Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, or any characters or plots associated with it. However, the character of Dr. Troy Vang is of my own creation, and should be treated as such. I am not making any money off of this.
Breadsticks, Uneaten
Danny Fenton was not afraid of crying during those last minutes. He was crying because he was afraid, because his worst nightmares were about to realized, and because, in thirty minutes, he would never allow himself this luxury again. His parents were down in the lab, blissfully unaware of their son's fate. His sister sat outside the door, just listening to his sobs.
Where were his friends, he thought, the people who had taken as much responsibility for his life as he had for theirs? Where was that awful man who'd sworn he wouldn't tell? And where was that goddamn basket of breadsticks he'd eyed during his entire meal with Dr. Vang? The breadsticks he should've eaten. Where? Probably rotting in the dumpsters outside of Bistro Italiano.
-
"What exactly do you want?" Danny asked, resisting the urge to nervously grab at the breadsticks in the center of the table. The man in front of him glanced at his tensing arm, and smiled, almost reassuringly.
"Danny. I'm asking you to submit to just a few tests. Just a few." Dr. Vang gave another youthful smile, and Danny rubbed the back of his neck.
The room seemed to spin around them; the pleasant smell of Italian food wafted through the air, but it was mixed with the imagined scent of ammonia and fluorescence. Bistro Italiano, despite its unimaginative name, was Amity Park's finest restaurant, and it saddened Danny to realize it could never be romantic for him. "Why?" he asked. "If you're not going to tell your bosses about me, why do you need to know anything?"
"It'll benefit the body of scientific knowledge one hundred fold. I'll present my findings as theories, and no one will ever know." Troy Vang leaned back in his seat, the fabric of the seat barely wrinkling under his wiry form.
"This is blackmail," Danny said. He swallowed, feeling a light breeze as an unnoticed waiter passed by. "You said you understood. That you got that I was human."
Dr. Vang shrugged. "Look, come to my house next Friday. I have a lab in my basement. All I want is your basic bodily fluids, an MRI, and all that good stuff. Basic diagnostic tests."
"Like there's something wrong with me." Danny forced himself to lean back in his seat as well, but he pressed back so hard he automatically began to phase through it. Quickly making himself solid again, he leaned over the table.
"There is," Dr. Vang said casually, and, without hesitation, picked up a breadstick. "So, do you eat? I notice you haven't touched a bite since we've known each other."
-
It was twenty-five past eight when Danny abruptly stopped crying. He pushed his way out the door, ignoring Jazz as she leapt to her feet to follow him to the bathroom. He hiccoughed several times as the aftermath of his sobbing, and his muscles worked dejectedly. He washed his face off once, staring as it in the mirror. They'd be there in less than three minutes, and the odds were against him ever seeing FentonWorks again. He wanted a glimpse of himself in his last minutes.
"Danny," Jazz said softly, walking in and wrapping her arms around her brother's shoulders. "Why won't you tell me what's wrong?"
"I'll let Mom and Dad answer the door," Danny mumbled in response, the comment tacked onto some thought process that had just now come out of his head. He hiccoughed once, trying to will the blotches off his face.
"For whom?" Jazz asked. Danny shook off her grip and, in a sudden movement, turned around to hug her tightly. Jazz returned it after a few shocked seconds.
"I love you, Jazz," he whispered. "I love you so much."
"I love you, too," she said. "But who's going to be at the door?"
Pulling away, Danny walked through the bathroom door. Once again, Jazz followed him, this time to the top of the stairs.
"Who?" she demanded again, jumping slightly as the doorbell rang. Danny hiccoughed, refusing the let loose the tears welling up in his eyes. He couldn't cry again.
"The Guys in White."
-
"This isn't what it looks like!" Danny yelled, falling backwards over some trashcans as he did so. "I'm not -"
"Not what?" the man asked, kneeling in front of him. "A ghost? What?" The honest curiosity in his voice made Danny want to slither further into the alley. Nothing freaked him out more than honest curiosity, these days.
"I'm not a - you didn't see anything," he said lamely. "Please. You didn't see anything."
