Title: The Boy in the Bottle
Pairing: Vlad Masters/Danny Fenton (Maybe more…?)
Summary: Vlad Masters is marooned on a deserted island, that is until he finds a strange bottle. And what should be inside but a teenage boy? Alternate universe to the tune of I Dream of Jeannie.
Warning: Slash.
Rating: T
Chapter Ten: All Dressed Up
I really have no excuse for why it took so long for me to submit this, so I shall not make one. I will, however, apologize. So sorry for the wait.
Danny sat in his room, waiting for what felt like the appropriate time to go downstairs. He considered that to be when he heard a steady drum of voices, indicating a decent sized crowd.
"Here goes nothing," he muttered as he left his room and descended to the gathering.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he immediately began looking for Vlad. The man had set unfair rules, but he would follow them to prevent being forced back upstairs or— worse yet— into his bottle. Well, he would try to follow them. If he just so happened to lose Vlad in the crowd…
Danny watched the people enter through the front door. Some stayed in the foyer, others drifted in and out of the dining room and ballroom. Their clothes were all so boring and colorless, their faces grim or unresponsive. There were two portraits on either side of the hall, and Danny assumed them to be the men the soiree was meant for. In the middle of it all stood Vlad, welcoming people at the door with his fiancée at his side.
The teen stood in the center of the hall, utterly conspicuous and waiting for Vlad to take notice of him. He finally did a few moments later, and Danny considered the nod he received to be the man's approval to walk around that area a little.
A man walked by with a plate of food, and the boy took a sample when he noticed people doing the same. It was some sort of spicy fish, and when Danny went to grab a bubbly drink off of another plate to wash it down, the server gave him a dirty look and pulled the tray away from him.
"Rude," he scoffed, picking several other hors d'oeuvres off plates and looking for a quiet place to eat them.
His nest of choice was between the wrapping arms of the dual staircase in the entryway. Danny leaned against the railing and noticed another boy about his age hiding behind the bend in the stairs. He looked bored as he sat there. But he was so intrigued with whatever he was holding that he hadn't noticed Danny approach, not even when he got closer and began looking over his shoulder. It seemed to be that he was holding one of those little squares like his master used for talking to people.
The boy noticed him suddenly and looked over his shoulder, fixing him with a mean look. It seemed like he wanted the genie to explain himself, but Danny was observing Vlad's rules. So he stood there quietly and waited for the other to talk first.
"What?!" he finally yelled at him. "Are you gonna go tell on me for ducking out and using my phone?"
"No," Danny answered simply. "I was only wondering what it was."
"The… phone?" The genie nodded. "Geez, where are you from, the fifteenth century?"
"Actually, I am from—"
"Save it," the boy interrupted. He groaned and tried to bite back his attitude some. "It's a phone. You use them for talking to people with. Well, that's what old people do anyways. Most everybody else texts or plays games."
"Mm-hmm." Danny nodded his head as he listened along. He'd have to get himself a phone, if that's what everyone was doing. "I want one."
"Then get your own. Ask your dad, or whoever, like I did."
The teen thought about it and decided he would. "Thank you."
He walked away and looked up just in time to see Vlad fix him with a stern look over having lost sight of him for the brief minute he had. If the man was going to be so hard on him, there was no way he'd be able to do anything he wanted.
Accepting his limitations, Danny wandered around in plain sight of Vlad, grabbing the occasional treat and avoiding contact with most people as he had no interest in talking to them. The whole evening was going in no way like he had wanted it to.
He didn't get any reprieve from his boredom until a while later when Vlad motioned for him to follow along into the dining room like everyone else.
Danny entered and saw two large tables, combined together at the far side with a third perpendicular one. Vlad made his way to the end table and gestured for Danny to take a seat not too close— but not too far away from— himself. He noticed the people glancing at him strangely and really hoped that it wasn't because they were wondering who his parents were and where they had wandered off to, leaving him alone.
The teen looked around the tables and saw that the only person even moderately near his fixed age was the boy he had spoken with earlier. (And he wasn't of the more amiable persuasion.) The rest were all older, which made him sulk. Though not his only reason for coming, he had really wanted someone his own age to talk with. His curiosity was running amuck wondering what teenagers in more recent years acted like. He trusted the boy from before wasn't a standard personality type.
