Chapter Text
A storm raged outside, wind lashing the trees and rain falling in heavy sheets. Danny felt his nerves fray with each bolt of lightning, and his body tense with each low rumble of thunder. Between the storm and Skulker dragging him out of bed, it had been an awful night.
Turning intangible to float down into the lab, Danny felt most of the water slide off of him. Exhaustion weighed on his mind and body. He clutched at his left arm, doing his best to keep it from bleeding onto the lab floor as he applied pressure
The stab wound in Danny's forearm could've been worse, but it still hurt like hell. Skulker’s blade hadn't gone all the way through, at least.
Small mercies.
Despite his best efforts, Danny still left some drops of ectoplasm on the floor as he deposited Skulker into the portal. Staring down at the mess, he sighed.
He would have to clean it up before going to bed– after dealing with his arm, that is.
With the thermos emptied, Danny reached through the floor for the first aid kit he kept hidden near the portal. There was one in the lab he could use, but Danny tried to avoid touching it unless it was an emergency. He didn’t need his parents to see just how much gauze he went through.
First aid kit in hand, Danny grabbed a chair and sat down at one of the lab tables. Holding his arm up he inspected the wound; it was difficult to get a good look at it through his suit, but Danny could tell that it was still bleeding. He had a few other small cuts on his arms and face but the stab wound took priority.
Unzipping his suit, Danny carefully pulled his arm out of the sleeve, wincing as the material slid over his injury. It looked better than he was expecting, honestly. With some first aid and a little ectoplasm it would heal up within a day or two.
He thought of going to Sam or Tucker, but the wound didn’t seem severe enough to justify doing so. It was past one in the morning and both of them were probably asleep anyway.
Danny should be asleep.
He regretted not giving the thermos one last good shake.
As he rooted through the first aid kit Danny took stock of the supplies within. There was plenty left to deal with his arm, but he’d have to restock on gauze soon. The first aid kit in his room had plenty, but he tried to stay on top of all of his supplies. It paid to be prepared in that regard, particularly when Sam was the one paying for it.
The sting of the antiseptic woke Danny up somewhat. He winced, hissing as he patted at the wound with some gauze. Once it was properly clean, he fished some sutures, nylon thread, and a needle from the kit. After months of practice, Danny was slowly getting better at sewing his own skin together in the hours Sam and Tucker couldn't.
Practice aside, sutures never got much easier , however. The pain remained the same, and his hands just as shaky. Danny tensed and groaned as he slid the needle through his skin, pulling the wound together with uneven stitches. It was difficult to manage with one hand, but Danny was at least thankful the wound was on his left arm. He'd always favored his right hand more, but his left hand now shook particularly badly since the Accident.
Danny let out a relieved sigh when he tied off the last stitch. He sat back in the chair, leaning against the table, shutting his eyes. Tapping his fingers on his knee, Danny hummed an aimless tune. When his arm throbbed painfully, Danny opened his eyes, seeing a thin trickle of ectoplasm ooze from the stitches.
Not wanting to make more of a mess, Danny grabbed the bandages and quickly wrapped his arm.
Once the stab wound was taken care of, Danny cleaned the cuts peppering his arms and the two small ones along his jaw before bandaging them. Most of the cuts would be closed by morning, thankfully.
He sat there for a moment, dazedly staring at the closed portal doors.
It was nights like this one where Danny wondered what his life would be like if he never took those few foolish steps down that metal tunnel.
He shook his head vehemently. It wasn’t worth dwelling on.
The storm continued to rage on outside, the distant sounds of thunder carrying through the basement walls. Being underground might have helped calm Danny’s nerves were he not so close to the portal. Storms simply dredged up too many bad memories.
Sighing, Danny stuffed the supplies back into the first aid kit and tossed the used gauze in the hazard bin. The sooner he cleaned the lab, the sooner he could sleep.
Transforming so he could stay on the ground easier, Danny flitted around the lab as he cleaned up the mess. By the time he scrubbed the last few drops of ectoplasm by the portal away, his eyelids were drooping low. A clock in the corner of the lab said it was three in the morning. At least he would be able to get a few hours of sleep before school.
After phasing his first aid kit back into the floor and giving the lab one last cursory glance to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, Danny started to walk towards the stairs. He was halfway across the lab when the fridge caught his eye.
Ectoplasm– he’d almost forgotten.
Opening the fridge, Danny’s eyes skirted over the samples inside before he came upon what he needed. His parents always had plenty of purified ectoplasm samples. Danny liked to take a few whenever he was injured; it helped speed up the healing process.