"Phantom," the man said, "I work for the government's ghost hunting agency. Do you know who I'm talking about? The Guys in White?"
Mutely, Danny nodded, feeling his throat constricting. It felt as if all his emotions had been thrown into a blender and liquefied, save for fear and helplessness, which floated to the top like chunks of so much pulp. "Please don't," he managed to choke out, his voice cracking mid-word. "I'm not a ghost."
"Then what are you?" the man said, and, in the flash of a car headlight, Danny got a glimpse of his features. Youthful and round, if Danny had spotted them on the street he wouldn't have had any problem asking him for the time. Now it seemed as if there was no time left to ask for.
"I'm human."
"Then what's your name?"
A small whimper escaped Danny's throat. "If I tell you, I don't have a chance," he paused. "Sir." He hadn't said the word "sir" seriously in a long, long time.
"Maybe you do, anyway. Tell me your name and I won't take you in right now."
"You'll take me in later?" Danny asked, though there was none of the usual mirth or annoyance in his voice.
"No," the man said. "I might not take you in at all."
Praying that this was actually a shot at life and not his last words, Danny answered. "D-Danny Fenton."
Though it was impossible to say in the dark, Danny thought the man must've raised his eyebrows. "That's where things get interesting, I guess," he said, and stood up, offering his hand to Danny like a neighbor who'd just happened by the man in the house across the street falling. "I'm Troy Vang."
-
Jazz took a step backwards, and nearly fell over when the doorbell rang again. Danny listened to his mother's footsteps coming up the basement stairs. "The Guys in White," Jazz repeated slowly. "Danny - why didn't you tell me? I could've - we could've -"
"They've probably got a whole army at the door," Danny whispered, leaning against the banister post closest to him. "I'm just going to go and take it."
Maddie was now making her way across the living room. "Coming," she said loudly. Danny hiccoughed again. He hoped that would stop soon.
Jazz moved to stop her, but Danny put a hand on her leg, just below the knee. "Don't bother," he said. "They'll just break the door down if you do."
"Why didn't you run?" she asked.
"Because then I'd be running forever, wouldn't I?" Danny stood up just as his mother turned the doorknob, and he took the first step down the stairs. Jazz grabbed his forearm.
"Not yet," she said, and Danny heard the hitch in her voice. "Not yet. I told myself I'd protect you. Danny, you can't get hurt yet, you're too young . . ."
Danny stopped, for her, and let his mother greet the agent who was knocking.
"We're here for your son," he said, after the hellos and good days.
"What?" Maddie said, tilting her head. "Why?" Then Danny shook his sister's hand from his arm and began to finish his walk down. Dead man walking, he thought was the phrase. Jazz had begun to cry behind him.
"You can't," she whispered, and he barely heard her. "Not yet."
"It's okay, Mom," he said, briefly patting his mother's shoulder. He glanced up at Jazz, who was quickly breaking into hysterics. "I'm ready." The agents who'd come stared, surprised at his complacency. None of them moved.
"Danny -" Maddie started. "What is this? What have you done?"
"Nothing," Danny said, and hiccoughed again, but no one noticed but him. "Absolutely nothing."
This got the first agent to snap out of his stupor. "Under the laws put forth in the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act, article one, subsection A -"
"I know I'm a ghost," Danny said, wiping his eye and rubbing his nose. "Just take me away already."
And they did.
-
Dr. Vang and Danny sat on a park bench. Vang had bought them both smoothies, but Danny hadn't taken a sip of his. "You're half ghost," Dr. Vang said, an air of amusement in his voice. "Now there's a breeding experiment we hadn't thought to try. Did your parents do this to you?"
As it had turned out, Dr. Vang was head of the science department of the entire agency. This did little to ease Danny's nervousness.
"No," Danny said, fingering the smoothie straw. "It was an accident."
Dr. Vang licked some smoothie off his lips and shook his head. "You mean they didn't mean to do this to you."
"No, I mean I didn't mean to do this to myself." In disgust, Danny threw his drink into a nearby trashcan.
