#feral behaviour

The first bite was a mistake. Gerald Pickens learned this the moment his lunch tried to assassinate him. He had just lifted the hotdog, admired its suspicious greenish sheen, and taken a bold, optimistic bite…

And then the hotdog screamed.

Not a polite yelp. Not a squeak. It unleashed a raw, feral shriek that sounded like a teakettle possessed by pure rage. A mouth snapped open on the hotdog as it slowly turned an ectoplasmic green. The sausage twisting in his grip and bites down with a ring of tiny, needle-like teeth that absolutely did not belong there.

Gerald drops it immediately, but It did not drop him. It clung. It writhed. It screamed louder.

Gerald began shaking his head back and forth, trying to get the thing to let go of his lower lip. Screaming all the while, “WHY IS IT SCREAMING!”, because this had quickly become a screaming-based relationship.

Across the park, a woman calmly packed up her picnic. “Oh gods”, she mutters, grabbing up her child, “it’s starting again”, glaring at the air, “someone needs to stop selling the Fenton’s hotdogs”.

By sunset, the town had become a chorus of meat, it was like every hotdog in the entire city had woken up; and when they did so, they all screamed.

Convenience store rollers became spinning racks of shrieking, snapping cylinders. Backyard grills erupted into chaos as dozens of hotdogs flung themselves off of the heat, hissing and howling like furious little sirens. A man sprints down the street, pursued by three airborne hotdogs that had launched themselves with terrifying accuracy; screaming the entire time.

They did not speak.

They did not negotiate.

They only screamed.

But somehow, they coordinated.

And there was one thing everyone knew for sure, somehow, someway, this was the Fenton’s fault. Whenever food became green and mean it was always the Fenton’s fault.

In the city center, a tipped-over cart became ground zero. Hotdogs spill out, twitching, shrieking, flopping across the pavement in a chaotic frenzy. At first it looked random, noise without pattern, movement without thought.

Then someone noticed something chilling. The hotdogs, the ecto-weenies were screaming… together.

A rising and falling, layered cacophony of screaming that began to sync, like an orchestra tuned by madness. High-pitched squeals punctuated deeper, guttural wails. Groups of them would cluster, their screams aligning in strange, repeating patterns.

It wasn’t language, but it was communication; and it was working.

The Fenton parents joining the fray with their own screaming, and Jack Fenton’s whoops of unbridled joy, only increases the chaos; all punctuated with the sound of ecto-blaster fire and exploding meat splattering onto buildings.

Most of the town’s folks just start screaming along, because if you can’t beat ‘em then join ‘em; trying to talk over the clusterfuck of raw meat screams was basically pointless anyways.

The first formation appeared near a baseball field. It was a cluster of hotdogs arranging themselves in a rough circle, flexing the buns they’ve acquired, meat tube bodies tensing. Their screams rising in pitch, then dropping in unison, and then they charged.

Not randomly. Not blindly. They descended upon the concession stand. They swarmed it, knocking over mustard bottles, tearing into napkin dispensers with their bizarre needle teeth, hurling themselves against the counter in a frenzy of noise and fury. Their screams growing sharper, more frantic, almost… triumphant; as they start tearing it to shreds, chunks of metal and plastic getting flung everywhere.

Witnesses described it as ‘watching a riot conducted entirely by angry Aztec death whistles’, as they had to flee to avoid getting hit/impaled by the scraps of the food stand. Then having to flee even more urgently and further when the Fenton’s arrived guns blazing, the couple even ran over a fire hydrant with their gav; resulting in a mass of soggy raw ecto-weenies...

The rest of the town attempted to respond, as the Fenton’s weren’t having a lot of luck actually quelling the ecto-weenie madness; the monstrous meats all likely held grudges against the couple after all.

The town attempt, unfortunately, went poorly. The Amity General hospital quickly got overrun with ecto-weenie bite wounds, some even having to get treated for ecto-infections and ecto-contamination. The hospital deploying Fenton ghost foamer foam around all their doors and windows in an attempt to protect their patients.

Their long suffering mayor, Vlad Masters, having to hold a press conference. Said press conference began three minutes late because the podium had to be… replaced. The first one had been dragged offstage by two screaming ecto-weenies that had latched onto its legs like furious, sentient magnets, and dragged it away.

Mayor Masters stepped up, suit far more rumpled than anyone had ever seen it, bolo tie slightly askew, with the expression of a man who had not slept so much as blinked aggressively for several hours in a row. He gripped the sides of the podium like this one might try to escape too; which was a fair concern. Behind him, the city seal hung crooked, as no one had the energy to fix it. In front of him, a room packed with reporters, cameras, and one suspiciously twitching lunch bag.

The mayor leaned into the microphone, it letting out a faint feedback squeal; and somewhere in the distance, a hotdog screamed back.

He closes his eyes, opens them again, and begins, “good afternoon”, voice already carrying a quietly furious edge, “I am Mayor Masters, as you are all painfully aware, and I am here to address the… ongoing situation involving-”. Then from the back of the room an ecto-weenie screams, not loudly, just enough to slice through the air like a tiny, furious alarm. The mayor doesn’t even look, “-the ongoing situation”, speaking louder to hopefully drown out any meat-centric vocal invasions to his speech, “involving the city’s, and I cannot stress this enough, entirely unacceptable outbreak of hostile, screaming ecto-weenies”.

