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raaorqtpbpdy · 27 days

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God Only Knows

Everyone knows AU, but Wes doesn't know that everyone knows, and neither does Danny, because even though everyone knows, everyone also knows better than to acknowledge it.

For the prompts:

Everyone knows the connection between Danny Fenton and Phantom. To keep their town's hero safe, everyone pretends to be oblivious. Only this one kid doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. [From @vigilant-insomniac], and It's like Santa, the students of Casper High think. You know he's fake, just your parents playing pretend, and if Danny wants to play human, well. Who are they to ruin the fantasy? [From @uniasus]

This is a take on Wes I've never written before, despite having written quite a few Wes fics, and it was a lot of fun, I hope you like it : )

Read also on AO3

[Warnings for mentioned injuries, threats, and implied bullying]

Danny Fenton was dead. Everyone knew that.

After an accident in his parents' lab, he'd been rushed to the hospital and declared dead on arrival. He had an obituary in the paper, a grave. His death had even been announced over Casper High's PA system, and there had been a moment of silence, and all the science classes had done lessons on lab safety so that what had happened to him might not happen to anyone else.

Then, a couple weeks later, Danny Fenton was back at school like nothing had happened. Hanging out with his loser friends, going to classes, eating at Nasty Burger. Like he was still a regular kid. Except that beakers slipped through his fingers, and he kept walking through vending machines, and falling through the floor. Sometimes all or part of him would turn invisible, or he'd start floating a few inches off the floor and his friends had to pull him back down to earth.

Every time, he would look around in a panic, like he was hoping no one saw, and every time, those who had seen pretended they hadn't. It was Santa Claus, the Casper students reasoned. You knew he was fake, just your parents playing pretend, but it made them happy when you pretended with them. If Danny wanted to play human, well... who were they to ruin the fantasy.

Besides, no one wanted to be the one to remind him that he'd died.

Then the school was attacked by a ghost, and another ghost appeared to stop her. It was the ghost of a 14-year-old boy, wearing a Fenton Works jumpsuit. There was no mistaking that Danny Fenton, the dead kid attending their school, was also the dead kid protecting it.

But after a couple of days, it was clear that Danny himself still thought it was a secret, so everyone else silently agreed to let him keep thinking that. He'd been through a lot, and they didn't need to make it harder on him. Even Dash never brought it up—and he kept bullying Danny, for being week and unpopular, just to keep up the illusion that nothing had changed.

When out-of-towners started poking around, asking questions, everyone kept the secret. The strangers were clearly ill-intentioned, wanting to capture Danny for some reward. Even if he was deluding himself about still being alive, Danny was a good kid who protected the town. The least the locals could do as thanks was act oblivious to keep him safe. They were used to pretending, anyway.

Except this one kid didn't seem to have gotten the memo.

"Uh, yeah, I have some information on the ghost!" Wes called out to the Guys in White nosing around their school.

Kwan grabbed him, covering his mouth and dragging him around the corner before the Guys in White could see who'd called out to them. He felt something slimy on the palm of his hand and let go of Wes with a noise of disgust.

"What the hell!" Wes demanded.

"Did you just lick me?" Kwan asked, wiping his hand off on his jeans. "Gross!"

"Dude, you dragged me down the hallway! What gives."

"You were gonna spill to the Guys in White. You can't do that!"

"Just 'cause no one around here believes me, I'm just supposed to give up?" Wes frowned, crossing his skinny, freckled arms over his chest. "Somebody has to know that Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom, I mean come on, it's obvious!"

"But if you tell the Guys in White, even if they don't believe you, they'll investigate him, and who knows what they'll do," Kwan pointed out. "Hasn't Danny been through enough? I mean," Kwan glanced around and lowered his voice before adding, "he died. Do you really want to make things harder on him after that? Don't you think he deserves a break?"

"Exactly," Wes hissed. "He died. He's a ghost. Ghosts are bad—and why are we whispering?" he added at a normal volume.

"You know that's not true," Kwan argued, keeping his voice low, despite Wes' complaint. "Phantom protects us."

"From ghosts that come through a portal he opened!"

Kwan flinched. Saying Danny had opened the portal was kind of misrepresenting the reality of the situation. Sam and Tucker had reluctantly told the story of Danny's death in the weeks he was gone, and it had been spread around pretty thoroughly before he came back. Everyone at school knew that he'd stepped into that portal and been completely fried. The portal turning on wasn't the part most people focused on when it was always immediately followed by 'while Danny was inside it'.

"I don't think you can blame him for that," Kwan said. "It was an accident."

"One that has yet to be corrected," Wes replied, his anger not fading. "Him fighting the ghosts doesn't stop them from attacking. If he really wanted to protect the town, he'd destroy the portal and stay in the Ghost Zone."

"What about the Fentons?"

"Who cares if the Fentons lose their precious portal when it's endangering thousands of lives!?"

"And you don't care if they lose their son, either?" Kwan demanded.

"So you do believe me!"

"You're a dick, Weston." He'd never called anyone a dick before in his life, but it seemed to apply here. "I don't care what you think, but if you try to hawk your theories on any of the ghost hunters around town, I'll make you regret it, and I'll bring friends, too. I've got a lot of them."

To drive home his point, Kwan shoved Wes against the lockers and glared before walking away. Gosh, that was so aggressive. Kwan hoped it had been okay. He didn't like doing it—he didn't even know if his face could hold that expression long enough to intimidate anyone—but if it kept Danny safe, that was what mattered.

At least Dash would probably be proud of him for it. Dash was always saying he needed to be more assertive to people couldn't push him around. Metaphorically, of course. Literally, Kwan was six feet tall and 190 pounds, even as a freshman, so there weren't many people who could physically push him around as it was. He didn't join the football team for no reason.

Thankfully, it did seem to work. Kwan had his friends—and he did indeed have a lot of friends, since he was a very friendly and likable guy—keep an eye on Wes until the outside ghost hunters declared the hunt a bust and skipped town. He didn't know whether Wes had noticed or not, but either way, he hadn't tried to expose Danny to them again.

Too bad that didn't last. A few weeks later, Wes went directly to the Fentons.

"No one else will believe me, but your son is a ghost!" Wes told them. "He's Danny Phantom!"

Jack and Maddie both froze. They knew.

They knew, and they had both agreed to pretend they didn't. They shot at Phantom, always aiming a mile wide, and shouted threats, and loudly declared their hatred for ghosts. They knew how it made Danny feel, but they also knew he still loved them. They were willing to do whatever it took to keep their son around, and they feared that if he were ever to tell them he was a ghost, it would be because he was moving on and they'd never see him again.

"Why... that's ridiculous, my boy!" Jack declared, a slight waver in his booming voice. "Our son can't be a ghost!"

"But it's true!" Wes insisted.

"Don't be silly!" Maddie cut him off before he could start listing evidence. She knew all the evidence. "I think we'd know if there was a ghost living under our own roof."

"But—"

"You should keep your utterly ridiculous theories to yourself, because you sound absurd," Maddie said. "Now, if you don't mind, my husband and I have very important ghost hunting to get to. Don't you have homework to do or something?"

Wes growled and clenched his fists in frustration but left them alone nonetheless. Clearly, he wasn't getting anywhere with him. And he wasn't getting anywhere at school, to the point where Danny had stopped getting anxious and had started openly antagonizing him about it. Didn't anyone else in Amity Park have eyes, he wondered.

But in truth, he was the one not seeing, because he didn't see that everyone else was on the same page about Danny being a ghost, and he was the one being left behind.

"Hey, Wes-toenail!"

Wes rolled his eyes as Dash stormed up to him with a disappointed-looking Kwan in tow.

"Jazz Fenton told Sam Manson, who told Kwan, who told me, that you tried to tell Fenton's parents about your stupid conspiracy theory!" Dash sneered at him.

"It's not a conspiracy theory," Wes said. "There would have to be more than just one person involved for it to be a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory would be like if I claimed everyone in town was working together to hide the fact that Fenton is Phantom," he was too busy rolling his eyes again to notice the look Kwan and Dash gave each other, "but you're not, you're all just a bunch of sheep."

"And you're a... a..." Dash struggled, grasping around his thick head for a comeback.

"A blackberry bramble!" Kwan finished for him.

"A blackberry bramble!" Dash repeated firmly, then turned to Kwan with a confused look. "A blackberry bramble?" he repeated again, this time questioningly.

"Prickly, invasive, and impossible to get rid of," Kwan explained. "Sam and I also talked about her garden."

"Oh, that's nice," Dash then turned back to Wes, hardened his expression and said. "You're like a blackberry bramble, and no one wants you around."

Wes raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "Why do you even care? I thought you hated Fenton."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want him dead again," Dash pointed out. "His parents are ghost hunters, and they're always shooting at Phantom. What do you think they might do to Danny if they actually believed your bullshit theory?"

"Get rid of him! Because he's a ghost! You know, the creatures constantly attacking our town and putting us all in danger?"

"The fact that you actually seem to believe that is why nobody at school likes you," Dash told him plainly. "That, and your general annoyingness."

