Open Log

[schrodingersghost]

WHO: Danny Fenton and Friends
WHERE: Danny's House
WHEN: April 17
WHAT: Danny's been avoiding his friends since the dungeon. They figure it out.
WARNINGS: Grumpy teenagers avoiding their problems and making bad decisions, Paranoia

More than a week after his rescue from his personal nightmare dungeon, and Danny still wasn't handling it well. Don't get him wrong. It helped a lot, knowing how far his friends would go for him. That none of them would abandon him like his nightmares had feared.

And he'd tried to go back to life as normal, he really had. But he'd quickly realized that being outside on his own didn't feel safe any more. That was twice in two months he'd been taken and trapped somewhere. And now every time he was outside on his own, all he could think about was.... what if this was the day it happened again?

And well, at least at home he had his parents and his dog? Even if he couldn't really talk to them about what happened. But it was something. It was a little better.

He doesn't think about his friends figuring out that something was wrong. If he was a little less stressed maybe he would have. Because of course they would notice. He wasn't even going out at night to set up his telescope or go flying, and he wasn't doing a good job at all at hiding his nervousness the times he'd gone out to go to school or walk his dog.

Tonight was another night of staying home and anxiously attempting to ignore the beeping on his phone from the Libra app. He glances up as he hears a knock at the door. 

Comments

[droptheious]

Varian had been aware Danny was not okay from the get-go. The only reason he left it a week was to let the other boy have some time to decompress. But he's not ready for that time to be forever. He knows only too well from personal experience that hiding for too long makes it all the harder to come out again later.

Hell, even he's taking precautions, he's wearing the magical hoodie to obscure his face and he knocks. After a few moments, he sends Danny a text:

I'm outside. Open up.

[a_cute_batata]

Hey Danny, remember when a certain someone was watching over you since the Fae thing? And then with the dungeon, and then the encounter with your evil self?

That's right. Part of the Luz Noceda friendship experience is dealing with her checking up on you!

Not that Luz hadn't had her own things to deal with, which she was battling with on her own, so she decided to fight off that sadness by making sure one of her friends' was coping with his own. Having not seen Danny a bit, Luz sought him out herself, knocking on his door with an armful of snacks and a few movies.

[schoolingfish]

Luca's worried. Ever since he saw what Danny went through he was worried, since he spent who knows how long being tormented by the shadow version of himself, poking and prodding at every insecurity he could find. Since all that happened, Danny hasn't had a single stargazing session, and Luca hasn't really seen him around at all. Not surprising that he might want to hole up after everything, but still worrying all the same, and if there's one thing Luca's not going to do, it's leave his friends in a miserable, terrified state if he can help it.

And that is why he's knocking on the door.

[schrodingersghost]

Danny was very, very much not okay right now. But fake it till you make it, right?

Having a week to stew in it hadn't helped much. But at Varian's message he immediately runs to open the door and let his friend inside.

"What are you doing here? Is it safe for you to be out?"

His own issues weren't enough to distract Danny from worrying.

[schrodingersghost]

Danny might have been handling everything that happened over the last few months very badly, but that was no excuse to be rude. When he hears someone knocking on the door, he answers it. And stares in confusion for a moment.

"Luz? Do you need something?"

[schrodingersghost]

It takes Danny a while to open the door, and when he does its kind of obvious that Danny hasn't been sleeping enough. Or well. He blinks blearily at Luca.

"Hey. Is something wrong?"

[a_cute_batata]

"Yeah! Your company!"

Luz was trying to cope with things despite the month not being ideal for either of them. There was no way to pretend to have Luz was having it easy, but compared to Danny she knew she could lend a hand, and an ear.

"Thought we could have a nice chill down session! What do you say?"

[schoolingfish]

"Well...you were kidnapped twice recently and then I haven't seen you at all lately, and I'm guessing you haven't been getting enough sleep, so...yeah?"

Nothing's wrong with Luca, but he'd definitely say all the things he just listed were 'something wrong'.

[schrodingersghost]

Thanks, Luca. Danny had been trying very hard not to think about his two recent kidnappings. And worse, the memories he'd gotten from his past self that had hinted that he'd been so used to situations like that he had treated it as just another day. After the last two months, Danny never wanted to see what it would take for times like this to feel normal.

"I'm okay?" He tries. "Well, not okay, okay. But I'm home now and not kidnapped, so its already better."

[schrodingersghost]

This close, it was pretty obvious that Danny hadn't been sleeping well recently. Or enough.

It takes him a moment longer than normal to process that, then he responds with a smile that was only a little forced.

"That sounds awesome actually." And if a small part of himself immediately felt relief at the idea of not being alone in his house? Well, he wasn't admitting to that yet.

And also, he was glad to see Luz. He knew she'd been struggling with some of her own issues, and he hated that with... everything he hadn't been able to catch up with her.

[a_cute_batata]

Really, Luz was sure it would be a rare point if she ever caught up with Danny when he actually DID have decent sleep.

But Luz did take note of how his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Not enough time is taken to bathe our infested souls with reckless teen abandonment," Luz said dramatically, "and it's been a heck of a month, considering."

For Danny, it was the Fae and THEN being in that whole dungeon thing. For Luz, it was losing Amity and damaging Owlbert, which had relaunched her whole self-loathing spell to a fever pitch. Rather than dwelling in all of that, Luz figured it might be a good idea instead to fight crippling sadness with fun!

