Chapter warnings: panic attack
The Punishment Fits the Crime
Make sure there are no cops around before you assault someone.
Chapter 2: A New Sense
Danny watches the scabs on his knuckles crack and bleed. It stings. Every time he flexes his hands, the healing skin tears back open. The splits in his knuckles aren't large enough to bleed a concerning amount; but when he picks at them, thin traces of blood seep out into the wrinkles of his skin. A layer of pink over pale white.
The elevator to his left dings as the car arrives. He hears his dad's voice before the doors even open. "Where is he?"
Danny, so used to hiding his wounds from his parents, instinctively tries to tuck his hands into his hoodie pocket. He can't, though, thanks to the handcuffs. The fabric bunches between his fists, caught by the chain connecting the cuffs. It looks stupid, but the elevator doors are open now, and the bunched fabric covers the words of his knuckles, so he keeps them like that.
His parents come barrelling out of the elevator, leaving a frazzled police officer behind. The cop is plastered into the corner of the elevator car, uniform rumpled and hat off-kilter. Danny shakes his head at the guy. He doesn't feel sorry for the cop—that's the one who arrested him, after all—but he knows the horror of being trapped in a small space with two very frantic Fentons.
Danny's mother sees him first. He smiles sheepishly at her, hoping that will somehow lessen the blow of the situation. It doesn't. Maddie swoops in, tears springing to her eyes, and takes Danny's face in her hands.
"Oh my God, Danny, what happened?" Her thumb caresses his cheek, tracing the edges of his black eye. "We got a call saying that you were in a fight." She reaches down to take his hands in hers. Danny tries to pull away, but there's nowhere for him to go. It only takes Maddie a second to notice the cuffs. She reels back.
"What are these?" She grabs Danny's hands and raises them up. A soft gasp escapes her as she takes in his battered knuckles and the handcuffs. She rounds on the nearest officer. "Why is my son in handcuffs? He's fourteen."
"Mrs. Fenton." It's the arresting cop. He has yet to recover from the elevator ride up to the third floor, cheeks still flushed.
"Dr. Fenton," Maddie corrects him.
"Doctor, sure. Your son was involved in a fight with three other boys. Some serious injuries were sustained. He assaulted them."
Well, when he puts it like that, sure, it sounds bad. The cop gives Danny a chastising look. Danny doesn't feel chastised, though. He feels... a lot of things, actually. Satisfaction, first of all. When the rush of the fight was over and Danny stood tall over his victim, a warmth rushed through him. The feeling of a job well done. It didn't matter that the cop was already wrestling him into the back of a cruiser at that point. He remembers looking at Big Mouth laid out on the cracked pavement and smiling. It wasn't until the cruiser door slammed shut and Danny realized what exactly was happening that he felt anything else.
"Some boys from Elmerton," the cop continues.
"And where are they?" Maddie asks.
"Two of them are here, detained for underage drinking."
"Not assault? Look at my son's face. What if I want to press charges?"
The cop shakes his head. "Ma'am, according to their accounts, your son attacked them unprovoked. Anything they did is considered self-defence."
"It wasn't unprovoked," Danny mutters.
"Danny?" His mom tilts his face up toward hers. He looks at her, but not into her eyes. The thin line of her lips tells him enough about what she's feeling. He doesn't want to see it in her eyes, too.
The second thing he felt after the fight hadn't actually been a feeling. It had been a realization. The knowledge that he should have been feeling something, at least anything other than satisfied. He spent twenty minutes in the back of the cruiser on their way down to the station. Alone, thank God. If they had put him in the same cruiser as those other two boys, he couldn't guarantee what condition any of them would have been in when they arrived.
He stared at the back of the cop's head for the entire ride and wondered what was wrong with himself. There had to be something wrong. Normal people didn't go around beating people up and feeling satisfied with it—unless you're Dash Baxter. But even that's different. Dash is a high school bully and a mediocre one at that. He gives people wedgies and shoves them in lockers, but he doesn't really hurt people.
