Okay, so I lied.
I didn't mean to - I honestly thought I could limit this thing to six chapters, but Chapter Five mutated in a monster, so I had to chop it in half. Right now, we're looking at seven chapters, providing no further transmogrifications occur.
The good news is, I think I've mostly got my groove back when it comes to writing, so updates might come more than every four months now. :/ Party on.
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He was dead.
He had to be. Nobody could possibly survive this kind of agony.
His limbs were weak and useless, as if his bones had been vaporized. His throat felt like he'd swallowed toxic sludge. His belly was flipping backwards and upside-down. His skin felt too tight, and his mouth was so dry his lips were practically glued together. His eyes were stuck shut, too, with that yucky crusty stuff that had formed in the corners of them while he slept. And if his breath smelled anything like it tasted, he could kill weeds with it.
There was light. He could tell because the nothingness behind his eyes was orangish instead of black. Too much light. Way too much. Made him feel sick. Most of the windows in his lair were blacked out, to keep out the prying eyes of Kim Possible and any of her fellow goody-goodies. So where was the light coming from?
Unless they weren't in his lair. He couldn't tell. The squishy thing he was laying on was big enough to be his bed, but he was so dizzy and misoriented, he could have been on Saturn. Okay, not Saturn - it was made of gas; you couldn't land on it. . .
If only he could remember where he'd fallen asleep, then he'd probably know where he was now. But, in his brain's memory storage, where there should have been a file for the night before, there was nothing but a scrap heap. A jumbled blur of things so fuzzy he couldn't tell if he'd lived them or just dreamed them.
HenchCo's basement, big and clean and wide-open. Glasses of punch that tasted better and better the more he drank. Someone - was it him? - getting very, very sick in a trash can. A killer jellybean brutally attacking him with a toaster.
All right, so that last one had probably been a dream. But the others drifted in and out of his brain, wouldn't stay still long enough for him to examine them.
Except for one that floated to the top, like it was less dense than the others. Shego, sort of shiny and glowy, as if she's radioactive. Glaring at him. Eyes full of disgust. Her mouth moves slowly.
"You. Are. Drunk." The words fall heavy and cold, like steel. He feels as exposed and humiliated as he did when he was fourteen and Carl Thompson threw him out of the locker room half-naked.
Drakken gnawed on the inside of his cheek and prayed that was just part of a dream, too. But it hurt too bad not to be real.
He squinted his eyes open a crack and struggled to focus them, to see if he could recognize his surroundings. Nope. All he could make out were dark shapes. A circle, a square, a rectangle, a parallelogram, he didn't know what to call that one. . .
Drakken moaned from his churning gut and brought a hand up to shield his eyes from the tiny sliver of light that stabbed him right in the corneas. He hadn't known it was possible for eyeballs to hurt, but they did.
Everything on him hurt, actually. His elbows. His tongue. His chest. His toenails. His stomach. Every single hair in his eyebrow. His head. Especially his head. It throbbed like someone was thunking it with a hammer, right between his eyes.
Which brought him back to whether or not he was dead. Surely feeling this lousy had to be fatal. On the other hand, if he were dead, he probably wouldn't be in pain anymore. Unless, of course, he'd gone to -
Fear clutched at Drakken's throat, and he slammed his eyes shut so he couldn't see fire and brimstone and little horned creatures with pitchforks. He could almost smell the poisonous smoke, feel the heat singeing his skin. When he put both hands up to his head to keep it from splitting in two and felt a strong, steady pounding, he was sure it was some kind of evil drumbeat announcing the ruler of darkness, come to claim his soul.
Thirty panicked seconds later, he realized the drum went faster the more scared he got. Its speed was directly linked to his fear. It wasn't a drum at all. It was his heartbeat, and it slowed down a bit as Drakken let out a shaky little laugh.
And if he was dead and in - in - in - well, in a place even worse than prison, his heart wouldn't still be beating. He couldn't be one-hundred-percent sure, since he'd never been dead before. But he'd put his certainty at a nice solid eighty-three percent, and that was a big enough number to let his eyes flutter open and peer warily at the shapes closest to him.
Phew. No flames. No devils. Just his favorite cup, a big, chunky, blue-like-his-lab-coat mug with blue-like-his-skin polka dots and a handle shaped like a test tube, filled with something red and fizzy. A green-gloved hand was holding it out to him.
"Here," a voice said. It sounded familiar, but it was too fuzzy and faraway for Drakken to place. "Drink this."
Drakken froze. Voices suddenly joined the mental picture he was trying to form of last night. So far, all he had was a blurry jumble of sights and sounds that made him even dizzier.
"You look a little thirsty there, buddy. Can I get you another glass?"
"So, a couple of my friends and I were taking bets on whether or not you could chug this in fifteen seconds."
"This is a most FASCINATING story, Drakken. Here, have some more punch. Now continue with the telling of what happened NEXT!"
Drakken wrenched away from the evil liquid, from the person trying to torture him further. "No!" he heard himself bark. "That's how I got into this in the first place!"
"Dr. D," the voice replied, sounding impatient. "It's Gatorade."
He ran that word through his mental search engine and no results were found. "I don't know anyone named Gatorade!" he snapped back. His mouth was so dry, he could feel his lips splitting into dozens of tiny cracks.
It didn't matter who this person was; there was no way they were going to get him to ingest that mysterious beverage. He knew better now.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and you'll wake up with fleas.
Or something very similar.
The voice sighed as if it were trying to talk a toddler down from a tantrum. "No, I'm Shego. This-" a long finger tapped the side of the mug - "is Gatorade."
It was Shego. Nobody else could sound sarcastic just identifying herself. Everything would be okay if he did what she said. In some distant corner of his mind, Drakken knew he'd listened a voice last night that he shouldn't have trusted.
But this was different. This was Shego. She would never, ever do anything to harm him.
Still, Drakken leaned over the mug and gave its contents a suspicious sniff, just to make sure she knew exactly what she was giving him. The fizz stung his nose and had just a hint of fruitiness, not at all like the sickly-sweet, drool-inducing smell of the punch that had intoxicated him against his will. This smelled more like - medicine.
Medicine wasn't always delicious, but no taste could be worse than the one that lingered in his mouth right now. And he really could use some, since he was so very, very sick. Dying would almost be a relief, unless his Sunday School teacher had been right about where people who tried to take over the world went when they died, which she might have been, because she was a smart lady. . .
Refusing to let that thought go any further, Drakken managed to lift his head. That wasn't easy - some odd force kept pulling it back toward his pillow, like the two were magnetized. He snatched the mug from Shego's firm hands with his own shaky one and took a tiny, cautious sip. Nothing burst or imploded or started bleeding. The strange concoction known as Gatorade stayed where it was supposed to.
He sipped again, a bigger sip this time. It felt funny and bubbly in his tummy and put a tickling pressure in his throat, but that beat the fire that had boiled in both of those locations earlier. Another sip. Nothing had ever felt so good. His skin seemed to be loosening, and he could feel his mouth coming out of its dried-up pucker.
