Work Text:
The Fenton lab was hell. Chaos incarnate, if you will. A cacophony of OSHA violations that was so bad that the Fentons couldn’t register it as a place of business. It wasn’t that the Fenton’s were stupid. They knew the risks of food and contaminants in labs (they couldn’t forget after the incident with Vlad), it was just that they simply forgot. A lot. Jack could be a bit impulsive at times, after all.
Maddie always tried to clean up after the man, but at times it got overwhelming. So there stayed trash and open samples, health risks be damned.
Blessedly, neither of them had gotten hurt yet. Jazz often called it a miracle. Danny called it dumb luck. Either way, Danny had gotten quite used to the half eaten things around the lab, forgotten due to some breakthrough they made leading to the next deadly weapon Danny would have to dispose of.
Thankfully, when Danny exited the portal, his parents weren’t there with their mess.
Danny had entered the Ghost Zone to release his full thermos, but of course the ghosts contained within it wanted to fight him. Thus his 10 minute trip ended an hour later than he expected.
With a sigh, Danny transformed back into his human form. He was exhausted… and hungry. He looked around the lab to see if there was anything he could take without his parents noticing. He could very well have just gone upstairs to the kitchen, but he didn’t want to, damn it! He was hungry and he wanted food now.
He caught sight of a bag of chips on the corner of the workbench. He snatched it up and looked at the flavor. Sour cream and cheddar. Not his favorite, but his stomach was growling. He began to eat them quickly. So quickly in fact that he accidentally choked on them.
“What the hell, chips? You’re supposed to be my friend.” he whispered.
He hoped the chips would satisfy him, but they didn’t. He searched again through the room for something.
A bag of old popcorn was laying under some old weapons that were scrapped for parts (his parents didn’t get a lot of funding, okay?).
Again, he quickly took the bag and at its contents. It was stale, but the boy’s hunger didn’t care. When he reached the end of the bag, he deflated. It wasn’t enough.
Again he searched, something had to do the trick. Then he found, on a table filled with samples, a ziplock bag. In it were what looked like green gummies.
Danny paused. Were these really gummies? But his stomach growled and he relented, opening the bag. He gingerly placed one of the green things into his mouth and prayed that it was okay.
Closing his mouth, Danny was surprised to find that the gummies tasted like sour fruit. Danny melted in his spot. After swallowing the first gummy, he took a handful and stuffed them in his mouth. It was so good. Sour and sweet like his favorite fruits and soft and tender like a well cooked piece of meat. And the way it popped! It was like juice erupting from a gusher! He had never had anything like it before, and he couldn’t help but continue to eat.
He was so distracted in fact that he didn’t notice the noise as Maddie walked down the stairs, looking for her son.
By the time she opened the door, it was too late.
“Danny? Why are you down here?” she said, looking at her son. When he noticed her, he stopped like a deer in headlights. Maddie reflected the same expression.
“Eating gummies?” Danny tried helplessly.
“Those—those aren’t gummies…” she replied, her voice echoey in shock.
“Shit.”