You know, out of all the tropes that could exist around Jack/Vlad, my favorite by far is the one where Danny is one of the first people to find out about his dad’s crush on his (ex) best, sickly friend from college. I have a lot of scenarios for how this could happen, but my favorite is that:
Danny is helping his father with the usual monthly deep cleaning (because with all that ectoplasm lying around, I imagine that at least once they dedicate a day to thoroughly clean the house to avoid anything strange from constant exposure).
While cleaning, he finds an old diary among many old books. At first, he thinks it belongs to his mom since it has no name, but seeing the sloppy and irregular handwriting, he quickly realizes it’s his dad’s, which unsettles him because, although it sounds bad, he never considered Jack someone who could keep a diary.
At first, he thinks about putting the diary back in its place—after all, he knows diaries are private and that it would be weird to read it without Jack’s consent—but curiosity wins, so he keeps it to read later.
Days go by, and he completely forgets about the diary, caught up in the constant routine of fighting ghosts here and there, plus trying not to fall asleep in school, completely disconnecting from the topic. Until one day, when he’s supposed to do an English assignment that Lancer assigned, he grabs the diary instead of his textbook, and with a strong urge to procrastinate and little motivation to do homework, he finally begins to read it.
At first, he notices that the diary is quite old, dating back to Jack’s early college years, though it’s clear he didn’t write in it consistently since there are days and even months between entries.
What he notices is that the diary was a gift from Jack’s sister, knowing how anxious and energetic he could be in a new environment, giving him the notebook to vent in a healthy way (this reminds Danny a lot of something Jazz might do). He also notices in the writings that Jack was constantly bullied for his obsession with ghosts and his theories about their existence, which left a bad taste but he never showed it.
This pains Danny, as he’s surprised that someone like his father could have suffered harassment, though he’s also objective and knows Jack’s personality means many people really wouldn’t understand him.
What surprises him most is seeing how his father talks excitedly about his new roommate, who was very nice and kind, and most importantly, understood and was interested in his ghost theories. Danny quickly realizes he’s talking about Vlad, though it’s still hard to believe because his dad describes him very differently from the man he knows.
He also notices a curious pattern: most of the diary entries focus on Vlad and the friendship Jack had with him. Even when he finally gets to the part about meeting his mother, the half-ghost still takes up too much space in the writings.
He notices how things gradually move into a territory that he definitely feels disturbed to know. Nothing is explicit, not even in the way Jack tells everything directly, but he can tacitly sense that there’s something more than friendship there.
Then comes the accident, and strangely, this part is the shortest yet still painful, about how both his dad and Maddie tried to visit Vlad but were simply not allowed to enter, nor even to leave gifts for him.
The next entry is almost two years later, shortly after his parents had married. In it, Jack recounts how things went for him and Maddie, how good a friend she was and how much he admired her as such an intelligent and loving woman, how happy he was to have married her
But above all, how much he missed Vlad, how it hurt that after years of sending letters as a last resort, he never responded, and how he regretted never being able to see him again or know what happened to him
And here is where Jack finally writes that despite how much he loved Maddie and appreciated her, she would never take Vlad’s place, he could never love her as he did Vlad, but he couldn’t leave her alone, especially with the upcoming birth of his daughter, yet in his heart, he wished that place belonged to Vlad…
After that, Danny throws the diary aside and sits on his bed (because yeah, he was reading all of this lying down), in shock.
His dad was in love with Vlad—or at least had been—for many years, even when Jazz was born
Danny couldn’t sleep after that, especially knowing there were more entries in the diary, the last one written when he was two, and he didn’t want to know what it said…
He talks about this a few days later with Sam and Tucker, and they’re just as disturbed, though Sam insists he should talk to his father about it.
And well, that would be it. Another thing that crossed my mind is that after this, Danny becomes more observant of his dad, noticing that his crush on Vlad still persists, especially when Vlad visits on special occasions (here Vlad could already be on his path to redemption but would still have a lot of resentment toward Jack)
Use this info wisely; if it’s for a fic, better. My brain is mush right now, and I can’t think of more. Add whatever you want :)
