Yes, believe it or not, I'm still living. Here's Chapter Three - we're about halfway done. Isn't that exciting? :)
Thanks to Slipgate for being my beta reader.
Drakken burst out laughing. He didn't mean to and he could tell by the look on Shego's face that she wasn't happy with him, but he couldn't help it. Shego had just made a joke. A really, really funny, ridiculous joke, even if he didn't remember exactly what it was right now.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Drakken protested - he had to keep saying it until Shego got it and that look disappeared from her face. He gave her his biggest grin, and saliva drooled out of his mouth without exit permission. "That's crashy."
Ugh. That word came out weird. "Crazhy. Crasszy." Drakken opened his mouth as wide as he could and stretched his lips across his teeth so that his words would sound right. It was suddenly hard. "Cra-a-azy." There. That was it. "I'm jusht here talking to my good buddy Dementor." He smiled down at Dementor. He'd back him up. He'd tell Shego exactly what was going on, and she'd understand. People always seemed to understand Dementor. Maybe that was part of why his plans worked better.
But Dementor didn't say anything, and Shego's face got even pointier. "Okay, first of all -" Shego sliced her hands through the air, and Drakken watched them in awe. "You hate Dementor's guts. And second of all - that's a table lamp."
Oh. That explained why Dementor was being so quiet. And why his head looked like a lampshade.
But then, where was the realDementor? Surely he wouldn't just leave without telling him good-bye. After all, they were pals now.
Weren't they?
Shego shook black her back hair - back her black hair - turned to Duff and said something. Drakken didn't hear exactly what it was, because his head was buzzing and he could have sworn he was starting to hear music. Slow, winding, loopy-sounding music, the kind they played on cartoons when someone got clonked on the head. Hench must have been playing a - a - a - what were those things called? They were like records, only smaller and shinier. . .
Duff shook his shoulders and shrugged his head - no, wait, it was the other way around. That must not have been the answer Shego wanted, because she flung her hands into the air and gave a Very Loud Sigh.
Drakken giggled to himself as he watched Shego go up to one of Dementor's henchmen - Shego go, that sounded silly - and ask him something. The henchman smirked at her, and Drakken flinched. It was never a good idea to smirk at Shego, especially when she looked as frustrated as she did right now.
He leaned in closer to see what was going to happen, and the floor suddenly seemed way too close. He felt himself tilting forward. Didn't know how to stop it. Probably couldn'tstop it.
Until arms reached out and grabbed him. They were small arms - not even as long or as big around as his - but they were strong. Sturdy somehow. Yanked him back to his feet and then held him upright. They almost made him feel safe.
"I don't suppose youremember how much you had to drink," the arm-owner muttered. Shego.
It was the most hilariously random and randomly hilarious thing she could have possibly asked. Drakken couldn't help it - giggles bubbled up in his throat and burst out of his mouth. A belch came with them - he couldn't help that either.
"Lovely." Shego fanned the air in front of her with her hand and pointed at him with her eyes. "Look, look -" She raked a hand through her hair, which Drakken had only seen her do a few times before. "Sit down." She put both hands on his shoulders and pushed him into a sitting position in the nearest booth.
Ahhh. He hadn't realized just how tired his legs were. Them and everything else. He yawned and stretched and tried to rub at his bleary eyes.
If the room could stop spinning, that would be really great.
"Now - stay here." Shego put up her hand like she was training Commodore Puddles to stay. "I'm going to go talk to someone about this little predicament we find ourselves in." Her words were barely squeezing out from between her clenched teeth, but they still sounded sarcastic. He laughed a little - nobody could do sarcasm like Shego.
"Okay," Drakken mumbled. He folded his arms carefully on the tabletop and gingerly - what a strange word, gingerly- rested his head on them, but it still made him dizzy. "I'm jus' gonna take a little nap."
He glanced up just in time to see Shego roll all twelve of her eyes. "Yeah, why don't you do that?" With that, she stalked off, arms pumping angrily at her sides, leaving Drakken wondering what he'd done wrong thistime. He buried his face in the little cave he'd made with his folded-up arms and bit back a whimper. His head was really starting to hurt.
Drakken let his eyes sag shut and listened to the noises of the room. Everything sounded as blurry and wobbly as it looked. He could hear people talking, glasses clinking, footsteps stepping, but it all seemed very, very far away, like he was on another planet by himself. That was the loneliest thought he'd ever had, and he could feel his bottom lip trembling.
