Chapter Text
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit’s dead; there’s something wrong
-
He felt like he was being torn in half.
Split into two different entities, both of which detested the other, neither of which could live apart. Who said he was going to live at all?
Half of him conceded that the thought was dramatic, even for his usual brand of teenage-angst. The other half reasonably argued that he was being electrocuted, which validated dramatic thoughts. He could feel the current ripping through his body, wrapping around his middle, as if it wanted to literally rip him into two different parts.
He screamed. He Screamed.
He didn’t think there was anything worse than the smell of Dash’s gym socks but dying was marginally more torturous.
But he wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. The dead don’t feel pain. At least, that was what the Guys in White propagated.
Someone was talking to him, empathizing with him, begging him to stay. He wanted to—he didn’t want to die—but he didn’t know how to live. He didn’t know if he even was alive. But if he wasn’t alive, and he wasn’t dead, what was he?
“Who are you?”
“I’m Danny.”
-
Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
-
The hospital smelled like bleach and blood.
Jack and Madeline wandered around as if they were the undead, alternating between the waiting room, the vending machines, and their son’s room. They knew the hospital well. Both of them had spent numerous days recovering from various weapon malfunctions or ghost attacks. There were happier memories, of course. Those days, four years apart, when they held their newborns. There were memories of visiting friends, family, lawsuit plaintiffs. There were memories of not visiting—
“I’m half the man I was.”
Madeline and Jack exchanged glances, both breaking out into a run. They skidded around the corner, unnoticed by the individual who was slumped against the wall. He didn’t have a mullet; his white hair was tied at the base of his neck. He wasn’t wearing a University of Wisconsin sweater; he donned a double-breasted Armani suit that was more expensive than their research loans. A scar jutted from the center of his chin to his hairline. Thinner scars branched out, covering most of his face, as if he was cracking at the seams. Blue eyes were now magenta—the exact same shade as his forearm canes. At least, to a casual onlooker, they appeared to be forearm canes. If a physiotherapist examined the mobility aids, they might have wondered why the canes were emitting a vibrant magenta aura, and how they were able to wind around one’s forearms, without cutting off essential circulation. The unique setup allowed him to hold a styrofoam cup of coffee, with hands that had aged three decades.
Even with every identifiable feature removed, they were able to identify him. They were also able to identify the pain in his voice: “It’s not as though they’re going to look at me and say—”
“Vladdie!”
His head snapped up. He was clearly shocked, though his eyes held a touch of something else, something that caused Jack and Madeline to charge. Before Vlad could object, they had both thrown their arms around him. His shout caused them to leap back. They flushed as they realized that his coffee was now streaked across his suit.
“Eh, oops?” Jack said.
“It was an—” Madeline paused.
“Accident?” Vlad coyly said.
Thus commenced a routine exercise of Madeline and Jack shamefully looking at the floor, before raising their heads to speak, and repeating the process.
Jack’s voice shook as he asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Hmm, let’s see.” Vlad rubbed his chin. “You two built a ghost portal. Something went wrong. Someone you love has been killed. What do you think I’m doing here?”
“Don’t say that!” Madeline exclaimed.
Blinking twice, Vlad asked, “Don’t say what?”
“‘Killed’.” She could barely say it. “Danny’s not dead.”
“He’s just—” Jack broke off with a distraught sob. He pulled out a handkerchief, the word Fenton stitched in the corner. Vlad and Madeline instinctively leapt back, seconds before the large man blew into it, with a honk that could have rivaled their old marching band’s trumpets.
“Quite,” Vlad said.
“He’ll be okay,” Madeline said. “He’s got to be okay, because if he’s not okay---”
She broke down, burying her face in a startled Vlad’s shoulder. His surprise and frustration only increased, as Jack came around to bawl into his other shoulder. Vlad managed to slip out of their grasp, the ends of his canes rapping against the linoleum. “I hate to break up this little reunion, but I’m not here for you. I’m here for Danny.”
They both looked even more desolate, reaching out, receiving empty air in return.
A sniffling Jack asked, “How did you learn his name?”
“How did you learn the directions to the hospital?” Vlad retorted.
“Vladdie,” Madeline said, “please—”
“—continue to dramatically rant?” he finished. “Gladly. We three were fools, I’ll grant you that, but how could you two be foolish enough to endanger your own child?”
“We would never!”
“You very clearly just did!”
They hung their heads, only looking up when Vlad implored: “Have the doctors told you anything about his condition?”
“He’s alive,” Jack whimpered.
“...Fully?”
“What?”
“Hmm?”
“They’re running tests,” Madeline said. “We’re all just waiting for him to wake up.”
“Jazz is with him, now,” Jack added. “She’ll let us know if—when—”
“Oh, I assure you, you’ll know when he wakes,” Vlad said. “You don’t have to rely on outdated but nevertheless valid genres of music.”
“Jazz—Jasmine—is our daughter,” Madeline said, avoiding his eyes.
Jack beamed. “She just graduated from Casper High! Valdevictorian! Oh, but she doesn’t like us mentioning that. Ah, I can’t help it; she was strong enough to give the graduation speech and we were so proud! She’s now studying at Amity Park Community College. ‘Wants to be a brain surgeon when she’s older. We tried convincing her that she should go to the University of Wisconsin but—oh—you’re upset.”
“Upset?” Vlad repeated with a thin smile. “Why would I be upset? Please, tell me more about the family that you have built since we were together.”
Shame touched their faces.
“It wasn’t like that, Vladdie,” Jack muttered.
“Do not call me that.”
“Vladdie, listen,” Madeline pleaded. “Jazz and Danny—we love them, so much, but we—it’s not like we planned—”
“Two accidents.” Vlad sighed. “Yeah, that sounds right.”
A wail abruptly filled the hospital, causing the trio to freeze.
“Ah.” Vlad smiled. “Danny’s awake.”
He started towards the sound—and was the only one to do so. He glanced over his shoulder, an eyebrow ricocheting to the top of his hairline.
