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#dp fanfiction
kitsune024 · 6 months
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Danny Phantom fics
DP X DC Fic Recs Part 2 - will add later
lex luthor's ascent from supervillainy to fatherhood by @halfagone I Chapters: 91/150 I Cassandra Cain/Danny Fenton, Lex adopts Danny, Lex Redemption, OP Danny If You Give a Bat a Burger by Cielle_Noire I Chapters: 11/22 I Danny works at batburger, Danny & Jason, Batfamily Dynamics, case fic, tired Danny, canon divergence Ghost in the Morgue by WheatAndWheatBiProduct I Chapters: 4/? I medical examiner Danny Fenton Off With [the Demon's] Head by @halfagone I Chapters 15 / ? I Danny & Danielle, canon divergence, long lost/secret relative, Danny & Ra's al Ghul, protective Danny Wayne’s Haunted Mansion by @tathartiel I Chapters: 23/? I Kid Danny Fenton, Danny gets adopted and it's wholesome, Danny haunts the manor, hurt/comfort Phantom Children: Redux by @avaritia-apotheosis I Chapters 11/? I The Ultimate Enemy, Canon Divergence, Danny Fenton is an al Ghul, Danny is a Wayne, Big Brother Danny The Red Hood's Big Bad Guard Demon by @the-stove-is-on-fire I Chapters 1/? I Danny/Jason, Ice Sculptor Danny, Danny freaks Jason out here lol, High and unhinged Danny, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin bloodlines by @halfagone I Chapters 6/? I Danny is Diana & Bruce's son, Time Travel Shenanigans, Identity Shenanigans, past diana/bruce, past danny/valerie, witch Sam, misunderstandings, batfamily
Completed Fics
Dig Three Graves in Apartment 31c by @faeriekit I Chapter's 6/6 I Danny has the role of Willis Todd, halfa Jason what was lost, found again by @halfagone I Chapter's 5/5 I Danny finds Jason first, Empath Danny, Canon Divergence, Danny is the Wayne's Mary Poppins- but he gets to stay, Creepy Danny How Light Carries On (Endlessly, Even After Death) by BumblingBeesAndWillowTrees I Chapters 3/3 I Eldritch Danny, Danny Adopts Jason Todd, Haunted House
Oneshots
Eldritch Toddler by @halfagone I Chapters 1/1 I Age Regression/De-Aging, Creepy Danny, Eldritch Danny, Fluff and Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, Batfamily Hatred At First Sight by Sagoberattare I Chapters 1/1 I Funny fic, Feral Danny, Danny sees the Joker and his hatred for clowns is cranked to a 100 Two For One Special by @halfagone I Chapters 1/1 I Humor, Kidnapping, Mistaken Identity, Clark & Danny oh lazarus, how did your debts get paid by @hollowmashiro I Chapters 1/1 I Danny/Jason, Pre-Slash, Codependency, Soul Bond, Mind the Tags
Ghost King Danny
Prodigal of Lazarus by @sherashalala I Chapters 9/10 I Danny Fenton is Damian Wayne's older brother, Danny & Damian he deadpeople decide what to tell by Dasha014 | Chapters 4/? | Bamf Danny, Danny is so done No Grave can Hold my Body Down by ghostly_frogly I Chapters: 6/? I ghost king Danny but more like prince, Cryptid Danny Vertical Limit by hppjmxrgosg I Chapters: 27/? I Bamf Danny, eldritch Danny, creepy danny- only a bit, POTENTIAL danny/tim. Arkham Phantom: The Cryptic Security Guard by @blobghostdoart I Chapters: 8/? I Security Guard Danny, Adult Danny, Eldritch Danny-only sometimes, crack fic, crack treated seriously, OP Danny Graveyard Shift by Mangopaw I Chapters: 7/? I Creepy Danny, Danny haunts Arkham-kind of, Older Danny Bus to Nowhere by @precarious-hermit I Chapters: 26/? I Homelessness, tired Danny, PTSD, no adoption The Boy King and the Dark Knights by @imjustkindaherelove | Chapters: 29/? | Age Regression/De-Aging, ghost king-more like prince, good parent Jason, Danny & Jason, funny misunderstandings, Identity reveal Lay Low and Graduate by @jaytriesstuff | Chapters: 24/? | Danny x Tim, Danny is so done
Completed Fics
To Let A Man Die by @omnicrafts I Chapter's 2/2 I Joker is Dead, Miscommunication, doesn't say in tags but it hints he's a King Your City Loves You (And Your Home Was Always Here) by bongo_balderdash | Chapters 2/2 | Clark centric, Sentient Metropolis, Clark & Danny
Oneshots
Ghostly Delivery by WeirdNCrazy | Chapters: 1/1 | More like Ghost Prince, Pizza Deliverer Danny, Bamf Danny, Danny likes messing with Superheroes, funny fic There Will Be Peace by @lapetitechatonne I Chapters: 1/1 I Horror, doesn't say in tags but mentions he's a King
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phantomrose96 · 2 years
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Familiar Corpse
Vlad Masters’ housephone rang for the first time in 20 years.
Vlad jolted. It was a noise so starkly unfamiliar that he looked to his cellphone first, then the shut off television, both black and wholly silent. Quiet followed, and Vlad sat in his muddy confusion, eyes roving across the empty study, until the second ring of the phone clicked into memory, and he recognized the sound.
Vlad smiled.
He placed his heady romance novel pages-down. He adjusted both his glass of wine and Maddie the cat so that he could disentangle himself from the armchair. He stood, and followed the phone’s offbeat tittering, its imitation of clambering metal, and snagged it from the line just before the third ring died.
“Hello?” Vlad said, cradling the receiver to his ear, cushioned in the fringes of his bathrobe.
“Vlad, hello,” that lovely lovely voice answered. “It’s Maddie.” As if it could have been anyone else.
“Oh, Maddie! This is a pleasant surprise, my dear.”
This phone line was not Vlad’s business line. This was the line reserved for friends and family only—which was to say, for Maddie only. Sure, she’d shared the number with Jack, though he insisted purely on texting Vlad’s cell. To stay “hip.” To “trend with the kids.” Jack had not texted him in a long while.
“Sorry to be bothering you so late, Vlad. It’s just—"
“Oh no bother at all!” Vlad traded the phone between hands. “I feel like it’s been ages since we’ve last spoken. How are you? Wonderful as always, I imagine.”
“I’m… not so great, actually, Vlad.” Maddie answered, and Vlad could have scoffed. A remarkable understatement, given what Vlad knew, and what Maddie did not know he knew. “It’s… I’d like your opinion—your expertise—on something. It’s… it’s important. Jack and I don’t know who else to turn to.”
“Ohhhhh,” Vlad sucked air through his teeth, “now I am quite busy. The McGovern merger is going through by end of the month and with the re-election campaign and everything--”
“Lunch? Just.. lunch? An hour or two of your time. Really. I can make it fast.”
“My dear I would so love for all of us to meet up like old times but I really cannot overstate how busy I am with--.”
“I won’t bring Jack.”
Vlad fell quiet, smile cracking unseen on his lips. He wasn’t even here to play this game, but he was a man who so loved being handed a victory.
“Just us. Just us two, Vlad. You can pick the place.”
“Oh now that does make things a touch more convenient. You see I already have a reservation for two set up at a nice little spot near the campaign office tomorrow,” Vlad lied. “It was going to be a quick little affair with one of my donors, but, I am sure they can reschedule.”
“Thank you. Thank you. Just tell me the place and time, I’ll be there.”
“Oh don’t even fret. I’ll send a driver to pick you up. Expect him around 11:30. Anything I should know before our… consultation?”
Maddie fell silent.
“…No. No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to give you anything that might… make you jump to any conclusions. I think I need to explain it all at once.”
“I understand completely, my dear. Wear something red, won’t you? It’s a stunning color on you.”
“Sure. I’ll—11:30? I’ll keep an eye out. Here. For the driver.”
“Yes, 11:30. Until then~”
Vlad hung up, and he ruminated on what he’d agreed to—or perhaps instigated.
This was a matter of clinical curiosity. After all, he was tabling his pursual of Maddie for the time being. A project on hold—cooled, but not soured, he assured himself, as he did not care enough about what happened to feel truly sour.
Vlad suppressed a small laugh. It was funny almost, powerfully ironic, how ideal this situation would have been to him 2 weeks earlier. But it was tainted by the knowledge of what Maddie wanted to discuss.
Vlad knew, and the swaths of blood stains on the carpet knew, which neither bleach nor vinegar had been able to fully lift from its fibers.
Sunlight fell like waterfalls through the second-story bay windows of Le Petit Capot. The tables were well-spaced, private despite the vastly open floors. Each was decorated with a satin white table cloth, napkins folded into roses, candles brand new and unlit. A string quartet played near the fountain, a dash of ambient background noise and mindfully polite chatter from the tables already seated. Vlad sat, confident and eager, perusing the wine menu and wondered whether Maddie might be jealous of everything she’d missed out on when Vlad ordered the most expensive bottle on the list.
