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Danny slammed his hands against the cage's wall, yelping and swearing when the anti-ghost field burst into life against his hands.
Sam grabbed his arm to keep him from trying the same stupid stunt for a fourth time. “Danny stop!”
Tucker settled down on the floor. “Yeah, save your strength. Maybe I can break it open from here. Do any of you recognize it? Is it one of your parents’?”
The last question he aimed at Danny, who was eyeing the walls of the small cage they found themselves in as if he considered taking another shot at it. Sam gripped his arm tighter and even though they both knew she couldn’t really stop him if he really wanted to destroy his hands against it, he thankfully stepped back and sat down next to Tucker with huff. “No. The force field is similar, but it feels different.”
Sam sat next to them, the cage being big enough to allow them all the space to sit down, but not much bigger than that. “Different how?”
Danny pursed his lips in thought before slowly saying, “More… Active? Even before I touched it?”
Tucker and Sam exchanged worried looks before Tucker said, “That doesn't sound great.”
Danny shook his head. “Didn’t feel great.”
Sam drummed her hands on the floor beneath them. “Is it safe?”
Danny gave her an unimpressed look. “We’re stuck in a cage in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the night after getting chased by the GIW.”
“I meant the force field you asshole,” Sam said as she punched Danny in the shoulder.
He snorted. “Yeah, I think so? It’s not emitting anything as far as I can tell. It’s more like it’s…”
He trailed off and Sam frowned. “It’s what?”
Tucker looked up from where he had been inspecting what he could see of the control panel stuck to the outside of the cage. “Danny?”
Danny stared off into space with a slight furrow between his brows. Then he seemed to blink back into focus. “I’m not sure.”
Tucker leaned in closer, a frown on his face. “That doesn’t exactly fill us with confidence, buddy. Something wrong?”
Danny tensed when Tucker leaned towards him, at first almost reaching out for him but then he stopped himself and drew back abruptly. “I’m not sure, but I think you should—”
Before he could finish his sentence, they were interrupted by the sound of running feet quickly approaching them in the big and empty room. The approaching people ran through the doorway and Sam wasn’t surprised to see the pristine white suits of the two men who they had been trying to avoid the whole night. Danny got to his feet and placed himself in front of Sam and Tucker.
The younger of the two perked up as his eyes landed on the three of them in the cage. “Look Agent R! It worked!”
Agent R stopped running to level a more assessing look at them, no doubt trying to look professional in spite of the sweat pouring down his face, but he wasn’t able to contain the self-satisfied smirk tugging at his lips. “Of course it did, Agent U.” He holstered his gun, slowly approaching the middle of the room where the cage stood. As if they weren’t any threat. Sam hated that he was probably right.
Agent U laughed and holstered his gun as well. “I just didn’t think ghosts were actually that stupid. I thought you were pulling my leg when you said a pile of rags and a voice-recording would do the trick.”
Agent R laughed with him. “This one just seems unable to pass up an opportunity to play at being a hero.”
Sam got to her feet as well, fuming. “He’s not playing anything. You’re the ones who were willing to pretend that someone was hurt to catch us off guard.”
She knew she probably should just keep quiet; but the anger was bubbling up at their jeers and at the fact that the three of them had all fallen for their tricks. The GIW of all people. They would never live this down.
They just hadn’t expected them to use a voice-recording, simulating a lost and hurt child. Then they had chased them in the direction of the building and trusted that Danny’s empathy would do the rest. And it had. They hadn’t been able to just leave the child alone.
Of course, there was no child and there had never been a child. Just a pile of clothes in the rough shape of a scared child huddled on the ground, Sam thought bitterly as she kicked the small speaker that had continued to emit sounds of crying through the bars and smiled in satisfaction when it hit Agent R in the shin, breaking apart from the force and scattering pieces all over the floor.
He cursed at her, jumping on one foot as Agent U paused with a troubled look on his face. “What should we do about the kids?”
Agent R sent Sam a nasty glare. “Leave them. They're criminals. If they like that ghost so much, let them stay with it. Maybe staying with it until the morning will make them finally realize how evil it is.”
“But what about the force field?” Agent U asked, clearly more worried about innocents getting caught in the crossfire than his colleague. Sam made a mental note not to hit him as hard as Agent R when they managed to get out of here. Then his words registered in her brain.