"Why do you all care so much about protecting a loser like Danny Fenton?!" Wes shouted, loudly enough that it attracted the attention of everyone else in the hallway not already listening, and he threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "So he died, so what? It's the fact that he's still around that's the problem. Everyone seems to agree that they want ghosts gone until I bring up Phantom. A ghost is a ghost is a ghost, and all ghosts are dangerous, even the quote-unquote 'good ones.'"

He was breathing heavily when he finished his outburst, and suddenly aware of at least a dozen sets of eyes on him.

"That's enough, Wes," Kwan said after a beat. "Danny hasn't done anything to you, or anyone, and it's not fair for you to keep doing this, trying to expose him or... or whatever it is you're trying to do. You'd better cut it out. If this is a joke, no one's laughing, and if you're serious, then you're trying to take a real person away from his friends and family because of your own biases, and that's messed up, dude."

"Yeah!" someone down the hallway piped up. Micah, Wes thought her name was. She'd spit on his shoes when he tried to convince her of his theory.

"Enough is enough!" her friend agreed.

"You lay off Danny, he's already been through it this year already!"

Soon enough, every student in the hallway was chiming in their agreement, and Wes scanned the crowd, mouth agape, offended and outraged. When he turned back to Dash and Kwan, they both wore hard expressions. It looked weird on Kwan's usually jovial face, but it was clear they meant business.

"Whatever," Wes grumbled. He grabbed his math book out of his locker and slammed the door shut with a metallic bang. "You've made your point. I'll stop."

"Will you actually?" Dash insisted, raising a skeptical brow. "Or are you just saying that to get us off your back?"

"I will," Wes confirmed. "I don't need the entire football team and then some making my life a living hell. As long as Fenton keeps his distance from me, I'll do the same for him."

The warning was passed from Kwan, to Sam, to Danny, and in short order, Danny and Wes started avoiding each other. They barely so much as crossed paths anymore. Wes, begrudgingly, stopped trying to expose Danny, and Danny stopped teasing him for his failures, and it finally seemed like Amity Park's ghostly hero could go on protecting the town in peace.

But things weren't always what they seemed, and one day, there was a fight. At first, it seemed like a standard ghost fight, Danny Phantom versus some vampire-looking asshole.

Based on the banter, it sounded like this wasn't their first encounter with each other, so the civilians of Amity Park tried their best to stay out of the way and let Danny do his thing. Parents calling their kids inside, the group of teens passing by ducked into the alley, the one riding the opposite way on his skateboard crossed the street to hide with them, safety in numbers and all that.

Then the tide of battle turned, and all of the sudden, Danny was losing, badly. The enemy ghost had started coming at him with powerful blasts that broke through his defenses and left him reeling. Danny howled as he hit the street, hard, and in a flash of white light, his appearance changed from hero to dweeb, and regular old Danny Fenton laid unconscious in the road.

"You can never truly best me, Daniel," the enemy ghost said, but he didn't have time to monologue.

The teens in the alleyway had a plan, and they were coming to the rescue.

Sam Manson somersaulted into the street, Fenton Wrist Ray™ already armed and at the ready, and she laid down cover fire at the enemy ghost while Dash and Kwan ran out to grab Danny and drag him to the alleyway where they'd been taking cover.

"Guess you can't tell me I'm crazy now," Wes said, smirking triumphantly as the two jocks put Danny down gently on the ground, propping his head up on Paulina's folded up jacket. "We all saw him turn into Fenton, that's proof."

"Will you shut up, Wes?" Paulina snapped while Star checked Danny over, trying to assess his injuries. "We knew that already."

"What do you mean you knew?"

"Everyone knew, the whole time," Paulina reiterated with a derogatory scowl. "It's like, super obvious."

"Then why did you all treat me like I was crazy?" Wes demanded.

"Because you are," Star said. "Not 'cause you think he's a ghost—because, like, duh—but 'cause you kept trying to tell everyone. Some things should stay secret you moron."

"Why you even wanted to constantly remind the dead kid that he's dead, I'll never know," Paulina added.

"Plus, you constantly trying to expose him was putting him in danger," Kwan said. "Phantom is a hero, and you were trying to get him killed."

"He's already dead!"

"Yeah, we know," Sam jeered at him as she returned to their cover. "Everyone knows. But you're the only person in the whole town who's being a dick about it!"

"Hey, that's the same thing I told him a couple months ago!" Kwan told her, delighted. "I never called someone a dick before, but I did, 'cause he was being one."

"Good job calling him out, Kwan," Sam said, sounding genuinely satisfied. "It's good to hear that you're being more assertive and standing up for yourself and others."

"That's what I said, too!" Dash noted. "God, it's so weird that I actually agree with you on stuff now."

"Can we get back to the fact that you guys all knew the whole time that Fenton was a ghost and nobody thought to clue me in?" Wes said, looking around at the rest of them incredulously.

"Clue you in the Danny was a ghost?" Sam asked sardonically. "I thought you knew."

"No, that it was apparently common knowledge and you all just felt like making a fool out of me!"

"You wouldn't have looked like a fool if you'd just kept your fool mouth shut," Paulina pointed out.

"You—"

Wes was cut off when Danny groaned into wakefulness and everyone's attention instantly snapped to the ghost boy.

"Mn... ugh," Danny took a shaky breath and blinked his eyes open, quickly widening in shock when he realized how many people were leaning over him. "Uh... hello, citizens," he said, putting on a voice in the hopes they wouldn't recognize them. "Please, step back and stay away from the—"

"Danny," Sam said, "You changed."

"Huh?" He looked down at his hand and gasped. "I mean, I have an explanation for this. I was uh... being overshadowed?"

"It's okay, dude," Kwan told him. "We're not going to tell anyone. This'll be our little secret. Right, Wes?"

They all looked pointedly at the redhead, who opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

"Yeah, okay," he relented, though his left eyebrow was nevertheless twitching in irritation. "Our secret."

"We just wanted to get you out of the line of fire before Plasmius took things too far," Sam told him. "You know I've always got your back."

"Thanks," Danny said. "All of you."

They gave him their smiles and their 'you're welcome's while Wes griped and grumbled and left the alleyway with his bike to finish riding home. Plasmius had flown off shortly after Sam started shooting at him. He was content in his victory over Phantom, and didn't feel the need to fight a powerless child like her, so the coast was clear for the rest of them to leave as well.

Sam said goodbye to Kwan so she could walk Danny home while the rest of them resumed their walk to the mall. Sam had been planning to split off before they got their anyway, she was just taking the opportunity to chat with them—mostly Kwan, whom she'd accidentally befriended during Danny's brief stint of popularity earlier in the year (his 'goth' poetry was awful, but they'd bonded over gardening and a love of animals)—since her house was on the way.

"You gonna be okay, Danny?" she asked, as they walked arm in arm so she could catch him if he stumbled. "You don't have a concussion, do you?"

"Maybe?" Danny said, squinting uncertainly. He shrugged. "I'll be fine. I always am. I'm still just amazed how lucky it was that the A-listers and Wes, of all people, were willing to keep my secret. It's gonna be all over the school, tomorrow, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Sam said vaguely. "Kwan's a decent guy, at least. I'm pretty sure they'll keep their word."

Danny scoffed in disbelief, but didn't voice an argument. The rest of the way to Fenton Works, the chattered about whatever topics came to mind, just to keep Danny from falling asleep in case he did have a concussion, and when Sam dropped him off at home, she held off her mournful expression until she had turned away so Danny didn't have to see it.

#dp #danny phantom #danny fenton #wes weston #dp kwan #dp star #paulina sanchez #dash baxter #sam manson #fic #things i wrote #phic phight #phic phight 24 #everyone knows au #jack fenton #maddie fenton #light angst #full ghost au #sort of; it's implied anyway you can read it as full ghost au or not

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tourettesdog · 1 year

Text

Okay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just being inside of it had Danny feeling woozy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ph-Phantom?” he quavered.

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

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

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

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

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

“H–how can you be sure?” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surely Lancer hadn’t missed that lightshow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was shaking. When did he start shaking?

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

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

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

Why wasn’t he angry?

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Phantom?”

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

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

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

“Breathe with me, okay?”

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

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

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

“That’s it. In and out.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They landed on the person sitting nearby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why are you apologizing?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smaller than usual.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it something else?” Lancer asked gently.

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

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

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

Ducking his head down into his knees, Danny muttered, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

Another sigh from Lancer. He was doing that a lot today— he always did, really. “It sounds like you needed someone to talk to,” he mused.

Danny just shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. His face positively burned. “I have friends,” he mumbled.

“Are they who you usually talk to about these sort of things?”

Danny clamped his eyes shut tight, trying to calm the unsteady thrum of his core. “I guess,” he said dismissively.

A pause stretched between them and Lancer shuffled uncomfortably in it. Danny tensed as he did, worried the elevator might shift again, but it seemed as though it had found a solid place to rest in the shaft.

“Do you…” Lancer trailed off, sounding very unsure of the question lying on his tongue.

