This is a continuation of Hide and Seek (chapter 13). Has very little to do with actual compromises. Oops.
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Compromise
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Despite resolving to harass the intruder, Danny was cautious. The man was big, and felt strong. Scary. Danny was certain that he could be scarier, and this was his place, but still.
Also, he couldn't quite place why, but everything felt wrong, felt off. Like the furniture had been shifted a few inches to left, except it hadn't. Then there were his memory difficulties. Trying to remember more than just basic things, more than what he remembered so well he just knew, was impossible. It was like staring into TV static.
Danny blamed the intruder. It made sense.
Okay. So. What could he do? Nothing that required a lot of time. He couldn't use traps, unless they were already there, or really fast to set up. He could use what was in the walls, but that could be dangerous for him, too. He could use weapons. Misdirection. Weird sounds. Ambushes. Invisibility. There were cool tricks with mirrors that he could do. Thrown objects. Tripping hazards. Environmental manipulation. Combinations thereof.
First, Danny needed ammunition, and to know where the man was, because knowledge was power. That was a thing Jazzy always said. Not the ammunition bit, but the knowledge part. What could he use? What did he have?
Spaceship models? No. Clothing? No. Well. Maybe. Maybe he could use clothing to blind the man, dump it over his head, or something. He gathered up a lump. Ugh. No. He didn't have enough carrying capacity. Maybe he could leave them around the house as a tripping-hazard-slash-emergency ammunition thing, but they weren't ideal. Stuffed animals? No. Too much emotional attachment. Pillows? There were only two of them, and they didn't exactly pack a punch. Oh! Tennis balls! Marbles! Shoes? Were these... His? They were way too big. They had to be Daddy's. But they were sneakers. Daddy didn't wear sneakers. He wore boots. Black boots. And this was Danny's room. Why would Daddy's shoes be in his room?
He bit down hard on his lip. Why couldn't he remember? He shook his head. He didn't want to think about it. It was too confusing.
He prepared his room, and gathered up the tennis balls and the marbles. They'd be good ammunition. Great ammunition.
Like before, Danny avoided opening the door, instead choosing to stick his head through the door invisibly and intangibly. The man wasn't in sight, but Danny could hear him. The man was in his parents' room, calling for him, but using his long name. Danny frowned. Only Clockwork was allowed to do that.
He blinked in disorientation. Who was Clockwork?
Trying not to cry (Clockwork was important, how could he not remember?) Danny upended the bag of marbles, opened his mouth, and shrieked.
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Vlad couldn't find Daniel in his room, his sister's room, or either of the bathrooms. All that was left on the second floor was Jack and Maddie's room. Vlad sighed. He didn't want to go in there, didn't want to be reminded that Jack and Maddie were, well, together.
He opened the door. "Daniel?" he called. He licked his lips, and stepped into the room. "Daniel, my dear boy, you don't need to be afraid." He grimaced at the king-sized bed, then stooped to look under it.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting shriek sounded throughout the house. Vlad jolted up, smacking the back of his head on the underside of the bed-frame. "Butter biscuits! Little badger?" He ran out into the hall. "Are you-?"
He slipped and fell, activating his ghost powers to prevent himself from hitting the floor. Almost immediately, a massive gun popped out of the wall. He let his powers fail, dropping him to the ground. There were these small, hard lumps on it, digging into his back. The gun retracted. Well, well, well, he thought, bitterly. Wasn't Jack compensating for something, hmm? He pushed himself into a sitting position. The floor was covered in marbles.
"Daniel," he said, disapprovingly. "Are you really trying to defeat me with marbles?" He got to his feet avoiding the little things. They were most concentrated right next to the door to Daniel's room. So, he'd been hiding in there, after all!
He shuffled forward to avoid slipping on any more marbles, and pulled open the door. Before he had much of a chance to look inside, he hear a soft thump from behind and was hit in the back of the head with something rubbery and compact. He stumbled forward into the room, focusing on not using his ghost powers, tripped over a pile of clothing, and fell. Again.