“Sir.”
Vlad raised his eyes. The host approached, pulling out the second chair from Vlad’s table and gesturing to it. He watched Maddie enter from behind, clad in a stunning red dress whose creases suggested it had lived in her closet for the better part of many years. Vlad took another small victory in how so very out of place Maddie was here. Stunning, beautiful, yes. But she could not carry herself well. She shifted visibly in her dress. They were different creatures, clearly, she and Vlad.
“Thank you,” Maddie took her seat, and the host bowed and exited.
“Wine menu, my dear,” Vlad handed over the menu as though offering a business contract. “I am already intending to order this cabernet,” Vlad said, tapping the priciest item on the list. “We can order a second bottle of course, if anything else catches your eye.”
The wine list did not catch her eye. They were too tired and dull and lifeless for much at all to catch their attention.
“No thank you.”
“Appetizers, then? I know escargot can be a bit cliché in this kind of establishment, but if you’ve never had truly superb—”
“I think I should just. Get started.” Maddie’s hands had vanished beneath the tablecloth, but Vlad could tell she was wringing them out of sight from the uncomfortable shift and shuffle of her arms. Her eyes darted about. Her voice dropped. “Since you’re… busy. I don’t want to waste time.”
“Just the cabernet then. And the escargot, for the table.” Vlad flagged the waiter over. Maddie avoided looking at either of them as Vlad ordered.
“Now then—” Vlad leaned forward, one arm out and palm up, inviting conversation. “You seem quite bothered. What is it you’d like to tell me?”
“Danny’s dead.”
Maddie’s eyes refused to find his as she spoke. Vlad arched an eyebrow, less surprised by the statement as much as he was by its bluntness, by its phrasing. Not “a ghost.” Not “Phantom.” Dead.
“My… my goodness,” Vlad said, constructing whatever kind of faux reaction an uninvolved, non-half-ghost billionaire may have. One who did not already know every detail of what Maddie intended to divulge today. “Oh my sweet dear. I’m devastated. I saw him just a few days ago it feels like.” Vlad reached a hand out, and he pulled Maddie’s right arm up above the table, cradling her hand in his. “When did this happen?”
“Last week. Sometime. I don’t know precisely.”
And Vlad faltered. He was not usually one to falter, but he’d come to this meeting knowing everything, and the everything he knew would not have included an answer like that. “A year ago,” she should have said. “When Jack and I built the portal,” she should have said.
So she was lying to him then, maybe, Vlad thought, a bit colder. An odd choice for a woman who’d come absolutely begging to him for help.
He let none of this show on his face.
“My god. Did he go missing? My Dear you should have told me sooner. I could have had the whole town’s forces out searching for him. I’d have dropped my re-election responsibilities in a second if—”
“Can I… explain please? Can I just explain?” Maddie whispered. Vlad nodded, and rubbed his thumb in circles along her hand, still grasped in his.
“Last week—a week ago today—Jack and I captured Phantom. We brought him back to the lab and dissected him. To study him.”
The rhythm of Vlad’s thumb faltered. He kept it off his face, but it soured something in him, deeper and worse, to hear how few words it took her to say it. How clinical it was, the way she said it.
Vlad remembered it differently.
The desperate slamming pounding on his front door from a boy too weak to phase through. Arms hugged deathly tight around midsection as the only pressure holding organs inside. The whole front of his suit torn away, skin peeled and the whites of his clothing dyed black with rusted crimson and crusted ectoplasm. And the noise—the attempt at speaking—the look in his eyes which was so far gone—the elements which Vlad could not remember without the memories clamping like a fist around his entrails.
Vlad swallowed it all down. His heart rate was rising, and that was silly, as he had nothing to be worked up about.
“Phantom escaped. Jack and I were taking a break, and a cuff was loose—Jack had meant to fix it before, but must have forgot—and it. When we came back down into the lab, Phantom was gone.”
Vlad nodded, staring with an expression he was making sure looked rapt. He was studying her face. He was finding she hadn’t aged quite as well as he’d always thought. That rapturous beauty that had held him throughout college had gone somewhere.
“That—by itself, missing a subject. It wasn’t a problem. Ghosts have escaped before. It happens. Jack and I didn’t think too deeply about it.” Maddie glanced to the right. The waiter hovered against the other wall, wine bottle in hand. He’d read the atmosphere of the table and tried to tuck himself away until a good moment. Maddie sighed. She pulled her hand from Vlad’s. She stared down as she spoke, quieter. “I never… thought Phantom was a vengeful spirit. …I was wrong. God. I was wrong. If I could have just destroyed him on the table. …If Jack and I had never captured him.”
Vlad was glad, in the moment, that Maddie would not meet his eyes. There was emotion bleeding through on his own face which he could not wipe away.
(“I have to tell them, right…? That it’s me…?” Danny, stitched back together to the best of Vlad’s ability, kept alive with the entanglement of machines Vlad had once used to incubate Danny’s clones. He could only speak when the machine breathed for him. A rasp instead of a voice. Eyes too dry to cry, dehydrated and spent from all the screaming and sobbing Vlad had not been around to witness, and could only imagine. “I can’t hide this. They’re gonna know…”)
“Maddie… my dear… I’m—perhaps not quite following—it sounds like you mean—”
“Phantom killed Danny,” Maddie said, and she said it with no emotion in her voice, because the alternative was to fall completely apart.
“That’s—”
“It’s worse,” Maddie said, her voice wavering. “He took Danny’s body. And he told Jazz—told all of us—that Jack and I did this to him. To Danny. He’s still walking around. In Danny’s body. Pretending to be Danny. Jack and I know the truth of course but he has Jazz convinced. Jazz believes it. She thinks Phantom was Danny, that it’s been him all along, and she doesn’t know that Danny—and she thinks that we—Jack and I—thinks that we—”
Maddie’s breath hitched. She was pale now, so starkly pale against the sequin red of her dress and breathing all too quickly. The waiter with the wine retreated. Despite the open air, Vlad felt a pressure closing in around his chest.
(“It’s…………….. going okay.” Danny flinched as Vlad threaded another stitch. It took too much effort on Vlad’s part to align the needle with how badly Danny’s body trembled. It wasn’t because of the stitches. Danny’s body trembled on its own, perpetually, for the last four days. As if it had forgotten how not to, as if those untold hours on the dissection table had broken him into this state. “It was scary when I—thought I couldn’t actually convince Mom and Dad but… Jazz convinced them. They get it, I think. That it’s me. …They haven’t attacked me, you know, haha? …..It’s awkward. I think they’re sorry. It’s weird. ….I think it’s okay.”)
“This is Phantom’s revenge for what we did to him. He killed our son. And no one knows but Jack and me… and you, now. Danny’s dead and I can’t even bury my son… It’s Phantom, now. Reminding us every single moment of what we did to him. And we have to pretend like—because Jazz is there. He turned Jazz against us. She believes Jack and I did this to Danny. We tried to explain but she just thinks we’re trying to avoid the blame. Like it’s denial.” Maddie dropped her forehead to her palm, elbow on the table, holding herself up. “I can’t tell Jazz that her baby brother’s dead. She won’t believe me anyway. I can’t have a funeral for my baby boy. I have to look at his corpse every single day and pretend it’s him, and not the monster that killed him.”
Maddie’s body trembled, and the sight of it was all too familiar to Vlad.
“Jack and I don’t sleep. We don’t eat. That thing lives in our house and our baby boy is dead. And I’m begging you, Vlad, to please tell me what to do.”
Maddie looked up, and the disquiet on Vlad’s face was hopefully not out of place with whatever she expected of him.
“Surely,” Vlad said, mouth dry, “there are ways to prove if it is or isn’t Danny. There must be… a million things Danny would know, which Phantom would not.”
“He’s in Danny’s body, Vlad. He has access to all of Danny’s memories right there. He can read any memory he needs right from Danny’s own brain…” Maddie’s voice caught. “And he can overwrite other people’s memories with possession. Physically, he has Danny’s body. Mentally, he has Danny’s mind. And there is absolutely nothing Jack and I can do to prove he’s not Danny.” Maddie fell quiet a moment, eyes dropping. “And if we go after him the only way we can—as a ghost—Jazz will think we killed our little boy. His friends, too. Do we do that…? Do we just do that, and destroy him, and lose Jazz right after we lost Danny…? Or do we live with the monster. Forever.”
(“It’s… I can’t really tell what they think. It’s maybe more awkward now but, it’s getting better in some ways, maybe, I think. I don’t really spend any time alone with them… or talk about the—haha—the uh—” Danny let out a stressed laugh, blinking away tears as he ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t really talk about the—not yet. Maybe eventually. Maybe we’re—I think we’re healing. Slowly, I think. It’s okay. I’m gonna figure out how to forgive them and it’ll be okay.”)
