#dr. fright

He was actually going to get away with this, wasn't he?

Thursday afternoon, Virgil made his way across town. Thomas had dropped him off at a close by location before work, which left him a bit of time to wander. He'd made sure to get lots of rest the night before to catch up on sleep he had lost, though he was still exhausted. The man was a very light sleeper and woke up whenever a neighbor got a little too loud, or when a door opened. Over the years he had grown used to being woken up by everything and had adapted. However his tiredness still weighed him down.

Virgil had checked and double checked that he had everything with him in his backpack, which was slung casually over his left shoulder. When it was getting close to the time of the delivery, he pulled his hood up and hid his face from view. Bangs were hanging loosely in front of his eyes and he made sure to wear a thick layer of makeup, as he would be less recognizable like this.

In front of the building he was going to was a one-way road that went between two other buildings. It was small, but still big enough that they had paved sidewalks along it. It connected two main roads, where people bustled about. Cars were few and far in-between while people stuck to the sidewalk. This was good; people wouldn't get hurt today. Not unless they flung themselves in front of a moving vehicle. Surely no one was stupid enough to do that though.

Virgil leaned against the wall as casually as he could and waited for a few minutes. Finally a big blue courier van pulled up to the building. Virgil had to act.

He pulled his backpack off of his shoulders and dropped it in front of himself, proceeding to dig in it until he found what he was looking for. It was the unnamed metal cylinder that he's been working on. He turned it on and pulled his phone out of his hoodie pocket, and opened a custom app. He connected the signal between the phone and the cylinder. Then he waited.

One man came out the vehicle and went inside the building. One person? Easy.

Virgil went into one of those football thrower poses and chucked the cylinder across the way. It was extremely magnetic and he threw it just far enough for it to pick up the metal on the outside of the the van and shoot up, attaching itself to the top of it. The magnet on the inside was really fucking strong and he was lucky that it didn't stick to something else.

He ran behind a line of garbage cans that was lining the road and dropped his bag there. On his phone he pressed a series of buttons, and across the road the car was trying to start back up. He needed to be fast, so--

“Would you like to lend a caring hand to--"

Virgil yelled I surprise and spun around. He almost dropped his phone. He stared back at the owner of the voice that spoke.

“I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!" A chubby man with glasses and freckles apologised. Patton. He was holding a clipboard and wearing a pair of khakis and a teal polo, much different than what Virgil had seen him wear in the past. It was strange to him to not see him in a flowy dress or skirt.

“Hi,” he said. Then he realised it. “I mean, it’s fine. Really.”

“I… hey wait! I know you!” Patton said a little too loudly for comfort. This caused him to glance around the street. No one had turned to look at them despite the noise.

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen you, too. What? Wait, you do. Do you?” He stumbled over his words. He looked back at his phone and pressed a series of buttons. He could vaguely hear the van trying to start as he did so from far off and out of his sight. C’mon…

“From the laundromat?”

“Wednesdays and Fridays. Except for twice last month you skipped the weekend.” He spoke quickly without realizing. “I mean-- if that was you… could have been someone else. I mean, I've seen you…”

“Um… I’m Patton!” He held out his hand for the other to shake but Virgil just curled back and looked at his phone. He pressed a few more things.

“Virgil…”

“What are you doing?” Asked Patton, who leaned closer to see his phone screen. Virgil pulled it away so he couldn’t.

“Texting. It’s very important, or I would stop... So what are you doing here?” He asked not looking up.

“Oh! I’m with the Caring Hands homeless shelter. We're looking to expand our efforts. There’s a great building not far from here that the city wants to tear down. But! If we can get enough signatures--”

“Pfft, signatures?” Virgil scoffed.

“Yes…”

“I’m sorry, continue.” The villain’s face went pink. He didn’t mean to sound that way.

“Okay, so, if we can get enough then maybe the city will donate the building to our cause. We can turn it into a homeless shelter, provide 250 new beds and we can get people off of the street and into job training so that they can... buy rocket packs and go to the moon… and become florists…”

He had visibly stopped listening. He was typing for furiously on his phone now.

