Hiding It
What was it with everyone using experimental drugs in this city? It was bad enough when Skulker or the GIW tried them, but now his parents too?
He paid enough attention to Fenton inventions to recognize the unique design they used in the rare cases when they wanted to deliver drugs into a ghost's system, but he hadn't heard his parents discussing any new drugs recently. Whether that was because this was another attempt with an older drug or he was just too busy to listen at the breakfast table was beyond him, but he prayed it was ineffective when he felt the telltale prick of one of the darts hitting his thigh on the way to school. I sure hope this is one of those inventions that don't work.
After moving out of his parents' sight, he pulled out the dart and tossed it aside. Hopefully removing it quickly would at least minimize the effects of whatever it was. He doesn't notice anything on the rest of the trip to school, but it had only been a couple minutes. He shot a text to Sam and Tucker to warn them, but even by the time they arrived—Sam rushed her morning routine and showed up less than ten minutes later while Tucker dragged things out and showed up like it was any other day—he still felt fine. When they'd all finished gathering their books from their lockers and he still hadn't noticed any effects, he sent them a reassuring smile. Maybe luck was finally on his side.
They'd debated Danny skipping class just in case whatever mystery effect kicked in later, but that wasn't really an option. Danny basically fought ghosts in secret for a living. That involved skipping a lot of class, and the fewer classes he unnecessarily skipped, the less extra attention he drew to himself. Plus, he'd skipped gym countless times due to injuries he couldn't mention to Tetslaff, enough that he was legitimately concerned he might flunk gym. To be safe, they'd decided Danny should check in with both of them by text every fifteen minutes for the periods they didn't share. Sam still looked a little unsure for a while, but she eventually caved in to Danny's assurance that he could handle whatever happened today. She split off from the other two to head to her first class.
So far, so good, Danny thought throughout math. Nothing seemed to be happening, and he could actually concentrate pretty well on his teacher's rambling for once. He got distracted as usual a few times, but by the end of the class, he actually felt prepared to tackle his homework on parallel lines and transversals tonight. He was hopeful as he and Tucker split up after class.
Spanish seemed simple enough too. They were reviewing the food vocabulary they were assigned to memorize earlier this week. He hadn't had time to confidently learn the vocab, but he wasn't completely unprepared either. There had been twenty-five words to learn, and he had a solid handle on maybe fifteen of those and good guesses for a couple more. His phone vibrated against his leg, and he tried to discreetly pull it out. A text from Sam asked why he hadn't texted her, reminding him of their plan this morning. Oops. He shot a quick, "Sorry, forgot," back and tapped on Tucker's contact to check in with the lack of news with him too.
"Fenton!" Oops, his teacher must have noticed him glancing down after all. "¿Cómo se dice 'apple' en español?"
He took a few seconds. He'd thought it was an appropriate length of time to think at first, but as he looked back up and finally pulled the answer out—"La manzana!"—he saw the teacher and the other students staring back uncomfortably at him. That answer was right, he knew it was. He had only taken a few seconds, right? It only felt like a few seconds…
Finally, his teacher gave him a nod and moved on to calling out the next student. That was weird, but at least it was over now. He passively listened to his classmates' answers, trying to absorb the portion of the vocabulary he hadn't learned on his own yet.
He realized he'd slipped into daydreaming at some point when another text—from Sam again—brought him back to the classroom. Shit. He'd meant to actually learn today; he needed to get rid of some of the burden of not having time to study much at home. He sighed quietly. He'd thought he'd gotten a good amount of sleep last night, but this felt more like it did when he only got four or five hours instead of the eight he'd thought he'd had. Adrenaline from the encounter with his parents must have been what was making him feel more alert this morning, but that was long gone now. He shot back a text to Sam and Tucker again and tried to focus more on both the lesson and keeping track of the time.
He could tell Sam was annoyed the third time she had to remind him to check in, and he felt a little bad about worrying her. Luckily, they had biology together next, and the classes should be changing in only five more minutes. At least he wouldn't have the chance to miss another check-in this morning.
Sam glared at him when he met her eyes walking into biology, and he turned away before he could see her expression soften into concern. He moved to sit down next to her as usual but managed to flop himself onto the floor instead.
Dash started to laugh, and it wasn't long before most of the students joined in. He wondered why the school had started shaking before he slowly realized it was him that was doing the shaking. That was… weird. He shouldn't be shaking or sitting in the floor, should he? He was surprised when a hand appeared in front of him. He looked up and found Sam at the other end of the arm. That was weird too. He definitely didn't notice her getting up from her desk. He realized he was taking too long to take her hand and finally grabbed ahold of her and let her help pull him up. He grinned and rubbed at his neck, but she kept up a serious stare until he sat down—at a desk this time.
