Legal Disclaimer: William and Shady is owned by creator Dylan Sprouse and is legally copyrighted by such. I do not own these characters nor the rights to them. This story is a fan tribute ONLY.
Story Disclaimer: This story is experimental. Because of my busy life, I will probably release the chapters infrequently.
W&S Universe/Shady's Gender Disclaimer: This story is based off a line of toys created by Dylan Sprouse. You can go to sprousearts . com to see them, and I think you can even still buy them. I know that he wanted to make a video game based off of William and Shady at some point, but it seems that must have fallen through because nothing has been said about it since, plus, he's probably extremely busy with college. Point is, there is no canonized universe around these characters. This story is an attempt to create an unofficial universe around these characters. It unlikely resembles any sort of universe he would have personally created for the characters. I do not know if he intended for Shady to be a female, but that is what I am making her/him in this story. I just think it fits better. I hope that he would forgive me for these liberties taken.
I have also placed this story in the Suite Life section on account of I know of nowhere else to go on the site where it will be seen and enjoyed by the fans of Dylan and Cole Sprouse and their work.
Dylan Sprouse's William and Shady Season One - Mad Scientists, Obligatory Origins, and People Eating Lasanga
[William]
William knew the day was going to be bad from the moment he woke up and got out of bed.
For starters, his alarm clock hadn't gone off. Apparently, there had been a power surge while he had been sleeping, and his alarm clock was endlessly flashing '12:00' repeatedly over and over again.
William's internal clock had failed him and he had woken up five minutes later than he had set his clock for. This had instantly spoiled his mood greatly.
William very nearly took his clock and threw it against the wall, but stopped and thought to himself: it was not the poor clock's fault, was it? Wasn't it, in fact, the fault of the power company that he already paid way too much money to for this outlandish service provided to his oversized house?
Now, to be fair, William's manor wasn't nearly as large as you'd expect the dwelling residence of a world famous business magnate to be. William, despite being a multi-billionaire, had always believed in modesty, after all. He, of course, deserved to live in the lap of luxury, but he wasn't excessive. No, no. His manor was nowhere near the size of, say, Bill Gates' or Steve Jobs' mansions. It was just a tiny bit smaller. William believed in penny-pinching wherever he could.
William hated spending unnecessary money. Indeed, he even refused to hire hardly any caretakers at all for his manor and opted instead to work the few he did hire to nearly to death. (Though not all the way to death. Because then they wouldn't be able to work.) Naturally, it was very hard to find and keep good help these days. The help he did find was always whiny and irresponsible. It flabbergasted him. After all, they were given the blessing of serving him, the greatest entrepreneur and businessman in the world. Many people in the world would have given their right arms to touch him even once. On occasion, he actually did charge people for accidentally touching him. If an employee touched him, he would often dock their pay. The amount depended on his mood, whether good or grumpy that day. He was often grumpy. But how could he not be? The world was filled with such incompetence.
Was there no one else in the world who shared his brilliant mind and insight? Who could see his visions the way he saw them? Who could understand and appreciate the sheer depths of his brilliance?
No.
Very seldom.
Even when people were kissing up to him, it was always with a fine layer of deceit. They only wanted to hold onto their jobs, get promoted, or be around him to make themselves feel important.
No real appreciation whatsoever.
He remembered how growing up his father had hammered into his head the best piece of advice that to the present day he still lived his life by:
"Money and power are more important than anything else in the world, William! The one who has the most money and power controls the world! The strong rule over the weak! Survival of the fittest is the name of the game! Are you strong or weak, William?"
Sometimes a tear would deign to come to his eye whenever he would think upon these memories.
But his father had also said:
"Tears are only for those who don't have thick enough skin to take the world by the horns and acquire all it has to offer. Do you have weak skin, William?"
How many times had his father paddled him for crying? But it had made him into the man he was today. He was strong and unwavering.
His father had disappeared one day while flying over the Himalayas in his private jet en route to a business meeting from India to China. No one ever had any clue what had happened to him. William had been thrust into taking over his father's empire at the young age of 20.
