Act Two: Glimmers of …
"Argh! If my Dad can make something that can turn me into a … a freak, then maybe he can invent something that will change me back!" – Danny Fenton, Mystery Meat
Scene One: Intangibility
After finishing his soup, Danny's headache subsided somewhat, but the tiredness permeated his bones. It hurt to move; everything ached. He wouldn't be faking anything after all, he realized; he really did just want to sleep all night and preferably all day.
But of course, as is usually the case when one is completely exhausted but mentally troubled, sleep did not come easily or peacefully. Danny was so haunted by the memory of ectoplasmic eyes that his sleep was fitful, peppered with odd dreams and painful starts that woke him suddenly.
One time he woke up under his bed.
Danny tried to sit up in surprise from one of the weirder dreams (being chased by a white-faced Dash screaming 'Follow the rules!') and whacked his forehead on the underside of his box spring mattress. "Ow!"He rubbed his forehead ruefully, laying there for a moment, before rolling out from under the bed and climbing back between the sweat-dampened sheets. "Ugh," he mumbled. "How did I manage to roll out of bed and under my bed …?"
Whatever. I just want to sleep without dreaming for once.
He didn't get his wish.
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He dozed throughout the next day. His sister came in early in the morning before heading to school; Danny pretended to sleep until he heard the door close behind her again. Jazz could be such a royal pain sometimes, and he really didn't want to talk to her about the 'psychological implications' of a lab accident. This whole psychology phase thing was just making her worse than she already was. At least she wasn't playing that brain surgeon game on the family computer any more; it had given Danny more room to install Doomed II.
Around two in the afternoon, Danny was finally fed up with tossing and turning in his sweaty sheets. He sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily, and staggered out of his bed, yanking the sheets off after him. Only half-awake, he took the bundle of bedclothes with him to the bathroom, walking through the door and dumping them in the hamper before shedding his shirt, automatically turning to the bathroom door to close it.
It was already closed.
Slightly more awake now, Danny tried to remember opening the door. How could he have opened it with his hands full? With his foot?
"Whatever," he muttered, turning on the shower. He couldn't be bothered right now. Maybe after a shower he'd feel like a human being again, instead of one of the living dead.
The shower did help. Toweling his hair dry, Danny looked at himself in the semi-steamed mirror; he was pale, but otherwise himself, black-haired and blue-eyed. He still felt dizzy and tired, but that may have just been the terrible sleep he'd gotten over the last twenty hours. At least his joints didn't hurt so much any more.
He dressed, tousled his damp hair into something resembling its usual style, and started downstairs to eat breakfast … lunch, maybe? Pondering this absently, Danny put his foot down on the first step …
And somehow missed it entirely.
He looked down in a flash and saw his calf sticking out of the first step, but his foot had disappeared entirely into the stairs. That was all he had time to realize before he was falling, toppling forward face-first into a somersault. He shouted in alarm, grasping for the banister and flinging his legs out in front of him. His fingers closed on the rungs of the banister, his feet slowed him, and he came to an abrupt, sprawled halt halfway down the stairs. He clung there, breathing hard and staring down at the foot that had somehow just never touched the step, his heart pounding with adrenaline.
"Oh my gosh, Danny!?" His mother came flying out of the kitchen. "What happened? Are you all right?"
"F-fine, Mom," Danny stammered, pulling himself back to his feet slowly. "I think I just tripped …"
It was the most logical explanation, but Danny didn't think he'd hallucinated his leg falling through the stair-step. But how could he explain that to his mother?
She sighed. "Maybe you shouldn't be out of bed yet."
"I'm fine." Danny proceeded down the steps very carefully, watching his feet for further falling-through-the-floor stunts, but he made it to the bottom without incident. Still shaking slightly from the shock of it, he offered a smile. "I feel way better. Just hungry," he elaborated.
"Well, that's a good sign." His mom pressed the back of her hand to Danny's forehead. "Hmm. You feel cool."