There was a childish giggling sound, and the door slammed behind him. Vlad jumped up, stumbled back over Daniel's clothing- the boy's room hadn't been this much of a wreck before- and tried to shove open the door. It budged, but not much.
"Daniel!"
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When the man emerged from Mommy and Daddy's room and fell, Danny fled to the bathroom, hiding in the shadow of the open door. As Danny had expected, the man then went to Danny's room and opened the door.
Danny struck. He couldn't throw the ball directly at the man's head, from the angle he was at, so he bounced the ball off the hallway wall, using reflections in the picture frames to aim. It worked better than he had hoped. The man fell entirely into Danny's room.
Quickly, Danny closed the door, and pushed the hallway bookshelf on front of it. The bookshelf was really heavy, so he had to use his ghost powers to move it.
Something stirred in the wall. That was too much, then. At least he had gotten the bookshelf into position. The man would be stuck unless he used his ghost powers.
Did the man have ghost powers? He didn't know. It felt like he should, but Danny didn't remember.
Danny went downstairs.
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Vlad had underestimated Daniel. It was hard to admit, especially considering that Daniel was currently regressed to the age of five, but there it was. He had gone about the whole thing incorrectly. Next time, he'd do better.
In the meantime, he and Daniel were in a very precarious position. It was unlikely, regressed and confused as he was, that Daniel would understand the importance of keeping their hybrid status, their ghost powers, secret. Therefore, Vlad had to keep Daniel from leaving the house until Vlad could assert control over the situation.
Luckily, Jack and Maddie hadn't just given Vlad the key to the house, they had given him instructions on how to activate and deactivate the house's lockdown mode. So that's what he did.
Then, as the steel shutters rolled down over the windows, Vlad realized that he still had to get out of the room.
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Danny yelped as the house seemed to come alive. It wasn't supposed to do that! Not without his say-so! This was his place! His haunt!
Then he realized that it was just the Fenton Anti-Creep Mode, and relaxed somewhat. That was bad, in that all the ghost sensors would be more sensitive, and that it meant that the stranger knew how to turn it on, because Danny hadn't, but Danny knew how to turn it off.
He just had to... He just...
Oh no.
No, this was bad. He didn't remember. Mommy and Daddy had told him to remember and not forget and he didn't remember and oh no.
Danny swallowed, and scrambled to finish his preparations downstairs.
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Vlad eventually managed to knock down the bookshelf and squeeze out of the room. It was undignified, especially when it came to hopping over the doorknob, but it was better than phasing through and getting chased around by one of Jack and Maddie's ridiculous guns. (He categorically refused to admit that his guns were often even more ridiculous.)
Carefully, this time, aware that little Daniel had time to prepare, Vlad once again cleared all the rooms on the second floor. There was a highly suspicious lack of traps.
Vlad saw why when he got to the stairs. They were covered in... stuff, legos, marbles, blocks, forks and knives, screws, bits of machinery, broken ectoweapons etcetera, and the banister had been removed, disassembled, and laid atop all the other debris. Vlad sighed heavily. What were Jack and Maddie thinking, leaving those things where children could get to them? How had Daniel removed the banister? How was Vlad to explain the rapidly growing mess in the house to Maddie? (True, he could correctly blame it on Daniel, but Maddie had specifically asked him to prevent this sort of thing.)
Still, the stairs were only a delaying tactic. As long as Vlad kept his head about him, and proceeded with caution, the obstacle wouldn't injure him. He started down.
Daniel walked in from the kitchen. Vlad stopped, staring. Now, this was unexpected. Vlad had thought the boy would continue hiding. He was wearing a large, black t-shirt whose hem hung just above his ankles, and he cradled a tube of tennis balls in his tiny hands.
He smiled up at Vlad angelically. Vlad narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
"Daniel," started Vlad.
In response, Daniel threw a tennis ball in Vlad's general direction. It didn't even come close to hitting him. Honestly, sometimes Daniel's aim was even worse than his fa-
Something hit him in the back of the head. Vlad hissed and turned, trying to see what had hit him. A tennis ball rolled down the stairs. Vlad frowned. Had Daniel managed to hit him with the ricochet? That was far more hand-eye coordination than any five year old should have. Then again, Daniel wasn't really five, was he?
