Author's Note: It's been awhile, I know, so please enjoy! Major AN at the bottom.
Chapter Eight: The Band-Aid
"Did you remember your emergency Ecto-Dejecto pills, Danny?"
"Yes, Jazz."
"Got the Thermos?"
"I nearly always have a Thermos on me, Jazz."
"Your EctoSup-racelet?"
"That's still the dumbest name I've heard since the Boooomerang, but yes, Jazz, it's right here on my wrist. I think you can see it."
"And the signatures? The information?"
"Yes, Jazz."
"Oh, and did you—?"
"Jazz!" Danny finally snapped. "Honestly, weren't you standing right next to me when Mom fussed over all this already?"
From beside him, Jazz looked a little wounded, but his nerves were too fried for him to feel any regret for losing his temper with her. Despite how exhausting his Sunday had been, he hadn't slept too well the night before, and none of his family members seemed to be aware that he didn't want to hear any of this. He didn't want to hear the pep talks, and he certainly didn't want to see those little smiles. He just wanted to be left alone so that he could deal with what was coming in his own way, and he wanted to do it without all the…hovering.
They meant well—of course, they did—but their good intentions had a tendency to stress him out even more.
Danny sighed and turned to stare out the window, well aware Jazz wasn't about to let him get away with the silent treatment. Sure enough, she spoke within seconds after his moody dismissal. "I just want everything to go smoothly, Danny."
"Murphy's Law seems to love me, if you remember, Jazz," Danny said with a sardonic bite to his tone.
"Even Murphy has to take a break and bug someone else every once and awhile." Her aquamarine eyes twinkled with humor. "Things…Things haven't gone too badly yet, have they?"
"Exactly," Danny stressed. His stomach performed some rather spectacular gymnastics stunts as he said it, and it occurred to him that he hadn't really eaten much that morning. "It's weird, Jazz. It's only a matter of time before shit hits the fan. I can't be this lucky for this long. It's not normal."
"Your optimism is inspiring," Jazz deadpanned. "Really, it is."
Danny snorted. "Says the one who seems to think I'm going to forget all the important stuff."
Jazz rolled her eyes. "Would you care to remind me just how many times have I had to save your ghostly butt because you forgot a Thermos?"
When he glowered in her direction, Jazz scrunched her nose smugly at him. He ignored her and grumbled, "I realize how important this is. I'm not going to mess this up."
Even though she was facing forward again, Danny saw her expression soften, and she sighed. "I know, Danny, I know. We can't help but be worried about you."
"I'm feeling a lot better, Jazz," he insisted, pressing his head back into the seat. "I can take care of myself. I don't need—"
"No, that's not it." Her gaze flickered over to him. "You're already falling into that role again, Danny."
Feeling as though he'd been slapped, he avoided looking at her and stared into his lap. He tapped his fingers against his knees uselessly. The denim covering them was worn, baggy…unassuming.
"Look. You don't even realize it," Jazz continued, her voice sympathetic. "It's going to be hard. For both of us. Just…try not to shut anyone out. Try to give them a chance."
"Finding someone who deserves a chance is going to be a problem," Danny murmured, voicing concerns that had been stewing for weeks now. He hadn't meant to, but Jazz always had this uncanny ability to make him emotion-vomit all over her. "Trust—trusting anyone…"
He'd been thinking about it far too often—about how their eyes were going to stalk him. He was going to be used as an example, a role model, and everyone was going to want something from him. They were going to want things from Jazz, too, and now that the entire Fenton family's privacy was compromised, he wished…
No, wishing was dangerous. He shouldn't wish.
Danny supposed he and his sister could take advantage of all this attention and praise, but he honestly hadn't even been tempted to. What kind of relationship was based on something like that anyway? Once upon a time, he might have jumped at this chance to claim instant popularity, but after all that he'd seen in a loser's shoes? No, now the answer was simple: that type of friendship was hardly a friendship worth having.
Without Phantom's reputation, however, who would look twice at dweeby Fenton in his oldest pair of gym shoes and too-large shirt? With his poor posture and downcast eyes on top of that? No one else had, back in Chicago.
