Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Dentition

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Here's what you need to know about ghostly dentition: For the first few years of unlife, the ghosts of humans have teeth of roughly the same size and shape as they did while alive. However, these are the ghostly equivalent of baby teeth. After a ghost has been dead for at least two years, but no more than five, their teeth will begin to change shape. Change shape, not fall out and be replaced. Ghost anatomy is much more plastic than that of a human. This process takes about one month, give or take. Additionally, if the ghost is one of the lucky few to become venomous, their venom sacs grow in at the same time. Once the process of growing the teeth and associated structures is complete, the fangs are retractable.

Here's what you need to know about half ghost dentition: Half ghosts undergo a similar process. Their human halves reflect the changes. However, they do lose their initial set of teeth to make room for their new ones.

Here's what you need to know about Danny Fenton: He is a half ghost. His luck is also incredible.

Not in a good way, of course.

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Danny's whole mouth felt tender, and he didn't know why. The feeling had been building since yesterday morning, but, by this point, it had become almost unbearable. That, coupled with the growing desire to chew on and bite things, was slowly driving him insane.

"It almost sounds like you're teething," said Sam.

Danny grunted dubiously. He had all his adult teeth.

"I mean, it might be a ghost thing," clarified Sam.

"Or you could have burned your mouth on something without realizing it," offered Tucker. "Or you could be getting some canker sores?"

Danny shook his head. That's what he thought at first, when the pain had been limited to the roof of his mouth and a few places on his gums, but now it was everywhere.

Jazz, who was on spring break from college and driving the three of them home from school, made a face. "I hate to suggest this, but do you think Mom and Dad could have put something anti-ghost in our food?"

Danny groaned and let his head fall against the dashboard. It did him no good. In fact, jostling his face made his mouth ache even more. It would be like his parents to unintentionally and unknowingly poison him in the name of protecting him from ghosts.

"I'll cook tonight," said Jazz.

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Despite Jazz cooking (and nothing coming to life!), Danny mostly pushed his food around his plate and avoided everyone's eyes. He wasn't sure if the pain killed his appetite, or if the idea of his food being poisoned did it. Either way, he wasn't hungry. He did, however, chew on the collar of his shirt until it was wet and disgusting.

Immediately after dinner, Danny slouched up the stairs and made a beeline for his room. He wanted to sleep this out, if at all possible.

He threw off his normal clothes, threw on his bedclothes, and collapsed, wrapping his covers around him and rolling over instead of climbing under his covers like a normal person. That was fine. He wasn't a normal person.

He went to sleep.

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A dream about swimming ended when the thought that the water was only wet on his face crossed Danny's mind. Slowly, he pulled his eyes open, and his brain eventually processed the fact that (a) it was still dark out, and (b) his face was pressed into a truly prodigious amount of drool.

He sat up, the fabric of his pillowcase trying to stick to his face. He threw the pillow to the side, and walked to the bathroom to try and clean up a little before going back to sleep. Usually, Danny had pretty good night vision, to the point of being able to see in the dark, but his vision and brain were so fuzzy at the moment that he fumbled for the bathroom lights anyway, and hissed as the bright lights temporarily blinded him.

Finally, his eyes adjusted enough for him to look up, into the mirror, and his heart almost stopped.

He was covered in blood.

His hands flew up to cover his face as he stumbled back against the far wall. Yes, he was half-ghost and had technically died, that didn't make him immune to shock or particularly happy to see blood all over the side of his face. It hadn't been drool sticking him to the pillow. Not just drool, anyway. It had been blood.

Why was he covered in blood? Had he turned into a vampire in the night? Did he hurt someone? Were vampires based on half-ghosts? Considering Vlad's aesthetic...

No, wait. On second glance, the blood had a distinctly sparkly cast to it. He stepped closer to the mirror, and a shiver of relief work its way into his body. That shimmer was ectoplasm. It was his blood.

But why had he been bleeding? Maybe he had bitten himself.

Or, more likely, whatever the heck was going on with his mouth was reaching a new level of bad. His teeth, now that he was thinking about them and not the blood, hurt much worse than they had when he went to bed.

Hesitantly, he probed his front teeth with his fingers. They moved.

THEY MOVED.

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Danny did not often sneak into his sister's room at night for advice, but 'not often' was a far cry from 'never.' Jazz wasn't surprised when he prodded her awake. Sleepy, yes, possibly just a little annoyed at waking up, though that vanished when she saw Danny's stricken face, but not surprised.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I think I'm losing my teeth," said he little brother, eyes wide and a touch too bright in the dark.

Alright, that was unexpected. "What?"

"I woke up, and my teeth were bleeding, and now they're all loose." His voice wobbled.

"Oh," said Jazz, still trying to kick her brain into gear. "Um. Is it a ghost thing, do you think?"