Danny had grabbed two vials when a particularly loud boom of thunder rattled the house. The sound made Danny jump, dropping both of the vials to the ground where they shattered on impact. Groaning, Danny looked down to find his shoes and the floor surrounding them covered in green.
Right after he’d put away the cleaning supplies too.
“Always something,” Danny grumbled under his breath.
Determined to have his ectoplasm at least, Danny grabbed two more vials from the fridge, holding both as securely as he could without smashing them in his hands. He pulled the stopper off of one and tossed it back. The taste was sharp and bitter, the texture unpleasantly viscous, but Danny was used to both now.
Tucking the empty vial into his pocket, Danny popped the stopper off of the second one and raised it to his lips. Before he could take a sip, another rumble of thunder came and Danny shuddered, pausing.
"Danny?"
Startling at the sudden voice, Danny dropped the second vial to the ground where its spilled contents joined the first two.
Wheeling around, he saw both of his parents standing on the lab steps. His dad stood at the base of the stairs, his mom a couple steps higher. Both of them clutched ectoguns in their hands, pointed in Danny's direction.
Jack had been the one to call his name. He stared at Danny with puzzlement, and he watched as his dad slowly lowered the gun.
Maddie resolutely maintained her aim.
The pair of them advanced towards him and Danny nervously backed away. He kept his eyes trained on his parents, hardly straying from the gun in his mother's hands.
"Who are you?" Maddie called angrily, pushing past her husband.
She had the teal hood of her hazmat pulled up and her eyes obscured by the dark red lenses of her goggles. Danny could still imagine the fierce glare of her eyes, paired with the snarl of her mouth.
"M–Mom?" was all Danny could stammer out as he took another step back.
"Danno, what's going on?" Jack asked tentatively.
"That's not Danny," Maddie cut in before Danny could answer. "He was drinking ectoplasm, Jack– look at his chin."
Jack tensed behind her at those words, his eyes narrowing suspiciously before a cold, dawning horror seemed to overtake him. His eyes flickered to the ectoplasm on the floor and back to him.
Danny could feel the evidence burn on his chin. He gulped, his hands shaking as he held them in a placating gesture.
Maddie continued to prowl forward, staring him down like a wolf stalking a rabbit. The ectogun remained aloft, and Danny was only thankful she hadn't yet fired it.
Realizing the danger he was in, Danny tried to plead his case. “M–Mom? It’s me, Danny. I’m not overshadowed Mom, it–”
Maddie tensed, her hands steady as she clutched the barrel of the ectogun more tightly. "How dare you call me that. Your eyes– Danny doesn’t have green eyes!”
His entire body shook. Danny blinked rapidly, willing his eyes to return to their original color. The room felt too small, the air too thin. He took another step back and jumped when he felt his back hit the cabinet in the far corner.
He was cornered, in the truest sense of the word.
“I said,” Maddie raised the ectogun higher, ready to take deadly aim, “get out of my son.”
The cold calm of her voice sent shivers down Danny’s spine. Outside, the thunder rumbled, and with the desperate thrumming of his core Danny could imagine the storm rearing within him.
“I’m not overshadowed,” Danny repeated, his voice shaking on every word. “This is just– I just–”
Danny tried to consider his options, his thoughts running a mile a minute, his core thrumming so hard against his ribs that it ached . His parents had seen him drinking ectoplasm. Even if Danny could somehow convince them he was overshadowed, they’d want to pump his stomach– to check him and make sure that he wasn’t harmed by the overshadowing or the ectoplasm in his belly. All it would take is one blood test for them to see just why the ectoplasm didn’t harm him.
To see how much of it lingered in every fiber of his being.
The ectogun whirred and Danny’s heart leapt as a blast of green barreled past his head, striking the wall behind him. It came so close that it singed several of Danny’s hairs.
His mother rarely missed from a distance. At this close range, the misfire was intentional.
“Get out of my son. This is your last warning, ectoplasmic scum.”
Staring down the barrel of his mother’s ectogun, Danny could only see two options.
His first option was to run. To turn intangible and fly off into the storm and do what he could to pick up the shattered pieces of his life. Maybe he could somehow convince his parents to forgo any tests? Maybe he could convince them he was himself– the same Danny they’d always known, and they could all forget that this standoff happened.
A pipedream, at best.
Danny’s second option squeezed at his core. He’d considered it so many times before, but even in the most ideal, best case scenarios he could never bring himself to commit to the idea. The thought of telling his parents always left a bitter taste in Danny’s mouth, accompanied by the cloying bite of his own ectoplasm and the ache of old burns their ectoguns had left on his skin. Telling them now… Danny wondered if he even could. If he should .
