#Phic Phight

[faeriekit]

Ghosts of Those We Once Knew

a phic phight fill for @silverwing013

Warnings for: implied child abuse, accidental death, dead parents

**💚**

“Oh yeah?! And what are you going to do about it?!” Aunt Alicia snapped into the phone. 

There was a sound on the other end of the line, but Danny couldn’t make it out all the way. There was another solution, but it was…risky; it would require going into his aunt’s bedroom— a well known, forbidden domain— to pick up the only other phone hooked up to the landline. 

…There was no other time to find out what Aunt Alicia was putting off. It had to be worth the risk. Danny crept up the worn carpeting of the stairs, hoping that his sneakiness would hold up to Alicia’s discerning eyes and ears. 

Her bedroom was dark. Carpeted. …Pink. 

Whatever. Danny took a deep breath, lifted the phone off the hook, and tried not to breathe too loudly into the mouthpiece.

“You have no right to keep Daniel in your dismal, miserable, isolated hovel,” someone shouted on the other end. Danny had never heard this voice before. He sounded like someone around Dad’s age, maybe? Maybe a little…smoother, despite the blistering anger coming through the line. “You live with no human contact for nine months out of the year. You speak to no one. Do you— is Daniel even enrolled in a school? Did you get any sort of educational provisions for him whatsoever?” 

“What, so he can get cocky and blow himself up in the garage like his parents?” Alicia snapped. Danny had to clap a hand to his mouth to hide his gasp of dismay. 

“You know full well that punishing your sister’s son by restricting his access to an education and basic human companionship is not a solution to your grief for your sister. You are out of your mind.”

Aunt Alicia’s voice got low. Aunt Alicia’s voice got mean. She sounded like how she looked when Danny had fumbled the water pail from the well or stepped two steps too close to the rhubarb patch out back. “Vladmir Masters, you listen here,” Aunt Alicia muttered. “That boy is everything left of my sister in the whole damn world. He is not going anywhere. Do you understand? Not for you to fill his head with her stupid husband’s supernatural hoo-ha, and not for you to snatch up and teach himself how to kill other people the way those two killed each other. Danny stays here. If you ring me up one more time, I’m going to do more than just mail dog crap to the front step of your stupid castle in Wisconsin.”

The phone cut off. It would be an innocuous end to a phone call, except Danny can hear the clatter of plastic cracking on plastic in the downstairs kitchen.

There was a moment of silence.

“Daniel Jackson Fenton, you get your butt in here right now!”

Danny jolted, heart pounding. He—he went downstairs.

Aunt’s Alicia’s lips were pursed, her eyes tight. “What did I tell you about missing all the sticks in the yard? It looks like a wreck!”

Danny felt his breath stick in his throat.

“Well?”

“Yes, Aunt Alicia,” Danny mumbled. He looked down and away. He wasn’t caught out eavesdropping, but…was this any better?

“If those sticks aren’t piled up beside the woodshed for kindling in half an hour, you can kiss your dinner goodbye.”

Danny hadn’t had dinner in three nights. He was very lucky he didn’t need to eat as much as living kids. “…Yes, Aunt Alicia.”

“So?”

…Danny went outside to collect sticks. It took until nightfall to get all the refuse from yesterday’s storm off the ground.

Aunt Alicia ate canned corn and carrots and butchered rabbit with hot sauce for dinner. Danny ate nothing.

Danny went to bed thinking about somewhere else he could go. Mom and Dad were dead—smithereens in the blast that had killed him and brought him back to life simultaneously. Jazz was in the hospital. He had no grandparents. He had no other aunts or uncles other than Aunt Alicia.

…Who was Vladmir Masters?

*

It took two days for Danny to decide to run away.

Or. Well. Fly.

He’d figured that if he wanted to find out who Vladmir Masters was, he’d need an internet connection. His cell had been on the Fenton Fone Plan™ and had been disconnected from the Fenton Family Patented Ghost-free Satellite™ for almost three months now. But, you know…what was a public library for, if not getting information?

The two-day waiting period was mostly just Danny getting his stuff together, making sure he didn’t leave anything behind, finding anything worth stealing…

…There was a picture of Mom with her big hair at graduation, a black robe thrown over her Hazmat suit. Her hair had been so big. Lots of people were beside her, including Dad, and someone with a matching hair stripe. They looked happy.

It didn’t matter that it had been Aunt Alicia’s photo. The picture had gone into his backpack next to Bearbert Einstein and a filched pocket knife.

Mom was Aunt Alicia’s sister, but Madeline Fenton had been his mom.

…Was still his mom.

Would…would always be his mom.

Danny wouldn’t cry. He wasn’t going to cry. Still, the flying and everything was still new to him. It took almost ten minutes to get himself off the ground without floating off willy nilly.

It took another half an hour to remember how to go through walls.

By the time Danny fell (as in actually, literally, leaned up against the wall and then realized he’d not made contact the way he’d expected to) through the house wall, it was almost eight at night. Aunt Alicia was still listening to Prairie Home Companion downstairs on the radio.

Whatever. He was out of there. He was sure he looked crazy—his hair was white, which was almost impossible to hide—but all he had to do was get out of there fast enough that no one connected one teenage runaway with a backpack to Danny Fenton.

It was fine.

It was all going to be fine.

…And if there wasn’t someone who’d help him. Well. Being homeless didn’t sound…so bad…?

…Or maybe he’d just squat in the burnt out ruins of Fentonworks. That sounded fine too.

*

Morning broke. Danny ended up in a tiny town somewhere in Mississippi.

A nice guy at the coffee shop gave him a cup of water and told him where the local library was. A librarian plugged her login details for him on a public computer, and Danny was able to look up one “Vladmir Masters”…

…CEO and owner of DALVco, millionaire, and Green Bay Packers megafan.

Holy crap.

Like… There were hospital wings with his name on them. Charities operating out of his company. Every picture of the man was perfectly taken in perfect lighting with perfect suits and precise smirks and bright-white magazine article paper.

Danny went back up to the librarian. “Do you have any articles on…uh…Vlad Masters?”

The librarian smiled warmly. “Ah, school project?”

“Sure,” Danny lied, milk on his tongue.

Vlad Masters was a self-made millionaire. He lived in a castle in Wisconsin that used to be owned by a dairy empire kingpin. He went to—

Danny read the line again

—He went to the same college as Mom and Dad. The year looked right, too. They might have even graduated in the exact same year. If only Danny could still check Dad’s college ring in the bottom of their junk drawer.

Wisconsin. Vlad Masters lived in Wisconsin.

…Danny was really lucky he was never all that hungry anymore.

Danny got another cup of water at the coffee shop, washed his face in the bathroom, and got ready to fly another night.

He was no sextant, but he could probably figure out how to get to Wisconsin after a couple of hours of flying, and a little time to gauge the sky.

It would be easy.

…Danny’s white-topped, pale face stared back at him from the restroom mirror.

It had to be. It would have to be easy.

*

So, a cheese castle looked a lot like a regular castle.

Danny squinted up at the stonework. Nah, that looked like…a castle. That being said, it looked more specifically like the castle he was looking for—the one that had been featured in Vlad Masters’s house tour in Architecture Daily magazine two years ago.  

Same…roof bits. Same big door. Danny swallowed. Same…tower? Were there better words for these? There were definitely better words for all the tricky stone bits in the castle.

Whatever. Danny was praying that the man was actually home today, as opposed to flying across the country on some kind of business trip. Rich people did business trips, right?

Danny floated up to the front door. There was no doorbell.

…Danny bit his lip. Okay. So there was no doorbell. There was a very large, brass door knocker. It looked kind of like a big monster face, with a ring held in its teeth.

The knocker was just high enough off the ground that Danny had to float to get there. Lifting it was a struggle.

When it knocked, the whole door buzzed with sound.

Danny waited.

…He waited.

And…Danny waited.

No one came.

Danny picked at the skin of his lip. What if he just…went in?

Like. It was a big house. Maybe Vlad Masters just hadn’t heard him at all? Maybe he was just…in the basement or something…?

Danny paced midair. On one hand. He’d come all this way. He had to follow through. He had to see if there was…something. Anything. Anything at all—anything that could possibly connect Masters to his family.

Any connection that wasn’t Aunt Alicia would be worth breaking and entering.

On the other hand. Home invasion was and would remain illegal.

Danny grimaced.

He…stuck his head through the door. 

There was a hallway on the other side. A little end table. A guest book. 

…Okay. Danny slipped through the door. He was breaking and entering now— or at least…entering. 

Inside was dark. Gloomy. Comfortable, sure— lots of soft furnishings, curtains, couches, pillow, lounging things— but very…opaque in atmosphere. 

He was glowing, he noticed. That probably was pretty bad on the “trying not to get caught” scale. 

There was no one upstairs. Danny drifted through room after empty room and up into floor after empty floor. There was a kitchen, and the food therein were largely preserved items. There was nothing in the fridge. 

Danny’s stomach cramped. There was no one here. 

…Maybe he should look downstairs? 

The castle got colder the further down he went. The windows that at least allowed the minimal light that escaped through the tree cover in the castle vanished. The only light left was Danny. 

Danny floated down deeper. 

There were doors made of metal in a long, stone hallway. Each had different numbers on them. Danny followed the rows of doors.

There were wires on the floor. They were organized by color and bound by little ties, until they weren’t, and Danny eventually ran out of tangled webs of red and blue plastic to follow. 

They ended at a closed door. 

Danny hesitated. He poked his head through. 

On the other side was a ghost. 

Danny jerked back. He’d— he clapped his hand over his mouth. That was—! And sure, Danny was something like that now, but he’d never seen—!

He should leave. Danny should leave. 

Danny barely made it three doors down. 

Going somewhere? something asked him. Danny shivered. 

The ghost appeared on his left in ethereal white, black hair pulled behind him in some sort of half-halo. Unlike Danny, who was in something like half-hazmat, half-hoodie, the ghost wore a long, glowing labcoat, appropriate PPE beneath. 

Danny’s breath fogged up in his mouth. He flinched. “Sorr—” he tried. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to be here.”

The ghost looked at him with bright red eyes. Danny floated a few steps back. Spying, are you?

Danny shook his head. “No!! No, I just— I was looking for— I wasn’t spying! I’m sorry! I didn’t know you li— died here! I’ll leave!” 

The ghost’s head tilted. For a second, Danny thought that he was going to throw a punch. And then—

You’re already here, the ghost pointed out, and opened a door. Beyond it was…something similar to a doctor’s office. An examination table with the paper on it. One of those blood pressure cuffs, attached to a printer for the readout. A sink. Sundry tongue depressors. You may as well consent to be helped. 

“...Helped with what?” Danny asked nervously, fingers flexing. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

The ghost hummed— not in the way voices hummed, but in the way high voltage sang in distant powerlines. You are newly formed, aren’t you? Most can tell a ghost’s nature from its presence alone.

Danny looked away. “Um. You know. You might be the first ghost I’ve ever met.” 

The ghost’s feet almost touched the ground. It stared down at him. It was taller than he was, and when it stared, it made Danny want to run away. 

…Truly, the ghost asked(?), and it took Danny a second to realize it was a question. 

“Maybe I died a little recently…” Danny tried, trailing off into a mumble. Was there a right answer to this? 

…I see. That would make this check-up more urgent, then. Might I encourage you to come this way? 

Danny followed him into the room. 

It felt… It looked and felt exactly like any other doctor’s appointment, excepting that the doctor involved in the process had blue skin and fangs and a hairstyle that defied gravity. The ghost still wore gloves and didn’t poke him or prod him too hard, though, so that was a bonus.

Danny got his pulse taken. (None.) Danny got his lungs checked. (Not breathing.) Danny got his resonance? looked at? Whatever that was? It was a big scanny thing that looked like an X ray and took pictures of his chest. 

The readings were real pretty, whatever they were; the whole film print was taken up with splotches of white and clear blue. It kind of shimmered when Danny tilted his head. 

You’re quite powerful for a newly formed ghost, the ghost offered, overlooking papers Danny couldn’t quite see on his clipboard. It flipped through once. Twice. You’re clearly not attached to your place of death, so that’s not why… Are you aware of any compulsions to follow an Obsession yet…?

A ghostly obsession? Danny knew what that was— it was one of his parents’ theories on why ghosts persisted after death! Was it was true? 

“Um,” Danny said, unsure. He hadn’t…had he? “Not that I know of?”

The ghost paused. It clicked its pen. It marked something down on Danny’s chart. Interesting.

Ominous. 

May I quickly test something? the ghost asked, looking up at Danny. It would only take a moment. If it does not work, there will be no other side effects other than mild discomfort and an activated flight response. 

Danny shifted. The paper crackled underneath him. “...Does it hurt?” 

No.

The ghost added nothing more. 

Danny’s…head jerked up and down. It was fine. It would be fine. 

The ghost’s hand circled his wrist. Its touch burned like fire. 

And then light, like how Danny burned away one form for another—

—Danny was left on the table, no longer weightless, no longer breathless. He was flesh. He was human again.

Vlad Masters stared back at him. 

…Huh. 

Mr. Masters— Vlad?— licked dry lips, staring at Danny, whose wrist he still held. Danny…didn’t know if he could move. Danny didn’t know if he knew how to move. 

“...Daniel?” Mr. Masters’s voice cracked. His eyes moved up and down Danny’s body, from his raggedy hair to his dirt-stained clothes to his beat-up shoes. “Daniel Fenton?”

Danny winced. “It’s just Danny,” he offered hoarsely. His throat bobbed. “You…know me?” 

Mr. Masters moved his grip to Danny’s hand, apparently moved to tears. Without the red in his eyes, he just looked…human enough. “Daniel— Danny, how did you— Are you dead? What happened?” 

Danny felt the weight of everything push down on him again, as if it had ever let up on him since the portal incident. Mom and Dad’s funerals. Jazz in the emergency room. Being resuscitated by the EMTs. Getting shipped out to Aunt Alicia’s house without warning. 

“House blew up.”

That was succinct enough, right?

The man’s face turned devastated. “I heard— I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry, Danny.”

…It was more concern than anyone had shown in a long time. His eyes were wet before he knew it. When he wiped his face with his sleeve, the dampness was enough to leave little streaks of mud on his face— and, ugh, he felt filthy. 

“It’s okay,” Danny lied, because it wasn’t. He pressed his sleeve to his eyes. “It’s…you know my parents?”

Mr. Masters took a deep, surprised breath. “Yes. We…weren’t in contact after we graduated from school together, but Jack always… He asked me by email to be your godfather, right before you were born. I said yes, but I have no idea if he ever filed the paperwork.” 

Oh. 

…Oh. 

There were clearly more secrets here. Mr. Masters was a ghost, and so was Danny. He lived in a giant castle that was clearly haunted, which was made obvious by the owner. He was Danny’s godfather, and Danny had never once met him. 

And he wasn’t Aunt Alicia. 

Danny sucked the spit off of his teeth with his tongue. “Can I stay here?” 

Mr. Masters made a wounded, desperate expression. “I would rather you did.” 

“Can you teach me how to be a ghost?”

The man persevered through what were clearly heavy feelings. “...If I must.” 

“Can I have dinner?” was Danny’s final question. “Like. On the regular?” 

There was a second where Mr. Masters’s eyes went red. The castle suddenly felt taut with anticipation. Fury crawled on Danny’s skin. He could feel the pressure digging in search of some way to burrow into his flesh.

And then it was gone. 

“Of course you can. You are a growing boy.”

Danny smiled shyly, barely showing his teeth. When he smiled for real in the mirror, he had fangs. It was better not to. “Cool.”

Mr. Masters nodded. And when Danny looked down at the floor, he changed his grip so that Danny could hold his hand and hop down like normal. 

“It will be alright,” Mr. Masters promised quietly. It seemed to be just as much for him as it was for Danny. “Or…I’ll take care of it. Whatever happens. You’re not alone, Danny.” 

Danny had been alone for almost half a year. It had felt like forever. “Thanks.” He sniffed. 

They walked upstairs from the basement laboratory together, in a way Mom and Dad never would again. 

[five-rivers]

Cracked Clay Cup Chapter 9

@greatbigolhampuckjustforme

“Okay, for the next one,” said Danny, doodling on a piece of paper, “I think I’m going to pick from the older end again.  Like, I’ve done number one, number five, and number seven, so that leaves two, three, four and six.  Could just do the middle one, four.  That’s the biggest group.  Or I could do one of the single people.”

“You could pick any of them,” said Clockwork.  He placed another piece into the puzzle he was working on at the dining room table.  

“I know,” said Danny.  “I’m just thinking out loud.”  He’d been leaving Clockwork’s after breakfast, but he’d broken that habit this time around.  It was almost noon.  He just couldn’t make up his mind.  

Part of him wondered if he should have stayed with Vlad a bit longer.  Maybe he could have pushed him to tell the truth.  But… he didn’t know how Vlad would have reacted to that.  What if it had been bad?  

On the other hand, it might have been good to know if his reaction to being pushed had been bad.  If it had been, Danny would have known not to pick him.  Maybe… maybe deciding to leave was a little… cowardly.  

“Hey, Clockwork?”

“Yes?”  He looked up from the puzzle, but kept inserting pieces.  

“Am I different than I was with my memory?  Like, am I acting different than I would have, if I still remembered?”

“Of course.  You would have knowledge that you currently do not, if you remembered.”

“Okay,” said Danny.  “Sure, I get that.  But what about… I’m… Am I acting like, not as… brave?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Vlad said I was sort of a, I don’t know, a superhero, kind of.”

“I see.”

“But I kind of feel like if I had been, then I’d be more…  I would have acted differently, with Vlad.”

“Hm,” said Clockwork.  “I think I understand what you mean.”

“And?” prompted Danny.  

“And, I have often found that it is easier to be brave if you have something to be brave for.  When it is not a choice so much as it is a necessity.  You do not need to be brave, here.  This isn’t one of those situations.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I am,” said Clockwork.  “You aren’t unmonitored, when you are visiting the candidates.  Part of my role is to enforce the rules.”

“I don’t really see how that means I don’t need to be brave in this situation.  I kind of feel like there’s a lot I need to be brave about, here.  I could be hiding out in my room instead of out here.”

“You could be.”

“But I’m not.  I’d say that was… brave…  Wait, that’s not the position I was arguing before.”

“It is not,” said Clockwork.  

Danny scowled at him, then slouched down in his chair.  “You know what else is brave?  Your new decorative choices.”

The walls of the kitchen - not to mention the rest of the house - were now covered in clocks of various sizes and shapes.  

“Mhm.  Well, in your absence, I must occupy myself.”  

Danny looked around the room again, eyes lingering on the clocks.  “I don’t know that I’m that… occupying.  Like, I’ve not been here for more than a day at a time, and usually less than that.”  He hesitated.  “And we don’t… do that much together, do we?”

“We’re doing things together now.”

“I’m mostly just complaining at you about my choices, but okay.”

“Even so.”

“What if I just… take another day?  To decide who to go to next, I mean.”

“Take as long as you want.  In the meantime, you could help me with this puzzle.”

“Or,” proposed Danny, “we could play some video games together.  A lot of the ones I like are multiplayer.”

Clockwork put the remaining puzzle pieces back in the box.  “We can certainly try that.  I’ve never played before.”

Danny grinned.  “I think you’ll like it.”

.

“Are you sure you’ve never played before?” asked Danny.  

“Quite.”

“You’re good.”

“I have always prided myself on my timing.”

Danny groaned as he died again.  

.

“Okay, I’ve made my decision,” said Danny, a few days later.  Breakfast that day consisted of french toast.

“Really?”

“You don’t have to sound so skeptical.”

“This is my normal voice.”

“Is it?”

“It is.  What is your choice?” asked Clockwork.   

“Eager to get rid of me?”

“I am merely curious.”

“Sure,” said Danny.  “Sure you are.”

“Daniel,” said Clockwork, with a faint air of exasperation.  

“I want to visit the third person,” said Danny.  “I figure I might as well be symmetrical.”

“It’s as good a system as any.  Do you want to leave now, or later?”

“Now,” said Danny.  He did not say, ‘before I change my mind again.’

“Very well.”  

Clockwork raised his staff, a spark of blue swirling off the tip.  The portal would form in just a split second.  

“I’ll miss you,” blurted Danny, impulsively.  

Clockwork’s eyes widened slightly, but he did not respond before the portal swept Danny away.  

The first thing Danny noticed about the new place was how cold it was.  He wrapped his arms around himself, and cursed himself for not realizing that someone named Frostbite of the Far Frozen would live somewhere cold.  

“Oh, dear,” said a deep voice.  “Great one, my apologies.  I did not realize your core would be inactivated.”

Danny was bundled into a pair of furry arms and swept away to a much warmer area.  That wasn’t to say it was warm.  Just.  Warmer.  

“Oh, wow, that was cold,” said Danny.  He rubbed his arms and wrapped his tail around his knees.  

“Yes,” said Frostbite.  “Usually that’s not an issue for you.”

“I can’t imagine why not.”  Danny shot a look at his latest temporary guardian.  

Frostbite was a huge, tall, white-furred ghost.  He had a long muzzle and horns, along with ears that had more than a passing resemblance to Danny’s.  Danny ran a hand over his own ears, wondering.  Were they related somehow?  

“Generally,” said Frostbite, “in the normal course of things, that is, you are quite cold-resistant.  You have a cold core, like myself, although that aspect of your core seems to have been rendered dormant.”

“Vlad mentioned cores,” said Danny.  

Frostbite's furry eyebrows went up.  “You have already met Plasmius?”

“Um, yeah.  Just before you, actually.”

“What?!”  Frostbite patted Danny over with his large, paw-like hands.  “Did he harm you?  Are you injured?  Did he do anything to you?”

“Um,” said Danny, stepping back.  “No.  He was pretty chill actually.”

“Chill.”

“I mean, like.  He didn’t do anything bad to me.  He was pretty nice, even though he didn’t tell me we’d been enemies.  The Dairy King did.”

Frostbite got a sort of pinched look on his face.  “The Dairy King was assisting him?  How unusual.”

“I don’t know about assisting,” said Danny.  “He did tell me about how Vlad and I used to fight and all.”

“Even so,” said Frostbite.  His eyes were still roving over Danny, apparently worried.  “I would like to give you a full medical checkup.  I was unable to do so… before.”

“Before the trial?” asked Danny, tilting his head to one side.  He felt one of his ears flick.  

“Yes,” said Frostbite, heavily.

He seemed to be struggling with whether or not to say anything else, so Danny took the opportunity to look around.  

The room he was in was… strange.  There was really no other way to put it.  It was small.  Only about the size of Danny’s bedroom at home with Clockwork.  The walls, where they were visible, looked like ice-covered stone, but they mostly weren’t visible.  They were covered with layers of fur and strange tapestries.  Some of the tapestries looked more or less like Danny imagined tapestries to look: lengths of tightly-woven and embroidered fabric.  Others looked more like carpets.  Still others were embroidered furs.  The floors, too, were covered in layered furs and carpets.  Illumination was provided by globs of floating blue fire.  

Other than that, the room was empty.

“I was your doctor before, Great One.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.  Danny imagined that Frostbite was facing the same dilemma he was.  He couldn’t decide what to ask next.  He couldn’t decide what was safe to ask.  

“So, you’re a doctor?”  That seemed like a safe question.

“I am,” said Frostbite.  “Medicine for cold core ghosts is one of the specialties of my tribe.  When you have been ill or injured in the past, we have taken care of you.”

Danny hadn’t really thought all that much about the social structures of ghosts.  He remembered the Observants, and he had a vague recollection of kingdoms and tribes being a thing, but he was far more familiar with the workings of a republic, his human life taking precedence in this case.  He made a mental note to ask Frostbite more about how tribes worked later.  

“And I have a cold core like you?  That’s why you’re my doctor?”

“Yes,” said Frostbite.  

“Are we related?” asked Danny.  Frostbite’s tail - what Danny could see of it, anyway - wasn’t quite like Danny’s, but he did have white fur and pointed ears, so…

This question surprised a laugh out of Frostbite.  “It would be my honor, but, no, Great One.  Although we share some similarities, that is not one of them.”

“And you’re calling me Great One because…?”

“Because you saved my people, and, indeed, all the Infinite Realms, from a terrible fate when Plasmius released Pariah Dark, the old king of ghosts, from his prison.”

“The superhero thing?” asked Danny.  

Frostbite chuckled.  “I believe you referred to your tendencies as that a few times in my hearing.  You, and your friends.  But, truly, it would give me a great deal of peace if you let me make sure that you are, indeed, healthy, and that whatever technique they used to remove your memory has not damaged you unduly.”

“You could tell if it did?” asked Danny, suddenly a lot less reluctant.  

Frostbite nodded, gravely.  

“Okay,” said Danny.  “But I’m not sure if I can really handle it if the way there is as cold as the way here.”

“I will carry you,” said Frostbite.  “The medical bay itself is heated, to accommodate your human half, as are many of the rooms.”

Danny sighed in relief.  This would have been a very short visit if they hadn’t been.  This room was fine, but he didn’t like the idea of being confined to such a small space indefinitely.  

“And perhaps we could take one of these,” said Frostbite, pulling a thick, fluffy-looking fur from one of the walls.  “Just to add another layer between you and the cold.”

“Right,” said Danny, feeling nervous again as he contemplated being bundled up like that.  It was fine.  Clockwork was watching.  Monitoring.  Whatever.  He had the pocketwatch.  

It took a bit of maneuvering for Danny to get into a comfortable position, but once he did, Frostbite wasted no time pushing aside the thick, curtain-like door of the room and walking back out into the cold.  Danny drew in on himself, shivering, despite their precautions.  

(In a slightly less frigid environment, being held in Frostbite’s arms would have been downright cozy.  He made a note to experiment later.  If Frostbite was trustworthy enough for cuddles.)

“S-so,” said Danny, trying to take his mind off the cold.  “Wh-what did I do with Pariah D-Dark?”  Vlad had told him a version of the story, but he doubted it was complete, especially given that he’d failed to mention anything about who released Pariah Dark in the first place.  

“You rallied the ghosts of the Wastes,” said Frostbite.  “a veritable and largely lawless rabble.  You convinced them to fight, even convincing Walker and Dorathea of Mattingly to lend their power.  You led them against Pariah Dark’s thrall armies, and stormed his keep using a suit of armor that sapped your life even as it increased your power.  You fought the mad king one-on-one, and forced him back into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, whereupon Plasmius was able to lock him in again.  You very nearly died, you very nearly ended, and were willing to do so, in order to stop Pariah Dark.”

“H-huh,” said Danny.  He couldn’t really imagine doing something like that.  But it did more or less line up with what Vlad said… except that in Vlad’s story, Danny’s role had been less… prominent.  

They reached the medical bay, a large cave full of mysterious machinery, shortly after that, and Danny was again happy to find himself in relative warmth.  Frostbite started explaining the medical exams he wanted to carry out, and Danny listened half-heartedly.  

“Hey,” he said, during a lull between explanations.  “Do you think you could fix my amnesia?”

“It is not impossible,” said Frostbite, slowly, turning away from the thing he’d been fiddling with .  “But it would depend heavily on what method they used to give you that amnesia in the first place.  For example, Lethean waters are very effective and entirely irreversible.  On the other hand, they could have removed and stored your memories via a memory jar, in which case you would need to have that jar to recover your memories.  Alternatively, there are several ways by which your memories could be bound in place, or obscured.  However… attempting to restore your memories would be a blatant violation of the rules of this trial.”

“But would you try?”

“If you asked me to, Great One.”

Danny frowned and looked away.  “Why are you doing this?”

“Giving you a medical checkup?” asked Frostbite.  “Because I am concerned for your health.”

Danny waved that answer away, and forced himself to look back at Frostbite.  “No, I mean, why are you participating in this trial?  Why do you want custody of me?  I mean, if you’re just my doctor, that’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”

Frostbite huffed.  “I do like to think of myself as more than ‘just’ your doctor.  I mentored you extensively after your ice powers developed.  I daresay you are one of my more successful students, at that, even if your, ah… first attempts at control were rough.”

“You know what I mean.  You call me ‘Great One,’ and that’s flattering and all, but it isn’t really a parental kind of thing, is it?”

“I suppose not,” said Frostbite.  “It would bring me nothing but joy if you did choose me, Great One, and I would do my utmost to live up to the task and dedicate myself to parenting you, but I do have something of an ulterior motive in joining this trial.”

“What is it?” asked Danny.  

“I came to warn you.”  Frostbite squared his shoulders.  “I never met your birth parents, only your sisters, but from your words and theirs…  I believe they harmed you, Great One.  Intentionally and repeatedly.  And I believe that it is their actions that necessitated this custody trial.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Danny.  “Why?  Why do you think that?”

“First,” said Frostbite, “you mentioned to me on several occasions that your parents were ghost hunters.”

“Oh.  Ow,” said Danny.  

“Secondly, a few times - only a few, but they stand out sharply in my memory -  you visited me for help after being affected by one of your parents’ weapons.  I have the records of those visits here.  You brushed aside my concerns regarding your parents then, saying that they did not know you would be harmed, or that the incidents were mere accidents.”

That… certainly sounded bad.  

“Thirdly, and finally, the existence of this custody trial in and of itself.  These are beyond uncommon, even considering the Observants’ interest in you.”  Frostbite’s snout wrinkled.  Speaking of which, you should be wary of them as well.”

“Already ahead of you on that one,” said Danny, thoughts racing.  “But I thought the reason for the custody hearing was that they were dead.”

Frostbite’s eyes widened slightly.  “Who told you that?  I know that at least one of them is participating.”

“What?” said Danny.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes.  My spy wasn’t able to be more specific than that, curse the Observants, but I have full confidence in them as a member of my tribe.”

“Do you know their names?  What they’re called, what they look like?” asked Danny.  

Frostbite shook his head.  “As I said, I never met them.”

“Maybe we can work it out by elimination, though,” said Danny.  “I could tell you the names of the other people on my list of candidates–”

Frostbite’s head-shaking became more frantic.  “Goodness, no.  I’m limited in how specific I can be about the…”  He sighed.  “Competition.”

“Right,” said Danny.  “But you just came to warn me?  That’s all?”

“And to give you some measure of safety.  I knew your parents were participating, I knew Plasmius would not miss the chance, and I haven’t a clue about who else might be involved.  I wanted you to have at least one safe option.”

That was nice and all, but Danny couldn’t help but feel a little put out.  He didn’t want to be an obligation that someone was picking up because they felt like they had to.  

He was probably just being ungrateful, though.  

“Great One?” asked Frostbite.  

“Hm?”

“I asked if you would like me to try to get your memories back.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  He thought about it for a while.  “No.  I don’t want you to get in trouble.  But maybe… could you find out what’s going on with my core?  And help me remember how to use those ice powers you mentioned?”

“Of course, Great One!  It would be my pleasure.”

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - Ghosts And Cold Turkey Is A Bad Mix

@darthfrodophantom @datawyrms @kalifa100 @lovelyunknown @nat-space-obsessed @duchi-nesten

Jazz has a boyfriend. Jazz has a boyfriend who has NOT met her family. Jazz has a boyfriend who has not met her family and knows absolutely NOTHING about her families career path. Jazz has a boyfriend who was about to have A Bad Time. Danny, Elle, and Dan were going to make sure of that in every way remotely possible… short of world ending calamity.

Alright, so Jazz probably should have actually talked to Bassel about her family, preferably before he had decided that he absolutely had to finally met her family. It was spring break so she couldn’t exactly push it off till later, or long enough to explain anything really, so he was officially going in ‘cold turkey’. Had she mentioned that her family was weird? Of course, that was unavoidable. But she’s fairly certain he thought that ‘weird’ meant being really into fishing or made crochet baby dolls, not everything ghosts. And now that they’re on the road she’s fairly certain that telling the driver that ghosts are ‘the family business’ is a bad idea; it would not be good if he were to drive off of the road in shock.

Bassel chuckling, “so am I going to get regaled with stories about weird birds they’ve seen bird watching or the last obscure B list bird horror flic?”.

Jazz laughing awkwardly, “you have not idea. No idea at all…”.

Unfortunately Jazz was unaware of one simple fact, it wasn’t just her and her plus one who was coming to visit for the break….

Jack beams as a clawed hand crams itself through the seam in the Fenton Ghost Portal™, turning his head to the stairs, “Danny! Your kid’s are here!”.

“AWESOME! WE’RE MAKING COOKIES TO PACIFY THE GREMLIN! SEND ‘EM UP!”.

Sweet! Cookies! Yum. Jack turning back to the portal as the doors slam open loudly and threateningly, Jack chuckling to himself, that man was always such a drama queen. Watching the tall full ghost step through the now open portal, a little sister sitting perched on his shoulders. The little missy waving wildly at her grandpa, “hiyya gramps!”.

The flaming-haired full ghost scoffing, “Yeah yeah, whatever”.

Jack grinning and jumping up, moving to hug the two, the elder of the two stiffening and just ‘putting up with’ the hugging, “glad you kiddos could make it!”, ruffling the littler one’s hair, “there’s cookies”.

“Hell yeah!”, and she’s off like a rocket, flying up the stairs.

Jack eyes the full ghost, “beat any other ghosts down lately?”.

The man snorts, “obviously. Not that any of them were much of a fight”, grinning meanly, all fang, “the gorffens were deliciously squishie though”. Jack laughing as the two large men head upstairs.

Danny’s grinning his head off watching Elle devouring at least fifth-teen ghost-shaped cookies. Waving at Dan as he comes up behind Jack, “there’s pure ecto-cookies too, Mr. Can’t Eat Mortal Realm Food”. The full ghost scowls and flips him off but absolutely takes a couple of the overly green person-shaped cookies. Ha. The human cookies were ghost shaped and the ghost cookies were human shaped.

“Whatever, mom”.

Danny absolutely scowls at that, chucking a cookie at the ghost. While Maddie hums, eyeing them all, “Jazz will be coming by too”.

“Oh? When?”

“Any moment now, I believe”.

“I am in pj’s!”.

Dan snorts, “you look like a dumbass no matter what you’re wearing”. That gets him immediately blasted in the face with a small ecto-beam, the ghost only grinning viscously in response; Danny zipping up through the ceiling to get changed. Mom seriously couldn’t have told him sooner? Gosh! He had a new ugly ass sweater with a stupid ghost joke on it to show off!

The knots in Jazz’s stomach could kill her if they became ghosts right about now, as Bassel pulls them up into her drive way. He nearly rams into the house actually, having been staring at the ops centre on the roof, “uh, okay, spaceship on the roof is slightly more out there than I was expecting?”, looking to her, “and do they run their business from their house? Hence the sign?”.

Jazz laughs awkwardly, “they have permits for it… that they got after building it”.

He shrugs, “I can admire the guts”, and patting her on the shoulder, “and stop being so nervous, I’m a great guy! I’m sure they’ll love me. Plus you’ve said they’re pretty easy to please”.

“Oh I’m not worried about their reaction to you, rather your reaction to them. I have mentioned they’re weird right? And that my dad’s taller than ninety-one percent of the human population?”.

“… you did not mention the height, damn that’s impressive, he’s the one with the personality of a puppy, right?”.

She gives him a supportive back pat before they get out and head to the front door, “yes, and thank everything for that. His hugs are crushing though”.

“I bet”.

The door pops open without her having to knock, meaning Danny’s up, “sup Jazz and- oh shit, you brought company. Fuck. Two seconds”, and slams the door in her face.

Bassel quirking an eyebrow, “what? Is he still in pj’s or something? That was a really ugly sweater. Pink? and green? Together? Ew”, chuckling a little, “and did it say ‘boo’ onto others as you would have others ‘boo’ unto you? Why was there an image of a ghost aggressively holding out a loaf of garlic bread?”.

She snorts, even if she’s honestly confused, “oh no, he always makes sure to wear something really unpleasant to look at when he knows I’m visiting. I believe it’s born from a sick, though harmless, degree of sadism”, frowning, “though I’m not sure why he just rudely slammed the door in our faces”.

And then she hears the cackle, the loud deep malicious cackle, officially realising that she… might have fucked up. Just a little bit. Sighing and facepalming, “oh no”. The couple standing there as seemingly a shouting match goes on inside.

“GET CHANGED YOU DIPSHIT!”

“YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! MOM!”.

“I WILL END YOU!”.

“GO AHEAD AND TRY!”.

“Are they gonna want these cookies or?”.

“DON’T YOU DARE! Yes, gumdrop, leave them some. HEY DROP THAT! DROP THAT NOW!”… “EW!”.

“HA!”.

“DAN!-”.

Then the door jerks open very aggressively, and Jazz and Bassel stare up at the giant of a man with too sharp eyes and a feral unkind grin, “so you bagged someone, eh? Need someone to beat him through the wringer?”, and moves to grab Bassel’s arm; who thankfully has the common sense to pull away while staring almost disturbed at the man.

Jazz grabbing Dan’s wrist and holding him, glaring at the semi-reformed mass murderer/genocidal, parricidal, infanticidal, amicicidal, omnicidal, deicidal, ecocidal, mundicidal, psychopath. “Don’t even think about, Dan”.

“Aw but Jazzy-”.

She points a finger in his face, “no. Bad. No trying to physically fight my boyfriend”.

Then Dan’s head gets yanked back, Danny grasping the man’s ponytail, “get back in here, you shit”. The door closing again.

Jazz turns and winces at Bassel’s freaked out expression, “alright so, I didn’t know Dan was going to be here. I would have absolutely said no, if I’d known that”.

“Should I be worried?”; he looked extremely worried.

Jazz grimacing, “he’s… on parole, for, well, for murder so, yes”, grabbing Bassel’s wrist, “well we’re here now, just, don’t go anywhere with him alone. He’s also a prankster”.

Bassel almost squawking, “Murder?!?!”, as she drags him through the threshold into the Fenton household.

They get smacked with the noise immediately, she still doesn’t get how her parents managed to make a semi-sound barrier for inside the house that worked even when doors or windows were open… even if it didn’t always work well with ghosts or half ghosts. Danny is ramming cookies into Dan’s face while standing on his shoulders and snarling, Dan attempting to yank him off. Elle is bouncing around on all fours playing with cujo, who’s vibrating with excitement literally. Dad is laughing, head on the table, and slamming a fist on it repeatedly; a chair falls over. And Mom’s set the stove on fire and is smacking it leisurely with that fire-proof ghost net; the Fenton Flamo-Containo she thinks.

Jazz rolling up her sleeves, sighing, and moving over to her mom, “what did you burn, mom?”; and starts properly smothering the flames… the flames have faces and eyeballs.

This was a mistake. This entire trip was a mistake. Her poor boyfriend.

Bassel blinks, gives himself a fortifying shake, and swallows, “hi? Um, I’m Bassel?”.

The smallest one is on him in a second, it’s freaky. Her chirping up at him, “why did you say that like a question? Are you a question? If I question you will you become a sentient question mark?”.

What? Her eyes are way too big and her skin is smooth. It’s… very strange. Then she’s being picked up by the smaller boy- the teenager, that he didn’t even hear approach. “Elle-”. That was strangely chastising to hear from a teen. “-no giving people existential crises”.

“Are question edible?”.

The teen quirks an eyebrow, “I mean probably? if you write them on a piece of paper?”.

“If I write them on apples and pelt doctors with them do you think they’ll anwser my questions without poking me?”

“Eh fuck it, give it a go. Tell me if it works”. Then the teen looks up to Bassel, “sup, I’m Danny, the little brother”.

