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Vlad enters the Fentonworks with a heavy weight in his chest, bits of yesterday's incident still replaying in his mind like a broken record. It's the first time that he actively doesn't want to be there, nor to see Madeline, and he can't remember being shaken this badly in the past decade. He's barely slept, too disturbed at first and then too in pain after his core has flared up, calling Jack and earning himself an invitation as soon as was socially acceptable.
“V-man!” Jack booms, the orange hazmat suit as much of an eyesore as usual. Vlad dimly notices the ectoplasm hasn't left a stain where it had splashed against Jack's chest and stomach when the core-holding sack burst open like an overripe fruit. “Should've come a bit earlier, Mads has just gone out to get more supplies.”
Vlad knows. He specifically timed his visit so they would not see each other as he cannot predict how he would react if he sees her right now. His core still hurts, the already weakened pull of his Obsession with Madeline snuffed out in one destructive burst; over 20 years of longing gone in a few minutes.
“Indeed?” He drawls as he steps past Jack, taking a glance around. The normalcy of the chaos that is the Fenton's living room is jarring after what he has seen in the lab.
“Yep! Need quite the restocking with everything we've used on that damn spook,” Jack says, leading the way to the kitchen. Vlad follows, taking in the silence of the empty house. With Jasmine gone to college and Maddie away Jack is not quite enough to fill the quiet, despite his best efforts. And Daniel… “Put up quite a fight for someone so freshly dead, we used most of our ghost tranquilizers just to strap him down. You should've seen it, Vladdie!”
“So you've said.”
Vlad knows he should've pushed harder to convince Daniel to move in with him. Without Jasmine, there is no one in the house to run damage control and keep those two in check, to divert their attention when needed. He should've known something like this would happen. Should've done something at least to protect him in his own home.
The footage comes to mind again. The haunting screams of pain they both ignored still ring in his ears, and it is far, far too easy to imagine himself on that table.
‘He can't feel pain, dear, it's just afterlife reflexes,’ Maddie's voice echoes in his head, and whatever affection he's ever felt for her is replaced with repulsion.
‘Mom, please stop.’
He needs to see Daniel.
“Poor Danno got spooked again,” Jack sighs, shaking his head as he picks up the knife again, the half cut potato slowly drying in the air. “Kids are so sensitive these days.”
Vlad eyes the mess on the table. If he had to guess, Jack is trying to cook stew, which is Daniel's favorite. He can't help but feel surprised a bit Jack out of all people remembers, least of all cares enough to make it. “Now that you've said it, where is my favorite godson?”
Jack nods his head in the lab direction, sliding the pieces into the pot with a splash. “In the lab, he's on the cleanup duty. We got, uh, a bit carried away.”
That's one way to put it.
Vlad exits the kitchen and heads down to the lab.
Daniel's duplicate is sitting at the lab door, obviously playing the lookout. He jumps, startled when Vlad turns the corner. They stare at each other for a few seconds.
“Badger,” Vlad greets quietly, voice heavy with regret.
The duplicate swallows hard and looks away, but doesn’t shrug off the comforting hand Vlad places on his shoulder briefly as he steps into the lab.
The scent of burnt ectoplasm and death hits him when he enters, and his stomach roils at the sight. The lab looks like an explosion has gone off, the layer of semi- and fully liquid ectoplasm covering much of the floor and the equipment, the drops glowing faintly on the ceiling as well. It looks like a slaughterhouse.
Vlad hasn't reviewed the footage after the dissection was over, having stopped after Daniel had fled the lab, which was clearly a mistake on his part as he is not prepared for this.
In the midst of the carnage, Daniel and two more duplicates are working valiantly on cleaning up, mops and washcloths flying as they go about trying to collect as much ectoplasm as possible.
Vlad's presence goes ignored, and the tension between them is palpable.
“Watch where you go, moron,” one of them says with poorly suppressed fury as he mops the glowing blood to the drain in the center of the lab. It flows sluggishly, clinging to both the mop and the floor, clogging at the drain before finally going down with a wet gargle.
“I'm one second away from bashing your head in, don't tempt me,” the other one replies in a hollow voice, busy scrubbing the table. The ectoplasm here is charred, almost fused to the metal.
“Both of you shut up,” the main Daniel says with vitriol Vlad has never heard from him before.
Vlad watches the interaction with a disconcerted frown. Duplicates don't have a mind of their own, sharing the mental link with their creator; essentially, they're just an extra pair of arms able to work independently. The duplicates showing this level of aggression to each other speaks loudly to just how much helpless rage Daniel is pointing in the only direction he can direct it to.
The main Daniel, who is mopping the glowing blood off of the floor at the bottom of the stairs, is standing in the exact spot Vlad saw him yesterday when his parents had called him to the lab. Vlad’s been doing his best not to think about it, but here in the lab it’s hard not to remember what he’d seen through the cameras.
Daniel had walked down the stairs, taking a few steps towards the operating table before freezing in place when he realized what was happening. The audio barely picked up the whispered, “Mom, please stop.”
Maddie, elbows deep in the ghost's chest cavity, had glanced up from the lab table, noticing that Daniel was shaking and his fists were clenched.
“Oh, sweetie! It’s okay, it's just a ghost!” she’d said, having mistaken Daniel's rage for fear.