“Mom,” Danny began, raising his hands higher, praying that his mom wouldn’t fire again at hearing her name from his mouth. “This is me. I… I should’ve told you guys a long time ago. Please– please let me explain. I–it was the portal accident.”
Maddie exchanged a quick glance with Jack. A conversation seemed to pass between them. While Maddie glared at Danny with cold, hard conviction, Jack seemed much more conflicted. His brows knitted together with something like concern.
“What does this have to do with Danny’s portal accident? How do you know about that?” Maddie demanded, still controlling the conversation. Jack seemed too rattled by what was going on to interject for once.
Everything in Danny begged him to keep the secret close to his chest. He’d done so for almost a year now. No matter how bad things had gotten– no matter how many times his parents shot at him, or threatened his ghostly half, Danny kept quiet. Sometimes he dreamed about them finding out and everything being okay, but Danny always, inevitably, let those hopes spiral into nothingness, washed away by fear and hurt.
It took every bit of energy Danny had to speak.
“I– I know because I'm Danny– I was there ! It wasn’t just a small shock, Mom, Dad, I…”
Danny wished that Jazz was there. He’d never imagined telling his parents alone. Every fantasy he’d ever had always included Jazz, Sam, or Tucker– usually all three. His friends, his sister, all of them there to support him and be there just in case.
Yet he was alone now, staring down the barrel of a gun. Jazz was a heavy sleeper, and nothing short of Danny screaming bloody murder would wake her. Calling Sam and Tucker was also out of the question. Danny was as sure as he was scared, that if he moved his hands Maddie would pull the trigger. The blast wouldn’t kill him, but at this close range it would give his parents every opportunity to capture or harm him further.
“I was i–inside the portal when it turned on,” he croaked out.
There was a beat of silence. Though Danny couldn’t see his mother’s eyes, her mouth drew into a thin, thoughtful line.
“No one could survive that,” Jack said, finding his voice. Danny snapped his eyes to him. “The voltage… it would’ve killed you– Danny .”
Nodding, Danny said, in a very small voice, “Yes.”
Maddie laughed, the sound cold and derisive, bouncing off the walls of the lab, punctuated by another deep roll of thunder and the endless patter of rain against the house.
“You expect us to believe our son has been dead for, what– a year? You don’t think we would have noticed?”
Her words shot a sharp pang through his core. They certainly hadn't noticed, though Danny had gone out of his way to maintain their ignorance. The lies, the avoidance, the sneaking around– there were so many times Danny could have spoken up but chose not to.
Still, it hurt. A small part of Danny had wished they would have figured it out, if only so he wouldn't have to make the leap himself.
And here he was. Leaping. Not knowing where he would land.
"I'm sorry I hid it from you," Danny wavered. His core thrummed, his heart pounding a furious tattoo alongside it. "I w–wanted to tell you, but I was scared. I'm still scared, M–Mom, Dad. I don't want you to hate me."
Or to shoot.
In all this time, Maddie had still not lowered her gun. Danny wondered if his eyes were still glowing, or if she was simply convinced enough of her suspicions or bias to aim regardless.
"Prove it. Prove what you're saying is true," Maddie challenged.
Danny licked his lips nervously, tasting the ectoplasm that lingered there. The only proof he had was transforming, and Danny couldn't be sure that Maddie would hold her fire if she saw Phantom take the place of her son, when she was already convinced he was overshadowed.
He didn't have much of a choice.
If Danny was quick, he could turn intangible before the blast hit him.
Taking a deep breath, steeling his resolve, Danny said, "Please– this is me. It's always been me."
He let the light wash over him, cold as windswept snow and autumn nights.
The transformation hadn't even swept past his head when Maddie fired.
The blast hit Danny in the shoulder, knocking him back forcefully into the cabinet. His head ricocheted off of the wood and the world spun for a moment.
Danny lay slumped against the cabinet, panting heavily. His vision swam, everything distorted and bright as the light of his transformation finished its ascent over his head.
Maddie loomed over him, Jack's towering bulk behind like a looming shadow.
"Where is my son ?" Maddie demanded, her hands now shaking as she pointed the ectogun down at Danny, her shoulders tensed. "What have you done with him, Phantom?"
Danny opened his mouth, trying to form words. "I–I am–"
"I'm not playing your games. Wh–where is my boy?" Maddie's facade broke slightly, a quiver coming into her voice.
Tears rolled down Danny's face, "I am your son!" he repeated, his voice cracking, breaking on each word. "I am. I've al–always been."
