovercraft over to where Possible had the boy pinned down. Kim saw him coming and didn't attempt to mask her panic like Ron was.
"Get the hell away from us, Drakken!" she snarled, flattening herself protectively over Ron. He flinched and renewed all attempts to pull his hands free
"Umm. Hi. She's crazy," he panted. He looked at the older man, wide-eyed with fear.
"You won't take him away from me Drakken! Not like this. Whatever brainwashing you did, I'm going to undo!"
Ron, who hadn't taken his eyes off Drew, shivered at some vague image Kim's words had stirred. "Dr. D? A little help?" he called. The edges of his voice were quivering.
"Another time, Possible." Drakken pushed a button on his vehicle that sent a mechanical arm to swipe at Kim. She yelled as it looped around her ribs and flung her away from the boy. Kim hit the wall rather hard, but the pain didn't keep her from getting back to her feet. Ron had wasted no time joining Drakken on the hovercraft. Once he was aboard, the man raised the craft out of Possible's reach. "We're leaving!" he warned his minions. "Now!"
Thankfully they were too prepared for his order to yell back excuses. Drakken watched the helicopter with their stolen equipment rise out of the large entrance hole they'd blasted out of the roof.
Something sharp and silver flew past his face, slicing his cheek open and clouding his left eye with blood spray. Drakken yelped in surprise before he registered pain. He caught sight of a flailing hook rebounding off the dashboard and catching on to one of the safety bars. The line connected to it snapped taut, causing the craft jerk from the sudden weight of a third person.
Ron clutched the side of the hovercraft to keep his balance and stared at the grappling hook. One of its prongs gleamed a metallic crimson. "You fucking bitch!" Ron yelled over his shoulder. The bitch in question was hanging on to her end of the hook's line and steadily climbing it up to them.
"Ron!" she called from below. Stoppable could just barely hear her over the wind. Already she was only ten feet below them.
As Drakken focused on keeping the craft steady, Ron worked on losing their extra baggage. He managed to loosen the hook's clamped grip on the metal bar after receiving several small cuts on his hand. It snapped back an inch, straining to hold Kim's weight. Ron saw a hand reach up to pull its owner on board and cried out, turning back to redouble his efforts on the stubborn hook. He didn't have to. Gravity proved too strong for the grappling hook to hold on. It released the bar with a snap. Kim flew backwards, screaming, only to land directly into the bay.
Ron caught sight of her resurfacing, flipping her bright hair away from her face to watch them fly away. "That'll teach her," he laughed, looking over at Drakken. His smile melted into a frown of worry at the sight of all the blood. It wasn't a deep cut, but it was bleeding freely. Drakken had either been unable to stop the blood or he hadn't tried. "Hey, you're hurt," he murmured, reaching for his face.
Drakken grunted and pulled away a bit. "Don't worry about it. It's only a scratch."
"Yeah, but she could have hurt you for real if that thing had been any closer." Ron scowled and looked back in the direction they'd left her. "I hate her."
Drakken chuckled. He never thought he'd hear the boy say that about his former crime-fighting partner. It was most gratifying. Ron took the laughter as something else.
"No really, I hate her. I don't care if I used to . . . I don't care whatever I might've thought differently before." He folded his arms. "She's a bitch and if she ever tries to hurt you again, I'll make sure she goes through a jet engine," Ron spat.
"Whoa." The man stopped laughing and looked over his shoulder at Ron, staring until the boy flushed. "Down, boy. I'll be fine, trust me."
"Sorry," Ron muttered flushing, and wrapped his arms around Drakken's waist as they ran across air turbulence that made the hovercraft bounce and shudder.
Ron didn't lower his arms until they arrived at Drakken's lair, even though the rest of the way was smooth sailing. Drakken never once told him to.
-
The haul had been pretty good, considering they'd had to bail out early. Only a few components for the missiles were wanted for, and they were nothing Shego couldn't obtain with the force of henchmen behind her. Everything was on schedule. However, that didn't mean it was time to party.
