A/N:
Wowie! I apologize for how late this chapter is, but it still made it out today! I had a bit of editing to do for this chapter, and some other writing to take care of. Still, we made it! Welcome to the first chapter of Act Three, dear readers! This is more of a recovery chapter, but we'll be back on the action real soon. Nothing else to report before the chapter, I'll see you at the bottom!
Chapter Summary:
Danny gets patched up by Jazz post-confrontation, and gets some advice from his dad...
Chapter Specific Warnings:
Gore, Medical Procedures(stitching), Hurt/comfort(emotional and physical), Body Horror
Chapter Title:
Discourse: Verbal exchange, conversation. ... To exercise reason; to employ the mind in judging and inferring; to reason.
Pertinacious: Holding tenaciously to an opinion or purpose... Stubbornly resolute or tenacious.
Fidelity: Faithfulness to one's duties ... Loyalty to one's spouse or partner, including abstention from cheating or extramarital affairs.
8:13pm; December 8th, 2005; Amity
The sting of the open air on his wounds kept him grounded. Every time he wanted to slip away from the present moment of anxiety and worry, retreat to some place where the last hour hadn't happened, he'd breathe. The muscles between his collarbone and lower ribs stretched and flexed with every inhaled breath, skin pulled farther apart and then squeezed together by the pumping of his lungs. He'd laid down on top of his bed, over a towel, and waited. The cuts were too deep, the area too broad, for him to stitch himself. Jazz was coming. His sister was downstairs, pretending to study, helping maintain the sense of normalcy needed to convince their parents he was uninjured. His blood cooled a sticky combination of bright red and green, webs of ectoplasm stretching along the surface of the wounds, trying to pull them closed. It worked much better than his human blood's clotting factor, flexible enough to move with his breathing, but tight enough to continually pull the frayed edges of his torn flesh closer with each passing second. It would make stitching easier. It always did.
Still, if he tried to raise his arms—twist to stitch himself—he'd just tear and re-open everything. So, he waited. He listened to the slugging of the water through the house's pipes, the pattering of the branches against his window, felt the slimy sensation of blood leaking down his ribs, and waited. He was laying too flat for vertigo to harm him, even as he started spinning slowly while laying completely still, but if Jazz could hurry the fuck up, that'd be great. He hissed as he flexed a little to raise his head and look at the time. It'd only been another minute; it just felt like an eternity.
"Sorry Danny," the door closed with a quiet tap, "I had to wait for them to go back into the lab."
"No worries, not like I could go anywhere." He heard her hissed intake of breath, could imagine the horrified looking expression to accompany it. "It smells like a butcher shop in here, and I look like an incompletely done up rack of ribs, but all of that is just dramatic window dressing. I'll be fine."
"Where's the first aid kit?"
"By my desk, it was a bitch and a half getting it from under the bathroom sink. We should hide it someplace that requires less bending and reaching." He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of his desk chair, where he'd placed the plastic box, and focused on his breathing. The room was spinning more, and the feeling of hanging near the ceiling was kicking in.
"I say that every time, and then, every time you complain about having to think of a new spot for it." He heard her rustling about inside the first-aid kit for medical supplies and started mentally preparing. Iodine and alcohol stung like hell, and stitches were worse. No matter how many times he insisted he didn't need real disinfecting, that he never bothered when he stitched himself, his sister didn't listen. That meant the hard-to-reach spots or wider areas always got an extra heavy dose to make up for it via Jazz.
"I've suggested several great spots for it."
"Half of them have been inside the walls." She moved closer. He could feel the heat coming off her fleece PJ covered legs near his own, "The other half haven't been any more sanitary."
"It's a sealed box."
"It's not a hermetic seal, Danny, things will end up inside!"
"It's not like there's anything dangerous in the walls. I'm sticking stuff in there all the time; I would know." The bed near his right side dipped down, and a hand with gauze moved through his peripheral vision. The discussion was a great distraction from the pain. "If the bags of chips and Wild Monster are still edible after pulling them out of the wall, the first-aid kit should be fine."
