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Laundry Day

The green stain on the otherwise white t-shirt brought a frown to the woman's face. Of course, avoiding ectoplasm spatters was an absolute challenge in the Fenton household due to the amount of devices using this substance. That was why Maddie and her husband had traded regular clothing to their now trademark hazmat suits. But having to always wash traces of ectoplasm from Danny's laundry was beginning to unsettle her.

The reason behind the stains wasn't the real issue since she knew ghost attacks were much more frequent at Casper High. A school full of angst-ridden teenagers was like a buffet for creatures feeding from negative emotions. Aside from that, both Fenton parents believed the school was Phantom's main haunt, which would attract even more specters that wanted to take down the ghost kid. Why the school hadn't approved the budget for a longer-lasting ghost shield was still beyond her...

No, what had her worried was the persistence of ectoplasm on her son's wardrobe. It was obvious the hundreds of products she had already tried were useless against such a foreign substance. She wondered if that was why he often triggered their inventions. Even if the amount of goop wouldn't activate bigger alarms, it could be the just enough to set off their gadgets in a closer range.

Danny had seemed uncomfortable whenever he was mistaken for a ghost, so maybe there was something she could do to put an end to everyone's constant frustration. Time to try the newest Fenton Tide!

Jack had been the one to encourage her crazy idea: a ghost repellent capable of preventing future stains while keeping the garments soft. It had started with a failed attempt at a Fenton Ghost-Screen, a body lotion that would block any kind of ghost possession. It was such a great idea at the time, but her son had claimed just being close to the substance had made him nauseous. Maybe applying such a large amount of ectoplasm-based protection over one's skin wouldn't be healthy for anyone, and reducing the amount of repellent would make it weak against the intended purposes. But what if she changed the purposes?

Modifying her earlier product towards a different mean was all it took to create her newest concoction. The Fenton Tide wouldn't dissolve the ectoplasm but rather separate it from whatever human item it was attached to. Like separating water and oil. The trick was keeping it from attaching itself again to the clothes once the washing cycle finished, so she gave her washer a new ectoplasm deposit to collect every foreign substance at the end of the sequence. This even gave her and Jack more material to study!

If worse came to worst, she would be damaging only a pile of worn clothes, so she figured she might as well dump all the polluted garments Danny had left in his laundry basket. After two pairs of jeans, nine t-shirts and one of his hoodies, Maddie hoped she didn't have to replace every garment once this was over, but didn't worry much about it since a change in wardrobe was long overdue. She began the cycle after adding a small amount of Fenton Tide to the soap dispenser and left to work in the lab for a little while before dinner.

About forty minutes later, a little after the mother of two had decided it was a good time to start preparing that evening's meal, she heard the front door open and slam closed. That could only mean Danny was home. Maddie couldn't help huffing in exasperation at the annoying habit her son had developed. Even when he was quiet for most of his activities, he was always either in a hurry to come in (or out) or frustrated about something that happened during the day, which he seemed to take out on the wooden door.

From the sounds of it, he dropped his heavy backpack close to the entrance and proceeded to walk into the kitchen. "Hey, mom," Danny greeted. "What's for dinner? I'm kinda starving."

She turned away from the kitchen counter and looked at him curiously. The only days he came home hungry were when he didn't stuff his mouth with a Monster Meaty combo at the Nasty Burger with his friends, which meant that the fast-food restaurant probably got attacked and stopped serving or, less likely, they didn't hang out there today. Knowing how he despised being questioned about everything, she decided against voicing her thoughts. "I'm going to make some spaghetti with meatballs, but I'm just getting started," she replied instead and resumed her activities.

Danny seemed to decide he couldn't afford to wait, so he opened the fridge and started rummaging for a quick snack to eat in the meantime, something Maddie disapproved time and again. "You're going to spoil your dinner like that, mister," she reprimanded with a pointed look. The teen sighed and closed the door immediately. Even when she didn't see him, Maddie could bet he had just rolled his eyes.

Her son walked towards the counter where she had been making the raw balls of meat that would soon be cooked. "Can I help you with anything? I couldn't even eat a proper lunch today," he confessed. Before the woman could express her concern, Danny made a placating motion with his hands. "It's ok, nothing serious, just a tiny accident involving my food tray and an angry jock. No ghost attack involved this time, really." She was almost sure he was lying to avoid being lectured about general safety or the importance of taking something like the Spector Deflector with him to school.

