"Can you believe, Daniel, that it has already been ten years since we first met?" asked Vlad, topping off Danny's wine glass.
"I can't believe that I'm hanging out with you after you tried to dissect me like a laboratory frog," said Danny. He was already a little tipsy. Vlad'd had a party earlier. A fancy one. One that Vlad had invited Danny and his family to, for reasons unknown, and which Danny had attended for reasons unknown. And now they were sitting on one of Vlad's balconies. Why Vlad felt the need to have so many of the things when they could both fly and walk through walls, Danny would never understand.
"I never dissected you, my dear boy," said Vlad, with an expansive gesture. A bit of wine spilled from his glass. He was drunk, too.
"As if you could," said Danny with a snort. "I said you tried to dissect me. There's a difference, cheesehead."
"No, no," said Vlad. "I never tried to dissect you."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Are you splitting hairs over whether or not you wanted to vivisect or dissect me? Really? Really?"
"I'm not splitting hairs, I'm making a cogent distinction! And I never wanted to vivisect you, either."
"What d'you call wanting to cut me up to figure out how I work, then?"
Vlad sniffed. "Vivisection is strictly for things that are alive. Dissection is for things that are not alive. We are both alive and dead, and therefore such an act would fall under neither category. Therefore, therefore, I came up with my own term."
"What?" said Danny, drinking more wine. Clearly, he wasn't drunk enough to make dealing with Vlad painless yet. If that was even possible. "Vladisection?" As much as Vlad mocked Danny's father for his naming sensibilities (some of which were Mom's fault, anyway), the names he came up with were much worse.
Danny was never going to let him live Dalv down. Seriously.
"Divisection!" said Vlad triumphantly.
Danny nearly choked on his wine.
"I considered hemisection and demisection, but hemisection is already taken."
"By what?" asked Danny, phasing off the wine he'd spilled.
"Something to do with tooth surgery," said Vlad, waving his hand. "Unimportant."
"And demisection?"
Vlad ignored him. "Divi. A noble and little-used prefix, ideal for our purposes."
"I don't like how you're lumping us together, there, Vladdie."
"It accurately indicates that we are divided between two states, those of life and death."
"I dunno that I feel all that divided. I think that's always been a you thing," lied Danny. He'd had his phases, back when he'd been a teenager. He'd gotten over it.
"And, in a stroke of genius–"
"Kinda think that word's overused these days," observed Danny.
"Let me speak Daniel. It's no wonder you're getting a 'B' in Introduction to Relativistic Astrophysics and General Relativity."
"Y'know what, I'm impressed you can even say that with how drunk you are." Danny sure wasn't going to try. He already bit his tongue too often, now that his fangs had come in.
"As I was saying, in a stroke of genius, divisection also includes the first syllable from each of the terms that are so often misused in its place." Vlad nodded sharply, and drained his wine glass. "I didn't try to dissect or vivisect you, I wanted to divisect you."
"I can't tell if you're serious or not," said Danny.
"I'm dead–" Vlad hiccupped, "-deadly serious."
"You're embarrassing, that's what you are," said Danny. He leaned back to get a better look of the moon overhead. "I really, really don't know why I'm hanging out with you. Divisection. Can't believe you tried to cut me up, and now you're calling it divisection. No respect."