"I don't know," moaned Danny. "Nobody talks to me about anything." He sniffed. "What am I supposed to do?"

That was a good question. What kinds of options did Danny have?

"Do you have any ghost friends you could talk to?" she asked.

"Maybe," said Danny. "But they're far away, and they don't really have human teeth."

Jazz refrained from asking what kind of teeth they did have. She'd known about Danny's ghost powers for over a year, now, and she still only knew a fraction of what he got up to.

"I know you're not going to like this, but, um, what about Vlad?" Danny gave her a horrified glare. "I mean, he knows more about ghosts and half ghosts than we do, and he won't want anyone, you know, examining you. Which is what is going to happen if your teeth fall out."

Danny wilted, and put his hand to his mouth. "I guess." He shook himself. "I woke up in a puddle of my own blood and drool. Mostly blood."

"Ah," said Jazz.

"I'm going to go now."

"He might not appreciate you waking him up in the middle of the night," warned Jazz.

"Vlad doesn't sleep," said Danny.

"I'm sorry," said Jazz, "is that, like, a real thing, or some kind of joke? I'm too tired to tell."

"He's too evil to sleep."

"Danny, really. Don't antagonize him when you want his help."

Danny put his arms around his knees and looked very small. "Okay," he said. "You're right. But what should I do until then? What if- What if one of my teeth really does fall out?"

That image was more disturbing than it had any right to be. "Just go to sleep, and if your teeth do start falling out... I guess we'll deal with it. I've heard putting them in a cup of milk and spit helps preserve them? So they can be re-implanted?"

"Oh," said Danny. "I guess that's good to know."

"Get some sleep," Jazz said again. "First thing tomorrow, I'll drive you to Vlad's."

"I'll just fly."

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The conversation with Jazz had been painful. Talking should not be so painful. It sucked. It was the worst. And he was not able to get to sleep again.

As soon as the sun was up, Danny left to harass Vlad. Which was how his brain pronounced 'ask Vlad for help.'

He could hardly believe he was doing this. It was so stupid. Vlad hated him, he wasn't going to help. Maybe he should ask Clockwork, or make the flight to the Far Frozen, even if he wouldn't be able to put up a good fight against a ghost in this state. After all, Vlad would probably try to fight him. At least random ghosts in the Ghost Zone might leave him alone.

Yeah, he didn't believe that either.

He set down right outside Vlad's front gates, invisibly, not sure if he should just phase in, or if he should press the buzzer and wait outside. Usually when he came to Vlad's he was with his parents, Vlad had dragged him there, or they were already in the middle of a fight. He wasn't sure how to... petition Vlad, and that was what he was doing.

Danny pressed the buzzer. Ancients, he hoped Vlad was here and not in Colorado or Wisconsin.

"What?" came the short, clipped, reply. Clearly, Vlad was annoyed at being bothered so early in the morning.

"It's Danny," said Danny. "I need to talk to you about something."

There was a long silence, and Danny wondered if Vlad had chosen to ignore him.

"Daniel." The smoothness of Vlad's tone was broken only by the crackle of the intercom. "What an unexpected surprise. Do come in. I am in my dining room, and I am sure you can find your way."

Given permission, Danny phased through the gates and then the walls of Vlad's mansion. The dining room was, as Vlad had intimated, easy to find, and Danny dropped his invisibility.

Vlad did not look up from his breakfast, which seemed to consist of some kind of complicated omelette. At the smell, Danny's stomach growled. He hadn't a full meal since this time yesterday.

"So," said Vlad. "To what do I owe this pleasure, Daniel?"

Danny looked up at Vlad, then away, then at Vlad again, then away. He glared at Vlad's clean, shiny floor.

"Well, I do hope you haven't come because some cat ghost stole your tongue," said Vlad, sarcastically.

"My teeth are falling out," said Danny. They were certainly looser than yesterday.

Vlad stared at Danny for several heartbeats, then started laughing. He actually slapped the table a few times. Danny glared. If he knew how to do the eye laser thing, Vlad would be on fire.

"Oh, my dear boy," said Vlad, "forgive me. Has no one told you about ghost fangs?" He suppressed a snicker with his hand.

"No," said Danny.

"Well, that's quite an oversight in your education, isn't it? If you had accepted my offer..." he trailed off suggestively, almost purring.

Danny tried to purse his lips, but winced as doing so pushed his front teeth back.

Vlad smirked, and gave him a quick rundown of how teeth developed in the recently dead. "... of course, he finished. Half-ghosts like us are different. We, unlike them, do lose our original teeth. But you'll be glad to know the whole ordeal will be over in a month."

"A month? My teeth won't grow back for a month? Vlad, I have school! I can't hide that I don't have any teeth for a month!"

"Doesn't your spring break start today?" asked Vlad patting his lips with a napkin.

"What does that matter if this will last a month?"

