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"Hic." Danny hiccuped. He'd been getting the hiccups off and on all day, but that was alright. He felt alllllllllll right.
"Hiccups again, Danny?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.
"'M fiiinne," Danny told her, blinking sluggishly at her like he was trying to communicate in very slow Morse code.
"Are you drunk?" she asked.
"Mr. Falluca thought so in second period, but the principal made him take a breathalyzer test, and it came back clean," Tucker told her.
"Y—hic! Yeah. Ca-leeeeeee-nuh."
"Okay, well something's obviously wrong with him," Sam said. "Is he sick?"
"Feel fiiiiine," Danny insisted. "'n fact, I feel good."
"Yeah, I'll bet you do." Sam frowned at him. "He really passed a breathalyzer test?"
Tucker shrugged. "Maybe it's a ghost thing. If it was, I doubt a breathalyzer would notice."
"We should test him at his parent's lab after school."
A puff of missed escaped Danny's mouth, indicating that a ghost was nearby.
"If you'll 'scuse me," Danny said, standing up with a lurch and clumsily maneuvering himself off the bench at their lunch table. "Seems I gotta ghost ta fight."
"Or we could go now," Tucker suggested as the pair of them watched Danny stumble directly into the middle of the cafeteria and raise his fists into the air, about to transform in front of everyone.
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Now is good."
"I'm goin—!"
"Home!" Tucker shouted. "He's going home. He is clearly in no condition for classes, so we're gonna get him outta here."
He and Sam each grabbed one of Danny's arms and started to drag him forcibly out of the cafeteria. Luckily, he was too out of it to put up much of a struggle.
"Yeah, nothin' to see here, just a kid who should have stayed in bed this morning."
"Wha—guyssss!" Danny complained. "What about the Ghooooost?"
"I'm sure Valerie will handle it," Tucker said.
"Valerie? She's so preeeettyyyyy."
"Ugh, gag!" Sam rolled her eyes.
As expected, when they dragged Danny out of the school building, there was Valerie on her hoverboard, already engaged with the Box Ghost who wasn't much of a threat anyway, thankfully.
Danny's house wasn't far, but given his condition, Sam opted to call a cab rather than try to drag him the whole way.
"Isn't you're friend a little young to get that drunk?" the cabbie asked as the three of them loaded into his backseat a block away from the school.
"I'll tip you a fifty if you mind your own business," Sam said.
"He looked twenty-one to me, officer," the cabbie said, and drove them to Fenton Works without another word.
Danny's parents were out on a ghost hunt, so the trio had the lab to themselves to run some tests. After an hour or so, they finally figured out what the problem was.
"Uh... Danny, according to this chart," Sam looked back and forth between the color wheel and the stick in her hand, "when the stick turns purple like this, it indicates the ectoplasm has fermented and should not be used in any further experiments."
"Ectoplasm can ferment?" Tucker asked.
"Evidently."
"So I guess Danny really is drunk."
"Nooooo!" Danny refuted. "'M not drunk!"
"What are you then?" asked Tucker.
Danny scowled at him, until that scowl melted into a dopey smile. "'M happyyyy."
"So what causes ectoplasm to ferment?"
"On a shelf? Age," Sam replied. "In a ghost that's still up and walking around? No idea. Well... stumbling around anyway."
Danny bumped into a workbench and apologized.
"I think we're gonna have to take him to an expert," she said. "Grab a coat, Tucker, 'cause we're heading to the Far Frozen."
Danny gasped in excitement. "Yaayyyy! Frossssbite makes the Beeeessssst hot cocoalate!"
It took nearly an hour to get to the Far Frozen in the Specter Speeder. It probably would have taken half the time if Danny hadn't kept trying to take over driving.
It was a struggle not to crash land outside of frostbite's cave, but with Sam distracting Danny, Tucker managed to touch down the speeder safely.
"Frostbite, there's something wrong with Danny!" Tucker shouted as he and Sam corralled their drunken friend inside with promises of hot 'cocoalate'.
"Please tell us you know how to fix it," Sam all but begged.
"Oh, my," Frostbite commented, taking in the state Danny was in. "Come in. I'll make some cocoa."
"Yayyyy!" Danny cheered.
Sam and Tucker groaned.
While they were sipping cocoa, Frostbite took an ectoplasm sample from Danny and took it to his study. Only a few minutes later, he returned, looking relieved.
"Good news," he said. "His ectoplasm has begun to ferment as the result of a relatively common ghostly virus, and I know how to make a cure. The even better news is that, once cured, he should be inoculated against ever getting the virus again."
Sam and Tucker sighed in relief.
"Hear that, Danny," Tucker said. "After this we will never have to deal with you drunk again."
