#Truce fic

[transingthoseformers]

Tfa fics where Optimus becomes a decepticon are always interesting, because I've seen a few fics that are just the decepticons finding out the autobots suck ass and go like "fuck that he's ours now, we're gonna treat him right" and those are amazing

Like it's just

[hailsatanacab]

a father's son

Happy holiday truce, @dashing-through-ecto!! I was your gifter this year, I hope you enjoy the fic! Based on your prompt: "Do you need any help, Dad?"

Word count 2.2k - ao3 link

Things have not been going well for Danny Fenton.

Not only did he fail in intercepting Lancer’s call home, so now Mom and Dad know about his latest grades—he didn’t even get enough answers for an F this time, not when he fell asleep within the first five minutes—but they also caught Jazz taking the trash out for him.

“That’s one of your chores, young man! Heaven knows you don’t have many of them, which is why you need to be responsible and actually do the ones that we give you! It’s just not good enough, Daniel James Fenton, do you hear me?”

The full name.

It’s not often he gets it, but it sucks each and every time he does.

What sucks even more is that now, with what little free time he has, he’s cleaning the lab. It’s just not fair!

Broken glass skitters along the floor as he sweeps it up into the dustpan, ectoplasm still clinging to the bottom of the beaker. 

He can’t even goof off—can’t even use his powers to finish quicker—because his dad is sitting at the workbench tinkering with whatever his newest interest is.

Great. Looks like he’s stuck cleaning the boring, human way.

The lab is quiet, but it isn’t silent. 

Ectoplasm drips, maddeningly, from the gloop stuck on the ceiling. That’s a form of torture, isn’t it? Danny’s pretty sure he’s heard that before, that the constant sound of water droplets will drive someone insane. He can relate, because this is certainly testing him.

Dad’s talking to himself, too, little murmurs about what he’s doing, where he should be soldering, how it should be working and why it isn’t. 

Vaguely, Danny wonders what he’s working on. Sure, it’s probably some ghost thing, but that’s not all they do! His parents made some pretty great advances before the portal switched on and monopolised all of their thoughts.

Yeah, that might be wishful thinking, but stranger things have happened! You never know.

Every 30 seconds, the motor on the ecto-filter whirrs into life, syphoning off the excess, pure ectoplasm from the portal and filtering it into something less volatile. In theory.

Underneath everything, the portal hums.

A droning beat that pulses in the same rhythm as his heart. Sometimes, he catches himself staring at it, leaning closer as it calls to him.

It scares him.

“Shit!” his dad shouts, dropping the soldering iron with a loud clang. 

It’s enough to knock Danny out of whatever daydream he’d lost himself in and he whirls around to see his dad sucking on one of his fingers.

They lock eyes, both widening as they realise what’s happened.

“Ah, I mean, suffering spooks! That really hurt…” He shoves his fingers back into his mouth and his shoulders droop as he considers Danny. “Don’t tell your mother.”

Danny laughs.

“Are you alright?”

“It’d take more than that to put Jack Fenton down! All good, Danno, don’t you worry,” he smiles back before shaking his hand out and turning back to whatever he was working on. “Or, I would be, if this hunk of junk was cooperating with me!”

“What’s up?” Danny asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

Normally, he likes to stay out of the lab, as much as he can. 

Obviously, what Phantom does doesn’t count. Phantom can’t help but come into the lab, set ghosts loose into the Zone, trash whatever weapons his parents have got going on, sneak out into the Zone when he can for some much needed R&R. The ectoplasm just hits different there.

“I’m trying to repurpose this toaster, but the ecto won’t run smoothly through the wiring. I think it keeps getting cooked by the element.”

“Oh? Do you need some help?”

Danny doesn’t like spending time in the lab, because if he’s in the lab then he’s either Phantom and he’s trying hard not to be seen or heard, or he’s Danny and he’s being punished.

But his curiosity is piqued.

“Yeah, come here, have a look! Perhaps another Fenton brain can knock some sense into it!”

So, he does.

Hell, anything beats cleaning the lab.

“You’re trying to run it through here?”

Dad nods and shifts in his seat to give Danny a better view.

“But you can’t, because the ecto is tripping the heating element… which is way higher than a toaster has any right to be, wow. No wonder it’s destabilising the ectoplasm, that would destabilise anything.”

Danny pokes around the casing, wiggling the wires back and forth to get a better look at the absolute mess his dad has made of it all. Sometimes it amazes him that his parents' inventions work at all.

“That’s what I’m thinking! But it has to be that high so we can completely break down the ecto!”

“You want it to break down?”

“Yep!” Dad says, clapping him on the back hard enough that he wheezes. He grins down at him when Danny turns around reproachfully. “Think of it, boyo, if we could figure out how to flash fry that ectoplasm high enough so that it evaporates—which it should do, it’s goopy gross liquid, after all!—then you wouldn’t be stuck down here cleaning for so long! We could take it to the streets after a ghost fight and clean up the whole town!”

Well, it’s not a Nobel Prize level invention… Danny’s pretty sure at this point that his parents would be laughed out by the Nobel committee. But, a quicker cleaning of the lab does sound nice.

It would mean he’d be stuck down here a lot less.

Besides… It's interesting.

“What if we…” Danny trails off and pulls the metal frame towards him, grabbing the tweezers as he goes. Vaguely, he’s aware of his dad leaning over his shoulder, the weight of him watching is a comforting presence that he’s not felt in a long while. 

The real trouble is that you need ectoplasm to affect ectoplasm, and that’s not going to work if the object of the game is to evaporate it. 

So what if they don’t introduce the reactive ecto until the end?

He makes quick work of stripping down what his dad’s already done and starts again, this time focussing on keeping the heat contained separately away from the ectoplasm. Just as he’s piecing together a trigger to concurrently shoot a blast of ecto towards the heated tip, Dad exclaims as he realises where he’s going with it.

“Oh! Danny, you’re a genius! Look at that!” Dad laughs and squints closer at what Danny’s doing. “Just wait until your mother sees this, she’s going to be so happy!”

Danny can’t help but grin as he ductapes everything to a piece of toaster casing to give it the first test try. Dad’s enthusiasm is catching as he whoops when the first puddle of ectoplasm burns off in acrid smoke.

They spend another couple of hours perfecting it, welding a case together and branding it with the Fenton F.

It’s not pretty—but then again, when are his parents’ inventions?—a long stick with a cattle-prod-like taser at the end. Instead of electricity, it launches ectoplasm from one rod and superheats the other. When activated, all you need to do is touch the tip to a puddle and poof! It’s gone.

Danny shivers as he watches another pool go up.

But, no! He’s thinking about it wrong. It’s not a cattle-prod, it’s more like one of those sticks you see people using on the highway to jab at the litter on the floor. It’s for cleaning. It’s going to make his lab cleaning chores way easier! It’s—

“Danny, just look at it!”

Danny looks at it, and then back to his father’s face when he can’t bear to see the smoking ecto anymore. It’s painfully happy and Danny does his best to be happy, too.

“Here!” Dad shoves the contraption into Danny’s arms. “You use that and finish what you’re doing and then when you’re done—I can’t believe I’m saying this, galloping ghouls, I’m so happy, I’m working with my boy—we can get to work transferring it over to the Jack o’ Nine Tails! Imagine it, Danny, with one whip and that pesky poltergeist Phantom will be gone!”

Danny freezes.

It feels as if Dad’s just dumped a bucket of ice water over him.

“Poof! Up in smoke!”

The fumes are getting to him. That must be it. His head is swimming and his stomach is churning. There’s a ringing in his ears and it melds with the sharp, stinging whirr of ectoplasm sizzling. It pulses in time with the portal behind him.

He stumbles, almost goes down—almost throws up—but it doesn’t matter. Dad doesn’t see him, already turned away back to the work bench.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter.

You know what, it’s okay! It’ll be okay, Danny can sneak back down here later tonight and he can undo it all, it doesn’t matter!

Take a deep breath, now, finish cleaning the lab, ignore Dad—it doesn’t matter—and get this over with. Being here makes his skin crawl, he needs to finish—

“I’m so proud of you, Danny.”

For the second time, Danny stops.

Dad doesn’t say anything else, just sits with his back to him, opening and closing his hand over a screwdriver with the Jack o’ Nine Tails splayed out in front of him.

It takes longer than Danny wants to find his voice, but he manages to croak out, “What?”

“I’m proud of you, Danno. I know this year hasn’t been easy for you, don’t think we haven’t noticed. Your mom and I have been talking about how you're doing at school. We're not blind. We know kids can be cruel, and that Dash Baxter… But we're so proud of you for not rising to it. We love you so much, Danny.”

A lump grows in Danny’s throat and his eyes prickle.

His fingers bleach white where they grip the Fenton Evaporator too tight.

“Look at what you can do when you try, Danny! This is the boy that I know, this is the Danny that I love. I’m so proud of what we’ve done here today. It’ll make the world a better place, just you wait! Now, come on, boyo, pass me that soldering iron and let’s really get stuck in!”

And… And Danny does.

With shaky limbs and tears threatening to spill, Danny reaches over and passes Dad the soldering iron, watching as he gets to work, and when his dad asks him to get his hands dirty—“Here, run this wire up the rope, there’s a good boy!”—he does.

Danny does it all and he does it well.

He sucks in a deep breath, swipes a hand over his eyes, and he helps his dad.

He laughs when Dad tells his stupid jokes:

“Quick! What’s red, white, and blue all over?”

