Different Effects of the Past
Chapter 27: Nightmarish
His appetite all but non existent, Vlad declined to eat with his family that afternoon, instead, he chose to stay alone in his library with only a bottle of whiskey and a packet of cigarettes. Of course they didn't approve, but there was only so many times they could tell him how detrimental it was to his health before they had to give up; he was an adult after all. They weren't to know that both habits weren't in fact detrimental to him in anyway whatsoever because if what he was. Vlad wasn't sure whether it was the lack of sleep or the stress that sapped him of his appetite but there was little he could do about either.
"Ah, the 'great one' returns," he announced pedantically when Danny and his sister entered the room. Strangely, the younger hybrid was carrying a plate of food, he noticed. "Tell me, how did the yetis take the tragic departure of their 'saviour'?" he asked.
"Vlad," Danny sighed.
"What?" Vlad demanded.
"You could've been a bit more...patient with Frostbite, he's a good guy...I mean a good ghost," the boy said. "Oh...your uncle said to bring this in, something about you being stubborn or something," he explained hastily, setting the plate on the desk. "Y'know...your mom's a good cook," Danny added. "Oh, come on, you're not sulking are you? It's not like Frostbite didn't have a good reason for being...careful."
"Oh?" Vlad questioned, "Do tell."
"I just meant...'cos you're...you..."
"Very convincing."
"It's true!" the boy cried, "And you know it."
"Well, they clearly weren't the brightest bunch, were they?" the older hybrid scoffed, "They worshiped you, for heavens' sake."
"Yeah, okay, I get it, funny, hah hah," Danny held up his hands, trying to stay calm. "Can we just drop it now?" he almost pleaded and Vlad shrugged wordlessly, "Thanks," he let out a relieved breath, taking Vlad's silence as an affirmation. "So...erm...any luck on your spy hunt?" the boy asked after a minute.
"None."
"Oh..."
"What's this?" Jazz asked, picking up the scroll that Vlad had neglected to put away. The book was safely stowed in his drawer, but he'd forgotten about the piece of paper in his hasty search for, and subsequent consumption of alcohol and tobacco. His family history seemed of little importance when he was struggling to keep his eyes open from lack of sleep.
"A history lesson for Viktoria," he answered. "Nothing of interest tot you, now..." he said, holding out his hand, clearly expecting to be instantly obeyed, but Jazz simply unrolled the paper, bravely.
"It's a family tree," she smiled.
"Yes, it's a family tree, now give it back," Vlad snapped.
"It's your family tree," the red head stated.
"Yes," he replied, impatiently, "So?"
"Nothing, I just...didn't think you'd have cared about this stuff," she admitted.
"I only did it to prove my father wrong," Vlad told them. "Now, if you will," he promoted her again and this time, she handed it back to him.
"There's a lot of people on there," Jazz remarked, "Most families are lucky to go back a couple of generations."
"I'm aware of that," he said, locking the scroll back in his drawer with the book. He clearly wasn't in a mood to discus his family linage with them so she took the hint and stopped asking him about it.
"I know you said that smoking won't kill you," she changed the subject instead. "But don't you think that's a bit...excessive?" she asked, eying the pile of cigarette stubs.
"Yeah, and it stinks in here too," Danny added.
"Well, there's the door," he simply replied with an elegant flourish of his good hand.
"I'm opening the windows," the young hybrid stated, plainly ignoring Vlad's comment.
Both Fenton siblings preceded to open two of the large windows much to Vlad's displeasure and he glared at them when they turned back to him. "What?" Danny asked him.
"Remind me," Vlad began, his tone haughty and aristocratic, "Just whose castle is this, again?" he asked. He didn't get an answer, of course he expected none, but he did get two very unamused expressions as a response.
Vlad moved to light another cigarette but Jazz couldn't help but speak up as he did. "Y'know...chain smoking is a really bad way of dealing with stress," she said, eyeing the half empty alcohol bottle, "So is drinking," she added quietly.