Drakken was in the middle of explaining this at the top of his voice to his henchmen whom he'd discovered had stopped on the way to the lair to buy pizza and booze.
"We do NOT party when the job is half-done, gentlemen!"
"But we skipped lunch-break!"
"A lunch-break? YOU DON'T GET A FREAKIN' LUNCH-BREAK! You didn't even get called into work until seven! It's not my fault you didn't eat beforehand!"
"Go easy on 'em, Dr. D," Ron said, popping open a soda. He already had a few pieces of pepperoni-olive on his plate, but hadn't touched them yet. The thought of eating his own pizza all by himself was kind of weird. He'd always been required to share his food with someone before. Ron smiled thinly, trying not to think of whom. "They're growing henchmen."
"I'll say they're growing." Drakken eyed a henchman seated in the lazy-boy chair whose love handles pushed up on either side to give him two extra armrests.
Ron shrugged. "You need a break too, you know. Have some pizza?" He held his own plate up under Drakken's nose. The other man delicately pushed it away but sat next to him on the couch.
"Maybe later," he sulked.
"Come on, I know you gotta be hungry. You had major blood loss back there." Ron pointed to the clean bandage on Drakken's cheek. "Please?" Drakken rolled his eyes and looked over at Ron.
"Hmph. It was so not major blood loss, I've had worse." That pizza was starting to look good, however. Drakken took some off Ron's plate, noting that Ron only started in when he did so.
In a roomful of hungry henchmen, the pizza boxes did not last long. Drakken allowed them to eat, but refused to let them touch any liquor. "Bad enough you're all going off on a mission completely bloated. I won't have you staggering around drunk!" They grumbled of course, but left with Shego as planned - all of them sober.
They also left a mess and several crates of booze. Ron jumped into them gleefully and pulled out a beer. "Coool! Hey, can I try some of this?" he asked Drakken.
The older man raised an eyebrow at him. "Whatever happened to waiting until you're twenty one?"
"Yeeah. I don't suppose you're going to tell me you waited."
Drakken snorted, but looked away suddenly. Ron stared and then burst into peals of laughter. "You mean you actually waited? You broke just about every law but that one?" The boy collapsed on the couch cackling at the irony.
"I made a promise to mother," Drakken muttered. It had been one of the few he kept to her, not that she really knew of all the ones he'd broken. He waved a hand. "But of course I'm not going to stop you if you want to drink something. Just don't get drunk."
"Drunk? Who says we're getting drunk? It's only one can, you know, to celebrate! Besides, the more you drink, the less your henchmen will be able to."
"Well, when you put it that way I guess." Drakken reached for a can of beer. It was better than pacing around and worrying until Shego returned with the goods. But not too much to drink, he told himself. Celebration or not, he wasn't about to let either of them get sloshed.
-
He'd been ranting about something that had a point, once long ago. A point that was relevant to the conversation beforehand that he'd been having with Stoppable. It had veered off on some kind of tangent about school bullies, and somehow wound up here. Dodgeball and dodos again. This time improved with beer.
Usually this was about the part that he got cut off by Shego. When mocking didn't work, a bolt of green energy did the trick. Ron however, sat there on the end of the couch, taking the occasional gulp from his fourth can or so and remained quiet and thoughtful. His attention never wavered. His expression was unreadable, but Ron's eyes stayed on him and didn't show one flicker of insincerity or boredom.
Drakken prattled on, and by the time he got to the woes of fifth-grade, he stopped himself and stared back at Ron in silence. Ron blinked, craning his neck forward in slight confusion. "What is it?" he asked the older man. "You okay?"
"Most people tell me to shut up," Drakken muttered, blinking. "About thirty minutes ago. How drunk are you?"
Ron straightened indignantly on the arm of the couch. "I'm not drunk. Much. Yet." He grinned, swaying a little on his perch, but not in immediate danger of falling off. "This stuff tasted nasty at first but it's not so bad. I meant it though. I don't mind."
Drakken blinked, owlishly. "No. Think I've said enough. Think I've officially used up my ranting privilege for the entire week."
