Written for Darkness/Poison of Ectober Week 2020.
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The Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle did not have the smoothest ride in the world, but Danny was used to it. Also, he had driven the Specter Speeder through the Carnivorous Canyon and ridden in Johnny 13's sidecar.
Point being, if his parents didn't want him to fall asleep, they should have told him. Or, at least, not dragged him out of bed at four thirty in the morning (both to get an early start and to avoid the reporters and other undesirables who had taken to circling Fentonworks like vultures).
Look. Danny might have been an unspeakable eldritch horror, a superhero, and one of the richest human beings on the face of the Earth, but he was also a teenager. Not to mention sleep deprived.
Besides, Mom and Dad had said their next Paranormal Research Club friend was miles and miles away. They wouldn't reach his town until much later in the day. Danny had plenty of time to sleep safely.
Which is why he was so disgruntled when Dad shook him awake with a cheery "We're here!"
"Where's here?" asked Danny, rubbing his eyes and noting sadly how far away his portal back in Amity Park was.
"Breakfast," said Jazz, voice heavy with sleep. Apparently, he wasn't the only one trying to take advantage.
"'Kay," said Danny, briefly wrestling with the seatbelt. He caught Mom staring as he opened the door. "What?" he asked frowning.
"Nothing," she said, unconvincingly.
Whatever. Danny could figure it out later, when he was more awake. He jumped to the ground.
"I think you guys will really like it here!" said Dad, waving at the building. "The food's great! An old friend owns the place. Your mom and I used to come here all the time before you were born, when we were commuting between Amity and Chicago."
Danny nodded along, staring up at the neon sign that read 'Red Flower Dinner.' Then his brain caught up, and he slowly turned his head to look at Dad.
"'Old friend,'" he said. "What do you mean old friend?"
Dad blinked at him, uncomprehending. Jazz came to his rescue.
"Dad, we're doing this whole trip because all of your old friends are lunatics," she explained.
"They're not!" said Dad, defensively. "Besides, Marianne was never part of our club. She didn't even go to U of M."
"She was a waitress at our favorite hangout," explained Mom. "She got enough saved to buy this restaurant around the time we graduated. She's few years older than us."
"Saved? I thought a relative died, and she got an inheritance?" asked Dad.
Danny groaned. "Do you not see how suspicious that is?"
"Come on, Danno! We can have normal friends."
"No, you can't. If a normal thing ever interacts with our family in any way, it immediately becomes abnormal simply because of how unlikely it is for anything like that to happen." He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.
"He's got a point," said Jazz. "Maybe we could go to a different dinner?"
"But," said Dad, "she makes the best breakfast. And she really is normal. She wasn't involved in any ghost stuff."
"Are you really telling me you never talked to her about ghost stuff at all?" asked Danny, suspiciously.
"Well, we did," said Dad. "But we talk to everyone about ghost stuff."
"Dad…"
Dad inhaled and heaved a huge sigh, shoulders sagging. "Alright, Danno. I get what you're saying. We can go somewhere else… Even if it won't be as good."
Okay. Now Danny felt bad.
Unfair.
"Well," he said. "I guess we could check and make sure she's not, you know, haunted or anything. That's why we're doing this, I guess."
Dad brightened immediately, and Danny had to grab the back of his shirt to keep him from running in.
"But remember, if I say we have to go, we have to go. That's the deal."
Dad nodded. Danny let go. He sighed as Dad disappeared into the building.
"Is the food really that good?" asked Danny.
"Marianne grows a lot of her own herbs," offered Mom with a shrug. "Everything she makes is at least decent. But, well," she grimaced as she held the door open for her children. "The reason we liked her so much was that she always seemed interested in our research. We liked talking to someone who took us seriously."
"Wonderful," deadpanned Jazz.
The décor inside the dinner was bright red and floral. The seats and benches were upholstered in shiny, dyed leather. A long glass counter displayed pies and other desserts under bright lights. The air was warm and smelled faintly of cherries. A radio station played quietly in the background, blurring the chatter of the other guests.
Danny rubbed his eyes again. Ugh. He was tired. Sleeping in a moving vehicle was a special kind of unrestful. Heh. Unrestful dead. More like unrested dead. That was him.
(Someday, he was going to track down the first person to say, 'I'll sleep when I'm dead,' and give them a stern talking to.)
"Marianne!" boomed Dad, waving at someone in the kitchen behind the order window.
There was a gasp. "Jack Fenton! Is that you?" A woman with greying brown curls leaned out, then ducked away briefly before reappearing through a door. "I haven't seen you in years!" She threw her arms out, hugging first Dad and then Mom.
Danny bristled at the perceived threat to his parents but managed to control himself. This was nothing. Everything was fine. Just because every one of his parents' friends so far had something weird and potentially fatal going on so far, it didn't give him the right to police their every interaction with other human beings.
"Are these your kids?" asked Marianne, excitedly. "Oh, my goodness, you must be Jazz, and you're Danny? I've only seen you in pictures, but you've grown so much. You'll be as tall as your dad in no time."
"Hope so," said Danny, knowing there was no chance of that happening whatsoever.
Not with his human body, anyway.
"I hope we'll get a chance to talk," she continued, "but I have things on the stove. Why don't you go ahead and find a seat? We'll get to you soon."
"Looking forward to it, Marianne!" said Dad, waving again.
"Is she alright?" asked Mom quietly as they slid into a corner booth.
Danny wound up in between Mom and Jazz, which was good, because Dad tended to elbow whoever he was sitting by. In this case, Mom, who could take it.
"I think so?" He rubbed his eyes. "But I can't just sense everything. Don't forget that."
