Vlad was just about to call it a night, he had been working hard on his latest evil plot. However, even he knew when to give it a rest, and start to work on it again in the morning with fresh eyes. He had made his way from his lab in the basement up to the master bedroom and just as he was about to crawl into bed he noticed a red light go off, his security, someone had just come on to his property. It was usually nothing to worry about but if it was, well, he knew how to handle it. "It's nearly 11 at night, are the girl scouts working overtime?" he mused to himself and moved to his computer desk to check the security feed, only to see the last thing he expected to see.

Danny Phantom flew right to his front door. Strange, if Daniel was looking for a fight, why would he stop at the door? The boy had a concerned look on his face, like something was troubling him. If he knew what Vlad was planning then that would be cause for the boy to have concern, but how could he possibly know at this point? The boy then sighed and changed form, turning back into regular Danny Fenton. "You can do this" he told himself, sounding like he was trying to psych himself up. "Who am I kidding I can't do this!" Daniel said and turned on his heels about to walk away but stopped himself before turning back around. "You have to, he's the only one, just swallow your pride and . . . " he gently reach his hand out to the door, giving what looked like the tiniest little tap, his knuckles barely touching the door. Vlad didn't hear it, and he doubted he would have even if he had been right on the other side with an ear to the door. "Well he's not home, best to just go home and-ugh you can do this, just get it over with!" he grunted in frustration.

While Vlad was enjoying watching Daniel struggle, he wasn't about to let him decide to leave. "Daniel" he called out and the boy flinched as he heard Vlad's voice and realized there was a speaker above the door. "Vlad! Don't scare me like that!" he snapped. "Scare you? Little Badger you're the one at my doorstep in the middle of the night, I'm assuming with some sort of purpose" Vlad said. Danny's eyes turned neon green as he glared at him, but then he sighed and they faded back to blue. "Can I . . . talk . . . to you?" he asked, his tone soft but also restrained, like it physically hurt him to say those words. Yet Vlad found a smile spreading wide across his face, now dying to know what was going on with Daniel, and why he was 'the only one' who could help. That could mean so many things, so Vlad tried not get his hopes up that Daniel was finally coming to his side to renounce his father and swear his loyalty to him.

"Of course, come in my boy, I'll be with you in a moment" he said pressing a button that unlocked the front door as he turned off the speaker. Quickly getting dressed and going to meet Daniel, he stopped as he noticed the boy was also well dressed. Daniel was wearing three piece suit that looked immaculate, not that he was ever a slob before but it was amazing how much better he looked when he actually took the time to dress nicely. Daniel was looking down to his shoes, which were also nicely polished, though what's the occasion? "So what did you want to talk about?" he asked guiding the boy to the small love seat.

Nope, I can't do this" Danny said with the same frantic energy he had when talking to himself earlier. However Vlad quickly grabbed his wrist. "Daniel, you came all this way, surely it must be something important if you came to me."

"I . . . I need your help, but I'm not helping you hurt people in exchange!" Daniel said, saying the first part so softly it was barely audible, though the second part was loud and clear. Vlad just smiled, Daniel was seventeen now, eighteen in just a few weeks. He was taller, though still only went up to Vlad's chin, his hair was slightly longer and a little shaggier but it suited him, his body seemed a little more toned but other than that not much had changed since he first met the boy at the reunion all those years ago. He still had that fiery look in his eyes whenever he was angry or determined. "I won't ask you to hurt people, but what do you need my help with?" Vlad asked.

"NOTHING!" The boy growled, but then much to Vlad's surprise tears started to roll down his face "everything" he sighed. Despite what Daniel would think of him, Vlad didn't want to see him cry and slowly pulled him into his arms, to his surprise Daniel wrapped his arms around him and let himself be held. "It's my senior year, my grades are slipping, and I'm struggling in fights both with ghosts and with Dash, and tonight Sam . . ." his voice trailed off. Vlad remembered Jack telling him that Daniel and his friend Sam had finally gotten together, Jack even had a ring made for Daniel to give Sam with her name engraved as he had assumed for years that they would get together, though Vlad was sure Maddie had given him the idea.

