First! I re-did some of the grammar in this chapter and I think it's a little bit smoother to read. There might still be a few more kinks I haven't found yet but once I finish all thirty prompts I'll go over it again -Thanks!
Prompt 8 – Shopping: Diamonds was my favorite one to write but I think this one comes in a close second, something about it I just enjoyed writing. :) It was going to go in a whole different direction but I figured I wouldn't be able to get it all done in the time I am allotted because I am kind of behind and need to make up for two prompts so sorry guys that I am late.
Rating: T
8. 101 Colors
"We've been at this for almost an hour," Danny's ice blue gaze secured itself on Vlad as they walked.
"This is a delicate situation, Daniel. Do explain to me how you manage to look so calm about all this because I can assure you I am not of the same nature currently." Hands in his pockets and looking straight ahead Vlad responded with just the slightest quiver in his voice. Danny did not give him an answer.
They were in a very high end shopping district that day and had just finished looking over a shop exclusively of wallets.
Shop windows were covered in diamonds, silk, rubies, sapphires, satin, and leather. There weren't the usual sounds of a downtown plaza and the scent of wine, perfumes, and expensive cigarettes filled the air with something that seemed almost sultry. Even the floor they walked on was done in stone mosaics that had the appearance of being newly polished; Danny guessed they probably were. Instead of the usual minivans and compact cars lining the streets there were high-end motorcycles, convertibles, and a limo here and there. Danny was also sure he heard the clip-clop of a horses gait somewhere.
Danny felt immensely out of his comfort zone in all this and he looked at their company to see if perhaps the feeling was mutual.
It was not.
For years Vlad had rekindled his relationship with Jack and Maddie. Danny didn't know whether or not it was as strong as it once was but he did know that every so often the three of them would get together and talk about the inventions the Fenton's had created; Vlad still hadn't mentioned that he had a lab full of equally, if not more advanced, equipment. Those inventions had evolved into things that VladCo could use and sell in an actual market. That is probably what led to them choosing this particular district for their shopping.
Of course, they weren't just shopping for anything. Maddie was not the type of woman to spend simply because she had it; though she would often be tempted to given the right persuasion. They were here for one thing and one thing only.
"Mom! Dad!"
Jazz was getting married.
His sister reveled herself from a shop just a few feet ahead. Her hair still fell well below the small of her back and she still kept it back with a trademark headband but Danny couldn't take his eyes off the silver and white mermaid dress she was attempting to walk in. It seemed a little too over the top. She could barely walk and the train that she had to watch for probably made that task even more impossible.
"That dress is horrendous," Vlad muttered quite bluntly and Danny shot him a small smile.
Danny was glad to have Vlad with him. When he'd told Vlad about his plans for the day the man had insisted on being there –he wasn't taking no for an answer. Jazz, Sam, and Tucker all knew about the relationship that had become unquestionably steady when Danny was twenty. Telling them had been easy because they'd had many years to experience the truce cast when Danny was sixteen. However, even a year after telling his friends Danny was sure that telling his parents was going to be ten times harder. Not to sound like a cliché teenager but he knew that his parents wouldn't understand some aspects of the relationship because they didn't know him; his friends and sister did. That is why he'd chosen a time when his sister would be present to help with the news.
Careful not to take his hand Vlad placed two fingers on the boy's wrist and used it to motion them forward.
The bridal store was beautiful and Danny couldn't help but stare at the chandelier of white gold that hung from the arched ceiling; it wasn't often real candles were in use anymore. Surrounding the store in a Parisian style were lamps with electrical lighting to make up for the centerpiece of the room. There weren't racks upon racks of dresses like Danny had expected to cover the deep midnight carpet. Oh no, in gilded frames of gold there were panels that switched out the dresses like an oversized vending machine. One could walk up and slide the glass over to pick up the material of the dress and feel its weight, it was a very convenient system it seemed. There were mannequins but they seemed more interested in displaying jewelry and veils rather than the dresses.
Due to the set up of the building there could only be about eight viewers at a time but there was only one more group in there, two women and a small girl. It figured that not everyone would be able to afford the store. The only reason Jazz wasn't looking for something in a more frugal setting was at the insistence of her mother and fiancé.
"You guys took forever so I took the liberty of trying on a few but I'm not sure I like them," Jazz said, cutting through Danny's thoughts.
"Sorry, honey. You know how easily your father gets distracted."
