#vlad going insane with grief and worshiping danny's dead/comatose body is an idea that's been tickling me since last year

[vladdyissues]

I have a theory that TUE AU is not AU. Phantom-Plasmius fusion damaged Danny really hard but didn't kill him. Vlad saved the boy whom is in coma since that moment. All next eps are Danny's comatose dream. So, episodes where he's about to lose his power is an attempt to wake up. Although Danny has chosen to dream his 'happily ever after' forever (Phantom Planet is the END), we can imagine that Danny woke up after all. I just want to know what words Vlad would say first to him. (I hope, it's not "Okay, Daniel, we both are going to psychology help")

The image of Vlad caring for a comatose Danny is giving me major Snow White vibes, anon, and I love it.

Picture a frantic Vlad scurrying around his lab immediately following the carnage, trying to get his systems back online so he can save Danny. He repurposes the cloning tanks—or tank; all the others were destroyed—to serve as life support. He gently hooks the comatose teen up to the respirator and inserts the intravenous nutrition tubes, then lowers him into the glowing green stasis gel with his own scratched, scabby hands.

Vlad hasn't showered or eaten or slept in days at this point. Preserving Danny's life is his first and only priority. (He feels so pitifully weak without his ghost half to give him strength. But he must go on, for Danny's sake.)

He watches Danny for a few moments to make sure the boy is breathing normally. The rhythmic expanding of his chest indicates he is. Vlad swings around to check the monitors' cracked screens. They dutifully mark each beat of Danny's pulse, blood pressure, brain activity, and other vitals. Sighing with relief, Vlad seals the hatch on the tank and slumps against the glass.

Now he can sleep.

Over time, the tank becomes a coffin holding all that's left of Vlad's hope. He treats it like an idol. He builds a dais around it, shrinelike, and tends it devotedly, polishing the glass until it gleams without smear or smudge. He lights candles around it, drapes it with cloth to make it look holy and sanctified, and spends long, silent hours on his knees in front of it, staring, praying. He makes living quarters in his lab so he can be near Danny 24 hours a day and leaves the rest of his castle aboveground to molder in ruin. He becomes paranoid. On the rare occasions he ventures into the outside world, he gathers flowers to place around the tank: offerings of life. He plays soft music for Danny, talks to him as he eats his meager meals, reads to him in the evenings. When it's time for bed, he touches the glass over Danny's sleeping face and whispers, "Good night, little badger," before crawling into a ratty army cot that is now his bed. He falls asleep gazing at the tank, waiting for a miracle, waiting for Danny's eyes to open. Waiting for him to come back.

And should he die before Danny wakes, he prays whatever is left of his soul will take up the watch.