Maddie knew that an inquisitive approach would only get her either a lame excuse or a thinly veiled lie out of her son. She had tried talking to him, asking Jazz to talk to him, setting more severe punishments, taking him to counselor after counselor, but nothing stopped him from blatantly lying. It's not that they stopped caring about the matter. She cared and worried much more than she would let on, but one of the counselors (and even Jazz) had told both parents it was vital to allow him some space and freedom. He seemed to be the same golden-hearted boy she had raised, going through some phase to define who he wants to be, now that he's no longer a kid. They could and would, however, step in if there was something harmful or alarming involved. To Maddie, Jazz was the best resource they had to know for sure if they needed to take action or not. With how mature she had always been and how close to her brother she had grown, it was obvious to both parents that Jazz wouldn't allow anything harmful happen to Danny.

But for the time being, all the mother could do was let this new lie slide. "Well..." she began, unsure of what he could help with. "The washer must be about done with the cycle, so you could be a dear and help me putting the clothes in the dryer?" Before her son could comply with her request, she remembered a vital detail. "Oh! And check if the splatter on your hoodie is still there. If it is, let me know."

Gloved hands continued to work on the meal and began preparing the sauce for the pasta. She had started dicing some tomatoes when she heard a loud yelp coming from the laundry room. Maddie gasped and whispered her son's name before bolting towards the source of her worries. As she reached the room's entrance, she saw Danny sitting against the wall in a corner, clutching his hand close to his chest as he hissed in pain. Before she kneeled next to him, Maddie noticed wet clothes on the floor, probably pulled out of the washer by her son.

"Honey, what happened?" she asked in befuddlement, as she unsuccessfully tried to take a look at his apparently injured hand.

Her boy turned his hurt blue-eyed gaze towards her and she could see some hesitation in his eyes. "I... hit my hand with the door?" It wasn't really a question. It was another lie attempting to mislead her from what had really happened. The thing was, she didn't understand what might have happened so she couldn't think of why he would lie to her. "Did you... uhm... did you do something to the laundry?" he asked after a couple of seconds.

Maddie frowned at the question. Had her new chemical done something to him? He had scrunched up his nose at the mere mention of the previous substance, but there was nothing harmful in the removal of weak ectoplasm stains from clothing. The amount of repellent she used was minimal and wouldn't even be able to cause a ghost any harm. If anything, it would prevent ectoplasm from sticking on clothing for too long. "I added a new detergent, to take out those ectoplasm blotches from your clothes," she replied.

Danny gave her an incredulous stare. "You mean... you poured something I'm probably allergic to on all my clothes? What the heck am I going to wear now?"

"I don't understand. How could you be allergic to something like this? It shares similar properties to our ghost shield. You would have felt sick before on the many occasions we've turned the shield on."

He seemed to consider this for a second, at a loss of what could have caused such reaction. "But wouldn't skin contact be different?"

Now Danny wasn't making any sense. If he was hurt by the chemicals in the Fenton Tide, why wouldn't he just outright tell her? Why would he keep it to himself? Neither the mother nor the scientist in her would let this one slide. "Let me see your hand," she asked calm but firmly, as if the easiness in her voice would convince her son to come forward with the truth.

Apparently, it wasn't enough. "No, it's fine. Don't worry about it," he argued again.

Maddie shifted to a more comfortable position next to him, mostly meant to state she wouldn't budge from her request. "Danny, I know you didn't hit your hand. If you have an allergy, I need to know right away about it."

"Seriously, it's fine," the boy insisted.

Of course, that did little to deter his mother. With a more authoritative look, she took his hand and pried it from him. As soon as she turned the limb over, she gasped in shock and horror. His skin had taken a sickly green color and one of the several tiny blisters covering his palm had an unmistakable liquid oozing from it. Ectoplasm, her mind supplied.

She turned to stare at her son in confusion, noticing raw fear across his face. "I-I-I can explain," he stuttered as he took his hand away from her.

"Ectoplasm?" her voice echoed her previous thoughts. "But... how?"

There was no logical way to look at it. Her son couldn't be a ghost. He would be setting off every single device around the house, not just a few of them. But what if he was contaminated by ectoplasm? What if it ran through his bloodstream like a disease and neither she nor her husband had noticed? Pieces began to fall into place and suddenly everything clicked.

