6:53 AM Central Time
Tuesday, September 7th
2010 Anno Domini
"Danny, get your butt down here!" Jazz's piercing tone cut through Danny's usual morning stupor. He needed coffee. Scratch that, he needed a double espresso. His mom's AM brew just didn't cut it anymore. Welcome to being a teenager, Danny thought wryly.
Currently, he happened to be staring – unblinking – at the selection of t-shirts in his closet. Without espresso or even coffee, he had no hope of making a good decision here. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, he reached for an unworn Dumpty Humpty concert tee. Just because his best friends, Tucker and Sam, were fighting didn't mean he couldn't throw some subtle support Sam's way in the form of her favorite band. The stark black cotton felt right somehow. He was ready to face the day head-on…mostly.
"Little brother, I swear! I'm leaving right now!" Jazz's impatience was on full display now. Danny could even hear her shaking her car keys for dramatic effect.
"Jeez, Jazz! I'm coming!" Danny took the stairs two at a time, as fast as he could. He resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at his older sister once he reached the kitchen.
"Just let me at least grab toast and coffee, or something. Please?" Danny practically begged, hoping to appeal to his sister's better nature, just as Jazz rolled her eyes.
Mercifully, she said nothing as Danny deftly put a slice of bread in the toaster and stood on his tiptoes to reach a Fenton-branded travel mug from the top cabinet.
(Though it had mom and dad's Fenton Feather™ logo on it, Danny chose to ignore that in favor of its truly futuristic temperature control system. That thing could keep coffee hot all. Damn. Day.)
A few moments later, Danny had a piece of toast shoved in his mouth, and a steaming travel mug of (weak) coffee in hand. He had done all he could to prepare himself for his first day of high school.
Jazz, meanwhile, was muttering to herself softly. "Abused, unwanted," his sister paused, picking at a loose thread on her black knit top. "Of course I had to drive him. Mom and dad just don't understand. Worse, they can't understand…"
Jazz reminded Danny of a cartoon character then, down to her over-the-top mannerisms as she murmured to herself, biting on her fingernails, oblivious to the world.
Danny knew he shouldn't be disappointed that his parents were still sleeping, but in a way, he was.
Don't they want to see me off for my first day? A small voice inside his head wondered.
Jazz looked at him then, reading him as well as she did her advanced psychology textbooks for once.
"They worked late last night, Danny. Said they were close to a breakthrough," Jazz offered in explanation, watching him with sympathy, almost as if he were a ticking time bomb.
Which he obviously wasn't.
Right?
-XXX-
Danny gulped as he looked up and up (and up) at the Zion High twin white arches.
Jazz – who was playing the role of "supportive older sister" to a T today – squeezed his shoulder briefly before walking toward the doors underneath the righthand arch herself.
You can do this, Fenton, Danny tried to psych himself up before seriously wondering, What's the worst that could happen? It's only one day.
Finally, he took one last shaky breath and forged forward.
-XXX-
"Hey, man! You lose a bet or something?" Against all odds, Tucker Foley had managed to find Danny mere minutes after he entered the realm of high school for the first time.
Danny frowned self-consciously. "Err, no? What do you mean, Tuck?"
"I mean that shirt! The last time I saw you wear black was to my grandma's funeral." Tuck seemed to realize what he said a second later, quickly adding, "Rest in peace, Nana," in a far lower tone.
Danny forced out a short laugh, pulling down on the edge of the very black concert tee he happened to be wearing. "Heh, wasn't thinking, I guess? I kind of overslept, and my mom's coffee really isn't strong enough lately, you know?" Danny rambled before Tuck cut him off unceremoniously.
"Dude, I'm saying this because I care about you. You have a caffeine addiction. Tragic, really. And you onlyjust started high school. Odds are not looking to be 'ever in your favor.'"
"And I say this because I care about you, Tuck. Please don't tell me you're still reading young adult novels," Danny retorted, moving past Tucker as he eyed the row of lockers he was passing, rapidly scanning the numbers as he went.
"But I am a young adult!" Tucker defended himself loudly and indignantly from behind Danny. Other students – who had been lost in their own respective bubbles – tittered.
Though Danny didn't want to admit it, he snickered too, covering his mouth as he waited for his best friend to catch up to him.
