Chapter Three: Love is (Not) in the Air

"Can I be excused for the rest of my life?" - SpongeBob SquarePants

Speckles outline my vision, but I will not let myself faint. "Love?" I ask, hoping my voice isn't as echo-y as it sounds to me. "Vlad Plasmius is-is Obsessed with love?"

"As in, L-O-V-E?" Jazz asks tightly.

"I know it sounds a little odd," Blairman says, "but trust me when I say that there are stranger Obsessions out there. Ever hear of the Box Ghost?"

Love. Vlad is Obsessed with love. And, he's been targeting me. Dear god, please don't let me pass out. Or, barf. Or, freeze something. None of those actions would be helpful right now.

Dad rubs his chin. "Love, huh? That does sound like a hard thing to find. Plasmius isn't exactly a lovable guy." Said Vlad's most (and only before Vlad worked his twisted magic) enthusiastic supporter during the election.

When did my life become irony incarnate?

I feel something brush against my shirt and realize that Jazz is trying to hold my hand, but hers keeps passing through it. As long as no one notices and that's the only part of me that's intangible, I should be in the clear. I fold my hands behind my back just to be safe.

Thankfully, everyone's focused on Blairman. "Plasmius is actually quite charming once you get to know him. Besides, love doesn't have to be romantic. It can be platonic as well. That's the kind that he usually gets his fix from."

Why don't I feel better? I want to ask point-blank why Vlad's fixated on me, but I can't do that here and it's driving me nuts!

"Let's assume you are telling the truth," Mom says, her note-taking temporarily forgotten. "If Plasmius is having a hard time fulfilling his Obsession, why come to us for help? We're ghost hunters. We're the last people he would have any positive feelings towards, romantic or otherwise."

I want to laugh and cry and punch a wall at the same time.

Blairman bites his lip; he must be facing a similar conflict. "Well, uh, here's where it gets complicated. See, sometimes a ghost will find themselves faced with something they want that relates to their Obsession, but for whatever reason, they simply cannot have it. They will become so focused on this that any other form of their Obsession becomes a temporary relief at best. It's called a fixation, and lucky for us - well, mostly for me - they only occur when some form of trauma is influencing the ghost, so fixations as a whole are quite rare."

Mom has gone back to writing. "And if this 'fixation' isn't dealt with, it has the same effect as going too long without your Obsession?"

Blairman points to her. "Bingo. Which leads to what brought me here today. Over the past few years, Plasmius has been going through fixations like toilet paper. I don't know if it's because he's a ha…ha…" His attempt to not say "halfa" leads to, "Hard…man to love. But, it's a real problem for him. And, it's never been this bad before."

Mom and Dad glance at each other. They know that's not what Blairman was trying to say.

Jazz is able to shift their focus by asking Blairman, "What does Plasmius's fixation have to do with us?" As if she doesn't already know.

"Here comes the complicated part," Blairman mutters. To us, "Currently, Plasmius is fixated on someone right here in Amity Park. That was my initial reason to talk to you," among other things, no doubt, "but now I find out that the boy is someone you know personally."

"Boy?" Dad gasps. "How young are we talking?"

The moment of truth arrives in the form of Blairman pursing his lips and wiggling his fingers in my direction. "Mm…sixteen?"

"Seventeen," I say automatically. Then remembering that I'm not supposed to know what's going on, "Uh, why are you looking at me?" At this point, it's okay if my fear shows.

Jazz wraps her arms protectively around me, playing along. "Please tell me it's not my little brother!"

She taps her foot to mine, I realize that she had an ulterior motive. I will away the thin layer of ice that spread around my feet and hope no one else saw it. My powers malfunctioning when I'm stressed is one of the side effects of halfa puberty, and suffice to say that I won't miss it when it's gone.

Blairman raises his hands in a shrug. "I can tell you whatever you want, but it won't change anything."

"Danny?" Dad yelps. "Our son?"

Mom stomps up to Blairman with a harsh snarl. "What does that monster want with my baby?"

Blairman grimaces and takes as big a step away as he can while stuck in his tiny cage. He's taller than her and has superpowers, but…Mom can be scary when she wants to be. "I-I don't have the foggiest idea."

His eyes darted to the left when he said that. If he knows Vlad's secret, he knows Vlad's history with my family. He must have started putting pieces together as soon as he found out that I'm Jack and Maddie Fenton's son.

