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Danny was annoyed.
He had a problem, he knew the cause, he just didn't have a way to fix it.
Frostbite told him during a check-up, that Jazz insisted he get, that he was missing a key ghostly nutrient.
It could only be found in pure ectoplasm.
Luckily ghost food was a thing and it was loaded with the stuff.
Frostbite threw an amazing feast to make sure Danny got his fill and sent him home with leftovers.
Unfortunately, the ghost food wasn't very stable outside of the zone so it liquified before he was able to even find a place in his room to store it.
It looked disgusting and smelled even worse.
So he was back to square one.
It was nice that at least he knew why he had been stuck with a nagging never ending hunger ever since the accident.
Of course, he could have known sooner if he had mentioned it at any point before now. The only reason he did find out something was up was because when he mentioned the hunger he was dealing with, his friends thought he was just talking about typical teenage hunger stuff. Then again, so did he.
Turns out the whole ‘teenage boys have bottomless pits for stomachs’ is a bit exaggerated. You are supposed to be able to feel full at some point and he was very much not.
Which is how he learned he was dealing with an actual problem.
Which, of course, then led to the Jazz forced Doctor visit.
Then again, maybe waiting and not getting any answers to his problem was a good thing? If he had tried to figure it out sooner, he might not have known Frostbite yet.
He did consider the already contaminated hot dogs, but they were alive? That seemed maybe borderline cannibalism or at least super rude.
It took Danny about a week to realize that maybe all hope wasn't lost. He wasn't the only half ghost in the world, which meant he wasn't the only one who had this problem.
Unfortunately, that meant he had to talk to Vlad.
Ugh.
Danny was not looking forward to that in the slightest.
He waited until the weekend and let his friends and sister know his plan before he took off for Vlad’s big dumb castle.
Usually Danny would just go straight through every wall of floor until he found the cheesehead, but he decided to be nice and actually knock on the front door.
It took a few minutes but eventually Vlad answer the door.
“Why are you here?”
“Well hello to you too.” Danny joked, “Can I come in?”
“Why are you asking?”
Danny shrugged and took that as an invitation. He walked right through Vlad and turned in the entryway to face him again.
Vlad looked annoyed about being walked through but he didn’t yell or anything so Danny figured that was a good sign to keep going.
“I was hoping you could help me with something.”
“Why me?”
“You’re my wonderful pseudo uncle who would love to make sure I stay happy and healthy?”
Vlad raised an eyebrow and looked distinctly unimpressed.
Perhaps he laid it on a little too thick. Maybe honesty would work better.
“It’s a ghost problem. A ghost friend of mine tried to help but that didn’t work. I figured you would have to have a better solution with your 20 plus years experience and all that.”
“Ah, so I was your last resort then?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘last resort’.”
“What would you call it then?”
“Only other option?” Danny said while giving Vlad the biggest puppy dog eyes to soften the blow.
“Wow, I feel so loved and appreciated.” Vlad dead panned.
“Aw come on! You get to teach me something! Didn’t you always want to teach me ghost stuff? I know you do!”
Vlad rolled his eyes with an overly drawn out sigh, “what is your ghost problem, Daniel?”
“You’ll help!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“If I tell you will you help me?”
“Just tell me so I can see if it’s worth my time.”
That was good enough for Danny.
“Okay, so long story short. I need to have more ghost vitamins or whatever and while they are easy to get in ghost food, it’s impossible to eat ghost food outside of the zone.”
“Well of course it’s impossible, there isn’t enough ambient ectoplasm to stabilize it.”
“Yeah, so what do you do then?” Danny asked, “You can’t be hopping in and out of the Zone for a quick snack all the time.”
“No, that would be ridiculous.”
“So what do you do instead?” Danny asked again.
“It took a little experimenting but I found a way to add pure samples of ectoplasm into my diet via my nightly glass of wine. It really brings out the best flavors of the wine and doesn't have any aftertaste.”
“Cool.” Danny dead panned, “you do know that I’m still a teenager and the legal drinking age is 21, right?”
“I knew that,” Vlad muttered.
“Please tell me you have alternatives.”
Vlad bit his lip and looked away.
“Seriously?!”
“I found something that worked and I stuck with it! Why would I keep looking?”
“Well that’s just great. Now what am I gonna do.”
“Just because I stopped looking for an alternative before, doesn't me we can’t figure one out now.”
“Wait, you’re gonna help?”
“Yes Daniel. I’ll help. Besides, you do have a point that having only one source is a bit shortsighted.”
Danny smiled feeling extra proud that he might have out-smarted Vlad. At least a little bit.