Jack looked as though he was about to faint. He swayed on the spot, caught up in a tangle of invisible strings, which pulled him to and fro. He eventually fell to his knees with a wail that rivaled his son’s. Madeline didn’t collapse. She didn’t utter a single sound. She was as rigid as a statue, staring at nothing and everything.
“What are you two doing?” Vlad implored. “Jack, get up! Madeline—M-Madeline?”
Madeline.exe had stopped responding. In sharp contrast to Jack—who was hyperventilating—her cheeks were transitioning from magenta to teal.
“Love the color scheme,” Vlad wryly said, “but let’s spare even more Fentons from dying, shall we? Madeline, breathe. Jack, stop breathing…so…fast…really?”
Madeline was now hyperventilating. Jack was now holding his breath. Both were proud of their ability to follow instructions.
Vlad pressed his palms together, briefly standing without his canes, fighting through the pain for the sake of the dramatic pose. “I hate you both.”
He closed the distance between them, cupping their faces. The gesture was so revolutionary, yet so familiar, that their eyes focused. Together, they battled the panic attacks: “I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m breathing. You two should try it, sometime. No, not like that. Breathe in. Two. Three. Four. Hold. Two. Three. Four. Breathe out. Two. Three. Four. Hold. Two. Three. Four. Come on, pull yourselves together. Your child needs you.”
Jack and Madeline both took off running, nearly flattening Vlad in the process. He used his canes to steady himself, before snarking, “Okay. I needed you, too, and neither of you came running, but sure, fine, get to the kid before he’s middle-aged.”
Neither Madeline nor Jack answered. They were too busy creating lawsuits and workers compensation requests, as they crashed through every barrier that stood between them and their son. These barriers included but were not limited to: doctors, nurses, patients, and physiotherapists who could have questioned the improbable forearm canes of an improbable individual.
They skidded into their son’s hospital room and ran right into the magenta wall. Madeline had enough grace to raise her arms at the last millisecond, catching herself. Jack slammed right into it.
A hushed hiss caused them to look to the left. A shrill scream caused them to regard their right. Vlad was leaning against the wall of magenta light, one foot braced against it, hands in the pockets of his stained blazer. By all accounts, he looked as though he had fully accepted that glowing magenta slabs often appeared in hospital rooms. Jazz had not reached such levels of acceptance. She punched the wall as hard as she could, screaming her brother’s name, as she tried to break through.
Jack and Madeline seized their daughter’s arms to keep her from injuring herself. The gesture, while appreciated, was unnecessary. The laws of physics were crumbling into anarchy. Every time Jazz punched, the otherwise solid section of wall transformed into plasma. Her hands were covered in magenta goop but were otherwise unharmed. Frustratingly, no matter how hard she punched—no matter how much goop sprayed onto her black sweater and garnet leggings—the barrier remained.
Said barrier was nearly opaque, making it difficult to see Danny on the other side. All they could see was a small figure in a large hospital bed. A child who was writhing and wailing.
“Stand back, gang!” Jack ordered. “There’s a reason I was voted Most Likely To Experience A Traumatic Brain Injury in high school!”
He aimed the top of his head towards the solid surface and charged. He only screeched to a halt when Vlad appeared in front of him. “Nope, that’s a nope. You three are out here for your protection. The energy emitting from Danny is enough to tear a hole through the spacetime contin—oop, never mind, he’s done.”
Gone was the cacocphany of wails that had seemed so unnatural. In their place were the cries of a child in crisis. The family didn’t know which was more haunting.
One by one, the standing Fentons felt a tap on their shoulder. They looked behind them and realized that a crowd of medical professionals was cowering as far away from the room as possible. When the trio turned back, the magenta wall had disappeared, as if it hadn’t been there at all. It must have been. Something had been muffling Danny’s sounds. Without the divider, they could clearly hear the child screaming bloody murder.
It felt like he was being murdered.
And so, he screamed. He screamed in pain. He screamed in terror. He screamed in anguish from the memories of the electricity ripping through every molecule of his body. He screamed in agony as he thought of the other two teenagers who may have been torn apart, just as he had been. He Screamed.
He screamed until he heard a familiar lullaby: “You remind me of the babe.”
Only then did Danny lean into his sister’s arms, still whimpering. He couldn’t speak, not yet, but the voice already knew what the answer would have been. So, she said, “The babe with the power.”
He could feel Jazz pulling her signature ebony headband across his cranium, evidently thinking that his bangs needed to be out of his eyes. She continued to sing, each syllable soothing. Above the nostalgic sounds of childhood, came a deeper voice:
“Breathe.”
The voice was soothing but firm. Danny wasn’t being asked if he wanted to breathe, he was being told to breathe. He wasn’t sure if he could trust the voice, but he remembered that he appreciated the art of breathing. So, he breathed.
“Breathe in. Two. Three. Four. Hold. Two. Three. Four. Breathe out. Two. Three. Four. Hold. Two. Three. Four. Repeat. Jack, what’s your favorite kind of fudge?”
“Why, thanks for asking, Vladdie! Remember our senior year of Casper High, when we went on a field-trip to Herscream Park, and I thought I saw a ghost above the gift shop, so I climbed up the fire escape, ran across the roof, and fell into the dumpster? It was there that I found—”
Danny alternated between listening to the breathing instructions and listening to the bizarre story. He blinked and suddenly realized that he wasn’t falling into a green void, after all. That was good. He was lying in a bed, which was flanked by his mom and Jazz. That wasn’t good. The latter was still holding him, humming a familiar tune. The former was sobbing. Definitely not good.
His father and a ponytailed individual were standing at the end of the bed. Ponytail was staring at Jack, both amused and exasperated by his fudge-seeking escapades. Something was beeping. A heart monitor. Like the kind they have in hospitals. He was in a—
He let out a small sob and Jazz tightened her embrace. He was shaking so hard that he was sure he would fall apart, if it wasn’t for the arms around him. His teeth chattered and, for a moment, he could swear that it was snowing. It shouldn’t have been; it was early September. Still, stranger things had happened. Just today, in fact.
