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haleswallows · 5 months ago

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Happy Friday!

Fandom: DC x DP Pairing: Dead Tired (Danny/Tim) Rating: Teen High Fantasy AU, Arranged Marriage, and Dragons (oh my!) Chapter 13

TEASER:

“I dare say Phantom could not have found a better match,” Frostbite mused. A pretty flush rose on the prince’s cheeks. Danny focused on it, instead of his own fluttering heart. “If you wish for me to approve,” he directed at Danny, tone indulgently affectionate, “then you need not worry, Snowflake.”

He didn’t need to voice his thanks. It was a relief, not that Danny thought Frostbite wouldn’t approve. But the reassurance was welcome.

“You will stay a few days?” Frostbite asked as he shuffled his wings. They rasped against each other. “It is so rare a human comes to see me, and I do not remember ever meeting a prince from Gotham.”

“Mūti invited us to stay with her for a few days,” Danny said. “And I’ve been told by no less than three people to enjoy a little time from the Keep. Apparently, I’m stressed.”

“So I will get to see you both some more yet. A delightful surprise.” Frostbite rolled his eye back to the prince, who blinked at the sudden change in the ancient’s attention. “Little prince, I must implore you to look after this willful child. He has a great talent for getting himself into all manner of messes and trouble. I fear he has no survival instincts, despite all my worrying.”

“Stop it,” Danny groused. He was glad for the cold, perhaps it would hide his blush. “I was going to ask if you’d like to have the honor of doing our soulbond, but I don’t think I will now.”

“Ah.” Nudging Danny with his snout, Frostbite nearly bowled Danny onto his butt. “Child, I implore you to allow me. You have no talent in holding a spell.”

Gods, Frostbite just kept outing all his flaws. Soon, the prince would know all of Danny’s failings. How embarrassing.

“I just thought,” Danny said as he threw his arms around Frostbite’s nose. “You would like to help. It seemed appropriate, to have the great Ancient Frostbite cast the first soulbond between High Chief and Gotham Prince. That, and I have no talent for holding a spell.”

Frostbite snorted, blowing a clump of flurries all over Danny's front and up his nose. Danny stumbled away, rubbing his face. Like father, like son, he supposed. Sometimes he hoped Aquila would drop the habit, but Danny lost all illusions he would. Afterall, if Frostbite was still doing it in his timeless state, then it was a lost cause.

Danny rejoined the prince, sniffling a little.

“Would you like to evoke the soulbond now?” Frostbite tucked away his sly smile, circling back to the serious topic. “Or shall we wait for tomorrow?”

Now didn’t bother Danny. He shrugged, and gave deference to Prince Timothy to allow the prince to answer for them. “Oh.” The prince turned to him, chewing his lip as he searched Danny’s face. Danny absolutely didn’t let his eyes drop to the prince’s mouth. “I have no qualms with now.”

Looking between them, Frostbite smiled so softly, Danny felt the warmth of his affection. Some day, it would stop surprising him. And some day, he might even feel like he deserved it. For all his flaws and mistakes, Danny didn’t know what he did to deserve the dragon’s unconditional love.

Exist, he supposed. For Frostbite, it was that simple.

“Snowflake?” Frostbite rumbled. Danny pulled on a smile, letting the dour thoughts fall away.

This was easy. Well, maybe not easy, but familiar at least. Danny had gone through the motions five times now, and every bonding felt a bit different. Of course it did, each bond was different.

The prince’s nervousness was obvious. He stood stiffly, and his grip tightened on Danny’s hand.

Danny smiled encouragingly – Frostbite would take care of them, the ancient would never be able to bear it if he did harm to a human. Carefully, he guided the prince a few steps away and took both his hands so they stood face to face. It reminded him forcibly of the marriage rites in the Keep.

Maybe this time, Danny would be able to control himself and not kiss the prince.

The prince’s eyes fluttered a moment as he took a deep breath. “Ready?” Danny murmured, just for him. “Take all the time you need, Your Highness.”

