Stone by Stone

Obsession is a horrible thing when it's all you have left. One sided Vlad/Danny inspired by the song Stein um Stein by Rammstein.

Warnings for disturbing themes.

The first thing Danny noticed upon waking was the monster sized headache making itself known. Opening his eyes just barely, the light assaulted his pupils and merely moving made him want to vomit, not that he could with how heavy his body felt at the moment. He could hear a faint scraping noise and the sound of heavy-ish objects clinking together. The noise didn't make his headache feel any better.

He closed his eyes from the light and groaned softly before forcing them wide open. They adjusted slowly and he could feel the bile in back of his throat wanting to come up.

He quickly tamped that down and focused. The first thing he saw was a cement floor, but not far from where he was there was fresh green grass and a small stone wall that looked still wet with fresh mortar.

"Ah! You've awaken!" A cheerful voice called out. There was something familiar about it but his brain just refused to place where it was from. His vision blurred and he couldn't help as the bile really did come up, filling the air next to him with an acrid smell and unsightly yellow splatter on the gray ground.

"Ugh... Well I suppose giving you that injection on an empty stomach wasn't the best idea I've ever had. Should have waited until you ate lunch. Oh well. I'll feed you soon anyways. Just as soon as I have a few more inches finished!" The voice gleefully said and the scraping and clinking picked back up with fervor

"Wh... Wh..." Danny tried to form words but his tongue felt too large for his mouth. The voice had ignored him and Danny turned inwards, trying to remember what the hell could have happened.

He had woken up at a little before 11 a.m. It was too late for breakfast but Danny wanted to wait until lunch to eat to stay on schedule. He had brushed his teeth and combed his hair before getting dressed and picking up his backpack.

He was in college. He was going to get a degree on Paranormal Science and Research with a minor in Literary Arts. He wanted to become a horror writer and travel the world writing out the ghosts he met. He had been thinking about transferring to Arizona where a budding new research group was looking for students to assist.

He had left his apartment and was contemplating getting some coffee and hoping that that cute barista was working today... It just all went fuzzy...

The voice was now humming and singing softly in some sort of language he didn't understand. Esperanto and English were the extent of Danny dearest's vocabulary and even then English still sometimes had him grasping at straws. Why couldn't everything be simpler like Esperanto?

Either way, Danny pulled himself out of his sleepy thoughts and focused. Perhaps his Esperanto could help him. Words often sounded a lot like one another anyways right?

"...Pläne." Okay that sounded a lot like "plane". Or maybe it was "plan"?

"Ich..." With how often it repeated it must be a possessive... Perhaps "I"…

"...Haus." That one was easy; "house".

"... Stein..." Like Frankenstein? Ugh all of this was making Danny's head hurt.

He groaned and tried his tongue again, "Knock it off..." He mumbled, sounding more like "Nerf if oof" The singing stopped and a blurry spot of gray, pale peach, and splotchy black entered his vision.

"You don't like my singing?"

Danny blinked his eyes and the blurriness started fading away. They soon widened at the familiar face in front of him. Silver hair, dark blue eyes, goatee...

"Vlad?" He mumbled and Vlad grinned.

"Glad you remember me, Daniel. I was starting to worry my anesthetic was a bit too much and made what's left of your brain cells die."

Danny managed a scowl and a middle finger even though now that he tried moving he found out he was laying on his dominant hand and it was fuzzy and numb with painful static prickles coming from a limb falling asleep.

Vlad went about picking up a bucket and Danny turned his head, finally looking around beyond his previous view point. It seemed he was in a circle of cement in the middle of what he supposed was a field. But in the distance he could see Vlad's manor nearby. Like they were in the garden and Vlad had him sprawled out on a future gazebo foundation for shits and giggles.

"Th' hell ya do'n?" Danny asked as Vlad continued with his project. Stone by stone he was laying with mortar up into a thick looking wall. Was this going to be a new firepit? What was the Fruitloop doing?

Vlad paused and gave him a smile, "Why Daniel I'm building a little house of stone of course."

"Ya got a mans'n... What cha need a stone house fer?"

Vlad's eyes suddenly took on a whole new look. One of mania accompanied with a smile that made Danny feel like he had ice slid down his back. "To keep my last precious object safe and sound~"

Danny looked around. There was nothing around that looked very precious. Just miles of grass and trees and if he squinted he could see a fence with a cow behind it but that's it. "Th' cow?" He pointed.