Maddie shook her head, doubt and hurt in every inch of her body language and the furious downward twist of her mouth.
"Mads, we– we can fix this," Jack said. He moved to rifle through a cabinet, grabbing something Danny couldn't see. "He's just overshadowed. We can rip the ghost from him, it'll be okay. If he's still in there it–it'll be okay."
"Jack, it’s replaced him. It was burned– look at the burn. Ectoblasts don't hurt h–humans like that."
"Phantom's always been different Maddie," Jack said, pushing past her. He had something large covering his hand. It reminded Danny of the ghost gauntlets, but it was darker– sharper.
Danny scrambled backwards, trying his best to get away. He could barely stand. Ectoplasm bubbled from the wound in his shoulder, and it was all Danny could do to clutch onto the cabinet and keep down the bile rising in his throat.
"St–stay back!" Danny said, his teeth bared, his eyes bleary and unfocused.
Maddie's gun whirred and Danny whipped around, firing an ectoblast, trying to aim for her gun. He must've missed, judging by the shriek that issued from her as she stumbled back.
A shadow rose in his periphery. Danny turned to face it– and watched in horror as Jack bore down on him with the gauntlet covering his hand, a vengeful snarl in his throat.
Danny hardly registered the claws ripping down the left side of his face.
He did register the burning. The pain in his left eye. How the light faded from that eye and didn't return.
The force struck Danny to the ground. He stared up at Jack, whose bright orange form wavered in his halved vision.
Danny hurriedly touched the left side of his face, terrified to learn what had been done. He felt the wet slick of ectoplasm– saw the lurid green color as he pulled his hand away from his burning face.
Burning pain– his face, his shoulder, his throbbing core.
A keening sound bubbled up from Danny’s throat. He shut his eyes– eye– tight.
He screamed– Wailed.
Danny poured his pain and frustration into the sound, letting his own dying screams engulf his ears. He almost lost himself to it, determined to see the wail through until every last ounce of energy left him, when Danny remembered who was on the receiving end of it.
His parents. Humans.
The wail stuttered, the sound cracking and dying as Danny opened his eye.
For a moment, Danny wasn’t even sure he was in the lab.
Rain and bits of rubble fell from a gaping hole in the ceiling. The far wall had collapsed outwards, with mud from the surrounding ground seeping through the crumpled metal plates. All of the familiar implements of the lab lay scattered, many of them broken. Shattered glass glinted from the floor, dusting over twisted chairs and bent tables. Ectoplasm weeped from weapons and experiments, pooling around crushed furniture that had fallen from the living room.
A dark tunnel yawned in Danny’s periphery, familiar and haunting. Reluctantly turning to look, Danny saw that the archway of the portal had collapsed, leaving behind only a dark, seeping pool of ectoplasm.
The portal was gone. The house was destroyed. Where were–
A groan grabbed Danny’s attention. He saw some of the rubble shift to reveal a muddy teal hazmat suit, and noticed a larger orange bulk lying closeby. Scrambling to his feet, fear driving Danny past pain and exhaustion, he stumbled forward.
“Mom!” Danny called, the word harsh and broken from his sore throat.
Maddie lifted her head, propping herself up on her elbows as she dragged herself from the twisted metal table she’d been under. The hood of her suit had been torn on the left side, her auburn hair sticking through. Her goggles sat askew on her head, the right lens smashed. Blood trickled down Maddie’s forehead and across her nose.
Tearing his gaze from Maddie, Danny’s eyes landed on the hulking mass of his father. For a moment, Danny thought he was dead. His core stuttered painfully at the thought, until he saw bits of plaster roll off Jack’s back as he breathed.
Danny took another step closer, his core hammering in his chest, his eyes flying back to his mom as she dragged herself forward. He wanted to race to her side and help, but fear kept him from drawing close.
He’d destroyed their home. He’d hurt them.
Shaking, hardly able to stand, Danny called out to her. “Mom, are you–”
The words died in Danny’s throat as his mother coughed. Wheezing with the effort, Maddie pulled herself higher onto her arms, dragging her legs under her. “M–monster,” she croaked out, baring her teeth into a snarl. “Y–you monster.”
The one violet eye Danny could see bored a hole through his very soul. Danny froze, hardly even noticing when a flash of lightning– the thing that normally made him want to run and hide– lit up the sky, casting shadows across the broken lab.
There was a clattering sound, though Danny couldn’t be sure from where. He listened to the pounding rain, the creak of the house above as more rubble fell–
His mother crying as she shouted, “ Monster!” one last time, putting every ounce of her strength behind the word.