His brain felt light and airy. Perhaps he should stop drinking. After this can. Drakken lifted it to his lips and found it had a decent amount left in it. He took a gulp and then belched.
"Huh. I didn't know ranting privileges ran out," Ron scrunched up his nose in thought. "You can rant all you want. I don't mind." He glanced at Drakken, smirking. "Not like I've never said more than you needed to hear."
Drakken blinked at him in surprise. The boy had never ranted to him, not from what Drakken could remember. He struggled to think of something both intelligent and risk-free to say. Right now this was a bit more of a struggle for Drakken than the average male.
"You've actually ranted very little. I mean in comparison," he came up with. Ron remained silent, hesitant to speak. "Something on your mind?" Drakken asked gently.
Ron shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I'm just upset over the whole brainwashing thing."
A cold lump of fear dropped into the older man's stomach. "What?" he asked flatly.
"You know, brainwashing . . . the lobotomy thing Possible promised to do to me. Remember?" Ron poked him. "That whole stupid thing at the factory?" he laughed and Drakken joined in, a bit too loudly in his relief. "She was going to 'save' me from you. Hah. Like you're anything bad compared to that piece of work."
"That piece of work?" Drakken echoed curiously. Ron flushed and hid his mouth temporarily behind the beer can as he drank.
"She's just a bitch," Ron replied lowly. Drakken should've taken that as a hint to let it go, but his brain was a little more insensitive than usual that night.
"What did she do?"
Ron didn't look at him for a long moment. He took another few drinks of his beer and just when it finally dawned on Drakken that he should apologize and forget about it, Ron started speaking.
"I thought I liked her once, okay?" Ron scratched at the back of his neck. "We were just friends. I helped her with missions, because I-I thought I liked her like that, you know? She didn't seem to notice it and I didn't say anything about it, because I figured it wasn't gonna happen even if she did. After a while, it just stopped mattering, you know? I was still her friend but I moved on. I got interested in someone else. Then, she started paying attention," Ron muttered. "And not in the good way. More like the possessively freaky way.
"It was hard enough admitting how I felt to Felix - I mean I only did it because he figured it out. He wouldn't leave me alone until I confirmed what he already knew. I was so sure he'd wouldn't want anything to do with me after that, but I was wrong." Ron swallowed. "He . . . He returned it. I never figured out why he did but I guess when you're paralyzed from the waist down, gender doesn't matter." Ron laughed bitterly. "Still, I was happy. Waiting for the sky to fall, and it did, but I was happy. We hid it pretty well at first, but Kim found out.
"She also found out whenever we planned to meet for dinner or a game. Then she'd pop up unexpectedly and invite herself along with us. Like a chaperone or something. I knew she had me chipped, but when I had asked her about it a long time ago, she promised it was only in case some nutcase captured me on a mission." He snorted, shaking his head. "Turns out she was the nutcase. Felix eventually gave up - I didn't, but I guess I can't blame him. Who'd want to be with somebody you couldn't ever get alone time with? I got pissed at Kim like never before, though. I did something stupid."
Ron's perch on the armrest had made it difficult for him to lean back since there was nothing to lean back against, so he slid down until he was sitting on the sofa cushions, beer still cradled in his hand. Drakken move a little to give him room.
"What did you do that was stupid?" the older man asked. Ron stared at the top of the beer can for a moment, thinking. "Did you yell at her?"
" . . . I told her I no longer wanted to be friends with her. That and I told her she couldn't do whatever she wanted to me. But you know Possible's motto? She can do anything? Well she set out to prove it." Ron grimaced. "Felix had stopped showing an interest in me, but she had some photographs of us. Photographs that Wade took somehow that he had no business taking," Ron said through grit teeth. "She knew what my parents believed in, she knew what they thought about . . . about people like me. Kim knew they'd kick me out and when they did, she was right there to welcome me into her house. Hell, boxes of my stuff were already piled up in the spare guestroom and her parents were looking at me funny, but they didn't say a word when I spent the first two nights there." His voice wasn't as steady as it had been when he'd begun telling the story. Drakken put a hand on his shoulder. Ron glanced at him and away, taking another draught. The boy's face was strained and beneath Drakken's hand he was shivering.