Then again, that had been the point. He had perfected that mask well—so well, it seemed, that he couldn't remove it completely—but now that his secret identity was blown, he couldn't skirt along the sidelines anymore. He didn't have to, and even though that was somewhat relieving, it was also a problem within itself. With all the eyes on him, he'd have to watch his every word and action…because anything and everything could be used to incriminate him.
People were going to expect him to stand up and speak, however. They were going to expect him to fight against every injustice they saw, and there was no guarantee it wouldn't all be thrown back in his face.
It was a vicious cycle—having to cater to both his self-consciousness and society's expectations of him—and it really sucked. For every bit of freedom he earned, there was something else shackling him down.
Where was that calm resolve he found during Saturday's interview? Where was the relief he found after meeting Principal Ishiyama, Mr. Lancer, and Sam Manson? Where were those smiles he used to greet all the neighbors who stopped by yesterday? He certainly could use all of these things now.
"Trust your intuition, little brother," Jazz advised in a gentle voice. She was pulling into the parking lot already, Danny realized. Why did they have to live so damn close to the school? Even though they had arrived before a good portion of the other students, the school's stillness and silence only served to remind him that every last one of those empty parking spaces would be occupied within the next hour.
"You've always had good instincts," she continued. "I mean, of course I'm not asking you to dump all the Phantom stuff on someone's head just like that, but—but I really do hope that you'll keep an open mind. Find someone you can talk to."
"You too," Danny murmured. He meant it, too. Jazz had sacrificed so much for him the past year. He knew he was the cause of a bad breakup and more than a few lost friendships. He knew she dropped a few of her favorite extracurricular activities for him on top of that. "I'm…"
Jazz smiled and took a hand off the wheel to gently squeeze his shoulder. "We have the same lunch period," she reminded him. "Text me after the bell rings if you have no one to eat with, okay?"
There was once a time his older sister wouldn't be caught dead in public with him, and his relief and gratitude was evident when he said, "Thanks, Jazz."
"Anytime, Danny." She parked the car and turned off the ignition. "I have a feeling you won't need to take me up on it."
Danny accidentally slammed the car door and winced at the loud noise. "Wanna bet?"
"Didn't we just have a discussion about optimism?" Jazz teased. "You seem to forget you've already made a lady friend."
"Who?" Danny asked. "Sam? I just met her, Jazz!"
His sister shrugged her shoulders, but she had an infuriating, know-it-all smirk on her face. "You should find her today," she suggested innocently.
Danny refused to comment. Jazz didn't need to know that he already considered keeping an eye out for her.
They walked in relative silence to the door. Upon reaching it, Danny faltered, his legs no longer working the way they were supposed to. Jazz put one hand on the handle, turned to him, and asked jokingly, "Got everything?"
He rolled his eyes again at her, knowing she was trying to get him to smile. This isn't the hard part, he reminded himself. He'd done this part already. It was only Ishiyama that he'd be seeing, after all. He was only there to drop off the folder of paperwork. It went unsaid that they'd ask him for something more, just to prove that the dumb bracelet really did work, but that was it. Easy peasy.
When Jazz opened the door for him, he stepped into the office immediately. Again, he couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the amount of red in the room, and the bespectacled secretary the Fentons saw on Saturday leapt out of her chair before he could so much as glance in her direction. She was wearing red, too. Of course she was.
"Good morning!" she exclaimed.
He nearly jumped. "…Hi," he greeted in a cautious tone. The woman's ruddy face glowed even more vividly, and she cleared her throat. "Um…we're here to…"
"Yes, yes," the brunette said in a quieter voice. "They have been expecting you." Her eyes danced between the two of them, and for some reason, she appeared more flustered than she had before. "Fol—Follow me, please?"
"Sure."
He would later wonder why he hadn't seen it coming, but at the moment, he was too busy swinging his backpack around so that he could dig for the binder-clipped folder of EctoSup-racelet information. He pulled it out just as the secretary halted and announced, "You can go right in."