“Come now. I’ve got a fresh sample in the lab that we can use.”
Danny floated after Vlad and once they had the sample they made their way into the kitchen.
“Okay so I know for sure that mixing ecto with meat is a terrible idea so please don’t do that.” Danny said as he watched Vlad gather different kitchen gadgets and utensils.
“I wasn’t going to but I’m afraid to ask why do you already know that?”
“My parents.”
“Your parents experimented with food?”
“Not on purpose. They just put the samples in the fridge. Not sure if it spilled or was just too close. It’s happened a few times.”
Vlad looked into the middle distance as the horror of what Danny was telling him slowly sank in.
“Anyway, what were you gonna do?” Danny said hoping to pull Vlad back from his thousand yard stare.
“You know if it gets unsafe at your home, you’re welcome to stay here.”
“I’m fine, Vlad.”
“You’re house is a death trap!”
“It’s been that way for years.”
“That’s worse!”
“Vlad please can we get back to the food.”
“I really don’t like knowing that your parents are so lax with their lab safety.”
“Are you really that surprised? You went to school with them.”
Vlad winced at the thought of the college years and shook his head. “Well the offer still stands regardless.”
Danny sighed but it did feel a little nice to know that even though Vlad was a jerk, he wasn’t completely evil. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
That seemed to satisfy Vlad and he went back into gather things.
Eventually the counter was lined with all sorts of kitchen stuff and Danny had no idea what most of it did.
Despite how much he liked to eat, he really didn’t know his way around the kitchen.
“It’s been many years since I did my experiments, but I do remember that ectoplasm will curdle milk and any dairy products it comes in contact with, so we’ll just skip those entirely.”
“Why was milk the first thing you thought to use?”
“I live in Wisconsin, Daniel. Dairy Capital of the World? Of course I had to try it.”
Danny snorted, “You’re such a nerd.”
“Well do you have any brilliant ideas?”
“If it works in the wine would it work in like, fruit juice?”
“That’s actually a pretty good idea.” Vlad said slowly as he considered Danny’s suggestion.
Danny beamed and opened Vlad’s fridge to see what he had.
Turns out there was only orange juice in Vlad’s fridge. “You don’t got any Juicey juice?”
“No Daniel, I’m 40.”
Danny grabbed the boring orange juice with a scoff, “just because the name is cute doesn't mean it’s for kids.”
“Sure it doesn't.”
Danny poured the juice into a large glass and handed it to Vlad.
Vlad took the glass carefully and set it on the counter, “I suppose I could pick some up if you plan on coming over more.”
“I like strawberry kiwi.” Danny muttered.
Vlad just smirked as he carefully poured in a small amount of ectoplasm into the glass.
The juice mixture fizzed slightly and then turned pink.
The two just stared at the glass for a moment.
Neither one expected that reaction.
“I’m gonna drink it.” Danny said before he picked up the glass and took a large gulp.
“Daniel wait!” Vlad protested too little too late.
Once he got past the foam layer, which was surprisingly very sweet. He was hit with an intense wave of sour.
He carefully set the glass back on the counter as he forced himself to swallow the drink.
“How was it?”
“The foam was sweet kind of like if cotton candy and peeps had a really fluffy baby. The liquid was somehow more sour than a lemon and extra sour candy combined.” Danny thought for a moment and added, “I’d give it like a six out of ten. It’s not the worst drink I’ve ever had. It’s not great either.”
“I’m afraid to know what the worst drink you had was.”
“It was pretty bad. Wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”
“I think I have some apple juice in the pantry.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Shall we see what happens?”
“Heck yeah!” Danny agreed before taking another big gulp of the the ecto-orange juice.
“I thought you didn’t like that drink?”
“Eh, I just like the foam.”
Vlad just shook his head and lead the way to the pantry.
“What if we just scooped all the foam out and that was my extra little ecto-treat?”
“Then what would you do with the rest of the mixture?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well it would be rather wasteful to pitch it.”
Vlad grabbed the apple juice and Danny snatched a bag of chips.
“Can I eat these?” Danny asked just before he reached into the bag and took a handful.
“Knock yourself out.”
Danny watched as Vlad poured a portion of Apple juice and ectoplasm into a new glass.
This time the drink turned an electric shade of blue and tasted like it too.
Danny then scooped a spoonful of the former orange juice foam into a glass with the blue apple juice just to see how it would taste together.
Vlad was diligently taking notes on what they did and how Danny described how things tasted. It made it feel much more official, but it was still fun.
Maybe coming to Vlad’s wasn’t the worst idea after all.