Author's note: You don't have to say what you did. I already know. I found out from him. - Justin Timberlake
lol can't believe I found a way to make a Justin Timberlake song fit this fic.
Disillusioned
I don't think I can trust you
…
"So…" Tucker held out his arms, grinning. "It's Friday. How about we start the weekend right by hitting up the Nasty Burger?"
Danny walked between Sam and Tucker as they headed toward their lockers after the final bell of the day. A group of cheerleaders already dressed in their uniforms sauntered past them, drawing Tucker's eye away for just a moment, rubbernecking before returning his focus to Danny and Sam. Sam scowled at Tucker, but Danny barely even noticed the cheerleaders as he kept his eyes forward.
"Or there's that new tea house I've been wanting to check out," said Sam.
"I don't think Danny really likes tea," said Tucker, his tone carrying some kind of implication, a hidden meaning aimed at Sam.
"Oh, that's right," said Sam quickly. "Nasty Burger's good for me if it sounds good to you, Danny."
"Can't," said Danny. "I have to go see the guidance counselor right now."
"Oh, yeah," said Tucker. "But today's the last day you're talking to her, right?"
Danny stopped at his locker and began twisting the lock. "Yep."
"Tuck and I can hang out here until you're done," said Sam. "Then we can head to the Nasty Burger together."
The lock clicked, and Danny swung his locker open. His backpack was slumped over inside.
"Or wherever else you want to go?" offered Sam.
"Finals are next week," said Danny, shoving his books into his backpack. "I need to finish up my makeup work, and then I'll probably just go ahead and start studying."
"That's a good idea," said Sam. "We could study together."
"But not without some brain food," said Tucker. "We can swing by the Nasty Burger and then study in Sam's big private home library."
"No, my mom won't like that," said Sam.
"Oh, right," said Tucker. "My place is fine; I just need to clean up my room a bit."
"My makeup work is at home on my desk," said Danny, zipping up his backpack to hide the unfinished makeup work inside.
"We can study at your place, then," said Sam.
"I study better without distractions."
Danny pulled out his backpack and shut his locker with a metallic clang. He put both arms through the backpack straps and positioned them on his shoulders.
Sam and Tucker did not move as they watched him. Danny reluctantly made eye contact and waited for them to say something.
"You do still like hanging out with us…" Sam rubbed her elbow. "Don't you?"
Danny breathed in deeply through his nose, then forced a smile.
"Yeah, of course," he said. "I just… I've been really busy, that's all. Don't wanna have to go to summer school."
"So we can definitely hang out over summer break?" asked Tucker.
Danny's mouth twitched, but he forced his smile to remain. "Sure. But I don't know how much time we'll actually have. I think my parents are planning some family trips out of town."
"Ours too," said Sam, "but you are going to be in town for the Dumpty Humpty concert next month, right?"
Danny stared at her, his smile leaving.
"Yeah, didn't you get tickets for your birthday?" asked Tucker.
Danny was unable to speak for a few moments. "How do you know about that?" he finally asked.
"Jazz told us," said Sam. "But the real question is, why didn't you tell us?"
Sam's tone was not angry, but Danny picked up on the bewildered accusation. He held her gaze as long as he could before he sucked in his cheek and shrugged.
"I was going to eventually," he said nonchalantly. "Like I said, I've been busy, and the concert isn't even until next month."
"But we need to start planning for it," said Tucker.
Danny quirked a brow. "What kind of planning? It's just a concert. We show up, listen to music, and then we leave."
Sam and Tucker looked almost taken aback. Danny inwardly winced, knowing he was supposed to be excited about this damn concert so why wasn't he?
"Well, we, uh—" Sam cleared her throat. "We have to come up with some way to get my parents to agree to let me go."
"Your parents let you see Dumpty Humpty last time they were here," said Danny.
"Well, the concert itself isn't the problem." Sam ducked her head and scratched the back of her neck. "It's…um…"
She kicked at the floor, her boot scuffing the tile. Tucker rubbed the side of his nose and then took off his glasses, suddenly very interested in cleaning them with the hem of his shirt.
Danny narrowed his eyes. "Your mom doesn't want you going with me," he said flatly.
Sam bit her lip. Tucker cleaned his glasses more aggressively.
"Well, maybe you shouldn't, then," said Danny with a shrug. "You and Tucker could go without me, find someone else to take the third ticket. Problem solved."
Sam stared at him. "Danny, we want to go with you."
