Actual Scientists Jack & Maddie AU Part 3
Part 1 & 2
***
The lab is empty when they get to Fenton Works, his parents busy off helping the JLD wherever it was they were working from.
The journey the rest of the way to the Far Frozen passes relatively quickly under the weight of discussing how to reverse engineer the sarcophagus of forever sleep to make Naptime Box 2: Vlad Edition.
Could they probably just beat him up with the right plan and aid? Sure. But then they risk having to play royal hot potato (Danny doesn't want it and he doubts most of the allies he has would want the extra responsibility. Assuming there are responsibilities - Danny wouldn't know since there hasn't been a king, for all intents and purposes, since well before he became a halfa so who knows what the position even means in the context of the Zone).
Plus it would be way more satisfying to shove him in a box. Vlad gets a nice long nap and Danny gets to live the rest of his half-life without worrying about his Dad getting stabbed or something if Vlad starts feeling impatient.
It would also give Danny plenty of time to find some way to buy the Packers - not because he wants them, just because it would be really funny if Vlad eventually woke up to find that the only thing he wanted other than Maddie was now also very permanently out of reach.
The city of Green Bay could fold eventually, after all. But Danny? Danny would never yield, just to spite him, and Vlad would know that.
He probably won't actually do it, seeing as a) expensive and b) probably complicated.
But it would be really funny.
Their discussion on the ethics of using the Fenton Stockades as the base for the Box cut off as they land.
Without the distraction of their chat the adrenaline of panic comes rushing back, and he transforms as he steps out of the Speeder, nyooming to hover in front of Frostbite so quickly that the entire welcoming party - Frostbite somehow manages to have one arranged every time he drops by, and Danny is usually willing to at least try and indulge them since it seems to make them happy - jolts in surprise.
"Greetings!" Frostbite smiles wide, arms open in a grand welcoming, the only hint of lingering surprise the trails of slightly puffed up fur up his arms and the sides of his neck that has already mostly smoothed itself back out. "The Far Frozen welcomes the Great One and friends-"
"Hey Frostbite sorry for being abrupt but I'm kind of freaking out and you seemed like the best person - uh, ghost to go to because you always seem to know lots of things and I kind of need to know what's going on as soon as possible just in case it's a worst case scenario because the Justice League came to talk to my parents about some papers and I probably haven't mentioned them to you before because they're awful and I thought my parents made them but surprise I was wrong! Which is good! Except the League was mostly worried about them maybe causing the new ghost king to war with the human realm because apparently there's a supernatural branch of the Justice League and they think there's a new Ghost KingTM as in the Ghost King after Pariah Dark and I'm kind of freaking out because if there is a new ghost king there's actually a chance it's Vlad and oh ancients please tell me it's not Vlad or that the League heard wrong please."
Sam and Tucker had caught up by then, coming to stand on either side of him as Frostbite blinked.
"You are...asking me the identity of the current High King?" He asks, face scrunched in a bewildered expression.
"Oh my gosh Batman was right!?" He floats a bit higher at the news. "Please just tell me it's not Vlad! Uh, Plasmius."
"Plasmius?" Frostbite asks, eyebrows crawling higher. "Certainly not! What in the realms - do you truly not know?"
"Oh thank goodness," Danny sighs, sinking back to his usual level. "Not Vlad, okay, one less disastrous possibility. And whoever it is probably already knows they're the king and nothing bad has happened yet so it's probably fine, right?"
He looks back to meet Frostbite's eyes.
"Wait, nothing bad has happened yet, right? Like, is everything okay? I know Pariah caused you guys a lot of grief before; the new guy 's not going around causing trouble for you and you just haven't told me because you're worried about being a bother, right?" He frets, eyes flicking about, searching for fresh injuries on the various members of the welcoming party.
"...No, Great One," Frostbite answers, blinking away the surprised expression to be replaced by something soft. "Though I, and all the Far Frozen, are honored by your concern. While Pariah Dark is no longer the High King of the Infinite Realms, I can assure you, with utmost certainty, that you have nothing to fear from his successor. But I believe we have much more to discuss. Come, let us find somewhere more comfortable to talk - and get your human friends out of the cold."
***
It didn't take them long to reach a sitting room, and soon enough they were all settled into the enormous, fuzzy chairs in one of the warmer rooms available, Danny and Frostbite each with a cup of shaved ice tea while Sam and Tucker were offered beverages warm enough to steam in deference to their need for warmth.
Once everyone had taken a sip - or bite - Danny launched back into his questioning.
