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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
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- 43
Allowing his mind to run wild in the heat of arousal, while extremely pleasurable, also has the upside of forcing Danny to face reality.
He's drawn to Vlad. Almost irresistibly so. He wants Vlad to stay. He wants Vlad in the picture for as long as existence will allow. Logically, he knows he's a bit young to be thinking so far ahead. But putting Frostbite's words up for reanalysis drags his mind out of the gutter, and himself out of bed on several nights to wander the town in thought. Just like tonight.
As he pushes the blankets aside and pulls on the star-printed hoodie he's slowly been growing into, he quietly descends the stairs with his steps nearly a series of whispers and phases through the front door. Snow and blessed cold greet him the moment he's outside. Both welcoming, both almost silent. The pavement is just as frigid and wet beneath bare feet as the first inch of dust slowly begins to accumulate. He barely makes a sound turning down the walk. A desirable lack of effect, since it's after midnight.
It's a lot to come to terms with, knowing he wants someone to be there indefinitely. Danny's eyes peer out into the dark, glowing in a strange blend of cyan and green. He examines everything around him as he walks. The buildings and signs, the park benches and manicured grass, the roads and sidewalks. Listening to the world offers a car engine here and there, some late night chatter and pets running around in the dawning of their witching hour.
...it'll all be gone, one day. No more shops and corner stores, the benches will fall apart and decay, the grass will grow wild, trees will engulf everything he can lay his eyes on. He knows it really only takes about five years for nature to move back in to where man once was. It'll be decades before that happens, of course. Maybe even centuries. Humans linger where they like for eons. The city will continue to grow over time. But only until there's no more need. Real estate will run out. Facades of brick and concrete will crumble. Water will dry up. Land will crack and shed into the wind.
Danny's heart flutters and he stares as the world around him just seems to rapidly wither away. Everything falls over, turning to dust and dirt and blowing away. Even the animals are stripped from the earth with horrific screams, petrified to bone and erasing from the land.
When he finally blinks, it's dark out. The street lights loom over him, and the pavement is solid beneath his feet. An overwhelming sense of loneliness washes over him. Grips him by his core and it doesn't want to let go. He longs for consistency. For things to never change. Just as one spends their formative years near a place they visit every day and it always stays the same, until they have to leave for a while. And when they come back and find everything has changed? That's the feeling he wants to avoid. But, the irony is that change is the only thing that can be relied upon. The fact that everything will change and shift and never be the same way twice, is the only consistency that's granted to humans.
Danny lives a thousand years in a minute.
And it isn't the first time.
The visions variate each time, but the end result is always the same. Nothing remains. Be it flooded with water, frozen over or dry as a desert, no life lingers, and he's alone. It's all driven by his anxiety. His own mind. Deep down, Danny knows this. He knows he's letting his mind run rampant. But it forces him to acknowledge that he's not a lone wolf. As much as he would like to play the tough guy routine, he knows better, and he isn't qualified. He doesn't want to be alone. Having been home for two years now, surrounded by family and friends and questionable classmates, difficult teachers that might supposedly mean well, he's never been more alone before. Because he can no longer relate. To any of them.
The coma, the accident, his injuries, those are relatable. There's support groups and therapy for those. His very existence, however, which is locked in place and will outlast time itself...
''You and I are unique. There are no other beings like us. This condition, Daniel, is permanent. Under normal circumstances, ghosts do eventually fade. But...''
''We're not normal.''
"...no."
Danny slowly makes his way through the streets, really just walking in one large circle, repeating those words in his head. Over, and over, and over again.
He stirs his thoughts around in a toxic soup of anxiety and dread for a few days, becoming silent and unresponsive. Thoroughly uninterested in the world around him. However, he makes sure to eat. Partially because he knows he needs the nutrients and has a habit of falling off his feed rather hard, but predominantly because he doesn't want anyone else to know that something is wrong with him. They wouldn't understand it. They wouldn't be able grasp his situation. The comforts humans give at the bitter end of the day only extend up to death. Nothing beyond death can be offered. There are promises of various heavens and paradise, but Danny has always felt that such promises are made for the singular purpose of easing the last hours. And since he'll never experience that final moment so many have both dreaded and welcomed, what is he supposed to tell himself?
