childhood friends danny and jason miscellaneous thoughts: because why not, i'm reworking ch2 because it no longer fits with the remaster of chapter 1 so i've been thinking of them, and i love talking about them. which you should totally go read the remaster because its 26k words and im very proud of it and it barely got any attention.
First off Ellie vapes. Mostly because I think its real fucking funny. The first time Danny finds out about it he gets all up in arms about it. Ellie at first thinks its because she's smoking -- which, helloooo pot meet kettle, Danny has been smoking for a lot longer than she has.
And then he throws a curveball at her and says he's upset specifically because its vaping. Like no, no. Dammit, if you're gonna fuck up your lungs you gotta do it properly, none of this cotton-candy flavored nonsense.
He plays it up for laughs and it's largely non-serious 'i can't believe you're using a vape', if only to hide the fact that he is genuinely displeased with his little sister smoking. Self-destructive behaviors and bad habits are his thing, thank you very much.
But, well, he knows he'd be a hypocrite if he told her he didn't like that she was smoking. He's aware its bad for him, but habits are hard to break and he's not particularly keen to break this one in particular.
Danny bullies her relentlessly about it whenever she vapes in front of him. Like don't be a loser, Elle, carry a carton of cigs and a lighter in your back pocket like the rest of us degenerates.
[more under the cut]
Secondly: Danny's piercings? He got the first lobe piercings as a lost bet from Sam in junior year, and they did it in her room with a needle, a small bottle of blood blossom extract, and an apple. He broke out in hives for a week after thanks to the blood blossom, but it prevented the hole from healing up :)
He got the rest done professionally at a piercing place in the Ghost Zone. He asked Johnny where to find it. Sam and Johnny (and Kitty) nearly convinced him into getting snakebites. He got an eyebrow piercing instead.
Danny's undercut is also self-done, he did it because Technus shot at him with an ectoblast and it missed hitting him, but set his hair on fire. Danny got it out pretty quickly, but it left his hair lopsided and obviously looking like it got burned by something. He went to Sam for help after the fight. He liked the way it looks so he's kept it that way since.
-
Vlad brought up Jason once(1) in a taunt during a fight, and this was after Jason disappeared from the ghost zone, and Danny very. very nearly killed him on the spot. He hasn't done it since.
Which leads into the other thing: Grief Triggers! As I call them. All Banshees have them in this au.
While all banshees are, in general, in a permanent state of grief, Grief Triggers are a specific emotional response that can cause them to spiral into a state of intense, sometimes debilitating sorrow, and most of the time causes them to start wailing.
Banshees know what their Grief Triggers are and in general tend to try and build up a form of resistance against it so that, if something occurs that happens to trigger said grief, they can at least either get away from other ghosts to let loose or have enough control over themselves that it'll take more work to send them spiraling.
As expected, Jason is Danny's grief trigger. He's built up a pretty good resistance to it so that hey, talking about him and his death is easier than when Danny was fourteen. But a little more prodding and it will trigger, especially depending on who brings him up and how. (See: Vlad)
Grief Triggers also manifest relatively the same; with the induction of an intense state of grief and sorrow, but how a banshee acts on it can sometimes vary. Again, it depends on who triggers it and how. Some of them can get,,, violent, depending on how it happens.
Rath, this au's 'Dan', is a case of a banshee being put into the grief state caused by grief triggers and... never really leaving it. Which they usually do on their own, or with help depending on the severity of it.
At the time it happened Danny was going through the worst week of his life a second time: his best friend's ghost disappeared, then his family and friends all died right in front of him, and then he was stuck with someone who wasn't helping him through that grief.
He was already in the grieving state when Vlad tore out his ghost half. As a result, Vlad only made it worse. With that fury thrown into the mix, Vlad ended up getting torn apart and nobody else was close enough with nor could they get close enough to Rath to help him come down from the wailing state.
So Rath ended up getting stuck in a perpetual negative feedback loop of absolute misery, and well... drove himself insane. The rest of the world became collateral as a result.
-
the difference between Danny and Jason lies in the fact that Jason died, while Danny is dead.