He felt his phone buzz again and sent a quizzical look at Sam. He opened her message. You okay? He smiled back at her before he responded. Mostly tired, don't know what that was though. Might as well be honest now. He'd rather have Sam and Tucker know so they could rescue him if things went south from here. It didn't seem too bad to him, but Sam still seemed just as worried after reading his text. Sam sent him one more text, asking him to let her know as soon as there were any other symptoms. Danny thought about arguing the point, but eventually he agreed and turned his attention back to the front of the classroom.
The teacher was in the middle of writing some chemical equation and he wondered when that had happened. The last he'd noticed, their teacher hadn't been in the room yet, but there he was, surrounded by what had to be several minutes of lecture notes written on the other half of the board. Maybe that was from the end of his last class? There's no way Danny had missed that much material in the time he was looking at his phone and debating a response to Sam. He glanced to his left to see how much Sam had written down and changed his conclusion. It didn't make sense, but her half-page of notes supported the crazy idea that he'd missed the first quarter of the class somehow.
He was supposed to… do something? Didn't someone ask him to do something today? What was it? He thought he half-remembered something important he had to do, but he couldn't think of what it was for the life of him. Right. Notes. He should take notes if he wanted to understand this stuff later. He looked back up at the equation again only to find that his teacher had moved back to the first half of the board and was erasing those notes. He was so confused right now. He only stopped to think for a second or two, but there were several more minutes of lecture notes after the equation he remembered seeing his teacher writing before.
He struggled to catch up as much as he could on the notes, but his hands tingled like they were intangible or like he just woke up after a few hours of accidentally sleeping on top of his arm. His writing wasn't normally the neatest, but it was downright sloppy now; he wasn't even sure he'd be able to make out these words later. Staring at the poorly transcribed words was making him dizzy, so he kept his head up and tried to keep copying the notes without looking too closely. Was there even a point to this? Danny couldn't imagine being able to read any of this later on, and he was too tired to get even a basic idea of the topics right now. His teacher started a video on… something. Hell if he knew what by now, but it didn't matter. A video meant the lights would stay off for a few minutes. Maybe that would make the dizziness a bit better. Who knew?
It was the third time that he caught himself just sitting there with his eyes closed that he finally gave in and leaned his head onto the desktop to rest. Fuck it. He wasn't learning anything this period. A nap would be more useful than struggling to write these notes.
He didn't know how long he'd napped before he woke up to a harsh shove from Sam. The classroom lights were on again, but that didn't tell him much. Wait, what class was this? He wracked his mind for his class schedule, but he couldn't seem to remember right now. He pulled his head off the desk and scanned the room. He saw chemical equations and realized this must be chemistry. That was so weird, he didn't remember signing up for chemistry this year. He thought it was usually a senior year course, and he was still a sophomore. He felt a niggling in his mind that he should think more about this, but he was tired so he didn't. Oh yeah, he was tired. Why was he awake? Screw chemistry. He laid his head back down.
Someone shoved him again, hard. Well, that was annoying. He turned to the left to send them a tired glare but found Sam there. Oh, cool, Sam was in his chemistry class this year! He forgot his annoyance. He raised his hand to wave, but it wasn't cooperating and went in the wrong direction. It didn't really come across as the wave he was going for at all. Something told him he should care more about that, but he was still so tired. He settled for a smile at Sam before laying his head down on the desk for a nap. Screw chemistry, he could get Sam's notes later. Sam was always so nice like that. He closed his eyes and drifted off again without noticing Sam's worried gaze.
The bell wakes him up, but he's still so tired, even more tired than he remembered being before he took that nap. It was a struggle to lift his face from the desk, but he knew he had to. Taking a deep breath—and shuddering at the harsh smell of the cleaning chemicals used on his desk—he pulled himself up. He slid his notebook into his backpack without even closing it, seeing maybe an eighth of the page filled with notes that he couldn't remember writing. Hadn't he napped all period today?
Danny was shaking a little as he zipped his backpack up, and he wondered how long they had left until lunch. He was so thirsty. Why was he so thirsty? He thought maybe he just needed something in his stomach, or at least that was the only explanation he could come up with for the random shivering. It felt like he'd had one too many energy drinks on an empty stomach again. Surely he didn't forget last time and try that again today…
He looked up and Sam was talking to him. He'd thought that was his classmate's chattering as they packed up to leave, but man was he wrong.
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention," he admitted. "What were you saying?" She stared at him before dragging him into the hallway. He stumbled once, but he tried to get used to the world's spinning and thought he did a pretty good job walking after that, considering the circumstances.