He couldn’t help it – Danny watched the prince, even though he knew Frostbite would have words for him later. Both for getting married without telling him and for being so carelessly besotted. But who could blame him? Eyelashes a thick fan over cheeks tinted pink by the cold, lips plush from all the biting he had done, the prince was a vision. To keep himself in check, Danny rubbed his thumbs over the backs of Prince Timothy’s hands, hoping it served to soothe his nerves.

The prince looked up at Danny through his eyelashes, and nodded. “Ready.”

Frostbite breathed out a great plume of swirling snowflakes. And a new bond opened, pulling on Danny’s soul.

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○

The bond took. It slammed into Tim’s mind with a foreign weight, a headache forming right behind it as his brain struggled with the new input. Unknown, unlike anything he had ever experienced.

He was instantly aware of Phantom’s proximity - not just physically, the heat of his body, the sound of his breaths. But now internally. His mind was like a compass needle, and Phantom true North. A tugging in his mind, a pull that Tim tensed himself against to keep from leaning towards. Tim knew in his heart of hearts that blindfolded and turned around, he would be able to find his way to Phantom.

It was terrifying.

And nestled between the stinging pain of the headache, the pull of the bond in his frontal lobe, there was something else. A blur of emotions, a bouquet of flavors and colors in his mind, his hands quivering, his heart pounding. It took Tim a long breathless moment to disentangle it from his own feelings.

Joy-affection-warm that bled into guilt-sad-dread as he worked to pick them apart.

Was... was that Phantom?

Tim kept his eyes closed, chasing the emotions. Scared-affection-guilt felt sour and warm, like curdled milk. He couldn’t discern if the swoop in his stomach was the same as seeing Dick come back from patrol with only small scrapes, or the same as a missed step, expecting solid ground and finding nothing.

Like a hound, Tim pursued it. Relentless in trying to grasp it. His own emotions felt pale in comparison, his heart pounding with Phantom’s fear.

Fear?

And just as soon as he captured it, the bond was gone. Echoing in his mind, like the gates of Wayne Castle slamming closed. Tim blinked his eyes open.

Phantom stood a few paces apart, his face turned away. The armor he wore disguised any tension in body but Tim could see the way his hands clenched. It looked like he didn’t even breathe. The leather of his gloves creaked with the force he fisted them at his sides – the only outward expression Tim could see. Tim… didn’t understand.

#my writing #dc x dp au #Dead tired #Tim drake/danny fenton #Fantasy au #dcxdp #dcxdp fic #Dragon fic #hehehehehehehehe #HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE #choo choo angst train let's goooooo

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torscrawls · 1 year ago

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Fractured

Summary:

“I—I don’t—” Danny hesitated. “I don’t remember.” Tucker and Sam exchanged a look and Danny tensed up. Tucker asked carefully, “What don’t you remember?” “Anything! We were in the kitchen, fighting the Lunch Lady, Sam called out to me because the ghost threw a chunk of meat and then… Then we were here.” OR Danny can’t remember anything that happens while he’s Phantom and it’s starting to catch up to him.

Words: 3 377

You can read the whole thing on AO3.

This is inspired by a holiday truce prompt from @ectospacecadet! They just had too many good ideas that my brain latched onto for the gift exchange!

“Danny! You’re back!” Sam sounded half-way to hysterical and Danny blinked open his eyes in confusion.

Tucker immediately grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Oh my god, are you okay?!”

“…What?” Danny blinked and sat up. He looked round the lab and took in the sight of his panicking friends, the smell of smoke, and the swirling portal in front of them. “It turned on?”

“What do you mean it turned on?!” Tucker exclaimed, still gripping his shoulders too hard. “You turned it on!”

Danny frowned. “I did?”

He looked down on his aching hand, surprised at seeing the burn covering his palm. Well, that would explain the pain he felt through his whole body.

He had a vague memory of going into the portal and falling, and then… nothing. He had no idea how he had ended up on the other side of the lab.

“Yeah!” Tucker nodded. “And then you turned into a ghost and—”

Danny snapped his head up. “I turned into what?!”