He doesn't try to stab people with screwdrivers.
Danny knows he shouldn't feel good about this. He feels bad about feeling good. But he doesn't feel bad because he did it. It's like when he was little and stole Jazz's stuffed animals all the time. His parents always made him apologize, and he did. But only because he got caught, not because he regretted what he did. This is just like that. Except instead of stealing stuffed animals, it's breaking some guy's arms. He deserved it, too. What kind of person goes around mutilating birds, killing cats, or running over dogs for fun? They deserve to be hurt the way they make others hurt. It just makes sense.
"Danny."
He comes back to himself at the sound of his mom's voice. Right. Police station. He got arrested. He did something bad.
Maddie brushes Danny's hair away from his face. He still doesn't lift his gaze. If he lets his mom look into his eyes, she might notice what he's feeling. She has a way of doing that—it must be a mom thing—and he doesn't want that to happen. Doesn't want her to be disappointed in him for doing a good thing.
"They were hurting some birds," Danny says.
The cop sighs. "Which isn't a justifiable reason for assault, especially not sending someone to the hospital."
Jack gasps. Danny almost forgot about his dad. He peeks up through his fringe but has to look down at the floor almost immediately. Jack is staring right at him, his expression blank. Somehow, that's worse than all the judgemental looks he has gotten since arriving.
"What happened?" It's the first thing Jack has said since arriving, minus his exclamation from the elevator. Danny doesn't think that counts, though.
"According to the Elmerton boys, they were in town to pull a couple of harmless pranks on Casper High before today's game. Your son caught them and attacked. They say he had a weapon at first, but we didn't find one on him. Two boys—who are in the holding cells until their parents arrived—only suffered a few nasty bruises. The last boy..."
The cop's gaze settles on him. Danny refuses to squirm. He tilts his head back and meet's the cop's stare head-on.
"Both arms were broken. Shoulders dislocated. There is a cut on his cheek that could have been from some kind of weapon, but, as I said, we didn't find one on your son or on the scene."
Danny tries to keep the smile off his face. Honestly, he tries, but he feels that warmth again. Like an embrace. Like someone whispering thank you in his ear.
"What happens now?" Jack asks. His voice is as empty as his expression. Danny's smile falls when he hears it.
"That depends on the court's decision," the cop says.
Maddie makes a pained noise in the back of her throat.
"You have to understand, assault can be a serious offence. You said your son is fourteen? If the boys' injuries were any worse, there's a chance he could have been tried as an adult. Honestly, that's still a possibility if we find proof that he used a weapon. At the very least, he's probably facing some time in juvie."
Danny's breath catches in his throat. That's not right. That isn't fair. He didn't do anything wrong.
"The boy in the hospital also has the right to sue," the cop adds after a moment.
"Okay." Maddie closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She steadies herself, letting go of Danny's hand and sitting next to him on the bench. "What happens right now?"
"Your son hasn't been very cooperative so far. He hasn't provided his account of the events and hasn't answered our questions. It was a pain in the ass just getting his name and phone number. I'm inclined to detain him here, in which case there would be a hearing in less than five days."
"You can't do that! He has school, and—he's only fourteen. you can't keep a fourteen-year-old in jail," Maddie protests.
"Mrs. Fenton—"
"Doctor."
"—when the situation calls for it, we are within our right to keep an adolescent detained."
Maddie glances at Danny. For the first time since she arrived, Danny meets her gaze. He doesn't know how to convey what he's feeling to her without giving himself away. He knows this is serious. He knows they think he did something wrong. But those Elmerton boys were killing birds and Danny just felt so angry. He always feels angry, now. It burns through him. It started as an ember with that first body and now it lights his blood on fire. The world is full of people that need to be punished.
Danny digs his nail under one of his scabs and rips it off. The sting makes him flinch.
