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Chapter 83: Two Perspectives
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Arriving at the Far Frozen was something of a blur. Danny had only the barest glimpses of powder snow, towering mountains, and white skies before being whisked below to the sparkling, carved-ice caverns that housed their medical facilities.
Once there, the esteemed doctors of the Far Frozen insisted on running dozens of tests on Danny, which made him sulky; he didn't see how these were helping. But they gave him a lollipop, patted him gingerly, and told him what a good boy he was, and there was little he liked more than that, so he forgave them.
They phrased all their requests so nicely, too. They always asked, him to help them, to hold this thing, or that thing, to stay still, to drink this, to breathe, to cough. They said that he was helping them. He liked helping people. He was helping them. He liked that, even though he didn't like the tests.
They spent a lot of time distracting him, too. Giving him toys, and pretty little things. At one point he spent a half-hour utterly fascinated by an exquisite snowflake the size of his hand. Normal ice was beautiful enough, but ghost ice could twist into so many more shapes, could be so much more naturally intricate. Also, it didn't melt in his hand, despite his near-human body temperature.
Of course, after the half-hour, he ate it. He... didn't know why he did that, actually. It tasted good, though. Not as good as the lollipop, but good. He licked the lollipop. He wondered if this was the kind with an extra goody at the core. The outer part, at least, was blue-raspberry flavored. He liked blue-raspberry flavored things, and lime flavored things, and sweet things, and sour things, and spicy things.
He also, although he would never admit it, liked all the fuss they were making over him. Usually, he didn't like being treated like a child; he was a teenager, after all, and he had seen more in his short lifetime than most people ever did. But right now, it made him feel safe, cherished. Especially when it was Clockwork making the fuss. He really liked being tucked under the older ghost's chin, sitting curled in his lap, the edges of Clockwork's purple robe drawn around him like a blanket, as the waited for results.
Clockwork was telling him a story. He was trying really hard to pay attention, but it wasn't easy. He kept zoning out, distracted by the pretty patterns on the walls.
But then the results did come back. Danny didn't really understand them, except that he was really messed up, which he already knew. Apparently, the either the Mortifier, or that awful circle thing had fractured his core, and then his fight with the GIW had strained it even more, and then something about 'Ereshkigal' making his core bleed ectoplasm, which sounded pretty gross.
"What now?" asked Danny.
"Now," said Clockwork, "you go to sleep."
Danny nodded drowsily, his body already working to fulfill Clockwork's request.
"Stay awake for long enough for us to give you your medicine," cajoled Clockwork, with a touch of sad humor.
"Okay," said Danny.
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Danny floated in a gray cotton sea of nothingness, partially bracing himself against the idea that he would be separated soon. He was scared, but he trusted Frostbite and Clockwork. They would take care of him.
So he waited. It was peaceful, here. His mind wandered in the nothing, simply resting, simply being.
Then there was the terrifying sensation of someone touching him, touching the deepest, most personal part of him, touching his core. It was gentle, not at all like the fiery grasp that had tormented him just a few days previously, but still there, and he trembled. But there was nothing more than that. Just a touch, as if whoever it belonged to was waiting for permission to do more.
It waited, just waited.
Slowly, Danny remembered what was happening. Slowly, he recognized the touch. Clockwork's, and behind that, Frostbite. He felt kind of silly, now, for panicking. Maybe, he had recognized them, even at the first. He hadn't woken up screaming, after all, nor had he done anything even less pleasant.
He relaxed, lowering the last of his defenses. The touch moved, cupping his core, drawing it upwards, and Danny lost even this, fragile, gray cotton dreamlike state, his consciousness running away like water.
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Danny woke, feeling weak and beaten, but otherwise surprisingly clear-headed. He blinked stinging and sore eyes, trying to force them to focus. They felt puffy. Bruised. Just like the rest of him. There was an odd tugging lightness fastened mostly to the center of his chest, but also to other points of his body.