“A ghost…?” Tucker trailed off.

“No I didn’t?

Sam and Tucker exchanged a look. Sam crouched down in front of him. “Danny? What do you remember?”

Danny frowned. “I walked into the portal. I think I stumbled on something, and then I fell, and then… I woke up here?” He hadn’t intended to make it a question, but he couldn’t help it. What was going on?

“You…” Sam trailed off, hesitating. “You came out of the portal though? As a ghost?”

Tucker nodded. “Yeah, you were all glowy and stuff.”

“What?” Danny frowned, looking down at his decidedly non-glowing hands. “No?”

Tucker let go of his shoulders. “You don’t remember?”

Danny shook his head.

Sam tilted her head as she studied Danny. “So you mean you don’t remember anything that happened while you were a ghost?”

“I’m not a ghost!”

“You were though,” Tucker insisted.

Sam frowned. “But we talked with you! You were… normal.”

Danny didn’t know what to say to that. Tucker shook his head. “I’m sure it’s just the shock.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed without believing it. “Probably.”

—

It wasn’t just the shock.

During the following days he experienced several unexpected side-effects of his forgotten stunt in the ghost portal . Like falling through the floor. Dropping stuff. Turning invisible. Flying.

Which were apparently things that ghosts could do. Because he had ghost powers now.

Because he had died.

Danny’s crisis had barely started before he had to push it all down to deal with later because of a ghost attack. Apparently he hadn’t been the only ghost coming out of the newly opened portal and this one was pissed that they had changed the lunch menu.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker ducked flying sausages and waves of unidentifiable meats while they tried to come up with a solution that would make sure they left the school alive.

Danny ducked what looked like a steak morphed with a rack of ribs and swore as it absolutely demolished the table behind him.

“Danny!” Sam called out from behind him, “Watch out!”

Danny turned towards the ghost, saw the big chunk of dripping meat hurling right for his head, and instinctively pulled on the coldness in his chest and—

And blinked as he was suddenly outside the school. His arm ached.

Danny looked around with wide eyes and saw Sam and Tucker standing next to him, talking about something he couldn’t completely follow. Both of them were banged up with bruises and scabs and Danny couldn’t remember anything that had happened.

He looked down at his left arm as he took in the wound he didn’t remember getting. Danny cast around for the Lunch Lady, but he couldn’t see her anywhere, so instead he turned to his friends with a slightly strangled, “What happened?”

Tucker frowned at him. “What?”

“Where is the Lunch Lady? Are you okay? How did we end up out here?!” Danny asked with an increasing level of panic in his voice. Why couldn’t he remember anything?

Sam joined in with Tucker’s frowning. “…Danny, are you okay?”

Was he?

“I—I don’t—” Danny hesitated. “I don’t remember.”

Tucker and Sam exchanged a look and Danny tensed up. Tucker asked carefully, “What don’t you remember?”

“Anything! We were in the kitchen, fighting the Lunch Lady, Sam called out to me because the ghost threw a chunk of meat and then… Then we were here.”

Tucker blinked as his frown deepened. “Man. You turned into a ghost again and fought her!”

“I… did?”

Sam jumped in. “Yeah! All glowing and stuff.”

Tucker placed a hand on his arm. “We thought you were fine! You seemed completely fine!”

“You mean I remembered everything?” Danny wrung his hands. The wound he didn’t remember getting ached. “When I was a… ghost?”

Tucker nodded. “Yeah!”

“But then why can't I…”

“I'm sure it'll be fine,” Sam said in what Danny was sure she thought was a comforting tone of voice. It didn’t help much. “It might just be a slight hiccup? Or maybe you hit your head?”

He didn't know what kind of hiccup could erase your memory so completely, but he nodded anyway. Instead he carefully asked, “Did I… Do something weird?”

Sam tilted her head. “Weird? What do you mean?”

“When I fought the Lunch Lady. Was I… Was I acting like myself?”

Sam laughed. “Who else would you be acting like?”

“Yeah man,” Tucker agreed and punched Danny lightly in the arm. Right on his new wound. “Just because you look strange doesn’t mean that you are, you know?”

