AN: Another story from Phantomtype's stream chats. I tried to make this less angsty. It didn't work. This is based off the headcanon that Danny is a very good artist, and that gets him into trouble with his ghostie foe-pals. Another thing: this is before Kindred Spirits and kinda apart of my Nullify Vilify story. It alludes to things Clockwork has shown Danny, but not happened yet.

Finger Paintings On The Walls

-o-oOo-o-

"The dreams of the youth become the regrets of the matured." -Unknown

-o-oOo-o-

Danny was seriously having the second worst day of his life.

He damn near classified it as the first, but at least he wasn't in physical pain like the accident day. But make no mistake about it, this was a very very bad day for him, well and beyond crisis level. He'd already torn through all of his room, ripped every drawer of his dresser and desk out and dumping their contents on the floor (his mother was going to kill him), but he still couldn't find it. It wasn't under the bed, in the closet, behind his computer tower, in the walls, nowhere. It was just gone. Vanished into thin air. Missing.

And that was just not okay with Danny.

No one, and he meant no one, that he knew could ever see anything in the thing. He'd be ridiculed more than he already was if they knew. It was his biggest secret-bigger than Phantom. Bigger than his tentative venture into the adult websites.

Danny combed his fingers through his hair for the millionth time that evening. He just couldn't find his god damned sketchbook.

He bolted down the stairs, ignoring the alarmed looks of his family as he jumped over whatever thing they were building in the middle of the living room. Jazz in particular looked rather concerned, but he paid her no mind. Getting his art back before it ended up on ghost google images or something was more important. He jumped down the lab stairs two at a time and flew right into the portal, transforming midway. Ice cold ectoplasm washed over his body, and he pushed himself forward against the ambient material of the spectral plane. His legs morphed into a tail as he sped away, searching for someone-anyone-who might have taken his sketchbook.

Technus or Skulker were looking good for the crime, although Ember could have too since she was the last ghost he remembered seeing and actually getting away from him. But the former two were the ones who started this whole big mess. They'd tried to team up to take him out a couple weeks back, but he'd been passed out on his bed with his sketchbook covering his face from the light. They'd been confused about what to do, so they has just picked up the book. Skulker had poked his face, but Technus...Technus the curious, nosy bastard. He'd taken the book and begun freaking about it. The reason why he never wanted anyone to see the book was simply because he drew all the ghosts he'd ever met in it. From Dora's dragon form to Boxlunch from the alternate future, every single one. And of coarse, his book just had to have been open to the page the technological ghost's picture was on.

Both ghosts had ended up demanding to be able to have the pictures. Danny had initially refused, but they stalked him, bugging him endlessly about it. That was the problem with ghosts: once they wanted something, they never gave up trying to get it. Creatures of obsession, his mother always said. So he'd bent and given them copies of the pictures. And then all the other ghosts started wanting theirs. It was his worst nightmare, ghosts cropping up everywhere in his daily life demanding he draw them again and again. The Box Ghost even had the nerve to bother him in the school bathroom. He'd never really held much sympathy for those artist posts where they complained about being bugged by people to draw them, but now he knew their pain, tenfold-because his ghosts just wouldn't leave him alone about it and they weren't bound by physics. He guessed that he'd drawn every ghost he knew about twenty times already.

But for one of them to steal the thing was crossing his patience line-it was amazing it even still existed, actually.

Danny sped through the zone, past all the random doors, until he found Skulkers Lair. He swooped down and right into the ghost's private living space, gathering an ectoblast in his hand just in case.

Skulker looked surprised to see him, but Danny just narrowed his eyes, "Give it back."

"Give what back?! Whelp, don't you know it's rude to enter a lair without permission-"

"My sketchbook! I know it was one of you, and I don't have time to be chasing it down! Give it back or tell me who has it!" Danny snapped, "Now."

"I don't have it!" Skulker glared. Danny snarled, his fingers twitching around the large amount of energy within his grasp. Skulker eyed his hand, and deflated a little, "But I have seen it today, in the zone."

"Who had it and where did it go?!"

"Youngblood had it when I saw it. Kitty took it when he tried to rip things out." Danny eyed him more, "She went north with her shadow guy."

"Thanks." Danny spun around and bolted off again, speeding north as fast as he could.

He found Kitty, who didn't have it. She told him Johnny had taken it to show Dora. Dora had confiscated it and went to show it to Technus, who stole it and been intercepted by Spectra, who lost it to Splitends, who gave it to Ember, who traded it to the Ghostwriter, where it then, supposedly, vanished from his library.

Quite frankly, Danny was about to start sucking people into his thermos just to release stress.

"Things don't just VANISH from your possession, Ghostwriter! You're not that careless!" Danny slammed his hand down on the desk dividing him and the irritable ghost.