At that moment, the chatter died down as two hired hands brought in the portraits from the hallway. They were placed behind Vlad, who stood with his glass in one hand and one of Maddie's own resting in the palm of his other. He cleared his throat and began talking. "Let me first bring your attentions to the Kelso family," he gestured with his glass to a group of people sitting together at one of the side tables, "and the Smith family," he motioned towards another group sitting opposite the first. "Because if not for the brave men whom they called 'son'… and 'husband', I would not be standing before you here tonight. It was these mens' courage and…"
Danny zoned out around that point. He wasn't trying to be disrespectful, but he knew that Vlad himself hadn't written those words. As a result, they had lost almost all of their meaning. Personally, Danny was more interested in watching the man two chairs down from Vlad.
Jack Fenton, the man who unnerved his master, sat on Maddie's right, and his face was in a horrible contortion of unrest. The man looked extremely troubled, and it was a small surprise that a minute or two later he quietly removed himself from the table and left the room. Danny was puzzled and knew immediately that he could not leave it at that.
Dinner still not even served, Danny picked up his fork from the table and made a small show of dropping it on the floor. He bent down low to pick it up and wondered why he even bothered being sly because no one was paying him a moment's attention. They were hanging on Vlad's manufactured words. He grabbed the fork and leaned even further under the table, catching a brief glance of a dozen pairs of legs before he blinked himself to the hallway outside.
He looked ever so slightly around the corner and saw that Vlad hadn't noticed his departure. After that, he followed an open door down a short hall. At the end of it was a room with a wall almost full of windows, through which he saw Jack. The man was outside on the terrace, leaning against the railing and looking out upon the grounds.
Danny tiptoed out the open door and into the cool mid-Spring air of the night. He lingered for a minute, wanting to speak up and let him know he was there and was angry that Vlad's stupid rule wouldn't let him. He figured that clearing his throat didn't really count.
"Oh," the big man turned around to look at him. "You sneak out, too? You're welcome to share the balcony, if you're looking for something to lean against."
The teen walked over and threw himself against the rail. He looked up at the man's face and saw that he still looked incredibly troubled. "You look like someone about to do something bad."
Jack looked taken aback for a second but quickly let his face return to its saddened expression. "I wish I could say you don't know what you're talking about, but you pretty much hit the nail on the head."
"It does not make you a bad person," Danny replied, his chest feeling tight. "Doing one bad thing."
"It's kind of a big thing," the man uttered with a gloomy chuckle. "And to such standup guy. You heard him in there. He's great. And I've been doing him wrong." It seemed obvious Jack's conscience was what had driven him out of the room. "What kind of a man does that?"
"You are not bad!" the teen yelled, pushing off the banister to stand up straight. "You are a good man. You can be a bit silly, and maybe sometimes you embarrass the people around you. But they know you mean well. They know. And they know you love them. Never forget that. Because they love you, too, and they always will."
"Are you okay, son?" Jack put his giant paw caringly on Danny's shoulder.
"I… You love her, right?" He looked up at the man pleadingly.
"How do you—"
"Right?!"
They stared at each other for a long moment until Jack finally broke down and answered. "More than life itself… Not that my life has been worth much these past several years."
"Then you make sure that she knows." He paused for a minute and took a deep breath, pained at what he was about to say. "And you need to be with her."
"It's not that easy," the man tried to say.
"No, it is that easy!" Danny shook Jack's hand off and looked at him fiercely. "You need to be with her."
Jack stared for a long minute, searching him with a scrutinizing gaze. "Just who are you, kid?"
"Nobody," he answered shakily, losing his drive. He took one step back and then another. "I am nobody."
"Wait, where are you going?" Jack asked, trying to grab and hold him there.
"Tell her," Danny ordered, backing out of his reach. "Tell her you love her and that you will not leave here without her." He turned around then and ran for it, no doubt leaving a very confused Jack Fenton behind.
Danny didn't return to the party.
—
Vlad noticed that Danny was gone precisely twenty-three seconds after his disappearance. He stammered over the next line of his speech and almost dropped his glass in alarm, only to have his very next thought be a question as to why he was surprised at all. He looked around the room anxiously for any sign that his mischievous magic had been used and was pleased there was none. No easily visible signs at least.
Maybe he was asking for too much, but as Vlad finished up his speech and sat down, he really hoped the boy had simply gotten bored and returned to his room.
