The alarm was blaring.
Danny recognized the noise immediately. But his eyes were still slow to open, his arms were slow to turn off the offending sound, and his brain was slow to recognize that the white ceiling above him was just his bedroom ceiling.
His body was numb. Nothing felt real.
He grabbed his phone off his nightstand and unlocked it. The screen was too bright, but he didn't care. He'd been through worse. What was a little eye strain to him, really?
There were text messages, but Danny ignored them. The government likely already read them first, so if they were important, Danny would probably have woken up back in his cell rather than his cozy bed.
Ghosts like Danny didn't get to have comfort. He was unpredictable. Dangerous.
"You're a feral beast." Operative O's deep voice rained down on him. "You need to be trained."
Danny opened the Twitter app only to be faced with a crushing amount of notifications and his name on the top of the trending list.
He should have felt nervous. Anxiety should have gripped his stomach. But...it didn't.
He felt nothing.
Numb.
He clicked on his name and scrolled through the tweets. As he suspected, that damn video of him at the PHP littered his screen.
Protests have begun to break out near the health clinic Phantom is attending. [image]
I don't understand, why doesn't he just fly into the building or something? Can he not fly?
Is phantom over?
It's so gross how people feel the need to harass a teenager trying to recover from trauma.
imagine being a teen trying to get emergency mental help and then THAT walks into ur class
What the fuck did the government do to him?
He was numb.
Nobody knew what really happened in there, and Danny wanted so badly to keep it that way. And the worst part was, he thought that if he just forgot about it, tried to move past it, then it would all go away. And no one would ever know.
Except Vlad did find out. Somehow, Vlad had managed to get a hold of classified government files about Danny, and if what he had implied was true, then he had learned everything.
And if Vlad knew, then…
No. He wasn't going to think about it.
Danny knew from the moment he'd stupidly revealed himself that his life was not his own anymore. He knew that he was going to be nothing but a government possession from that moment till the day he died.
He didn't deserve to get upset over this.
He pulled up a blank tweet and started typing. His movements were robotic. Stilted. But one slip-up, just one reason for the public to get suspicious, and Danny knew that some seedy corner of the internet would pounce on the opportunity to dig deeper into Danny's life than he was comfortable with.
Danny Phantom dannyphantom
Thank you everyone for the support. I'm back home with my family and am healing.
Before he could question what he was doing, his finger was already pressing send on the tweet. He watched as almost immediately, notifications popped up in his inbox.
But he didn't open his notifications, he didn't look at the replies. Instead, he closed the app and shut his phone off.
He didn't care anymore.
Maddie knocked on the door and asked him a question, and he responded with the right answer for her to leave. He got up and started his new morning routine of sitting in the shower for ten minutes, getting dressed, brushing his teeth, and heading downstairs for breakfast before leaving for six hours of mandatory therapy.
He stared out the window, watching the morning traffic pass by him. He couldn't remember if he shampooed his hair or if he just sat under the scalding water. But it was fine. He was just a government-issued robot now. Whatever.
There were people lining the highway when Danny pulled into the PHP center. They were shouting different things, holding different signs, their cameras armed and ready as soon as the GAV came into view. The police were there, making sure no one escaped into the parking lot, and there were therapists waiting outside.
They didn't know. They had no idea what Danny had gone through, why he was there.
And it didn't matter. Not to them, not to Danny, not to the police or the news stations filming the scene or to the government or Vlad or anyone else.
Danny wasn't in charge of his life anymore.
He was only here because the government had decided he could stay free.
For now.
The therapists escorted him into the building. Danny felt hollow. Sick.
No, he was fine.
Maddie hugged him, told him to have a good day, that she'd be back to bring him to more therapy after, and Danny nodded. At least, he thought he remembered to nod. He might not have, though.
There was a window in the lobby. A white van was parked along the street.
The APC news van.
Jazz was right. Danny was just being paranoid about the white van outside of their house before. He was so stupid.
