The long-promised expansion of the drabble Normal ( s/7435347/3/Turning-Pages)
Mirror
March 5, 2013
Boom.
.
The teenager upstairs groaned and flipped the cover of his textbook shut. There was no way he could even pretend to study with the ruckus going on downstairs. And his parents wondered why he never had any of his homework done…
Maybe one day he would try to explain it to them—if they weren't too terribly busy blowing up the house in one of their experiments or attempting to capture the infamous ghost-boy.
It just so happened that whenever he was actually able to study because he wasn't off being pummeled by some ghost that wanted to take over the world, his parents were making it nearly impossible to study because they were either dragging him into one of their experiments or blowing one up… sometimes both at the same time.
It gave Danny a newfound respect for Jazz; however she managed to make perfect grades living in this house, he had no clue.
Danny flopped tiredly over on his bed, pulling the hem of his shirt back down after it flew up.
"Danny!"
He groaned again and buried his face in his sheets.
He could hear his father's giddy excitement over whatever new invention he had just gotten his hands on all the way from his room on the second floor.
That was never a good sign.
Now he would want to get him down into the basement so he could explain its innermost designs and workings in an hour long lecture and then finish off by, worse, demonstrating it.
Jack's demonstrations of his weapons were deadly to even the most human bystander. So whenever he got his hands on ecto-infused Danny, things never went according to plan.
Yet Jack never seemed to tire of bringing his son down to share his joy whenever he added a new button or feature to a new gizmo or drew out his blueprints for another gadget. He seemed to forget every time just how badly the last demonstration had gone; forgetting that his machines would react to his son for some inexplicable reason until alarms were blaring across the lab's anti-ghost security system or Danny was covered in green goop.
Each time, he would confidently explain to his ever-increasingly-nervous son that none of his inventions or weapons worked on humans so that Danny had absolutely nothing to fear when he, say, pointed the barrel of a bazooka straight in his face.
Last time, Danny had just barely escaped the then-latest invention, something his father called the Fenton Ghost-Master. It was a small gun-like device designed to first zap a ghost and then cause it to melt from the bottom up.
Fortunately, Danny's cries of panic had attracted Jazz who had been studying in the kitchen and she was able to cut the demonstration short and rush her brother upstairs with some half-cooked story about a psychology interview he needed to be conducting. Never mind that she was the one taking the psychology course and Danny could not be induced to listen to even one of her brief introductory crash courses…
Danny had gotten out before the invention could take full effect upon him, but it had still been a very, very close call. His parents hadn't yet figured out why there was a trail of his footprints in melted rubber leading halfway up the basement stairs…
It must have been for the same reason that they still didn't know he was a half-ghost. Nearly three years after the accident and they still hadn't connected the dots. And it wasn't like he didn't leave clues everywhere…
They even knew about his accident with the portal—granted, they thought he had been outside of it when he had managed to turn it on, because that was the story he, Sam, and Tucker had fed them—but they had either been ignorant of all his power-related accidents in the following months or they figured that his skittishness had just been normal aftereffects from such an exposure.
But other things had changed, and not everything was that easy to explain away. His grades had plummeted for no apparent reason, even though he had always been a good student and was determined to get into the NASA program, which required stellar science and math grades.
He was much more aloof than he had ever been before… neither he nor Jazz had ever been the rebellious teenager type, even though they did each try to find ways to cope with the craziness of being associated with the crazy Fentons.
His fatigue when he didn't break curfew and his apologetic attitude whenever he did should have raised some flags.
The scrapes, cuts, and bruises he received from his permanent status as personal punching bag of nearly every ghost that came through the portal, while they went away quickly, couldn't always be covered up. They should have alerted his parents to something serious going on.
And when every invention or scanner that was supposed to track or attack ghosts tracked and attacked him, you would have thought that they would have gotten an inkling of the truth. Multiple PhDs, articles in the world's leading paranormal journals, and they couldn't tell that their son was the ghost boy they longed to capture and tear apart in a most meticulously scientific fashion.
Not even when Fenton and Phantom could almost have been twins! The only difference was that instead of black hair, Phantom had white, and during the transformation, vivid blue eyes were replaced with vibrant green. Granted, he had tried to keep Phantom's face away from cameras for that very reason, but he knew that his parents kept a file on the ghost-boy and they must have had nearly every known picture of him, minus of course, the ones that Sam or Tucker had taken.
"Danny!" His father called out again, this time even louder, causing the house to very softly reverberate. "Come down here, there's something I want to show you!"
Danny closed his eyes, hoping that by not answering, his Dad would forget about him after a moment and get caught up in his own excitement. It had been known to happen.