William had resolved to do his father proud. He was deliberately more ruthless than his father had ever been. He steered his father's companies in the right direction and made them even more prosperous than ever before.
Of course, many people despised him, especially those who knew him personally. Ungratefulness, once again. He just couldn't understand it.
But, it was just his burden to bear, he supposed. Life was like that.
He got on the phone and began cussing out the power company for about 10 minutes. They tried to say it was a situation they had no control over, and promised to do everything in their power to try not to let it happen again... yada yada yada.
Same old story.
Incessant incompetence.
William was convinced that incompetence always had and always would rule the world. There would never be any changing that, no matter how much he wished it could be so.
William stepped into his oversized bathroom, and leaning against his sink, looked at himself in the mirror.
William was an anthromorphic humanoid brown bear. Under normal circumstances, just a little better looking than most. He knew it. It was both his blessing and his curse. But today, at this particular moment gazing into the mirror, he was not in his best of looks. His fur was a mess, standing up on end and going all over the place. He really needed a trim soon. The look of himself irritated him this morning. He usually greatly enjoyed staring at himself in the mirror for hours on end, but the way he looked right now, he wished nothing more than to just punch through the abomination in the mirror that was trying and failing to mimic his image of absolute perfection and send it back to the twisted alternate dimension from whence it came.
William knew that the day was not going to be pleasant when he got into the shower and the hot water went out after five minutes. He had been paying extra money to the utility company to have his water temperature always at the desired level whenever he turned it on so he wouldn't have to wait for the water to get hot.
Why was he going through this?
He called the utility company and cussed them out, and they promised to send someone out in between 12 to 3.
William's day was made even worse when his butler served him breakfast. One of his over easy eggs had been broken on the top and the yellow of his eggs was running down over everything. How could he possibly be served something that did not look perfect? And one of his sticks of bacon was alarmingly short. The biscuits were the only decent thing in the spread. The pancakes had been slathered with just slightly more syrup than William preferred.
Wadsworth had been serving him every day for 10 years now. What was wrong with him? Why do this? Why put him through this incessant torment?
William chewed him out good. Wadsworth mumbled some miserable excuse, something about him being mentally preoccupied with his wife being sick...
William sighed.
It was probably her fault for not taking care of herself better. And it was still not a good enough excuse for this debacle of a meal sitting before him. William did not enjoy his breakfast.
Wadsworth brought him the New York Times just a few seconds later than he would have preferred to have had it in his hands upon finishing up his "meal."
He perused the paper. Ricky Sandy had taken two more states in the Republican Presidential election primaries yesterday, but it still seemed like Tim Bess was going to take the position of frontrunner against President Hagrid Forsythe in the main election.
Tim Bess was William's choice. William thought he would make a fine candidate. Tim exemplified all of William's personal values and morals.
Tim Bess was also a businessman, like William. He was extravagantly rich, a money hoarder, and knew all about mergers, hostile takeovers, firing people, and decent money management business techniques. (Many of which were unscrupulous, but in William's book, the only thing immoral was not doing whatever you could to get ahead in life)
The things Tim Bess was criticized for on the media were character traits of which William held very dear to his heart. William seldom voted in elections, but if Tim were nominated, he would definitely vote in this one. Still, everyone expected President Hagrid to win the election for a second term. It was because people were idiots, as far as William was concerned.
President Hagrid was a democrat and a liberal. Not a palatable combination William's lexicon. But Tim Bess was a conservative Republican and a businessman. Perfect choice by William's beliefs.
Salamand Green was lagging behind in a close third, but his chances of actually getting the nomination were getting slimmer and slimmer.
And no one seemed to care much about Kimmel Young. William couldn't imagine for the life of him why he was even still in the race.
Things got worse for William's day from then onward.
His limousine got a flat tire on its way out of the driveway. His driver, Fenwick, was so incompetent. It took him a whole 30 minutes to get the tire changed and get back on the road. William had an important meeting today. Didn't the universe know that it was supposed to be on his side? Why was it coming against him so?
The next thing that happened that sent William into a deeper funk was that they got into a traffic jam on the freeway. Apparently, there had been a ten-car pile up.