"Sorry. Once I get started I kind of can't stop my mouth from going," Ron replied apologetically. "I haven't really thought about it this much before. I'll stop talking if it makes you uncomfortable."
"Nah," Drakken assured him. "Really, I don't mind." Ron still looked doubtful. For a minute, Drakken wondered if Ron was going to be quiet all night, but the boy continued.
"My parents didn't want to hear from me, her parents wanted to pretend I wasn't there, and Possible kept going on her missions and dragging me and Rufus along. I didn't want to go anymore, but she was in charge now more than ever. If I challenged that, I'd get kicked out to the street. Just in case I had the notion I'd be better off on my own, she promised to send those photos around in emails." Something shifted in Ron's eyes, making him look just a little older than he was. "I knew better than to doubt she would do it. She really can do anything."
Drakken was feeling rather disturbed. He didn't know how much of that story was true and how much of it was something the Mindswitcher had thought up for Ron - some kind of alternate twisted truth to make him want to break off every tie with Possible. He was almost afraid to ask what had become of Ron's molerat. He didn't have to. Ron hadn't stopped talking.
"We went on a mission to stop Dr. Dementor from . . . I can't remember. It was something stupid like putting salt in several main bodies of freshwater." Ron's voice sounded suspiciously wet as he waved a hand in a gesture of exasperation. "It was a big lair this time - all underground tunnels and cheap metal. Kim said for us to split up to cover more ground. Rufus and I went down one tunnel and we . . . we ran into a couple of guards and they had dogs. Rufus could smell the dogs before I could see anyone and he panicked and ran away from me. Then the guards came and I had to stop and hide. I couldn't find Rufus after that, but I didn't stop looking."
Ron's breath hitched as he spoke and he swallowed before speaking again, managing to keep his voice level. "I . . . I called for him, but nothing. I just couldn't find him. Kim ran up to me after about twenty minutes, and of course everything was falling to pieces in the tunnel because the lair was self-destructing. She said we had to go. I wasn't going to go anywhere without Rufus, but Kim dragged me out fighting her every step of the way. She managed to fly us both out of range in time but she wouldn't let me go back, not even when the flames died down. I screamed at her and she told me I shouldn't have lost sight of him - that's all she fucking had say about it. I don't know - maybe it was my fault for losing him in the tunnel, but she always blows shit up, could she maybe not have this once?" He cursed and leaned forward, shaking. "I didn't even want to go. I never wanted to pretend I was a hero. Rufus didn't either."
Drakken's hand went back to Ron's shoulder, squeezing it gently in an attempt to comfort him. "Don't let her get me?" Ron whispered from between his fingers. "Drew, please? I don't want to go back there. She was talking in the factory about Rufus like he was still alive and about going home to my parents and . . . and I think she's finally snapped. I don't know what she'll do to me next. Her parents do whatever she asks them to and her mom's a brain surgeon . . ." Ron interrupted himself and curled tighter, side pressing against Drakken's, but he didn't bother to apologize.
"She won't touch you again," the man heard himself promise fiercely before thinking. Possible wasn't crazy and she wasn't entirely the control-freak that had been seared into Ron's memory. Ron might not know any better, but Drakken did. Even so, if Ron was that scared of Possible then Drakken was going to make doubly sure she never got near to him again. "She won't get her hands on you as long you stay with me."
"Y-You won't leave me behind if-if you guys have to bail?" Ron whispered closer to Drakken than he probably ought to be. He certainly wasn't complaining.
"You'll come with me," Drakken said gently. "No matter what happens, you'll be the first person I think of if we have to leave. I couldn't leaving you behind." And that was definitely true, though Drakken was a little surprised to hear himself actually say it. He felt Ron shifting against him, heard the aluminum crinkling of the beer can in the boy's hand before it fell to the ground spilling everywhere. Drakken was about to lean forward to reach for it, but Ron's lips were suddenly pressed against his own.