Vlad turned back around, expecting Daniel to have vanished again, only to be hit with another tennis ball, this time squarely in the face. Vlad narrowly stopped himself from charging down the stairs. Instead, he continued his shuffle down the stairs, pushing debris out of his way with his shoes.
Vlad's slow, steady decent must have spooked Daniel, because he ran off. At least, that's what Vlad hoped. Vlad also hoped that Daniel wasn't getting into Jack and Maddie's active, functional weaponry. Beyond the inconvenience it would cause Vlad, the weapons were too large for someone as small as Daniel currently was to handle safely.
Vlad sighed again. He really should have only given Daniel the age-shifting elixir under more controlled conditions. Well. Live and learn.
He got to the bottom of the stairs, and started his search for Daniel anew. Living room, kitchen, kitchen cabinets dining room, entryway, bathroom- There! Vlad caught the boy's reflection in the mirror, though he did a good job of hiding behind the door.
Aware of how Daniel had fooled him before, and wary of traps, Vlad approached slowly, at first. But, as his hand closed on the doorknob, the excitement overcame him and he leaped into the room, and grabbed Daniel by the shoulder so he couldn't run.
Wait. Wasn't Daniel smaller than this at the moment?
Vlad turned the figure around, and came face to face with a hideous robot... doll... thing.
The bathroom door quietly snicked closed behind him. Vlad grabbed the handle and jiggled it. The door was stuck. Vlad suspected that Daniel had wedged a chair under the doorknob on the other side. This was the second time today that Daniel had trapped him in a room.
Vlad took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and counted to ten. He would not get angry. In the past, anger clouding his judgement had lead to mistakes and failures. Daniel probably didn't even know what he was doing. All the child ghosts he had tested the elixir on had become confused, disoriented, and amnesiac once the elixir took effect. Daniel likely was, as well, despite his surprising performance today.
(Really, Daniel had so much potential. It was a shame it had been smothered by Jack's mediocrity. If only Daniel could see that.)
But Vlad was the adult here. He was the one with more experience, the more mature one. He should be able to out-think Daniel, who, even without the age-shifting, was only fifteen.
The direct approach wasn't working, and would likely continue to not work. In any case, he'd wanted to get Daniel to trust him, and chasing him around probably wasn't conducive to that. Yes, he should try to salvage as much as he could. But how?
Daniel was using tools from around the house. Perhaps Vlad could as well. And the reason main reason Vlad was having so much difficulty was the house's defense system. He could disable that, or parts of it. Then, he could focus on defeating Daniel with his old standbys. Half-truths, lies, and bribery.
Well. Perhaps he shouldn't think of it as 'defeating' Daniel. That was the wrong track to take with a child. Vlad knew that. He had done his research. He always did his research.
(Usually.)
It would be better to think of it as... reaching a mutually acceptable compromise. Yes. That was the ticket. He would stay nice and calm, and make a deal with Daniel. Gain his trust, as he originally planned. Offer him things he wanted. He was sure he could think of something. Daniel's wants wouldn't be too complex in his current state.
Once Vlad was sure he was calm, sure he could remain calm, he forced the door open, and set about his plan.
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Danny didn't know what to do. The man was so cautious, now. Danny couldn't find a good time to attack, and none of his makeshift, quickly built 'traps' were working. He couldn't take the man on head-on, and he didn't have the stamina to keep moving around to make the big 'traps.' All he could do was hide as the man moved around the house, searching.
(He couldn't shake the feeling that he knew this man somehow, that he had met him before, but he couldn't remember.)
He was tempted to go down into the basement and get some of Mommy and Daddy's big, shiny guns. The guns were made to hurt ghosts, but Danny was sure they'd hurt the man, too. But Mommy and Daddy said to never go into the basement without them, never touch the guns, and the basement was scary.
