Welcome back to Connections, in which Danny finally puts his magical protagonist powers to use and I really love Sam. Have I mentioned that I really love Sam? Because she's an amazing disaster child who's trying.
Also, my favourite character! My sweet bundle of good intentions with a body count! My small murder boy- no, not that small murder boy, the other- no, not that one, the other other small murder boy-
It has occurred to me that I might have a type when it comes to character creation.
Onwards!
Chapter 4; Name Thy Enemy
Her parents had found out she'd been skipping school.
Sam sat on the couch across from her parents, and stared off to the side. As her mother continued on with a lecture about how disappointing she was, she focused intensely on the houseplant sitting on the table beside her. Her mother's latest redecoration attempt had shoved it between the chair and a wall, where it was wilting. Someone should put it in the sunlight. A dying plant wasn't good for her parents' precious image.
"Samantha," her mother said tensely, and Sam fixed the woman with a scowl. Her mother copied it. "You were the one who requested to stay at this school. If this is how you're going to act, we're going to have to reconsider sending you to Showenhower's School for G-"
Sam was on her feet in a second. "Don't you fucking dare!" She snapped.
"Language, young lady!" Pamela Manson was on her feet as well, glaring at her daughter as her husband sighed. "You aren't making a very convincing argument, Samantha! A boarding school is exactly what misbehaving children-"
"I'm not a child!" Sam screamed. Why did every conversation with her mother turn to this?! "You really think that taking me away from everything I've known, and that I care about-"
"You've skipped nearly a week of school, Samantha!" Pamela cut in, "Don't start pretending you care about that place when you refuse to go! We have been lenient, young lady-"
"Lenient?! You keep trying to force me into your stupid fucking goals-"
"Language-"
"It's a word, Mother! Deal with it!" Sam's fist clenched, and she looked for something to hit. "Do you even care why I haven't gone? Do you care about anything beside your next damn dinner party or trying to force me into a life I don't want?! I never asked for any of this shit!" She kicked the coffee table; the leg dented under the force. "If you're going to pretend you care, you could at least put more effort into it instead of constantly trying to force me-"
"Force is the only thing you can grasp-"
The room shattered. Sam spun around; the coffee table she'd kicked had had broken and fallen, smashing the houseplant's pot. Pieces of shattered ceramic, dirt, and a few fallen leaves were scattered around her boots. She'd probably killed the plant.
Sam turned back slowly, looking up at her mother's furious face and her father's blank disappointment.
She ran out of the room.
For an hour, Sam found herself sitting between rows in her greenhouse, staring at her feet. She tried to focus on the moisture clinging to the air and her skin, or the earthy smell stuck in her nose, or anything but what she saw every time she closed her eyes.
Danny, one hand outstretched, his foot caught in the wires as the portal hummed behind him. Even when she blinked, Sam could still see his eyes stretched wide, how he'd strained to reach her, how the portal had cut them apart and she'd just started screaming-
Sam forced her eyes open and took a long breath in. She couldn't face him again. Not after she'd practically killed him. Not after she'd pulled that thing out with him.
Typically, Sam wasn't the type to run away. She faced her problems head on and fought through them until everything worked out a way she liked. But she'd never caused anything like this. She'd gone in the portal, she'd gotten Danny to push that button, and she'd unleashed whatever the staticy thing was on the world. And she barely even knew him!
There was a tap outside the greenhouse. Sam took a deep breath in and looked over the rows as her grandma hobbled through the door. She was leaning heavily on her cane, and gave Sam a gentle smile. "Come here, Bubbeleh," she said, and Sam moved quickly into her grandma's arms.
"Grandma, I did something horrible." Sam whispered. Her grandma's hand ran through her hair. "I did something absolutely horrible to a kid I barely know."
Her grandma hummed softly. "Have you apologized?"
Sam shook her head.
"You should start there." She rubbed small circles in Sam's back, "Have you given any more thought to what we talked about a couple weeks ago?"
Again, Sam shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Mom would never agree to go to it."
"Don't you worry about your mother; you leave that part to me." She pulled out of the hug, "I'm asking if you want it. Bubbeleh, you both need someone to help you work through whatever's happened between you two."
"She started it." These fights with her mother hadn't been a thing before Sam's first day at Casper High. Things hadn't been good before, but they were definitely better than this.
"Well, we're going to fix it." Ida squeezed her granddaughter's shoulder, "We can talk about this later. You did break a table, Bubbeleh. You have to clean that up."
Sam nodded, and let her grandmother lead her out of the greenhouse. "You're not going to make me go to school on Monday, are you?"
"That's not my decision to make," she replied. "But if it was, I would. Whatever you've done, you can't fix it by hiding."
Sam thought of that thing she'd let out of the portal and looked away. Slowly, she nodded and clenched her fists. "Thanks," she whispered.