It wasn't an altogether bad experience, his brain eventually noted through the haze of his initial shock. Drakken leaned back into the couch cushions, Ron's warm weight against his chest. The boy's lips had broken the first kiss to deliver other small, gentler questioning ones. As Drakken continued to lay there stupefied, the kisses became less passionate, more frantic-paced until Ron whimpered in horrified disappointment and started to pull away. Drakken's hands fumbled to catch him, body acting before the brain caught up.
Drew's mind was still reeling. Nobody had touched him - even seemed to want to - in the longest time. He wasn't sure if it was real. Ron hadn't pulled away far. The boy regarded him anxiously, pleadingly. Drakken's hand reached out to Ron's face, causing the latter to flinch and close his eyes. The hand didn't deliver a blow as Ron had obviously expected. Drakken stared at the blue skin against the white of Ron's face for a few moments before trailing his fingers down Ron's cheek. Ron leaned into the caress, looking strained and relieved at the same time. "Really?" Drew whispered, unable to keep from asking.
Ron remained still for a long moment, then nodded and planted a frightened little kiss into the palm of Drakken's hand. The boy's eyes opened to meet Drew's. "It's . . . okay?" he asked, sounding unconvinced.
Drakken's hand moved to the back of Ron's neck gently pulling him down again. Ron didn't really put up much of a fight. He relaxed instead, settling against Drakken's chest like a contented cat. Drew kissed the bridge of his nose, unable to hear the things an entirely sober brain would be screaming right about now. All he could seem to do was kiss the boy's tender mouth and revel in the sensation of being kissed back. It felt so warm, so right the way Ron was lying against him; face pressed against his collar, freckled arms reaching up to rest around his neck. So wonderful . . .
There was an abrupt noise from the lair's entrance. The henchmen were back, and Shego's voice could be heard snapping at them. Apparently the heist hadn't gone entirely to plan, but Drakken was disappointed more at their presence than their failure. Judging from the way Ron moaned, the boy felt the same. "My room?" he suggested. Ron didn't hesitate more than a second before nodding. "We'll have to make a run for it then," he whispered.
Two minutes later, Shego poked her head into the recreation room. "Dr. D? Mini-D? Helloooo?" She peered around the room, noting the empty beer cans one not-so empty can that seemed to have made a sticky puddle on the floor. Ew. She wasn't cleaning that up. Other than a housefly buzzing around the pizza boxes, the room was uninhabited. "Guess he must've gone to bed. Good, he can bitch at his henchmen first thing tomorrow before coffee. They can tell him what happened." Shego grumbled some more to herself before heading back to the area of the lair reserved for her.
Drakken had barely the time to close the door to his room before finding himself glomped again by one hundred and eighteen pounds of teenaged boy. Ron rolled onto the bed, laughing as Drakken fell after him. He sought his way into Drakken's arms again, finding them easily in the half-light of the small desk lamp in the corner of the room. It cast a soft peach glow across Ron's face as he snuggled against the man and lay still, waiting, quiet save for his breathing being a trifle deeper than normal.
Drakken's hands had minds of their own, traveling across Ron's limbs and under the clothes to feel the softer skin there. In the moment there was nothing wrong, nothing remotely prudish existing in either of their minds. Hormones on both sides were going too wild to have listened to it anyway.
Fingers slid over Ron's chest, stroking between neck and collarbone. It was slow and simple at first - Ron began touching Drakken as gently but with no less trembling on his part. When Drakken's fingers slowly lifted the hem of Ron's shirt he assisted the man in removing it and arched forward into the kisses left along his throat. The shirt was the first casualty. Other articles of clothing were removed anxiously, thrown helter-skelter, as the room seemed to become unbearably warm.
Drakken's knees were on either side of Ron's hips now as he leaned over the boy, kissing light trails from his neck to his abdomen. Ron had never felt this save for in false memories. It was so much better than he could remember, perhaps merely because it was coming from Drakken. His hips twitched slightly at every sensitive place Drakken's lips moved across.
