#dissection mention

He slowly stood up and grabbed a change of clothes and headed across the hallway to the bathroom. He started up the water and waited for it to get warm while he brushed his teeth. He turned the water off and stared into the mirror for a few moments as the water ran in the shower behind him. 

He started peeling off his hoodie, trying to avoid looking at the scar on his chest that trailed up over his collarbones. He turned around and dropped the hoodie on the floor and finished undressing before he stepped into the shower. 

Once he was done, he got dressed and pulled on a new hoodie. Dropping his old clothes off in his room, he grabbed his backpack and headed downstairs. 

His mom turned and looked up at him when he entered the kitchen.

“Danny, it’s awfully warm today. Are you sure you want to wear a hoodie?” Maddie asked as she set a plate down in front of him. 

“It’s colder inside the school.” Danny poked at the food on his plate. “I’ll be fine.” 

“Are you sure-”

“Danny-boy!” Jack walked into the living and slapped a hand on Danny’s back. “Be sure to save some waffles for the rest of us!”

“Jack!” Maddie shooed him to his own seat as Danny gasped for the air that was knocked out of him. “You know Danny’s been sore and out of breath lately.”

Jack knocked himself in the head. “Drat! That’s right. Sorry, Danny.”

“Speaking of that.” Maddie took her spot next to Jack. “You have a doctor’s appointment after school today, Danny.”

Danny spit out the small bite of eggs he finally put in his mouth. “A doctor’s appointment?”

Maddie nodded. “You’re overdue for a regular checkup and with all these other concerning symptoms you’ve been having, I think it’s time you go in for one.”

“But after school I-”

“Nope.” Maddie shook her head. “You have no extracurriculars and whatever you might have planned with Sam and Tucker can wait until after you go to your doctor’s appointment.”

“But-”

“No buts. I’ll be picking you up after school today and we’ll be heading straight there.”

Danny slumped forward in his seat and twirled his fork around on his plate. 

Maddie sighed. “Look, I know going to the doctor can be scary. Especially when something is wrong but you don’t know what. Going to the doctor when symptoms first appear instead of waiting will prevent any issues from getting worse.”

Danny nodded. “I understand.”

They finished eating the rest of their breakfast. Danny still had a bit on his plate, but he pushed it away from him and stood up.

