Author's note: This chapter ended up being longer than I thought it would be, but I'm sure you guys don't mind, right? :b Also, I'm taking a small liberty and placing this a bit into the future (i.e. Danny has a smartphone). I hope this doesn't bother anyone? I just wanted to make it more relevant.

Also, since I finally started uploading the fic related to this, I want to mention it here. The reason this was originally a one-shot was because I intended it to be an elaboration of a scene from my fanfic titled "The End of Danny." It's narrated by Maddie, but it is heavily focused on Danny. In particular, Danny's inability to process and deal with his pain that I delineate and develop in this fic is the driving force in "The End of Danny." So, if you like what I've done with him here, I encourage you to check it out, especially since I am also updating it today. ^^

(after being) Disparaged

The final bell. Danny took his time at his locker as dread coursed through him. He had to return, had to face her again. He had failed twice with her now. He couldn't let that happen again.

But the positive feedback loop of his anxiety seemed unbreakable. The more he tried to calm himself, the more anxious he felt about not being able to calm himself. Building, building, building, not breaking down at all.

He said hurried goodbyes to his friends after squaring his alibi with Sam one final time. He had been with her in her room, had lost of track of time, he hadn't meant to worry anyone, sorry, sorry, so sorry, it won't happen again, please don't ask any more questions and just accept this story.

Jazz was waiting for him by her car. She looked up as he approached. "Hey," she greeted him.

Danny's gaze hardened. Jazz seemed to notice the look, but he waited until they were in her car before speaking. "Why did you e-mail Sam and Tucker about what happened last night?"

Jazz was quiet for only a moment. "Because I knew you wouldn't tell them."

"And what made you think it was your place to tell them?"

"They needed to know."

"No, they didn't."

"Yes, they did," insisted Jazz, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

"Even if they did, which they didn't," said Danny, "it wasn't your place to tell them." Anger, so much, replacing his anxiety and dread for the time being. This felt better. It was almost therapeutic to direct aggression at something. "If anyone was going to tell them, it should've been me."

"I completely agree, but like I said, you would've never told them." She glanced at him. "Right? I'm right. You would've kept it from them."

"Because they didn't need to know."

"Yes, they did."

"No!" snapped Danny. "Who do you think you are to decide that? It's my life, my friends, my decision." He massaged the back of his neck, tried to knead the aching soreness from the injection site in an attempt to spread it, diffuse it in some way. The pain in his arm had dulled significantly, but there was still a heaviness that made it difficult to comfortably rest or move.

"I care about you, Danny." Jazz's tone was so calm, so civil. So irritating. "This was not a small thing, and you need help to get through it."

"I'm fine." How many times did he have to say this? "It was not a big deal. I overreacted. That's all."

"You're not fine. This is not how you normally act."

"You're right. I'm not normally this pissed off with you."

"You know that's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what are you talking about?"

Jazz's eyes narrowed, but she did not look at him.

"I'm fine, Jazz."

"You're not fooling anyone, certainly not Mom."

Anger rejoined by anxiety and dread. Danny could only inhale deeply.

"And you'll never fool anyone, not when you're so traumatized that you can't even put on a good affectation."

Traumatized? No, how dare she use that word. No, he was not that weak. He had been through far worse, had almost been killed many times. Did she really think something like this could actually traumatize him? Just how little did she think of him?

But he didn't want to argue about it, didn't want to talk about it all. He latched onto something else, something removed from the incident. "Affec—? What? Are you kidding me?" Attack, attack. His best self-defense. "You honestly think I know that word?"

Jazz sighed. "It means—"

"No. I know what it means. It means that you're smart and I'm stupid. I get it."

"Danny, please, that's not—"

He was done. Done with her, done with this. He was resolved to not speak to her again, would ignore her if she tried to say anything more. He pulled out his cell phone and earphones from his bag. He'd drown her out with something, whatever random song started playing first.

Jazz was saying something. Volume up. He was covering his ears and blocking her out. Closed off, distanced, locked away. No one could get him now. No one could get in.

The car at last pulled up to their house. Music still blasting in his head, he stared out the window. The music was fading away as his anxiety returned. She was in there waiting for him. He couldn't run away from this.

Jazz gently pulled the earphone out of his left ear causing him to whip his head around to look at her. She held up a hand in an attempt to curb his irritation.

"I'm sorry," she told him quietly, seriously. "Telling Sam and Tucker without your permission was out of line."

She seemed genuinely repentant. Danny did not reply. It was over and done. Sam and Tucker knew, and he wouldn't be able to change that.

It was time to get over his next hurdle. He clutched his school bag to him tightly and tried to breathe, tried to ready himself.

"One thing." Jazz leaned over and opened the glove compartment in front of him. She rummaged through and pulled out a small pill bottle. "This should help with the pain and inflammation. I just noticed you rubbing your neck and arm a lot."