Even if it wasn't a news van, what would it matter? He didn't control his life, what would he care if they finished him off in some back alley? What would it matter if they snuck him into their van and held him captive for the rest of his life in some damp containment cell?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Danny spaced out for the morning meeting. He couldn't remember if he managed to read off his paper for the other teens. His voice wasn't working today. His head hurt. His chest hurt. Everything was numb.
They had art therapy today, run by a tall, lanky man with sandy hair and a clean-shaven face. He told the group to paint what they were feeling today, to channel their emotions onto their blank sheets of paper.
But Danny felt nothing. He had nothing to give.
He must have stared at his paper for too long, because the therapist tried to talk to him, ask him if he was alright, if he was having trouble with the exercise.
Danny didn't respond, instead choosing to pick up the green paint and squeeze some of it directly onto his paper, rules be damned. It was too dark, so he grabbed the white paint and smeared it into the green. The color still wasn't right, but Danny didn't know enough about art to make it right, so he just kept spreading green across his paper. A dash of yellow, then some white, more green.
Time was up. His paper was green.
"Good job, Danny. What do you think?" the therapist asked.
Danny stared at the paper, studying the streaks of yellow within the brush strokes. "It's not the right shade of ectoplasm."
The day continued with more emotion-managing lessons and group activities but Danny didn't care and nobody could understand that. He was done with this, he was tired, it didn't matter.
It was lunchtime, and Danny had no appetite. It felt like he had just eaten breakfast. His stomach was still full, but he had a sandwich sitting in front of him that he needed to eat or else they would tell his parents.
Danny held the sandwich between his fingers. It looked like sandpaper.
He didn't want to eat it.
The therapist was looking at him. She was probably talking to him too, asking him questions about his day. But Danny ignored her. After all, didn't he need to eat this lunch? How could he possibly eat and talk at the same time?
The teens were talking around him, but Danny blocked them all out too.
They were noisy.
It was like they weren't even there.
Danny wasn't human. He didn't care.
But you do care.
He didn't.
He was numb.
Eat up like a good little dog.
I'm not a dog.
Something inside him snapped, and he yanked on his cold core, channeling all his energy to his fingertips. His fingers tingled out of the tangible field, and the sandwich fell to the table.
"Whoa!" The blonde girl jumped, her eyes trained on Danny's transparent skin.
"Danny?"
There was an audience. Danny had forgotten about them. His core faltered, and the power faded from his fingertips.
He should have felt embarrassed by this emotional display. He should have felt horrified that he'd allowed himself to act so inhuman and disgusting in front of these innocent bystanders.
But he was still numb.
"Sorry," he said. "I was bored."
"That was sick!" the brunette boy chimed in. "You can do that on command?"
"Usually." Danny's gaze flickered over to the therapist, who was giving him a strange look. He turned his attention back to the fallen sandwich.
Maybe he would get kicked out of the program for this. For being too dangerous. That would probably be for the better. Then he could go free into the world. No more schedule, no more therapy, no more dissecting his emotions or talking about his trauma.
Who cared about his trauma, anyway? Certainly not him.
"So you still have your ghost powers, then?" the blonde girl asked. "People were saying online that you lost them. The government took them or whatever."
Danny brought his hand up to his face, willing his fingers to fade to invisibility. "They're locked. But...I...they're there. I'll get them back."
He would get them back. He needed them.
Especially now.
Which was how he found himself sitting quietly outside his mother's door. Waiting. He should have knocked probably, but he didn't. Couldn't. He didn't know why, he knew he should just go back to his room, go to sleep, stop bothering his parents about this, but he needed his core back.
His mom would understand. She was a ghost biology expert, right? She would get why he needed his core back now.
He raised his fist to knock, but he must have already knocked before because the door opened, revealing his mother dressed in teal pajamas on the other side.
"Danny?" She frowned, her brows pulling cautiously above her eyes. "What are you doing up, sweetie? Everything alright?"
"I, uh—" His voice was scratchy. He broke eye contact, staring down at his lap. "My—my core."
"Something wrong?"
He licked his lips, his mouth dry. "I need it back."