"But wouldn't it be easier to just stop sneaking around your mom?" Danny's tone turned bitter. "It doesn't look like she's going to stop hating me anytime soon."
Sam pouted. "I'm sorry about my mom, really—it's just—you know how she is. There's no arguing with her, no changing her mind."
Danny remembered back to a couple months earlier when this whole thing started, how Pam was the one who first told Maddie that she suspected Danny was stealing her narcotic painkillers. Maddie then began a deep investigation into Danny's supposed drug problem, which led to her eventually cornering him, capturing him as Phantom and imprisoning him as her lab specimen.
He wondered just how much of this might've been avoided if Pam just didn't hate him so damn much.
"Danny, please." Sam sighed. "Look, I'll talk to my mom—"
"No, it's fine," said Danny. "By now, I'm very much used to rubbing people and ghosts the wrong way."
Sam's lips trembled. "But—"
"We can figure out how to get you to the concert without her knowing you're going with me." Danny held up a hand to placate her. "We'll do it soon, okay? But right now, I need to get going."
Down the hall, he could see Lancer talking to another teacher outside one of the classroom doors. Lancer caught his eye and held it for one awkward second before hurriedly turning his back to Danny. All week, Lancer had made a point of never addressing him by name at all, not "Danny," not "Mr. Fenton."
Not that Danny cared. Fine by him. The semester was almost over anyway and hopefully he wouldn't have Lancer as a teacher for any of his classes in junior year.
He gave a half-hearted wave to Sam and Tucker before walking away in the direction of the counseling office. Sam and Tucker said nothing more as he left, but he could feel them staring after him.
He breathed out with relief when he turned a corner and was no longer in their sight.
Moments later, he was knocking on the door to the counselor's office. Theia answered the door, her eyes flashing a ghostly silver behind Ms. Epps' glasses. She welcomed him inside, taking a seat behind the desk while Danny took the chair across from her.
"So." Theia propped her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands. "This is the last day you have to see me, right?"
"The last day I have to see Ms. Epps," said Danny with a nod.
"Hmm." Theia tilted her head. "Shame."
Danny gave her a half-smile. "Do you have any news for me?"
"Detective Calhoun is still determined to figure out a way to prove your mother was involved in your disappearance," said Theia. "Mr. Plasmius is the only ghost strong enough to successfully suppress the detective's will through overshadowing, but of course Mr. Plasmius cannot overshadow him at all hours of the day."
"Right. Being a corrupt mayor must keep him pretty busy," said Danny.
Theia giggled. "But we've been able to keep the police from getting too close to your mother. Admittedly, we don't catch everything, but they so far have no evidence to use against your mother. But Detective Calhoun still refuses to drop the case."
Danny scratched behind his ear. "It's a good thing Vlad has a personal interest in making sure the police never find out what really happened."
"Yes, Mr. Plasmius will keep at it for as long as he must," said Theia.
"What about the Guys in White?" asked Danny. "Are they still looking for me?"
"They will never stop looking for you, cutie," said Theia with a hint of amusement. "But they have not yet captured any ghosts that could tell them anything useful."
Danny sighed, smiling sadly to himself. "There are so many ghosts that know my human identity, so many that could use it against me." He paused. "But they never do. In the end, my most dangerous enemies are…human."
Theia stuck out her bottom lip. "Do you consider your mother to be your enemy?"
Danny's sad smile faded.
The clock on the wall ticked away the seconds. Danny pulled some makeup work out of his backpack and scooted his chair closer to Ms. Epps' desk to work on it. Theia kept herself busy as he worked, sometimes reading one of the books on the bookshelves behind her, other times simply watching him in silence.
Danny lost himself in the work as he always did, numbing everything else inside his head, all the memories and flashbacks locked away behind mathematical formulas and historical dates and advanced vocabulary terms.
But the scar across his eye was still there, the one thing he could never truly forget or ignore. It blurred his vision, straining his eyes and tensing the muscles in his head. He massaged one temple as he continued reading textbooks and worksheets, but he just couldn't rub out the pain.
It was times like this that he missed being able to just pop whatever painkillers he wanted. Tylenol or ibuprofen, hydrocodone that Sam would steal just for him, assuring him that her mom had plenty and would definitely never notice a few pills missing!
Danny could feel the tips of his ears burning with anger and frustration, but he gripped his pen tighter and continued working through the pain. Because this was still preferable to letting his mind wander to places he did not want to be right now.
