Challenge topic #24: The World Turned Upside Down
Character(s): DF, TF, SM, Mr. and Mrs. Manson, OC's
Genre: Drama
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.
Grandma Ida's passing had hit the Manson family hard, but none of them suffered as much as Sam. Her appetite waned. She wore the unrelieved black of mourning, in styles much more modest than she was accustomed to. She rarely spoke. And she stopped smiling, even for Danny and Tucker. To anyone who knew her, it was perfectly understandable. Ida had been the shining light among Sam's family relations. She had been the one source of unconditional love and acceptance that every child craves, and she had supported Sam's choices without reservation. Sam's friends and parents were resolved to wait. They made sure that she knew that they were there for her. At any time. For anything she needed. And they gave her the space to grieve until she felt ready to come back to herself and to them.
At first it seemed she was starting to rebound, but then she faltered. She stopped going to school. She stopped talking altogether, wandering around the house like a ghost. Finally, she stopped eating and refused to leave her room or even her bed. Her parents, in a deep depression of their own, could think of nothing else to do. They had to seek professional help, despite the stigma that came with mental troubles in their social circles. As a last resort they conceded to her whispered request… the only words he had spoken in the last week.
"…please… Danny… Tuck."
If a visit on the part of her boys didn't work there was no other alternative. They could wait no longer. Samantha would be hospitalized that night.
They came over immediately after classes, backpacks still slung across their shoulders. In order to show respect for the family's mourning, they wore more formal clothing than their usual tees and jeans. Danny wore a polo shirt and slacks. Tucker wore a short sleeved button down and chinos, although he kept the red beret. Their shoes had never been introduced to the notion of 'tennis'. The outfits had brought them horrendous teasing at school, but it was worth it. It would be worth any amount of humiliation to get their Sam back.
The Mansons led the way up to Sam's room, relating her current state and what they planned. The boys followed, speaking in hushed tones. As they entered the upstairs hallway, Danny's ghost sense shivered past his lips. He and Tucker looked wide eyed at each other before Danny passed off his bag and shoved gently past the Mansons with a murmured 'excuse me'. He strode quickly to her door, pausing just outside with his hand on the knob, eyes closed. Frowning at his rude behavior, their expressions only deepened when Tucker dropped to his knees and upended both backpacks in the middle of the hallway.
"What do you think you…"
Danny interrupted. "This is bad. It feels like some kind of leech ghost. Very dark. What do we have, Tuck?"
Tucker rummaged through the pile of school books and ghost fighting equipment. "Not a whole lot. Not nearly as much as I'd like. I've got my thermos. It's the old one you used to carry, so it's all beat up. It still works, but has a very short range. I was going to try to fix it. I've got two Specter Deflectors, but only one of them has been upgraded with my new software patches. Here's a sheet of anti-ecto polymer I was playing with earlier; it's about 3 by 3 feet. I've got the Fenton Utility Weapon. Hah! I thought I saw this. Here's one of your mom's new plug-in ghost barriers. There's not much else. Other than that…" He flipped a quick glance at the rapidly angering Mansons. "Other than that I have these… umm… prototype gloves."
Tucker held up a pair of driving gloves. They were laced with a complex looking network of wires and electrical conduits.
"I told you I was working on these, right? The special hand-to-hand ghost fighting gloves I designed just for you?"He looked meaningfully at Danny as he stressed the words. He'd told his friends he would work out some alternative mock-weaponry for Danny to use in human form, but he hadn't had a chance to show them anything yet. He was only hoping Danny would get the message. Danny grimaced his understanding and was moving to take some of the equipment when Mr. Manson sputtered to indignant life.
"Tucker Foley! I would expect the Fenton boy to be spouting off this ghost nonsense, because of his family," he sneered the word. "But you! You should be asham…"
"Mr. Manson," Danny interrupted once more. He squared himself between his friend and the grieving parents, speaking in a clear, even voice that seemed to resonate in the hallway.
