Adult-FanFiction.org : Cartoons

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
- 33
- 34
- 35
Once he figures out that he's very much attached to Vlad, it seems like all Hell breaks loose in his head. He wants to see him again. He wants him around more. He's lonely, and he's already aware that despite his best efforts, everyone around him is about fifty thousand volts away from being anywhere near relatable. But he can only push so much before Vlad just hangs up the phone.
And he's noticed that Vlad has been physically keeping his distance. Like he's afraid to get too close. Every time Danny asks about having him stop by, just to see how much certain things have changed, Vlad becomes audibly strained over the phone before turning him down. While Danny expected that the other halfa would be giving his family a wide berth to work in, he hadn't expected to be cut off. It worried him for a while, making him wonder just what he'd done wrong. What did he do that would make Vlad stay away?
It eventually devolved into the idea that Vlad was done with him. That Vlad just couldn't stand him anymore, and that the monthly calls were too much for him. And despite all that Vlad has done, all of that time and effort and training, it's an easy idea to swallow. With all the years he's spent being the lost puppy that people want to love just enough to put back together and then abandon at the side of the road, his mind is all too easily prepared to slip into that alley. From there, a tired acceptance forms, which slowly starts chipping away at his self-worth.
He's acknowledged that he's taken a liking to the man, even if he doesn't know what to do or how to pursue it. But when Vlad seems more interested in avoiding him, what's the point in trying?
'He's had enough of me.'
'No matter who I go to, I'm too much.'
'I'm too much to deal with.'
'I have too many problems.'
'Maybe I'm the problem.'
'Maybe I can't be fixed.'
'Who would want to fix me, anyway?'
It's okay, he decides. It's just like before. He can slip back into old habits. Anything to get through the day. Survival mode is familiar. And easy...
He starts pushing his dinner plate aside from lack of appetite, with the promise that he'll eat before he goes to bed. His plate is wrapped in plastic and put in the fridge. Come morning, he ignores it. And skips breakfast. In school, he skips lunch. And promises to Sam and Tucker that he'll eat when he gets home.
He starts burying parts of himself to be safe. He stops sharing his thoughts with his parents. He signs into his favorite online games less and less. Stops trying to be himself. The cheap horror movies pause, the astrology books go unread, the jokes don't crack. He dulls. Inside and out. His core drawls in rotation. His complexion greys some. He spends less and less time on the phone with Vlad, only because Vlad is giving him less and less. The bathroom scale comes under less strain. He unintentionally starts hiding behind his hair, allowing his bangs to get in the way and mask the poor pallor of his flesh.
A benefit, or a downside, if you'd prefer, to his oversized hoodie is that no one can see the weight he's dropping. No one can outline his vertebrae or count his ribs. No one knows. Worse still, he doesn't recognize that he's being self-destructive. He just doesn't see a point in trying for anything. The only person in all of existence he can share his plight with is cutting off his calls and avoiding coming into contact with him. Due to the amount of growth his core has made, his tolerance for hunger and low energy is much higher. He feels a slight twitch to his stomach every now and then.
"I'll eat later," he tells himself.
...it takes far longer for her to notice than Jasmine would care to admit. And it's not his slowly failing physical health that tips her off, despite the dinners he pushed aside. And she's kicking herself for that, too. What gives him away is his report card, which she intercepts in the mail. When she opened it, Jasmine had to do a double take. At the bottom of what were essentially pre-accident grades, that is to say, teetering just above failing, there's a note written by one of the teachers. In bright red ink...
"What happened?!"
Slowly, she mentally assembles the order of events. She goes back to that December call. And the depression in Danny's voice when Vlad had told him he wouldn't be visiting. The disappearing act on Christmas day. And every consecutive call that followed, with Danny constantly asking for Vlad to stop over.
"Just for a little while?"
"Just for an hour?"
"Just a few minutes? Please?"
"You don't even have to come inside! Just a quick talk!"
And each call had left him more and more defunct. She kicks herself again. She's been hearing it for months, now, and she hasn't been listening. She's lost count of the number of dinner plates she's scraped into the trash can. And the same box of cereal, Danny's favorite, which he usually has to beg for because it's loaded with sugar, has been sitting in the cabinet. Untouched. For four months.
"You've gotta be kidding me. Again?" 'Why didn't I see it sooner?'