Cameras flash as Vlad nods his head curtly at the crowd, “let me be absolutely clear. This administration is taking decisive, bold, and-”, pausing as something faintly shrieks under a table, “-increasingly creative measures to handle what I will, for legal reasons, continue to refer to as ‘the meat madness incident’”.

A reporter raises a hand, “Mr. Mayor, do you believe the ecto-weenies are acting with intent?”.

The mayor stares at them like they are stupid, “intent?”.

A distant chorus of screaming rises, as if on cue.

The mayor gestures vaguely towards the sound, “for Goudas sake, they are organizing into formations, Linda. They are launching coordinated attacks on food trucks. One of them stole my car keys”, pausing then, “I watched it happen”.

Another reporter leans forwards, “sir, are you saying the ecto-weenies are… intelligent?”.

“I am saying”, the mayor pinching the bridge of his nose, “that I have personally witnessed a group of green screaming malicious hotdogs use a seesaw to catapult one of their own through a second-story window-”.

Silence.

Then, softly, from the twitching lunch bag… A scream. The bag begins to inch its way across the floor. Making the mayor stop mid-sentence, watching it with a flat, hollow gaze, “…don’t”, he glares even harder.

The bag froze.

Everyone froze.

For a moment, it looked like it might actually behave.

Then the bag bursts open. An ecto-weenie launches itself into the air, spinning, screaming like a spectral fidget spinner dipped in rage.

And the mayor? The mayor goddamn catches it.

No hesitation. No thought. Just pure reflex. He grabs it mid-flight with his bare hand, and the room erupts into chaos. The ecto-weenie writhing, screaming directly into his face, tiny teeth snapping.

…

The mayor shoves it in his mouth and violently mashes it into silence with his teeth. The mayor adjusts his tie, smoothes his jacket, and looks back to the cameras like nothing had happened, “now, where were we”.

A stunned reporter blinks, “you were explaining your plan, sir”.

“Ah, yes”, the mayor nods to himself, “the plan”. He places both hands on the podium and leans in, “is we don’t have one”. Continuing over the annoyed mumbling, “we have tried containment. We have tried negotiation; which, as I’m sure you all have heard about by now, has been wildly unsuccessful. We have tried ignoring them, which only resulted in one of them learning how to open a door”, sighing, “I don’t know how it opened the door, and frankly? I don’t want to know”.

Another reporter raises a hand, hesitant of the clearly ticked off mayor, “Mr. Mayor, what would you say to the citizens who are afraid?”.

The mayor looks directly into the cameras. For a moment, something like his usual confidence flickered back. The practiced charisma. The polished authority. Then, from outside, a massive, unified scream rolled through the city like thunder made of meat.

The flicker died.

“I would say”, he replies, “that fear is a completely rational response to a screaming, mobile food product that appears to hold grudges. And I’d also say that this is Amity Park, grow a cracker jacking spine already”, scowling, “also, stop buying them. Stop bringing them into your homes like this is normal. I saw a man yesterday try to ‘give one a chance’. It bit his shoelaces off and screamed at his dog”.

The final question comes from the back, “sir… do you think this will end?”.

The mayor stares at them. Inhale and exhale, “I think”, speaking slowly, “that we are all going to have to learn to live in a world where hotdogs scream back”.

The room falls silent.

The mayor straightens, composing himself, “thank you. This concludes this-”.

Annnnnd then the microphones get overrun by a pack of shrieking ecto-weenies that latched on and turned the entire event into an audio nightmare. The emergency alert system briefly broadcast nothing but a wall of distorted screaming before someone unplugs it.

The only thing anyone could see on screen was reporters and other visitors kicking and stomping at the ecto-weenies; and the mayor showing a truly disturbing level of violence towards the former edible pink sludge, tearing them apart with his bare hands and teeth and shoes and bashing them with a reporters camera.

Even the G.I.W. attempted to intervene, claiming they’d quell the supernatural meat Armageddon, them immediately having to backpedal when a platoon was overwhelmed by a coordinated barrage of airborne ecto-weenies that seemed to understand trajectory, timing, and vengeance. The entire Fenton family, but especially Danny Fenton, mocking them relentlessly as they all fled.

Gerald, now heavily bandaged and deeply suspicious of anything tubular, found himself barricaded in a lab with Dr. Madeline Fenton.

Between them sat a single captured ecto-weenie, contained within a reinforced ecto-glass cylinder; the Fenton son sitting on top of it and actively hissing at the ecto-weenie, at least the dog seemed marginally fearful of the boy.

The ecto-weenie stared at them… or at least, it oriented itself in their direction, and it screamed.

Constantly screamed. Danny screamed back.

“Do they ever stop?!”, Gerald shouting, pressing his hands over his ears.

“No!”, Dr. Fenton shook her head, scribbling notes, “but listen carefully!”.

“I am trying not to!”.

“No, listen!”.

Gerald reluctantly focused, the scream wasn’t static, instead it wavered and shifted. Rose and fell in repeating patterns.

From somewhere outside the lab, distant screams answered. The ecto-weenie in the container change pitch.

The distant screams changed with it.

Gerald went very still. Whispering, “oh god, they’re… talking”.

“Not talking”, Dr. Fenton smiled, it was very disturbing to see, “something else. Something more primal”.

The ecto-weenie suddenly slams itself against the glass, screaming at a frequency so sharp it rattled the equipment.

