Title: Hate
Theme: Hatred
Pairing: None
Rating: K
62. Hatred
It's just a seed of it, at first.
It's a skin condition, which isn't so bad. They can fix that. They begin to try, when it all takes a turn for the worst, and he winds up in the hospital. They visited every day, but they never touch him. BY the time he begins noticing that his hand can sink through the bed and it's not the meds, it's been months since he's felt another human's skin against his own. That's the soil.
When he realizes he can turn his whole body ghost, Jack and Maddie have started coming once a week, and Jack tells him that he's asked her out, and she said yes. It's just a trickle, and he presses it down. BY the time he can make a shield, they announce their engagement, and the water floods, and the seed grows.
They have Jazz, they have Danny, and the acne is gone and Vlad makes himself rich. He has a mansion and he obsesses over an American football team and he endlessly practices his ghost powers, always wondering what to do with them.
The first time Danny punches him, he realizes it's the first time he's felt skin against skin in twenty years, and that ends it. Danny gave him what Jack hadn't. Danny had made him a part of a group. Danny had touched him. Danny showed that a half ghost could be accepted and have friends and be useful.
That seed of hate blooms into a flower, and it always faces Jack.