Chapter Nine
CW: Emetephobia, Dehumanization, Brief Description of Injuries
It was five days after he handed over the thermos that Danny felt the summoning.
He could resist, easily, if he so chose. Since the summoning wasn't being performed correctly, there was no obligation to respond, to follow the thread through the door. But Valerie was a part of this, and if he refused, then he knew she would come looking for Phantom with guns drawn.
Danny didn't know how to salvage this. Handing over the thermos was stupid, not least of all because Desiree still might have twisted their wish into something awful even if he hadn't the effects noticed yet, but he couldn't leave Desiree in a thermos forever. Not handing her over would only stall the inevitable, and he doubted he could come up with a better solution even if he had more time. He spent countless hours wracking his brain, desperate for a solution ever since he slipped up with Sam and Tucker nearly a month ago, wondering what they thought, what they knew, what they suspected. Danny never guessed possession was even on the table, but it was convenient. If Desiree only gave them his true name or said it was Phantom possessing him, then at best, it would solve the problem, his friends likely to move on once the summoning was over with and they assumed everything was fixed. At worst, it would at least buy him a little more time to figure something else out instead.
But the same part of him that opened up to Tucker and Sam about his accident, that nudged him to hand over the thermos despite knowing it could just as easily ruin everything for him, ached to tell them the truth. To let them know everything. The months since his accident were intensely lonely and exhausting. Breaking promise after promise to his teachers, his family, his friends . . . He knew it was destroying him, bit by bit. Fenton was a metaphorical ghost. Phantom, an outcast, despised by most of the ghosts and people in Amity Park. There was no one in his life that knew the truth - no ghost, no human, no half-ghost. He told himself it was safer that way. That it let him do things he otherwise couldn't do, like try to befriend the ghosts as Danny Fenton and handle the ones that refused to play nice as Phantom. That not telling his friends and family kept them out of harm's way–although a nasty voice whispered on and on about Tucker's injury, caused by him despite his best efforts to keep everyone he loved as far away from his life as Phantom as possible.
Really, he knew the biggest reason he kept it a secret was knowing that no one could accept him for what he was. No one would want to be near him again if they ever learned the truth, especially if they saw what was beneath the Hazmat suit. Danny wasn't sure that even he could accept it. He always assumed the worst, that beneath the suit his body might be scarred or broken or worse, but that–that was by far, far worse than anything he imagined. He didn't even look human.
But if he did take that chance and show up as Danny Fenton to the summoning, then maybe they would realize he wasn't possessed. How much time would he have before they figured out they got it wrong and tried something else? Wouldn't it be better to tell them the truth now? Fenton would also give him an easier escape route if things went south - he had access to more powers and abilities than he did as Phantom, even if they weren't as strong. But it would mean admitting that everything he did up until this point, all the sacrifices he made, were pointless, and there was always a chance that they would assume the worst. That Danny Fenton was completely dead, his face a hateful disguise he wore to hide the fact he was a ghost and not a living, breathing human. Confessing the truth was a risk he couldn't take, much as he desperately longed to do so, and if (when) they realized their possession theory was wrong . . . well, hopefully he would have a better plan for how to deal with it by then.
And so, terrified as his world crashed down around him, he transformed into Phantom and answered the summoning.
The room he arrived in was dark, filled with light from nothing but the small white candles in a circle around him. He recognized it after a moment as Sam's theater room, of all places - the comfy, massive chairs were pushed up against the walls, the game systems likely tucked away behind the bar, and the projector screen was up. He remembered the last time he sat in this room a few months ago. That was a particularly nasty day - he only made it fifteen minutes through the movie before he sensed a ghost and left, his friends arguing with him and yelling and almost ending their friendship for good then. A tiny, tiny part of him wished they did, since he knew what they did not: this summoning, despite their hopes, wouldn't fix a thing. They were only prolonging the inevitable.