"Of course things don't! But I'm telling you, Phantom, your art book is gone! Poof! Now stop annoying me about it!" Writer snapped, shifting the books in his arm.

"Who else was in here when it went 'poof'?!"

Ghostwriter waved his hand in the air, "The Lunch Lady was looking at cookbooks in the east wing. And the Box ghost is probably in my basement still but-OH! Those vultures! The three of them! They were here asking about a book that they wanted. I refused to give it to them though. They were around where the book was. Go bother them about it."

Danny's core went dead still. Oh, hell no. Anything but that.

Danny shot off quicker than a bullet, casting loose pages into the air. He ignored the angry screams of the Ghostwriter and pushed himself as fast as he could-112 miles per, 150, 200, 217. he wove between doors and lairs and various unintelligible odds and ends. Ghosts that saw him pass were left in the ripples of his wake. He passed the far frozen, Ember's lair, Deseree's palace. His core was practically thrumming in his throat by the time he saw the giant purple football. He didn't even stop to push it out of the way-he went straight through it, intangible.

Vlad Masters could not get his paws on his sketchbook. He would sooner eat blood blossoms in his ghost form than allow that.

-o-oOo-o-

Vlad was equal parts irritated and amused. His 'minions' had failed to get him the tome he'd demanded. He'd take it up with the Writer himself later-it wasn't up for debate on if he was getting it or not. But they'd returned with this curious little item from the library, having recognized the neat, looping handwriting forming the familiar name on the cover. Daniel Fenton's name, on a nearly full sketchbook. How very curious. Vlad hadn't any idea Daniel had had any interest in art-the boy had only professed his astrology interests to his awareness-and he thought it was a kind of joke at first. A silly thing a relative might have given him because they didn't now what exactly to get him and the teen had just used it for random, sparse doodles, perhaps.

He was so very wrong.

The entire first page was a beautiful grayscale illustration of Amity Park's skyline from a high point of view. The satellite receivers peeking out the side of the drawing revealed it was from the top of the Fentonworks OP Center. The details in the piece were amazing, from the shading of the buildings to the clouds cast above the starry sky. Looking closer, Vlad noticed that it was drawn entirely in pen. He was, quite honestly, stunned. It wasn't hyper realistic, but it wasn't so stylized either. It would have looked fantastic with color. Vlad flipped to the next page, this one filled with smaller scene sketches, but no less beautiful than the first. The theme of them all seemed to be Samantha and Tucker doing things, as each had the two in them. One had them flicking paper footballs between each other, another posing with ghost hunting gear, a third with Sam dumping an ice creme cone on Tucker's head, the last with them playing a video game. Daniel's anatomy and posing was spot on, there were only a few longer legs and wonky hands.

The third page and onward was where he snorted, and in interest skyrocketed. Ghosts-the same ones Danny normally fought. Their likeness was unmistakable. Some were frozen in fighting stances, others in flight, a few in calm serenity. Technus, Walker, Kitty, Poindexter, Hotep-Ra, Spectra. Little scribbly notes near some of the drawings were a bit condescending and sarcastic jabs towards the particular ghost. Technus' 'I am the master of outdated software and oldies lingo' was a personal favorite of Vlad's. Page after page, both fronts and backs, were filled with ghost sketches, some large, some tiny. A few pictures of his family and friends cropped up here and there, but it was still mostly ghosts. Vlad took to flipping through them like a post-it note animation, only pausing when he came across a particularly outstanding work. A rendition of a very angry Prince Aragon in his dragon state was one such work, the ghost drawn reared up on his rear legs, his vast wings flared. Fire burned behind him, casting him mostly in shadow, but his glowing eyes and mouth contrasted the darkness chillingly. It had a dominating feel to it, catching the ghosts knack for intimidation and control perfectly.

Vlad continued, but his mind began to wander. Why did Daniel draw his ghostly foes? And why so many? The boy was failing nearly all his classes, being torn between ghost fights, family life and school work. Yet he had to time to work on these? Vlad refused to believe these were quick sketches-there was too much detail, too much effort put into them. Some looked like they might have taken hours.

Just as the thoughts began, he caught glances of red and pink, the first colors he'd come across. His fingers paused and he backed up a page. His stomach twisted painfully, a lump catching in his throat.

The entire page was filled with pictures of him-specifically his ghost form.

There was a large illustration of him with his hands wrapped around Daniel's neck. His fingers were elongated and tipped with sharp claws, several of them piercing into the teen's skin. Daniel was pinned by his body, long bloody red tears in his trademark white and red shirt. Vlad's own cape billowed outward like large jagged wings caught on the wind, the large points that his hair was styled into longer and more jagged than they really were. But Vlad couldn't tear his eyes away from his face. His eyes were wide and bright blood red, whips of color trailing from them. But his smile. His damn smile. His picture-self was smiling, wide, cruel and vile. His fangs were too long, and all the rest of his teeth were razor sharp, a forked tongue snaking it's way from between them. Vlad was hurting and strangling Daniel, and he was smiling like he was enjoying it all.