So something had happened with his girlfriend? Well that was something Vlad could certainly relate to, though Daniel probably didn't want to hear how his wretched father had stolen his mother away from him. "Did she break up with you?" Vlad asked. "No . . . I . . . I broke up with her, though now . . . she doesn't even want to be my friend anymore" Daniel sighed miserably. "Plus she and Tucker started becoming closer friends . . . I don't think they'll become a couple but if they do . . . I don't think they'll want me around them . . . but they're all I have" he sighed. Vlad was happy Danny couldn't see his face as he almost couldn't hide his smirk. If Daniel was losing his friends then he'd be isolated and vulnerable would allow Vlad to swoop in and help him put himself back together, the way Vlad wanted him to be of course.

"Why did you break up with her?" Vlad asked and Daniel didn't respond, after a few more moments Vlad prodded a little more "Daniel?"

"Because I think Hm mhm" Daniel muttered burring his face further in Vlad's chest. Vlad sighed and lifted the boy's head, "what was that?" he asked looking to him. "Because I think . . . I think I'm gay" he said softly, his eyes looking downward. Vlad felt his body freeze, holding Daniel in place. He wasn't sure why that information would affect him, he wanted Maddie, and Daniel was . . . well anyway, why should he care about who he goes around with? Yet for a brief moment Vlad thought about the thing he tried so hard not to think about. He often fantasized about Maddie, yet sometimes, more often then he would admit to himself, her form would change to Daniel's. He imagined being in bed being in bed with Maddie, holding her, kissing her, then she would disappear and Daniel would appear in her place. He tried to tell himself that he was simply mixing up his fantasies, after all if Maddie had chosen him then Daniel would be his son, and young children often climb into their parent's bed . . . but he couldn't picture Daniel as a child. Especially as the years passed he struggled to even imagine Daniel as his son at any age, maybe it's because the boy was getting older and he losing hope of ever having that kind of relationship with him, or maybe it was because their rivalry had become so bitter that he didn't want Daniel anymore. Okay that wasn't true, if it was Vlad would have just vaporized Daniel the moment he set foot on his property. He did WANT Daniel in some way but the thought of raising him or even picturing any younger than his current age made Vlad feel . . . uncomfortable. Sure he still referred to him as a boy but that was because of his childlike naivete and immaturity, in terms of actual age Daniel was a young man.

Vlad hadn't realized that he had been so lost in thought that he hadn't replied to the bomb that Daniel had just dropped. "Look this was a mistake, I'm just going to try and go home and try to convince my parents to move to another state before Sam tells everyone at school on Monday, because I'm sure that's just what Dash needs, more of an excuse to beat me up" he muttered, as worm his way out of Vlad's grip. "No, stay!" Vlad said rather quickly, "it's late, and besides you should know me by now, I've grown quite fond of our little games of cat and mouse, I'll help you, no strings attached, and then when you're ready we'll test what you've learned" Vlad said. "Why should I believe you?" Daniel said.

"Because you came here, I know how desperate you'd have to be to do that" Vlad said.

"Fair point, though if I don't come home my parents will probably ground me because they'll think I spent the night with Sam" he sighed. "Oh don't worry I'll call them and explain the situation, for now, let me show you one of my guest bedrooms" he said. Danny seemed reluctant but followed behind him. Vlad lead him to the room right next to his own, it looked like a regal hotel room, with a large sleigh bed, dresser, desk, vanity. "It's . . . nice" Danny said softly and crawled over to the bed, kicking off his shoes and plopping on top of it, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, not even bothering to throw the comforter over himself. Vlad pulled a spare blanket from the closet and draped it over the young man. Daniel looked very peaceful when he slept like all the fear and frustration he had felt earlier just disappeared.

"Sleep well Little Badger" Vlad smiled "sleep well.

Vlad pulled out his cellphone debating who to call, Jack was an infuriating to talk to but was a lot more gullible. Maddie disliked him due what he pulled in Colorado a few years ago, however she was slowly starting to come around as Vlad claimed not to be interested in her anymore and pretended to apologize, plus even putting all old feelings aside she was much easier to talk to. He finally decided on Maddie and dialed her number. "Vlad, do you have any idea what time it is?" she asked, though given by the sound of her voice she was still awake and alert. "I'm sorry Maddie, but I needed to talk to you about Danny" Vlad said.

"He's at the Back to School Dance with Sam, what did you need to talk about?" She said her tone getting defensive. "About that, he came to my place a little while ago, apparently he and her broke up and he wasn't ready to head home yet" Vlad said. "Oh" Maddie said her voice faltering a bit "do you know what happened? They always seemed so close" she said. "He wouldn't tell me the full story, but he's quite distressed, I offered to let him stay in one of my guest rooms for the night and he's asleep now, but I just wanted to give you an update so you know where he is and I'll make sure he calls you in the morning" he said.