Vlad wasn’t speaking.
Vlad needed to speak.
“Maddie, I… My dear I hear what you’re saying. But what if—well—if he is so physically and mentally indistinguishable from Danny, what if he simply is Danny? It’s—what would this be—a half-human half-ghost hybrid of sorts? From my research I feel that could be distinctly possible—”
Vlad met Maddie’s eyes, and the pain in them silenced him immediately.
“…Not you too,” Maddie breathed. “Did he get to you already? Overshadow you already?”
“Maddie my love I am not overshadowed.”
“But he’s gotten to you first somehow, hasn’t he…?”
Vlad did not speak. He did not speak, and he thought of the blood lingering in his mansion carpet and the gore he’d seen inside his laboratory walls and the dead dead dead eyes of the boy coming back, day after day, clinging to the same exhausted hopefuls of “It’s getting better...” “It’s getting better...” “It’s getting better...”
The waiter set down the wine bottle, hurrying through a speech about its origin before Vlad raised a hand to dismiss him, and with clear shining relief the waiter bowed out. Vlad had not so much as looked at him. He was staring at Maddie. And she was staring back.
Maddie pushed her seat back, and she set her napkin on the table.
“Sorry to bother you about this, Vlad. You’re much too busy. Forget you ever heard any of this.”
She went quietly. Vlad watched her back disappear without so much as a word.
There was proof, surely, for the existence of half ghosts. There was proof directly within his reach, inside him, which could be shown at a moment’s notice.
But the crimes of Vlad Plasmius ran numerous and deep. It was not a decision to make lightly. It was not a decision to make at all for the broken shards of a family Vlad was no longer interested in pursuing—for a broken woman who’d lost her charm and a son too fractured for Vlad to ever proudly call his own.
Besides, what might it mean to Maddie to see Vlad become such a creature before her eyes? What might that make Vlad to her, if not simply another vengeful ghost in another familiar corpse?
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glassroo · 11 months
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pov you wrote a fucked up dp fanfic and i (mentally unwell) have found it
shoutouts to Ghosting, Echoes, Mortified, Phantom of Truth, and once again Something's Wrong With Danny Fenton for all being incredibly well written fanfics that have also irreparably damaged me
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vladdyissues · 2 months
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We Have A Problem
Danny could scarcely contain his excitement. After eight long months, the wait was finally over: Tonight was the premiere of the hotly-anticipated new television docuseries, Knowing Universe.
The product of decades of research and collaborative efforts from the world’s greatest minds—astronomers, physicists, astronauts, engineers—Knowing Universe was rumored to have had a production budget somewhere in the hundreds of millions and boasted the latest advancements in computer graphics and long-range photography. New lenses had to be fitted to NASA’s telescopes to provide viewers with high-resolution images. Helmed by a famous Hollywood director and scored by Hans Zimmer, Knowing Universe was expected to go down in history as the most pivotal science documentary ever created, eclipsing even Carl Sagan’s beloved Cosmos.
A year ago Danny would have eschewed such blasphemy, but the litany of promos and sneak peeks on The Science Channel had finally won him over. It was all he had talked about for the past month.
Every member of the Fenton family knew what a monumental occasion this was to Danny, and had marked their calendars accordingly. With the big day finally here, a festive atmosphere descended upon Fenton Works. Pizza was ordered. Living room furniture was rearranged around the TV, the windows blacked out with construction paper. Glittery blue streamers festooned the ceiling. Glow-in-the-dark stars and meteors spackled the wall. Jack made three enormous batches of “galaxy brownies”, a regular brownie recipe but studded with white chocolate morsels and multicolored candy sprinkles. Maddie and Jazz took care of the music, arranging a playlist consisting of space-themed songs that featured such hits as David Bowie’s Space Oddity and anything by Daft Punk. Sam brought over a tray of veggies that had been cut into star shapes, and Tucker had printed out cards for an astronomy-themed parlor game to play while they waited.
At eight o’clock the lights were dimmed. Everyone gathered in front of the TV. Danny, hyped out on too much sugar, grinned like a maniac, practically vibrating with anticipation.
Sam passed a smirk to Tucker. “I think we know what to get him for his birthday this year.”
“Yeah,” Tucker laughed. “Posters, t-shirts, the DVD set—”
“Shh, shh,” Danny hissed. “It’s starting!”
Six pairs of eyes glued themselves to the opening sequence: a panning, high-definition shot of Earth, complemented by a gentle, sustained note on flute. Then, a voice:
“For as long as humanity has existed, we have looked to the stars…”
The ecstatic grin slid off Danny’s face.
It wasn’t David Attenborough’s educated gravel, or Neil deGrasse Tyson’s friendly, conversational baritone. No, this voice was intimately familiar, lightly accented, arrogant, with phlegmy fricatives and a rolling, almost musical modulation.
Tucker clapped his hand over his mouth. Sam goggled at the screen.
“Oh, my God, no,” Danny murmured.
Jack Fenton popped to attention. “Hey! That’s Vladdie!”
“No.”
“Vlad’s narrating the show!”
“No.”
“Hey, Danny, isn’t this—”
Outside Fenton Works, a howl rose over the rooftops, and every dog in the neighborhood took up the call:
“NOOOOO!”
Read on AO3
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elzifelzi · 8 months
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Like I said I'm back on my DP bullshit so here's Danny
For those who are new here
Some quick points to remember are
My Danny is 18 and that's when he gets his powers.
He goes by Dan
His "hero" name is Phantom
He actually has a good relationship with Vlad who he sees as an uncle.
His parents adopted Tucker when they were kids so technically Tucker is his brother
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phantomtwitch · 8 months
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Sooo I wrote a Part 2 for the Everyone Knows AU part of angstfest. (Anything to avoid editing my IB fic right now, apparently)
Part One of this fic is here if you missed it!
Danny sits in the passenger seat of Jazz’s car, leaning his head against the window as his Mom drives them in silence, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. His Dad and sister are back at FentonWorks, since his parents insisted it would be best if Danny and his Mom went alone, and it’s been hours since he’s seen any real signs of civilization. The further they travel from home the worse he feels, some nagging sense of discomfort and uneasiness that won’t relent, even as he knows this is to help him. 
For over a year and a half, he’s been experiencing fainting spells and blackouts every time there’s a ghost attack. He’s lucky his friends have managed to keep it hidden from his peers at school, since he knows Dash’s bullying would only increase if he knew Danny was so terrified of the ghosts that he fainted every time one appeared. They tried to keep it from his parents, too, with his sister Jazz’s help, even as Danny couldn’t understand why. But every time he thought about telling them in the past, his jaw would lock up and the words would die before he could utter even a single syllable. 
Yet now they know. He remembers waking up in the lab, not sure how he made it there, his parents sobbing as Jazz hovered in the corner, arms crossed over her chest as she watched the three of them warily. They said something to him, explained something even as they lectured Jazz, too, about keeping this a secret, but the words slipped from his fingers within minutes, and whatever confession they made was lost to him. But he can remember the fear in their eyes, the way they trembled and shook, and the odd sense that they were afraid of him rather than for him. He can remember asking if he should go to a doctor and the way they paled, adamantly refusing to bring him to anyone for weeks. It’s only now that they’ve finally agreed to bring him to see some specialist way out in Wisconsin. 
It used to be that whenever this happened, something would push back in his own subconscious eventually, reassuring him that it was fine, that he was fine, that there was nothing to worry about. It would smother him like a comforter in the middle of a snowstorm, warm and inviting and soft even as it felt entirely too heavy and like he really ought to be outside helping to dig out from the blizzard instead of hiding inside beneath his covers, but he still let it, the embrace too kind and safe for him to push back against. But this time he could not forget, not when his parents flinched every time he entered a room, not when they seemed so afraid even after so many weeks. Danny wishes he knew what he did wrong, what they fear about him, why they seem to almost hate him at times. It hurts, the ache so intense that there are moments when he swears something within him is fracturing and slowly crumbling to pieces, and he hopes this specialist can help repair whatever’s been broken. 
When they finally arrive, though, it’s not at a doctor’s office but a massive mansion. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow. 
“I’m sure,” she insists as she unbuckles her seatbelt while Danny steps out of the car. Despite the bright colors and decor, something in him uncurls in his gut like a snake, rearing back and ready to strike, and Danny shivers as he fights back against the odd sensation. 
The man who greets them is tall with silver hair pulled back into an elegant ponytail tied with a red silk ribbon that probably costs more than Danny’s entire wardrobe. He’s wearing a dark black suit and red tie, and the way he smiles reminds Danny of a crocodile or a shark. It’s as if he’s slime given form and Danny shudders.
“Hello, Vlad,” says Mom. 