It disgusted Vlad.

The image wasn't alone on the page. Another showed Vlad fighting with Maddie, his jagged fingers wrapped around her wrists, forcing her near him. She was holding an ectogun, and seemed to be struggling to try to shoot him. Her face was twisted in disgust, yet his own still wore that terrible smile. A third was of Vlad perched on a large chair, surrounded by dozens of what appeared to be clones of Daniel. Their bodies seemed to be melting, green ectoplasm merged with bright red blood. They were grotesque and horrible, disfigured and dying. Danny's beaten, battered body was in front of him, arm twisted the wrong way and his leg bent terribly.

There was one of Vlad and Danny fighting, one of Vlad yelling viciously at him, quite a few of Vlad strangling Danny, and sometimes even Maddie, and a couple of Vlad manhandling or otherwise hurting Danny, hims family and his friends. He kept flipping pages, but it was all the same. Horrible, wicked depictions of him doing terrible, disgusting things. Not a single drawing was of him in any reasonable way. He was always drawn like a demon. A monster.

This was how Daniel saw him. This was what he thought he was.

It rattled Vlad to his core, made him feel sick.

He kept flipping, but his fingers froze for a second time. Yet more pictures of him, but so much different. His younger self, from his college days. Before that damnable accident that tore away what little he still had.

One was a redraw of the picture from his freshman yearbook, where he was with Jack and Maddie. That particular picture always pained Vlad to look at. Others were sketches of events his parents had to have told him about. The moment right before the proto portal was turned on, several depictions of their old pillow fights, how they used to study, some of their pranks, a few of Vlad's more ridiculous hair style experiments-there were so many, almost as many as the illustrations of his ghost form. There were pictures of Vlad reading a book with Maddie sitting on him, of Vlad and Jack playing an Atari, of the three cheering in football gear, of Vlad taping a chair to the ceiling, of the three passed out on each other. Of them all laughing, of them all happy, including Vlad. He was smiling in nearly every single one, a wide toothy grin of genuine joy. A smile Vlad hadn't given for twenty years.

In the margins of the sketches, Danny had written, 'Why doesn't Vlad ever smile like this anymore? It's always that jerkish smirk...'

There were dozens upon dozens of the little notes, and each one made his heart constrict tighter and tighter.

'Why is he so mean, what happened to him?'

'He's pushed everyone away for years. If he keeps doing it, he won't have anyone left.'

'Why'd he choose to become such a monster?'

'He's not happy with anything unless its exactly what he wants. It's Vlad's way or the high way.'

'He's trying to ruin everything, because nothing is ever enough anymore.'

'I wonder how happy he could be if he gave up his grudge and stopped being so angry.'

'He fears loneliness. Yet he's barred so many people out that he's already alone. He's not letting anyone in, because he was hurt and fears being hurt again. '

'Why can't he see that they still care?'

The tears came before he realized they were already down his face, burning hot. Vlad dropped to his knees, clutching the sketchbook to his chest. Each word was a knife to his heart, the pain filling his entire being. This was too much. The utter disconnected way Daniel viewed him: a lost cause of a man and a pure monster. A sadistic smiling beast, someone who chose to dig his own grave. This was not what he wanted. This wasn't how he wanted Daniel to see him, to think he would actually do those vile things.

"V-Vlad...?"

Vlad's eyes snapped open, meeting the stainless white boots in front of him. He swallowed thickly, barely able to do so because of the painful lump stuck there. Slowly, he inhaled through his nose and forced himself to sit up. His eyes met Daniel's, the teen's brows scrunched and his eyes uncertain. He was poised hesitantly, a hand partly reached out to him. But Vlad recognized the loose way Danny stood, the way he was ready to flee at any time.

Danny bit his lip pulling his hand back to his chest, "A-are...you okay?"

Vlad swallowed again and cleared his throat. He forced his composure to come back. He pushed himself to his feet, Danny taking a few steps back. Their eyes met for a moment, before Danny looked away. They darted back towards the book still clutched in Vlad's arms before looking at a spot on the wall again. Vlad sighed heavily, and held the sketchbook out to Danny.

Danny took his art back, flipping it closed and holding it close. He watched as Vlad just quietly turned and began walking away.

"Vlad, I'm sorry..." Vlad paused. Danny tapped the toe of his boot on the lush carpeted floor, his fingers fidgeting with the metal rings of the book, "I never meant for anyone to see any of these, especially..." he trailed off, looking away.

'Especially you.' Vlad couldn't help but see those words in Daniel's handwriting.

Vlad just shook his head, and walked out of the room, "No, I'm sorry. Goodbye, Daniel. I will...leave you and your family alone."