"Don't move an inch, Phantom," said Val, and blinking he saw her decked out in her Red Huntress gear while Sam sat cross-legged outside the circle, sweat beading on her forehead from the exertion. Successful summonings for ordinary humans were rare but exhausting, and he hoped she didn't push herself too hard or hurt herself attempting to call him. But he was surprised (and weirdly a little jealous) to see Val there suited up - when did she tell them she was the Red Huntress? She never even told him when the two of them were dating. Then again, maybe he didn't have a right to be upset about his friends somehow knowing the truth about her, since it wasn't as if he ever risked telling Val the truth about himself, either.
There were at least two others here, too, that he couldn't see but that he could hear breathing as they listened from behind the bar. At least one must be Tucker. He didn't know who the second one was, though, and that worried him. Who else knew? Star? She was Valerie's best friend, but it seemed unlikely since Danny was pretty sure she didn't know about Val being a ghost hunter. Vlad? He seriously hoped not. Keeping the creep at arm's length was hard enough without him knowing the truth about Danny, too. One of his parents? That might be even worse, but he doubted it. He couldn't imagine them hiding while Valerie and Sam risked themselves here, and there was no chance of his Mom and Dad doing a summoning anywhere outside of their own lab.
"Phantom. You actually came." She pointed a blaster at him. "Consider this my warning."
"Breaking our truce again? I told you humans couldn't keep promises. You should stop making them," His voice echoed through the room, full of static as it crackled through the radio, the light from his green eyes reflecting in the corner of his face shield. Even before his fight with Skulker, his Hazmat suit felt uncomfortable, both too small and almost itchy. The moment it broke it felt better for a brief moment, but once he transformed again and the suit was repaired, the feeling quickly came back. Danny suspected he knew what it meant, but it worried him nevertheless. Not for the first time, he silently wished there was someone, human or ghost, that he could trust enough with his secret to risk going to for help.
"We're not going to let you back into Danny Fenton," she said, refusing to be goaded. "You had to know that when you gave us that thermos."
He blinked. This wasn't how he expected this to go. Why hadn't she simply shot him or sucked him up into a thermos yet? What did she honestly expect him to say? "I didn't have to answer your summons, either. You don't have my true name. You aren't a liminal."
"We didn't?" said Val.
"A what?" asked Sam at the same time. She sounded exhausted, as if she recently ran a marathon, her words barely a whisper.
"Seriously? My true name isn't Phantom, Val. And a liminal is someone with a foot in the world of the dead and the world of the living," he explained. "Who can act as a bridge between the worlds, speak to the dead, and sometimes exist as either or both." Like him. Like Vlad. Maybe Valerie, too, because of her weird, ghostly suit, but he didn't dare bring up the suggestion that she might be, both since he wasn't completely convinced and because he didn't need to give his ex another reason to shoot him.
But he and Vlad were the most extreme cases of liminals that Danny ever encountered, and even as he half-confessed the truth to his friends, he doubted they truly understood what he meant. Other liminals were still incredibly rare, and most of them held much weaker connections to the world of the dead. Regular liminals could barely sense the presence of shades and couldn't manipulate ectoplasm. He suspected it was because of the portals or rifts that created him versus the other liminals - the difference between a small, natural, unstable portal and a massive, permanent, and stable one built upon a pre-existing weak point - but there was no one he could ask about it, no way to test the theory.
"Generally, you need a liminal to summon a ghost along with their true name. If you don't have both, then it's up to the ghost to decide if it wants to come or not, and your circle has no power to bind anything." Although it was risky, he took the chance and raised his left hand into the air and allowed it to cross the boundary of the circle as he charged up a small ectoblast before letting it flicker out of existence, and a sharp pain ran through his fingertips as he extinguished it, the power not wanting to fade away quietly. More confirmation that he was right. The ecto resistant properties of the suit were useful, but it was blocking his powers too much. He would need to burn the excess energy off later before it hurt him, and he tried to suppress the really nightmarish image of himself burning up inside the suit if he couldn't. That wasn't how it worked. That couldn't be how it worked. Right?
Somehow he managed to keep his voice steady, though, as he continued and pulled his hand back inside the circle. "Summoning me without my name and without a liminal was incredibly stupid. And if you think I'm powerless right now, think again."
There was a sudden flurry behind the bar as the two people hiding behind it jumped up, ecto blasters whining to life as they pointed them at him. Had they been watching him on a camera? Just listening in? It didn't matter. Who was it? Tucker was one of them, his hands shaking as he aimed the weapon at Danny, and . . . oh.