"So did Dark have a kid hidden away somewhere or did some kind of council finally decide on his replacement? Actually can ghosts even have - wait right Box Lunch, forgot about that on purpose but never mind. Or is there some fourth option that isn't those or trial by combat that we didn't think of?"
"Before I answer that, Great One, may I ask why you have already discounted trial by combat?" He returns curiously.
"Because if it was trial by combat it would be Vlad - er, Plasmius - and you already said it isn't him."
"Or it could be you," Tucker ribs, waggling his fingers at him.
"We already talked about why it couldn't be me, Tuck," Danny huffs, rolling his eyes and taking another bite of his... smoothie?
"Oh? And why do you think it would be Plasmius?" Frostbite asks.
"Because! I may have fought Pariah Dark, and sure I put him back in the sarcophagus, but I was running on fumes by that point, and he was still slamming around in there! Vlad, as much as I hate to admit it, is the one that turned the key and made sure he stayed locked away. It took almost everything I had to keep him pinned long enough. If...if he'd been even a few seconds later I probably would've died the rest of the way before he even had the time to break out a second time."
"But had you not put him there, no key would have mattered," Frostbite begins quietly. "Plasmius was no match for Pariah Dark; he was defeated in an instant the first time they clashed."
"Well, yeah, but so was I," he protests, not liking the direction the conversation is beginning to take.
"And yet, you alone went to face him a second time. You alone stood against the King of All Ghosts while your armies clashed."
"Our-!? I didn't have- you mean the ghosts that came to help me???" Danny sputtered, incredulous. "They weren't an army they were just-"
He pauses, searching for words that would not come.
"They were just a large group of ghosts who sided with you, who aided you in combat and kept the multitudes distracted while you went to face their leader alone. However you thought of them at the time, whatever they were to you up till then or are to you now, after, in that moment they were your army."
"Danny's totally the ghost king, isn't he?" Sam drawls after the brief silence that follows.
"Indeed," Frostbite answers her, but he looks Danny in the eyes as he does so. "You are the savior of the Ghost Zone, Pariah's Bane. And you are the High King of the Infinite Realms."
"I cheated!" Danny blurts out, shooting up to float above his chair.
"Cheated?" Frostbite's lips twitch as he fights down a smile.
"I had the Fenton Ecto-Skeleton! That's totally cheating! Don't combat trials have to be honorable or something?!" He begs.
Frostbite chuckles.
"I apologize, Great One, but I am afraid there is no such thing as an honorable war," he says, expression briefly turning solemn. "And even if it were, just as you had your "Ecto-Skeleton," did not Pariah have his ring and crown?
You issued a challenge and he answered, your armies clashed while the two of you stood against each other and each other alone; you alone put him back into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, and you alone held it shut long enough for Plasmius to turn the key.”
Danny drifts back down to his seat as Frostbite speaks, then continues slouching further with every word.
“I am given to understand that Plasmius likes to think of others as pawns on his own personal chessboard,” he says, “But at the time he was but another ghost, come to fight Pariah's army on your behalf - as a member of your army. A pawn, to paraphrase his own words, that you used to topple a king - not through any intentional manipulation, but through the sheer magnetic charisma of your willingness to stand against monsters like Pariah Dark and of your ability to do so. The confidence to stand alongside you that such strength inspires.
He would not have approached if he did not believe you could win - would not risk endangering himself so. At best, you could consider him a referee, calling the match to a close once it was decisively in your favor.
Plasmius may think of existence as a game with himself as the only player, and he may have been acting in his own self-interest overall, but by every measure, in this instance, he was undeniably your piece.
The Zone itself acknowledges your right to rule by the way the crown of fire sits where you left it, unmoving on the floor of Pariah's keep until the day you finally choose to wear it, no matter how many hands may try to move it."
Frostbite's words are slow and measured, but as undeniable as the creeping of a glacier. And by the time they cease, Danny has sunk so far as to end up an undignified heap on the floor before his chair.
The trio remains silent as they absorb his words.
Minutes pass before Danny finally speaks.
"If the crown can't be taken, then how did I get it from Pariah?" He questions, a final hope that Frostbite may be mistaken.
"It will only remain unmoved until you first put it on. After that, it will be up to you whether it stays safe on your head."
Danny groans his despair, final bit of hope shattered.
"I must apologize again, Great One," he says solemnly. "Had I known you were unaware of your station, I would have informed you sooner."
He frowns heavily, looking into the distance thoughtfully.
"The Observants should have informed you long before now."
"Well, that explains it. The Observants hate Danny's guts," Tucker says.