“Have a good day at school, Danny.” Maddie came around the table and gave him a kiss on the forehead. Danny tried not to cringe and stooped down to pick up his backpack and head to school.

~~~~~~~~~~

Danny stared at where his mom’s car was parked in the parking lot.

“You sure you’ll be okay?”

He turned to look at Sam and Tucker as they walked up to him. 

“Yeah, Sam. I think I’ll be okay. It’ll just be a regular check up, right? What can they all do at one of those?”

“Just give us a call when you’re done.” Sam said.

“Or if you need us to break you out of there.” Tucker gently nudged him. “We’ll bust down every door to get you out.”

Danny chuckled. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, Tuck. But I will let you guys know how it went afterwards.” 

He walked away from them and made his way to his mom’s car. 

He pulled the door open and threw his bag onto the floor and jumped into the passenger seat.

“Hi, Danny!” His mom smiled at him as he shut the door and put his seatbelt on. “How was school?”

He shrugged as she pulled out of the parking lot. “It was fine. It was school. Didn’t do much of anything interesting today.”

“Aw. That’s too bad.” Maddie said. 

They drove his silence until they pulled into the parking lot of the hospital.

“The hospital?” Danny asked. “Why didn’t we go to our usual doctor’s office?”

“Because here they can perform any kind of tests they might deem necessary. If they don’t think you need anything else done, they will. If they don’t they’ll just do the regular check up and then send us home.”

She turned the car off and got out. Danny sat there for a few moments staring at the building before he finally opened his door and stood up. He followed his mom across the parking lot and into the building. Right inside the entrance was a reception desk and his mom walked up to an empty booth and smiled at the receptionist. 

“Hi! We’re here for an appointment for Danny Fenton?”

The receptionist shuffled around a couple papers and clipped them into a clipboard with a pen.

“You can take a seat and fill out these forms while you wait for the nurse. They’ll be out shortly.”

They walked over to the waiting area and took a seat in two chairs. 

They went through the checklist and filled out every symptom Danny could remember having in the last six months and his family’s medical history. They were at the bottom of the sheet when a nurse walked through the door leading to the examination rooms.

“Danny Fenton?”

Maddie stood up and Danny’s heart rate spiked.

“Haha, you don’t have to come with me, mom. I’m old enough to go to my own doctor’s appointments on my own now.”

Maddie frowned at him. “Are you sure? I can come in and advocate for you. Make sure they’re taking you seriously.”

“No no, it’s fine. I’ll be okay.”

He stood up with the clipboard and walked over to the nurse.

“I’m Danny.”

“Hi, Danny.” The nurse smiled at him. “If you follow me, we’ll start by taking your height and weight. Once we get to the examination room we’ll go through checking your vitals.” 

They walked up to a scale and Danny took off his shoes.

“120 pounds.” The nurse said.

She unfolded the height thing and pulled it down to the top of his head. 

“Five foot five. Follow me.” 

He followed behind her down the hallway. He studied the walls as they walked by another desk. She stopped and opened a door to their right. 

“In here. You can take a seat on the bed over there.”

He sat down and took another look around the room. It looked like any other normal doctor’s room he’s been in before. 

“We’re going to start with your temperature.” 

She stuck a thermometer in his ear and took it out when it beeped. She frowned at it. “Ninety four degrees.” 

She stuck another thing in his ear and moved to his other side. When she was done, she grabbed the blood pressure device. He held up his arm and she wrapped it around it and started pumping it. It squeezed Danny’s arm as she studied the measurement. She pulled it off.

“Blood pressure is low.”

A knock sounded at the door and a doctor walked in.

“Hi, Susan. I can take it from here.” She said. 

Susan walked out of the room and the doctor sat down in the swivel chair next to the bed.

“I’m Dr. Burnell. Your mom said you came in with concerns about shortness of breath today?”

“You talked to my mom?” He asked.

She nodded. “I just went to ask her a few questions and to get permission to run tests.”

“Don’t you need my permission too?” Danny frowned at her. 

“Unfortunately, your mom has the legal say on any medical treatment you go through. But any tests we run are for your benefit so we can get to the root of the issue. But before we get to any of that, I’m going to ask you to take a couple deep breaths while I listen through the stethoscope.”

“Okay…”

She stood up and walked over to him. She placed the stethoscope on his back and listened as he took a deep breath. She frowned.

“Can you take another breath?”

He did as she asked and she stepped away. 

“Have you had any injuries lately? Been hurt in any sports at school?”

His bones cracking as his chest was ripped open. The pain as it radiated outward. Voices talking around him. 

“No.” He said shakily. “No injuries. I don’t play any sports at school.”

Her frown deepened. “I’d like to do an x-ray of your chest. It sounds like you may have a couple broken ribs. That could explain your soreness but not your shortness of breath. For that I’d like to do an MRI.”

“Broken ribs?” Danny asked. He would have thought those would have healed by now.

Dr. Burnell nodded. “When a patient has broken ribs, you can hear them rattling through the stethoscope. There’s not much we can do for those besides prescribe bed rest and pain meds while you’re healing.”

He nodded. “Okay.” 

“If you come with me, we can get started.”

~~~~~~~~~

Danny was led back to his examination room once the tests were over. They were much more painless than he was expecting, but he still didn’t know what his body would look like in them. If his ghostly qualities would appear in them. 

He’d been sitting in this room for quite a while now and he wasn’t sure when the doctor would be coming back. 

A knock finally sounded at the door and Danny jumped in his seat. “Come in.” He called.

Dr. Burnell walked in, staring at some sheets in her hands. She looked frazzled and concerned. 

“We have your scans back Danny, but we haven’t gone to talk to your mom yet. We wanted to check in with you first.” 

Danny frowned at her. What could they have found that she’d be this concerned about? Especially if they still haven’t gone to get his mom to tell them the news together?

“You do indeed have a couple broken ribs. When we did the MRI we did find out that the broken ribs are pushing against your lungs causing your shortness of breath.”

Danny nodded. Was that all they were concerned about?

“But we found something else.”

She handed him his x-ray. His heart dropped into his stomach at the color he saw in the scan that he knew wasn’t supposed to be there.

A green orb sat in the center of his chest.

“And your MRI.”

She handed him another scan and this one had specks of green littered throughout his body. 

The doctor stared at Danny.

“What did your parents do to you?”

Danny pulled back suddenly. “What do you mean what did my parents do to me?“ he asked shakily. 

“We have no other evidence of this type of ecto-contamination in any other patients in Amity Park.” Dr. Burnell said. “We see cases of child abuse often in the hospital. It’s something we have to ask.”

“My parents would never hurt me.” Danny said shakily as he stood up from his seat. 

“We’ve already contacted CPS. They’re going to come and ask you and your mom some questions.”