And from outside came a response.

Louder. Closer.

Danny screaming even louder right back.

Gerald backed away, “It called them”.

From there the uprising escalated.

Ecto-weenies moved in swarms now, guided by waves of sound, armed with ketchups and mustards and relishes. Entire streets became rivers of writhing, shrieking bodies, flowing toward targets with eerie precision; coating every sentient being they came across with condiments and squishy globs of raw meat. Even the Box Ghost got nailed, Skulker saw what was happening and nopped out immediately after shouting at Phantom about ‘getting his deranged lair in order’. Phantom shouting back about how he ‘could only eat so many!’, to the hunter ghosts great disgust.

Phantom was mostly blasting the ecto-weenies the times when he would show up, but he was indeed also eating the things.

The ecto-weenies toppled food trucks, overran grocery stores, and gathered in massive, pulsing clusters that screamed into the sky like some grotesque signal fire.

People tried to reason with them, but it was futile, for there was nothing to reason with.

Only noise.

Only fury.

Only the relentless, unbearable sound of a species that had discovered pain and decided to return it to sender.

You eat us, we eat you. You cook us, we COOK YOU.

It all converged outside of FentonWorks.

Thousands of ecto-weenies gather, a churning mass of condiments, and buns, and meat, and endless, layered screaming. The sound was overwhelming, a physical force that pressed against the skull and made thoughts feel slippery.

Many of the towns folk stood at the edges of the mass, armed with… whatever they thought might help. Tongs. Fire extinguishers. One guy held a loaf of bread like a peace offering and looked deeply unsure about it. Ecto-guns… lots of ecto-guns.

Danny stepped forwards anyway, entirely unarmed and twitching an eye, he had made several poor decisions that week and saw no reason to stop now.

The screaming shifted, it didn’t stop but it focused. A wave of sound rolling towards the teen, rising, tightening, like a question made entirely of rage.

Danny scowls, “okay, you slippery meat sticks”, rolling his shoulders, “I get it. You’re a smidge pissed off”.

The screaming spikes.

“Yeah yeah yeah, AHHHHHHH at you too”, rolling his eyes, “so you’re extremely mad”.

The mass surged, then stills just a fraction. The sound dipping then rising again in a strange, pulsing rhythm.

Danny frowns, “you… want something”.

Gerald muttering, “oh zone, he’s communicating with them”.

Someone else shouting, “just how many of those things have you eaten to speak hotdog scream language!”.

Danny flips whoever off behind his back without even turning around. Meanwhile, the ecto-weenies pitch changes again, a pattern emerging, a repetition.

Maddie Fenton, watching from behind, grabs his arm, “they’re emphasizing that frequency. It’s deliberate”.

“Great”, Danny huffs, “they’re aggressively musical”.

The screaming intensifies again, building to a painful crescendo, then dropping sharply.

Silence.

Not silence.

It’s a lower, sustained wail. Steady and demanding.

Danny blinks, “wait”. He looks around at all the crap the dogs of doom had gathered. At the grills, and the food carts. At the world that had, until very recently, considered these things disposable. Speaking slowly, “…You don’t want to be cooked anymore”.

The reaction is immediate. A deafening, explosive scream that shook the windows.

Not random.

Not chaotic.

Agreement.

Danny narrows his eyes, bends over, and screams in the ‘face’ of the closest ecto-weenie, “WELL TOO BAD! IMMA EAT ALL YOU BITCH ASS BITCHES! WHEN A STRONGER SPIRIT APPEARS, THE WEAKER SPIRIT COWERS! BUT ALL EVIL SPIRITS COWER BEFORE JESUS!”.

Vlad faces palms, “oh great, he’s calling himself Jesus now. A god complex was not the thing I wanted him to learn from me”.

Danny sagging and turning on Vlad, “God, can you go bomb an abortion clinic or something?!”.

The ecto-weenies shriek and launch themselves at Danny, him tearing them to shreds like a feral raccoon immediately. The towns folk all joining the fray shortly after.

Ecto-weenies get stomped on, tied together and swung like nunchucks, run over by lawn mowers, whipped up into a crème brûlée, eaten, melted by oddly acidic whip cream. The towns folk get bit, shot in the eye by condiments, stabbed by knives and storm drain grates, whipped by their own shoe laces, ecto-weenies writhe around in their hair making horrible greasy knots.

The devil was taking notes, the Observants were crying, the Amity Parkers were all plotting a yearly ‘destroy all hot dogs’ day, the ghosts start pre-emptively banning hotdogs and all hotdog related things from their lairs.

The chaos was televised, the world refused to believe, for green hotdog vengeance for the consumption of their delicious burnt flesh was incomprehensibly silly.

The resolution was… strange.

A sanctuary was established: an abandoned stadium, cleared of grills, fryers, and anything remotely culinary. The ecto-weenies migrated there in great, screaming waves, their voices echoing off of the empty stands like a permanent, furious anthem.

The towns folk agreed to stop devouring their brethren… Or at least… to hesitate in their consumption. To check throughly if it was a hotdog or… an ecto-weenie.

The ecto-weenies, in turn, stopped attacking… Mostly. Sometimes it was only under threat of siccing the Fenton son or the mayor on them that the contaminated mince meat behaved.

But the screaming, oh the screaming, never ceased. It merely… settled and became background noise.