"See, the fever's gone," Danny said brightly.
His mom gave him a considering look. "Danny … you do realize how dangerous that was, trying to fix the Portal on your own, don't you? You could have been killed!" Quite suddenly, she reached out and hugged her son. "Our research is very important to us, Danny, but you are far more precious than any Ghost Portal."
It felt surprising good to hear that. His mom and dad could get quite wrapped up in their obsession, to the point that when he was younger, Danny had been resentful. Now he kind of liked the lack of attention most of the time; it freed him up to do fun things with Sam and Tucker when more involved parents would have been forcing him to do homework or something (not that he didn't usually get it done anyway). Still … no one was around. Danny hugged her back. "Thanks, Mom. I won't try to mess with your inventions when you aren't around any more." He meant that wholly, too; he knew first hand how dangerous what he'd done had been.
"Good." Maddie released him. "Now, what would you like to eat?"
His mom's cooking? No thanks. Maddie was a great inventor but no cook. "I'll just fix a sandwich or something."
"If you want. I'd like to take your temperature, too, just to be safe. Now be truthful, sweetie: does anything hurt? Do you have a headache? Any rashes?"
Danny decided to fudge it a little. "I'm kind of dizzy, but I didn't sleep very well," he admitted. "But I don't hurt. Everything's fine, and no, I don't have any rashes." He stretched in demonstration, rolling his eyes at the last question.
"Well, you let me know if anything starts to bother you. Ecto-radiation can have disastrous effects," Maddie warned. "I'll go get the thermometer."
While his mother was gone, Danny had a few moments of peace again. He fixed himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sat down at the table with a cup of orange juice. His feet didn't fall through the floor again – thank goodness. And how had that happened, anyway? Feet didn't fall through floors, and there was nothing wrong with the step; Danny had lived in this house his whole life, he would have known if there was something wrong with a stair. Maybe he had just imagined it.
His mom came back into the room then. "Under your tongue," she instructed as she handed Danny the thermometer, the same way she had always instructed him since he was six. Danny obeyed and waited for the appointed time, drumming his fingers on the tabletop and looking more annoyed than the process precisely warranted.
Finally Maddie stole the thermometer back. "Hmm …" she murmured at the readout. "97.1?"
Danny's normal body temperature had always been low, but not quite that low. "You mean I have a cold?" he joked.
Maddie smiled. "Well, as long as it's not a fever." She went to wash the thermometer in the sink. "We haven't taken your temperature since your physical last year. It might be your new 'normal' – it might be a side effect of the accident. It's hard to say." She shook her head slightly. "Tell me if you notice anything different at all, okay?"
"If I …" Danny started to joke about gaining super powers – wasn't some kind of radiation lab accident how everyone got their powers in the Marvel comics? – but the words stuck in his throat as he thought about his green eyes and the stair incident. "Eh, never mind." He forced a smile. "I will."
But he still couldn't make himself admit to them.
&
After eating Danny felt even better. His mom went back downstairs to study the Portal, but not before inviting Danny to come take a look at what he'd helped start. Danny turned down the offer; he wasn't quite ready to face that thing yet, the memory of yesterday still far too vivid in his mind. He went to go watch some TV instead.
The door opened around three-thirty to admit a slightly harried-looking Jazz, followed immediately by Sam and Tucker. "They followed me home," Jazz said irritably.
Danny grinned at his friends to show he was okay, and both smiled back, obviously relieved. "Can we keep them?" he asked of his sister, clasping his hands in supplication. "Please, Mom, please?"
"Oh, shut up." Jazz rolled her eyes. "I brought your homework with me, if you're interested." Of course she had been the one to collect Danny's homework; Mr. Lancer regarded Jazz as his prize student, and she wasn't even his student any more. "Are you feeling better? Mom told me about the accident. I haven't seen Dad since he got home last night because all he's done is stay downstairs, messing with that Portal. You know, that was incredibly dangerous! The psychological impact of a near-death experience is—"
"Thanks for bringing me my homework, Jazz," Danny said pointedly. "I'll get it later. I want to hang out with my friends now, all right?" He ignored her brief protest, getting up from the couch to grab Sam and Tucker. "Come upstairs with me, okay?"