When he didn’t continue, Danny cracked open one bright green eye. “Do I what?” he challenged, tensing himself for whatever question might follow.

The look Lancer gave him would not be out of place on someone who had just watched a sad commercial with sat wet dogs. “Do you… have any adults to talk to? Any ghosts that look after you?”

Whatever question Danny had been expecting, he hadn’t expected one to strike so surely at his core. It thrummed like the strings of a violin, magnified until it reverberated through his entire being. Danny wondered if Lancer might feel it through the floor, over the hum of the shield.

“What?” was all he could say. No other words would find their way to his lips. His mind had shut down, lingering on the question with an uneasy, empty feeling that resonated from his core and hollowed out his belly.

“Is there anyone that looks after you?” Lancer asked again, his tone firm but no less gentle for it.

Danny stared straight ahead, seeing nothing as he let the question turn in his mind. His first thought was of Jazz. Ever since she found out about him, she’d stepped up in ways he could not have hoped for or imagined. She kept the first aid kit stocked. She checked him over for injuries. Jazz asked Danny how he was feeling, and wouldn’t always let him get away with a dismissive answer.

She’d even started to cook them breakfast these last few weeks. Her first few attempts were about as disastrous as their mother’s own cooking— no doubt unaided by the tainted ingredients— but she was getting better. She had a little fridge in her room now with ingredients kept far away from the lab samples, and for the first time in a long while Danny was remembering what eggs tasted like without the acidic bite of ectoplasm.

Danny opened his mouth to give Lancer an affirmative answer, but froze when the man’s first question rang in his ears.

“Do you… have any adults to talk to?”

A stone dropped into Danny’s belly as he realized with a sick sense of dread just how much Jazz had risen to the forefront of his mind as a caretaker, completely eclipsing their parents.

Danny’s mouth was dry as he swallowed a lump in his throat. He could feel Lancer’s eyes burning into him as he took far too long to answer— his silence about as much of an answer as anything else, really.

“Y–yes,” Danny said, though his shaky words hardly convinced himself.

They certainly didn’t seem to convince Lancer, either. His brow quirked slightly before he schooled his features into a softer expression. “Do you?” he pressed.

Danny nodded, even as his mind spiraled once more, wallowing through a current of memories. He tried to think of the last time he felt comfortable talking to his parents, but only flashes of uncomfortable silences and nervous lies came to mind. He tried to think of the last time he felt safe in their care, but only the memory of dodging weapons and hiding injuries swam to the forefront of that current.

At some point Danny’s nod turned into a tilt— a shake. He was shaking his head, ever so slightly. His core squeezed and fresh tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

Lancer sighed yet again, the sound bone-weary and deep with exhaustion. “Where do you go when you’re not in Amity?” he asked. “Where do you stay?”

It was too personal of a question, one that Danny never would have thought to answer from a civilian. He’d been asked so many things by the people of Amity— shouted questions of his death and of his life before then. Each grated at his nerves and his core with an unrivaled discomfort, never something he would think to acknowledge with more than a joke, at most.

Yet… Danny didn’t resent the question coming from Lancer. It didn’t upset him, not in the way it normally did. The discomfort was there, but it had more to do with his own uncertain answer than the fact that Lancer had dared to ask the question in the first place.

It was Danny’s turn to sigh now, feeling his entire body sag into the motion as he hugged his knees still tighter, practically phasing them into his torso.

All he could do was shrug.

He knew where Danny Fenton went at night, but Phantom didn’t exactly have a place to rest his head.

Lancer shuffled a bit closer until he was sitting directly beside Danny. He didn’t scoot away, almost welcoming his presence.

“I won’t pretend to know what it’s like being in your shoes,” Lancer began, his eyes locked onto Danny as he spoke, “but I’m here to talk if you ever need someone to be there.”

Danny blinked, staring. He hardly knew what to say— could hardly find any words in his head. After a pause, all that would come out was a hesitant, “Yeah?”

Lancer smiled, the gesture small as it tugged at his lips. “Yes. I’m a teacher and part of my job is to be there for my students.”

Danny frowned at the word. “I’m not one of your students, though,” he said defensively, shuffling his feet. “I’m just a ghost.”

For one gut-wrenching moment Danny wondered if Lancer had figured him out. He couldn’t imagine how. His ghost form changed too much, both impacted by the ectoplasm in his system and by his own thoughts, as Frostbite once explained to him. The sharpened ears, the greenish tint of his skin— the broader shoulders and squared chin, more masculine than he dared hope for.

Even just the glow was enough to throw his features into a differing relief, but above it all there was one factor that Danny knew kept his identity safe:

The difference between flesh and ectoplasm. Life and death. Why ever assume something that breathed would also harbor something as innate to death as a core?

(Nevermind that he had been breathing this entire time, not that he needed it as he was.)

Yet if Lancer noticed the breathing or somehow made that leap of logic that saddled the line between life and death as surely as Danny did himself, he didn’t show it. He simply smiled sadly, meeting Phantom’s eyes with a kindness he rarely had shown to him in this form.

“Maybe not, but you must have been a student in this town at some point,” he said, his eyes trailing to his hands in his lap, fingers nervously rubbing his knuckles. “I might not be an expert on ghosts, but after teaching for as long as I have, I’d like to think that I know a thing or two about teenagers. You stay in this town enough that it must have been your home— that it must still be.”

He wasn’t wrong, of course. Mr. Lancer didn’t know the details, but his words rang truer than he knew. They echoed in Danny’s mind, as hollow and uncomfortable as they were right.

Amity was Phantom’s home. It was his home.

Just hearing someone who wasn’t Sam, Tucker, or Jazz acknowledge that had the tears pricking at Danny’s eyes spilling over.

A hand tentatively patted his shoulder and Danny leaned into the touch, finding more peace in it than he thought he should.

A peace that, like many good things, did not last very long.

A familiar siren cut through the concrete, the sound grating at Danny’s frayed nerves with a fresh onslaught of fear. He couldn’t help but jolt at the sound, jumping into the air where he hovered, staring at the elevator doors.

“Phantom?” Lancer asked nervously.

The siren practically echoed in his skull, the sound far too familiar and far too disquieting. How many times had he heard it barreling towards a ghost attack, knowing that its presence would only complicate the battle? How many times had he been glad for the warning, if only so he could escape?

There was no escape right now, however. No way for him to slip out of sight, either through the walls of the elevator or into his own human skin. He couldn’t transform, not with Lancer right next to him and his secret already hanging by a gnawed thread.

Mr. Lancer must have heard the siren himself now, judging by the way his eyes moved from Phantom to the elevator doors. Danny couldn’t help but notice that his eyes brightened with relief.

“Lord of the Flies, it sounds like someone’s finally coming,” he said, that same relief carried on a much more relaxed sigh.

Danny bit his lip, unable to answer. He didn’t resent Mr. Lancer’s joy at hearing the siren, though it did come as a dark contrast to his own roiling emotions.

“I don’t think they’re here to help,” he mumbled darkly, unable to suppress the resentment in his tone as he glared at the ectoshield warping over the elevator doors. “Not met at least.”

Danny heard Lancer suck in a sharp breath of air. He turned at the sound, finding his teacher watching him with renewed concern in his eyes. “They wouldn’t…” he said slowly, his own words trailing off as doubt crept into his tone.

Danny nodded. “They must’ve gotten some sort of alert when this thing went off,” he said, gesturing to the shield.

“But they wouldn’t… you’re not…” Lancer tried again, his words no less convinced the second time around as he trailed off, his eyes widening when they fixed on the door.

The siren was so close now, echoing around the elevator. Each blaring note of the sound had Danny’s ears ringing and his core stuttering violently with fear. He absently drifted farther away from the elevator doors, watching them warily.

“If I could just explain to them—”

This time Lancer’s words were cut off as a loud, booming voice shouted. It came from somewhere overhead, echoing down the elevator shaft.

“Is there anyone in there!” the unmistakable voice of Jack Fenton boomed. “Our sensors detected that a ghost triggered our shield. Is the ghost subdued? Are any humans trapped?”

Danny stared, wide-eyed up at the elevator ceiling. He sank back down onto the floor, cowering as he heard what sounded like metal grinding as someone tried to force it apart.

His eyes flickered to Lancer, watching uncertainly as the man gaped at the ceiling. He had to be frighteningly aware of his precarious position in the elevator. Jack Fenton’s voice, though it sent fear rocketing through Danny’s core, must’ve sounded like freedom and safety to Lancer in that moment.

And yet… his eyes trailed back to Danny with uncertainty.

It was disquieting, seeing that expression on that face of a man trapped in an elevator shaft, who for all intents and purposes should have welcomed any offer of rescue with the widest embrace.

Yet Danny thought back to Lancer’s words as he calmed him down from his panic attack. He thought of his hand gently patting Danny’s shoulder, soothing him as he cried. He thought of how Lancer, once he pushed his own fear aside, had shown nothing but kindness and fear for him, not of.

He had called Phantom his student. Had called Amity his home.

“Is anyone down there!” Jack Fenton called again, the sound of metal shifting accompanying his voice once more.

