Gravitational Phantoms

Chapter Eleven

Sorry that this took so long. I saw A Tale of Two Stans. Now I might be emotionally damaged. (Also, the reason that there are still tours in the Shack is because Stan(ley) is a stubborn ass.)
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Danny woke up, tangled in the sheets. He struggled weakly to free himself, before he tumbled through the blankets and onto the floor.
He groaned as his body made contact with the floor. Pain shot through his stitches, and he winced as he got to his feet. Glancing at the bed, Danny noticed that the blankets were still in their twisted position. Which meant that he had gone intangible without meaning to.
Which also probably explained the way that he was sinking into the floorboards.
Danny yelped and flailed his arms. "Help!"
Somebody grabbed his arms and pulled, yanking Danny out from the wood boards.
"Careful!" Dipper warned. "We don't want you falling through to China."
"Is that even possible?" Danny wondered.
Dipper grinned. "You didn't stutter that time!"
"I-I didn't?"
"Nope! That's great..." he trailed off. "Um, Danny? You were having a nightmare last night, and you said some stuff in your sleep..."
"Like what?"
Dipper took a deep breath. "You were asking somebody to stop. And you said...you said that you were their son."
Danny tensed.
The Fentons dragged the blade down his front, the cuffs around his wrists and ankles crackling and snapping with electricity. He screamed, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"Why?" He begged. "Why are you doing this? I'm your son! Your son! Please, I promise that I'm really your son!"
Danny backed up into his corner. "Y-you're wrong. You m-must have heard wrong."
Dipper crouched down. "Danny, if your parents hurt you, than we need to call the police."
"N-no! You can't do that!"
"Why not? We need you to tell us!"
"Because I can't let the Guys in White find me!" Danny burst out. He curled back up. "I can't. I won't go back there. I won't."
"We would never, ever in a million years hand you over to somebody that hurt you," Dipper said. "But if they did injure you, than we have to help somehow."
Danny managed to curl up even smaller. "No."
Dipper sat across from the hybrid.
"Why don't we share stories?" He suggested. "If you tell me something about yourself, than I'll tell you something about me, okay?"
"O-okay. Do I start?"
"Yep. Then me, then you, then me, and so on."
Danny thought for a moment. "Once," he began. "I had this crush on a girl named Paulina. When I finally worked up the courage to ask her out, I got so nervous that my pants went intangible and fell down."
Dipper laughed. "For around half of the summer, I had a giant crush on Wendy. I also kept whispering things under my breath, about weird things that I
liked about her. When I confessed, she said that she had always known. Also that she was too old for me, so we stayed friends."
They swapped stories for a long time, although Danny got the sense that Dipper was leaving some stuff out of the ones that he told.
Like how whenever they encountered a monster, they always somehow knew the way to defeat it. Or how Ford was strangly absent from practically all of them.
They had been talking for quite some time when Mabel smashed through the door.
"Hey dum-dum, hey Danny!" She chirped. "Do you two want breakfast?"
Dipper punched the air. "Of course!"
"Alright. I-is there any more bacon?"
"Mm-hm. Dipper, you get cereal."
"What? Why?"
"Because I said so. And nerds don't get bacon, so Ford didn't get any either." Mabel waved her pastel blue arms around. Today she had a sweater with a red butterfly with yellow spots on it. Her brother gave Danny puppy dog eyes.
"Please can I have some of your bacon?"
Danny shook his head. "No. It's my breakfast, and you can't have any."
Dipper collapsed dramatically. "Curse you, Danny! Why must you withhold delicious bacon from me? Have I not provided you shelter and warmth at my hearth for many long winters?"
Mabel poked her brother. "What are you talking about? Danny hasn't been here for that long, and I'm the one who's been giving him food."
The boy twin clasped at his chest with a gasp. "Oh how you wound me! Why must your words form such a blade with which to impale me, dear sister? I thought that you loved me, but now I see that it was a false assumption! Forsooth, why is thine heart not pure?"
Danny and Mabel exchanged a glance.
"What does forsooth even mean?" Mabel wondered. "Fake teeth?"
Dipper continued to roll around on the floor, saying words that sounded like Shakespeare. His sister shouted out the door, "Stan, I think Dipper's broken. He's talking about forsoothing and impaling."
Danny laughed. It was far from the hysterical one that he had made yesterday, and he was grateful for that.
Suddenly, the world fell sideways on it's axis. It spun black, white, and grey once more, and Danny clutched at his stomach.
Azure flames wreathed his vision, and a ring of symbols appeared on the ground. Several if them seemed rather familiar, as was the design in the center. It was akin to the eye of providence, but before the hybrid could focus on it the glowing insignia had vanished.
The earth tilted again, and Danny was back in the attic.
The twins were looking at him with worry.
"Uh, are you okay, man?" Dipper asked.
"You kinda went all shaky on us for a moment there," his sister added.
Danny clutched at his head. Someone was whispering in his mind, trying to tell him something important. The voice got louder, echoing and contorting in his brain.
Black mist that was swirled with blue floated out of Danny's mouth, and his stitches felt as if they had been lit on fire. He was vaguely aware of the twins shouting for help, as mad laughter invaded his ears.
"Don't worry," the same person that was talking in his dream last night spoke into Danny's ear. "I've got big plans coming, and I don't need you getting in my way."