Ibuprofen. Yes. He definitely needed more, the relief from the dose he had taken earlier having already worn off. He poured four pills into his hand, eight hundred milligrams.

"Whoa!" Jazz was alarmed. "You sure you want to take that many?"

"I always take this many."

"But that's a lot. Do you really think you need that much?"

"Yes, I do." Danny shrugged. "Look, I didn't take any this morning. It'll be fine."

A lie. He had taken four that morning. But he wasn't going to tell her that, certainly not now. She would just tell Sam or Tucker or perhaps even their parents. And he needed this. He deserved this. After everything he went through for this town, he'd be damned if he let anyone tell him he had to suffer through the pain. Besides, this was still well below the maximum of thirty-two hundred milligrams he had looked up online. He had taken more than this in one day before, and it had never had any noticeable adverse effects. And it was just ibuprofen, not something easy to overdose on like acetaminophen. He would just be sure to take something different the next day. Totally fine. All fine. He would be fine. He was fine.

Jazz did not argue further. He popped the pills in his mouth and dry swallowed them. He leaned back, closed his eyes, moved his head to the right so that the bruise on the back of his head was not in painful contact with the headrest.

Quiet, a still silence.

"Danny," said Jazz, shattering the quiet. "You can't stay here forever."

Danny opened his eyes. The dread was back in full force. He had to go, had to see her again.

But no, why was he feeling this way? He was fine, remember? It was nothing, something he should've been able to handle, something that should've never taken hostage of his emotions and physicalities.

He was lying. He was lying to himself. It was a profound realization, one that heightened his anxiety so much that he had to gasp in air, had to force himself to breathe because the respiratory control center in his brain was paralyzed by choked by strangled by imprisoned by—

No, I'm FINE—

No, I'm not. I'm—

FINE.

I can do this. I can I can—

NO. I can't. I can't I can't I can't—

No, I can. I don't want to, but I can—

CAN'T.

I can't, but I have to.

Jazz was studying him intensely with grave concern. In that moment, he wanted to confide in her, wanted her to know just how frightened he was. She was right, he was wrong. He wasn't fine. If he could just tell her, share with her the burden of his fear.

But he couldn't. He couldn't trust her with this. She would just tell Sam and Tucker. She would just try to fix him. She could never just listen.

She wasn't his ally right now.

He stepped out of the car and walked toward the house, a deliberate breath with each step.

He stood before the front door. He was fine. He was not afraid. Whatever had seized him just moments before was gone. He felt stable again.

Fine.

Jazz was suddenly next to him. "Do you want me to go in first?"

No. He could do this. He had to prove to her that he was fine.

He pushed through the front door to find their parents waiting for him in the living room.

"How was school?" asked Maddie, the always-asked parental question.

"Great," said Jazz.

Danny didn't say anything. No, he had to say something. But he didn't have the words. School was certainly not great for him. He had to lie, had to say that it was great for him, too, couldn't stay quiet again or—

"Danny, are you ready to talk now? Or do you need a moment?"

Okay, too late to say how school was. New question to answer. Was he ready? No.

He nodded.

Maddie gave him an awry glance. "Is that a yes, you're ready to talk? Or a yes, you need a moment?"

How could he already be screwing this up? Again?

Deep breath. "I can talk now," he said as calmly as he could.

Jazz left the room, and then it was just him and his parents. This was it. This was his final life. If he lost again, there would be no restarts.

He sat at one end of the living room sofa, his parents at the other. They looked uncomfortable. Their hesitation suggested they were not sure how to begin.

"Danny." Jack was speaking first. Danny focused on him. "We'd like to know exactly what you were doing last night."

"Yes." Now Maddie. Danny kept his eyes on Jack. "Tell us from the beginning. When did you leave, where did you go, when did you get back?"

"You were definitely here when we all went to bed," said Jack. "So that means you left the house after ten, well after your curfew of nine on school nights."

How to answer? As a moody rebellious teenager? Or as a mature repentant son? Which one, which affectation would be more convincing? Which would be less suspicious?

That morning, he had already adopted the persona of a mature repentant son, so perhaps it would be best to stick with that.

"You're right," began Danny. "I snuck out after you guys went to bed." He paused, but they were waiting for him to continue. "And like I told you last night, I went to see Sam. We, um…we just wanted to hang out, talk, and…" Should he say anything more? Would it be believable to say they were just talking? He didn't want to drag Sam through the mud any further and say that they were doing anything more than that, fooling around, intimately satisfying their adolescent hormones. Besides, he and Sam weren't dating. Maybe someday (hopefully someday maybe if she wanted), but he couldn't lie that much, couldn't do that to Sam.

"Where?" asked Maddie.

"Hmm?" Danny was not prepared for this interjection.

"Where did you and Sam hang out?"

"Her house. In her room."