“I don’t know, Dad, what’s red, white, and blue all over?”

“A ghost that we’ve beaten into oblivion!”

And he hopes that his mom is going to be just as proud as Dad says she will be when she sees what they’ve done.

It’s easy, really.

If he doesn’t think about it, if he tucks his mind away and just lets his hands get on with it, then he’s just helping his dad and he can do that. He can do it.

He can do it.

So, no, he doesn’t sabotage what they’ve built. He doesn’t add in a failsafe. He doesn’t loosen a few screws, or overload the element, or untwist a few wires.

Danny does his best and at the end of the day his dad holds up the new and improved Jack o’ Nine Tails and absolutely beams at him. A work of art, he calls it.

Danny doesn’t sabotage it then and he won’t sabotage it later, because it’s a work of art. This is what he and his dad built. Together.

Danny can’t help but grin back, happiness curling in his belly even as it gives a sickening lurch.

He doesn’t eat dinner that night, he can’t.

He stays downstairs long enough to present the new weapon to Mom—very pointedly ignoring Jazz’s look—and then he heads upstairs. There’s an English essay he needs to get started on, after all.

He doesn’t miss the look Mom and Dad share, the fond tenderness, the love, the hope, all directed at him.

He’s happy.

They’re happy.

They’re proud of him.

And despite it all, he had fun today! 

When he lays down on his bed, he smiles and he can’t stop the laughter bubbling up as he thinks about his dad. At one point, he had been holding up a circular piece of metal he’d cannibalised from the lamp shade to his eyes, moving it back and forth as he pulled his funny faces, and some of that full belly laugh creeps back in as he remembers doing the same back.

He laughs so hard until he cries, and he cries, and he cries. 

Today, he and his dad built a weapon. 

Tomorrow, it'll be used on him, but that's okay. 

It's okay because today, today his dad was proud.

[torscrawls]

Pressurized

Happy Holiday Truce @ectospacecadet! This is my gift for you, based on the prompt “Sometimes all it takes is one bad day to break someone: Danny snaps.” Hope it tastes good!

You can also read it on AO3.

-

“Fenton! Get up that rope!”

Danny clutched his aching left arm tight to his side, cursing Skulker and his attack early this morning as he moved to do as Ms. Tetslaff had ordered. The wound throbbed and radiated pain up his whole arm as he grabbed the rope and started to haul himself up.

“Ha! Fenturd is too much of a wimp to get up that rope!” Dash laughed and was soon joined by the rest of the A-listers.

Danny grit his teeth and reminded himself that what Dash and the rest thought about him really didn’t matter in the big picture. He had more important things to worry about. Like how to keep his wound from opening back up while making it to the top of the rope. Maybe he could use a touch of flight to—

Suddenly the whole rope heaved beneath him, writhing like a snake come alive, and Danny lost his grip. Thankfully the fall wasn’t long, but it still hurt when he landed—of course—on his wounded left arm.

Danny groaned from where he lay on the mat and as soon as he opened his eyes he got a face full of a grinning Dash, leaning over him and looking proud of himself. He still held the rope Danny had been climbing in one hand. Of course he had been the one to mess with him. Danny couldn’t even find it in himself to be surprised.

Danny turned his head to his side and saw Tetslaff on the other side of the room, not looking. Of course.

Dash laughed. “Wow, I didn’t know Fentoe was so weak he couldn’t even hold on to a rope!”

Danny reminded himself that Dash didn’t matter and that he didn’t care about what they thought, that he didn’t care about any of this. He didn’t.

Danny got to his feet, keeping his left arm close to his side. He felt a slow trickling of warmth run down the inside of his arm and really hoped his wound hadn’t opened back up. It would be just his luck.

Tucker jogged up next to him and sent him a concerned look. “Hey, you okay man?”

Danny took a deep breath, relaxed his clenched hands and let it out slowly before looking at Tucker and giving him what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Considering Tucker’s grimace, he guessed he didn’t manage it, but his friend thankfully didn’t push the issue. And he was fine, this didn’t matter. It was just a slight annoyance. He would fix the wound after gym was over and then it would all be fine.

They were interrupted by Tetslaff suddenly deigning to look over towards them now that Dash had started climbing his own rope to the cheers of his friends. She frowned and immediately screamed, “Fenton! Foley! If you have time to just stand around talking, then you have time to run twenty laps! Get going!”

So Danny pushed down his pain and started running, Tucker by his side.

—-

After gym was over he waited until everyone else had finished changing out of their gym clothes before doing it himself, ignoring Dash and his lackeys continuous jabs and insults.

He didn’t feel like explaining his wound—which he was now certain he had reopened as the warm wetness on the inside of his arm hadn’t stopped and only gotten worse as time went on—and his extensive bruising. It would just raise a lot of questions. And probably even more insults, and even if Dash and the rest didn’t matter, Danny was too tired to deal with it right now.

He had to convince Tucker to go on ahead without him, “There’s no reason why we both have to be late. Besides, I don’t want them to start bullying you too.”

Apparently that hadn’t been as convincing as Danny had thought, but in the end he had managed to convince Tucker anyway and that was all that mattered.

As soon as the door closed and Danny was alone he let out a long sigh as his shoulders slumped. He rolled up the sleeve of his left arm with a grimace and then let out another sigh at the sight. Oh, he would definitely be late for the next class. He dug out his beat up first aid kit from the bottom of his bag and got to work.

Ten minutes later Danny carefully eased the door to the classroom open and quickly slunk inside. His hopes of sneaking inside unnoticed were dashed as Mr. Lancer fixed him with a glare and didn’t waste any time before chewing him out in front of the whole class. He could see Dash grinning and elbowing Kwan, Paulina leaning in to whisper to Star as they both pointed at him, Mikey and Nathan looking annoyed at the interruption and aiming their glares at Danny. Danny felt his shoulders climb up towards his ears. Great.

The whole spiel ended with Lancer declaring that he had detention after school and Danny barely found it in himself to give the teacher an affirmative before making his way to his school desk.

Well, no matter. Danny had only planned to get his homework done as soon as he got home, do his chores, and maybe actually go to bed early tonight. Maybe sleep off some of the exhaustion and pain dragging him down. Guess that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t know why he even tried anymore.

He sank down in his chair and Tucker immediately leaned in towards him and hissed out, “Man, your eyes are glowing.”

Danny closed his eyes in defeat. He tried to calm himself down, taking slow breaths and consciously relaxing his shoulders. The last thing he needed right now was any more attention.

After a few tense seconds he turned back to Tucker, one eyebrow raised in question.

Tucker gave him a slightly uncertain thumbs-up.

Danny felt himself relax slightly. Crisis averted, for now.

He just had to get through today.

Just like always.

—-

When he, Sam, and Tucker stepped into the cafeteria it was already full of students and Danny’s head throbbed at the noise. He really wished he had been able to grab more than a few minutes of sleep in between ghost fights, trying to avoid his parents, and all the traps they had set in the house.

Sam and Tucker walked towards the line for food and Danny stumbled after them. Tucker put a careful hand on Danny’s arm and Danny did his best not to jerk away from the pressure it put on his wound. Tucker still dropped his hand, a worried expression on his face, “Hey, man, you sure you’re alright?”

Danny nodded groggily, trying to muster up a smile. “I just didn’t get any sleep last night.”

Which wasn’t a lie, just not the whole truth. He hadn’t gotten any sleep, but he had also been in two fights and one hunt spearheaded by his parents. Then his home had decided he was a threat and attacked him as well. And, oh right; he got woken up by an alarm in the middle of the night because the portal almost blew up because of some new tests his parents were doing. He didn’t even have time to eat breakfast. He looked down at the slop the lunch lady splattered across his plate and it was a testament to just how hungry he was that it actually looked appetizing.

He was doing great.

Thankfully, Sam and Tucker didn’t push it as they walked towards a free table. Danny did his best to follow along in their conversation, but he was too tired to make sense of their discussion about the math homework they had just gotten. Was it futile to hope that he would have enough energy and time to do it later tonight? Probably. Danny wished he had the capacity to feel bad about it.

He looked down at the food in his hands and allowed his thoughts to drift as he followed Sam and Tucker and their familiar voices. At least he would be able to sit down for a while with his friends and just breathe. And eat. Ancients, he was starving.

So of course that was when a foot suddenly appeared in front of his feet and despite his usually quick reflexes his tired brain reacted too late and he tripped, losing his hold on his tray and watching as it spilled absolutely everywhere. He had to use both his hands to catch himself against the floor to avoid smacking his head into it and groaned at the pain radiating up his left arm. Maybe the face would have been preferable to this.

He didn’t have time to get back up before Dash’s laughter rang in his ears.

Of course it was him.

“What’s this?! You can’t even walk correctly, Fentrip?!”

Danny pushed himself up on shaking arms and kept his eyes locked on the floor, ignoring the giggling he could hear from all around him. It was fine. Dash didn’t matter. This didn’t matter.

He blinked when a hand with back nails came into view before carefully grabbing his shoulders and helping him back up. Danny looked up to find Sam frowning at him. “Why do you let him push you around like this?”

Danny blinked at her. Yeah, why did he? His arm ached and he was so tired. If he just fought back once then Dash would know that he couldn’t just do whatever he wanted to him, they would all see just how—

Danny shrugged as he pushed the thoughts away. He couldn’t afford to think like that. He couldn't risk turning into him. Danny feigned nonchalance as he said, “He doesn’t matter.”