In that moment, Danny knew that he would have one of two options. There was no way his parents would disable the ectoshield without first making sure that no ghosts lingered invisibly within it. As Phantom, he was trapped, resigned to being seen. Cornered.

If his parents caught Phantom now in this position, Danny’s only option would be to try and explain himself and hope that they might understand. Pray that they wouldn’t assume he was overshadowed and give him a fraction of a chance.

But… Danny had another option.

Looking at Lancer, finding him nervously staring up at the ceiling, Danny weighed that second option.

He weighed Lancer’s words, the kind admissions of home and student nestling comfortably in his core.

It was a leap of faith, and one Danny probably shouldn’t feel more secure in than his parents, and yet… When was the last time he felt safe around an adult?

Here, in an elevator, trapped with a man who had shown him more humanity in the last five minutes than an entire town had in a year.

The choice was clear to Danny.

“Mr. Lancer,” Danny began, his voice timorous and too small. His teacher’s eyes locked onto him at the sound.

“Y–yes?” he asked just as quietly, bewildered.

Of course, he had never given Phantom his name.

Danny licked his lips. His breath caught in his throat as the metal shifted overhead again and he had to shut his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply to steady his nerves.

“I am one of your students.”

When the man didn’t reply, Danny slowly opened his eyes, finding Lancer shaking his head, his eyes never once leaving Danny.

“I… don’t follow,” he said.

More metal shifting overhead. Something heavy thumped. Danny’s core pulsed and his hands shook.

“I—I am one of your students,” he repeated, hardly more than a whisper. “Y–you taught me last year, and I wasn’t the best student but… but you helped me— then and now. And I… I’m afraid, but I want to trust you.”

The words tumbled out, a flood breaking through the dam as more tears slipped down Danny’s cheeks. He could hear talking above now, though the words were lost to the hum around him and the awful buzz still dancing through his ectoplasm.

Lancer was breathing heavily now. He looked at Phantom as though seeing him for the first time, his eyes stretching wide as saucers, capturing enough of the green light around them that they almost mimicked his own.

“D–Danny?” he said in a hushed tone.

The last bit of stone that held that flood back shattered. Tears dripped down Danny’s chin and he nodded, every inch of him shaking at that mere admittance.

He hardly even had to reach for his core. The transformation came to him too quickly, rolling over him in a warm rush that banished the chilliest parts of his core to rest within his chest. He watched the gloves disappear, the bright green scars over his hand fading to white. The lichtenberg figures were faint, though now he could properly see their winding course over his wrist and under the hem of his red sweatshirt. White as they were, the sickly glow of the shield stained the scars just as green as his gloves had been.

“Danny…” Lancer said again, the sound choked in his throat.

Danny hardly dared glance up, terrified of what he might find on his teacher’s face. Disgust? Disappointment? Fear?

He half expected Lancer to call a warning to his parents.

Danny looked up when the elevator groaned, startled as he felt it shift slightly and heard an alarmed sound from overhead.

Lancer was looking at him still, but it wasn’t with any of the fear that Danny had expected. It was tired— sad. Sorrow. The man had shifted slightly where he sat, trying to reach out for him, but had frozen when the elevator shifted. Now he simply sat there, watching Danny with that somber expression.

Danny couldn’t tell if it was just the green light, but he thought he saw the pinprick of tears in his teacher’s eyes.

Dust rained down as something overhead shifted. For the first time since the buttons sparked, light that wasn’t green flooded the elevator as one of the ceiling tiles moved.

Maddie Fenton’s red-lensed goggles swam into view. Danny hated that his first instinct at seeing them was to cower, fear coursing through him at seeing those lenses reflecting the green of the ghost shield.

But if Maddie knew something of Danny’s secret, it didn’t carry into the surprised gasp she gave as her eyes locked onto him.

“Danny! I— what are you doing here? How did—” the words caught in her throat and she gave a minute shake of her head, seeming to come back to where they were.

“Mads?” Danny heard his father’s voice from behind her, echoing in the expanse of the elevator shaft.

Danny hardly heard them as Maddie explained the situation to her husband. He hardly noticed when more of the panels were pulled away and a rope ladder was lowered into the elevator.

When Lancer urged him to climb up it first, he had to tell Danny twice before a fraction of the words made it to his ears. He moved mechanically, his legs shaking as the elevator groaned when he tentatively stood and clutched the ropes.

He paused for a moment when he met the roof of the ectoshield. Even in their rescue, his parents hadn’t deigned to disable the device, though he was sure they could. Danny’s core buzzed uncomfortably as he passed through the wall of green, but it allowed his passage without the sparking jolt that had bit at his hand.

When Jack pulled Danny up with enough force to almost yank his arm from the socket, he allowed himself to be pulled into a tight embrace. He melted into it for a moment before his father had to shift his focus to Lancer, still trapped as he was in the elevator shaft.

Danny could only wait with bated breath as they pulled him up.

He watched as Lancer stumbled out onto the floor of the parking garage, blinking dazedly in the sunlight that filtered through the open windows.

How strange that it was still daylight.

Danny waited, still feeling sure that he had made a mistake— that any moment now Lancer would speak up and spill the truth.

Those thoughts fled his mind when Mr. Lancer’s eyes locked onto him. There really were tears there, welling onto his lashes, brightening the green of his eyes with emotion.

He didn’t speak, just watching quietly.

With both of them secured, Maddie pulled Danny into a hug of her own. She held him tight, asking if he was hurt and smiling proudly at him when he put on a brave face and told her he was fine.

A fraction of that smile even felt real, basking in his mother’s warmth and concern.

It died a little when she said, “We need to scope the area for whichever ghost triggered the shield. If a ghost is willing to tamper with these cables, there’s no telling what other sort of harm they might cause.”

She whipped around to Lancer, the man straightening as her eyes fell on him. For all her short stature, Maddie could be an intimidating, intense ball of fire.

“Did you see anything? Did you hear anything that might help us locate this ghost?” she asked him.

Mr. Lancer blanched, his mouth opening and closing— eyes skirting minutely to Danny as he failed to give her a proper answer.

After a moment, he simply shook his head. Danny felt some of the tension leaving his shoulders, though he still didn’t dare let himself fully relax.

Maddie frowned, disappointment clear in her own slackened shoulders as she sighed. She glanced between her husband and Danny, her expression softening slightly as it landed on him, before fixing her lavender eyes once more on Lancer.

“I hate to ask this of you, William, but would you be willing to take Danny home? I know that you two have been through a lot this evening, but we can’t let this go uninvestigated. If there’s a dangerous ghost lurking in the area, we need to find it before it truly hurts someone.”

Her tone was so sincere, each of her words dripping with resolve.

Lancer just gaped at her, looking between mother and son with utter disbelief.

“I—” he paused, glancing at Danny, looking at him with the same intensity he had before calling his name in that elevator shaft. “Yes.”

Maddie positively beamed, relief and admiration evident in her tone as she said, “Thank you so much; you have no idea how much this means to us.”

Mr. Lancer just nodded stiffly, standing to the side as Maddie pulled Danny into one last hug and kissed his forehead.

His skin burned where her lips touched. His chest felt hollowed out, his core thrumming slightly.

Something colder than the core in his chest ghosted over Danny’s skin when she let him go, turning back towards the elevator shaft to join the investigation with her husband.

Danny stared after them for a long moment, watching as she fell into the task without so much as a glance backwards.

He wiped at his forehead, still feeling the burn of her touch.

Another sigh behind him, longer and deeper than any Danny had heard that evening. He turned to find Lancer standing there awkwardly, wringing his hands with a nervous energy that he rarely saw adults let show.

“Let’s… let’s go then, shall we?” he said quietly.

Danny sighed too. He resisted the urge to glance back at the elevator shaft, already knowing that his parents were too absorbed in their work to notice.

For all the deep fear he’d felt at their arrival, this hollow ache was deeper.

“Y–yeah,” Danny said, swallowing against the tightness of his throat. “Okay.”

Danny didn’t even know why Lancer was in the parking deck that day, and he didn’t necessarily want to ask. The thought of inconveniencing the man from an errand he needed to run would just be one too many awful weights on his shoulders today. Instead, he just followed his teacher to his beat-up silver car, quietly climbing into the passenger seat.

Lancer climbed in on the driver side just as quietly. He didn’t even buckle his seatbelt at first. Didn’t start the car. He simply stared through the windshield, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as he sat there and breathed.

Danny picked at the hem of his sweatshirt, lost for words. He couldn’t help but notice the phone lying beside him on the console between the seats.

“Are you alright?” Mr. Lancer asked him. His voice didn’t echo in the car like it had in the elevator, but he still flinched at the sudden sound.

Slowly, nervously, Danny met his eyes again, peering at the man through his bangs. “I guess.”

Lancer’s face crumpled slightly, pinched with sadness, but he nodded. Without saying another word, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. The car roared into life a moment later, and a moment after they were off.

As they rounded the spiral of the parking garage, Danny found his eyes trailing out the window, locking onto the open doors of the elevator shaft. He could see the bright orange of his father’s hazmat suit, though couldn’t spot his mother before the car rounded the turn, leaving them behind.

