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Kindred Spirits Complete	By : RedelliaValentinos Category: +1 through F > Danny Phantom Views: 507 -:- 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
- 39
- 40
- 41
Waking up to a tail cramping is a miserable sensation.
A pulse of twisted pain jerks Danny awake with a frenzied start. Wound tight around his thigh and seizing, and potentially cutting off circulation to the rest of the limb, Danny scrambles upright and reaches behind himself desperately. He manages to grab his tail right before where it connects to his spine and pulls it free with intangibility. Blood begins flowing down his leg again while his tail kinks, cricks, cracks and snaps in multiple places. Unfurling it slowly causes more popping and he whines at the pain. It occurs to him, as he begins using his hands to massage the appendage...he's never gotten a cramp in his tail before.
"How long was I out?"
Working the muscles a few inches at a time, starting from the tip of his tail and working his way up, Danny looks around. He'd recognize his room in Polter Heights even in blackout conditions. But he doesn't remember how he got here. He vaguely recalls a classroom at stupid volume. And the ache in his jaw, which now held nothing compared to the pain in his tail. Licking his lips to wet them, dry as they are, he feels his tongue grace against two sharp points.
'Oh, yeah. Fangs.' He should probably take a peek in a mirror at some point. However, licking at his teeth to get a better feeling of them dredges up rotting iron and he bites back a slight gag.
"Ugh. Fucking yuck."
He climbs off the bed and goes into the bathroom just off his room. He flicks the light on and promptly turns on the sink. He scoops the water into his mouth and rinses as best as he can.
Spitting the water out, he checks his teeth in the mirror. "Nope, didn't cut my gums. Huh."
There's a piece of off colored, slimy, rotten something caught between his right fang and the first premolar that's just fouling his taste buds. He pries it out and lets it run down the drain. It seems to help with the bloody taste in his mouth.
"Better. Now. How the fuck did I... Wait..."
Danny barely remembers to shut the sink off before bolting down the stairs. The left turn he makes at the base of the stairs and into the kitchen is a sharp one; he nearly loses his footing. Nearly. In his eagerness, he only registers a silhouette at the counter. But it's enough.
"VLAD!" he tackles the older halfa to the floor with frightening speed and strength, and without regard for what his haste. Vlad's head hits the floor rather sharply and he gives a pained grunt.
"Yeah, that's the reaction I expected. Ow," he rubs a hand at the back of his neck. Because invisible is not intangible, his horns took the brunt of the fall, snapping his head forward slightly. There's a dull headache from the impact, but it'll pass. In a few minutes. Vlad finally opens his eyes to look up at the boy.
"Hi."
"You are an absolute terror," he grits.
Danny laughs, very light hearted and genuinely amused. The older halfa decides it's not a bad sound. The menace within him concurs.
Vlad manages to nudge him off so he can get to his feet. As soon as he's vertical, standing upright and ignoring a faint dizzying whirl in his head, Danny's arms wrap around him. As tight as they can, resting his forehead on a warm chest and just content to soak up the heat of Vlad's core.
It stuns the man. In fact, it outright paralyzes him. For one, the physical interaction is foreign. He's held Danny before, yes. Whining, crying, sniveling, sniffling, barely coping with new and sudden changes. He's carried him freshly drained from training, carried him weakened from misinterpreted rejection. Vlad has held his hands, ruffled his hair, coddled, cradled and nurtured. But to his own cognitive memory, as far back as he can go, he himself has never been on the receiving of any embrace. His experience with touch is minimal. The state's systems were unkind to him, its workers and homes even less so. He's spent the vast bulk of his life keeping people as far from him as he can, as a result. It's very strange to him, having anyone voluntarily interact with him, and without ill intent.
For another, Danny has grown since Vlad last saw him. He hasn't had the time to notice the difference, too focused on tiptoeing around a feral youngling halfa to actually notice the halfa himself. Danny no longer strains to reach past his waist. Now, he's just tall enough to rest his forehead over a heart that barely beats. And a sense of regret spawns. Not from him, but from deep within as he nervously returns the hug. He hears quiet chitters and whines as Plasmius deflates in recognition of its own behavior.
Initially bent on being the one to have the final say and give orders, in two years, it never stopped long enough to clue in to the cautious actions and responses Vlad preferred. It had been so wrapped up in recovering a lost piece of its nest that it didn't stop to wonder why the nest was incomplete in the first place. And there were two reasons.