"Jasmine," the older hybrid warned her.
"Okay," she held up both hands in mock surrender and cursed herself for pushing her luck. She expected Vlad to simply ignore her and continue to smoke, but she was surprised when he let out a heavy sigh and took the still unlit cigarette from his mouth, placed it and the lighter on the desk and turned back to her.
"How would you deal with it, then?" he asked her suddenly and she found herself without words, stunned into silence. "Well?" he demanded. "You're intelligent. I have a scheming father lurking around, a possible spy in my household, my ghost powers to keep hidden from my own family under my own roof and for some reason I've just offered to house my cousin and her child for as long as they wish...which will only make it more difficult to hide what I am. And my revenge...which I cannot take, for now, thanks to you," he glanced at Danny. "This...inconvenience, which refuses to heal and my resurgent insomnia," he held up his injured hand as he finished.
He thought it best to leave out the fact that he'd been having nightmares when he actually did manage to sleep and of course there was the threat of another panic attack, but he got the feeling that they both understood that without him having actually voiced it aloud.
"...Erm..." Jazz muttered, "Well...I, erm..."
"Oh, you're about as eloquent and as useful as your brother," Vlad sighed.
"I just...I don't know what to say," she shot back. "I don't know what you want me to say. I don't deal with stress very well and...honestly...it sounds like you're pretty darn stressed."
"What gave it away?" he asked, sarcastically as he lit the cigarette and breathed out the toxic smoke.
"The smoking and the drinking were a..." Danny trailed off. "That was one of those questions that didn't need an answer again, wasn't it?" he muttered, embarrassed.
"How very astute," the older hybrid said, sounding suddenly very tired. "This isn't helping at all," he grumbled to himself, eyeing the cigarette with disdain. Instead of finishing it, he obliterated it with ectoplasm as though it had offended him somehow.
"It only took like ten of 'em for you to figure that out," Danny remarked as Vlad rested his elbows on the desk. The older hybrid began to rub this temples with the air of someone who was well accustomed to dealing with stress and headaches by himself.
"Perhaps I'll have more luck in fighting my so called arch enemy," he threatened, his eyes glowing red for a second.
"Arch enemy with a truce, remember?"
"Right, right," Vlad muttered absentmindedly while his eyes lost their ghostly glow.
"Are you...okay?" Danny asked, cautiously, "You look...kinda tired."
Vlad could have responded in any number of ways; he could have been sarcastic or simply told them both to leave him alone. He could have snapped and told them to stop asking him question and pretending like they cared. They couldn't care about him, not after everything they'd been through as enemies. Things like that didn't simply change in a week if indeed they changed at all, despite the fact that he had a soft spot when it came to them, as Danny had previously made more than evident.
"I'm fine," he said simply, leaning back in his chair.
"Uh-huh," the boy frowned, "Really?"
"Really," Vlad emphasised. "Now, you can thank my uncle for the food, I've been sufficiently chastised for my detrimental habits by them and by you," he drained the remnants of whiskey from the glass tumbler as he did so. "So you're free to go," he finished.
"You're not going to eat any of the food, are you?" Jazz asked him, knowingly.
"...Close the door on your way out," he replied simply.
As the sun set, Vlad saw little point in even trying to get to sleep; he wouldn't be able to anyway and even if he did, he'd end up with nightmares, so he saw no point in trying. His two dogs lay slumbering in front of the hearth while he slouched on the sofa in the main living room. He'd tried reading but found it difficult to focus on the words; he was tired, he knew he was and his mind was telling him to sleep, but he just couldn't. Four of his favourite and most re-read books were scattered on the floor and there was the gentle sound of an acoustic guitar alongside a harmonious woman's voice drifting from the stereo system; listening to loud music was all well and good but it most certainly wouldn't help his insomnia. *1
It happened so gradually, Vlad hardly noticed as he began to fall asleep but when he found himself standing before his father, he knew that he was dreaming.