He slowly reached up to return Jazz’s embrace.
“You gave us quite a scare, there, Little Badger,” Ponytail spoke up. “How are you feeling?”
Danny didn’t reply, couldn’t reply. Not when Jazz was biting her trembling lip, not when tears were rolling down his mom’s face, not when his dad looked scared. They all did. His dad, the ghost-hunter, his mom, the ghost-hunter, his sister, the Jazz, were all scared.
So, the boy in the hospital bed said, “I’m okay.”
There was a pause before Ponytail said, “Well, I believe him.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Danny insisted. “Where are Tucker and Sam?”
“The kid with the TechGlasses and the Prada Princess?” Ponytail asked. “They’re with Katharine Manson.”
If the room had been cold, before, it had become absolute zero.
“Th-they’re dead?” Danny croaked.
Jazz finally let go of her brother, if only so that she could cover her mouth.
“Mm?” Ponytail abrupty laughed. “Oh, no, those two aren’t dead. No, other than some potential radiation exposure, they should be completely fine. Well, they’ll be traumatized, but what teenager isn’t, these days?”
Indeed, the two teenagers in the room were crying. Madeline embraced them and Jack hugged all three at once. Danny didn’t want to let his family know just how painful it was to have them pressing against every nerve in his body. Said nerves had woken up and were each demanding his full attention, like cranky newborns.
He tried to ground himself by focusing on something else in the room. Something like Ponytail, who was staring at the family hug with a mixture of expressions. Danny couldn’t discern any of them. He could barely comprehend any of his own emotions beyond Anxiety; she was definitely keyboard-smashing the control panel.
The teenager’s voice sounded as small as he felt, caught in the tangle of his family’s arms. “Are you sure my friends are okay?”
“I don’t know if they’re your friends,” Ponytail evenly said, “but TechGlasses and Prada Princess are safe in a manor down the road from your house, which is not as impressive as some other manors.”
“Oh!” Jazz cried. “That’s what you meant when you said they were with K-Katharine: they’re at her house.”
Ponytail spoke with all of the this-might-as-well-be-happening energy of a demon who had been named Bildad the Shuhite: “Sure.”
Danny sighed with relief. “So, they’re okay?”
“Sure.”
“Of course, they’re okay,” Jazz said. “They weren’t in a dangerous laboratory!”
“They…weren’t?” Out of the corner of his eye, Danny spotted Ponytail shaking his head. “They…weren’t. I was the only one in the lab. I was the only one who was—oh my god, was I electrocuted?”
“You were electrocuted,” said Ponytail, the apparent source of wisdom.
“Oh my god, I was electrocuted!”
For a moment, Danny couldn’t put on a brave face. Fortunately, his family was hugging him so tightly that they didn’t see just how scared he was. He had enough time to metaphorically mask, donning an expression that he hoped would be interpreted as, ‘Being electrocuted isn’t a big deal; RIP Anakin, but I’m different.’
Vlad raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching.
After several moments, his family pulled back. His mother kissed his forehead and Danny instinctively went to rub the lipstick away. With a choked chuckle, she handed him a box of tissues. He wiped his face, jostling the headband in the process. He then noticed that Ponytail’s suit was dripping with recently-spilled coffee, prompting Danny to hand the tissues over.
“Thank you, Danny,” Ponytail said, gesturing to the stain. “An accident via your parents. What a concept."
Danny glanced at Jazz, who heard the unasked question.
“I have no idea who he is, either,” she said. “Though, he does look familiar. Sir, are you a friend of our parents?”
“What a marvelous question; I will not answer it. My name is Vlad Masters.”
“Vlad Masters?”Jazz repeated. “The CEO of VladCo?”
“CEO, Entrepreneur, Died in 1994. Vlad. Vlad Masters.”
“Wait,” she said, “what was that?”
“CEO, Entrepreneur?”
“After that.”
“Vlad Masters?”
“No, in the middle!”
“Died in 1994?”
Everyone stared at him, Jazz eventually asking, “So, what exactly are you doing in my brother’s hospital room, Mr. CEO, Entrepeneur?”
“Aw, Vladdie here is our—” Jack broke off. “Or, well—-”
“Indeed,” Vlad said, agreeing more with what Jack hadn’t said. “Also, I will accept being called ‘Sir’, because I will accept anyone referring to me as their superior. However, my pronouns are everything, everywhere, all at once.”
No one missed the way that Danny perked up at that. “I’m Danny.”
“Pronouns: He/Him,” Jazz added.
Danny lifted a tube-filled arm to point at her. Said arm was soon pinned to his side as his mother hugged him, again. It was painful, it was embarrassing, it was exactly what he needed.
“Oh, Danny,” Madeline said, her violet eyes drowning. “I’m sure the doctor’s going to come in here, any moment, and say that everything is okay.”
“Everything is not okay,” said the first doctor who was brave enough to enter the room. “There are some inconsistencies with your son’s charts.”
“What do you mean, ‘inconsistencies’?” Madeline demanded, snatching the chart and examining it. “His body temperature is…49 degrees?”
“What?” Jack yelped.
“That’s half a normal body temperature,” Jazz said. “How is that possible?”
The doctor unhelpfully shrugged. “His heartbeat is also impossibly slow.”
Danny shakily felt his pulse. He hadn’t realized it, before, but the doctor was right. There was definitely something there, but it was a lot slower than his normal heartbeat. Not even fear seemed to increase the organ’s pace. And he was afraid. Covertly. His parents and Jazz certainly were. Overtly.
Yet, it was Vlad’s reaction that Danny focused on. He staggered backwards, his magenta eyes snapping shut. It was a moment before anyone else noticed. In fact, the others only looked over, when Vlad said, “Oh, fuuu-ontina.”