"I'm going to ask you to humor me. I know that you don't approve of me or my family, but you do have to admit our expertise. We don't have time to argue about this. There is something very bad in the room with Sam. I know that things have been hard for you since Miss Ida passed. She was a wonderful lady and a woman of great compassion. I'm going to miss her as much as I would my own grandma. But Sam… This depression she's been feeling is not natural. Whatever has got a hold of her has probably been affecting you, too. Have you been feeling more depressed than usual or maybe physically sick when you were near Sam? Has it been worse in the last few days since she stopped talking? Especially in her room?"
Mr. Manson stood there gaping while Mrs. Manson could only stutter. Although Danny was still almost a foot shorter than Mr. Manson, he suddenly seemed to tower over the both of them. "I… I don't…"
"Here. Tucker, hand me the modified belt? Mr. Manson, put this on." He helped the man to wrap the belt around his waist and Mr. Manson found himself obeying the boy's instruction without his conscious decision. "Does that feel better? If this ghost has been feeding on you too, you should be able to feel the difference right away."
"I… yes, that's… Oh my. What exactly is going on?" The usually composed socialite suddenly seemed like a lost little boy.
Danny started issuing orders as he pulled the gloves onto his hands. "Mr. Manson, Mrs. Manson. I'm going to need you to follow my instructions very closely. Mr. Manson, if you would hold your wife, the effect of the belt you're wearing will protect you both. We are all going to go into Sam's room. When we're inside I'm going to close the door and secure the room. I need you to guard this door. Do not let go of each other. Do not move from the doorway. Under no circumstances should you move or talk until Tucker or I give you the all clear. Tucker," He turned to his friend, picking up the strange plug-in device Tucker had pulled out. "You take the other Deflector, the thermos, and the lipstick blaster and guard the window. I'll plug the barrier in so the ghost can't escape through the walls. Once that's up I'll need you to blast it if it tries to make a break though the ceiling. I'll get it if it goes for the floor. As soon as I can, I'll grab whatever's in there and subdue it before handing it over to you to suck into the thermos, okay?"
Tucker nodded, "Yeah, I'm good. But can we call this blaster the F.U.W. or Utility Weapon or something? I don't feel right carrying around a blaster disguised as lipstick, no matter how powerful a punch it's got. Speaking of which…"
"Hmm. Good point. Not my first choice for a weapon to use indoors. Okay, only use it as a last resort. I'll cover both the ceiling and floor. You concentrate on the window and containing it when you get the chance." He held up a hand to forestall the protest he felt building in Mrs. Manson. "I promise I will pay for the replacement of anything that gets damaged. I'll do my best to avoid breaking anything in your home. And I swear," he looked directly into her eyes, "I'm not going to let anything hurt Sam."
Somehow she couldn't find it in herself to doubt him as she usually would. She clung to her husband and they followed the boys numbly into the room.
Once inside, Tucker backed into the wall and edged cautiously around the bed were Sam was lying and over to the window. He made extra sure not to come into contact with Danny, since the unmodified belt would shock him even in human form. Danny positioned the Mansons at the door and plugged in the shield, explaining quietly, "This is something my mom invented recently. It plugs into a wall socket and uses the wiring of a room to make a kind of anti-ghost electric fence. Don't move from the doorway, because it isn't wired. We don't want the ghost to get out of the room into the rest of your home." He shook out his hand to ease the pain from the shock the barrier gave him when he plugged it in.
Mrs. Manson raised a question from the shelter of her husband's arms. "Shouldn't we call professionals for this? Not your par… I mean to say, someone trained to handle this sort of thing?"
Danny reassured her. "Tucker and I are trained, Mrs. Manson. Everything is under control."
"But, shouldn't we all at least put on some kind of armor or one of your parents' sil… er, unusual jumpsuits? For protection?"