"Clockwork?" he groaned, questioning, raising a hand, searching, and trying to lever himself up. A cold, supporting hand appeared between his shoulder blades, and another placed itself in his outstretched hand. Soft reassurances accompanied the touch. "Water."
"Here," rumbled Frostbite, and a cup was raised to Danny's lips.
Danny drank greedily, and when he was done, his vision had cleared. Instantly, his gaze was arrested by the small, glowing, crystalline sphere floating in the air in front of him. It was small, only about the size of a marble, something that would fit easily in the palm of his hand. It was pale, bluish-white with touches of frost blue, ectoplasm green, and pale mint, covered with fractal ice patterns. It was very pretty. Maybe even beautiful. It had cracks in it, though, and it looked almost bruised, the coloring darker in some places than it should have been. (Although how Danny knew how this should have looked, he couldn't say.)
There were faint, barely visible, filaments that anchored it to his body at every point, and gave the sphere an odd, fuzzy halo that wasn't simply the result of ghostly glow. He raised a hand to touch one of the more visible strands, watching the way the ones rooted in his hand flowed after it, noting the cool, soft sensation as his fingers passed through them. He wasn't surprised that they were intangible.
"I thought that you would like to see it," said Clockwork. "Before we did anything else."
"Else?"
"We stopped the bleeding. Sealed the cracks. Aligned the fracture."
"Oh," said Danny. He tapped the little sphere, then hissed, as a jolt of pain rippled through his... Honestly, he wasn't sure where it felt like it was coming from, only that it hurt. He wasn't quite sure what he had expected.
He absently rubbed his chest. He felt empty, hollow, now that he thought about it, but the feeling wasn't nearly as bad, (or as noticeable,) as it had been the last time something like this had happened. He still felt connected, but not pulled painfully apart. None of this was pleasant, but neither was it unbearable.
"What now?" asked Danny.
"Now," said Clockwork, gesturing to a clear glass tank full of brightly glowing green liquid in the corner of the room, "we immerse your core in pure ectoplasm."
"That doesn't sound so good," said Danny, remembering his last encounter with energized ectoplasm. He didn't want to feel like that again.
"Don't worry, Great One!" said Frostbite. Danny flinched. Frostbite was a little too loud, and he felt very vulnerable right now, with his core just floating out in the open like this, even though he knew that Frostbite would never hurt him. At a lower volume, Frostbite continued, at a lower volume, "Your core will know what to do with it. There shouldn't be any serious complications from this."
"Okay," said Danny. "Do it." He braced himself.
Frostbite wheeled the ectoplasm tank to the center of the room. Clockwork cupped Danny's core gently in his hands, and drew it over the tank. The threads connecting Danny to his core grew more tenuous, more transparent, as his core grew farther away. Danny drew his legs up to his chest, wrapping them with his arms. "What are these?" asked Danny, trying to touch one again. This was one of the thicker ones, leading to the very center of his forehead. The only one that rivaled it was the one buried in the center of his chest.
"Silver cord," answered Clockwork, a little distracted, beginning to lower Danny's core into the tank.
"They are roughly equivalent to a human's nervous system, although they do also carry various kinds of energy," elaborated Frostbite. "They are typically intangible. It would be extremely difficult for you to touch them, Great One."
Danny nodded, then winced. That made his head hurt. He still wasn't at all well.
Then Danny's core hit the ectoplasm. Danny gasped. Clockwork withdrew his hands quickly. The ectoplasm in the tank swirled, churned and sloshed. Occasionally, a recognizable shape thumped into the tank walls. A hand. A foot. An eye. Once, a whole limb, jointed, skinned, but emaciated and skeletal, gripped the upper edge of the tank only to dissolve moments later.
