Chapter Sixteen - The Wonders of Wes Weston

It didn't matter that it was two in the afternoon on a Sunday. Wes Weston's parents had left for a week to celebrate their twentieth anniversary, and Wes couldn't blame them for as he was the youngest and only one left living with. Instead of throwing a party in their undersized apartment, Wes had finally gotten his 3D printer yesterday. The basketball player had stayed awake all night figuring it out. He had only crashed onto his bed when he had run out of resin to print action figures. Now he was sound asleep, dreaming of his future designs.

A bang sounded and woke the basketball player with a start. Wes rubbed his eyes as he heard voices outside his eight story apartment. Perturbed, and ever the speculative, he grabbed his hand printed air soft gun and approached the window. Wes looked out and saw… a ghost.

He jerked back out of sight, hoping the spook hadn't seen him. The ghost appeared to be a young boy with an oversized cowboy hat riding an eerie looking horse.

"Well… we rescued him, but he doesn't look too good," the young ghost murmured loud enough for Wes to hear. "Maybe we should play doctor!"

"His human side is nearly gone, Sheriff, and his core is extremely weak," another ghost called. Wes looked out the window to see the horse talking.

"Aww, I really was starting to like playing astronaut with him," the cowboy groaned as he dismounted the horse. Wes's eyes widened as he saw a body drooped over the horse.

Never had Wes seen Danny this pale, as a human, and completely lifeless. His mind reviewed what the ghosts had been talking about. These ghosts hadn't hurt him but rescued him. What the hell had happened? Then Wes realized that the horse had said Danny's human side was nearly gone.

Human.

Danny was not just a ghost but part human and sitting on his fire escape dying.

The ghost transformed before Wes's very eyes. The cowboy hat was replaced with a surgeons cap, and the horse turned into a very grim looking male nurse.

"We can still play doctor!" the boy grinned.

The nurse laid Danny down with the careful finesse of an actual nurse. Danny's right hand was missing, and his neck was slashed open. Whatever had happened had a faint streak of blood trailing from the near decapitation. Green ectoplasm glowed and bleed from open trachea. Danny was breathing through the sliced airway. Weak infrequent breaths filled his lungs with much needed air.

"Surgeon," the grumpy ghost nurse looked up. "Your patient is ready."

"Let me help," Wes called, surprising himself as he stepped out of the open window onto the fire escape.

"Who are you?" the boy held up a surgical scapel threateningly.

"Danny's classmate, uh, maybe I can help," Wes offered.

The boy looked at him gleefully, "You want to play surgeon with me?!"

"Yeah," Wes stared at Danny. "Why don't we move him to my bed… uh, surgeon?"

Wes only hoped that the ghost would not attack him, and maybe he could save his classmate. It seemed the child-like ghost needed to pretend. Wes needed the boy's help and not to attack him.

The grumpy nurse lifted Danny and floated in the window as Wes stepped aside. Up close, Danny looked even worse, and Wes felt himself staring in shock as the boy he had spent so long trying to prove to be Phantom. This was proof enough that Danny was breathing without his head attached. But instead of getting a video recording, Wes tried thinking of anything to help.

"Uh… surgeon," Wes started, "I don't know much about, uh, ghost anatomy. What is the best course of action?"

"Why reattached his head, of course!" the boy grinned as he snapped on some gloves. "His ectoplasm is still there, so maybe it can heal the rest."

Wes cringed as the boy lifted Danny's head. The sight of the human flesh being aligned to the neck was gruesome, and it made the odd sound of meat being handled. Wes felt his insides turn uncomfortably. As Danny's head was aligned to his open airway and the vertebrae were set straight, Danny's breathing grew fainter.

"Stop!" Wes stopped as the boy ghost glared at him. "Uh, surgeon, he needs his airway mended first so he can breathe."

"Excellent idea!" the 'surgeon' pulled Danny's head up, and air rushed to fill his classmate's lungs. "But how? Hmm…"

"Surgeon, I propose we insert a tube to help connect his airway," the nurse pushed back his gray hair. "Perhap human plastic?"

Wes gladly turned away from the morbid sight and grabbed a handful of his mistake projects from his printer. "Can you melt these into sheets?" he hoped the ghost could.

The boy grabbed the poorly made action figures, "You made these? Cool!"

"Surgeon," the grumpy assistant reminded the childlike ghost.