"Thanks," he muttered distractedly, zipping his bag closed and replacing the dangling strap on his free shoulder.
He took a few steps and looked up to find at least a dozen people sitting in a large conference room, every single eye turned and locked onto him. Judging him. Some were cold and emotionless, and others, blazing with curiosity.
Pamela Manson was the only one of the newcomers he recognized, and her gaze was the coldest of all.
He didn't realize he took a small step back, away from them, until he bumped into Jazz.
"Good morning, Mr. and Ms. Fenton." Danny scanned the group and finally located the speaker: a gentleman with a prim beard, business suit, and a damn red-striped tie, sitting directly next to Principal Ishiyama.
This man reminded Danny of Vlad, whom he hadn't seen or heard from in weeks, and that put a bad taste in his mouth.
Vlad's information on halfas had been too important for his parents to turn him away completely. Knowing every interaction with the fruitloop came with some sort of price, Danny could only assume that Mom and Dad had resorted to blackmail to get him to fully cooperate, but he couldn't be sure. No one would speak of it. All he knew was that once he had begun to recover, Mom and Dad had made it quite clear that Vlad was no longer welcome…and wouldn't be welcome for a very, very long time.
Vlad was taboo in their household now, and after everything the asshole had done, Danny didn't really care how his parents forced him to stay away. As loath as he was to admit that he owed Vlad for helping save his life, and for participating in the big battle at all, Danny was just relieved that he was out of their lives.
And now this guy, clearly cut from the same cloth, just had to waltz in.
The tension was high in this room, and Danny didn't like it. He felt trapped all of a sudden, and he carefully evaluated every face and empty corner, his body rigid and ready for flight.
"I am Dr. Lucas," the man said with an oily smile, "the superintendent of Casper High. It is certainly a pleasure to meet you both in person."
"It is good to meet you, too, sir," Jazz said, stepping around Danny to stand at his side. Unable to trust himself to speak, Danny merely nodded once as his sister gazed around at the assembly. "I hope we're not interrupting anything?"
His sister had always more tactful than him, but he was pretty sure everyone in the room could sense the sharp dagger hidden within her polite question. The secretary wouldn't have ushered them into the room if the group hadn't already been waiting for them, after all.
"No, thank you for your consideration, Ms. Fenton. There was a bit of a miscommunication—" Sly eyes slid to Principal Ishiyama, whose expression was stoic as stone. "—so we deeply apologize for any alarm this might cause you."
"I'm not sure I understand," Jazz said, her brow furrowing. "We were told to bring the all of the documentation to Principal Ishiyama."
He smiled in an arrogantly pitying way. Danny was grateful that Ishiyama jumped in just as the slime-ball drew a breath. "It would seem," she explained, "that witnesses are needed to validate the effectiveness of the device your parents made. I was under the impression that I would have sufficed, but I was mistaken, as you can see. We have highly respected members of the community here today to act as additional witnesses."
Danny's blood ran cold. He had known that Principal Ishiyama and perhaps even Mr. Lancer would want to see it work, and even though it wouldn't have been the most comfortable experience, he had been okay with that.
But these people were strangers, and some of them stared at him like they wished he'd spontaneously combust into flames or something. That wasn't too encouraging. Looking at them more closely, however, he realized that each of them, the curious, cheerful, and the cold alike, waited with varying degrees of anxiety for his reaction.
So it seemed some of them were also afraid he'd spontaneously combust into flames or something.
Joy.
"It's alright," he finally said. It was a blatant lie—it was most certainly not alright because these people obviously didn't respect or trust him, his parents, or their colleagues—but Ishiyama looked genuinely apologetic, so he could forgive her. "I understand."
"Then you also understand," Lucas added, "that if the majority finds the device inadequate, you cannot attend class today?"
Danny stepped up to the big conference table, set the folder down, and stared up at them. "What do I have to do?"
Even the superintendent looked a little surprised by his compliance, and Danny almost smirked. Yes, the rare species known as the "halfa" is actually capable of being reasonable! he sassed to himself. What a remarkable discovery.
"Is it safe for you to remove the band now?" Dr. Lucas asked.
