And we are. . . done! Thanks to everyone who stuck with me this whole time; it means a lot to me. :) I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to leave a review - if you want.
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To do today (or sometime in the neer future):
Several hours later, Dr. Drakken leaned his head against the back of his Thinking Chair and sighed with contentment - the contentment that, earlier this morning, he'd been sure he'd never feel again. Tapping his pen against his chin in thought, he closed his mad-scientist logbook and drummed his fingers on its green-and-white-speckled cover with its picture of Frankenstein's monster, the one the ignorant masses referred to simply as "Frankenstein."
For the first time, Drakken envied the nameless creature who made him look like George Clooney. At least if he ever got a hangover, he could just unscrew his head and leave it in the closet until it stopped pounding.
In all fairness, though, he felt a lot better now. His stomach didn't want anything in it, but the dry heaves had stopped. His head still hurt, but it didn't feel like people were using power tools on it anymore. And the very fact that he'd remembered to tap his chin with the end of the pen that wouldn't leave ink on it showed that the fog in his brain was lifting. He simply felt limp and drained, as if a vampire had sunken its fangs into his tranverse cervical veins and sucked him dry.
Drakken had slept for three-and-a-half blissful hours before waking up stiff and sore and groggy. But the room stayed stationary, and when he'd dared to swing his legs out of bed and place his feet on the floor, the ground didn't wobble and send him to his knees. He'd never realized how much he'd taken those things for granted before.
Now Drakken turned his attention back to his logbook, crossing out the first - and so far, only - item on the list. Running a line through it proved immensely satisfying.
*Throw away all mouthwash, hand satinizer, and rubbing alcohaul!
That was the second thing he'd done once he was able to get out of bed. (The first was to brush his teeth six times.) The smell of them when they were gathered in his arms - that alone made him shudder, and he'd held his breath so they wouldn't plaster him again.
Although he still felt gross, with his clothes soaked with last night's sweat and his mouth tasting like fermented fruit and stomach acid, Drakken knew he was in much better shape than he had been a few hours ago. All right, so he'd gotten queasy when he'd bent over to drop the sinister items in the trash and had to sprint to the sink and spit up Gatorade, but he'd done it without the wrenching stomach convulsions and the relief had been immediate.
At any rate, he felt way better than he looked - at least if the bathroom mirror could be trusted, and he was pretty sure it could. It was always weird to see the scar on the wrong cheek - well, on the right cheek, which was the wrong cheek - but that jagged line of damaged tissue was the last thing on Drakken's mind when he saw who was looking back at him. He wouldn't be mistaken for a movie star on his best days, and this was definitely not one of his best days.
His face was puffy, pinkish in the cheek that had pillow lines carved down then but a washed-out blue everywhere else. Crusty, dried stuff was flaked at the corners of his eyes and mouth and under his nose. His lab coat was rumpled, bagging on him as if he'd lost weight overnight, and those tiny hands trembled, ignoring his order to curl themselves into fists. His eyes, dull and swollen and saggy, were so red they looked like laser beams, which was actually kind of cool, with big circles the color of ink smeared under them. Even his hair looked lifeless, stringing to his shoulders in matted hunks, too damp with sweat to even flip up at the ends the way it usually did.
Drakken had closed his eyes, but the image of his gross self had stayed with him. No matter what Shego said, he certainly looked the part of a drunk who'd passed out in the gutter. But I'm not, Drakken reminded himself over and over, backing up until he hit the wall. I'm not.
He let himself drop the floor, spine pressed against the wall, and studied the bathroom tiles just because he was so happy they didn't whirl in circles anymore. "Part of their bodies come to need that alcohol," Shego's voice added in his memory. "And that part needs it so bad they're willing to destroy the rest of their bodies to get it."
That clearly didn't describe him, Drakken thought. He need alcohol like he needed Kim Possible - and his entire body was in agreement. If he ever did anything like that again, he was sure all of his parts would mutiny.
Still, the idea of a part so tiny, yet so powerful, fascinated Drakken. He wondered if he had one like that.
Why did that part crave alcohol so badly, though? Now if it were, say, cookies, then Drakken would understand. But this stuff didn't taste too great, didn't fill you up, and he was sure puking in trash cans was nobody's idea of a good time.