The words on the textbook page were beginning to double, becoming almost impossible to read. He covered his damaged eye with one hand and read with just the other eye for a while, but his head was starting to fog with fatigue. He closed both eyes and yawned, stretching out his arms. When he reopened his eyes, he found Theia smiling at him.
"Are you almost done with all of that?" Theia made a circling motion with her index finger. "You must be by now. You've been working on it every day here."
Danny blinked and looked down at all of the papers and books in front of him. "Yes. Although…" He furrowed his brow. "I wonder if I should've gone slower."
Theia tilted her head. "Slower?"
"I've only been trying to finish all this fast so I don't have to go to summer school to satisfy my sophomore requirements," said Danny. "But…maybe going to summer school wouldn't be such a bad thing."
"Why are you thinking that?"
Theia's question was so simple, so direct. But Danny was not intimidated by it at all. In fact, he found that being honest with Theia was effortless and liberating. She never expressed judgment or even a lack of interest, never offered advice or solutions. She only listened to him.
Of course, Danny couldn't help but wonder about her true motives. Perhaps she was reporting everything he said to Vlad, looking for anything that could be used to corner or blackmail him, weaknesses and secrets.
But at this point, he didn't care anymore. Vlad had been spying on him for months now anyway and already knew all about his own mother imprisoning and torturing him for weeks. Nothing else Vlad could learn about him was more humiliating than that.
There was no reason to lie to Theia.
"Because…my friends want to hang out this summer," said Danny. "And I guess… I kind of want an excuse to not hang out with them."
He sighed, lowering his head.
"I'm a bad friend," he murmured.
"If your friends knew what you went through, they would understand."
Danny raised his head. Theia was smiling at him kindly.
A weight in his chest lifted just a little as he returned her smile.
Theia looked at the clock on the wall. "It's time for us to say goodbye. I've enjoyed our talks this week."
"I have, too," said Danny with a small incline of his head.
Theia looked down at herself and sighed. "I wish I could've shown you what I really look like."
"Yeah?" Danny began to scoop up his items from the desk and put them in his backpack.
"Yeah," said Theia. "I think you might've found me pretty."
Danny paused and looked up from filling his backpack. Theia's silvery eyes were glowing as she chewed her bottom lip. She cleared her throat and pushed Ms. Epps' glasses up farther on her nose.
"I'm sure I'll recognize you right away if I ever do see your real form," said Danny.
Theia hummed. "Well, if you ever want to stop by Mr. Plasmius' office at City Hall, that's where I usually work. I'll be sure to say hello."
Danny laughed. "Oh, Vlad is even more insufferable when he's in mayor mode and pretending he gives a shit about this town." He shrugged. "But seeing you again could be worth the visit, I suppose."
Theia smiled softly, her elbow propped on the desk as her fingers brushed her cheek. "Well, then. Until next time, handsome."
Danny stood and slung his backpack over one shoulder. He gave her a small wave before pushing his way out the door.
He froze when he saw who was waiting out in the hall for him. Huge and hulking, dressed in his typical orange jumpsuit. Danny stared up at him, his mouth hanging open.
"Dad?" he managed to get out.
"Took me a while to find the guidance counselor's office," said Jack, gesturing to the sign outside the door. "I've been to this school so many times to capture ghosts and I still don't have the layout memorized."
Danny glanced around, his mouth drying. "Where's Jazz?"
"I told her to go on home," said Jack. "I wanted to pick you up today."
Danny's heart beat fast. "Why?"
"I wanted to talk." Jack placed a gloved hand on Danny's shoulder, his large palm almost completely covering it. "We haven't gotten much of a chance to talk since you came back."
"Talk—" Danny swallowed. "Talk about what?"
"Whatever you want to talk about, son."
Jack smiled at him. Danny tried to smile back but the corners of his mouth would not cooperate, merely twitching in a vaguely upward direction.
The halls were mostly empty as Danny followed Jack to the school's main entrance. He allowed himself to fall a couple steps behind as he pulled his phone out of his backpack and checked his texts to see if Maddie knew about Jack picking him up. And if so, how did she let this happen? Why?
The first unread text he saw came from Jazz, letting him know that hey, Dad was here and said he wanted to take Danny home, so she was leaving! She hoped his talk with Ms. Epps went well!
