Runaway Love

Oneshot. You might run away from home, but then again, you can't necessarily stop a new one from hurtling after you. DannyxVlad Fatherson.

~(*0*)~

Because everyone has those days. No, am not continuing. Please read and review!

One day, he'd simply walked out of school to steal a quiet moment in the sky. He hadn't gone to class planning it; hadn't been silently fuming as Lancer drawled on in his lecture-about-something-or-other while he contemplated the little girl he had no idea had been in that fire, as he had every day that week.

But today had been quiet; his ghost sense had not gone off as usual while he flew around at 5 a.m that morning in his usual rounds. He hadn't been obliged to say all that much to Sam and Tucker, either. Tucker had been prattling away about some new device of his while Sam ranted about one of her Feminist escapades. He just smiled and nodded, same as usual.

True, there had been a shimmering distortion of the world at the edges of his eyes that morning, but he'd ignored that. He'd ignored his fellow classmates as they spoke about the bank robber Danny Phantom had been able to stop the previous evening. Phantom was quickly becoming an old thing of sorts in their eyes, and Danny had felt no inclination to defend his alter-ego. It had meant nothing to him that day.

He'd been still in class, not even bothering to pass notes to Sam and Tucker complaining about how boring Lancer's class was. He didn't drop asleep, though there were dark shadows under his eyes. He'd automatically taken notes without reading the slightest bit into them. If you asked Danny later what the lecture had been about, he'd be unable to tell you.

The sun had been shining amicably in a rich azure sky. A few flowers had lifted their cheerful little heads near the school that morning, and a warm breeze sent crumpled brown leaves scattering away in the streets, as if it were shooing away the old remnants to make room for a pretty new season.

Nothing different at home, either. His parents had been working in the basement when he and Jazz had rose in the morning, and they'd shouted up goodbyes to them much as they did every morning as the two passed outside.

There had been no real definite reason that had prompted him to stride out the door as soon as the bell rang, before his classmates could even begin to stand up. There'd been nothing horrible to make him want to run down the halls as Sam and Tucker called his name.

He knew that it was nothing BUT rude to cover his hands over his ears, and rush into a deserted hallway. He knew that there was something wrong in him phasing through the concrete walls, and rushing outside into the sunlight like a mad rabbit. And yet, that was precisely what Danny Fenton did. He had to do it. As idiotic as it sounds, somehow Danny knew, without knowing it, that if he stayed he would be dying later that day.

In a bolt of silver, he'd immediately transformed into Danny Phantom and took off for the sky, not thinking much of anything. Instinct pushed him to rise higher and higher into the air, until Amity Park was just a tiny, insignificant patch of land below him, adjoined to other insignificant patches of land like a puzzle piece.

An airplane passed nearby. A little girl waved to Danny once she saw him through her window, and he waved back, again not thinking much of it. He'd rested on a nearby gale of wind for awhile, hovering over the world in a neverending stretch of sky.

His stomach had hurt. His limbs hurt. His head hurt. His chest hurt. His heart hurt. Perhaps even his hair had started to hurt. Danny said and expressed nothing the whole while, looking down at his sleepy hamlet which nonetheless had a tremendous chain around his ankle even here in the sky.

He'd thought nothing of that; he was only admiring the view. Several moments of stillness had passed by, broken only by the occasional roar of a plane engine or the squawking of a bunch of birds soaring below him.

The teen had smiled faintly, and then tore downwards in the air, whistling like a rocket. Like a bolt of lightning, he'd immediately sped back down to Amity Park, making a beeline for his house.

He'd never flown so fast before in his life; by the time he reached his window in a matter of minutes, he abruptly phased through his bedroom wall, and blindly seized everything in reach, eyes blinded with tears.

As soon as his duffel bag was full, he'd immediately taken off into the sky again, not even bothering to take his scant savings with him. Danny left no message, no explanation, no plea for forgiveness.

These were things that, while weighing down his aching heart, if forced to appear on paper, would break it entirely away into dust.

~(*0*)~

The beautiful thing was that he had plenty of reasons to justify his actions. He had lived in fear under his parents' roof, constantly having to endure his parents' bloodthirsty rants concerning his counterpart. A more selfish person might have fled a long time ago when the stress of having constant deaths placed in his hands overwhelmed him.

Duty was another factor. To be left bolted to the ground, robbed of boyish hopes of reaching space and happy adulthood, to be expected to live only as a shield for a demanding humanity that would discard him the moment he came useless….

This, as Danny Fenton discovered, was the true face of hell.

To live with accusations of screaming mothers in his ears when he'd done everything he could to get those people out of the building….including the smallest one, who'd already been burnt to a crisp…

To live with your life mapped out by you by a girl who reminded you of how selfish and arrogant you really were when you tried to pursue another you loved….to be reminded of how much she had done for you….what she would do for you….

To hang around with friends he now saw as selfish and materialistic when all they could prattle about was the newest item on the market…and to live with that guilt of being irritated with your own best friend's whining while people were dying….