“You don’t really care about the homeless, do you?” he asked, tone of voice saying he wasn’t mad, but defeated. Perhaps he was used to that.

“What?” he looked up. “No, I do. But…” He hesitated.

“...They’re a symptom. You’re treating a symptom. And the disease rages on as it consumes the human race. It’s an infection that rots the flesh. The fish rots from the head so my thought is, why not cut off the head?”

" Of the human race?” Patton raises his eyebrows and is visibly confused.

“It's not a perfect metaphor. But I'm talking about an overhaul of the system by putting the power in different hands.”

"I'm all for that.” The other said. They both went silent after that, Virgil horrified that he let himself say something like that and Patton not sure what to say.

“This petition is about the building--"

“I'd love to sign,” he almost cut Patton off. Patton smiled as he turned his clipboard around and held it out for the other to sign. In his free hand he produced a pen and Virgil took it. He wrote his name on a neat little box and he felt a bit bad, only seeing two other signatures on the paper.

Virgil Addams, he wrote..

Once that's over he goes right back to his phone, heart beating a bit faster as he grows more anxious. What if he doesn't get the wonderflonium? What will he do then? If he can't get it he can't pull his heist and he can't get into the ELE. What if they actually send him a bomb next time?

The next time Virgil looks up from his phone he realized that. Patton was gone. He looked around. Where did he go? Should he find him?

No. Focus. You have a job to do and you're going to do it.

Right.

Virgil picked up his backpack and slipped between buildings. He wasn't visible here.

When he emerged from the area next time he was wearing a flashy white lab coat with a dark stormcloud on the front, thick chemistry goggles and boots tinted lavender, and a pair of goggles that covered a good chunk of his face. That mixed with the crazy amount of makeup that made his face look ten times thinner, he was unrecognizable. Perfect.

Virgil walked to the side of the street and typed on his phone just a bit more. The van kicked to life. The villain grinned. But just then the driver of the van walked out of the building and he knew he had to hurry. On his device he used six large buttons and the vehicle began to take off down the street like a bat from Hell. The man realized that and yelled after it, not aware that there wasn't anyone inside.

Every Wednesday and Friday Virgil would go to the coin wash next to his apartment to wash his clothes. His building was too small to hold washers and dryers, so unlike most apartment buildings that had ones for it's residents to use, everyone had to go elsewhere to clean their clothes.

Though hygiene was the original purpose of going there, several months in that was no longer the reason-- Well actually it was, but that wasn't the main reason. Now he visited this place routinely so that he could be close to Patton; the man of his dreams.

Virgil had never actually spoken to him, but from the moment he laid eyes on him he was head-over-heels. And he doesn't even know why because before Patton Virgil never even thought about romance.

Patton, from all of the information Virgil could gather, worked at a bakery and  liked to wear feminine clothing. He didn't know any more details, and he didn't want to. Not yet. He was waiting for the day that he finally speaks to him to find anything else out. He wants what he says to be as organic as possible.

So today --Wednesday-- Virgil left his home with a basket full of laundry and walked across the road and a block away to the coin wash, where upon entering he was greeted by the wonderful sight of the man he's been pining after for a solid year now. He was currently dumping his own basket of clothes into the washer. Every single article of clothing was a bright pastel or had animals on it, like the dress he wore--it was pale blue with a light pink ribbon on the back and had little paw prints all over it. It was absolutely hideous in Virgil's mind. He would never wear something that would draw so much attention to himself. But that was perhaps one of the reasons why he was so enamoured with the other; he seemingly had no fear over the opinion of others.

Virgil realized he had froze in the doorway and was staring, so with a growing blush on his face he quickly walked over to the washers behind Patton and got to work on washing his clothes. All of them were muted blacks and grays with not a single drop of color. That was exactly how the secret villain liked them, and had liked them since he was a teenager going through his edgy “phase". In high school Virgil took up a gothic exterior in hopes of intimidating other students into leaving him alone and to get their guard up around him. He was secretly hoping to strike some type of fear into his fellow classmates, and at that time in his mind a dark persona was the best way to do it.