"Give me ten minutes," Maddie says. She stands up, pulls her phone from her pocket, and walks away. The cop watches her go, shaking his head, before turning to Jack.
"Dr. Fenton—"
"It's just mister, actually."
The cop's face pinches. "Mr. Fenton, while your wife is busy, let me go over how things will proceed from here."
"Right. Yes. That would be good to know." Jack ruffles Danny's hair as he passes, following the cop to his desk.
Danny stays on the bench, continuing to pick at his scabs. They keep healing over no matter how much he picks at them. One of the benefits of a ghostly constitution, although not at this particular moment. He wants the sting of tearing skin. He needs to remind himself to feel something other than grim vindication.
Other than the busted knuckles and the black eye, two of his fingers are also taped. They were bothering him earlier when he was first arrested, but the twinges of pain have long since faded. He keeps the tape on for show. If they're here for much longer, someone is bound to notice that his bruises are slowly shrinking. He doesn't need them catching on that his hand is fine, too.
Jack sits with the cop at his desk, nodding slowly along with whatever he is saying. Danny wishes he could see his dad's face, to gauge his reaction. Or see if what he's hearing is good or bad. Probably bad. Attempting to stab someone with a screwdriver sounds like a serious offence. Tucked in a corner by the elevators, Maddie stands with her back to the room and her phone pressed against her ear. Danny strains to hear what she is saying. Despite it being two in the morning, there's a fair amount of noise in the station that makes it hard for Danny to hear. The occasional word rises above the din.
Assault. Hospital. Arrested. Lawsuit. It's not a great series of words. It doesn't tell him what he wants to know, though. Who did his mom call? She goes silent. Danny watches the clock that hangs over the elevator and counts the seconds. At forty-seven, his mom turns and scans the room. She looks at Jack, first, and then at Danny. They stare at each other for a while. Whoever she's talking to must like the sound of their own voice to be going on this long.
Maddie ends the staring contest, lowering her gaze to the floor. The call must be winding down because she turns away from her corner and takes a step forward.
"I'll repay you somehow. Thank you, Vlad."
The breath in Danny's lungs turns to ice. His body goes cold. Time stops ticking. That name hits him like an ectoblast to the gut. Danny watches his mom hang up her cellphone and return it to her pocket. She hugs herself. Even from his place on the bench, he notices how she trembles. The frown hasn't left Maddie's face since the cop first explained the situation, but it's different now, more profound.
Something in Danny cracks.
It only takes ten minutes. Ten minutes from the moment his mom hands up to Danny walking out of the police station unbound. He follows close behind his mom while Jack trails after, his hand on Danny's shoulder. Danny can't tell if the touch is meant to be comforting or punishing. Jack's grip is hard, but that's just how he is. His hugs always feel like he's about to crush your bones to dust.
The RV is parked on the sidewalk in front of the station. One of the benefits of getting called down at two in the morning Danny supposes. Quality parking. He'll have to remember that the next time he gets arrested. Maddie unlocks the RV and pulls the back door open for him.
"Mom," Danny says.
She pauses.
"Who were you on the phone with?" Although Maddie doesn't know the extent of Danny's relationship with Vlad—can't so long as she doesn't know about their ghost halves—she does know that Danny dislikes the man. It's one of the few things they can bond over nowadays. Nothing brings a mother and son together quite like the mutual hatred of a family friend.
"Just a friend," she says.
"Oh." Danny isn't sure what he expected. He isn't sure if he cares about the lie or not. "And... now? What happens now?"
"We go home and go to sleep. It's late. But there's a lot we have to talk about in the morning."
Danny nods and clambers into the back of the RV. Jack gives his shoulder a pat before sliding the door closed. Sleep sounds good right now. Danny is suddenly very tired.
No one comes to wake Danny up when it's time for school. He used to be good about waking up on time, but since taking up ghost hunting it has become harder and harder to keep up with good habits. As a result, Jazz has taken to being his personal alarm. He appreciates it most of the time.
