Title: The Boy in the Bottle
Pairing: Vlad Masters/Danny Fenton (Maybe more…?)
Summary: Vlad Masters is marooned on a deserted island, that is until he finds a strange bottle. And what should be inside but a teenage boy? Alternate universe to the tune of I Dream of Jeannie.
Warning: Slash.
Rating: T
Chapter Four: A Genie's Boudoir
"Anything else I should know?" the teen prompted, gliding by backwards as if a defiance of gravity were a normal thing. He reclined back to lay in the air, facing the man that walked behind and fixing him with an unexplainable cocky look.
"Yes," Vlad scoffed at his showboating. "Get down from there." He used his hand that was not clutching the genie's bottle and grabbed the short black sleeve of the boy's vest, dragging him down to stand on the floor like a normal person. "Aside from the facts that you are never to disturb me again while I'm bathing, are required to hide yourself whenever someone else is near, and are under no circumstances allowed to disobey me when I order you to poof into your bottle, I do have some other things to say."
"I patiently await for your continued list of rules," Danny responded sardonically, floating just above the plush rug of the hallway to walk on air. It was a comforting, if small and trivial, act of disobedience.
"This one—" the man began before turning around to notice the boy and then pointing irritably to the floor. "Down!" He smoothed out the crimson fibers in the lavish cotton blend of his housecoat and rolled his shoulders before continuing to speak again. "This one is not a rule. I was just going to tell you about your room, my boy." The teen seemed intrigued enough, given the slight raising of an eyebrow. "As you can tell, my home is quite old, a refurbished castle actually. The master bedroom was made in that old style so that it has an adjoining boudoir for the original lady of the house connected to it. It's rather large, proportionate to the bedroom. I used to use it as my home office." He chuckled to himself. "But then I began to feel that I wasn't covering enough distance in a day. I would walk through one door all day and it was most unsatisfying."
"And…?"
"And it is yours now." Vlad stopped suddenly and the boy bumped into him. He waited for an apology but let it go when there wasn't one. The intricately carved door to their right was opened, and the man walked inside, turning on the light.
It was big enough, more than sufficient, especially when compared to the cramped space of his bottle. The walls were the same bland, grayish blue stone that had dominated the halls. Little sat in the room except for the occasional box, an old sitting chair, and a layer of dust. There was a grand window that covered several feet of the outward facing wall, recessed far enough to provide a two foot shelf that would be a nice ledge for sitting and looking out. In the end, that was all he needed or wanted: outside. Yes, this room would do.
"I like it," he smiled lightly, stepping further in. "Thank you, Master."
"Yes," Vlad said, leaning against the wall after shutting and locking the door. "There's no furniture, but I thought you could take care of that yourself. Just keep the door to the hallway locked until I tell the staff not to enter here, not that they do so often as it's not in use."
Danny nodded, still surveying the room. He grinned excitedly before dipping his head with a blink. The dust along the floor was gone and in its place laid an ornate Persian rug, covering almost the entire length of the room in its reds, golds, and occasional blacks. Vlad stepped over the section of rug that had covered his feet and watched the boy nod his head again. That time, the nearly broken, and quite dated, chair in the corner disappeared, along with the boxes, making the room look even more empty. Again he blinked his bright green eyes and a large, circular mattress was resting on the floor, a wide array of luxuriant pillows adorning its deep red sheets. The teen put his hands out in front of himself— palms flat and facing the floor— and then drew them down to his sides. As his hands dropped, sleek silk curtains fell from above the bed, mounted to the ceiling and falling all around as a canopy. He beamed happily before running across the room and jumping headfirst into the elaborately decorated mass.
Vlad laughed mockingly when the teen sunk into the feathered mattress, pillows falling over him in an avalanche until only his little black satin slippers stuck out. "Get yourself out of there and come here," he scolded, tapping his foot in impatience only to jump a second later when the boy appeared beside him suddenly, hair awfully askew. "Good. Now come here." He led the other to a door in the back right corner and opened it before walking through. Inside there was a short hallway with a door on either side. "My closet," he gestured to the right, "and the bathroom." He then pointed to the left. It was a quick explanation as he strode through the hall and to its end, opening the door there. "And this is my bedroom."
He turned the light on, and Danny looked around in a quick curiosity. However, the room betrayed nothing of the man as it was quite impersonal. There was a bed— intimidating in its large size— decorated in deep greens and trimmed in gold with a canopy and window curtains of the same color scheme. Pushed against the window was an organized, and seemingly unused, darkly colored oak desk with a large wingchair under it. On either side of the bed there was a night table, matching in color and style to the desk. But aside from those things, the only other furniture in the room was a coffee table positioned between a set of chairs and an idle fireplace.