Danny rolled his eyes and tapped the next unread text from his mom. Hey, sweetie! She was just texting to let him know his father was going to pick him up from school! At the end was a smiling emoticon, a colon followed by a parenthesis. So much hidden meaning in that symbol, an implication of tense nervousness, a warning to tread carefully.
Danny's thumb hovered over the third unread text from Sam. He hesitated, considered simply ignoring it altogether. But then he tapped it, reading through Sam's apology about her mom. She asked him if they could talk about it some more, preferably in person but at least over the phone? Please please please call her soon, she just felt so bad and really wanted to work this out.
Danny shook his head and stuck his phone back in his pocket before catching up with Jack just as he pushed out through the main doors into the school's courtyard. Danny could see the Fenton GAV parked along the front curb. Although leaving a car unattended at the school's front curb was prohibited, no one ever bothered trying to get that beast towed away.
Danny always felt embarrassed anytime he had to ride inside the GAV, but this time, he dreaded the ride home for a completely different reason.
Jack opened the driver's side door while Danny climbed into the passenger seat. He placed his backpack on the floor in front of him and fumbled with his seat belt, pulling it over his shoulder slowly while his dad started the GAV. The engine roared to life, rocking the entire vehicle with rumbling vibration.
Out the window, Danny could see a few people on the sidewalk turning their heads, looking startled. Danny shielded his eyes with one hand and faced forward in his seat.
Jack moved the shift lever and pulled away from the curb. He looked out at the passenger side mirror as he centered the GAV in the right lane. Danny avoided his gaze.
"So…" Jack cleared his throat. "How were things this week?"
Danny shrugged. "Fine."
"Anything interesting happen?"
"Not really. Just normal school stuff."
Jack nodded and shifted into the next gear. "How are Sam and Tucker? I haven't seen them in a while."
Danny thought back to the way Sam and Tucker had stared at him as he left them in the hallway. He could feel his phone in his pocket, the apologetic text message from Sam.
"They're fine," said Danny.
Jack nodded again, several times. "Well, uh… How was it talking to the guidance counselor this week?"
"Fi—" Danny stopped himself because surely he was using that word too much. "Good," he said instead.
"Yeah? Do you like her?"
Danny remembered Theia's smile, her ghostly silver eyes batting behind Ms. Epps' glasses.
"Yeah, she's nice," said Danny.
"What did you two talk about this week?"
Danny's nerves spiked. He inhaled, attempting to smooth them over. "Just…stuff."
"What kind of stuff?"
"Nothing really."
"I hope that's not true."
Danny looked at Jack out of the corner of his eye. Jack's eyes were focused on the road ahead, but his jaw appeared tight.
"You were supposed to talk to her about how you're feeling," Jack continued, "how you're handling things."
Danny winced at the sound of disappointment and frustration in his father's tone, but he had no idea what to say in response.
Jack drove straight through an intersection. Danny craned his head to look back. "Uh, wasn't that the turn for our neighborhood?"
"I feel like getting a milkshake," said Jack. "Doesn't that sound good?"
Danny's stomach twisted, already nauseous just imagining thick gloppy ice cream sloshing around inside him.
"Sure," he pressed out.
The drive to the ice cream shop was uncomfortably silent. Danny swallowed several times, turning over dozens of things to say in his head, small talk and mundane observations, safe topics for conversation.
But he couldn't get the words out, too afraid that if he broke the silence, Jack would come back with difficult questions that he could never answer adequately.
So he instead kept his lips tight and crossed his arms over his middle, trembling in his seat, his head pounding.
Don't think about painkillers, don't think about painkillers, don't—
God, he just wanted them so bad!
He just wanted all of this everything that was happening to go away go away go away—
"What do you want?" asked Jack suddenly.
Danny jumped. Just outside the driver's side window, he could see the ice cream shop's drive-through menu. He shivered and breathed, attempting to control his shaky nerves. "Um—I don't need anything."
"Come on, you gotta get something." Jack leaned his head out the window. "Give us one minute, please." He turned back to Danny. "You're not going to make me drink a milkshake by myself, are you?"
"Uh…" Danny sighed. "Fine, I'll get a milkshake, too."
"What kind?"
"Vanilla."
"Vanilla with what?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want candy mixed in it? Chocolate syrup? Caramel? Strawberry?"
"No. Just—nothing, just vanilla."
"Just vanilla?" Jack looked completely dumbfounded. "The most boring flavor? That's really all you want?"
Danny held in a huff. "Fine, add some Oreos."
