Chapter Text
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tucker asked, nervously looking from the door to the half-built portal jutting out from the wall in front of them, and to Danny, half-heartedly suiting up in between. “Mr. and Mrs. Fenton don’t really like it when we go down here.”
Sam rolled her eyes and jabbed him in the side with her elbow. “Come on, what’s the point of having a spooky lab in your basement if you’re not allowed to go there? Danny said this thing doesn’t even work, anyway — we’ll just take a few pictures, for posterity.” She smirked, raising her voice over the last few words.
Danny paused, halfway through putting on his gloves, and his face fell. “Aw, really, Sam? Come on, I look ridiculous — can’t we just go play Doom or something?”
Sam shared a look with Tucker that said that Danny looking ridiculous was very much the point, and Tucker bit back a laugh. Honestly, if their friend hadn’t seen it coming, that was on him.
Sam tapped her lips with a finger, humming aloud. “Mmh, tempting — but let’s finish this first.”
Danny grumbled, but snatched his gloves back from the lab table he’d put them on.
“Fine,” he said, scowling, “but only one picture, okay?” He shivered a little, casting a cautious look around them. “I don’t like being down here — gives me the creeps.”
Sam let out a pleased sigh. “I know! Me too — isn’t it delightful?”
Tucker, personally, didn’t feel anything one way or the other, but since his parents had raised him to stay away from possibly cursed items and anything even remotely ghost-related (a must, in Amity Park), he was rather more on Danny’s side than Sam’s, who’s answer to finding something cursed would probably be to take it home and bring it everywhere with her.
They watched as Danny, clad in one of his parents’ custom hazmat suits, slunk his way toward the portal, alternatively ducking under and stepping over large cables.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Tucker found himself mumbling, half biting on his cheek. His fingers were clenched so tightly around his PDA he had to make the effort to relax lest the screen start creaking.
Sam slapped him on the arm. “Don’t be such a spoilsport, Tucker,” Sam said, rolling her eyes. “Danny’s fine — right, Danny?”
“Yeah!” Danny shouted back, his voice echoing off the half-dug tunnel he was in. Combined with the green-edged lighting in the lab, it gave off a spooky vibe that made Tucker shudder and Sam cackle in glee.
“Come back out!” Sam shouted. “You’re too far in — we can’t see you from here.”
“Oh, right,” Danny replied, his projected voice still carrying that odd, metallic echo. “Coming.”
Tucker heard him move back toward them — and then he heard him trip.
He sensed it before he heard it. There was a buzz to the air, like electricity but also not. Despite himself, Tucker’s breath caught in his chest.
For half a second, it was as if time itself held still.
The moment cracked open with a sharp bang, followed by a swooshing whirring as what had been a simple hole in the wall filled in with an impossible swirling mass of green — but not a green Tucker had ever seen.
It was, he instinctively knew, not a living kind of green.
It was hard to tell who screamed the loudest: Sam, or Danny. But the worst part came in the next beat, when Danny’s scream cut off suddenly, leaving only silence and the low woosh of the portal.
Tucker’s own scream died in his throat before it could form. Somehow, he managed to stagger forward, catching Sam as she threw herself toward the portal, screaming Danny’s name.
“Let me go! Tucker, let me go,” she half-screamed, half-sobbed as he held her back.
Tucker almost did — she was stronger than he’d thought, and he’d never seen her like this.
But the ghost portal loomed before them, still shining that ominous, unreal green that made Tucker’s eyes burn just to look at it and—
Tucker didn’t know what had happened to Danny, or where he was, or how he was — but he knew, part of him knew already what had happened to Danny, and Sam must have known it too because her knees suddenly buckled and she fell to the floor, taking Tucker with her.
“There’s got to be an off-switch somewhere,” Tucker heard himself say, hands twitching nervously around Sam’s arms. “We can— We can turn it off, somehow, and Danny… Danny’ll…” He trailed off, mouth suddenly dry, and swallowed.
