"Have your parents been in to see you, Danny?" he asked softly, sitting beside the hospital bed on which the fourteen-year-old boy rested in a plush, faux leather chair which had wheels attached to the bottom, and unlike most people, Vlad Masters, mayor of Amity Park, could easily resist the urge to roll around on the black and white tiled floor like an idiot.

Danny lay in bed, propped up by pillows, slowly eating jelly beans he plucked from the clear cellophane bag sitting in his lap. Vlad noted with amusement and a love for the boy that was so great even he could not deny it that the teenager was carefully picking out all of the toasted marshmallow- and popcorn-flavored beans and throwing them into his mouth. When he came across a licorice-flavored bean, however, he set it to the side. The other beans he seemed to dismiss completely.

Danny now seemed very calm, so calm, in fact, that he had not protested when Vlad sat down beside him, relaxed enough that he easily at the small sugary nuggets without worrying in the slightest what Vlad might possibly have added into them on his way up. The man thought that those pills Danny had taken were the likely culprit of this newly passive state, and that was good; he would have preferred not to engage in a physical or even verbal battle with the boy, and he felt thankful that he now knew how to avoid doing so.

The boy was staring at the television bolted onto the opposite wall, but he was not watching it; in fact, he looked incredibly disinterested in the cartoon that played on the television's small screen, obnoxiously loud and quickly paced it may have been. Vlad noted with that same strange adoration melded with undiluted amusement that the boy looked as though he were sitting in the audience at the Republican National Convention rather than watching the Looney Tunes.

Despite his boredom which appeared to have derived from this old cartoon—for his time, at least—, Danny had not given Vlad a speck of attention since he'd taken the jelly beans from the gift bag, quietly thanked the man, and removed the blue ribbon that had been tied into a lush bow around the middle of the bag. Apparently, he was not capable of eating while he read, and so he disregarded Misery and turned on the television with the remote that sat comfortingly close on the nightstand beside him along with his bottle of pills and cup of water. When Vlad sat down, he didn't even look over. Simply, he stared at the screen but did not watch the colorful, bouncing characters in their animated world it contained, and after perhaps fifteen minutes of observing the boy slowly chew the sticky jelly beans in silence, he had finally tried to engage in conversation again, amused and pleased but also somehow frustrated at Danny's lack of response.

Now, Danny's face did not change…and his eyes did not stray from the screen. He said slowly, distantly, like the voice of a man who has been hypnotized, "They haven't been in. Not in awhile."

Vlad regarded him for a small moment, his previous elation actually increasing at this softly uttered statement, for it was becoming ever apparent just how absolutely perfect this opportunity really was. His friends and family—but most importantly, what really mattered in all this, his father—had abandoned him when he'd needed comfort most. Thus, the boy's mental state—one which had not been in the greatest of condition even before this incident—had weakened considerably, and Vlad thought with great certainty that he must long for a parental figure to sweep into his life and make it all okay.

That, of course, was why Vlad was here.

"Does that upset you, Danny?" he said softly, staring at the side of the boy's head intently. "Do you wish they would visit?"

Danny shook his head with an amazing conviction and said, as Vlad had known he would, "No. It's been nice without them."

"Oh?" Vlad said knowingly, finding it impossible to dismiss the pain in his voice, the sadness that derived from what the boy wanted so desperately but did not have. It became astonishingly obvious that it was all Danny could do to keep himself strong in the man's presence, no matter how badly he may have wanted to see his parents and his sister.

"Yes," he said softly, still staring at the television, now thankful for the excuse it so willingly provided.

"I don't think you're being honest with me, Daniel."

"I am."

Vlad reached out and took one of Danny's mangled hands gently in his; at this, the boy could not keep his eyes off the man sitting beside him and his gaze shifted, though his head did not. "You can be honest with me," Vlad encouraged lightly, slightly rubbing the back of Danny's hand in an attempt to placate. "I promise I will understand."

Danny stared at the man's face for a long moment, stunned into silence by what he saw there. Those eyes were comforting—there was no denying that; those eyes resembled doorways from which warm light spilled, inviting the uncertain stranger to come in with open arms. But there was something else tucked into that expression as well, something the boy had never seen expressed in the face of this man before: was it…affection?

Unsettled by this newly exhibited side of Vlad Masters, Danny quickly pulled his hand back and turned to stare at the screen again.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, his voice just above a whisper. "I've told you the truth already."

Vlad regarded him for a small moment, now looking disappointed…and also very pathetic in the sense that he was overcome with the feeling of abandonment. But he soon nodded, knowing that establishing a good relationship with Daniel would take time, and he would simply need to be patient.

