Everybody knew that Danny Phantom's Ghostly Wail was dangerous only if you happened to be hit directly by it. Or by the rubble it tended to cause. Or the shockwaves. Or if you were nearby and didn't mind a little hearing loss.
Well, as long as you were behind Danny Phantom when he let loose you would be fine. Probably.
Danny knew all this. He relied on it more often than he liked. His Ghostly Wail was powerful, too powerful in his opinion, but he couldn't deny its effectiveness. Something was seriously tearing his insides up. He was falling apart, burning up, but he could at least manage to keep the evacuated students behind him for one last show.
In the end the ghost frogs were little more than volatile bags of ectoplasm. He made them all ankle-deep sludge long before his Wail faded to regular screaming, but once it got going it was hard to stop.
"Danny!"
His ears rang, there was an awful ringing in his ears. Everything slanted left, then right. He grew legs and landed, looking down a long, long tunnel of green light.
"Danny!"
His throat burned. His bones burned. Something was coming out him, dribbled from his mouth, sluiced between his teeth. The taste-burnt, chunky, but unmistakably that of ectoplasm-made him retch between screams. He was knives all the way down.
"Danny!"
On his knees, he changed back and-oh. The pain vanished like smoke, he was empty of hurt, just like in the boy's bathroom-
-yet his guts still felt too hot, too loose-
-and everyone was safe now, he could sleep-
-movement, someone shaking him, calling his name?
"Tucker, call his parents, call them right now-"
"Sam-"
"Now! Danny, c'mon, wake up, this isn't funny-"
His eyes shuttered closed.
He woke up once, briefly, on the pell-mell ride home in the Fenton RV. He was on an exam table, loosely strapped down. Jazz hovered over him, swaying as their father drove manically through the streets. The ends of her long red hair tickled his arm.
He felt… out of focus. Like when he practiced multiplying himself. Looking at something from two separate yet still connected eyes, the inevitable disorientation when one head looked left and the other looked right. He felt nauseous.
Jack made a hard turn that sent Jazz crashing against the opposite side of the RV. Danny felt his stomach follow suit, actually felt something liquid and heavy splash inside him. It surprised him, enough to try moving.
His arm phased through the table all on its own, and fire bloomed in his chest.
"Danny!" He heard Jazz cry. Her hands passed through him, cool and grasping. When had he sat up?
"What's going on back there?" His father shouted urgently from the driver's seat.
"I don't know!" Jazz's hand slipped low, through his gut, and she yelped in pain and jerked away. "He's burning up!"
Another hard turn and whatever was inside him splashed again. His throat burned and it hurt to breathe-had to get it out, had to get it out, had to get it out-
"Danny?"
He pitched over the side of the exam table and vomited. It was loud, it was messy, and he was pretty sure he got it all over Jazz's shoes, but he felt so much better, so much emptier, once he was done.
He felt himself flicker between tangibility and intangibility. He couldn't stop it, and each change felt like getting fried by the Specter Deflector-no.
No, not like the Specter Deflector at all.
Oh man, he was going to kill Jazz.
"Blood blossoms!" He gasped, and then had to turn and puke again. His arms trembled violently, but they held him up long enough to see that whatever was coming out of him was a dark, dark green and clumpy. He thought of cottage cheese and retched harder.
"Danny-" Sam appeared from nowhere and gripped his shoulder. Her blunt nails dug into his skin, like she was trying to force him human. "Danny, what'd you say?"
"Blood-hhrk-blood blossoms, in the tuna-" He hiccupped and groaned when his chest throbbed. Something deeper in him sloshed. He wondered if he-his Phantom self-was melting, like the tile floor when the frogs' acid hit it. He wondered if he was actually puking himself up.
He decided that unconsciousness was better than that train of thought.
"-don't know what's wrong with him exactly, so while we wait for Maddie to get back from your school I'm the final word and I'm sayin' you kids aren't getting any closer than this to him."
"But it's not contagious, Mr. Fenton! He ate blood blossoms, he said so himself."
"Blood whatsits?"
"Blossoms. They're flowers. Mr. Fenton, I ate a lot of those in one sitting and apart from a mad case of diarrhea, I was fine. But they're really bad news for ghosts."
"How bad?"
"The last time we ran into these, Danny never even touched one. Just being near them leveled him though. But as soon as I swallowed the last of 'em he recovered pretty quick."
"Are you serious? That's awesome! Just think of the advances we could make with our anti-ghost gear if we-"
"Dad! Danny's half-ghost!"
"And I couldn't be prouder of him. Why, just the other day-"
"Dad!"
"What? Oh."
Muffled voices, like being underwater. An argument. He recognized Sam's voice, Jazz's voice. The sound of glass breaking. Tucker shouting over them.
He wanted to intervene, but his legs weren't responding for some reason...
He heard his mother. "He's always had a fast metabolism, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's increased significantly since the accident. The amount of energy he expends when fighting is incredible."
"Uh, Mrs. Fenton? I don't think now's the best time to study Danny."
"You're right, Sam. Jack, how are his vitals looking?"
"Hard to tell, Babycakes. I pumped his stomach so clean he'll feel like he lost a fight with the Fenton Ghost Weasel for a week, but his temperature is still creepin' up and his heart's poundin' like a jackhammer."
"Danny doesn't look so good." Tucker's voice. He sounded tired, worried. "I mean, he's usually only green when he's, you know, Phantom."
Hands touched his wrist, his face, tugged gently on tubes sticking out of his arm. "You're right. Jack, we need to run some more tests, make sure he's completely clean of any residual blood blossoms. You kids should get some sleep. Jazz, can you take them home?"