Danny had to refrain from scoffing, and without waiting for permission, he pulled the wristlet off and displayed it to them. The question was so stupid it didn't warrant a verbal response.
Thin lips pursed. "And is it safe for you to replace it while demonstrating your…"
"Powers? Abilities? Ghostliness?" Danny supplied when the man trailed off. Déjà vu surged through him, and he had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time, either. "You don't have to be so PC with me about that." A shorter Hispanic man sitting across from Pamela Manson stifled a chuckle. "But yeah, whatever you prefer to call them, it'll be perfectly safe."
He and his family had already tested it in the lab. It wasn't exactly enjoyable, to say the least. The more powerful the ectoblast he summoned, the harsher of a whiplash he received after putting the band back on. Even a minor display of power had made him flinch or hiss in discomfort. His parents had advised that he not do this often, as that energy had to go somewhere.
Because thermodynamics and stuff.
He was pretty grateful that that 'somewhere' was his own body. He could take a few ectoplasmic shocks. If the energy had instead dissipated too quickly into the surrounding area, he might have accidently hurt someone, and that was exactly what everyone was trying to prevent with the thing in the first place.
Dr. Lucas, who had begun thumbing through the folder Danny had placed on the table, smiled. That smile was sickening and syrupy, and it made shudders run down his spine. "Then we don't want to waste anymore of your time," the superintendent hummed. "Please go ahead."
Danny was sure his expression was anything but polite. The guy didn't even do anything—not really—but he still royally pissed him off with his stupid questions and his stupid slimy courtesy and his stupid beard and his stupid little smile and his stupid thin lips and his stupid red-striped tie.
Without lowering his gaze from the superintendent's, Danny formed a low-powered ball of ectoplasm in his hand. It looked intimidating enough and probably could have been mistaken for one of his more powerful shots. Honestly, though, getting hit by something of this size and strength at full velocity might cause a small bruise, and the pain on impact would be comparable to a nasty static shock.
The gasps and sharp inhales made his anger-induced confidence falter, and unwilling to delay the inevitable, he steeled himself and shoved the band back onto his wrist. The green glow zapped out with a strange sizzling sound that was inaudible to humans, and he recoiled as the energy jolted back into him.
"Are you quite alright, Mr. Fenton?" Ishiyama asked in alarm.
Shaking his hand out, he looked up. Pamela Manson's expression was as cool as ever, but she exuded fear. He had shaken her, and he almost felt bad about it. The others murmured amongst themselves, but he ignored them as best he could.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Stings a bit when I do that. But as I said—" Danny displayed his palms "—perfectly safe."
"And perfectly functional," Jazz added.
Dr. Lucas' pale eyes scanned the gathering, as though searching for anyone that would refute the statement. "Indeed. Does anyone have any reservations about the device?"
Dead silence.
"Well, since all seems to be in order," the superintendent continued, "I am certain you understand the consequences we—?"
This again? "Yes," Danny interrupted, a little more sharply than he intended. "I do."
He smiled. "Then I do believe it is my honor and pleasure to officially welcome you both to Casper High."
~…~
It had taken more time than he'd've liked to extract himself from that room. As it had turned out, the Hispanic guy who had chuckled at Danny's sass had actually been the mayor of Amity Park, who preferred even less pomp and circumstance than Danny did. Some of the others in the room had wanted to shake his hand and ask after his health, and the rest had only felt obligated to talk to him out of duty. Pamela Manson had been the only one not to approach him, but he had felt her eyes on him the entire time.
His eyes hadn't left him either, and Danny had found himself migrating closer and closer to the corners of the room, where he'd have something at his back…and a good view of everyone in the room. The room had begun to feel way too small again.
He needed out.
Jazz had noticed and had made the excuses. Something about finding their lockers.
Danny, of course, was instantly relieved and didn't care if he showed it.
"You did well, Danny," his sister muttered the moment the door closed behind them.
Danny exhaled slowly. Leaving that godforsaken room really hadn't helped in the slightest, and his stomach tied itself into knots again. "I try."
