Based on latte-dah's post on tumblr (sapphireswimming tumblr post/82497089481/spirits-of-kin-latte-dah-imagine-vlad-having) about Vlad and Danny having very different ghost halves. I had some theories about why that didn't really make their way into this, but I still like how it turned out.

Umm, and no idea how the Dairy King made his way into this. But I am still convinced that Vlad has never (can't?) see the guy. So. HOLD ON. Why doesn't he have a character tag yet? *grumblegrumble*


Immutual

(adj, not mutual)

April 12, 2014


Danny didn't bother to turn invisible as he phased through the front door. There wasn't really a point to stealth. Not when the billionaire had a state of the art security system and absolutely no problem sticking surveillance bugs all around town. The fruitloop probably knew what he had for breakfast that morning. Let alone that he was walking into his mansion.

Still, he entered the formal hallway warily; it wasn't often that he came into his arch enemy's house uninvited and he wasn't sure what to expect.

Vlad wasn't standing there smirking at him, however. Wasn't in any of the rooms that opened out into the foyer either, that he could see.

He waited there for a minute or two, expecting Vlad to pop out at him or blast him from the shadows or sic the vultures on him or… something. But he kept standing there and nothing happened.

Which made the sense of not-quite-worry that sent him there in the first place escalate quickly. His ghost energy thrummed uneasily and pushed him onward.

"Hello?" he called, walking forward. "Vla-ad!" His voice echoed off of the marble floors and the glass display cases that encased the most valuable parts of the man's Packer collection. Danny tried not to shiver as the house seemed to grow larger the longer he was the only one there.

"Fruitloop! Cheesehead! Hey, anyone there? Come on, this isn't funny. I'm actually being serious here."

Danny tentatively stepped up onto the staircase. "Are you here?" he yelled to the upstairs in general.

He missed a step and barely managed to catch himself on the balustrade when an unexpected voice popped out from out of nowhere and said, "Heya there, kiddo!"

"Whoa!" he said, whirling around with ectoblasts already forming before he could process the heavy Wisconsin twang that meant the newcomer was not an enemy.

"The Dairy King?" he breathed in astonishment. "What are you doing here?"

The mustached man pointed sideways with his scepter and Danny turned to see a portrait of Vlad's now deceased benefactor.

"You were making so much noise that you woke me up even in another state, dontcha know," the ghost chuckled warmly. "Now what has you so worked up?"

"Vlad," Danny answered. At the man's raised eyebrow, he elaborated. "I haven't seen him in a while. At first, I thought that he was taking some time away to come up with another plot to kill my dad and marry my mom and stuff so I didn't really care. But he wasn't at work today. Didn't even call his personal assistant. And no one could reach him. It was all over the news. They're trying to get a petition signed to ignore the twenty four hour wait limit to go searching for him. And I didn't…" he licked his lips. "I didn't know what to do or what was wrong, so I just… came to check in on him."

"Ahhhh," the Dairy King sighed in understanding.

"But it doesn't even look like he's here."

"No, no…" the ghost corrected. "He's in the house here."

"He is?" Danny asked skeptically. "Where? Why hasn't he done something yet? Is he okay? Is he just upgrading Skulker in the Ghost Zone and got caught up in the mechanics and is he going to pop out in a minute and make me feel stupid for coming out here?"

The King looked down at the ground as he bobbed in the air. "He's… eh… he's havin' one of those days, dontcha know?"

Danny didn't understand at all what he meant even though from the inflection of the man's voice, it seemed plain that he should. So instead he asked, "So he'll be… fine? I should go, then?"

The ghost made an odd noise, then. "Ehhhh, I'm actually thinkin' that it might be better for 'im if you stayed."

Danny was at a loss for words. "I… what?"

"A King must care for his subjects, dontcha know? But this isn't something I can help with. Believe me, I've tried."

"And… and you think that I can? We're enemies," he pointed out. "He's trying to kill my dad? Any of this ring a bell?"

