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Kindred Spirits	By : RedelliaValentinos Category: +1 through F > Danny Phantom Views: 206 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, I don't own any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from writing this story, I write this purely for the enjoyment of writing. It's just me and a keyboard and my wild brain.

Chapter List
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Monitoring from afar is a struggle. He's trying his best. Vlad knew that as soon as he'd specified once a month, it wasn't going to be enough. Not for him. He wanted to call every two weeks. But he's already given, and he knows Jasmine needs time to work. Danny needs time to adjust. Jack and Maddie need time to improve.
Coming home to an empty manor that first night, Vlad collapsed into his bed and slept. For three days. Handling two children had been tricky, but there was some mercy in that one of them is nearly totally independent. He just had to endure her temper, more than anything else. Interacting with the Fenton parents was the real drain on his body. Spectral empathy, visual empathy, is a difficult ability to manage and it's very easy to overload himself. Actively having to choose to not see is a steady drain on his core energy. He could just see 24/7, but the rainbow barf array of swirls and globs and jagged strikes of colors makes him nauseous. Given the choice between making himself sick in public or choosing to be colorblind, in a sense, and slowly drain his core for a few hours, the math isn't hard.
With just Danny and his sister, however, he didn't have to choose. They're young. Easier to manage. And they have the energy to bounce between wallowing in misery to just having a laugh. He never felt sick with them around. Two people are far easier to endure than an entire crowd in a shopping plaza. The Fenton parents had been difficult because he'd been so upset that he fed off of their emotions and projected his own. Akin to an echo bouncing back into him with the force of an eighteen wheeler, his core nearly fell apart. The cracks and fractures would heal; that's what the seventy-two hour nap had been for. But once he woke up...
The first morning, his instinct had been to wake Danny so that he could prepare breakfast. He'd gone down the stairs and down the hall to Danny's room...only to find the door open and the space empty. Then he'd remembered. Gazing at the unmade bed, something in his brain riled awake at the sight. That same strange beast or feeling that's been cropping up for the last few months. That thing that had paced back and forth in its corner while he was in the Far Frozen had begun pacing again. He left Danny's room as he found it.
He did his job, he put Danny back together and got him on his feet. It had been an interesting interval in his life. A fun one, however brief. But he needed to move on.
The liquor cabinet called out to him a few days into the depressive slump he fell back into. And this time, Jasmine wasn't there to keep him in line, and he wouldn't have to worry about getting shit-faced drunk in front of a minor. But, he knew better. And limited himself to a simple nightcap. As tempting as it was to bury his brain in alcohol and regenerate the liver later, he needed to remain sober. For Danny's sake.
But now that he had no-one to fuss over, he didn't know what to do with himself. Prior to Danny entering his home, Vlad had passed his days by with studying. Trips to the Ghost Zone. Research. And building tech he'd never use in his basement. He was content in his reclusiveness. He had no need to interact with living beings outside of his home. Everything he might ever need could be delivered. Extroverted activities were pointless. Now, all those tasks he used to entertain himself seemed... Wasteful. It got to the point where the monthly calls were the highlight of every month.
The rest of the time, he was finding himself stuck fast in the routines that had shaped the spring and summer months.
Four weeks in without the boy and he was still checking his room every morning. He was lingering longer in the library, waiting for someone not even there to finish his breakfast and come in for lessons. He's still setting extra places at the table. Still prepping meals as though there's more than just himself to feed. The liquor cabinet in his office dredged up Jasmine's words repeatedly and his cheek sometimes gave a phantom burn if he stared at the scratches on his bedroom walls. He was even going into the cocoa tin to see what was left in it. He never took any mix, never made a cup for himself. But the mug the girl had favored, tanned by age with a single pale blue flower on one side, still sat in the dish drainer waiting to be used.
Logically, he knows, there's no need for the extra dishes or the doubling of recipes or the checking of the cocoa tin. However briefly they lived with him, however faint their own impressions were on the manor itself, he was still stuck. Only a few things were out of place. Only a few details could be found that would indicate that someone broke his singularity. That someone else had been there with him. Even Maddie had been affected. He frequently found her yowling away in Danny's room, incessantly pawing at the blankets in search of their owner.
It's a pathetic display of attachment, and yet... It cracks his heart every time, hearing her call out for the boy. He's spent the bulk of his life alone. Until now, he's thrived on not being emotionally attached. Falling back into the same rhythm shouldn't be difficult. He played his part. It was always supposed to be temporary, so, why does his home feel so...so... It all just feels wrong. Something is wrong. Something is... Someone is...
He desperately tries to justify himself one night while he washes the same dishes, unknowingly, for the third time in a row.
''No, it can't be that. Why would I miss him? Why would I miss a child? I didn't even gain anything from him!" He snatches clean plates out of the dish drainer, dumps them into the sink and proceeds to scrub harder than necessary.
"What's there to miss? He's rowdy, he's wild, ill-mannered, short tempered, he froze my furniture, froze my carpet, he buried the manor and half of the entire state under a fucking blizzard, in the middle of Summer, and I should have washed his mouth out with soap at least four times! So why do I... I...''
The dishes clatter softly in the murky water as he pauses to stare at his own reflection.
"I shouldn't...but... I..."
He huffs and rinses the plates off. "Ridiculous."
He gets ready for bed earlier than normal.
Somewhere in his brain, there's that same nagging, niggling feeling in his head. And it's finally making its way to the surface.
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Kindred Spirits