Wes turned to his computer and quickly searched for the diameter of the human trachea, but he did not know if that would actually damage Danny's neck more. Then Wes saw an image of a tracheostomy, where a tube exited the front of a person's throat entirely to help them breathe. The tubes were smaller, and he was able to easily find the dimensions to copy into his 3D printer.

The ghost has not only done as Wes asked with the plastic but had tourniqueted Danny's hand with his nurse's aid. Danny's skin was turning an ashen gray. Hopefully, whatever ghostly powers his classmate had would be enough to save him.

"What's that?" the young ghost asked when he saw what was not the tube they had asked for.

"A tracheostomy tube, er, surgeon," Wes explained. "It will stick out of the front of his throat as, hopefully, the rest of him heals."

The ghost child's icy hand brushed Wes's bare skin as the plastic tube was taken from him. With a start, Wes realized he was working with a ghost to save some ghost-human creature of a classmate. Those thoughts could wait. Wes knew the government or a hospital would not help Danny. Wes had to try to save Danny his conscience would not allow him to not help.

The 'surgeon' placed the tube into the torso side of Danny's decapitation. Wes couldn't handle it, and he looked away. He heard the child ghost move Danny's head.

"Woot! Operation is a success! His muscles are attaching!" Wes turned to see that the ghost was right. Danny still looked terrible, but his breathing was better. His eyes were still closed and ashen, but Wes had to think that Danny would pull through.

The ghost 'surgeon' put a hand to his head and turned. Wes didn't have any warning before bright green ectoplasm spewed from his mouth. The nurse cringed before falling to Wes's floor.

"What's wrong? What's happening?!" Wes called to the ghosts.

"There are ghosts in us!" the nurse ghost cried as he became a parrot?

"What do you mean?" Wes was confused and honestly scared as the parrot fell to the ground.

"Small ghosts are hurting," the boy whimpered, and his eyes widened as he looked at where his parrot friend had been.

The bird was gone, and only a puddle of ectoplasm remained. The boys surgical garb transformed into that of a pirate as he floated to the spot.

"No, no, my best mate…" the boy sobbed and began rocking midair as he stared at the spot.

His knowledge about ghosts was limited, but even Wes knew that the parrot ghost was gone, and honestly, the pirate crying on the floor seemed to be crying in a mixture of pain and grief. He walked to his computer and tried pulling Tucker's number up so he could tell the geek about his friend and try to get the crying ghost child from his room.

His hand went through the mouse. He tried again, but instead of touching the device, his fingers went through his desk as he floated off of the ground.

"Ack!" he yelped as the only solid part of his head hit the ceiling.

The ghost finally looked up at his, and Wes could tell the events befuddled the spook as much as it did him.

"Do you have any idea what's happening?" Wes called as he tried coming down.

"Small ghosts are in us," the small ghost sniffed. "They were too much for Matie… his core couldn't handle them. The ghosts are making you do stuff."

The pirate broke down in tears again, and Wes legitimately felt bad for the childlike ghost as he began rocking himself again. Wes took a breath as he tried to figure out how to get back to the ground. It didn't work as he continued to Bob a foot below the ceiling. Any time he tried touching it with a hand, his palm or fingers would grab nothing, and somehow, his head would hit the ceiling.

He did not know how long he spent trying to repeat this cycle before he finally gave up and let his head softly bump into the ceiling. His eyes then found Danny's form on the bed. There had not been much change, but even from the other side of the room, Wes could tell his neck was mending. Muscles now stretch from one section of skin to the other. Wes still didn't know if it was going to be enough. Danny had clearly lost too much blood for any normal human to live through.

"Hey, I think this is some sort of ghost bug that we caught from Danny," Wes called.

The pirate instantly stopped crying and looked at Danny, "You mean like a human illness… we don't get those."

"Look," Wes felt queasy as his head got a hard bump on the ceiling, "You and your friend got sick at the same time. I started to float almost immediately after. You said they're small bugs. What if they were in Danny?" The ghost didn't respond, and Wes continued, "Look, I don't want any humans to get this, and you shouldn't go near any ghosts. We can't let these… bugs spread."

He sniffed and shook his head in his arms, "My Matie…"

"Look, I'm sorry, but I need help, you need help, and Danny… I don't think he'll make it if we don't get fluids in him to help get his blood back to normal." The boy looked up, and Wes tried giving a smile, "My name is Wes, by the way."

"Youngblood," the child pirate sniffed and wiped his face. "Did you really make those toys?"

"They're not…" Wes punched his nose. "Yes, I did. How are you feeling?"

Youngblood shook his head, "Sore, but as soon as I stopped using my energy, I was better."

That wasn't good. The ghost wouldn't be able to leave to get help. Not that Wes wanted him to. He might accidentally pass this ghost bug off to someone else.

"Do you feel like you're getting worse?" Wes tried asking with all the patience that he usually saved for his younger cousins.

"No," the boy looked at Danny. "How can I help?"

The ghost sounded like a toddler, completely lost and confused.

"He needs water," Wes supplied. "I have a case under your bed."

"Are you trying to wet your bed?" Youngblood asked as Wes watched the ghost walk across the room with his peg leg. When Wes snorted a weak laugh, the ghost grinned and pulled out a water bottle. Wes nearly shouted as the ghost passed the water bottle into Danny's stomach. When it was pulled out, it was empty.

Youngblood leaned over and hurled more ectoplasm. "Hey! You okay, Youngblood?" Wes asked.

"Hurt to do that," the boy groaned, looking ready to cry again.

Wes looked at his collection of action figures that he had made. "So, do you really think my… toys are cool?"

Youngblood grinned, "You can make these yourself?"

They talked for hours about his custom action figures as Danny's color improved. He had no luck trying to get Youngblood to use the computer. Eventually, the young ghost fell asleep, leaving Wes floating near the ceiling

Wes started to be able to float down before finally getting to his computer. By the time he pecked in the keyboard keys to pull up, Tucker's number three sub had set, and the stars were out. Then, he spent entirely too long trying to use his phone. After punching in Tucker's number, Wes went to hit call, and a spark jumped from his hand and short circuited. After that, Wes stared at the dark screen in shock.

Danny's tube made a soft hiss as he breathed in. Wes had noticed that his breathing was getting deeper, but still, his classmate showed no signs of waking. After a chaotic adventure to make food, Wes finally sat in his chair and strapped himself onto it with a belt. He just had to hope that Youngblood or himself would be able to get help, and Danny would last the night.

Again, the sound of voices woke him.

"Matie is gone," Youngblood whimpered.

"Ghost bugs? What kind of bully would make those?" a new distorted ghostly voice asked.

Wes opened his eyes and saw another ghost student? He looked nerdy and was rubbing Youngblood's back encouragingly.

"Who are you?" Wes asked.

The ghost gave him a glare, "Sidney Poindexter and I know all about you and how you have been trying to expose Danny."

Wes cringed, he had not expected to be called or like that, "Look, I didn't know he was human. I don't know what I thought he was… maybe a ghost impersonating my old classmate?"

Sidney tilted his head thoughtfully, "That is an interesting take."

"Look, if these ghost bugs are contagious, you only have a little amount of time before they affect you. We need help, and the only ones I can think of to get help from are Danny's friends or sister. I doubt either of you want to infect other ghosts?" Wes hurried as he unable to himself. If they didn't, then Sidney probably only was going to join them in confinement, and there was no saying what his fate would be.

The nerdy ghost tilted his head, "The Fenton shield is up. Tucker and Sam have their shields up, too. I sensed Youngblood here without Matie and got worried." The ghost looked at Danny and shook his head, "We will go to the school. I have an idea. Youngblood, stay here with basketball dude. I am going to take Danny first and be back."

A hand gently lifted his classmate's head before Sidney used his other to lift the rest of Danny's body. Wes's classmate didn't move Danny's skin, still had an ashen color to it as Sidney floated from Wes's window to the school.

In no time at all, Sidney returned and grabbed Youngblood and Wes's hand. Wes' stomach jolted as he left the safety of his apartment. The sun was rising, and if Wes wasn't so worried about floating into the stratosphere, he might have appreciated it.

"It'll be okay, Youngblood," Sidney murmured quietly.

"What are you going to do?" Wes asked the ghost, trying to distract himself from his fear of floating away.

Sidney ignored him, and Wes jumped as they phased through the outside wall of the school into a classroom where someone was already standing over Danny, who was motionless on the floor.

-@MagicPerson

Wes Weston wakes up to find an injured Phantom on the fire escape.

-@StrawberryCamel

For better or for worse, Wes meets Youngblood.

-@Kadziduo

With how much time he spends on basketball and his delusional conspiracy theories, no one would ever suspect that Wes Weston has another secret hobby…

-@Ventisettestars

Wake up call for Wes when he stumbles on a very injured Danny.

Wake up call for Wes when he stumbles on a very injured Danny.