Drakken's eyes had adjusted to the dimness by now, and they were able to turn the dark shapes into outlines of familiar things. The square was his giant TV screen/monitor. The circle was the Magno-Scope Disruptor Sphere (maybe thatwas why his head was so strongly attracted to his pillow). The parallelogram was his nightstand. The rectangle was his bed. And, most importantly, the previously undefinable shape turned out to be a wiry person with four-foot-long hair perched on the edge of his bed.
"Shego!" he cried. Croaked. His throat was raw and scratchy, and his voice sounded more like a triple bass than his usual baritone.
His sidekick just gave him The Scowl, the one where he eyebrows slashed over her eyes like checkmarks, the one she usually reserved for Kim Possible. He hadn't seen her look at him like that since the time he accidentally disintegrated her nail file.
She was mad at him. At least, he thought that was what her face was trying to tell him. Drakken swallowed at the bubble forming in his esophagus. He didn't know anything for sure anymore.
If only he could remember what had happened last night. . . but he could barely remember his next question.
"Am I dead?"
Shego didn't even twitch. Her eyes pierced straight through his. "Not yet."
Okay, so she was mad. Drakken shrank back from her death glare by sheer instinct and immediately hated himself for it.
Shego shouldn't have the power to make him cower (which rhymed, but that wasn't important now). He should have been glaring right back at her and snarling out a brilliant retort. But he was sicker than he could ever remember being - and his head hurt so bad - and his throat was inflating like it was being squeezed with a blood pressure cuff and he really needed to -
Urrrrrrrp. He forgot to do it quietly. It came out long and big and loud, and he could tell by the look on Shego's face that his breath did smell as bad as it tasted.
Drakken sank back against his pillow, feeling twenty pounds lighter and slightly less miserable. He managed a tiny smile that stretched the dry, cracked skin on his lips until it bled. Ooh - not good.
Shego, on the other hand, was nowhere close to grinning. She pulled her mouth in like she was trying to swallow it, and one checkmark-eyebrow shot up so high it nearly went off her forehead. Now that was an expression he recognized. It was her Could-your-manners-BE-a-little-worse-Doc? face, and it never failed to hack Drakken off. He lectured Shego about her manners all the time - whenever she ignored him or mocked him or interrupted him - and she just brushed his words aside. But he couldn't get away with so much as a single, solitary, much-needed burp? Was there no justice in this world?
Drakken mumbled something under his breath that he hoped sounded vaguely like an "Excuse me" and waited for Shego's eyes to soften just a tiny bit. They didn't. He tried to breathe big and deep, but his heart was beating so fast his lungs had to pant to keep up, and his nose was all snuffly - like he'd been crying, he realized with a grimace.
He tightened his grip on the mug to hide how bad his hands were shaking. He felt very small and vulnerable, more like Drew Lipsky than Dr. Drakken, and he didn't want Shego to know that. It was hard to remember how to be his supervillain self when his whole body was jittering with nervous energy and he had no way to let any of it out. Even twiddling his fingers made him want to throw up.
He sighed - that hurt, too - raised the mug to his mouth, and took another few swallows of Gatorade. It still made him feel tingly and weird and burpy, but it was better than the pain that throbbed everywhere else. This time, he brought his fist up to his mouth and managed to catch the belch as it slid out between his lips.
"Good, good," Drakken heard Shego say. He grinned painfully, chest waiting to puff out with pride at her praise. Instead of commenting on his improved manners, though, she just nodded at the cup. "That'll rehydrate you."
Drakken stared down at the mug's contents, watching bubbles rise to the surface and pop, feeling like his head was about to do the same thing. It turned out his mind's file cabinet contained some information on Gatorade after all. It was the type of beverage known as a "sports drink," since it helped quickly replace the fluids the body lost through sweat. It was also a good flu drink, because - because - because -
"Throwing up dehydrates you," he informed Shego, nodding seriously so she'd see there was something he knew for sure after all. No matter what had happened last night, that was still true. It was a scientific fact.
Shego gave him a fakey-sweet smile, like she was trying to sell him a used car. "Yeah," she chirped in a matching voice. "So does alcohol."
Drakken's heart shifted sideways in his chest. The itch grew into a fire.
"Quit saying 'alcohol'!" he snapped. "I wasn't drunk!"
Shego's mouth curled up on one side. "Uh, yeah, you were." Her eyes took on a phony softness, the way she looked at him when he had a fever was rambling on incoherently about how much he liked pineapples. It was her way of saying, without words, You have NO idea what you're talking about.
For a moment, Drakken forgot his misery. Suddenly the only thing that mattered was proving her wrong and getting that look off her face. "No, I wasn't! I would know! I was there!"
His use of logic didn't faze Shego, however. "So was I. And you - " her eyes narrowed - "were plastered."
Drakken squirmed. He'd never heard the word "plastered" used like that before, but he could tell what it meant by the curl in Shego's lips and the shake of her head. The Gatorade started to twist in his stomach. "I was not!" His shouted words bounced off the walls and back into his head - hard, like being hit with a baseball bat.
"You were too," Shego shot back.
"Was not!"
"Were too!"
"Was not!" Drakken's voice cracked up into double bass.
Shego's stayed as smooth and cool as her face. "Were too."
"Was not infinity!" He let the words hang triumphantly in the air for a moment. There! Got her with the infinity clause!
Evidently Shego didn't care about the rules of arithmetic any more than she did the names of his Doomsday devices. Without missing a beat, she replied, "Was too - infinity squared."
"That's not even mathematically possible!" Drakken burst out. She just chuckled. Never mind that she'd broken one of the laws of the universe. Never mind that his college professors would have flunked her immediately if she tried that on them. Somehow she'd still won.
Frustration squeezed at his chest like heartburn that a Tums couldn't fix, the same frustration that always boiled up when someone didn't get it and he wasn't sure how to explain. If he didn't get rid of it soon, his head was going to explode.
Drakken had no idea whether the words on his lips were the right ones, but they were all he had, so he decided to go with them. "Really, Shego, how could I be drunk?" He leaned in closer to her, hands flailing earnestly at the air to show her how important it was that she understand him. "All I had to drink last night was fruit punch. . ."
He didn't get a chance to finish that thought, because a look came over Shego's face that he hadn't seen since that one time the buffoon had turned evil. A look of complete and utter shock. Her mouth feel open, her eyes popped out of their slits, and even her brows looked dumbfounded. He liked that word, dumbfounded. . .
She started to shake her head sadly, the way she had when Commodore Puddles had gotten his head stuck in a cereal box. "Oh, no, Dr. D," she said slowly, voice filled with disbelief. "Oh, you poor little moron."
A sudden sinking sensation swept over Drakken, like he'd stepped in quicksand where there should have been solid ground, or stuck his feet under the bed and found a pair of rabid ferrets instead of his fuzzy slippers. The rest of the world fell away, leaving him alone with his fiery chest and his gaping sidekick and the terrible thing he had just discovered.
"That. . . was . . . not. . . fruit. . . punch. . . was. . . it?" Drakken asked. In a quiet voice he didn't even know he had. Pausing after each word to refill his lungs. For the first time in his life, he hoped he was wrong.