Sam frowned at him.

Danny shrugged her hand off.

“Ha! You need your little freak girlfriend to protect you, Whimpton?!”

Danny felt himself tense up. They could pick on him all they wanted, but he hated it when they picked on his friends. They didn’t deserve that. He felt the tension rush back, ensnare itself through his shoulders and his arms until he couldn’t help but ball up his fists.

Sam raised a hand again as if to touch him, but let it drop again without making contact. “…Danny?”

“Dude,” Tucker joined in, voice strained and eyes glancing around them, “calm down.”

“I am calm!” Danny gritted out.

Sam raised an unimpressed eyebrow and Danny forced his hands to relax. He bent down to pick up his spilled food.

“Come on,” said Sam, “let’s go eat.”

They walked away from the laughing table full of A-listers.

Danny looked down at his ruined lunch and couldn’t help but let out a petulant, “I’m not hungry.” If he said it, then maybe it would make it true. Where was Desiree when you needed her?

Both Tucker and Sam sent him pointed looks and Tucker said, “I know that’s a lie. I could hear your stomach rumbling the whole class.”

Danny felt embarrassed that he had been found out; he didn’t like to make his friends worry about him.

Tucker just smiled. “Come on, you can have some of mine. I have a couple of snacks in my bag. Besides, I ate a really big breakfast so I’m not that hungry.”

Sam didn’t say anything, just silently handed Danny an apple from her tray.

How had Danny been blessed with such nice friends?

Danny sank down on the bench to finally eat with his friends, but the moment his arms touched the table he felt a familiar feeling of cold claw itself up his throat. The taste of ozone and ectoplasm burst forth from his mouth and he looked at the small cloud in dismay. Danny groaned. “I have to go. There’s a ghost. Again.”

Sam and Tucker exchanged a look and Danny tensed up. He didn’t have the energy to argue with them right now.

Tucker began hesitantly, “Maybe you should leave it to someone else?”

“I can’t. You know that.”

Sam crossed her arms. “Then we’ll come with you.”

Danny looked at his two friends and their full trays of food, which they hadn’t had time to touch. He didn’t want to drag them down with him, he owed them that. So Danny made an effort to sound snappish as he said, “I don’t need a babysitter.”

Tucker held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Hey man, we didn’t say that. We’re just worried about you.”

And now he had made his friends worry about him. Great. He couldn’t do anything right, could he?

He got to his feet. “I have to go.”

“Danny, wait!” Sam called out, but before they could start arguing with him again, he left.

——

Thankfully the fight didn’t take long, and Danny closed the thermos on the tiger-ghost just as the bell rang. It did leave him with scratch marks down his back though, and Danny cringed as he changed back into human form; praying that his quick healing would make sure it didn’t bleed through his clothes and thankful for the thick hoodie he had put on that day. He ran to his locker and got out his things, but was still late for the next class.

Lancer merely shook his head at him and Danny stumbled over to his desk and sank down in it while ignoring the worried looks from Sam and Tucker.

He was fine. It was all fine.

And even if it weren’t; it didn’t matter. He just needed to keep it together and do his job, keep everyone safe.

—-

The bell finally rang and Danny let out a stuttering breath. He was free.

He didn’t waste any time before stuffing all of his things into his bag and getting up, ignoring the pain in his arm and his back as he shouldered his backpack. It was worth it if he could get out of there quicker. Sam and Tucker joined him as he made for the door.

Tucker lowered his voice as he looked Danny over and carefully asked, “Danny? You okay?”

Danny kept his eyes on the door, feeling his steps lighten as he passed through it. “I’m fine.”

Sam pursed her lips and asked, “…Who was it?”

“A tiger ghost.”

He knew that they wanted more information than that, but he just wanted to go home and crash. He was so very tired and he hurt.

Tucker huffed. “Maybe you should leave the hunting to your parents for tod—”

“Mr. Fenton! Get back here, now!” Lancer’s call interrupted Tucker and made dread pool in Danny’s stomach. Right. Detention.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. He’s fine.

Danny sucked in a shaking breath and stopped walking. He didn’t look at his friends as he said, “Well, see you guys tomorrow.”

Tucker let out a long sigh and sounded defeated as he said, “Please be care—”

Danny nodded and took a step towards the classroom and then he felt something collide with his back. Hard.

Immediately he was back fighting the tiger, its swiping claws on his back right in the same spot. The pain was immediate and intense, and Danny saw stars as he stumbled forward, falling to his knees.

His mind reeled. Was he still fighting? He wasn’t even transformed! He had to defend everyone!

He reached for the cold feeling in his chest, ready to tug on it and go ghost to—

Cheers erupted around him.

“Touchdown!” Dash crowed from above and Danny froze in place.

Right. He was in school. There was no ghost to fight. It was the A-listers. They didn’t matter.

For the third time that day he picked himself up off the floor.

His arm and back burned. The pain pulsed in time with his thrumming core.

Ghosts fought during stressful situations and right now his instincts were screaming at him to fight. To get them before they got him. Danny balled his hands into shaking fists.

He tried to force his heart and his core to slow down. It didn't work.

A part of him slipped, too tired to fight it anymore. They wanted a fight, right? Then he would give them one.

But then he registered movement beside him and he blinked. Right. Sam and Tucker were here, which meant that he couldn't fight right now. Not with them so close. He couldn't risk it. Risk them.

Danny pressed everything down down down.

Or, he tried to.

His breath clouded in front of his face, but it wasn't because of a ghost, but because of the sudden cold blanketing the hallway.

“…Danny?” Tucker said hesitantly from beside him. “Dude, calm down.”

“I am fucking calm!” Danny growled.

Sam looked at him with clear worry in her eyes. She leaned in and whispered, “Your eyes are glowing again.”

Danny covered his eyes with his hands. He tried to force them to return to normal, to force himself to calm down. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, he repeated in his mind.

Danny heaved in deep breaths.

“Ha!” Laughed Dash, “Are you going to cry?!”

Danny sucked in breath after breath. It didn’t matter.

He tried to force the tension down. Tried to stuff it all down. Down where it couldn’t hurt anyone.

It doesn’t matter.

He gritted his teeth.

It shouldn’t matter.

He was fine. They didn’t matter. He was fine.

…He didn’t feel fine. He ached and was so very tired. He hurt.

His arms fell down to his lap and before he could do more than open his eyes, Tucker was standing in front of him, shielding him from view and hissing out, “Your eyes, man!”

And Danny tried. He really did, tried to make them go back to normal, to look normal. So he wouldn’t upset anyone. So no one would notice. So he wouldn’t matter. Danny grabbed his hair in his shaking hands, winced at the pain radiating up his arm.

“What’s wrong with the freak?” Dash asked and before Danny could react there was a hand reaching for him. His mind screamed at him to get away, to make it all just stop.

“Man, don’t!” Tucker shouted out in warning and then Danny watched with wide eyes as his friend was showed aside by Kwan, making him stumble to the side.

Sam stepped in front of Danny and then got pushed into the wall by Dash as they all laughed.

Danny’s eyes jumped from the wince on Tucker’s face to the angry scowl on Sam’s. To the way she pushed away from the wall and grabbed her left shoulder that had collided with it, on how Tucker wasn’t able to hide the fear in his eyes as he looked at the people who had attacked him.

They had attacked his friends. Because of him. Danny had put them in danger.

After everything that had happened, after all the pain and exhaustion, he couldn’t even keep them safe. His core screamed.

Danny felt himself fracture, crack like a thin layer of ice beneath a boot.

Dash’s hand moved as if in slow-motion as it approached him and Danny viciously slapped it away. “Don’t touch me. And don’t. Touch. Them.”

Dash cradled his hand in stunned silence for a split second before he broke out into laughter again, elbowing Kwan in the side as he said, “Wow, would you look at that? The wimp is fighting back!”

Laughter.

Danny’s ears roared and his chest stuttered as he tried to get enough air into his lungs; to calm down. His eyesight narrowed into a thin point as he raised his shaking hands to grip the front of his shirt. There was a pressure on his chest. On his core. Building and building and building.

“Stop,” he managed to croak out. He didn’t know if it was a warning or a plea. His instincts were screaming, clamoring, demanding, that he fight.

“What are you going to do about it?! Cry on us?”

A rough hand crabbed Danny’s shoulder and his own hand snapped up to grab it as he hissed out, “You don’t matter! You’re fucking nothing!” None of them did. So what did it matter what he did to them?

“Danny!” Sam yelled out in warning. But she was still gripping her arm where she had collided with the wall and that as all he could see.

Danny managed to let go of the hand in his grip, but he couldn’t calm down.

Maybe he didn’t want to.

“Hey…” Dash trailed off. “What’s wrong with his eyes?”

Tucker took a step closer to Danny. “Danny, you have to calm down!”

“Why?!” Why did he always have to calm down?!

He hurt.

“Danny!” He couldn’t even tell who was speaking anymore. It didn’t matter.

The air was cold enough to sting his throat and he breathed it in in in in.

He couldn't breathe out. He couldn't—

“What the fuck?!”

“Shit!”

“Get back!”

He smelled ectoplasm. The cold snow.

He smelled sour mouthwatering fear.

Danny recoiled with nausea climbing up his throat. He shouldn’t like that. He shouldn’t be that ghostly. He had to control himself. Just get himself back under control and calm down and—

And he couldn't. He couldn't.

His heaving breaths stopped when he realized that he didn’t need them.