Jack said nothing for a long moment as he stared at Danny. Danny pretended to be very interested in a hangnail clinging to his middle finger, picking at the torn piece of skin, moving it back and forth.
"I'm sorry," said Jack quietly. "I shouldn't have said that. I'll get you just vanilla if that's really what you want."
Danny looked up to see Jack giving him a gentle smile. Danny tried his best to return the smile, but his mouth muscles felt tight.
Jack turned back to his window and placed the order with the drive-through attendant. Danny rubbed his elbows and looked out his own window, at the people sitting at tables outside, enjoying their ice cream cones and sundaes and banana splits in the spring sunshine.
It was strange seeing people so happy, laughing and chatting like everything was great and there was nothing to worry about, just another normal day with friends and family.
He wished he could remember what that felt like.
Jack pulled the GAV to the drive-through window. The attendant had to reach high to hand Jack the two styrofoam cups filled with blended ice cream. Danny could only see the top of the attendant's head from his viewpoint.
"Here." Jack passed one of the milkshakes to Danny. "Plain ol' vanilla."
Danny took the shake begrudgingly. Although he could tell his dad was just trying to joke with him, he could also sense judgment for his boring taste.
He took a small sip through the straw and then placed the shake in one of the cup holders between the two front seats. Jack slurped down a huge gulp as he used one hand to steer the GAV into a parking spot shaded by a large tree. Danny's stomach dropped as he watched his dad shift the gear into park.
"We're—uh—we're not going home?" asked Danny, trying not to sound too nervous.
"No," said Jack, rolling down both front windows a few inches before shutting off the GAV engine and unbuckling his seat belt. "Not until we talk."
A soft breeze blew in through the open windows, the scent of grass and blooming flowers, the sound of leaves rustling and people laughing in the distance.
Danny's knees knocked together. "We've been talking, haven't we?"
"No, not really." Jack sighed. "I really wish you would talk to me, Danny."
Jack took the lid off his milkshake and poured some ice cream straight into his mouth. Danny folded his arms, pressing his hands against his sides.
"What do you want me to say?" he asked, begging to just be told the right answer to parrot back, whatever would get his dad to start up the GAV again and take them home.
Jack lowered his cup, resting it on his thigh. He stared straight ahead through the front window. "I just want you to tell me what's going on with you."
Danny shook his head. "Nothing is going on with me."
"Don't say that." Jack turned to him with disapproval. "Don't lie to me right now, Danny."
Danny bit his lower lip and looked down at his lap.
"Please." Jack's voice started shaking. "You've been lying for so long now, saying you're fine when you're not. And I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention before, I'm sorry I ignored all the warning signs. I just really wanted to believe you were fine, I didn't want to deal with—"
Jack stopped, exhaling loudly. He gulped down more of his milkshake. Danny looked at his own milkshake in the cup holder, but the thought of drinking it only made him queasy.
"I know we've never been very close," Jack murmured, again staring out the front window. "We've never had much in common." He paused, his hand clenching and crackling his styrofoam cup. He then looked right at Danny. "But that doesn't mean I can't tell when you're acting off. Something happened while you were gone, I know that. And I really need you to tell me."
Jack's stare was intense, piercing, almost aggressive. Danny tried to shrink away but he had nowhere to go. He realized then that he was still wearing his seat belt. Trapped, cornered.
"Nothing happened," he insisted.
"Did someone hurt you?"
Danny was almost startled by Jack's stern tone. "I—no, no one hurt me."
"Then what did they do to you?"
She strung him up like a marionette, played with him, forced him into so many positions—
Danny's breath caught. He swallowed to regain his voice. "What did who do? Who is 'they'?"
"You tell me."
Jack's face was serious, almost stony as his thick eyebrows drew together, lowering over his eyes. Danny forced himself to maintain eye contact while his hand ran along the armrest on the inside of the passenger door.
"There—there was no 'they,' Dad," Danny bleated. "No one—I was with no one."
"I don't believe that."
Sweat beaded on the back of Danny's neck and dripped under his shirt.
"There was no one, Dad. No one hurt me."
"Then why were you gone for three weeks? You really just lived on your own all that time? By choice?"
His wrists were bruised from struggling against the shackles and belts that held him captive. He would cry and moan and scream, his throat scratched raw and throbbing as he bitterly waited for her to return and play with him some more.
"Or was it not your choice at all?" asked Jack, putting his milkshake in the cup holder next to Danny's. "Was someone keeping you from coming home?"