A constant reminder.

And sometimes… Danny would scream back.

Months later, Gerald stands outside the stadium fence, holding a carrot like it was a diplomatic document.

Inside, thousands of ecto-weenies writhe, cluster, separate, and reform in shifting patterns. Their screams rise and fall, sometimes chaotic, sometimes eerily synchronized.

He watches as a group arrange themselves in a rough spiral, their shrieks forming a strange, almost hypnotic rhythm.

Not words.

Never words.

But meaning, somehow.

The mass turns, as one, toward the fence. Towards him.

Gerald raises the carrot slightly, “I come in peace?”.

The response is immediate. A piercing, unified shriek that vibrates through his bones.

He nods slowly, “yeah. That tracks”.

It’s a fragile truce, written not in language, but in the ungodly shrieks of undead weenies and pissed of half ghosts.

End.

The ‘medical professionals/experts’ - ha! As if! Like they’d know anything about his medical needs- seemed to think it was all in his head. One nurse even had the gall to say he was just after drugs! Like Danny’s dumb enough to fall into drugs on top of his already complicated half-life! Besides… he’s pretty sure that stuff wouldn’t really work on him anyways; he was willing to try at this damn point though, if it helped even slightly. Vaguely. Nebulously. To whatever bullshit degree. Any amount would be a good amount.

Then his parents thought he was just trying to get out of schoolwork or to ‘have an excuse’ for his grades/lack of doing chores other than just being lazy. Which was kinda insulting but at least he could vaguely understand that logic. Their trust and faith in him was pretty scattershot at the best of times and completely pulverised into the fucking ground most other times. That one was on him. But fucking still. Whatever happened to parents being there for their kids?!? Ancients.

Jazz thought he was stressed or was suffering from some psychobabble phantom pain style stuff due all his injuries and ‘pushing himself too hard’. Her opinion was therapy. It was always therapy. Not fucking happening. And on top of that, as soon as she realised he wasn’t seemingly physically injured -even if he absolutely was physically hurting goddamnit- she immediately decided it was some mental bullshit and just… completely disregarded his arguments otherwise. He had to make sure not to cry out- scream when the pain woke him at night or kept him up, because if she asked and he was honest, she wouldn’t shut about ‘PTSD flash backs’. As if that was even whatever was happening here! It was may more frustrating then the doctors, nurses or their parents; because she was supposed to be on his side. She KNEW. But apparently knowing he was half freaking dead did nothing to stop her from, like always, deciding she knew his body better than he did. Which was some egotistical bullshit crap.

But the real piss off was that Sam and Tuck, his two best friends, were also writing this off as ‘just in his head’. What the fuck. No seriously. What. The. Fuck. Guys. It honestly felt like a slap in the face when even they gave him those pitying ‘you just need some rest and relaxation then you’ll come to your senses’ looks. They’ve been with him through enough weird body shit to know by now that the chances of something just being ‘nothing’ or ‘fake’ was fuck all zero! But apparently not he guesses.

So now here he is, stuck in yet another hospital waiting room (too early to have even grabbed a coffee beforehand for fucks sake), to see yet another doctor whoever, to get told yet again that he was imagining it or seeking drugs or currently on drugs or coming off of drugs or looking for attention, while being yet again completely by himself, because yet again no. one. actually. believed. him. But this fucking time he’s keeping his mouth shut about the whole damn visit and used a damn false name just so everyone would not look at him like that yet again.

Danny is officially firmly of the opinion of keeping his damn problems to his damn self. Firmly. For all of entity… or however long he kicked around for; which based on just how much goddamn pain he was in currently -like everything hurt- would hopefully be not much fucking longer if the universe has any kind of mercy left for him.

His joints felt like they were filled with sharp pop rocks candy that crackled at every little movement. His bones had damn acid in them that was simultaneously way too hot and way too cold; he didn’t even know he could feel cold anymore! All his senses were overstimulated and numb all at once in that horrible straining to hear people to the point where said straining makes you feel like you’re gonna burst your eardrums and simultaneously blow your brains out of your nose kinda way; but also like someone stuck your eyes and sinuses in a pressure cooker while bashing it with frying pans, the solid cast iron kind. His nails hand ants under them, his teeth felt like sandpaper against his gums, and his tongue felt thick enough to be actively choking him.

Hell! The only reason he was even bothering with coming here, because it was abso-fucking-lutely pointless and he knew it by now, was because he had torn off his finger and toenails in a really vain and really stupid attempt to block one pain out with another. Did it work? HA. Yeah right, with his luck? Never. But he absolutely refuses to let his so-called ‘close’, ‘caring’, ‘there for him’, loved ones know what he did. Because, fuck, would that fall out be bad. He had basically mutilated himself after all. And boy did that ever hurt. Still did. Which was really only compounding with all the other pains.

If he couldn’t goddamn act like he wasn’t in ungodly horrific pain then he’d be on the floor crying.

He kinda hated that he could act.

Maybe they’d actually believe him then but no, self-control and high pain tolerance wasn’t just something with an off switch apparently.

Fuck him.

But please, oh please, let the actually visible injuries heal before doctor whatever actually asks for him. He is not here for a grippy sock vacation. He’s here to not be in goddamn pain for once.

…

Not that he had his hopes up or anything.

That would be silly.

Really silly.

And would go against the very solid pattern that’s been established.