Then the man went into the basement, and Danny's chance was lost. He waited, nervous, for him to come back, then realized there was a resource he hadn't used yet, something that would probably make the man angry, and that would make him sloppy again, and then maybe Danny could chase him away.
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Vlad opened the door, and stepped off the stairs and into the kitchen. He saw Daniel crouching by the fridge. He stopped, wary of whatever Daniel had in mind.
Daniel threw the door of the fridge open, and hollered, in a precious, childish voice, "Attack!"
A moment later, Vlad knew why. A dozen hot dogs flew from the fridge under their own power, and then flew at him, gnashing sharp teeth. Surprising. Vlad had known of the hot dogs, had discovered them when he slipped the elixir into Daniel's milk, but didn't know that Daniel had them trained.
Now that the house's internal defenses were disabled, Vlad took care of them easily, trapping them in a pink sphere. Daniel would likely be upset if he destroyed them.
Speaking of Daniel, the child was crouched on the floor, wide-eyed, staring at Vlad's easy display of ghost powers. He vanished. Vlad pushed the hot dogs back into the refrigerator sighed. He was doing that a lot today. Of course Daniel would vanish, after that. Vlad had just demonstrated that he could use his powers without fear of retribution from the house.
On the other hand, he would be nearby, listening. Vlad was sure of that. He couldn't leave the house, anyway. The shutters and shields were still up. Vlad had only disabled the internal defenses.
"Daniel," started Vlad, "I know that you're confused and scared right now, and I understand. It's okay. I'm not mad. Just listen to me, please, little badger?" He paused, giving Daniel a chance to process. "I'm Vlad Masters, a friend of your parents. They asked me to keep on eye on you while they're away. You can see," he said, starting to lay the pictures he had gathered from around the house on the kitchen table, "here, in these pictures. I'm in them. We've met before. You can look." He paused again, carefully arranging the pictures so they could be seen from the kitchen door. "When I arrived, you had been attacked by a ghost. Desiree, I believe her name was." It was important to have the lie be believable, consistent with reality, even if Daniel didn't actively remember enough to dispute it. Desiree had the ability to do things like this. "I'm not sure exactly what happened, or how you were affected, but I want to help you." There was no response, but then, Vlad didn't expect for there to be one. Not yet. Time to change tracks. "I bet you're hungry," he said. Daniel wouldn't have eaten since the elixir had taken effect, and he had vomited that up. "Why don't I make you some food?"
He began to look around the kitchen. It was horrifically under-stocked. What were Jack and Maddie doing, leaving Daniel here alone without any food? He shook his head. Eventually, though, he found a box of pancake mix, and a bag of chocolate chips. That would have to do, despite it being closer dinnertime than lunch. But children liked chocolate chip pancakes, didn't they?
"How about chocolate chip pancakes?" asked Vlad, projecting confidence. "A little treat."
He started cooking, and, to his pleasure, spotted Daniel out of the corner of his eye several times. The little badger was hungry, and curious, but still too scared to come close, or even stay visible.
Vlad started stirring water into the pancake mix, and slipped a little bottle out from inside his jacket pocket. The age-shifting elixir wasn't the only thing he had researched. He put a drop of the fluid inside of it into the pancake batter. It wouldn't put Daniel to sleep, but, combined with the heavy, filling food, it would make him drowsy. It was an underhanded trick, but it was necessary.
Although he had lied to Daniel about the cause of his current state, blaming it on Desiree, the fact was that Vlad really didn't know why the age-shifting elixir had changed Daniel so much. Without knowing that, he couldn't predict, couldn't even begin to predict, how it might continue to affect him. For the other children, the effects had worn off within a few days. Would that still be the case for Daniel? Would there be other side effects? He didn't know. So he had to get Daniel to his lab, so he could examine him. As Daniel had proven unwilling to came with Vlad so far, drugging him again was the lesser of two evils.
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Danny watched as the man, Vlad, started cooking. He hadn't noticed before, but he was hungry. Really, really hungry. The smell of the pancakes was just about making his stomach eat itself.