He closed his eyes again and tipped his head back, happy to let his scientific mind take over, to see alcohol as nothing more than a chemical. It had been used as a sort of primitive anesthesia, he knew. Got the patient drunk so he wouldn't feel a thing. It numbed you, he'd heard, but unless you were having a leg amputated, Drakken didn't really see the appeal of that, either.
He had felt numb before - usually with shock, after something terrible had just happened - and he'd hated it. It was like all his nerves had shut down, leaving him to watch the world through a sheet of Plexiglass. At least it kept the pain out - but it didn't feel right, as if he'd heard his leg snap and felt only cold nothingness. If it was broken and it didn't hurt, something was wrong, no matter what "it" was. He'd prefer emotion, almost any emotion - except that blasted frustration.
Drakken had considered that as he'd gotten to his feet, knees popping in a way he hadn't remembered them doing last month. He thought of Shego, with her smooth face and cold eyes. She wasn't numb to everything; he'd seen her temper in action enough to know that. But sadness, fear, wordless pain - those were foreign concepts to her.
Most importantly, her conscience never seemed to bother her. Drakken swallowed hard. Maybe he would make a better supervillain - be able to conquer the world - if he was numb. Now there was something that might be worth destroying his body for. Drakken got that same shiver of dread and bittersweet taste in his mouth as he had that awful night back in college. It was as if he was standing on the edge of everything he knew, discovering evil for the first time.
Drakken stuck his tongue, cracked and dry as a piece of sandpaper, out at his reflection and turned away so he couldn't watch his own face crumple. Yeah, he had a part like that.
Now he scowled down at the nearly-blank page in front of him and wished he'd written all that down, just so he could have the pleasure of scribbling through it in dark, angry lines. But that would have required him to find words for the jumble of pangs and pokes inside, and there weren't any. He knew - he'd wasted plenty of time looking for them.
Drakken also knew that he was lucky just to be able to jot down his to-do list. Snuggling down farther into the folds of the blue bathrobe so old most of the fuzziness had worn off the outside, he refocused on doing just that.
*Dock the henchmen's paychecks by 5% so I can raise Shego's. Maybe 10%, to afford that cable premium package. (They have a sci-fi channle!)
*Invent a hangover-inducing ray and hit Kim Possible with it. She'll be incapeable of getting out of bed, much less foiling my plots!
Drakken paused over that one and frowned. Some things were too cruel even for him.
*Steal that Pan-Dimensional Vortex Inducer that Dementor was so obsessed with getting last year. That'll teach him to get me drunk!
Drakken forced half a smile, because he knew the idea of getting revenge on Dementor should have made him happy. And it would have, except that he was too busy feeling like an old jack-o-lantern, hollow and mushy and ready to collapse into himself.
*And, oh yeah. Take over the world!
He chewed on the pen cap as the thoughts that had fallen into place so neatly on paper tumbled around in his head. There was one other thing that belonged on the list, but Drakken wasn't sure he should write it down, because he'd been arguing with himself all afternoon about whether or not to even do it.
He had plenty of reasons not to do it. It was stupid. It was pointless. It was unprofessional. It wouldn't do a thing to bring him closer to world domination.
Then why did the hollow place inside him fill up every time he thought about it?
Drakken grunted and glanced out one of his new non-blacked-out windows. It was strange to see the sun so low in the sky when he still had waking-up grog in his throat. The human sleep cycle was based on darkness and light, and falling asleep in the morning and getting up in the afternoon made Drakken feel like he'd broken a rule somehow.
The thought that he'd done something he wasn't supposed to gave him delightful tingles up and down his arms, but it didn't get rid of the empty spot. Neither did anything else on his to-do list. Nothing except the idea that he'd been turning over in his brain for the past hour.
It wasn't even a particularly calming idea. There was no assurance that everything was going to be just fine, no offer of relief from the sweaty palms and nauseous taste in his mouth. Just a full, solid, itchless chest and a disturbing feeling of goodness.
What was even scarier was that part of Drakken wanted to cling to it. Surely, as wicked as he was, it wouldn't damage his evil level to do something good every now and then, would it? Just because he was a ruthless conqueror didn't mean he had to be a bad person.