"The edibility of those snacks are always questionable, little brother." She dabbed around the wounds, trying to clean them up enough to stitch. "What caused these?"
"Valerie."
"With what? I've never seen her use any weapons that made three evenly spaced slashes like this." He could smell the alcohol. He tried not to wince in anticipation of the burn.
"Her fancy new claws in that curse-infected suit." He gasped when the cold press of the alcohol soaked gauze gave way to the inevitable sting. "Fuck, I hate that. Why don't you ever—"
"Not having that argument again. I can't stop you from trying to give yourself gangrene when you do your own stitches, but I'm not contributing. So, I guess your truce is dead."
"She tried to BBQ Ohm."
"The...eel?" she guessed. She made another swipe horizontally across his chest to clean between the second and bottom slash.
"Yeah. That attack was so strong, it would have fried Ohm if I hadn't blocked it. It could have done serious damage to any one of my usual ghosts too. I have no idea what she was thinking."
"She was probably thinking, 'Agh! Die ghost scum!' while firing from one of her many laser cannons."
"That's...yeah, but I mean, the suit was making her."
"The suit is evil and controlling her now?"
"Did you miss the part when I said it was cursed? I'm pretty sure I texted that…" He heard her grab the scissors from one of the kit's compartments, and steeled himself. It'd be time to treat him like a quilt soon. "The tech has Whispering Panic; it's controlling her."
"You're sure about that? Because, I was watching the part of the fight they got on the news, and she didn't look possessed."
"She spent the entire conversation talking in plural and screaming like a busted modem. Ugh," the first tug of the sutures was always the worst, "and my energy made the suit stop glitching."
"Hm, she either has a curse, or the newest upgrade is like the black suit in that comic you liked as a kid."
"You read it too," he held his breath for a moment as the needle drew the edges of his skin near his collarbone together, "it's just like one of those melders. It made the suit black, Val more aggressive, and everything." The depth of the cuts, and the position of bones nearby, made stitching here one of his least favorite spots. Everything pulled, the skin was thin, and a whole bunch of muscles and ligaments wiggled things in this area when he tried to exist. "Wait, if you saw the fight on the news, how did you not know what made these?"
"You were already injured by the time the fight started broadcasting. I hoped a ghost did this, and you two fighting was separate." She finished off the first row and moved away to re-thread the needle. "These are awful. The second one looks like it grazed your core in ghost form."
"It didn't"
"I could see it glowing through the slash whenever you moved while fighting."
"It wasn't that deep." He locked eyes with her for a moment, taking in the worn and worried look on her face. "It hurt, but it wasn't lethal."
"Oh, well, if it wasn't lethal, then I guess it's ok." She started on the second gash, pressing the edges as close together as she could. He could feel her fingers trembling. "At least the claws were sharp and had a single edge, this would be terrible to sew if it was jagged."
"You could sound less sarcastic."
"You could have blasted her out of the sky instead of letting your guard down."
"You don't know what happened." The heated look she sent his way managed to communicate annoyance and to question his intelligence.
"You're a good fighter, Danny; she couldn't have hurt you this badly unless you let your guard down. You need to be more careful. Cursed, glitchy tech or not, she's still strong enough to kill you."
"She wasn't…" He wanted to deny it, he really did, but he remembered the feeling of his core pulsing under the palm of his hand. The real Valerie didn't want to kill him, but that suit did. "That's not important. How am I going to get that suit off of her?" He forced himself to stay still as she sutured the part over his breastbone.
"You can't."
"You didn't even try to help me think of something, Jazz." His eyes were watering. "I can't just leave her like that. It's affecting her mind, probably her physical health too, and she's a danger to herself and others." He said all of that on a single exhale, trying to move as little as possible. His tears were soaking into his hair by his temples.