Vladislav Masters looked at least twenty years younger then he really was and Vlad was sure that he seemed taller as well. When he turned his head to see himself in the wall of mirrors in what he'd dubbed the man's 'torture room', in his mansion, it soon became apparent why that was. He saw himself as he had been when he was around fifteen years old, small with black hair and not nearly as muscled as he'd grow up to be.
The makeshift gymnasium of his nightmares was accurate down to the last detail even down to the jagged nail sticking up from the old floorboards on which he'd more than once cut himself when he'd been thrown to the ground. What had made it worse was that Vladislav had known full well that it was there and he'd simply used it to his advantage.
The wall to his left was made up almost entirely of floor length windows and along it stood a number of his father's employees, each of them laughing at him as Vladislav towered over him. It was strange that he could never actually remember seeing them laugh at him but for some reason, there they were, some doubled over with tears falling from their eyes and they could hardly catch their breath.
"This isn't real," Vlad whispered to himself, taking a step back, away from his father. "It can't be real," he muttered.
But it all seemed very real. He could feel the old floor creak under his feet, he could smell the summer breeze from the open windows and he could even smell Vladislav's odious cologne which he'd remember until his dying day.
"It doesn't have to be real," Vladislav grinned, "Even in your mind, I'm stronger than you."
"It's not real," Vlad said again, moving backwards again. He suddenly felt the wall behind him which, logically he knew was impossible; he'd been in the middle of the room only a second ago and now he was trapped between the wall and his father. Surely, because he knew he was dreaming, he should be able to wake up, shouldn't he?
"There's no one to help you now, boy. No mother here to protect you. No uncle around to stop me...And no ghost powers to protect yourself," the man told him.
"...Ghost powers..." Vlad breathed, "You...this is a dream, it must be! You don't know about...you can't possibly..."
"Can I not?"
"Of course not...it's impossible..." he shook his head watching in horror as his father pulled a gleaming sword from out of thin air. The blade gleamed as it moved, it was lethally sharp and menacing.
Vlad tried to use his powers but nothing, absolutely nothing happened but it did appear to make the servants laugh even more, mocking him for his absent power. "No..." he whispered, glancing at his small palms which were devoid of ghostly ectoplasm.
"Yes," Vladislav said, raising the sword into the air.
Vlad had just enough time to swerve to the side, avoiding the blow but then he was swarmed upon by the servants who moved like a flock of birds. Each of them possessed the strength of ten Herculean men and he found it impossible to break free from their grasp. His arms and legs were held firm as he struggled in vain, forced to watch as his father took slow, agonising steps towards him, raising the sword again.
"No!" he repeated, crying out in a voice which, though his own, he barely recognised.
"Yes," Vladislav said again, coldly.
This time, there was no escape. Vlad felt the cool metal of the sharpened blade slice down from his right shoulder blade to his stomach. He looked down, in shock, to see his blood begin to seep from the wound and stain his clothes the very second before he awoke
He let out a loud, anguished cry and clutched at his chest as he struggled to sit up, expecting to feel the sting of the wound, but there was no blood, no pain and definitely, no wound. Apart from, of course, the one on his right arm which he'd managed to strain somehow and now was tingling painfully, but at least it wasn't bleeding again, he noticed.
At his feet, the dogs had been startled awake and now looked up at him, their large dark eyes almost seeming concerned. He reached out, tentatively, with his good arm and stoked the soft fur on Iskra's head for a moment before the hand returned to his right shoulder, his pale fingers clutching at the fabric of his red dressing gown for no reason other than fear.