"To neglect their duties for such a reason...," He trails off, his glower highlighting the inhuman nature of his visage.
The trio fidget.
Danny coughs after a few seconds of tense silence.
“Uh, speaking of duties,” he begins, relaxing as Frostbite’s expression smooths back into something kind and polite as he listens, “What exactly does the Ghost King even do? Like. Pariah was locked away for… a long time? I guess. So does the Zone even need a King? Can’t I just, like, resign?”
“I suppose it might seem that way from a younger ghost’s perspective - Pariah has been locked away for millenia, after all, and the Zone is still in one piece.”
Frostbite pauses, leaning back in his seat and taking another bite of his drink.
“However. What you must understand, Great One, is that the problems caused by the absence of a king in the Infinite Realms are not the whirlwind that such a thing would be in the living realm - social order is affected, but the speed of bureaucracy is slower by orders of magnitude in the Realms, and there is not the same level of inter-reliance that the living tend to require - but rather, they are winds and waters sliding against a rock, chipping away at it bit by bit until it is either worn smooth… or the whole structure collapses under its own weight.”
“How does not having a king cause dimensional collapse!?” Tucker shrieks, clutching his cup like a lifeline.
“How long do we have before it collapses?” Sam asks urgently not a second later.
“Oh shit, how long do we have before it collapses???” he echoes, hunching over his cup enough that the steam adds a layer of fog to his glasses.
Danny sits bolt upright, whipping wide eyes away from his friends to join them in staring at Frostbite.
“Total collapse would take millenia more to truly begin,” he placates before taking a more grave expression. “This does not mean that there will not be issues before that point, however; the symptoms of the High King’s absence have begun to show this past millennium. But rest assured, there is time enough to heal the wounds that have been wrought. The only permanent damage would be the collapse itself, and that, as I said, is millenia away.”
“Is… is that why you never mentioned it to me before?” Danny asks, dropping back to the ground in relief. “Because it’s not urgent and you figured I’d just…get to it eventually? Actually, why did you think I knew if you knew that the crown was still in Pariah’s Keep?”
“It is the duty of the Observants to observe, but also, as you have experienced, to oversee - the timeline, trials, the general functioning of the zone. Without a king to report to, much of their ability to act is crippled, of course - their ability to interfere directly with the timeline has always been severely restricted, their options for sentencing are severely reduced, and there are some things the Realms require that only the High King can provide - but one duty remains unaffected: overseeing the ascension of new kings.
Coronations have taken many forms in the past, from a quick swap in the battlefield to a formal ceremony to a celebration that lasted a decade. Given the dark era we are, at last, able to put behind us and the non-urgent nature of even the most severe problems that the Realms are currently affected by, I had assumed that the large delay was in preparation for that last form - the lead-up to a grand celebration.”
“Except instead it’s just them being petty,” Sam notes, sitting back up from her own relieved slouch.
Danny groans, leaving his tea to float and covering his face with his hands.
“Why couldn’t it have just been as easy as shoving Vlad in a box,” he whines.
“I mean, we still can?” Tucker offers, prompting Sam to smack him over the head before pausing consideringly.
“OW!”
“He might be right, actually,” she says, ignoring his exclamation. “Given Vortex’s trial and sentencing, there’s clearly some kind of legal system in the Zone that isn’t just Walker on a power trip. No doubt he’s broken some kind of Actual Realms Law - I’d be surprised if breaking Pariah out like he did wasn’t some form of highly illegal - so you could probably send him to actual Ghost Jail. It’s certainly where he belongs, given all the….”
She makes a vague gesture with her hand in lieu of words.
“That doesn’t resolve the problem of I Don’t Wanna Be A King!” Danny exclaims, sitting back and throwing his hands in the air.
Then he turns to Frostbite, eyes pleading.
“Can’t you be king?” he asks.
Frostbite opens his mouth to reply, but Danny steamrolls over him.
“It makes sense! You already know how to lead people! And your people love you! You already know about all the king stuff too! You’ve beaten me in spars before! We’d just have to go to the keep, I put on the crown, you beat me, and problem solved!”
Frostbite’s smile is a mix of amused and pitying.
“I have only ever beaten you in training spars, Great One, and you and I both know that is largely because they were focused on improving your skill with ice and ice alone. Even if I could defeat you in a true all-out fight as you are, I believe you underestimate the boost granted by the crown of fire.”
“I can just put it on then take it off again before we fight! And we can stick to ice!”