Bassel nods awkwardly, this kid… was seriously off. His skin was too smooth too, eyes not right and dangerous, his hair seemed… darker than black. The hell is he looking at? “Uh. Bassel? I already said that though. Um, I’m guessing the girls the youngest sibling?”.

She pops out around Danny’s leg, “I’m the granddaughter actually”. Danny snorting, “grand-gremlin is more like it”. She bites the teen… does she have fangs???

Bassel blinks harshly, pointing at the… murderer, “his kid? I take it?”. And now that he’s looking, what the hell is up with how similar they all look???

Dan barks out a laugh, shaking his face off like a dog so hard pieces of green? cookie physically stab into the walls and cupboards, “that shit stain is moms kid, not mine! Holy shit!”.

Danny snapping his head to Dan and pointing aggressively at him, “you”, shrugging and changing tones so fast Bassel nearly gets whiplash, “would have absolute nightmare kids and I would cry if your dumbass is the one to make a grandpa of me. Fuck you”.

Bassel is… very confused.

Mrs. Fenton shouting, “and I don’t want to be a great-grandma! Thank you very much!”, and coming over, Jazz looking to be scowling down at the stove, “hello, I’m doctor Maddie Fenton, feel free to just call me Maddie though”, swatting him on the arm, “none of that Mrs. or Dr. stuff”.

Danny pouting at her, “hey, why does Val still have to call you Mrs then?”.

“Because you two are still teens mister”.

The teen only pouts more…. His eyes look far too glass-like, like he’s a doll. Bassel kind of wants to be no where near him. Eyeing Jazz’s mom, the… hazmat is extremely concerning, maybe he should have asked more about what her parents did for a living? or their hobbies? “You have a doctorate?”.

The woman grinning, “that’s right! Primarily in ecto-ology and clinical laboratory science. but also criminology and medical science. My husband, Jack has doctorates in ecto-ology and clinical laboratory science as well, public health, chemistry, and practical theology”, turning away to eye Jazz, “the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.

“For the millionth time, mom, I’m still not studying ecto-ology; spectral psychology is completely different and that isn’t even my primary field of study”.

Bassel blinks, okay he knew she said her parents were smart but damn. But… ecto-ology? Really? A pseudoscience? Taking that in conjunction with practical theology made some sense, many religions believed in sprits after all, but with medical degrees? With actual scientific degrees? He’d thought Jazz’s spectral psych was a bit odd, especially with the rumours she talked to ghosts which he brushed off, but at least it made sense since she wanted to be a therapist. Many people can use religion and the belief in spirits to help heal after all. “Ecto-ology huh? As your primary? Interesting choice”.

Then Jazz’s dad is on him in an instant, not inhumanely like Danny had been but to see someone so massive move so fast was jarring, “oh! Did Jazzypants not tell you!”, slapping a hand to his chest proudly, “the Fenton’s are a family of ghost hunters!”.

What.

Maddie eyes her daughter, “Jazz”. While Dan out right cackles evilly and Danny wheezes, hands on his knees, “Jazz you dumbass!”.

Bassel blinks harshly, “ghost… hunters?”, o-kay that was… a lot weirder than he expected. Her parents believed… in ghosts and claimed to ‘hunt’ them. No wonder his girlfriend wanted to study psychology, her parents were delusional.

Jazz can tell that her boyfriend absolutely thinks her parents are insane now. Danny eyeing the guy before wheezing more tells her he’s noticed too, walking over to her and patting her on the arm, “he doesn’t believe in ghosts, does he”.

She sighs, “I… don’t think so”.

“HA!”. Oh Dan was just eating this up.

Elle running over with cujo, holding the pup up at Bassel’s face, he looks like he barely resists recoiling, “pet the ghost pup and believe”.

“Why is he green?”.

“Because he’s dead! Dummy!”.

“What”. Then cujo is in his arms, his face is horrified, but he does cautiously pat cujo’s belly. Him stiffening and staring as the dog floats up and starts walking on the ceiling; Elle giggling.

Danny slinking over to the guy while Maddie tries to swat the dog off the ceiling, “yeah, welcome to Amity, famously the most haunted city in the world. And yes, your girlfriend’s parents are the leading ghost scientist of the entire world and sell ghost weapons to the government and general public”, doing jazz hands, “surprise!”.

Bassel hasn’t even made it past the entry way, Jazz feels like an ass for letting him go into this blind. Her shoving Danny away, “don’t be mean”, eyeing Bassel, who’s wide-eyed, “yeah sorry? I did tell you they were weird”.

Bassel eyes Dan standing on the table to pin a fucking green floating dog to the ceiling. Maddie’s holding a strange taser, that has green electricity, threatening the dog; Danny’s dangling off of her arm shrieking about leaving his pup alone and how if anyone’s going to get tased it should be him. Looking back to Jazz, “by weird you mean insane? I’d question the ghosts thing but there’s a floating green dog on the ceiling. Hell, I’m almost questioning my own sanity”.

Jack laughs, rubbing his neck, “oh yeah! We get that a lot! But hey! People stop calling you crazy once they get attacked by a talking five foot tall hornet or a town gets sucked into another dimension!”.

Jazz huffing, “you guys just will not let me live down that stupid hornet, will you”.

Danny shouting, “technically it was a shapeshifting old man! Not a hornet!”, as he runs out of the room with cujo in tow.

Maddie following with the taser, “Danny! he needs to be punished when he does that!”.

“No! Never! Kiss my dead ass!”.

Bassel blinking, “your… brother swears a lot, and wait did he claim to be Dan’s mom? What? I’m sitting down”.

Jazz wincing, “don’t sit on the orange chair, it screams sometimes”. He squeaks an ‘okay’ and sits on the purple couch rubbing his temples; Jazz plopping down beside him.

Dan shouting, “Is anyone gonna eat the ecto-wienies!?!”, from the kitchen.

Jazz scowling to herself before shouting back, “Dan don’t! I dont want Bassel passing out!”.

“That’s the point!”.

She throws her hands up dramatically in fur-station, at least her dad rushes off to stop Dan from consuming screaming hot dogs while their guest adjusts to his new reality.

Bassel groaning, “and why would I pass out?”.

… “They scream too. It’s… pretty freaky to see someone eating squirming screaming hotdogs if you’re not prepared for it”.

“And why do your parents have hotdogs that do that and how even?”.

Jazz shakes her head, “they might have studied clinical laboratory science but they absolutely do not practice good lab safety or sample safety. Things get contaminated accidentally a lot”.

“And that… makes hotdogs able to move and scream?”.

“That about sums it up, yeah”.

“What the actual fuck, babe”.

Then Dan pops over, arms crossed, “thanks Jazz, now gramps has confiscated all my food”.

Jazz pointing at him as he flops down on the same couch as them hard enough to make the couch bounce, “good and could you sit down any harder?”.

“I was aiming to knock you two love birds off”.

“Zone you are such a jerk”.

“I aim to displease”.

Bassel makes an aggressive motion with his hands, not looking at either of them, “okay what the fuck. First how did that not break the couch? Two how is a teen boy mom? And what is wrong with this town and house?”.

Dan snorts and Jazz knows she’s going to hate what comes out his mouth, him eyeing her, “should I tell him there’s a portal to the afterlife in the basement, or should you?”. She slaps him immediately, wincing from the definite sprained wrist she just gave herself; stupid full ghost jerk. He sticks his tongue out at her and she wants to slap him again; at least his tongue isn't forked at the moment.

Jack pops back in carrying Elle by the waist, her arms and legs dangling down as she giggles, “you good, Jazzy?”.

Dan chuckling, “no. She regrets not warning a certain someone”, putting a hand to his chest, “I fully support that fucking chaotic choice”.

Jazz scowling, “you just enjoy seeing people suffer”.

“Hey, if I’m not allowed to kill folks anymore I gotta get my kicks somewhere? Or would you rather I start skinning animals and leaving their flesh hanging from trees?”. Dan gets bashed off the couch by a baseball bat wielding Danny. “Ow! Seriously mom?”.

“Threaten to skin animals for the lols again and I’ll sic Sam on you”.

Dan puts his hands up, “I’ll pass, you kill joy”.

“Good”.

Bassel gags and makes a face at Jazz, gesturing his hands at Dan as Danny smacks him with the baseball bat again, “what”.

“He’s… got a twisted sense of humour?”.

“Not that!”, Bassel shaking his head, “well yes that, what is wrong with that man. But I mean the mom thing?”.

Jazz eyeballs the full ghost, “Dan’s a tough subject, let’s just say a lot of really nasty things happened to him and at least one psychotic break. And he calls Danny ‘mom’ mostly to annoy him”.

“Oh that’s a lot less weird-”.

“Danny kinda is his mom though”.

Basel groans.

Elle pops her head over the couch, somehow escaping Jack’s grasp, “Danny’s uncle is a mad scientist who has no issue dabbling in super evil human experimentation, Dan and me were tots made from Danny via fucked up science and suffering! Hooray for causing mass confusion!”.

Bassel glancing from the small girl to his girlfriend, “seriously?”.

Jazz sighing, “yeah, sorry. Technically that man’s mine and Danny’s god father, not uncle, but Danny likes to bug the man. Vlad… needs so much therapy”.

Danny shouting, “at least he’s got a cat now! Even if he did name her after mom”; while Dan snags the baseball bat and pops Danny on the head with it. Danny bites the baseball bat.

Bassel shakes his head, “so you weren’t kidding about being somewhat related to one of the richest men on the planet, and he’s basically a crazy super villain; great”.

Jack rubs his neck, “unfortunately yeah, I kinda blew up a proto-portal in his face and he didn’t take that well”.

Jazz puts her hands on her hips, leaning forwards a little, “dad, you guys didn’t visit him in hospital even once, for seven years. Of course he didn’t take that well”.

Danny popping out from behind Jack, “he still complains about that, by the by. I dumped get well soon cards on him last time he was whining about it. Asked him if that made up for it, he shouted no and shot me in the foot”.

Jazz shaking her head, “I still don’t get how you two ever get along”.

“Hey, arch enemies gotta have some bonding time sometimes. Plus, he’s got the good liquor and will absolutely try to bribe me with expensive gifts”.

“And I keep telling you that’s unhealthy and you’re only encouraging him”.

Dan chuckling, “let him, who knows, maybe I’ll get another gremlin sibling”.

Basically everyone, even Bassel, shouting, “NO!”.

Maddie getting back towards the kitchen, and bring out what remains of the ghost-shaped cookies, “cookie?”, offering them to Bassel.

… “are they going to start screaming?”.

Maddie blushing immediately, Jazz covering her mouth and laughing, “no. No. Only things that were once alive tend to do that. Baked goods are fine”, eyeing the cookies, “and they’re not green so they’re safe for human consumption”.

He takes a cookie and munches it very cautiously, “and the green ones?”.

Jazz grimacing, “definitely not safe for human consumption”.

Elle nodding, still behind the couch, “those are for us Phantom’s”. Meaning that now Jazz knows Bassel’s basically going to have to deal with finding out her brother and said brothers kids are all varying degrees of dead.

Bassel eyeing the small child, “do I even want to know?”.

Elle gives a cheery, “nope!”.

Oh okay, maybe her, and thusly Bassel, can dodge that whole situation. Jazz absolutely glares daggers at Dan to say nothing. The man grins evilly but remains silent, thank zone for that.

Bassel taking a breath and slapping his legs before standing up, “okay. Alright. You lot are stranger than I expected but I really like Jazz so I’ll deal”.

Maddie looks relieved but Jack booms, “awesome! You seem like a good guy!”, and smacks Bassel so hard on the back that he gets smacked into the floor and knocked out. Dan’s bending over wheeze laughing, Elle’s floated up into the air curled up and laughing, Danny’s run over to try and help the man while also laughing, and Jazz is shaking a finger at her dad angrily.

Maddie sighs, face in a hand, “Jack”; while Danny’s hoisting Bassel up and back onto the couch, smacking his cheeks to get him to come ‘round.

When Bassel comes to he nearly screams, that Danny boy’s face is inches from his own and he’s crouched on Bassel’s chest. How much did this kid weigh??? And damn were his eyes still extremely creepy. At least he’s clued in what was wrong with him, he was uncanny, like he wasn’t quite human but close enough that it was very wrong in that base instinctual way. The teen grins, it’s like his teeth don’t fit in his mouth and the smile is just a hair too wide. “Cool, you’re awake. Was starting to wonder. Dad smacked you into the floor by accident, if you don’t brace yourself when he goes in for back pats then you’ll wind up on the floor”, titling his head owlishly, “lesson learned?”.

Bassel nodding at the kid that hasn’t moved his face out of Bassel’s, “um, yeah?”, frowning, “your guy’s dad is freakishly strong, you know that?”. The boy just shrugs before hopping off Bassel’s chest, letting him sit up and rub his head a little. “Do your parents always wear the hazmats?”.

Danny chuckles, “yup, and they will still claim they are stylish”, rolling his wrist, “they try to get me and Jazz in ‘em all the time. But hey, I’ll stick to wearing that kinda bullshit when I’m dead”.

Jazz’s head pops out of the kitchen entryway, “oh good, you’re up. You up for pie? There’s eight for some reason”.

“Are… they all the same kind?”.

“Sadly, yes”.

Even he can admit that was sad, variety was nice. But Danny pouts at her, “hey, I’m not about to discourage my personal wannabe poacher just because he doesn’t have a single creative bone in his entire metal mecha suit”. What the hell was any of that supposed to mean? This kid was probably one of the most confusing people Bassel’s ever met, Elle being a close second.

“You could at least try to convince him to try lime cream instead of him shoving lemon cream at you three times a year”.

Bassel holds up a hand, “how old are these pies?”. His girlfriend blinks like that hadn’t even crossed her mind… she might be too used to this level of strange perhaps.

Danny waving him off, “oh I helped him find a solid anniversary gift for his girlfriend, which fine was extremely explosive but eh, so he went a little pie happy. They’re two days old”.

“Oh alright, I’ll have some then”; two days wasn’t even weird. That many pies was odd and how he got them was bizarre, but not as bad as a dog walking on the ceiling or Dan-the-psycho talking about skinning animals like it was funny. Him and Danny joining everyone in the kitchen proper finally. The stove is charred from top to bottom, fires were clearly common. The fridge… was glowing? The toaster looks like it’s definitely some kind of project and not safe to use at all. The table is clean at least, besides the cookie crumbs and excessive amount of pies.

Said pie is extremely good, like professional good. Bassel blinking at it, “damn that’s good”.

Danny chirping, like actually chirping, “I know right?”; how does a human mouth make that sound???

“Then why isn’t… Dan eating any?”; maybe evil or not…

Dan flips Bassel off, grabs a slice and proceeds to hurl it at him; Bassel barely ducking in time while Jazz, Maddie, and Danny all shout, ‘NO!’. Elle is giggling though and Bassel would bet money that’s encouraging the man. Danny smashes an entire pie right in Dan’s face in retaliation, Elle smashing a slice on Danny’s head; it just devolves into a full on pie food fight from there.

Jazz crouch walking to avoid splatter while Maddie shoos the three outside with a broom, Jack following while shouting about getting the hose. Jazz putting a hand on his arm, “you good”.

“What twenty something starts a food fight!”, shaking his head, “better than throwing a knife at me I guess”.

“He usually only throws knives at Danny”.

She said that like it was normal! And not at all disturbing or something to be worried about! “He actually throws knives at people!”.

She winces like she just now realised that wasn’t okay, “right. Don’t worry about it, he might make a lot of threats or do threatening stuff but he’s heavily against going back into solitary confinement”, her huffing, “which I still think was cruel, deprivation chambers are one hundred percent a form of torture and no one deserves that”.

“What kind of jail has a freaking deprivation chamber, oh my god”. No wonder that man seemed like he had the socialization skills of a very threatening murderous brick wall.

The two stand up and they can see the three ‘Phantom’s -he’s still confused on that one but too scared to ask- getting hosed off in the front yard by Maddie; Jack’s helping by physically holding Dan up in the air and laughing. What??? Bassel blinks, “no one should be able to lift that beast of a man up like that”.

And then there’s an explosion, Bassel jerking around and Jazz just turning causally to watch purple smoke leak out from what’s labeled as a lab door. Her grabbing him with a quick, “nope”, and dragging him outside.

“What was that?”.

“Don’t know, but I’m not taking the chance that whatever their latest project is is noxious”, then shouting at her mom, “mom! Something blew up in the lab and it’s leaking purple gas!”.

Bassel very strictly remembers her not long ago mentioning that her parents weren’t big on lab safety, noxious though? These people were completely nuts. His nice, level headed, kind, smart, cautious Jazz came from this??? Yes she could be a little neurotic, especially about food and sharps saftey which he absolutely understood now, and she was a little… spooky sometimes. But still! He still didn’t believe her hair was really that orange without her dying it, even if he’d never seen proof of her doing so. And she always had on some black tourmaline or turquoise that she claimed was ‘protection’, he just thought she was being a little spiritual, now it seemed more like this ghost thing.

Danny shakes his wet hair off like a feral dog, “that’s probably my lunch!”.

Jazz throwing her hands up, “why is it leaking purple gas!”. Bassel muttering, “I think it exploding is more concerning than that”. Jazz shaking her head at him, “Danny’s favourite local restaurant has highly explosive trade marked sauce”.

“What!?!”. How was that even legal?

Danny pointing a finger at Jazz’s face as he moves to head inside to… ‘rescue’ his food, “hey, you haven’t had real food till you’ve had a Mighty Meaty Mega Nasty Melt and Phantomized Fries”, shrugging, “and I was trying to make blackened ecto-wine infused bread, for sandwiches”.

Jazz makes a face at the boys retreating back, “ew”.

Bassel blinking, “did, did this restaurant really name a menu item ‘Nasty Melt’?”. He’s revising his previous opinion, this entire town was nuts; not just these people.

Elle, very wet, bounds over, “yup! It’s called the Nasty Burger, used to be Tasty burger but someone vandalized it and there was a vote to just keep the N”, grinning, “I think it’s funny, the sauce is to die for”.

Jazz cringing, “oh no not the death jokes, at least spare my boyfriend those, ugh”. The little girl sticks her tongue out and pouts a little before running back inside at the pies. Jazz going wide-eyed and following with a shout, “oh no you better not! Mom just got you cleaned up! You put that pie down missy!”.

Bassel cautiously sticking his head in, cautious of both fumes and pie, to stare at his girlfriend holding a literal child at gun point while the child menacingly holds a pie over her own head. “um, why are you threatening a child with a gun”.

She brushes him off like this isn’t messed up, “it’s fine, there’s no normal guns in this household”. What does that even mean? Ghost guns? Is that what this is? Is that why it’s slightly glowing green!

Then Dan scares the crap out of him, speaking up from directly behind him, “I wouldn’t worry about it, she’s a terrible shot anyway. She could put a gun directly against someone’s temple and still hit a cars side mirror instead”.

“I’ve gotten better!”.

“No you have not, you managed to shoot a fire hydrant and set it on fire last time; I was impressed”.

“Shut up, Dan”.

“No I don’t think I will”.

At least Danny, who somehow got behind Elle, takes the pie from the girl and wags a finger at her, “repeat chaos isn’t chaos, it’s a pattern”.

“What if I cut off one of my hands, put it in the pie, then smack her with it? Then it would be a pie high five, not a food fight”.

Danny blinks, “I’m stealing that idea for the next time the Lunch Lady throws flaming stoves at me”.

Bassel… Bassel is not questioning that. “Kid, your mind must be a very strange place”. Sure little kids always said odd stuff, things adults wouldn’t even dream of, but this was a special brand of odd.

Dan shoving his way past Bassel, nearly knocking the guy over and giving him some major hebejebes, to go pat Elle on the head in amusement. Maddie steadying him, “you okay? And at least she’s not as bad as Danny used to be”, crossing her arms and shaking her head, “he thought blackbird pie meant to actually find birds and bake a pie with them. It was incredibly disgusting, especially because he didn’t know how to use an oven yet so he maxed out its temp for three hours”.

Oh okay, so Danny was just like that too. What was that about apples and trees? “That… probably could have gone even worse”. The teen, then kid, could have burned the house down!

The woman grumbled, “at least he’s never sucked the house into the mirror dimension, unlike someone”, as she heads in to help Jazz, Danny, Dan, and Elle actually clean up the pie mess. Jack shouting, “I said I was sorry about that!”. Danny shouting back, “at least no one’s pulled a Technus and walked the house into the ocean!”; while Bassel is wondering how the heck the eldest Fenton heard his wife’s grumbling from the other side of the yard.

There was something seriously physically off with all these people. Including Jazz. He’s feeling very distinctly reminded of a lot of things he’s just sort of brushed off or thought nothing of about her before. He used to think a lot about how vibrant her eyes were, or that her teeth were a touch sharp; nothing like the ‘Phantom’s but still. She was amazing at lock picking and could handle ‘practice’ patients others couldn’t; even if she would also ‘force’ therapy on random people sometimes. And eyeing her parents, they’re the same. Intense eyes, oddly pale almost glassy skin, teeth that feel like they’re sharp but aren’t; it’s not uncanny the way those three ‘Phantom’s were, but it’s still odd.

Dan was the worst though, easily, when the man brushed past him it felt like being cornered by massive wolf or mountain lion. If Bassel had ran into that man randomly on the street there’s no way he’d think he was anything close to human. Danny and Elle at least seemed humanish, almost human; Dan just seemed like he was playing pretend.

Bassel shakes himself off before stepping back into the chaotic Fenton household, “am I going to get pie thrown at me again?”.

Danny looks at him, “nope”, then glares at Elle, “or someone’s losing her Switch privileges”; the girl gasps in horror.

See that? That was normal. Normal punishment, normal reaction to a punishment. Perfectly normal. … Then the girl threatens to ‘liquify herself in protest’; goodbye normal, it was nice while it lasted. Either way he moves to help clean up pie a little, speaking back up, “so your bread fine?”.

“It ate itself and imploded, so no”. What. The boy grins cheerily, right too many teeth, “which means it must have tasted good, meaning I’m on to something”.

“I? Guess?”. He’s honestly just trying not to stare at the teens teeth.

…

They somehow do actually make it to the living room to watch a movie. It actually is a weird B list bird horror flic, which feels too normal now and that frankly concerns him. He’s not sure he wants the get used to this level of insanity. He loves Jazz but he is fully intending to potentially never step foot in this building again after this. How was he going to survive here for a week??? Blinking, oh right, elbowing Jazz and whispering, “hey, all the luggage is still in the car right?”. Then Dan scares the crap outta him again, “don’t bother whispering, I can still hear you”. Jazz grabs a random round thing from the floor to smack the man with for that.

Jazz leaning against Bassel again, “the longer we leave it in the car the longer it’ll take to get contaminated or destroyed, I told you not to bring your expensive computer ‘just in case you had time’ for a reason”.

Considering the amount of mess and literal exploding/imploding -again, what???- bread, he could understand that sentiment; oh and the actual guns apparently just lying around. He is very glad he listened to her, that laptop was never setting an inch of its metal casing in this building. He winces, “yeah, thanks for that”. She pats him fondly.

Danny straightens out so fast that it aggressively startles Bassel. “Oh! Think I should invite Val?”, eyeing Jazz smugly, “since someone brought their little lover”.

Jazz scowls at him, “Danny, I think Basel having to put up with my very weird family including the two weirdest members, is more than enough without adding in your trigger happy girlfriend with serious anger management issues. Especially because I know for a fact she won’t agree to leave all her weapons at home”.

Danny looks offended, putting a hand to his chest and paying no mind to the bird-related massacre happening on screen, “I’ll have you know she doesn’t even sleep unarmed, she hasn’t been unarmed since she was fourteen”.

“Exactly”.

You know what? Bassel thinks that actually makes sense. Danny was too strange to date someone remotely normal. “I’m not even surprised, you’re a little too freaky to date someone who’s just, you know, an average person. So sure, date an aspiring cop or whatever”.

Danny snaps and finger guns at him, “think more like nanobot powered teenage ghost hunter with a jet sled”.

What. Bassel blinking, “so somehow you’re the more normal one in the relationship. This girl’s in therapy right”. Jazz actually laughs at that.

Danny screws up his face, “Ancients you sound like Jazz”, looking at her, “he sounds like you”, looking back to Bassel, “and eh, my personality has more sparkles and explosions”, tilting his head, “besides, how am I freaky, besides the gremlin energy and general chaos anyways”.

Dan snorting, “and the fact that you think dumpster chic is a good thing”.

“As if you don’t wear the same”.

“Excuse you, I lift all my clothing off of the finest of corpses”.

Bassel, and Danny for that matter, gag; Danny’s seems more mock dramatic gag though. Bassel shaking his head, “add in the fact that if someone told me you were actually a doll pretending to be human, I’d believe them”.

That gets him multiple odd looks, including from Jazz. No one bothers to pause the movie even though everyone’s attention is now on him as she quirks an eyebrow at him, “what do you mean by that? Sure my little brother can move too quietly or too quickly, and his still too skinny and pale, but I wouldn’t call him possibly inhuman looking”.

Danny points at his face, “I’m pretty sure if I looked legit freaky Dash would mock me relentlessly for it”.

Bassel is baffled, are these people just… used to him so much they don’t notice? And Dan’s just looking to the side snickering meanly, Bassel almost gets the feeling the man knows what he’s talking about. Bassel looking at each of them, “you’re telling me you guys don’t notice his skin looks like weirdly glassy play dough? Or his eyes are too big? That his teeth don’t fit in his face? He’s weighs less than a bag of potatoes!”. They all look very confused and turn to stare at Danny, who shrinks down a little awkwardly; Dan’s laughing is full on guffaws now, head tilted over the back of the chair that apparently sometimes screams. When Elle points at her own face and grins too wide, Bassel nods, “yes, you too. Less than, your uh, dad but still”, gesturing at everyone, “honestly all of you have hair that’s too strongly coloured, overly vibrant eyes, and no skin texture”, scratching his head, “I thought my girl just had a spot on skin care routine and impressive hair colouring technique that she refused to share”. Jazz fiddles with her orange hair a little, making him feel a little guilty. Bassel coughing, “not that I dislike that”. Dan barks out another loud laugh.

Jazz eventually hurling another random Bassel doesn’t know what at the man, “stop laughing! Us looking weird to normal people isn’t funny! You jerk!”.

Oh okay. So they don’t know. That was weird? Does no one in town comment on it? Does no one even notice it? Was everyone in this town that strange??? Or was everyone in town strange looking themselves?

Dan huffing another laugh, “oh it very much is! Especially because I already knew and did in fact tell you morons”, waving a hand around leisurely, “not my fault you shits thought I was just being an ass”. Bassel guesses it makes sense that the strangest and most startling looking -and feeling, frankly- one would be the one to notice.

Danny looks offended, “and how do you know this? The fuck Dan”.

The man scowls meanly, it’s very mocking, “oh I don’t know, maybe because I spent ten years travelling the globe randomly killing people? Maybe that’s it? I’m the only fucker here who’s done enough travelling to tell people find this face”, gesturing at his face and smirking, “alarming, and not just because I was usually either threatening to kill or trying to kill them”.

“What? you walked around with that face?”.

“Eh I got bored of the other one sometimes”.

Bassel is choosing to ignore part of this conversation, otherwise he’s not going to get over his girlfriend being related to what’s sounds like more ‘mass murderer’ than ‘single murderer’. Not to mention that he doesn’t want to know what is meant by the murderer having different ‘faces’. He doesn’t want to know if this man’s a real life leather face.

Elle pouts, “I travel a lot, no one tells me I look weird?”.

“Sis, you’re a kid, all little brats look fucking weird”.

The little girl giggles, earning a fond but very quick look from the large man. At least it seemed like he actually liked his family maybe.

Danny gestures at nothing and scowls at Dan, “Dan, you’re a six foot eleven wall of muscle with a face that’s default setting is evil smirk, of course people think you look scary!”.

“Oh people found me disturbing when I was wearing your skin too, mom”.

“Fuck you”.

Bassel forces himself not to ask how that’s even possible. ‘Wearing the skin’ of someone who still has their skin is impossible and not to mention the size difference, it wouldn’t fit; why is he even thinking about the logistics of this?!? Ew!

Jack scratches his head, “while I can’t say I see, I doubt you’re making stuff up”, looking at Maddie, “all the ecto you think?”.

The mother nods to herself, tapping her chin, “there’s not much else it could be, especially if our oddness is merely tamer versions of Danny’s and the grandkids”.

Bassel is lost, looking to Jazz and quirking an eyebrow. She cringes, “Danny has a very intense version of ecto-contamination”. She says that like it’s not extremely weird and concerning.

Danny chuckling, “if by that you mean I’m fucking half dead then yeah”.

Jazz swats him, “Danny! For zones sake!”.

“Hey!”, Danny sticks his arms out nearly smacking multiple people, “if I’m that freaky looking then there really isn’t a point, Jazz!”.

“I hate that you’re right!”, Jazz huffing while Bassel is officially realising that everyone just shouts at each other in this house, regardless of if they’re happy or mad or excited. Her turning to him, “my brother’s a bit dead”.

Bassel absolutely squawks at that, “what”. And then suddenly the kid’s glowing and his eyes are green, the actual hell? Elle leaning forward, sticking her tongue out and pointing at her face, also with green eyes and glowing. Bassel cautiously and slowly eyeing Dan, his eyes flash blood red and yup, glowing.

Okay. Alright. He’s in a room full of glowing people, what is he supposed to do with this? He officially thinks that anyone who has ever found out someone else wasn’t quite human in a movie was way too damn calm about it!

Jazz winces a little, she can tell her boyfriend has absolutely no idea how to react to his girlfriend's glowing family members, so she pats his shoulder, “is it weird? Yes. Am I glad my brother is only partially dead? Absolutely. Don’t worry about it?”.

He blinks owlishly at her, clearly freaked out, “it’s kinda hard not to worry about my sister having dead family members kicking around and her whole family including her being contaminated by ghost stuff enough to alter their appearances”.

Then Danny goes and opens his stupid mouth, holding up a still glowing finger, “technically, Dan’s the only one that’s totally dead. Me and Elle are still alive-ish”.

Bassel blinks again and asks something that Jazz really wishes he didn’t, “and why’s he the dead one?”, in a squeaky voice; the movie is absolutely long forgotten at this point.

Dan’s smirk is flat out evil and before anyone can stop him he responds, “oh only because I got my human shit torn out and disemboweled it. Ate half my uncle and flew off into the sunset”.

Bassel leans so far away he nearly falls off the couch, “what. The. Fuck”. While everyone else, even Elle, chastisingly shouts, “DAN FENTON!”, at the smirking full ghost. The tact on that jerk! The only tact he had was evil tact, that sought chaos and destruction!

“OoOooOOoOO, full name, I’m So HuRt. I’m So UtTeRlY aPoLoGeTiC. Truly”. The ass doesn’t mean a damn word of that and he wants them to know it. He smirks, “if we want to play that game I can just show him what I really look like”.

Danny standing up and pointing at Dan, “do that and I’m souping you”. Dan puts an offended hand to his chest and scowls deeply.

Bassel sputters, “I am never asking you people questions again, oh my god”.

Jazz can’t even blame him, even if she knows he eventually will ask more questions about, well, their everything. It was hard not to after all. She rubs his arm, “you really shouldn’t think about it too hard or worry, yes we’re used to it and know the admittedly weird science behind it”, cringing, “even if apparently only one of us was aware none of us looked normal”.

He blinks harshly, swallowing, “uh huh. You guys have a bathroom, right. Because I definitely need to decompress by staring into the mirror for a concerning length of time”.

Not good. Jazz wincing and getting up, “I’ll show you”, then pausing and eyeing Danny, “is the bathroom actually clean”.

Danny tilts his head and grimaces, also not good, “maybe don’t open the lower left cupboard”.

“Right”. Damn it, Danny. Pulling Bassel along as they head upstairs, “okay so listen to him and don’t get curious. He might have spilled something and not cleaned it so it’s gotten moldy. Or he shoved goddamn bandaging under there. Or there’s a ghost trapped in the cabinet”.

“I… kind of hate that I’m hoping it’s the first one”.

“Well considering it’s Danny, it’s probably the second. He gets injured a lot and has a non-existent biohazard safety mindset”, gesturing at the open bathroom, “anyway, here”.

… “is Danny why the shower floor looks bloodstained, wait never mind I don’t want to know”.

She gives him a supportive shoulder pat as he goes in and close the door almost hard. This… this has not gone well. At least he hasn’t ran out screaming? Yet anyways.

She heads back down stairs, pointing at Dan, “I’m blaming you, because it is your fault”, pointing at Danny, “and yours, because you somewhat made him”.

“Hey! He made himself!”.

“And he is you so my point still stands”.

“Jazz!”.

Jazz doesn’t really care that being reminded of that fact bothers her little brother, him and his off shoots have basically been terrorising her boyfriend. He should be bothered! “I am gonna be so mad at you if he decides this is too much”. At least everyone winces apologetically, except Dan who just glances away which was the closest he usually came to a ‘sorry’.

Jack rubs his neck, “sorry, Jazzy-pants. Want us to bring your guy’s stuff in?”.

She scowls, she’s not going to effectively trap her boyfriend here by doing that, “considering I don’t even know if he wants to stay here now, no dad”. Her dad winces further, good.

She sighs, flopping back down on the couch, “let’s just rewind and finish the movie. Like normal people”. Dan snorts at her and she glares bloody murder at him.

Okay. So. His girlfriend’s family are not ‘weird’, rather they are actually insane and physically impossible. Which is extremely not okay. But he likes Jazz, a whole lot actually. A ton even. She was odd but not insane or too physically impossible; and she didn’t live here, he wouldn’t have to see these people -especially Dan- often. A handful of times a year at best right now. Hell she might be annoyed enough to ban that Dan guy from being within ten feet of him; Bassel would not complain about that. Her parents at least seemed harmless, over enthusiastic and strange but acceptable. However he knew for a fact that him liking or not liking her parents didn’t mean much, she’s made it clear that she doesn’t think too highly about their opinions. Her brother though, he knows she loved that kid, sometimes she made it sound like she was more his parent than their parents were. Said brother was half freaking dead. Because apparently ghosts are a real thing and can just walk around the living like it’s nothing… and also apparently being half alive was a remotely possible thing. Also Danny, a teen, has kids. Two kids. One who’s clearly older than him and committed a likely extremely disturbing amount of murder.

Well…

They’re not Jazz’s kids. So he, maybe? won’t have to deal with them much. Jazz seemed surprised they were even here after all. Alright. Okay. He can deal with this.

That’s frankly a lie.

But he can at least manage and pretend he’s cool. Then, when they go back to uni he can have a mild freak out in his dorm room and their relationship can go back to sort of normal. He is absolutely going to ask about her ‘ecto-contamination’? later though, and if those stories about her ‘communing with ghosts’ were actually true and was she just talking to her brother or was she also talking to other ghosts.

Pushing himself off of the sink he’s been leaning on and slapping his cheeks, “you got this, man”. His reflection does not copy him.

What the actual hell is wrong with this place? Besides the apparent portal to the afterlife in the goddamn lab. How did these people break a mirrors ability to mirror? Shaking his head and pulling out his phone, okay he’s looking these people up, like he goddamn should have already.

…

Okay yeah they just are fully public with the ghost hunting thing huh? That must have been fun to grow up with. Jazz did say she tried to separate herself as much as possible from them as a teen, this is absolutely why. And apparently her brother saved an entire species of gorillas? By… climbing in one’s cage… so he’s just always been crazy and reckless, got it; but hey, at least the gorillas aren’t extinct now.

Bassel’s not surprised that looking up Elle gets him nothing, she’s a young child after all, but Dan? For a supposed murderer there isn’t even a single result about him. No wiki article, no victim impact statements, no mugshot, no public court files, no morally questionable serial killer podcasts, nothing. Weird. But he’s absolutely not asking the man about that, because he doesn’t know what kind of nightmarish response he’s going to get. Considering his age -aka, being literally older than his freaking parent- it might be some sort of time travel thing, which he mildly hates the entire notion of, especially since he’s not going to claim he knows what’s possible or not now.

After all, his reflection is still just ‘standing’ there staring at him while he’s been pacing back and forth staring at his phone. He’s not googling his girlfriend of course, that would be creepy, but what about the ‘Phantom’ thing? That… that gets a lot of results. Freaky ones.

…

So…

Apparently…

This town has a goddamn dead superhero? That’s a freaking colour inversion of Danny with green eyes and also named Danny? Which there is no way that’s ’just a coincidence’. So Jazz’s brother is kind of dead, has an ‘arch enemy’, and is almost definitely some kind of dead superhero. Cool. That’s… that’s not completely insane at all. He officially feels like he’s in a knock off marvel movie with a secret identity reveal and everything.

And oh hey! Girl in red on a jet sled, Danny’s girlfriend, also definitely a superhero. Cool. This is Hell.

… Based on all the photos and videos of full blown super powered fights this town might actually be part of hell or an afterlife full of apparently violent dead people. No wonder Jazz was leery of him so much as visiting her home town, nonetheless her parents. A google of the stats shows that these ‘ghost attacks’ happen multiple times a day and it looks like they sometimes did a concerning amount of damage. Also the mayor is that Vlad guy? The evil uncle god father arch enemy guy. Why? How even? … It was probably mind control. Oh he kind of hates this.

Also though, how the heck was this town and this whole ghosts and a death dimension situation, not known about world wide?!? If it’s some kind of government suppression of information he’s going to scream; not actually scream just… internally scream. You’d think this would be something that’s in national news, an actual real life superhero and villains, another dimension, the afterlife… Okay perhaps being super public about an after life could cause some issues among religious groups.

Then his reflection growls at him.

Nope.

He’s not dealing with that.

He’s out of the bathroom in two seconds flat, practically rushing down the stairs, wheezing. Everyone, but Dan, is on the couch again apparently finishing the bird movie; Dan is just outright nowhere to be seen which he is a-okay with. “My reflection growled at me”. Jazz buries her head in her hands, this was obviously not how she wanted this first meeting to go; it wasn’t how he wanted it to go either, but he didn’t know it going this absurdly was even possible. Meanwhile Maddie and Danny shout, “JACK!”, clearly thinking the mirror is his fault. Wasn’t something about him going to the mirror dimension mentioned earlier? or is he just starting to come up with his own crazy possibilities.

The large man runs his neck, laughing, “whoops! Must have grabbed the wrong mirror!”.

“Wrong? Mirror?”. Damn right, he said he was done asking these people to explain literally anything.

Bassel eyeballing Jazz’s dad as he gets up and begins to move upstairs, “ah yeah, Danny-boy head-butted the old one so it had to be replaced, musta got the new mirror and the dimensional mirror mixed up!”.

Why is this kid head-butting mirrors and why does this family just have a ‘dimensional mirror’? Ugh, Bassel’s poor head. Jazz apparently has these same questions, or one of them at least, as well as the willingness to ask it. “Little brother? Why were head-butting the mirror? Young Blood isn’t trying to give you another nervous breakdown, is he?”; Bassel can practically feel the worry in her voice.

Danny scowls dramatically, “I’m fine, Jazz. No need to psycho babble me, Ancients. Skulker just decided that tooth brushing time was good head shooting time, I confiscated his right arm for that and he didn’t get it back for three days”, the kid looks proud of himself, “he hasn’t attacked me in the bathroom since”.

