A/N: My apologies. I'm feeling particularly bitter and twisted tonight. This particular fic is based off the Imagine Dragons song Gold, and I highly suggest listening to it before or while you read this fic. Here's the later half of the link: ?v=M2EIjONNjIU#Imagine_Dragons_-_Gold_(Audio) Simply plug this into a search engine or in front of youtube * com - watch, in which * is . and - is /
I enjoyed writing this greatly. After all, how in the world could he have ever expected it to actually work out? Hahaha, I'm not entirely sure where the whole idea came from, in all honesty. I just rifled through a folder and picked this song up. When I listened in, I realized "hey, this is pretty good." I was hit with the urge to write, and here we are. I sure hope you guys like it, at least.
Disclaimer: I do not own, or claim to own, either Danny Phantom, Gold, or Imagine Dragons.
First comes the blessing of all that you've dreamed,
But then comes the curses of diamonds and rings.
Only at first did it have its appeal,
But now you can't tell the false from the real.
- Gold, by Imagine Dragons
It was everything he'd ever wanted.
Maddie next to him, in love and joyful. Daniel, on his other side, smiling and sincere in his happiness. Jasmine next to her brother, revelling in the happiness the family of four exuded at that moment. Jack was gone - wiped from the world's collective minds. No one would know that anything was ever any different. No one could take this away from him any longer.
Any sacrifices didn't matter, any crimes he committed worthwhile to arrive at this glorious point of his life. Not with what he could see ahead of him. It was beautiful, shining, glimmering. His future, written and plated in gold.
It was just as amazing when he woke after the first night. Maddie lay next to him, a perfect porcelain picture. Daniel and Jasmine, greeting him with a hug and breakfast, as relaxed as can be. He insisted on driving them to school that day, if only to fully enjoy the reality that sat before him.
He believed he could live in this world and savor it every single day of his life. It was perfect, and day after day the glory of it all never seemed to fade.
"Hey dad!"
"Dad, d'you mind if I ask you something?"
"You wouldn't happen to know the answer to this question, would you dad?"
"See you later dad!"
"Dad?"
Vlad startled, looking up and meeting the vibrant blue eyes in front of him, the owners of which were staring at him curiously.
"Dad? You alright?" Danny asked, head tilted as he frowned and furrowed his brow. It was an innocent gesture, one Vlad had seen Daniel do many times during conversations with his friends, an expression he wasn't used to seeing without a glare or green eyes. Vlad would have relished the open movement, the lack of wariness in Danny's stance and and the honest trust shining through not even a few days ago.
Now it almost made him feel sick. The feeling was shoved aside.
He forced his lips upward in a welcoming smile, squinting his eyes ever so slightly and straightening from his hunched position over his work. Not an ounce of his true emotion shone through; Vlad was nothing, after all, if not an excellent liar and actor.
"Daniel, I didn't see you there." Vlad widened his smile, putting down his pen and interlocking his hands. "What's wrong, son?"
"Oh, uh, I was just wondering if it was alright if I went out with some of my friends tonight." Danny smiled nervously but in a genuinely happy way, averting his eyes to the right and rubbing the back of his neck. "I can't find mom, and I'm pretty sure she's down in the lab anyway, so..." He trailed off with a bit of a shrug, and Vlad couldn't help but think Daniel would never be so nervous- before he stopped the train of thought and forced the words out of his mouth.
"Of course, my boy." Vlad discreetly swallowed. His heart began to hammer in his chest, and he gripped his hands tighter to hide his shaking. The smile became strained. "Don't stay out too late and have fun. I'll see you at dinnertime, little badger."
Saying the words without any bite or condescension had never felt so strange to him before.
It was the little things that shook him, unnerved him and forced him to take a step back and breathe for a moment when his mind reminded him of things that turned his world upside down to notice.
Daniel and his mannerisms were just the beginning.
Jazz would smile, saying "good morning" as she walked past him in the morning on the way to the library, every single day without fail.
Jasmine would barely ever even look in my direction.
Maddie would beam when they spent time together. She'd eagerly talk about her research, recall a story she heard from her children while he was busy doing paperwork, reach out and give his arm a quick squeeze or peck him on the cheek.
Maddie never liked being in the same room as me ever since the Colorado incident. Never talked more than polite and necessary, or spent more time than she had to in the same area.