"Calm down, boy. Your most visible teeth should regrow themselves in a week." Vlad pushed his food aside. "Of course, those will include your fangs, and part of why this takes a month is that the last molars and the muscles and bones involved in retracting and extending the fangs are developing. Nevertheless, that shouldn't be an issue so long as you avoid talking and eating around people less oblivious than your father."

"Hey!"

"Or perhaps you could convince people that you are wearing novelty fangs. Your friend Samantha enjoys that kind of thing, correct?"

"It's Sam," grumbled Danny, resenting the fact that Vlad was giving him good advice. "What about before my front teeth grow back in?" he asked. He didn't want to refer to any of his teeth as fangs. He didn't even want to think about having fangs.

(Hair made of fire and eyes as red as fresh blood flickered in his mind's eye.)

"Well, as I said, you're on spring break. Wouldn't this be a wonderful time to take advantage of, say, an internship opportunity with your beloved godfather?"

"I'm sorry, what? My what?"

"Me, Daniel. I'm offering to let you stay with me until your teeth have grown in enough to pass muster."

"Absolutely not," said Danny.

Vlad scoffed, and leaned back in his chair. "Don't mistake me. I'm not doing this out of some misplaced sense of altruism. I don't want anyone looking too closely at your anatomy."

"Gross."

Vlad ignored the comment. "If you are found out, the best defense of my identity, that no one knows half ghosts are possible, vanishes. This is merely enlightened self-interest. Does that make you feel better?"

Oddly enough, it did.

"Good. Now," he made a little shooing motion with his hands, "go home. I will make arrangements with your parents."

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Danny arrived on Vlad's doorstep, his father in tow, making a valiant but ultimately futile attempt to avoid playing with his now very loose front teeth.

"V-man!" exclaimed Jack, exploding through the door without bothering to knock. "It's been forever!"

"It's been two days, Jack," said Vlad, repressively. He had, wisely, been waiting at the top of the wide stairs that led to the mansion's second floor.

"But it feels like so much longer!"

"I wish," muttered Vlad.

Jack, undeterred ran up the stairs and hugged Vlad.

"Yes, yes," said Vlad, strained, "very good. Now, Jack, Daniel and I have a very busy day ahead of us. I'm afraid we must be off at once."

"Aw, already?"

"My pilot doesn't like waiting."

Danny leveled a baleful glare at Vlad. The man hadn't mentioned anything about leaving Amity Park.

Jack skipped out the door, and the GAV sped off.

"Oh, do stop looking at me like that," said Vlad. "We aren't leaving your precious town, although I'm sure it would survive just fine without you."

"Then why-?"

"Well, we certainly couldn't have your parents dropping in at all hours to check up on you, could we?" Vlad shuddered dramatically. "In any case, I have your room made up. Follow me."

Danny picked up his luggage, no longer pretending he found it heavy now that his father wasn't around to see, and trudged up the stairs after Vlad.

The room was nice. Too nice. A little too space-themed for his peace of mind as well, with the stars on the walls, spangled bed sheets, and planet-shaped lamps on the bedside tables. The game console in the corner had the effect of making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Please tell me you set up this room in the last two days."

"Don't be ridiculous. I've had this room decorated like this since I moved in. I had hoped you would come to your senses."

"My senses. Right," said Danny, trying to decide if it was too late to hide at Sam's for a week. Sadly, it probably was.

"Well, get your things put away, and meet me downstairs for brunch in half an hour. I doubt you've eaten much since we last spoke." Vlad strode out of the room, not looking back.

Danny stared after him, unsure if he should feel touched or creeped out. Both, maybe.

Finally, he sighed and heaved the suitcase up onto the bed. He had asked for this, he reminded himself. Not the bedroom. But Vlad's help.

If there had been any other friendly ghosts within flying distance...

Okay, he'd still have needed the cover, and Jazz, Sam, and Tucker could only do so much.

Danny finished unpacking in a few minutes. He hadn't brought a whole lot of stuff with him. Just enough clothing to last a week without washing, the thermos, some homework, the Spector Deflector, the collapsible version of the Boo-Staff, some Fenton Sleeping Bag Capsules, in case he had to run and spend the remainder of spring break roughing it in the woods.

Okay, he didn't think he'd have to do that, otherwise he wouldn't be trusting Vlad even this far, but it was better to be safe.

He walked downstairs, slowly, then started to look for the kitchen, vaguely worried about being ambushed. He wasn't. Point for Vlad.

Another point for Vlad - He was actually cooking.

"I doubt you want to eat anything too tough at the moment," said Vlad, "although once your new teeth grow in, you'll be gnawing on things before you know it. So, I'm making eggs. You aren't allergic to anything?"

"Not other than blood blossoms, no."

Vlad sighed and tipped the eggs he was frying onto a plate. "Shall we let bygones be bygones, little badger? At least for the duration of our little truce? For the sake of your problem, if nothing else."