-
I'm having more thoughts on the CFAU/TMWS universe banshees, actually.
Banshees are either born in the ghost zone from ectoplasm and are ecto-entities and work as banshees as how we know of them, or they're human spirits that died mourning someone and that grief was so intense that it turned them into a banshee. They're a little more rare.
These banshees typically mourn only one person, or sometimes they follow their Realm-born counterparts and choose a family to mourn for. Typically their own.
Ember is not a banshee; human spirit banshees are always mourning another person. However, her abilities emulate certain qualities of banshees: like the beautiful singing. But in comparison to an actual banshee, Ember's voice pales.
Does this mean Danny has the better singing voice? Yeah. Ember is incensed by this.
-
If canon Danny and CFAU/TMWS Danny met, I think canon Danny would be kinda unsettled or off put by CFAU.
CFAU Danny still has some pretty core Danny traits, at least I like to think so -- his general drive to help people just out of compassion for them (even if it manifests differently at first due to trauma), his wit and humor, his fear of failing to protect his loved ones, all of those resonate with canon Danny.
However, canon Danny, as far as I can remember and as far as his wiki goes, rarely gets extremely angry or emotional. He gets irritated and he gets annoyed but him getting mad I don't think happens super often. CFAU Danny is the angrier one between Jason and Danny. It's one of the things I consider a division point between him and canon Danny as it's a result of him growing up in Crime Alley. Canon Danny is canonically shy and meek prior to becoming Phantom, CFAU Danny couldn't be -- he'd be dead already.
CFAU Danny's anger would off put canon Danny, in my opinion. His anger, his smoking, and for lack of a better term, his bloodlust would unsettle him.
Like, for example, say CFAU Danny gets transported to a canon (or canon-adjacent) Danny's universe. He's staying with canon for a little bit as they brainstorm how to get him back home, and CFAU Danny goes to school with canon if only so that he's not stuck in the house all day.
Whether they try and pass CFAU Danny off as canon's cousin or if the town already knows that he's another version of Danny, it doesn't matter. Because insert Dash.
Dash who, in CFAU Danny's world, has since learned not to fuck around with Danny or the other kids because Danny has long since asserted that he will beat his ass if he does. 'Fucking around' always predates the 'finding out', and Danny is happy to act as consequence.
(As my father told me (paraphrased) when I was a small child and full of uncontrollable anger: "there's gonna be a day where you're gonna hit someone, and they're gonna hit you back")
And canon Dash, who is used to canon Danny who kinda just takes it because it means that he won't target other people, would see CFAU Danny. He'd notice the resemblance between him and canon, immediately try and go "oh new target!", and try and bully him the same way he does to canon. And Danny "I am the consequences of your actions" CFAU Fenton, instantly throws hands.
Just, CFAU Danny is kind but he's also Gotham-raised and full of bite; he's meaner than canon is. He's more ruthless too, especially in his ghost fights. The ease of which he slips into violence would, imo, discomfort canon. CFAU and Canon would eventually get along though, they're not so different that they'd be in constant clash of each other.
(Canon Danny and Danyal Al Ghul however,,, thats another post LMAO)
261 notes
·
View notes
Free Day Thursday, Part Three
<Prev
Jak did not wake that entire day.
Nor the next.
Nor the day after that.
His body was flushed with fever, and dark, angry lines had begun to spread from the double injection over his core. Infection set in so much faster than they could have anticipated.
Was this what his first injection cycle had been like?
No. Even if the symptoms were the same, this was fundamentally different. He wasn't injected while awake and fighting restraints too big for his little wrists. He wasn't dumped in a frigid prison cell to survive the first infection alone.
Jak was constantly monitored, fluids fed into him to compensate for how much he sweated out. Cold compresses pressed against his forehead at all times. Bio readings on constant readout.
And, most vital of differences, the people around him were fighting to keep him alive because they cared about him, not because it was inconvenient to lose a test subject.
Damas barely ate or drank during those two days. He didn't sleep more than a few minutes at a time. Every waking moment was spent at Jak’s bedside, holding his hand or smoothing back his hair.