Danny never wanted to hurt her– anyone. No matter how much they hurt him.
The sound of someone shouting and banging against something caught Danny’s attention. He recognized the voice, though he couldn’t make out the words.
“Jazz!” Danny cried, stumbling towards the stairs where the sound came from.
The world tipped around him, his vision blurry and dark at the edges. Danny felt cold– a sensation he didn’t normally experience in his ghost form. A haze lay thick over his mind. It felt like a dream, climbing the first few steps.
The staircase was mostly intact, though it seemed the door at the top was stuck. There was more banging from the other side and Danny heard Jazz cry out his name.
Danny didn’t bother trying to tug the door open. Phasing through it, he stumbled into the kitchen, barreling into Jazz the moment he dropped his intangibility. She caught Danny in her arms and he hissed as her hand pressed against the burn on his shoulder.
“Danny, wh–what happened, why–”
Jazz spoke quickly at first, the words stammering from her mouth.
Silence fell as she took stock of his injuries.
Time seemed to stop as Danny stared up at Jazz, watching her eyes stretch wide and her mouth quiver. She quickly removed her hand from his shoulder, grabbing instead at his left forearm and letting go of that too when he gasped in pain.
Jazz took a step back, covering her mouth with her hands– flinching when she saw the ectoplasm covering her fingers. She shook like a leaf, her eyes fixed on the left side of his face.
For a moment Danny thought she might vomit.
“Wh–what did they do to you?” she asked, her voice quivering, tears pooling in her eyes. “Danny, I…”
Danny couldn’t say anything. He wavered on the spot, fighting dizziness. It was all he could do to keep standing. At this point, Danny wasn’t even sure how he was still in this form. What adrenaline had fueled him was slowly ebbing away, replaced by exhaustion, and accented by pain. Squinting his eye, Danny hung his head low, feeling a cold shiver wrack his frame.
He felt lopsided. Without seeing the wound, Danny knew that eye was gone– what Jazz must see…
Jazz reached out to him again, gently looping an arm under his uninjured shoulder and around his torso, supporting him. Danny readily leaned into her touch. She felt so warm. He felt so relieved that his wail had not hurt her.
“We–we need to go,” she said quietly. “We can’t stay here.”
She fumbled in her pocket for something, producing her phone. Danny watched Jazz thumb through the contacts; she swore as her shaking fingers missed the right buttons.
“What about M–Mom and Dad?” Danny asked, his voice shaking over their names.
Jazz stiffened, her breath catching in her throat.
“Did they hurt you?” she asked.
Danny’s core stuttered painfully as he said, “Y–yes, but they’re hurt. I hurt–”
Jazz’s grip tightened on his torso. “Danny, you haven’t seen… They hurt you. I– we need to g–go. Don’t worry about them, we need to go.”
Her voice shook almost as much as her arms.
Danny could hear Jazz’s phone ringing as she dragged him to the front door. He took stock of the ground floor as they passed through it, shuddering as he saw how much of the living room had fallen away. It was dark and wind whipped rain through a large hole in the outer wall. Danny couldn’t be sure how stable the house was now. It bothered him to know he was leaving his parents down in the lab, beneath the cracked floor.
(Despite what they’d done, it hurt to know they weren’t safe. That he had hurt them.)
Darkness crept further into the edges of Danny’s vision. He leaned more heavily into Jazz, feeling sleep drag him down, mind and body.
Danny heard Jazz talking on the phone, but the words drifted to his ears slow and indistinct. He couldn’t place who she was talking to, or why.
Shutting his eye, Danny felt numb to everything but the pain that still scorched through his shoulder and face. The stab wound from Skulker, once the worst part of his shitty night, felt little worse than a bee sting in comparison.
At some point, Danny felt rain on his face. He was no longer on his feet and there were strong arms holding him close. His eye fluttered open, staring up at the dark, stormy sky. Jazz’s face hovered in Danny’s periphery, her ginger hair falling over her shoulders, tickling his face.
Jazz said something to him; Danny felt the rumble of the words in her chest more than heard them. He buried his head against her, not caring when the fabric of her shirt scratched the raw wounds on his face.
The last thing Danny remembered was Jazz slowly lowering him down and brushing his hair out of his face. The rumble of what must've been her car lulled Danny into unconsciousness, accompanied by the wavering sound of her voice.
~*~
Jazz felt as if her entire world was crashing down around her.
She stood in front of the door to their home, not knowing if she could call it that anymore. Danny slumped into her side, his ectoplasm slicking her arm and staining her clothes.