Danny's lips twitched, sending a wave of pain across his face. "Yeah, okay," he said. He reached out for the eggs.

Vlad passed him the plate. "I'd like to do some scans of your teeth, when you're done."

"Why?" asked Danny.

"So suspicious," said Vlad. "Remember, you asked for my help."

"Last time you wanted to do scans of me, you were trying to clone me."

"This is different," said Vlad. "Although, I do wonder if Danielle will be losing her teeth, soon. Something for you to watch out for, hm?"

"What do you want to do the scans for, anyway?" asked Danny, picking up a fork.

"Oh, the usual. Making sure your teeth are growing in properly, checking if you'll be venomous, that kind of thing."

Danny dropped the fork. "That's an option?"

Vlad smirked. "Oh, it isn't very likely, but... You do have very odd luck, Daniel."

And didn't Danny know it.

"I'll pass on the scans."

"Really?"

"Cloning," Danny pointed out.

Vlad sighed. "I suppose you have something of a point. Let's make a deal. If I haven't done anything sinister by the middle of the week, you get those scans. It will, after all, be much harder for me to help you without them."

Danny frowned. "I didn't know that you were going to 'help' me beyond, you know. Hiding me."

"Please, Daniel. I'm trying to convince you to join me. I'm hardly going to deny you medical care while you're here. Besides, if you go back to your parents looking like a trainwreck, I'm the one who will get in trouble. Assuming they notice, of course."

Well... when he put it like that... "You're awful," said Danny.

"And yet, here we are. So, what is your decision?"

Danny sighed. "I'll think about it."

Chapter Text

Vlad made his own eggs, along with bacon crispy enough to make Danny wince.  He ate much faster than Danny, and then watched as Danny slowly, carefully, squished the egg around his mouth with his tongue.  

“What?” demanded Danny.  

“Nothing,” said Vlad.  “I was still in the hospital when my teeth came in.”

“But you said it took years for them to–”

“Yes,” said Vlad, smiling thinly.  “It does.  Now, I have told your parents that I am teaching you something, and it would be remiss of me to neglect that.  You will be accompanying me as I work today.”

Danny, who had been planning on spending most of the day hiding somewhere on Vlad’s massive property, looked at Vlad incredulously.  “I thought the point of this was to keep people from seeing that I’m missing teeth.”

“Not all of my work needs to be done in-person, Daniel.  I would expect you, as a teenager, to know the internet exists.”

“And, what, you want me to look over your shoulder while you play business solitaire or something.”

“Hardly.  I have something much more suitable to your skillset.  Such as it is.”

Danny bristled at the implied insult, and tapped down on the urge to bare his teeth.  Sure, that might look frightening at the moment, but not for reasons Danny wanted.  

… Although, the baring teeth thing was also new, and probably connected.  Ugh.  

“Come, now, Daniel.  Don’t you want to be able to tell the truth if anyone asks what you did for your internship?  This way, you’ll be able to put something on your resume.”

Bold of Vlad to assume he was ever going to be able to hold a job with all the ghost attacks.  But he did have a point.  

“Fine,” grunted Danny.  “What are we doing?”

Vlad smiled so smugly that Danny almost picked a fight then and there.  “Excellent.  I will be reviewing the Dalv R&D monthly operation reports.  You will be doing something different.”  He got up and walked away from the table.  Danny, reluctantly, followed him.  

As they walked, he tentatively tested his teeth.  Still loose, of course.  He wasn’t sure why he’d expected them to suddenly fix themselves.  He folded his tongue back.  It was easy to resolve not to poke and prod, but actually refraining from poking and prodding was a different story entirely.  

Vlad strode into a lavish office.  Or should Danny call it a study?  He wasn’t sure what the difference was.  In any case, it had a writing desk big enough to have its own zip code, and the walls were lined with bookshelves.  The curtains and other upholstery were dark red and black, and the wood was a deep chocolate brown.  Danny didn’t know if this was better or worse than the office in his Packers-themed office back in Wisconsin.  It certainly leaned deeper into the vampire aesthetic.  

Vlad settled himself into an ornate chair behind the desk, and opened one of the drawers, pulling out stack after stack of papers.  

“It’s phase-proof,” he said after a moment.  

“What?”

“I thought you might be wondering why I didn’t phase these out.  The desk is phase-proof.  Then again, I suppose you are in enough pain to be distracted, so I can forgive the oversight.  Go ahead and sit down.  Make yourself at home.”

What a Fruitloop.  

Danny continued to stand as Vlad pushed a packet of papers over to him.  They were stamped with the title ETHICS REVIEW.  

“As something of an incentive,” said Vlad, “if you take this seriously, I will refrain from pursuing any of these projects that you mark as ethically dubious.”

“If I take what seriously?  You still haven’t explained anything.”