Danny started hyperventilating. They were going to tell his mom about his injuries and ecto-contamination. They were going to tell her about his core. How would he explain this away? If he was just ecto-contaminated he could get away with that, but not having a core. 

“I- I have to go.” Danny turned towards the door and tripped over his own feet. He hit the ground hard and his chest exploded in pain and stars burst in his eyes.

“Danny!” Dr. Burnell shouted. He could hear her running over and kneeling on the ground beside him. She turned him to his back. Then there was a light shining in his eyes.

White light. The pain. His parents. 

“Get away from me!” Danny shouted. 

His ghostly wail must’ve pushed its way into his shout through his anxiety because the windows on the wall opposite from them shattered. Dr. Burnell covered her face and Danny pulled himself away from her, backing up across the floor. 

“What was that?” Dr. Burnell asked. 

Danny shook his head. “My mom didn’t do anything.”

“Okay.” She whispered. “Okay. She didn’t do anything. But we still don’t know what that is inside your chest. It might be a tumor. We need to-”

He covered his chest with his hands. “No!” 

His core in their hands. Bright lights. Even brighter light. It fell back in his chest and his parents were covering their eyes. His chance.

“You can’t have it!” 

“What is it?”

Danny stared at her. He couldn’t tell some random person his secret. There was no way. 

But this was a doctor. If his mom kept forcing him to go to doctors appointment after doctor's appointment, he’d keep having the same problem. The doctor’s discovering something they shouldn’t have that could only really be worked back to his parents. 

Was there anything else he could do?

“It’s… It’s my core. I’m half ghost.”

“Half ghost?” Dr. Burnell asked. “That doesn’t sound real.”

Danny nodded. “It is. But you can’t tell my parents. CPS can’t talk to them.” 

She gave him some placating hand gestures. “Okay, okay. They’re on their way right now. How do we stop them?”

Danny turned intangible and invisible and called on his transformation. He flew his way towards the waiting room and got there just as someone walked up to his mom. 

“Madeline Fenton-”

He flew into their body, overshadowing him. 

“Yes?” Maddie asked. 

“Oh, nothing much. We just wanted to check and say hi. Danny will be out shortly.”

“Oh! Okay. Should I start checking out?”

He nodded. “You guys will be all set to go.”

She stood up and headed towards the reception desk. Danny turned and walked through the door leading to the hallway and walked the agent around a couple turns and corners before flying out of him. 

Danny transformed back and was about to walk back out through the door when he saw Dr. Burnell. 

She had a stoney expression on her face. He was sure she didn’t believe him. He wouldn’t believe him either. But there was no other option. Not one that disrupted his entire life and flipped everything on its side. He was already different. He didn’t want anything else to change.

He walked back out through the door, ignoring Dr. Burnells gaze. 

“How did everything turn out Danny?” Maddie asked him as they walked out through the front entrance. 

Bright light. Saw. Nicked his core. Screams. Escape. 

A goal. Jim had still been trying to think of one when he zoned out looking at the carpet.

Couldn’t do any kind of job or college, those weren’t happening for him. She’d said their goals could be as long term or short term as they wanted, so maybe--

“My goal is to buy my own Vespa,” Jim said, giving himself a mental pat on the back as he did.

Owning his own Vespa. Nice, realistic, normal. A good, solid goal that no one should look twice at.

The frown melted away into a wide smile “That’s great, do you have anywhere you want to go in your Vespa?”

His face blanked, stomach dropping no less than two inches.

Stupid. 

People wanted cars and Vespas and stuff because they wanted to go places in them. Unlike Jim who was never going to leave his hometown.

“Ummm…..not sure, all the places I normally go I guess,” he forced his voice to stay even despite the squirming in his belly.

Her porcelain smile remained fixed in place “I think that sounds like an excellent goal, but how about you try to think of a more long term goal before the end of the school year?”

Jim nodded along, digging his fingers into his jeans to distract himself from the hot, fluttery feeling sweeping over his entire body.

Was she suspicious? Did she pick up on how he wasn’t actually planning on going anywhere? Was she going to call Dorrie the second he left her office?

“Ok, long term goal next time, I can do that,”

Beaming at him, she pulled a packet of papers off the top of the pile sitting on her desk “You don’t have to use the guide to pick a goal, but if you have trouble thinking of one these should give you some ideas, now do you mind sending in the next student on your way out?”

Jim forced himself to stand up slowly and not just bolt out the door “Ok, no problem,”

“Thanks, have a good spring break,”

He managed to smile and give a half hearted ‘You to’ as he accepted the papers and stepped out of the office. Heading down the hallway back to the main waiting room, the jittery feeling crawling through his muscles diminishing but not completely going away. 