The green seemed to grow brighter somehow, bathing the whole room with unearthly shadows that seemed to twist and writhe.
There had been other lights in the lab, before, Tucker remembered distantly. The scene was still so fresh in his mind, and yet, although it had been mere moments ago, it felt like a different lifetime, like it had happened to somebody else.
Tucker staggered up to his feet. Somehow, he managed to walk toward the portal — he didn’t want to leave Sam behind, especially not alone, but he had to do… something. Anything.
“D-Danny?” Tucker called, his voice shaking as he drew close to the metallic structure that held the portal to the wall — or was it inside the wall? He could remember how far Danny had been able to go inside it, and yet, now, the portal seemed as thick as a window.
Or no, not a window. It looked like a pool of water, almost — if a pool of water could shine and swirl with colors no human eyes should ever see.
Standing near it made Tucker’s hair stand on ends and want to run away, and yet, he forced himself to say, calling out Danny’s name again as he started running his hands against the wall, tracing the large cables there, looking for some kind of switch or plug — anything that could turn it off.
For a second, Tucker thought he heard something. A whisper, coming from the portal — or was it a shout? Another scream? Danny’s was still ringing in his ears from earlier, he realized suddenly, and his eyes burned as he twitched, trying to dislodge it.
“D-Did you hear that?” Tucker asked, turning back to Sam for a moment.
She was still on the ground, he noticed. Still half-sat, half-slumped over, in the exact same position he had left her in — cyclically, one of her hands would twitch and reach out toward the portal, only to jerk back to her chest, where she would hold it as it shook.
There was something empty in her eyes that made Tucker feel sick to his stomach. “S-Sam?” he called again.
Sam didn’t blink as she finally looked away from the portal. “What?” she asked, her tone biting.
Tucker hesitated, looking briefly to the portal again, trying to see what Sam must be seeing — but all he saw was that expanse of green, moving unnaturally, as though it was trying to spread but was contained by the confines of the portal.
“Did you hear anything?” he finally repeated.
Sam’s lips quirked up into a drawn, humorless smile. “Like what?” she asked. “Like Danny?” Her voice broke over Danny’s name, and her lips quivered. She shook her head, rallying. “No — No, I haven’t heard anything since he stopped… Since he stopped… I haven’t heard anything,” she finished, her voice almost a tearful whisper.
Tucker’s heart twisted painfully and he sucked in a harsh breath.
“Why?” Sam continued, her eyes taking on an almost fervent light. “Did you— Have you heard him?”
Tucker… hesitated. Thought back to the wordless whisper he thought he’d heard, coming from the portal.
It was silent again now, though. Almost innocent, really — and yet, Tucker still felt like the echo of Danny’s scream was haunting the room.
“No,” he lied, clenching his fists until he felt his nails bite into his palms. “No, I haven’t heard anything.”
Sam’s shoulders fell again — and then tightened. “You— We need to shut it down,” she said, her jaw clenching.
“I’m trying,” Tucker replied, still following the cables with his hands. In the unearthly green light of the portal, they almost looked more like vines — or veins, coming to feed the beating heart that was the portal.
It was Sam, in the end, who found the cables they needed to unplug. They were so large it took the two of them to do it — but they didn’t even get a breath of relief as they did, because even unplugging it did nothing to the portal.
Its light didn’t even flicker, and Tucker felt his stomach sink in horror.
“It’s self-sustaining,” he heard himself say, feet staggering back and away from it.
“What does that mean?” Sam asked.
Tucker shook his head. “I don’t… I don’t know.” He felt her move closer, and swallowed.
“Do you… Do you think Danny’s still in there?”
Tucker didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about Danny, inside that, that thing as it turned itself on — inside a portal to another dimension as it opened.
And yet, of course, as he tried not to think about it — he thought about it.
His mind, so quick to think of anything technological and mechanical, couldn’t help but look at the marvel that was the portal and think, the amount of energy this must take could power a small city.
And, all that power focused in such a tight space, would anything even be able to survive it?