Before she could do more than open her mouth, Tucker had already taken a small step forward and asked, “What about the force field?”
Agent R smiled, but only in the sense that his lips turned up at the edges; it was devoid of any warmth or happiness. Sam tensed and Danny let out a growl. It just made Agent R’s smile widen. “If the field does what it’s supposed to, they’ll be fine.”
Sam snapped, “What does that mean?!” She was tired of everyone treating her friend like he wasn’t even a person, like he was fair game to try any and all sorts of new inventions on. “What’s it supposed to do?”
Agent R turned to go, but Agent U seemed to feel a bit bad for the two humans caught up in their sadistic game and said, with a reassuring smile on his face, “It keeps ghosts from feeding off of people.”
Sam snorted. “That’s stupid. That’s not something ghosts do.” Then she thought about Spectra. “Most ghosts, anyway,” Sam allowed.
Agent U gave her a pitying look, as if she was just a small girl that was too stupid to see the truth. Sam gritted her teeth against the curses that wanted to escape her throat. It wouldn’t help anyone if she made them angry at them right now.
Agent R gestured for Agent U to join him as they walked away. “Well. This is a perfect time to test it. See you in six hours.”
Agent U jogged to keep up. “But they're just kids. Humans. Can we just leave them in there with a wanted ghost?”
“They're a pain in our side, is what they are.” Agent R waved him off. “Let's see if the field works. And if it doesn't… Well. No big loss.” Then he paused and Sam could hear the smile in his voice from across the room. “Actually. That might be even better. They're known in town to help the ghost, to protect it,” he spat out the words as if they tasted foul. “So if it kills them… Well. People will see it for the monster that it is. And of course, we will step in and subdue it. The town will finally realize that we’re the heroes and stop worshiping this evil trash that’s somehow managed to trick them.” He sent a last scathing look at Danny over his shoulder.
“They will never believe you,” Tucker said, but Sam could hear the fear in his voice. This was bad. Like, really bad. They had to find a way to get out of here, and soon.
Agent R laughed, “Oh, they won’t have to take our word for it.” And then he glanced at the ceiling. Sam followed his gaze and tensed. There, mounted on the ceiling, was a camera. It was aimed right at the cage and the bars surrounding them provided no escape from its relentless recording.
Tucker swore under his breath and Danny tensed even further. The camera meant Danny couldn’t turn human to minimize whatever the force field would do to him. Not without giving away his secret to the whole of GIW, and that was as good as serving himself up on a silver platter.
Agent R laughed and exited the room. Agent U sent them a last look over his shoulder but apparently didn’t feel bad enough about locking two kids in a cage overnight, together with a ghost he thought could kill them, to argue, and then hurried after his colleague.
Silence fell over the three of them.
Tucker let out a long breath. “Well. At least we know it’s not going to do anything.”
“Yeah. ‘Suppressing a ghost’s hunger’,” Sam mocked, “We’re lucky they’re so stupid.”
Tucker laughed and Sam grinned, happy to have managed to break the tense atmosphere, if only for a short while. Then she noticed that Danny didn’t join them, and that he had—in fact— not relaxed when the agents left the room and was still standing facing the bars with his hands balled into fists.
She frowned. “Danny?”
She placed a hand on his arm and he jerked as if she had shocked him. He drew back from her with a slightly strangled, “What?”
Tucker huffed. “Don’t let what they said get to you. They’re morons.”
Danny frowned, lips pressed into a thin line. Sam took in the way his shoulders still hadn’t relaxed, the way he kept the small distance between them. She realized that whatever was bothering him had nothing to do with what the GIW had said. “Danny. The field is actually doing something, isn’t it?”
Danny froze as a look of shame crossed his face. “I—” He hesitated, then turned back around to face the bars. “I’ll get us out of here.”
It wasn’t an answer and they all knew it, but before Sam could call him out on it, Danny had drawn back one hand and slammed it into the bars, once again hissing as the force field crackled on impact.
This time it was Tucker who grabbed his arm to stop him. “Dude, stop!”
Danny tore his arm free of Tucker’s grip, less gentle than he would usually be. “It's my fault we're here. I have to get you out.”
He sounded frantic. Scared. He didn’t meet their eyes.