"Regardless of the reason," Blairman goes on, "I don't want to see an innocent kid get hurt. Especially Cereal Boy! I genuinely like him, and I still haven't convinced him to star in one of my movies."

"And, you never will," I inform with a hard look.

Blairman sniffs a laugh and winks at me. "David Kaufman told me the same thing."

"Danny," Dad says, "can you think of any reason why Plasmius would target you? Even the most insignificant thing?"

Oh, sure. There are plenty of reasons. I'm the only other halfa he knows. He's wanted to adopt me since the moment he learned this about me. His attempts to clone me only resulted in a slightly younger girl version of me whom he tried to destroy because she wasn't perfect or something. His only real companions that I know of are a movie director with an ego bigger than the planet and a cat named after my mother. He is a seriously crazed up fruit loop in every sense of the term.

"I don't know," I lie. "I don't think I've said two words to the guy."

"Well, there's obviously something about you that he likes," Mom says darkly. "And given his Obsession, I'd rather not think too hard about it." You and me, both. She turns to Blairman. "Here's another thing I don't understand. Why do you care what happens to Danny?"

Blairman flicks his feather boa over his shoulder. "I told you. Not only do I like your son as a person, but he has a face for the big screen!"

"No, I don't!" I snap.

Blairman ignores me. "Beyond that, a grown man stalking a teenager is just plain creepy."

"Can't argue with that logic," Jazz says, releasing her grip on me.

"Thanks for the warning, Blairman," Dad says. To Mom, "We'll have to keep Danny under lock and key until this is resolved."

Mom responds with, "Luckily, all that work with Phantom granted us a more powerful Ghost Shield."

Good luck stopping Vlad Masters from getting in.

Blairman has the same thought. "That won't work. Vlad can, uh… Don't ask me how he does it, but he's slipped past Ghost Shields before."

"I'm not worried," Dad boasts with a fist over his heart. "Our new enhancements on the Ghost Shield can stop the most powerful ghosts in the Zone! And, all of their powers! Courtesy of the legends known as the Guys in White!"

I know the answer but I ask anyway to drive home the fact that we are not prepared for this. "Can it withstand something like - oh, I don't know - Phantom's Ghostly Wail?"

Dad sobers a little. "Well, no. Not yet." He brightens again. "But, once the Guys in White get back to us with their findings, it'll withstand ten Ghostly Wails!"

"In the meantime," Mom says, "it's getting late. Jazz, you have school tomorrow. Danny, you're not leaving this house until your father and I deal with Plasmius."

A normal person with a normal life would be fine with chilling at home all day instead of going to school.

But by "deal with," I know they mean, "rip him apart, molecule by molecule," and that would cause a new set of problems.

Jazz and Dad assured me that everything would turn out alright, though Jazz's confidence was a little more forced since she knows the extent the problem. I wish it was one of them knocking on my bedroom door. But, no. When I open the door after putting my pajamas on, Mom is there. She's still in her jumpsuit, but the hood and goggles are no longer blocking her face.

"I hope you don't mind," Mom says sternly, "but I won't be able to sleep until I talk to you."

Any chance I can put this off until the end of time? No? Didn't think so.

"I won't sleep at all," I reply, stepping back to let Mom walk in.

Mom shuts the door and pushes a few strands of her short auburn bob out of her face. "Why did you let that ghost out?"

Yep. No putting this off. "You stuffed her in a jar. What is there to explain?"

"Danny-"

"You and Dad promised me that you wouldn't hurt ghosts who weren't hurting others." And, you've been breaking that promise since the day you made it, I want to say, but the words won't come out.

Mom relaxes, thinking that she's found the problem. "Sweetie, you weren't there. That ghost attacked a child. He was okay, but-"

"Kathleen told me what happened," I snap. At Mom's confusion, I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "The ghost, Mom. She told me about the kid. She said it was an accident, and I believe her."

Mom gapes at me for a moment before touching her forehead and muttering, "Of course he knows its name."

"Her name," I hiss through my teeth. With the heat shooting through my veins, it's a miracle none of my powers are acting up. Unless part of me has gone intangible without my knowledge. I could live with that as long as Mom doesn't touch me and find out.

"Be that as it may," Mom says, subtly telling me that she doesn't think Kathleen was telling the truth, "you can't just release a ghost on a whim! You got lucky, Danny. Next time, it might be someone more volatile, someone who will attack you on sight!"