And, touching a live wire is enough to kill an adult man.
And, Danny was only wearing one of his parents’ rubber suits, it wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
And, will there even be a body? Did Danny get vaporized — are we, now, breathing in parts of him?
The thoughts made Tucker feel sick again, and he tried to stop breathing, but he’d always been terrible at holding his breath in swimming classes — Danny always mocked him for that, actually — and so he couldn’t last for more than a few seconds before he had to inhale again.
The air didn’t feel any different — but then, would it?
How would they even know, if this was what had happened?
Out loud, he finally answered Sam, saying, “I don’t know.” He licked his lips and was surprised to find that he tasted salt. His next breath caught in his chest, and he had to swallow around it. “I don’t know,” he repeated.
It was too quiet. That was the first sign that something had gone wrong. The house was never quiet, even when their parents weren’t home — and Jazz knew her brother had invited his friends over.
When Sam and Tucker were around, things really weren’t quiet — if only because Sam and Tucker would usually get into some kind of rehashed argument over snacks (which was usually solved by going out or eating chips, since those usually didn’t come back to life) or they’d start ganging up on Danny.
So, yes, the first sign Jazz got that something was off was the silence.
The second, really, was an extension of the first — the house felt empty. Of course, her parents had left after their portal experiment had (predictably) failed, but Danny was meant to be there, studying or playing with his friends.
Had they already left? Gone to get snacks somewhere else? It had happened before, but if so, Jazz wished they’d let her know: she was meant to keep an eye out for them.
Not that anyone had really asked her to do that, of course, but, well. She knew her parents appreciated it anyway.
“Danny?” she called out, peeking out of her bedroom and looking toward his.
Danny’s bedroom door was shut, but there wasn’t any sound coming from it, so Jazz didn’t feel guilty for opening it when her knocking went unanswered. As she’d expected, Danny wasn’t there, and the only trace that he’d been there was the discarded school bag lying by his desk, half-open.
Her nose wrinkled as she saw a trail of discarded socks of dubious cleanliness peeking out from under his bed, and she made a mental note to remind him about the laundry basket.
“Maybe they’re in the living room,” Jazz muttered to herself as she left the room, feeling uneasy.
But downstairs was as empty as Danny’s bedroom had been, and Jazz felt the vice around her heart tighten a notch.
She moved toward the kitchen, which sat untouched — a point in favor of them going out to find snacks, then — before looping back toward the living room.
She saw it, then — a light, filtering in from the stairs leading down to the basement. Her heart skipped a beat even as her blood ran cold.
They weren’t really supposed to go into the lab. Danny knew that — or he did, usually. Of course, most of the truly dangerous chemicals were locked up, but Jazz had been down there often enough to know that chemicals weren’t the only danger.
Also, with all the drilling and welding her parents had been doing and the failed portal, she’d be willing to bet they hadn’t cleared up everything yet.
Mind set ablaze with horrifying visions of her little brother bleeding out from some tetanus-infected piece of metal, Jazz hurried down the stairs.
The light intensified as she went down, but there was something wrong about it. Something that made her skin crawl and the hair at the back of her neck rise. By the time she’d reached the door to the entrance to the lab, Jazz realized that it was too green.
She took one step inside the lab, and then another — and then her legs locked up as all air escaped her lungs.
The first thing she saw was the portal. It was huge; much bigger than she’d thought it would be. It swirled lazily on the far wall, its movement almost hypnotic — Jazz didn’t want to look away from it.
She also couldn’t stand to keep looking at it: something about it made her blood freeze, made her want to run back in terror. She understood, suddenly, how awe and horror could be so closely related.
In the unnatural green light, she could see both Sam and Tucker, crowding around the portal’s edges as they tried to… unplug it maybe? and she must have let out some kind of sound, because Tucker’s head suddenly snapped toward her.
“Jazz,” he gasped out, stumbling away from the portal.