“My dearest Maddie,” he says, kissing his mother on both cheeks. “How lovely to see you after so long. And what a pleasure to meet you, young Daniel. I’ve heard quite a bit about you.” He offers him his hand and Danny shakes it, barely resisting the urge to pull away immediately since the man’s grip is too hot, like fire burns beneath his fingertips. A small, absurd part of him wonders if he’s the devil, if his parents are planning to make some terrible deal (or admit to having done so long ago given his issues), but he pushes his fears down. 
“Thanks, I guess, but I don’t know anything about you,” replies Danny, and the man flinches briefly before recovering. “My Mom said you could help me with my fainting spells and blackouts, though.”
“Ah, yes. Your ‘fainting spells,’” he says bemusedly, as if in quotes, and that defensive, roiling in his gut returns, more pronounced than before. 
“Vlad,” says Mom sternly. “Please. Can you help him?”
“That depends entirely on what you mean by help, but I’ll see what I can do,” he says with a small smirk, and Danny bristles even as his Mom seems satisfied with the response. “Follow me.” 
The two of them walk through the massive mansion. It’s decked out in Packers paraphernalia, which seems completely at odds with the perfectly poised man in front of him. “You’re a cheesehead?” says Danny. 
“Indeed. I’ve tried to buy the Packers several times, too, but to no avail,” he says, teeth gritted, and Danny suspects the man isn’t told ‘no’ very often. He worries what that means for him and his potential treatment. 
“What kind of specialist are you?” he asks. 
“I am technically a business owner, but I’ve done extensive research into unique types of ecto entities,” he says, watching Danny out of the corner of his eye. “Entities like yourself.”
“I’m not–I’m human,” he objects, and he can feel that buzzing, that comfortable embrace pulling on him, and he tries to resist it but finds himself unwilling to do so for long, and by the time he’s aware once more he’s standing on the stairs to a basement lab, unable to remember what Vlad’s specialty is, what else they talked about or how they even made it here. 
“What did you say you specialized in?” he asks, and Vlad pauses on the stairs in front of them, turning to him with a frown. 
“See?” says Mom. “I told you already, Vlad, he can’t remember for more than a minute or two.”
“Remember what?” asks Danny irritably. 
“That I’m a specialist who can help you with your blackouts and medical issues,” says Vlad, and Danny frowns. That’s frustratingly non-specific, even as it’s almost certainly, technically true. 
“So like a neurologist?” he presses. 
“Something like that,” he says, and Danny scowls as he follows him the rest of the way into the lab, not sure why they won’t tell him the truth, not sure why he can’t remember if they already did. 
The lab itself is incredibly high-tech. There’s no repurposed household items like there are in his parents’ lab, and everything is carefully organized, labeled, and tucked away. In one corner sits a massive portal, and Danny’s eyes widen as he takes in the green swirling within it, recognizing it for what it is. “You’re an ecto scientist?” he says, turning to the man as he puts on a lab coat. 
“Indeed, though I specialize in many other areas, too,” he says. “Maddie, dear, why don’t you have a seat over there while I examine young Daniel?” 
His Mom pauses, eyeing Vlad warily for a moment before finally relenting and taking a seat at one of the empty lab benches. “And you, child, come here,” he insists, beckoning to him like Danny’s an obedient puppy, and Danny glares as he takes a seat on the bed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I need to do a quick scan. Please lay back.”
“What kind of scan?” He won’t simply do what this man asks, not without knowing more first. Not when even his Mom looks nervous. 
“Think of it like an MRI or x-ray. I promise, it’s harmless,” he says, flashing his teeth in a way that’s meant to be reassuring but is far too predatory, and Danny shivers as he looks at his Mom. She gives a small smile that’s not half as reassuring as he hoped even as she nods for him to do as Vlad says, and Danny sighs as he lays down on the bed, letting his hands rest on his stomach, his fingers twisting around in his shirt as he ignores the pounding of his heart and the sweat on his palms. 
‘I’ll be fine,’ he thinks stubbornly to himself, and he feels that odd sense of warmth, of a hug from something within his chest and relaxes as Vlad wheels over some strange scanner. It moves slowly over him, hovering for a long time near where his heart and lungs are before progressing, and then Vlad sits down at a computer for a few minutes as he reviews the results, humming thoughtfully as Danny’s Mom walks over and peers over his shoulder. 
“Is that . . .?” she asks, pointing to something on the screen. 
“Yes. But see this? There’s disconnection here,” he says, pointing to it and moving his finger, and Danny angles his head to try and see what they’re looking at but he can’t, the screen angled away from him too much. He starts to sit up when his Mom looks at him and shakes her head, and with a sigh he lays back down, drumming his fingers on his stomach impatiently. Clearly they’ve found something, and he feels like he has a right to know what. “The pathways didn’t form properly, and if they aren’t repaired, he’s not going to survive for much longer. You can already see the damage to his internal organs.” 
Danny swallows, his blood running cold. He’s going to die? He didn’t–he can’t be–
“Can you fix it?” she asks, interrupting his thoughts. 
“I think so, but it may be a bit traumatic,” Vlad says, “and with the disconnection having lasted so long, I’m not certain how cooperative he’ll be when it comes to the required treatment. Still, the memory issues are more severe than they ought to be even in this case. I have my suspicions about the cause, but I’ll need to provoke him to confirm it.”
“What?” Danny’s heart is beating rapidly and he’s sitting up now, staring at them with wide eyes, unable to hold back his terror even as he can begin to feel that tug at him, that warmth, but he won’t give into it this time. He can’t. He needs to know. 
“I would explain it, child, but you won’t remember,” sighs Vlad as he stands up. “Do you trust your mother?”
“I–what?” he sputters. Aside from it sounding like he’s probably dying, Danny’s still not sure what’s happening here, even as Vlad and his mom do seem to understand, and he desperately wants them to explain it to him, to tell him the truth, for someone to be honest with him just once.
“I would prefer your consent, of course, but you literally cannot give it due to your condition,” he explains, which makes absolutely no sense to Danny. “I’m asking if you trust your mother so she can at least grant it on your behalf.”
His mouth opens automatically to say that of course he trusts her, but then he pauses, the words dying on his tongue. Does he trust her? She’s brought him here with little to no explanation, and like with his sister and his friends, Danny knows nothing about why or what’s happening to him besides the blackouts. They all claim they’ve told him about it before–even this Vlad guy seems to suggest as much–but he hates that he can’t remember, hates that he has nothing to fall back on to confirm that they all have his best interest at heart beyond his own gut feeling. And his instincts right now are diametrically opposed, screaming at each other to reassure Vlad that he trusts her even as another part insists that he can’t, that he shouldn’t, that she’ll hurt him and he needs to be kept safe and he can feel that part forcibly pushing down on his ability to say yes, to let them know they can do the treatment, that they need to move forward and–
Danny blinks, struggling to remember what he was thinking about, what question he was supposed to answer. “I–sorry–can you . . . what did you say?” he whispers, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment, and Vlad tilts his head to the side. 
“Interesting,” he hums. “But it does provide more proof for what I suspect is occurring. Maddie, dear, do I have your permission?”
“But he–”
“I’m not sure he can,” interrupts Vlad as Danny stares at them cluelessly, not sure what they’re talking about again. He’s lost some more time, he’s sure, but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t think he fainted or fully blacked out, yet the last thing he can remember is laying down on the table before Vlad prepared to start the scan, and he shivers, rubbing his arms. 
She turns to look at him, and then walks over, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, hon,” she says and then she gives him a hug, squeezing him tightly, but he can feel her trembling even as she tries to reassure him. “I promise, okay?”
“I–okay,” he manages, the word choking its way past, and then she walks back to Vlad. 
“Maddie, my dear, you’ll need to stay here, please,” he insists, and Mom nods as Vlad comes over with something Danny recognizes. It’s a portable ghost shield, although the design is different from the one his parents use, and Vlad presses a finger against a sensor, activating around them as Danny’s heart beats faster now and the thing in his gut rears back, ready to strike as Vlad’s eyes flash impossibly red and a set of black rings appear around his waist, and–
Danny’s body drops to the table as Phantom emerges, hissing and shrieking at the intruder and ghost before him, tackling him with his claws as his brain screams at him to protect, protect, protect! The ghost puts up a shield, eyeing him lazily as he speaks, his words full of fire and ash even as they sound human, too, smothered beneath the surface of the water. “Enough, child,” he insists, using human words, but he can see the ripples in his aura, the subtle shifts that indicate his intentions, and he pauses with his claws outstretched, ectoblast building between the black tips. “So you are sentient enough, at least, to understand. Can you speak?” 
He hisses, echoes and static and chirps as his aura flares in response, letting him know that he sees the threat but that he’s unafraid, that he will protect Danny and his mother from the ghost in front of him. There are no real words, not in the way there is with human speech simply because there doesn’t need to be, his intentions and meaning clear enough for any ghost to understand. 
“Ah. I thought not, based on what we saw in the scans,” he muses. Black rings appear around his waist and he shifts, the dark haired ghost with bluish skin and fire in his hands and eyes vanishing beneath a human facade. “I promise I intend no harm.”