“Okay. Stop,” Sam said and managed to inject enough seriousness into her voice for her two friends to pause and look at her. “You have to tell us what’s going on. We’re all in here together and we need to work as a team to get out.”
Danny took a deep breath and then seemed to freeze in place, taking another deep breath through his nose.
Sam frowned and said, “Now, Danny.”
“I—I don't—” He blinked as if trying to clear his eyes.
Sam deflated, worry overtaking her annoyance. “... Danny?”
Tucker took a small step forward in the small space. “Hey, man. You okay?”
Danny shook his head, but Sam thought it had little to do with answering Tucker’s question and more to do with trying to fight whatever was clearly affecting him.
“What's wrong?” Sam asked as she, once again, reached out a hand to him.
He jerked away before it made contact, eyes wide. “Stay away from me.”
Tucker took another small step closer, worry clear on his face. “Danny, what's—”
“Stay away from me!” Danny growled out, the sound of it reverberating through the small space and raising the hair on the back of her neck. She sometimes forgot that Danny was as much a ghost as he was human, and he rarely gave them a reason to remember it; this was the first time she could remember when he had acted so aggressively towards them. It made her realize that this situation might be worse than they had initially thought.
“We’re just trying to help,” Tucker said with a frown, and when Sam reached out to stop him from antagonizing Danny further, Danny must have thought she was about to try and touch him again because he let out a hiss and backed into the corner behind him. Right into the bars and the force field surrounding them.
He let out a scream of pain as the field buzzed to life against his back and jerked instinctively forward, landing against Sam and Tucker both as they caught him.
“Shit!” Sam cursed out as she looked him over for injuries.
Tucker did the same, “Fuck, you okay, man?”
Danny just hung in their arms for a few seconds, panting.
Tucker patted him on the back. “Danny. You okay?”
Danny just panted, leaning in even closer to them. Then Sam felt him freeze. He ground out a pained sounding, “No,” before jerking himself back. It was only Sam and Tucker’s combined holds on him that kept him from throwing himself back against the force field.
They both exclaimed in surprise at the sudden action, even more so when Danny then firmly pushed them away from him with a bit more strength than he usually allowed himself to use when interacting with them.
Sam stumbled back, catching herself on the bars and feeling relief at the lack of any painful force field reacting to her presence.
Tucker righted himself beside her, a deep frown now on his face as he took in the way Danny curled up in a tight ball, as far away from them as he could get in the small cage. “What’s going on with you?!”
Danny didn’t say anything, just kept on panting with his face hidden against his knees.
Sam took a breath to try and calm herself down, hoping they couldn’t hear the fear in her vice as she said, “Danny. You have to talk to us.”
“Yeah, man,” Tucker said with a nod. “We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s happening.”
Danny groaned, but finally spoke around his harsh pants, “I don’t know what–” He paused, swallowed heavily. “I can’t–” He cut himself off again, swallowing loudly and letting out another groan, his arms crossing over his head as if to hide himself away.
“Can’t what?” Sam said as gently as she could, desperately quelling the panic building in her chest. Something was definitely wrong with Danny.
“I just want to–” He stopped, his hands on his arms gripping hard enough to turn his fingers white. He swallowed again.
Tucker, voice strained with the same fear as Sam felt, asked, “What do you want to do?”
It probably wasn’t anything good, with how he was acting, but if they didn’t know they couldn’t help him.
“Hey–” Sam started as she inched closer, intending to nudge him. But as she got closer Danny tensed up even more and she paused where she was, remembering his earlier reaction to them touching him. “Danny. Talk to us.” It wasn’t a question anymore.
Danny looked up at that, his hair wild and his eyes unfocused, and Sam understood why he had been swallowing so much. He was drooling; green saliva dripping from his mouth, staining his face and soaking into the fabric of his knees. He closed his eyes and licked his lips before managing, in a voice so strained it sounded as if merely talking pained him, “I don’t think the field suppresses a ghost's hunger.”
“You mean that you feel it?” Sam asked incredulously, instinctively leaning slightly away from him. “You want to eat... What? Our emotions?”
He opened his eyes, and it was the first time his green eyes had seemed so utterly inhuman. They were wide and frantic and so hungry. He licked his lips again, green dripping from his fangs. He hissed out a, “Ye—” before cutting himself off with another groan, “No.”