"Sweetheart," she said in a patient tone. "We talked about this."
"No. you talked."
She sighed. "Danny, it's nearly eleven. Can't this wait till morning?"
"No. No. I need it."
"I told you, hun, your core and body need time to heal properly first before we make any drastic changes to your physiology. Just give it a few more weeks, alright?"
"Weeks?" Danny's voice rose in alarm.
"I promise it'll be all worth it."
Static rang in his ears, and a steel claw clutched at his stomach.
His mom didn't understand. Why would she? She was human. Humans would never get it. She didn't understand.
"No, I can't…"
"Danny, you need to trust me. Your body needs to rest."
"You don't understand."
She regarded him for a moment before opening her door fully. "Why don't you come in and we can talk, then. You can tell me why this is so important to you."
Danny peered inside the door, at the surprisingly average-looking bedroom before him. He could go in, tell his mother just how wrong he felt cut off from his core, how he was being blackmailed by Vlad, how there was a distinct record of every detail of what the Guys in White had done to him, how he had never felt so defenseless, so vulnerable in his life.
But he wouldn't, and he knew he couldn't. There was no way he could put it all into words. He was a ghost, she was a human. He couldn't explain this to her.
Skulker and Vlad may have forced his revelation, but they gave him more secrets than he could ever have dreamt of handling.
Danny turned away. "It's fine. Good night."
"Hun…"
"Night, Mom."
There was a tense silence before Maddie finally relented. "I love you, Danny."
"You too," he said reflexively. The words tasted sour on his tongue.
She didn't understand. If she truly loved him, she would give him his core back right now, but she didn't.
No, he was just being paranoid. This was just his Obsession talking. He didn't need his core, he was just as much human as he was ghost. So what if he had to be a little more human for the next few weeks? Isn't that what he'd always wanted?
To just be a regular human?
Maybe that was what his mother wanted. Maybe that was why she was postponing removing the chip. Maybe she was too afraid to see her son as a monster. A ghost.
But that was crazy. She loved him.
She was telling the truth.
His parents accepted him.
"You seem quiet today."
Danny leaned back against the sofa, his arms crossed and his eyes looking anywhere but at the blonde figure sitting before him. The stress ball sat untouched on the table next to him.
He didn't feel like doing therapy today. He didn't want to talk.
His mom was human, his therapist was human. No one was going to get it.
"What's on your mind, Danny?"
"Nothing. I'm fine."
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
He was fine. There was nothing to talk about. Even if there were things to talk about—and there weren't, this was all just his Obsession going haywire—it wouldn't matter anyway because he was defenseless and the government was going to kidnap him again. It was only a matter of time.
"You finished your first week with the PHP group today, right? How has that been going?"
"Fine."
"Can you tell me about some of the activities you've been doing?"
"I don't know."
She sat there for a moment, as if giving him time to elaborate. But Danny wasn't going to elaborate. He didn't feel like talking today.
He looked out the window. The leaves had changed color, the ripe greens fading to yellows, oranges, and reds. In another few weeks, the ground would be littered with fallen leaves.
Summer had barely just begun when he was dragged from his house, drugged, and locked away. And yet, even though his entire world had come to a halt, time still moved on.
The clatter of the therapist's clipboard falling on a side table jolted Danny out of his musing. He flinched, his eyes snapping over to see the therapist rising from her chair.
She stretched her arms behind her back and walked over to the closet. "You know what? It's been a long day. Wanna play a game?"
"Um...are we allowed to do that?"
"I don't see why not." She grabbed a box out of the closet and placed it down in the center of the room.
Danny peered at it in confusion. "Jenga? Of—of all the games out there, you're really gonna make me...make me get on the floor for Jenga?"
"Oh, come on, it's fun."
"You must throw some wild parties," he remarked, rolling his eyes. Nonetheless, he slid off the couch and slowly scooched himself towards the middle of the room. As long as he didn't have to explain why he was two seconds away from ripping his own core out of his chest, he would go along with whatever game she threw at him.