It never did.

Glancing around the waiting room, he spotted the next person in line.

“Eli, you’re up,”

Eli fumbled with the magazine in his hands before popping up out of his seat “Oh, thanks Jim,” he grabbed the magazine along with a stack of others from the floor before rushing down the hall. Jim craned his head to try and read the cover before Eli vanished around the corner.

Keep So-Cal Weird.

Jim rolled his eyes as he exited the main office. At least his goals wouldn’t be as weird as Eli’s. Although quite frankly he’d rather live in a world where they didn’t make freshmen discuss their goals with the guidance counselors.

It wasn’t like Jim didn’t have enough on his plate already.

He had no idea if guidance counselors and social workers talked to each other on a regular basis, but he had to play it safe and act like they did.

Especially since he was like 99% sure that all the teachers knew. He knew that Strickler knew, and he was pretty sure that Strickler had told all the other teachers. So it was more like he was 99.999% sure they all knew, and the 0.001% was just him kidding himself.

So now he couldn’t even come up with some kind of goals to give the guidance counselor without his anxiety going through the roof.

Jim all but threw his bag into the locker and slammed it closed with much more force than was needed, unable to stop himself from getting worked up. 

This past month had been the absolute worst of his entire life. 

It had started when he’d walked in on Dorrie and Charles going through their house and it hadn’t really improved since. 

When he and his mom had gone over their game plan that night after the initial panic it hadn’t seemed all that bad. Be extra vigilant about making sure that no one saw anything weird and otherwise pretend that everything was normal. If they kept on top of it the investigation should fizzle out to nothing. 

Simple enough.

And the first week hadn’t been all that bad, tense but not bad. Week two had been nerve wracking but doable. Week three was when he really started having trouble sleeping, and it wasn’t like he got tons of sleep to begin with. That snowballed to him starting to forget late night meals and nod off during the day, having to work even harder at keeping up the act during school. 

Although if Jim was honest with himself he forgot most of those night time meals on purpose.

On top of that, week four was when he developed a stomach ache that wouldn’t go away, not to mention learned that his hair was falling out. Now it was the end of week five and Jim couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t stressed out, dead tired, and constantly felt like rats were chewing on his insides.

Grimacing, Jim pressed a hand to his stomach as he turned and headed to the cafeteria. Feeling sick and exhausted all the time sucked, but that was nothing compared to the everpresent, unrelenting, blood curdling dread.

The fear that he’d somehow let something slip. That right at this moment someone was coming to arrest his mom and take him away. All because of something Jim said or did.

Forget walking on eggshells, this was more like crawling through a minefield.

Every second that Jim was outside his house he had to be on guard; keeping himself under complete control at all times. Making sure that anyone watching, teachers, nurses, other classmates, wouldn’t see anything worth reporting. No outbursts no meltdowns no nothing.

As far as anyone else knew the Lakes were a normal, happy family. And Jim had to act like it.

But after five weeks he knew that was a hell of a lot easier said than done.

Jim couldn’t be sad or scared or angry any more, even about regular things. With so many people watching he couldn’t afford to let them get the wrong idea. So regardless of what he was actually feeling at any given time, he forced himself to stay calm, plastered on a happy face, and continued along like everything was fine.

But he wasn’t fine. Underneath his plastic smile Jim was coming apart at the seams.

He felt like a nerve with all the skin and muscle ripped away. Exposed to the cold air and completely vulnerable, ready to go off at the slightest touch.

Constantly keeping himself under control in front of all the teachers and every other adult in school was was bad enough, even without--

Jim stopped short as he stepped into the cafeteria, instantly spotting them sitting at a corner table. Five weeks ago the sight would have been somewhat soothing, now it was enough to make his heartbeat triple and intestines knot up.

Pulling in a shaky breath, Jim forced down the sudden bout of nerves. 

He was in the middle of school in the middle of the cafeteria surrounded by other people. Now was not the time to lose it. 

Five in. Hold for five. Five out.

Repeat

After a minute of deep breathing the full body shivers finally diminished to a much more manageable fluttering in his chest. Confident that he’d successfully gotten his emotions under control, Jim raised a foot and slowly resumed his approach.

Jim had been going back and forth about doing this for weeks, but this morning cinched it. 

He was doing this. Today. Right here right now. Even if the idea of doing it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. 

Because the worst part of the past month hadn’t been constantly being on guard or always being tired and nauseous. It was not knowing who’d he had to be on guard from.