Shego shook her head. The astonishment was gone, replaced by scorn. "Gee, what was your first clue?"
He would have answered her if he'd known what she was asking. And if he had remembered how to speak.
Her I-don't-believe-this expression had been his first clue. There hadn't been anything ominous about the fruit-punch-that-wasn't-really-fruit-punch-at-all. No warning sign on the table, no skull and crossbones etched into the bowl, no toxic fumes rising from it, nobody staggering and hiccuping in the background.
"No, that was red wine," Shego continued. She was still shaking her head, and she had her hand up over her eyes like she couldn't bear to watch him figure it out.
Red wine. How many shades did the cursed stuff come in?
Drakken had seen wine before at the supermarket, but he'd never thought to check what color it was. All he'd noticed was how villainously dark and shiny the bottles were, and how perfectly they'd match the decor in his lair. But they had been way out of his price range, so he'd shrugged and gone off to get chocolate milk, instead -
That train of thought was cut off by a strange hissing sound. Drakken snapped his head up to see Shego doubled over, her breath coming in little wheezes and squeaks.
Great. Now on top of everything else, his accomplice was having an asthma attack and he couldn't help her because he was having a hard time breathing himself.
Just as panic started to creep its way up his spine, Shego came unfolded and stopped gasping long enough to smirk at him. Drakken could see the mirth in her eyes.
She wasn't dying. She was laughing. He was lying here, unable to move, belly turning itself inside out, head pulsing with more pain than an object of its size should be capable of producing - and Shego was yukking it up like he was her personal court jester.
"Shego!" Drakken scraped out. He could feel his face threatening to crumple, and he gritted his teeth to keep it hard. "Why are you laughing at me?" he demanded.
Shego wiped the corners of her eyes, which made his feel crustier than ever. "Because if I don't, I'm gonna cry."
Whoa. Did she mean that? Drakken squinted his already-puffy eyes at her, but her face didn't give him any clues.
He'd never seen Shego cry before, except when she was Moodulated. That didn't count, of course, but it had still technically happened, and it was enough to let him know he never wanted it to happen again. Almost scared him worse than the fits of rage that came out of nowhere. At least he was used to Shego being angry, used to trying to avoid her wrath. The tears - those were a different story. He hadn't known where they were coming from, either, and they were so unShegolike that his instincts had told him to get out of there as fast as he possibly could. But he couldn't run away and hide while she was crying. She'd sounded so sad.
Drakken hiccuped around the ball in his throat, big as a wad of chewing gum. He didn't want Shego to be sad. She was important to him. But when she laughed at him, that made him sad, and he was important to him too.
It was bad enough that she was right. . . again. Didn't she ever get tired of always being right? And this time - Drakken felt himself go cold all over as it sunk in what Shego's being right meant this time.
He, the world's most notorious mad scientist, had gotten drunk. Sloppy, falling-down, throwing-up drunk, like those poor saps on old sitcoms - the ones that had too much to drink at an office party and then got fired for punching out their boss or puking on his shoes. Drakken was no expert on those things, but it had been easy to tell what was wrong with them. They tilted to the side when they tried to walk, they stumbled over nothing, and they talked strangely, like peanut butter was stuck to the roofs of their mouths.
All their coworkers laughed at them, and so had Drakken. Why shouldn't he? They were as loopy and out of control as if they'd been wearing his Silly Hats.
The thought of looking that helplessly stupid in front of such inferior minds made him want to hide his head under his pillow. What would this do to his villainous reputation?
Drakken gave a bitter snort. What a stupid question. He knew full well what it would do to it. It would destroy it - and leave him with nothing.
The Gatorade flipped again, and the next thing he knew, it was him who was doubled over, and not with laughter. It was something nasty deep in his gut that bent him at the waist and made him press his legs together as tight as he could to keep his knees from knocking.
Drakken stayed like that for what must have been eons, clutching his stomach with one hand and his head with the other, for fear if he moved he'd either throw up or die. At this point, he actually would have preferred the latter.
But neither one happened, not even when he dared to straighten up and untangle his limbs and lay down flat on his back. Shego's face swam into his vision. She wasn't laughing anymore, but her eyes were still glittering. He couldn't bear to look at them, so he shifted his own up to the ceiling and blinked rapidly to try and get some moisture back into them.
That heavy, worse-than-embarrassment feeling pressed down on his shoulders again, like he was trying to hold up one of the henchmen, and Drakken had no idea why. He opened his mouth to order it gone, even over the jabbing, poked-with-a-paper-clip thought hissing that he did too know what it was. But what came out instead was a shivery little, "So - I really was drunk?"
"Absolutely hammered," Shego replied emotionlessly.
Make that two of the henchmen. The paper-clip-poke had been right. Shame. How could a feeling, a mere emotion with no physical form, be so heavy? It made his head dip downward, his cheeks flame red, the room seem to whirl in a way that was somehow all too familiar.
"Am I still?" he asked fearfully.
Shego rolled her eyes like he'd asked her if there were beavers on the moon. "No."
"But - " Drakken reached up and touched one finger tenderly to his temple - "I'm still sick." The wrong kind of moisture flooded his eyes, burning extra bad because his tear ducts were so worn out from last night, and he swiped at them angrily with his fists.
Shego slit her eyes at him again. Shaming eyes. "Yeah, that's called a hangover," she chirped in that super-happy, super-fake voice she only used when she was really ticked with somebody.
Hangover. The word sounded familiar, though if he had any information relating to it, it was tucked away in some dusty corner of his brain with the capital of North Dakota and the name of Kim Possible's buffoonish sidekick.
Panicked thoughts started to form, interrupting each other and each scrambling to be the most important. Was it deadly? Could he be paralyzed? Would he have to have surgery?
Before he could find the calm voice he would need to use to avoid further humiliation, though, Shego answered the questions he hadn't asked. (Could she read his mind on top of everything else?) "It's basically harmless," she told him. "But you're gonna be one sick puppy for a while."
"Define 'a while,'" Drakken growled back, grateful for the newfound rasp to his voice. Reminded him of those gravel-voiced villains in movies who made people shudder with fear every time they spoke, even when they were only ordering a double cheeseburger to go. It made him sound very menacing, even if his words weren't coming out as cold and smooth as he would have liked.
Shego's lip curled up into a smile that didn't look particularly friendly. "A few hours, Little Mr. Sunshine."
Her tone was sugar-sweet, patronizing. And he felt sticky and gross from sleeping in his clothes. His gloves alone were soaked with so much perspiration, they clung to him like a third layer of skin. With furious fingers, Drakken reached up and yanked them off, gasping with relief when cool air hit his sweaty palms.
Some relief. Not enough. He needed more.
The frustration welled up inside him, and Drakken knew the only way to get rid of it was to either yell - which would probably make his head pop open - or throw something. Preferably something very large, but his gloves would do in a pinch.
He wadded them up into a lump and hurled said lump at the wall. It hit with a solid THUMP, loud enough to be satisfying, but quiet enough not to send more pain stabbing through his skull. It also stirred up a memory inside him. Not of last night - that was all still lost in a haze - of a time he thought he'd buried someplace where it couldn't climb out.