Vlad laughed and shook his head, "No silly Daniel. You'll soon find out anyways. Why don't you go back to sleep, hm?"

Sleep did sound good. It was so warm with the sun beating down. He felt a bit like a cat. And it's not like he could move his legs just yet.

His eyes slowly slipped back closed, no matter how alert he tried to be. He wanted to watch Vlad, see if he was up to something. After all he hadn't seen the man in a few years... He looked... off from how he once was...

Sleep took him over though and by the time he woke up again he felt a chill making him think the sun had set. He felt odd. He was no longer weighted down by whatever drug Vlad pumped him full of and he was more alert.

Vlad was singing again and Danny had noticed he was now nearly encased in a dome made out of large rocks. His head darted to Vlad who was standing above him.

He swallowed and realized just how strange Vlad looked now. He was still tall and muscular for a man his age, but he looked thinner from the last time Danny saw him at Christmas when he announced his acceptance into college out of state. His teeth and eyes struck the most out of Danny. Bluish-Purple eyes that calmly surveyed everything with a mild disdain or calculatory stare now only looked down at the young adult with a sort of worship-like madness. The sort of eyes Danny envisioned the cultists in H.P. Lovecraft's novels would look upon Shub-Niggurath or Cthulhu. And his teeth... his teeth had taken on a Joker's smile, his canines having become like his Plasmius counterpart.

"V-Vlad?" Danny backed up slightly, his back hitting a soft mattress and metal bedframe as Vlad kneeled over him.

Bloody and blistered fingers with the nails chipped roughly from stacking and moving rocks without gloves reached up and stroked Danny's face. "My most precious thing. No one will take you from me again..." He cooed.

Danny wrenched away and there was a small clatter as he realized he was chained at the ankle to the center of the cement foundation. With no small amount of horror he recognized the design as an offshoot of the Plasmius Maximus device.

Trying to "Go Ghost" anyway Danny was electrocuted from the anklet and he was left on the ground, panting heavily and twitching in pain.

Vlad got down to his knees and loomed over Danny, boxing him in, not that Danny could move from having his powers drained like that. "Mit den Füßen im Zement~ Verschönerst du das Fundament~ (1)" He leaned down and nuzzled against Danny's throat, "Soon there will be a garden outside your house... Oh it will look so pretty just like you." He lifted his head and kissed Danny on the lips, a lock of hair falling from his ponytail into his psychotic eyes.

Danny weakly pushed at him and managed to get him to stop, "You can't... won't get away with this..." He glared.

"Oh but you see... no one will be able to hear you scream." Vlad beamed and stood up, wobbling as though his head was too heavy for his body, "Please see it my way Daniel. This way I'll never be that lonely man in need of a cat! Nobody will be able to steal you away from me like Death did to my parents, how Jack took my precious Maddie, how I was banished from even Earth itself before coming back, and now... I'm not letting anyone steal you away from me ever again!"

Danny gaped in horror, "You're insane..."

Vlad smiled, "Perhaps I am. Though if this madness was inherited or bred I do not know, dear Daniel." He picked up a tray of food that Danny just now noticed was balanced on a modern sink sticking from the wall next to a toilet. "Eat up my precious Daniel. I got you your favorites!" He set down the tray next to his feet showing a Nasty Burger value meal. Satisfied with his day's work, he turned intangible. With a wave and a drunkard-esque face he promised "I'll be back soon dear Daniel!" before disappearing through the stone.

Outside Vlad looked up at the twinkling twilight sky as Danny started screaming and pounding on the walls inside as soon as he got his strength back.

"Welch ein Klopfen welch ein Hämmern~ (2)" Vlad said amused, looking back at his precious little house holding his most precious thing in the world.

"Stein um Stein mauer ich dich ein

Stein um Stein

Und keiner hört dich schreien~ (3)" He sang merrily as he walked to his manor for bedtime and all was at peace in his heart, knowing his most beloved thing was back in his possession, never to leave him ever again.

(1)

"With your feet in cement
You brighten up the foundation"

(2)

"What a pounding what a hammering"

(3)

"Stone by stone I wall you in
Stone by stone
And nobody will hear you scream"

herzeleid en/ lyrics/ reise_reise/ stein_um_stein