He looked at the pictures on the table. His Mommy and Daddy were in them, and so was Vlad. He bit his lip. He could remember that Desiree had made him confused before, even if he couldn't quite remember who Desiree was. What Vlad said made sense. Danny wanted to believe him. It would make things easier.
But something told him to stay hidden, at least for now. It was getting harder. He wasn't just hungry. He was tired, too. He knew his invisibility was flickering, and he was certain Vlad had seen him watching.
Then Vlad stepped away from the stove, the plate in his hand piled high with dollar pancakes. Danny's mouth watered.
Vlad put the plate on the table, and peeled a pancake off the top of the stack, making a show of eating it. Then he put out a fork, a knife, another plate, and the butter.
"I'm going to step out now," said Vlad, "let you eat in peace." He smiled in Danny's general direction (Danny had to check and make sure he was still invisible), and left the kitchen through the other door.
Danny resisted temptation for maybe a minute, but then it was too much. He was too hungry, and the pancakes looked too good. The pancakes shouldn't be poisoned or anything, anyway. Vlad had eaten one.
He scrambled up onto a chair, which was too short for him, and from there onto the table. He ate the first pancake quickly, with his fingers and without butter, and it was so good. Then he ate another, and another, and he started slowing down, feeling sleepy, like he did right after Thanksgiving dinner. He also started feeling thirsty. Chocolate chip pancakes needed milk.
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Vlad pulled his phone from his pocket and called one of his servants. A ghost servant, of course. He wasn't about to talk about this to a human.
"I need you to go buy a car seat, clothing, and toys that would suit a precocious five year old," he said, without preamble, as soon as the woman picked up and greeted him. "Bring the car seat to my chauffeur, and tell him to install it, then set up the toys and clothes in Daniel's room. Tell everyone to childproof the house, while you're at it," he added as an afterthought.
"Yes, sir," said the servant.
He hung up. He could hear Daniel humming as he ate. He had noticed the charming habit while watching the Fentons through the cameras he'd set up around the house.
After a while, the humming became sleepier, and sleepier, losing all semblance of a melody. Finally, it tapered off into a little, contented sigh. Vlad took that as his cue to return. He peeked around the corner and smiled as he saw Daniel sitting quietly at the table, blinking sleepily at the depleted pile of pancakes, but his heart skipped a beat when he saw the empty milk jug, accompanied by a tall, equally empty glass, sitting at Daniel's elbow.
That was where he had put the age shifting elixir. He had never intended for Daniel to have two doses of the stuff, much less how much had been mixed in the milk to make sure a single cup had the correct dosage.
Vlad forced down his panic. Higher dosages hadn't hurt any of the other subjects. He slowly walked into the room.
"Hello, Daniel," he said.
The boy started, but calmed quickly. He looked up at Vlad, blinking several times. He seemed to be having trouble focusing.
"Hi," Daniel chirped. He blinked again, then looked away and sleepily rubbed his eyes. "Thank you f'r the pancakes," he said. "They were tasty."
"You're quite welcome," said Vlad. He came closer. Daniel's eyes slipped farther closed. "How about we get you cleaned up?" he asked, delicately.
"Mf," said Daniel. He looked up again, and Vlad could see the gears turning behind his eyes. "'Kay," he said finally, although there was something deeply dubious in his tone.
Vlad picked Daniel up. The little ghost sighed, and snuggled close. Vlad felt his core thrill. This was as close to having his Obsession fulfilled as he had ever come.
"Wanna go t'bed."
"Of course, of course. You're all covered in chocolate, though," not to mention getting Vlad covered in chocolate, "and I do think you need a bath."
"'Kay," said Danny, dully.
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Vlad carried the sleeping child out to the car, and got him buckled into the newly-installed car seat, then climbed in after him. The driver shut the door. Well. That had been an ordeal. But... He smiled across at Daniel.
If such an ordeal was necessary for this kind of success, he would take the compromise every time.
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So, uh. This might be continued again at a later date. I hope this lived up to your expectations. :)