“The ethics review for proposed research and development projects for the next quarter.  I, personally, find the initial review tedious.”

“You would.”

Vlad rolled his eyes and dropped a spiral bound booklet on top of the first packet.  “These are Dalv’s and Vladco’s ethics guidelines and ethics review rules.  Read it, and start filling out the reviews.”

“And if I do this, then you won’t do them?”

“If you find them unethical, yes.”

“Well, this’ll be easy.  I don’t think anything you do is ethical.”

“And if you take the review seriously.  I expect reasoned arguments, Daniel.  Not teenage snark.  My other option is simply approving all of them.  If you want to stop my horrible, exploitative, capitalist, mad scientist ways, you’ll have to work for it.  And sit down, for goodness’ sake.  You aren’t going to make any progress standing there like that.”

Danny sat down and slouched as much as he could.  “Are you really going to listen to me?”

“Yes,” said Vlad, with a heavy sigh.  “I don’t know why you carry around that overdeveloped sense of morals with you, if you aren’t going to do anything with it.  At the very least, you should be excited to have insight into what I’ll be developing next.”  He slid a set of pencils and pens in a small case over to Danny and opened up one of his own folders.  “My evil plans and all that.”  

He reached to one side and turned on a small speaker.  The sound that came out of them was so deep Danny could just about feel it in his bones.  Heck, he could feel it in his teeth, which, given present conditions, wasn’t at all pleasant.

“What’s that?”

“Music, Daniel.  I enjoy listening to it while I work.  It helps me focus.”

“That’s not music.”m

“It’s far more musical than that Metallica knockoff you and your friends like.  This piece was composed by taking long recordings of ambient sounds in the Ghost Zone and speeding them up to near-human audibility while overlaying select ectosignatures converted into a sound designed to aid in concentration.  Not that I’d expect you to understand.”

Once again: Fruitloop.

Danny continued to glare at the booklet for another three seconds… which was about as long as it took for him to give into his curiosity and grab the guideline booklet.  

It was… honestly pretty interesting.  He didn’t think any companies had anything like this, much less Vlad’s, even if some of the things and reasoning in it seemed pretty backwards.  Danny, with a sense of slight vindictiveness, chewed lightly on Vlad’s fancy pencil as he read.  

By the time he finished, Danny actually felt like this might be meaningful.  Maybe.  If Vlad kept his word, which wasn’t a guarantee.  But reading through the examples made him think that maybe doing this might help not just him, but other people who’d be affected by Vlad’s inventions or businesses.

He put the guideline booklet to one side, and opened up the review packet.  

Some of the proposals were… honestly pretty gross, in terms of what their results were supposed to be, or in terms of the materials they were supposed to use.  Dalv was one of Vlad’s ghost research companies, and it definitely showed.  Danny couldn’t believe that Vlad had even considered accepting some of these… but, no, wait, he could.  Vlad was a Fruitloop.  The Fruitloop, even.  

But recognizing something sucked (particularly when it sucked for him and Vlad, specifically) was a lot different from writing down why it sucked in words, which was still different from filling out the paperwork in the ‘correct’ and ‘acceptable’ way.

It was a lot more engaging than Danny had expected.  Almost soothing.  Like putting together a puzzle.  It even made that ‘music’ seem a little less

At some point, Vlad asked him something, but Danny waved him off.  Whatever he had to say, it couldn’t be that important.  He kept working.

There was a squelching, crunching sound as he bit down a little too hard on the pencil and his tooth bent sideways in a very painful way.  Blood dripped down on his paperwork.  He swore, the words garbled, and put his hands over his mouth.  

Fingers under his chin forced him to look up.  When had Vlad gotten so close?

All at once, Danny was hit with–

Dizziness.

Hunger.

Thirst.

A need to go to the bathroom.

An ache in his lower back.

He blinked, confused.  What had happened…?

The view beyond the curtains, outside the window, was black.  

“Your first time finding something that continuously satisfies your Obsession, is it?”

Danny’s brows pinched inward.  He had no idea what Vlad was talking about.  What he did know was that he was bleeding, it hurt, and his blood was all over his finished paperwork.  

“No matter,” said Vlad, tilting Danny’s head back and forth, which hurt so much that Danny phased backward through the chair.  Vlad sighed at his bloody, but empty hand.  “I have some dental cotton we can use to stop the bleeding, unless you like losing that much blood.”

Danny nodded, briefly. 

.

Vlad sorted through a box of things as Danny stemmed the flood of blood with a wad of cotton.  

“These are mainly for later,” said Vlad, “seeing as full ghosts skip this stake of development, and their teeth simply shape themselves into fangs.  However, there should be something…  Aha!  Here.  In the future, chew on this instead of my pencils.”

Vlad handed Danny a… stress ball?  A stress ball shaped like a blob ghost?  A stress ball filled with ectoplasm?  

