Hey what's up, been forever since I posted anything here (I'm more active on ao3) but y'know. Hi, if anyone still uses this site.
This is NOT! a shipping fic, so please! don't! take it that way! /finger guns
"Dad… Daddy, wake up-"
Vlad opens his eyes groggily, blinking and trying to focus - he knows it's Danielle who's awoken him, it always is - but coming out of a dead sleep is hell every time.
"Danielle..."
She doesn't answer him, but he hears her swallow in the silence. His vision is finally clearing up, and he focuses on the outline of her head above him.
"Another one?" he asks, sitting up and rubbing his face.
"Yeah." Her voice is watery, shaky. "This one was really bad."
"What happened?"
She doesn't answer again, huddled into a ball and not looking at him. He leans closer to her, pulling his hair back into a ponytail.
"Danielle."
"I-I was fighting you," she says in a small voice, sniffing and wiping her cheeks with her arm. His heart skips a beat. "It was really scary-I-I didn't want to fight you, but y-you hated me. You wanted to kill me." She sobs a little, wiping her cheeks again. He sighs, leaning over and setting his hand on her head; even though the touch is gentle it makes her jump, her eyes flashing green in the dark room.
"I don't hate you, Danielle. It was just a nightmare," he says. Her eyes are wide and rimmed pink, gleaming.
"But it felt so real!" she says appeasingly.
"I know," he says, trying to be patient, trying not to snap at her. He knows it had been real - for Daniel - and that as his clone she is experiencing his memories as nightmares. Being awoken in the middle of the night nearly every night for weeks has played havoc on his mental wellbeing and his ability to concentrate on the clone project, but he does not want to alienate Danielle. Regardless of his personal feelings about her, she is one of his few present allies.
And part of him has, perhaps, grown fond of her. Just a little.
"It was, however, just a dream," he says. "And dreams can't hurt you. I'm not going to attack you, I don't hate you, and I don't want to kill you. It wasn't real."
She is silent, still edgy, but she seems to have relaxed a little under his touch. He strokes her hair gently, and then slides off the bed, offering her his hand. She takes it, following him downstairs to the kitchen.
He knows she feels guilty about waking him up; some nights she stays under the covers, awake, for hours, because she has already woken him up every other night that week and can't bring herself to do it again. Other times he finds her somewhere strange in the morning, like the couch, or the floor of his bedroom. Rarely does she get a full night's rest anymore, and he has become her comfort, even if it means he doesn't get a full night's rest either.
In another life, maybe it would be okay. In another life, maybe he would be better equipped to raise and relate to and comfort a twelve-year-old girl. In another life, maybe she would truly be his, and not the after-effects of an experiment gone wrong.
Still, for now, they go to the kitchen and he puts a kettle of water on the stove and sits across from her at the table, listening to how this particular nightmare played out. Some of these nightmares he already knows about because of his knowledge of Daniel's antics in Amity Park, and it's strange to hear them played back again, especially from such a perspective that they seem far more terrifying than they were in reality. He's not sure why they've become so terrifying for her, if it's just her lack of knowledge and experience, or if it's some deeper flaw in her genetic make-up, something else he failed at.
The kettle begins whistling as Danielle reaches the end of her story, wild-eyed and restless, and Vlad is thankful for it because hearing about his own fight with Daniel is even more surreal and discomforting than hearing about the other ones. He pours the water into two mugs, drops the teabags in (chamomile for Danielle, please let her sleep), and returns to her, finding her staring into the middle distance as if she's a defective robot.
"Danielle?" he says, setting her mug down in front of her. She starts, looks up at him.
"Sorry." She goes to grab the mug, but he puts his hand out to stop her.
"You'll want to let it cool a bit," he says, quirking an eyebrow and sliding into his seat across from her. She retracts her hands, curling into a ball and resting her head on her knees, watching the steam from her mug. She looks as exhausted as he feels.
"Daddy?"
He'll never get used to her calling him that.
"Yes?"
"Have you ever wanted anyone to die?"
Jack Fenton, Jack Fenton, Jack Fenton, Jack Fenton, Jack Fenton-
"No, of course not."
She wipes her nose on her sleeve. "Nobody?"
He looks away from her, mind working to create a plausible excuse, a nice little lie that will put her mind at ease.
"Not seriously. There have been people I've wanted to hurt, but I think everybody feels that sometimes," he says, willing her not to ask anymore questions.
"I haven't."
He shrugs. "Well, hopefully you never will." He puts his hand on his mug, testing the temperature. "I think it's cool enough to drink now," he says.
She grabs the mug and just stares down into the tea for a moment, like she's trying to read her fortune or something, and then she drinks.
And drinks.
And drinks.
Vlad watches with morbid curiosity as she downs the whole mug in one go, like she's never drunk anything her whole life. "Danielle…"
She sets the mug on the table and sighs, and it's more like a wallowing-bar-patron sigh than a contented one, and he bites back a laugh. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and goes back to resting her head on her knees, staring at the now-empty mug as if nothing had happened.
"Thanks," she says quietly.
He takes a few minutes to drink his own tea, but he doesn't finish it - this had been for her benefit, anyway. She sits across from him in silence, growing more and more tired as she does so, her head bobbing forward. He puts the mugs in the sink and picks her up, and she nestles against him with a sigh.
He looks down at her as he heads back upstairs. She's more asleep than not, curled into a ball in his arms, her head resting in the crook of his neck. She is small and light for a twelve-year-old, which is nice for him since he ends up carrying her back to bed more often than not. He pushes open the door to her room when she stirs, twisting slightly.
"I wanna sleep with you," she mumbles. "Please?"
He pauses in the doorway, looking into her darkened room, and then turning to look down the hall towards his own room. She hasn't ever requested to sleep in his bed, nor has he ever woken up to it; he's not entirely sure how to respond. She's already slumped back into mostly-sleep, and he just stands in indecision for a good twenty seconds before giving in.
He goes to his room, laying her down on his bed and covering her with his blankets before floating over her and to the other side of the bed, where he settles in. He watches her for a moment; she's facing him, her stomach rising and falling as she breathes silently, motionless, peaceful except for the slight furrow between her eyebrows. Something strange presses against the inside of his chest, something foreign and warm.
He's not entirely sure why, but he finds himself reaching out to rest his hand on her head, stroking hair away from her face; when he pulls away it's with the uncomfortable feeling that he might actually sort of care about her.
He is not a particularly large fan of this feeling. She is a mistake, a reminder of his failure, a reminder that he still does not have what he really wants, even if he'd tried to literally create it with his own two hands.
And yet.
Some tiny little part of him is concerned for her wellbeing and happiness, and wants to see her thrive and grow and be unafraid. That tiny little part prods at his heart, makes him feel guilty; he created her, he cursed her to this existence, he…
He failed her.
He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, flipping onto his other side and taking that tiny little sentimental part of himself and crushing it, burying it deep down inside of his soul.