"Oh that's . . . very sweet of you Vlad, thank you" she said now sounding genuinely grateful. "Of course, I'm sure you'd do the same for me if I had children" he said. "Oh uh, of course, I'll talk to you later, we should be getting to bed ourselves" she said, of course the "we" referred to her and Jack. Vlad's voice hadn't changed and still sounded pleasant but his face contorted into a scowl, "of course, good night Maddie.

As Vlad finally pulled himself to bed, he had another dream about Maddie as he twirled her on the dance floor, but as she spun back into him, her hair turned dark and her features had flattened but had become more taut, and her face morphed into Daniel's. "You know you'll have to choose between us, you can't have both" he said. As Vlad blinked he realized Maddie now stood far away from, Daniel then disappeared out of his arms and stood on the opposite end of the room. "Pick one!" Maddie had yelled. Vlad huffed, he knew there were very few things he couldn't get, turning into his ghost form he duplicated himself, one flew towards Maddie and the other towards Daniel, but before he could reach them, they were both gone.

When he woke Vlad would only remember a tiny bit of his dream

Vlad woke up bright an early in the morning and the first thing he did was check on Daniel, who was still sound asleep in the guest bedroom, right where he left him. He had thought to what Daniel had told him, his grades were slipping, and that he was struggling with his ghost powers. It was the perfect way to manipulate his way into Daniel's heart, then perhaps he would see that Vlad wasn't so bad after all. He had said it himself, Vlad the only one who could help, the offer had been there since the first time they had met, Daniel had just been too stubborn to accept until now.

Vlad got breakfast ready and got a bunch of books together for Daniel's benefit and waited for the boy to wake up. It was nearly an hour before Daniel finally made his way down to the dining room, still wearing his now messy and wrinkled suit. "So I didn't just have a weird dream last night, I'm really here" he muttered as he approached the table. "No it seems not, though I still find myself surprised by your actions" Vlad said. "Well you can forget it ever happened, I don't need your help with anything and I'm watching you Plasmius" Daniel said getting defensive, of course coming here had to of been hard on him, and so Vlad wasn't surprised at all by Daniel's repression of what they talked about last night.

"If you say so, Little Badger, and good luck your homosexuality" Vlad said quite sincerely though Danny face turned white as . . . well a ghost. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" he snapped defensively. "Are you sure? Perhaps I misheard you last night when you said that you and Samantha are no longer an item? That you broke up with her because you think you might not be interested in her entire gender" Vlad said. Daniel's eyes flashed neon green again "what do you want in exchange for not telling anyone?" he asked, looking angry, but also scared, was he that worried about it? "Daniel being interested in your own sex is nothing to be ashamed of, I do want to help you, both with your school work and with your ghost powers, but not in exchange for keeping your secret, if you don't remember I did tell you last night I would help you without strings attached" Vlad said.

"There's always strings attached with you, and is that what you broke out the entire library for?" Daniel said as if he just noticed the stacks of book on the other end of the table, they were all on various subjects taught in school everything from English composition to history to biology. "That is hardly the entire library, Daniel, I didn't know exactly what your classes are so I covered the basics" he said. "The basics?! I don't even think my school teaches Philosophical Theories of Ancient Greece" he said browsing through the books but not even cracking the spines on any of them. "Well then we'll just have to set that one aside until you get to college" Vlad said.

"Yeah, college" Danny muttered.

"Are you not thinking of attending?" Vlad asked. "No I am, I just don't know where I want to go or what I want to do, my parents agreed to let me take a year off to work on ghost hunting with them, though they think I've never done it before. I only think they agreed because they already felt the empty nest syndrome when Jazz left for college and don't want to have to deal with both of us gone" he said.

Vlad looked to him, he started to really understood why Daniel had broken down crying that night, between his sexuality, potentially losing his friends, and figuring out college and the rest of his life, just one of those things would be hard to deal with, let alone all three, and that wasn't even counting what Danny went through with his ghost half and having to keep that secret for nearly 4 years now. "Daniel, if you won't except that I'd help you out of the goodness of my heart, how about I make you a deal, let me teach you how to you use your ghost powers and tutor you in all your classes, we can disguise it as you being my assistant, that'll look good on your resume, and in exchange I will not harm you or your family or anyone in Amity Park, nor will I demand that you do so. Of course by the time we're done you will be at your best and we suspect we shall fight, but it's one I will look forward too, if just to see your progress" he said.

