Misunderstandings (by timydamonkey)
Author's Note: I'm supposed to be revising as my exams start in four days, but I figured I'd get more work done getting this ide out of my brain than leaving it festering. Gosh, I like weird writing styles and angst. Poor Danny, eh? Please read and review, and thanks for reading!
There are screams.
There are hands wrapped around him, holding him to a chest as he struggles to get away, kicking and struggling, yelling frantically, "Let me go!"
"Calm down, and don't be so loud!" says the voice from behind. "Do you want them to find you, Danny?"
"Ye-" He reconsiders. He can't tell her. "No, I just – I – let me go, mom!" He has to fight his instincts to bite her hand; he needs to get out of there.
"I'm not letting you get hurt!"
"There are ghosts!" he yells as if that explained everything. To him, it did. He has a duty, and everything is being messed up, and oh god the screaming…
He knows who is screaming. So does his mother. "I know. I know. And I'm no more willing to let you get hurt than I would be if Jazz were here! There's a lot of ghosts, but I only have one family! The ghosts can wait."
But they can't. That's the problem. Ghosts never wait, especially this one.
"Let me go!"
"Danny, I'm trying to help you! We're obviously targets. They know Jack and I are threats."
And so am I, he thinks. And he knows what's going to happen, but he can't help. He's as helpless as… well, a regular fourteen year old. He wants to cry.
There's a different scream upstairs. It requires no translation.
The hands are gone. "Jack!?"
Danny closes his eyes. He could have done something. He could have changed everything.
He'd have been shot by his mother. But he was dead and his father wouldn't be. He'd still be alive. He is being eaten by the guilt, by the misunderstanding, but he knows he caused it himself.
Eyes downcast, he slinks out of the room. Unnoticed.
Like a ghost.