Like some sadistic instrument of time travel, Drakken's mind started going back, back, back. So far back that his past self wasn't even a supervillain, but a college kid with rimless glasses and a voice too big and booming for his scrawny body.
He bent toward his chemistry book, running his finger under the same sentence for the third time, trying to ignore the voices of his classmates. It was hard to concentrate on homogenous mixtures while they nattered on about who was going out with who and whether mullets were going out of style and all those other trivial things he thought he'd left behind when he'd enrolled at the Middleton Institute of Science and Technology. The professor hadn't arrived yet, so they didn't even feel the need to whisper.
The professor wasn't the only one late for class today, though. A student's chair stood conspicuously empty, which was apparently the reason for the frantic conversation going on around him.
If he'd missed class, nobody would even notice until roll call. But this dude was impossible to overlook. He was always at the center of everything, always surrounded by faithful friends and adoring fans like he was king of the world or something. Got invited to all the parties. Good-looking kid. Smart but not geeky. The anti-Drew Lipsky.
All the girls who were madly in love with him - which was two-thirds of them - were worried about him. Drew didn't really know why. Chemistry was the first class of the day on Tuesdays, and it wasn't unheard of for a student to sleep through it. Alarm clocks didn't always work right, especially when your roommates set them on Hawaiian Standard Time just to mess with your mind. But, no, they were all convinced he'd been eaten by a wild animal or something.
He rolled his eyes. Like there even were any wild animals near Middleton. Okay, there was the occasional coyote, and one guy in his biology class claimed he'd seen a rabid squirrel the size of a poodle down by the lake where they were building that new summer camp -
"What if he was in a car wreck?" one of the girls cried. Literally. She was almost in tears.
Drew raised his head to gaze around him in disgust. How did these fools expect to earn their degrees when they would rather gossip about one of their classmates than crack a book? Honestly, sometimes it seemed like he was the only smart person left on Earth. Well, him and his posse.
Sadness, anger, and something wistful exploded in Drakken's head, and he clenched his teeth against it. But the memory kept right on going without his consent.
"I'm sure he's fine, guys." That came from the only other person in the room who even appeared to be attempting to study, a girl with a long braid all the way to her waist and cute little crooked teeth. Drew quickly wiped the disdain off his face so she wouldn't think it was directed toward her, too.
She'd only attended MIST for that year. Drakken couldn't recall her name - wasn't sure if he'd ever known it - but he remembered her. She was nice.
"Yeah," one of the popular kids - a friend of the missing - chimed in. "Probably just has a hangover."
There was a universal snicker, and Drew felt a tiny flash of sympathy for the kid. Some friends they were, laughing at him behind his back. He would never have laughed if it had been James or Bob or Ramesh, and they never would have laughed if it had been him.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
Drew hunched back over his textbook to hide the thin smile tugging at his lips. He didn't know what a "hangover" was, but he did know that a true student of science wouldn't let anything stand in the way of his quest for knowledge.
Drakken grimaced to himself at the thought of how smug he'd been. If Shego was right - if what he was experiencing now was a hangover - then he didn't blame the guy for missing class. How could anyone concentrate, even on a subject as fascinating as chemistry, with their brain pulsating against the walls of their head like that? He'd had concussions that hurt less.
"I think I've heard of those. Hangovers, I mean," he whispered. Had to whisper. His head screamed and thumped like a rock band was performing in it, and he was sure to talk any longer would activate his gag reflex. "Back in college."
"Wild child that you were," Shego put in snidely. Way too snidely, as far as Drakken was concerned. He watched her - wonderful, terrible Shego with the eyes that saw everything and the hands that never flailed the air in frustration - and felt like he was being yanked in half.
Part of him wanted to demand that she leave immediately and not come back until he wasn't hangovered anymore. Evil megalomaniacs didn't let anyone see them in such a weakened state, especially a sidekick who already forgot her place entirely too often.
But, as much as he hated to admit it, another part of him longed for her to come over and. . . well, not fuss over him, not the way Mother did. Not kiss his forehead and pinch his cheeks. But maybe she could wipe his face with a wet washcloth and tell him tell everything would be okay, so he might be able to stop shaking.
Drakken didn't know which part to listen to, so he just twiddled his thumbs and refused to glance her way. "There's still one thing I don't understand, though," he admitted.
Shego sniffed. "Just one?"
Drakken didn't even dignify that with a reply. Okay, maybe he harrumphed a little, but it was a very small harrumph, and it was low and growly and sounded more like an I-can't-be-bothered-to-respond-to-your-sneaky-comments than a that-stings-and-I'm-trying-not-to-show-it. At least he hoped so.
It didn't take long, though, for Drakken's mind to wander from Shego's sarcasm back down memory lane. He couldn't find a way to fight it, so he just let it flow. He needed all the information he could get that might help him decipher last night, even info that came from ugly places in his past.
Drew stood in the doorway gaping, his eyes bulging so far he was sure they were going to pop out of their sockets and fall onto the carpet. It was already so grimy, a couple eyeballs could only improve it.
The guy he'd talked to in the hall outside Chem Lab had said this was going to be a study party, but the only textbooks he could see were being hurled across the room. Of course, it was hard to see much of anything through the fog of smoke from someone's cigarette.
Music blasted from the speakers, rattling the floor under him. It was cranked up to its maximum volume, so loud he was pretty sure they could hear it in Norway, but he couldn't make out anything resembling lyrics or even a tune. It was the kind of music he only listened to when he was in a particularly rebellious mood, because he knew Mother hated it. "Death metal," Eddy called it, and Drew could see why. Had they been able to turn it up any louder, it certainly would have deafened him, if not killed him outright. Neither of those was a very comforting thought.
Everything inside Drew commanded him to get away from there, to run back to his dorm and barricade himself in there with his physics homework for the rest of the night. Everything but a little corner of his brain. It was a tiny, stupid part, but it was loud and it was angry and it told him that if he backed down from this everyone would think he really was the biggest loser on the planet. And he knew if one more person thought that about him one more time, he would go crazy.
Drew sucked in a huge breath and made his way across the room, stale chips crunching under his shoes. Squinting against the smoke, he spotted a boy and a girl sitting on a couch, attached the mouth. Eyes closed to shut out the rest of the world. Obviously highly embarrassed.
He felt a grin slip across his face. This looked like a job for his anti-bonding spray. Sheer genius, that stuff - apply it before camping, and no ticks or leeches would be able to stick to your skin. Not to mention your mother couldn't pinch your cheeks, and that was always a plus.
He was making his way toward them, the words, "Hey, do you need some help?" already teetering on his lips, when they pulled apart and looked at each other in a really funny way. "Dreamily," he was pretty sure it was called.
Oh. They'd been kissing. Drew turned around and scurried off, cheeks burning. There was still a lot he didn't know about that.
Once he was safely out of the sight of the pair - was that what they called people who were dating now, a pair? - he scanned the room for anyone or anything familiar. But his vision was obscured by the smoke and by the fact that his eyes were bunching the way they always did when he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. For an uneasy moment, he didn't care if he looked geeky. He would have bolted for the door if he'd known where it was.