A month ago, when he’d walked in on CPS in his house, Jim instantly knew one of his friends had blabbed.

While his immediate response had been to call Toby and demand answers, it didn’t take very long for Jim to shift gears to shoving the thought into the back of his mind and keeping it there. Couldn’t do anything to change it so there was no point to shoving his foot into that hornets nest. A with the way things had blown up when their problems with his mom first came out, forcing the issue might put him on the odds with all of them, and cost Jim the one part of his life that didn’t actively suck right now. The only thing to do was let it go.

So Jim let it go.

But as the weeks went by, despite how much he actively tried not to think about it, small doubts kept sprouting up in the back of his mind like weeds.

Did Mary really mean it when she asked how he was doing or was she fishing?

Was Toby trying to be helpful by offering to help carry groceries in or was he looking for a chance to spy inside the house?

His heart shot up into his throat, pounding as he closed in on the table.

And while Jim knew it had to be one of the four of them that called, he still had no idea who it was. That meant he didn’t know who it wasn’t either.

So as much as he tried, as much as he wanted to, Jim could never completely relax around any of his friends.

It was bad enough being on edge with every single adult in his life, but not knowing which one of his friends had stabbed him in the back, and worse not knowing if they were waiting to do it again…..

Jim stopped in his tracks, table just inches away. The four of them chatting away, his presence still unnoticed. Heartbeat hammering in his ears.

This was going to be ugly but Jim just couldn’t take not knowing any more. One way or another the truth was coming out today.

“I know one of you called the cops on my mom, so who was it?”

The four of them practically jumped in their seats before whirling around to face him. Claire was the first to find her tongue.

“What?” 

Her eyebrows were knitted together in confusion. An expression shared by all the others sitting around her.

Somehow that made the lump of coal sitting in his ribcage smolder hotter even as his heart was threatening to beat out of it.

One of them knew exactly what he was talking about. One of them was only pretending to be confused.  

“A month ago someone called CPS on my mom and I know it was one of you,” he made a show of narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms “So don’t try to deny it,”

They all turned and looked at each other, shifting uncomfortably in their seats. 

Jim stood his ground, mouth set into a firm line and prickling doubts shoved down into the bottoms of his feet. There it was, the accusation out in the open. Whoever it was might try to deny it, but Jim knew it had to be one of the four of them, and he wasn’t going to let them weasel their way out of--

“Jim….” Toby spoke slowly, briefly meeting his eyes before looking away “We….all did,”

His heart stopped.

For a moment Jim wasn’t sure how to respond, wondering if he’d actually heard Toby correctly, then the world slowly started to turn again and the words sank in.

“.....you what?”

“It’s true,” he snapped his gaze over to Darci, she flinched but didn’t look away “After we tried...talking to you, the three of us went to my dad and showed him the photos,” she glanced over to Toby at her side “It was only after that we learned Toby also talked to someone about--”

Jim whirled on Mary “I thought you said you deleted those?!”

“I-- uh-- umm…” she squirmed in her seat “I....made…...copies,”

Jim’s jaw fell open, unable to form words.

Out of all the possibilities, all the theories and ideas he’d had on who might have called, he’d never even dreamed that they’d all been in on it together.

His head was spinning, insides frozen and a roaring sound in his ears. Both hands rising up and fisiting through his hair, in a distant part of his mind he knew he shouldn’t be doing that since it was still falling out.

Just when he’d thought there couldn’t be anything else. That life couldn’t possibly throw anything worse at him--

Things became worse than he ever could have imagined.

He was faintly aware that the four of them were glancing around at each other from across the cafeteria table “Ok,” Claire laid both hands flat in front of her palms down “You have every right to be mad at us, but…”

Jim tuned her out, he couldn’t bring himself to pay attention to whatever Claire was saying when his world was going to pieces right now. 

He thought that when he figured out who had been the one to call CPS he could call them out for lying and get the rest of the group to back him up. That he’d figure out who he could actually feel safe with and finally be able to fix at least one part of his completely messed up life.

But it hadn’t been one of them, it had been all of them. They’d torn his life apart and kept it a secret. They lied to him. Every day. For over a month.

Heat shot through him, flooding through his whole body until it felt like every ounce of blood in his veins was boiling. 

It was his friends all along. All of them. They threw him and his mom under the bus and then they lied about it.

All the fear, all the worry. His inability to sleep or keep food down, the fact that his hair was falling out.

It was all because of them.

For the first time in weeks Jim wasn’t scared, he was pissed as hell.

“I can’t believe you guys!”

They all jerked back, eyes wide, shocked at the volume of his outburst.