It made Danny sick. Literally. He leaned over the edge of the table to vomit, his skin gone even paler than usual. This, this was wrong. This was... His insides twisted, moved, in ways that human intestines weren't supposed to, or at least it felt that way. He sobbed, and moaned, and barely heard Clockwork and Frostbite encouraging him to impose a more manageable form upon the chaos, something smaller, easier, than his original shape. Something simpler. Lower energy, lower maintenance. He didn't need all those finicky little connections, remember? Things didn't have to be absolutely perfect. It didn't have to have insides. (Danny's moved snakelike, wrapping around his spine, and he gagged). It was just a shell, just a shell. Like the shadows, and yes, they had heard about the shadows. Like the shadows, Danny, but even less. This didn't need to have its own mind, it had Danny's. It was a duplicate, but less. Think of it like a cast, like protective padding. That's all this was. He could do it, they believed in him.
Danny picked an image, a picture, a thought, a feeling. Smaller, simpler, easier. This was still him, still him, he couldn't pick something too far off, not when he could hardly think.
The sickening, slapping, squelching noises stopped, and Danny was able to breathe again, his stomach settling. He pushed himself up, to see what had happened.
Clockwork was fishing what looked like a small, naked, child from the remaining ectoplasm in the tank. That was him, Danny realized. That was the temporary body for his core.
Its hair was white, stark and snowy, no slightly silver underlayer. Its eyes, when they opened, were brilliant green, irises only slightly darker than sclera, and no pupils to speak of. Lips were thin, no darker than the rest of its utterly smooth, green-touched skin. It had Danny's face, of course.
(Danny wondered if there was something wrong with him, that he was referring to part of himself as 'it.' He decided that there wasn't. He didn't call his arm 'he' after all. On the other hand... Or arm...)
Clockwork cradled the small child, making comforting sounds, and the boy clung to him, seizing Clockwork's purple robes in both hands. Danny felt a faint stab of jealousy, and then a stronger one of fear.
For most intents and purposes, Danny was human right now. What made him a ghost, what really made him a ghost, what made any ghost, was lodged in that child's (Phantom's?) chest right now. What if Clockwork... Danny didn't even want to think about it, but up until now, Danny had never interacted with Clockwork while separated. What if Clockwork wasn't interested in human Danny, with Fenton? What if he was only interested in the ghost, in Phantom? What if Clockwork treated his two selves differently? Danny had gotten used to that kind of thing, that split in views, in affections, in treatment, from... From, well, just about everybody, really, except for his few close friends. He didn't think that he could stand that behavior from Clockwork. He couldn't stand it if Clockwork gave his ghost half more attention than his human half, and he felt like he was shaking apart inside.
But then Clockwork walked over the ectoplasm splattered floor, and set the little Phantom down in Danny's lap. The child looked up.
Danny was immediately overcome with an extreme and exquisite sense of vertigo, like standing between mirrors, like looking into the abyss. He felt his Obessions trying to attach themselves to the child in front of him, but coming up short, because the child was him.
When he came out of his daze, Clockwork was sitting next to him, an arm slung around Danny's shoulders, holding him tight. Phantom was curled in Danny's lap, his lower half morphed into a ghostly tail that wrapped around Danny's waist.
"Let's get the two of you cleaned up," said Clockwork, voice soft, seemingly not caring about the ectoplasm and other filth the children were getting on his clothes.
"'M getting you dirty," mumbled Danny, pulling away.
Clockwork held him tightly. "A temporary matter," said Clockwork.
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Danny didn't exactly wake, after that movement of his core, of his self, but he didn't stay buried in the dark for very long. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, but that didn't bother him. What bothered him was how exposed he felt, like he was a made of live wires, of exposed nerve endings, everything around him, everything that could protect him, stripped away.
But, he could feel certain presences, two of them, strong ones. These were what he felt before. They were safe. They would keep him safe, despite how defenseless he was. He loved them. He wanted to be near them. He wished he could do something for them, considering that they were keeping him safe, and being so nice.
There was a third... something, nearby, but it just felt like more of himself. More Danny. Something he was tied to. Someone he was tied to.
Danny had to wonder how he had gotten here, floating and all but senseless. He couldn't really recall anything before this. But his thoughts were interrupted but the two large presences coming near again. They touched him, all over, everywhere, and they did things. There were points where Danny was tempted to lash out, but he didn't. Something told him that the presences were just trying to help.