Out of nowhere, a female being sprang into his path - blonde, with a shirt that had obviously shrunk in the wash, because she didn't seem aware that it was showing her navel. Drew shifted his gaze away. His mother had always told him to respect girls, and it was hard to think respectful thoughts about one when you could see her whole belly.
Out of the corner of her eye, he could see her watching him, like she was waiting for something. And she was giggling hysterically, for no reason he could figure out. He never knew what to do around girls, especially giggly ones.
So he played it safe. "Hi," he coughed, willing his voice not to crack.
She laughed even harder, like "Hi" was the funniest thing he possibly could have said. Either she was the biggest ditz on the planet, or she'd had too much of whatever was in that can she was holding. Something alcoholic, obviously. Probably beer, since it came in a can. An observant scientist noticed those things.
"Hi, cutie," she replied through juicy giggles.
Okay, she was definitely drunk.
A teasing gleam shimmered through her glazed eyes. Drew tensed, waiting for the insult, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was another giggle and, "Wanna drink?"
He sagged with relief. What a thoughtful gesture! "Yes, thank you," he replied, nodding his agreement in her direction. "I'm feeling a bit parched, and a nice iced tea would really hit the spot. . ."
Drew's voice trailed off as he realized the girl was holding out a can to him. This one was unopened, but other than that, it was identical to the nearly-empty one she clutched in her other hand.
His palms went clammy. He formed a "No thank you" in his mouth but couldn't seem to force it out. They'd talked about how to handle this kind of stuff in high school, but he must have been studying for a test or something. Why wasn't he paying attention?
It wasn't just the blonde he had to turn down, either. A group of kids had materialized out of nowhere and surrounded her. Mostly boys. A few girls. All holding their own cans and looking mildly interested. All popular. Their necks were craned forward like they were trying to get a better view, and in an unfocused way Drew was reminded of a flock of vultures hunched over a carcass.
He swallowed hard. None of these people had ever been out-and-out mean to him, but he'd caught them smirking at each other when he tripped over his own feet or had to use his finger follow along in the textbook. For now, he was a mere blip on the radar screens. Now they were all watching, waiting for him to prove if he was cool or not.
Drew closed his eyes and fought to keep his breathing regular. Stay cool, man, he commanded himself in ultra-hip lingo. It's not like it's arsenic or anything. It's just beer. You don't have to go crazy and get drunk. Just a few sips to show you're not a stupid little kid anymore.
Another hard swallow. Mother doesn't have to find out. The thought of defying her made a thrill run down Drew's spine and guilt well up in his stomach.
It was a good pep talk. He mentally reviewed those six sentences, over and over again, until confidence tilted up his chin and courage held his shoulders square and proud.
He needed to act on that before it disappeared. Opening his eyes, Drew snatched the can out of the girl's hand, pulled the tab, and stared down into it. It occurred to him that he'd rather study this stuff under a microscope than drink it. It smelled funny - stunk, really.
Oh, well. No turning back now. Saying yes and then changing your mind looked dumber than refusing it in the first place. He raised the can to his lips, said a quick prayer, and took something much bigger than a sip but much smaller than his usual gulp.
Bitter foam filled his mouth and was spewed back out faster than that evil vending machine on campus rejected his dollar bills. Some of it sprayed so far across the room that he lost track of its trajectory; some dribbled down his chin and and landed in a warm, brown splotch on his shirt - the white dress shirt he'd ironed just for this so-called study party.
That should have been all of it. His shirt was soaked in what had to be twice the amount of liquid his mouth could hold. But some of it was still in there, clinging to his taste buds, poisoning them, almost making him sick. Drew spat and spat, but he couldn't get rid of the nastiness.
It was so disgusting, he finally forgot about looking cool and brought both hands up to his mouth to try and scrub the taste off his tongue, dropping the can in the process. It tipped over, and its contents spilled out and disappeared into the mess of stains on the carpet. Everyone howled, Giggle Gal loudest of all.
Suddenly, it didn't matter that he lived in a dormitory or that his voice had changed or that he actually needed to shave once a week. He was back to being the second-grader that nobody wanted on their kickball team.
Drew forced himself not to hang his head, but facing the other kids straight on, even though it was supposed to make him seem brave, was even worse. Looking away wouldn't help, though. He'd memorized the faces that had haunted him for the past nineteen years.
Twisted with laughter. Noses stuck arrogantly up in the air. Eyes scanning everyone in their crowd and leaving him out.
Being laughed at had always hacked him off, but recently, ever since he'd arrived at college, it filled Drew with a newfound rage he wasn't quite sure what to do with. This was supposed to be the place where people recognized his genius and respected him for it, yet so far nothing like that had happened. It made him want to blow something up. On purpose.
Sometimes, he worried that he really was going crazy.
That rage roaring in his ears, he bent down to pick up the can, though he didn't know what the point was. He could probably down the whole thing in five seconds, and it wouldn't improve his social standing one bit.
As if to prove it, a foot planted itself smack in the seat of his pants and gave it a push. It wasn't a very big push, but Drew was still wobbly from nerves and he wasn't exactly The Incredible Hulk to begin with, and he went sprawling.
As he teetered in midair for a suspended second, he realized that their Bully Radar must have finally registered him as a target. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his face with his glasses digging into the bridge of his nose. The laughter shrieked even louder, like he was the best entertainment since Tron.
Oh, yes, very scholarly, gentlemen - and ladies. I'm impressed. The world certainly needs scientists who can guzzle beer and shove nerds to the ground. For once, Drew had the right words, but his throat was tight and he knew tears would come with them. He could only lay there, choking on embarrassment and rogue drops of beer.
And thinking. Even through the humiliation, a brilliant plan was taking shape in his brain.
As soon as he was old enough, he would run for president. By that time, he would be the nation's most eminent chemist and everyone would know how intelligent he was, so of course they'd elect him. And once he was in office, he'd fix the economy and require gas stations to clean their bathrooms and, most importantly, outlaw bullying. Think up punishments for those who did anyway. He would be a hero!
Imagine how many little kids' lives he would improve. No longer would they have to live in fear of their classmate! Best of all, no one would ever be able to pick on him again, because he'd be in charge. Who would make fun of the president?
He didn't know how long he lay there, fuming and writing his inaugural speech, when he heard footsteps behind him - slow, even ones. Whoever this person was, he wasn't rushing over to gawk at the geek, but he was in no hurry to defend him, either. Drew squeezed his eyes shut and just hoped the guy wouldn't step on him.
The footsteps got closer and he flinched, waiting to feel the sole of a loafer dig into the back of his hand. Instead, fingers curled themselves cautiously around his wrist. When he opened his eyes a crack, he saw another hand reaching down to him.
They were big hands - twice the size of his own - but the fingers were smooth and careful, with the formula for velocity written across one knuckle. The hands of a fellow scientist.
That was the only reason Drew accepted the outstretched hand, let the man pull him to his feet and put a steadying arm around his shoulders. Being touched still sent chills through him, but he knew those hands wouldn't hurt him.