Danny’s core squeezed alongside his heart.

Lancer turned the radio up, seemingly needing something to fill the silence, but lowered it just as quickly when the broadcast that filtered through the radio mentioned ghosts within the first breath of the speaker.

They continued on in awkward silence, Danny’s eyes glued to the window but unseeing anything past it.

“They don’t know, I assume.”

Danny had hoped that Mr. Lancer might not acknowledge the ghostly elephant in the room, but he supposed, like with all things, he was never that lucky.

Danny didn't bother to look at the man, choosing instead to just stiffly nod his head.

Another sigh. One too many, enough to grate at Danny’s nerves, but not enough for him to snap at it.

His belly felt too hollowed out for that anger now.

“You… you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Lancer then said, carefully picking around the words like someone navigating a minefield. “You don’t have to tell me anything, really.”

“I know,” Danny said, allowing some bite to enter his words. He needed some measure of control over this situation in which he had practically none to speak of.

In his periphery, Danny could see Lancer nod his own head as he said, “I meant what I said back in the elevator— to Phantom. To you.”

That was enough to make Danny turn his head. He wasn’t sure what street they were on, only that it was a long one with too many stop lights. They’d stopped at each along the way, agonizingly dragging out the drive.

“Meant what?”

As they stopped at another light, Lancer turned his head to look at Danny. His eyes still seemed bright with emotion, though what tears had gathered in his eyes had disappeared.

“That if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. You are my student, after all.”

Danny bit his lip. He searched Lancer’s eyes, trying to find any hint of a lie or deceit, but Mr. Lancer truly seemed as sincere now as he had been stuck in that elevator shaft.

“It… doesn’t bother you that I’m a ghost?” he asked him.

There had to be a catch— there had to be a limit to this kindness and Danny would rather find it now than later.

Mr. Lancer’s frown deepened at the word ‘ghost’, but it quirked up into a small smile just as quickly.

“And my student,” he repeated gently. “And a kid, just like any one of my other students.”

Lancer’s smile was wry, hardly there, but it warmed him to see it at all. His voice echoed in Danny’s head as they drove on, the silence feeling much less daunting with those kind words occupying his thoughts.

Lancer seemed to hesitate for a moment before they turned onto Danny’s street. He hesitated another moment before pulling the car up alongside the sidewalk.

His knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel, every inch of his posture as tense as Danny’s felt, like a cord ready to snap.

Danny didn’t get out of the car at first. He just sat there, staring at the red brick building of FentonWorks and the glaring neon signs over the door. His eyes skirted up to the Ops Center, the shadow looming over him a fiendish thing.

Danny was glad when Lancer did not immediately oust him from the car. He needed that moment to just sit and breathe. To have a space, however fragile, where he felt like he might have someone in his corner who was older than sixteen.

“You would… you really wouldn’t tell my parents?” Danny asked, hardly daring to speak the words allowed. Terrified that he might get confirmation of his worst fears.

Lancer’s eyes widened. He slowly shook his head, mouth slightly slack-jawed.

“No,” he said a little too quickly. “No, not…” He actually did pinch his tear ducts this time, in that familiar gesture he hadn’t been able to back in the elevator. “Pride and Prejudice, Danny, I know when a student is afraid of their parents. I’ve… I’ve seen it before. Not like this, never like this, but still…”

He trailed off, looking ahead, swallowing a lump in his throat as he gathered more of his thoughts.

“Danny…” he began again, the word quavering. “I don’t know how to help you with this. I… I just need you to promise me that you’ll do your best to be safe. That you’ll do the smart thing and ask for help when you need it. That if your parents hurt you…”

He trailed off again, shaking his head. Danny’s parents had already hurt him, they both knew this. It wasn’t an if, it was a when and an again.

“I’ll be careful,” Danny tried to reassure him. “I–I have Jazz, and Sam, and Tucker. They know. They know and they help me, and I trust them.”

He hoped that those words might quell some of Mr. Lancer’s doubts, but Danny’s core thrummed uneasily when his teacher’s eyes just widened with renewed horror.

The man slowly shook his head, a trembling hand rubbing at the bags beneath his eyes.

“You’re all just kids,” he said quietly.

It was true, technically, but Danny hadn’t felt like much of one over the last few months. He had too many responsibilities as Phantom— had seen and faced too many things.

“We can handle it,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as Mr. Lancer.

He wasn’t sure it worked either way.

Danny glanced back to FentonWorks, his hand tracing the handle of the car door. “Um, thank you for taking me home, Mr. Lancer,” he said, his throat still tight. “And, uh, for everything else.”

Mr. Lancer just nodded. He seemed so tired, the bags beneath his eyes deeper and darker than Danny’s own. His teacher said nothing as he opened the door and climbed out, though seemed to find his voice as Danny went to shut it.

“Wait—” he said suddenly, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, Danny pulled the door open wider, leaning down to hear what he had to say.

Mr. Lancer studied him for a long moment, eyes flickering over his face as though searching for a hint of Phantom’s glow in his irises.

“My door is always open if you need someone to talk to,” he said evenly. “Whatever happens, that doesn’t change.”

Danny blinked, letting his words sink in. He could feel the sincerity in them and, after everything that had happened today, Danny felt he had very little reason to doubt his teacher.

Nodding, voice still hoarse with emotion, Danny said, “Okay.”

~*~

William did not drive off right away. He allowed his car to idle as he watched Danny Fenton walk up the sidewalk and the steps to his front door. The boy knocked, waiting for a response inside. There was a long pause in which nothing seemed to happen and William was just considering rolling down the window to call out to the boy when he glanced back at him.

William’s heart leapt into his throat as Danny’s eyes met his. Even from a distance, he could see a sharp hint of green in them, the same shade he had grown accustomed to in his time trapped in that elevator. He watched with bated breath as Danny’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment before sweeping up and down the street.

William’s hands tightened on the steering wheel when Danny turned around and stepped through his front door as if it simply wasn’t there.

William let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a shaky exhale that hardly did the stress of the day any justice.

With one last glance at FentonWorks, finding a simple wooden door where Danny had stood just a moment before, William drove away.

~*~

William stood in the entrance to his apartment for a long moment. Just stood there, hardly acknowledging when his cat came to greet him, brushing up against his ankles with a friendly meow.

He stiffly bent to stroke a hand through his fur, the soft texture feeling stiff and coarse against his numb skin.

Moving mechanically, William shuffled through the kitchen as he set a kettle on the stove to boil. He wasn't even sure how long the kettle whistled before it was enough to shake him from the stupor of staring into open space.

Even once he had his cup of tea, Lancer couldn't stop shaking. He sank down into his favorite armchair by his favorite shelf of books, eyeing the light brown tea in his cup without drinking.

He thought of Danny all the while— of Phantom. Of how long the ghost boy has been in Amity Park and what that must mean for his student.

It had been a year ago, William recalled clearly. A year ago when all of the ghosts appeared— Phantom included.

That must have been when…

A drop fell into William's cup of tea. He watched the ripples as more tears rolled down his cheeks.

His hand shook violently, splashes of the tea spilling into his lap, and William had to set the cup down on the end table beside his chair.

A year. His student had been dead for a year and he hadn't even noticed.

His parents hadn’t, either.

William didn't even want to think what had caused it. Didn't want to imagine what horrors that boy had faced, because he could already picture, far too clearly, plenty of them.

How many times had he watched Phantom fight?

All of the absences, all of the behavioral issues. Everything fell into place, a gruesome puzzle that William had never known needed solved.

He thought, too, of the boy's parents.

How many times had he watched the Fentons shoot at Phantom, aiming their guns without so much as a moment's hesitation?

William hardly noticed when his cat approached, giving a small meow as he butted his head into his hand and slowly picked his way into his lap. When Radio began to purr, the feeling that rumbled through his body was achingly similar to what William had felt from Phantom when he broke down.

When Danny, his student, broke down.

If Radio minded the tears splashing into his fur, he didn't care to move. He simply stuck there, rumbling away in William's lap, heedless of the emotions choking his chest.

William didn't know how long he sat there, mindlessly running his hand through Radio's ginger fur, allowing the cat’s purring to still the last few trembles in his fingers.

William didn't know what he'd do when the summer ended and he had to face that boy every day, knowing just why he raced from his classroom.

All William knew was that he'd keep his cellphone on him this time, always ready to answer just in case that boy needed his help.

If anyone needed that kindness, it was him.

#Danny phantom #phic phight 2023 #phic phight #phanfic #fanfic #dp fanfic #dogfics #lexosaurus #majorastudios

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wastefulreverie · 2 years

Text

“no one has brown eyes in amity park”

The DMV just outside of Amity Park was a small, red-bricked building with poor air conditioning and a waiting room full of broken chairs. Eva stood by the wall, stiff, waiting with her uncle for the results of her driver's permit test. After almost twenty minutes, the woman at the counter called her name and she followed her uncle with bated breath.

Oh God, what if she didn't pass? Then she would have to wait and take it again and she wouldn't be able to get her license when she turned sixteen and she'd be the last of the A-Listers to drive and—!