Teal hood pulled over her head, shiny orange lenses leering down at him, red lips curved into a predatory smile.
"Someone like who?" asked Danny in a hush.
Jack exhaled very loudly and shrugged. "Again, you tell me."
Danny slowly shook his head. "I don't know what to tell you, Dad."
"You do," said Jack firmly. "You do know what to tell me, but for some reason, you don't trust me."
"That's not what it is, Dad."
"Then why won't you tell me?"
"There's nothing to tell. I ran away. I came back." Danny's throat was sinking fast. "That's it."
"But why did you run away in the first place?"
Danny tried to speak but the words could only claw at his vocal cords, unable to rise up through his tight throat. His breaths were shallow as they forced their way through the small space.
"What were you running away from, Danny?"
That was the question that was the question that was it that was it—
Her—
He had run from her and then he ran right back into her arms why why why—
What was he doing here—
His hand fumbled for the GAV door handle, shaking as he tried to find it find it now where was it—
what are you running away from this time?
His hand gripped the door handle and he jerked it toward him. The GAV door swung open and Danny tried to leap out but was sharply pulled back by belted restraints that wrapped around his wrists and his ankles bruising and cutting them open—
No, no, it was just his seat belt, he was still wearing his seat belt. He tried to free himself, his hands shaking so hard they were almost numb, his fingers too weak to push the release button.
He had to go he had to leave he had to get out of here—
"Daniel."
Danny froze. Because only one person ever called him Daniel and it certainly wasn't his father.
He slowly, warily turned his head back to Jack. Jack's eyes were now glowing red as he smiled, but not his normal smile. No, this smile was cruel and smug and just awful.
"Vlad?" Danny gasped out.
"Care to close the door, Daniel?" Vlad gestured with one hand. "People are staring."
Danny turned to look out his open door, and indeed, people sitting outside the ice cream shop were watching, looking puzzled. And farther in the distance, Danny thought he saw a man in a white suit ducking behind a tree. He stared at the tree, waiting, but the man never reemerged.
And the people were still watching.
"Daniel?" prodded Vlad.
Danny grabbed the GAV door handle and pulled it toward him, slamming the door shut. He then looked at Vlad again, at his bright red eyes. "Are you inside my dad?"
"I prefer to say I'm overshadowing your father." Vlad scoffed. "'Inside' your father, really, such uncouth phrasing."
Danny's jaw hung open, his brain processes sputtering in all directions.
Vlad held up one hand to indicate an explanation. "'Uncouth' means—"
"I don't care what it means," hissed Danny, quickly reclaiming his voice. "What are you doing here?"
"I am making sure your father won't remember any of this conversation," said Vlad. "We certainly can't have him remembering how his line of questioning sent you into a panic and made you nearly run away yet again, can we? That would certainly jeopardize this cover-up we're all trying to pull off here."
Danny scowled, his lips puckering.
"It's the same reason I assigned Aletheia to overshadow your school counselor," said Vlad. "By the way, what do you think of Aletheia? Have you enjoyed talking to her this week?"
"That's not what I mean." Danny gritted his teeth. "I mean, how did you even know I was here with my dad? And—and what makes you think you can just overshadow my dad whenever you want? Do you just—" Danny shuddered. "Oh, my God, have you done this before? Have you ever—with my mom—"
"Oh, I see," said Vlad. "I understand your misgivings now. Yes, I imagine this must be very unsettling for you, little badger."
Danny's cheeks burned as a growl caught in his throat.
"First of all, while the idea of overshadowing your father to have relations with your mother has crossed my mind, I would never deceive your mother in such a way." Vlad waved a hand as if to dismiss the notion. "I have far too much respect for her, and I would only ever want to earn her affection legitimately. And to love her with my own body, of course."
Danny wrinkled his nose, barely able to suppress a gag.
"As for how I knew you were here with your father…" Vlad moved his hands as if to straighten his string bow tie, but his fingers only brushed against the fabric of Jack's jumpsuit. "I am actually here on special request and with express permission from your mother."
Danny blinked several times. "My mother?"
Vlad nodded.
"My mom asked you to overshadow my dad?" Danny scoffed. "You expect me to believe that?"
"We had a conversation earlier this week concerning your father and how intensely determined he is to ascertain what really happened to you while you were missing," said Vlad. "We decided that overshadowing him when needed is the only way to keep him under control."
"You and my mom had this conversation?"