There was still music playing and it did its best to help calm the frightened hybrid, this song, different from the other and yet very similar with a slow guitar tune and a melodic voice, helped more than his dynamic rock music. 2
In less than a minute, Vlad felt himself beginning to calm just as the door was flung wide open to admit a very concerned looking Danny. His eyes were all but glowing as he searched the room, evidently looking for signs of danger. When he found none, his expression turned from one of determination to embarrassment
"Erm..." the boy spoke, nervously. "I...thought I heard...something," he gave a sheepish smile. He was carrying a large sandwich on a plate which bed somehow managed to carry with him as he'd run towards the source of the noise. "I was getting a snack. I was hungry. I was up pretty late...ghost power practice, like you said I should...and I heard a noise..." he trailed off, not wanting to voice the fact that the noise he'd heard had been Vlad awaking from a nightmare.
"Really?" Vlad questioned with a light cough when he heard how strained his voice sounded. "And you thought...what? That it was an intruder? And you'd heroically come and do away with the villain by smashing a plate over his head?" he scoffed, trying to calm his quivering voice.
"Hey, I'm a superhero, remember," Danny shrugged, "If I have to be a hero...erm, with a plate...then so what?"
The older hybrid let out a disbelieving and shaky laugh which he probably would have refrained from doing were he still not so disturbed by his dream. "You don't look so good," he heard the boy remark as he walked over and Vlad scoffed again.
"I'm fine," Vlad told him, robotically, as he had done earlier. He realised that he was still running his fingers along his collar bone and his shoulder, looking for the none existent wound of his nightmare despite knowing that it wasn't going to magically appear. He stopped instantly when he saw that Danny was standing in front of him, staring at him.
"Oh, no, I'm not buying that again," the young hybrid announced, "And seriously, that's gotta be the worst lie you've ever told."
"...If I asked you to leave me alone...you'd ignore me, wouldn't you?" Vlad asked after a moment.
"Yep."
"What if I ordered you?"
"You really think that'd make a difference?" Danny asked. "You're talking to me, remember?" he remarked, sitting down on the floor by the fire after putting his plate on a chair, out of the dog's reach. He tore of a piece off his sandwich and then turned his attention back to Vlad.
"I could make you."
"Like you could've made me stop dragging you out into that snowball fight? Or make me stop asking questions about your projector thingy?" Danny did his best to imitate the elegant raise of an eyebrow which he'd so often seen Vlad do, but he got the feeling that his attempt looked more comical than anything else. "Y'know..." he began, "It's not like it's...I dunno...a sign of weakness or something...to have bad dreams. Everyone has 'em at some point."
"I don't have bad dreams," Vlad protested weakly.
"Uh-huh," Danny remarked in disbelief, trying not to sound like he was mocking the older hybrid. "Look...can we...change the music? This is kinda depressing," he said after a moment of listening to the sombre, almost melancholy
"So go and listen to your own music," the man snapped, "And leave me be."
"Okay, fine, no touching the music, I get it," he shrugged back and continued to devour his sandwich. He noticed that Vlad was examining the bandage around his wrist and he couldn't help but speak. "Y'know...I bet Frostbite or one of his people'd be able to help with that. They've got a whole hospital there...I know 'cos I kept throwing icicles at people when they were trying to teach me stuff...not on purpose."
"Hmmm," Vlad hummed, uninterestedly.
"...You listening?" Danny inquired.
"Of course...but I told you, there is no magic cure; I know, I've looked," the older hybrid replied.
"Maybe you missed it."
"I missed what a ghost yeti didn't. Please," Vlad scoffed.
"He's really smart, y'know."
"And I'm not?"
"I could ask him for you..." he offered.
"No."
"Just tryin'a help," Danny shrugged, "Hey, they might even have something' for your insomnia..."
"Enough about the Far Frozen yetis," Vlad snapped, "I really don't care."
"...Sorry," the boy muttered, doing his best not to shout or snap back. It took a lot of effort on his part, but he did it and he was quite proud.