Jazz.
His sister. He should've known. Jazz kept acting weird lately, but he thought it was anxiety over college application decisions or maybe learning about him hanging out with the ghosts sometimes, not because of this mess. At least it wasn't Vlad or his parents, but seeing Jazz there made his core twinge painfully. Despite his best efforts, he kept ruining people's lives, pulling them away from the things that really mattered. She shouldn't be here, worrying about him. His life, his future, none of it mattered. Not compared to hers. Not compared to any of theirs, really.
"You might not be powerless, but Sam and I brought friends," said Valerie. "Jazz and Tucker, specifically. I'm sure you recognize them after all this time. The people you lied to. Whose best friend and brother you stole away, whose life you ruined for nearly two years."
Danny blinked, his mind struggling to comprehend what she said. Two years? That would mean . . . "You think I've been possessing him since the portal accident?"
"We did our research," said Jazz. "Possession isn't like overshadowing - it's complex. It takes time. The victims are usually comatose when it happens, and when the possession first starts, their memories are patchy because it takes a while for the ghost to fully assimilate its host's thoughts and memories. That's exactly what happened to Danny after his accident, and what better time to make an attempt than when you saw my poor, unconscious brother lying helpless on the floor of our lab?"
She was crying, now, her hands trembling as she pointed the blaster at him, and Danny forced himself to resist the urge to go over and comfort her. To tell her everything, despite knowing she wouldn't believe a word because he knew all of them already believed they figured it all out, that this was the answer to everything. His friends and sister sat with the lies they wove for too long to want to hear the truth.
"You manipulated all of us," said Tucker. "I couldn't understand why my best friend didn't care about us anymore. I thought I did something wrong. That we did something wrong. But it wasn't us, it never was. It was you. I can't believe I ever defended you. Valerie was right. You're a monster. You were just using us and tricking everyone to work secretly against the Fentons while they tried to protect us."
Static crackled over his radio as he pushed down the urge to scream and cry. He knew pretending here was the best strategy, but hearing them say this about him, that they believed the many months that passed since his portal accident were nothing but lies, that he was little more than a ghost wearing the face of their friend hurt badly. Worse, maybe, than he thought it would after he pushed them so far out of his life. Their words echoed his worst nightmares, the rejections that endlessly played through his head in the rare moments he slept.
"I thought . . . I thought you–that maybe Danny–liked me," admitted Sam softly, and he could see her shaking. Another panic attack, maybe? He hated this. He wanted it to stop. He wished they sucked him into the thermos instead of dragging it out like this, but if he were in their shoes, no doubt he would want to say something to the nasty ghost that stole their friend and brother away for so long, and he felt like he owed them, somehow, but he still wasn't sure he could keep standing here in silence, listening to this. "But it was just a trick, wasn't it? Another attempt to gain access to what? My family's money? Their political influence? You convinced me to do a ghost rights' rally when those things spent every day terrorizing us, made me think that there was something more to them. You just . . . Tucker's right. You're a monster."
"You pretended to like me, too," added Valerie. "To be my boyfriend. You–"
"-I didn't pretend to like you," he interrupted, surprising himself. He meant to let them vent, to speak their peace, but he couldn't do it anymore. His core felt as if it would shatter in two. "I dated you because I thought you were cute and smart and kind and brave and just, like, one of the most incredible people I've ever met, Valerie, even while knowing that if you knew what I was you'd probably hate me and want to destroy me." He turned as Valerie stared at him through her helmet, clearly stunned by the admission, although whether she believed it or not was a different story. He looked at the others sadly, although of course they couldn't see his face and wouldn't know. Just the bulky, glowing suit and his monstrous green eyes. If he could take it off, and appear more human for even a moment, he would, but he knew that what was underneath the surface now was by far worse than anything he ever imagined and would bring no comfort to them. "I've hurt all of you, and while you won't believe me, I'm sorry."
"You've hurt my brother the most," said Jazz, and the ice and bitterness in her voice were so palpable that Danny was surprised the air didn't freeze around her. But his sister wasn't a ghost. She wasn't a monster like him. "Are you going to apologize to him?"