The edges of Daniel's mouth twitched into a small smile, despite him looking suspicious and distrusting, which was a fair enough reaction given their history, there was a small part of him that looked relieved. "You really mean it, you won't harm anyone or try warp me into your little evil apprentice?" Danny asked. Vlad smiled again, apprentice yes, but the evil part will come later, though no need to tell Daniel that. "This offer is quite sincere" he assured him.

"Daniel again looked like his brain was at war with itself like it was last night but he finally said "alright you have a deal" and offered up his hand which Vlad was more than happy to take. "Excellent, so what are your classes?" he asked. "Creative writing, pre-calculus, astronomy, government, PE, and art" he said "though I don't need much help in that last one" he said.

"Well the rest of those are some pretty hard classes Daniel" Vlad said. "Well I am a senior now" he muttered. "That is true and you'll be an adult now in what . . . two weeks?" Vlad asked casually though he of course knew Daniel's birthday, but he decided to act like he didn't. "Two weeks and three days, I'm not really looking forward to it" Daniel sighed. "Why not, it's your eighteenth birthday, you should be happy" Vlad said.

"I'll be happy when I don't have to worry about high school anymore" he sighed. "Well once we get started on your lessons, perhaps it won't seem so hard, also you should give your mother a call, I talk to her last night and said I'd have you call her in the morning."

"How considerate" Daniel muttered went into the other room to go call his mother, coming back a few minutes later. "I didn't tell her everything, but I told her that Sam and I broke up, that you offered me a place to sleep, and a job, also my dad wanted to invite you to dinner tonight" Daniel said, the look on his face was clear.

"You'd rather I not go?" Vlad asked innocently.

"Come if you want, I don't care" Daniel said softly, Vlad looked to him, trying to get a sense of how far Daniel's vulnerability went. "Well it would be rude of me not to accept such an invitation. Also when do you want to start work on your training?" Vlad asked. "Maybe tomorrow after school?" Daniel said seemingly uninterested. "You've always been the 'why do today what you can put off until tomorrow' type haven't you" Vlad mused. "You want to start right now? Fine, we can start right now!" Daniel huffed.

"Sounds good, we'll start right now, follow me" he said, happy to see that even with looking at his feet Daniel was following close behind.

"When did you learn to do that?" Vlad asked hoping he wasn't shouting too loud but it was hard to tell with how badly his ears were ringing. His he had spent the entire afternoon training with Daniel and there was plenty of areas where he needed to teach him how to hone his skills, but then Daniel showed off a new ability, something he had dubbed his ghostly wail. True to its name the sound echoed loud throughout the training room, breaking any glass nearby and nearly rupturing Vlad's eardrums.

"It's kind of a long story" Daniel said looking down at his feet again. "Are you going to tell me said story?" Vlad asked, though more concerned that he had never tried to unlock such a power himself, though he had learned a lot in his twenty years, most of that was trial and error, with more errors than Vlad planned to reveal.

"Maybe later, it's getting late" Daniel said. "That is true besides we don't want to keep Jack and Maddie waiting for us to show up for dinner" Vlad chuckled.

"You know it all started when I met Boxlunch, the daughter of-" Daniel started but Vlad cut him off, whether that was the actual beginning of the story or whether he was just trying to stall for time. "Come on Daniel we mustn't be rude by showing up late, we should get ready, there's spare clothes in the dresser of the room you were in last night" Vlad said and lead Daniel back upstairs letting him go back to the room he was staying in to shower and get dressed, while Vlad went to his own room to do the same.

"Do I want to ask why you had spare clothes in my size?" Daniel asked as they met up, he was now dressed in a pair of black slacks and a dark green button up shirt. In truth Vlad did have clothing for both Daniel and Maddie set aside in case they ever joined him, and yes he did take the time to buy new clothes over the years as Daniel got older, but he decided to play it off casually. "It pays to be prepared for when you have guest over" Vlad said.

"Yeah well did any of those gusts ever tell you, your style sucks? You don't have any jeans or T shirts available?" Daniel huffed. "I'm afraid not, but that is a good look for you, do look so much better when you dress formally"

"Gross" Daniel recoiled at the compliment.

Well feel free to bring whatever clothes you want over here, for your convenience" Vlad said and lead Daniel to his car. For a while it seemed the young man didn't have a response to that as they started to head back to his home, that was until Vlad heard him mutter under his breath "whatever you say, Fruitloop."