Ectoplasmic Secrets

Surrounded

Summary: This was indefinitely the most uncomfortable evening out he has ever experienced.

"Danny!" Maddie called up the stairs, "Are you about ready to leave?!"

Leave? Where? Danny poked his head out of his bedroom door, "To go where?!" he yelled back.

"We're going out for dinner, didn't your father tell you already?!" she called back up. Danny thought for a moment, "Um…no?"

Maddie sighed at the forgetfulness of her husband, "Well, we're going out to celebrate the portal finally working! We've invited the Foley's to come with us, and a few agents are coming as well!" Danny grimaced, "Do I have to go?!" he asked.

"Well…yes. This is a family outing Danny! Besides, Tucker will be there to keep you company!" she replied, "We're leaving in a few minutes so go on and get ready!"

Danny groaned and shut the door again. For the first time in probably ever, he felt a bit anxious about meeting with Tucker, his best friend practically since birth. He'd left a the voicemail on his friend's phone the previous night, explaining that something really weird had happened. Worst of all, there was no way of knowing if Tucker had listened to the message, or if he had just gotten his phone taken away from him again and hadn't seen it yet. Guess I'll found out soon, Danny thought.

In all honesty, he was exhausted and would rather take a nice long nap than go out at the moment. He'd been crammed up in his room pretty much all day trying to figure what was wrong with him, only to discover he could now spontaneously disappear and phase through solid matter. That had caused quite a panic, which had only subsided once he found his pulse was still present. The remainder of the day after that was spent trying to get a grip on his new…abilities…if only so he wouldn't slip up in front of his parents or out in public. He figured as long as he could learn to control whatever it was, he could just go on living like nothing had changed, right? However, the long dimly glowing scar on his arm, could not be ignored.

Danny muttered a few curses under his breath and pulled out a different jacket from his closet, this one being dark red and having a bit longer sleeves. He slipped on one of the gloves onto his right hand and pulled down the sleeve so that it almost covered the glove entirely. After putting the other one on just so it would match and wouldn't stand out as odd, he ran a hand through his messy black hair and stumbled downstairs.

Close to and hour and a half later found ten people sat around a large booth in the corner of a restaurant. The place itself was average, nothing formal, but definitely nicer than a place like the Nasty Burger. The group had all just recently gotten their food after waiting for about a half hour.

Tucker swallowed a bite of the steak he'd gotten and nudged his best friend sitting next to him, "Bro, what's up? You've been acting kinda weird." Danny shrugged and poked at his food with the fork, "Nothing." It hadn't taken long for him to realize Tucker hadn't heard the voicemail he'd left. He was glad his friend hadn't heard it, but also a bit worried that he would eventually find it and listen to it. Coming up with a quick idea he asked quietly, "Hey, you didn't happen to get the voice message I left last night, did you?" Tucker frowned, "No, sorry man, I got banned from my phone until school starts on Wednesday. Why? Was it important?"

"NO. No, it was stupid, just something about that new version of Doomed, but I figured it out. Come to think of it, you can just delete that message if you see it, it was pointless, really." Danny said a little too quickly. Tucker raised an eyebrow, "Uh…okay dude, whatever."

Danny internally sighed, he rarely ever lied to Tucker, the last time he did was probably back in fifth or sixth grade and for something incredibly stupid.

Across the table the adults were all engaged in some conversation which, begrudgingly to Danny, was about the new ghost portal. It seemed like everywhere he turned that thing was smacking him in the face.

"-is indeed a major breakthrough. We'll be able to make many more technological and tactical advancements with this type of an edge." Agent K said. The slightly older man next to the agent, Greg Axel, director of the GIW, smiled slightly, "That's right, and we owe it to the both of you." Jack and Maddie smiled proudly with heads held high. The director continued after taking a small drink, "Of course, we'll go over the details another day, but I believe we could definitely do better with a longer term partnership with Fenton Works. If you choose to accept our terms that is, although we can go over those another time."

Maddie glanced at Jack and smiled, "I think it'd be worth a shot."

Axel clasped his hands, "Well, enough about the portal for now, let us enjoy this food before it gets cold." Sierra Hunt, who'd been sitting beside John took the moment to ask, "So, Mrs. Foley, what line of work are you in?" Angela startled a bit at suddenly being brought back into the conversation, "Just Angela, please. I'm a doctor at Amity General Hospital."