“What?” Danny and Jazz chorused.
“Are you okay, Vladdie?” Jack and Madeline cried.
Vlad went through the same breathing exercises that he had taught Danny, before cheerfully saying, “Nope!”
“You know something, don’t you?” Jack asked.
“I do.”
“Can you explain why Danny’s vitals are off?” Madeline implored.
“I could.”
There was a long pause before both of Danny’s parents cried, “Can you explain it to us?”
“I’d rather not.”
“I’m the doctor, here,” snapped the doctor, there. “If anyone’s going to explain this, it’s a group of medical professionals. We just have to perform lots and lots of really painful experiments. Then we’ll create a cure and your son will be normal, again.”
“Nope,” Vlad said. “You’re not experimenting on him and you’re not setting the movement back by a few decades. Get. Out.”
The doctor drew himself up to his fullest height. “You don’t scare me.”
“Don’t I?”
It wasn’t the billionaire who spoke. It was the ghost. The ghost in the doorway.
There was a ghost in the doorway!
A ghost who had teal skin and magenta eyes. A ghost who had styled his snow-white hair to rise up like devil’s horns. A ghost who had a familiar scar that branched out from chin to hairline. A ghost who donned an orange cape draped across a magenta catsuit. A ghost who smirked, revealing glistening fangs.
A ghost who said, “Boo.”
The doctor screamed and ran right through the intangible spectre. The being spun around and raised a gloved hand, aiming for the doctor’s back—only for two beams of light to slam into the ground beneath the apparition’s stylish boots.
Danny viewed all of this from the gap that he had pushed through his sister’s blood-red hair; Jazz had instinctively shielded him. Their parents had been more offensive than defensive. Both were holding Fenton Blasters, one ghost in two crosshairs.
Said spectre whirled around and gasped, “You…shot at…”
He staggered backwards before disappearing entirely. Jack and Madeline started forward, only halting when their daughter shrieked, “Stop! You’re going to cause even more accidents!”
There was an awkward pause.
“It was a ghost,” Jack meekly said.
“That doesn’t mean you should attack first, ask questions later!”
“Ghosts are classified as monsters,” Madeline pointed out. “They’re not human.”
“So, what?” Jazz huffed. “Would you try to shoot any animal you see?”
Both parents blinked before saying, “We’re hunters.”
“Ugh!” Jazz pulled away from Danny and asked, “What do you think?”
Danny shrugged. “I mean, the ghost did say, ‘Boo.’ Isn’t that ghost-speak for, ‘I’m going to attack you?’”
Jack and Madeline beamed. Jazz did not. Seeking out the only other individual in the room, she asked, “Mx. Masters, what are your thoughts?”
“You…shot at…” Vlad stared at the scorch marks on the floor before shaking his head, his ponytail flying to and fro. “Anyone else up for rhubarb?”
Before anyone could make sense of that nonsense, gloved hands shoved a woman into the room.
“Aunt Alicia?” Danny and Jazz yelped.
It had been years since the teenagers had seen their mother’s older sister. They both recalled a warm summer day when their parents had driven them out to a chalet in the middle of the woods. Their mother had wanted to surprise her sister for her fiftieth birthday. Alicia had been less than thrilled at the intrusion. In the end, Jazz had dragged her sibling down to the lake, their pockets bursting with rhubarb, an argument bursting through the woods—
Alicia was in an argumentative mood. She marched across the hospital room and jabbed a finger into Vlad’s chest; everyone was grateful that it wasn’t an axe. “That tractor was still running!”
“I don’t give a swiss,” Vlad said.
“Oho, you’re going to give a whole bunch of cheese,” she said. “By ‘give’, I mean, ‘give me’, and by ‘cheese’, I mean, ‘money’. Give me money.”
“Fine,” he huffed, knocking her hand away so that he could unpocket a checkbook. “How much are tractors, these days? One million?”
“Yes.” She shamelessly took the check. “Why am I here?”
“You’re needed.”
“Why am I needed?”
“A-li-cia!”
Danny blinked. Vlad was standing between his mother and his aunt, as if he had been in the middle, all along. “Ah, ah, I didn’t bring her here for you.”
Madeline’s eyes filled with tears and Jack put his arm around her shoulders. Her face became lost in the meadow of orange fabric. A glimmer of sorrow passed over Vlad. He reached his hand out before pulling it back.
Alicia stepped forward to stand at his side. After a tense moment, she asked, “Since when do you two know the directions to the hospital?”
“HA!” Vlad cried.
“Hey, has anyone seen the context?” Danny spoke up. “I, for one, would love to have it.”
“If you find it, can you please share it with me?” Jazz asked.
“No way, get your own!”
The adults turned, two amused, two bruised.
“This one can buy us all the context we need,” Alicia said, her elbow digging into Vlad’s ribs. “Starting with: who’s the kid in the bed?”
“That’s your nephew,” Vlad said, rubbing his side.
“I have a nephew?”
“Apparently.”
She turned back to Danny. “Name?”
“Danny.”
“Pronouns?”
“He/him,” chorused Danny, Jazz, and Vlad.
“So, you’re leaving it up to Jasmine to carry the baton of being our family’s next generation of strong women?” Alicia asked, causing Danny to snort. Glancing at her niece, Alicia added, “Luckily, you’re more than capable.”
Jazz beamed at that.
All smiles faded, however, when Alicia asked, “So, what are you in for?”
“I, uh—there was an accident,” Danny said.
“In our parents’ lab,” Jazz added, glaring at the couple in question.
Alicia groaned before snarking, “At least it didn’t involve a ghost portal.”
“Umm—”
Her eyes widened. “No.”
“It…involved a ghost portal.”
“It involved a ghost portal?” Alicia repeated.
“It involved a ghost portal,” Vlad flatly said.
For a moment, everything was calm. Then, Danny blinked, again. He was beginning to think that he should stop doing that.