"I don't think you understand what you're asking. And I don't think any of you really understand what's happening here. Not really," he said, and the static crackled worse than usual. His emotions were getting the better of him and the itchy feeling was getting worse. He needed to get out of here. He couldn't keep listening to this. Couldn't keep doing this.
"We understand enough. If you answered the summons, then Danny should be free, right?" said Valerie.
"Are you seriously asking me even though you clearly don't trust a word I say at this point?"
"That's the most honest thing you've said all night, ghost," she said as she shifted slightly and pulled out a thermos. Nope, absolutely not. Despite being glad that the talking was over, there was no way he would let himself get stuck inside a thermos. It was only luck that got him freed when it happened once before - his parents picking it up and emptying it into the portal before they realized Phantom was within it - and he adjusted his stance. The thermos would struggle to suck him up already since Val hadn't weakened him first, but he didn't want to fight them and didn't want to take the chance he would be trapped. He needed to distract them, even if only for a second.
"I won't be trapped away in a thermos. If you want me to stay away from all of you, then I'll stay away, but if you try to put me in there, I won't hold back against you, Valerie" An empty threat, really, since he'd never intentionally hurt Val or his sister and friends, but he might as well play up being the evil ghost they believed him to be. "And right now, you don't know if this plan of yours worked, right? You couldn't even get the summoning right. Did you even remember to leave anyone with Danny while you summoned me to make sure he's not here with me inside this circle right now, too?"
He saw her glance uneasily at the others, and the moment she turned he let his invisibility and intangibility flow wash over him. He swallowed as he let himself fall through the floor of Sam's rec room, the sound of blasters ringing through the air as he plummeted into the dark earth below. The last thing Danny wanted right now was a fight, and no doubt his friends and sister would be going to check on Danny. He needed to get home as quickly as possible.
The problem was that in his ghost form, he would be stuck down here. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to manipulate his powers well enough while in the suit to fly or teleport, the former frustrating him since according to his parents flight was literally one of the three powers that were part of their definition of a ghost. Danny originally thought it was because he was still human, too, but Vlad disproved that pretty easily, and eventually he learned to fly and even teleport in his human form. It seemed like it had something to do with the ecto-resistant properties of the Hazmat suit, which despite being a literal ectoplasmic construct now and not the original suit he wore when he died that day in the portal, still managed to retain that ectoplasmic resistance. It took ages to learn how to use his invisibility and intangibility, but so far, flying and teleportation remained beyond his grasp.
So if he wanted to do this, he needed to transform back to his human self first. While staying invisible and intangible in complete darkness so he wasn't immediately crushed by the surrounding earth. Which was not something he ever attempted before or wanted to even think about trying before today.
"Okay, you can do this, Fenton," he whispered to himself as he focused on his transformation, and he let the rings wash over him as he struggled to hold onto his intangibility. For a moment he felt an intense pain around his midsection before he managed to snap his intangibility back into place, and then focusing on his room he teleported home. Teleporting to places he knew, that were familiar and that he held a connection to, was always so much easier for him.
Disoriented, though, he still materialized with a small popping sound four feet over his bed, and with a loud crash, he smashed into the mattress and bounced and rolled onto the floor with an awful thump. The second he landed he found himself puking, his stomach screaming in agony from the damage it received from the brief loss of his intangibility while transforming, and he forced himself to glance down to make sure everything was still intact as he heard the sounds of footsteps rushing up the stairs, no doubt drawn by the crashing noises. It couldn't be Jazz or his friends yet - his parents, maybe?
"Danny, are you okay?!" Mom called out as she pushed open the door, and he saw her shiver as she walked over to him. Even with her Hazmat suit, the chill emanating from him still hit her.
"I think so," he mumbled. "Just fell off the bed, maybe? I feel kind of weird." He felt her hand go to his forehead, checking him for a fever, and he risked a glance down at himself, barely containing a sigh of relief. The damage to his stomach, at least, wasn't obvious on the surface. He hadn't split himself in two, crushed his body, or any of a dozen other nasty options that could have become his horrifying reality. Small miracles.