"You passed," the woman said. "You were one point from failing."

Her uncle clapped her on the back. "See, I told you it would be fine."

The woman at the counter began entering in more information into the computer, having her sign a few papers here and there. She paused on the question about organ donation—sending a pang through her heart. It hadn’t been more than three months since her mom passed. Died on the list for a new liver.

Her uncle’s eyes softened in understanding. “Eva, you don’t have to—”

“Yes,” she hissed. “Yes. I’ll do it.”

The rest of the questions were standard.

"Height?"

"Five-four."

"Weight?"

"One-hundred fifty."

"Eye color?"

"Brown."

The woman stopped typing and looked up from the screen. She met Eva’s gaze with her own light teal eyes.

"Pardon?"

"I have brown eyes?"

"What, so you wear colored contacts?"

"Uh, no. My natural eyes are brown. The most common eye color?"

The woman blinked a few times before turning back to the keyboard. She squinted at the screen, a little put off.

"How strange," she murmured. "Brown eyes."

Later, she left the DMV with a temporary paper driver's permit in her wallet. Her hair was frizzier than she'd like because of the heat and her pupils were constricted from the camera flash, almost lost to her caramel-colored irises.

—

Her uncle needed his eyes dilated. She couldn’t remember what for, but she was more than eager to get more experience behind the wheel.

She found a chair near the corner of the waiting room and settled down with her phone.

One of the optometrists walked through the waiting room and stopped in front of her. His brow furrowed in confusion.

Had something gone wrong with the dilation? How did someone mess that up?

“Um,” he said, “I couldn’t help but notice your eyes.”

She raised a brow. “Aren’t you an eye doctor?”

“Yes. Well, I mean—” he stopped “—I noticed your eye color. It’s peculiar. Is it real?”

“You’re asking if my brown eyes are real?” she said slowly. It wasn’t the first time she’d gotten a comment like that in Amity Park and it was starting to weird her out. No one in her old town had spared a second thought about her eyes. “Yeah. They’re real.”

He paled. “I’m sorry if that was a rude question. I just, I’ve been working here for almost two decades now. I don’t see many people with brown eyes.”

“How’s that? It’s the most common eye color.”

His lips formed a straight line. “Maybe outside. Amity Park is different, though. I had a patient eight—maybe nine—years ago. He moved here from Vermont. His eyes were brown too, the first time he came in for an appointment. I saw him a year after that, and his eyes had faded to hazel green.”

“And this was an adult?”

He nodded. “The strangest part was that he didn’t remember. Insisted his eyes had always been hazel green. Spooked out all of us.”

“I just moved here a few months ago,” she admitted, a little shaken. “That won’t happen to me, will it?”

The optometrist shrugged. “Stranger things have happened in Amity Park.”

His phone went off and he fumbled for it, swearing.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this.”

He ran out of the waiting room, giving Eva far more than she would like to think about.

—

On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Eva’s uncle let her drive them both to the DMV. They got breakfast on the way there, sharing fast food breakfast sandwiches in the parking lot.

When it came to the actual driving test, she passed with flying colors. She adjusted her mirrors and her seat, buckled up, drove a circle around the DMV, checked her blind spot before she merged lanes, and showed the instructor she could parallel park.

When she went inside to officialize her license—her actual, full-fledged driver’s license!—the woman at the counter confirmed all her information. She’d gained an inch in the past half-year and she insisted she was still the same weight, even though she was a good five pounds heavier. Although, what confused her was her eye color.

She frowned at the “BRN” stamped on her permit.

“My eyes are green, though.”

The woman at the counter hummed. “Must be an error. I’ll change it.”

“Hm. Yeah,” Eva eyed her photo from her learner’s permit on the counter, bright green eyes and all, “don’t know how I didn’t notice it before.”

#Danny Phantom #look i don't remember the order of things when i got my license so it's probably wrong #had the idea the other day at work that rather bc b*tch h*rtman hating brown eyed people that its just supernatural stuff #amity park is a weird fucking town #my idea that i could have expanded on more is that people from the outside cant see ghosts but the longer you stay you CAN see ghosts #and as a result your eye color changes if you have brown eyes. sometimes to purple. or green or blue #and i know there are a few rare brown eyed characters in DP and I raise A) theyre newcomers or B) wearing colored contacts #thats it thats my headcanon enjoy this mess #outsider POV #fanfiction #Danny Phantom fanfiction #phicc #phic #wrwritings

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princessfanonanona · 2 years

Text

Danny stares at the glowing sticky note sitting innocuously on his notebook.

"Mister Fenton," Lancer says, drawing his attention up, "since you seem to be so studiously staring at your notes, perhaps you know the answer to my question."

Danny blinks.

He looks at the note once more before looking up.

"Is it 42?"

The class erupts in giggles as Lancer sighs. "That may be the answer to life but no that doesn't answer my question. Miss Sanchez, perhaps you know."

Danny tunes out to pick up the green sticky. Glowing blue ink glitters as it moves.

A single hand may lift a stone, but many can move the boulder.

Danny flips the note over, and back.

"What's that?" Tucker whispers, leaning forward on his desk to be closer to Danny.

"Bewildering, I need to visit Grandfather I guess."

"The mysterious one that you never mentioned before the C.A.T.S?" Sam asks.

"Mister Fenton," Lancer walks over. "There is no note passing in my class."

"But I wasn't-"

"Wow Fentina, don't know how you didn't expect to get caught with something that bright," Dash laughs.

"Pass it over," Lancer holds his hands out.

Huffing a sigh, Danny passes it to Lancer.

Or tries to.

The note passes through Lancer's hand.

Lancer blinks.

Danny blinks.

Lancer grabs the note again, fingers passing through.

"Wuthering Heights!" Lancer frowns, trying once more. "I'm losing my touch."

Danny flips the note and wiggles it. The sticky note does not make a noise. It does glow brighter however.

Lancer grabs Danny's wrists to move the note around to see it better.

"...Mister Fenton," he stares at the glittery ink, leaning closer.

"...yes Mr. Lancer?"

"This doesn't look like it's English."

"That's 'cause it's not."

"How the fuck-"

"Language!"

"Does Fentoenail know more languages?" Dash asks.

"I bet it's some made up chicken scratch from one of his nerdy books," Paulina comments.

"This looks like cuneiform," Lancer says.

"Common mistake, it's actually Akkadian," Danny corrects before slapping a hand over his mouth.

"Isn't that that dead city you were complaining about at lunch?" Tucker asks.

"...no?"

"Convincing," Lancer deadpans. "Will you care to read for the class what your little note says?"

Danny opens his mouth and then closes it.

The note shimmers in his hand.

"Would you believe me if I said what note?"

"Now Mister Fenton, we can all clearly see…"

Danny opens his hand as the note fades into nothing.

"I don't have a note." Danny gives his best innocent smile.

Lancer and half the class gapes at him.

The bell rings.

Nobody moves.

Danny wiggles his fingers a bit, "Can you let go please?"

"Oh, yes, certainly," Lancer mumbles, stepping away.

Danny pulls his hand to his chest, grabbing his stuff with his other hand. "So uh, bye?"

Lancer makes no move to stop him as he leaves, Sam and Tucker hot on his heels.

"How did you do that?" Tucker asks, catching his elbow and spinning him to a stop.

"I didn't do anything," Danny puts a hand up in surrender, "It was written on ghost paper so it dissolved on its own."

"I know your parents are wack but ghost paper, really?" Sam arches an eyebrow, crossing her arms. "You said it was from your grandfather."

"Yeah, it is-was, look can we just not do this now?" Danny glances over Sam's shoulder at Dash looking over the crowd.

Tucker follows his line of sight and starts moving again, hand still on Danny's elbow.

"Yep, we're moving," he says. "So about the ghost paper-"

"I dunno, they just use it to leave notes on my stuff," Danny says as they duck down a hallway.

"So it's not one of your parents' weird inventions?" Sam asks.

"No," snort, "Definitely not. If it's not a weapon, they don't want anything to do with it."

"Think he'd be willing to share some with us?" Sam's eyes are bright with an idea.

Danny looks over his shoulder to her and them ahead to where Tucker is leading them through the halls.

"You know, I think he might." He smiles back, "Are you guys free tonight?"

#danny phantom #dp phic #nobody knows au #for now #lost time #if you squint #nona writes

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ventisettestars · 1 year

Photo

A Danny I drew for a fic to get a mental image of some of the changes he goes through in it. There are many more drawings (note the ‘normal mode’ label) But gunna be a few days till I’ll be posting the relevant chapter and didn’t want to wait xD

ao3 Link: Terrarium

Summary: One bad identity reveal later, Danny needed a place to stay in the zone and turned to an unlikely Ghost for shelter.

------------------------------------------------------------------ created for phic phight 2023 using these prompts:

Prompt #1 from 13thCat: There aren't that many plant!Danny in general so, Plant!Danny prompt! Is he possessed by Undergrowth? or other plant ghosts? Is he just vibing with the plants? Get creative!