The therapist carefully tipped the box upside down, sliding the lid up to reveal a tower of multi-colored wooden tiles jigsawed together.
"So here's our marvelous tower," she said. "You can reach that alright?"
"Yeah."
"So normal Jenga rules. We switch off trying to remove a piece without causing the tower to collapse. Except, for this game, after you remove a piece, you're going to pick a card from this stack—" She pointed to a deck of large cards set up next to the Jenga tower. "—and then answer the question on the card that's the same color. So if I take a purple tile out, I'll answer the purple question on the card. Got it?"
Danny glanced between the cards and his therapist's eager face. He was fairly certain Jenga never involved a set of cards before.
Maybe he'd forgotten the rules. It wouldn't have been the first time his brain had betrayed him. "Am I being quizzed?"
"Don't worry." She pushed up the sleeves of her blue cardigan. "They're just basic therapy questions. Nothing too bad."
No. This was a trick, wasn't it? To get him to talk?
He wasn't going to fall for it. "I thought we weren't—weren't doing that...today."
"The questions aren't too deep. Honestly, I mostly just use this game as an icebreaker for new clients. But Jenga's pretty fun all the same."
He must have still looked too suspicious, because she threw him an easy smile and went, "Here, I'll go first." She carefully nudged a green tile out of the stack and drew a card. "Okay, so the green question on here says, 'Describe yourself in three words.' Well, I'd say I'm kind, I think I'm rather nerdy, and I'm a bit of a cat lady."
That...wasn't so bad. Maybe this would be an easy game.
He doubted any of the questions asked him about his core. Maybe he could loosen up a bit, go along with this icebreaker game, if only for an hour before sinking back into his internal panic.
"Cat lady?" he tried.
She chuckled. "I'm surprised that's never come up! I have two at home."
Right, his therapist had a life outside of therapy. Outside of his problems.
But it wasn't like he knew her name. At this point, it was just too embarrassing to ask. Maybe she had told him that she had cats, and he just couldn't remember. Maybe he would forget it again tomorrow.
Whatever. It was fine. He couldn't care about things he didn't remember. "Uh…" Danny pushed a purple tile out of the tower. "So I just pick up a—um, a card?"
"Yup, and read the purple question."
Danny looked down at his card and rolled his eyes. "Oh, figures. 'If you had superpowers, what would they be?' Well, I'm dead. Does being dead count?"
She laughed, her voice light and airy. "Of all the questions, huh? Okay, let's modify this a bit. If you could only keep one of your powers, which would you take?"
"Probably intangibility," Danny said, his lack of hesitation surprising him.
"Oh? Why?"
"Well…" He rubbed the back of his neck. Where the chip was. "It's the most useful, isn't it? I can just...you know...I have no physical stuff in my way. I can just phase through any—anything I need. Or—no. Almost anything."
Not shields. Those could still trap him.
Thankfully, she didn't try to pry further, just offering him a kind nod and a "that makes sense" before pushing out another Jenga tile. "Blue! Alright, my question is, 'What is your favorite feature about yourself?' Hmm...that's a bit tough, isn't it? But I think my favorite thing about myself is my hair. When I was a teen, I used to straighten my hair, but then when I got to college, I stopped doing that and just let it be. Now I quite like my curly hair. Okay, your turn!"
"Okay." Danny leaned over and pushed a red tile out of the tower. "Okay...my quest—question is…'What is your biggest hope for your future?' Oh..."
He did want to be an astronaut. But that was before, when he was still human. And then he was caught between thousands of volts of ecto-electricity and that future vanished right before his eyes.
What did he want to do with his life? What did he hope would happen?
He wanted his core back. He couldn't let himself be so vulnerable for much longer. His chest felt like it was tearing itself apart, he needed to—
Breathe. And answer the question.
What did he hope for his future?
"I don't know. My future's kinda...ruined, isn't it?"
"Try to think on a smaller scale."
"I…" Danny ran a hand through his hair. He wanted his core back, he wanted to be Phantom, he wanted to protect Amity Park. But he couldn't say that. It made him sound too ghostly. Too inhuman.