"She is, but that doesn't mean there's something you can do about it, Danny." She stopped pulling him back together like a ragged doll, and instead leaned over him to capture his gaze. "You'd need to be able to turn off the suit, which we both know only Vlad can do, or hide it from her, which good luck with that option. You told me it lives under her skin. So if you can't turn it off, and you can't take it off, that leaves convincing her to listen to you." She pressed the torn muscles together on his left side over his ribs to get back to work. "You got carved up the last time you tried that." She sounded tired, like she was using her life-force to form the thread that held him together.
"I can't leave her like that Jazz. I won't." She sighed as she pulled another inch of him, taunt to force his flesh closed.
"You might have superpowers, little brother, but even you can't do everything." He gritted his teeth as she continued working, the area on his sides were much more sensitive. She finished up her grim task in silence, the air heavy with pain and unspoken words. The rest of the cleanup went quickly after he was closed up. It took a few minutes longer to scrub down his skin and wrap him in bandages. She'd helped him off the towel and let him lean on her as he'd carefully slipped a loose t-shirt on over the bandages. She tutted and fussed until he'd gotten into bed. Afterward, she shuffled out of his room with the kit, the door clicking closed behind her. She had to top up the medical supplies inside from her stash for next time.
He took shallow breaths and tried to ignore the way his nose had stuffed up the last few minutes. His face itched with drying tears, and he couldn't even scrub at it for a few more hours unless he wanted to tear the stitches. They'd need to come out in the morning, he healed that fast, but until then he had to endure sleeping like a frozen statue and the burning itch of healing skin and tissue. He'd glanced at the clock as his sister helped him into bed. It was some time past nine. He had all night, and all of school the next day, to think of a solution before it was time for patrol again. He stared up at the glowing stars on his ceiling, eyes tracing the shape of Ursa Minor and Orion he'd placed there. The view did little to either calm his thoughts or force them away from Valerie. He'd wanted to stargaze with her.
Time ticked forward, one dripping second after another, as the pulling sensation on his chest eased and the itching died down into a dull tickle. The ectoplasm holding me together inside must be reabsorbing. He'd been staring up at his ceiling for God knows how long, the soreness and pain of torn muscles fading into the sensation of lighter bruising and twinging scabs, before he threw back the covers in frustration. He only winced a bit through the motion, everything staying in place due to Jasmine's meticulous even suturing. He'd have to fill up her car to thank her this weekend. She hated pumping gas.
He looked over at the clock, taking in the glowing red lights with a groan. It was twenty past midnight. He'd been staring, breathing, and solving nothing for three hours. He should sleep. He needed sleep, but his feet carried him towards his pajama pants and his house coat instead. The more layers he had on, the less likely his parents would spot something wrong when he went downstairs if they were still working. He softly closed his bedroom door behind him, and tip tapped down the steps, avoiding the creaky spot near the bottom. He'd get a glass of water, maybe a snack, so his energy wouldn't plummet overnight, and then crawl back into bed. He started shuffling past the living room, before a voice got his attention.
"Can't sleep, kiddo?" his dad asked as he stepped into the spot between the living room and the kitchen.
"Uh, yeah, I was thirsty."
"No midnight snack?" He looked up from his chair, knitting needles frozen between one stitch and the next. "You didn't come down for your post-dinner top-up, I figured you'd be hungry." He went back to his row, eyes looking down to follow the pattern on the sweater he was making. It was gold and green.
"Er, is it obvious that I do that now?"
"Ha, of course it is! I do the grocery shopping." He grinned, finishing off one row and going on to the next. "Don't worry Danno, I was a growing teen boy too once. Heck, you eat way less than me or any of my footballer friends in high school. We'd just chow through the whole pantry if my mom left us alone for too long. You're much better than that, much skinnier too, but you take more after your mother." He pointed in the direction of the pantry with one needle, "Go on and grab something. I know you're starving."