Today, however, he wakes at his own pace. A beam of sunlight warms his face, slipping through the crack in his curtains. He turns toward it and pulls his covers up to his chin, relishing in the warmth. Moments like this are rare nowadays. He soaks it in, clinging to sleep for as long as possible. Outside his room, life goes on. Cars pass on the street outside. Some clangs around downstairs. The sound of birds and neighbours chatting drifts through his window. But here, inside these walls, he exists in a moment outside of time where the only thing that matters is how long he has before this side of his pillow gets too warm.
Eventually, Danny has to wake up, prodded by his sharpened senses. The sunlight across his face goes from warm to hot. The rumble of passing cars becomes a nuisance. Soft birdsong turns to piercing notes.
Danny opens his eyes at precisely ten fifty-seven a.m. and his moment of peace ends. He stretches, flexing stiff fingers. Some soreness lingers around his eye, but his injuries will have finished healing in the night. When he checks his knuckles, he finds the scabs replaced by pale pink skin. Whether or not the scars will stay remains to be seen. You can never tell when it comes to ghostly biology. Either way, the marks are small and easily dismissed.
He lays there a while longer, tracing star sticker constellations on his ceiling with his eyes. They're sloppy, as far as constellations go. Draco is too short. The Ursas have swapped places. Orion faces the wrong direction. In Danny's defence, he put them up when he was eight. Back then, he cared less about accuracy and more about wanting to see the night sky at any time of day. He even painted his ceiling black before putting them up, although he didn't tell his parents he was doing any of this until it was already done. He snuck a can of paint from the shed and a stepladder from the kitchen. He hadn't been able to find any paint brushes, though, so he smeared the paint across his ceiling with an old t-shirt. His carpet and bedframe still have stains from where the paint dripped down.
His mom had been so mad when she found out what he did. it was the maddest he had ever seen her. She cared less about the mess—although he still got a good scolding for that—than she did about his own safety. He could have slipped and hurt himself. He could have breathed in too many fumes since he was painting with his door and window closed. She ended up grounding him for two weeks.
Danny thinks his punishment this time is going to be a lot worse.
His clock reads eleven twenty-five by the time he finally drags himself out of bed. The noises downstairs are still going. He checks his phone on his way down, skimming through recent messages.
From: Sammykins | 1:37 a.m.
Hope you didnt get in too much trouble for being late
See you tomorrow
From: Too Fine | 7:19 a.m.
we have to get sam's backpack from her house
meet u on the way to school?
From: Too Fine | 7:42 a.m.
u coming down?
From: Too Fine | 7:46 a.m.
Nvm. Spoke to jazz. Feel better dude
Danny wonders what excuse she made for him. Does she even know what happened last night? He doesn't have any more texts from her, and she hadn't been awake when they got home. Maybe she doesn't know. Danny tucks his phone into his pocket and peeks into his kitchen. His mom is here, whipping something in a bowl. It looks chocolatey. There is a full rack of cookies cooling on the counter and a baking sheet on the stove waiting to go in the oven. The table is covered in baking supplies, including an empty baking sheet and a bowl of cookie dough that has yet to be portioned.
"Good morning, Mom," Danny says.
Maddie stirs faster.
After a moment's hesitation, Danny shuffles into the kitchen and takes a seat at the table. He grabs a handful of dough and picks through the mixings. Butterscotch chips. Crumbled walnuts. Mini marshmallows. Chocolate dust. Plucking a marshmallow from the dough, he starts nibbling on it while he forms the dough into a ball. Once it's smooth enough to his liking, he sets it on the baking sheet and presses it flat. By now, he assumes that school just isn't happening for him today. Jazz is the one who always wakes him up, but when his parents are home, they try to usher him out the door in time for school. He fills the baking sheet a third of the way before Maddie finally sets her bowl down and joins him at the table.