"Jack, can you go get the cleaning supplies from the bathroom?"
"On it, Mads!" Dad yelled as he hurried down the hall.
"Maybe we should make you a doctor's appointment," she said, frowning at him as she helped him sit up, and his stomach reacted violently enough that he found himself puking again, narrowly missing his Mom. Whatever damage he did in that half-moment he lost his intangibility was rapidly healing on its own, but it still ached terribly, and he flopped down on the bed after he finished throwing up and shivered.
He was never, ever doing that again.
"I don't–" he began, but his mom's phone began buzzing. Frowning, she pulled it out and he saw his sister's picture on the screen.
"Sweetie, it's Jazz, so I'm going to take this quick, okay? You just sit here and take a few deep breaths. I'll have your father move you to the living room in a minute so you don't have to keep smelling this while we clean it up," she said, and he nodded. He knew what the phone call was. What Jazz wanted.
He just didn't know how much she would tell his parents.
"Yes, he's here? He's really sick, though I don't know what happened. He seemed fine when he came home from school earlier - is there a bug going around?" he heard his Mom say as she walked further down the hall, and he forced himself not to listen in. Either this little ruse of his worked, or it didn't. He knew if they scanned him, there wouldn't be any sign of Phantom or any signs of possession. He checked it himself after being released from the hospital, terrified that they would figure out what he was, but Phantom wasn't possessing him, he was a part of him, and unless they started seriously examining his DNA, the changes were largely invisible to any kind of device or easily dismissed as a symptom of ecto contamination as long as he wasn't actively using his powers.
He'd been fortunate that his ghostliness wasn't detectable by his doctors. The research he stole from Vlad ages ago suggested the only thing that could potentially detect would be his core, which would light up like the star on top of a Christmas tree on MRI's or CT scans if he was using his powers during it, and Danny was lucky he didn't accidentally use it before he managed to get control over his abilities. It seemed easy enough to avoid now, and so far, despite numerous doctors visits and check-ups and scans, Danny managed to dodge any suspicion that there was anything less than human about him.
"Hey, buddy, how about we get you downstairs?" said Dad. Danny hadn't even noticed him enter, which seemed like an incredible feat given his size, and Danny nodded as his father easily picked him up. The rare benefit to being small for his age. "Are you getting lighter?"
"I did just throw up," he joked meekly, and Dad grinned at him.
"That's the spirit, kiddo! Figures you'd get sick just as we're starting to get all this school stuff straightened out," he sighed as he carried him down the stairs and gently placed him on the couch. Dad put a blanket on him, a surprisingly ordinary looking afghan, and then placed a bucket next to him just in case. "What do you want to watch?"
"I don't care. I think I'm just going to lay down." His father nodded, ruffling his hair as if he were still a seven-year-old. Danny grimaced and pushed him away half-heartedly, and then tried not to groan as Dad put on some old monster movie. Danny should have picked something. He was in no mood for stories about monsters.
Danny lay on the couch while Dad cleaned up his room and Mom continued talking to Jazz. Given the length of the call, he knew Jazz must be filling his Mom in on what happened. Well, what they thought happened, at any rate. What a mess. How was a possessed person supposed to act after being freed from possession? Confused? Grateful? Maybe dead? He already covered being sick, even if that was an accident. He really should've researched this.
His stomach felt a bit better when he finally heard the car outside, followed by four doors slamming shut. Well. Inevitable, he supposed. Closing his eyes, he pretended to be asleep, not wanting to talk to any of them just now, their confessions about him too raw for him to process. Even if they didn't know everything, even if they didn't get that Phantom was the same person as him, it still stung bitterly to hear what was probably only a tiny fraction of how much he hurt all of them.
He heard his parents on the stairs and felt rather than saw their gaze on him. "If Jazz is right . . . we need to check. Can you get the scanner, honey?" Mom whispered.
"Of course, Mads."
That was that, then.
The door swung open and Danny peeked through his eyelids just enough to see Jazz step inside first. "Hey, mom," she whispered, giving her a quick hug. "Is Danny . . . ?"