The words mean less to Phantom now than they would’ve if Vlad spoke them before transforming. Vlad’s aura is muted this way, his intentions less clear even as Phantom can taste the ash on his tongue as the man speaks, the echo of Vlad’s otherness apparent to him, and Phantom floats forward, tilting his head around as he puts a clawed hand on Vlad’s chest to better feel the pulsing of his core beneath his flesh. 
“Vlad, are you–” begins Mom, her words sounding distant and submerged beneath waves. It’s always so hard for him to hear and understand the humans that speak to him, even as he tries since he doesn’t want to hurt them. He needs to protect them. He needs to keep them safe. 
“I’m quite fine,” he insists, even as Phantom hisses a warning at him. “Are you done posturing? I’m here to help you, Daniel. Or do you prefer Phantom?”  Phantom’s aura flares, spiking and sending a mixture of signals. “You are not helping him.” His claws extend, pushing intangibly through his skin, grasping his core, but Vlad remains calm despite the clear threat. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. You are disconnected from yourself this way. You leave behind your body each time, and eventually, no matter how much your friends and family intervene, you will not be able to return to it.”
He turns his head more, floating upside down, his tail spiraling behind him as he considers the words. Vlad’s core is too tightly grasped between his fingers for him to hide his intentions, and there’s truth there, at least as far as Vlad sees it, and Phantom sends a questioning chirp. “You are meant to be a single entity,” he says. “But your core is not fully connected to your biological systems. It’s created a barrier between you and Daniel, an artificial wall that should not exist, and it’s harming both of you.”
Phantom hisses reflexively, showing his sharp teeth as he lets one of his claws dig into Vlad’s core, and the man winces but otherwise hides his distress at the intrusion. “You can’t keep denying it and hiding the truth from your human half. I know you’re trying to protect him. I know you’re trying to help. But it’s hurting him. He’s confused and upset and scared. You’re leaving his body behind whenever you respond to the intruders in your haunt, as you’ve done here. You risk him being discovered, being captured by the GIW or other ghost hunters who, unlike your parents, would not be willing to try to help you. They would experiment on him, dissect him, and ultimately destroy both of you.” 
“And it’s hurting him physically, too,” says Vlad. “My scans are showing damage to his internal organs and structures. If this continues for much longer, your human half will not survive. It cannot.”
He relaxes his hand, the words coming out in a whisper of echoes and static, of uneasiness and fear. 
Vlad responds quietly in kind, sending an oddly comforting response from a man whose core burns with impossible anger and resentment at the world. “I know you’re worried about how he’ll manage knowing the truth of who he is. But you cannot hide it from him forever, not without destroying him and yourself. Please, child. Allow me to help you be whole again,” he says. 
He withdraws his hand, sending out a questioning burst of noise, of inquiry. Because he doesn’t want Danny to die. He doesn’t want to die. 
“The integration was prevented due to the interference of your family and friends,” he explains, and his Mom flinches. “Our transformation is not meant to have artificial triggers. The use of the AED to resuscitate you, to fill your core with electricity so it can artificially force the ectoplasm within your body to bring you back, has prevented it from fully bonding to your own systems and sending the spark from within itself to revive your human half upon your transformation. You must re-enter Daniel and trigger the change yourself. You must use the energy from your own core, your own essence.”
A soft, pleading whine. 
“You can,” insists Vlad. “More than that, you must.”
He moves from the man, floating over to himself, to his other half, to the part that he misses and aches for every time he leaves to take care of the ghostly threats that intrude on his haunt. Reaching out, Phantom places his hand on Danny’s chest, feeling the absence of breath, the missing life that should be there, and the gentle hum of a fragment of his own core pulsing within, that keeps him whole and alive despite the loss of his spirit even if humans can’t sense it. 
And with a terrified shiver, he pushes himself inside, letting him flow into the body, to not merely overshadow and reattach but become one again as he tries to seek the spark from within his core, tries to connect his spirit and body in full. He’s not sure he can, not without the external boost, and he can feel himself holding back, his worry over how Danny will handle the truth about knowing what he is, knowing that his parents almost certainly hate him and fear him, that his friends will never accept him–
“--focus,” says Vlad, and then he feels someone gripping Danny’s hand and he opens Danny’s eyes, expecting the half-ghost, but it’s not Vlad. 
It’s his Mom.
“Please, son,” she whispers, tears burning in her eyes. “Please.” 
And he mumbles something in response, his aura flickering as he speaks in a language she can’t understand, and he feels her grip Danny’s hand–their hand, his hand–more tightly, trying to reassure him, to let him know he’s okay, he’s safe, that they love him and care about him as he–
–Danny blinks, gasping as he sits up, clutching at his chest. It hurts, like ice and lightning and fire pouring through his veins and he wants to scream even as it feels right, as a bright light passes over him and he shifts, feeling oddly weightless and absent for a moment before they pass over him again and he shifts once more, back to being heavy and human and present. It’s painful and terrifying yet oh so right, and somehow, that makes it worse. 
And he sits for a moment, hand still clutching his chest even as his mother hasn’t let go of his other hand, as his world crashes around him, as he remembers who they are, who he is, what he is. As his memories he’s kept from himself in an effort to protect his human half crash back, slamming into him impossibly hard, moments spent in ghost fights and then burrowing himself inside his own helpless corpse as his friends were forced to endure the burden of caring for him and protecting him, and Danny lets out a keening wail that’s neither human nor ghostly in its sound but some odd blend of the two. 
“I’m a monster,” he whispers, sobbing as his shoulders shake, and his Mom shifts, moving to hold him tightly to herself. 
“Oh, hon,” she says, but no words follow, no gentle affirmations that she loves him, no denials about him being the horrifying creature he knows they’ve seen him as, that they’ve hunted and shot at and threatened to experiment on and–
“It’ll be okay,” she says, interrupting his spiraling thoughts as she strokes his hair. “We’ll figure it out, Danny. I promise.”
Maybe someday he’ll believe her.
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what-even-is-sleep · 3 months
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Sliding in at the 11th hour... right before the ending of final extensions... I present my fic addition @tsubaki94's wonderful Ecto-Implosion art! I hope I did it some justice and look forward to possibly adding to this world of HC's in the future!
"Above the seat Lancer was gesturing towards was a horribly cheesy sign, labeling it “The Happy Waiting Chair!”.  His leg may have been hurting like crazy, but there was no way he was ever sitting down on that. It looked like one of the chairs taken from behind the gym room bleachers– chairs like that saw more than just dust, gum, and trash from the bleachers above. He’d once heard an upperclassman say that someone had stolen one of them on a dare, pissed on it, sprayed it with perfume, and thrown it back behind the bleachers to blend in with the others. Danny decided to lean against the wall instead, folding his arms over his chest, balancing slightly on his better leg, and leaning his cane against his hip. Not a particularly secure spot, but it would do."
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ladylynse · 3 months
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A DP ficlet for @schwoopsiedoodles. The prompt was technically 'New Years' but, uh, that was more of a starting point than a focal point with this one.
Phantasmagoria [FFN | AO3]: At first blush, the new year seemed like it would start off normally enough, but Danny should really know better than to expect normal by now. Still, this was not what people usually meant when they talked about a new year yielding infinite possibilities.
-|-
“Happy New Year, little brother,” Jazz said as she wrapped Danny in a hug. Fireworks burst on the TV, some celebration they’d switched to just before midnight, but Jazz clearly didn’t think that was loud enough to cover her next words because she lowered her voice before adding, “We made it through another Christmas, and we made it through last year, so we’ll make it through this one, too.”
“Happy New Year, you two!” Maddie said as she joined them and turned the affair into a group hug, and then Jack was on the other side, wrapping them all in a bear hug, and Danny—
Danny was being squeezed too tightly from every side now, and he was getting hot enough and feeling trapped enough that not phasing out of everyone’s grip was more of an active decision than what should be the tangible default of remaining in place. Jazz’s hair was tickling his nose, but better the smell of her shampoo than the scent of ectoplasm from his parents’ HAZMAT suits that lingered despite the intense decontamination and washing protocols. He should say something, maybe force out a laugh or joke about Jazz not breaking into song like usual, but—
But maybe that was it.
Maybe that’s what was bugging him, why he wasn’t as happy as he should be even though he knew, objectively, that Jazz was right, that everything was as good as it ever was these days.
Jazz wasn’t singing Auld Lang Syne.
It shouldn’t bother him. It’s not like she had to sing it. She just always had; it was practically as much of a family tradition as the annual Christmas argument. She liked the song—she had for as long as he could remember—and Maddie would join in once she started. So would Jack, even though he couldn’t sing any better than he could aim.
So why skip it this year?
There was something niggling at the back of Danny’s mind, a sort of awareness that came slowly, creeping over his skin and making it crawl in the process.