That soothes my temper. She's not mad about losing her "subject." She's mad that I put myself in danger. "Mom, I knew the risk I was taking, and I promise you that I was prepared for the worst." Actually, the idea of being attacked wasn't a thought in my head, but I'm not going to tell her that. Besides, it's not as if I couldn't have defended myself.

But, Mom isn't satisfied with my response. "I know you think you were doing the right thing, Danny, so I won't punish you this time. But, I need you to remember that your father and I are in this line of work for a reason. If you see something strange in a container, then it's something you need to leave alone. You should know better than that at your age."

Fire creeps over me again. I force my voice to stay at a conversational volume. "What if there's someone in a container? Am I supposed to walk away while that person looks right at me, silently begging for help? That's not who I am, Mom!"

"And, I love that about you, Danny. But, you need to start thinking more with your head and less with your heart."

Vlad once told me a similar thing, adding that my emotions would be my undoing. Maybe he's right. Maybe Mom's right.

But, I'm right too.

Not all ghosts are monsters. Some of us want nothing more than to go about our day. Kathleen is in the latter group. I wonder if I'll ever see her again. If I do, I'll tell her that she's welcome back any time.

Mom misinterprets my silence. She cups my face and kisses my cheek. There's such raw love in her eyes that it washes away the anger. But, it's not enough to flush out the knowledge that she hates ghosts more than she loves her children.

"I care about ghosts, Mom," I tell her. The words come out quietly but without room for argument. "You can't change that about me." Her smile wavers but remains. I take her hands off my face and hold them in the air between us. Those slender fingers that I inherited wrap around my hands. "I will protect anyone who needs it. I don't give a half a damn what a person looks like or if they can walk through walls, disappear, and fly. They're all the same in my mind, and that is something I will not apologize for."

There's fragility in the way Mom looks at me, the kind of tenderness that she rarely shows. "It's incredible, the kind of person you've grown into." She lightly caresses my cheek with the back of her hand. "It feels like just yesterday you were this tiny little thing in my arms, so reliant on me for everything."

I have to speak around the tightness in my throat. "I still need my mama."

"And, I still need my baby."

I smile to mask my guilt.

Because I said that I need my mama. That's the name I use for Eileen Merryweather, my imprinted mother, my ghost-mom, someone I love and respect and cherish (and wish I was related to).

Maddie Fenton has never been anything but "Mom" to me. But…she wasn't much of a mom, was she? Mom and I were so close when I was a kid, and I still care about her. But looking back, was it the love of a mother and son…or two friends?

Mom and Dad did their best to be good parents, and I've never once felt unwanted by them. But, it was Jazz who did most of the raising. She's only two years older than me, yet she was more of a parent to me than the people who brought us into this cruel, beautiful world.

This isn't the first time that thought has crossed my mind. But, never before has it been this present, this hard to push down.

Not when the evidence is gazing at me with such adoration.

"I love you, Mom," I say because I need to hear myself say it, to reaffirm that it's true.

Mom pulls me in for a hug that nearly breaks me. "I love you too, sweetheart."

When we finally bid each other goodnight and she leaves the room, I stand there and stare at the closed door where she used to be. A masochistic part of me notes that she didn't say a thing about the change in decor. (A lifetime) Several months ago, my room had been a homage to my love of astronomy. Then one too many failures had resulted in me destroying all my space stuff in a fit of self-hatred. Mom didn't ask where it all went. In all this time, she's never said a word on the subject. Even Dad, my well-meaning but ever-clueless father, noticed the change. His only comment had been a cheerful, "Redecorating, huh?" but at least he noticed.

Dad is better with feelings than Mom. He pays more attention because of it. That's all it is.

If I tell myself that enough times, maybe I'll start to believe it.

Sleep is impossible and not for lack of trying. When I did manage, I was awoken by a dream of Vlad revealing my secret to Mom in order to convince her to let him take me away, and it worked. When I shot up in bed, sweat wasn't the only reason my face was damp.

I'm not going to get a peaceful night's sleep until this business with Vlad is resolved (and maybe not even then). So, I decide to risk being grounded until I graduate.

