Chapter Text
That night, Danny woke in the early hours of the morning. That was unusual for him. That is something that must be understood for any of the following events to make sense. Danny was not the sort of person to wake randomly in the night.
He looked at his alarm clock - 1am. He supposed it could be worse - other kids at school were probably having nightmares, whereas his sleep was dreamless. He didn’t dwell on the thought. Rather, he decided to go to the kitchen for a glass of water, maybe a snack depending on if his parents had remembered to go shopping.
As Danny left his bedroom, he was careful to not let his door creak. On his way down the stairs, he missed both the top corner of the landing, as well as the centre of every other step, knowing those were the ones that would creak.
He entered the kitchen, and despite the fact he forgot to turn on the light, he didn’t notice the darkness as he cracked open the fridge to peek inside. Some snack stuff, a bit of fruit - probably needed to be thrown out, it had been there a while - and a tub of ranch. He hadn’t realised his parents had bought any, but shrugged and decided it was good enough, since he had seen some chips earlier. He took the ranch, closed the fridge, made a drink, then heated up the chips and sat at the table.
Absently, he stared into space as he ate his newly acquired snack. He heard footsteps upstairs - his mums, he recognised - but thought nothing of them, used to the noises of movement in the night.
He did, however, pause and lift his head when one of the steps creaked fairly loudly. “Danny?” Then, again, a moment later when the scene sunk in. “Danny!”
He was confused by her panic - he was fairly sure he wasn’t doing anything wrong, so why was she so worried? His question was answered a second later when he noticed what she was looking at, his snack. He followed her gaze and… that was not ranch. That was ectoplasm. And he was eating it.
He looked up at his mum again - who was now stood across from him, worry warring with her curiosity. “What does it taste like?” She asked him, her curiosity clearly having won the internal war.
Danny considered her question for a few moments. “Ranch 2.” He decided to say, not having another way to describe it.
His mum pulled out a notebook from… somewhere, and started to scribble notes down. “Glowing eyes… tastes like ‘Ranch Two’... monitor effects of exposure…” She mumbled to herself as she wrote. As she did that, Danny mentally attempted to figure out how to make the situation less damning.
“Do you think I can eat it ‘cause I was near the portal when it opened?” He asked, trying to make sure she wouldn’t think too hard about why it was safe for him later on. “Jazz ate some food that was just contaminated the other week and she got sick from it.” He added on, trying to make it seem like the thought had just occurred.
After a few moments thought, she decided to tell his father. Danny nodded, but exaggerated a yawn, before he said he was tired and going back to bed. He wasn’t actually tired - the ectoplasm had given him an energy boost comparable to how most described coffee - but he decided it would be smart not to make himself endure his parents theorising.
Bored, and with nothing better to do, he grabbed a comic from under his bed (a Young Justice one that actually acknowledged the fact that non-popular characters existed) where the team had lied to the government, which was kind of cool - and rare to get in Amity. He had only gotten it because he had seen it on a family road trip - rarely taken because the fines from his dad’s driving tended to cost more than the actual trip - and had practically begged his parents for it (which was probably why his parents had started giving him and Jazz pocket money, considering they hadn’t even entertained the idea before then).
Despite his distractions, however, eventually Danny’s mind wandered back to the day before. He started feeling bad - he had left his friends with someone who had quite literally attacked the school earlier that day - but rationalised his decision to himself again, his friends were quite capable, plus they had still had the thermos in case anything happened, and Lunch Lady had been calm when he left. If anything had happened, he would probably find out come morning, and they’d probably agree not to do that again… probably.
Danny and his friends were a lot of things, and idiots was probably one of them
After a few minutes, Danny was struck with the sudden realisation that school wasn’t going to be open, because despite it being a Thursday, there was a gaping hole in one of the walls, plus there was still a disgusting combination of raw and cooked meat left strewn about where the fight had occurred… which he should probably feel a bit bad about, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care about.
He could hear the familiar sounds of his parents entering the lab - which meant they weren’t going to come out till at least lunchtime, when they remembered to eat - and so decided to see if his mum had left the ectoplasm he had been eating. He knew he probably shouldn’t, but it tasted nice and he was pretty sure it was the reason for his sudden energy, as usually he would collapse back to bed after waking up in the night.
He was disappointed to find it was no longer there - he would have to ask Lunch Lady if she knew how to get his hands on some without his parents finding out… if she hadn’t attacked his friends, that is.