In the end, he was just like any other ghost wasn't he?

The cold spread through him, out of him, and Danny didn’t even try to stop it.

They didn’t matter.

And he h̵̪̗͊u̴̯͒r̴͍͈̈̇t̸̮̺͈́.

[noxposting]

Another year, another @phandomholidaytruce ✨

Merry crisler @datawyrms ! Hope you like it!! It's also on AO3 with an extra chapter

Something's Wrong with Danny Fenton

The realization that something was seriously wrong was like falling asleep; slowly, and then all at once.

There had been no catalyst, no trigger to speak of.

Miss Jones had been sick and, this late into the school year, they hadn't bothered to provide a replacement. Most of the class hadn't even bothered showing up anyway; with finals so close, they were either asleep of studying.

Cal would have done the same, was it not for the absolute chaos at home. The twins were off school for the summer already, and they made sure to make their presence known to every single resident of the house. Usually starting at 6am. Cal didn't feel like he got to choose whether to stay home or not.

This is how he found himself here, sitting in a mostly empty classroom, gaze unfocused as he soaked in the rare moments of quiet. In front of him lay an opened biology book, as he lied to himself that he was going to use this time to revise ahead of exams. Instead, the sketch of a duck wearing sunglasses was guiltily staring at him from the page margins.

His gaze had wandered to the window, towards the school-yard of Casper High. Today was a rather rare sunny day; it was early summer, but even during the heart of the hottest season there was a never-ending, persistent chill that seemed to choke the entirety of Amity Park.

Cal, of course, knew exactly where it was coming from.

It was a little bit difficult to live around here and not know about the ghosts.

He pushed his glasses up his nose nervously. He didn't have any particular strong feelings about ghosts, really. He had gotten used to them, in a way. But, truth be told, he was not a fan of the spine-chilling coldness that seeped through everything in their presence and lingered after they were gone. The way the town seemed never to be able to escape this coldness anymore bothered him, but there was not much to do other than suck it up.

Which was why rare days like today were a pleasant, welcome surprise to the locals. He could see his classmates lounging around in the grass outside, soaking up the sunlight like starving sunflowers, and it brought a warm feeling in his chest. Cal was always more of a people watcher, standing in the side and absorbing situations rather than getting involved.

He tried to ignore the tense feeling in his spine that made the hair at the back of his neck stand.

Also, he was studying. He looked down at his book and a second duck that had joined the first and was silently judging him, this time wearing a dapper top hat and a little bow-tie.

There was no haunting chill in this classroom. Right. He didn't want to go out and miss the time to relax.

His let his gaze passively wander around the room. There were only four others in there with him, all in different states of mental non-existence. Eleanor and Sally-Anne were sat opposite each other, heads close over the desk as they gossiped, their whispers providing a subtle background noise through the quiet room. Jonathan (the one with the glasses, not the one in the football team) was focused on the book in front of him and Danny, at the back of the class, looked to have fully dissociated, eyes glazed over. Now wasn't that relatable.

Cal sighed. Suddenly the chair felt a bit stiff, his shoulders a bit tense, so he pulled his arms behind his back in a big stretch. He couldn't help the groan that left his lips as he felt his joints pop. Grabbing the back of his chair, he twisted around -first the right side, then the left- to relieve the tension.

The tension, as if to spite him, stayed.

He got up, cringing at the scraping sound his chair made as it slid back, and he could see on the edge of his vision that his movement had caught the attention of the two girls. When he didn't say anything, they returned to their conversation.

Cal went around his desk towards the window and looked outside, once again marveling at the sunshine and trying to ignore the goosebumps travelling down his arms. He did briefly debate the merits of joining the rest of the glass out in the grass once more, but the peace of the quiet classroom was too tempting for his foggy brain. Still, he didn't feel like sitting in a chair for the next forty minutes. Looking around, he spotted a few unattended markers on the teacher's desk, and paused, a thought forming in his mind.

His fingers were itching with misplaced adrenaline, and he figured what the hell.

Pointedly not allowing any awkward embarrassment to brew, he approached the desk, grabbed the black and green markers and approached the blank class whiteboard.

Cal had always liked to draw. His mom said it's because his hands can't sit still (but she liked it, really, especially when he made her custom-made mother's day cards every year). The twins had no opinion about it, until his sister got her first celebrity crush and begged him to draw the poor guy with cat ears.

No ducks with accessories this time.

She later posted it online with a humble brag about how she had 'finished it really quickly, what do you guys think' but, considering she had barely hit double digits in age, Cal had let it pass.

The validation of elementary kids was not in his radar, exactly.

He never followed any particular theme -his illustrations were usually random, without much thought. He liked letting his mind and hand take him wherever, and that often led to either randomness or, as was often the case for his bigger, more planned illustrations, a lot of inspiration from his environment.

Was it a surprise that he had produced so many drawings of ghosts?

As Cal was suddenly, once again, very aware of the subtle chill (not quite a presence, but it existed and it came from somewhere), he figured that one more addition to his ghost collection wouldn't make any difference.

Even if he wasn't used to drawing on a whiteboard, he still felt the long, controlled strokes of the marker come naturally. His preferred style was either completely colorless (which had absolutely nothing to do with his tendency to draw during class, thank you very much) or with minimal color; he knew how to manage negative space to his liking.

He had to admit, the subject he had chosen was pretty perfect for the whiteboard; all high contrast black and whites.

Getting lost in the process was easy for Cal; applying long strokes across the board and thick filling to the black outfit allowed time and tension to pass him by, almost. The hair would be tricky; making sure the black marker was used faintly enough to translate the light, luminous color was a mission, and Cal was nothing if not a perfectionist when it came to his work. All aspects to a drawing needed to come together for a good result, after all.

But for this, the most important part was the eyes.

Cal tightened his grip around the green marker. There could be only one color on this drawing, and it had to be the eyes. Sadly, a green whiteboard marker would never be quite the toxic green that he would have liked, but it was the principle that counted.

As he placed the last detail on the hair, fade enough to be as close to the bright white of the real thing, he uncapped the green marker. There was a sense of gravitas in the movement, the start of the final step to this work.

Or maybe Cal was just pretentious about it, who's to say.

"Wow, Cal, you're so good!"

The sudden voice made Cal jump and, even worse, almost draw a green line straight through the board and the almost finished drawing. He turned around to realize that everyone in the room was staring at him.

Maybe he should've thought this would happen, but he felt the heat on his cheeks rise nonetheless.

It was Sally-Anne who had spoken, turned around on her seat where she was facing Eleanor. Both were smiling. A few desks ahead, Jonathan had abandoned his reading and instead was looking at Cal with interest, head resting on his hand.  

Cal avoided all their eyes, fidgeting with the green marker instead "Um, thanks. Just a hobby, no big deal."

Sally-Anne raised her eyebrows. "Are you joking? This is amazing! It's like, the best Phantom art I've ever seen!"

Cal blushed even harder. "You're exaggerating, but thanks."

Eleanor gasped "Oh my God, no one better erase this! Quick, I need a picture!" she swiftly pulled out her phone and paused. "Hey Cal, can you like, put a signature somewhere on that? I need to take a pic."

Cal breathed out, muttering 'no problem' and obliged.

A stutter sound came from Eleanor's phone "Awesome! I'll send it to you if you want!"

Cal refused and Eleanor shrugged, sending it to Sally-Anne instead.

Soon everyone went back to what they were previously doing and Cal was happy to be ignored. Walking over to the teacher's desk to put the markers back (and maybe look for an eraser, if Eleanor and Sally-Anne didn't kill him first), he was suddenly aware of that ever-present yet so distant chill and his head snapped up towards the room.

At that moment, he locked eyes with Danny Fenton, and Cal froze.

It was impossible to pinpoint what was wrong exactly, which made things worse. Danny Fenton looked as he usually did; tired, bruised, head resting against his hand and unruly hair falling in his face. Yet there was something just wrong. His pallor was pale, unnervingly so, the bluing bruise against his cheek and graze on his lip contrasting dramatically against his skin. But his gaze was so sharp that Cal was sure that Danny could see right though his skin and into his brain.

It happened slowly, and then all at once.

Worst of all, Cal now knew where that ever so familiar chill came from, and he was almost shocked he didn't recognize it before. The aura of the dead was practically oozing off Danny Fenton.

Time felt like it was slowing down as Cal was locked in by those eyes, a shade of blue so cold it was painful and, for the first time, Cal realized that he was seeing Danny Fenton.

Cal wasn't sure how long he was trapped under that gaze. It felt like eons, but it couldn't have been more than seconds. As he felt his brain melt under the realization that something was frighteningly wrong with one of the people he knew, something happened that shocked him out of his spiraling.

Danny smiled. The faintest, most tired lift of lips, yet it was enough to transform the aura of wrong and that trapping stare, like deciding to let free an animal that was going to become dinner.

Just like that, with a movement so simple, the chill was passive again. Cal smiled back.

Feeling like he was floating, Cal went back to his desk. He took a seat as the bell rang and his classmates soon started filtering in, all of them taking a moment to show various levels of awe towards his drawing.

Throughout it all, Cal kept his head tilted and one eye, watching Danny's reaction. To anyone else, he looked like he had just woken up from a nap, groggy and unfocused. But Cal now knew better. He had realized the wrongness, and knew there was more hidden behind these icy eyes.

He didn't know what, he didn't know how. He didn't know when it had started, or why, but there was one thing Cal was sure of.

There was something very wrong with Danny Fenton.