Tucker answered the question as Danny approached the foot of the bed. "The Specter Deflector belts that Mr. Manson and I are wearing are a kind of electric-field armor. This thing won't be able to hurt or even really touch you. Now, like Danny told you earlier… Don't let go of each other, don't move from the door, and don't draw attention to yourselves by talking, okay? We'll take care of the rest. I'm ready, Danny. Let's get this over with."
Danny looked intently into the gloom that cloaked the head of Sam's bed. Fisting his gloved hands, he said, "Open up the curtains. I want to see how it handles sunlight."
Pushing the draperies open to their fullest extent, Tucker turned back to the bed. Despite the bright light, the shadows remained unchanged. If anything, they grew deeper. The room grew colder. Danny's frown as he glared was as dark as the amorphous shade on the headboard. He growled in a tone so low that it raised the hairs on the necks of his audience. "We know you're there. Show yourself."
The shadows shifted, pulling in on themselves. And then they opened their glowing red eyes. All sixteen of them. The Mansons gasped.
"Umm, Danny? Please tell me that's more than one ghost. That's way creepy."
"Yeah, looks like at least eight of them. Here we go." He lit up his hands. "Any of you smart enough to manage speech? I have some questions I want to ask you." One of the shadow leeches, slightly bigger than the others, gurgled a snarling response. None of the humans in the room understood what it had said, but it sounded rude. Danny smiled a very frightening smile. "Ah, thank you for volunteering."
He lunged forward, grabbing the bigger ghost and pulling it away from the others. Extinguishing the green glow on his left hand, he let the energies he held shift to an arctic blue. The leech screeched in a piercing wail as it was encased in a block of ice. Danny slid the frozen specter to Tucker. "Plastic wrap this one for later. I'm gonna want to have a talk with it. The rest of them can go in the thermos." Then he grunted as the rest of the ghosts charged him, knocking him to the ground. They rolled around on the carpet, thrashing. The leeches tried to get a 'hold' on Danny's emotions while he pounded away at them with charged fists. Danny fought his way to his knees, getting a firm grip on one of the ghosts. He tossed it to Tucker, shouting, "Pull!" Very upset with this, the next largest ghost growled and wrapped itself around Danny's face while another four took a limb each. Danny tumbled to the floor again with a muffled 'whoop'.
The remaining ghost was about to join its comrades when it noticed Tucker sucking the ghost Danny had tossed him into the thermos. Recognizing this threat, it charged Tucker, trying to knock the thermos from his hands. Unable to swing the beam around in time to pull it in, he settled on keeping the device out of its reach. Turning away slightly, he managed to catch the ghost on his shoulder, letting it get shocked by his belt as it knocked him into the window frame. It screamed and retreated, starting to bounce off the ecto-proofed walls as it tried to escape.
Meanwhile, Danny was having problems throwing off the ghosts that were grappling with him. They hissed and writhed in pain as he pulled at them with his charged hands, but they refused to let him go. He was getting a bit desperate for air at this point, so he called his ice powers into his aching fingers again. Concentrating the energies on his fingertips, he grew icy talons that he filled with his green ecto-energy. Digging these claws into the ghost on his face, he finally managed to peel it off. It shrieked in pain. He tossed it towards Tucker and repeated the process on the others. Abandoning their holds, the remaining ghosts tried to make their escape, flying wildly around the room. At least one tried to make a break for the door. The Mansons yelled in alarm. Danny called to them, "They can't hurt you! Don't move!"
A tossed low-power energy blast wasn't enough to stop one of the ghosts from making a try at the ceiling. He sighed in relief when the spook bounced off. Obviously the room's lighting was tied into the same circuit that the barrier was plugged into. They couldn't go up. Danny moved next to the bed to bat the panicked specters away from Sam and towards Tucker's thermos. Finally they were all contained. He pulled off the gloves and showed Tucker fingers that were exhibiting a light case of frostbite. "I did more damage to myself than they did. Cold energy isn't so bad, but I can't use full out ice when I'm…" He glanced at the Mansons where they were still huddled at the door. "…when I'm using the gloves like this. I'll need more practice with these. Mr. and Mrs. Manson? It's okay now. They're all gone, you can relax." They didn't move. Danny looked at Tucker and shrugged. Tucker nodded.