Ron whimpered, not knowing how far he could push his luck, not knowing exactly what he wanted just then or even if it should matter to Drakken. He had some idea of what Drakken needed, and he was afraid of it. Not enough to deny it, however.
Drakken kissed him then, a warning for what both of them knew was going to happen at this rate and Ron knew the man wasn't thinking clearly enough to bother with lotion. Ron's hands dug into the blankets as Drakken lifted his hips, breathing a little irregularly. He was going to be brave now, a good brave boy. Ron bit back a shrill whimper or two as Drakken began to push into his entrance, but he refused to break away. Drakken paused, as it became evident that this was not going to feel good for either of them if he continued. "Damn. Hold on," he muttered, pulling back again. He leaned over Ron to rummage through a nightstand drawer.
Ron laid still, heart hammering. That had hurt him, and it probably would hurt even with lotion, but he knew he could do it. He loved Drakken and he wanted him to be happy, didn't he? Drakken found what he was looking for and squeezed the packet of lotion into his hand. Once he applied it to himself, Drakken's lotion-covered fingers moved to his groin. Ron forced himself to lift his hips again, making it easier for Drakken to prepare him. First it was cold, then increasingly uncomfortable as he felt himself widen and stretch around the man's fingers. He may have squirmed but if he did it didn't matter because Drakken didn't mention it. Ron felt a heated kiss on his throat and breathed again, trying to relax. "Love you," he whispered back, eyes closed. Drakken's lips moved over his face, brushing gently across Ron's pale sweating skin. A thumb brushed across his nipple, eliciting a soft moan. Ron gasped softly at the unexpected pleasure, but wasn't lulled into thinking everything would feel as nice.
He felt a light pressure on his thighs, bidding him to spread a little wider. Ron obeyed. Being invaded didn't hurt as bad this time around, but he'd been right - it still hurt. Drakken was trying clumsily to be gentle about it, but all it was doing was prolonging the wait for more pain. Ron gasped and against his better instincts pushed himself toward Drakken. The boy cried out through clenched teeth but just as quickly laid back, panting through a mouth that couldn't decide whether to grimace or smile.
Drakken held still, watching him for a moment before leaning down to kiss him. Ron didn't hesitate to kiss back, but it was a struggle to abstain from accidentally biting the man's lips in his discomfort. He didn't say a word to give the man any idea contrary to the one that everything was fine. Drakken began to move slowly, still kissing him and for a while Ron figured he could manage this alright.
He wasn't expecting Drakken's hand to touch him as well. Ron hadn't flagged the tiniest bit despite the pain - his breath hitched at the burst of sensation when the man's fingers rubbed across his privates, trailing a thumb around the sensitive tip. Drakken moved his hand tighter around him and followed the same rhythm he was making inside of Ron. Ron couldn't stop any of the sounds that came from his throat then.
The boy's hips went along with Drakken's rhythm and sometimes against it, all depending on whether it hurt or felt good or both at the same time. It's a funny thing about pleasure, the body becomes helpless even when the brain knows enough to stop. Ron had wanted Drakken to pull out long before the lotion stopped making a difference, but he ignored it anyway.
He was seeing colors now. They made the pain a bit more bearable, even if the pleasure by itself was almost unbearably intense, and the little noises he made could no longer be distinguished from each other as good or bad.
The man kissed him again, whispering in his hair and Ron took comfort from that more than he ought to - Drew didn't mean to hurt him. Drew loved him back and Drew would protect him from microchips, scalpels, and camera lenses hidden behind green eyes.
Sometimes he'd amused himself by mentally rehearsing how he could talk Drakken into recruiting. Ron had been totally down with the idea of doing the villain thing if it would just get him the hell away from her.
Not surprising at all that he'd made no protest when he opened his eyes to find Drakken looking down at him that first day. There'd been a fight, he'd been told. Kim had left Ron behind mistakenly, thinking he was cowering outside. Instead he'd been on the floor of the evacuating transport, rendered unconscious by a blow from a henchman's staff. Ron hadn't once asked to be sent home.