Bassel blinks, slightly horrified, Danny what? stole some… ghosts arm? as punishment? “Uh, I’m pretty sure a supposed superhero teen is not supposed to go around stealing people’s limbs”. Jazz groans very loudly and very tiredly.

Danny laughs, “oh! You looked me up huh? Don’t worry, I only took his mecha bodysuits arm, not his actual real arm”.

That’s… stranger but better. Then Elle pipes up, “even if he had it wouldn’t matter! See-”.

“NO!”.

Bassel is not going to ask why Danny just grabbed both of her wrists and glared at her. He has absolutely learned that if someone, or everyone, shouts ‘NO’ at someone else then he absolutely did not want to know why. Instead he watches his girlfriend get up and smile very awkwardly at him, he’s unpleasantly aware of the fact that her teeth were probably whiter than they should be, “you okay? Are we good?”.

“Absolutely not, but yes, yes we’re alright. I am absolutely not visiting here frequently though. And if Dan ever shows up anywhere near my dorm I’m hitting him with a frying pan immediately”.

She actually chuckles at that, “that’s fair, I tried to shoot him when we first met and tried to hit him with the creep stick the second time”. He’s not going to ask what a creep stick is, but he’s glad she had the sense to hit someone who’s clearly dangerous. “But call if he does do something that stupid, which he shouldn’t if he knows what’s good for him. He will only laugh if you hit him with a frying pan”.

Maddie shaking her head and getting up, “I’ve done that a time or two, he has a habit of trying to sneak food or add poisons just to see if he can get away with it”. Bassel doesn’t have words to express how concerning that is. “And I’m sorry this hasn’t been the best impression, it’s also unfortunately not the worst either though”. Oh. This could be worse? How? Blowing up the house? Hospitalising him? Probably!

Elle sticks a star sticker on him, “congratulations! For passing the weirdness tolerance test!”, looking back at Danny, “am I allowed to try and bite him now?”.

“No, you little shit”, Danny grumbling, “teething preteens are the worst”.

Wasn’t teething supposed to be something babies did? He wants to ask but nope, he’s not going there.

Then Jack’s voice startles him a good bit, “Your reflection must have been staring at you for a while there, buckeroo! Had to really shake it to get him to go away”.

Man was Jack ever a loud guy. Bassel chuckling awkwardly, “yeah I was a little preoccupied and choosing to ignore the insane broken mirror”.

Dan has apparently come back, “ha! You’re lucky your reflection didn’t try to reach through the mirror and strangle you”.

Bassel is not asking. Bassel is not asking. Bassel is not asking. But note to self, do not ignore sentient reflections that move of their own accord. Jazz even shakes her head, “okay that wasn’t the smartest decision you could have made, but I get it”, and she gestures at the couch, “want to finish the movie? Then we can get our stuff in?”.

He sighs, tired, “yeah, yeah, that’s… that’s good”. Just let everything else be normal, or as normal as it can be with the literal walking dead being in the room. Elle grabs him and Jazz before dragging them to the couch, the child is way too strong.

Jazz can practically feel the relief in her bones when they make it through the rest of the movie without anymore incidents, everyone getting up and Jack grabbing a scowling disgruntled Dan to help bring stuff inside. Dan grumbling, “I feel the need to point out that Danny is just as strong as me even if he looks like a damn beanpole”.

Danny shouting, “you mean I’m stronger than you! And hey! I’m lean!”, after them.

Bassel quirking an eyebrow at Jazz, her shaking her head with a small smile, “ectoplasmic energy counts for more than physical appearances with ghosts, my little brother might still be a child and thusly hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, but he can absolutely take his kid down a peg or two”. And he absolutely loved to pester Dan about that fact, while Dan loved to pester Danny about still being ‘puny’.

Dan growls from the garage doorway, “You lot would be dead otherwise and you know it”.

Jazz rolls her eyes, “maybe at one point but we’ve grown on you, don’t lie mister”. The full ghost only grumbles incoherently in response.

Of course her dad tries to open the trunk before Bassel can unlock it, resulting in him picking the car up, Dan having to catch the car when the trunk opens taking dad’s grip with it. Dan chuckling, “normally I’m the one who’s into picking up vehicles”.

Dad chuckling himself, “yeah and you usually throw them when you pick them up!”.

Bassel shakes his head as the full ghost sets his car on the ground fully, “do not throw my car, do all of you just have super strength”.

Jazz facepalms when her dad tilts his head like a puppy, “little cars like these aren’t that heavy though? I could have lifted this back in my college years even”. Bassel looks baffled when she glances at him.

Jazz sighing at her dad, “Dad, your parents were ghost hunters too, you’ve probably been contaminated your whole life, like me and Danny”.

“Oh right! Ha! I forgot about that! Silly me!”.

Bassel shakes his head in disbelief but takes a few of his things instead of letting the two much larger men carry everything. Jazz makes zero attempt to help Dan with any of it, her sticking her tongue out him instead. He snickers at her, “really taking the higher road here, aunty”.

“Like you’re one to talk”.

“The high road and I are incapable of coexistence”.

“Exactly”.

At least it seems like Bassel is fondly amused with their bantering, instead of disturbed, as they move from the garage and up to her old room/the spare room. Her eyeing her mom while the three men set things down in the room, “so where are Elle and Dan staying?”.

Dan scoffing from inside the room, “you say that like I sleep at all”. She studiously ignores him.

Her mom humming, “why don’t you ask Elle? Because I’m not sure”. And Elle pops out from behind Maddie, “we’re not. Grandma Pandora’s supposed to give me some sword fighting lessons!”, pouting, “and I gotta practice if I ever want to beat pops someday”.

Danny can be heard shouting, “like that’ll ever happen!”, from somewhere; and the little missy is off like a rocket after her dad probably to tackle him.

Dan growling, “if you try to make me organize your guys shit I’m going to intentionally remove every screw, battery, and third paper from everything I can get my claws on”, before Jack laughs and pushes the ghost out of the room. Dan eyeing Jazz, “and if you’ll remember, I’m not ‘allowed’ to be out past sunset”.

Ah right, she did actually forget about that. “Serves you right”. As he heads down and back to the living room he sticks his tongue out at her, it absolute is forked this time.

Bassel popping his head out of the room, “you want your studies and research notes left on the night stand? And remind me why we’re staying inside this strange house instead of a hotel, there’s… mold with eyes I think, in the corner”. Her wincing, “because the hotel has mandatory waivers and doesn’t allow Fenton’s”, then nodding up at him, “yeah my stuff’s fine there, don’t put anything in the drawers, sometimes stuff just vanishes inside for an unknown reason”. Based on him ducking back in immediately, he had in fact put some stuff inside a drawer and the sigh of relief and her dads light hearted laughter tells her that whatever it was was still there. At least some things were going right.

And then it promptly goes horribly wrong as soon as Bassel comes out to go back downstairs with her. A massive black star speckled ghost phasing their way down through the goddamn ceiling, Bassel going stalk stiff while Jazz dashes up the steps with him in her grasp and ducks both of them into the bathroom. Bassel sticking his head out of the bathroom while crouching just like her and whispering, “was that thing a freaking ghost? What the hell, babe”.

Her basically hissing at him, “yes, and a very powerful one”. Bassel grumbling, “I think today hates us”. She whole heartedly agrees.

Meanwhile the ghost is shouting, “PHANTOM! I request your aid!”, and from her and Bassel’s bathroom vantage point it looks like the ghost just got punched in their masked face -based on them being pushed back out of the kitchen entry way with a hand to their face- by Dan, who stomps out snarling, all fang but thankfully still human-looking, “wrong one, you sleepy ass”.

Starry sleep ghost… starry sleep ghost… ah right! Their name was Nocturne right? Her little brother did try to get her to remember the names of the more important ghosts after all. “Nocturne?”.

Oh she shouldn’t have said anything. The ghost looks to her and ‘brightens up’ in that cruel looking way many ghosts do, them promptly stretching and looming their body up and head over her and Bassel, “ah, young Phantom’s brethren. Do you know as to where I can find the one that will not attempt to eat beings of ancient malevolence?”. Bassel is shaking and she’s worried he’s going to pass out.

Dan rams a clawed hand into the ghosts body, “I’m true malevolence, mother fucker. Get back here”.

Thankfully Danny -in his ghost form unfortunately- pops in before Dan can do something stupid, “Dan! Leave the freaking god of sleep alone! Oh my Ancients!”. Him pointing at Nocturne’s face as the ghost moves down to him completely ignoring Jazz and Bassel now, “what the zone, Nocturne? You can’t just bust into my lair core whenever you feel like it just because I don’t get enough damn sleep”.

The ghost holds up a finger, “ah but that is hardly the reason for my arrival, I have seemed to ‘fucked up’, as you would say, to an unfortunate degree”.

Danny sighs and sags his entire body, floating in the air, “ugh, what did you do?”.

“I acquired-”.

Danny interrupting immediately, “You mean stole”.

“I acquired some eternal gardenia from FungalLung, they have now beset my domain with pink dew and blood blossom seeds”.

“Why the actual crap would you steal from that split personality psycho? There’s a reason no one goes near that kids garden”.

“I had a need for such things, as someone-”.

“Oh no, no blame game bullshit outta you, shit ass”.

“Our king needs to be-”.

“Needs to be allowed to have a bit of goddamn fun and some breaks, that’s what he needs. Now play guide, you reckless starry blanket”, Danny eyeing Dan, “Dan. Let. Go”.

Dan flinching and doing as he’s more or less commanded to. Scoffing, crossing his arms, and moving back into the kitchen with a tense, “whatever”.

Bassel wheezes when the ghost and her brother disappear through the floor, Jazz standing up fully and pulling him along with, “great. Just great. Love it. What next? An invasion?”.

Elle hums, “I mean, I could ask mythic grandma if she’s up for one”.

Jazz and Maddie both pointing at her aggressively with matching, “absolutely not”’s. Making the girl giggle. Jazz looking back to Bassel, “I promise you’re okay and not about to get attacked. Are you feeling okay?”.

“I am ten seconds away from wanting to lay on the carpet and scream cry into it, and I am positive I need a shock blanket”.

At least she doesn’t even have to ask her mom to get one for her to rush off and do so, Jazz and Maddie herding him into the spare room wrapped up in a Fenton ghost proof shock blanket in record time. Jazz nodding softly at her moms apologetic look and gesturing for her to leave them be, dad following his wife out with an exaggerated wince.

She shuffles up next to him and rubs his arm from over the blanket, effectively side hugging him, “okay so you’ve properly seen your first ghost, and they were unfortunately one of the non-human ones; but, Nocturne is quite safe actually, more a neutral being than malicious”.

He nods a little.

“They do tend to harass my brother a lot since they care a lot about sleep and he doesn’t get nearly enough of it”, shaking her head and laughing lightly a little, “and yes, what Danny said is true, they are for all accounts and purposes the god of sleep”, sighing, “nearly every god worshiped through out history is real and, yes, a ghost”.

He swallows, pulling the blanket around himself more, “that’s… kind of insane and a lot”.

Jazz nods more so to herself, she had a hard time swallowing that herself as a teen, “I know. I still find it a bit baffling myself and it is extremely strange actually meeting any of them”.

“At… at least you actually seem weirded out. Everything… else doesn’t seem to be, uh, strange, to you”.

“I’m used to it, more than I’d really like to be. I definitely wi- would prefer if my family was more normal, even marginally. And I’d rather my brother not be wrapped up in all this the way he is. Even Dan and Elle often feel that way, even if they wouldn’t exist if he wasn’t involved so heavily in everything”.

“That’s, concerning, actually”.

Jazz pats his arm some, “they haven’t had the best existences”.

Dan then startles her, voice coming through the door, “and there’s the simple fact that everyone would be better off if I never existed”.

Jazz sighing to herself and looking to the door, “Dan that’s not true”.

“And that’s crap and you know it, don’t bullshit me Jazz”; it sounds like he’s stomped off. She’s… going to have to talk to him later.

Bassel shivers, “he’s got a lot of… issues, huh”.

Jazz sighing and nodding, closing her eyes, “if people tell you you’re a monster enough that becomes all that you are and healing becomes nearly impossible”, shaking her head and looking at him, he’s watching her intently, “Elle and Danny are good for him but his emotions don’t work like they’re supposed to because of what happened to him. He’s also partly being pissy because Danny genuinely scolded him. Anyone exerting their power over him tends to rile him up, whether he wants it to or not”.

“Part of him being a, uh, ghost?”.

She nods, “yup. Though I doubt talking about Dan is great for you right now”.

Bassel looks away and stares forwards, “no, probably not”, shaking his head and readjusting into the blanket, “… that, ghost, called your brother a king, didn’t they”.

Jazz shrugs, “he tires not to let it get to his head”.

He shakes himself a little, shaking his head slowly side to side, “yeah no, I’m not pushing. Though is that why he feels like death, the pressure of death at least, when he looks all black and white”.

“I… if he feels like that I’ve never noticed, sorry. But I was living with him when that change happened so it very well might have happened slowly, over time”.

“I guess that makes sense, it almost felt hard to breathe when his voice got… thick? at Dan”.

Jazz blinks, nodding immediately, “ah that’s actually a specific power he has. He mostly just uses it to get across that he’s not playing around, that he’s being serious”.

“Effective”.

Jazz nods slowly, letting him just breathe for a bit. She guesses she can understand how her brother can be a bit much, and it was definitely for the best that Bassel found out before a ghost crashed the party that her brother was a ghost himself. Then he speaks up again, “you’re entirely alive, right? I know you have a lot of spooky rumours that follow you and, like I said, you do look off. So, you’re not a ghost, right?”.

Jazz is tempted to laugh, instead she just shakes her head, “no, not even a little bit”.

“Good. That’s good”.

She just hums, nodding to herself. Waiting for him to work through his own head. Hearing about ghosts and seeing one were very different things, and an Ancient was hard to run into no matter what Danny said. She swears it’s like he forgets that he is in the same sort of classification as them. But at least it seems like Bassel’s handling it better than many do, better than most non-Amity Parkers at least. And then her dad goes and bangs the door open, nearly making Bassel fling himself off of the bed, “I made hot chocolate!”.

“Dad! He’s trying to wind down! Not get the zone scared out of him!”.

Her dad wincing, “ah sorry, Jazzy”, holding up the two cups, “hot chocolate?”, and tilts his head to the side.

Jazz sighs, side eyeing Bassel to make sure he isn’t going to freak out further before getting up and grabbing the cups, “I know you mean well, dad, but you’re still a very loud, very large, presence”.

He rubs his neck and laughs awkwardly, tilting sideways enough to look at Bassel. Giving her boyfriend a thumbs up, “you kids get settled, no funny business”.

“Oh my zone!”, she shoves him out with a foot, barely managing not to spill, and kicks her door shut. At least she manages to give Bassel the hot chocolate gently, “that man, I swear”.

Bassel genuinely laughs though, staring at the hot chocolate in his hands, “that was so utterly normal dad behaviour though, it’s grounding actually”.

Huh. Guess he actually did a good job. “Then I owe him an apology”. She makes her sip on the hot chocolate -that’s already been adequately cooled, thanks dad genuinely- loud, purely to encourage Bassel to drink his.

He notices the cooled temp too, “he waited till it was cool but not too cool, huh?”.

“Yeah. He’s a bit of a fool and reckless but he cares a lot and has a good heart that’s as big as he is”.

Bassel humming and they sit in silence for a bit until, “is your brother going to be okay? I know I called him a superhero and google seems to say he is but…”.

“Oh superhero is very accurate by human standards, but by ghosts he’s basically normal. Behaviour wise at least. Most of the time”, shaking her head, “he’ll be fine, even if it sounds like he might wind up with a case of Blood Blossom poisoning again”.

“Let me guess, ghost poison?”.

“Yup”.

“That’s absurd”, and he sips at his hot chocolate some, “he’s not going to vomit on the floor is he?”.

Okay she can’t help but laugh at that, shaking her head, “no, no, more coughing fits, aches and pains, and muscle spasms. That’s only because he’s alive enough to not be fully affected”.

“Hence why this powerful ghost came for his help?”.

Jazz nodding, “hence why a powerful ghost came for his help”, tilting her head, “though if I remember right pink dew is a psychedelic, so he also might be high when he gets back”.

“Oh god, I don’t think that kid should ever do drugs. Being near your entire family is like being on drugs”, sticking his arms out of the blanket and gesturing the mug around, “if I woke up in the morning and was told this was all one big fever dream, I’d believe it”.

“That’s understandable. Which is why the rest of the world considers this town a hoax”.

“Yeah I was wondering about that”, he downs a considerable amount of his drink, “you’d think the whole world would know about this. But I guess that would cause an uproar”.

Jazz sighing, almost annoyed, “yeah, the government does try to keep a lid on everything”.

“God damn it. Seriously? Ugh. I hate that I called ‘government cover up’ as the why”.

“There’s more to it but the rest is a lot weirder to the point where even I don’t want to think about it. It’s actually in the category of too weird”. Her little brother mind wiping an entire planet after fighting a reality controlling clown that turned roads into rollercoasters and made him fight a fire breathing clown and a lava pit full of rubber ducks, was so many steps past extremely strange.

Bassel full body cringing, “then I definitely don’t want to know. I do want to know if the stories about you communing with ghosts in your dorm are true though, and if your dorms is ‘contaminated’”, looking down at the cup, “and we should thank your dad for this. It was pretty good”.

Jazz blushes a little, “they’re true, even ghosts need therapy and I don’t need my license to give it to them. Sometimes it is just Danny though, and I’m good about keeping on top of decontamination, so don’t worry about that”, then eyeing him, he still seemed a little out of it and shocky but he was definitely better and really there was no normalising or rationalizing her family, “we’ll go down and thank him if you’re alright”.

He nods down at the cup and to himself, then looking at her with a nod and shaking smile, “I’m going to be digesting all of this for days at least, but I’m okay, babe. I absolutely hope today was the weirdest day of this week visit though”.

Jazz hums, standing up and offering him her mug-free hand, “well Dan will avoid Danny for at least a full day and Pandora will keep Elle busy for at least three; so there won’t be their chaos for a little while. As for literal gods showing up, that happens so seldom that I genuinely believe that Johnny’s Shadow might’ve snagged us some bad luck on the way into town”.

“Johnny’s Shadow?”.

Oh maybe she shouldn’t have brought that guy up. Wincing, “um, Shadow is basically Johnny’s pet or familiar? And Johnny is a ghost I may have dated? Once? He wasn’t genuine about it, and I was a dumb teenager who feel for his stupid motorbike and bad boy vibes”.

He actually snickers at her, before laughing fully and having to put the mug to the side to avoid spilling it, “I! Can not believe how stereotypical! That is!”, shaking his head and wheezing, eyeing her, “straight laced, honor role daughter falls for a motorcycle riding bad boy who’s all charm and bad intentions”.

She smacks his arm, “don’t be mean”, she doesn’t mean it at all though, “and Danny actually dated his girlfriend, she was trying to make Johnny jealous”.

“So what I’m getting here is ghosts are seriously just goddamn people, some are just very extra”.

“That’s one way to put it, yeah. Or they’re more like animals”.

Bassel blinks as they shuffle out of the room, “oh thats right, the green dog, where’d he? go?”.

Jazz snorts, “Danny sent him back to, well, the other side as it were; since mom was trying to taser him”. He was always so protective of that dog, even if said dog caused so many issues.

“That did seem a bit excessive”.

“Oh absolutely not, that dog is an actual menace”.

“I’m just going to take your word for it”.

They pop into the kitchen, she’s not surprised both Dan and Elle are gone. “Thanks for the hot chocolate, dad”. Bassel nodding, “yeah, it was really good, thank you”.

Her dad gives a goofy thumbs up, “glad you liked it!”. And she thinks everything might just be okay.

Bassel’s not really sure what to do about all of this. What he does know is that he’s better off not thinking about it and not trying to actually figure out what to do about all of this. He knows Jack Fenton cares a lot, makes good hot chocolate, he’s loud and big, and sure he’s a little off and too strong but he actually is like a puppy. Maddie Fenton was a lot softer, a lot more aware that her family was odd, more socially adept, but she was also more threatening and quick to fight; strange and off as well but she came off as more normal than her husband. Danny was… a nightmare, full stop, he’s a little worried what kind of friends the teen had that could put up with him. He was borderline actually insane, but from what Bassel saw on his google trip he also was a genuinely good kid. Bassel’s fairly certain that even if the world turned against him he’d still fight to save it; that took a level of sheer determination and heart that Bassel probably didn’t have himself. Elle was just a weird kid with too lax and strange of a parent, she might stand a chance at being almost normal someday. Maybe. Dan was an utter psycho though, he honestly can not think of a redeeming quality for that one. Doesn’t even want to try. Because excusing a murderer was not a line he feels like toeing. Jazz says Dan wouldn’t hurt any of them and does love them, but he’s not sold on that; it seemed more likely that she just didn't want to admit that the man was simply an awful unkind corrupt person.

And Jazz?

Well, his opinion honestly hasn’t changed. She’s still awesome, beautiful, caring, neurotic, a worrier, and slightly strange. He wants to think she’d be the same, though maybe less strange, even if she had a perfectly normal and average family. He wasn’t about to let odd family break them up, even if it was the kind of odd normally reserved for tv shows and the weird comics you find at truck stops that are filled with plot holes and questionable narrative direction. Either way he’s sticking around, so long as he can actually physically survive a week in this place.

Him watching as Danny, covered in some kind of clear goo or slime, kicks open the lab door with blown out pupils and a gnarly rash on half his face. “I! Never want to see! Another! Fucking! Person with me damn mushroom eyes again! I feel! Disgusting! Bleh!”, sticks out his tongue and then faceplants onto the floor groaning; the slime stuff splatters around a bit.

Bassel blinks, “um, should someone drag him up to the bathroom or something?”. Then the kid sprouts another set of goddamn arms and hands out of his back and proceeds to dragging himself across the floor and up the stairs with them. “Never mind, what the hell. I never want to see that again”.

Jazz sighs, rinsing out their cups, “he’s definitely high, don’t touch the goo trail”, moving to get the biohazards mop and bucket, “Danny can be a bit of a jerk with the body horror stuff but he usually reserves it for people he knows can handle it”.

“That’s… good. Dear god”.

And then… Danny??? runs up the lab stairs, “did anyone see a body of mine”.

Jazz throws the mop at him and yelps, “what the Zone! Danny?”, making faces at him and pointing at the stairs that still has a slime trial on it, “I have some serious questions”.

He blinks at her, “rogue duplicate”, and runs towards the stairs.

Jazz throws up her hands, “why would you use a power you suck at to deal with drug flowers!”.

“Because I didn’t want to personally deal with blood blossoms!”, the kid slips on the slime and smashes his face into the stairs, “fuck!”, then scramble crawls up the steps.

Bassel grabs the mop back up, ignores that it’s a weirdly hot pink colour, and hands it off to his girlfriend, “so that was a thing that happened”.

Jack starts wheeze laughing, sitting down at the kitchen table, “I hope his duplicate at least had fun!”.

Maddie grinning at the man, “I’m sure it did, Jack hon”.

Everyone, including Bassel, ignores the strange thumping going on upstairs as well as the… arm that comes hurling down the steps and dissolves into green goo against a wall. Staying here was going to give him some extremely unique and unfortunate nightmares, wasn’t it? At least now he gets why his girlfriend had such an easy time writing behavioural papers, she had multiple subject studies. He might even be able to bang out a paper or two on human adaptability after this. He absolutely was not doing any papers on people growing arms out of their backs though, that would get him sent on a grippy sock vacation.

Danny pops back in looking disgusted, “it’s dealt with”.

Maddie eyeing him cautiously, “is the hall way intact?”.

The boy sags and gives a truly crushed, “no”.

At this point, Bassel thinks that’s frankly expected. He also thinks that this household is cursed. At least Jack bounds up the stairs to start fixing the hallway and Bassel legitimately doesn’t care to check out the damage. Truly. Instead he’s just going to sit down with his girlfriend and, like her, mildly regret him coming and going into this ‘cold turkey’. Next time she warns him about something, he’s going to demand an explanation instead of brushing her worries off.

End.

Promtps: Jazz brings a date home for the first time. She didn’t exactly brief them on her family’s whole ghost thing. Antics ensue. All the Fentons are a bit more ghostly than they know The Phantom Clan (Dan, Dani, and Danny) is awake and about to make it everyone's problem Jazz has a reputation at college for being spooky, it doesn't help that she communes with ghosts. Uncanny valley is strong with Danny, most Amity Parkers don't realize it, but any time anyone from out of town sees him, they're in for a spook. Nocturne fucked up BIG TIME and now needs help from the ghost kid.

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Creepy Carl

Danny is not fond of his parents' old ghost hunting friend that's come to pay them a visit for the week.

For the prompts: Jack and Maddie invite an old ghost hunting buddy (not Vlad) to stay in their guest room for the week. Expecting to catch up with their good ole pal, they're a little confused when this ghost hunter just keeps asking questions about their son, Danny [from @ectoblastfromthepast], and After the accident, Danny no longer has a shadow, and he isn't the first person to notice its absence. [from TheSilentBard]

Fair warning, Danny calls the old ghost hunting buddy 'Creepy Carl' for a reason. It may not be sexual in any way, but he is still very much creeping on a child, and I think y'all should be aware of that going in.

Read also on AO3

[Warning for uncanny valley elements, and (non-sexual) inappropriate behavior by an adult toward a minor]

How many 'old ghost hunting buddies' did his parents have? Danny wondered as they introduced them to one Anderson Carl. First Vlad, and now this guy?

Apparently, after college and before Jazz was born, the two of them had gone on many a ghost hunt with Mr. Carl. Now, he had his own paranormal investigation blog with a pretty decent readership, and he had come to Amity Park to do a piece on the town, which of course meant he needed a place to stay in town while he was doing research.

Luckily, he had a couple of old buddies with a guest room who happened to live right where the action was, and when he told them he was coming to town, they eagerly invited him to stay in said guest room for the whole week he was planning to stay. They thought it would be a great chance to catch up with their good ole pal, but Danny was wary the second he laid eyes on the man.

Anderson Carl wasn't as tall as Jack, as hardly anyone was, but he still loomed over Danny at a solid six feet tall, probably a few inches taller than that. He had close-cropped, dirty blond hair, and dark gray eyes like angry storm clouds, they even seemed to light up with electric curiosity as Danny watched the man, and the man also watched him.

"Welcome to Fenton Works," Maddie greeted him cheerfully. "That's our son, Danny. Our daughter Jazz is out tutoring right now, but she'll be back in a few hours."

"Nice to meet you, Danny," Mr. Carl said, and smiled.

The smile was perfectly ordinary, but Danny couldn't help feeling a sinister chill when it was directed at him. Maybe it was to too-white teeth, or the way it stretched his chapped lips so tightly they looked like they might crack, but Danny didn't like it.

"Uh... sure," Danny said cautiously. "Sorry, but I've got homework to do, so I'm gonna go."

He could feel those dark eyes following him all the way up the stairs, and when he closed his bedroom door behind him, he felt like Mr. Carl couldn't be leaving town soon enough. A whole week of this already sounded unbearable.

The next morning, when Danny got dressed and left for school, Mr. Carl was already awake, and sitting at the kitchen table, typing on his laptop. The laptop, too, was a dark grey, but it had a sticker on it that said UncannyCarl.com in bright red letters designed to look like they were partially obscured by smoke.

"Good Morning, Danny," the man greeted, with that same unsettling smile from the day before. "Off to school?"

"Yeah, it's Monday, so..." Danny trailed off. He took an orange out of the bowl on the counter for breakfast, not taking his eyes of the man before him. "Is that your blog, Mr. Carl?" he asked. "Uncanny Carl dot com?"

"That's right," the man confirmed. "Uncanny is something of a synonym for paranormal, but really the name is based on... are you familiar with the uncanny valley effect?"

"Never heard of it," Danny said.

"The uncanny valley effect is when you see something that looks human in most respects, but it's just slightly off enough to make your brain send out warning signals that it's not human, and you shouldn't be fooled by it," Mr. Carl explained. "Often times, you aren't consciously aware of what detail your brain registers as wrong that's causing the uncanny valley effect, whether it's that their arms are just slightly too long, the shape of their face is abnormal, or they don't have a shadow. Your brain notices it, even if you don't."

Danny couldn't help thinking that this guy was a little uncanny valley himself, but he thought it would be rude to say out loud, and he didn't want to piss off his parents' creepy guest.

"That's fascinating Mr. Carl, but I gotta get to school."

"Oh, and you can drop the 'Mr', by the way," he said. "Everyone just calls me Carl, even though it's my last name. In school, people used to joke that my parents must've but my name backwards on my birth certificate."

Danny just furrowed his eyebrows, shook his head, and left the kitchen, along with Creepy Carl, behind him as he headed out the front door to school.

Between classes, he caught Sam and Tucker up on his new house guest.

"Great, because all you need is another ghost hunter living under your roof," Sam said sardonically.

"I know, right?" Danny agreed. "At least this one's only staying until Saturday, but he's already creeping me out. I feel like he's constantly watching me whenever we're both in a room together. It's weird."

"Do you think he noticed something about you?" Tucker asked. "I mean, you don't know anything about this guy. What if he's actually a better ghost hunter than your parents?"

"It's not hard to be," Sam scoffed.

Danny ignored her, choosing instead to answer Tucker's question. "I'm not sure, but... maybe? He was talking about something called the uncanny valley effect, which he explained as being able to recognize when something that looked human wasn't, I guess. Something like that, anyway. He was just explaining the name of his blog, but he might've meant it as a warning that he was onto me.

"If you ask me, he's the uncanny valley one, though."

—

Jack and Maddie had been excited to show their old friend around their (relatively) new lab, especially the Fenton Ghost Portal. Carl seemed suitably interested in all of it, and he listened as they caught him up on their lives since he'd parted ways with the couple, but the whole time he seemed a bit... distracted.

Back when they were fresh college graduates, Carl had been an eager note-taker, his pencil hardly stilling on the pad of yellow lined paper he always carried with him. But now, he was hardly taking any notes at all. Even when he was staring at the portal between this world and the next, he only scribbled down a few sentences before twirling his pencil idly between his fingers.

They asked him about what he'd been up to since they last saw him, and he told them, but he was remarkably brief. He mentioned that he'd gone solo for a bit before deciding to start a blog, and he'd been running that ever since, writing the occasional opinion piece for local newspaper to get some supplemental income.

He'd finished talking about himself in under a minute, and even when asked, he didn't seem keen to elaborate on any particular investigation of his over the last sixteen years. All he said was that they could read about it all on his blog.

That wasn't the end of his strange behavior, because the next thing he asked about was Danny.

Jack and Maddie were of course very eager to brag about their kids, especially Jazz, but when they started to do so, Carl said they were getting off track, and he was really curious about Danny.

He asked them how old Danny was, if he was at all reclusive, or short-tempered, if they'd ever noticed him acting particularly odd or cagey.

They answered of course, seeing no reason not to. Carl was their friend after all, and they trusted that he didn't have any bad intentions when it came to their son—and if he did, they wouldn't hesitate to beat his ass and hand him over to the police—but surely he didn't. They were still confused though. Especially because, since the conversation turned to Danny, Carl's pencil hadn't stopped moving even once.

"What's with all the questions about Danny?" Jack asked. "I thought you came here to investigate ghosts."

"Oh, no real reason," Carl replied with a casual shrug. "Just... a bit of a hunch. I won't bother you with it unless I happen to find proof." Then he asked, "Have you even noticed that the air feels colder around Danny, or that standing next to him gives you an uncomfortable buzzing sensation under your skin?"

It was a odd question... but even odder was that neither Jack nor Maddie were actually sure of the answer. They worked with ghosts all the time so of course they felt sensations like that, but... neither could remember if they'd felt them around Danny... nor could they say for sure that they hadn't.

As Carl continued his line of questioning, a feeling of disquiet settled in on top of their confusion. After a point, they asked if he might want to hear about some of the recent ghost incidents around town, rather than just spending all day talking about their fourteen-year-old son.

Carl looked at them in silence for a moment, his eyes narrowed as if he might challenge them and insist. But then his lips quirked up in a smile, and he agreed to the subject change without resistance.

It wouldn't be the last time he asked about Danny that week though. He would stop, when asked, but by and by, the topic of Danny would always come up again, and when they told him about Danny's accident with the Fenton Portal a few months before, he seemed particularly intrigued.

—

It had been three days since Creepy Carl took up residence in the Fenton guest room, and Danny could confidently say that he hated the guy. He'd suspected as much from day one, but now that it was Wednesday, Danny had confidently confirmed that Creepy Carl almost never looked away from Danny when the two of them were in the same room, and it was seriously freaking Danny out.

At home, Danny was spending almost all his time in his bedroom to avoid running into the guy. Unfortunately, his bedroom shared a wall with the guest room, and just knowing the guy was right on the other side of the wall was causing Danny to lose sleep.

Still, Creepy Carl never did anything more than just watch him. At least, not until very late Friday night, or very early Saturday morning. Danny never did know which was more correct. His discomfort proved to be well founded when, around one in the morning that night, he awoke to a bright light being shined on his face.

Danny put a hand up to block the light and sat up to see what was causing it.

He wasn't sure if she should be surprised or not when he made out the silhouette of Anderson Carl shining a flashlight directly at his face. Danny was pretty sure his bedroom door had been locked. Ever since Carl started staying the room next door, Danny had been making sure to lock it. Obviously that had been a futile endeavor.

"What the hell, Carl?" Danny groaned. "Just... just what the hell?"

"What are you?" Creepy Carl asked creepily.

"What do you mean what am I? I'm a freshman."

"A freshman without a shadow?"

"What?"

"Look behind you?"

Danny was hesitant to take his eyes off the creep in front of him, but curiosity got the better of him and he turned.

On the wall behind him was a circle of light from Carl's flashlight. For a moment, Danny didn't register what he was supposed to be seeing, then as the tiredness in his brain started to lift slightly, he realized. He was supposed to be seeing his shadow behind him.

It wasn't there.

He snapped his head back around to look at Carl, and jumped with a start when he realized that the man had taken several steps closer to Danny's bed when he wasn't looking, in absolute silence, and without any movement of the flashlight in his hand. He was now knelt next to the bed, scrutinizing Danny with wide eyes.

"What are you?" Carl repeated.

He was close enough now that Danny could feel the warmth of his breath and lurched backwards in vague disgust and alarm.

"Uncanny Valley, right?" Danny said. "You would know better than I would. What are you?"

Danny had thought that Carl wasn't moving, but then he suddenly froze, and Danny realized the still he'd been a moment ago had been jittery and trembling, but the still he was no was statuesque and cold. He said nothing, and narrowed his eyes like he wasn't sure if he should, or if he should keep holding his cards close to his chest.

"I'll be honest, I never actually noticed I didn't cast a shadow until you pointed it out," Danny admitted. "But I've noticed plenty of uncanny valley around you."

"Like what?" Carl asked, though his tone didn't carry any doubt, just curiosity.

"Like... your smile is wrong. You teeth are too straight, and too white. Kinda like a TV news anchor, except I'm pretty sure there are too many of them." Danny saw Carl run his tongue over his teeth like he was counting them. Then he added, "And also, your lips are all cracked and gross, which isn't uncanny valley, but it is weird that you'd take such good care of your teeth and not even bother with some lip balm."

"Is that all?"

"Your eyes are weird, too," Danny continued. "Nobody's eyes are that color, and even if they were, they wouldn't spark like yours do, just tiny flashes of light. Human eyes don't do that. And your skin is too thin, I think, because your veins and stuff are all weirdly visible, even though you're not that pale."

Carl nodded slowly.

"And... how many teeth are people supposed to have?" he asked.

"I dunno," Danny said with a shrug. "I think, like, thirty, thirty-two, somewhere around there."

"Thanks for the tip," Carl said. "Your eyes flash, too, you know. Bright green. When your emotions are running high."

"Yeah, I know. I've been working on that."

"You're really not going to tell me, are you?" Carl stood, evidently resigned to not getting an answer. "I know you're not a human, and I know you're no ordinary ghost. You sure you won't even give me a hint?"

Danny gave him a derisive snort. "Will you?"

"No, I suppose not." Carl smiled then, and though it was dark, Danny could almost swear the number of teeth in his mouth had changed. "I guess we'll both just have to suffer in disappointment. Goodnight, Danny."

With that, he turned around and walked out of the room, not waiting for an answer.

Danny got up and went to check his door, to see if Carl had broken the lock to get in or something.

Not only was it not broken, it was still locked. Danny had seen the door open and close. He'd heard the doorknob twist. But it had somehow remained locked the whole time.

"Goodnight, Creepy Carl," Danny whispered.

He went back to bed, but didn't get a wink of sleep.

Creepy Carl left the following afternoon, much to Danny's relief.

He hoped that he would never have to see the man again, but somehow, he had a feeling he would. Someday, somewhere... when he least expected it.

[phicphight]

Sorry for the wait but the sign-up form for 2024 Phic Phight is now open! You have until March 27th to sign up!

What is Phic Phight?

Phic Phight is a Danny Phantom fan-fiction writing competition, were writers are asked to provide prompts. Then they are split into two teams; team ghost and team human. The teams are given prompts from the opposite team and gain points for creating fics based on the prompts. The winner gains bragging rights for the year. This was created as a friendly competition to inspire new ideas and stories for the phandom.

Phic Phight begins April 1st and ends April 30th.

You will be required to join the new Phic Phight discord server to participate.

A full list of rules can be found HERE

No OC prompts are allowed. And no crossover prompts are allowed.

Please tag works as #phicphight24

[tourettesdog]

Okay

Based on the prompts "Lancer is a good teacher and cares" and "Well, shit. He can't change back!"

For @majorastudios and @lexosaurus Word count: 9,563 Warnings: panic attacks, child neglect (more implied) AO3 Link ~

Danny would be the first to admit that he had a knack for finding himself in stupid situations. 

Or, at least, they had a knack for finding him.

This was all to say that the last place Danny expected to find himself on a bright and sunny July afternoon was trapped in an elevator with Mr. Lancer, of all people.

Now, the situation could have been worse— and it was. For all the shitty luck that Danny possessed in the universe, it seemed that there was always another giant middle finger waiting around the next corner. 

Danny hadn���t thought much when he heard the grinding sound of the parking deck’s elevator as one of the mechanisms securing the cable snapped. He’d been out flying when it happened and simply bolted towards the sound, determined to phase whoever was inside to safety. It had come as a shock, finding the elevator occupied by someone he knew. What came as more of a surprise, however, was the sickly glow of a ghost shield snapping into place before Danny could follow through with that plan.

It had been a close thing, putting on the brakes before he collided, Lancer in tow, with the glowing wall of the elevator.

Unfortunately, the doors had long-since shut and he couldn’t touch the crooked metal without meeting the painful shock of the shield.

Just being inside of it had Danny feeling woozy.

All he could do was stand awkwardly on the elevator floor, his stance a bit crooked as the elevator had sagged into a tilt, off-balance as it was in the shaft.

It was at least preferable to the thing crashing down to the ground floor.

Lancer, for what it was worth, was managing better than most would given the circumstances. At least, he had stopped screaming about a minute ago. 

If there was one positive thing Danny could gleen from the experience, it would have to be hearing his teacher utter a hearty  ‘fuck’  rather than the usual literary substitute. 

Not that he had much time to enjoy it at present.