Jazz nods her head in agreement to Maddie's words before attempting to walk over to her brother. In a show of mercy Danny steps forward and wraps his arms around her small form.
"It's nice to see you, little brother. I haven't seen you since Christmas, thanks for coming."
"Are you kidding," he laughed, "this is hilarious." Motioning to the dress she crossed her arms and huffed before turning on her heel. Danny had missed the announcement dinner because of a portal opening right in the center of Amity Park's downtown area. In his defense, she should have said something to him so he could attempt to make an effort to get there. For this day she'd thought ahead and told Danny where to be and when to be there, that was when he begged for her assistance in telling their parents that he was not only dating their college friend but had recently moved in with him.
The four of them followed Jazz as she stumbled over to a sharply dressed woman. She was rather tall and possessed a head of blonde hair that bounced with her like a shampoo commercial. The silver name tag on her chest read Daisy. Like one of the mannequins, she was decked in accessories from head to manicured toe. Her wrists jingled with various accessories as she shooed Jazz back in to the dressing room and her clothing almost could have passed for bridal if it weren't for the fact that it was a soft beige color.
"You must be Danny; she said you'd be getting your measurements and choosing a designer today." Daisy's voice was high pitched but still fairly soft when she turned her attention to the raven haired man.
Danny shot a look at his parents as they switched between dresses on the display panel. "Uh, Jazz didn't say anything about a designer."
"Oh don't worry, dear. All you have to do is take a look around, choose a panel when you're ready to look at some designs and Travis will be right with you. He'll be doing the measurements too."With a wink, Daisy turned to the Fenton parents and immediately seemed to be trying to coerce Maddie into a dress that the two were admiring.
"Look around?" Danny muttered a few more things under his breath before turning to look up at the man next to him. "You're a snappy dresser, why don't you just pick something and I'll deal with it."
Vlad chuckled, "Snappy? Daniel, I do think it's final. We spend too much time together."
"Nonsense, now stop dawdling and help me find something?" They both laughed and simultaneously took a glance at Jack who was becoming dangerously close to a display of glass bobbles.
That was enough for them to be secure in the fact that Danny's parents weren't that interested in the going-ons of the two. It would be a wonder if they were the least bit suspicious. Vlad did have many legit reasons to be closer to Danny then he had been before. It should be assumed that after Danny moved into his apartment just off campus that Vlad would check in and be there whenever their son needed him. The type of camaraderie the two were showing should have been expected.
The first mannequin they looked up at was covered in neckties, with the occasional bowtie to keep things spicy. Danny lifted a shimmery gold one and grimaced.
"Jazz said she was going with gold, silver, and teal; which I'm pretty sure is a fancy way of saying blue." He lifted up another tie and observed the pale blue color.
Vlad sighed. "That would be robin's egg."
Brow quirked Danny looked just slightly up to give his boyfriend a rather incredulous look. "It's blue."
Reaching over Vlad pulled down several different ties and laid them over his arm. "This is true blue, this is navy, this is midnight, this is cerulean, and this last one is teal."
The look had not vanished from Danny's visage, he simply stared at the older man before finally opening his mouth, "Dude, what kindergarten taught you 101 colors of the rainbow? Because I swear there were only seven when I graduated."
Shaking his head Vlad chuckled completely forgetting his distaste for 'dude'. Instead the man chose to be in favor of being humored. Vlad moved to put down the first few ties and taking the last wrapped it around Danny's neck. Once upon a time it may have disturbed the younger Halfa to have something being tightened around him by Vlad but the proximity had almost become second nature.
"Teal will do just fine. Now the suits."
Vlad led the way to the panel they were to be occupying. Danny looked over his shoulder to see Daisy attempting to convince Jazz to come out of the dressing room; it wasn't looking so good.
"Hello, my name is Travis and I will be taking care of you today." Travis turned out to be a tall man who was probably no more than two or three years older than Danny. He was a lanky dirty blonde with a halo of curls that framed green eyes. There was no doubt in either of the men's mind that Daisy and Travis were siblings.
"Travis, I think we'll be looking at something in the gray tones, not too dark; I want to steer away from charcoal." Vlad started talking in his professional tone while simultaneously pushing Danny forward.
Travis obediently nodded his head and pulled out a measuring tape. "That would look wonderful on his fair complexion. Lovely. How about a designer?"
Vlad listed a few of them, most of which Danny knew nothing about.
When Danny started laughing, Vlad stopped his description of a certain cut midsentence to look at his boy. Travis had moved the measuring tape from Danny's inner thigh to circle around the limb.