Granted, he would still get an animated lecture after dinner, but as long as he wasn't dragged down to the lab, he could get by. And he could always run back up to his room with the excuse that he had a lot of homework if his parents wanted to bring their experiments to the table.
When he heard heavy footsteps racing up the stairs, however, he knew that that tactic would not work today. His Dad was not going to leave without taking him down to the lab for some quality time with the new invention. And Jazz was out for the afternoon. She wouldn't be able to cover for him. Of all the times to run to the library! What to do…
The obvious answer was to go ghost and turn invisible before his Dad came and found him, but he didn't really think to do that before his father already had his hand on the doorknob. Plus, if his Dad had decided to bring the invention along to test it in his room instead of in the lab, he would be in big trouble when it picked up his signature.
So he sat frozen on his bed with a pencil still in his hand as his father bounced in like a child in all the glory of a new toy.
"There you are, Danny! Come with me down to the lab; wait until you see the invention I've been working on. It's my greatest one yet. The next time we see Phantom, he'll be sorry he ever showed his measly ecto-plasmic face around here!"
Danny paled, but his father didn't notice.
At least his parents had given up calling his ghost-half Inviso-Bill, but it wasn't much of an improvement if he was going to be blasted on sight anyway.
He tried to get out of the trip, now determined more than every that it would end badly.
"Um, Dad, I really have a lot of homework and so now wouldn't be the best time…"
But his father just enthusiastically pulled him out of his room and started dragging him down the stairs, Danny digging his heels and protesting at every step of the way.
"You know how you and Mom wanted me to pull up my grades in English and I have this test tomorrow… It's actually a huge test, one that I can't afford to fail if you want me to graduate high school…"
(This will be both scientific and educational! And trust me; it can't hurt your grades…)
"Actually, I broke a test tube yesterday and Mom won't let me back down into the lab for another week… She was really adamant about it and you know how she gets… "
(I'll talk her out of it—she always listens to me. Besides, you don't have to hold anything; I'll be the one testing it.)
"But I'm doing this project and need to be doing a conference call with Tucker in, like, two minutes…"
(You talk with him all the time, he won't mind if you skip this call. You can make it up after dinner. I'm sure he'll understand that you've got to spend time with your old man some too…)
"Dad, not now, please! I…"
But by then, it was too late; Danny was already in the lab, at the mercy of his father.
Jack fairly bounded over to his work table, ignoring the effects of the earlier blast—the one that had caused Danny to give up the ghost (no pun intended) and stop even trying study— all around him as he did so. Danny, on the other hand, was walking cautiously around the toppled beakers and the fallen plaster from the ceiling, trying to keep an eye out for exposed wires or a contraption that would still work on him. He had been especially wary of electrics after the accident.
Upon reaching his workstation, Jack heaved a large something that looked suspiciously like an oversized Fenton bazooka over his shoulder and turned towards his son.
Instinct took over and Danny jumped out of the way with a cry and crouched behind a table, covering his head with his arms.
There was a moment of confused silence.
"Danny?"
Jack looked around for his son in vain. He had been right behind him a minute ago and now he was gone. It was as if he had just disappeared… like a ghost.
"I'm… I'm over here," Danny cautiously lifted his head up above the tabletop until his nose poked over the edge, but still opted for vocally revealing himself instead of exposing his entire body in case the gun had some sort of automatic trigger when it sensed an ecto-signature, which was not that farfetched and would be just his luck. "But be careful where you point that thing! I happen to like my head right where it is…"
After a moment of perplexed silence, Jack began to laugh heartily and as Maddie joined in. Danny's curiosity was piqued enough for him to peer over at them from around the table.
"Oh, Danny" Jack wiped his eye of a mirthful tear, "this isn't what I wanted to show you!"
"Wait, it isn't?"
"No, Danny-boy, this isn't even a weapon!"
"It's… not a weapon?"
"No! hahaha…" Jack's mirth still ran high and to find out why, Danny finally ventured another look at the supposed bazooka only to find that it was not, in fact, a large barreled gun, but what appeared to be a picture frame.
He figured that a picture frame wouldn't try to dash him to pieces or cover him with gloop, so he hesitantly stepped out from around the table.
"If that's not what you wanted to show me, then what is it?"
"Oh, this is just your mother's project. She wanted a new frame on the front hall mirror."
"I needed to move it over somewhere else while I put some finishing touches on the mirror itself, so I put it over on your father's table, since he wasn't using it at the moment."
"Right! But I'm back now, and I'm going to show you the Fenton Ghost Rester!"
As soon as he was reminded of his own project, Jack set the mirror frame against the wall behind him and dug around the mess on the table for his own small— but extremely effective against any kind of ghost!— device.