Jack at her side had nodded, marking down the full jar before putting it on the table to join the others. “Come closer to get a better look, Danno!”
The mostly dissected ghost twitched in his direction in sudden recognition.
“Ph-” he’d tried to say, ectoplasm gurgling up and dripping down his chin. “Pha-”
Daniel had turned and fled in a rare but well-timed fit of self-preservation. Vlad, relieved and nauseous, did the same when he cut the feed off.
Back in the present moment, Vlad watches the white knuckled grip Daniel has on the mop, and the blank, faraway look in his eyes.
Vlad opens his mouth, then closes it. Saying ‘it could have been you on that table’ out loud feels both too raw and crass, with the ghost's remains still strewn about around them.
Daniel beats him to it.
“Do you think I could stay at your place for a while,” he not quite asks, not making eye contact as he dunks the mop in the bucket, the water muddy with faint glow.
“Of course, dear boy,” Vlad says, eager and relieved. He can't believe his luck Daniel has come to his senses at last. “My car is right outside, let's-”
Daniel shakes his head and says with a flat voice, “I need to finish cleaning first.”
Vlad watches him in silence for a long, tense moment. Then he takes off his suit jacket, rolls up his sleeves, and picks up a cloth to help wipe the ectoplasm down, deploying his own duplicates to speed the process up. The faster they're done, the faster they can leave this place. He's had his own fair share of experiments gone wrong, so he's not a stranger to cleaning. Never on such a scale, though.
Vlad grumbles under his breath, not expecting Daniel to hear him, “God, how did they manage to get it everywhere? Did they stick dynamite in the poor thing?”
“Something like that,” Daniel says, still in that carefully flat voice. “Had to dispose of the… remains… somehow. They like to see all the different ways they can cause the core to dissipate.”
Vlad stares at him, the ectoplasm stain he was battling forgotten. “They’ve done this before?” Daniel says nothing, movements mechanical as he keeps cleaning, his eyes unfocused. “How many times have you had to do this?”
Daniel shrugs with one shoulder, flopping the mop on the floor again. “Sometimes I don’t manage to get the Fenton Thermos back to the portal right away, for whatever reason. And if they happen to find a ghost already captured…”
His voice trails away, choked. Poor soft-hearted boy. Vlad can’t imagine how guilty he must feel, given his Obsession to protect. Vlad lets the rag fall on the table and takes a step forward, pulling him into a hug.
The mop falls with a dull clang; Daniel grips at his shirt, not pushing him away. Vlad half expects him to cry, but Daniel, surprisingly, manages to maintain composure, even though he loses the duplicates along the way. Vlad watches his own duplicates work over Daniel's head, mind busy with planning the arrangements that need to be made.
“It's not your fault, little badger,” he whispers into his hair after a few minutes. The long-awaited growth spurt left Daniel at the ideal height to be tucked under his chin; his eyelashes brush against the skin of Vlad's throat when he blinks.
Daniel turns his face away from his neck so he could speak, “I could've done something, at least.”
“Could have outed yourself, yes. Would you have really attacked them, though?” With silence as his answer, Vlad continues, “You did the only thing you could do, Badger. Thank you for protecting yourself, for once.”
Daniel doesn't reply, but he does cling to him a bit harder after that, tucking his face into Vlad's neck once again. Vlad's duplicates wrap things up, generously burning the ectoplasm where it's too stubborn to be wiped off. The smell gets even worse, making Vlad wince.
“Pack for a few days,” he tells Daniel, knowing fully well he's not going to allow him to step foot back into this house in the foreseeable future. Daniel nods, but doesn't move away for a few more minutes, core purring shyly when Vlad runs his hand through his hair before hugging him closer. Vlad's own core feels like it begins to knit itself back together, bit by bit, the pain finally abating.
They part ways outside the lab, Daniel going up to his room to gather his things and Vlad following the scent of the stew back to the kitchen.
“Don’t you think it a little crass to make Daniel clean all of that up?” He asks without preamble, leaning on the doorway. “It can’t be healthy for his young mind to be exposed to so much… well, gore.”
Jack just laughs at that, stirring the pot; various spice jars stand open nearby. “Gore, ha! It’s just ectoplasm. Back in my day we’d call that character growth!” Then, a little quieter so he doesn’t risk Daniel hearing, he says, “And, well, Danno’s a bit squeamish with ghost stuff. Figured him cleaning inert remains might get him more accustomed to it, he’ll be taking up the scalpel himself one day, after all!”
Vlad hums a noncommittal noise. “What if Daniel doesn’t want to go into the family business?” he asks. Above them, he hears Daniel creeping down the stairs, careful not to make noise. That was surprisingly fast, if a bit ill-timed; if Vlad can hear him, he can surely hear them.
“Nonsense! Of course he will!” Jack tastes the broth for salt and nods to himself, satisfied. “We couldn’t manage to get Jazzie to stay, so he’s the next best thing.”
‘Unfortunately’ hangs in the air unsaid, and takes Vlad a considerable amount of willpower not to end him right here and now. He coughs and adjusts his tie, trying to reign himself in.
He hears the front door open and close, and takes that as his cue. “I'm taking Daniel for a short walk to get some fresh air. The smell in the lab is atrocious.”
Jack beams at him.
“Sure thing! Just make sure to be back before the stew is ready, I know Danny must be starving.”
Vlad smiles.
“Sure thing.”