Wrote this because tumblr. Enjoy (because Danny won't).

Not related to Mortified, or anything else.

.

.

.

Stockades

.

Danny crept down the stairs into the lab to empty the thermos into the Ghost Zone. Normally, he would have phased in invisibly, but his parents had updated the security system again, and he didn't want to set it off. Especially not when one of them might be down there.

His parents weren't upstairs, anyway, even if he didn't hear the usual clinks, whirs, buzzes, bangs, and explosions from the lab. They might have gone out. Danny hadn't really been paying attention, and that was before he had to leave to fight Skulker for the billionth time.

Ancients, but Skulker was a lunatic. Who else would skin a ghost? A person? It was so gross. And creepy.

But his parents weren't in the lab, freeing Danny to quickly cross the room and empty the thermos of the day's catch. Even if they were annoying and sort of evil, they didn't deserve to be trapped in the thermos indefinitely. That would be cruel.

He sighed as the indicator light on the thermos blinked to empty, and removed it from its receptacle. At the least, he'd be seeing the Box Ghost again tomorrow. Boxy had been going crazy lately. Something about not being able to find the Lunch Lady. Well, she wasn't in Amity Park, as far as Danny knew. She was probably just avoiding Boxy.

He started to trudge back across the room, but paused halfway. What was that sound? Where was it coming from?

After a bit of investigation, and playing 'hot and cold' with the noise, Danny determined it was coming from the trap door leading down to the Fenton Stockades. Dang. He had half-forgotten they even had those. When was the last time he'd even been down there? The first time Ember attacked? That sounded about right.

Were his parents down there? What would they even be doing? He made a face as he inadvertently remembered a website Dash had forcibly shown him. Gross. No way. He didn't just think that. If he looked- No, he didn't want to know. Nope.

Danny turned, fully intending to run upstairs and pour bleach into his ears to clean his brain of that disgusting image, when he heard a distinctly ghostly vocalization. Ghost words echoed and warped in ways human ones couldn't match.

There was a ghost down there. Well. This was a great start to a horror story. A ghost, in a room full of torture equipment once used by his Dad's crazy witch hunting ancestors. Wonderful. Perfect. It was probably down there making the iron maiden grow teeth and arms, and making the rack float around and grow spikes. As if any of that needed to be more horrifying.

Resigned, Danny opened the trap door and started down the stairs, mentally preparing for a fight. With his luck, the ghost was a witch angry at some ancestor of his. Well, news flash. He'd been tortured by an ancestor, too. He didn't want to deal with this. Why was his family so-?

His thoughts cut off as he tried to process the scene in front of him. He couldn't. Not fully. It was like a conceptual collage, only one thing clear at a time. Green splatters on the floor. The Lunch Lady. The torture chair, leather straps glowing green. He didn't know they did that. His parents, wearing smocks and more protective gear than he had ever seen them in. The specimen jar full of whole fingernails. The larger specimen jar holding a dress, apron, and other folded fabric. The cuts. The dripping ectoplasm. The glistening and medieval tools.

He tried to take a step back, but his heel caught on the stair, and he fell backward with a crash.

His parents turned to him, goggles flashing in the overhead lights. Their protective gear made them seem alien. Insect-like. Reptilian.

(Or was it their actions that did that?)

"Danny, sweetie, what are you doing down here?" asked Maddie. "You know the stockades are off limits! You could get hurt."

She sounded concerned. How could she sound concerned when she was doing- When she was-

"He's just being a Fenton, Mads!" boomed Jack. "Curiosity before caution! That's our motto! Right next to 'Destroy all ghosts!' Probably wanted to see what we were doing. Right, son?"

"R-right," said Danny, unable to disguise the tremor in his voice. "I- I was just curious. Just-" his voice cracked, "wondering where you were! I'm going to- to go back upstairs, now, since, haha, it's- it's dangerous down here. Right?" He scrambled to his feet and fled.

"Be careful in the lab!" Maddie called after him.

Danny slammed the trap door behind him, and ran directly to the sink, retching all his muscles trembling.

The Lunch Lady- She was-

(His worst nightmare, just a few floors beneath his bed.)

How long had this been going on?

How was he going to fix this?