"Sorry did that tickle?" Travis looked up. Vlad recognized that smirk.
It wasn't the Danny was naïve to advances from other men it was just that he'd had no experience in them. Having spent most of his young life chasing after a head cheerleader or an independent goth girl he didn't have time to learn the signs of flirtation from other men. The only exception was the man he called his boyfriend. However, much of the 'flirting' that had occured, and still does, may not even be considered so to some.
"Yeah, don't worry about it I'll try to hold it in." Danny's response was too inviting and Vlad immediately felt his fists clench. Anger ruled a lot of what the older Halfa did; a dangerous pastime yet to be outgrown.
The blonde played ignorant to the glare he received from the elder man and excused himself to grab something from the back for Danny to try on.
"How do you know about all this stuff?" Danny asked as he tried on a black waistcoat over his T-shirt.
Tearing his gaze away from the doorway Travis had run through Vlad's gaze softened as he watched the clueless boy admire himself in the mirror. "At the beginning of my 'rise to power' I needed to look right for the presses. I hired a fabulous woman named Genie who was very patient in teaching me all I needed to know; she often commented that I dressed more like a five year old at a bar mitzvah then a billionaire entrepreneur."
Danny laughed and this seemed to help Vlad calm down a bit more. "She sounds fun; it must have been a funny sight."
"Perhaps, we argued a lot. I wasn't very social back then, as you might imagine."
Danny shrugged, "Don't have to imagine."
Vlad tugged another vest from a mannequin and held it out to Danny as he unbuttoned the waistcoat. It was a similar color to the tie Danny wore, if only a little less shimmery.
"Here we are," Travis had returned with a suit that was just slightly darker than a raincloud, the lapel was an actual charcoal grey and was embroidered in a teal stitching of abstract swirls. "I thought we'd stick with the teal, it definitely brings out those eyes of yours."
"Uh, thanks." Danny took the suit and headed into a dressing room that Travis pointed out while Vlad sat back and waited.
That was when Jazz came up behind the elder man, placing a delicate hand on his shoulder. She honored him with a smile and, though he was still annoyed with Travis, he returned it. On his other side Jack came and sat down, a bow tie in gold sequins around his neck; how he found the atrocious thing was a mystery indeed.
"I suppose we'll take a break from Jazz for now and concentrate on Danny." Maddie came and stood next to her daughter. The woman was a vision of amethyst with a sash of the deepest type of teal wrapping around her slim waist. Vlad couldn't help but appreciate that she would always be a beautiful woman.
They didn't have to wait for very long as Danny stumbled out a moment later. Vlad's already simmering temper started to show the first signs of boiling as he stood erect suddenly.
The pants were long on the boy but just tight enough to show off the right kind of curves necessary and the jacket, while a perfect color choice and cut was obviously clinging to his torso until it looked like a second skin, even the sleeves were just a tad too long coming over his fingertips slightly. "I don't think this is right," Danny said as he raised his blue eyes to his family and then up to Travis who had suddenly materialized beside him.
"The color is precious, it does your complexion well and your hair is striking." Travis traced a line on the lapel before he pulled out his measuring tape and lowered himself. This time Danny had the courtesy to blush as the man placed his hand much too close to his crotch and then traced his leg down to the ground. "We'll just lift the hem and maybe loosen the seams right here a little."
Vlad had had enough. He stepped over and gripped a handful of the man's dark beige dress shirt pulling him up to stand eye to eye with him. "What do you think you're doing?" Vlad muttered under his breath, forgetting his audience for the moment.
"Just trying to get close to you," Travis responded eyelids lowered in a supposedly seductive look.
Snapping out of his anger too quickly for the rest of his body to comprehend Vlad was surprised; it was not what he had been expecting. Lips parting to talking but no words coming out Travis leaned in closer and might have succeeded in overpowering the man if not for the typically hot-headed young man beside them going through the process of not considering his consequences before acting.
In an instant Danny had punched (pushed, depending on whose story you're listening to) Travis into a posse of stylish mannequins wrapping an awkwardly restrained arm around Vlad. "He's taken."
The rest of the day was in a whirl of white, teal, amethyst and sequined gold after that.
A/N: I really like this one. I have a question though: One of the prompts is for them to be 'doing something'. I think that's kind of vague so if anybody has wanted to read a scenario that they haven't found anywhere just let me know and I'll write it if it's not already one of the prompts.