"Yes. Oh, and our lawyer, Ms. Elsie Mitchell. You met her at the police station. She is also a ghost, if you didn't already know."
Danny shook his head, quick jerks as he tried to process what he was hearing. "You all just made this decision? Without even asking me?"
"Yes, of course," said Vlad. "Why would we need your input?"
Danny's mouth hung open with wordless indignation. He then jabbed the fingers of one hand into his chest. "Because I'm part of this, too!"
"You're a child."
Danny shrank back, his eyes wide.
"This was a decision best left to the adults," continued Vlad. "Nothing personal, Daniel, really."
Danny could still remember the feel of the hard lab table underneath him as he stared up at Vlad. Vlad looked so tall and imposing as he leered down at Danny with that insufferable smile.
He realized in this moment that Vlad still saw him as a child. Even though everyone else in his life seemed to recognize that he had changed, that he was no longer the boy he used to be, Vlad still thought he was just a little kid that couldn't be trusted to make decisions about his own life.
And apparently, his mother thought the same.
"We all felt that this was the best way to maintain this cover-up," Vlad went on. "Why do you think your father stopped looking for another therapist apart from the school counselor?" Vlad pointed to himself. "That was my doing. Overshadowing your father and forcing him to give up on that search was the only way to keep both you and your mother safe."
Danny remembered the sound of Vlad walking away from the lab table, his shoes tapping on the tile floor. Only the sound of it, because all he could see were the walls of the metal vice box that Vlad had relocked around his head, closing in on him, suffocating him.
"Your mother called to let me know that your father had just left to pick you up from school and would not allow her to join him," said Vlad. "She asked me to overshadow your father and ensure he didn't discover or remember anything he shouldn't." Vlad did not smile, but there was a twinkle in his eye. "You are quite prone to emotional outbursts and panic attacks these days, after all. Your father may be a forgetful blunderbuss, but he can also be surprisingly perspicacious when he manages to actually pay attention."
Danny stared at him, unmoving, unblinking.
Vlad inclined his head slightly. "'Perspicacious' means—"
"I don't care what it means," snapped Danny.
Vlad sighed. "Really, little badger, I am only here to help you."
"Help me?" Danny glared at Vlad. "Now you want to help me? Like you helped me in that lab?"
Vlad rolled his eyes. "Not this again."
"Yes, this again!" Danny snarled. "Do you just expect me to let it go? You left me to die, Vlad." Tears burned at the bottom edge of his eyes. "You could've helped me, and you just—didn't."
The tears were building in pressure, aching to spill over. Danny turned his face away from Vlad.
"So forgive me if I don't believe you actually want to help me now." His voice cracked and shook, and he turned even more to look out his side window as two hot tears fell down his cheeks and dripped off his jaw. He tried to blink away the other tears that threatened to fall because God damn it he did not want Vlad to see him crying again.
"But I did help you, little badger."
Danny furrowed his brow.
"Why do you think your mother let you go?"
Danny froze for a moment. He then used one hand to wipe away his tears as discreetly as he could before tentatively turning back to look at Vlad. Vlad's expression overtaking Jack's face appeared somber, not even the hint of a smile in his glowing red eyes.
"The day your mother found out that the police wanted her to come in for custodial questioning, she called to ask me for assistance in finding the best attorney," said Vlad. "I strategically hinted that I was aware that she was using my private lab. That made her realize that the police would likely find out about her use of the lab as well, and she certainly didn't want them to discover the specimen she was hiding there."
Vlad stretched out his arms, draping them over the steering wheel.
"That's why she let you go," Vlad continued. "And I knew she would. I never actually intended to let you die in that lab, little badger." He looked out the front window as he pulled his arms back and tapped the fingers of one hand on the steering wheel. "I had just hoped applying pressure would get you to join me. But you remained valiant as ever when you rejected my offer."
Danny was completely unable to speak for several long beats. The sheer audacity of this man, claiming credit for his mother letting him go, acting as if that were his plan all along even after he cruelly taunted Danny and then left him to suffer through more dehumanizing experimentation.
"You're unbelievable," murmured Danny, slowly shaking his head.
Vlad shrugged. "I wouldn't expect a child to understand."
"I am not a child," said Danny, his tone low and dark.
Vlad smirked and raised one eyebrow, an expression that looked foreign and unsettling on Jack's face. "Only a child would be handling this situation as poorly as you are now."
This situation? This situation—being abducted and locked up and cut open, that situation? He was handling torturous enslavement and abject humiliation at the hands of his own mother poorly, was he? Was he really?
