Chapter Text
Danny was stuck. Completely and irrevocably. His hands scrabbled through thick tar, the sticky substance surrounding him, filling those useless organs called lungs that he had no use for, here, in the pit. He couldn’t see, couldn’t speak. His eyes were stuck shut, mouth gaping open like a dead fish, uselessly flapping, trying to make a sound, a call, for anyone, anything, to hear him, free him from this place, stuck between the fabric of his two worlds. No one came. No one could come, to this dimension allying his homes, this dark place, where nothing could reach him.
He fought in a blind rage, clinging to the echoes of life, instinct thrumming through him. He clawed at his eyes, wrenching them open, just to take in the inky vastness. If he could have cried in this place, he would have. A deep seated fear, one that resides in all humans, pierced through him then. The fear of the dark. He was so achingly alone here, it drove the fight from his muscles. He went lax, head drooping, sinking further into the void, defeat clasping him in chilling talons.
Just as he was going to let his eyes fall shut, a glimmer of light shone through the sticky substance surrounding him. A shine of a bright emerald green, flickering softly. And then a scream. Someone torn apart. It shot a memory straight through him. He recognized that sound. It was one he had made, before he was trapped here. His limbs trembled with the exertion, but he began making his way through the indomitable vast, through the tar and the lost. Making his way to the echo of that light, to his only chance at escape.
-
He was already having a bad day. He woke with a cold, making his skin fever sticky and sensitive. His clothes grated against his body, and he whimpered trying to leave the cloying warmth of his room to the freezing house. Too cold, even more so than normal. Danny’s breath puffed in front of his face in great, billowing clouds.
As Danny walked through the home, draped in a blanket, he felt like a psych patient. All of the windows were fogged, casting the hallways in eerie light, and the walls of the home were covered in a white, puffed insulator, the remnants of one of his parent’s long forgotten projects. He had a brief impulse to drop to the floor and rock back and forth, to complete the scene. He huffed out a laugh to himself, and it quickly turned into a wracking cough. Once it subsided, his breath came in little hiccups, trying not to trigger another fit.
Danny rubbed his hazy eyes, fever making the floor spin beneath him. He decided, in his heat-addled brain, that braving the stairs was a good idea. He took them half a step at a time, clutching the railing on wavering legs. The blanket he carried trailed softly behind him, like the train of a wedding gown, and he tried his best not to trip up on it.
Eventually he made it down stairs. He had a decision to make. He could go to the kitchen, try to brave the fridge, risk getting his nose bitten trying to find some oatmeal, or…Or he could go down to the basement, where the chill was most certainly coming from.
There was no way an air conditioner unit was causing this chill, it must be one of his parent’s inventions. He hoped they hadn't left it on by mistake. They often forgot basic lab safety, and he was worried one day it would hurt someone.
His queasy stomach and trembling limbs made the decision for him. He was in no mood to fight off radiated breakfast food, and the cold was becoming unbearable. He cocked an ear and listened. The house was quiet. Not unusual on a Saturday. Jazz was most likely at the library, and god knows what his parents were doing. No one was in the house to stop him from fiddling with whatever cursed device was causing him to freeze. He swiped his brow, where his feverish sweat had frozen, leaving a drip of half frozen slush on the back of his hand.
He chittered all the way down the stairs, chill growing ever worse as he approached the metal basement door. There was a delicate smattering of frost across the metal surface, elegant, dancing patterns mocking Danny’s erratic shivering. He had to rattle the door handle voraciously to remove the ice before turning it, and his breath came in exhausted wheezes when he was done, feeble body done in by the sickness. He slumped against the cool of the door, overcome by a sudden hot flash, before it suddenly leaves him, cold permeating once again.
He shook himself, and took a step back from his slump, opening the door. A wave of frost billows out, blowing the blanket he had been carrying away and up the stairs, nearly taking Danny with it. He braced himself against the wind, crying out, eyes watering as the little particles of ice sliced at his skin. As quick as it had come, it subsided, leaving him trembling in the wake.
Danny slowly relaxed, cracking an eye open. He looked around the room, an alarm seeping its way into his dazed mind. The whole room was coated in frost and ice, snowflakes transfixed in the air. His breath came out in huge white clouds, periodically obscuring his vision. He shook in his small clothes, bereft without the blanket. There was something terribly wrong. He vaguely remembered his parents' disappointment about: “Our life’s work gone to waste,” but honestly, he tuned their blabbering out half the time. It’s not like they afforded him any attention either.
There. That was it. That damned portal. Danny had hated it since it was a twinkle in his parent’s eyes. Now, don't mistake his hatred for condescension. In reality, it was jealousy. The portal was their true child, Jazz and Danny always coming second. If his parents weren’t in the lab working on it, they were yammering about it to anyone who would listen. So yeah, he thinks he should be afforded some leeway. He glared at it vindictively, shivering in nothing but sleep shorts and a threadbare NASA tee.
He grumbled as he reluctantly pulled on a clammy rubber HAZMAT suit, forgoing goggles. Hey, if his parents could ignore basic lab safety, he could too. He made his way through the ice, slipping a few times. The rubber boots of the suit helped him grip the slick surface, but there was only so much they could do to help his natural clumsiness.
Danny liked to think he was going through a growth spurt, and would eventually grow into his too-long limbs like his dad. For now though, he had to flounder his way through walking, like a newborn colt. He frowned as he came to a stand still, looking up at the large, messy bit of wiring and scaffolding his parent’s called a portal. It was just a hodge-podge as the rest of their house, and he can’t see how they ever thought it would work.
Come on, travelling between dimensions? Leave that to Wayne Tech, the real professionals. This has got to be illegal. How much energy would this thing take, anyways? Surely more than Amity’s power grid could handle. Danny grit his teeth. There was a little green light blinking deep inside the portal. His parents must have left some sort of power current on, and it was running through all that messy wiring. It has to be triggering some odd reaction to the tech.
He sighed, and shivered a bit more, closing his eyes. Why does he have to be the one to deal with this? Whatever. He slid his eyes open, and trekked forwards, towards the green light. He scanned the frosted walls of the portal, looking for a power box, or an outlet, or something he could turn off. He reached the end, little blinking light sputtering on and off. He let out a huff of steam angrily. What a waste of time. He turned on his heel quickly, planning on turning back, going back to his room, and huddling up until someone qualified came home. That was his mistake. He had forgotten the iced floor.