the electricity within me surrounds me
DannyMay 2023 Day 8: Electric Core AU
(No I'm not over a week late what are you talking about???)
title: the electricity within me surrounds me
words: 1456
Summary/Excerpt? I don't really know how to describe this one so here's a singular line: Why was he having so much trouble controlling the static today?
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The surge under his skin made him grimace, deftly hiding the sparks that fizzled from him. Why was he having so much trouble controlling the static today? It had been months since the Accident had fried him like an old fuse. He hadn't had to deal with this since the first month or so. Yet today every slight brush of fabric on skin or gentle contact with anything metal made the sparks dance down his skin.
At least it wasn't painful like it had been those first few weeks, trying to hide the aftershocks of surviving through fatal electrocution.
He forced himself to ignore it, to ignore the now-familiar tingle of the electricity always surging beneath his skin, the hypersensitivity to it in everything around him.
Danny could feel the electrical current in his body, the shock his body created for every pump of his heart, the pulses of his thoughts. That alone was overwhelming and the fact he could feel the electricity traveling in the walls, in the ceiling, in the powerlines, had nearly driven him mad in the beginning. So much new sensory input, combined with his new naturally heightened hearing and vision, had been too much.
The portal beneath his bed sounded like a scream he couldn't escape.
Like all his new… everything, he had gotten used to it. Mostly. He’d adjusted. Still, that didn’t mean he was happy with the fact he felt like he was constantly licking a battery.
Still, Danny struggled to focus on the math test in front of him as pulses ran down every nerve. He almost wished he had Sam or Tuck in this class with him, they’d let him cheat off of them (after all, it’s not like him cheating would cause the death of everyone he loved and tragedy of world-ending proportions, that’d be too insane even for him). He did his best, answering questions with hopefully some modicum of success. This teacher gave partial credit for at least trying, so it wouldn’t be a flat out zero like all of his other classes at this point.
When the bell finally rang and he turned in his definitely-a-solid-attempt of a test in, he headed for his locker and promptly banged his head against it in aggravation. Which, considering he was basically a live wire today and the locker was made of metal… was not one of his best ideas.
“Ouch!” He said, jerking away and glaring at the locker like it was Skulker fucking with him at 3am again.
“Hitting your head against solid objects tends to hurt, I’ve been told.” Sam said, leaning against the lockers with a grin on her face.
Danny just grumbled something incoherently under his breath.
“Is everything o- ow!” She asked, trying to pat his shoulder comfortingly and getting shocked for her efforts. “The hell?”
“It’s been like that all day,” Danny whined. He glanced around the hall and made sure no one was looking their way before turning his hand intangible and shoving it through the locker to get his book for next class. He was not interested in getting shocked anymore than he had to. You’d think having what seemed to be a ghostly heart of electricity would give him some immunity to static shock but, nope, still hurt.
“Think it has to do with the storm?” She asked, keeping her distance from him now.
He’d never admit how much it hurt him that she had to do that when all he wanted was comfort yet all he was able to do was hurt her if she got too close.
“Storm? What storm? It’s just raining.”
“You really do miss everything, don’t you?” She teased. “Big storm is expected later today, it’s all Lance Thunder has been talking about for the past three days.”
It took everything Danny had to keep from slamming his head against the locker again. “I’ve been busy!”
“I know. But…” she trailed off, frowning slightly as she thought. “The storm is getting worse. Maybe you should go home if it’s already affecting you this bad? There’s not lightning yet, but…”
He groaned. “But if there is, I’m basically the pointy metal bit on the top of skyscrapers.”
“Bingo.”
Figures. He’d made it through half the day without leaving a single class to fight ghosts but now his own body was forcing him from the school. “Let Tuck know?” He asked, resigned.
“And make sure we take notes to cover what you missed. I know the drill by now.”
…had he really left so much that there was a drill to follow?
“Thanks.” He grumbled, intangibly shoving his books back into his locker.
“What’re friends for?” She teased and moved to bump his shoulder with hers, but caught herself before she actually made contact.
“Killing each other on accident?” He shot back, grinning. As traumatic as dying was, he refused to fixate on it. Even as it was trying to claw its way back through his skin. Maybe this was denial, though. Or just being used to pain like he was in now was just something he was so used to he managed to separate himself from it.
…even more reasons to never tell Jazz about his accident, then, because he was sure she’d have some very big, very complicated psychology words to describe him with.
“You’re fine, shut up.” She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Get outta here.”
Danny threw her an exaggerated salute then ducked towards the bathroom, sequestering himself in the last stall as he listened to boys enter and leave for the next several minutes until the tardy bell for the next class rang.
He felt when the first crash of lightning pierced the air outside, shortly after the last student had left the bathroom. Felt it charge through the air for less than a moment before fizzling away again, despite also for some reason being able to tell it had struck miles away. There was no pain, mercifully, but he suddenly felt more hopped up than that one time the summer before the Accident when he and Tuck had each downed ten energy drinks (that had been a wild night).
Yeah, Sam was right, he needed to go, and he needed to go now. He easily shifted into Phantom, the electric rings around him seeming brighter and more erratic than ever before. He was up and out immediately after, keeping hold of his intangibility as rain and wind buffeted through him, an odd sensation of cold going through his being.
He felt the next strike of lightning, though he saw this one, too, as it struck directly through him, cracked and jagged through the sky. Again, the feeling of way too much caffeine, though multiplied tenfold as the lightning seemed to go through that odd little ball of power Danny always felt in his chest.
If he was feeling that through his intangibility, maybe he should steer clear of large power sources. Like his house. Or… any forms of man made electricity. He quickly turned, changing his direction and blasting towards the edge of town, where woods surrounded Amity Park.
By the time he made it there and landed - still intangible - he’d been struck three more times in ten minutes. He had definitely made the right choice in getting far from civilization. He was so hopped up on power that electricity cackled from his every footstep, pools of energy left behind like footprints as he walked.
Danny grinned as he walked. He was amazed the continuous direct shocks of lightning didn't hurt but he so was not about to complain.
He pulled off his gloves, morbid curiosity taking hold of him. The Lichtenberg figures danced on his hand, glowing with pure white light, pulsing to a beat Danny couldn’t identify.
When lightning again struck him, he simply laughed and threw his arms out wide, absorbing the energy that made his scars glow brighter.
Right now, he felt no pain, no doubt, no fear, none of the emotions that had plagued him since he hit that button. All he felt was power, was control over the power. For something he had been so weary of for so long, he felt no concern now. His entire being was electricity, was power. And Danny wanted to get closer to it, to the sky, to the energy in the clouds only he could control.
So, he did. He flew, he ensconced himself within the storm, laughing with every powerful surge that went through him, until he was so full of power it almost felt like he was made of it.
He couldn’t help but wonder, as energy surged and soared within him, is this what it feels like to be a god?
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in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!
they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.
they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.
you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.
but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.
where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.
and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?
doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are also judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.
but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and both good for each other and bad in equal measure.
what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.
just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?
your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.
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