By request, another short installment of inebriated Fenton angst. -Hj
~
Jack sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “Please, son.”
“No,” Danny shook his head, which felt heavy and queasy and not quite on right. “No, no, no, you don’t sit there and call me son, Dad. You know.”
“What does he know Danny?” Mom asked softly. She didn’t look angry anymore. She looked frightened.
“Tell her,” Danny insisted. The world kept slipping off to the left, so he leaned hard to the right, gripping the table to keep from sliding off his chair. “Was it fun, huh?! Was it fun watching me s-struggle and fight and try making things work when I didn’t even know what had happened to me?!”
The words came easily now, pouring out in a burning rush. “Did you get all kinds of data? Were you just going to keep letting me think that some part of me was normal? That I might still be human? Or were you gonna finish me off, whenever I got too...too…” the word wouldn’t form and he waved his arm around instead. Splatters of melted snow dripped off his sleeve.
“Kiddo, I…” Jack heaved a sigh and put his hands on the table. He turned them palms-up, staring at them. “I didn’t know how to say it.”
Coward, Danny thought. He stood up, dragging his chair back so the legs screeched against the tile, planting his own hands on the table and leaning forward. He felt the heat of his own eyes glowing. “Say it now.”
Jack looked up, eyes haggard. “You’re dead.”
Danny heard Mom’s sharp intake of breath. “Jack! You’re still intoxicated, aren’t you. What is wrong with you two today?”
“I mean it, Mads. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but…” Jack clasped the cup of coffee, picked it up, put it down without drinking. “Danny here died last July. In the portal accident. He’s been hiding it ever since. He’s a ghost. No doubt about it.”
Hearing him say it so matter-of-factly felt like a punch to the gut. Danny shut his eyes. There were tears burning in his eyes and his nose stopped up, an awful cloggy feeling that smelled like blood and stabbed into his sinuses. He felt ready to puke. He was a wreck. Stupid alcohol. Stupid Vlad. Stupid accident. Stupid Jack Fenton.
Some of those tears made it onto his cheeks, and he swiped them away with a clumsy hand, brushing his swollen nose. Ow.
Jack made a pained noise and stood up, moved as if to go around the table, hesitated. His hands dropped to his sides.
“I’m sorry,” Jack croaked, sounding hoarse and miserable.
Danny’s face burned with shame and anger. That didn’t mean anything. Jack just felt bad because he’d made the freak cry. Crying like a loser in front of the guy who’d been laughing at him behind his back for over a year. “This was just some dumb science game to you,” he choked out.
“No, kiddo, it’s not--” Jack stopped short, as if recognizing the hollowness of his own excuses. “You don’t have to see it like that,” he finished weakly.
Danny wouldn’t play this stupid game. Not anymore. He stood up, banging his knee against the table leg on the way up, then straightened. Sniffling through the gooey mess of blood and phlegm, he gave Jack the most hostile glare he could muster.
“Screw you. I’m done being your live-in experiment.”
