A/N: For LittleEggBuddy, who wanted a fic where Danny gets mad at his parents for their biased views. Originally written for DP Angst Day 2019. Ambiguous character death (I like being vague), references to dissection/vivisection, blood, everything else you'd expect from a post-near-dissection fic.

They weren't saying anything about it.

This was…. It was just another day in the Fenton household. Nothing had changed. Danny had to remind himself of that.

As far as Jack and Maddie were concerned, ghosts were bad. They had to be destroyed. If they could just get one and rip it apart, molecule by molecule, maybe they could figure out—

No. He had to stop thinking about that. He couldn't think about that right now.

But his parents were still talking to each other, discussing how best to tweak this invention or that, what they were going to do about Phantom's lies and his convictions and what that would mean for—

"Just stop already, okay?" Danny yelled.

He couldn't take it anymore. He just couldn't.

Maddie and Jack's conversation broke off, and they both turned towards him, surprise written across their features. They hadn't heard the basement door open, hadn't heard him come down the stairs. Hadn't noticed him standing on the bottom step, watching, listening. He could read the concern in their eyes from here, but he couldn't— He didn't want to get any closer right now.

If something went wrong, if he needed an escape…. This was the best place for it. He knew he could get out from this position if he had warning.

And he knew he'd have warning.

The shock on their faces would harden into something much less innocuous if this went sideways on him.

He hadn't interrupted their work in the lab for a long time. They expected it of Jazz, not him. She was the one who would come down here and rant, berating them for their poor following of the scientific method or not being open minded or traumatizing him over their unsafe lab practices. She was the one who went on and on about bias and flawed logic and poorly designed experiments. He spent most of his time running away from the lab, from all their inventions. For good reason.

But he couldn't keep running.

"You don't listen to Jazz," Danny bit out. "You don't listen to the ghosts. And you're not going to listen to me, either, but I still need to tell you because I can't stand it anymore."

"Sweetie—"

"I hate it," Danny cut in fiercely, "when you guys just insist you know everything about ghosts. You've studied paranormal stuff for years, but you never had to deal with ghosts on a regular basis until the portal started working. You don't know half as much as you think you do."

"That's why we've been studying them since, Danny-boy," Jack said. As if they were really studying ghosts instead of hunting them down. As if their studying involved proper scientific methods and wasn't driven by the desire to tear a ghost to pieces and build it up again just to see how it worked and what held it together. As if a ghost were an object instead of a sentient being. As if every ghost they had captured and kept for the entire course of their study hadn't destabilized and wound up as a puddle of ectoplasmic goo. "Mads and I routinely take samples—"

"And skew all your data with your own biases!"

"It's not biased when the facts—"

"They aren't facts. Don't you get it? You take your findings and then ignore stuff that clearly influences all that and work backwards and make some claim that would be totally unsubstantiated if someone actually dug into it." He crossed his arms and glared. He hoped it looked like he was angry, not like he was protecting himself.

Whatever came across, it was enough to get Maddie to stop before she'd taken more than two steps towards him.

"We don't make it up," Jack said, looking a little put out. "Every experiment we do—"

"Is designed to get the outcome you expect. And you come up with half a dozen reasons why you don't get the answer you think you should in the end. Ghosts lie," he said, mimicking Jack's voice. Then, in a poorer imitation of Maddie's, "Ghosts don't feel pain. As if all that screaming is faked. They feel pain. They feel fear and every other emotion. They aren't just driven by anger or revenge or some all-consuming obsession. And you want to rip them apart, molecule by molecule, and you can't figure out why I don't want to talk to you? Just because ghosts have died, it doesn't mean they aren't sentient! It doesn't mean that they deserve to be mercilessly torn to pieces and studied in the most inhumane way possible just because you don't understand them."

"Oh, honey." There was pity on Maddie's face, and it just made him angrier. What right did she have to pity him after everything? They wouldn't stop. They wouldn't listen. They still weren't listening. "Is this about Phantom?"

She didn't understand. She wasn't even trying to understand. If she were trying, she'd listen to him.

No matter what he looked like.

Danny's body still ached from the electricity that had torn through his body when they'd captured him.

Every breath still shot a spike of pain through the point in his chest where their scalpel had cut into him.

He didn't know if the hole he still felt was real or imagined. All he knew was that when he'd come around, he'd been in pain. It wasn't like the accident had been. It was different. Focused, deeper, not running through every nerve.

He didn't know how long they'd worked.

He didn't know if they'd given him something to make him regain consciousness, just so they could observe his reactions, but he suspected it.

After all, they'd recorded every scream, every spasm, every word he'd managed to force out of his mouth.

But he'd known then that he couldn't risk changing back, couldn't risk carrying the full force of that injury through to his human form.

That was something Phantom could survive, but not Fenton, not without immediate help.

And, in the end, he hadn't been able to offer his parents the proof they'd needed to believe him.

"It is, isn't it? Try not to worry too much, okay? We'll make sure you're perfectly safe, and you can just let us know if you change your mind about wearing the Spectre Deflector."

It had taken Jazz too long to free him.

It had been too long before she'd even been home to hear his screams.

She'd come before it had gotten to the same point as his nightmares, but—

"We'll figure out why he thinks he's you, Danny-boy," promised Jack.

They hadn't listened to him.

Because ghosts lied.

Because ghosts would say anything to manipulate you.

Because it was easier to believe the lies they told themselves than to admit what they'd done to him.