Lancer’s chest heaved and his knees shook. He leaned against the side of the elevator with his arms splayed out across the metal hand railing on that side, his eyes flickering all around the small cabin. Danny knew that ghost shields never felt pleasant even to humans, but in his distress Mr. Lancer seemed to favor leaning into the buzz of the ectoplasmic energy over standing. Granted, given the shakiness of his legs, they might not hold him much anyway.

The metal of the elevator groaned, dust cascading from the paneled roof as it slid a couple inches down the shaft, eliciting a startled yelp from Lancer as he grabbed the railing with white knuckles.

Danny supposed there was more than one reason he should stay anchored to that railing.

“H–hey,” Danny said, trying to get his teacher’s attention. He wasn’t exactly sure what to say, but he didn’t think that awkwardly standing there, staring the man down, was conducive to settling his nerves.

Mr. Lancer’s gaze snapped up to meet his own. His eyes stretched wide, as if he hadn’t noticed Phantom’s presence until that moment, even though the ghost boy had just scooped him up before unceremoniously dropping him back down when the shield burst to life.

“Ph-Phantom?” he quavered.

“Yeah, um, who else?” Danny said, the words leaving his lips before he could think better of it. He cringed as soon as they did, chastising himself. It probably wasn’t a good time to make sarcastic jibes.

If Mr. Lancer noticed the snark, however, he didn’t comment on it. The toes of his shoes dug into the dirty linoleum on the elevator floor and he licked his lips nervously, eyes still darting around the cabin as though an exit might materialize from the ectoshield.

When he didn’t say anything, Danny felt like he needed to fill the silence. Anything to drown out the low hum of the ectoshield and the rapid hammer of Mr. Lancer’s frightened heartbeat.

“So, I know this looks bad but everything is going to be okay,” Danny said. His voice echoed in the small space, the tinny sound amplified by the metal around him.

Lancer just blinked, his pale green eyes, so much duller than Phantom’s own, stretched as wide as saucers.

“H–how can you be sure?” he said.

Danny’s eyes trailed around the elevator, ghosting over the green glare of the ectoshield. It completely covered the elevator box, though the floor of the shield had been thankfully recessed beneath the linoleum. 

Danny could still feel the hum it gave off through his boots.

“I’ll think of something,” he said, more to himself.

Mr. Lancer blanched, his face practically as pale as Danny’s hair. “Can’t you just—” the words died on his tongue as he glanced at the green shield once more, shivering slightly. 

“Yeah, the shield kind of complicates things,” Danny said with a sigh. “Not their best design choice.”

He didn’t have to elaborate on  whose design choice had crafted this coffin disguised as a convenient mode of transportation. 

Lancer let out a shaky breath. “It probably seemed more practical in theory,” he said, each word as shaky as his legs.

Danny nodded, crossing his arms. “Like, I can see what they were going for, but you’d think after over a year of help from a ghost they’d consider maybe— just  maybe  — that trapping people in a small ghost shield suspended three stories up  might not be a great idea.”

“Oh,  Watership Down,” Lancer said faintly, sliding slightly down the wall, leaning more heavily against the railing. Danny hadn’t realized just how much he was rambling, or how faint Lancer was looking in the wake of his ill-timed tirade.

“Sorry,” Danny said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Probably not the best time for that.”  

Lancer nodded, his eyes wide and staring at the floor. “Yes, I don’t think it is,” he said.

Danny let out a long, drawn out sigh. He ran a hand through his mop of white hair, trying and failing to focus his thoughts on anything constructive. He was uncomfortably aware of the small, tight space. Nothing quite as claustrophobic as the thermos, but without any sure way to escape it had Danny’s core thrumming uncomfortably. 

Lancer just stared at him. Danny couldn’t fault the man. For all that Mr. Lancer had seen of Phantom— considering the many times he had rocketed through his classroom wall— Danny supposed that this was probably his first time seeing Phantom up close. Danny could see his own glow reflected in his teacher’s eyes— or perhaps it was mostly the light that the ghost shield emitted.

“I don’t suppose you have a phone on you?” Danny asked him.

Considering Mr. Lancer hadn’t reached to grab one, he thought he already knew the answer…

Sure enough, Lancer replied with a hollow, “Left it in the car.”

Danny tried to strain his ears for any outside sounds, desperate to drag his focus off of the small confines of the elevator. He could hear the rumble of traffic, but not much else besides that. The concrete walls of the parking garage were too dense, and the buzz of the ghost shield too distracting.

“Looks like we might have to wait for someone then,”Danny said nervously, his eyes trailing to the buttons on the elevator. 

Moving slowly, careful not to startle Mr. Lancer, Danny crossed the short distance to those buttons. He was closer than Lancer was and his footsteps much lighter. The man tensed slightly as Danny moved, but didn’t say anything. 

A layer of the ghost shield danced over the buttons, a rippling wall of green that sparked with electricity. It had to be one of his parents’ newer shields, judging by the bright color and the intensity of the static it gave off. Just being near the thing had his own ectoplasm buzzing uncomfortably.

Danny glanced back at Lancer, finding his teacher’s eyes trained on him. There was fear there, though also a quiet curiosity. It reminded Danny that he hadn’t seen Mr. Lancer at his parents' last few ghost seminars. That, for all the nervous fear mongering his teacher had given into in those first few months after the portal sparked to life, he seemed… much more reserved now. He didn’t show the same open support for Phantom that his students did, but Danny would take reserved caution over open hostility any day.

Glancing back at the elevator buttons, Danny bit his lip. He couldn’t exactly ask Lancer to press the buttons himself. Even if he carried him, there was no saying if the elevator would shift again once he placed him back down. 

Steeling his nerves, Danny held out his finger for the emergency button on the control panel.

The ghost shield rejected his ectoplasm immediately, sending a current of electricity through his body in a painful jolt. Sparks shot out where his finger met the shield, and Danny could only watch in horror as those sparks tangled with the control panel itself. He could see the current race through the metal, rippling beneath the buttons in bright cracks and pops. 

One last spark ignited at the top and, with a loud crack, the lights of the elevator shut off.

Danny stumbled backwards as it happened, hardly stopping himself from careening into the opposite wall of the shield. In the absence of the elevator’s lights, the space was bathed in a sickly wash of green. 

Lancer swore again, the sound enough to have Danny spinning around to make sure he was okay. Lancer had crouched, both hands still held firmly onto the railing as he lowered himself to the elevator floor with shaking knees. At a glance, Danny could have mistaken him for a ghost with how the light of the ectoshield painted his skin.

“Are you okay?” Danny asked, his voice sounding rather small, shaky with his building unease. 

He doubted that the elevator had put off much of a distress signal before it lit up like a Christmas tree.

Lancer just slowly shook his head, staring at something only he could see. He was practically sitting now, his hands shaking on the railing, barely able to hold on any longer. Thankfully, the elevator didn’t shift as he sank to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said, glancing back at the elevator buttons. A thin line of smoke trailed from the emergency button, giving off an acrid scent that mixed with the ozone of the shield.

Lancer looked up at that, the sudden movement in his periphery causing Danny to snap his attention back to him. Danny was surprised to find his brows furrowed.

“What are you sorry for?” Lancer croaked out.

Danny blinked. He stared. He looked between the buttons and Lancer, now shaking his own head. “I… broke the buttons?” he said, confused.

Surely Lancer hadn’t missed that lightshow.

Lancer’s brows drew so close together they nearly formed one line. His frown stretched almost as far, pulling at his black facial hair.

“You just hurt yourself trying to press it,” he said slowly.

Danny nodded his head, still unsure. “Yeah… and I broke it?”

If Lancer’s hands weren’t currently clutching onto the railing for dear life, Danny had a feeling they would find their way to pinch at his tear ducts— a gesture he often adopted when faced with a frustrating situation or student. 

“You… you knew the shield would hurt you and still tried to press that button,” Lancer said, his voice now tinged with exasperation. 

Danny’s own brows drew together, frustration drawing his teeth to clench. “ And  I said I was sorry,” he challenged.

It wasn’t his fault there was a ghost shield. It wasn’t his fault it tampered with the buttons. He’d  tried , and if Lancer couldn’t accept his apology, Danny wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

It’s not like he could storm off right now. Even if he could transform back, he had no way of knowing where the elevator was within the shaft, or how easily he could escape it without unsettling the delicate balance. 

Not that he could transform. Not here, not now.

Something strange ghosted across Lancer’s face, the expression hollow and haunted, shadowed oddly by the light from the shield; it glowed so brightly off of his bald head.

“I know you didn’t mean to,” he said, his words hushed, echoing slightly in the enclosed space. “I’m not arguing with you, Phantom, I… Are you all right?”

The question came so out of left field it struck Danny dumb. He fidgeted uncomfortably, noticing for the first time that he was cradling his left hand in his right.

Glancing down, Danny saw that his glove had been singed by the contact with the ghost shield. Just like the buttons, it smoked faintly, revealing angry green flesh beneath.

He was shaking. When did he start shaking?

Clenching his hand into a fist, Danny thrust it behind his back and out of sight. “I’m fine,” he said, locking his eyes onto Lancer, as if challenging him to say otherwise.

That strange expression persisted on his teacher’s face. If Danny had to give it a name, he supposed the closest thing he could compare it to was pity. Something about that squeezed uncomfortably at his core.

Danny was used to breaking things, and he was even more used to being blamed for breaking things— whether he had a part in it or not. That button had been a lifeline, possibly the only real thing that could ensure Lancer a safe reunion with the ground…

Why wasn’t he angry?

An uncomfortable silence filled the elevator. Danny could hear a siren somewhere outside, though it sounded far too distant to be something headed their way. Danny had no way of knowing how long it would take for help to arrive, or if it even would in time.

Danny was still shaking. It had gotten worse, if anything. The glow of the ghost shield was too bright and the walls of the elevator too narrow. The tilt in the floor too drastic, the hum of the shield resonating too discordantly with his core.

Danny had crouched down too, though he couldn’t say when he sank to the floor. He hugged at his knees, suddenly very aware of the summer heat. The elevator had been stifling to begin with, devoid of fresh air and baked by the sun. The ghost shield didn’t help, putting off a crackling heat that seemed to sap the breath from his lungs. Breath he didn’t need but wanted.

When did his breathing get so heavy, anyway? “Phantom?” The voice was quiet, unsure. It sounded both miles away and entirely too close, whispering in his ear. 

Danny stared at his gloves. The shield painted them green, like fresh ectoplasm over his hands. His arm still stung from the shock— still buzzed with the latent energy it gave off.

A distant echo of something far worse that still clung to him, leaving fern-like marks that rippled up that same arm.

“Phantom?”

He was Phantom, wasn’t he? That was his name, but he didn’t feel much like anything right now. More smoke and mirror than boy or even ghost. Phantom was supposed to be a hero, not some child who sank to his knees with fear squeezing tight enough at his chest to burst.

“Phantom, are you okay?” Was he okay? What did it mean to be okay? When was the last time he really was okay?

Somewhere distant Danny knew he was spiraling. He could practically feel his own awareness slipping through his fingers, lost to that tidal wave of fear. 

“Breathe with me, okay?”

He didn’t need to breathe, but he still did— sucking down deep gulps of air, like some awful mockery of a fish gasping on the bank of a sun-baked river.

“In and out. Breathe with me, it’s okay.”

How many times had Jazz said those exact same words? They were practically ingrained in Danny’s psyche, as much a part of him as the hazmat suit had made itself, fused as it was to his ectoplasm.

“That’s it. In and out.”

When had he shut his eyes? For all the green staining his eyelids, they might as well still be open.

“You’re doing great. Just keep breathing.”

An odd thing to say to a ghost (not that Lancer knew the half of that), but not unappreciated. Air felt good, as humid and musty as it was. His core followed the pattern, practically imitating the humble tattoo of a heart.

He could hear a heartbeat too. Faster than his own, though slower and more timely than the pulse of a core. Human. Safe. 

Danny focused on the sound. It almost drowned out the hum around him. It almost was enough to lull him into a safe, comfortable rest.

Almost, but not quite. Not enough to completely dash the ever-present buzz of the shield beneath him, dragging Danny back to the coffin of an elevator and its lurid green light.

Slowly, Danny opened his eyes. The light of the shield was not particularly bright, but it still burned his retinas. The hum seemed louder now, the static of it buzzing against his skin and frayed nerves. He blinked owlishly, his eyes roving over the rippling walls of green—

They landed on the person sitting nearby.

Danny couldn’t help but flinch back, surprised by the close proximity. With how glued Lancer had been to the railing, he would not have expected the man to move, and yet…

Here he sat in the middle of the elevator in front of him. 

"Feeling better?" Lancer asked. He leaned away slightly from Danny, but did not make any retreat.

For a moment Danny wondered if he'd transformed. Why else would Lancer have risked shifting the elevator just to, what, comfort him?

Danny held up his hands, half-expecting to find human skin.

His eyes met the same pair of green-stained white gloves.

"That was quite the panic attack," Lancer said when Danny didn't answer. 

Panic attack… that was definitely the phrase for it. Danny could recognize the lingering fatigue and oversensitive nerves that followed one.

That spiraling sense of losing himself still lingered too, along with tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Sorry," was all Danny could think to say, wiping at his face.

"Why are you apologizing?"

It seemed like a genuine enough question, not that Danny felt he could give a genuine enough answer.

"Dunno," he said, hugging his knees more tightly, rubbing his good hand over the other. "Just seems like a pretty inconvenient time and place for a panic attack."

Of all the places he’d had a panic attack, this one maybe ranked a four out of ten. If he was being generous.

Lancer sighed. He settled down a bit beside him, though did not at all relax. Danny could see how his fingertips dug into the linoleum like cat claws desperately trying to find purchase on a branch.

“I don’t know that there’s ever a convenient time or place for them,” he mused.

Danny rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t be having one in the first place,” he muttered darkly.

Lancer’s brow quirked at that. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

Danny picked his head up off of his arms, glaring at the man. “I came here to save you, not to, what— have an impromptu therapy session? Whatever this is.” He gestured around the cabin of the elevator, as if this  whatever was some physical concept he could point to.

“Well, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon, I think,” the teacher said. He didn’t look at Danny directly, his eyes trailing over the shut doors of the elevator. “Why not humor me?”

“I don’t feel like any jokes right now,” Danny quipped, pillowing his chin back on his arms.

Lancer chuckled, the sound odd and out of place in Danny’s ears. “No, I don’t suppose you would— frankly, I don’t either, but… humor me. Why don’t you feel like you can have a panic attack?”

Danny wasn’t sure when the script had flipped on him. It hadn’t been that long ago when Lancer was clinging to the railing, shouting in fear while Danny tried to weigh his options.

Now, sat on the grimy linoleum floor of the elevator, Lancer seemed remarkably calm and Danny… he felt remarkably small.

Smaller than usual.

He stubbornly wiped at his face again, hoping that no evidence of tears remained. Lancer might not know it was him, but he still didn’t want to be seen crying in front of his teacher. 

“I’m supposed to be a hero— and a ghost. Why should I have a panic attack over something like this?” he asked petulantly, digging his nails into his knees.

Lancer did not reply right away. He was quiet, seeming to pick his words very carefully before opening his mouth once more.

“Well, what is bothering you? Was it the shock from the shield?”

Danny’s eyes roved from Lancer to the buttons almost absently. He couldn’t tell if the shock was still reverberating through his ectoplasm, or if it was the mere memory now. The phantom feeling of the tide tugging at your waist while falling asleep after a day spent in the waves.

“I don’t… I don’t think so— I don’t know,” Danny stammered, his brows bunching together with frustration as he considered it. 

The glare of the ectoshield taunted him, rippling around him like light refracting through the water of a large aquarium.

“Is it something else?” Lancer asked gently.

Danny didn’t look at him. He stared at the buttons, transfixed. If he looked at them just the right way, they sort of formed an odd face with too many eyes. It reminded Danny of a ghost he saw once while lost in the zone, drifting a little too far past the Far Frozen’s snowy mountains.

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “It’s part of it, I guess, but… I mean the shield sucks, and it’s small in here and reminds me of the thermos, and it’s too hot for my core and—”

Danny stopped abruptly, his eyes locking onto Lancer’s, finding the man watching him with wide, fascinated eyes. It had his core stuttering uncomfortably and a blush rising to his cheeks, no doubt as green as the hazy light from the shield.

Ducking his head down into his knees, Danny muttered, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

Another sigh from Lancer. He was doing that a lot today— he always did, really. “It sounds like you needed someone to talk to,” he mused.

Danny just shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. His face positively burned. “I have friends,” he mumbled.

“Are they who you usually talk to about these sort of things?”

Danny clamped his eyes shut tight, trying to calm the unsteady thrum of his core. “I guess,” he said dismissively.

A pause stretched between them and Lancer shuffled uncomfortably in it. Danny tensed as he did, worried the elevator might shift again, but it seemed as though it had found a solid place to rest in the shaft.

“Do you…” Lancer trailed off, sounding very unsure of the question lying on his tongue. 

When he didn’t continue, Danny cracked open one bright green eye. “Do I what?” he challenged, tensing himself for whatever question might follow.

The look Lancer gave him would not be out of place on someone who had just watched a sad commercial with sat wet dogs. “Do you… have any adults to talk to? Any ghosts that look after you?”

Whatever question Danny had been expecting, he hadn’t expected one to strike so surely at his core. It thrummed like the strings of a violin, magnified until it reverberated through his entire being. Danny wondered if Lancer might feel it through the floor, over the hum of the shield.

“What?” was all he could say. No other words would find their way to his lips. His mind had shut down, lingering on the question with an uneasy, empty feeling that resonated from his core and hollowed out his belly.

“Is there anyone that looks after you?” Lancer asked again, his tone firm but no less gentle for it.

Danny stared straight ahead, seeing nothing as he let the question turn in his mind. His first thought was of Jazz. Ever since she found out about him, she’d stepped up in ways he could not have hoped for or imagined. She kept the first aid kit stocked. She checked him over for injuries. Jazz asked Danny how he was feeling, and wouldn’t always let him get away with a dismissive answer. 

She’d even started to cook them breakfast these last few weeks. Her first few attempts were about as disastrous as their mother’s own cooking— no doubt unaided by the tainted ingredients— but she was getting better. She had a little fridge in her room now with ingredients kept far away from the lab samples, and for the first time in a long while Danny was remembering what eggs tasted like without the acidic bite of ectoplasm.

Danny opened his mouth to give Lancer an affirmative answer, but froze when the man’s first question rang in his ears.

“Do you… have any adults to talk to?”

A stone dropped into Danny’s belly as he realized with a sick sense of dread just how much Jazz had risen to the forefront of his mind as a caretaker, completely eclipsing their parents.

Danny’s mouth was dry as he swallowed a lump in his throat. He could feel Lancer’s eyes burning into him as he took far too long to answer— his silence about as much of an answer as anything else, really.

“Y–yes,” Danny said, though his shaky words hardly convinced himself.

They certainly didn’t seem to convince Lancer, either. His brow quirked slightly before he schooled his features into a softer expression. “Do you?” he pressed.

Danny nodded, even as his mind spiraled once more, wallowing through a current of memories. He tried to think of the last time he felt comfortable talking to his parents, but only flashes of uncomfortable silences and nervous lies came to mind. He tried to think of the last time he felt safe in their care, but only the memory of dodging weapons and hiding injuries swam to the forefront of that current.

At some point Danny’s nod turned into a tilt— a shake. He was shaking his head, ever so slightly. His core squeezed and fresh tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

Lancer sighed yet again, the sound bone-weary and deep with exhaustion. “Where do you go when you’re not in Amity?” he asked. “Where do you stay?”

It was too personal of a question, one that Danny never would have thought to answer from a civilian. He’d been asked so many things by the people of Amity— shouted questions of his death and of his life before then. Each grated at his nerves and his core with an unrivaled discomfort, never something he would think to acknowledge with more than a joke, at most.

Yet… Danny didn’t resent the question coming from Lancer. It didn’t upset him, not in the way it normally did. The discomfort was there, but it had more to do with his own uncertain answer than the fact that Lancer had dared to ask the question in the first place.

It was Danny’s turn to sigh now, feeling his entire body sag into the motion as he hugged his knees still tighter, practically phasing them into his torso.

All he could do was shrug.

He knew where Danny Fenton went at night, but Phantom didn’t exactly have a place to rest his head. 

Lancer shuffled a bit closer until he was sitting directly beside Danny. He didn’t scoot away, almost welcoming his presence.

“I won’t pretend to know what it’s like being in your shoes,” Lancer began, his eyes locked onto Danny as he spoke, “but I’m here to talk if you ever need someone to be there.”

Danny blinked, staring. He hardly knew what to say— could hardly find any words in his head. After a pause, all that would come out was a hesitant, “Yeah?”

Lancer smiled, the gesture small as it tugged at his lips. “Yes. I’m a teacher and part of my job is to be there for my students.” 

Danny frowned at the word. “I’m not one of your students, though,” he said defensively, shuffling his feet. “I’m just a ghost.”

For one gut-wrenching moment Danny wondered if Lancer had figured him out. He couldn’t imagine how. His ghost form changed too much, both impacted by the ectoplasm in his system and by his own thoughts, as Frostbite once explained to him. The sharpened ears, the greenish tint of his skin— the broader shoulders and squared chin, more masculine than he dared hope for.

Even just the glow was enough to throw his features into a differing relief, but above it all there was one factor that Danny knew kept his identity safe:

The difference between flesh and ectoplasm. Life and death. Why ever assume something that breathed would also harbor something as innate to death as a core?

(Nevermind that he had been breathing this entire time, not that he needed it as he was.)

Yet if Lancer noticed the breathing or somehow made that leap of logic that saddled the line between life and death as surely as Danny did himself, he didn’t show it. He simply smiled sadly, meeting Phantom’s eyes with a kindness he rarely had shown to him in this form.

“Maybe not, but you must have been a student in this town at some point,” he said, his eyes trailing to his hands in his lap, fingers nervously rubbing his knuckles. “I might not be an expert on ghosts, but after teaching for as long as I have, I’d like to think that I know a thing or two about teenagers. You stay in this town enough that it must have been your home— that it must still be.”

He wasn’t wrong, of course. Mr. Lancer didn’t know the details, but his words rang truer than he knew. They echoed in Danny’s mind, as hollow and uncomfortable as they were right. 

Amity was Phantom’s home. It was his home.

Just hearing someone who wasn’t Sam, Tucker, or Jazz acknowledge that had the tears pricking at Danny’s eyes spilling over.

A hand tentatively patted his shoulder and Danny leaned into the touch, finding more peace in it than he thought he should.

A peace that, like many good things, did not last very long.

A familiar siren cut through the concrete, the sound grating at Danny’s frayed nerves with a fresh onslaught of fear. He couldn’t help but jolt at the sound, jumping into the air where he hovered, staring at the elevator doors.

“Phantom?” Lancer asked nervously.

The siren practically echoed in his skull, the sound far too familiar and far too disquieting. How many times had he heard it barreling towards a ghost attack, knowing that its presence would only complicate the battle? How many times had he been glad for the warning, if only so he could escape?

There was no escape right now, however. No way for him to slip out of sight, either through the walls of the elevator or into his own human skin. He couldn’t transform, not with Lancer right next to him and his secret already hanging by a gnawed thread.

Mr. Lancer must have heard the siren himself now, judging by the way his eyes moved from Phantom to the elevator doors. Danny couldn’t help but notice that his eyes brightened with relief.

“Lord of the Flies, it sounds like someone’s finally coming,” he said, that same relief carried on a much more relaxed sigh.

Danny bit his lip, unable to answer. He didn’t resent Mr. Lancer’s joy at hearing the siren, though it did come as a dark contrast to his own roiling emotions. 

“I don’t think they’re here to help,” he mumbled darkly, unable to suppress the resentment in his tone as he glared at the ectoshield warping over the elevator doors. “Not met at least.”

Danny heard Lancer suck in a sharp breath of air. He turned at the sound, finding his teacher watching him with renewed concern in his eyes. “They wouldn’t…” he said slowly, his own words trailing off as doubt crept into his tone.

Danny nodded. “They must’ve gotten some sort of alert when this thing went off,” he said, gesturing to the shield. 

“But they wouldn’t… you’re not…” Lancer tried again, his words no less convinced the second time around as he trailed off, his eyes widening when they fixed on the door.

The siren was so close now, echoing around the elevator. Each blaring note of the sound had Danny’s ears ringing and his core stuttering violently with fear. He absently drifted farther away from the elevator doors, watching them warily.

“If I could just explain to them—”

This time Lancer’s words were cut off as a loud, booming voice shouted. It came from somewhere overhead, echoing down the elevator shaft.

“Is there anyone in there!” the unmistakable voice of Jack Fenton boomed. “Our sensors detected that a ghost triggered our shield. Is the ghost subdued? Are any humans trapped?”

Danny stared, wide-eyed up at the elevator ceiling. He sank back down onto the floor, cowering as he heard what sounded like metal grinding as someone tried to force it apart.

His eyes flickered to Lancer, watching uncertainly as the man gaped at the ceiling. He had to be frighteningly aware of his precarious position in the elevator. Jack Fenton’s voice, though it sent fear rocketing through Danny’s core, must’ve sounded like freedom and safety to Lancer in that moment.

And yet… his eyes trailed back to Danny with  uncertainty. 

It was disquieting, seeing that expression on that face of a man trapped in an elevator shaft, who for all intents and purposes should have welcomed any offer of rescue with the widest embrace.

Yet Danny thought back to Lancer’s words as he calmed him down from his panic attack. He thought of his hand gently patting Danny’s shoulder, soothing him as he cried. He thought of how Lancer, once he pushed his own fear aside, had shown nothing but kindness and fear  for him, not of.

He had called Phantom his student. Had called Amity his home. 

“Is anyone down there!” Jack Fenton called again, the sound of metal shifting accompanying his voice once more. 

In that moment, Danny knew that he would have one of two options. There was no way his parents would disable the ectoshield without first making sure that no ghosts lingered invisibly within it. As Phantom, he was trapped, resigned to being seen. Cornered.

If his parents caught Phantom now in this position, Danny’s only option would be to try and explain himself and hope that they might understand. Pray that they wouldn’t assume he was overshadowed and give him a fraction of a chance.

But… Danny had another option. 

Looking at Lancer, finding him nervously staring up at the ceiling, Danny weighed that second option. 

He weighed Lancer’s words, the kind admissions of  home  and  student nestling comfortably in his core.

It was a leap of faith, and one Danny probably shouldn’t feel more secure in than his parents, and yet… When was the last time he felt safe around an adult?

Here, in an elevator, trapped with a man who had shown him more humanity in the last five minutes than an entire town had in a year.

The choice was clear to Danny.

“Mr. Lancer,” Danny began, his voice timorous and too small. His teacher’s eyes locked onto him at the sound.

“Y–yes?” he asked just as quietly, bewildered. 

Of course, he had never given Phantom his name.

Danny licked his lips. His breath caught in his throat as the metal shifted overhead again and he had to shut his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply to steady his nerves.

“I am one of your students.”

When the man didn’t reply, Danny slowly opened his eyes, finding Lancer shaking his head, his eyes never once leaving Danny.

“I… don’t follow,” he said.

More metal shifting overhead. Something heavy thumped. Danny’s core pulsed and his hands shook.

“I—I am one of your students,” he repeated, hardly more than a whisper. “Y–you taught me last year, and I wasn’t the best student but… but you helped me— then and now. And I… I’m afraid, but I want to trust you.”

The words tumbled out, a flood breaking through the dam as more tears slipped down Danny’s cheeks. He could hear talking above now, though the words were lost to the hum around him and the awful buzz still dancing through his ectoplasm.

Lancer was breathing heavily now. He looked at Phantom as though seeing him for the first time, his eyes stretching wide as saucers, capturing enough of the green light around them that they almost mimicked his own.

“D–Danny?” he said in a hushed tone.

The last bit of stone that held that flood back shattered. Tears dripped down Danny’s chin and he nodded, every inch of him shaking at that mere admittance. 

He hardly even had to reach for his core. The transformation came to him too quickly, rolling over him in a warm rush that banished the chilliest parts of his core to rest within his chest. He watched the gloves disappear, the bright green scars over his hand fading to white. The lichtenberg figures were faint, though now he could properly see their winding course over his wrist and under the hem of his red sweatshirt. White as they were, the sickly glow of the shield stained the scars just as green as his gloves had been.

“Danny…” Lancer said again, the sound choked in his throat. 

Danny hardly dared glance up, terrified of what he might find on his teacher’s face. Disgust? Disappointment? Fear?

He half expected Lancer to call a warning to his parents.

Danny looked up when the elevator groaned, startled as he felt it shift slightly and heard an alarmed sound from overhead. 

Lancer was looking at him still, but it wasn’t with any of the fear that Danny had expected. It was tired— sad. Sorrow. The man had shifted slightly where he sat, trying to reach out for him, but had frozen when the elevator shifted. Now he simply sat there, watching Danny with that somber expression.

Danny couldn’t tell if it was just the green light, but he thought he saw the pinprick of tears in his teacher’s eyes.

Dust rained down as something overhead shifted. For the first time since the buttons sparked, light that wasn’t green flooded the elevator as one of the ceiling tiles moved. 

Maddie Fenton’s red-lensed goggles swam into view. Danny hated that his first instinct at seeing them was to cower, fear coursing through him at seeing those lenses reflecting the green of the ghost shield.

But if Maddie knew something of Danny’s secret, it didn’t carry into the surprised gasp she gave as her eyes locked onto him.

“Danny! I— what are you doing here? How did—” the words caught in her throat and she gave a minute shake of her head, seeming to come back to where they were. 

“Mads?” Danny heard his father’s voice from behind her, echoing in the expanse of the elevator shaft.

Danny hardly heard them as Maddie explained the situation to her husband. He hardly noticed when more of the panels were pulled away and a rope ladder was lowered into the elevator.

When Lancer urged him to climb up it first, he had to tell Danny twice before a fraction of the words made it to his ears. He moved mechanically, his legs shaking as the elevator groaned when he tentatively stood and clutched the ropes.

He paused for a moment when he met the roof of the ectoshield. Even in their rescue, his parents hadn’t deigned to disable the device, though he was sure they could. Danny’s core buzzed uncomfortably as he passed through the wall of green, but it allowed his passage without the sparking jolt that had bit at his hand.

When Jack pulled Danny up with enough force to almost yank his arm from the socket, he allowed himself to be pulled into a tight embrace. He melted into it for a moment before his father had to shift his focus to Lancer, still trapped as he was in the elevator shaft.

Danny could only wait with bated breath as they pulled him up.

He watched as Lancer stumbled out onto the floor of the parking garage, blinking dazedly in the sunlight that filtered through the open windows. 

How strange that it was still daylight.

Danny waited, still feeling sure that he had made a mistake— that any moment now Lancer would speak up and spill the truth.

Those thoughts fled his mind when Mr. Lancer’s eyes locked onto him. There really were tears there, welling onto his lashes, brightening the green of his eyes with emotion. 

He didn’t speak, just watching quietly.

With both of them secured, Maddie pulled Danny into a hug of her own. She held him tight, asking if he was hurt and smiling proudly at him when he put on a brave face and told her he was fine. 

A fraction of that smile even felt real, basking in his mother’s warmth and concern. 

It died a little when she said, “We need to scope the area for whichever ghost triggered the shield. If a ghost is willing to tamper with these cables, there’s no telling what other sort of harm they might cause.”

She whipped around to Lancer, the man straightening as her eyes fell on him. For all her short stature, Maddie could be an intimidating, intense ball of fire.

“Did you see anything? Did you hear anything that might help us locate this ghost?” she asked him.

Mr. Lancer blanched, his mouth opening and closing— eyes skirting minutely to Danny as he failed to give her a proper answer.

After a moment, he simply shook his head. Danny felt some of the tension leaving his shoulders, though he still didn’t dare let himself fully relax.

Maddie frowned, disappointment clear in her own slackened shoulders as she sighed. She glanced between her husband and Danny, her expression softening slightly as it landed on him, before fixing her lavender eyes once more on Lancer.

“I hate to ask this of you, William, but would you be willing to take Danny home? I know that you two have been through a lot this evening, but we can’t let this go uninvestigated. If there’s a dangerous ghost lurking in the area, we need to find it before it truly hurts someone.”

Her tone was so sincere, each of her words dripping with resolve. 

Lancer just gaped at her, looking between mother and son with utter disbelief.

“I—” he paused, glancing at Danny, looking at him with the same intensity he had before calling his name in that elevator shaft. “Yes.”

Maddie positively beamed, relief and admiration evident in her tone as she said, “Thank you so much; you have no idea how much this means to us.”

Mr. Lancer just nodded stiffly, standing to the side as Maddie pulled Danny into one last hug and kissed his forehead.

His skin burned where her lips touched. His chest felt hollowed out, his core thrumming slightly.

Something colder than the core in his chest ghosted over Danny’s skin when she let him go, turning back towards the elevator shaft to join the investigation with her husband.

Danny stared after them for a long moment, watching as she fell into the task without so much as a glance backwards. 

He wiped at his forehead, still feeling the burn of her touch.

Another sigh behind him, longer and deeper than any Danny had heard that evening. He turned to find Lancer standing there awkwardly, wringing his hands with a nervous energy that he rarely saw adults let show.

“Let’s… let’s go then, shall we?” he said quietly.

Danny sighed too. He resisted the urge to glance back at the elevator shaft, already knowing that his parents were too absorbed in their work to notice. 

For all the deep fear he’d felt at their arrival, this hollow ache was deeper.

“Y–yeah,” Danny said, swallowing against the tightness of his throat. “Okay.”

Danny didn’t even know why Lancer was in the parking deck that day, and he didn’t necessarily want to ask. The thought of inconveniencing the man from an errand he needed to run would just be one too many awful weights on his shoulders today. Instead, he just followed his teacher to his beat-up silver car, quietly climbing into the passenger seat.

Lancer climbed in on the driver side just as quietly. He didn’t even buckle his seatbelt at first. Didn’t start the car. He simply stared through the windshield, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as he sat there and breathed.

Danny picked at the hem of his sweatshirt, lost for words. He couldn’t help but notice the phone lying beside him on the console between the seats.

“Are you alright?” Mr. Lancer asked him. His voice didn’t echo in the car like it had in the elevator, but he still flinched at the sudden sound.

Slowly, nervously, Danny met his eyes again, peering at the man through his bangs. “I guess.”

Lancer’s face crumpled slightly, pinched with sadness, but he nodded. Without saying another word, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. The car roared into life a moment later, and a moment after they were off.

As they rounded the spiral of the parking garage, Danny found his eyes trailing out the window, locking onto the open doors of the elevator shaft. He could see the bright orange of his father’s hazmat suit, though couldn’t spot his mother before the car rounded the turn, leaving them behind. 

Danny’s core squeezed alongside his heart.

Lancer turned the radio up, seemingly needing something to fill the silence, but lowered it just as quickly when the broadcast that filtered through the radio mentioned ghosts within the first breath of the speaker.

They continued on in awkward silence, Danny’s eyes glued to the window but unseeing anything past it.

“They don’t know, I assume.”

Danny had hoped that Mr. Lancer might not acknowledge the ghostly elephant in the room, but he supposed, like with all things, he was never that lucky.

Danny didn't bother to look at the man, choosing instead to just stiffly nod his head.

Another sigh. One too many, enough to grate at Danny’s nerves, but not enough for him to snap at it.

His belly felt too hollowed out for that anger now.

“You… you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Lancer then said, carefully picking around the words like someone navigating a minefield. “You don’t have to tell me anything, really.”

“I know,” Danny said, allowing some bite to enter his words. He needed some measure of control over this situation in which he had practically none to speak of.

In his periphery, Danny could see Lancer nod his own head as he said, “I meant what I said back in the elevator— to Phantom. To you.”

That was enough to make Danny turn his head. He wasn’t sure what street they were on, only that it was a long one with too many stop lights. They’d stopped at each along the way, agonizingly dragging out the drive.

“Meant what?”

As they stopped at another light, Lancer turned his head to look at Danny. His eyes still seemed bright with emotion, though what tears had gathered in his eyes had disappeared. 

“That if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. You are my student, after all.”

Danny bit his lip. He searched Lancer’s eyes, trying to find any hint of a lie or deceit, but Mr. Lancer truly seemed as sincere now as he had been stuck in that elevator shaft.

“It… doesn’t bother you that I’m a ghost?” he asked him.

There had to be a catch— there had to be a limit to this kindness and Danny would rather find it now than later.

Mr. Lancer’s frown deepened at the word ‘ghost’, but it quirked up into a small smile just as quickly. 

“And my student,” he repeated gently. “And a kid, just like any one of my other students.”

Lancer’s smile was wry, hardly there, but it warmed him to see it at all. His voice echoed in Danny’s head as they drove on, the silence feeling much less daunting with those kind words occupying his thoughts.

Lancer seemed to hesitate for a moment before they turned onto Danny’s street. He hesitated another moment before pulling the car up alongside the sidewalk.

His knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel, every inch of his posture as tense as Danny’s felt, like a cord ready to snap.

Danny didn’t get out of the car at first. He just sat there, staring at the red brick building of FentonWorks and the glaring neon signs over the door. His eyes skirted up to the Ops Center, the shadow looming over him a fiendish thing.

Danny was glad when Lancer did not immediately oust him from the car. He needed that moment to just sit and breathe. To have a space, however fragile, where he felt like he might have someone in his corner who was older than sixteen.

“You would… you really wouldn’t tell my parents?” Danny asked, hardly daring to speak the words allowed. Terrified that he might get confirmation of his worst fears.

Lancer’s eyes widened. He slowly shook his head, mouth slightly slack-jawed.

“No,” he said a little too quickly. “No, not…” He actually did pinch his tear ducts this time, in that familiar gesture he hadn’t been able to back in the elevator. “Pride and Prejudice, Danny, I know when a student is afraid of their parents. I’ve… I’ve seen it before. Not like this, never like this, but still…”

He trailed off, looking ahead, swallowing a lump in his throat as he gathered more of his thoughts. 

“Danny…” he began again, the word quavering. “I don’t know how to help you with this. I… I just need you to promise me that you’ll do your best to be safe. That you’ll do the smart thing and ask for help when you need it. That if your parents hurt you…”

He trailed off again, shaking his head. Danny’s parents had already hurt him, they both knew this. It wasn’t an if, it was a when and an again.

“I’ll be careful,” Danny tried to reassure him. “I–I have Jazz, and Sam, and Tucker. They know. They know and they help me, and I trust them.”

He hoped that those words might quell some of Mr. Lancer’s doubts, but Danny’s core thrummed uneasily when his teacher’s eyes just widened with renewed horror.

The man slowly shook his head, a trembling hand rubbing at the bags beneath his eyes.

“You’re all just kids,” he said quietly.

It was true, technically, but Danny hadn’t felt like much of one over the last few months. He had too many responsibilities as Phantom— had seen and faced too many things.

“We can handle it,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as Mr. Lancer.

He wasn’t sure it worked either way.

Danny glanced back to FentonWorks, his hand tracing the handle of the car door. “Um, thank you for taking me home, Mr. Lancer,” he said, his throat still tight. “And, uh, for everything else.”

Mr. Lancer just nodded. He seemed so tired, the bags beneath his eyes deeper and darker than Danny’s own. His teacher said nothing as he opened the door and climbed out, though seemed to find his voice as Danny went to shut it.