Pulling his pen out of his mouth, Drakken scribbled down, Call Senior and explian! Then he jumped to his feet, knocking logbook and pen to the floor, and bolted for his office to retrieve the phone and Jack Hench's Villain Directory before he could lose his nerve.
Once he was back in his Thinking Chair, reminding himself to breathe, Drakken began to rehearse a speech. As slippery and confusing as words were, he had to admit they were fascinating little creatures. Some slid out like honey; some popped in his mouth. His favorites swelled and boomed when they hit the air. His least favorites clogged his throat and oozed between his teeth in tangled chunks.
And these words had to be perfect. He handpicked each one with great care, examining it from all angles to make sure it said what he wanted it to say. He chose words that were just the right mixture of complexity and simpleness, cold, flat ones that kept his emotions in check, and, most importantly, words that would remind Senior - and himself - that Dr. Drakken was soon to rule the world. Ones that built a castle and let him stay huddled safely inside.
When all the words were lined up just right in his mind, Drakken flipped through the Villain Directory to the "S"s, stopping only briefly in the "D"s to admire his name in print. There were the Seniors' names and their phone number, looking surprisingly. . . ordinary. They weren't glittery-bright or even in bold type the way Drakken had expected them to be.
What was with him today? If anybody's name deserved to be written in letters six inches tall, it was his own, not those of some filthy-rich father-son duo - something heavy lodged halfway up Drakken's esophagus and he had to massage his neck until it broke apart and the pieces drifted away.
Once it was gone, Drakken snatched up the phone and gazed at its gray squareness, strangely comforted by the fact that it looked exactly like it had last time he'd used it. His finger trembled over a button for a moment before he gathered every speck of desperate courage he had and slammed down on it so hard, he was surprised it didn't pop out the back. With a short, loud "BEEP!", the phone acknowledged the "1" you had to dial before any long-distance call - and this was mega-long-distance.
It also accepted the next ten numbers that Drakken pecked out, hesitantly, between glances at the directory to make sure each digit was placed in proper formation in his mind. Sometimes when he got upset enough, or even excited enough, those got shuffled around, too. Drakken wasn't sure why - numbers were generally much friendlier than letters.
As soon as he hit the last button with a pinky that fit perfectly on the little square, there was an infuriating pause, and then the phone began to ring. And ring. And ring. Drakken had never noticed before what a nerve-jangling sound that was, especially six times in a row.
He waited, breath held, for the click that would tell him someone had picked up on the other end, but it wasn't coming, and Drakken could feel his face turning bluer. Maybe the Seniors weren't home. Maybe they had Caller ID and didn't want to talk to the drunken slimeball they'd watched stagger out of HenchCo the night before. Maybe he'd scrambled the numbers after all, and he was really calling Hong Kong.
A click sounded in his ear then, so faintly Drakken would have thought he'd imagined it if he hadn't heard the breathing. Breathing too calm and even to be his own. He cleared his throat to get rid of the frightened tickle that still lurked there and opened his mouth, ready with his explanation -
"The Seniors' private island. How may I help you?" The shrill voice sliced through his scalp like a knife.
Definitely. Not. Senior.
Drakken gritted his teeth at the now-familiar stabs of pain that shot through his head. "Hello, Junior," he hissed to the kid whose existence he'd forgotten until this very moment. "This is Dr. Drakken."
He wasn't able to make it come out with a boom, and there was a very long silence before Junior said, "Oh." Drakken could hear a waver of uncertainty - maybe even fear?
It should have thrilled him. After all, he'd been waiting over twenty years to finally scare someone - besides the buffoon, who also freaked out at the sight of monkeys and lawn gnomes. But this wasn't the type of fear he longed for, the kind that came from awe at his evil and his genius. No, this came from last night, the same sort of disgusted fear Drakken knew he would've had in his own eyes if he saw someone so drunk and out of control that he'd have no idea what the guy was going to do next.
It was a type of fear Drakken never knew existed, a type that didn't come with respect, and so he didn't want it. And so, of course, that was the only kind he was ever going to get.