"This is about me." Danny meant it to come out as a snarl, but his voice cracked on the final word, and it sounded more like a pitiful cry, even to him. "It's always been about me."

The stench of the lab made him want to retch now. Ethanol and bleach and ectoplasm stung his nostrils, and it was suddenly difficult to fight down the rising bile in his throat. Maddie had moved again, and he could see their samples behind her, each measure of ectoplasm in carefully labelled test tubes.

It was his, or it had been.

It was no longer a part of him. They'd taken it. It was…. It must be nothing more than destabilized goo. It wouldn't have the usual properties of active ectoplasm anymore. He wondered how they were going to explain that. He wondered if they even knew enough about ghosts to recognize the difference.

They didn't think Phantom himself was gone or they'd have told him that. Tried to reassure him. Because he had never been masking his fear as well as he'd thought this entire time, and they'd misread it.

They thought he was afraid of Phantom.

They thought, because Phantom was a ghost, that he was evil, lying, manipulative, and that Danny was terrified of whatever unknown Phantom had planned or of the fact that Phantom had fixated on him.

They didn't realize that they had it all wrong.

They wouldn't consider that there was any truth in Phantom's words.

In his words.

"I know, sweetie," Maddie cooed as she closed the distance between them. "It'll be okay, I promise. We'll make it okay."

She reached for him, and he couldn't stop himself from flinching back.

She hesitated for a second before dropping her arm. "It'll be okay," she repeated.

It wasn't okay, and he didn't know if it ever would be. Not after…after….

"I'll talk to the school about letting you and Jazz carry defensive weapons," Jack offered, and Danny jumped. He hadn't seen Jack move. He'd been too focused on Maddie.

He'd let his guard down.

He couldn't afford to do that again.

Last time, he'd paid too high a price.

Even the memory was bringing the pain back. It grew in his chest from a throbbing ache to burning knives that drove deep with each breath. He hardly dared to breathe at all, gasping for air he couldn't seem to get in quick, shallow breaths.

"Danny." There was a note of alarm in his mother's voice. She had one arm outstretched again as if she planned to steady him, but she didn't press into his personal space. He glanced at Jack and saw confused horror settling over his features.

They knew he was afraid.

He wasn't hiding enough from them.

He should have listened to Jazz. He shouldn't have come down here by himself. He should have waited, confronted them with her, somewhere else, somewhere safe, somewhere—

"Danny?" It was Jack this time, caution all through his tone.

Danny started to cough. It tore through his chest, fire exploding along every nerve. His feet hit the stairs again, and he stumbled, reaching out to the railing for support. He hadn't realized what he'd been doing. Hadn't realized he'd been using his powers. Hadn't realized his instinct to run away, to be able to get away fast, had been stronger than whatever stubbornness had led him down here in the first place.

He hadn't realized he'd been making things worse until it had all been too much.

Danny doubled over, trying to make it stop. Trying to make anything stop. Bitter iron filled his mouth, and he spat out blood. He didn't care anymore. Couldn't. He was too weak to stay standing, to watch his back. Too much of the world was black now, the lazy creep of darkness suddenly accelerating. He felt smooth metal beneath his hands and followed the wall down, resting his back against it as he stretched out across on the bottom step

His breath rattled in his chest. Water roared through his ears, accentuated with every heartbeat. He was distantly aware of his father yelling. Of his mother screaming. Of his sister's frantic footsteps as the commotion finally reached her ears and she realized what he'd done.

"—anny! Danny! Danny, hold on, okay? Come back to me."

Jazz's voice.

He could feel her hands on him now as she steadied him. She was cold. He couldn't remember the last time her touch had felt cold to him.

Something shifted, and thundering water was replaced by a high buzzing, a piercing tone that drove the darkness away and replaced it with white, all white, too white to see.

He was dimly aware of Jazz pulling him to his feet, and he gasped as the dizzying pain intensified with each minute movement.

She dragged him up the stairs.

He stumbled, barely able to help her, muscle memory the only thing keeping him going.

When she finally let him down, he collapsed, unable to control his trembling.

"Danny."

Cool linoleum beneath him.

Kitchen floor.

"Danny, we're going to help you, okay? All of us."

Jazz's features were finally coming into focus.

"I can't do this on my own, so Mom and Dad are going to help me, okay? But I'll be here. I won't leave you."

She had a wet washcloth in her hand.

"You're safe now, little brother. We're not in the lab. You're safe."

Had it always been red?

"Just try talking to me, okay? Or squeeze my hand. Anything."

He could feel her hand in his, but he didn't have the strength to close his fingers around it. Couldn't find his voice through the rawness in his throat. He tried to make some sort of sound of acknowledgement. He couldn't tell if she heard.

He didn't realize his eyes had drifted closed until she was yelling at him.

This felt like it had before.

Earlier.

Yesterday.

Had it only been yesterday?

He wasn't healed. He wasn't ready. It hadn't been long enough. It would never be long enough.

"This.…" He could hear the uncertainty in his mother's voice. "This is because of Phantom, isn't it?"

Part of him wanted to laugh. It was ridiculous. How could they not know?

But if part-ghosts were something they had ever considered, they would have realized the truth about him and Vlad before anyone else.

"It's all because of Phantom," Jazz snapped, "because Danny is Phantom. And he has to change to get through this. Do you hear me, Danny? You need to go ghost. You have to. Go ghost."

He didn't think he had the energy anymore.

"Danny, please. You have to change!"

He was just so tired.

"Danny!"