“Wait—” he said suddenly, holding out his hand. 

Reluctantly, Danny pulled the door open wider, leaning down to hear what he had to say. 

Mr. Lancer studied him for a long moment, eyes flickering over his face as though searching for a hint of Phantom’s glow in his irises. 

“My door is always open if you need someone to talk to,” he said evenly. “Whatever happens, that doesn’t change.”

Danny blinked, letting his words sink in. He could feel the sincerity in them and, after everything that had happened today, Danny felt he had very little reason to doubt his teacher.

Nodding, voice still hoarse with emotion, Danny said, “Okay.”

 ~*~

 William did not drive off right away. He allowed his car to idle as he watched Danny Fenton walk up the sidewalk and the steps to his front door. The boy knocked, waiting for a response inside. There was a long pause in which nothing seemed to happen and William was just considering rolling down the window to call out to the boy when he glanced back at him.

William’s heart leapt into his throat as Danny’s eyes met his. Even from a distance, he could see a sharp hint of green in them, the same shade he had grown accustomed to in his time trapped in that elevator. He watched with bated breath as Danny’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment before sweeping up and down the street. 

William’s hands tightened on the steering wheel when Danny turned around and stepped  through his front door as if it simply wasn’t there.

William let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a shaky exhale that hardly did the stress of the day any justice.

With one last glance at FentonWorks, finding a simple wooden door where Danny had stood just a moment before, William drove away.

 ~*~

 William stood in the entrance to his apartment for a long moment. Just stood there, hardly acknowledging when his cat came to greet him, brushing up against his ankles with a friendly meow.

He stiffly bent to stroke a hand through his fur, the soft texture feeling stiff and coarse against his numb skin.

Moving mechanically, William shuffled through the kitchen as he set a kettle on the stove to boil. He wasn't even sure how long the kettle whistled before it was enough to shake him from the stupor of staring into open space.

Even once he had his cup of tea, Lancer couldn't stop shaking. He sank down into his favorite armchair by his favorite shelf of books, eyeing the light brown tea in his cup without drinking.

He thought of Danny all the while— of Phantom. Of how long the ghost boy has been in Amity Park and what that must mean for his student.

It had been a year ago, William recalled clearly. A year ago when all of the ghosts appeared— Phantom included.

That must have been when…

A drop fell into William's cup of tea. He watched the ripples as more tears rolled down his cheeks.

His hand shook violently, splashes of the tea spilling into his lap, and William had to set the cup down on the end table beside his chair.

A year. His student had been dead for a year and he hadn't even noticed.

His parents hadn’t, either.

William didn't even want to think what had caused it. Didn't want to imagine what horrors that boy had faced, because he could already picture, far too clearly, plenty of them.

How many times had he watched Phantom fight? 

All of the absences, all of the behavioral issues. Everything fell into place, a gruesome puzzle that William had never known needed solved.

He thought, too, of the boy's parents.

How many times had he watched the Fentons shoot at Phantom, aiming their guns without so much as a moment's hesitation?

William hardly noticed when his cat approached, giving a small meow as he butted his head into his hand and slowly picked his way into his lap. When Radio began to purr, the feeling that rumbled through his body was achingly similar to what William had felt from Phantom when he broke down.

When Danny, his student, broke down.

If Radio minded the tears splashing into his fur, he didn't care to move. He simply stuck there, rumbling away in William's lap, heedless of the emotions choking his chest.

William didn't know how long he sat there, mindlessly running his hand through Radio's ginger fur, allowing the cat’s purring to still the last few trembles in his fingers.

William didn't know what he'd do when the summer ended and he had to face that boy every day, knowing just why he raced from his classroom.

All William knew was that he'd keep his cellphone on him this time, always ready to answer just in case that boy needed his help. 

If anyone needed that kindness, it was him.

[dragonsdomain]

Monster in the Woods

"The more people tell Danny he is a monster the more monsterous he becomes. Things that seem innocuous turn into physical manifestations as he starts to believe what people say about him."

A Phic Phight prompt by @burning-clutch

...

Jazz walked through the forest, decaying leaves crunching under her feet. Her phone rang hollowly. "You've reached... please leave a message." Jazz dialed Danny's number again, the action mechanical at this point.

She almost didn't notice when someone started calling her. "Hello? Oh, Mom? No... Yeah, I'll call you. I will, I promise."

Then the call was over. There were bugs or other creatures making sounds in the forest. She still wasn't sure if she should be grateful for how they disguised her footsteps or if she should be cursing their noise, calling out for her brother. He could be lost, repentant from his earlier rashness, more than ready to go home. With his phone out of power, and that's why he wasn't answering her calls. Or... he could still be hiding from her. And that uncertainty was what was keeping Jazz from calling out into the forest.

A Fenton Thermos was at her belt. It had already been there since before Danny had run off, but it haunted Jazz with how its purpose might have changed. Would it be wrong to use it on Danny if she had to, if he tried to run away? Was it more important that she give him the freedom to choose what he wanted, or to get him home safe? She wanted to get him home, to dismiss everything as him being not in his right mind, but that wasn't fair, she should have been better at this point at valuing his feelings.

But if the conclusion was that she shouldn't use the thermos, should she even be looking for Danny at all?

Jazz drew to a stop, then wondered if that'd been a mistake. Starting to walk again would be difficult. Her body was calling her to drop to the ground and curl up in the dirt. Maybe she'd wake up and it'd all be a bad dream.

A childish thought. She kept walking.

As it got darker, Jazz had to turn on the flashlight of her phone, sacrificing any attempt at stealth. She started calling out Danny's name. The trees, taller here and thicker, felt like they were eating up her voice, preventing it from travelling more than a few feet.

Her phone was running out of battery. She'd need to go home now or risk becoming lost in the woods herself.

She turned on the navigator app on her phone to guide her back to town, wondering if it counted as giving up if you hardly felt like you had a choice, or if it even mattered if you kept going.

The leaves kept crunching on her feet. Her flashlight made a column of reality in the deepening darkness.

A sound. Something about it caught her attention, and Jazz looked out to the left towards it, not sure exactly what it was she'd heard, hoping to hear it again. There it was, a shifting in leaves, a whistling breath with some hollow quality.

On a hunch, Jazz clicked off her flashlight. She waited a minute for her eyes to adjust, then peered into that darkness again and saw a slight glow. Strange, why was it so dim? It would be sharper if it was just a matter of distance.

Jazz crept carefully towards the hollow glow, holding her hands out in front of her in the dark. The leaf rot didn't help her stealth; Danny, if that's who she was drawing close to, would know she was there. That was probably a good thing. She didn't hear the sound retreating.

More and more of something grew visible as she passed each tree, vague shapes in the shadows. An arm? A wing? She rounded the last one and saw him, limbs stretched tall and long and donned with sharp claws and chimeric feathers and scales. She couldn't tell if Danny's face was unchanged atop his neck; he was curled up as low as he could get. His aura was dim, possibly on purpose, possibly because he was feeling unwell.

Jazz walked up to him, letting the leaves shuffle underfoot, and put a hand on his back. "Danny. Hey. I'm here."

A sorrowful, crooning noise came from him and he tried to curl farther in on himself.

Jazz leaned into him and started stroking a hand down his back. "It'll be okay. You'll be okay."

Danny let out a shaky breath, his muscles loosening a little under Jazz's arms. He started drooping. It was getting late, and she knew he hadn't been getting good sleep lately; after such a rough day, he was probably tired.

Jazz stayed hugging him. It was slow at first, such that she hardly noticed it, but Danny's body started to shrink down to something closer to its natural size. After some dozen minutes, he turned around to hug her back. Hugging her brother didn't usually feel like this, lukewarm as a corpse, slick feathers fluffed with emotion tickling her cheeks, but Jazz couldn't say it was uncomfortable. She liked how his chest was still rising and falling, how she could hear his heart beating sluggishly within it if she listened closely enough.

"Can you talk?" Jazz asked at length, not yet looking at Danny's face.

He breathed a little sigh, which Jazz was about to assume meant no, before he managed, "Gnnuh-a li'l."

Danny's neck was now within reach, and Jazz curled her arms around it to run her hands through his hair--or feathers in this case, interspersed with a few reptilian ridges. "I know you had a hard day. Do you want to talk about any of it?"

Danny gave a pained whine, then winced at how loud it was. "N-no."

"Okay."

The sounds of the forest were friendlier now, keeping the silence from becoming pervasive. Jazz sat quietly with her oversized brother, glad to no longer have to worry about where he was.

Jazz's phone buzzed with a phone call, and she and Danny both jumped. Jazz fumbled for the phone. "H-hi, Mom. I'm still looking.... Yeah, I'm going to stay out longer, my phone still has battery. ...Uh-huh. ...Yeah, I hope so too. ...He's probably okay, Mom, he'll be back. ...I will. You too. Love you."

Jazz hung up the phone. Danny was hanging his head like he was ashamed of something. Jazz looked at his face without thinking, and he flinched nervously even though he looked pretty normal at that point. Maybe it was the uncanny valley he was worried about. He did look a little strange at this point, but Jazz had seen worse.

"You really don't look that bad, you know. I'm not just saying that."

"Ugh..." A clawed hand buried Danny's face. "I'm making her worry... I made you all worry."

"Come on, no shaming, we've talking about this. That's not constructive." Jazz ruffled the feathers atop Danny's head. They felt thinner now, closer to hair.

"Ssorry," Danny muttered.

Jazz rolled her eyes, pulling Danny to her side for a hug again and some pats on the back. "It's okay. I know you're doing your best.

Danny was getting better. He was pretty close to normal size. Jazz glanced over him and was pleased to see much of his skin now visible, ghostly simulacrum of his hazmat suit returning in place of feathers and scales. "You feel almost ready to change back you think?"

"Yeah..." Danny's shoulders drooped. "What am I gonna tell Mom?"

"What are we gonna tell Mom, you mean." Jazz gave Danny's shoulder a squeeze. "I've got your back. You're not alone in this, okay?"

Danny took a deep breath, the last of his feathers disappearing. "Okay."

Jazz stood up, then offered Danny a hand. "Let's start walking. We can figure out a story as we go, then I'll call Mom when we're ready."

Danny took her hand and followed as Jazz started walking. "Is there maybe some normal-ish explanation for all this? I'd rather not stick with the story that I ran away. Maybe me and Sam were on a walk or something and my phone died and I lost track of her?"

"That's a good start. I could message Sam about the excuse. Is youre phone actually dead?"

"Well, yeah."

"That makes me feel better about you ignoring my calls."

"Sorry."

"Y'know, Danny?"

"Yeah?"

Jazz pulled him in for another quick hug as they walked. "I'm really glad you're coming home."

"Aww man, don't make it weirder than it has to be."

"Emotions aren't weird, little brother."

"You're weird."

"My sincerest apologies for being the weirdest member of the family. I hope you'll all still be able to love me."

"Aww man, Jazz."

[fangirlwriting-stories]

Easier When Unknown

Summary: Danny could have imagined his life would be interesting after everyone learned his secret, but he didn't think it would be this different.

Author's Note: A phic phight fanfiction! Here are the two prompts:

AU where no one knew Danny was Phantom until PP (or some alternate big reveal of the author's choice). Sam and Tucker are sure that a famous hero like Danny Phantom is too cool to be their friend again, especially since they haven't talked since before freshman year of high school. Danny just wants to be part of the trio again and has no idea how to ask.

Danny finds out that Sam's been being bullied at school and has been hiding it from him and Tucker out of embarrassment.

...

Danny’s life definitely didn’t get easier after his identity was revealed, but it didn’t get that much harder, which was good.  Right?

Or, well, that was a little bit of an oversimplification.  His life definitely got harder in a lot of ways.  People stared at  him wherever he went.  Suddenly all of the popular kids at school wanted to be best friends with him, like he couldn’t see through that change of pace from a mile away.  There were news stations constantly vying for the first interview with the half-ghost kid who defeated the Ghost King.

But his parents stopped hunting him.  And they were going to try to work things out.  And Jazz revealed that she’d actually known for a while now, and that made her more ready to adapt to everything, and she didn’t treat him like anything had changed.

And all of that kind of evened it out, at the end of the day.  Even if he wasn’t exactly sure he was ready to go from town’s enemy to world’s hero.

Because that was another part of this: word of Amity Park, ghosts in general, and what he’d done had been spreading like wildfire since he’d put Pariah Dark back in his coffin.  Suddenly everyone was talking about him, and everyone knew him, and, as stated with the aforementioned journalists, everyone wanted to talk to him.  He woke up every day to see news trucks that were local and ones that were very much not right outside his house.  He’d flown intangibly to school every day for the past month.

Ancients, all this fame needed to die down soon.  He wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take.

He was often so caught up in everything changing all at once, however, that he didn’t have much of a chance to think about things he might want to happen.  Which was why he was a little caught off guard that morning.  He was running from the daily mob of screaming girls who wanted his autograph (which was never something he thought he’d get sick of), and after getting at least a little bit of a lead on them, he turned intangible and dove through the door to the janitor’s closet, then turned back to normal and rested his hands on his knees, panting slightly to catch his breath.

“Uh,” came a very familiar female voice, and Danny’s head shot up.  He found standing on the other side of the closet the one part of his life that hadn’t changed.

And for a long, long moment, he and Sam and Tucker just stared at each other.

Danny’s feelings about Sam and Tucker had never been more mixed.  They really were the one aspect of his life that stayed the same post identity-reveal-to-the-entire-world, and he couldn’t decide whether to thank them for the consistency or be pissed at them for the audacity.

Because he hadn’t talked to Sam and Tucker since the beginning of Freshman year.

And then his secret was revealed to the entire world.

And he still hadn’t talked to Sam and Tucker since the beginning of Freshman year.

“Uh,” Danny said finally, because they couldn’t just all keep staring at each other.  “Hi.”

“Hey,” Tucker said.  Sam nodded in acknowledgement.

Really, guys.  Work with him a little bit, please?

“Are you hiding from people too?” Danny asked, pushing himself up using his knees.

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“I didn’t think you’d be hiding from anyone anymore,” Tucker said, and Danny didn’t miss the tinge of bitterness in his voice.

“Um,” Danny said.  He didn’t seem to have any more words for Sam and Tucker than he had a year and a half ago.

“Danny!” came from outside the closet, and Danny whirled around instinctually.  “Get back here!  What makes you think you can run from me?”

“Hey you mind if I hang out here for a bit cool thanks,” Danny said, moving across the closet until he was right across from Sam and Tucker.  A second later, the door handle started jiggling, and Danny turned intangible, even though he could feel Sam and Tucker’s stares.

The door swung open and Paulina poked her head in.

“Oh, it’s just you two,” she said, disappointment obvious in her voice.  A second later, she perked up.  “Hey, you haven’t seen Danny, have you?”

“No,” Sam said, crossing her arms.  “Would you back off?  We’re trying to hide in a closet here.”

Paulina laughed.  “Sure, okay.  Have fun, losers.”  She slammed the door after herself.

Danny dropped the intangibility as soon as she was gone with a sigh of relief.  “Thanks,” he said to Sam and Tucker.

“Don’t mention it,” Sam grumbled, and leaned back against the shelf behind her.  “I’m surprised you didn’t want to see her, though.”

“Honestly, yeah,” Tucker agreed, giving him a weird look.  “Never thought I’d see the day you’d turn down Paulina.”

“It’s not that,” Danny said.  “I mean she… she’s not…”

The warning bell rang, and all three of them looked towards the door, where they could hear it outside.  For a second afterwards, none of them moved.

Sam did first, pushing herself off the shelf.  “Bye,” she said, starting towards the door.  Tucker followed her closely.

Danny tried not to make his deflation obvious.  “Yeah, okay,” he muttered.  He turned intangible again, and slipped through the floor, rather than try and go past them.

It was only when he actually made it to his homeroom that he realized he still had no idea why Sam and Tucker were in that closet.

…

“Hey, Fenturd— I mean Fenton!”

Danny heaved an internal sigh and looked up from his tray of food to find Dash and Kwan walking up to his table.

“Are these seats taken?” Dash asked with a grin, gesturing at the as-of-yet empty table around him.  He’d gotten to lunch early in order to try and hang on to one.

“Yeah,” Danny said to Dash, leaning over to rest his chin on his hand in what was intended to be a representation of how little he wanted them here.  “I’m holding it for all of the ghosts that are going to show up during lunch and blast you across the room.”

“Ha, you’re a riot Fenton!” Dash said, completely ignoring Danny’s tone and face and sliding into the seat next to him.  Danny cringed and didn’t bother to hide it, sliding as far away from Dash as he could.  Unfortunately, Dash just slid right down after him, which resulted in Danny nearly being pushed off the bench and Dash not noticing.

Kwan followed his lead and took the seat across from Danny, meaning Danny was forced to look in boredom to the side to avoid both of their gazes.  He waited a couple extra seconds, but eventually it became clear that neither of them were going to move.  So, Danny sighed, resigned himself to his life, and picked up one of his terrible school-lunch chicken nuggets.

“So, we were both thinking that maybe you could come watch one of our practices!” Dash called, slinging an arm around Danny’s shoulder.  “The football team’s, I mean.”

“Why would I do that?” Danny asked, making his shoulder go intangible just long enough for Dash’s arm to fall through.

“Well I mean, it would be neat to have you there,” Dash said, glancing across the table at Kwan.  “Right Kwan?”

“Totally,” Kwan agreed with a grin of his own.  “And I mean, you’re pretty good with athletic stuff.  You know, when you’re a cool ghost fighting superhero and not a weak dweeb.  Maybe you could come as Phantom, you know, show us some tricks!”

“Gee, that sounds great,” Danny deadpanned.  “So am I just supposed to ignore the insults in there, or…?”

“Hey,” came Paulina’s voice, and Danny turned around to see her walking up behind them all.  “Can’t you two leave him alone?  It’s clear he doesn’t want to be bothered by you.”

Danny blinked in surprise.  He really hadn’t expected Paulina to pick up on that.  Maybe she actually—

“He’d clearly rather be sitting with me!” Paulina said, reaching down and pulling Danny up by his arm.

“Okay, that’s it!”  Danny went intangible again and slipped out of Paulina’s grasp, then grabbed his lunch and walked out of the room, straight through the doors without bothering to open them.

He made his way out to the front steps of the school and sat down, and managed to get through at least a couple bites before he remembered the reason eating outside was also a bad idea.  The reminder came in the form of a reporter and a camera man leaping out from what he thought was a normal van sitting across the street.

“Mr Fenton!” called one of them as he ran up towards the steps.  “Or would you prefer Mr Phantom?”

“I’d prefer solitude,” Danny snapped, leaning back and away from them both.

“Oh absolutely!  Just a couple of quick questions first of course, you wouldn’t mind.”

The door slammed open behind them, and Danny prepared himself for Dash or Paulina again when, to his surprise, Mr Lancer stepped down the steps and stopped right in front of him.

“You’re on school property,” he said, crossing his arms.  “You have two minutes to get back in your van and drive away or I am calling the police.”

“Sir, can I ask, how long have you known that one of your students is dead?” the reporter asked, shoving a mic in Lancer’s face.

Lancer raised an eyebrow and pulled out his phone, then started dialing 911.  Thankfully, the reporters turned and ran back across the street before he could finish.

Lancer turned back around as soon as they were gone.  “Are you alright?” he asked, casting a concerned look down at Danny.

“Fine,” Danny muttered, picking up his tray and climbing to his feet.  “You know.  Great.”

Lancer looked at him for another second, then said, “Mr Fenton, come and eat your lunch in my classroom.”

“What?  Why?”

“You can sit out of view from my door,” Lancer said.  “It’ll give you a break from the crowds.”

Danny felt a knot in his chest loosen.  “Really?”

Lancer gave him a sympathetic frown.  “I can’t imagine it’s an easy thing to deal with all the time,” he said.  He opened the door again and gestured for Danny to go first, so he did.

And for the first time in a while, he ate his lunch in silence.

…

He wasn’t expecting to see Sam and Tucker again that day.  Most of the time his time at school was spent avoiding every single person he possibly could.  The morning incident in the janitor’s closet had been a once in a blue moon event.

But, as fate would have it, there was a ghost attack during the last period, and after going and taking care of it (just the Box Ghost showing up as an irritation), he landed behind the school to find Sam and Tucker leaning against the wall and talking.

And while he’d originally come back here to try and avoid all of the cheers he’d get going right back into class, he was sort of regretting that decision now.

Sam and Tucker were clearly deep in conversation, but they noticed when he landed right in front of them, and then they all got to do a lovely repeat of that morning’s staring at each other.

“Hiding again?” Tucker asked eventually.

Danny nodded.  “You too?”

Sam nodded.

Danny gave them a curious look.  “From what?”

“Danny!”

Danny groaned audibly this time, as Star ran around the side of the building and straight for him.

“That was so cool the way you just flew off like that!” she called.  “Not a second thought to how you might be putting yourself in danger!”

“Yeah, thanks,” Danny said, already starting to fly away.  “Make my excuses in class, will you?  Got to get this really dangerous ghost back to the portal right away and send him through to the ghost zone.  Great thanks bye!”

He flew off maybe a little bit too quickly for the given situation, but he couldn’t stand another second there, and school was basically over anyway.  He made it home pretty quickly, and thankfully wasn’t stopped by any news outlets on the way, though that was likely because he made the whole trip while intangible.

But while he made it inside without any fuss, as soon as he flew down to the lab he was greeted with his parents working on what looked like a weapon of some kind.

He winced.  He was never quite able to stop the touch of fear that came with his parents working on a ghost weapon.  After a second, though, he floated down to the ground anyway and changed back from his ghost form.

Both his parents startled and looked over at him.

“Danny,” his mom said.  “You’re back early.”

“Yeah uh, ghost fight in last period,” Danny muttered, heading over towards the portal and attaching the thermos to it.  “School was already basically over, so I just came home.”  He hit the button on the side of the portal and sent the Box Ghost flying into the portal, crying out dramatically all the way.

“Well that’s nice,” Mom said, the tension in her voice obvious.

“Yeah, uh, anyway I have homework,” Danny said, starting for the steps.  He had a feeling flying up through the ceiling wouldn’t be a great idea right now.

“Will we see you for dinner, Danno?” Dad asked.  “We were hoping to all eat together tonight.”

Danny tightened his grip on the railing of the stairs.  “Okay.”

He considered asking what they’d be having, but given the tension in the room he really didn’t think he could spend much more time in the lab.

So instead, he just said “See you later,” and headed upstairs.

It’s not that his parents had reacted badly to the Phantom news.  They’d done the important stuff, they’d given him a huge apology and stopped actively hunting him.  But none of them seemed to really know where they stood with each other anymore.  Danny didn’t logically think they were going to hurt him anymore, but it was difficult to get rid of that fear response that for the longest time, it made sense to have.

But at the same time, he could tell it made them feel guilty to see him be scared of them.  Jazz said it wasn’t his fault, and she was probably right.  But he still hated it.

He started first for his bedroom, and made it part of the way through the living room when the front door opened and Jazz sprinted in, slamming the door shut on nearly a dozen reporters.  Danny could still hear their voice through the door after it shut.  Some were asking how it felt to be the brother of a hero, some were asking how long she’d known and how she’d found out, and some were asking how it felt to know her brother was dead.

Jazz heaved out a breath, though all of the reporters were still easily heard through the windows.  Then she looked up and met eyes with Danny.

“Oh hey,” she said, clearly still exhausted.  “How was school?”

Danny didn’t respond, instead gazing out the gap in the curtains to the people shoving cameras in it.

“Sorry,” he said to Jazz.

“Oh, don’t you dare,” Jazz said.  “I know you hate them as much as I do.”

Danny sighed and looked down.  “Yeah.”

“Are you doing okay?” Jazz asked hesitantly.  “I’m sure it’s… a lot.”

Danny snorted.  “Understatement.”

Jazz smiled a little.  “Yeah.”

Danny turned to face her more directly, chewing on his lip.  He’d avoided the topic with her so far, mostly because too much was going on, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been desperately curious.  “Can I…” he said hesitantly.  “Can I be like one of those awful reporters and ask you how you found out?”

Jazz rolled her eyes.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  You’re not a reporter, you’re my brother.  And I know if I tell you it’s not going to end up on the 5:00 news.”

She paused, and turned and glanced out the windows for a moment.  “You want to go upstairs, though?”

“Yes,” Danny said immediately.

So they both ended up in Jazz’s room, sitting next to each other on her bed, with the curtains drawn tight in case the helicopters came back.

“I found out during the Spectra thing,” Jazz started.  “I spotted you transforming.”

Danny nodded, thinking about that.  “Okay,” he said quietly.  “And… why didn’t you say anything?”

“I wanted to wait until you wanted to tell me,” Jazz said.  She sighed, and glanced towards the windows.  “I guess that didn’t really work out.”

“No,” Danny muttered.  “But… I appreciate the sentiment.”

Jazz turned to look at him, concerned.  “Are you doing okay?  I mean, obviously not, just… you know.”

“Oh no, I’m fine,” Danny said, rolling his eyes.  “I always hoped that everyone would learn my secret in the aftermath of an exhausting battle when I was definitely not prepared for them to learn, and then I’d be hounded by literally everyone who suddenly feels entitled to my attention and my time.  Dream come true, this is.”

“I’m really sorry it turned out this way,” Jazz said quietly.

Danny sighed.  “Me too.”

“Is there anything I could do to be helpful?” Jazz asked.

“Do you know if anyone’s figured out time travel yet?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Dammit.”

There was a moment of silence, and Jazz said, “I mean it.”

Danny shook his head.  “There’s nothing you could do that you aren’t already doing,” he said.  “You’re not looking at me different.  Like your entire worldview’s been flipped on its head.  Which, I mean I guess for a lot of people it has, but… still.  It’s nice that you’re not.”

Jazz was quiet for a moment, and then she reached over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.  And despite how totally lame it was to hug his sister, Danny did the same back.

“Still, if you want me to stand in between you and anyone, just let me know,” Jazz said.

“I wouldn’t ask you do that,” Danny said, pulling back, though he was smiling a little.  “I can just fly away from the news vans, and go intangible to get away from the helicopters.  And Lancer already gave me permission to hide in his office during school hours if I ever need to.”

“Good,” Jazz said with a nod.  She paused for a second, and Danny got the feeling she was about to ask something delicate.  He was proven right when a second later she said, “And what about Sam and Tucker?”

“What about them?” Danny said, glaring away.  “We’ve said about ten words to each other since everything happened.  And about half of them are ‘um.’”

…Okay, so maybe he’s a little more bitter than he realized.  He sighed.

“I can’t expect everything to suddenly change,” he said, turning back to Jazz.  “Our falling out had nothing to do with Phantom.”

Or, it technically did.  Their falling out had been because he constantly ditched them and left mid-way through hangouts.  Because he was Phantom, and had to go fight whatever ghost had shown up.  But they didn’t know that at the time.  And it had been over a year since they’d talked.  They had probably moved on.

“You should still talk to them,” Jazz said.  “And I mean really talk to them.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see much of an opportunity for that in between getting interrupted every ten seconds, either by classmates or reporters,” Danny said.  He paused, and turned to look at Jazz as a realization struck him.  “Hey, how are you doing with all that, by the way?  It doesn’t look like the reporters are leaving you alone.”

“They’re definitely not,” Jazz said.  “But I can handle myself.  Besides, they tend to leave me alone as soon as they see you.”

Danny smiled a bit.  “Glad I can take that off your shoulders for you.”

“Oh yeah, if anything you owe me,” Jazz said with a smile.  “After everything I did for you?”

“I think I’ve saved your life three times now.”

“Do my dishes for a month and we’re even.”

Danny snorted.  “Sure, you got it.”  He took a deep breath, feeling lighter than he had when he got home.

“Hey, thanks, Jazz,” he said, looking over at her.  “You’re surprisingly easy to talk to.”

“Anytime,” Jazz said, smiling warmly at him.  “I mean it.”

…

The next day didn’t start much better, with flying invisibly to school and hiding in various places until first period starts, but Danny found himself in a better mood despite it.  Talking with Jazz had helped, and knowing he’d have a quiet place to eat lunch helped too.

He still didn’t love being swarmed in the halls on his way to his first period after the warning bell rang, though.  Maybe he could use his well-established reputation for being late for everything and just hide until the halls were empty between classes.

…Or would that not work anymore because everyone knew the reason?

Well, he’d give it a shot anyway.

First period was uneventful, thankfully, aside from everyone spending the period staring at him while he was trying to focus, which was nothing new.  He could tell it was irritating both him and the teacher, however, because eventually he set his chalk down from writing math equations on the board.

“Anyone who doesn’t stop staring at Mr Fenton loses an entire letter grade on the next test,” he snapped.  “This is school, this is not your free time.  Mr Fenton, thank you for at least trying to pay attention.”

“Anytime,” Danny deadpanned, because he wasn’t about to turn down a compliment from a teacher, and he really was trying.

Apparently the threat of losing a letter grade was only enough to sway a couple students, though, likely the ones who hadn’t entirely given up on their grades like he had.

(Although maybe the administration would go easier on him now…?)

Either way, he managed to get at least some of the notes down by the end of the class, and going up to the teacher to ask if there was anything else he absolutely needed to have written down seemed to put him on his better side.  Being a teacher’s favorite was also something he wasn’t used to.

And as a second bonus, staying behind and finishing the notes resulted in a late pass, meaning he could wait until everyone had filed out of the hallway.

Or at least, he thought that’s what he was doing.

Instead, as he turned a corner towards his next period, he stumbled across Dash shoving someone inside a locker.  And instead of adding him to the bunch like he used to, when Dash spotting him he brightened.

“Fenton!  You want to help me stuff these losers in here?”

“Not really,” Danny said, starting over towards them to help out whoever he was bullying.  “You know, if you’re really trying to get on my good side, you might try—” he stopped as he reached the locker.

Well, apparently Dash really didn’t care about getting on his good side, because staring back out at him were Sam and Tucker.

“Uh, hey Danny,” Tucker said, waving at him from inside the locker.

Danny turned back to Dash, raising an eyebrow in what hopefully came across as “are you fucking kidding me.”

“Aw, come on, you’re not trying to say you still care about these losers,” Dash said, like the very idea was ridiculous.  “You can hang out with anyone you want now!  By the way, you’re still coming to football practice later, right?”

“Probably not,” Danny snapped.  He held a hand out to Tucker, who grabbed it.  Danny turned him intangible and pulled Tucker out until he could stand on the floor.

Tucker looked a little off balance after he let go, but Sam still grabbed his hand when he offered the same to her.

“Okay,” Tucker said as Danny set Sam down.  “A little warning next time maybe?”

“Sorry,” Danny said.  He glared back over at Dash.  “Beat it.”

“Aw come on Fenton, you know I didn’t mean anything by it, I just—”

“Beat it or I tell everyone about that time you wet your pants after I saved your life from the Box Ghost.”

Dash went pale, and then quickly left.

“Wait,” Sam said.  “Really?”

Danny snorted.  “Oh yeah,” he said, turning back to face them.  “I could tell you stories about what Dash is like when he’s in danger.”  He paused, looking at them both in concern.  “Are you guys okay?”

Sam glared away, crossing her arms.  “Fine,” she muttered, a note in her voice that Danny couldn’t read.

“Thanks for the help,” Tucker said.  And then they both turned around, clearly about to leave.

“Wait!” Danny yelled after them.  “I— please.”

They both turned hesitantly back around.

“We’re late for class,” Sam said.

“I’ll tell them you got caught up in a ghost attack,” Danny said.  “Just, please can we talk?  Just once, and then we can be done.  Okay?”

They both exchanged a glance, and seemed to say something to each other with their eyes that Danny couldn’t read anymore.

Finally, they turned back to face him, and they both nodded.

“Where?” Tucker asked.

Well, eventually the bell was going to ring, and then the hall would flood with people who wouldn’t leave them alone.  And if they went outside, they’d be met with a similar problem, just with the news crews instead of students.  And if they were going to pretend a ghost attack happened, they should probably go somewhere to make it at least a little more believable.

“How do you feel about the roof?” Danny asked.

“Uh,” Tucker said.  “Have you been there?”

Danny nodded.  “It’s… quiet.  Sometimes.”

They were both quiet for another moment, then Sam nodded.  “Okay.”

Danny started over to them, glanced at Tucker and said, “This is your warning,” and then grabbed them both by the arms, transformed, and flew them all up through the ceiling and onto the roof.

Tucker stumbled a little as Danny let go of him.  “Okay,” he said.  “Needed a different kind of warning there.”

Danny smiled a little bit.  “Be glad you’ve never fallen through the floor in your sleep.”

“That’s not really something I’ve ever thought would happen to me,” Tucker said.

“Tell me about it.”

There’s a couple seconds of silence, and Tucker and Sam exchanged another glance.

Finally, Sam turned back to him and crossed her arms.  “So,” she said.  “You’re Phantom.”

Danny sighed.  “Yeah.”

“Can I ask…” Tucker started.  “I mean what— like how did you become— it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” he added quickly, holding up his hands.  “You don’t have to.”

Danny looked at him for a second.  It was definitely the same question he was sick of getting from other classmates and the reporters.  But Tucker at least had given him an out.  And if this really was going to be the last time they talked, he wanted them to know everything.

“You remember the portal in my parent’s lab?” he asked.  “How I told you it just started working one day?”

Tucker nodded.

“That’s… not actually true.  I turned it on.  From… from inside.”

Tucker’s eyes widened.  “Dude.”

Danny gave a short laugh.  “Yeah.”

“What happened with the ghost fighting?” Sam asked.  “I mean did you get pulled into that, or…?”

“What?  No,” Danny said.  “I mean, kind of, sure, but someone had to do it.  I wasn’t going to let people get hurt.”

“But— you got hurt,” Sam said, gesturing at him.  “All the time.  We talked about it around you.  Back when— when we were still talking.”

Danny shrugged.  “I can take it.  Normal humans can’t.”

The phrasing seemed to throw them off, which was fair, but he didn’t take it back.  He wasn’t a normal human anymore.

“Still,” Sam said finally.  “You should have told us.  We could have helped you.”

Danny’s shoulders slumped.  “I know,” he muttered.  “I— I really didn’t want you to find out like this.”

“On the news?” Tucker asked.  “Along with everyone else?  Like we weren’t any different from them?”

Danny winced.  “Yeah.”

A pause.

“If I knew everyone was going to find out, I would have told you first,” he added.  “For what it’s worth.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sam asked.

“It just… it felt so big,” Danny said, shaking his head.  “And I didn’t know how you’d react.  And… I’m sorry.”

Neither of them said anything for a minute.  Danny wasn’t sure what exactly they were waiting for, but eventually he had to help fill the silence.

“How long has Dash been bothering you?” he asked.

Both of them immediately looked away.

“Oh, come on.  You can’t make this conversation entirely about me.”

“We can’t?” Sam asked raising an eyebrow.

“No.  That’s not fair to me or you.”

Sam glared away again.

“Pretty much since everyone found out,” Tucker said a second later.  “I guess he figured he couldn’t mess with you anymore so he moved on to easier targets.”

Danny clenched his fists.  “Asshole.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Tucker said.

“No, I just mean,” Danny gestured vaguely with his hands, not sure what he meant.  “God, I’m so sick of him.  Of all of them.”

Tucker gave him a look.  “You really don’t like all the praise?”

Danny shrugged.  “I dunno.  I guess it beats being hunted.”

Tucker and Sam were both silent for a minute.  Danny looked at them for a second and saw slight horror on their faces.

Oh.  Maybe they hadn’t quite realized that part yet.

“You could have told me about Dash, you know,” Danny said, trying to stop them from thinking too much about that.  “I would have helped.”

“We… kind of didn’t think you’d care,” Tucker said hesitantly.

Danny blinked.  “What?” he asked.

“I mean, you are kind of a big deal now,” Sam said, gesturing at him.

Danny crossed his arms.  “I’m sorry?  Did you miss the part where I didn’t want to be?”

“No, I just mean—” Sam started.

“Yeah, I should go hang out with Dash, huh?  Or start dating Paulina?  Wouldn’t that be just great?”

Sam blinked at him.  “Would it not?”

“Of course not,” Danny snapped.  “None of them actually give a shit about me.   They all just think it’ll get them something if they’re best friends with Phantom.  They still don’t like Danny.   I don’t want to be friends with people who only ever see one side of me.  That—” he looked away.  “That already didn’t work.”

“Oh,” Sam said quietly.  “Sorry.”

Danny sighed.  “It’s okay,” he muttered.

There was another long stretch of silence.

“That wasn’t the only reason, you know,” Sam said.

Danny looked up at her.  “What wasn’t?”

“That we didn’t tell you.  Or— I guess I can’t speak for Tucker.  But it was just kind of embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?”

“I meant it when I said I noticed you were getting hurt all the time,” Sam said, looking down at the ground.  “You’re fighting actual ghosts, and I’m supposed to come up to you and say ‘hey Dash is being mean to me?’”

Danny stared at her.  “Sam,” he said.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  I would have put the ghosts on hold.”

“I don’t want to call you for backup every time I need help,” Sam snapped.  “You’re not like— my bodyguard.  Even if we had spoken in the last year.”

“Well, I appreciate the sentiment,” Danny said, because he did.  “But you— I hate it when you guys are hurt.”

“We hate it when you’re hurt too,” Tucker said, looking pointedly at him.  “It’s why we didn’t exactly love it when you pushed away while you were so obviously dealing with something.”

Danny winced.  “I’m sorry,” he said again.  “I should have told you.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Tucker said.  And then all of them stood there, none of them saying anything.

Tucker broke the silence again, this time with a sigh.  “But for what it’s worth?” he said.  “Thanks for saving everyone all the time.  And for recently, with that weird ghost king guy.”

Danny nodded.  “Anytime,” he said.  He didn’t have to tell them the part about how he thought he was going to die.  Again.

“And, you know, for what it’s worth?” he said instead.  “Thanks for trying.  While I was being an idiot.  Sorry I didn’t let you help me.”

“How about this,” Tucker said.  “We’ll be there to help you as Danny and Phantom if you kick Dash across the football field once or twice.”

Danny blinked, confused.  “Huh?”

“That sound good to you, Sam?” Tucker asked, glancing at her.

“Yeah, I wanna see that,” Sam said with a nod.  “And I’d like to learn how to kick some ghost butt.”  She smirked over at Danny.  “Maybe I’ll start with yours.”

“Wait, I thought,” Danny said, looking back and forth between them both.  “I thought we said we’d be done after this.”

“Are you kidding?  You think you’re getting rid of us again?” Sam asked.  “Now that we finally know what’s been going on with you?”

“Sorry, you’re stuck with us this time,” Tucker said, crossing his arms with a grin.  “Like we’re gonna let your total loser half go unacknowledged.  You can’t be Phantom all the time.  Sometimes you have to get teased for how much you like NASA.”

“Or get your butt kicked in Doomed,” Sam chimed in.  She raised an eyebrow.  “Sound good?”

Danny didn’t try to hide his smile at all, and instead he closed the space between the three of them and wrapped his arms around Sam and Tucker in a hug.

“That sounds great,” he said, meaning every word.