He wasn't, but he needed energy to heal, even if the lingering pain made him nauseous. "Thanks dad." He quickly crossed into the kitchen and grabbed a bowl, deciding on some chips and bean dip along with an apple to tide him over until morning. "It's pretty late. I thought you'd be asleep by now." He carefully sunk into the chair at the kitchen table, avoiding bending anything unnecessary.
"Eh, I'm behind." He waved the sweater around, flapping what looked like the bottom third through the air. "It won't be ready in time for Christmas without a few late nights. I should've gotten started before Thanksgiving, but that ghost plague possessing all the tech in town kept distracting me." He did a few more stitches, focusing on an area that transitioned from green to gold. The sweater didn't have even edges between the colors; instead, there was an ombre to take advantage of the pattern of cables he was placing into it. "I never see Vladdie wearing anything warm. You'd think he'd have more winter clothes from living in Wisconsin! I know he'll love this; I just gotta get it finished."
He decided not to mention that the Cheesehead would burn it, like every one of his dad's gifts. It was too depressing. He sat at the kitchen table, scooping bean dip onto the corn chips, and staring at the time on the stove clock. He was no closer to a solution to his Valerie's-suit-is-killing-her issue. He'd already asked Jazz, and she hadn't even bothered brainstorming. She loved brainstorming! He couldn't ask Sam and Tucker. Last time he brought it up, they were convinced it was a normal upgrade. They'd sent outraged messages about her breaking the alliance and attacking him earlier. He'd read it while waiting for Jazz to come in to stitch him up. Team Phantom was in accord, Phantom excepted. The misery of being sliced up like a Thanksgiving turkey paled in comparison to the knowledge of going this alone. The challenge of saving Valerie felt more insurmountable than defeating Pariah Dark without the rest of Team Phantom. Who did that leave for aid? Vlad?Oh, right... He looked over at his dad, working hard on a sweater that'd be thrown in a fireplace or blown up with ghost powers the moment he handed it over. Maybe he'd have some good advice. If any Fenton knew about stubbornly trying to reach someone hostile, it was Jack Fenton. "Hey dad?"
"Yeah Danno?" He looked up for a moment before returning to finish off a line. "You want something more substantial?"
"Nah, it's not that. It's…" How did he explain this? He couldn't give too much detail. Phantom and Huntress' fight had been broadcast all over Amity by the news. He couldn't mention anything that sounded like a physical fight, so he'd just stick to an argument with a 'friend'. That was mostly accurate anyway. "I had a bad fight with a friend." He scooped up some more dip and chased it with a bite of apple. "It was really bad, the worst we've ever had actually, and I don't know how to fix it."
"You're hoping your old man has some advice, aren't 'cha?"
"You caught me red-handed." He bit down on the apple and turned to face him, holding it between his teeth so he could move more carefully. Everything was sealed, but he didn't want to take chances with sudden movements. "Need more info?"
"Everything you're comfortable sharing." He placed his knitting back into the basket and gave him a small smile, the picture of attentive parental focus. He'd been doing that more often lately, both of his parents had, actually. Danny didn't know how to feel about it all the time.
"So, this friend, uh, Vicky? We had this fight about cooperation. Well, we were working together on a project in school, not a big one," he rushed to assure his dad before he started worrying about his grades or him slacking off, "but a two day in-class thing. It was over two weeks, and we only had class time to work on it one day a week. We already turned it in, but she's mad at me."
"For what? You did your part right?"
"Of course I did! I put in loads of effort. I mean... I missed a couple of minutes in class to run a quick errand for the teacher, but that's it."
"Is she mad about that?"
"No, well, not exactly?" Oh boy, how did he translate this to his fake school project situation? "So, we're in the same class next semester too, 'cause it's for English, and I liked working with her a lot. She's funny and smart, and a hard worker. It made working on the project easy, and I think we're both gonna ace it."