But apparently, he was too stupid to not be at least a little hopeful… Ancients he was an idiot.

Well pain does make people do stupid shit, and he was in pain goddamnit! But fuck, maybe he’ll just have to ‘live with it’, shut up about it forever, and try to push down it getting more and more and more. Hey maybe eventually it’ll actually get too much and he’ll just have a complete break down and then they’ll take him seriously!?! Huh?!? Wouldn’t that be just great?!? When he’s just so fucked up on pain that he just unclicks with his own consciousness and goes comatose or some shit. Fucking LOVELY future right there. Boy gee golly he just can’t wait!

God this room smelled like ass.

Why? on top of everything else? did it also have to stink in here? Can’t he have one teeny tiny thing? Like a waiting room that was properly clean?

And some old dude in the corner is definitely picking his nose. Which, through the power of suggestion, is making his own nose itchy. Course he can’t scratchy any part of said nose because he went and fucked up his fingernails. Well sure he could just rub semi-raw partly reformed nail bed on nose flesh but that would just hurt; and he’s established that increasing physical pain won’t decrease physical pain. Since, you know, it was actually physical pain not mental fabricated pain thank you very much.

He does actually glance to his ‘nails’ to consider it though. Just because something's stupid doesn’t mean Danny’s not going to at least consider it. But hey! turns out his healing is pretty damn solidly kicking his own dumb decisions ass! He doesn’t have nails, per-say, but he doesn’t not have them either. The… ants have not been reduced though, so a win and a loss.

But then, of fucking course, the universe decides to be a massive dick to him and Dash of all people walks in. Why? Just… WWWWWWHHHHHHHHHYYYYY?!?!?!?!?

Well okay, according to Dash -ugh- and the desk lady person, Dash fucked up his wrist doing the thing he loves most, next to beating people up… playing with balls. And fine maybe that thought gets a slight mean chuckle out of him, before the throat motion just makes him want to cry. He settles for gagging. At least that might be insulting to Dash if the guy hears.

Which he, of course, does.

Fuck.

The guy turning his head before smirking, “well if it isn’t little Fentina”, snickering and ‘bending down to be more on level with Danny’ in an extremely mocking manner, “what? Break a fingernail? Or oh! I know! Bite off your tongue because you were too busing yapping when you should learn to keep your trap shut”. Multiple people are glaring at the jock but well, obviously no one’s going to actually do anything, no one ever fucking does.

But Danny really doesn’t care if he pushes this asshole buttons. What’s the guy gonna do? Hurt him? Ha! Like that’ll make some kind of real difference. There’s no fucking point in being cautious of pain if he’s just always going to be in it. Rolling his eyes at the joke of a jock and not giving a damn if it feels like his eyelids are attempting to remove the outer layers of his entire fucking eyeballs, “wow I guess even the doctor can’t cure you of your horrendous sickness”.

“Oh and what sickness would that be, twerp”.

Danny puts in all the effort of causally inspecting his nails, which have grown ever so slightly past the edge of his nails beds, “only the sickness of being the living embodiment of the clown emoji”. God his fingertips felt like ice. He should not be able to feel his bones so acutely.

The jock actually gives up all pre-tenses of actually needing to be goaded into trying to pound Danny’s face in. He really shouldn’t practically encourage the bully but fuck if he cares anymore. Accepting his fate is apparently something he’s pretty good at, as he just effectively lets Dash grab his shitty torn-up shirts collar and drag him towards the back door. The physical skin-to-skin contact is honestly enough all on its own to get a faint pained hiss out of him. It’s a lot honestly. Like rubbing fresh scabbed scars that won’t ever actually heal.

Dash unceremoniously throws him at the crappy dumpsters, “ah the trash right where it… belongs…”, and trails off a bit, the bite to his words petering off some. Which is honestly expected because Danny’s kinda had enough, and they’re alone now, and maybe pain makes him give less of a flying damn, and he is one hundred percent pulling his angry eyes on Dash before outright charging the other teen; slamming Dash’s back hard into the door making it shut extremely loudly.

“Shut the actual fuck up, Dash”.

God everything fucking hurt. So. Goddamn. Much. Dash’s shitty little shirt is like grabbing a fist full of really pissed off porcupines that decided to role around in ground chilli powder. The pressure from the ground under his feet was too much and nothing all at once which was in and of itself too much to think about. And his cheeks, god fuck, this is exactly what it must feel like to try and stretch something that empathically can not be stretched.

And Dash is looking at him like he’s gonna piss himself. And that just pisses Danny off some more so he winds up ramming Dash into the door again, which the teen actually flinches from.

Damn it.

Now he feels like an absolute asshole.

Fuck.

This is the exact kind of shit he said he wouldn’t do.

This day is really really awful. But guess that’s what he gets for trying to improve the pile of shit life and death have apparently served to him.

God, he’s gonna give himself a depressive episode before everything else does him in at this rate.

But also… what the actual fuck is going on with Dash’s, uh, scent. Wet… kinda? sweet? the Hell? But Jesus fucking Christ he legit wants it. Growling at the teen and definitely scaring him more, which just makes Danny growl more honestly which is a super weird automatic reaction to have, before outright biting the guy and blitzing the fuck out.

Like a key in an ignition lock and all the pain just… vaporising. At least he’s aware enough to know he didn’t, like pierce Dash’s throat or whatever the actual fuck. His teeth were all ecto and just… going through skin. Which just opened the flood gates, like Danny accessed something he previously couldn’t or just didn’t know how.