"Honestly, though, I don't know what is up with this town. They better learn to get over themselves. They're going to end up killing someone if they continue 'miscommunicating.' We're going to need to work together and—"
He barely heard a word of what she was saying and hummed noncommittally. He had a feeling he should rant about his own frustrations, but as they entered the red-ified lobby again, what had happened in the conference room seemed a little unimportant now. Through the inner glass windows of lobby, he could see students passing by in the hallway, and he wondered if spending a day with the Vlad-incarnate was a better idea after all.
Jazz's hand rested on his shoulder, and he jolted back to reality. He hadn't fully realized he left. "You okay?"
Danny nodded.
He could tell she didn't believe him. "Danny," she attempted, "if you're…I mean, if it's too m—"
"Don't even say it. It's fine."
She regarded him closely for a moment before smiling and asking, "Ready?"
No.
"Y-yeah." He made a valiant attempt to straighten his shoulders—he failed miserably—and stepped up to the door. "Gotta rip off the Band-Aid at some point, right?"
"All at once or not at all," Jazz agreed, smiling lightly. It was something Mom had said when they were little, and the memory of her fixing up their cuts and scrapes made him smile.
'All at once' it is, then.
He didn't know what he expected, but for the second time that day, he was realized he should have been unsurprised.
Because the very moment he stepped out of the office, some burly upperclassman barreled into his shoulder. It was so unexpected that Danny was shoved back into Jazz, who steadied him and glared at the offender.
"Watch it, you little prick," the guy growled as he passed, not once looking back.
Danny just stared at his retreating back….and started to laugh. "Welcome back to high school," he chuckled, a little hysterically. "Wow. Okay."
It was really messed up that that rude asshole helped uncoil the ball of dread tangled in his gut, but Danny wasn't about to complain. Any small bit of familiarity was appreciated, and the longer Danny stood there without being recognized, the more at ease he felt.
It was…just school, he realized. With one sweep of his eyes, he could already discern the invisible lines separating the cliques. He could sense that undeniable undercurrent of dejection and resentment toward the upcoming school day. He caught the grumbles about Mondays and the laments about the weekend's end.
There was nothing different, save the unfamiliar faces. The cacophonous rabble was no louder, and the students, no less absorbed in their own lives. Emotions ran just as high, exhaustion was just as prevalent, and friends were being just as obnoxious with each other.
Weird, how one person's entire world could turn upside down…and how the world—the universe or fate or whatever—could just keep allowing high school to be…high school.
"Okay," he said again. He released a puff of air, blowing his bangs out of his face. "Alright. Let's go."
So he led the way into the throng of students, only vaguely aware of the general direction he needed to head in.
Of course, it was only a few footsteps later that he discovered why there was so much student traffic here: he and Jazz needed to pass through the cafeteria, where a huge portion of the student body congregated before the first bell rang.
Needless to say, his confidence in high school's unshakeable ability to be just high school shattered.
It began with the stares. The whispers started soon after that. He never did see who first noticed him, but his ears were keen enough to pick up the undeniable repetition of: "is that—is that Danny Fenton?" along with its accompanying, "No, no, it can't be" and "But no, look, it is!"
The whisperers soon became gawkers, who either turned in their seats to see him or stood to get a better look. Those passing through stopped dead in their tracks. Danny just put one foot in front of the other, ignoring the fact that more and more people were staring, hesitating...
Were his shoulders creeping to his ears? He certainly hoped not.
Not a single one called out to him, and for that, he was grateful. It made it so much easier to keep his eyes forward, to pretend as though he couldn't see that the noise and ruckus of the cafeteria was dying down.
Was he supposed to keep his eyes forward? He didn't want to look anywhere else.
The eternal, incomprehensible whispers of the Ghost Zone were far less nerve-wracking than the unusual hush that had fallen over the room, and Danny decided that he was quite wrong about the universe: it didn't know how to keep high school high school after all. He was stupid for even considering it. Didn't the universe have bigger things to worry about, anyway?
Dammit, did he look like a stuck-up douche for pretending to ignore them? He couldn't know.