He tossed his clothes in the washer and started it up, forgetting to put in any detergent. He still hasn't gone to sleep despite Thomas telling him to before he left for work, he was still thinking about his letter, and the love of his life was less than ten feet away. He was a bit distracted right now, to say the very least.

Virgil went to sit down on one of the chairs lining the wall behind him and pulled out his cell phone, pretending to be texting someone, though that wasn't what he was actually doing. Every few seconds he would glance away from the device and up at Patton. Maybe Virgil was kind of weird… okay, he was definitely weird. At some point you could identify him as a stalker but he was resisting that. He didn't want to be one of those guys. He may be evil, but he wasn't creepy. He still had morals!

But he still watched the man as he did his laundry, humming the same toon over and over. He watched him bounce around and smile sweetly at ever person to walk past him. He watched him hold a bundle of warm clothes in his arms for a few moments, soaking in the temperature before folding everything neatly and putting it in a clothes basket. He watched him skip out to his car and leave. Everything he did was adorable, and majestic, and alluring, and--

Virgil had it bad. And he watched, even if he wanted to talk.

---

It was a few hours before Virgil had returned home, laundry basket full of clothes he didn't bother to fold and just tossed on the floor next to his couch. A sock fell out of it and landed on the  floor. He was exhausted, and wished for nothing more than to pass out and not wake up for the next twenty-four hours. But he couldn't--not yet. Much to his dismay, Virgil still had work to do.

As a criminal mastermind with no super abilities, Virgil had to spend a lot of time working on different gizmos to aid him in his evil-doings. It would be a lot easier if Virgil had developed powers at some point, but he would be so lucky. Only about ten percent or the world's population gains powers, and the deadline for that is in your twenties when your brain finishes developing.

Although one could argue that Virgil's powers was his crazy IQ. By age 14 the man had finished high school and was on his way to college. He was quite skilled in all subjects of education, though chemistry was always his favorite. And that came in handy in his line of work now.

But back on track, Virgil still had testing to do. His most recent project had to be perfected by the time he did his heist tomorrow. He's been working on this for weeks and if it wasn't perfect then all of the time spent would have been for absolutely nothing.

He picked up a big, metal cylinder off of his work table and examined it. The outside was shiny and perfect. Virgil twisted it, revealing that it was actually two parts put together. It buzzed, telling it's creator that it was now turned on.

Ever since he was young Virgil had had a fascination with heros and villians. As a child it was his dream to become an awesome superhero who would beat all of the bad guys and be admired by everyone. He wanted a huge secret underground headquarters like Justice Joe, and to be granted one of those giant keys to the city that the mayor always give the hero in cartoons after he saves it from ultimate doom.

His life couldn't be further from that now.

Virgil was living in a small apartment building, cramped and cluttered with all sorts of half-built machines and gizmos. He had no adoring fans, he wasn't loved. He had changed sides, deciding at the age of ten that he no longer wanted to be a hero, but a villian. And he was alone.

Well, mostly alone. He did have Thomas, a shy but excitable man who periodically hiccuped butterflies for no reason. He was the closest friend Virgil had ever had. The only friend, actually. They had met under… circumstances. Virgil was seeking henchmen, and Thomas seeking a job. Both seemingly impossible. But Thomas simply wasn't cut out for a life of evil, and Virgil could tell instantly when he first met him. Despite it not working, they still became friends.

And speaking of Thomas, that was who walked through the front door of the apartment while Virgil was hunched over a workbench, screwing in impossibly small screws into one of his machines.

“Hey, Virge. I got your mail for you," Thomas declared as the door clicked shut behind him. In his arms was indeed his mail; a medium sized box and a pile of envelopes.

“Thanks," Virgil called, not looking away from his project. “Just put it on the coffee table.”

