Just walking around

Self reflection is not something Vlad often finds himself indulging in. Least of which the self-deprecating kind. Vlad is under no delusion that he is a good person, he would even say he relishes in being deceptive and down right villainous.

But now he has a ward under his care, and another that visits at least a few times a month between her travels.

And Vlad Masters is forced to confront himself; to dissect the entire, bloody brush he has painted himself with, and must now reckon with the image left in its wake. He wants to do better for these children he has found in his care. needs, in some respects, to atone for what he has done and what he was going to do in order to do right by these two children so damaged by his actions.

He can hear a distant thump from the basement, and the thrum of the portal powering down signaling Dan returning from a trip to the Fenton’s.

That damn portal. In some respects he still can’t believe he lives with one of the things under his house, when he can still see that all consuming green overtake his nightmares.

Three years. Three years trapped in a blank hospital room with no contact with the outside world. The same parade or nurses day in and day out, smiles glued to their faces like cheap construction paper. Never being asked on his input about his treatment. Never given an option to seek out other methods of care or someone to vent his feelings too.

Within the first year of his stay the doctors had already determined there was nothing to be done about his skin, whatever disease he had contracted had been powerful and fast acting. After the first six months the majority of his symptoms had been treated, but that awful rash had persisted.

Half the nurses still needed to look at the chart to remember his name even after years of treatment.

The same rotation of ten meals, not even a slight variation on the holidays.

For years after getting out he would have nightmares indistinguishable from his former reality.

Wake up at 2:35 for the night rounds, have his catheter removed and replaced.

Try and fail to sleep the rest of the night only to be forcefully awoken by the lights automatically turning on at 6:30 sharp.

Breakfast at 7:15, followed by one of three nurses checking his charts and making a note about his overnight vitals.

8:42, a nurse would come in to remove the remains of his breakfast and apply the first round of cream to his patchmarked skin.

11:23, lunch and an emptying of his catheter.

2, physical therapy.

4:53, second round of ointment treatment.

6:31, dinner.

8:55, a washcloth bath, catheter check, and a final round of ointment.

9:10, lights out.

If he hadn’t found out about his powers he likely would have spent another year at least while he continued to waste away.

It turns out to be remarkably easy to escape when you can turn both invisible and intangible. And at the time there were very few people who cared about him, and the hospital had closed down three months later due to an unfortunate accident, turns out all that white white white burned rather easily.

What he finds out after is that it takes effort to do bad things. Once he figured out he could possess people he had almost immediately gone to a bank to try and get them to give him a lump sum of money.

Turns out, banks had a lot of failsafes in place in the event of a robbery, even internal ones, and possession was a much more finicky thing than tv had led him to believe. He had been lucky that first time, and subsequently had mostly relied upon one on one interaction with affluent individuals rather than dealing with larger institutes.

And at every turn he had made the intentional choice to do the most selfish thing. Even after he’d gotten the hang of possession he’d still made the person he was possessing culpable in his crimes, leaving them to take the fall in order to keep his public persona pristine.

And the clones. It had been an idea borne out of equal parts spite and desperation. Vlad had always avoided dwelling on the fact that he was a once in a billion accident. His care for the human realm had dwindled to apathy in those bleach white hospital walls, and when he’d finally been able to enter the infinite realms he had found himself wholly underwhelmed.

The name he’d made for himself in the human realm had no weight, and even once he honed his powers and made himself something to fear it just ended up isolating himself all over again. Skulker was hardly one for intelligent conversation, spectra always went straight for the throat and never engaged in his banter, and the lest said about the box ghost the better.

The clones had been an attempt to finally rid himself of this awful loneliness he refused to acknowledge during the daylight. He is ashamed to admit the number of nights spent wallowing in his study or lab, nursing the most expensive wine on the market and tasting nothing but ashes.

Danielle had been sweet. Sweet, eager, and all too easy to manipulate.

Dan, on the other hand, was a punch to the throat he’d had no way to brace himself for. Caustic and apathetic, he’d been like looking in a warped funhouse mirror.

And he was now attempting to house both of these children under his roof, while still engaging in petty battles with Phantom, because clearly someone had to keep the boy on his toes.

That night he found Dan raiding his wine cellar, two empty bottles already smashed to the ground and a third already halfway gone.

“Don’t you look at me like that old man,” he spat, curling around the bottle like a security blanket, “it was raiding the cellar or setting this whole ugly mansion ablaze, and I figured you’d like to keep this thing standing.”

“…yes, quite.” Vlad hummed, debating on the merits of fighting a very drunk, very powerful half-ghost.

“S’pose it wouldn’t have been too bad. For all your one foot in the grave you wouldn’t have died in the fire.” Dan’s gaze slid to the powered down portal, “and we at least coulda ridded ourselves of tha’ awful thing.”

“Unfortunately for us both that would do very little in the long run. I do need rather easy access to the realms for my current dealings, so it would have been a temporary fix at best.”

“Shame.”

At that point the bottle Dan had been nursing slipped from numb fingers, cracking against the ground and slowly spinning outwards.

“Well, clearly that’s enough of that, come now, I believe it’s high past your bedtime.”

“Why do you care? It’s not like there’s anyone here for you to pretend for, we both know you hate me and wish I didn’t exist. My only purpose is a living reminder of other people's worst decisions.”

Ah, emotions. The thing Vlad had been desperately avoiding, “I know you don't want it, so I won’t do you the disservice of coddling you. Yes, when you first showed up I cared very little for you as an individual. But, I have found over these past months that you are a unique person, Dan. Utterly insufferable for most of it like most teenagers are, but you exist beyond what you are for others.”

“Shut up! You don’t care! No one cares! I am a monument to your sins, I don’t exist outside of that. I shouldn’t exist at all!”

A sob breaks Dan’s rant, viciously muffled like he can strangle his own weakness. But another sob breaks though, and another, before the cellar is filled with the sounds of a child falling apart.

Vlad fights to find the words, for what fo you say to someone who has already lost everything once?

“You exist for yourself, Dan.” Vlad finally breaks the silence, “Do not allow yourself to be destroyed by the mistakes Daniel and myself made.”

“I mean,” a broken laugh, “I think it’s a bit more your mistakes than mini me.”

“Hmmm, agree to disagree.”

Now that draws a real laugh out of the other halfa, and Vlad decides that’s the end of feelings time.

“Come now, I think it’s high time we both turned in for the night. I made some lasagna that we can reheat for lunch tomorrow.”

“Why in the world would you make me anything? Don’t you have like, three personal chefs?”

“It was… something my mother did for me when I was young. We ate a lot of frozen meals due to her busy schedule and she knew I hated it. So every Saturday evening she’d spend two or so hours making me lasagna.

“I know this is not an ideal situation for you, it is something I am struggling greatly with too, but I promise I will try to make the effort to do better by you.”

“I’m. I’ll try too, can’t have you one upping me old man.”

“Sleep well, Dan.”

There’s no response, and Vlad goes to sleep that night with thoughts of white white white green.

But when he stumbles down for breakfast the next day, it’s to an empty lasagna container in the sink, and a note that says;