Danny capped the thermos and stood frozen for a second. "I can't believe that actually worked," he said, floating down from the roof.
"Didja get him?" Tucker called.
"Yeah!" He landed lightly, staring at the thermos in his hands. "This is going to make my weekend so much easier." He transformed, and he and Tucker jogged back to Fentonworks.
Being sucked into the Fenton Thermos was, as one might expect, like being shoved hastily into a tube meant to hold something much smaller than it was being asked to.
The only lighting came from Plasmius, who was muttering obscenities as he tried to maneuver himself into a less painful position.
He scowled and settled in to wait for Danny to release him into the ghost zone.
Danny shook the thermos a few times and set it on his bedroom desk. "See ya later, fruitloop," he said, and left the room.
After what felt like eternity, Vlad was having trouble staying awake. He didn't know what would happen if he transformed in the thermos, and he didn't want to find out.
He tried yelling at Danny, but he didn't seem to hear. He tried to move the thermos, but nothing worked. He couldn't get the lid to screw open.
"Is this kidnapping?"
"Nah. …M-maybe….?"
Danny had nearly forgotten about the thermos. As he grabbed it on his way down to the basement, he remembered who he'd trapped inside. And when he'd done so.
He leaped down the stairs and skidded into Tucker. "Guys," he said breathlessly, fumbling for the portal controls. "Guys, this—I don't know, this could be really bad. It's Plasmius. He might be super pissed, or, or… Just, uh, be ready, okay?"
He closed the portal and pulled the thermos open.
A bolt of light shot from the inside and thudded against the far wall. Plasmius slid to the floor, his hand to his chest and a dazed expression on his face. He moved stiffly and wiped his hands on his tunic. His fingers left streaks of ectoplasm.
Danny stepped in his direction. "Wha..."
Just as he seemed to register his surroundings, he screwed his eyes up in a wince as he transformed. He gasped for breath like he'd surfaced from a long dive into the sea. He pressed a fist over his sternum and forced his eyes open. The streaks on his clothes had turned red.
Danny remained still. "Vlad?"
Sam and Tucker stood by with blasters pointed at the ground.
He flinched and sat up with some difficulty. His joints cracked. He focused on Danny. "Bit…much," he said between breaths. "Don't…you thi…think?" He glared at him for a moment but his attention quickly turned to his shoes. He took them off carefully, revealing splotches of blood on his socks. He shucked those off as well. His toes and the soles of his feet were raw and red, as if the skin had been scraped away in chunks.
Danny stiffly walked over. "Um. It. Was an accident. Keeping you there that… long, anyway. What happened to you?"
Vlad's eyes started to shut again but he managed to keep them open, though they focused on nothing. "Won't talk here. Lab. Need—need a bed, couch… grass—I don't care. Just not… just not…" He blinked hard. "Help," he said tonelessly.
Danny swallowed and, after a silent conversation between him and his best friends, lifted Vlad by the shoulders and phased him up into his own bed.
Vlad promptly passed out upon being lifted up, only to regain consciousness—such as it was—a few seconds later.
He gave Danny a stern look as Sam and Tucker joined them. "Why," he demanded in a whisper, "did you wait so long, if you were in fact planning to let me out of there? A bit longer and the world would finally find out what happens when you compress an adult human into a beverage bottle."
Danny watched Vlad warily from his desk chair. He ducked his head and wrinkled his eyebrows. "I just forgot," he said defensively. "It was supposed to just be for the weekend. And what are you talking about? The thermos doesn't hurt humans."
"Unless you chuck it at their head," Tucker chimed in from the floor.
"'Forgot,'" Vlad scoffed. His eyebrows drew together. "Hang on. Just how long was I in there?" He held an unsteady arm up to his face and ran his thumb over his raw fingertips. The flesh smeared like putty, oozing blood onto his shirt. His frown deepened.
Danny couldn't look away from the blood. "Uhh. A week? What the heck happened in there?"
"A—" Vlad gaped at him, eyes wide. "You're kidding!"
"Nah," Sam piped up from her spot leaning against the doorframe. "Seven days. It's Thursday again."
Vlad shut his eyes and let his head fall back. "A week! Well. That explains the hallucinations." He sighed. "Daniel, I want you to think. What is something that happens to you when you have to stay in one place for over a day?"