"So. Where's your locker?" Danny asked Tuck, changing the subject as he reached for a crumpled sheet of paper inside his galaxy-themed backpack.
Instead of pulling out a piece of paper, Tucker silently brought out his beloved PDA from one of his many cargo pockets. Whipping out a thin stylus, he hit the screen a few times before announcing, "162. Yours?" Tuck asked before whispering soothingly to his PDA, "So glad nobody took you from me, baby."
Danny snorted. "I'm surprised that wasn't confiscated. My phone was," Danny lamented, thinking back to the brief security checkpoint he was greeted with after first stepping into Zion.
Tuck smirked. "I put my girl on a super-special stealth mode. No one was detecting her," he noted with confidence. "No, they weren't, were they?" He cooed to the sleek silver device he was cradling.
Danny tried to ignore how much that didn't make sense before commenting, "You know it's weird to be that in love with a piece of technology, right?" Danny deadpanned, trying to bring Tucker back down to Earth, where other normal people lived. (And didn't pine over fancy phone-things.)
"And you know you still haven't told me what locker's yours?" Tuck responded with a smirk.
"Oh. Uh, right." Danny smoothed out his wrinkled notebook paper, squinting at his own poor handwriting, before breaking into a giant grin. "Sweet! It's 161!"
Just then, the repeated thud of heavy boots hitting the faded linoleum flooring distracted Danny. As he swiveled around to take a look, he couldn't say he was surprised. The vibe was so completely Sam Manson, he had to laugh.
Sam stopped in her tracks at the sound. Her eyes bore into his. "Hey, Clueless," she greeted with only a hint of annoyance, nodding toward Danny. "Hey, Asshat," she finished darkly, scowling at Tucker.
"Sam," Tucker nodded curtly before deciding on an escape route. "Let's go, Danny. We've got places to be," Tuck announced, starting off in the opposite direction from where he and Danny had originally been going.
"Tuck, wait! We—we're not even sure where our lockers are," Danny half-whispered that last sentence, rooted to the spot, suddenly inspecting his scuffed-up red Converse.
"For the love of—I'm sure Ido. Seriously," Sam remarked, confidently snatching the piece of paper still in Danny's hand. She glanced down, frowning slightly, before declaring, "Your locker's this way," Sam pointed, adding, "I'm guessing his is too. Similar last names," she muttered to herself. "Tucker will figure out he went in the wrong direction soon enough," Sam practically spat Tucker's name, shaking her head.
"Hey, uh. Thanks, Sam," Danny finally chuckled in relief.
He really could be clueless sometimes, and his other friend knew it. He hadn't even looked up a map of Zion ahead of time.
Idiot.
As he'd been berating himself, though, he hadn't even noticed a storm of emotions quickly cross Sam's face.
"Hey, Danny?" Sam's voice sounded small, which wasn't like her. "The two of us can still hang out, right?" Sam's words rushed together, sounding more like one word instead of nine.
"Y-yeah. Of course." Violet eyes met his own icy blue ones, and they both looked away awkwardly.
Yeah, hanging out alone with Sam might be a problem, Danny noted as a blush bloomed across his cheeks.
"Well, heh, I better get going," Danny declared with false assurance.
Sam gave him a rare smile before she took off.
"Nice shirt by the way," Sam called over her shoulder, before marching forward, leaving destruction in her wake.
-XXX-
4:22 PM Central Time
Tuesday, September 7th
2010 Anno Domini
"Ow," Danny winced faintly.
After-images continued to parade across his now-closed eyelids, but these were more subdued somehow, more… normal.
It was like he had been drowning in light or something, and now he was out of the line of fire, so to speak.
Basically, he had made it.
Everything still hurt, sure, but it wasn't overwhelming or all-encompassing like it had been before.
He felt the cool tile underneath his lower back and sighed with relief. Something felt a bit off about the sensation, but he tried not to dwell on it. He wanted to focus on the positive.
And well, the simple fact that he wasn't still trapped inside a small sun was enough cause for celebration in Danny's eyes.
"Dude, what the actual hell?! You seriously gave me, like, a coronary blockage! And you know how much I hate hospitals!" Tuck wiped beads of real sweat off his forehead. Danny's oldest friend tried and failed to stop hyperventilating for several minutes as he glanced down at Danny.