To have a sister that constantly tried to make him his new psychology project, and righteously prove to her parents that something was wrong with her brother….while they openly admitted that he wasn't nearly as smart as his sister, that he was lazy, that he wasn't applying himself properly…

Danny no longer feared the idea of hell. He'd been living in a never-ending one for over a year, now. It hadn't even ended when he'd finally gone to sleep in a cardboard box in some obscure town far away. If the roaring trains and gunshots were not enough to keep him awake, his own selfish, lazy, tormented thoughts could.

That was one of Danny's first of many nights in the outskirts of a monochrome city, alone.

~(*0*)~

He didn't eat much. That was fine with him. He could find no position; that was also fine with him. He spent much of his time drifting in the air, looking for a new place to lay his head at night. A couple of times, he'd gotten really lucky and found a fruit truck roaring down the highway. (He always left the spare change he collected under the puzzled driver's seat for the fruit he found.)

Hunger made his stomach hurt constantly; he could soon count all of his ribs. He lost track of the days he'd been on the lam; didn't bother to check the newspapers he used as blankets and kept his head down when he passed stores with windows full of TVs. It was better not to know. Much to his relief, he'd taken the Fenton boo-merang with him. There was no feasible way for anyone to track him. He remained out of human sight as possible, whether as Fenton or Phantom.

He had a vague idea where he was going; he could tell the time by the sun and tell direction by the stars. He did not, however, have a destination in mind, so he spent much of his time looping around the States before he finally landed atop a plane one day and let it carry him wherever it wanted to.

Interestingly enough, he wound up in the UK. He kept wandering.

~(*0*)~

He washed in the streams he found in the woods, and ate even less. He flew across the countryside, vaguely admiring the sights he found. He had to be careful about flying now; two or three times, he'd nearly fainted while in midair, and the third time, he'd only been saved by plunking atop a nearby plane which was passing by. He'd wound up in some very hot country where many of the locals were as skinny as him and had large eyes. He wondered vaguely as he manuevered his way through the busy streets if his eyes looked like theirs. He dearly hoped not, and didn't look up in any of the mirrors he passed in a nearby bazaar. He couldn't read the language on most of their signs. That too, was fine with him, interestingly enough.

When that night, he finally collapsed in a dusty, trash-sprewn alley and awoke the next morning to find all of his possessions gone, he had an ephiany, and it had made him smile.

He wasn't looking for a place to lay his head at night; Danny Fenton was searching for a place to die.

~(*0*)~

He'd found him.

At the other side of the world, he'd found him, emaciated in a nearby hospital, feebly attempting to tug the cords away from his arm. His worst enemy had knelt by his bedside, looking as pale as a ghost and much thinner than he remembered. His limp, cold hand had been cradled in two hands that had wrung them tightly, as if they were trying to pass warmth into them.

"Daniel," the owner of those hands said, his voice cracking. "Why…oh, what have you done?"

The teen didn't bother answering. After a good deal of failed starts, Vlad finally tells him, voice quivering with anger and incredubility.

"You're going home, young man." It's not a question. Danny shakes his head, and the tears spring to his eyes.

"C-can't."

His dry lips are bleeding, and salty tears are trickling down his woebegone little face that makes him look so much younger than he actually is, while his eyes make him look like a very old man.

Frantic, Vlad looks ready to strike him for a second, but it immediately disappears afterword. There's only a soft hand on his forehead and a sympathetic soul kneeling beside him who lets him cry unjudged. That's more than enough to bring several tears racing down his face. Vlad sighs and starts wiping them away with a handkerchief before they can slide onto several sores on the boy's face.

"Why not?"

"H-hurts."

Vlad looks at him for a very long while. At last, he speaks again, trying to sound as harsh and as domineering as possible:

"I never specified which home you're going to, little badger. You are coming to stay with me until you heal. And even after that, chances are I'm not letting you out of my sight. I will make you stay with me, make your family believe you must stay with me, for your own sanity and well-being. Which it bloody well is, I might add. Your sister and friends can demonize me all they like; think me a kidnapper, even. You can hate me as much as you wish, but I won't let you do this to yourself anymore, little badger."

Vlad takes hold of the thin shoulders, and makes Danny look at him. He breathes into his ear:

"I'm going to spoil you the way I know you hate to be. I'm going to keep a tracking device on you all at times; it's no good trying to escape from my clutches. I'm going to keep you safe, forbid you from ghost-hunting or fighting for a long, long time. I'm going to teach you everything I know, and you, while sending my heart into sheer palpitation from terror on a frequent basis, are going to listen. I won't pursue your mother if it means keeping you safe. You're going to graduate from high school. You're going to graduate from college. You're going to live."

Vlad tucks a strand of dark hair behind Danny's ear, and sighs.

"And there's nothing you can do abo-"

He's abruptly cut off as Danny abruptly seizes him in an embrace, and cries like he never has before, beaming for the first time in what feels like years.