[bloggerspam]

Forgotten Flame:

Ember remembers what it was like, being a nobody. She remembers skipping school with the other punks, guitar in hand and jamming it out for hours on end in Eddie’s basement. Will and Ronny shootin’ the shit, smokin’ cigs. Chloe trying to teach Mandy some basic chords on the keyboard, giggling and stumbling and fingers tangling.  Leonard strumming a beat on the bass, Eddie banging and crashing and no doubt breakin’ their ears and making them go deaf, Ember humming out melodies flowing like rivers.  She remembers the first time she saw a guitar, remembers seeing that red 1971 Univox Hi-Flier gleaming in the window of the local music store on her way to make groceries with her mom. She remembers, vividly, standing there in all her pre-teen glory and thinking that one’s mine.

Read the rest here!

My oneshot submission for @phicphight :)

For @aggressivelyclueless and @anguishedlurker and their wonderful prompts!

[a-closet-emo]

Why Am I Like This?

4043 words, GrayGhost, written for @duchi-nesten's prompt for last year's phic phight that I never posted on here 😭. Welp, had to get it done before this year's phight. Enjoy!

“You know how there were rumors a while ago that I had a girlfriend?” he asked, and, Ancients, did his voice have to crack on that last word?

“No need to be so embarrassed, Danny-boy! We already know that you’re dating the Red Huntress!” his dad bellowed.

What.

“Yes,” his mom said curtly, “ we do.”

Or

Danny’s brain was short-circuiting.

How was he supposed to explain that he’s dating Valerie Gray, who was definitely not a vigilante ghost hunter, without giving away that he was definitely not a half-ghost vigilante ghost hunter, too?

He got a feeling that Clockwork was laughing at his pain.

Danny set his fork down carefully, grateful that tonight’s dinner wasn’t trying to kill him. He didn’t need that tonight, not when his plans were already going to be so stressful. 

“So,” he started, and immediately three pairs of eyes zeroed in on him. His parents were looking at him expectantly, like they’d just been waiting for him to speak up which was… not a good sign, but Jazz was giving him her encouraging-yet-I’ll-be-disappointed-if-you-don’t-do-it look, so he kinda had to follow through now. 

“You know how there were rumors a while ago that I had a girlfriend?” he asked, and, Ancients, did his voice have to crack on that last word? His parents were still waiting for him to get to the point.

“Yes, sweetie?” his mom prompted, her violet eyes shining with feigned nonchalance as she picked at her plate. At least she was pretending to be casual; his dad was openly staring at him again. He inwardly cringed, remembering the last time his dad thought he had a girlfriend.

He coughed and started rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh, well,” Why did it have to be so embarrassing to tell your parents about your love life! “There’s this girl, you know. And she’s super kickass and fiery but also determined and loyal and compassionate? Uh, sorry, you already know her–”

Suddenly his dad clapped him on the back with enough force, ghost-enhanced physique or not, to nearly make him faceplant into his mashed potatoes. “No need to be so embarrassed, Danny-boy! We already know that you’re dating the Red Huntress!” his dad bellowed.

What.

“Yes,” his mom said curtly, “we do.”

Danny sent a look Jazz’s way that was more a cry for help than anything else, but she was just as bewildered. Their mom sighed. 

“After ghost fights,” she said, “Jack and I still hang around the area just to collect extra samples or run a few numbers while the ectoplasm’s still fresh. But we also see you there, sweetie, talking with the Red Huntress or even riding around with her on her board going who-knows-where.”

Danny’s brain was short-circuiting. He was half tempted to check if dinner had been contaminated with ectoplasm, after all. 

The reason he was hanging around with Val after ghost fights was because he had fought alongside her during the fight. And somehow, instead of figuring out his identity, his parents… figured out his love life? Sort of? He wanted to think it was a stroke of good luck, or - more likely - another case of his bad luck to be added to the file. How was he supposed to explain that he’s dating Valerie Gray, who was definitely not a vigilante ghost hunter, without giving away that he was definitely not a half-ghost vigilante ghost hunter, too? He got a feeling that Clockwork was laughing at his pain.

“What?” he says a bit too cheerfully, “No -pfft- come on, I’m not dating some masked ghost hunter! I was just there after ghost fights because, uh…”

His dad guffawed before slapping him on the back again. “You’re a riot, son! Maddie and I once saw you exit a janitor’s closet in your school after a fight with ol’ Red, the both of you looking pretty flustered.” The big man was waggling his eyebrows at Danny. 

Danny wanted to phase through his chair and into the floor.

“Of course, we all know that proximity to ghosts and ghost fights is very dangerous,” his mom was all business. “If that girl is putting you at risk, sweetie, we’re going to need to have a very long talk with her. And you’ll need more combat lessons!” she added cheerfully. “I know you’re afraid of the ghosts, but if this relationship is turning your interests toward them, then…!”

And that was when Jazz intervened. “Mom, Dad! You’re embarrassing him, look!” She went on, “This is not the kind of conversation that is conducive to a healthy psyche, especially not when the subject is so touchy among boys his age. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to leave the scenario you’ve created.”

He so owed her. “Yep! I’ll be going now, bye.” And if he used a little of his ghostly speed to get out of the dining room and up the stairs faster, no one would know. Except for Clockwork. 

Clockwork was definitely laughing at him.

–

Danny started eavesdropping, invisible outside his parents’ door, in time to hear his dad sigh loudly with relief. 

“I told you he couldn’t be dating Valerie, Maddie! The girl’s way out of his league!”

Danny had to hold back a scoff. Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad. 

“And the Red Huntress isn’t?” his mom challenged. 

Danny pouted. Et tu, Mom? (Aha! A Shakespeare reference. He was so going to actually get higher than a passing grade this semester.) He was so tempted to barge in and loudly declare that he was, in fact, dating both of those girls. That girl. He sighed. There’s the problem. 

“Even if she is his age - and so help me if she’s older - we’ve seen them meet up before and after ghost fights!” He could hear his mom’s light footsteps as she paced the length of the room. “What happens when ‘before’ or ‘after’ becomes ‘during’? You’ve seen how aggressive she is sometimes! She puts him in danger!”

Danny heard the creaking of a bed as his dad flopped down onto it with a sigh. “She’s probably swept him off his feet, too.” Okay, so maybe Val has rescued him a few times, even carried him bridal style once, but he’s saved her, too!

His dad continued, regardless of Danny’s wounded pride, “I know how hard it is to resist a force of a woman.” 

Danny’s thoughts came to a halt. What was with that tone…

He heard the shuffling of sheets. “Speaking from experience, are we?” his mom asked with a chuckle. 

“You’d know it, you were there,” his dad replied - and nope! That was about enough for Danny. He was glad his parents had a happy marriage but he did not need to hear how happy it was. 

He retreated to his room, head buzzing with the mess he and Val had gotten themselves into. 

Crud.

–

Danny had been trying for a week. 

He’d flunked his English paper (the assignment wasn’t about Caesar, go figure), and he’d been dodging Valerie all week. A few months ago, he would’ve meant dodging her blasts and hits, but now he meant trying to get out of hanging out with her or - Ancients forbid - having her come to his house. It also meant that by virtue of not wanting to make Valerie feel like she was being excluded, he couldn’t have Sam or Tucker over, either. He was starting to lose his mind all alone in the house. And no, he was not going to Jazz for help about it.

Look, it was an embarrassing problem, okay? His parents disapproved of the relationship they thought he had with the ghost-fighting alter ego of his girlfriend because they thought it was reckless and put him in danger. And they knew about it because they’d basically walked in on their more… private moments. Letting them actually meet with Red and lecturing her on how to properly protect him and save him like the damsel in distress they thought he was for being so afraid of ghosts this whole time was a total no-go - he’d never hear the end of from Val!

He was trying to figure out why this whole situation felt so familiar when Jazz walked in on him pacing the length of his room. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. “Can it. I don’t wanna hear it, Jazz.”

She pouted a little at that, then huffed. “If you’re not going to listen to my advice about healthy communication in all relationships in your life, just let me say that our parents are stubborn to a fault. If they latch onto an idea, they need solid proof to discount it.” She shot him A Look. “You know that better than anyone.”

She turned on her heel with a little ‘harrumph!’ and disappeared from his doorway, her orange hair swinging as she went. 

Danny sighed, and tried to get back into brainstorming convincing arguments against his parents. He’d tried to completely deny that anything had happened between him and the Red Huntress, claiming that in this freaky town, it could’ve been ghosts! (You know, the ol’ reliable). He’d told them that at most, the Red Huntress was just a friend. Then his dad started to ask him why he blushed whenever they brought it up and started to tease him and… he lost that argument pretty soon after. He went for a partial denial after that one. He wasn’t dating the Red Huntress, they’d just made out a couple of times. Sort of like a fakeout-makeout, even. That one made his parents angry. “Son,”  his dad had said with a distinct tone of fatherly disappointment, “I did not raise you to play with people’s feelings. If you’re not dating the Huntress, then–” “Just kidding! Haha, I meant that we weren’t dating at the time! Wait. I mean, we’re not dating!” Danny resisted the urge to put his head in his hands. That went well. He’d even considered outright telling them that he was dating Valerie and showing them proof, but he shut that idea down. What if they thought he was a two-timer (ugh.). What if they put two and two together for once and figured out that she was the Red Huntress? And he didn’t want to drag Valerie as proof over just to have her watch him either be very awkward with his parents or argue with them. Valerie had too much on her plate for her to be wasting her time in his family drama.

Wait, what was it that Jazz had said about ‘proof’? That his parents were stubborn and needed it to be convinced of something. Well, duh. They were scientists. Sure, though they had definitely dropped the idea a while ago, they used to be extremely biased against ghosts. They held onto the idea that all ghosts were evil so stubbornly that Danny was legit afraid to be around them in the beginning. At least they’d warmed up to Phantom lately. 

But what proof did his parents need? They actually had too much proof on their side, evidence that Danny couldn’t refute. 

Something green glinted in his peripheral vision, His head whipped around to look at it, and he found himself staring at his reflection in the mirror. In his stress, his eyes had turned that otherworldly green, a shade that seemed so out of place with his regular complexion and black hair. 

Oh, right. There was something else that his parents were being stubborn about. 

(Maybe it was related? Jazz could look into their family’s seemingly genetic stubbornness, but – she probably already has several papers on it.) 

He sighed. He didn’t need to convince his family that he was dating Valerie, not the Red Huntress (because, hey, they were right for once. Sort of. And he didn’t want to ask Val to fake-date him or something, it’d just be too complicated). He needed proof to convince them that dating her was not putting him at risk.

He ran a hand across his face, and in the reflection he could see that his eyes had smoothly transitioned from green back to blue. He sighed. He was going to need to ask his sister for advice on this one.

–

Danny waited until the last second to dodge a glowing green ghostly cube of doom, stepping nonchalantly to the side in midair and watching the Box Ghost’s frustrated reaction with smug satisfaction. But he’s not ignoring the guy just to mess with him. He was just focused on someone else.

“Red!” he hissed. Normally, he’d love to just watch her during combat, because in the fruitloop’s words, she really was good at this, but he needed to talk to her. They were flying higher than some of the buildings around, but his parents were directly beneath them and for all he knew, they’d made a Ghost-Whisper-Detector-Inator or something. 

“Oh, so now you wanna talk!” she replied, the distortion from her helmet making her voice sound more metallic and making her angry tone all the more sharp and unsettling. She grunted as she hefted one of her heavier canons onto her shoulder before taking a shot at the Box Ghost. Danny winced as the projectile hit its mark directly and the poor guy got launched a couple blocks down the road. The two of them sped toward where he’d crashed into a wall and blocked his exits, one of them on either side of him. It was way overkill and the Red Huntress was clearly fuming, but Danny couldn’t resist saying, “Guess you could say we boxed him in.”

He couldn’t tell if the groan that came from the Box Ghost was a result of his injuries or Danny’s pun. 

Red came closer, pressing a finger to his chest. “I’m about ready to box your hide–” 

Danny’s voice cracked as he interrupted her, “Yep! So, can we have this little lovers’ spat over there,” he pointed at a nearby rooftop that was just tall enough to give them some privacy from people on the street, “you know, where my parents won’t see?” He put his hands in the air as he floated away slowly, toward that rooftop. Behind him, he heard Red huff before the telltale humming of her board followed him there. 

As soon as they alighted on the roof, the Red Huntress stored her board away and took off her helmet. Valerie’s long, brown curls billowed in the wind and Danny tried not to stare. The whole Technus-enhanced suit she used to have was cool and all, but it was a little creepy, especially since Technus had been so… involved in their first relationship. He much preferred this suit, made by Tucker and the rest of the team using both Vladco and Fenton Works tech. She crossed her arms. “Start talking, Ghost-boy.”

Danny blinked. That took him back to the good ol’ days of when she was trying to kill him - was he sure Clockwork wasn’t messing with the timestream or something? 

“Right,” he started, “So, sorry for ghosting you this past week.” His eyes widened in alarm. “Pun not intended, pun not intended!” 

She just scoffed and muttered under her breath, “Yeah, right.” But some of the tension left her shoulders, and he could tell that she was holding back a smile. He took it as a sign to continue. He’d been trying to figure out the best way to explain the whole thing, but in the end he just said, “My parents think you and I are dating.”

She cocked an eyebrow at that. “And is that the problem?”

“Sort of.” He reached for her helmet. “You see, they think you,” he gestured to the red helmet in his hands, “are dating me,” he quickly transformed and gestured to his human self. “They think you’re putting me in danger,” he sighed, handing the helmet back to her.

Valerie took the helmet back and his words in slowly. Then she burst into laughter. “They think that I,” she said in between chuckles, “am putting Danny ‘Protector of Amity Park’ and ‘Heir to the Ghost Throne’ Phantom in danger?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Danny groaned. He knew it. He was never going to hear the end of this. She was going to tell the rest of the gang using the groupchat that he was definitely not a part of. 

“So that’s why they’ve been chasing me down all week, too,” she added, calming down.

“They’ve been what?” Danny felt a sudden wave of guilt wash over him. He’d been so caught up with trying to keep Valerie free from the stress that his family was causing him that he hadn’t even bothered to check in with her.

She shrugged. “Guess their shouts of ‘Something something my son!’ and ‘Stay away!’ make a lot more sense now. For a moment there, I thought they were tryna run me outta town.” She looked him in the eye. “Is that what it was like for you, y’know,” she said quietly, “before?”

Danny stepped closer to her, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorta.” He held her hands through her suit’s gloves and was happy to feel her give him a returning squeeze. “But that was before, and my parents have been harassing you all week. Are you okay?” “They’ve been harassing both of us all week and we just didn’t know it,” she chuckled. “What idiots. I just missed you, is all.”

He sighed. Jazz was right (Jazz was always right), if he’d just communicated with his relationships or something… “Sorry,” he said again. She just nodded. 

“So, what’s your plan?”

–

“You sure you’re okay with telling my parents?” “Oh, yeah, it’s totally fine.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s not like you already revealed my secret identity to my dad and got me in a lot of trouble.”

“Hey!” he protested. “It was one time…” he added guiltily, rubbing the back of his neck.

She grinned and punched his arm playfully. “I know, I know. Not like I didn’t deserve it.” 

He frowned a little. That was true, but he still felt like the action had crossed a line. If anyone knew the importance of a secret identity, it would be him. He reached for her hand and she accepted the gesture, holding his hand as they walked to the edge of the roof. “True,” he said. “You used to be pretty morally Gray.”

“You are lucky I love you, Fenton.”

He stopped just short of being visible to those on the ground and gaped at her. She was shorter than him, but she stood tall with all her confidence and an expectant smirk. There was a challenge in her eyes, even if maybe the effect was kinda thrown off by the blush on her cheeks.

“I love you, too,” he said, and she rolled her eyes as if to say ‘duh.’ “And I love that you won’t whoop my ass in front of my parents? Unless, uh, you wanna show me all fifty shades–”

Valerie pressed a quick kiss to his lips before he could finish that sentence. “I love you, but that won’t help you if I hear the end of that sentence.” Helmet back on, she pulled him by the scruff of his shirt and yanked him onto her board before launching them both off the edge toward his parents. 

“There she is, Maddie! And Danny-boy’s here, too?”

“Red Huntress! Be careful with my son!”

Red guided the board smoothly over until they arrived in front of his parents. 

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” his mom greeted him as soon as he and Valerie stepped onto the street, “we already dealt with the Box Ghost that Phantom just left for us.”

“Now, Maddie,” his dad interjected. “The Box Ghost is small fry! Phantom trusts us with that kind of thing.” “I suppose you’re right,” she conceded with a sigh. And– Danny knew that this truce was the longest one that had ever lasted between Phantom and his parents, and he knew that Jazz had beaten the anti-ghost bias out of them a long time ago, but hearing the way they were so quick to defend and accept his alter ego now was still jarring. In all this time, even if he didn’t realize it, he was already a lot more relaxed about his identity, not caring if he let something suspicious slip or sometimes even being careless on purpose. It’s just that his parents were too stubborn to see it.

“Speaking of the Ghost-boy,” his dad continued, “where’d he go?”

“We’ll deal with that in a sec,” Danny dismissed easily. He gestured to the Huntress behind him. She stepped forward as confident as ever, her hand outstretched for a handshake. “Mom, Dad, this is my girlfriend, the Red Huntress.” He watched as his mom accepted the gesture easily, though somewhat stiffly, while his dad’s handshake threatened to pull Red off her feet. “But you also know her from somewhere else.”

On cue, his girlfriend took off her helmet, and Danny continued despite his parents’ shocked gasps, “Val, these are my parents.”

His dad was the first to speak up. “Damon’s girl?” He chuckled with delight. “I knew you were out of Danny’s league!”

“Hey!” he started, but Valerie spoke up for him instead. “If anything, Mr. Fenton, your son’s too good for me,” she said, looking back at him with big, green eyes. He shook his head at her, and put a hand on her shoulder. 

“You can call him, Jack, dear,” his mom said. She’d taken off her hood and goggles and she was smiling softly at the two of them. “And I’m Maddie. It’s nice to really meet you.”

Danny and Valerie smiled at each other. “It’s good that I can tie a face that I trust to your girlfriend, Danny,” his mom said. “But! That doesn’t mean that she can take you around with her to ghost fights if we don’t set some ground rules first.” The older woman turned to Valerie. “I know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself, but poor Danny’s been afraid of his own shadow since the ghost portal went up, you see.” Danny’s dad nodded. “Gotta make sure our boy is looked after!”

“Actually,” Danny butt in, “I can take care of myself.” His parents went quiet and looked at each other. His heart was pounding.

“It’s good to be confident, Danno! But–”

“No ‘buts’, Dad. I haven’t been completely honest with you guys, and it’s not fair to ask Val to reveal her identity when my reveal is way overdue.” He looked down at the street, missing  the way his mother’s hand traveled to her mouth and his dad’s jaw was set with knowing determination. Valerie’s hand found his and squeezed it reassuringly. He took a deep breath. 

The rings of his transformation glided smoothly over his form. When he opened his eyes to look at his parents, he tensed for just a moment as his vision was filled with the sight of the two of them barrelling toward him. But then they both crushed him in a hug, and all the tension left his shoulders. Even Val was squished in here with him and he laughed wetly. “I guess you guys finally caught the Ghost-boy, huh? Guess you weren’t ex-specter that one!” Then everyone groaned. 

After a while, they all pulled away. 

“Don’t think we won’t be having talks about all of,” his mom gestured vaguely to him, then to themselves, “this.”

“Oh, sonny, there’ll be a lot of talking to do.” The man looked to his wife. “And I’m going to have to edit the ‘birds and the bees’ spiel a bit, eh? We gotta take into account all your ghostly biology, after all!” 

“My ghostly…” Danny turned as green as ectoplasm. Val was as red as her suit.

“Dad!” he whined, making his parents chuckle. 

It wasn’t perfect, but, eh. They’d figure it out.

–

“So, how did you end up thinking that Danny was dating the Red Huntress?” Valerie asked, and Danny choked on his mom’s mac and cheese. He glared at Jazz from across the table, and she tried her best to stifle a laugh. 

“Well…” his mom started, looking at her husband with a knowing smirk on her face. 

“Mom!” he said, accidentally flashing his eyes green. 

“No ghost powers at the table, sweetie,” she replied without missing a beat. He huffed and sat back in his seat. He met Valerie’s eye and she had one eyebrow up in an expression that felt like she thought she should be amused, but she didn’t know why yet. Oh, she was going to regret that fast.

His dad picked up the story, “You know the janitor’s closet on the third floor of Casper High?”

[scarletsaphire]

Clockwork didn't fix anything. Danny's parents, his friends, his sister, everyone was dead, and gone, and all he had left was Vlad. At least the older halfa was doing everything in his power to help him, with no nefarious plans at all. Right?

--

5th fic for phic phight, and this one is a doozy both in word count and in prompt fills! This one is for: @underforeversgrace, @faeriekit, @scarletsakuraaa, and @shadowfaerieammy. The prompts used will be in the end notes, as always, but having said that, I do not recommend reading them until after reading the fic. You'll see why :)

Danny couldn't say when he woke up. It wasn't as if being awake was all that different than being asleep anymore. It didn't matter whether he was staring at the back of his eyelids or at the lavish canopy hanging over his bed, everything would still be the same. His friends would still be dead. His family would still be dead. And he'd still be in this stupid mansion with the second stupidest man half-alive as his only company.

Danny didn't have any right to complain. It was all his fault, after all. If he'd just been smarter. If he'd just been honest. If he'd just been better. If he'd just been anyone but Danny Fenton, future world renowned fuck up, than everything would've been different. Everything would've been better.

When Clockwork had first shown him everything with his other self, he hadn't really understood. He knew it would hurt, losing everyone like that. He knew it would hurt in the same way that you might know breaking a bone would hurt, before you ever did. A distant kind of hurt that didn't hold a candle to the real thing.

He remembered thinking that his future self was being dramatic in separating his halves. Or maybe it had been Vlad's manipulation, his desire to be the only remaining halfa causing him to force that Danny to become the monster he'd seen through Clockwork's time mirrors. As much as losing everyone would hurt, there's no way it could hurt that badly, right?

Laying here for what was probably the fourth day straight, Danny knew that he'd been wrong.

He didn't turn his head at the sound of the door opening. He didn't turn his head when he heard Vlad's footsteps, sharp and deliberate, crossing the room that was far, far too big for him. He didn't turn his head when he felt the bead compress under Vlad's weight. He didn't even turn his head when Vlad's face appeared over him.

"Good afternoon, Daniel," he said.

Danny didn't reply.

Vlad sighed. "Little badger..." he said softly, resting one hand on the side of Danny's face. It was soft and caring, two thing Danny didn't think was possible of Vlad before last week. "I understand you don't want to, but you need to eat. Even if its just some soup. I can have somebody bring it up to you, or I can do it myself, but I'm not going to sit aside while you waste away."

Even if that's what I want? The thought floated through Danny's head, hazy and distant, but he didn't say it. He didn't say anything.

Eventually Vlad's disappointed face disappeared from his view, and his footsteps retreated from his room. A few minutes later (or maybe it was an hour? Or the next day? Danny didn't know, and he didn't care) he returned. There was the soft sound of porcelain on wood, and then Vlad was sitting on the side of the bed again.

Danny didn't fight as Vlad lifted Danny upwards, so that he was sitting against the large, plush pile of pillows instead of laying on them. He watched languidly as Vlad lifted the bowl back off the bedside table from the corner of his eye, and set it gently in Danny's lap. "Come now, Daniel. Just a few bites. It's got ectoplasm mixed in, so you won't need any more than that."

Danny did not move.

"Your only other option is for me to spoon feed you myself, and I think we both know how you would feel about that."

That got Danny to move, if not actually start eating. He turned his head to glare at where Vlad was sitting. He was surprised to see Vlad's look of relief so clearly on display, but he pushed aside any surprise in favor of annoyance. "If you even think about it I'll bite you." His voice was hoarse, and he became suddenly aware of just how dry his throat was, and how sore. He didn't know how long it had been since he last talked.

"If that's what it takes for you to eat, than I will do it," Vlad replied.

Danny huffed, before looking down at the bowl in front of him. Calling it soup would be a stretch; it was nothing but clear broth. Despite this, the thought of eating it made his stomach churn.

He glanced back up at where Vlad sat watching him expectantly. The older man made no signs of leaving, and he was right; Danny really didn't want to be spoon fed. He wasn't a child.

Danny took the spoon in his hands clumsily, bringing it up to his lips and slurping the warm, clear broth. It stung going down, but as soon as he'd finished swallowing, he felt a little bit better. He let the spoon fall into the bowl again, ignoring the broth that splashed out, and he pushed the bowl away from him.

"There. Are you happy now?"

Vlad pursed his lips together. "You need to eat more than that, Little Badger."

"Why?"

"Because you need food to survive?"

"Too late." Danny slumped backwards into the pillow pile, letting himself slide back down to a laying position. His eyes found the same fold in the canopy he'd been staring at for the better part of a week on instinct. "If only it had worked right the first time."

"Daniel-" Vlad cut himself off before restarting his sentence. "Danny. I will not pretend to understand how you're feeling, but do you really think that your friends and family would want you to stay like this? Even your father-" His voice was surprisingly free from disdain, which was impressive for Vlad. "-would've wanted you to be happy."

Danny didn't reply, and Vlad sighed again. "I'm going to leave this here, for when you do decide to eat." He moved the bowl from Danny's lap back to the bedside table, and then stood up and made his way back towards the exit. "Please try, Daniel. If not for yourself, then for them."

The door was shut with a soft click, leaving Danny to his thoughts once more.

By the time he mustered the energy to sit up and grab the bowl, it had long since gone cold. That was okay. Danny didn't think he deserved a warm meal anyway.

---

Another week had passed during his stay at Vlad's mansion. A week of blackness, followed by canopy, followed by another fight with Vlad, followed by darkness. The only reason he knew it had been a week was because of the different foods Vlad had been bringing up. While the first day had been nothing but broth, the day after it had been proper soup, albeit blended together into a liquidy mush. The day after it had been all soft vegetables, and the day after that a small slice of buttered bread had been included.

Danny hated to admit it, but the food had helped. He still didn't want to be awake, or aware, or existing in general, but he felt less like he was on death's door again. Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen.

This time when Vlad came up to his room, Danny did turn to look at him. Unlike the previous days, he didn't have a bowl with him; he didn't have any food at all.

"Good afternoon, Daniel," Vlad said softly, coming to sit on the edge of the bed just like he'd done every earlier day. "How are you feeling?"

"Bad," Danny said. His voice wasn't ass hoarse as it had been the first day, but it still wasn't anywhere near good.

"I'm not surprised. Do you think you might be up for taking a short walk to the dining chambers?" Vlad asked. At Danny's obvious dismay, Vlad backtracked. "You don't have to, of course, but I thought that it might do you some good, to get out of the bed, if only for a few minutes. That way I can have someone come in and change the sheets, and you'll have a chance to stretch your legs."

Danny didn't answer; he didn't need to. He wouldn't be moving here anytime sooner. Maybe anytime ever, if he had his way. He would lay in this bed until he died, or until the world died around him. Whichever came first.

"Daniel, please," Vlad said. "If not for yourself, and not for me, than for the housekeeper that needs to get these stains out. The longer you wait, the harder it will be for them."

Danny didn't know enough about laundry to argue, but it sounded true. He didn't want to make things harder for anyone; he'd done enough of that already.

It was not easy for him to get out of bed. Even sitting up took as much effort as most of his fights did, and that was without really using his legs at all. Standing seemed like an impossible task.

He was about to let himself fall back to the bed, housekeeper be damned, but Vlad's hand caught him before he could.

Danny looked to Vlad, expecting to see ridicule in his eyes. It's what Danny deserved, after all. Instead, he was met with nothing but compassion and concern, and a second hand, wrapping so very gently around his wrist.

"Let me help you, Daniel."

Danny didn't have much of a choice. If he wasn't strong enough to get out of bed, he certainly wasn't strong enough to fight off Vlad. (And maybe, a small part of him wanted the help. A small part of him trusted Vlad, after everything he'd done. A small part of him just wanted to get out of this pit he'd dug himself into. Danny ignored that part.)

It was only with Vlad's help that he was able to stand, and even then, he fell right back down to the mattress. His legs were weak and wobbly, as if he'd never walked on them before, and black dots crowded his vision. He didn't want to try again, but Vlad was still holding onto him, ready to help him back up.

"I know you are strong enough to do this, Daniel."

Danny wasn't as certain as Vlad seemed to be, but there wasn't much he could do about it besides try again. This time instead of falling back onto the bed, he collapsed into Vlad's side. He clung onto to expensive suit purely out of instinct, nails tearing through the fabric.

He glanced up at Vlad, but was once again met with only compassion. "Well done, Little Badger. Let's go get you something to eat, shall we?"

The majority of the walk had Danny clinging to Vlad's side, legs shaking with every step. It was only after they'd made it a good few doors down, and the smell of herbs Danny couldn't name drifting from down the hall gave him the strength he needed to walk on his own, although Vlad kept a steadying arm around his shoulders.

By the time they'd arrived in the dining room, Danny was exhausted, and embarrassingly winded from such little effort. Still, Vlad didn't say anything, simply guided Danny to a chair before sitting down at the one at the head of the table.

"As I said, Daniel. I knew you could do it," Vlad said with a smile. Danny still said nothing, but Vlad didn't seem to care. He waved his hand, and a cart was pushed out by some invisible force. By the fact that Danny's ghost sense didn't go off, it wasn't just that they were invisible either.

"It's just magnets," Vlad answered Danny's unspoken question. "I have the controls under my side of the table."

"But then why the hand thing?" Danny asked.

Vlad smiled at him. "You know me. I cannot help a bit of dramatics."

Vlad handed out the food, a chicken noodle soup for Danny and something for fancier, and far less recognizable, for himself. Still, Vlad didn't eat, instead resting his head on his hands and watching as Danny fought with his spoon. He debated asking about it, but decided not too; it was too much effort.

The soup was good, and after only a couple of bites, Danny found his eyes falling back closed. He couldn't tell if it was because of the effort of walking here, or because of the soup himself. He didn't have the energy to fight against it, and before he knew it he was laying his head on the table, letting the black void of sleep consume him yet again.

He woke up several hours later, tucked comfortably into his bed with clean, fresh sheets.

---

It was now routine for Vlad to come and get him from his room. It wasn't always for food; sometimes it was get Danny to shower, or to watch a show, or simply to get him out of bed for a little bit. Rarely was Danny ever moving around for more than an hour, and never was it of Danny's own accord.

Not that he wasn't allowed to wander around; Vlad had made it very clear that Danny was welcome anywhere in the mansion, or on the mansion grounds, at any time. Danny just never was.

At least, he never was before today.

He wasn't sure why today was different; he'd woken up well past noon, when the sun was already starting to set, and been struck by such a strong desire to be anywhere but here that it was nearly suffocating. He'd practically run from his room, down hallway after hallway, never noting his surroundings longer than it took for him to figure out the next hallway, the next staircase, the next entrance.

It was only after he'd hit a dead end that he collapsed on the floor. He grabbed fistfuls of the soft, plush carpet underneath his feet, pulling them out in chunks and tossing them aside before doing it all over again. It wasn't enough. None of this was ever enough, he wasn't enough, just like he hadn't been enough to save them.

That's what he'd been running from, after all. That's what he'd spent the past weeks, the past month, the past however fucking long it'd been in bed hiding from. The fact that he wasn't enough. The fact that they  were dead, and he wasn't, because he hadn't even been fast enough to die with them.

The carpet was barren now, nothing but the hardened glue the strands had been connected to, and Danny had no choice but to move his hands to his head, to his hair. It hurt, but it didn't hurt enough , it wasn't anything like they would've gone through, what they would've felt, what he should've felt instead.

He couldn't fight against the scream that bubbled up from his chest, even though he knew  he should, that he needed to. He felt the way the scream tasted on his tongue, tangy and acrid and long overdo, even as his vocal chords vibrated in time with his core. He could hear the sounds of shattering glass and breaking vases, of wooden furniture smashing against the walls around him as he wailed but he couldn't stop it, just like he couldn't stop his fingers from pulling out his hair, just like he couldn't stop Sam and Tucker and Jazz and Mom and Dad and everyone from dying a horrible, horrible death and-

Warm hands met his, pulling them away from his head. Danny fought against it, scratching and screaming and crying as he tried to curl back in on himself, but it was no use; he was already exhausted, and clearly whoever this was was just stronger than he was. By the time they had succeeded at lowering Danny's hands to his lap, Danny was openly sobbing.

"It's ok, Little Badger," Vlad said, taking Danny into a hug. Danny didn't fight against it this time, burying his face into Vlad's shirt without a care for how his tears or snot would mess it up. "I'm here."

That was part of the problem though, wasn't it? he wanted to say. You're here and I'm here and they aren't. They aren't, and I am, and I should be dead in the rubble with them. I should be the one who died, so they could live, just like it was always supposed to be.

Danny couldn't say anything. His throat stung from the wail, and his eyes stung from the tears, and his head stung from the places he'd pulled out his hair.

It might've been an hour before Danny had cried himself out, maybe longer, but through the whole thing, Vlad had stayed their, holding Danny close and whispering soothing, meaningless words. It was only after his very last sniffles had died out that Vlad pulled away.

"Are you feeling any better?" he asked.

Danny shook his head. It was the truth; he wasn't.

"That's okay. You don't need to be. I will be here regardless."

It was disconcerting, hearing words that kind come from Vlad Plasmius's mouth, but then again Vlad had been nothing but sweet to him since he came here however long ago it was. There was a solid chance Vlad would've had to carry him up to the bedroom; Danny couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything about his arrival here; he could barely remember anything from his time here anyway.

Danny didn't flinch away when Vlad's hands came up to his face to rub the tears off of his cheeks, not until he noticed the deep gashes pushed straight through the pure black gloves and into his skin. Tiny beads of already dried ectoplasm sat beneath the cuts, many of them smeared into a faint pink sheen.

Danny pulled away, grabbing Vlad's wrists to inspect them. Vlad did not fight. "You're hurt."

"It's just a scratch, Little Badger."

Danny shook his head. "I hurt you."

"Just as I have hurt you in the past. You didn't mean to."

That was right. Danny didn't mean to. Just like he didn't mean to wreck the potted plant that sat in tatters in the corner of the room. Just like he didn't mean to ruin the carpet, to the end tables, or anything else. He ruined it all, just like he ruined everything else.

He felt his eyes burn again, but this time no tears came. All he could do was tremble in place, hands gripped into tight fists, making sure that his nails dug into his own flesh this time, not anyone else's.

"I've said something wrong, haven't I." He heard Vlad say quietly. "I'm sorry, Daniel, for whatever it was." A beat of silence, before he continued. "Would it help if I let you clean up?"

Danny had almost forgotten that was a thing he could do. This was a mess he could fix, a problem he could solve. He nodded once, quick and shaky.

"I shall go get some supplies, and then we will clean this together. You wait for me here. Understood?"

Danny nodded, and Vlad went off down the hall.

It would be nice, to clean up one of his messes for once.

---

"I don't understand why I need to do this," Danny asked. He was sitting  on an operating table in Vlad's own lab, elgs dangling off the edge.

It was weird, entering it for the first time. He was struck with a horrible amount of deja vu, and once he'd fought that off he'd been overtaken by just how different everything was.

His parents' lab had always been messy, to an almost comical and definitely unsafe degree. wires and scrap metal and inventions in various points of construction littered every possible surface, and in some cases impossible surfaces as well. Despite the mess, his parents knew where everything went, where everything was. Danny could still remember the exact order of every single blaster and tool from when it was his turn to clean the lab, despite having not done it for... two, three months now?

Vlad's laboratory couldn't be more different. Not only was every surface visible, it was practically shining. Chemicals and instruments lined the walls on carefully designed hooks or holders, and there were no visible blueprints at all; Danny didn't know if they were holed up in drawers or if Vlad stored them somewhere else. Or maybe he'd given up inventing completely. He had been busy taking care of Danny these last couple months.

"Because you have been through a period of extreme distress, and its important that we monitor your health," Vlad answered, pulling on a set of gloves.

"I guess," Danny said, picking at the hem of his shirt. "But you're not a doctor."

"You are correct," Vlad said. "I do seem to recall a rather unfortunate accident while working on my PhD dissertation."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's okay, Daniel. I understand being hesitant about this. But as the only other halfa, and with nearly all of the education required to be a doctor in this field, I would argue that I am the best person to do something like this with you."

"Right. Okay. And it's just a check up, like a normal doctor would do?"

"There are some other things I will need to test for," Vlad said. "But they will be a handful of scans, nothing more. The worst thing I will be doing is a blood test, and I will make sure you are well aware when that will happen." He turned back to Danny with a smile. "I try not  to lie to you, Daniel. Not unless its necessary."

Danny trusted Vlad. It was still a novel concept, but he did. The older halfa had been almost unreasonably kind to him during his stay at the mansion, and hadn't so much as insulted his father more than once or twice. He'd done everything he could to help Danny, and had asked nothing in return. The least he could do was sit still for a quick doctor's visit.

They worked through the tests in near silence, Danny listening to the instructions the best that he could. It was only once Vlad had stepped to the side to wheel over a cart, something to measure the strength of his core, that Danny spoke. "In the other timeline, you'd built a statue."

Vlad stopped. A full, complete stop, as if someone had pressed pause on him. Danny had begun to worry that Clockwork was about to make another appearance before he started moving again. "Oh?" was all he said.

Danny nodded. "Where the... accident. Occurred."

"I suppose you are asking if I can do the same?"

Danny nodded again. 

"I can see why you might think it's a good idea," Vlad said slowly. "But I will have to disagree."

Danny's heart dropped. He'd been sitting on this idea for a few weeks now, waiting for the perfect time to bring it up. He had thought Vlad would say yes; technically, he already had said yes, even if that timeline was no longer accurate. "Why not?"

"I just think that something like that is more likely to make you start living in the past," Vlad explained, just as slowly as before. "I know you have not told me everything from this 'other future,' but it is quite possible that doing such a thing encouraged your other self to do all of that, is it not?"

He hadn't thought about it that way, but Vlad did have a point. Maybe the statue had been a tipping point for the other him; had he gone back to cry over their makeshift, communal grave? Had he gone there so many times that he could fly the route by heart? That his knees were in a permanent state of bruised and muddy from the time he spent kneeling there.

Danny only hummed in reply.

"I suppose that does lead well in another topic I've been meaning to talk with you about," Vlad said, wheeling the cart over to where Danny sat. "I also don't think its a good idea for you to return to Amity Park."

Danny threw his head up to look Vlad in the eyes. "What? Why?"

"It will be much, much harder to avoid... sour reminders, so to say," Vlad said. He pressed some buttons on the machine, pointedly not looking at Danny. "It will be much harder to continue as you have been in the last few days, when you are faced with their passing again."

"But-" Danny swallowed hard. "But what if a ghost attacks?"

"Do you really think there hasn't been a single ghost attack since you first came here?" Vlad asked.

Danny's eyes widened in worry. He hadn't really thought about it, not between everything else he'd been through, but Vlad was right. The ghosts didn't take days off based on how Danny was doing before, and they certainly wouldn't now. With his parents dead, that only left Valerie and the Guys in White, and while Valerie may have been competent, she was only one human. The Guys in White were hardly worth mentioning.

Vlad rested his hand on Danny's shoulder and gave a slight, reassuring squeeze. "Relax, Daniel. I thought of this as soon as I saw what state you were in. I have used my connections to make sure that your town is perfectly safe from any harm. And, not to brag, but I do believe my precautions are just as strong as you are. Perhaps even more so."

