50. Breaking the Rules

It had started weeks ago. Months really, if Danny were honest with himself. A cold. A silly, inconsequential cold. Except that it hadn't really been a cold. Three doctors and one trip to Clockwork had proven that, and Danny had learned that his DNA was mutating. Again. And, how embarrassing it had been to have to tell Sam and Jazz, it was because of puberty. Ghostly this time, on top of the normal human thing.

The cold had disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and then all hell broke loose. He'd tried explaining the sudden holes in the couch, the burn spots on walls. His parents thought at first that he'd started smoking, cigarettes or worse, he wasn't sure which. That had flown the coop about the same time they'd had to call a contractor to give him a proper skylight in his room, instead of the smoldering gaping hole he'd shot through his ceiling one morning after a nightmare.

Ectoblasts from the eyes were very cool powers, but damned destructive since he had no control over them.

The puddles all over his room, the house, anywhere he went were equally inexplicable, though he tried. His ice powers had grown, and his ectopowers were countering them at every turn. More havoc wreaked. For two terrifying days he'd had to fake laryngitis because every time he spoke his wail tried to break out. That had been controlled quickly, much more quickly than he'd expected. The leap in its power was easily contained, unlike his other new talents.

Teleportation, telekinesis. Cool, very cool, but awkward for trying to figure out how he'd managed to 'port himself to different parts of the city. And the memorable accident that had sent him to Mexico. He'd stayed for a couple of hours before coming home. And he'd been grounded for disappearing, too, but worth it. He now owned authentic Mexican jumping beans. The telepathy sucked, but it was weak enough that it didn't bother him.

But the dramatic increase in his strength and the sudden appearance of new powers had made a terrible problem that Tucker and Jazz had broken their backs and eyes to find an answer for. And the answer was in the small vial he held in his hands. An Ecto-Inhibitor. Completely not FDA approved, and an almost nauseating mix of various chemicals and proteins, not to mention certain particles of additional DNA from his midmorph DNA sequence, that resulted in a slightly cloudy mixture that inhibited the edges of his powers as he needed.

Which was all the time lately.

Danny sighed as he looked down at his arms. Even with his boosted healing powers there was no hiding the various needle marks. But when he was having to inject himself with the Inhibitor three and four and five times daily just to get through school and dinner, he couldn't expect too much more. He wasn't like Tucker, too afraid of the nurse and braving needles to stay conscious for it. Lucky him. But it wasn't like he even had a choice, either.

A glance confirmed that the stall door was still locked, and Danny expertly looped a rubber band around his arm and rolled it up over his elbow before digging another syringe from in his backpack. The needle was longer than he liked, but beggars couldn't be choosers, not when Jazz was sneaking them out of the doctor's office she was interning at. An extracurricular thing that she hoped looked great on college applications.

Two cc's, enough to last him a few hours, and Danny bit his lip as he slid the needle under the skin and into the vein. It burned, there was no getting around that, not with the ectoplasm that was inside it, and then a door slammed open and Danny nearly dropped the needle as he jerked it back out, watching the fading green power that had danced at his fingers only moments before. Blood trickled and Danny scrambled to shove the vial of Inhibitor and the now used syringe back into his backpack.

But too late, the stall door slammed open, the lock ripped from the fake wood, and Dash Baxter was staring down at him with an evil grin.

"Someone's already ready for some swirlies," he started before his dark blue eyes went wide and Danny sighed in defeat. "Dude, you're doing drugs?"

There was a moment of silence, and then Dash took a step back. Another moment, and Dash had spun around and pounded out at a running yelling for Mr. Lancer as Danny grabbed a piece of toilet paper and wadded it against the pleading pinprick at his elbow. He growled as he shoved the Inhibitor into his backpack, and broke the needle from the syringe without even trying. This, too, was shoved out of sight as Danny heard footsteps pounding towards him.

Then Mr. Lancer was peering in and frowning at the marks on his arms before Danny had a chance to shrug his long sleeved shirt back on. The only thing Danny could think was, Well, fuck. How am I going to explain this?