"So," Danny questioned, still wary, but coming closer, "that is just a mirror frame?"
"Yes, Danny," his mother said as she took it from where Jack had laid it and got ready to attach it once more around the mirror.
Jack seemed to be having difficulties locating his latest project amidst the other parts and electrical wires littering the table and in his attempts to find it, everything became even more tangled and complicated.
So Danny turned his attention to his mother and her project. "And that's just a mirror?"
"Of course, Danny! What else would it be?" She looked at him oddly through her tinted goggle-lenses for a moment before looking down again—he certainly had the strangest reactions to things sometimes…
Danny sighed with relief. It was just a normal mirror; it hadn't been implanted with a ghost-ray during its short stay in the infamous anti-ghost lab workshop and it wouldn't try to kill him—or finish the job, he guessed would actually be the most accurate way to phrase it.
He sighed too soon, however, because Maddie continued.
"Of course, I made some minor adjustments to it since I made your father carry it all the way downstairs and it was already here…" She finished fitting the frame to the mirror and fastening the screws.
Danny was going to ask about that last comment when his father let out a loud cry of triumph that startled everyone, causing Danny to duck again and Maddie to drop the mirror. It almost crashed, but she managed to catch it before it hit the floor.
"Here it is! The Fenton Ghost Rester!" Jack victoriously held up a small device that looked suspiciously like last week's Ghost Master. The colors were inverted and there might have been an extra knob near the trigger, but otherwise, it seemed like it would be just as nasty for a half ghost as its counterpart.
"Careful, Jack," Maddie admonished with a soft chuckle, "You know what they say about broken mirrors…"
"No, what do they say? Anything about ghosts?"
"Uh, no, Dad, I think that's the whole seven years bad luck thing…" Danny got up off of the floor and swiped the dirt off of his knees. "But I really have to get back to homework, so I'll see you guys at dinner?"
Danny was quick in making his escape; he didn't want his parents to be able to call him back to face the Rester. It really didn't look like something he wanted to get tangled up in. At least not right now when Jazz wasn't able to cover for him if it got too bad.
It might not work, like half of his parent's inventions, but who knows, it might zap him and melt him from the top-down instead of the bottom-up.
He shuddered at the thought and involuntarily touched his hair to make sure it was all still intact. Man, it would feel really weird to have your hair melt…
He was already at the foot of the stairs and thought he was home-free when a short exclamation from his mother stopped him short.
"Danny?" The worry in her voice made him tense. Something was very wrong.
Had a ghost come through the portal? Was something getting ready to blow up? Maybe the invention had malfunctioned. Had his father finally had a heart attack from the massive amounts of fudge he consumed daily?
He clenched his fists and braced himself, then turned around, ready for whatever was waiting for him.
Well, almost anything.
He could handle any ghost stupid enough to fly into the Fenton lab when the ghost hunters were working there. He could even handle whatever evil device his father was holding.
But he wasn't ready to deal with what faced him now.
Looking first at his mother, he followed her worried gaze to the mirror she had saved from falling to a million pieces. She had yet to put it back on the table and was still holding it out in front of her. She had grabbed it at a strange angle since it was, after all, a full length mirror, and it extended down in front of her to nearly touch the ground.
She was staring down at it for a few heart-pounding moments before turning a frightened face toward her son and then returning to face whatever she saw in the mirror.
His father looked there too, and gasped, dropping his beloved new invention from hands that fell listlessly to his sides.
"Danny?"
It was a tentative question, laced with worry and… fear?
He felt the world slow down around him. The blood drained out of his face as he could feel his blood frantically drumming in his temples.
He couldn't breathe or move.
He knew, somehow, before his eyes finally found their way to the mirror against his will. His feet were glued to the floor as he froze, fixated on the reflection.
His head felt light and the world began to spin.
"Danny?"
There, looking right back at him from the mirror, were his glowing green eyes.
I know, I know. Evil cliffie and you want me to continue. Well, I've kept this idea back for two years now hoping that I would be able to think of what happens next and it's not coming, so this is just going up as-is. Like the rest of my oneshots. There's always the possibility of a continuation sometime in the future for stories I've written, but really, please don't hold your breath. That being said, anyone is welcome to take a crack at continuing any of my fics. Just drop a line and I'll help as I can. ;)
EDIT: the lovely VioletLink7 took me up on my offer and has done a simply marvelous job taking over and continuing on past where I left off in this fic, so everyone who had this story on alert and / or wanted it continued should go check it out!
You can find the continuation here: s/9162826/1/The-Mirror
The cover I'm using is also her beautiful handiwork. Thanks bunches, love! ;)