One, Plasmius' very manifestation was ugly and violent. It had come screaming out of the ether, claws and fangs out and tearing at the very fabric of Vlad's mind for a place of its own. Thrashing about like a child without discipline and thoroughly uninterested in sharing a space with that which it spawned from. All it has ever done is fight and argue.
A beast of seething anger and denial with a mind of its own is a monster that most could never hope to control. Had things played out any differently, Plasmius would've been an outright danger to the boy.
Two, out of fear of causing mental and emotional anguish, Vlad resisted filing for custody.
Running him through the legal process would have forced Danny to choose between someone he barely knew at the time and flawed parents he's known all his life. Comfort with a stranger or agony with a familiar. It would have put Danny in the spotlight and put him through utter hell. No matter the decision, no matter which way he might have chosen, in that set up, someone would have been hurt. Danny is already far too delicate, and the very idea that he'd be forced to make a decision and then live with the knowledge that someone would be broken by it, well... Whatever the amount of pain caused, Danny's own would easily double. Vlad relinquished control and sent him home because he didn't want to put him in that kind of position. It even charred his heart further, having to remove Danny from an environment in which he thrived and send him back to a parental wreckage, all because the alternative path would have been far worse.
If it had come down to it, and something had happened that would have made it absolutely necessary, then, and only then, would he have taken such measures.
What would, what could and what should or shouldn't be...Vlad saw the lines in the sand and did not move. Plasmius didn't, and Vlad has spent two years holding it back by the eternal chain that binds them.
There's a quiet little rumble inside. Of defeat. Slouching low and pouting.
"You're warm," is mumbled into his sternum.
Vlad laughs. "Considering my core runs at one thousand degrees these days, I should certainly hope so."
"Mm."
Something shifts and wraps around the older halfa's thighs. It confuses him and he stops focusing on sharing his energy.
"What the..." He manages a glance down at his side. It takes him a moment to process what he sees. The grip is tightened, along with the boy's arms as he's set on keeping as close as possible.
"Daniel," he calls softly, "when did you get a tail?"
The teenager stiffens in his hold and his tail unwraps itself. He pulls away, putting a few feet between them and clutching the appendage in his hands with visible discomfort. Self-conscious? Or afraid? It's difficult to decide if it's one or the other. Danny fidgets a bit, fussing his fingers about the black flesh in a nervous response.
"Last year," he answers. He releases his grasp and starts wringing his fingers, while his tail wraps around his left wrist. Another reflex.
"I'm not judging, I promise. But," he leans forward a little, glancing down at the accessory before looking back up to its owner, "may I have a look?"
Danny is mortified. He's spent so much time and effort keeping it from view and out of the way that he never thought about Vlad finding out. It's not that he doesn't trust Vlad. Logically, he knows, the man was bound to find out at some point, anyway. But ever since he got his tail, he's been having a hard time.
The youth digs down for that brave face everyone says is needed once in a while. He looks up at the other halfa...and just can't do it. Instead, his tail disappears, turning invisible, and he looks away.
A tiny voice inside kicks up a fuss. 'Talk to him.'
Danny gulps.
"Jazz stares at it," he nearly whispers, "and at me. A lot. I feel like I'm some sort of exhibit at the zoo," his voice rises just a little, "I like having it. I can always tell what the temp is outside. And how humid it is. It's pretty strong, too. It's useful. I guess. Jazz just doesn't know what to do with it."
Jasmine still hasn't fully adjusted to him having such an anatomical change, and after a whole year of feeling like he's on display, he doubts she ever will. He started tucking it in at home to keep his parents from finding out, but now he keeps it hidden because her eyes are always on it. And on him. Sam and Tucker don't seem to be bothered by it. They make the odd joke or two here and there, but mostly don't pay it any mind. Like seeing someone wearing glasses. It's become normal to them. While that's a pretty hefty consolation, the discomfort from being the exotic center of attention seems to outweigh the ease he feels when he's with his friends. No one else even knows he has a tail. He's already aware of the freak of nature that he is. His own sister, however unintentionally, reminds him of it whenever he forgets himself, just as he's forgotten himself here.