Danny sagged in relief. "Oh thank the ancients."

"Actually, I think you should be thanking me," Vlad teased. "Now, straighten up. The scanner doesn't work as well when you're folded up like that."

Danny obeyed. It was a good thing Vlad had thought ahead like that; Danny didn't want to see what an Amity Park without a Phantom to protect it.

---

Things had been going well. Almost unreasonably well, for only a couple of months having passed. Living with Vlad had become almost enjoyable, and Danny was feeling good.

Maybe that was why he was flying back to Amity Park.

He'd realized, some time after digging himself out of the vat of survivors guilt and depression, that just because the most important people to him weren't around anymore, it didn't mean that there was nobody left who relied on him. He was Danny Phantom, Amity Park's number one line of defense against ghost attacks. He couldn't disappear forever, not until his town was safe.

He'd let himself stay out of the fight for long enough. Part of that time, he didn't have much of a choice; sitting up had been too much effort, let alone a proper fight. The other part, his fears had been assuaged by Vlad's promises to keep the ghosts out. As much as he might not approve of Vlad's methods, he knew that they worked.

That didn't mean he could just leave his home behind. He had a job to do.

And maybe, there was a large part of him that still screamed in agony whenever he saw a creepy book from Vlad's collection, or when he booted up Vlad's ancient computer, and his first reaction was to message Sam and Tucker. How the voice in the back of his head that encouraged him to go through the motions of self care sounded a bit too much like Jazz, or the lab Vlad did his check ups in, and how his initial reaction was always that it was too neat , not nearly enough life in it. That part needed... something. Closure, maybe, or maybe it just wanted to drag Danny back down into the depths of his despair.

Either way, Danny needed to get back to Amity Park. Even if only for a little bit. Even if Vlad didn't want him to.

He made sure to stay invisible as he passed the welcome sign to the city; he wouldn't be surprised if the Guys in White had gone a little crazy in his family's absence.

The city was in surprisingly good condition, for what he could tell. He couldn't say anything about the Nasty Burger's disaster site; even now he couldn't get himself to look at it, but everything else was almost exactly how he imagined it. There wasn't an abundance of ectopuses roaming the streets, none of his normal rogues gallery had take over the town, and the Guys in White had either gotten much better at hiding, or they'd not taken up the reigns as much as he'd expected them too.

It was nice, seeing just how well Vlad had kept his promise. If this was how well the city ran with him gone, maybe the fruit loop was right; maybe he could move on and stop clinging to the past.

Danny drifted aimlessly through the streets, keeping high in the sky to avoid any ghost scanners that may detect his presence. He didn't have a real destination in mind, and was almost surprised when he found himself floating above the park.

He was surprised when he saw a familiar red hat.

Danny blinked, then shook his head, then rubbed at his eyes, but the hat didn't disappear. Neither did the familiar figure whose head it was sitting on, nor the girl wearing far too much black for the warm, sunny weather.

It was Sam and Tucker, sitting on their park bench, just like they'd done a thousand times before the accident. They were talking animatedly with each other, and while Danny was too far away to hear, he knew them well enough to fill in whatever inane argument they were having by their gestures alone.

They were alive. They were here, and they were talking, and they were alive. Danny didn't care how, didn't care why, didn't care about anything besides getting back to his spot on the bench, empty besides them after months and months of tears. They were alive.

Danny entered a steep dive, not caring to keep his speed in check, the only thing on his mind being his friends smiling, happy, living faces. He would be back by their side in just a few minutes, back where he belonged.

And then he was. Danny Fenton, lazily slotting into his spot on the bench as if he had never been gone. As if the last few months hadn't happened. He was shoving papers into his purple backpack, complaining loudly about some English assignment he didn't want to do.

Danny Fenton sat on the bench, in his normal, human form, and Danny Fenton watched him, frozen in the air, invisibility hiding his ghost form from view.

The person on the bench was him, he knew it with a certainty he couldn't remember ever feeling before in his half life. That Danny was him, and yet here he was, still floating dozens of feet above ground. Something was horribly, terribly wrong, and Danny had a feeling that he knew exactly who was at fault.

---

Danny was sitting on a billboard, overlooking the perfectly intact Nasty Burger when Vlad- when Plasmius found him. Even though he was in his ghost form, he was a mess, nothing like his normal, distinguished self. His hair was a mess, and he moved with a twitchy, anxious quality that Danny had become far too familiar with over the years.

"There you are," Vlad said, the relief palpable in his voice. "I was worried about you, Little Badger."

Danny hummed, not moving his eyes from the fast food restaurant. "It's still standing."

Vlad sat next to him, close enough that Danny could feel how he kept his body tensed. "They must have rebuilt it."

"Right."

"Daniel, I understand that you've missed this place, but you can't just fly off like that," Vlad admonished. "If you had just asked-"

"I did ask," Danny interrupted. "Several times. And you said no every time."

"I didn't realize you would go to such drastic lengths to get back here. If I had known, I would've brought you."

Danny hummed again. "So you could make sure that everyone had a convenient reason to be out of town, right? So you could make sure that I didn't see anything that would ruin the lie you've built up?"

"Ah," Vlad said, any warmth and worry he'd had in his voice gone. "You saw them, then."

"Yeah, I saw them. And I saw the real Danny too. Because I'm not real, am I? All those tests, all those check ups, they weren't to make sure I was still healthy, were they? You were testing to make sure I wouldn't, I don't know, melt away or something, weren't you?"

Danny finally turned to look at Vlad. He was staring through Danny, pure red eyes unmoving and unfocused. "I really thought you had changed, Vlad. You've been so nice to me, and now I find out that everything was a lie? That I'm a lie? You let me go through all of that, just because, what? You were lonely? Was that it?"

"I am sorry, Daniel," Vlad said, voice barely above a whisper.

"Do you really think an apology is going to make all of this better?" Danny said, just barely shy of shouting.

"I'm not apologizing for that."

The pain hit all at once, a horrible, burning, piercing feeling that seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once. It was pure agony, coursing through his veins, a type of pain he only remembered from the portal. He couldn't stop himself from falling forward, straight into Vlad.

Danny clung to Vlad's arms, squeezing hard enough that he knew it would hurt, but he didn't care, couldn't care, not over the horrid pain he was going through. Distantly, he felt Vlad's hand on his head, carding hands through his hair so very gently, just like he had done a dozen times before. He couldn't tell at what point it stopped being hair and started being pure ectoplasm.

"Hurts," he slurred, his voice muffled and distorted as he choked on his own melting flesh and ectoplasm.

"I know, Little Badger," Vlad said, voice soft. "It'll be over soon. I won't let this happen again. I promise."

---

Vlad did his best to gather as much of the ectoplasm as he could. He wouldn't be able to use it again, of course, not with how tainted it would be from the dirt and debris on the sign, but he couldn't find himself to let it go. The ectoplasm would be placed in a vial in the lab, safely tucked away in a cupboard with the other failures.

He did his best to blink back the tears he felt gathering in his eyes. He'd gotten attached to this one; how could he not? It was so close to perfect, so close to success. If it hadn't been for this little trip, it would have been. 

Vlad took a deep, deep breath. Next time would be different. He knew what to do now; this Daniel had given him the answer on a silver platter. 

It would only be a matter of time before he got his son. His Daniel. 

Only a matter of time.

---

Prompts used: ScarletSakura - Danny finds out he’s a clone, what happened to the real Danny? shadowfaerieammy - What if Danny's clone was actually identical to him? faeriekit - Two Faced underforeversgrace - It hurt. He always knew it would hurt. He didn't realize how much.

[faeriekit]

Feet on the Ground

loose phic phight fill for @oldfashionedbattlehymn

warnings for: murder attempt, discussion of child death

********

Danny wakes up in a garbage bag.

It isn’t as gross as it sounds. Danny’s the only thing in there, and it’s not like the lack of air is going to kill him; he could rip his way out, but honestly, going intangible is just as effective and twice as easy.

And, of course, once he’s phased his way out of the dumpster behind the gas station, Danny is very, very grateful that he didn’t even try. Everything else in there is….eeugh. He shivers.

Well. It’s got to be early morning now—it’s dark. There’s no other cars on the highway. Even the gas station itself is closed, and the stars have already lost their spark.

Time to head home.

*

Danny wakes up behind the gas station. Again.

…Okay?

The first time, Danny had just assumed he’d fallen asleep somewhere weird while flying around the neighborhood, but a second time is a pattern. It’s definitely not his fault this time either, because there’s no way he would have duct taped his arms and legs together or slapped a gag on his mouth.

That’s kind of. Ominous.

Danny frees himself of the garbage bag first— and thank goodness he doesn’t have to breathe— he floats himself out of the bag and the dumpster, which had…thankfully been given a good scrubbing since last time? There’s some other trash, apparently, but nothing sharp enough to cut through his durable, tape-based bonds. It takes some finagling and some eye lasers for Danny to finally get his arms free.

And. Hoo Boy. There’s no more liberating a feeling than peeling tape off your mouth, even if your mouth skin kind of comes off with it and you bleed a little. But it’s fine! It’s green, which means it’ll heal.

Fabulous. Danny zooms off invisibly into the night, more than willing to put the night behind him.

*

…Okay, the third time is what makes it more than a coincidence.

Danny shucks out of the bruise-tight ropes around his wrists, torso, knees, and legs, spits out his gag, and flies home. He finally has to give into the inevitable, and attempts the last resort:

“Jazz?” he whispers, slowly rocking his sister in her bed. Jazz mumbles in her sleep.

“Jaaaaazzy…” Danny tries again, trying not to look either too spooky or too imposing. Jazz’s reflexes are such that—

The laser she keeps under her pillow goes off. Danny loses a few millimeters of hair, which means that her aim is getting better.

 He doesn’t have any trouble seeing in the dark (or, uh, not anymore, anyway), but it’s easy to see Jazz’s sleepy squint as she pulls herself somewhat upright. More like a shrimp with scoliosis, but, well. You know.

“Whuh,” Jazz asks. “...Danny?”

“Hey,” Danny whispers, a ghost at her bedside. Jazz grunts. “Uh. What does it mean when you keep waking up in a trash bag behind the gas station?”

Jazz blinks. Jazz rubs her eyes. Jazz blinks again, looking more sleepy than coherent but at least somewhat aware of her surroundings.

“Garbage bag?” Jazz asks blearily. “You were in a garbage bag?”

“Yeah,” Danny whispers back. “My legs were tied down?”

“...Danny, were you murdered?”

Danny stops.

“Huh?” says Danny.

*

“So, if you look here,” Tucker points out, finger not quite touching the glass of his CRT monitor, “That’s when Danny gets murdered.”

There is a collective eeew from the assembled viewers— Jazz, Sam, and Danny, all crowded in Tucker’s room.

“Yeah, Tucker agrees. The light from the black-and-white footage flashes in the reflection of his glasses. “Here’s where he’s tossed in…there. And this is when they tossed him in the dumpster.”

There’s no sound on the gas station surveillance footage, but Danny imagines that his body clanged on the way in. What the hell. Danny got murdered behind a gas station, and he didn’t even notice?!

They watch the archived footage of a Ford F-150 driving off the property, and then Danny’s dead body being unceremoniously tossed in a dumpster. It’s kind of surreal. No one had noticed. There was no one to report the crime committed.

“I can’t believe that guy just clocked you over the head, like that,” Sam points out. “It’s just a regular car jack. It shouldn’t have gotten you in the first place.”

The observation isn’t appreciated.

“Be nice! My brother was just murdered,” Jazz scolds. Danny doesn’t think she sounds as offended as she should be. “Either way, it’s certainly an attempted murder, if not a successful one. We have to do something.”

“…Can’t we just call the cops?” Tucker asks, turning away from the computer. “I mean. Look. That’s proof. We have proof right here.”

Sure enough, there is footage. Right there. There’s Danny’s murder, in 240p black and white.

“Where’s the body?” Sam asks dryly, and. Uh. That’s a problem they’ll have to solve.

Everyone looks at everyone else. No one has a good solution.

“…Do we have to do this?” Tucker realizes at the same second as the rest of them.

Jazz looks at Danny. Danny looks at Sam. Sam looks at Tucker.

Tucker stares back at them, entirely unenthused with the conclusion they’ve come to.

“…Okay then,” Jazz exhales. “How do you want to do this?”

*

Sam ends up on top of the gas station, a cell phone in her hand.

Tucker, PDA in hand, sits in Jazz’s passenger seat. The camera feed is ongoing and recording for posterity.

Jazz taps her fingers on the wheel of her car. There isn’t anywhere better to hide than down the road and around the corner, so she does, hoping that they’re on the other end of the road from whoever’s killing her brother every night.

Danny is, of course, wandering through the neighborhood.

Losing her baby brother—on purpose—is the worst thing Jazz can imagine. She feels sick. She wants to throw him into the car and speed away, and break every speed limit law in the county on her way out. She wants to pack him in bubble wrap and ship him expedited to France.

But she does leave her brother alone. She lets Tucker look over the footage as Danny roams around town, just as unaware and unsuspecting as his last few outings.

Tucker sees the man first.

He bolts upright, eyes on his PDA. “Jazz.”

Her head whips around. They watch, silently, as someone approaches Danny’s lone figure on the doorstep outside the gas station.

They can’t hear anything. That’s the scariest part.

“Call,” Jazz demands. Tucker does.

Doubtlessly, on the roof of the gas station, Sam is dialing too.

*

So. Danny knows this guy.

And. Uh. It’s kind of embarrassing; he’d asked if Danny was okay walking home alone at night a few hours before his dumpster wake-up call, and Danny had said it was fine.

Apparently, no, it wasn’t fine. That being said, Danny hadn’t been expecting a guy in a button-up and khakis to be the guy murdering him on the down low. He kind of looks like the dude who sells you televisions and burner phones at a Wal-Mart.

The guy comes all the way over to where Danny is sitting on the thin concrete step of the gas station. His breath fogs up from the weather and his eyes rake over Danny, up and down; down and up.

“Hey,” he says, looking all the world like any other concerned citizen. Danny’s heart throbs. “It’s cold outside. You need a ride back to town?”

“…No,” says Danny, who doesn’t.

“Your mom okay with you comin’ home late by yourself?” the man asks nervously, hands going to his hair.

Danny thinks about how many times he’s woken up in the dumpster. He thinks about seeing his own body on the camera tape. Prone. Dead.

“You still keep a car jack in your passenger seat?” Danny asks instead.

The man freezes. An attempted murderer he might be, but he’s not exactly an Oscar-winning actor. “What?”

“The car jack,” Danny repeats. He doesn’t know if he’s mad the man keeps targeting him, or whether he’s grateful Danny’s the only one who’s died so far. “It’s got a lot of sharp corners. They hurt, you know.”

The man…carefully laughs the statement off, but he looks. Nervous.

Danny doesn’t really need to confront him; he only has to stall long enough that Tucker or Sam can call the cops, so that they can see this man’s face and get him on the record. But.

There’s a part of Danny…

The man looks so human. Flush with blood. Solid enough to break. Fragile enough to be made broken.

Danny still resents being made dead. This man didn’t kill Danny—not in any way that mattered, but he’s an easy target.

He doesn’t breathe. The man watches a boy sit in the shadows of a building where he’s been dumping bodies, and Danny can taste his fear.

“It hurt a lot,” Danny says, and he isn’t referring to waking up in the bags every couple of mornings in the last few weeks. “It hurt so much. I was screaming.”

The man is silent.

“Do you like to hear the screaming?” Danny asks, suddenly curious. Did he care, if Danny had screamed, or if he had been too unaware to notice he was dying? Would he have cared, if there were others more breakable than Danny that he had hurt?

He doesn’t answer.

“I don’t like it,” Danny confesses. In a horrible way, it’s easy to tell his would-be murderer about his death—unlike Tucker or Sam, who witnessed it, or Jazz, who loves him, this man can’t be affected by Danny’s take on his own death. In fact, if he is hurt by the thought of Danny’s death…good. It’s better if he is. If there is remorse in him. “I don’t like to hear screaming. I screamed for so long, and so loud. It felt like forever.”

The man’s hands curl. He steps back.

Danny can’t help but to frown. If he leaves, the whole point of calling the cops will be for nothing, and he’ll be warier of coming back to where Danny’s body was dropped. “Where are you going?”

The man takes another step back. Danny rockets upright. He’s on his feet in seconds. “Weren’t you here for me?” Danny asks, genuinely confused, arms outstretched. “We’re here. You dumped me here over and over again.”

“Shut up,” the man snaps, startling the both of them with his volume. “He—you’re not real. You’re… Be quiet. I have real things to get done tonight!”

Danny’s dead heart throbs. Is there another dead kid? Did Danny let another kid get killed in Danny’s place? “Do you?”

The man loses his voice.

“We’re already here,” Danny points out. He steps closer—closer to the truck that drove his dead body around town, further from the dumpster where his body had been dropped. The disposal hadn’t been a funeral, but it’s closer than anything Danny’s ever had. “You’re here. I’m here. Aren’t you here for me?”

A choked breath. Danny gets closer. The ectoplasm in his skin is too warm and too cold—but he has no idea what he looks like from the outside. Is he glowing? Is he see-through? Does he just look like any other dead kid: a little too cold, a little too pale?

They’re eye to increasingly shorter eye. Up close, the man just looks like any other guy. Shaved in the face. Wrinkles around his eyes. A nose. A mouth.

Danny’s not afraid of him. His head tilts. “You’ve already killed me three times. What are you going to do now? I’ll just come back again. I won’t even notice. I died. I know what you look like—I know how to find you. It’ll be easy.”

The man’s pupils dilate—

And then there’re hands on Danny’s neck. And. It’s kind of painful, but Danny doesn’t have to breathe. So. He just kind of…pretends to be hurt?

He’s meant to be stalling for time. The cops are coming. All he needs is time.  

So Danny makes some somewhat dramatic sounds and kicks out with his feet, because a fight lasts longer than a passive victim. He lands a hit to the man’s stomach, and another to his chest—he doesn’t drop Danny the way Danny might have expected, but Danny isn’t going to run out of air, so this can last forever until the man lets go. Or does something.

“Stop— coming— back,” the man snarls, and suddenly sounds nothing like the dudes who man the tech counter at the Walmart. “I got you— you should be gone!” 

Danny is gone. But he’s also here. And he’s also been gone for a very long time, and he’s also getting choked out by a guy in a gas station parking lot. It’s been a rough few hours of waiting for this dude. He might as well make it worth it. 

So maybe his body turns a little translucent. Just a little. Just enough to see the streetlight through his skin, probably, and the hazy road behind them. 

Getting thrown to the concrete hurts, but, you know, not as badly as getting tossed into a wall by Skulker on a rampage. Danny’s barely going to be bruised after this. 

The guy runs to his car, and Danny frowns, scrambling back up, and, wait. Wouldn’t having bruises be better? As evidence? They better not heal too quickly, or else that’ll be it of his physical proof. 

“Where are you going?” Danny asks, more perplexed and angry than anything. Isn’t he supposed to try to kill the witness??

But the guy hauls butt into the cab of his truck— and then the lights go on and the tires start spinning, the engine roaring to life. 

If Danny wasn’t actively on camera at the moment, it would be easy to fly after the car. As it is, he’s pretty fast, but he’s not quite quick enough on his feet to chase after a pickup truck careening down the highway in the dark. 

The man’s gone in a few seconds. Honestly, Danny’s kind of annoyed about the whole thing. It would have been nice for it to work. 

Sam climbs down from the roof of the gas station, phone in her hand. “No, I just— he choked out my friend and drove off! Send someone over here already!! You— do you need the license plate again?!” 

Danny just looks at her. Sam covers her phone’s mic with a hand: “They’re saying five minutes,” she mouths. 

Great. 

Danny hunkers down, throat bruising, and Sam sits down beside him. They wait.  

By the time the cops pull into the gas station, the guy’s more than out of sight. Sam’s the one who takes the lead on dictating their story. Danny sort of doesn’t realize how out of it he is until someone tries to throw a shock blanket on him. He almost hits the guy square in the face— and Sam’s the one who has to catch his arm. 

Uh. Oops. 

Jazz and Tucker roll in, hardly pretending to have not been nearby; Jazz wraps her arms around him, and Danny lets her. 

Sue him. It’s late. He’s tired. 

“...And I can’t believe you weren’t able to get down the road in time to catch a man who choked out my best friend,” Sam snaps, which, aw! Danny’s a best friend. The cop she’s attempting to strip down for parts looks less sympathetic than Danny feels. “You’re barely a ten minute drive up the highway! What were you doing, meandering?” 

“No,” the cop grits out, eying Sam like a bug on his shoe. “We were telling the officer down the road what to look out for.” 

Apparently, jamming the gas down hard enough to bust your speedometer gets you pulled over at the speed check. 

The night is over before Danny knows it. Someone gets him to the station, someone takes photos of his bruises and takes his statement. Someone calls Mom and Dad and then Danny’s in the GAV, half asleep and exhausted beyond belief. 

He falls asleep on the couch, Mom’s fingers in his hair. 

*

It’s not like the Amity Park police tell them anything, but Jazz is the one who finds the report on the news. 

She records it on the TiVo for him. 

“Eustace Miller, from Tennessee,” Sam reads aloud, knee to knee on his couch. Tucker adjusts his glasses. “Looks like he was already on the run.” 

“Or as good as,” Tucker agrees quietly. “Looks like they’re pinning a couple of cold cases to him.” 

They watch; there’s pictures of him from his hometown, and from the towns he would visit on his joyride across the country. There were pictures of his family. There were pictures of kids Danny would never meet: kids who were already dead, and who had been for months. Years, even. 

They’d looked so happy in the photos from when they were alive. 

…Danny could relate. 

Jazz turns the report off that night, thumb on the power button. And that’s all it takes for Danny to stop waking up in a trash bag. 

[five-rivers]

wandering heart

For @phantomphangphucker for phic phight!

.

.

.

The needle was bronze.  

The copper alloy stood out better against ectoplasmic flesh than it would have against red blood.  It dipped in and out of Danny's skin with machine-like precision, drawing a slender purple string in its wake.  Appropriate.  Clockwork was at least partly mechanical.

“You're getting close to my liver,” said Danny.  “Careful.”

“You are aware that these facsimile organs are not at all essential to the function of your body.”

“Sure they are,” said Danny.  He leaned his head back on the cushion Clockwork had provided him.  “That's why you're sewing me up.”

Clockwork's tower wasn't Danny's usual post-battle stop, but the fight had been nasty and it had been close. His other choices had been flying an hour to reach the Far Frozen and leaving an ectoplasm trail through the mad science lab dedicated to dissecting ghosts.  The decision had been easy.  

Clockwork had complained, of course.  Ninety percent of the time spent stitching had doubled as time spent snarking.  It was fun.  

“You have more than fake human organs in here, and losing that much ectoplasm is unhealthy for a ghost regardless.  You are friends with the doctors of the Far Frozen.  Perhaps you should avail yourself of their knowledge more frequently.”

“I already have one health class I'm failing.  Don't need another.”

“You are not failing your health class.”

Danny peeled back an eyelid that had fallen shut at some point during the exchange.  “Are you using your time powers to spy on my grades?”

“Hardly.”  Clockwork picked up a pair of ornate scissors and snipped the string he'd been stitching Danny up with.  “But even so, I doubt you would notice if I removed one of your so-called organs.” 

“You could try,” said Danny.  He closed his eyes again and leaned to the side until he was slumped over on Clockwork, who made an offended noise.  “You’re trapped now.  Stuck.”

“I am a shapeshifter,” said Clockwork.  “You cannot ‘trap’ me simply by leaning on me.”

“Can too.”

Danny was tired.  Sometimes, he could shrug off both fights and injuries like they were nothing, but unicorns were vicious and Technus was mean.  Electricity always took a lot out of him.  

Clockwork sighed heavily.  Danny smiled.  

“You aren’t nearly as charming as you think,” said Clockwork.  

“And yet, you are neither kicking me out nor stealing my pancreas or lower intestine or anything like that.”

“I could.”

“But you haven’t.”  Danny tucked his feet underneath him and snuggled more heavily into Clockwork’s side.  

The ghost groaned, but obligingly made room for Danny.  Yes, yes, exactly according to plan.  The evil one, where he made friends with Clockwork.  He figured he was already halfway there, if Clockwork was willing to sew him up, but with this it was definitely closer to three quarters.  

Having thought this, Danny promptly fell asleep.  

.

The front doors of Clockwork’s tower were not made to slam open, but Danny, fingers of one hand clenched over his chest and still wearing a Far Frozen medical gown, managed anyway.  He was resourceful like that.  

“Clockwork?” he called.  “Clockwork!”  He flew from room to room, only sticking his head in long enough to assess them for Clockwork's presence.  

Finally, he found him.  

“Clockwork!” he shouted, re-energized by the sight.  “Did you steal my heart?  My heart?  My actual heart from my actual chest?”

Clockwork stared blankly at Danny for long enough that his panicked doubled and doubled again.  This was, quite literally, his only lead.

“No,” said Clockwork, finally.  “I stole the replica of your actual heart.  From your chest.”

“That’s the same thing!”

“Is it?” asked Clockwork, smugly.  “After all, you didn’t even notice this one was gone.”

“Oh my god, I cannot believe you did this.”  Friendship plan canceled.  Or something.

“I cannot imagine why,” said Clockwork.  “After all, I told you exactly what I was going to do.  You even gave me permission.”

“I thought you were joking.  Who’s going to think that you’re serious about stealing a friend’s organs?  That’s a joke.  A joke.  Banter, if you would.  Not an invitation to steal my literal heart.”

“Even so, it has been done.”

“Well, can you undo it?  Put it back in?  You didn’t, I don’t know, toss it out with last week’s eggshells or something?  Stick it in the back of the kitchen junk drawer.”

“No, I know exactly where I put it,” said Clockwork.  

“And you can undo it, right?  It’s not, like, expired?”

“It is difficult to get more expired than a ghost’s heart.”  

Danny stared at Clockwork expectantly.  

“Yes, I can undo it.  It will be the work of a moment to return it to its proper place.”  

“Great, so…  Lead on.”  Danny made a forward sweeping motion with both hands.  

Clockwork’s eyes slid back towards his time screen.  “Can it wait?”

“No!”

“You haven’t had it for weeks.  You won’t miss it for a few more minutes.”

“Uh, yes, I will!  You can time travel.  Whatever you’re doing, you can do it later.”

“I suppose,” said Clockwork.  “Very well.  Follow me.”

Clockwork led him back, through narrow halls, into a towering closet with spiral shelves.  It was full of what could only be collectively referred to as stuff.  

“Wow, I wasn’t serious about the junk drawer thing.”

“Oh, please,” said Clockwork.  “This is hardly junk.”

“You’re a hoarder.”

“I resent that appellation,” said Clockwork, flying up and rotating slightly.  Danny kept his feet on the ground, slightly intimidated.

“The only reason you aren’t drowning in all this is because your house doesn’t have to exist in Euclidean space.”

“And yet, I am not drowning in it.” Clockwork continued to float upwards, a faint frown on his face.  

“You do remember where you put it, right?”

“Yes, Daniel,” said Clockwork, visibly rolling his eyes.  “I put it right– Ah.  Interesting.”

“Interesting?  What do you mean interesting?” demanded Danny.  He flew up to hover near Clockwork's shoulder.  “Did something happen to it?  Is it– It's not there?  You said you knew where it was!”

“I said I knew where I put it, which is rather a different thing altogether.”

“No, it isn't!  It's not like it has legs!  It couldn't have wandered off on its oooohhhhhhhh my God, it could have wandered off on its own.  That thing had more ectoplasm in it than a Christmas turkey.”

“It is, in fact,” said Clockwork, “entirely made out of ectoplasm.”

“If it’s moving around like that, can we put it back in?  Would it– Would it try to escape?  Like, escape my chest?  Is that a thing?”

“Unlikely.”

“As unlikely as it starting to move around in the first place?”

“Unlikely,” repeated Clockwork.  

“Where even is it?  Do you know?  Can you tell?  Obviously, your whole ‘I know everything’ shtick is a lie, but can you, like, rewind things so that it’s here?”

“No,” said Clockwork.  “We will just have to look for it.”

“In your hoarder cave?”

“It is not a cave.”

“Ah, but you don't dispute the hoarder part?”  He spun, head over heels, trying and failing to see the entirety of the not-really-a-closet.  “What if there are things in here?  Like, living things?  Could it have been eaten?  By, like… Clockroaches?  Do you have clockroaches here?”

“Media tends to grossly exaggerate both the aggression and size of temporal boggles–”

“They’re real?”

“Why would you ask about them if you didn’t think they were real?”

“I don’t know.  It turns out I don’t think through the things I say to you very well.”

“Clearly.” 

Danny arrested his motion.  “Where do we even start?  This place is huge!”

“That statement assumes that it is still in this particular room.”

“Oh my God.”

“Although, if we are to search this room, it would make the most sense to start from either end and work towards the middle.”

Danny flipped over.  “I can’t even see the other end.”  This was only barely an exaggeration.

“Then we had best get started soon.”

Danny rubbed his face.  “Am I even going to recognize it?  What will it look like?”

“Like the organ it was imitating, of course,” said Clockwork.  “Oh, and don’t touch anything.”

Danny groaned.

.

There was something quivering and green huddled behind a bank of jars.  Was that… it couldn’t be…  He formed a stick out of ice and went to poke it.  

“What are you doing to that poor frog?” asked Clockwork.  

“Holy– It’s a frog?”

“Yes.” 

Danny stared.  Clockwork was covered in splatters and streaks of ectoplasm from head to tail.  

“Why do you– I don’t even want to know.  Did you find it?”

“Yes,” said Clockwork, holding up a jar.  There was…  Well.  It was a heart.  “Are you sure you want it back?  Surely, the sentimental value cannot be that great.”

“Wh– It’s not about the sentimental value.  Open it up, put it back in!”

Clockwork’s sigh was incredibly put-upon.  “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He unscrewed the lid of the jar, and the heart, which had up until that point, laid quiescent on the bottom of the jar, flew out, smacking Danny in the face.  

“Augh!”

“Grab it!” 

Danny managed to get a hand around a ventricle, but ectoplasm and ectoplasmic muscle was slippery.  It escaped his grip.  It flopped-flew its way down to the bottom of the genuinely-not-a-closet and made for the door.  Danny dove at it, only to get a faceful of ectoplasm from an artery for his trouble.  

Danny wondered if this was what Skulker felt like.  He let ectoplasm dribble out of his mouth.  

“That, bleh, that tastes like my ectoplasm,” he said.

“That’s because it is,” said Clockwork, tiredly.  “I will refrain from asking you to elaborate on your ectoplasm-tasting experiences.”

“Look, when nature gives you a weapon, and afterlife gives you enemies, you use the weapon.”  He peered cautiously out of the door, wary of being sprayed with what was essentially his own blood once again.  “Where do you think it–”

He got another mouthful of ectoplasm.  

“Bleh,” he said.  

“I don’t suppose you saw it?” asked Clockwork.  “Which way it went, etcetera, etcetera?”

“No,” said Danny.  

“Then this will be a long night.”

“Can’t you just, like, stop time or something?  So it won’t move around while we look”

Clockwork gave him a look.  

“I’ll take that as a no.”

.

“I think,” said Danny, from where he was dangling from the ceiling, a tangle of clock chains wrapped around his ankle, “that we need help.”

“Unfortunately, I must concur,” said Clockwork, who was underneath a pair of couches even he’d been surprised at owning.

“Unless you want to use your totally awesome time powers to find it.”

“No.”

.

“I’m sorry,” said Sam.  “What did you lose?”

“My heart,” said Danny.  “And I didn’t lose it.  Clockwork stole it.”

“Is this some kind of Ice Queen situation here?” asked Sam.  “Are you going to lose all empathy and care for other people?”

“No,” said Danny.  “It’s just the, um, physical thing.  And only my ghost half’s physical thing.  Apparently.  Apparently, the ‘human organs’ I have in my ghost form aren’t functional, unless the functionality is, like, the functionality of being incredibly annoying and spraying ectoplasm everywhere.”

“So, what should we bring for this thing?” asked Tucker.  “Butterfly nets?  Bow and arrow?  Guns?  What’s the endgame?”

“You want to shoot my heart?”

“I don’t know what you want here, dude.  I’m still kind of reeling over the fact that the guy you were hanging out with literally stole your heart.  Do you need someone to give him a stern talking to, make sure he gets you home before curfew?”

“That’s disgusting.  He could probably be my great-great-great-great-great-great–”

In ghost form, Danny didn’t have to breathe all that much, so he was able to go on like that until Sam and Tucker joined forces to stuff socks in his mouth.  

.

“How in the world did things escalate to Clockwork stealing your literal heart?” asked Jazz.  

“Okay, yeah, I see how that’d seem bad, out of context, but you see, it isn’t actually my literal heart–”

.

Danny glared at Clockwork’s idea of ‘help.’ “I bring three completely reasonable and competent people, and you bring them?”

“From my point of view, I am the one with the reasonable and competent people,” said Clockwork, gesturing at the combined forces of Nocturne, Ghost Writer, and Skulker.  “You, meanwhile, have brought three teenagers.”

“Are you really calling Skulker competent?”

“If not, he at least has experience in being outsmarted by you.”

“Hey!”

.

“Alas,” said Tucker, “the heart wants what the heart wants, and what it wants is freedom.”

“Where,” said Sam, kicking at a puddle, “is all this ectoplasm even coming from?”

“Around,” said Danny.  

“Ooh,” said Jazz, “it’s condensing it from the atmosphere?”  She paused.  “What are you all looking at me like that for?  I can have scientific curiosity!”

“I think it’s more because of what’s happened to your hair,” said Ghost Writer.

“What’s happened to my hair?”

“You don’t want to know.”

.

“Danny, I think I hate you,” said Sam.  They were sitting on one of Clockwork’s couches.  Clockwork had a lot of couches.  A fact that Clockwork seemed both bemused and distressed by.  

“Oh, trust me, the feeling is mutual.  As in, I hate me too.”

Clockwork sat down on the couch next to Danny.  “Daniel, I must tell you that while hate is beneath me, I am seriously regretting my earlier decisions.”

“Does that mean that you’re going to time travel back to–”

“Absolutely not.”

Tucker ran past them with a butterfly net, chasing down a green blur.  

“That’s a blob ghost, isn’t it?” asked Sam.  

“I do believe so,” said Clockwork.

“Well,” said Danny.  “At least this all makes us friends, yeah?  Can’t go through something like this without being friends.”  At least he’d get something accomplished with all this insanity.  

“I wouldn’t call myself friends with Skulker.  Or Nocturne.  Acquaintances, more like.”

“I notice you didn’t say anything about Ghost Writer.”

Clockwork shrugged.  “He’s somewhat more tolerable.”

“And me?”

“I suppose.”

The heart fell straight down, into Danny’s lap.

“Are you serious–”

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - How Not To Resurrect A Half Demon Lord

@lexiepiper @Ghostfox_fuyu

Being both an adventurer AND technically a monster wasn’t exactly the best mix to avoid fights, so it’s a good thing Danny actually LIKED fighting even if he couldn’t exactly ‘go hard’ against humans to avoid, you know, KILLING THEM. Other adventurers though? Yeah they didn’t exactly enjoy fighting what they thought was a weirdly powerful dungeon spawn.

Danny runs, skidding across the ground on his claws, the scrapping sound is loud but nowhere near the volume of the explosion happening right behind him. His tail nearly gets nicked! He’s not happy, not one bit. “WOULD YOU STOP THAT!”.

The mage with a frankly obscenely large hat damn near growls at him, which hey, growling was Danny’s thing. “Silence! Foul demon!”.

For fucks sake! Like yes, he gets that he looks like a demon. He gets that. But could people please just stop assuming that he belonged to whatever dungeon he and they happened to be in? This place was a goddamn lava dungeon, he was an ice demon with a black and white theme! Use your brain! Why would a fucking ice demon be in a lava dungeon!

Which, to be fair, him going into a lava dungeon wasn’t exactly smart or using his own brain; but Sam and Tuck thought this one would get them some sick ass gear so off they went. Of course they wound up getting separated, and of course Danny wound up running into other adventurers with the same idea as his party, and of course they mistook him for a dungeon beast. That’s his classic luck right there, everybody!

Ramming one set of claws into the wall and climbing up the hot rock as fast as he can, channeling some ice to his palms to avoid burning himself, it also was making some super cool-looking mist sizzle off of the rock so that was a neat bonus.

The adventurers trying to annihilate him seem to agree, the dude in black armour muttering to another mage with super orange hair, “hey if I equip ice gauntlets you think I could do that, it looks cool as Hell”. The mage whacks him over the head, ha!

Danny snorts to himself, jumping on to a ceiling stalactite of solid hot magma, ow ow ow ow ow, stupid ice core, stupid Tuck and Sam dragging him into a lava dungeon, stupid him for jumping onto solid magma, stupid stupid stupid. Ugh. But Danny does what Danny typically does when presented with pain, quips, shouting down, “why don’t you give up if you keep misting me!”. Ha! Good one, self. Ow.

The armoured guy chuckles, “I love it when monsters have a sense of humour, makes it so much more fun”, and hurls a goddamn spear at him. Nice, Danny can do spears and show off a little.

Danny launches himself down, grabbing the spear in between his teeth, fangs making it easy to keep the spear in there, and uses the spear head stabbing into the ground below to allow him to basically land going face down before gripping the shaft with his hands and spinning himself into an upright position. Him yanking it out of the ground and spinning it dramatically, grinning meanly, “oh I love free gifts, how’d you know it was my birthday?”, it’s totally not, he’s just being an asshole.

Big hat mage scowling at armoured guy quickly, “nice going, Salient”, then glaring back at Danny. Okay so armoured guy is named Salient, weird but okay. She shoots a fire last at Danny, Danny bats it away with the spear head snickering all the while. Then the other mage hits him with a holy-blast, because of course she does, and sends him into a wall.

He absolutely dropped the spear. Damn. He wanted to add that to his collection, which sure was definitely something he wasn’t doing before the whole resurrection gone wrong crap happened and he some how wound up getting his human souls wires crossed with Hell itself. A fuck up of hellish proportions.

Him shaking off the burn and sizzle from the holy power, at least still being kinda human and alive would stop that shit from outright smiting him, just burned and hurt like a motherfucker. The biggest annoyance his holy sensitivity usually caused him was not being able to use holy based healing potions… which were the cheapest kind aka the kind his party usually used to buy. Demonic based healing potions were the shit for him though, especially since he never had to worry about them debuffing or cursing him.

Orange hair mage huffs, “damn it, that didn’t do it”, scowling, “this place has some seriously strong demons, we might have use a hearth stone if it keeps up like this”.

Danny sticks his hands out to the side, tail twitching, “or maybe! Think a little and realise I’m not from this freaking dungeon!”.

“As if we’d believe a snake tongued demon!”.

Okay that’s just rude! It took him a very long time to learn how to talk with a forked tongue and he had to put up with a lot of mocking from Tuck! He sticks his tongue out at the group before having to climb up a wall again to avoid some thunder bolts from big hat mage and an arch of fire from Salient’s sword. At least he’d learned not to throw solid objects that Danny could grab, progress; progress for them and not him specifically. A very unfortunate specific.