"So what kinda movie are you up for? Comedy? Drama? Cartoons?"

[senorita_perfecta]

Even after the whole ordeal in the dungeon, Isabela can tell that Danny needs some cheering up, especially when one has to spend hours being tormented emotionally and psychologically by one’s darker self. Still she does understand the need to take a break for a week as she too was fed up with the shadow as the next person and has been nursing from losing Luisa for more than a month.

But she also knows that it can’t go on for a very long time so she does show up at Danny’s doorsteps, gloves covering her hands from a potential past vision overload and carrying a basket of homemade arepas con queso that she actually did made. They don’t contain the same healing magic Julieta would have added in but food never fails to make one’s day less gloomy.

[droptheious]

Varian doesn't drop the hood until he's inside the house. He's still pretty tense, but he's fine with turning his worry outward onto Danny.

"I haven't heard from you and I was worried," at the other question he shrugs. "I don't know. They seem to be turning a new leaf if their last network post is anything to go by, but I'm not taking chances. Ergo the hoodie."

He's having to rely more and more on magic here, but at least it's starting to feel...more natural to do so. Besides, this was important. He folds his arms, looking at Danny worriedly.

"So. Is this the plan? Staying in the house forever? "

[schrodingersghost]

Danny turns away and rubs a hand across his forehead with frustration.

"I don't know. Maybe? I mean, last month it was the park and this month it was the beach. At least home still feels kind of safe for now."

Kind of, because there was still the issue that half the rooms here still felt uncomfortable to enter because of the iron and steel. But at least it was a familiar danger here.

[schrodingersghost]

Danny snorts slightly.

"Well, I can't really argue with that." He was about ready for this month to be over. It had to get better from here, right? Or maybe it would just get worse. He didn't want to think about how it could get worse than this, but he was sure it could.

"I think we've already had more than enough drama. I vote for something silly."

He just wanted to not have to think for a while.

[schrodingersghost]

Danny opens the door with a frown on his face. This close, its pretty clear that despite spending a week at home, he hasn't been resting nearly enough.

"Isa?" he wonders. "Is everything okay? What are you doing here?"

[senorita_perfecta]

“I just thought that I might drop by with some gifts for you today,” Isabela replies to him as she offers him the arepas basket, “Now I know that the recent weeks and months have been hard on a lot of people, so I thought these arepas could lighten up the mood a bit.”

[schoolingfish]

"I mean, I'm glad you're home and not kidnapped, but...I'm still worried."

He wants Danny to be able to be okay, okay, not just physically safe.

"I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help."

[a_cute_batata]

Luz was hoping for an easier month after everything. There had to be some kind of break after everything, right? It couldn't just be...craziness the whole time, right?

Luz wasn't sure she wanted an answer to that.

"Silly it is! I have Monty Python, I have Spaceballs, I have Princess Bride if we want a little of everything! What strikes your fancy?"

Luz made a mental note never to say that last part again.

[schrodingersghost]

Those were all pretty good choices, to he honest. A good dose of escapism. But if he had to pick...

"I'm leaning towards Monty Python. Its been a while since I've seen that." He lets out a small laugh.

"Come on, I'll go set up the television."

[schrodingersghost]

Danny sighs.

"Yeah, that's fair."

He wasn't trying to tell himself anymore that he was fine even when he definitely was not. And that was probably some kind of progress. But in the short term it kind of sucked.

"Just hang out for a bit?" He didn't really want to get into why, but being alone at home was starting to get to home. He'd been alone when the Fae had taken him, and he'd been alone just before the shadow hands had dragged him down, and then alone again when he'd been trapped with him. Being home alone now was started to make him a little anxious.

[schrodingersghost]

Well, Danny wasn't about to say not to food. He picks up the basket and inspects the food inside curiously.

"They smell really good... but what are they?"

[schoolingfish]

"Sure! I'm always happy to hang out with you!"

Danny's fun to hang out with, and it's always fun to talk space. He's also just glad that the thing he can do to help out is something he can do so easily.

"And we haven't really gotten a chance to hang out or talk at all lately."

And that's something he can leave open so Danny can talk about whatever he wants, it doesn't have to have anything to do with recent events.

[laminae]

Sooo Fern had received more than a few bombshells after going into Danny's dungeon. Way more than he had expected, given he had thought the entire thing was going to be a fairly straightforward dungeon crawl and rescue. Oh boy was he ever wrong.

He isn't mad at Danny over any of it, though. Not the shadow version of him that blasted him to smithereens, or all the secrets. When you're already basically an evil copy and keeping that secret from everyone, you have a pretty good perspective on this kind of stuff. So it's no surprise to him that after everything he isn't seeing Danny out in the evenings, and that at school he's looking nervous as heck.

A check-in is only natural, so Fern will stop by his house, banging loudly on the door. "Dude! If you don't open up I'm gonna break this thing down, and you know I know I can do it!"

[droptheious]

Varian lets that comment sink in, glancing around them at the house.

"...Ah. Okay, that's...fair," he heaves out a sigh. "Geez, it's been a few months hasn't it?"

He's not really got anywhere to stand here. He hid in Amal's house...his house, now...for well over a month. But he's still worried.

"I guess I can't blame you for that. Okay, so how about we do something...in here? Just. In the house? If you're coping yourself up, you don't need to do it alone."