He likes his other form. He like his tail. He likes what he sees in his reflections. Yet, for some reason...
Between the two of them, it's Plasmius that picks up on it, first.
"Take off the ring.''
Vlad blinks. 'What?'
''The ring, idiot. Take it off,'' Plasmius snarls.
The halfa looks down at the black metal band around his thumb.
'I don't see how-"
"-Think. When was the last time this-self looked in the mirror or went outside without the ring on?"
He's kept the ring on because it allows him to be seen in public. He can go out without drawing attention. Get fresh air. Go to a store. See a movie, if he so chose. All things that he does still do, however rare, even in his reclusiveness. And though he's loathe to admit it, there's just a pinch of not fully accepting his form mixed in there, as well. Concealment magic is a wonderful thing and it allows him to appear human at all times. But it's an option, he realizes, that Danny doesn't have. The youngling has had to traipse through his world looking as human as he possibly can while being constantly aware that one false move will give him away.
Perhaps, revealing that he's also hiding a significant change may garner favor. And possibly foster some sense of unity. He doesn't even realize he's removing the ring until he's already looking at it on the table, glinting in the kitchen light.
The atmosphere of the room changes.
The rattling anxiety is gone. Where it was once a warbling array of blue negativity and turquoise insecurity, fascination and curiosity colored in golds and and pinks bombards him. Danny's cyan irises are alight to match and the tight clutch of invisibility on his wrist is lost, allowing his tail to be seen as it releases from a scrawny wrist to wag behind him like an overzealous retriever.
"Be careful, they're very sharp."
-
Danny finds that, the question, "May I look?" turns out to be incomplete. "May I look?" actually means "Can you please sit on the kitchen table while I poke and prod and study because this is the most fascinating thing ever!"
Vlad is gentle with his touch. Resurrecting the softness he'd used to dredge Danny back up into the waking world two years ago, he's careful to not apply too much pressure with his hands. Danny restrains his whines of boredom in favor of just letting Vlad's inner scientist come out.
And, fair is fair.
Vlad let him touch and fuss and fawn over his horns for a good half hour. Feeling the hardened bone and accidentally pricking a thumb on the end of one, marveling at how they jutted out from his skull, wondering about the added weight, asking if they affected his sleep at night. Even asking what would happen if one were cracked or broken. It was only right to plop himself on the kitchen table in return and allow his tail to be fidgeted with.
But where as Vlad's horns are largely without nerves or blood flow, thus lacking significant sensation, Danny's tail is practically one very long, very exposed nerve. A slight touch in certain spots makes it twitch in a random direction, to varying degrees. Like a cat. The flesh, as black as the boy's left fingers, is soft. Just as human skin. Perfectly smooth, without a single blemish. Pressing with his fingers alerts him to bone. Several bones. Small bones. He can barely find where one piece ends and another begins.
'I want an X-Ray.'
"You said you have a decent amount of strength with this?" Because he can't feel much within the structure apart from bone. And he wants to feel the spines next. Really, he wants to know as much as possible.
Danny jerks a little at a prod, "Yeah, why?"
"How much strength?"
Another poke makes Danny's spine tingle in an awkward way. Vlad watches as the tail pulls free from his grasp and slowly wraps itself around both of his wrists. The show of dexterity is so mesmerizing that it's all he can focus on. Until his whole body is yanked forward, onto the table, arms pulled taught in front of him, and he's laying on his chest next to the youth and the edge of the table is digging painfully into his hips. It stuns him enough that he looks up at the teen.
Danny glares down at him, "plenty," and his tail unfurls from the other's wrists. Its a small show of strength. Truth be told, Danny hasn't really desired to find out what his limits are. He finds out as he goes, just what he can do with such an appendage, but has yet to really put it to the test. But he gets the feeling that he could probably drag Vlad by his wrists down a road without breaking a sweat, because that little exertion felt like nothing. Something he makes a note of for later. Who knows if he'll need it.
"Well," Vlad stands and straightens himself out, "that is certainly..."
'Not what I was expecting.'
"Not what I was expecting."
The article flicks lightly against the table's surface, tapping audibly. Almost rhythmically. Even though the younger halfa is doing his best to not appear agitated, Vlad is not stupid. Vlad has a cat. He's seen this type of lashing before. But, like any cat owner, there are moments of apparent chosen Darwinism. Vlad sits back down behind him, and Danny reluctantly curls his tail backward, giving it back up for observation.