"For what it's worth, I don't understand the appeal of it, either," the owner of the hands muttered. His voice was baffled but still intelligent-sounding, like a genius whose calculations had been off for the first time in his life. It was a voice that sounded familiar, but Drew's brain was too scrambled to place it.
The man with the scientific voice ushered him away from the howling group. Was it still him they were laughing at? he wondered. Or had they had their fill of Lipsky lameness for the night and moved on to something else?
He wasn't sure where they were going, but as the music and the laughter faded behind them, he knew it was away from here, and that was all that mattered. He gulped down a lump and concentrated on trying to remember how to speak.
Even when the carpet turned to tile and the music was nothing more than a dull thump in the background, Drew stared down at his shoes. All the bravado he'd been able to muster earlier had evaporated, and he couldn't look his rescuer in the eye. He was grateful, of course, but how mortifying was it to need to be rescued in the first place? What if this guy planned to make him his eternal slave, since he owed him now? What if that was why he had saved him? Drew had heard of that - it was called "extortion," and it was illegal, not to mention most unkind -
The voice broke into his thoughts. It was a friendly voice, not a smug, I'm-going-to-hang-this-over-your-head-for-the-rest-of-your-life one. "You okay there?" it asked kindly.
Drew chanced a glance upward. Through dangerously watery eyes, he recognized a face. James Possible.
One of the last times he'd ever liked the man.
"Sure," he answered automatically, but he wasn't convinced that it was the truth. The more he thought about what he had just escaped from, the stiffer his muscles grew. He could hear someone wheezing loudly - in panic - straight through his nose, and he was pretty sure it wasn't James.
He reached up and pinched his nostrils shut, but then he had to let his mouth gape open to breathe through it. It made him look like a fish.
Drew groaned out loud as he assessed the damage to his clothes for the first time. His pants were merely greasy, but the shirt was smeared with salsa and more beer and who knew what else. He considered yanking it off and crumpling it into a ball - the anger was boiling in his chest again. But he didn't especially want to expose the ribs stacked like ladder rungs where every other college guy had six-pack abs.
Drew straightened his shoulders - broadening, but still so bony - and stood as tall as he could. He felt gawky and out of proportion next to James, so he fastened his gaze somewhere around his friend's kneecaps. "Does that girl need someone to call a cab for her?" he asked. That was how you were supposed to get a friend home if they'd been drinking. The giggly female wasn't anything close to his friend, and he didn't really care if she got pulled over, but bad things happened when you drove drunk. They'd said so at that pep rally in high school. (Sure, now it was coming back to him.)
"Given that she lives three doors down, I'd say probably not," James replied with a chuckle. Drew jerked away from him, hot blotches popping out on his face. He couldn't handle anyone else laughing at him tonight, rescuer or not.
Curiosity got the better of him, though, and he peeked back over his shoulder, right up into James's amused eyes. He tried not to let that bother him - way easier said than done.
"So," Drew asked, "how - uh - how did you find me?" That scientific desire for knowledge was edging out his fear and indignation. Did people just intuitively know when their friends were in danger? He wouldn't know - he'd never really had any friends until James and those guys.
He pictured James sitting at his desk, working on some mathematical equation, when a sudden, tingly sense of dread creeps over him, like Spider-Man's Spider-Sense, halting the calculator in mid-punch. "Great Scott!" he cries, leaping from his desk. "Drew's in trouble!"
Now, though, James just sighed heavily. "Some guy in aerospace engineering class was bragging about how he tricked a sophomore into coming to one of his beer bashes. Said he told him it was a study party." James paused to shake his head. "If these are the world's future scientists, I'd say the world is in a great deal of trouble."
Drew nodded and felt his anger drain away. Finally, someone understood! Maybe he wasn't losing his mind, not really.
"Anyway," James went on, "I knew I had to warn the poor kid - "
That brought the prickles up, just a little.
" - and then I saw it was you and -" James stopped and shrugged. A comfortable silence fell between them, the kind where no one needed to finish that sentence.
But Drew mentally finished it anyway, and hugged what it meant to his chest. No one had ever stood up for him like that before. Okay, so his mother would have if she'd known how the other kids were making his life miserable. But he'd never told her, because he didn't want her to worry, and, besides, having your mother come in and bash the bullies over the head with her purse and scream at them to leave her "little Drewbie" alone would only cement his status as a terminal loser. Having a friend defend you, though - that was different.
Gratitude warmed Drew inside. There had to be some way he could repay James for his kindness. Maybe he'd let him be his vice-president, but that was sixteen long years away. For now, he should at least say, "Thank you for saving my life."
He stopped, worked up some saliva, opened his mouth. "James -"
That was as far as he got. The words lodged in his throat. Heat crept up to his neck and tingled in his ears, and his brain began to hiss, This is stupid. James knows you're grateful he stuck up for you. Don't go getting all mushy on him.
James turned around, cocking an eyebrow. "Yes?"
Drew shoved his hands into the pockets of his too-big dress slacks, and glanced again at the stains on his shirt. How on Earth was he ever going to get those out? Mother would know, but if she saw beer on his clothes, she'd go into cardiac arrest. Oh, well. A brilliant chemist such as himself would be able to find - or invent - a substance that would render his shirt squeaky-clean. Especially if his friends helped out - which reminded him that James was still standing there, waiting for an answer or a question or something.
"Let's get back to the dorm," Drew croaked out. "I've got a huge chemistry test to study for."
"I hear ya, buddy." The look James gave him wasn't from hero to victim, or even senior to sophomore. It was from one scientist to another.
That made him feel much better. Okay, so maybe he wasn't the coolest or most popular kid on campus - or the biggest partier. But it wasn't called the Middleton Institute of Partying and Gossip, now, was it?
No, this was the Middleton Institute of Science and Technology, and science and technology were where Drew was in his element - err, no pun intended. He never felt insecure balancing a chemical equation, or out of place brewing up concoctions in the lab.
James understood that. Bob and Ramesh did, too. Drew was able to follow his friend down the hallway with his head held high and his shoulders thrown back and the red spots reduced to two. As long as he had his posse, he might make it until he was old enough to run for president after all.
Still, Drew felt a frown slipping across his face as something dawned on him. Even when he did run for president - even when he won - even when he abolished bullying in America, it would still only be one country.
He'd always imagined he'd travel the world someday after he finished college - maybe settle down on some nice little island in the Caribbean. But if he visited China or Brazil or Nigeria he wouldn't be in charge, and people could still hurt him.
What did he have to do, be king of the world?
An odd taste rose in the back of Drew's throat. It was bitter, like the alcohol, but somehow it was sweet, too.
Much sweeter than it should have been.
He'd never thanked him.
James Possible, who he'd captured just last week. Locked him in a jail cell. Listened to him taunt him with the fact that they used to be pals. It was hard to believe he was the same man who'd once been so kind to him.
Of course, people could change a lot in twenty-two years. Drakken certainly had - and he supposed he wasn't always nice either, but he was a supervillain. What was James's excuse?