His cheeks were wet, Jazz realized, swallowing thickly. Her palms itched with the need to do… something, and she crossed her arms instead.
“Are you alright? What are you doing down here? Where’s—” The words stuck in her throat, as though she could already tell that something was wrong. She forced them out anyway. “Where’s Danny?”
“He’s still in there,” Sam replied when it became clear that Tucker wouldn’t, or couldn’t. She didn’t look away from the portal, didn’t stop trying to claw at the metal even though she must know how futile it was, even though it must hurt. “He was— He has to be— He’s still in there,” she repeated, shaking her head.
Jazz had been terrified exactly once before. She couldn’t remember the context exactly, or how young she’d been, but she could remember the events clearly enough: she’d been about to cross the street on her own when a motorcycle had come zooming out of nowhere, almost running her over.
She recalled the terrible rush of adrenaline as she jumped back just in time the most, the way the dread had lingered afterward, how cold she’d felt as her heart raced and her breathing struggled to slow even though she had barely moved.
She’d almost died that day, and it had been terrifying.
This… This was worse.
She stumbled forward. “What do you mean, he’s still in there?” She couldn’t recognize her voice as she spoke.
“We’ve tried to unplug it,” Sam continued, words echoed by dull metallic thuds as she tried to hit some of the panels, begging them to budge — and oh, Jazz understood now, she understood.
“It doesn’t work,” Tucker finished for her. He was paler than Jazz had ever seen him before. Combined with the green light bathing them, he looked like he could be sick any moment now. “We’ve been trying, but… We can’t turn it off.”
“Right,” Jazz said. “Right.” If her voice shook, nobody remarked upon it. “You two need to step away—”
“What? No?” they both protested.
Sam finally whirled around, showing more fire than Jazz had seen since she’d come down here. “We have to turn this off!” she exclaimed. “We can’t just— can’t just—”
“And we will,” Jazz interrupted, hoping she wasn’t going to be proven wrong. “We will,” she promised. “But the—” she swallowed, forcing herself to blink past the burning in her eyes because Danny had been in there, oh god, was he okay? “The portal is dangerous, and we need— The two of you should stay safe, alright? Danny… Danny would want you to be safe.”
She half-hated herself for using her brother’s name like this, not when they didn’t know what had happened to him, not when he could be…
Could be…
Her mind shied away from the word, and Jazz shook her head, refocusing on the two kids she could help right now, even if not knowing where Danny was, or how he was, or if he was, well, somehow still alright in there somewhere, was killing her.
“Please,” she added. “We’ll— I’ll call Mom and Dad, okay, they’ll know how to turn this off.”
She wanted to add ‘It’ll be okay’, but the words stuck in her throat.
“Come on, just… step away from the portal. For now."
Sam froze, her eyes narrowing, but it was Tucker who spoke.
“For now?” he asked.
Jazz’s heart skipped a beat. “For now,” she confirmed, and almost collapsed in relief when, after a nervous look between themselves, they stepped toward her properly.
“Alright,” Jazz found herself muttering, her palms sweating. “Alright.” She stepped toward the phone line her parents had installed inside their lab, pushing away a pile of papers she didn’t care about.
The call connected after the two longest beats of her life.
“Mom, Dad,” Jazz said, almost surprised to find that her voice didn’t shake, “you need to come home. Please.”
Maddie wasn’t sure Jack had ever driven them as fast as he had after Jazz’s call, telling— no, begging them to come home.
She wouldn’t say what had gone wrong, but it was obvious that something had, and Maddie’s mind buzzed with possibilities, each worse than the last.
“Do you think…?” was all she’d managed to ask her husband, who had cut her off by taking her hand and squeezing gently.
“I’m sure everything is fine,” Jack had replied, but Maddie knew him too well to miss the tightness of his smile or the quiver in his voice.
They’d driven the rest of the (very short) way in silence, and had burst inside the house so quickly Maddie was pretty sure neither of them had bothered to shut the door behind them — if the door was even still hanging on its hinges after Jack had kicked it in.