Danny sending out a bit of icy flames that glowed black with his demonic energy to destroy another flame arch from Salient while moving sideways across the wall, he hates this dungeon it’s too fucking hot, goddamn. Zipping up to the ceiling and smacking his claws and palms on it, sending out a powerful wave of pure cold to force the ceiling to start snowing, which of course turns into very hot burning rain by the time it gets down to ground level. The party starts screaming and ducking for cover, that was surprisingly more effective than he expected and he absolutely had not intended to basically rain down boiling demonic water on them. Oops. He figured the snow would melt but not to the point of becoming boiling hot! How much energy was his core expending just to keep him fucking cool in this goddamn hellscape?!?

Danny skittering his way across the ceiling and in-between a gap between a stalactite and the dungeon ceiling, shouting a quick, “not trying to boil ya! Sorry!”. As he goes. Maybe they’ll be too busy hiding to realise where he’s tucked himself away. That would be nice, real nice.

“What kind of demon says sorry!”.

Don’t quip back, don’t quip back, don’t quip back. He’s trying to hide and quiping will fuck that up… “MY SORRY DEMONIC ASS!”, ah goddamn it, why does he do this to himself? Unsurprisingly the stalactite his hiding above gets fucking shot at by a holy bullet. That’s… that’s not great. Those sucked to get hit by and he’d one hundred percent need to be resurrected again if that shit hits his core enough times. But hey! Maybe that would un-demon him! Stupid plan, but hey! At least it is a plan! Plus that did not work when he accidentally fell into a pit of pure holy water. That had been the worst.

The stalactite gets shot at again, this time piercing through it and skimming his shoulder; him making his lip bleed by biting down to avoid yelping. Still hissing out a, “bloody hell”, though, because he could never just shut the fuck up could he? Also, he is officially panting, because it is too fucking hot here and his breath is making a bunch of mist aka giving away his spot more than his stupid quip did. Fuck him entirely.

He’s got three options:

One: start killing adventures like a proper full demon.

Two: overheat and pass out, possibly falling into hard ground or a pool of lava only to be descended upon by adventurers who would definitely hit unconscious him with a holy attack.

Three: leave his hiding spot and start looking for cooler areas while avoiding getting hit or doing any major hitting.

Four: use a hearth stone to teleport out of the dungeon, seems like the obvious choice right? Except when Danny’s half demon ass did that he wound up in Hell every time and Sam and Tuck would have to go through the hassle of getting him back out of there. That crap always resulted in them having to track down yet another ice dungeon and use forbidden demon summoning magic. Meanwhile he’d go throwing hands with demons for however long it took his friends to get him. Not ideal.

Then it turns out that there’s actually a fifth option, a wall blowing up and sending his bullet hole riddled stalactite crashing down towards the ground and exploding in hot semi solid magma. OW! Danny sputtering and shaking himself off aggressively, “oh fuck! Bloody hell! Me damn fuck it! Stupid fucking lava dungeon! Stupid fucking adventurers! Where’s my teammates when I me damn need them!”.

“Shit since when do goddamn demons team up! We need to hurry this up!”.

Then there’s a very loud thump, Danny squinting his fucking burning eyes up at the noise, fuck yeah! It’s Tuck! Nice! The guy’s landed directly on top of the orange haired mage, pointing his fricken lightning cross bow right in her face. The Salient guy getting hurled into a wall by vines seconds later, and a few more seconds and said vines are on fire and brunt to a crisp.

The big hat mage jumping back from the newbies assaulting her group, “great, how many different kinds of demonic vermin does this dungeon have!”, her creating an explosion with electricity to make something of a smoke screen for her to grab Salient out of the hole in the wall the guy made.

But! BUT! That puts their backs to Danny, and Danny might object to killing people but he did not object to bruising them up some. Meaning he launches himself at them, grabbing the back of both of their necks, and slams them into the ground; using his tail to tie their ankles all together. He also grabs the hat mages hat with his teeth and eats the fucking thing as a probably insane looking show of superiority.

Tuck, not looking at Danny and still staring violently down at orange hair mage, “you good, Danny-man?”.

Danny growling, “I’m annoyed, burnt, and vaguely considered making y'all haul me outta hell again for dragging me to this shit ass place”.

Sam walking calmly through the destroyed wall and into where they all are, “honestly I hate this place too. My plant magic is completely useless and I wrecked my helm”.

Danny snorting, “ha! Serves you right!”, he gets elbowed in the chin by Salient for being distracted. But well, an elbow, even armoured, isn’t gonna do much to Danny, so he just growls down at the man while said elbow is being pressed up into his chin.

Tuck snorts at the scene, “I’d stop that, Danny’s an obsidian rank combat warrior”. The mage beneath him scowling, “that is a demon spawn or are you fucking blind?”.

Danny takes offence to that, demon wise he was on par with a demon lord! Not a freaking basic hell spawn! “Excuse you!”. But Tuck laughs at Danny’s expense, “that’s what you get for never fighting back, moron”. Danny sticks his tongue out at the guy.

Sam shaking her head as she walks over to Danny, “seriously, if they attacked you first who cares if you hurt them”, grabbing the unconscious ex-hat mage out from Danny’s grasp, shit he hadn’t actually realized he’d knocked her out. Whoops. Sam pointing a finger at Salient, whose elbow is still pressed into Danny’s chin, “you wouldn’t be holding your own for shit if Danny took you seriously”.

“Pfft, I could take him”.

The orange hair mage snapping, “are you serious right now?! You are literally being pinned down you idiot!”.

Danny nodding, “glad we’re on the same page on that”; rolling his shoulders as he can feel some of the burning healing itself, he’d be healing a hell of a lot faster if he wasn’t in this damn hot lava dungeon though.

Tuck rolling his eyes before staring down at the orange hair mage, “look. Danny’s an adventure, he literally has a license on him right now. The only reason he’s in this dungeon is ‘cause we heard there was some bomb ass equipment in here, same as you guys probably”.

Sam laughing a bit meanly as she gives the ex-gay mage a healing potion since Danny probably gave her a concussion, “Danny’s not a ‘hell spawn’ he’s a fucked up resurrection spell gone wrong”.

Salient snorting, “prove it! And how the Hell did that happen?”. Danny snickers, “hell happened”; Tuck moving his crossbow out of orange hair mages face specifically to shoot Danny with it.

“Ow! You jerk!”.

Unfortunately orange hair takes that opportunity to blast Tuck nearly point blank in the stomach with a holy blast, sending him smashing up into the ceiling. Oh Hell fucking no, attacking Danny was one thing, he was a demon-looking mother fucker and could take hits like a champ; attacking his friends was a whole ass nother matter. At least Sam catches Tuck with some vines as he starts falling down from the ceiling and Tuck wasn’t knocked out by the attack.

Still though. Danny is none too impressed. And he refuses to tolerate a repeat of that, so just as the orange haired friend hurting asshat gets herself up off of the ground Danny lets himself loose more than a little bit. Limbs extending, spines pulling up out of his upper back and shoulders, second set of kudu horns extending out, ribs cracking and expanding through and over his torso skin to settle into a bigger form, that stupid gharial crocodile skull boiling and forming out of and off of his head; him all but shoving orange hair back into the ground and pinning her there with a single hand. Slamming the other hand down near her face, using a foot to keep the Salient guy pinned. Danny snarling, snout opening right over the mages face, “shoot at me all you want but you don’t get to hurt what’s mine”.

Tuck’s shaking off all that holy power, grumbling about stupid trigger happy adventurers as if he wasn’t one himself and stomps over to fucking shoot orange hair in the face with some sand; her unable to do anything about it because of Danny.

Salient muttering, “holy fucking shit, goddamn”. While Sam stops over to him, Sam smacking Danny’s ankle, “give over your license, you demonic horror”. Danny huffing out an icy breath in orange hairs face, moving his tail to use the many little quill hair spines on it to grab out his license from his torso inside his ribs, slipping it into her hands, “thank you”, she shoves the license in the probable warriors face, “see? Adventurer. You really think Clementine would approve him without goddamn checking him and his bullshit out?”.

He grunts from under Danny’s foot, “fair ‘nough. You tryin’ to crush me here?”.

Danny huffing another icy breath, “maybe”. Sam smacks his ankle again so Danny, with a shrug, lifts up his foot and lets the guy up. Danny thinks some mild crushing is totally deserved in this case, even if that was maybe influenced by these guys hurting his friends and making him feel all possessive and shit. Demon crap could be so annoying; being in this hot ass place only making it more annoying.

Salient rolls over and sits up, rolling his shoulders, “ow yeah, definitely not a spawn, damn”, eyeing himself over, “aw man, you cracked my shoulder pad. License doesn’t look fake though so”, looking up at Danny, “bad ass ability though”.

Danny tilts his skull head at the guy before looking back down to orange hair, “you gonna keep trying to annihilate me?”.

“You’re a demon”.

“And?”, lifting the hand that isn’t pinning her and waving it around dismissively, “it’s only a by half thing anyway”.

Tuck chuckling down at her, “need I point out that Danny could absolutely just crush you right now? Yeah, okay, so he’s sorta a demon, and sorta dead and not dead, but he’s not confined to a dungeon or Hell and he’s an adventurer. adventurers run into weird shit all the time, it’s not his fault he is the weird shit”. The girl glares but sighs, clearly giving up, so Danny basically forces himself to compact, puffing icy steam everywhere. Tuck grinning, “so dramatic”.

Danny pointing a normal standard human length clawed finger in the guys face, “hey, if there’s one thing I do well, besides confusing people and myself, it is dramatics”; if he was gonna be stuck as some weird dead but not dead, from the afterlife Hell but not from Hell, then he can be an overdramatic asshole about it.

Orange hair gets up immediately and moves over to the still unconscious ex-hat mage, muttering, “good, they didn’t poison her or anything. Damn demon worshipers”. Oh for fucks sake, was it really that hard to understand that he was a good guy and just a weird but typical adventurer? Ugh. Plus! He’s definitely a higher rank than her, so rude.

Salient standing up and shaking himself off, shouting at his teammate, “Lily good?”; nice, Danny’s got another name.

Orange hair sighs, “yeah. They didn’t do anything to her besides knock her out”. Oh everyone’s a critic.

Danny rolling his eyes and huffing, “you say that like you guys weren’t trying to fucking destroy me. Again, you gonna keep doing that shit? ‘Cause I’m positive all three of us outrank you guys, we just don’t exactly want to start having to fucking kill people just because people keep thinking I’m a me damned dungeon monster”.

Sam shaking her head and moving to be over by Tuck and Danny, “at least they didn’t think you were the dungeon boss this time”.

“Oh Hell that had been such a pain”.

Salient chuckles and looks at him, “you make a lot of ‘Hell’ comments and shit”.

Danny shrugging with a smirk, “hey if I’ve gotta be slightly, vaguely, hell bound then I might as well take the piss outta it”.

Orange hair glaring at Salient, “seriously? You’re making friendly with it now?”.

Danny pouts, “hey, rude much”. While Sam and Tuck laugh at him meanly.

Salient shoves her, “chill, aren’t adventurers supposed to at least try to get along. At least he’s not another psycho paladin who's just using his god as an excuse to commit way too much murder”.

Danny’s entire little party nodding, “yeah fuck paladins”. Earning them a scowl from orange hair, “we all know why you demon-lovers wouldn’t like paladins”.

Then Lily groans a little, sitting up and holding her head, “well at least I’m alive”.

Danny snorting, “yeah I have a thing against committing murder”.

“That is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard a demon say”.

Danny pouts at her. He gets that demons have a terrible rap, an earned terrible rap, but cut a guy some slack will ya? It would be so nice if he could shapeshift to look fully human, he bets that in some other universe he definitely could and he is jealous of that version of him. Stupid fucker probably got all the super sneaky useful abilities. Like being able to turn invisible or something, that would have been so useful today. Ugh.

Lily looking to her party members, “so care to explain what’s going on here?”.

“Demon dude is a legit adventurer, licensed and everything”.

Orange hair just grumbles incomprehensibly.

Sam crossing her arms at the three, “I’m Sam, platinum rank herbalist and green mage. The one with the crossbow is Tucker, silver rank earth mage and gear smith. And the half demon, that you are to stop attacking, is Danny, obsidian rank combat warrior as already mentioned; he’s also a weapons smith and death magic apprentice. Yes he’s a resurrection spell gone wrong, he did it to himself somehow, but people screw up spells all the time so whatever”.

Danny shrugging, “I mean, typically they don’t screw up so impressively they fuck up half their genetic species but yeah”; Sam swats him one, expertly avoiding the horns.

Salient snorts, “you’re a death magic apprentice and you made your self half dead? WOW you suck”.

“Hey!”, Danny puts a hand to his chest, “technically it’s useful, this way I can actually go to one of the death planes now without slowly dying”.

Lily shakes her head disbelievingly, “ridiculous and inane”, gesturing at herself, “Lily, steel rank lightning high mage”, gesturing at Salient, “Salient, silver rank knight”, gesturing at orange hair, “Gemine, iron rank white mage and apprentice priestess”. Tilting her head, “why is an obsidian with a platinum and a silver? He’s three and four ranks above you two respectively?”.

Danny waves her off immediately, “eh, I was gold before the demon shit fucked my shit up. And I am the leader so it’s not that odd”. Sam nodding, “if anything it’s weirder that an iron is travelling with a silver”.

Gemine scowling, muttering to herself, “of course the demon is the leader, disgusting”. Lily cuffs her over the head, making the girl pout. Lily nodding, “demons are more powerful than the living so I suppose that is logical, and a lower rank priestess will best any higher rank warrior”, glancing around, “where’s my hat?”.

Sam and Tuck stare at Danny judgingly, him rubbing his neck, “I ate it?”; it was a heat of the moment thing okay! He makes really dumb decision when he’s put on the spot!

Salient nodding with a smirk, “yeah, it was pretty weird”.

Danny pouting, “I’m not paying you back for it”, twitching, “and can we get the fuck out of this hot ass place already?”, looking at Sam and Tuck, “if you found nothing good I’m gonna be so annoyed”. Sam rolling her eyes and digging in her bag, pulling out a little unassigned demon core. Yum! Him brightening up immediately, “oh nice! This was so worth getting shot by holy bullets!”.

“Danny!”.

“Dude what!”.

Danny grabbing the core and biting into it, much to the disgust of his unwitting onlookers, “eh it was just a shoulder nick and I am literally covered in lava and holy light burns so that’s kinda not what I’m focused on”. Basically dumping the demonic energy down his gullet with a happy purr.

Salient pulling a face, “wow that is disgusting, awesome”. Lily sighs tiredly before gesturing at Danny’s party, “so are we good to just go our separate ways?”. Danny’s down for that, his burns were healing much better now even if he was still hot as hell.

Sam crossing her arms, “depends on if you’re going to keep harassing Danny”; Danny’s just content to lick his chops in demonic satisfaction. Gemine pouting, “I won’t be able to vanquish him so fine, I won’t”.

Danny giving her a thumbs up, “that’s the spirit, now let’s get the hell outta this furnace before my core decides I deserve to over heat”. Sam and Tuck roll their eyes at him and laugh, Tuck patting his shoulder as they all turn to wander off to the exit. The other party of adventurers awkwardly heading deeper into the dungeon.

Danny stretching a little, going all demon always made him feel like his bones were all fucked up and needed a stretching, “so find anything else?”.

“Lightning bolt in a bottle”.

“Bone dagger. Lots of bone daggers”.

“Oh and a whole ass dragon hide, it’s in the dimensional pocket”.

“We did put all the random gem stones in there too right”.

“Uh…”.

“Damn it, Tucker”.

Danny laughs to himself, shaking his head. This day was some bullshit but at least they didn’t leave empty handed, and wasn’t finding treasure and getting to throw fist-a-cuffs the whole point of being an adventurer? Even if he’d rather be beating up dungeon monsters than constantly having to duke it out with other adventurers.

---

Of course they don’t even make it a full day before running into the very same party. At least this time they’re at the adventurers guild so there’s no way he’s gonna get attacked again.

Gemine blinking at Danny, “so you actually can leave the dungeon”.

Danny rolling his eyes, “yeah it’s almost like I was telling the truth or something”. Hell, he seldom lied about shit, people just thought it was all too ridiculous to be true.

Lily looks to the desk lady, quirking an eyebrow then gesturing at the demon in the room. Juhe blinking and smiling, understanding quickly, “yes the demon is welcome here, yes he’s an adventurer, no you’re not allowed to vanquish him, and no he’s not mind controlling anyone”.

Salient chuckles, putting a hand on his hip, “wow it sounds like this happens a lot”. Tuck shaking his head, “you have no idea”; before Sam goes up to make their report to the guild master. Technically Danny’s supposed to do that, being the leader and all, but head office had a barrier around it and they refused to take it down just for Danny’s sorry ass, meaning compromises were made.

Danny nodding at the guy, “anytime we go into a dungeon and run into a party that hasn’t met me before, it turns into a fight”, rubbing his neck, “which has earned me the title of adventurers bane since I keep basically having to beat down adventurers until they give up”.

Juhe nodding, “and he helps out the enforcers sometimes, since he can be quite the intimidating presence”.

“Boo, having a demonic aura isn’t my fault, and if just a simple demonic aura is enough to scare someone they probably shouldn’t be an adventurer”.

“You forget most adventurers do gathering quests and less dangerous dungeons”.

“Pah!”.

“You also forget that your demonic aura is that of a demon lord not a simple spawn or lesser demon”.

Danny’s only response to that is a pout.

Lily had been about to go up and make her own report, one foot stopping in midair, “that one is… a demon lord?”, and looks very concerned at Danny. While Salient grins to himself, “sweet, I got to fight a demon lord. Man that’s cool”.

Danny blinks, shrugging, “I was a wee bit miffed about suddenly being very literally in hell one time, not the time I fucked my resurrection up, and went demon killing happy. Two might have been demon lords and one was definitely a death god”.

All three look at him in shock, horror, or looking just plan impressed in Salient’s case. Lily shaking her head, “alright, you very well could have annihilated us”.

Johe glancing at some paperwork, “you three are silver, steel, and iron? Yes, you would not have stood a chance if taken seriously by him. He’s officially listed as obsidian, but he’s closer to iridium, which still stands as our highest class”.

Danny blushing, “aw shucks”.

“Don’t you ‘aw shucks’ me, if you’re that flattered then stop leaving your tail quills in the lobby wall”.

“Hey! It has a mind of its own”.

“It’s still attached to you, ain’t it?”.

Danny pouts at her, tail twitching near the ground, he’s half tempted to stab the wall with it just to be petty. He did petty very very well after all.

Lily shakes herself before finally going up to give her report; Danny absolutely hearing Sam whisper a threat at her, “Danny’s a lot nicer than the rest of us, don’t pull that shit with him again or else I won’t hesitate using a mind vine to make you break your party members”, as they pass in the stairway. He makes a point to roll his eyes disappointedly at her when she makes it down fully.

His friends were great but so over protective and possessive of him, it was nice but also a pain. She rolls her eyes right back at him as the three of them head out, waving bye to Salient and Gamine as more of a form of pleasantries than genuine fond fair-wells or whatever. They ain’t friends and weren’t gonna suddenly become them, something Danny was frankly fully uninterested in. He had his Sam and Tuck and was definitely not interested in sharing them.

End.

Prompts: Fantasy/rpg setting. Danny died, but the resurrection spell went wrong, and now he’s trapped as something not quite dead but not fully alive either. Not that he’d ever let that stop him from becoming an adventurer, even if he does get mistaken as a resident dungeon monster by other adventuring parties every now and then… Demon!au

[raaorqtpbpdy]

God Only Knows

Everyone knows AU, but Wes doesn't know that everyone knows, and neither does Danny, because even though everyone knows, everyone also knows better than to acknowledge it.

For the prompts:

Everyone knows the connection between Danny Fenton and Phantom. To keep their town's hero safe, everyone pretends to be oblivious. Only this one kid doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. [From @vigilant-insomniac], and It's like Santa, the students of Casper High think. You know he's fake, just your parents playing pretend, and if Danny wants to play human, well. Who are they to ruin the fantasy? [From @uniasus]

This is a take on Wes I've never written before, despite having written quite a few Wes fics, and it was a lot of fun, I hope you like it : )

Read also on AO3

[Warnings for mentioned injuries, threats, and implied bullying]

Danny Fenton was dead. Everyone knew that.

After an accident in his parents' lab, he'd been rushed to the hospital and declared dead on arrival. He had an obituary in the paper, a grave. His death had even been announced over Casper High's PA system, and there had been a moment of silence, and all the science classes had done lessons on lab safety so that what had happened to him might not happen to anyone else.

Then, a couple weeks later, Danny Fenton was back at school like nothing had happened. Hanging out with his loser friends, going to classes, eating at Nasty Burger. Like he was still a regular kid. Except that beakers slipped through his fingers, and he kept walking through vending machines, and falling through the floor. Sometimes all or part of him would turn invisible, or he'd start floating a few inches off the floor and his friends had to pull him back down to earth.

Every time, he would look around in a panic, like he was hoping no one saw, and every time, those who had seen pretended they hadn't. It was Santa Claus, the Casper students reasoned. You knew he was fake, just your parents playing pretend, but it made them happy when you pretended with them. If Danny wanted to play human, well... who were they to ruin the fantasy.

Besides, no one wanted to be the one to remind him that he'd died.

Then the school was attacked by a ghost, and another ghost appeared to stop her. It was the ghost of a 14-year-old boy, wearing a Fenton Works jumpsuit. There was no mistaking that Danny Fenton, the dead kid attending their school, was also the dead kid protecting it.

But after a couple of days, it was clear that Danny himself still thought it was a secret, so everyone else silently agreed to let him keep thinking that. He'd been through a lot, and they didn't need to make it harder on him. Even Dash never brought it up—and he kept bullying Danny, for being week and unpopular, just to keep up the illusion that nothing had changed.

When out-of-towners started poking around, asking questions, everyone kept the secret. The strangers were clearly ill-intentioned, wanting to capture Danny for some reward. Even if he was deluding himself about still being alive, Danny was a good kid who protected the town. The least the locals could do as thanks was act oblivious to keep him safe. They were used to pretending, anyway.

Except this one kid didn't seem to have gotten the memo.

"Uh, yeah, I have some information on the ghost!" Wes called out to the Guys in White nosing around their school.

Kwan grabbed him, covering his mouth and dragging him around the corner before the Guys in White could see who'd called out to them. He felt something slimy on the palm of his hand and let go of Wes with a noise of disgust.

"What the hell!" Wes demanded.

"Did you just lick me?" Kwan asked, wiping his hand off on his jeans. "Gross!"

"Dude, you dragged me down the hallway! What gives."

"You were gonna spill to the Guys in White. You can't do that!"

"Just 'cause no one around here believes me, I'm just supposed to give up?" Wes frowned, crossing his skinny, freckled arms over his chest. "Somebody has to know that Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom, I mean come on, it's obvious!"

"But if you tell the Guys in White, even if they don't believe you, they'll investigate him, and who knows what they'll do," Kwan pointed out. "Hasn't Danny been through enough? I mean," Kwan glanced around and lowered his voice before adding, "he died. Do you really want to make things harder on him after that? Don't you think he deserves a break?"

"Exactly," Wes hissed. "He died. He's a ghost. Ghosts are bad—and why are we whispering?" he added at a normal volume.

"You know that's not true," Kwan argued, keeping his voice low, despite Wes' complaint. "Phantom protects us."

"From ghosts that come through a portal he opened!"

Kwan flinched. Saying Danny had opened the portal was kind of misrepresenting the reality of the situation. Sam and Tucker had reluctantly told the story of Danny's death in the weeks he was gone, and it had been spread around pretty thoroughly before he came back. Everyone at school knew that he'd stepped into that portal and been completely fried. The portal turning on wasn't the part most people focused on when it was always immediately followed by 'while Danny was inside it'.

"I don't think you can blame him for that," Kwan said. "It was an accident."

"One that has yet to be corrected," Wes replied, his anger not fading. "Him fighting the ghosts doesn't stop them from attacking. If he really wanted to protect the town, he'd destroy the portal and stay in the Ghost Zone."

"What about the Fentons?"

"Who cares if the Fentons lose their precious portal when it's endangering thousands of lives!?"

"And you don't care if they lose their son, either?" Kwan demanded.

"So you do believe me!"

"You're a dick, Weston." He'd never called anyone a dick before in his life, but it seemed to apply here. "I don't care what you think, but if you try to hawk your theories on any of the ghost hunters around town, I'll make you regret it, and I'll bring friends, too. I've got a lot of them."

To drive home his point, Kwan shoved Wes against the lockers and glared before walking away. Gosh, that was so aggressive. Kwan hoped it had been okay. He didn't like doing it—he didn't even know if his face could hold that expression long enough to intimidate anyone—but if it kept Danny safe, that was what mattered.

At least Dash would probably be proud of him for it. Dash was always saying he needed to be more assertive to people couldn't push him around. Metaphorically, of course. Literally, Kwan was six feet tall and 190 pounds, even as a freshman, so there weren't many people who could physically push him around as it was. He didn't join the football team for no reason.

Thankfully, it did seem to work. Kwan had his friends—and he did indeed have a lot of friends, since he was a very friendly and likable guy—keep an eye on Wes until the outside ghost hunters declared the hunt a bust and skipped town. He didn't know whether Wes had noticed or not, but either way, he hadn't tried to expose Danny to them again.

Too bad that didn't last. A few weeks later, Wes went directly to the Fentons.

"No one else will believe me, but your son is a ghost!" Wes told them. "He's Danny Phantom!"

Jack and Maddie both froze. They knew.

They knew, and they had both agreed to pretend they didn't. They shot at Phantom, always aiming a mile wide, and shouted threats, and loudly declared their hatred for ghosts. They knew how it made Danny feel, but they also knew he still loved them. They were willing to do whatever it took to keep their son around, and they feared that if he were ever to tell them he was a ghost, it would be because he was moving on and they'd never see him again.

"Why... that's ridiculous, my boy!" Jack declared, a slight waver in his booming voice. "Our son can't be a ghost!"

"But it's true!" Wes insisted.

"Don't be silly!" Maddie cut him off before he could start listing evidence. She knew all the evidence. "I think we'd know if there was a ghost living under our own roof."

"But—"

"You should keep your utterly ridiculous theories to yourself, because you sound absurd," Maddie said. "Now, if you don't mind, my husband and I have very important ghost hunting to get to. Don't you have homework to do or something?"

Wes growled and clenched his fists in frustration but left them alone nonetheless. Clearly, he wasn't getting anywhere with him. And he wasn't getting anywhere at school, to the point where Danny had stopped getting anxious and had started openly antagonizing him about it. Didn't anyone else in Amity Park have eyes, he wondered.

But in truth, he was the one not seeing, because he didn't see that everyone else was on the same page about Danny being a ghost, and he was the one being left behind.

"Hey, Wes-toenail!"

Wes rolled his eyes as Dash stormed up to him with a disappointed-looking Kwan in tow.

"Jazz Fenton told Sam Manson, who told Kwan, who told me, that you tried to tell Fenton's parents about your stupid conspiracy theory!" Dash sneered at him.

"It's not a conspiracy theory," Wes said. "There would have to be more than just one person involved for it to be a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory would be like if I claimed everyone in town was working together to hide the fact that Fenton is Phantom," he was too busy rolling his eyes again to notice the look Kwan and Dash gave each other, "but you're not, you're all just a bunch of sheep."

"And you're a... a..." Dash struggled, grasping around his thick head for a comeback.

"A blackberry bramble!" Kwan finished for him.

"A blackberry bramble!" Dash repeated firmly, then turned to Kwan with a confused look. "A blackberry bramble?" he repeated again, this time questioningly.

"Prickly, invasive, and impossible to get rid of," Kwan explained. "Sam and I also talked about her garden."

"Oh, that's nice," Dash then turned back to Wes, hardened his expression and said. "You're like a blackberry bramble, and no one wants you around."

Wes raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "Why do you even care? I thought you hated Fenton."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want him dead again," Dash pointed out. "His parents are ghost hunters, and they're always shooting at Phantom. What do you think they might do to Danny if they actually believed your bullshit theory?"

"Get rid of him! Because he's a ghost! You know, the creatures constantly attacking our town and putting us all in danger?"

"The fact that you actually seem to believe that is why nobody at school likes you," Dash told him plainly. "That, and your general annoyingness."

"Why do you all care so much about protecting a loser like Danny Fenton?!" Wes shouted, loudly enough that it attracted the attention of everyone else in the hallway not already listening, and he threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "So he died, so what? It's the fact that he's still around that's the problem. Everyone seems to agree that they want ghosts gone until I bring up Phantom. A ghost is a ghost is a ghost, and all ghosts are dangerous, even the quote-unquote 'good ones.'"

He was breathing heavily when he finished his outburst, and suddenly aware of at least a dozen sets of eyes on him.

"That's enough, Wes," Kwan said after a beat. "Danny hasn't done anything to you, or anyone, and it's not fair for you to keep doing this, trying to expose him or... or whatever it is you're trying to do. You'd better cut it out. If this is a joke, no one's laughing, and if you're serious, then you're trying to take a real person away from his friends and family because of your own biases, and that's messed up, dude."

"Yeah!" someone down the hallway piped up. Micah, Wes thought her name was. She'd spit on his shoes when he tried to convince her of his theory.

"Enough is enough!" her friend agreed.

"You lay off Danny, he's already been through it this year already!"

Soon enough, every student in the hallway was chiming in their agreement, and Wes scanned the crowd, mouth agape, offended and outraged. When he turned back to Dash and Kwan, they both wore hard expressions. It looked weird on Kwan's usually jovial face, but it was clear they meant business.

"Whatever," Wes grumbled. He grabbed his math book out of his locker and slammed the door shut with a metallic bang. "You've made your point. I'll stop."

"Will you actually?" Dash insisted, raising a skeptical brow. "Or are you just saying that to get us off your back?"

"I will," Wes confirmed. "I don't need the entire football team and then some making my life a living hell. As long as Fenton keeps his distance from me, I'll do the same for him."

The warning was passed from Kwan, to Sam, to Danny, and in short order, Danny and Wes started avoiding each other. They barely so much as crossed paths anymore. Wes, begrudgingly, stopped trying to expose Danny, and Danny stopped teasing him for his failures, and it finally seemed like Amity Park's ghostly hero could go on protecting the town in peace.

But things weren't always what they seemed, and one day, there was a fight. At first, it seemed like a standard ghost fight, Danny Phantom versus some vampire-looking asshole.

Based on the banter, it sounded like this wasn't their first encounter with each other, so the civilians of Amity Park tried their best to stay out of the way and let Danny do his thing. Parents calling their kids inside, the group of teens passing by ducked into the alley, the one riding the opposite way on his skateboard crossed the street to hide with them, safety in numbers and all that.

Then the tide of battle turned, and all of the sudden, Danny was losing, badly. The enemy ghost had started coming at him with powerful blasts that broke through his defenses and left him reeling. Danny howled as he hit the street, hard, and in a flash of white light, his appearance changed from hero to dweeb, and regular old Danny Fenton laid unconscious in the road.

"You can never truly best me, Daniel," the enemy ghost said, but he didn't have time to monologue.

The teens in the alleyway had a plan, and they were coming to the rescue.

Sam Manson somersaulted into the street, Fenton Wrist Ray™ already armed and at the ready, and she laid down cover fire at the enemy ghost while Dash and Kwan ran out to grab Danny and drag him to the alleyway where they'd been taking cover.

"Guess you can't tell me I'm crazy now," Wes said, smirking triumphantly as the two jocks put Danny down gently on the ground, propping his head up on Paulina's folded up jacket. "We all saw him turn into Fenton, that's proof."

"Will you shut up, Wes?" Paulina snapped while Star checked Danny over, trying to assess his injuries. "We knew that already."

"What do you mean you knew?"

"Everyone knew, the whole time," Paulina reiterated with a derogatory scowl. "It's like, super obvious."

"Then why did you all treat me like I was crazy?" Wes demanded.

"Because you are," Star said. "Not 'cause you think he's a ghost—because, like, duh—but 'cause you kept trying to tell everyone. Some things should stay secret you moron."

"Why you even wanted to constantly remind the dead kid that he's dead, I'll never know," Paulina added.

"Plus, you constantly trying to expose him was putting him in danger," Kwan said. "Phantom is a hero, and you were trying to get him killed."

"He's already dead!"

"Yeah, we know," Sam jeered at him as she returned to their cover. "Everyone knows. But you're the only person in the whole town who's being a dick about it!"

"Hey, that's the same thing I told him a couple months ago!" Kwan told her, delighted. "I never called someone a dick before, but I did, 'cause he was being one."

"Good job calling him out, Kwan," Sam said, sounding genuinely satisfied. "It's good to hear that you're being more assertive and standing up for yourself and others."

"That's what I said, too!" Dash noted. "God, it's so weird that I actually agree with you on stuff now."

"Can we get back to the fact that you guys all knew the whole time that Fenton was a ghost and nobody thought to clue me in?" Wes said, looking around at the rest of them incredulously.

"Clue you in the Danny was a ghost?" Sam asked sardonically. "I thought you knew."

"No, that it was apparently common knowledge and you all just felt like making a fool out of me!"

"You wouldn't have looked like a fool if you'd just kept your fool mouth shut," Paulina pointed out.

"You—"

Wes was cut off when Danny groaned into wakefulness and everyone's attention instantly snapped to the ghost boy.

"Mn... ugh," Danny took a shaky breath and blinked his eyes open, quickly widening in shock when he realized how many people were leaning over him. "Uh... hello, citizens," he said, putting on a voice in the hopes they wouldn't recognize them. "Please, step back and stay away from the—"

"Danny," Sam said, "You changed."

"Huh?" He looked down at his hand and gasped. "I mean, I have an explanation for this. I was uh... being overshadowed?"

"It's okay, dude," Kwan told him. "We're not going to tell anyone. This'll be our little secret. Right, Wes?"

They all looked pointedly at the redhead, who opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

"Yeah, okay," he relented, though his left eyebrow was nevertheless twitching in irritation. "Our secret."

"We just wanted to get you out of the line of fire before Plasmius took things too far," Sam told him. "You know I've always got your back."

"Thanks," Danny said. "All of you."

They gave him their smiles and their 'you're welcome's while Wes griped and grumbled and left the alleyway with his bike to finish riding home. Plasmius had flown off shortly after Sam started shooting at him. He was content in his victory over Phantom, and didn't feel the need to fight a powerless child like her, so the coast was clear for the rest of them to leave as well.

Sam said goodbye to Kwan so she could walk Danny home while the rest of them resumed their walk to the mall. Sam had been planning to split off before they got their anyway, she was just taking the opportunity to chat with them—mostly Kwan, whom she'd accidentally befriended during Danny's brief stint of popularity earlier in the year (his 'goth' poetry was awful, but they'd bonded over gardening and a love of animals)—since her house was on the way.

"You gonna be okay, Danny?" she asked, as they walked arm in arm so she could catch him if he stumbled. "You don't have a concussion, do you?"

"Maybe?" Danny said, squinting uncertainly. He shrugged. "I'll be fine. I always am. I'm still just amazed how lucky it was that the A-listers and Wes, of all people, were willing to keep my secret. It's gonna be all over the school, tomorrow, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Sam said vaguely. "Kwan's a decent guy, at least. I'm pretty sure they'll keep their word."

Danny scoffed in disbelief, but didn't voice an argument. The rest of the way to Fenton Works, the chattered about whatever topics came to mind, just to keep Danny from falling asleep in case he did have a concussion, and when Sam dropped him off at home, she held off her mournful expression until she had turned away so Danny didn't have to see it.

[phicphight]

Hey folks, we'd like your opinions on the idea of Phic Phight being it's own server, instead of being part of the DP Fanfic server. We also have a google form so you guys can expand on your answer if you'd like, but also give us any general suggestions, comments or feedback related to the upcoming Phic Phight.

Under the readmore is just some detailed explanations as to why some of the changes.

What would happen if we made a Phic Phight server?

Phic Phight section of the DP fanfic server will be archived from general view. NOT DELETED. Archived. Six months will be given for people to collect what they want before it gets archived. However, you'd still be able to request temporary access at any time to look/get what you want/need.

Joining the discord will become mandatory for Phic Phight participants. You do not have to stay after Phic Phight, and you can be as active/inactive as you wish.

Better event organization information, since users will be pinged when prompts drop and any other important information. Everybody will get it at the same time.

Since it'd be it's own server, we'd be more willing to expand on and add specific features, channels and bots for Phic Phight events.

What if Phic Phight stayed within the DP Fanfic server?

Phic Phight participants will start taking on full responsibility for checking the Phic Phight tumblr in late March/early April for prompts. Mods will no longer be directly messaging them to people.

Related to the above, but no more extensions based on people not getting their prompts. Extensions will still be offered in situations such as mods releasing prompts late or other situations out of user/mod control that effects Phic Phight.

Not having to join yet another goddamn Danny Phantom discord server.

We will continue making updates and changes in-server as needed.

Google Form, if you'd like to expand on anything or just give general feedback

Why would discord membership be mandatory if we made our own server?

It makes it easier for the mods to coordinate everything and for users to communicate. We can more directly answer questions, clarify confusion, give everybody updates at the exact same time, dedicate our announcement spaces to only phic phight, etc. Users can better connect with their team as well and encourage each other.

A big part of Phic Phight is community, especially since more recent additions have made it a good idea to work with your team to help make sure all prompts are filled. Since we're currently attached to the fanfic server, it felt unfair to require membership, but as our own server, we would operate a bit more similarly to Invisobang. Specifically where we're encouraging more collaboration. We're writing phics for each other as well as for our own personal reasons.

What kind of changes would a Phic Phight server bring?

We'd be more willing to expand and add Phic Phight specific features as users and mods seem fit. Current ideas include:

More writing bots

More phic-phight specific channels to collaborate

Random number generators, so you can roll for a prompt or make decisions based on a randomized number

Hosting phic phight focused events, such as regular sprint nights

This is just the current thoughts, but we're open to more ideas within the google form!

This server would also, in general, make it a lot easier to get information strictly for Phic Phight.

Why are mods no longer going to be sending out prompts list? How will I get my prompts? Why no more extensions?

Phic Phight prompts and teams are always consistently released 2-3 days before April 1st, and Phic Phight always lasts the entire month of April. Meaning, you can expect prompts around March 31st at the LATEST. In recent years, they are always released both in the Fanfic server as well as our official tumblr. In the past, due to tumblr constantly changing how messaging works, general confusion and the amount of participants, it's become too difficult for mods to personally make sure everybody has their prompts list.

It wasn't too bad when we had 30 participants, but now we're often getting 100+ people. That's a lot of people to individually check got prompts. It's just becoming harder and harder to make sure everybody got their list, but since we consistently release them around the same time, we decided that regardless of whether we make a new server or not, it's now going to be YOUR responsibility to check for prompts around March 31st.

Having a server means that we'd just be @ everybody-ing when they drop, versus not having a server, where they will still be posted and pinged role, as well as tumblr. Regardless of whether we make a server or not, we will still post the prompts list to tumblr and have it pinned for easy viewing.

Related, we have extended deadlines if a lot of people did not get their prompts, due to the above mentioned tumblr problem. This change would mean that we basically will not be doing event-wide extensions anymore based on tumblr users getting prompts late, which had been a semi-common past problem. We will still offer extensions in events such as mods releasing prompts late or similar situations