"You promised you'd tell us if anything changed, Danny!" she half-yelled once they were under the cover of the noisy hallway. "This is a lot worse than before, and you didn't say a word!" Danny definitely didn't remember making any promises today. It seemed like maybe that should bother him, but it didn't somehow.
"Sorry?" he tried. Sam must see his confusion or the uncontrollable shivering or something because she lets up with a huff. She grabs him by the hand and helps guide him to their next class, and he's grateful for that because something's still stopping him from grasping his schedule. Probably the same something that's not making him question too much how he and Sam got into chemistry class as sophomores. What a weird day.
"Do you think I can skip today?" he asks when he realizes Sam's taking him to the gym. He really doesn't feel like exercising right now, not one bit. He doesn't even feel like he can fully control his movements at the moment, not to mention the school was spinning harshly around him again since he stood up from his desk. Sam turns to him in pity.
"You know you've already skipped gym like thirty times this year," she said. "You can't pass if you keep this up even if you somehow got Tetslaff to accept excuses for your absences, and how are you going to explain flunking gym to your parents?"
Danny had no answer for that. Maybe he normally would, but everything seemed too confusing right now. He didn't have answers for much of anything. He was so tired that he was actually afraid he might pass out during dodgeball or whatever they were doing, but he didn't exactly have an option.
Sam was having an easier time thinking than he was. She pulled him to the bleachers where Tucker was waiting—cool! He had gym with Tucker too!—and forced him to run through his symptoms with both of them. Sam threw in a few extra symptoms, and he realized that he hadn't even noticed his own slurred voice or the full extent of his apparent confusion.
"So we can cover for you if it gets worse," she explained. That made sense. He didn't know why he felt tired enough to pass out, but it made him feel better to know that he had his friends to make excuses if he actually did. They have three minutes left before the start of the period. He naps again.
Sam and Tucker don't give him enough time to sleep, so he whines when Tucker pulls him into a sitting position as Tetslaff walks in. He doesn't feel like sitting up right now. A childish part of him makes him lean onto Tucker's shoulder, but he's surprised to find how comfortable the position is so he stays there, ignoring Tucker's discomfort. Tetslaff was giving some speech on what the class was doing today, but he couldn't bring himself to care much and he dozed on Tucker's shoulder until he was shoved awake again. Sam and Tucker worked together to pull him toward the gym floor behind the other students.
Oh, good. He called it: dodgeball. On the one hand, yikes. This was the easiest way for Dash to hurt Danny in gym without getting himself in trouble. But on the other hand, now he could just try to "accidentally" get hit early in the game. So he set out with that goal.
Tetslaff blew her whistle to start the game and he spotted the perfect spot. He made spectacularly uncoordinated run—he thought it was a perfectly acceptable dash, but Sam and Tucker would set him straight later—for a position out of Dash's aim but right in sight for one of Kwan's gentler throws, and he was out less than a minute later. He walked unsteadily back to the bleachers and took advantage of having some more free time to nap.
He had to repeat the process twice more, but finally gym was over. Tucker and Sam took a hand each once more and led him to the cafeteria next. The idea of food thoroughly disgusted him, so he propped his hand over his arms at a lunch table and continued his interrupted nap for another half hour.
Tucker woke him and reminded him he had a free period next, and being the kind friend he was, he even led Danny to the library and helped him get comfortable for making a run for his own class on the opposite side of the school. Normally, Danny would feel bad if either of his friends had made a sacrifice like that for him, but this new, sleepy Danny cared much less.
He was glad to find he was pretty sure of his own class schedule when he woke up to the next bell ringing, and he made it all the way to history without any help. He even thought to send a quick text to Sam and Tucker to let them know he'd made it to his next class without incident. It was a particularly drowsy day in history, sure, but he managed to get through it without worrying anyone this time.
He still felt weak when he met Sam and Tucker outside the door for English, but he willed his way through it by constantly reminding himself it was his last class of the day. Sam and Tucker looked relieved, so he figured as much improvement as he was feeling must be showing through to them. It's another sleepy period, but he's pleasantly surprised that he remembers the chapter Lancer discussed by the end of class.
When the school day ended, the group stayed behind to hang out behind the school instead of heading straight home or to the Nasty Burger as usual. A little internet searching left them to conclude that Danny's parents had shot him with some kind of sedative, which made sense. They'd probably hoped to find Phantom curled up asleep—or whatever ghosts did instead of truly sleeping—and then they'd capture him to interrogate him while he was out of it. He filed that one away on the list of Inventions to Avoid and called it all an annoying but probably necessary lesson. He'd be wary of any dart-looking weapons from now on.