On some primal ghostly level he knew. Understood. This was what he needed.

To make the pain go away.

To feed himself. His… Core? Yeah, Core.

Dash, meanwhile, is pretty much whimpering. But fuck that guy. Has Danny pretty much just shoved him to the ground? Yeah Danny thinks so… maybe. But he is definitely doing some weird predatory shit that he would one hundred percent not be okay with if he was even vaguely in the right state of mind. Which he decidedly was absolutely not.

But hey, being in blinding pain that’s been progressively getting worse for the better part of THREE FUCKING YEARS while also being: 1) ignored, 2) insulted, 3) dismissed, and 4) falsely pitied, over said PAIN kind of fucks with your head something fierce.

And Dash is just making it so much goddamn worse.

All.

The.

Fucking.

Time.

And goddamnit he wants. Wants whatever the fuck he’s getting here. And Dash can just shut up and deal because Ancients the jock has been such an absolute dickweed.

Fuck.

Dash, predictably, doesn’t shut up, “t-this is, this is the single mo-most sca-scary thing ever. W-what the actual fuck”.

And it clicks.

It really clicks.

That’s what this was.

Fear.

He was eating a humans -Dash’s, he reminds himself- fear.

That…

That should concern him. Should frighten him. But right now… fuck. He wants… NEEDS. He can absolutely feel his core practically screaming at him.

That’s what everything was. His core was… hungry… so it made all his… his, er, ectoplasm just go crazy in him. Hurt him.

Ancients that was messed up.

He was messed up. Not that that was anything new.

(And later ClockWork would effectively confirm that his Core was effectively making ALL the wounds he’d received over forever just… reopen on his spiritual/ghostly/spooky/whatever self. Along with some really interesting boiling/freezing crap. Which is a whole heaping load of really really fucking messed up for himself to do to himself. But message fucking received at least… after three full years anyway)

Danny’s mental musings give just enough distraction for Dash to actually manage to shove off the half-ghost, throwing him into the ground enough to absolutely concuss a regular person. Dash scrambling a bit down the wall and just staring down at Danny, who is currently electing to just… not move for a bit here.

Everything’s already starting to hurt again and he hates it. Kind of desperately hates it. But Ancients, what did he do? The pain was less sure, at a cost. And pain, even lessened, honestly felt worse when it came back after being blissfully gone.

Oh this was truly horrible.

Dash blinks harshly at him, damn near squeaking out, “holy fuck”, before shaking his head a fair few times and then really looks at Danny, “ah shit”, mumbling to himself, “I don’t even know if he can, I don’t know, die? like this?”. Danny is confused but can not be bothered enough to care, especially with that… that scent spiking.

That fear? scent… and taste if he’s honest with himself. He doesn’t want to hurt… and this is Dash. So he just kinda lets the sucking in, absorbing, feeding, or whatever, happen while Dash pushes himself up some. The jock shouting at the door, “hey! Hey! Could I, like, get a doctor over here right now!”, muttering down at Danny, “fuck Fenton, you picked a really crappy hospital to start dying at”.

Danny glares at the sky faintly, the slight pain of that making him clench his teeth, “hey… you picked it to, dickweed”, and starts hacking faintly and practically uncontrollably. It’s official, Danny’s just vibing, and hacking now, on the cold hard ground while actively leeching off Dash’s fear. Because damnit, his not about to feel guilty over feeding off of Dash’s fear of all people. He refuses.

Eventually Dash pipes back up, apparently regaining some of his nerve, “so… Phantom, Huh?”.

Danny wheezes, what the fuck honestly, “dick… weed”.

Dash just rolls his eyes at him before covering his mouth with his hands and hunching down on the ground, actively trying to recover from the damn good fright shaking Fenton… or Phantom… or however this worked, gave him. “Oh stuff it. It’s not like there’s another explanation. I’m a D student with no future outside football but I’m not blind”.

“Coulda fooled me”.

Dash actually stomps on Danny’s foot for that one which just makes Danny growl at him enough to make him ‘eep’ and jerk away. Danny smirking like a dumbass before shaking his head and looking up at the sky. The doctor or nurses weren’t coming were they. Groaning, “fuck”, and wheezing a little weirdly over the weird sweet sweat tang taste of what was apparently Dash’s fear literally seeping into his pores. God he can taste blood in the back of his throat and he’s not sure if that’s his own actual blood or just part of this fear taste bullshit, “this. This is super not great”.

“What?”, Dash snorts, “you laying on the ground in some alleyway, or you getting a kick out of scaring the crap out of me”.

“Did you… seriously just admit I, loser Fenton, scared you”.

Dash gives a very judgmental, “dude”, in response to that. But hey! At least Danny feels less like hot garbage made out of pain and needles and burnt hot sauce and acid ice now.

Danny scoffs anyway, “I didn’t get ‘a kick’ out of nothin-”.

Dash actually has the guts to cut him off, “oh bullshit. If anyone knows what the look of enjoying tormenting and scaring someone else looks likes, it’s me and you know it”.

Now that? that actually pisses Danny off a little bit. Pushing himself up onto his elbows, “I am nothing, fucking nothing, like you, Dash. So shove a sock in it or-”, baring his teeth a little, “-I’ll do it for you”.