"You seem better," Sam said, voice slightly dry, as soon as Jazz was out of earshot.
"Way better – but a little worse, too," Danny answered. He closed the door to his room behind his friends.
"Worse? What happened?" Tucker wanted to know.
"I fell down the stairs. Well, halfway down the stairs." Danny hesitated. "Guys … my foot fell through the step!"
He waited for the implications of that to sink in, watching as Sam arched an eyebrow, her skeptical look fading into one of surprise, and Tucker's eyes widened.
"What do you mean, fell through the step?" Sam asked.
"Just that. It – it was like my foot just never hit the floor. It just went right through it as if the stairs weren't even there."
"Um … that's weird," Tucker announced.
"No duh, Tuck," Sam rolled her eyes. "So … what do you think happened, Danny?"
"I dunno." Danny shrugged helplessly, sitting on his sheet-less bed. He had to get new bedclothes before tonight. "I mean, first the … whole transformation thing, and now this. I think it's all connected to the accident."
"What does one have to do with the other?" Sam asked.
"I don't know! It's just a feeling I have." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I should give it more time, but Mom was telling me to tell her if I felt different at all. I don't, but I thought of all those comic books where people get weird powers from radiation and stuff, and I just … I dunno."
"You're not getting super powers," Sam snorted.
"Hey, don't be so skeptical," Tucker admonished. "Dude, no matter what happens, we're here for you."
"I know." Danny grinned at Tucker, but his eyes were tired. "I'm just kind of scared of the stairs now."
"But other than that, you're okay?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. Headache's gone, food took care of that. I'm still tired, but I slept like that time right before final exams last year." All three of them had come to school exhausted on final exam day in eighth grade because nerves had made them sleep poorly.
"That sucks," Tucker said with feeling.
Danny yawned as if to illustrate his point. "But the point is, I think I'm going to survive." He smiled at Sam. "Sorry about the scare I gave you."
Sam shook her head. "It was my fault as much as yours," she sighed. "I'm just glad you're okay. At least mostly."
"Alive," Danny offered, and Sam and Tucker nodded. The silence, this time, was comfortable.
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I wanted to document the aspects of the series that I'm trying to integrate into each chapter as I go.
Act One: What Happened
--Sam and Tucker were present at the Portal's activation, and Sam actively encouraged Danny to enter the Portal.
--According to the opening rap, Danny woke up with 'snow white hair and glowing green eyes', so naturally he wakes up this way. However, his parents aren't aware of any permanent changes, so that has to go before his parents find out.
--Danny's family is aware of the accident occurring.
--Danny isn't concerned his parents will throw him out on his ear for being different or 'a freak.'
Act Two, Scene One: Glimmers of … Intangibility
--Jazz is aware of the accident occurring.
--Danny's parents care about him, but they're much more excited about their ghost work.
--Danny has the most trouble with intangibility at the start of the show.
Act Two, Scene Two: Glimmers of … Invisibility: PREVIEW
His spoon floated innocently in the air, filled with cereal and milk, but there was nothing visible holding up.
"Gyah!" Danny startled, and at the same time, the spoon fell into his bowl, even though he hadn't released his grip on it. Panicking, he cried out again when he fell backwards – right through his chair.
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Thank you so much for reading everyone! Special thanks to all those who reviewed the first chapter: soccergurl1990, Acosta perez jose Ramiro, Sword on Fire, Epona Harper, Henshi-anichan, Linda, YumeTakato, ButterFree, BlueMoonAlto, cordria, and Nonasuki-chan. You all made my week!
Reviews adored and appreciated.
-Vikki