Alicia was attempting to lunge at his parents, all while being restrained by a disinterested Vlad. He was holding her up by the straps of her overalls, her boots and his canes several inches off the floor. Evidently, it was perfectly natural for a disabled individual to lift an irate woman with no strain to one’s body. Alicia punched, kicked, and screamed. She only struck air, though her words certainly had their own impact:
“You fools! How could you? Vlad, you had better be holding me back because you don’t want me to be arrested for multiple felonies, and not for any other reason!” She glared over her shoulder and he brightly smiled, absolutely refusing to address her statement. Turning her ire back to Madeline and Jack, she seethed, “How dare you put another loved one through this?”
“Another loved one?” Danny and Jazz chorused.
“I recall saying the words that I said!”
Danny tried to defend his parents: “They didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“It’s their ghost portal, ain’t it?”
“It was,” Vlad said. “Now, it’s a smoking pile of radioactive debris.”
“How do you—?” Danny shook his head and addressed his aunt: “Mom and Dad had no idea that we were in the lab.”
“Did you say ‘we’?” Jazz asked.
“Um, no?”
“Danny, as much as I used to admire anyone who defended Madeline and Jack,” Vlad said, “they do not need to be defended, at this moment. Creating a scientific laboratory that is easily accessible to a trio of children is utterly reprehensible. Oops.”
Vlad didn’t look too upset by his faux pas. In fact, he looked infuriatingly amused.
“A trio of—?” Jazz sighed. “Oh, I get it.”
“No, you don’t, and the lab wasn’t easy to access,” Danny said. “W-I had to go through multiple doors to access it.”
“Those doors should have been locked.”
“They were!”
“With technologically advanced access codes.”
“Yeah, it took Tu-me weeks to hack the system.”
“There should have been manual locks as a backup security device.”
“Sa-I was able to pick them after practicing all summer.”
“There should have been multiple signs, in clear view, warning that unauthorized entry into the laboratory could result in imminent death!”
“Oh, there were, we just ignored them.”
Vlad paused, his mouth quivering. “Mm.”
“It’s all our fault!” Jack wailed.
“Is it though?” Vlad asked.
“You’re defending him?” Madeline hoped.
Still dangling in Vlad’s grasp, Alicia snarled, “Oho, you had better not be defending him.”
“I’m not defending Jack so much as I’m offending Danny.”
Danny was, indeed, offended by Vlad’s insinuations.
“What are you saying, Vladdie?” Madeline wiped her eyes. “Are you blaming a child for his injuries?”
“No, I’m blaming three children for his injuries.”
“Enough!”
With that impressive scream, and his most impressive glare, Danny fell through the hospital bed, landing on the floor below.
The other three Fentons shrieked his name. Madeline and Jazz dove forward, trying to help him. Jack lifted the entire bed to assist with their efforts. Vlad raised his eyebrow and pursed his lips. Alicia, having dropped to the floor, stared at the billionaire with an unreadable expression.
Danny processed all of this because it was easier than processing the pain. As his mother and sister carefully lifted him from the floor, he caught a glimpse of a poster on the wall. Ten faces were showing an array of emotions, each beneath a number. Face 1 was smiling. Face 10 was crying. Danny concluded that the creator of the poster had never felt pain before.
His family carried him to a teal chair in the corner. They were able to do so, while moving his intravenous pole, heart monitor, pulse oximeter, and the other gadgets and gizmos that the doctors had attached to the medical marvel. They weren’t able to do so without hurting him. They were able to do so without noticing how much they were hurting him; he ensured that.
Sitting in the chair was even more excruciating than resting in the bed. The bed through which he had somehow fallen.
“What just happened?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know,” Jazz said, a rarity.
“How did you fall through a solid bed?” Madeline wondered.
Jack dropped the bed in question, trying to examine it. He was pushed aside by Vlad, who rested his hand on the mattress. “Ah, yes, I see. There is a hole in this bed.”
When he stepped back, they saw the chasm in question, a strange magenta light burning at the edges.
“W-what?”
“Oh.” All eyes turned to Alicia, who was looking from the heart monitor to Vlad. “No wonder you needed me.”
“Actually, I needed you for that,” Vlad said, nodding towards the scorch marks on the floor.
“What is that?”
“The result of multiple blasts going through an intangible ghost.” He stared at the spot for a moment before casually saying, “They tried to shoot Plasmius.”
“Oh!”
Alicia lunged at Vlad. The other occupants of the room were worried that she was attacking him. It was a moment before they realized that the normally stoic woman had wrapped her arms around the billionaire. It was her turn to lift him right off of the floor. The Fentons watched, confused and concerned, as Vlad began to tremble. His arms, which had been pinned to his sides, managed to free themselves so that he could return the embrace. His canes made an X across her back, marking the spot.
Across the room, Jazz had pulled Danny into a similar embrace. The younger teenager pushed her away, trying to act tough, all while hanging his head. “Jazz, seriously, I’m fine. I—wait—what—?”
The headband had finally lost the battle. Gravity had lured his bangs into his eyes. At least, someone’s bangs were in his eyes. Logic dictated that the bangs were his but the color of the strands rebelled against logic. His hair was no longer his normal shade of black. He was beginning to think that nothing was normal, anymore.
“What?” He ran his hand through the strands. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“What do you mean?” Jazz innocently asked.
“Whose hair?” Madeline inquired.
“What’s hair?” Jack wondered.
“Your hair is snow-white,” Vlad spoke up.
“And your eyes are lime-green,” Alicia added.
His parents and sister began shouting at the utterly unfazed duo, Danny sat in stunned silence.
“Does he have a scar?” Alicia asked Vlad.
“Probably,” Vlad said.
“I have a scar?” Danny asked.
“Probably,” Alicia said.
Feeling the gauze that had been wrapped around his midriff, Danny asked, “Is this where—?”
“Probably,” Vlad and Alicia said.
