wow it's been like five years since i updated this guess i'm still not over this dumb cartoon

'This is going to go one of two ways,' thought Danny, fists clenched. He'd been standing by the closed door to Vlad's lab for the past ten minutes, trying to work up the resolve to go in. The biggest obstacle to this goal being, of course, the fact that Vlad was in his lab; and, sure that was sort of the point, but.

"Darn it," seethed Danny. "How am I supposed to face him after that?" He sagged against the wall, equal parts frustrated, confused, angry, and mortified. This was going to go one of two ways: Danny was going to charge into Vlad's lab like a conquering army, and either Vlad was going to try to make him feel witheringly stupid while he explained how Bella's sudden appearance, these weird forays into verse, and his kissing Danny on the mouth were simply integral parts in his brilliant new scheme to force himself into the position of Fenton household patriarch, or.

Or, as Danny was beginning to suspect, he was going to be at just as much of a loss as Danny currently was. Danny honestly couldn't figure out which of the two scenarios he preferred. Things would be so much simpler if this were all just another of Vlad's trademark messed-up plans, but this would be a messed-up plan even by Vlad's standards. And that was completely ignoring the possibility that Vlad actually had some sort of…romantic intention towards Danny because nope, not touching that one with a ten-thousand foot pole, thank you very much.

"Come on, Danny, you can do this. You can do this. You can do this. It's just the fruit loop, what are you freaking out about?"

"You might as well come in, Daniel," came Vlad's voice from inside the lab. "I can hear you talking to yourself out there."

"Uh, right." Red-faced, Danny sucked in a breath and pushed open the door.

…

"I am paying attention." Fic Writer rolled her eyes. "You're starting to repeat yourself. I told you, GW, I want them to have this conversation outside of my influence. Part of it, anyway."

She seemed to have only two expressions, Ghost Writer thought. Sometimes, usually when he was giving her writing advice, her face bore an animated, puzzled interest, open and unselfconscious. Most of the time, though, she looked like a shark smelling blood. A shark that liked to waggle its eyebrows at him a lot. It was deeply unsettling.

"I know that. I do listen when you speak, despite how seriously I doubt that you extend me the same courtesy."

"Rude," said Fic Writer.

"There isn't going to be more slash, is there?" asked Ghost Writer worriedly.

"Right now?" She laughed fondly at his expression. "No," she said, squinting one eye shut and holding out her hands like a director framing a shot, thumb and index fingers forming a little square around Ghost Writer's face. "This is the 'serious conversation' scene, no slash involved. I make no promises about rampant sexual tension," she added, as though it were a perfectly reasonable clarification. "But I can hardly be held responsible for that, right?"

She waggled her eyebrows at him. Ghost Writer felt less than comforted.

…

"So," said Danny awkwardly.

"So," confirmed Vlad. He cleared his throat, clasped his hands behind his back, and made deliberate eye contact with the far corner of the room. "Daniel, I'm afraid I may have to ask you for your help," he said finally.

"My help?" asked Danny, taken aback.

Vlad's face hardened into a grim, unreadable mask. "Unfortunately, yes. I have reason to believe, and you'll probably agree, that my mind has been compromised. It would seem that someone or something has managed to overshadow me, though I have no idea what its purpose might be." When he finally met Danny's eyes, it was with a determined, searching expression. "Unless you have some insight into the, ah, situation in the library?"

"No!" said Danny hurriedly. "No way, dude, I'm just as freaked out about that as you are. I hope. You are freaked out about it, right?"

"Don't be a fool, of course I am," snapped Vlad, and at least that was the grouchy loser billionaire Danny was accustomed to. "Do you honestly think I would…do that if I were in my right mind?"

"As far as I'm concerned, you're never in your right mind," shrugged Danny.

"Your teenage wit is as charming as ever," sneered Vlad.

"Gotta be better than talking to yourself all the time, though, huh?" Danny gave Vlad his best shit-eating grin, remembering half a beat after he spoke that Vlad wasn't actually living alone at the moment. Strangely enough, if Vlad remembered that Bella was staying with him, he didn't mention it, either.

Vlad let out a frustrated noise. "This is not how I would have liked this conversation to progress," he said, raising a hand to knead the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah, well, we haven't exactly had a lot of practice with actually talking to each other," replied Danny. "And, gee, I wonder whose fault that could be."

"That's not fair, I have constantly tried to engage you in polite conversation—"

Danny cut him off. "Vlad, you're literally the only person who thinks that. In reality, where the rest of us live, pretty much everything you've ever said to me has been really, really screwed up."

Scoffing, Vlad jabbed a finger angrily in Danny's direction. "Just because you've been too blind and stubborn to recognize the opportunity I've offered you—"

"Oh, right, your creepy obsession with making me your son. Hey, I wonder what my mom would say if I told her you tried to put your tongue in my mouth."