[anistarrose]

after Story and Song, the non-Magnus members of the IPRE plus Carey and Killian start packing bags for their big group adventure of Killing Governor Kalen As Dead As Possible, and some of the people who aren't as desensitized as Merle and Taako are to Angus being at murder scenes express some apprehension about the eleven year old coming along for this one. Merle and Taako instead claim they don't want Angus to come because they think he'll snitch (Taako is exaggerating slightly to get a rise out of Angus, but no one can quite tell if Merle means it).

Angus assures them that of course he agrees this is a morally justified murder, and therefore not one to snitch about, but he really wants to come because even in all his years as a homicide detective, he almost never gets to watch murders be committed with his own two eyes! just think of the learning opportunity, sirs! it's not every day I get such an ethically defensible chance to study murdering techniques so up close and personal!

eventually Lucretia sits him down. she gently points out that due to the number of people involved, and those people's particular skillsets, Kalen is going to be murdered in a fashion that not one single person on Faerun has ever been murdered in before or ever will be murdered in again.

and sure enough, when Kalen is stabbed with eighteen knives, immolated in fire, shot full of enough crossbow bolts that they look like turkey feathers, suffocated in an impenetrable magical bubble, impaled by the divine spear of Della Reese, bitten in half by Dupree the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and run over by a literal spaceship all before being resurrected as a zombie to do it all over again... Angus has to agree. she had a point.

however, he does sit his assorted parents down afterwards, and gently asks if they've ever heard of an "alibi" or "reasonable doubt" in their lives. why were you so concerned about me snitching, sir? how was bringing the planar system's only spaceship not snitching on yourself?!

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Thermodynamic Panic

This is my Truce gift for @evilfarmin using the prompt:

Danny gets stuck in the thermos (he is NOT happy about this)

You can also read it on AO3

[Warnings for confined spaces and anxiety]

Contrary to certain people's claims, Danny was not a klutz. He may have a lifetime ban from handling fragile school equipment, but that was not an accurate reflection of how clumsy he was. That had been months ago, and out of his hands (literally, which had kind of been the problem), and he had much better control now.

No, Danny wasn't a klutz.

So what if he was currently stuck in the Fenton thermos after accidentally knocking it off his desk so it hit the floor capture-button-first? That meant nothing.

...

Ancients it was cramped in here. It was a good thing Danny wasn't claustrophobic.

This wasn't the first time he'd been trapped inside the thermos, although it was the first time he'd accidentally trapped himself. At least the last time this had happened, he'd been able to blame Jazz. 

Now, she was klutzy. Compared to her, Danny was as graceful as a ballerina.

A ballerina who was currently trapped inside a soup thermos, starting to feel bad for all the other ghosts he'd captured in this thing.

Man, there was one time he'd caught a good twenty or thirty ghosts in here before releasing him into the Zone. He really should empty it more often than he did. He was probably lucky that there weren't ghosts already trapped inside when he bungled himself into this mess. 

Not bungled, he didn't bungle things. It wasn't his fault—whether or not the thermos had allegedly been sitting halfway off his desk at the time because his desk was such a mess at the moment that there wasn't enough space for it. 

Yeah, this one was on gravity.

When he got out of this, he swore, he was going to be more considerate, not trap so many ghosts all at once, and release them more quickly. 

Right now, though, he had to figure out how to get himself released from here. 

He couldn't really communicate with anyone while he was inside the thermos, and since the thermos was on his bedroom floor the odds of it being picked up were slim to none. No one in his family went into his room without permission, and Sam and Tucker weren't likely to just come over and barge in either. Even if they did, Danny had no way of knowing what was going on outside anyway.

At this moment, his entire world consisted of the inside of this thermos. Pitch dark, cramped beyond belief, and reeking of old ectoplasm.

Come to think of it, Danny was pretty sure he'd never washed this thing before. When he got out of here, that was going to change. It was disgusting. 

He wondered if the Fenton Thermos was dishwasher safe. 

It probably was, right? He'd dropped it in a pool once and it was fine, so the casing had to be water tight, and he couldn't think of a reason why heat would be a problem, since it was made of treated steel and not cheap plastic. Wait, would putting it through the dishwasher wash off the ecto-protective coating? Would it still be able to keep ghosts in?

He should ask his mom. She would know... probably. 

Then again, he'd never seen his parents clean any of their equipment either. Was carelessness genetic, or was it just not designed to be cleaned? That couldn't be sanitary.

...

Ugh, this was so boring.

Even if he could ignore the tight-squeeze, the darkness, and the smell, the boredom would soon overwhelm him.

Maybe if he kept his desk cleaner this wouldn't have happened.

Yeah, like that was gonna happen. Those empty chip bags and soda cans lived there. It was more their desk than his at this point. He couldn't just evict them because of his own selfish desires.

Danny squirmed, trying to get into an even slightly more comfortable position. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like that was going to be possible.

Annnnd... now his arm was starting to fall asleep.

Being trapped in the Fenton Thermos sucked eggs.

Oh, eggs.... His stomach growled. Skipping breakfast was a bad idea.

He hoped that someone would find him soon. He didn't even care if it was burglars breaking into his room or something. Hell, he would take Dash. He just wanted out of this damned thermos. Being stuck in here was way worse than being shoved in a locker.

...

How long had it been?

Hours? Days?

Did time pass the same on the inside of the thermos as it did on the outside?

Wow, he must really be bored if he was contemplating the relative passage of time. He wasn't exactly a time kinda guy. Time was immutable, and none of his concern. He didn't like thinking about the past or the future. And anyone could attest that he didn't do a lot of thinking in the present either.

Danny was much more taken with space. Not just outer space, but linear movement and location, too.... Mostly outer space, though.

Being stuck in one place, without even the room to stretch his legs was agony.

He just wanted a little bit of space.

Wait. If someone moved him... would he know? Would he even be able to tell from inside the thermos?

What if someone saw the thermos and brought it down to his parents' lab? That was where Fenton tech was supposed to go most of the time, after all. Someone might see the thermos and assume it was in the wrong place, that Danny wasn't supposed to have it in his room at all.

Then, when his parents saw the thermos in their lab, they might hit the release button. And then Danny would be standing there in full Phantom form, right in front of his parents, in their lab, surrounded by their entire ghost hunting arsenal, and he'd be done for.

So maybe he did care who found him... just a little.

He hoped maybe Sam and Tucker would show up.

They'd definitely make fun of him for trapping himself in the first place, but he could deal with a little ribbing if it meant being found by people he trusted.

If Jazz found him, he'd be in for a long, annoying lecture about mindfulness and being more careful with technology that could cause him trouble. That would be a lot worse than being teased by his friends, but honestly, he would take that too. 

He just wanted out of the frying pan, hopefully not by way of the fire. Well, out of some kind of camping supply anyway, a thermos maybe, for example. Just spitballing here.

Suddenly, the pressure eased, and he was standing on his feet in the middle of his room. Across from him stood his sister, thermos in hand.

"Jazz!" he cheered. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you! Do have any idea how long I was trapped in there? What day is it?"

"Calm down, Danny" Jazz said, rolling her eyes. "You were only in there for about five minutes. Don't be so melodramatic.

"... Oh."

"I heard a thunk from your room, and came up here when you didn't respond to me asking if everything was okay," she explained. "Then I saw the thermos on the floor and figured out what must've happened. If you'd had to go fight a ghost, you would've brought it with you. 

"You know you really should be more careful with technology like this," she continued, her face growing stern. Here came the lecture. "You could end up getting in some real trouble with it. If I hadn't heard it fall, who knows how long you could have been stuck in there."

Danny groaned. He knew this was going to happen.

"Don't you groan, this is important! Are you listening to me?"

[reallydumbdannyphantomaus]

Holiday Truce

@ectopal so fucking sorry for the lateness!!! it has been a little wild in my life lately but i did get it done!!! i picked your prompt of dash finds out danny's secret in micromanagement. very sorry if this is not what you were hoping for, but here's what happened :D

“So,” Dash said.

“Uh,” Fenton said.

Dash looked at the shaking nerd in front of him. Fear, he recognized. Fear, he knew. He used it as a weapon, knew how to loom, how to make himself larger and intimidating. Hell, he’d seen it on Fenton plenty of time before.

Except this time Fenton wasn’t afraid of his fists.

“You’re—you’re he? Him?”

“No?”

“Are you lying?”

“... No?”

Dash reached out with a finger and poked Fenton in the shoulder. It was solid. Squishy, but he thought that had more to do with Fenton not being muscular than with him being a ghost. Still, he knew what he saw. This whole time, he’d been shrunk down with Phantom, the cool, brave, awesome hero of Amity Park, the guy he had a poster of in his locker. Then they get unshrunk and Phantom is gone. In his place: Fenton.

Dash wasn’t the best at math, but even he could add this up.

There were thousands of things he could have asked in that moment. Things he’d wanted to say to his hero for years. Thanks for saving us or Can you take me flying? or Can I have your autograph? Instead, what came out was: “So, are you dead?”

Fenton flinched. “No, I—it doesn’t matter. Just—just be quiet, okay?”

“It doesn’t matter?” Dash wanted to thwack himself in the head. He didn’t want to be continuing this line of questioning. Why was his mouth saying this shit?

“Not to you, anyway.” Fenton spoke with such vehemence that all at once Dash was reminded that Fenton being Phantom also meant that Phantom was Fenton. His hero was the same nerd he’d been shoving in lockers since middle school.