"She doesn't want to hang out with you, does she?" His dad had this knowing look on his face, one that made him feel slightly nervous. "You're hoping to do more projects together next year, and she wants to ditch you."
"Yeah, that's a word for it." He covered up the feeling of his nose burning by taking another bite out of his apple. "I thought we worked well together, and that we made a good team, but she doesn't want anything to do with me. She practically hates my guts, but I don't know what I did. Everything was fine, and then she got sick."
"With a cold?"
"Something like that. She was gone a few days, after we finished up the project, and she came back saying she never wanted to see my face again. We'd been talking before that just fine. I don't get what happened." That didn't exactly match up to his situation, but hopefully it was close enough to get some good advice. His dad looked thoughtful, rubbing his chin, eyes raised to the ceiling. He finished off the first half of his apple. "She's avoiding me now, even though we're two desks away from each other, and I don't know how to fix this. I want to apologize, but I don't know what I did to upset her."
"So, this 'Vicky' and you were working together, and you were getting along, but then she came back to school after a short break, and now she'd rather run away than talk to you. That sum it up?"
"Yeah." He'd gotten too many chips for the amount of dip. He always did that. He was too optimistic about the bean to chip ratio. "I want to be friends still, work on more stuff in the future, but she wouldn't dump cafeteria milk on me if I was on fire." He shoved the last of his chips into his mouth, and turned back towards his father. "What would you do if you were me?" He glanced between the bowl on the table and the sink. If he was careful, he could limp over there and back to his chair without drawing suspicion. He pushed out the chair and set his apple on the table, shuffling over to dispose of his dirty dish.
"Well, if you were really getting along before this, I'd just give her some time."
"It's kind of a time sensitive thing?" He had no idea how he'd make this lie work. He set the bowl down, and lingered farther in the kitchen to re-school his features. Breathing deeply pulled his stitches, but it made it easier to fight back tears.
"She's not moving, is she?"
"No." He worked his way back to the table, picking up the apple, and standing by his chair. Hunching to sit would hurt way worse than standing. He didn't need any additional pain to increase the chance of waterworks.
"Then…" He trailed off, clearly waiting for him to fill in the blanks. When the ghost powered teen could only stare back blankly, his dad's face started to light up. "Oh, I think I get the issue. Why don't you come over here and sit next to me. You only got the apple left." He moved the knitting basket out of the way, pushing it to sit near the end table holding a lamp.
"Sure?" He had no idea what his dad had come up with to bridge the gap. This would be interesting. He sat on the couch and took another bite of the granny smith, enjoying the bracing sour tang. Danny's eyes trailed over the soft green and gold wool in neat wound balls in the basket. It was the real stuff. He knew enough about his dad's knitting projects to tell. Vlad deserved acrylic.
"Ok, so 'Vicky' is being a little grumpy right now, but you don't know what you did. You've tried asking, I bet, but she won't tell you. Instead of continuing to pester her about it, why don't you just be nice?"
"I am nice?"
"No, no, no, not the normal kind of nice where you wave and say 'hi' but ignore them. You have to do the special kind, where you invite them to hang out with you, or bring them stuff you know they like, or figure out how to get paired up with them in class. The important part is just to be persistent and really low-key. Don't get upset if she brushes you off or gets cranky, as long as she continues to talk to you, you're winning."
"Um, dad—"
"Hold on, I'm not finished yet! Now, you only do that if she hasn't told you what's wrong. If you ask, and she says 'nothing' or she won't answer, then you just have to keep it up until she tells you or she calms down. I know this sounds like 'bugging her', but is she the type to hold back telling you if you've made her mad?" He gave him another knowing look, and it was starting to worry him.
"No?"
"I didn't think so, Danno, you like opinionated girls."
"Um…" No, something about this context seemed 'off'. "I mean, I don't mind trying to talk to her some more, but she really made it sound like she'd rather push me into traffic than speak to me." His dad laughed, big, deep, thunderous chuckles that left him slapping his knee.