Drakken shook those thoughts away with a toss of his head that nearly brought his Gatorade back up. No more flashbacks. Sometimes you could learn from past defeats, but stewing over all the things that threatened to crack him in half never did any good. He would ask Shego the question those memories of college had planted in his brain, and then he would forget all about them, forever this time.
A plan began to take shape in his mind, soothing his knotted-up muscles. He'd wait out this - this "hangover," as it was called, and once it was gone he would get to work on his latest fiendish scheme. Then, sooner rather than later, he'd conquer the world. And then James would pay dearly for not coming through when it really counted.
"You'll always just be Drew Lipsky - the science student who couldn't make the grade." James's voice, in his head, as hard and cold as it had once been warm and open.
He'd never thanked him. If he had, would things be different now?
Stop! Somehow Drakken resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears. Instead, he hugged his knees up to his chest, which felt like acid was eating straight through it, and rested his head on one knee.
He blinked several times to clear away the fog of the past - ooh, he liked that. Very poetic. James was replaced by Shego, sitting on the edge of his bed with one eyebrow hiked as if to say "We-ell?"
"I tried something once," he admitted, making a face at the sound of his own voice. It sounded croaky and pitiful, like some helpless little boy's. Just then he would have given his right arm to get the villainous boom back. Well, okay, maybe not his whole arm - perhaps just his right pinkie. Or his head; he sort of wished he wasn't attached to his head right now. "Back in college -"
His sidekick rudely interrupted him. "Wow, you really were a party animal."
"Not because I'm a goody-two-shoes or anything, Shego!" Drakken snapped back, and he made sure to absolutely spit her name the way Kim Possible did sometimes when they were fighting. He tried to glower at her, but even his eyebrow was too weary to move. "I just couldn't stand the taste - which brings me back to what I was trying to say in the first place!" That was a very good thing, because usually the point he was in the process of making got swept away by the aggravation.
Drakken peered at Shego. If she understood the urgency of his words, it didn't show. Her face was swinging back and forth from disbelief to amusement. Still smirking, she nodded him on.
"The stuff I tried back in college was terrible! I mean, I couldn't even keep it in my mouth, it was so - horrendous!" he cried, proud of coming up with such a suitably awful word. "But what I drank last night - " they were entering uncharted territory here, and Drakken heard his voice wavering as he continued - "it didn't taste bad."
He paused to consider that. "Well, I don't actually remember, but I presume it didn't, cause I kept drinking it." The flavor lingering in his mouth was anything but delicious, but then, nothing tasted good the second time around.
Shego matter-of-factly rearranged her face, so that she looked less like somebody's annoying kid sister and more like somebody's stern teacher. "Okay," she said flatly. "Well," and just from those two words, Drakken could tell she sounded like a teacher, too - a very smart one who knew exactly what she was talking about. "What you had back in college was probably beer."
Drakken nodded - or as much as he could nod with what felt like a two-ton weight strapped to his head. Yes, that matched the data he'd gathered all those years ago.
"But what you had last night was wine." Shego spread out her hands as she said that last word, like it explained everything.
But it didn't. Drakken blinked his burning eyes at her. "There's a difference?"
Shego gaped as if he had just asked her if there was a difference between ionic and covalent compounds. Great. Now he'd managed to look stupid again, and he couldn't afford to look stupid at this point. Sick and hangovered - hanged-over? - was bad enough.
"Uh, yeah," she finally replied. "Wine's a little stronger, and it's made from fruit -"
He gave another fraction of a nod. Something told him she didn't mean "strong" the way the henchmen were. She was talking about chemical strength - like poison.
Right. Fruit. He remembered that from his high-school chemistry class. Fruit that had fermented, which was a fancy way of saying it went rotten.
Curiosity got the better of him, and Drakken butted in with an inquiry. "What's beer made from?"
Shego rolled her eyes heavenward, like she was praying, which he'd never seen her do before. She'd probably never been scared enough, not even when something blew up six yards away or Kim Possible kicked her legs right out from under her. How did she do that?
"I don't remember off the toppa my head," she said in what sounded exasperatingly close to exasperation. "What do you think I am, Wikipedia?"
As Drakken seethed and wondered how in the world a person could be mistaken for a website, Shego kept going. "Like I said, wine's made from fruit, so it's gonna taste better."
Drakken could feel his brow furrowing as he stared down at his comforter, dizzying stabs of pain shooting through his head. That made sense - at least, some. He liked fruit just fine, though he wouldn't think it would be too good after it fermented. Still, it had to taste better than beer, which was so disgusting it was probably made from spoiled broccoli or kitty litter. Or both. Now, there was something nobody could ever mistake for -
A few of last night's puzzle pieces clicked into place. "More like fruit punch?" he suggested hesitantly.
There was a long silence before Shego sighed and said, "Yeah. More like fruit punch."
Her voice sounded kind of funny. Almost soft. And when Drakken looked to make sure it was really her, he could read her eyes for once. They were saying, You are such a pathetic little dork that I actually feel SORRY for you.
Drakken jerked his head around and stared pointedly at the wall. He didn't need her pity.
"They have one pretty important thing in common, though." Shego's words were laced with extra sarcasm, all traces of softness gone. "If you drink enough of them, they'll both get you wasted."
Why did there have to be so many different ways to say it? Every new one he heard only made him feel worse.
Drakken studied his Nuclear Powerplants From Around the World calendar and refused to answer. If he tried to speak, he knew his voice would crack and he wouldn't be able to hold back the shame, and he didn't want to give Shego the satisfaction of seeing that. He'd just ignore her until she got tired of pestering him and left.
"So." He felt the mattress un-sag and re-sag as Shego shifted her weight. "About last night -"
Last night. Drakken lurched away as if the words had burned him. Judging from the sudden heat in his cheeks, they just might have.
Last night was an equation with no solution. The few memories he had of it were wedged down in the folds of his brain, hiding behind neurons, and he couldn't have pried them loose if he'd wanted to.
Which he didn't. He didn't want to remember staggering around HenchCo's basement the way he surely had. He didn't want Shego to remember, either. All the information he had on last night would only convince her that he was a worthless drunk and/or a hopeless idiot. It all built up in him - it had to be clogging his arteries like cholesterol -
Drakken broke his vow of silence and snarled out, "We're not talking about that, Shego!" His head screeched its protest, but he didn't care. Barking orders made him feel a little less like he was going to have a stroke any minute.
"Uh, yeah, we are." Shego's voice was bristly, like she couldn't believe her boss was daring to order her around. "You expect us not to talk about the elephant in the kitchen?"
Drakken knew his lower lip was poking out in a pout, but he couldn't help it. Since when did she call the shots around here? "Can you not get over that?" he demanded. "It was three years ago, and the insurance company fully covered -"
Shego cut him off with a very loud groan, like she was the one in severe pain. "It's a figure of speech, Doc."
"Oh." He hated those things. Why couldn't people just say what they meant instead of dragging pachyderms into it? "Let's pretend I don't know what that means," Drakken said in a smooth voice that he thought covered his confusion quite well. He stole a sneaky little glance at Shego to see if she was impressed.