The phone rang in Jazz’s ear and each unanswered note sent spikes of anxiety through her heart.
Finally, mercifully, the line picked up.
"Jazz?" Sam answered, her voice groggy with sleep.
“S–Sam, I need you and Tucker to meet m–me at the safehouse as soon as you can,” Jazz said quickly.
Pinning the phone between her shoulder and her ear, Jazz pulled the door open and dragged her brother out onto the front step.
Danny went limp, all of his weight falling into her. She stooped to pick him up, feeling the chill of his ghost form seep into her chest as she hugged him close. His body was as light as a small child like this.
“Wait– shit, Jazz, do they know? Is Danny okay?” Sam asked very quickly, worry in her every word.
The rain fell just as steady as ever, soaking through the pajamas Jazz had had no time to change out of. She carried Danny to her car, shivering from his chill just as much as from her frayed nerves.
“I–I don’t even know, Sam. It’s bad… it’s bad.”
The sound of a door or window shutting came through Sam’s line. “H–how bad?” Sam asked. Her voice shook a bit, the sound of wind buffeting the speaker as though she were running.
Jazz leaned on her hip, balancing Danny in one arm so she could open the car door.
“Sam, h–he’s injured. His left eye, it’s…”
Jazz trailed off. How could she describe it? The savage claw marks that dragged down half of his face, leaving a dark pit where a shining green eye once lay. The green remained, oozing from the scars and shining in the raw flesh.
It wasn’t even his only injury…
Lowering Danny onto the back seat of her car, Jazz carefully arranged his limbs to make him comfortable. She brushed the hair from his face, careful not to touch his wounds.
“Wh–what’s wrong with his eye?” Sam asked tentatively.
Jazz hurried to the driver’s seat, slamming the door, jamming the key into the ignition, and peeling out of the driveway.
“It’s gone,” Jazz said quietly, a shiver running down her spine.
“... Gone?”
She turned the first corner at speed, water flying up from her back tires. Rain pummeled the windshield and Jazz fumbled to turn on the windshield wipers.
“I’m driving there now. Call Tucker– please,” Jazz said, ignoring Sam’s question.
She would see soon enough, anyway.
There was a pause before Sam gave an out-of-breath, “O–okay.”
Jazz hung up the phone, tossing it into the seat beside her. She gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands, letting the pounding rain and rumble of the engine fill her ears.
The soft, hardly-perceptible sound of Danny breathing carried from the backseat. Jazz’s eyes filled with tears, a sob choking from her throat.
“It–it’s okay,” she said almost more to herself than Danny. “You’ll be okay. You’ll b–be okay.”
She repeated the mantra, her voice cracking and wavering more with each word, as though saying it enough might make it true.
A bright light flashed from the backseat, blinding Jazz as it reflected off of the windshield and rear view mirror. She swerved slightly, striking a mailbox, but quickly corrected her course. Shaking, Jazz blinked the bright spots from her vision. She hardly dared look at the backseat...
But she did look. Jazz craned her neck, glancing to make sure that Danny was okay. She whimpered, seeing the dark, grisly red that had replaced the ectoplasm.
Snapping her eyes back onto the road, Jazz pressed down harder on the pedal. It was a race against time now to get Danny help. Ectoplasm bled much more slowly than blood and his human half was less durable to this level of strain.
“Y–you’ll be okay,” Jazz said, falling back into the mantra.
~*~
The moment Jazz hung up the phone, Sam called Tucker.
Their safehouse was closest to her place, lying on the edge of town near a large stretch of woods. She could see the silhouette of the building in the distance, far down the hill and just past a line of trees.
Tucker answered after a couple of rings, whining into the mic about being woken up so early.
His complaints died when Sam cut him off, stammering through Jazz’s message. She could hardly speak between running and holding back the emotion cloying at her throat.
Tucker got the message regardless. He was out his bedroom window within minutes.
Sam reached the safehouse first. The building looked worse for wear, its grimy windows covered with clinging ivy. Weeds and overgrown bushes choked the yard, with tall grass obscuring the path to the front door. It was one of many old houses in Amity that the city struggled to sell. Stories of hauntings and misdeeds lingered in the rafters of these houses. Not all of the stories were fantasy.
This particular house occasionally housed a flock of blob ghosts, but raccoons in the attic were the closest thing it had to a proper haunting.
That would change once Jazz arrived with Danny.
It was Jazz’s idea to have a safehouse in the first place. She always feared the worst and always tried to plan ahead.
As Sam picked her way across the path and felt for the key hidden in the step, she could only be thankful that Jazz was so paranoid– that she had agreed and even helped Jazz set up the supplies within the house.