"Accept it and move on?" It's what comes to mind first, and he absolutely fucking hates it.
"Life is full of disappointments?" No shit, Sherlock.
"That's the way the cookie crumbles?" Danny has the urge to punch someone.
It's an ugly crisis to have, and Vlad had warned him it was coming. Danny just didn't think it would hit him so early.
-
It all comes to a head the day before his birthday. He hadn't really been paying attention to the calendar in his dismal stupor, but he knew he had a birthday coming. Even so, the knock on the door confuses him, not expecting any visitors. Sam and Tucker have planned a day for him that will get him and his brooding out of the house. He doesn't really want to go, but his hyper-awareness of the clock ticking away tells him he should. Make the memories now, while he still can. The grey cloud over his head darkens a little more. Thinking it to be them, he reaches for the doorknob.
He opens the door to find Vlad on the other side of it, holding two items wrapped in a simple paper.
Danny blinks at the sight. Once, twice, thrice...
"Oh yeah. Seventeen. I forgot."
"I didn't," Vlad quips, and passes the gifts to the teen.
Danny takes them with some hesitation, not really ready to face the date just yet. Unsure of himself, he places them on the couch. Vlad enters and gives the space a cursory glance. Low level inspection. It's still in order, though a few picture frames are tilted and the rack of blueprints is only slightly messy. He'll excuse the minor disarray. His eyes then fall on Danny, who is staring at the gifts. He's shedding ugly blue waves of depression and a red streak of anger, here and there.
Otherwise unmoving, and distinctly, rather unnaturally quiet. Not the usual slouch of rejection, the ice core inside burns bright and frigid, Vlad senses that it's much more deeply rooted in the mind.
"Daniel?" he calls softly.
Danny gulps and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Can we go for a walk?"
Vlad tilts his head and a faint chitter echoes in his head.
"I don't see why not, are you alright?"
Something inside of Danny screams, 'Don't. Lie.'
He finally looks to the older halfa, "Not really."
They go outside and slowly meander down the sidewalk, starting on the same path Danny's been using for a while. Vlad stays at his side, silent. They turn a corner and continue with Vlad letting him lead. The elder resists speaking, trying to give the youngling time to find his words. The energy pouring off of the youth is an ugly shade of blue, growing thicker and more smothering. But Vlad tolerates it.
They cross over to a park, quiet and unoccupied. They seem to be the only two people crazy enough to be wandering about outside during a December afternoon in Minnesota. Danny drags a finger against the edge of a bench, casting a thin layer of frost all along the path he traces.
"You're stalling." It slips out before Vlad can stop himself.
But Danny takes it in stride.
"How do you deal with it?"
Vlad's eyes narrow. "Deal with what?"
"The whole 'eternal life/stuck here forever/doomed to watch it all fall down' part of things? I mean, the whole point behind life is it's temporary. Enjoy what you have while you have it. Leave the world better than when you found it. That sort of crap. But what's the point if it goes on forever? What's the point in doing anything or trying for something if there's no end? No deadline? How do you deal with having no point in life?"
'Oh boy.'
"Rather early for this, isn't it?"
'Far too early. I thought I still had a few years.'
Vlad takes a deep breath, weighing his words. He steps closer to the younger halfa, and takes his hand.
"When I consider our state, I am reminded of a story," he leads the teen into a series of steps, with rhythm.
A slight shade of pink crosses Danny's face and the blue waves of depression falter. He looks up at the man.
"Two beings are conversing. One is mortal, the other, eternal. The eternal one has amassed a bounty of knowledge studying the mortal world, and has observed that, despite having all that could ever be required in life, this particular mortal he communes with constantly wants more. And the eternal one simply can't understand it. He demands to know why. Why, what more could such a short-lived being possibly need? What does this apparent insatiable greed lead to? What is the purpose behind it? What is the mortal's purpose? Why does he keep going? Why do any mortals keep going?"