But now that he had, he was left with two choices; he could leave Vlad alone or sit with in an awkward silence, not knowing what to say. There was only so much to say to a man clearly suffering from nightmares without sounding redundant or repeating himself. Besides, Vlad was older than he was, he'd probably heard everything that there was to say about it anyway.
"You may as well go back to bed," Vlad told him as though reading his mind.
"I'm fine," he shrugged back, taking another bite out of his sandwich.
"Suit yourself," the older hybrid replied.
"Y'know..." Danny began, "The first time I remember getting a nightmare was around Christmas time," he said conversationally. It wasn't perhaps the best topic he could have chosen, but at least it wasn't about Frostbite. "I don't remember how old I was...but I was just a kid. One of mom and dad's inventions brought the turkey to life and it attacked me and Jazz."
"It's late, Daniel, you really should be..."
"I had nightmares about it for years, I mean...a turkey came to life and tired to kill us! That's not normal and it's really not a normal thing to have bad dreams about either," Danny conducted, ignoring Vlad's poor attempt to dismiss him. "Mom said the best thing to do was to bring another one to life so she could fight in front of me and I could learn and dad said...I dunno, probably something about the big spinning table or the stupid Fenton stockades. What kind of family even has a stockades...or a big spinning table?!"
"I assume this charming little anecdote of yours actually has a point," the man droned.
"And then I got nightmares when I started high school 'cos on the first day I got beat up and it happens like every other day now, but I can deal with that. At least now I have ghost powers so I can get some pay back but for the first month or so I was really...jumpy. And they'd laugh about that too. I freaked out once when someone banged their locker closed too loud, I thought it was Dash coming to kill me or something. I had bad dreams about ghosts after the accident too, but it was weird 'cos those ones weren't as bad, I don't think. Well, not till I met you, anyway. I never told Jazz...or Sam or Tucker, but...you really scared me," Danny admitted.
"Why on earth are you telling me any of this?"
"Because I'm not scared anymore," the young hybrid answered. "You even told me yourself...you don't want me dead. And I get it, I do, really...I get why you fight me, I even get why you have nightmares 'cos I know what it's like to be scared. Real scared not just...scared of failing a test."
"This is Jasmine's doing, isn't it?" Vlad sighed. "You're making me into something I'm not, both of you. You can't forget that I'm a dangerous man just because it's more convenient to think otherwise."
"Then how come I'm still in one piece?" the boy sat up on his knees, staring Vlad in the eyes. "If you're so dangerous how come you don't just get rid of me? I'm glad Clockwork showed me all that stuff..."
"He had no right to do that," Vlad whispered, his voice low and menacing. "I don't care who he is or what he's done, the only person who can deal out the secrets of my life, is me!"
"I know, you're mad, but..."
Vlad laughed a deep and dangerous chuckle which stopped Danny from speaking, it was the laugh of the ghost that had threatened to murder his father. It was the laugh he'd heard in his nightmares and it was the laugh of a villain that Danny bad begun to see as separate from this new Vlad; the Vlad that would actually talk to him rather than fight him.
"You have no idea," Vlad told him. "You think you have nightmares...you think you know what it feels like to be afraid? I've spent years, years of my life trying to forget...and because your sister, the pseudo psychologist, thinks that talking is the solution to all of life's problems...you think you can sit here, dredging up my past, feeling sorry for me? If it wasn't for you and your friend Clockwork I wouldn't be ready to murder for a decent night's sleep," he said and Danny winced a little at his turn of phrase. "I wouldn't have worked my way through an entire case load of whiskey or started up this useless habit again!" Vlad yelled, taking out a half empty box of cigarettes from his dressing gown pocket and throwing it across the room.
The older hybrid leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees and placing his head in his hands, his lank hair trailing down over his shoulders and hiding his eyes. He attributed his outburst to a lack of sleep; he was well aware the sleep deprivation could cause mood swings, particularly, a shortened temper but he'd had no intention of being so truthful. All it took to unravel him was a lack of sleep, him, the all powerful Vlad Plasmius. It was pathetic. He could feel his eyes closing of their own accord and no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't keep them open.