“All of you knew about this,” Jim felt nails stabbing into his palms from the force he was clenching his hands “And you lied to me about it for over a month!? How could you!?”

He was spitefully glad to see them all flinch and look deeply ashamed at that.

“Look Jim,” Toby started to speak “I know you must be angry, but--”

He shriveled into silence under the glare Jim gave him.

How dare he. How dare he try and pretend like any of this was ok. The girls he could sort of see, but Toby was practically family. His mom had done more for Toby than anyone else would have in the same situation.

And Toby had still sold them out, with Claire, Darci, and Mary giving a helping hand.

Jim slowly turned to glare at each of them, the heat rushing over him blazing even hotter as he saw their pained faces and slumped shoulders.

Had they had secret meetings talking about this without him, had they laughed, snickering about being able to keep him fooled for so long.

Somehow a cold dribble of guilt managed to seep in past the white hot fire in his belly. 

Even as blindingly furious as he was, for both himself and his mom, deep down Jim knew that wasn’t true. The reason they made the call was because they felt they had no choice. 

They hadn’t done this as a joke, they were worried, they’d done this because they were scared for him. They’d done this because they wanted to help.

But despite knowing that, despite knowing that he was taking this too far and was going to regret everything he was saying as soon as he cooled off, Jim was too angry to care.

“I told you guys. My mom. Doesn’t. Hurt me.” he got louder and louder with every word, until he was practically shouting, the raging inferno inside him demanding to be set free “Don’t you get it? She could get arrested because of this, I could get taken away. Did you even think about that at all!?”

Toby shot up out of his seat with a bang, cutting off Jim’s tirade. Glancing up at him out of sheer reflex, he saw that Toby had the edge of the table in a whiteknuclekd grip, every muscle in his body taut and trembling, eyes sharp as knives.

“No Jim. You don’t get to do that.” his voice was cold and harder than steel, harder than anything he’d ever heard coming out of Toby’s mouth “You don’t get to drop bombs like your mom locking you in the basement and expect us to pretend like everything’s ok. And you don’t get to act like we’re the bad guys for trying to help you,”

Jim found himself taking an involuntary step back. He’d never heard Toby this angry. Ever.

Prying his hands free, Toby stomped around the table towards him, Jim pinned in place under his molten gaze “You don’t get to talk about lying when you were the one who’s been lying all along. When you’ve been lying to me for years!”

“Tobes I--”

One look from Toby shut him up.

“But now you want to play honesty hour? Fine, we’ll play honesty hour. How did you really get those scars on your ankle?”

The bottom fell out of Jim’s stomach, taking every remaining drop of anger with it.

“.........what?”

“Well?” Toby stopped two feet away, green eyes boring holes into him “Go on, tell me, where did those scars come from?”

Jim couldn’t do anything but gape at him. The rehearsed answer, they came from a fox bite, sat in the back of his throat withering.

He couldn’t know. It was impossible. Only two people in the world knew the truth. The act done in the dim of the early dawn in the middle of a remote forest.

Don’t worry sweetie, it's a sterile blade. A few quick cuts and a bandage on top should get you all the shots you need, no questions asked.

There was no way for Toby to know, but the look in his eyes told Jim that he did. 

“How-- how--” he struggled to get the words out “How do you--” 

Darci gingerly slid out of her seat to come stand next to Toby “Ok let’s all just take a deep breath and relax for a second,” she glanced over, her expression cool and professional, no longer holding any trace of guilt “Jim, I’m sorry we lied about what we did but I’m not sorry for doing it,”

“Darci’s right,” Mary stood and approached, Claire at her side “And we all agreed, what’s going on with your mom….that’s not ok, and we couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. I know your mom was probably really messed up when your dad walked out, but that doesn’t mean--”

The words hit him like a fist to the gut “How do you know about that!?”

Mary shut her mouth, cheeks pink.  

By now everyone in the cafeteria was turning and looking at them. And who could blame them with all the yelling. Jim knew that this was exactly the type of scene he needed to avoid, but all the emotions boiling up in his chest were too enormous and tangled and turbulent for him to make space to care about their audience.

Claire took half a step forward “Look Jim, I’m sorry we lied to you about reporting your mom, that was messed up and we shouldn’t have done it, but...” she inhaled, drawing herself up to full, regal height “But we wouldn’t have had to report her behind your back if you had just let us help you in the first place,”

“Yeah, you don’t get to talk to us about lying,” he spun back towards Mary. Hands on her hips, eyes narrowed into diamond hard points “If you had been honest with us from the beginning we wouldn’t have had to lie about anything,”

Toby stepped to the front of the group, arms folded in front of him “To more tricks or lies. We need the truth Jim. The whole truth, about everything. The scars, the basement, your curfew,” his expression was granite, voice flint “Right here, right now.”