Danny wasn’t sure he wanted to put this into his mouth.  

“You’ll need something more substantial once your fangs start to grow in properly,” said Vlad, “but it should be acceptable for the short term.”

Danny squeezed the ball.  It was nice and soft, and the ectoplasm made it conform to his hands more than something like sand or flour would have.  

“Now, we can go upstairs and you can eat and get ready for bed.”

Danny made a faint noise of protest.  

“It is that late,” said Vlad, responding to an imagined question.  “You worked all day, which I’m sure is a novel experience for you.  You didn’t even stop when I suggested you take a break for dinner or lunch.  Now, I made a pudding for you–”  

Danny more or less tuned Vlad out, shoulders drooping in disappointment.  He’d wanted to finish…

“Of course, you can continue to work on the ethics review tomorrow.  I’ll phase out the blood.”

Oh, good, he’d been worried that–

Why was he looking forward to paperwork?  On the weekend, no less.

“Did you hypnotize me?” asked Danny, every word a pain.  That stupid ‘ music–’

“Heavens, no,” said Vlad, looking delighted.  “I wouldn’t dream of it.  You’re more than welcome to work on the ethics review in any room you please, as near to or as far from me as you’d like.”

Danny tried to cover up his confusion with a glare.

“You really don’t know what an Obsession is, do you?”  Vlad chortled.  “Another area of your education that’s lacking.  I had thought that Maddie would have realized by now, but… perhaps she simply didn’t tell you.”

Danny glared harder.  

“But you do need your rest, Daniel.  We can’t keep you awake the whole week.  So.  Up.  Food.  And then bed for you, little badger.”

Danny really hated that nickname.  But he was hungry, among other things, so he followed Vlad upstairs and was served a rather large bowl of pudding that was an incredible chore to eat before he went back upstairs to the space-themed room that was not his.

He sat on the bed, thinking.  Vlad was being… weirdly nice, hypnotism aside.  Danny did sometimes get distracted while doing things, but that level of distraction was usually related to space or anxiety on patrols.  Not paperwork.  Not even interesting paperwork, although before today Danny would have said those two things weren’t at all compatible.  

Speaking of patrol…  Despite being tired and worn out by the pain and the unexpected hours-long paperwork session, he walked over to the window, opened it, and saw the tell-tale gleam of Vlad’s human and ghost shield, power turned down so it didn’t glow too brightly.  Danny had no doubt that it would, however, jump to full strength if he tried to get past it.  

What a Fruitloop.  Really.  He took back everything he’d thought about him being nice.  

Chapter Text

Danny woke up feeling especially bleary and ill-used.  His mouth felt.  Bad.  Tasted bad, too.  Coppery, stale, and sore, like something had died in it.  Other than him.  Ha. Ha.  

Ugh.  Even death puns weren’t doing it for him.  

He got up slowly, and moaned as his cheek stuck to the fabric of his pillow.  He’d been bleeding again.  The blood was tacky on the pillowcase.  He blinked at it slowly.  That… might phase out.  Maybe.

It was one thing to phase away liquids or things like surface dust from something that was all one piece, like his hazmat suit, and another thing entirely to phase something dry off of something that was made of lots of little pieces.  

… Danny might have disintegrated a couple shirts that way.

… One of them was Sam’s.

Well, he didn’t really care about Vlad’s pillow, so…  He picked it up and brought it with him when he went to the bathroom.  

… Stupid big bathroom with stupid full sized tub… ugh… 

Vlad was definitely trying to bribe him with this room.  Gross.  Grosser than the pillow, even.  

Maybe.  

He walked over to the tub, held the pillow over it, and turned it intangible.  Globs of blood dropped down to impact the white porcelain with splatting sounds, and drier chunks flaked off bit by bit.  He shook it to loosen a bit more.  That looked about right.  

He tucked the clean(er) pillow under his arm and twisted the faucet on the tub to wash the blood down the drain.  

Why was he bleeding so much?  He didn’t bleed this much when he lost his baby teeth, he was pretty sure.  

He tossed the pillow back on his– the bed, and went downstairs.  

Vlad was waiting for him.  “Your breakfast,” he said, offering up a tall glass with a straw in it.  “As I doubt you’re up to chewing anything after last night.”

“What’s it?” asked Danny, his words slurring together.  

“A smoothie,” Vlad said.  “Come, now, it’s not poisoned.”

Danny made no move to take it.  “Like th’music wasn’ hypnosis.”

“If it bothers you so much, I can leave it off, today.  Unlike some people.”

“‘N’ the shield?”

“Daniel, we’re nemeses.  Surely you can understand why I’d want a deterrent to intruders around the place I sleep.”  Vlad shook the smoothie under Danny’s nose.  “Drink up.  We have a lot of work to do today, and I don’t want you passing out in the middle of it.”