"And how'd that happen?" Vang finished off his and threw it across Danny's lap into the trash. "It's not like you just trip and scramble your molecules, kid." After a pause, he said, "Are you going to tell me the truth?"
"What would I have to gain from a lie?"
"Don't know you well enough, yet."
"You know me better than most." Danny crossed his legs on the bench seat, and leaned over them. He felt that maybe if he scrunched himself up tight enough, they couldn't see him anymore. It was, in fact, the first time he'd wished he could be invisible and sink into the floor since he'd discovered that that was possible.
"I suppose so. So how'd it happen?"
Almost laughing, but not quite, Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "I tripped and scrambled my molecules."
-
The truck ride was a bumpy one, made more jarring by the fact that both of Danny's ankles were shackled tightly to floor. His wrists were held by a length of glowing chain and some attached manacles; if the truck turned over, there'd be way he'd escape with anything less than four broken limbs.
A guard, dressed in the customary storm-trooper getup, stood watch, leaning an exceptionally long gun against the wall while he stood. Said gun implied that if it were actually shooting bullets, a person would find his head imploded if shot from fifty yards away - and, shooting the energy that it did, it would probably shut down the internal organs of anyone normal.
Danny sighed, leaned his head forward. The hiccoughs had gone away, and now all he felt was a tingly numbness, like both his entire body and his mind had fallen asleep after being deprived of blood for too long. That was good, he supposed. If he couldn't feel anything, it couldn't hurt.
Of course it would hurt. What was he thinking? It would hurt to be ripped away from his life and his family, and from the friends he'd never gotten a chance to say goodbye to. It would hurt when he'd never get to feel himself click with a girl. It would hurt when they cut into him, looking for something they might not find. It would hurt when he dreamed about the screams he could've prevented.
Upon realizing this, Danny remembered that they'd drugged him. He tried to move his hand up to his neck to feel the puncture wound, but of course it was chained up. Sighing, Danny glanced up at the storm trooper, who was thrown off balance every time the van hit a bump in the road. Danny knew he'd have bruises on his wrists and ankles, and probably his tailbone, too.
Then, as suddenly and as jarringly as any pothole or lump, the van stopped.
-
"I'm here," Danny called, knocking on Dr. Vang's door. The doorbell didn't work, and Vang didn't seem to be responding to knocks. Finally, the door opened, pulling away from his approaching fist.
"Come in," Dr. Vang greeted, moving out of the way. Danny shuffled into the room. "Don't touch anything." Danny didn't really see what there was to touch. Apart from a dying potted plant in one corner, a bookshelf covered in papers and well-worn books, and a sofa in the middle of the place, there wasn't even much to see.
"You're a bachelor, aren't you?" Danny said, crossing his arms over his chest and swaying slightly.
Dr. Vang began to walk towards another door, and Danny followed. "How'd you know?" Vang laughed. When he opened the next door, Danny saw that it was just a kitchen. "Thank you for coming, Danny. I didn't want to tell the agency about you. I know this can't be easy."
Danny didn't respond. "Why're we here?"
"You say you eat. Prove it." Danny looked up at Dr. Vang, confused.
"What?"
"I'm fixing you lunch before I stick you with things."
Danny swallowed. "Oh. Right. Thanks."
"I wanted to be a chef before I was a science nerd," Dr. Vang said. "It's no trouble at all."
-
Was it better than a literal cage, or a number on a cellblock? The wide, clear plastic cylinder Danny was currently sitting in, back to wall, knees bent, at least was comfortable. A mockery of postmodern housing, yes, emulative of a test tube, yes, but comfortable. The floor was white and had the give of a spring mattress, and the way the walls curved in some places supported his back nicely.
But was it actually any better? After the agents who'd brought him in had dumped him there, leaving a loose-fitting, white shirt, and a set of baggy, white pants, he'd changed without a word, leaving his old clothes on one side of the "room." After that, he'd just sat back, and stared at the room outside his. White walls, florescent lights, and machinery. No scientists or agents had been in or out, save for the ones that had brought him there, and they hadn't come back.
