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(no subject)

Who: Danny and Walter
What: One is a spirit, the other is possessed by spirits! SURELY WE CAN FIND A WAY TO NAVIGATE THIS.
Where: starting at Walter's house, then moving...somewhere.......
When: April 10th
Warnings: schloopy teens being schloopy

Danny flew straight over upon receiving Walter's text. Danny wasn't sure what to make of the message--it was complete gibberish, and Walter wasn't responding to any of his texts asking what it meant. He feared the worst and decided to book it over at top speed just to make sure everything was alright.

Once he gets to the Price household, though, he finds it takes him several extra minutes just to locate Walter. He wanders the house invisibly, but can't seem to find him anywhere. He's starting to get concerned. It's only when he finally thinks to check the basement that he has any luck. He solidifies and lands on the ground.

"Hey, Walter! Are...are you alright?"

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There's something uncomfortably off about the entire Price household. Walter's parents are upstairs, holding hands and talking in hushed tones. On the main floor, the orange cat lounging on the couch keeps looking in Danny's direction, invisibility be damned.

And the basement...

Well, Walter is there. Sleeping, apparently, and bundled up on the futon. His skin is so white now it almost glows, and there are bandages wrapped haphazardly around his head. The most alarming thing, though, is probably the way it sounds like every breath is a struggle.

When he hears his name, he stirs a little. Not asleep, then, but not far from it.

Danny suddenly feels almost like he's intruding on something deeply secret. Like he's stepped into a haunted house (one that wasn't haunted by him).

Between the loud breathing, the bandages, and his shifting without saying anything, Danny's on high alert. He runs right up to Walter, but stops just short of him and holds his hands over him, as though he wants to touch Walter but is stopped by an invisible barrier. Something is wrong and he doesn't know what.

"Walter! What's wrong? What's happening?"

A voice. An extremely familiar voice. He "looks" at the source, keeping his eyes tightly closed. He remembers trying to send a text, a garbled text, and deciding against it at the last moment. But he sent it anyway. Accidentally? Subconscious winning over the conscious?

It doesn't matter. He knows Danny's voice, even though it sounds like it's miles away. And he reacts by pulling his blankets over his head and whimpering. Danny shouldn't have to see him like this.

"Walter!"

Danny bites his lip, unsure what to do. Is Walter sick? Tired? Or something far worse? He worries that removing the blankets would somehow make things worse, but...honestly, he looks so tired and pathetic right now, Danny isn't sure how much worse it can possibly get.

So he grabs the blankets and yanks them right off Walter, tossing the pile to the floor.

"What's going on, Walter?"

"St-"

It ends in a cough and a desperate attempt to cover himself. He ends up shifting the bandages around his head, and... a horn peeks out, despite Walter slapping a hand over it.

If Danny had any blood to run through his body right now, it would have gone cold at the sight of that--horn? A horn!

"Walter...what is that?" His tone is cautious, scared, but also stern. He is not playing around right now. He needs to know what the hell this is.

"I do-"

A series of coughs this time. He's shaking and it seems like he really, really wants to cry, but maybe he's lost that ability. After a few labored breaths he pulls the bandages aside, fully revealing the pair of pitch black horns. He finally opens his eyes, because it isn't fair to hide these things from Danny, even if showing him is painful. They aren't supposed to hide things from each other anymore.

The whites of his eyes have gone black as well, though his irises have remained blue. A bright, eerie, glowing blue.

"I'm sorry..."

Technically, he doesn't need to breathe, but Danny's chest still rises and falls rapidly as though he's panicking. Mostly because he is. He looks Walter up and down, watching him tremble and staring at the horns and strange eyes.

"Oh my god, what happened?!"

"...tentacles. London. ....p-possession."

Each word is punctuated by another shaky breath. It's not much of an answer, but it's all Walter has. He's not in the right frame of mind to have a thorough discussion, and even if he was, he still doesn't know what's happening to him. Not really.

It just... feels... and looks like he's wasting away.

"Possession."

Danny wants to smack himself in the face. Walter told him, outright told him before, that he was being possessed by...stuff. But he just let this fly under his radar for so long, letting Walter just sit with it, right up until it got to this.

After a moment to kick himself and feel like the worst person in the world, Danny puts his hands on his hips.

"Okay, we're fixing this now. Right now." Danny unclips the Fenton Thermos from his belt (something he's developed a habit of carrying around when random ghosts are liable to pop in from the Ghost Zone) and holds it firmly with both hands.

"I'm going to turn intangible and pass through you and shove out whatever's in you that's doing this, okay?"

This isn't asking for permission. This is a courtesy explanation of what he's going to do, no matter what Walter says.

Is there even a point to protesting? This is his best shot. And, as always, he trusts Danny. That is unspoken.

Walter swallows hard, nods, and sits up. It's a slow, painful process, but he does manage to get entirely upright. He's even able to push at the thermos, trying to edge it to the side.

"In..."

He tries pulling Danny down for a hug. A feeble, but determined hug.

"In case."

There are footsteps coming from above. Very close. Sounds like Mr. and Mrs. Price are nearby.

Oh, okay. A hug. Well, then. It's unexpected, but Danny doesn't resist, instead letting himself be guided into the hug. He holds Walter gently, like fragile glassware, afraid that he might shatter at any moment if he handles him wrong.

However, he stiffens when he hears footsteps.

"Y-your parents. Your parents. What do they--are they gonna--how much do they know?"

When Walter hears them, he jerks back, fueled by a stab of panic. Mom and Dad are going to check up on him.