"Some people just like playing hard to get." No, what did his dad think this was? "But if she really didn't like you, or want to talk, she'd say why, right? She would just, you know, say she 'didn't like your face' or that 'you were a total dummy' or something. I bet she can tell you in full detail why she hates ghosts."
"What?" Why is everything ghosts to his parents?
"The point here is, she's just trying to see how much effort your willing to put in to get her attention. Don't rise to her bait, just stay calm and keep being nice. She'll come around. In fact, I bet your crush is thinking about how much she likes you right now." His grin hitched bigger, if that were possible, and Danny felt a sense of panic slowly taking over his limbs. How had this turned into a conversation about romantic feelings?
"She's not—I don't have a crush on Vicky!"
"Of course you don't son." Another look, this time smug and amused. "I'm sure 'Vicky' doesn't have a crush on you either. That's why she laughed at all of your jokes, and liked spending time with you, until she suddenly got cold feet for no reason at all." That was accurate, sort of, but—no, no. Valerie is just friends with me, and now had an evil curse taking over her brain. Those were friendship chuckles! The memories of her leaning close, eyes sparkling, as she teased him about how much she liked him, and the sensation of her hoisting him off the ground started arguing back. "Danno?"
"Uh, yes Dad?"
"Some people just get spooked by their feelings, kiddo, but they're still there. As long as you're kind and consistent, and you think she's a good person worth pursuing, I say go for it." His dad's face was lit up like their Christmas tree, all overly bright and with more red than was sensible. "There might be a lot of naysayers, people who think you're stupid for continuing to be kind when she's being mean to you, but don't listen to them. It doesn't matter if it's your friends, or Jazzypants, or even me and your mom. What matters is if you still believe in your relationship, and you still think she's a good person deep down."
"Ok." This conversation was beginning to confuse him. Maybe it was all the blood loss and the lack of sleep getting to him, but something about his tone… "I mean, that's good advice I think, but that doesn't tell me how to mend things with her. She's still mad every time she sees me." He could still hear the sound of her claws racking across the surface of his shield.
"She might pretend to feel that way for a while, but you just have to be steadfast. Heck, in a couple of months, I bet you'll look back on this little episode of her playing hard-to-get and laugh. It'll be a great story to tell later. Just remember, don't let anyone deter you, kiddo. As long as you still like her, and she doesn't tell you to take a hike for real, just be kind. You should have some allowance money saved up. Why don't you buy her a Christmas present before the school year ends? Or, you're pretty handy, you could make her one!" His dad picked up his knitting project again, and he watched him knit a brand new complicated stitch into the sweater. He didn't knit himself, but he'd seen his dad do it enough to know placing cables like that took more yarn and a lot more time.
"I'll think about it." He watched him do a few more stitches, it would take him dozens of hours to finish. "I'm gonna head to bed. I've got school in the morning."
"Yup, and you'll have all week to put my advice into practice." He got to the center of a row and changed the pattern to finish off that part of the cable. Staring at the sweater made his head feel fuzzy, like there was something just at the edge of his understanding.
"Thanks for the advice…" He tossed his apple core towards the trash, watching it arc through the air and land inside the bag with a thump. He smiled at the little victory and the easy pain free use of his arms. The stitches were itching again, but in that 'almost healed' way that meant he'd be free of them soon. He waved to his dad as he headed upstairs, head still fuzzed up with the weird way his dad had responded. It was sort of useful, even if all the details didn't match up, but it reminded him… He put the thought aside. He was not chasing another string tonight. There was something on the other end, and he didn't have time to worry about it.