God, this was awful. Why did they have to pass through here? What would happen if he looked toward them? Should he actually address them about how rude they were being? About how uncomfortable he was?
"Ya-aaah," someone whooped, leaping up. "Fentons!"
Danny stopped walking and finally looked up over the conglomeration of students. He would forever be indebted to that individual—that beautiful individual who whooped. It was enough to shake everyone out of their funk, and it was that individual who began clapping.
Danny'd never been the suave, valiant type of hero. He'd never been the one to sweep girls off their feet and soar into the sunset, and judging by the way he was treated when he was "just a ghost," he was pretty sure he had never been the hero others wanted him to be either. If he were to be classified as a hero at all, he was the type that snarked a little here and there, lost his pants due to intangibility a few times, and stumbled his way through life. He was just a dude who wanted nothing more than to sleep in on weekends, avoid bullies, and sit for hours on the Internet.
He wasn't anything special. He was just a kid who really shouldn't have been playing around in his parents' sci-fi-worthy lab. He was just a kid who had been terrified of his uncontrollable powers and who decided, as any rational person would, to learn how to use them, if only to keep himself from getting into trouble with his parents….or killed by those who wouldn't understand. When he had learned it had been his fault the ghosts were released, what else could he do but try to fix that? What else could he do but continue to fight when he became targeted specifically? And when defeating him became some kind of weird game for them?
Considering the history of how it happened, minor ghostly obsession aside, it didn't make him a hero and definitely not a hero who deserved all this attention. That's why he felt so uncomfortable when Ishiyama thanked him, when the studio audience cheered for him on Saturday…and when his neighbors came by to thank the entire Fenton family for their service.
At that moment, however, as most of the cafeteria, full of his new peers, whose predecessors had only ever made his life hell and whose acceptance mattered more than he cared to admit, erupted into applause, Danny thought that maybe…he could start to believe it.
The bell, signaling the first ten-minute passing period, broke the spell, and the unity between the students dissolved as each of them began to gather their things and walk out at their own pace. He didn't see a single cell phone camera turn in his direction, and the staring dwindled. He couldn't know if their now-normal chattering was or wasn't about him, his family, the Shift, or anything ghost related, but no one approached him or Jazz. All in all, there was a definite level of respect here that Danny never would have expected.
"I told you they wouldn't mob you," Jazz murmured, slugging him on the shoulder.
"Ah, there's the 'I told you so,'" Danny mocked. "There's still the rest of the day to go, you know."
She laughed. "Optimism, Danny. Optimism."
She didn't need to give him anything more than a gentle squeeze on the shoulder (in addition to an overbearing reminder about where his locker was in comparison to hers) before she darted up the nearest staircase.
Definitely better than spending the day with the Vlad-incarnate, Danny decided as he continued on his way. How's that for optimism, Jazz?
AN: I am truly sorry this took so long. As it happened, I wrote what was supposed to be the second half of this chapter first, and…what you see here was supposed to be the first half of the chapter. It's obviously its own chapter now because it was becoming too long. That being said, a lot more interesting things will happen in the next chapter, including Tucker's meeting with Danny and some more drama with other characters. There is still stuff I need to write for the next chapter, but considering it is half-complete, it shouldn't take as long as this one did.
On top of my inability to plan fanfic well, pharmacy school has been incredibly time-consuming. This is understandable, given pharm school is a graduate school, and I did warn you about my slow updates. I just need to reiterate that fact because even though I am incredibly flattered by the guest(s)/reader(s) who enjoy my story enough to continuously ask me for more, these demands tend to stress me out more than they encourage me to update.
Despite that, though, please don't hesitate to shoot me a PM and ask me about my progress on the next chapter. Find me on tumblr (link on profile). Message me there. I will answer these PMs/messages all day long, but please, please, do not demand updates from me. I want to give you guys the best I can give, and I cannot do that if I'm feeling pressured or stressed about something that should be more enjoyable for me.
Last thing: it may take me awhile to update, but I will not abandon this story.
Thank you for your patience and understanding! And thank you for reading. Apologies for any mistakes.