"You have no idea what I went through," said Danny, seething. "I'd like to see you handle this 'situation' better than me."
"I have handled it better than you," said Vlad with a bite. "You think the doctors who cared for me after my accident weren't interested in figuring out exactly what I was?"
Danny was once again stunned into silence. Vlad closed his eyes and held up a hand as if he wanted to put a halt to whatever Danny was thinking.
"I didn't mean to bring that up," said Vlad quietly.
Danny shook his head, attempting to push out the sudden rush of sympathy because Vlad didn't deserve that from him. Vlad still chose to leave him in that lab. And Vlad was a liar anyway; he couldn't trust Vlad to ever tell him the truth if it didn't somehow serve him.
He forced his anger back in as he pointed a finger at Vlad. "It doesn't matter if you think I'm a kid who can't handle what's happened to me. You and my mom should not be making decisions that affect me too behind my back."
"Daniel, what else could we have done about your father?" asked Vlad, sounding tired. "Can you think of even one alternative to overshadowing him?"
"I—" Danny shut his eyes and jerked his head in a quick shake. "That doesn't matter, you still should've asked me first."
"We needed to make a decision quickly," said Vlad. "And that was the best course of action, and you know it." Vlad sighed dramatically as his eyes rolled upward. "Honestly, Daniel, must you always be so querulous?"
Danny's blood boiled in his neck and face, pounding in his temples.
Vlad raised one hand, palm up. "'Querulous' means—"
"I don't—I don't care what it—shut up—"
Danny doubled over, his elbows on his thighs, his hands clutching at his hair. He was done, he was so done with this. If Phantom were cooperating with him, he would transform right now and leave—
He'd phase straight up through the GAV ceiling and then where would he go, where would he go—?
He needed something to drown all of this out, numb the hammering pain in his head—
He imagined Pam Manson's medicine cabinet—she probably still had plenty of hydrocodone—and who cared if she discovered she was missing a couple pills, who cared if she suspected he was the thief, she already hated him—
Beside him, Vlad started up the GAV, muttering about how he hadn't driven stick since college. Danny ignored him as Vlad pulled out of the parking lot and started heading toward his neighborhood. He did not respond when Vlad picked up his untouched milkshake and took a sip, demanding to know what kind of person would order a plain vanilla shake. He could hear Vlad trying to talk to him, ask him questions, goad him into conversation, but Danny blocked him out, clamping his hands over his ears and keeping his head down.
Everything hurt so much.
The GAV came to a stop. Danny looked up to find that Vlad had parked the vehicle in its normal spot behind Fenton Works. Danny wasted no time grabbing his backpack and jumping out of the GAV. He power walked to the house and threw open the back door. He stomped inside, through the kitchen and into the living room where Maddie was sitting on the couch with her legs tightly crossed and her hands clasped in her lap. She hopped to her feet as soon as she saw him.
"How did it go?" she asked, wringing her gloved hands.
Danny glared at her, his lips pressed together as he exhaled through his nose. Maddie put one hand to her chest as she stared back at him with wide eyes.
The back door could be heard opening and closing again, and Jack soon appeared in the living room as well—or was it still Vlad? Danny waited to see if he could catch a glimpse of a ghostly red glow in Jack's eyes, but they remained their normal blue color.
"Ah, I mean—" Maddie glanced at Jack before returning to Danny. "How was your day?"
Danny clenched his fists down by his sides as he locked eyes with her. Her brow pinched and her red lips fell open, soundless.
He stormed past her, up the stairs to his room, ignoring her as she called up after him to come back.
In his bedroom, he shut his door hard and locked it. He dropped his backpack onto the floor and fell onto his bed, staring at the bare walls surrounding him, so sterile and blank, as if no one really lived here.
He felt his cell phone against his thigh, hard and heavy. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at the lock screen.
Six new messages from Sam.
His thumb hovered over the screen as he debated unlocking it. But he already knew what the messages were going to say: Danny, Danny, I'm so sorry about my mom, so sorry that she hates you, so sorry I've been letting her bad-mouth you to the entire town and tell everyone that you're a thieving drug addict. Can we talk please? Will you call me tonight? Are you mad at me? Please, Danny, please, I just want things to go back to the way they were!
Someone knocked on his door. Danny placed the phone face down on his nightstand and buried his face in his pillow, blocking everything out.
Because it all just hurt far too much.