Danny snatched the smoothie.  He was hungry, but…  His teeth hurt a lot.  But the straw…  He cautiously wrapped his lips around it.  It wasn’t as bad at chewing, but even the suction pressed a little too hard.  

Feeling slightly nauseous, he stopped.  

“Well, you can finish it as you work,” said Vlad, already leading the way to his study.  

Danny followed with mixed feelings.  But, true to his word, Vlad just passed him the packet and started work on his own thing.  No music.  

Just like the previous day, Danny got sucked into the work.  It wasn’t quite so easy… it took him a long time to get into the rhythm and–

Vlad snapped his fingers under Danny’s nose.  Danny recoiled as if a firework had gone off.  Vlad placed the smoothly squarely in front of the paperwork.  “Drink,” he said.  “I was quite serious about you not passing out.”

Fruitloop.  

Danny did not drink the smoothie as aggressively as he thought the situation warranted, but only because his mouth hurt too much to do that.  

“Now,” said Vlad, “I have business elsewhere I need to attend for the next few hours.  You can take care of yourself, can’t you?  I suppose your parents leave you to it often enough.”

Danny’s jaw clenched and his eyes flared– each of those things he immediately regretted.  

“Temper, my boy,” said Vlad, genially.  

Danny had a lot to say to that phrase.  It all came out as an inarticulate mumble.  

“Of course, I could always cancel my appointments if you’re going to insist on hurting yourself.”

“Go do y’r stupid thing,” said Danny, waving him off.  

“Very well.  The refrigerator downstairs has two more smoothies for when you get hungry, although I don’t plan to be that long.”

Danny grunted at him and pointedly put the empty smoothie glass down far away before he turned back to the packet.  Some of the things Vlad’s researchers were asking for were really awful…

He was able to focus again relatively quickly, and tuned out all other noises.  He wanted to finish this today so he could go sulk somewhere away from Vlad, and also so that neither he nor the general public ever had to deal with these things.  

Vlad snapped his fingers under Danny’s nose again.  

But this time, this time, Danny was somehow expecting it even less.  Startled and distracted, he bit the sudden intruder into his space and yoweled.

That hurt.

“I suppose I deserved that,” said Vlad, looking down at his blood-splattered hand, “and that you’ve gotten the worst of it.”  He extracted a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped the blood off.  

“Why’re you even back alrea’y?” asked Danny, dripping, almost unintelligible, but incensed enough to want to know.  One of his front teeth was almost perpendicular to how it was supposed to sit, and its roots poked backwards sharply against his tongue.  

“I’ve been gone for three hours.  My business was concluded.  Let’s see how you’ve hurt yourself this time.”  Vlad put his hand under Danny’s jaw, holding it between his thumb and fingers.  

Danny froze.  He felt as if any additional pressure would make his jaw shatter, teeth and all.

But eventually his sense of 'the Fruitloop is touching me' overcame his sense of 'oh no oh no my teeth are coming out,' and he pulled away.  This jostled his teeth painfully, as expected.

And.

A tooth came out.

The tooth whose roots had been bothering Danny clattered to the desk.  Danny began to wail, and not in the cool, ghostly way, either.  In the pathetic, oh, no, I just lost a tooth way.  Why did teeth have so many nerve endings? 

Vlad cleared his throat.  “Considering all this,” Vlad gestured pointedly to the tooth resting on the desk, “I suggest we go to the lab and take some scans to check how your teeth are progressing.”

Danny shook his head.  Carefully.  Very carefully.  

“You’ve bled so much these past two days that I hardly need to do a scan of you to clone you,” said Vlad.  “Be reasonable, Daniel.  You’ve spent so much time bleeding today it’s a wonder you have any blood left at all.  Not to mention how little you’ve eaten.”

Danny hunched his shoulders and prepared to bolt.  

“ Additionally, one of my goals for today was finding a way to accelerate all… this.”

“Y’re in th’Zone?”

“Of course I was in the Zone.  I was hardly about to gallivant around town when I’m supposed to be in Wisconsin.”

That made sense.  Danny didn’t like that it made sense.  He also didn’t like that he hadn’t asked where Vlad was going.  

But all of that was a little hard to think about at the moment.  

Ow.  

“Daniel,” said Vlad, grabbing his attention again.  

Danny… really wanted this to be over.  “‘Kay.”

“Finally.  I thought you’d never see reason.”  He walked over to one of the bookshelves and pulled a book down, away from the shelf.  The shelf swung to one side, revealing a door with a palm reader on it, which Vlad used to unlock the door.  “Don’t forget your tooth.”

Danny, tentatively, picked up his tooth.  He thought that, just possibly, the long root - the single root, he saw, now - might be the culprit with respect to the bleeding problem.  Baby teeth didn’t have those.  Not like that.  