"The portal," she supplied her own answer.

Danny tensed, going even paler if such thing was possible. His mouth moved to say something but he couldn't form a single word.

"Of course," Maddie continued. "The shock you received by the portal could have contaminated your bloodstream. How could we have been so stupid not to realize this before?"

How had they allowed themselves to carry on with their research and not figure out their own son could be in serious danger? Even the slight shock he got from the accident could've been enough. Their own lab partner back in college had gotten a nasty case of ecto-acne from the proto-portal and spent years fighting the disease. What if Danny had gotten something minor but still lethal from his own experience?

"Mom," her son's voice interrupted the thoughts flooding her mind. He seemed to have calmed down enough to transmit the same feeling. Unbeknownst to him, that would be quite the task. "I'm fine, really. This is just some weird allergy. I'm not contaminated, I'm not overshadowed, I'm not some ghost posing as your son, I'm not hurt, and I'm definitely not going down to the lab so you can put a thousand needles with god-knows-what in me," he finished with a more determined look on his face.

Maddie almost wanted to laugh at him, but she was still worried about her discovery, despite whatever her boy claimed. "Of course you're not a ghost or overshadowed, sweetie," she began in a soother tone. "If you were, you would've had a different kind of reaction. That's why it's so important to check if you're not contaminated from the-"

"Stop," he interrupted again, with his good hand on her arm to placate his mother. "If I had been contaminated by the portal, don't you think I would've been sick more often? It's been more than two years, mom. Nothing's wrong with me. There's something in whatever you washed my clothes with and that's it. Maybe you just didn't notice because you're wearing gloves all the time."

"But Danny, the reaction in your hand isn't normal. It would be best if-"

"Mom!" he yelled just loud enough to snap her out of the beginning of her rant. "I don't know what happened, but I'll just treat it the old-fashioned way, all right? Besides, look," he motioned to his open palm, where Maddie could still see traces of green trickling on his skin. "If that thing's made of ectoplasm, as usual, then my hand probably got green because of it. It looks normal now, see?"

Mother and scientist had an internal battle. While part of her wanted to listen to his logic and take comfort in the fact that he hadn't shown any adverse effects from the accident with the portal, another part screamed at her to do something. That part was full of dread and a sense of missing something important. But he was right for the most part. It made sense, didn't it? He wouldn't have been able to survive more than two years with ectoplasm filling any inch of his system. He didn't even get his flu shot last year and he was still fine by the end of winter. No dizzy spells or fevers had appeared either. He had to be as good as healthy if he didn't even have any traces of ecto-acne, either.

She studied his hand once more. Sure enough, the oozing ectoplasm didn't seem to come from within his blisters, which weren't as many as she had thought at first. Maybe it was some remaining foam from the detergent? His skin didn't seem so damaged now that she took a closer look at it. Perhaps her own distress played with her perception of what had really happened. Had she predisposed herself to see the rather grotesque image from earlier?

Defeated, she sighed and shook her head. "I guess you could be right," she conceded. Then, with a more serious expression, she stared into his eyes. "But I'm going to keep a closer look on this. If I find any reason to be concerned, I'm taking you to the hospital right away."

Danny chuckled nervously. "But you're always concerned, so that doesn't count."

His mother ruffled his dark bangs. "Very funny, mister." She then turned to look at the clothes Danny had dropped a few minutes earlier. "I guess this means we will have to go shopping."

The teen raised an eyebrow at her. "And no more mixing regular stuff with ectoplasm without telling us?"

She couldn't help but roll her eyes. Did he really believe they would do anything to hurt them? She wouldn't have done anything like the Fenton Tide had she known he was allergic to ectoplasm on contact. It made her feel not only embarrassed but also very irresponsible at the moment. "Only if you promise to tell me if you ever feel sick or strange."

Something about what she just said seemed to amuse her son. His smile appeared on his lips before he answered. "Promise."

And there it was again: the thin veil covering something she knew she's been missing. She wanted to believe whatever her son said, to blindly trust him, although deep down she knew her trust would stay untouched no matter how many lies he spilled. He would always be her baby boy. But somehow she had the sickening feeling he had more dirty laundry she hadn't known about, and not even the Fenton Tide would help bringing it to the surface.