Daniel's face would light up when he passed sometimes; a smile, a raising of eyebrows, even just a quick twitch of the head in his direction. It was odd, after the many months of animosity between the two of them, and Vlad wondered why he never realized it before.
Daniel had never been this calm even when he was in his own house, let alone around me in any way, shape, or form.
He tried to push these observations out of his mind. This was his dream, his future. It was all just him; his thoughts should have had no impact on his life, no further meaning. He was simply being paranoid. Wasn't he?
Vlad dreamed that night. A dream he began to have regularly.
He dreamed of faceless black and white demons, of flaring violet rage and teal claws. It was truly more of a nightmare, but somehow Vlad could never bring himself to call it one.
Something glittered beyond his vision throughout the dream, but he could never recall what it was.
His dreams became more vivid as time passed. By the halfway point of the second year the demons were no longer completely faceless; instead, their faces were blank, like store mannequins come to life. Their gaze pierced him, despite their lack of facial expression. Despite his heat core, fire started to make him uncomfortable; there were always flames in his dreams. He didn't always see them, but he always felt them, knew they were there.
Vlad refused to tell anyone else about these dreams. They unnerved him far too much, made him feel irrational fear and a chilling dread. Yet, to tell someone simply felt... wrong.
As the dreams became clearer, he started placing the mannerisms of his family with that of the family they once were. He always tried to stop himself before he did, and always he failed.
When he watched Jazz read her novels he remembered her sitting in the corner of a library, piles of tomes surrounding her on old oak tables. When he saw Maddie wiring a new device on the kitchen table he remembered seeing a similar setup on a very different and yet very similar table, delicately and precisely soldering the wires to their respective places. When he watched Daniel walk to school as he insisted on doing every other day he recalled the same black-haired boy leaving the tall red building, sometimes to meet his two friends, sometimes to the alley where a flash of light would signal his disappearance.
Each connection left a horrible twist inside of him, made his heart beat and his body shake, drenched him in a chill that made him blink and shudder and pull away from the world. It was wrong, those memories, those recollections. They were the fakes here, the things that never existed to anyone in any way. Cold stale memories that meant absolutely nothing.
So why was it with each day that passed he felt like this wasn't the truth any longer?
Vlad avoided them like the plague now. He was always discreet about it, plastering fake smiles and laughing fake laughs, but at the first moment he could he would slip away and immerse himself in his work. It was the only way he could distract himself from it all. From the false and the real.
He would see them sometimes, when he did see them, as rare as that was nowadays. When Daniel would smile and wave in the morning and Maddie moved to give him a small kiss, he would see the same boy hunched over his cereal, glaring with green eyes as Maddie barely paid him a single glance. The same Jasmine that chirped a good morning to him was also the Jasmine that aimed ecto-blasters and containment devices in his direction if he showed up in ghost form, even if he was simply passing through. One of them wasn't real, but the other one was. Vlad could barely tell which was which any longer.
Where did any of these illusions end?
Five years had passed.
Every time he moved, he was reminded of how wrong this was. Each glance at the pictures on the wall screamed of lies, every word spoken garbled into a sweet false mess. Each warm gesture given to him forced him to focus in order not to phase through it, every smile and trusting look he was given make him feel even more vile than he already believed, even more like the dirt he once trampled beneath his feet.
The glittering beyond his dream was something he could finally understand. A tarnished statue, the mix of once precious metals shaped into the form of his once-upon-a-time ideals and dreams, twisted beyond recognition. It was sharp, chaotic, broken. Wrong.
How could he ever have thought this fragile golden dream of his would last?
A/N: Gold is a soft and easily malleable metal, after all. Foolish Vlad; What we think makes us happy doesn't always make us happy, after all. Least of all when you've gone to the lengths this man has to achieve those dreams.
I leave anything not mentioned in this story up to your imaginations. Whether Danny still has his ghost half, what Vlad did to Jack and the rest of the Earth. Strange, isn't it, that I write best before I sleep?
This story is un-beta'd and was posted almost immediately after it was written. Criticize constructively all you want, please. I'm personally rather proud of this one, almost moreso than I am of some of my other stories, that's for sure..
Edit: Gone back and fixed one or two things~