Hey so I'm not dead? But after this, Danny might be, because I realize that I posted Dissipation last year so apparently surelysilly inspires me to write a certain kind of thing.

Body horror / gore warnings.

Title because of Flaws by Bastille

Undone

February 16, 2017

for surelysilly

Vlad returns to his Amity Park mansion with a rush through the fabric of space-time and a soft pop. The smooth white marble of his grand entryway and the familiar balcony-to-floor drapings of green and gold always make him feel at ease with himself and the place he has made in the world.

He sighs and settles into his skin once more, transforming back to his human counterpart in a flash of black that makes the shadowy crevices of the carved columns lining the hall grow.

He begins making his way to the living room, with thoughts of sitting in front of the crackling fireplace with a glass of the very fine wine one of his business associates in France had shipped to him a few weeks before.

His footsteps echo loudly on the polished stone floor until he reaches the carpeted room. With a careless snap of his fingers to his left, the fireplace roars to life, dancing with bright pink-yellow flames that illuminate nearly half the room.

It isn't until he has nearly crossed to the tea cart—filled with glass and crystal bottles filled with various kinds of spirits—that something prickles on the back of his neck. He pauses— sure that none of his security systems had been set off while he was away. And he hadn't sensed any ghostly presences on this floor when he returned, either, but he is quite sure that he is not alone in this room.

And woe to any creature that dares to trespass here. He will teach whoever it is a lesson they will not soon forget—should they remain in one piece long enough to make good on their escape.

All at once, Vlad turns with a snarl on his lips, tendrils of deep magenta flame rising from his palm in a brilliant display of light and power as he faces the intruder idiotic enough to break into his home.

Just as quickly, he stops, and the flames lick at his fingertips as he stares in silence at the figure seated in one of his inordinately tall, high-backed chairs.

"What -" he says as if he does not understand what he is seeing. "Daniel?" he asks incredulously, not sure how to react to the sudden appearance of his young rival in his otherwise deserted living room and at a complete loss to understand how he got there without his knowing.

"How did you—" he sputters, then demands, "What are you doing in my house?"

"I'm not here to fight," Danny says softly, and certainly makes no movements to suggest otherwise. There's a soft glow of fingertips, but, although the firelight catches the boy's eyes, they do not shine vibrant green, and he shows no signs of hostility.

Vlad considers the boy in front of him for a long moment then seems to accept the truth of this statement—at least for now. He straightens, and the ghostly flames disappear into nothingness, leaving the two of them in the flickering semi-darkness of his firelight.

"I have something to tell you, Vlad," Danny says.

He quirks an eyebrow in almost-amusement. "Indeed?" he asks scathingly, already bracing himself to bristle at whatever this conversation will become.

"And you're going to listen," Danny continues calmly from his seat on the chair.

Vlad's face immediately falls flat in annoyance but Danny is quick to cut him off before he can so much as say a word. "He didn't mean it," Danny says.

Vlad freezes and stares down at Danny with wide eyes.

"He didn't mean to do it," Danny says again. "My dad," he explains and Vlad scowls. "The accident. You have to know that, right?"

Vlad recovers quickly, pulling himself up to his full commanding height as the weight of his decade-old grievance flashes to the fore of his mind once more.

Perhaps Jack hadn't intended to blast him with the prototype of the portal that day, perhaps he hadn't outright planned to hospitalize his roommate, but the fact still remained that it was only because of his neglect and incompetence and enthusiastic oversight of basic lab safety that Vlad had been caught up in the blast. If it hadn't been for Jack, Vlad never would have hit with ecto-acne, never left to languish alone in that hospital for years, never would have lost so much of his life for nothing, and nothing in the world could change that.

And so he snarls at the boy seated so calm and comfortably in his living room, angry that he has come here—that he has broken into his house—to try to defend this very man to his face.

"You don't know what it's—" he snaps

But Danny huffs a laugh at that. "Vlad," he interrupts, a strange smile quirking his lips. "Vlad, I know exactly what it's like because the same exact thing happened to me."

Something twitches in Vlad's face, but he doesn't respond.

"So yeah, you were stuck in the hospital for a few years," Danny says, "and that must have been awful for you and I'm sorry it happened. But you didn't have to be alone. You've never had to be alone."

Vlad stiffens. "They abandoned me," he hisses, eyes flashing dangerously.

"They didn't abandon you," Danny counters quietly, patiently. "You never wrote back to them. You never let them come see you. It was your pride that kept you from being the best of friends for the past twenty years. They never wanted to stop that. And, heck, my dad still thinks you're best friends. There's nothing you could do to convince him otherwise, even if you tried. Because… you've tried. But any time someone says your name he won't shut up about how awesome you are."

Vlad's eyes narrow as he snarls, "He ruined my-"

"He ruined your life," Danny finishes for him. "Yeah, yeah, got it. Blah, blah, blah."

The boy looks up at him blandly and Vlad is enraged that he would dare mock him in such a manner, mock him with this.

"I know how you made your money, Vlad," Danny says, although his voice doesn't hold as much accusation as Vlad might expect from the boy with the hero complex. "I know that without your ghost powers you would never be a millionaire, billionaire, top five most influential people in the world… whatever you are. Stop saying that he ruined your life when your life is literally better than 99.9999999 percent of the people on the planet."