Drakken dragged those thoughts across his mental desktop and dropped them in the Recycle Bin. Fear was fear, and it gave him power - sweet, tingling power that he almost didn't know what to do with - and that was all that mattered. Scared people would do anything you told them to.
Right. Drakken put on his most menacing face, even though he knew it wouldn't do him much good over the phone, and worked up a growl sure to intimidate the little pop star wannabe. "May I speak to your. . . father?" In spite of the gravel he was happy to have creepy back into his voice, the word broke in his throat - it wasn't one he was used to saying.
There was an even longer silence, and Drakken had to chomp down on his tongue to keep from hollering, "That wasn't a hard question!" Having a meltdown definitely wouldn't win Junior's respect, but he could feel one creeping up on him -
"Yes, of course," Junior finally said carefully, like he was speaking in a language he didn't really know. "Just a moment, please."
Drakken winced, hands poised to cover his ears, waiting for Junior to scream, "Poppy, phone for you!" But instead, he heard the phone being set down, footsteps hurrying away. Huh. So the kid had some manners after all.
He grunted to himself. Of course he had manners. He was Senior's son, so he'd obviously been brought up right. For a startled moment, Drakken even understood Junior's lack of interest in villainy. Growing up with a dad like that - why would you need to be evil?
The thought was strange and unsettling, and no matter how hard Drakken tried to give it a bitter edge, it made him feel sad and droopy. It was a vulnerable place he couldn't let himself go.
So he pressed the phone tighter to his ear and focused all of his attention on figuring out what was going on at the Seniors' "crib," as the teens today called it. Junior shrieked something in the background, followed by a low voice that, for some reason, made him think of leaves in a stream - kinda surprising, since his mind generally didn't conjure up images that pleasant. Apparently, not even his son's fingernails-on-a-chalkboard voice ruffled Senior's composure.
Drakken wished he could say the same. The minute he'd heard that squeak on the other end of the line, his perfectly prepared speech had vanished into thin air. Now Senior was coming to the phone and he'd have to face him with no words, no plan, no reason for why he'd called. The empty feeling in his gut was back. He had the sudden, intense craving for a donut, even though his stomach was still sort of upset.
For a second, he considered hanging up, but to do that would be to admit defeat, and that was something Dr. Drakken never did. Well, hardly ever. Besides, he was going to get charged for the call anyway, so he might as well try to see it through. He thought guiltily of his phone bill and made a silent vow to cut his henchmen's wages by another five percent.
Drakken could make out the thump of footsteps and the low murmur of Senior's voice on the other end of the line; their increasing volume told him they were getting closer. Then he heard Junior say, as clearly as if he were right next to the phone, "It is Dr. Drakken."
Just the sound of his name whining out of the kid's mouth made hummingbirds flutter in Drakken's stomach. Sure, Junior's voice was like a cat with its tail being pulled, but he had the same accent as his father - that crisp one that made each syllable pop like a carefully controlled firecracker.
There was something almost majestic about it, something that not even Drakken's self-imposed, quasi-British, villain-accent could copy. Made him feel like a little peasant boy appearing before the king, and that was something a conquering tyrant should never have to experience. He was that close to hurling all over the arm of the Thinking Chair when the phone was picked up with a clunk and someone said, "Hello?"
Softly. Kindly. Barely above a whisper.
And at that moment, though he couldn't have explained it to anyone, Drakken knew why he'd had to call.
It put him so at ease, in fact, that he didn't even wait for the boom to return to his voice before he began. "Yes," he scraped out with as much dignity as he could muster in his bathrobe and bunny slippers, blinking hard against the sudden sting in his eyes. "This is Dr. Drakken."
Drakken sucked in his breath again and, for a moment, forgot how to exhale as he anticipated Senior's reaction. It occurred to him that he'd never heard the old man get mad before. He wondered what he would sound like mad.
He never found out. If anything, Senior's tone grew even warmer. "Ah, Dr. Drakken!" he said in a way that made Drakken picture a square hand heartily clasping his own much smaller one, arm swept out to welcome him. "How are you feeling?"
The hummingbirds stilled out of sheer bewilderment. How had Senior known he would be sick?
More importantly, why did Senior care?
