Danny has been exposed to ectoplasm his whole life. Artificial most of it, the authentic stuff collected from the natural portals that randomly appeared in Amity Park more frequently than even in Bermuda. Anyone could expect that this would have strange effects on a child, especially one whose food was sometimes filled with a bright green light due to forgetful parents that didn't bother getting a proper samples fridge.
Danny was four when he first saw and dreamed of the stars, and reached out to try and touch one. But they were too far away for him to touch. That was ok. He would find his way to them.
Danny was five when he noticed the strings. Most of them tiny and thin, barely there like the threads of spider silk out in the bushes of the backyard. Each one was different. The ones leading to his parents were the thinnest of them, dim and blue, like webs that could break so easily if you just waved a hand through them.
The one connected to Jazz was stronger. Jazz was love and caring and warmth and dedication that kept him happy and fed and shined that silvery white that stars glowed. Every time they played together or she taught him something or Danny showed Jazz something he'd gotten right and she was so so proud of him, Danny saw that thread get brighter, thicker, stronger.
When he met Tucker, also at five, the two of them were inseparable near immediately. Tucker knew how to do things with the stuff Danny made that the latter never would've imagined! They played together as knights and astronauts and cyber police, they built their own game console from every other console out there, made model rockets that Danny was adamant had to actually fly. The string between him and Tucker was just as silvery white as the one with Jazz, and the happiness and love and friendship and affection and utter devotion to each other, Danny could feel it just like he could feel his parents' dedication to SCIENCE and his sister's dedication to raising him.
His thread with Tucker, however, seemed to run stronger even than the one with Jazz. They ended up speaking in synch at times, finishing each other's sentences and making things. Jazz was turning pages and cookies baking and safe safe hugs, and Tucker was circuit boards and fizzy soda and laughter and warmth and affection that some people mocked but that Danny could never feel ashamed of and that he knew Tucker wasn't either.
Danny didn't have many other threads connecting him to people but that was fine. The more time he spent with his friend - with his brother, and with his sister, the faster and stronger he got. He ate less and less, needed less sleep, and had that ever growing urge to Create. Jazz made sure he always ate on Saturday at least, made him dinner, made it with him when he learned how to cook, and those always tasted even Better than Mom's green food. It made him feel warm and loved and it tasted like Home.
And then they met Sam in the 8th grade. Sam was wild, a forest that refused the touch of man, a flash of a camera capturing the moment forever more, a pillar of steel and bark that would stand in the way of any injustice she saw.
"Fuck off, Dash!" Had been the first words Danny heard out of Sam, so he knew right then that he liked this girl. Dash was large and reeked of insecurity and confusion that blended into anger and frustration and aggression. Sam was like a tidal wave, slamming into him and pushing him away from Danny and Tucker, neither strong enough to fend him off themselves. "No one likes an asshole that can't pull his head out of his ass."
Dash does not swing at her, which Danny can tell she takes as an insult instead of a mercy, but he does glare daggers at them all. Danny glares back, with Sam and followed by Tucker, and he eventually scoffed, turned his nose up at them and sauntered off.
Danny sees the finest thread weave between himself and Sam when they shit talk Dash afterward, and when Sam lights up at hearing about Danny's parents - the whole reason Dash attacked - and instead of lashing out she lashed on. They found common ground in their love of horror movies and talking about solar energy, and the duo became a trio. Sam took photos, Danny drew, Tucker sewed, and sold. The three of them were woven together by summer, talking and chatting about this or that with brilliant silver and gold strings.
Sam showed Danny and Tucker the perfect spot in the woods to look at the stars from, and Tucker had made Danny the best telescope he could, and Danny saw those threads become cords. He was never letting go of these two.
When Jazz or Tucker or Sam ever made food with him on Saturdays, no matter how hurt Danny had been that week, he was always better by Sunday. It never worked that way with anyone else, not even his parents. Mom claimed her cookies were baked with love, but Danny knew better.
Jazz baked with love. He could taste it in the food. It made him stronger, smarter, warmer, faster. When he dreamed, he dreamed of the stars and how to reach them. His dreams taught him how to build and build his way to the stars. He built engines, gravity inverter improvements, propulsion systems. He even drew up potential designs for a hoverboard after Tucker suggested it. He'd get to it after showing Sam and Tucker the portal.
He would never get back to that project of his.
When Danny dreamed of the stars they were far away. But with a Click, Danny was pulled upward and onward and outward, and he Saw he saw and heard and felt the heat and screams and light of the stars, so close he could tangle his fingers in their flares, and so he did, arcs of fire and plasma filling him even as the dark cold of the void between those wonderful beautiful stars wrapped around him. They filled him much like they filled the void until there was no more room to fill.
Like the stars, Danny SCREAMED