He went to poke the scratchy material, only to double over in pain. Pain. Green. A hand. A fist. A fist. A hand. Green. Pain.
It took awhile for him to transport from the ghost portal to the human hospital. When he did, he realized that Jazz was saying, “You’re okay, Danny.” That was a relief. Danny had briefly considered the fact that he might not be okay, but Jazz said that he was, and she was never wrong.
Even if, on the other side of the room, his aunt was gritting her teeth and her friend was waving his hand in a ‘so-so’ motion.
Danny decided to ignore them; acknowledgement could easily lead to agreement. Instead, he asked, “Where are Mom and Dad?”
“They went to find you a new bed,” Jazz said.
“Found one!” Jack boomed, carrying the piece of furniture above his head, with Madeline sitting on top.
“That comatose man won’t even miss it,” Madeline said, hopping down.
“He didn’t even appreciate it,” Jack said.
“He certainly didn’t object to us taking it.”
Alicia and Jazz both facepalmed. Danny was just grateful to have the bed; his body appreciated the art of being horizontal. As such, he didn’t pay attention to anything but the slight soothing of his aches, not until he heard his aunt say, “Vlad, wipe that look off your face.”
Danny hadn’t understood most of Vlad’s mannerisms until now. As a dramatic teenager, he had experienced many moments of retching when his parents had gazed at one another with embarrassingly lovey-dovey expressions. For some reason, Vlad was staring at his parents like his parents stared at each other. At Alicia’s comment, he sighed and maintained a more neutral expression.
“Wipe that look off your other face,” she said, as if it was a normal thing to say.
He sagged against his canes. “You don’t even know—”
“I know.”
Magenta eyes rolled. “I know you know.”
“I know that they haven’t apologized, yet,” Alicia said, causing any traces of expression to fade from Vlad’s face. “You know, forget what I just said.”
“No.”
“Danny needs your help,” she pressed. “So, what are you going to do?”
“Oh, you don’t know?”
“Vlad—”
“Rhubarb—”
“Are you going to take Danny beneath your wing?”
“I don’t have wings.”
“Your cape, then, whatever.”
Vlad glanced at the boy, who sardonically waved. He then looked at Jack and Madeline. Then the scorch marks on the floor. Then:
“Nope!”
Swinging his canes more dramatically than was required, Vlad walked out of the room, without looking back.
“Oh, don’t you dare!” Alicia shrieked. “Vlad!”
“Can’t you go after him?” Madeline pleaded.
“It’s too late.” Alicia sighed. “You had to shoot at him. He probably could have done this. Maybe. I mean, there was a chance. Then you shot at him.”
“We would never shoot at Vladdie!” Jack looked horrified at the very thought.
“We would never hurt him!” Madeline agreed.
Alicia stared at them for several, tense, seconds. Then, she let out another sigh, and said, “Yeah…”
Danny wasn’t sure why Vlad had left, but he half-wished that he had stayed. He seemed to be the only one who knew what was going on. The medical professionals who began surrounding his bed weren’t knowledgeable. Oh, they knew how to poke, prod, press, and push, but they didn’t know how much pain he was in. Yet, somehow, the billionaire who had just met him had both known and understood.
The edges of the room darkened as Danny sank further into the bed. Not literally; no more falling. He simply felt as though he was glued to the scratchy hospital sheets, unable to even lift his head. He gazed at the tiles on the ceiling as he listened to the chaos around him, neither interacting nor escaping. Just like in school. He realized that it was easier to exist in this strange state. The medical professionals’ jabs weren’t as painful. The monitors’ beeping wasn’t as overstimulating. He let himself be swept up in the haze.
He was vaguely aware that his parents were talking to the doctors and his sister was talking to him. He acted like he understood exactly what he was saying, even though she could have been speaking an entirely different language. A different language in a different world that he had once inhabited. Jazz had not yet learned the customs of this new World of Bed in which he now resided.
He could also hear his aunt. Was she talking to herself? Maybe. No. She was tapping a device on her wrist, adjusting another device that the family had initially thought was an earring. “Killroy, I need you to talk to Plasmius.”
Because that made sense.
“What do you mean you two are hunting the rare purple-back gorilla?” Alicia shrieked. “How did that work out for you, last time, Skulker?”
Because that also made sense.
“Fine, I’m pulling out the big guns. I figured you’d approve. Technus, make sure he doesn’t get mauled, again.”
Nothing but sense.
“Damn it, Plasmius, if you don’t get back here, I’m telling Cheeseburger.”
Sense and sensibility.
It wasn’t his aunt’s sensible conversations that snapped Danny out of his stupor. It was the fact that he really, really, needed to pee. Thus, he was faced with the dilemna of all who travel to the World of Bed: should he appease one organ at the cost of every other organ’s pain and suffering?
It was with great reluctance that Danny sought his family’s help to travel from the World of Bed to the World of Bathroom. What followed was an agonizing and embarrassing few minutes. What he lacked in privacy, he made up for in pain. Yet, he still did his best to act as though family outings to the bathroom were perfectly normal. His mask nearly crumbled when he saw his reflection. His hair really was snow-white and his eyes really were lime-green.
Okay, sure. That was fine. He didn’t need black hair. He didn’t need blue eyes. He didn’t need to look conventionally normal. He just needed to pretend that he was normal. Normal. He was normal. He donned an expression of complete normalcy. It was normal to have white hair and green eyes. It was normal for his family to carry him into the bathroom and back out, like he was in an invisible palaquin. It was normal for a ghost to tower over his aunt. Wait, no, that wasn’t normal.
Normal or not, Devil Horns was back and sadder than ever.
Jack and Madeline shifted, so that they were each supporting Danny with one arm while their other arms sought weapons. The redistributed weight caused Jazz to become unbalanced, as she was forced to carry more of the load.
Neither the ghost nor the lumberjack noticed the metaphor. The former glared at the latter, though the look wasn’t exactly menacing when magenta tears were rolling down their teal cheeks. “You’re a bix.”