“Oh.”

“Look. Just don’t tell anyone, okay? No one would believe you anyway, so just don’t tell anyone.”

“Okay,” Dash said, voice thready and small. What else could he say? Fenton could’ve been kicking his ass all this time, but instead he’d been saving it. If nothing else, Dash could keep a secret.

“Good,” Fenton said, turning to leave.

“Why?”

Fenton stopped without turning around. “Why what?”

“Why don’t you tell people?”

Fenton’s voice was nasal through his sneer. “Try thinking about it. I’m sure the answer will come to you.”

—

The answer did not come to him.

He watched Fenton from a distance, noticed all the signs he dismissed before. Constant bathroom breaks. Bruises in the morning that were gone by the afternoon. Gasps of blue air that always preceded a ghost.

But he never saw why Fenton kept it quiet.

Teachers yelled at him for being late. Other students laughed behind their hands when he fell asleep at his desk. Paulina watched him rush out of class to the “bathroom” and whispered, “He should start wearing a diaper to school if he goes so much.” He tried to chuckle, but all he could manage was the slight curling of his mouth, and even that was strained. Paulina would never say something like that if she knew the truth. Fenton would have so much support from everyone in the school if he would just tell them the truth.

So, yeah. He didn’t get the secrecy.

Fenton, though, had avoided Dash like the plague. He’d never sought Dash’s company out before, but now the sight of Dash’s shadow was enough to have him scampering away. He tried to corner Fenton once, in the janitor’s closet, but forgot about the whole ghost thing. Since there was no one else around to see, Fenton just walked through the back wall, leaving Dash alone with the mops.

What was he supposed to do?

It felt like a secret of this magnitude should change things more. True, he couldn’t bring himself to shove people around anymore (what if some of them were secret heroes, too?) but otherwise, life went on. He went to football practice. He failed his math test. He laughed when Kwan made fun of Lancer’s pants falling down (again).

He stared at Danny Fenton across the cafeteria.

Danny Fenton did not look back.

—

No one in Amity Park liked the Guys in White. They only ever got in the way of Phantom trying to do his job, while being utterly ineffective. Even the Fentons did more to keep the city safe from dangerous ghosts—mostly through supplying anti-ghost tech and not through actual hunting, but it was still more than the GIW ever did.

So when the GIW locked down the school, most everyone rolled their eyes in disgust.

Every once in a while, the GIW had one of these sessions. He wasn’t entirely sure what the point of them was, but it usually involved a bunch of dumb questions about whether they’d talked to any ghosts. Like they were all conspiring against the government with the ghosts, or something.

(Well, he probably would, given the opportunity, but he hadn’t exactly talked to a lot of ghosts who weren’t trying to kill him. The only ghost he knew personally hated being in the same room as him.)

“Have you had any contact with the ghost masquerading as a musician, known as Ember McClain?” The agent in white drummed his fingers on the desk. Dash had the sudden urge to bite his pinky.

Dash furrowed his brow. “I think she is actually a musician, though?”

“What?”

“Ember. She does, actually, like, play guitar and sing. So I think she’s a real musician? Just. You know. A ghostly one.”

The agent leaned into his face. “So you have had contact with her.”

Dash leaned back. “Uh, no? Not since the time she mind controlled a bunch of us. Which I don’t think is my fault.”

“And you haven’t sought her out since?”

“Uh, no. I don’t actually enjoy being mind controlled.”

“Hm. And the menace known as Phantom?”

Dash barely kept his shoulders from tensing. “What about Phantom?”

“Have you contacted him?”

“I mean, he’s saved me a couple times. But he saves everyone.”

The agent snorted. “That’s what the ghosts want you to think, kid. Make no mistake: all ghosts are the same: evil, greedy, and power-hungry. We don’t yet know what Phantom’s true intentions are. It’s our job to get that creature off the streets and into containment, where he belongs.”

Dash was never the smartest person, but sometimes, when all the pieces were in front of him, he could add two and two and get four. He remembered the Fentons echoing the agent in front of him almost word-for-word. Or maybe this agent was echoing them.

Either way, Dash finally knew why Danny Fenton had a secret.

Dash curled his hands into fists. Fenton didn’t want to talk to him; that much was abundantly clear. But Fenton had still saved his life, saved the lives of everyone in the town, the world even. He could do this much for him.

“Look, dude, you think what you want,” Dash said. “I can’t exactly change your mind. Never been good at persuasion. But,” he said, and he stood up, crossing his arms and hooding his eyes, “no one else here believes your bullshit, dude. We know the truth, no matter what you say.”

“Mr. Baxter, the science—”

“I don’t care what studies you’ve faked. I’m telling you right now that if you seriously go after Phantom like you would any other ghost, you’re going to have to go through the whole town first,”

And Dash wasn’t very smart. And he wasn’t persuasive. But he knew fear. He was 16. This agent was probably somewhere in his thirties. By no means should the man be afraid of him. But Dash knew how to make himself bigger. Dash knew just where to strike someone, just what made them scared. This man was only as brave as his badge. A whole insurrection? One aimed at him? That thought terrified him.

The man was silent.

Dash smiled a shark’s smile. “Do yourselves a favor and leave Amity Park alone. We’ve got it handled from here.”

The door swung shut behind him as he left the agent alone in a dark room, still stuttering for a response.

[blobghost]

Danny Doesn't Want To Go...

Hey @olivethetiger! Surprise! I am your @phandomholidaytruce gifter! You do not realize how excited I was when I saw your prompts! I hope you like what I wrote for you

Prompts were: Ghost King Danny, Everlasting Trio fluff, Clockwork as Danny’s mentor/parent figure, and a very brief Easter Egg for the Trollhunters prompt.

Danny Phantom (Complete 10,562 words)

Tags:

Danny Fenton/Tucker Foley/Sam Manson, 5+1, Ghost King Danny Fenton, Danny is overworked, Mostly Fluff, one instance of blood/injury mention, Sam and Tucker love their overworked boyfriend, Clockwork loves his ward/child, Danny is good at dealing with people, Holiday Truce 2023 (Danny Phantom)

Summary:

Five times someone drags Danny somewhere he didn't want to go and one time he drags them somewhere.

READ ON AO3

Masterlist

[nanaarchy]

We're Usually About To Die

HAPPY TRUCE @amabsis !!

Word Count: 6,590

Prompt List:

Something happens to the teachers/staff at Casper High, and the students are locked in. After being forced to take charge of the situation, secrets are revealed and everyone finds out there’s more to their peers than what meets the eye.

BAMF Danny. Go wild.

I did go wild!! Took me a bit to finish this, oops. You prompts were AMAZING!! I chose these two cause they really fit a fic idea I had months ago, so now I finally have an excuse to write it >:D I hope you like it!! <3

And thank you so much to @phandomholidaytruce for making this event!! It's lovely to see the phandom get together like this every year.

[fluffypotatey]

I mean wukong has to know how absolutely insane macaque is about him right!??? Right?

Oh god imagine if he didnt and made a comment regarding that, and absolutely everyone just stares at him

oh you mean Sun Wukong the Monkey King? the same guy who is known to struggle with communication and confront personal and vulnerable topics? the same guy who was not aware that his bestest and closest friend blamed him for many events that transpired between them until said bestie snapped? the same monkey who is constantly criticized and berated by MK’s closest friends/family and does nothing to refute it? the same Wukong who struggles to apologize to MK because he feared that his student (more than a student now, they’re friends, they could be family—) might also lash out or not give him a second chance to make up for it? the same Wukong who, despite being an incredibly observant guy, struggles with establishing amiable bonds with others?

that Wukong?

[tsubaki94]

Happy Truce and Happy New Year @skittlespoxxum 

 I'm your Truce Gifter this year.

Your promotes were all inspiring and I wanted to write something this year making them all even better. I'm so sad that I couldn't weave in Danielle somehow but the others I got to some degree. I'm a sucker for Danny/Dash pairing and was delighted to make something where they could be a couple. It might not be clear in this fic but Dash is the leader in a relationship, able to both take command in any situation but caring for his partner and their need to function. Danny is very much the cuddly type, needing lots of comfort and affirmation.

The chapters will be going up continuously today as I'm giving them a final dead thought but I wanted to make sure you got this gift before 2024.

Now onward to a New Year. ^^

[transingthoseformers]

Post-war tfp au: Megatron sees Optimus interacting with the kids and it's like a switch has been flipped in his brain. He corners Optimus and just goes, "breed me. Right now."

And Optimus, in an extremely rare moment of letting his array think for him, agrees.

sSdfg the goddamn noise I made because. This makes some sense.

You know the energy that their dynamic has in "That TFP MegOp Porn AU" ?? That. I suggest similar to that. Because it would be so cool.

[phoenixtakaramono]

Sugar Baby AU Threadfic - Part IV

Tumblr Navigation (note I have not shared the prologue here with its premise setup; I’ve only started sharing this twitter threadfic on tumblr starting from the 2nd 🔞 scene): I | II | III | IV

Update Schedule: weekly/ biweekly

CW: ⚠️🔞

(You can read the rest of the threadfic update here!)

Keep in mind, all of my AU Butchlander threadfics on Twitter are the unpolished first draft versions of what'll eventually be polished up into long fics on AO3 under the Shock and Awe series. So you may regard this threadfic as an experimental first prototype and exclusive preview whose contents may or may not be changed in the future final draft version. We’re just loosely playing around with ideas and concepts for now!