"They're in shock. I'll go soothe them with some Foley Charm, while you take care of Sam." Tucker walked over to the doorway. He smiled winningly at the couple and pried their white knuckled grip on each other apart. Grabbing one hand of each in his own, he gave them a firm handshake and told them, "Congratulations on your first successful ghost hunt. You did really well. Let's go see how Sam's doing, okay?" He pulled them away from the door as the household servants pounded at the entrance, demanding to know what was wrong. He opened the door and began his explanations of what exactly those ghosts were and what they'd been doing while he pulled the Mansons towards the bed.
Danny ignored them all as he knelt beside Sam. He shook her gently. "Sam? Wake up now."
He persisted until he got a response. She moaned a little and cracked her eyes. He started to roll her onto her side to face him when her eyes rolled back into her head and she lurched forward, vomiting on his shirt. "Oh gross, Sam! I didn't think it was possible, but I'm actually glad you haven't been eating. Eew." He sighed and pulled the shirt off over his head, gently using the clean parts to wipe the sick from her chin. He looked up at Tucker and the others when Tucker cleared his throat.
"I don't know what to tell you, man. The Foley Charm has never failed me before." He waved at the still shell-shocked Mansons. "I think our best bet now is just to keep them moving until they've had a chance to process all this. Oh, and I found this." He held up the shattered remains of Sam's cell phone. "It looks like she might have tried to call for help when she realized what was happening. I can't find her thermos anywhere. One of those ghosts tried to get mine away from me during the fight. They probably took hers, too."
Danny nodded. "Okay, I'll look for it when we're done. Mr. and Mrs. Manson? I'm sorry about this. I should have come to check on her when she started getting worse. I just thought she needed some time. These things weren't around during the k'vurah or when I came over to pay my respects during your week of shivah, but I should never have let them get anywhere close to her at all."
"It's not your fault, man."
"Feels like my fault, Tuck. We're going to have to give Sam somewhere else safe to rest for a while. I'm sorry to ask this, but has Miss Ida's room been changed at all? I think Sam would be most comfortable around her grandma's things since she can't stay in here right now."
When the Mansons didn't answer, their maid stepped forward. "We've only laundered the bedding and kept the room aired out. No one has really felt comfortable making any changes so soon."
Danny smiled at her. "Thanks, Allison. Can you grab Sam a clean nightgown and robe? She's waking up a little, but it might help if you and Mrs. Manson give her a bath. She'll feel better if she's clean. Use Miss Ida's bathroom." He lifted Sam from the bed and handed her off to the butler to carry. "You might need to give Mrs. Manson a little push. Now, Mr. Manson. Sam isn't under the ghosts' influence any more, but I still think you should call Rabbi Mayersohn to perform an exorcism. Explain to him that Sam was possessed by an evil... um... sheydim dybbuk. I spoke with him after the k'vurah, so I know he's familiar enough with the Kabbalah to do the ceremony for the both of you and Sam. I don't know if there's something he can do for the house, but it wouldn't hurt to ask him."
He paused when they managed to somehow look even more shocked. "What? Did I mispronounce something?"
Mr. Manson numbly shook his head. "No, but how do you…? When did you learn…?"
Danny smiled his shy smile at the both of them. "The ghost info is a part of being a Fenton. I can't be one without knowing at least a little about ghosts in different cultures."
Tucker chimed in, "And the Torah is pretty much the same as the Old Testament. Ghosts are mentioned everywhere in there. It's a weird coincidence, but one of the first mentions of an evil possession is in the Book of Samuel, 18:01."
Danny continued, "As for the words I used, Sam ו - סבתא Ida למדתי קצת עברית. (Sam and Grandma Ida have taught me a little Hebrew.) I'm still working on it, but I've got a basic understanding. Now, even with the ghosts gone, I think that the rabbi's services would help you all."