Despite all of his power, money, influence and knowledge he was still, at least in part, human; he needed sleep to function. He needed peace of mind too and he didn't even have that, but Vlad wondered if he ever really had or whether it had simply been a lie he'd been telling himself for years. It was easier to believe the lie than it was to confront the truth; the truth that he had suffered as a child and was still suffering now. When he'd been hospitalised in college, it didn't take the doctors long to learn about his nightmares or the fact that he had panic attacks and likely some form of post traumatic stress. He'd been 'advised' to attend therapy but been given little choice to actually do so until he'd left the hospital and never looked back. Suffice to say that therapy had probably evolved a lot in two decades but it just saying the word left a sour taste in his mouth and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. None of it had helped him and surely, burying the memories that caused him so much trouble was better than reliving them over and over again.
"You said smoking won't kill you," Danny pointed out and Vlad furrowed his brow, trying to think why on earth the boy had mentioned smoking.
"It doesn't mean I want to smoke," he said after a moment, once he caught up, his voice slightly muffled by his hands and hair, "I can't stand the smell," he admitted without thinking. He'd been able to refrain for saying it earlier, but now he was even more tired, he'd just let it slip before he could think not to.
"Really?" Danny frowned, remembering the glare he'd gotten when he'd opened the windows earlier.
"Hmmm," Vlad mumbled.
"Y'could've said that before," he grumbled. "So, if you don't like smoking...does that mean you don't really like drinking?" he asked, glancing at the glass bottle and tumbler on the coffee table. Vlad simply scoffed weakly in response and Danny nodded, "Didn't think so. Maybe you should eat something instead of drinking...whatever it is you've been drinking," he said.
"Not hungry," Vlad replied, childishly.
"Wow, that was real mature," Danny blinked and Vlad raised his head a little so that one tired, blue eye was free to stare at him in disapproval. Although he glared, Vlad said nothing as he leaned back, his head resting comfortably against the sofa.
Danny turned away after a moment, knowing that Vlad would be uncomfortable, even angry at been seen when he was vulnerable. It was strange for him to see, perhaps one of the most powerful ghosts he'd ever met, acting so human over a lack of sleep. He'd seen more than enough to convince him that Vlad was human in many respects rather than the tyrannical, unflappable being of his own nightmares, and that he had his weaknesses, sleep being one of them as it was for everyone else. People who went days without proper sleep ended up like the hybrid in front of him and he had no idea what to do. Danny wanted to help but he didn't think Vlad would appreciate being told to sleep with the light on, or with a ghost weapon to keep away the ecto-bed-bugs, as he'd so often been told as a child.
"Hey, Vlad, I..." he began, looking back across at the sofa, but he saw that the older hybrid had fallen asleep. It was no surprise that he'd done so, but it was a little worrying that it had taken less than a minute.
Vlad had gone from sitting upright against the back of the sofa to soundlessly lying across it, his head on a plush, red cushion and one hand tucked beneath it. His brow was furrowed even as he slept but he didn't seem to be having a bad dream, yet.
Danny didn't want to make a sound in case he woke Vlad but he also knew that as a child, he'd slept better after a nightmare not with a mock ghost weapon courtesy of his parents, but when his sister had stayed with him. Maybe Vlad wouldn't have a nightmare if he stayed or at least if he did, Danny would be able to wake him up. So, he dragged a selection of cushions and a blanket onto the floor as quietly as he could, then settled into them and it was surprisingly comfortable considering he was on the floor.
A.N. Happy days, the review problem seems to be fixed now.
*1 & *2 The first song I imagine playing in the background is 'When you walk on', by Eliza Gilkyson and the second is 'Hardly speaking a word, by Lori McKenna. I heard both while watching 'Case Studies' and I just had to use them in here somehow. That show really did have a great soundtrack.