He didn’t feel hot any longer, but the feeling of being trapped definitely hadn’t gone away.
Maybe that was a good thing.
That meant that whoever was doing this to him didn’t know he’d realized something was off.
This didn’t feel like the Ghost Writer. Even if he’d mercifully decided to weave his stories into reality without rhyme, Danny doubted he’d give up the background narration entirely. He liked being in control of the narrative too much.
Danny wasn’t ruling out this being a dream, though, or some other happy simulation designed to keep him under, to keep him from questioning it. Things hadn’t worked out last time when he’d been dreaming of his friends, so if this was round two of ‘keep Phantom out of things by keeping him asleep’, shifting the narrative to his family might make a sick sort of sense. It would make more sense than an attempted reality rewrite from someone like Desiree—or someone armed with something like the Reality Gauntlet.
This was too personal for that kind of thing.
“Uh, Dad?” Danny finally tried. “You can let go now.”
“I’ll never let you go,” came the response, but it wasn’t Jack’s voice, it was Sam’s, and he was smelling her shampoo now, not Jazz’s, and Tucker was sandwiching Danny between him and Sam, and—
Shouldn’t he feel sick after a transition like that? After a lack of transition like that? This was a dream, but if Nocturn or whoever it was was trying to keep him down, wouldn’t they at least make him a little dizzy? It all might have felt seamless, a shift occurring between one blink and the next, but the whiplash between what is and what was—
“Dude,” said Tucker as he released Danny and stepped back, letting Danny see that not only was he no longer in his living room but he was also no longer in his house. They were in Sam’s room, and it was decorated the same as always; nothing seemed out of place at a glance.
Then again, if this was a dream, and he thought he knew how everything looked, would anything feel out of place when he was the one imagining it in the place it was now?
This was making his head hurt.
It just didn’t hurt enough to wake him up and snap him out of this, which was annoying.
Tucker was biting his lip, but his words burst out of him a split second later. “I know this is kinda a stupid question considering everything, but are you okay?”
He really wasn’t, but fine, Danny could play along. That was easier now that Sam had let him go at Tucker’s words, which had the unnerving effect of lessening his feeling of being trapped even though he knew he was still very much trapped.
But if the shock of the transition wasn’t enough to snap him out of it, and the shock of realizing what was going on wasn’t enough, what would be?
“I’m fine,” Danny said, and Sam promptly punched Tucker in the arm, who yelped.
“What was that for?”
“Asking a stupid question,” she ground out, “that made Danny feel like he had to lie to us and say he’s fine when he’s not.” Her gaze flicked to him. “What Tucker means is that it’s okay that you’re not okay yet, but we’re going to be here for you for as long as you need us.”
Wait.
What?
Tucker blew out his breath in something that wasn’t exasperation or a sigh but something else, something closer to…regret? Jazz would do that sometimes—she said it helped her to centre herself and get her thoughts in order—but had he ever heard Tucker do it?
“Sorry,” Tuck said. “I didn’t mean are you okay okay, because obviously this being a new year doesn’t mean what happened a couple weeks ago didn’t happen. I meant it more as a sort of ‘are you okay because you suddenly seem less okay than you were ten seconds ago’ and I wanted to know if it was something I did. Or Sam!” Tucker’s eyes flicked to Sam as he quickly added, “Please don’t hit me again. That really hurts.”
Coldness pooled in Danny’s stomach again, spreading outward and freezing his lungs. It was harder than it should be to repeat, “A couple weeks ago?”
Tucker’s laugh was a little too high not to be full of nerves. “Or, like, last week, with the funerals. And Vlad.” Sam’s foot shot towards Tucker’s leg, but he was already dancing back in anticipation. “He asked!”
“What about Vlad?” Danny pressed.
Sam stopped her attack on Tucker and frowned. “What do you mean, what about Vlad?”
“See?” Tucker flung out an arm towards Danny. “That’s why I asked if he was okay!”
Sam scowled at him, but it melted away when she turned back to Danny. “Okay, I get that it probably doesn’t feel worse than what he was always trying to do, but the paperwork’s that much closer to being official now, and I just…. I don’t want to lose you. We don’t want to lose you. And if we can’t figure out some way around this….”
“We will,” said Dani’s voice from behind him.
Danny jumped before spinning to face her, the what? spilling from his lips before he could think twice about it. Danielle was in her human form but in a black T-shirt and shorts he didn’t recognize, and—
And that wasn’t all he didn’t recognize.
A far cry from Sam’s bedroom, this place was basically a white box, sharp clean lines and maybe twice the size of his bedroom back home. Not small, but not necessarily big, considering it didn’t have windows or a visible door or, well, anything.
Anything, he realized as he looked around again, except some poorly hidden cameras.
Crud.
Maybe he didn’t have to recognize this place to know where he was.
Danielle was ignoring the cameras, apparently. She must’ve seen them—Vlad had trained her and he wasn’t incompetent in that, Danny was pretty sure—but she wasn’t looking at them. “We’ll get out of here,” she said. Repeated, presumably. “I can’t tell you how, obviously, but we will.”
Danny walked over to the nearest wall, turned his hand intangible, and promptly failed to stick it through the wall.
He wasn’t surprised, considering he’d dreamed himself up what must be some luxury cell courtesy of the Guys in White, but it was really disappointing to confirm that he was aware that he was dreaming but couldn’t control it.
(This had to be a dream. Nothing except dream made sense.)
“If you keep doing that, they’re going to separate us.”
“No,” Danny said with an assurance that better suited Jazz than him as he studied the wall for what seemed to be nonexistent flaws, “they wouldn’t have risked putting us together if they didn’t want something.”
“Yeah, and giving it to them would be bad. Got that. Hence the whole ‘not telling you how we’ll get out of here’ thing.”
“Except even that tells them something.” He turned back to Dani. “It tells them you have a plan.”
“Or it tells them I want them to think I have a plan.”
“Which is still technically a plan. It’s just a poorer plan.”
“Like you’re an expert on plans.” Danny snorted, conceding her point, so Danielle continued, “All that really matters is they’re guessing. Which they are. Because they don’t know us. Not well enough, anyway. It’s going to be their downfall.”
“I hope you’re right,” he murmured.
“Of course I’m right. I’m me. Besides, I’m not spending my entire birthday locked in here.”
Danny didn’t bother to verbalize the look he sent her; even someone as dense as the GiW agents he’d run into in Amity Park would be able to interpret his confusion.
Dani rolled her eyes at him. “Fine, my chosen birthday. New year, new me. Everyone else can have resolutions. I want cake.”
Danny grinned. “Cake would—”
Alarms swallowed the rest of his words.
He jolted awake, fumbling without opening his eyes for the whatever-it-was that was making that racket so he could make it stop, and it took a precious few seconds to blink awake and remember and scramble to make sure there were no remnants of any ghostly tampering.
Nothing, as far as he could tell.
No helmet, no dust, no goo, nothing new or out of place. He was still in bed, but he was awake. The beeping had stopped by now, so maybe he had imagined it? Maybe it had simply been the last bit of a dream before it had woken him up?
Danny crawled out from under the covers so he could take a peek out the window, and he winced at the glowing green eyes of his reflection before blinking them back to blue. He really had been on edge if his powers were this close to the surface. Maybe he should head downstairs for some water and—
There was someone sitting on the roof across the street.
They were looking in his direction.
They’d probably been looking in his direction the whole time.
That wasn’t as bad as it could be, considering the things that could be explained away because this was the Fenton household, except that Danny knew the silhouette of that particular someone.
It would explain the beeping, too, though he’d never realized it was that loud.
Against his better judgement, Danny opened his bedroom window. It wasn’t particularly cold out—Jazz probably had her bedroom window cracked right now—so it wasn’t like he had to break through a seal of ice to get it open. The main reason he kept his window shut was to discourage ghosts from popping in on him, and that only worked with the polite ones. Still, mild weather or not, he hadn’t been woken by his ghost sense.
“Valerie?”
She heard him, or maybe she just saw the window opening, but either way, she called up her sled and slid almost silently through the air until she was less than three feet from him. Her visor wasn’t shielding her face, and her arms were crossed, which he was hoping to take as a good thing and not a bad thing. “How long?”
“How long what?” Even as he asked it, he realized what she must mean. Oops. She’d heard him after all. “Sorry. From the beginning. Like, the beginning beginning, not just since Technus gave you your new suit.”
Something in her expression tightened. “Please just be straight with me.”
“What? I am!”
“No, I mean—” She broke off with a frustrated growl. “Look. If you answer my questions, we can leave the past in the past. Start fresh. New chapters and all that. But if you insist on playing dumb, I have no reason to trust you—or give you the benefit of the doubt. So how long?”
“I don’t—”
“How long, Phantom?”
Oh.
“Could you, um, be a little more specific than that?”
He was waiting for the dream to shift on him again.
It didn’t.