"Danny, can you hear me?"
He blinked up at his mother, but his eyesight failed to clear. He could see that the lab's harsh lights were on by the way they reduced his parents to dark shadows, their goggles reflecting like cat's eyes, but everything was still... murky. Like looking through muddy water.
"Munh," he said intelligently.
Deliciously cool hands pressed against his face. He leaned into the touch with a groan. His everything was sore. "Temperature remaining steady at 104 degrees," his mother said. "We'll need to get more ice."
"On it, Mrs. Fenton." What was Tucker doing in his bedroom?
(There weren't lab lights in his bedroom, he knew that on some level, but why would he be laid out on one of the exam tables?)
"Mahn?" Ugh. Close enough. "Wha-?"
"Ssh, it's alright, sweetie. I just need to ask you a few questions and then you can go back to sleep. Okay?"
"Y-yeah."
Her hand took his. He felt the dig of her mother's wedding ring-why were her gloves off? "Now Danny, I need you to squeeze my hand. Can you do that?"
He tried, he really did. But his fingers didn't move.
"Danny, hush, you'll be alright. Look at me."
"Can't," he slurred. "Dark." He was thirsty. He had never been so thirsty in his life.
"Limited paralysis has spread to upper limbs. Ocular degeneration has begun as well."
"Got it," said his father.
"Danny-" She was still talking, still asking questions, but they were talking about-about him like one of their science projects. Cold and detached, clinical. The way they used to talk as they dissected ghosts. Were they studying him? He couldn't move, he couldn't move but neon green light played somewhere on his chest. Had they cut him open, what if they had cut him open, if he could look down at himself would he see his ribs-
Fear swallowed him.
"Danny!" Sam's sharp voice shocked him awake. He flailed, clumsily, his arms and legs barely responding to him. Adrenaline-under attack?-the school-pain-
"Blood blossoms!" He tried to sit up, but only managed a weak sort of flop. His hand hit a tray of medical equipment and sent it scattering. Pain lanced through him, and he screamed. "Blood blossoms blood blossoms blood bloss-"
Hands pressed him down onto the table, words washed over him, a pinprick in his arm and his panic soothed.
He drifted.
"-no change-"
"-blood in his stool-"
"-Jack, what kind of mother poisons her own son?"
"You didn't know, Maddie. It'll be alright. You didn't know."
"-signs of blistering of the stomach and esophagus, however respiratory system remains clear of inflammation. Let's be sure to keep an eye on that. X-rays show unexplained deterioration of-of the ribcage-"
"-no change, still no change-"
"-can't ask him to do that! The pain alone could-"
"We may not have a choice at this point."
"Danny?"
His eyes opened, he felt them open, but the darkness behind his eyelids didn't dim. Blind then. He suspected this realization should be a lot more alarming, but he was too tired to feel anything more than a slow, seeping sort of interest.
"Danny, can you hear me?"
Couldn't speak. Mouth too dry. Couldn't nod. Head too heavy. He blinked rapidly. It would have to do.
"Okay. Okay. Danny?" He registered who was talking to him-Sam. She sounded scared. He wanted to hold her hand. "We-we think we know how to fix you, but we can't-we can't do it while you're human."
Muzzily, he wondered what she meant. What was wrong with him? Like remembering a dream, he recalled flashes-
-a brown paper bag covered with flowers and hearts drawn in black Sharpie-
-looking at his hand in the boy's bathroom-
-puking up burnt black chunks of ectoplasm-
-his parents over him, the lab lights stinging his eyes-
-and he realized, he remembered. He was very sick.
"Hnn-luh lothas-" he mumbled. A part of him was appalled at how awful he sounded.
"We know," Sam whispered. Her hands gripped his tightly. "We know, it's ok. Danny, we need you to go ghost."
Why? Was there trouble?
"C'mon, Danny. I know it hurts, but you have to. It's the only way."
Why would it-oh. Right.
"Nngh-"
"I know, I know. Danny please, you'll be better after, I promise."
It took a few attempts to reach that little cold spark deep inside him, that little bit of ghost that never ever left him. He managed it at last.
So tired, he was so tired, but he still gave screaming the old college try.
"-getting worse-"
"-have to work faster, his molecular structure is completely deteriorating-"
"-won't stop screaming, he's not even conscious and he won't stop-"
"-my god, his chest, look at his chest-"
"-soup-"
"Valerie, what are you doing?!"
"Saving his life, now shut up and get out of the way, Manson-"
"-love you, Danny. I know I don't say it enough but I do, and I just-you have to get better now, okay? Danny? Are you-"
"-know you can hear me, dude. Your tail twitches when you're awake. So listen to me. For once in your life, listen to me. You gotta get better. Don't save the world twenty-five million times just to get owned by a plant, that's just-embarrassing-Danny, please man, say something-"
"-don't cry, Maddie, it'll be alright. We'll figure this out. One of our tests will give us good results. Danny will be fine in no time."
"How? Jack, we've tried everything, and our boy is-he's-oh god!"
"-the strongest person I know, you have to pull through this, Danny. As-as your big sister you have to listen to me. It's-the rules. Please, just let me know you can hear me-"
"There you are. Now listen here, Ghost Kid, you've caused this city a lot of grief and you don't get to take the easy way out. You promised me, Danny, so you stop this right now. Get up. Get up! Hey wait, don't pass out on me, Danny Fenton, or so help me-"
"-don't know what to do-"
"TIME OUT."