"And how did you get in?" asked Jack.

Danny did not like the pointed nature of this question. His internal warning system was blaring, but he had to ignore it, had to keep his composure. "Through her window. We didn't want her parents to know I was there."

Maddie and Jack were quiet for some time, long enough that Danny knew he had made some fatal error.

"Her window," echoed Maddie at last. "Did she open it for you?"

What an oddly specific question. Danny could not reply. He did not know how to correctly answer this. Test-taking strategy: skip this one and move on to the next, come back to it later if there is time.

"Danny." Maddie's tone was much more serious now. She leaned forward and looked straight at him. Danny forced himself to meet her gaze. "Did she open the window for you, Danny?"

No, he couldn't skip this one. Not permitted, denied. "Yes," he said. Why were they asking this? Weren't they more interested in knowing why he was with Sam, what he was doing with her? Why he felt the need to be with her so late at night? Why did it matter if she opened the window for him or not?

"And is that the truth?" asked Jack.

Stunned into silence. They knew he was lying. No, how could they possibly—

No, no, it had to be another tactic, another ploy to catch him. Once again trapped and on his knees, forced to explain himself, forced to beg for mercy. A test, just another research experiment. They had formed their hypothesis and were just waiting for the results, his response. Unable to transform, unable to become invisible, unable to fly away, a different gun trained on him.

What should he do? Call their bluff and stick to the story he had worked out with Sam? Or try to invent a new story? But then he'd have to come up with a reason for why he made up a story in the first place.

"Yes," he finally said. "That's the truth."

Maddie and Jack exchanged glances of apprehension and disappointment.

"Danny." Maddie leaned forward again. "We're going to give you another chance to tell us what you were really doing."

Fading, dropping, falling—

"We promise we won't be upset with you for lying," said Jack. "Just please tell us the truth."

How could they know? What did they know already? Danny's eyes darted from one parent to the other as he tried to make sense of their accusation. Yes, they were absolutely right, but that was beside the point.

Pause, pause, please pause this; he had to think.

"I called Sam's mom," Maddie explained. "Do you know about their alarm system, Danny?"

The Mansons' alarm system. Yes, he knew about it. Anytime a door or window was opened, it would send an alert through the whole house, and when the alarm was set, opening a door or window would trigger the loudest and most obnoxious—

Oh.

Oh, God, oh, no—

"She didn't open the window for you, did she, Danny?" Maddie's tone was quiet. "You weren't really with Sam, were you?" Not really questions. Factual statements in disguise.

Even if he had actually been with Sam, the security system was never a problem. Phasing in and out never affected it. But they didn't know that. Or did they? Did they know his secret after all? Had they finally figured it out?

He was failing, he was crashing, he was on a speed run to Game Over.

Maddie's cell phone rang. Jack and Maddie both looked at the Caller ID curiously.

"Pam?" murmured Maddie.

"Maybe she's calling to apologize for what she said?" offered Jack.

"Yeah, right." Maddie accepted the call and answered cautiously.

Someone had pressed pause for him. Perhaps he could think of something, something that didn't get him or anyone else in too much trouble but would also explain why he had lied in the first place.

But then the call was over, and Danny still hadn't thought of anything. He waited for his parents to turn their attention back to him and demand the truth again.

"Well?" Jack asked Maddie. "What did Pam say?"

Maddie looked at Danny and sighed. "We owe you an apology, Danny."

Danny could only blink.

"Sam's mom just told me that Sam confirmed that you were with her last night."

Jack furrowed his brow. "But Pam threw such a fit about their security system."

"Apparently, Sam used a magnet to keep the sensor engaged even with the window open."

Jack crossed his arms and laughed. "What? With all their money, their security system is that easily tricked?"

"Pam said she didn't believe it at first either, but then Sam demonstrated it for her." Maddie shrugged and also smiled.

Dumbfounded, speechless, Danny couldn't believe his luck. How lucky he was to have a friend like Sam. She was surely the most brilliant girl on the planet, the most amazing, most talented, most intelligent, most beautiful—

Er—

"I'm sorry to have doubted you, Danny," said Maddie seriously. "I know you're not a liar."

And just like that, he was back to feeling terrible. He had been lying to her for so long now.

"But you did sneak out," said Maddie. "We can't let that go."

Danny waited. Jack and Maddie once again looked uncomfortable, Jack especially.

"Danny, what you did was not only disrespectful to our rules but also dangerous." Maddie was looking at him, and although Danny wanted to look away, he maintained eye contact with her. "You do know that ghosts are most active at night? And they are rampant in our town."

"Right. We had our own encounter with a couple last night when we were out looking for you," said Jack.

"Exactly," confirmed Maddie. "And even with our expertise, we definitely could've been killed."

"Nah," said Jack. "Never. Not us."

"Jack," said Maddie sharply. "We're trying to instill a lesson here."