Humans didn't have these kinds of otherworldly desires. She would think he was a freak if he told her. She wouldn't know how to react.
"I want to finish PT."
"That's a good goal to have."
"Your turn."
Humming, she nudged a tile out of the Jenga tower and flipped over a card. "Okay, my question is, 'What is something you were worried about when you were younger?' Let me think…oh, here's one. When I was young, my older sister moved out to live with her boyfriend. It was really scary because I had never lived without her, but we kept in touch and everything turned out okay."
"I haven't either. Lived away from Jazz I mean. Like—like for real. But she's going to college next—next semester. I think she, uh...deferred a semester."
"And you know, it's common to feel worried about a sibling moving out. Periods of transition in life can be the most stressful for us, but it's important to recognize that things will be okay."
Danny looked down at the carpet. "I guess."
Some days it felt like Jazz was the only one truly on his side. He was a lab rat, too well known and too hated to ever have a future, forever condemned to a vicious cycle of evading people like the Guys in White and Vlad for the rest of his life. Jazz was leaving him in a few months, his friends would follow in a few years, and in the end, Danny would be alone.
But he was fine with that. He'd accepted it. It was just his life now, there was nothing to say about it.
"It's my turn, isn't it?"
"Yup! Go right ahead."
Danny removed another tile. "'How do you think others view you and why?'" He paused, throwing the therapist a bitter look. "This is rigged."
"Not rigged, that's just a very lucky pick."
"Lucky to who?" Danny groaned.
What was with the universe finding new ways to torment him?
"Humor me," the therapist said patiently.
Danny glared at his card, tapping his fingers against the edge. It wasn't like the public opinion of him was exactly a secret, but it still hurt. Constantly. Like some scab he kept telling himself to ignore, but ignoring it was impossible because the public would never leave him alone.
"Not good," Danny muttered. "People hate me."
"Being in the public eye is very stressful for anyone, but to be unique in your way adds on an entirely different layer. People are afraid of the things they don't understand, and that makes them forget that at the end of the day, you're still a person."
"Yeah." Danny's eyes were trained on the colorful tower before him, which was starting to blur as the prickling behind his eyes increased. He ducked his head and blinked, hoping to save face before it was too late.
"That doesn't mean everyone feels this way, though. But sometimes it can feel that way to you because the ones who are the most afraid, the most hateful, are the loudest voices in the crowd. But remember, Danny, you won that court case for a reason. You have more people on your side than you think."
"I won it for now, you mean. I don't...I don't think…" His voice failed, and he pressed his fingernails into his palms. He took a few shaky breaths. "Sorry."
"It's okay, Danny. Why don't we talk about the case for a minute?"
Tucker's words echoed in his head, how it was televised. How millions of people all around the globe probably tuned in for it, or watched streams online, each person with their own opinion of him.
But he didn't want to think about that right now.
"No," he said. "Can we—can we just continue the game?"
"If you're not ready to talk about it, then that's okay. Thank you for letting me know."
"It's your turn."
"Alright." She pushed a block out of the tower. "So...alright, my question is, 'What memory do you treasure the most?' To that, I think fishing with my dad as a child. He was a big support for me when I was growing up, and I really valued our times fishing together as important bonding moments for us."
Danny nodded politely, trying his best to not appear like he was counting down the seconds until therapy was over.
He could feel his emotions building inside him, threatening to topple the carefully constructed dam guarding his secrets. This was such a simple game, these were such simple questions, so why did he feel like he was failing?
He pushed out a Jenga tile—a red tile—from the tower and grabbed a card, scanning the questions until he found the red one.
What are you afraid of?
The words echoed back to him, and he pushed the card away. He didn't want to look at it, he didn't want to read those words or hear her voice because saying the question would mean he would have to talk and he only agreed to this stupid game to get out of talking.
There was so much he was afraid of that he had no right to be afraid of. Because he deserved this. Getting revealed was his fault, he was being reckless. He deserved all of it.