Sam hurried inside and stood for a moment in the foyer, dripping water on the tattered, moth-eaten rug by the door. She took one deep, wavering breath and marched to the garage, tossing her wet jacket on the floor as she went.
Sam left both the exterior and interior garage doors open, making sure there was nothing in the way for Jazz to park and rush inside. With the entrance clear, she then hurried back inside the main house to grab supplies.
Sam’s thoughts drifted as she pulled what they needed from their hiding spaces. She grabbed the first aid kit and water from a hidden cabinet in the kitchen, and then some towels from the closet. Hurrying up the stairs, leaving a trail of rainwater behind her, Sam grabbed the blankets and pillows from the master bedroom. If Danny was as injured as Jazz’s quavering voice implied, they might have difficulty getting him up the stairs.
She collected the supplies in a bedroom on the ground floor. The room had an old twin-sized mattress on the floor that Sam threw one of the blankets over, acting as a sheet. She carefully straightened it out, tucking the blanket edges under the mattress. Her hands shook through it all and she fought to keep tears from welling in her eyes.
A car door slammed and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. She leapt to her feet and rushed for the garage door.
Jazz was on the doorstep in an instant, Danny clutched tightly in her arms. Sam's heart nearly stopped at seeing how much blood covered him. What she could see of his face was pure red with dark, clawed lines and torn flesh. Sam couldn't take stock of much else before Jazz brushed past her.
"The ground b–bedroom," Sam said quickly.
Jazz adjusted her course just as fast and Sam hurried after her.
Sam grabbed the first aid kit and pulled out all of the gauze while Jazz lowered Danny onto the bed.
"We need to stop the bleeding," Jazz said, her voice hurried with panic as she pulled the first aid kit towards her and fished out the scissors from it. "It's his shoulder too."
Jazz handed Sam a pair of scissors and Sam didn’t need to ask what they were for. She knelt down beside the bed, giving Danny’s injuries a cursory look. She had one horrifyingly clear glance at Danny’s missing eye before Jazz tore open some gauze and pressed it against his wounds. The material immediately became scarlet and Jazz grabbed more, pressing it on top of the soaked-through gauze.
Sam focused on her own task, cutting away Danny’s hoodie and the shirt underneath with the scissors. The fabric was dark with blood and pulled away stickily from his skin. She then carefully began undoing Danny’s binder, covering his chest with a blanket in its stead.
An eerie calm settled over Sam as she grabbed some of the gauze and knelt closer, looking carefully at the wound on his shoulder. It looked like a close-range ectogun blast. The edges of it had already cauterized, while the center was raw and still bleeding. She pressed the gauze over the wound and let out a shaky sigh, glancing up.
Jazz was still applying pressure to Danny’s face, mumbling something incomprehensible to herself. She wouldn’t look up at Sam; her eyes remained locked on her own trembling hands.
Blood and ectoplasm stained Jazz’s blue pajamas. Her ginger hair was rumpled and wet, loosely framing her pale face. A glassy sheen lingered in her normally-bright teal eyes.
Sam had so many questions she wanted to ask, but she didn’t dare speak them. Not until they knew Danny would be okay.
Rain fell heavily on the house's old roof, a steady beat that filled the silence. Sam’s breaths shook. She tried to fight back the tears, but they slowly overcame her. Bowing her head, she let them fall like the rain, each drop landing on Danny’s pale skin.
Several minutes passed before they heard the front door. Sam jumped violently, only settling when she heard Tucker’s voice. He rushed to the bedroom, his wet shoes squeaking loudly on the wooden floor.
Like Sam and Jazz, he was still in his pajamas. He didn’t even have his hat on.
Tucker never forgot his hat.
He lingered in the doorway of the room, leaning heavily against the frame. Tucker couldn’t see the extent of Danny’s injuries, but the bloody gauze and the state of Jazz’s clothes had to speak volumes.
Tucker stepped away from the doorframe, slowly shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“H–how is he?” he asked in a small voice.
Sam’s fingers dug into the gauze beneath her hands as Jazz said, “I think he'll be o–okay."
She didn't sound sure.
Tucker ran his hands through his wet hair, pacing back and forth.
"D–did you give him ectoplasm?" he asked.
Jazz's eyes widened fearfully and Sam felt a stone sink into her belly. Jazz straightened up, turning to look at Tucker. "Not yet. Please–"
"On it," Tucker said, hurrying from the room.