"You wouldn't dare," growled Vlad.

"Wouldn't I?" said Danny. It took a beat for him to properly register his own words. "Wow, gross, never mind."

As far as Danny was concerned, nobody else ever needed to know about what had happened; hell, he'd be pretty pleased not to know about it. Besides, even if he wanted to tell his mother, he wouldn't even be able to explain how he got to Wisconsin the first place, never mind how he and Vlad had gotten to where they were now.

Danny tried not to think about the way his mother had been acting just before Skulker had taken Bella, the way she looked at him like he was out-of-focus. He didn't want to tell her about it, but he couldn't help the awful feeling that, if he did, she wouldn't really care.

…

"Ugh," said Fic Writer. When this elicited no response from Ghost Writer, she leaned back in her chair and sighed hugely. "Ughhhhhh," she repeated, this time long and drawn-out and dramatic.

Ghost Writer looked at her coolly over the top of his glasses. "Is something wrong?"

"This is taking forever," complained Fic Writer morosely. "Any fic with halfway decent pacing would be able to get through this conversation more quickly than these two can."

"Why don't you write it then?" suggested Ghost Writer.

Scowling, Fic Writer propped her elbow on the edge of the keyboard and her chin on the heel of her hand. "It's no fun if I do everything for them," she said. "Besides, writing the big revelation scene would be cheating. They have to figure it out on their own. It's just so boring in the mean time."

"I don't understand what you expect me to do about that," said Ghost Writer dismissively.

"Entertain me," said Fic Writer, grinning.

"How exactly am I meant to do that?"

"I dunno. Tell me something about yourself?"

"Such as?"

"Geez, making me do all the work here. Were you this stuffy when you were alive?"

Reflexively, Ghost Writer bristled at the question. "I'm not stuffy, I'm literary."

Fic Writer laughed. "Chill out, GW, I'm just teasing you." She pushed her chair into a spin with one foot, looking thoughtful. "What do you remember from when you were alive, though?"

"Not a great deal," said Ghost Writer noncommittally. "What do you remember?"

Fic Writer shrugged a bony shoulder. "Loads. I was alive like a second ago."

"Is that so?" Seeming genuinely interested, Ghost Writer placed a bookmark between the pages of the book he was reading and shut it with a soft little paff of paper. "Do you mind if I ask you a question, then?"

"Shoot," offered Fic Writer, aiming both index fingers at him like a pair of pistols.

"What was your name?"

The question caught Fic Writer off-guard. "Was?" she asked. "That's goofy, GW, it still is, Fic Writer's not my real name."

Ghost Writer spread his hands. "My mistake." He sounded almost sad.

Fic Writer studied him for a long moment, frowning. "This isn't a faerie kind of thing, is it? Like, you don't gain weird power over me if you know my true name or anything?"

"All I would be able to do with your name is address you by it," Ghost Writer assured her.

Brightening, Fic Writer leaned forward in her chair. "Promise?" she asked.

…

"Daniel, please try to take this more seriously."

"I am taking it seriously," snapped Danny, surly. "This is me taking it seriously. I just—do you have any idea who could be strong enough to overshadow you?"He wasn't looking to stroke Vlad's ego, but facts were facts, and the facts said that Plasmius was way too powerful for most ghosts to get under his skin in any sense of the words.

"It's not a terribly long list."

"Well someone managed it," Danny reminded him.

"I'm aware," said Vlad dryly.

Danny shook his head, frustrated. "I don't get it. Why would somebody with that kind of power use it to do, you know, that?"

"Clearly one of us has done something to earn himself a very powerful enemy," said Vlad consideringly. "I can't see much sense in such a personal event being a random attack. Too much about it suggests an intimate knowledge of our relationship."

Danny winced at the choice of words. "Most of the ghosts in the Ghost Zone know we can't stand each other," he said shortly, because he couldn't say I don't want to talk about this anymore, couldn't let the matter drop and go home and pretend nothing was wrong. Something was wrong, something way bigger than this, and it had been wrong, Danny realized, for a very long time.

God, he was an idiot.

…

"All right, I'm gonna trust you on this one, GW." Fic Writer opened her mouth. She shut it again. Her expression collapsed on itself like a rotting house.

…

"God," said Danny. "I'm an idiot."

Vlad raised an eyebrow. "Loathe as I am to argue with that, would you perhaps care to share where this revelation is coming from?"

"Vlad, shut up." Slowly, the cold weight of dread settled itself in the pit of Danny's stomach. "I'm gonna ask you something, and it might sound totally insane, but I need you to bear with me, okay?"

"Go ahead."

Danny scrubbed a hand across his face, glanced sideways. "Have you noticed, uh, have things sort of been…rhyming a lot lately?"

Vlad swore.

…

Fic Writer sucked in a sharp breath and held it. She did not let it out again.

"I don't remember," she said.