As Valerie’s frown deepened, he realized that maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe he really had woken up. “Please?” It never hurt to be polite. In theory.
“How long has this been going on?”
She was still watching him, but there was a catch in her voice that hadn’t been there before, and it seemed real enough.
Of course, everything else had seemed real, too.
If this were a dream, his response wouldn’t matter. His response might even shift him somewhere else entirely. If this were really Valerie, though? This Valerie looked lost and was doing a poor job of hiding it behind a show of familiar anger. This Valerie—
“And how long,” she croaked, her composure crumpling entirely as her voice cracked, “is this going to keep going on?”
Wait.
“I don’t want to do this again.”
The dream—not-dream, whatever this was—did not conveniently remove him from the conversation.
“Don’t want to do what again?” he asked, even though he suspected he already knew the answer.
“I can’t keep jumping through possibilities.” The words were soft, more of a reluctant admission than anything else. “If this is you, stop it. It’s cruel even if you don’t think it is, and you always insist that you’re the good guy anyway. If it’s not you….” She swallowed. “Help me. Please. Even if you’re not my friend, be my ally. I— Our truce doesn’t have to end when this is over.”
She sounded like she meant it.
Maybe he should hope this wasn’t a dream after all, if only so he didn’t have to worry about having Valerie on his back all the time.
Then again.
If this wasn’t a dream, she’d be spitting distance from his secret even if she thought Phantom—in a feat of spectacular stupidity—was currently overshadowing Danny while under the same roof as the people who hunted him down at every opportunity.
If she were being honest about what might be an indefinite truce, though, that might not be a bad thing.
Danny wouldn’t say this in Sam’s hearing, but Valerie was a better shot than her, and having Val back him up from time to time would be beneficial in more ways than him not having to worry about her taking a shot at him.
“Indefinite truce if we get out of this alive?” he asked, offering her his hand.
She didn’t look amused at his choice of words, but she swallowed whatever scathing insult she’d wanted to spit at him and shook his hand instead.
“Great,” he said. “Meet me on the roof? I should really change for this.”
That earned him an eyeroll, but she grumbled, “Fine.”
He really did change before following her, first out of his PJs and into clothes and then transforming into Phantom, but she was waiting for him on the Ops Centre without a blaster, so that was a win.
“Thanks,” he said, even though he hadn’t really thought she’d fire at him right after being the one to call a truce. “And—please don’t shoot the questioner—can you elaborate on the whole ‘can’t keep jumping through possibilities’ thing?”
She sighed and sat down, hugging her knees and looking out at the horizon instead of at him. “It means exactly what it sounds like. Sometimes it takes longer for the shift to happen, but whenever it does, I’m somewhere else, in a new situation, and most of them aren’t pleasant.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Case in point, finding you where I found you, because I don’t have to be a genius to figure out what’s going on there.”
Danny winced, and not just because his parents were proof that geniuses could be astoundingly blind when they weren’t looking for something. He didn’t want to get into what Valerie thought now, though. They had more important things to talk about. “I’ve been doing the same thing. The shifting between situations like it’s a dream thing.”
“If you’re going through the same thing, then which of us is dreaming?”
If Nocturn or someone like him was involved, it wasn’t necessarily one or the other. They could both be dreaming.
Or this could be something else entirely and neither of them were dreaming, since Danny wasn’t sure why Nocturn would want them both to be aware that they were dreaming when that meant they’d be actively trying to snap out of it.
Still, better that they were dreaming than some something horrendously damaging and somehow unforeseen had happened to the timeline and they were dropping through alternate realities like they were tissue paper faster than Clockwork could sort it out.
“Beats me,” Danny said, offering Valerie a grin in the hopes that it would cheer her up. He held out a hand, and she took it and let him pull her up. “Let’s find out.”
(see more fics | check out the awesome fanart for this fic)
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thegurlwhoisntthere · 10 months
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Does anyone else characterize Danny as someone who probably finds Math and Science to be pretty easy, but English hard? Or like, he can do the math and build shit easily but the moment someone asks him to explain what he did he’s like ???
Cause those are the vibes I get from him
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weshney · 6 months
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For @dreamwraith's Invisobang story: Ballroom Scandal.
This scene from chapter 2 really spoke to me because it had such good shitposting meme vibes. LOL. Basically, this is what really happened. Not what the scene said happened. I spent a long time on this and I am hella proud because I actually can't find anything wrong with it. I'm OCD and I love every part. That is insanely rare.
This was my first time doing the event and I am so glad I did! The DreamTeamTM was freaking sweet and ran like a well oiled train wreck! It was fantastic! @foxyteah, DreamTrance and I went DEEP DIVING with the lore and background details so you should absolutely check out the story!
It's a Pitch Pearl set in late 17th century in which a human Danny attends a ball meant to present freshly-crowned King Phantom with a bride.
Since it's written by DreamTrance, you can bet your ass it's good. They are the only Pitch Pearl writer I will read, if that tells you anything. The character interaction. Plot development. Showing over telling. Vivid descriptions. TOP TIER PUNS. They do it all.
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ectokelpeigh · 2 years
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There will never be enough "regular human unfamiliar with Amity Park's nonsense has the misfortune of doing crime around local cryptid Danny Fenton" content out there.
Don't get me wrong there are some absolute gems:
Shots Fired by @things-i-cannot-do-in-amitypark
Things Just Happen Sometimes by Thatweirdointhecorner
Poor Life Choice by @princessfanonanona
maybe one day I'll be home again by anthrop
Suffocation by @sapphireswimming
This post by @lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks
(and a few more that I can't find / are escaping my memory right now. feel free to reblog with additions!)
...But there will never be enough
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kitsune024 · 8 months
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Crossovers
Puss in Boots
DC
MCU
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Is Yourself by FriendlyFrat_Boy I Chapters: 11/? I Ghost King Danny Fenton, Dark Danny Fenton, The Ultimate Enemy..kind of Echoes by @phantomtwitch I Chapters 23/30 I No One Knows AU, hazmat au, Overpowered Danny Fenton, Eldritch Danny Fenton Mini-Bang: Crawling In My Skin by @skarlettskwrl I Chapters: 1/1 I One shot BAMF Danny Fenton, Eldritch Danny, No One Knows AU, Hurt No Comfort, Dark Harvest by @wastefulreverie I Chapters: 2/2 I Completed 👻 Halloween fic, Ghost Hunger Days of Future Past by Acidwing I Chapters: 12/12 I Completed Dan Fic, Danny & Dan, Canon Divergence, Dark, The Ultimate Enemy The Consequences of Amnesty Forest by princessFanona I Chapters 2/2 I Completed Eldritch Danny, Ghost Hunger Terrarium by @ventisettestars I Chapters 5/5 I Completed Undergrowth, Plant Danny Watching the Horizon by SQ_Scrawls I Chapters 6/6 I Completed Danny dies for real this time, Grief, Angst, Full Ghost Danny, Space Obsession Danny, one sided Danny Fenton/Sam Manson Deranged Senses by @scarletsaphire I Chapters 5/5 I Completed POV Multiple, Loss of Control, Descent into Madness Cannibalism Gore Identity Reveal Feral Danny Fenton
Bookmark Series
Something’s Wrong With Danny Fenton by @ghostly-cabbage I Part 1 - 2 I No One Knows AU, Horror Danny, Creepy Danny Everything Was White by @lexosaurus I Part 1 - 2 I GIW, Identity Reveal, Torture, Aftermath Torture, Hurt Danny The Gravity Of Time by @punchspeedchunk I Part 1- 3 I Ghost King Danny Fenton, Identity Reveal, Badass Danny Fenton Rites of Kingship by @maskedemerald I Part 1 - 2 I Ghost Portal!Danny AU The Ultimate Saga by Firefury_Amahira I Part 1 - 5 I Completed Dan Fic, Dan/Valerie, The Ultimate Enemy, hate!ship ------ Series by @haikujitsu FFN Part 1. Phantom of Truth I Chapters 22/22 I Hurt/Comfort & Suspense, Danny, Maddie. Part 2. Shadow of a Doubt I Chapters 65/65 I Drama & Family, Danny, Maddie, Valerie, OC -------
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phantomrose96 · 1 year
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Haunting
prompt idea from @zillychu, set in the same universe as the rest of the Ghost Speak series (as in, Ryan Finn is here).
...
“Thanks for coming all the way out here, Ryan. I know it’s a long trip.”
“You kidding? A chance to see my buddy Edward, investigate some ghosts with him, and cap off the day with Eddy treating me to a basket of fries? I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Ryan Finn answered, one fry between each finger of his right hand in a sort of Wolverine parody. Edward Lancer would say he looked a bit wired from the 9-hour drive, but Ryan always looked like that.
“Still,” Lancer responded, though he didn’t feel all that bad about calling Ryan out here. He traced the rim of a heady glass of beer with his right index finger. Bass music wubbed from the speakers overhead, and in the dim light of the grill it built a small cocoon around Lancer and Ryan. It kept their conversation private.