The boring adult conversations continued on for the next several minutes shifting into all different kinds of topics like jobs, funny stories, and how the price of gas had gone up recently. Danny couldn't focus on anything any of them were saying even if he wanted to. One hundred percent of his attention was on the cold feeling that was pulsing inside him. The effort it took to suppress it was almost exhausting.

He poked at his food some more while his mind traveled elsewhere. Thoughts of the accident once more unfortunately came flooding back. He'd had trouble keeping his mind off of it all day and all of the previous night. Taking a deep breath Danny once again pushed against the cold threatening to swallow him. If he let it take over, he knew now that he'd either turn invisible or fall through the chair and floor, and that was definitely not something he wanted to do in front of these people. Other people don't have to deal with this shit, why do I have to? Because I'm not normal like them? No. No I AM normal. This is just a…condition…that might even be temporary. Yeah. I'm still the same as I was. Nothing's changed. It'll go away. It's all just a temporary side effect of being in that thing when it...

A bit of the cold feeling decided to trail down Danny's right arm, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

CLANG!

He was pulled from his thoughts, along with all the nine other people at the table, and a couple from the tables around them, when his fork dropped onto his dish. The resounding sound it had made was louder than one would expect. Most just turned back to their conversations not a moment later.

A small chuckled came from Tucker, "Dude, your hand just completely spasmed." he said still laughing. Obviously the dinner had been pretty boring for him as well if this was the highlight of the night.

The cold pulled even harder at Danny and he decided he wasn't going to be able to shove it down much longer. After mumbling to Tucker where he was going he got up, fortunately, he'd been sitting on the end of the booth, and walked past some tables down a small hallway.

His vision had been distorted, although arguably enhanced, since he woke up after the accident, but now it was far more noticeable. The restaurant itself had lighting that was a bit on the dimmer side, but Danny could see into every shadow and corner just fine. The lamps that hung innocently above each of the tables seemed to be glaringly bright as he turned to look away from them. Even though he'd never been in this place before, Danny knew the colors he was seeing weren't what everyone else was seeing.

On top of the strange lighting and the offset colors, the noise in the place was almost just overwhelming. He could hear the kids across the room who were playing a game on the paper place mat provided by the restaurant, the salt shaker as it slid across the table that was being cleaned, and the chef shouting in the back. It was like he could hear everything at once, yet nothing as it blurred together, likely due to the panic that was setting in.

He pushed the door to the bathroom open and realized thankfully that no one was in there. The lights in there were even brighter than the lamps over the tables and it almost stung his eyes to look directly into them. He breathed in and went to lean against the white tiled side wall, only for the cold inside of him to shift and cause him to fall backwards. He fell straight through the wall, and ended up half in the back alley behind the restaurant and half still in the bathroom. He gasped and quickly pulled his legs with him into the alley.

It was dark and grungy and smelt horrible, but somehow it was more comforting to be there than back inside and surrounded by people, and noise and bright lights. He shuffled back a bit and leaned against the back of a large dumpster. Danny pulled his knees closer to his chest and focused on breathing. In and out, in and out. By then it felt like the cold was clawing at him from the inside out, desperate to be freed.

Blueish-white electric rings shot into existence and flew in both directions over him. The cold spot became replaced by a small warmth floating somewhere inside him, his way back.

He was suddenly wearing what he had been the day before when he'd stepped into portal, but now the colors of the clothing were all inverted. The few strands of hair in front of his eyes were now white and as he reached up to grab it, a faint green light was cast on his hand. The now exposed green scar on his arm stuck out to him like a reminder. A reminder that it'd been his own stupidity that got him into this mess. It'd been over twenty four hours by then and whatever it was that was now inside him hadn't subsided at all, if anything it grew a little stronger.

"Oh god…" Danny complained and put his head in his hands, "Am I really gonna be stuck like this forever?" More 'what ifs' began swarming his mind and he choked back a sob.

Not a moment later the rings returned, and with them, his normal appearance, but he didn't feel any different.

A/N: Next chapter coming tomorrow! Will also be updating the Table of Contents soon!

Thank you so much for reading/reviewing/following/favoriting! "See" ya soon! :)