Jack smiled sheepishly.

"Danny, we don't want you to think we don't trust you or that we don't think you're responsible enough to be out on your own," said Maddie, "but you're our son, our child, and…and we need to know where you are at all times, especially during the night. We have these rules not to restrict you or Jazz but to keep you two safe." She paused and cocked her head. "Do you understand that, Danny?"

Danny understood every word. But just how much safer was he living with scientists who so often openly discussed the explicit details of the sickening things they wanted to do to him?

"I do understand," said Danny quietly. "I really am sorry for sneaking out and worrying you. I won't do it again."

"We believe you," said Maddie with a small smile, "but like I said before, we can't just let this go."

Danny looked down. He knew what was coming next.

"Your father and I talked about it." Maddie patted Jack's leg. "Since this was the first—and hopefully only—time, we won't be too harsh, but we will be strict about it." She straightened up. "You are to go to school with Jazz and come home immediately afterwards with her, just like today. No hanging out with Sam or Tucker. When you're home, you're to be out here where we can see you, not in your room. We moved your computer so that you can do your homework down here."

Maddie gestured to Danny's computer that was clearly right there. How could he not have noticed it before? He hoped that they hadn't gone through the contents of his hard drive. He had hidden and password-protected his ghost files, but they could be found if they were determined enough to find them.

"You can only be in your room at night to sleep," continued Maddie, "but you must keep your door open."

Danny couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze. After what happened the night before, he didn't think he could possibly feel more degraded.

But he had to accept their terms. He had no choice.

"How long?" he asked in a low voice.

"Just one week," said Jack quickly, ruefully even. "Until next Thursday."

"Which means no going out this weekend either," said Maddie.

Danny remained quiet and still kept his eyes down but nodded to show he understood.

Exhaustion. Suddenly, he was hit by a wave of drowsiness. He could collapse right there, certainly fall asleep as soon as he was down.

"You okay, Danny?"

"Hmm?" Danny looked up through half-lidded eyes.

"Is there anything else you want to talk about?" asked Maddie with keen concern.

Danny was sure she was thinking back to his behavior the night before and at breakfast. He certainly had acted oddly. "No," he said with a small shake of his head and a weak smile.

Maddie and Jack were quiet again, but they didn't press any further.

"Do you have homework?" asked Jack.

"Of course."

"Do it down here," said Maddie.

"Now?" He wasn't sure he had the energy. His head was so clouded by the strong need for sleep.

"Yes," said Maddie.

No use arguing. They were the parents, he was the child. They had to win, he had to lose.

"Can I go upstairs first? Get some things, use the bathroom?"

"Of course," said Maddie. "Be back down in ten minutes."

He stood, somehow managed to stay balanced and upright. He pulled at his shirt collar as he started walking up the stairs to conceal the injection site on his neck. He took out his cell phone to send Sam a message, a quick thank-you.

"Oh, Danny," Maddie called after him.

Danny halted and turned around. Maddie approached the stairs but did not ascend them.

"Your phone." She held out a hand. "We're taking that for the week, too."

Danny froze. "My phone?" He glanced down at it, then back at Maddie. "Why?"

"It's just what we decided."

Danny clutched his phone. His messages to Sam, Tucker, and even Jazz were hidden in an app that was disguised as something ordinary, an inconspicuous math app. She wouldn't find those messages unless she thoroughly investigated his phone, and even if she did, he and his friends were careful to further code their messages.

But he couldn't risk it. He needed to delete the app before he handed it over.

"Okay," said Danny with a small crack in his voice. "Is it all right if I send a message to Sam and Tuck to let them know?"

Maddie shook her head. "No. Your passcode is still four three oh four, right? If you want, I could respond to their messages and let them know for you."

"No!" cried Danny far too quickly. Maddie was noticeably startled by his quick outburst. "I mean, no, I'd rather you not do that. I'll just tell them at school tomorrow. Or I'll tell Jazz to let them know."

"All right, then." Maddie climbed a couple of the stairs, her hand still held out to him.

Danny looked down at his phone again. If he deleted it now, right with her staring at him, he would not only get in even more trouble for openly defying her, but she would be suspicious about what he was doing, what he was trying to hide from her.

If he really didn't want her to pry any further, he had to play this as cool as possible. She had never been the type to invade his privacy without reason, after all. He would just have to invisibly retrieve the phone that night and delete the app then.

Shaking only slightly, he placed his phone in Maddie's hand.

(I'm gonna drown you out before I lose my mind. I'm covering my ears like a kid. When your words mean nothing, I go "la la la." I'm turning up the volume when you speak 'cause if my heart can't stop it, I'll find a way to block it. - Naughty Boy)

(Okay, serious question. Is this too angsty? Do I need to scale it back? I've been focusing a lot on sensory details, but perhaps it is overwhelming the story...)