Vlad stares at him wide-eyed, but then quickly narrows them because, even if that's true— "He still took the one thing from me that I wanted," Vlad grinds out. "He took Maddie from me."

"Dude," Danny suddenly sounds tired. "He didn't take my mom. She was never yours to lose, okay? She loved my dad in college and still loves him now and that will never change. And it wouldn't change even if you found an alternate reality where Dad was the one who got blasted in the lab instead of you, okay? It's not my dad's fault. She doesn't love you. And she made her choice and she's happy so just…" he sighs, "get over it. Stop being such a creep."

Vlad's hands clench and unclench at his sides, briefly lighting up with the deep pink flare of his ghostly powers. "I'm not— I can't just…" he seethes before making a frustrated noise in the back of his throat.

"Yes, you can," Danny counters, his voice somehow understanding despite the underlying edge. "It's not that hard. Just stop trying to kill my dad and flirt with or kidnap my mom, okay? That's all it takes," he says.

Vlad stares at the boy, trying to process what he's saying.

"They never stopped wanting to be your friend. All of this," Danny waves with one hand to Vlad and the too-big room of the too-empty mansion surrounding them. "It's your fault things are this way… your pride and your hatred and your obsession… Just give it a rest and have a nice dinner with them sometimes, like, come on."

Vlad's head jerks slightly and he looks down at Danny strangely. Something, he suddenly realizes, is off about this entire conversation—something isn't right—

"Daniel…" he asks slowly, almost warily, and he quickly extends his senses out to the borders of his house to check for intruders, for some kind of trick or trap. He glances along the empty perimeter of his property, the abandoned studies, even the quiet solitude of his most secret labs, to find nothing. No trace of the two teenagers that always seem so inseparable from him, even. "Why… are you telling me this?"

Danny takes a long slow breath. "Because it's important," he says, eyes shining earnestly.

"Daniel…" Vlad says, worried now as he focuses all of his attention on the boy in front of him. "Why are you telling me now?"

When Danny doesn't answer, Vlad truly looks at him for the first time that evening, concentrating through the flickering firelight to see how awful he truly looks—the deep rings around his eyes which made them appear sunken in their sockets, the clammy pallor of his face, paler even than usual, the way that his elbows jut out too sharply, the slight tremor in his legs, and the soft glow beneath the fingers clutching the arms of the chair that he had originally mistaken for low levels of power when it was really—

Vlad takes a step forward and his voice sharpens as he all but demands, "What's happened?"

Danny sighs, and all of the energy seems to drain out of him.

"I just wanted you to know that he didn't mean it," he says again, and something twists deep in Vlad's core at the finality of his tone.

"… Daniel…?" he asks, and his voice cracks but he cannot seem to bring himself to care about that now.

Danny doesn't reply, but pushes himself up from the chair with what appears to be great effort. There is a wet sucking noise that Vlad does not place until he looks behind him to see the velvet cushion of the dark maroon armchair saturated in a puddle of dark liquid with swirls of faintly glowing green.

The boy takes several steps forward to the now-frozen Vlad, spent tendrils of ectoplasm dripping in his wake and streaks of lime green ruining the priceless carpet beneath his feet. The noises come again with every step and Vlad stares in horror at the green—and more alarmingly, deep deep red— that oozes and stretches and mingles with his every movement.

"He didn't mean it, Vlad," Danny says, sadly, coming to a halt and looking up at Vlad who can't form any words to reply.

He's staring between Daniel and the blood and ectoplasm leaking out of him, hands finally coming up to hover around the boy's arms but don't dare make contact yet as his mind races to figure out what's wrong, what he can do, how he can fix this—

"He didn't mean it," Danny says one more time, and he smiles softly. "He didn't mean any of it." Green flecks his lips and Vlad can't understand why he's just standing there when— and then he's choking up blood, and Vlad can only watch in horror as his eyes flicker and begin to roll into the back of his head.

For just a moment, Danny seems to float in place, and Vlad wonders if he'll hang there, suspended like a puppet on strings. But then he's falling, crumpling in on himself, and Vlad lunges forward to catch him in his outstretched hands before he hits the ground.

There's an awful noise when they make contact, like a water-balloon breaking, and liquid bursts out everywhere, cascading slick green and warm red all over his hands and across the carpet, and Danny slips through the man's fingers like he isn't even there.

Vlad stares at the floor where Danny has landed, and at the ever-expanding puddle of blood beneath him— the streaks of ectoplasm swirling through it like oil and water. And he stares at the broken body of the boy at his feet, empty and— and— because he's lost too much blood— far too much blood and— he can't— can't possibly still be alive— even half alive— but he reaches out a trembling hand anyway and touches it to Danny's arm, cold as ice through the warm liquid, and completely unresponsive.

Vlad snatches back his hand, still covered in the ectoplasm and blood and he stares and he stares at the sight in front of him, barely comprehending the scene and unable to come up with a response. His vision taking on not a red but a white tinge, and for the first time in his life he thinks that his mind has gone horribly, numbingly, blank—