Unbelievable.
Now they were going to have to sit here while William was becoming ever and ever later and having to deal with being bored out of his mind.
Fenwick turned on the radio to try and pass the time. William paid little attention, though. Just a bunch of debates from over-opinionated journalists over who was going to win the election. Nothing new.
William sighed. This was getting tedious. They were still trying to get ambulances through and get the injured out.
It was then that William saw something that made his day even sourer.
One of the people being carted off was David Ricker, an acquaintance of William's that he had just been shooting pool with the night before.
This bugged William immensely. David did not look to be in very good shape. William had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. David owed him money. If anything happened to him, William might not ever see it. William made a note to stop by the hospital later and try to get David to write him a check before he croaked or something.
After they got the bodies out and the ambulances had cleared, things were still not moving along. The trucks were there to begin towing everything away, but there were about ten guys standing around just staring at the mess and discussing it.
What the heck was there to discuss? All they had to do was simply attach the tow trucks to the cars and begin pulling them out! It wasn't complicated!
William almost got out of the limo to go over and give them a piece of his mind, but Fenwick somehow convinced him otherwise.
Bad PR, he had said.
Fenwick had a point, but why should William have to just sit here and put up with this stupidity?
Eventually, William got to work... three hours late.
The coffee pot that was normally freshly brewed and waiting for him in his office had not been remade fresh upon his arrival. William had to drink his first cup of coffee three hours old while he chewed out his secretary and had her make him another pot.
First everything that had happened, and now three hour old coffee? Could this day possibly get any worse?
Well... yes. It turns out the stocks of one of his companies had gone down by 2 points. Also, there were some complaints about the working conditions in some of his factories in China. People were getting all bent out of shape about it.
Unbelievable.
He worked his butt off to give people good, stable jobs, and all they ever seemed to do was complain and criticize.
So what if those people in China were being forced to illegally work 14 hour days? In that economy, they should consider themselves very blessed for the chance to make a little extra money!
And as for the chemicals that were constantly wafting through the air making people in the factories sick, sometimes with long-term effects, for gosh sakes, hadn't ANY of these people heard of face masks?
This wasn't rocket science.
Ungrateful, ungrateful, ungrateful!
Why must he endure so much persecution at the hands of whiners and opinionated bigots?
But his day really came crashing down when he arrived home, thinking he was finally going to be able to get some R and R to recover from this awful day. Unfortunately, his girlfriend Henrietta was waiting for him.
William smacked himself over the head when his limo came into the driveway and he saw her relentlessly gaudy pink car sitting parked incorrectly in front of his house. He had forgotten he had promised to spend two hours of his life with her today.
Well, it was for the greater good, he guessed, as he sighed to himself. There are some things in life that were just too important to not invest in. This relationship was certainly one of them. But he inwardly groaned when he saw her and the first thing she said was those words that no male ever wants to hear come from the lips of their girlfriend...
"We need to talk."
Great. He thought to himself. God knows what insufferable complaint she's going to go rambling on about now...
There's no four words in the human language that he hated more coming from the female mouth more than: "We need to talk."
The conversations that always followed were so annoying and inconvenient. And then he would have to break out the flowery words and consolatory cliches and pretend to actually give a rip. But what she had to tell him this particular conversation hit him harder than he was expecting:
"William, I don't think it's working... I just can't stay in this relationship any longer."
William was shocked beyond knowing what to say.
"Excuse me?" he said, not quite believing what he had just heard.
"I said exactly what I mean!" she said, arms crossed. "It's just not going to work!"
William stared dumbfounded at his girlfriend.
"You're breaking up with me?" he said it as if it was the most unlikely, unbelievable thing he had ever heard in the world. Like someone had just announced that all chocolate was going to be red from now on.
"Did I stutter?" she said. "Let me repeat it one more time so you can get it: It's over! For good! Forever!"
William was beside himself. He had to plop down on the leather chair next to his sofa and stare at the floor for awhile.
This came as a huge blow. No one had ever broken up with him before. Ever. He had always been the dumper. Never the dumpee.