Danny didn’t know.

—

It didn't go away. If anything, it got worse. With more and more ghosts showing up through the portal he found that he more often than not needed to turn into one himself to fight them off.

Besides, every time a ghost showed up he felt this intense need to pull on the new cold residing deep in his chest, and afterwards he could never remember what happened.

It was just. Completely blank.

Apparently Phantom was just like him. Same memories, same mannerisms, same way of being. Except that he was very much dead.

Sam and Tucker had tried to find out more by talking to him and apparently he didn't have the same issues of not remembering things as Danny had. Apparently being dead meant that you remembered everything just fine, whether from when you were alive or dead. Go figure.

He knew he shouldn’t talk about him as a separate person, since apparently they were the same person, but it didn’t feel like it.

It felt like someone was taking his place.

“Maybe it’s like... A translation error? When you change from ghost to human?” Sam mused while they were walking home from school.

Tucker perked up. “Like a hard drive that’s not compatible with your system!”

Danny cast him an annoyed look. “I’m not a computer.”

Tucker wiped a fake tear from the corner of his eye. “And I mourn that fact every day.”

“This is serious!” Danny crossed his arms. They might be able to joke about this, but it wasn’t—It wasn’t funny. Not to him.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t kidding. Maybe there’s just something inherently different between how the living and dead think. The dead seem to be able to remember their life as humans, but maybe the same isn’t true when you go the other way.”

Danny let his crossed arms drop back down to his sides. “Maybe… But then what can I—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence before they were interrupted by a laughing, glowing, flying, and burning robot ghost blasting through the wall of a building in front of them. “I’ll get you this time, whelp!” And he was pointing right at Danny.

Danny froze. “Who is that?!”

“What do you mean who is that?!” Sam exclaimed as she dove for cover. “It's Skulker! The ghost we fought last week, don't you reme—” Sam cut herself off.

“No, I don't,” Danny bit out.

“No time right now!” Tucker screamed as he joined her behind the bench. “Less talking, more fighting!”

And he turned to look at Danny. Danny, who was still standing frozen in the middle of the street. The ghost apparently named Skulker laughed and extended what looked like huge rockets from his shoulders.

“Danny! You have to go ghost!” Tucker called.

“I—” He hesitated. He didn’t want to. “I don’t—”

“There’s no time!” Sam yelled as she brought out her own ectogun, pitifully small in comparison to Skulker’s weapons, now aimed right at Danny. “Danny, just do it!”

Skulker fired.

Danny closed his eyes and reached for the cold inside of him.

And then he opened them again and it was over.

Tucker was next to him, smiling and jumping. “That was so cool! You just—Just flew and shot him and—!”

Danny looked down at his hands. They were smeared with green. “What did I do?”

Sam slapped him on the back with a wide smile. “You kicked Skulker’s butt!”

“I…did?” His hands started shaking.

“Danny?” Tucker asked carefully, his smile dying down. “You okay?”

Danny lowered his hands and hid them behind his back. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

Sam’s smile dropped. “No memory again?”

Danny looked away.

“Here! I took a photo this time- Maybe it will help?” Tucker said hopefully, holding out his phone to show him.

Danny grabbed the phone with shaking hands and looked down at the image of a glowing ghost with white hair and dressed in a black jumpsuit. Danny traced the outline of what was supposed to be him.

He pressed his lips together, looked away and handed the phone back to Tucker.

He didn't want to see this person, this ghost, who had stolen all of his memories, made him a fragment of himself.

It felt like dying. Like the death he had cheated when he had his portal accident was creeping up on him.

—

The ghosts got stronger and the gaps in Danny's memories got longer.

It wasn't unusual for him to forget whole days and it got harder and harder to follow along with what was going on around him. It started to leak into his every-day life as well and Danny had a suspicion it came with him becoming more ghostly even as a human. Like right now; he had been doing his homework and then—

Then he came to with something warm and wet dripping down his face. He was lying down on his back, something hard and cold beneath him. His head throbbed. Danny slowly sat up to find himself in a small crater of cracked concrete.