The automatic Because you're meant to rule the world, and he knows you're much more important than him, as well as the hiss of Get a grip. Senior's just being polite. Don't get your hopes up, seemed pathetic, and they were growing fainter by the second. Drakken shoved them both aside and answered. "Better now. I was sick earlier."
Something told him he probably shouldn't have admitted that - supervillains didn't get sick, and when they did, they kept it to themselves. Still, there was something about Senior, even over the phone, that made Drakken think he could tell him just about anything. Maybe even about the bathrobe and bunny slippers.
Senior gave a soft, rich chuckle that didn't sound for a minute like he was laughing at Drakken. "Yes, I would imagine so."
See, now, if Shego or Kim Possible had said that, it would've come across as mean and nasty. Not Senior, though. His voice was full of pity. No - sympathy. There was nothing demeaning about it.
Drakken released his first real smile since waking up, but it didn't stick around very long. With the explanation he'd rehearsed in shreds, the only thing left for him to do was blurt out the facts. That should've been easy - he'd done it dozens of times, and in situations far more dire than this - but now, the prospect was turning his palms clammy again.
He had to do it just right; one wrong word could warp Senior's understanding of the truth. Drakken coughed to try and get rid of the inexplicable lump threatening to choke him. No pressure or anything.
"Look, about last night," Drakken stammered quickly, before Senior could recall last night and come to the wrong conclusions. "I didn't mean -" He stopped, backpedaled. "It was an acci -" No, that wasn't right, either. "I mean - I thought it was fruit punch."
Saying those words was like throwing up. They burned in his throat and splattered messily out of his mouth, but getting them out gave him an overwhelming sense of relief. They weren't perfect, but they were the best he had, and that was going to have to be enough -
Unless it wasn't.
Drakken sprang out of his relieved sag into the Thinking Chair, sweat already beading on his nose. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your best just isn't good enough?" Shego's taunt from back right before the Attitudinator mishap echoed through his head.
And Shego was always right.
There was a thick silence that wasn't awkward, because nothing Senior did was awkward, but it seemed to fill the whole room. Drakken ate his fingernails off in a straight line, half expecting to ding like a typewriter when he got to the end of the row.
"That is most unfortunate," Senior finally said. "I am only glad it was not worse." A brief pause. "Thank you for telling me."
Drakken spit out his mouthful of nails and pressed the phone tighter to his ears as if that would bring Senior closer. He'd drowned out Shego's voice, and that wasn't easy to do.
It made Drakken brave enough to explore new territory, stopping just short of confessing an emotion. "I just wanted you to know I'm not some kind of. . . drunk." "Lush," Shego had said, but that word was too ugly to leave his lips.
Senior gave a quiet "Ah" that told Drakken he understood everything he'd said - and everything he hadn't said. "No, of course not," he added, his politeness so reassuring it nearly made Drakken cry. "One of the reasons I was so concerned was that you did not strike me as the type to overindulge like that."
The purest sense of joy that he'd felt since he was about seven years old floated through Drakken as those words sank in. He wanted to leap through the phone and curl up at the feet of this person who'd believed in him. "Really?" he squeaked instead.
"Indeed." He could hear Senior shift smoothly in his seat. "That was obviously not typical behavior for you. I figured you had misjudged the strength of the beverage." His wise old voice wasn't just respectful anymore. It sounded soft, in a way Drakken had only heard it when he was talking to Junior.
It made the Thinking Chair grow squishier under him, the pounding in his head fade to a dull ache, the sky outside seem bluer. Drakken's throat clogged again, but it was a happy lump this time. "Really?" he repeated.
He could almost see Senior wink. "It happens to the best of us, my friend."
With those words, he gave Drakken his dignity back. Not by wrapping it up and putting a bow on it and making a big show of returning it - just by walking up and casually handing it to him and acting like he'd never lost it in the first place. Drakken couldn't control the tremor in his lips.
He wanted to jump up and down and shriek with glee, to shout words of gratitude and adoration into the phone. When he opened his mouth, though, all that came out was a squawk that might have once been "Thank you" and an equally unprofessional, "Well, see ya."
The idea of hanging up didn't appeal to Drakken at all, actually. He would rather have stayed on there for hours, telling Senior all about his life to see if he could somehow make it make sense. But he had to end this conversation before it became imperfect in any way.