"Asleep right now. He was sick a few minutes ago and seemed a bit disoriented, which would be normal if you're right about him being possessed," she said. Hooray. Way to luck into convincingly pretending to be a recently released victim of possession. It seemed like he'd gotten lucky a lot lately, and while his luck wasn't as bad as Tucker's, it usually wasn't good, either, and he wondered when the other shoe would drop. "But I wish you told us what you were planning to do. You're lucky none of you were seriously hurt. Dealing with ghosts and summoning them is incredibly dangerous, and fixing what happened to Danny . . . he could have been seriously hurt. He is hurt. We might not know for a few days if Danny will be okay."
"I'm sorry," apologized Jazz. "I just didn't want Phantom to figure out what we were planning. The more people that knew or that we talked to about it, the more likely we thought that would happen."
"I know, dear. Just please talk to us first next time, okay?" sighed Mom as Dad walked back into the room.
"I can't believe we missed it, Mads," said Dad. Danny closed his eyes completely, not daring to peek through as he felt his father's weight on the couch beside him. The scanner beeped softly as he moved it slowly over his prone form. "All of the signs and we just thought he'd given up, but our poor boy was in there, fighting this entire time while that ghost used him. We should've checked him again sooner."
His lip trembled slightly, and although Danny knew he didn't need to worry about the scan showing anything, he still felt terrified. What if they changed the way the scan worked? What if he was wrong, and they realized he was Phantom and started shooting at him or experimenting on him?
"And Phantom. He had us starting to think he might not be so bad, after all," said Mom.
"I was fooled too, Mrs. Fenton. We all were," said Valerie as she and the others sat down in the living room. Oh, great. Was he going to need to pretend to sleep in front of them all night? Most days he would beg for a chance to get a few extra hours of rest, but with a room full of anxious family and friends studying his every move, he doubted he could manage it no matter how hard he tried. Not to mention he rarely had anything but nightmares lately even when he did sleep.
The room was silent as his Dad finished up the scan, and Danny tried to pretend to sleep and breathe normally even as he felt his heart freeze in his chest. "Negative for possession. Some low levels of residual ectoplasm, but that's not surprising. We can try running him through a decontamination sequence tomorrow and see if it helps."
Great. More vomiting in his future. The only thing decontamination sequences ever did were leave him feeling nauseous and disoriented for a few days, and while it might help sell the lie, Danny really, really didn't want to go through several days of his parents trying to purge a part of him that could never be removed.
"You mean we actually did it?" whispered Tucker. "Oh thank god." Tucker cried for a moment while Sam comforted him, probably overwhelmed with relief now that Danny was fixed. How bad would it hurt when they realized nothing changed, not really? Danny felt a twinge of guilt, but not enough to risk everything by confessing the truth.
"Can we wake him up?" asked Valerie.
"We probably should," said Dad. "He should get some fluids down." Nope, fluids sounded terrible. His stomach felt a bit better, but if he tried to put more in it there was no way it wouldn't come right back up. He felt a hand on his shoulder shake him gently. "Hey, kiddo? We need you to get up for a minute. Your friends are here, too."
"I'm awake," he mumbled as he slowly opened one eye, pretending. Lying. This was never going to stop, was it? He would be stuck carrying this secret to his grave.
"Danny!" His sister lunged at him in an instant, wrapping her arms around him tightly, and he hissed through his teeth.
"Oww, Jazz, my stomach, please stop–I just threw up, do you want me to throw up again?!" he snapped as he pushed her away.
"Oh, right! Sorry, Danny," she said quickly, her face flushed as she released him, and then she brushed a loose strand of hair behind his ear. "Oh, Danny, I'm so, so sorry that we didn't figure it out sooner. I can't imagine–do you even know what day it is? Where you are?"
"Our house? And, um . . . no to the first one. My brain feels kind of like mush," he lied as he slowly sat up, delighted when he didn't throw up, and he stared at his palm with the death mark. The most obvious, clear sign of what he was, and that his parents, the theoretical experts on the paranormal, refused to see. "I kind of don't feel . . . attached? Like my arm isn't my arm or something? I don't know." He flexed his fingers, staring at them, as someone shoved a glass in his hands. Dad, maybe? It didn't matter. It was all just another lie on top of a mountain built from them. He didn't want to keep doing this.