Jim staggered back, furiously glancing at each of their faces. Claire and Darci were stern and unmoving as statues, while Toby and Mary were full on glaring daggers into him.

How was this possible? How did they know all this?

He couldn’t get enough air, chest tight as he shrunk under the weight of the four sets of eyes on him.

What else did they know? If they knew about the scars and his dad and the basement, what else did they know? And how close were they to learning….the rest?

The one tiny, microscopic flicker of hope Jim had was that he knew that they still didn’t know about….his real secret. 

If they did they sure as hell wouldn’t be quiet about it.

But how close were they to figuring it out? They’d figured so much out already, it was probably only a matter of time.

And if this was how they responded to everything else, how would they react to learning that Jim was really a--

Icy daggers twisted in his gut.

He couldn’t do this anymore.

He needed out now.

Jim turned and bolted, running out of the cafeteria as fast as his legs could carry him. Barely aware of his friends’ shouts from behind him. But he couldn’t outrun the panicked screaming in his skull.

They knew about his mom locking him up, they knew about how his dad left, they knew how he really got the scars on his ankle. Sooner or later they would figure out that Jim was the monster all along and when they did--

Throughout the years ideas of what would happen if people learned about his transformation had always flickered at the edge of his thoughts. Jim had done his best to force them out of his head and keep them from taking full shape, but now every horrible, twisted thought he’d had over the years surged to the front of his mind and refused to be buried.

If anyone learned his secret it was only a matter of time until the government found out, and when they did they wouldn’t just let him run free. Jim’s blue form was an unknown; wild, dangerous. At the very least they’d lock him in a cell and throw away the key. Or maybe they would send him off to some secret lab to get dissected and analyzed piece by piece.

His breath became choppy and ragged as he raced down the hall.

Or maybe Jim was too dangerous to leave alive at all, maybe they’d drag him away for a long drive into the desert that ended with a bullet to the back of his skull.

And his mom-- 

A jagged lump spouted in his throat.

Would they lock her up to? For keeping his secret as long as she did. But she hadn’t broken any laws, maybe they’d just leave her alone? But then would they even tell her what they did with him? Or would she be left sitting alone in their house not knowing what happened to him while Jim sat in a prison cell, or got chopped to pieces in a lab, or rotted in an unmarked grave.

He could barely see the lockers rushing by him as heat built up behind his eyes. He was trembling all over now, blood rushing in his ears and scream building in the back of his throat.

Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together.

Jim was going to break down, he knew that. But he couldn’t let it happen in the middle of school. Not now, not again. Had to get out, go home, get somewhere safe.

Right now his secret was still under wraps, and the only way for Jim to keep those horrific ideas from becoming reality was to keep it that way.

And that meant not having another public meltdown.

Ignoring the sound of the bell, signalling other kids to start streaming into the hall, Jim scrambled up to his locker and started fumbling with the lock.

Despite his badly trembling hands he managed to get the locker open and pull his bag free, but in his haste to grab it the bag started slipping from his grip. Jim just barely caught the side in time to keep it from falling, but in doing so accidentally pulled the bag open, causing everything inside to spill out.

Jim could only watch in horror as textbooks clunked to the ground, papers scattering all over the floor, pens and pencils rolling in every direction. Insides curdling as he stared at the mess.

Why now? Why today of all days? On top of everything else--

His eyes stung.

Why couldn’t he just get a break?

Trying and failing to force himself through his breathing exercises, Jim got down on his knees and struggled to gather the contents of his bag.

Somehow his efforts to gather the papers just spread them even more, the task made impossible by how badly he was shaking all over, breath coming in quick, quivering pants, teeth digging into his lip until he tasted copper, a storm roiling just beneath his skin.

He squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing a textbook and clenching his fingers around it so tight they hurt.

Get it together. Get it together. Get it together.

“Oh my god are you crying again?”

Jim froze, inside and out, eyes shooting open to stare down at two of his pencils and the textbook he’d just grabbed off the floor. Familiar snide, smarmy voice coming from behind him.

“Dude he totally is!” Seamus said with a laugh “This is too good,”

Jim couldn’t move, nerves paralyzed. Every drop of emotion he’d had to deal with today, shock, anger, fear, and guilt, surging through him.

“Awww what’s the matter baby?” Steve jeered “Do you want a bottle?”