“You’re a ghost,” Alicia drawled.
She stepped between the confused individual and the infuriated couple. Danny was jealous of just how bored she was able to look.
“You’re—” Devil Horns paused, looking down, as if noticing their outfit for the first time. “—correct on this one occasion. Don’t let it go to your head.”
They disappeared. A second later, Vlad stormed into the room, pressing one of their canes down on Alicia’s foot. “You’re a bix.”
“You’re really good at censoring yourself with obscure cheese names.”
“Thank you.”
Vlad didn’t look thankful; they looked extremely reluctant to be back. Their tears seemed just as pink as their eyes. Danny assumed that he was having a fever-induced delusion. His parents were also delusional, shouting Vlad’s name with an added ‘ie’, as though this was a joyful occassion. Vlad wasn’t joyful at all, though they did manage a small smile when Danny waved.
“Are you still pretending that you’re not in excruciating pain?” Vlad asked.
“Hey, I’m not the one crying,” Danny shot back.
He didn’t make any other snarky comments for a while. He couldn’t. He had to grit his teeth, when his family lowered him into his bed. Doing so required going from one position to another, and his body did not approve.
Turning back to Alicia, coincidentally drawing the attention away from the aching child, Vlad said, “You should know that you’re now at the bottom of the list of The 5 Most Annoying Beings In My Life.”
She put a hand to her chest. “Who dares usurp my place?”
“Clockwork. These two are tied for second place.” He gestured to Jack and Madeline. “Emica. The P’s are now tied for fourth place. This one is actually very close to taking over your current position so enjoy it while it lasts.” They pointed to Danny, who fingergunned in turn.
Alicia’s tone struck a paradoxical combination of guilt and no-regrets: “What did Cheeseburger say to you?”
Sure, yeah, that question might as well happen.
“Nope,” Vlad said. “The last time I gave someone free ammo, Skulker’s Peninsula turned into Skulker’s Island.”
Sure, yeah, that answer might as well happen.
“On a completely unrelated note,” Vlad seethed, “if I was to abandon Danny, it would not even remotely be the same, because I don’t love Danny. No offense.”
Danny couldn’t answer. Pain was holding his vocal chords for ransom.
“Not that who I love matters,” Vlad continued, “because you’re right, my dear, they have not apologized, so why should I help them?”
Jack and Madeline had their moments of wisdom; in this moment, they wisely decided to remain silent. Nothing they said could have helped.
“Don’t focus on them,” Alicia said. “Focus on Danny.”
“He’s their family!”
“He’s my family.”
“Well, so am I!”
“That’s why I want you to help each other.”
That was the most nonsensical thing she had said all day.
“Help each other?” Vlad was incredulous. “I can barely help myself and he’s clearly helpless.”
Danny didn’t answer. He was a poor boy who couldn’t pay the ransom that the pain demanded.
“Vlad,” Alicia softly said. “Please.”
“The P’s were a valiant effort,” they said. “The P-word isn’t. There’s nothing you can say that will make me—”
“I’ll tell them.”
They took a second to look surprised. They took many more moments to look murderous. “You’re bluffing.”
“No, I’m not.”
“If you expose me, you expose him.”
“They’ll love him, no matter what. But you? What will they think of you?”
A sinister smile spread across their face. “Oho, I have taught you something, after all. Very well.”
“I’m sorry,” Alicia said.
“No, you’re not, nor should you be.” Indeed, Vlad sounded like they had radically accepted radical acceptance. “May I at least have permission to intimidate my exes?”
“Oh, Drac-Ghoul-A, you have my full blessing.”
Vlad used their canes to dramatically whirl around. “Well, Jackie, Maddie, it looks like we’ll be together, after all. Lovely. Now, I’m neither as precise nor as pretentious as Clockwork. However, I do believe that your apologies are thirty years overdue AND YOU HAVE FEES TO PAY!”
Madeline and Jack shrank back. They had both been ready to fight the fanged ghost, but they were now cowering at the caned human. Danny watched all of this from the end of a tunnel. He remembered playing pirates with Tucker, when they were younger. They had used paper towel holders as makeshift spyglasses. He felt like he was looking down one of those tubes. Jazz was saying his name, but it bounced off of the tunnel walls. Tunnel. Portal. Green. Electricity. Pain.
He took several breaths and tried to focus.
“Well?” Vlad was saying. “Are you two going to apologize?”
“For what?” | “What for?”
The sound of silence. Followed by the sound of: “Fuck.”
Danny blinked, even though he had told himself that he was going to stop doing that. His parents were crying. About him? No. That was good. His sister was crying. About him? Yes. That wasn’t good. Vlad was gone. That may or may not have been good.
The pain wasn’t good. He couldn’t hold it in for much longer. He wanted to—
A scream. Not just a scream. A Scream. A Scream that flooded Amity Park. A Scream of one with chronic pain who had realized that the 1-10 scale was only an atom on the tip of the iceberg. A Scream that generated a cacophony of noise as multiple hospital monitors began to shriek. A Scream that caused those standing to drop to their knees, their veins pulsing. A Scream that shifted the universe slightly to the left before other forces flicked it back into its rightful place. A Scream that made Danny think, ‘God, I wish that were me.’
And like a thunderstorm, interlaced with lightning, the pressure broke.
“Time out!”
-
And love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night
-
Danny opened his eyes. He was no longer lying in the hospital bed. He was no longer in the hospital. He was no longer lying. He was floating against a cosmic backdrop. The astronomy-loving-side quashed the terrified-side, and he tried to find familiar constellations. Instead, he found Devil Horns. The ghost seemed surprised to meet a fourteen-year-old boy in the midst of the cosmos.
A bright flash of light caused Danny to look away, seeking comfort from the darkness between the stars. When he turned back, Vlad was there. A bright pink…something was dripping from her mouth. Evidently, billionaires’ bodily fluids adhered to the Danganronpa color palette.