Jazz’s voice, of course, led them toward the lab downstairs.
It was odd, really. Maddie had never hesitated to walk in there before, and yet, now, she’d felt… something wash over her. A bad feeling — like if she walked in, everything would change.
Dread, really.
Jack, of course, had burst in first without pause, but Maddie… Maddie, for once, had stepped in slightly more cautiously, hand drifting toward the collapsible staff she kept at her waist, muscles coiling in her back and shoulders.
But once she stepped inside, her heart stopped for a moment.
“Jack,” she heard herself say, voice weak with trembling awe, “Jack, the portal, it’s working.”
It shouldn’t be possible. It hadn’t worked before, when they’d plugged it in — and was it unplugged now? God, did that mean the emergency batteries worked? That their plans for a self-sustaining loop drawing on the power of the Ghost Zone instead of mere electricity had been right?
Maddie felt giddy with triumph, she felt like a teenager, she felt—
“Jack?” she asked, the dread dawning back on her shoulders and curling around her throat.
Jack hadn’t reacted to the portal, she realized suddenly. He hadn’t said anything to her, hadn’t rushed toward it to check it out the way Maddie wanted to even now, fingers twitching with the need to take measurements and samples, to understand this miracle, this—
“Jazzypants!” she heard him exclaim. “And Tucker! And Sam! Are you kids alright?”
The kids were, Maddie noticed as she turned slowly in their direction, clustered around the phone, a little ways away from the portal, and it might have been the portal’s glowing green light, but Maddie thought they looked sick, all three of them.
Three.
The dread tightened like a noose around her neck, and Maddie sucked in a quick breath as she watched her husband’s hands flutter nervously around the kids, checking them out for injuries they were reassuring him they didn’t have.
She knew, as sudden as the toiling of a bell, what Jack was going to ask next — just like she knew what the answer would be.
“Where’s Danno?” Jack asked, and Maddie’s ears filled with a high-pitched buzzing sound.
She didn’t want to hear the answer.
Suddenly, the portal’s light, which moments before had been the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, took on a dark, ominous shade.
Did you kill my son? she silently screamed as she and Jack staggered forward, toward the batteries keeping the portal powered on — and part of her still wanted to know how long those could have lasted before needing replacement, to know if their calculations had been right, but god, Maddie hated that part of her, she wanted to claw it out of her chest, she wanted—
Jack took her hand and they pulled the last battery pack out together. Maddie half-wanted to chuck it at the wall, but the ominous green light coming from it — the same as all the others, the same as that damned portal — told her it might not be a good idea.
For a moment, the portal kept on spinning, its light churning and twisting. It looked like it was screaming, like Danny—
He’d screamed, Sam and Tucker had said, and part of Maddie was viciously glad she hadn’t been there even as the rest of her desperately wanted to have been there, to have known, to have been able to stop it somehow.
There was no sound, when the portal vanished. No great bang, not even a whimper. Just a blink, really, as the portal collapsed in on itself, there one moment and gone the next, leaving behind only a green afterimage imprinted on Maddie’s eyelids and some type of vapor.
But both quickly vanished, and then it was like the portal had truly never been there, like they were back in time to just a few hours ago, when they’d left this place, dejected because their experiment had failed.
Once again, Jack rushed in first, shouting for Danny, as Maddie followed.
She didn’t know what she’d hoped they’d find: a body, maybe? His ghost?
But as she walked in, Maddie realized how stupid that thought had been: of course she knew what she’d hoped they’d find. Of course she did.
She’d hoped they’d find Danny, somehow alive, somehow fine.
Somehow still there.
But the place where the portal was empty, and Danny was gone.
He’d probably been gone the instant the portal had turned on, she coldly reflected, and the thought made her feel sick.
She couldn’t help but stare at the portal — Jack and hers’ masterpiece, their lives’ work — and think, again, Did you kill my son?
And then, quieter:
Did we?
Elsewhere, Danny staggered forward and fell to his knees.