The experiments with the Guys in White. The pain, the way his skin was torn apart. How they threw him in a vat of ectoplasm the next day to heal, and how the ectoplasm entering his lungs made him feel like he was drowning because even though ghosts didn't need to breathe, he still used those organs reflexively as Phantom. But he was in too much pain and his brain was too hazy to fight back. He could only sink into the darkness.
The red bag. The way it tasted, smelled, how it haunted him every day and how he revisited those moments every night in his dreams. How he would wake up each day and the drawer on his nightstand would be shimmering in the morning sun, as if tempting him to open it up, grab the bottle inside, let it help just for one day. It can take the edge off, he can be functional. Who cares if he's cheating? It's just for a day...
The public. The people. Their judgments, their words. How he was, on a molecular level, so vastly different from them. How he could never be the same. He would never have a normal life, he could never have a normal job, a normal family, normal friendships, ever again. There would always be something there, something alien between them.
Even between him and his best friends. There was just something...different ever since the portal accident. It had brought them closer together, sure, but in other ways it had also driven an invisible wedge between them. Because Danny would always have his powers, he would always be a half ghost, and there would always be things now that Sam and Tucker would never understand.
How much would change now? Now that he was in the public eye, now that he'd gone through government torture? Now that his brain didn't work the same?
And his core. His humanity. Why were his parents so apprehensive about it?
What are you afraid of?
Why wouldn't his parents let him down into the lab? What were they hiding? They said his core was damaged, but it had been months since he was ripped open. His surgical damage had healed, his broken bones were back to normal, and even though his nerve endings in his chest and spine were still fried, they had been slowly mending themselves too.
Ectoplasm healed faster than human physiology. His core should have been fine by now.
What was the truth?
"They accept me," Danny said automatically.
"Who does?"
Who accepted him?
Sam and Tucker did.
His family…
Did they?
"I don't know."
"You have people in your corner, Danny. Your parents, your sister, your close friends. They all care about you. We're all here for you, even if those loud voices in the public tell you otherwise."
But if they cared...
"Then why won't they let me have my core back?"
"Your core?"
"My powers. My ghostliness. Ectoplasm." Danny let his eyes flair to emphasize his point.
If his therapist was scared of his otherworldly display, she didn't show it. Instead, she continued to look at him with her neutral expression, free of the judgment he'd come to expect from people since the accident.
And for some reason he couldn't explain, that irritated him.
"You mean the inhibitor chip?" she asked.
"Yes. They told me it was because my core...it was damaged but—but it doesn't make sense! It doesn't..."
"Have you talked to them about this?"
Of course he had. They kept repeating that his core was damaged. And they were probably right—for a time, at the very least. But that was months ago.
Why hadn't they scanned his core recently? Shouldn't they be happy to learn it was healed? Shouldn't that make them relieved?
What were they afraid of?
What are you afraid of?
"Do you think it would be helpful if I talked to your mother about this?" asked the therapist. "As a way to introduce the topic? She likely doesn't know how much it's bothering you."
But that didn't make sense either because Danny brought his core up every day. His parents knew how much it was bothering him. They had to have known, right?
So why were they doing this to him?
What were they hiding?
What are you afraid of?
Danny tried to remember a time where walking from his living room to his kitchen didn't require a list of steps to be taken beforehand—a time where he could just get up and walk. But those memories were far too distant now.
And besides, this was his reality now. A reality where something as simple as walking made his head spin.
He shouldn't dwell on the memories of how easy it used to be for him, he shouldn't have snapped at Jazz for getting a cup of water for him because he knew the glasses were too high to reach from his wheelchair, he shouldn't allow this irrational anger to overtake him every time the creeping anxiety of his future as Amity Park's ghost hero came into question.
He just needed to focus on where he was now. Curled up on his couch avoiding his parents.
Everything felt wrong this morning when he woke up. For a moment, he had managed to convince himself that he was just being paranoid. That it was just his damaged nerve endings freaking out as normal. That once he took his medication, his problems would go away.