He looked around and his breathing hitched.

There was devastation all around. He was… He was outside the mall, or what was left of it. Collapsed walls, split streets, several demolished cars and streetlamps, and almost no humans in sight. There was a dragon in the sky above, all glowing otherworldliness and booming roars that shook the ground beneath Danny’s already rattled body.

Danny’s breathing picked up and his rib cage hurt. He couldn’t hear anything except the dragon’s loud roar echoing through his skull. He needed to get out of there. He scrambled to his hands and knees, green dripping down his nose and splattering on the cracked asphalt. And then his arms gave out.

Danny screamed into the ground in fear and frustration.

A sudden whining sound reached him and then something hot and bright slammed into the ground next to him, leaving a smoking crater.

Danny scrambled to his feet, stumbled a few steps, and then his knees buckled. His palms stung and he smelled burnt citrus and smoke. Smelled his own blood.

He didn't know who this ghost was. He didn't know what they wanted or what he himself had been doing. He didn't even know where his friends were.

As if hearing his panicked thoughts, Sam and Tucker popped up from behind an overturned car.

Sam cupped her hands over her mouth and screamed, “Danny! You okay?!”

Danny didn’t know how to answer that so he simply blinked and tried to breathe through the pain and panic.

Out of the corner of his eye he distantly noted that the ghost had turned towards his friends and raised its hands and fired another set of glowing energy. That… That wasn’t good.

“Danny!” Tucker screamed and there was real fear in his voice. Danny reacted on instinct, tugging on that cold feeling in his chest, felt the transformation pass over him, and then—

And then the fight was over. He was on the other side of town and his friends were nowhere in sight.

At least this time there weren’t any ghosts in the sky. That he could see. Danny took a step before stopping in place as an involuntary noise of pain tore from his throat.

He wouldn’t be able to make it back home by himself.

“Guys?!” He called out to the empty street. “Where are you? Are you okay?” Danny swallowed a lump in his throat. “…What happened?”

The silence was broken by a cheery tune and Danny frowned at the out-of-place sound. Then his brain registered it as his ringtone and he fumbled in his pocket for his phone. It had a new crack though the center but after a couple of tries he managed to answer the call from Tucker. “…Tuck?”

“Danny?! Where are you? You okay?”

“I—” Danny looked around and decided to answer the easier of the two questions. “I’m next to the library. In front of the park.”

“We’ll be right there!”

Then he hung up and Danny was left in silence. He limped over to the edge of the park and stood next to a cluster of trees, feeling a bit better when he was slightly hidden from view.

He zoned out, swaying where he stood and trying not to think about what had just happened. How he felt.

“Danny?”

Danny looked up, blinking in surprise when he came face to face with Tucker and Sam, both of who looked slightly scratched up but otherwise okay. They were both looking at him with worried expressions.

He opened his mouth to answer them, but all that came out was a sob.

And then there were hands on him, careful and light, but they still hurt. Everything just hurt.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re fine,” Tucker said as he frowned when he took in the state Danny was in.

Sam nodded and added, “You did it.”

Danny sucked in a shaking breath and managed, “But I didn’t. I just—We were in school and then at the mall and now I’m here, and I don’t—” his breath caught painfully in his throat. “I can’t—I can’t remember.”

The hands on his shoulders tightened as Danny slumped, his legs not able to hold him up any longer. He was carefully lowered to the ground. Sam, speaking with forced calm, “Come on, let’s sit down.”

Tucker added a slightly panicked, “And breathe, please.”

And Danny did his best to fulfill his request. They sat in silence for several long minutes as Danny got himself back under some semblance of control, the panic pushed back to its usual simmering where it always resided nowadays.

“Alright,” Danny said as he dragged a hand down his face. “So what happened this time?”

Tucker gave him a dubious look. “You sure you're good?”

Danny nodded even though he really, really wasn't. But he needed them to tell him what he had done, what had happened. “Please. I need to know.”