The ghost looked at him for a moment before responding quietly, "Well, you're here, aren't you?"

That stopped him. Yes. He was here. He chose to come and not just because he wanted to preemptively stop any scheme to take over the world that had the mayor so preoccupied that he wouldn't bother showing up to work or letting anyone know he would be missing.

"Where is he?" Danny asked.

The Dairy King floated back down the staircase and pointed to a candlestick on the marble mantelpiece taking up most of the wall. "Just pull on that there and in you go!"

Danny shoved aside all of his second thoughts about going through secret passages in Vlad's mansion, niggling doubts that the ghost of the Dairy King was just an elaborate rouse to trap him in some painful containment device. That was just silly, though. So he reached forward and pulled down on the curved metal handle.

Stone smoothly slid away to reveal an entryway to a lower level. With one final look back at the kindliest ghost he'd ever met, he stepped into the darkness and traveled through tunnels that Vlad would probably kill him for discovering. He swallowed loudly at the thought. Was Vlad waiting just around one of these corners waiting to throttle him for daring to enter this place uninvited?

His ghost sense

There was really nothing for it but to continue on, though, so that's what he did. Wending his way through the depths of the mansion, bypassing several locked doors that didn't look promising, until the hallway ended, opening up into a large, low-ceilinged room decorated largely in red.

Blinking, his eyes adjusted to the flickering firelight, taking in the details of Vlad's most private study. It was… quiet. Subdued. With plush furniture and velvety textures that seemed to dampen any loud noise he might have thought of making.

He realized that he still needed to find Vlad, however, and was about to turn around to investigate the rooms he had passed up when he heard a noise.

Something between and grunt and a groan. A long drawn out noise that spoke of trying to push through the pain through sheer force of will. One he recognized because he'd made it so often himself.

He walked to his right so that he could peek around the edge of the high backed chair, on guard in case something was wrong, but quickly lost the defensive stance as soon as he saw the figure huddled on the floor.

"Vlad?" he asked incredulously, moving forward and dropping to his knees. A hand hovered over the man's shaking form but he didn't know what to do with it. Didn't know how to react. Didn't know what was best, what he needed, what was wrong. The Dairy King hadn't prepared him for anything like this.

But Vlad was curled up on his side in the fetal position, limbs trembling as his fists spasmed open and closed in his hair. His eyes were squeezed shut and his jaw locked tight. Danny couldn't just let him continue laying there.

"Vlad!" he said, reaching out to shake the man, trying to snap him out of whatever this was.

It worked. Vlad flinched away from him violently, rolling onto his side and up into what was probably supposed to be a fighting position. His eyes were bloodshot and foggy, like he didn't know what he was looking at.

Danny froze with his hands up in what he hoped looked like a non threatening position, waiting for the half ghost to come to his senses.

"Vlad?" he asked warily.

Vlad blinked. And then his eyes began to roll to the back of his head and he stumbled, barely catching himself from face planting into his maroon carpet.

Danny ran over and grabbed his arm to help him up, but by that time, Vlad was already standing up on his own power and pulled his arm out of Danny's grasp. "Let go of me," he snarled.

Danny backed up, not wanting to make anything worse than it already was. "Are… are you okay?" he asked as Vlad clutched at the furniture to make his way to a cabinet in the corner.

He pulled out a glass and bottle of something amber colored. It took him three tries to take the cap off. "M'fine," he said as he sloshed a drink into the glass.

Danny raised an eyebrow. "You don't look fine," he said as Vlad practically stumbled back to a chair where he collapsed. "You aren't… you're not drunk are you?"

Vlad's head lolled back until he could pin the boy with a glare.

"Uh, okay," Danny mumbled. "Guess you're not drunk, then."

Vlad gulped down his glass then curled forward far enough to put pressure on his temples.

"Seriously, though, dude, you're kind of freaking me out. I mean, what's wrong?"