He stopped in the bathroom, lifting up the t-shirt after opening his house coat, and prodded gingerly at the bandages and gauze. Underneath, he felt the poking wires of the sutures and the raised bits of nearly healed skin and scarring. Nothing painful flared back to greet his poking, and nothing felt out of place or uneven. In a few days, even the scars would fade into the smooth, unnatural paleness that made up his half-ghost complexion. Being a halfa did come with some perks to make up for all the suffering. He put his hands through his hair, scrubbing them around to loosen dried salt from tears and pain-induced sweat. He'd have to shampoo it later, and that always added an annoying few minutes to his morning routine. He considered disposing of the gauze now, just to make his morning routine easier, but decided against it. He'd take care of it when he did something about the stitches, and that'd be sooner than he'd be up for school.
So, school, what am I going to do? Valerie probably is coming to school, and we have second period together. She might hate my ghost half, but human me can still talk to her. Maybe, if I'm careful, I can convince her to get the suit looked at or, no, that's not going to work. I'm not supposed to know she's the Red Huntress. I could just ask her how she's feeling, that can do the same thing. She's usually honest with me. But she hadn't texted back over the last two weeks. She'd drifted away to delayed responses and then one word texts a week before that. No. He'd see her in class, and then he could say something in person. She'd be a lot easier to handle when she couldn't dodge his messages in the digital landscape.
Mr. Clark was a hardass, so talking in class would be a no-go, and Val never answered passed notes. That left lunch, she sat close enough that he could confront her then, get her to leave to talk to him in a hallway, something. She'd seemed distant in person, too. She'd sat with him, Tucker, and Sam a few times at lunch over the course of the wiggler plague, but that had stopped before her texts did. He just needed a few minutes to start up the conversation. He'd figure something out in the moment. He thought better on his feet than trying to plan things out anyway. That did leave the question of what to do once he spoke to her.
Even if he somehow got her to admit to being Red Huntress and convinced her the tech was cursed, that didn't mean he knew how to fix it. The curse would have had weeks to embed itself inside of her suit, over a month. It was entrenched. He'd tried ejecting the illness with a wave of his energy all throughout the fight earlier. The instability had retreated, the suit maintaining humanoid shape and responding to her more readily, but that was it. She'd still been calling herself 'we' and still sounded like the tech had her head held underwater. If the curse was that embedded…
He stared at his reflection in the mirror, taking in the shadows under his eyes and lines from scrunching his brow. If just brushing energy over the surface didn't do it, he'd need to go deeper. If they were connected, if he used all of his will, he should be able to burn it out. He rolled his shoulders, testing the feel of the muscles and connections near the top gash. It'd be ready to come out in another hour. He brought his focus back to curing Valerie, forcing himself to confront the reality of how to cure the Whispering Panic.
She'll be able to feel everything. The image of her silhouetted against the night sky a few hours ago came back to him, all inky void and soulless expanse. He remembered the sound of her pained screams as they'd fought, the way her spine had crunched, twisted, and popped as she attempted to skewer him, the way her voice echoed like a sob. He clenched his jaw, fire catching in his reflected eyes. "You're going to save her, Fenton, no matter what."
A/N:
Welcome to the bottom, dear readers! Danny has gotten patched up physically and mentally, now all he has to do is complete the task of being the Knight in Shining Armor. How difficult can that be? Next Wednesday will be a double header! I'll have the next chapter for this fic up, as well as my Valentine's Core Exchange gift. I can say that it will be a multi-chapter fic, so it will have an upload schedule as well. I still can't tell you anything content wise about it, but I'll give details during the Wednesday upload!
Something else that will be happening on the 14th is the opening of the sign-ups for Invisobang. Like I said last update, I'll be participating, and I hope some of my readers will join me! It would be nice to get to know you as a fellow creator and talk to you over discord. I'll also be doing Green with Envy this year as a colorist, so this will be a busy spring for me.
We're moving into the final stretch, and there's only 5 more chapters to go now! Can't wait for future updates? Check out my Tumblr where I post Previews of upcoming fanfic, excerpts from ongoing stories, Lore posts, Meta posts, art and more.
Blog: balshumetsbaragouin . tumblr . com
I'll see you all Wednesday for the double upload!