Sam heaved a deep sigh, leaning back on her hands from where she sat next to Danny in the grass. “Where should we even start?”

“Yeah, dude,” Tucker said as he crossed his legs, “it's starting to get hard to clue you in to what's happening every time you change.”

Sam nodded with a worried frown. “It's starting to feel like talking to two different people.”

Danny tensed in fear as a wave of fresh panic washed over him. “What do you mean? Is Phantom acting differently?”

Tucker gave him a strange look. “You aren't acting differently, it’s just hard since you don't remember anything that's going on.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, “it's starting to become dangerous.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?” And even Danny himself was surprised at the anger in his voice, but he had run out. He was empty. He just wanted a break.

Sam shook her head, “No, that’s not what we—

“I’m so sorry that this is inconvenient to you!”

“Danny, stop,” Tucker pleaded.

“No! I’m— I can’t just— Who even am I anymore?!” Danny covered his face with his hands, not wanting to look at them anymore. “Is he the real Danny?!”

“Stop being dramatic,” Sam said, but there was more worry than annoyance in her voice and it only made Danny more scared. If even Sam was worried about this situation then he might be truly fucked.

Tucker added, “And you have to breathe.”

“Do I?! Aren't I dead?!” Danny growled as he lowered his hands back down.

“We can—” Sam said and then hesitated. “We can solve this.”

“How?!” Danny demanded.

“I don't know!” Sam threw her hands in the air. “Maybe… Maybe we should ask you when you're a ghost? Since you remember more then?”

Danny felt betrayal well up inside of him, hot and sharp and burning. And then the panic came back. “You like him better, don't you?”

Sam held her hand up in front of her with wide eyes. “No! Of course we don't! Danny, it's still you. You know that and—”

“I don’t know that!” Danny bit out. “I can’t remember anything!”

Silence. Sam and Tucker kept their eyes on the ground, their shoulders raised high.

Danny felt shame crawl up his throat; he hadn't meant to take it out on them. He slumped back where he sat, looking up at the sky. He let out a long breath, ignoring the way his ribs twinged. “Maybe my parents are right.”

Sam and Tucker both blinked at him and Sam breathed out an incredulous, “…What?”

“I mean. Phantom. He’s, I don’t know, replacing me? Isn’t that the same as haunting me?”

Tucker shook his head. “No, Danny, it’s still you.”

“No, it’s not. I can’t remember any of it,” Danny argued, but the anger was gone from his voice. He only felt tired.

“So then you're going to, what?” Sam asked incredulously, “Ask them to attack you?!”

“No. No. I just. Maybe they can help to… get rid of him? Make him go away?” Danny blinked up at the clouds in wonder. It was so simple, why hadn't he seen it before?

“Danny, no. That is not the answer,” Tucker said with a shaking voice and Danny looked down at his friends to find them looking at him with horrified expressions.

He tilted his head to the side. “Do you have a better idea? Do any of you have a single other idea on what to do? I can’t—I can’t keep doing this.”

Tucker looked down at his hands and then carefully said, “…What if you just stopped transforming into Phantom?”

“You’re the ones who always insists that I need to transform! Besides, we all know I can’t do that. Who else is going to protect everyone in town?” He paused and then pressed on, “Protect you?”

They were both silent. That was answer enough.

Danny struggled to his feet with a groan. “I want to go home. I’m tired.”

A cold feeling forced itself up his throat and escaped his lips like a dying breath. Danny slumped where he stood, too tired and worn out to hide his dismay.

Of course another ghost had to attack right now. Of course.

Sam and Tucker both raised their hands as if to stop him but Danny took a short step back to avoid it. Sam looked up at him with wet eyes as Tucker said, voice choked, “Danny you don't have to—”

But he did. He always did.

Before his friends could say something else, Danny tugged on the cold feeling in his chest and closed his eyes.

The cold spread and spread and spread.

#dp #danny phantom #dp fic #danny phantom fic #dp fanfic #me back on my angst train choo choo #i realized i have never really “killed off” danny before?#there's a first time for everything #phic #my writing #phandom truce 2023

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