Danny began to wonder if they'd really just left him there to rot.
And what if they did? What if he just sat here for months, slowly dehydrating and/or starving while they watched? What if that was their plan, and he'd prepared for the wrong thing? Jazz's pleading came back to his ears, echoing through his cochlea and back out his through his eardrums. Could they hear it through him, or was it only he who was listening?
He still felt dazed and tingly, though whatever it was they'd given him was beginning to wear off.
"Danny?" came a quiet voice, and Danny blinked. Suddenly Dr. Vang was right in front of him. He realized he'd been there for awhile, and he just hadn't seen him, concentrating only on other parts of the room. He hadn't wanted to see him.
"What?" Danny asked bleakly, propping his head on an elbow that rested on his knee. "What do you want this time?"
"I asked for twenty unmonitored minutes with you," Vang said. "I just want to talk." He gently rested a shoulder on the plastic that separated the outside world from Danny's.
"Why? To apologize?" Danny slowly closed his eyes, and banged his head against the wall. "You swore you wouldn't tell them. Damnit." He felt justified in his uncharacteristic swearing.
"You kept your end of the deal," Dr. Vang said, "but I didn't think you would. You were either a scared little boy or a dangerous ghost - both of which were no use to science. If you were brought in, then you wouldn't be either. You'd just be a boy, and a ghost. And useful."
"I can be a scared little boy when my life is on the line." Danny opened his eyes. "Not even my life. I put my life on the line every day, and that doesn't bother me. When you found out, it was my . . . It was my soul. You took away my soul when you told them."
"I told them before you kept your promise."
"I know."
"We won't need you forever." Dr. Vang's eyes, still youthful and bright, looked away to the rest of the room, and he pulled back from the plastic. "Then . . ."
"You can dispose of me?" Danny guessed. It was amazing, the change that had taken place within him over the few hours he'd waited for someone to come to him. He was tired, and the numbness had begun to spread beyond the drugs, or so it felt like. "That happens, I think."
Dr. Vang smiled, and he looked tired, too. But in the sense that he'd been working hard, not that he'd learned too much about the life he has left in front of him. "With any luck, I can persuade them to release you."
"Why?" Danny asked, and, after a moment or two of feeling like he was seventy, he was just afraid again.
-
"They're coming for you in an hour." Dr. Vang said the words slowly, and, for a minute, Danny couldn't string them together. Then his lungs filled with all the air they could hold, and he screamed.
"How - why - how could you -" he began while the echoes of his shout reverberated through the small kitchen. Dr. Vang's face was shocked. He hadn't expected the noise.
"Go home," Dr. Vang said.
"You're . . . letting me . . ." His thoughts raced around each other, and shadows tugged at the corners of his eyes.
"Go," Vang said again, standing up abruptly, the napkin he was using falling on top of the pasta he'd made. "I really like you, ghost-kid, so you ought to go. I don't care if you walk, o-or fly," he inhaled, "but I don't think the last human place you should see is my basement."
Not needing any more prompting, Danny fell out of visibility and was out of the house before anyone could say another word. Intangible, he ran the whole way back to FentonWorks, dashing through people and ignoring the imprints they made.
The thoughts of all things he'd missed filled him up till the only thing that kept them in was surface tension. The obvious - his trip across the country with his friends, for instance - and then the more subtle things. The movie invitation Valerie had given him that he'd turned down, that walk in the park with Sam that had been interrupted by a ghost, the comic book convention with Tuck that homework had kept him from. Those stupid breadsticks he hadn't eaten.
The only thing he'd have time for before they took him away was the honest cry he'd wanted to have since the accident two years ago.
Dr. Vang's lie broke the surface of his thoughts, and, as he fell onto his bed, they fell out of him in the form of tears. Dr. Vang's one kindness, too, stabbed at his mind, but as is the way of things, fell to the side when faced with the more unpleasant facts.
All he'd done to deserve this was trip. Once in the air, which led to his premature transformation back to human, and once in his parents lab, which led to the reverse.
Oh, the things he'd never do . . .