Sometime after evening meal on the second day, Sister Yan returned with the light eco. That was the first time Jak’s eyes opened, if only for a moment. The light eco did little more than break the fever, but even just that was a relief. Everything else was up to Jak, now. He just had to fight.
"You can do this, little one," Damas whispered, over and over. "Just stay with me, Jak. Stay with me."
By now word had spread: Damas had a child in the hospital. Now was not the time to bring petty concerns to him. The council of advisors appointed Mako as interim steward to seize temporary power in his absence -- how very strange it was to live in a place where he trusted Mako wholeheartedly to make the right choices and peacefully hand over power when he returned! And he would have trusted any of his advisors to be a good steward of the throne!
Perhaps it was because they had all shed blood as equals. They knew what it was to go hungry. To suffer thirst. They each knew what it was to go without a roof over their heads. It was a lot easier to govern a people when you didn't try to balance on a pedestal high above them.
Jak woke while Damas was dozing. His movements were slow, and sluggish, but the faint sound of his bare arm against the sheets was enough to snap Damas back to consciousness. His eyes flew open and he straightened to check the bed.
Confused blue eyes blinked sleepily back at him.
"Jak!"
Damas leaped up, hands hovering awkwardly.
"Are you alright? How do you feel, son?"
Jak squinted against the fluorescent light and squinched one eye shut.
Too tired to lift his hands, he grudgingly used his voice.
"Th. Thhhhh. Hers. Tee."
"You're thirsty?"
"Mhm."
Jak didn't understand why there were tears in Damas’s eyes. Or why he laughed at that.
"I'm not surprised! Hold on, bug, I'll get you some water."
It wasn't cold, but Jak didn't care. He felt like he hadn't had anything to drink in days! He grumbled when Damas made him slow down, and tried to pull away. Something tugged painfully at the crook of his elbow, and he yelped.
"Ouch!"
He turned, and saw a tube. Sticking out of his arm. Sticking out of the skin.
What did that mean?!
Very, very slowly, Jak swiveled back to look up at Damas.
"Tha-at?" He asked nervously.
Damas brushed the hair from his face -- hey! Where were his goggles?! -- and kept making a sad face. Why the sad face? What was going on?
"It's medicine, son."
Damas swallowed hard.
"That's um. It's a special kind of tool for when people can't take medicine like normal. The doctor uses that little- little tube to trick your body into thinking it's part of the bloodstream. The um. The medicine goes straight into your blood to fight infection there."
Jak hastily drained the last of the water in the paper cup and forced out a few lethargic signs.
"It stays there?”
"No, no no no!" Damas took the cup from him and refilled it. "Only until that bag is empty. See?"
He pointed to where the pinkish line sat on the bag.
"Once that's gone, Dr. Rezzik will come take it out. We'll put a little tourniquet on it, and you'll be fine in a few hours."
"Woo. Aye. Nnn-n oh. Ee. Co?"
Damas winced and drew back a little.
"You...need to stay away from eco for a few weeks, son."
A few weeks?! Jak was horrified. What had happened?! He'd just been playing with eco on the beach, with Flick! How did he get to this cold white room, with a medicine tube, and no eco?
Jak wanted to ask what happened. Why he was here. But his voice was tired, and his arms were tired.
"...d...Dad-t?" he asked, trying to pour all his questions into that one word.
Damas’s breath caught. He slowly lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Do you remember what happened? When you were playing with Flick?" he asked softly.
Jak tried to remember, he really did. But his brain felt all mushy and sleepy.
He shrugged.
"That was-" Damas sighed and brushed back Jak’s hair again. "That was three days ago, son. You accidentally made dark eco."
Jak recoiled in horror. Made dark eco?! Like the Acherons?! Did that make him bad like them?
Samos would be so mad at him! Daxter would be so mad!
"Hey, hey, Jak, look at me. Look at Dad."
The words snapped Jak back to the present, and he turned teary eyes towards Damas. Damas didn't look angry, at least.