"Boring," the teen fake yawned, stretching his arm in the air.
"It serves its purpose," Vlad scoffed crossly, setting the bottle he had been carrying upon the nightstand. "This is where your bottle will stay at night. During the day, it will be in my office, and should I ever have to leave on a business trip, the two of you will come with me."
Danny shrugged, accepting the facts given to him. "And what now, Master?"
"Now?" the man repeated, loosening the tie on his robe before taking it off to reveal black silk pajamas. "I'm going to bed." He pulled back the blankets and loosened his pillow before sitting on the edge of the mattress. "Go to sleep yourself, stay awake, I don't care," he said, stifling a yawn. "Just don't leave your room."
"I guess I will sleep," Danny said, thinking on it before nodding his head. "You are not the only one who had a big day. After all, I am free from my bottle for the first time in two thousand years. The excitement has left me exhausted."
"Very well," he said, leaning back into his pillow. "Turn off the light on your way out."
The teen stared at the light switch for a moment, utterly puzzled, until Vlad told him to flick it down. When the room was enveloped in all the darkness the moon outside would allow, Danny muttered, "Goodnight, Master."
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Goodnight… Danny," the man mumbled passively, situating himself into his bed.
—
Danny stared at the glossy canopy above his bed. His eyes were tired yet could not close, so they watched unblinkingly as the moon glistened off of the silk. He was not sure, but he felt that almost three hours had gone by without his being able to sleep. He couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes he could almost hear the rushing air in the room, alerting him that it was many times larger than the bottle he had been sleeping in for countless years.
Already in his sleeplessness he had seen fit to decorate his room more, as a way of trying to tire himself. Now there were curtains outlining the window, tapestries decorating the walls, and a myriad of other smaller things. On the wall opposite his bed he had placed a low table with cushions all around, an ornate tea set sitting on top. The old, bland light fixture he had exchanged with a chandelier, almost gaudy in its extravagance. Never before had he been able to decorate in such opulence— his bottle being the small area it was— and he almost hated that his inspiration was the temple of the Blue Djinn, a place burned into his memory.
Rolling onto his side, he grasped a rectangular pillow and held it, glancing out the window at the bright and shining moon. Even though he had filled his new bedroom with so many things, there was no denying its size. Maybe he was not used to the idea of freedom from his bottle yet. Though he hated it so intensely, it was the only home he'd had for two millennia.
Perhaps for only one more night…
—
Vlad awoke to the sunlight streaming through the window and into his eyes. He dragged his arm, still heavy with sleep, and covered his face with it to block out the rays. How odd. Usually, he had the forethought to close the curtains before going to bed. What could have…
He sat up suddenly in bed, all grogginess struck from his body in an instant. Ah, yes. His genie had been a bit of a distraction last night. His genie. He owned a genie.
A smirk manifested onto his face as he threw back the blankets. He just needed to… see the boy again. The bottle beside him could not offer the security that actually looking upon Danny did. He could not rest until he had made sure once more that it had not been a dream. Jumping from his bed, he opened one door and then another, glancing around his previously spare room. Apparently some changes had been made during the night. Vlad tried not to recoil at the wall-hanging of a troupe of hunters graphically stabbing a tiger with their spears. To each his own, he supposed.
When he came to the round bed, the man glanced at the gathering of pillows. He didn't particularly want to wake the genie just yet as it was early and he wanted the boy well rested for the day. Quietly, he tore away one pillow and then another, discontent until he would be able to see a foot or a hand, something. Soon there was a pile on the floor, and as it increased, Vlad became more and more frantic. Where was he?
It became obvious when there were more pillows off the bed than on that his genie was not there. He had told him not to leave the room! Stomping back to his own bedroom, Vlad snatched up the bottle from where it sat and shook it angrily. "Genie! Are you in there?" He turned it on its head above his bed and waved it up and down. His surprise was quite noteworthy when he saw two small pillows fall out of the opening— no more than an inch in size— followed by Danny, who couldn't have been more than four inches tall. The man couldn't stop his laughter at the look of indignation on his tiny genie's face.
"Is this your idea of a wakeup call?" the small form barked from the mattress, hands gesturing wildly in the air. "You did not even give me the time to exit my bottle right! I will kill you, Master!"