I change out of my pajamas and into the first things I can grab: a dark green hoodie, a pair of light blue jeans, and white sneakers that are in desperate need of a wash. (Jazz bought them for me and didn't listen when I explained why white shoes and teenage boys with superpowers don't mix.) I make my way down to the lab as quickly and quietly as I can, hyper-aware of every foot step and creak of the staircase. Dad and Jazz could sleep through a nuclear war, but I can't say the same about Mom.

As soon as I set foot in the lab, I turn the lights on. Mom and Dad had insisted on keeping Blairman in his see-through cage all night, which Jazz and I had mixed feelings about.

Blairman had been idly twirling one end of his feather boa but startles when the lights come on. He sees my approach, and his mouth widens in a broad grin. "Cereal Boy! Come! Entertain me! I am ever so bored!" He punctuates this by leaning back slightly and pressing the back of his hand to his forehead.

He's been here for hours. Alone. In a cage. In the dark. I don't like this guy, but I don't like torture either.

"Who is Plasmius to you?" I ask. Blairman blinks at me, caught off guard by my question. "No matter how much you want me to be in one of your movies," I say with an eye roll, "you wouldn't have gone to this trouble if that was all it was about. You care about Plasmius, don't you?"

The goofball jerkward is gone, sapped out of him with a heavy sigh. "We met in the early days of his death, back when he was new and confused and generally uncomfortable."

I nod, encouraging Blairman to keep talking, empathizing with how scared Vlad must have been. I don't think he had the luxury of his best friends holding him. Even with Sam and Tucker by my side, I felt alone in those early days. I can't imagine being truly alone and going through that.

"Somewhere down the line," Blairman continues, his core on his sleeve, "he became my best friend, my closest companion, and I his. And, it tears me apart to see him in such a state. He's a bundle of nerves. He can't eat or sleep-" He stiffens, realizing his mistake. "I mean, ghosts don't need to eat or sleep, but that's not the point! Vlad is an absolute basket case, and the only thing that will help him-"

"-is being with me," I conclude.

Blairman pinches the bridge of his nose. "It's a difficult situation, I know. I came here because I was desperate and thought your parents might have some sway over him. Because they're ghost hunters," he adds quickly. "And, Vlad Plasmius is a ghost. Predator vs prey, you know?"

Blairman is sincere; I can tell that he really does care about Vlad.

So, I walk up to the control panel and press a button. Blairman's cage is sucked into the floor, and its former occupant watches it happen. He turns to me with a curious, "You're letting me go?"

I walk back to him. "I'm letting you come with me. We're going to find Plasmius and settle this."

Blairman blinks a few times. "Oh, Cereal Boy, I couldn't ask you to do that. Let me find Vlad and feel him out, figure out his intentions. Then we can bring the two of you together."

"No," I say. "If you were able to do that, you wouldn't have sought out my parents." Blairman bites his lip and looks away. "I've gotten a good enough look at Vlad to know how bad it is."

I recall my own experience with fixation. My core had felt like it was crushing my bones, tearing at my flesh. At certain points, I could do nothing but curl up on the ground. And, those thoughts were like knives being jammed into my brain. Everywhere I looked I saw danger. No matter what it was, it brought images of people being hurt or their screams being permanently silenced. Naturally, that was the day I was supposed to spend at an amusement park of all things. Even the duck pond didn't seem safe (but that was Johnny's fault for threatening to smash my face into it).

The working theory for why I wasn't hurting too much until then is that, since I'd been spending so much time working on preparing the town for my reckoning, my core was satisfied that I was doing something.

All I've done to Vlad was attack and avoid him. It's true that I didn't know he was fixated, but even after the idea was presented to me, I still wouldn't let him get near me.

I can't keep the guilt out of my voice. "He's in a lot of pain, isn't he?"

Blairman sucks in air between his teeth and fingers the lining of his trench coat. Then he sees my face, and his tight expression softens. "Oh, don't feel bad. You're an innocent bystander in all this. How would you have known?"

I'm not as innocent as he thinks.

There's an anticipatory vibration in my chest, mingling with the anxious pounding of my heart. "The lab walls are phase-proof, so we'll have to head upstairs. I've already disabled the sensors. I'll get the Ghost Shield on the way out." I start for the staircase and turn around when he doesn't follow. "If you don't come, I'm going without you."

Blairman squints at me. "How much trouble are you going to be in if we get caught?"

"All of it."

Blairman accepts my answer with a burst of laughter. "The more you speak, Cereal Boy, the more I like you."