Tucker hesitantly said, “Maybe if you just took a little…?”
Danny jerked as if he had been struck. When he spoke, his voice was gravel and pain and longing, “What if I can’t stop?”
“I trust you. You won’t hurt us,” Tucker said and Sam wished he sounded more confident when he said it.
“Yeah,” she added with a decisive nod. Reminding herself that this was Danny. It was okay. Still, she couldn’t keep her eyes from following a string of saliva sliding off one of his fangs as she spoke. “Just a little bit can’t hurt and you’re clearly suffering.”
Danny hesitates as if he’s actually considering it, his features slackening into something distinctly hungry, but then he abruptly shook his head with a shudder. “No.”
Tucker frowned. “Danny, you—”
Danny shook his head again before tucking his head and curling back into an even tighter ball. “No!” he ground out from between clenched teeth. It sounded like he tried to convince himself.
Sam and Tucker exchanged a look and Tucker was the first one to break the silence, “This is bad.”
“You don’t say,” Sam said as she took in the tremble in Danny’s whole body, his death-grip on his arms.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do?!” Tucker hissed out.
Sam shook her head, overwhelmed and panicking. “I don’t know.” Her friend was hurt and she didn’t know how to help. Her friend might hurt them and she didn't know how to stop him. Ancients. He would never forgive himself. “We need to find a way out of here.”
Tucker threw his hands in the air with agitation written all over his face. “What a great idea. I hadn’t thought about that.”
Sam scowled. “Then fucking do something about it! Can’t you reach the control panel from here? The force field doesn’t hurt humans.”
Tucker opened his mouth to argue, anger and frustration written all over his face, but then he paused and turned to look at the control panel. He took a deep breath. “I’ll try. Please keep him from doing anything stupid.”
Sam felt her own anger deflate, leaving her with only fear as she slumped where she sat. “I’ll do my best.”
Tucker shuffled over to the bars and reached for a metallic piece of the broken speaker before focusing on the panel with a curse and a grunt of strain at the uncomfortable position it put him in. He used the metallic piece like a screwdriver and Sam left him to it, if there was someone who could deactivate ghost tech on the fly it was Tucker. Besides, she had other things to worry about.
She turned back to Danny who hadn’t moved at all during their conversation. “You doing okay?”
There was no answer.
Sam raised her voice slightly, hoping he just hadn’t heard her over his own panting. “Danny? You with us?”
Again, he doesn’t answer but Sam can see his hands flex against his arms; clenching and unclenching, and huh. Has his nails always been that long and sharp? It’s her turn to swallow as she curses under her breath. “That’s a no then.” She turns to where Tucker is straining through the bars. “Tucker, maybe hurry it up.”
“I’m working on it,” Tucker huffs out.
Sam turns back to Danny to find him staring at her. She flinches at the intent look in his eyes and immediately feels guilty when he shrinks in on himself, making the ball he’s in impossibly smaller.
She tries for gentle as she says, “Hey, you doing okay?” Even though he’s clearly not.
Miraculously his eyes seem to clear slightly at her voice and he blinks a couple of times before managing a strangled, “Y—Yeah.”
Sam doesn’t call him out on the lie as she takes in his trembling. “Maybe you should just…” She threw a glance at the camera. “You know. Change.”
Danny bared his teeth as he twitched. Sam frowned in confusion before she noticed the small white lights appearing around his waist like staticky sparks, never staying for long and far from forming a complete circle. The fear solidified into dread in her stomach as she realized that he tried but couldn’t turn human. Whatever was in the force field clearly messed with his ghostly form enough to trap him in this form.
Danny let out a loud groan that tapered off into a whimper, an animal sound that set Sam’s teeth on edge. She cast Tucker a look, and saw him frozen with his hands through the bars and eyes fixed on Danny. She nudged him and he blinked before getting back to work; no words needing to be exchanged to convey the importance of getting them out stat.
Tucker let out a small whoop of excitement. “Hey, I got the outer layer of the control panel off!” Then he froze as he looked down on the metal casing in his hands. “Oh no.”
Sam tried to peer over his shoulder to get a look at it. “What? What does it say?”
Tucker looked up at her with anger and understanding in his eyes. “Fenton Works.”
Sam swore. “Then of course it does the exact opposite of what it's supposed to!”