Lancer sipped his beer, and he was not usually a drinker, but these things on his mind lately had him on edge. And they were so much more potent now that he’d dragged Ryan along to witness it, now that he had another person who had seen it and made it real.
Ryan jammed his arsenal of french-fries into his mouth. Lancer took another sip.
“So what do you think?”
“Hmm?”
“About Danny?”
“Ah, yep, I mean he’s definitely doing that.”
‘That’…was a way to phrase it, Lancer supposed. He’d taken Ryan back to Casper High, room 209, about half an hour after sunset. Lancer had wiled away many a sunset seated at his desk there, grading papers while the sun stole away from the sky. He wasn’t sure if it would happen, this time. If maybe it was a phenomenon only he could witness. But after 10 minutes of standing in silence, darkness cut only by a desk lamp, they’d seen it.
A shimmer. Glowing eyes. A warble cutting air not unlike the bass pumping overhead. It left a shape like an oil stain on space and time, and its eyes found them, and watched, and then shorted away. Gone. It took only another 7 minutes for the thing to reappear, farther back in the classroom, facing the opposite way. A warbling stain, here, eyes, up, staring, gone with a noise that left Lancer’s ears ringing just faintly.
“Am I haunted, Ryan?”
“Oh yeah, definitely. Well you or the room. You say it only happens in the room? Then the room, and you too probably, together.”
The confirmation sat heavy in Lancer’s gut. It left him feeling unsettled in a way that all the ghost activity of Amity hadn’t managed to plant in him.
“…So do you know how to make it stop?”
Ryan blinked, momentarily taken aback. “Well, yeah I do but—” He planted a hand firmly on the table and leaned heavily over it, elbow twisting out at an odd angle as he interrogated Lancer with his eyes, “do you really want it to stop?”
It was Lancer’s turn to falter. “I’m haunted, Ryan. Of course I want it to stop. That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Only if you think it is.”
“It’s… not bad?”
“Well it can be bad. If the ghost haunting you is bad. Which this ghost—”
“—is not. It’s Danny.”
“It sure is.”
“So why is it happening?” Lancer pressed.
Ryan laughed. “Because he’s comfortable with you.”
Lancer seemed to miss a beat. His eyes shot a little wider. The silence settled between them. Ryan shoved another fistful of fries into his mouth and spoke through his chewing.
“I mean, he’s gotta feel comfortable around you, if he’s haunting you—your classroom—whatever all the same.”
“But why is he doing it?”
“Oh he probably doesn’t know.”
“So it’s not intentional?”
“Nah.”
“And he doesn’t realize he’s doing it?”
“You could ask him, but I’m guessing no.”
“So then… why?”
“Oh hard question, Edward. I mean, why do cats stare at you all soft and squinty when they’re comfortable? Why do rats do that bobble-bobble thing with their eyes?”
“This feels different, Ryan.”
“Trust me it’s very similar.”
Lancer ruminated on his glass for a moment. “Is this normal?”
“Oh, very.”
“And it’s not dangerous?”
“Nah.”
“Usually when you hear about a haunting, it’s dangerous.”
“Usually when you hear about a ghost, that’s dangerous. Do you think Danny’s dangerous?”
“No.”
“Well there you go. Harmless ghost. Harmless haunting.”
Lancer thought about this. “Okay, okay so just—hypothetically—you said you know how to make it stop? How would that work?”
“Oh, simple,” Ryan said. “Make Danny not feel comfortable around you anymore.” He picked up some more fries in his greasy grip. “You could get mean with him, fail him, stop getting his ghost papers translated, stop giving him leeway with the ghost stuff, and bam! I bet this would stop.”
“You don’t think I’d do that, do you, Ryan?”
“It’d break my heart if you did. I’d never speak to you again. I’d disown you and adopt Danny.”
“He has parents.”
“And they’re hunting him. He needs someone in his court.” Ryan crammed the rest of the fries in his mouth and swallowed. “Unfortunately I live 9 hours away. I hear you’re much closer.”
Lancer nodded, and he nodded harder, finding the tightness in his chest easing.
5:30pm came sooner than Lancer could have expected. The sun had vanished about an hour ago, sweeping away in a wash of pale pinks and deep reds. Lancer sat alone, halfway through a stack of English tests, desk lamp buzzing faintly at his side.
He heard it before he saw it—the wub of wobbling air. Then the oil stain followed, a shivering shimmering something which spilled into the air, and dropped the temperature a few degrees.
Lancer looked up. The thing’s glowing green spherical eyes looked back at him, mop of pure black hair providing the faintest of silhouettes to the thing’s shape.
Lancer offered it a little wave.
And it vanished.
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glassroo · 1 year
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been on a fanfic reading binge, clearly. im not usually a fanfic reader but man the dp community just GETS IT MAN
@dp-belongs-in-a-hoodie has a BUSSIN fanfic called Something's Wrong With Danny Fenton, bro reading it felt like they were personally feeding me kernels of edginess like a caring farmer feeding their Ayam Cemani chicken. also im glad they like my feral danny art lmao, this one's for you comrade
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vladdyissues · 1 month
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Fair Catch
Sequel to We Have A Problem
A pair of powerful white headlights bored through the November night, illuminating the way for a glossy black Aston Martin to prowl up the mile-long driveway. The house at the end hardly fit the appellation; it was a castle, pennants waving from the towers, the front façade illuminated by a battalion of landscaping spotlights.
The car pulled into a detached garage, and moments later Vlad Masters strolled into his domicile, still decked in Packers green and gold and toting a foam cheesehead under his arm.
“What a game!” he crowed for the hundredth time. He tossed his keys into a bowl on a side table and moved into the kitchen, offloading some of his accoutrements. Merrily humming the Packers fight song, he flounced to the fridge and grabbed a 12-ounce longneck of Wisconsin King. He popped the top with a metallic clink and knocked back a mouthful of premium Grade A milk as if it were beer.
“Thirty-four to thirty one!” He danced a little jig. Mercifully, no one was present to see it. “What a game!”
And it had been. Green Bay facing off against the Vikings at Lambeau Stadium. The teams tied in the fourth quarter, 31 and 31, with just two minutes left, until Ryan Longwell made a 33-yard field goal with just three seconds to spare. Perched in his own private VIP lounge overlooking the field, Vlad Masters erupted like a green and yellow volcano, cheering and howling and throwing popcorn and furniture and any of his staff unfortunate enough to be within arm’s reach. His mania endured on the drive home and would likely keep him wired for the next twelve hours. Now came the almost onanistic ritual of basking in the triumphant postgame afterglow. A fine finish to a fine evening.
Bottle in hand, Vlad sauntered to his foyer and flipped on the lights. There it was, his extensive collection of Packers memorabilia, all neatly organized behind glass in special humidity-controlled display cases. He strode by, gazing upon his possessions with the air of a hedonistic king inspecting his coffers: vintage jerseys, photographs, limited edition cheeseheads and scarves, rare items of sports history that rightly belonged in a museum instead of a selfish billionaire’s private collection. And sitting front and center on a pedestal, the most treasured item in his hoard, his beloved, irreplaceable—
Vlad abruptly choked. Milk sprayed from his mouth and nose.
The football autographed by the legendary Ray Nitschke, his most prized possession, was nowhere to be seen.
The bottle slipped from Vlad’s limp fingers and shattered on the stone floor. Hysteria clutched his heart. His stomach dropped to the bottoms of his ugly green oxfords, now spattered with milk. His mind raced through possibilities with the frantic fervor of a mother discovering one of her children missing.
“Did the maids—? No. No, and I didn’t…” The color drained from his face. “I can’t have been robbed. It’s impossible.”
And it was; no one could get through his security system. He’d built it himself using the most advanced tomographic and photoelectric beam technology, and tested it extensively before deploying it over every inch of his property. He checked it regularly and performed scheduled diagnostics and upgrades to keep it cutting-edge. Even if the power were to go out, a generator array would keep the system running independently for months.
At that moment he finally noticed the canary-yellow sticky note planted in the middle of the display stand’s empty prongs. He darted close and leaned over it with wide eyes.
Dear Fruit Loop,
Don’t worry, your ball is safe. FOR NOW. I’m going to hang onto it until you get someone else to narate Knowing Universe. All of it. I don’t care how you do it, but I don’t want to hear your dumb stupid ugly snotty voice on ANY of my shows ever again, got it? If you ever want to see your prescious ball again, you’ll get on this STAT.
Sincerely,
You know who
Vlad clenched his fists—and his jaw, his toes, every muscle in his quivering body. His eyes flared red, the left one twitching spastically. When he exhaled, twin jets of smoke whooshed from his nostrils.
“Daniellllllll!”
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elzifelzi · 7 months
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Lonely rooftop Danny
Redraw of an old piece
Surprise he looks even lonelier
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