"That's fine, Danny," he said, and patted Danny's knee as he stood up. "It's time I leave in any case."

Danny's eyes suddenly widened and he turned instantly, his head and all, to the stare at the man standing over him. It became clear at once that this idea terrified the boy to no end, for he grew very pale and his lips began to quiver slightly, his eyes glinting quickly, the pupils darting skittishly from Vlad's face to the door and back to Vlad's face again, like a young informant fearing for his life as he walks through an empty parking garage after having given a piece of vital information, the kind that can send the accused into the electric chair and have them fried by morning.

"You're leaving?" he asked, struggling to keep his trembling voice steady as he talked.

Vlad nodded, sincerely shocked at the boy's reaction; he had thought with confidence that Daniel would have been thankful to see him go. "I should. I have to get back to feed Maddie."

Danny's expression of terror seemed to amplify then as if he had been internally hoping Vlad had been joshing him when he'd said he had to leave. He seemed to fight for control of the muscles in his face, but in the end he was entirely unable to keep this expression—one of undiluted weakness—from surfacing like a newly-irritated pimple. Vlad noted this with great surprise and rapidly increasing alarm, for the idea that the doctors and nurses may be harming him did not fail to cross his mind. Perhaps, he thought immediately, they had discovered his ghost powers and had begun a series of horrifying experiments on him, and his heart fluttered quickly. The man's stomach gave a soft lurch at the idea…and the mental picture that it painted.

In his mind, he could see Daniel lying on a cold slab of metal in a lab located somewhere in the bowels of the hospital, writhing as doctors approached him with glistening silver tools for which served dissecting.

They didn't even knock him out, Vlad moaned internally as they began to cut into him and his scream sounded, echoing throughout the place chillingly. They didn't even…

"Danny," he said after he'd finally managed to shoo the remainder of this image from his mind. "Danny, have they been doing things to you here?"

Danny looked briefly shocked, but after a moment he shook his head rapidly. "No, no! They've all been nice."

"Then why do you look so upset?" Vlad said, staring at him with wide and startled eyes. "What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing," Danny said quietly, twisting the fingers of one hand painfully with those of the other in a nervous fashion. "I'm not afraid of anything."

"Do you want me to stay with you? Is that it?"

"No," Danny said with that same hastiness, that of a rabbit being chased by a hungry fox. "No, I don't."

"I think you do, Daniel, and that's fine. I'll stay. Maddie can wait another hour or so for her dinner," Vlad said, and gave the boy a small, reassuring smile.

Danny, in turn, looked disgustedly at him, some of the control of his muscles returning with the idea that Vlad might begin to believe he was so weak he needed to be pitied; and maybe he did, but he certainly did not want to give Vlad Masters, his arch enemy—or so he told himself—the opportunity to do so.

So he said, despite the fact that he did not mean it in the least, his tongue chipping at the dam that contained the bulk of his emotions until it broke and flooded his mouth, "Like I'd want to put up with you for another hour! I didn't even want you here in the first place! It's obnoxious enough to have to see you every day, but now you think you're going to babysit me too?"

Vlad's soft expression soured and Danny was briefly reminded of the moment so long ago when he'd cruelly built the man's hopes up and brought them down swiftly again, calling him his "new dad" and inviting him into a hug only to attach the belt his father had created and short out his powers with that stupidly named device of his. And just as he had then—or afterwards, when he'd had a good deal of time to reflect on the experience—he felt terrible.

"Fine, Daniel," Vlad said, glaring down at the boy with eyes that gleamed coldly but glazed with hurt, the expression of someone who has been insulted to the point of tears but still struggles to keep himself composed so he may offer a redirection. "At least Maddie can't tell me how much she hates me."

With this, Vlad turned and stormed out of the room, kicking the teddy bear which held the pink heart out of his way and across the room as he did.

Danny stared at the door for a long moment, his stomach churning violently, and up came the hospital food he'd eaten for lunch an hour or so earlier—slime-like mashed potatoes and dry roast beef with something that resembled broccoli but certainly didn't taste like broccoli. When his vomiting had stopped, he lay back down, curled tightly into a ball with much difficulty, but less than it perhaps would have been if he hadn't taken his painkillers, and began to weep.

The nurses heard him and rushed in.

A/N:

"That, of course, was why Vlad was here." *AUTHOR BEAMS*

Please, please, PLEASE review, and I will update soon.

~VC or DM/P