Upon arriving at said table, he saw the piles of coffee mugs and metal pieces and some kind of pink ooze that he really didn't want to touch. He decided that it would be best to put the mail on the couch instead and get to work on tidying up the place. Virgil wasn't the neatest person in the world (major understatement) and more often than not Thomas would be cleaning up after him. If it was anyone else Virgil would have thrown a fit over his things being messed with, but Thomas was smart enough to know what not to touch and thus wasn't told to stop when he gather all of the coffee mugs up and walked into the kitchen.

“Did you go to bed last night?" Thomas asked as he placed the cups into the sink.

" Yeah,” was the quick reply. Skeptical of that,Thomas poked his head out from behind the wall dividing the kitchen from the living room raised his eyebrows at Virgil. Sensing his friend, Virgil looked up from his work and admitted that no, he didn't go to bed last night.

“I was busy."

“Virge..."

“It's not like you're any better," the man snapped, though he immediately apologized for it. “Sorry."

“It's fine. We just need to get you into bed.” Said Thomas. He walked over to Virgil and nudged his shoulder, trying to tell him to stand. Virgil relented.

“I can't.This has to be finished by tomorrow at one.” Virgil explained as he pushed Thomas’ hand away--he wasn't going to get him into bed, just like he never actually has before. Virgil spun in his chair and glanced at the pile of mail sitting on the couch. Upon noticing the box, he stood and made his way closer. As he picked up the box he tossed the mail aside and sat down, peeling the tape away from the box's opening to reveal it's contents. The inside of the box was stuffed with packing paper, and when Virgil dug through and removed it, he pulled out a very small motor. He grinned.

“What is that?” Asked Thomas, who invited himself to sit down next to his friend. He leaned toward him and  Virgil held it closer to the other.

“It’s the last piece I that needed for my… control…” He trailed off as he looked down at the discarded pile of envelopes. Putting his package neatly aside, he picked up a plain white envelope with a dark yellow sealing wax symbol of an ouroboros with two heads. Thomas eyed the symbol.

“Is that-”

“Bad Snake’s symbol. That’s his symbol, right?”

“That’s so cool! The Reptilian of Sin, he sent you a letter?” Thomas grinned and leaned closer. “Are you going to open it?”

Bad Snake was the most evil, most feared super villain of all time. He was terrifying in every sense of the word. Simply to be in his presence was the biggest honor that those following the path of evil could have.

“Of course,” Virgil replied, though he made no move to do so. He looked nervous. “What- what if it’s my acceptance letter? I could finally get into the ELE… but… it could be a bomb. Or it could release a poisonous gas when I open it, or…”

The ELE--Evil League of Evil--was the largest and most well organized band of super villains to ever exist. And they were very particular in who they chose to let join them. Virgil had dreamed of becoming a member of their rank since he was a teenager. Just the idea alone made him giddy as all Hell, and he might have even been bouncing off of the walls right now if he wasn't so tired. The criminal had been sending in applications since he was officially an adult.

“Virge, I don’t think they fit a bomb into that flimsy envelope,” Thomas tried to assure him, although his face said he wasn’t entirely certain of that. Maybe they were getting tired of Virgil sending them applications all of the time and decided it was time to rid of the nuisance…

“I’m gonna open it,” Virgil said finally after they sat in silence for too long. He peeled the wax away and slipped it open. It wasn’t a bomb, which was good. Virgil blinked at the page he removed from it with tired eyes, attempting to process what he was seeing for a bit, before he read it. Thomas was silent as he waited to hear what it said.

“I… I can get it.” Virgil whispered. “Thom, they’re gonna let me in.” He repeated louder.

“Really?” The other asked in awe.

“Yeah,” Virgil stood. “They want me to do something, to prove I’m worthy or whatever. This is perfect!” He began to pace. “I’m pulling a major heist tomorrow--to get the wonderflonium that I need for the freeze ray? It’s going to be in a courier van…it will be just  like taking candy from a baby…” Virgil grinned.

“So you’re getting in?” Thomas asked anxiously.