Sore

"This sucks," Danny grumbled, his body hanging off Sam's bed like a broken doll.

"You need to stretch." Sam jammed a finger in his shoulder, eliciting a hiss, "if you think you're sore now tomorrow will be hell. Stretch a little and you won't be so sore."

"Yeah right," Danny clutched his shoulder where muscle tissue had turned into pure nerve tissue. "This is worse than running the mile, a hundred times worse. Who knew a Lunch Lady could pack such a punch."

"Come on man, you know Sam's usually right about health stuff—even if she's dead wrong about the diet."

Sam rolled her eyes, "Up and at 'em." She prodded him again but Danny refused to be moved. Better to take pokes of pain than full-body torture. "Tucker help me lift him up."

"I've got a better idea." Had Danny been a little more conscious of something besides agony he would have heard the wicked grin in Tucker's voice.

Danny yelped as Tucker shoved ice cubes down his shirt, flopping off the bed. "That's better, now on the floor and stretch. Time to WD-40 those squeaky joints old man."

Going intangible, Danny let the ice cubes fall to the carpet and glared at both his friends, "it's like you two exist to make my life miserable."

"Perks of friendship dude," Tucker said.

"I'll start off easy," added Sam, "We can do a little yoga."

"Nothing girly…ow! Still sore!"

"Designations of an activity based on gender are archaic and stupid and confine girls and especially boys to a very narrow range of experiences, now take deep breaths and relax."

"Agh, not fair," grumbled Danny, "There's never been a superhero in a comic book or on television or anywhere else who got sore muscles."

"Welcome to reality," Sam said dryly.

"Yeah, where apparently that ectoplasmic shock didn't leave you with any muscle. You'd think if a radioactive spider could do it…" Tucker trailed off in thought.

Danny scowled at his arms, which had no reason to burn like the sun when they were as stubbornly stick thin as before the accident. Sam paused from lotus position and adjusted his hands, "Breathe deeply as you do this Danny; gaining muscle actually takes work."

"And protein," said Tucker, "Which is why Sam will be forever a bean pole."

"If it only took protein you'd be as beefy as those helpless, slaughtered animals you devour," Sam pointed out. "Now let's move onto downward dog."

Danny groaned. Every inch of his body felt as agonizing as a side-stitch after last year's final exam, only all over his body and each movement made a thousand supernova-hot needles known in his joints. Doing any sort of bending exercise felt like hellish torture right now.

"Okay maybe cat pose."

"Ow!"