They were both startled by the sound of Danny’s voice, drenched in static and sounding as if it rumbled out from his core in his chest more so than his mouth, “You smell like fear.”
They turned with wide eyes to see that Danny wasn’t curled into a ball anymore. He was still hunched over his legs, but now he was balanced on his toes and fingers with his head up, eyes fixed on the two of them. He seemed to have given up on swallowing down the green-tinged saliva and it dribbled down his chin.
Something in Sam’s hind-brain screamed to get away and she froze in place. Tucker beside her gave a strangled yelp. “That—That’s because we are scared, buddy. We have to get out of here.”
“Why?” Danny asked with a tilt of his head, eyes empty, as he inched closer to where Sam and Tucker sat. Danny sucked in a deep breath and it was only then that Sam realized she hadn’t seen him breathe in far too long, a reminder that he could go without for far longer than she and Tucker could ever hope to. And it wasn’t until he groaned and involuntarily leaned towards them that Sam understood why he hadn’t; he had tried not to smell them.
Sam gathered her courage and said, as gently as she could since he had seemed to react well to that before “To help you.”
Danny blinked. “H—help…?” He paused, not getting any closer and Sam let out a shuddering breath.
“Yes. We want to help you. We’re your friends.” She swallowed thickly and added a hopeful, “Remember?”
Danny frowned, squinting his eyes as if trying to see them clearly. There was no recognition in his eyes, no sudden clarity this time, but at least he didn’t come any closer.
Sam spoke out of the corner of her mouth, eyes not leaving Danny. “He’s getting worse.”
“No shit,” Tucker hissed out as he slowly reached back out through the bars to the control panel.
Sam gave a small nod. “Now would be a good time to get us out of here.”
“I’m working on it.”
Their whispers seemed to have finally reached him as Danny bared his teeth and started creeping forward again. Or maybe not the whispers; he was probably reacting to their emotions. That was slightly harder to control though, especially considering their situation.
Danny was an arm’s length away, starting to reach towards her with sharp claws and open mouth and Sam let out a panicked, “Now, Tucker!”
“Not helping,” he said, but a split second later the whole cage shuddered and then the distinct sound of a power-source powering down reached their ears. “I got it!”
Sam threw herself backwards, grabbing Tucker as she went and was immensely grateful that the opening to the cage was behind her and Tucker and that the lock had released when the power shut off. The two of them tumbled out of the cage and onto the dusty floor of the warehouse, and Sam felt the hair on her arms stand on end as Danny roared from behind them.
She scrambled over to her back to face the cage just as Danny leapt out of it, landing on her and pinning her arms and legs to the floor. She instinctively tried to buck him off, but he was unmovable as he leaned in closer; long fangs glinting wetly in the dim lightning.
“Danny!” Tucker screamed, throwing himself at his friend and Sam expected Danny to lash out, to swipe at Tucker, to rip her throat out, and she instinctively closed her eyes and—
And the pressure holding her down disappeared.
She blinked her eyes open to find Danny slumped in Tucker’s arms, eyes lost and scared, but focused on her. Focused on her. She slowly sat up, wincing at the twinge in her arms but if bruises was the only thing they brought out of this nightmare she would count them as lucky. She slowly said, “Danny?”
He blinked. And then sucked in a breath. She tensed. But then he did it again, and again and oh. He was crying she realized as green oozed from his eyes, joining the ectoplasm already on his chin.
Sam slumped back to the floor. She had never been more relieved to see her friend cry.
“Hey, hey,” Tucker said, his voice sounding thick, “We're out. You'll be okay.”
Sam took a second to breathe and then forced herself to her feet. She stalked over to where the remains of the speaker was scattered, picked up the biggest piece and chucked it right at the camera still sitting impassively in the ceiling. It hit it with a satisfying crack and Sam grinned as she thanked all the good ghost-hunting had done for her aim.
She turned back around to find Tucker helping Danny up, both of them unsteady on their feet. Tucker laughed, and it was only slightly strained. . “Your whole face is green, man.”
“It’s not funny,” Danny said as he wiped his face with his sleeve, only managing to spread the ectoplasm around.
Sam agreed, but she still couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her; too relieved to have her friend back again. She walked over to Danny’s other side, resolutely not hesitating before grabbing his arm and slinging it over her shoulder. “Let’s go home.”