If you don't have a Twitter account, screenshots are provided below the line break so you can read this update on Tumblr as well:

A/N: For my tumblr only readers, the context is Billy Butcher is an undercover CIA agent in this AU, under disguise and infiltrating as a high class service top male escort in the escort company that A-Train’s girlfriend, Popclaw, has founded which provides discreet companionship to Supes. And Billy somehow manages to catch Homelander’s attention because he’s hot. Notice the question Billy poses to HL at the end: “if I ask about something, you’ll be honest with me, won’t you?” :) He’s a literal honeytrap in this AU, mining for intel from his marks.

In this update, Billy and Homelander finally work out the sugar baby/ daddy arrangement, kickstarting the the future spicy scenes in this AU. Which brings me to my next point:

I am, by the way, open to ⚠️🔞 reader suggestions~. I make no promises that I’ll write it, but this threadfic is meant as a shameless excuse to write 🔞 butchlander spice, haha, and provide y’all some content during our butchlander drought. I have one reader suggestion thus far, and it involves candle wax. 🕯️

[torscrawls]

Fractured

Summary:

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

Words: 3 377

You can read the whole thing on AO3.

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

-

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

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

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

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

Danny frowned. “I did?”

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

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

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

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

“A ghost…?” Tucker trailed off.

“No I didn’t?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Danny shook his head.

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

“I’m not a ghost!”

“You were though,” Tucker insisted.

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

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

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

—

It wasn’t just the shock.

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

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

Because he had died.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tucker frowned at him. “What?”

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

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

Was he?

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

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

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

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

“I… did?”

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

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

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

Tucker nodded. “Yeah!”

“But then why can't I…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Danny didn’t know.

—

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

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

It was just. Completely blank.

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

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

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

It felt like someone was taking his place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Danny froze. “Who is that?!”

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

“No, I don't,” Danny bit out.

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

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

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

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

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

Skulker fired.

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

And then he opened them again and it was over.

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

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

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

“I…did?” His hands started shaking.

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

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

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

Danny looked away.

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

He looked around and his breathing hitched.

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

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

Danny screamed into the ground in fear and frustration.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Danny?! Where are you? You okay?”

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

“We’ll be right there!”

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

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

“Danny?”

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

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

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

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

Sam nodded and added, “You did it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Danny, stop,” Tucker pleaded.

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

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

Tucker added, “And you have to breathe.”

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

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

“How?!” Danny demanded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They were both silent. That was answer enough.

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

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

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

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

But he did. He always did.

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

The cold spread and spread and spread.

[ventisettestars]

Happy New Year! This is a fic/art combo for @46-reasonable-hamsters in the 2023 Holiday Truce. The prompts were fun but I adored this one. The art is at the end. I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Danny needs adult supervision while his parents are out of town.

wc: 1.2k

Tags: Badger Cereal, Maddie the Cat, it's all fluff, no beta

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ ˚₊

"Daniel." Vlad looked down at Danny from the doorway of his Amity Park mansion, making note of the suitcase beside the boy.

"Hey. So my parents called you a bunch, and Dad said he left a message so that was as good as you agreeing to this." Danny pointed a thumb to indicate the GAV behind him, his father giving them both a thumbs up as Vlad made eye contact.

"Ah, yes, how could I, as his best friend, turn down a sudden request." Vlad's voice was dry. He'd listened to the messages, and hadn't responded back for a reason. They were going to a convention and didn't want to bring Danny along. Too dangerous or something?

"Yeah, you must have been just soooo busy you forgot to call him back." 

"Your father is a fool." Vlad scoffed. 

"Watch it. Anyway, if we just make it look like all is good, I can just fly back home once they are out of view and they won't know a thing." 

"That isn't a bad plan." Vlad waved to Danny's parents, who then began to speed off. "Though seeing as it's the holiday week, you're welcome to stay and enjoy some real food. I'm having some things catered throughout the week as well." 

Danny raised a brow. "This isn't some weird 'show me true holiday' scheme to make me want to be your son again?" 

"No, if that is the outcome, I wouldn't dislike it. But it is not the plan. Simply, just a lousy time of year to spend alone. Shall we call it Truce early?"

Danny seemed to ponder a bit. "I guess as long as you don't try to force actual holiday cheer at me, warm meals would be a perk." 

"Splendid." Vlad grabbed Danny's suitcase telekinetically and had it follow the both of them inside. 

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ ˚₊

The room Vlad led Danny to was weirdly plain. A normal guest room with a TV and balcony facing away from the city with a rather nice view of the sky. 

"The room faces the sunrise, so I'd suggest closing the curtains if you don't want the sun in your eyes first thing in the morning." Vlad set down the suitcase near the wardrobe. "My room is directly below this one if you need anything."

"You didn't take the top floor with the best view?" Danny walked over to check out the view.

"It was originally, but I grew tired of having to go one more floor up each night."

Danny let out a little snort. "That's super lazy of you when we can both fly."

"I'll admit it's partially to do with the lady I employ growing older as well. I'll introduce you to her when she comes in the next few days." 

"Huh, Okay." Danny didn't expect that from Vlad. 

"I'll leave you to it. You know where the Kitchen is, so help yourself to anything."

Danny watched as Vlad left. It made him suspicious on how non-confrontational Vlad was being, but he settled into the room and started sending messages to his friends.

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ ˚₊

A few nights into Danny's stay, things continued to go smoothly. Vlad left Danny to his own devices most the time, only interaction around meals or a few times when Danny was bored. 

Most the time Danny spent playing with Maddie the Cat, or checking out Vlad's lab since quote 'I've nothing in the lab you haven't seen before while we fought'. 

Danny wouldn't admit it was nice to be able to move around without having to keep an eye open for ghost traps at all hours of the day.

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ ˚₊

"Aw, hey there Maddie, whatcha got there?"

The cat merped from where she rolled in her tangle of yarn. Danny took the thread of yarn from her by phasing her out of it, starting to ball it best he could. It was longer still and trailed up the staircase. He followed it to one of the many rooms that Vlad had on the second floor. 

Looking into the room was a given. Danny looked in confusion as he was greeted by a wall of yarn. Shelves contained a well organized gradient of yarn. Vlad sat at a desk with his laptop in front of him, a pair of knitting needles with half a scarf floated next to him. 

The two half ghosts stared at each other, the only sound in the room was the clicking of the needles followed by Maddie jumping onto Vlad's lap. 

Danny's eyes drifted to the striped scarf, that matched the sweater that Danny had assumed Vlad bought, but no. It was the same colors, and not that Danny knew anything about producing sweaters, he's sat through enough of Sam's gripping about matching all the shades of black. 

"Ah, Maddie had this." Danny held up the yarn he collected on his way to the room. 

"I was wondering why it'd gotten so quiet." 

"So, you knit?" 

Vlad sighed and pointed to the other chair in the room. Danny took it and got comfy, yarn still in hand. 

"I do. It started as a means to control something telepathically while distracted. The lady next to me in the hospital back when- Well she would be knitting while doing just about anything but eating to keep her hands from going stiff." 

"So you do it with your mind? Doesn't seem the same." 

"No, but at the time I needed something to help fine tune my control. It was only one of the things I did, mind you." 

"But you kept at it cause you liked it?"

"Indeed." Vlad barely even glanced at his work as he switched colors. 

"What other things did you do?"

"It was before I made my fortune, so small things. Cleaned, dishes, puzzles-those were the worst cause I needed to have a visual most times- sometimes folded clothes. Once I'd even tried to use telekinesis to pick up the floor rather than vacuum."

Danny laughed. "How'd that end up going?"

"Terribly. I just made the floor intangible so that the dirt would go into the apartment below me."

Danny laughed. "That's evil."

"Well, they vacuumed at 6 in the morning, so they deserved it." Vlad followed Danny's gaze to his knitting. "Would you like to try it?"

"Wha-"

"You can even use the yarn that Maddie summoned you here with." 

"I guess it couldn't hurt to try." 

5 minutes later Danny was about to stab someone with the needles. "How do you like this?"

Vlad tsked. "You've hardly even started. I never took you for a quitter." 

"I'm not quitting." Danny bristled. "It's just so- It looks ugly." 

"It's because you're just learning. You're good enough with your powers this should be cake walk."

"You say that, but I just throw things."

"Then this is good practice. Developing fine motor skills has no downsides."

"Fine. I'll finish this damn scarf. It's gunna be for your cat." 

"Ah, nice and small then. She will love it."

Danny growled and put all his focus back into making the needles move.

End notes:

The prompt was: Someone stumbles across Vlad practicing his ‘hidden’ hobby—knitting.

And I just couldn't get the idea of that being the one thing Danny would end up letting Vlad mentor him in.

[datawyrms]

Truce time!

Hi @noxposting :v you got me as your secret gift giver. You get fic this year, because art and I look at one another with wary stares until the other backs down. Hopefully you enjoy it? I tried to add bits of multiple prompts but :v crypid danny going to a coffee shop won out. mostly. heh. On Ao3

Barista. Not exactly the pinnacle of anyone’s career, heck, many would call it a low point. Not Valerie though. She knew the real pits of food based service, thanks. It didn’t even involve food! That hideous mascot outfit reeked worse than a dumpster on a warm summer evening on a GOOD day; and anyone that saw you managed to treat you WORSE than that! Which was probably the whole point, when you got ‘promoted’ to cash or the grill you’d actually feel grateful. Seeing your face sure didn’t stop everyone from being the worst human they can be, but enough were too cowardly to be as rotten when the threat of spitting in their food was right there.