She'd stop hiding, and wouldn't run anymore. This was her mistake, and she'd get that ghost away from Danny if it was the last thing she ever did.
.-.
Jazz had vetoed Tucker's offer to stay the night, claiming that her brother was still too sick for that. So Tucker had called Danny several times over the weekend, and would stay on call for hours just to make sure he was okay and that staticy thing hadn't repossessed his friend. His efforts were surprisingly successful; the static had avoided Danny completely.
But in the end, neither of them had gotten very much sleep. That was nothing new for Danny; even before the portal, it was a miracle if he got a full night's sleep. Tucker had pulled his fair share of all-nighters as well, but they had been planned and not caused by stress. Now, the two sat side by side in science Monday morning, passing a travel mug filled with disgustingly bitter coffee between them.
Danny struggled a mouthful down and passed it back to his friend, who started chugging it. "I always knew I'd die on a Monday," he groaned, and flopped face-first onto the desk. Tucker choked and spit some coffee back into the mug. "Tuck, I'm already being stalked, please don't make me drink your backwash."
Tucker, who'd been flailing his right hand, grabbed Danny's shoulder and squeezed. "You went in the portal on a Monday. You died on a Monday!"
Danny swatted his hand away, "I didn't die!" He hissed, "I just- I don't know- but whatever this guy is he's not a ghost. Ghosts are like, twisted dead people and not vaguely human-shaped static."
"He came from a ghost portal," Tucker argued, and Danny motioned for him to lower his voice. A couple classmates turned their way, but none paid attention for more than a few seconds. "Speaking of which, we should give him a codename."
"I'm not naming the static that keeps trying to steal my body!" Danny's frantic whisper was drowned out by the final bell. Danny looked at the door just as Mr. Falluca slipped in, Sam and her two friends right on his heels. He gave them a disapproving look, which the group of girls ignored, and Danny met Sam's eyes.
For several long, awkward moments they held eye contact before Sam broke away from her friends. "Move," she ordered, grabbing a chair and sliding it between Danny and Tucker. The two pulled their chairs slightly apart to give her some room, exchanging a confused look and pretending they hadn't before Sam could notice.
Mister Falluca watched the exchange with a curious look before turning towards the whiteboard. Danny felt a piece of paper nudge his left arm.
Sam had placed her open notebook between them. 'Is the ghost here?' She'd written.
Danny grabbed a pencil and quickly scribbled back. 'Not rn, but Tuck met him Sat.'
Sam gave Tucker a quick look before writing back, 'has he just been hanging around you?'
Danny nudged her and nodded. Mr. Falluca turned back around, and Sam pulled her notebook back. Danny saw her write a note in the margins, 'all talk at lunch.'
Again, Danny nodded. He looked back up at the board, and froze. A mass of static floated right in his way, flickering hands starting to take shape. One limb reached out, towards the teacher-
Danny's hand shot into the air. "May I go to the bathroom?" he asked quickly.
Mr. Falluca frowned, looking rather surprised. The static stopped reaching for him. "I suppose, but class has just started-"
Danny was already on his feet. "Thanks!" Danny grabbed the hall pass and practically ran out of the room. If he was right, the static was stuck to him, and went where he went. There was no way he was going to let it hurt anyone else.
Danny ran into an empty bathroom and spun around, facing the static. Just as he'd expected, it'd followed him. Slowly, Danny pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed record. Just like before. I can do this. I can do this. "Start talking. What do you-"
Something roared in his ears, and Danny dropped his phone. Twisting, awful sounds screamed back at him. He crashed to the bathroom floor, hands flying up to his ears.
Just as quickly as it had started, the sound stopped. Danny reached for his phone and looked back up at the static, waiting for more screams. None came.
"You're kind of a jerk," he muttered, "you know that, right?" The static buzzed in his ears. "Yeah, yeah, save it for when I can actually hear you." His thumb hovered over the 'stop' button. "...Why can I hear you now, anyway? On Saturday I had to listen to a recording."
The bathroom door swung open and Danny, still on the ground, looked up to see Dash Baxter.
"Hey Fenton," Dash said, and high-fived some of his other jock buddies. The only one Danny recognized was Kwan; the others must be older students. "We haven't seen you for the last week. Where were you?"
Danny pulled back, laughing nervously. The static had disappeared. Thanks. "Oh, uh, y'know," he realized he was still on the ground and promptly stood up. "I was... busy?"
Dash stepped towards him, most of his group fanning out behind him.
"Wow, Dash, do you really need that many people to hold your hand as you pee?" The words slipped out of Danny's mouth and he immediately regretted everything he had ever done.
Dash's face twisted in fury as he lunged forward and grabbed Danny by his collar. Danny yelped as he was pulled off the ground, and the static reappeared beside him. A vaguely hand-shaped blob reached out and passed right through Dash's arm.