But they didn't. He still felt wrong. His chest still felt wrong.
It was manifesting in other ways too. He couldn't walk as long today at PT. His physical therapist told him it was just a bad day and that his body was probably just tired from his busy week. But Danny knew that wasn't right.
It had nothing to do with him being tired. He wasn't sick. He wasn't anxious.
His core was the problem. His parents were the problem.
He tried asking about his core again on the way home from PT, using conversation techniques he went over with his therapist at the end of their last appointment, but Maddie just brushed him off. Said they would talk about it later.
But then later came and...she didn't.
Danny tried asking his father, but he brushed Danny off too. Said Danny needed to focus on healing first.
But how was he supposed to heal when he was missing half of himself?
He felt wrong. So wrong. His body was too bound by gravity, it was too empty, it wasn't listening to him.
He pressed his palms into his forehead. His hands were clammy. Shaking. Speckles of cold touched them—or was that his tears? Was he crying?
No.
He pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes. What was wrong with him? Why was he acting this way?
The government had him in a cage. They tormented him in ways he would rather die than live through again. But then it ended, and he was freed. He was allowed to go home, he could live his life as a legal person again.
Except, he wasn't free. Not at all. He was still trapped here in Amity, in his house, in his body. He had no control. Not over what he ate, when he slept, where he went, what he could say, what he could think.
Half of him was still locked up tight with no hope of escape.
His water glass was empty. It would have been too embarrassing to ask someone to help him, but he was so thirsty and dehydrated and he just really needed this to work. He needed his body to respond to him. For one moment, please, just let his body respond.
Gripping the water cup in one hand and his walker in the other, he tried to stand, to walk over to the kitchen sink. But balancing everything was so difficult, his body was still fatigued from PT, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to do it but he just needed to try.
But he couldn't do it in the end. The cup slipped out of his hand and tumbled onto the carpet, thankfully saved from shattering on impact by some last shred of luck the universe decided to pity him with.
And now Danny too was on the floor because he couldn't bend down to pick the cup back up like a normal person, and he didn't want to call for help, and he couldn't use any of his powers, and he felt so trapped. So helpless. So vulnerable.
He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it was too stubborn and he was too useless.
A tear splattered against his hand, and he gripped the floor, his body trembling.
"Stop crying. Stop it." he hissed.
He was weak.
Plasmius, once nearly his equal, had so severely overpowered him the other night. It was embarrassing. On the hierarchy of ghosts, where was he now? At the bottom with the blob ghosts?
But those ghosts could still fly. They could still turn intangible. Things that Danny couldn't even do.
Hell, he was so weak that even the Box Ghost could defeat him now.
"Stop crying."
He crawled back to the couch, the thought of getting water abandoned on the floor along with the last semblance of his dignity. Another tear fell from his cheek, and he desperately tried to ignore it, ignore his dry throat, ignore the pain in his chest, ignore his core and the Y-scar on his body and his new place in the ghost hierarchy as lower than dirt, ignore everything. Just focus on getting back to the couch. Shut down, go numb.
He was fine, he was okay.
He just needed to push through this. Just toughen up, quit whining. Life wasn't fair. So what if he was now just a regular human? Hadn't he been human for the first fourteen years of his life? He needed to suck it up.
Dragging himself back onto the safety of the couch cushions, he pulled one of Jazz's throw blankets around his body and pressed a pillow into his face.
Never in his life had he been so tempted to scream, to curse, to finally let the last brick fall and allow hell to break loose. But his parents were in the basement, Jazz was upstairs, and he was fine.
He was fine.
Woops this chapter came out about 2 months later than I'd intended. Sorry! The good news is the next chapter's actually pretty decently written, so the next update will not take nearly as long!
So yeah! Danny's having a time. I'd love to hear all your thoughts and predictions on how this whole core mess is gonna sort itself out. Should be interesting...but what do I know? :)
As always, huge thanks to tumblr user and prolific writer imekitty for the beta work! I owe her my life, 11/10 beta help.
Thanks for reading!