But two voices poked their way through the fogginess of his brain. Two voices he would know anywhere. Shego and Dementor.
He could hear Shego yelling - that was never a good sign - and Dementor yelling back - but, for Dementor that was Standard Operating Procedure. SOP. That was a funny word. Sop. Sop. Sop. Drakken chuckled to himself, which made the punch bounce in his stomach.
Oooh. He swallowed hard, throat muscles trembling. All of a sudden, he didn't feel so great. He squeezed his eyes even tighter and tried not to think about the brownie that was turning circles in his stomach.
He put a hand gingerly - there was that silly word again - to his middle, which gurgled and grumbled angrily under his palm. Why was it doing that? He'd only had the one brownie. That wasn't enough to make him sick. That wasn't enough to make anybodysick.
He didn't understand it. Didn't understand anything. His brain was tangled into so many knots, he could barely push a clear thought through. Drakken had never felt like this - not ever, even when he hadn't slept for ninety-two hours straight. If he wasn't such a fierce supervillain, it might be kind of scary.
Maybe - maybe the punch had been really sugary. That could have upset his stomach. Yeah. That was probably it. After all, Shego had asked him how much of it he'd had to drink. Darn old Shego and the way she always figured things out first, even though hewas supposed to be the evil mastermind.
Footsteps pounded by the booth then. The thumps echoed in Drakken's sore head. He heard Shego's voice - yelling again - and Jack Hench's voice - not yelling, of course. Hench never yelled, which kind of creeped Drakken out. It was unnatural. You could blow up HenchCo's entire cafeteria, and the worst Hench would do was talk through clenched teeth. He knew, because he'd accidentally done that once with the Supersonic Robo-Claw 800. Its big red button had been so big and red and shiny that he hadn't seen the "Do not touch" sign until it was too late.
The footsteps thumped again, closer this time. Drakken felt someone shake him by the shoulder, and it flipped everything inside him upside-down. He licked his lips to get rid of the bad taste he suddenly had in his mouth and lifted his head off the table. It felt heavy and stuffed, the way his stomach had felt last year after he'd eaten his weight in funnel cakes. He shook it back and forth, as hard as he could, to get rid of the way-too-full feeling. It worked. A little too well, because his head grew so light and empty-feeling he was sure it was going to float away. He moaned under his breath.
"Well, come on, Otis Campbell." Shego and her malfunctioning clones were standing over him, hips on their hands. . . hands on their hips. (He was so dizzy.) "Let's get you home so you can sleep it off."
Drakken could feel his eyes crossing, making the room even blurrier. His name was Dr. Drakken, not Otis Campbell. Did Shego have him confused with some other mad scientist? How could she? She knew him too well - and surely no one else here was blue, were they? And what did "sleep it off" mean? He couldn't think of anything that would come off while he slept. Maybe a scab. . .
He wanted to ask her about all of those - and maybe even more - but Shego's face was getting that pointy look that told him she reallymeant business. She didn't answer questions when she had her pointy-business-face on. But he was so confused - but his mouth was so dry he wasn't sure he'd be able to talk anyway - but he really needed to know what was going on - but he felt bad enough without getting hit with Shego's green plasma -
Fine. He'd ask the questions when he was home, safe, in his own lair.
Home. Safe.Those words sounded so good, Drakken ran them through his mind six or seven more times. They made his heart thrash around in his chest a little less wildly. It was strange - his lair was designed to be intimidating, perfect for an evil genius with its big, dark rooms filled with Doomsday devices and its super-high ceilings so that his tall henchmen wouldn't bump their heads. But, somehow, it was a lot less scary than HenchCo's shiny, swirly basement.
And that was all he wanted, Drakken realized now. To be safe at home in his own bed, sleeping it off, whatever "it" was. He had to get back to his lair.
He staggered to his feet and promptly tripped over them. The floor tilted up to meet him, and Drakken closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, preparing for impact. He was probably going to land right on his nose, hard, and it would bleed and he didn't like bleeding because bleeding hurt. . .
Suddenly, Drakken felt his momentum come to a halt. Those same strong little arms wrapped around his waist and held him tight. The floor stayed where it was. He let out a big breath of relief.
"Whoa, there, sport," Shego whispered in his ear. "How 'bout we try to stay upright?"
Drakken blinked at the blurry floor and nodded. He liked that idea.
Shego yanked him back up, and his stomach went down. Then up. Then sideways. Then -
Oh no.
