Author: loosedefense

Title: Weak

Pairing: Danny/Dash

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is the property of Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon. This story implies nothing about the characters nor does the plot of the story have any effect on the show itself. This story is pure fiction and fantasy.

"A little bit more cover, Tuck!" Danny Phantom yelled down to the other boy as he crouched down on the branch of a tree as an enormous goo-dripping tentacle swung around to hit him. Jumping up, the boy with the white hair sailed upwards instead of plunging down, and hovering in the sky above the head of the practically shapeless blob which was currently snapping its jaws, eyes fixated on him. The tentacle came crashing down heavily, snapping the branch of the tree.

"I'm trying!" Tucker Foley shouted back, looking miniscule in comparison to the ghost. Snapping a twig off the fallen branch, he raised his hand whistling to the ghost. "Here ugly, ugly, ugly," he chanted. "Come here boy." When receiving no response, Tucker tossed the twig at its body, which sunk into the ectoplasm.

"Ew," he said, lip curling. Danny rolled his eyes and reached for the Fenton Thermos, prepared to put the ghost away, when yet another tentacle snuck up on him and slapped him away, causing the Thermos to slip out of his hands. Before it smashed down upon the ground, however, it was caught by a deft pair of hands. Tucker let out a sigh of relief as Sam Manson held it up, a confident smile on her face.

Her confidence was soon shaken though as the beast let out a roar. "Danny!" she called.

Raising himself up to a sitting position, Danny let out a small groan and shook his head to clear it. The roar had woken him up some, and he dashed over to Sam and grabbed the Thermos, uttering a quick thanks, before aiming it as the green ghost and unscrewing the cap. Instantly light poured out and surrounded the ghost and began sucking it into the Thermos. As it let out a last confused roar, the sound minimized as it disappeared into the container, Danny placed the cap back into place before shooting a glare at Tucker.

"I'm really more of a tech guy," the black boy offered meekly.

----------------------------

It was nearly five o'clock when eighteen-year-old Danny Fenton finally arrived at his home after having served the day's detention, grumbling to himself about the unfairness of his Biology lecturer. Sure, he may have fallen asleep in the class, but the man could have at least woken him up before asking the question. Danny was sure that he had asked it simply because he knew the boy would not be able to answer as he had been snoozing. Anything to send me to detention, Danny rolled his eyes.

Getting out of the ratty old red car his parents had bought for him – partly because Jack had fallen in love with it at the second hand store as it had reminded him of the ratty old car he used to drive back when he was in college – Danny gave himself a mental kick in the head for having been so stupid as to fall asleep in class. It didn't happen often, but every once in a while he could be found either hunting ghosts until the early morning to the point where he wouldn't go to sleep even after having finished for fear of sleeping through his alarm and missing school or tossing and turning after a particularly hard day or night trying to get to sleep. The end result was, to say the least, undesirable.

"It was so absolutely …" Danny said under his breath, opening the door and freezing for a moment as he noticed his archrival Vlad Masters, his parents old college mate who had gone on to become a silver-haired billionaire living in Wisconsin, sitting down in the living room chatting away with his parents, a rather forced smile on his face.

"…wonderful," Danny's eyelids drooped.

"Ah, Daniel!" Vlad got to his feet, the three of them having turned to him when the door opened. "How nice to see you again. Though I didn't expect to see you back so … late."

"Yes," Danny's mother Maddie frowned at her son. "What took you so long, Danny?"

"Um …" his parents would kill him if they found out that Danny had gotten detention again. "Sorry, I was hanging out with," he struggled to come up with a name, "Sam."

Not being extremely popular, Danny only had two real friends to fall back on, especially when it came to excuses of being over at one's house. Tucker Foley was, frankly, closer to Danny and the Fentons, and he did not want to run the risk of his parents bringing up the issue with Tucker's and blowing his cover; Sam and her family were not as close to them, and Danny knew that if his parents were to ever ask, they would only ask Sam, who would realize the excuse as soon as she heard it and back it up.

It seemed to satisfy his parents, who nodded and turned back to Vlad. Danny took this as his cue to go upstairs to his room, where he dumped his bag on the chair by his desk and closed his eyes as a thick ring appeared around the center of his body and split into two as each went in a separate direction, changing him into his alter ego of Danny Phantom.

Clenching his fists, ready to fight at any moment, Danny felt himself turn intangible and invisible as he floated down from his room to hover near the ceiling of the living room, where Vlad and his parents were still conversing. He wondered what he was doing here. Vlad didn't visit often; when he did, it usually meant big trouble for Danny, and he wasn't sure if he was ready for whatever catastrophe it was that Vlad wanted his help on. Of course, Danny supposed, it could also be his run-on-the-mill plan to displace Jack as head of the Fenton family, take Maddie for his own, and implore Danny once again to join forces with him.

Vlad let out an easy laugh to what Maddie had said and got up to excuse himself. "I have a little gift for Daniel that I had forgotten to give him when he came in," he explained. "I really ought to do it now before I forget again."

"Alright," Jack said, standing up as well. "I just need to use the little ghostcatcher's room."

Danny slapped a hand to his head in embarrassment.