"I'm not going to juvie, am I?" he asks.
"I'm not sure yet." Maddie picks up one of the cookies Danny formed and says, "This is too big." She tears the cookie into halves, passing one of them to Danny while she keeps the other. They reroll the cookies in silence for a while.
Jack must not be home. Danny's dad never misses an opportunity to munch on cookie dough, especially when Maddie is experimenting. The house is also too quiet. Jack has a way of making himself known, whether he means to or not. Making loud noises when he's excited. Stomping around from room to room. Danny misses that noise right now. The silence presses down on him.
"Danny, we need to have a talk," Maddie says.
Silence is actually amazing. Danny loves silence. He could live in silence forever.
"I love you, but I don't understand what happened. You said they were hurting some birds? Why did you attack them?
"It was a prank."
Maddie pales. "You hurt them as a joke?"
"No!" Danny waves his hands frantically. "I meant—there's a big game with Elmerton today and they always pull a prank on us the night before. When I found them, some of them were drinking, and they were hurting birds. Not just hurting them, mutilating them. Their wings and necks were broken."
"Danny, that's..." Maddie closes her eyes. "That's horrible, but that doesn't make what you did okay."
"But they were killing them for fun!"
"So you think what you did is justified?"
"Yes! Obviously!
"Daniel James Fenton, don't shout at me."
Danny slams his hands on the table. "The birds didn't do anything to them. They were just being birds!"
"Exactly, Danny. They were just birds. You don't break someone's arms over a bird. I'm sorry, I know those boys were doing something wrong, but that doesn't make what you did right."
"Why not?!" Danny's eyes burn. He doesn't remember standing up, but he is now. The air around him is hot. The table rattles beneath his palms.
"Danny, calm down—"
"Why is it okay for them to do that and not get punished for it? You don't just—they're not allowed to hurt someone like that and get away with it!" Danny paces around the table, hands buried in his hair.
Maddie's head snaps to the side as the chair beside her topples over. The whole room is shaking.
"Why don't you get it?!"
The kitchen lights buzz in Danny's ears. It makes his skin crawl. The noise digs into his brain like beetles burrowing into his skull. The room is too loud. Too small. Danny is suffocating. Why doesn't she understand? He can't let people get away with something so horrible. Those animals are hurting. Even after they're dead, they're in pain, and he can feel it in his core. They pull at him, wail in his ear, beg him to help them find peace. They won't leave him alone. Why can't they leave him alone?
Why is everything so fucking loud?
"God damn it!" Danny grabs the bowl of cookie dough and smashes it on the floor. The bowl explodes, glass flying everywhere.
"Danny!" His mom screams.
He snaps back to reality. The kitchen is a wreck. It's not just the bowl that is smashed. Chairs are knocked over. The cooling rack is on the floor, and the cookies themselves have crumbled to pieces. The bowl his mom has been whipping is smashed at her feet. And his mom... Danny's stomach drops. His mom is huddled in the corner of the room. Blood drips down her shin from a cut on her knee. She stares at him with fear in her eyes. Danny takes a step back. It breaks whatever spell settled over Maddie. She moves, skirting around the table. Danny thinks she is running away from him; but rather than heading for the door, she heads straight for him and throws her arms around him.
Danny freezes. Maddie squeezes him tight, running a gentle hand through his hair. He tries to hold himself together, biting his lip and clenching his fist. His shoulders shake. No, no. he's stronger than this, better than this. He's a hero. He fights off ghosts and avenges dead animals. He doesn't cry in his mother's arms. Those thoughts persist until his mom presses his head down and whispers to him, "It's okay, Danny. You're okay."
When Jack finally comes home twenty minutes later, he walks into the kitchen to find Maddie cradling Danny on the floor. Danny is half asleep but clings to his mother with all his strength. Beneath his fringe, his half-lidded eyes glow green. Maddie looks up at her husband and slowly shakes her head.