"Shego," Drakken hissed frantically through his teeth. "My tummy hurts." That didn't begin to describe the horrible thing that was happening in his gut, but it was all he dared to say. His heart thumpety-thumped in his chest, hurting his rib cage. He tried to bring a hand up to cover his mouth, but his hand couldn't find his mouth and it was shaking so hard - his hand, not his mouth - that he wasn't sure what good it would do anyway.
It was enough for Shego to understand, though. She put an arm around his shoulders and steered him toward a row of trashcans at the back of the room. Bigtrashcans, as high as his waist and shaped like donuts.
Ugh. Donuts. Suddenly they were all Drakken could think about. Hot ones, fresh ones, big ones, small ones, glazed ones, chocolate ones, jelly-filled ones. Fresh off the griddle - or whatever you cooked donuts in or on - the light glistening on their shiny, greasy batter. Their gooey chocolate icing. Their crunchy rainbow sprinkles.
That did it. He leaned forward over the trashcan and he threw up in huge chokes that hurt his chest and made his eyes water.
Yeah. Eyes watering. Very common during regurgitation. He wasn't crying - not babyish, embarrassing tears - in front of his fellow, significantly less fearsome, villains.
Throwing up was bad enough. He could hear faint, far-away groans and muffled laughter, like he was on a game show and had just gotten the easiest question wrong. Shego groaned, too, and turned him around so that he was hitting the middle trashcan instead of the left. He wasn't sure why it mattered, but the laughter got even louder and harsher.
A tear - hopefully just a reflex one - slid out of Drakken's left eye, over the scar, down his face, and got lost in the little dip between his nose and his mouth. (What was that stupid thing called, anyway?) It made him feel soggy and sloppy and horrible.
The same people that had clapped him on the back and laughed with him were now laughing athim, in that mean way he knew all too well. And, just like that, he wasn't the popular guy who'd been the life of the party what seemed like hours ago. He was the same silly, stupid Drakken he'd been last year, the one who had no one to hang out with, the one who had drowned his sorrows in funnel cakes, until his stomach was so full his bellybutton was about to pop off.
No - worse than that. He was Drew Lipsky, back in seventh grade, gagging over a much smaller trashcan during his science class's lizard dissection. He'd told himself over and over again, while they set up the stations, that this was important research, that great scientists couldn't afford to be squeamish. But they'd made that first cut - and he could see its little brain - and he'd lost that nasty cafeteria hot lunch, while the girls shrieked with horror and the boys laughed and punched each other and the teacher he was in love with rubbed his back like he was a sick little kid.
Drakken gave one final, weak cough and swiped his sleeve across his mouth. His head was starting to get that floaty feeling again, and his eyes were burning like his contacts were made of molten lava instead of plastic. Lava was great to put in your death traps, but not in your eyes. His middle felt hollow from losing everything in it.
Ohhhh. He pulled away from the trashcan and folded his arms over his stomach. He hated throwing up, just hatedit. There was something so - so - so - disconcerting (that was a good word) and almost scary about his digestive system working backward. Especially when he'd only had one brownie and a few glasses of punch, because he was trying so hard not to make himself sick this year, so that Shego wouldn't get mad at him. . . and so he wouldn't be sick. . .
Drakken closed his eyes to see if that would make it all go away. It didn't. He could still hear the nasty chuckles, feel the shakiness that started in his tummy and spread to his arms, his legs, and his head.
He grabbed back onto the trashcan so he wouldn't fall right through the floor and let his eyes pop back open. It didn't matter, he thought. Nothing he saw could make him feel worse than he already did.
But he was wrong. When Drakken lifted his head and tried (unsuccessfully) to blink the room into focus, shewas standing only a few feet away.
DNAmy.
Even through the blur, he could see her freckles, like little dots of cinnamon on her round sugar-cookie face. That face that had always looked at him so kindly, with sparkly eyes and a big happy smile, the face that made him think he was special to her. . .
Her hand was up over her mouth, but he wasn't close enough to read the look in her little black eyes. Was she amused? Disgusted? Did he dare to hope she was worried about him? Or was she just one of those people who got sick when she watched someone else barf, the way he was?
Drakken shook his head, hard, ponytail slapping painfully against his cheeks. Why should he care so much what DNAmy thought of him? Her opinion was no more important than any of the other villains'. Matter of fact, it was probably lessimportant, since she was hardly evil at all. Just very smart - and sweet - and good - and he cared what she thought, even though he shouldn't. He cared so much it made his chest sag, and that was worse than the itch.