The rest of the dinner went relatively well. Everyone ate in a quiet, amiable manner. Maddie was able to tell him some about her leave. The families were overwhelmingly grateful when he announced he would be supporting their finances for a time and any child's education. Riter always knew the best ways to manipulate a horrible situation into one where he ended up with a magnificent public appearance.
Even with things have gone fairly well, Vlad couldn't have been happier to see the last of the guests off. There was less chance for something to go wrong if there was no one there. He breathed out a loud sigh of relief and leaned heavily against the door as he loosened his tie. "Having a genie won't be worth the trouble if I die of stress before age forty," he groused.
Vlad left the entryway and retreated to the sitting room. He noticed the help had already been through and kindled the fire. Always he insisted on having a lit fireplace as late into the year as possible. He appreciated their atmosphere. Not to mention that in a castle— a building adorned with dozens of hearths— not lighting a fire almost seemed like an architectural waste.
There was a light tapping on the doorframe, and Vlad looked over to see who had walked in. "Maddie," he smiled. Her clothes had been changed into something more comfortable. "Do sit down. Now that we finally have a minute, I would love nothing more than to rest and have a conversation with you."
"Vlad," she started. He patted the cushion on the sofa next to himself, and she complied to his request.
"I suppose that on my end things were fairly standard," he said, leaning back and putting his arm around her shoulders. "The only thing out of the ordinary was my plane crash, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about that."
"Vlad," she began again, pulling his arm from around herself and sitting up straighter. "We need to talk."
"I thought that's what we were doing, my dear." He tittered at her, but the humor quickly left him when he saw the grave expression on her face. "What? What is it? What's wrong?"
"Everything," Maddie answered miserably. She sucked in a shaky breath and looked as though she might cry. "Everything went wrong. When I first left, things were fine. But then I met up with Jack, and—"
"Jack?" he questioned, his brow lowering in anger. "What did Jack do?"
"Nothing." She crossed her arms around herself defensively. "It's what I did."
"Well, whatever you did I forgive you." Vlad felt a horrible, sickening weight settle in his stomach. He knew not the facts, but already it was as though the carefully constructed walls of his life were tumbling down and in upon themselves. But it didn't matter. He would rebuild them. He reached a hand out to her, but she pulled back.
Turning away from him and looking into the fire, she said, "It's not that simple."
"What do you mean? Of course it is. I forgive you. I don't even care what happened because I love you. You're my fiancée, my future wife. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don't care what happened during some ridiculous three month excursion." Maddie began wringing her hands together in her lap. He kneeled on the floor in front of her and covered them with his own. "Maddie, I don't care." It was a lie, but he tried to say the words like it wasn't. How convincing could a man sound when his world was cracking and crumbling around him though?
There were unshed tears in her eyes. He had seen her tear up on many an occasion, but very rarely did they ever drop. She was too strong to let them fall and too kindhearted to hold them back entirely. That was his Maddie.
She said nothing but leaned forward and placed a kiss on his forehead. Just as quietly, she drew one of her hands back and placed it atop Vlad's. Turning them over, she pressed her palm into his. Then she pulled away entirely, leaving an extravagant diamond ring in the upturned surface of his hand.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her hand reached up to stroke his face, but she let it drop before it ever actually reached. "I'm so sorry," she repeated.
Maddie stood to leave, and Vlad allowed her her departure. He was too busy kneeling desolately on the floor, hand still outstretched and holding the ring. His stomach ached with nausea. His chest burned because in that moment he had forgotten how to even breathe.
She had been his. She had promised to marry him, to spend the rest of her life with him. And then Jack had…
"No," he decided. Vlad gripped the ring tightly in his hand and stood on shaky legs. It would not end like that. He wouldn't let it.
He tore across the sitting room and threw open the door. Storming out into the hall, he was just in time to see Maddie as she walked out. Jack stood in the entryway, looking at him and wearing every expression a man could wear. The most prevalent of them all, though, was pity. Vlad Masters would not be pitied.
"You," he growled, stomping across stone and carpeted rugs. He saw Jack turn away for a second to say something to Maddie, but his attention was quickly back to Vlad, ready to accept what the man had to say. "You good-for-nothing fat oaf! It's not enough that your own life is pathetic. Now you feel you have to bring me down as well. We were friends once. How could you do this to me?" Jack's balled hands shook and he stared guiltily down at the floor. "Answer me!"