His patience and forbearance was rewarded. Everywhere that was touched felt better. Then they paused. Then there was a singular, grating, snapping pain. It was like being jolted awake by being thrown into the pavement. Which he now remembered happening to him. He remembered things now. Some things, anyway. That was better, although he was still unsettled (dizzy? Was he dizzy? He didn't have eyes or ears to be dizzy with.) by the pain.
Then the presences withdrew for a moment, as if giving him the time and space to reorient himself and recover. But then they returned, much to Danny's relief. They soothed the still aching edges of the now-aligned fracture.
Then they stopped, and Danny resigned himself to the possibility that this was as good as he was going to feel.
The third something or other started to move. Danny paid careful attention. It touched him, and, simultaneously, a wave of pain and a wave of possessiveness swept over him. Mine mine mine mine mine, whispered and chirred the deep parts of his mind.
There was a lot of confusion after that. He couldn't properly interpret what was going on. He kept getting signal from somewhere else. Bursts of random emotions, thoughts, understandings. He knew what had to happen in a moment. He had to make a body soon, or something like that.
Honestly, that didn't sound like something that he could do, or, at the very least, it sounded hard. Unreasonably so.
But then it was happening, and he wasn't doing very well with it. He kept making bits and pieces, but it wasn't enough. They kept falling apart, kept melting. There was something missing, something to anchor to. He didn't like this at all. He was starting to panic.
Then he started getting more flashes. An image, a picture, a thought, a feeling. He latched onto them, and pulled inwards, fastening his mental fingers into the ectoplasm around him.
Suddenly, he had a body.
A body lying face down in two or three inches of ectoplasm, but still, a body. He felt weak. Too weak to even push himself up out of the ectoplasm. It was a good thing that he didn't breathe. Or did he? He didn't know. He couldn't remember.
He was pulled out of the ectoplasm by friendly hands. He recognized those. Clockwork! He loved Clockwork. He fastened himself to the older ghost, curling his hands into Clockwork's violet robes, even biting down on it, sucking at it, desperate, hungry, and knowing that Clockwork would give him what he wanted, what he needed.
Without warning, he was overcome with a sense of doubt and fear, and something deeper, more painful, more biting. He curled farther into Clockwork, trying to escape the feelings. There was no reason for him to feel this way. No reason for anyone here to feel this way, and he wanted it to stop, but he couldn't do anything, not like this, when he was so weak, and shaking, and broken, and missing so, so many pieces. He wanted Clockwork to stop it. He needed Clockwork to stop it.
And then Clockwork pulled him away. He had never felt so betrayed. So shocked. But then his rationality caught up with his emotions, and he knew that Clockwork wouldn't betray him. This must be a way to stop the other feeling. The feeling that was a lot like betrayal, when he thought about it. So he cooperated. Anything for Clockwork.
He was placed on the lap of a small, slender, teen. He looked up, and was struck with the sense that he wasn't supposed to be looking at the teen's face like this. That there was supposed to be something else, that it was supposed to look different, be seen from a different angle. Be looked at from inside. With different eyes.
But this sensation passed quickly, in less than a hummingbird's heartbeat.
The teen looked so sad, so frightened. He looked hurt. Danny felt his Obsession latch onto the teen, or try to. It was like trying to save a reflection in the mirror.
He was reminded-
-it was mirrors all the way down.
He couldn't quite sure who this was, but it didn't matter. This was someone who needed comfort, someone who was safe, familiar. He wrapped his tail around the teen, not quite purring.
(He hurt on the inside.)
The teen blinked, and hesitantly began to stroke Danny. That was good. Very good. Yes. Clockwork seemed to think so, too. He was sitting next to the teen, one arm wrapped around the teen's shoulders.
"Let's get the two of you cleaned up," said Clockwork, voice soft, seemingly not caring about the ectoplasm and other filth the children were getting on his clothes.
"'M getting you dirty," mumbled the teen, pulling away.
Clockwork held him tightly. "A temporary matter," said Clockwork, sending a smile down at Danny.