"I think we should give Fenturd a present to welcome him back," Dash called, and Danny watched as the other jocks grabbed his arms. One pushed a stall door open.
"Hey!" Danny tried to struggle free, "Hey, get off me, hey!" He yanked a leg loose before it was immediately grabbed again, and the jocks hoisted him up. "Dash, I swear to God, if you don't-"
The static screamed in his ears again and Danny fell face-first onto the floor. The lights flickered above him, and one of the jocks shouted as the world twisted, turned, threw them aside-
Danny struggled to sit up, blood running from his injured nose, and stared through the static reaching for him. Dash and his friends were running through the open door, screaming- and standing beside it, with a hand gesturing formally at the door, was a flickering hooded man dressed in black fabrics. When he caught Danny looking at him, he gave a thumbs up.
Danny, trying to stop his nose from bleeding, hesitantly returned it.
There was a terrifying crash and Danny spun around to see that the paper towel dispenser had fallen from the wall. He looked back at the door as it swung closed, with no one standing beside it.
"Okay..." Danny glanced to his left, where the mass of static almost seemed to be reaching for his phone. Danny grabbed a paper towel and threw it at him. "I'll listen to it later. I've got to go back to class." He scooped up a couple more sheets and tried to clean the blood off himself and the floor. The static continued to sit there, looking almost like he was trying to poke the napkin Danny had thrown at him. When Danny grabbed his phone and finally stopped the recording, there was a disappointed buzz.
Danny rolled his eyes and held the door open, mimicking the motion his flickering saviour had made as he addressed the static, positive that had been the same man who'd saved him from the fog. "After you."
.-.
At lunch, Danny shoved his stuff in his locker as Tucker watched the hall behind them. "He's not here," he said. "He's been MIA since the bathroom thing." Oddly enough, so had Dash's group. Huh. Danny grabbed his lunch card and filed that thought nicely away under 'not important.' It felt like it was already dealt with, anyway.
"Exactly," Tucker said. Danny had explained it all to him during History, and had a theory that Tucker was a lot more upset about it than he'd admit. "Dude, they aren't human. They don't care about our rules."
"Yeah, but the flickery guy seems nice." He saved my life.
"You haven't seen his face," Tucker pointed out, and Danny caught sight of Sam heading their way. "I've watched enough movies to know that he's either going to be your dead relative or super evil."
He raised an eyebrow, "If they don't use our rules why would movies be right?"
Sam rushed over and grabbed both their sleeves, "Come on," she hissed and started to pull.
"Give me a second," Danny said, pulling her hand off. "I need to close my locker fir-" Sam's steel-toed boot shot up and kicked the locker door closed. Danny turned slowly back to see her staring him down. "...Never mind, where are we going?"
Sam pulled them into the library, grabbing a table in the corner. She sat down across from Danny and Tucker, pulling a thick book from her bag. "I picked this up this morning," she said, and dropped it in front of them. It looked old.
"A Beginner's Guide to Banishing Supernatural Creatures?" Tucker read, "Sam, no offence, but this sounds fake as shit."
Sam narrowed her eyes, "Yeah? So does the fact Danny can get possessed by a void person and suddenly become albino."
"Hey!" Danny pulled the book towards him, "Guys, don't start fighting about this, we all want him gone. Can't we just-" the static appeared behind Sam. "Uh..."
Sam ducked under the table and slid out on Danny's right side. She stared at the static and narrowed her eyes as he seemed to wave. Tucker just looked around wildly.
"Where is he?" Tucker whispered, "It's not your bathroom buddy, is it?"
Sam raised her eyebrows, "Bathroom buddy?"
Danny waved her off. "It's complicated." He didn't feel like talking about Flicker.
The thought caught Danny off guard. Flicker? I guess I can call him that. It's not like he's made any effort to tell me his real name.
"Well, if it's the other guy, how come I can't see him anymore? Is it too dim?" Tucker took off his glasses, squinted around the room, and put them back on. He reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone, tapping the screen twice. "What's going-" Tucker sucked a breath in, dropped his phone, and shoved his chair back. He screamed as it fell, dumping him on the ground.
Sam gave him a disappointed look as Danny scooped up the phone. "We're in a library, quiet down."
"Never mind," Tucker said quickly, "I found him, never mind, we're all cool-"
Tucker had opened his camera. Danny could feel his hands shaking, and he quit listening to his friend's ramble. Slowly, Danny raised the phone, and pointed it at the staticy figure in front of him.
His stalker didn't look quite solid, and most of his features were still mushed together. He looked more like a super low-resolution image than an actual person. But Danny could see a round face with the eyes squeezed shut. His hair was curly and knotted, hanging together in bright white clumps. He had his hands pressed against his ears; his skin was browner than Danny's own, but still looked sunken and pale. He was wearing a white shirt with a golden design similar to a duel-bladed battle axe on the chest, and another of what might have been waves at the end of his sleeves. His pants had the same colour scheme, along with a black belt holding them up, but his legs seemed to be forced together.