To Danny, Tuck unfortunately still looked blurry. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to get his vision – and the dull nausea he was experiencing – under control.
Danny tried gazing at the black-and-white tiles covering half of his parents' research center, also known as their library-lab, to center himself.
His mom and dad, Maddie and Jack, had explained to him on more than one occasion that their patented space was more than just a library, and certainly more than your run-of-the-mill "mad science lab." Hence, it was a library-slash-lab – or "library-lab," for short, according to his parents.
Regardless, it was still strange, and still located in Danny's basement.
"Tuck?" Danny sighed quietly as he attempted to focus his vision.
"Yeah, dude? Oh, man! Not to ruin this or anything, but I can't even tell you how good it is to hear your voice! You can hear me, right?! Danny, seriously, whatever you do, stay away from the light!"
Tuck – the media connoisseur that he was – was no doubt quoting something. But to Danny, it weirdly hit far, far too close to home.
"Out of the light," Danny rasped. A wave of fatigue washed over him then, and he decided to close his eyes.
"Good, good. Hey, Danny! DANNY. Wake up!" Tuck yelled at last, clearly on-edge.
"I'm awake," Danny whispered at last, since his throat was seriously hurting him, like he'd swallowed up shards of glass, causing his esophagus to bleed.
Which, you know. Cute.
"Can you help me up, though? My back…really hurts," Danny moaned as if to prove his point, as the latent pain entered the forefront of his mind. Danny risked opening his eyes again and was greeted with the sight of Tuck staring, frozen in place.
"Something on my face?" Danny joked weakly, ending his question with a half-hearted laugh.
Tuck opened and closed his mouth before responding. "I think I keep seeing things, dude. Like, a weird trick of the light or something," Tuck admitted, sounding uncharacteristically serious.
That, of course, caught Danny's attention. "Like what, exactly?" Danny asked quietly as his stomach dropped to his toes in cold panic. He tilted his head, trying to make sense of what his oldest friend was saying.
"Well, like— Okay, when you came out of that thing? I thought…It looked like…You know what, never mind. It just sounds stupid." Tuck looked off into the distance, toward the library part of the library-lab, eyes locked onto the "Pop Culture" section of books.
(Danny's parents kept this section for mockery, mostly. They always got a good chuckle out of The Da Vinci Code.)
"You can tell me anything, Tuck. You know that, right?" Danny questioned probingly. Part of him was afraid he was being too sappy then, but part of him didn't care.
Tuck shook his head vigorously. "Yeah, uh... You know what? Let's get you up to bed. C'mon." His friend reached out a hand before grabbing Danny's right forearm. "And one, two, three," Tuck grunted as Danny's full weight hit him. His weight seemed off, somehow.
Tuck decided to push his worry about that aside.
"Thanks, man," Danny muttered, staring past Tucker at the literal archway/hole in his parents' library-lab, which now seemed to be emanating a soft gold light. It was usually just empty: a domed silvery-gray void.
It certainly never glowed.
I must be seeing things just like Tuck, Danny reasoned, before focusing his gaze back to his friend.
For his part, Tuck's teal eyes were fixated on the spot of floor where Danny had been resting ever since he came out of…there.
Tucker's bespectacled stare locked on a singular, tiny feather. An impossible feather. A what-the-heck-is-this-doing-on-the-tile feather.
Tucker was certain it hadn't been there when they first came down to the basement.
(Tucker didn't care what Danny insisted on calling the place. It was a basement. Basements made sense. Weird lab stuff did not.)
The feather in question – which was admittedly causing Tucker to spiral – was white at the top, before fading to black, then gold.
Tuck inhaled sharply. It almost hurt to look at: the gold down at the bottom was absurdly, unreasonably bright.
Eventually, Tuck met Danny's questioning face. Luckily, Danny was facing the opposite direction and couldn't see the same spot. So to him, it must've seemed like Tuck was inexplicably freaking out over floor tiles.
"Everything okay, Tuck?" Danny's question dangled in the suddenly oppressive, hot air.
Without warning – as though Danny's forearm was burning – Tucker dropped his grip, letting Danny's arm fall.
Then Tuck purposefully started to steer Danny gently toward the staircase upstairs, making sure the feather stayed out of Danny's line of sight. He couldn't say why he was doing this, he just felt like he should.
"All good. Let's go."