He shoved the tooth into his pocket, and with one hand over his mouth, followed Vlad down into the lab.  

“I already have everything set up, so get yourself settled,” said Vlad, pointing at something that could have been either a dentist’s chair or a torture device.  Considering that Vlad had only known about Danny’s problem for a short period of time, and the amount of other equipment around it and attached to it, Danny leaned towards the latter option.

This whole experience had been horrible.  He wanted it to be over.  Vlad had never not screwed him over when they teamed up or cooperated.  Vlad had been decent this time, except for the general and expected insults.  It was in Vlad’s interest to make sure Danny returned home intact and with as few obvious differences as possible.  

Danny was… choosing to trust.  Just this once.  He sat down gingerly. 

“When was the last time you had an x-ray?” asked Vlad.  “No, no, I know, your mouth, I suppose it doesn’t matter.  Stay still for this next part.”

Danny tensed.  

“There,” said Vlad after a minute.  “Hm.  Interesting.”

Danny got up and walked around behind him.  The screen showed something that looked almost like an x-ray, then several other images in different colors.  He… had no idea what he was seeing.  He wasn’t a dentist.  

Vlad pointed at a small blob on the screen.  “It looks like you’re developing a venom sac.”

“No,” said Danny.  

“Yes,” said Vlad.  “I do wonder what kind of venom you’ll have.  Ghost venom is wonderfully diverse, after all.”

“No,” repeated Danny, as forcefully as he could manage at the moment.  

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, little badger.  The rest of your new teeth seem to be coming in properly.”  He pointed at a shape that almost looked like the tooth he lost, next to a long, sharp-looking shape.  “This is the replacement for the one you just lost.”

“Faster?” asked Danny, lisping the word painfully.  

“Ah, yes.  There is some evidence that removing all the old teeth at once can encourage the new teeth to grow faster.  Now, this does have some downsides, as you might be able to see - You can see, can’t you? - but I’m prepared to set you up with an IV.”

Okay.  Maybe Danny sat in Vlad’s creepy torture chair, but he definitely drew the line at the man putting things in his body.  

“Really, if you don’t want to be suffering through this at school, this is your best choice.  I… admit I was optimistic regarding my prediction that with your front teeth replaced, no one would notice anything.  This level of bleeding would, naturally, be impossible to miss for anyone who isn’t as blind as your father.”

Did Vlad have to do that?  

“Although, I suppose I could either manufacture some emergency or other reason for you to stay with me past the end of spring break.  Is that what you want, little badger?  I would be amenable.”

Danny knew what Vlad was doing, and he didn’t like it one bit.  There were other options.  Like telling Vlad where he could stuff his emergency and amenability.  

He could always just go home.  He could hide things.  He’d hidden things so far.  His parents hadn’t noticed his tooth problems at all.  

They… would probably notice this much blood, though.  And the missing teeth.  Maybe he could hide out somewhere else and just go to school?  Make everyone think he was at someone else’s house and just camp?  He did have the supplies for it.  More or less.  

But, then, what would happen when Dash gave him a little love tap and his remaining teeth came flying out.

“If you’re worried about being bored, I have other things you could do.  I need someone to organize a review of Mastersoft’s charitable donations, for example.”

Oh, that actually sounded– No!  Focus!

“Or that primer on being half ghost that I’ve mentioned before.  Not a literal one, of course, but…  You are woefully lacking in knowledge about how ghosts operate, little badger.  If I were you, I’d want to repair that lack.”

And whose fault was that?  Not Danny’s.  He wasn’t the one going around and threatening to kill people and flirting with married women and throwing teenagers into buildings.  

Danny really wanted to punch him.  Any fight, however, would wind up horribly one-sided with Danny in his current state.  

“No?  Well, whichever you choose, I suppose we can start working on it tomorrow, once you’ve slept on it.”  He turned off the monitor.  

Everything about this was so incredibly suspicious.  

Danny really wanted this to be over.  

“Do you still have your teething toy?” asked Vlad.  “I ask, because you’ve been chewing your bottom lip for this whole conversation.”

Danny sucked his lips in, which was a bad choice.  

“You ought to try it.  I know I would have liked something like it when I was regrowing my teeth.”  He shook his head.  “I doubt you ate anything while I was gone, considering your reaction.  Do you think you’re capable of a smoothie, or should I start the IV now?”

Danny, bereft of any other way to respond, made a rude gesture at Vlad and stalked back up the stairs.  Gently.  So his footsteps didn’t jostle so much.

Of course he could drink a smoothie.  

He rubbed the edges of his jaw.  Venom.  He really didn’t want venom.  It didn’t matter what it did.  He didn’t want it.  Not that that would matter to Vlad.  Smug Fruitloop dangling information over Danny’s head and expecting him to jump.  

Thing was, with this kind of fire under his feet, he probably would jump, sooner rather than later.