As Danny gawked at him, he slowly pulled his hands off his ears and opened his eyes. They were glowing a bright green, and staring right at him. He raised a hand-
Sam had gone to help Tucker up. "What're you looking at?"
Danny slammed the phone down. "Nothing!" His voice squeaked and Sam raised an eyebrow. "I mean, I can't see anything different or weird, so-"
Neither Sam nor Tucker looked like they actually believed him, but let it slide. "Hand me the book," Sam said, and Danny slid it off the table towards her. She began to flip through it, "Most supernatural beings have to leave if you ask them too," she said. "We could try burning sage, throwing salt at him- but according to your parents those don't work on ghosts. This is our best bet."
Danny frowned, and tried not to focus on the weird flailing the static was- wait. Danny grabbed the phone again, and through it watched the other being wave at him. "He's, uh, only here half the time anyway," Danny said quickly, "I don't see the point in-"
"Danny," Sam cut him off, "do you want him to stop stealing your body or not?" She flipped another page. "We need to use his name when we ask him to leave."
Danny shook his head; he really didn't want to think about the body-stealing. "Sam, there's no way he's actually going to leave when we say his name." The 'static' immediately stopped waving and pulled his hands in close. Danny frowned; then again, he didn't want it to keep happening either. "Actually, yeah, sure, if it gets him to stay out of my body why not?" His ears started to buzz, and Danny passed his phone back down to Tucker. He tried to give the static a glare, and it must have worked since the buzzing stopped.
"He's not going to tell us his name," Tucker pointed out, "do we just give him one?"
Once again, there was a soft buzzing in Danny's ears. Fear twisted in his chest; this is a bad idea. This is a really bad idea. I knew the portal was bad and this is also super, super bad- "Guys, I'm not sure if we should do this."
Sam and Tucker gave him almost identical, and incredibly terrifying, looks. "We're doing it," they said in sync, and looked back down at the book.
"Oh," Danny's chest felt like it was twisting and he could feel his face flush. "That was creepy, but okay?"
Tucker nudged Sam, and they both reached out to pull Danny onto the floor with them. As they did so, he looked back at the table. The static was halfway through it. Danny wondered how he'd managed that.
"I vote we call him something stupid," Tucker said, "like Craig, or- or Bill!"
Sam rolled her eyes, "There's nothing wrong with those names." She looked up at the table and frowned, "Danny, is he still here?"
"He's in the table," Danny muttered.
"Then let's work fast," Sam tapped his arm with the edge of the book. "It says that if we don't know his name we can call him something that represents everything he is. It won't work as well, but-"
"Well, that'd be helpful if we knew anything about him." Tucker hissed, the pitch of his voice going up; he was terrified, too. "What can we call him? Static? Spooky? Ghosty Jones?"
Danny caught sight of Flicker leaning against a bookshelf, slowly shaking his head. Something pressed against the edges of his mind. He heard a woman's voice whisper a name.
Danny stared at the creature who'd been following him, terrorizing him, and stealing his body. He bared his teeth. "Phantom," he hissed, and felt the static tense. Danny rose to his feet, and saw Flicker watching him from the corner of his eye. "You will stop following me everywhere, you will never take control of my body again, and you will go away. Is this understood?"
The static- Phantom- nodded, pulled back, and kept his limbs pulled in close. The fear was gone. For a second, Danny felt a prickle of guilt- and then he was on the floor, struggling to catch his breath. Sam and Tucker were calling his name, but all Danny could hear was buzzing. Phantom stood across from him, his form turning from static to white and gold- Flicker stood a little ways away, resting a hand on his shaking head-
Phantom was almost solid. Green eyes glowed, focused only on him. Hair was white smoke that wavered in a nonexistent breeze, and lips pulled back to show short fangs.
He hissed. Danny heard the words "It is."
And then Phantom was gone.
Danny was still on the floor, shaking. Pins and needles climbed up his limbs. Distantly, he heard Sam ask what had just happened.
A bolt of lightning hit Danny in the center of his chest and he screamed.
Oh, Tucker. I love you and how you would survive a horror movie. And Danny, you're finally putting your protagonist powers to good use! Also, have I mentioned that I love Sam?
Okay, I'll stop with that joke for now. Have the ghost language translations from Chapter 3!
Green eyes glowed brighter when they saw him. "Hi!"
"Please don't be mad," he whispered.
"[Friend]," Not-Danny mimicked, and then frowned. "I only understood [friend], your language is dumb."
*Gently pats the small ghost boy* Sweet sweet child who nearly murdered the protagonist. A good boy. A good (bad) boy.
Next guaranteed update is July 22! So, thoughts?