Vlad groaned. "Shut up."

"If you want me to go, fine, I'll go," Danny huffed. "Not like I wanted to walk in on this anyway," he grumbled. He didn't move, though, because he had honestly never seen Vlad in such a state.

"But you are not okay," he pressed. "Do you need me to call a doctor or something?"

Raising his head, Vlad snapped, "Of course I don't."

Danny wasn't so sure but he didn't say anything. He knew from dealing with Tucker that if a guy did not want to see a doctor, there was no way you were going to get him to see a doctor. Unless he disguised it as a school sponsored trip to a modeling agency, but he doubted that would work here.

In the silence, Vlad blinked and sharply turned toward Danny, although he seemed to regret the movement and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. "How'd you get in here anyway?"

Danny threw a thumb over his shoulder, "Uhh, the Dairy King…?"

For a moment, Vlad didn't respond. And then he huffed a little, "Right, of course. The Dairy King. Sure, Daniel, if you say so."

"I… uh…" Danny didn't really know how to respond so he just said, "yeah…?"

The silence started to become awkward as Vlad stayed hunched in his chair and Danny was still unwilling to leave, shuffling his feet into the carpet wondering what to do next.

"When did you get here?" Vlad asked softly.

The question caught Danny off guard. "Uh, I don't know. Whenever your ghost sense went off, I guess."

Vlad sighed. "Contrary to popular opinion, I do not, in fact, steal every single one of your parents' badly named inventions."

Danny's eyes went wide. "Okay, that's it, cheesehead," he said, striding forward. "I think something has officially melted your brain."

As soon as he put an arm on the billionaire's shoulder, however, Vlad shook him off violently, practically hissing, "Don't touch me!"

Danny took his hands away but didn't back up any. He wasn't going to leave and let Vlad just stay like this.

Vlad saw his stance out of the corner of his eye and groaned. "I just want to be left alone."

"Well, too bad, fruitloop, because something is definitely wrong here."

"Nothing's wrong," Vlad groused, but nobody in the room was buying it.

"Uh huh," Danny mock-agreed.

"I'm just… having one of those days," Vlad said tiredly. "I'll be fine. If you just let me be," he said pointedly.

Danny almost laughed. "Yeah… I have bad days too and let me tell you they do not look like this. Maybe we can tell the press you were just partying hard over the Packer's latest victory. They were playing, right? It's still football season?"

"Stop playing around."

"Sorry," Danny said. "But still," he began.

Vlad sat up straight and looked Danny in the eye. "Look, I am fine." When it looked like Danny was about to disagree he amended, "I will be fine. And while I suppose I ought to commend your overbearing and unwelcome concern you can leave because I'm not going to die, I'm just having one of those days. Alright? You should know what that feels like and appreciate the fact that I am asking you to go."

Danny stared at him. "Okay, that's like the third time I've heard that today and no, I don't know what it means. I don't know what one of those days is unless you're sitting around here moping that you didn't catch the ghost in time and so now Star's leg is broken and another city block is destroyed because of you. But somehow, I don't think that's it. So what's going on? I'm not leaving until you tell me."

Vlad squinted up at the teenager. "Are you…?"

"Am I what?" Danny asked with his hands up in the air. "You're not really making this easy on me today, are you?"

"Don't play dumb, Daniel. You know exactly what I'm talking about!"

"No, I don't!"

"Yes, you do! When you try to push it off to the side and ignore it for too long and then it builds up and up until you can't tune it out and it says things inside your brain until you're seeing stars and don't want to say no to it and that's why I wanted to start teaching you as soon as I found out that you're a half ghost too because you need to know how to deal with it… and frankly, I do it best alone!"

He was breathing hard as he looked pointedly at Danny, clearly wanting nothing more than for him to leave him in peace, but Danny stood frozen in place, not daring to move.

"Vlad," he breathed. "What are you talking about?"