"All the best, Dr. Drakken," was Senior's reply, and not just because it was the polite thing to say. His voice was sincere, like he truly did wish Drakken all the best.
Drakken hung fast, so he wouldn't have to hear the lonely dial tone drone in his ear. The phone promptly slid straight out of his sweaty hand and crashed to the floor. For the first time, he noticed his teeth were clacking together, and his jaw hurt like they'd been doing it for awhile.
As a matter of fact, everything on him was shivering again, but not from cold or sickness or even fear. This was something strong and clean and more triumphant than triumph. The picture he'd had in his mind of Senior sneering at him, the one he'd dreaded all day, was replaced by an image of how he must have looked when they said good-bye: smiling calmly, the lines in his face gentle, his eyes almost tender. It swelled Drakken's chest until he was sure that his heart had grown three sizes, like the Grinch's.
He shot to his feet in glorious rapture or whatever you called this sort of joy, but his knees wobbled out from under him and he toppled belly-first onto the Thinking Ottoman. Rolling over onto his back, Drakken watched the sunbeams dance on the ceiling and paused to breathe in the light that barely hurt his eyes anymore. He should have been doing a dance of his own, but his legs were shaky and, for a minute, it didn't seem real.
That conversation had gone so much better than Drakken could've imagined, washing all the dirt away. There was still some embarrassment, but not the heavy feeling of shame. Senior was a genius, too - brilliant at scooping your self-esteem out of the mud and making you feel like a person again. Drakken wondered if he did that for everyone, or if it was something just for him. Secretly, he wished it was the latter, just because it had been so long since he'd been special to anybody who wasn't his mother.
Whatever the case, Drakken was happier than he'd been in quite awhile. He felt like he'd just leapt over the moon and landed on a sea of soft, fluffy pillows. He felt like he'd discovered a new element that was going to be named after him, a testament to his genius that would live on forever.
He felt like - the king of the world, even without someone to gloat to and his arch-nemesis forced to kneel before him.
Just like that, all of his dark doubts and itchy places disappeared, leaving behind only something warm sitting in the middle of his chest, like a pie fresh from the oven. He wasn't sure since it hadn't shown up for so long, but Drakken thought it might be hope.
He pumped his fists in the air and "YESSSSSSSSSS!" until he ran out of breath and had to stop and gasp. Inspiration suddenly striking him, Drakken sprang from the floor and flipped his logbook open to today's to-do list. With fingers still fluttering in relief, he jotted down one last item:
*Let Senior have another island or something when I take over the world.
There! Drakken sank back into a sitting position, sighing with satisfaction, and let the book slip shut with a sigh of its own.
The thought of repaying Senior for his kindness made another relatively unfamiliar sensation creep up and curl around him - cozy and safe, the way a hug would surely be if it hadn't had to involve actually being touched. It was the same fuzzy feeling he'd gotten when Commodore Puddles first licked his cheek, when he'd paid for Shego's Christmas vacation, when he'd helped the buffoon's little naked creature repair the Attitudinator. A feeling that came so close when he was watching Snowman Hank he could almost touch it, a feeling he could only describe as "good."
Not "good" as in "healthy." Not "good" as in "successful." Not even "good" as in "brilliant."
Just - good.
The fragility of that thought made Drakken stop and examine his jagged nails. Usually that goodness only lasted for a few minutes, and he wasn't sorry to see it go. Drakken didn't need Jack Hench to tell him that a supervillain shouldn't enjoy feeling like a good person.
Whether it was the hangover or the talk with Senior or whatever, though, things didn't play out at all like usually. The fuzzy-wuzzies didn't leave, and Drakken didn't chase them away. He was content to smile drowsily and savor them, wrapped in a flannel blanket from the inside out. For a moment they didn't even seem to pose a threat to his evil level. After all, you could be a supervillain and still be a good person. Look at Senior. It was almost enough to make him forget about Dementor stealing his scheme.
Almost.
Drakken knew that, soon, there would be rage over that to send him into a furious monologue and frustration to make off with his words in mid-rant. There would be revenge to be plotted and doom traps to be designed. But, just for now, "almost" was close enough.