"Danny's room is upstairs and to the left, Vlad," Maddie smiled, getting up along with Jack. "I'll just go and fetch us more drinks while you're up there."

With that, Danny floated back up to his room and had himself turn corporeal again, waiting to see what Vlad wanted.

It was only a moment before Vlad pushed the door open without knocking, smirking at Danny standing defiantly in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest, in full Phantom gear. "Hello, Daniel."

"What are you doing here, Plasmius?" Danny question, hovering a few inches of the air in attempt to see a bit more intimidating, although it was nothing the other man hadn't seen already, being half-ghost himself.

Vlad waved his hand dismissively. "That just so happens to be the case, Daniel, although I do appreciate the fact that you're starting to be a little bit more suspicious. Good to keep on your toes and all that, what with all those enemies you've made over the years."

Danny rolled his eyes in response.

"I've come to tell you that you have nothing to fear," Vlad continued. "Well, not from me, anyway." He pulled up a black briefcase from the floor, which Danny had somehow missed, holding it up for the ghost boy to see. "I am, unfortunately, giving up my life as a half-ghost."

Danny raised his eyebrow skeptically. "What?"

"Yes," Vlad nodded, setting the briefcase down again.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Danny asked, completely confused.

Vlad let out a small sigh, taking a seat on Danny's bed. Danny tensed up again, expect him to pull some sort of surprise move.

"Oh, would you just relax?" Vlad asked in an annoyed tone. "I already told you that you have nothing to fear, Daniel, and I am a man of my word."

"Oh, yeah, right," Daniel snorted. "Like I believe that."

"It's true," Vlad said. "I may find occasional … loopholes to work through, but I assure you, I can think of no way to work around this statement without completely going against it."

Deciding to give Vlad the benefit of the doubt for the moment, partly because he was afraid he wouldn't elaborate on what he meant about giving up his life as a ghost unless he changed back to his human self, Danny decided to transform. Yet, he was not about to put his guard down.

"I don't suppose you've heard of heart murmurs, have you?" Vlad asked. Danny shook his head mutely. "No, I didn't expect so."

Vlad looked toward the door, getting up to quickly lock it before getting back to his position on Danny's bed.

"A few months ago, I had gone for a doctor's appointment," he explained. "A routine medical checkup, after all, at this age, we ought to start taking better care of ourselves … not like your bloated father," Danny heard him mutter the last part, but decided to let it slide. "The doctor that inspected me had heard an 'abnormal sound' when he was using his stethoscope. After some testing, he diagnosed it as a heart murmur. He told me that it could eventually lead to heart failure, although they're still inspecting that further." Danny had to admit he was impressed at how steady Vlad's voice and straight his posture was throughout the story.

"In any case, they will require that I undergo constant medical attention," Vlad continued. "I cannot risk exposing my ghost half, not unless I want to spend the remainder of my days as a laboratory experiment.

"And," he sighed, dropping his head for the first time during the entire story, "It allowed me to truly consider my life and what to do with it now that I may be on a clock, and if this is inevitable, Daniel, and it will be, regardless of whether or not the heart murmurs pose a threat – I do not want to spend the rest of my life switching back and forth between these two entities anymore. Bad enough I have to spend all this time going to and from the hospital, watching others trying to determine whether or not I will live past a handful of years."

Danny stood there, stunned. It took a moment before he was able to open his mouth and speak. "Um, so that's what you're doing here?" he rasped out, and cringed slightly at how he sounded. "To say goodbye to my parents … and me?"

"Oh, not just yet, no," Vlad let out a humorless little laugh. "I would rather wait until the results are more conclusive before worrying anyone else just yet. But I did come here to see you."

Once again, he raised the briefcase, and set it on the bed and unlocked it. Danny peered inside, curious, and found a long rectangular object lying inside with a lone green button on the top. Vlad grasped it and pulled it out.

"It follows, I suppose, the same mechanics as that little thermos you use to capture the ghosts you come across during your huntings," Vlad explained. "Once I had exorcised the ghost half out of my body using a device not unlike the Dreamcatcher device your parents built for spirits, I trapped it in this."

He thrust the hand holding the contraption out to Danny, who involuntarily took a step back. "You are the only person I can trust with it." Vlad said. "I would have no ghost touch it, as it would only serve to increase their power. You know the importance of such a thing, and as you oppose ghosts regularly, I can think of no safer guardian."

Danny stared at Vlad, unsure what to say, but slowly reached out and took the object. Looking down at it, it was strange to believe that it contained a ghost in it, let alone the spirit of the only man who was alike to him. It was the thing that made the man alike to him. Danny could not believe that Vlad was ending his life as a ghost and his nemesis in turn.

"Well, I suppose that's it." Vlad said. Nodding at Danny, he headed for the door. Danny, realizing he was leaving, went with him. Opening it and stepping outside, Vlad turned back to Danny and fixed him with a level stare. "I should also tell you," he said to the teenager quietly, "it felt only appropriate to finally surrender my half to you."

Danny mulled over the words as Vlad closed the door softly, gripping and gently squeezing the box in his hand. Though it sounded as a normal statement, Danny had not faced Vlad Masters for four years to not realize a compliment from him when he received one.