"It was just an accident, son." Damas reached down and squeezed his hand. "You're not in trouble, and neither is Flick. Not for that, at least. I'm just-"
He shuddered. "I was so worried, Jak! You wouldn't wake up! We had to induce eco overexposure just to correct the imbalance!"
"That's why my core hurts?" Jak felt the spot between his sternum and intestines where the small organ sat. The skin there was hot and tender to the touch. He hissed in pain and withdrew his hand.
"Yes, son. It is. I'm sorry.”
____________________________
There were, Jak discovered, pros and cons of being in "the hoss-piddle". He couldn't run, he couldn't get out of bed, and it was intensely boring.
But Damas was almost always there! And sometimes Jak's friends visited!
Raza even snuck her dogat kitten in under her shirt and almost started a mini riot in the children's ward.
Flick hadn't visited yet.
Damas said shd felt like it was her fault he'd been in a "coma" for two days. That she probably felt too guilty to come see him.
Didn't make Jak feel better about it. How did he know she didn't just want to stay away from dark eco?
Dr. Rezzik said it would never fully go away. Even if it was only a tiny little bit, that dark spot on his chest was probably permanent. They didn't know how he'd done it, but he'd absorbed it into his core.
That scared Jak a lot more than he let on. Would he turn gray and lose his reason, like Gol and Maia?
Emotions sat a little closer to the surface while he was in the hospital. Little things bothered him in ways they hadn't before.
Lights hurt his eyes too much once the sun went down. The sound of the kid in the next bed chewing his food made him irrationally angry for some reason. Sometimes just the chair next to his bed being empty made him start tearing up.
Nurse Brooks called it puberty. Jak was pretty sure he already did puberty. This was something else.
"Hey, kid."
Jak looked up from absolutely mangling a little metal can they'd somehow squeezed juice into. He hadn't even noticed that he'd crushed it into an unrecognizable lump.
Damas folded his arms and looked at the crumpled mess.
Jak's ears drooped. He'd spaced out again. He did that when things got too noisy already, but things were just noisier here.
But Damas just smiled and suppressed a chuckle.
"I bet you're ready to get out of here, huh?"
*"Yah,"* Jak said emphatically.
He looked around a moment, then sheepishly put the mangled can on the little tray his decidedly bland lunch had been on.
Wiping droplets of juice from his fingers, Jak hoisted himself further upright.
"Can I go home yet? I don't like it here!"
He'd repeated the same question almost every day. And almost every day the answer was "no, son, not yet."
More scans. More finger-sticks. More cold metal things against his back and chest so they could listen to his heart and lungs and core. More bedrest.
But today felt different.
Damas set a small canvas bag down on the chair beside the bed and nodded to it. "I brought you some clean clothes. You'll need to wear the pulse-monitor bracelet for a few more days, but Dr. Petros and Dr. Rezzik cleared you to come home."
Jak whooped and pumped his fist.
"Can we go now? Like right now?"
"You don't want to change first?"
Jak shook his head. "No. The longer I'm here, the scarier it gets. I'm gonna fight somebody if I have to wake up for one more night round."
"Please don't fight the nurses, they're just trying to help." Damas held out a hand and let Jak pull himself to his feet.
He examined the dark circles under his eyes and clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
"Nurse Brooks said you haven't been sleeping well even without his rounds at night."
Jak looked away, embarrassed.
"Nightmares."
Tattooed faces and maddened eyes and crackling, arcing, dark eco-
"About when I landed in Haven. And the woods."
Damas pulled him into a very careful hug, avoiding compressing the icky little starburst shape on Jak’s chest.
"Oh Jak. I'm sorry, son. Do you think you'll sleep better in your own bed?"
"Yeah."
Jak took the time to say goodbye to his roommate. It wasn't Beten's fault he chewed so loudly. He didn't need to get so angry about it.
But Precursors he was glad to be getting away from all that slurping.
"Am I allowed to go exploring yet?" Jak asked as Damas walked him out of the ward. Some of the other kids waved to him. Some were only there for bumps and bruises, one or two were longterm residents with chronic conditions.
"We'll see how you feel tomorrow.”
"Aw!"
30 notes
·
View notes