“Oh, hello, Little Badger. What brings you here? What brings me here? Where is here?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Danny said, staring at the starscapes.
“Mm.” Vlad went to unpocket the remaining tissues that Danny had gifted her. In doing so, she noticed that a heavy medallion was coiled around her throat. Danny realized that he was donning similar jewelry. Dabbing at her mouth, Vlad said, “If I had to guess, I would say that The Ancient Ones are sticking their noses in where they don’t belong; not that we fully belong anywhere.”
Danny blinked and said, “Okay, your guess isn’t as good as mine.”
“Oh? You think your guess is better?”
“We’re in a fever dream.”
“Also, yes.” Vlad repocketed the tissues and reached into a different pocket, one carefully tucked in the inner-seams of her stained blazer. “Then again, Noctum’s motif is usually psychological pain, not physical pain.”
Addressing said pain, Vlad withdrew an unmarked bottle of neon green pills. In one fluid motion, indicating practice, she removed the lid and popped a single pill into her mouth, swallowing it whole. She then held out the bottle.
“Whoa, get back!” When Vlad did not even attempt to move, Danny tried to back away, as well as one could when floating in a void. “I’ve sat through enough school assemblies to know that drugs are bad.”
“They’re meal supplements.”
The teenager squinted before conceding, “Well, okay…the brochure from our last assembly did say that I shouldn’t do drugs unless they were meal supplement pills that were offered to me by a billionaire in a cosmic void.”
“...What?”
Danny shrugged. “At least, Happy Peppy Gary and Peppy Happy Betty didn’t sing a song about it.”
For the first time since her bizarre arrival to the bizarre area, Vlad looked perturbed. “Perhaps we really are in a fever dream.” Abruptly wincing, she added, “Nope, still pain.”
Danny folded his arms, if only to ground himself when there was no ground. “The pill didn’t help?”
“Oh, no, nothing makes the pain go away.” Vlad spoke as casually as if she was speaking about the non-existent weather. “The meal supplements are for renewing energy, such as the energy that one expends when screaming, dramatically.”
Once again, she held out the bottle. Still suspicious, Danny asked, “Why would I want to scream?”
“You’re in pain,” said Vlad, as if it was obvious, even though Danny had been doing everything in his power to make sure that it wasn’t obvious. Magenta eyes softened. “You don’t have to mask in front of me, Little Badger.”
“Who says I’m masking?”
“Me. You’re masking.”
“Y-you don’t know—”
“Oh, believe me, I know.”
Danny was squinting so prominently that his eyes were nearly closed. He watched through a slit between his eyelids as a shaky hand reached out. A single tablet landed in his palm. He swallowed the pill and instantly wished that he had a spoonful of sugar.
“Oh, the pill tastes disgusting,” Vlad warned.
“Gee, thanks, I would have never figured that out.”
“Indeed, your situational awareness does seem to be lacking.”
“Hey, I know some things,” Danny huffed. “Like, I know…I’m…feeling…better.”
It was true. The pain was still there, persistently agonizing and agonizingly persistent, but he felt energized. It reminded him of the babysitting adventure when, trying to pretend that they were Mature Enough For Adult Beverages, he and Jazz had ordered cappuccinos. They hadn’t slept for forty-three hours. Good times.
Vlad knowingly regarded him. “Now, scream.”
“Ahhhh.”
An awkward pause. Then:
“What. Was. That?”
“That was…a scream?”
“That wasn’t a scream.”
“It was so a scream!”
“It was not even remotely a scream!”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” Danny shot back. “Abandon all restraint, let down every wall, and put every bit of agony into a single wail?”
“Yes!”
He perked up. “Wait, you’re giving me permission to do that?”
“Oh, Little Badger, you have my full blessing.”
That was all a teenager who had been conditioned to respect authority figures needed.
He Screamed.
He closed his eyes and let out every bit of pain, every bit of anxiety, every bit of his being. The noise was cacophonous but cathartic. Screaming was cathartic. It still hurt, but he had let something out, he had let something go.
When he opened his eyes, he was shocked to see that green swirls were wrapping around the stars, like an alternate version of van Gogh’s painting. He was equally surprised to see just how proud Vlad looked. Danny felt a rush of appreciation. He went to hug her—
—and the universe yeeted him back into the hospital. With a strangled yell, Danny fell out of the hospital bed. Jazz was able to catch him before he hit the floor (again). He leaned against his sister as he looked around. His parents and aunt were kneeling, just as they had been, when that first Scream had rebounded. Had any time passed? If a dream only lasts a few seconds, how long do fever dreams last?
An entertained Vlad entered. “Did you just try to hug me?”
“Yeah, the universe wasn’t a fan.”
As Jazz helped him back into the hospital bed, Danny replaced the mask. Vlad had been right. The pill had increased his energy, temporarily, but it hadn’t decreased his pain. Wait…
Magenta eyes caught green ones.
In that moment, Danny knew several things: Devil Horns and Vlad had the same eyes and the same oh-so-frustratingly-knowledgable expression. That was probably just a coincidence. More importantly, Danny knew that whatever had just happened, it had been real. Inexplicable but nevertheless real. Or, perhaps, it could be explained. “Where were we?”
“I don’t know.” Nope. “Any more questions?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you -Nobody- too?”
That was the one thing he knew with absolute certainty:
“I told you.” He had. Twice. “I’m Danny.”
-
Listen, the birds sing, listen, the bells ring
All the living are dead, and the dead are all living
-
This story has been my comfort food for years. This is what happens when a disabled, queer, author who earned her Ph.D. studying crip theory / queer theory re-imagines her fourth-favorite Nicktoon. (I don’t choose the ballroom; I just dance.) I used to post excerpts on tumblr and the reception was always positive. Ironically, so much time has passed that I no longer access that tumblr, I cannot retrieve any of those excerpts, and I don’t know if anyone still reads Danny Phantom fanfiction. And, yet, here we are.