“I’m afraid it is not so simple,” he shakes his head. “If you do not give it your all, the crown - the Realms - will not recognize the transition. The only way to “throw the match” successfully would require your opponent to fully End you: to crush your core and snuff your spirit from the very fabric of existence. I am unwilling to do such a thing, and I sincerely hope you would not ask it of me - or, indeed, of anyone.”
Danny paled enough that he nearly matched his human form in skin tone.
“Right. Let’s… let’s not do that, actually.”
“On the bright side, you can probably weasel ruling tips out of Aquaman in exchange for not declaring war on the Living Realm!” Tucker chirps, aiming to cheer him up.
“I’m not going to threaten the Justice League!” he yelps, scandalized.
“But you probably won’t have to threaten them,” Sam chimes in. “They’re already trying to summon you, you already know their goal is to avoid a war. As long as you don’t ask for anything unreasonable, they should be inclined to give you what you want in exchange for peace.”
“Once you offer peace, they will be invested in your successful rule of their own volition as a means of perpetuating said peace,” Frostbite corrects. “If you would like to set preconditions to an accord you should make them things that will not readily be given as a result of said accord. But before we discuss further, perhaps you can fill me in on why war was a concern in the first place? I believe you mentioned something about papers?”
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whoever this beloved anon was I am so touched by your kindness! You definitely didn’t have to do this but I am so happy you enjoy this idea and I will happily expand upon it for you!
this is just a collection of word vomit bullet points for the time being but I will happily answer any and all questions about this pair!!
warnings: violence, angst, child death (Sarah Miller), foul language, the same warnings that apply to tlou, reader is Sarah's mom and described as having similar features to her.
So the general Idea is that you and Joel are happily married before the outbreak.
You had been Sarah's mother, his high school sweetheart he got pregnant when neither of you were old enough to have any reaction to the pregnancy test other than a fucking panic attack in one another’s arms. but you made it work
you both worked but made time for one another and your sweet girl, going to museums every other weekend and joel insisting on swooping you off for a date every now and then
nothing special. He knows you’re more of a diner gal than anything too fancy that makes you both feel out of place.
On his birthday in 2003, you had planned to tell him that you were pregnant again. But the memories of your own fears of motherhood from all those years ago begin to swirl through your head again and you get cold feel. deciding to tell him the morning after
it is his birthday afterall, you want to focus on him.
but when you’re woken up in the middle of the night because tommy needs to get bailed out, Joel kisses you sweetly one last time before promising he’ll be back and you can’t shake the feeling that something bad is happening.
its you that shakes sarah awake that night. shouting at her to put on her shoes when she’s still rubbing the sleep from her eyes because you’ve been listening to the radio for the past two hours, calling joel again and again and again praying for him to fucking pick up but to no avail.
Sarah, bless your little girl’s bleeding heart is the one who insists you check on the adler’s against your better suspicions and when you find the eldest looming over her daughter, blood and sinew dripping from her mouth, you grab your daughter hand and burst into a full sprint until something slams into your back and sends you tumbling onto their front lawn
its how joel finds you, struggling to keep the once sweet old woman, whose now nothing more than dead eyes and gnashing teeth straining to snap at your pulse point as you push against her while sarah shrieks before your husband runs forward and cracks her skull with a wrench.
there’s hardly a moment of pause, just enough for him to pull you up and into his arms before he’s ushering you both into the car with an urgency.
when the truck crashes, you get separated from them. Perhaps at Tommy’s side when the flames rise and create a wall, separating you from your husband, or maybe pulled into the mob of chaos when trying to escape from those already infected-
all joel knows is that you promise you’ll find him: just get sarah to safety and you’ll meet him at the river
Poor thing is already so frightened, held in her father’s arms with tears streaming down her face insisting they can’t leave you they just can’t but her father kisses her forehead and reassures her its going to be okay
“we just need to be brave, okay babygirl? Your mama’s real tough, she’s gonna be alright.”
he isn’t sure if he’s saying it to his daughter or himself.
but when he comes to the river you aren’t there. Only a soldier who points a gun at the scared little girl in his arms and then he loses everything
its when the light is gone from his daughter’s eyes that he realizes. His voice cracked and raw from sobbing that he looks around to see his brother with drawn in shoulders and tears in his eyes but his wife is nowhere to be found.
Tommy says you got lost in the chaos. Everything was so loud, so sudden that he turned around and suddenly you weren’t there.
Joel wants to go back but its Tommy that stops him, that dulls the red in his vision to a sad faded pink because his brother points at the orange horizon not too far from them, so much of the city is already in flames.
“We’re gonna find her, but not there.”