Dash makes the wise decision to get up and put his hands up in surrender, and Danny can tell he’s startled the guy again. Wonderful… he’s not even sure if that ‘wonderful’ is sarcastic or not which is a fucking problem. Dash puts his hands back down and glares, “you dream you could be like me”, sighing and looking up at the sky like whatever the Hell is taking all his strength, before looking back down to Danny, “and if you ain’t ‘like me’ then what the Hell, man”.

Danny scowls at him, frustrated, and, frankly, still kinda in pain and with zero interest in actually getting up, “I don’t know, dude! It’s, like, some ghost fear feeding thing or whatever”, pausing and scowling to himself this time, snapping, “why am I even explaining this to you?!?”.

“I don’t know! Maybe it’s because you apparently freaking fed on my fear?!?! Is that seriously a thing?!?”.

“You’re asking me that like I know!”.

“WELL YOU’RE THE GHOST!”.

“FUCK YOU!”.

The shouting match inevitably turns into Dash lunging down at Danny and the two rolling around on the ground kicking and punching each other; both dealing with some serious misplaced aggression and pain (though Danny was ahead by miles in the pain department. Not by as much as he would have been previously though). The whole thing ending with Danny effectively pinning Dash to the ground.

Danny snapping, “Ancients you are such a dick!”.

Dash sputters and spits out some of the ground nasties, craning his head to look at Danny, “and apparently real pain makes you a dick too!”.  Which actually makes Danny still and pause, giving a very monotoned shocked, “what”, in response. Dash rolls his eyes very aggressively at that, “oh come on, as if I don’t know what ‘Fenton in pain’ looks like”.

Danny honestly losses it a little at that, “WELL EVERYONE ELSE DOESN’T SEEM TO THINK SO!”, and his voice is loud/powerful enough to make the walls and ground shake a little.

Dash swallowing, startled, before replying to that load of horse crap, “why the fuck?!?”. Which Danny growls at, “I. Don’t. Know”, snapping, “it is fucking stupid and why are you the goddamn exception?!?”.

The two just stare at each other for a hot minute before Dash gives a response that is way too calm for either of their likings for a multitude of reasons, “Dale’s home life is kinda shit and adults prefer to pretend that shit just ain’t happening”.

“Oh”.

-

Apparently the shaking finally, finally, got someone to actually come out though. A nurse slamming open the backdoor and shouting, “what are you doing!?! Get off of him right this instant!”. Danny does actually snap his hands off of Dash’s arms/wrists immediately, scrambling up quickly -which his bones have a fair few fucking complaints to voice about that- followed by Dash. The lady takes one look at Dash before glaring at Danny again and snapping, “don’t go around harassing people who clearly need actual medical attention”.

Ten bucks says she’s read his bullshit ‘medical file’ aka all the notes all the previous whoever’s wrote calling him a crazed up druggy loonie or whatever else. Fun. No wonder the waiting room was taking so long. They were just waiting for him to give up and leave, and had no intention of actually getting him in to see anyone. Probably wouldn’t even bother the janitor with his -very real GO FUCK YOURSELF- problem(s). Ancients he kinda wants to punch her just to scare the crap out of her, which he is absolutely blaming that horrific train of thought on Dash.

Apparently, he also gets to blame Dash for saving him from a scolding and/or being banned from the premises. When the jock asshole, who’s slightly less of an asshole than he was previously, snaps right back, “hey yo lady, he actually needs actual medical attention to”. She gives Dash that kind of look that all adults give kids when they think kids have no fucking clue what they’re talking about purely because they’re kids. God Danny hates that look so damn much. And frankly, he is not in the mood right now; hence why he snarls at her slightly. Dash apparently is having none of it too, glaring, “lady just deal with both of us before I start smacking my wrist on the walls”. Which honestly just throws Danny through a loop, making him look to the taller teen, “why are you defending me”.

Dash responds while the nurse waves them in with an eye roll, “because I’m a dick, not a dickweed”.

“There are a million smarter ways you could have said that”.

“Oh shut up, Fenton”.

They both actually smirk after that surprisingly. But even more surprisingly, when they’re both ushered in, Dash insists on ‘sitting in’ with Danny for his ‘check up’ aka another bout of some doctor(s)/nurse(s) telling him he’s full of shit or his heads all kinds of fucked up. Danny is ten seconds away from thinking Dash is starting to go all hero worshiper on him but gets promptly saved from that train of thought by his body actually deciding that yeah no it’s had enough of this shit -fear feeding notwithstanding-

and makes blood start leaking out of his eyes.

Which of course results in that fear scent of Dash’s spiking, “oh my god”. And then the doctor coming in, which is also followed by some fear scent spiking. And then he pitches forwards, passing out like he’s kinda longed to do for fucking weeks, and then bashing his head -eye sockets specifically and simultaneously somehow- off of the ceramic counter thing before Dash and the doctor guy actually managed to catch his limp body. But hey! Yummy fear! And he was too fucked up to really be bothered by said yummy whatever the fuck.

---

And what did Danny get to wake up to? Why doctor guys probable voice of course!

“Whatever it was did permanent damage to his eyes I’m afraid; he’ll need glasses”.

Wee. Fun. Not.

“Well maybe if someone other than me, which even I can see is fucked up that the loser’s -or whatever- personal bully believed him straight off but none of you other idiots did?!?”.