A watery film - the thin-layer kind, not the movie kind - formed over Drakken's eyes, making his vision even fuzzier. For a minute he didn't recognize the tall, hairy figure standing next to DNAmy. It sort of looked like - Monkey Fist.
It was Monkey Fist, standing on two legs this time, towering over her. His face Drakken could read. It had a small, one-side-of-the-mouth smile and a glitter in his eyes that said, I'm so much smarter than you, and that's why I'm not the one throwing up right now.The prickles started up the back of his neck, because he couldn't think of a way to prove that face wrong.
Even as Drakken watched, Monkey Fist leaned over and whispered something into DNAmy's ear. He'd never noticed her ears before, even during the three hours he'd been in love with her. Shego's ears were pierced but she didn't wear earrings that much, so she had little dents in them. But DNAmy's ears were completely smooth - and so tiny. So not like his. He could feel them getting bigger and floppier the longer he looked at her.
Drakken began to tremble. He had to get out of there, away from Monkey Fist's smirk and DNAmy's perfect ears and Duff Killigan holding his nose and the loud, triumphant laughter of Professor Dementor. Why was he doing that? Didn't he remember they were friends now?
He pushed away from the trashcan and bolted for the stairs. His feet tangled around each other and he bonked his face against a wall. What a stupid place to put a wall. . .
Drakken turned around and immediately fell over a table that wasn't as far away as it looked. It was like random objects in the room had decided to band together and attack him, which he was pretty sure wasn't possible. But, then, the way the room was spinning shouldn't have been possible, either. It was another thing he had to get away from.
He peeled himself off the table, cracking his back in the process, and narrowed his stinging, watering eyes at the stairs. This time - this time he was going to make it to them! Nothing was going to stand in his way! He pounded across the floor, the stairs getting closer and closer with every step he took -
Shego and her faulty clones suddenly flung themselves into his path. "Where do you think you're going?" they asked (all at the same time; he was surprised it wasn't louder).
It took Drakken a minute to remember where he was going. All of his brain cells were working overtime just to keep him upright. "I gotta go home," he was finally able to say. "I'm sick." "Sick" came out "shick," because his tongue wouldn't go where it was supposed to.
Shego rolled her eyes, and her copies duplicated her. . . duplicates copied her. "Yeah, I kinda gathered that when you ralphed in the trashcan."
What was she talking about? That sentence was too long and tangly for him to understand. Drakken felt his face crumple. He tried to take big breaths in, but all he could manage were quick, shallow pants. His lungs were tight and squeezy with panic.
Shego started shaking her head, hard, until he thought it was going to pop off, which would not be good at all. He was pretty sure people couldn't survive without their heads. Now, chickens could live for a couple of hours, and he'd heard cockroaches could last a week or two. He shuddered - he hated cockroaches. Nasty little things with their shiny shells and their six skittery little legs. Could live through anything, like a certain frustrating teen hero. Maybe she was part cockroach. That would explain so much. . .
Things started to go fuzzy around the edges of his brain, blurred thoughts of giant cockroaches with red hair and headless chickens in shirts that showed their belly buttons. Wait, did chickens even havebelly buttons?
Shego brought Drakken's attention back to her by putting a hand on his arm - gently, at least for Shego. Her hand was steady and sure and not the slightest bit shaky. He wished his could be like that. He wished anythingon him could be like that. He was so busy wishing his nervous system forgot to flinch away from being touched.
"Look, Doc," Shego said in the voice she usually reserved for when he was running a fever. "It's gonna be okay. I'll getcha home safe. And then," she added under her breath, "I'll skin you alive."
Drakken wasn't sure what that last part meant, but it didn't matter. She had just said everything was going to be okay, so he knew it would be. Shego knew these kinds of things. She'd take him home and he'd change into his striped jammies and crawl into bed and pull the covers up to his chin and lay there (lie there?) until he felt better.
Yeah. Those were good thoughts. Drakken broke into a yawn, one so big it brought tears to his eyes. He wished he had that teleporter ray he'd stolen from Dementor, so he could beam himself back into his bed with just the push of a button.
But he didn't, so he couldn't, so he followed Shego up the stairs, which rocked and pitched like they were trying to toss him off. As they made their way across the twirly-swirly lobby, him shivering and clinging to her because he knew he'd fall if he let go, Drakken heard Shego whisper, sounding like she was talking to one of her clones instead of him, "At least it wasn't anything stronger."
Stronger?Drakken tried to ponder that, but his head hurt too bad for his brain to come up with much. Wrestlers were stronger than him. The smell of onions was stronger than the smell of cucumbers. Certain chemical compounds were stronger than others, especially if they were poisonous -
Of course! Just like that, Drakken knew what was happening.
He'd been poisoned. Some rival mad scientist, obviously envious of Drakken's brilliant mind and extra-high level of evil, had probably decided to "rub him out," the way they said in the old mystery movies that played on TV at 5:00 in the morning. Only this guy apparently wasn't very good with chemicals, so the poison had only been strong enough to make him sick to his stomach. Now that he'd thrown it up and they were leaving HenchCo's spinning basement, he was going to be just fine.
Shego opened the front door and stepped outside. He wasn't sure which door to go out - there were so many! - but he decided he should probably just follow Shego. After all, she didn't seem to have any trouble getting through the door. So he headed out the same one she'd gone through.
Outside, the night air was cool on Drakken's face, and it blew away some of the nausea. He was able to breathe in deep and let it out slowly through his nose and feel a little bit better.
He was also able to lift his head and see a round, bluish blur that he guessed was his hovercraft at the end of the driveway. He couldn't calculate its exact distance from him, because his depth perception was all off, and he didn't remember the algebraic formula for figuring distance - and he must be sick to forget that. But it didn't look very far away. He could probably reach it in forty steps. Twenty if he took extra-big jumps, but his legs were too shaky for that.
Drakken glanced down at his feet in their special mad-scientist black boots, size six. They were jittery and nervous, and the sidewalk wouldn't stay still either. Stupid thing kept jumping from side to side just like the stairs had - and the booths - and the trashcans. He really was going to have to write a very angry letter to Hench tomorrow. Provided he survived the night. . .
No, no. Drakken hauled in more breaths and focused on his feet. He would be all right. He just had to walk forty steps to his hovercraft and then he could go back to his lair. It never swirled around in circles, so he would be safe there.
Okay. Forty. That wasn't a very big number. One step for each year of his life. He'd lived forty years, he could walk forty steps.
Drakken grabbed onto Shego's arm again for balance, wobbled a little, and then slowly, shakily put his left foot in front of his right foot. The sidewalk jumped and spun, but Shego's arm stayed firm. It wouldn't let him fall. He raised his right foot in front of his left and put it down. There. That was one step. Just thirty-nine more to go.
Left foot up, left foot down. Right foot up, right foot down. Thirty-eight more steps to go. Left foot, right foot. Thirty-seven more steps. Left, right. Thirty-six. Left, trip, stumble, catch Shego's hand, struggle back up, right. Thirty-five -
"Oh, great."
Shego's voice made him jerk his head up - and hoo-boy, did that make him dizzy. Coming up the sidewalk were the last two people he wanted to see right now. Well, actually, more like the second-to-last. The first-to-last would be Ron Stoppable and his friend - that redheaded girl - what was her name?
These two weren't thatbad. At least they probably wouldn't kick him in painful places and drag him off to jail. Not that he'd even done anything illegal today. . .
No, no pesky teen heroes or unnaturally intelligent hairless rodents. Just the Seniors, arriving fashionably late, while he was leaving unfashionably early - and unfashionably sick. Was it even possible to be fashionably sick? Drakken didn't think so.
Junior hurried toward them, and he didn't seem to notice Drakken at all. He was gazing at Shego with awestruck eyes and a mushy mouth, like the rest of the world didn't exist because he was so madly in love with her. That made Drakken's insides swirl into a protective knot. The kid seemed nice enough, but you just never knew. His cousin Eddy was usually nice enough, too, but around girls he always got all weird and creepy.
It was Senior, though, that made Drakken feel like he was growing large enough for everyone within a 12-mile radius to stare at and shrinking down to nothing at the same time. He was following behind Junior, as usual, leaning slightly on his cane, also as usual. Anyone else would look old and feeble with a cane, but Senior pulled it off. Even if his pants had fallen down and left him standing in his boxer shorts in front of a jail cell full of his arch-enemies, the way Drakken's had just last week, Senior probably still would have been able to seem so distinguished and in-control.
Drakken moaned under his breath, stomach flopping again. Why did the most dignified person in the world have to show up when he was currently being the least?
But even though Senior had so much money and such good manners, he had never looked down on Drakken, the way villains who were richer and classier than him usually did. He'd always been respectful, and Drakken wasn't used to being respected.
"Shego?" Junior whined sadly. "You are leaving?" He looked like someone had just foiled one of his greatest, most foolproof schemes. Drakken remembered that feeling from last week, too. It hadn't been a very good week.
"Is everything all right?" That was Senior's voice. He liked Senior's voice. It sounded crispy and crackly, old and wise, like he'd learned everything there was to know - things even evil geniuses didn't have figured out at almost forty-one. There was something comforting about that - so comforting it took Drakken a moment to realize Senior was asking if something was wrong.
And he wasn't talking to Shego. His pale-blue eyes, the same color as Drakken's skin, were looking right at him.
Drakken jerked his head away before they could make eye contact and fastened his gaze on the fidgety sidewalk. Please, he commanded Senior mentally, think I'm clueless or sick or even rude. Just don't see that I can't walk straight.
There was something about the dizziness and the ground wobbling under him - something worse than embarrassing - something that weighed heavy on his shoulders and made it physically impossible to lift his head. And he didn't want to watch the respect disappear from Senior's eyes.
Drakken felt a weird tingling at the tip of his nose and the backs of his eyes. Must have been another effect of the poison. He pressed his lips together and tried to swallow away the barfy taste in his mouth. He knew if there was poison left in his stomach, his body needed to get rid of it. But he really, reallydidn't want to throw up again.
He could hear Shego's voice, sounding like she was miles away, which he knew she couldn't be because her arm was around his shoulders - unless that was one of her clones holding him and the real Shego was far away. Or maybe the real Shego was right here, and her clone was the one talking from a distance. Anyway, he could hear one of the Shegos muttering something to the Seniors. Probably telling them her boss had been poisoned and that she needed to get him home A.S.A.P., which was teen slang for "as soon as possible," so they could work on an antidote.
A little tiny bit of hope stirred in Drakken's heart. Senior was pretty smart, and he'd lived a long time - maybe he knew what kind of poison this was, how to treat it or at least diminish its effects. He opened his mouth to ask him and then stopped. His tongue was still swollen and clumsy, and it wasn't listening to him very well, so all his words came out in a sloppy, slurred way. He wouldn't have been able to stand letting Senior hear that. He would just have to hope that that was what Shego was asking about.
Senior said something then, but Drakken didn't hear what. His ears were starting to ring - a loud, shrill noise that sounded like he'd implanted a phone in his brain. All he could make out was the vague, polite murmur of Senior's voice. He tilted his head to one side so he could see better and saw Junior cocking his own head in confusion.
Hmmm. No clues there. Senior was always polite, and Junior was alwaysconfused. His poisoning didn't seem to be affecting them.
But how could it not? It didn't make sense. How could the world keep going like nothing was wrong when its future ruler was so miserable? For a terrible, lonely second, Drakken felt small and insignificant, like a burnt-out bulb on the Christmas tree of life. . .
And why did he keep thinking about Christmas? It wouldn't be Christmas for months and months. That didn't make sense, either.
Before Drakken could figure any of it out, though, Shego's arm tightened around his shoulders and she stepped forward, pulling him with her. With her helping him, he managed to walk, on shaky legs, the remaining thirty-five steps to the hovercraft.
Make that hovercrafts. He was seeing six, and he knew he wouldn't be able to pilot any of them.
Drakken patted his lab coat from collar to. . . whatever the bottom of a lab coat was called. A hem? No, that sounded too girly - it was probably meant to describe dresses or ruffly shirts or something. . . why was he thinking about this? He needed to find his keys and give them to Shego - so she could get them home - they were in his pocket - but where was his pocket?
"You're gonna hafta drive," he informed Shego. His tongue tripped over his teeth, and drool slid down his chin. He hoped Senior couldn't see him anymore. Senior had probably never drooled in his life - or thrown up - at least, not in frontof anyone.
"Yes. Thank you." Shego's words sounded short and annoyed as she reached into his pocket - oh, thereit was, right below the waist - and pulled out his keys. She shook them in his face. They made a nice jangly sound. Ooh, the ground was slanting forward again.
Shego reached up a hand and caught his arm before he could fall over. "Just sit back and relax, okay?" Her voice was quiet and gentle - well, quiet and gentle for Shego.
Drakken knew he was staring. Just gaping, like she'd grown an extra nose, which he knew wasn't very polite (staring, not sprouting extra olfactory organs). Shego was rubbing his back, which was sort of comforting, even though the blades in her gloves poked him. She would drive him home and tuck his blankets up under his chin and call Poison Control if she needed to.
Drakken felt his legs start to shake with relief. It would be all right. He didn't need to worry. Shego would make sure everything was okay, because she really caredabout him. The thought was so moving, his tears welled up with eyes. . . eyes welled up with tears.
"You're so nice, Shego!" he hollered, not caring who heard him. The whole worldshould know what a wonderful sidekick he had. "I love you! I hope we'll always be friends."
He glanced down at the hovercraft - the work of his brilliant mind, one of his first evil inventions - and felt his tears start to spill over. "I love the hovercraft, too," he sputtered around the lump in his throat.
It was Shego's turn to gape, like he'd just said something stupid. Which he hadn't. He couldn't really remember what it was he had just said, but he knew it wasn't anything stupid, because he was a genius and. . .
"Yeah, uh-huh. That's real nice, Doc," she finally said. She swung herself into the driver's seat of the hovercraft and turned the key in the ignition. Its engine whooshed, the taillights flickered on, and Drakken was able to smile for the first time in what seemed like years. He couldn't think of any sound better than one of the machines he'd invented all by himself working right. Stealing other scientists' inventions was fun - not to mention very evil - but it didn't give him that sense of pride that made him feel all shiny and took away the itch in his chest.
It was a good enough feeling to let him put his hands on the sides of the hovercraft and hop into the passenger seat. His ankle smacked the door as he did, and Drakken let out a yelp before he could stop himself. That wasn't very villainous, but it hurt, and he didn't need a broken ankle on top of his broken head and stomach. Well, technically, his ankle was belowhis head and stomach. Wasn't it? His brain was in such a mushy tangle, he was forgetting basic anatomy.
He wiggled himself back into his seat - Hench must have done something to it, because it bounced back and forth, too - leaned back, folded his hands over his unhappy tummy, and closed his eyes. Glowing microscopic organisms danced behind his eyelids. Breathing came a little easier.
Drakken heard Shego yank the steering mechanism up - it always squeaked when you tugged it like that. The hovercraft rose off the ground and started to zoom through the air, like a seat on an amusement park ride. He lifted his arms in the air to create the perfect aerodynamics - because you hadto do that if you wanted to obtain Maximum Ride Enjoyment. "Whee!" he shouted as the wind whooshed between his arms and lifted his ponytail off the back of his sweaty neck.
Shego didn't seem to be having fun, though. When he opened his eyes a crack to peek at her, she had her teeth clenched down tight. He could tell because she had her lips pulled back away from them, like she was going to bite him.
Drakken squirmed away from her and curled his fingers over the side of the hovercraft. Even scarier, she'd taken one hand off the controls and was making it glow its green plasma right next to his face.
"Look, Dr. D," Shego hissed. She sounded like an angry cat - and not the kind that Commodore Puddles chased. More like a jaguar or a lion. "I'd like to think that, given the circumstances, I've been extremelypatient up 'till now. But even I can only take so much. I need you to -" her eyes flashed, and she held her hand even closer - 'ZIP IT!"
Drakken watched her lips stretch back and purse together and poke out around those words. Big words. Long sentences. He was too tired to understand.
But those last two words were nice and little (well, maybe just little), so he got them loud and clear. She was telling him to be quiet and leave her alone. What happened to looking out for him? Couldn't she see that he was terribly sick and needed her help?
The itch in Drakken's chest was replaced by an angry burn, and he had to stick his tongue out at Shego before he exploded. There! That ought to show her!
Shego rolled her eyes and groaned, but she didn't look the least bit insulted like she was supposed to. Just annoyed. He jerked his head around so he wouldn't have to watch her smirk. He'd seen enough of those mean little non-smiles tonight already.
By now, Drakken had the hiccups again; worst case he'd ever had. They came one right after the other, barely giving him time to breathe in between them, and they were so big and hard they made his diaphragm ache.
He raised his head and studied the sky. Looking at the stars usually made him feel better. Watching them twinkle. Connecting them into constellations. Finding the ones he knew by name. Sometimes he was even able to spot Venus - so shiny - or Mars - little and red - and that always cheered him up.
But tonight the stars were dark and swirly, like the toilets bullies used to stick his head in back in middle school. Like black holes that wanted to gobble him up and spit out his bones - no, they wouldn't even do that. Once something went into a black hole, it would never come back out. Ever.
Funny. He hadn't thought there were any black holes close enough to Earth to be seen with the naked eye. As if HenchCo's basement wasn't bad enough, now something was wrong with the entire galaxy. And that didn't make sense. Jack Hench could have spun his building around as a stupid promotional. . . thingy, but he wasn't in control of the Milky Way.
Drakken shivered. Washe?
He glanced up at the sky again to see if the black holes were still there. They were, and for half a second he wished they would open up and spit out his mother, so she'd land right next to him in the hovercraft. He even scooted over in his seat to give her room - not that she needed a lot of space, since she was such a little person.
But whenever he'd gotten sick as a kid, she'd seemed like the biggest, strongest person around. She'd wiped his face with a wet washcloth and murmured to him. Her voice was loud and shrill, like Dementor's, but somehow it was soothing. Sometimes she would sing to him. Her favorite song went something like, "It isn't any trouble just to smile, smile, smile," only instead of saying the word "smile," she'd spell it. When he was super-little, he hadn't even known what she'd been spelling, but he'd liked the song anyway.
Drakken gulped at the lump in his throat. He wasn't sure if it was tears or vomit, and he didn't want to let either of them out. His mother shouldn't see him like this, running into walls and tripping over table and slurring his words, any more than Senior should. He would die a slow, miserable death of embarrassment. It made his stomach feel icky.
That, and the fact that the hovercraft seemed to be going faster and faster. It didn't remind him of a fun amusement park ride anymore. Now it was more like one of them that went at double the speed of light (which shouldn't have even been possible) and flipped you upside-down, the ones he couldn't go on without -
No, no, no, Drakken. He tried to shake his head, but it was too sore to move. Stop thinking like that. You'll probably feel better if you just don't think about it.
Drakken sucked in air through his nose with a wheeze and let it out through his mouth with a hiccup. Gulped down the lump again. Pulled his legs up in front of him on the seat. Tried to rest his head on his knees, but they were too bony and knobby to be comfortable. (Curse that metabolism Mother always envied.)
Instead, he hugged his knees to his torso. That felt a little better, a little safer. Slowly, slowly, he began to rock back and forth, back and forth, the way he used to do in the old rocking chair Mother kept in the attic. His back creaked just like it did, too. He really needed to go see a chiropractor, but his budget was so tight right now. . .
The rocking helped, though. It distracted his body from his achy back and queasy stomach and itchy chest.
But it didn't distract his mind. His brain felt soggy and sloshy, like it was full of punch. Drakken tipped his head to the side to see if it would drain out. It didn't. He'd read about water-on-the-brain in one of his science manuals, but not fruit-punch-on-the-brain. He had no idea what to do, how to make it better. It was almost starting to scare him. And Dr. Drakken did not like being scared.
The true villain didn't know fear, Villainsmagazine always said. If they did, they'd never conquer - what was it he wanted to conquer again? He should have known, but it was stuck somewhere in the soppiness of his brain.
Drakken ran his thick tongue over his lips. They were so dry they cracked, and he tasted a bit of blood. He shuddered even though villains weren't supposed to.
Maybe - maybe if he sang to himself like his mother used to sing to him - maybe that would calm him down enough that he could be scary instead of scared. Yeah. He licked his lips again and nodded, remembering too late how bad his head hurt. It was definitely worth a try.
Drakken opened his mouth and closed his eyes to remember how to form his lips around words. "It ishn't any trouble," he began cautiously, "jusht to S-"
Doodles. What letter came next? "R"? "J"? "E"? He knew there was an "E" in there somewhere. He tried to mentally run through the alphabet, but that only made things worse. There were so many letters, and they were all turning upside-down and sideways in his brain.
Drakken frowned to himself. Probably better just to stick with "S" for now.
Wrapping his arms tighter around his knees, he began again. "It isn't any trouble just to S-S-S-S-S."
His voice didn't sound anything like his mother's - it was much deeper and not nearly as sweet - and his mouth couldn't pronounce all of the words correctly - his "S"s sounded like "esh"es. And he could hear Shego moaning next to him, like she thought he was being dumb.
But none of that mattered. He rocked and singed (sanged? sunged?) the rest of the way home.
()()()
Total d'oh moment: I've never watched The Andy Griffith Show and I forgot that the drunk was Otis Campbell, not Barney Fife. It's been fixed. Apologies to any readers who wondered what the ding-dong I was talking about. :)