So Joel searches. for the first year spent in the world post-outbreak its all he did.
He became a smuggler because of it.
Information came at a price and he needed to be able to fucking pay it, whether it be in blood or ration cards. He was willing to do anything to find you or any thin thread that lead your way.
But it’s Tommy that asks him to give up. Not in those words of course.
The youngest Miller knows better than to say something so cruel that would make his brother, the only person he has in this world turn on him.
But his voice is worried when he asks him one night in Boston when he hasn’t even had the chance to wash the blood from his knuckles
“You think she would have wanted this for you?”
the fight that followed his words was brutal. Vicious insults and scarred fists slamming against each brother until they're both too tired and bloody to continue. Each leaning against a wall for support and Tommy’s wavering voice breaking the silence.
“I don’t know where she is, Joel. But I do know you're gonna get yourself killed if you keep lookin’ for her.”
All he can do is nod.
It’s a few days later when he meets Tess. Who has heard plenty of stories about the elder miller’s brutality and wants him to put that muscle to good use for some extra profit.
It begins his new life. One that empty and cold but one he can live.
Until of course, Ellie comes along. The sweet and incredibly opinionated girl that makes him become something akin to the man he thought died twenty years ago.
its when he’s traveling with Ellie, that it happens. When a warm familiarity has settled between the two because so much blood and pain has been shared he can’t help but see her as something close, something bright even though all he can force himself to utter in her reference is “cargo”
when theyre traveling through the woods as Ellie chatters away, probing his memory about a movie that may or may not have existed thirty years ago because her descriptions of the plot are incredibly odd he hears a voice shout for them to stop and finds himself staring at a man- no, a boy- pointing a gun at them.
Ellie stills, but Joel can see enough to know that from the lanky figure and dimpled face that he’s young. Maybe twenty, twenty-two at the oldest, but his eyes dart from Joel to Ellie with a pinprick of fear that allows Joel the time to charge forward and slam him to the ground before wrestling the gun from his hands.
He has enough to time to tuck it under the stranger’s chin before he hears the sound of the safety being turned off and finds himself looking up and seeing a gun just inches from his face.
Joel’s head whips around when Ellie’s voice calls out his name in fear, he turns to see another stranger holding her a gun point, shoulders drawn back and a shadow cast over their face by the had obstructing their identity.
“You hurt one of mine, I hurt one of yours. That a fair deal?”
Its takes him a moment to recognize you. It’s been so long since he’s heard your voice, the sweet tease when you would poke at him each time he woke up late despite the fact that you reminded him to set his alarm the night before, the times you’d chide him with a harsh “Joel Miller!” whispered in public anytime he was able to grab you a bit too passionately to be appropriate in public but the laughter in your voice let him know you were never truly mad at him. You didn’t know how to be.
But that sweetness is buried under a cold rasp that cuts through the air as you point a rifle at the scared little girl in front of you.
“You think I won’t?” You’re older now, skin covered in scars from a life he didn’t know you got the chance to live and your eyes are cold as they regard your husband. “Put the gun down and get the fuck off of him, I won’t repeat myself.”
Joel mumbles your name in awe. The woman he loved, the woman he mourned the one he fought so hard to find stands before him like some sort of hallucination and suddenly the world feels like its spinning until you bark orders at him again.
“You’ve got five seconds Joel, make a fucking choice before I make it for you.”
He looks down and realizes the boy under him, the one with the bleeding nose and snarling face has your eyes and his dimples.
“One.”
The one above him has Sarah’s hair. Soft brown curls that shine under the sun.
“Two”
Wait. No, they both do.
“Three.”
Twins. Jesus fucking Christ you had twins.
“Four.”
Joel holds the rifle up above his head and the one boy standing snatches it from his grasp, tossing it to the ground and kicking it far from his reach. He slowly stands, allowing your son- dear god your son- to scramble to his feet.
Your voice softens just for a moment. “You okay, Duke?”
Blood stains the bottom half of his face from where Joel slammed his fist into the boy’s nose just moments before, but he nods nonetheless.
Now, they both stand on one side of you and he can see the resemblance clear as day the same way he would whenever Sarah was by your side.
When you order him to hand over his bag, he does so without question before telling Ellie to do the same.
She watches him with wide eyes, her hands still up in the air but gaping at her companion as if he had grown a second head.
“Joel!” “Just do it, alright?”
He doesn’t miss the way you watch their interaction with narrowed eyes until she tosses her bag to you and you slowly lower your gun.
“Now, you want to tell me what the fuck you think you’re doin’ at my home?”
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