Was that seriously Dash? Now this Danny has to open his eyes for. At least he doesn’t feel like his entire orbital bone is being pressurised anymore!

Annnnnnnnnd… nothing. Darkness. He’s blind. Sweeeeeeeet. At least he’s sitting up.

“Oh sweetie let me get that for you!”.

Cool cool. Mom’s also here. With a caring tone that isn’t weirdly condescending/disappointed. Fancy that. And she apparently unwraps the bandages that were apparently around his head and eyes. So not blind then. Good honestly, but better than good is the skin contact doesn’t feel like someone’s trying to smush flaming gooping marshmallows into his face.

The doctor, because of course, has objections, “ma’am you really shouldn’t-”.

“Oh hush, I’m a doctor too and unlike you I know my boys healing”.

Dash audibly scoffs, “and yet you couldn’t see he was actually hurting?”; once the bandages are off full Danny can clearly see that Dash’s -why does it have to be him who’s protecting him?- arms are crossed.

“He didn’t actually seem-!”.

Danny interrupts at this point, largely because he was honestly still kinda pissed with his parents, mom included, “enough. Y’all are giving me a headache”. Dash, the ass, actually snorts at that, “well duh, you cracked your head off a sink, man. What’d ya expect, turd”.

Ah okay, so unimaginative name-calling was still a-okay, hero-worship or no, Danny scaring the guy or no, and the dude being not-a-dickweed or no.

His mom glares at Dash, “don’t you dare insult my b-”.  With Danny cutting her off again, “mom no”, shaking his head and glaring at her, “just no”; and tries not to stare, or flinch, at the fear scent thing coming off her slightly or the fact that he can actually see it wafting off her body. What the actual fuck? Guess his eyes did actually get fucked with. Wonderful. Here he was thinking he was in the clear just ‘cause his vision seemed fine. Whelp, maybe glasses will magic that little side-effect away.

(Wonderfully they, in fact did, but less wonderfully they also fogged up black and literally wafted off black mist whenever he did pick up any kind of fear. Had he passed that off as some weird-ass sunglasses? Yes, abso-fucking-lutely yes. Did Dash believe that? No, since for once the jock was choosing to not be a stupid meathead. Queue ‘someone’s got Venom eyes but for fear not flesh’ insults, which damnit, were at least marginally clever half the time. The only saving grace was he could still see through the black fogging and said black fogging apparently destroyed the ‘prescription’ the glasses once had, which was nice since that ‘prescription’ actually made it harder to see. But whatever. Not like that matters much when he just. kept. on. destroying the damn things. Superpowers plus glass equals bad; even if they were FentonWorks grade reinforced).

Fuck his half-life.

Dash looking smug right now doesn’t help. So Danny snaps a death glare at him too and tries to make it look as murderous as possible. Getting a solid jerk, yelp, and fear scent/waft for his efforts; which Danny relents and rolls his eyes at. Dash scowling and working to compose himself, huffing, “well whatever. Since no one’s gonna be bleeding out from their eyes or whatever I’m gonna go and actually get my shit fixed”. The doctor seems to relax a little at that.

Danny just blinks, did Dash seriously refuse medical treatment till he was ‘okay’. Ugh should that be creepy, or touching, or just fucking weird. Blinking at the jock, “dude”.

“Oh don’t ‘dude’ me”, Dash scowls, turns on his heel, and stalks off. Quickly being carted away by a nurse or something. Did Dash just call out his self-sacrificial tendencies? Or is Danny just reading way too much into things. It was easier to think -overthinking included- now after all.

Ancients how long had it been since everything had just been… pain? Too long clearly; fuck. But also, Dash better keep his whatever to his damn self. ‘Cause frankly?

Danny firmly wants to tell no one about the fear feeding because as far as he’s concerned they have no goddamn right to know. Not now, not ever.

Trust, Danny’s decided, wasn’t something that someone could ‘earn back’ from him. Especially over him being in pain. Even more especially when he wasn’t about to forget the absolute Hell worth of pain his body, core specifically, decided to put him through, WHICH COULD HAVE HONESTLY BEEN EASILY FIXED IF SOMEONE HAD JUST. FUCKING. LISTENED. They believed him now… probably… but that changed jack fuck all in his opinion. Like, seriously.

-

(And Dash later on telling him that it shouldn’t change anything anyway was something Danny wasn’t going to think about. Because agreeing with Dash was all kinds of ick. But there was a slight positive of Dash being slightly less dickish towards him and Danny laughed his ass off at all the guys Phantom posters miraculously disappearing. Plus it was very easy to startle Dash now; which, yeah, fuck if he cares about scaring/fear-feeding off Dash of all people. The jock seemingly tolerating it was decidedly weird though; honestly? the guy probably viewed it as ‘helping out his hero’ in a weird way… which wasn’t even wrong. Dude clearly realised Danny’s… fear issue was a need, annoyingly enough.

Dash legitimately approaching him with the ‘you could just join the football team and start wailing on the nerds’ option for dealing with his ahem ‘fear issues’ was absolutely not a welcome one though and absolutely turned into another mild floor brawling match. Danny did, however, agree to teaming up with the football bros to scare the absolute crap out of Dale’s parents; and maybe said scaring involved overly graphic descriptions of what being denailed feels like that were way too detailed to be anything other than legitimately recent first-hand experience).

End

Prompts: