Danny hated going into the basement. It wasn't the unpleasant smell of chemicals or burnt ectoplasm or the way the harsh, fluorescent lights reflected off all the metal that bothered him so much. It was the gaping hole in the wall, the failed portal, and the memories and pain that it held.
The Fenton Ghost Portal wasn't functional. At Sam's insistence, he'd even gone in to check it out after his parents had given up on it—and that's when this had happened, after the flash and the smoke and the shock and the pain.
The portal had never truly worked. Not like it was meant to. His parents thought the occasional ghost turning up was the result of a 'weakening of the walls between the realms'. As Jack repeatedly put it, "It means we're getting close, Danny-boy! Soon we'll be able to study that ectoplasmic scum in its own environment! And whenever one of 'em slips through, we'll tear it apart molecule by molecule!"
They seemed to think they had been building a window.
Danny wasn't sure the truth had occurred to them, that it was actually a door. A passageway. A curse.
Danny avoided looking at the empty portal as he grabbed his dad's latest invention, some kind of ghost tracker. It would point to him, of course. It would always point to him.
He wasn't sure if he was imagining the scrabbling sound of claws on glass as he walked past shelves of captured ghosts, held in their prisons by his parents' anti-ecto coating. Not all of them had claws or talons; some were still just formless blobs, with eyes being their only recognizable feature.
He tried not to think about it.
Thinking about it would only invite more to come.
Danny headed back up the stairs two at a time. He slammed the door closed, forgetting for a moment that his parents were right there, and mumbled an apology as they looked at him. He dropped the new invention on the kitchen table and kept walking.
"Danny-boy, you haven't had breakfast! Don't you even want some Fenton Toast?"
No. He didn't want to be anywhere around here when his dad inevitably turned on his invention, something that would occur within seconds, not minutes.
He shook his head, but his mother caught his arm before he could escape. "Are you feeling okay, sweetie? You're looking a little green around the gills."
Something inside him was roiling, and it wasn't his stomach. "I'm fine," he said. "I'm just not hungry."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I just…." He shrugged out of his mother's grip. "I'm tired, I guess. I'm going to go back to bed."
It was a weekend; they wouldn't question that. The only reason he'd gotten up this early was because one of the ghosts had managed to edge its jar off the end of the shelf this morning, smashing it to the floor and escaping. Maddie had spent half the morning securing the other jars in their shelves to avoid a repeat incident while Jack had tried to track down the ghost with the Assault Vehicle, to no avail. Jazz was still holed up in her room, claiming that she was working on an important assignment. If Danny had thought he could get away with it, he wouldn't have emerged, either, but he doubted his parents would have believed that.
So emerge he had, and then he'd been put to work, fetching this and that, finally grabbing the forgotten tracker from the basement.
"All right, honey. Let me know if you need anything."
Danny nodded and made his escape, but his room wasn't the sanctuary it had once been. Closing the door was no longer a guarantee of solace. Not when it was no longer the only door.
Danny lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Blankness. That was good. It could be anything, it could be nothing, and if that's all he focused on, maybe this feeling would go away before something could escape. It had worked before.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly. In. Out. In. Out. Nothing. Anything. Everything. The ceiling was blank, formless. He could remain calm, and the portal within him could quiet again and close.
He wished he had someone to confide in. Someone who could understand. Someone who wouldn't look at him with fear. Sam and Tucker…. There was only so much support someone can give you when they know nothing, when they fear what's happening as much as you do. He couldn't blame them; he was afraid of this. Everyone would be, if they knew. That's why he didn't want to tell anyone. How could you not fear the unknown? Anything could crawl out from inside him, and he couldn't stop it. He was dangerous, the equivalent of a walking time bomb, only he didn't know how much damage there would be when—
Danny spun onto his stomach, clung to the side of the bed, and heaved. Nothing came up, not even vapour, and the urge passed. He rolled back over, exhausted, and closed his eyes. Until he could figure this out, he needed a distraction more than anything else. He needed someone to keep his parents busy until he could get this under control.
He didn't fear them, not really. They wouldn't try to tear him apart to find out what was inside him—it definitely felt like something had settled inside him—but he didn't want to go to them unable to answer anything. Once he had an idea of how this worked, once he could actually explain any of this and be better able to help them help him— That's when he could tell them. But before that? It would only worry them, and they were busy enough trying to deal with the ghosts he released. He didn't want to add to their burden any more than he already was.
(Jazz would argue this if she knew. Danny knew that. Jazz would tell him they'd want to know. But she didn't know what this felt like. He wanted to regain some sense of control. Since this had happened, it felt like he'd had none at all.)
Danny's stomach turned, and he was gagging even before he was hanging over the bed again. Sickly green vapour spilled from his mouth. He couldn't seem to swallow it back, couldn't focus enough to try to throw himself into a detached meditative state to see if that would shut this off. It was coming, whatever it was, and there would be no stopping it.
There was a knock at his door. "Danny? Are you okay in there, sweetie?"
No. But he could only retch, bringing up more vapour, and then something solid filled his throat and he had no breath for even that.
He heard the door open and then thunk against the dresser he'd moved in front of it; it was the closest he could get to a lock. "Danny," came Maddie's voice, her tone one of tested patience, "I know you want some more privacy, but we've talked about this."
There was a hand coming out of his mouth.
"Are you going to let me in or do I need to ask your father to come up here?"
His throat was being scraped raw. His jaw must be broken. The pain—
Hands found his shoulders and pushed. He would have collapsed if he hadn't been lying down. Was he already on the floor? He couldn't remember falling off the bed.
"At least answer me, honey."
The person—ghost—which had just crawled from Danny's mouth turned to look at him. It had no face, or at least no recognizable features, but then he blinked and suddenly it did. More specifically, it had his features.
It opened its mouth and said in his voice, "Sorry, Mom. I'm okay. Just trying to sleep."
Danny stared at it, unable to find the breath to scream.
"Please keep your doorway clear, sweetie. I know you think I worry too much, but I'm concerned about your safety."
"Sure, Mom."
He heard the floor creak as she moved away, the steady thumps of her feet on the stairs. He couldn't bring himself to look away from the thing that had his face.
It twisted its features—his features—into a smile. "I think I'm going to have fun here." It stood and walked over to him; he wanted to get up and run, to yell, to do anything, but he was frozen in place. How could it look like him? How could it sound like him? How did it know so much?
It leaned down, and its smile widened. "I'm good at distractions," it cooed. "Don't you worry about that." And then it crouched in front of him and moved in far too close, breathing into his ear, "What you need to worry about is what will happen if you don't keep our little secret."
Danny flinched back, closing his eyes and trying to keep still. He wouldn't win if this ghost decided to fight him, decided to replace him. The thought of that, of what this ghost could do, terrified him. He didn't open his eyes until he got his breathing under control and could hear above the pounding of his heart in his head.
When he did, he was alone.