His reply was mumbled and quiet at first, but then he cleared his throat and spoke up. "I didn't want to. You have to believe me, Vladdy. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you. But I love her and—"
"No," Vlad objected, shaking his head. "You do not love her. I love her. And she loves me. But you've been- been brainwashing her for months, and she's forgotten."
"Vlad," Jack sighed. "I didn't want any of this to happen, especially not like this."
"You keep saying that, yet I don't see you doing anything to stop it." Vlad's hand trembled around the ring he held. So badly he wanted nothing more than to punch the other man. "If what you're saying is true, then you wouldn't have allowed this to take place."
"I hadn't planned on it. I was going to go and leave Maddie here before she did something she regretted. But…" He paused. "There was this black-haired boy on the balcony. I don't even know who he was, but he told me that I had to tell her how I felt and be with her."
Vlad froze on the spot. "Black… haired boy." No, it wasn't possible. He couldn't have. The boy was a trickster but this…
Jack remained there for a second or two longer but cowardly withdrew as Vlad stood stunned. He barely even noticed as the large man closed the door and left.
A moment later Vlad broke from his reverie like a shot. He wanted Maddie back, yes, and he would have her. But there was something much more important to do first.
It was the quickest flight upstairs he had ever accomplished. Steps, hallways, doors, they were all a blur. All he was aware of was the fact that he was suddenly on the second floor and charging into the genie's room.
And there the boy sat, relaxing in the deep sill of his window and looking out at the starry sky like he hadn't a care in the world.
Vlad dug his hands into the white collared shirt the boy still wore. Danny released a quick yelp of surprise as the man yanked him off the window and threw him hard against the unyielding stone wall, pinning him there.
"Why?" he snarled, a short, straightforward question. "Was it because I wouldn't sleep with you? Is that it? Is it?!" The teen wouldn't respond or even look him in the eye, so Vlad shook him, callously hammering his head against the brick. "Why did you do it?"
Finally Danny glanced at him, and there was that expression again, that look of pity that Vlad hated. "I did not want to."
"I've been hearing that a lot tonight," Vlad ground out, more than ready to take all his frustrations out on the boy. "You'll have to give me a better excuse than that."
"They look…" He trailed off uncertainly until the man tightened his grip on the shirt and raised him off the floor. "They look like my parents!" Danny yelled out suddenly. In his hurry to say everything he felt was necessary, he spoke at double speed to get it all out before Vlad cut him off. "They do. And maybe it sounds crazy, but I thought that if they had children, one would be like me. I only wanted this new Danny to have the life I never got."
Vlad roared and threw the genie to the ground, using his newly freed hand to tear wildly through his neat hair as he yelled out loud, a vicious, echoing sound of anger and torment.
"What is done is done, Master."
Talking was the last thing Danny should have done in that moment. Enraged, Vlad fell to the floor next to where the boy was trying to sit up and knocked him back down with a right hook, with his hand that still held the ring so tightly. "No. No, it isn't! Undo it! Now." With his free hand, he grabbed Danny's tie and pulled him up. "I wish that she would leave Jack and come back to me. And this isn't the sort of wish I want you to grant whenever it's convenient. I mean now."
"I cannot," the teen said. He flinched as soon as it was out, expecting another negative reaction from the man. Regrettably, he did receive it. Vlad's knuckles dragged furiously along the brow of his nose. The crunching, crackling sound it made was as undeniable as the words Danny was determined to get out. "She does not love you. In order for her to come back, I would need a love spell. I know almost nothing about them, except for what is in the Genie Manual. But they are too tricky for a beginner like me."
Vlad kneeled beside the other and silently fumed. He took deep breaths as he thought about what to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy attempt to sit up again. Looking at him head on, he saw a trail of freakish green blood drip down from the genie's brow and nose.
"Get in your bottle," Vlad finally spoke, each word long enough to be its own sentence. Danny didn't seem to want to comply, but he didn't look ready to disobey either. Begrudgingly— and with one last glance of pity— he turned to smoke and drifted through the air and into the next room, where he sunk into the bottle. Vlad was quick behind him and jammed the cork into the opening as soon as the last tendril of green had disappeared.
"You can stay in there another two thousand years and rot, for all I care."
My favorite chapter yet. So. many. emotions! Gah, I am such a jerk to Vlad. And, consequently, Danny.
I love when I get signs that tell me this crossover was always meant to be. Like the fact that Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie has green(/red) blood instead of just red like a normal person. Sound like somebody else we know? Hehehe.