Knowing how fragile her brother's mental state is and understanding that fragility are two different concepts. And while Vlad has known, for some time now, just how delicate Danny can be, clearly, he never fully grasped it. It's what drives her to set the report card aside and jab her fingers into the keypad on her phone.
-
Vlad is literally knee deep in research in the library when his phone rings. From across the room, laying by the door on a small end table. He realizes he has to dance around stacks of books that he's assembled and opts to ignore it. Until it rings again. And again. And again, and again, and again, and-
"Yes, yes, alright! I hear you!" The book in his hand falls onto the couch and he stumbles through the mess like a newborn fawn, knocking over a few stacks. The mess will annoy him, when he gets to it.
He snatches the phone up and flips it open, not having the patience to read the caller ID.
"What?! What is it?!"
"He's stopped eating, again."
Vlad sighs. 'Oh, brother.' "For how long?"
"Since you refused to show up for Christmas."
The groan he sends through the receiver earns no response.
"I'd kick your door down, again, but that's a long walk."
Vlad doesn't respond.
"He's been begging for you to come over for months, and you've been cutting the calls shorter and shorter. I think he's feeling rejected. Just like last time."
"I haven't rejected him. I'm-"
"-Well, it sure looks like it! The fact that you have the communication and social skills of a brick shouldn't be my problem! But it is! So I'm going to wake him up, I'm going to give him the phone, and you're going to talk to him."
"Miss Fenton, please, I really don't-"
"-You're going to tell him why you've been keeping away, you're going to apologize, and then I'm going to force some food down his throat. And you'd better be forthcoming about it."
"Jasmine, I'd really rather-"
"It's ghost related, right?"
Vlad sighs. "Yes, but-"
"-Great! This should be easy for you, then!"
"Miss Fenton, I'm busy!"
"...maybe it's not such a long walk."
Vlad physically winces as Plasmius' laughter resonates in his head. "I like this human," it says between breaths.
"Alright, fine. I'll talk to him."
-
Danny was sound asleep. He was napping. He was comfortable, he was content for the first time in weeks, he was actually hoping to slip into hibernation, again. But any sensible person is bound to startle awake rather violently when their bedroom door is kicked open.
Danny was happily wasting his afternoon when his door slammed against his dresser, jolting him upright in a flash and shoving blood into his heart to beat at a human pace. Tachycardic for him.
He's visibly trembling, eyes bright green in fear, and a blue cellphone nearly takes out his nose. 'V. Masters' reads in dull black lettering on the screen.
"I expect you two to talk for no less than an hour. Got it?"
Danny tilts his head past the phone to look at his sister.
"Why? He'll just cut me off, again."
"Because, I called him, this time. You're both going to talk and actually communicate with each-other. Apologize, come to an agreement, make up, I don't care. But you have a problem, little brother, and I'm fixing it. And if he hangs up on you, I'll walk there myself and knock both of your heads together. Because you're both hiding something from the other, and you haven't eaten in months."
Danny blinks.
Jasmine raises a brow and wiggles the phone in her hand.
"Okay, then." And he takes the device before he has to dislodge it from his nasal passage.
Jasmine smiles triumphantly and walks out.
Danny groans up at his ceiling in frustration before putting the phone to his ear.
"I'm sorry," Vlad says softly, "I've not been meaning to ignore you. The gods know that such a thing is impossible even if that had been my intent. But I've been dealing with issues that would have been far less manageable with you around. I need to sort myself out before we can even be in the same zip code, again."
"Yeah?" Danny gets out of bed and shuts his door, "Well, I've been feeling like the only person who has any common ground with me can't stand me anymore. And since he's been refusing to talk to me, or even see me, what else do I have to go on? So, I've been unintentionally starving myself, losing weight, botching my grades and in general just being depressed. Oh, and the neanderthal that's been bullying me for most of my public education told me that he's been picking on me because he likes me, and his communication skills are about on par with yours."
"I-"
"-And, after all the years of humiliation and locker stuffing and fighting and bruises and running for my life, he had the nerve to ask if he had a chance with me, and, I swear to god, don't even ask if I turned him down."
"Uh-"
"-So, here I am, going through the motions of sorting out my own shit and actually trying to figure out what my sexual preferences are, which I sure as hell am not gonna ask my parents, or my sister about, and the only person I feel even remotely safe asking is miles away and has been doing everything he can to not come near me!"