Still chuckling, the older man sat down next to him on the bed, unintentionally causing the mattress to shake and knock the boy's feet out from under him. Vlad reached down and picked him up by the back of his vest in what the teen considered an extremely embarrassing display of power.
"Put me back down," he sulked, arms crossed.
"Can you turn big again?" the man snickered, looking his tiny figure up and down with an amused grin.
"As if I should know!" Danny yelled in response— his voice barely carrying— though he was sure that changing back would be no hassle. "It has never happened before."
"I… apologize," Vlad told him. "Now you need to at least try returning to normal." The teen huffed before blinking. All at once the man felt a heavy weight on him and saw a pair of luminous green eyes no more than an inch or two from his face. He pulled his head back and looked down to see the genie sitting in his lap, one leg straddling either side of his own. In his surprise, he fell back onto the mattress with a cry and the other followed him down, laying on top of him.
"Oh, Master," Danny hummed dreamily, nuzzling the man's neck as the fingers of one of his hands danced along the silk pajama top. "Why do we continue to fight it? Please," he purred, rolling onto his back and pulling the other on top of him with surprising strength, "bed me? I have been waiting for quite some time."
Vlad looked down at the figure beneath him, eyes wide and face covered in the first blush he could remember having in ages. Where was the boy coming up with this stuff?
"You— what?" he exclaimed, all at once coming to his senses. "No! I will not sleep with a teenage boy."
"I can make myself appear older," he said, closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them, Vlad took note of the now, what must have been, twenty-seven-year-old genie underneath him. His jaw was more defined, nose with less of a inward slope. Even the muscles of his arms filled the short sleeves of his vest out better. However, he was still with the same white hair and green eyes.
"No. That isn't the problem." The man climbed off of him, shaking his head vigorously. He didn't even make it off the other side of the bed before he was pushed back into the sheets though.
"Then perhaps you would prefer a woman?" Danny asked from above him, his form quickly changing before the man's eyes into a woman of the same increased age. She had the familiar bright hair and eyes, wore the same harem costume, but her hair touched the mattress with its silky tresses. The overall build wasn't so different from the original teenager, though, as he was already quite lean with petite features that carried all the way to a somewhat feminine face. But then, of course, there was an astounding physical difference threatening to almost smother Vlad, as if anyone with a body that slender would honestly have a bust that large.
"The answer is still no," he stated, turning his head to the side before mumbling, almost to himself. "And stop fooling yourself. Your breasts would never be that big."
The weight pulled away from his chest, and when the man looked up, he saw the genie in his normal, teenaged boy form. "I do not know what it is you want, Master," he spoke forlornly.
Vlad cleared his throat, motioning for the other to get off of him completely, before speaking— through a most uncomfortable reluctance— for the boy's consolation, "It's not… necessarily anything you're doing wrong. The bottom line is that I already have someone. I'm engaged to a wonderful woman."
"You are?" Danny asked, looking embarrassed himself as his actions caught up with him. His next words were barely audible. "Master, forgive me. I acted foolish."
"No harm done," the man said, though his eyes did not meet those of his genie. "However, I doubt you really want to be with me. Am I correct, my boy?"
"No, you are… I suppose," the teen muttered, eyes staring into the rumpled blanket for a long and silent moment. "It has simply been a very long time that I have been alone. I… may have chosen you for convenience's sake, Master. Understandably, I… cannot imagine you letting me see other people during my servitude."
"You never know," Vlad replied, sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to the other. "Maybe if you listen to me and are on your best behavior you may go out. Then, of course, perhaps one day I'll no longer need you. I suppose then I could see fit to… grant you freedom."
"If that is the case," Danny said, appearing suddenly on the floor, kneeling in front of the man, "I shall try to be very good."
"Very well," he remarked, nodding his head in a pleased fashion. "I am going to get ready for the day and go down to breakfast. Try to stay in your room and not annoy me today." The genie stated his agreement obediently and retreated to his new bedroom.
If he had known that was all he had to say for the boy's submission, Vlad would have said it the day before and saved himself some trouble. After all, it was only an empty speech filled with lies and maybes. He need not say that he had no plans of releasing the boy except with his death. But what was another fifty or so years of waiting around to the immortal genie?
Sub-theme of this story? The woes, tribulations, and frustrations of a 2016-year-old virgin. Hahaha. Poor Danny. He'd probably jump anybody at this point, including Vlad. So of course he took advantage of being in the man's lap. Pfft.
And Vlad tries to be all nice so Danny will listen to him and not go running away to blue genies. Sneaky Vlad. You're not really nice.