"Stop rubbing your eyes," said Mom.
"They're itchy," said Danny. "I think I got some sleep sand in them or something."
Mom's expression softened. Danny blinked at it and wondered when he'd gotten so used to seeing an edge of suspicion on her face.
"It could be allergies," she said. "It's that time of year. Or it could be that you keep rubbing them." She tugged his hands away from his face. "Either way, it isn't healthy to keep touching your eyes, sweetie."
It wasn't that she didn't have a point, but Danny wasn't entirely sure he could get sick. Not anymore. Maybe if he was far enough away from Amity Park, spread thin enough between his two major physical manifestations… If his body was human enough… Maybe figuring that out could be a fun family bonding experience. Not.
He yawned. He wanted to go back to sleep. Being in here, with the warm scented air and not-quite-white background noise, only made slumber more inviting.
Still. His family's ability to protect themselves was lacking. Danny at least had to stay conscious in case Marianne decided to channel the spirit of Locusta or something. Ancients, wouldn't that be typical?
A waiter came, introduced themself, and handed out menus. Danny failed to process most of the waiter's prepared speech, and his eyes drifted down to the menu.
It seemed… normal, for lack of a better word. Slightly worn, a couple stains on the paper behind the plastic protector. The pages had a border of blotchy red flowers. The items were all typical breakfast foods. Nothing jumped out at him.
He wasn't even hungry. Actually, if he thought about it, he was a little nauseated. Sometimes that happened when he didn't eat for a while, though, so maybe he was hungry, after all?
Why did bodies have to be so complicated?
"What are you getting?" asked Jazz, who was morally unable to make a food order until she'd taken a poll.
"I don't know," said Danny, folding his arms on the table and letting his head rest on them. "I'll probably just get whatever you're getting."
Jazz frowned at him and repeated the question to their parents.
The waiter came back after a few minutes.
"I'll have the Variety Breakfast!" said Dad, excitedly.
"The number five, please," said Maddie. "Sausage links, not bacon."
"Um," said Jazz. "How about the Red Flower Special?"
"Excellent choice," said the waiter, smiling. "Marianne grows all the seasonings for that herself, and the presentation is lovely."
"I mean, it's pancakes, right?" asked Jazz, nervously.
"It is, it is. What would you like for your side?" It took just a few seconds for the waiter to get the rest of Jazz's order, then they turned to Danny. "And what are you having today?"
"Same as her," said Danny, waving in Jazz's general direction.
"Good choice, good choice," said the waiter. "We'll be back soon!"
"Thanks!" said Dad. He reached over Mom to pat Danny on the shoulder. "See? This is just a completely normal restaurant."
"Mhm," said Danny, dubiously. He'd believe it when he got out of here with his questionably mortal coil and squishy, murderable human family intact.
Okay. Maybe he was being a bit overdramatic, now. Was it because he was too far from the Amity portal? He'd been sure it wouldn't significantly affect him, though. It wasn't as if physical distance meant much in this context. Sure, he wasn't on his home turf, but still…
Of course, he was a teenager. Teenagers were supposed to be overdramatic. At least, that's what he'd heard. Being a teenager didn't come with a manual any more than being a half-ghost superhero did, quirky TV shows about middle school notwithstanding.
Yeah. That sounded reasonable. He was a teenager who'd been woken early, and it was still early, and that meant the world was terrible. Excellent math.
He sipped at the water the waiter had left him, pleased with himself.
Which is when his and Jazz's orders arrived. Danny caught a glimpse of red on him plate, abruptly recognized the prickling feeling in his eyes, expelled the water he was drinking from his nose, and propelled himself sideways across Mom and Dad and out of the booth.
"Ah!" he said, pointing at the red-tinted pancakes and the pretty little flowers on top.
The plating really was nice. Just like the waiter said.
The whole dinner was staring at him.
"He's got allergies," explained Jazz, her voice just a little too high pitched. "Just—Really horrible allergies. To flowers like this."
"Blood blossoms," said Danny. He was reasonably certain the things wouldn't kill him, he wasn't sure that anything short of something like Gula could kill him, but every encounter he had with them had been painful beyond belief, and he doubted that their being cooked would help very much with that.
"Right. Blood blossoms. The name always slips by me… Haha."
"Oh my gosh," said Marianne, rushing out of the kitchen. "I am so sorry. I didn't know anyone was allergic to them! It's just, you guys always talked about how they were lucky, and they got rid of bad spirits, so I thought I'd incorporate them, and they're red, which is also lucky, and they taste so good—"
"Marianne," said Mom, poking at one of the flowers, "where did you even get these? I thought they were extinct."
"Oh," said Marianne, "my uncle, the one who died, well I guess they're all dead, now, but… The one who left me enough to buy the dinner? He worked in seed conservation. I got his personal collection." She sniffed, apparently on the edge of tears.
"Ah," said Mom, glancing at Danny. "That's interesting. Um." She slid out of the booth. "I'm really sorry, Marianne, but," she gestured in Danny's direction. "Food allergies."
"He's had breakouts just from being around them, before," added Jazz, helpfully.
"Oh, no, no, I understand. Um. One second, let me give you my number, I don't want to fall out of contact again, oh, dear. Tracy! Give me your notepad!"
It took several more minutes for all the Fentons to make their way back outside, most of which Danny spent staring into the dinner through the large front windows, keeping an eye on his family. Maybe he didn't have 'allergies' in the typical sense but being around blood blossoms was making his skin itch and prickle unpleasantly.
Eventually, however, after Dad had shoved most of his order down his throat in a single go, they all got back into the GAV.
"Oh. My. Gosh," said Jazz. "You two have no normal friends."