He gave a light shrug. "You get hungry?"
"Tired, Daniel. You get tired. And what happens when we, halfas, get extremely tired while in our ghost forms?"
"Well sometimes I'd just sleep like that, but usually it forces me to transform back."
Vlad gestured vaguely with his hands. "Which is usually fine, right? But if you were—"
Danny leaned in suddenly, eyes wide and serious. "Did you turn human in the thermos? Is that why you're hands and feet are all… weird?"
He sighed. "I didn't. I almost did, a few times, but I didn't. If I had, I would have been liquefied, probably. Fitting contents for a thermos, but an outcome I'd rather avoid. As for this," He lifted a hand and wiggled his feet, which stuck out beyond the edge of the bed. "This is what you get when your core starts to destabilize. It feels bad enough as a ghost, but to turn human while the core is still unsettled—" He took a deep breath. "I'm just glad it didn't progress to any important organs."
Danny glanced at Sam and Tucker. "Why did… do you have some kind of core problem?"
Vlad scowled. "I didn't, until I had to keep myself fully awake for a week."
"Oh."
"Yeah. 'Oh' is right. Now. You are going to leave me alone. All of you. I am going to get some goddamn sleep. You will make sure that nobody finds me here like this, because I can barely think straight, much less come up with a convincing lie. And neither of us will pull this kind of stunt again. Capiche?"
Danny nodded stiffly.
"There's nothing special about being a full ghost, so I'm not keen on an early death for either of us. And don't try and kill me until you're ready to live with the consequences. Goodnight." With that, he turned his head away and gingerly folded his hands over his chest.
Danny looked at Sam and made a wrapping motion around his hand.
Sam nodded and left the room.
Tucker held his ectopistol firmly, ready to bring it up at a moment's notice.
Danny got up and motioned for him to follow him out of the room.
"Humans don't melt," Tucker said as they squeezed into the small bathroom. He shut the door and tossed a towel at the bottom to cover the gap.
Danny flicked on the fan for some white noise. He sat on the edge of the tub. "What?"
"Humans don't melt," Tucker repeated. "We like, burn, or cook, but you can't melt a human. And before you ask about Indiana Jones, I'll remind you that that was holy melting. The Ark of the Covenant doesn't have to conform to Earthly physics."
Danny gave him an incredulous look. "Tucker, I almost killed him. Besides, we break the laws of physics literally every day. And I'll remind you that ghosts can melt, and I'm—we're not exactly normal humans anyway."
Tucker holstered the ectopistol and rolled his shoulders. "Are you really gonna let him sleep there?"
Danny dragged his hands down his face. "I could fly him home, but…"
"You could drop him off in the park. That's not far."
Danny raked his hands through his hair. "It's not the distance. He's probably lying, but what he said about turning human with your core still out-of-whack… I don't like it."
Tucker raised an eyebrow. "He is probably lying though. You just said so."
"But he was in the thermos for a week! Halfa or not, that's gonna take a toll on somebody. At the very least he really is sleep-deprived. And that blood would have to be real to transform from ectoplasm."
Tucker shifted his weight. "True. Still, you're just gonna do what he says?"
Danny frowned and shrugged. "For now I guess. I mean it seems reasonable."
"Where are you gonna sleep?"
Danny stood up and moved the towel to the laundry bin. "I'll put my sleeping bag on the floor. I want to make sure he doesn't try anything funny while he's here." He flicked the fan off and opened the door.
"You think he's asleep already?" Tucker whispered, following him out.
"Probably," Danny replied quietly. "You keep watch; I'll get Sam so we can start on those bandages, alright?"
Tucker gave him a thumbs up and snuck into Danny's bedroom.
As Danny walked down the stairs, he imagined what it would be like to be in the thermos for so long.
He stopped at the bottom and stood still, pondering the possibility of adding an emergency release mechanism to the inside of the Fenton Thermos. Password-protected, maybe? Regardless, he'd have to be a lot more careful with it.
He knew for a fact that he wasn't ready to kill anyone, accidental or otherwise. And if he had any say in the matter, he never would.
He'd seen what killing could do to a person. To a person very much like himself.
And it terrified him.