Kim had dragged him along to fight Drakken often enough before. Ron couldn't understand why she wanted to save the world so badly from him, considering the kind of people who ran it today. It was some kind of game to her and all at Drakken's expense.
Yet here was a man who wasn't afraid of Possible like Ron was, despite the fact that he usually wound up in worse shape when Kim was through with him. Time and time again she defeated him sorely and time again Drakken found a new way to defy her. The fact that this man was always ready to stand up to Kim's comic book bullying had earned him more than a few silent ovations. In the end, Ron had only been too glad to help the man he'd been admiring all this time. Having his feelings returned was worth everything, even if it meant he had to endure a little pain.
Ron took too deep of a breath as everything suddenly became too bright, too fast and too much to keep inside. His hips shuddered violently under Drakken. From the state of Drew's own breathing, he was right on the brink himself. Ron let his entire body go limp, winding down from exhaustion even as Drakken began to speed up. Now there was nothing to counter the pain, though he stubbornly refused to let any sound escape, not even when Drakken released into Ron's body.
It happened as Drew leaned down to kiss Ron's face that his lips brushed against the tracks of involuntary tears there. Drakken paused in confusion. The smile the boy was flashing up at him was all wrong; a wavering smile to hide pain.
"Ron . . .?" He braced his hands on Ron's hips, pulling out and all he could see for a horrible moment were spots of red. Drakken sucked in a breath. "Why didn't you say anything?" he hissed, gut dropping in a panic.
"Y-You were enj – I - I didn't want you to have to stop," Ron stammered. Drakken stared at him for a moment, looked down again and cursed softly.
"I . . . Yes, but," he muttered, and started to get up. "You should have said something."
Ron, looking panicked, grabbed at him. "Where are you going? Are you mad at me?"
"No. I'm gonna . . . I'll see if there's something I can get for this." Although the state Drakken was in, it was probably better if he didn't attempt to treat Ron. "Just hold on a bit."
Ron did hold on, to Drakken's hand. "You don't have to. I'm okay. Will you be back?" he asked.
"I won't be long," Drakken assured him. It took a bit of work disentangling himself from Ron's grip, but he managed. Upset and ashamed, he didn't give Ron more than a backward glance as he put on a robe and padded into the hallway.
He cleaned himself off in one of the bathrooms, mind straying to Ron's face - how pale he'd looked, how he'd bitten his lip several times during sex. Maybe to keep himself from telling Drakken the problem.
True they'd had beer in great quantities that night, but what Ron had allowed to happen couldn't be attributed to inebriation alone. Beer didn't make people act completely selflessly. It tended to have quite the opposite effect. The boy had to have been consciously silent about it the whole time, putting what Drew wanted ahead of his own comfort. But why would he . . .?
Something unpleasant planted itself in Drakken's brain, and he hoped it wasn't the answer but he knew he had to find out anyway. He walked unevenly back to the room and looked in on Ron. "You should get some sleep now," he told the boy. "I . . . have to go look at something."
Ron stirred himself quicker than Drakken had anticipated, clutching again at the man's arm as he got up. "Please stay," he begged. Drakken looked into the boy's face, and hated himself for what he was about to do, but if he was right . . .
"Ron, let go of my arm and lie down," he said blankly.
Unhappy but unable to disobey, Ron's fingers released Drakken's arm. He slid his body gingerly along the mattress until the side of his face rested against a pillow. Drakken lifted the blankets from where they'd been pushed towards the edge of the bed and spread them over Ron's nude body. He could feel Ron's eyes on him all the way to the door of the bedroom until he closed it behind him and turned down the hallway toward the lab.
-
Drakken had never bothered to pull up information about the Mindswitcher other than where it was located so he could have Shego swipe it. Now he sat before the computer, keyboard clacking out commands as he navigated through pages of scientific breakthroughs on the web. He found a few avid descriptions easily, but it took a while getting a hold of actual content.
An hour later, his work yielded results. He'd been able to find the professor's notes, though it took a little guesswork and a lot of bypassing security to get to them. He clicked on the .PDF file containing the manual for the device and carefully read it. The process took another hour, but he learned much. None of it good news.