Prompt #2 from Five-rivers: Horror, but soft and cozy with lots of sensation.

Alternate version before I decided I wanted him to be blue rather than tan. Originally, I was thinking he would have a bark-like skin, but I didn’t like it while writing so cut it

#danny phantom #phic phight 2023 #dp #my art #draws #my fic #fic

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imsociallyanxiousgetoverit · 1 year

Text

I named my new crossover fic (unrelated to the one I mentioned recently) Marrow Minded cuz its a Corpse AU lmao

#dp phic

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picturejasper20 · 5 months

Text

The way Vlad's empathy works it is so bizarre yet fascinating to me because, at least speaking in more fanon terms, he can deeply care about others but these feelings of caring almost always come from the relationship he wished he could have with them and how he projects into them rather than from an actual real connection. As in the sense that he doesn't see people with their own agency, he sees them more as trophies, things that he can get through money and power. He may care about your safety and well being but he doesn't see you as a person.

In plenty of fanfics Vlad's desire to protect and help Danny comes as an indirect result of his own obsession of trying to make Danny his pupil/son, so he can't help it when he cares about him like he was his own son. Again, it isn't because he has got to know Danny personally, it is cause of how he projects himself.

Ironically, this way of caring it is what usually leads to him having a redemption arc or him making truce with Phantom. Since he realizes that he cares that much about Danny that he is willing to give up his previous plans to be there for him.

Even in A Glitch In Time a good part of his start for redemption arc seems to come from this, that when his emotional drive starts to change, this protective side for Danny starts to show, which was probably was always there, he just choosed to ignore it.

And you can see this with Dan too. While Dan is different from Danny and he is his own person, he is still in part Danny. A Danny who lost everything and got transformed into something else entirely in part thanks to the Vlad from his own timeline, who thought he was helping him. So Vlad can't help but to care about Dan as well.

I think there is a lot about how the other person has to have very similar experiences to his to being able to empathize with them. Going back to Dan, what finally made Vlad trying to help him was Dan talking about how he ¨didn't want to be alone again¨, something that Vlad could understand a lot. There is the fact that Dan is part Plasmius as well... so he shares Vlad's fear of loneliness.

When it comes to Danny, both share similar experiences in how they became halfas. How they both have to hide who they are from others and there isn't anyone like them on Earth nor the Ghost Zone (not including Dani and Dan). So Vlad can understand a lot of what Danny is going thorugh, since he experiences it himself.

In short, when it comes to empathy for Vlad it usually works when he projects the bond he wished he could have with a person and/or the person sharing very similar experiences to him. He struggles a lot with it outside of those specific situations.

#danny phantom #vlad plasmius #danny phantom a glitch in time #danny fenton #dan phantom #Dp analysis #Dp phics

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glitch-in-space · 1 year

Text

DP x DC Prompt #1 - Super Strength Theory

New theory behind Danny’s super strength: ghosts don’t actually have real ‘super strength’, not like you would traditionally think, but rather, the limiters the brain puts in place to stop a human’s muscles from tearing their own body apart go away with death. So, ghosts only have a small amount of strength boost, the rest is just the average human body without limits. Danny, in his human form, can only use his ghost strength thanks to his healing factor repairing the damage as he goes.

Unfortunately for Danny, this does mean using his full strength in his human form causes excruciating pain and deep bruising that lingers for days after the fact. Something he only finds out when he stops a runaway bus from hitting the youngest Wayne...

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torscrawls · 1 year

Text

Royal Hot Potato

Summary:

The Justice League tries to summon the Ruler of the Infinite Realms to help them with a ghost problem. They expected Pariah Dark and were ready to do whatever they could to get him to agree to their terms. What they didn’t expect were two teenagers who juggled the title of Ruler of the Infinite Realms like a hot potato while snarking all the while.

Maybe Pariah dark would have been the better alternative.

Words: 2 958

Can be read on AO3!

The Justice League was going to fight fire with fire.

Their own efforts in stopping the enormous ghost masquerading as a storm hadn’t been very successful and after countless failed attempts at fighting it they had arrived at the conclusion that they needed to bring in an expert. Someone with a similar skill set. Someone who could at least touch the enemy that had arrived out of nowhere and were currently wrecking city after city and leaving devastation in its wake.

Or, more accurately; John and Zatanna had finally managed to get through to them that this wasn’t a problem they could simply punch their way through, like they usually did. He wasn’t bitter about it. Of course not.

Sadly the Justice League didn’t know of any ghost that was both powerful enough to stop the one currently going berserk on Earth and friendly. And even if he hated to admit it, neither did John. So they went with the next best thing; a ghost that they knew was powerful enough and that they could hope to manipulate. At least somewhat.

They were desperate, okay? And if it was one thing that John was sure of it was that Pariah Dark was very proud and didn't back down from a fight.

A fact they were banking on.

Hopefully they would be able to get their message across and convince him before he killed them all. Which was, admittedly, very unlikely.

John had finished drawing up the summoning circle on the floor in one of the meeting rooms of the Watchtower, the chalk and symbols looking ridiculously out of place in the very modern and otherwise clean room.

He sent the other two people in the room a quick look. Red Robin was studying the circle as if he was trying to memorize it—for all that John knew, he might actually be able to do it, the bats were all horribly smart like that—and Batman himself who was busying himself with the room’s only computer.

The grouch was no doubt keeping tabs on the ongoing fight slash evacuation going on down on earth and if Zatanna’s attempt to distract the ghost with her own weather-magic was still working. Considering the lack of demands to immediately go back down to Earth, John guessed that it was.

Which was good. John really didn’t want to have to do this by himself.

Still, it was only a matter of time before the ghost got tired of the distraction and went back to destroying, so this crazy idea better work.

After another beat of silence John shrugged and decided that there was no reason to delay their very probable, very imminent, death any further. So he crouched by the circle, put his hands on it, and said, “Let’s get this party started, then.”

It didn’t take long for Constantine to realize that something was wrong.

The summoning circle was struggling like a bucking horse under his hands and John almost bit through his cigarette as he redoubled his efforts. Either he had gotten something very wrong with the circle—unlikely—or something was very wrong on the other end of the summoning—not impossible—or, Pariah Dark must be even stronger than they had thought. Which would be bad. Very bad.

But John didn’t have time to warn the others before a pool of poisonous green spread across the floor, swallowing up the circle and lapping at John’s shoes before he took a couple of stumbling steps backwards.

From the depths of the eerie liquid rose a tangle of flailing limbs and twisting flesh. Of white hair and black cloth and pale skin and piercing green.

Then came the sound; warbled voices screaming and hissing and shouting and growling. The pitch rising and falling and setting his teeth on edge as the unholy sound took root in his sternum. Reverberated in his bones. Pulsed behind his eyes.

…Was this the Ruler of the Infinite Realms? This twisted mess of limbs and sounds? No wonder the summoning came with so many warnings. John had never before been scared of a ghost, but this, this was truly a horrifying—

Maybe this had been a terrible mistake. They already had one overwhelmingly strong ghost to deal with, why had they thought they needed another?

“John Constantine,” the being said with overlapping voices drenched in static and John took another shaky step back as he felt himself pale. “I've come for your soul.”

This was bad. Real bad. He was also fairly certain that he had no memories of selling his soul to whatever this thing was. And whatever it was, it wasn’t Pariah Dark, which meant that their plan would fail.

Then the thing on the ground broke into sudden, pealing, laughter and when it spoke again it was with a much more human, albeit still echoing, voice, “I’ve always wanted to say that!”

…What?

Red Robin turned his pale face towards John and hesitantly asked, “A buddy of yours?”

“Fuck no.” At least he didn’t think so. Sometimes it was hard to keep track of all the different ways some of the creatures he knew could manifest.

John turned back to the ungodly abomination still on the floor of the meeting room. “Who are you? What are you? Why do you know my name?”

Another laugh. “You’re famous!”

Then a distinctly separate voice from the first groaned and said, “And have generated a ridiculous amount of paperwork. Thanks for that.”

This was followed by the pile of twisting limbs separating, splitting in the middle and ending with two… Two kids.

That was when the pile of twisting limbs separated into two separate beings. Two kids. Both of them dressed similarly in black and white cloth, both of them with stark white hair and glowing green eyes. Both of them very much ghosts. The only real difference was that one looked to be a boy and one looked to be a girl.

The boy of the pair sprang to his feet and looked from Red Robin to Batman with sparkling eyes as he gushed, “Oooh! You guys are the bats!”

“And neither of you are Pariah Dark,” John deadpanned.

The girl didn’t so much jump to her feet as she levitated into something resembling a standing position as she wrinkled her nose. “No. That old man sucked. Don’t compare us to that maniac, thank you. He’s not in the picture anymore. I’m Dani!” She smiled and gestured to the boy, “And that’s Danny with a Y!”

John blinked. There was only one way that ghost titles changed hands, only one way that succession worked. “Not in the—Did you defeat him?”