Mrs. Manson lingered in the room long enough to venture her opinion. "Samantha hasn't been to Temple in almost two years."
Danny just nodded. "I know, but just because she doesn't observe doesn't mean she's not faithful. Tuck and I both saw how much your rabbi's words comforted her at the funeral." He turned back to Mr. Manson. "Can I…"
"May I." Tucker corrected in a stage whisper. Danny made a face at him.
"May I borrow a shirt while you make your call? I don't have a spare with me. When you're done we can join the ladies in Miss Ida's room." Mr. Manson jolted, but agreed, leading Danny to his room. Tucker stayed behind, chatting with the cook while he stuffed their things and one plastic wrapped ghost-cicle back into their bags.
A short while later, they all arrived in Ida's room. Tucker came in with a small tray of beverages he'd arranged with the chef. "Hot cocoa for me and Danny, extra dark chocolate double mochachinos for the Mansons, and a sports drink for Sam, so she can get her electrolytes back in balance. Just the pick-me-up we all need right now."
Mr. Manson was sitting stiffly in an armchair, while his wife sat on the arm, hand resting lightly on his shoulder. Danny tucked Sam beneath the blankets and sat on one side of the bed while Tucker took the other, sandwiching her between them. She was aware enough to take a death grip on each of their hands. They took turns prodding her.
"Wake up, Sam."
"Wake up! It's not like you to be the damsel in distress."
She frowned and turned her face into Danny's shoulder. " 'm not."
"Yes, you are! You're being all cute and pathetic," Tucker teased.
She grumbled and swung a weak blow at him. He laughed at her as he caught it. "Too slow."
"You have to wake up now, Sam. You aren't being yourself and neither are your parents." Danny leaned forward a little to pretend to whisper in her ear. "They're actually tolerating me! In their house. In bed. With you! This whole situation is freaking me out." She snorted and cracked her eyes.
"Danny? Why do you smell like my father?" she mumbled.
"I had to borrow one of his shirts because you threw up on me."
"Did not."
"Yeah, you did. You're just lucky I didn't like the shirt I was wearing."
"So wrong." She protested.
Tucker agreed, pulling at her arm. "That's what we've been saying. You're being all feeble, your parents aren't calling the police on Danny; everything is all upside down and backwards! We're in Bizarro world!"
"Tucker, we've had the talk about making comic book references in everyday conversation." Danny joked. Sam coughed a chuckle and managed to sit up a bit against the headboard with their help.
Mr. Manson broke the silence from where he sat in the corner, watching them interact. "Jeremy."
Danny blinked at him, confused. "Pardon?"
"You may call me Jeremy. My wife prefers to be called Pamela rather than Pam." Mrs. Manson looked startled by his statement, but nodded her agreement.
Sam blinked owlishly at her parents. "I'm still dreaming."
Tucker pinched her side gently, making her squeal a little. "If you are, we all are. Told you."
Danny nudged them both into silence and looked back to… Jeremy. "Thank you. I appreciate this."
Then they all turned to the door as the butler knocked and announced the arrival of Rabbi Mayersohn.
A/N: I really don't like fics that make Sam the damsel in distress, but I couldn't think of any other way to get the Mansons to even consider being nice to Danny, let alone to listen to and obey his orders. What can I say? I caved. At least it gave me something appropriate to write for a world that was upside down. Most of the info on Dybbuk's was from an article on ghostvillage dot com by Jeff Belanger. A K'vurah is a Jewish burial. A Shivah is the 7 day mourning period after a k'vurah. And the Hebrew I used here has English syntax and grammar, because I stink with other languages and used an online translator to go word by word. It's also a right to left language, so what I've got here actually reads like "Sam and Grandmother Ida Hebrew little a taught me have" If you know the proper way to say this, or if I've misrepresented something in the folklore just let me know and I'll fix it.