"This is sounding familiar," Danny voices.
"Hush. This is important. The mortal determines, having already figured out his own role in existence, that the eternal is really asking what its own purpose is."
"I know this from somewhere," Danny muses, as he's led into a turn while Vlad holds their hands high.
"The mortal explains that though he knows his time is limited, and that, in time, his name will be lost, he keeps going. To observe as much as he can. But the eternal will never fail. He will stand by, throughout all of time, learning. Watching. Witnessing all the failures and plights of man, all that shall fall, all that shall rise, and change and temper and grow. The eternal questions the mortal if that is truly its purpose, to be nothing more than a witness."
It clicks in Danny's head, however solemnly. "...'We create our own purpose, now go make yours...'"
Vlad nods.
"But... That's not really an answer, though."
"Yes, it is. The actual point of our existence? The reason we are to live this way? Never age? Never whither away to a plume of dust? Never know the feeling of pleading for our lives in that final, heart-wrenching hour? Simply put, there is no point."
The dance he's wound the teen into halts and Danny looks up at him, eyes void of emotion.
"Realistically, our living forever serves no benefit. But, the point of existence and one's purpose in life are two different things. The fact that the eternal will roam the world forever has no reason behind it. No bearing. But what you do with that eternity, that's something else, entirely. Personally, to me, to be a chronicler to all that shall be, to hold and maintain a record of everything, even once there's nothing left, to be able to say that something has indeed happened, to be able to say 'I remember...' That, in its own right, is a gift."
"How..." Danny pauses, "just how is that a gift?"
Vlad smiles. "Nothing is ever truly gone until it is forgotten. It's why we keep the toys we don't play with, anymore. Why we reread books we've outgrown, and why we keep photos on the wall, even after those faces are gone. And my task, I think, is to chronicle two journeys."
Danny gives a confused tilt of his head.
"One is the journey of man itself, in all of its splendor and failure, and the other...is yours."
The younger halfa blinks. "Why me?"
"Well, there are two reasons. One, because if I don't, and you forget, you'll never forgive yourself. If you woke up today, and couldn't remember the names and faces of your friends, but could still remember that they were of great importance to you, how would you feel?"
Danny pulls his hand free and his eyes drift away. It's a hell of a question to be asked, and a situation he would've never imagined himself enduring. Because it would be torture. To know that he should know something, and know that that something is so important, but he just can't remember? No matter how much he wanted to? No matter how much he pleaded for the memory to come back and pulled at his hair and beat his head into the nearest hard surface? And he can picture himself doing just that, calling out to the world for the answers he's lost and not getting them, and caving in his own skull over and over on an endless cycle.
"I think I'd break," he answers quietly.
Vlad nods. "Exactly."
"What's the other reason?"
"Your sister might respawn from the ether and come after me."
Danny thinks about it, "Yeah, I guess that's a good reason."
Vlad chuckles. "Do you feel better, now?"
The youth shrugs. "I guess? I don't know. It all still seems like one big load of shit."
Vlad winces at the crass language, "You'll understand, eventually. In time, you'll also decide what you wish to do with your eternity. Now, can we please go back? I may have a fire core, but my skin is still capable of becoming frostbitten."
Danny gives a slight nod and they start back towards his house.
"So... Does this mean you're not going to leave?"
"Daniel, even if i wanted to, where would I go?"
"Well, they say Mars is lovely at this time of year."
It pulls a laugh out of the man, one that, Danny finds, calms his heart and warms him up inside. Just a little. He packs the sound away in his mind for later use.
"No. I don't intend to leave," Vlad answers, "Did you want me to le-"
"-NO! No! I just...wanted to be sure," Danny makes a point of putting a few steps in ahead of him.
An odd behavior, Vlad thinks, with the awkward movement and the blushing and dodging of questions. It's a simple question, to him. What could possibly warrant such a reaction?
"Okay. This has gone on long enough."
Vlad blinks once in surprise, but before he can voice any confusion, unforgiving talons sink into his shoulders.
"We need to talk."
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Kindred Spirits Complete