Seamus and Logan’s laughter echoed in his ears. From the corner of his eye he saw the traffic around them slowing as other people stopped and stared. He couldn’t feel his fingers any more, curled into rigid claws around the edges of the book.

And just like that Jim was done.

He threw his textbook against the lockers as hard as he could, unleashing a thunderous boom into the hall.

“Fuck off Steve!”

Steve, along with Logan, Seamus, and everyone else milling around in the hallway behind him, froze “What did you just say Lake?”

“You heard me Steve,” Jim growled, stomping to his feet “Fuck. Off.”

Normally he would never lose his cool with Steve, the guy just wasn’t worth it, but after everything that had happened today, everything that had happened over the last month, he just couldn’t take it any more.

And Steve thought he was such a hot shot; popular, spot on the basketball team, grades good enough to keep it but not so good to be considered a nerd. But Jim knew a lot more than Steve thought he did.

Recovering from his surprise at Jim’s outburst, Steve gave him his best sneer “Alright Crybaby you got about ten seconds to get down on your knees and apologize before I break your--”

“Oh can it Steve, like you have any business calling me crybaby when you were the one bawling in the locker room about how your daddy couldn’t come watch your big game!” Jim practically spat the words.

The smug look on Steve’s face vanished, eyes going wide and the color leeching from his skin “Wha-- how-- how did--”

“Since you can’t seem to figure it out I’ll spell it out for you, your dad doesn’t give a shit about you or your basketball games! And if you really want to make him happy go play in traffic so he doesn’t have to pay child support!”

A hush went through the crowded hall. Semus’s eyes were bugging out and Logan looked absolutely petrified; Steve himself was wearing the most hang-jawed expression Jim had ever seen.

More and more people were gathering around now, drawn by all the commotion. Jim knew it was bad to be drawing this kind of attention, especially after the stunt he just pulled on the cafeteria, but the dam inside him had burst and it felt so so good to finally let it all out.

Let someone else have the rug pulled out from under them. Let someone else feel exposed and vulnerable. Let someone else have their deepest darkest secrets thrown back in their face.

Let someone else be afraid for once. Someone who actually deserved it.

“Face it Steve you’re not special,” Jim’s voice practically dripped venom “You’re just some moron who thinks that if they dribble a basketball good enough they can get an even bigger moron to give two shits about them. It’d actually be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic,”

Even as he said the words, felt the thrill of finally being able to take Steve down a peg, a tiny trickle of guilt managed to creep in. For saying something so horrible, so wrong. That no one deserved to hear, not even Steve. But what little guilt he had was easily drowned out by the massive ocean of vindictive glee he felt now that Psycho Steve was getting to experience a tiny piece of what it was like to be Jim Lake.

The crowd around them was deathly quiet now, everyone stunned into silence by Jim’s words. Shocked that he actually went there. With one exception. 

Steve’s face had gone from ghost white to purple, the veins in his neck bulging, hands balled into fists as his sides “You’d better shut your mouth Lake,” his voice was soft but dangerous. Everyone, even Logan and Seamus, nervously edging away from him.

Unfortunately for him Jim just didn’t care anymore.

“Or what?”

He stepped forward, unable to resist poking the bear “You gonna punch me in the face or something? Well go on, do it! You’re only mad because I’m right!”

Another rush of spiteful satisfaction coursed through him when Jim saw the purple flush on Steve’s face darken even further at his words, so much that he didn’t even care that some of the onlookers had started to pull out their phones.

“Well what are you waiting for? Hit me, punch me, it’s not gonna make a difference. It’s not going to change the fact that you’re a loser who’s life has fucking peaked!” he jabbed a finger into Steve’s chest, getting right up into his face “That the only thing you have going for you is a spot on the basketball team. And after that all you have to look forward to is a dead end job at the gas station and at least two divorces!”

Steve was practically quivering with anger now, nostrils flaring, teeth clenched so hard he was surprised they hadn’t cracked, but Jim could still see the flash of genuine hurt in his eyes “I’m warning you Lake--”

“Because that’s all you’ll ever be, a loser! Maybe the real reason your dad left was because he finally figured out how much of a loser you really--”

The blow took him by surprise, more than it probably should have. A dazzling flash of pain in his temple that snapped his head back into the lockers with a deafening bang as more pain flared in the back of his skull. Hot stars danced in his vision, the world around him spinning,. 

Jim vaguely registered that he wasn’t on his feet anymore, felt the linoleum under his back, the cool metal behind his shoulders and neck. Dimly heard the panicked shouts coming up from around him, even though he couldn’t make out the words.