But his friends and family - none of them wanted to know the truth. They wanted simplicity. They wanted Danny Fenton, pre-accident, not a worry in the world except for getting into an astrophysics program and finding a way to impress popular girls like Paulina. They didn't want the real him or want to know him. They could never love him for what he was and would always be, the barest hint of it leading them to assume that the person he was since his accident had to be a ghost, because it was unacceptable for him to be the real Danny Fenton.
And something inside him broke at the realization, that his family and friends did not want him or love him, and although he didn't mean to, he felt the tears trickling down his cheeks.
"Do you hate us?" whispered Sam as he hastily wiped them away. Of course. They didn't–they couldn't–understand why. They thought it was a sign of relief, maybe, or loss at how he lost nearly two years of his life to a ghost.
"How could I? It's not like you could have known." Half-truths were better. Easier to remember. Easier to be convincing. He'd gotten so, so very good at the art of lying. "My tongue feels heavy. Is that normal?" Maybe if they thought he was struggling to talk, then they'd leave him alone. Let him sleep instead. He forced down a small sip of water, feeling it burn as it went down his throat, and his stomach almost rioted at even the tiny amount of fluid.
"We haven't seen a case of possession that lasted nearly as long as yours," Mom said. "The longest one we ever encountered was three months. I can't really say what's normal or not, Danny, but most of the symptoms we did see got better in a few days."
He gave a half-nod as he slumped back against the couch. "Can he . . . can he do it again?" He couldn't bring himself to say the word. The lie was too hard right now. Too much.
"We don't know for sure," Dad admitted. "But we'll be keeping an eye on you and watching for it just in case, son. We can do the scans regularly and make it part of our routine. And as soon as we catch Phantom, I promise you, kiddo, that we'll make sure he can't ever do this again. Even if we have to chase him down in the Ghost Zone, we won't let him get away with this. We'll tear that ghost apart molecule by molecule."
He should have said something approving. He should have been grateful, thanked his Dad, and maybe cried a bit more if he wanted to be convincing. But hearing his Dad threatening to slowly tear him apart, after everything else tonight? All he could manage was a very small "Oh."
He saw them exchange worried glances. "I think it'd be a good idea if you got some rest, sweetie," Mom said. "Kids, I know you want to spend time with him, but maybe we could give him a few days to readjust?"
"Of course, Mrs. F," said Tucker. "Anything for my best friend. Just, um, let us know when you feel up for a visit, okay, man?"
He should've mustered up some enthusiasm. Should've talked about wanting to play Doomed! again or going to the movies or whatever it was that people whose lives weren't consumed by ghosts did. But he didn't have the heart, and instead, he gave a half-nod. "Sure. Okay."
Sam and Tucker and Valerie said their goodbyes, leaving him with his parents and sister. "We're going to reach out to a few colleagues, see if they have some suggestions to help you reacclimate, kiddo," said Jack. "Jazz, would you mind keeping an eye on him for a bit?"
"Not at all." Jazz smiled warmly and sat down on the couch beside him as their parents left the room, and she put a hand gently on his knee. "Must be nice to be free from Phantom's control, huh, little brother? I'm sorry it took so long."
"It's okay. I'm fine, Jazz."
Perfectly, absolutely fine.
A/N: Sorry if you caught the weirdly formatted chapter that went up - that's happened to me twice on here and I'm not sure why. Argh.
Anyway, a lot of folks predicted that Desiree would twist their wish in some way. I thought about it originally when I wrote this, but ultimately decided that she wouldn't deliberately try to do so. Part of it is because in this fic, the ghosts genuinely like Danny (at least as Fenton) and don't want to harm him. The other is that I headcanon that there isn't always a twist, but there IS always a negative impact whether that's on the person who made the wish or someone else. Hence why Desiree can get sucked up into the thermos in canon with a wish - it negatively impacts her, but there isn't really a 'twist' there, so to speak. And, uh, I think (hope) it's obvious that even though they technically got what they wished for here, someone - namely Danny - is going to suffer for it. Hope that makes sense.
Poor kid.
Anyway, that's the end of Part One. The next chapter should still go up next week.