It didn’t help with the looks about someone ‘young’ working at a burger place so ‘soon’, and the next time someone asked if she should be in school on a Saturday was getting a special side seasoning of knuckles. If she didn’t need the money, she wouldn’t be working!

So yeah, in short? Getting hired at a coffee shop was a major step up from the Nasty Burger. Like, who calls a place Nasty Burger? She might not be the biggest fan of coffee either, but at least she wasn’t reeking of grease and having weird sauce explosion nightmares anymore. (The training videos about the Nasty sauce were ridiculous, there was no way you could legally keep something that explosive and give it to people to eat, why so graphic?)

Sure, fewer people from school dropped by here, but that was sort of a plus too. Even if it wasn’t as embarrassing to be seen working once free of mascot duty, it still didn’t feel great to watch how everyone else in class got to have fun while she worked for peanuts. Having some easy ways to slack off and chat a bit on slower days was nice though. Usually only bored old ladies wanted to chat here, and not about anything remotely interesting. 

Sam Manson was the only person she’d recognized today, but she didn’t really count. Valerie didn’t know what the goth girl’s deal was, but she always acted like she was trying to ‘steal’ her friend. Which yeah okay, she did date Danny for a bit, but it’s not like Sam even tried to date him first! Having more friends or romantic interests wasn’t going to kill the guy, seriously. In her opinion, Sam was way more likely to hurt Danny than she was. Maybe Sam should look at herself instead of getting all weirdo over-protective. Whatever. At least she didn’t make the same old person joke every single customer thought she never heard before. Paid, got enough sugar for her drink to reasonably be considered a soft drink, and left her alone. Easy.

Valerie got back to cleaning up her work area, there wasn’t more for her to accomplish just staring at the sitting area. The bell at the door would let her know if she had to turn around.

Which it did, twenty minutes later. It wasn’t Sam leaving, but some new guy wanting an order. Normal. Except Sam wasn’t sitting alone anymore. When had Danny got here? It wasn’t with Sam- she saw her come in alone. At the same time as new customer guy? Only if he could teleport. Pretty sure the Fentons didn’t have a magic teleporter invented yet, or there’d be way more weird ghost hunter home invasions.

She wasn’t staring. She wasn’t. Took an order, made it, put the cash in the register all without staring at the weirdness of a suddenly appearing ex. Totally.

Danny didn’t even do coffee! Why would he be here? You’d think someone so constantly tired would at least try coffee for the caffeine kick- but he acted like she suggested he stick his tongue in a blender when she asked if that’s what he kept in his thermos one day. Kind of a weird overreaction, but that was just Danny. It was kind of cute in a way, like he needed big reactions to get noticed at all. Considering his family though… she could get it.

If there weren’t more customers coming she might have gone over and asked if he wanted anything. Even if Manson would have been catty about it. She wasn’t scary, just loud.

Mostly people going to join the first guy who ordered. Friends meeting up, probably. Did it matter? No, but thinking about it gave her something to do as her feet got sore and staring while cleaning got boring.

Nosy friends. Sam wasn’t happy, judging by the death glares. Like she wasn’t ever loud with Danny or Tucker. Sheesh.

“Hey Val, can I get a water?”

She blinked once, twice. Danny had not gotten to the counter that fast. Without even making a sound against the slick tile floor. Yet there he was, shy half grin on his face, rubbing the back of his neck like he was asking for a big favour.

“Sure, but it’s gotta be in the dinky little cup. That alright?” It was a dumb policy, but that was jobs for you. What was he going to do with a coffee cup full of cold water, make ‘illegal tea’? Who cares?

“Totally. Thanks.” Danny’s grin grew, almost a bit too much for a guy getting a baby cup of tap water.

It was weird. The hairs on the back of her neck shouldn’t be acting up from Danny just being a bit of a goof over water. She forced the stupid feeling down as she handed over the drink and shook her brain back to reality. “No problem. Nasty Burger closed or something?”

“Nah. Tuck’s just grounded and Sam wanted to go somewhere that didn’t reek of cooking animals,” he said, adding playful air quotes to reek before taking the cup. “Those guys don’t seem like they’re locals, what do you think?”

“Listen, after like two hours you all look the same.” Valerie answered with an eye roll, earning another laugh from the boy. “I don’t think I’ve seen them here before though, no.”

“Elmerton, maybe?”

“Maybe? I don’t get paid enough to pay that much attention to them.” Valerie rubbed her forehead before looking at Danny again. Somehow he’d gotten even worse at making conversation! Who cares about some slightly noisy table group?

“We’d find out pretty quick if there was a ghost attack.”

Danny was joking, obviously, but it didn’t keep her from leaning over to hiss “Don’t you dare speak bad luck into my day, Fenton” under her breath.

“Okay, okay! I’m totally not doing that,” he held up his hands in mock surrender, but the easy smile stayed in place.

Sometimes she really wanted to strangle the stick of a boy. Ghosts weren’t funny! He knew that! Some were pathetic, but still not funny. “Good.”

Danny gave a little wave, nearly spilling the thimbleful of water that could fit in the sad little cup as he headed back to the looming thunderstorm that was Sam.

Maybe she was glaring as much as the goth was, she kept feeling the need to blink or rub at her eyes, but they didn’t feel dry. Weird. Her suit would warn her of any real danger from spectral pests, but she could do without randomly feeling really off for no reason.

Oh! She was just feeling weird because it wasn’t so loud anymore. That was all. The uncomfortable chill and too long shadows were just in her head. The noisy group kept looking around and fidgeting in their seats instead of just loudly saying everything and everything. Sam was comfortable enough, even if it looked like the light on her side of the room had died, leaving her and Danny lurking in shadows that kept creeping closer and closer to the other group- not literally.

She shook her head. She needed a break. Pushing back into the employee’s only section would give her a moment to drink some water and wake up before she started seeing things.

–

“Pushing it a bit? She totally almost caught you.”

“But she didn’t.” Danny pushed Sam’s comment away as he slid out of his seat. “Besides, I thought you wanted me to get ‘em to shut up a bit.”

“I did. You’re just being extra,” Sam rolled her eyes, watching the now quite cowed group of out-of-towners.

Danny gave a loose shrug, shoulders weirdly out of tune with the movement that should be all about them. “I’m hungry! No one local ever gets scared of easy stuff anymore,” his arm twitched as he spoke, a faint green twisting and twining through his skin. It seemed to thread through skin and muscle, pulsing and pulling bits from beneath before sliding back into smooth skin again, a secret no one was meant to really see.

Sam pointedly avoided looking at that arm. She didn’t try to tell him to be more careful again either.

Danny’s grin slid a bit too far to be comfortable on a human face before he moved closer to the group that kept looking for the door. “Hey. Did any of you guys see the light switch? It’s kind of dark here.”

It was dark in here. On a bright sunny day, with all the windows open. It shouldn’t be- but ghosts hardly cared about what ‘shouldn’t’ be. He wanted it to be dark- and his powers obliged. Eagerly, even. Happy, delighting that instead of squabbling and fighting with another ghost he was going to do what they were meant to do. Scare the daylights out of the living. Grab the feeling and emotion and life his own chest forgot how to feel some days. More and more often, lately.

“No? I-I didn’t really see anything.” The first person tried to answer back, failing to match Danny’s easy smile, leaning further back in his chair as Danny leaned forward, a tilt to his head.

“Really? Darn. Maybe one of you can help me out?”

It was funny. He was totally still ‘Danny Fenton’ right now, asking a very casual question in an easy way but everyone lurched back as if he asked to rip out their teeth. “I totally get it if you can’t though. I just have bad luck with switches.”

He reached out, arm twitching again in an awful, too loose way. Like he’d popped it out of his arm socket but it kept slowly reaching towards his target as it twisted and seemed to burn. Neon green scarring burst out from his fingertips and spread as he got closer and closer and flared into a painful glow as they screamed and tried to back away from him.

His friends didn’t do much better, scrambling away and abandoning their friend to the ‘terrifying thing’ casually just walking after him.

“What are you! Get back!”

Danny ignored the panicked pleading, only grinning as the others found the door to be locked. “Huh? I’m just a guy asking you for help?”

“No you aren’t! You-you-you’re some monster!”

His eyes flashed green as he put his twisted, burning, scarring arm to his chest. “A monster? Really?” The green scarring spread like the electricity that first caused it- the damage throwing his whole body into a sickly painful looking glow. “Is that what you see?”

His target tripped as he tried to escape, tangled in his own legs and shaking too much to really gain any ground even as Danny didn’t move above walking speed. “If I’m such a monster, how about you tell me how it feels?”

The shriek was enough to hurt his ears for a second as he reached forward and grabbed the unfortunate human, the rolling  green transferred over for only seconds before it leapt back to Danny, slowly fading back under his skin and taking all the horrific damage with it.

The doors had unlocked, letting all the others escape as he rocked on his heels, waiting for the one who’d passed out from sheer terror to get back up. It wasn’t as if he ACTUALLY felt how awful that day was. It was a fraction, a hint of his own memory. Not fatal. Just absolutely terrifying. 

“And Sam calls me dramatic.” Danny muttered, nudging them again with his foot before joining Sam back at the table. He could just say the others pranked him and left him if Valerie was annoyed at the unconscious person on the floor.

After all, it wasn’t as if any ghost was here. She’d know about an ‘attack’. He’d just gotten his own kind of snack.