That was… unthinkable. Terrifying. Pariah Dark was next to invincible, one of the strongest beings in existence. After all, that was why they had turned to him in the first place. The thought that he had been bested in any way was…

The boy—Danny apparently—shrugged. “Well, kinda? It was a group effort.”

“... Fuck me,” John breathed out as the dots connected, “You're the new Ruler.”

Danny looked uncomfortable. “No. Or, yes. It's complicated.”

John turned his gaze to Dani. “So then you’re the ruler?”

One of them had to be. The summoning had been very specific on that detail, even if he would have to study it later to see how it had managed to summon two beings instead of one.

She looked taken aback but before she could respond, Danny suddenly punched her in the arm. Instead of looking angry at the seemingly unprovoked attack, she grinned. “No, I’m not.”

John frowned. Maybe he had been wrong in his assumptions, but then why would the summoning circle have brought these two here? “So none of you are the king?”

Dani smiled, and it was too broad. Too teasing. “No, one of us is.”

John turned back to Danny again with narrowed eyes. “So then you are the king?”

“Yes,” he agreed with a nod, but the glint in the boy’s eyes made John suspicious.

Enough so that he turned back to Dani and asked, “Alright. Then you're not.”

She leaned over and smacked Danny over the head and smiled as the boy cursed before innocently looking at John and saying, “No, I am.”

John threw his hands in the air. “Whatever, I give up.”

They both nodded in eerie synchronization. “That's probably for the best.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Red Robin asked in clear confusion, “You’re not gonna kill us?”

“Why would we want that?” Dani asked.

Danny snorted and waved him off as he added, “Yeah, we have enough idiots to look after as it is.”

Red Robin blinked. “Thanks?”

Batman, who had somehow made his way over from the computer without making a sound, cut in with a gruff, “We don’t have time for this. We need your help to fight a world-ending threat and—”

Danny cut him off with a groan as he looked to the ceiling. “Seriously?? This again?”

Dani crossed her arms with an equally exasperated expression on her face. “Didn't we get a case like this just last week?? We should make sure we get paid overtime! This is getting ridiculous.”

“Yeah!” Danny agreed, both of them completely unaware of the tightening of Batman’s jaw at getting interrupted. John and red Robin both took a small step away from their seething colleague as Danny obliviously continued, “You would think that people would learn, but noooo, let's mess with the highly dangerous—”

John cleared his throat, hoping he wasn’t making a big mistake in chastising the unknown—possibly royal—beings in front of him. But no one had ever accused him of being too respectful and they were in a hurry. “For fucks sake, back to topic!”

Dani turned to Constantine with an accusing, “I thought you would be more fun, man! The reports made it sound like you were a disaster.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint?” Even if he really was a disaster, these two didn’t need to know that.

He received a deep sigh. “It’s fine.”

Thankfully, Batman stepped in at this point, saving John from having to come up with something to say to that. “So, can either of you help?”

The two ghosts shared a silent look before Danny suddenly screamed, “Not it!” at the same time as Dani exclaimed, “Dibs, not it!”

Danny laughed. “I said it first!”

“Did not!”

“You mean you won?” Danny asked as he raised a challenging eyebrow.

“That’s unfair!” Dani complained.

What the fuck were they talking about now??

Red Robin turned to Constantine. “Is this really our best shot? This feels like a mistake.”

Danny snickered. “A grave mistake?”

“That was a good pun,” Dani nodded seriously before a mischievous grin spread across her face. “You win.”

“Fuck!”

John had to agree. This had been a mistake. This was so much worse than anything Pariah Dark could have done.

Batman seemed to be nearing the end of his rope as he growled out, “We don’t have time for this.”

“Right. Sorry,” Danny said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “The ghost you’re having trouble with is Vortex, right? It feels like Vortex.” He smacked his lips. “You know, like licking the back of a vacuum cleaner?”

Dani nodded her agreement to that insane statement.

Batman frowned as he asked, “Vortex?” John had to commend him for his ability to stay on topic.

“Big cyclone stormy guy?” Danny said. “Looks like the result if the Hulk fucked a tornado?”

Red Robin nodded as if that made sense. “That’s him, alright.”

Dani punched a fist in her palm as a predatory smile crept over her face. “It’s been a while since I went a round with old Vorty.”

“Don’t call him that,” Danny complained with a grimace.

“Whatever. I think it’s my turn in the washing machine. Besides, I promised to kick his ass next time we met.”

Danny crossed his arms and tilted his head back in an exaggerated show of arrogance. “Well, last I recall I was the ruler of the Infinite Realms, peasant. Grovel before me!”

“My liege,” Dani said as she bent in half in an exaggerated bow and then promptly punched Danny in the arm before giving a cackling laugh. “Unlimited power! Aaah, I love the taste of revolution in the morning!”

Danny immediately bent in his own bow. “My liege.” Then promptly punched her in the stomach.

Dani bowed, “My liege.” Then punched him.

“My liege.” Bow then punch.

Red Robin watched the whole thing as if it was a tennis match and Batman looked more murderous by the second. John just groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “Please stop.”

They both broke down laughing, leaning on each other for support.

Red Robin crossed his arms with an incredulous look on his face. “Are you seriously playing hot potato with the throne?”

Dani shrugged as she straightened back up, wiping the corner of her eye. “Take it up with the Ruler if you don't like it.”

Red Robin exasperatedly said, “You are the-“

“Not anymore, sucker!” She interrupted him with another laugh.

John was decidedly not drunk enough for this, so he put on his most serious expression and said, “It can’t possibly be that easy to take the throne of the whole Infinite Realms.”

It just couldn't. That would be… Worrying, to say the least. But these two had somehow managed to topple Pariah Dark so really, maybe it wasn’t that easy after all.

Danny gave a barking laugh. “You would think that, wouldn't you? We used to think the same thing! You are more than welcome to join us in our protest to the Observants.”

John flinched. He didn't want anything to do with them and he felt a grudging inkling of respect for the two tykes in front of him; anyone who stood up against the insufferable eyeballs were good in his books.

Dani snorted and cut in, “Yeah, and as if you don't shirk your duties every chance you get. We’ve heard the stories and seen the reports. And complaints. Ancients, the complaints…" she trailed off with a haunted look in her eyes.

John took it all back. They didn’t deserve any respect. “At least I don't put a whole realm in danger by doing so.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “You interested in taking over?”

“Fuck no.”

Batman stepped in with a no-nonsense, “So you're both the ruler?”

They exchanged a quick glance, grinned, and spoke in tandem while nodding, “Both. Both. Both is good.”

Red Robin burst into laughter before asking, “Like a shared custody situation?” He seemed to be much more at easy now that the three of them hadn’t been horribly murdered.

Danny finger gunned him. “Exactly.”

No wonder the summoning circle had had a hard time with bringing the Ruler here if they essentially shared the title. John guessed that the mess of tangled limbs that had first arrived in the Watchtower was the circle essentially giving up and just spitting out both of them. He guessed that also explained the cursing and screams in the beginning. Luckily for all of them, ghosts were very malleable.

Dani tapped her chin in thought. “I think it’s more like a disease. Or!” she raised a finger as if she’d just had an epiphany, “Like a live bomb. I don’t wanna hold it when it inevitably blows up, you know?”

“Hey! So you give it to me?!” Danny asked with outrage in his voice that didn’t even manage to convince John, much less Dani who simply stuck her tongue out at him.

“Alright, sure. Whatever,” John waved them off. God, he hated teenagers. They were worse than all the demons of hell combined. “Then you can both take care of this bullshit. You can each defeat half of him if that makes you feel better.”

Dani pretended to swoon. “Oh nooo, you've defeated us with your logic! Here take the—”

“Don't. Even. Think about it,” John bit out.

Danny snickered as Dani pouted. “You’re no fun.”

“Please, let’s get back on topic,” Batman said, and John didn’t think he imagined the exasperation in his voice, “Can you— both of you—defeat this… Vortex?”

“Hmmm,” Danny hummed before turning to Dani with a smile. “Tag team?”

“Sure! I’ve been wanting to show you my new sonic attack.”

Danny looked delighted. “Oh! When did you learn that?” he asked as he started flying towards one of the walls with Dani following behind.

“Just last week. I went to this supercool concert and when I tried to join in the whole arena—”

Red Robin called after them, “Do you know where he is? I could point it out on a map?”

Dani turned in the air to give him a deadpan look. “He’s a giant storm.”

“That’s fair.”

“Anyway, as I was saying. You wouldn’t believe the noise those big speakers can make if—”

And that was when they flew right through the wall leading out from the Watchtower and into space, towards Earth, leaving the three of them in sudden silence.

Until Red Robin broke it with an incredulous, “This was so not what I was expecting when you said we were summoning the Ruler of the Dead.”

John couldn't help but agree. He hadn't expected this either.

Batman gruffly asked, “Are we sure about this?”

John fished out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a practiced flick of his lighter. “Honestly? I wouldn't worry about Vortex. I don't think he’s going to be a problem anymore. You might want to prepare yourself for what comes after, though. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of them.”

#dp x dc #dp #danny phantom #dp fic #danny phantom fic #dp fanfic #phic #danielle phantom #my writing

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