Ok, so the plan was as following. William would stay in Amity Park with Vlad until the moment of his birth, wich would be a year ahead aproximately, and get his clock turned backwards until he was a newly born baby. Then, Vlad would say that someone put the kid on his doorstep and adopt him. That way, the kid would have a birth certificate and a real dad from day one. His memories would be nonexistent. That way, Billy would have a somewhat normal life.
Of course, Danny still worried. Would Vlad teach this kid to be his evil apprentice? He couldn't allow it. No son of his was going to evil. Which brings us to the current discussion. Billy sat comfortably on one of the older halfa's high class couches placed in the secret lab looking on amused while Danny glared at Vlad with his arms crossed and the Mayor glared right back.
-Daniel, you are too young to raise a child. I will not put you through that.
-Still, I don't want Will to be raised by a crazed up fruitloop. Who knows what you'll teach him!
-Oh, please! As if he would be safer in your home, growing up trying not to be discovered by your parents!
-Don't drag them into this, Vlad!
-You know perfectly well what they would do, Daniel. William himself is proof of that!
-And Danielle is proof of your education!
-You know, for straight men, you two act like a married couple.
Both halfas tensed and turned slowly to look at their son. Who had apparently ignored the whole conversation. Or at least the part where they mentioned the Fentons.
-Billy
-Yeah dad?
-Don't EVER say that again.
-And for once we agree.
The 17 year old only laughed at their disgusted faced. How could he not: they had even stepped away from each other, realising they were too close. He stood and stretched.
-You could always come check up on me, Danny. Take me out for a walk and stuff. Besides, who said Vlad would be the only one teaching me? You could teach me ecto-ice control and there's always Clockwork!
The youngest halfa seemed to meditate this. Seeing Will regularly would imply seeing the fruitloop more often. Then again, that didn't necessarily mean they had to fight. But how to ensure that Vlad would follow through on the deal?
-Ok. I will alow it. On one condition. You will sign a contract with me, Plasmius. A valid one in both, the human and the ghost zone.
-You still don't trust me, Daniel?
The latter just glared. Vlad sighed. The thing with the contract would be the only way to keep the young halfa from kidnapping his own son, wouldn't it? Just perfect. The silver haired man snapped his fingers and told the vulture that showed up to get Ghostwriter. Until they could convince Walker to free him for the Christmas fiasco they would have to wait. For all they knew, it could take a year. If not more.
Billy took this oportunity to look around. Last few times he had been here, it had been for a mere second and just to make sure Vlad was ok. He might have accidentally shown up on scanners and ghost detecting devices, but Vlad hadn't mentioned those at all. True, that could mean the man had already figured it out upon seeing how the devices recorded his ectosignature.
The young time traveler turned a corner and found... a dead end. Dead end? Why would there be a dead end in a mansion?! Unless... this wasn't a dead end at all. The owner of this mansion was after all half ghost, which meant he could walk through walls and that meant dead ends were never dead for the dead. Huh? William sometimes hated the way his mind worked. He turned his head intangible and looked past the wall. There it was. Vlad's secret … study? Funny, Bill always thought the secret part would be the lab. He walked inside, disregarding the bickering he heard in the distance. Books covered all of the back wall, the massive library's theme consisting on genetics, ghosts, the study of substances and did he see a first edition of 'On the origin of species' by Charles Darwin? The green tome with golden details claimed his attention. He walked towards it and carefully picked it up. He realized it had barely been opened, consistent with it being such a valuable object, and thus deciding to put it back where it belonged. He turned again, staring at the top of the ebony desk, finding it neatly organized. On one side was a laptop, the desktop lined with digital copies of the books behind it; while on the other side was a pile of neatly hand written papers.
-Odd. Why would dad have hand written papers when he can type on the computer?
-That's because those are drafts, William.
A shriek made its way through his throat as Billy looked up, seeing both his parents. One looking at him with some sort of annoyance and the other looking around amazed. Apparently it was Danny's first visit to this room too.
-Wow, Vlad. To have a secret room in a secret room. You must be a real piece of work up there.
The older halfa sighed.-It's not paranoia if the secret room in the secret room gets found, little badger.
-Oh, what. Now you gonna put a secret room in the secret room that's inside a secret room? Fruitloop.
-Sorry dad. I was just looking around. What are these drafts for, anyway? I'm curious.
Vlad transported himself next to his yet unborn son and picked up the papers. He looked through them and handed the seventeen year old a specific one.
-''Halfa biology and how to treat the new species'' by Vladimir I. Masters?
-That's right, William. If the new breed is going to reproduce, which after the last week we know is a fact, then we'll need to learn every difference halfas have with humans and ghosts. And we need to discern between general halfa characteristics from individual ones. For example: while my temperature is greatly above the average for a human being, Daniel's is far below it.
-Hey! How do you know my temperature is below the normal!
-Daniel, has noone ever told you that you are the equivalent of a walking fridge?
At this point, the younger halfa was onto the paper too, blushing madly at the accusation, while the not quite born yet halfa smirked in his direction.
-Now that you know I've been collecting data on halfas, will you kindly accompany me to the medical wing of my lab and provide the information willingly?
-I dunno, Vlad.- the young halfa squinted his eyes at him in mistrust.-Can you asure me you won't use this information against me?
-You seem to be implying that I will continue to scheme against you, but worry not, little badger. I already have the perfect halfa son, thanks to your careless parents.
The original halfas glared at each other. Their son just munched on popcorn, watching it all play out. He usually just bothered Danny, 'cause let's face it: annoying his younger parent was hillarious. He'd sneak up on him at school, he'd make faces only ectoplasmic entities could see on the back of Lancer's head, making stuff invisible remotely so Danny would trip and stuff like that. But seeing his parents behaving like little kids arguing over candy was just too good. Of course, now that there was virtually no reason to be evil, V-dad was trying to get D-dad to cooperate so they could finally get basic halfa health information. Billy could see the logic in that. They'd need the info for when he was a child and didn't remember his own norm. And yet he couldn't bring himself to stop the fight. If aunt Jazz were here, she'd probably say he was just stalling because he liked seeing his parents interacting, even if it was a fight.
… Ok, enough was enough. He was not some crybaby nor a corny little sadsack. Ignoring the heat on his cheeks he cleared his throat.
-Danny, he's not going to use it against you. Besides, think of the perks of having someone with medical experience and actual equipment ready to treat you and having your basic information so that he can check what's wrong! Daddy-o here just wants our safety, even if he's too much of a fruitloop to phrase it correctly.
Danny smirked while Vlad gave the accustomed yell 'I'm not a fruitloop'. After mocking the grown up a little more, the 14 year old agreed to let said man scan his vitals. Billy had made an excelent point after all.