Hey, unloading everything at once worked great on Dash. It should work just as well on Vlad, too, in his mind. They're both idiots to him. The only difference is Vlad is an idiot he actually likes. Plus, this way, he can actually get his words out and get his piece said.
"That is...a lot to unpack," Vlad replies.
"So what the fuck is wrong with you?" Danny asks, nearly huffing for air.
"..."
"Well? Come on! This is one excuse I gotta hear!"
"My ghost half has become sentient. It has gained its own thought processes, its own sense of humor, keeps me up all hours of the day and night by yelling at me, growling at me, picking fights and arguments and, in general, just being a pain in the ass, and it has become very attached to you."
"...oh."
"And I'm apparently growing another set of horns. And a pair of wings are coming down the line, I'm sure. Frankly, the day I don't wake up looking like an oxygen deprived troll is welcome to arrive whenever it likes."
Danny doesn't know how to respond to that.
"I imagine that it might have helped if I'd actually told you that I was dealing with a problem. But I didn't want you to worry."
"I didn't. I worried it was something else, instead, and then I just kind of assumed, because..."
"Because the assumption made was a logical leap in your case, which made it easy to accept."
"...yeah. That."
There comes a sigh over the phone. One of ache. Danny listens to the silence that follows. For several minutes. He soaks up the emotions that Vlad is trying very hard to control. He can almost feel them, himself. For a moment, he wonders if the halfa hung up, and he takes the device away from his ear to look at the screen. The screen shows that the call is still active. Danny thinks Vlad just needed a few breaths. He presses the phone back to his ear.
"It's not a simple issue to solve. Plasmius prefers things its way, as I prefer mine, and at the moment, we're still in disagreement over... You."
"Me?" Danny asks, eyes narrowing in confusion.
"It's been sentient for quite some time, and is less than thrilled with me over the fact that I sent you home. Gargoyles are fussy and territorial creatures, and ghosts have a tendency to cling to things that were of great importance in life. Put them together, and you have Plasmius."
"Is that why you've been staying away?"
"Yes. As far as Plasmius is concerned, a piece of its nest is missing. And consider yourself lucky, because it doesn't seem to like anyone, at the moment. I've had to steer clear of people in general."
Danny...doesn't know how to feel about that. It certainly stirs some things up inside. It tells him that, maybe, just maybe... There's a tenth of an iota of a margin of a chance. He mentally strains to make the calculation. He knows his luck. Maybe he should just put it on the back burner and let it simmer for a while. He wants to ask more, but he's afraid of pushing too hard. On such a sensitive matter, he has enough sense to know not to try his luck.
He's not ignoring his feelings. No. Far from it. He knows what he feels. He knows what he wants. But he also knows how old he is. And, at the very least, that would be an awkward position for Vlad to be in. If it's meant to be, it'll happen. If it doesn't, then he'll adjust. It wouldn't be the first time he's been turned away.
"Sorry," Vlad says gently, "That's probably a bit much for you to process."
Danny stiffens. How can he respond to that? He wants to say that it's fine, that he's not bothered by it. But that will just make the whole conversation even more uncomfortable.
"Daniel?"
"Yeah, I'm here... So, when do you think it'll be safe to be around others, again?"
"With any luck, soon. But I can't say for certain when."
"Oh... Okay." Danny buries the disappointment.
"Put your sister on the phone."
-
It was a call and conversation that needed to happen. Those words exchanged were months overdue. And Danny learned a lot. All of it fairly important. But above all else? The most crucial thing? It was the end of the conversation that proved the most important.
"Put your sister on the phone" is really code for "Duck and Cover!"
It was going so well! It was a clunky, but otherwise solid conversation that the younger halfa really benefited from, even if Vlad made a point to skip over certain parts. And Danny did feel a lot better. He even went down to the kitchen to eat after he passed the phone back to Jasmine. He inhaled a bowl of his favorite cereal, scarfed two oranges and tore through three ham and cheese sandwiches. He was about to have a second bowl of cereal when his sister came into the kitchen and handed the phone back.
He spent an hour holding it away from his ear while Vlad verbally tore him a new one over his report card.
- 33
- 34
- 35
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Kindred Spirits