Without touching, "You mentioned you can detect the temperature, as well? How accurate?"
Danny gives a tiny smirk that Vlad doesn't see, he's a little proud of himself, "I'm usually on the nose. I do it through the spines. I found out pretty quickly. There was one night that was really bad, and I was under my usual nest. I found out that if I let just the last two spines out, I can cool off and keep cool, no matter how hot it is under the blankets."
"Really, now?" Vlad cradles that section of tail in his palm, "That's certainly more useful than cooking off my own blood alcohol content."
He moves his hand further up to just under the first pair, "what about the other two?"
The youth shrugs. "Unless it's cramped up, nothing. Honestly, sometimes, it's like I can't feel the first set."
That makes Vlad raise a brow. He gently presses against the appendage in different spots. Where the end of it would jerk and twitch constantly, this far up the spine, it almost seems dead. Danny doesn't even fuss at the contact. It's almost as though he doesn't notice. Which Vlad finds mildly concerning.
"There's definitely a lack of response, but if the nerves were really pinched off or damaged, you wouldn't feel anything anywhere else, either. So, clearly, something is working."
Danny gives a half hearted nod. The logic seems sound.
"It's possible the nerves need a different type of stimulation. May I try something?"
The boy looks back at him, "Sure. Don't feel much that high up, anyway."
Vlad nods and starts working his fingers over the surface of the appendage slowly. He's trying to work the thin layer of muscles that he knows are there. By moving them around, even manually, he's hoping to trigger something. Anything. Any reaction at all. Danny sits in a calm silence.
Nothing happens, so he variates the pressure applied. Even presses harder. But, to no avail.
''This doesn't make any sense. You move it, which implies sensation, yet you have none. Hm.''
Danny lets him think aloud. He's never tried to do much with his tail. Once he was stuck with it, he never devoted much time to studying it. He's been too busy trying to keep it hidden at home and too fixated on choosing what clothes would hide it best or how tight he could tolerate it wrapped around his leg before his toes started to tingle. Learning exactly how his tail works fell pretty low on the list of priorities, as a result.
Suddenly, a jolt catches his attention and his spine straightens.
''You felt that. Good."
Danny twists around to look, ''What was that?!''
Another small charge snaps him about face, his spine practically as straight as a rod. HIs tail doesn't lash or twitch, but Vlad considers it a decent reaction.
''That was a moderate charge. I'm trying to stimulate your nerves electrically. I don't have the propper stim equipment on hand, and the TENS unit doesn't emit this high of a charge. So I'm doing it myself. I'm not thrilled that it's taking this much, but at least it's working.''
A third jolt comes, a little higher, by an inch at most. It frizzles its way up into Danny's spine, and...
'Oh,' the teen thinks, 'That's different.'
''Just tell me if it starts to hurt, alright?''
''...okay."
Vlad makes his way up, little by little. By increments of half an inch. The charges work their way along the same path as the third one had. Weaving through the same network of nerves. It doesn't hurt, at all. Far from it. The closer they get, the more concentrated they seem. The more he feels.
Three inches from human vertebrae and their path twists downard. As if a pressure point, pure concentrated energy stimulates...a little too well.
...a little too...nicely.
It actually feels...
Vlad is alerted by a full body tremor and Danny suddenly slapping a hand over his own mouth to keep quiet.
''If this hurts, just say so, and I'll stop.''
Danny shakes his head. His skin colors a faint pink that is quickly reddening. Vlad doesn't notice.
''Alright, then.''
Another jolt half an inch up has Danny biting down on his tongue, his palm glued to his mouth.
That one felt really good. It really did feel like some sort pressure point was being triggered. In a good way. So good that he realizes he's developing a rather significant problem.
He feels warm hands shift a smidgen further, feels them move along his skin as if it were an arm or a leg, clear and precise. He can pinpoint exactly where along his extended spine those hands sit, and makes a decision.
Just when he senses a fresh buildup of energy approaching,
''SHOW AND TELL'S OVER!'' and he bolts from the table, out of the kitchen, and runs up the stairs.
Leaving Vlad at the table in a confused silence.
''What did I do?''
"Just how dense are you?"
"What?"
"...nevermind."
- 39
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