"At least until he turns twenty-one," Sam amended.
Frostbite laughed heartily. "Ohh hahaha! It's funny because he won't be turning twenty-one! Haha! Good one, child!"
"Uhhh... care to clue us in?" Sam asked. "I didn't realize I was making a joke."
"Yeah, what do you mean he won't turn twenty-one?"
"Yeahhh! Waddya mean I woon turn twenny-onnne?" Danny echoed, looking up wide-eyed at Frostbite. "Also, canneye have more hot cocoalate?"
Now, frostbite just looked confused. "Well, obviously he will in a chronological sense—time still passes after death—but as a ghost, even a half-ghost, his physical age will remain unchanged. Physically, he will always be fourteen."
Danny's mouth fell open as he continued to stare up at Frostbite. Sam and Tucker didn't dare to say anything, hoping that Danny was too intoxicated to understand what was going on.
"Y... you mean... I'm neverrr gonna grow uuup?" Danny said, tears welling up in his eyes. "'M gonna beee fourrrteen forreverrr! And therre's noddeven anymore h-hot cocoalate?!"
He began to openly bawl, and no one really knew what to do about it.
"Oh no! No, great one!" Frostbite attempted to reassure him. "Of course there's more hot chocolate! I'll make some now. Would that make you feel better? More hot chocolate?"
"NOooo!" Danny wailed, and his friends reeled back a bit as they realized that his powers were affecting his cries now and if they didn't cheer him up fast his ghostly wail might come out and bring down the whole cavern. "There's no more hot cocoalate for meee! Neverrr everrrrr!"
"You'd better get him that cocoa fast, Frostbite," Tucker suggested.
Frostbite nodded frantically and hurried off to oblige.
"No, Danny, that's not what he said," Sam tried to calm him down. "You can have all the hot 'cocoalate' you want, you just won't be able to drink alcohol."
Danny sniffed, his tears subsiding. "Alcoholl? Hic. I can't have alcoholl?"
"That's right," she continued, placing a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. "And alcohol is nasty stuff anyway, and it makes you feel all weird, so you wouldn't want to drink it anyway."
"Donn wanna?" Danny repeated. "But... Frossbite is bringing more hot cocoalate though?"
"That's right," Tucker said. "He should be back any minute."
Suddenly, Danny's tears returned full force and he was bawling again. "He'll be back in a minnud, but I wonn even be ONE minnud olderrr!"
Sam and Tucker looked at each other with matching grimaces, both of them silently hoping Frostbite's cure was the fast-acting kind.
Danny calmed down a little when he had some cocoa in his hands again, and Frostbite hurriedly excused himself to make the cure while Danny burned his tongue and blew bubbles in his drink, seemingly having already forgotten the reason he was crying, or that he had been crying at all.
When Frostbite eventually came back with a glass filled halfway with a thick, green liquid, Sam and Tucker were ready for all this to be over.
"Here you go, Great One," Frostbite said, holding out the cure. "Drink this and you'll feel all better."
Danny leaned forward, sniffed it, and pulled a face. It seemed even just getting the cure into him would be a whole ordeal.
"Stinky!" Danny said, sticking his tongue out.
"Oh, don't be fooled by the smell," Frostbite said, sounding calm. "This is a brand new hot chocolate recipe I'm trying out. It may smell funny, but it tastes better than any hot chocolate you've ever had. You have to drink it all, though."
Danny's eyes widened and he quickly snatched the drink and gulped it down.
"I've treated many ghosts for this," he muttered to Sam and Tucker with a wink. "No one can resist my hot chocolate."
When the cure was gone, Danny pulled that same disgusted face again. "Ugh, Frostbite, I think you should abandon this cocoa recipe and stick with what works."
"He didn't say 'cocoalate'," Tucker observed. "Danny, you back with us?"
"What d'ya mean? I never left—hic!"
"It starts kicking in right away, but he won't be fully back to normal for about an hour," Frostbite said, "and he'll have to pee like crazy to expel the fermented ectoplasm. You should get him home quickly."
"And then once he's fully sober, we're gonna have to have a talk with him about the whole 'not aging' thing, aren't we?" Tucker guessed.
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "That's really not something we should just let sit until it becomes a serious problem."
Tucker sighed. "Of course we can't," he grumbled. "You know, just once I wish there'd be a problem where ignoring it until it goes away actually works."
"You and me both, Tuck," Danny groaned, rubbing his head. "Lessss jusss go home."
"Promise you won't try to take the wheel this time?" Sam asked.
"The onlllyyy thing I'm takin' is a nap," Danny replied, and the moment he was inside the Specter Speeder he laid down on the ground and was out like a light.