"They -- know."

He weakly squeezes Danny's shoulder before pulling away, staring at the stairwell that leads to the main floor. His parents are talking, but it's impossible to make out the words from the basement.

"Won't let -- try to stop y-y..."

If they come down, it'll be a mess. A mess Danny could physically handle, no doubt, but an emotionally trying mess.

Clearly, his parents' presence is making Walter upset. He doesn't understand fully what the circumstances here are--what are they trying to do with their son? How would they feel about Cure Phantom in their basement?--but seeing Walter react like that is enough for him. Danny knows that continuing this here will not end well.

"Okay, change of plans, we're getting out of here first." He clips the thermos back to his belt and then scoops Walter up, hands supporting his back and the crook of his knee, before turning them both intangible and propelling them up and out of the basement into his backyard.

The doorknob turns and the door slowly opens. Someone starts hollering, but by then, they've already made their escape. For Walter, it's happening in slow motion. They leave the basement, phase through the first floor, the living room, the backyard -- so many memories. Things weren't always like this.

He's looking back, looking until it hurts, both his neck and -- and everything else. Eventually, though, he turns towards the opposite direction. To whatever lies ahead.

Danny only spares once glance back at the house. The best thing he can say about it, looking back, is that he's getting Walter away where he can actually help him with this...possession problem.

He leans in to make sure his words make it to Walter's ears. "I'm taking you home--my home, I mean."

Sure enough, Danny flies them to the old Fenton house, still empty save for the eerie aura that clings to the house and keeps potential buyers away. It's become his default hideout when his car or his room at Stefan's won't do. He immediately flies them into his old bedroom, carefully avoiding the downstairs area full of bad memories.

He carefully lowers Walter down onto a pile of blankets folded into a makeshift mattress.

"You okay?"

Walter isn't entirely sure what 'home' means, but that doesn't really matter -- he loses that train of thought during the short trip. Being set on the blanket pile and hearing Danny's voice again elicits a few weary blinks.

"Mhmmm..."

That is the most reassurance he can muster. It's pathetic. His breathing has only gotten worse, and he is struggling to keep his eyes open.

Oh god. Oh god, okay, this is getting worse by the second. This time Danny doesn't give a warning--he's not even sure Walter's conscious enough to hear it. He just turns intangible, flies down through the floor, and gets ready. Fully intangible, hands ready to grasp at whatever horrors he may find, Danny forces himself up through the floor, right through Walter's chest, clawing at anything and everything that doesn't belong as he goes to pull them right out of his body.

When it hits him, it really hits him. Walter curls up on his side, screaming at the top of his lungs. Whatever has bonded to him has a fierce hold on him. Fierce enough to slow Danny down.

A misty black splotch is growing on Walter's chest. And spreading. The scream turns into silence as the blue glow fades from Walter's eyes. The black mist spreads and overtakes his entire body.

The resistance from the... the who-knows-what gives way, and he claws out a dark, misty mass of... horns. Tendrils. An incomplete ritual that's desperately reaching for its vessel.

Edited (what is format) 2015-04-25 02:33 (UTC)

When the mass is finally out of Walter's body, Danny stares at it for a split second--that was in Walter? No wonder he was in such bad shape--before immediately acting. He doesn't know what this stuff can do, and he doesn't intend to let it get a chance.

He unclips the Fenton Thermos from his belt, uncaps it, and aims it right at the mass.

"Please work," he squeaks as he presses the 'on' button and sending out a bright blue beam of light that, he hopes, will suck it right into the thermos.

Edited (whoa there html) 2015-04-27 06:16 (UTC)

It -- they?? -- refuse to give up, furiously trying to grip the ground and drag their way back to the non-responsive, mist-enshrouded Walter.

But the pull of the thermos is too much for them. Slowly but surely, they're peeled back, almost later by layer, until the mass shrinks to the point where the thermos its able to suck the rest of it up.

Danny might want to put a literal lid on it. ASAP.

And put a lid on it he does. He slams the cap back on and twists it shut as much as he can. He almost clips it back to his belt before thinking better of it and gingerly setting it on the floor across the room.

He returns to Walter's...blanketside. "Hey. Hey, how are you feeling?"

The mist persists. His outline is visible, and it... it still has horns. Did this actually work? Walter isn't talking, or moving, or doing anything to instill any hope.

But...

A few agonizingly long seconds later, the mist starts to evaporate. Beneath, there's vibrantly red hair. Pale, but healthy and unmarked skin. And... yes, horns, but they're bone white now. Improvement...?

His first movement is a slight twitch of the hand, and then a headshake as he opens his (normal, watery blue) eyes. He pushes himself up a bit, silent, apparently at a loss for words. Or exhausted. Or a little of both.

Danny slumps with a heaving sigh of relief. He missed the sight of his bright hair, his blue eyes, skin that isn't covered in...weird possession marks.

The horns are still there, though, strangely, but hey, three out of four ain't bad. Still, he worries maybe he didn't depossess Walter enough, perhaps.

When Walter pushes himself up, Danny decides to tentatively ask, just to make sure he did things right. "Hey...how are you feeling?"

"I'm... okay?"

He seems to be asking himself that too. Walter inspects his hands before pulling at a clump of hair, confirming that the red strands are not some kind of hope-fueled hallucination. He starts laughing, an overjoyed, uncontrollable giggle as he stands up. Just because he can.

It doesn't last long. The standing, anyway. He's still laughing as he sways and collapses back onto the blanket pile. He's used to falling over, especially lately, but this is different -- he just feels so light.