"I... I just don't know what to say..." he said.
"Well, it serves you right..." she said.
"This wasn't the way things were supposed to happen..." William was dejected beyond all manner of putting into words.
"Well, it's all your own fault!" Henrietta started in on him. "You hardly ever spend time with me! You've cancelled half our dates because you always needed to be someplace else! A third of our dates were cancelled due to business clients that you felt were more important meeting with than me... you didn't remember my birthday… you were nowhere to be found or reached on Valentine's Day last year! I swear, half the time, I don't feel like you're treating me like I even matter!"
"You did matter!" William threw his hands up in the air. "You have no idea how much you mattered!"
William was now holding his head in his hands.
"Well, you should have thought of that before letting this relationship fall apart!"
"I mean..." William said.
He pulled out his day planner and flipped a few pages.
"I hadn't scheduled myself to break up with you until February the 13th..."
Now it was her turn to stare at him dumbfounded.
"Excuse me?" She said in a did-you-just-say-what-I-thought-you-said-I-can't-believe-my-ears-I-better-not-have-just-heard-what-I-thought-I-did-or-so-help-you-God kind of tone.
"I was supposed to break up with you on the 13th... and then... while really distraught over our relationship not working out... I would have probably finally been able to swing that pity date with my secretary. It was supposed to be the perfect Valentine's Day!" William said with great sadness in his voice.
The only reaction Henrietta could give was a look of stunned silence, and a look on her face like she really couldn't believe what William was saying.
"If that is some sort of a joke, it's REALLY not funny." she said with an icy tone in her voice.
"No, it's true, see?" William said, holding up his planner so she could see the calendar.
Indeed, he had written in "Break up with Henrietta" on the 13th, and "Hot date with secretary" on the 14th.
"So, you were only using me?" she said, enunciating each word slowly.
William went on as if oblivious to the building wrath in her voice. He put the planner down and sighed.
"All of my plans are shot now." he said with the most sincere disappointment in his voice.
"Oh, your plans are shot?" Henrietta said to him, calmly and sweetly.
William grabbed a fiddle that was conveniently placed by his chair for situations such as this and started strumming a sad, sweet tune.
"This has just been one of the worst days of my life... everything's gone completely wrong..."
"Oh, you think you've had a bad day?"
William went on as if he was either blindly ignorant or just didn't care about the way his ex-gf was glaring at him.
"Oh, you just have no idea..." He strummed away at his fiddle. "I woke up five minutes late. My breakfast wasn't right. The eggs were a little runny. I got a flat tire on the way to work. David Ricker was in an accident, he was in a coma when I got to the hospital. That's a $200 bet on the Mets game I might never see. My coffee at work was old. My stocks are down. People are complaining about the way I run factories in China. And now I have to come home to this!"
"Your life is just one great big tragedy, isn't it?" Henrietta said.
"Some days it is." he said sincerely.
"I'm very sorry I had to be the cherry on top of making your day even worse."
"You could make it better." he said, strumming with great concentration, his eyes closed as he lost himself in the sad, sweet music he was making.
"Oh, can I? And just how can I do that, sweety?" Henrietta said with a sweet, murderous smile on her face.
"Please pretend to still be my girlfriend and dump me on the 13th so I can still get with my secretary." he replied with the utmost seriousness.
A few minutes later, the front door to William's manor opened and he came flying out, along with too large suitcases that smacked him on the head.
The door slammed shut after the last suitcase had hit him and the lock clicked.
William rubbed his aching head, got an angry grimace on his face, and started screaming:
"OH, YEAH? WELL YOU WEREN'T WORTH IT ANYWAYS! WORST 4 TO 6 HOURS A WEEK I EVER SPENT IN MY LIFE! I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE WITH YOU ANOTHER DAY EVEN IF IT DOES GET ME A HOT PITY DATE!"
In a huff, he grabbed his suitcases and was about to storm off the premises when he suddenly stopped and realized something.
He quickly ran back to the door and started banging on it vigorously.
"HEY! THIS IS MY HOUSE!"