Jazz shook her head ruefully. "I–I know he needs it, but he's bleeding and we needed to– I didn't want him to- to–"
"It's okay," Sam said, cutting off Jazz's panicked rambling before she could spiral. "This is important too."
The ectoplasm would help stabilize Danny and give him energy, but they needed to stop the bleeding.
Sam told herself this, trying to ignore that she’d forgotten too.
Tucker returned in a flash with the purified ectoplasm, carrying vials of it as well as some ecto-dejecto. He knelt down beside the bed, joining their huddle. Sam watched his eyes trail over Danny and how they lingered on the bloody gauze covering his face.
Tucker, normally wary and fearful of anything medical, barely hesitated before he drove the syringe of ecto-dejecto into Danny’s thigh.
Though Danny didn’t wake, a shiver ran through his body. He groaned in his sleep and Jazz had to readjust the gauze as his head turned to the side. She gently stroked his bloody hair, making soft, soothing noises.
The injury to Danny’s shoulder stopped bleeding first. Sam hurried to clean it while Tucker helped clear away the bloody gauze and grab more water.
The wound across Danny’s face took longer to stop bleeding. By the time Jazz pulled the gauze away, Sam had already begun dressing his shoulder.
Tucker visibly recoiled upon seeing Danny’s injured face for the first time. Tears sprung into his eyes and he grabbed one of Danny’s hands, holding it tight, brushing his knuckles with his thumb.
Once Sam finished wrapping Danny’s shoulder, she moved to help Jazz. There wasn’t much she could do to help, but Sam needed something to keep her hands busy.
It was only when they finished bandaging Danny’s face, wrapping half of his head in gauze, that the weight of everything crashed down upon her.
Sam sat back on her haunches, staring at the blood covering her hands, despite her best efforts to scrub it away with some gauze. Danny’s blood, seeping through pads of gauze and staining her skin.
Sam knew she would never forget those bloody red gashes. They would linger in her nightmares—
And the scars would remain, marring Danny’s skin.
His eye was gone. That realization weighed on Sam’s mind, so much worse than any injury he had experienced before.
Jazz hadn’t said what happened, and Sam dreaded the answer.
They didn’t speak at first. They’d hardly spoken a word since Tucker arrived. Sam didn’t know where to even start.
The mattress lay in the far corner of the room, pressed against the wall; Tucker sat against it, resolutely clutching Danny’s left hand. Sam crawled next to him and sat down, leaning into her friend. She rested her cheek on Tucker’s shoulder, letting out a shaky sigh when he dropped his chin onto her head.
Jazz remained at the head of the bed, gently stroking Danny’s hair. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her face mottled with smears of blood.
They still sat in their rain-soaked pajamas.
“I don’t even know what happened,” Jazz admitted quietly, dragging Sam from her thoughts.
One of Jazz's hands fiddled with the hem of her pajama top, while her other continued to card through Danny's hair. She didn't look up at Sam and Tucker as she continued to speak.
"I just… I woke up to him w–wailing. From the lab. The entire house– Ancients, the house is a mess... And I heard…"
She trailed off, struggling with each word. Sam had half a mind to make her stop.
She didn't.
The blanket underneath them shifted as Tucker wormed his free hand into Sam's. He squeezed tight and she returned the gesture in kind.
Jazz took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling, blinking away her tears.
"I heard M–Mom shouting– she said monster. An–and then he came up the stairs and…"
Jazz gestured helplessly to Danny's sleeping form.
Sam swallowed a lump in her throat. "Did he say anything?" she asked quietly.
Jazz nodded, but did not answer. She opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head, her eyes downcast.
"Was it your parents?" Tucker asked before Sam could.
Slowly, as though wading through the sands of time, Jazz nodded her head.
Ice ran through Sam's veins, colder and sharper than anything Danny's core could produce. She clutched Tucker's hand so fiercely that he gasped in pain.
"He tried… he wanted to go help them," Jazz then said, anger creeping into her shaking voice. "He was b–bleeding all over, and– his eye– and he still was worried about h–hurting them."
Jazz's ragged breaths filled the quiet. She bowed over Danny's head and fresh tears blotted the gauze across his face.
“That’s just like him,” Sam mumbled, unsure what else to say.
Jazz just nodded her head without looking up.
Anger mixed with Sam’s sorrow. It filled her to the brim, and still there was not enough room to contain it all. Fresh tears welled in her eyes, borne of that overwhelming anger. She choked back a sob and bit down a rant. She had so much to say– so many awful words to tear the Fenton parents down until there was nothing but ash and the rubble of their broken house to mark the occasion.
One look at Jazz’s tear-stained, blood-streaked face kept her from doing so.