She wasn't. "It means, Mr. Genius - "
She didn't need to say that sarcastically.
"- something that nobody can ignore, cause it's big and obvious, and pretending it's not there won't fix things."
Curse her for making sense. "And talking about it will?" Drakken grumbled, just for the sake of being difficult.
His sidekick eased herself off his bed and slammed her hands on her hips. "It might." She leaned in closer, and Drakken found himself shrinking back from her sharp eyes. "So - what do you remember about last night?"
It took him a moment to regroup his thoughts - they always got all jumbled after he lost a debate with Shego. No matter how neatly he lined up his memories, though, he was still staring at huge gaps that he didn't know how to fill in. He remembered arriving at HenchCo, falling down the stairs, watching Shego walk away from him, swaggering over to the refreshment table. . . but everything between that and waking up half-dead was a complete blank.
Drakken grunted as he strained his brain, but the pictures and the noises and everything else that should have come to him stayed stuck. He had the mental image of a knotted-up hose, with water bulging like a stuffed stomach because it didn't have anywhere to go.
The only thing that leaked through was the sound of deep chuckles and low voices calling him "Pal," and that didn't make any sense by itself. Out of context, Drakken was pretty sure it was called. "Not. . . not much," he admitted to Shego.
"Try harder," was her heartless answer. Her voice was so cold, it almost made him wish for the pity.
Drakken made a face at her and raised two fingers to each side of his head, feeling the veins pulse. He closed his eyes, accidentally let a sniffle escape, and began rummaging through the contents of his brain. Brushing away cobwebs. Searching folders titled "Failed Evil Schemes" - which was depressingly full - "Kim Possible's Weaknesses" - which was disgustingly empty - and "Prank Calls to Make to Dementor" - which gave him a something-isn't-right tickle.
Squeezing his eyes even tighter, until he was in total blackness, Drakken replayed his one memory. Sure enough, one of the voices that had spoken so nicely to him was high-pitched, with a constant shout and a German accent that never failed to set his teeth on edge. One of the laughing-with-him-instead-of-at-him chuckles was a shrill cackle.
Drakken's eyes flew open. "Dementor!" he cried, hatred heating his gut.
Nothing on Shego's face moved. "You mean Dementor, the table lamp or Dementor, the guy who you can't stand because he's actually competent?"
What was with her today? First elephants, now table lamps. . . "The guy I can't stand because he's actual - hey!" Drakken halted, mid-sentence, and let out an indignant squawk as he realized exactly what he was repeating.
It evidently didn't escape Shego, either. There were times when it was good to see her lips twitch. This wasn't one of them.
"I don't hate him because he's competent," Drakken protested, nearly choking on the word that so many people had stuck a negative prefix on and flung at him. "I hate him because he's so - so - so - "
And just like that, all the words he'd ever known disappeared. Only nonsense noises were left behind to stammer out.
Even if he had had access to his vocabulary, however, Drakken wasn't sure there were words to describe someone like Dementor, someone whose very presence stiffened his neck hairs, someone who could ruin his whole day just by making eye contact with him. Whenever their paths crossed - at villain conventions, in jail, or, most awkwardly, in a top-secret government lab when they were both there to steal the same weapon - Dementor would greet him cheerfully. With a big warm smile, like he thought Drakken was too stupid to see through it.
But Drakken wasn't stupid, and he saw that that oh-so-friendly smile never reached Dementor's eyes. They stayed in nasty little slits, laughing at him just for existing. That always got his pulse pounding and cut off all blood flow to his brain, and he wound up saying or doing the stupidest thing possible. And nobody ever knew it was all Dementor's fault, because they couldn't see his mean eyes. They only saw a mad genius making a fool of himself.
He'd never been able to explain it then, and he knew he wouldn't be able to explain it now, but he had to try. "I mean, he's - he's such a - a -"
Insult. I need an insult. Supervillains were supposed to be masters of meanness, and overall, Drakken thought he did pretty darn well, if he had to say so himself. He knew buffoon and melonhead and even lackwit, but none of those applied to the current enemy.
No, the whole trouble with Dementor was that he was smart - too smart. Not smarter than Drakken, of course, but better at looking smart, and that made it tough finding a way to insult him.
He snuck a peak at Shego to see if she could be of any help. Words - especially insulting ones - came much easier to her. She was pacing the narrow strip of floor between his bed and the jagged line that indicated a piranha pit.
In spite of everything, Drakken grinned. Sometime in her three-and-a-half years as an evil sidekick, he'd taught her what every mad scientist knew by heart: Pacing made you look that much more dramatic and intimidating.
So dramatic and intimidating, in fact, that Drakken got a little nervous, and when Shego turned around to face him, mouth already forming words, he cringed. She must have known he was looking for a suitable putdown, though, because she thoughtfully suggested, "Such a big fat stinkyhead?"
He felt his smile grow, his chest expand. "That fits perfectly!" he cried. Good old Shego. "He's just a big fat - " Drakken's voice trailed off again - he couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten to finish a sentence - as he noticed the hard shine of amusement on her face.
She'd been messing with him again. And he'd fallen for it. Again.
His hands began their involuntary flapping routine, needing to clutch something. Usually he reached for Sir Fuzzymuffin the Second when that happened, but Shego would never let him live that down. Instead, Drakken reached up and curled his hands into fists around two clumps of hair, hoping the whole time that he'd remembered to hide his teddy someplace safe.
"Shego, Dementor was there last night," he said, changing the subject before he lost what little self-control was keeping him from ripping those fistfuls of hair out. "At the villain party. Last night. He was there." His sentences were coming out choppy and redundant, but he didn't care.
Shego clapped both hands to her cheeks, but she looked about as excited as if she were watching a documentary on the life cycle of the fruit fly. "Gadzooks, that changes everything," she said - completely expressionlessly.
Hmm. She sure was sending some mixed messages here. Drakken tilted his head to see if she would make more sense from a forty-five degree angle.
"I saw Dementor there last night." Shego gave a hissy sigh. "Tell me something I don't know."
Drakken blinked. "Sea stars eat by expelling their stomachs from their bodies."
Shego evidently was not in awe of his knowledge of the digestive habits of marine echinoderms, because her eyelids dropped to half-mast in that way that always made him squirm inside. "About last night," she finally said. Her words sounded bitten off, pointy like her chin and sharp like her eyes.
"Oh." Was that another one of those figures of speech?
His eyeballs must have been threatening to meet at his nose, because Shego jumped back in with further clarification. "What about Professor Schadenfreude being there?"
Drakken closed his eyes so he could concentrate on the picture forming in his mind. If he was looking at Shego or his Magno-Scope Disruptor Sphere, they might sneak their way into that picture, and he didn't want to contaminate the only evidence he had that last night had even happened. It was fuzzy and lopsided, like a disk had been inserted into his brain's memory drive sideways, but he could still make out Professor Dementor. Smiling warmly, eyes promising friendship, arm sweeping grandly toward the - the -
Drakken sucked in a breath so big, he nearly inhaled his own uvula. The refreshment table!
More specifically, the punch bowl.
()()()()
EDITED 11/14 for typos and formatting.