The Mindswitcher worked on various levels that could be controlled by the settings on the side of the helm. Drakken hadn't known this of course, but what caught his attention was that a few of those levels were labeled as irreversible. His gut dropped.
Drakken left the seat in front of the computer chair and walked over to the closet. Very gingerly he slid a box off the top shelf and brought it down to rest on the nearest table before opening it up. Drakken pulled the device out, careful not to touch either side, and turned it in his hands until he found what he was looking for: a small dial set to a number. Nobody had touched it other than him, not since it had been used on Ron. The number had been set to five. Drakken put the thing back into its box and all but ran back to the computer, scanning the level descriptions.
There was one level of obedience in which all inclinations to disobey were completely shut down, turning the person under its reprogramming into a perfect robot soldier. This wasn't irreversible since it simply stopped the brain's tendencies to question authority. That was level four.
Drakken's eyes traveled up to level five. His stomach dropped. Where level four made parts of the brain stop functioning to serve a purpose, level five messed with memory. It was irreversible and it did so much worse than turn a person into a spiritless automaton; it changed memory, twisted emotions, and played on fears. It did whatever needed to turn a person's loyalties somewhere else.
The person, or Ron in this case, was allowed to disobey. The beauty of it was that he wouldn't, because he'd likely care too much about what Drakken wanted rather than what he himself did. It was a selfless kind of loyalty, one you found in dogs, the kind that kept people - like dogs - crawling back no matter how often you kicked them.
Under the description were footnotes. The first, being it was irreversible. The second, a warning never to use this level on a person of the opposite gender as it could lead to unpredictable and sometimes rather messy results. Drakken's mind went back to Ron's generated memories of Felix. Even if Felix had never felt that way about Ron, the boy had mentioned feelings for him - surely the Mindswitcher wasn't able to twist everything around inside a person. Apparently gender didn't matter so much as sexuality.
Drakken processed it slowly, but once he finished he felt something unpleasant at the back of his throat. Ron was devoted to him because of a machine. It had nothing to do with Drakken. None of it stemmed from Ron's own feelings developed over the weeks he'd spent fighting for Drakken, none of it at all. Ron loved him because he couldn't help but do anything else, not because . . .
As if it wasn't bad enough that Drakken had discovered this while drunk and while . . .
He groaned, putting his face in his hands. There was nothing Drakken could do now but keep him here. He still cared about Ron, at least this poor mind-washed persona of him. He cared about him enough to cringe at the thought of Kim taking him away, at Ron's panicked and confused screams when seeing Rufus alive again, his parents with open arms, his best friend trying to touch him without hurting him. The old life was non-existent to him; he would not be able to settle back into it - not while his heart and mind still wanted - was programmed to want - Drakken.
At the same time, Drakken couldn't ever bring himself to love Ron back on that level. Not while he knew it was forced.
Ron was going to have to be with him for the rest of Drakken's life to be happy, and in truth he wouldn't be. He would wonder instead what he'd done wrong that night, why Drakken wouldn't kiss him again or why he sometimes wouldn't even look at him.
He slammed the keyboard in frustration. No. He could not have fucked up this badly, there had to be something he could do . . . something, anything. If he couldn't find something, maybe Possible could, if he could set it up so that she captured him. And what then if she failed? He'd have to bring the boy back, and Ron would've had gone through all that for nothing to gain even less.
There had to be some kind of way. Drakken stared at the screen for a while longer and tried to think of one.
-
The boy was stirring now. Movement caught the older man's eye, bringing his mind out of the recent past. He'd of course found no information contrary on the computer. After hours of turning up no help, Drakken had wandered the halls and eventually came back here.
Ron rolled over, freckled back presented to him. His breath hitched after only a short while, and he curled tighter around his pillow, pulling the edge over his face. Drakken heard nothing, but he was able to see Ron's shoulders trembling.
He looked up at the ceiling wretchedly and stared at it for a while.
He hadn't wanted this at all. Of course it was rather late for such epiphanies, because now -whether or not he wanted it - he had it.